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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Eve's Ransom, by George Gissing
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Eve's Ransom
+
+Author: George Gissing
+
+Posting Date: July 7, 2009 [EBook #4297]
+Release Date: July, 2003
+First Posted: January 1, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVE'S RANSOM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+EVE'S RANSOM
+
+
+by
+
+George Gissing
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+On the station platform at Dudley Port, in the dusk of a February
+afternoon, half-a-dozen people waited for the train to Birmingham. A
+south-west wind had loaded the air with moisture, which dripped at
+moments, thinly and sluggishly, from a featureless sky. The lamps, just
+lighted, cast upon wet wood and metal a pale yellow shimmer; voices
+sounded with peculiar clearness; so did the rumble of a porter's barrow
+laden with luggage. From a foundry hard by came the muffled, rhythmic
+thunder of mighty blows; this and the long note of an engine-whistle
+wailing far off seemed to intensify the stillness of the air as gloomy
+day passed into gloomier night.
+
+In clear daylight the high, uncovered platform would have offered an
+outlook over the surrounding country, but at this hour no horizon was
+discernible. Buildings near at hand, rude masses of grimy brick, stood
+out against a grey confused background; among them rose a turret which
+vomited crimson flame. This fierce, infernal glare seemed to lack the
+irradiating quality of earthly fires; with hard, though fluctuating
+outline, it leapt towards the kindred night, and diffused a blotchy
+darkness. In the opposite direction, over towards Dudley Town, appeared
+spots of lurid glow. But on the scarred and barren plain which extends
+to Birmingham there had settled so thick an obscurity, vapours from
+above blending with earthly reek, that all tile beacons of fiery toil
+were wrapped and hidden.
+
+Of the waiting travellers, two kept apart from the rest, pacing this
+way and that, but independently of each other. They were men of
+dissimilar appearance; the one comfortably and expensively dressed, his
+age about fifty, his visage bearing the stamp of commerce; the other,
+younger by more than twenty years, habited in a way which made it;
+difficult to as certain his social standing, and looking about him with
+eyes suggestive of anything but prudence or content. Now and then they
+exchanged a glance: he of the high hat and caped ulster betrayed an
+interest in the younger man, who, in his turn, took occasion to observe
+the other from a distance, with show of dubious recognition.
+
+The trill of an electric signal, followed by a clanging bell, brought
+them both to a pause, and they stood only two or three yards apart.
+Presently a light flashed through the thickening dusk; there was
+roaring, grinding, creaking and a final yell of brake-tortured wheels.
+Making at once for the nearest third-class carriage, the man in the
+seedy overcoat sprang to a place, and threw himself carelessly back; a
+moment, and he was followed by the second passenger, who seated himself
+on the opposite side of the compartment. Once more they looked at each
+other, but without change of countenance.
+
+Tickets were collected, for there would be no stoppage before
+Birmingham: then the door slammed, and the two men were alone together.
+
+Two or three minutes after the train had started, the elder man leaned
+forward, moved slightly, and spoke.
+
+"Excuse me, I think your name must be Hilliard."
+
+"What then?" was the brusque reply.
+
+"You don't remember me?"
+
+"Scoundrels are common enough," returned the other, crossing his legs,
+"but I remember you for all that."
+
+The insult was thrown out with a peculiarly reckless air; it astounded
+the hearer, who sat for an instant with staring eyes and lips apart;
+then the blood rushed to his cheeks.
+
+"If I hadn't just about twice your muscle, my lad," he answered
+angrily, "I'd make you repent that, and be more careful with your
+tongue in future. Now, mind what you say! We've a quiet quarter of an
+hour before us, and I might alter my mind."
+
+The young man laughed contemptuously. He was tall, but slightly built,
+and had delicate hands.
+
+"So you've turned out a blackguard, have you?" pursued his companion,
+whose name was Dengate. "I heard something about that."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"You drink, I am told. I suppose that's your condition now."
+
+"Well, no; not just now," answered Hilliard. He spoke the language of
+an educated man, but with a trace of the Midland accent. Dengate's
+speech had less refinement.
+
+"What do you mean by your insulting talk, then? I spoke to you civilly."
+
+"And I answered as I thought fit."
+
+The respectable citizen sat with his hands on his knees, and
+scrutinised the other's sallow features.
+
+"You've been drinking, I can see. I had something to say to you, but
+I'd better leave it for another time."
+
+Hilliard flashed a look of scorn, and said sternly--
+
+"I am as sober as you are."
+
+"Then just give me civil answers to civil questions."
+
+"Questions? What right have you to question me?"
+
+"It's for your own advantage. You called me scoundrel. What did you
+mean by that?"
+
+"That's the name I give to fellows who go bankrupt to get rid of their
+debts."
+
+"Is it!" said Dengate, with a superior smile. "That only shows how
+little you know of the world, my lad. You got it from your father, I
+daresay; he had a rough way of talking."
+
+"A disagreeable habit of telling the truth."
+
+"I know all about it. Your father wasn't a man of business, and
+couldn't see things from a business point of view. Now, what I just
+want to say to you is this: there's all the difference in the world
+between commercial failure and rascality. If you go down to Liverpool,
+and ask men of credit for their opinion about Charles Edward Dengate,
+you'll have a lesson that would profit you. I can see you're one of the
+young chaps who think a precious deal of themselves; I'm often coming
+across them nowadays, and I generally give them a piece of my mind."
+
+Hilliard smiled.
+
+"If you gave them the whole, it would be no great generosity."
+
+"Eh? Yes, I see you've had a glass or two, and it makes you witty. But
+wait a bit I was devilish near thrashing you a few minutes ago; but I
+sha'n't do it, say what you like. I don't like vulgar rows."
+
+"No more do I," remarked Hilliard; "and I haven't fought since I was a
+boy. But for your own satisfaction, I can tell you it's a wise resolve
+not to interfere with me. The temptation to rid the world of one such
+man as you might prove too strong."
+
+There was a force of meaning in these words, quietly as they were
+uttered, which impressed the listener.
+
+"You'll come to a bad end, my lad."
+
+"Hardly. It's unlikely that I shall ever be rich."
+
+"Oh! you're one of that sort, are you? I've come across Socialistic
+fellows. But look here. I'm talking civilly, and I say again it's for
+your advantage. I had a respect for your father, and I liked your
+brother--I'm sorry to hear he's dead."
+
+"Please keep your sorrow to yourself."
+
+"All right, all right! I understand you're a draughtsman at Kenn and
+Bodditch's?"
+
+"I daresay you are capable of understanding that."
+
+Hilliard planted his elbow in the window of the carriage and propped
+his cheek on his hand.
+
+"Yes; and a few other things," rejoined the well-dressed man. "How to
+make money, for instance.--Well, haven't you any insult ready?"
+
+The other looked out at a row of flaring chimneys, which the train was
+rushing past: he kept silence.
+
+"Go down to Liverpool," pursued Dengate, "and make inquiries about me.
+You'll find I have as good a reputation as any man living."
+
+He laboured this point. It was evident that he seriously desired to
+establish his probity and importance in the young man's eyes. Nor did
+anything in his look or speech conflict with such claims. He had hard,
+but not disagreeable features, and gave proof of an easy temper.
+
+"Paying one's debts," said Hilliard, "is fatal to reputation."
+
+"You use words you don't understand. There's no such thing as a debt,
+except what's recognised by the laws."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if you think of going into Parliament. You are just
+the man to make laws."
+
+"Well, who knows? What I want you to understand is, that if your father
+were alive at this moment, I shouldn't admit that he had claim upon me
+for one penny."
+
+"It was because I understood it already that I called you a scoundrel."
+
+"Now be careful, my lad," exclaimed Dengate, as again he winced under
+the epithet. "My temper may get the better of me, and I should be sorry
+for it. I got into this carriage with you (of course I had a
+first-class ticket) because I wanted to form an opinion of your
+character. I've been told you drink, and I see that you do, and I'm
+sorry for it. You'll be losing your place before long, and you'll go
+down. Now look here; you've called me foul names, and you've done your
+best to rile me. Now I'm going to make you ashamed of yourself."
+
+Hilliard fixed the speaker with his scornful eyes; the last words had
+moved him to curiosity.
+
+"I can excuse a good deal in a man with an empty pocket," pursued the
+other. "I've been there myself; I know how it makes you feel--how much
+do you earn, by the bye?"
+
+"Mind you own business."
+
+"All right. I suppose it's about two pounds a week. Would you like to
+know what _my_ in come is? Well, something like two pounds an hour,
+reckoning eight hours as the working day. There's a difference, isn't
+there? It comes of minding my business, you see. You'll never make
+anything like it; you find it easier to abuse people who work than to
+work yourself. Now if you go down to Liverpool, and ask how I got to my
+present position, you'll find it's the result of hard and honest work.
+Understand that: honest work."
+
+"And forgetting to pay your debts," threw in the young man.
+
+"It's eight years since I owed any man a penny. The people I _did_ owe
+money to were sensible men of business--all except your father, and he
+never could see things in the right light. I went through the
+bankruptcy court, and I made arrangements that satisfied my creditors.
+I should have satisfied your father too, only he died."
+
+"You paid tuppence ha'penny in the pound."
+
+"No, it was five shillings, and my creditors--sensible men of
+business--were satisfied. Now look here. I owed your father four
+hundred and thirty-six pounds, but he didn't rank as an ordinary
+creditor, and if I had paid him after my bankruptcy it would have been
+just because I felt a respect for him--not because he had any legal
+claim. I _meant_ to pay him--understand that."
+
+Hilliard smiled. Just then a block signal caused the train to slacken
+speed. Darkness had fallen, and lights glimmered from some cottages by
+the line.
+
+"You don't believe me," added Dengate.
+
+"I don't."
+
+The prosperous man bit his lower lip, and sat gazing at the lamp in the
+carriage. The train came to a standstill; there was no sound but the
+throbbing of the engine.
+
+"Well, listen to me," Dengate resumed. "You're turning out badly, and
+any money you get you're pretty sure to make a bad use of. But"--he
+assumed an air of great solemnity--"all the same--now listen----"
+
+"I'm listening."
+
+"Just to show you the kind of a man I am, and to make you feel ashamed
+of yourself, I'm going to pay you the money."
+
+For a few seconds there was unbroken stillness. The men gazed at each
+other, Dengate superbly triumphant, Hilliard incredulous but betraying
+excitement.
+
+"I'm going to pay you four hundred and thirty-six pounds," Dengate
+repeated. "No less and no more. It isn't a legal debt, so I shall pay
+no interest. But go with me when we get to Birmingham, and you shall
+have my cheque for four hundred and thirty-six pounds."
+
+The train began to move on. Hilliard had uncrossed his legs, and sat
+bending forward, his eyes on vacancy.
+
+"Does that alter your opinion of me?" asked the other.
+
+"I sha'n't believe it till I have cashed the cheque."
+
+"You're one of those young fellows who think so much of themselves
+they've no good opinion to spare for anyone else. And what's more, I've
+still half a mind to give you a good thrashing before I give you the
+cheque. There's just about time, and I shouldn't wonder if it did you
+good. You want some of the conceit taken out of you, my lad."
+
+Hilliard seemed not to hear this. Again he fixed his eyes on the
+other's countenance.
+
+"Do you say you are going to pay me four hundred pounds?" he asked
+slowly.
+
+"Four hundred and thirty-six. You'll go to the devil with it, but
+that's no business of mine."
+
+"There's just one thing I must tell you. If this is a joke, keep out of
+my way after you've played it out, that's all."
+
+"It isn't a joke. And one thing I have to tell _you_. I reserve to
+myself the right of thrashing you, if I feel in the humour for it."
+
+Hilliard gave a laugh, then threw himself back into the corner, and did
+not speak again until the train pulled up at New Street station.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+An hour later he was at Old Square, waiting for the tram to Aston. Huge
+steam-driven vehicles came and went, whirling about the open space with
+monitory bell-clang. Amid a press of homeward-going workfolk, Hilliard
+clambered to a place on the top and lit his pipe. He did not look the
+same man who had waited gloomily at Dudley Port; his eyes gleamed with
+life; answering a remark addressed to him by a neighbour on the car, he
+spoke jovially.
+
+No rain was falling, but the streets shone wet and muddy under lurid
+lamp-lights. Just above the house-tops appeared the full moon, a
+reddish disk, blurred athwart floating vapour. The car drove northward,
+speedily passing from the region of main streets and great edifices
+into a squalid district of factories and workshops and crowded by-ways.
+At Aston Church the young man alighted, and walked rapidly for five
+minutes, till he reached a row of small modern houses. Socially they
+represented a step or two upwards in the gradation which, at
+Birmingham, begins with the numbered court and culminates in the
+mansions of Edgbaston.
+
+He knocked at a door, and was answered by a girl, who nodded
+recognition.
+
+"Mrs. Hilliard in? Just tell her I'm here."
+
+There was a natural abruptness in his voice, but it had a kindly note,
+and a pleasant smile accompanied it. After a brief delay he received
+permission to go upstairs, where the door of a sitting-room stood open.
+Within was a young woman, slight, pale, and pretty, who showed
+something of embarrassment, though her face made him welcome.
+
+"I expected you sooner."
+
+"Business kept me back. Well, little girl?"
+
+The table was spread for tea, and at one end of it, on a high chair,
+sat a child of four years old. Hilliard kissed her, and stroked her
+curly hair, and talked with playful affection. This little girl was his
+niece, the child of his elder brother, who had died three years ago.
+The poorly furnished room and her own attire proved that Mrs. Hilliard
+had but narrow resources in her widowhood. Nor did she appear a woman
+of much courage; tears had thinned her cheeks, and her delicate hands
+had suffered noticeably from unwonted household work.
+
+Hilliard remarked something unusual in her behaviour this evening. She
+was restless, and kept regarding him askance, as if in apprehension. A
+letter from her, in which she merely said she wished to speak to him,
+had summoned him hither from Dudley. As a rule, they saw each other but
+once a month.
+
+"No bad news, I hope!" he remarked aside to her, as he took his place
+at the table.
+
+"Oh, no. I'll tell you afterwards."
+
+Very soon after the meal Mrs. Hilliard took the child away and put her
+to bed. During her absence the visitor sat brooding, a peculiar
+half-smile on his face. She came back, drew a chair up to the fire, but
+did not sit down.
+
+"Well, what is it?" asked her brother-in-law, much as he might have
+spoken to the little girl.
+
+"I have something very serious to talk about, Maurice."
+
+"Have you? All right; go ahead."
+
+"I--I am so very much afraid I shall offend you."
+
+The young man laughed.
+
+"Not very likely. I can take a good deal from you."
+
+She stood with her hands on the back of the chair, and as he looked at
+her, Hilliard saw her pale cheeks grow warm.
+
+"It'll seem very strange to you, Maurice."
+
+"Nothing will seem strange after an adventure I've had this afternoon.
+You shall hear about it presently."
+
+"Tell me your story first."
+
+"That's like a woman. All right, I'll tell you. I met that scoundrel
+Dengate, and--he's paid me the money he owed my father."
+
+"He has _paid_ it? Oh! really?"
+
+"See, here's a cheque, and I think it likely I can turn it into cash.
+The blackguard has been doing well at Liverpool. I'm not quite sure
+that I understand the reptile, but he seems to have given me this
+because I abused him. I hurt his vanity, and he couldn't resist the
+temptation to astonish me. He thinks I shall go about proclaiming him a
+noble fellow. Four hundred and thirty-six pounds; there it is."
+
+He tossed the piece of paper into the air with boyish glee, and only
+just caught it as it was fluttering into the fire.
+
+"Oh, be careful!" cried Mrs. Hilliard.
+
+"I told him he was a scoundrel, and he began by threatening to thrash
+me. I'm very glad he didn't try. It was in the train, and I know very
+well I should have strangled him. It would have been awkward, you know."
+
+"Oh, Maurice, how _can_ you----?"
+
+"Well, here's the money; and half of it is yours."
+
+"Mine? Oh, no! After all you have given me. Besides, I sha'n't want it."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+Their eyes mete Hilliard again saw the flush in her cheeks, and began
+to guess its explanation. He looked puzzled, interested.
+
+"Do I know him?" was his next inquiry.
+
+"Should you think it very wrong of me?" She moved aside from the line
+of his gaze. "I couldn't imagine how you would take it."
+
+"It all depends. Who is the man?"
+
+Still shrinking towards a position where Hilliard could not easily
+observe her, the young widow told her story. She had consented to marry
+a man of whom her brother-in-law knew little but the name, one Ezra
+Marr; he was turned forty, a widower without children, and belonged to
+a class of small employers of labour known in Birmingham as "little
+masters." The contrast between such a man and Maurice Hilliard's
+brother was sufficiently pronounced; but the widow nervously did her
+best to show Ezra Marr in a favourable light.
+
+"And then," she added after a pause, while Hilliard was reflecting, "I
+couldn't go on being a burden on you. How very few men would have done
+what you have----"
+
+"Stop a minute. Is _that_ the real reason? If so----"
+
+Hurriedly she interposed.
+
+"That was only one of the reasons--only one."
+
+Hilliard knew very well that her marriage had not been entirely
+successful; it seemed to him very probable that with a husband of the
+artisan class, a vigorous and go-ahead fellow, she would be better
+mated than in the former instance. He felt sorry for his little niece,
+but there again sentiment doubtless conflicted with common-sense. A few
+more questions, and it became clear to him that he had no ground of
+resistance.
+
+"Very well. Most likely you are doing a wise thing. And half this money
+is yours; you'll find it useful."
+
+The discussion of this point was interrupted by a tap at the door. Mrs.
+Hilliard, after leaving the room for a moment, returned with rosy
+countenance.
+
+"He is here," she murmured. "I thought I should like you to meet him
+this evening. Do you mind?"
+
+Mr. Marr entered; a favourable specimen of his kind; strong, comely,
+frank of look and speech. Hilliard marvelled somewhat at his choice of
+the frail and timid little widow, and hoped upon marriage would follow
+no repentance. A friendly conversation between the two men confirmed
+them in mutual good opinion. At length Mrs. Hilliard spoke of the offer
+of money made by her brother-in-law.
+
+"I don't feel I've any right to it," she said, after explaining the
+circumstances. "You know what Maurice has done for me. I've always felt
+I was robbing him----"
+
+"I wanted to say something about that," put in the bass-voiced Ezra. "I
+want to tell you, Mr. Hilliard, that you're a man I'm proud to know,
+and proud to shake hands with. And if my view goes for anything, Emily
+won't take a penny of what you're offering her. I should think it wrong
+and mean. It is about time--that's my way of thinking--that you looked
+after your own interests. Emily has no claim to a share in this money,
+and what's more, I don't wish her to take it."
+
+"Very well," said Hilliard. "I tell you what we'll do. A couple of
+hundred pounds shall be put aside for the little girl. You can't make
+any objection to that."
+
+The mother glanced doubtfully at her future husband, but Marr again
+spoke with emphasis.
+
+"Yes, I do object. If you don't mind me saying it, I'm quite able to
+look after the little girl; and the fact is, I want her to grow up
+looking to me as her father, and getting all she has from me only. Of
+course, I mean nothing but what's friendly: but there it is; I'd rather
+Winnie didn't have the money."
+
+This man was in the habit of speaking his mind; Hilliard understood
+that any insistence would only disturb the harmony of the occasion. He
+waved a hand, smiled good-naturedly, and said no more.
+
+About nine o'clock he left the house and walked to Aston Church. While
+he stood there, waiting for the tram, a voice fell upon his ear that
+caused him to look round. Crouched by the entrance to the churchyard
+was a beggar in filthy rags, his face hideously bandaged, before him on
+the pavement a little heap of matchboxes; this creature kept uttering a
+meaningless sing-song, either idiot jabber, or calculated to excite
+attention and pity; it sounded something like "A-pah-pahky; pah-pahky;
+pah"; repeated a score of times, and resumed after a pause. Hilliard
+gazed and listened, then placed a copper in the wretch's extended palm,
+and turned away muttering, "What a cursed world!"
+
+He was again on the tram-car before he observed that the full moon,
+risen into a sky now clear of grosser vapours, gleamed brilliant silver
+above the mean lights of earth. And round about it, in so vast a
+circumference that it was only detected by the wandering eye, spread a
+softly radiant halo. This vision did not long occupy his thoughts, but
+at intervals he again looked upward, to dream for a moment on the
+silvery splendour and on that wide halo dim-glimmering athwart the
+track of stars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Instead of making for the railway station, to take a train back to
+Dudley, he crossed from the northern to the southern extremity of the
+town, and by ten o'clock was in one of the streets which lead out of
+Moseley Road. Here, at a house such as lodges young men in business, he
+made inquiry for "Mr. Narramore," and was forthwith admitted.
+
+Robert Narramore, a long-stemmed pipe at his lips, sat by the fireside;
+on the table lay the materials of a satisfactory supper--a cold fowl, a
+ham, a Stilton cheese, and a bottle of wine.
+
+"Hollo! You?" he exclaimed, without rising. "I was going to write to
+you; thanks for saving me the trouble. Have something to eat?"
+
+"Yes, and to drink likewise."
+
+"Do you mind ringing the bell? I believe there's a bottle of Burgundy
+left. If not, plenty of Bass."
+
+He stretched forth a languid hand, smiling amiably. Narramore was the
+image of luxurious indolence; he had pleasant features, dark hair
+inclined to curliness, a well-built frame set off by good tailoring.
+His income from the commercial house in which he held a post of
+responsibility would have permitted him to occupy better quarters than
+these; but here he had lived for ten years, and he preferred a few
+inconveniences to the trouble of moving. Trouble of any kind was
+Robert's bugbear. His progress up the commercial ladder seemed due
+rather to the luck which favours amiable and good-looking young fellows
+than to any special ability or effort of his own. The very sound of his
+voice had a drowsiness which soothed--if it did not irritate--the
+listener.
+
+"Tell them to lay out the truckle-bed," said Hilliard, when he had
+pulled the bell. "I shall stay here to-night."
+
+"Good!"
+
+Their talk was merely interjectional, until the visitor had begun to
+appease his hunger and had drawn the cork of a second bottle of bitter
+ale.
+
+"This is a great day," Hilliard then exclaimed. "I left Dudley this
+afternoon feeling ready to cut my throat. Now I'm a free man, with the
+world before me."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Emily's going to take a second husband--that's one thing."
+
+"Heaven be praised! Better than one could have looked for."
+
+Hilliard related the circumstances. Then he drew from his pocket an
+oblong slip of paper, and held it out.
+
+"Dengate?" cried his friend. "How the deuce did you get hold of this?"
+
+Explanation followed. They debated Dengate's character and motives.
+
+"I can understand it," said Narramore. "When I was a boy of twelve I
+once cheated an apple-woman out of three-halfpence. At the age of
+sixteen I encountered the old woman again, and felt immense
+satisfaction in giving her a shilling. But then, you see, I had done
+with petty cheating; I wished to clear my conscience, and look my
+fellow-woman in the face."
+
+"That's it, no doubt. He seems to have got some sort of position in
+Liverpool society, and he didn't like the thought that there was a poor
+devil at Dudley who went about calling him a scoundrel. By-the-bye,
+someone told him that I had taken to liquor, and was on my way to
+destruction generally. I don't know who it could be."
+
+"Oh, we all have candid friends that talk about us.
+
+"It's true I have been drunk now and then of late. There's much to be
+said for getting drunk."
+
+"Much," assented Narramore, philosophically.
+
+Hilliard went on with his supper; his friend puffed tobacco, and idly
+regarded the cheque he was still holding.
+
+"And what are you going to do?" he asked at length.
+
+There came no reply, and several minutes passed in silence. Then
+Hilliard rose from the table, paced the floor once or twice, selected a
+cigar from a box that caught his eye, and, in cutting off the end,
+observed quietly--
+
+"I'm going to live."
+
+"Wait a minute. We'll have the table cleared, and a kettle on the fire."
+
+While the servant was busy, Hilliard stood with an elbow on the
+mantelpiece, thoughtfully smoking his cigar. At Narramore's request, he
+mixed two tumblers of whisky toddy, then took a draught from his own,
+and returned to his former position.
+
+"Can't you sit down?" said Narramore.
+
+"No, I can't."
+
+"What a fellow you are! With nerves like yours, I should have been in
+my grave years ago. You're going to live, eh?"
+
+"Going to be a machine no longer. Can I call myself a man? There's
+precious little difference between a fellow like me and the damned
+grinding mechanism that I spend my days in drawing--that roars all day
+in my ears and deafens me. I'll put an end to that. Here's four hundred
+pounds. It shall mean four hundred pounds'-worth of life. While this
+money lasts, I'll feel that I'm a human being."
+
+"Something to be said for that," commented the listener, in his tone of
+drowsy impartiality.
+
+"I offered Emily half of it. She didn't want to take it, and the man
+Marr wouldn't let her. I offered to lay it aside for the child, but
+Marr wouldn't have that either, It's fairly mine."
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"Think! The first time in my life that I've had money on which no one
+else had a claim. When the poor old father died, Will and I had to go
+shares in keeping up the home. Our sister couldn't earn anything; she
+had her work set in attending to her mother. When mother died, and
+Marian married, it looked as if I had only myself to look after: then
+came Will's death, and half my income went to keep his wife and child
+from the workhouse. You know very well I've never grudged it. It's my
+faith that we do what we do because anything else would be less
+agreeable. It was more to my liking to live on a pound a week than to
+see Emily and the little lass suffer want. I've no right to any thanks
+or praise for it. But the change has come none too soon. There'd have
+been a paragraph in the Dudley paper some rainy morning."
+
+"Yes, I was rather afraid of that," said Narramore musingly.
+
+He let a minute elapse, whilst his friend paced the room; then added in
+the same voice:
+
+"We're in luck at the same tune. My uncle Sol was found dead this
+morning."
+
+"Do you come in for much?"
+
+"We don't know what he's left, but I'm down for a substantial fraction
+in a will he made three years ago. Nobody knew it, but he's been stark
+mad for the last six months. He took a bed-room out Bordesley way, in a
+false name, and stored it with a ton or two of tinned meats and
+vegetables. There the landlady found him lying dead this morning; she
+learnt who he was from the papers in his pocket. It's come out that he
+had made friends with some old boozer of that neighbourhood; he told
+him that England was on the point of a grand financial smash, and that
+half the population would die of hunger. To secure himself, he began to
+lay in the stock of tinned provisions. One can't help laughing, poor
+old chap! That's the result, you see, of a life spent in sweating for
+money. As a young man he had hard times, and when his invention
+succeeded, it put him off balance a bit. I've often thought he had a
+crazy look in his eye. He may have thrown away a lot of his money in
+mad tricks: who knows?"
+
+"That's the end the human race will come to," said Hilliard. "It'll be
+driven mad and killed off by machinery. Before long there'll be
+machines for washing and dressing people--machines for feeding
+them--machines for----"
+
+His wrathful imagination led him to grotesque ideas which ended in
+laughter.
+
+"Well, I have a year or two before me. I'll know what enjoyment means.
+And afterwards----"
+
+"Yes; what afterwards?"
+
+"I don't know. I may choose to come back; I may prefer to make an end.
+Impossible to foresee my state of mind after living humanly for a year
+or two. And what shall _you_ do if you come in for a lot of money?"
+
+"It's not likely to be more than a few thousands," replied Narramore.
+"And the chances are I shall go on in the old way. What's the good of a
+few thousands? I haven't the energy to go off and enjoy myself in your
+fashion. One of these days I may think of getting married, and
+marriage, you know, is devilish expensive. I should like to have three
+or four thousand a year; you can't start housekeeping on less, if
+you're not to be bored to death with worries. Perhaps I may get a
+partnership in our house. I began life in the brass bedstead line, and
+I may as well stick to brass bedsteads to the end the demand isn't
+likely to fall off. Please fill my glass again."
+
+Hilliard, the while, had tossed off his second tumbler. He began to
+talk at random.
+
+"I shall go to London first of all. I may go abroad. Reckon a pound a
+day. Three hundred and--how many days are there in a year? Three
+hundred and sixty-five. That doesn't allow me two years. I want two
+years of life. Half a sovereign a day, then. One can do a good deal
+with half a sovereign a day--don't you think?"
+
+"Not very much, if you're particular about your wine."
+
+"Wine doesn't matter. Honest ale and Scotch whisky will serve well
+enough. Understand me; I'm not going in for debauchery, and I'm not
+going to play the third-rate swell. There's no enjoyment in making a
+beast of oneself, and none for me in strutting about the streets like
+an animated figure out of a tailor's window. I want to know the taste
+of free life, human life. I want to forget that I ever sat at a desk,
+drawing to scale--drawing damned machines. I want to----"
+
+He checked himself. Narramore looked at him with curiosity.
+
+"It's a queer thing to me, Hilliard," he remarked, when his friend
+turned away, "that you've kept so clear of women. Now, anyone would
+think you were just the fellow to get hobbled in that way."
+
+"I daresay," muttered the other. "Yes, it _is_ a queer thing. I have
+been saved, I suppose, by the necessity of supporting my relatives.
+I've seen so much of women suffering from poverty that it has got me
+into the habit of thinking of them as nothing but burdens to a man."
+
+"As they nearly always are."
+
+"Yes, nearly always."
+
+Narramore pondered with his amiable smile; the other, after a moment's
+gloom, shook himself free again, and talked with growing exhilaration
+of the new life that had dawned before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Hilliard's lodgings--they were represented by a single room--commanded
+a prospect which, to him a weariness and a disgust, would have seemed
+impressive enough to eyes beholding it for the first time. On the
+afternoon of his last day at Dudley he stood by the window and looked
+forth, congratulating himself, with a fierceness of emotion which
+defied misgiving, that he would gaze no more on this scene of his
+servitude.
+
+The house was one of a row situated on a terrace, above a muddy
+declivity marked with footpaths. It looked over a wide expanse of waste
+ground, covered in places with coarse herbage, but for the most part
+undulating in bare tracts of slag and cinder. Opposite, some quarter of
+a mile away, rose a lofty dome-shaped hill, tree-clad from base to
+summit, and rearing above the bare branches of its topmost trees the
+ruined keep of Dudley Castle. Along the foot of this hill ran the
+highway which descends from Dudley town--hidden by rising ground on the
+left--to the low-lying railway-station; there, beyond, the eye
+traversed a great plain, its limit the blending of earth and sky in
+lurid cloud. A ray of yellow sunset touched the height and its crowning
+ruin; at the zenith shone a space of pure pale blue save for these
+points of relief the picture was colourless and uniformly sombre. Far
+and near, innumerable chimneys sent forth fumes of various density
+broad-flung jets of steam, coldly white against the murky distance; wan
+smoke from lime-kilns, wafted in long trails; reek of solid blackness
+from pits and forges, voluming aloft and far-floated by the sluggish
+wind.
+
+Born at Birmingham, the son of a teacher of drawing, Maurice Hilliard
+had spent most of his life in the Midland capital; to its grammar
+school he owed an education just sufficiently prolonged to unfit him
+for the tasks of an underling, yet not thorough enough to qualify him
+for professional life. In boyhood he aspired to the career of an
+artist, but his father, himself the wreck of a would-be painter, rudely
+discouraged this ambition; by way of compromise between the
+money-earning craft and the beggarly art, he became a
+mechanical-draughtsman. Of late years he had developed a strong taste
+for the study of architecture; much of his leisure was given to this
+subject, and what money he could spare went in the purchase of books
+and prints which helped him to extend his architectural knowledge. In
+moods of hope, he had asked himself whether it might not be possible to
+escape from bondage to the gods of iron, and earn a living in an
+architect's office. That desire was now forgotten in his passionate
+resolve to enjoy liberty without regard for the future.
+
+All his possessions, save the articles of clothing which he would carry
+with him, were packed in a couple of trunks, to be sent on the morrow
+to Birmingham, where they would lie in the care of his friend
+Narramore. Kinsfolk he had none whom he cared to remember, except his
+sister; she lived at Wolverhampton, a wife and mother, in narrow but
+not oppressive circumstances, and Hilliard had taken leave of her in a
+short visit some days ago. He would not wait for the wedding of his
+sister-in-law enough that she was provided for, and that his conscience
+would always be at ease on her account.
+
+For he was troubled with a conscience--even with one unusually
+poignant. An anecdote from his twentieth year depicts this feature of
+the man. He and Narramore were walking one night in a very poor part of
+Birmingham, and for some reason they chanced to pause by a
+shop-window--a small window, lighted with one gas-jet, and laid out
+with a miserable handful of paltry wares; the shop, however, was newly
+opened, and showed a pathetic attempt at cleanliness and neatness. The
+friends asked each other how it could possibly benefit anyone to embark
+in such a business as that, and laughed over the display. While he was
+laughing, Hilliard became aware of a woman in the doorway, evidently
+the shopkeeper; she had heard their remarks and looked distressed.
+Infinitely keener was the pang which Maurice experienced; he could not
+forgive himself, kept exclaiming how brutally he had behaved, and sank
+into gloominess. Not very long after, he took Narramore to walk in the
+same direction; they came again to the little shop, and Hilliard
+surprised his companion with a triumphant shout. The window was now
+laid out in a much more promising way, with goods of modest value. "You
+remember?" said the young man. "I couldn't rest till I had sent her
+something. She'll wonder to the end of her life who the money came
+from. But she's made use of it, poor creature, and it'll bring her
+luck."
+
+Only the hopeless suppression of natural desires, the conflict through
+years of ardent youth with sordid circumstances, could have brought him
+to the pass he had now reached--one of desperation centred in self.
+Every suggestion of native suavity and prudence was swept away in
+tumultuous revolt. Another twelvemonth of his slavery and he would have
+yielded to brutalising influences which rarely relax their hold upon a
+man. To-day he was prompted by the instinct of flight from peril
+threatening all that was worthy in him.
+
+Just as the last glimmer of daylight vanished from his room there
+sounded a knock at the door.
+
+"Your tea's ready, Mr. Hilliard," called a woman's voice.
+
+He took his meals downstairs in the landlady's parlour. Appetite at
+present lie had none, but the pretence of eating was a way of passing
+the time; so he descended and sat down at the prepared table.
