diff options
Diffstat (limited to '41599-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 41599-0.txt | 6146 |
1 files changed, 6146 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/41599-0.txt b/41599-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc8b320 --- /dev/null +++ b/41599-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6146 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41599 *** + + MR. WITT'S WIDOW + + + + + [Illustration: "Neaera was no longer in a condition to decide + anything. Tears were her ready refuge in time of trouble, and she + was picturesquely weeping." (Page 203.) + + _Mr. Witt's Widow_] [_Frontispiece_] + + + + + MR. WITT'S WIDOW. + _A FRIVOLOUS TALE._ + + BY + ANTHONY HOPE, + AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA," "RUPERT OF HENTZAU," + "PHROSO," ETC., ETC. + + "Habent sua fata--cothurni." + + WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED + LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO + 1912. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. HOW GEORGE NESTON JUMPED 1 + + II. WHY GEORGE NESTON JUMPED 15 + + III. "WHAT ARE QUARTER SESSIONS?" 26 + + IV. A SERPENT IN EDEN 38 + + V. THE FIRST PARAGRAPH--AND OTHERS 52 + + VI. A SUCCESSFUL ORDEAL 65 + + VII. AN IMPOSSIBLE BARGAIN 82 + + VIII. THE FRACAS AT MRS. POCKLINGTON'S 95 + + IX. GERALD NESTON SATISFIES HIMSELF 109 + + X. REMINISCENCES OF A NOBLEMAN 122 + + XI. PRESENTING AN HONEST WOMAN 136 + + XII. NOT BEFORE THOSE GIRLS! 150 + + XIII. CONTAINING MORE THAN ONE ULTIMATIUM 162 + + XIV. NEAERA'S LAST CARD 172 + + XV. A LETTER FOR MR. GERALD 183 + + XVI. THERE IS AN EXPLOSION 197 + + XVII. LAURA DIFFERS 208 + + XVIII. GEORGE NEARLY GOES TO BRIGHTON 219 + + XIX. SOME ONE TO SPEAK TO 227 + + XX. FATE'S INSTRUMENTS 237 + + + + +MR. WITT'S WIDOW. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +HOW GEORGE NESTON JUMPED. + + +The Nestons, of Tottlebury Grange in the county of Suffolk, were an +ancient and honourable family, never very distinguished or very rich, +but yet for many generations back always richer and more distinguished +than the common run of mankind. The men had been for the most part able +and upright, tenacious of their claims, and mindful of their duties; the +women had respected their betters, exacted respect from their inferiors, +and educated their brothers' wives in the Neston ways; and the whole +race, while confessing individual frailties, would have been puzzled to +point out how, as a family, it had failed to live up to the position in +which Providence and the Constitution had placed it. The error, if any, +had indeed been on the other side in one or two cases. The last owner +of the Grange, a gay old bachelor, had scorned the limits of his rents +and his banking-account, and added victories on the turf to the family +laurels at a heavy cost to the family revenues. His sudden death had +been mourned as a personal loss, but silently acknowledged as a dynastic +gain, and ten years of the methodical rule of his brother Roger had gone +far to efface the ravages of his merry reign. The younger sons of the +Nestons served the State or adorned the professions, and Roger had spent +a long and useful life in the Office of Commerce. He had been a valuable +official, and his merits had not gone unappreciated. Fame he had neither +sought nor attained, and his name had come but little before the public, +its rare appearances in the newspapers generally occurring on days when +our Gracious Sovereign completed another year of her beneficent life, +and was pleased to mark the occasion by conferring honour on Mr. Roger +Neston. When this happened, all the leader-writers looked him up in "Men +of the Time," or "Whitaker," or some other standard work of reference, +and remarked that few appointments would meet with more universal public +approval, a proposition which the public must be taken to have endorsed +with tacit unanimity. + +Mr. Neston went on his way, undisturbed by his moments of notoriety, +but quietly pleased with his red ribbon, and, when he entered into +possession of the family estate, continued to go to the office with +unabated regularity. At last he reached the pinnacle of his particular +ambition, and, as Permanent Head of his Department, for fifteen years +took a large share in the government of a people almost unconscious of +his existence, until the moment when it saw the announcement that on his +retirement he had been raised to the peerage by the title of Baron +Tottlebury. Then the chorus of approval broke forth once again, and the +new lord had many friendly pats on the back he was turning to public +life. Henceforth he sat silent in the House of Lords, and wrote letters +to the _Times_ on subjects which the cares of office had not previously +left him leisure to study. + +But fortune was not yet tired of smiling on the Nestons. Lord +Tottlebury, before accepting his new dignity, had impressed upon his +son Gerald the necessity of seeking the wherewith to gild the coronet +by a judicious marriage. Gerald was by no means loth. He had never made +much progress at the Bar, and felt that his want of success contrasted +unfavourably with the growing practice of his cousin George, a state of +things very unfitting, as George represented a younger branch than +Gerald. A rich marriage, combined with his father's improved position, +opened to him prospects of a career of public distinction, and, what was +more important, of private leisure, better fitted to his tastes and less +trying to his patience; and, by an unusual bit of luck, he was saved +from any scruples about marrying for money by the fact that he was +already desperately in love with a very rich woman. She was of no high +birth, it is true, and she was the widow of a Manchester merchant; but +this same merchant, to the disgust of his own relatives, had left her +five thousand a year at her absolute disposal. The last fact easily +outweighed the two first in Lord Tottlebury's mind, while Gerald rested +his action on the sole ground that Neaera Witt was the prettiest girl in +London, and, by Jove, he believed in the world; only, of course, if she +had money too, all the better. + +Accordingly, the engagement was an accomplished fact. Mrs. Witt had +shown no more than a graceful disinclination to become Mrs. Neston. At +twenty-five perpetual devotion to the memory of such a mere episode as +her first marriage had been was neither to be desired nor expected, +and Neaera was very frankly in love with Gerald Neston, a handsome, +open-faced, strapping fellow, who won her heart mainly because he was so +very unlike the late Mr. Witt. Everybody envied Gerald, and everybody +congratulated Neaera on having escaped the various chasms that are +supposed to yawn in the path of rich young widows. The engagement was +announced once, and contradicted as premature, and then announced again; +and, in a word, everything pursued its pleasant and accustomed course in +these matters. Finally, Lord Tottlebury in due form entertained Mrs. +Witt at dinner, by way of initiation into the Neston mysteries. + +It was for this dinner that Mr. George Neston, barrister-at-law, +was putting on his white tie one May evening in his chambers off +Piccadilly. George was the son of Lord Tottlebury's younger brother. +His father had died on service in India, leaving a wife, who survived +him but a few years, and one small boy, who had developed into a rising +lawyer of two or three-and-thirty, and was at this moment employed in +thinking what a lucky dog Gerald was, if all people said about Mrs. Witt +were true. Not that George envied his cousin his bride. His roving days +were over. He had found what he wanted for himself, and Mrs. Witt's +beauty, if she were beautiful, was nothing to him. So he thought with +mingled joy and resignation. Still, however much you may be in love with +somebody else, a pretty girl with five thousand a year is luck, and +there's an end of it! So concluded George Neston as he got into his +hansom, and drove to Portman Square. + +The party was but small, for the Nestons were not one of those families +that ramify into bewildering growths of cousins. Lord Tottlebury of +course was there, a tall, spare, rather stern-looking man, and his +daughter Maud, a bright and pretty girl of twenty, and Gerald, in a +flutter ill concealed by the very extravagance of _nonchalance_. Then +there were a couple of aunts and a male cousin and his wife, and George +himself. Three of the guests were friends, not relatives. Mrs. Bourne +had been the chosen intimate of Lord Tottlebury's dead wife, and +he honoured his wife's memory by constant attention to her friend. +Mrs. Bourne brought her daughter Isabel, and Isabel had come full of +curiosity to see Mrs. Witt, and also hoping to see George Neston, for +did she not know what pleasure it would give him to meet her? Lastly, +there towered on the rug the huge form of Mr. Blodwell, Q.C., an old +friend of Lord Tottlebury's and George's first tutor and kindly guide in +the law, famous for rasping speeches in court and good stories out of +it, famous, too, as one of the tallest men and quite the fattest man at +the Bar. Only Neaera Witt was wanting, and before Mr. Blodwell had got +well into the famous story about Baron Samuel and the dun cow Neaera +Witt was announced. + +Mrs. Witt's widowhood was only two years old, and she was at this time +almost unknown to society. None of the party, except Gerald and his +father, had seen her, and they all looked with interest to the door when +the butler announced her name. She had put off her mourning altogether +for the first time, and came in clothed in a gown of deep red, with a +long train that gave her dignity, her golden hair massed low on her +neck, and her pale, clear complexion just tinged with the suspicion of a +blush as she instinctively glanced round for her lover. The entry was, +no doubt, a small triumph. The girls were lost in generous admiration; +the men were startled; and Mr. Blodwell, finishing the evening at the +House of Commons, remarked to young Sidmouth Vane, the Lord President's +private secretary (unpaid), "I hope, my boy, you may live as long as I +have, and see as many pretty women; but you'll never see a prettier than +Mrs. Witt. Her face! her hair! and Vane, my boy, her waist!" But here +the division-bell rang, and Mr. Blodwell hastened off to vote against +a proposal aimed at deteriorating, under the specious pretence of +cheapening, the administration of justice. + +Lord Tottlebury, advancing to meet Neaera, took her by the hand and +proudly presented her to his guests. She greeted each gracefully and +graciously until she came to George Neston. As she saw his solid jaw +and clean-shaved keen face, a sudden light that looked like recollection +leaped to her eyes, and her cheek flushed a little. The change was so +distinct that George was confirmed in the fancy he had had from the +first moment she came in, that somewhere before he had seen that golden +hair and those dark eyes, that combination of harmonious opposites that +made her beauty no less special in kind than in degree. He advanced a +step, his hand held half out, exclaiming-- + +"Surely----" + +But there he stopped dead, and his hand fell to his side, for all signs +of recognition had faded from Mrs. Witt's face, and she gave him only +the same modestly gracious bow that she had bestowed on the rest of the +party. The incident was over, leaving George sorely puzzled, and Lord +Tottlebury a little startled. Gerald had seen nothing, having been +employed in issuing orders for the march in to dinner. + +The dinner was a success. Lord Tottlebury unbent; he was very cordial +and, at moments, almost jovial. Gerald was in heaven, or at least +sitting directly opposite and in full view of it. Mr. Blodwell enjoyed +himself immensely: his classic stories had never yet won so pleasant a +reward as Neaera's low rich laugh and dancing eyes. George ought to have +enjoyed himself, for he was next to Isabel Bourne, and Isabel, heartily +recognising that she was not to-night, as, to do her justice, she often +was, the prettiest girl in the room, took the more pains to be kind and +amusing. But George was ransacking the lumber-rooms of memory, or, to +put it less figuratively, wondering, and growing exasperated as he +wondered in vain, where the deuce he'd seen the girl before. Once or +twice his eyes met hers, and it seemed to him that he had caught her +casting an inquiring apprehensive glance at him. When she saw that he +was looking, her expression changed into one of friendly interest, +appropriate to the examination of a prospective kinsman. + +"What do you think of her?" asked Isabel Bourne, in a low voice. +"Beautiful, isn't she?" + +"She is indeed," George answered, "I can't help thinking I've seen her +somewhere before." + +"She is a person one would remember, isn't she? Was it in Manchester?" + +"I don't think so. I haven't been in Manchester more than two or three +times in my life." + +"Well, Maud says Mrs. Witt wasn't brought up there." + +"Where was she brought up?" + +"I don't know," said Isabel, "and I don't think Maud knew either. +I asked Gerald, and he said she probably dropped down from heaven +somewhere a few years ago." + +"Perhaps that's how I come to remember her," suggested George. + +Failing this explanation, he confessed himself puzzled, and determined +to dismiss the matter from his thoughts for the present. Aided by Isabel +Bourne, he was very successful in this effort: a pretty girl's company +is the best modern substitute for the waters of Lethe. + +Nevertheless, his interest remained strong enough to make him join the +group which Gerald and Mr. Blodwell formed with Neaera as soon as the +men went upstairs. Mr. Blodwell made no secret of the fact that it was +with him a case of love at first sight, and openly regretted that his +years prevented him fighting Gerald for his prize. Gerald listened +with the complacent happiness of a secure lover, and Neaera gravely +apologised for not having waited to make her choice till she had seen +Mr. Blodwell. + +"But at least you had heard of me?" he urged. + +"I am terribly ignorant," she said. "I don't believe I ever did." + +"Neaera's not one of the criminal classes, you see, sir," Gerald put in. + +"He taunts me," exclaimed Mr. Blodwell, "with the Old Bailey!" + +George had come up in time to hear the last two remarks. Neaera saw him, +and smiled pleasantly. + +"Here's a young lady who knows nothing about the law, George," continued +Blodwell. "She never heard of me--nor of you either, I dare say. It +reminds me of what they used to say about old Dawkins. Old Daw never +had a brief, but he was Recorder of some little borough or other--place +with a prisoner once in two years, you know--I forget the name. Let's +see--yes, Peckton." + +"Peckton!" exclaimed George Neston, loudly and abruptly. + +Neaera made a sudden motion with one hand--a sudden motion suddenly +checked--and her fan dropped with a clatter on the polished boards. + +Gerald dived for it, so did Mr. Blodwell, and their heads came in +contact with such violence as to drive all reminiscences of Recorder +Dawkins out of Mr. Blodwell's brain. They were still indulging in +recriminations, when Neaera swiftly left them, crossed to Lord +Tottlebury, and took her leave. + +George went to open the door for her. She looked at him curiously. + +"Will you come and see me, Mr. Neston?" she asked. + +He bowed gravely, answering nothing. + +The party broke up, and as George was seeing Mr. Blodwell's bulk fitted +into a four-wheeler, the old gentleman asked, + +"Why did you do that, George?" + +"What?" + +"Jump, when I said Peckton." + +"Oh, I used to go sessions there, you know." + +"Do you always jump when people mention the places you used to go +sessions at?" + +"Generally," replied George. + +"I see," said Mr. Blodwell, lighting his cigar. "A bad habit, George; it +excites remark. Tell him the House." + +"Good night, sir," said George. "I hope your head is better." + +Mr. Blodwell snorted indignantly as he pulled up the window, and was +driven away to his duties. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +WHY GEORGE NESTON JUMPED. + + +"How could I ever have forgotten?" said George, aloud, as he walked +home. "I remember her now as if it was yesterday." + +Memory, like much else that appertains to man, is a queer thing, and the +name of Peckton had supplied the one link missing in his recollection. +How, indeed, had he ever forgotten it? Can a man forget his first brief +any more than his first love?--so like are they in their infinite +promise, so like in their very finite results! + +The picture was now complete in his mind: the little, muggy court at +Peckton; old Dawkins, his wig black with age, the rest of him brown with +snuff; the fussy clerk; the prosecuting counsel, son to the same fussy +clerk; he himself, thrusting his first guinea into his pocket with +shaking hand and beating heart (nervous before old Daw! Imagine!); the +fat, peaceful policeman; the female warder, in her black straw-bonnet +trimmed with dark-blue ribbons; and last of all, in the dock, a young +girl, in shabby, nay, greasy, black, with pale cheeks, disordered hair, +and swollen eyelids, gazing in blank terror on the majesty of the law, +strangely expressed in the Recorder's ancient person. And, beyond all +doubt or imagination of a doubt, the girl was Gerald's bride, Neaera +Witt. + +"I could swear to her to-day!" cried George. + +She had scraped together a guinea for his fee. "I don't know where she +got it from," the fat policeman said with professional cynicism as he +gave it to George. "She pleads guilty and wants you to address the +court." So George had, with infinite trepidation, addressed the court. + +The girl had a father--drunk when not starving, and starving when not +drunk. Now he was starving, and she had stolen the shoes (oh! the +sordidness of it all!) to pawn, and buy food--or drink. It was a case +for a caution merely--and--and--and George himself, being young to the +work, stammered and stuttered as much from emotion as from fright. You +see the girl was pretty! + +All old Daw said was, "Do you know anything about her, policeman?" and +the fat policeman said her father was a bad lot, and the girl did no +work, and---- + +"That's enough," said old Daw; and, leaning forward, he pronounced his +sentence: + +"I'll deal lightly with you. Only"--shaking a snuffy forefinger--"take +care you don't come here again! One calendar month, with hard labour." + +And the girl, gazing back at honest old Daw, who would not have hurt a +fly except from the Bench, softly murmured, "Cruel, cruel, cruel!" and +was led away by the woman in the black straw bonnet. + +Whereupon George did a very unprofessional thing. He gave his guinea, +his firstborn son, back to the fat policeman, saying, "Give it her when +she comes out. I can't take her money." At which the policeman smiled a +smile that convicted George of terrible youthfulness. + +It was all complete--all except the name by which the fussy clerk had +called on the girl to plead, and which old Dawkins had mumbled out +in sentencing her. That utterly escaped him. He was sure it was not +"Neaera"--of course not "Neaera Witt;" but not "Neaera Anything," +either. He would have remembered "Neaera." + +"What on earth was it?" he asked himself as he unlocked his door and +went upstairs. "Not that it matters much. Names are easily changed." + +George Neston shared his chambers in Half Moon Street with the +Honourable Thomas Buchanan Fillingham Myles, commonly known (as the +peerage has it) as Tommy Myles. Tommy also had a small room in the +Temple Chambers, where the two Nestons and Mr. Blodwell pursued their +livelihood; but Tommy's appearances at the latter resort were few and +brief. He did not trouble George much in Half Moon Street either, being +a young man much given to society of all sorts, and very prone to be +in bed when most people are up, and _vice versâ_. However, to-night he +happened to be at home, and George found him with his feet on the +mantelpiece, reading the evening paper. + +"Well, what's she like?" asked Tommy. + +"She's uncommonly pretty, and very pleasant," said George. Why say more, +before his mind was made up? + +"Who was she?" pursued Tommy, rising and filling his pipe. + +"Ah! I don't know. I wish I did." + +"Don't see that it matters to you. Anybody else there?" + +"Oh, a few people." + +"Miss Bourne?" + +"Yes, she was there." + +Tommy winked, sighed prodigiously, and took a large drink of brandy and +soda. + +"Where have you been?" asked George, changing the subject. + +"Oh, to the Escurial--to a vulgar, really a very vulgar +entertainment--as vulgar as you could find in London." + +"Are you going out again?" + +"My dear George! It's close on twelve!" said Tommy, in reproving tones. + +"Or to bed?" + +"No. George, you hurt my feelings. Can it be that you wish to be +alone?" + +"Well, at any rate, hold your tongue, Tommy. I want to think." + +"Only one word. Has she been cruel?" + +"Oh, get out. Here, give me a drink." + +Tommy subsided into the _Bull's-eye_, that famous print whose motto is +_Lux in tenebris_ (meaning, of course, publicity in shady places), and +George set himself to consider what he had best do in the matter of +Neaera Witt. + +The difficulties of the situation were obvious enough, but to George's +mind they consisted not so much in the question of what to do as in that +of how to do it. He had been tolerably clear from the first that Gerald +must not marry Neaera without knowing what he could tell him; if he +liked to do it afterwards, well and good. But of course he would not. +No Neston would, thought George, who had his full share of the family +pride. Men of good family made disgraceful marriages, it is true, but +not with thieves; and anyhow nothing of the kind was recorded in the +Neston annals. How should he look his uncle and Gerald in the face if +he held his tongue? His course was very clear. Only--well, it was an +uncommonly disagreeable part to be cast for--the denouncer and exposer +of a woman who very probably was no worse than many another, and was +unquestionably a great deal better-looking than most others. The whole +position smacked unpleasantly of melodrama, and George must figure in +the character of the villain, a villain with the best motives and the +plainest duty. One hope only there was. Perhaps Mrs. Witt would see the +wisdom of a timely withdrawal. Surely she would. She could never face +the storm. Then Gerald need know nothing about it, and six months' +travel--say to America, where pretty girls live--would bind up his +broken heart. Only--again only--George did not much fancy the interview +that lay before him. Mrs. Witt would probably cry, and he would feel a +brute, and---- + +"Mr. Neston," announced Tommy's valet, opening the door. + +Gerald had followed his cousin home, very anxious to be congratulated, +and still more anxious not to appear anxious. Tommy received him with +effusion. Why hadn't he been asked to the dinner? Might he call on Mrs. +Witt? He heard she was a clipper; and so forth. George's felicitations +stuck in his throat, but he got them out, hoping that Neaera would free +him from the necessity of eating them up at some early date. Gerald was +radiant. He seemed to have forgotten all about "Peckton," though he was +loud in denouncing the unnatural hardness of Mr. Blodwell's head. Oh, +and the last thing Neaera said was, would George go and see her? + +"She took quite a fancy to you, old man," he said affectionately. "She +said you reminded her of a judge." + +George smiled. Was Neaera practising _double entente_ on her betrothed? + +"What an infernally unpleasant thing to say!" exclaimed Tommy. + +"Of course I shall go and see her," said George,--"to-morrow, if I can +find time." + +"So shall I," added Tommy. + +Gerald was pleased. He liked to see his taste endorsed with the +approbation of his friends. "It's about time old George, here, followed +suit, isn't it, Tommy? I've given him a lead." + +George's attachment to Isabel Bourne was an accepted fact among his +acquaintance. He never denied it: he did like her very much, and meant +to marry her, if she would have him. And he did not really doubt that +she would. If he had doubted, he would not have been so content to rest +without an express assurance. As it was, there was no hurry. Let the +practice grow a little more yet. He and Isabel understood one another, +and, as soon as she was ready, he was ready. But long engagements were +a nuisance to everybody. These were his feelings, and he considered +himself, by virtue of them, to be in love with Isabel. There are many +ways of being in love, and it would be a want of toleration to deny that +George's is one of them, although it is certainly very unlike some of +the others. + +Tommy agreed that George was wasting his time, and with real kindness +led Gerald back to the subject which filled his mind. + +Gerald gladly embraced the opportunity. "Where did I meet her? Oh, down +at Brighton, last winter. Then, you know, I pursued her to Manchester, +and found her living in no end of a swell villa in the outskirts of that +abominable place. Neaera hated it, but of course she had to live there +while Witt was alive, and she had kept the house on." + +"She wasn't Manchester-born, then?" + +"No. I don't know where she was born. Her father seems to have been a +romantic sort of old gentleman. He was a painter by trade--an artist, I +mean, you know,--landscapes and so on." + +"And went about looking for bits of nature to murder, eh?" asked Tommy. + +"That's about it. I don't think he was any great shakes at it. At least, +he didn't make much; and at last he settled in Manchester, and tried to +pick up a living, working for the dealers. Witt was a picture-fancier, +and, when Neaera came to sell, he saw her, and----" + +"The late Witt's romance began?" + +"Yes, confound him! I'm beastly jealous of old Witt, though he is dead." + +"That's ungrateful," remarked George, "considering----" + +"Hush! You'll wound his feelings," said Tommy. "He's forgotten all about +the cash." + +"It's all very well for you----" Gerald began. + +But George cut in, "What was his name?" + +"Witt's? Oh, Jeremiah, I believe." + +"Witt? No. Hang Witt! The father's name." + +"Oh!--Gale. A queer old boy he seems to have been--a bit of a scholar as +well as an artist." + +"That accounts for the 'Neaera,' I suppose," said Tommy. + +"Neaera Gale," thought George. "I don't remember that." + +"Pretty name, isn't it?" asked the infatuated Gerald. + +"Oh, dry up!" exclaimed Tommy. "We can't indulge you any more. Go home +to bed. You can dream about her, you know." + +Gerald accepted this hint, and retired, still in that state of confident +bliss that filled George's breast with trouble and dismay. + +"I might as well be the serpent in Eden," he said, as he lay in bed, +smoking dolefully. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +"WHAT ARE QUARTER-SESSIONS?" + + +The atmosphere was stormy at No. 3, Indenture Buildings, Temple. It was +four o'clock, and Mr. Blodwell had come out of court in the worst of bad +tempers. He was savage with George Neston, who, being in a case with +him, had gone away and left him with nobody to tell him his facts. He +was savage with Tommy Myles, who had refused to read some papers for +him; savage with Mr. Justice Pounce, who had cut up his speech to the +jury,--Pounce, who had been his junior a hundred times!