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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59927 ***
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+     1. Page scan source: Google Books
+        https://books.google.com/books?id=MSQsAAAAMAAJ
+       (The New York Public Library)
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+
+BLACK SHEEP.
+A Novel.
+
+
+
+BY
+EDMUND YATES,
+AUTHOR OF "THE ROCK AHEAD," "THE FORLORN HOPE," ETC.
+
+
+"Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave."
+
+
+New Edition.
+
+
+LONDON:
+TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
+1868.
+[_All Rights reserved_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+In Memory
+OF
+"THE GROWLERY."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+CHAP.
+           I. IN THE AVENUE.
+          II. IN THE HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM.
+         III. THE PHILISTINES.
+          IV. IN THE BALANCE.
+           V. GOING DOWN.
+          VI. DELAY.
+         VII. AMONG THE BEECHES.
+        VIII. GLAMOUR.
+          IX. TIDED OVER.
+           X. DISPOSED OF.
+          XI. AT POYNINGS.
+         XII. CONFERENCE.
+        XIII. THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
+         XIV. THE SHADOW LIGHTENED.
+          XV. IN THE MUIDERSTRAAT.
+         XVI. IDLESSE.
+        XVII. A DILEMMA.
+       XVIII. ON THE DEFENSIVE.
+         XIX. CLEARED UP.
+          XX. ONCE MORE TIDED OVER.
+         XXI. THE AMERICAN LETTERS.
+        XXII. LOOKING OUT ON THE TAUNUS.
+       XXIII. MRS IRETON P. BEMBRIDGE.
+        XXIV. ON THE BALCONY.
+         XXV. THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.
+        XXVI. RECOGNITION.
+       XXVII. A FIRST APPEAL.
+      XXVIII. DURING THE LULL.
+        XXIX. THE SEVERING OF THE HAIR.
+         XXX. MOVING ON.
+        XXXI. PAUL WARD.
+       XXXII. ANOTHER RECOGNITION.
+      XXXIII. THE FALLING OF THE SWORD.
+       XXXIV. "CRUEL AS THE GRAVE."
+        XXXV. "INFORMATION RECEIVED."
+       XXXVI. AT THE TIDAL TRAIN.
+      XXXVII. "STRONG AS DEATH."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACK SHEEP.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+IN THE AVENUE.
+
+"I'm to keep to the right?"
+
+"Keep on a bearin' to the right, sir, 'cross Watch Common, and down
+One Ash Hill, and that'll bring you straight on to Poynings, sir! No
+luggage, sir?"
+
+"None, thank you!"
+
+"Luggage! no! I should think not! party's without a overcoat, don't
+you see, Thomas?--without a overcoat, and it freezin' like mad!
+Poynings, indeed! What's he doin' there? He don't look much like one
+of the company! More like after the spoons, I should say!"
+
+The polite porter who had made the inquiry, and the satirical
+station-master who had commented on the reply, remained gazing for a
+minute or two at the stranger who had just arrived at the Amherst
+station of the South-Eastern Railway, and then went back to the
+occupations from which the premonitory whistle had called them; which,
+in the porter's case, consisted of a retirement to a little wooden
+watch-box where, surrounded by oil-cans, grease-boxes, dirty swabs of
+cloth, and luggage-barrows reared on end and threatening with their
+fore-feet, he proceeded to the mending of his shoes with a bit of tin
+and a few tacks, while the stationmaster turned to the accounts which
+extracted the marrow from his very soul, and carried on what he called
+the "tottle" of a drove of two hundred and sixty oxen, conveyed at per
+head.
+
+"Freezing like mad." The station-master was right. The frost, which of
+late years holds aloof, utterly destroying the pictorial prophecies of
+the artists of the illustrated periodicals regarding Christmas Day,
+and which, with the exception of a two days' light rime, had left
+January a moist and muggy month, had set in with the commencement of
+February, hard, black, and evidently lasting. The iron-bound roads
+rang again, even under the thin boots of the stranger, who hurried
+over them with a light and fleeting step. The sharp keen air whirling
+over bleak Watch Common so penetrated his light, Londonish clothing,
+that he shivered horribly, and, stopping for an instant, beat his
+sides with his hands in an awkward manner, as one to whom the process
+was new, and who was vainly endeavouring to imitate some action he had
+seen. Then he hurried on with a short rapid jerking step, essentially
+different from the league-swallowing swinging pace of the regular
+pedestrian accustomed to exercise; stumbling over the frozen solid
+ruts made by the heavy cart-wheels, slipping on the icy puddles, and
+ever and anon pausing to take fresh breath, or to place his hand
+against his loudly-beating heart. As he skirted the further edge of
+the common, and arrived at the brow of the hill which the porter had
+mentioned to him, and which he recognized by the solitary tree whose
+branches rustled above him in the night wind, he heard, by the chimes
+of a distant church, ten o'clock rung out sharp and clear through the
+frosty air. He stopped, counted each chime, and then set off again at
+a quickened pace, his progress down the descent being easier now,
+muttering to himself as he went:
+
+"Ten o'clock! I must press on, or they'll all be in bed, I suppose.
+Beastly respectable, old Carruthers, from what I can make out from my
+mother, and what little I saw of him! Servants up to prayers and all
+that kind of thing. No chance of getting hold of her, if I can't make
+her know I am there, before those prayers come off. Glass of cold
+water and flat candlestick directly they're over, I suppose, and a
+kiss to Missy and God bless you all round, and off to bed! By George,
+what a life! What an infernal, moping, ghostly, dreary existence! And
+yet they've got money, these scoundrels, and old Carruthers could give
+you a cheque that would make you wink. Could! Yes, but wouldn't,
+especially to me! Ba, ba, black sheep, and all the rest of it! Here's
+a poor tainted mutton for you, without the wind being in the least
+tempered to him! Jove, it goes through me like a knife! There'll be a
+public somewhere near, I suppose, and when I have seen my mother, I'll
+step off there and have some hot rum-and-water before turning in. Hold
+up, there, you hawbuck brute, pull your other rein! What's the use of
+your lamps, if they don't show you people in the road?"
+
+He had sprung aside as he spoke, and now stood flat against and
+pushing into the leafless hedge as a carriage with flashing lamps and
+steaming horses whirled so closely by him as almost to brush his arm.
+The coachman paid no attention to his outcry, nor did the footman,
+who, almost hidden in overcoats, was fast asleep in the rumble behind.
+The next instant the carriage was whirling away; but the pedestrian,
+seeing the condition of the footman, had swung himself on to the hind
+step, and, crouching down behind the rumble and its unconscious
+occupant, obtained a shelter from the bitter wind, and simultaneously
+a lift on his road. There he crouched, clinging firmly with both
+hands in close proximity to the enshrouded knees of the unconscious
+footman--knees which, during their owner's sleep, were very helpless
+and rather comic, which smote each other in the passage of every rut,
+and occasionally parted and displayed a dreary gulf of horsecloth
+between them, to be brought together at the next jolt with a very
+smart concussion--and there he remained until the stopping of the
+carriage, and a sharp cry of "Gate" from the coachman, induced him to
+descend from his perch, and to survey the state of affairs from that
+side of the carriage most removed from a certain light and bustle into
+which they had entered. For, on the other side of the carriage to that
+on which the stranger stood, was an old-fashioned stone lodge with
+twinkling lights in its little mullioned windows, and all its thousand
+ivy-leaves gleaming in the carriage-lamps, and happy faces grouped
+around its door. There was the buxom lodge-keeper the centre of the
+group, with her comely red face all aglow with smiles; and there was
+her light-haired, sheep-faced husband standing by the swinging iron
+gates; and there were the sturdy children, indulged with the unwonted
+dissipation of "sitting up;" and there was the gardener's wife
+awaiting to see company come in, while her master had gone up to look
+at fires in hothouses; and there were Kidd, the head keeper, and
+little Tom, his poor idiot boy, who clapped his hands at the whirling
+lights of the carriages, and kept up an incessant boom of imbecile
+happiness. Sheep-faced male lodge-keeper bobbing so furiously as to
+insist on recognition, down goes window of carriage furthest from the
+stranger, and crisp on the night air cries a sharp curt voice,
+
+"How do, Bulger? Not late, eh? hum--ah! not late?"
+
+To which Bulger, pulling at invisible lock of hair on forehead:
+
+"No, Sir Thomas! Lots company, Sir Thomas! Seasonable weather, Sir--"
+
+But the carriage was whirled away before Bulger could conclude, and
+before the stranger could resume his place under the sheltering lee of
+the now conscious footman. He shrank back into the darkness--darkness
+deeper and thicker than ever under the shadow of the tall elms forming
+the avenue leading to the house, and remained for a minute buried in
+thought.
+
+The night was clear, and even light, with the hard chilly light of
+stars, and the air was full of cold--sharp, pitiless, and piercing.
+The wind made itself heard but rarely, but spared the wayfarer not one
+pang of its presence. He shrank and shivered, as he peered from under
+the gaunt branches of the trees after the carriage with its glittering
+lights.
+
+"Just like my luck!" he thought bitterly. "Nothing is to be wanting to
+make me feel myself the outcast that I am. A stranger in my mother's
+house, disowned und proscribed by my mother's husband, slinking like a
+thief behind the carriages of my mother's fine friends. I will see my
+mother, I must see her; it is a desperate chance, but surely it must
+succeed. I have no doubt of _her_, God bless her! but I have my doubts
+of her power to do what I want."
+
+He emerged from the shadow of the trees again, and struck into the
+avenue. He quickened his pace, shivering, and seeing the long line of
+way lying level before him in the sombre glimmer of the night, he went
+on with a more assured step. Angry and bitter thoughts were keeping
+the young man company, a gloomy wrath was in his dark, deep-set eyes,
+and the hands which he thrust into his coat-pockets clenched
+themselves with an almost fierce impatience. He strode on, muttering,
+and trying to keep up an air of hardihood (though there was no one to
+be deceived but himself), which was belied by the misgivings and
+remorse at his heart.
+
+"A fine place and a grand house, plenty of money, and all that money
+gives, and no place for her only son! I wonder how she likes it all!
+No, no, I don't; I know she is not happy, and it's my fault, and HIS."
+His face grew darker and more angry, and he shook his clenched hand
+towards a stately house, whose long lighted façade now became visible.
+
+"And _his_--_his_ who married my mother and deceived her, who gave her
+hopes he never intended to fulfil--my ill conduct the cause of his
+forbidding her to bring me here!--he always hated me; he hated me
+before he saw me, before he ever knew that I was not a sucking dove
+for gentleness and a pattern of filial obedience and propriety; he
+hated me because I existed--because I was my mother's son; and if I
+had been the most amenable of stepsons, he would have hated me all the
+same, only he would have shown his hatred differently, that's all. I
+should have been brought here, and made to feel insignificance,
+instead of being left to beg or starve, for all he cares. I am better
+off as it is."
+
+A harsh smile came over his face for a moment. "Quite a blackguard,
+and all but a beggar. All but? No, quite a beggar, for I am coming to
+beg of my mother--coming to your fine house, Capel Carruthers, like a
+thief or a spy; slinking in at your gates, under cover of your fine
+friends' fine carriages; a prodigal stepson, by Jove, without the
+faintest chance of a welcome, and every probability of being turned
+out, if discovered. Company here, too, of all nights in the year, to
+make it more difficult to get hold of old Brookes unsuspected, but not
+so unfortunate either, if I'm seen. Hangers about are to be found even
+in the country, I suppose, on festive occasions. There's the house at
+last! A grand place, grim as it is under the stars, with a twinkling
+firmament of its own on the ground floor. The lights look warm. Good
+God, how cold it is out here!" Again he drew back close to the tall
+dark stems of the trees, to let a carriage pass; when it had
+discharged its load under the portico, he emerged cautiously upon the
+broad carriage sweep by which the company were arriving.
+
+The house was an old one, and was surrounded by a narrow fosse or
+ditch, which in former days might have been full of water, and used
+for defensive purposes, but which was now drained and dry, and served
+as a kind of area, looked into by the windows in the basement. Above
+this fosse, and stretching away on either side of the heavy portico,
+was a broad and handsome stone terrace, the left hand portion of which
+lay in deep shadow, while the right hand portion was chequered with
+occasional light, which made its way through the partially closed
+shutters of the ball-room. Cautiously crossing the broad drive, and
+slipping behind a carriage which was just discharging its load at the
+hall door, George Dallas, the stranger whose fortunes we have so far
+followed, crept into a dark angle of the porch until the crunching of
+the gravel and the clanging of the door announced the departure of the
+carriage, and then, climbing the balustrade of the terrace, and
+carefully avoiding the lines of light, made his way to the window of
+the room, and peered in. At first, he shook so with the cold, that he
+could not concentrate his attention on what was passing before his
+eyes; but having groped about and found a small tree which was
+carefully protected with a large piece of matting, and which flanked
+one end of the balustrade, he quietly removed the matting, and,
+wrapping it round him, returned to his position, watching and
+commenting on the scene of which he was a spectator.
+
+It was an old room on which George Dallas looked--an old room with
+panelled walls, surmounted by a curious carved frieze and stuccoed
+roof, and hung round with family portraits, which gave it a certain
+grim and stern air, and made the gay hothouse flowers, with which it
+was lavishly decorated, seem out of keeping. Immediately opposite the
+window stood the entrance door, wide open, and flanked by the usual
+bevy of young men, who, from laziness or bashfulness, take some time
+to screw their courage up to dancing-point. Close in front of them was
+a group which at once arrested George Dallas's attention.
+
+It consisted of three persons, of whom two were gentlemen; the third
+was a young girl, whose small white-gloved hand rested on the arm of
+the older of her companions, who, as George Dallas caught sight of
+them, was in the act of presenting the younger to her. The girl was
+tall, slight, very graceful and elegant, and extremely fair. Her
+features were not clearly discernible, as she stood sideways towards
+the window; but the pose of the head, the bend of the neck, the braids
+of fair hair closely wound round the well-shaped head, and worn
+without any ornament but its own golden gloss, the sweeping folds of
+her soft white dress--all bore a promise of beauty, which indeed her
+face, had he seen it, would have fully realized. He saw her bow, in
+graceful acknowledgment of the introduction, and then linger for a few
+minutes talking with the two gentlemen--to the younger of whom George
+Dallas paid no attention whatever; after which she moved away with him
+to join the dancers. The older man stood where she had left him, and
+at him. George Dallas looked with the fixed intensity of anger and
+hatred.
+
+"There you are," he muttered, "you worthy, respectable, hard-hearted,
+unblemished gentleman! There you are, with your clear complexion and
+your iron-grey whiskers, with your cold blue eyes and your white
+teeth, with your thin lips and your long chin, with your head just a
+little bald, and your ears just a little shrivelled, but not much;
+with your upright figure, and your nice cool hands, and your nice cool
+heart, too, that never knew an ungratified lust, or a passion which
+wasn't purely selfish. There you are, the model of respectability and
+wealth, and the essence of tyranny and pride! There you are--and you
+married my beautiful mother when she was poor, and when her son needed
+all that she could give him, and more; and you gave her wealth, and a
+fine house, and fine friends, and your not remarkably illustrious
+name, and everything she could possibly desire, except the only thing
+she wanted, and the only thing, as I believe, for which she married
+you. That's your niece, of course, the precious heiress, the rich and
+rare young lady who has a place in your house, though the son of its
+mistress is banished from it. That's the heiress, who probably does
+not know that I exist. I should not be surprised if he had ordered my
+mother to conceal the disgraceful fact. Well, the girl is a nice
+creature, I dare say; she looks like it. But where can my mother be?"
+
+He approached the window still more closely; he ventured to place his
+face close to the panes for a moment, as he peered anxiously into the
+room. "Where is my mother?" he thought. "Good Heaven! if she did but
+know that I am shivering here."
+
+The strains of sweet clear music reached his ears, floods of light
+streamed out from the ball-room, a throng of dancers whirled past the
+window, he saw the soft fluttering dresses, he heard the rustle of the
+robes, the sounds of the gay voices, and the ring of laughter, and
+ever and anon, as a stray couple fell away from the dance, and
+lingered near the window, a fair young face would meet his gaze, and
+the happy light of its youth and pleasure would shine upon him. He
+lingered, fascinated, in spite of the cold, the misery of his
+situation, and the imminent risk of detection to which he was exposed.
+He lingered, and looked, with the longing of youth for gaiety and
+pleasure; in his case for a simple gaiety, a more sinless pleasure,
+than any he was wont to know. Suddenly he shrank quickly back and
+clutched hard at the covering of matting in which he had shrouded
+himself. A figure had crossed the window, between him and the light--a
+figure he knew well, and recognized with a beating heart--a figure
+clad in purple velvet and decked with gleaming jewels; it was his
+mother. She passed hastily, and went up to Mr. Carruthers, then
+talking with another gentleman. She stretched out one jewelled arm,
+and touched him on the shoulder with her fan. Mr. Carruthers turned,
+and directly faced the window. Then George Dallas flung the matting
+which had covered him away, and left his hiding-place with a curse in
+his heart and on his lips.
+
+"Yes, curse you," he said, "you dress her in velvet and diamonds,
+and make her splendid to entertain your company and flatter your
+pride, and you condemn her to such misery as only soft-hearted,
+strong-natured women such as she is can feel, all the time. But it
+won't do, Carruthers; she's my mother, though she's your wife, and you
+can't change her. I'll have some of your money, tyrant as you are, and
+slave as she is, before this night is over. I'm a desperate man; you
+can't make me more miserable than I am, and I _can_ bring you to
+shame, and I _will_, too."
+
+He stepped softly to the edge of the terrace, climbed the balustrade,
+and sat down cautiously on the narrow strip of grass beyond; then felt
+with his hands along the rough face of the wall which formed the front
+of the area. He looked down between his feet, the depth was about ten
+feet. He thought he might venture to let himself drop. He did so, and
+came safely on his feet, on the smooth sanded ground. An angle of the
+house was close to him; he turned it, and came upon a window whose
+shutters, like those of the upper range, were unclosed, and through
+which he could see into the comfortable room beyond. The room was low
+but large, and the heavy carved presses, the table with green baize
+cover, the arm-chairs, one at each side of the fire, the serviceable,
+comfortable, and responsible appearance of the apartment, at once
+indicated its true character. It could be nothing but the
+housekeeper's room.
+
+In the centre of the table stood an old-fashioned oil-lamp, no doubt
+banished from the upper regions when the moderator made its appearance
+in society; close to the stand was a large Bible open, a pair of
+spectacles lying upon the page. A brass-bound desk, a file of
+receipts, a Tunbridge-ware work-box, and a venerable inkstand, were
+also symmetrically arranged upon the table. The room was empty, and
+the observer at the window had ample leisure and opportunity to
+scrutinize it.
+
+"I am in luck," he said. "This is Nurse Ellen's room. There are the
+dreadful old portraits which she always insisted on keeping over the
+chimney-piece, and venerated, quite as much because she thought them
+objects of art, as because she fancied them really like my father and
+mother. There's her Bible, with the date of my birth and christening
+in it. I dare say those are the identical spectacles which I broke,
+playing Red Riding Hood's grandmother. I wish she would come in, and
+come alone. What shall I do if she brings any one with her, and they
+close the shutters? How delightful the fire looks! I have a great mind
+to smash the window and get in. No one would hear the noise with all
+that crashing music overhead, and there does not seem to be a soul on
+this side of the house."
+
+Xo sound of footsteps made itself audible on the terrace above his
+head. He was sheltered a little more in his present position, but
+still the cold was bitter, and he was shivering. The impulse to break
+the window grew stronger. He thought how he should avoid cutting his
+hand; his shabby gloves could not protect him, suppose he were to take
+off his waistcoat, and twist it around his hand and arm. He had
+unfastened one button of his coat, as the idea occurred to him, when a
+sound overhead, on the house side, caught his ear. It was the click
+produced by opening the fastening of a French window. Then came steps
+upon the light balcony, which was one of the modern decorations of the
+old building, and voices which reached him distinctly.
+
+"Any influenza you may catch, or anything of that kind, you must
+ascribe to yourself, Miss Carruthers. You would come out this--hum--by
+Jove--awful night!"
+
+"Oh, don't fear for me, Captain Marsh," said a light girlish voice,
+laughingly, "I'm country bred, you know, and accustomed to be out in
+all weathers, so that I run no risk; and though it is wintry enough
+outside, the temperature of that room was becoming unbearable!"
+
+"Think it must be caused by that old woman's red face that we noticed,
+or the thingummy--paradise feather in her cap. She with the very thin
+daughter. Don't you know?"
+
+"Of course I know. The old lady is my aunt, Lady Boldero; the young
+one is my cousin Blanche!"
+
+"Haw, by Jove, sorry I spoke, haw! By-the-by, that was Sir Thomas
+Boldero's park, where I met you riding on Friday, wasn't it, Miss
+Carruthers?"
+
+"Yes. I was taking a short cut home, as I thought I should be late for
+dinner."
+
+"You were going a rattling good pace, I noticed. Seemed quite to have
+distanced your groom."
+
+"My groom! That's a luxury I very seldom indulge in--never, when I
+think I can dispense with it without my uncle's knowledge. It is
+disagreeable to me to have a man perpetually at my heels!"
+
+"You shouldn't say that, Miss Carruthers--shouldn't, indeed. You don't
+know how pleasant it is--for the man."
+
+"Very pretty indeed, Captain Marsh! And now that you've had the chance
+of paying a compliment, and have done it so neatly, we will go back,
+please. I begin to feel a little chilly."
+
+As the speakers moved, something fell at George Dallas's feet. It was
+so dark in the corner where he stood, that he could not distinguish
+what it was, until the closing of the window above gave him assurance
+that he might move in safety. Then he bent forward, and found it was a
+sprig of myrtle. He picked it up, looked at it idly, and put it into
+the breast-pocket of his coat.
+
+"What a sweet voice she has!" he thought. "A sweet face too, I am
+sure; it must be so, to match the voice and the hair. Well, she has
+given me something, though she didn't intend it, and will probably
+never know it. A spirited, plucky girl, I am sure, for all her grace
+and her blonde style. Carries too many guns for the captain, that's
+clear!"
+
+He dived down in the midst of his thoughts, for the door of the room
+into which he had been looking, opened quietly, and an elderly woman
+in a black silk dress entered. After casting a glance round her,
+she was about to seat herself at the table, when Dallas gave two
+low taps in quick succession at the window. The woman started and
+looked towards the spot whence the sound came with a half-keen,
+half-frightened glance, which melted into unmixed astonishment when
+Dallas placed his face close to the glass and beckoned to her with his
+hand. Then she approached the window, shading her eyes from the
+candlelight and peering straight before her. When she was close to the
+window, she said, in a low firm voice:
+
+"Who are you? Speak at once, or I'll call for help!"
+
+"It's I, Nurse Ellen. I--"
+
+"Good Heavens, Master George!"
+
+"Yes, yes; open the window and let me in. I want to talk to you, and
+I'm half dead with cold. Let me in. So. That's it."
+
+The woman gently raised the sash, and so soon as the aperture admitted
+of the passage of his body, he slipped through and entered the room,
+taking no notice of his old nurse, but making straight for the fire,
+before which he knelt, gazing hungrily at the flumes, and spreading
+both his hands in eager welcome of the blaze. The old woman closed the
+window and then came softly behind him, placed her hand on his head,
+and, leaning over his shoulder and looking into his face, muttered:
+"Good Lord, how changed you are, my boy! I should scarcely have known
+you, except for your eyes, and they're just the same; but in
+everything else, how changed!"
+
+He was changed indeed. The last time George Dallas had taken farewell
+of his old nurse, he had parted from her, a big strong healthy youth
+of eighteen, with short curly brown hair, clear skin, bright
+complexion, the incarnation of youth and strength and health. He knelt
+before her now, a gaunt grisly man, with high cheek-bones and hollow
+rings round his great brown eyes, with that dead sodden pallor which a
+life of London dissipation always produces, and with long thin bony
+hands with which he clutched hold of the old woman, who put her arms
+round him and seemed about to burst into a fit of sobbing.
+
+"Don't do that, nurse! don't do that! I'm weak myself, and seedy, and
+couldn't stand it. Get me something to drink, will you? And, look
+here! I must see my mother to-night, at once. I've come from town on
+purpose, and I must see her."
+
+"She does not know you are here!" asked Mrs. Brookes, while she gazed
+mournfully at the young man, still kneeling before the fire. "But of
+course she does not, or she would have told me."
+
+"Of course, of course, Nurse Ellen," said George Dallas; "she knows
+nothing about it. If I had asked her leave, she would not have dared
+to give it. How is she, nurse? How does she like her life? She tells
+me very little of herself when she writes to me, and that's not
+often." He rose from his knees now, and pulled a ponderous black
+horsehair chair close to the fire, seated himself in it, and sat
+huddled together, as though cold even yet, with his feet on the broad
+old-fashioned fender. "I had to come at any risk. You shall know all
+about it, nurse; but now you must contrive to tell my mother I am
+here."
+
+"How can I do that, Master George?" asked the old woman, in a tone of
+distress and perplexity. "She is in the ball-room, and all the grand
+folk are looking at her and talking to her. I can't go in among them,
+and if I could, she would be so frightened and put about, that master
+would see in a moment that something had happened. He is never far
+off were she is."
+
+"Ha!" said George gloomily; "watches her, does he, and that kind of
+thing?"
+
+"Well, not exactly," said Mrs. Brookes; "not in a nasty sort of way. I
+must say, to do him justice, though I don't much like him, that Mr.
+Carruthers is a good husband; he's fond of her, and proud of her, and
+he likes to see her admired."
+
+The young man interrupted her with selfish heedlessness.
+
+"Well, it's a pity he has the chance to-night; but, however it's
+managed, I must see her. I have to go back to town to-morrow, and of
+course I can't come about here safely in the daytime. Think of some
+plan, nurse, and look sharp about it."
+
+"I might go upstairs and join the servants--they are all about the
+ball-room door--and watch for an opportunity as she passes."
+
+"That will take time," said George, "but it's the best chance. Then do
+it, nurse, and give me something to eat while you are away. Will any
+of the servants come in here? They had better not see me, you know."
+
+"No, you are quite safe; they are looking at the dancing," she
+answered, absently, and closing as she spoke the shutters of the
+window by which he had entered. She then left the room, but quickly
+returned, bringing in a tray with cold meat, bread, and wine. He still
+sat by the tire, now with his head thrown back against the high
+straight back of his chair, and his hands thrust into his pockets.
+
+"Very plain fare, Master George," said the housekeeper, "but I can't
+find anything better without wasting time."
+
+"Never mind, nurse. I'm not hungry, and I'm not above eating cold meat
+if I were. Beggars must not be choosers, you know; and I'm little
+better than a beggar, as you also know. Give me some wine. It isn't
+felony, is it, though I have got into my stepfather's house through
+the window, and am drinking his wine without his knowledge or
+consent?"
+
+His tone was very painful to the faithful old woman's ear. She looked
+at him wistfully, but made no reply. He rose from the chair by the
+fire, sullenly drew another chair to the table, and sat down by the
+tray. Mrs. Brookes left the room, and took her way along the white
+stone passage which led to the entrance hall of the mansion. Passing
+through a swinging door covered with crimson cloth, she entered a
+spacious square hall, decorated, after the fashion of country houses,
+with stags' heads and antlers. The floor was of polished oak, and
+uncarpeted, but at each of the six doors which opened into it lay a
+soft white rug. A bright fire blazed in the ample grate; and through
+the open door of the ballroom, light and the sound of music poured
+into the hall. A number of servants were standing about, some
+lingering by the fire, a few ranged close to the door of the
+dancing-room, exchanging comments upon the performances with perfect
+impunity. Under cover of the music Mrs. Brookes joined the group,
+which respectfully gave way at her approach, and ceded to her the
+front place. She looked anxiously, and for some time vainly, for her
+mistress. At length she perceived her, but she was seated at the
+further end of the room, in conversation with an elderly lady of
+extraordinary magnificence in point of apparel, and who required to be
+spoken to through an ear-trumpet. Mrs. Carruthers was not a skilful
+performer upon that instrument, and was obliged to give her whole mind
+to it, so that there was little chance of her looking in any other
+direction than the uninviting one of Mrs. Chittenden's ear for the
+present. Mrs. Brookes looked on impatiently, and longed for a break in
+the dancing, and a consequent movement among the company. At length
+the music ceased, the panting waltzers subsided into promenade, and
+Mrs. Carruthers rose to place her chair at the disposal of a young
+lady whose exertions had told upon her, and who breathlessly accepted
+the boon. As she stood for a moment turned towards the door, she
+caught sight of the housekeeper's face, and saw she looked pale and
+agitated. Catching her mistress's eye, the housekeeper made a slight
+stealthy sign. Very gracefully, and with perfect calm, the tall
+figure, in its sweeping velvet dress, made its way through the
+dispersed groups between it and the door, from which all the servants
+had precipitately retreated at the cessation of the music. What was
+wrong? Mrs. Carruthers thought. Something, she knew, must be wrong, or
+Ellen would not be there beckoning to her. A second gesture, still
+more stealthy and warning, caused her to pause when within reach of
+the housekeeper's whisper, without turning her head towards her.
+
+"What is it, Ellen?"
+
+"Hush! where is master? Can he see you?"
+
+"Yes, he is just beyond the screen. What is the matter?"
+
+"Turn round, and stoop; let me tie your shoe--there!"
+
+Mrs. Carruthers stood in the doorway, and bent her head, holding her
+foot out, and lifting her dress. Mrs. Brookes fumbled with the shoe,
+as she whispered rapidly:
+
+"Come as soon as you can to my room. Be careful that you are not
+missed. Some one is there who wants to see you."
+
+"To see me, Ellen? On such a night, and at such an hour! What is
+wrong? Who is there?"
+
+The old woman looked earnestly into the frightened face, bending over
+her, and said rather with her lips than with her voice: "Master
+George!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+IN THE HOUSEKEEPER'S ROOM.
+
+
+George Dallas had eaten but sparingly of the food which Mrs. Brookes
+had placed before him. He was weary and excited, and he bore the delay
+and the solitude of the housekeeper's room with feverish impatience.
+He strode up and down the room, stooping occasionally before the fire
+to kick at the crumbling logs, and glance at the clock, which marked
+how rapidly the night was waning. Half an hour, which seemed three
+times as much to him, had elapsed since Mis Brookes had left him.
+Faintly and indistinctly the sounds of the music reached him, adding
+to his irritation and weariness. A savage frown darkened his face, and
+he muttered to himself in the same tone as that of his spasmodic
+soliloquy in the avenue:
+
+"I wonder if she's thinking that I ought to be there too; or if I
+ought not, neither ought she. After all, I'm her son, and she might
+make a stand-up fight for me, if she would. He's fond of her, the old
+woman says, and proud of her, and well he may be. What's the use of it
+all, if she can't manage him? What fools women are! If they only could
+calculate at first, and take their own line from the beginning, they
+could manage any men. But she's afraid of him, and she lets him find
+it out. Well, well, it must be wretched enough for her, too. But why
+does she not come?"
+
+He had to wait a little longer yet, for another quarter of an hour had
+elapsed before Mrs. Brookes returned.
+
+"Is she coming?" he asked eagerly, when at length the pale-faced
+little woman gently entered the room.
+
+"Yes, she is coming. She has to wait until the first lot are gone in
+to supper. Then master will not miss her."
+
+The old woman came up to him, and took his right hand in hers, looking
+fondly, but keenly, into his face, and laying the other hand upon his
+shoulder. "George," she said, "George, my darling boy, I hope you have
+not brought her very bad news."
+
+He tried to laugh as he loosed his hand, not unkindly, from the old
+woman's grasp.
+
+"Do you suppose good news would have brought me here where I am
+forbidden--smuggled goods?"
+
+She shook her head sorrowfully.
+
+"At all events, you are alive and well to tell your ill news yourself,
+and that is everything to her," said Mrs. Brookes.
+
+The next moment the door opened, and Mrs. Carruthers came in with a
+hurried step. George Dallas started forward, and caught her in his
+arms.
+
+"Mother! mother!" "My boy, my darling boy!" were the only words spoken
+between them, until they were quite alone.
+
+Mrs. Brookes left the room, and the young man was free to explain his
+untimely visit.
+
+"I dread to ask what brings you here, George," said his mother, as she
+seated herself upon the heavy sofa, and drew him to her side. "I
+cannot but rejoice to see you, but I am afraid to ask you why you
+come."
+
+A mingling of pleasure and apprehension shook her voice, and
+heightened her colour.
+
+"You may well dread to ask me, mother," replied the young man
+gloomily. "You may well dread to ask what brings me, outcast as I am,
+to your fine home, to the place where your husband is master, and
+where my presence is forbidden."
+
+"George, George!" said his mother, in a tone of grief and
+remonstrance.
+
+"Well, I know it's no fault of yours, but it's hard to bear for all
+that, and I'm not quite such a monster as I am made out to be, to suit
+Mr. Carruthers's purposes. I'm not so very much worse than the young
+men, mother, whose stepfathers, or whose own fathers either, don't
+find it necessary to forbid them the house. But you're afraid of him,
+mother, and--"
+
+"George," said Mrs. Carruthers quietly, but sternly, "you did not come
+here to see me for the first time in nine months, at the risk of being
+turned out of Mr. Carruthers's house, simply to vent your anger upon
+him, and to accuse me wrongfully, and taunt me with what I am
+powerless to prevent. Tell me what has brought you here, I can stay
+with you only a little while; at any moment I may be missed. Tell me
+what has brought you against my husband's commands, contrary to my own
+entreaties, though it is such a delight to me to see you even so." And
+the mother put her arms around the neck of her prodigal son, and
+kissed him fondly. Her tears were falling on his rough brown curls.
+
+"Don't cry over me, mother; I'm not worth it; I never was; and you
+mustn't go back to your company with pale cheeks and red eyes. There,
+there, it's not so bad as it might be, you know; for as nurse says,
+I'm alive and well to tell it. The fact is--" He rose, and walked up
+and down the room in front of the sofa on which his mother was
+sitting, while he spoke. "The fact is, I must have money. Don't start,
+don't be frightened. I have not done anything very dreadful, only the
+consequences are nearly as fatal as if I had. I have not stolen, or
+forged, or embezzled property. I am not rich or respectable enough to
+get the chance. But I have lost a large sum at the gaming-table--a sum
+I don't possess, and have no other means than this of getting."
+
+"Go on," said his mother. She was deadly pale now, and her hands were
+tightly clasped together, as they lay on her lap, white and slender,
+against the rich purple of her velvet dress.
+
+He glanced at her, quickened his step, and continued in a hard
+reckless tone, but with some difficulty of utterance. "I should have
+been utterly ruined but for a friend of mine, who lent me the money.
+Play debts must be paid, mother; and Routh, though he's not much
+richer than I am, would not let me be completely lost for want of a
+helping hand. But he had to borrow the money. He could get it lent to
+him. There's no one but him to lend _me_ a shilling, and he did get
+it, and I had it and paid it away. But in a short time now he must pay
+it back and the interest upon it. Luck has been against us both."
+
+"Against you _both_, George," said Mrs. Carruthers. "Is your friend
+also a gambler, then?"
+
+"Yes, he is," said Dallas, roughly; "he is a gambler. All my friends
+are gamblers and drunkards, and everything that's bad. What would you
+have? Where am I to get pious, virtuous, respectable friends? I
+haven't a shilling; I haven't a character. Your husband has taken care
+I shall have no credit. Every one knows I am disowned by Mr.
+Carruthers, and forbidden to show my face at Poynings; and I'm not
+showing it; I'm only in the servants' quarters, you see." Again he
+laughed, and again his mother shrank from the sound. "But though my
+friend is a gambler, like myself, he helps me when I want help, and
+inconveniences himself to do it. Perhaps that's more than respectable
+friends--if I had them--would do for me. It's more than I have ever
+known respectable friends to do for any one."
+
+Mrs. Carruthers rose, and turned her colourless face upon her son.
+There was an angry light in her large hazel eyes, whose dewy
+brightness time had not yet greatly harmed. As they confronted each
+other, a strong likeness between the mother and son asserted itself.
+"George," she said, "you are putting me to needless pain. You have
+said enough to show me that you are unchanged. You have come here,
+endangering my peace, and compromising yourself, for the purpose, I
+suppose, of asking me for money to repay this person who relieved you
+from a gambling debt. Is this your business here?"
+
+"Yes," he said shortly, and with a lowering brow.
+
+"Then listen to me. I cannot give you any money." He started, and came
+close up to her. "No, George. I have no money at my disposal, and you
+ought to know that, as well as I know it. Every shilling I have ever
+had of my own I have given you. You know I never grudged it. You know
+you had at all; but that leaves me without resources. Mr. Carruthers
+will not help you." She grew paler still, and her lips trembled. "I
+have asked him many times to alter his determination, a determination
+which you cannot say is undeserved, George, but it is in vain. I
+might, perhaps, wonder that you would stoop to take assistance from a
+man who has such an opinion of you, and who has forbidden you his
+house, but that the sad knowledge I have gained of such lives as yours
+has taught me that they utterly destroy self-respect--that a
+profligate is the meanest of creatures. Calm yourself. There is no use
+in giving loose to your temper towards me, George. You have the power
+to afflict me still, but you can deceive me no more."
+
+She sat down again, wearily, leaning her arm on the back of the sofa,
+and her head on her hand. There was silence for a few moments. Then
+she said:
+
+"How much money do you owe this man, George, and when must it be
+paid?"
+
+"I owe him a hundred and forty pounds, mother, and it must be paid
+this day month."
+
+"A hundred and forty pounds?" repeated Mrs. Carruthers, in a terrified
+tone.
+
+"Yes; precisely that sum, and I have not a pound in the world to exist
+on in the mean time. I am cleaned out, that's the fact," he went on,
+with a dismal attempt at speaking lightly; "and I can't carry on any
+longer." But he spoke to inattentive ears. His mother was lost in
+thought.
+
+"I cannot give you money," she said at length. "I have not the command
+of any."
+
+"This doesn't look like want of it," said her son bitterly, as he
+caught a handful of her velvet dress in his grasp, and then dropped it
+scornfully.
+
+"My personal expenses are all dictated by Mr. Carruthers, George, and
+all known to him. Don't suppose I am free to purchase dress or not, as
+I choose. I tell you the exact truth, as I have always told you." She
+spoke coldly and seriously, like one whose mind is made up to a great
+trial, who hopes neither to alter its character nor to lessen its
+weight.
+
+"I only know I must have it," he said; "or I don't see any resource
+for me except to cut my throat."
+
+"No, no," returned his mother, "do not say such dreadful things. Give
+me time. I will try to find some way of helping you by the time you
+must have the money. O my boy, my boy!" she covered her face with her
+hands and sobbed.
+
+George Dallas looked at her irresolutely, then came quickly towards
+her, and leaned over her, as she sat. "Mother," he said, in low
+hurried tones, "mother, trust me once more, little as I deserve it.
+Try to help me in this matter; it is life or death to me; and I will
+try and do better. I am sick of it all; sick of my own weakness above
+and more than all. But I am irretrievably ruined if I don't get this
+money. I am quite in Routh's power--and--and--I want to get out of
+it."
+
+She looked up curiously at him. Something in the way he said those
+words at once alarmed and reassured her.
+
+"In this man's power, George? How? To what extent?"
+
+"I cannot tell you, mother; you would not understand. Don't frighten
+yourself about it. It is nothing that money cannot settle. I have had
+a lesson now. You shake your head--well, I know I have had many
+before, but I _will_ learn from this one."
+
+"I have not the money, George," his mother repeated, "and I cannot
+possibly procure it for a little time. You must not stay here."
+
+"I know, I know," he retorted. "You need not re-echo Mr. Carruthers's
+interdict. I am going; but surely you can give me a little now; the
+price of one of these things would go a long way with me." As he
+spoke, he touched, with no rough hand, her earrings and the bracelets
+on her right arm.
+
+"They are family jewels, or you should have them, George," Mrs.
+Carruthers said in a sad voice. "Give me time, and I will make up the
+money for you. I have a little I can give you." She stood up and looked
+fixedly at him, her hands resting on his shoulder. The tall and
+powerful young man, with his haggard anxious face, his hardened look,
+his shabby careless dress, offered a strange contrast to the woman,
+whose beauty time had dealt with so lightly, and fortune so
+generously. Mrs. Carruthers had been a mere girl when her son was
+born, and probably had not been nearly so beautiful as now, when the
+calm dignity of position and the power of wealth lent all their
+attractions to her perfect face and form.
+
+The habitual seriousness of her expression was but a charm the more,
+and in moments of excited feeling like the present she regained the
+lustrous brilliancy of the past. Searchingly, fondly, she gazed into
+her son's face, as though reading it for traces of the truth of his
+promises, seeing in it but too surely indications of the weary,
+unsatisfying life he had led, the life which had brought
+disappointment to all her dearest maternal hopes. Steadily and
+tenderly he looked at her, a world of regret in his eyes. While they
+stood thus in brief silence, Mrs. Brookes came in hurriedly.
+
+"You are wanted," he said. "Master is asking for you; he has sent Miss
+Clare to your room to see if you are ill."
+
+"I must go, my boy," said Mrs. Carruthers, as she hastily kissed him;
+"and you must not stay. Come with me, Ellen, for a moment. Wait here,
+George, for what I promised you, and don't travel back to town without
+an overcoat." Then she left the room at once, the housekeeper with
+her. George stood where she had left him, looking towards the door.
+
+"My dear practical mother," he said to himself, "she is as kind and as
+sensible as ever. Wretched about me, but remembering to desire me to
+buy a coat! I know she will get me the money somehow, and this _shall_
+be the last scrape I will get into. It's no use being melodramatic,
+especially when one is all alone, but I here make a solemn promise to
+myself that I will keep my promise to _her_."
+
+He sat down by the fire, and remained still and thoughtful. In a few
+minutes Mrs. Brookes returned. "Here's the money, Master George," she
+said. "I was to give it to you with my mistress's love, and she will
+write to you to London."
+
+He took the folded paper from her hand. It was a ten-pound note.
+
+"Thank you, nurse," he said; "and now I will go. I would like to stay
+and have a talk with you; but I had better get away, lest any
+annoyance should come to my mother through my staying. I'll see you
+when you come up to town to the fine house in Mesopotamia. Eh?"
+
+"Lord, Master George, how you do go on! Why, Mr. Carruthers's new
+house is the far side of the Park."
+
+"I know, nurse. It's all the same thing. No. No more wine, thank you,
+and nothing to eat. Good-bye.--How am I to get out, though? Not
+through the window, and up the area wall, am I?"
+
+"I'll show you, Master George. This way."
+
+George Dallas buttoned his coat tightly across his breast, carefully
+put on his gloves, and took up his hat. As he followed Mrs. Brookes
+through the long stone passages of the basement story, he looked
+curiously about him, noting the details of comfort and convenience.
+"How much better off than I are my mother's servants!" he thought,
+idly rather than bitterly. When they reached a door which opened upon
+the court-yard, Mrs. Brookes bade him farewell, not without emotion.
+
+"The great gates are open," she said. "All the servants are either in
+the hall or the servants' hall. None of the carriages have been called
+yet. You can slip past without being seen; or if any one sees you,
+they'll think you belong to the place."
+
+"A serious mistake, dear old woman," said George, with a half-smile,
+as he once more shook her hand, and stepped out into the cold and
+darkness. A bitter sense of desolation came over him as the door
+closed behind him. The court-yard was empty, except of carriages, and
+he crossed it quickly, and went through the great gates into the
+avenue, which swept round the terrace. Following it, he found himself
+brought again by a different route in front of the lighted ball-room;
+but he did not delay to glance at the scene.
+
+"So I am going away," he said to himself, "richer by ten pounds and my
+mother's promise. Stop, though! There's the sprig of myrtle. I must
+not forget or lose the unconscious gift of the great heiress. I wish I
+had asked nurse what sort of girl she is. I might have taken time to
+do that. It's not so cold as it was." He had been warmed and fed, and
+his spirits had risen. It did not take much to raise George Dallas's
+spirits, even now when the excesses of his wasted life were beginning
+to tell upon him. "I feel quite strong again. The night is lighter;
+the village must be a wretched place. I have a great mind to push on
+to Amherst. It's only seven miles, and Carruthers can't hear that I
+have been there; but he might hear of me at the village, and bother my
+mother about it."
+
+He took his way down the avenue and reached the gate, which lay open.
+One feeble light twinkled from the upper window of the gate lodge.
+Bulger and family had retired to rest, the excitement of the arrivals
+being over, and Bulger would leave the gate to take care of itself
+until morning. Unquestioned, unseen, George Dallas left Poynings, and,
+turning to the right under the park wall, set forth at a steady pace
+towards Amherst.
+
+The town of Amherst is very much like the other towns in that part of
+the country. Close by the railway station lies the Railway Tavern,
+snug and comfortable, with a "quick draught" of homebrewed ale and
+bitter beer, thanks to the powers of suction of porters, guards, and
+admiring friends of both, who vent their admiration in "standing
+glasses round." Not a little of its custom does the Railway Tavern own
+to that small plot of waste ground in front of it, where, even on this
+desolate night, you might trace the magic circle left by the "ring" of
+Signor Quagliasco's Mammoth Circus on its visit last autumn, and the
+holes for the pole and tent-pegs, and the most recent ruts on which
+were left by the wheels of the cart of the travelling photographer who
+"took" the entire town at Christmas, and, in addition to the
+photograph, presented each sitter with a blue card embossed with a
+scarlet robin bearing in its mouth the legend, "A happy new year to
+you." Then villas; Mr. Cobb's, the corn-chandler and coal-merchant,
+with a speckled imitation-granite porch, white and black, as if it had
+been daubed with a mixture of its owner's flour and coal-dust; Mr.
+Lawson's, the attorney, with a big brass plate on its outer gate, and
+two stone pine-apples flanking the entrance; Mr. Charlton Biggs's, the
+hop-merchant, in all the gentility of a little chaise-house leaning
+against the street door, approached by a little carriage-drive so
+narrow that the pony had never yet walked up it properly, but had
+always been ignominiously "backed" into its tiny home. Then the
+outskirts of the town; the Independent Chapel, very square, very
+red-faced, and very compact, not to say sat upon; the Literary
+Institute, with more green damp on its stuccoed walls than had been
+originally intended by its architect, and with fragmentary bills of
+"Mr. Lens's Starry Carpet, or the Heavens at a Glance," fluttering in
+the night wind from its portico. Merton house comes next, formerly the
+stronghold of the Merton-Mertons, the great Kentish family, now Mr.
+Bompas's Classical and Commercial Academy, with a full view of the
+white dimity bedsteads through the open window, and with "Old Bompas's
+Blaggards" inscribed--by the boys of the National School, with whom
+the grand Bompasians waged constant warfare--on the doorpost. The
+commencement of the town, a mouldy old bay-windowed shop, known to Mr.
+Bompas's boys as "Mother Jennings's," and as the repository of "tuck,"
+said tuck consisting of stale buns, hardbake, "all sorts," toffee,
+treacle, new rolls, sugar mutton-chops elegantly painted and gilt,
+sugar rum and gin bottles, whipcord, pegtops, and marbles; then
+Bullenger's, apparently a small ironmonger's, but in reality another
+lure for the money of Bompas's boys, for in a parlour behind his back
+shop Bullenger vended fireworks and half-crown detonating pistols,
+catapults, and cross-bows, and all sorts of such-like instruments dear
+to predatory boys. Then the ordinary lot of butchers, bakers, tailors,
+hosiers, grocers, chemists (Mr. Hotten, member of the Pharmaceutical
+Society of Great Britain, also strongly reliant on Bompas's custom for
+cigars and hair-oil for the big boys, and bath-pipe and liquorice for
+the little ones), and then the police-station; the old gray church,
+with its square ivy-covered tower, its billowy graves and its
+half-obliterated sun-dial over the porch, and then the fresh green
+fields again.
+
+All these particulars George Dallas noted in the morning, when, having
+early left the bed he had procured at the inn, he called in at the
+station and learned from the friendly porter, who was again engaged in
+mending his shoes with tin and tacks, when the next train would start
+for London, and where he could find a tailor's shop, walked briskly
+through the little town, with feelings very different from those which
+had possessed him on his first arrival at the Amherst station. Now,
+his step was free and light, he carried his head erect, and though he
+occasionally shivered as the cold wind came sweeping over the downs
+and gave him a sharp unfriendly nip as it hurried by him in its
+progress to the sea, he bore the insult with tolerable fortitude, and
+seemed to derive immediate comfort from plunging his hand into his
+trousers pocket, where lay the ten-pound note he had received from his
+mother. It was there, stiff and crisp to his touch. He had taken it
+out and looked at it twice or thrice on the road, but he could not do
+that now in the town; he must content himself with touching it, and
+the crinkling sound was music in his ear; he had been so long without
+money, that he derived the keenest pleasure from the possession of
+this actual tangible sum, and felt so little inclined to part with it,
+that, though he had passed, and noticed in passing, the tailor's shop
+to which he had been recommended by the porter, he still walked on. It
+was not until he had made a circuit of the old churchyard at the end
+of the town, where even on summer days the wind is generally at play,
+and where on winter nights it ramps and rages in a manner terrible to
+hear and feel, that George Dallas began to comprehend the necessity of
+at once procuring some warmer clothing, and, turning back, made
+straight for the tailor's shop.
+
+A neat, clean-looking shop, with "Evans, Tailor," painted over the
+window, the effect being slightly spoiled by the knob of the roller
+blind, which formed a kind of full-stop in the middle of the word
+"Tail, or," and divided it into two unequal portions; with "Evans,
+Tailor," blazing from its brass door-plate; with "Evans, Tailor,"
+inscribed with many twisted flourishes on its wire blind, where it
+emerged coyly from. "Liveries" preceding it, and took hasty refuge in
+"Uniforms" at its conclusion. Evans himself behind the counter, a fat,
+chubby, rosy little man, with clustering iron-gray hair round his
+temples, and a bit of round scalp wig fitting, like the lid of a
+teapot, into a bald place on his crown. Apparently he had been all his
+life tailoring to such an extent for other people as to have had no
+time to attend to himself, for he stood behind the counter this
+winter's day in his shirt sleeves, and without his coat.
+
+The old man bowed as George Dallas entered the shop, and asked him
+what they could do for him. Dallas replied that he wanted a warm thick
+overcoat, "if they'd got such a thing."
+
+"Such a thing! Well, there may be such a thing, perhaps, but I'm not
+certain, not being an article kept in stock," replied Mr. Evans,
+"which is mostly tarpaulin for the railway guards and stokers,
+likewise canal boatmen, which is often customers. A warm thick
+overcoat," repeated the old man, "is a article generally made to
+order, though I've a sort of a recollection of a something of the kind
+returned on our hands in consequence of the party which was staying at
+the Lion having left unexpected. Let me see!" he continued, opening
+two or three 'drawers. "I ain't so young as I was, sir, and I'm
+touched in the wind; and this nasty gas which we've only had this
+winter don't do for me, making me bust out in sudden presperation. He!
+I thought so! Here's a warm thick overcoat, blue Witney, lined with
+plaid; that's a article I can recommend; our own make; we ain't
+ashamed of it, you see!" and he pointed to a label stitched inside
+just below the collar, where the inevitable "Evans, Tailor," in gilt
+letters, was supplemented by the address, "Amherst."
+
+George Dallas took the coat and slipped it on. It fitted tolerably,
+and was thick and warm. "What is the price?" he asked.
+
+"We can do that for you at fifty-three and six," said the old man. "It
+was a three-pounder, that coat was, when made for the party at the
+Lion, but we'll make a reduction now. Fifty-three and six, and our own
+make. You couldn't do better."
+
+"I dare say not," said Dallas absently. "Please to change this for
+me."
+
+At the sight of the bank note Mr. Evans's pleasant face became a
+little clouded. He did not relish the notion of changing notes for
+persons with whom he had no previous acquaintance. But after he had
+taken the note in his hand and held it between his eyes and the light,
+and flattened it out on the counter, his cheerful expression returned,
+and he said, "All right, sir. I'll change it and welcome! I know where
+you got this note, sir! Ah, you may start, but I do! You got it from
+our post-office, lower down the street; here's the post-office stamp
+on it which they're compelled to put on every note passing through
+their hands. Look, 'Amherst, B. 1, Jan. 30.' Thank you, sir; six and
+six's, three and seven is ten; thank you, sir!" and the old man,
+having counted the change from a cash-box in a desk at the back of the
+shop, hurried round to open the door and bow his customer out.
+
+Within half an hour George Dallas was in the train on his return to
+London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+THE PHILISTINES.
+
+
+The cold weather, which in the country produced rugged roads and
+ice-bound ponds; which frosted the leafless branches of the trees with
+a silver tint, and gave a thousand different fantastic but ever lovely
+hues and shapes to nature; had no such pleasant refreshing effect in
+London, where the frost, ere three hours old, was beaten into mud
+under foot, ran drizzling in dirty streams from house-tops, and
+subsided into rain and fog before the daylight had disappeared. The
+day succeeding that on which George Dallas had entered the town of
+Amherst was a thorough specimen of what London can do when put to its
+worst. It was bad in the large thoroughfares where the passing crowds
+jostled each other ill-temperedly, digging at each other's umbrellas,
+and viciously contesting every inch of foot pavement, where the
+omnibus-wheels revolved amid mud-ruts, and every passing cab-horse
+produced a fountain of slush and spray. But it was even worse in the
+bystreets, where an attempt at sweeping had been made, where the mud
+lay in a thick slimy, shiny tide between the narrow ridges of
+footpath, where the tall houses, so close together that they
+completely filtered the air and light and retained nothing but the
+darkness and the dirt, were splashed with mud to their first-floor
+windows, and whose inhabitants or visitors desirous of crossing the
+road had to proceed to the junction with the main street, and, after
+tacking across in comparative cleanliness, commence their descent on
+the opposite side.
+
+In the front room of the first floor of a house in such a street,
+South Molton-street, connecting Oxford-street the plebeian with
+Brook-street the superb, just as the feeble glimmer of daylight which
+had vouchsafed itself during the day was beginning to wax even
+feebler, previous to its sudden departure, a man sat astride a chair,
+sunk in thought. He had apparently just entered, for he still wore his
+hat and overcoat, though the former was pushed to the back of his
+head, and the latter thrown negligently open. He was a tall handsome
+man, with keen black eyes glancing sharply, with thick black brows, a
+long straight nose, thin tight lips unshrouded by moustache or beard,
+and a small round chin. He had full flowing black whiskers, and
+the blue line round his mouth showed that the beard was naturally
+strong; had he suffered it to grow he might have passed for an
+Italian. As it was, there was no mistaking him for anything but an
+Englishman--darker, harder-looking than most of his race, but an
+Englishman. His face, especially round the eyes, was flushed and
+marked and lined, telling of reckless dissipation. There was a
+something not exactly fast, but yet slangy, in the cut of his clothes
+and in the manner in which he wore them; his attitude as he sat at the
+window with his hands clasped in front of him over the back rail of
+his chair, his knees straight out and his feet drawn back, as a man
+sits a horse at a hunt, was in its best aspect suggestive of the
+mess-room: in its worst, of the billiard-room. And yet there was an
+indescribable something in the general aspect of the man, in the very
+ease of his position, in the shape of the hands clasped in front of
+him, in the manner, slight as it was, in which now and again he would
+turn on his chair and peer back into the darkness behind him, by which
+you would have known that he had had a refined education, and had been
+conversant with the manners of society.
+
+Nor would you have been wrong. In Burke's Landed Gentry, the Rouths of
+Carr Abbey take up their full quota of pages, and when the county
+election for Herefordshire comes off, the liberal agent is forced to
+bring to bear all the science he can boast of, to counteract
+the influence which the never-failing adhesion of the old family
+throws into the Tory scale. Never having risen, never for an
+instant having dreamed of demeaning themselves by rising, above
+the squirearchy, owners of the largest and best herds in all that
+splendid cattle-breeding county, high-sheriffs and chairmen of
+quarter-sessions as though by prescriptive right, perpetual presidents
+of agricultural societies, and in reality taking precedence
+immediately after the lord-lieutenant, the Rouths of Carr Abbey, from
+time immemorial, have sent their sons to Oxford and their daughters to
+court, and have never, save in one instance, had to blush for their
+children.
+
+Save in one instance. The last entry in the old family Bible of Carr
+Abbey is erased by a thick black line. The old squire speaks
+habitually of "My only son, William;" and should a stranger, dining at
+the Abbey, casually refer to the picture, by Lawrence, of two little
+boys, one riding a pony, the younger decking a dog's neck with ribbon,
+he is, if the squire had not heard his question, motioned in dumb show
+to silence, or is replied to by the squire himself that "that boy
+is--lost, sir."
+
+That boy, Stewart Routh, the man looking out of the window in South
+Molton-street, was captain of the boat at Eton, and first favourite,
+for a time, both with the dons and undergraduates at Oxford. Rumours
+of high play at cards developing into fact of perpetually sported
+"oak," non-attendance at chapel, and frequent shirking of classes,
+lessened the esteem in which Mr. Routh was held by the authorities;
+and a written confession handed to the dean, after being obtained by
+parental pressure, from Mr. Albert Grüntz, of Christ Church, son of
+and heir to Mr. Jacob Grüntz, sugar-baker, of St Mary Axe, in the city
+of London, and Balmoral-gardens, Hyde-park, a confession to the effect
+that he, Mr. A. Grüntz, had lost the sum of two thousand pounds to Mr.
+S. Routh, at a game played with dice, and known as French hazard,
+procured the dismissal of Mr. S. Routh from the seat of learning. At
+Carr Abbey, whither he retired, his stay was shortened by the arrival
+of another document from Oxford, this time signed by Lord Hawkhurst,
+gentleman commoner of Christ Church, and Arthur Wardroper, of Balliol,
+setting forth that Mr. S. Routh, while playing hazard in Mr. Grüntz's
+rooms, had been caught there _in flagrante delicto_ in the act of
+cheating by "securing," _i.e_. retaining in his fingers, one of the
+dice which he should have shaken from the box. It was the receipt of
+this letter that caused the squire to make the erasure in the family
+Bible, and to look upon his youngest son as dead.
+
+Driven from the paternal roof, Mr. Stewart Routh descended upon the
+pleasant town of Boulogne, whence, after a short stay not unmarked by
+many victories over the old and young gentlemen who frequent the
+card-tables at the Etablissement des Bains, from whom he carried off
+desirable trophies, he proceeded to the baths and gambling-houses of
+Ems, Homburg, and Baden-Baden. It was at the last-mentioned place, and
+when in the very noon and full tide of success, that he was struck
+down by a fever, so virulent that the affrighted servants of the hotel
+refused to wait upon him. No nurse could be prevailed upon to
+undertake to attend him; and he would have been left to die for
+want of proper care, had not a young Englishwoman, named Harriet
+Creswick, travelling in the capacity of nursery-governess to Lord de
+Mauleverer's family (then passing through Baden on their way to winter
+in Rome), come to the rescue. Declaring that her countryman should not
+perish like a dog, she there and then devoted herself to attendance on
+the sick man. It need scarcely be told that Lady de Mauleverer,
+protesting against "such extraordinary conduct," intimated to Miss
+Creswick that her connection with her noble charges must cease at once
+and for ever. But it is noteworthy that in such a man as Stewart Routh
+had hitherto proved himself, a spirit of gratitude should have been so
+strongly aroused, that when his sense and speech returned to him, in
+weak and faltering accents he implored the woman who had so tenderly
+nursed him through his illness, to become his wife. It is quite
+needless to say that his friends, on hearing of it, averred, some that
+he thought he was going to die, and that it did not matter to him what
+he did, while it might have pleased the young lady; others, that he
+was a particularly knowing card, whose brains had never deserted him,
+even when he was at his worst, and that he had discovered in Harriet
+Creswick a woman exactly fitted, by physical and mental qualification,
+efficiently to help him as his partner in playing the great game of
+life. Be it as it may--and people will talk, especially in such
+circles--the fact remains that on his sick couch at the Hollandischer
+Hof, Baden-Baden, Stewart Routh proposed to Harriet Creswick and was
+accepted; that so soon as he could safely be left she departed for
+England; and that within a month they were married in London.