+
+His wandering eyes fell on one of the ornaments of the room--Mrs.
+Brewer's album. On first coming to live in the house, two years ago, he
+had examined this collection of domestic portraits, and subsequently,
+from time to time, had taken up the album to look at one photograph
+which interested him. Among an assemblage of types excelling in
+ugliness of feature and hideousness of costume--types of toil-worn age,
+of ungainly middle life, and of youth lacking every grace, such as are
+exhibited in the albums of the poor--there was discoverable one female
+portrait in which, the longer he gazed at it, Hilliard found an
+ever-increasing suggestiveness of those qualities he desired in woman.
+Unclasping the volume, he opened immediately at this familiar face. A
+month or two had elapsed since he last regarded it, and the countenance
+took possession of him with the same force as ever.
+
+It was that of a young woman probably past her twentieth year. Unlike
+her neighbours in the album, she had not bedizened herself before
+sitting to be portrayed. The abundant hair was parted simply and
+smoothly from her forehead and tightly plaited behind; she wore a linen
+collar, and, so far as could be judged from the portion included in the
+picture, a homely cloth gown. Her features were comely and intelligent,
+and exhibited a gentleness, almost a meekness of expression which was
+as far as possible from seeming affected. Whether she smiled or looked
+sad Hilliard had striven vainly to determine. Her lips appeared to
+smile, but in so slight a degree that perchance it was merely an effect
+of natural line; whereas, if the mouth were concealed, a profound
+melancholy at once ruled the visage.
+
+Who she was Hilliard had no idea. More than once he had been on the
+point of asking his landlady, but characteristic delicacies restrained
+him: he feared Mrs. Brewer's mental comment, and dreaded the possible
+disclosure that he had admired a housemaid or someone of yet lower
+condition. Nor could he trust his judgment of the face: perhaps it
+shone only by contrast with so much ugliness on either side of it;
+perhaps, in the starved condition of his senses, he was ready to find
+perfection in any female countenance not frankly repulsive.
+
+Yet, no; it was a beautiful face. Beautiful, at all events, in the
+sense of being deeply interesting, in the strength of its appeal to his
+emotions. Another man might pass it slightingly; to him it spoke as no
+other face had ever spoken. It awakened in him a consciousness of
+profound sympathy.
+
+While he still sat at table his landlady came in. She was a worthy
+woman of her class, not given to vulgar gossip. Her purpose in entering
+the room at this moment was to ask Hilliard whether he had a likeness
+of himself which he could spare her, as a memento.
+
+"I'm sorry I don't possess such a thing," he answered, laughing,
+surprised that the woman should care enough about him to make the
+request. "But, talking of photographs, would you tell me who this is?"
+
+The album lay beside him, and a feeling of embarrassment, as he saw
+Mrs. Brewer's look rest upon it, impelled him to the decisive question.
+
+"That? Oh! that's a friend of my daughter Martha's--Eve Madeley. I'm
+sure I don't wonder at you noticing her. But it doesn't do her justice;
+she's better looking than that. It was took better than two years
+ago--why, just before you came to me, Mr. Hilliard. She was going
+away--to London."
+
+"Eve Madeley." He repeated the name to himself, and liked it.
+
+"She's had a deal of trouble, poor thing," pursued the landlady. "We
+was sorry to lose sight of her, but glad, I'm sure, that she went away
+to do better for herself. She hasn't been home since then, and we don't
+hear of her coming, and I'm sure nobody can be surprised. But our
+Martha heard from her not so long ago--why, it was about
+Christmas-time."
+
+"Is she"--he was about to add, "in service?" but could not voice the
+words. "She has an engagement in London?"
+
+"Yes; she's a bookkeeper, and earns her pound a week. She was always
+clever at figures. She got on so well at the school that they wanted
+her to be a teacher, but she didn't like it. Then Mr. Reckitt, the
+ironmonger, a friend of her father's, got her to help him with his
+books and bills of an evening, and when she was seventeen, because his
+business was growing and he hadn't much of a head for figures himself,
+he took her regular into the shop. And glad she was to give up the
+school-teaching, for she could never abear it."
+
+"You say she had a lot of trouble?"
+
+"Ah, that indeed she had! And all her father's fault. But for him,
+foolish man, they might have been a well-to-do family. But he's had to
+suffer for it himself, too. He lives up here on the hill, in a poor
+cottage, and takes wages as a timekeeper at Robinson's when he ought to
+have been paying men of his own. The drink--that's what it was. When
+our Martha first knew them they were living at Walsall, and if it
+hadn't a' been for Eve they'd have had no home at all. Martha got to
+know her at the Sunday-school; Eve used to teach a class. That's seven
+or eight years ago; she was only a girl of sixteen, but she had the
+ways of a grown-up woman, and very lucky it was for them belonging to
+her. Often and often they've gone for days with nothing but a dry loaf,
+and the father spending all he got at the public."
+
+"Was it a large family?" Hilliard inquired.
+
+"Well, let me see; at that time there was Eve's two sisters and her
+brother. Two other children had died, and the mother was dead, too. I
+don't know much about _her_, but they say she was a very good sort of
+woman, and it's likely the eldest girl took after her. A quieter and
+modester girl than Eve there never was. Our Martha lived with her aunt
+at Walsall--that's my only sister, and she was bed-rid, poor thing, and
+had Martha to look after her. And when she died, and Martha came back
+here to us, the Madeley family came here as well, 'cause the father got
+some kind of work. But he couldn't keep it, and he went off I don't
+know where, and Eve had the children to keep and look after. We used to
+do what we could to help her, but it was a cruel life for a poor thing
+of her age--just when she ought to have been enjoying her life, as you
+may say."
+
+Hilliard's interest waxed.
+
+"Then," pursued Mrs. Brewer, "the next sister to Eve, Laura her name
+was, went to Birmingham, into a sweetstuff shop, and that was the last
+ever seen or heard of her. She wasn't a girl to be depended upon, and I
+never thought she'd come to good, and whether she's alive or dead
+there's no knowing. Eve took it to heart, that she did. And not six
+months after, the other girl had the 'sipelas, and she died, and just
+as they was carrying her coffin out of the house, who should come up
+but her father! He'd been away for nearly two years, just sending a
+little money now and then, and he didn't even know the girl had been
+ailing. And when he saw the coffin, it took him so that he fell down
+just like a dead man. You wouldn't have thought it, but there's no
+knowing what goes on in people's minds. Well, if you'll believe it,
+from that day he was so changed we didn't seem to know him. He turned
+quite religious, and went regular to chapel, and has done ever since;
+and he wouldn't touch a drop of anything, tempt him who might. It was a
+case of conversion, if ever there was one.
+
+"So there remained only Eve and her brother?"
+
+"Yes. He was a steady lad, Tom Madeley, and never gave his sister much
+trouble. He earns his thirty shillings a week now. Well, and soon after
+she saw her father going on all right, Eve left home. I don't wonder at
+it; it wasn't to be expected she could forgive him for all the harm and
+sorrows he'd caused. She went to Birmingham for a few months, and then
+she came back one day to tell us she'd got a place in London. And she
+brought that photo to give us to remember her by. But, as I said, it
+isn't good enough."
+
+"Does she seem to be happier now?"
+
+"She hasn't wrote more than once or twice, but she's doing well, and
+whatever happens she's not the one to complain. It's a blessing she's
+always had her health. No doubt she's made friends in London, but we
+haven't heard about them. Martha was hoping she'd have come for
+Christmas, but it seems she couldn't get away for long enough from
+business. I'd tell you her address, but I don't remember it. I've never
+been in London myself. Martha knows it, of course. She might look in
+to-night, and if she does I'll ask her."
+
+Hilliard allowed this suggestion to pass without remark. He was not
+quite sure that he desired to know Miss Madeley's address.
+
+But later in the evening, when, after walking for two or three hours
+about the cold, dark roads, he came in to have his supper and go to
+bed, Mrs. Brewer smilingly offered him a scrap of paper.
+
+"There," she said, "that's where she's living. London's a big place,
+and you mayn't be anywhere near, but if you happened to walk that way,
+we should take it kindly if you'd just leave word that we're always
+glad to hear from her, and hope she's well."
+
+With a mixture of reluctance and satisfaction the young man took the
+paper, glanced at it, and folded it to put in his pocket. Mrs. Brewer
+was regarding him, and he felt that his silence must seem ungracious.
+
+"I will certainly call and leave your message," he said.
+
+Up in his bed-room lie sat for a long time with the paper lying open
+before him. And when he slept his rest was troubled with dreams of an
+anxious search about the highways and byways of London for that
+half-sad, half-smiling face which had so wrought upon his imagination.
+
+Long before daylight he awoke at the sound of bells, and hootings, and
+whistlings, which summoned the Dudley workfolk to their labour. For the
+first time in his life he heard these hideous noises with pleasure:
+they told him that the day of his escape had come. Unable to lie still,
+he rose at once, and went out into the chill dawn. Thoughts of Eve
+Madeley no longer possessed him; a glorious sense of freedom excluded
+every recollection of his past life, and he wandered aimlessly with a
+song in his heart.
+
+At breakfast, the sight of Mrs. Brewer's album tempted him to look once
+more at the portrait, but he did not yield.
+
+"Shall we ever see you again, I wonder?" asked his landlady, when the
+moment arrived for leave-taking.
+
+"If I am ever again in Dudley, I shall come here," he answered kindly.
+
+But on his way to the station he felt a joyful assurance that fate
+would have no power to draw him back again into this circle of fiery
+torments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Two months later, on a brilliant morning of May, Hilliard again awoke
+from troubled dreams, but the sounds about him had no association with
+bygone miseries. From the courtyard upon which his window looked there
+came a ringing of gay laughter followed by shrill, merry gossip in a
+foreign tongue. Somewhere in the neighbourhood a church bell was
+pealing. Presently footsteps hurried along the corridor, and an
+impatient voice shouted repeatedly, "Alphonse! Alphonse!"
+
+He was in Paris; had been there for six weeks, and now awoke with a
+sense of loneliness, a desire to be back among his own people.
+
+In London he had spent only a fortnight. It was not a time that he
+cared to reflect upon. No sooner had he found himself in the
+metropolis, alone and free, with a pocketful of money, than a delirium
+possessed him. Every resolution notwithstanding, he yielded to London's
+grossest lures. All he could remember, was a succession of
+extravagances, beneath a sunless sky, with chance companions whose
+faces he had forgotten five minutes after parting with them. Sovereign
+after sovereign melted out of his hand; the end of the second week
+found his capital diminished by some five-and-twenty pounds. In an hour
+of physical and moral nausea, he packed his travelling-bag, journeyed
+to Newhaven, and as a sort of penance, crossed the Channel by
+third-class passage. Arrived in Paris, he felt himself secure, and soon
+recovered sanity.
+
+Thanks to his studious habits, he was equipped with book-French; now,
+both for economy's sake and for his mental advantage, he struggled with
+the spoken language, and so far succeeded as to lodge very cheaply in a
+rather disreputable hotel, and to eat at restaurants where dinner of
+several courses cost two francs and a half. His life was
+irreproachable; he studied the Paris of art and history. But perforce
+he remained companionless, and solitude had begun to weigh upon him.
+
+This morning, whilst he sat over his bowl of coffee and _petit pain_, a
+certain recollection haunted him persistently. Yesterday, in turning
+out his pockets, he had come upon a scrap of paper, whereon was written:
+
+"93, Belmont Street, Chalk Farm Road, London, N.W."
+
+This formula it was which now kept running through his mind, like a
+refrain which will not be dismissed.
+
+He reproached himself for neglect of his promise to Mrs. Brewer. More
+than that, he charged himself with foolish disregard of a possibility
+which might have boundless significance for him. Here, it seemed, was
+sufficient motive for a return to London. The alternative was to wander
+on, and see more of foreign countries; a tempting suggestion, but
+marred by the prospect of loneliness. He would go back among his own
+people and make friends. Without comradeship, liberty had little savour.
+
+Still travelling with as small expense as might be, he reached London
+in the forenoon, left his luggage at Victoria Station, and, after a
+meal, betook himself in the northerly direction. It was a rainy and
+uncomfortable day, but this did not much affect his spirits; he felt
+like a man new risen from illness, seemed to have cast off something
+that had threatened his very existence, and marvelled at the state of
+mind in which it had been possible for him to inhabit London without
+turning his steps towards the address of Eve Madeley.
+
+He discovered Belmont Street. It consisted of humble houses, and was
+dreary enough to look upon. As he sought for No. 93, a sudden
+nervousness attacked him; he became conscious all at once of the
+strangeness of his position. At this hour it was unlikely that Eve
+would be at home an inquiry at the house and the leaving of a verbal
+message would discharge his obligation; but he proposed more than that.
+It was his resolve to see Eve herself, to behold the face which, in a
+picture, had grown so familiar to him. Yet till this moment he had
+overlooked the difficulties of the enterprise. Could he, on the
+strength of an acquaintance with Mrs. Brewer, claim the friendly
+regards of this girl who had never heard his name? If he saw her once,
+on what pretext could he seek for a second meeting?
+
+Possibly he would not desire it. Eve in her own person might disenchant
+him.
+
+Meanwhile he had discovered the house, and without further debate he
+knocked. The door was opened by a woman of ordinary type, slatternly,
+and with suspicious eye.
+
+"Miss Madeley _did_ live here," she said, "but she's been gone a month
+or more."
+
+"Can you tell me where she is living now?"
+
+After a searching look the woman replied that she could not. In the
+manner of her kind, she was anxious to dismiss the inquirer and get the
+door shut. Gravely disappointed, Hilliard felt unable to turn away
+without a further question.
+
+"Perhaps you know where she is, or was, employed?"
+
+But no information whatever was forthcoming. It very rarely is under
+such circumstances, for a London landlady, compounded in general of
+craft and caution, tends naturally to reticence on the score of her
+former lodgers. If she has parted with them on amicable terms, her
+instinct is to shield them against the menace presumed in every
+inquiry; if her mood is one of ill-will, she refuses information lest
+the departed should reap advantage. And then, in the great majority of
+cases she has really no information to give.
+
+The door closed with that severity of exclusion in which London doors
+excel, and Hilliard turned despondently away. He was just consoling
+himself with the thought that Eve would probably, before long,
+communicate her new address to the friends at Dudley, and by that means
+he might hear of it, when a dirty-faced little girl, who had stood
+within earshot while he was talking, and who had followed him to the
+end of the street, approached him with an abrupt inquiry.
+
+"Was you asking for Miss Madeley, Sir?"
+
+"Yes, I was; do you know anything of her?"
+
+"My mother did washing for her, and when she moved I had to take some
+things of hers to the new address."
+
+"Then you remember it?"
+
+"It's a goodish way from 'ere, Sir. Shall I go with you?"
+
+Hilliard understood. Like the good Samaritan of old, he took out
+twopence. The face of the dirty little girl brightened wonderfully.
+
+"Tell me the address; that will be enough."
+
+"Do you know Gower Place, Sir?"
+
+"Somewhere near Gower Street, I suppose?"
+
+His supposition was confirmed, and he learnt the number of the house to
+which Miss Madeley had transferred herself. In that direction he at
+once bent his steps.
+
+Gower Place is in the close neighbourhood of Euston Road; Hilliard
+remembered that he had passed the end of it on his first arrival in
+London, when he set forth from Euston Station to look for a lodging. It
+was a mere chance that he had not turned into this very street, instead
+of going further. Several windows displayed lodging-cards. On the
+whole, it looked a better locality than Belmont Street. Eve's removal
+hither might signify an improvement of circumstances.
+
+The house which he sought had a clean doorstep and unusually bright
+windows. His knock was answered quickly, and by a young, sprightly
+woman, who smiled upon him.
+
+"I believe Miss Madeley lives here?"
+
+"Yes, she does."
+
+"She is not at home just now?"
+
+"No. She went out after breakfast, and I'm sure I can't say when she'll
+be back."
+
+Hilliard felt a slight wonder at this uncertainty. The young woman,
+observing his expression, added with vivacious friendliness:
+
+"Do you want to see her on business?"
+
+"No; a private matter."
+
+This occasioned a smirk.
+
+"Well, she hasn't any regular hours at present. Sometimes she comes to
+dinner, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes she comes to tea, but just as
+often she isn't 'ome till late. P'r'aps you'd like to leave your name?"
+
+"I think I'll call again."
+
+"Did you expect to find her at 'ome now?" asked the young woman, whose
+curiosity grew more eager as she watched Hilliard's countenance.
+
+"Perhaps," he replied, neglecting the question, "I should find her here
+to-morrow morning?"
+
+"Well, I can say as someone's going to call, you know."
+
+"Please do so."
+
+Therewith he turned away, anxious to escape a volley of interrogation
+for which the landlady's tongue was primed.
+
+He walked into Gower Street, and pondered the awkward interview that
+now lay before him. On his calling to-morrow, Miss Madeley would
+doubtless come to speak with him at the door; even supposing she had a
+parlour at her disposal, she was not likely to invite a perfect
+stranger into the house. How could he make her acquaintance on the
+doorstep? To be sure, he brought a message, but this commission had
+been so long delayed that he felt some shame about discharging it. In
+any case, his delivery of the message would sound odd; there would be
+embarrassment on both sides.
+
+Why was Eve so uncertain in her comings and goings? Necessity of
+business, perhaps. Yet he had expected quite the opposite state of
+things. From Mrs. Brewer's description of the girl's character, he had
+imagined her leading a life of clockwork regularity. The point was very
+trivial, but it somehow caused a disturbance of his thoughts, which
+tended to misgiving.
+
+In the meantime he had to find quarters for himself. Why not seek them
+in Gower Place?
+
+After ten minutes' sauntering, he retraced his steps, and walked down
+the side of the street opposite to that on which Eve's lodgings were
+situated. Nearly over against that particular house was a window with a
+card. Carelessly he approached the door, and carelessly asked to see
+the rooms that were to let. They were comfortless, but would suit his
+purpose for a time. He engaged a sitting-room on the ground-floor, and
+a bed-room above, and went to fetch his luggage from Victoria Station.
+
+On the steamer last night he had not slept, and now that he was once
+more housed, an overpowering fatigue constrained him to lie down and
+close his eyes. Almost immediately lie fell into oblivion, and lay
+sleeping on the cranky sofa, until the entrance of a girl with
+tea-things awakened him.
+
+From his parlour window he could very well observe the houses opposite
+without fear of drawing attention from any one on that side; and so it
+happened that, without deliberate purpose of espial, he watched the
+door of Eve Madeley's residence for a long time; till, in fact, he grew
+weary of the occupation. No one had entered; no one had come forth. At
+half-past seven he took his hat and left the house.
+
+Scarcely had he closed the door behind him when he became aware that a
+lightly tripping and rather showily dressed girl, who was coming down
+the other side of the way, had turned off the pavement and was plying
+the knocker at the house which interested him. He gazed eagerly.
+Impossible that a young person of that garb and deportment should be
+Eve Madeley. Her face was hidden from him, and at this distance he
+could not have recognised the features, even presuming that his
+familiarity with the portrait, taken more than two years ago, would
+enable him to identify Eve when he saw her. The door opened; the girl
+was admitted. Afraid of being noticed, he walked on.
+
+The distance to the head of the street was not more than thirty yards;
+there lay Gower Street, on the right hand the Metropolitan station, to
+the left a long perspective southwards. Delaying in doubt as to his
+course, Hilliard glanced back. From the house which attracted his eyes
+he saw come forth the girl who had recently entered, and close
+following her another young woman. They began to walk sharply towards
+where he stood.
+
+He did not stir, and the couple drew so near that he could observe
+their faces. In the second girl he recognised--or believed that he
+recognised--Eve Madeley.
+
+She wore a costume in decidedly better taste than her companion's; for
+all that, her appearance struck him as quite unlike that he would have
+expected Eve Madeley to present. He had thought of her as very plainly,
+perhaps poorly, clad; but this attire was ornate, and looked rather
+expensive; it might be in the mode of the new season. In figure, she
+was altogether a more imposing young woman than he had pictured to
+himself. His pulses were sensibly quickened as he looked at her.
+
+The examination was of necessity hurried. Walking at a sharp pace, they
+rapidly came close to where he stood. He drew aside to let them pass,
+and at that moment caught a few words of their conversation.
+
+"I told you we should be late," exclaimed the unknown girl, in friendly
+remonstrance.
+
+"What does it matter?" replied Eve--if Eve it were. "I hate standing at
+the doors. We shall find seats somewhere."
+
+Her gay, careless tones astonished the listener. Involuntarily he began
+to follow; but at the edge of the pavement in Gower Street they
+stopped, and by advancing another step or two he distinctly overheard
+the continuation of their talk.
+
+"The 'bus will take a long time."
+
+"Bother the 'bus!" This was Eve Madeley again--if Eve it could really
+be. "We'll have a cab. Look, there's a crawler in Euston Road. I've
+stopped him!"
+
+"I say, Eve, you _are_ going it!"
+
+This exclamation from the other girl was the last sentence that fell on
+Hilliard's ear. They both tripped off towards the cab which Eve's
+gesture had summoned. He saw them jump in and drive away.
+
+"I say, Eve, you _are_ going it!" Why, there his doubt was settled; the
+name confirmed him in his identification. But he stood motionless with
+astonishment.
+
+They were going to a theatre, of course. And Eve spoke as if money were
+of no consequence to her. She had the look, the tones, of one bent on
+enjoying herself, of one who habitually pursued pleasure, and that in
+its most urban forms.
+
+Her companion had a voice of thinner quality, of higher note, which
+proclaimed a subordinate character. It sounded, moreover, with the
+London accent, while Eve's struck a more familiar note to the man of
+the Midlands. Eve seemed to be the elder of the two; it could not be
+thought for a moment that her will was guided by that of the more
+trivial girl.
+
+Eve Madeley--the meek, the melancholy, the long-suffering, the
+pious--what did it all mean?
+
+Utterly bewildered, the young man walked on without thought of
+direction, and rambled dreamily about the streets for an hour or two.
+He could not make up his mind whether or not to fulfil the promise of
+calling to see Miss Madeley to-morrow morning. At one moment he
+regretted having taken lodgings in Gower Place; at another he
+determined to make use of his advantage, and play the spy upon Eve's
+movements without scruple. The interest she had hitherto excited in him
+was faint indeed compared with emotions such as this first glimpse of
+her had kindled and fanned. A sense of peril warned him to hold aloof;
+tumult of his senses rendered the warning useless.
+
+At eleven o'clock he was sitting by his bedroom window, in darkness,
+watching the house across the way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+It was just upon midnight when Eve returned. She came at a quick walk,
+and alone; the light of the street-lamps showed her figure distinctly
+enough to leave the watcher in no doubt. A latchkey admitted her to the
+house. Presently there appeared a light at an upper window, and a
+shadow kept moving across the blind. When the light was extinguished
+Hilliard went to bed, but that night he slept little.
+
+The next morning passed in restless debate with himself. He did not
+cross the way to call upon Eve: the thought of speaking with her on the
+doorstep of a lodging-house proved intolerable. All day long he kept
+his post of observation. Other persons he saw leave and enter the
+house, but Miss Madeley did not come forth. That he could have missed
+her seemed impossible, for even while eating his meals he remained by
+the window. Perchance she had left home very early in the morning, but
+it was unlikely.
+
+Through the afternoon it rained: the gloomy sky intensified his fatigue
+and despondence. About six o'clock, exhausted in mind and body, he had
+allowed his attention to stray, when the sudden clang of a street organ
+startled him. His eyes turned in the wonted direction--and instantly he
+sprang up. To clutch his hat, to rush from the room and from the house,
+occupied but a moment. There, walking away on the other side, was Eve.
+Her fawn-coloured mantle, her hat with the yellow flowers, were the
+same as yesterday. The rain had ceased; in the western sky appeared
+promise of a fair evening.
+
+Hilliard pursued her in a parallel line. At the top of the street she
+crossed towards him; he let her pass by and followed closely. She
+entered the booking-office of Gower Street station; he drew as near as
+possible and heard her ask for a ticket--
+
+"Healtheries; third return."
+
+The slang term for the Health Exhibition at Kensington was familiar to
+him from the English papers he had seen in Paris. As soon as Eve had
+passed on he obtained a like ticket and hastened down the steps in
+pursuit. A minute or two and he was sitting face to face with her in
+the railway carriage.
+
+He could now observe her at his leisure and compare her features with
+those represented in the photograph. Mrs. Brewer had said truly that
+the portrait did not do her justice; he saw the resemblance, yet what a
+difference between the face he had brooded over at Dudley and that
+which lived before him! A difference not to be accounted for by mere
+lapse of time. She could not, he thought, have changed greatly in the
+last two or three years, for her age at the time of sitting for the
+photograph must have been at least one-and-twenty. She did not look
+older than he had expected: it was still a young face, but--and herein
+he found its strangeness--that of a woman who views life without
+embarrassment, without anxiety. She sat at her ease, casting careless
+glances this way and that. When her eyes fell upon him he winced, yet
+she paid no more heed to him than to the other passengers.
+
+Presently she became lost in thought; her eyes fell. Ah! now the
+resemblance to the portrait came out more distinctly. Her lips shaped
+themselves to that expression which he knew so well, the half-smile
+telling of habitual sadness.
+
+His fixed gaze recalled her to herself, and immediately the countenance
+changed beyond recognition. Her eyes wandered past him with a look of
+cold if not defiant reserve; the lips lost all their sweetness. He was
+chilled with vague distrust, and once again asked himself whether this
+could be the Eve Madeley whose history he had heard.
+
+Again she fell into abstraction, and some trouble seemed to grow upon
+her mind. It was difficult now to identify her with the girl who had
+talked and laughed so gaily last evening. Towards the end of the
+journey a nervous restlessness began to appear in her looks and
+movements. Hilliard felt that he had annoyed her by the persistency of
+his observation, and tried to keep his eyes averted. But no; the
+disturbance she betrayed was due to some other cause; probably she paid
+not the least regard to him.
+
+At Earl's Court she alighted hurriedly. By this time Hilliard had begun
+to feel shame in the ignoble part he was playing, but choice he had
+none--the girl drew him irresistibly to follow and watch her. Among the
+crowd entering the Exhibition he could easily keep her in sight without
+risk of his espial being detected. That Eve had come to keep an
+appointment with some acquaintance he felt sure, and at any cost he
+must discover who the person was.
+
+The event justified him with unexpected suddenness. No sooner had she
+passed the turnstile than a man stepped forward, saluting her in form.
+Eve shook hands with him, and they walked on.
+
+Uncontrollable wrath seized on Hilliard and shook him from head to
+foot. A meeting of this kind was precisely what he had foreseen, and he
+resented it violently.
+
+Eve's acquaintance had the external attributes of a gentleman. One
+could not easily imagine him a clerk or a shop-assistant smartened up
+for the occasion. He was plain of feature, but wore a pleasant, honest
+look, and his demeanour to the girl showed not only good breeding but
+unmistakable interest of the warmest kind. His age might perhaps be
+thirty; he was dressed well, and in all respects conventionally.
+
+In Eve's behaviour there appeared a very noticeable reserve; she rarely
+turned her face to him while he spoke, and seemed to make only the
+briefest remarks. Her attention was given to the objects they passed.
+
+Totally unconscious of the scenes through which he was moving, Hilliard
+tracked the couple for more than an hour. He noticed that the man once
+took out his watch, and from this trifling incident he sought to derive
+a hope; perhaps Eve would be quit ere long of the detested
+companionship. They came at length to where a band was playing, and sat
+down on chairs; the pursuer succeeded in obtaining a seat behind them,
+but the clamour of instruments overpowered their voices, or rather the
+man's voice, for Eve seemed not to speak at all. One moment, when her
+neighbour's head approached nearer than usual to hers, she drew
+slightly away.
+
+The music ceased, whereupon Eve's companion again consulted his watch.
+
+"It's a most unfortunate thing." He was audible now. "I can't possibly
+stay longer."
+
+Eve moved on her chair, as if in readiness to take leave of him, but
+she did not speak.
+
+"You think it likely you will meet Miss Ringrose?"
+
+Eve answered, but the listener could not catch her words.
+
+"I'm so very sorry. If there had been any----"
+
+The voice sank, and Hilliard could only gather from observance of the
+man's face that he was excusing himself in fervent tones for the
+necessity of departure. Then they both rose and walked a few yards
+together. Finally, with a sense of angry exultation, Hilliard saw them
+part.
+
+For a little while Eve stood watching the musicians, who were making
+ready to play a new piece. As soon as the first note sounded she moved
+slowly, her eyes cast down. With fiercely throbbing heart, thinking and
+desiring and hoping he knew not what, Hilliard once more followed her.
+Night had now fallen; the grounds of the Exhibition shone with
+many-coloured illumination; the throng grew dense. It was both easy and
+necessary to keep very near to the object of his interest.
+
+There sounded a clinking of plates, cups, and glasses. People were
+sitting at tables in the open air, supplied with refreshments by the
+waiters who hurried hither and thither. Eve, after a show of
+hesitation, took a seat by a little round table which stood apart; her
+pursuer found a place whence he could keep watch. She gave an order,
+and presently there was brought to her a glass of wine with a sandwich.
+
+Hilliard called for a bottle of ale: he was consumed with thirst.
+
+"Dare I approach her?" he asked himself. "Is it possible? And, if
+possible, is it any use?"
+
+The difficulty was to explain his recognition of her. But for that, he
+might justify himself in addressing her.
+
+She had finished her wine and was looking round. Her glance fell upon
+him, and for a moment rested. With a courage not his own, Hilliard
+rose, advanced, and respectfully doffed his hat.
+
+"Miss Madeley----"
+
+The note was half interrogative, but his voice failed before he could
+add another syllable. Eve drew herself up, rigid in the alarm of female
+instinct.
+
+"I am a stranger to you," Hilliard managed to say. "But I come from
+Dudley; I know some of your friends----"
+
+His hurried words fell into coherence. At the name "Dudley" Eve's
+features relaxed.
+
+"Was it you who called at my lodgings the day before yesterday?"
+
+"I did. Your address was given me by Mrs. Brewer, in whose house I have
+lived for a long time. She wished me to call and to give you a kind
+message--to say how glad they would be to hear from you----"
+
+"But you _didn't_ leave the message."
+
+The smile put Hilliard at his ease, it was so gentle and friendly.
+
+"I wasn't able to come at the time I mentioned. I should have called
+to-morrow."
+
+"But how is it that you knew me? I think," she added, without waiting
+for a reply, "that I have seen you somewhere. But I can't remember
+where."
+
+"Perhaps in the train this evening?"
+
+"Yes so it was You knew me then?"
+
+"I thought I did, for I happened to come out from my lodgings at the
+moment you were leaving yours, just opposite, and we walked almost
+together to Gower Street station. I must explain that I have taken
+rooms in Gower Place. I didn't like to speak to you in the street; but
+now that I have again chanced to see you----"
+
+"I still don't understand," said Eve, who was speaking with the most
+perfect ease of manner. "I am not the only person living in that house.
+Why should you take it for granted that I was Miss Madeley?"
+
+Hilliard had not ventured to seat himself; he stood before her, head
+respectfully bent.
+
+"At Mrs. Brewer's I saw your portrait."
+
+Her eyes fell.
+
+"My portrait. You really could recognise me from that?"
+
+"Oh, readily! Will you allow me to sit down?"
+
+"Of course. I shall be glad to hear the news you have brought. I
+couldn't imagine who it was had called and wanted to see me. But
+there's another thing. I didn't think Mrs. Brewer knew my address. I
+have moved since I wrote to her daughter."
+
+"No; it was the old address she gave me. I ought to have mentioned
+that: it escaped my mind. First of all I went to Belmont Street."
+
+"Mysteries still!" exclaimed Eve. "The people _there_ couldn't know
+where I had gone to."
+
+"A child who had carried some parcel for you to Gower Place volunteered
+information."
+
+Outwardly amused, and bearing herself as though no incident could
+easily disconcert her, Eve did not succeed in suppressing every sign of
+nervousness. Constrained by his wonder to study her with critical
+attention, the young man began to feel assured that she was consciously
+acting a part. That she should be able to carry it off so well, therein
+lay the marvel. Of course, London had done much for her. Possessing no
+common gifts, she must have developed remarkably under changed
+conditions, and must, indeed, have become a very different person from
+the country girl who toiled to support her drunken father's family.
+Hilliard remembered the mention of her sister who had gone to
+Birmingham disappeared; it suggested a characteristic of the Madeley
+blood, which possibly must be borne in mind if he would interpret Eve.
+
+She rested her arms on the little round table.
+
+"So Mrs. Brewer asked you to come and find me?"
+
+"It was only a suggestion, and I may as well tell you how it came
+about. I used to have my meals in Mrs. Brewer's parlour, and to amuse
+myself I looked over her album. There I found your portrait, and--well,
+it interested me, and I asked the name of the original."
+
+Hilliard was now in command of himself; he spoke with simple
+directness, as his desires dictated.
+
+"And Mrs. Brewer," said Eve, with averted eyes, "told you about me?"
+
+"She spoke of you as her daughter's friend," was the evasive answer.
+Eve seemed to accept it as sufficient, and there was a long silence.
+
+"My name is Hilliard," the young man resumed. "I am taking the first
+holiday, worth speaking of, that I have known for a good many years. At
+Dudley my business was to make mechanical drawings, and I can't say
+that I enjoyed the occupation."
+
+"Are you going back to it?"
+
+"Not just yet. I have been in France, and I may go abroad again before
+long."
+
+"For your pleasure?" Eve asked, with interest.
+
+"To answer 'Yes' wouldn't quite express what I mean. I am learning to
+live."
+
+She hastily searched his face for the interpretation of these words,
+then looked away, with grave, thoughtful countenance.
+
+"By good fortune," Hilliard pursued. "I have become possessed of money
+enough to live upon for a year or two. At the end of it I may find
+myself in the old position, and have to be a living machine once more.
+But I shall be able to remember that I was once a man."
+
+Eve regarded him strangely, with wide, in tent eyes, as though his
+speech had made a peculiar impression upon her.