--savage with Mr. +Timms, his clerk, because he was always savage with Timms when he was +savage with other people. Tommy had fled before the storm; and now, to +Mr. Blodwell's unbounded indignation, George also was brushing his hat +with the manifest intention of departure. + +"In my time, rising juniors," said Mr. Blodwell, with sarcasm, "didn't +leave chambers at four." + +"Business," said George, putting on his gloves. + +"Women," answered his leader, briefly and scornfully. + +"It's the same thing, in this case. I am going to see Mrs. Witt." + +Mr. Blodwell's person expressed moral reprobation. George, however, +remained unmoved, and the elder man stole a sharp glance at him. + +"I don't know what's up, George," he said, "but take care of yourself." + +"Nothing's up." + +"Then why did you jump?" + +"Timms, a hansom," cried George. "I'll be in court all day to-morrow, +and keep you straight, sir." + +"In Heaven's name, do. That fellow Pounce is such a beggar for dates. +Now get out." + +Mrs. Witt was living at Albert Mansions, the "swell villa" at Manchester +having gone to join Mr. Witt in limbo. She was at home, and, as +George entered, his only prayer was that he might not find Gerald in +possession. He had no very clear idea how to proceed in his unpleasant +task. "It must depend on how she takes it," he said. Gerald was not +there, but Tommy Myles was, voluble, cheerful, and very much at home, +telling Neaera stories of her lover's school-days. George chimed in as +he best could, until Tommy rose to go, regretting the convention that +drove one man to take his hat five minutes, at the latest, after another +came in. Neaera pressed him to come again, but did not invite him to +transgress the convention. + +George almost hoped she would, for he was, as he confessed to himself, +"funking it." There were no signs of any such feeling in Neaera, and no +repetition of the appealing attitude she had seemed to take up the night +before. + +"She means to bluff me," thought George, as he watched her sit down in a +low chair by the fire, and shade her face with a large fan. + +"It is," she began, "so delightful to be welcomed by all Gerald's family +and friends so heartily. I do not feel the least like a stranger." + +"I came last night, hoping to join in that welcome," said George. + +"Oh, I did not feel that you were a stranger at all. Gerald had told me +so much about you." + +George rose, and walked to the end of the little room and back. Then he +stood looking down at his hostess. Neaera gazed pensively into the fire. +It was uncommonly difficult, but what was the good of fencing? + +"I saw you recognised me," he said, deliberately. + +"In a minute. I had seen your photograph." + +"Not only my photograph, but myself, Mrs. Witt." + +"Have I?" asked Neaera. "How rude of me to forget! Where was it? +Brighton?" + +George's heart hardened a little. Of course she would lie, poor girl. +He didn't mind that. But he did not like artistic lying, and Neaera's +struck him as artistic. + +"But are you sure?" she went on. + +George decided to try a sudden attack. "Did they ever give you that +guinea?" he said, straining his eyes to watch her face. Did she flush +or not? He really couldn't say. + +"I beg your pardon. Guinea?" + +"Come, Mrs. Witt, we needn't make it more unpleasant than necessary. +I saw you recognised me. The moment Mr. Blodwell spoke of Peckton I +recognised you. Pray don't think I mean to be hard on you. I can and do +make every allowance." + +Neaera's face expressed blank astonishment. She rose, and made a step +towards the bell. George was tickled. She had the amazing impertinence +to convey, subtly but quite distinctly, by that motion and her whole +bearing, that she thought he was drunk. + +"Ring, if you like," he said, "or, rather, ask me, if you want the bell +rung. But wouldn't it be better to settle the matter now? I don't want +to trouble Gerald." + +"I really believe you are threatening me with something," exclaimed +Neaera. "Yes, by all means. Go on." + +She motioned him to a chair, and stood above him, leaning one arm on the +mantelpiece. She breathed a little quickly, but George drew no inference +from that. + +"Eight years ago," he said, slowly, "you employed me as your counsel. +You were charged with theft--stealing a pair of shoes--at Peckton +Quarter-Sessions. You retained me at a fee of one guinea." + +Neaera was motionless, but a slight smile showed itself on her face. +"What are Quarter-Sessions?" she asked. + +"You pleaded guilty to the charge, and were sentenced to a month's +imprisonment with hard labour. The guinea I asked you about was my fee. +I gave it to that fat policeman to give back to you." + +"Excuse me, Mr. Neston, but it's really too absurd." And Neaera relaxed +her statuesque attitude, and laughed light-heartedly, deliciously. +"No wonder you were startled last night--oh, yes, I saw that--if you +identified your cousin's _fiancée_ with this criminal you're talking +about." + +"I did and do identify her." + +"Seriously?" + +"Perfectly. It would be a poor joke." + +"I never heard anything so monstrous. Do you really persist in it? I +don't know what to say." + +"Do you deny it?" + +"Deny it! I might as well deny--but of course I deny it. It's madness." + +"Then I must lay what I know before my uncle and Gerald, and leave them +to act as they think best." + +Neaera took a step forward as George rose from his seat. "Do you mean to +repeat this atrocious--this insane scandal?" + +"I think I must. I should be glad to think I had any alternative." + +Neaera raised one white hand above her head, and brought it down through +the air with a passionate gesture. + +"I warn you not!" she cried; "I warn you not!" + +George bowed. + +"It is a lie, and--and if it were true, you could not prove it." + +George thought this her first false step. But there were no witnesses. + +"It will be war between us," she went on in growing excitement. "I will +stand at nothing--nothing--to crush you; and I will do it." + +"You must not try to frighten me," said George. + +Neaera surveyed him from head to foot. Then she stretched out her white +hand again, and said, + +"Go!" + +George shrugged his shoulders, took his hat, and went, feeling very much +as if Neaera had detected him in theft. So great is the virtue of a good +presence and dramatic instincts. + +Suddenly he paused; then he went back again, and knocked at the door. + +"Come in," cried Neaera. + +As he entered she made an impatient movement. She was still standing +where he had left her. + +"Pray pardon me. I forgot to say one thing. Of course I am only +interested in this--matter, as one of the family. I am not a detective. +If you give up Gerald, my mouth is sealed." + +"I will not give up Gerald," she exclaimed passionately. "I love him. I +am not an adventuress; I am rich already. I----" + +"Yes, you could look higher than Gerald, and avoid all this." + +"I don't care. I love him." + +George believed her. "I wish to God I could spare you----" + +"Spare me? I don't ask your mercy. You are a slanderer----" + +"I thought I would tell you," said George calmly. + +"Will you not go?" she cried. And her voice broke into a sob. + +This was worse than her tragedy airs. George fled without another word, +cursing himself for a hard-hearted, self-righteous prig, and then +cursing fate that laid this burden on him. What was she doing now, he +wondered. Exulting in her triumph? He hoped so; for a different picture +obstinately filled his mind--a beautiful woman, her face buried in her +white arms, crying the brightness out of her eyes, all because George +Neston had a sense of duty. Still he did not seriously waver in his +determination. If Neaera had admitted the whole affair and besought his +mercy, he felt that his resolution would have been sorely tried. But, +as it was, he carried away the impression that he had to deal with a +practised hand, and perhaps a little professional zeal mingled with his +honest feeling that a woman who would lie like that was a woman who +ought to be shown in her true colours. + +"I'll tell uncle Roger and Gerald to-morrow," he thought. "Of course +they will ask for proof. That means a journey to Peckton. Confound other +people's affairs!" + +George's surmise was right. Neaera Witt had spent the first half-hour +after his departure in a manner fully as heart-rending as he had +imagined. Everything was going so well. Gerald was so charming, and life +looked, at last, so bright, and now came this! But Gerald was to dine +with her, and there was not much time to waste in crying. She dried her +eyes, and doctored them back into their lustre, and made a wonderful +toilette. Then she entertained Gerald, and filled him with delight all a +long evening. And at eleven o'clock, just as she was driving him out of +his paradise, she said, + +"Your cousin George was here to-day." + +"Ah, was he? How did you get on with him?" + +Neaera had brought her lover his hat. He needed a strong hint to move +him. But she put the hat down, and knelt beside Gerald for a minute or +two in silence. + +"You look sad, darling," said he. "Did you and George quarrel?" + +"Yes--I---- It's very dreadful." + +"Why, what, my sweet?" + +"No, I won't tell you now. He shan't say I got hold of you first, and +prepossessed your mind." + +"What in the world is wrong, Neaera?" + +"You will hear, Gerald, soon. But you shall hear it from him. I will +not--no, I will not be the first. But, Gerald dear, you will not believe +anything against me?" + +"Does George say anything against you?" + +Neaera threw her arms round his neck. "Yes," she whispered. + +"Then let him take care what it is. Neaera, tell me." + +"No, no, no! He shall tell you first." + +She was firm; and Gerald went away, a very mass of amazement and wrath. + +But Neaera said to herself, when she was alone, "I think that was +right. But, oh dear, oh dear! what a fuss about"--she paused, and +added--"nothing!" + +And even if it were not quite nothing, if it were even as much as a pair +of shoes, the effect did threaten to be greatly out of proportion to the +cause. Old Dawkins, and the fussy clerk, and the fat policeman could +never have thought of such a coil as this, or surely, in defiance of all +the laws of the land, they would have let that nameless damsel go. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A SERPENT IN EDEN. + + +On mature reflection, Gerald Neston declined to be angry. At first, +when he had heard George's tale, he had been moved to wrath, and had +said bitter things about reckless talking, and even about malicious +backbiting. But really, when you came to look at it, the thing was too +absurd--not worth a moment's consideration--except that it had, of +course, annoyed Neaera, and must, of course, leave some unpleasantness +behind it. Poor old George! he had hunted up a mare's nest this time, +and no mistake. No doubt he couldn't marry a thief; but who in his sober +senses would attach any importance to this tale? George had done what +he was pleased to think his duty. Let it rest. When he saw his folly, +Neaera would forgive him, like the sweet girl she was. In fact, Gerald +pooh-poohed the whole thing, and not the less because he had, not +unnaturally, expected an accusation of quite another character, more +unforgivable because not so outrageously improbable and wild. + +Lord Tottlebury could not consent to treat what he described as "the +incident" in quite so cavalier a fashion. He did not spare his hearers +the well-worn precedent of Caesar's wife; and although, after an +interview with Neaera, he was convinced of her innocence, it was in his +opinion highly desirable that George should disabuse his own mind of +this strange notion by some investigation. + +"The marriage, in any case, will not take place for three months. Go and +convince yourself of your mistake, and then, my dear George, we will +make your peace with the lady. I need not caution you to let the matter +go no further." + +To be treated as a well-intentioned but misguided person is the most +exasperating thing in the world, and George had hard work to keep his +temper under the treatment. But he recognised that he might well have +fared worse, and, in truth, he asked no more than a suspension of +the marriage pending inquiry--a concession that he understood Lord +Tottlebury was prepared to make, though proof must, of course, be +forthcoming in reasonable time. + +"I feel bound to look into it," he said. "As I have begun it, I will +spare no pains. Nobody wishes more heartily than myself that I may have +made an ass of myself." And he really did come as near to this laudable +state of mind as it is in human nature to come. + +Before the conference broke up, Lord Tottlebury suggested that there +was one thing George could do at once--he could name the date of the +trial at Peckton. George kept no diary, but he knew that the fateful +expedition had been among his earliest professional journeys after his +call to the Bar. Only very junior men went to Peckton, and, according to +his recollection, the occurrence took place in the April following his +call. + +"April, eight years ago, was the time," he said. "I don't pledge myself +to a day." + +"You pledge yourself to the month?" asked his uncle. + +"Yes, to the month, and I dare say I shall be able to find the day." + +"And when will you go to Peckton?" + +"Saturday. I can't possibly before." + +The interview took place on the Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday Gerald +went to lay the state of affairs before Neaera. + +Neaera was petulant, scornful, almost flippant. More than all this, she +was mysterious. + +"Mr. George Neston has his reasons," she said. "He will not withdraw his +accusation. I know he will not." + +"My dearest, George is a first-rate fellow, as honourable as the day. If +he finds--rather, when he finds----" + +All Neaera said was, "Honourable!" But she put a great deal into +that one word. "You dear, simple fellow!" she went on, "you have no +suspicions of anybody. But let him take care how he persists." + +More than this could not be got out of her, but she spoke freely about +her own supposed misdoings, pouring a flood of ridicule and bitterness +on George's unhappy head. + +"A fool you call him!" she exclaimed, in reply to Gerald's half-hearted +defence. "I don't know if he's a fool, but I hope he is no worse." + +"Who's getting it so precious warm, Mrs. Witt?" inquired Tommy +Myles's cheerful voice. "The door was ajar, and your words forced +themselves--you know." + +"How do you do, Mr. Myles?" + +"As you'd invited me, and your servant wasn't about, the porter-fellow +told me to walk up." + +"I'm very glad you did. There's nothing you can't hear." + +"Oh, I say, Neaera!" Gerald hastily exclaimed. + +"Why shouldn't he hear?" demanded Neaera, turning on him in superb +indignation. "Are you afraid that he'll believe it?" + +"No; but we all thought----" + +"I meant Mr. George Neston," said Neaera. + +"George!" exclaimed Tommy. + +"And I'll tell you why." And, in spite of Gerald's protest, she poured +her tale of wrong into Tommy's sympathetic and wide-opened ears. + +"There! Don't tell any one else. Lord Tottlebury says we mustn't. I +don't mind, for myself, who knows it." + +Tommy was overwhelmed. His mind refused to act. "He's a lunatic!" he +declared. "I don't believe it's safe to live with him. He'll cut my +throat, or something." + +"Oh no; his lunacy is under control--a well-trained, obedient lunacy," +said Neaera, relapsing into mystery. + +"We all hope," said Gerald, "he'll soon find out his mistake, and +nothing need come of it. Keep your mouth shut, my boy." + +"All right. I'm silent as the cold tomb. But I'm da----" + +"Have some more tea?" said Neaera, smiling very graciously. Should she +not reward so warm a champion? + +When the two young men took their leave and walked away together, Tommy +vied even with Gerald in the loudness of his indignation. + +"A lie! Of course it is, though I don't mean that old George don't +believe it--the old ass! Why, the mere fact of her insisting on telling +me about it is enough. She wouldn't do that if it's true." + +"Of course not," assented Gerald. + +"She'd be all for hushing it up." + +Gerald agreed again. + +"It's purely for George's sake we are so keen to keep it quiet," he +added. "Though, of course, Neaera even wouldn't want it all over the +town." + +"I suppose I'd better tell George I know?" + +"Oh yes. You'll be bound to show it in your manner." + +George showed no astonishment at hearing that Neaera had made a +confidant of Tommy Myles. It was quite consistent with the part she +was playing, as he conceived it. Nor did he resent Tommy's outspoken +rebukes. + +"Don't mix yourself up in unpleasant things when you aren't obliged, my +son," was all he said in reply to these tirades. "Dine at home?" + +"No," snorted Tommy, in high dudgeon. + +"You won't break bread with the likes of me?" + +"I'm going to the play, and to supper afterwards." + +"With whom?" + +"Eunice Beauchamp." + +"Dear me, what a pretty name!" said George. "Short for 'Betsy Jones,' I +suppose?" + +"Go to the devil," said Tommy. "You ain't going to accuse her of +prigging, are you?" + +"She kidnaps little boys," said George, who felt himself entitled to +some revenge, "and keeps them till they're nearly grown up." + +"I don't believe you ever saw her in your life." + +"Oh yes, I did--first piece I ever went to, twenty years ago." + +And so, what with Eunice Beauchamp, _alias_ Betsy Jones, and Neaera +Witt, _alias_--what?--two friends parted for that evening with some want +of cordiality. + +"She plays a bold game," thought George, as he ate his solitary chop; +"but too bold. You overdo it, Mrs. Witt. An innocent girl would not tell +that sort of thing to a stranger, however false it was." + +Which reflection only showed that things strike different minds +differently. + +George needed comfort. The Serpent-in-Eden feeling was strong upon him. +He wanted somebody who would not only recognise his integrity but also +admire his discretion. He had a card for Mrs. Pocklington's at-home, and +Isabel was to be there. He would go and have a talk with her; perhaps he +would tell her all about it, for surely Neaera's confidence to Tommy +Myles absolved him from the strict letter of his pledge of secrecy. +Isabel was a sensible girl; she would understand his position, and not +look on him as a cross between an idiot and a burglar because he had +done what was obviously right. So George went to Mrs. Pocklington's +with all the rest of the world; for everybody went there. Mrs. +Pocklington--Eleanor Fitzderham, who married Pocklington, the great +shipowner, member for Dockborough--had done more to unite the classes +and the masses than hundreds of philanthropic societies, and, it may be +added, in a pleasanter manner; and if, at her parties, the bigwigs did +not always talk to the littlewigs, yet the littlewigs were in the same +room with the bigwigs, which is something even at the moment, and really +very nearly as good for purposes of future reference. + +George made his way across the crowded rooms, recognising many +acquaintances as he went. There was Mr. Blodwell talking to the last +new beauty--he had a wonderful knack of it,--and Sidmouth Vane talking +to the last new heiress, who would refuse him in a month or two. An +atheistic philosopher was discussing the stagnation of the stock-markets +with a high-church Bishop--Mrs. Pocklington always aimed at starting +people on their points of common interest: and Lady Wheedleton, of the +Primrose League, was listening to Professor Dressingham's description of +the newest recipe for manure, with an impression that the subject was +not quite decent, but might be useful at elections. General Sir Thomas +Swears was asking if anybody had seen the Secretary for War--he had a +word to say to him about the last rifle; but nobody had. The Countess +Hilda von Someveretheim was explaining the problem of "Darkest England" +to the Minister of the Republic of Compostella; Judge Cutter, the +American mystic, was asking the captain of the Oxford Boat Club about +the philosophy of Hegel, and Miss Zoe Ballance, the pretty actress, was +discussing the relations of art and morality with Colonel Belamour of +the Guards. + +George was inclined to resent the air of general enjoyment that pervaded +the place: it seemed a little unfeeling. But he was comforted by +catching sight of Isabel. She was talking to a slight young man who wore +an eye-glass and indulged in an expression of countenance which invited +the conclusion that he was overworked and overstrained. Indeed, he was +just explaining to Miss Bourne that it was not so much long hours as +what he graphically described as the "tug on his nerves" that wore him +out. Isabel had never suffered from this particular torture, but she +was very sympathetic, said that she had often heard the same from other +literary men (which was true), and promised to go down to supper with +Mr. Espion later in the evening. Mr. Espion went about his business +(for, the fact is, he was "doing" the party for the _Bull's-eye_), and +the coast was left clear for George, who came up with a deliberately +lugubrious air. Of course Isabel asked him what was the matter; and, +somehow or other, it happened that in less than ten minutes she was in +possession of all the material facts, if they were facts, concerning +Neaera Witt and the pair of shoes. + +The effect was distinctly disappointing. Amiability degenerates into +simplicity when it leads to the refusal to accept obvious facts merely +because they impugn the character of an acquaintance; and what is the +use of feminine devotion if it boggles over accepting what you say, just +because you say something a little surprising? George was much annoyed. + +"I am not mistaken," he said. "I did not speak hastily." + +"Of course not," said Isabel. "But--but you have no actual proof, have +you, George?" + +"Not yet; but I soon shall have." + +"Well, unless you get it very soon----" + +"Yes?" + +"I think you ought to withdraw what you have said, and apologise to Mrs. +Witt." + +"In fact, you think I was wrong to speak at all?" + +"I think I should have waited till I had proof; and then, perhaps----" + +"Everybody seems to think me an ass." + +"Not _that_, George; but a little--well--reckless." + +"I shan't withdraw it." + +"Not if you get no proof?" + +George shirked this pointed question, and, as the interview was really +less soothing than he had expected, took an early opportunity of +escaping. + +Mr. Espion came back, and asked why Neston had gone away looking so +sulky. Isabel smiled and said Mr. Neston was vexed with her. Could +anybody be vexed with Miss Bourne? asked Mr. Espion, and added, + +"But Neston is rather crotchety, isn't he?" + +"Why do you say that?" asked Isabel. + +"Oh, I don't know. Well, the fact is, I was talking to Tommy Myles at +the Cancan----" + +"Where, Mr. Espion?" + +"At the theatre, and he told me Neston had got some maggot in his +head----" + +"I don't think he ought to say that." + +But need we listen longer? And whose fault was it--Neaera's, or +George's, or Isabel's, or Tommy's, or Mr. Espion's? That became the +question afterwards, when Lord Tottlebury was face to face with the +violated compact,--and with next day's issue of the _Bull's-eye_. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE FIRST PARAGRAPH--AND OTHERS. + + +Under pressure of circumstances men very often do what they have +declared they cannot possibly do; it happens with private individuals no +less than with political parties. George declared he could not possibly +go to Peckton before Saturday; but he was so disgusted with his +position, that he threw all other engagements to the winds, and started +early on Thursday morning, determined not to face his friends again +without attempting to prove his words. Old Dawkins was dead, but the +clerk was, and the policeman might be, alive; and, on his return to +town, he could see Jennings, the clerk's son, who had settled down +to conveyancing in Lincoln's Inn, and try to refresh his memory with +materials gathered on the spot. For George had already seen Mr. +Jennings, and Mr. Jennings remembered nothing about it--it was not his +first brief,--but was willing to try to recall the matter if George +would get him the details and let him see a picture of the person +wanted--a request George did not wish to comply with at the moment. + +So he went to Peckton, and found out perhaps as much as he could +reasonably expect to find out, as shall in due course appear. And +during his absence several things happened. In the first place, the +_Bull's-eye_ was published, containing what became known as the "First +Paragraph." The "First Paragraph" was headed "Strange Charge against a +Lady--Rumoured Proceedings," and indicated the Neston family, Neaera +Witt, and George, in such a manner as to enable their friends to +identify them. This paragraph was inserted with the object of giving +Neaera, or George, or both of them, as the case might be, or anybody +else who could be "drawn," an opportunity of contradicting it. The +second event was that the Nestons' friends did identify them, and +proceeded to open the minds of everybody who did not. + +Then Mr. Blodwell read the _Bull's-eye_, as his custom was, and +thoughtfully ejaculated "Peckton!" and Lord Tottlebury, being at the +club, was shown the _Bull's-eye_ by a friend, who really could not +do less, and went home distracted; and Tommy Myles read it, and, +conscience-stricken, fled to Brighton for three days' fresh air; and +Isabel read it, and confessed to her mother, and was scolded, and cried; +and Gerald read it, and made up his mind to kick everybody concerned, +except, of course, Neaera; and, finally, Neaera read it, and was rather +frightened and rather excited, and girt on her armour for battle. + +Gerald, however, was conscious that the process he had in his mind, +satisfying as it would be to his own feelings, would not prove in all +respects a solution of the difficulty, and, with the selfishness which a +crisis in a man's own affairs engenders, he made no scruple about taking +up a full hour of Mr. Blodwell's time, and expounding his views at great +length, under the guise of taking counsel. Mr. Blodwell listened to his +narrative of facts with interest, but cut short his stream of indignant +comment. + +"The mischief is that it's got into the papers," he said. "But for that, +I don't see that it matters much." + +"Not matter much?" gasped Gerald. + +"I suppose you don't care whether it's true or not?" + +"It's life or death to me," answered Gerald. + +"Bosh! She won't steal any more shoes now she's a rich woman." + +"You speak, sir, as if you thought----" + +"Haven't any opinion on the subject, and it wouldn't be of any +importance if I had. The question is shortly this: Supposing it to be +true, would you marry her?" + +Gerald flung himself into a chair, and bit his finger nail. + +"Eight years is a long while ago; and poverty's a hard thing; and she's +a pretty girl." + +"It's an absurd hypothesis," said Gerald. "But a thief's a thief." + +"True. So are a good many other people." + +"I should have to consider my father and--and the family." + +"Should you? I should see the family damned. However, it comes to +this--if it were true, you wouldn't marry her." + +"How could I?" groaned Gerald. "We should be cut." + +Mr. Blodwell smiled. + +"Well, my ardent lover," he said, "that being so, you'd better do +nothing till you see whether it's true." + +"Not at all. I only took the hypothesis; but I haven't the least doubt +that it's a lie." + +"A mistake--yes. But it's in the _Bull's-eye_, and a mistake in the +newspapers needs to be reckoned with." + +"What shall I do?" + +"Wait till George comes back. Meanwhile, hold your tongue." + +"I shall contradict that lie." + +"Much better not. Don't write to them, or see them, or let anybody else +till George comes back. And, Gerald, if I were you, I shouldn't quarrel +with George." + +"He shall withdraw it, or prove it." + +Mr. Blodwell shrugged his shoulders and became ostentatiously busy with +the case of _Pigg_ v. _the Local Board of Slushton-under-Mudd_. "A very +queer point this," he remarked. "The drainage system of Slushton is----" +And he stopped with a chuckle at the sight of Gerald's vanishing back. +He called after him-- + +"Are you going to Mrs. Witt's this afternoon?" + +"No," answered Gerald. "This evening." + +Mr. Blodwell sat at work for ten minutes more. Then he rang the bell. + +"Mr. Neston gone, Timms?