+
+Of that one event at least in all his eventful life, Stewart Routh had
+never repented. Through all his vicissitudes of fortune his wife had
+been by his side, and as, in the long run, chance had been against
+him, taking the heaviest portion of his burden on herself. Harriet
+Routh's was an untiring, undying, unquestioning love or worship of her
+husband. The revelation of his--to say the least of it--loose mode of
+life, the shifts and expedients to which he resorted for getting
+money, the questionable company in which he habitually lived, would
+have told with fatal effect on a devotion less thorough, a passion
+more transient. Harriet herself, who had been brought up staidly at an
+Institution, which she had only quitted to join the family with whom
+she was travelling when she arrived at Baden--Harriet herself at first
+shrunk back stunned and stupefied by the revelation of an unknown life
+which burst upon her a few days after her marriage. But her love bore
+her through it. As the dyer's hand assimilates to that it works in, so
+gradually did Harriet Routh endue herself with her husband's tone,
+temper, and train of thought, until, having become almost his second
+self, she was his most trusted ally, his safest counsellor in all the
+strange schemes by which he made out life. In the early days after
+their marriage she had talked to him once, only once, and then but for
+a few minutes, of reformation, of something better and more reputable,
+of doing with less money, to be obtained by the exercise of his
+talents in some legitimate manner. And her husband, with the nearest
+approach to harshness that before or since he had ever assumed, told
+her that his time for that kind of thing was passed and gone for ever,
+that she must forget all the childish romance that they had taught her
+at the Institution, that she must sink or swim with him, and be
+prepared to cast in her lot with that kind of existence which had
+become his second nature, and out of which he could never hope to
+move. Even if he could move from it, he added, he did not think that
+he would wish to do so, and there must be an end to the matter.
+
+There was an end to the matter. From that time forth, Harriet Routh
+buried her past, buried her former self, and devoted herself, soul and
+body, to her husband. Her influence over him strengthened with each
+year that they lived together, and was traceable in many ways. The
+fact once faced, that their precarious livelihood was to be earned by
+the exercise of sharpness superior to that enjoyed by those with whom
+they were brought into contact, Harriet laid herself out at once for
+the fulfilment of her new duties, and in a very short time compelled
+her husband's surprised laudation of the ease and coolness with which
+she discharged them. There were no other women in that strange
+society; but if there had been, Harriet would have queened it over
+them, not merely by her beauty, but by her bright spirit, her quick
+appreciation, her thorough readiness to enter exactly into the fancy
+of the moment. The men who lost their money to Routh and his companion
+treated her not merely with a punctilio which forbade the smallest
+verbal excess, but bore their losses with comparative good humour so
+long as Mrs. Routh was present. The men who looked up to Routh as the
+arch-concocter of and prime mover in all their dark deeds, had a blind
+faith in her, and their first question, on the suggestion of any
+scheme, would be "what Mrs. Routh thought of it." Ah, the change, the
+change! The favourite pupil of the Institution, who used to take such
+close notes of the sermon on Sunday mornings, and illustrate the
+chaplain's meaning with such apposite texts from other portions of
+Scripture, as quite to astonish the chaplain himself, which perhaps
+was not to be wondered at, as the chaplain (a bibulous old gentleman,
+who had been appointed on the strength of his social qualities by the
+committee, who valued him as "a parson, you know, without any nonsense
+about him") was in the habit of purchasing his discourses ready made,
+and only just ran them through, on Saturday nights. The show pupil of
+the Institution, who did all kinds of arithmetical problems "in her
+head," by which the worthy instructors meant without the aid of paper
+and pencil--the staid and decorous pupil of the Institution, who, when
+after her last examination she was quitting the table loaded with
+prizes--books--was called back by the bishop of the diocese, who with
+feeble hands pinned a silver medal on to her dress, and said, in a
+trembling voice, "I had nearly forgotten the best of all. This is in
+testimony of your excellent conduct, my dear." What was become of this
+model miss? She was utilizing her talents in a different way. That was
+all. The memory which had enabled her to summarize and annotate the
+chaplain's sermons now served as her husband's note-book, and was
+stored with all kinds of odd information, "good things" to "come off,"
+trials of horses, names and fortunes of heirs who had just succeeded
+to their estates, lists of their most pressing debts, names of the men
+who were supposed to be doubtful in money matters, and with whom it
+was thought inexpedient to bet or play--all these matters dwelt in
+Harriet Routh's brain, and her husband had only to turn his head and
+ask, "What is it, Harry?" to have the information at once. The
+arithmetical quickness stood her in good stead, in the calculation of
+odds on all kinds of sporting events, on the clear knowledge of which
+the success of most of Routh's business depended; and as for the good
+conduct--well, the worthy bishop would have held up his hands in pious
+horror at the life led by the favourite pupil of the Institution, and
+at her surroundings; but against Mrs. Routh, as Mrs. Routh, as the
+devoted, affectionate, self-denying, spotless wife, the veriest ribald
+in all that loose crew had never ventured to breathe a doubt.
+
+Devoted and affectionate! See her now as she comes quietly into the
+room--a small compact partridge of a woman with deep blue eyes in a
+very pale face, with smooth shining light brown hair falling on either
+side in two long curls, and gathered into a clump at the back of her
+head, with an impertinent nose only just redeemed from being a snub,
+with a small mouth, and a very provoking pattable chin. See how she
+steals behind her husband, her dark linsey dress draping her closely
+and easily, and not making the slightest rustle; her round arm showing
+its symmetry in her tight sleeve twining round his neck; her plump
+shapely hand resting on his head; her pale cheek laid against his
+face. Devoted and affectionate! No simulation here.
+
+"Anything gone wrong, Stewart?" she asked, in a very sweet voice.
+
+"No, dear. Why?" said Routh, who was now sitting at a table strewn
+with papers, a pen in his right hand, and his left supporting his
+handsome worn face.
+
+"You looked gloomy, I thought; but, if you say so, it's all right,"
+returned his wife, cheerfully, leaving his side as she spoke, and
+proceeding to sweep up the hearth, put on fresh coals, and make the
+whole room look comfortable, with a few rapid indefinable touches.
+Then she sat down in a low chair by the fire, perfectly still, and
+turned her calm pale face to her husband with a business-like air. He
+made some idle scratches with his pen in silence, then threw it down,
+and, suddenly pushing away his chair, began to walk up and down the
+room with long light strides.
+
+"What do you make of Deane, Harriet?" he said, at length, stopping for
+a moment opposite his wife, and looking closely at her.
+
+"How do you mean? In character or in probabilities? As regards
+himself, or as regards us?"
+
+"Well, both. I cannot make him out; he is so confoundedly cool, and so
+infernally sharp. He might be a shrewd man of business, bent on making
+a fortune, and a good way on the road to his object; and yet he's
+nothing but a man of pleasure, of what your _good_ people would call a
+wretched low kind of pleasure too, and is spending the fortune
+instead."
+
+"I don't think so, Stewart," his wife said, quietly and impressively.
+"I don't think Mr. Deane is spending any very considerable portion of
+his fortune, whatever it may be."
+
+Stewart had resumed his walking up and down, but listened to her
+attentively.
+
+"I regard him as a curious combination of the man of business with the
+man of pleasure. I don't know that we have ever met exactly the kind
+of person before. He is as calculating in his pleasures as other men
+are in their business."
+
+"I hate the man," said Routh, with an angry frown and a sullen
+gesture.
+
+"That's dangerous, Stewart," said Harriet. "You should not allow
+yourself either to hate or to like any one in whom you are
+speculating. If you do the one, it will make you incautious; if you do
+the other, scrupulous. Both are unwise. I do not hate Mr. Deane."
+
+"Fortunately for him, Harry. I think a man would be a great deal safer
+with my hatred than with yours."
+
+"Possibly," she said, simply, and the slightest smile just parted her
+crimson lips, and showed a momentary gleam of her white, small, even
+teeth. "But I do not hate him. I think about him, though; because it
+is necessary that I should, and I fancy I have found out what he
+really is."
+
+"Have you, by Jove?" interrupted Routh. "Then you've done a clever
+thing, Harriet--clever even for you; for of all the close and
+impenetrable men I ever met, Deane's the closest and the hardest. When
+I'm with him, I always feel as if he were trying to _do_ me somehow,
+and as if he would succeed too, though that's not easy. He's as mean
+as a Scotch shopkeeper, as covetous as a Jew, as wide awake as a
+Yankee. There's a coolness and a constant air of avowed suspicion
+about him that drives me mad."
+
+"And yet you ought to have been done with temper and with
+squeamishness long ago," said Harriet, in a tone of quiet conviction.
+"How often have you told me, Stewart, that to us, in our way of life,
+every man must be a puppet, prized in proportion to the readiness with
+which he dances to our pulling? What should _we_ care? I am rendered
+anxious and uneasy by what you say."
+
+She kept silence for a few moments, and then asked him, in a changed
+tone,
+
+"How does your account with him stand?"
+
+"My account!---ah, there's the rub! He's so uncommonly sharp, that
+there's little to be done with him. The fellow's a blackguard--more of
+a blackguard than I am, I'll swear, and as much of a swindler, at
+least, in his capacity for swindling. Only I dare say he has never had
+occasion to reduce it to practice. And yet there's a hardly veiled
+insolence in his manner to me, at times, for which I'd like to blow
+his brains out. He tells me, as plainly as if he said it in words,
+that he pays me a commission on his pleasures, such as are of my
+procuring, but that he knows to a penny what he intends to pay, and is
+not to be drawn into paying a penny more."
+
+Harriet sat thoughtful, and the faintest flush just flickered on her
+cheek. "Who are his associates, when he is not with you?"
+
+"He keeps that as close as he keeps everything else," replied Routh;
+"but I have no doubt he makes them come cheap, if indeed he does not
+get a profit out of them."
+
+"You are taking my view of him, Stewart," said Harriet; then she
+added, "He has some motive for acting with such caution, no doubt; but
+a flaw may be found in his armour, when we think fit to look for it.
+In the mean time, tell me what has set you thinking of him?"
+
+"Dallas's affair, Harriet. I am sorry the poor fellow lost his money
+to _him_. Hang it, I'm such a bad fellow myself, so utterly gone
+a'coon" (his wife winced, and her pale face turned paler), "that it
+comes ill from me to say so, and I wouldn't, except to you. But I am
+devilish sorry Deane got the chance of cleaning Dallas out. I like the
+boy; he's a stupid fool, but not half bad, and he didn't deserve such
+an ill turn of fortune."
+
+"Well," said Harriet, "take comfort in remembering that you helped
+him."
+
+She spoke very coldly, and evidently was a stranger to the feelings
+which actuated Routh.
+
+"_You_ don't care about it, that's clear," he remarked.
+
+He was standing still now, leaning against the mantelpiece. She rose
+and approached him.
+
+"No, Stewart," she said, in her calm sweet voice, which rose a little
+as she went on, "I do not. I care for nothing on earth (and I never
+look beyond this earth) but _you_. I have no interest, no solicitude,
+for any other creature. I cannot feel any, and it is well. Nothing but
+this would do in my case."
+
+She stood and looked at him with her deep blue eyes, with her hands
+folded before her, and with a sober seriousness in her face
+confirmatory of the words she had spoken. He looked at her until she
+turned away, and a keen observer might have seen in his face the very
+slightest expression of impatience.
+
+"Shall we go into those accounts now?" said Harriet; "we shall just
+have time for it, before you go to Flinders'."
+
+She sat down, as she spoke, before a well-appointed writing table,
+and, drawing a japan box towards her, opened it, and took out a number
+of papers. Routh took a seat beside her, and they were soon deep in
+calculations which would have had little interest or meaning for a
+third person, had there been one present. By degrees, Routh's face
+darkened, and many times he uttered angry oaths; but though Harriet
+watched him narrowly, and felt in every nerve the annoyance under
+which he was labouring, she preserved her calm manner, and went
+steadily on with her task; condensing the contents of several papers
+into brief memoranda, carefully tearing up the originals, and placing
+the little heaps methodically beside her for consignment to the fire.
+At length Routh again stood up, and lounged against the mantelpiece.
+
+"All these _must_ be paid, then, Harry?" he asked, as he lighted a
+cigar, and began to smoke sullenly.
+
+"Yes," she answered, cheerfully. "You know, dear, it has always been
+our rule, as it has hitherto constituted our safety, to stand well
+with our tradespeople, and pay _them_, at least, punctually. We have
+never been so much behindhand; and as you are about to take a bolder
+flight than usual, it is doubly necessary that we should be
+untrammelled. Fancy Flinders getting snubbed by the landlady, or your
+being arrested for your tailor's bills, at the time when the new
+Company is coming out!"
+
+"Hang it! the bills all seem to be mine," growled Routh, "Where are
+yours? Haven't you got any?"
+
+It would have been difficult to induce an unseen witness to believe
+how utterly unscrupulous, remorseless, conscienceless a woman Harriet
+Routh had become, if he had seen the smile with which she answered her
+husband's half-admiring, half-querulous question.
+
+"You know, dear, I don't need much. I have not to keep up appearances
+as you have. You are in the celebrated category of those who cannot
+afford to be anything but well-dressed. It's no matter for me, but
+it's a matter of business for you."
+
+"Ah! I might have known you'd have some self-denying, sensible reason
+ready; but the puzzle to me is, that you always _are_ well dressed. By
+Jove, you're the neatest woman I know, and the prettiest!"
+
+The smile upon her face brightened, but she only shook her head, and
+went on:
+
+"If Dallas does not get the money, or at least some of it, what do you
+propose to do? I don't know."
+
+"Do you think he will get the money, Harry? He told _you_ all about
+it. What are the odds?"
+
+"I cannot even guess. All depends on his mother. If she is courageous,
+and fond of him, she will get it for him, even supposing her immediate
+control as small as she believes it to be. If she is not courageous,
+her being fond of him will do very little good, and women are mostly
+cowards," said Harriet composedly.
+
+"I never calculated much on the chance," said Routh, "and indeed it
+would be foolish to take the money if he got it--in that way, at
+least; for though I am sorry Deane profited by the young fellow,
+that's because I hate Deane. It's all right, for my purpose, that
+Dallas should be indebted as largely as may be to me. He's useful in
+more ways than one; his connection with the press serves our turn,
+Harry, doesn't it? Especially when you work it so well, and give him
+such judicious hints, such precious confidences."
+
+(Even such praise as this, the woman's perverted nature craved and
+prized.) "You won't need to take the money from him in formal
+payment," she said, "if that's what you want to avoid. If he returns
+with that sum in his pocket, he will not be long before he--"
+
+A knock at the door interrupted her, and George Dallas entered the
+room.
+
+He looked weary and dispirited, and, before the customary greetings
+had been exchanged, Routh and Harriet saw that failure had been the
+result of experiment. Harriet's eyes sought her husband's face, and
+read in it the extent of his discomfiture; and the furtive glance she
+turned on Dallas was full of resentment. But it found no expression in
+her voice as she asked him commonplace questions about his journey,
+and busied herself in setting a chair for him by the fire, putting his
+hat aside, and begging him to take off his overcoat. He complied. As
+he threw the coat on a chair, he said, with a very moderately
+successful attempt at pleasantry:
+
+"I have come back richer than I went, Mrs. Routh, by that elegant
+garment, and no more."
+
+"Bowled out, eh?" asked Routh, taking the cigar from his mouth, and
+laying it on the mantel-piece.
+
+"Stumped, sir," replied Dallas.
+
+Harriet said nothing.
+
+"That's bad, Dallas."
+
+"Very bad, my dear fellow, but very true. Look here," the young man
+continued, with earnestness, "I don't know what to do. I don't, upon
+my soul! I saw my mother--"
+
+"Yes?" said Harriet going up to his side. "Well?
+
+"I saw her and--and she is unable to help me; she is, indeed, Mrs.
+Routh," for a bitter smile was on Harriet's face, turned full upon
+his. "She hasn't the means. I never understood her position until last
+night, but I understood it then. She is--" he stopped. All his better
+nature forbad his speaking of his mother's position to these people.
+Her influence, the gentler, better influence, was over him still.
+However transitory it might prove, it had not passed yet. Harriet
+Routh knew as well as he did what the impulse was that arrested his
+speech.
+
+"You will tell me all about it yet," she thought, and not a sign of
+impatience appeared in her face.
+
+"I--I need not bore you with details," he went on. "She could not give
+me the money. She made me understand that. But she promised to get it
+for me, in some way or other, if the thing is within the reach of
+possibility, before a month expires. I know she will do it, but I must
+give her time, if it's to be forthcoming, and you must give me time."
+
+"It's unfortunate, Dallas," Routh began, in a cold voice, "and, of
+course, it's all very well your talking to me about giving you time,
+but how am I to get it? It's no good going over the old story, you
+know it as well as I do. There, there," he said, shrugging his
+shoulders, "I must try and get old Shadrach to renew. I suppose we may
+as well go at once, Dallas." He left the room, followed by Harriet.
+
+George Dallas sat over the fire in an attitude of deep dejection. He
+was sick at heart, and the revulsion of feeling that had begun at
+Poynings had not yet ceased. "If I could but be done with it all!" he
+thought. "But I'm in the groove, I'm in the groove."
+
+"Come along, George," said Routh, who seemed more good-humoured than
+before, as he re-entered the room, soberly attired, as became a man
+going to do business in the City. "Don't be down-hearted; the old lady
+will keep her word. Don't be afraid; and in the mean time, we'll pull
+through. Put your coat on, and come along. You'll give us some dinner,
+Harriet, won't you? And if Deane calls, ask him to join us. He won't,"
+he continued, with a laugh, "because he believes in tavern dinners,
+and puts no faith in ours. We're snobs who live in lodgings, George,
+you know; but he'll drop in in the evening fast enough."
+
+The application to Mr. Shadrach proved successful, and George Dallas
+returned with Stewart Routh to his lodgings, more firmly tied to him
+than ever, by the strong bond of an increased money-obligation.
+
+"Pretty tidy terms, weren't they?" Routh asked Dallas, when he had
+told Harriet, in answer to her anxious questioning, that the "renewal"
+had been arranged.
+
+"Very tidy indeed," said poor George, ruefully: "but, Routh, suppose
+when I do get the money, it's not enough. What's to be done then?"
+
+"Never mind about _then_," said Routh, "_now_ is the important matter.
+Remember that every _then_ is made of _nows_, and keep your mind easy.
+That's philosophy, as Mr. Squeers says. Your present business is to
+eat your dinner."
+
+Stewart Routh had thrown off his low spirits, and had all but
+succeeded in rousing George Dallas from his. Kindly, convivial, only
+occasionally coarse, he was a dangerously pleasant man at all times,
+and especially so to George Dallas when Harriet was present; for then
+his coarseness was entirely laid aside, and her tact, humour,
+intelligence never failed to please, to animate, and to amuse him. The
+dinner was a very pleasant one, and, before it had come to a
+conclusion, George Dallas began to yield as completely as ever to the
+influence of the man whose enviable knowledge of "life" had been the
+first medium through which he had attained it. George had forgotten
+the renewed bill and his late failure for a while, when the mention of
+Deane's name recalled it to his memory.
+
+"Has Deane been here, Harry?" asked Routh.
+
+"No, Stewart, I have been at home all day, but he has not called."
+
+"Ah--didn't happen to want me, no doubt."
+
+"Have you seen much of him lately, Routh?" inquired George Dallas. "I
+mean, within the last week or two? While I--while I've been keeping
+out of the way?" he said, with a nervous laugh.
+
+"Poor boy, you _have_ been down on your luck," said Routh. "Seen much
+of Deane? Oh, yes; he's always about--he's here most days, some time
+in the forenoon."
+
+"In the forenoon, is he? Considering the hours he keeps at night, that
+surprises me."
+
+"It doesn't surprise _me_. He's very strong--has a splendid
+constitution, confound him, and has not given it a shake yet. Drink
+doesn't seem to 'trouble' him in the least."
+
+"He's an odd fellow," said George, thoughtfully. "How coolly he won my
+money, and what a greenhorn I was, to be sure!! wonder if he would
+have lost his own so coolly."
+
+"Not a doubt of it," said Routh; "he'd have been satisfied he would
+make it up out of something else. He _is_ an odd fellow, and a deuced
+unpleasant fellow to _my_ mind."
+
+Harriet looked at her husband with a glance of caution. It was unlike
+Routh to dwell on a mere personal feeling, or to let so much of his
+mind be known unnecessarily. He caught the glance and understood it,
+but it only angered, without otherwise influencing him.
+
+"A low-lived loafer, if ever there was one," he went on, "but useful
+in his way, Dallas. Every man has a weakness; _his_ is to think
+himself a first-rate billiard player, while he is only a fourth-rate.
+A man under such a delusion is sure to lose his money to any one who
+plays better than he does, and I may as well be that man, don't you
+see?"
+
+"I see perfectly," said George; "but I wish he had been equally
+mistaken in his notions of his card-playing science; it would have
+made a serious difference to me."
+
+"Never mind, old fellow," answered Routh; "you shall have your revenge
+some day. Finish your wine, and Harriet shall give us some music."
+
+She did so. She gave them some music, such as very few can give--music
+which combines perfection of art with true natural feeling. This woman
+was a strange anomaly, full of "treasons, stratagems, and spoils," and
+yet with music in her soul.
+
+Rather early, George Dallas left the pair, but they sat up late,
+talking earnestly. Things were going ill with Stewart Routh. Some of
+his choicest and most promising combinations had failed. He had once
+or twice experienced a not uncommon misfortune in the lot of such men
+as he;--he had encountered men in his own profession who were as
+clever as himself, and who, favoured by circumstances and opportunity,
+had employed their talents at his expense. The swindler had been
+swindled once or twice, the biter had been bitten, and his temper had
+not been improved in the process. He was about, as Harriet had said,
+to take a new flight this time, in the direction of operations on the
+general public, and he had formed designs on Mr. Deane, which did not,
+in the increased knowledge he had obtained of that gentleman's
+character, and in the present aspect of affairs, look quite so
+promising as in the early stage of their acquaintance, six weeks
+before. The operations of gentlemen of the Routh fraternity are
+planned and executed with a celerity which seems extraordinary to
+pursuers of the more legitimate branches of industry. Routh had not
+passed many hours in Mr. Deane's society (they had met at a low place
+of amusement, the honours of which Routh was doing to a young Oxonian,
+full of cash and devoid of brains, whom he had in hand just then),
+before he had built an elaborate scheme upon the slender foundation of
+that gentleman's boasted wealth and assumed greenness. His subsequent
+experience had convinced him of the reality of the first, but had
+shown him his mistake as to the last, and gradually his mind, usually
+cool and undaunted, became haunted by an ever-burning desire to
+possess himself of the money for ever flaunted before his eyes--became
+haunted, too, by an unreasonable and blind animosity to the stranger,
+who combined profligacy with calculation, unscrupulous vice with
+well-regulated economy, and the unbridled indulgence of his passions
+with complete coldness of heart and coolness of temper. Routh had no
+knowledge of Deane's real position in life, but he had a conviction
+that had it been, like his own, that of a professional swindler, he
+would have been a dangerous rival, quite capable of reducing his own
+occupation and his own profits very considerably. Therefore Routh
+hated him.
+
+When the conference between Routh and Harriet came to a conclusion, it
+left the woman visibly troubled. When Routh had been for some time
+asleep, she still sat by the table, on which her elbows rested, her
+head on her hands, and the light shining on her fair brown hair. There
+she sat, until the fire died out, and the late wintry dawn came. She
+was not unused to such watches; wakefulness was habitual to her, and
+care had often kept her company. But no vigil had ever tired her so
+much. Her mind was at work, and suffering. When at length she rose
+from her chair with an impatient shiver, dark circles were round her
+blue eyes, and her pure waxen complexion looked thick and yellow. She
+lighted a candle, turned the gas out, and went for a moment to the
+window. The cold grey light was beginning to steal through the
+shutter, which she opened wide, and then looked out. She set the
+candle down, and leaned idly against the window. Weariness and
+restlessness were upon her. The street was quite empty, and the houses
+opposite looked inexpressibly gloomy. "One would think all the people
+in them were dead instead of asleep," she said, half aloud, as she
+pulled the blind down with a jerk, and turned away. She went slowly
+upstairs to her bed-room, and as she went, she murmured:
+
+"Where will it end? How will it end? It is an awful risk!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+IN THE BALANCE.
+
+
+Not one word came from Mrs. Carruthers for full six weeks. The hope
+which had sprung up in George Dallas's breast after the interview with
+his mother in the housekeeper's room had gone through the various
+stages common to unfulfilled desires in men of sanguine temperaments.
+It had been very bright at first, and when no letter came after the
+lapse of a week, it had begun to grow dim, and then he had endeavoured
+to reason with himself that the very fact of no letter coming ought to
+be looked upon as a good sign, as showing that "something was doing."
+Then the absence of any news caused his hope to flicker until the
+recollection of the old adage, that "no news was good news," made it
+temporarily bright again; then as the time for payment of the renewed
+bill grew nearer and nearer, so did George Dallas's prospects become
+gloomier and yet more gloomy, and at last the light of hope went out,
+and the darkness of despair reigned paramount in his bosom. What could
+his mother be about? She must have pretended that she had some bill of
+her own to pay, and that the money was immediately required; old
+Carruthers must have questioned her about it, and there must have been
+a row; she must have tried to "collar" the amount out of the
+housekeeping--no! the sum was too large; that was absurd! She had old
+friends--people who knew and loved her well, and she must have asked
+some of them to lend it to her, and probably been refused; old friends
+always refuse to lend money. She must have tried--confound it all, he
+did not know, he could not guess what she had tried! All he did know,
+to his sorrow, was, that she had not sent the money; all he knew,
+to his joy, was, that though he was constantly seeing Stewart Routh,
+that worthy lad, as yet, uttered no word of discontent at its
+non-appearance.
+
+Not he! In the hand which Stewart Routh was at that moment playing in
+the greater game of life, the card representing a hundred and forty
+pounds was one on which he bestowed very little attention. It might,
+or it might not, form part of the odd trick, either way: but it had
+very little influence on his strategy and finesse. There were times
+when a five-pound note might have turned his chance, but this was not
+one of them. Driven into a corner, pressed for the means of
+discharging paltry debts, harassed by dunning creditors, Stewart Routh
+would have needed and claimed the money due to him by George Dallas.
+Present circumstances were more favourable, and he only needed George
+Dallas's assistance in his schemes. For, Stewart Routh's measures for
+raising money were of all kinds and of all dimensions; the elephant's
+trunk of his genius could pick up a five-pound-note bet from a flat at
+_écarté_, or could move the lever of a gigantic city swindle. And he
+was "in for a large thing" just at this time. Men attending
+professionally at the betting-ring at the great steeplechase then
+coming off, noticed Routh's absence with wonder, and though he
+occasionally looked in at two or three of the second-rate sporting
+clubs of which he was a member, he was listless and preoccupied. If he
+took a hand at cards, though from mere habit he played closely and
+cautiously, yet he made no great points, and was by no means, as
+usual, the dashing Paladin round whose chair men gathered thickly, and
+whose play they backed cheerily. No! The paltry gains of the dice-box
+and cards paled before the glamour of the fortune to be made in
+companies and shares; the elephant's trunk was to show its strength
+now, as well as its dexterity, and the genius which had hitherto been
+confined to "bridging" a pack of cards, or "securing" a die, talking
+over a flat or winning money of a greenhorn, was to have its vent in
+launching a great City Company. Of this scheme Dallas knew nothing. A
+disinherited man, with neither name nor influence, would have been
+utterly useless; but he was reserved for possible contingencies. Routh
+was always sending to him to call, always glad to see him when he
+called, and never plagued him with allusions to his debt. But in their
+interviews nothing but mere generalities were discussed, and George
+noticed that he always received a hint to go whenever Mr. Deane was
+announced.
+
+But although Stewart Routh was seen but seldom in his usual haunts, he
+was by no means inactive or neglectful of his own interests. Day after
+day he spent several hours in the City, diligently engaged in the
+formation of his new Company, a grand undertaking for working some
+newly-discovered silver mines in the Brazils; and day after day were
+his careful scheming, his elaborate plotting, his vivacious daring,
+and his consummate knowledge of the world, rewarded by the steady
+progress which the undertaking made. The temporary offices in
+Tokenhouse-yard were besieged with inquirers; good brokers with City
+names of high standing offered their services; splendid reports came
+from the engineers, who had been sent out to investigate the state of
+the mines. Only one thing was wanting, and that was capital; capital,
+by hook or by crook, Mr. Stewart Routh must have, and was determined
+to have. If the affair were to be launched, the brokers said, the next
+week must see it done; and the difficulty of raising the funds for the
+necessary preliminary expenses was becoming day by day more and more
+palpable and insurmountable to Stewart Routh.
+
+The interval of time that had witnessed so much activity on the part
+of Mr. Stewart Routh, and had advanced his schemes close to a
+condition of imminent crisis, had been productive of nothing new or
+remarkable in the existence of George Dallas. That is to say, on the
+surface of it. He was still leading the desultory life of a man who,
+with an intellectual and moral nature capable of better deeds and
+nobler aspirations, is incurably weak, impulsive, and swayed by a love
+of pleasure; a man incapable of real self-control, and with whom the
+gratification of the present is potent, above all suggestions or
+considerations of the contingencies of the future. He worked a little,
+and his talent was beginning to tell on the popularity of the paper
+for which he worked, The Mercury, and on the perceptions of its
+proprietors. George Dallas was a man in whose character there were
+many contradictions. With much of the fervour of the poetic
+temperament, with its sensuousness and its sensitiveness, he had a
+certain nonchalance about him, a fitful indifference to external
+things, and a spasmodic impatience of his surroundings. This latter
+was apt to come over him at times when he was apparently merriest, and
+it had quite as much to do with his anxiety to get his debt to Routh
+discharged, and to set himself free from Routh, as any moral sense of
+the danger of keeping such company, or any moral consciousness of the
+waste of his life, and the deterioration of his character. George
+Dallas had no knowledge of the true history of Routh's career; of the
+blacker shades of his character he was entirely ignorant. In his eyes
+Routh was a clever man and a good-for-nothing, a "black sheep" like
+himself, a sheep for whose blackness Dallas (as he did in his own
+case) held circumstances, the white sheep, anything and everything
+except the man himself, to blame. He was dimly conscious that his
+associate was stronger than he, stronger in will, stronger in
+knowledge of men, and somehow, though he never defined or acknowledged
+the feeling to himself, he mistrusted and feared him. He liked him,
+too, he felt grateful to him for his help; he did not discern the
+interested motives which actuated him, and, indeed, they were but
+small, and would by no means have accounted for all Routh's
+proceedings towards Dallas. Nor is it necessary that they should; a
+villain is not, therefore, altogether precluded from likings, or even
+the feebler forms of friendship, and Dallas was not simply silly and
+egotistical when he believed that Routh felt kindly and warmly towards
+him. Still, whether a merciful and occult influence was at work within
+him or the tide of his feelings had been turned by his stolen
+interview with his mother, by his being brought into such positive
+contact with her life and its conditions, and having been made to
+realize the bitterness he had infused into it, it were vain to
+inquire. Whatever his motives, however mixed their nature or confused
+their origin, he was filled, whenever he was out of Routh's presence,
+and looked his life in the face, with an ardent longing to
+"cut the whole concern," as he phrased it in his thoughts. And
+Harriet?--for the "whole concern" included her, and he was forced to
+remember--Harriet, the only woman whose society he liked--Harriet, whom
+he admired with an admiration as pure and respectful as he could have
+felt for her, had he met her in the least equivocal, nay, even in the
+most exalted position. Well, he would be very sorry to lose Harriet,
+but, after all, she cared only for Routh; and he was dangerous. "I
+must turn over a new leaf, for _her_ sake" (he meant for his
+mother's); "and I can't turn it while they are at my elbows." From
+which conviction on the part of George it is sufficiently evident that
+Routh and Harriet had ample reason to apprehend that Dallas, on whom
+they desired to retain a hold, for more reasons than one, was slipping
+through their fingers.
+
+George Dallas was more than usually occupied with such thoughts one
+morning, six weeks after his unsuccessful visit to Poynings. He had
+been very much with Routh and Deane during this period, and yet he had
+begun to feel aware, with a jealous and suspicious sense of it, too,
+that he really knew very little of what they had been about. They met
+in the evening, in pursuit of pleasure, and they abandoned themselves
+to it; or they met at Routh's lodgings, and Dallas surrendered himself
+to the charm which Harriet's society always had for him. But he had
+begun to observe of late that there was no reference to the occupation
+of the earlier part of the day, and that while there was apparently a
+close bond of mutual confidence or convenience between Routh and
+Deane, there was some under-current of mutual dislike.
+
+"If my mother can only get me out of this scrape, and I can get the
+_Piccadilly_ people to take my serial," said George Dallas to himself
+one morning, when April was half gone, and "the season" was half come,
+"I shall get away somewhere, and go in for work in earnest." He
+looked, ruefully enough, round the wretched little bed-room, at whose
+small window he was standing, as he spoke; and he thought impatiently
+of his debt to his coarse shrewish landlady, and of the small
+liabilities which hampered him as effectually as the great one. It was
+later than his usual hour of rising, and he felt ill and despondent:
+not anxious to face the gay, rich, busy world outside, and still less
+inclined for his own company and waking thoughts in the shabby little
+den he tenanted. A small room, a mere apology for a sitting-room, was
+reached through a rickety folding-door, which no human ingenuity could
+contrive to keep shut if any one opened the other door leading to the
+narrow passage, and the top of the steep dark staircase. Through this
+yawning aperture George lounged disconsolately into the little room
+beyond, eyeing with strong disfavour the preparations for his
+breakfast, which preparations chiefly consisted of a dirty table-cloth
+and a portion of a stale loaf, popularly known as a "heel." But his
+gaze travelled further, and brightened; for on the cracked and
+blistered wooden chimney-piece lay a letter in his mother's hand. He
+darted at it, and opened it eagerly, then held it for a moment in his
+hand unread. His face turned very pale, and he caught his breath once
+or twice as he muttered:
+
+"Suppose it's to say she can't do anything at all." But the fear, the
+suspense were over with the first glance at his mother's letter. She
+wrote:
+
+"Poynings, 13th April, 1861.
+
+"My Dear George,--I have succeeded in procuring you the money, for
+which you tell me you have such urgent need. Perhaps if I admired, and
+felt disposed to act up to, a lofty standard of sentimental
+generosity, I should content myself with making this announcement, and
+sending you the sum which you assure me will release you from your
+difficulties, and enable you to commence the better life on which you
+have led me to hope you are resolved. But not only do the
+circumstances under which I have contrived to get this money for you
+make it impossible for me to act in this way, but I consider I should
+be very wrong, and quite wanting in my duty, if I failed to make you
+understand, at the cost of whatever pain to myself, the price I have
+had to pay for the power of aiding you.
+
+"You have occasioned me much suffering, George. You, my only child, to
+whom I looked in the first dark days of my early bereavement, with
+such hope and pride as I cannot express, and as only a mother can
+understand--you have darkened my darkness and shadowed my joy, you
+have been the source of my deepest anxiety, though not the less for
+that, as you well know, the object of my fondest love. I don't write
+this to reproach you--I don't believe in the efficacy of reproach; but
+merely to tell you the truth--to preface another truth, the full
+significance of which it may prove very beneficial to you to
+understand. Sorrow I have known through you, and shame I have
+experienced for you. You have cost me many tears, whose marks can
+never be effaced from my face or my heart; you have cost me infinite
+disappointment, bitterness, heart-sickness, and domestic wretchedness;
+but now, for the first time, you cost me shame on my own account. Many
+and great as my faults and shortcomings have been through life, deceit
+was equally abhorrent to my nature and foreign to my habits. But for
+you, George, for your sake, to help you in this strait, to enable you
+to release yourself from the trammels in which you are held, I have
+descended to an act of deceit and meanness, the recollection of which
+must for ever haunt me with a keen sense of humiliation. I retain
+enough of my former belief in you, my son, to hope that what no other
+argument has been able to effect, this confession on my part may
+accomplish, and that you, recognizing the price at which I have so far
+rescued you, may pause, and turn from, the path leading downward into
+an abyss of ruin, from which no effort of mine could avail to snatch
+you. I have procured the money you require, by an expedient suggested
+to me accidentally, just when I had begun utterly to despair of ever
+being able to accomplish my ardent desire, by a conversation which
+took place at dinner between Mr. Carruthers and his family solicitor,
+Mr. Tatham. The conversation turned on a curious and disgraceful
+family story which had come under his knowledge lately. I need not
+trouble you to read, nor myself to write, its details; you will learn
+them when I see you, and give you the money; and I do not doubt, I
+dare not doubt, George, that you will feel all I expect you to feel
+when you learn to how deliberate, laborious, and mean a deception I
+have descended for your sake. I can never do the same thing again; the
+expedient is one that it is only possible to use once, and which is
+highly dangerous even in that one instance. So, if even you were bad
+and callous enough to calculate upon a repetition of it, which I could
+not believe, my own dear boy, I am bound to tell you that it never
+could be. Unless Mr. Carruthers should change his mind, consequent
+upon an entire, radical, and most happy change in your conduct, all
+pecuniary assistance on my part must be entirely impossible. I say
+this, thus strongly, out of the kindest and best motives towards you.
+Your unexpected appearance and application agitated and distressed me
+very much; not but that the sight of you, under any circumstances,
+must always give me pleasure, however closely pursued and overtaken by
+pain. For several days I was so completely upset by the recollection
+of your visit, and the strong and desperate necessity that existed for
+repressing all traces of such feelings, that I was unable to think
+over the expedients by which I might procure the money you required.
+Then as I began to grow a little quieter, accident gave me the hint
+upon which I have acted secretly and safely. Come down to Poynings in
+three days from this time. Mr. Carruthers is at present away at an
+agricultural meeting at York, and I can see you at Amherst, without
+difficulty or danger. Go to the town, but not to the inn. Wait about
+until you see my carriage. This is the 13th. I shall expect you on the
+17th, by which day I hope to have the money ready for you.
+
+"And now, my dear boy, how shall I end this letter? What shall I say?
+What can I say that I have not said again and again, and with sadly
+little effect, as you will not deny! But I forbear, and I hope. A
+feeling that I cannot define, an instinct, tells me that a crisis in
+my life is near. And what can such a crisis in my life mean, except in
+reference to you, my beloved and only child? In your hands lies all
+the future, all the disposition of the 'few and evil' years which
+remain to me. How are you going to deal with them? Is the love, which
+can never fail or falter, to be tried and wounded to the end, George,
+or is it to see any fruition in this world? Think over this question,
+my son, and let me read in your face, when I see you, that the answer
+is to be one of hope. You are much changed, George, the bitterness is
+succeeding the honey in your mouth; you are 'giving your strength for
+that which is not meat, and your labour for that which satisfieth
+not,' and though all the lookers-on at such a career as yours can see,
+and always do see, its emptiness and insufficiency plainly, what does
+their wisdom, their experience, avail? But if wisdom and experience
+come to _yourself_, that makes all the difference. If _you_ have
+learned, and I venture to hope you _have_, that the delusive light is
+but a 'Will of the Wisp,' you will cease to pursue it. Come to me,
+then, my boy. I have kept my word to you, at such a cost as you can
+hardly estimate, seeing that no heart can impart _all_ its bitterness
+to another; will you keep yours to me?
+
+"C. L. Carruthers."
+
+
+"What does she mean? What can she mean?" George Dallas asked himself
+this question again and again, as he stood looking at the letter in
+his hand. "What has _she_ done? A mean and deliberate deceit--some
+dishonourable transaction? My mother could not do anything deserving
+to be so called. It is impossible. Even if she could contemplate such
+a thing, she would not know how to set about it. God bless her!"
+
+He sat down by the table, drew the dingy Britannia-metal teapot over
+beside his cup, and sat with his hand resting idly upon the distorted
+handle, still thinking less of the relief which the letter had brought
+him, than of the mysterious terms in which it was couched.
+
+"She can't have got it out of Carruthers without his knowing anything
+about it?" he mused. "No; besides, getting it from him at all, is
+precisely the thing she told me she could not do. Well, I must wait to
+know; but how good of her to get it! Who's the fellow who says a man
+can have only one mother? By Jove, how right he is!"
+
+Then George ate his breakfast hastily, and, putting the precious
+letter in his breast-pocket, went to Routh's lodgings.
+
+"I dare say they're not up," he thought, as he knocked at the door,
+and patiently waited the lingering approach of the slipshod servant.
+"Routh was as late as I was last night, and I know she always sits up
+for him."
+
+He was right; they had not yet appeared in the sitting-room, and he
+had time for a good deal of walking up and down, and much cogitation
+over his mother's letter, before Harriet appeared. She was looking
+anxious, Dallas thought, so he stepped forward even more eagerly than
+usual, and told her in hurried tones of gladness that the post had
+brought him good news, and that his mother was going to give him the
+money.
+
+"I don't know how she has contrived to get it, Mrs. Routh," he said.
+
+"Does she not tell you, then?" asked Harriet, as she eyed with some
+curiosity the letter which Dallas had taken out of his pocket, and
+which he turned about in his hand, as he stood talking to her. As she
+spoke, he replaced the letter in his pocket, and sat down.
+
+"No," he answered, moodily, "she does not; but she did not get it
+easily, I know--not without a very painful self-sacrifice; but here's
+Routh."
+
+"Ha! Dallas, my boy," said Routh, after he had directed one fleeting
+glance of inquiry towards his wife, and almost before he had fairly
+entered the room. "You're early--any news?"
+
+"Very good news," replied Dallas; and he repeated the information he
+had already given Harriet. Routh received it with a somewhat feigned
+warmth, but Dallas was too much excited by his own feelings to
+perceive the impression which the news really produced on Routh.
+
+"Is your letter from the great Mr. Carruthers himself?" said Routh;
+"from the provincial magnate who has the honour of being stepfather to
+you--your magnificent three-tailed bashaw?"
+
+"Oh dear no!" said the young man grimly; "not from him. My letter is
+from my mother."
+
+"And what has she to say?" asked Harriet quickly.
+
+"She tells me she will very shortly be able to let me have the sum I
+require."
+
+"The deuce she will!" said Routh. "Well, I congratulate you, my boy! I
+may say I congratulate all of us, for the matter of that; but it's
+rather unexpected, isn't it? I thought Mrs. Carruthers told you, when
+you saw her so lately, that the chances of her bleeding that charming
+person, her husband, were very remote."
+
+"She did say so, and she was right; it's not from him she's going to
+get the money. Thank Heaven for that!"
+
+"Certainly, if you wish it, though I'm not sure that we're right
+in being over-particular whence the money comes, so that it does
+come when one wants it. What is that example in the Eton Latin
+Grammar--'I came to her in season, which is the chief thing of all?'
+But if not from Mr. Carruthers, where does she get the money?"
+
+"I--I don't know; but she does not get it without some horrible
+self-sacrifice; you may depend on that."
+
+"My dear George, Mrs. Carruthers's case is not a singular one. We none
+of us get money without an extraordinary amount of self-sacrifice."
+
+"Not a singular one! No, by George, you're right there, Routh," said
+the young man bitterly; "but does that make it any lighter for her to
+bear, or any better for me to reflect upon? There are hundreds of
+vagabond sons in England at this moment, I dare say, outcasts--sources
+of shame and degradation to their mothers, utterly useless to any one.
+I swear, when I think of what my mother must have gone through to
+raise this money, when I think of the purpose for which it is
+required, I thoroughly loathe myself, and feel inclined to put a
+pistol to my head or a razor to my throat. However, once free,
+I--there--that's the old cant again!"
+
+As the young man said these words, he rose from his chair, and fell
+to pacing the room with long strides. Stewart Routh looked up sternly
+at him from under his bent brows, and was about to speak; but Harriet
+held up a finger deprecatingly, and when George Dallas seated himself
+again, and, with his face on his hands, remained moodily gazing at the
+table, she stole behind him and laid her hand on his shoulder.
+
+"I know you would not intentionally wound _me_, Mr. Dallas," she said.
+"I say, you would not intentionally wound _me_," she repeated,
+apparently in answer to his turning sharply round and staring at her
+in surprise; "but you seem to forget that it was I who counselled your
+recent visit to your mother, and suggested your asking her for this
+sum of money, which you were bound in honour to pay, and without the
+payment of which you--who have always represented yourself as most
+dear to her--would have been compromised for ever. I am sorry I did
+so, now that I see my intentions were misunderstood, and I say so
+frankly."
+
+"I swear to you, Har--Mrs. Routh--I had not the slightest idea
+of casting the least imputation on your motives; I was only
+thinking--You know I'm a little hot on the subject of my mother,
+not without reason, perhaps, for she's been a perfect angel to me,
+and--one can't expect other people to enter into these things, and, of
+course, it was very absurd. But you must forget it, please, Mrs.
+Routh, and you too, Stewart. If I spoke sharply or peevishly, don't
+mind it, old fellow!"
+
+"I?" said Routh, with a crisp laugh. "I _don't_ mind it; and I dare say
+I was very provoking; but you see I never knew what it was to have a
+mother, and I'm not much indebted to my other parent. As to the money,
+George--these are hard times, but if the payment of it is to drive a
+worthy lady to distress, or is to promote discord between you and me,
+why, in friendship's name, keep it, I say!"
+
+"You're a good fellow, Stewart," said Dallas, putting out his hand;
+"and you, Mrs. Routh, have forgiven me?" Though she only bowed her
+head slightly, she looked down into his face with a long, steady,
+earnest gaze. "There's an end of it, then, I trust," he continued; "we
+never have had words here, and I hope we're not going to begin now. As
+for the money, that must be paid. Whatever my mother has had to do is
+as good as done, and need not be whined over. Besides, I know you want
+the money, Stewart."
+
+"That's simply to say that I am in my normal state. I always want
+money, my dear George."
+
+"You shall have this, at all events. And now I must be off, as I have
+some work to do for the paper. See you very soon again. Good-bye,
+Stewart. The cloud has quite passed away, Mrs. Routh?"
+
+She said "Quite," as she gave him her hand, and their eyes met. There
+was eager inquiry in his glance; there was calm, steadfast earnestness
+in hers. Then he shook hands with Routh, and left the room.
+
+The moment the door closed behind him; the smile faded away from
+Routh's face, and the stern look which it always wore when he was
+preoccupied and thoughtful settled down upon it For a few minutes he
+was silent; then he said in a low voice: "Harriet, for the first time
+in your life, I suppose, you very nearly mismanaged a bit of business
+I intrusted to you."
+
+His wife looked at him with wonder-lifted brows. "I, Stewart? Not
+intentionally, I need not tell you. But how?"
+
+"I mean this business of George's. Did not you advise him to go down
+and see his mother?"
+
+"I did. I told him he must get the money from her."
+
+"A mistake, Harry, a mistake!" said Routh, petulantly. "Getting the
+money means paying us; paying us means breaking with us?"
+
+"Breaking with us?"
+
+"Nothing less. Did you not hear him when the remorseful fit was on him
+just now? And don't you know that he's wonderfully young, considering
+all things, and has kept the bloom on his feelings in a very
+extraordinary manner? Did you not hear him mutter something about
+'once free'? I did not like that, Harry."
+
+"Yes, I heard him say those words," replied Harriet. "It was my
+hearing them that made me go up to him and speak as I did."
+
+"That was quite right, and had its effect. One does not know what he
+might have done if he had turned rusty just then. And it is essential
+that there should not be a rupture between us now."
+
+"George Dallas shall not dream of breaking with us; at least, he shall
+not carry out any such idea; I will take care of that," said Harriet,
+"though I think you overrate his usefulness to us."
+
+"Do I? I flatter myself there is no man in London forced to gain his
+bread by his wits who has a better eye for a tool than myself. And I
+tell you, Harry, that during all the time we have been leading this
+shifty life together, we have never had any one so suitable to our
+purposes as George Dallas."
+
+"He is certainly wonderfully amenable."
+
+"Amenable? He is a good deal more than that; he is devoted. You know
+whose doing that is, Harry, and so do I. Why, when you laid your hand
+on his shoulder I saw him shiver like a leaf, and the first few words
+from you stilled what I thought was going to be a heavy storm."
+
+She looked up anxiously into his face, but the smile had returned to
+his lips, and his brow was unclouded. Not perfectly satisfied, she
+suffered her eyes to drop again.
+
+"I know perfectly well," pursued Routh, "that the manner in which
+Dallas has stuck to us has been owing entirely to the influence you
+have over him, and which is natural enough. He is a bright young
+fellow, impressionable as we all are----" again her eyes were raised
+to his face, "--at his age; and though from the scrapes he has got
+into, and his own natural love of play (more developed in him than in
+any other man I ever met), though these things keep him down, he is
+innately a gentleman. You are the only woman of refinement and
+education to whose society he has access, and as, at the same time,
+you have a sweet face and an enormous power of will, it is not
+extraordinary that he should be completely under your influence."
+
+"Don't you overrate that same influence, Stewart?" she asked with a
+faint smile.
+
+"No man knows better how to appraise the value of his own goods--and
+you are my goods, are you not, Harry, and out and away, the best of
+all my goods? Not that that's saying much. No; I understand these
+things, and I understand you, and having perfect confidence and trust
+in you, I stand by and watch the game."
+
+"And you're never jealous, Stewart?" she asked, with a half-laugh, but
+with the old expression of anxious interest in her eyes.
+
+"Jealous, Harry? Not I, my love! I tell you, I have perfect trust and
+confidence in you, and I know your thorough devotion to our affairs.
+Let us get back to what we were talking about at first--what was it
+exactly?"
+
+Her eyes had dropped again at the commencement of his reply, but she
+raised them as he finished speaking, and said, "We were discussing the
+amount of George Dallas's usefulness to us."
+
+"Exactly. His usefulness is greater than it seems. There is nothing so
+useful in a life like ours as the outward semblance of position. I
+don't mean the mere get up; that most fools can manage; but the
+certain something which proclaims to his fellows and his inferiors
+that a man has had education and been decently bred. There are very
+few among our precious acquaintances who could not win Dallas's coat
+off his back, at cards, or billiards, or betting, but there is not one
+whom I could present to any young fellow of the smallest appreciation
+whom I might pick up. Even if their frightful appearance were not
+sufficiently against them--and it is--they would say or do something
+in the first few minutes which would awake suspicion, whereas Dallas,
+even in his poverty-stricken clothes of the last few weeks, looks like
+a gentleman, and talks and behaves like one."
+
+"Yes," said Harriet, reflecting, "he certainly does; and that's a
+great consideration, Stewart?"
+
+"Incalculable! Besides, though he is a thorough gambler at heart, he
+has some other visible profession. His 'connection with the press,' as
+he calls it, seems really to be a fact; he could earn a decent salary
+if he stuck to it. From a letter he showed me, I make out that they
+seem to think well of him at the newspaper office; and mind you,
+Harriet, he might be uncommonly useful to us some day in getting
+things kept out of the papers, or flying a few rumours which would
+take effect in the money-market or at Tattersall's. Do you see all
+that, Harry?"
+
+"I see it," she replied; "I suppose you're right."
+
+"Eight? Of course I am! George Dallas is the best ally--and the
+cheapest--we have ever had, and he must be kept with us."
+
+"You harp upon that 'kept with us.' Are you still so persuaded that he
+wishes to shake us off?"
+
+"I am. I feel convinced, from that little outburst to-night, that he
+is touched by this unexplained sacrifice on the part of his mother,
+and that in his present frame of mind he would give anything to send
+us adrift and get back into decent life. I feel this so strongly,
+Harriet," continued Routh, rising from his seat, crossing to the
+mantelshelf, and taking a cigar, "that I think even your influence
+would be powerless to restrain him, unless--"
+
+"Unless what? Why do you pause?" she asked, looking up at him with a
+clear steadfast gaze.
+
+"Unless," said Routh, slowly puffing at his newly-lighted cigar,
+"unless we get a fresh and a firm hold on him. He will pay that
+hundred and forty pounds. Once paid that hold is gone, and with it
+goes our ally!"
+
+"I see what you mean," said Harriet, after a pause, with a short
+mirthless laugh. "He must be what they call in the East 'compromised.'
+We are plague-stricken. George Dallas must be seen to brush shoulders
+with us. His garments must be known to have touched ours. Then the
+uninfected will cast him out, and he will be reduced to herd with us."
+
+"You are figurative, Harry, but forcible: you have hit my meaning
+exactly. But the main point still remains--_how_ is he to be
+'compromised'?"
+
+"It is impossible to settle that hurriedly," she replied, pushing her
+hair back from her forehead. "But it must be done effectually, and the
+step which he is led to take, and which is to bind him firmly to us,
+must be irrevocable. Hush! Come in!"
+
+These last words were in reply to a knock at the room door. A dirty
+servant-girl put her tangled head into the room, and announced "Mr.
+Deane" as waiting down-stairs. This statement was apparently
+incorrect, for the girl had scarcely made it before she disappeared,
+as though pulled back, and a man stepped past her, and made one stride
+into the middle of the room, where he stood looking round him with a
+suspicious leer.
+
+He was a young man, apparently not more than two or three and twenty,
+judging by his figure and his light active movements; but cunning and
+deceit had stamped such wrinkles round his eyes, and graven such lines
+round his mouth, as are seldom to be seen in youth. His eyes, of a
+greenish-gray hue, were small and deeply sunk in his head; his
+cheek-bones were high, his cheeks fringed by a very small scrap of
+whisker running into a dirt-coloured tuft of hair growing underneath
+his chin. His figure was tall and; angular, his arms and legs long and
+awkward, his hands and feet large and ill-shaped. He wore a large
+thick overcoat with broad fur collar and cuffs, and a hood (also
+fur-lined) hanging back on his shoulders. With the exception of a very
+slight strip of ribbon, he had no cravat underneath his long limp
+turnover collar, but stuck into his shirt-front was a large and
+handsome diamond pin.
+
+"Why, what the 'tarnal," he commenced, placing his arms a-kimbo and
+without removing his hat--"what the 'tarnal, as they say down west, is
+the meaning of this little game? I come here pretty smart often, don't
+I? I come in gen'lly right way, don't I? Why does that gal go totin'
+up in front of me to-day to see if you would see me, now?"
+
+"Some mistake, eh?"
+
+"Not a bit of it! Gal was all right, gal was. What I want to know is,
+what was up? Was you a practisin' any of your little hankey-pankeys
+with the pasteboards? Was you a bitin' in a double set of scrip of the
+new company to do your own riggin' of the market? Or was it a little
+bit of quiet con-nubiality with the mar-darm here in which you didn't
+want to be disturbed?"
+
+Stewart Routh's face had been growing darker and darker as this speech
+proceeded, and at the allusion to his wife his lips began to move; but
+they were stopped by a warning pressure underneath the table from
+Harriet's foot.
+
+"You're a queer fellow, Deane!" he said, in a subdued voice. "The fact
+is, we have a new servant here, and she did not recognize you as
+_l'ami de la maison_, and so stood on the proprieties, I suppose."
+
+"O, that's it, eh? I don't know about the proprieties; but when the
+gal knows more of me, she'll guess I'm one of 'em. Nothing improper
+about me--no loafin' rowdy ways, such as some of your friends have.
+Pay my way as I go, ask no favours, and don't expect none." He gave
+his trousers pockets a ringing slap as he spoke, and looked round with
+a sneering laugh.
+
+"There, there! It's all right; now sit down, and have a glass of wine,
+and tell us the news."
+
+"No," he said, "thank'ee. I've been liquoring up in the City, where
+I've been doin' a little business--realizing some of them Lake Eries
+and Michigans as I told you on. Spanking investments they were, and
+have turned up trumps."
+
+"I hope you're in the hands of an honest broker," said Routh. "I could
+introduce you to one who--"
+
+"Thank'ee, I have a great man to broke for me, recommended to me from
+t'other side by his cousin who leads Wall-street, New York City. I
+have given him the writings, and am going to see him on Tuesday, at
+two, when I shall trouser the dollars to the tune of fifteen thousand
+and odd, if markets hold up, I reckon."
+
+"And you'll bring some of that to us in Tokenhouse-yard," said Routh
+eagerly. "You recollect what I showed you, that I--"
+
+"O yes!" said Deane, again with the sinister smile. "You could talk a
+'coon's hind leg off, you could, Routh. But I shall just keep my
+dollars in my desk for a few days. Tokenhouse-yard can wait a little,
+can't it? just to see how things eventuate, you know."
+
+"As you please," said Routh. "One thing is certain, Deane; you need no
+Mentor in your business, whatever you may do in your pleasures."
+
+"Flatter myself, need none in neither," said the young man, with a
+baleful grin. "Eh, look here, now: talking of pleasures, come and dine
+with me on Tuesday at Barton's, at five. I've asked Dallas, and we'll
+have a night of it. Tuesday, the 17th, mind. Sorry to take your
+husband away, Mrs. R., but I'll make up for it, some day. Perhaps
+you'll come and dine with me some day, Mis R., without R.?"
+
+"Not I, Mr. Deane," said Harriet, with a laugh. "You're by far too
+dangerous a man."
+
+Mr. Deane was gone; and again Stewart Routh sat over the table,
+scribbling figures on his blotting-pad.
+
+"What are you doing, Stewart?"
+
+"Five dollars to the pound--fifteen thousand," he said, "three
+thousand pounds! When did he say he would draw it?"
+
+"On Tuesday, the--the day you dine with him."
+
+"The day I dine with him! Keep it in his desk, he said, for a few
+days! He has grown very shy about Tokenhouse-yard. He hasn't been
+there for a week. The day I dine with him!" He had dropped his pen,
+and was slowly passing his hand over his chin.
+
+"Stewart," said Harriet, going behind him and putting her arm round
+his neck--"Stewart, I know what thought you're busy with, but--"
+
+"Do you, Harry?" said he, disengaging himself, but not unkindly--"do
+you? Then keep it to yourself, my girl, and get to bed. We must have
+that, Harry, in one way or another; we must have it."
+
+She took up a candle, pressed her lips to his forehead, and went to
+her room without a word. But for full ten minutes she remained
+standing before the dressing-table buried in thought, and again she
+muttered to herself: "A great risk! A great risk!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+GOING DOWN.
+
+
+On the evening of the day appointed for the dinner, Mr. Philip Deane
+stood on the steps of Barton's restaurant in the Strand, in anything
+but a contented frame of mind. His face, never too frank or genial in
+its expression, was puckered and set in rigid lines; his right hand
+was perpetually diving into his waistcoat-pocket for his watch, to
+which he constantly referred; while with, a light stick which he
+carried in his left, he kept striking his leg in an irritable and
+irritating manner.