+
+"Can you see any sense in that?" he asked, smiling.
+
+"Yes. I think I understand you."
+
+She spoke slowly, and Hilliard, watching her, saw in her face more of
+the expression of her portrait than he had yet discovered. Her soft
+tone was much more like what he had expected to hear than her
+utterances hitherto.
+
+"Have you always lived at Dudley?" she asked.
+
+He sketched rapidly the course of his life, without reference to
+domestic circumstances. Before he had ceased speaking he saw that Eve's
+look was directed towards something at a distance behind him; she
+smiled, and at length nodded, in recognition of some person who
+approached. Then a voice caused him to look round.
+
+"Oh, there you are! I have been hunting for you ever so long."
+
+As soon as Hilliard saw the speaker, he had no difficulty in
+remembering her. It was Eve's companion of the day before yesterday,
+with whom she had started for the theatre. The girl evidently felt some
+surprise at discovering her friend in conversation with a man she did
+not know; but Eve was equal to the situation, and spoke calmly.
+
+"This gentleman is from my part of the world--from Dudley. Mr.
+Hilliard--Miss Ringrose."
+
+Hilliard stood up. Miss Ringrose, after attempting a bow of formal
+dignity, jerked out her hand, gave a shy little laugh, and said with
+amusing abruptness--
+
+"Do you really come from Dudley?"
+
+"I do really, Miss Ringrose. Why does it sound strange to you?"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean that it sounds strange." She spoke in a high but not
+unmusical note, very quickly, and with timid glances to either side of
+her collocutor. "But Eve--Miss Madeley--gave me the idea that Dudley
+people must be great, rough, sooty men. Don't laugh at me, please. You
+know very well, Eve, that you always talk in that way. Of course, I
+knew that there must be people of a different kind, but--there now,
+you're making me confused, and I don't know what I meant to say."
+
+She was a thin-faced, but rather pretty girl, with auburn hair.
+Belonging to a class which, especially in its women, has little
+intelligence to boast of, she yet redeemed herself from the charge of
+commonness by a certain vivacity of feature and an agreeable suggestion
+of good feeling in her would-be frank but nervous manner. Hilliard
+laughed merrily at the vision in her mind of "great, rough, sooty men."
+
+"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Miss Ringrose."
+
+"No, but really--what sort of a place is Dudley? Is it true that they
+call it the Black Country?"
+
+"Let us walk about," interposed Eve. "Mr. Hilliard will tell you all he
+can about the Black Country."
+
+She moved on, and they rambled aimlessly; among cigar-smoking clerks
+and shopmen, each with the female of his kind in wondrous hat and
+drapery; among domestic groups from the middle-class suburbs, and from
+regions of the artisan; among the frankly rowdy and the solemnly
+superior; here and there a man in evening dress, generally conscious of
+his white tie and starched shirt, and a sprinkling of unattached young
+women with roving eyes. Hilliard, excited by the success of his
+advances, and by companionship after long solitude, became very unlike
+himself, talking and jesting freely. Most of the conversation passed
+between him and Miss Ringrose; Eve had fallen into an absent mood,
+answered carelessly when addressed, laughed without genuine amusement,
+and sometimes wore the look of trouble which Hilliard had observed
+whilst in the train.
+
+Before long she declared that it was time to go home.
+
+"What's the hurry?" said her friend. "It's nothing like ten o'clock
+yet--is it, Mr. Hilliard?"
+
+"I don't wish to stay any longer. Of course you needn't go unless you
+like, Patty."
+
+Hilliard had counted on travelling back with her; to his great
+disappointment, Eve answered his request to be allowed to do so with a
+coldly civil refusal which there was no misunderstanding.
+
+"But I hope you will let me see you again?"
+
+"As you live so near me," she answered, "we are pretty sure to meet.
+Are you coming or not, Patty?"
+
+"Oh, of course I shall go if you do."
+
+The young man shook hands with them; rather formally with Eve, with
+Patty Ringrose as cordially as if they were old friends. And then he
+lost sight of them amid the throng.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+How did Eve Madeley contrive to lead this life of leisure and
+amusement? The question occupied Hilliard well on into the small hours;
+he could hit upon no explanation which had the least plausibility.
+
+Was she engaged to be married to the man who met her at the Exhibition?
+Her behaviour in his company by no means supported such a surmise; yet
+there must be something more than ordinary acquaintance between the two.
+
+Might not Patty Ringrose be able and willing to solve for him the
+riddle of Eve's existence? But he had no idea where Patty lived. He
+recalled her words in Gower Street: "You _are_ going it, Eve!" and they
+stirred miserable doubts; yet something more than mere hope inclined
+him to believe that the girl's life was innocent. Her look, her talk
+reassured him; so did her friendship with such a person as the
+ingenuous Patty. On learning that he dwelt close by her she gave no
+sign of an uneasy conscience.
+
+In any case, the contrast between her actual life and that suggested by
+Mrs. Brewer's talk about her was singular enough. It supplied him with
+a problem of which the interest would not easily be exhausted. But he
+must pursue the study with due regard to honour and delicacy; he would
+act the spy no more. As Eve had said, they were pretty sure to meet
+before long; if his patience failed it was always possible for him to
+write a letter.
+
+Four days went by and he saw nothing of her. On the fifth, as he was
+walking homeward in the afternoon, he came face to face with Miss
+Madeley in Gower Street. She stopped at once, and offered a friendly
+hand.
+
+"Will you let me walk a little way with you?" he asked.
+
+"Certainly. I'm just going to change a book at Mudie's." She carried a
+little handbag. "I suppose you have been going about London a great
+deal? Don't the streets look beautiful at this time of the year?"
+
+"Beautiful? I'm not sure that I see much beauty."
+
+"Oh, don't you? I delight in London. I had dreamt of it all my life
+before I came here. I always said to myself I should some day live in
+London."
+
+Her voice to-day had a vibrant quality which seemed to result from some
+agreeable emotion. Hilliard remarked a gleam in her eyes and a colour
+in her cheeks which gave her an appearance of better health than a few
+days ago.
+
+"You never go into the country?" he said, feeling unable to join in her
+praise of London, though it was intelligible enough to him.
+
+"I go now and then as far as Hampstead Heath," Eve answered with a
+smile. "If it's fine I shall be there next Sunday with Patty Ringrose."
+
+Hilliard grasped the opportunity. Would she permit him to meet her and
+Miss Ringrose at Hampstead? Without shadow of constraint or
+affectation, Eve replied that such a meeting would give her pleasure:
+she mentioned place and time at which they might conveniently encounter.
+
+He walked with her all the way to the library, and attended her back to
+Gower Place. The result of this conversation was merely to intensify
+the conflict of feelings which Eve had excited in him. Her friendliness
+gave him no genuine satisfaction; her animated mood, in spite of the
+charm to which he submitted, disturbed him with mistrust. Nothing she
+said sounded quite sincere, yet it was more difficult than ever to
+imagine that she played a part quite alien to her disposition.
+
+No word had fallen from her which threw light upon her present
+circumstances, and he feared to ask any direct question. It had
+surprised him to learn that she subscribed to Mudie's. The book she
+brought away with her was a newly published novel, and in the few words
+they exchanged on the subject while standing at the library counter she
+seemed to him to exhibit a surprising acquaintance with the literature
+of the day. Of his own shortcomings in this respect he was but too
+sensible, and he began to feel himself an intellectual inferior, where
+every probability had prepared him for the reverse.
+
+The next morning he went to Mudie's on his own account, and came away
+with volumes chosen from those which lay on the counter. He was tired
+of wandering about the town, and might as well pass his time in reading.
+
+When Sunday came, he sought the appointed spot at Hampstead, and there,
+after an hour's waiting, met the two friends. Eve was no longer in her
+vivacious mood; brilliant sunshine, and the breeze upon the heath, had
+no power to inspirit her; spoke in monosyllables, and behaved with
+unaccountable reserve. Hilliard had no choice but to converse with
+Patty, who was as gay and entertaining as ever. In the course of their
+gossip he learnt that Miss Ringrose was employed at a music-shop, kept
+by her uncle, where she sold the latest songs and dances, and "tried
+over" on a piano any unfamiliar piece which a customer might think of
+purchasing. It was not easy to understand how these two girls came to
+be so intimate, for they seemed to have very little in common. Compared
+with Eve Madeley, Patty was an insignificant little person; but of her
+moral uprightness Hilliard felt only the more assured the longer he
+talked with her, and this still had a favourable effect upon his
+estimate of Eve.
+
+Again there passed a few days without event. But about nine o'clock on
+Wednesday evening, as he sat at home over a book, his landlady entered
+the room with a surprising announcement.
+
+"There's a young lady wishes to see you, Sir. Miss Ringrose is the
+name."
+
+Hilliard sprang up.
+
+"Please ask her to come in."
+
+The woman eyed him in a manner he was too excited to understand.
+
+"She would like to speak to you at the door, Sir, if you wouldn't mind
+going out."
+
+He hastened thither. The front door stood open, and a light from the
+passage shone on Patty's face. In the girl's look he saw at once that
+something was wrong.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Hilliard--I didn't know your number--I've been to a lot of
+houses asking for you----"
+
+"What is it?" he inquired, going out on to the doorstep.
+
+"I called to see Eve, and--I don't know what it meant, but she's gone
+away. The landlady says she left this morning with her luggage--went
+away for good. And it's so strange that she hasn't let me know
+anything. I can't understand it. I wanted to ask if you know----"
+
+Hilliard stared at the house opposite.
+
+"I? I know nothing whatever about it. Come in and tell me----"
+
+"If you wouldn't mind coming out----"
+
+"Yes, yes. One moment; I'll get my hat."
+
+He rejoined the girl, and they turned in the direction of Euston
+Square, where people were few.
+
+"I couldn't help coming to see you, Mr. Hilliard," said Patty, whose
+manner indicated the gravest concern. "It has put me in such a fright.
+I haven't seen her since Sunday. I came to-night, as soon as I could
+get away from the shop, because I didn't feel easy in my mind about
+her."
+
+"Why did you feel anxious? What has been going on?"
+
+He search her face. Patty turned away, kept silence for a moment, al at
+length, with one of her wonted outbursts of confidence, said nervously:
+
+"It's something I can't explain. But as you were a friend of hers----"
+
+A man came by, and Patty broke off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Hilliard waited for her to continue, but Patty kept her eyes down and
+said no more.
+
+"Did you think," he asked, "that I was likely to be in Miss Madeley's
+confidence?"
+
+"You've known her a long time, haven't you?"
+
+This proof of reticence, or perhaps of deliberate misleading, on Eve's
+part astonished Hilliard. He replied evasively that he had very little
+acquaintance with Miss Madeley's affairs, and added:
+
+"May she not simply have changed her lodgings?"
+
+"Why should she go so suddenly, and without letting me know?"
+
+"What had the landlady to say?"
+
+"She heard her tell the cab to drive to Mudie's--the library, you know."
+
+"Why," said Hilliard; "that meant, perhaps, that she wanted to return a
+book before leaving London. Is there any chance that she has gone
+home--to Dudley? Perhaps her father is ill, and she was sent for."
+
+Patty admitted this possibility, but with every sign of doubt.
+
+"The landlady said she had a letter this morning."
+
+"Did she? Then it may have been from Dudley. But you know her so much
+better than I do. Of course, you mustn't tell me anything you don't
+feel it right to speak of; still, did it occur to you that I could be
+of any use?"
+
+"No, I didn't think; I only came because I was so upset when I found
+her gone. I knew you lived in Gower Place somewhere, and I thought you
+might have seen her since Sunday."
+
+"I have not. But surely you will hear from her very soon. You may even
+get a letter tonight, or to-morrow morning."
+
+Patty gave a little spring of hopefulness.
+
+"Yes; a letter might come by the last post to-night. I'll go home at
+once."
+
+"And I will come with you," said Hilliard. "Then you can tell me
+whether you have any news."
+
+They turned and walked towards the foot of Hampstead Road, whence they
+could go by tram-car to Patty's abode in High Street, Camden Town.
+Supported by the hope of finding a letter when she arrived, Miss
+Ringrose grew more like herself.
+
+"You must have wondered what _ever_ I meant by calling to see you, Mr.
+Hilliard. I went to five or six houses before I hit on the right one. I
+do wish now that I'd waited a little, but I'm always doing things in
+that way and being sorry for them directly after. Eve is my best
+friend, you know, and that makes me so anxious about her."
+
+"How long have you known her?"
+
+"Oh, ever so long--about a year."
+
+The temptation to make another inquiry was too strong for Hilliard.
+
+"Where has she been employed of late?"
+
+Patty looked up at him with surprise.
+
+"Oh, don't you know? She isn't doing anything now. The people where she
+was went bankrupt, and she's been out of a place for more than a month."
+
+"Can't find another engagement?"
+
+"She hasn't tried yet. She's taking a holiday. It isn't very nice work,
+adding up money all day. I'm sure it would drive me out of my senses
+very soon. I think she might find something better than that."
+
+Miss Ringrose continued to talk of her friend all the way to Camden
+Town, but the information he gathered did not serve to advance Hilliard
+in his understanding of Eve's character. That she was keeping back
+something of grave import the girl had already confessed, and in her
+chatter she frequently checked herself on the verge of an indiscretion.
+Hilliard took for granted that the mystery had to do with the man he
+had seen at Earl's Court. If Eve actually disappeared, he would not
+scruple to extract from Patty all that she knew; but he must see first
+whether Eve would communicate with her friend.
+
+In High Street Patty entered a small shop which was on the point of
+being closed for the night.
+
+Hilliard waited for her a few yards away; on her return he saw at once
+that she was disappointed.
+
+"There's nothing!"
+
+"It may come in the morning. I should like to know whether you hear or
+not."
+
+"Would this be out of your way?" asked Patty. "I'm generally alone in
+the shop from half-past one to half-past two. There's very seldom any
+business going on then."
+
+"Then I will come to-morrow at that time."
+
+"Do, please? If I haven't heard anything I shall be that nervous."
+
+They talked to no purpose for a few minutes, and bade each other
+good-night.
+
+Next day, at the hour Patty had appointed, Hilliard was again in High
+Street. As he approached the shop he heard from within the jingle of a
+piano. A survey through the closed glass door showed him Miss Ringrose
+playing for her own amusement. He entered, and Patty jumped up with a
+smile of welcome.
+
+"It's all right! I had a letter this morning. She _has_ gone to Dudley."
+
+"Ah! I am glad to hear it. Any reason given?"
+
+"Nothing particular," answered the girl, striking a note on the piano
+with her forefinger. "She thought she might as well go home for a week
+or two before taking another place. She has heard of something in
+Holborn."
+
+"So your alarm was groundless."
+
+"Oh--I didn't really feel alarmed, Mr. Hilliard. You mustn't think
+that. I often do silly things."
+
+Patty's look and tone were far from reassuring. Evidently she had been
+relieved from her suspense, but no less plainly did she seek to avoid
+an explanation of it. Hilliard began to glance about the shop.
+
+"My uncle," resumed Patty, turning with her wonted sprightliness to
+another subject, "always goes out for an hour or two in the middle of
+the day to play billiards. I can tell by his face when he comes back
+whether he's lost or won; he does so take it to heart, silly man! Do
+_you_ play billiards?"
+
+The other shook his head.
+
+"I thought not. You have a serious look."
+
+Hilliard did not relish this compliment. He imagined he had cast away
+his gloom; he desired to look like the men who take life with easy
+courage. As he gazed through the glass door into the street, a figure
+suddenly blocked his prospect, and a face looked in. Then the door
+opened, and there entered a young man of clerkly appearance, who
+glanced from Miss Ringrose to her companion with an air of severity.
+Patty had reddened a little.
+
+"What are _you_ doing here at this time of day?" she asked familiarly.
+
+"Oh--business--had to look up a man over here. Thought I'd speak a word
+as I passed."
+
+Hilliard drew aside.
+
+"Who has opened this new shop opposite?" added the young man, beckoning
+from the doorway.
+
+A more transparent pretext for drawing Patty away could not have been
+conceived; but she readily lent herself to it, and followed. The door
+closed behind them. In a few minutes Patty returned alone, with rosy
+cheeks and mutinous lips.
+
+"I'm very sorry to have been in the way," said Hilliard, smiling.
+
+"Oh, not you. It's all right. Someone I know. He can be sensible enough
+when he likes, but sometimes he's such a silly there's no putting up
+with him. Have you heard the new waltz--the Ballroom Queen?"
+
+She sat down and rattled over this exhilarating masterpiece.
+
+"Thank you," said Hilliard. "You play very cleverly."
+
+"Oh, so can anybody--that's nothing."
+
+"Does Miss Madeley play at all?"
+
+"No. She's always saying she wishes she could but I tell her, what does
+it matter? She knows no end of things that I don't, and I'd a good deal
+rather have that."
+
+"She reads a good deal, I suppose?"
+
+"Oh, I should think she does, just! And she can speak French."
+
+"Indeed? How did she learn?"
+
+"At the place where she was bookkeeper there was a young lady from
+Paris, and they shared lodgings, and Eve learnt it from her. Then her
+friend went to Paris again, and Eve wanted very much to go with her,
+but she didn't see how to manage it. Eve," she added, with a laugh, "is
+always wanting to do something that's impossible."
+
+A week later, Hilliard again called at the music-shop, and talked for
+half an hour with Miss Ringrose, who had no fresh news from Eve. His
+visits were repeated at intervals of a few days, and at length, towards
+the end of June, he learnt that Miss Madeley was about to return to
+London; she had obtained a new engagement, at the establishment in
+Holborn of which Patty had spoken.
+
+"And will she come back to her old lodgings?" he inquired.
+
+Patty shook her head.
+
+"She'll stay with me. I wanted her to come here before, but she didn't
+care about it. Now she's altered her mind, and I'm very glad."
+
+Hilliard hesitated in putting the next question.
+
+"Do you still feel anxious about her?"
+
+The girl met his eyes for an instant.
+
+"No. It's all right now."
+
+"There's one thing I should like you to tell me--if you can."
+
+"About Miss Madeley?"
+
+"I don't think there can be any harm in your saying yes or no. Is she
+engaged to be married?"
+
+Patty replied with a certain eagerness.
+
+"No! Indeed she isn't. And she never has been."
+
+"Thank you." Hilliard gave a sigh of relief. "I'm very glad to know
+that."
+
+"Of course you are," Patty answered, with a laugh.
+
+As usual, after one of her frank remarks, she turned away and struck
+chords on the piano. Hilliard meditated the while, until his companion
+spoke again.
+
+"You'll see her before long, I dare say?"
+
+"Perhaps. I don't know."
+
+"At all events, you'll _want_ to see her."
+
+"Most likely."
+
+"Will you promise me something?"
+
+"If it's in my power to keep the promise."
+
+"It's only--I should be so glad if you wouldn't mention anything about
+my coming to see you that night in Gower Place."
+
+"I won't speak of it."
+
+"Quite sure?"
+
+"You may depend upon me. Would you rather she didn't know that I have
+seen you at all?"
+
+"Oh, there's no harm in that. I should be sure to let it out. I shall
+say we met by chance somewhere."
+
+"Very well. I feel tempted to ask a promise iii return."
+
+Patty stood with her hands behind her, eyes wide and lips slightly
+apart.
+
+"It is this," he continued, lowering his voice. "If ever you should
+begin to feel anxious again about her will you let me know?"
+
+Her reply was delayed; it came at length in the form of an embarrassed
+nod. Thereupon Hilliard pressed her hand and departed.
+
+He knew the day on which Eve would arrive in London; from morning to
+night a feverish unrest drove him about the streets. On the morrow he
+was scarcely more at ease, and for several days he lived totally
+without occupation, save in his harassing thoughts. He paced and
+repaced the length of Holborn, wondering where it was that Eve had
+found employment; but from Camden Town he held aloof.
+
+One morning there arrived for him a postcard on which was scribbled:
+"We are going to the Savoy on Saturday night. Gallery." No signature,
+no address; but of course the writer must be Patty Ringrose. Mentally,
+he thanked her with much fervour. And on the stated evening, nearly an
+hour before the opening of the doors, he climbed the stone steps
+leading to the gallery entrance of the Savoy Theatre. At the summit two
+or three persons were already waiting--strangers to him. He leaned
+against the wall, and read an evening paper. At every sound of
+approaching feet his eyes watched with covert eagerness. Presently he
+heard a laugh, echoing from below, and recognised Patty's voice; then
+Miss Ringrose appeared round the winding in the staircase, and was
+followed by Eve Madeley. Patty glanced up, and smiled consciously as
+she discovered the face she had expected to see; but Eve remained for
+some minutes unaware of her acquaintance's proximity. Scrutinising her
+appearance, as he could at his ease, Hilliard thought she looked far
+from well: she had a tired, dispirited expression, and paid no heed to
+the people about her. Her dress was much plainer than that she wore a
+month ago.
+
+He saw Patty whispering to her companion, and, as a result, Eve's eyes
+turned in his direction. He met her look, and had no difficulty in
+making his way down two or three steps, to join her. The reception she
+gave him was one of civil indifference. Hilliard made no remark on what
+seemed the chance of their encounter, nor did he speak of her absence
+from London; they talked, as far as talk was possible under the
+circumstances, of theatrical and kindred subjects. He could not
+perceive that the girl was either glad or sorry to have met him again;
+but by degrees her mood brightened a little, and she exclaimed with
+pleasure when the opening of the door caused an upward movement.
+
+"You have been away," he said, when they were in their places, he at
+one side of Eve, Patty on the other.
+
+"Yes. At Dudley."
+
+"Did you see Mrs. Brewer?"
+
+"Several times. She hasn't got another lodger yet, and wishes you would
+go back again. A most excellent character she gave you."
+
+This sounded satirical.
+
+"I deserved the best she could say of me," Hilliard answered.
+
+Eve glanced at him, smiled doubtfully, and turned to talk with Patty
+Ringrose. Through the evening there was no further mention of Dudley.
+Eve could with difficulty be induced to converse at all, and when the
+entertainment was over she pointedly took leave of him within the
+theatre. But while shaking hands with Patty, he saw something in that
+young lady's face which caused him to nod and smile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+There came an afternoon early in July when Hilliard, tired with a long
+ramble in search of old City churches--his architectural interests
+never failed--sought rest and coolness in a Fleet Street tavern of
+time-honoured name. It was long since he had yielded to any
+extravagance; to-day his palate demanded wine, and with wine he solaced
+it. When he went forth again into the roaring highway things glowed
+before him in a mellow light: the sounds of Fleet Street made music to
+his ears; he looked with joyous benignity into the faces of men and
+women, and nowhere discovered a countenance inharmonious with his
+gallant mood.
+
+No longer weary, he strolled westward, content with the satisfactions
+of each passing moment. "This," he said to himself, "is the joy of
+life. Past and future are alike powerless over me; I live in the
+glorious sunlight of this summer day, under the benediction of a
+greathearted wine. Noble wine! Friend of the friendless, companion of
+the solitary, lifter-up of hearts that are oppressed, inspirer of brave
+thoughts in them that fail beneath the burden of being. Thanks to thee,
+O priceless wine!"
+
+A bookseller's window arrested him. There, open to the gaze of every
+pedestrian, stood a volume of which the sight made him thrill with
+rapture; a finely illustrated folio, a treatise on the Cathedrals of
+France. Five guineas was the price it bore. A moment's lingering,
+restrained by some ignoble spirit of thrift which the wine had not
+utterly overcome, and he entered the shop. He purchased the volume. It
+would have pleased him to carry it away, but in mere good-nature he
+allowed the shopman's suggestion to prevail, and gave his address that
+the great tome might be sent to him.
+
+How cheap it was--five guineas for so much instant delight and such
+boundless joy of anticipation!
+
+On one of the benches in Trafalgar Square he sat for a long time
+watching the fountains, and ever and anon letting them lead his eyes
+upwards to the great snowy clouds that gleamed upon the profound blue.
+Some ragged children were at play near him; he searched his pocket,
+collected coppers and small silver, and with a friendly cry of "Holloa,
+you ragamuffins!" scattered amazement and delight.
+
+St. Martin's Church told him that the hour was turned of six. Then a
+purpose that had hung vaguely in his mind like a golden mist took form
+and substance. He set off to walk northward, came out into Holborn, and
+loitered in the neighbourhood of a certain place of business, which of
+late he had many times observed. It was not long that he had to wait.
+Presently there came forth someone whom he knew, and with quick steps
+he gained her side.
+
+Eve Madeley perceived him without surprise.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I am here again. If it's disagreeable to you, tell me,
+and I will go my own way at once."
+
+"I have no wish to send you away," she answered, with a smile of
+self-possession. "But all the same, I think it would be wiser if you
+did go."
+
+"Ah, then, if you leave me to judge for myself----! You look tired this
+evening. I have something to say to you; let us turn for a moment up
+this byway."
+
+"No, let us walk straight on."
+
+"I beg of you!--Now you are kind. I am going to dine at a restaurant.
+Usually, I eat my dinner at home--a bad dinner and a cheerless room. On
+such an evening as this I can't go back and appease hunger in that
+animal way. But when I sit down in the restaurant I shall be alone.
+It's miserable to see the groups of people enjoying themselves all
+round and to sit lonely. I can't tell you how long it is since I had a
+meal in company. Will you come and dine with me?"
+
+"I can't do that."
+
+"Where's the impossibility?"
+
+"I shouldn't like to do it."
+
+"But would it be so very disagreeable to sit and talk? Or, I won't ask
+you to talk; only to let me talk to you. Give me an hour or two of your
+time--that's what I ask. It means so much to me, and to you, what does
+it matter?"
+
+Eve walked on in silence; his entreaties kept pace with her. At length
+she stopped.
+
+"It's all the same to me--if you wish it----"
+
+"Thank you a thousand times!"
+
+They walked back into Holborn, and Hilliard, talking merely of trifles,
+led the way to a great hall, where some scores of people were already
+dining. He selected a nook which gave assurance of privacy, sketched to
+the waiter a modest but carefully chosen repast, and from his seat on
+the opposite side of the table laughed silently at Eve as she leaned
+back on the plush cushions. In no way disconcerted by the show of
+luxury about her, Eve seemed to be reflecting, not without enjoyment.
+
+"You would rather be here than going home in the Camden Town 'bus?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"That's what I like in you. You have courage to tell the truth. When
+you said that you couldn't come, it was what you really thought Now
+that you have learnt your mistake, you confess it."
+
+"I couldn't have done it if I hadn't made up my mind that it was all
+the same, whether I came or refused."
+
+"All the same to you. Yes; I'm quite willing that you should think it
+so. It puts me at my ease. I have nothing to reproach myself with. Ah,
+but how good it is to sit here and talk!"
+
+"Don't you know anyone else who would come with you? Haven't you made
+any friends?"
+
+"Not one. You and Miss Ringrose are the only persons I know in London."
+
+"I can't understand why you live in that way."
+
+"How should I make friends--among men? Why, it's harder than making
+money--which I have never done yet, and never shall, I'm afraid."
+
+Eve averted her eyes, and again seemed to meditate.
+
+"I'll tell you," pursued the young man "how the money came to me that I
+am living on now. It'll fill up the few moments while we are waiting."
+
+He made of it an entertaining narrative, which he concluded just as the
+soup was laid before them. Eve listened with frank curiosity, with an
+amused smile. Then came a lull in the conversation. Hilliard began his
+dinner with appetite and gusto; the girl, after a few sips, neglected
+her soup and glanced about the neighboring tables.
+
+"In my position," said Hilliard at length, "what would you have done?"
+
+"It's a difficult thing to put myself in your position."
+
+"Is it, really? Why, then, I will tell you something more of myself.
+You say that Mrs. Brewer gave me an excellent character?"
+
+"I certainly shouldn't have known you from her description."
+
+Hilliard laughed.
+
+"I seem to you so disreputable?"
+
+"Not exactly that," replied Eve thoughtfully. "But you seem altogether
+a different person from what you seemed to her."
+
+"Yes, I can understand that. And it gives me an opportunity for saying
+that you, Miss Madeley, are as different as possible from the idea I
+formed of you when I heard Mrs. Brewer's description."
+
+"She described me? I should so like to hear what she said."
+
+The changing of plates imposed a brief silence. Hilliard drank a glass
+of wine and saw that Eve just touched hers with her lips.
+
+"You shall hear that--but not now. I want to enable you to judge me,
+and if I let you know the facts while dinner goes on it won't be so
+tiresome as if I began solemnly to tell you my life, as people do in
+novels."
+
+He erred, if anything, on the side of brevity, but in the succeeding
+quarter of an hour Eve was able to gather from his careless talk, which
+sedulously avoided the pathetic note, a fair notion of what his
+existence had been from boyhood upward. It supplemented the account of
+himself she had received from him when they met for the first time. As
+he proceeded she grew more attentive, and occasionally allowed her eyes
+to encounter his.
+
+"There's only one other person who has heard all this from me," he said
+at length. "That's a friend of mine at Birmingham--a man called
+Narramore. When I got Dengate's money I went to Narramore, and I told
+him what use I was going to make of it."
+
+"That's what you haven't told me," remarked the listener.
+
+"I will, now that you can understand me. I resolved to go right away
+from all the sights and sounds that I hated, and to live a man's life,
+for just as long as the money would last."
+
+"What do you mean by a man's life?"
+
+"Why, a life of enjoyment, instead of a life not worthy to be called
+life at all. This is part of it, this evening. I have had enjoyable
+hours since I left Dudley, but never yet one like this. And because I
+owe it to you, I shall remember you with gratitude as long as I
+remember anything at all."
+
+"That's a mistake," said Eve. "You owe the enjoyment, whatever it is,
+to your money, not to me."
+
+"You prefer to look at it in that way. Be it so. I had a delightful
+month in Paris, but I was driven back to England by loneliness. Now, if
+_you_ had been there! If I could have seen you each evening for an hour
+or two, had dinner with you at the restaurant, talked with you about
+what I had seen in the day--but that would have been perfection, and I
+have never hoped for more than moderate, average pleasure--such as
+ordinary well-to-do men take as their right."
+
+"What did you do in Paris?"
+
+"Saw things I have longed to see any time the last fifteen years or so.
+Learned to talk a little French. Got to feel a better educated man than
+I was before."
+
+"Didn't Dudley seem a long way off when you were there?" asked Eve half
+absently.
+
+"In another planet.--You thought once of going to Paris; Miss Ringrose
+told me."
+
+Eve knitted her brows, and made no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+When fruit had been set before them--and as he was peeling a banana:
+
+"What a vast difference," said Hilliard, "between the life of people
+who dine, and of those who don't! It isn't the mere pleasure of eating,
+the quality of the food--though that must have a great influence on
+mind and character. But to sit for an hour or two each evening in
+quiet, orderly enjoyment, with graceful things about one, talking of
+whatever is pleasant--how it civilises! Until three months ago I never
+dined in my life, and I know well what a change it has made in me."
+
+"I never dined till this evening," said Eve.
+
+"Never? This is the first time you have been at a restaurant?"
+
+"For dinner--yes."
+
+Hilliard heard the avowal with surprise and delight. After all, there
+could not have been much intimacy between her and the man she met at
+the Exhibition.
+
+"When I go back to slavery," he continued, "I shall bear it more
+philosophically. It was making me a brute, but I think there'll be no
+more danger of that. The memory of civilisation will abide with me. I
+shall remind myself that I was once a free man, and that will support
+me."
+
+Eve regarded him with curiosity.
+
+"Is there no choice?" she asked. "While you have money, couldn't you
+find some better way of earning a living?"
+
+"I have given it a thought now and then, but it's very doubtful.
+There's only one thing at which I might have done well, and that's
+architecture. From studying it just for my own pleasure, I believe I
+know more about architecture than most men who are not in the
+profession; but it would take a long time before I could earn money by
+it. I could prepare myself to be an architectural draughtsman, no
+doubt, and might do as well that way as drawing machinery. But----"
+
+"Then why don't you go to work! It would save you from living in
+hideous places."
+
+"After all, does it matter much? If I had anything else to gain.
+Suppose I had any hope of marriage, for instance----"
+
+He said it playfully. Eve turned her eyes away, but gave no other sign
+of self-consciousness.
+
+"I have no such hope. I have seen too much of marriage in poverty."
+
+"So have I," said his companion, with quiet emphasis.
+
+"And when a man's absolutely sure that he will never have an income of
+more than a hundred and fifty pounds----"
+
+"It's a crime if he asks a woman to share it," Eve added coldly.
+
+"I agree with you. It's well to understand each other on that
+point.--Talking of architecture, I bought a grand book this afternoon."
+
+He described the purchase, and mentioned what it cost.
+
+"But at that rate," said Eve, "your days of slavery will come again
+very soon."
+
+"Oh! it's so rarely that I spend a large sum. On most days I satisfy
+myself with the feeling of freedom, and live as poorly as ever I did.
+Still, don't suppose that I am bent on making my money last a very long
+time. I can imagine myself spending it all in a week or two, and
+feeling I had its worth. The only question is, how can I get most
+enjoyment? The very best of a lifetime may come within a single day.
+Indeed, I believe it very often does."
+
+"I doubt that--at least, I know that it couldn't be so with me."
+
+"Well, what do you aim at?" Hilliard asked disinterestedly.
+
+"Safety," was the prompt reply.
+
+"Safety? From what?"
+
+"From years of struggle to keep myself alive, and a miserable old age."
+
+"Then you might have said--a safety-match."
+
+The jest, and its unexpectedness, struck sudden laughter from Eve.
+Hilliard joined in her mirth.
+
+After that she suggested, "Hadn't we better go?"
+
+"Yes. Let us walk quietly on. The streets are pleasant after sunset."
+
+On rising, after he had paid the bill, Hilliard chanced to see himself
+in a mirror. He had flushed cheeks, and his hair was somewhat
+disorderly. In contrast with Eve's colourless composure, his appearance
+was decidedly bacchanalian; but the thought merely amused him.
+
+They crossed Holborn, and took their way up Southampton Row, neither
+speaking until they were within sight of Russell Square.