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Then get a four-wheeler." And he added to himself, "I should like to +see her again, under this new light. I wonder if she'll let me in." + +Neaera did let him in. In fact, she seemed very glad to see him, and +accepted with meekness her share of his general censure on the +"babbling" that had gone on. + +"You see," she said, handing him a cup of tea, "it scarcely seemed a +serious matter to me. I was angry, of course, but almost more amused +than angry." + +"Naturally," answered Mr. Blodwell. "But, my dear young lady, everything +which is public is serious. And this thing is now public, for no doubt +to-morrow's _Bull's-eye_ will give all your names and addresses." + +"I don't care," said Neaera. + +Mr. Blodwell shook his head. "You must consider Gerald and his people." + +"Gerald doesn't doubt me. If he did----" Neaera left her recreant +lover's fate to the imagination. + +"But Lord Tottlebury and the world at large? The world at large always +doubts one." + +"I suppose so," said Neaera, sadly. "Fortunately, I have conclusive +proof." + +"My dear Mrs. Witt, why didn't you say so before?" + +"Before there was anything to meet? Is that your way, Mr. Blodwell?" + +"George may bring back something to meet." + +Neaera rose and went to her writing-table. "I don't know why I shouldn't +show it to you," she said. "I was just going to send it to Lord +Tottlebury. It will be a pleasant surprise for Mr. George Neston when +he comes back from Peckton with his proofs!" She handed Mr. Blodwell a +sheet of note-paper. + +He took it, throwing one quick glance at Neaera. "You wish me to read +this?" + +"It's letting you into the secrets of my early days," she said. "You +see, I wasn't always as well off as I am now." + +Mr. Blodwell adjusted his eye-glass and perused the document, which set +forth that Miss N. Gale entered the service of Mrs. Philip Horne, of +Balmoral Villa, Bournemouth, as companion to that lady, in March, 1883, +and remained in such service until the month of July, 1883; that, during +the whole of such period, she conducted herself with propriety; that she +read aloud with skill, ordered a household with discretion, and humoured +a fussy old lady with tact (this is a paraphrase of the words of the +writer); finally, that she left, by her own desire, to the regret of the +above-mentioned Susan Horne. + +Neaera watched Mr. Blodwell as he read. + +"Eighteen eighty-three?" said he; "that's the year in question?" + +"Yes, and April is the month in question--the month I am supposed to +have spent in prison!" + +"You didn't show this to George?" + +"No. Why should I? Besides, I didn't know then when he dated my crime." + +Mr. Blodwell thought it a little queer that she had not asked him. "He +should certainly see it at once. Have you seen anything of Mrs. Horne +lately?" + +"Oh no; I should be afraid she must be dead. She was an old lady, and +very feeble." + +"It is--it may be--very lucky--your having this." + +"Yes, isn't it? I should never have remembered the exact time I went to +Mrs. Horne's." + +Mr. Blodwell took his departure in a state of mind that he felt was +unreasonable. Neaera had been, he told himself, most frank, most +charming, most satisfactory. Yet he was possessed with an overpowering +desire to cross-examine Neaera. + +"Perhaps it's only habit," he said to himself. "A protestation of +innocence raises all my fighting instincts." + +The next day witnessed the publication of the "Second Paragraph," and +the second paragraph made it plain to everybody that somebody must +vindicate his or her character. The public did not care who did it, but +it felt itself entitled to an action, wherein the whole matter should be +threshed out for the furtherance of public justice and entertainment. +The _Bull's-eye_ itself took this view. It implored Neaera, or George, +or somebody to sue it, if they would not sue one another. It had given +names, addresses, dates, and details. Could the most exacting plaintiff +ask more? If no action were brought, it was clear that Neaera had stolen +the shoes, and that George had slandered her, and that the Nestons in +general shrank from investigation into the family history; all this +was still clearer, if they pursued their extraordinary conduct in not +forwarding personal narratives for the information of the public and the +accommodation of the _Bull's-eye_. + +Into this turmoil George was plunged on his return from Peckton. He had +been detained there two days, and did not reach his rooms till late +on Friday evening. He was greeted by two numbers of the _Bull's-eye_, +neatly displayed on his table; by a fiery epistle from Gerald, demanding +blood or apologies; by two penitential dirges from Isabel Bourne and +Tommy Myles; and, lastly, by a frigid note from Lord Tottlebury, +enclosing the testimony of Mrs. Philip Horne to the character and +accomplishments of Miss N. Gale. In Lord Tottlebury's opinion, only one +course was, under the circumstances, open to a gentleman. + +Philanthropists often remark, _à propos_ of other philanthropists, that +it is easier to do harm than good, even when you are, as it were, an +expert in doing good. George began to think that his amateur effort +at preserving the family reputation and punishing a wrongdoer looked +like vindicating the truth of this general principle. Here was a +hornets'-nest about his ears! And would what he brought back with him +make the buzzing less furious or the stings less active? He thought not. + +"Can a girl be in two places at once," he asked,--"in one of her +Majesty's prisons, and also at--where is it?--Balmoral Villa, +Bournemouth?" And he laid side by side Mrs. Horne's letter and a certain +photograph which was among the spoils of his expedition. + +George had not the least doubt that it was a photograph of Neaera +Witt, for all that it was distinctly inscribed, "Nelly Game." Beyond +all question it was a photograph of the girl who stole the shoes, +thoughtfully taken and preserved with a view to protecting society +against future depredations at her hands. It was Crown property, +George supposed, and probably he had no business with it, but a man can +get many things he has no business with for half a sovereign, the sum +George had paid for the loan of it. It must be carefully remembered +that Peckton is exceptional, not typical, in the laxity of its +administration, and a long reign of solitary despotism had sapped the +morality of the fat policeman. + +The art of photography has made much progress in recent years. It is +less an engine for the reduction of self-conceit than it used to be, +and less a means of revealing how ill-looking a given person can appear +under favourable circumstances. But Peckton was behind the time, here as +everywhere. Nelly Game's portrait did faint justice to Neaera Witt, and +eight years' wear had left it blurred and faded almost to the point of +indistinctness. It was all very well for George to recognise it. In +candour he was bound to admit that he doubted if it would convince +the unwilling. Besides, a great change comes between seventeen and +five-and-twenty, even when Seventeen is not half-starved and clad in +rags, Five-and-twenty living in luxury, and decked in the glories of +millinery. + +"It won't do alone," he said, "but it will help. Let's have a look at +this--document." When he had read it he whistled gently. "Oh, ho! an +alibi. Now I've got her!" he exclaimed. + +But had he? He carefully re-read the letter. It was a plausible enough +letter, and conclusive, unless he was prepared to charge Mrs. Witt +with deeper schemes and more dangerous accomplishments than he had yet +thought of doing. + +Men are mistaken sometimes, said a voice within him; but he would not +listen. + +"I'll look at that again to-morrow," he said, "and find out who 'Susan +Horne' is." + +Then he read his letters, and cursed his luck, and went to bed a +miserable man. + +The presentment of truth, not the inculcation of morality, being the end +of art, it is worth while to remark that he went to bed a miserable man +simply and solely because he had tried to do his duty. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +A SUCCESSFUL ORDEAL. + + +The general opinion was that Gerald Neston behaved foolishly in allowing +himself to be interviewed by the _Bull's-eye_. Indeed, it is rather +odd, when we consider the almost universal disapproval of the practice +of interviewing, to see how frequent interviews are. _Damnantur et +crescunt_; and mankind agrees to excuse its own weakness by postulating +irresistible ingenuity and audacity in the interviewer. So Gerald was +publicly blamed and privately blessed for telling the _Bull's-eye_ that +an atrocious accusation had been brought against the lady referred to, +and brought by one who should have been the last to bring it, and would, +he hoped, be the first to withdraw it. The accusation did seriously +concern the lady's character, and nothing but the fullest apology could +be accepted. He preferred not to go into details at present; indeed, he +hoped it would never be necessary to do so. + +Such might be Gerald's hope. It was not the hope of the _Bull's-eye_, +nor, indeed, of society in general. What could be more ill-advised than +to hint dreadful things and refuse full information? Such a course +simply left the imagination to wander, fancy free, through the Newgate +Calendar, attributing to Mrs. Witt--the name of the slandered lady +was by this time public property--all or any of the actions therein +recorded. + +"It's like a blank bill," said Charters, the commercial lawyer, to Mr. +Blodwell; "you fill it up for as much as the stamp will cover." + +"The more gossiping fool you," replied Mr. Blodwell, very rudely, and +quite unjustifiably, for the poor man merely meant to indicate a natural +tendency, not to declare his own idea of what was proper. But Mr. +Blodwell was cross; everybody had made fools of themselves, he thought, +and he was hanged--at least hanged--if he saw his way out of it. + +George's name had not as yet been actually mentioned, but everybody knew +who it was,--that "relative of Lord Tottlebury, whose legal experience, +if nothing else, should have kept him from bringing ungrounded +accusations;" and George's position was far from pleasant. He began to +see, or fancy he saw, men looking askance at him; his entrance was the +occasion of a sudden pause in conversation; his relations with his +family were, it need hardly be said, intolerable to the last degree; +and, finally, Isabel Bourne had openly gone over to the enemy, had made +her mother invite Neaera Witt to dinner, and had passed George in the +park with the merest mockery of a bow. He was anxious to bring matters +to an issue one way or another, and with this end he wrote to Lord +Tottlebury, asking him to arrange a meeting with Mrs. Witt. + +"As you are aware," he said, "I have been to Peckton. I have already +told you what I found there, so far as it bore on the fact of 'Nelly +Game's' conviction. I now desire to give certain persons who were +acquainted with 'Nelly Game' an opportunity of seeing Mrs. Witt. No +doubt she will raise no objections. Blodwell is willing to put his +chambers at our disposal; and I think this would be the best place, as +it will avoid the gossip and curiosity of the servants. Will Mrs. Witt +name a day and time? I and my companions will make a point of suiting +her convenience." + +George's "companions" were none other than the fussy clerk and the fat +policeman. The female warder had vanished; and although there were +some prison officials whose office dated from before Nelly Game's +imprisonment, George felt that, unless his first two witnesses +were favourable, it would be useless to press the matter, and did +not at present enlist their services. Mr. Jennings, the Lincoln's +Inn barrister, had proved utterly hopeless. George showed him the +photograph. "I shouldn't have recognized it from Eve's," said Mr. +Jennings; and George felt that he might, without duplicity, ignore such +a useless witness. + +Neaera laughed a little at the proposal when it was submitted to her, +but expressed her willingness to consent to it. Gerald was almost angry +with her for not being angry at the indignity. + +"He goes too far: upon my word he does;" he muttered. + +"What does it matter, dear?" asked Neaera. "It will be rather fun." + +Lord Tottlebury raised a hand in grave protest. + +"My dear Neaera!" said he. + +"Not much fun for George," Gerald remarked in grim triumph. + +"I suppose Mr. Blodwell's chambers will do?" asked Lord Tottlebury. "It +seems convenient." + +But here Neaera, rather to his surprise, had her own views. She wasn't +going down to musty chambers to be stared at--yes, Gerald, all lawyers +stared,--and taken for a breach-of-promise person, and generally +besmirched with legal mire. No: nor she wouldn't have Mr. George +Neston's spies in her house; nor would she put herself out the least +about it. + +"Then it must be in my house," said Lord Tottlebury. + +Neaera acquiesced, merely adding that the valuables had better be locked +up. + +"And when? We had better say some afternoon, I suppose." + +"I am engaged every afternoon for a fortnight." + +"My dear," said Lord Tottlebury, "business must take precedence." + +Neaera did not see it; but at last she made a suggestion. "I am dining +with you _en famille_ the day after to-morrow. Let them come then." + +"That'll do," said George. "Ten minutes after dinner will settle the +whole business." + +Lord Tottlebury made no objection. George had suggested that a couple +of other ladies should be present, to make the trial fairer; and it was +decided to invite Isabel Bourne, and Miss Laura Pocklington, daughter +of the great Mrs. Pocklington. Mrs. Pocklington would come with her +daughter, and it was felt that her presence would add authority to the +proceedings. Maud Neston was away; indeed, her absence had been thought +desirable, pending the settlement of this unpleasant affair. + +Lord Tottlebury always made the most of his chances of solemnity, and, +if left to his own bent, would have invested the present occasion +with an impressiveness not far short of a death sentence. But he was +powerless in face of the determined frivolity with which Neaera treated +the whole matter. Mrs. Pocklington found herself, apparently, invited to +assist at a farce, instead of a melodrama, and with her famous tact at +once recognised the situation, her elaborate playfulness sanctioned the +hair-brained chatter of the girls, and made Gerald's fierce indignation +seem disproportionate to the subject. Dinner passed in a whirl of jokes +and gibes, George affording ample material; and afterwards the ladies, +flushed with past laughter, and constantly yielding to fresh hilarity +at Neaera's sallies, awaited the coming of George and his party with no +diminution of gaiety. + +A knock was heard at the door. + +"Here are the minions of the law, Mrs. Witt!" cried Laura Pocklington. + +"Then I must prepare for the dungeon," said Neaera, and rearranged her +hair before a mirror. + +"It quite reminds me," said Mrs. Pocklington, "of the dear Queen of +Scots." + +Lord Tottlebury was, in spite of his preoccupations, beginning to argue +about the propriety of Mrs. Pocklington's epithet, when George was +shown in. He looked weary, bored, disgusted. After shaking hands with +Lord Tottlebury, he bowed generally to the room, and said, + +"I propose to bring Mr. Jennings, the clerk, in first; then the +policeman. It will be better they should come separately." + +Lord Tottlebury nodded. Gerald had ostentatiously turned his back on his +cousin. Mrs. Pocklington fanned herself with an air of amused protest, +which the girls reproduced in a broader form. No one spoke, till Neaera +herself said with a laugh, + +"Arrange your effects as you please, Mr. Neston." + +George looked at her. She was dressed with extraordinary richness, +considering the occasion. Her neck and arms, disclosed by her evening +gown, glittered with diamonds; a circlet of the same stones adorned her +golden hair, which was arranged in a lofty erection on her head. She met +his look with derisive defiance, smiling in response to the sarcastic +smile on his face. George's smile was called forth by the recognition of +his opponent's tactics. Her choice of time and place had enabled her to +call to her aid all the arts of millinery and the resources of wealth to +dazzle and blind the eyes of those who sought to find in her the shabby +draggle-tailed girl of eight years before. Old Mr. Jennings had come +under strong protest. He was, he said, half blind eight years ago, and +more than half now; he had seen hundreds of interesting young criminals +and could no more recognise one from another than to-day's breakfast egg +from yesterday week's; as for police photographs, everybody knew they +only darkened truth. Still he came, because George had constrained him. + +Neaera, Isabel, and Laura Pocklington took their places side by side, +Neaera on the right, leaning her arm on the chimney-piece, in her +favourite pose of languid haughtiness; Isabel was next her. Lord +Tottlebury met Mr. Jennings with cold civility, and gave him a chair. +The old man wiped his spectacles and put them on. A pause ensued. + +"George," said Lord Tottlebury, "I suppose you have explained?" + +"Yes," said George. "Mr. Jennings, can you say whether any, and which, +of the persons present is Nelly Game?" + +Gerald turned round to watch the trial. + +"Is the person suspected--supposed to be Nelly Game--in the room?" asked +Mr. Jennings, with some surprise. He had expected to see a group of +maid-servants. + +"Certainly," said Lord Tottlebury, with a grim smile. And Mrs. +Pocklington chuckled. + +"Then I certainly can't," said Mr. Jennings. And there was an end of +that, an end no other than what George had expected. The fat policeman +was his sheet-anchor. + +The fat policeman, or to give him his proper name, Sergeant Stubbs, +unlike Mr. Jennings, was enjoying himself. A trip to London _gratis_, +with expenses on a liberal scale, and an identification at the +end--could the heart of mortal constable desire more? Know the girl? Of +course he would, among a thousand! It was his business to know people +and he did not mean to fail, especially in the service of so considerate +an employer. So he walked in confidently, sat himself down, and +received his instructions with professional imperturbability. + +The ladies stood and smiled at Stubbs. Stubbs sat and peered at the +ladies, and, being a man at heart, thought they were a set of as likely +girls as he'd ever seen; so he told Mrs. Stubbs afterwards. But which +was Nelly Game? + +"It isn't her in the middle," said Stubbs, at last. + +"Then," said George, "we needn't trouble Miss Bourne any longer." + +Isabel went and sat down, with a scornful toss of her head, and Laura +Pocklington and Neaera stood side by side. + +"I feel as if it were the judgment of Paris," whispered the latter, +audibly, and Mrs. Pocklington and Gerald tittered. Stubbs had once been +to Paris on business, but he did not see what it had to do with the +present occasion, unless indeed it were something about a previous +conviction. + +"It isn't her," he said, after another pause, pointing a stumpy +forefinger at Laura Pocklington. + +There was a little shiver of dismay. George rigidly repressed every +indication of satisfaction. Neaera stood calm and smiling, bending a +look of amused kindliness on Stubbs; but the palm of the white hand on +the mantelpiece grew pink as the white fingers pressed against it. + +"Would you like to see me a little nearer?" she asked, and, stepping +forward to where Stubbs sat, she stood right in front of him. + +George felt inclined to cry "Brava!" as if he were at the play. + +Stubbs was puzzled. There was a likeness, but there was so much +unlikeness too. It really wasn't fair to dress people up differently. +How was a man to know them? + +"Might I see the photograph again, sir?" he asked George. + +"Certainly not," exclaimed Gerald, angrily. + +George ignored him. + +"I had rather," he said, "you told us what you think without it." + +George had sent Lord Tottlebury the photograph, and everybody had looked +at it and declared it was not the least like Neaera. + +Stubbs resumed his survey. At last he said, pressing his hand over his +eyes, + +"I can't swear to her, sir." + +"Very well," said George. "That'll do." + +But Neaera laughed. + +"Swear to me, Mr. Stubbs!" said she. "But do you mean you think I'm like +this Nelly Games?" + +"'Game,' not 'Games,' Mrs. Witt," said George, smiling again. + +"Well, then, 'Game.'" + +"Yes, miss, you've a look of her." + +"Of course she has," said Mrs. Pocklington, "or Mr. George would never +have made the mistake." Mrs. Pocklington liked George, and wanted to let +him down easily. + +"That's all you can say?" asked Lord Tottlebury. + +"Yes, sir; I mean, my lord." + +"It comes to nothing," said Lord Tottlebury, decisively. + +"Nothing at all," said George. "Thank you, Stubbs. I'll join you and Mr. +Jennings in a moment." + +"Good-bye, Mr. Stubbs," said Neaera. "I'm sure I should have known you +if I'd ever seen you before." + +Stubbs withdrew, believing himself to have received a compliment. + +"Of course this ends the matter, George," said Lord Tottlebury. + +"I should hope so," said Gerald. + +George looked at Neaera; and as he looked the conviction grew stronger +on him that she was Nelly Game. + +"Mr. George Neston is not convinced," said she, mockingly. + +"It does not much matter whether I am convinced or not," said George. +"There is no kind of evidence to prove the identity." + +Gerald sprang up in indignation. "Do you mean that you won't retract?" + +"You can state all the facts; I shall say nothing." + +"You shall apologise, or----" + +"Gerald," said Lord Tottlebury, "this is no use." + +There was a feeling that George was behaving very badly. Everybody +thought so, and said so; and all except Neaera either exhorted or +besought him to confess himself the victim of an absurd mistake. As the +matter had become public, nothing less could be accepted. + +George wavered. "I will let you know to-morrow," he said. "Meanwhile let +me return this document to Mrs. Witt." He took out Mrs. Horne's letter +and laid it on the table. "I have ventured to take a copy," he said. "As +the original is valuable, I thought I had better give it back." + +"Thank you," said Neaera, and moved forward to take it. + +Gerald hastened to fetch it for her. As he took it up, his eye fell on +the writing, for George had laid it open on the table. + +"Why, Neaera," said he, "it's in your handwriting!" + +George started, and he thought he saw Neaera start just perceptibly. + +"Of course," she said. "That's only a copy." + +"My dear, you never told me so," said Lord Tottlebury; "and I have never +seen your handwriting." + +"Gerald and Maud have." + +"But they never saw this." + +"It was stupid of me," said Neaera, penitently; "but I never thought of +there being any mistake. What difference does it make?" + +George's heart was hardened. He was sure she had, if not tried to pass +off the copy as an original from the first, at any rate taken advantage +of the error. + +"Have you the original?" he asked. + +"No," said Neaera. "I sent it to somebody ever so long ago, and never +got it back." + +"When did you make this copy?" + +"When I sent away the original." + +"To whom?" began George again. + +"I won't have it," cried Gerald. "You shan't cross-examine her with your +infernal insinuations. Do you mean that she forged this?" + +George grew stubborn. + +"I should like to see the original," he said. + +"Then you can't," retorted Gerald, angrily. + +George shrugged his shoulders, turned, and left the room. + +And they all comforted and cosseted Neaera, and abused George, and made +up their minds to let the world know how badly he was behaving. + +"It's our duty to society," said Lord Tottlebury. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +AN IMPOSSIBLE BARGAIN. + + +"I should eat humble-pie, George," said Mr. Blodwell, tapping his +eye-glasses against his front teeth. "She's one too many for you." + +"Do you think I'm wrong?" + +"On the whole, I incline to think you're right. But I should eat +humble-pie if I were you, all the same." + +The suggested diet is palatable to nobody, and the power of consuming it +without contortion is rightly put high in the list of virtues, if virtue +be proportionate to difficulty. To a man of George Neston's temperament +penance was hard, even when enforced by the consciousness of sin; to +bend the knees in abasement, when the soul was erect in self-approval, +came nigh impossibility. + +Still it was unquestionably necessary that he should assume the sheet +and candle, or put up with an alternative hardly, if at all, less +unpleasant. The "Fourth Paragraph" had appeared. It was called a +paragraph for the sake of uniformity, but it was in reality a narrative, +stretching to a couple of columns, and giving a detailed account of +the attempted identification. For once, George implicitly believed the +editor's statement that his information came to him on unimpeachable +authority. The story was clearly not only inspired by, but actually +written by the hand of Gerald himself, and it breathed a bitter +hostility to himself that grieved George none the less because it was +very natural. This hostility showed itself, here and there, in direct +attack; more constantly in irony and ingenious ridicule. George's look, +manner, tones, and walk were all pressed into the service. In a word, +the article certainly made him look an idiot; he rather thought it made +him look a malignant idiot. + +"What can you do?" demanded Mr. Blodwell again. "You can't bring up any +more people from Peckton. You chose your witnesses, and they let you +in." + +George nodded. + +"You went to Bournemouth, and you found--what? Not that Mrs. +What's-her-name--Horne--was a myth, as you expected, or +conveniently--and, mind you, not unplausibly--dead, as I expected, but +an actual, existent, highly respectable, though somewhat doting, old +lady. She had you badly there, George my boy!" + +"Yes," admitted George. "I wonder if she knew the woman was alive?" + +"She chanced it; wished she might be dead, perhaps, but chanced it. +That, George, is where Mrs. Witt is great." + +"Mrs. Horne doesn't remember her being there in March, or indeed April." + +"Perhaps not; but she doesn't say the contrary." + +"Oh, no. She said that if the character says March, of course it was +March." + +"The 'of course' betrays a lay mind. But still the character does say +March--for what it's worth." + +"The copy of it does." + +"I know what you mean. But think before you say that, George. It's +pretty strong; and you haven't a tittle of evidence to support you." + +"I don't want to say a word. I'll let them alone, if they'll let me +alone. But that woman's Nelly Game, as sure as I'm----" + +"An infernally obstinate chap," put in Mr. Blodwell. + +Probably what George meant by being "let alone," was the cessation of +paragraphs in the _Bull's-eye_. If so, his wish was not gratified. "Will +Mr. George Neston"--George's name was no longer "withheld"--"retract?" +took, in the columns of that publication, much the position occupied by +_Delenda est Carthago_ in the speeches of Cato the Elder. It met the +reader on the middle page; it lurked for him in the leading article; it +appeared, by way of playful reference, in the city intelligence; one +man declared he found it in an advertisement, but this no doubt was an +oversight--or perhaps a lie. + +George was not more sensitive than other men, but the annoyance +was extreme. The whole world seemed full of people reading the +_Bull's-eye_, some with grave reprobation, some with offensive +chucklings. + +But if the _Bull's-eye_ would not leave him alone, a large number of +people did. He was not exactly cut; but his invitations diminished, the +greetings he received grew less cordial than of yore: he was not turned +out of the houses he went to, but he was not much pressed to come again. +He was made to feel that right-minded and reasonable people--a term +everybody uses to describe themselves--were against him, and that, if +he wished to re-enter the good graces of society, he must do so by the +strait and narrow gate of penitence and apology. + +"I shall have to do it," he said to himself, as he sat moodily in his +chambers. "They're all at me--uncle Roger, Tommy Myles, Isabel--all of +them. I'm shot if I ever interfere with anybody's marriage again." + +The defection of Isabel rankled in his mind worst of all. That she, of +all people, should turn against him, and, as a last insult, send him +upbraiding messages through Tommy Myles! This she had done, and George +was full of wrath. + +"A note for you, sir," said Timms, entering in his usual silent manner. +Timms had no views on the controversy, being one of those rare people +who mind their own business; and George had fallen so low as to be +almost grateful for the colourless impartiality with which he bore +himself towards the quarrel between his masters. + +George took the note. "Mr. Gerald been here, Timms?" + +"He looked in for letters, sir; but went away directly on hearing you +were here." + +Timms stated this fact as if it were in the ordinary way of friendly +intercourse, and withdrew. + +"Well, I am----!" exclaimed George, and paused. + +The note was addressed in the handwriting he now knew very well, the +handwriting of the Bournemouth character. + + "DEAR MR. NESTON, + + "I shall be alone at five o'clock to-day. Will you come and see me? + + "Yours sincerely, + "NEAERA WITT." + +"You must do as a lady asks you," said George, "even if she does steal +shoes, and you have mentioned it. Here goes! What's she up to now, I +wonder?" + +Neaera, arrayed in the elaborate carelessness of a tea-gown, received +him, not in the drawing-room, but in her own snuggery. Tea was on the +table; there was a bright little fire, and a somnolent old cat snoozed +on the hearth-rug. The whole air was redolent of what advertisements +called a "refined home," and Neaera's manner indicated an almost +pathetic desire to be friendly, checked only by the self-respecting fear +of a rude rebuff to her advances. + +"It is really kind of you to come," she said, "to consent to a parley." + +"The beaten side always consents to a parley," answered George, taking +the seat she indicated. She was half sitting, half lying on a sofa when +he came in, and resumed her position after greeting him. + +"No, no," she said quickly; "that's where it's hard--when you're beaten. +But do you consider yourself beaten?" + +"Up to now, certainly." + +"And you really are not convinced?" she asked, eyeing him with a look +of candid appeal to his better nature. + +"It is your fault, Mrs. Witt." + +"My fault?" + +"Yes. Why are you so hard to forget?" George thought there was no harm +in putting it in a pleasant way. + +"Ah, why was Miss--now is it Game or Games?