+
+Mr. Deane had cause for annoyance; it was a quarter past seven, and
+neither of the guests whom he had invited had as yet appeared, though
+the dinner had been appointed for seven sharp. Crowds of men were
+pouring into and out of the restaurant, the first hungry and
+expectant, the last placid and replete; and Mr. Deane envied the first
+for what they were about to receive, and the last for what they had
+received. Moreover, the intended diners had in several cases pushed
+against him with scant ceremony, and Mr. Deane was not accustomed to
+be pushed against; while the people who had dined eyed him, as they
+stood on the steps lighting their cigars, with something like
+compassion, and Mr. Deane was unused to be pitied. So he stood there
+fretting and fuming, and biting his lips and flicking his legs, until
+his shoulder was grasped by George Dallas, who, with as much breath as
+he could command--not much, for he had been running--said:
+
+"My dear Deane! a thousand apologies for being so late! Not my own
+fault, I protest!"
+
+"Never is, of course," said Mr. Deane.
+
+"Really it was not in this instance. I went round to the _Mercury_
+office to look at some proofs, and they kept me to do an article on a
+subject which I had had the handling of before, and which--"
+
+"No one else could handle arter you, eh? Pretty tall opinion you
+newspaper-writin' fellows have of yourselves! And why didn't you bring
+Routh with you when you did come!"
+
+"Routh! I haven't seen him for three days. Isn't he here!"
+
+"Not he! I've been coolin' myself on this a'mighty old doorstep since
+seven o'clock, only once goin' inside just to look round the saloon,
+and I've not set eyes on him yet."
+
+"How very odd!"
+
+"So very odd, that I'll see him somethingest before I wait for him any
+longer! Come you in with me. I took a table right slick opposite the
+door, and we'll go and strike up at once."
+
+He turned on his heel as he spoke, and walked up the passage into the
+large coffee-room of the restaurant. Dallas, who followed him closely,
+noticed him pause for an instant before one of the looking-glasses in
+the passage, put his hat a little more on one side, and throw open the
+folds of his fur-lined coat. Beneath this noticeable garment Mr. Deane
+wore a large baggy suit of black, an open-worked shirt-front with
+three large diamond studs in it, a heavy gold watch-chain. There was a
+large diamond ring on the little finger of each hand. Thus tastefully
+attired, Mr. Deane, swaggering easily up the centre of the coffee-room
+and slapping his leg with his stick as he went, at length stopped at a
+vacant table, and clinked a knife against a tumbler.
+
+"Now, waiter! Just look smart and slippy, and bring up our dinner
+right away. One of my friends is here, and I'm not a-goin' to wait for
+the other. He must take his chance, he must; but bring up ours at
+once, d'ye hear? Why, what on airth is _this?_"
+
+"This" was a boy of about twelve years of age, with a dirty face and
+grimy hands, with an old peakless cap on its head, and a very shiny,
+greasy, ragged suit on its back. "This" seemed to have been running
+hard, and was out of breath, and was very hot and damp in the face.
+Following Mr. Deane's glance, the waiter's eyes lighted on "this," and
+that functionary immediately fell into wrathful vernacular.
+
+"Hullo! what are you doing here?" said he. "Come, you get out of this,
+d'ye hear?"
+
+"I hear," said the boy, without moving a muscle. "Don't you flurry
+yourself in that way often, or you'll bust! And what a go that'd be!
+You should think of your precious family, you should!"
+
+"Will you--"
+
+"No, I won't, and that's all about it. Here, guv'nor "--to
+Deane--"you're my pitch; I've brought this for you." As he said this,
+the boy produced from his pocket a bit of string, a pair of musical
+bones, and a crumpled note, and handed the latter to Deane, who
+stepped aside to the nearest gas-jet to read it. To the great
+indignation of the waiter, the boy sat himself down on the edge of a
+chair, and, kicking his legs to and fro, surveyed the assembled
+company with calm deliberation. He appeared to be taking stock
+generally of everything round him. Between his dirty finger and thumb
+he took up a corner of the table-cloth, then he passed his hand
+lightly over Dallas's overcoat, which was lying on an adjacent chair.
+This gave the waiter his chance of bursting out again.
+
+"Leave that coat alone, can't you? Can't you keep your fingers off
+things that don't belong to you? Thought it was your own, perhaps,
+didn't you?" This last remark, in a highly sarcastic tone, as he
+lifted the coat from the chair and was about to carry it to a row of
+pegs by the door. "This ain't your mark, I believe? Your tailor don't
+live at Hamherst, does he?"
+
+"Never mind my tailor, old cock! P'raps you'd like my card, but I've
+'appened to come out without one. But you can have my name and
+address--they're very haristocratic, not such as you're used to. Jim
+Swain's my name--Strike-a-light Jim--60 Fullwood's-rents. Now,
+tell me who's your barber!" The waiter, who had a head as bald as a
+billiard-ball, was highly incensed at this remark (which sent some
+young men at an adjoining table into roars of laughter), and he would
+probably have found some means of venting his wrath, had not a sharp
+exclamation from Deane called off his attention.
+
+"Get up dinner, waiter, at once, and clear off this third place, d'ye
+hear? The other gentleman ain't comin'. Now, boy, what are you waiting
+for?"
+
+"No answer to go back, is there, guv'nor?"
+
+"Answer? No; none."
+
+"All right. Shall I take that sixpence of you now, or will you give it
+me to-morrow? Short reck'nings is my motter. So if you're goin' to
+give it, hand it over."
+
+Unable to resist a smile, Deane took a small coin from his purse and
+handed it to the boy, who looked at it, put it in his pocket, nodded
+carelessly to Deane and Dallas, and departed, whistling loudly.
+
+"Routh is not coming, I suppose?" said Dallas as they seated
+themselves at the table.
+
+"No, he has defected, like a cussed skunk as he is, after giving me
+the trouble to order his dinner, which I shall have to pay for all the
+same. Regular riles me, that does, to be put in the hole for such a
+one-horse concern as Mr. Routh. He ought to know better than to play
+such tricks with me."
+
+"Perhaps he is compelled to absent himself. I know--"
+
+"Compelled! That might do with some people, but it won't nohow do with
+me. I allow no man to put a rudeness on me. Mr. Routh wants more of me
+than I do of him, as I'll show him before long. He wants me to come to
+his rooms to-morrow night--that's for his pleasure and profit, I
+guess, not mine--just depends on the humour I'm in. Now here's the
+dinner. Let's get at it at once. There's been no screwin' nor scrapin'
+in the ordering of it, and you can just give Routh a back-hander next
+time you see him by telling him how much you liked it."
+
+Deane unfolded his table napkin with a flourish, and cleared a space
+in front of him for his plate. There was an evil expression on his
+face; a mordant, bitter, savage expression, which Dallas did not fail
+to remark. However, he took no notice of it, and the conversation
+during dinner was confined to ordinary commonplaces.
+
+Mr. Deane had not boasted without reason; the dinner was excellent,
+the wines were choice and abundant, and with another kind of companion
+George Dallas would have enjoyed himself. But even in the discussion
+of the most ordinary topics there was a low coarseness in Deane's
+conversation, a vulgar self-sufficiency and delight at his own
+shrewdness, a miserable mistrust of every one, and a general arrogance
+and conceit which were highly nettling and repulsive. During dinner
+these amiable qualities displayed themselves in Mr. Deane's
+communication with the waiter; it was not until the cloth had been
+removed, and they were taking their first glass of port, that Deane
+reverted to what had annoyed him before they sat down.
+
+"That Routh's what they call a mean cuss, t'other side the water," he
+commenced; "a mean cuss he is, and nothing else. Throwing me over in
+this way at the last minute, and never sending word before, so that I
+might have said we shall only be two instead of three, and saved
+paying for him! He thinks he's cruel wide awake, he does; but though
+he's been at it all his life, and it's not six months since I first
+caught sight of this little village nominated London, I don't think
+there's much he could put me up to now!"
+
+He looked so expectant of a compliment, that Dallas felt bound to say:
+"You certainly seem to have made the most of your time!"
+
+"Made the most of my time! I reckon I have! Why, there's no s'loon,
+oyster-cellar, dancing-shop, night-house of any name at all, where I'm
+not regular well known. 'Here's the Yankee,' they say, when I come
+in; not that I'm that, but I've told 'em I hail from the U-nited
+States, and that's why they call me the Yankee. They know me, and they
+know I pay my way as I go, and that I've got plenty of money. Help
+yourself--good port this, ain't it?--ought to be, for they charge
+eight shillings a bottle for it. Why people out t'other side the
+water, sir, they think I'm staying in titled country-houses, and
+dining in Portland-place, and going to hear oratorios. I've got
+letters of introduction in my desk which would do all that, and more.
+Never mind! I like to shake a loose leg, and, as I flatter myself I
+can pretty well take care of myself, I shake it!"
+
+"Yes," said Dallas, in a slightly bitter tone, with a vivid
+recollection of his losses at cards to Deane; "yes, you can take care
+of yourself."
+
+"Rather think so," repeated Deane, with a jarring laugh. "There are
+two things which are guiding principles with me--number one, never to
+lend a dollar to any man; number two, always to have the full value
+of every dollar I spend. If you do that, you'll generally find
+yourself not a loser in the end. We'll have another bottle of this
+eight-shilling port. I've had the value of this dinner out of you,
+recollect, so that I'm not straying from my principle. Here, waiter,
+another bottle of this eight-shilling wine!"
+
+"You're a lucky fellow, Deane," said George Dallas, slowly finishing
+his second glass of the fresh bottle; "you're a lucky fellow, to have
+plenty of money and to be your own master, able to choose your own
+company, and do as you like. I wish I had the chance!" As Dallas
+spoke, he filled his glass again.
+
+"Well, there are worse berths than mine in the ship, and that's a
+fact!" said Deane calmly. "I've often thought about you, Dallas, I
+have now, and I've often wondered when you'll be like the prodigal
+son, and go home to your father, and succeed the old man in the
+business."
+
+"I have no father!"
+
+"Hain't you though? But you've got some friends, I reckon, who are not
+over-delighted at your campin' out with the wild Injuns you're living
+among at present?"
+
+"I have a mother."
+
+"That's a step towards respectability. I suppose you'll go back to the
+old lady some day, and be welcomed with open arms?"
+
+"There's some one else to have a say in that matter. My mother is--is
+married again. I have a stepfather."
+
+"Not generally a pleasant relation, but no reason why you shouldn't
+help yourself to this eight-shilling wine. That's right; pass the
+bottle. A stepfather, eh? And he and you have collided more than once,
+I expect?"
+
+"Have what?"
+
+"Collided."
+
+"Do you mean come into collision?"
+
+"Expect I do," said Deane calmly. "I'm forbidden the house. I'm looked
+upon as a black sheep--a pest--a contamination."
+
+"But the old gentleman wouldn't catch anything from you. They don't
+take contamination easy, after fifty!"
+
+"Oh, it's not for himself that Mr. Carruthers is anxious; he is
+infection proof--he--What is the matter?"
+
+"Matter? Nothing! What name did you say?"
+
+"Carruthers--Capel Carruthers. County family down in Kent."
+
+"Go ahead!" said Deane, tossing off his wine, refilling his glass, and
+pushing the bottle to his companion; "and this old, gentleman is not
+anxious about himself, you say; where is your bad influence likely to
+fall, then?"
+
+"On his niece, who lives with them."
+
+"What's her name?"
+
+"Clare. Clare Carruthers! Isn't it a pretty name?"
+
+"It is so, sir! And this niece. What's she like, now?"
+
+George Dallas tried to throw a knowing gleam into his eyes, which
+the perpetual motion of the decanter had rendered somewhat bleared
+and vacant, as he looked across at his companion, and said with a
+half-laugh: "You seem to take a great interest in my family, Deane?"
+
+Not one whit discomposed, Philip Deane replied: "Study of character as
+a citizen of the world, and a general desire to hear what all gals are
+like. Is Miss Clare pretty?"
+
+"I've only seen her once, and that not too clearly. But she struck me
+as being lovely."
+
+"Lovely, eh? And the old man won't have you at any price? That's
+awkward, that is!"
+
+"Awkward!" said Dallas, in a thick voice, "it's more than awkward, as
+he shall find! I'll be even with him--I'll--Hallo! What do you want,
+intruding on gentlemen's conversation?"
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," said the waiter, to whom this last remark was
+addressed; "no offence, gentlemen, but going to shut up now! We ain't
+a supper-'ouse, gentlemen, and it's going on for twelve o'clock."
+
+Indeed, all the other tables were vacated, so Deane rose at once and
+paid the bill which the waiter had laid before him. Dallas rose too
+with a staggering step.
+
+"Coat, sir," said the waiter, handing it to him; "other arm, sir,
+please; gently does it, sir; that's it!" And with some little
+difficulty he pulled the coat on: George Dallas cursing it, and the
+country tailor who had made it, as he stood rocking uneasily on his
+heels and glaring vacantly before him.
+
+"Come along, old horse," said Deane; "you'll be fixed as firm as
+Washington Capitol when we get into the air. Come along, and we'll go
+and finish the night somewhere!"
+
+So saying, he tucked his companion's arm firmly within his own, and
+they sallied forth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+DELAY.
+
+
+George Dallas felt that his fortunes were in the ascendant, when he
+arose on the morning following the dinner with Deane, and found
+himself possessed of ten pounds, which he had been sufficiently sober
+to win at billiards the previous night, and consequently in a position
+to pay off his landlady, and turn his back upon the wretched lodging,
+which her temper, tyranny, and meanness had made more wretched. He
+lost no time in packing up the few articles he possessed--mainly
+consisting of books and drawing-materials--and these, together with
+his scanty wardrobe, he threw into a couple of trunks, which he
+himself carried down the steep dark staircase and deposited in a cab.
+The landlady stood at the door, in the gray morning, and watched her
+late lodger, as he strode down the shabby little street, followed by
+the luggage-laden cab. She watched him, wondering. She wondered where
+he had got the money he had just paid her. She wondered where he had
+got the money to pay an extra week's rent, in default of a week's
+notice. When she had dunned him yesterday, as rudely and mercilessly
+as usual, he had said nothing indicative of an expectation of an
+immediate supply of money. He had only said that he hoped to pay her
+soon. "Where did he get the money?" the old woman thought, as she
+watched him. "I hope he come by it honest. I wonder where he's going
+to. He did not tell the cabman, leastways so as I could hear him. Ah!
+It ain't no business of mine; I'll just turn the rooms out a bit, and
+put up the bill."
+
+So Mrs. Gunther (for that was the lady's name) re-entered the shabby
+house, and a great activity accompanied by perpetual scolding pervaded
+it for some hours, during which the late tenant was journeying down to
+Amherst.
+
+George Dallas strictly observed the directions contained in his
+mother's letter, and having started by an early train, reached Amherst
+at noon. Rightly supposing that at such an hour it would be useless to
+look for his mother in the little town, he crossed the railroad in a
+direction leading away from Amherst, struck into some fields, and
+wandered on by a rough footpath which led through a copse of
+beech-trees to a round bare hill. He sat down when he had reached this
+spot, from whence he could see the road to and from Poynings. A
+turnpike was at a little distance, and he saw a carriage stopped
+beside the gate, and a footman at the door receiving an order from a
+lady, whose bonnet he could just discern in the distance. He stood up
+and waited. The carriage approached, and he saw that the liveries were
+those of Mr. Carruthers. Then he struck away down the side of the
+little declivity, and crossing the railway at another point, attained
+the main street of the little town. It was market-day. He avoided the
+inn, and took up a position whence he could watch his mother's
+approach. There were so many strangers and what Mr. Deane would have
+called "loafers" about, some buying, some selling, and many honestly
+and unfeignedly doing nothing, that an idler more or less was certain
+to pass without any comment, and it was not even necessary to keep
+very wide of the inn. He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking
+into the window of the one shop in Amherst devoted to the interests of
+literature, which was profusely decorated with out-of-date valentines,
+much criticised by flies, and with feebly embossed cards, setting
+forth the merits of local governesses. At that time prophetic
+representations of the International Exhibition of '62 were beginning
+to appeal to the patriotic soul in light blue drawings, with flags
+innumerable displayed wheresoever they could be put "handy." George
+Dallas calmly and gravely surveyed the stock-in-trade, rather
+distracted by the process of watching the inn door, between which and
+his position intervened a group of farmers, who were to a man chewing
+bits of whipcord, and examining samples of corn, which they extracted
+in a stealthy manner from their breeches-pocket, and displayed
+grudgingly on their broad palms. On the steps of the inn door were one
+or two busy groups, and not a man or woman of the number took any
+notice of Mrs. Carruthers's son. They took very considerable notice of
+Mrs. Carruthers herself, however, when her carriage stopped; and Mr.
+Page, the landlord, actually came out, quite in the old fashioned
+style, to open the lady's carriage, and escort her into the house.
+George watched his mother's tall and elegant figure, as long as she
+was in sight, with mingled feelings of pleasure, affection, something
+like real gratitude, and very real bitterness; then he turned,
+strolled past the inn where the carriage was being put up, and took
+his way down the main street, to the principal draper's shop, He went
+in, asked for some gloves, and turned over the packets set before him
+with slowness and indecision. Presently his mother entered, and took
+the seat which the shopman, a mild person in spectacles, handed her.
+She, too, asked for gloves, and, as the shopman turned his back to the
+counter, rapidly passed a slip of paper to her son. She had written on
+it, in pencil:
+
+"At Davis's the dentist's, opposite, in ten minutes."
+
+"These will do, thank you. I think you said three and sixpence?" said
+George to the shopman, who, having placed a number of gloves before
+Mrs. Carruthers for her selection, had now leisure to attend to his
+less important customer.
+
+"Yes, sir, three and sixpence, sir. One pair, sir? You'll find them
+very good wear, sir."
+
+"One pair will do, thank you," said George. He looked steadily at his
+mother, as he passed her on his way to the door, and once more anger
+arose, fierce and keen, in his heart--anger, not directed against her,
+but against his stepfather. "Curse him!" he muttered, as he crossed
+the street, "what right has he to treat me like a dog, and her like a
+slave? Nothing that I have done justifies--no, by Heaven, and nothing
+that I could do, would justify--such treatment."
+
+Mr. Davis's house had the snug, cleanly, inflexible look peculiarly
+noticeable even amid the general snugness, cleanliness, and
+inflexibility of a country town, as attributes of the residences of
+surgeons and dentists, and gentlemen who combine both those fine arts.
+The clean servant who opened the door looked perfectly cheerful and
+content. It is rather aggravating, when one is going to be tortured,
+even for one's ultimate good, to be assured in a tone almost of glee:
+
+"No, sir, master's not in, sir; but he'll be in directly, sir. In the
+waiting-room, sir." George Dallas not having come to be tortured, and
+not wishing to see Mr. Davis, bore the announcement with good humour
+equal to that of the servant, and sat down very contentedly on a high,
+hard, horsehair chair, to await events. Fortune again favoured him;
+the room had no other occupant; and in about five minutes he again
+heard the cheerful voice of the beaming girl at the door say,
+
+"No, m'm, master's not in; but he'll be in d'rectly, m'm. In the
+waiting-room, m'm. There's one gentleman a-waitin', m'm, but master
+will attend on you first, of course, m'm."
+
+The next moment his mother was in the room, her face shining on him,
+her arms round him, and the kind words of the truest friend any human
+being can be to another, poured into his ears.
+
+"You are looking much better, George," she said, holding him back from
+her, and gazing fondly into his face. "You are looking brighter, my
+darling, and softer, and as if you were trying to keep your word to
+me."
+
+"Pretty well, mother, and I am very thankful to you. But your letter
+puzzled me. What does it mean? Have you really got the money, and how
+did you manage to get it?"
+
+"I have not got it, dear," she said quickly, and holding up her hand
+to keep him silent; "but it is only a short delay, not a
+disappointment. I shall have it in two or three days."
+
+George's countenance had fallen at her first words, but the remainder
+of the sentence reassured him, and he listened eagerly as she
+continued:
+
+"I am quite sure of getting it, George. If it does but set you free, I
+shall not regret the price I have paid for it."
+
+"Tell me what it is mother," George asked eagerly. "Stay, you must not
+sit so close to me."
+
+"I'm not sure that your voice ought to be heard either, speaking so
+familiarly, _tête-à-tête_ with the important Mrs. Carruthers of
+Poynings--a personage whose sayings and doings are things of note at
+Amherst," said Mrs. Carruthers with a smile, as he took a seat at a
+little distance, and placed one of the samples of periodical
+literature strewn about the table, after the fashion of dentists' and
+surgeons' waiting-rooms, ready to her hand, in case of interruption.
+Then she laid her clasped hands on the table, and leaned against them,
+with her clear dark eyes fixed upon her son's face, and her steady
+voice, still sweet and pure in its tones as in her youth, as she told
+him what she had done.
+
+"Do you remember, George, that on that wretched night you spoke of my
+diamonds, and seemed to reproach me that I should wear jewels, while
+you wanted so urgently but a small portion of their price?"
+
+"I remember, mother," returned George, frowning, "and a beast I was to
+hint such a thing to you, who gave me all that ever was your own! I
+hoped you had forgiven and forgotten it. Can it be possible that you
+have sold--But no; you said they were family jewels."
+
+"I will tell you. When you had gone away that night, and I was in the
+ball-room, and later, when I was in my dressing-room alone, and could
+think of it all again, the remembrance of what you had said tormented
+me. The jewels you had seen me wearing were, indeed, as I had told
+you, not my own; nevertheless, the remembrance of all I had ever read
+about converting jewels into money occupied my mind that night, and
+occupied it after that night for days and days. One day Mr. Tatham
+came to Poynings, and in the evening being, as he always is, very
+entertaining, he related an extraordinary story of a client of his.
+The tale, as he told it, had many particulars, but one caught my
+attention. The client was a woman of large fortune, who married for
+love a man much younger than herself, a dissipated fellow who broke
+her fortune, and might have broken her heart, but for his getting
+killed in riding a steeple-chase. After his timely death it was
+discovered, among a variety of dishonourable transactions, that he had
+stolen his wife's diamonds, with the connivance of her maid; had had
+them imitated in mock stones by a famous French dealer in false
+jewelry; and had substituted the false for the real. No suspicion of
+the fact had ever crossed his wife's mind. The discovery was made by
+the jeweller's bill for the imitation being found among the papers.
+This led to inquiry of the dealer, who gave the required information.
+The moment I heard the story, I conceived the idea of getting you the
+money you wanted by a similar expedient."
+
+"Oh, mother!"
+
+She lifted one hand with a gesture of caution, and continued, in a
+voice still lower than before:
+
+"_My_ jewels--at least those I have sold--were my own, George. Those I
+wore that night were, as I told you, family diamonds; but Mr.
+Carruthers gave me, when we were married, a diamond bracelet, and I
+understood then that it was very valuable. I shrank from such a
+deception. But it was for you, and I caught at it."
+
+George Dallas sat with his hands over his face and no more interrupted
+her by a single word.
+
+"By one or two questions I stimulated Mr. Carruthers's curiosity in
+the strange story, so that he asked Mr. Tatham several questions as to
+where the mock jewels were made, whether they cost much, and, in fact,
+procured for me all the information I required. That bracelet was the
+only thing I had of sufficient value for the purpose, because it is
+expensive to get an imitation of any ornament made of very fine
+stones, as my bracelet is, and richly set. If the act were still to
+do, I should do it, George--for you--and still I should feel, as I do
+most bitterly feel, that in doing it I shamefully deceive my husband!"
+
+Still George Dallas did not speak. He felt keenly the degradation to
+which he had reduced his mother; but so great and pervading was his
+bitterness of feeling towards his mother's husband, that when the
+wrong to him presented itself to his consideration, he would not
+entertain it. He turned away, rose, and paced the room. His mother
+sighed heavily as she went on.
+
+"George, you know this is not the first time I have suffered through
+and for you, and that this is the first time I have ever done an act
+which I dare not avow. I will say no more."
+
+He was passing behind her chair as she spoke, and he paused in his
+restless walk to kneel down by her, clasp her in his arms, and kiss
+her. As he rose from his knees, she looked at him with a face made
+radiant with hope, and with a mother's love.
+
+"This is how it was done, George," she continued. "I wrote to an old
+friend of mine in Paris, a French lady, once my schoolfellow. I told
+her I wanted my bracelet matched, in the best manner of imitation
+jewelry, as our English fashions required two, and I could not afford
+to purchase another made of real diamonds. I urged the strictest
+secrecy, and I know she will observe it; for she loves mystery only a
+little less than she loves dress. She undertook the commission with
+alacrity, and I expected to have had both the bracelets yesterday!"
+
+"What a risk you would have run, mother, supposing an occasion for
+your wearing the bracelet had arisen!"
+
+"Like Anne of Austria and the studs?" said his mother with a smile.
+"But there was no help for it. More deceit and falsehood must have
+followed the first. If the occasion had arisen, Mr. Carruthers would
+have questioned me, and I should have said I had sent it to be
+cleaned, when he would have been angry that I should have done so
+without consulting him."
+
+"Tyrannical old brute!" was George's mental comment.
+
+"All the meanness and all the falsehood was planned and ready, George;
+but it was needless. Mr. Carruthers was summoned to York, and is still
+there. It is much for me that the parcel should arrive during his
+absence. I heard from my friend the day before I wrote to you, that
+she was about to send it immediately, and I wrote to you at once. It
+is to be directed to Nurse Brookes."
+
+"How did you explain _that_, mother!" George asked quickly.
+
+"More lies, more lies," she answered sadly, rejoicing in her heart the
+while to see how he writhed under the words. "I told her what was
+needful in the way of false explanation, and I made certain of having
+the bracelets to-day. So I must have done but for a second letter from
+my friend Madame de Haulleville, to the effect that, having a sudden
+opportunity of sending the packet to England by a private hand, she
+had availed herself of it, at the loss of (at most, she writes) a day
+or two."
+
+"Confound her French parsimony!" said George; "think of the
+unnecessary risk she makes us run, when I come down here for nothing."
+
+"It is not so much parsimony as precaution, George. And she could know
+nothing of any risk."
+
+"What is to be done, then?" he asked, in a softer tone.
+
+"Can you not remain at Amherst?" asked his mother. "Have you anything
+to do which will prevent your remaining here for a day or two? If not
+you will be as well here as in London, for there is no danger of Mr.
+Carruthers seeing you."
+
+"Suppose he did?" George burst out. "Is he the lord and master of all
+England, including Amherst? Perhaps the sunshine belongs to him, and
+the fresh air? If I keep away from Poynings, that's enough for him,
+surely."
+
+Mrs. Carruthers had risen, and looked appealingly at him.
+
+"Remember, George, your misconduct would justify Mr. Carruthers in the
+eyes of the world, for the course he has taken towards you; or," here
+she moved near to him, and laid her hand on his arm, "if you refuse to
+consider _that_, remember that Mr. Carruthers is my husband, and that
+I love him."
+
+"I will, mother, I will," said George impetuously. "Graceless,
+ungrateful wretch that I am! I will never say another word against
+him. I will remain quietly here as you suggest. Shall I stay at the
+inn? Not under my own name; under my not very well known but some day
+of course widely to be famous pen-name--Paul Ward. Don't forget it,
+mother, write it down; stay, I'll write it for you. P-a-u-l W-a-r-d."
+He wrote the name slowly on a slip of paper, which Mrs. Carruthers
+placed between the leaves of her pocket-book.
+
+"You must go now," she said to him; "it is impossible you can wait
+here longer. We have been singularly fortunate as it is. When I write,
+I will tellyou whether I can come to you here--in the town, I
+mean--or whether you shall come to me. I think you will have to come
+to me. Now go, my darling boy." She embraced him fondly.
+
+"And you, mother?"
+
+"I will remain here a little longer. I have really something to say to
+Mr. Davis."
+
+He went. Black care went with him, and shame and remorse were busy at
+his heart. Would remorse deepen into repentance, and would repentance
+bear wholesome fruit of reformation? That was for the future to
+unravel. The present had acute stinging pain in it, which he longed to
+stifle, to crush out, to get away from, anyhow. He loved his mother,
+and her beautiful earnest face went with him along the dusty road; the
+unshed tears in her clear dark eyes seemed to drop in burning rain
+upon his heart; the pleading tones of her sorrowful voice filled all
+the air. How wicked and wretched, how vain, silly, and insipid, how
+worthless and vulgar, all his pleasures and pursuits seemed now! A new
+spirit arose in the wayworn, jaded man; a fresh ambition sprang up in
+his heart. "It's a wretched, low, mean way of getting free, but I have
+left myself no choice. I _must_ take advantage of what she has done
+for me, and then I never will wrong her love and generosity again. I
+will do right, and not wrong; this is my resolution, and I will work
+it out, _so help me God!_"
+
+He had unconsciously come to a stop at the noble old oak gates, flung
+hospitably open, of a wide-spreading park, through one of whose vistas
+a grand old mansion in the most elaborate manner of the Elizabethan
+style was visible. He looked up, and the beauty of the prospect struck
+him as if it had been created by an enchanter's wand. He looked back
+along the road by which he had come, and found that he had completely
+lost sight of Amherst.
+
+He went a pace or two beyond the gate pillars. A hale old man was
+employed in nailing up a trailing branch of jessamine against the
+porch of the lodge.
+
+"Good afternoon, old gentleman. This is a fine place, I fancy."
+
+"Good afternoon, sir. It is a fine place. You'll not see many finer in
+Amherst. Would you like to walk through it, sir? You're quite
+welcome."
+
+"Thank you. I should like to walk through it. I have never been down
+this way before. What is the name of this place, and to whom does it
+belong?"
+
+"It is called the Sycamores, sir, and it belongs to Sir Thomas
+Boldero."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+AMONG THE BEECHES.
+
+
+A fine avenue of beech-trees led from the gate through which George
+Dallas had passed, to the house which had attracted his admiration.
+These grandest and most beautiful of trees were not, however, the
+distinguishing feature of the place: not its chief pride. "The
+Sycamores" was so called in honour of a profusion of trees of that
+kind, said in the neighbourhood to have no rivals in all England. Be
+that as it might, the woodland scenery in Sir Thomas Boldero's noble
+park was beautiful in the highest degree, and of such beauty George
+Dallas was keenly and artistically appreciative. The tender loveliness
+of the spring was abroad throughout the land; its voices, its
+gladness, its perfumes, were around him everywhere, and as the young
+man strolled on under the shadow of the great branches, bearing their
+tender burden of bright, soft, green, half-unclosed buds, the weight
+and blackness of care seemed to be lifted off him, and his heart
+opened to fresh, pure, simple aspirations, long strangers to his jaded
+but not wholly vitiated character. He was very young, and the blessed
+influence of youth told upon him, its power of receiving impressions,
+its faculty of enjoyment, its susceptibility to external things--a
+blessing or a curse as it is used--its buoyancy, its hopefulness. As
+George Dallas turned from the broad smooth carriage-way, and went
+wandering over the green elastic turf of the carefully kept park,
+winding in and out through the boles of the grand old trees, treading
+now on a tender twig, again on a wild flower, now startling from her
+nest a brooding lark, anon stopping to listen to a burst of melody
+from some songster free from domestic cares, he was hardly
+recognizable as the man who had sat listening to Philip Deane's hard
+worldly talk at the Strand tavern the day before.
+
+"Brighter and softer" his mother had said he was looking, and it was
+true. Brighter and softer still the hard, pleasure-wearied, joyless
+face became, as the minutes stole over him, among the sycamores and
+beeches. He had pursued his desultory path a mile or more, and had
+lost sight of the house and the avenue, when he came to a beautiful
+open glade, carpeted with turf of the softest green, and over-arched
+by forest trees. Looking down its long vista, he saw that it
+terminated with a brilliant flower-garden, and a portion of a noble
+stone terrace, lying beneath one side of the many-turreted house. He
+stood entranced by the beauty of the scene, and, after a few moments,
+felt in his pocket for pencil and paper, in order to sketch it. He
+found both, and looking round him, saw a piece of the trunk of a
+felled tree, not yet removed by the care of the forester.
+
+"A capital place to sketch from," thought George, as he folded his
+coat, and laid it upon the convenient block, and immediately became
+absorbed in his occupation. He was proceeding rapidly with his sketch,
+and feeling rather disposed to get it finished as quickly as he could,
+in order that he might return to the inn and procure some food, of
+which he stood in considerable need, when he caught the sound of
+galloping upon the turf in the distance behind him. He raised his head
+and listened; there it was, the dull rapid thud of hoofs on the grass.
+Was there one rider, or were there more? He listened again--only one,
+he thought; and now the rapid noise ceased, and was succeeded by the
+slow, pattering sound of a horse ridden daintily and gently about and
+about, by a capricious fancy. Still George listened, and presently
+there came riding out of the shadowy distance into the full expanse of
+the glade, down which the declining sun sent golden rays, as if in
+salutation, a lady, who was, as his first glance showed him, young and
+beautiful. She was quite unconscious of his presence, for the piece of
+timber on which he had been sitting was out of the line of sight, and
+though he had risen, he was still standing beside it. She came towards
+him, her slight form swaying to the movements of her bright bay
+thorough-bred, as she put the animal through all sorts of fanciful
+paces, now checking him with the rein, now encouraging him with her
+clear sweet young voice, and patting his arched neck with her
+white-gloved hand. The young man looked out from his hiding-place,
+enraptured, as she came on, a vision of youth, beauty, and refinement,
+down the wide green glade, the sun shining on her, the birds singing,
+the flowers blooming for her, the proud walls of the old house rising
+grandly in the back-ground, as if in boast of the worthy shelter that
+awaited her. Nearer and nearer she came, and now George Dallas could
+see her face distinctly, and could hear the pretty words with which
+she coaxed her horse. It was a face to remember; a face to be the
+happier for having seen; a face whose beauty was blended of form and
+colour, of soul, feature, and expression; a face which had all that
+the earth has to give of its best and fairest, touched with the glory
+which is higher and better, which earth has not to bestow. It was the
+face of a girl of nineteen, whose clear eyes were of golden brown,
+whose cheeks bloomed with the purest, most varying flower-like colour,
+whose rich golden hair shone in the sunlight, as its braids rippled
+and turned about with the movement of her head, tossed childishly to
+the rhythmical measure of her horse's tread.
+
+Half a dozen trees only intervened between her and the spot where
+George Dallas stood, greedily watching her every movement and glance,
+when she took her hat off, and pushed the heavy golden hair off her
+broad white forehead. At that moment her horse jerked the rein she
+held loosely, and pulled her slightly forward, the hat falling from
+her hand on the grass.
+
+"Now see what you have done," she said, with a gay laugh, as the
+animal stood still and looked foolish. "I declare I'll make you pick
+it up with your mouth. There, sir, turn, I tell you; come, you know
+how." And she put the horse through all the pretty tricks of stooping
+and half kneeling, in which she evidently felt much more pleasure than
+he did. But she did not succeed: he obeyed touch and word readily; but
+he did not pick up the hat. At last she desisted, and said with a
+funny look of mock patience:
+
+"Very well, Sir Lancelot, if you won't you won't, so I must get off."
+She had just gathered her skirt in her hand, and was about to spring
+from her saddle, when George Dallas stepped out from among the trees,
+picked up the hat, and handed it to her, with a bow.
+
+The young lady looked at him in astonishment, but she thanked him with
+self-possession, which he was far from sharing, and put her hat on,
+while Sir Lancelot pawed impatiently.
+
+"Thank you," she said; "I did not see any one near."
+
+"I was sitting yonder," said George, pointing to the spot whence he
+had emerged, "on some fallen timber, and was just taking the liberty
+of sketching the view of the house, when you rode up."
+
+She coloured, looked pleased and interested, and said, hesitatingly,
+having bidden Sir Lancelot "stand:" "You are an artist, sir?"
+
+"No," he answered, "at least, only in a very small way; but this is
+such a beautiful place, I was tempted to make a little sketch. But I
+fear I am intruding; perhaps strangers are not admitted."
+
+"Oh yes, they are," she replied hurriedly. "We have not many strangers
+in this neighbourhood; but they are all welcome to come into the park,
+if they like. Had you finished your sketch?" she asked timidly, with a
+look towards the sheet of paper, which had fallen when Dallas rose,
+and had been fluttered into sight by the gentle wind. George saw the
+look, and caught eagerly at any pretext for prolonging the interview a
+few moments.
+
+"May I venture to show you my poor attempt?" he asked, and without
+awaiting her answer, he stepped quickly back to the place he had left.
+The girl walked her horse gently forward, and as he stooped for the
+paper, she was beside him, and, lifting his head, he caught for a
+moment the full placid gaze of her limpid eyes. He reddened under the
+look, full of gentleness and interest as it was, and a pang shot
+through his heart, with the swift thought, that once he might have met
+such a woman as this on equal terms, and might have striven with the
+highest and the proudest for her favour. That was all over now; but at
+least he, even he, might sun himself in the brief light of her
+presence. She laid the rein on Sir Lancelot's neck, and took the
+little drawing from his hand with a timid expression of thanks.
+
+"I am no judge," she said, when she had looked at it, and he had
+looked at her, his whole soul in his eyes; "but I think it is very
+nicely done. Would you not like to finish it? Or perhaps there are
+some other points of view you would like to take? I am sure my uncle,
+Sir Thomas Boldero, would be delighted to give you every facility. He
+is very fond of art, and--and takes a great interest in artists."
+
+"You are very kind," said Dallas. "I shall be at Amherst a day or two
+longer, and I will take the liberty of making a few sketches--that
+splendid group of sycamores, for instance."
+
+"Ah, yes," she said, laughing, "I call them the godfathers and
+godmothers of the park. They would make a pretty picture. I tried to
+draw them once, myself, but you cannot imagine what a mess I made of
+it."
+
+"Indeed," said Dallas, with a smile, "and why am I to be supposed
+unable to imagine a failure?"
+
+"Because you are an artist," she said, with charming archness and
+simplicity, "and, of course, do everything well."
+
+This simple exhibition of faith in artists amused Dallas, to whom this
+girl was a sort of revelation of the possibilities of beauty,
+innocence, and _naïveté_.
+
+"Of course," he replied gravely; "nevertheless I fear I shall not do
+justice to the sycamores."
+
+And now came an inevitable pause, and he expected she would dismiss
+him and ride away, but she did not. It was not that she had any of the
+awkward want of manner which makes it difficult to terminate a chance
+interview, for she was perfectly graceful and self-possessed, and her
+manner was as far removed from clumsiness as from boldness. The girl
+was thinking, during the pause whose termination Dallas dreaded. After
+a little, she said:
+
+"There is a very fine picture-gallery at the Sycamores, and I am sure
+it would give my uncle great pleasure to show it to you. Whenever any
+gentlemen from London are staying at Amherst, or passing through, Mr.
+Page at the inn tells them about the picture-gallery, and they come to
+see it, if they care about such things; perhaps it was he who told
+you?"
+
+"No," said Dallas, "I am not indebted for the pleasure--for the
+happiness--of this day to Mr. Page. No one guided me here, but I
+happened to pass the gate, and a very civil old gentleman, who was
+doing some gardening at the lodge, asked me in."
+
+His looks said more than his words dared to express, of the feelings
+with which his chance visit had inspired him. But the girl did not see
+his looks; she was idly playing with Sir Lancelot's mane, and
+thinking.
+
+"Well," she said at last, settling herself in the saddle in a way
+unmistakably preliminary to departure, "if you would like to see the
+picture-gallery, and will walk round that way, through those trees, to
+the front of the house"--she pointed out the direction with the handle
+of her riding-whip--"I will go on before, and tell my uncle he is
+about to have a visitor to inspect his treasures."
+
+"You are very kind," said Dallas earnestly, "and you offer me a very
+great pleasure. But Sir Thomas Boldero may be engaged--ay think it an
+intrusion."
+
+"And a thousand other English reasons for not accepting at once a
+civility frankly offered," said the girl, with a delightful laugh. "I
+assure you, I could not gratify my uncle more than by picking up a
+stray connoisseur; or my aunt than by bringing to her a gentleman of
+sufficient taste to admire her trees and flowers."
+
+"And her niece, _Miss Carruthers_," thought George Dallas.
+
+"So pray go round to the house. Don't forget your coat. I see it upon
+the ground--there. It has got rubbed against the damp bark, and
+there's a great patch of green upon it."
+
+"That's of no consequence," said George gaily; "it's only an Amherst
+coat, and no beauty."
+
+"You must not make little of Amherst," said the girl, with mock
+gravity, as George stood rubbing the green stain off his coat with his
+handkerchief; "we regard the town here as a kind of metropolis, and
+have profound faith in the shops and all to be purchased therein. Did
+dear old Evans make that coat?"
+
+"A venerable person of that name sold it me," returned George, who had
+now thrown the coat over his arm, and stood, hat in hand, beside her
+horse.
+
+"The dear! I should not mind letting him make me a habit," she said.
+"Good-bye, for the present--that way," again she pointed with her
+whip, and then cantered easily off, leaving George in a state of mind
+which he would have found it very difficult to define, so conflicting
+where his thoughts and emotions. He looked after her, until the last
+flutter of her skirt was lost in the distance, and then he struck into
+the path which she had indicated, and pursued it, musing.
+
+"And that is Clare Carruthers! I thought I had seen that head
+before, that graceful neck, that crown of golden hair. Yes, it is
+she; and little she thinks whom she is about to bring into her uncle's
+house--the outcast and exile from Poynings! I will see it out; why
+should I not? I owe nothing to Carruthers that I should avoid this
+fair, sweet girl, because he chooses to banish me from her presence.
+What a presence it is! What am I that I should come into it?" He
+paused a moment, and a bitter tide of remembrance and self-reproach
+rushed over him, almost overwhelming him. Then he went on more
+quickly, and with a flushed cheek and heated brow, for anger was again
+rising within him. "You are very clever as well as very obstinate, my
+worthy stepfather, but you are not omnipotent yet. Your darling niece,
+the beauty, the heiress, the great lady, the treasure of price to be
+kept from the sight of me, from the very knowledge of anything so vile
+and lost, has met me, in the light of day, not by any device of mine,
+and has spoken to me, not in strained, forced courtesy, but of her own
+free will. What would you think of that, I wonder, if you knew it! And
+my mother? If the girl should ask my name, and should tell my mother
+of her chance meeting with a wandering artist, one Paul Ward, what
+will my mother think?--my dear conscientious mother, who has done for
+me what wounds her conscience so severely, and who will feel as if it
+were wounded afresh by this accidental meeting, with which she has
+nothing in the world to do." He lifted his hat, and fanned his face
+with it. His eyes were gleaming, his colour had risen; he looked
+strong, daring, active, and handsome--a man whom an innocent girl, all
+unlearned in life and in the world's ways, might well exalt in her
+guileless fancy into a hero, and be pardoned her mistake by older,
+sadder, and wiser heads.
+
+"How beautiful she is, how frank, how graceful, how unspeakably
+innocent and refined! She spoke to me with such an utter absence of
+conventional pretence, without a notion that she might possibly be
+wrong in speaking to a stranger, who had offered her a civility in her
+uncle's park. She told that man on the balcony that night that Sir
+Thomas Boldero was her uncle. I did not remember it when the old man
+mentioned the name. How long has she been here, I wonder? Is she as
+much here as at Poynings? How surprised she would be if she knew that
+I know who she is; that I have heard her voice before to-day; that in
+the pocket-book she held in her hand a few minutes ago there lies a
+withered flower, which she once touched and wore. Good God! What would
+a girl like that think of me, if she knew what I am--if she knew that
+I stole like a thief to the window of my mother's house, and looked
+in, shivering, a poverty-stricken wretch, come there to ask for alms,
+while she herself glittered among my mother's company, like the star
+of beauty and youth she is? How could she but despise me if she knew
+it! But she will never know it, or me, most likely. I shall try to get
+away and _work out all this_, far away in a country where no memories
+of sin and shame and sorrow will rise up around me like ghosts. I am
+glad to have seen and spoken to Clare Carruthers; it must do me good
+to remember that such a woman really exists, and is no poet's or
+romancer's dream. I am glad to think of her as my mother's friend,
+companion, daughter almost. My mother, who never had a daughter, and
+has, God help her, no son but me! But I shall never see her again,
+most likely. When I reach the house, I shall find a pompous servant,
+no doubt, charged with Sir Thomas's compliments, and orders to show me
+round a gallery of spurious Dutch pictures, copies of Raphael and
+Carlo Dolce, and a lot of languishing Lelys and gluttony-suggesting
+Knellers."
+
+"With these disparaging words in his thoughts, George Dallas reached
+the border of the park, and found himself in front of the house. The
+façade was even more imposing and beautiful than he had been led to
+expect by the distant view of it, and the wide arched doorway gave
+admittance to an extensive quadrangle beyond. A stone terrace
+stretched away at either side of the entrance, as at Poynings.
+Standing on the lower step, a tame peacock displaying his gaudy
+plumage by her side, he saw Miss Carruthers. She came forward to meet
+him with a heightened colour and an embarrassed manner, and said:
+
+"I am very sorry, indeed, but Sir Thomas and my aunt are not at home.
+They had no intention of leaving home when I went out for my ride, but
+they have been gone for some time." She looked towards a servant who
+stood near, and added: "I am so sorry; nothing would have given my
+uncle more pleasure; but if you will allow me, I will send--"
+
+George interrupted her, but with perfect politeness.
+
+"Thank you very much, but, if you will allow me, I will take my leave,
+and hope to profit by Sir Thomas Boldero's kindness on a future
+occasion." He bowed deeply, and was turning away, when, seeing that
+she looked really distressed, he hesitated.
+
+"I will show you the pictures myself, if you will come with me," she
+said, in a tone so frank, so kindly and engaging, that the sternest
+critic of manners in existence, supposing that critic to have been any
+other than an old maid, could not have condemned the spontaneous
+courtesy as forwardness. "I am an indifferent substitute for my
+uncle, as a cicerone, but I think I know the names of all the artists,
+and where all the pictures came from. Stephen,"--she spoke now to
+the servant,--"I am going to take this gentleman through the
+picture-gallery; go on before us if you please."
+
+So George Dallas and Clare Carruthers entered the house together, and
+lingered over the old carvings in the hall, over their inspection of
+the sporting pictures which adorned it, and the dining-room, over the
+family portraits in the vestibule, the old china vases, and the rococo
+furniture. Every subject had an interest for them, and they did not
+think of asking themselves in what that interest originated and
+consisted. The girl did not know the young man's name, but his voice
+was full of the charm of sweet music for her, and in his face her
+fancy read strange and beautiful things. He was an artist, she knew
+already, which in sober language meant that she had seen a very
+tolerable sketch which he had made. He was a poet, she felt quite
+convinced; for did he not quote Tennyson, and Keats, and Coleridge,
+and even Herrick and Herbert, as they wandered among the really fine
+and valuable paintings which formed Sir Thomas Boldero's collection,
+so aptly and with such deep feeling and appreciation as could spring
+only from a poetic soul?
+
+It was the old story, which has never been truly told, which shall
+never cease in the telling. Both were young, and one was beautiful;
+and though the present is an age which mocks at love at first sight,
+and indeed regards love at all, under any circumstances, with only
+decent toleration, not by any means amounting to favour, it actually
+witnesses it sometimes. The young man and the girl--the idle,
+dissolute, perverted young man; the beautiful, pure, innocent, proud,
+pious young girl--talked together that spring afternoon, as the hours
+wore on to evening, of art, of literature, of music, of travel, of the
+countless things over which their fancy rambled, and which had
+wondrous charms for her bright intellect and her secluded life, simple
+and ignorant in the midst of its luxury and refinement. All that was
+best and noblest in George's mind came out at the gentle bidding of
+the voice that sounded for him with a new, undreamed-of music; and the
+hard, cold, wicked world in which he lived, in which hitherto, with
+rare intervals of better impulses, he had taken delight, fell away
+from him, and was forgotten. The girl's grace and beauty, refinement
+and gentleness, were not more conspicuous than her bright intelligence
+and taste, cultivated, not indeed by travel or society, but by
+extensive and varied reading. Such was the influence which minute
+after minute was gaining upon George. And for her? Her fancy was
+busily at work too. She loved art; it filled her with wonder and
+reverence. Here was an artist, a young and handsome artist, of
+unexceptionable manners. She adored poetry, regarding it as a divine
+gift; and here was a poet--yes, a poet; for she had made Dallas
+confess that he very often wrote "verses;" but that was his modesty:
+she knew he wrote poetry--beautiful poetry. Would he ever let her see
+any of it?
+
+"Yes, certainly," he had answered; "when I am famous, and there is a
+brisk competition for me among the publishers, I will send a copy of
+my poems to you."
+
+"To me! But you do not know my name."
+
+"O yes, I do. You are Miss Carruthers."
+
+"I am; but who told you?"
+
+The question disconcerted Dallas a little. He turned it off by saying,
+"Why, how can you suppose I could be at Amherst without learning that
+the niece of Sir Thomas Boldero, of the Sycamores, is Miss
+Carruthers?"
+
+"Ah, true; I did not think of that," said Clare simply. "But I do
+not live here generally; I live with another uncle, my father's
+brother--Sir Thomas is my mother's--Mr. Capel Carruthers, at Poynings,
+seven miles from here. Have you heard of Poynings?"
+
+Yes, Mr. Dallas had heard of Poynings; but now he must take his leave.
+It had long been too dark to look at the pictures, and the young
+people were standing in the great hall, near the open door, whence
+they could see the gate and the archway, and a cluster of servants
+idling about and looking out for the return of the carriage. Clare was
+suddenly awakened to a remembrance of the lateness of the hour, and at
+once received her visitor's farewell, gracefully reiterating her
+assurances that her uncle would gladly make him free of the park for
+sketching purposes. She would tell Sir Thomas of the pleasant
+occurrences of the day;--by the by, she had not the pleasure of
+knowing by what name she should mention him to her uncle.
+
+"A very insignificant one, Miss Carruthers. My name is Paul Ward."
+
+And so he left her, and, going slowly down the great avenue among the
+beeches, met a carriage containing a comely, good-humoured lady and an
+old gentleman, also comely and good-humoured who both bowed and smiled
+graciously as he lifted his hat to them.
+
+"Sir Thomas and my lady, of course," thought George; "a much nicer
+class of relatives than Capel Carruthers, I should say."
+
+He walked briskly towards the town. While he was in Clare's company he
+had forgotten how hungry he was, but now the remembrance returned with
+full vigour, and he remembered very clearly how many hours had elapsed
+since he had eaten. When he came in sight of the railway station, a
+train was in the act of coming in from London. As he struck into a
+little by-path leading to the inn, the passengers got out of the
+carriages, passed through the station gate, and began to straggle up
+in the same direction. He and they met where the by-path joined the
+road, and he reached the inn in the company of three of the
+passengers, who were about to remain at Amherst. Mr. Page was in the
+hall, and asked George if he would dine.
+
+"Dine?" said George. "Certainly. Give me anything you like, so that
+you don't keep me waiting; that's the chief thing."
+
+"It _is_ late, sir, indeed," remarked Mr. Page; "half-past seven,
+sir."
+
+"So late?" said George carelessly, as he turned into the coffee-room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+GLAMOUR.
+
+
+When George Dallas had dined, he left the coffee-room, and retired to
+the bed-room which he had ordered, and which looked refreshingly clean
+and comfortable, when mentally contrasted with the dingy quarters on
+which he had turned his back in the morning. It was yet early in the
+evening, but he was tired; tired by the excitement and the various
+emotions of the day, and also by the long hours passed in the fresh
+balmy country air, which had a strange soporific effect on a man whose
+lungs and limbs were of the town, towny. The evening air was still a
+little sharp, and George assented readily to the waiter's proposition,
+made when he perceived that no more orders for drink were to be
+elicited from the silent and preoccupied young man, that "a bit of
+fire" should be kindled in his room. Over that "bit of fire" he sat
+long, his arms folded on his breast, his head bent, his brow lowering,
+his eyes fixed on the glowing embers. Was he looking at faces in the
+fire--his parents' faces, the faces of friends whom he had treated as
+enemies, of enemies whom he had taken for friends? Were reproachful
+eyes looking at him from out the past; were threatening glances in the
+present flashed on him? He sat there, black and moody, a long while,
+but at length his fixed gaze relaxed, the muscles of his mouth
+softened, broke into a slow smile, and a light came into his dull
+gloomy eyes. Then he rose, took his pocketbook from his breast-pocket,
+made some memoranda at the back of the sketch taken that day in Sir
+Thomas Boldero's park, put back the book, and, once more settling
+himself near the fire, lighted his pipe and began to smoke.
+
+The musing look remained upon his face, but it was no longer painful,
+and, as he smoked, he fell to building castles in the air, as
+baseless, maybe, as the vapour which curled in fantastic wreaths about
+his face, but tenanted by hope, and inspired by higher and better
+resolves than had animated George Dallas for many a day. The twin
+angels, love and gratitude, were near him; invisibly their soft white
+wings were fluttering about him, refreshing the jaded heart and the
+stained brow. His mother, and the girl whom he had that day seen for
+the second time, and recognized with feelings full of a bitter and
+evil impulse at first, but who had soon exercised over him a nameless
+fascination full of a pure and thrilling delight, such as no pleasure
+of all his sin-stained life had ever previously brought him--of these
+two he was thinking. If George Dallas could have seen his mother at
+the moment, when he, having laid his exhausted pipe upon the little
+wooden chimneypiece, and hastily undressed, lay down in his bed, with
+his hands clasped over the top of his head, in his favourite attitude
+when he had anything particular to think of, he would have found her
+not only thinking but talking of him. Mr. Carruthers was absent, so
+was Clare; she had the grand stately house all to herself, and she
+improved the occasion by having tea in her dressing-room, having
+dismissed her maid, affianced to a thriving miller in the village, to
+a tête-à-tête with her lover, and summoning her trusty friend Mrs.
+Brookes to a confidential conference with her. The two women had no
+greater pleasure or pain in their lives than talking of George. There
+had been many seasons before and since her second marriage when Mrs.
+Carruthers had been obliged to abstain from mentioning him, so keen
+and terrible was her suffering on his account, and at such seasons
+Ellen Brookes had suffered keenly too, though she had only vaguely
+known wherefore, and had always waited until the thickest and darkest
+of the cloud had passed, and her mistress had once more summoned
+courage to broach the subject never absent from the mind of either.
+
+There was no reticence on this occasion; the mother had taken a
+dangerous step, and one whose necessity she indeed deeply deplored,
+but she had gotten over the first great effort and the apprehension
+connected with it, and now she thought only of her son, she dwelt only
+upon the hope, the confidence, the instinctive belief within her, that
+this was really the turning-point, that her prayers had been heard,
+that the rock of a hard and stubborn heart had been struck and had
+yielded, that her son would turn from the old evil paths, would
+consider his ways and be wise for the future. So she sat and talked to
+the humble friend who knew her and loved her better than any one else
+in the world knew or loved her; and when she at length dismissed her
+and lay down to rest, there was more peace at her heart than had dwelt
+there for a long time past.
+
+So one of the women of whom the prodigal son had thought gently and
+gratefully that night, was thinking of him with love that no
+unworthiness could kill or lessen, with hope which no experience could
+exhaust. And the other? Well, the other was playing and singing to her
+uncle and aunt in the green drawing-room at the Sycamores, and if she
+had said little to Sir Thomas and Lady Boldero concerning the young
+artist who was so delighted with the picture-gallery, and who had
+despaired of doing justice to the grand old trees in the park, it is
+presumable that, like the parrot of old renown, she thought the more.
+
+George Dallas slept well that night in the little country inn, and
+awoke to a pleasant consciousness of rest, leisure, and expectation.
+As he dressed himself slowly, listening to the queer mixture of town
+and country sounds which arose inside and outside the house, he took
+up a similar train of thought to that in which sleep had interrupted
+him on the previous night, and began to form resolutions and to dream
+dreams. After he had breakfasted, and perused all the daily
+intelligence which found its way to Amherst, where the population were
+not remarkably eager for general information, and the _Illustrated
+London News_ was represented by one copy, taken in by the clergyman's
+wife, and circulated among her special friends and favourites, he went
+out, and once more took the direction of the Sycamores.
+
+Should he go into the park, he asked himself, or would that be too
+intrusive a proceeding? Sir Thomas, on his fair niece's showing, was
+evidently an elderly gentleman of kindly impulses, and who could say
+but that he might send a message to Mr. Page the landlord, inviting
+him to inform the stranger within his gates that he might have another
+look at the picture-gallery at the Sycamores? Was this a very wild
+idea? He did not know. It seemed to him as likely as not that a jolly
+kindly man, disposed to let his fellow-creatures enjoy a taste of the
+very abundant good things which providence had lavished on himself,
+might do a thing of the kind. A pompous, purse-proud, egotistical old
+fellow, who would regard every man unpossessed of landed property as a
+wretched creature, beneath his notice in all respects, except that of
+being made to admire and envy him as deeply as possible, might also
+think of sending such an invitation, but George Dallas felt quite sure
+Sir Thomas Boldero was not a man of that description. Suppose such a
+message should come? He had not given any name at the inn; he wished
+now he had done so; he would only take a short walk, and return to
+correct the inadvertence. At so early an hour there would be no
+likelihood of his seeing Miss Carruthers. It was in the afternoon she
+had ridden out yesterday, perhaps she would do the same to-day. At all
+events, he would return to the Sycamores on the chance, at the same
+hour as that at which he had seen her yesterday, and try his luck.
+
+The road on which he was walking was one of the beautiful roads common
+in the scenery of England, a road which dipped and undulated, and
+wound about and about, making the most of the natural features of the
+landscape without any real sacrifice of the public convenience, a road
+shadowed frequently by tall stately trees, and along one side of which
+the low park paling, with a broad belt of plantation beyond, which
+formed the boundary of the Sycamores, stretched for three miles. On
+the other side, a well-kept raised pathway ran alongside a hedge,
+never wanting in the successive beauties of wild flowers and "tangle,"
+and which furnished shelter to numerous birds. The day was bright and
+cheerful, and a light breeze was stirring the budding branches and
+lending a sense of exhilaration to the young man who so rarely looked
+on the fair face of nature, and who had unhappily had all his purer
+tastes and sympathies so early deadened. They revived under the
+influence of the scene and the softening effect of the adventure which
+had befallen him the day before. He stopped opposite the oaken gates,
+which had lain open yesterday, but were closed to-day, and he rambled
+on, further away from the town, and crossing the road, took his way
+along the park paling, where the fragrant odour from the shrubberies
+added a fresh pleasure to his walk.
+
+He had passed a bend of the road which swept away from the large gates
+of the park, and was peering in at the mossy tufts, studded with
+violets and bluebells clustering round the stems of the young trees in
+the plantation, when his eyes lighted on a small gate, a kind of
+wicket in the paling, imperfectly secured by a very loose latch, and
+from which a straight narrow path, bordered with trimly-kept rows of
+ground ivy, led into a broader road dividing the plantation from the
+park.
+
+"A side entrance, of course," said Dallas to himself, and then,
+looking across the road, he saw that just opposite the little gate
+there was a wooden stile, by which a path through the fields, leading,
+no doubt, into the town of Amherst, could be attained from the raised
+footpath.
+
+"I suppose the land on both sides belongs to Sir Thomas," thought
+Dallas, and as he made a momentary pause, a large black Newfoundland
+dog, carrying a basket in his mouth, came down the narrow path, bumped
+himself against the loosely fastened gate, swung it open, and stopped
+in the aperture, with a droll air of having done something
+particularly clever. Dallas looked admiringly at the beautiful
+creature, who was young, awkward, and supremely happy, and the next
+instant he heard a voice speaking from the top of the straight walk.