+
+"I like this part of London," said Hilliard at length, pointing before
+him. "I often walk about the squares late at night. It's quiet, and the
+trees make the air taste fresh."
+
+"I did the same, sometimes, when I lived in Gower Place."
+
+"Doesn't it strike you that we are rather like each other in some
+things?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" Eve replied frankly. "I have noticed that."
+
+"You have? Even in the lives we have led there's a sort of resemblance,
+isn't there?"
+
+"Yes, I see now that there is."
+
+In Russell Square they turned from the pavement, and walked along the
+edge of the enclosure.
+
+"I wish Patty had been with us," said Eve all at once. "She would have
+enjoyed it so thoroughly."
+
+"To be sure she would. Well, we can dine again, and have Patty with us.
+But, after all, dining in London can't be quite what it is in Paris. I
+wish you hadn't gone back to work again. Do you know what I should have
+proposed?"
+
+She glanced inquiringly at him.
+
+"Why shouldn't we all have gone to Paris for a holiday? You and Patty
+could have lived together, and I should have seen you every day."
+
+Eve laughed.
+
+"Why not? Patty and I have both so much more money than we know what to
+do with," she answered.
+
+"Money? Oh, what of that! I have money."
+
+She laughed again.
+
+Hilliard was startled.
+
+"You are talking rather wildly. Leaving myself out of the question,
+what would Mr. Dally say to such a proposal?"
+
+"Who's Mr. Dally?"
+
+"Don't you know? Hasn't Patty told you that she is engaged?"
+
+"Ah! No; she hasn't spoken of it. But I think I must have seen him at
+the music-shop one day. Is she likely to marry him?"
+
+"It isn't the wisest thing she could do, but that may be the end of it.
+He's in an auctioneer's office, and may have a pretty good income some
+day."
+
+A long silence followed. They passed out of Russell into Woburn Square.
+Night was now darkening the latest tints of the sky, and the lamps
+shone golden against dusty green. At one of the houses in the narrow
+square festivities were toward; carriages drew up before the entrance,
+from which a red carpet was laid down across the pavement; within
+sounded music.
+
+"Does this kind of thing excite any ambition in you?" Hilliard asked,
+coming to a pause a few yards away from the carriage which was
+discharging its occupants.
+
+"Yes, I suppose it does. At all events, it makes me feel discontented."
+
+"I have settled all that with myself. I am content to look on as if it
+were a play. Those people have an idea of life quite different from
+mine. I shouldn't enjoy myself among them. You, perhaps, would."
+
+"I might," Eve replied absently. And she turned away to the other side
+of the square.
+
+"By-the-bye, you _have_ a friend in Paris. Do you ever hear from her?"
+
+"She wrote once or twice after she went back; but it has come to an
+end."
+
+"Still, you might find her again, if you were there."
+
+Eve delayed her reply a little, then spoke impatiently.
+
+"What is the use of setting my thoughts upon such things? Day after day
+I try to forget what I most wish for. Talk about yourself, and I will
+listen with pleasure; but never talk about me."
+
+"It's very hard to lay that rule upon me. I want to hear you speak of
+yourself. As yet, I hardly know you, and I never shall unless you----"
+
+"Why should you know me?" she interrupted, in a voice of irritation.
+
+"Only because I wish it more than anything else, I have wished it from
+the day when I first saw your portrait."
+
+"Oh! that wretched portrait! I should be sorry if I thought it was at
+all like me."
+
+"It is both like and unlike," said Hilliard. "What I see of it in your
+face is the part of you that most pleases me."
+
+"And that isn't my real self at all."
+
+"Perhaps not. And yet, perhaps, you are mistaken. That is what I want
+to learn. From the portrait, I formed an idea of you. When I met you,
+it seemed to me that I was hopelessly astray; yet now I don't feel sure
+of it."
+
+"You would like to know what has changed me from the kind of girl I was
+at Dudley?"
+
+"_Are_ you changed?"
+
+"In some ways, no doubt. You, at all events, seem to think so."
+
+"I can wait. You will tell me all about it some day."
+
+"You mustn't take that for granted. We have made friends in a sort of
+way just because we happened to come from the same place, and know the
+same people. But----"
+
+He waited.
+
+"Well, I was going to say that there's no use in our thinking much
+about each other."
+
+"I don't ask you to think of me. But I shall think a great deal about
+you for long enough to come."
+
+"That's what I want to prevent."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because, in the end, it might be troublesome to me."
+
+Hilliard kept silence awhile, then laughed. When he spoke again, it was
+of things indifferent natures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Laziest of men and worst of correspondents, Robert Narramore had as yet
+sent no reply to the letters in which Hilliard acquainted him with his
+adventures in London and abroad; but at the end of July he vouchsafed a
+perfunctory scrawl. "Too bad not to write before, but I've been floored
+every evening after business in this furious heat. You may like to hear
+that my uncle's property didn't make a bad show. I have come in for a
+round five thousand, and am putting it into brass bedsteads. Sha'n't be
+able to get away until the end of August. May see you then." Hilliard
+mused enviously on the brass bedstead business.
+
+On looking in at the Camden Town music-shop about this time he found
+Patty Ringrose flurried and vexed by an event which disturbed her
+prospects. Her uncle the shopkeeper, a widower of about fifty, had
+announced his intention of marrying again, and, worse still, of giving
+up his business.
+
+"It's the landlady of the public-house where he goes to play
+billiards," said Patty with scornful mirth; "a great fat woman! Oh! And
+he's going to turn publican. And my aunt and me will have to look out
+for ourselves."
+
+This aunt was the shopkeeper's maiden sister who had hitherto kept
+house for him. "She had been promised an allowance," said Patty, "but a
+very mean one."
+
+"I don't care much for myself," the girl went on; "there's plenty of
+shops where I can get an engagement, but of course it won't be the same
+as here, which has been home for me ever since I was a child. There!
+the things that men will do! I've told him plain to his face that he
+ought to be ashamed of himself, and so has aunt. And he _is_ ashamed,
+what's more. Don't you call it disgusting, such a marriage as that?"
+
+Hilliard avoided the delicate question.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if it hastens another marriage," he said with a
+smile.
+
+"I know what you mean, but the chances are that marriage won't come off
+at all. I'm getting tired of men; they're so selfish and unreasonable.
+Of course I don't mean you, Mr. Hilliard, but--oh! you know what I
+mean."
+
+"Mr. Dally has fallen under your displeasure?"
+
+"Please don't talk about him. If he thinks he's going to lay down the
+law to me he'll find his mistake; and it's better he should find it out
+before it's too late."
+
+They were interrupted by the entrance of Patty's amorous uncle, who
+returned from his billiards earlier than usual to-day. He scowled at
+the stranger, but passed into the house without speaking. Hilliard
+spoke a hurried word or two about Eve and went his way.
+
+Something less than a week after this he chanced to be away from home
+throughout the whole day, and on returning he was surprised to see a
+telegram upon his table. It came from Patty Ringrose, and asked him to
+call at the shop without fail between one and two that day. The hour
+was now nearly ten; the despatch had arrived at eleven in the morning.
+
+Without a minute's delay he ran out in search of a cab, and was driven
+to High Street. Here, of course, he found the shop closed, but it was
+much too early for the household to have retired to rest; risking an
+indiscretion, he was about to ring the house bell when the door opened,
+and Patty showed herself.
+
+"Oh, is it _you_, Mr. Hilliard!" she exclaimed, in a flurried voice. "I
+heard the cab stop, and I thought it might be----You'd better come
+in--quick!"
+
+He followed her along the passage and into the shop, where one gas-jet
+was burning low.
+
+"Listen!" she resumed, whispering hurriedly. "If Eve comes--she'll let
+herself in with the latchkey--you must stand quiet here. I shall turn
+out the gas, and I'll let you out after she's gone upstairs? Couldn't
+you come before?"
+
+Hilliard explained, and begged her to tell him what was the matter. But
+Patty kept him in suspense.
+
+"Uncle won't be in till after twelve, so there's no fear. Aunt has gone
+to bed--she's upset with quarrelling about this marriage. Mind! You
+won't stir if Eve comes in. Don't talk loud; I must keep listening for
+the door."
+
+"But what is it? Where is Eve?"
+
+"I don't know. She didn't come home till very late last night, and I
+don't know where she was. You remember what you asked me to promise?"
+
+"To let me know if you were anxious about her."
+
+"Yes, and I am. She's in danger I only hope----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't like to tell you all I know. It doesn't seem right. But I'm so
+afraid for Eve."
+
+"I can only imagine one kind of danger----"
+
+"Yes--of course, it's that--you know what I mean. But there's more than
+you could fancy."
+
+"Tell me, then, what has alarmed you?"
+
+"When did you see her last?" Patty inquired.
+
+"More than a week ago. Two or three days before I came here."
+
+"Had you noticed anything?"
+
+"Nothing unusual."
+
+"No more did I, till last Monday night. Then I saw that something was
+wrong. Hush!"
+
+She gripped his arm, and they listened. But no sound could be heard.
+
+"And since then," Patty pursued, with tremulous eagerness, "she's been
+very queer. I know she doesn't sleep at night, and she's getting ill,
+and she's had letters from--someone she oughtn't to have anything to do
+with."
+
+"Having told so much, you had better tell me all," said Hilliard
+impatiently. There was a cold sweat on his forehead, and his heart beat
+painfully.
+
+"No. I can't. I can only give you a warning."
+
+"But what's the use of that? What can I do? How can I interfere?"
+
+"I don't know," replied the girl, with a helpless sigh. "She's in
+danger, that's all I call tell you."
+
+"Patty, don't be a fool! Out with it! Who is the man? Is it some one
+you know?"
+
+"I don't exactly know him I've seen him."
+
+"Is he--a sort of gentleman?"
+
+"Oh, yes, he's a gentleman. And you'd never think to look at him that
+he could do anything that wasn't right."
+
+"Very well. What reason have you for supposing that he's doing wrong?"
+
+Patty kept silence. A band of rowdy fellows just then came shouting
+along the street, and one of them crashed up against the shop door,
+making Patty jump and scream. Oaths and foul language followed; and
+then the uproar passed away.
+
+"Look here," said Hilliard. "You'll drive me out of my senses. Eve is
+in love with this man, is she?"
+
+"I'm afraid so. She was."
+
+"Before she went away, you mean. And, of course, her going away had
+something to do with it?"
+
+"Yes, it had."
+
+Hilliard laid his hands on the girl's shoulders.
+
+"You've got to tell me the plain truth, and be quick about it. I
+suppose you haven't any idea of the torments I'm suffering. I shall
+begin to think you're making a fool of me, and that there's nothing
+but--though that's bad enough for me."
+
+"Very well, I'll tell you. She went away because it came out that the
+man was married."
+
+"Oh, that's it?" He spoke from a dry throat. "She told you herself?"
+
+"Yes, not long after she came back. She said, of course, she could have
+no more to do with him. She used to meet him pretty often----"
+
+"Stay, how did she get to know him first?"
+
+"Just by chance--somewhere."
+
+"I understand," said Hilliard grimly. "Go on."
+
+"And his wife got someone to spy on him, and they found out he was
+meeting Eve, and she jumped out on them when they were walking
+somewhere together, and told Eve everything. He wasn't living with his
+wife, and hasn't been for a long time."
+
+"What's his position?"
+
+"He's in business, and seems to have lots of money; but I don't exactly
+know what it is he does."
+
+"You are afraid, then, that Eve is being drawn back to him?"
+
+"I feel sure she is--and it's dreadful."
+
+"What I should like to know," said Hilliard, harshly, "is whether she
+really cares for him, or only for his money."
+
+"Oh! How horrid you are! I never thought you could say such a thing!"
+
+"Perhaps you didn't. All the same, it's a question. I don't pretend to
+understand Eve Madeley, and I'm afraid you are just as far from knowing
+her."
+
+"I don't know her? Why, what are you talking about, Mr. Hilliard?"
+
+"What do you think of her, then? Is she a good-hearted girl or----"
+
+"Or what? Of course she's good-hearted. The things that men do say!
+They seem to be all alike."
+
+"Women are so far from being all alike that one may think she
+understands another, and be utterly deceived. Eve has shown her best
+side to you, no doubt. With me, she hasn't taken any trouble to do so.
+And if----"
+
+"Hush!"
+
+This time the alarm was justified. A latchkey rattled at the
+house-door, the door opened, and in the same moment Patty turned out
+the light.
+
+"It's my uncle," she whispered, terror-stricken. "Don't stir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+A heavy footstep sounded in the passage, and Hilliard, to whose
+emotions was now added a sense of ludicrous indignity, heard talk
+between Patty and her uncle.
+
+"You mustn't lock up yet," said the girl, "Eve is out."
+
+"What's she doing?"
+
+"I don't know. At the theatre with friends, I dare say."
+
+"If we'd been staying on here, that young woman would have had to look
+out for another lodging. There's something I don't like about her, and
+if you take my advice, Patty, you'll shake her off. She'll do you no
+good, my girl."
+
+They passed together into the room behind the shop, and though their
+voices were still audible, Hilliard could no longer follow the
+conversation. He stood motionless, just where Patty had left him, with
+a hand resting on the top of the piano, and it seemed to him that at
+least half an hour went by. Then a sound close by made him start; it
+was the snapping of a violin string; the note reverberated through the
+silent shop. But by this time the murmur of conversation had ceased,
+and Hilliard hoped that Patty's uncle had gone upstairs to bed.
+
+As proved to be the case. Presently the door opened, and a voice called
+to him in a whisper. He obeyed the summons, and, not without stumbling,
+followed Patty into the open air.
+
+"She hasn't come yet."
+
+"What's the time?"
+
+"Half-past eleven. I shall sit up for her. Did you hear what my uncle
+said? You mustn't think anything of that; he's always finding fault
+with people."
+
+"Do you think she will come at all?" asked Hilliard.
+
+"Oh, of course she will!"
+
+"I shall wait about. Don't stand here. Good-night."
+
+"You won't let her know what I've told you?" said Patty, retaining his
+hand.
+
+"No, I won't. If she doesn't come back at all, I'll see you to-morrow."
+
+He moved away, and the door closed.
+
+Many people were still passing along the street. In his uncertainty as
+to the direction by which Eve would return--if return she did--Hilliard
+ventured only a few yards away. He had waited for about a quarter of an
+hour, when his eye distinguished a well-known figure quickly
+approaching. He hurried forward, and Eve stopped before he had quite
+come up to her.
+
+"Where have you been to-night?" were his first words, sounding more
+roughly than he in tended.
+
+"I wanted to see you, I passed your lodgings and saw there was no light
+in the windows, else I should have asked for you."
+
+She spoke in so strange a voice, with such show of agitation, that
+Hilliard stood gazing at her till she again broke silence,
+
+"Have you been waiting here for me?"
+
+"Yes. Patty told me you weren't back."
+
+"Why did you come?"
+
+"Why do I ever come to meet you?"
+
+"We can't talk here," said Eve, turning away. "Come into a quieter
+place."
+
+They walked in silence to the foot of High Street, and there turned
+aside into the shadowed solitude of Mornington Crescent. Eve checked
+her steps and said abruptly--
+
+"I want to ask you for something."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Now that it comes to saying it, I--I'm afraid. And yet if I had asked
+you that evening when we were at the restaurant----"
+
+"What is it?" Hilliard repeated gruffly.
+
+"That isn't your usual way of speaking to me."
+
+"Will you tell me where you have been tonight?"
+
+"Nowhere--walking about----"
+
+"Do you often walk about the streets till midnight?"
+
+"Indeed I don't."
+
+The reply surprised him by its humility. Her voice all but broke on the
+words. As well as the dim light would allow, he searched her face, and
+it seemed to him that her eyes had a redness, as if from shedding tears.
+
+"You haven't been alone?"
+
+"No--I've been with a friend."
+
+"Well, I have no claim upon you. It's nothing to me what friends you go
+about with. What were you going to ask of me?"
+
+"You have changed so all at once. I thought you would never talk in
+this way."
+
+"I didn't mean to," said Hilliard. "I have lost control of myself,
+that's all. But you can say whatever you meant to say--just as you
+would have done at the restaurant. I'm the same man I was then."
+
+Eve moved a few steps, but he did not follow her, and she returned. A
+policeman passing threw a glance at them.
+
+"It's no use asking what I meant to ask," she said, with her eyes on
+the ground. "You won't grant it me."
+
+"How can I say till I know what it is? There are not many things in my
+power that I wouldn't do for you."
+
+"I was going to ask for money."
+
+"Money? Why, it depends what you are going to do with it. If it will do
+you any good, all the money I have is yours, as you know well enough.
+But I must understand why you want it."
+
+"I can't tell you that. I don't want you to give me money--only to lend
+it. You shall have it back again, though I can't promise the exact
+time. If you hadn't changed so, I should have found it easy enough to
+ask. Hut I don't know you to-night; it's like talking to a stranger.
+What has happened to make you so different?"
+
+"I have been waiting a long time for you, that's all," Hilliard
+replied, endeavouring to use the tone of frank friendliness in which he
+had been wont to address her. "I got nervous and irritable. I felt
+uneasy about you. It's all right now: Let us walk on a little. You want
+money. Well, I have three hundred pounds and more. Call it mine, call
+it yours. But I must know that you're not going to do anything foolish.
+Of course, you don't tell me everything; I have no right to expect it.
+You haven't misled me; I knew from the first that--well, a girl of your
+age, and with your face, doesn't live alone in London without
+adventures. I shouldn't think of telling you all mine, and I don't ask
+to know yours--unless I begin to have a part in them. There's something
+wrong: of course, I can see that. I think you've been crying, and you
+don't shed tears for a trifle. Now you come and ask me for money. If it
+will do you good, take all you want. But I've an uncomfortable
+suspicion that harm may come of it."
+
+"Why not treat me just like a man-friend? I'm old enough to take care
+of myself."
+
+"You think so, but I know better. Wait a moment. How much money do you
+want?"
+
+"Thirty-five pounds."
+
+"Exactly thirty-five? And it isn't for your own use?"
+
+"I can't tell you any more. I am in very great need of the money, and
+if you will lend it me I shall feel very grateful."
+
+"I want no gratitude, I want nothing from you, Eve, except what you
+can't give me. I can imagine a man in my position giving you money in
+the hope that it might be your ruin just to see you brought down,
+humiliated. There's so much of the brute in us all. But I don't feel
+that desire."
+
+"Why should you?" she asked, with a change to coldness. "What harm have
+I done you?"
+
+"No harm at all, and perhaps a great deal of good. I say that I wish
+you nothing but well. Suppose a gift of all the money I have would
+smooth your whole life before you, and make you the happy wife of some
+other man. I would give it you gladly. That kind of thing has often
+been said, when it meant nothing: it isn't so with me. It has always
+been more pleasure to me to give than to receive. No merit of mine; I
+have it from my father. Make clear to me that you are to benefit by
+this money, and you shall have the cheque as soon as you please."
+
+"I shall benefit by it, because it will relieve me from a dreadful
+anxiety."
+
+"Or, in other words, will relieve someone else?"
+
+"I can speak only of myself. The kindness will be done to me."
+
+"I must know more than that. Come now, we assume that there's someone
+in the background. A friend of yours, let us say. I can't Imagine why
+this friend of yours wants money, but so it is. You don't contradict
+me?"
+
+Eve remained mute, her head bent.
+
+"What about your friend and you in the future? Are you bound to this
+friend in any irredeemable way?"
+
+"No--I am not," she answered, with emotion.
+
+"There's nothing between you but--let us call it mere friendship."
+
+"Nothing--nothing!"
+
+"So far, so good." He looked keenly into her face. "But how about the
+future?"
+
+"There will never be anything more--there can't be."
+
+"Let us say that you think so at present. Perhaps I don't feel quite so
+sure of it. I say again, it's nothing to me, unless I get drawn into it
+by you yourself. I am not your guardian. If I tell you to be careful,
+it's an impertinence. But the money; that's another affair. I won't
+help you to misery."
+
+"You will be helping me _out_ of misery!" Eve exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, for the present. I will make a bargain with you."
+
+She looked at him with startled eyes.
+
+"You shall have your thirty-five pounds on condition that you go to
+live, for as long as I choose, in Paris. You are to leave London in a
+day or two. Patty shall go with you; her uncle doesn't want her, and
+she seems to have quarrelled with the man she was engaged to. The
+expenses are my affair. I shall go to Paris myself, and be there while
+you are, but you need see no more of me than you like. Those are the
+terms."
+
+"I can't think you are serious," said Eve.
+
+"Then I'll explain why I wish you to do this. I've thought about you a
+great deal; in fact, since we first met, my chief occupation has been
+thinking about you. And I have come to the conclusion that you are
+suffering from an illness, the result of years of hardship and misery.
+We have agreed, you remember, that there are a good many points of
+resemblance between your life and mine, and perhaps between your
+character and mine. Now I myself, when I escaped from Dudley, was
+thoroughly ill--body and soul. The only hope for me was a complete
+change of circumstances--to throw off the weight of my past life, and
+learn the meaning of repose, satisfaction, enjoyment. I prescribe the
+same for you. I am your physician; I undertake your cure. If you refuse
+to let me, there's an end of everything between us; I shall say
+good-bye to you tonight, and to-morrow set off for some foreign
+country."
+
+"How can I leave my work at a moment's notice?"
+
+"The devil take your work--for he alone is the originator of such
+accursed toil!"
+
+"How can I live at your expense?"
+
+"That's a paltry obstacle. Oh, if you are too proud, say so, and
+there's an end of it. You know me well enough to feel the absolute
+truth of what I say, when I assure you that you will remain just as
+independent of me as you ever were. I shall be spending my money in a
+way that gives me pleasure; the matter will never appear to me in any
+other light. Why, call it an additional loan, if it will give any
+satisfaction to you. You are to pay me back some time. Here in London
+you perish; across the Channel there, health of body and mind is
+awaiting you; and are we to talk about money? I shall begin to swear
+like a trooper; the thing is too preposterous."
+
+Eve said nothing: she stood half turned from him.
+
+"Of course," he pursued, "you may object to leave London. Perhaps the
+sacrifice is too great. In that case, I should only do right if I
+carried you off by main force; but I'm afraid it can't be; I must leave
+you to perish."
+
+"I am quite willing to go away," said Eve in a low voice. "But the
+shame of it--to be supported by you."
+
+"Why, you don't hate me?"
+
+"You know I do not."
+
+"You even have a certain liking for me. I amuse you; you think me an
+odd sort of fellow, perhaps with more good than bad in me. At all
+events, you can trust me?"
+
+"I can trust you perfectly."
+
+"And it ain't as if I wished you to go alone. Patty will be off her
+head with delight when the thing is proposed to her."
+
+"But how can I explain to her?"
+
+"Don't attempt to. Leave her curiosity a good hard nut to crack. Simply
+say you are off to Paris, and that if she'll go with you, you will bear
+all her expenses."
+
+"It's so difficult to believe that you are in earnest."
+
+"You must somehow bring yourself to believe it. There will be a cheque
+ready for you to-morrow morning, to take or refuse. If you take it, you
+are bound in honour to leave England not later than--we'll say
+Thursday. That you are to be trusted, I believe, just as firmly as you
+believe it of me."
+
+"I can't decide to-night."
+
+"I can give you only till to-morrow morning. If I don't hear from you
+by midday, I am gone."
+
+"You shall hear from me--one way or the other."
+
+"Then don't wait here any longer. It's after midnight, and Patty will
+be alarmed about you. No, we won't shake hands; not that till we strike
+a bargain."
+
+Eve seemed about to walk away, but she hesitated and turned again.
+
+"I will do as you wish--I will go."
+
+"Excellent! Then speak of it to Patty as soon as possible, and tell me
+what she says when we meet to-morrow--where and when you like."
+
+"In this same place, at nine o'clock."
+
+"So be it. I will bring the cheque."
+
+"But I must be able to cash it at once."
+
+"So you can. It will be on a London bank. I'll get the cash myself if
+you like."
+
+Then they shook hands and went in opposite directions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+On the evening of the next day, just after he had lit his lamp,
+Hilliard's attention was drawn by a sound as of someone tapping at the
+window. He stood to listen, and the sound was repeated--an unmistakable
+tap of fingers on the glass. In a moment he was out in the street,
+where he discovered Patty Ringrose.
+
+"Why didn't you come to see me?" she asked excitedly.
+
+"I was afraid _she_ might be there. Did she go to business, as usual?"
+
+"Yes. At least I suppose so. She only got home at the usual time. I've
+left her there: I was bound to see you. Do you know what she told me
+last night when she came in?"
+
+"I dare say I could guess."
+
+Hilliard began to walk down the street. Patty, keeping close at his
+side, regarded him with glances of wonder.
+
+"Is it true that we're going to Paris? I couldn't make out whether she
+meant it, and this morning I couldn't get a word from her."
+
+"Are you willing to go with her?"
+
+"And have all my expenses paid?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"I should think I am! But I daren't let my uncle and aunt know; there'd
+be no end of bother. I shall have to make up some sort of tale to
+satisfy my aunt, and get my things sent to the station while uncle's
+playing billiards. How long is it for?"
+
+"Impossible to say. Three months--half a year--I don't know. What about
+Mr. Daily?"
+
+"Oh, I've done with _him_!"
+
+"And you are perfectly sure that you can get employment whenever you
+need it?"
+
+"Quite sure: no need to trouble about that. I'm very good friends with
+aunt, and she'll take me in for as long as I want when I come back. But
+it's easy enough for anybody like me to get a place. I've had two or
+three offers the last half-year, from good shops where they were losing
+their young ladies. We're always getting married, in our business, and
+places have to be filled up."
+
+"That settles it, then."
+
+"But I want to know--I can't make it out--Eve won't tell me how she's
+managing to go. Are _you_ going to pay for her?"
+
+"We won't talk of that, Patty. She's going; that's enough."
+
+"You persuaded her, last night?"
+
+"Yes, I persuaded her. And I am to hear by the first post in the
+morning whether she will go to-morrow or Thursday. She'll arrange
+things with you to-night, I should think."
+
+"It didn't look like it. She's shut herself in her room."
+
+"I can understand that. She is ill. That's why I'm getting her away
+from London. Wait till we've been in Paris a few weeks, and you'll see
+how she changes. At present she is downright ill--ill enough to go to
+bed and be nursed, if that would do any good. It's your part to look
+after her. I don't want you to be her servant."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind doing anything for her."
+
+"No, because you are a very good sort of girl. You 'Ii live at a hotel,
+and what you have to do is to make her enjoy herself. I shouldn't
+wonder if you find it difficult at first, but we shall get her round
+before long."
+
+"I never thought there was anything the' matter with her."
+
+"Perhaps not, but I understand her better. Of course you won't say a
+word of this to her. You take it as a holiday--as good fun. No doubt I
+shall be able to have a few words in private with you now and then. But
+at other times we must talk as if nothing special had passed between
+us."
+
+Patty mused. The lightness of her step told in what a spirit of gaiety
+she looked forward to the expedition.
+
+"Do you think," she asked presently, "that it'll all come to an
+end--what I told you of?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"You didn't let her know that I'd been talking----"
+
+"Of course not. And, as I don't want her to know that you've seen me
+to-night, you had better stay no longer. She's sure to have something
+to tell you to-night or to-morrow morning. Get your packing done, and
+be ready at any moment. When I hear from Eve in the morning, I shall
+send her a telegram. Most likely we sha'n't see each other again until
+we meet at Charing Cross. I hope it may be tomorrow; but Thursday is
+the latest."
+
+So Patty took her departure, tripping briskly homeward. As for
+Hilliard, he returned to his sitting-room, and was busy for some time
+with the pencilling of computations in English and French money.
+Towards midnight, he walked as far as High Street, and looked at the
+windows above the music-shop. All was dark.
+
+He rose very early next morning, and as post-time drew near he walked
+about the street in agonies of suspense. He watched the letter-carrier
+from house to house, followed him up, and saw him pass the number at
+which he felt assured that he would deliver a letter. In frenzy of
+disappointment a fierce oath burst from his lips.
+
+"That's what comes of trusting a woman!--she is going to cheat me. She
+has gained her end, and will put me off with excuses."
+
+But perhaps a telegram would come. He made a pretence of breakfasting,
+and paced his room for an hour like a caged animal. When the monotony
+of circulating movement had all but stupefied him, he was awakened by a
+double postman's knock at the front door, the signal that announces a
+telegram.
+
+Again from Patty, and again a request that he would come to the shop at
+mid-day.
+
+"Just as I foresaw--excuses--postponement. What woman ever had the
+sense of honour!"
+
+To get through the morning he drank--an occupation suggested by the
+heat of the day, which blazed cloudless. The liquor did not cheer him,
+but inspired a sullen courage, a reckless resolve. And in this frame of
+mind he presented himself before Patty Ringrose.
+
+"She can't go to-day," said Patty, with an air of concern. "You were
+quite right--she is really ill."
+
+"Has she gone out?"
+
+"No, she's upstairs, lying on the bed. She says she has a dreadful
+headache, and if you saw her you'd believe it. She looks shocking. It's
+the second night she hasn't closed her eyes."
+
+A savage jealousy was burning Hilliard's vitals. He had tried to make
+light of the connection between Eve and that unknown man, even after
+her extraordinary request for money, which all but confessedly she
+wanted on his account. He had blurred the significance of such a
+situation, persuading himself that neither was Eve capable of a great
+passion, nor the man he had seen able to inspire one. Now he rushed to
+the conviction that Eve had fooled him with a falsehood.
+
+"Tell her this." He glared at Patty with eyes which made the girl
+shrink in alarm. "If she isn't at Charing Cross Station by a quarter to
+eleven to-morrow, there's an end of it. I shall be there, and shall go
+on without her. It's her only chance."
+
+"But if she really _can't_----"
+
+"Then it's her misfortune--she must suffer for it. She goes to-morrow
+or not at all. Can you make her understand that?"
+
+"I'll tell her."
+
+"Listen, Patty. If you bring her safe to the station to-morrow you
+shall have a ten-pound note, to buy what you like in Paris."
+
+The girl reddened, half in delight, half in shame.
+
+"I don't want it--she shall come----"
+
+"Very well; good-bye till to-morrow, or for good."
+
+"No, no; she shall come."
+
+He was drenched in perspiration, yet walked for a mile or two at his
+topmost speed. Then a consuming thirst drove him into the nearest place
+where drink was sold. At six o'clock he remembered that he had not
+eaten since breakfast; he dined extravagantly, and afterwards fell
+asleep in the smoking-room of the restaurant. A waiter with difficulty
+aroused him, and persuaded him to try the effect of the evening air. An
+hour later he sank in exhaustion on one of the benches near the river,
+and there slept profoundly until stirred by a policeman.
+
+"What's the time?" was his inquiry, as he looked up at the starry sky.
+
+He felt for his watch, but no watch was discoverable. Together with the
+gold chain it had disappeared.
+
+"Damnation! someone has robbed me."
+
+The policeman was sympathetic, but reproachful.
+
+"Why do you go to sleep on the Embankment at this time of night? Lost
+any money?"
+
+Yes, his money too had flown; luckily, only a small sum. It was for the
+loss of his watch and chain that he grieved; they had been worn for
+years by his father, and on that account had a far higher value for him
+than was represented by their mere cost.
+
+As a matter of form, he supplied the police with information concerning
+the theft. Of recovery there could be little hope.
+
+Thoroughly awakened and sober, he walked across London to Gower Place
+arriving in the light of dawn. Too spiritless to take off his clothing,
+he lay upon the bed, and through the open window watched a great cloud
+that grew rosy above the opposite houses.
+
+Would Eve be at the place of meeting today? It seemed to him totally
+indifferent whether she came or not; nay, he all but hoped that she
+would not. He had been guilty of prodigious folly. The girl belonged to
+another man; and even had it not been so, what was the use of flinging
+away his money at this rate? Did he look for any reward correspondent
+to the sacrifice? She would never love him, and it was not in his power
+to complete the work he had begun, by freeing her completely from harsh
+circumstances, setting her in a path of secure and pleasant life.
+
+But she would not come, and so much the better. With only himself to
+provide for he had still money enough to travel far. He would see
+something of the great world, and leave his future to destiny.
+
+He dozed for an hour or two.
+
+Whilst he was at breakfast a letter arrived for him. He did not know
+the handwriting on the envelope, but it must be Eve's. Yes. She wrote a
+couple of lines: "I will be at the station to-morrow at a quarter to
+eleven.--E. M."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+One travelling bag was all he carried. Some purchases that he had made
+in London--especially the great work on French cathedrals--were already
+despatched to Birmingham, to lie in the care of Robert Narramore.
+
+He reached Charing Cross half an hour before train-time, and waited at
+the entrance. Several cabs that drove up stirred his expectation only
+to disappoint him. He was again in an anguish of fear lest Eve should
+not come. A cab arrived, with two boxes of modest appearance. He
+stepped forward and saw the girls' faces.
+
+Between him and Eve not a word passed. They avoided each other's look.
+Patty, excited and confused, shook hands with him.
+
+"Go on to the platform," he said. "I'll see after everything. This is
+all the luggage?"
+
+"Yes. One box is mine, and one Eve's. I had to face it out with the
+people at home," she added, between laughing and crying. "They think
+I'm going to the seaside, to stay with Eve till she gets better. I
+never told so many fibs in my life. Uncle stormed at me, but I don't
+care."
+
+"All right; go on to the platform."
+
+Eve was already walking in that direction. Undeniably she looked ill;
+her step was languid; she did not raise her eyes. Hilliard, when he had
+taken tickets and booked the luggage through to Paris, approached his
+travelling companions. Seeing him, Eve turned away.
+
+"I shall go in a smoking compartment," he said to Patty. "You had
+better take your tickets."
+
+"But when shall we see you again?"
+
+"Oh, at Dover, of course."
+
+"Will it be rough, do you think? I do wish Eve would talk. I can't get
+a word out of her. It makes it all so miserable, when we might be
+enjoying ourselves."
+
+"Don't trouble: leave her to herself. I'll get you some papers."
+
+On returning from the bookstall, he slipped loose silver into Patty's
+hands.