--so hard to forget?" + +"It is, or rather was, Game. And I suppose she was hard to forget for +the same reason as you--would be." + +"And what is that?" + +"If you ask my cousin, no doubt he will tell you." + +Neaera smiled. + +"What more can I do?" she asked. "Your people didn't know me. I have +produced a letter showing I was somewhere else." + +"Excuse me----" + +"Well, well, then, a copy of a letter." + +"What purports to be a copy." + +"How glad I am I'm not a lawyer! It seems to make people so suspicious." + +"It's a great pity you didn't keep the original." + +Neaera said nothing. Perhaps she did not agree. + +"But I suppose you didn't send for me to argue about the matter?" + +"No. I sent for you to propose peace. Mr. Neston, I am so weary of +fighting. Why will you make me fight?" + +"It's not for my pleasure," said George. + +"For whose, then?" she asked, stretching out her arms with a gesture of +entreaty. "Cannot we say no more about it?" + +"With all my heart." + +"And you will admit you were wrong?" + +"That is saying more about it." + +"You cannot enjoy the position you are in." + +"I confess that." + +"Mr. Neston, do you never think it's possible you are wrong? But no, +never mind. Will you agree just to drop it?" + +"Heartily. But there's the _Bull's-eye_." + +"Oh, bother the _Bull's-eye_! I'll go and see the editor," said Neaera. + +"He's a stern man, Mrs. Witt." + +"He won't be so hard to deal with as you. There, that's settled. Hurrah! +Will you shake hands, Mr. Neston?" + +"By all means." + +"With a thief?" + +"With you, thief or no thief. And I must tell you you are very----" + +"What?" + +"Well, above small resentments." + +"Oh, what does it matter? Suppose I did take the boots?" + +"Shoes," said George. + +Neaera burst into a laugh. "You are very accurate." + +"And you are very inaccurate, Mrs. Witt." + +"I shall always be amused when I meet you. I shall know you have your +hand on your watch." + +"Oh yes. I retract nothing." + +"Then it is peace?" + +"Yes." + +Neaera sat up and gave him her hand, and the peace was ratified. But it +so chanced that Neaera's sudden movement roused the cat. He yawned and +got up, arching his back, and digging his claws into the hearth-rug. + +"Bob," said Neaera, "don't spoil the rug." + +George's attention was directed to the animal, and, as he looked at it, +he started. Bob's change of posture had revealed a serious deficiency: +he had no tail, or the merest apology for a tail. + +It was certainly an odd coincidence, perhaps nothing more, but a very +odd coincidence, that George should have seen in the courtyard at +Peckton Gaol no less than three tailless cats! Of course there are a +good many in the world; but still most cats have tails. + +"I like a black cat, don't you?" said Neaera. "He's nice and Satanic." + +The Peckton cats were black, too,--black as ink or the heart of a +money-lender. + +"An old favourite?" asked George, insidiously. + +"I've had him a good many years. Oh!" + +The last word slipped from Neaera involuntarily. + +"Why 'oh!'?" + +"I'd forgotten his milk," answered Neaera, with extraordinary +promptitude. + +"Where did you get him?" + +Neaera was quite calm again. "Some friends gave him me. Please don't say +I stole my cat, too, Mr. Neston." + +George smiled; indeed, he almost laughed. "Well, it is peace, Mrs. +Witt," he said, taking his hat. "But remember!" + +"What?" said Neaera, who was still smiling and cordial, but rather less +at her ease than before. + +"A cat may tell a tale, though he bear none." + +"What do you mean?" + +"If it is ever war again, I will tell you. Good-bye, Mrs. Witt." + +"Good-bye. Please don't have poor Bob arrested. He didn't steal the +boots--oh, the shoes, at any rate." + +"I expect he was in prison already." + +Neaera shook her head with an air of bewilderment. "I really don't +understand you. But I'm glad we're not enemies any longer." + +George departed, but Neaera sat down on the rug and gazed into the fire. +Presently Bob came to look after the forgotten milk. He rubbed himself +right along Neaera's elbow, beginning from his nose, down to the end of +what he called his tail. + +"Ah, Bob," said Neaera, "what do you want? Milk, dear? 'Good for evil, +milk for----'" + +Bob purred and capered. Neaera gave him his milk, and stood looking at +him. + +"How would you like to be drowned, dear?" she asked. + +The unconscious Bob lapped on. + +Neaera stamped her foot. "He shan't! He shan't! He shan't!" she +exclaimed. "Not an inch! Not an inch!" + +Bob finished his milk and looked up. + +"No, dear, you shan't be drowned. Don't be afraid." + +As Bob knew nothing about drowning, and only meant that he wanted more +milk, he showed no gratitude for his reprieve. Indeed, seeing there was +to be no more milk, he pointedly turned his back, and began to wash his +face. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE FRACAS AT MRS. POCKLINGTON'S. + + +"I never heard anything so absurd in all my life," said Mr. Blodwell, +with emphasis. + +George had just informed him of the treaty between himself and Neaera. +He had told his tale with some embarrassment. It is so difficult to make +people who were not present understand how an interview came to take the +course it did. + +"She seemed to think it all right," George said weakly. + +"Do you suppose you can shut people's mouths in that way?" + +"There are other ways," remarked George, grimly, for his temper began to +go. + +"There are," assented Mr. Blodwell; "and in these days, if you use them, +it's five pounds or a month, and a vast increase of gossip into the +bargain. What does Gerald say?" + +"Gerald? Oh, I don't know. I suppose Mrs. Witt can manage him." + +"Do you? I doubt it. Gerald isn't over easy to manage. Think of the +position you leave him in!" + +"He believes in her." + +"Yes, but he won't be content unless other people do. Of course they'll +say she squared you." + +"Squared me!" exclaimed George, indignantly. + +"Upon my soul, I'm not sure she hasn't." + +"Of course you can say what you please, sir. From you I can't resent +it." + +"Come, don't be huffy. Bright eyes have their effect on everybody. By +the way, have you seen Isabel Bourne lately?" + +"No." + +"Heard from her?" + +"She sent me a message through Tommy Myles." + +"Is he in her confidence?" + +"Apparently. The effect of it was, that she didn't want to see me till I +had come to my senses." + +"In those words?" + +"Those were Tommy's words." + +"Then relations are strained?" + +"Miss Bourne is the best judge of whom she wishes to see." + +"Quite so," said Mr. Blodwell, cheerfully. "At present she seems to wish +to see Myles. Well, well, George, you'll have to come to your knees at +last." + +"Mrs. Witt doesn't require it." + +"Gerald will." + +"Gerald be---- But I've never told you of my fresh evidence." + +"Oh, you're mad! What's in the wind now?" + +Five minutes later, George flung himself angrily out of Mr. Blodwell's +chambers, leaving that gentleman purple and palpitating with laughter, +as he gently re-echoed, + +"The cat! Go to the jury on the cat, George, my boy!" + +To George, in his hour of adversity, Mrs. Pocklington was as a tower +of strength. She said that the Nestons might squabble among themselves +as much as they liked; it was no business of hers. As for the affair +getting into the papers, her visiting-list would suffer considerably +if she cut out everybody who was wrongly or, she added significantly, +rightly abused in the papers. George Neston might be mistaken, but he +was an honest young man, and for her part she thought him an agreeable +one--anyhow, a great deal too good for that insipid child, Isabel +Bourne. If anybody didn't like meeting him at her house, they could stay +away. Poor Laura Pocklington protested that she hated and despised +George, but yet couldn't stay away. + +"Then, my dear," said Mrs. Pocklington, tartly, "you can stay in the +nursery." + +"It's too bad!" exclaimed Laura. "A man who says such things isn't +fit----" + +Mrs. Pocklington shook her head gently. Mr. Pocklington's Radical +principles extended no more to his household than to his business. + +"Laura dear," she said, in pained tones, "I do so dislike argument." + +So George went to dinner at Mrs. Pocklington's, and that lady, +remorseless in parental discipline, sent Laura down to dinner with him; +and, as everybody knows, there is nothing more pleasing and interesting +than a pretty girl in a dignified pet. George enjoyed himself. It was +a long time since he had flirted; but really now, considering Isabel's +conduct, he felt at perfect liberty to conduct himself as seemed to +him good. Laura was an old friend, and George determined to see how +implacable her wrath was. + +"It's so kind of you to give me this pleasure," he began. + +"Pleasure?" said Laura, in her loftiest tone. + +"Yes; taking you down, you know." + +"Mamma made me." + +"Ah, now you're trying to take me down." + +"I wonder you can look any one in the face----" + +"I always enjoy looking you in the face." + +"After the things you've said about poor Neaera!" + +"Neaera?" + +"Why shouldn't I call her Neaera?" + +"Oh, no reason at all. It may even be her name." + +"A woman who backbites is bad, but a man----" + +"Is the deuce?" said George inquiringly. + +Laura tried another tack. "All your friends think you wrong, even +mamma." + +"What does that matter, as long as you think I'm right?" + +"I don't; I don't. I think----" + +"That it's great fun to torment a poor man who----" + +George paused. + +"Who what?" said Laura, with deplorable weakness. + +"Values your good opinion very highly." + +"Nonsense!" + +George permitted himself to sigh deeply. A faint twitching betrayed +itself about the corners of Laura's pretty mouth. + +"If you want to smile, I will look away," said George. + +"You're very foolish," said Laura; and George knew that this expression +on a lady's lips is not always one of disapproval. + +"I am, indeed," said he, "to spend my time in a vain pursuit." + +"Of Neaera?" + +"No, not of Neaera." + +"I should never," said Laura, demurely, "have referred to Miss Bourne, +if you hadn't, but as you have----" + +"I didn't." + +Presumably George explained whom he did refer to, and apparently the +explanation took the rest of dinner-time. And as the ladies went +upstairs, Mrs. Pocklington patted Laura's shoulder with an approving +fan. + +"There's a good child! It shows breeding to be agreeable to people you +dislike." + +Laura blushed a little, but answered dutifully, "I am glad you are +pleased, mamma." Most likely she did not impose on Mrs. Pocklington. She +certainly did not on herself. + +George found himself left next to Sidmouth Vane. + +"Hallo, Neston!" said that young gentleman, with his usual freedom. +"Locked her up yet?" + +George said Mrs. Witt was still at large. Vane had been his fag, and +George felt he was entitled to take it out of him in after life whenever +he could. + +"Wish you would," continued Mr. Vane. "That ass of a cousin of yours +would jilt her, and I would wait outside Holloway or Clerkenwell, or +wherever they put 'em, and receive her sympathetically--hot breakfast, +brass band, first cigar for six months, and all that, don't you know, +like one of those Irish fellows." + +"You have no small prejudices." + +"Not much. A girl like that, _plus_ an income like that, might steal all +Northampton for what I care. Going upstairs?" + +"Yes; there's an 'At Home' on, isn't there?" + +"Yes, so I'm told. I shouldn't go, if I were you." + +"Why the devil not?" + +"Gerald's going to be there--told me so." + +"Really, Vane, you're very kind. We shan't fight." + +"I don't know about that. He's simply mad." + +"Anything new?" + +"Yes; he told me you'd been trying to square Mrs. Witt behind his back, +and he meant to have it out with you." + +"Well," said George, "I won't run. Come along." + +The guests were already pouring in, and among the first George +encountered was Mr. Dennis Espion, as over-strained as ever. Espion +knew that George was aware of his position on the _Bull's-eye_. + +"Ah, how are you, Neston?" he said, holding out his hand. + +George looked at it for a moment, and then took it. + +"I support life and your kind attentions, Espion." + +"Ah! well, you know, we can't help it--a matter of public interest. I +hope you see our position----" + +"Yes," said George, urbanely; "_Il faut vivre._" + +"I don't suppose you value our opinion, but----" + +"Oh yes; I value it at a penny--every evening." + +"I was going to say----" + +"Keep it, my dear fellow. What you say has market value--to the extent I +have mentioned." + +"My dear Neston, may I----" + +"Consider this an interview? My dear Espion, certainly. Make any use of +this communication you please. Good night." + +George strolled away. "Suppose I was rather rude," he said to himself. +"But, hang it, I must have earned that fellow fifty pounds!" + +George was to earn Mr. Espion a little more yet, as it turned out. He +had not gone many steps before he saw his cousin Gerald making his bow +to Mrs. Pocklington. Mr. Espion saw him too, and was on the alert. +Gerald was closely followed by Tommy Myles. + +"Ah, the enemy!" exclaimed George under his breath, pursuing his way +towards Laura Pocklington. + +The throng was thick, and his progress slow. He had time to observe +Gerald, who was now talking to Tommy and to Sidmouth Vane, who had +joined them. Gerald was speaking low, but his gestures betrayed strong +excitement. Suddenly he began to walk rapidly towards George, the people +seeming to fall aside from his path. Tommy Myles followed him, while +Vane all but ran to George and whispered eagerly, + +"For God's sake, clear out, my dear fellow! He's mad! There'll be a +shindy, as sure as you're born!" + +George did not like shindies, especially in drawing-rooms; but he liked +running away less. "Oh, let's wait and see," he replied. + +Gerald was looking dangerous. The healthy ruddiness of his cheek had +darkened to a deep flush, his eyes looked vicious, and his mouth was +set. As he walked quickly up to his cousin, everybody tried to look +away; but out of the corners of two hundred eyes eager glances centred +on the pair. + +"May I have a word with you?" Gerald began, calmly enough. + +"As many as you like; but I don't know that this place----" + +"It will do for what I have to say," Gerald interrupted. + +"All right. What is it?" + +"I want two things of you. First, you will promise never to dare to +address my--Mrs. Witt again." + +"And the second?" asked George. + +"You will write and say you've told lies, and are sorry for it." + +"I address whom I please and write what I please." + +Vane interposed. + +"Really, Neston--you, Gerald, I mean--don't make a row here. Can't you +get him away, Tommy?" + +Gerald gave Tommy a warning look, and poor Tommy shook his head +mournfully. + +George felt the necessity of avoiding a scene. He began to move quietly +away. Gerald stood full in his path. + +"You don't go till you've answered. Will you do what I tell you?" + +"Really, Gerald," George began, still clinging to peace. + +"Yes or no?" + +"No," said George, with a smile and a shrug. + +"Then, you cur, take----" + +In another moment he would have struck George full in the face, but the +vigilant Vane caught his arm as he raised it. + +"You damned fool! Are you drunk?" he hissed into his ear. "Everybody's +looking." + +It was true. Everybody was. + +"All the better," Gerald blurted out. "I'll thrash him----" + +Tommy Myles ranged up and passed his hand through the angry man's other +arm. + +"Can't you go, George?" asked Vane. + +"No," said George, calmly; "not till he's quiet." + +The hush that had fallen on the room attracted Mrs. Pocklington's +attention. In a moment, as it seemed, though her movements were as a +rule slow and stately, she was beside them, just in time to see Gerald +make a violent effort to throw off Vane's detaining hand. + +"I cannot get anybody to go into the music-room," she said; "and the +signora is waiting to begin. Mr. Neston, give me your arm, and we will +show the way." Then her eyes seemed to fall for the first time on +George. "Oh, you here too, Mr. George? Laura is looking for you +everywhere. Do find her. Come, Mr. Neston. Mr. Vane, go and give your +arm to a lady." + +The group scattered, obedient to her commands, and everybody breathed +a little sigh, half of relief, half of disappointment, and told one +another that Mrs. Pocklington was a great woman. + +"In another second," said Tommy Myles, as he restored himself with a +glass of champagne, "it would have been a case of Bow Street!" + +"I think it fairly amounts to a _fracas_," said Mr. Espion to himself; +and as a _fracas_, accordingly, it figured. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +GERALD NESTON SATISFIES HIMSELF. + + +On the following morning, Lord Tottlebury sat as arbitrator, gave an +impartial consideration to both sides of the question, and awarded that +George should apologise for his charges, and Gerald for his violence. +Lord Tottlebury argued the case with ability, and his final judgment was +able and conclusive. Unfortunately, however, misled by the habit before +mentioned of writing to the papers about matters other than those which +immediately concerned him, Lord Tottlebury forgot that neither party had +asked him to adjudicate, and, although Maud Neston was quite convinced +by his reasoning, his award remained an opinion _in vacuo_; and the +two clear and full letters which he wrote expressing his views were +consigned by their respective recipients to the waste-paper basket. +Each of the young men thanked Lord Tottlebury for his kind efforts, but +feared that the unreasonable temper displayed by the other would render +any attempt at an arrangement futile. Lord Tottlebury sighed, and sadly +returned to his article on "What the Kaiser should do next." He was in a +hurry to finish it, because he also had on hand a reply to Professor +Dressingham's paper on "The Gospel Narrative and the Evolution of +_Crustacea_ in the Southern Seas." + +After his outburst, Gerald Neston had allowed himself to be taken home +quietly, and the next morning he had so far recovered his senses as to +promise Sidmouth Vane that he would not again have recourse to personal +violence. He said he had acted on a momentary impulse--which Vane did +not believe,--and, at any rate, nothing of the kind need be apprehended +again; but as for apologising, he should as soon think of blacking +George's boots. In fact, he was, on the whole, well pleased with +himself, and, in the course of the day, went off to Neaera to receive +her thanks and approval. + +He found her in very low spirits. She had been disappointed at the +failure of her arrangement with George, and half inclined to rebel at +Gerald's peremptory _veto_ on any attempt at hushing up the question. +She had timidly tried the line of pooh-poohing the whole matter, and +Gerald had clearly shown her that, in his opinion, it admitted of no +such treatment. She had not dared to ask him seriously if he would marry +her, supposing the accusation were true. A joking question of the kind +had been put aside as almost in bad taste, and, at any rate, ill-timed. +Consequently she was uneasy, and ready to be very miserable on the +slightest provocation. But to-day Gerald came in a different mood. He +was triumphant, aggressive, and fearless; and before he had been in the +room ten minutes, he broached his new design--a design that was to show +conclusively the esteem in which he held the vile slanders and their +utterer. + +"Be married directly! Oh, Gerald!" + +"Why not, darling? It will be the best answer to them." + +"What would your father say?" + +"I know he will approve. Why shouldn't he?" + +"But--but everybody is talking about me." + +"What do I care?" + +It suits some men to be in love, and Gerald looked very well as he threw +out his defiance _urbi et orbi_. Neaera was charmed and touched. + +"Gerald dear, you are too good--you are, indeed,--too good to me and too +good for me." + +Gerald said, in language too eloquent to be reproduced, that nobody +could help being "good" to her, and nobody in the world was good enough +for her. + +"And are you content to take me entirely on trust?" + +"Absolutely." + +"While I am under this shadow?" + +"You are under no shadow. I take your word implicitly, as I would take +it against gods and men." + +"Ah, I don't deserve it." + +"Who could look in your eyes"--Gerald was doing so--"and think of +deceit? Why do you look away, sweetheart?" + +"I daren't--I daren't!" + +"What?" + +"Be--be--trusted like that!" + +Gerald smiled. "Very well; then you shan't be. I will treat you as +if--as if I _doubted_ you. Then will you be satisfied?" + +Neaera tried to smile at this pleasantry. She was kneeling by Gerald's +chair as she often did, looking up at him. + +"Doubted me?" she said. + +"Yes, since you won't let your eyes speak for you, I will put you to the +question. Will that be enough?" + +Poor Neaera! she thought it would be quite enough. + +"And I will ask you, what I have never condescended to ask yet, dearest, +if there's a word of truth in it all?" Gerald, still playfully, took one +of her hands and raised it aloft. "Now look at me and say--what shall be +your oath?" + +Neaera was silent. This passed words; every time she spoke she made it +worse. + +"I know," pursued Gerald, who was much pleased with his little comedy. +"Say this, 'On my honour and love, I am not the girl.'" + +Why hadn't she let him alone with his nonsense about her eyes? That was +not, to Neaera's thinking, as bad as a lie direct. "On her honour and +love!" She could not help hesitating for just a moment. + +"I am not the girl, on my honour and love." Her words came almost with a +sob, a stifled sob, that made Gerald full of remorse and penitence, and +loud in imprecations on his own stupidity. + +"It was all a joke, sweetest," he pleaded; "but it was a stupid joke, +and it has distressed you. Did you dream I doubted you?" + +"No." + +"Well, then, say you knew it was a joke." + +"Yes, dear, I know it was,--of course it was; but it--it rather +frightened me." + +"Poor child! Never mind; you'll be amused when you think of it +presently. And, my darling, it really, seriously, does make me happier. +I never doubted, but it is pleasant to hear the truth from your own +sweet lips. Now I am ready for all the world. And what about the day?" + +"The day?" + +"Of course you don't know what day! Shall it be directly?" + +"What does 'directly' mean?" asked Neaera, mustering a rather watery +smile. + +"In a week." + +"Gerald!" + +But, after the usual negotiations, Neaera was brought to consent to that +day three weeks, provided Lord Tottlebury's approval was obtained. + +"And, please, don't quarrel with your cousin any more!" + +"I can afford to let him alone now." + +"And---- Are you going, Gerald?" + +"No time to lose. I'm off to see the governor, and I shall come back and +fetch you to dine in Portman Square. Good-bye for an hour, darling!" + +"Gerald, suppose----" + +"Well!" + +"If--if---- No, nothing. Good-bye, dear; and----" + +"What is it, sweet?" + +"Nothing--well, and don't be long." + +Gerald departed in raptures. As soon as he was out of the room, the +tailless cat emerged from under the sofa. He hated violent motion of +all kinds, and lovers are restless beings. Now, thank heaven! there was +a chance of lying on the hearth-rug without being trodden upon! + +"Did you hear that, Bob?" asked Neaera. "I--I went the whole hog, didn't +I?" + +Lord Tottlebury, who was much less inflexible than he seemed, did not +hold out long against Gerald's vehemence, and the news soon spread +that defiance was to be hurled in George's face. The _Bull's-eye_ was +triumphant. Isabel Bourne and Maud Neston made a hero of Gerald and a +heroine of Neaera. Tommy Myles hastened to secure the position of "best +man," and Sidmouth Vane discovered and acknowledged a deep worldly +wisdom in Gerald's conduct. + +"Of course," said he to Mr. Blodwell, on the terrace, "if it came out +before the marriage, he'd stand pledged to throw her over, with the +cash. But afterwards! Well, it won't affect the settlement, at all +events." + +Mr. Blodwell said he thought Gerald had not been actuated by this +motive. + +"Depend upon it, he has," persisted Vane. "Before marriage, the deuce! +After marriage, a little weep and three months on the Riviera!" + +"Oh, I suppose, if it came out after marriage, George would hold his +tongue." + +"Do you, by Jove? Then he'd be the most forgiving man in Europe. Why, +he's been hunted down over the business--simply hunted down!" + +"That's true. No, I suppose he'd be bound to have his revenge." + +"Revenge! He'd have to justify himself." + +Mr. Blodwell had the curiosity to pursue the subject with George +himself. + +"After the marriage? Oh, I don't know. I should like to score off the +lot of them." + +"Naturally," said Mr. Blodwell. + +"At any rate, if I find out anything before, I shall let them have it. +They haven't spared me." + +"Anything new?" + +"Yes. They've got the committee at the Themis to write and tell me that +it's awkward to have Gerald and me in the same club." + +"That's strong." + +"I have to thank Master Tommy for that. Of course it means that I'm to +go; but I won't. If they like to kick me out, they can." + +"What's Tommy Myles so hot against you for?" + +"Oh, those girls have got hold of him--Maud, and Isabel Bourne." + +"Isabel Bourne?" + +"Yes," said George, meeting Mr. Blodwell's questioning eye. "Tommy has a +mind to try his luck there, I think." + +"_Vice_ you retired." + +"Well, retired or turned out. It's like the army, you know; the two come +to pretty much the same thing." + +"You must console yourself, my boy," said Mr. Blodwell, slyly. He +heard of most things, and he had heard of Mrs. Pocklington's last +dinner-party. + +"Oh, I'm an outcast now. No one would look at me." + +"Don't be a humbug, George. Go and see Mrs. Pocklington, and, for +heaven's sake let me get to my work." + +It was Mr. Blodwell's practice to inveigle people into long gossips, and +then abuse them for wasting his time; so George was not disquieted by +the reproach. But he took the advice, and called in Grosvenor Square. He +found Mrs. Pocklington in, but she was not alone. Her visitor was a very +famous person, hitherto known to George only by repute,--the Marquis of +Mapledurham. + +The Marquis was well known on the turf and also as a patron of art, but +it is necessary to add that more was known of him than was known to his +advantage. In fact, he gave many people the opportunity of saying they +would not count him among their acquaintances; and he gave very few of +them the chance of breaking their word. He and Mrs. Pocklington amused +one another, and, whatever he did, he never said anything that was open +to complaint. + +For some time George talked to Laura. Laura, having once come over to +his side, was full of a convert's zeal, and poured abundant oil and wine +into his wounds. + +"How could I ever have looked at Isabel Bourne when she was there?" he +began to think. + +"Mr. Neston," said Mrs. Pocklington, "Lord Mapledurham wants to know +whether you are _the_ Mr. Neston." + +"Mrs. Pocklington has betrayed me, Mr. Neston," said the Marquis. + +"I am one of the two Mr. Nestons, I suppose," said George, smiling. + +"Mr. George Neston?" asked the Marquis. + +"Yes." + +"And you let him come here, Mrs. Pocklington?" + +"Ah, you know my house is a caravanserai. I heard you remark it yourself +the other day." + +"I shall go," said the Marquis, rising. "And, Mrs. Pocklington, I shall +be content if you say nothing worse of my house. Good-bye, Miss Laura. +Mr. Neston, I shall have a small party of bachelors to-morrow. It will +be very kind if you will join us. Dinner at eight." + +"See what it is to be an abused man," said Mrs. Pocklington, laughing. + +"In these days the wicked must stand shoulder to shoulder," said the +Marquis. + +George accepted; in truth, he was rather flattered. And Mrs. Pocklington +went away for quite a quarter of an hour. So that, altogether, he +returned to the opinion that life is worth living, before he left the +house. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +REMINISCENCES OF A NOBLEMAN. + + +Once upon a time, many years before this story begins, a certain lady +said, and indeed swore with an oath, that Lord Mapledurham had promised +to marry her, and claimed ten thousand pounds as damages for the breach +of that promise. Lord Mapledurham said his memory was treacherous about +such things, and he never contradicted a lady on a question of fact: but +the amount which his society was worth seemed fairly open to difference +of opinion, and he asked a jury of his countrymen to value it. This +_cause célèbre_, for such it was in its day, did not improve Lord +Mapledurham's reputation, but, on the other hand, it made Mr. +Blodwell's. That gentleman reduced the damages to one thousand, and +Lord Mapledurham said that his cross-examination of the plaintiff was +quite worth the money. Since then, the two had been friends, and Mr. +Blodwell prided himself greatly on his intimacy with such an exclusive +person as the Marquis. George enjoyed his surprise at the announcement +that they would meet that evening at the dinner-party. + +"Why the dickens does he ask you?" + +"Upon my honour, I don't know." + +"It will destroy the last of your reputation." + +"Oh, not if you are there, sir." + +When George arrived at Lord Mapledurham's, he found nobody except his +host and Mr. Blodwell. + +"I must apologize for having nobody to meet you, Mr. Neston, except an +old friend. I asked young Vane--whose insolence amuses me,--and +Fitzderham, but they couldn't come." + +"Three's a good number," said Mr. Blodwell. + +"If they're three men. But two men and a woman, or two women and a +man--awful!" + +"Well, we are men, though George is a young one." + +"I don't feel very young," said George, smiling, as they sat down. + +"I am fifty-five," said the Marquis, "and I feel younger every day,--not +in body, you know, for I'm chockful of ailments; but in mind. I am +growing out of all the responsibilities of this world." + +"And of the next?" asked Blodwell. + +"In the next everything is arranged for us, pleasantly or otherwise. As +to this one, no one expects anything more of me--no work, no good deeds, +no career, no nothing. It's a delicious freedom." + +"You never felt your bonds much." + +"No; but they were there, and every now and then they dragged on my +feet." + +"Your view of old age is comforting," said George. + +"Only, George, if you want to realize it, you must not marry," said Mr. +Blodwell. + +"No, no," said the Marquis. "By the way, Blodwell, why did you never +marry?" + +"Too poor, till too late," said Mr. Blodwell, briefly. + +The Marquis raised his glass, and seemed to drink a respectful toast to +a dead romance. + +"And you, Lord Mapledurham?" George ventured to ask. + +"Ay, ask him!" said Mr. Blodwell. "Perhaps his reason will be less sadly +commonplace." + +"I don't know," said the Marquis, pondering. "Some of them expected it, +and that disgusted me. And some of them didn't, and that disgusted me +too." + +"You put the other sex into rather a difficult position," remarked +George, laughing. + +"Nothing to what they've put me into. Eh, Blodwell?" + +"Now, tell me, Mapledurham," said Mr. Blodwell, who was in a serious +mood to-night. "On the whole, have you enjoyed your life?" + +"I have wasted opportunities, talents, substance--everything: and +enjoyed it confoundedly. I am no use even as a warning." + +"Ask a parson," said Mr. Blodwell, dryly. + +"I remember," the Marquis went on, dreamily, "an old ruffian--another +old ruffian--saying just the same sort of thing one night. I was at +Liverpool for the Cup. Well, in the evening, I got tired of the other +fellows, and went out for a turn; and down a back street, I found an +old chap sitting on a doorstep,--a dirty old fellow, but uncommonly +picturesque, with a long grey beard. As I came by, he was just trying to +get up, but he staggered and fell back again." + +"Drunk?" asked Mr. Blodwell. + +The Marquis nodded. "I gave him a hand, and asked if I could do anything +for him. 'Yes, give me a drink,' says he. I told him he was drunk +already, but he said that made no odds, so I helped him to the nearest +gin-palace." + +"Behold this cynic's unacknowledged kindnesses!" said Mr. Blodwell. + +"Sat him down in a chair, and gave him liquor. + +"'Do you enjoy getting drunk?' I asked him, just as you asked me if I +had enjoyed life. + +"His drink didn't interfere with his tongue, it only seemed to take him +in the legs. He put down his glass, and made me a little speech. + +"'Liquor,' says he, 'has been my curse; it's broken up my home, spoilt +my work, destroyed my character, sent me and mine to gaol and shame. God +bless liquor! say I.' + +"I told him he was an old beast, much as you, Blodwell, told me I was, +in a politer way. He only grinned, and said, 'If you're a gentleman, +you'll see me home. Lying in the gutter costs five shillings, next +morning, and I haven't got it.' + +"'All right,' said I; and after another glass we started out. He knew +the way, and led me through a lot of filthy places to one of the meanest +dens I ever saw. A red-faced, red-armed, red-voiced (you know what I +mean) woman opened the door, and let fly a cloud of Billingsgate at him. +The old chap treated her with lofty courtesy. + +"'Quite true, Mrs. Bort,' says he; 'you're always right: I have ruined +myself.' + +"'And yer darter!' shrieked the woman. + +"'And my daughter. And I am drunk now, and hope to be drunk to-morrow.' + +"'Ah! you old beast!' said she, just as I had, shaking her fist. + +"He turned round to me, and said, 'I am obliged to you, sir. I don't +know your name.' + +"'You wouldn't be better off if you did,' says I. 'You couldn't drink +it.' + +"'Will you give me a sovereign?' he asked. 'A week's joy, sir,--a week's +joy and life.' + +"'Give it me,' said the woman, 'then me and she'll get something to eat, +to keep us alive.' + +"I'm a benevolent man at bottom, Mr. Neston, as Blodwell remarks. I +said, + +"'Here's a sovereign for you and her' (I supposed she meant the +daughter) 'to help in keeping you alive; and here's a sovereign for you, +sir, to help in killing you--and the sooner the better, say I.' + +"'You're right,' said he. 'The liquor's beginning to lose its taste. And +when that's gone, Luke Gale's gone!'" + +"Luke who?" burst from the two men. + +Lord Mapledurham looked up. "What's the matter? Gale, I think. I found +out afterwards that the old animal had painted water-colours--the only +thing he had to do with water." + +"The Lord hath delivered her into your hand," said Mr. Blodwell to +George. + +"Are you drunk too, Blodwell?" asked the Marquis. + +"No; but----" + +"What was the woman's name?" asked George, taking out a note-book. + +"Bort. Going to tell me?" + +"Well, if you don't mind----" + +"Not a bit. Tell me later on, if it's amusing. There are so precious few +amusing things." + +"You didn't see the daughter, did you?" + +"Oh, of course it's the daughter! No." + +"Did you ever know a man named Witt?" + +"Never; but, Mr. Neston, I have heard of a Mrs. Witt. Now, Blodwell, +either out with it, or shut up and let's talk of something else." + +"The latter, please," said Mr. Blodwell, urbanely. + +And the Marquis, who had out-grown the vanity of desiring to know +everything, made no effort to recur to the subject. Only, as George +took his leave, he received a piece of advice, together with a cordial +invitation to come again. + +"Excuse me, Mr. Neston," said the Marquis. "I fancy I have given you +some involuntary assistance to-night." + +"I hope so. I shall know in a day or two." + +"To like to be right, Mr. Neston, is the last weakness of a wise man; to +like to be thought right is the inveterate prejudice of fools." + +"That last is a hard saying, my lord," said George, with a laugh. + +"It really depends mostly on your income," answered the Marquis. +"Good-night, Mr. Neston." + +George said good-night, and walked off, shrugging his shoulders at the +thought that even so acute a man as Lord Mapledurham seemed unable to +appreciate his position. + +"They all want me to drop it," he mused. "Well, I will, unless----! But +to-morrow I'll go to Liverpool." + +He was restless and excited. Home and bed seemed unacceptable, and he +turned into the Themis Club, whence the machinations of the enemy had +not yet ejected him. There, extended on a sofa and smoking a cigar, he +found Sidmouth Vane. + +"Why didn't you come to Lord Mapledurham's, Vane?" asked George. + +"Oh, have you been there? I was dining with my chief. I didn't know you +knew Mapledurham." + +"I met him yesterday for the first time." + +"He's a queer old sinner," said Vane. "But have you heard the news?" + +"No. Is there any?" + +"Tommy Myles has got engaged." + +George started. He had a presentiment of the name of the lady. + +"Pull yourself together, my dear boy," continued Vane. "Bear it like a +man." + +"Don't be an ass, Vane. I suppose it's Miss Bourne?" + +Vane nodded. "It would really be amusing," he said, "if you'd tell me +honestly how you feel. But, of course, you won't. You've begun already +to look as if you'd never heard of Miss Bourne." + +"Bosh!" said George. + +"Now, I always wonder why fellows do that. When I've been refused by a +girl, and----" + +"I beg your pardon," said George. "I haven't been refused by Miss +Bourne." + +"Well, you would have been, you know. It comes to the same thing." + +George laughed. "I dare say I should; but I never meant to expose myself +to such a fate." + +"George, my friend, do you think you're speaking the truth?" + +"I am speaking the truth." + +"Not a bit of it," responded Vane, calmly. "A couple of months ago you +meant to ask her; and, what's more, she'd have had you." + +George was dimly conscious that this might be so. + +"It isn't my moral," Vane went on. + +"Your moral?" + +"No. I took it from the _Bull's-eye_." + +George groaned. + +"They announce the marriage to-night, and add that they have reason to +believe that the engagement has come about largely through the joint +interest of the parties in _l'affaire Neston_." + +"I should say they are unusually accurate." + +"Meaning thereby, to those who have eyes, that she's jilted you because +of your goings-on, and taken up with Tommy. In consequence, you are +to-night 'pointing a moral and adorning a tale.'" + +"The devil!" + +"Yes, not very soothing, is it? But so it is. I looked in at Mrs. +Pocklington's, and they were all talking about it." + +"The Pocklingtons were?" + +"Yes. And they asked me----" + +"Who asked you?" + +"Oh, Violet Fitzderham and Laura Pocklington,--if it was the fact that +you were in love with Miss Bourne." + +"And what did you say?" + +"I said it was matter of notoriety." + +"Confound your gossip! There's not a word of truth in it." + +"I didn't say there was. I said it was a matter of notoriety. So it +was." + +"And did they believe it?" + +"Did who believe it?" asked Vane, smiling slightly. + +"Oh, Miss Pocklington, and--and the other girl." + +"Yes, Miss Pocklington and the other girl, I think, believed it." + +"What did they say?" + +"The other girl said it served you right." + +"And----?" + +"And Miss Pocklington said it was time for some music." + +"Upon my soul, it's too bad!" + +"My dear fellow, you know you were in love with her--in your fishlike +kind of way. Only you've forgotten it. One does forget it when----" + +"Well?" asked George. + +"When one's in love with another girl. Ah, George, you can't escape my +eagle eye! I saw your game, and I did you a kindness." + +George thought it no use trying to keep his secret. "That's your idea of +a kindness, is it?" + +"Certainly. I've made her jealous." + +"Really," said George, haughtily, "I think this discussion of ladies' +feelings is hardly in good taste." + +"Quite right, old man," answered Vane, imperturbably. "It's lucky that +didn't strike you before you'd heard all you wanted to." + +"I say, Vane," said George, leaning forward, "did she seem----" + +"Miss Pocklington, or the other girl?" + +"Oh, damn the other girl! Did she, Vane, old boy?" + +"Yes, she did, a little, George, old boy." + +"I'm a fool," said George. + +"Oh, I don't know," said Vane, tolerantly. "I'm always a fool myself +about these things." + +"I must go and see them to-morrow. No, I can't go to-morrow; I have to +go out of town." + +"Ah! where?" + +"Liverpool, on business." + +"Liverpool, on business! Dear me! I'll tell you another odd thing, +George,--a coincidence." + +"Well?" + +"You're going to Liverpool to-morrow on business. Well, to-day, Mrs. +Witt went to Liverpool on business." + +"The devil!" said George, for the second time. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +PRESENTING AN HONEST WOMAN. + + +To fit square pegs into round holes is one of the favourite pastimes of +Nature. She does it roughly, violently, and with wanton disregard of the +feelings of the square pegs. When, in her relentless sport, she has at +last driven the poor peg in and made it fit, by dint of knocking off and +abrading all its corners, philosophers glorify her, calling the process +evolution, and plain men wonder why she did not begin at the other end, +and make the holes square to fit the pegs. + +The square peg on which these trite reflections hang is poor Neaera +Witt. Nature made her a careless, ease-loving, optimistic creature, only +to drive her, of malice prepense, into an environment--that is to say, +in unscientific phrase, a hole--where she had need of the equipment of +a full-blooded conspirator. + +She resisted the operation; she persistently trusted to chance to +extricate her from the toils into which she, not being a philosopher, +thought chance had thrown her. If she saw a weapon ready to her hand, +she used it, as she had used the Bournemouth character, but for the most +part she trusted to luck. George Neston would fail, or he would relent; +or Gerald would be invincibly incredulous, or, she would add, smiling +at her face in the glass, invincibly in love. Somehow or other matters +would straighten themselves out; and, at the worst, ten days more would +bring the marriage; and after the marriage---- But really, ten days +ahead is as far as one can be expected to look, especially when the ten +days include one's wedding. + +Nevertheless, Sidmouth Vane had a knack of being correct in his +information, and he was correct in stating that Neaera had gone to +Liverpool on business. It was, of course, merely a guess that her errand +might be connected with George's, but it happened to be a right guess. +Neaera knew well the weak spot in her armour. Hitherto she had been +content to trust to her opponent not discovering it; but, as the +decisive moment came nearer, a nervous restlessness so far overcame her +natural _insouciance_ as to determine her to an effort to complete her +defences, in anticipation of any assault upon them. She was in happy +ignorance of the chance that had directed George's forces against her +vulnerable point, and imagined that she herself was, in all human +probability, the only person in London to whom the name of Mrs. Bort +would be more than an unmeaning uneuphonious syllable. To her the name +was full of meaning; for, from her youth till the day of the happy +intervention of that stout and elderly _deus ex machina_, the late Mr. +Witt, Mrs. Bort had been to Neaera the impersonation of virtue and +morality, and the physical characteristics that had caught Lord +Mapledurham's frivolous attention had been to her merely the frowning +aspect under which justice and righteousness are apt to present +themselves. + +Neaera was a good-hearted girl, and Mrs. Bort now lived on a comfortable +pension, but no love mingled with the sense of duty that inspired the +gift. Mrs. Bort had interpreted her quasi-maternal authority with the +widest latitude, and Neaera shuddered to remember how often Mrs. Bort's +discipline had made her smart, in a way, against which apathy of +conscience was no shield or buckler. Recorder Dawkins would have groaned +to know how even judicial terrors paled in Neaera's recollection before +the image of Mrs. Bort. + +These childish fears are hard to shake off, and Neaera, as she sped +luxuriously to Liverpool, acknowledged to herself that, in that dreadful +presence, no adventitious glories of present wealth or future rank would +avail her. The governing fact in the situation, the fact that Neaera did +not see her way to meet, was that Mrs. Bort was an honest woman. Neaera +knew her, and knew that a bribe would be worse than useless, even if she +dared to offer it. + +"And I don't think," said Neaera, resting her pretty chin upon her +pretty hand, "that I should dare." Then she laughed ruefully. "I'm not +at all sure she wouldn't beat me; and if she did, what could I do?" + +Probably Neaera exaggerated even the fearless rectitude of Mrs. Bort, +but she was so convinced of the nature of the reception which any +proposal of the obvious kind would meet with that she made up her mind +that her only course was to throw herself on Mrs. Bort's mercy, in case +that lady proved deaf to a subtle little proposal which was Neaera's +first weapon. + +So far as Neaera knew, Peckton and Manchester were the only places in +which George Neston was likely to seek for traces of her. Liverpool, +though remote from Peckton, was uncomfortably near Manchester. Every day +now had great value. If she could get Mrs. Bort away to some remote spot +as soon as might be, she gained no small advantage in her race against +time and George Neston. + +"If she will only go to Glentarroch, he will never find her." + +Glentarroch was the name of a little retreat in remote Scotland, whither +Mr. Witt had been wont to betake himself for rest and recreation. It was +Neaera's now. It was a beautiful place, which was immaterial, and a +particularly inaccessible one, which was most material. Would not Mrs. +Bort's despotic instincts lead her to accept an invitation to rule over +Glentarroch? Neaera could not afford to pity the hapless wights over +whom Mrs. Bort would rule. + +Mrs. Bort received Neaera in a way most unbecoming to a pensioner. +"Well, Nery," she said, "what brings you here? No good, I'll be bound. +Where's your mourning?" + +Neaera said that she thought resignation to Heaven's will not a subject +of reproach, and that she came to ask a favour of Mrs. Bort. + +"Ay, you come to me when you want something. That's the old story." + +Neaera remembered that Mrs. Bort had often taken her own view of what +the supplicant wanted, and given something quite other than what was +asked; but, in spite of this unpromising opening, she persevered, and +laid before Mrs. Bort a dazzling picture of the grandeur waiting her at +Glentarroch. + +"And I shall be so much obliged. Really, I don't know what the +servants--the girls, especially--may be doing." + +"Carryings-on, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Bort. "Why don't you go +yourself, Nery?" + +"Oh, I can't, indeed. I--I must stay in London." + +"Nasty, cold, dull little place it sounds," said Mrs. Bort. + +"Oh, of course I shall consider all that----" + +"He--he!" Mrs. Bort sniggered unpleasantly. "So it ain't sech a sweet +spot, as ye call it, after all?" + +Neaera recovered herself without dignity, and stated that she thought of +forty pounds a year and all found. + +"Ah, if I knowed what you was at, Nery!" + +Neaera intimated that it was simply a matter of mutual accommodation. +"And there's really no time to be lost," she said, plaintively. "I'm +being robbed every day." + +"Widows has hard times," said Mrs. Bort. And Neaera did not think it +necessary to say how soon her hard times were coming to an end. + +"Come agin to-morrer afternoon, and I'll tell ye," was Mrs. Bort's +ultimatum. "And mind you don't get into mischief." + +"Why afternoon?" asked Neaera. + +"'Cause I'm washing," said Mrs. Bort, snappishly. "That's why." + +Neaera in vain implored an immediate answer. Mrs. Bort said a day could +not matter, and that, if Neaera pressed her farther, she should consider +it an indication that something was "up," and refuse to go at all. +Neaera was silenced, and sadly returned to her hotel. + +"How I hate that good, good woman!" she cried. "I'll never see her again +as long as I live, after to-morrow. Oh, I should like to hit her!" + +The propulsions of cause upon cause are, as Bacon has said, infinite. +If Mrs. Bort had not washed--in the technical sense, of course--on that +particular Friday, Neaera would have come and gone--perhaps even Mrs. +Bort might have gone too--before the train brought George Neston to +Liverpool, and his eager inquiries landed him at Mrs. Bort's abode. As +it was, Mrs. Bort's little servant bade him wait in the parlour, as her +mistress was talking to a female in the kitchen. The little servant +thought "female" the politest possible way of describing any person +who was not a man, and accorded the title to Neaera on account of her +rustling robes and gold-tipped parasol. + +George did not question his informant, thereby showing that he, in +the _rôle_ of detective, was a square peg in a round hole. He heard +proceeding from the kitchen a murmur of two subdued voices, one of +which, however, dominated the other. + +"That must be Mrs. Bort," thought he. "I wish I could hear the female." + +Then his attention wandered, for he made sure the unknown could not be +Neaera, as she had had a day's start of him. He did not allow for Mrs. +Bort's washing. Suddenly the dominant voice was raised to the pitch of +distinctness. + +"Have ye told him," it said, "or have ye lied to him, as you lied to me +yesterday?" + +"I didn't--I didn't," was the answer. "You never asked me if I was going +to be married." + +"Oh, go along! You know how I'd have answered that when ye lived with +me." + +"How's that?" asked George, with a slight smile. + +"Have ye told him?" + +"Told him what?" asked Neaera; for it was clearly Neaera. + +"Told him you're a thief." + +"This woman's a brute," thought George. + +"Have ye?" + +"No, not exactly. How dare you question me?" + +"Dare!" said Mrs. Bort; and George knew she was standing with her arms +akimbo. "Dare!" she repeated _crescendo_; and apparently her aspect was +threatening, for Neaera cried, + +"Oh, I didn't mean that. Do let me go." + +"Tell the truth, if your tongue'll do it. The truth, will ye?" + +"The deuce!" said George; for, following on this last speech, he heard a +sob. + +"No, I haven't. I--oh, do have mercy on me!" + +"Mercy! It's not mercy, it's a stick you want. But I'll tell him." + +"Ah, stop, for Heaven's sake!" + +There was a little scuffle; then the door flew open, and Mrs. Bort +appeared, with Neaera clinging helplessly about her knees. + +George rose and bowed politely. "I'm afraid I intrude," said he. + +"That's easy mended," said Mrs. Bort, with significance. + +Neaera had leapt up on seeing him, and leant breathless against the +door, looking like some helpless creature at bay. + +"Who let you in?" demanded the lady of the house. + +"Your servant." + +"I'll let _her_ in," said Mrs. Bort, darkly. "Who are ye?" + +George looked at Neaera. "My name is Neston," he said blandly. + +"Neston?" + +"Certainly." + +"Then you're in nice time; I wanted you, young man. D'ye see that +woman?" + +"Certainly; I see Mrs. Witt." + +"D'ye know what she is? Time you did, if you're a-going to take her to +church." + +Neaera started. + +"I hope to do so," said George, smiling; "and I think I know all about +her." + +"Do ye, now? Happen ever to have heard of Peckton?" + +Neaera buried her face in her hands, and cried. + +"Ah, pity you haven't something to cry for! Thought I'd see a sin done +for ten pound a month, did ye?" + +George interposed; he began to enjoy himself. "Peckton? Oh yes. The +shoes, you mean?" + +Mrs. Bort gasped. + +"A trifle," said George, waving the shoes into limbo. + +"Gracious! You ain't in the same line, are you?" + +George shook his head. + +"Anything else?" he asked, still smiling sweetly. + +"Only a trifle of forging," said Mrs. Bort. "But p'raps she got her +deserts from me over that." + +"Forging?" said George. "Oh ah, yes. You mean about----" + +"Her place at Bournemouth? Ah, Nery, don't you ache yet?" + +Apparently Neaera did. She shivered and moaned. + +"But I've got it," continued Nemesis; and, she bounded across the room +to a cupboard. "There, read that." + +George took it calmly, but read it with secret eagerness. It was the +original character, and stated that Miss Gale began her service in May, +not March, 1883. + +"I caught her a-copying it, and altering dates. My, how I did----" + +"Dear, dear!" interrupted George. "I was afraid it was something new. +Anything else, Mrs. Bort?" + +Mrs. Bort was beaten. + +"Go along," she said. "If you likes it, it's nothing to me. But lock up +your money-box." + +"Let me congratulate you, Mrs. Bort, on having done your duty." + +"I'm an honest woman," said Mrs. Bort. + +"Yes," answered George, "by the powers you are!" Then, turning to Mrs. +Witt, he added, "Shall we go--Neaera dear?" + +"You'll both of you die on the gallows," said Mrs. Bort. + +"Come, Neaera," said George. + +She took his arm and they went out, George giving the little servant a +handsome tip to recompense her for the prospect of being "let in" by her +mistress. + +George's cab was at the door. He handed Neaera in. She was still +half-crying and said nothing, except to tell him the name of her hotel. +Then he raised his hat, and watched her driven away, wiping his brow +with his handkerchief. + +"Pheugh!" said he, "I've done it now--and what an infernal shame it +is!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +NOT BEFORE THOSE GIRLS! + + +It is a notorious fact that men of all ages and conditions quarrel, and +quarrel sometimes with violence. Women also, of a low social grade, are +not strangers to discord, and the pen of satire has not spared the +tiffs and wrangles that arise between elderly ladies of irreproachable +position, and between young ladies of possibly not irreproachable +morals. It is harder to believe, harder especially for young men whose +beards are yet soft upon their chins, that graceful gentle girlhood +quarrels too. Nobody would believe it, if there were not sisters in the +world; but, unhappily, in spite of the natural tendency to suppose that +all attributes distinctively earthy are confined to his own sisters, +and have no place in the sisters of his friends, a man of reflection, +checking his observations in the various methods suggested by logicians, +is forced to conclude that here is another instance of the old truth, +that a thing is not to be considered non-existent merely because it is +not visible to a person who is not meant to see it. This much apology +for the incident which follows is felt to be necessary in the interest +of the narrator's reputation for realism. + +The fact is that there had been what reporters call a "scene" at Mrs. +Pocklington's. It so fell out that Isabel Bourne, accompanied by Maud +Neston, called on Laura to receive congratulations. Laura did her duty, +felicitated her friend on Tommy in possession and Tommy's title in +reversion, and loyally suppressed her personal opinion on the part these +two factors had respectively played in producing the announced result. +Her forbearance was ill-requited; for Maud, by way of clinching the +matter and conclusively demonstrating the satisfactory position of +affairs, must needs remark, "And what a lesson it will be for George!" + +Laura said nothing. + +"Oh, you mustn't say that, dear," objected Isabel. "It's really not +right." + +"I shall say it," said Maud; "it's so exactly what he deserves, and I +know he feels it himself." + +"Did he tell you so?" asked Laura, pausing in the act of pouring out +tea. + +Maud laughed. + +"Hardly, dear. Besides, we are not on speaking terms. But Gerald and Mr. +Myles both said so." + +"Gerald and Mr. Myles!" said Laura. + +"Please, don't talk about it," interposed Isabel. "What has happened +made no difference." + +"Why, Isabel, you couldn't have him after----" + +"No," said Isabel; "but perhaps, Maud, I shouldn't have had him before." + +"Of course you wouldn't, dear. You saw his true character." + +"You never actually refused him, did you?" inquired Laura. + +"No, not exactly." + +"Then what did you say?" + +"What did I say?" + +"Yes, when he asked you, you know," said Laura, with a little smile. + +Isabel looked at her suspiciously. "He never did actually ask me," she +said, with dignity. + +"Oh! I thought you implied----" + +"But, of course, she knew he wanted to," Maud put in. "Didn't you, +dear?" + +"Well, I thought so," said Isabel, modestly. + +"Yes, I know you thought so," said Laura. "Indeed, everybody saw that. +Was it very hard to prevent him?" + +Isabel's colour rose. "I don't know what you mean, Laura," she said. + +Laura smiled with an unpleasantness that was quite a victory over +nature. "Men sometimes fancy," she remarked, "that girls are rather in a +hurry to think they want to propose." + +"Laura!" exclaimed Maud. + +"They even say that the wish is father to the thought," continued Laura, +still smiling, but now a little tremulously. + +Isabel grew more flushed. "I don't understand you. One would think you +meant that I had run after him." + +Laura remained silent. + +"Everybody knows he was in love with Isabel for years," said Maud, +indignantly. + +"He was very patient," said Laura. + +Isabel rose. "I shall not stay here to be insulted. It's quite obvious, +Laura, why you say such things." + +"I don't say anything. Only----" + +"Well?" + +"The next time, you might mention that among the reasons why you refused +Mr. Neston was, that he never asked you." + +"I see what it is," said Isabel. "Don't you, Maud?" + +"Yes," said Maud. + +"What is it?" demanded Laura. + +"Oh, nothing. Only, I hope--I wish you joy of him." + +"If you don't mind a slanderer," added Maud. + +"It's not true!" said Laura. "How dare you say it?" + +"Take care, dear, that he doesn't fancy you're in a hurry---- What was +your phrase?" said Isabel. + +"It's perfectly shameful," said Maud. + +"I don't choose to hear a friend run down for nothing," declared Laura. + +"A friend? How very chivalrous you are! Come, Maud dear." + +"Good-bye, Laura," said Maud. "I'm sure you'll be sorry when you come to +think." + +"No, I shan't. I----" + +"There!" said Isabel. "I do not care to be insulted any more." + +The two visitors swept out, and Laura was left alone. Whereupon she +began to cry. "I do hate that sort of vulgarity," said she, mopping her +eyes. "I don't believe he ever thought----" + +Mrs. Pocklington entered in urbane majesty. "Well, is Isabel pleased +with her little man?" she asked. "Why, child, what's the matter?" + +"Nothing," said Laura. + +"You're crying." + +"No, I'm not. Those girls have been horrid." + +"What about?" + +"Oh, the engagement, and----" + +"And what?" + +"And poor Mr. Neston--George Neston." + +"Oh, poor George Neston. What did they say?" + +"Isabel pretended he had been in love with her, and--and was in love +with her, and that she had refused him." + +"Oh, and that made you cry?" + +"No--not that----" + +"What, then?" + +"Oh, please, mamma!" + +Mrs. Pocklington smiled. "Stop crying, my dear. It used to suit me, but +it doesn't suit you. Stop, dear." + +"Very well, mamma," said poor Laura, thinking it a little hard that she +might not even cry. + +"Did you cry before the girls?" + +"No," said Laura, with emphasis. + +"Good child," said Mrs. Pocklington. "Now, listen to me. You're never to +think of him again----" + +"Mamma!" + +"Till I tell you." + +"Ah!" + +"A tiresome, meddlesome fellow. Is your father in, Laura?" + +"Yes, dear. Are you going to see him about----?" + +"Why, you're as bad as Isabel!" said Mrs. Pocklington, with feigned +severity, disengaging Laura's arms from her neck. "He's never asked you +either!" + +"No, dear; but----" + +"The vanity of these children! There, let me go; and for goodness' sake, +don't be a cry-baby, Laura. Men hate water-bottles." + +Thus mingling consolation and reproof, Mrs. Pocklington took her way to +her husband's study. + +"I want five minutes, Robert," she said, sitting down. + +"It's worth a thousand pounds a minute, my dear," said Mr. Pocklington, +genially, laying down his pipe and his papers. "What with this +strike----" + +"Strike!" said Mrs. Pocklington with indignation. "Why do you let them +strike, Robert?" + +"I can't help it. They want more money." + +"Nonsense! They want to be taught their Catechisms. But I didn't come to +talk about that." + +"I'm sorry you didn't, my dear. Your views are refreshing." + +"Robert, Laura's got a fancy in her head about young George Neston." + +"Oh!" + +"'Oh!' doesn't tell me much." + +"Well, you know all about him." + +"He's a very excellent young man. Not rich." + +"A pauper?" + +"No. Enough." + +"All right. If you're satisfied, I am. But hasn't he been making a fool +of himself about some woman?" + +"Really, Robert, how strangely you express yourself! I suppose you mean +about Neaera Witt?" + +"Yes, that's it. I heard some rumour." + +"Heard some rumour! Of course you read every word about it, and gossiped +over it at the Club and the House. Now, haven't you?" + +"Perhaps I have," her husband admitted. "I think he's a young fool." + +"Am I to consider it an obstacle?" + +"Well, what do you think yourself?" + +"It's your business. Men know about that sort of thing." + +"Is the child--eh?" + +"Yes, rather." + +"And he?" + +"Oh, yes, or will be very soon, when he sees she is." + +"Poor little Lally!" said Mr. Pocklington. Then he sat and pondered. "It +is an obstacle," he said at last. + +"Ah!" said his wife. + +"He must put himself right." + +"Do you mean, prove what he says?" + +"Well, at any rate, show he had good excuse for saying it." + +"I think it's a little hard. But it's for you to decide." + +Mr. Pocklington nodded. + +"Then, that's settled," said Mrs. Pocklington. "It's a great comfort, +Robert, to have a man who knows his mind on the premises." + +"Be gentle with her," said he, and returned to the strike. + +The other parties to the encounter over George's merits had by a natural +impulse taken themselves to Neaera Witt's, with the hope of being +thanked for their holy zeal. They were disappointed, for, on arriving at +Albert Mansions, they were informed that Neaera, although returned from +Liverpool, was not visible. "Mr. Neston has been waiting over an hour +to see her, miss," said Neaera's highly respectable handmaid, "but she +won't leave her room." + +Gerald heard their voices, and came out. + +"I can't think what's the matter," he said. + +"Oh, I suppose the journey has knocked her up," suggested Isabel. + +"Are you going to wait, Gerald?" asked Maud. + +"Well, no. The fact is, she sent me a message to go away." + +"Then come home with me," said Isabel, "and we will try to console you." +Gerald would enjoy their tale quite as much as Neaera. + +Low spirits are excusable in persons who are camping on an active +volcano, and Neaera felt that this was very much her position. At any +moment she might be blown into space, her pleasant dreams shattered, +her champions put to shame, and herself driven for ever from the only +place in life she cared to occupy. Her abasement was pitiful, and her +penitence, being born merely of defeat, offers no basis of edification. +She had serious thoughts of running away; for she did not think she +could face Gerald's wrath, or, worse still, his grief. He would cast +her off, and society would cast her off, and those dreadful papers would +turn their thunders against her. She might have consoled herself for +banishment from society with Gerald's love, or, perhaps, for loss of his +love with the triumphs of society; but she would lose both, and have not +a soul in the whole world to speak to except that hateful Mrs. Bort. +So she sat and dolefully mused, with the tailless cat, that gift of +a friendly gaoler at Peckton prison, purring on the rug before her, +unconsciously personifying an irrevocable past and a future emptied of +delight. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +CONTAINING MORE THAN ONE ULTIMATUM. + + +It was fortunate that Mr. Blodwell was not very busy on Saturday +morning, or he might have resented the choice of his chambers for a +council, and not been mollified by being asked to take part in the +deliberations. At eleven o'clock in the morning, Gerald Neston arrived, +accompanied by Sidmouth Vane and Mr. Lionel Fitzderham, who was, in +the first place, Mrs. Pocklington's brother, and, in the second place, +chairman of the committee of the Themis Club. + +"We have come, sir," said Gerald, "to ask you to use your influence with +George. His conduct is past endurance." + +"Anything new?" asked Mr. Blodwell. + +"No, that's just it. This is Saturday. I'm to be married on Monday +week; and George does nothing." + +"What do you want him to do?" + +"Why, to acknowledge himself wrong, as he can't prove himself right." + +Mr. Blodwell looked at Fitzderham. + +"Yes," said the latter. "It can't stay as it is. The lady must be +cleared, if she can't be proved guilty. We arrived clearly at that +conclusion." + +"We?" + +"The committee of the Themis." + +"Oh, ah, yes. And you, Vane?" + +"I concur," said Vane, briefly. "I've backed George up to now: but I +agree he must do one thing or the other." + +"Well, gentlemen, I suppose you're right. Only, if he won't?" + +"Then we shall take action," said Fitzderham. + +"So shall I," said Gerald. + +Vane shrugged his shoulders. + +Mr. Blodwell rang the bell. + +"Is Mr. George in, Timms?" he asked. + +"Yes, sir; just arrived." + +"Ask him to step in to me, if he will. I don't see," he continued, "why +you shouldn't settle it with him. I've nothing to do with it, thank +God." + +George entered. He was surprised to see the deputation, but addressed +himself exclusively to Blodwell. + +"Here I am, sir. What is it?" + +"These gentlemen," said Mr. Blodwell, "think that the time has come for +you to withdraw your allegations or to prove them." + +"You see, George," said Vane, "it's not fair to leave Mrs. Witt under +this indefinite stigma." + +"Far from it," said Fitzderham. + +George stood with his back against the mantel-piece. "I quite agree," he +said. "Let's see--to-day's Saturday. When is the wedding, if there----?" + +"Monday week," said Blodwell, hastily, fearing an explosion from Gerald. + +"Very well. On Tuesday----" + +"A telegram for you, sir," said Timms, entering. + +"Excuse me," said George. + +He opened and read his telegram. It ran, "Yes--my handwriting. Will +return by next post registered--Horne, Bournemouth." + +"On Monday," continued George, "at five o'clock in the afternoon, I will +prove all I said, or withdraw it." + +Gerald looked uneasy, but he tried to think, or at least to appear to +think, that George's delay was only to make his surrender less abrupt. + +"Very well! Shall we meet here?" + +"No," said Gerald. "Mrs. Witt ought to be present." + +"Is that desirable?" asked George. + +"Of course it is." + +"As you please. I should say not. But ask her, and be guided by her +wishes." + +"Well, then, at Lord Tottlebury's?" suggested Vane. + +"By all means," said George. And, with a slight nod, he left the room. + +"I hope," said Mr. Blodwell, "that you have done well in forcing matters +to an extremity." + +"Couldn't help it," said Vane, briefly. + +And the council broke up. + +Mrs. Horne's telegram made George's position complete. It was impossible +for Neaera to struggle against such evidence, and his triumph was +assured from the moment when he produced the original document and +contrasted it with Neaera's doctored copy. Besides, Mrs. Bort was in the +background, if necessary; and although an impulse of pity had led him +to shield Neaera at Liverpool, he was in no way debarred by that from +summoning Mrs. Bort to his assistance if he wanted her. The Neston +honour was safe, an impostor exposed, and the cause of morality, +respectability, truth, and decency powerfully forwarded. Above all, +George himself was enabled to rout his enemies, to bring a blush to the +unblushing cheek of the _Bull's-eye_, and to meet his friends without +feeling that perhaps they were ashamed to be seen talking to him. + +The delights of the last-mentioned prospect were so great, that George +could not make up his mind to postpone them, and, in the afternoon, he +set out to call on the Pocklingtons. There could be no harm in giving +them at least a hint of the altered state of his fortunes, due, as it +was in reality, to Mrs. Pocklington's kindness in presenting him to +Lord Mapledurham. It would certainly be very pleasant to prove to the +Pocklingtons, especially to Laura Pocklington, that they had been +justified in standing by him, and that he was entitled, not to the +good-natured tolerance accorded to honesty, but to the admiration due +to success. + +In matters of love, at least, George Neston cannot be presented as an +ideal hero. Heroes unite the discordant attributes of violence and +constancy: George had displayed neither. Isabel Bourne had satisfied +his judgment without stirring his blood. When she presumed to be so +ill-advised as to side against him, he resigned, without a pang, a +prospect that had become almost a habit. Easily and insensibly the +pretty image of Laura Pocklington had filled the vacant space. As he +wended his way to Mrs. Pocklington's, he smiled to think that a month or +two ago he had looked forward to a life spent with Isabel Bourne with +acquiescence, though not, it is true, with rapture. Had the rapture +existed before, it is sad to think that perhaps the smile would have +been broader now; for love, when born in trepidation and nursed +in joy, is often buried without lamentation and remembered with +amusement--kindly, even tender amusement, but still amusement. An +easy-going fancy like George's for Isabel cannot claim even the tribute +of a tear behind the smile--a tear which, by its presence, causes yet +another smile. George was not even grateful to Isabel for a pleasant +dream and a gentle awakening. She was gone; and, what is more, she ought +never to have come: and there was an end of it. + +George, having buried Isabel, rang the bell with a composed mind. He +might ask Laura Pocklington to marry him to-day, or he might not. He +would be guided by circumstances in that matter: but at any rate he +would ask her, and that soon; for she was the only girl he could ever +be happy with, and, if he dawdled, his chance might be gone. Of course +there was a crowd of suitors at her feet, and, although George had no +unduly modest view of his own claims, he felt it behoved him to be up +and doing. It is true that the crowd of suitors was not very much in +evidence, but who could doubt its existence without questioning the +sanity and eyesight of mankind? + +As it so chanced, however, George did not see Laura. He saw Mrs. +Pocklington, and that lady at once led the conversation to the insistent +topic of Neaera Witt. George could not help letting fall a hint of his +approaching victory. + +"Poor woman!" said Mrs. Pocklington. "But, for your sake, I'm very +glad." + +"Yes, it gets me out of an awkward position." + +"Just what my husband said. He thought that you were absolutely bound to +prove what you said, or at least to give a good excuse for it." + +"Absolutely bound?" + +"Well, I mean if you were to keep your place in society." + +"And in your house?" + +"Oh, he did not go so far as that. Everybody comes to my house." + +"Yes; but, Mrs. Pocklington, I don't want to come in the capacity of +'everybody.'" + +"Then, I think he did mean that you must do what I say, before you went +on coming in any other capacity." + +George looked at Mrs. Pocklington. Mrs. Pocklington smiled +diplomatically. + +"Is Miss Pocklington out?" asked George. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Pocklington, "she is out." + +"Not back soon?" asked George, smiling in his turn. + +"Not yet." + +"Not until----?" + +"Well, Mr. Neston, I dare say you know what I mean." + +"I think so. Fortunately, there is no difficulty. Shall we say Tuesday?" + +"When Tuesday comes, we will see if we say Tuesday." + +"And, otherwise, I am----?" + +"Otherwise, my dear George, you have no one to persuade except----" + +"Ah, that is the most difficult task of all." + +"I don't know anything about that. Only I hope you believe what you say. +Young men are so conceited nowadays." + +"When Miss Pocklington comes in, you will tell her how sorry I was not +to see her?" + +"Certainly." + +"And that I look forward to Tuesday?" + +"No; I shall say nothing about that. You are not out of the wood yet." + +"Oh yes, I am." + +But Mrs. Pocklington stood firm; and George departed, feeling that the +last possibility of mercy for Neaera Witt had vanished. There is a limit +to unselfishness; nay, what place is there for pity when public duty and +private interest unite in demanding just severity? + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +NEAERA'S LAST CARD. + + +Neaera Witt had one last card to play. Alas, how great the stake, and +how slight the chance! Still she would play it. If it failed, she would +only drink a little deeper of humiliation, and be trampled a little more +contemptuously under foot. What did that matter? + +"You will not condemn a woman unheard," she wrote, with a touch of +melodrama. "I expect you here on Sunday evening at nine. You cannot be +so hard as not to come." + +George had written that he would come, but that his determination +was unchangeable. "I must come, as you ask me," he said; "but it is +useless--worse than useless." Still he would come. + +Bill Sykes likes to be tried in a black coat, and draggle-tailed Sal +smooths her tangled locks before she enters the dock. Who can doubt, +though it be not recorded, that the burghers of Calais, cruelly +restricted to their shirts, donned their finest linen to face King +Edward and his Queen, or that the Inquisitors were privileged to behold +many a robe born to triumph on a different stage? And so Neaera Witt +adorned herself to meet George Neston with subtle simplicity. Her own +ill-chastened taste, fed upon popular engravings, hankered after black +velvet, plainly made in clinging folds; but she fancied that the motive +would be too obvious for an eye so _rusé_ as George's, and reluctantly +surrendered her picture of a second Queen of Scots. White would be +better; white could cling as well as black, and would so mingle +suggestions of remorse and innocence that surely he could not be +hard-hearted enough to draw the distinction. A knot of flowers, destined +to be plucked to pieces by agitated hands--so much conventional emotion +she could not deny herself,--a dress cut low, and open sleeves made +to fall back when the white arms were upstretched for pity,--all this +should make a combined assault on George's higher nature and on his +lower. Neaera thought that, if only she had been granted time and money +to dress properly, she might never have seen the inside of Peckton gaol +at all; for even lawyers are human, or, if that be disputed, let us say +not superhuman. + +George came in with all the awkwardness of an Englishman who hates a +scene and feels himself a fool for his awkwardness. Neaera motioned him +to a chair, and they sat silent for a moment. + +"You sent for me, Mrs. Witt?" + +"Yes," said Neaera, looking at the fire. Then, with a sudden turn of her +eyes upon him, she added, "It was only--to thank you." + +"I'm afraid you have little enough to thank me for." + +"Yes; your kindness at Liverpool." + +"Oh, it seemed the best way out. I hope you pardon the liberty I took?" + +"And for an earlier kindness of yours." + +"I really----" + +"Yes, yes. When they gave me that money you sent, I cried. I could not +cry in prison, but I cried then. It was the first time any one had ever +been kind to me." + +George was embarrassed. He had an uneasy feeling that the sentiment was +trite; but, then, many of the saddest things are the tritest. + +"It is good of you," he said, stumbling in his words, "to remember it, +in face of all I have done against you." + +"You pitied me then." + +"With all my heart." + +"How did I do it? How did I? I wish I had starved; and seen my father +starve first!" + +George wondered whether it was food that the late Mr. Gale so urgently +needed. + +"But I did it. I was a thief; and once a thief, always a thief." And +Neaera smiled a sad smile. + +"You must not suppose," he said, as he had once before, "that I do not +make allowances." + +"Allowances?" she cried, starting up. "Allowances--always allowances! +never pity! never mercy! never forgetfulness!" + +"You did not ask for mercy," said George. + +"No, I didn't. I know what you mean--I lied." + +"Yes, you lied, if you choose that word. You garbled documents, and, +when the truth was told, you called it slander." + +Neaera had sunk back in her seat again. "Yes," she moaned. "I couldn't +let it all go--I couldn't!" + +"You yourself have made pity impossible." + +"Oh no, not impossible! I loved him so, and he--he was so trustful." + +"The more reason for not deceiving him," said George, grimly. + +"What is it, after all?" she exclaimed, changing her tone. "What is it, +I say?" + +"Well, if you ask me, Mrs. Witt, it's an awkward record." + +"An awkward record! Yes, but for a man in love?" + +"That's Gerald's look-out. He can do as he pleases." + +"What, after you have put me to open shame? And for what? Because I +loved my father most, and loved my--the man who loved me--most!" George +shook his head. + +"If you were in love--in love, I say, with a girl--yes, if you were in +love with me, would this thing stop you?" And she stood before him +proudly and scornfully. + +George looked at her. "I don't think it would," he said. + +"Then," she asked, advancing a step, and stretching out her clasped +hands, "why ask more for another than for yourself?" + +"Gerald will be the head of the family, to begin with----" + +"The family?" + +"Certainly; the Neston family." + +"Who are they? Are they famous? I never heard of them till the other +day." + +"I daresay not; we moved in rather different circles." + +"Do you take pleasure in being brutal?" + +"I take pleasure in nothing connected with this confounded affair," said +George, impatiently. + +"Then why not drop it?" + +George shook his head. + +"Too late," he said. + +"It's mere selfishness. You are only thinking of what people will say of +you." + +"I have a right to consider that." + +"It's mean--mean and heartless!" + +George rose. "Really, it's no use going on with this," said he. And, +making a slight bow, he turned towards the door. + +"I didn't mean it--I didn't mean it," cried Neaera. "But I am out of my +mind. Ah, have pity on me!" And she flung herself on the floor, right in +his path. + +George felt very absurd. He stood, his hat in one hand, his stick and +gloves in the other, while Neaera clasped his legs below the knee, and, +he feared, was about to bedew his boots with her tears. + +"This is tragedy, I suppose," he thought. "How the devil am I to get +away?" + +"I have never had a chance," Neaera went on, "never. Ah, it is hard! And +when at last----" Her voice choked, and George, to his horror, heard her +sob. + +He nervously shifted his feet about, as well as Neaera's eager clutches +would allow him. How he wished he had not come! + +"I cannot bear it!" she cried. "They will all write about me, and jeer +at me; and Gerald will cast me off. Where shall I hide?--where shall I +hide? What was it to you?" + +Then she was silent, but George heard her stifled weeping. Her clasp +relaxed, and she fell forward, with her face on the floor, in front of +him. He did not seize his chance of escape. + +"London is uninhabitable to me, if I do as you ask," he said. + +She looked up, the tears escaping from her eyes. + +"Ah, and the world to me, if you don't!" + +George sat down in an arm-chair; he abandoned the hope of running away. +Neaera rose, pushed back her hair from her face, and fixed her eyes +eagerly on him. He looked down for an instant, and she shot a hasty +glance at the mirror, and then concentrated her gaze on him again, a +little anxious smile coming to her lips. + +"You will?" she asked in a whisper. + +George petulantly threw his gloves on a table near him. Neaera advanced, +and knelt down beside him, laying her hand on his shoulder. + +"You have made me cry so much," she said. "See, my eyes are dim. You +won't make me cry any more?" + +George looked at the bright eyes, half veiled in tears, and the mouth +trembling on the brink of fresh weeping. And the eyes and mouth were +very good. + +"It is Gerald," she said; "he is so strict. And the shame, the shame!" + +"You don't know what it means to me." + +"I do indeed: I know it is hard. But you are generous. No, no, don't +turn your face away!" + +George still sat silent. Neaera took his hand in hers. + +"Ah, do!" she said. + +George smiled,--at himself, not at Neaera. + +"Well, don't cry any more," said he, "or the eyes will be red as well as +dim." + +"You will, you will?" she whispered eagerly. + +He nodded. + +"Ah, you are good! God bless you, George: you are good!" + +"No. I am only weak." + +Neaera swiftly bent and kissed his hand. "The hand that gives me life," +she said. + +"Nonsense," said George, rather roughly. + +"Will you clear me altogether?" + +"Oh yes; everything or nothing," + +"Will you give me that--that character?" + +"Yes." + +She seized his reluctant hand, and kissed it again. + +"I have your word?" + +"You have." + +She leapt up, suddenly radiant. + +"Ah, George, Cousin George, how I love you! Where is it?" + +George took the document out of his pocket. + +Neaera seized it. "Light a candle," she cried. + +George with an amused smile obeyed her. + +"You hold the candle, and I will burn it!" And she watched the paper +consumed with the look of a gleeful child. Then she suddenly stretched +her arms. "Oh, I am tired!" + +"Poor child!" said George. "You can leave it to me now." + +"However shall I repay you? I never can." Then she suddenly saw the cat, +ran to him, and picked him up. "We are forgiven, Bob! we are forgiven!" +she cried, dancing about the room. + +George watched her with amusement. + +She put the cat down and came to him. "See, you have made me happy. Is +that enough?" + +"It is something," said he. + +"And here is something more!" And she threw her arms round his neck, and +kissed him. + +"That's better," said George. "Any more?" + +"Not till we are cousins." + +"Be gentle in your triumph." + +"No, no; don't talk like that. Are you going?" + +"Yes. I must go and put things straight." + +"Good-bye. I--I hope you won't find it very hard." + +"I have been paid in advance." + +Neaera blushed a little. + +"You shall be better paid, if ever I can," she said. + +George paused outside, to light a cigarette; then he struck into the +park, and walked slowly along, meditating as he went. When he arrived at +Hyde Park Corner, he roused himself from his reverie. + +"Now the woman was very fair!" said he, as he hailed a hansom. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +A LETTER FOR MR. GERALD. + + +Mrs. Pocklington sat with blank amazement in her face, and a copy of the +second edition of the _Bull's-eye_ in her hand. On the middle page, in +type widely spaced, beneath a noble headline, appeared a letter from +George Neston, running thus:-- + + "To the Editor of the _Bull's-eye_. + + "SIR, + + "As you have been good enough to interest yourself, and, I hope, + fortunate enough to interest your readers, in the subject of + certain allegations made by me in respect of a lady whose name has + been mentioned in your columns, I have the honour to inform you + that such allegations were entirely baseless, the result of a + chance resemblance between that lady and another person, and of my + own hasty conclusions drawn therefrom. I have withdrawn all my + assertions, fully and unreservedly, and have addressed apologies + for them to those who had a right to receive apologies. + + "I have the honour to be, sir, + "Your obedient servant, + "GEORGE NESTON." + +And then a column of exultation, satire, ridicule, preaching, praying, +prophesying, moralising, and what not. The pen flew with wings of joy, +and ink was nothing regarded on that day. + +Mrs. Pocklington was a kind-hearted woman; yet, when she read a sister's +vindication, she found nothing better to say than-- + +"How very provoking!" + +And it may be that this unregenerate exclamation fairly summed up public +feeling, if only public feeling had been indecent enough to show itself +openly. A man shown to be a fool is altogether too common a spectacle; +a woman of fashion proved a thief would have been a more piquant dish. +But in this world--and, indeed, probably in any other--we must take +what we can get; and since society could not trample on Neaera Witt, it +consoled itself by correcting and chastening the misguided spirit of +George Neston. Tommy Myles shook his empty little head, and all the +other empty heads shook solemnly in time. Isabel Bourne said she knew +she was right, and Sidmouth Vane thought there must be something +behind--he always did, as became a statesman in the raw. Mr. Espion +re-echoed his own leaders, like a phonograph; and the chairman of the +Themis thanked Heaven they were out of an awkward job. + +But wrath and fury raged in the breast of Laura Pocklington. She thought +George had made a fool of her. He had persuaded her to come over to his +side, and had then betrayed the colours. There would be joy in Gath and +Askelon; or, in other words, Isabel Bourne and Maud Neston would crow +over her insupportably. + +"I will never see him or speak to him again, mamma," Laura declared, +passionately. "He has behaved abominably!" + +This announcement rather took the wind out of Mrs. Pocklington's sails. +She was just preparing to bear majestically down upon her daughter with +a stern _ultimatum_ to the effect that, for the present, George must be +kept at a distance, and daughters must be guided by their mothers. At +certain moments nothing is more annoying than to meet with agreement, +when one intends to extort submission. + +"Good gracious, Laura!" said Mrs. Pocklington, "you can't care much for +the man." + +"Care for him! I detest him!" + +"My dear, it hardly looked like it." + +"You must allow me some self-respect, mamma." + +Mr. Pocklington, entering, overheard these words. "Hallo!" said he. +"What's the matter?" + +"Why, my dear, Laura declares that she will have nothing to say to +George Neston." + +"Well, that's just your own view, isn't it?" A silence ensued. "It seems +to me you are agreed." + +It really did look like it; but they had been on the verge of a pretty +quarrel all the same: and Mr. Pocklington was confirmed in the opinion +he had lately begun to entertain that, when paradoxes of mental process +are in question, there is in truth not much to choose between wives and +daughters. + +Meanwhile, George Neston was steadily and unflinchingly devouring his +humble-pie. He sought and obtained Gerald's forgiveness, after half an +hour of grovelling abasement. He listened to Tommy Myles's grave rebuke +and Sidmouth Vane's cynical raillery without a smile or a tear. He even +brought himself to accept with docility a letter full of Christian +feeling which Isabel Bourne was moved to write. + +All these things, in fact, affected him little in comparison with the +great question of his relations with the Pocklingtons. That, he felt, +must be settled at once, and, with his white sheet yet round him and his +taper still in his hand, he went to call on Mrs. Pocklington. + +He found that lady in an attitude of aggressive tranquillity. With +careful ostentation she washed her hands of the whole affair. Left to +her own way, she might have been inclined to consider that George's +foolish recklessness had been atoned for by his manly retractation--or, +on the other hand, she might not. It mattered very little which would +have been the case; and, if it comforted him, he was at liberty to +suppose that she would have embraced the former opinion. The decision +did not lie with her. Let him ask Laura and Laura's father. They had +made up their minds, and it was not in her province or power to try +to change their