+
+"Here, Cæsar," it said; "come here, sir; who told you I was going that
+way?"
+
+Cæsar tossed up his head, somewhat to the detriment of the basket, and
+lolloped about with his big black legs, but did not retrace his steps,
+and the next moment Miss Carruthers appeared. A few yards only divided
+her from George, who stood outside the gate, his face turned full
+towards her as she came down the path, and who promptly took off his
+hat. She returned his salutation with embarrassment, but with
+undisguisable pleasure, and blushed most becomingly.
+
+"I suppose I ought to walk on and leave her; but I won't," said George
+to himself, in the momentary silence which followed their mutual
+salutation, and then, in a kind of desperation, he said:
+
+"I am fortunate to meet you again, by a lucky accident, Miss
+Carruthers. You are out earlier to-day, and this is Cæsar's turn."
+
+He patted the shiny black head of the Newfoundland, who still
+obstructed the entrance to the path, as he spoke, and Cæsar received
+the attention tolerably graciously.
+
+"Yes, I generally walk early, and ride in the afternoon."
+
+"Escorted by your dumb friends only," said George, in a tone not quite
+of interrogation.
+
+Miss Carruthers blushed again as she replied:
+
+"Yes, my horse and my dog are my companions generally. My aunt never
+walks, and Sir Thomas never rides. Were you going into the park again,
+Mr. Ward?"
+
+By this time Cæsar had run out into the road, and was in a state of
+impatient perplexity, and evidently much inconvenienced by the basket,
+which he was too well trained to drop, but shook disconsolately as he
+glanced reproachfully at Clare, wondering how much longer she meant to
+keep him waiting.
+
+"No, Miss Carruthers, I was merely walking past the Sycamores, and
+recalling yesterday's pleasure--half gladly, half sadly, as I fancy we
+recall all pleasures."
+
+"I--I told my uncle of your visit yesterday, and he said he was sorry
+to have missed you, and hoped you would see as much of the park as you
+liked. Did--did you finish your sketch, Mr. Ward? Oh, that horrid
+Cæsar, he will have the handle off my basket. Just see how he is
+knocking it against the stile."
+
+She came hurriedly through the open gateway into the road, George
+following her.
+
+"May I take it from him?" he said.
+
+"Oh, pray do; there now, he is over the stile, and running through the
+field."
+
+George rushed away in pursuit of Cæsar, triumphant at his success in
+thus terminating a period of inaction for which he saw no reasonable
+excuse. Miss Carruthers mounted the stile in a more leisurely fashion,
+turned into the footpath which led through the field, and in a few
+moments met George returning, her basket in his hand, and Cæsar
+slouching along beside him, sulky and discontented.
+
+She thanked George, told him she was going nearly as far as Amherst by
+the "short cut," which lay through her uncle's land, and the two young
+people in another minute found themselves walking side by side, as if
+such an arrangement were quite a matter of course, to which Mrs.
+Grundy could not possibly make any objection. Of course it was highly
+imprudent, not to say improper, and one of the two was perfectly
+conscious alike of the imprudence and the impropriety; perfectly
+conscious, also, that both were increased by the fact that he was
+George Dallas, and the young lady was Clare Carruthers, the niece of
+his stepfather, the girl, on whose account mainly he had been shut out
+from the house called by courtesy his mother's. As for Clare
+Carruthers, she knew little or nothing of life and the world of
+observances and rules of behaviour. Sheltered from the touch, from the
+breath, from the very knowledge of ill, the girl had always been free
+with a frank innocent freedom, happy with a guileless happiness, and
+as unsophisticated as any girl could well be in this wide-awake
+realistic nineteenth century. She was highly imaginative, emphatically
+of the romantic temperament, and, in short, a Lydia Languish without
+the caricature. Her notions of literary men, artists, and the like,
+were derived from their works; and as the little glimpse which she had
+as yet had of society (she had only "come out" at the ball at Poynings
+in February) had not enabled her to correct her ideas by comparison
+with reality, she cherished her illusions with ardour proportioned to
+their fallaciousness. The young men of her acquaintance were of either
+of two species: sons of country gentlemen, with means and inclination
+to devote themselves to the kind of life their fathers led, or
+military magnificoes, of whom Clare, contrary to the fashion of young
+ladies in general, entertained a mean and contemptuous opinion. When
+Captain Marsh and Captain Clitheroe were home "on leave," they found
+it convenient and agreeable to pass a good deal of their leisure at
+Poynings; and as they happened to be ninnies of the first magnitude,
+whose insignificance in every sense worth mention was only equalled by
+their conceit, Miss Carruthers had conceived a prejudice against
+military men in general, founded upon her dislike of the two
+specimens with whom she was most familiar. Clergymen are not
+uncommonly heroes in the imagination of young girls, but the most
+determined curate-worshipper could not have invested the clergymen who
+cured the souls in and about Amherst with heroic qualities. They were
+three in number. One was fat, bald, and devoted to antiquarianism and
+port wine. Another was thin, pock-marked, ill-tempered, deaf, and a
+flute-player. The third was a magistrate, a fox-hunter, and a despiser
+of womankind. In conclusion, all three were married, and Miss
+Carruthers was so unsophisticated, that, if they had been all three as
+handsome and irresistible as Adonis, she would never have thought of
+them in the way of mundane admiration, such being the case. So Clare's
+imagination had no home pasture in which to feed, and roamed far
+afield.
+
+It had taken its hue from her tastes, which were strongly pronounced,
+in the direction of literature. Clare had received a "good education;"
+that is to say, she had been placed by a fashionable mother under the
+care of a fashionable governess, who had superintended fashionable
+masters while they imparted a knowledge of music, drawing, dancing,
+and a couple of modern languages to her pretty, docile, intelligent
+pupil. The more solid branches of instruction Clare had climbed under
+Miss Pettigrew's personal care, and had "done credit" to her
+instructress, as the phrase goes. But the upshot of it all was, that
+she had very little sound knowledge, and that the real educational
+process had commenced for her with the termination of Miss Pettigrew's
+reign, and had received considerable impetus when Clare had been
+transferred--on the not particularly lamented decease of the
+fashionable mother, who was Sir Thomas Boldero's sister, and
+remarkably unlike that hearty and unworldly country gentleman--to
+Poynings and the guardianship of Mr. Carruthers. Then the girl began
+to read after her own fancy indeed, unguided and uncontrolled, but in
+an omnivorous fashion; and as she was full of feeling, fancy, and
+enthusiasm, her reading ran a good deal in the poetical, romantic, and
+imaginative line. Novels she devoured, and she was of course a devotee
+of Tennyson and Longfellow, saying of the latter, as her highest idea
+of praise, that she could hardly believe him to be an American, or a
+dweller in that odious vulgar country, and wondering why Mrs.
+Carruthers seemed a little annoyed by the observation. She read
+history, too, provided it was picturesquely written, and books of
+travel, exploration, and adventure she delighted in. Periodical
+literature she was specially addicted to, and it was rather a pleasant
+little vanity of Clare to "keep up with" all the serial stories--not
+confusing the characters or the incidents, no matter how numerous they
+were, and to know the tables of contents of all the magazines and
+reviews thoroughly. She had so much access to books that, as far as a
+lady's possible requirements could go, it might be said, without
+exaggeration, to be unlimited. Not only did the Sycamores boast a fine
+library, kept up with the utmost care and attention by Sir Thomas
+Boldero, and of which she had the freedom, but Poynings was also very
+creditably endowed in a similar respect, and Mrs. Carruthers, as
+persistent a reader as Clare, if less discursive, subscribed largely
+to Mudie's. Croquet had not yet assumed its sovereign sway over
+English young-persondom, and none but ponderous and formal
+hospitalities prevailed at Poynings, so that Clare had ample leisure
+to bestow upon her books, her pets, and her flowers. She was so
+surrounded with luxury and comfort, that it was not wonderful she
+should invest opposite conditions of existence with irresistible
+charms; and her habitual associates were so commonplace, so prosperous
+and conventional, that her aspirations for opportunities of
+hero-worship naturally directed themselves towards oppressed worth,
+unappreciated genius, and fiery hearts struggling manfully with
+adverse fate. "The red planet Mars" was a great favourite with her,
+and to suffer and be strong a much finer idea to her mind than not to
+suffer and to have no particular occasion for strength. She knew
+little of the realities of life, having never had a deeper grief than
+that caused by the death of her mother, and she was in the habit of
+reproaching herself very bitterly with the superficiality and the
+insufficiency of the sorrow she had experienced on that occasion, and
+therefore mild and merciful judges would have pitied and excused her
+errors of judgment, her impulsive departure from conventional rules.
+Mild and merciful judges are not plentiful commodities, however, and
+Mrs. Grundy would doubtless have had a great deal to say, and a very
+fair pretext for saying it, had she seen Miss Carruthers strolling
+through the fields which lay between the Sycamores and Amherst, in
+deep and undisguisedly delighted conversation with a strange young
+man, who was apparently absorbed in the pleasure of talking to and
+listening to her, while Cæsar trotted now by the side of the one, anon
+of the other, with serene and friendly complacency. Mrs. Grundy was,
+however, not destined to know anything about the "very suspicious"
+circumstance for the present. And George Dallas and Clare Carruthers,
+with the unscrupulous yielding to the impulse of the moment, which
+affords youth such splendid opportunities for getting into scrapes,
+from which the utmost efforts of their elders are powerless to
+extricate them, walked and talked and improved the shining hours into
+a familiar acquaintance, which the girl would have called friendship,
+but which the young man felt, only too surely, was love at first
+sight. He had mocked at such an idea, had denied its existence, had
+derided it with tongue and pen, but here it was, facing him now,
+delivering to him a silent challenge to deny, dispute, or mock at it
+any more.
+
+A faint suspicion that the beautiful girl whom he had seen yesterday
+for the second time meant something in his life, which no woman had
+ever meant before, had hung about him since he had left the Sycamores
+after their first interview; but now, as he walked beside her, he felt
+that he had entered the enchanted land, that he had passed away from
+old things, and the chain of his old life had fallen from him. For
+weal or woe, present with her or absent from her, he knew he loved
+this girl, the one girl whom it was absolutely forbidden to him to
+love.
+
+They had talked commonplaces at first, though each was conscious that
+the flurried earnestness of the other's manner was an absurd
+commentary upon the ordinary style of their conversation. George had
+asked, and Clare had implied, no permission for him to accompany her
+on her walk; he had quietly taken it for granted, and she had as
+quietly acquiesced, and it so happened that they did not meet a single
+person to stare at the tall, gaunt-looking but handsome stranger
+walking with Miss Carruthers, to wonder who he "mought a bin," and
+proceed to impart his curiosity to the servants at the Sycamores, or
+the gossip at the alehouse.
+
+"This path is not much used," said George.
+
+"No, very little indeed," replied Clare. "You see it does not lead
+directly anywhere but to the Sycamores, and so the farming people, my
+uncle's servants, and tradespeople, back and forward to the park,
+chiefly use it. I often come this way and do not meet a soul."
+
+"Are you going into the town?"
+
+"Not all the way: just to the turnpike on the Poynings road. Do you
+know Mr. Carruthers's place, Mr. Ward?"
+
+George felt rather uncomfortable as he answered in the negative,
+though it was such a small matter, and the false statement did not
+harm anybody. He had told a tolerable number of lies in the course of
+his life, but he shrank with keen and unaccustomed pain from making
+this girl, whose golden brown eyes looked at him so frankly, whose
+sweet face beamed on him so innocently, a false answer.
+
+"I am going to the cottage on the roadside, just below the turnpike,"
+Clare continued; "an old servant of my aunt lives there, and I have a
+message for her. I often go to see her, not so much from kindness, I'm
+afraid, as because I hate to walk outside the park without an object."
+
+"And you don't mind riding without an escort any more than you do
+walking without one," said George, not in the tone of a question, but
+in that of a simple remark. Clare looked at him with some surprise; he
+met the look with a meaning smile.
+
+"You dislike the attendance of a groom, Miss Carruthers, and never
+admit it except in case of necessity. You are surprised, I see: you
+will be still more surprised when I tell you I learned this, not from
+seeing you ride alone in the park--there is nothing unusual in that,
+especially when you are on such good terms with your horse--but from
+your own lips."
+
+"From my own lips, what can you possibly mean, Mr. Ward? I never saw
+you until yesterday, and I know I never mentioned the subject then."
+
+The young man drew imperceptibly nearer to her, on the narrow path
+where they were walking, and as he spoke the following sentences, he
+took from his breast-pocket a little note-case, which he held in his
+left hand, at which she glanced curiously once or twice.
+
+"You saw me for the first time yesterday, Miss Carruthers, but I had
+seen you before. I had seen you the centre of a brilliant society, the
+pride and belle of a ball-room where I had no place." ("Now," thought
+George, "if she only, goes home and tells my mother all this, it will
+be a nice business. Never mind, I can't help it;" and he went on
+impetuously.) The girl made no remark, but she looked at him with
+growing astonishment. "You talked to a gentleman happier than I--for
+he was with you--of your daily rides, and I heard all you said.
+Forgive me, the first tone of your voice told me it was but a light
+and trivial conversation, or I would not have listened to it." (George
+is not certain that he is telling the truth here, but she is convinced
+of it; for is he not an author, an artist, a hero?) "I even heard the
+gentleman's name with whom you were talking, and just before you
+passed out of my hearing you unconsciously gave me _this_."
+
+He opened the note-book, took out a folded slip of paper, opened that
+too, and held towards Clare, but without giving it into her hand, a
+slip of myrtle.
+
+"_I_ gave you that, Mr. Ward!" she exclaimed. "_I_--when--where--how?
+What do you mean? I remember no such conversation as you describe; I
+don't remember anything about a ball or a piece of myrtle. When and
+where was it? I have been out so little in London."
+
+Now George had said nothing about London, but opportunely remembering
+that he could not explain the circumstances he had rather rashly
+mentioned, and that, unexplained, they might lead her to the
+conclusion that the part he had played on the mysterious occasion in
+question had been that of a burglar, he adroitly availed himself of
+her error. True, on the other hand, she might very possibly think that
+the only part which a spectator at a ball in London, who was not a
+partaker in its festivities, could have played must have been that of
+a waiter, which was not a pleasant suggestion; but somehow he felt no
+apprehension on that score. The girl went on eagerly questioning him,
+but he only smiled, very sweetly and slowly, as he carefully replaced
+the withered twig in the note-book, and the note-book in his pocket.
+
+"I cannot answer your questions, Miss Carruthers; _this is my
+secret_--a cherished one, I assure you. The time may come, though the
+probability is very dim and distant just now, when I shall tell you
+when, and where, and how I saw you first; and if ever that time should
+come," he stopped, cleared his voice, and went on, "things will be so
+different with me that I shall have nothing to be ashamed or afraid
+of."
+
+"_Ashamed_ of, Mr. Ward?" said Clare, in a sweet soft tone of
+deprecating wonder. All her curiosity had been banished by the trouble
+and sadness of his manner, and profound interest and sympathy had
+taken its place.
+
+"You think I ought not to use that word; I thank you for the gentle
+judgment," said George, his manner indescribably softened and
+deepened; "but if ever I am in a position to tell you--but why do I
+talk such nonsense? I am only a waif, a stray, thrown for a moment in
+your path, to be swept from it the next and forgotten."
+
+This was dangerous ground, and they both felt it. A chance meeting, a
+brief association which perhaps never ought to have been; and here was
+this girl, well brought up, in the strictest sense of the term,
+yielding to the dangerous charm of the stranger's society, and feeling
+her heart die within her as his words showed the prospect before her.
+Her complexion died too, for Clare's was a tell-tale face, on which
+emotion had irresistible power. George saw the sudden paleness, and
+she knew he saw it.
+
+"I--I hope not," she said, rather incoherently. "I--I think not. You
+are an artist and an author, you know." (How ashamed George felt, how
+abashed in the presence of this self-deluding innocence of hers!) "And
+I, as well as all the world, shall hear of you."
+
+"_You_, as well as all the world," he repeated, in a dreamy tone.
+"Well, perhaps so. I will try to think so, and to hope it will
+be--"
+
+He stopped; the gentleman's nature in him still existing, still ready
+at call, notwithstanding his degradation, withheld him from presuming
+on the position in which he found himself, and in which the girl's
+innocent impulsiveness had placed her. To him, with his knowledge of
+who she was, and who he was, with the curious relation of severance
+which existed between them, the sort of intimacy which had sprung up
+had not so much strangeness as it externally exhibited, and he had to
+remind himself that she did not share that knowledge, and therefore
+stood on a different level to his, in the matter. He determined to get
+off the dangerous ground, and there was a convincing proof in that
+determination that the tide had turned for the young man, that he had
+indeed resolved upon the better way. His revenge upon his stepfather
+lay ready to his hand; the unconscious girl made it plain to him that
+he had excited a strange and strong interest in her. It was not a bad
+initiation of the prodigal's project of reform that he renounced that
+revenge, and turned away from the temptation to improve his chance
+advantage into the establishment of an avowed mutual interest. This
+step he took by saying, gaily, "Then I have your permission to send
+you my first work, Miss Carruthers, and you promise it a place in that
+grand old library I had a glimpse of yesterday?"
+
+A little shade of something like disappointment crossed Clare's sunny
+face. The sudden transition in his tone jarred with her feelings of
+curiosity, romance, and flattered vanity. For Clare had her meed of
+that quality, like other women and men, and had never had it so
+pleasantly gratified as on the present occasion. But she had too much
+good breeding to be pertinacious on any subject, and too much delicacy
+of perception to fail in taking the hint which the alternation in
+George's manner conveyed. So there was no further allusion to the
+sprig of myrtle or to the future probability of a disclosure; but the
+two walked on together, and talked of books, pictures, and the toils
+and triumphs of a literary life (George, to do him justice, not
+affecting a larger share in them than was really his), until they
+neared Clare's destination. The footpath which they had followed had
+led them by a gentle rise in the ground to the brow of a little hill,
+similar to that from which George had seen his mother's carriage
+approach Amherst on the preceding day, but from the opposite end of
+the town. Immediately under the brow of this hill, and approached by
+the path, which inclined towards its trim green gate, stood a neat
+small cottage, in a square bit of garden, turning its red-brick
+vine-covered side to the road beneath. When George saw this dwelling,
+he knew his brief spell of enjoyment was over.
+
+"That is the cottage," said Clare, and he had the consolation of
+observing that there was no particular elation in her voice or in her
+face. "Sir Thomas built it for its present tenant."
+
+"Shall you be going back to the Sycamores alone, Miss Carruthers?"
+asked George, in the most utterly irrelevant manner. He had a wild
+notion of asking leave to wait for her, and escort her home. Again
+Clare blushed as she replied hurriedly:
+
+"No, I shall not. My aunt is to pick me up here in the carriage, on
+her way to the town, and I return to Poynings this evening. I have
+been away a fortnight."
+
+George longed to question her concerning life at Poynings, longed to
+mention his mother's name, or to say something to the girl that would
+lead her to mention it; but the risk was too great, and he refrained.
+
+"Indeed! and when do you return to the Sycamores?" was all he said.
+
+"It is quite uncertain," she replied. "I fancy my uncle means to go to
+London for part of the season, but we don't quite know yet; he never
+says much about his plans." She stopped abruptly, as if conscious that
+she was not conveying a very pleasing impression of her uncle. George
+understood her, and correctly, to refer to Mr. Carruthers.
+
+They had descended the incline by this time, and were close to the
+cottage gate. It lay open, and Cæsar ran up to the prim little green
+door.
+
+"Come here, sir," called Clare; "please let him have the basket again,
+Mr. Ward. Old Willcox reared him for me, from a puppy, and he likes to
+see him at his tricks. Thank you. Now then, go on, Cæsar."
+
+Her hand was on the open gate, her face turned away from the cottage,
+towards George--it was no easier to her to say good-bye than to him,
+he thought; but it must be said, so he began to say it.
+
+"Then, Miss Carruthers, here I must leave you; and soon I must leave
+Amherst."
+
+Perhaps he hoped she would repeat the invitation of yesterday. She did
+not; she only said:
+
+"Thank you very much for your escort, Mr. Ward. Good-bye."
+
+It was the coldest, most constrained of adieux. He felt it so, and yet
+he was not altogether dissatisfied; he would have been more so, had
+she retained the natural grace of her manner and the sweet gaiety of
+her tone. He would have given much to touch her hand at parting, but
+she did not offer it; but with a bow passed up the little walk to the
+cottage door, and in a moment the door had closed upon her, and she
+was lost to his sight.
+
+He lingered upon the high road from which he could see the cottage,
+and gazed at the window, in the hope of catching another glimpse of
+Clare; but suddenly remembering that she might perhaps see him from
+the interior of the room, and be offended by his doing so, he walked
+briskly away in a frame of mind hard to describe, and with feelings of
+a conflicting character. Above the tumult of new-born love, of pride,
+rage, mortification, anger, hope, the trust of youth in itself, and
+dawning resolutions of good, there was this thought, clear and
+prominent:
+
+"If I am ever to see her again, it shall be in my own character, and
+by no tricky subterfuge. If she ever comes to care for me, she shall
+not be ashamed of me."
+
+George Dallas returned to the inn, where his taciturnity and
+preoccupation did not escape notice by the waiters and Mr. Page, who
+accounted for it by commenting on his request for writing-materials,
+to the use of which he addressed himself in his own room, as a
+"hoddity of the literary gents; if they ain't blabby and blazin'
+drunk, they're most times uncommon sullen. This un's a poetical chap,
+I take it."
+
+That evening George heard from his mother. She desired him to come to
+Poynings at twelve o'clock on the following Monday (this was
+Thursday), and to wait in the shrubbery on the left of the house until
+she should join him. The note was brief, but affectionate, and of
+course made George understand that she had received the jewels.
+
+Late in the afternoon of the day which had witnessed her second
+interview with the young man whom she knew as Paul Ward, and with whom
+her girlish fancy was delightfully busy, Clare Carruthers arrived at
+Poynings. She received an affectionate greeting from Mrs. Carruthers,
+inquired for her uncle, learned that no communication had been
+received from him that day, and therefore his wife concluded that his
+original arrangement to return on the following Tuesday morning
+remained unaltered; and then went off to see that Sir Lancelot, who
+had been brought home from the Sycamores by a groom, was well cared
+for. Somehow, the beautiful animal had a deeper interest than ever for
+his young mistress. She touched his silken mane with a lighter, more
+lingering touch; she talked to him with a softer voice.
+
+"He did not forget to mention you," she whispered to the intelligent
+creature, as she held his small muzzle in one hand and stroked his
+face with the other. "I wonder, I wonder, shall we ever see him
+again."
+
+When the two ladies were together in the drawing-room that evening,
+and the lamps were lighted, cheerful fires burning brightly in the two
+grates, which were none too many for the proportions of the noble
+room, the scene presented was one which would have suggested a
+confidential, cozy chat to the uninitiated male observer. But there
+was no chat and no confidence there that evening. Ordinarily, Mrs.
+Carruthers and Clare "got on" together very nicely, and were as
+thorough friends as the difference in their respective ages and the
+trouble in the elder lady's life, hidden from the younger, would
+permit. But each was a woman of naturally independent mind, and their
+companionship did not constrain either. Therefore the one sat down at
+a writing-table, and the other at the piano, without either feeling
+that the other expected to be talked to. Had not Mrs. Carruthers's
+preoccupation, her absorption in the hopes and fears which were all
+inspired by her son, so engrossed her attention, that she could not
+have observed anything not specially, impressed upon her notice, she
+would have seen that Clare was more silent than usual, that her manner
+was absent, and that she had a little air of making music an excuse
+for thought. The leaves of her music-book were not turned, and her
+fingers strayed over the keys, in old melodies played almost
+unconsciously, or paused for many minutes of unbroken silence. She had
+not mentioned the incidents of the last two days to Mrs. Carruthers,
+not that she intended to leave them finally unspoken of, but that some
+undefined feeling prompted her to think them over first;--so she
+explained her reticence to herself.
+
+While Clare played, Mrs. Carruthers wrote, and the girl, glancing
+towards her sometimes, saw that her face wore an expression of painful
+and intense thought. She wrote rapidly, and evidently at great length,
+covering sheet after sheet of foreign letter paper with bold firm
+characters, and once Clare remarked that she took a memorandum-book
+out of her pocket and consulted it. As she replaced the book, a slip
+of paper fluttered from between the leaves and fell to the ground,
+unobserved either by herself or Clare. Shortly afterwards Mrs.
+Carruthers rose, collected her papers into a loose heap upon the
+table, and left the room, still with the same preoccupied expression
+on her face. Clare went on playing for a few moments, then, finding
+Mrs. Carruthers did not return, she yielded to the sense of freedom
+inspired by finding herself alone, and leaving the piano, went over to
+one of the fireplaces and stood by the low mantelpiece, lost in
+thought. Several minutes passed away as she stood thus, then she
+roused herself, and was about to return to the piano, when her
+attention was attracted to a small slip of paper which lay on the
+floor near the writing-table. She picked it up, and saw written upon
+it two words only, but words which caused her an indescribable thrill
+of surprise. They were
+
+
+     PAUL WARD.
+
+
+"Mrs. Carruthers dropped this paper," said Clare to herself, "and _he_
+wrote the name. I know his hand, I saw it in the book he took the
+sketch in. Who is he? How does she know him? I wish she would return.
+I must ask her." But then, in the midst of her eagerness, Clare
+remembered a certain air of mystery about her chance acquaintance; she
+recalled the tone in which he had said, "That is my secret," the hints
+he had let fall that there existed something which time must clear up.
+She remembered, too, that he had not betrayed any acquaintance with
+Mrs. Carruthers, had not even _looked_ like it when she had mentioned
+Poynings and her uncle (and Clare had a curiously distinct
+recollection of Mr. Paul Ward's looks); finally she thought
+how--surely she might be said to _know_, so strangely and reasonably
+did she suspect--that there were trials and experiences in Mrs.
+Carruthers's life to which she held no clue, and perhaps this strange
+circumstance might be connected with them.
+
+"It is _his_ secret and _hers_, if she knows him," the girl thought,
+"and I shall best be true and loyal to them both by asking nothing, by
+seeking to know nothing, until I am told." And here a sudden thrill of
+joy, joy so pure and vivid that it should have made her understand her
+own feelings without further investigation, shot through the girl's
+heart, as she thought:
+
+"If she knows him, my chance of seeing him again is much greater. In
+time I must come to understand it all."
+
+So Clare allowed the paper to fall from her hands upon the carpet
+whence she had taken it, and when Mrs. Carruthers reentered the room,
+bringing a packet of letters which she had gone to seek, Clare had
+resumed her place at the piano.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+TIDED OVER.
+
+
+It was the fifth morning after George Dallas's arrival in Amherst, the
+day on which his mother had appointed by letter for him to go over to
+Poynings, and there receive that which was to set him free from the
+incubus of debt and difficulty which had so long oppressed him. An
+anticipation of pleasure crossed his mind so soon as he first opened
+his eyes; he soon remembered whence the satisfaction sprung, and on
+going to the window and looking out, he found that nature and he were
+once again in accord. As at the time of his misery she had worn her
+blackest garb, her direst expression, so now, when hope seemed to
+gleam upon him, did nature don her flowery robes and array herself in
+her brightest verdant sheen. Spring was rapidly ripening into summer;
+into the clean and comely little town, which itself was radiant with
+whitened door-steps, and newly painted wood-work, and polished brass
+fittings, came wafted delicious odours from outlying gardens and
+uplands, where the tossing grass went waving to and fro like the
+undulations of a restless sea, and in the midst of which the sturdy
+old farm-houses, dotted here and there, stood out like red-faced
+islands. Dust, which even the frequent April showers could not lay,
+was blowing in Amherst streets; blinds, which had been carefully laid
+by during the winter (the Amherst mind had scarcely arrived at spring
+blinds for outside use, and contented itself with modest striped
+sacking, fastened between hooks on the shop fronts, and poles socketed
+into the pavement), were brought forth and hung up in all the glory of
+cleanliness. It was reported by those who had been early astir, that
+Tom Leigh, the mail-cart driver, had been seen with his white hat on
+that morning, and any Amherstian who may have previously doubted
+whether the fine weather had actually arrived, must have been
+flinty-hearted and obdurate indeed not to have accepted that
+assurance.
+
+The sunshine and the general brightness of the day had its due effect
+on George Dallas, who was young, for a nineteenth-century man almost
+romantic, and certainly impressible. His spirits rose within him, as,
+his breakfast finished, he started off to walk to Poynings. Drinking
+in the loveliness of the broad sun-steeped landscape, the sweet odours
+coming towards him on the soft breeze, the pleasant sound, were it
+chink of blacksmith's hammer, or hum of bees, or voice of cuckoo
+hidden deep in distant bright-leaved woods, the young man for a time
+forgot his baser associations and seemed to rise, in the surroundings
+of the moment, to a better and purer frame of mind than he had known
+for many years. Natural, under such circumstances, was the first
+turning of his thoughts to his mother, to whose deep love and
+self-sacrifice he was indebted for the freedom which at length was
+about to be his. In his worst times there had been one bright spot of
+love for her in all the black folly of his life, and now the
+recollection of her disinterestedness and long suffering on his behalf
+made her as purely dear to him as when, in the old days that seemed so
+long ago, he had said his prayers at her knee. He recollected walking
+with her in their garden on mornings like these, when they were all in
+all to each other, soon after his father's death, when that chastening
+memory was on them both, and before there was any thought of Mr.
+Carruthers or his niece--or his niece!--and straightway off went his
+thoughts into a different channel. What a pretty girl! so soft and
+quiet, so fresh withal, and frank, and guileless, so different
+from--Well, he didn't know; with similar advantages Harriet might have
+been very much the same. But Miss Carruthers was certainly specially
+charming; the talk which they had had together showed that. The talk
+which they had together? Was he not entering her own domain? What if
+she were to meet and recognize him there? That would spoil all their
+plans. A word from her would--O no! Though Mrs. Carruthers might not
+have been intended as a conspirator by nature, George felt by his
+recent experience of his mother's movements that she would have
+sufficient foresight to prevent Clare from leaving the house, just at
+that time, lest she might discover the rendezvous in the shrubbery.
+The tact that had so rapidly shifted the venue of their last meeting
+from the bustle of the draper's to the calm solitude of the dentist's
+would assuredly be sufficient to prevent a young girl from intruding
+on their next appointment.
+
+Busy with these thoughts, and ever and anon pausing to look round him
+at the fair scenes through which he was passing, George Dallas pursued
+his way along the high road until he gained the summit of the little
+hill whence is obtained the first view of Poynings and its grounds.
+There he stopped suddenly; from that point he had always intended to
+reconnoitre, but he had never anticipated seeing what he did see--a
+carriage driving through the open lodge gates, and in the carriage
+reclining at his ease no less a person than Mr. Capel Carruthers. It
+was he, not a doubt about it, in the respectability of his glossy
+broad-brimmed hat, in his white whiskers, in his close-fitting
+dogskin gloves, in the very double gold eye-glass with which he was
+looking at nature in a very patronizing manner. Even if he had not
+been short-sighted, Mr. Carruthers was at such a distance as would
+utterly have prevented him from recognizing any one on the top of the
+hill; but George Dallas no sooner saw him than instinctively he
+crouched down by the hedge-side and waited until the carriage was
+rolling down the avenue; then he slowly raised himself, muttering:
+
+"What the deuce has brought him back just now? confound him! What on
+earth will she do? It's most infernally provoking, just at this very
+nick of time; he might have kept off a few hours longer. She won't
+come to the shrubbery now; she's frightened out of her life at that
+old ruffian, and, by George, I shall be put off again! After all I've
+said to Routh, after all the castles in the air which I've been
+building on the chance of getting free, I shall have to slink back to
+town empty-handed!" He was leaning over a gate in the hedge, and as he
+spoke he shook his fist at the unconscious county magistrate, visible
+in the distance now but by the crown of his hat. "Except," continued
+George, "knowing how deeply I'm involved, she'll risk all hazards and
+come to the shrubbery. Perhaps she's started now, not expecting him,
+and when he reaches the house and doesn't find her there--he's always
+hanging on her trail, curse him!--he will make inquiries and follow
+her. That would be worst of all, for not only should I miss what she
+promised me, but she would come to grief herself, poor darling. Well,
+I must chance it, whatever happens."
+
+He turned down a by-lane which ran at right angles to the avenue,
+pursuing which he came upon a low park paling enclosing the shrubbery.
+Carefully looking round him, and finding no one within sight, he
+climbed the paling, and dropped noiselessly upon the primrose-decked
+bank on the other side. All quiet; nothing moving but the birds
+darting in and out among the bright green trees, and the grasshoppers
+in myriads round his feet. The walk had tired him, and he lay down on
+the mossy turf and awaited his mother's coming. Mossy turf, soft and
+sweet-smelling, the loud carol of the birds, the pleasant, soothing,
+slumberous sound of the trees bending gently towards each other
+as the mild air rustled in the leaves. It was long since he had
+experienced these influences, but he was now under their spell. What
+did they recall? Boyhood's days; the Bishop's Wood, where they went
+birds'-nesting; Duke Primus, who wore "stick-ups," and was the cock of
+the school, and Charley Cope, who used to tell such good stories in
+bed, and Bergemann, a German boy, who was drowned in a pond in just
+such a part of the wood as this, and--twelve o'clock rings sharply out
+from the turret clock in Poynings stables, and at its sound away fly
+the ghosts of the past. Twelve o'clock, the time appointed in his
+mother's letter for him to meet her in that very spot. He rose up from
+the turf, and sheltering himself behind the broad trunk of an old
+tree, looked anxiously in the direction of the house. No human being
+was to be seen; a few rabbits whisked noiselessly about, their little
+white tails gleaming as they disappeared in the brushwood, but they
+and the birds and the grasshoppers comprised all the life about the
+place. He looked on the big trees and the chequered shade between
+them, and the glimpses of blue skylight between their topmost boughs;
+he left his vantage ground and strode listlessly to and fro; the
+quarter chime rung out from the turret, then the half hour, and still
+no one came.
+
+Some one coming at last! George's quick eyes make out a female figure
+in the far distance, not his mother, though. This woman's back is
+bowed, her step slow and hesitating, unlike Mrs. Carruthers, on whose
+matronly beauty Time has as yet laid his gentlest touch. He must stand
+aside, he thought, amongst the trees until the new comer had passed
+by; but as the woman approached, her gait and figure seemed familiar
+to him, and when she raised her head and looked round her as though
+expecting some one, he recognized Nurse Brooks. The old woman gave a
+suppressed scream as George Dallas stepped out from among the trees
+and stood before her.
+
+"I could not help it, George," said she; "I could not help it, though
+I was looking for and expecting you at that moment, and that's more
+than you were doing for me, isn't it? You were expecting some one
+else, my boy?"
+
+"Is anything the matter? Is she ill? Has her husband found out?"
+
+"Nothing! She's--well, as well as may be, poor dear, and--"
+
+"Then she hasn't been able to do what she promised?"
+
+"Oh, George, George, did you ever know her fail in doing what she
+promised, from the days when you were a baby until now? Better for
+her, poor thing, as I've often told her, if she hadn't--"
+
+"Yes, yes, nurse, I know all about that, of course; but why isn't she
+here now?"
+
+"She daren't come, George. Master's come home unexpected, and he and
+Miss Clare are with her, and there is no chance for her to make an
+excuse to get away. So she just runs into her dressing-room for a
+minute, and sends to me--she always sends to me in her troubles, as
+you've seen many a time and oft, Master George--and tells me, she
+says, 'Take this and go into the shrubbery, and tell George,' she
+says, 'why I couldn't come, and that I sent it him with my heart's
+love, and God bless him,' she says."
+
+As the old woman spoke, she produced from her pocket a round flat
+parcel wrapped in writing-paper, which she handed to Dallas. He took
+it with a very weak attempt at unconcern (he did not know with how
+much of their secret his mother might have intrusted the old nurse),
+and thrust it into his breast-pocket, saying at the same time,
+"Thanks, nurse. That's all right. Did she say anything else?"
+
+"Nothing, I think. O yes--that of course you would not remain in the
+neighbourhood, and that you were to be sure to write to her, and send
+your address."
+
+"She need not be afraid--I'm off at once! Good-bye, nurse. Tell my
+mother I'll hold to all I promised her. Thank her a thousand times,
+bless her! Good-bye, dear old woman; perhaps the next time we meet I
+shan't have to skulk in a wood when I want to see my mother!"
+
+He pressed a hasty kiss on the old woman's upturned face, and hurried
+away. The last sound he had uttered seemed to have rekindled the old
+vindictive feeling in his mind, for as he strode away he muttered to
+himself: "Skulking in a wood, hiding behind trees--a pretty way for a
+son to seek his mother, and she never to come after all! Prevented by
+her fear of that pompous idiot, her husband. To think of her, such as
+I recollect her, being afraid of an empty-headed dotard. And yet he is
+kind to her. She said so herself--that's nothing; but Nurse Brookes
+said so too--that's something--that's everything. If he were not--if
+he treated her badly--he should rue it. But he is fond of her, and
+proud of her, as well he may be; and Clare, that charming girl, is his
+niece. Charming indeed! Ah, Capel Carruthers, you have a wholesome
+horror of me, but you little know that two guardian angels plead for
+you!"
+
+The sight of the park paling over which he had climbed into the
+shrubbery, and over which lay his only way out of it, seemed to change
+the tenor of his thoughts. He stopped at once, and looking cautiously
+round, stepped in among the trees, and drew from his breast the packet
+which Nurse Brookes had given to him. He tore off the outer covering
+of writing-paper, and carefully placed it in his pocket, then he came
+to a purple morocco case, which he opened, and there before him, set
+off by the velvet on which it lay, was the bracelet, a band of dead
+gold, set with splendid wreaths of forget-me-nots in diamonds and
+turquoises. George Dallas took it up and examined it attentively,
+weighed it in his hand, looked closely at the stones in various
+lights, then replaced it in its case, as a smile of satisfaction
+spread over his face.
+
+"No mistake about that!" said he. "Even I, all unaccustomed to such
+luxuries, know that this must be the right thing. She has sent it as
+she received it, in the very box, with the swell Bond-street
+jeweller's name and all! Not a bad notion of a present, Mr.
+Carruthers, by any means. You've money, sir; but, it must be owned,
+you've taste also. It's only to be hoped that you've not very sharp
+eyesight, or that you'll never be tempted to make a very close
+inspection of the Palais Royal bijouterie which is doing duty for this
+in the jewel-box! These will set me clear with Routh, and leave me
+with a few pounds in my pocket besides, to begin life anew with.
+If it does that and I can stick to my employment on the _Mercury_,
+and get a little more work somewhere else, and give up that infernal
+card-playing--that's the worst of it--I may yet make our friend C. C.
+believe I am not such a miserable scoundrel as he now imagines me!"
+
+He replaced the case carefully in his breast-pocket, climbed the
+palings, and was once more on the high road, striding in the direction
+of Amherst. Ah, the castle-building, only occasionally interrupted by
+a return to the realities of life in squeezing the packet in his
+breast-pocket, which he indulged in during that walk! Free, with
+the chance and the power of making a name for himself in the world!
+free from all the debasing associations, free from Routh, from
+Harriet--from Harriet? Was that idea quite so congenial to his
+feelings? to be separated from Harriet, the only woman whom, in his
+idle dissipated days, he had ever regarded with anything like
+affection, the only woman who--and then the bright laughing face and
+the golden hair of Clare Carruthers rose before his mind. How lovely
+she was, how graceful and bred-looking, above all, how fresh and
+youthful, how unsullied by any contact with the world, with all the
+native instincts pure and original, with no taught captivations or
+society charms, nothing but--
+
+"Yoho! Yoho!"
+
+George Dallas started from his reverie at the repeated cry, and only
+just in time sprang from the middle of the road along which, immersed
+in thought, he had been plodding, as the mail-cart, with its red-faced
+driver, a sprig of lilac in his breast and a bunch of laburnum behind
+each ear of his horse, came charging full upon him. The driver was a
+man choleric by nature, and with a great sense of his position as an
+important government officer, and he glared round at George and asked
+him a few rapid questions, in which the devil and his supposed
+residence were referred to with great volubility. Under less pleasant
+circumstances Dallas would probably have returned his greeting with
+interest; as it was, he merely laughed, and, waving his hand,
+proceeded on his way to the inn, whence, having paid his bill, he
+returned to London by the first train.
+
+During the whole of the journey up to town the young man's thoughts
+were filled with his intentions for the future, and no sooner had the
+train stopped at London-bridge than he determined to go at once to the
+_Mercury_ office and announce his readiness to undertake any amount of
+work. Accordingly he struck away across the Borough, and, crossing
+Blackfriars-bridge, dived among a mass of streets running at right
+angles with Fleet-street, until he arrived at a large, solemn, squat
+old building, over the door of which glimmered a lamp with the words
+"Mercury Office" in half-effaced characters. A small pull at a sharp,
+round, big bell brought a preternaturally sharp boy to the door, who
+at once recognized the visitor, and admitted him within the sacred
+precincts. Up a dark passage, up a steep and regular flight of stairs,
+George Dallas proceeded, until on the first floor he rapped at the
+door facing him, and, being bidden to come in, entered the editorial
+sanctum.
+
+A large cheerless room, its floor covered with a ragged old Turkey
+carpet, on its walls two or three book-shelves crammed with books of
+reference, two or three maps, an old clock gravely ticking, and a
+begrimed bust, with its hair dust-powdered, and with layers of dust on
+its highly developed cheek-bones. In the middle of the room a battered
+old desk covered with blue books, letters opened and unopened, piles
+of manuscript under paper-weights, baskets with cards of invitations
+for all sorts of soirées, entertainments, and performances, and
+snake-like india-rubber tubes for communication with distant
+printing-offices or reporters' rooms, a big leaden inkstand like a
+bath, and a sheaf of pens more or less dislocated. At this desk sat a
+tall man of about fifty, bald-headed, large-bearded, with sharp gray
+eyes, well-cut features, and good presence. This was Mr. Leigh, editor
+of the _Mercury_; a man who had been affiliated to the press from the
+time of his leaving college, who had been connected with nearly all
+the morning journals in one capacity or another, correspondent here,
+manager there, descriptive writer, leader-writer, critic, and scrub,
+and who, always rising, had been recommended by the Jupiter Tonans of
+the press, the editor of the _Statesman_, to fill the vacant editorial
+chair at the _Mercury_. A long-headed, far-seeing man, Grafton Leigh,
+bright as a diamond, and about as hard, keen as a sword in the hands
+of a fine fencer, and as difficult to turn aside, earnest, energetic,
+devoted to his work, and caring for nothing else in comparison--not
+even for his wife, then sound asleep in his little house in Brompton,
+or his boy working for his exhibition from Westminster. He looked up
+as George entered, and his features, tightly set, relaxed as he
+recognized the young man.
+
+"You, Ward!" said he. "We didn't look for you till to-morrow night.
+What rush of industry, what sudden desire to distinguish yourself, has
+brought you here to-night, my boy?"
+
+Before George could answer, a young man came forward from an inner
+room, and caught him by the hand.
+
+"What, Paul, old fellow, this is delicious! He must be brimming over
+with ideas, Chief, and has come down here to ventilate them."
+
+"Not I," said George. "My dear Chief," addressing Leigh, "both you and
+Cunningham give me credit for more virtue than I possess. I merely
+looked in as I passed from the railway to see how things were going
+on."
+
+"This _is_ a sell," said Mr. Cunningham. "I thought I had booked you.
+You see that confounded Shimmer has failed us again. He was to have
+done us a sensation leader on the murder--"
+
+"The murder! What murder?"
+
+"Oh, ah, I forgot; happened since you went away. Wapping or
+Rotherhithe--some waterside place--body found, and all that kind of
+thing! Shimmer was to have done us one of his stirrers, full of
+adjectives, denouncing the supineness of the police, and that kind of
+thing, and he's never turned up, and the Chief has kept me here to
+fill his place. Confounded nuisance! I'm obliged to fall back on my
+old subject--Regulation of the City Traffic!"
+
+"I'm very sorry for you, Cunningham," said George, laughing; "but I
+can't help you to-night. I'm seedy and tired, and I know nothing about
+the murder, and want to get to bed. However, I came to tell the Chief
+that I'm his now and for ever, ready to do double tasks of work from
+to-morrow out."
+
+"All right, Ward. So long as you don't overdo it, I shall always be
+delighted to have you with us," said Mr. Leigh. "Now get home to bed,
+for you look dog-tired." And George Dallas shook hands with each, and
+went away.
+
+"Glad to hear we're going to have a good deal of work out of Ward,
+Chief," said Cunningham, when he and his editor were alone again.
+"He's deuced smart when he likes--as smart as Shimmer, and a great
+deal more polished and gentlemanly."
+
+"Yes," said Grafton Leigh, "he's a decided catch for the paper. I
+don't think his health will last, though. Did you notice his manner
+to-night?--nervous, agitated, and twitching, like a man who had gone
+through some great excitement!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+DISPOSED OF.
+
+
+It was very late when George Dallas arrived at Routh's lodgings in
+South Molton-street, so that he felt it necessary to announce his
+presence by a peculiar knock, known only to the initiated. He made the
+accustomed signal, but the door was not opened for so abnormally long
+an interval that he began to think he should have to go away, and
+defer the telling of the good news until the morning. He had knocked
+three times, and was about to turn away from the door when it was
+noiselessly opened by Harriet herself. She held a shaded candle in her
+hand, which gave so imperfect a light that Dallas could hardly see her
+distinctly enough to feel certain that his first impression, that she
+was looking very pale and ill, was not an imagination induced by the
+dim light. She asked him to come into the sitting-room, and said she
+had just turned the gas out, and was going to bed.
+
+"I am sorry to have disturbed you," he said, when she had set down the
+candle on a table without re-lighting the gas, "but I want to see
+Routh particularly. Is he in?"
+
+"No," said Harriet, "he is not. Did you get his letter?"
+
+"What letter? I have not heard from him. I have only just come up from
+Amherst. But you look ill, Mrs. Routh. Does anything ail you? Is
+anything wrong?"
+
+"No," she said, hurriedly, "nothing, nothing. Routh has been worried,
+that's all, and I am very tired."
+
+She pushed the candle further away as she spoke, and, placing her
+elbow on the table, rested her head on her hand. George looked at her
+with concern. He had a kind heart and great tenderness for women and
+children, and he could forget, or, at all events, lay aside his own
+anxieties in a moment at the sight of suffering in a woman's face. His
+look of anxious sympathy irritated Harriet; she moved uneasily and
+impatiently, and said almost harshly:
+
+"Never mind my looks, Mr. Dallas; they don't matter. Tell me how you
+have sped on your errand at Poynings. Has your mother kept her
+promise? Have you got the money? I hope so, for I am sorry to say
+Stewart wants it badly, and has been reckoning on it eagerly. I can't
+imagine how it happened you did not get his letter."
+
+"I have succeeded," said George. "My mother has kept her word, God
+bless her, and I came at once to tell Routh he can have the money."
+
+He stopped in the full tide of his animated speech, and looked
+curiously at Harriet. Something in her manner struck him as being
+unusual. She was evidently anxious about the money, glad to see him,
+and yet oddly absent. She did not look at him, and while he spoke she
+had turned her head sharply once or twice, while her upraised eyelids
+and parted lips gave her face a fleeting expression of intense
+listening. She instantly noticed his observation of her, and said
+sharply:
+
+"Well, pray go on; I am longing to hear your story."
+
+"I thought you were listening to something, you looked as if you heard
+something," said George.
+
+"So I am listening--to you," Harriet replied, with an attempt at a
+smile. "So I do hear your adventures. There's nobody up in the house
+but myself. Pray go on."
+
+So George went on, and told her all that had befallen him at Amherst,
+with one important reservation; he said nothing of Clare Carruthers or
+his two meetings with the heiress at the Sycamores; but he told her
+all about his interview with his mother, and the expedient to which
+she had resorted to supply his wants. Harriet Routh listened to his
+story intently; but when she heard that he had received from Mrs.
+Carruthers, not money, but jewels, she was evidently disconcerted.
+
+"Here is the bracelet," said George, as he took the little packet from
+the breast-pocket of his coat, and handed it to her. "I don't know
+much about such things, Mrs. Routh, but perhaps you do. Are the
+diamonds very valuable?"
+
+Harriet had opened the morocco case containing the bracelet while he
+was speaking, and now she lifted the beautiful ornament from its satin
+bed, and held it on her open palm.
+
+"I am not a very capable judge," she said; "but I think these are fine
+and valuable diamonds. They are extremely beautiful." And a gleam of
+colour came into her white face as she looked at the gems with a
+woman's irrepressible admiration of such things.
+
+"I can't tell you how much I feel taking them from her," said George.
+"It's like a robbery, isn't it?" And he looked full and earnestly at
+Harriet.
+
+She started, let the bracelet fall, stooped to pick it up, and as she
+raised her face again, it was whiter than before.
+
+"How can you talk such nonsense?" she said, with a sudden resumption
+of her usual captivating manner. "Of course it isn't. Do you suppose
+your mother ever had as much pleasure in these gewgaws in her life as
+she had in giving them to you? Besides, you know you're going to
+reform and be steady, and take good advice, are you not?" She watched
+him very keenly, though her tone was gay and trifling. George
+reddened, laughed awkwardly, and replied:
+
+"Well, I hope so; and the first step, you know, is to pay my debts. So
+I must get Routh to put me in the way of selling this bracelet at
+once. I suppose there's no difficulty about it. I'm sure I have heard
+it said that diamonds are the same as ready money, and the sooner the
+tin is in Routh's pocket the better pleased I'll be. None the less
+obliged to him, though, Mrs. Routh; remember that, both for getting me
+out of the scrape, and for waiting so long and so good-humouredly for
+his money."
+
+For all the cordiality of his tone, for all the gratitude he
+expressed, Harriet felt in her inmost heart, and told herself she felt
+that he was a changed man; that he felt his freedom, rejoiced in it,
+and did not mean again to relinquish or endanger it.
+
+"The thing he feared has happened," she thought, while her small white
+fingers were busy with the jewels. "The very thing he feared. This man
+must be got away--how am I to do it?"
+
+The solitary candle was burning dimly; the room was dull, cold, and
+gloomy. George looked round, and was apparently thinking of taking his
+leave, when Harriet said:
+
+"I have not told you how opportune your getting this money--for I
+count it as money--is. Stay; let me light the gas. Sit down there
+opposite to me, and you shall hear how things have gone with us since
+you went away." She had thrown off the abstraction of her manner, and
+in a moment she lighted the gas, put the extinguished candle out of
+sight, set wine upon the table, and pulled a comfortable arm-chair
+forward, in which she begged George to seat himself. "Take off your
+coat," she said; and he obeyed her, telling her, with a laugh, as he
+flung it upon a chair, that there was a small parcel of soiled linen
+in the pocket.
+
+"I did not expect to have to stay at Amherst, so I took no clothes
+with me," he explained, "and had to buy a shirt and a pair of
+stockings for Sunday, so as not to scandalize the natives. Rather an
+odd place to replenish one's wardrobe, by the by."
+
+Harriet looked sharply at the coat, and, passing the chair on which it
+lay on her way to her own, felt its texture with a furtive touch. Then
+she sat down, gave Dallas wine, and once more fell to examining the
+bracelet. It might have occurred to any other man in George's position
+that it was rather an odd proceeding on the part of Mrs. Routh to keep
+him there at so late an hour with no apparent purpose, and without any
+expressed expectation of Routh's return; but George seldom troubled
+himself with reflections upon anybody's conduct, and invariably
+followed Harriet's lead without thinking about it at all. Recent
+events had shaken Routh's influence, and changed the young man's views
+and tastes, but Harriet still occupied her former place in his regard
+and in his habit of life, which in such cases as his signified much.
+With a confidential air she now talked to him, her busy fingers
+twisting the bracelet as she spoke, her pale face turned to him, but
+her eyes somewhat averted. She told him that Routh had been surprised
+and annoyed at his (Dallas) being so long away from town, and had
+written to him, to tell him that he had been so pressed for money, so
+worried by duns, and so hampered by the slow proceeding of the company
+connected with the new speculation, that he had been obliged to go
+away, and must keep away, until Dallas could let him have one hundred
+and forty pounds. George was concerned to hear all this, and found it
+hard to reconcile with the good spirits in which Routh had been when
+he had seen him last; but he really knew so little of the man's
+affairs beyond having a general notion that they were hopelessly
+complicated, and subject to volcanic action of an utterly
+disconcerting nature, that he regarded his own surprise as
+unreasonable, and forbore to express it.
+
+"It is of the utmost importance to Stewart to have the money at once,"
+Harriet continued. "You see that, yourself; he told you all in his
+letter."
+
+"Very extraordinary it should have been lost! Directed to P.O.,
+Amherst, of course? I wish I had got it, Mrs. Routh; I'd have gone at
+once and sold the bracelet before I came to you at all, and brought
+the money. But I can do it early in the morning, can't I? I can take
+it to some good jeweller and get cash for it, and be here by twelve
+o'clock, so as not to keep Routh a moment longer than I need in
+suspense. Will a hundred and forty square him for the present, Mrs.
+Routh? I'm sure to get more for the bracelet--don't you think
+so?--and of course he can have it all, if he wants it."
+
+The young man spoke in an eager tone, and the woman listened
+with a swelling heart. Her full red lip trembled for a passing
+instant--consideration for--kindness to the only human creature she
+loved touched Harriet as nothing besides had power to touch her.
+
+"I am sure the bracelet is worth more than that sum," she said; "it is
+worth more than two hundred pounds, I dare say. But you forget, Mr.
+Dallas, that you must not be too precipitate in this matter. It is of
+immense importance to Stewart to have this money, but there are
+precautions to be taken."
+
+"Precautions, Mrs. Routh! what precautions? The bracelet's my own,
+isn't it, and principally valuable because there's no bother about
+selling a thing of the kind?"
+
+She looked at him keenly; she was calculating to what extent she might
+manage him, how far he would implicitly believe her statements, and
+rely upon her judgment. His countenance was eminently reassuring, so
+she went on:
+
+"Certainly the bracelet is your own, and it could be easily sold, were
+you only to consider yourself, but you have your mother to consider."
+
+"My mother! How? when she has parted with the bracelet on purpose."
+
+"True," said Harriet; "but perhaps you are not aware that diamonds, of
+anything like the value of these, are as well known, their owners,
+buyers, and whereabouts, as blood horses, their pedigrees, and
+purchasers. I think it would be unsafe for you to sell this bracelet
+in London; you may be sure the diamonds would be known by any jeweller
+on whose respectability you could sufficiently rely, to sell the
+jewels to him. It would be very unpleasant, and of course very
+dangerous to your mother, if the diamonds were known to be those
+purchased by Mr. Carruthers, and a cautious jeweller thought proper to
+ask him any questions."
+
+George looked grave and troubled, as Harriet put these objections to
+his doing as he had proposed, for the immediate relief of Routh,
+clearly before him. He never for a moment doubted the accuracy of her
+information, and the soundness of her fears.
+
+"I understand," he said; "but what can I do? I must sell the bracelet
+to got the money, and sooner or later will make no difference in the
+risk you speak of; but it may make all the difference to Routh. I
+can't, I won't delay in this matter; don't ask me, Mrs. Routh. It is
+very generous of you to think of my risk, but--"
+
+"It is not your risk," she interrupted him by saying; "it is your
+mother's. If it were your own I might let you take it, for Stewart's
+sake,"--an indefinable compassion was in the woman's face, an unwonted
+softness in her blue eyes--"but your mother has done and suffered much
+for you, and she must be protected, even if Stewart has to lie hidden
+a day or two longer. You must not do anything rash. I think I know
+what would be the best thing for you to do."
+
+"Tell me, Mrs. Routh," said George, who highly appreciated the
+delicate consideration for his mother which inspired Harriet's
+misgivings. "Tell me, and whatever it is, I will do it."
+
+"It is this," said Harriet; "I know there is a large trade in diamonds
+at Amsterdam, and that the merchants there, chiefly Jews, deal in the
+loose stones, and are not, in our sense, jewellers. You could dispose
+of the diamonds there without suspicion or difficulty; it is the
+common resort of people who have diamonds to sell--London is not. If
+you would go there at once you might sell the diamonds, and send the
+money to Stewart, or rather to me, to an address we would decide upon,
+without more than the delay of a couple of days. Is there anything to
+keep you in town?"
+
+"No," said George, "nothing. I could start this minute, as far as any
+business I've got to do is concerned."
+
+Harriet drew a long breath, and her colour rose.
+
+"I wish you would, Mr. Dallas," she said, earnestly. "I hardly like to
+urge you, it seems so selfish; and Stewart, if he were here, would
+make so much lighter of the difficulty he is in than I can bring
+myself to do, but you don't know how grateful I should be to you if
+you would."
+
+The pleading earnestness of her tone, the eager entreaty in her eyes,
+impressed George painfully; he hastened to assure her that he would
+accede to any request of hers.
+
+"I am so wretched when he is away from me, Mr. Dallas," said Harriet;
+"I am so lonely and full of dread. Anything not involving you or your
+mother in risk, which would shorten the time of his absence, would be
+an unspeakable boon to me."
+
+"Then of course I will go at once, Mrs. Routh," said George. "I will
+go to-morrow. I am sure you are quite right, and Amsterdam's the place
+to do the trick at. I wish I could have seen Routh first, for a
+moment, but as I can't, I can't. Let me see. Amsterdam. There's a boat
+to Rotterdam by the river, and--Oh, by Jove! here's a Bradshaw; let's
+see when the next goes."
+
+He walked to the little sideboard, and selected the above-named
+compendium of useful knowledge from a mass of periodicals, circulars,
+bills, and prospectuses of companies immediately to be brought out,
+and offering unheard-of advantages to the investors.
+
+The moment his eyes were turned away from her, a fierce impatience
+betrayed itself in Harriet's face, and as he sat slowly turning over
+the sibylline leaves, and consulting the incomprehensible and
+maddening index, she pressed her clasped hands against her knees, as
+though it were almost impossible to resist the impulse which prompted
+her to tear the book from his dilatory fingers.
+
+"Here it is," said George, at length, "and uncommonly cheap, too. The
+Argus for Rotterdam, seven A.M. That's rather early, though, isn't it?
+To-morrow morning, too, or rather this morning, for it's close upon
+one now. Let's see when the Argus, or some other boat, goes next. H'm;
+not till Thursday at the same hour. That's rather far off."
+
+Harriet was breathing quickly, and her face was quite white, but she
+sat still and controlled her agony of anxiety. "I have urged him as
+strongly as I dare," she thought; "fate must do the rest."
+
+Fate did the rest.
+
+"After all, I may as well go at seven in the morning, Mrs. Routh. All
+my things are packed up already, and it will give me a good start. I
+might get my business done before Wednesday night, almost, if I'm
+quick about it; at all events early the following day."
+
+"You might, indeed," said Harriet, in a faint voice.
+
+"There's one little drawback, though, to that scheme," said Dallas. "I
+haven't the money. They owe me a trifle at the _Mercury_, and I shall
+have to wait till to-morrow and get it, and go by Ostend, the swell
+route. I can't go without it, that's clear."
+
+Harriet looked at him with a wan blank face, in which there was
+something of weariness, and under it something of menace, but her tone
+was quite amiable and obliging as she said:
+
+"I think it is a pity to incur both delay and expense by waiting. I
+have always a little ready money by me, in case of our having to make
+a move suddenly, or of an illness, or one of the many contingencies
+which men never think of, and women never forget. You can have it with
+pleasure. You can return it to me," she said, with a forced smile,
+"when you send Routh the hundred and forty."