+
+"Use that if you want anything on the journey. And--I haven't forgot my
+promise."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Go and take your places now: there's only ten minutes to wait."
+
+He watched them as they passed the harrier. Neither of the girls was
+dressed very suitably for travelling; but Eve's costume resembled that
+of a lady, while Patty's might suggest that she was a lady's-maid. As
+if to confirm this distinction, Patty had burdened herself with several
+small articles, whereas her friend carried only a sunshade. They
+disappeared among people upon the platform. In a few minutes Hilliard
+followed, glanced along the carriages till he saw where the girls were
+seated, and took his own place. He wore a suit which had been new on
+his first arrival in London, good enough in quality and cut to give his
+features the full value of their intelligence; a brown felt hat, a
+russet necktie, a white flannel shirt. Finding himself with a talkative
+neighbour in the carriage, he chatted freely. As soon as the train had
+started, he lit his pipe and tasted the tobacco with more relish than
+for a long time.
+
+On board the steamer Eve kept below from first to last. Patty walked
+the deck with Hilliard, and vastly to her astonishment, achieved the
+voyage without serious discomfort. Hilliard himself, with the sea wind
+in his nostrils, recovered that temper of buoyant satisfaction which
+had accompanied his first escape from London. He despised the weak
+misgivings and sordid calculations of yesterday. Here he was, on a
+Channel steamer, bearing away from disgrace and wretchedness the woman
+whom his heart desired. Wild as the project had seemed to him when
+first he conceived it, he had put it into execution. The moment was
+worth living for. Whatever the future might keep in store for him of
+dreary, toilsome, colourless existence, the retrospect would always
+show him this patch of purple--a memory precious beyond all the
+possible results of prudence and narrow self-regard.
+
+The little she-Cockney by his side entertained him with the flow of her
+chatter; it had the advantage of making him feel a travelled man.
+
+"I didn't cross this way when I came before," he explained to her.
+"From Newhaven it's a much longer voyage."
+
+"You like the sea, then?"
+
+"I chose it because it was cheaper--that's all."
+
+"Yet you're so extravagant now," remarked Patty, with eyes that
+confessed admiration of this quality.
+
+"Oh, because I am rich," he answered gaily. "Money is nothing to me."
+
+"Are you really rich? Eve said you weren't."
+
+"Did she?"
+
+"I don't mean she said it in a disagreeable way. It was last night. She
+thought you were wasting your money upon us."
+
+"If I choose to waste it, why not? Isn't there a pleasure in doing as
+you like?"
+
+"Oh, of course there is," Patty assented. "I only wish I had the
+chance. But it's awfully jolly, this! Who'd have thought, a week ago,
+that I should be going to Paris? I have a feeling all the time that I
+shall wake up and find I've been dreaming."
+
+"Suppose you go down and see whether Eve wants anything? You needn't
+say I sent you."
+
+From Calais to Paris he again travelled apart from the girls. Fatigue
+overcame him, and for the last hour or two he slept, with the result
+that, on alighting at the Gare du Nord, he experienced a decided
+failure of spirits. Happily, there was nothing before him but to carry
+out a plan already elaborated. With the aid of his guide-book he had
+selected an hotel which seemed suitable for the girls, one where
+English was spoken, and thither he drove with them from the station.
+The choice of their rooms, and the settlement of details took only a
+few minutes; then, for almost the first time since leaving Charing
+Cross, he spoke to Eve.
+
+"Patty will do everything she can for you," he said; "I shall be not
+very far away, and you can always send me a message if you wish.
+To-morrow morning I shall come at about ten to ask how you are--nothing
+more than that--unless you care to go anywhere."
+
+The only reply was "Thank you," in a weary tone. And so, having taken
+his leave he set forth to discover a considerably less expensive
+lodging for himself. In this, after his earlier acquaintance with
+Paris, he had no difficulty; by half-past eight his business was done,
+and he sat down to dinner at a cheap restaurant. A headache spoilt his
+enjoyment of the meal. After a brief ramble about the streets, he went
+home and got into a bed which was rather too short for him, but
+otherwise promised sufficient comfort.
+
+The first thing that came into his mind when he awoke next morning was
+that he no longer possessed a watch; the loss cast a gloom upon him.
+But he had slept well, and a flood of sunshine that streamed over his
+scantily carpeted floor, together with gladly remembered sounds from
+the street, soon put him into an excellent humour. He sprang tip,
+partly dressed himself, and unhasped the window. The smell of Paris had
+become associated in his mind with thoughts of liberty; a grotesque
+dance about the bed-room expressed his joy.
+
+As he anticipated, Patty alone received him when he called upon the
+girls. She reported that Eve felt unable to rise.
+
+"What do you think about her?" he asked. "Nothing serious, is it?"
+
+"She can't get rid of her headache."
+
+"Let her rest as long as she likes. Are you comfortable here?"
+
+Patty was in ecstasies with everything, and chattered on breathlessly.
+She wished to go out; Eve had no need of her--indeed had told her that
+above all she wished to be left alone.
+
+"Get ready, then," said Hilliard, "and we'll have an hour or two."
+
+They walked to the Madeleine and rode thence on the top of a tram-car
+to the Bastille. By this time Patty had come to regard her strange
+companion in a sort of brotherly light; no restraint whatever appeared
+in her conversation with him. Eve, she told him, had talked French with
+the chambermaid.
+
+"And I fancy it was something she didn't want _me_ to understand."
+
+"Why should you think so?"
+
+"Oh, something in the way the girl looked at me."
+
+"No, no; you were mistaken. She only wanted to show that she knew some
+French."
+
+But Hilliard wondered whether Patty could be right. Was it not possible
+that Eve had gratified her vanity by representing her friend as a
+servant--a lady's-maid? Yet why should he attribute such a fault to
+her? It was an odd thing that he constantly regarded Eve in the least
+favourable light, giving weight to all the ill he conjectured in her,
+and minimising those features of her character which, at the beginning,
+he had been prepared to observe with sympathy and admiration. For a man
+in love his reflections followed a very unwonted course. And, indeed,
+he had never regarded his love as of very high or pure quality; it was
+something that possessed him and constrained him--by no means a source
+of elevating emotion.
+
+"Do you like Eve?" he asked abruptly, disregarding some trivial
+question Patty had put to him.
+
+"Like her? Of course I do."
+
+"And _why_ do you like her?"
+
+"Why?--ah--I don't know. Because I do."
+
+And she laughed foolishly.
+
+"Does Eve like _you_?" Hilliard continued.
+
+"I think she does. Else I don't see why she kept up with me."
+
+"Has she ever done you any kindness?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know. Nothing particular. She never gave anything, if
+you mean that. But she has paid for me at theatres and so on."
+
+Hilliard quitted the subject.
+
+"If you like to go out alone," he told her before they parted, "there's
+no reason why you shouldn't--just as you do in London. Remember the way
+back, that's all, and don't be out late. And you'll want some French
+money."
+
+"But I don't understand it, and how can I buy anything when I can't
+speak a word?"
+
+"All the same, take that and keep it till you are able to make use of
+it. It's what I promised you."
+
+Patty drew back her hand, but her objections were not difficult to
+overcome.
+
+"I dare say," Hilliard continued, "Eve doesn't understand the money
+much better than you do. But she'll soon be well enough to talk, and
+then I shall explain everything to her. On this piece of paper is my
+address; please let Eve have it. I shall call to-morrow morning again."
+
+He did so, and this time found Eve, as well as her companion, ready to
+go out. No remark or inquiry concerning her health passed his lips; he
+saw that she was recovering from the crisis she had passed through,
+whatever its real nature. Eve shook hands with him, and smiled, though
+as if discharging an obligation.
+
+"Can you spare time to show us something of Paris?" she asked.
+
+"I am your official guide. Make use of me whenever it pleases you."
+
+"I don't feel able to go very far. Isn't there some place where we
+could sit down in the open air?"
+
+A carriage was summoned, and they drove to the Fields Elysian. Eve
+benefited by the morning thus spent. She left to Patty most of the
+conversation, but occasionally made inquiries, and began to regard
+things with a healthy interest. The next day they all visited the
+Louvre, for a light rain was falling, and here Hilliard found an
+opportunity of private talk with Eve; they sat together whilst Patty,
+who cared little for pictures, looked out of a window at the Seine.
+
+"Do you like the hotel I chose?" he began.
+
+"Everything is very nice."
+
+"And you are not sorry to be here?"
+
+"Not in one way. In another I can't understand how I come to be here at
+all."
+
+"Your physician has ordered it."
+
+"Yes--so I suppose it's all right."
+
+"There's one thing I'm obliged to speak of. Do you understand French
+money?"
+
+Eve averted her face, and spoke after a slight delay.
+
+"I can easily learn."
+
+"Yes. You shall take this Paris guide home with you. You'll find all
+information of that sort in it. And I shall give you an envelope
+containing money--just for your private use. You have nothing to do
+with the charges at the hotel."
+
+"I've brought it on myself; but I feel more ashamed than I can tell
+you."
+
+"If you tried to tell me I shouldn't listen. What you have to do now is
+to get well. Very soon you and Patty will be able to find your way
+about together; then I shall only come with you when you choose to
+invite me. You have my address."
+
+He rose and broke off the dialogue.
+
+For a week or more Eve's behaviour in his company underwent little
+change. In health she decidedly improved, but Hilliard always found her
+reserved, coldly amicable, with an occasional suggestion of forced
+humility which he much disliked. From Patty he learnt that she went
+about a good deal and seemed to enjoy herself.
+
+"We don't always go together," said the girl. "Yesterday and the day
+before Eve was away by herself all the afternoon. Of course she can get
+on all right with her French. She takes to Paris as if she'd lived here
+for years."
+
+On the day after, Hilliard received a postcard in which Eve asked him
+to be in a certain room of the Louvre at twelve o'clock. He kept the
+appointment, and found Eve awaiting him alone.
+
+"I wanted to ask whether you would mind if we left the hotel and went
+to live at another place?"
+
+He heard her with surprise.
+
+"You are not comfortable?"
+
+"Quite. But I have been to see my friend Mdlle. Roche--you remember.
+And she has shown me how we can live very comfortably at a quarter of
+what it costs now, in the same house where she has a room. I should
+like to change, if you'll let me."
+
+"Pooh! You're not to think of the cost----"
+
+"Whether I am to or not, I do, and can't help myself. I know the hotel
+is fearfully expensive, and I shall like the other place much better.
+Miss Roche is a very nice girl, and she was glad to see me; and if I'm
+near her, I shall get all sorts of advantages--in French, and so on."
+
+Hilliard wondered what accounts of herself Eve had rendered to the
+Parisienne, but he did not venture to ask.
+
+"Will Patty like it as well?"
+
+"Just as well. Miss Roche speaks English, you know, and they'll get on
+very well together."
+
+"Where is the place?"
+
+"Rather far off--towards the Jardin des Plantes. But I don't think that
+would matter, would it?"
+
+"I leave it entirely to you."
+
+"Thank you," she answered, with that intonation he did not like. "Of
+course, if you would like to meet Miss Roche, you can."
+
+"We'll think about it. It's enough that she's an old friend of yours."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+When this change had been made Eve seemed to throw off a burden. She
+met Hilliard with something like the ease of manner, the frank
+friendliness, which marked her best moods in their earlier intercourse.
+At a restaurant dinner, to which he persuaded her in company with
+Patty, she was ready in cheerful talk, and an expedition to Versailles,
+some days after, showed her radiant with the joy of sunshine and
+movement. Hilliard could not but wonder at the success of his
+prescription.
+
+He did not visit the girls in their new abode, and nothing more was
+said of his making the acquaintance of Mdlle. Roche. Meetings were
+appointed by post-card--always in Patty's hand if the initiative were
+female; they took place three or four times a week. As it was now
+necessary for Eve to make payments on her own account, Hilliard
+despatched to her by post a remittance in paper money, and of this no
+word passed between them. Three weeks later he again posted the same
+sum. On the morrow they went by river to St. Cloud--it was always a
+trio, Hilliard never making any other proposal--and the steam-boat
+afforded Eve an opportunity of speaking with her generous friend apart.
+
+"I don't want this money," she said, giving him an envelope. "What you
+sent before isn't anything like finished. There's enough for a month
+more."
+
+"Keep it all the same. I won't have any pinching."
+
+"There's nothing of the kind. If I don't have my way in this I shall go
+back to London."
+
+He put the envelope in his pocket, and stood silent, with eyes fixed on
+the river bank.
+
+"How long do you intend us to stay?" asked Eve.
+
+"As long as you find pleasure here."
+
+"And--what am I to do afterwards?"
+
+He glanced at her.
+
+"A holiday must come to an end," she added, trying, but without
+success, to meet his look.
+
+"I haven't given any thought to that," said Hilliard, carelessly;
+"there's plenty of time. It will be fine weather for many weeks yet."
+
+"But I have been thinking about it. I should be crazy if I didn't."
+
+"Tell me your thoughts, then."
+
+"Should you be satisfied if I got a place at Birmingham?"
+
+There again Was the note of self-abasement. It irritated the listener.
+
+"Why do you put it in that way? There's no question of what satisfies
+me, but of what is good for you."
+
+"Then I think it had better be Birmingham."
+
+"Very well. It's understood that when we leave Paris we go there."
+
+A silence. Then Eve asked abruptly:
+
+"You will go as well?"
+
+"Yes, I shall go back."
+
+"And what becomes of your determination to enjoy life as long as you
+can?"
+
+"I'm carrying it out. I shall go back satisfied, at all events."
+
+"And return to your old work?"
+
+"I don't know. It depends on all sorts of things. We won't talk of it
+just yet."
+
+Patty approached, and Hilliard turned to her with a bright, jesting
+face.
+
+Midway in August, on his return home one afternoon, the concierge let
+him know that two English gentlemen had been inquiring for him; one of
+them had left a card. With surprise and pleasure Hilliard read the name
+of Robert Narramore, and beneath it, written in pencil, an invitation
+to dine that evening at a certain hotel in the Rue de Provence. As
+usual, Narramore had neglected the duties of a correspondent; this was
+the first announcement of his intention to be in Paris. Who the second
+man might be Hilliard could not conjecture.
+
+He arrived at the hotel, and found Narramore in company with a man of
+about the same age, his name Birching, to Hilliard a stranger. They had
+reached Paris this morning, and would remain only for a day or two, as
+their purpose was towards the Alps.
+
+"I couldn't stand this heat," remarked Narramore, who, in the very
+lightest of tourist garbs, sprawled upon a divan, and drank something
+iced out of a tall tumbler. "We shouldn't have stopped here at all if
+it hadn't been for you. The idea is that you should go on with us."
+
+"Can't--impossible----"
+
+"Why, what are you doing here--besides roasting?"
+
+"Eating and drinking just what suits my digestion."
+
+"You look pretty fit--a jolly sight better than when we met last. All
+the same, you will go on with us. We won't argue it now; it's
+dinner-time. Wait till afterwards."
+
+At table, Narramore mentioned that his friend Birching was an architect.
+
+"Just what this fellow ought to have been," he said, indicating
+Hilliard. "Architecture is his hobby. I believe he could sit down and
+draw to scale a front elevation of any great cathedral in
+Europe--couldn't you, Hilliard?"
+
+Laughing the joke aside, Hilliard looked with interest at Mr. Birching,
+and began to talk with him. The three young men consumed a good deal of
+wine, and after dinner strolled about the streets, until Narramore's
+fatigue and thirst brought them to a pause at a cafe on the Boulevard
+des Italiens. Birching presently moved apart, to reach a newspaper, and
+remained out of earshot while Narramore talked with his other friend.
+
+"What's going on?" he began. "What are you doing here? Seriously, I
+want you to go along with us. Birching is a very good sort of chap, but
+just a trifle heavy--takes things rather solemnly for such hot weather.
+Is it the expense? Hang it! You and I know each other well enough, and,
+thanks to my old uncle----"
+
+"Never mind that, old boy," interposed Hilliard. "How long are you
+going for?"
+
+"I can't very well be away for more than three weeks. The brass
+bedsteads, you know----"
+
+Hilliard agreed to join in the tour.
+
+"That's right: I've been looking forward to it," said his friend
+heartily. "And now, haven't you anything to tell me? Are you alone
+here? Then, what the deuce do you do with yourself?"
+
+"Chiefly meditate."
+
+"You're the rummest fellow I ever knew. I've wanted to write to you,
+but--hang it!--what with hot weather and brass bedsteads, and this and
+that----Now, what _are_ you going to do? Your money won't last for
+ever. Haven't you any projects? It was no good talking about it before
+you left Dudley. I saw that. You were all but fit for a lunatic asylum,
+and no wonder. But you've pulled round, I see. Never saw you looking in
+such condition. What is to be the next move?"
+
+"I have no idea."
+
+"Well, now, _I_ have. This fellow Birching is partner with his brother,
+in Brum, and they're tolerably flourishing. I've thought of you ever
+since I came to know him; I think it was chiefly on your account that I
+got thick with him--though there was another reason I'll tell you about
+that some time. Now, why shouldn't you go into their office? Could you
+manage to pay a small premium? I believe I could square it with them. I
+haven't said anything. I never hurry--like things to ripen naturally.
+Suppose you saw your way, in a year or two, to make only as much in an
+architect's office as you did in that----machine-shop, wouldn't it be
+worth while?"
+
+Hilliard mused. Already he had a flush on his cheek, but his eyes
+sensibly brightened.
+
+"Yes," he said at length with deliberation. "It would be worth while."
+
+"So I should think. Well, wait till you've got to be a bit chummy with
+Birching. I think you'll suit each other. Let him see that you do
+really know something about architecture--there'll be plenty of
+chances."
+
+Hilliard, still musing, repeated with mechanical emphasis:
+
+"Yes, it would be worth while."
+
+Then Narramore called to Birching, and the talk became general again.
+
+The next morning they drove about Paris, all together. Narramore,
+though it was his first visit to the city, declined to see anything
+which demanded exertion, and the necessity for quenching his thirst
+recurred with great frequency. Early in the afternoon he proposed that
+they should leave Paris that very evening.
+
+"I want to see a mountain with snow on it. We're bound to travel by
+night, and another day of this would settle me. Any objection,
+Birching?"
+
+The architect agreed, and time-tables were consulted. Hilliard drove
+home to pack. When this was finished, he sat down and wrote a letter:
+
+
+"DEAR MISS MADELEY,--My friend Narramore is here, and has persuaded me
+to go to Switzerland with him. I shall be away for a week or two, and
+will let you hear from me in the meantime. Narramore says I am looking
+vastly better, and it is you I have to thank for this. Without you, my
+attempts at 'enjoying life' would have been a poor business. We start
+in an hour or two,--Yours ever,
+
+"MAURICE HILLIARD."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+He was absent for full three weeks, and arrived with his friends at the
+Gare de Lyon early one morning of September. Narramore and the
+architect delayed only for a meal, and pursued their journey homeward;
+Hilliard returned to his old quarters despatched a post-card asking Eve
+and Patty to dine with him that evening, and thereupon went to bed,
+where for some eight hours he slept the sleep of healthy fatigue.
+
+The place he had appointed for meeting with the girls was at the foot
+of the Boulevard St. Michel. Eve came alone.
+
+"And where's Patty?" he asked, grasping her hand heartily in return for
+the smile of unfeigned pleasure with which she welcomed him.
+
+"Ah, where indeed? Getting near to Charing Cross by now, I think."
+
+"She has gone back?"
+
+"Went this very morning, before I had your card--let us get out of the
+way of people. She has been dreadfully home-sick. About a fortnight ago
+a mysterious letter came for her she hid it away from me. A few days
+after another came, and she shut herself up for a long time, and when
+she came out again I saw she had been crying. Then we talked it over.
+She had written to Mr. Dally and got an answer that made her miserable;
+that was the _first_ letter. She wrote again, and had a reply that made
+her still more wretched; and that was the _second_. Two or three more
+came, and yesterday she could bear it no longer."
+
+"Then she has gone home to make it up with him?"
+
+"Of course. He declared that she has utterly lost her character and
+that no honest man could have anything more to say to her! I shouldn't
+wonder if they are married in a few weeks' time."
+
+Hilliard laughed light-heartedly.
+
+"I was to beg you on my knees to forgive her," pursued Eve. "But I
+can't very well do that in the middle of the street, can I? Really, she
+thinks she has behaved disgracefully to you. She wouldn't write a
+letter--she was ashamed. 'Tell him to forget all about me!' she kept
+saying."
+
+"Good little girl! And what sort of a husband will this fellow Dally
+make her?"
+
+"No worse than husbands in general, I dare say--but how well you look!
+How you must have been enjoying yourself!"
+
+"I can say exactly the same about you!"
+
+"Oh, but you are sunburnt, and look quite a different man!"
+
+"And you have an exquisite colour in your cheeks, and eyes twice as
+bright as they used to be; and one would think you had never known a
+care."
+
+"I feel almost like that," said Eve, laughing.
+
+He tried to meet her eyes; she eluded him.
+
+"I have an Alpine hunger; where shall we dine?"
+
+The point called for no long discussion, and presently they were seated
+in the cool restaurant. Whilst he nibbled an olive, Hilliard ran over
+the story of his Swiss tour.
+
+"If only _you_ had been there! It was the one thing lacking."
+
+"You wouldn't have enjoyed yourself half so much. You amused me by your
+description of Mr. Narramore, in the letter from Geneva."
+
+"The laziest rascal born! But the best-tempered, the easiest to live
+with. A thoroughly good fellow; I like him better than ever. Of course
+he is improved by coming in for money--who wouldn't be, that has any
+good in him at all? But it amazes me that he can be content to go back
+to Birmingham and his brass bedsteads. Sheer lack of energy, I suppose.
+He'll grow dreadfully fat, I fear, and by when he becomes really a rich
+man--it's awful to think of."
+
+Eve asked many questions about Narramore; his image gave mirthful
+occupation to her fancy. The dinner went merrily on, and when the black
+coffee was set before them:
+
+"Why not have it outside?" said Eve. "You would like to smoke, I know."
+
+Hilliard assented, and they seated themselves under the awning. The
+boulevard glowed in a golden light of sunset; the sound of its traffic
+was subdued to a lulling rhythm.
+
+"There's a month yet before the leaves will begin to fall," murmured
+the young man, when he had smoked awhile in silence.
+
+"Yes," was the answer. "I shall be glad to have a little summer still
+in Birmingham."
+
+"Do you wish to go?"
+
+"I shall go to-morrow, or the day after," Eve replied quietly.
+
+Then again there came silence.
+
+"Something has been proposed to me," said Hilliard, at length, leaning
+forward with his elbows upon the table. "I mentioned that our friend
+Birching is an architect. He's in partnership with his brother, a much
+older man. Well, they nave offered to take me into their office if I
+pay a premium of fifty guineas. As soon as I can qualify myself to be
+of use to them, they'll give me a salary. And I shall have the chance
+of eventually doing much better than I ever could at the old grind,
+where, in fact, I had no prospect whatever."
+
+"That's very good news," Eve remarked, gazing across the street.
+
+"You think I ought to accept?"
+
+"I suppose you can pay the fifty guineas, and still leave yourself
+enough to live upon?"
+
+"Enough till I earn something," Hilliard answered with a smile.
+
+"Then I should think there's no doubt."
+
+"The question is this--are you perfectly willing to go back to
+Birmingham?"
+
+"I'm _anxious_ to go."
+
+"You feel quite restored to health?"
+
+"I was never so well in my life."
+
+Hilliard looked into her face, and could easily believe that she spoke
+the truth. His memory would no longer recall the photograph in Mrs.
+Brewer's album; the living Eve, with her progressive changes of
+countenance, had obliterated that pale image of her bygone self. He saw
+her now as a beautiful woman, mysterious to him still in many respects,
+yet familiar as though they had been friends for years.
+
+"Then, whatever life is before me," he said. "I shall have done _one_
+thing that is worth doing."
+
+"Perhaps--if everyone's life is worth saving," Eve answered in a voice
+just audible.
+
+"Everyone's is not; but yours was."
+
+Two men who had been sitting not far from them rose and walked away. As
+if more at her ease for this secession, Eve looked at her companion,
+and said in a tone of intimacy:
+
+"How I must have puzzled you when you first saw me in London!"
+
+He answered softly:
+
+"To be sure you did. And the thought of it puzzles me still."
+
+"Oh, but can't you understand? No; of course you can't--I have told you
+so little. Just give me an idea of what sort of person you expected to
+find."
+
+"Yes, I will. Judging from your portrait, and from what I was told of
+you, I looked for a sad, solitary, hard-working girl--rather poorly
+dressed--taking no pleasure--going much to chapel--shrinking from the
+ordinary world."
+
+"And you felt disappointed?"
+
+"At first, yes; or, rather, bewildered--utterly unable to understand
+you."
+
+"You are disappointed still?" she asked.
+
+"I wouldn't have you anything but what you are."
+
+"Still, that other girl was the one you _wished_ to meet."
+
+"Yes, before I had seen you. It was the sort of resemblance between her
+life and my own. I thought of sympathy between us. And the face of the
+portrait--but I see better things in the face that is looking at me
+now."
+
+"Don't be quite sure of that--yes, perhaps. It's better to be healthy,
+and enjoy life, than broken-spirited and hopeless. The strange thing is
+that you were right--you fancied me just the kind of a girl I was: sad
+and solitary, and shrinking from people--true enough. And I went to
+chapel, and got comfort from it--as I hope to do again. Don't think
+that I have no religion. But I was so unhealthy, and suffered so in
+every way. Work and anxiety without cease, from when I was twelve years
+old. You know all about my father? If I hadn't been clever at figures,
+what would have become of me? I should have drudged at some wretched
+occupation until the work and the misery of everything killed me."
+
+Hilliard listened intently, his eyes never stirring from her face.
+
+"The change in me began when father came back to us, and I began to
+feel my freedom. Then I wanted to get away, and to live by myself. I
+thought of London--I've told you how much I always thought of
+London--but I hadn't the courage to go there. In Birmingham I began to
+change my old habits; but more in what I thought than what I did. I
+wished to enjoy myself like other girls, but I couldn't. For one thing,
+I thought it wicked; and then I was so afraid of spending a penny--I
+had so often known what it was to be in want of a copper to buy food.
+So I lived quite alone; sat in my room every evening and read books.
+You could hardly believe what a number of books I read in that year.
+Sometimes I didn't go to bed till two or three o'clock."
+
+"What sort of books?"
+
+"I got them from the Free Library--books of all kinds; not only novels.
+I've never been particularly fond of novels; they always made me feel
+my own lot all the harder. I never could understand what people mean
+when they say that reading novels takes them 'out of themselves.' It
+was never so with me. I liked travels and lives of people, and books
+about the stars. Why do you laugh?"
+
+"You escaped from yourself _there_, at all events."
+
+"At last I saw an advertisement in a newspaper--a London paper in the
+reading-room--which I was tempted to answer; and I got an engagement in
+London. When the time came for starting I was so afraid and
+low-spirited that I all but gave it up. I should have done, if I could
+have known what was before me. The first year in London was all
+loneliness and ill-health. I didn't make a friend, and I starved
+myself, all to save money. Out of my pound a week I saved several
+shillings--just because it was the habit of my whole life to pinch and
+pare and deny myself. I was obliged to dress decently, and that came
+out of my food. It's certain I must have a very good constitution to
+have gone through all that and be as well as I am to-day."
+
+"It will never come again," said Hilliard.
+
+"How can I be sure of that? I told you once before that I'm often in
+dread of the future. It would be ever so much worse, after knowing what
+it means to enjoy one's life. How do people feel who are quite sure
+they can never want as long as they live? I have tried to imagine it,
+but I can't; it would be too wonderful."
+
+"You may know it some day."
+
+Eve reflected.
+
+"It was Patty Ringrose," she continued, "who taught me to take life
+more easily. I was astonished to find how much enjoyment she could get
+out of an hour or two of liberty, with sixpence to spend. She did me
+good by laughing at me, and in the end I astonished _her_. Wasn't it
+natural that I should be reckless as soon as I got the chance?"
+
+"I begin to understand."
+
+"The chance came in this way. One Sunday morning I went by myself to
+Hampstead, and as I was wandering about on the Heath I kicked against
+something. It was a cash-box, which I saw couldn't have been lying
+there very long. I found it had been broken open, and inside it were a
+lot of letters--old letters in envelopes; nothing else. The addresses
+on the envelopes were all the same--to a gentleman living at Hampstead.
+I thought the best I could do was to go and inquire for this address;
+and I found it, and rang the door-bell. When I told the servant what I
+wanted--it was a large house--she asked me to come in, and after I had
+waited a little she took me into a library, where a gentleman was
+sitting. I had to answer a good many questions, and the man talked
+rather gruffly to me. When he had made a note of my name and where I
+lived, he said that I should hear from him, and so I went away. Of
+course I hoped to have a reward, but for two or three days I heard
+nothing; then, when I was at business, someone asked to see me--a man I
+didn't know. He said he had come from Mr. So and So, the gentleman at
+Hampstead, and had brought something for me--four five-pound notes. The
+cash-box had been stolen by someone, with other things, the night
+before I found it, and the letters in it, which disappointed the thief,
+had a great value for their owner. All sorts of inquiries had been made
+about me and no doubt I very nearly got into the hands of the police,
+but it was all right, and I had twenty pounds reward. Think! twenty
+pounds!"
+
+Hilliard nodded.
+
+"I told no one about it--not even Patty. And I put the money into the
+Post Office savings bank. I meant it to stay there till I might be in
+need; but I thought of it day and night. And only a fortnight after, my
+employers shut up their place of business, and I had nothing to do. All
+one night I lay awake, and when I got up in the morning I felt as if I
+was no longer my old self. I saw everything in a different way--felt
+altogether changed. I had made up my mind not to look for a new place,
+but to take my money out of the Post Office--I had more than
+twenty-five pounds there altogether--and spend it for my pleasure. It
+was just as if something had enraged me, and I was bent on avenging
+myself. All that day I walked about the town, looking at shops, and
+thinking what I should like to buy: but I only spent a shilling or two,
+for meals. The next day I bought some new clothing. The day after that
+I took Patty to the theatre, and astonished her by my extravagance; but
+I gave her no explanation, and to this day she doesn't understand how I
+got my money. In a sort of way, I _did_ enjoy myself. For one thing, I
+took a subscription at Mudie's, and began to read once more. You can't
+think how it pleased me to get my books--new books--where rich people
+do. I changed a volume about every other day--I had so many hours I
+didn't know what to do with. Patty was the only friend I had made, so I
+took her about with me whenever she could get away in the evening."
+
+"Yet never once dined at a restaurant," remarked Hilliard, laughing.
+"There's the difference between man and woman."
+
+"My ideas of extravagance were very modest, after all."
+
+Hilliard, fingering his coffee-cup, said in a lower voice:
+
+"Yet you haven't told me everything."
+
+Eve looked away, and kept silence.
+
+"By the time I met you"--he spoke in his ordinary tone--"you had begun
+to grow tired of it."
+
+"Yes--and----" She rose. "We won't sit here any longer."
+
+When they had walked for a few minutes:
+
+"How long shall you stay in Paris?" she asked.
+
+"Won't you let me travel with you?"
+
+"I do whatever you wish," Eve answered simply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Her accent of submission did not affect Hilliard as formerly; with a
+nervous thrill, he felt that she spoke as her heart dictated. In his
+absence Eve had come to regard him, if not with the feeling he desired,
+with something that resembled it; he read the change in her eyes. As
+they walked slowly away she kept nearer to him than of wont; now and
+then her arm touched his, and the contact gave him a delicious
+sensation. Askance he observed her figure, its graceful, rather
+languid, movement; to-night she had a new power over him, and excited
+with a passion which made his earlier desires seem spiritless.
+
+"One day more of Paris?" he asked softly.
+
+"Wouldn't it be better----?" she hesitated in the objection.
+
+"Do you wish to break the journey in London?"
+
+"No; let us go straight on."
+
+"To-morrow, then?"
+
+"I don't think we ought to put it off. The holiday is over."
+
+Hilliard nodded with satisfaction. An incident of the street occupied
+them for a few minutes, and their serious conversation was only resumed
+when they had crossed to the south side of the river, where they turned
+eastwards and went along the quays.
+
+"Till I can find something to do," Eve said at length, "I shall live at
+Dudley. Father will be very glad to have me there. He wished me to stay
+longer."
+
+"I am wondering whether it is really necessary for you to go back to
+your drudgery."
+
+"Oh, of course it is," she answered quickly. "I mustn't be idle. That's
+the very worst thing for me. And how am I to live?"
+
+"I have still plenty of money," said Hilliard, regarding her.
+
+"No more than you will need."
+
+"But think--how little more it costs for two than for one----"
+
+He spoke in spite of himself, having purposed no such suggestion. Eve
+quickened her step.
+
+"No, no, no! You have a struggle before you; you don't know what----"
+
+"And if it would make it easier for me?--there's no real doubt about my
+getting on well enough----"
+
+"Everything is doubtful." She spoke in a voice of agitation. "We can't
+see a day before us. We have arranged everything very well----"
+
+Hilliard was looking across the river. He walked more and more slowly,
+and turned at length to stand by the parapet. His companion remained
+apart from him, waiting. But he did not turn towards her again, and she
+moved to his side.
+
+"I know how ungrateful I must seem." She spoke without looking at him.
+"I have no right to refuse anything after all you----"
+
+"Don't say that," he interrupted impatiently. "That's the one thing I
+shall never like to think of."
+
+"I shall think of it always, and be glad to remember it----"
+
+"Come nearer--give me your hand----"
+
+Holding it, he drew her against his side, and they stood in silence
+looking upon the Seine, now dark beneath the clouding night.
+
+"I can't feel sure of you," fell at length from Hilliard.
+
+"I promise----"
+
+"Yes; here, now, in Paris. But when you are back in that hell----"
+
+"What difference can it make in me? It can't change what I feel now.
+You have altered all my life, my thoughts about everything. When I look
+back, I don't know myself. You were right; I must have been suffering
+from an illness that affected my mind. It seems impossible that I could
+ever have done such things. I ought to tell you. Do you wish me to tell
+you everything?"