minds for them. In fact, Mrs. Pocklington took up the +position which Mr. Spenlow has made famous--only she had two partners +where Mr. Spenlow had but one. George had a shrewd idea that her +neutrality covered a favourable inclination towards himself, and thanked +her warmly for not ranking herself among his enemies. + +"I am even emboldened," he said, "to ask your advice how I can best +overcome Miss Pocklington's adverse opinion." + +"Laura thinks you have made her look foolish. You see, she took your +cause up rather warmly." + +"I know. She was most generous." + +"You were so very confident." + +"Yes; but one little thing at the end tripped me up. I couldn't have +foreseen it. Mrs. Pocklington, do you think she will be very obdurate?" + +"Oh, I've nothing to do with it. Don't ask me." + +"I wish I could rely on your influence." + +"I haven't any influence," declared Mrs. Pocklington. "She's as +obstinate as a--as resolute as her father." + +George rose to go. He was rather disheartened; the price he had to pay +for the luxury of generosity seemed very high. + +Mrs. Pocklington was moved to pity. "George," she said, "I feel like a +traitor, but I will give you one little bit of advice." + +"Ah!" cried George, his face brightening. "What is it, my dear Mrs. +Pocklington?" + +"As to my husband, I say nothing; but as to Laura----" + +"Yes, yes!" + +"Let her alone--absolutely." + +"Let her alone! But that's giving it up." + +"Don't call, don't write, don't be known to speak of her. There, I've +done what I oughtn't; but you're an old friend of mine, George." + +"But I say, Mrs. Pocklington, won't some other fellow seize the chance?" + +"If she likes you best, what does that matter? If she doesn't----" And +Mrs. Pocklington shrugged her shoulders. + +George was convinced by this logic. "I will try," he said. + +"Try?" + +"Yes, try to let her alone. But it's difficult." + +"Stuff and nonsense. Laura isn't indispensable." + +"I know those are not your real views." + +"You're not her mother; for which you may thank Heaven." + +"I do," said George, and took his leave, rather consoled. He would have +been even more cheerful had he known that Laura's door was ajar, and +Laura was listening for the bang of the hall door. When she heard it, +she went down to her mother. + +"Who was your visitor, mamma?" + +"Oh, George Neston." + +"What did _he_ come about?" + +"Well, my dear, to see me, I suppose." + +"And what did he find to say for himself?" + +"Oh, we hardly talked about that affair at all. However, he seems in +very good spirits." + +"I'm sure he has no business to be." + +"Perhaps not, my dear; but he was." + +"I didn't know it was Mr. Neston. I'm so glad I didn't come down." + +Mrs. Pocklington went on knitting. + +"I expect he knew why." + +Mrs. Pocklington counted three pearl and three plain. + +"Did he say anything about it, mamma?" + +"One, two, three. About what, dear?" + +"Why, about--about my not coming?" + +"No. I suppose he thought you were out." + +"Did you tell him so?" + +"He didn't ask, my dear. He has other things to think about than being +attentive to young women." + +"It's very lucky he has," said Laura, haughtily. + +"My dear, he lets you alone. Why can't you let him alone?" + +Laura took up a book, and Mrs. Pocklington counted her stitches in a +brisk and cheerful tone. + +It will be seen that George had a good friend in Mrs. Pocklington. In +truth he needed some kindly countenance, for society at large had gone +mad in praise of Neaera and Gerald. They were the fashion. Everybody +tried to talk to them; everybody was coming to the wedding; everybody +raved about Neaera's sweet patience and Gerald's unwavering faith. When +Neaera drove her lover round the park in her victoria, their journey was +a triumphal progress; and only the burden of preparing for the wedding +prevented the pair being honoured guests at every select gathering. +Gerald walked on air. His open hopes were realised, his secret fears +laid to rest; while Neaera's exaggerated excuses for George betrayed +to his eyes nothing but the exceeding sweetness of her disposition. +Her absolute innocence explained and justified her utter absence of +resentment, and must, Gerald felt, add fresh pangs to George's remorse +and shame. These pangs Gerald did not feel it his duty to mitigate. + +Thursday came, and Monday was the wedding-day. The atmosphere was thick +with new clothes, cards of invitation, presents, and congratulations. A +thorny question had arisen as to whether George should be invited. +Neaera's decision was in his favour, and Gerald himself had written the +note, hoping all the while that his cousin's own good sense would keep +him away. + +"It would be hardly decent in him to come," he said to his father. + +"I daresay he will make some excuse," answered Lord Tottlebury. "But I +hope you won't keep up the quarrel." + +"Keep up the quarrel! By Jove, father, I'm too happy to quarrel." + +"Gerald," said Maud Neston, entering, "here's such a funny letter for +you! I wonder it ever reached." + +She held out a dirty envelope, and read the address-- + + "_Mr. Nesston, Esq._, + "_His Lordship Tottilberry_, + "_London._" + +"Who in the world is it?" asked Maud, laughing. + +Gerald had no secrets. + +"I don't know," said he. "Give it me, and we'll see." He opened the +letter. The first thing he came upon was a piece of tissue paper neatly +folded. Opening it, he found it to be a ten-pound note. "Hullo! is this +a wedding present?" said he with a laugh. + +"Ten pounds! How funny!" exclaimed Maud. "Is there no letter?" + +"Yes, here's a letter!" And Gerald read it to himself. + +The letter ran as follows, saving certain eccentricities of spelling +which need not be reproduced:-- + + "SIR, + + "I don't rightly know whether this here is your money or Nery's. + Nor I don't know _where it comes from_, after what you said when + you was here with her Friday. I can work for my living, thanks be + to Him to whom thanks is due, and I don't put money in my pocket + as I don't know whose pocket it come out of. + + "Your humble servant, + "SUSAN BORT." + +"Susan Bort!" exclaimed Gerald. "Now, who the deuce is Susan Bort, and +what the deuce does she mean?" + +"Unless you tell us what she says----" began Lord Tottlebury. + +Gerald read the letter again, with a growing feeling of uneasiness. He +noticed that the postmark was Liverpool. It so chanced that he had not +been to Liverpool for more than a year. And who was Susan Bort? + +He got up, and, making an apology for not reading out his letter, went +to his own room to consider the matter. + +"'Nery?'" said he. "And if I wasn't there, who was?" + +It was generous of George Neston to shield Neaera at Liverpool. It was +also generous of Neaera to send Mrs. Bort ten pounds immediately after +that lady had treated her so cruelly. It was honest of Mrs. Bort to +refuse to accept money which she thought might be the proceeds of +burglary. To these commendable actions Gerald was indebted for the +communication which disturbed his bliss. + +"I wonder if Neaera can throw any light on it," said Gerald. "It's very +queer. After lunch, I'll go and see her." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THERE IS AN EXPLOSION. + + +Mr. Blodwell was entertaining Lord Mapledurham at luncheon at the Themis +Club. The Marquis was not in an agreeable mood. He was ill, and when he +was ill he was apt to be cross. His host's calm satisfaction with the +issue of the Neston affair irritated him. + +"Really, Blodwell," he said, "I sometimes think a lawyer's wig is like +Samson's hair. When he takes it off, he takes off all his wits with it. +Your simplicity is positively childish." + +Mr. Blodwell gurgled contentedly over a basin of soup. + +"I think no evil unless I'm paid for it," he said, wiping his mouth. +"George found he was wrong, and said so." + +"I saw the girl in the Park yesterday," the Marquis remarked. "She's a +pretty girl." + +"Uncommonly. But I'm not aware that being pretty makes a girl a thief." + +"No, but it makes a man a fool." + +"My dear Mapledurham!" + +"Did he ever tell you what he found out at Liverpool?" + +"Did he go to Liverpool?" + +"Did he go? God bless the man! Of course he went, to look for----" + +Lord Mapledurham stopped, to see who was throwing a shadow over his +plate. + +"May I join you?" asked Sidmouth Vane, who thought he was conferring a +privilege. "I'm interested in what you are discussing." + +"Oh, it's you, is it? Have you been listening?" + +"No, but everybody's discussing it. Now, I agree with you, Lord +Mapledurham. It's a put-up job." + +"I expect you thought it was a put-up job when they baptised you, didn't +you?" inquired the Marquis. + +"And looked for poison in your bottle?" added Blodwell. + +Vane gently waved his hand, as if to scatter these clumsy sarcasms. "A +man may not be sixty and yet not be an ass," he languidly observed. +"Waiter, some salmon, and a pint of 44." + +"And may be sixty and yet be an ass, eh?" said the Marquis, chuckling. + +"Among ourselves, why do you suppose he let her off?" asked Vane. + +The Marquis pushed back his chair. "My young friend, you are too wise. +Something will happen to you." + +"Hallo!" exclaimed Vane, "here's Gerald Neston." + +Gerald came hastily up to Mr. Blodwell. "Do you know where George is?" +he asked. + +"I believe he's in the club somewhere," answered Mr. Blodwell. + +"No, he isn't. I want to see him on business." + +Lord Mapledurham rose. "I know your father, Mr. Neston," he said. "You +must allow me to shake hands with you, and congratulate you on your +approaching marriage." + +Gerald received his congratulations with an absent air. "I must go and +find George," he said, and went out. + +"There!" said Vane, triumphantly. "Don't you see there's something up +now?" + +The elder men tried to snub him, but they glanced at one another and +silently admitted that it looked as if he were right. + +Mrs. Bort's letter had stirred into activity all the doubts that Gerald +Neston had tried to stifle, and had at last succeeded in silencing. +There was a darkly mysterious tone about the document that roused his +suspicions. Either there was a new and a more unscrupulous plot against +his bride, or else---- Gerald did not finish his train of thought, +but he determined to see Neaera at once, as George could not be found +without a journey to the Temple, and a journey to the Temple was twice +as far as a journey to Albert Mansions. Nevertheless, had Gerald known +what was happening at the Temple, he would have gone there first; for in +George's chambers, at that very moment, George was sitting in his chair, +gazing blankly at Neaera Witt, who was walking restlessly up and down. + +"You sent her ten pounds?" he gasped. + +"Yes, yes," said Neaera. "I can't let the creature starve." + +"But why in the world did she send it back to Gerald?" + +"Oh, can't you see? Why, you said you were Gerald; at least, it came to +that." + +"And she meant to send it to me?" + +"Yes, but I had told her my Mr. Neston was Lord Tottlebury's son; so I +suppose the letter has gone to Gerald. It must have, if you haven't got +it." + +"But why should she send it to either of us?" + +"Oh, because I said I sent it with Mr. Neston's approval." + +"That wasn't true." + +"Of course not. But it sounded better." + +"Ah, it's dangerous work." + +"I should never have done it, if I had foreseen this." + +George knew that this represented Neaera's extreme achievement in +penitence, and did not press the question. + +"What a wretch the woman is," Neaera continued. "Oh, what is to be done? +Gerald is sure to ask for an explanation." + +"Quite possible, I should think." + +"Well, then, I am lost." + +"You'd better tell him all about it." + +"I can't; indeed I can't. You won't, will you? Oh, you will stand by +me?" + +"I don't know what Mrs. Bort has said, and so----" + +He was interrupted by a knock at the door. George rose and opened it. +"What is it, Timms?" + +"Mr. Gerald, sir, wants to see you on important business." + +"Is he in his room?" + +"Yes, sir. I told him you were engaged." + +"You didn't tell him Mrs. Witt was here?" + +"No, sir." + +"Say I'll be with him in a few minutes." + +George shut the door, and said, "Gerald's here, and wants to see me." + +"Gerald! Then he has got the letter!" + +"What do you propose to do, Mrs. Witt?" + +"How can I tell? I don't know what she said. She only told me she had +sent back the money, and told him why." + +"If she told him why----" + +"I'm ruined," said Neaera, wringing her hands. + +George stood with his back to the fireplace, and regarded her +critically. After a moment's pause, he said, with a smile, + +"I knew it all--and you were not ruined." + +"Ah, you are so good!" + +"Nonsense," said George, with a broader smile. + +Neaera looked up at him, and smiled too. + +"Mightn't you risk it? Of course, truth is dangerous, but he's very fond +of you." + +"Won't you help me?" + +A heavy step and the sound of impatient pushing of furniture were heard +from the next room. + +"Gerald is getting tired of waiting," said George. + +"Won't you do anything?" asked Neaera again, barely repressing a sob. + +"Supposing I were willing to lie, where is a possible lie? How can I +explain it?" + +Timms knocked and entered. Gerald begged for a minute's interview, on +pressing business. + +"In a moment," said George. Then, turning to Neaera, he added brusquely, +"Come, you must decide, Mrs. Witt." + +Neaera was no longer in a condition to decide anything. Tears were her +ready refuge in time of trouble, and she was picturesquely weeping--for +she possessed that rare gift--in the old leathern arm-chair. + +"Will you leave it to me?" asked George. "I'll do the best I can." + +Neaera sobbed forth the opinion that George was her only friend. + +"I shall tell him everything," said George. "Do you authorise me to do +that?" + +"Oh, how miserable I am!--oh, yes, yes." + +"Then stop crying, and try to look nice." + +"Why?" + +"Because I shall bring him in." + +"Oh!" cried Neaera in dismay. But when George went out, she made her +hair a little rougher--for so paradoxically do ladies set about the task +of ordering their appearance--and anointed her eyes with the contents of +a mysterious phial, produced from a recondite pocket. Then she sat up +straight, and strained her ears to catch any sound from the next room, +where her fate was being decided. She could distinguish which of the two +men was speaking, but not the words. First Gerald, then George, then +Gerald again. Next, for full five minutes, George talked in low but +seemingly emphatic tones. Then came a sudden shout from Gerald. + +"Here!" he cried. "In your room!" + +They had risen, and were moving about. Neaera's heart beat, though she +sat still as a statue. The door was flung open, and she rose to meet +Gerald, as he entered with a rush. George followed, with a look of +mingled anger and perplexity on his face. Gerald flung a piece of paper +at Neaera; it was Mrs. Bort's letter, and, as it fell at her feet, she +sank back again in her chair, with a bitter little cry. The worst had +happened. + +"Thank God for an honest woman!" cried Gerald. + +"Gerald!" she murmured, stretching out her hands to him. + +"Ah, you can do that to him!" he answered, pointing to George. + +"I--I loved you," she said. + +"He'll believe you, perhaps--or help you in your lies. I've done with +you." + +He passed his hand over his brow, and went on. "I was easy to hoodwink, +wasn't I? Only a little wheedling and fondling--only a kiss or two--and +a lie or two! I believed it all. And you," he added, turning on George, +"you spared her, you pitied her, you sacrificed yourself. A fine +sacrifice!" + +George put his hands in his pockets, and shrugged his shoulders. + +"I shouldn't go on before Mrs. Witt," he remarked. + +"Not go on! No, no. She's so pure, so innocent, isn't she? Worth any +sacrifice?" + +"What do you mean, Gerald?" said Neaera. + +"You don't know?" he asked, with a sneer. "What does a man ask for what +he's done? and what will a woman give? Will give? Has given?" + +"Hold your tongue!" said George, laying a hand on his shoulder. + +Neaera sat still, gazing at her lover with open eyes: only a little +shudder ran over her. + +"You duped me nicely between you," Gerald continued, "me and all the +world. No truth in it all! A mistake!--all a mistake! He found out--his +mistake!" His voice rose almost to a shriek, and ended in a bitter +laugh. + +"You needn't be a brute," said George, coldly. + +Gerald looked at him, then at Neaera, and uttered another sneering +laugh. George was close by him now, seeming to watch every motion of +his lips. Neaera rose from her chair, and flung herself at the feet of +the angry man. + +"Ah, Gerald, my love, have pity!" she wailed. + +"Pity!" he echoed, drawing back, so that she fell on her face before +him. "Pity! I might pity a thief, I might pity a liar, I have no pity +for a----" + +The sentence went unfinished, for, with a sudden motion, George closed +on him, and flung him through the open door out of the room. + +"Finish your blackguardism outside!" he said, as he shut the door and +turned the key. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +LAURA DIFFERS. + + +_Ira brevis furor_, says the moralist; and the adjective is the only +part of the saw that is open to exception. Gerald Neston's wrath burnt +fiercely, but it burnt steadily also, and reflection brought with it +nothing but a stronger conviction of his wrongs. To George, the +interpretation his cousin put on his action in shielding Neaera seemed +to argue that uncommon degree of wrong-headedness that is hardly +distinguishable from immorality. Yet, in the recesses of George's heart +lurked the knowledge that Mrs. Witt, plain, old, unattractive, might +have reaped scant mercy, at his hands; and Gerald, if he did not believe +all he had brutally hinted, believed quite enough of it to make him +regard George as a traitor and Neaera as an intriguer. What sane +man could have acted as George had acted, unless under a woman's +fascination? Jealousy did the rest, for Neaera herself had sapped the +strength of her lover's trust in her, and he doubted not that she who +had deluded him in everything else had not hesitated to practise on him +the last deceit. She and George were confederates. Need any one ask how +they became so, or what the terms of the alliance were? + +It was hardly wonderful that this theory, strange as it seemed, should +find a place in Gerald's disordered mind, or that, having done so, it +should vent itself in intemperate words and reckless sneers. It was, +however, more remarkable that the opinion gained some general favour. It +pleased the cynical, for it explained away what seemed like a generous +action; it pleased the gossips, for it introduced into the Neston affair +the topic most congenial to gossips; it pleased the "unco guid," for +it pointed the moral of the ubiquity of sin; it pleased men as a sex, +because it made George's conduct natural and explicable; it pleased +women as a sex, because it ratified the opinion they had always held +of beautiful mysterious widows in general, and of Neaera Witt in +particular. And amid this chorus, the voice of the charitable, admitting +indiscretion, but asserting generosity, was lost and hushed, and +George's little band of friends and believers were dubbed blind +partisans and, by consequence, almost accomplices. + +Fortunately for George, among his friends were men who cared little for +public reprobation. Mr. Blodwell did his work, ate his dinner, said what +he thought, and esteemed the opinion of society much at the value the +Duke of Wellington set upon the views of the French nation. As for Lord +Mapledurham and Sidmouth Vane, unpopularity was the breath of their +nostrils; and Vane did not hesitate to purchase the pleasure of being in +a minority by a sacrifice of consistency; he abandoned the theory which +he had been among the first to suggest, as soon as the suggestion passed +by general acceptance into vulgarity. + +The three men gave George Neston a dinner, drank Neaera's health, +and allowed themselves an attitude of almost contemptuous protest +against the verdict of society--a verdict forcibly expressed by the +_Bull's-eye_, when it declared with not unnatural warmth that it had had +enough of this "sordid affair." But then the _Bull's-eye_ had hardly +shown its wonted perspicacity, and Mr. Espion declared that he had not +been treated in a respectful way. There was no traversing the fact; +George's party fell back on a denial of the obligation. + +Mankind is so constructed that the approbation of man does not satisfy +man, nor that of woman woman. If all the clubs had been ringing with his +praises, George Neston would still have turned his first and most eager +glance to Mrs. Pocklington's. As it was, he thought of little else than +what view of his conduct would gain the victory there. Alas! he knew +only too soon. Twice he called: twice was entrance refused him. Then +came a note from Mrs. Pocklington--an unanswerable note; for the lady +asserted nothing and denied nothing; she intrenched herself behind +common opinion. She, as George knew, was a tolerably independent person +so far as her own fame was concerned: but where her daughter was +interested, it was another thing; Laura's suitor must not be under a +cloud; Laura's future must not be jeopardied; Laura's affections must +be reposed only where absolute security could be guaranteed. Mr. +Pocklington agreed with his wife to the full. Hence there must be an end +of everything--so far as the Pocklington household was concerned, an end +of George Neston. And poor George read the decree, and groaned in his +heart. Nevertheless, strange events were happening behind that door, so +firmly, so impenetrably closed to George's eager feet--events to Mrs. +Pocklington inconceivable, even while they actually happened; to her +husband, alarming, reprehensible, extraordinary, puzzling, amusing, +almost, in a way, delightful. In fine, Laura rebelled. And the +declaration of independence was promulgated on this wise. + +Mrs. Pocklington had conveyed to her daughter, with all delicacy +requisite and imaginable, the new phase of the affair. It shocked and +distressed her to allude to such things; but Laura was a woman now, +and must know--and so forth. And Laura heard it all with no apparent +shock--nay, with a calmness approaching levity; and when she was told +that all communications between herself and George must cease, she +shook her pretty head and retired to her bedroom, neither accepting nor +protesting against the decision. + +The next morning after breakfast she appeared, equipped for a walk, +holding a letter in her hand. Mrs. Pocklington had ordered her +household, and had now sat down to a comfortable hour with a novel +before luncheon. _Dis aliter visum._ + +"I am going out, mamma," Laura began, "to post this note to Mr. Neston." + +Mrs. Pocklington never made mistakes in the etiquette of names, and +assumed a like correctness in others. She imagined her daughter referred +to Gerald. "Why need you write to him?" she asked, looking up. "He's +nothing more than an acquaintance." + +"Mamma! He's an intimate friend." + +"Gerald Neston an intimate friend! Why----" + +"I mean Mr. George Neston," said Laura, in a calm voice, but with a +slight blush. + +"George!" exclaimed Mrs. Pocklington. "What in the world do you want to +write to George Neston for? I have said all that is necessary." + +"I thought I should like to say something too." + +"My dear, certainly not. If you had been--if there had been anything +actually arranged, perhaps a line from you would have been right; +though, under the circumstances, I doubt it. As it is, for you to write +would simply be to give him a chance of reopening the acquaintance." + +Laura did not sit down, but stood by the door, prodding the carpet with +the point of her parasol. "Is the acquaintance closed?" she asked, after +a pause. + +"You remember, surely, what I said yesterday? I hope it's not necessary +to repeat it." + +"Oh no, mamma; I remember it." Laura paused, gave the carpet another +prod, and went on, "I'm just writing to say I don't believe a word of +it." + +"Jack's Darling" fell from Mrs. Pocklington's paralysed grasp. + +"Laura, how dare you? It is enough for you that I have decided what is +to be done." + +"You see, mamma, when everybody is turning against him, I want to show +him he has one friend, at least, who doesn't believe these hateful +stories." + +"I wonder you haven't more self-respect. Considering what is said about +him and Neaera Witt----" + +"Oh, bother Mrs. Witt!" said Laura, actually smiling. "Really, mamma, +it's nonsense; he doesn't care that for Neaera Witt!" And she tried +to snap her fingers; but, happily for Mrs. Pocklington's nerves, the +attempt was a failure. + +"I shall not argue with you, Laura. You will obey me, and there is an +end of it." + +"You told me I was a woman yesterday. If I am, I ought to be allowed to +judge for myself. Anyhow, you ought to hear what I have to say." + +"Give me that letter, Laura." + +"I'm very sorry, mamma; but----" + +"Give it to me." + +"Very well; I shall have to write another." + +"Do you mean to defy me, Laura?" + +Laura made no answer. + +Mrs. Pocklington opened and read the letter. + + "DEAR MR. NESTON," (it ran)-- + + "I want you to know that I do not believe a single word of what + they are saying. I am very sorry for poor Mrs. Witt, and I think + you have acted _splendidly_. Isn't it charming weather? Riding in + the park in the morning is a positive delight. + + "With kindest regards, + + "Yours very sincerely, + "LAURA F. POCKLINGTON." + +Mrs. Pocklington gasped. The note was little better than an assignation! +"I shall show this to your father," she said, and swept out of the room. + +Laura sat down and wrote an exact copy of the offending document, +addressed it, stamped it, and put it in her pocket. Then, with +ostentatious calmness, she took up "Jack's Darling," and appeared to +become immersed in it. + +Mrs. Pocklington found it hard to make her husband appreciate the +situation; indeed, she had scarcely risen to it herself. Everybody talks +of heredity in these days: the Pocklingtons, both people of resolute +will, had the opportunity of studying its working in their own +daughter. The result was fierce anger in Mrs. Pocklington, mingled anger +and admiration in her husband, perplexity in both. Laura's position was +simple and well defined. By coercion and imprisonment she might, she +admitted, be prevented sending her letter and receiving a reply, but +by no other means. Appeals to duty were met by appeals to justice; she +parried entreaty by counter-entreaty, reproofs by protestations of +respect, orders by silence. What was to be done? Laura was too old, and +the world was too old, for violent remedies. Intercepting correspondence +meant exposure to the household. The revolt was appalling, absurd, +unnatural; but it was also, as Mr. Pocklington admitted, "infernally +awkward." Laura realised that its awkwardness was her strength, and, +having in vain invited actual physical restraint, in its absence walked +out and posted her letter. + +Then Mrs. Pocklington acted. At a day's notice she broke up her +establishment for the season, and carried her daughter off with her. +She gave no address save to her husband. Laura was not allowed to know +whither she was being taken. She was, as she bitterly said, "spirited +away" by the continental mail, and all the communications cut. Only, +just as the brougham was starting, when the last box was on, and Mr. +Pocklington, having spoken his final word of exhortation, was waving +good-bye from the steps, Laura jumped out, crossed the road, and dropped +a note into a pillar-box. + +"It is only," she remarked, resuming her seat, "to tell Mr. Neston that +I can't give him any address at present." + +What, asked Mrs. Pocklington of her troubled mind, were you to do with a +girl like that? + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +GEORGE NEARLY GOES TO BRIGHTON. + + +One evening, about a week after what Mr. Espion called the final +_esclandre_, Tommy Myles made his appearance in the smoking-room of +the Themis. More important matters have ousted the record of Tommy's +marriage and blissful honeymoon, and he came back to find that a +negligent world had hardly noticed his absence. + +"How are you?" said he to Sidmouth Vane. + +"How are you?" said Vane, raising his eyes for a moment from _Punch_. + +Tommy sat down by him. "I say," he remarked, "this Neston business is +rather neat. We read about it in Switzerland." + +"Been away?" + +"Of course I have--after my wedding, you know." + +"Ah! Seen _Punch_?" And Vane handed it to him. + +"I had a pretty shrewd idea of how the land lay. So had Bella." + +"Bella?" + +"Why, my wife." + +"Oh, a thousand pardons. I thought you rather backed Mrs. Witt." + +"My dear fellow, we wanted her to have fair play. I suppose there's no +question of the marriage now?" + +"I suppose not." + +"What's the fair Mrs. Witt going to do?" + +Vane wanted to be let alone, and Tommy worried him. He turned on the +little gentleman with some ferocity. "My dear Tommy," he said, "you +backed her through thick and thin, and blackguarded George for attacking +her." + +"Yes, but----" + +"Well, whoever was right, you weren't, so hadn't you better say no more +about it?" And Mr. Vane rose and walked away. + +In fact, he was thoughtful. What would Mrs. Witt do next? And what would +George Neston do? Vane knew of cases where the accusation suggests the +crime; it seemed not unlikely that if George had to bear the contumely +attaching to a connection with Mrs. Witt, he might think it as well to +reap the benefit. He might not have sought to win her favour yet, but +it was very possible he might do so now. If he didn't--well, some one +would. And Mr. Vane considered that he might find it worth his while to +be the man. His great relatives would cry aloud in horror; society would +be shocked. But a man will endure something for a pretty woman and five +thousand a year. Only, what did George Neston mean to do? + +It will be seen that Sidmouth Vane did not share Laura Pocklington's +conviction that George cared nothing for Mrs. Witt. Of course he had not +Laura's reasons: and perhaps some difference between the masculine and +feminine ways of looking at such things must be allowed for. As it +happened, however, Vane was right--for a moment. After George had been +for a second time repulsed from Mrs. Pocklington's doors, finding +the support of his friends unsatisfying and yearning for the more +impassioned approval that women give, he went the next day to Neaera's, +and intruded on the sorrow-laden retirement to which that wronged lady +had betaken herself. And Neaera's grief and gratitude, her sorrow and +sympathy, her friendship and fury, were all alike and equally delightful +to him. + +"The meanness of it!" she cried with flashing eyes. "Oh, I would rather +die than have a petty soul like that!" + +Gerald was, of course, the subject of these strictures, and George was +content not to contradict them. + +"He evidently," continued Neaera, "simply cannot understand your +generosity. It's beyond him!" + +"You mustn't rate what you call my generosity too high," said George. +"But what are you going to do, Mrs. Witt?" + +Neaera spread her hands out with a gesture of despair. + +"What am I to do? I am--desolate." + +"So am I. We must console one another." + +This speech was indiscreet. George recognised it, when Neaera's +answering glance reached him. + +"That will make them talk worse than ever," she said, smiling. "You +ought never to speak to me again, Mr. Neston." + +"Oh, we are damned beyond redemption, so we may as well enjoy +ourselves." + +"No, you mustn't shock your friends still more." + +"I have no friends left to shock," replied George, bitterly. + +Neaera implored him not to say that, running over the names of such as +might be supposed to remain faithful. George shook his head at each +name: when the Pocklingtons were mentioned, his shake was big with +sombre meaning. + +"Well, well," she said with a sigh, "and now what are you going to do?" + +"Oh, nothing. I think some of us are going to have a run to Brighton. I +shall go, just to get out of this." + +"Is Brighton nice now?" + +"Nicer than London, anyhow." + +"Yes. Mr. Neston----?