+
+"Thank you," said Dallas. "I shan't mind taking it from you for a day
+or two, as it is to send help to Routh the sooner. Then I'll go,
+that's settled, and I had better leave you, for you were tired when I
+came in, and you must be still more tired now. I shall get back from
+Amsterdam as quickly as I can, tell Routh, but I see my way to making
+a few pounds out of the place. They want padding at the _Mercury_, and
+I shan't come back by return of post." He had risen now, and had
+extended his hand towards the bracelet, which lay in its open case on
+the table. A sudden thought struck Harriet.
+
+"Stop," she said; "I don't think it would do to offer this bracelet in
+its present shape, anywhere. The form and the setting are too
+remarkable. It would probably be re-sold entire, and it is impossible
+to say what harm might come of its being recognized. It must be taken
+to pieces, and you must offer the diamonds separately for sale. It
+will make no appreciable difference in the money you will receive, for
+such work as this is like bookbinding--dear to buy, but never counted
+in the price when you want to sell."
+
+"What am I to do, then?" asked George, in a dismayed tone. "I could
+not to take out the diamonds, you know; they are firmly set--see
+here." He turned the gold band inside out, and showed her the plain
+flat surface at the back of the diamonds and turquoises.
+
+"Wait a moment," said Harriet. "I think I can assist you in this
+respect. Do you study the bracelet a bit until I come to you."
+
+She left the room, and remained away for a little time. Dallas stood
+close by the table, having lowered the gas-burners, and by their light
+he closely inspected the rivets, the fastenings, and the general form
+of the splendid ornament he was so anxious to get rid of, idly
+thinking how well it must have looked on his mother's still beautiful
+arm, and wondering whether she was likely soon to "be obliged to wear
+the counterfeit. His back was turned to the door by which Harriet had
+left the room, so that, when she came softly to the aperture again, he
+did not perceive her. She carefully noted his attitude, and glided
+softly in, carrying several small implements in her right hand, and in
+her left held cautiously behind her back a coat, which she dexterously
+dropped upon the floor quite unperceived by Dallas, behind the chair
+on which he had thrown his. She then went up to the table, and showed
+him a small pair of nippers, a pair of scissors of peculiar form, and
+a little implement, with which she told him workers in jewelry
+loosened stones in their setting, and punched them out. Dallas looked
+with some surprise at the collection, regarding them as unusual items
+of a lady's paraphernalia, and said, gaily:
+
+"You are truly a woman of resources, Mrs. Routh. Who would ever have
+thought of your having all those things ready at a moment's notice?"
+
+Harriet made no reply, but she could not quite conceal the
+disconcerting effect of his words.
+
+"If I have made a blunder in this," she thought, "it is a serious one,
+but I have more to do, and must not think yet."
+
+She sat down, cleared a space on the table, placed the bracelet and
+the little tools before her, and set to work at once at her task of
+demolition. It was a long one, and the sight was pitiful as she placed
+jewel after jewel carefully in a small box before her, and proceeded
+to loosen one after another. Sometimes George took the bracelet from
+her and aided her, but the greater part of the work was done by her.
+The face bent over the disfigured gold and maltreated gems was a
+remarkable one in its mingled expression of intentness and absence;
+her will was animating her fingers in their task, but her mind, her
+fancy, her memory, were away, and, to judge by the rigidity of the
+cheeks and lips, the unrelaxed tension of the low white brow, on no
+pleasing excursion. The pair worked on in silence, only broken
+occasionally by a word from George, expressive of admiration for her
+dexterity and the celerity with which she detached the jewels from the
+gold setting. At length all was done--the golden band, limp and
+scratched, was a mere commonplace piece of goldsmith's work--the
+diamonds lay in their box in a shining heap, the discarded turquoises
+on the table; and all was done.
+
+"What shall we do with these things?" asked George. "They are not
+worth selling--at least, not now--but I think the blue things might
+make up prettily with the gold again. Will you keep them, Mrs. Routh?
+and some day, when I am better off, I'll have them set for you, in
+remembrance of this night in particular, and of all your goodness to
+me in general."
+
+He was looking at the broken gold and the turquoises, thinking how
+trumpery they looked now--not at her. Fortunately not at her, for if
+he had seen her face he must have known--even he, unsuspicious as he
+was--that she was shaken by some inexplicably powerful feeling. The
+dark blood rushed into her face, dispersed itself over her fair throat
+in blotches, and made a sudden dreadful tingling in her ears. For a
+minute she did not reply, and then Dallas did look at her, but the
+agony had passed over her.
+
+"No--no," she said; "the gold is valuable, and the turquoises as much
+so as they can be for their size. You must keep them for a rainy day."
+
+"I'm likely to see many," said George, with half a smile and half a
+sigh, "but I don't think I'll ever use these things to keep me from
+the pelting of the pitiless shower. If you won't keep them for
+yourself, Mrs. Routh, perhaps you'll keep them for me until I return."
+
+"O yes," said Harriet, "I will keep them. I will lock them up in my
+desk; you will know where to find them."
+
+She drew the desk towards her as she spoke, took out of it a piece of
+paper, without seeing that one side had some writing upon it, swept
+the scattered turquoises into the sheet, then folded the gold band in
+a second, placed both in a large blue envelope, with the device of
+Routh's last new company scheme upon it, and sealed the parcel over
+the wafer.
+
+"Write your name on it," she said to George, who took up a pen and
+obeyed her. She opened a drawer at the side of the desk, and put away
+the little parcel quite at the back. Then she took from the same
+drawer seven sovereigns, which George said would be as much as he
+would require for the present, and which he carefully stowed away in
+his pocket-book. Then he sat down at the desk, and playfully wrote an
+IOU for the amount.
+
+"That's business-like," said George, smiling, but the smile by which
+she replied was so wan and weary, that George again commented on her
+fatigue, and began to take leave of her.
+
+"I'm off, then," he said, "and you won't forget to tell Routh how much
+I wanted to see him. Among other things to tell him--However, I
+suppose he has seen Deane since I have been away?"
+
+Harriet was occupied in turning down the gas-burner by which she had
+just lighted the candle again. She now said:
+
+"How stupid I am! as if I couldn't have lighted you to the door first,
+and put the gas out afterwards! The truth is, I am so tired; I'm quite
+stupified. What did you say, Mr. Dallas? There, I've knocked your coat
+off the chair; here it is, however. You asked me something, I think?"
+
+George took the coat she held from her, hung it over his arm, felt for
+his hat (the room being lighted only by the feeble candle), and
+repeated his words:
+
+"Routh has seen Deane, of course, since I've been away?"
+
+"No," Harriet replied with distinctness, "he has not--he has not."
+
+"Indeed!" said George. "I am surprised at that. But Deane was huffed,
+I remember, on Tuesday, when Routh broke his engagement to dine with
+him, and said it must depend on whether he was in the humour to meet
+him the next day, as Routh asked him to do. So I suppose he wasn't in
+the humour, eh? And now he'll be huffed with me, but I can't help it."
+
+"Why?" asked Harriet; and she spoke the single word with a strange
+effort, and a painful dryness of the throat.
+
+"Because I promised to give him his revenge at billiards. I won ten
+pounds from him that night, and uncommonly lucky it was for me; it
+enabled me to get away from my horrible old shrew of a landlady, and,
+indeed, indirectly it enables me to start on this business to-morrow."
+
+"How?" said Harriet. Again she spoke but one word, and again with
+difficulty and a dryness in the throat. She set down the candle, and
+leaned against the table, while George stood between her and the door,
+his coat over his arm.
+
+"You didn't notice that I told you I was all packed up and ready to
+go. It happened luckily, didn't it?" And then George told his listener
+how he had paid his landlady, and removed his modest belongings on the
+previous Wednesday morning to a coffee-house, close to the river too.
+"By Jove! I'm in luck's way, it seems," he said; "so I shall merely go
+and sleep there, and take my traps on board the Argus. I have only
+such clothes as I shall want, no matter where I am," he said. "They'll
+keep the trunk with my books until I come back, and Deane must wait
+for his revenge with the balls and cues for the same auspicious
+occasion. Let's hope he'll be in a better temper, and have forgiven
+Routh. He was awfully riled at his note on Tuesday evening."
+
+"Did--did you see it!" asked Harriet; and, as she spoke, she leaned
+still more heavily against the table.
+
+"No," replied Dallas, "I did not; but Deane told me Routh asked him to
+meet him the next day. He didn't, it seems."
+
+"No," said Harriet; "and Stewart is very much annoyed about it. Mr.
+Deane owed him money, and he asked him for some in that note."
+
+"Indeed," said George; "he could have paid him then, I happen to know.
+He had a lot of gold and notes with him. The tenner he lost to me he
+paid in a note, and he changed a fiver to pay for our dinner, and he
+was bragging and bouncing the whole time about the money he had about
+him, and what he would, and would not, do with it. So it was sheer
+spite made him neglect to pay Routh, and I hope he'll dun him again.
+The idea of Routh being in the hole he's in, and a fellow like that
+owing him money. How much is it, Mrs. Routh?"
+
+"I--I don't know," said Harriet.
+
+"There, I'm keeping you talking still. I am the most thoughtless
+fellow." It never occurred to George that she had kept him until she
+had learned what she wanted to know. "Good-bye, Mrs. Routh, good-bye."
+
+She had passed him, the candle in her hand, and this farewell was
+uttered in the hall. He held out his hand; she hesitated for a moment,
+and then gave him hers. He pressed it fervently; it was deadly cold.
+
+"Don't stay in the chill air," he said; "you are shivering now."
+
+Then he went away with a light cheerful step.
+
+Harriet Routh stood quite still, as he had left her, for one full
+minute; then she hurried into the sitting-room, shut the door,
+dropped on her knees before a chair, and ground her face fiercely
+against her arms. There she knelt, not sobbing, not weeping, but
+shuddering--shuddering with the quick terrible iteration of mortal
+agony of spirit, acting on an exhausted frame. After a while she rose,
+and then her face was dreadful to look upon, in its white fixed
+despair.
+
+"If I have saved him," she said, as she sat wearily down by the table
+again, and once more leaned her face upon her hands--"if I have saved
+him! It may be there is a chance; at all events, there is a chance.
+How wonderful, how inconceivably wonderful that he should not have
+heard of it! The very stones of the street seem to cry it out, and he
+has not heard of it; the very air is full of it, and he knows nothing.
+If anything should prevent his going? But no; nothing will, nothing
+_can_. This was the awful danger--this was the certain, the inevitable
+risk; if I have averted it; if I have saved him, for the time!"
+
+The chill of coming dawn struck cold to her limbs, the sickness of
+long watching, of fear, and of sleeplessness was at her heart, but
+Harriet Routh did not lie down on her bed all that dreadful night.
+Terrible fatigue weighed down her eyelids, and made her flesh tremble
+and quiver over the aching bones.
+
+"I must not sleep--I should not wake in time," she said, as she forced
+herself to rise from her chair, and paced the narrow room, when the
+sudden dumbness of sleep threatened to fall upon her. "I have
+something to do."
+
+Dawn came, then sunrise, then the sounds, the stir of morning. Then
+Harriet bathed her face in cold water, and looked in her toilet-glass
+at her haggard features. The image was not reassuring; but she only
+smiled a bitter smile, and made a mocking gesture with her hand.
+
+"Never any more," she murmured--"never any more." The morning was cold
+and raw, but Harriet heeded it not. She glanced out of the window of
+her bed-room before she left it, wearing her bonnet and shawl, and
+closely veiled. Then she closed the shutters, locked the door,
+withdrew the key, and came into the sitting-room. She went to a chair
+and took up a coat which lay at the back of it; then she looked round
+for a moment as if in search of something. Her eye lighted on a small
+but heavy square of black marble which lay on the writing-table, and
+served as a paper-press. She then spread the coat on the table, placed
+the square of marble on it, and rolled it tightly round the heavy
+centre, folding and pressing the parcel into the smallest possible
+dimensions. This done, she tied it tightly with a strong cord, and,
+concealing it under her shawl, went swiftly out of the house. No one
+saw her issue from the grim, gloomy door--the neighbouring housemaids
+had not commenced their matutinal task of door-step cleaning,
+alleviated by gossip--and she went away down the street, completely
+unobserved. Went away, with her head down, her face hidden, with a
+quick, steady step and an unfaltering purpose. There were not many
+wayfarers abroad in the street, and of those she saw none, and was
+remarked by only one.
+
+Harriet Routh took her way towards the river, and reached
+Westminster-bridge as the clock in the great tower of the new palace
+marked half-past six. All was quiet. A few of the laggards of the
+working classes were straggling across the bridge to their daily toil,
+a few barges were moving sluggishly upon the muddy water; but there
+was no stir, no business yet. Harriet lingered when she reached the
+centre of the bridge; a figure was just vanishing at the southern end,
+the northern was clear of people. She leaned over the parapet, and
+looked down--no boat, no barge was near. Then she dropped the parcel
+she had carried into the river, and the water closed over it. Without
+the delay of an instant, she turned and retraced her steps toward
+home. As she neared South Morton-street, she found several of
+the shops open, and entering one, she purchased a black marble
+letter-press. It was not precisely similar to that with which she had
+weighted the parcel, which now lay in the bed of the river; but the
+difference was trifling, and not to be perceived by the eye of a
+stranger.
+
+Near the house in which the Rouths occupied apartments there was an
+archway which formed the entrance to some mews. As she passed this
+open space, Harriet's glance fell upon the inquisitive countenance of
+a keen-looking, ragged street-boy, who was lying contentedly on his
+back under the archway, with his arms under his head, and propped upon
+the kerbstone. A sudden impulse arrested her steps. "Have you no other
+place to lie than here?" she asked the boy, who jumped up with great
+alacrity, and stood before her in an attitude almost respectful.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," he said, "I have, but I'm here, waiting for an early
+job."
+
+She gave him a shilling and a smile--not such a smile as she once had
+to give, but the best that was left her--and went on to the door of
+the house she lived in. She opened it with a key, and went in.
+
+The boy remained where she had left him, apparently ruminating, and
+wagging his tousled head sagely.
+
+"Whatever is she up to?" he asked of himself, in perplexity, "It's a
+rum start, as far as I knows on it, and I means to know more. But how
+is she in it? I shan't say nothing till I knows more about it." And
+then Mr. Jim Swain went his way to a more likely quarter for early
+jobs.
+
+Fortune favoured Mrs. Routh on that morning. She gained her bed-room
+unseen and unheard, and having hastily undressed, lay down to rest, if
+rest would come to her--at least to await in quiet the ordinary hour
+at which the servant was accustomed to call her. It came, and passed;
+but Harriet did not rise.
+
+She slept a little when all the world was up and busy--slept until the
+second delivery of letters brought one for her, which the servant took
+at once to her room.
+
+The letter was from George Dallas, and contained merely a few lines,
+written when he was on the point of starting, and posted at the
+river-side. He apologized to Harriet for a mistake which he had made
+on the previous night. He had taken up Routh's coat instead of his
+own, and had not discovered the error until he was on his way to the
+steamer, and it was too late to repair it. He hoped it would not
+matter, as he had left his own coat at South Molton-street, and no
+doubt Routh could wear it, on an occasion. When Harriet had read this
+note, she lay back upon her pillow, and fell into a deep sleep, which
+was broken by Routh's coming into her room early in the afternoon. He
+looked pale and haggard, and he stood by the bedside in silence. But
+she--she sat up, and flung her arms round him with a wonderfully good
+imitation of her former manner; and when she told him all that had
+passed, her husband caught her to his breast with passionate fondness
+and gratitude, and declared over and over again that her ready wit and
+wonderful fortitude had saved him. Saved him? How, and from what?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+AT POYNINGS.
+
+
+Life at Poynings had its parallel in hundreds of country-houses, of
+which it was but a type. It was a life essentially English in its
+character, in its staid respectability, in its dull decorum. There are
+old French chateaux without number, visible in bygone days to
+travellers in the banquettes of diligencies, and glimpses of which may
+still occasionally be caught from the railways, gray, square, four
+pepper-box turreted old buildings, wherein life is dreary but not
+decorous, and sad without being staid. It is the day-dream of many an
+English country gentleman that his house should, in the first place,
+be respectable, in the second place, comfortable, in the third place,
+free from damp; after these successes are achieved, he takes no
+further thought for it; within and without the dulness may be
+soul-harrowing; that is no affair of his. So long as his dining-room
+is large enough to contain the four-and-twenty guests who, on
+selected moonlight nights, are four times in every year bidden to
+share his hospitality--so long as the important seignorial dignities
+derivable from the possession of lodge, and stable, and kennel are
+maintained--so long as the state devolving upon him as justice of the
+peace, with a scarcely defined hope of one day arriving at the
+position of deputy-lieutenant, is kept up, vaulting ambition keeps
+itself within bounds, and the young English country gentleman is
+satisfied. More than satisfied, indeed, was Mr. Capel Carruthers in
+the belief that all the requirements above named were properly
+fulfilled. In his earlier life he had been haunted by a dim conviction
+that he was rather an ass than otherwise; he remembered that that had
+been the verdict returned at Rugby, and his reflections on his very
+short career at Cambridge gave him no reason to doubt the decision of
+his schoolfellows. Not a pleasant source of reflection even to a man
+of Mr. Carruthers's blunted feelings; in fact, a depressing, wrong,
+Radical state of mind, for which there was only one antidote--the
+thought that he was Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, a certain settled
+stable position which would have floated its possessor over any amount
+of imbecility. Carruthers of Poynings! There it was in old county
+histories, with a genealogy of the family and a charming copper
+engraving of Poynings at the beginning of the century, with two ladies
+in powder and hoops fishing in an impossible pond, and a gentleman in
+a cocked-hat and knee-breeches pointing out nothing in particular to
+nobody at all. Carruthers of Poynings! All the old armour in the hall,
+hauberks and breastplates, now propped upon a slight wooden frame,
+instead of enclosing the big chests and the thews and sinews which
+they had preserved through the contests of the rival Roses or the
+Cavaliers and Roundheads--all the old ancestors hanging round the
+dining-room, soldiers, courtiers, Kentish yeomen, staring with grave
+eyes at the smug white-whiskered old gentleman, their descendant--all
+the old tapestry worked by Maud Carruthers, whose husband was killed
+in the service of Mary Stuart--all the carvings and gildings about the
+house, all the stained glass in the windows, all the arms and
+quartering and crests upon the family plate--all whispered to the
+present representative of the family that he was Carruthers of
+Poynings, and as such had only to make a very small effort to find
+life no very difficult matter, even for a person scantily endowed with
+brains. He tried it accordingly--tried it when a young man, had
+pursued the course ever since, and found it successful. Any latent
+suspicion of his own want of wisdom had vanished long since, as how,
+indeed, could it last? When Mr. Carruthers took his seat as chairman
+of the magisterial bench at Amherst, he found himself listening with
+great admiration to the prefatory remarks which he addressed to the
+delinquent in custody before passing sentence on him, unconscious that
+those remarks only echoed the magistrate's clerk, who stood close
+behind him whispering into his ear. When, as was his regular custom,
+he walked round the barn, where, on rent-days, the tenants were
+assembled at dinner, and heard his health proposed in glowing terms,
+and drunk with great enthusiasm--for he was a good and liberal
+landlord--and when he addressed a few conventional words of thanks in
+reply, and stroked his white whiskers, and bowed, amidst renewed
+cheering, how should a thought of his own shortcomings ever dawn upon
+him?
+
+His shortcomings!--the shortcomings of Mr. Carruthers of Poynings? If,
+indeed, in his earlier days there had been a latent belief in the
+existence of anything so undesirable and so averse to the proper
+status of a county magnate, it had long since died out. It would have
+been hard and unnatural, indeed, for a man so universally respected
+and looked up to, not to give in to the general creed, and admit that
+there were undoubted grounds for the widespread respect which he
+enjoyed. There are two kinds of "squires," to use the old English
+word, who exercise equal influence on the agricultural mind, though in
+very different ways. The one is the type which Fielding loved to draw,
+and which has very little altered since his time--the jocund sporting
+man, rib-poking, lass-chin-chucking franklin, the tankard-loving,
+cross-country-riding, oath-using, broad-skirted, cord-breeched,
+white-hatted squire. The other is the landed proprietor, magistrate,
+patron of the living, chairman of the board of guardians, supporter of
+the church and state, pattern man. Mr. Carruthers of Poynings belonged
+to the latter class. You could have told that by a glance at him on
+his first appearance in the morning, with his chin shaved clean, his
+well-brushed hair and whiskers, his scrupulously white linen, his
+carefully tied check neckcloth, his portentous collars, his trimmed
+and polished nails. His very boots creaked of position and
+respectability, and his large white waistcoat represented unspotted
+virtue. Looking at him ensconced behind the bright-edged Bible at
+early morning prayers, the servants believed in the advantages
+derivable from a correct life, and made an exception in their master's
+favour to the doom of Dives. By his own measure he meted the doings of
+others, and invariably arose considerably self-refreshed from the
+mensuration. Hodge, ploughman, consigned to the cage after a brawl
+with Giles, hedger, consequent upon a too liberal consumption of flat
+and muddy ale at The Three Horseshoes, known generally as The Shoes,
+and brought up for judgment before the bench, pleading "a moog too
+much" in extenuation, might count on scanty commiseration from the
+magistrate, who never exceeded his four glasses of remarkably sound
+claret. Levi Hinde, gipsy and tramp, arraigned for stealing a loaf
+from a baker's shop--as he said, to save the life of his starving
+child--impressed not one whit the portly chairman of the Amherst
+branch of the County Bank. Mr. Carruthers never got drunk, and never
+committed theft; and that there could be any possible temptation for
+other people so to act, was beyond the grasp of his most respectable
+imagination.
+
+A man of his stamp generally shows to the least advantage in his
+domestic relations. Worshipped from a distance by outsiders, who, when
+occasion forces them into the presence, approach, metaphorically, in
+the Siamese fashion, on hands and knees, there is usually a good deal
+too much Grand Lama-like mystery and dignity about the recipient of
+all this homage to render him agreeable to those with whom he is
+brought into daily contact. Mr. Carruthers was not an exception to the
+rule. He had a notion that love, except the extremely respectable but
+rather weak regard felt by mothers towards their infants, was a
+ridiculous boy-and-girl sentiment, which never really came to
+anything, nor could be considered worthy of notice until the feminine
+mind was imbued with a certain amount of reverence for the object of
+her affection. Mr. Carruthers had never read Tennyson (in common with
+his class, he was extremely severe upon poets in general, looking upon
+them not merely as fools, but as idle mischievous fools, who might be
+better employed in earning a decent livelihood, say as carters or
+turnpike-men); but he was thoroughly impressed with the idea that
+"woman is the lesser man," and he felt that any open display of
+affection on his part towards his wife might militate against what he
+considered entirely essential to his domestic happiness--his "being
+looked up to." He was in the habit of treating his wife in ordinary
+matters of social intercourse very much as he treated the
+newly-appointed justice of the peace at the meetings of the
+magisterial bench, viz. as a person whose position was now recognized
+by the laws of society as equal to their own, but who must
+nevertheless feel inwardly that between him and Mr. Carruthers of
+Poynings there was really a great gulf fixed, the bridging of which,
+however easy it may appear, was really a matter of impossibility.
+
+If these feelings existed, as they undoubtedly did in Mr. Carruthers
+under the actual circumstances of his marriage, it may be imagined
+that they would have been much keener, much more intensified, had he
+taken to wife, instead of the quiet widow lady whom, to the
+astonishment of the county, he chose, any of the dashing girls who had
+danced, dressed, and flirted at him perseveringly, but in vain.
+Poynings was a sufficiently nice place to render its master a catch in
+the county, and to induce husband-hunting misses to discount his age
+and pomposity, so that when the cards of Mr. and Mrs. Capel Carruthers
+were sent round (it was before the contemptuous days of "no cards "),
+and it was discovered that the new mistress of Poynings was somebody
+quite out of "the set," immediately "that dear Mr. Carruthers" became
+"that horrid old thing," and it required years of open-handed
+hospitality to reestablish him in favour.
+
+But Capel Carruthers had chosen wisely, and he knew it. With all his
+weakness and vanity, a gentleman in thought and tastes, he had taken
+for his wife a lady whose birth and breeding must have been
+acknowledged in any society; a lady whose age was not ill-suited to
+his own, whose character was unimpeachable, who was thoroughly
+qualified to superintend the bringing out of his niece, and whose sole
+vulnerable point for criticism--her poverty--was rendered invulnerable
+as soon as she became Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings. And, under all the
+cold placid exterior which never thawed, under all the set
+Grandisonian forms of speech which were never relaxed, under the
+judicial manner and the Board-of-Guardians address, flowed a warm
+current of love for his wife which he himself scarcely suspected. With
+such poor brains as he had, he had occasionally fallen to the task of
+self-examination, asking himself how it was that he, Mr. Carruthers of
+Poynings (even in his thoughts he liked the ring of that phrase),
+could have so far permitted himself to be swayed by any one, and then
+he told himself that he was reverenced and looked up to, that his
+state, position, and dignities were duly acknowledged, and in a
+satisfied frame of mind he closed the self-colloquy. Loved his
+wife--eh! neither he nor any one else knew how much. George Dallas
+need not have been anxious about the treatment of his mother by his
+stepfather. When the young man cursed his exile from his mother's
+presence and his stepfather's home, he little knew the actual motives
+which prompted Mr. Carruthers to decide upon and to keep rigidly in
+force that decree of banishment. Not only his stepson's wildness and
+extravagance; though a purist, Mr. Carruthers was sufficient man of
+the world to know that in most cases there are errors of youth which
+correct themselves in the flight of time. Not a lurking fear that his
+niece, thrown in this prodigal's way, should be dazzled by the glare
+of his specious gifts, and singe her youth and innocence in their
+baleful light. Not a dread of having to notice and recognize the young
+man as his connection in the chastened arena of county society.
+
+As nature had not endowed Mr. Carruthers with a capacity for winning
+affection, though it was not to be denied that there were qualities in
+his character which commanded respect, it was fortunate for him that
+he cared less about the former than the latter. Nevertheless, he would
+probably have been rendered very uncomfortable, not to say unhappy,
+had he supposed that his wife. "Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings," as there
+is reason to suppose he designated her, even in his inmost thoughts,
+positively did not love him. Such a supposition, however, never had
+occurred to him, which was fortunate; for Mr. Carruthers was apt to
+hold by his suppositions as strongly as other people held by their
+convictions, as, indeed, being _his_, why should he not? and it would
+have been very difficult to dislodge such a notion. The notion itself
+would have been, in the first place, untrue, and in the second,
+dangerous. Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings loved her rather grim and
+decidedly uninteresting but unimpeachably respectable husband, if not
+passionately, which was hardly to be expected, very sincerely, and
+estimated him after the fashion of wives--that is to say, considerably
+above his deserts. All women like their husbands, except those who
+notoriously do not, and Mrs. Carruthers was no exception to the rule.
+She had a much greater sense of justice in her than most women, and
+she used it practically--applied it to her own case. She knew the
+fault had been her son's in the great sorrow which had destroyed all
+the pride and pleasure which her prosperous marriage would otherwise
+have brought her, and she did not charge it upon her husband, or,
+except in so far as her unconquerable anxiety and depression caused
+him annoyance, did she inflict the penalty of it on him. She knew him
+to be a hard man, and she did not look for softness from, him; but she
+accepted such advantages as hardness of character possesses, and bore
+its disadvantages well. "If I were he," she had said to herself, even
+in the first hours of her anguish of conviction of her boy's
+unworthiness, and when his stepfather's edict of exclusion was but
+newly published, "and I had so little knowledge of human nature as he
+has, if life had never taught me toleration, if Clare were my niece
+and George his son, would I not have acted as he has done? He is
+consistent to the justness and the sternness of his character."
+Thinking thus, Mrs. Carruthers acted on the maxim that to judge others
+aright we should put ourselves in their position. So she accepted the
+great trial of her life, and suffered it as quietly and patiently as
+she could. It would be difficult to define with precision the nature
+of Mr. Carruthers's sentiments towards George Dallas. The young man
+had met his stepfather but rarely, and had on each occasion increased
+the disfavour with which from the first the elder man had regarded
+him. He had never tried to propitiate, had, indeed, regarded him with
+contemptuous indifference, secure in what he fancied to be the
+security of his mother's position; and there had been covert
+antagonism between them from the first. How much astonished Mr.
+Carruthers would have been had any revelation been made to him of the
+secrets of his own heart, whereby he would have discovered that a
+strong sentiment of jealousy lay at the root of his antipathy to
+George Dallas--jealousy which intensified his hardness and sternness,
+and forbade him to listen to the promptings of common sense, which
+told him that the line he was taking towards the son was so cruel to
+the mother as to neutralize all the advantages presented by the fine
+marriage she had made, and for which, by the way, he expected her to
+be constantly demonstratively grateful. In this expectation he was as
+constantly disappointed. Mrs. Carruthers was an eminently _true_
+woman, and as she felt no peculiar exuberance of gratitude, she showed
+none. She was a lady too--much more perfectly a lady than Mr.
+Carruthers was unimpeachably a gentleman--and, as such, she filled her
+position as a matter of course, as she would have filled one much
+higher, or one much lower, and thought nothing about it. She was of so
+much finer a texture, so much higher a nature, than her husband, that
+she did not suspect him of any double motive in his treatment of
+George Dallas. She never dreamed that Mr. Carruthers of Poynings was
+secretly uneasily jealous of the man who had died in his prime many
+years before, and the son, who had been first the young widow's sole
+consolation and then her bitterest trial. The living and the dead
+combined to displease Mr. Carruthers, and he would have been
+unequivocally glad, only in decorous secrecy, could he have obtained
+any evidence to prove that George Dallas was remarkably like his
+father in all the defective points of his personal appearance and in
+all the faults of his character. But such evidence was not within his
+reach, and Mr. Carruthers was reduced to hoping in his secret heart
+that his suppositions were correct on this point, and discovering a
+confirmation of them in his wife's scrupulous silence with regard to
+her first husband. She had never, in their most confidential moments,
+remarked on any likeness between George and his father; had  never,
+indeed, mentioned Captain Dallas at all, which appeared extremely
+significant to Mr. Carruthers, but seeing that Captain Dallas had been
+dead twelve years when his widow became Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings,
+would not have occasioned much surprise to the world in general. Mr.
+Carruthers regarded himself as his wife's benefactor, but she did not
+partake of his views in that respect. The notion which he entertained
+of his position with regard to his niece Clare was better founded and
+more reasonable.
+
+The beautiful young heiress, who was an unconscious and involuntary
+element in the standing grievance of Mrs. Carruthers's life, was the
+only child of Mr. Carruthers's brother, and the sole inheritor of his
+property. Her father had died while she was a little child, and her
+mother's method of educating her has been already described. She was
+attached to her uncle, but was afraid of him; and she was happier and
+more at ease at the Sycamores than at Poynings. Of course Mr.
+Carruthers did not suspect his niece of any such depravity of taste.
+It never occurred to him that any one could fancy himself or herself
+happier anywhere on the face of the created globe than at Poynings;
+and so Clare escaped the condemnation which she would otherwise have
+received in no stinted measure.
+
+Accustomed to attach a wonderful amount of importance to duties and
+responsibilities which were his, if their due fulfilment could add to
+his dignity and reputation, Mr. Carruthers was a model of the uncle
+and guardian. He really liked Clare very much indeed, and he was fully
+persuaded that he loved her--a distinction he would have learned to
+draw only if Clare had been deprived of her possessions, and rendered
+dependent on him. He spoke of her as "my brother's heiress," and so
+thought of her, not as "my brother's orphan child;" but in all
+external and material respects Mr. Carruthers of Poynings was an
+admirable guardian, and a highly respectable specimen of the uncle
+tribe. He would have been deeply shocked had he discovered that any
+young lady in the county was better dressed, better mounted, more
+obsequiously waited upon, more accomplished, or regarded by society as
+in any way more favoured by fortune than Miss Carruthers--not of
+Poynings, indeed, but the next thing to it, and likely at some future
+day to enjoy that distinction. Mr. Carruthers did not regret that he
+was childless; he had never cared for children, and, though not a
+keenly observant person, he had noticed occasionally that the
+importance of a rich man's heir was apt, in this irrepressibly
+anticipative world, to outweigh the importance of the rich man
+himself. No Carruthers on record had ever had a large family, and, for
+his own part, he liked the idea of a female heir to the joint property
+of himself and his brother, who should carry her own name in addition
+to her husband's. He was determined on that. Unless Clare married a
+nobleman, her husband should take the name of Carruthers. Carruthers
+of Poynings must not die out of the land. The strange jealousy which
+was one of the underlying constituents of Mr. Carruthers's character
+came into play with regard to his niece and his wife. Mrs. Carruthers
+loved the girl, and would gladly have acted the part of a mother to
+her; and as Clare's own mother had been a remarkably mild specimen of
+maternal duty and affection, she could have replaced that lady
+considerably to Clare's advantage. But she had soon perceived that
+this was not to be; her husband's fidgety sense of his own importance,
+his ever-present fear lest it should be trenched upon or in any way
+slighted, interfered with her good intentions. She knew the
+uselessness of opposing the foible, though she did not understand its
+source, and she relinquished the projects she had formed.
+
+Mr. Carruthers was incapable of believing that his wife never once
+dreamed of resenting to Clare the exclusion of George, for which the
+girl's residence at Poynings had been assigned as a reason, or that
+she would have despised herself if such an idea had presented itself
+to her mind, as she probably must have despised him had she known how
+natural and inevitable he supposed it to be on her part.
+
+Thus it came to pass that the three persons who lived together at
+Poynings had but little real intimacy or confidence between them.
+Clare was very happy; she had her own tastes and pursuits, and ample
+means of gratifying them. Her mother's brother and his wife, Sir
+Thomas and Lady Boldero, with her cousin, their ugly but clever and
+charming daughter, were much attached to her, and she to them, and,
+when she got away from Poynings to the Sycamores, Clare acknowledged
+to herself that she enjoyed the change very much, but was very happy
+at Poynings nevertheless. The Sycamores had another interest for her
+now, another association, and the girl's life had entered upon a new
+phase. Innocent, inexperienced, and romantic as she was, inclined to
+hero-worship, and by no means likely to form sound opinions as to her
+heroes, Clare Carruthers was endowed with an unusual allowance of
+common sense and perception. She understood Mr. Carruthers of Poynings
+thoroughly; so much more thoroughly than his wife, that she had found
+out the jealousy which permeated his character, and recognized it in
+action with unfailing accuracy. She had considerably more tact than
+girls at her age ordinarily possess, and she continued to fill a
+somewhat difficult position with satisfaction not only to others, but
+to herself. She contrived to avoid wounding her uncle's susceptible
+self-love, and to keep within the limits which Mrs. Carruthers's
+discretion had set to their intimacy, without throwing external
+coldness or restraint into their relations.
+
+Clare found herself very often doing or not doing, saying or
+refraining from saying, some particular thing, in order to avoid
+"getting Mrs. Carruthers into a scrape," and of course she was aware
+that the constantly-recurring necessity for such carefulness argued,
+at the least, a difficult temper to deal with in the head of the
+household; but she did not let the matter trouble her much. She would
+think, when she thought about it at all, with the irrepressible
+self-complacency of youth, how careful _she_ would be not to marry an
+ill-tempered man, or, at all events, she would make up her mind to
+marry a man so devotedly attached to her that his temper would not be
+of the slightest consequence, as, of course, she should never suffer
+from it. On the whole, it would be difficult to find a more dangerous
+condition of circumstances than that in which Clare Carruthers was
+placed when her romantic meeting with Paul Ward took place--a meeting
+in which the fates seemed to have combined every element of present
+attraction and future danger. Practically, Clare was quite alone; she
+placed implicit confidence in no one, she had no guide for her
+feelings or actions, and she had just drifted into a position in which
+she needed careful direction. She refrained from mentioning her
+meeting with the stranger, more on Mrs. Carruthers's account than on
+her own, from the usual motive--apprehension lest, by some
+unreasonable turn of Mr. Carruthers's temper, she might be brought
+"into a scrape." Her curiosity had been strongly excited by the
+discovery that Mrs. Carruthers had some sort of acquaintance with Paul
+Ward, or, at least, with his name; but she adhered to her resolution,
+and kept silence for the present.
+
+Mrs. Carruthers's son had always been an object of tacit interest to
+Clare. She had not been fully informed of the circumstances of her
+uncle's marriage, and she understood vaguely that George Dallas was an
+individual held in disfavour by the august master of Poynings; so her
+natural delicacy of feeling conquered her curiosity, and she abstained
+from mentioning George to his mother or to Mr. Carruthers, and also
+from giving encouragement to the gossip on the subject which
+occasionally arose in her presence.
+
+In Mrs. Carruthers's dressing-room a portrait hung, which Clare had
+been told by Mrs. Brookes was that of her mistress's son, when a fine,
+brave, promising boy of ten years old. Clare had felt an interest in
+the picture, not only for Mrs. Carruthers's sake, but because she
+liked the face which it portrayed--the clear bright brown eyes, the
+long curling hair, the brilliant dark complexion, the bold, frank,
+gleeful expression. Once or twice she had said a few words in praise
+of the picture, and once she had ventured to ask Mrs. Carruthers if
+her son still resembled it. The mother had answered her, with a sigh,
+that he was greatly changed, and no one would now recognize the
+picture as a likeness of him.
+
+The dignified and decorous household at Poynings pursued its luxurious
+way with less apparent disunion among its principal members than is
+generally to be seen under the most favourable circumstances, but with
+little real community of feeling or of interest. Mrs. Carruthers was a
+popular person in society, and Clare was liked as much as she was
+admired. As for Mr. Carruthers, he was Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, and
+that fact sufficed for the neighbourhood almost as completely as it
+satisfied himself.
+
+The unexpected return of her uncle from York had caused Clare no
+particular emotion. She was standing at the French window of the
+breakfast-room, feeding a colony of birds, her outdoor pensioners,
+when the carriage made its appearance. She had just observed the fact,
+and was quietly pursuing her occupation, when Mrs. Carruthers, who had
+left the breakfast-room half an hour before, returned, looking so
+pale, and with so unmistakeable an expression of terror in her face,
+that Clare looked at her in astonishment.
+
+"Your uncle has come back," she said. "I am not well, I cannot meet
+him yet. Go to the door, Clare, and tell him I am not well, and am
+still in my room. Pray go, my dear; don't delay a moment."
+
+"Certainly I will go," answered Clare, leaving the window and crossing
+the room as she spoke; "but--"
+
+"I'll tell you what ails me another time, but go now--go," said Mrs.
+Carruthers; and, without another word, the girl obeyed her. She had
+seen the carriage at a turn in the avenue; now the wheels were
+grinding the gravel of the sweep opposite the hall-door. In a minute
+Clare was receiving her uncle on the steps, and Mrs. Carruthers,
+having thrown the bonnet and shawl she had just taken out for her
+proposed expedition to the shrubbery back into the wardrobe, removed
+her gown, and replaced it by a dressing-gown, was awaiting her
+husband's approach with a beating heart and an aching head. Had he met
+her son? Had he passed him unseen upon the road? Would Mrs. Brookes
+succeed, unseen and unsuspected, in executing the commission with
+which she had hurriedly charged her?
+
+"She is in a scrape of some sort," Clare thought, as she accompanied
+her uncle to his wife's dressing-room. "What can have happened since
+he left home? Can it have anything to do with Paul Ward?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+IN CONFERENCE.
+
+
+It is nine o'clock in the morning, and breakfast is on the table in
+the pretty breakfast-room at Poynings. Mrs. Carruthers presides over
+the breakfast-table, and Clare is occupied in arranging some flowers
+which have just been sent in by the head gardener--sweet, fresh
+flowers, partaking alike of the brightness of spring and the sweetness
+of summer, for the April showers have fulfilled their mission, and the
+earth is alike glowing and redolent. Through the bow-window, opened in
+fear and trembling by Clare before her uncle's appearance, and
+hitherto unnoticed by that potentate, who has a vivid dread of
+rheumatism, comes a soft air laden with delicious scent of new-mown
+grass; for close underneath three men are busily engaged in trimming
+the broad lawn, and the sound of their swiftly plied whetstones and
+the hum of their talk in their occasional intervals of rest has
+penetrated into the room, and makes a kind of human accompaniment to
+Mr. Carruthers's strictly unhuman and intonative manner of reading the
+morning prayers. Spreading far away, and bordered in the extreme
+distance of a sloping shoulder of Surrey down, lies the glorious
+Kentish landscape, dotted here and there with broad red-faced
+farmsteads and lowly labourers' cots, with vast expanse of green and
+springing wheat and hop-grounds, where the parasite has as yet
+scarcely taken the tall poles within its pliant embrace, with thick
+plantations and high chalk cuttings, over which the steam from the
+flying train hangs like a vaporous wreath. In the immediate
+neighbourhood of the house the big elm-trees, guarding on either side
+the carriage-drive, tossed their high heads and rustled their broad
+arms in all the delight of their freshly acquired greenery; dew-bathed
+broad upland and mossy knoll sparkle alike in the morning sun; in the
+silvery bosom of the little lake the reflection of the slowly-drifting
+clouds rears quaint impalpable islands of strange fantastic form;
+within the magic square of the old red kitchen-garden wall, where
+rusty nails and fragments of last year's list still hung, large
+cucumber and melon frames blink in the sunlight, and every little
+handlight lends a scintillating ray. Over all hangs a sense of
+stillness and composure, of peace and rest and quietude, such as might
+bring balm and healing to any wounded spirit.
+
+External influences have, however, very little effect on one of the
+persons in the breakfast-room, for Mrs. Carruthers is bodily ill and
+mentally depressed. A racking nervous headache has deprived her of
+sleep during the past night, and has left its traces in deep livid
+marks underneath her eyes. She has a worn-out look and a preoccupied
+manner, and while she is superintending the preparation of the Grand
+Lama's tea--a process about which he is particular, and which is by no
+means to be lightly undertaken--her thoughts are far away, and her
+mind is full of doubts and misgiving. Why did her husband come back
+so suddenly from the agricultural meeting yesterday? Could be by any
+means have been aware of George's presence in the neighbourhood; and,
+if so, had he hastened his return with the view of detecting him? If
+so, he had providentially been thwarted in his plan. Nurse Ellen had
+seen the boy, and had conveyed to him the bracelet; the means of
+release from his surrounding difficulties were now in his hands, and
+the mother felt sure, from his manner, that he would keep his word,
+and never again subject himself to such a fearful risk. All danger
+surely must be over; no hint had been dropped by her husband of the
+slightest suspicion, and yet Mrs. Carruthers watches every change of
+his countenance, listens nervously to every footfall on the stairs,
+hears with a heart-beat the creak of every opening door, and is,
+obviously, constrained and wretched and ill at ease.
+
+Clare notices this pityingly and with wonder; Mr. Carruthers notices
+it too, with wonder, but without any pity, but he resents it, in point
+of fact, silently and with dignity. That Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings
+should "mope" and be "out of sorts" is a kind of reflection on Mr.
+Carruthers of Poynings, which that gentleman by no means approves of.
+Over the top of his rustling newspaper he looks at his wife with
+severe glances levelled from under knitted brows; between his
+occasional bites of toast he gives a short, sharp, irritable cough;
+now and then he drums with his fingers on the table, or taps his foot
+impatiently on the floor. No notice of these vagaries is taken by
+either of the ladies, it being generally understood at Poynings that
+the Grand Lama will always find vent in speech when the proper times
+arrives. Meanwhile, Mrs. Carruthers moodily broods over the breakfast
+equipage, and Clare continues her handiwork with the flowers.
+
+The Grand Lama becomes more and more irate, glares through his gold
+double eye-glasses at the newspaper, wherein he is reading atrociously
+"levelling" views promulgated by a correspondent, gives utterance to
+smothered sounds indicative of indignation and contempt, and is just
+about to burst forth in a torrent of rage, when the door opens, and a
+footman, entering, hands a card on a salver to his master. As when, in
+full pursuit of the flying matador, the bull in the arena wheels round
+and engages the lithe picador who has just planted a flag-bearing dart
+in his quivering carcass, so Mr. Carruthers turns upon the servant who
+had interposed between him and the intended objects of his attack.
+
+"What's this?" said he, in a sharp voice.
+
+"Card, sir," said the footman, utterly unmoved, and with the
+complacent expression of an ancient gurgoyle on a Saxon church.
+
+"Do you think I'm blind?" said his master. "I see it's a card. Where
+did it come from?"
+
+"Gentleman in the library, sir. Said you was at breakfast; told me no
+'urry, and giv' me his card."
+
+Mr. Carruthers looks up suspiciously at Thomas footman, but Thomas
+footman is still gurgoylesque. Then Mr. Carruthers replaces his
+eye-glasses, and, looking at the card, reads thereon, in old English
+characters, "Mr. Dalrymple," and in pencil the words "Home Office." "I
+will be with the gentleman in a moment." Only stopping at the
+looking-glass to run his fingers through his hair and to settle the
+tie of his checked cravat, Mr. Carruthers creaks out of the room.
+
+Mr. Dalrymple, of the Home Office, has established himself in a
+comfortable chair, from which he rises on Mr. Carruthers's entrance.
+He is a tall, bald-headed man, and, to Mr. Carruthers's horror, wears
+a full-flowing brown beard. The Grand Lama, whose ideas on this point
+are out of date, knows that beards are now generally worn by members
+of the aristocracy as well as foreigners and billiard-sharpers, but
+cannot conceive that any government has been so preposterously lax as
+to permit its officials to indulge in such nonsense. Consequently he
+refers to the card again, and, his first impressions being verified,
+is dumb with astonishment. Nevertheless, he controls his feelings
+sufficiently to bow and to point to a chair.
+
+"I am an early visitor, Mr. Carruthers," says Mr. Dalrymple, "but the
+fact is, my business is pressing. I came down to Amherst by the mail
+train last night, but I would not disturb you at so late an hour, and,
+moreover, I could have done no good by seeing you then; so I slept at
+the inn. My visit to you is on business, as I presume you understand?"
+
+Mr. Dalrymple says this pointedly, as the Grand Lama's face is rapidly
+assuming an open mouth and sunken jaw expression of idiotcy. He
+recovers himself by an effort, and, glancing at the card, mutters
+"Home Office."
+
+"Precisely," says Mr. Dalrymple. "I am a principal clerk in the Home
+Office, and I come to you in your capacity as justice of the peace.
+Lord Wolstenholme, our Secretary, noticed that you generally acted as
+chairman of the bench of magistrates, and therefore decided that you
+were the proper person to be communicated with."
+
+Mr. Carruthers's attention, which has been wandering a little--his
+eyes are still attracted by his visitor's beard, and he is wondering
+how long it has been growing, and why it should be, as it is, of two
+distinct shades of brown--is recalled by these words, and he mutters
+that he is obliged to his lordship for his opinion.
+
+"Now, my dear Mr. Carruthers," says Mr. Dalrymple, bending forward in
+his chair, dropping his voice to a whisper, and looking slyly from
+under his bushy eyebrows, "will you allow me to ask you a question?
+Can you keep a secret?"
+
+Mr. Carruthers is taken aback. From his magisterial and
+country-gentleman position he looks upon secrets as things exclusively
+appertaining to the vulgar, as connected with conspiracies, plots,
+swindles, and other indictable offences. Considering, however, that
+the matter is brought under his notice in connection with the Home
+Office, he thinks he may venture to answer in the affirmative, and
+does accordingly.
+
+"Ex-actly," says Mr. Dalrymple. "I knew your answer before I put the
+question; but in these little matters it is absolutely necessary to
+have perfect accuracy. Now then to the point--we are quite out of
+earshot? Thank you! No chance of any one listening at the doors?"
+
+Mr. Carruthers says "No," with an expression of face which says he
+should very much like to catch any one there.
+
+"Pre-cisely! Now, my dear Mr. Carruthers, I will at once put you in
+possession of Lord Wolstenholme's views. The fact is, that a murder
+has been committed, under rather peculiar circumstances, and his
+lordship wants your assistance in investigating the matter."
+
+Mr. Carruthers is all attention in an instant. Every trace of
+preoccupation has vanished. His visitor's beard has no kind of
+attraction for him now, though it is wagging close before his eyes. A
+murder! The worst case he had ever investigated was a doubtful
+manslaughter arising out of a poaching affray, and for his remarks on
+that he had been highly complimented in the local press; but here is
+murder--and his aid is enlisted by the Home Office!
+
+"The facts of the case," continues Mr. Dalrymple, "are shortly these.
+A body of a man is seen floating off Paul's Wharf, and is hooked up by
+one of the men attached to the steam-boat pier there. It is taken to
+the police station to be examined, and is then found to have been
+stabbed to the heart with a sharp instrument, and by a strong and
+clever hand. The pockets are empty, the studs have been taken from
+the shirt, and there is no token, pocket-book, or anything to
+establish its identity. 'Ordinary case enough,' you'll say, with your
+experience; 'ordinary case enough--drunken man decoyed into some
+water-side ken, robbed, and made away with--case for the police--why
+Lord Wolstenholme and the Home Office?' You would say that, my dear
+sir, influenced by your ordinary perspicacity; but I answer your
+'Why.' From the appearance of this man's body it is plain that he was
+not an Englishman; his clothes are not of English cut, and he had on a
+huge fur-lined overcoat, with a deep hood, such as no Englishman ever
+wears. When this description was sent to us, Lord Wolstenholme at once
+referred to a private correspondence which we have had with the French
+embassy in relation to some of the Second-of-December exiles who are
+now sheltered under the British flag, and we came to the conclusion
+that this was no common murder for purposes of plunder, but an act of
+political vengeance. Now, my dear sir, you will perceive that to
+penetrate a mystery of this kind is of the greatest political
+importance, and consequently his lordship took the matter up at once,
+and set every engine we have at work to elucidate it. The result of
+our inquiries proves that the whole chance of identification rests
+upon a question of coats. The last person by whom, so far as we know,
+the wearer of the fur-lined coat was seen alive is a waiter at a
+tavern in the Strand, who distinctly recollects the murdered man,
+whose dress he described very fully, being particularly positive about
+his jewelry--diamond studs, real, no 'duffers,' as he said, and of
+which there is no trace to be found--having dined at his eating-house,
+in company with another man, who had with him a blue Witney overcoat,
+on the inside of which was a label bearing the name of some tailor,
+Ewart or Evans, he is unable to state which, residing at Amherst."
+
+"Good God!" said Mr. Carruthers, surprised out of his usual reticence.
+"Evans--I know the man well!"
+
+"Very likely!" says Mr. Dalrymple, composedly. "Evans! The waiter has
+been had up, cross-questioned, turned inside out, but still adheres to
+his story. Now, as we imagine this to be a bit of political vengeance,
+and not an ordinary crime, and as the detectives (capital fellows in
+their way) have had their heads a little turned since they've been
+made novel heroes of, Lord Wolstenholme thought it better that I
+should come down into the neighbourhood of Amherst, and with your
+assistance try to find out where and by whom this coat was bought."
+
+No hesitation now on Mr. Carruthers's part; he and the Home Office are
+colleagues in this affair. Lord Wolstenholme has shown his sagacity in
+picking out the active and intelligent magistrate of the district, and
+he shall see that his confidence is not misplaced. Will Mr. Dalrymple
+breakfast? Mr. Dalrymple has breakfasted; then a message is sent to
+Mrs. Carruthers to say that Mr. Carruthers presumes he _may_ say that
+Mr. Dalrymple, a gentleman from London, will join them at dinner? Mr.
+Dalrymple will be delighted, so long as he catches the up mail-train
+at Amherst at--what is it?--nine fifteen. Mr. Carruthers pledges his
+word that Mr. Dalrymple shall be in time, and orders the barouche
+round at once. Will Mr. Dalrymple excuse Mr. Carruthers for five
+minutes? Mr. Dalrymple will; and Mr. Carruthers goes to his
+dressing-room, while Mr. Dalrymple re-ensconces himself in the big
+arm-chair, and devotes his period of solitude to paring his nails and
+whistling softly the while.
+
+The big, heavy, swinging barouche, only used on solemn occasions, such
+as state visits, Sunday church-goings, and magisterial sittings, drawn
+by the two big grays, and driven by Gibson, coachman, in his silver
+wig, his stiff collar, and his bright top-boots, and escorted by
+Thomas, footman, in all the bloom of blue-and-silver livery and drab
+gaiters, comes round to the front door, and the gentlemen take their
+places in it and are driven off. The three gardeners mowing the lawn
+perform Hindooish obeisances as the carriage passes them; obeisances
+acknowledged by Mr. Carruthers with a fore-finger lifted to the brim
+of his hat, as modelled on a portrait of the late Duke of Wellington.
+Bulger at the lodge gates pulls his forelock, and receives the same
+gracious return, Mr. Carruthers all the time bristling with the sense
+of his own importance, and inwardly wishing that he could tell
+gardeners, lodge-keeper, and every one they met that his companion had
+come from the Home Office, and that they were about together to
+investigate a most important case of murder. Mr. Dalrymple, on the
+contrary, seems to have forgotten all about the actual business under
+treatment, and might be a friend come on a few days' visit. He admires
+the scenery, asks about the shooting, gives his opinion on the rising
+crops, talks of the politics rife in the neighbourhood, showing, by
+the way, a keen knowledge of their details, and never for an instant
+refers to the object of their inquiry until they are nearing the town,
+when he suggests that they had better alight short of their
+destination, and proceed on foot there. There is no particular reason
+for this, as probably Mr. Dalrymple knows; but he has never yet
+pursued an official and mysterious investigation in a barouche, and it
+seems to him an abnormal proceeding. So Mr. Carruthers, deferring in a
+courtly manner to his visitor's wishes, but, at the same time, walking
+beside him as though he had him in charge, they alight from the
+carriage, bidding the servant to wait, and walk into the town,
+directing their steps towards Evans, tailor. Evans, tailor, coatless,
+as is his wont, and with his thumbs stuck in the arm-holes of his
+waistcoat, is standing at his door, and greets Mr. Carruthers with as
+much bow as is possible to his stout figure. Could they speak to him
+for a moment? by all manner of means; will Mr. Carruthers walk into
+the back shop? where Miss Evans, a buxom girl with many shaking curls,
+is discovered working a pair of Berlin-wool slippers, at a glance too
+small for her father, and is put to flight with much blushing and
+giggling. The two gentlemen seat themselves in the old-fashioned
+black-horsehair chairs, and Mr. Evans, a little excited, stands by
+them with his thumbs in his arm-holes, and flaps his hands
+occasionally, as though they were fins. "This gentleman, Mr. Evans,"
+says Mr. Carruthers, giving this happy specimen of his acumen and
+discretion in a loud and pompous tone--"has come from Lord
+Wolstenholme, the Secretary of State for the Home Department." Mr.
+Evans gives a fin-flap, indicative of profound respect. "He has been
+sent here to--"
+
+"Will you permit me in the very mildest manner to interrupt you, my
+dear sir?" says Mr. Dalrymple, in dulcet accents. "You put the matter
+admirably from the magisterial point of view--but perhaps if I were
+just to-- You have no objection? Thank you! You've lived a long time
+in Amherst, Mr. Evans?"
+
+"I've been a master tailor here, sir, forty-three years last
+Michaelmas."
+
+"Forty-three years! Long time, indeed! And you're the tailor of the
+neighbourhood, eh?"
+
+"Well, sir, I think I may say we make for all the gentry round--Mr.
+Carruthers of Poynings, sir, and Sir Thomas Boldero, and--"
+
+"Of course--of course! You've a gold-printed label, I think, which you
+generally sew on to all goods made by you?"
+
+"We have, sir--that same. With my name upon it."
+
+"With your name upon it. Just so! Now, I suppose that label is never
+sewed on to anything which has not been either made or sold by you?"
+
+"Which has not been made, sir! We don't sell anything except our own
+make--Evans of Amherst don't."
+
+"Exactly; and very proper too." To Mr. Carruthers: "Settles one point,
+my dear sir--must have been made here! Now, Mr. Evans, you make all
+sorts of coats, of course, blue Witney overcoats among the number?"
+
+Mr. Evans, after a hesitating fin-flap, says: "A blue Witney overcoat,
+sir, is an article seldom if ever called for in these parts. I
+shouldn't say we'd made one within the last two years--leastways, more
+than one."
+
+"But you think you did make one?"
+
+"There were one, sir, made to order from a party that was staying at
+the Lion."
+
+"Staying at the Lion? The inn, of course, where I slept last night.
+How long ago was that?"
+
+"That were two years ago, sir."
+
+"That won't do!" cries Mr. Dalrymple, in disappointed tone.
+
+"Two years ago that it were made and that the party was at the Lion.
+The coat was sold less than three months ago."
+
+"Was it? To whom?"
+
+"To a stranger--a slim young gent who came in here one day
+promiscuous, and wanted an overcoat. He had that blue Witney, he had!"
+
+"Now, my dear Mr. Evans," says Mr. Dalrymple, laying his hand lightly
+on Mr. Evans's shirt-sleeve, and looking up from under his bushy brows
+into the old man's face, "just try and exercise your memory a little
+about this stranger. Give us a little more description of him--his
+age, height, general appearance, and that sort of thing!"
+
+But Mr. Evans's memory is quite unaccustomed to exercise, and cannot
+be jogged, or ensnared, or bullied into any kind of action. The
+stranger was young, "middling height," appearance, "well, gen-teel and
+slim-like;" and wild horses could not extract further particulars from
+Mr. Evans than these. Stay. "What did he give for the coat, and in
+what money did he pay for it?" There's a chance. Mr. Evans remembers
+that he "gev fifty-three-and-six for the overcoat, and handed in a
+ten-pun' note for change." A ten-pound note, which, as Mr. Evans,
+by a further tremendous effort, recollects, had "the stamp of our
+post-office on it, as I pinted out to the gent at the time." Was the
+note there? No; Mr. Evans had paid it into the County Bank to his
+little account with some other money, but he quite recollected the
+post-office stamp being on it.
+
+Mr. Carruthers thinks this a great point, but is dashed by Mr.
+Dalrymple's telling him, on their way from the tailor's, that all
+bank-notes passing through post-offices received the official stamp.
+This statement is corroborated at the Amherst post-office, where no
+money-order of that amount, or of anything equivalent to that amount,
+has been recently paid, the remittances in that form being, as the
+postmaster explains, generally to the canal boatmen or the railway
+people, and of small value.
+
+So there the clue fails suddenly and entirely, and Mr. Carruthers and
+Mr. Dalrymple again mount the big swinging barouche and are driven
+back to Poynings to dinner, which meal is not, however, graced by the
+presence of either of the ladies; for Mrs. Carruthers is too ill to
+leave her room, and Clare is in attendance on her. So the gentlemen
+eat a solemn dinner by themselves, and talk a solemn conversation; and
+at eight o'clock Mr. Dalrymple goes away, driven by Gibson, coachman,
+in the carriage, and turning over in his mind how best to make
+something out of the uneventful day for the information of the Home
+Secretary.