+
+Hilliard spoke no answer, but he pressed her hand more tightly in his
+own.
+
+"You knew it from Patty, didn't you?"
+
+"She told me as much as she knew that night when I waited for you in
+High Street. She said you were in danger, and I compelled her to tell
+all she could."
+
+"I _was_ in danger, though I can't understand now how it went so far as
+that. It was he who came to me with the money, from the gentleman at
+Hampstead. That was how I first met him. The next day he waited for me
+when I came away from business."
+
+"It was the first time that anything of that kind had happened?"
+
+"The first time. And you know what the state of my mind was then. But
+to the end I never felt any--I never really loved him. We met and went
+to places together. After my loneliness--you can understand. But I
+distrusted him. Did Patty tell you why I left London so suddenly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When that happened I knew my instinct had been right from the first.
+It gave me very little pain, but I was ashamed and disgusted. He hadn't
+tried to deceive me in words; he never spoke of marriage; and from what
+I found out then, I saw that he was very much to be pitied."
+
+"You seem to contradict yourself," said Hilliard. "Why were you ashamed
+and disgusted?"
+
+"At finding myself in the power of such a woman. He married her when
+she was very young, and I could imagine the life he had led with her
+until he freed himself. A hateful woman!"
+
+"Hateful to you, I see," muttered the listener, with something tight at
+his heart.
+
+"Not because I felt anything like jealousy. You must believe me. I
+should never have spoken if I hadn't meant to tell you the simple
+truth."
+
+Again he pressed her hand. The warmth of her body had raised his blood
+to fever-heat.
+
+"When we met again, after I came back, it was by chance. I refused to
+speak to him, but he followed me all along the street, and I didn't
+know it till I was nearly home. Then he came up again, and implored me
+to hear what he had to say. I knew he would wait for me again in High
+Street, so I had no choice but to listen, and then tell him that there
+couldn't be anything more between us. And, for all that, he followed me
+another day. And again I had to listen to him."
+
+Hilliard fancied that he could feel her heart beat against his arm.
+
+"Be quick!" he said. "Tell all, and have done with it."
+
+"He told me, at last, that he was ruined. His wife had brought him into
+money difficulties; she ran up bills that he was obliged to pay, and
+left him scarcely enough to live upon. And he had used money that was
+not his own--he would have to give an account of it in a day or two. He
+was trying to borrow, but no one would lend him half what he needed----"
+
+"That's enough," Hilliard broke in, as her voice became inaudible.
+
+"No, you ought to know more than I have told you. Of course he didn't
+ask me for money; he had no idea that I could lend him even a pound.
+But what I wish you to know is that he hadn't spoken to me again in the
+old way. He said he had done wrong, when he first came to know me; he
+begged me to forgive him that, and only wanted me to be his friend."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Oh, don't be ungenerous: that's so unlike you."
+
+"I didn't mean it ungenerously. In his position I should have done
+exactly as he did."
+
+"Say you believe me. There was not a word of love between us. He told
+me all about the miseries of his life--that was all; and I pitied him
+so. I felt he was so sincere."
+
+"I believe it perfectly."
+
+"There was no excuse for what I did. How I had the courage--the
+shamelessness--is more than I can understand now."
+
+Hilliard stirred himself, and tried to laugh.
+
+"As it turned out, you couldn't have done better. Well, there's an end
+of it. Come."
+
+He walked on, and Eve kept closely beside him, looking up into his face.
+
+"I am sure he will pay the money back," she said presently.
+
+"Hang the money!"
+
+Then he stood still.
+
+"How is he to pay it back? I mean, how is he to communicate with you?"
+
+"I gave him my address at Dudley."
+
+Again Hilliard moved on.
+
+"Why should it annoy you?" Eve asked. "If ever he writes to me, I shall
+let you know at once: you shall see the letter. It is quite certain
+that he _will_ pay his debt; and I shall be very glad when he does."
+
+"What explanation did you give him?"
+
+"The true one. I said I had borrowed from a friend. He was in despair,
+and couldn't refuse what I offered."
+
+"We'll talk no more of it. It was right to tell me. I'm glad now it's
+all over. Look at the moon rising--harvest moon, isn't it?"
+
+Eve turned aside again, and leaned on the parapet. He, lingering apart
+for a moment, at length drew nearer. Of her own accord she put her
+hands in his.
+
+"In future," she said, "you shall know everything I do. You can trust
+me: there will be no more secrets."
+
+"Yet you are afraid----"
+
+"It's for your sake. You must be free for the next year or two. I shall
+be glad to get to work again. I am well and strong and cheerful."
+
+Her eyes drew him with the temptation he had ever yet resisted. Eve did
+not refuse her lips.
+
+"You must write to Patty," she said, when they were at the place of
+parting. "I shall have her new address in a day or two."
+
+"Yes, I will write to her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+By the end of November Hilliard was well at work in the office of
+Messrs. Birching, encouraged by his progress and looking forward as
+hopefully as a not very sanguine temperament would allow. He lived
+penuriously, and toiled at professional study night as well as day. Now
+and then he passed an evening with Robert Narramore, who had moved to
+cozy bachelor quarters a little distance out of town, in the Halesowen
+direction. Once a week, generally on Saturday, he saw Eve. Other
+society he had none, nor greatly desired any.
+
+But Eve had as yet found no employment. Good fortune in this respect
+seemed to have deserted her, and at her meetings with Hilliard she grew
+fretful over repeated disappointments. Of her day-to-day life she made
+no complaint, but Hilliard saw too clearly that her spirits were
+failing beneath a burden of monotonous dulness. That the healthy glow
+she had brought back in her cheeks should give way to pallor was no
+more than he had expected, but he watched with anxiety the return of
+mental symptoms which he had tried to cheat himself into believing
+would not reappear. Eve did not fail in pleasant smiles, in hopeful
+words; but they cost her an effort which she lacked the art to conceal.
+He felt a coldness in her, divined a struggle between conscience and
+inclination. However, for this also he was prepared; all the more need
+for vigour and animation on his own part.
+
+Hilliard had read of the woman who, in the strength of her love and
+loyalty, heartens a man through all the labours he must front he
+believed in her existence, but had never encountered her--as indeed
+very few men have. From Eve he looked for nothing of the kind. If she
+would permit herself to rest upon his sinews, that was all he desired.
+The mood of their last night in Paris might perchance return, but only
+with like conditions. Of his workaday passion she knew nothing; habit
+of familiarity and sense of obligation must supply its place with her
+until a brightening future once more set her emotions to the gladsome
+tune.
+
+Now that the days of sun and warmth were past, it was difficult to
+arrange for a meeting under circumstances that allowed of free
+comfortable colloquy. Eve declared that her father's house offered no
+sort of convenience; it was only a poor cottage, and Hilliard would be
+altogether out of place there. To his lodgings she could not come. Of
+necessity they had recourse to public places in Birmingham, where an
+hour or two of talk under shelter might make Eve's journey hither worth
+while. As Hilliard lived at the north end of the town, he suggested
+Aston Hall as a possible rendezvous, and here they met, early one
+Saturday afternoon in December.
+
+From the eminence which late years have encompassed with a proletarian
+suburb, its once noble domain narrowed to the bare acres of a stinted
+breathing ground, Aston Hall looks forth upon joyless streets and
+fuming chimneys, a wide welter of squalid strife. Its walls, which bear
+the dints of Roundhead cannonade, are blackened with ever-driving
+smoke; its crumbling gateway, opening aforetime upon a stately avenue
+of chestnuts, shakes as the steam-tram rushes by. Hilliard's
+imagination was both attracted and repelled by this relic of what he
+deemed a better age. He enjoyed the antique chambers, the winding
+staircases, the lordly gallery, with its dark old portraits and vast
+fireplaces, the dim-lighted nooks where one could hide alone and dream
+away the present; but in the end, reality threw scorn upon such
+pleasure. Aston Hall was a mere architectural relic, incongruous and
+meaningless amid its surroundings; the pathos of its desecrated dignity
+made him wish that it might be destroyed, and its place fittingly
+occupied by some People's Palace, brand new, aglare with electric
+light, ringing to the latest melodies of the street. When he had long
+gazed at its gloomy front, the old champion of royalism seemed to
+shrink together, humiliated by Time's insults.
+
+It was raining when he met Eve at the entrance.
+
+"This won't do," were his first words. "You can't come over in such
+weather as this. If it hadn't seemed to be clearing tip an hour or two
+ago, I should have telegraphed to stop you."
+
+"Oh, the weather is nothing to me," Eve answered, with resolute gaiety.
+"I'm only too glad of the change. Besides, it won't go on much longer.
+I shall get a place."
+
+Hilliard never questioned her about her attempts to obtain an
+engagement; the subject was too disagreeable to him.
+
+"Nothing yet," she continued, as they walked up the muddy roadway to
+the Hall. "But I know you don't like to talk about it."
+
+"I have something to propose. How if I take a couple of cheap rooms in
+some building let out for offices, and put in a few sticks of
+furniture? Would you come to see me there?"
+
+He watched her face as she listened to the suggestion, and his timidity
+seemed justified by her expression.
+
+"You would be so uncomfortable in such a place. Don't trouble. We shall
+manage to meet somehow. I am certain to be living here before long."
+
+"Even when you are," he persisted, "we shall only be able to see each
+other in places like this. I can't talk--can't say half the things I
+wish to----"
+
+"We'll think about it. Ah, it's warm in here!"
+
+This afternoon the guardians of the Hall were likely to be troubled
+with few visitors. Eve at once led the way upstairs to a certain suite
+of rooms, hung with uninteresting pictures, where she and Hilliard had
+before this spent an hour safe from disturbance. She placed herself in
+the recess of a window: her companion took a few steps backward and
+forward.
+
+"Let me do what I wish," he urged. "There's a whole long winter before
+us. I am sure I could find a couple of rooms at a very low rent, and
+some old woman would come in to do all that's necessary."
+
+"If you like."
+
+"I may? You would come there?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Of course I would come. But I sha'n't like to see you in a bare,
+comfortless place."
+
+"It needn't be that. A few pounds will make a decent sort of
+sitting-room."
+
+"Anything to tell me?" Eve asked, abruptly quitting the subject.
+
+She seemed to be in better spirits than of late, notwithstanding the
+evil sky; and Hilliard smiled with pleasure as he regarded her.
+
+"Nothing unusual. Oh, yes; I'm forgetting. I had a letter from Emily,
+and went to see her."
+
+Hilliard had scarcely seen his quondam sister-in-law since she became
+Mrs. Marr. On the one occasion of his paying a call, after his return
+from Paris, it struck him that her husband offered no very genial
+welcome. He had expected this, and willingly kept aloof.
+
+"Read the letter."
+
+Eve did so. It began, "My dear Maurice," and ended, "Ever
+affectionately and gratefully yours." The rest of its contents ran thus:
+
+"I am in great trouble--dreadfully unhappy. It would be such a kindness
+if you would let me see you. I can't put in a letter what I want to
+say, and I do hope you won't refuse to come. Friday afternoon, at
+three, would do, if you can get away from business for once. How I look
+back on the days when you used to come over from Dudley and have tea
+with us in the dear little room. Do come!"
+
+"Of course," said Hilliard, laughing as he met Eve's surprised look. "I
+knew what _that_ meant. I would much rather have got out of it, but it
+would have seemed brutal. So I went. The poor simpleton has begun to
+find that marriage with one man isn't necessarily the same thing as
+marriage with another. In Ezra Marr she has caught a Tartar."
+
+"Surely he doesn't ill-use her?"
+
+"Not a bit of it. He is simply a man with a will, and finds it
+necessary to teach his wife her duties. Emily knows no more about the
+duties of life than her little five-year-old girl. She thought she
+could play with a second husband as she did with the first, and she was
+gravely mistaken. She complained to me of a thousand acts of
+tyranny--every one of them, I could see, merely a piece of rude
+commonsense. The man must be calling himself an idiot for marrying her.
+I could only listen with a long face. Argument with Emily is out of the
+question. And I shall take good care not to go there again."
+
+Eve asked many questions, and approved his resolve.
+
+"You are not the person to console and instruct her. But she must look
+upon you as the best and wisest of men. I can understand that."
+
+"You can understand poor, foolish Emily thinking so----"
+
+"Put all the meaning you like into my words," said Eve, with her
+pleasantest smile. "Well, I too have had a letter. From Patty. She
+isn't going to be married, after all."
+
+"Why, I thought it was over by now."
+
+"She broke it off less than a week before the day. I wish I could show
+you her letter, but, of course, I mustn't. It's very amusing. They had
+quarrelled about every conceivable thing--all but one, and this came up
+at last. They were talking about meals, and Mr. Dally said that he
+liked a bloater for breakfast every morning. 'A bloater!' cried Patty.
+'Then I hope you won't ask me to cook it for you. I can't bear them.'
+'Oh, very well: if you can't cook a bloater, you're not the wife for
+me.' And there they broke off, for good and all."
+
+"Which means for a month or two, I suppose."
+
+"Impossible to say. But I have advised her as strongly as I could not
+to marry until she knows her own mind better. It is too bad of her to
+have gone so far. The poor man had taken rooms, and all but furnished
+them. Patty's a silly girl, I'm afraid."
+
+"Wants a strong man to take her in hand--like a good many other girls."
+
+Eve paid no attention to the smile.
+
+"Paris spoilt her for such a man as Mr. Dally. She got all sorts of new
+ideas, and can't settle down to the things that satisfied her before.
+It isn't nice to think that perhaps we did her a great deal of harm."
+
+"Nonsense! Nobody was ever harmed by healthy enjoyment."
+
+"Was it healthy--for _her_? That's the question."
+
+Hilliard mused, and felt disinclined to discuss the matter.
+
+"That isn't the only news I have for you," said Eve presently. "I've
+had another letter."
+
+Her voice arrested Hilliard's step as he paced near her.
+
+"I had rather not have told you anything about it, but I promised. And
+I have to give you something."
+
+She held out to him a ten-pound note.
+
+"What's this?"
+
+"He has sent it. He says he shall be able to pay something every three
+months until he has paid the whole debt. Please to take it."
+
+After a short struggle with himself, Hilliard recovered a manly bearing.
+
+"It's quite right he should return the money, Eve, but you mustn't ask
+me to have anything to do with it. Use it for your own expenses. I gave
+it to you, and I can't take it back."
+
+She hesitated, her eyes cast down,
+
+"He has written a long letter. There's not a word in it I should be
+afraid to show you. Will you read it--just to satisfy me? Do read it!"
+
+Hilliard steadily refused, with perfect self-command.
+
+"I trust you--that's enough. I have absolute faith in you. Answer his
+letter in the way you think best, and never speak to me of the money
+again. It's yours; make what use of it you like."
+
+"Then I shall use it," said Eve, after a pause, "to pay for a lodging
+in Birmingham. I couldn't live much longer at home. If I'm here, I can
+get books out of the library, and time won't drag so. And I shall be
+near you."
+
+"Do so, by all means."
+
+As if more completely to dismiss the unpleasant subject, they walked
+into another room. Hilliard began to speak again of his scheme for
+providing a place where they could meet and talk at their ease. Eve now
+entered into it with frank satisfaction.
+
+"Have you said anything yet to Mr. Narramore?" she asked at length.
+
+"No. I have never felt inclined to tell him. Of course I shall some
+day. But it isn't natural to me to talk of this kind of thing, even
+with so intimate a friend. Some men couldn't keep it to themselves: for
+me the difficulty is to speak."
+
+"I asked again, because I have been thinking--mightn't Mr. Narramore be
+able to help me to get work?"
+
+Hilliard repelled the suggestion with strong distaste. On no account
+would he seek his friend's help in such a matter. And Eve said no more
+of it.
+
+On her return journey to Dudley, between eight and nine o'clock, she
+looked cold and spiritless. Her eyelids dropped wearily as she sat in
+the corner of the carriage with some papers on her lap, which Hilliard
+had given her. Rain had ceased, and the weather seemed turning to
+frost. From Dudley station she had a walk of nearly half an hour, to
+the top of Kate's Hill.
+
+Kate's Hill is covered with an irregular assemblage of old red-tiled
+cottages, grimy without, but sometimes, as could be seen through an
+open door admitting into the chief room, clean and homely-looking
+within. The steep, narrow alleys leading upward were scarce lighted;
+here and there glimmered a pale corner-lamp, but on a black night such
+as this the oil-lit windows of a little shop, and the occasional gleam
+from doors, proved very serviceable as a help in picking one's path.
+Towards the top of the hill there was no paving, and mud lay thick.
+Indescribable the confusion of this toilers' settlement--houses and
+workshops tumbled together as if by chance, the ways climbing and
+winding into all manner of pitch-dark recesses, where eats prowled
+stealthily. In one spot silence and not a hint of life; in another,
+children noisily at play amid piles of old metal or miscellaneous
+rubbish. From the labyrinth which was so familiar to her, Eve issued of
+a sudden on to a sort of terrace, where the air blew shrewdly: beneath
+lay cottage roofs, and in front a limitless gloom, which by daylight
+would have been an extensive northward view, comprising the towns of
+Bilston and Wolverhampton. It was now a black gulf, without form and
+void, sputtering fire. Flames that leapt out of nothing, and as
+suddenly disappeared; tongues of yellow or of crimson, quivering,
+lambent, seeming to snatch and devour and then fall back in satiety.
+When a cluster of these fires shot forth together, the sky above became
+illumined with a broad glare, which throbbed and pulsed in the manner
+of sheet-lightning, though more lurid, and in a few seconds was gone.
+
+She paused here for a moment, rather to rest after her climb than to
+look at what she had seen so often, then directed her steps to one of
+the houses within sight. She pushed the door, and entered a little
+parlour, where a fire and a lamp made cheery welcome. By the hearth, in
+a round-backed wooden chair, sat a grizzle-headed man, whose hard
+features proclaimed his relation to Eve, otherwise seeming so
+improbable. He looked up from the volume open on his knee--a Bible--and
+said in a rough, kind voice:
+
+"I was thinkin' it 'ud be about toime for you. You look starved, my
+lass."
+
+"Yes; it has turned very cold."
+
+"I've got a bit o' supper ready for you. I don't want none myself;
+there's food enough for me _here_." He laid his hand on the book.
+"D'you call to mind the eighteenth of Ezekiel, lass?--'But if the
+wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed----'"
+
+Eve stood motionless till he had read the verse, then nodded and began
+to take off her out-of-door garments. She was unable to talk, and her
+eyes wandered absently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+After a week's inquiry, Hilliard discovered the lodging that would suit
+his purpose. It was Camp Hill; two small rooms at the top of a house,
+the ground-floor of which was occupied as a corn-dealer's shop, and the
+story above that tenanted by a working optician with a blind wife. On
+condition of papering the rooms and doing a few repairs necessary to
+make them habitable, he secured them at the low rent of four shillings
+a week.
+
+Eve paid her first visit to this delectable abode on a Sunday
+afternoon; she saw only the sitting-room, which would bear inspection;
+the appearance of the bed-room was happily left to her surmise. Less
+than a five-pound note had paid for the whole furnishing.
+Notwithstanding the reckless invitation to Eve to share his fortunes
+straightway, Hilliard, after paving his premium of fifty guineas to the
+Birching Brothers, found but a very small remnant in hand of the money
+with which he had set forth from Dudley some nine months ago. Yet not
+for a moment did he repine; he had the value of his outlay; his mind
+was stored with memories and his heart strengthened with hope.
+
+At her second coming--she herself now occupied a poor little lodging
+not very far away--Eve beheld sundry improvements. By the fireside
+stood a great leather chair, deep, high-backed, wondrously
+self-assertive over against the creaky cane seat which before had
+dominated the room. Against the wall was a high bookcase, where
+Hilliard's volumes, previously piled on the floor, stood in loose
+array; and above the mantelpiece hung a framed engraving of the
+Parthenon.
+
+"This is dreadful extravagance!" she exclaimed, pausing at the
+threshold, and eying her welcomer with mock reproof.
+
+"It is, but not on my part. The things came a day or two ago, simply
+addressed to me from shops."
+
+"Who was the giver, then?"
+
+"Must be Narramore, of course. He was here not long ago, and growled a
+good deal because I hadn't a decent chair for his lazy bones."
+
+"I am much obliged to him," said Eve, as she sank back in the seat of
+luxurious repose. "You ought to hang his portrait in the room. Haven't
+you a photograph?" she added carelessly.
+
+"Such a thing doesn't exist. Like myself, he hasn't had a portrait
+taken since he was a child. A curious thing, by-the-bye, that you
+should have had yours taken just when you did. Of course it was because
+you were going far away for the first time; but it marked a point in
+your life, and put on record the Eve Madeley whom no one would see
+again If I can't get that photograph in any other way I shall go and
+buy, beg, or steal it from Mrs. Brewer."
+
+"Oh, you shall have one if you insist upon it."
+
+"Why did you refuse it before?"
+
+"I hardly know--a fancy--I thought you would keep looking at it, and
+regretting that I had changed so."
+
+As on her previous visit, she soon ceased to talk, and, in listening to
+Hilliard, showed unconsciously a tired, despondent face.
+
+"Nothing yet," fell from her lips, when he had watched her silently.
+
+"Never mind; I hate the mention of it."
+
+"By-the-bye," he resumed, "Narramore astounded me by hinting at
+marriage. It's Miss Birching, the sister of my man. It hasn't come to
+an engagement yet, and if it ever does I shall give Miss Birching the
+credit for it. It would have amused you to hear him talking about her,
+with a pipe in his mouth and half asleep. I understand now why he took
+young Birching with him to Switzerland. He'll never carry it through;
+unless, as I said, Miss Birching takes the decisive step."
+
+"Is she the kind of girl to do that?" asked Eve, waking to curiosity.
+
+"I know nothing about her, except from Narramore's sleepy talk. Rather
+an arrogant beauty, according to him. He told me a story of how, when
+he was calling upon her, she begged him to ring the bell for something
+or other, and he was so slow in getting up that she went and rang it
+herself. 'Her own fault,' he said; 'she asked me to sit on a chair with
+a seat some six inches above the ground, and how can a man hurry up
+from a thing of that sort?'"
+
+"He must be a strange man. Of course he doesn't care anything about
+Miss Birching."
+
+"But I think he does, in his way."
+
+"How did he ever get on at all in business?"
+
+"Oh, he's one of the lucky men." Hilliard replied, with a touch of
+good-natured bitterness. "He never exerted himself; good things fell
+into his mouth. People got to like him--that's one explanation, no
+doubt."
+
+"Don't you think he may have more energy than you imagine?"
+
+"It's possible. I have sometimes wondered."
+
+"What sort of life does he lead? Has he many friends I mean?"
+
+"Very few. I should doubt whether there's anyone he talks with as he
+does with me. He'll never get much good out of his money; but if he
+fell into real poverty--poverty like mine--it would kill him. I know he
+looks at me as an astonishing creature, and marvels that I don't buy a
+good dose of chloral and have done with it."
+
+Eve did not join in his laugh.
+
+"I can't bear to hear you speak of your poverty," she said in an
+undertone. "You remind me that I am the cause of it."
+
+"Good Heavens! As if I should mention it if I were capable of such a
+thought!"
+
+"But it's the fact," she persisted, with something like irritation.
+"But for me, you would have gone into the architect's office with
+enough to live upon comfortably for a time."
+
+"That's altogether unlikely," Hilliard declared. "But for you, it's
+improbable that I should have gone to Birching's at all. At this moment
+I should be spending my money in idleness, and, in the end, should have
+gone back to what I did before. You have given me a start in a new
+life."
+
+This, and much more of the same tenor, failed to bring a light upon
+Eve's countenance. At length she asked suddenly, with a defiant
+bluntness----
+
+"Have you ever thought what sort of a wife I am likely to make?"
+
+Hilliard tried to laugh, but was disagreeably impressed by her words
+and the look that accompanied them.
+
+"I have thought about it, to be sure," he answered carelessly
+
+"And don't you feel a need of courage?"
+
+"Of course. And not only the need but the courage itself."
+
+"Tell me the real, honest truth." She bent forward, and gazed at him
+with eyes one might have thought hostile. "I demand the truth of you: I
+have a right to know it. Don't you often wish you had never seen me?"
+
+"You 're in a strange mood."
+
+"Don't put me off. Answer!"
+
+"To ask such a question," he replied quietly, "is to charge me with a
+great deal of hypocrisy. I did _once_ all but wish I had never seen
+you. If I lost you now I should lose what seems to me the strongest
+desire of my life. Do you suppose I sit down and meditate on your
+capacity as cook or housemaid? It would be very prudent and laudable,
+but I have other thoughts--that give me trouble enough."
+
+"What thoughts?"
+
+"Such as one doesn't talk about--if you insist on frankness."
+
+Her eyes wandered.
+
+"It's only right to tell you," she said, after silence, "that I dread
+poverty as much as ever I did. And I think poverty in marriage a
+thousand times worse than when one is alone."
+
+"Well, we agree in that. But why do you insist upon it just now? Are
+_you_ beginning to be sorry that we ever met?"
+
+"Not a day passes but I feel sorry for it."
+
+"I suppose you are harping on the old scruple. Why will you plague me
+about it?"
+
+"I mean," said Eve, with eyes down, "that you are the worse off for
+having met me, but I mean something else as well. Do you think it
+possible that anyone can owe too much gratitude, even to a person one
+likes?"
+
+He regarded her attentively.
+
+"You feel the burden?"
+
+She delayed her answer, glancing at him with a new expression--a
+deprecating tenderness.
+
+"It's better to tell you. I _do_ feel it, and have always felt it."
+
+"Confound this infernal atmosphere!" Hilliard broke out wrathfully.
+"It's making you morbid again. Come here to me! Eve--come!"
+
+As she sat motionless, he caught her hands and drew her forward, and
+sat down again with her passive body resting upon his knees. She was
+pale, and looked frightened.
+
+"Your gratitude be hanged! Pay me back with your lips--so--and so!
+Can't you understand that when my lips touch yours, I have a delight
+that would be well purchased with years of semi-starvation? What is it
+to me how I won you? You are mine for good and all--that's enough."
+
+She drew herself half away, and stood brightly flushed, touching her
+hair to set it in order again. Hilliard, with difficulty controlling
+himself, said in a husky voice--
+
+"Is the mood gone?"
+
+Eve nodded, and sighed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+At the time appointed for their next meeting, Hilliard waited in vain.
+An hour passed, and Eve, who had the uncommon virtue of punctuality,
+still did not come. The weather was miserable--rain, fog, and
+slush--but this had heretofore proved no obstacle, for her lodgings
+were situated less than half a mile away. Afraid of missing her if he
+went out, he fretted through another hour, and was at length relieved
+by the arrival of a letter of explanation. Eve wrote that she had been
+summoned to Dudley; her father was stricken with alarming illness, and
+her brother had telegraphed.
+
+For two days he heard nothing; then came a few lines which told him
+that Mr. Madeley could not live many more hours. On the morrow Eve
+wrote that her father was dead.
+
+To the letter which he thereupon despatched Hilliard had no reply for
+nearly a week. When Eve wrote, it was from a new address at Dudley.
+After thanking him for the kind words with which he had sought to
+comfort her, she continued--
+
+"I have at last found something to do, and it was quite time, for I
+have been very miserable, and work is the best thing for me. Mr.
+Welland, my first employer, when I was twelve years old, has asked me
+to come and keep his books for him, and I am to live in his house. My
+brother has gone into lodgings, and we see no more of the cottage on
+Kate's Hill. It's a pity I have to be so far from you again, but there
+seems to be no hope of getting anything to do in Birmingham, and here I
+shall be comfortable enough, as far as mere living goes. On Sunday I
+shall be quite free, and will come over as often as possible; but I
+have caught a bad cold, and must be content to keep in the house until
+this dreadful weather changes. Be more careful of yourself than you
+generally are, and let me hear often. In a few months' time we shall be
+able to spend pleasant hours on the Castle Hill. I have heard from
+Patty, and want to tell you about her letter, but this cold makes me
+feel too stupid Will write again soon."
+
+It happened that Hilliard himself was just now blind and voiceless with
+a catarrh. The news from Dudley by no means solaced him. He crouched
+over his fire through the long, black day, tormented with many
+miseries, and at eventide drank half a bottle of whisky, piping hot,
+which at least assured him of a night's sleep.
+
+Just to see what would be the result of his silence, he wrote no reply
+to this letter. A fortnight elapsed; he strengthened himself in
+stubbornness, aided by the catarrh, which many bottles of whisky would
+not overcome. When his solitary confinement grew at length
+insufferable, he sent for Narramore, and had not long to wait before
+his friend appeared. Narramore was rosy as ever: satisfaction with life
+beamed from his countenance.
+
+"I've ordered you in some wine," he exclaimed genially, sinking into
+the easy-chair which Hilliard had vacated for him--an instance of
+selfishness in small things which did not affect his generosity in
+greater. "It isn't easy to get good port nowadays, but they tell me
+that this is not injurious. Hasn't young Birching been to see you? No,
+I suppose he would think it _infra dig_. to come to this neighbourhood.
+There's a damnable self-conceit in that family: you must have noticed
+it, eh? It comes out very strongly in the girl. By-the-bye I've done
+with her--haven't been there for three weeks, and don't think I shall
+go again, unless it's for the pleasure of saying or doing something
+that'll irritate her royal highness."
+
+"Did you quarrel?"
+
+"Quarrel? I never quarrel with anyone; it's bad for one's nerves."
+
+"Did you get as far as proposing?"
+
+"Oh, I left _her_ to do that. Women are making such a row about their
+rights nowadays, that it's as well to show you grant them perfect
+equality. I gave her every chance of saying something definite. I
+maintain that she trifled with my affections. She asked me what my
+views in life were. Ah, thought I, now it's coming; and I answered
+modestly that everything depended on circumstances. I might have said
+it depended on the demand for brass bedsteads; but perhaps that would
+have verged on indelicacy--you know that I am delicacy personified. 'I
+thought,' said Miss Birching, 'that a man of any energy made his own
+circumstances?' 'Energy!' I shouted. 'Do you look for energy in _me_?
+It's the greatest compliment anyone ever paid me.' At that she seemed
+desperately annoyed, and wouldn't pursue the subject. That's how it
+always was, just when the conversation grew interesting."
+
+"I'm sorry to see you so cut up about it," remarked Hilliard.
+
+"None of your irony, old fellow. Well, the truth is, I've seen someone
+I like better."
+
+"Not surprised."
+
+"It's a queer story; I'll tell it you some day, if it comes to
+anything. I'm not at all sure that it will, as there seems to be a sort
+of lurking danger that I may make a damned fool of myself."
+
+"Improbable?" commented the listener. "Your blood is too temperate."
+
+"So I thought; but one never knows. Unexpected feelings crop up in a
+fellow. We won't talk about it just now. How have things been going in
+the architectural line?"
+
+"Not amiss. Steadily, I think."
+
+Narramore lay back at full length, his face turned to the ceiling.
+
+"Since I've been living out yonder, I've got a taste for the country. I
+have a notion that, if brass bedsteads keep firm, I shall some day
+build a little house of my own; an inexpensive little house, with a
+tree or two about it. Just make me a few sketches, will you? When
+you've nothing better to do, you know."
+
+He played with the idea, till it took strong hold of him, and he began
+to talk with most unwonted animation.
+
+"Five or six thousand pounds--I ought to be able to sink that in a few
+years. Not enough, eh? But I don't want a mansion. I'm quite serious
+about this, Hilliard. When you re feeling ready to start on your own
+account, you shall have the job."
+
+Hilliard laughed grimly at the supposition that he would ever attain
+professional independence, but his friend talked on, and overleaped
+difficulties with a buoyancy of spirit which ultimately had its effect
+upon the listener. When he was alone again, Hilliard felt better, both
+in body and mind, and that evening, over the first bottle of
+Narramore's port, he amused himself with sketching ideal cottages.
+
+"The fellow's in love, at last. When a man thinks of pleasant little
+country houses, 'with a tree or two' about them----"
+
+He sighed, and ground his teeth, and sketched on.
+
+Before bedtime, a sudden and profound shame possessed him. Was he not
+behaving outrageously in neglecting to answer Eve's letter? For all he
+knew the cold of which she complained might have caused her more
+suffering than he himself had gone through from the like cause, and
+that was bad enough. He seized paper and wrote to her as he had never
+written before, borne on the very high flood of passionate longing.
+Without regard to prudence he left the house at midnight and posted his
+letter.
+
+"It never occurred to me to blame you for not writing," Eve quickly
+replied; "I'm afraid you are more sensitive than I am, and, to tell the
+truth, I believe men generally _are_ more sensitive than women in
+things of this kind. It pleased me very much to hear of the visit you
+had had from Mr. Narramore, and that he had cheered you. I do so wish I
+could have come, but I have really been quite ill, and I must not think
+of risking a journey till the weather improves. Don't trouble about it;
+I will write often."
+
+"I told you about a letter I had had from poor Patty, and I want to ask
+you to do something. Will you write to her? Just a nice, friendly
+little letter. She would be so delighted, she would indeed. There's no
+harm in copying a line or two from what she sent me. 'Has Mr. Hilliard
+forgotten all about me?' she says. 'I would write to him, but I feel
+afraid. Not afraid of _you_, dear Eve, but he might feel I was
+impertinent. What do you think? We had such delicious times together,
+he and you and I, and I really don't want him to forget me altogether?'
+Now I have told her that there is no fear whatever of your forgetting
+her, and that we often speak of her. I begin to think that I have been
+unjust to Patty in calling her silly, and making fun of her. She was
+anything but foolish in breaking off with that absurd Mr. Dally, and I
+can see now that she will never give a thought to him again. What I
+fear is that the poor girl will never find any one good enough for her.
+The men she meets are very vulgar, and vulgar Patty is _not_--as you
+once said to me, you remember. So, if you can spare a minute, write her
+a few lines, to show that you still think of her. Her address is----,
+etc."