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Witt? Why don't you come too." + +"At any rate, you'd--you and your friends--be somebody to speak to, +wouldn't you?" said Neaera, resting her chin on her hand and gazing at +George. + +"Oh yes, you must come. We shall be very jolly." + +"Poor us! But perhaps it will console us to mingle our tears." + +"Will you come?" asked George. + +"I shan't tell you," she said with a laugh. "It must be purely +accidental." + +"A fortuitous concurrence? Very well. We go to-morrow." + +"I don't want to know when you go." + +"No. But we do." + +Neaera laughed again, and George took his leave, better pleased with +the world than when he arrived. A call on a pretty woman often has this +effect; sometimes, let us add, to complete our commonplace, just the +opposite. + +"Why shouldn't I?" he argued to himself. "I don't know why I should get +all the blame for nothing. If they think it of me, I may as well do +it." + +But when George reached his lodgings, he found on the table, side by +side with Mr. Blodwell's final letter about the Brighton trip, Laura +Pocklington's note. And then--away went Brighton, and Neaera Witt, and +the reckless defiance of public opinion, and all the rest of it! And +George swore at himself for a heartless, distrustful, worthless person, +quite undeserving to receive such a letter from such a lady. And when +the second letter came the next morning, he swore again, at himself for +his meditated desertion, and by all his gods, that he would be worthy of +such favour. + +"The child's a trump," he said, "a regular trump! And she shan't be +worried by hearing of me hanging about in Mrs. Witt's neighbourhood." + +The happy reflections which ensued were appropriate, but hackneyed, +being in fact those of a man much in love. It is, however, worth notice +that Laura's refusal to think evil had its reward: for if she had +suspected George, she would never have shown him her heart in those +letters; and, but for those letters, he might have gone to Brighton, +and----; whereas what did happen was something quite different. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +SOME ONE TO SPEAK TO. + + +Being a public character, although an object of ambition to many, has +its disadvantages. Fame is very pleasant, but we do not want everybody +in the hotel to point at us when we come down to dinner. When Neaera +went to Brighton--for it is surely unnecessary to say that she intended +to go and did go thither--she felt that the fame which had been thrust +upon her debarred her from hotels, and she took lodgings of a severely +respectable type, facing the sea. There she waited two days, spending +her time walking and driving where all the world walks and drives. There +were no signs of George, and Neaera felt aggrieved. She sent him a line, +and waited two days more. Then she felt she was being treated as badly +as possible--unkindly, negligently, faithlessly, disrespectfully. He had +asked her to come; the invitation was as plain as could be: without a +word, she was thrown over! In great indignation she told her maid to +pack up, and, meanwhile, sallied out to see if the waves would perform +their traditional duty of soothing a wounded spirit. The task was a hard +one; for, whatever Neaera Witt had suffered, neglect at the hands of man +was a grief fortune had hitherto spared her. + +She forsook the crowded parade, and strolled down by the water's edge. +Presently she sat down under the shade of a boat, and surveyed the +waters and the future. She felt very lonely. George had seemed inclined +to be pleasant but now he had deserted her. She had no one to speak to. +What was the use of being pretty and rich? Everything was very hard and +she had done no real harm, and was a very, very miserable girl, and---- +Under the shade of the boat, Neaera cried a little, choosing the moment +when there were no passers-by. + +But one who came from behind escaped her vigilance. He saw the gleam of +golden hair, and the slim figure, and the little shapely head bowing +forward to meet the gloved hands; and he came down the beach, and, +standing behind her for a moment, heard a little gurgle of distress. + +"I beg your pardon," said he. "Can I help?" + +Neaera looked up with a start. The upright figure, bravely resisting +a growing weight of years, the iron-grey hair, the hooked nose, and +pleasant keen eyes seemed familiar to her. Surely she had seen him in +town! + +"Why, it's Mrs. Witt!" he said. "We are acquaintances, or we ought to +be." And he held out his hand, adding, with a smile, "I am Lord +Mapledurham." + +"Oh!" said Neaera. + +"Yes," said the Marquis. "Now, I know all about it, and it's a burning +shame. And, what's more, it's all my fault." + +"Your fault?" she said, in surprise. + +"However, I warned George Neston to let it alone. But he's a hot-headed +fellow." + +"I never thought him that." + +"He is, though. Well, look at this. He asks Blodwell, and Vane, and +me--at least, he didn't ask me, but Blodwell did--to make a party here. +We agree. The next moment--hey, presto! he's off at a tangent!" + +Neaera could not make up her mind whether Lord Mapledurham was giving +this explanation merely to account for his own presence or also for her +information. + +"The fact is, you see," the Marquis resumed, "his affairs are rather +troublesome. He's out of favour with the authorities, you know--Mrs. +Pocklington." + +"Does he mind about Mrs. Pocklington?" + +"He minds about Miss Pocklington, and I suspect----" + +"Yes?" + +"That she minds about him. I met Pocklington at the club yesterday, and +he told me his people had gone abroad. I said it was rather sudden, but +Pocklington turned very gruff, and said 'Not at all.' Of course that +wasn't true." + +"Oh, I hope she will be good to him," said Neaera. "Fancy, if I were the +cause----" + +"As I said at the beginning," interrupted the Marquis, "I'm the cause." + +"You!" + +Then he settled himself by her side, and told her how his reminiscence +had been the first thing to set George on the track of discovery, whence +all the trouble had resulted. + +"So you see," he ended, "you have to put all your woes down to my +chatter." + +"How strange!" she said, dreamily, looking out to sea. + +The Marquis nodded, his eyes scanning her face. + +Then she turned to him suddenly, and said, "I was very young, you know, +and--rather hungry." + +"I am a sinner myself," he answered, smiling. + +"And--and what I did afterwards, I----" + +"I came to make my confession, not to hear yours. How shall I atone for +all I have brought on you? What shall I do now?" + +"I--I only want some friends, and--and some one to speak to," said +Neaera, with a forlorn little sigh. + +The Marquis took her hand and kissed it gallantly. "If that is all," +said he, smiling, "perhaps we may manage." + +"Thanks," said Neaera, putting her handkerchief into her pocket. + +"That's right! Blodwell and Vane are here too, and----" + +"I don't much care about them; but----" + +"Oh, they're all on your side." + +"Are they? I needn't see more of them than I like, need I?" + +The Marquis was not young, no, nor inexperienced; but, all the same, he +was not proof against this flattery. "Perhaps they won't stay long," he +said. + +"And you?" she asked. + +He smiled at her, and, after a moment of innocent seriousness, her lips +wavered into an answering smile. + +The Marquis, after taking tea with Neaera and satisfying himself that +the lady was not planning immediate flight, strolled back to his hotel +in a thoughtful mood. He enjoyed a little triumph over Mr. Blodwell and +Sidmouth Vane at dinner; but this did not satisfy him. For almost the +first time in his life, he felt the need of an adviser and confidant: +he was afraid that he was going to make a fool of himself. Mr. Blodwell +withdrew after dinner, to grapple with some papers which had pursued +him, and the Marquis sat smoking a cigar on a seat with Vane, struggling +against the impulse to trust that young man with his thoughts. Vane was +placidly happy: the distant, hypothetical relations between himself and +Neaera, the like of which his busy idle brain constructed around every +attractive marriageable woman he met, had no power to disturb either his +soul or his digestion. If it so fell out, it would be well; but he was +conscious that the object would wring from him no very active exertions. + +"Mrs. Witt expected to find George here, I suppose?" he asked, flicking +the ash from his cigar. + +"Yes, I think so." + +"Anything on there?" + +"Nothing at all, my dear fellow," replied the Marquis, with more +confidence than he would have shown twelve hours before. "She knows he's +mad about little Laura Pocklington." + +"I'll call on her to-morrow," said Vane, with his usual air of gracious +condescension. + +"She's living very quietly," remarked the Marquis. + +Vane turned towards him with a smile and almost a wink. "Oho!" he said. + +"Be respectful to your elders, you young dog," said the Marquis. + +"You make us forget your claims in that respect. You must be more +venerable," answered Vane. + +After a moment's silent smoking, "Why don't you marry?" asked the +Marquis. It is a question which often means that the questioner's own +thoughts are trending in that direction. + +"I'm waiting for that heiress." Then he added, perhaps out of good +nature, "If it comes to that, why don't you?" + +"I'm not anxious to have people pointing at me for an old fool." + +"Oh, hang people! Besides, you're not old." + +"Fifty-six." + +"That's nothing nowadays." + +"You're laughing!" said the Marquis, suspiciously. + +"Upon my honour, no." + +The Marquis laughed too, and put his cigar back in his mouth. He took +it out again almost at once. "It wouldn't be bad to have a son," he +said. "I mean an heir, you know." + +"The first step is a wife then, no doubt." + +"Most women are so tedious. Still, you understand my feeling?" + +"I might in your position. For myself, I hate brats." + +"Ah, you will feel it some day." + +Vane thought this rather barefaced. "When did it attack you?" he asked +with a smile. + +"This afternoon," answered the Marquis, gravely. + +Vane's cynical humour was tickled by the _dénoûment_ this admission +suggested. "Gad! I should like to see Gerald Neston's face!" he +chuckled, forgetting his own designs in his gratification. + +"Of course she's--well, the deuce of a flirt," said the Marquis. + +Vane risked a philosophical generalisation. "All nice women are flirts," +he said. "That's what you mean when you call them nice." + +"Very pretty and attractive, though." + +"And the shoes?" + +"Damn the shoes!" said the Marquis. + +The next morning, Mr. Blodwell and Sidmouth Vane went to London; but the +society papers recorded that the Marquis of Mapledurham prolonged his +stay at Brighton. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +FATE'S INSTRUMENTS. + + +Summer and autumn came and went. The season died lingeringly and +suffered its slow resurrection. Grouse and partridges, autumn scares +and vacation speeches, the yield of the crops and the beginning of the +session each had their turn of public favour, and the great Neston +sensation died away, galvanised now and again into a fitful spasm of +life by Mr. Espion's persevering battery. His efforts were in vain. All +the cats were out of all the bags, and the interest of the public was +satiated. The actors in the drama, returning to town, as most of them +did in the winter, found themselves restored to obscurity; their story, +once so eagerly dished up as the latest gossip, was now the stale stock +of bores, useful only to regale the very young or the very provincial +palate. + +All at once, there was a revival. A rumour, a piquant rumour, began to +be whispered at the clubs. Men again looked at Gerald Neston, wondering +if he had heard it, and at George, asking how he would take it. Mr. +Blodwell had to protest ignorance twenty times a day, and Sidmouth Vane +intrenched himself in the safe seclusion of his official apartment. If +it were true, it was magnificent. Who knew? + +Mr. Pocklington heard the rumour, but, communing with his own heart, +held his tongue. He would not disturb the peace that seemed again to +have settled on his house. Laura, having asserted her independence, had +allowed the subject to drop; she had been bright, cheerful, and docile, +had seen sights, and gone to entertainments, and made herself agreeable; +and Mrs. Pocklington hoped, against a secret conviction, that the +rebellion was not only sleeping but dead. She could not banish herself +from London; so, with outward confidence and inward fear, she brought +her daughter home in November, praying that George Neston might not +cross her path, praying too, in her kind heart, that time might remove +the silent barrier between her and her daughter, against which she +fretted in vain. + +But certain other people had no idea of leaving the matter to the slow +and uncertain hand of time. There was a plot afoot. George was in it, +and Sidmouth Vane, and Mr. Blodwell; so was the Marquis, and another, +whose present name it would ruin our deep mystery to disclose--if it be +guessed, there is no help for it. And just when Laura was growing sad, +and a little hurt and angry at hearing nothing from George, she chanced +to have a conversation with Sidmouth Vane, and emerged therefrom, +laughing, blushing, and riotously happy, though the only visible outcome +of the talk was an invitation for her mother and herself to join in the +mild entertainment of afternoon tea at Vane's rooms the next day. Now, +Sidmouth Vane was very deceitful; he, so to say, appropriated to his +own use and credit Laura's blushes and Laura's laughter, and, when the +invitation came, innocent Mrs. Pocklington, without committing herself +to an approval of Mr. Vane, rejoiced to think it pleased Laura to take +tea with any young man other than George Neston, and walked into the +trap with gracious urbanity. + +Vane received his guests, Mr. Blodwell supporting him. Mrs. Pocklington +and her daughter were the first arrivals, and Vane apologised for the +lateness of the others. + +"Lord Mapledurham is coming," he said, "and he's been very busy lately." + +"I thought he was out of town," said Mrs. Pocklington. + +"He only came back yesterday." + +The door opened, and Vane's servant announced with much pomp, "The +Marquis and Marchioness of Mapledurham." + +The Marquis advanced straight to Mrs. Pocklington; then he took Neaera's +hand, and said, "You have always been good to me, Mrs. Pocklington. I +hope you'll be as good to my wife." + +It was hushed up as far as possible, but still it leaked out that, on +this sole occasion, Mrs. Pocklington was at a loss--was, in fact, if +the word be allowable, flabbergasted. Vane maliciously hinted at burnt +feathers and other extreme remedies, and there was really no doubt at +all that Laura untied her mother's bonnet-strings. + +Neaera stood looking on, half proud, half frightened, till Laura ran to +her and kissed her, and called her the best friend she had, with much +other emotional language. + +Then Mrs. Pocklington came round, and took a cup of tea, and, still +unconsciously doing just as she was meant to do, drifted into the +balcony with the Marquis, and had a long conversation with him. When she +came back, she found Vane ordering a fresh pot of tea. + +"But we must really be going," she said. "Mustn't we, Laura?" And as she +spoke she took her daughter's hand and patted it. + +"Do you expect any one else, Vane?" asked Mr. Blodwell. + +"Well, I did, but he's very late." + +"Where can he have got to?" asked Neaera, smiling. + +"Oh, I know where he is," said Vane. "He's--he's only in the next room." + +Everybody looked at Mrs. Pocklington and smiled. She looked at them all, +and last at her daughter. Laura was smiling too, but her eyes were eager +and imploring. + +"If he wants any tea, he had better come in," said Mrs. Pocklington. + +So the pair of shoes wrought out their work, giving society yet another +sensation, making Neaera Witt a great lady, and Laura Pocklington +a happy woman, and confirming all Mrs. Bort's darkest views on the +immorality of the aristocracy. And the Marquis and George Neston put +their heads together, and caused to be fashioned two dainty little +shoes in gold and diamonds, and gave them to their wives, as a sign and +remembrance of the ways of destiny. And Neaera wears the shoe, and will +talk to you quite freely about Peckton Gaol. + +The whole affair, however, shocked Lord Tottlebury very deeply, and +Gerald Neston is still a bachelor. Whether this fate be a reward for +the merits he displayed, or a punishment for the faults he fell into, +let each, according to his prejudices or his experience, decide. _Non +nostrum est tantas componere lites._ + + +WARD, LOCK AND CO., LTD., LONDON, MELBOURNE, AND TORONTO. + + + + + Ward, Lock & Co.'s + POPULAR FICTION. + + +A. E. W. MASON + +LAWRENCE CLAVERING. 6s. + + +STANLEY WEYMAN + +MY LADY ROTHA. 6s. + +A Romance of the Thirty Years' War. + + THE SATURDAY REVIEW.--"No one who begins will lay it down before + the end, it is so extremely well carried on from adventure to + adventure." + + +SIR A. CONAN DOYLE + +A STUDY IN SCARLET. 3s. 6d. + + With a note on Sherlock Holmes by Dr. Joseph Bell. Illustrations by + George Hutchinson. + + +ANTHONY HOPE + +COMEDIES OF COURTSHIP. 3s. 6d. + + THE SPEAKER.--"In this volume Mr. Hope is at his happiest in that + particular department of fiction in which he reigns supreme." + +HALF A HERO. 3s. 6d. + + THE ATHENÆUM.--"Mr. Hope's best story in point of construction and + grasp of subject. His dialogue is virile and brisk." + +MR. WITT'S WIDOW. 3s. 6d. + + THE TIMES.--"In truth a brilliant tale." + + +EDEN PHILLPOTTS + +THE MOTHER. 6s. + + THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.--"This is Mr. Phillpotts' best book. Whatever + may be the value of some fiction, it will do every man and woman + good to read this book. Its perusal should leave the reader in a + higher air." + + +H. RIDER HAGGARD + +AYESHA. 6s. + + The Sequel to "She." Thirty-two full-page illustrations by Maurice + Greiffenhagen. + + +S. R. CROCKETT + +JOAN OF THE SWORD HAND. 6s. + + THE DAILY MAIL.--"A triumph of cheery, resolute narration. The story + goes along like a wave, and the reader with it." + +STRONG MAC. 6s. + + THE MORNING POST.--"At the very outset the reader is introduced to + the two leading characters of what is truly a drama of real life. So + vividly is the story told that it often reads like a narrative of + things that have actually happened." + +LITTLE ESSON. 6s. + + THE SCARBOROUGH POST.--"One of the most popular of Mr. Crockett's + books since 'Lilac Sunbonnet.'" + + +MAX PEMBERTON + +PRO PATRIA. 6s. + + THE LIVERPOOL MERCURY.--"A fine and distinguished piece of + imaginative writing; one that should shed a new lustre upon the + clever author of 'Kronstadt.'" + +CHRISTINE OF THE HILLS. 6s. + + THE DAILY MAIL.--"Assuredly he has never written anything more + fresh, more simple, more alluring, or more artistically perfect." + +A GENTLEMAN'S GENTLEMAN. 6s. + + THE DAILY CHRONICLE.--"This is very much the best book Mr. Pemberton + has so far given us." + +THE GOLD WOLF. 6s. + + ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS.--"From the beginning Mr. Pemberton weaves + his romance with such skill that the tangled skein remains for long + unravelled ... marked by exceptional power, and holds the attention + firmly." + +THE LODESTAR. 6s. + + THE STANDARD.--"It impresses us as an exceedingly poignant and + effective story, true to real life. Written with cleverness and + charm." + +WHITE WALLS. 6s. + + A picturesque and powerful romance of a phase of life in that modern + Hungary of which Mr. Pemberton and the Baroness Orczy are the only + latter-day chroniclers. "White Walls" is a narrative of breathless + interest; the story goes with a splendid swing to its romantic end. + + +ROBERT BARR + +YOUNG LORD STRANLEIGH. 6s. + + THE WORLD.--"Mr. Barr gives us a remarkable sample of his power of + blending so deftly the bold imaginative with the matter-of-fact as + to produce a story which shall be at once impossible and convincing. + That a feat of this kind, cleverly accomplished, is attractive to + most novel readers goes without saying, and his latest work is + certain to please." + + +FRED M. WHITE + +THE CRIMSON BLIND. 6s. + + THE SHEFFIELD TELEGRAPH.--"'The Crimson Blind' is one of the most + ingeniously conceived 'detective' stories we have come across for a + long time. Each chapter holds some new and separate excitement." + +THE CARDINAL MOTH. 6s. + + THE BRITISH WEEKLY.--"A brilliant orchid story full of imaginative + power. This is a masterpiece of construction, convincing amid its + unlikeliness, one of the best novels of the season." + +THE CORNER HOUSE. 6s. + + THE WESTERN MORNING NEWS.--"The book is crammed with sensation + and mystery, situation piled on situation until one is almost + bewildered. It is an excellent romance which will be eagerly read." + +THE WEIGHT OF THE CROWN. 6s. + + THE DUBLIN DAILY EXPRESS.--"Mr. F. M. White is one of the princes of + fiction. A stirring tale full of the spice of adventure, breathless + in interest, skilful in narrative." + +THE SLAVE OF SILENCE. 6s. + + THE SHEFFIELD TELEGRAPH.--"Attention is arrested at the outset, and + so adroitly is the mystery handled that readers will not skip a + single page." + +A FATAL DOSE. 6s. + + THE STANDARD.--"This novel will rank amongst the brightest that Mr. + White has given us." + +CRAVEN FORTUNE. 6s. + + DAILY TELEGRAPH.--"A tale of extraordinary complexity, ingeniously + conceived, and worked out to a conventionally happy conclusion, + through a series of strange and thrilling situations, which command + and hold the reader's attention to the end." + +THE LAW OF THE LAND. 6s. + + DAILY TELEGRAPH.--"Mr. White's new novel may be strongly + recommended. It contains enough surprises to whip the interest at + every turn." + +A CRIME ON CANVAS. 6s. + + THE SCOTSMAN.--"The unravelling of the many tangled skeins is a + process that firmly holds the attention of the reader." + +NETTA. 6s. + + DUNDEE ADVERTISER.--"The author is an absolute master of sensation, + and tells his powerful tale in a way which grips the reader at once, + and carries him on from chapter to chapter with ever-increasing + interest." + +THE SCALES OF JUSTICE. 6s. + + The story is rich in sensational incident and dramatic situations. + It is seldom, indeed, that one meets with a novel of such power and + fascination. + + +L. G. MOBERLY + +IN THE BALANCE. + + THE LADIES' FIELD.--"Miss Moberly increases her literary reputation + with each novel that she writes, and her new book is the best + constructed in plot as well as one of the most interesting of all + her homely stories." + +JOY. + + DAILY TELEGRAPH.--"Miss L. G. Moberly has a remarkable talent for + making a simple story, thoroughly interesting and satisfying. It + needs much skill and a good deal of charm in writing to achieve + this, and her latest novel is a fine example of her power." + +THAT PREPOSTEROUS WILL. + + THE DAILY GRAPHIC.--"We could wish that every novel were as + pleasant, unsophisticated and readable as this one." + +HOPE, MY WIFE. + + THE GENTLEWOMAN.--"Miss Moberly interests us so much in heroine, and + in her hero, that we follow the two with pleasure through adventures + of the most improbable order." + +DIANA. + + THE SCOTSMAN.--"So cleverly handled as to keep its interest always + lively and stimulating; and the book cannot fail to be enjoyed." + +DAN--AND ANOTHER. + + THE DAILY NEWS.--"Must be considered one of the best pieces of work + that Miss Moberly has yet produced." + +A TANGLED WEB. + + THE DAILY MAIL.--"A 'tangled web,' indeed, is this story, and the + author's ingenuity and intrepidity in developing and working out the + mystery calls for recognition at the outset." + +ANGELA'S MARRIAGE. + + IRISH INDEPENDENT.--"That Miss Moberly has a delightful and graceful + style is not only evident from a perusal of some of her former + works, but from the fascinatingly told story now under review." + +THE SIN OF ALISON DERING. + + THE FINANCIAL TIMES.--"The plot of this story is cleverly conceived + and well carried out. Miss Moberly writes with great charm and + skill, and the reader is not likely to put down the book until the + tangle is finally cleared up. As a character-study, the figure of + Alison Dering is drawn with considerable insight." + +A VERY DOUBTFUL EXPERIMENT. + + IRISH INDEPENDENT.--"Miss Moberly's former works have well + established her ability to write fascinating fiction and create + interest in her actors, but we doubt if she has ever introduced + a character whose career would be followed with more absorbing + interest than that of Rachael Boyd." + +A WOMAN AGAINST THE WORLD. + + THE SCOTSMAN.--"The whole tale is a powerful and enthralling one, + and cannot fail to enhance the growing reputation of the authoress." + + + + +Transcriber's Note + + +For the txt-version of this e-book words in italics have been surrounded +by _underscores_, and small capitals changed to all capitals. + +The following corrections have been made, on page + + 9 "that" changed to "than" (no less special in kind than in degree) + 49 " added (unless you get it very soon----") + 57 . added (answered Gerald. "This) + 69 "epiphet" changed to "epithet" (the propriety of Mrs. + Pocklington's epithet) + 79 double "a" removed (That's only a copy.) + 126 " added (helped him to the nearest gin-palace.") + 156 ' changed to " (made you cry?") + 164 ' changed to " ("Yes--my handwriting.) + 176 . added (if you choose that word.) + 189 "b" changed to "be" (she will be very obdurate) + 201 . changed to ," (the woman is," Neaera continued) + 214 " added (a chance of reopening the acquitance.") + 247 " added (and separate excitement."). + +Otherwise the original has been preserved, including the use of archaic +words and inconsistent hyphenation. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mr. Witt's Widow, by Anthony Hope + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41599 *** |