+
+That dignitary occupies also much of the attention of Mr. Carruthers,
+left in dignified solitude in the dining-room before the decanters of
+wine and the dishes of fruit, oblivious of his wife's indisposition,
+and wholly unobservant of the curiosity with which Mr. Downing, his
+butler and body-servant, surveys him on entering the room to suggest
+the taking of tea. Very unusual is it for the Poynings servants to
+regard their master with curiosity, or indeed with any feeling that
+bears the semblance of interest; but, be the cause what it may, there
+is no mistaking the present expression of Downing's face. Surprise,
+curiosity, and something which, if it must be called fear, is the
+pleasant and excited form of that feeling, prompt Mr. Downing to look
+fixedly at his master, who sits back in his chair in an attitude of
+magisterial cogitation, twirling his heavy gold eye-glass in his bony
+white hands, and lost in something which resembles thought more
+closely than Mr. Carruthers's mental occupation can ordinarily be said
+to do. There he sits, until he resolves to take his niece Clare into
+confidence, tell her of the visit he has received from the gentleman
+from the Home Office, and ask her whether she can make anything of it,
+which resolution attained, and finding by his watch that the hour is
+half-past ten, and that therefore a Carruthers of Poynings may retire
+to rest if he chooses without indecorum, the worthy gentleman creaks
+upstairs to his room, and in a few minutes is sleeping the sleep of
+the just. Mrs. Carruthers--Clare having been some time previously
+dismissed from the room--also seems to sleep soundly; at least her
+husband has seen that her eyes are closed.
+
+Her rest, real or pretended, would have been none the calmer had she
+been able to see her faithful old servant pacing up and down the
+housekeeper's room, and wringing her withered hands in an agony of
+distress; for the servant who had gone to Amherst with Mr. Carruthers
+and his mysterious visitor in the morning had learned the meaning and
+purpose of the two gentlemen's visit to Evans, the tailor, and had
+made it the subject of a lively and sentimental conversation in the
+servants' hall. Although literature was not in a very flourishing
+condition at Amherst, the male domestics of the household at Poynings
+were not without their sources of information, and had thoroughly
+possessed themselves of the details of the murder.
+
+Mrs. Brookes had heard of the occurrence two or three times in the
+course of the preceding day, but she had given it little attention.
+She was in her own room when the servants returned with the carriage
+which had taken Mr. Dalrymple to the railway station, having visited
+her mistress for the last time that evening, and was thinking, sadly
+enough, of George, when the entrance of the upper housemaid, her eager
+face brimful of news, disturbed her.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Brookes," she began, "do you know who that gentleman was as
+dined here, and went to the town with master?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Mrs. Brookes, with some curiosity; "do you?"
+
+"Not exactly; but Thomas says Home Office were wrote on his card, and
+Home Office has something to do with finding people out when they've
+been a-doing anything."
+
+Mrs. Brookes began to feel uncomfortable.
+
+"What do you mean?" she said. "Who's been doing anything that wants
+finding out?"
+
+"Nobody as I knows," replied Martha, looking knowing and mysterious.
+"Only, you know, that murder as Mr. Downing read us the inquest of,
+and how it's a foreigner as has been killed because he wouldn't help
+to blow up the King of France; at least, there's something of that in
+it. Well, Mr. Downing thinks as the gentleman come about that."
+
+"About that, _here?_" said Mrs. Brookes. "Whatever has put such a
+notion into Mr. Downing's head as that?"
+
+"Well, Mrs. Brookes, this is it: they're all talking about it in the
+hall, and so I thought I'd just come and tell you. Master and the
+stranger gentleman didn't take the carriage right on into town; they
+got just inside the pike, and went on by themselves; and, when they
+came back, master, he looked very red and grand-looking, and the
+strange gentleman he looked as if he was rare disappointed and put
+out, and, as he was a-shutting the door of the b'rouche, Thomas heard
+him saying, 'No, no; there's nothing more to be done. Evans was our
+only chance, and he's no use.' So nat'rally Thomas wonders whatever
+they've been about, and what was their business with Evans; so he and
+coachman wasn't sorry this evening when the strange gentleman was gone
+by the train, and they see Evans a-loungin' about, a-flapping his
+hands, which he's always doing of it, up by the station. He were
+lookin' at the strange gentleman as sharp as sharp, as they drove up
+to the bookin'-office; and when they came out, there he were, and
+Evans tells 'em all about it."
+
+"All about _what?_" asks Mrs. Brookes sharply.
+
+"All about what brought master and the other gentleman to his shop;
+and it's his belief, as master said more than the other gentleman
+wanted him to say; for master let out as how a murder had something to
+do with the business."
+
+"What business, Martha? Do tell me what you mean, if you want me to
+listen to you any longer. How could Mr. Carruthers want to know
+anything from Evans about a murder?"
+
+"Lor', ma'am, it weren't about the murder; it were about the coat!
+Master told Evans as how there had been a murder, and the other
+gentleman took master up rather shorter, Evans thinks, than master is
+accustomed to be took, and asked him no end of questions--did he make
+such and such coats? and who did he sell 'em to? and particular did
+he sell Witney coats? which Mr. Evans said he didn't in general, and
+had only sold one in two years, which the strange gentleman wanted
+to know what sort of gent had had it, and were he young or old, or
+good-looking or or'nary, and a mort of questions; wherein Evans
+answered him to the best of his ability, but, being a man of his word,
+he couldn't make it no clearer than he could."
+
+"What _did_ he make clear?" asked Mrs. Brookes. "Two years is a long
+time to remember the sale of a coat."
+
+"It wasn't so long since it were sold. Mr. Evans sold it six weeks
+ago, but it were two years made."
+
+Mrs. Brookes's heart gave a great bound, and her old eyes grew dim;
+but she was a brave woman, and Martha, housemaid, was a dull one.
+
+"Did Mr. Evans not succeed in describing the person who bought the
+coat, then?"
+
+"He thinks not; but he says he should know him again immediate, if he
+saw him. The strange gentleman didn't seem overpleased that his memory
+was so short; but lor', who's to know all about the eyeses and the
+noses of everybody as comes to buy a coat, or what not?--partic'lar if
+you don't know as he's been a committen of a murder. If you did, why,
+you'd look at him closer like, _I_ should say!"
+
+"Has Mr. Downing got the paper with the murder of the foreigner in
+it?" asked Mrs. Brookes.
+
+"Yes, he have; he's just been reading it all over again in the hall.
+And he says as how master's in a brown study, as he calls it; only
+it's in the dining-room, and he's sure as the finding-out people has
+put it into his hands."
+
+"When he has done with the paper, ask him to let me see it, Martha.
+Very likely this stranger's visit has nothing to do with the matter.
+Downing finds out things that nobody else can see."
+
+Martha was an admirer and partisan of Mr. Downing, from the humble and
+discreet distance which divides a housemaid from a butler, and she did
+not like to hear his discretion aspersed.
+
+"It looks as if he was right this time, however," she replied; "though
+it wasn't Tim the tinker as stole Sir Thomas's spoons, which Mr.
+Downing never had a good opinion of him; but when there ain't nothing
+clearer than the person who was seen at the eating-house with the
+victim" (Martha "took in" the _Hatchet of Horror_ every week, and
+framed her language on that delightful model) "had on a coat as Evans
+made, it looks as if he wasn't altogether in the wrong, now don't it,
+Mrs. Brookes?"
+
+Mrs. Brookes could not deny that it looked very like that
+complimentary conclusion, and her brave old heart almost died within
+her. But she kept down her fear and horror, and dismissed Martha,
+telling her to bring her the paper as soon as she could. The woman
+returned in a few moments, laid the newspaper beside Mrs. Brookes, and
+then went off to enjoy a continuation of the gossip of the servants'
+hall. Very exciting and delightful that gossip was, for though the
+servants had no inkling of the terribly strong interest, the awfully
+near connection, which existed for Poynings in the matter, it was
+still a great privilege to be "in" so important an affair by even the
+slender link formed by the probable purchase of a coat at Amherst by
+the murderer. They enjoyed it mightily; they discussed it over and
+over again, assigning to the murdered man every grade of rank short
+of royalty, and all the virtues possible to human nature. The
+women were particularly eloquent and sympathizing, and Martha "quite
+cried," as she speculated on the great probability of there being a
+broken-hearted sweetheart in the case.
+
+In the housekeeper's room, Mrs. Brookes sat poring over the terrible
+story, to which she had listened carelessly on the previous day, as
+the servants talked it vaguely over. From the first words Martha had
+spoken, her fears had arisen, and now they were growing every instant
+to the terrible certainty of conviction. What if the wretched young
+man, who had already been the cause of so much misery, had added this
+fearful crime to the long catalogue of his follies and sins?
+
+All the household sleeps, and the silence of the night is in every
+room but one. There Mrs. Brookes still sits by the table with the
+newspaper spread before her, lost in a labyrinth of fear and anguish;
+and from time to time her grief finds words, such as:
+
+"How shall I tell her? How shall I warn her? O George, George! O my
+boy! my boy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
+
+
+Mr. Carruthers was an early man; no danger of any skulking among the
+numerous hands which found employment on the Poynings estate. If the
+eye of the master be indeed the spur of the servant, Mr. Carruthers's
+dependents had quite enough of that stimulant. He made his rounds
+every morning at an hour which the in-door servants, who were obliged
+to have breakfast ready on his return, considered heathenish, and the
+out-door servants declared savoured of slave-driving. Mrs. Brookes
+knew that she should have no difficulty in procuring a private
+interview with her mistress on the morning following Mr. Dalrymple's
+visit, as an hour and a half always elapsed between Mr. Carruthers's
+leaving the house and his wife's ringing for her maid. The old woman
+looked worn and weary and very old, as she peered from behind a
+red-cloth door, which shut off the corridor on which Mr. Carruthers's
+dressing-room opened from the grand gallery, and watched her master
+take his creaking way down the staircase, looking as he went more full
+of self-importance than usual, and treading more heavily, as if the
+weight of the Home Office communication had got into his boots.
+
+When he had disappeared, and she had heard the click of the lock as he
+opened the great door and went out into the pure fresh morning air,
+Mrs. Brookes emerged from behind the partition-door, and softly took
+the way to Mrs. Carruthers's bedroom. The outer door was slightly
+open, the heavy silken curtain within hung closely over the aperture.
+The old woman pushed it gently aside, and, noiselessly crossing the
+room, drew the window curtain, and let in sufficient light to allow
+her to see that Mrs. Carruthers was still sleeping. Her face, pale,
+and even in repose bearing a troubled expression, was turned towards
+the old woman, who seated herself in an arm-chair beside the bed, and
+looked silently and sadly on the features, whose richest bloom and
+earliest sign of fading she had so faithfully watched.
+
+"How am I to tell her?" she thought. "How am I to make her see what I
+see, suspect what I suspect? and yet she must know all, for the least
+imprudence, a moment's forgetfulness, would ruin him. How am I to tell
+her?"
+
+The-silver bell of a little French clock on the chimney-piece rang out
+the hour melodiously, but its warning struck upon the old woman's ear
+menacingly. There was much to do, and little time to do it in; she
+must not hesitate longer. So she laid her withered, blanched old hand
+upon the polished, ivory-white fingers of the sleeper, lying with the
+purposelessness of deep sleep upon the coverlet, and addressed her as
+she had been used to do in her girlhood, and her early desolate
+widowhood, when her humble friend had been well-nigh her only one.
+
+"My dear," she said, "my dear." Mrs. Carruthers's hand twitched in her
+light grasp; she turned her head away with a troubled sigh, but yet
+did not wake. The old woman spoke again: "My dear, I have something to
+say to you."
+
+Then Mrs. Carruthers awoke fully, and to an instantaneous
+comprehension that something was wrong. All her fears, all her
+suspicions of the day before, returned to her mind in one flash of
+apprehension, and she sat up white and breathless.
+
+"What is it, Ellen? Has he found out? Does he know?"
+
+"Who? What do you mean?"
+
+"Mr. Carruthers. Does he know George was here?"
+
+"God forbid!" said the old woman, in a trembling tone.
+
+She felt the task she had before her almost beyond her power of
+execution. But her mistress's question, her instinctive fear, had
+given her a little help.
+
+"No," she said, "he knows nothing, and God send he may neither know
+nor suspect anything about our dear boy! but you must be quiet now and
+listen to me, for I must have said my say before Dixon comes--she must
+not find me here."
+
+"Why are you here?" asked Mrs. Carruthers, who had sat up in bed, and
+was now looking at the old woman, with a face which had no more trace
+of colour than the pillow from which it had just been raised. "Tell
+me, Ellen; do not keep me in suspense. Is anything wrong about George?
+It must concern _him_, whatever it is."
+
+"My dear," began Mrs. Brookes--and now she held the slender fingers
+tightly in her withered palm--"I fear there is something very wrong
+with George."
+
+"Is he--is he dead?" asked the mother, in a faint voice.
+
+"No, no; he is well and safe, and far away from this, I hope and
+trust."
+
+Mrs. Carruthers made no answer, but she gazed at her old friend with
+irresistible, pitiful entreaty. Mrs. Brookes answered the dumb appeal.
+
+"Yes, my dear, I'll tell you all. I must, for his sake. Do you know
+what was the business that brought that strange gentleman here, he
+that went out with master, and dined here last night? No, you don't. I
+thought not. Thank God, you have got no hint of it from any one but
+me."
+
+"Go on, go on," said Mrs. Carruthers, in a yet fainter voice.
+
+"Do you remember, when George was here in February, you gave him money
+to buy a coat?"
+
+"Yes," Mrs. Carruthers rather sighed than said.
+
+"He bought one at Evans's, and he was remarked by the old man, who
+would know him again if he saw him. The business on which the strange
+gentleman came to master was to get him to help, as a magistrate, in
+finding the person who bought that coat at Evans's, Amherst."
+
+"But why? What had he done? How was the coat known?"
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Brookes--and now she laid one arm gently round
+her mistress's shoulder as she leaned against the pillows--"the wearer
+of that coat is suspected of having murdered a man, whose body was
+found by the river-side in London the other day."
+
+"My God!" moaned the mother, and a hue as of death overspread her
+features.
+
+"My dear, he didn't do it. I'm sure he didn't do it. I would stake my
+soul upon it. It is some dreadful mistake. Keep up until I have done,
+for God's sake, and George's sake, keep up--remember there is no
+danger unless you lose courage and give them a hint of anything. Be
+sure we shall find he has sold the coat to some one else, and that
+some one has done this dreadful thing. But you must keep up--here, let
+me bathe your face and hands while I am talking, and then I'll go
+away, and, when Dixon comes, you must just say you are not well, and
+don't mean to get up to breakfast, and then I shall have an excuse for
+coming to you. There! you are better now, I am sure. Yes, yes; don't
+try to speak; I'll tell you without asking," she went on, in a rapid
+whisper. "The strange gentleman and master saw Evans, and he told them
+when he sold the coat, and the sort of person he sold it to; but
+Gibson and Thomas say he could not have told them distinct, for they
+heard the strange gentleman saying to master, in the carriage, that
+the description was of no use. And I am certain sure that there is not
+the least suspicion that he has ever been in Amherst since he bought
+the coat."
+
+"I don't understand," stammered Mrs. Carruthers. "When--when did this
+happen?"
+
+"A few days ago: it's all in the papers."
+
+Mrs. Carruthers groaned.
+
+"Nothing about George, but about finding the body and the coat. It is
+all here." The old woman took a tightly folded newspaper from her
+pocket. The light was too dim for her to read its contents to her
+mistress, who was wholly incapable of reading them herself. Mrs.
+Brookes, paper in hand, was going to the window, to withdraw the
+curtain completely, when she paused.
+
+"No," she said; "Dixon will be here too soon. Better that you should
+ring for her at once, and send her for me. Can you do this, my dear?
+keeping yourself up by remembering that this is only some dreadful
+mistake, and that George never did it--no, no more than you did. Can
+you let me go away for a few minutes, and then come back to you?
+Remember, we cannot be too careful, for his sake; and if Dixon found
+me here at an unusual hour, the servants would know there is some
+secret or another between us."
+
+"I can bear anything--I can do anything you tell me," was Mrs.
+Carruthers's answer, in a whisper.
+
+"Well then, first lie down, and I will close the curtains and leave
+you. When I have had time to get to my room, ring for Dixon. Tell her
+you are ill. When she lets the light in she will see that for herself,
+and desire her to send me to you."
+
+In another minute the room was once more in darkness, and Mrs. Brookes
+went down the grand staircase, in order to avoid meeting any of the
+servants, crossed the hall, and gained her own apartment without being
+observed. A short time, but long to her impatience, had elapsed, when
+Mrs. Carruthers's maid knocked at the door, and having received
+permission to enter, came in with an important face. She delivered the
+message which Mrs. Brookes was expecting, and added that she had never
+seen her lady look so ill in all her born days.
+
+"Looks more like a corpse, I do assure you, than like the lady I
+undressed last night, and circles under her eyes, dreadful. I only
+hope it ain't typus, for I'm dreadful nervous, not being used to
+sickness, which indeed I never engaged for. But, if you please, Mrs.
+Brookes, you was to go to her immediate, and I'm to let Miss
+Carruthers know as she's to make tea this morning for master, all to
+their two selves, which he won't like it, I dare say."
+
+Then the talkative damsel went her way to Miss Carruthers's room, and
+Mrs. Brookes hurried to that of her unhappy mistress. She had again
+raised herself in the bed, and was looking eagerly towards the door,
+with hollow haggard eyes, and lips ashy pale, whose trembling she in
+vain tried to control.
+
+"Lock both doors, Ellen," she said, "and tell me all. Give me the
+paper; I can read it--I can indeed."
+
+She took it and read it steadily through--read it with the same
+horrible emotion, a thousand times intensified, which had agitated the
+faithful servant a few hours previously. Standing by the bedside, Mrs.
+Brookes gazed upon her pale, convulsed features, as she read, and
+ever, as she saw the increasing agony which they betrayed, she
+murmured in accents of earnest entreaty:
+
+"Don't, my dear, for God's sake, don't, not for a moment, don't you
+believe it. He sold the coat, depend upon it. It looks very bad, very
+black and bad, but you may be sure there's no truth in it. He sold the
+coat."
+
+She spoke to deaf ears. When Mrs. Carruthers had read the last line of
+the account of the inquest on the body of the unknown man, the paper
+dropped from her hand; she turned upon the old nurse a face which,
+from that moment, she never had the power to forget, and said:
+
+"He wore it--I saw it on him on Friday," and the next moment slipped
+down among the pillows, and lay as insensible as a stone.
+
+The old woman gave no alarm, called for no assistance, but silently
+and steadily applied herself to recalling Mrs. Carruthers to
+consciousness. She had no fear of interruption. Mr. Carruthers
+invariably went direct to the breakfast-room on returning from his
+morning tour of inspection, and Clare would not visit Mrs. Carruthers
+in her own apartment unasked. So Mrs. Brookes set the windows and
+doors wide open, and let the sweet morning air fan the insensible
+face, while she applied all the remedies at hand. At length Mrs.
+Carruthers sighed deeply, opened her eyes, and raised her hand to her
+forehead, where it came in contact with the wet hair.
+
+"Hush, my dear," said Mrs. Brookes, as she made an almost inarticulate
+attempt to speak. "Do not try to say anything yet. Lie quite still,
+until you are better."
+
+Mrs. Carruthers closed her eyes again and kept silent. When, after an
+interval, she began to look more life-like, the old woman said,
+softly:
+
+"You must not give way again like this, for George's sake. I don't
+care about his wearing the coat. I know it looks bad, but it is a
+mistake, I am quite sure. Don't I know the boy as well as you do, and
+maybe better, and don't I know his tender heart, with all his
+wildness, and that he never shed a fellow-creature's blood in anger,
+or for any other reason. But it's plain he is suspected--not he, for
+they don't know him, thank God, but the man that wore the coat, and we
+must warn him, and keep it from master. Master would go mad, I think,
+if anything like suspicion or disgrace came of Master George, more
+than the disgrace he thinks the poor boy's goings on already. You must
+keep steady and composed, my dear, and you must write to him. Are you
+listening to me? Do you understand me?" asked the old woman,
+anxiously, for Mrs. Carruthers's eyes were wild and wandering, and her
+hand twitched convulsively in her grasp.
+
+"Yes, yes," she murmured, "but I tell you, Ellen, he wore the coat--my
+boy wore the coat."
+
+"And _I_ tell you, I don't care whether he wore the coat or not,"
+repeated Mrs. Brookes, emphatically. "He can explain that, no doubt of
+it; but he must be kept out of trouble, and you must be kept out of
+trouble, and the only way to do that, is to let him know what brought
+the strange gentleman to Poynings, and what he and master found out.
+Remember, he never did this thing, but, my dear, he has been in bad
+hands lately, you know that; for haven't you suffered in getting him
+out of them, and I don't say but that he may be mixed up with them
+that did. I'm afraid there can't be any doubt of that, and he must be
+warned. Try and think of what he told you about himself, not only just
+now, but when he came here before, and you will see some light, I am
+sure."
+
+But Mrs. Carruthers could not think of anything, could not remember
+anything, could see no light. A deadly horrible conviction had seized
+upon her, iron fingers clutched her heart, a faint sickening terror
+held her captive, in body and spirit; and as the old woman gazed at
+her, and found her incapable of answering, the fear that her mistress
+was dying then and there before her eyes took possession of her. She
+folded up the newspaper which had fallen from Mrs. Carruthers's hand
+upon the bed, replaced it in her pocket, and rang the bell for Dixon.
+
+"My mistress is very ill," she said, when Dixon entered the room. "You
+had better go and find master, and send him here. Tell him to send Dr.
+Munns at once."
+
+Dixon gave a frightened, sympathizing glance at the figure on the bed,
+over which the old woman was bending with such kindly solicitude, and
+then departed on her errand. She found Mr. Carruthers still in the
+breakfast-room. He was seated at the table, and held in his hand a
+newspaper, from which he had evidently been reading, when Dixon
+knocked at the door; for he was holding it slightly aside, and poising
+his gold eye-glass in the other hand, when the woman entered. Mr.
+Carruthers was unaccustomed to being disturbed, and he did not like
+it, so that it was in a tone of some impatience that he said:
+
+"Well, Dixon, what do you want?"
+
+"If you please, sir," replied Dixon hesitatingly, "my mistress is not
+well."
+
+"So I hear," returned her master; "she sent word she did not mean to
+appear at breakfast. He said it rather huffily, for not to appear at
+breakfast was, in Mr. Carruthers's eyes, not to have a well-regulated
+mind, and not to have a well-regulated mind was very lamentable and
+shocking indeed.
+
+"Yes, sir," Dixon went on, "but I'm afraid she's very ill indeed. She
+has been fainting this long time, sir, and Mrs. Brookes can't bring
+her to at all. She sent me to ask you to send for Dr. Munns at once,
+and will you have the goodness to step up and see my mistress, sir?"
+
+"God bless my soul," said Mr. Carruthers, pettishly, but rising as he
+spoke, and pushing his chair away. "This is very strange; she has been
+exposing herself to cold, I suppose. Yes, yes, go on and tell Mrs.
+Brookes I am coming, as soon as I send Gibson for Dr. Munns."
+
+Dixon left the room, and Mr. Carruthers rang the bell, and desired
+that the coachman should attend him immediately. When Dixon had
+entered the breakfast-room, Clare Carruthers had been standing by the
+window, looking out on the garden, her back turned towards her uncle.
+She had not looked round once during the colloquy between her uncle
+and his wife's maid, but had remained quite motionless. Now Mr.
+Carruthers addressed her.
+
+"Clare," he said, "you had better go to Mrs. Carruthers." But his
+niece was no longer in the room; she had softly opened the French
+window, and passed into the flower-garden, carrying among the sweet,
+opening flowers of the early summer, and into the serene air, a face
+which might have vied in its rigid terror with the face upstairs.
+When Mr. Carruthers had come in that morning, and joined Clare in the
+pretty breakfast-room, he was in an unusually pleasant mood, and had
+greeted his niece with uncommon kindness. He had found everything in
+good order out of doors. No advantage had been taken of his absence to
+neglect the inexorable sweepings and rollings, the clippings and
+trimmings, the gardening and grooming. So Mr. Carruthers was in good
+humour in consequence, and also because he was still nourishing the
+secret sense of his own importance, which had sprung up in his
+magisterial breast under the flattering influence of Mr. Dalrymple's
+visit. So when he saw Clare seated before the breakfast equipage,
+looking in her simple, pretty morning dress as fair and bright as the
+morning itself, and when he received an intimation that he was not to
+expect to see his wife at breakfast, he recalled the resolution he had
+made last night, and determined to broach the subject of Mr.
+Dalrymple's visit to his niece without delay.
+
+A pile of letters and newspapers lay on a salver beside Mr.
+Carruthers's plate, but he did not attend to them until he had made a
+very respectable beginning in the way of breakfast. He talked to Clare
+in a pleasant tone, and presently asked her if she had been looking at
+the London papers during the last few days. Clare replied that she
+seldom read anything beyond the deaths, births, and marriages, and an
+occasional leader, and had not read even so much while she had been at
+the Sycamores.
+
+"Why do you ask, uncle?" she said. "Is there any particular news?"
+
+"Why, yes, there is," replied Mr. Carruthers, pompously.
+
+"There is a matter attracting public attention just now in which I am,
+strange to say, a good deal interested--in which responsibility has
+been laid on me, indeed, in a way which, though flattering--very
+flattering indeed--is, at the same time, embarrassing."
+
+Mr. Carruthers became more and more pompous with every word he spoke.
+Clare could not repress a disrespectful notion that he bore an absurd
+resemblance to the turkey-cock, whose struttings and gobblings had
+often amused her in the poultry-yard, as he mouthed his words and
+moved his chin about in his stiff and spotless cravat. His niece was
+rather surprised by the matter of his discourse, as she was not
+accustomed to associate the idea of importance to society at large
+with Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, and cherished a rather settled
+conviction that, mighty potentate as he was within the handsome gates
+of Poynings, the world outside wagged very independently of him. She
+looked up at him with an expression of interest and also of surprise,
+but fortunately she did not give utterance to the latter and certainly
+predominant sentiment.
+
+"The fact is," said Mr. Carruthers, "a murder has been committed in
+London under very peculiar circumstances. It is a most mysterious
+affair, and the only solution of the mystery hitherto suggested is
+that the motive is political."
+
+He paused, cleared his throat, once more settled his chin comfortably,
+and went on while Clare listened, wondering more and more how such a
+matter could affect her uncle. She was a gentle-hearted girl; but not
+in the least silly, and quite free from any sort of affectation; so
+she expressed no horror or emotion at the mere abstract idea of the
+murder, as a more young-ladyish young lady would have done.
+
+"Yes, uncle?" she said, simply, as he paused.
+
+Mr. Carruthers continued:
+
+"The murdered man was found by the river-side, stabbed, and robbed of
+whatever money and jewelry he had possessed. He was a good-looking
+man, young, and evidently a foreigner; but there were no means of
+identifying the body, and the inquest was adjourned--in fact, is still
+adjourned."
+
+"What an awful death to come by, in a strange country!" said Clare,
+solemnly. "How dreadful to think that his friends and relatives will
+perhaps never know his fate! But how did they know the poor creature
+was a foreigner, uncle?"
+
+"By his dress, my dear. It appears he had on a fur-lined coat, with a
+hood--quite a foreign article of dress; and the only person at the
+inquest able to throw any light on the crime was a waiter at an
+eating-house in the Strand, who said that the murdered man had dined
+there on a certain evening--last Thursday, I believe--and had worn the
+fur coat, and spoken in a peculiar squeaky voice. The waiter felt sure
+he was not an Englishman, though he spoke good English. So the inquest
+was adjourned in order to get more evidence, if possible, as to the
+identity of the murdered man and also that of the last person who had
+been seen in his company. And this brings me to the matter in which I
+am interested."
+
+Clare watched her uncle with astonishment as he rose from his chair
+and planted himself upon the hearth-rug before the fireplace, now
+adorned with its summer ornaments of plants and flowers, and draped in
+muslin. Taking up the familiar British attitude, and looking, if
+possible, more than ever pompous, Mr. Carruthers proceeded:
+
+"You will be surprised to learn, Clare, that the visit of the
+gentleman who came here yesterday, and with whom I went out, had
+reference to this murder."
+
+"How, uncle?" exclaimed Clare. "What on earth have you, or has any one
+here, to do with it?"
+
+"Wait until I have done, and you will see," said Mr. Carruthers in a
+tone of stately rebuke. "The last person seen in the company of the
+man afterwards found murdered, and who dined with him at the tavern,
+wore a coat which the waiter who recognized the body had chanced to
+notice particularly. The appearance of this person the man failed in
+describing with much distinctness; but he was quite positive about the
+coat, which he had taken from the man and hung up on a peg with his
+own hands. And now, Clare, I am coming to the strangest part of this
+strange story."
+
+The girl listened with interest indeed, and with attention, but still
+wondering how her uncle could be involved in the matter, and perhaps
+feeling a little impatient at the slowness with which, in his
+self-importance, he told the story.
+
+"I was much surprised," continued Mr. Carruthers, "to find in the
+gentleman who came here yesterday, and whose name was Dalrymple, an
+emissary from the Home Office, intrusted by Lord Wolstenholme with a
+special mission to me"--impossible to describe the pomposity of Mr.
+Carruthers's expression and utterance at this point--"to me. He came
+to request me to assist him in investigating this most intricate and
+important case. It is not a mere police case, you must understand, my
+dear. The probability is that the murdered man is a political refugee,
+and that the crime has been perpetrated"--Mr. Carruthers brought out
+the word with indescribable relish--"by a member of one of the secret
+societies, in revenge for the defection of the victim, or in
+apprehension of his betrayal of the cause."
+
+"What cause, uncle?" asked Clare innocently. She was not of a
+sensational turn of mind, had no fancy for horrors as horrors, and was
+getting a little tired of her uncle's story.
+
+"God knows, my dear--some of their liberty, fraternity, and equality
+nonsense, I suppose. At all events, this is the supposition; and to
+ask my aid in investigating the only clue in the possession of the
+government was the object of Mr. Dalrymple's visit yesterday. The man
+who was seen in the company of the murdered man by the waiter at the
+tavern, and who went away with him, wore a coat made by Evans of
+Amherst. You know him, Clare--the old man who does so much of our work
+here. I went to his shop with Mr. Dalrymple, and we found out all
+about the coat. He remembered it exactly, by the description; and told
+us when he had made it (two years ago), and when he had sold it (six
+weeks ago), to a person who paid for it with a ten-pound note with the
+Post-office stamp upon it. The old man is not very bright, however;
+for though he remembered the circumstance, and found the date in his
+day-book, he could not give anything like a clear description of the
+man who had bought the coat. He could only tell us, in general terms,
+that he would certainly know him again if he should see him; but he
+talked about a rather tall young man, neither stout nor thin, neither
+ugly nor handsome, dark-eyed and dark-haired,--in short, the kind of
+description which describes nothing. We came away as wise as we went,
+except in the matter of the date of the purchase of the coat. That
+does not help much towards the detection of the murderer, as a coat
+may change hands many times in six weeks, if it has been originally
+bought by a dubious person. The thing would have been to establish a
+likeness between the man described by Evans as the purchaser of the
+coat, and the man described by the waiter as the wearer of the coat at
+the tavern. But both descriptions are very vague."
+
+"What was the coat like?" asked Clare in a strange, deliberate tone.
+
+"It was a blue Witney overcoat, with a label inside the collar bearing
+Evans's name. The waiter at the tavern where the murdered man dined
+had read the name, and remembered it. This led to their sending
+to me; and my being known to the authorities as a very active
+magistrate"--here Mr. Carruthers swelled and pouted with
+importance--"they naturally communicated with me. The question is now,
+how I am to justify the very flattering confidence which Lord
+Wolstenholme has placed in me? It is a difficult question, and I have
+been considering it maturely. Mr. Dalrymple seems to think the clue
+quite lost. But I am not disposed to let it rest; I am determined to
+set every possible engine at work to discover whether the description
+given by the waiter and that given by Evans tally with one another."
+
+"You said the inquest was adjourned, I think," said Clare.
+
+"Yes, until to-day; but Mr. Dalrymple will not have learned anything.
+There will be an open verdict"--here Mr. Carruthers condescendingly
+explained to his niece the meaning of the term--"and the affair will
+be left to be unravelled in time. I am anxious to do all I can towards
+that end; it is a duty I owe to society, to Lord Wolstenholme, and to
+myself."
+
+Clare had risen from her chair, and approached the window. Her uncle
+could not see her face, as he resumed his seat at the breakfast-table,
+and opened his letters in his usual deliberate and dignified manner.
+Being letters addressed to Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, they were, of
+course, important; but if they had not had that paramount claim to
+consideration, the communication in question might have been deemed
+dull and trivial. Whatever their nature, Clare Carruthers turned her
+head from the window and furtively watched her uncle during their
+perusal. He read them with uplifted eyebrows and much use of his
+gold-rimmed eye-glasses, as his habit was, but then laid them down
+without comment, and took up a newspaper.
+
+"I dare say we shall find something about the business in this," he
+said, addressing his niece, but without turning his head in her
+direction. "Ah, I thought so; here it is: 'Mysterious circumstance;
+extraordinary supineness and stupidity of the police; no one arrested
+on suspicion; better arrest the wrong man, and tranquillize the public
+mind, than arrest no one at all.' I'm not convinced by that reasoning,
+I must say. What!--no reason for regarding the murder as a political
+assassination? Listen to this, Clare;" and he read aloud, while she
+stood by the window, her back turned towards him, and listened
+intently, greedily, with a terrible fear and sickness at her heart:
+
+"'_The supposition that this atrocious crime has been committed from
+political motives has, in our opinion, no foundation in probability,
+and derives very little support from common sense. The appearance of
+the body, the fineness of the linen, the expensive quality of the
+attire, the torn condition of the breast and sleeves of the shirt,
+which seems plainly to indicate that studs, probably of value, had
+been wrenched violently out; the extreme improbability that an
+individual, so handsomely dressed as the murdered man, would have been
+out without money in his pocket,--all indicate robbery, at least; and
+if perhaps more than robbery, certainly not less, to have been the
+motive of the crime. An absurd theory has been founded upon the
+peculiarity in the dress of the victim, and upon the remark made by
+the only witness at the inquest about his tone of voice. Nothing is
+more likely, in our opinion, than a complete miscarriage of justice in
+this atrocious case. Suspicion has been arbitrarily directed in one
+channel, and the result will be, probably, the total neglect of other
+and more likely ones. While the political murderer is being theorized
+about and "wanted," the more ordinary criminal--the ruffian who kills
+for gain, and, not for patriotism or principle--is as likely as not to
+escape comfortably, and enjoy his sway in some pleasant, unsuspected,
+and undisturbed retreat_.'
+
+"Now, I call this most unjustifiable," said Mr. Carruthers in a tone
+of dignified remonstrance and indignation. "Really, the liberty of the
+press is going quite too far. The Government are convinced that the
+murder is political, and I can't see--"
+
+It was at this point of Mr. Carruthers's harangue that he was
+interrupted by his wife's maid. When he again looked for Clare she had
+disappeared, nor did he or any of the frightened and agitated
+household at Poynings see the young lady again for many hours. Dr.
+Munns arrived, and found Mr. Carruthers considerably distressed at the
+condition in which Mrs. Carruthers was, also a little annoyed at that
+lady's want of consideration in being ill, and unable to refrain from
+hinting, with much reserve and dignity of manner, that he was at
+present more than usually engaged in business of the last importance,
+which rendered it peculiarly unfortunate that he should have an
+additional care imposed on him--public importance, he took care to
+explain, and no less onerous than mysterious. But the worthy
+gentleman's pride and pompousness were soon snubbed by the extreme
+gravity of Dr. Munns's manner, as he answered his inquiries and put
+questions in his turn relative to his patient. The doctor was both
+alarmed and puzzled by Mrs. Carruthers's state. He told her husband
+she was very seriously ill: he feared brain-fever had already set in.
+Could Mr. Carruthers account for the seizure in any way? No, Mr.
+Carruthers could not; neither could the housekeeper, nor Mrs.
+Carruthers's maid, both of whom were closely questioned, as having
+more and more frequent access to that lady's presence than any other
+members of the household.
+
+Had Mrs. Carruthers heard any distressing intelligence? had she
+received a shock of any kind? the doctor inquired. Mr. Carruthers
+appeared to sustain one from the question. Of course not; certainly
+not; nothing of the kind, he replied, with some unrepressed irritation
+of manner, and secretly regarded the bare suggestion of such a
+possibility as almost indecent. Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings receive
+shocks indeed! The doctor, who knew and disregarded his peculiarities,
+calmly pursued his inquiries undeterred by Mr. Carruthers's demeanour;
+and finding that nothing particular had happened, acknowledged that,
+there being no apparent cause to which so sudden and serious an
+illness could be attributed, he was the more uneasy as to its probable
+result. Then Mr. Carruthers caught the infection of his alarm, and all
+the best side of his character, all the real love and appreciation of
+his wife, ordinarily overlaid by his egotism, came out in full force,
+and the staunchest stickler for domestic fealty could not have
+demanded greater solicitude than the frightened husband exhibited.
+
+In a wonderfully short of space of time the house assumed the
+appearance which illness always gives. The servants went about their
+work whispering, and the sitting-rooms were silent and deserted. No
+one bestowed a thought on Clare. The attendants on the suffering
+woman, busily engaged in carrying out the orders given them by Dr.
+Munns, who remained for several hours with his patient; the alarmed
+husband, who wandered about disconsolately between his own library
+and his wife's room--all forgot the girl's existence. It was very
+late--within a few minutes of the usual dinner-hour (an inflexible
+period at Poynings)--when Clare Carruthers crossed the flower-garden,
+entered the house by the window through which she had left it, and
+stole gently upstairs to her own room. She threw her hat and shawl
+upon her bed and went to her dressing-table. There she stood for
+some minutes before the glass, holding her disordered hair back with
+her hands--there were bits of grass and fragments of leaves in it,
+as though she had been lying with her fair head prone upon the
+ground--and gazing upon her young misery-stricken face. White about
+the full pure lips, where the rich blood ordinarily glowed; purple
+about the long fair eyelids and the blushing cheeks, heavy-eyed,--the
+girl was piteous to see, and she knew it. The hours that had passed
+over since she left her uncle's presence in the morning had been laden
+with horror, with dread, with such anguish as had never in its
+lightest form touched her young spirit before; and she trembled as she
+marked the ravages they had made in her face.
+
+"What shall I do?" she murmured, as though questioning her own forlorn
+image in the glass. "What shall I do? I dare not stay away from
+dinner, and what will they say when they see my face?"
+
+She fastened up her hair, and bathed her face with cold water; then
+returned to the glass to look at it again; but the pallor was still
+upon the lips, the discoloration was still about the heavy eyelids. As
+she stood despairingly before the dressing-table, her maid came to
+her.
+
+"The dinner-bell will not ring, ma'am," said the girl. "Mr. Carruthers
+is afraid of the noise for Mrs. Carruthers."
+
+"Ay," said Clare, listlessly, still looking at the disfigured image in
+the glass. "How is she?"
+
+"No better, ma'am; very bad indeed, I believe. But don't take on so,
+Miss Clare," her maid went on, affectionately. "She is not so bad as
+they say, perhaps; and, at all events, you'll knock yourself up, and
+be no comfort to Mr. Carruthers."
+
+A light flashed upon Clare. She had only to keep silence, and no one
+would find her out; her tears, her anguish, would be imputed to her
+share of the family trouble. Her maid, who would naturally have
+noticed her appearance immediately, expressed no surprise. Mrs.
+Carruthers was very ill, then. Something new had occurred since the
+morning, when there had been no hint of anything serious in her
+indisposition. The maid evidently believed her mistress acquainted
+with all that had occurred. She had only to keep quiet, and nothing
+would betray her ignorance. So she allowed the girl to talk, while she
+made some trifling change in her dress, and soon learned all the
+particulars of Mrs. Carruthers's illness, and the doctor's visit, of
+her uncle's alarm, and Mrs. Brookes's devoted attendance on her
+mistress. Then Clare, trembling though relieved of her immediate
+apprehension of discovery, went down-stairs to join her uncle at their
+dreary dinner. He made no comment upon the girl's appearance, and,
+indeed, hardly spoke. The few words of sympathy which Clare ventured
+to say were briefly answered, and as soon as possible he left the
+dining-room. Clare sat by the table for a while, with her face buried
+in her hands, thinking, suffering, but not weeping. She had no more
+tears to-day to shed.
+
+Presently she went to Mrs. Carruthers's room, and sat down on a chair
+behind the door, abstracted and silent. In the large dimly-lighted
+room she was hardly seen by the watchers. She saw her uncle come in,
+and stand forlornly by the bed; then the doctor came, and several
+figures moved about silently and went away, and then there was no one
+but Mrs. Brookes sitting still as a statue beside the sufferer, who
+lay in a state of stupor. How long she had been in the room before the
+old woman perceived her Clare did not know; but she felt Mrs. Brookes
+bending over her, and taking her hand, before she knew she had moved
+from the bedside.
+
+"Pray go away and lie down, Miss Carruthers," the old woman said, half
+tenderly, half severely. "You can do no good here--no one can do any
+good here yet--and you will be ill yourself. We can't do with more
+trouble in the house, and crying your eyes out of your head, as you've
+been doing, won't help any one, my dear. I will send you word how she
+is the first thing in the morning."
+
+The old woman raised the girl by a gentle impulse, as she spoke, and
+she went meekly away, Mrs. Brookes closing the door behind her with an
+unspoken reflection on the uselessness of girls, who, whenever
+anything is the matter, can do nothing but cry.
+
+The night gradually fell upon Poynings--the soft, sweet, early summer
+night. It crept into the sick-room, and overshadowed the still form
+upon the bed--the form whose stillness was to be succeeded by the
+fierce unrest, the torturing vague effort of fever; it closed over the
+stern pompous master of Poynings, wakeful and sorely troubled. It
+darkened the pretty chamber, decorated with a thousand girlish
+treasures and simple adornments, in which Clare Carruthers was
+striving sorely with the first fierce trial of her prosperous young
+life. When it was at its darkest and deepest, the girl's swollen weary
+eyelids closed, conquered by the irresistible mighty benefactor of the
+young who suffer. Then, if any eye could have pierced the darkness and
+looked at her as she lay sleeping, the stamp of a great fear upon her
+face even in her slumber, and her breast shaken by frequent heavy
+sighs, it would have been seen that one hand was hidden under the
+pillow, and the fair cheek pressed tightly down upon it, for better
+security. That hand was closed upon three letters, severally addressed
+to the advertising department of three of the daily newspapers. The
+contents, which were uniform, had cost the girl hours of anxious and
+agonizing thoughts. They were very simple, and were as follows,
+accompanied by the sum which she supposed their insertion would cost,
+very liberally estimated:
+
+"The gentleman who showed a lady a sprig of myrtle on last Saturday is
+earnestly entreated by her not to revisit the place where he met her.
+He will inevitably be recognized."
+
+"God forgive me if I am doing wrong in this!" Clare Carruthers had
+said with her last waking consciousness. "God forgive me, but I must
+save him if I can!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE SHADOW LIGHTENED.
+
+
+Long before Mr. Carruthers, impelled by the irresistible force of
+routine, which not all the concern, and even alarm, occasioned him by
+Mrs. Carruthers's condition could subdue, had issued forth upon his
+daily tour of inspection, Clare's letters had been safely posted by
+her own hand at the village. She had slept but little on the night
+which had fallen on her first experience of fear and grief; and waking
+at dawn, oppressed by a heavy sense of some dimly-understood calamity,
+she had recalled it all in a moment; and having hurriedly dressed
+herself, she went down to the breakfast-room, and let herself out
+through the window, accompanied by her dog, whose joyous gambols in
+the bright morning air she did not notice. That morning air struck
+chill to the weary limbs and aching head of the sad, bewildered girl
+as she pursued her rapid way through the shrubbery, brushing the
+dew from the branches of the trees as she passed hurriedly along
+heart-sick, and yet wandering and confused in her thoughts.
+
+Her walk was quite solitary and uninterrupted. She slid the letters
+into a convenient slit of a window-shutter of the general-shop, to
+which the dignity and emoluments of a post-office were attached;
+glanced up and down the little street, listened to certain desultory
+sounds which spoke of the commencement of activity in adjacent
+stable-yards, and to the barking with which some vagabond dogs of her
+acquaintance greeted her and Cæsar; satisfied herself that she was
+unobserved, and then retraced her steps as rapidly as possible. The
+large white-faced clock over the stables at Poynings--an unimpeachable
+instrument, never known to gain or lose within the memory of man--was
+striking six as Clare Carruthers carefully replaced the bolt of the
+breakfast-room window, and crept upstairs again, with a faint flutter
+of satisfaction that her errand had been safely accomplished
+contending with the dreariness and dread which filled her heart. She
+put away her hat and cloak, changed her dress, which was wet with the
+dew, and sat down by the door of the room to listen for the first stir
+of life in the house.
+
+Soon she heard her uncle's step, lighter, less creaky than usual, and
+went out to meet him. He did not show any surprise on seeing her so
+early, and the expression of his face told her in a moment that he had
+no good news of the invalid to communicate.
+
+"Brookes says she has had a very bad night," he said gravely. "I am
+going to send for Munns at once, and to telegraph to London for more
+advice." Then he went on in a state of subdued creak; and Clare, in
+increased bewilderment and misery, went to Mrs. Carruthers's room,
+where she found the reign of dangerous illness seriously inaugurated.
+
+Doctor Munns came, and early in the afternoon a grave and polite
+gentleman arrived from London, who was very affable, but rather
+reserved, and who was also guilty of the unaccountable bad taste of
+suggesting a shock in connection with Mrs. Carruthers's illness. He
+also was emphatically corrected by Mr. Carruthers, but not with the
+same harshness which had marked that gentleman's reception of Dr.
+Munns's suggestion. The grave gentleman from London made but little
+addition to Dr. Munns's treatment, declined to commit himself to any
+decided opinion on the case, and went away, leaving Mr. Carruthers
+with a sensation of helplessness and vague injury, to say nothing of
+downright misery and alarm, to which the Grand Lama was entirely
+unaccustomed.
+
+Before the London physician made his appearance Clare and her uncle
+had met at breakfast, and she had learned all there was to be known on
+the subject which had taken entire and terrible possession of her
+mind: It seemed to Clare now that she had no power of thinking of
+anything else, that it was quite impossible that only yesterday
+morning she was a careless unconscious girl musing over a romantic
+incident in her life, speculating vaguely upon the possibility of any
+result accruing from it in the future, and feeling as far removed from
+the crimes and dangers of life as if they had no existence. Now she
+took her place opposite her uncle with a face whose pallor and
+expression of deep-seated trouble even that unobservant and
+self-engrossed potentate could not fail to notice. He did observe the
+alteration in Clare's looks, and was not altogether displeased by it.
+It argued deep solicitude for Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings--an
+extremely proper sentiment; so Mr. Carruthers consoled his niece after
+his stately fashion, acknowledging, at the same time, the
+unaccountable vagaries of fever, and assuring Clare that there was
+nothing infectious in the case--a subject on which it had never
+occurred to the girl to feel any uneasiness. Not so with Mr.
+Carruthers, who had a very great dread of illness of every kind, and a
+superstitious reverence for the medical art. The conversation was
+interrupted by the arrival of the post, and Mr. Carruthers's attention
+was again drawn to the subject of the murder and the possibility of
+promoting his own importance in connection with it. Clare's pale face
+turned paler as her uncle took up the first letter of the number
+presented to him by Thomas (footman), that official looking peculiarly
+intelligent on the occasion; for the letter bore the magic
+inscription, "On Her Majesty's Service," and the seal of the Home
+Office.
+
+Mr. Carruthers took some time to read the letter, even with the aid of
+the gold eye-glasses. It came from Mr. Dalrymple, who wrote an
+abnormally bad hand even for a government official--a circumstance
+which Mr. Carruthers mentally combined with the beard, of which he
+retained an indignant remembrance as a sign of the degeneracy of the
+age. The irrepressible pompousness of the man showed itself even in
+this crisis of affairs, as he perused the document, and laid it down
+upon the table under the hand armed with the eye-glasses.
+
+Clare waited breathless.
+
+"Hem! my dear," he began; "this letter is connected with the matter I
+mentioned to you yesterday. You remember, I daresay, about the murder,
+and the inquiry I was requested by the government to make at Amherst."
+
+O yes, Clare remembered; she had been very much interested. Had
+anything since transpired?
+
+"Nothing of any moment. This letter is from Mr. Dalrymple--the
+gentleman who came here, as I told you, from Lord Wolstenholme."
+
+Clare, still breathless, bowed. There was no use in trying to
+accelerate Mr. Carruthers's speech. He was not to be hurried.
+
+"He writes to me that the Home Secretary regrets very much the failure
+of our inquiries at Amherst, in eliciting any information concerning
+the only person on whom suspicion has as yet alighted. He informs me
+that, as I expected, and as I explained to you yesterday"--Mr.
+Carruthers paused condescendingly for Clare's silent gesture of
+assent--"the jury at the coroner's inquest (it closed yesterday) have
+returned an open verdict--wilful murder against some person or persons
+unknown; and the police have been instructed to use all possible
+vigilance to bring the criminal to light."
+
+"Have they learned anything further about the dead man?" asked Clare,
+with a timid look (half of anxiety, half of avoidance) towards the
+newspaper, which Mr. Carruthers had not yet opened, and which no
+member of the family would have ventured to touch unsanctioned by the
+previous perusal of its august head.
+
+"About the murdered man?--no, I believe not. Mr. Dalrymple further
+informs me that the fur-lined coat, and all the other less remarkable
+articles of clothing found on the body, are placed in the hands of the
+police, in hope of future identification. There is nothing more to be
+done, then, that I can see. Can you suggest anything, Clare!" Mr.
+Carruthers asked the question in a tone almost of banter, as though
+there were something ridiculous in his expecting a suggestion from
+such a quarter, but with very little real anxiety nevertheless.
+
+"I--I really do not know, uncle," returned Clare; "I cannot tell. You
+are quite sure Evans told you all he knew?"
+
+"Everything," replied Mr. Carruthers. "The clue furnished by the coat
+was very slight, but it was the only one. I am convinced, myself, that
+the man who wore the coat, and was last seen in company with the
+murdered man, was the man who committed the murder." Clare shivered.
+"But," continued Mr. Carruthers in an argumentative tone, "the thing
+to establish is the identity of the man who wore the coat with the man
+who bought it six weeks ago."
+
+A bright flush rose on Clare's cheeks--a flush of surprise, of hope.
+"Is there any doubt about that, uncle?" she asked. "The waiter
+described the man, didn't he? Besides, no one would part with an
+overcoat in six weeks."
+
+"_That_ is by no means certain," said Mr. Carruthers with an air of
+profound wisdom. "Artists and writers, and foreigners, and generally
+people of the vagabond kind, sell and barter their clothes very
+frequently. The young man whom Evans describes might have been any
+one, from his purposeless indistinguishable description; the waiter's
+memory is clearer, as is natural, being newer."
+
+"And what is the description he gives?" asked Clare faintly.
+
+"You will find it in the weekly paper, my dear," returned Mr.
+Carruthers, stretching his hand out towards the daily journal.
+"Meantime let's see yesterday's proceedings."
+
+Hope had arisen in Clare's heart. Might not all her fear be unfounded,
+all her sufferings vain? What if the coat had not been purchased by
+Paul Ward at all? She tried to remember exactly what he had said in
+the few jesting words that had passed on the subject. Had he said he
+had bought it at Amherst, or only that it had been made at Amherst? By
+an intense effort, so distracting and painful that it made her head
+ache with a sharp pain, she endeavoured to force her memory to
+reproduce what had passed, but in vain; she remembered only the
+circumstance, the fatal identification of the coat. "Artists and
+writers," her uncle had said, in his disdainful classification,
+occasionally made certain odd arrangements concerning their garments
+unknown to the upper classes, to whom tailors and valets appertain of
+right; and Paul Ward was both a writer and an artist. Might he not
+have bought the coat from an acquaintance? Men of his class, she knew,
+often had queer acquaintances. The possession was one of the drawbacks
+of the otherwise glorious career of art and literature--people who
+might require to sell their coats, and be equal to doing it.
+
+Yes there was a hope, a possibility that it might be so, and the girl
+seized on it with avidity. But, in a moment, the terrible recollection
+struck her that she was considering the matter at the wrong end. Who
+had bought the coat made by Evans of Amherst, and what had been its
+intermediate history, were things of no import. The question was, in
+whose possession was it when the unknown man was murdered. Had Paul
+Ward dined with him at the Strand Tavern? Was Paul Ward the man whom
+the waiter could undertake to identify, in London? If so--and the
+terrible pang of the conviction that so, indeed, it was, returned to
+her with redoubled force from the momentary relief of the doubt--the
+danger was in London, not there at Amherst; from the waiter, not from
+Evans. Distracted between the horror, overwhelming to the innocent
+mind of the young girl, to whom sin and crime had been hitherto dim
+and distant phantoms, of such guilt attaching itself to the image
+which she had set up for the romantic worship of her girlish heart,
+and the urgent terrified desire which she felt that, however guilty,
+he might escape--nay, the more firmly she felt convinced that he
+_must_ be guilty, the more ardently she desired it,--Clare
+Carruthers's gentle breast was rent with such unendurable torture as
+hardly any after happiness could compensate for or efface. All this
+time Mr. Carruthers was reading the newspaper, and at length he laid
+it down, and was about to address Clare, when the footman entered the
+room, and informed him that Mr. Evans, the tailor, from Amherst,
+wished to be permitted to speak to him as soon as convenient. With
+much more alacrity than he usually displayed, Mr. Carruthers desired
+that Evans should be shown into the library, and declared his
+intention of going to speak to him immediately.
+
+"I have no doubt, Clare, that he has come about this business," said
+Mr. Carruthers, when the servant had left the room. With this
+consolatory assurance he left her to herself. She snatched up the
+newspaper, and read a brief account of the proceedings of the previous
+day--the close of the inquest, and some indignant remarks upon the
+impunity with which so atrocious a crime had, to all appearance, been
+committed; which wound up with a supposition that this murder was
+destined to be included in the number of those mysteries whose
+impenetrability strengthened the hand of the assassin, and made our
+police system the standing jest of continental nations. How ardently
+she hoped, how nearly she dared to pray, that it might indeed be so!
+
+She lingered in the breakfast-room, waiting for her uncle's return.
+The restlessness, the uncertainty of misery, were upon her; she
+dreaded the sight of every one, and yet she feared solitude, because
+of the thoughts, the convictions, the terrors, which peopled it. Three
+letters lay on the table still unopened; and when Clare looked at
+them, she found they were addressed to Mrs. Carruthers, and that two
+of the three were from America. The postmark on each was New York, and
+on one were stamped the words, "Too late."
+
+"She is too ill to read any letters now, or even to be told there are
+any," thought Clare. "I had better put them away, or ask my uncle to
+do so."
+
+She was looking at the third letter, which was from George Dallas; but
+she had never seen his writing, to her knowledge; and the two words,
+which he had written on the slip of paper she had seen, being a
+Christian and surname, afforded her no opportunity of recognizing it
+as that of Paul Ward; when Mr. Carruthers returned, looking very
+pompous and fussy.
+
+"I shall communicate with the Home Office immediately," he began.
+"This is very important. Evans has been here to tell me he has read
+all the proceedings at the inquest, and the waiter's description of
+the suspected individual tallies precisely with his own recollection
+of the purchaser of the coat."
+
+"But, uncle," said Clare, with quick intelligence, "you told me the
+man's evidence and Evans's description were as vague as possible.
+Indeed, I was quite struck by what you said: 'A description that
+describes nothing' were your words. And don't you remember telling me
+how frequently you had observed in your magisterial capacity that
+these people never could be depended on to give an accurate account of
+an impression or a circumstance? And how you have told me that it was
+one of the chief distinctions between the educated and uneducated
+mind, that only the former could comprehend the real value and meaning
+of evidence? Depend on it, Evans has no new ground for his conviction.
+He has been reading the papers, and thinking over the importance of
+being mixed up in the matter, until he has persuaded himself into this
+notion. Don't you recollect that is just what you said you were sure
+he would do?"
+
+Mr. Carruthers did not remember anything of the kind, nor did Clare.
+But the girl was progressing rapidly in the lessons which strong
+emotion teaches, and which add years of experience to hours of life.
+Instinctively she took advantage of the weakness of her uncle's
+character, which she comprehended without acknowledging. Mr.
+Carruthers had no objection to the imputation of superior sagacity
+conveyed in Clare's remark, and accepted the suggestion graciously; he
+was particularly pleased to learn that he had drawn that acute
+distinction between the educated and uneducated mind. It was like him,
+he thought: he was not a man on whom experience was wasted.
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember, of course, my dear," replied Mr. Carruthers,
+graciously; "but then, you see, however little I may think of Evans's
+notions on the subject, I am bound to communicate with the Home
+Office. If Mrs. Carruthers's illness did not render my absence
+improper and impossible, I should go to London myself, and lay the
+matter before Lord Wolstenholme; but, as I cannot do that, I must
+write at once." Mr. Carruthers, in his secret soul, regarded the
+obligation with no little dread, and would have been grateful for a
+suggestion which he would not have condescended to ask for.
+
+"Then I will leave you, uncle," said Clare, making a strong effort to
+speak as cheerfully as possible, "to your task of telling the big wigs
+that there is nothing more to be done or known down here. You might
+make them laugh, if such solemn, grand people ever laugh, by telling
+them how the rural mind believes two vaguenesses to make a certainty,
+and make them grateful that Evans came to you, and not to them, with
+his mare's nest of corroborative evidence."
+
+Clare's fair face was sharpened with anxiety as she spoke, despite the
+brightness of her tone, and she had narrowly watched the effect of her
+words. Her uncle felt that they conveyed precisely the hint he
+required, and was proportionally relieved.
+
+"Of course, of course," he answered, in his grandest manner; and Clare
+moved towards the door, when, remembering the letters, she said:
+
+"There are some letters for Mrs. Carruthers, uncle. I fancy she is too
+ill to see them. Two are from America; will you take them?"
+
+"I take them, Clare, why?" asked her uncle, in a tone of dignified
+surprise.
+
+"Only because, being foreign letters, I thought they might require
+attention--that's all," said Clare, feeling herself rebuked for a
+vulgarity. "They come from New York."
+
+"Probably from Mr. Felton," said Mr. Carruthers, pointing the gold
+eye-glasses at the letters in Clare's hand with dignified coldness,
+but making no attempt to look at them nearer. "You had better lay them
+aside, or give them to Brookes or Dixon. I never meddle with Mrs.
+Carruthers's family correspondence."
+
+Clare made her escape with the letters, feeling as if her ears had,
+morally speaking, been boxed; and diverted, for a little, by the
+sensation from the devouring anxiety she had felt that Mr. Carruthers
+should communicate in the tone which she had tried to insinuate with
+the dignitaries of the Home Office.
+
+The door of Mrs. Carruthers's room was open, and the curtain partly
+withdrawn, when Clare reached it. She called softly to Dixon, but
+received no reply. Then she went in, and found the housekeeper again
+in attendance upon the patient. To her inquiries she received from
+Mrs. Brookes very discouraging replies, and the old woman stated her
+conviction strongly that it was going to be a very bad business, and
+that Clare had much better go to the Sycamores.
+
+"You can't do any good here, Miss Carruthers," said the old woman; and
+Clare thought she had never heard her speak so sternly and harshly. "I
+don't know that any one can do any good; but you can't anyhow, and the
+fever may be catching."