+
+To Hilliard all this seemed merely a pleasant proof of Eve's
+amiability, of her freedom from that acrid monopolism which
+characterises the ignoble female in her love relations. Straightway he
+did as he was requested, and penned to Miss Ringrose a chatty epistle,
+with which she could not but be satisfied. A day or two brought him an
+answer. Patty's handwriting lacked distinction, and in the matter of
+orthography she was not beyond reproach, but her letter chirped with a
+prettily expressed gratitude. "I am living with my aunt, and am likely
+to for a long time. And I get on very well at my new shop, which I have
+no wish to leave." This was her only allusion to the shattered
+matrimonial project: "I wish there was any chance of you and Eve coming
+to live in London, but I suppose that's too good to hope for. We don't
+get many things as we wish them in this world. And yet I oughtn't to
+say that either, for if it hadn't been for you I should never have seen
+Paris, which was so awfully jolly! But you'll be coming for a holiday,
+won't you? I should so like just to see you, if ever you do. It isn't
+like it was at the old shop. There's a great deal of business done
+here, and very little time to talk to anyone in the shop. But many
+girls have worse things to put up with than I have, and I won't make
+you think I'm a grumbler."
+
+The whole of January went by before Hilliard and Eve again saw each
+other. The lover wrote at length that he could bear it no longer, that
+he was coming to Dudley, if only for the mere sight of Eve's face; she
+must meet him in the waiting-room at the railway station. She answered
+by return of post, "I will come over next Sunday, and be with you at
+twelve o'clock, but I must leave very early, as I am afraid to be out
+after nightfall." And this engagement was kept.
+
+The dress of mourning became her well; it heightened her always
+noticeable air of refinement, and would have constrained to a
+reverential tenderness even had not Hilliard naturally checked himself
+from any bolder demonstration of joy. She spoke in a low, soft voice,
+seldom raised her eyes, and manifested a new gentleness very touching
+to Hilliard, though at the same time, and he knew not how or why, it
+did not answer to his desire. A midday meal was in readiness for her;
+she pretended to eat, but in reality scarce touched the food.
+
+"You must taste old Narramore's port wine," said her entertainer. "The
+fellow actually sent a couple of dozen."
+
+She was not to be persuaded; her refusal puzzled and annoyed Hilliard,
+and there followed a long silence. Indeed, it surprised him to find how
+little they could say to each other to-day. An unknown restraint had
+come between them.
+
+"Well," he exclaimed at length, "I wrote to Patty, and she answered."
+
+"May I see the letter?"
+
+"Of course. Here it is."
+
+Eve read it, and smiled with pleasure.
+
+"Doesn't she write nicely! Poor girl!"
+
+"Why have you taken so to commiserating her all at once?" Hilliard
+asked. "She's no worse off than she ever was. Rather better, I think."
+
+"Life isn't the same for her since she was in Paris," said Eve, with
+peculiar softness.
+
+"Well, perhaps it improved her."
+
+"Oh, it certainly did! But it gave her a feeling of discontent for the
+old life and the people about her."
+
+"A good many of us have to suffer that. She's nothing like as badly off
+as you are, my dear girl."
+
+Eve coloured, and kept silence.
+
+"We shall hear of her getting married before long," resumed the other.
+"She told me herself that marriage was the scourge of music-shops--it
+carries off their young women at such a rate."
+
+"She told you that? It was in one of your long talks together in
+London? Patty and you got on capitally together. It was very natural
+she shouldn't care much for men like Mr. Dally afterwards."
+
+Hilliard puzzled over this remark, and was on the point of making some
+impatient reply, but discretion restrained him. He turned to Eve's own
+affairs, questioned her closely about her life in the tradesman's
+house, and so their conversation followed a smoother course. Presently,
+half in jest, Hilliard mentioned Narramore's building projects.
+
+"But who knows? It _might_ come to something of importance for me. In
+two or three years, if all goes well, such a thing might possibly give
+me a start."
+
+A singular solemnity had settled upon Eve's countenance. She spoke not
+a word, and seemed unaccountably ill at ease.
+
+"Do you think I am in the clouds?" said Hilliard.
+
+"Oh, no! Why shouldn't you get on--as other men do?"
+
+But she would not dwell upon the hope, and Hilliard, not a little
+vexed, again became silent.
+
+Her next visit was after a lapse of three weeks. She had again been
+suffering from a slight illness, and her pallor alarmed Hilliard. Again
+she began with talk of Patty Ringrose.
+
+"Do you know, there's really a chance that we may see her before long!
+She'll have a holiday at Easter, from the Thursday night to Monday
+night, and I have all but got her to promise that she'll come over
+here. Wouldn't it be fun to let her see the Black Country? You remember
+her talk about it. I could get her a room, and if it's at all bearable
+weather, we would all have a day somewhere. Wouldn't you like that?"
+
+"Yes; but I should greatly prefer a day with you alone."
+
+"Oh, of course, the time is coming for that, Would you let us come here
+one day?"
+
+With a persistence not to be mistaken Eve avoided all intimate topics;
+at the same time her manner grew more cordial. Through February and
+March, she decidedly improved in health. Hilliard saw her seldom, but
+she wrote frequent letters, and their note was as that of her
+conversation, lively, all but sportive. Once again she had become a
+mystery to her lover; he pondered over her very much as in the days
+when they were newly acquainted. Of one thing he felt but too well
+assured. She did not love him as he desired to be loved. Constant she
+might be, but it was the constancy of a woman unaffected with ardent
+emotion. If she granted him her lips they had no fervour respondent to
+his own; she made a sport of it, forgot it as soon as possible. Upon
+Hilliard's vehement nature this acted provocatively; at times he was
+all but frenzied with the violence of his sensual impulses. Yet Eve's
+control of him grew more assured the less she granted of herself; a
+look, a motion of her lips, and he drew apart, quivering but subdued.
+At one such moment he exclaimed:
+
+"You had better not come here at all. I love you too insanely."
+
+Eve looked at him, and silently began to shed tears. He implored her
+pardon, prostrated himself, behaved in a manner that justified his
+warning. But Eve stifled the serious drama of the situation, and forced
+him to laugh with her.
+
+In these days architectural study made little way.
+
+Patty Ringrose was coming for the Easter holidays. She would arrive on
+Good Friday. "As the weather is so very bad still," wrote Eve to
+Hilliard, "will you let us come to see you on Saturday? Sunday may be
+better for an excursion of some sort."
+
+And thus it was arranged. Hilliard made ready his room to receive the
+fair visitors, who would come at about eleven in the morning. As usual
+nowadays, he felt discontented, but, after all, Patty's influence might
+be a help to him, as it had been in worse straits.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+To-day he had the house to himself. The corn-dealers shop was closed,
+as on a Sunday; the optician and his blind wife had locked up their
+rooms and were spending Easter-tide, it might be hoped, amid more
+cheerful surroundings. Hilliard sat with his door open, that he might
+easily hear the knock which announced his guests at the entrance below.
+
+It sounded, at length, but timidly. Had he not been listening, he would
+not have perceived it. Eve's handling of the knocker was firmer than
+that, and in a different rhythm. Apprehensive of disappointment, he
+hurried downstairs and opened the door to Patty Ringrose--Patty alone.
+
+With a shy but pleased laugh, her cheeks warm and her eyes bright, she
+jerked out her hand to him as in the old days.
+
+"I know you won't be glad to see me. I'm so sorry. I said I had better
+not come."
+
+"Of course I am glad to see you. But where's Eve?"
+
+"It's so unfortunate--she has such a bad headache!" panted the girl.
+"She couldn't possibly come, and I wanted to stay with her, I said. I
+should only disappoint you."
+
+"It's a pity, of course; but I'm glad you came, for all that." Hilliard
+stifled his dissatisfaction and misgivings. "You'll think this a queer
+sort of place. I'm quite alone here to-day. But after you have rested a
+little we can go somewhere else."
+
+"Yes. Eve told me you would be so kind as to take me to see things. I'm
+not tired. I won't come in, if you'd rather----"
+
+"Oh, you may as well see what sort of a den I've made for myself."
+
+He led the way upstairs. When she reached the top, Patty was again
+breathless, the result of excitement more than exertion. She exclaimed
+at sight of the sitting-room. How cosy it was! What a scent from the
+flowers! Did he always buy flowers for his room? No doubt it was to
+please Eve. What a comfortable chair! Of course Eve always sat in this
+chair?
+
+Then her babbling ceased, and she looked up at Hilliard, who stood over
+against her, with nervous delight. He could perceive no change whatever
+in her, except that she was better dressed than formerly. Not a day
+seemed to have been added to her age; her voice had precisely the
+intonations that he remembered. After all, it was little more than half
+a year since they were together in Paris; but to Hilliard the winter
+had seemed of interminable length, and he expected to find Miss
+Ringrose a much altered person.
+
+"When did this headache begin?" he inquired, trying to speak without
+over-much concern.
+
+"She had a little yesterday, when she met me at the station. I didn't
+think she was looking at all well."
+
+"I'm surprised to hear that. She looked particularly well when I saw
+her last. Had you any trouble in making your way here?"
+
+"Oh, not a bit. I found the tram, just as Eve told me. But I'm so
+sorry! And a fine day too! You don't often have fine days here, do you,
+Mr. Hilliard?"
+
+"Now and then. So you've seen Dudley at last. What do you think of it?"
+
+"Oh, I like it! I shouldn't mind living there a bit. But of course I
+like Birmingham better."
+
+"Almost as fine as Paris, isn't it?"
+
+"You don't mean that, of course. But I've only seen a few of the
+streets, and most of the shops are shut up to-day. Isn't it a pity Eve
+has to live so far off? Though, of course, it isn't really very
+far--and I suppose you see each other often?"
+
+Hilliard took a seat, crossed his legs, and grasped his knee. The girl
+appeared to wait for an answer to her last words, but he said nothing,
+and stared at the floor.
+
+"If it's fine to-morrow," Patty continued, after observing him
+furtively, "are you coming to Dudley?"
+
+"Yes, I shall come over. Did she send any message?"
+
+"No--nothing particular----"
+
+Patty looked confused, stroked her dress, and gave a little cough.
+
+"But if it rains--as it very likely will--there's no use in my coming."
+
+"No, she said not."
+
+"Or if her headache is still troubling her----"
+
+"Let's hope it will be better. But--in any case, she'll be able to come
+with me to Birmingham on Monday, when I go back I must be home again on
+Monday night."
+
+"Don't you think," said Hilliard carelessly, "that Eve would rather
+have you to herself, just for the short time you are here?"
+
+Patty made vigorous objection.
+
+"I don't think that at all. It's quite settled that you are to come
+over to-morrow, if it's fine. Oh, and I _do_ hope it will be! It would
+be so dreadful to be shut up in the house all day at Dudley. How very
+awkward that there's no place where she can have you there! If it
+rains, hadn't we better come here? I'm sure it would be better for Eve.
+She seems to get into such low spirits--just like she was sometimes in
+London."
+
+"That's quite news to me," said the listener gravely.
+
+"Doesn't she let you know? Then I'm so sorry I mentioned it. You won't
+tell her I said anything?"
+
+"Wait a moment. Does she say that she is often in low spirits?"
+
+Patty faltered, stroking her dress with the movement of increasing
+nervousness.
+
+"It's better I should know," Hilliard added, "I'm afraid she keeps all
+this from me. For several weeks I have thought her in particularly good
+health."
+
+"But she tells me just the opposite. She says----"
+
+"Says what?"
+
+"Perhaps it's only the place that doesn't agree with her. I don't think
+Dudley is _very_ healthy, do you?"
+
+"I never heard of doctors sending convalescents there. But Eve must be
+suffering from some other cause, I think. Does it strike you that she
+is at all like what she used to be when--when you felt so anxious about
+her?"
+
+He met the girl's eyes, and saw them expand in alarm.
+
+"I didn't think--I didn't mean----" she stammered.
+
+"No, but I have a reason for asking. Is it so or not?"
+
+"Don't frighten me, Mr. Hilliard! I do so wish I hadn't said anything.
+She isn't in good health, that's all. How can you think----? That was
+all over long ago. And she would never--I'm _sure_ she wouldn't, after
+all you've done for her."
+
+Hilliard ground the carpet with his foot, and all but uttered a violent
+ejaculation.
+
+"I know she is all gratitude," were the words that became audible.
+
+"She is indeed!" urged Patty. "She says that--even if she wished--she
+could never break off with you; as I am _sure_ she would never wish!"
+
+"Ah! that's what she says," murmured the other. And abruptly he rose.
+"There's no use in talking about this. You are here for a holiday, and
+not to be bored with other people's troubles. The sun is trying to
+shine. Let us go and see the town, and then--yes, I'll go back with you
+to Dudley, just to hear whether Eve is feeling any better. You could
+see her, and then come out and tell me."
+
+"Mr. Hilliard, I'm quite sure you are worrying without any cause--you
+are, indeed!"
+
+"I know I am. It's all nonsense. Come along, and let us enjoy the
+sunshine."
+
+They spent three or four hours together, Hilliard resolute in his
+discharge of hospitable duties, and Miss Ringrose, after a brief spell
+of unnatural gravity, allowing no reflection to interfere with her
+holiday mood. Hilliard had never felt quite sure as to the limits of
+Patty's intelligence; he could not take her seriously, and yet felt
+unable to treat her altogether as a child or an imbecile. To-day,
+because of his preoccupied thoughts, and the effort it cost him to be
+jocose, he talked for the most part in a vein of irony which impressed,
+but did not much enlighten, his hearer.
+
+"This," said he, when they had reached the centre of things, "is the
+Acropolis of Birmingham. Here are our great buildings, of which we
+boast to the world. They signify the triumph of Democracy--and of
+money. In front of you stands the Town Hall. Here, to the left, is the
+Midland Institute, where a great deal of lecturing goes on, and the big
+free library, where you can either read or go to sleep. I have done
+both in my time. Behind yonder you catch a glimpse of the fountain that
+plays to the glory of Joseph Chamberlain--did you ever hear of him? And
+further back still is Mason College, where young men are taught a
+variety of things, including discontent with a small income. To the
+right there, that's the Council Hall--splendid, isn't it! We bring our
+little boys to look at it, and tell them if they make money enough they
+may some day go in and out as if it were their own house. Behind it you
+see the Art Gallery. We don't really care for pictures; a great big
+machine is our genuine delight; but it wouldn't be nice to tell
+everybody that."
+
+"What a lot I have learnt from you!" exclaimed the girl ingenuously,
+when at length they turned their steps towards the railway station. "I
+shall always remember Birmingham. You like it much better than London,
+don't you?"
+
+"I glory in the place!"
+
+Hilliard was tired out. He repented of his proposal to make the journey
+to Dudley and back, but his companion did not suspect this.
+
+"I'm sure Eve will come out and have a little walk with us," she said
+comfortingly. "And she'll think it so kind of you."
+
+At Dudley station there were crowds of people; Patty asked leave to
+hold by her companion's arm as they made their way to the exit. Just
+outside Hilliard heard himself hailed in a familiar voice; he turned
+and saw Narramore.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said his friend, coming near. "I didn't notice--I
+thought you were alone, or, of course I shouldn't have shouted. Shall
+you be at home to-morrow afternoon?"
+
+"If it rains."
+
+"It's sure to rain. I shall look in about four."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+With a glance at Miss Ringrose, he raised his hat and passed on.
+Hilliard, confused by the rapid rencontre, half annoyed at having been
+seen with Patty, and half wishing he had not granted the appointment
+for tomorrow, as it might interfere with a visit from the girls, walked
+forward in silence.
+
+"So we really sha'n't see you if it's wet tomorrow," said Patty.
+
+"Better not. Eve would be afraid to come, she catches cold so easily."
+
+"It may be fine, like to-day. I do hope----"
+
+She broke off and added:
+
+"Why, isn't that Eve in front?"
+
+Eve it certainly was, walking slowly away from the station, a few yards
+in advance of them. They quickened their pace, and Patty caught her
+friend by the arm. Eve, startled out of abstraction, stared at her with
+eyes of dismay and bloodless cheeks.
+
+"Did I frighten you? Mr. Hilliard has come back with me to ask how you
+are. Is your head better?"
+
+"I've just been down to the station--for something to do," said Eve,
+her look fixed on Hilliard with what seemed to him a very strange
+intensity. "The afternoon was so fine."
+
+"We've had a splendid time," cried Patty. "Mr. Hilliard has shown me
+everything."
+
+"I'm so glad. I should only have spoilt it if I had been with you. It's
+wretched going about with a headache, and I can't make believe to enjoy
+Birmingham."
+
+Eve spoke hurriedly, still regarding Hilliard, who looked upon the
+ground.
+
+"Have you been alone all day?" he asked, taking the outer place at her
+side, as they walked on.
+
+"Of course--except for the people in the house," was her offhand reply.
+
+"I met Narramore down at the station; he must have passed you. What has
+brought him here to-day, I wonder?"
+
+Appearing not to heed the remark, Eve glanced across at Patty, and said
+with a laugh:
+
+"It's like Paris again, isn't it--we three? You ought to come and live
+here, Patty. Don't you think you could get a place in Birmingham? Mr.
+Hilliard would get a piano for his room, and you could let him have
+some music. I'm too old to learn."
+
+"I'm sure he wouldn't want _me_ jingling there."
+
+"Wouldn't he? He's very fond of music indeed."
+
+Hilliard stopped.
+
+"Well, I don't think I'll go any further," he said mechanically.
+"You're quite well again, Eve, and that's all I wanted to know."
+
+"What about to-morrow?" Eve asked.
+
+The sun had set, and in the westward sky rose a mountain of menacing
+cloud. Hilliard gave a glance in that direction before replying.
+
+"Don't count upon me. Patty and you will enjoy the day together, in any
+case. Yes, I had rather have it so. Narramore said just now he might
+look in to see me in the after' noon. But come over on Monday. When
+does Patty's train go from New Street?"
+
+Eve was mute, gazing at the speaker as if she did not catch what he had
+said. Patty answered for herself.
+
+"Then you can either come to my place," he continued, "or I'll meet you
+at the station."
+
+Patty's desire was evident in her face; she looked at Eve.
+
+"We'll come to you early in the afternoon," said the latter, speaking
+like one aroused from reverie. "Yes, we'll come whatever the weather
+is."
+
+The young man shook hands with them, raised his hat, and walked away
+without further speech. It occurred to him that he might overtake
+Narramore at the station, and in that hope he hastened; but Narramore
+must have left by a London and North-Western train which had just
+started; he was nowhere discoverable. Hilliard travelled back by the
+Great Western, after waiting about an hour; he had for companions
+half-a-dozen beer-muddled lads, who roared hymns and costers' catches
+impartially.
+
+His mind was haunted with deadly suspicions: he felt sick at heart.
+
+Eve's headache, undoubtedly, was a mere pretence for not accompanying
+Patty to-day. She had desired to be alone, and--this he discovered no
+less clearly--she wished the friendship between him and Patty to be
+fostered. With what foolish hope? Was she so shallow-natured as to
+imagine that he might transfer his affections to Patty Ringrose? it
+proved how strong her desire had grown to be free from him.
+
+The innocent Patty (_was_ she so innocent?) seemed not to suspect the
+meaning of her friend's talk. Yet Eve must have all but told her in so
+many words that she was weary of her lover. That hateful harping on
+"gratitude"! Well, one cannot purchase a woman's love. He had missed
+the right, the generous, line of conduct. That would have been to
+rescue Eve from manifest peril, and then to ask nothing of her. Could
+he but have held his passions in leash, something like
+friendship--rarest of all relations between man and woman--might have
+come about between him and Eve. She, too, certainly had never got
+beyond the stage of liking him as a companion; her senses had never
+answered to his appeal He looked back upon the evening when they had
+dined together at the restaurant in Holborn. Could he but have stopped
+at _that_ point! There would have been no harm in such avowals as then
+escaped him, for he recognised without bitterness that the warmth of
+feeling was all on one side, and Eve, in the manner of her sex, could
+like him better for his love without a dream of returning it. His error
+was to have taken advantage--perhaps a mean advantage--of the strange
+events that followed. If he restrained himself before, how much more he
+should have done so when the girl had put herself at his mercy, when to
+demand her love was the obvious, commonplace, vulgar outcome of the
+situation? Of course she harped on "gratitude." What but a sense of
+obligation had constrained her?
+
+Something had taken place to-day; he felt it as a miserable certainty.
+The man from London had been with her. She expected him, and had
+elaborately planned for a day of freedom. Perhaps her invitation of
+Patty had no other motive.
+
+That Patty was a conspirator against him he could not believe. No! She
+was merely an instrument of Eve's subtlety. And his suspicion had not
+gone beyond the truth. Eve entertained the hope that Patty might take
+her place. Perchance the silly, good-natured girl would feel no
+objection; though it was not very likely that she foresaw or schemed
+for such an issue.
+
+At Snow Hill station it cost him an effort to rise and leave the
+carriage. His mood was sluggish; he wished to sit still and think idly
+over the course of events.
+
+He went byway of St. Philip's Church, which stands amid a wide
+graveyard, enclosed with iron railings, and crossed by paved walks. The
+locality was all but forsaken; the church rose black against the grey
+sky, and the lofty places of business round about were darkly silent. A
+man's footstep sounded in front of him, and a figure approached along
+the narrow path between the high bars. Hilliard would have passed
+without attention, but the man stopped his way.
+
+"Hollo! Here we are again!"
+
+He stared at the speaker, and recognised Mr. Dengate.
+
+"So you've come back?"
+
+"Where from?" said Hilliard. "What do you know of me?"
+
+"As much as I care to," replied the other with a laugh. "So you haven't
+quite gone to the devil yet? I gave you six months. I've been watching
+the police news in the London papers."
+
+In a maddening access of rage, Hilliard clenched his fist and struck
+fiercely at the man. But he did no harm, for his aim was wild, and
+Dengate easily warded off the blows.
+
+"Hold on! You're drunk, of course. Stop it, my lad, or I'll have you
+locked up till Monday morning. Very obliging of you to offer me the
+pleasure I was expecting, but you _will_ have it, eh?"
+
+A second blow was repaid in kind, and Hilliard staggered back against
+the railings. Before he could recover himself, Dengate, whose high hat
+rolled between their feet, pinned his arms.
+
+"There's someone coming along. It's a pity. I should enjoy thrashing
+you and then running you in. But a man of my position doesn't care to
+get mixed up in a street row. It wouldn't sound well at Liverpool.
+Stand quiet, will you!"
+
+A man and a woman drew near, and lingered for a moment in curiosity.
+Hilliard already amazed at what he had done, became passive, and stood
+with bent head.
+
+"I must have a word or two With you," said Dengate, when he had picked
+up his hat. "Can you walk straight? I didn't notice you were drunk
+before I spoke to you. Come along this way."
+
+To escape the lookers-on, Hilliard moved forward.
+
+"I've always regretted," resumed his companion, "that I didn't give you
+a sound thrashing that night in the train. It would have done you good.
+It might have been the making of you. I didn't hurt you, eh?"
+
+"You've bruised my lips--that's all. And I deserved it for being such a
+damned fool as to lose my temper."
+
+"You look rather more decent than I should have expected. What have you
+been doing in London?"
+
+"How do you know I have been in London?"
+
+"I took that for granted when I knew you'd left your work at Dudley."
+
+"Who told you I had left it?"
+
+"What does it matter?"
+
+"I should like to know," said Hilliard, whose excitement had passed and
+left him cold. "And I should like to know who told you before that I
+was in the habit of getting drunk?"
+
+"Are you drunk now, or not?"
+
+"Not in the way you mean. Do you happen to know a man called Narramore?"
+
+"Never heard the name."
+
+Hilliard felt ashamed of his ignoble suspicion. He became silent.
+
+"There's no reason why you shouldn't be told," added Dengate; "it was a
+friend of yours at Dudley that I came across when I was making
+inquiries about you: Mullen his name was."
+
+A clerk at the ironworks, with whom Hilliard had been on terms of
+slight intimacy.
+
+"Oh, that fellow," he uttered carelessly. "I'm glad to know it was no
+one else. Why did you go inquiring about me?"
+
+"I told you. If I'd heard a better account I should have done a good
+deal more for you than pay that money. I gave you a chance, too. If
+you'd shown any kind of decent behaviour when I spoke to you in the
+train--but it's no good talking about that now. This is the second time
+you've let me see what a natural blackguard you are. It's queer, too,
+you didn't get that from your father. I could have put you in the way
+of something good at Liverpool. Now, I'd see you damned first, Well,
+have you run through the money?"
+
+"Every penny of it gone in drink."
+
+"And what are you doing?"
+
+"Walking with a man I should be glad to be rid of."
+
+"All right. Here's my card. When you get into the gutter, and nobody'll
+give you a hand out, let me know."
+
+With a nod, Dengate walked off. Hilliard saw him smooth his silk hat as
+he went; then, without glancing at the card, he threw it away.
+
+The next morning was cold and wet. He lay in bed till eleven o'clock,
+when the charwoman came to put his rooms in order. At mid-day he left
+home, had dinner at the nearest place he knew where a meal could be
+obtained on Sunday, and afterwards walked the streets for an hour under
+his umbrella. The exercise did him good; on returning he felt able to
+sit down by the fire, and turn over the plates of his great book on
+French Cathedrals. This, at all events, remained to him out of the
+wreck, and was a joy that could be counted upon in days to come.
+
+He hoped Narramore would keep his promise, and was not disappointed. On
+the verge of dusk his friend knocked and entered.
+
+"The blind woman was at the door below," he explained, "looking for
+somebody."
+
+"It isn't as absurd as it sounds. She does look for people--with her
+ears. She knows a footstep that no one else can hear. What were _you_
+doing at Dudley yesterday?"
+
+Narramore took his pipe out of its case and smiled over it.
+
+"Colours well, doesn't it?" he remarked. "You don't care about the
+colouring of a pipe? I get a lot of satisfaction out of such little
+things! Lazy fellows always do; and they have the best of life in the
+end. By-the-bye, what were _you_ doing at Dudley?"
+
+"Had to go over with a girl."
+
+"Rather a pretty girl, too. Old acquaintance?"
+
+"Someone I got to know in London. No, no, not at all what you suppose."
+
+"Well, I know you wouldn't talk about it. It isn't my way, either, to
+say much about such things. But I half-promised, not long ago, to let
+you know of something that was going on--if it came to anything. And it
+rather looks as if it might. What do you think! Birching has been at
+me, wanting to know why I don't call. I wonder whether the girl put him
+up to it?"
+
+"You went rather far, didn't you?"
+
+"Oh, I drew back in time. Besides, those ideas are old-fashioned. It'll
+have to be understood that marriageable girls have nothing specially
+sacred about them. They must associate with men on equal terms. The day
+has gone by for a hulking brother to come asking a man about his
+'intentions.' As a rule, it's the girl that has intentions. The man is
+just looking round, anxious to be amiable without making a fool of
+himself. We're at a great disadvantage. A girl who isn't an idiot can
+very soon know all about the men who interest her; but it's devilish
+difficult to get much insight into _them_--until you've hopelessly
+committed yourself--won't you smoke? I've something to tell you, and I
+can't talk to a man who isn't smoking, when my own pipe's lit."
+
+Hilliard obeyed, and for a few moments they puffed in silence, twilight
+thickening about them.
+
+"Three or four months ago," resumed Narramore, "I was told one day--at
+business--that a lady wished to see me. I happened to have the room to
+myself, and told them to show the lady in. I didn't in the least know
+who it could be, and I was surprised to see rather a good-looking
+girl--not exactly a lady--tallish, and with fine dark eyes--what did
+you say?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"A twinge of gout?"
+
+"Go on."
+
+Narramore scrutinised his friend, who spoke in an unusual tone.
+
+"She sat down, and began to tell me that she was out of work--wanted a
+place as a bookkeeper, or something of the kind. Could I help her? I
+asked her why she came to _me_. She said she had heard of me from
+someone who used to be employed at our place. That was flattering. I
+showed my sense of it. Then I asked her name, and she said it was Miss
+Madeley."
+
+A gust threw rain against the windows. Narramore paused, looking into
+the fire, and smiling thoughtfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+"You foresee the course of the narrative?"
+
+"Better tell it in detail," muttered Hilliard.
+
+"Why this severe tone? Do you anticipate something that will shock your
+moral sense? I didn't think you were so straitlaced."
+
+"Do you mean to say----"
+
+Hilliard was sitting upright; his voice began on a harsh tremor, and
+suddenly failed. The other gazed at him in humorous astonishment.
+
+"What the devil do you mean? Even suppose--who made you a judge and a
+ruler? This is the most comical start I've known for a long time. I was
+going to tell you that I have made up my mind to marry the girl."
+
+"I see--it's all right----"
+
+"But do you really mean," said Narramore, "that anything else would
+have aroused your moral indignation?"
+
+Hilliard burst into a violent fit of laughter. His pipe fell to the
+floor, and broke; whereupon he interrupted his strange merriment with a
+savage oath.
+
+"It was a joke, then?" remarked his friend.
+
+"Your monstrous dulness shows the state of your mind. This is what
+comes of getting entangled with women. You need to have a sense of
+humour."
+
+"I'm afraid there's some truth in what you say, old boy. I've been
+conscious of queer symptoms lately--a disposition to take things with
+absurd seriousness, and an unwholesome bodily activity now and then."
+
+"Go on with your tragic story. The girl asked you to find her a
+place----"
+
+"I promised to think about it, but I couldn't hear of anything
+suitable. She had left her address with me, so at length I wrote her a
+line just saying I hadn't forgotten her. I got an answer on black-edged
+paper. Miss Madeley wrote to tell me that her father had recently died,
+and that she had found employment at Dudley; with thanks for my
+kindness--and so on. It was rather a nicely written letter, and after a
+day or two I wrote again. I heard nothing--hardly expected to; so in a
+fortnight's time I wrote once more. Significant, wasn't it? I'm not
+fond of writing letters, as you know. But I've written a good many
+since then. At last it came to another meeting. I went over to Dudley
+on purpose, and saw Miss Madeley on the Castle Hill. I had liked the
+look of her from the first, and I liked it still better now. By dint of
+persuasion, I made her tell me all about herself."
+
+"Did she tell you the truth?"
+
+"Why should you suppose she didn't?" replied Narramore with some
+emphasis. "You must look at this affair in a different light, Hilliard.
+A joke is a joke, but I've told you that the joking time has gone by. I
+can make allowance for you: you think I have been making a fool of
+myself, after all."
+
+"The beginning was ominous."
+
+"The beginning of our acquaintance? Yes, I know how it strikes you. But
+she came in that way because she had been trying for months----"
+
+"Who was it that told her of you?"
+
+"Oh, one of our girls, no doubt. I haven't asked her--never thought
+again about it."
+
+"And what's her record?"
+
+"Nothing dramatic in it, I'm glad to say. At one time she had an
+engagement in London for a year or two. Her people, 'poor but
+honest'--as the stories put it. Father was a timekeeper at Dudley;
+brother, a mechanic there. I was over to see her yesterday; we had only
+just said good-bye when I met you. She's remarkably well educated, all
+things considered: very fond of reading; knows as much of books as I
+do--more, I daresay. First-rate intelligence; I guessed that from the
+first. I can see the drawbacks, of course. As I said, she isn't what
+_you_ would call a lady; but there's nothing much to find fault with
+even in her manners. And the long and the short of it is, I'm in love
+with her."
+
+"And she has promised to marry you?"
+
+"Well, not in so many words. She seems to have scruples--difference of
+position, and that kind of thing."
+
+"Very reasonable scruples, no doubt."
+
+"Quite right that she should think of it in that way, at all events.
+But I believe it was practically settled yesterday. She isn't in very
+brilliant health, poor girl! I want to get her away from that beastly
+place as soon as possible. I shall give myself a longish holiday, and
+take her on to the Continent. A thorough change of that kind would set
+her up wonderfully.
+
+"She has never been on to the Continent?"
+
+"What a preposterous question! You're going to sleep, sitting here in
+the dark. Oh, don't trouble to light up for me; I can't stay much
+longer."
+
+Hilliard had risen, but instead of lighting the lamp he turned to the
+window and stood there drumming with his fingers on a pane.
+
+"Are you seriously concerned for me?" said his friend. "Does it seem a
+piece of madness?"
+
+"You must judge for yourself, Narramore."
+
+"When you have seen her I think you'll take my views. Of course it's
+the very last thing I ever imagined myself doing; but I begin to see
+that the talk about fate isn't altogether humbug. I want this girl for
+my wife, and I never met any one else whom I really _did_ want. She
+suits me exactly. It isn't as if I thought of marrying an ordinary,
+ignorant, low-class girl. Eve--that's her name--is very much out of the
+common, look at her how you may. She's rather melancholy, but that's a
+natural result of her life."
+
+"No doubt, as you say, she wants a thorough change," remarked Hilliard,
+smiling in the gloom.
+
+"That's it. Her nerves are out of order. Well, I thought I should like
+to tell you this, old chap. You'll get over the shock in time. I more
+than half believe, still, that your moral indignation was genuine. And
+why not? I ought to respect you for it."
+
+"Are you going?"
+
+"I must be in Bristol Road by five--promised to drink a cup of Mrs.
+Stocker's tea this afternoon. I'm glad now that I have kept up a few
+homely acquaintances; they may be useful, Of course I shall throw over
+the Birchings and that lot. You see now why my thoughts have been
+running on a country house!"
+
+He went off laughing, and his friend sat down again by the fireside.
+
+Half an hour passed. The fire had burnt low, and the room was quite
+dark. At length, Hilliard bestirred himself. He lit the lamp, drew down
+the blind, and seated himself at the table to write. With great
+rapidity he covered four sides of note-paper, and addressed an
+envelope. But he had no postage-stamp. It could be obtained at a
+tobacconist's.
+
+So he went out, and turned towards a little shop hard by. But when he
+had stamped the letter he felt undecided about posting it. Eve had
+promised to come to-morrow with Patty. If she again failed him it would
+be time enough to write. If she kept her promise the presence of a
+third person would be an intolerable restraint upon him. Yet why? Patty
+might as well know all, and act as judge between them. There needed
+little sagacity to arbitrate in a matter such as this.
+
+To sit at home was impossible. He walked for the sake of walking,
+straight on, without object. Down the long gas-lit perspective of
+Bradford Street, with its closed, silent workshops, across the
+miserable little river Rea--canal rather than river, sewer rather than
+canal--up the steep ascent to St. Martin's and the Bull Ring, and the
+bronze Nelson, dripping with dirty moisture; between the big buildings
+of New Street, and so to the centre of the town. At the corner by the
+Post Office he stood in idle contemplation. Rain was still falling, but
+lightly. The great open space gleamed with shafts of yellow radiance
+reflected on wet asphalt from the numerous lamps. There was little
+traffic. An omnibus clattered by, and a tottery cab, both looking
+rain-soaked. Near the statue of Peel stood a hansom, the forlorn horse
+crooking his knees and hanging his hopeless head. The Town Hall
+colonnade sheltered a crowd of people, who were waiting for the rain to
+stop, that they might spend their Sunday evening, as usual, in rambling
+about the streets. Within the building, which showed light through all
+its long windows, a religious meeting was in progress, and hundreds of
+voices peeled forth a rousing hymn, fortified with deeper organ-note.
+
+Hilliard noticed that as rain-drops fell on the heated globes of the
+street-lamps they were thrown off again in little jets and puffs of
+steam. This phenomenon amused him for several minutes. He wondered that
+he had never observed it before.
+
+Easter Sunday. The day had its importance for a Christian mind. Did Eve
+think about that? Perhaps her association with him, careless as he was
+in all such matters, had helped to blunt her religious feeling. Yet
+what hope was there, in such a world as this, that she would retain the
+pieties of her girlhood?
+
+Easter Sunday. As he walked on, he pondered the Christian story, and
+tried to make something out of it. Had it any significance for _him_?
+Perhaps, for he had never consciously discarded the old faith; he had
+simply let it fall out of his mind. But a woman ought to have religious
+convictions. Yes; he saw the necessity of that. Better for him if Eve
+were in the Town Hall yonder, joining her voice with those that sang.
+
+Better for _him_. A selfish point of view. But the advantage would be
+hers also. Did he not desire her happiness? He tried to think so, but
+after all was ashamed to play the sophist with himself. The letter he
+carried in his pocket told the truth. He had but to think of her as
+married to Robert Narramore and the jealous fury of natural man drove
+him headlong.
+
+Monday was again a holiday. When would the cursed people get back to
+their toil, and let the world resume its wonted grind and clang? They
+seemed to have been making holiday for a month past.
+
+He walked up and down on the pavement near his door, until at the
+street corner there appeared a figure he knew. It was Patty Ringrose,
+again unaccompanied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+They shook hands without a word, their eyes meeting for an instant
+only. Hilliard led the way upstairs; and Patty, still keeping an
+embarrassed silence, sat down on the easy-chair. Her complexion was as
+noticeably fresh as Hilliard's was wan and fatigued. Where Patty's skin
+showed a dimple, his bore a gash, the result of an accident in shaving
+this morning.
+
+With hands behind he stood in front of the girl.
+
+"She chose not to come, then?"
+
+"Yes. She asked me to come and see you alone."
+
+"No pretence of headache this time."
+
+"I don't think it was a pretence," faltered Patty, who looked very ill
+at ease, for all the bloom on her cheeks and the clear, childish light
+in her eyes.
+
+"Well, then, why hasn't she come to-day?"
+
+"She has sent a letter for you, Mr. Hilliard."
+
+Patty handed the missive, and Hilliard laid it upon the table.
+
+"Am I to read it now?"
+
+"I think it's a long letter."
+
+"Feels like it. I'll study it at my leisure. You know what it contains?"
+
+Patty nodded, her face turned away.
+
+"And why has she chosen to-day to write to me?" Patty kept silence.
+"Anything to do with the call I had yesterday from my friend Narramore?"
+
+"Yes--that's the reason. But she has meant to let you know for some
+time."
+
+Hilliard drew a long breath. He fixed his eyes on the letter.
+
+"She has told me everything," the girl continued, speaking hurriedly.
+"Did you know about it before yesterday?"
+
+"I'm not so good an actor as all that. Eve has the advantage of me in
+that respect. She really thought it possible that Narramore had spoken
+before?"
+
+"She couldn't be sure."
+
+"H'm! Then she didn't know for certain that Narramore was going to talk
+to me about her yesterday?"
+
+"She knew it _must_ come."
+
+"Patty, our friend Miss Madeley is a very sensible person--don't you
+think so?"
+
+"You mustn't think she made a plan to deceive you. She tells you all
+about it in the letter, and I'm quite sure it's all true, Mr. Hilliard.
+I was astonished when I heard of it, and I can't tell you how sorry I
+feel----"
+
+"I'm not at all sure that there's any cause for sorrow," Hilliard
+interrupted, drawing up a chair and throwing himself upon it. "Unless
+you mean that you are sorry for Eve."
+
+"I meant that as well."
+
+"Let us understand each other. How much has she told you?"
+
+"Everything, from beginning to end. I had no idea of what happened in
+London before we went to Paris. And she does so repent of it! She
+doesn't know how she could do it. She wishes you had refused her."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"But you saved her--she can never forget that. You mustn't think that
+she only pretends to be grateful. She will be grateful to you as long
+as she lives. I know she will."
+
+"On condition that I--what?"
+
+Patty gave him a bewildered look.
+
+"What does she ask of me now?"
+
+"She's ashamed to ask anything. She fears you will never speak to her
+again."
+
+Hilliard meditated, then glanced at the letter.
+
+"I had better read this now, I think, if you will let me."
+
+"Yes--please do----"
+
+He tore open the envelope, and disclosed two sheets of note-paper,
+covered with writing. For several minutes there was silence; Patty now
+and then gave a furtive glance at her companion's face as he was
+reading. At length he put the letter down again, softly.
+
+"There's something more here than I expected. Can you tell me whether
+she heard from Narramore this morning?"
+
+"She has had no letter."
+
+"I see. And what does she suppose passed between Narramore and me
+yesterday?"
+
+"She is wondering what you told him."
+
+"She takes it for granted, in this letter, that I have put an end to
+everything between them. Well, hadn't I a right to do so?"
+
+"Of course you had," Patty replied, with emphasis. "And she knew it
+must come. She never really thought that she could marry Mr. Narramore.
+She gave him no promise."
+
+"Only corresponded with him, and made appointments with him, and
+allowed him to feel sure that she would be his wife."
+
+"Eve has behaved very strangely. I can't understand her. She ought to
+have told you that she had been to see him, and that he wrote to her.
+It's always best to be straightforward. See what trouble she has got
+herself into!"
+
+Hilliard took up the letter again, and again there was a long silence.
+
+"Have you said good-bye to her?" were his next words.
+
+"She's going to meet me at the station to see me off."
+
+"Did she come from Dudley with you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It's all very well to make use of you for this disagreeable
+business----"
+
+"Oh, I didn't mind it!" broke in Patty, with irrelevant cheerfulness.
+
+"A woman 'who does such things as this should have the courage to go
+through with it. She ought to have come herself, and have told me that.
+She was aiming at much better things than _I_ could have promised her.
+There would have been something to admire in that. The worst of it is
+she is making me feel ashamed of her. I'd rather have to do with a
+woman who didn't care a rap for my feelings than with a weak one, who
+tried to spare me to advantage herself at the same time. There's
+nothing like courage, whether in good or evil. What do you think? Does
+she like Narramore?"
+
+"I think she does," faltered Patty, nervously striking her dress.
+
+"Is she in love with him?"
+
+"I--I really don't know!"
+
+"Do you think she ever was in love with anyone, or ever will be?"
+
+Patty sat mute.
+
+"Just tell me what you think."
+
+"I'm afraid she never--Oh, I don't like to say it, Mr. Hilliard!"
+
+"That she never was in love with _me_? I know it."
+
+His tone caused Patty to look up at him, and what she saw in his face
+made her say quickly:
+
+"I am so sorry; I am indeed! You deserve----"
+
+"Never mind what I deserve," Hilliard interrupted with a grim smile.
+"Something less than hanging, I hope. That fellow in London; she was
+fond of _him_?"
+
+The girl whispered an assent.
+
+"A pity I interfered."
+
+"Ah! But think what----"
+
+"We won't discuss it, Patty. It's a horrible thing to be mad about a
+girl who cares no more for you than for an old glove; but it's a fool's
+part to try to win her by the way of gratitude. When we came back from
+Paris I ought to have gone my way, and left her to go hers. Perhaps
+just possible--if I had seemed to think no more of her----"
+
+Patty waited, but he did not finish his speech.
+
+"What are you going to do, Mr. Hilliard?"
+
+"Yes, that's the question. Shall I hold her to her promise? She says
+here that she will keep her word if I demand it."
+
+"She says that!" Patty exclaimed, with startled eyes.
+
+"Didn't you know?"
+
+"She told me it was impossible. But perhaps she didn't mean it. Who can
+tell _what_ she means?"
+
+For the first time there sounded a petulance in the girl's voice. Her
+lips closed tightly, and she tapped with her foot on the floor.
+
+"Did she say that the other thing was also impossible--to marry
+Narramore?"
+
+"She thinks it is, after what you've told him."
+
+"Well, now, as a matter of fact I told him nothing."
+
+Patty stared, a new light in her eyes.
+
+"You told him--nothing?"
+
+"I just let him suppose that I had never heard the girl's name before."
+
+"Oh, how kind of you! How----"
+
+"Please to remember that it wasn't very easy to tell the truth. What
+sort of figure should I have made?"
+
+"It's too bad of Eve! It's cruel! I can never like her as I did before."
+
+"Oh, she's very interesting. She gives one such a lot to talk about."
+
+"I don't like her, and I shall tell her so before I leave Birmingham.
+What right has she to make people so miserable?"
+
+"Only one, after all."
+
+"Do you mean that you will let her marry Mr. Narramore?" Patty asked
+with interest.
+
+"We shall have to talk about that."
+
+"If I were you I should never see her again!"
+
+"The probability is that we shall see each other many a time."
+
+"Then _you_ haven't much courage, Mr. Hilliard!" exclaimed the girl,
+with a flush on her cheeks.
+
+"More than you think, perhaps," he answered between his teeth.
+
+"Men are very strange," Patty commented in a low voice of scorn,
+mitigated by timidity.
+
+"Yes, we play queer pranks when a woman has made a slave of us. I
+suppose you think I should have too much pride to care any more for
+her. The truth is that for years to come I shall tremble all through
+whenever she is near me. Such love as I have felt for Eve won't be
+trampled out like a spark. It's the best and the worst part of my life.
+No woman can ever be to me what Eve is."
+
+Abashed by the grave force of this utterance, Patty shrank back into
+the chair, and held her peace.
+
+"You will very soon know what conies of it all," Hilliard continued
+with a sudden change of voice. "It has to be decided pretty quickly,
+one way or another."
+
+"May I tell Eve what you have said to me?" the girl asked with
+diffidence.
+
+"Yes, anything that I have said."
+
+Patty lingered a little, then, as her companion said no more, she rose.
+
+"I must say good-bye, Mr. Hilliard."
+
+"I am afraid your holiday hasn't been as pleasant as you expected."
+
+"Oh, I have enjoyed myself very much. And I hope"--her voice
+wavered--"I do hope it'll be all right. I'm sure you'll do what seems
+best."
+
+"I shall do what I find myself obliged to, Patty. Good-bye. I won't
+offer to go with you, for I should be poor company."
+
+He conducted her to the foot of the stairs, again shook hands with her,
+put all his goodwill into a smile, and watched her trip away with a
+step not so light as usual. Then he returned to Eve's letter. It gave
+him a detailed account of her relations with Narramore. "I went to him
+because I couldn't bear to live idle any longer; I had no other thought
+in my mind. If he had been the means of my finding work, I should have
+confessed it to you at once. But I was tempted into answering his
+letters.... I knew I was behaving wrongly; I can't defend myself.... I
+have never concealed my faults from you--the greatest of them is my
+fear of poverty. I believe it is this that has prevented me from
+returning your love as I wished to do. For a long time I have been
+playing a deceitful part, and the strange thing is that I _knew_ my
+exposure might come at any moment. I seem to have been led on by a sort
+of despair. Now I am tired of it; whether you were prepared for this or
+not, I must tell you.... I don't ask you to release me. I have been
+wronging you and acting against my conscience, and if you can forgive
+me I will try to make up for the ill I have done...."
+
+How much of this could he believe? Gladly he would have fooled himself
+into believing it all, but the rational soul in him cast out credulity.
+Every phrase of the letter was calculated for its impression. And the
+very risk she had run, was not that too a matter of deliberate
+speculation? She _might_ succeed in her design upon Narramore; if she
+failed, the 'poorer man was still to be counted upon, for she knew the
+extent of her power over him. It was worth the endeavour. Perhaps, in
+her insolent self-confidence, she did not fear the effect on Narramore
+of the disclosure that might be made to him. And who could say that her
+boldness was not likely to be justified?
+
+He burned with wrath against her, the wrath of a hopelessly infatuated
+man. Thoughts of revenge, no matter how ignoble, harassed his mind. She
+counted on his slavish spirit, and even in saying that she did not ask
+him to release her, she saw herself already released. At each reperusal
+of her letter he felt more resolved to disappoint the hope that
+inspired it. When she learnt from Patty that Narramore was still
+ignorant of her history how would she exult! But that joy should be
+brief. In the name of common honesty he would protect his friend. If
+Narramore chose to take her with his eyes open----
+
+Jealous frenzy kept him pacing the room for an hour or two. Then he
+went forth and haunted the neighbourhood of New Street station until
+within five minutes of the time of departure of Patty's train. If Eve
+kept her promise to see the girl off he might surprise her upon the
+platform.
+
+From the bridge crossing the lines he surveyed the crowd of people that
+waited by the London train, a bank-holiday train taking back a freight
+of excursionists. There-amid he discovered Eve, noted her position,
+descended to the platform, and got as near to her as possible. The
+train moved off. As Eve turned away among the dispersing people, he
+stepped to meet her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+She gave no sign of surprise. Hilliard read in her face that she had
+prepared herself for this encounter.
+
+"Come away where we can talk," he said abruptly.
+
+She walked by him to a part of the station where only a porter passed
+occasionally. The echoings beneath the vaulted roof allowed them to
+speak without constraint, for their voices were inaudible a yard or two
+off. Hilliard would not look into her face, lest he should be softened
+to foolish clemency.
+
+"It's very kind of you," he began, with no clear purpose save the
+desire of harsh speech, "to ask me to overlook this trifle, and let
+things be as before."
+
+"I have said all I _can_ say in the letter. I deserve all your anger."
+
+That was the note he dreaded, the too well remembered note of pathetic
+submission. It reminded him with intolerable force that he had never
+held her by any bond save that of her gratitude.
+
+"Do you really imagine," he exclaimed, "that I could go on with
+make-believe--that I could bring myself to put faith in you again for a
+moment?"
+
+"I don't ask you to," Eve replied, in firmer accents. "I have lost what
+little respect you could ever feel for me. I might have repaid you with
+honesty--I didn't do even that. Say the worst you can of me, and I
+shall think still worse of myself."
+
+The voice overcame him with a conviction of her sincerity, and he gazed
+at her, marvelling.
+
+"Are you honest _now_? Anyone would think so; yet how am I to believe
+it?"
+
+Eve met his eyes steadily.
+
+"I will never again say one word to you that isn't pure truth. I am at
+your mercy, and you may punish me as you like."
+
+"There's only one way in which I can punish you. For the loss of _my_
+respect, or of my love, you care nothing. If I bring myself to tell
+Narramore disagreeable things about you, you will suffer a
+disappointment, and that's all. The cost to me will be much greater,
+and you know it. You pity yourself. You regard me as holding you
+ungenerously by an advantage you once gave me. It isn't so at all. It
+is I who have been held by bonds I couldn't break, and from the day
+when you pretended a love you never felt, all the blame lay with you."
+
+"What could I do?"
+
+"Be truthful--that was all."
+
+"You were not content with the truth. You forced me to think that I
+could love you, Only remember what passed between us."
+
+"Honesty was still possible, when you came to know yourself better. You
+should have said to me in so many words: 'I can't look forward to our
+future with any courage; if I marry it must be a man who has more to
+offer.' Do you think I couldn't have endured to hear that? You have
+never understood me. I should have said: 'Then let us shake hands, and
+I am your friend to help you all I can.'"
+
+"You say that _now_----"
+
+"I should have said it at any time."
+
+"But I am not so mean as you think me. If I loved a man I could face
+poverty with him, much as I hate and dread it. It was because I only
+liked you, and could not feel more----"
+
+"Your love happens to fall upon a man who has solid possessions."
+
+"It's easy to speak so scornfully. I have not pretended to love the man
+you mean."
+
+"Yet you have brought him to think that you are willing to marry him."
+
+"Without any word of love from me. If I had been free I would have
+married him--just because I am sick of the life I lead, and long for
+the kind of life he offered me."
+
+"When it's too late you are frank enough."
+
+"Despise me as much as you like. You want the truth, and you shall hear
+nothing else from me."
+
+"Well, we get near to understanding each other. But it astonishes me
+that you spoilt your excellent chance. How could you hope to carry
+through this----"
+
+Eve broke in impatiently.
+
+"I told you in the letter that I had no hope of it. It's your mistake
+to think me a crafty, plotting, selfish woman. I'm only a very
+miserable one--it went on from this to that, and I meant nothing. I
+didn't scheme; I was only tempted into foolishness. I felt myself
+getting into difficulties that would be my ruin, but I hadn't strength
+to draw back."
+
+"You do yourself injustice," said Hilliard, coldly. "For the past month
+you have acted a part before me, and acted it well. You seemed to be
+reconciling yourself to my prospects, indifferent as they were. You
+encouraged me--talked with unusual cheerfulness--showed a bright face.
+If this wasn't deliberate acting what did it mean?"
+
+"Yes, it was put on," Eve admitted, after a pause. "But I couldn't help
+that. I was obliged to keep seeing you, and if I had looked as
+miserable as I felt----" She broke off. "I tried to behave just like a
+friend. You can't charge me with pretending--anything else. I _could_
+be your friend: that was honest feeling."
+
+"It's no use to me. I must have more, or nothing."
+
+The flood of passion surged in him again. Some trick of her voice, or
+some indescribable movement of her head--the trifles which are
+all-powerful over a man in love--beat down his contending reason.
+
+"You say," he continued, "that you will make amends for your unfair
+dealing. If you mean it, take the only course that shows itself.
+Confess to Narramore what you have done; you owe it to him as much as
+to me."
+
+"I can't do that," said Eve, drawing away. "It's for you to tell
+him--if you like."
+
+"No. I had my opportunity, and let it pass. I don't mean that you are
+to inform him of all there has been between us; that's needless. We
+have agreed to forget everything that suggests the word I hate. But
+that you and I have been lovers and looked--I, at all events--to be
+something more, this you must let him know."
+
+"I can never do that."
+
+"Without it, how are you to disentangle yourself?"
+
+"I promise you he shall see no more of me."
+
+"Such a promise is idle, and you know it. Remember, too, that Narramore
+and I are friends. He will speak to me of you, and I can't play a farce
+with him. It would be intolerable discomfort to me, and grossly unfair
+to him. Do, for once, the simple, honourable thing, and make a new
+beginning. After that, be guided by your own interests. Assuredly I
+shall not stand in your way."
+
+Eve had turned her eyes in the direction of crowd and bustle. When she
+faced Hilliard again, he saw that she had come to a resolve.
+
+"There's only one way out of it for me," she said impulsively. "I can't
+talk any longer. I'll write to you."
+
+She moved from him; Hilliard followed. At a distance of half-a-dozen
+yards, just as he was about to address her again, she stopped and
+spoke--
+
+"You hate to hear me talk of 'gratitude.' I have always meant by it
+less than you thought. I was grateful for the money, not for anything
+else. When you took me away, perhaps it was the unkindest thing you
+could have done."
+
+An unwonted vehemence shook her voice. Her muscles were tense; she
+stood in an attitude of rebellious pride.
+
+"If I had been true to myself then----But it isn't too late. If I am to
+act honestly, I know very well what I must do. I will take your advice."
+
+Hilliard could not doubt of her meaning. He remembered his last talk
+with Patty. This was a declaration he had not foreseen, and it affected
+him otherwise than he could have anticipated.
+
+"My advice had nothing to do with _that_," was his answer, as he read
+her face. "But I shall say not a word against it. I could respect you,
+at all events."
+
+"Yes, and I had rather have your respect than your love."
+
+With that, she left him. He wished to pursue, but a physical languor
+held him motionless. And when at length he sauntered from the place, it
+was with a sense of satisfaction at what had happened. Let her carry
+out that purpose: he faced it, preferred it. Let her be lost to him in
+that way rather than any other. It cut the knot, and left him with a
+memory of Eve that would not efface her dishonouring weakness.
+
+Late at night, he walked about the streets near his home, debating with
+himself whether she would act as she spoke, or had only sought to
+frighten him with a threat. And still he hoped that her resolve was
+sincere. He could bear that conclusion of their story better than any
+other--unless it were her death. Better a thousand times than her
+marriage with Narramore.
+
+In the morning, fatigue gave voice to conscience. He had bidden her go,
+when, perchance, a word would have checked her. Should he write, or
+even go to her straightway and retract what he had said? His will
+prevailed, and he did nothing.
+
+The night that followed plagued him with other misgivings. It seemed
+more probable now that she had threatened what she would never have the
+courage to perform. She meant it at the moment--it declared a truth but
+an hour after she would listen to commonplace morality or prudence.
+Narramore would write to her; she might, perhaps, see him again. She
+would cling to the baser hope.
+
+Might but the morrow bring him a letter from London!
+
+It brought nothing; and day after day disappointed him. More than a
+week passed: he was ill with suspense, but could take no step for
+setting his mind at rest. Then, as he sat one morning at his work in
+the architect's office, there arrived a telegram addressed to him--
+
+"I must see you as soon as possible. Be here before six.--Narramore."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+"What the devil does this mean, Hilliard?"
+
+If never before, the indolent man was now thoroughly aroused. He had an
+open letter in his hand. Hilliard, standing before him in a little
+office that smelt of ledgers and gum, and many other commercial things,
+knew that the letter must be from Eve, and savagely hoped that it was
+dated London.
+
+"This is from Miss Madeley, and it's all about you. Why couldn't you
+speak the other day?"
+
+"What does she say about me?"
+
+"That she has known you for a long time; that you saw a great deal of
+each other in London; that she has led you on with a hope of marrying
+her, though she never really meant it; in short, that she has used you
+very ill, and feels obliged now to make a clean breast of it."
+
+The listener fixed his eye upon a copying-press, but without seeing it.
+A grim smile began to contort his lips.
+
+"Where does she write from?"
+
+"From her ordinary address--why not? I think this is rather too bad of
+you. Why didn't you speak, instead of writhing about and sputtering?
+That kind of thing is all very well--sense of honour and all that--but
+it meant that I was being taken in. Between friends--hang it! Of course
+I have done with her. I shall write at once. It's amazing; it took away
+my breath. No doubt, though she doesn't say it, it was from you that
+she came to know of me. She began with a lie. And who the devil could
+have thought it! Her face--her way of talking! This will cut me up
+awfully. Of course, I'm sorry for you, too, but it was your plain duty
+to let me know what sort of a woman I had got hold of. Nay, it's she
+that has got hold of me, confound her! I don't feel myself! I'm
+thoroughly knocked over!"
+
+Hilliard began humming an air. He crossed the room and sat down.
+
+"Have you seen her since that Saturday?"
+
+"No; she has made excuses, and I guessed something was wrong. What has
+been going on? _You_ have seen her?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Narramore glared.
+
+"It's devilish underhand behaviour! Look here, old fellow, we're nut
+going to quarrel. No woman is worth a quarrel between two old friends.
+But just speak out--can't you? What did you mean by keeping it from me?"
+
+"It meant that I had nothing to say," Hilliard replied, through his
+moustache.
+
+"You kept silence out of spite, then? You said to yourself, 'Let him
+marry her and find out afterwards what she really is!'"
+
+"Nothing of the kind." He looked up frankly. "I saw no reason for
+speaking. She accuses herself without a shadow of reason; it's mere
+hysterical conscientiousness. We have known each other for half a year
+or so, and I have made love to her, but I never had the least
+encouragement. I knew all along she didn't care for me. How is she to
+blame? A girl is under no obligation to speak of all the men who have
+wanted to marry her, provided she has done nothing to be ashamed of.
+There's just one bit of insincerity. It's true she knew of you from me.
+But she looked you up because she despaired of finding employment; she
+was at an end of her money, didn't know what to do. I have heard this
+since I saw you last. It wasn't quite straightforward, but one can
+forgive it in a girl hard driven by necessity."
+
+Narramore was listening with eagerness, his lips parted, and a growing
+hope in his eyes.
+
+"There never was anything serious between you?"
+
+"On her side, never for a moment. I pursued and pestered her, that was
+all."
+
+"Do you mind telling me who the girl was that I saw you with at Dudley?"
+
+"A friend of Miss Madeley's, over here from London on a holiday. I have
+tried to make use of her--to get her influence on my side----"
+
+Narramore sprang from the corner of the table on which he had been
+sitting.
+
+"Why couldn't she hold her tongue! That's just like a woman, to keep a
+thing quiet when she ought to speak of it, and bring it out when she
+had far better say nothing. I feel as if I had treated you badly,
+Hilliard. And the way you take it--I'd rather you eased your mind by
+swearing at me."
+
+"I could swear hard enough. I could grip you by the throat and jump on
+you----"
+
+"No, I'm hanged if you could!" He forced a laugh. "And I shouldn't
+advise you to try. Here, give me your hand instead." He seized it.
+"We're going to talk this over like two reasonable beings. Does this
+girl know her own mind? It seems to me from this letter that she wants
+to get rid of me."
+
+"You must find out whether she does or not."
+
+"Do you _think_ she does?"
+
+"I refuse to think about it at all."
+
+"You mean she isn't worth troubling about? Tell the truth, and be
+hanged to you! Is she the kind of a girl a man may marry?"
+
+"For all I know."
+
+"Do you suspect her?" Narramore urged fiercely.
+
+"She'll marry a rich man rather than a poor one--that's the worst I
+think of her."
+
+"What woman won't?"
+
+When question and answer had revolved about this point for another
+quarter of an hour, Hilliard brought the dialogue to an end. He was
+clay-colour, and perspiration stood on his forehead.
+
+"You must make her out without any more help from me. I tell you the
+letter is all nonsense, and I can say no more."
+
+He moved towards the exit.
+
+"One thing I must know, Hilliard--Are you going to see her again?"
+
+"Never--if I can help it."
+
+"Can we be friends still?"
+
+"If you never mention her name to me."
+
+Again they shook hands, eyes crossing in a smile of shamed hostility.
+And the parting was for more than a twelvemonth.
+
+Late in August, when Hilliard was thinking of a week's rest in the
+country, after a spell of harder and more successful work than he had
+ever previously known, he received a letter from Patty Ringrose.
+
+"Dear Mr. Hilliard," wrote the girl, "I have just heard from Eve that
+she is to be married to Mr. Narramore in a week's time. She says you
+don't know about it; but I think you _ought_ to know. I haven't been
+able to make anything of her two last letters, but she has written
+plainly at last. Perhaps she means me to tell you. Will you let me have
+a line? I should like to know whether you care much, and I do so hope
+you don't! I felt sure it would come to this, and if you'll believe me,
+it's just as well. I haven't answered her letter, and I don't know
+whether I shall. I might say disagreeable things. Everything is the
+same with me and always will be, I suppose." In conclusion, she was his
+sincerely. A postscript remarked: "They tell me I play better. I've
+been practising a great deal, just to kill the time."
+
+"Dear Miss Ringrose," he responded, "I am very glad to know that Eve is
+to be comfortably settled for life. By all means answer her letter, and
+by all means keep from saying disagreeable things. It is never wise to
+quarrel with prosperous friends, and why should you? With every good
+wish----" he remained sincerely hers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+When Hilliard and his friend again shook hands it was the autumn of
+another year. Not even by chance had they encountered in the interval
+and no written message had passed between them. Their meeting was at a
+house newly acquired by the younger of the Birching brothers, who,
+being about to marry, summoned his bachelor familiars to smoke their
+pipes in the suburban abode while yet his rule there was undisputed.
+With Narramore he had of late resumed the friendship interrupted by
+Miss Birching's displeasure, for that somewhat imperious young lady,
+now the wife of an elderly ironmaster, moved in other circles; and
+Hilliard's professional value, which was beginning to be recognised by
+the Birchings otherwise than in the way of compliment, had overcome the
+restraints at first imposed by his dubious social standing.
+
+They met genially, without a hint of estrangement.
+
+"Your wife well?" Hilliard took an opportunity of asking apart.
+
+"Thanks, she's getting all right again. At Llandudno just now. Glad to
+see that you're looking so uncommonly fit."
+
+Hilliard had undoubtedly improved in personal appearance. He grew a
+beard, which added to his seeming age, but suited with his features;
+his carriage was more upright than of old.
+
+A week or two after this, Narramore sent a friendly note--
+
+"Shall I see you at Birching's on Sunday? My wife will be there, to
+meet Miss Marks and some other people. Come if you can, old fellow. I
+should take it as a great kindness."
+
+And Hilliard went. In the hall he was confronted by Narramore, who
+shook hands with him rather effusively, and said a few words in an
+undertone.
+
+"She's out in the garden. Will be delighted to see you. Awfully good of
+you, old boy! Had to come sooner or later, you know."
+
+Not quite assured of this necessity, and something less than composed,
+Hilliard presently passed through the house into the large walled
+garden behind it. Here he was confusedly aware of a group of ladies,
+not one of whom, on drawing nearer, did he recognise. A succession of
+formalities discharged, he heard his friend's voice saying--
+
+"Hilliard, let me introduce you to my wife."
+
+There before him stood Eve. He had only just persuaded himself of her
+identity; his eyes searched her countenance with wonder which barely
+allowed him to assume a becoming attitude. But Mrs. Narramore was
+perfect in society's drill. She smiled very sweetly, gave her hand,
+said what the occasion demanded. Among the women present--all well
+bred--she suffered no obscurement. Her voice was tuned to the
+appropriate harmony; her talk invited to an avoidance of the hackneyed.
+
+Hilliard revived his memories of Gower Place--of the streets of Paris.
+Nothing preternatural had come about; nothing that he had not
+forecasted in his hours of hope. But there were incidents in the past
+which this moment blurred away into the region of dreamland, and which
+he shrank from the effort of reinvesting with credibility.
+
+"This is a pleasant garden."
+
+Eve had approached him as he stood musing, after a conversation with
+other ladies.
+
+"Rather new, of course; but a year will do wonders. Have you seen the
+chrysanthemums?"
+
+She led him apart, as they stood regarding the flowers, Hilliard was
+surprised by words that fell from her.
+
+"Your contempt for me is beyond expression, isn't it?"
+
+"It is the last feeling I should associate with you," he answered.
+
+"Oh, but be sincere. We have both learnt to speak another language--you
+no less than I. Let me hear a word such as you used to speak. I know
+you despise me unutterably."
+
+"You are quite mistaken. I admire you very much."
+
+"What--my skill? Or my dress?"
+
+"Everything. You have become precisely what you were meant to be."
+
+"Oh, the scorn of that!"
+
+"I beg you not to think it for a moment. There was a time when I might
+have found a foolish pleasure in speaking to you with sarcasm. But that
+has long gone by."
+
+"What am I, then?"
+
+"An English lady--with rather more intellect than most."
+
+Eve flushed with satisfaction.
+
+"It's more than kind of you to say that. But you always had a generous
+spirit. I never thanked you. Not one poor word. I was cowardly--afraid
+to write. And you didn't care for my thanks."
+
+"I do now."
+
+"Then I thank you. With all my heart, again and again!"
+
+Her voice trembled under fulness of meaning.
+
+"You find life pleasant?"
+
+"You do, I hope?" she answered, as they paced on.
+
+"Not unpleasant, at all events. I am no longer slaving under the iron
+gods. I like my work, and it promises to reward me."
+
+Eve made a remark about a flower-bed. Then her voice subdued again.
+
+"How do you look back on your great venture--your attempt to make the
+most that could be made of a year in your life?"
+
+"Quite contentedly. It was worth doing, and is worth remembering."
+
+"Remember, if you care to," Eve resumed, "that all I am and have I owe
+to you. I was all but lost--all but a miserable captive for the rest of
+my life. You came and ransomed me. A less generous man would have
+spoilt his work at the last moment. But you were large minded enough to
+support my weakness till I was safe."
+
+Hilliard smiled for answer.
+
+"You and Robert are friends again?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+She turned, and they rejoined the company.
+
+A week later Hilliard went down into the country, to a quiet spot where
+he now and then refreshed his mind after toil in Birmingham. He slept
+at a cottage, and on the Sunday morning walked idly about the lanes.
+
+A white frost had suddenly hastened the slow decay of mellow autumn.
+Low on the landscape lay a soft mist, dense enough to conceal
+everything at twenty yards away, but suffused with golden sunlight;
+overhead shone the clear blue sky. Roadside trees and hedges, their
+rich tints softened by the medium through which they were discerned,
+threw shadows of exquisite faintness. A perfect quiet possessed the
+air, but from every branch, as though shaken by some invisible hand,
+dead foliage dropped to earth in a continuous shower; softly pattering
+from beech to maple, or with the heavier fall of ash-leaves, while at
+long intervals sounded the thud of apples tumbling from a crab-tree.
+Thick-clustered berries arrayed the hawthorns, the briar was rich in
+scarlet fruit; everywhere the frost had left the adornment of its
+subtle artistry. Each leaf upon the hedge shone silver-outlined;
+spiders' webs, woven from stein to stem, glistened in the morning
+radiance; the grasses by the way side stood stark in gleaming mail.
+
+And Maurice Hilliard, a free man in his own conceit, sang to himself a
+song of the joy of life.
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Eve's Ransom, by George Gissing
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