+
+Clare's eyes filled with tears, not only because she loved Mrs.
+Carruthers, not only because another trouble was added to the crushing
+misery that had fallen upon her, but also because it hurt her gentle
+nature keenly to feel herself of no account.
+
+"No," she said, in a low voice, "I know I am of no use, Mrs. Brookes.
+I am not her child. If I were, I should not be expected to leave her.
+And," she added bitterly, for the first time treading on the forbidden
+ground, "more than that, if it were not for me, her son might be with
+her now, perhaps."
+
+"Hush, hush, pray," whispered Mrs. Brookes, with a frightened glance
+at the bed; "don't say that word! She may hear and understand more
+than we think."
+
+Clare looked at her in bewilderment, but obeyed her, and asked no
+questions.
+
+"These came just now," she said, "my uncle desired me to give them to
+you."
+
+She put the letters into the old woman's hand, and crossed the room,
+leaving it by the opposite door, which communicated with Mrs.
+Carruthers's dressing-room. As she passed through the inner apartment,
+which opened on the corridor, she observed that the portrait of George
+Dallas, which had hung upon the wall as long as she remembered the
+room, was no longer there.
+
+The hidden anguish in her own heart, the secret which was crushing her
+own young spirit, made the girl quick to see and interpret any sign of
+similar sorrow and mystery.
+
+"Mrs. Brookes has taken away her son's picture," Clare thought, us she
+slowly descended the stairs, "and she dreads his name being mentioned
+in her presence. Dr. Munns asked if she had had a shock, and seemed to
+impute her illness to something of the kind. There is something wrong
+with George Dallas, and the two know it."
+
+When Miss Carruthers left her, Mrs. Brookes broke the seal of one of
+the letters without a moment's hesitation, and read its contents,
+standing shielded from any possible observation by the invalid by the
+curtains of the bed. The letter contained only a few lines:
+
+"_I am going away, out of England, for a little while, my dearest
+mother_," George Dallas wrote. "_It is necessary for the transaction
+of my business; but I did not know it would be so when I last
+communicated with you. Write to me at the subjoined address: your
+letter mil be forwarded_." The address given was Routh's, at South
+Molton-street.
+
+The old woman sighed heavily as she read the letter, and then resumed
+her attendance on her patient.
+
+The day waned, the London physician came and went. The household at
+Poynings learned little of their mistress's state. There was little to
+be learned. That night a letter was written to George Dallas, by Mrs.
+Brookes, which was a harder task to the poor old woman than she had
+ever been called upon to fulfil. With infinite labour, she wrote as
+follows:
+
+
+"My Dear Master George,--Your letter has come, so I know you are not
+in England, and I am not sure but that some one else may see this.
+Your mother is very ill, in consequence of what she has seen in the
+papers. I do not believe it is as bad as it seems, though how bad that
+is, thank God, no one but your mother and I know, or can ever know, I
+hope and trust. Think of all the strongest and most imploring things I
+could say to you, my own dear boy, if it was safe to say anything, and
+if you can put us out of suspense, by writing, not to her, not on any
+account to her, but to me, do so. But if you can't, George--and think
+what I feel in saying that _if_--keep away, don't let her hear of you,
+don't let her think of you in danger. Anyhow, God save, and help, and
+forgive you.
+
+     "Your affectionate old Nurse,
+
+          "ELLEN."
+
+
+The days went on, as time travels in sickness and in health, and there
+was little change in Mrs. Carruthers, and little hope at Poynings. The
+fever had been pronounced not infectious, and Clare had not been
+banished to the Sycamores. No fresh alarm had arisen to agitate her,
+no news of the suspected man had been obtained. The matter had
+apparently been consigned to oblivion. With the subsidence of her
+first terror and agitation, a deeper horror and dread had grown upon
+Clare. Supposing, as it seemed, that he was safe now, Paul Ward was
+still a guilty wretch, a creature to be shunned by the pure, even in
+thought. And the more she felt this, and thought of it, the more
+frankly Clare confessed to her own heart that she had loved him, that
+she had set him up, with so little knowledge of him after their chance
+meeting, as an idol in the shrine of her girlish fancy--an idol
+defaced and overthrown now, a shrine for ever denied and desecrated.
+She was glad to think she had warned him; she wondered how much that
+warning had contributed to his security. She strove hard to banish the
+remembrance of him in all but its true aspect of abhorrence, but she
+did not always succeed; and, in the innocent girl's dreams, the smile,
+the voice, the frank kindly words would often come again, and make her
+waking to the jarring gladness of the morning terrible. A shadow fell
+upon her beauty, the gleeful tone died out of her voice; the change of
+an indelible sorrow passed upon the girl, but passed unnoticed by
+herself or any other.
+
+The days went on, as time travels in sorrow and in joy; and at length
+a change came in Mrs. Carruthers, and there was hope at Poynings. Not
+hope, indeed, that she could ever be again as she had been, beautiful
+and stately in her serene and honoured matronhood, in her bright
+intelligence and dignity. That was not to be. She recovered; that is,
+she did not die, but she died to much of the past. She was an old
+woman from thenceforth, and all her beauty, save the immortal beauty
+of form, had left her very quiet, very patient and gentle, but of
+feeble nerves, and with little memory for the past, and little
+attention or interest in the present; she was the merest wreck of what
+she had been. Her faithful old servant was not so much distressed by
+the change as were her husband and Clare. She had her own reasons for
+thinking it better that it should be so. For many days after
+convalescence had been declared, she had watched and waited, sick with
+apprehension for some sign of recollection on the part of the patient,
+but none came, and the old woman, while she grieved with exceeding
+bitterness over the wreck of all she so dearly loved, thanked God in
+her heart that even thus relief had come. None had come otherwise.
+George Dallas had made no sign.
+
+So the time went on, and summer was in its full pomp and pride when
+preparations were being made on a scale suitable to the travelling
+arrangements of magnates of the importance of Mr. Carruthers of
+Poynings for a continental tour, recommended by the physicians in
+attendance as a means for the complete restoration of Mrs. Carruthers.
+The time named for the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers had nearly
+arrived, and it had just been arranged that Clare should remain at the
+Sycamores during their absence, when Mr. Carruthers startled Mrs.
+Brookes considerably by asking her if she could inform him where a
+communication might be expected to find Mr. George Dallas? It would
+have been impossible for human ingenuity to have devised a question
+more unexpected by its recipient, and Mrs. Brookes was genuinely
+incapable of answering it for a moment, and showed her fear and
+surprise so plainly, that Mr. Carruthers, much softened by recent
+events, condescended to explain why he had asked it.
+
+"I do not consider it proper that the young man should be left in
+ignorance of his mother's state of health and her absence from.
+England," he said, with less stateliness than usual; "and though I do
+not inquire into the manner and frequency of his communications with
+Mrs. Carruthers, I believe I am correct in supposing he has not
+written to her lately."
+
+"Not lately, sir," replied Mrs. Brookes.
+
+The result of this colloquy was that Mrs. Brookes gave Mr. Carruthers
+Routh's address at South Molton-street, and that Mr. Carruthers
+addressed a short epistle to George Dallas, in which he curtly
+informed his stepson that his mother, having just recovered from a
+dangerous illness which had enfeebled her mind considerably, was about
+to travel on the Continent for an indefinite period, during which, if
+he (Mr. Carruthers) should see any cause for so doing, he would
+communicate further with Mr. George Dallas. This letter was posted on
+the day which witnessed the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers "and
+suite" (as the County Chronicle was careful to notice) from Poynings;
+and Mr. Carruthers felt much conscious self-approval for having
+written it, and especially for having timed the writing of it so well.
+"Sooner, he might have made an excuse of it for coming here," thought
+the astute gentleman; "and it would have been heartless not to have
+written at all."
+
+For once in his life Mr. Carruthers of Poynings had written a letter
+of importance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+IN THE MUIDERSTRAAT.
+
+
+High houses, broad, jolly, and red-faced, standing now on the edges of
+quays or at the feet of bridges, now in quaint trim little gardens,
+whose close-shaven turf is gaudy with brilliant bulbs, or overshadowed
+by box and yew, but always fringing the long, shallow, black canals,
+whose sluggish waters scarcely ripple under the passing barge. Water,
+water, everywhere, and requiring everybody's first consideration,
+dammed out by vast dykes and let in through numerous sluices, spanned
+by nearly three hundred bridges, employing a perfect army of men to
+watch it and tend it, to avail themselves of its presence and yet to
+keep it in subjection; for if not properly looked after and skilfully
+managed, it might at any moment submerge the city; avenues of green
+trees running along the canal banks and blooming freshly in the
+thickest portions of the commerce-crowded quays; innumerable windmills
+on the horizon; picture-galleries rich in treasures of Rubens,
+Rembrandt, Vandyke, and Teniers; dock-yards, where square and sturdy
+ships are built by square and sturdy men, in solemn silence and with
+much pipe-smoking; asylums, homes, alms-houses, through which a broad
+stream of well-administered charity is always flowing. A population of
+grave burghers, and chattering vrows, and the fattest, shiniest, and
+most old-fashioned children; of outlandish sailors and Jews of the
+grand old type, who might have sat, and whose ancestors probably did
+sit, as models to Rembrandt; of stalwart bargemen and canal-tenders,
+of strangers, some pleasure-seeking, but the great majority intent on
+business; for whatever may be the solemn delights of its inhabitants,
+to a stranger accustomed to other capitals there are few gaieties to
+be met with in the city to which George Dallas had wended his
+way--Amsterdam.
+
+To George Dallas this mattered very little. Of the grosser kinds of
+pleasure he had had enough and more than enough; the better feelings
+of his nature had been awakened, and nothing could have induced him to
+allow himself to drift back into the slough from which he had emerged.
+Wandering through the long picture-galleries and museums, and gloating
+over their contents with thorough artistic appreciation, dreamily
+gazing out of his hotel window over a prospect of barge-dotted and
+tree-bordered canals which would gradually dissolve before his eyes,
+the beech avenue of the Sycamores arising in its place, recalling
+Clare Carruthers's soft voice and ringing laugh and innocent trusting
+manner, George Dallas could scarcely believe that for months and
+months of his past life he had been the companion of sharpers and
+gamblers, and had been cat off from all communication with everything
+and everybody that in his youth he had been taught to look up to and
+respect. He shuddered as he recollected the orgies which he had taken
+part in, the company he had kept, the life he had led. He groaned
+aloud and stamped with rage as he thought of time lost, character
+blighted, opportunities missed. And his rage this time was vented on
+himself: he did not, as usual, curse his stepfather for having
+pronounced his edict of banishment; he did not lay the blame on luck
+or fate, which generally bore the burden; he was man enough to look
+his past life fairly in the face, and to own to himself that all its
+past privations, and what might have been its future miseries, were of
+his own creation. What might have been, but what should not be now. A
+new career lay before him, a career of honour and fame, inducements to
+pursue which such as he had never dreamed of were not wanting, and by
+Heaven's help he would succeed.
+
+It was on the first morning after his arrival in Amsterdam that George
+Dallas, after much desultory thought, thus determined. Actuated by
+surroundings in an extraordinary degree, he had, while in London, been
+completely fascinated by the combined influence of Routh and Harriet;
+and had he remained with them he would, probably, never have shaken
+off that influence, or been anything but their ready instrument. But
+so soon as he had left them the fascination was gone, and his eyes
+were open to the degradation of his position, and the impossibility,
+so long as he continued with his recent associates, of retrieving
+himself in the eyes of the world--of being anything to Clare
+Carruthers. This last thought decided him--he would break with Stewart
+Routh, yes, and with Harriet, at once! He would sell the bracelet and
+send the proceeds to Routh with a letter, in which he would delicately
+but firmly express his determination and take farewell of him and
+Harriet. Then he would return to London, and throw himself into
+business at once. There was plenty for him to do at the _Mercury_, the
+chief had said, and--No! he must not go back to London, he must not
+expose himself to temptation; at all events until he was more capable
+of resisting it. Now, there would be Routh, with his jovial
+blandishments, and Deane, and all the set, and Harriet, most dangerous
+of all! In London he would fall back into George Dallas, the outcast,
+the reprobate, the black sheep, not rise into Paul Ward, the genius;
+and it was under the latter name that he had made acquaintance with
+Clare, and that he hoped to rise into fame and repute.
+
+But though the young man had, as he imagined, fully made up his mind
+as to his future course, he lounged through a whole day in Amsterdam
+before he took the first step necessary for its pursuance--the
+negotiation of the bracelet and the transmission of the money to
+Routh--and it is probable that any movement in the matter would have
+been yet further delayed had he not come to the end of the slender
+stock of money which he had brought with him from England. The
+reaction from a life of fevered excitement to one of perfect calm, the
+atmosphere of comfortable, quiet, staid tranquillity by which he was
+surrounded, the opportunity for indulging his artistic sympathies
+without the slightest trouble, all these influences were readily
+adopted by a man of George Dallas's desultory habits and easy
+temperament; but, at last, it was absolutely necessary that some
+action should be taken, and George consulted the polyglot waiter of
+the hotel as to the best means of disposing of some valuable diamonds
+which he had with him.
+
+The question was evidently one to which the polyglot waiter was well
+accustomed, for he answered at once, "Dimants to puy is best by Mr.
+Dieverbrug, in Muiderstraat."
+
+Not thoroughly comprehending the instance of the polyglottiness of the
+polyglot, George Dallas again advanced to the charge, and by varying
+his methods of attack, and diligently patching together such
+intelligible scraps as he rescued from the polyglot, he at length
+arrived at the fact that Mr. Dieverbrug, a Jew, who lived in the
+Muiderstraat, was a diamond merchant in a large way of business,
+speaking English, frequently visiting England, and likely to give as
+good, if not a better price than any one else in the trade. The
+polyglot added that he himself was not a bad judge of what he
+persisted in calling "dimants;" and as this speech was evidently a
+polite hint, George showed him the stones. The polyglot admired them
+very much, and pronounced them, in his opinion, worth between two and
+three hundred pounds--a valuable hint to George, who expected Mr.
+Dieverbrug would call upon him to name his price, and if any absurd
+sum was asked, the intending vendor might be looked upon with
+suspicion. The polyglot then owned that he himself frequently did a
+little business in the way of jewel-purchasing from visitors to the
+hotel, but frankly confessed that the "lot" under consideration was
+beyond him; so George thanked him and set out to visit Mr. Dieverbrug.
+
+The Muiderstraat is the Jews' quarter of Amsterdam, which said, it is
+scarcely necessary to add that it is the dirtiest, the foulest, the
+most evil-smelling. There all the well-known characteristics of such
+places flourish more abundantly even than in the Frankfort Judengasse
+or our own Houndsditch. There each house is the repository of
+countless suits of fusty clothes, heaped up in reckless profusion on
+the floors, bulging out from cupboards and presses, horribly
+suggestive of vermin, hanging from poles protruding from the windows.
+There every cellar bristles with an array of boots of all kinds and
+shades, amongst which the little Hebrew children squall and fight, and
+play at their little games of defrauding each other. There are the
+_bric-à-brac_ shops, crammed with cheap odds and ends from every
+quarter of the globe, all equally undistinguishable under an impartial
+covering of dust and dirt; there are the booksellers, with their
+worm-eaten folios and their copies of the Scriptures, and their
+written announcements in the Hebrew character; there are the cheap
+printsellers, with smeary copies from popular pictures and highly
+coloured daubs of French battle-fields and English hunting-scenes. The
+day was fine, and nearly all the population was either standing
+outside its doors or lolling at its windows, chaffering, higgling,
+joking, scolding. George Dallas, to whom such a scene was an entire
+novelty, walked slowly along with difficulty, threading his way
+through the various groups, amused with all he saw, and speculating
+within himself as to the probable personal appearance of Mr.
+Dieverbrug. The diamond merchant, George imagined, would probably be
+an old man, with gray hair and spectacles, and a large hooked nose,
+like one of Rembrandt's "Misers," seated in a small shop, surrounded
+by the rarest treasures exquisitely set. But when he arrived at the
+number which the polyglot had given him as Mr. Dieverbrug's residence,
+he found a small shop indeed, but it was a bookseller's, and it was
+not until after some little time that he spied a painted inscription
+on the door-post directing Mr. Dieverbrug's visitors to the first
+floor, whither George at once proceeded.
+
+At a small wooden table, on which stood a set of brass balance
+weights, sat a man of middle height and gentlemanly appearance dressed
+in black. The Hebraic character was not strongly marked in any of his
+features, though it was perceptible to an acute observer in the
+aquiline nose and the full red lips. He raised his eyes from a small
+red-leather memorandum-book or diary which he had been studying, as
+Dallas entered the room, and gave his visitor a grave salutation.
+
+"Am I addressing Mr. Dieverbrug?" said Dallas, in English.
+
+"I am Mr. Dieverbrug," he replied, in the same language, speaking with
+perfect ease and with very little foreign accentuation, "at your
+service."
+
+"I have been recommended to come to you. I am, as you have probably
+already recognized, an Englishman, and I have some jewels for sale,
+which it may, perhaps, suit you to buy."
+
+"You have them with you?"
+
+"Yes, they are here;" and George took out his cherished case and
+placed it in Mr. Dieverbrug's hand.
+
+Mr. Dieverbrug opened the case quietly, and walked with it towards the
+window. He then took out the stones and held them to the light, then
+taking from his waistcoat pocket a small pair of steel nippers, he
+picked up each stone separately, breathed upon it, examined it
+attentively, and then replaced it in the case. When he had gone
+through this operation with all the stones, he said to George:
+
+"You are not a diamond merchant?"
+
+"No, indeed!" said Dallas, with a half-laugh; "not I."
+
+"You have never," said Mr. Dieverbrug, looking at him steadfastly from
+under his bushy eyebrows,--"you have never been in a jewel-house?"
+
+"In a jewel-house?" echoed George.
+
+"What you call a jeweller's shop?"
+
+"Never have been in a jeweller's shop? O yes, often."
+
+"Still you fail my meaning. You have never been in a jeweller's shop
+as employé, as assistant?"
+
+"Assistant at a jeweller's--ah! thank you! now I see what you're
+aiming at. I've never been an assistant in a jeweller's shop, you ask,
+which is a polite way of inquiring if I robbed my master of these
+stones! Thank you very much; if you've that opinion of me, perhaps I
+had better seek my bargain elsewhere." And George Dallas, shaking all
+over, and very much flushed in the face, extended his hand for the
+case.
+
+Mr. Dieverbrug smiled softly as he said, "If I thought that, I would
+have bid you go about your business at once. There are plenty of
+merchants at Amsterdam who would buy from you, no matter whence you
+came; but it is my business to ask such questions as to satisfy
+myself. Will you have back your diamonds, or shall I ask my
+questions?"
+
+He spoke in so soft a tone, and he looked so placid and so thoroughly
+uncaring which way the discussion ended, that George Dallas could
+scarcely forbear laughing as he replied, "Ask away!"
+
+"Ask away," repeated Mr. Dieverbrug, still with his soft smile. "Well,
+then, you are not a jeweller's employé; I can tell that by your
+manner, which also shows me that you are not what you call
+swell-mob-man--rascal---escroc. So you come to me with valuable
+diamonds to sell; my questions are, How do you get these diamonds? Who
+are you?"
+
+For an instant George Dallas paused in his reply, while he felt the
+blood rise in his cheeks. He next looked Mr. Dieverbrug straight in
+the face, as he said, "These were family diamonds. I inherited them
+from my mother--who is dead--and I was advised to come over here to
+sell them, this being the best market. As to myself, I am a literary
+man, a contributor to newspapers, and an author."
+
+"Ah, ha! you write in newspapers and books? You are a feuilletonist,
+author?" As Mr. Dieverbrug said these words he took up a stick which
+stood by the side of the fireplace and thumped heavily on the floor.
+His thumping seemed to awaken a kind of smothered response from the
+regions below them, and before George Dallas had recovered from his
+surprise, the door was opened, and an old gentleman of fantastic
+appearance entered the room--a very little man, with an enormous head,
+which was covered with a tight-fitting little skull-cap, large eyes
+glaring out of silver-rimmed spectacles, a sallow puckered face
+fringed with a short stubbly white beard, a large aquiline nose, and
+thin tight lips. Buttoning immediately under his chin and reaching to
+his feet--no very long distance--the little man wore a greasy red
+flannel gaberdine dressing-gown, with flat horn buttons in a row down
+the front, underneath which appeared a dubiously dirty pair of flannel
+stockings and bright red-leather slippers. With one hand the little
+man leaned on an ivory-handled crutch-stick; in the other he carried a
+yellow-paper covered book--Tauchnitz edition of some English author.
+As he entered the room he gave a sharp, rapid, comprehensive glance at
+George through his spectacles, made him a deferential bow, and then
+took up his position in the closest proximity to Mr. Dieverbrug, who
+at once addressed him in Dutch with such volubility that George, who
+had managed to pick up a few words during his stay, from the polyglot
+and others, failed to comprehend one syllable of what passed between
+them.
+
+When they had finished their parley, during which both of them looked
+at the diamonds and then at George, and then waved their fingers in
+each other's faces, and beat the palms of their hands, and shrugged
+their shoulders as though they never intended their heads to be
+again seen, Mr. Dieverbrug turned to George, and said, "This is my
+brother-in-law, Mr. Schaub, who keeps the bookseller's shop beneath
+us. He is agent for some English booksellers and newspapers, and knows
+more about authors than you would think. I should be glad if you would
+have some talk with him."
+
+"Glad I should have some talk with him?" George Dallas commenced in
+wonderment; but Mr. Schaub cut in at once:
+
+"Ye-es! Vos glad should have tokes mit eem! Should mit eem
+converse--sprechen, dis English author!"
+
+"English author?"
+
+"M-ja! m-ja! Wass him, der Schaub"--tapping himself in the middle of
+his greasy breast with his ivory-handled crutch--"agent von
+Tauchnitz, Galignani, die London _Times_, die _Mercury_, and von all.
+Wass der Schaub knows all, and der Mynheer is English author, der
+Schaub must know von the Mynheer!"
+
+George Dallas looked at him for a few moments in great bewilderment,
+then turned to Mr. Dieverbrug. "Upon my honour," he said, "I should be
+delighted to carry out your wish and have some talk with this old
+gentleman, but I don't see my way to preventing the conversation being
+all on his side. The fact is, I don't understand one word he says!"
+
+With the old sly smile, Mr. Dieverbrug said, "My brother-in-law's talk
+is perhaps somewhat idiomatic, and one is required to be used to it.
+What he would convey is, that he, acquainted as he is with English
+literature and journalism, would like to know what position you hold
+in it, what you have written, where you have been engaged, and
+such-like. It is no object of us to disguise to you that he brings his
+experience to aid me in deciding whether or not I consider myself
+justified in making a dealing with you for these stones."
+
+"Thanks! I comprehend perfectly, and, of course, cannot object;
+though," added George, with a smile, "I am afraid I have not as yet
+made sufficient mark in English literature to render me a classic, or
+even to have gained a continental reputation for my name. Stay,
+though. Mr. Schaub, if I understood him rightly, represented himself
+as agent for one London paper to which I have contributed under my
+signature--the _Mercury_. You know the _Mercury_, Mr. Schaub? I
+thought so, and perhaps you have seen some articles there signed Paul
+Ward?"
+
+"M-ja! m-ja! Wass von die 'Strangers in London,' von Paul Ward,
+am Nordjten, Hollandischen, Deutschen sea-people, von zailors would
+call zum visitiren?"
+
+"That's it, sir! Descriptions," continued George, turning to Mr.
+Dieverbrug, "of the foreign sea-going populations of London."
+
+"M-ja, of Highway, of Shadcliffe, Ratcliffe, Shadwell, vot you call!
+M-ja, of Paul Ward writings I am acquaint."
+
+"And you are Paul Ward?" asked Mr. Dieverbrug.
+
+"I am that apparently distinguished person," said George. Then Mr.
+Dieverbrug and Mr. Schaub plunged pell-mell into another conversation,
+in which though the tongues rattled volubly enough, the shoulders and
+the eyebrows and the fingers played almost as important parts, the
+result being that Mr. Dieverbrug turned to George and said, "I am
+quite satisfied to undertake this affair, Mr. Ward, from what my
+brother-in-law has said of your position. Another question is, what
+shall I give you for the stones?"
+
+"From what your brother-in-law has said of my position, Mr.
+Dieverbrug," said George, "it will, I presume, be apparent to you that
+I am not likely to be much versed in such matters, and that I must, to
+a great extent, be dependent on you."
+
+"But have you some notion of price?"
+
+"I have a notion--nothing more."
+
+"And that notion is--?"
+
+"Well, I imagine the worth of these stones is about two hundred and
+fifty pounds!"
+
+At these words Mr. Schaub gave a short sharp scream of horror,
+plunging his hands up to the elbows in the pockets of the red flannel
+gaberdine, and glaring at George through the silver-rimmed glasses.
+Mr. Dieverbrug was not so wildly affected; he only smiled the soft
+smile a little more emphatically than before, and said: "There is now
+no doubt, my dear sir, even if we had doubted it before, of your
+living in the region of romance! These must be Monte Christo diamonds,
+of Mr. Dumas's own setting, to judge by the value you place on
+them--eh?"
+
+"Wass won hondert fifty is vat worths," said Mr. Schaub. But,
+fortified in his own mind by the opinion of the polyglot waiter, who
+evidently had not spoken without some knowledge, George at once and
+peremptorily declined his bid, and so to work they went. The stones
+were had out again, re-examined, weighed in the brass balances,
+breathed upon, held up to the light between the steel pincers, and, at
+length, after a sharp discussion, carried on with most vivid pantomime
+between the brothers-in-law, Mr. Dieverbrug consented to buy them for
+one hundred and eighty pounds, and George Dallas accepted his offer.
+Then from the recesses of a drawer in the little wooden table Mr.
+Dieverbrug produced a cash-box and counted out the sum in Dutch coin
+and gulden notes, and handing it to George, and shaking hands with
+him, the transaction was completed. Completed, so far as Mr.
+Dieverbrug was concerned; but Mr. Schaub had yet an interest in it.
+That worthy followed George Dallas down the stairs, and, as he would
+have made his exit, drew him into the bookseller's shop--a dark dirty
+den of a place, with old mildewed folios littering the floor, with new
+works smelling of print and paper ranged along the counter, with
+countless volumes pile on pile, heaped against the walls. With his
+skinny yellow hand resting on George's sleeve, the old man stood
+confronting George in the midst of the heterogeneous assemblage, and
+peering up into his face through the silver-rimmed glasses, said:
+
+"And so he wos Paul Vart--eh? Dis young man wos Paul Vart, von London
+aus? And Paul Vart will back to London, and Hollandisch money no good
+there--eh? Best change for English, and der old Schaub shall change
+for eem--eh?"
+
+"I'm not going back to London, Mr. Schaub," said George, after a few
+moments' puzzling over the old man's meaning, "I'm not going back to
+London; but I shall want to change this money, as I must send some of
+it, the larger portion, to England by tonight's post, and? am going to
+the bank to change it."
+
+"Wass! der bank! der nonsense! It is the old Schaub vot vill change!
+Give de good rates and all! Ach, der old Schaub vot has der English
+bank-note to send mit dem posttrager! Der old Schaub vot den miser dey
+call! Der Schaub vill change die gulden for den bank-notes, m-ja?"
+
+"It does not matter to me much who changes it, so long as I get the
+proper value!" said George with a laugh; "and if the old Schaub,
+as you call yourself, can give me bank-notes for a hundred and
+forty-pounds, I'll say done with you at once!"
+
+"Wass vat wos 'done' mit me for a hundert forty pounds! See--first
+vill make the door to. Let das folk call miser old Schaub, but not let
+das folk see vot old Schaub misers. Ha, ha!"
+
+So saying the old gentleman closed the door of the shop, and locked it
+carefully. Then he retired to the back of the counter, removed several
+heavy old books from one of the shelves, and unlocked a secret closet
+in the wall. When he turned again to George, whom he had left on the
+other side of the counter, he had a little roll of English bank-notes
+in his hand. From this he selected four notes--two of the value of
+fifty, and two of twenty pounds. These he handed to Dallas, receiving
+the equivalent in Dutch money.
+
+"I am very much obliged to you indeed, Mr. Schaub," said George. "By
+doing this for me, you've saved my going to the bank, and a good deal
+of trouble."
+
+"Obliged to him is not at all, mein goot freund, Vart--Paul Vart,"
+said the old gentleman. "Miser das folk calls old Schaub, but it is
+not that; he has his leetle commissions, vy not be as vell as banks?
+Goot deal of money pass through old Schaub's hands, and of vot pass
+none go clean through, always von little shticks to him fingers!"
+
+That night George Dallas wrote to Stewart Routh, enclosing him the
+money, and telling him that literary engagements had sprung up which
+might perhaps keep him some little time from London. The letter
+despatched, he felt a different man. The tie was loosed, the
+coupling-chain was broken! No longer enthralled by a debt of gratitude
+to vice, he could try what he could do to make a name--a name which his
+mother should not blush to hear--a name which should be murmured with
+delight by Clare Carruthers!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+IDLESSE.
+
+
+George Dallas had relieved his conscience by despatching the money to
+Routh, he felt that he had sufficiently discharged a moral duty to
+enable him to lie fallow for a little time and reflect upon the
+excellence of the deed, without immediately pushing forward on that
+career of stern duty which he had prescribed for himself. In his
+desultory frame of mind it afforded him the greatest pleasure to sit
+apart in the quaintly-trimmed gardens, or on the shady quays, idly
+looking on the life passing before him, thinking that he was no longer
+in the power of those who had so long exercised an evil influence over
+him, and recollecting that out of the balance of the sum which he had
+received from Mr. Dieverbrug he had enough left to keep him without
+any absolute necessity for resorting to work for some little time to
+come. For George Dallas was essentially an idler and a dreamer, an
+intending well-doer, but steeped to the lips in procrastination, and
+without the smallest knowledge of the realities of life. He had hopes
+and ambitions, newly kindled, as one might say; honest aspirations,
+such as in most men would have proved spurs to immediate enterprise;
+but George Dallas lay about on the seats of the public gardens, or
+leaned against the huge trees bordering the canals, and as he puffed
+into the air the light-blue smoke, and watched it curling and eddying
+above his head, he thought how delightful it would be to see Clare
+Carruthers blushing with delight at his literary success; he pictured
+himself telling her how he had at last succeeded in making a name, and
+how the desire of pleasing her had been his greatest incentive; he saw
+his mother trembling and joyous, his stepfather with his arms open,
+and his cheque-book at his stepson's disposal; he had a dim vision of
+Amherst church, and flower-strewing maidens, and ringing bells, and
+cheering populace,--and then he puffed out a little more smoke, and
+thought that he really must begin to think about getting into harness
+again.
+
+As a first step to this desirable result, he paid his bill at the
+Amsterdam hotel, and started off for the Hague, where he remained for
+a fortnight, enjoying himself in the laziest and pleasantest manner,
+lounging in the picture-gallery and the royal library, living
+remarkably well, smoking a great deal, and thinking about Clare
+Carruthers; and in odd half-hours, after breakfast or before he went
+to bed, doing a little literary work--transcript of his day's
+observations--which he sent to the _Mercury_, with a line to Grafton
+Leigh, telling him that private affairs had necessitated his coming
+abroad, but that when he returned he would keep the promise he had
+made of constant contributions to the paper; meanwhile he sent a few
+sketches, just to keep his hand in. In reply to this letter he
+received a communication from his friend Cunningham, telling him that
+his chief was much pleased with the articles, and would be glad, as
+George was so near, if he would go over to Amsterdam, and write an
+account of the starting of the fleet for the herring-fishery--an event
+which was just about to come off, and which, owing to special
+circumstances at the time, excited a peculiar interest in England. In
+this letter Cunningham enclosed another, which he said had been for
+some time lying at the office, and which, on opening, George found to
+be from the proprietors of the _Piccadilly_, presenting their
+compliments to Mr. Paul Ward, stating that they were recommended by
+their "literary adviser," who was much struck by the brilliancy and
+freshness of so much of Mr. Paul Ward's serial story as had been sent
+in, to accept that story for their magazine; regretting that Mr.
+Ward's name was not yet sufficiently well known to enable them to give
+the sum he had named as his price, but offering him, on the whole,
+very handsome terms.
+
+So it had come at last! No longer to struggle on, a wretched outsider,
+a component of the "ruck" in the great race for name and fame and
+profit, but one of the select, taking the leading place in the leading
+periodical of the day, with the chance, if fortune favoured him, and
+he could only avail himself of the opportunity so long denied, and
+call into action the influences so long prompting him, of rendering
+himself from month to month an object of interest, a living something,
+an actual necessity to thousands of people whose faces he should never
+see, and who would yet know of him, and look with the deepest interest
+on the ideal creatures of his fancy. Pardon the day-dream now, for the
+good to be derived from action is now so real, so tangible, that the
+lotos-leaves shall soon be cast aside. And yet how fascinating is the
+vision which their charm has ever evoked for the young man bound under
+their spell! Honour, wealth, fame, love!--not all your riches, Capel
+Carruthers; not your county position, not your territorial influence,
+not your magisterial dignity, nor anything else on which you pride
+yourself, shall be half as sweet to you as the dignified pride of the
+man who looks around him, and seeing himself possessed of all these
+enviable qualities, says: "By my own hand, by the talent which God has
+given me, and by His help alone, unaided by birth, or riches, or
+influence, I have made myself what I am!" The crisis in George
+Dallas's life had arrived; the ball was at his feet, and with the
+opportunity so urgent on him, all his desultoriness, till his lazy
+dilettanteism, vanished. He felt at last that life was real and
+earnest, and determined to enter upon it at once. With what big
+schemes his heart was filled, with what quixotic dreams his brain was
+bursting! In his own mind his triumphant position in the future was so
+assured that he could not resist taking an immediate foretaste of his
+happiness; and so on the very day of the receipt of Cunningham's
+letter a box containing some very rare Japanese fans, screens, and
+china, was despatched anonymously, addressed to Miss Carruthers. The
+cost of these trifles barely left George Dallas enough to pay his fare
+back to Amsterdam. But what of that? Was he not on the high road to
+fortune, and could he not make money as he liked?
+
+The polyglot waiter received him, if not with open arms, at least with
+a smiling face and a babble of many-tongued welcomes, and placed in
+his hands a letter which had been more than a week awaiting him.
+George glanced at its superscription, and a shadow crossed his face as
+he recognized Routh's hand-writing. He had looked upon that connection
+as so completely cut asunder, that he had forgotten his last
+communication necessitated a reply--an acknowledgment of the receipt
+of the money, at least--and he opened the letter with an undefined
+sensation of annoyance. He read as follows:
+
+S. M.-street, June --, 18--.
+
+"Your letter, my dear George, and its enclosure is 'to hand,' as we
+say in Tokenhouse-yard; and I flatter myself that you, who know
+something of me, and who have seen inside my waistcoat, know that I am
+highly pleased at the return you have made for what you ridiculously
+term my 'enormous kindness,' and at the feeling which has prompted
+you, at, I am certain, some self-sacrifice, to return me the sum
+which I was only too pleased to be able to place at your disposal I am
+a bad hand, as you, great author, literary swell, &c., &c., will soon
+see--I am a bad hand at fencing off what I have got to say, and
+therefore I must out with it at once. I know it ought to be put in a
+postscript--just dropped _par hazard_, as though it were an
+after-thought, and not the real gist of the letter--but I do not
+understand that kind of 'caper,' and so must say what I have got to
+say in my own way. So look here! I am ten years older than you in
+years, and thirty years in experience; and I know what heart-burnings
+and worries, not merely for yourself alone, but for others very, very
+dear to you, you have had in raising this money which you have sent to
+me. You thought it a debt of honour, and consequently moved heaven and
+earth to discharge it; and you knew that I was hard up--a fact which
+had an equally irritating effect on you. Now look here! (I have said
+that before, I see; but never mind!) As to the honour--well, not to
+mince matters, it was a gambling debt, _pur et simple_; and when I
+reflect, as I do sometimes--Harriet knows that, and will tell you
+so--I know well enough that but for me you would never have been led
+into gambling. I am not preaching, old fellow; I am simply speaking
+the honest truth. Well, the thought that you have had all this to go
+through, and such a large sum of money to pay, yerks me, and goes
+against the grain. And then, as to my being hard up, don't mind
+telling you--of course in the strictest confidence--that
+Tokenhouse-yard is a tremendous success! It was a tight time some
+months ago, and no mistake; but I think we have weathered the storm,
+and the money is rolling in there splendidly; so splendidly and so
+rapidly, that--again in the strictest confidence--I am thinking of
+launching out a little, and taking up the position which--you'll know
+I'm not bragging, old boy--my birth and education warrant me in
+assuming. I have grovelled on long enough, heaven knows, and I want to
+see myself, and above all, I want to see my wife, out of the reach
+of--well, I need not dilate to you on what circumstances have lowered
+us to, and what we will now float above. So, as good luck is nothing
+unless one's friends share in it, I want to say to you, as delicately
+as I can, 'Share in mine!' Don't be in a hurry to send me back that
+money, don't be too proud--that's not the word, George--I should say,
+don't fear to remain in my debt; and, if occasion should arise, let me
+be your banker for further sums. I can stand the racket, and shall be
+only too glad to be called upon to do so, as some slight way of
+atoning for having led you into what cannot be looked upon by any one,
+I am afraid, as a reputable life. I won't say any more on this head,
+because there is no need. You will know that I am in earnest in what I
+have said, and you will receive the fifty pounds which I have enclosed
+herein in the spirit in which they are sent--that of true friendship.
+You will be a great gun some day, if you fulfil the promise made for
+you by those who ought to know about it; and then you will repay me.
+Meanwhile, depend on it that any draft of yours on me will be duly
+honoured.
+
+"And so you are not coming back to London for some time? It seems an
+ungenerous thing in a friend to say, but upon my soul I think the
+wisest thing you can do is to remain abroad, and widen your knowledge
+of life. You have youth and health, at your time of life the powers of
+observation are at their freshest and strongest, all you will want is
+money, and that you shan't want, if you accede to the suggestion I
+have just made. You will store your mind in experience, you will see
+all sorts and varieties of men and as you have nothing particular to
+bind you to England, you could thoroughly enjoy your freedom, and
+return with a valuable stock of ideas for the future benefit of the
+British reading public. Allez toujours, la jeunesse! which, under its
+familiar translation of 'Go it while you're young!' is the best advice
+I can give yon, George, my dear boy. During your absence, you will
+have shaken off all your old associations, and who knows but that the
+great bashaw, your stepfather, may clasp you to his bosom, and leave
+all his acres to his dearly-beloved stepson, G. D.? Only one thing!
+You must not forget Harry, and you must not forget me! If all works
+right, you will find us very differently situated from what you have
+ever known us, and you won't be ashamed to recognize us as friends.
+You would laugh if you could see me now, emphatically a 'City man,'
+wearing Oxford-mixture trousers and carrying a shabby fat umbrella,
+which is an infallible sign of wealth, eating chops in the middle of
+the day, solemnly rebuking my young clerks for late attendance at the
+office, and comporting myself generally with the greatest gravity and
+decorum. And to think that we once used to 'back the caster,' and
+have, in our time, held point, quint, and quatorze. Tell it not in
+Gath! 'By advices last received, the produce of the mines has been
+twenty-two thousand oitavas, the gain whereof is, &c. &c.' That's the
+style now!
+
+"Harriet is well, and, as ever, my right hand. To see her at work over
+the books at night, one would think she had been born in the Brazils,
+and had never heard of anything but silver mines. She sends kindest
+regards, and is fully of my opinion as to the expediency of your
+staying away from London. No news of Deane; but that does not surprise
+me. His association with us was entirely one of concurrence, and he
+always talked of himself as a wanderer--a bird of passage. I suppose
+he did not give you any hint of his probable movements on the day of
+the dinner, when I had the ill-luck to offend him by not coming? No
+one ever knew where he lived, or how, so I can't make any inquiries.
+However, it's very little matter.
+
+"And now I must make an end of this long story. Good-bye my dear
+George. All sorts of luck, and jollity, and happiness attend you, but
+in the enjoyment of them all don't forget the pecuniary proposition I
+have made to you, and think sometimes kindly of
+
+     "Your sincere
+
+     "Stewart Routh."
+
+
+A little roll of paper had dropped from the letter when George opened
+it. He picked it up, and found two Bank-of-England notes for twenty
+pounds, and one for ten pounds.
+
+It is no discredit to George Dallas to avow that when he had finished
+the perusal of this quaint epistle, and when he looked at its
+enclosure, he had a swelling in his throat, a quivering in the muscles
+of his mouth, and thick heavy tears in his eyes. He was very young,
+you see, and very impressionable, swaying hither and thither with the
+wind and the stream, unstable as water, and with very little power of
+adhering to any determination, however right and laudable it seemed at
+the first blush. There are few of us--in early youth, at all events,
+let us trust--who are so clear-headed, and far-seeing, and
+right-hearted, as to be able to do exactly what Duty prescribes to
+us--the shutting out all promptings of inclination! Depend upon it the
+good boys in the children's story-books, those juvenile patterns who
+went unwaveringly to the Sunday-school, shutting their eyes to the
+queen-cakes and toffy so temptingly displayed on the road-side, and
+who were adamant in the matter of telling a fib, though by so doing
+they might have saved their schoolfellow a flogging--depend upon it
+they turned out, for the most part, very bad men, who robbed the
+orphans and ground the faces of the widows. George Dallas was but a
+man, very warm-hearted, very impressionable, and when he read Stewart
+Routh's letter he repented of his harshness to his friend, and accused
+himself of having been precipitate and ungenerous. Here was the
+blackleg, the sharper, the gambler, actually returning some of his
+legitimate winnings, and placing his purse at his acquaintance's
+disposal, while his stepfather--But then that would not bear thinking
+about! Besides, his stepfather was Clare's uncle; no kindness of
+Routh's would ever enable him, George, to make progress in that
+direction, and therefore--And yet it was deuced kind in Routh to be so
+thoughtful. The money came so opportunely, too, just when, what with
+his Hague excursion and his purchases, he had spent the balance of the
+sum derived from the sale of the bracelet, and it would have been
+scarcely decent to ask for an advance from the _Mercury_ office or the
+_Piccadilly_ people. But it was a great thing that Routh advised him
+to keep away from England for a time--a corroboration, too, of Routh's
+statement that he was going into a different line of life--for of
+course with his new views an intimacy with Routh would be impossible,
+whereas, he could now let it drop quietly. He would accept the money
+so kindly sent him, and he would do the account of the herring fishery
+for the _Mercury_, and he would get on with the serial story for the
+_Piccadilly_, and-- Well, he would remain where he was, and see what
+turned up. The quiet, easy-going, dreamy life suited George to a
+nicety; and if he had been a little older, and had never seen Clare
+Carruthers, he might, on very little provocation, have accepted the
+Dutch _far niente_ as the realization of human bliss.
+
+So, having to remain in Holland for some few days longer, and needing
+some money for immediate spending, George Dallas bethought him of his
+old friend, Mr. Schaub, and strolled to the Muiderstraat in search of
+him. He found the old gentleman seated behind his counter, bending
+over an enormous volume in the Hebrew character, over the top of which
+he glared through the silver-rimmed spectacles at his visitor with
+anything but an inviting glance. When, however, he recognized George,
+which he did comparatively quickly, his forbidding look relaxed, he
+put down the book, and began nodding in a galvanized manner, rubbing
+the palms of his hands together, and showing the few fangs left in his
+mouth.
+
+"Vat? Vart--Paul Vart! you here still? Wass you not back gone to your
+own land, Vart? You do no more vairks, Vart, you vaste your time in
+Amsterdam, Vart--Paul Vart!"
+
+"No; not that," said George, laughing; "I have not gone home,
+certainly, but I've not lost my time. I've been seeing to your country
+and studying character. I've been to the Hague."
+
+"Ja, ja! the Hague! and, like your countrymen, you have bought their
+die Japans, die dogues, and punch-bowls. Ja, ja!"
+
+George admitted the fact as to japan-ware and china dogs, but denied
+the punch-bowls.
+
+"Ja, ja!" groaned Mr. Schaub; "and here in dis house I could have sold
+you straight same, de straight same, and you save your money for
+journey to Hague."
+
+"Well, I haven't saved the money," said George with a laugh,
+"but I dare say I shall be able to make something of what I saw
+there. You'll be pleased to hear I am going to write a story for the
+_Piccadilly_--they've engaged me."
+
+"Wass Peek-a-teelies wass goot, ver goot," said Mr. Schaub; "better as
+_Mercury_--bigger, higher, more stand!"
+
+"Ah! but you mustn't run down the _Mercury_, either. They've asked
+me to write a description of the sailing of your herring-fleet.
+So I must stop here for a few days, and I want you to change me a
+Bank-of-England note."
+
+"Ja, ja! with pleasure! Wass always likes dis Bank-of-England notes;
+ist goot, and clean, and so better as dirty Austrich Prussich money.
+Ah! he is not the same as I give you other day! He is quite new and
+clean for twenty pounds! Ja, ja!" he added, after holding the note up
+to the light, "his vater-mark is raight! A. F.! Vot is A. F., 17
+April? Ah, you don't know! You don't become it from A. F.? Course not!
+Vell, vell, let me see die course of 'Change--denn I put him into my
+leetle stock von English bank-note!"
+
+The old man took up a newspaper that lay on the counter before him and
+consulted it, made a rapid calculation on a piece of paper, and was
+about to turn round towards the drawer where, as George remembered, he
+kept his cash-box, when he stopped, handed George the pen from behind
+his ear, dipped it into the ink, and said:
+
+"Vell, just write his name, Vart--Paul Vart, on his back--m-ja? And
+his date of month. So! Vart--Paul Vart!--m-ja! ist goot. Here's die
+guldens."
+
+George Dallas swept the gold pieces into his pocket, nodded to the old
+man, and left the shop. Mr. Schaub carefully locked away the note,
+made an entry of its number and amount in his ledger, and resumed his
+reading.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+A DILEMMA.
+
+
+South Molton-street had apparently a strong attraction for Mr. James
+Swain. Perhaps he found it a profitable and productive situation in
+point of odd and early jobs, perhaps he had some less professional
+reason for frequenting it. However that may be, the fact existed that
+no day passed without his tousled head and imperfectly clad form
+making their appearance in the street two or three times between dawn
+and dark. He would hang about the precincts of the house in which
+Routh and Harriet lodged, and evinced an extraordinary preference for
+the archway in the vicinity as a dining-room. He might have been seen
+at irregular hours devouring saveloys, polonies, or, when jobs odd or
+even were not plentiful, hunches of bread and cheese, within the
+shelter of the archway, in the most unsophisticated attitudes, and
+with great apparent enjoyment. Mr. James Swain's face was not free
+from the underlying expression of care and anxiety which is always to
+be found by the careful observer in the countenance of the London
+street-boy, but it had more than the usual complement of sauciness,
+cunning, readiness, and impudence.
+
+The boy had quite an attraction for Mrs. Routh, who would smile at him
+when she passed him in the street, nod pleasantly to him occasionally
+from her window, when his business or pleasure led him to lounge past
+the house before she had left her bedroom of a morning, and who
+frequently sent him of errands, for the doing of which she rewarded
+him with a liberality which appeared to him astounding munificence.
+Mr. James Swain was of a temperament to feel kindness, neglected
+street-boy though he was, and he had been wonderfully impressed by the
+womanly compassion which had spoken to him in Harriet's gentle tones
+on the morning of their first meeting, and had looked out of all the
+trouble and foreboding in her blue eyes. His interest in the Routh
+household, however, antedated that event, and received not only an
+additional access, but a fresh colouring from it, and an acute
+observer, supposing one to exist for whom so mean a matter as the
+mental condition of a street-boy, very vulgar indeed, and without a
+particle of sentimental interest about him, should possess any
+attraction, would have discerned that a struggle of some sort was
+going on in the mind of the frequenter of South Molton-street, and
+seeker of odd jobs.
+
+Routh, also, was not without interest for Jim Swain. Perhaps he
+watched him even more closely than he watched Harriet, but if he
+did, it was with totally different feelings. Routh had considerable
+powers of self-command, and could always be civil and apparently
+good-tempered, no matter what his real humour might be, when it
+accorded with his interests to be so. But he was not a man to treat
+inferiors with courtesy, or to refrain from rudeness and brutality
+where they were safe, and unlikely to do him any discredit.
+Consequently, servants and other recipients of the outpourings of his
+temper hated him with a vivid cordiality. Jim, the street-boy, had
+been employed by him occasionally, and had formed, apart from certain
+other knowledge he had gained concerning Mr. Stewart Routh, the worst
+opinion of that gentleman's disposition and character.
+
+"He's a bad 'un, anyhow," the boy muttered, as he watched Mr. Routh
+letting himself into the house he inhabited with his latch-key, having
+previously taken a handful of letters from the postman at the door.
+"An ill-lookin' dog, too. Scowled at the letters as if he was a-goin'
+to eat 'em. P'raps they're love letters. I shouldn't wonder, now, as
+the lady is a pinin' for some 'un else, and he's jealous, and gets
+hold on all the letters to catch her out."
+
+This bright idea, which Jim Swain derived from his habitual reading of
+penny romances, devoted to the delineation of the tender passion,
+afforded him considerable gratification, and he had already consumed
+several minutes and a cold sausage while turning it over in his mind,
+when Harriet Routh came out of the house, and passed him, as he leaned
+against the wall under the archway. She was very pale and quite
+absorbed in thought, so that, though the lad respectfully pulled a
+tuft of his tousled hair in salutation, she did not perceive his
+presence.
+
+"She's not like the same woman," mused Mr. James Swain; "she's gone as
+white as anything; looks just as if she'd had to git her own livin'
+for ever so long, and found it precious hard to git, too. If he's
+jealous of her, and a ill treatin' of her, blowed if I won't peach!
+No, no, I won't, though, leastways not yet, 'cause I can't without
+lettin' out on myself too; but," said the boy with a long look which
+softened the cunning of his face strangely, "I would like to know as
+she was happier than I think she is."
+
+In the wide city of London there was not another human being to feel
+any such wish in connection with Harriet Routh. She was quite alone.
+She had so willed it, and circumstances had aided her inclination and
+her resolve. In the life which her husband had adopted, and she had
+accepted, intimacies, friendships, were impossible. The only relation
+between them and their kind was the relation between the swindler and
+his dupes, always a merely "business" connection, and generally very
+brief in its duration. Harriet had not a female friend in the world.
+Perhaps she would not have had one under any circumstances; she was
+not a woman to cherish sentiment; the one love of her life was an
+overmastering passion, which had absorbed all lesser feelings; and the
+secretiveness and reserve, which were large elements in her moral
+nature, would have been inimical to such association, which, above
+all, needs gushingness for its satisfactory development. Her husband's
+male friends saw her seldom, and were not observant or interested in
+the health, spirits, or appearance of any but themselves; so there was
+no one but the street-boy to note the change that had passed upon her.
+Routh, indeed, observed it, with the bitter, selfish impatience of his
+character, and silently resented it. But only silently; he made no
+comment, and Harriet, for the first time, failed to interpret his
+feelings.
+
+She _was_ changed. Changed in face, in manner, in voice, in the daily
+habits of her life. The light had faded from her blue eyes, and with
+it their colour had paled. Her cheek had lost its roundness, and there
+was something set and stony in her face. It had been calm, now it was
+rigid. Her voice, still low and refined, was no longer musical, and
+her words were rare. Personal habits are tenacious, and rarely yield,
+even to strong mental excitement, or under the pressure of anxious
+care, and Harriet, always neat and careful in her simple dress, was
+neat and careful still. But a close observer would have marked a
+change even in this respect. She cared for her looks no longer. An
+ill-assorted ribbon, or ill-chosen colour, would once have been
+impossible to Harriet Routh; but it was all the same to her now. What
+were the symptoms of the moral change that had passed upon her as
+distinctly as the physical? They were rather those of intensification
+than of alteration. Her determination had assumed a sternness which
+had not before marked it, her identification of herself with Routh had
+become more than ever complete. The intensity of the passion with
+which she loved him was hardly capable of increase, but its quiet was
+gone. The pliable ease, the good-fellowship, the frank equality of
+their companionship had departed; and though her attention to his
+interests, her participation in his schemes, were as active and
+unceasing as ever, they were no longer spontaneous, they were the
+result of courageous and determined effort, sustained as only a woman
+can sustain effort which costs her acute and unrelenting suffering.
+She had been much alone of late. Routh had been much and profitably
+occupied. The affairs of the new company were progressing favourably,
+and Routh's visits to Flinders were frequent and well received. He had
+other things of the sort on hand, and his finances were in a
+flourishing condition. He was on the road to success, after the
+fashion of modern successes, and if his luck did not change, all the
+respectability which attaches to a fortunate speculation was on the
+cards for Stewart Routh. No restoration to his former place was
+possible, indeed; but Routh cared nothing for that, would, perhaps,
+not have accepted such a restoration had it been within his reach.
+Struggle, scheming, shifts, and the excitement consequent thereon,
+were essential to him now; he liked them; the only game he could play
+with any relish was a desperate one. To what extent he had played it
+was known only to himself and Harriet, and he was beginning to be
+afraid of his confederate. Not afraid of her trustworthiness, of her
+fidelity, of her staunch and unshrinking devotion; Stewart Routh was
+just as confident, as of the fact of his existence, that his wife
+would cheerfully have given her life for him, as she gave it to him,
+but the man's nature was essentially base, and the misused strength,
+the perverted nobility of hers crushed and frightened him. He had not
+felt it so much while they were very poor, while all their schemes and
+shifts were on a small scale, while his every-day comforts depended on
+her active management and unfailing forethought. But now, when he had
+played for a great stake and won it, when a larger career was open
+before him--a career from which he felt she would shrink, and into
+which he could never hope to force her--he grew desperately afraid of
+Harriet. Desperately tired of her also. He was a clever man, but she
+was cleverer than he. He was a man of strong passions, ungovernable,
+save by the master-passion, interest. She had but one, love; but it
+was stronger than all his put together, and told to do their worst,
+and his shallow nature shrank from the unknown depths of hers. She
+loved him so entirely that there had never been a question of rule
+between them; but Routh was a wise man in his way, and he knew in his
+heart he could rule Harriet only by love, and love which was perfectly
+genuine and true, should the time ever come in which a distant
+separation of opinion and will between them should make it necessary
+for him to try. But he had a clear appreciation of his wife's
+intellect also, and he knew thoroughly well that he could not deceive
+her with any counterfeit presentment--the love which should rule her
+must be real. This was precisely what he had not to produce when
+required. He had loved her after his fashion for so long that he was
+rather surprised by his own constancy: but it would have been
+difficult for Stewart Routh to go on loving any one but himself
+always, and Harriet was so much superior to him in strength, firmness,
+and disinterestedness, that her very superiority was an element of
+destruction for the love of such a man as he.
+
+In all that concerned the business of Stewart Routh's life, Harriet's
+conduct was still the same as before--she was still industrious and
+invaluable to him. But the occupations which had filled her leisure
+hours were all neglected now, the lonely time was no more lightened by
+the pursuits which her early education and her natural tastes had
+endeared and rendered habitual to her. One of two moods now possessed
+her, either uncontrollable restlessness or absorbed brooding. She
+would start off, when Routh had left her, and walk for hours through
+the crowded thoroughfares, out into the suburbs of London, or up and
+down the most distant and less frequented parts of the Parks,
+returning home weary and footsore, but with the torturing sense of
+restlessness unsubdued. Or, when she was alone, she would sit for
+hours, not in a selected position of comfort, but anywhere, on the
+first seat that came in her way, her head drooping, her eyes fixed and
+vacant, her hands closely clasped and lying in her lap, her fair low
+brow contracted by a stern and painful frown. From either of these two
+moods she rarely varied; and even in Routh's presence, one or the
+other would master her at times. It chanced that on the day when Jim
+Swain had seen Routh return to his lodgings, and take some letters
+from the postman, the restless fit had come very strongly upon
+Harriet, and she had gone to her room to dress herself for walking,
+when Routh unexpectedly returned. He went into the sitting-room,
+and concluding she would be down-stairs presently, waited for her,
+reading the letters in his hand, frowningly the while. But Harriet had
+passed quietly down the stairs and gone out, without re-entering the
+sitting-room, and Routh waited in vain. At length he sought her in her
+room, and not finding her, he angrily rang the bell, and asked the
+servant if she knew anything about her. She did not, and Routh
+dismissed her, and began to stride about the room, uttering very
+uncalled-for objurgations on women who were never in the way when they
+were wanted. As he passed the window, his eye fell upon Jim Swain
+tranquilly eating bread and cheese, as he leaned against the opposite
+railings. Routh looked at him again more closely, and again; finally,
+he took up his hat, went down-stairs, out of the door, and across the
+street, close up to the boy.
+
+"Hollo, you sir!" he addressed him roughly. "What are you doing here?"
+
+Mr. James Swain eyed his questioner with no pleasant or grateful
+expression of countenance, and replied, curtly:
+
+"Nothin'!"
+
+"What brings you here, then?" continued Routh.
+
+"I ain't a doin' you any harm, am I?" answered the boy, all his native
+impudence brought out in a moment by the overbearing manner of Routh.
+"It ain't your street, I believe, nor yet your archway, as I knows
+on; and if I chooses to odd job on this here lay, I don't hurt _you_,
+do I?"
+
+The saucy manner of the lad did not anger Routh; he hardly seemed to
+notice it, but appeared to be entirely possessed by some struggling
+remembrance not of a pleasing kind, if his expression afforded any
+correct clue to it.
+
+"Have you seen a lady come out of No. 60 since you have been about
+here?" he asked, passing by the boy's saucy remarks as if he had not
+heard them.
+
+"Yes, I have. I saw the lady as lives there, not two minutes after you
+came in. She went that way." And he pointed down the street.
+
+"Had she anything in her hand? Did she look as if she was going for a
+walk, or out shopping?"
+
+"She hadn't no basket or bag, and she warn't partickler dressed; not
+as nice as she's dressed sometimes. I _should_ say," continued Mr. Jim
+Swain, with an air of wisdom and decision, "as she was going for a
+constitootional, all by herself, and not to shop nor nothin'."
+
+Routh's attention had wandered from the boy's words, and was fixed
+upon his face.
+
+"Have I ever seen you before?" he asked him, abruptly.
+
+A sudden rush of colour dyed Mr. James Swain's face, even, through the
+varnish of dirt which hid its surface, as he replied, with a little
+less than his customary boldness:
+
+"Yes, sir, you've seen me, though in course you ain't likely to
+remember it. You've giv' me many a penny, and a sixpence too, and the
+lady."
+
+Again Routh looked steadily, but covertly, at him under his thick
+brows. He was evidently eager to ask him some question, but he
+refrained, restrained by some powerful motive. Jim looked uneasily up
+and down the street, moved his feet about restlessly, turned his
+ragged pockets inside out, letting loose a multitude of dirty
+crumbs, and displayed a fidgety inclination to get away from South
+Molton-street.
+
+"Well," said Routh, rousing himself from his abstraction, "we're going
+to move next week, and you can come and do the odd jobs for us, if you
+like."
+
+"Thankee, sir," said Jim, who was very respectful now, and touched his
+ragged cap as if he had quite altered his opinion of the speaker.
+"What day shall I come, sir?"
+
+"I don't exactly know," said Routh; "you can call and ask the lady."
+And then he gave the lad a shilling, to Jim Swain's intense surprise,
+and, crossing the street, once more let himself in at the door of No.
+60. Having reached the sitting-room, Stewart Routh sat down by the
+window and fell into a fit of musing as deep as those in which Harriet
+Routh passed hours away.
+
+Mr. James Swain went briskly down the street, pleasantly conscious
+that the unexpected windfall of the shilling had released him from the
+labours of his calling for the day, and determined to proceed at once
+to lay it out to the greatest advantage.
+
+"Wotever is he up to _now?_" Thus ran the street-boy's thoughts. "I'm
+sure he's jealous, or he wouldn't be coming home unexpected, and a
+watchin' of her like that. Ain't he a brute just? And a willin too?
+Well, I'm glad I ain't _sure_--I'm very glad I ain't sure."
+
+With this enigmatical phrase, Mr. James Swain abandoned his mental
+colloquy, and directed his thoughts to more immediately personal
+matters.
+
+Routh was still sitting by the window when Harriet returned, and with
+the first glance at his face she saw that something new had occurred.
+
+"I did not expect you home until six o'clock," she said, as she laid
+aside her bonnet, and stood by his side, laying her hand tenderly upon
+his shoulder.
+
+"No," he returned; "I came home to get some papers for Flinders about
+the Tunbridge Canal business; but you have them, Harry, and you were
+out."
+
+"Well," she said, calmly, looking at him with questioning eyes. "What
+has happened, Stewart?"
+
+"This," he returned, very slowly, and without meeting her gaze. "As I
+came in I met the postman with this letter. Read it, and tell me what
+is to be done."
+
+She sat down close beside him, and took the letter he held towards
+her. It was addressed to George Dallas, to the care of Routh, and
+it was, in fact, the letter which Mr. Carruthers had written to his
+stepson prior to his departure from Poynings. As Harriet read, her
+right hand sought her husband's, and held it tightly. The old look of
+quiet resolution, the old expression of confident resource, came into
+her face. She read the paper twice before she spoke.
+
+"Stewart," she said, "this is only another head of the hydra, and we
+had counted them, had we not? What we have to decide is, whether this
+letter shall be suppressed, or whether it must be forwarded to George
+Dallas. At first sight, I see no possibility of suppressing it without
+infinite danger, but this is only first sight, and we may see more
+clearly afterwards."
+
+"Dallas has never said anything to you about letters from his mother,
+has he?" asked Routh.
+
+"No," replied Harriet, "not since his second letter, when he said he
+supposed she was testing his repentance and good conduct, and that he
+would not write until he could give her some proof of both."
+
+"Get the old woman's letter, and let us read it again."
+
+Harriet went to her writing-table, opened a drawer, and took a paper
+from its recesses. It was the letter which Mrs. Brookes had written to
+George Dallas. The two read it carefully, and Harriet spoke first.
+
+"We can only conjecture the meaning of this, Stewart; but, as I make
+it out, it means that the proceedings at the--the inquest"--she paused
+almost imperceptibly, then went on, in a steady tone--"awakened his
+mother's fears. It was lucky he told us the story of his mother's
+anxiety about his coat, or we should have failed to catch the clue.
+Now I read the riddle thus: Mrs. Carruthers has been dangerously ill
+in consequence of the shock of the discovery, but she has not betrayed
+her knowledge or suspicions. A good deal of time has been gained, and
+under any circumstances that is a priceless advantage. The question
+now is, can any more time be gained? Can George Dallas be kept in
+ignorance of the appearances against him any longer? The suppression
+of the old woman's letter was an easy matter. It is ill-written, you
+see, as servants' letters usually are, indistinctly addressed, and
+generally unimportant. But a letter written by Mr. Carruthers of
+Poynings is quite another matter. It must come out, some time or
+other, that it was not received, and he is precisely the man to
+investigate the matter to the utmost. No, no, the letter must be sent
+to Dallas."
+
+She spoke firmly, but her eyes were dreamy and distant. Routh knew
+their expression, and that some expedient, some resolve, was shaping
+itself in her mind. He sat quite silent until she spoke again.
+
+"The first thing we have to do is to ascertain with all possible
+exactitude the real condition of Mrs. Carruthers, where she is at
+present, and whether we are right in supposing her fears were excited.
+This letter is not calculated to bring George home, I think. Of
+course, if it had reached him before they left Poynings, he would have
+come home at once; but, see, Mr. Carruthers writes on the 10th, and
+says they are to start on the 11th. This is the 13th. What is the
+post-mark?"
+
+"Dover," said Routh, handing her the envelope.
+
+"Posted after they left England, no doubt," said Harriet. "Stewart,
+there is just one thing to be done. Let us move from this at once. It
+is only doing so a little sooner than we had intended. Then, if we
+decide on suppressing the letter, its loss may be accounted for, even
+to the satisfaction of Mr. Carruthers. This, while we consider what
+must be done."
+
+"Yes," said Routh, "I think that will be wise; but I do not see my way
+out of the danger of his return, if he returns when he has received
+the letter. He will go down to Amherst at once, and will discover the
+suspicion, and at once take steps to clear himself of it."
+
+"Perhaps so," said Harriet, and her face darkened, "but he may not
+find that so easy. I hope he will not put himself into the danger; but
+if he does--" She paused, and looked thoughtfully into her husband's
+face, while a quick shudder crept over her. He saw the look in her
+eyes, he felt the quiver in her hand, and frowned darkly.
+
+"Don't take to melodrama, Harriet, it's so unlike you, and doesn't
+suit you. Besides, it's too late in the day for that kind of thing
+now."
+
+She took no notice of the ungracious speech, but still stood looking
+thoughtfully at him. He rose, letting her hand drop from his shoulder,
+and walked up and down the room.
+
+"Stewart," she said gently, "you must not be impatient with me if I am
+not as ready of resource as I was. However, I think I see what ought
+to be done in this emergency, and I am quite sure I can do it. I will
+go to Amherst, find out the true state of things there, see the old
+woman at Poynings, who will gladly receive me as a friend of George
+Dallas; and then, and then only, can we decide whether this letter is
+to reach him or not."
+
+"By Jove, Harry, that's a splendid idea!" said Routh; "and there can't
+be any risk in it, for Dallas would take your doing it as the greatest
+kindness. _You_ not so ready of resource as you were? You're more so,
+my girl--you're more so."
+
+There was a little wonder in the look she turned upon him, a little
+surprise at the lightness of his tone, but not a ray of the pleasure
+which his perverted praise had once given her.
+
+"This is the best thing to do," she said, gravely, "and I will do it
+at once. I will go to-morrow morning."
+
+"And I will get our traps moved, and put up at the Tavistock till you
+come back. You can pack this evening, I suppose, Harry?"
+
+"O yes," she answered. "I shall be glad of the occupation."
+
+"And you'll do it more easily without me," said Routh, whom no crisis
+of events, however serious, could render indifferent to his individual
+comforts, and to whom the confusion of packing was an image of horror
+and disgust; "so I shall dine out, and leave you to your own devices.
+Here, you had better lock these up." He took the letters from a table
+on which she had laid them as she spoke, and held them towards her.
+
+She drew a step nearer to him, took the papers from his hand; then
+suddenly let them drop upon the floor, and flung her arms wildly round
+Routh's neck.
+
+"Harriet, Harriet," he said, "what's this?" as he strove to lift her
+face which she held pressed against his breast with terrible force.
+She answered him with a groan--a groan so full of anguish, that his
+callousness was not proof against it.
+
+"My love, my darling, my brave girl, don't, don't!" was all he could
+say, as he bent his head over her and held her tightly to him. For
+several moments she stood thus; then she lifted her white face, put up
+her hands, and drew his face down to hers, kissed him with kisses
+which thrilled him with an unknown sense of fear and doom, and,
+instantly releasing, left him.
+
+Mr. James Swain got the promised odd job in South Molton-street sooner
+than he had expected it; for, calling at No. 60, according to Mr.
+Routh's instructions, to ask the lady when his services would be
+required, he was informed that she had gone away, and he was to carry
+down the boxes to be conveyed to their destination in the van then
+standing at the door. Jim performed his duty with a perturbed spirit.
+
+"Gone away, is she?" he said over and over again. "Now I should like
+to know where she's gone, and wot for. I hope he ain't be up to
+nothin' agin her; but I don't trust him, and I ain't a goin' to lose
+sight of him for longer than I can help, if I knows it, until she's
+safe back _some_wheres."
+
+
+"That funeral is largely attended for a small town," said Harriet
+Routh to the waiter at the inn at Amherst, who was laying the cloth
+for her dinner. She was sitting by a window on the ground-floor, and
+idly watching the decorous procession as it passed along the main
+street, to the huge admiration of gaping boys and gossiping
+nursemaids.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," replied the man, gladly seizing the opportunity of
+approaching the window and having a peep on his own account. "He was
+very much respected, was old Mr. Evans; no one in the town more so. He
+gave the best of measures, and used the best of mater'als; and a
+charitabler man, nor a constanter at meetin', though uncommon deaf
+latterly, ain't in Amherst."
+
+Harriet looked inquiringly at the speaker.
+
+"I beg your pardon, ma'am, you're a stranger, of course, and don't
+know nothin' about poor old Evans. He were a tailor, ma'am, at
+Amherst, man and boy, for fifty year and more, and got a deal of
+custom, which they do say no tailor here won't have for the future,
+seeing as they can't compete with the Sydenham suits."
+
+Harriet made no comment upon the man's little discourse, and he left
+the room. When she was alone, she smiled a smile not good to see, and
+said, half aloud:
+
+"I remember how they used to talk about Providence and providential
+interventions on behalf of the good, long ago, when I used to fancy I
+believed in Providence, and when I certainly did believe in the
+existence of the good. I wonder what these people would call _this?_
+If it is a providential intervention, the theory has two sides."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+ON THE DEFENSIVE.
+
+
+The announcement of a lady who wished to see Mrs. Brookes caused the
+faithful old woman no particular emotion. She was well known and much
+respected among the neighbours of Poynings, in the humbler sense, and
+visits from several of their number were ordinary events enough in her
+life. The announcement found her, not in her own room, but in her
+mistress's, where she had replaced the portrait of George, and was
+sitting looking at it with dim eyes and clasped hands. The time had
+been long in rolling over her weary old head; for though she had
+passed the period of life in which feeling is very keen, and sorrow
+has power to torture, and constancy to last, Mrs. Brookes had no other
+objects to divide her thoughts with Mrs. Carruthers and her son; and
+day by day the old woman had brooded upon the new trouble which had
+come to those whom she loved so well. Perplexity mingled with her
+grief, for she knew not what to think. She had stoutly denied the
+possibility of George's guilt, in the memorable dialogue which had
+been the last she had held with his mother; but the faint and
+fluttering hope she entertained was very different from the confidence
+she expressed; and now, in the solitude and silence of the great
+house, in the absence of the absorbing demand which Mrs. Carruthers's
+condition had made upon all her attention and self-command, her stout
+old heart sank within her. His mother was gone away from all the
+scenes and associations which had come to have a terrible meaning.
+Would she ever return? Ellen hardly knew how she wished to answer this
+question. It were better and happier perhaps that she never did, that
+her tired heart should drowsily beat itself to rest in a strange
+country, and lie hidden under another soil than that her son had
+stained with blood. Had he done this thing? What of him? Where was he?
+The orderly house, the well-regulated household, needed little of the
+old housekeeper's supervision. The absence of the family made little
+difference. No cleaning-days interrupted the decorous order of things
+in an establishment in which it would have savoured of indecorum to
+suppose that the rule of absolute cleanliness was ever superseded.
+Alterations and repairs were innovating interruptions altogether
+incompatible with Poynings; and, in fact, there was little or nothing
+to break the dead level to which old Ellen had looked forward as that
+of her days when she should be left alone in the stately house, and
+which had begun to realize itself at once.
+
+Dixon had accompanied her mistress to foreign parts; and it was
+Martha, housemaid, who told Mrs. Brookes that a lady, who had been
+shown into her own room, wanted to see her.
+
+"Which, I dare say, she's come after Susan's character," remarked
+Martha, parenthetically, "for she ain't this side Hamherst, I know."
+
+Mrs. Brookes rose from the chair that she had placed opposite George's
+picture, took off her spectacles, from which she wiped a suspicious
+moisture, placed them carefully in her pocket, arranged her cap and
+shawl, and, without vouchsafing any answer to the speculations of
+Martha, she took her way slowly to the housekeeper's room. As she
+crossed the hall she saw a fly standing at the open door; and the
+driver, a man from Page's, touched his hat to her as she passed.
+
+"I don't know this lady," she thought. "Nobody about here takes a fly
+to come to Poynings."
+
+Her visitor was seated on the heavy horsehair sofa, which in the
+winter flanked the fire, but was now drawn close under the window
+through which George had entered on that memorable night, which came
+freshly into the memory of the old woman at that moment. As she looked
+sharply at the figure which rose to greet her, Mrs. Brookes felt in a
+moment that she was in the presence of a woman with some purpose.
+
+The fixedness of Harriet Routh's face, the effort of a smile--for
+loneliness told upon her nerves now with rapidity and power--a
+something forced and painful in her voice, aroused an instinctive fear
+in Mrs. Brookes, and put her on her guard. She made a stiff bow and a
+movement with her body, which, when she was younger, would have been a
+curtsey, but was now only a duck, and asked her visitor's pleasure.
+
+"I have called upon you, Mrs. Brookes," said Harriet, in a sweet and
+winning tone, "in consequence of a paragraph which I have seen in a
+newspaper."
+
+It was an unfortunate beginning, for it set the old nurse instantly on
+her guard by arousing her suspicions, and making her resolve that the
+blue-eyed, sweet-spoken lady, who looked as if she had a purpose,
+should get nothing out of her.
+
+"Indeed," she replied, very stiffly. "Please to sit down, ma'am."
+
+Harriet resumed her seat, and began to speak rather quickly. Mrs.
+Brookes looked at her steadily, immovably, having put on her
+spectacles for the purpose, but gave her neither encouragement nor
+assistance by so much as a sound or a nod.
+
+"I am Mrs. Routh," she said, "and a friend of Mr. George Dallas, Mrs.
+Carruthers's son. It is on his account and for his sake I have come
+here."
+
+Mrs. Brookes's black-mittened hands pressed each other more closely as
+they lay clasped together in her lap, but she made no sign.
+
+"I am aware of the unfortunate circumstances which keep Mr. Dallas and
+his mother apart," continued Harriet, who maintained a watch upon the
+old woman as steady as her own, but more covert; "and I am afraid he
+will be much distressed and alarmed if this reaches him without any
+preparation."
+
+She held out a newspaper as she spoke--a newspaper she had procured at
+the inn at Amherst, and pointed to the paragraph which recorded the
+departure of Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings and suite for the
+Continent; and, in addition, the regret with which "we" had learned
+that the departure in question had been occasioned by the dangerous
+illness of Mrs. Carruthers. Mrs. Brookes was immensely relieved, but
+not altogether reassured. She had a vague idea that the business of
+detection was sometimes intrusted to women, and she still had her
+doubts of the blue-eyed, sweet-spoken lady whose face indicated a
+purpose, without betraying it.
+
+"Mr. Dallas knows of his mother's illness," said Mrs. Brookes. "He
+will not hear of it first from any newspaper."
+
+"Indeed," said Harriet. "I am glad to know that. I am much relieved.
+Mr. Dallas is so intimate with Mr. Routh, my husband, and we are so
+much attached to him, that anything which is of importance to him
+concerns us. I am on my way to Dover, and I thought I would turn out
+of it a little to inquire into this matter."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," said Mrs. Brookes, still unsoftened. "May I ask if
+you have left your house in London?"
+
+"We have for the present," replied Harriet; "indeed, I don't think we
+shall return there."
+
+Mrs. Brookes looked confused and distressed.
+
+"Excuse me," she said, after an awkward pause, "if I appear at all
+impertinent. I am George Dallas's old nurse, and more his mother's
+friend than her servant, and I can't be particular about other people
+when they are concerned. George Dallas is not as welcome here as he
+ought to be in his mother's house; you say you know that. If you
+really are Mrs. Routh, you ought to know more about him than
+that--more, in fact, than I do."
+
+"Certainly," said Harriet, with unchanged sweetness of tone, and just
+the least gleam of colour in her cheek, showing that she was
+approaching her object. "I do know a great deal more about George
+Dallas than you do, if, as I conclude from your words, nothing has
+been heard of him since his last visit to his mother."
+
+She paused very slightly, but Mrs. Brookes did not utter a word.
+
+"You are quite right to be cautious, Mrs. Brookes; in such a delicate
+family matter as this, caution is most essential. Poor George has been
+so foolish, that he has laid himself open to being harmed either by
+enemies or injudicious friends; but I assure you, Mrs. Brookes, I am
+neither. I really am Mrs. Routh, and I am quite in George's
+confidence, and am here solely with the purpose of saving him any
+trouble or anxiety I can."
+
+"Where is he?" asked the old woman, suddenly, as if the question were
+forced upon her.
+
+"He is at Amsterdam, in Holland," replied Harriet, in a frank tone,
+and changing her seat for one beside Mrs. Brookes, as she spoke; "here
+are several letters from him. See," and she drew half a dozen sheets
+of foreign paper, closely written over, from her pocket, and put them
+into the old woman's hands. She beheld the letters with mingled
+pleasure and avoidance: they could not answer the question which
+tormented her, but they relieved her misgivings about her visitor. She
+felt assured now that she really was speaking to Mrs. Routh, and that
+the object of her visit was one of kindness to George. The letters
+were in his well-known hand; the thin paper and the postmarks
+satisfied her that they came from abroad. He was still out of the
+country, then; so far there was safety, but she must be cautious still
+concerning him. What if she could make Harriet the unconscious bearer
+of a further warning to him--a warning carefully contrived so that
+none but he should know its meaning, and he should understand it
+thoroughly? She would try. She had thought all this while she turned
+the letters over in her hands; then she returned them to Harriet, and
+said:
+
+"Thank you, ma'am. I see these are from Master George, and it's plain
+he has great confidence in you. He never answered a letter I sent him:
+it went to your house."
+
+"All communications for him are addressed to Mr. Routh," said Harriet,
+"and forwarded at once."
+
+"Well, ma'am, he never told me where he had gone to, or wrote a letter
+but one to his mother; and when that came, she was too ill to read it,
+or know anything about it."
+
+"Indeed," said Harriet, in a tone of commiseration; "she must have
+been taken ill just after he saw her, then?"
+
+"She was," returned Mrs. Brookes, emphatically, "and you, ma'am, know,
+no doubt, why she saw him, and can understand that his conduct caused
+her illness."
+
+"Not exactly that," said Harriet. "He told me all that had passed, and
+described his mother as full of forgiveness and hope, and he even said
+how well and handsome he thought her looking. George amuses us very
+much by constantly talking of his mother's beauty; he will be all the
+more distressed when he hears of her illness, now, and I really think,
+Mrs. Brookes, it cannot be quite fair to impute it to his conduct."
+
+"It was just that, and nothing else," said the old woman; and her
+voice shook as she spoke, though she strove to control it. "It was,
+indeed, ma'am, and you must tell him the truth, without softening it,
+or making it any better. Tell him that she nearly died of the
+knowledge of his conduct, and that her mind is weakened, and her
+memory gone."
+
+"Her memory gone!" exclaimed Harriet. "You don't mean to say it is so
+bad as that?"
+
+"I do, indeed," said Mrs. Brookes. "And will you tell him exactly what
+I tell you? Tell him that his mother has forgotten all that led to her
+illness, all the fear and suspense she underwent. Of course she was
+frightened at what she had to do, and in suspense until it was done;
+but I am sure she has not forgotten him, and if he were to see her, or
+even be mentioned to her suddenly, it might have the worst effect. Be
+sure to tell him this, and that the only thing he can do to atone for
+the past in any way is to keep out of his mother's sight. He knows
+some of this already, for I wrote to him, and he knows from Mr.
+Carruthers that his mother is gone away."
+
+"From Mr. Carruthers?" said Harriet, in a tone of admirably simulated
+surprise; "does _he_ ever communicate with George?"
+
+"My master is a very just man," replied Mrs. Brookes, in a stately
+tone, "and he would not allow his wife's son to be kept in ignorance
+of his mother's danger. I am sure he will send for him, wherever he
+may be, if there is no chance of her recovery. I don't say he would
+send for him sooner."
+
+"Of course Mr. Carruthers has no idea of the cause of Mrs.
+Carruthers's illness?"
+
+"No, no; it was her fear of his finding out that George had been here,
+and what for, that brought it on; but, of course, he did not suspect
+anything."
+
+"It is very strange," said Harriet, musingly; "she seems to have borne
+all this business perfectly well at the time, and given way completely
+afterwards. It must have surprised _you_ very much, Mrs. Brookes,
+though, no doubt, you understand your mistress's constitution."
+
+"Yes," replied the old woman, dryly, and ignoring the beginning of the
+sentence, "I understand my mistress's constitution."
+
+"I will give your message to Mr. Dallas," said Harriet, rising, "and I
+had better leave you our temporary address, unless, indeed, you would
+prefer writing to Mr. Dallas direct."
+
+"No," said Mrs. Brookes, "I have nothing to say. When news of his
+mother comes from abroad, I will send it to you."
+
+The old woman was constrained and miserable in her visitor's presence,
+but the hospitality of Poynings must be vindicated; and she felt,
+besides, that Mrs. Carruthers would, in other days, have been glad of
+an opportunity of being kind to any one who had been kind to George.
+So she pressed Harriet to take some refreshment and to prolong her
+visit. But Harriet would not touch bread or wine in the house, and
+told Mrs. Brookes she must return to Amherst immediately, to catch the
+train for Dover. "I dined at the inn in the town," she said, in
+explanation of her refusal, "as I had to wait awhile before I could
+get a fly."
+
+"I hope they made you comfortable, ma'am," said Mrs. Brookes, who had
+resumed, when their interview assumed a commonplace complexion, her
+head-servant-like manner. "Page's people are obliging, and it is a
+respectable house."
+
+"Very much so indeed," returned Harriet, carelessly. "The town seems a
+clean dull sort of place. I had a funeral to look at while I waited
+for my dinner, and the waiter entertained me with the biography of the
+deceased."
+
+"I had not heard of a death at Amherst," said Mrs. Brookes, primly.
+She did not like the flippant tone in which her visitor spoke. "The
+servants have not been in the town this week."
+
+"An estimable person--one Evans, a tailor, I believe; so the waiter
+said," Harriet returned, still more carelessly, as she took up her
+parasol and railway-guide, glanced covertly at the old woman's face,
+and moved to the door.
+
+Mrs. Brookes stood quite still for several seconds; then she followed
+Harriet, joined her at the red-baize door which opened into the hall,
+accompanied her to the great door, where a footman waited, took a
+respectful leave of her, and then shut herself up in her room, and
+remained invisible to the household for the remainder of the day.
+
+As Harriet Routh drove back to Amherst, she leaned her head wearily
+against the uncongenial woodwork of the fly, and summed up the results
+of her journey.
+
+"Whatever the mother knows, the old woman knows. The old woman is as
+staunch as steel, and she will conceal her suspicions all the more
+tenaciously, the stronger they are; and I have strengthened them. What
+a clever old woman she is, and how brave! If my purpose had been what
+she suspected, I should have had some real difficulty in getting the
+information I required. It is clear that nothing is to be feared now,
+in this direction. Mrs. Brookes will never speak. Mrs. Carruthers is
+in the best possible condition for our purposes, and her son has no
+pretext for returning to Poynings, even if the death of the tailor had
+not made it quite safe for him to do so."
+
+She did not look out upon the fair scene through which she was
+passing. To her, all beauty of nature was a dead thing; she had no
+heart-throbs of exultation in "the pomp that fills the summer-circuit
+of the hills;" no sense of its serene loveliness reached her busy
+brain, or tempted her troubled brooding eyes. When she occasionally
+lifted them, in shifting her position, they might have been blind for
+any knowledge of the sunshine or the greenery that was in them. "I
+will write to him," she went on in her thoughts, "just what she told
+me to say. Poor George! It is hard to have to make him believe that he
+has broken his mother's heart, and turned his mother's brain. He does
+not deserve it, fool as he is. He is easily persuaded, fortunately. I
+don't feel fit for much that is not easy, now.--The letter must be
+sent on at once, and, if I do my part well, and this woman dies, or
+remains abroad--and I fancy Mr. Carruthers is not the man to bring an
+imbecile wife back, if he can help it--there's no reason why George
+should come to England again for years, that I can see."
+
+The driver of the fly pulled up for a minute, and letting down one of
+the front windows, inquired whether he was to go to the inn or to the
+railway station. While Harriet was answering his question by desiring
+him to drive to the station, and looking out of the window, a young
+girl on horseback, a large black Newfoundland dog galloping by her
+horse's side, passed the fly. The driver touched his hat respectfully,
+and the young lady acknowledged the salute with her whip.
+
+"That's Miss Carruthers, ma'am," said the man to Harriet, giving her
+the information in a manner which duly indicated the local importance
+of Miss Carruthers. Harriet looked back at the girl, and noted the
+golden gleam of her beautiful hair, the easy swaying of her graceful
+figure, the air of youth and refinement which characterized her.
+
+"That's Miss Carruthers, is it?" she thought. "George has never seen
+her, I fancy, as he never mentioned her to me."
+
+She had some time to wait for the train, and she went into the
+waiting-room. But she found it already occupied by some cheery, chatty
+women and children, returning from a holiday excursion. Their idle
+talk, their careless laughter, jarred with her mood; the children
+looked askance at her, and hushed their prattle; the women drew close
+together on the hard high leather bench which lined the room, a solemn
+mockery of a divan, and moderated their tones to a prim gentility.
+Harriet perceived the effect her presence produced, smiled slowly, and
+went out again upon the platform, which she paced from end to end,
+until the train came up, listening idly to the raised voices and
+renewed laughter which reached her through the open door.
+
+When all the other passengers had taken their places, Harriet got into
+a carriage which had no other occupant, and so travelled up to London
+alone.
+
+Routh was in the house when she reached the Tavistock, and was
+surprised at her speedy return. She told him how the intelligence she
+had heard on her arrival at Amherst had simplified her task of
+investigation. She made her narrative as brief as possible, she spoke
+in a cold measured voice which had become habitual to her, and which
+filled Routh with intense concealed irritation; and she never looked
+at him until she had concluded.
+
+"I'll post the letter from the old fellow at once then," said Routh;
+"it's only a couple of days late, and Dallas is too careless to notice
+that. When you write--you'd better not do it for a day or so, lest he
+might take it into his head to suspect you of a motive--you can tell
+him about our move."
+
+Harriet acquiesced, and changed the subject to their new residence, a
+furnished house in May-fair. She would go there on the morrow, she
+said, and arrange all their little property. Had everything been
+removed from South Molton-street?
+
+Everything. Routh had seen to it himself, and had employed the boy who
+was always about there.
+
+"Ay," said Harriet, dreamily, for she was thinking of the time, gone
+for ever, when she had been happy in the home she had left without one
+regret or hope. "What of him?"
+
+"Nothing that I can make out," answered Routh, irritably. "But I hate
+the sort of half-recollection I seem to have of him. There's something
+in my mind connected with him, and I can't disentangle it."
+
+Harriet looked up at her husband in some surprise, and turned very
+pale. She had a painful, an indelible remembrance connected with the
+first time she had seen Jim Swain. But Routh knew nothing of that; so
+she said nothing; she made no effort to aid his memory. She would
+avoid the torture when she could. Besides, she was utterly weary in
+body and in spirits.
+
+Mr. Carruthers's letter reached George Dallas not exactly duly,
+indeed, but after a delay which would have astonished and exasperated
+the writer, had he known it, to the last degree.
+
+Stewart Routh and Harriet were very much superior to George Dallas in
+many mental attributes, and in particular in cunning; but they were
+incapable of understanding the young man on certain points. One of
+these points was his love for his mother, with its concomitants of
+remorse, repentance, and resolution. Not comprehending this mixed
+feeling, they made a serious miscalculation. The day or two which
+Harriet allowed to intervene before she wrote the letter which was to
+prolong George's absence, exactly sufficed to bring him to England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+CLEARED UP.
+
+
+The shock communicated to George Dallas by his stepfather's letter was
+violent and terrible in proportion to the resolutions which had been
+growing up in his mind, and gaining strength and fixedness with each
+day's absence from the old accustomed scenes of dissipation and
+sources of temptation. Like all persons of similar temperament, he was
+easily overcome by agitation, and his eager nature led him to
+anticipate evil as readily as it caused him to enjoy good thoroughly.
+He was a strong man physically, but a sickening, weak shudder, such as
+might have shaken a woman, shook him as he read the few formal lines
+which conveyed to him so much more than their writer had known or
+intended. Was it all to be in vain? Was the golden time, the precious
+opportunity, gone by for ever? Was she to die, or die to him at least,
+and never to know that his repentance had been real, that the lesson
+had been effectual, that the reform had been inaugurated?
+
+The terms in which Mr. Carruthers had written to his stepson were as
+vague as they were formal, and the uncertainty to which the letter
+condemned him was as agonizing as the misery which it produced. Where
+was she? He did not know; he had no means of knowing. How great were
+her sufferings? How imminent was her danger? These points were beyond
+the reach of his investigation. He knew that he was to blame for his
+mother's illness; he saw all things now in a new and clear light, and
+though his was no miraculous reformation, no sudden transformation
+from sinner to saint, but rather an evidence of mental growth and
+refinement under the influence of a new order of feelings, working on
+a singularly pliable temperament, George Dallas was so different to
+what he had been, that he shrank not only with disgust, but with
+wonder, from the contemplation of the perverse folly which had led to
+such results. He had always been dissipated, worthless, and
+ungrateful, he thought; why had he never realized the guilt of being
+so before? Why, indeed! Having been blind, now he saw; having been
+foolish, he had become wise. The ordinary experience, after all, but
+which every man and woman believes in his or her case exceptional, had
+come to this young man, but had come laden with exceedingly bitter
+grief. With swift, sudden fear, too, and stinging self-distrust; for
+if his mother were indeed lost to him, the great motive, a real one,
+however tardily acknowledged, would be lost too, and then, how should
+he, how could he, answer for himself? Just then, in the first keenness
+of his suffering, in the first thrill of fear which the sense of
+impending punishment sent through him, he did not think of his love,
+he drew no strength, no counsel, no consolation from it; the only
+image before his mind was that of his mother, long bowed down, and now
+broken, under the accumulated load of grief and disappointment which
+he had laid upon her. Mr. Carruthers had acted characteristically,
+George thought, in writing to him, as he had done, merely telling him
+of his mother's illness and removal, but giving him no address,
+affording him no opportunity of writing to her. So much he had done
+for his own conscience' and credit's sake, not actuated by any
+sympathy for him. The old anger towards his stepfather, the old
+temptation to lay the blame of all his own ill-conduct on Mr.
+Carruthers, to regard his banishment from Poynings as cause rather
+than effect, arose fiercely in George's heart, as he read the curt
+sentences of the letter over and over again; but they were met and
+conquered by a sudden softened remembrance of his mother's appeal to
+him for a just judgment of her husband, whom she loved, and the better
+nature of the young man, newly and strongly aroused, got the victory.
+
+"No, no," he said impetuously and aloud, "he's not to blame; the fault
+is mine, and if I am never to have the chance of telling her the
+truth, I'll tell it to myself at all events."
+
+George's resolution to go to England was soon taken. He must know more
+than Mr. Carruthers had told him, and only at Poynings could he learn
+it. It never occurred to him that Mrs. Brookes might have accompanied
+his mother abroad. His impulsive nature rarely permitted him to
+foresee any obstacle in the way of a design or a desire, and he acted
+in this instance with his usual headlong precipitation.
+
+When George Dallas reached London, he found he would have just
+sufficient time to go to South Molten-street and see Routh or Harriet
+for a few minutes, before he could catch a train for Amherst. Arrived
+at Routh's former residence, he was surprised to observe, as he got
+out of a hansom, that a card, displayed in the parlour window,
+announced "A drawing-room floor to let." The hall-door was opened at
+his summons with unusual alacrity, and in reply to his inquiry, the
+servant, a newly-engaged one who had never seen him before, informed
+him that Mr. and Mrs. Routh had "left," and were to be found at
+Queen-street, Mayfair. George stood, for a moment, irresolute in
+surprise, and the servant repeated the address, fancying he had not
+heard her. His face was towards the open door, and he turned his head
+sharply round, as a boy's voice said, in a peculiar pert tone which
+had an odd indefinite familiarity for his ear:
+
+"Any letters for Mr. Routh to-day, Mary Jane? 'cos, if so, hand 'em
+over."
+
+The speaker was Mr. James Swain, who had come up behind George Dallas
+unperceived, and who, when he saw the young man's face, gave an
+involuntary start, and dropped his saucy manner on the instant.
+
+"Yes, there's three letters and a circ'lar for Mr. Routh," replied
+Mary Jane, in a sulky tone; "and missis says as she hopes Mr. Routh
+will put his address in the paper or something, for people is always a
+comin' and makin' us think as they're lodgers." Then with a glance at
+George, which seemed to imply that he might not have been considered
+ineligible in that capacity, Mary Jane went to get the letters, and
+Dallas addressed Jim Swain. "Are you going back to Mr. Routh's
+direct?" he asked. "Yes, sir," answered Jim. "I come every day, since
+they've been gone, to see after letters and messages."
+
+"Then you can take a message from me," said George, pointing the
+observation with a sixpence. "Tell Mr. Routh Mr. Dallas has come to
+London, having heard bad news, and has gone to his mother's house. You
+won't forget?"
+
+"No, sir, I won't forget," said Jim, in a tone of satisfactory
+assurance.
+
+"Say I expect to get back to-morrow, and will come to see him at once.
+Mr. Dallas--that's my name, remember."
+
+George then jumped into the hansom again, and was driven away to the
+railway station.
+
+"Mr. Dallas," said Jim Swain to himself as he walked slowly down the
+street, carrying the letters confided to him by Mary Jane--"that's
+your name, is it? I wonder wot you've bin up to, and where you've bin
+up to it? I shall tell _her_ the gent's message--not _him_."
+
+
+The night had fallen upon the woods and fields of Poynings, and no
+light gleamed from the stately old house, save one ray, which shone
+through the open window of the housekeeper's room. By the casement sat
+George Dallas, his arm upon the window-sill, his head leaning against
+his hand, the cool fresh air of the summer night coming gratefully to
+his flushed and heated face. Opposite, and close to him, sat Mrs.
+Brookes, still wearing, though their conference had lasted many hours,
+the look of agitation beyond the strength to bear it which is so
+painful to see on the faces of the aged. All had been explained
+between the old woman and the prodigal son of her beloved mistress,
+and the worst of her fears had been dispelled. George had not the
+guilt of murder on his soul. The chain of circumstances was indeed as
+strong as ever, but the old woman did not retain the smallest fear.
+His word had reassured her--indeed, the first glance at his face, in
+the midst of the terror and surprise of their meeting, had at once and
+for ever put her apprehensions to flight. Innocence of _that_, at
+least, was in his face, in his hurried agitated greeting, in the
+bewilderment with which he heard her allusion to her letter, in his
+total unconsciousness of the various emotions which tore her heart
+among them. She saw, she foresaw, no explanation of the circumstances
+which had led to the fatal mistake she had made; she saw only that her
+boy was innocent, and the vastness, the intensity, of the relief
+sufficed, in the first moments of their meeting, to deprive it of the
+horror and bitterness with which, had she had any anticipation of such
+an event, she would have regarded it. But the first relief and the
+full explanation--all that George had to tell her, all she had to tell
+him--could not change the facts as regarded Mrs. Carruthers, could not
+alter the irrevocable, the miserable past.
+
+When the first confusion, excitement, and incoherent mutual
+questioning had given way to a more settled and satisfactory
+conversation, Mrs. Brookes told George all that had occurred--the
+visit of the official gentleman from London, the servants' version of
+his business, the interview between Mr. Carruthers and Evans, and the
+suspicion and fear, only too reasonable, to which all the unfortunate
+circumstances had given rise.
+
+It was with the utmost difficulty that George arrived at a clear
+understanding of the old woman's narrative, and came to realize how
+overwhelming was the presumption against him. By degrees he began to
+recall the circumstances which had immediately preceded and followed
+his clandestine visit to Poynings. He recalled the remarks he had
+heard at the _Mercury_ office; he remembered that there had been some
+talk of a murder, and that he had paid no attention to it, but had
+gone away as soon as possible, and never given the matter another
+thought. To find himself implicated in a crime of so terrible a
+nature, to find that circumstances had brought him in contact with
+such a deed, filled him with horror and stupefaction; to know that his
+mother had been forced to conceive such a suspicion was, even without
+the horrible addition of the effect produced on her, suffering far
+greater than any he had ever known. He felt giddy, sick, and
+bewildered, and could but look piteously at his faithful old friend,
+with a white face and wild haggard eyes.
+
+"She believed it?" he said again and again.
+
+"No, George, no; she only feared it, and she could not bear the fear;
+no wonder, for I could hardly bear it, and I am stronger than she is,
+and not your mother, after all. But just think, George. You bought the
+coat from Evans, and the man who wore that coat was seen in the
+company of the murdered man the last time he was seen alive. I knew
+there must be some dreadful mistake. I knew you never lifted your hand
+against any man's life, and that some one else must have got
+possession of the coat; but your mother said no, that you had worn it
+when she saw you at Amherst, and nothing could remove the impression.
+George, what did you do with the coat you bought at Evans's?"
+
+"I had it down here, sure enough," answered George, "and I did wear it
+when she last saw me. I left it at Mr. Routh's afterwards, by mistake,
+and took one of his abroad with me; but this is a horrid mystery
+altogether. Who is the man who has been murdered? What is the motive?"
+
+"I cannot tell you that, George," said Mrs. Brookes; "but I will give
+you the papers, and then you will know all, and you will understand
+how much she suffered."
+
+The old woman left George alone for a few minutes, while she went to
+her bedroom to get the newspapers which she locked securely away at
+the bottom of a trunk. During her absence the young man strode about
+the room distractedly, trying in vain to collect his thoughts and set
+them down steadily to the solution of the terrible mystery which
+surrounded him.
+
+"Here they are, George," said Ellen, as she entered the room and
+handed him a roll of newspapers. "Sit down here, by the window, and
+try to read them quietly. I must leave you now, and tell the servants
+who you are, and that you are going to stay here to-night--there must
+be no concealment now; thank God, it's not wanted any longer. Perhaps
+out of all this evil good may come, my boy."
+
+He had sat down by the window, and was eagerly opening the roll of
+paper, and seeking the account of the murder. Mrs. Brookes paused by
+his side for a moment, laid her withered hand gently on his hair, and
+then left him. A moment after he started up from his chair, and cried
+out:
+
+"Good God! the man was Deane!"
+
+The shock of this discovery was extreme. Wholly unable as he had been
+to account for the coincidence which Mrs. Brookes's imperfect story
+(for, like most persons of her class, she was an unskilful narrator of
+facts) had unfolded to him, he had never supposed his connection with
+it real, and now he saw it all, and in a moment perceived the gravity
+of his situation. The nameless man whom he had seen so often, and yet
+known so slightly; concerning whom he had speculated often and
+carelessly; whom no one had recognized; whose singular dress the
+waiter at the tavern had described in his evidence; the date; all was
+conclusive. The man murdered was Deane. But who was the murderer? How
+was it that no one had recognized the body? With all his mysterious
+ways, in spite of the callous selfishness which had rendered him
+indifferent to companionship save in the mere pursuit of his
+pleasures, it seemed wonderful that no one should have been able to
+identify him.
+
+"There's Routh, now," said George to himself, "_he_ must have heard of
+the finding of the body, he must have read the description of the
+dress; he may have seen the man's fur coat before, though I never did.
+To be sure, he did not dine with us that day, but he knew where Deane
+dined and with whom. What can Routh have been about?"
+
+These and a thousand questions of a similar nature George Dallas put
+to himself, without finding any answer to them, without stilling the
+tumult in his mind. He tried to arrange the circumstances in their
+order of occurrence, and to think them out, but in vain; he could not
+do so yet: all was confusion and vague horror. He had not liked this
+man. Theirs had been the mere casual association of convenience and
+amusement--an association, perhaps, the foremost of all those which he
+was firmly determined never to renew; and yet he could not regard its
+dreadful ending with indifference. The life which had perverted George
+had not hardened him, and he could not readily throw off the
+impression created by the discovery that the man with whom he had
+joined in the pursuit of reckless and degrading pleasure had died a
+violent death within so short a time of their last meeting. When Mrs.
+Brookes came into the room again, the expression of the young man's
+face terrified her afresh.
+
+"Ellen," he said, "this is a dreadful business, apart from my unhappy
+complication with it, and what it has cost my dear mother. I knew this
+unhappy man; he was a Mr. Deane. I dined with him at that tavern in
+the Strand. I did wear that coat. All the circumstances are correct,
+though all the inferences are false. I begin to understand it all now;
+but who can have murdered him, and for what motive, I cannot conceive.
+The most natural thing in the world was that they would suspect me, as
+the man who wore the coat. Mr. Evans will recognize me, no doubt, as
+he told Mr. Carruthers."
+
+"No, no, George; the poor old man is dead," interrupted Mrs. Brookes.
+
+"Dead?" said George. "Well, he seemed an honest fellow, and I am sorry
+for it; but it makes no difference in my position. When I communicate
+with the police, I will admit all he could prove."
+
+"Must you do that, George?" asked Mrs. Brookes, wistfully. She had a
+natural dread of the law in the abstract.
+
+"Of course I must, nurse; I can tell them who the unfortunate man was,
+and account for him up to a very late hour on the night of the
+seventeenth of April."
+
+"Take care, George," said the old woman. "If you can't account for
+yourself afterwards, you can't clear yourself."
+
+The observation was shrewd and sensible. George felt it so, and said,
+"Never mind that. I am innocent, and when the time comes I shall have
+no difficulty in proving myself innocent."
+
+"You know best, George," said the old woman, with a resigned sigh;
+"but tell me, who was this poor man?"
+
+"Sit down and I will tell you all about it."
+
+Then George seated his old friend close beside him, and told her the
+whole story of his intercourse with Stewart Routh, of his knowledge of
+Deane, his last meeting with him, their dinner together, the
+adjournment to the billiard-rooms, the money won by Dallas from Deane,
+and his leaving town early the next morning for Amherst.
+
+"That was the day they found the body, was it not?" asked Mrs.
+Brookes.
+
+"Let me see," said George; and he again referred to the newspapers.
+
+"Yes, it was on Wednesday the eighteenth--in the evening. I was down
+at Amherst then, nurse; that was the day I saw my mother last."
+
+He sighed, but a smile stole over his face also. A cherished memory of
+that day abode in his heart.
+
+Then Mrs. Brookes questioned George concerning Routh and his wife, and
+told him of Harriet's visit, and all the emotion and fear which it had
+caused her. George was touched and grateful.
+
+"That was like her," he said; "she is the truest of friends, a
+treasure among women. I wonder she did not write to me, though, when
+she sent on Mr. Carruthers's letter."
+
+The observation passed unnoticed by Mrs. Brookes. Had she asked when
+the letter had reached George, a discovery, dangerous to the interests
+of Harriet and Routh, might have been made; but she had very dim
+notions of continental places and distances, and the time consumed in
+postal transmission.
+
+"They knew this poor man; did they not know that he was the murdered
+person?"
+
+"No," said George, "they had no notion of it. How shocked they will
+be when I tell them of it! Routh will be the best person in the world
+to tell me how to go about communicating with the police authorities.
+But now, Ellen, tell me about my mother."
+
+Time went over, and the night fell, and the old woman and the young
+man still talked together, and she tried to comfort him, and make him
+believe that all would be well. But George was slow to take such
+comfort--full of remorse and self-condemnation, of gloom and
+foreboding. The mercurial temperament of the young man made him a bad
+subject for such suspense and self-reproach, and though he had no
+shadow of fear of any trouble to come to him from the evidence on the
+inquest, there was a dull brooding sense of apprehension over him,
+against which he had no power, no heart, to strive. So he listened to
+the story of his mother's illness and departure, the physicians'
+opinions, and Mr. Carruthers's plans for her benefit and comfort, and
+darker and darker fell the shadow upon his heart.
+
+"We have had no news since they left Paris," said Mrs. Brookes, in
+conclusion, "but I expect to see Miss Carruthers to-morrow. She will
+have a letter from her uncle."
+
+"Miss Carruthers!" said George, lifting up his head with renewed
+animation. "Has she not gone abroad with them?"
+
+"No," said Mrs. Brookes; "she is staying at the Sycamores, Sir Thomas
+Boldero's place. Sir Thomas is her uncle on the mother's side. She
+rides over very often to see me, and I expect her tomorrow."
+
+"At what hour does she generally come?" asked George,
+
+"In the afternoon; after lunch."
+
+"Well, I shall be in London by that time, nurse; so there is no danger
+of my incurring my stepfather's wrath this time by an encounter with
+the heiress."
+
+There was a momentary touch of bitterness in George's voice, but his
+slow sad smile contradicted it.
+
+"Ah, George!" said the old woman. "Take heart. All will be well, and
+the time will come when you will be welcome here."
+
+"Perhaps so, nurse. In the mean time, you will let me know what news
+Miss Carruthers brings, and especially where my mother is, and their
+next move."
+
+That night George Dallas slept for the first time under the roof of
+the old house at Poynings; but an early hour in the morning found him
+on his way back to town.
+
+When Clare Carruthers, mounted on Sir Lancelot and escorted by Cæsar,
+arrived at Poynings on the following afternoon, she was surprised to
+find Mrs. Brookes looking well and cheerful. The girl had brought good
+news. Mrs. Carruthers had borne the journey well, and it was proposed
+that she should leave Paris and proceed to the south of France after
+the interval of a week. Clare roamed over the house and gardens as
+usual. She was beautiful as ever, but with a new and graver beauty
+than of old. There was no observant eye to mark the change, no kindred
+spirit to note and share the girl's trouble. She was quite alone. When
+she returned from her ramble, and while her horse was being brought
+round, she went to Mrs. Brookes's room to bid her good-bye. The old
+woman took two letters out of her desk, and said: "Do you remember
+these letters, Miss Carruthers? You brought them to me when Mrs.
+Carruthers was first taken ill."
+
+"Yes, I remember. What of them?" Clare answered, carelessly.
+
+"Will you have the kindness to enclose them in a large envelope, and
+direct them to Mr. George Dallas for me?"
+
+"Certainly," said Clare; but she looked a little surprised, for Mrs.
+Brookes wrote remarkably well for a person of her class.
+
+"I wrote to him lately," said Mrs. Brookes, "and the letter did not
+reach him; so I suppose I directed it indistinctly."
+
+Clare sat down at the table, and in a large bold hand wrote the
+address which Harriet had given upon the envelope.
+
+"You are sending Mr. Dallas these letters that he may read them, as
+his mother is unable?" asked Clare, to whom the forbidden subject of
+Mrs. Carruthers's son always offered more or less temptation.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," replied the old woman; "I am pretty sure they come from
+Mr. Felton, and ought to be seen to."
+
+"And who is Mr. Felton?" said Clare, rising and laying down her pen.
+"I'll post them as I pass through the village," she added.
+
+"Mr. Felton is Mrs. Carruthers's brother," said Mrs. Brookes. "He has
+been in America many years, but she said something lately about his
+coming home."
+
+Clare said no more, but took her leave, and went away. She posted the
+packet for George Dallas at the village, and, as she rode on, her fair
+face bore the impress of a painful recollection. She was thinking of
+the morning on which she had ventured to send the warning to him who
+was so unworthy of the fancies she had cherished--him of whom she
+could not think without a shudder, of whom she hardly dared to think
+at all. When the post was delivered the following morning at the
+Sycamores, a large packet was placed before Miss Carruthers. It was
+directed to her, and contained two numbers of the _Piccadilly_, with
+two instalments of George's serial story, and on the fly leaf of one
+were the words, "From Paul Ward."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+ONCE MORE TIDED OVER.
+
+
+An air of respectability and the presence of good taste characterized
+the house in Queen-street, Mayfair, now occupied by Mr. and Mrs.
+Routh. These things were inseparable from a dwelling of Harriet's. She
+had the peculiar feminine talent for embellishing the place she lived
+in, however simple and small were the means at her disposal. The
+lodgings at South Molton-street had never had the comfortless look and
+feeling of lodgings, and now there was apparently no lack of money to
+make the new home all that a house of its size and capabilities need
+be. Harriet moved about her present dwelling, not as she had moved
+about her former home, indeed, with happy alacrity, but with the same
+present judgment, the same critical eye; and though all she did now
+was done mechanically, it was done thoroughly.
+
+Harriet was very restless on the day that was to bring George Dallas
+to their new residence. She had duly received his message from Jim
+Swain, and though the keen eye of the boy, who was singularly
+observant of her in every particular that came under his notice, had
+detected that the intelligence imparted a shock to her, she had
+preserved her composure wonderfully, in conveying the unwelcome news
+to her husband. Routh had received it with far less calmness. He felt
+in a moment that the delay of Harriet's projected letter, a delay
+prescribed by himself, had induced the return of Dallas, and angry
+with himself for the blunder, he was angry with her that she had not
+foreseen the risk. He was often angry with Harriet now; a strange kind
+of dislike to her arose frequently in his base and ungrateful heart,
+and the old relations between them had undergone a change, unavowed by
+either, but felt keenly by both. The strength of character on which
+Routh knew he could rely to any extent, which he knew would never fail
+him or its owner, made him strangely afraid, in the midst of all the
+confidence it inspired, and he was constrained in his wife's presence,
+and haunted out of it.
+
+Stewart Routh had never been a rough-spoken man; the early tradition
+of his education had preserved him from the external coarseness of a
+vagabond life, but the underlying influences of an evil temper
+asserted themselves at times. Thus when Harriet told him gently, and
+with her blue eyes bright with reassuring encouragement, that Dallas
+was in England, and would be with them on the morrow, he turned upon
+her with an angry oath. She shrank back from him for a moment, but the
+next, she said, gently:
+
+"We must meet this, Stewart, like all the rest, and it can be done."
+
+"How?" he said, rudely; "how is it to be met?"
+
+"_I_ will meet it, Stewart," she replied. "Trust me: you have often
+done so, and never had cause to regret the consequence. I am changed,
+I know. I have not so much quickness and readiness as I had, but I
+have no less courage. Remember what my influence over George Dallas
+was; it is still unchanged; let me use it to the utmost of my ability.
+If it fails, why then"--she spoke very slowly, and leaned her hand
+heavily on his shoulder with the words,--"then we have but to do what
+I at least have always contemplated."
+
+Their eyes met, and they looked steadily at each other for some
+moments; then withdrawing his gaze from her with difficulty, Routh
+said, sullenly, "Very well, let it be so; you must see him first: but
+I suppose I shall have to see him; I can't escape that, can I?"
+
+She looked at him with a queer glance for a moment, and the shadow of
+a smile just flickered over her lips. Could he escape? That was his
+thought, his question. Did she ever ask it for herself? But the
+impression, irresistible to the woman's keen perception, was only
+momentary. She answered the base query instantly.
+
+"No, you cannot; the thing is impossible. But I will see him first,
+and alone; then if I succeed with him, no risk can come of your seeing
+him; if I fail, the danger must be faced."
+
+He turned sulkily away, and leaned upon the window-frame, looking idly
+into the street.
+
+"You don't know when he will be here, I suppose?" he said, presently.
+
+"I do not; but I fancy early in the day."
+
+"It's too bad. I am sick of this. The thing is over now. Why is it
+always cropping up?"
+
+He spoke to himself rather than to her; but she heard him, and the
+colour flew over her pale face at his words. He left the room soon
+after, and then Harriet sat down in the weary way that had become
+habitual to her, and murmured:
+
+"It is done and over; and he wonders why it is always cropping up, and
+I--"
+
+Stewart Routh did not return home until late that night. Such absences
+had become common now, and Harriet made no comment then or ever. How
+she passed the hours of solitude he did not inquire, and, indeed, she
+could hardly have told. On this particular evening she had employed
+herself on the close and attentive perusal of a number of letters.
+They were all written by George Dallas, and comprised the whole of his
+correspondence with her. She read them with attentive eye and knitted
+brow; and when she locked the packet up in her desk again, she looked,
+as Mrs. Brookes had seen her, like a woman who had a purpose, and who
+clearly saw her way to its fulfilment.
+
+But the next day Harriet was restless. She could do the thing that lay
+before her, but she wanted the time for doing it to be come; she
+wanted to get it over. If this were weakness, then in this Harriet was
+weak.
+
+Immediately after breakfast Stewart Routh went out. Only a few words
+had been exchanged between him and Harriet on the subject of George's
+expected visit, and Harriet had gone to the drawing-room when George
+came. She met him with the old frank welcome which he remembered so
+well, and, in answer to his inquiry for Routh, said she was
+momentarily expecting him.
+
+"You know what brought me back to England," George said, when he was
+seated, and the first greeting was over; "you got my message?"
+
+"That bad news had reached you. Yes," replied Harriet. "I was just
+about to write to you. You would have had my letter to-day. I learned
+from the newspapers that your mother was ill and--"
+
+"And went to see about it for me. I know all your goodness, Mrs.
+Routh, and can never thank you for it half enough. It is only of a
+piece, though, with all your goodness to me. You have always been the
+best and truest of friends. My old nurse told me all about your visit.
+God bless you, Mrs. Routh." And George Dallas took her hand, and, for
+the second time in his life, kissed it.
+
+There was a pause, a dangerous pause. Harriet felt it, for her heart
+was beating thickly, and her face was not under such command but that
+the interested eyes which were looking into it might read the traces
+of a deep and painful emotion.
+
+"You have been comforted by your visit to Poynings," she said. "You
+have more hope and relief about your mother? Mrs. Brookes has told you
+all particulars."
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Routh, I did hear all the particulars, and I also made an
+extraordinary and terrible discovery in connection with that illness."
+
+"Indeed!" said Harriet, leaning towards him with the liveliest
+interest and concern in every feature of her face. "It is not that the
+illness is of a hopeless nature, I hope?"
+
+"I trust not," he said, solemnly; "but, Mrs. Routh, my mother has been
+nearly killed by being obliged to suspect me of a dreadful crime."
+
+"A dreadful crime! You, Mr. Dallas! What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean," said Dallas, "that a murder has been committed, in which I
+would appear to have been implicated. I know what I am about to tell
+you will agitate and distress you, Mrs. Routh, and one of the most
+mysterious points of a mysterious subject is, that it should be my lot
+to tell it to you." He hesitated, then went on: "I don't know whether
+I ought to tell you all that I have heard. I have to consult Routh on
+some important matters, so that it is the more unfortunate that he is
+out of the way, as no time must be lost in what I have to do."
+
+The occasion had come now, and Harriet was equal to it. It was with a
+smile, serious but quite unembarrassed, that she said:
+
+"Don't depose me from the position of your confidant, George." She
+called him by his Christian name for the first time. "You know Stewart
+has no secret from me. Whatever you would tell to him, tell to me. I
+have more time at your disposal than he has, though not more
+friendship. In this matter count us as one. Indeed," she added, with a
+skilful assumption of playfulness, which did not, however, alter the
+gravity of George's manner, "as I am your correspondent, I claim
+precedence by prescriptive right."
+
+"I hardly know how to tell you, Mrs. Routh; all the circumstances are
+so shocking, and so very, very strange. You and Routh have been rather
+surprised, have you not, by the sudden disappearance of Deane? Routh
+always thought him an odd, eccentric, unaccountable sort of fellow,
+coming nobody knew whence, and likely to go nobody knew whither; but
+yet it has surprised you and Routh a little that, since the day we
+were to have dined together in the Strand, Deane has never turned up,
+hasn't it?"
+
+The strength and self-control which formed such striking features in
+Harriet's character were severely tried, almost beyond their limits,
+by the expectation of the revelation which George was about to make;
+but there was not a questioning tone in her voice, not a quiver on her
+lip, as the minutes passed by, while she won him more and more
+securely by her calm interest and friendliness. His growing anxiety to
+see Routh confirmed her in the belief that he knew all that his mother
+and Mrs. Brookes had known. Remembering the agony she had suffered
+when she and George had last talked together, and feeling that the
+present crisis was scarcely less momentous, she rallied all her
+powers--and they were considerable--and asked him boldly what it was
+he had to communicate to her. In a voice of the deepest solemnity, he
+said, taking her hand in his:
+
+"The man who has been murdered, of whose murder my mother was led to
+suspect me, was Philip Deane!"
+
+"Good God!" cried Harriet, and shrunk back in her chair, covering her
+face with her hands.
+
+He had reason to say that the news he had to tell her would agitate
+and distress her. Her whole frame crept and trembled, and a chill
+moisture broke out on her smooth forehead and pale shivering cheeks.
+George was alarmed at her distress, and she knew by the intensity of
+her emotion, now that the words she had been expecting were spoken,
+how much her nervous system had suffered in the long struggle she had
+fought out with such success. He tried to calm her, and loved and
+admired her all the more for her keen womanly feeling.
+
+"Horrible, most horrible!" she murmured, her eyes still hidden in her
+shaking hands. "But how do you know? Tell me all you know."
+
+Then George told her without omission or reservation. She listened
+eagerly, greedily, and as the narrative proceeded she became quite
+calm. George dwelt on his astonishment that Routh had not made the
+discovery which had forced itself on him, but Harriet disposed of that
+part of the matter in a moment.
+
+"You forget," she said, "he was not in London. When you came to me, on
+your return from Amherst, do you not remember I told you Stewart was
+away, hiding from his creditors, poor fellow? He never heard of the
+murder, very likely; he never interests himself in such horrors.
+Indeed, he never mentioned anything about it to me, and of course he
+must have known at once that the man was Deane. The very name of the
+tavern in the Strand where he was to have dined himself would have
+suggested the idea."
+
+"Precisely so," said George; "that was the thing which puzzled me so
+completely, and made me anxious to see him."
+
+"The strangeness of the coincidence," said Harriet, "is as remarkable
+as the event is horrible. It only proves how mistaken are our notions
+of the laws of chance. What could be more wildly improbable than that,
+living in the midst of London, and within constant reach of the talk
+and speculation about it, Stewart and I should have known nothing of
+the matter?"
+
+"Very extraordinary indeed," said George; "one of those facts which
+would be denounced as too unnatural, if they were told in fiction. And
+how unfortunate! What a terrible mystery Routh might have cleared up!"
+
+"And yet," Harriet replied, with a furtive glance at Dallas, full of
+keen and searching expression, "what could he have told, beyond the
+fact that he had known the man under the name of Deane? After all, it
+comes to that, and to no more, doesn't it?"
+
+"To no more, my dear Mrs. Routh? To a great deal more. When we tell
+the police what we know, there will be not only an identification of
+the body, but an explanation of the motive."
+
+"I don't quite understand you," said Harriot; and as she spoke, there
+came a click in her throat, as there had come when she and George
+Dallas had last spoken together.
+
+Would it ever be over? Should her purpose ever be gained?
+
+"Don't you?" said George, surprised, "and you so quick, too. But no
+wonder you are upset by this; it is so dreadful when one has known the
+person, is it not? But you _will_ see in a moment that our being able
+to depose to the large sum of money and the jewels in the poor
+fellow's possession will make the motive quite plain. They have got a
+notion now that he was a foreigner, and that the motive was political,
+whereas it was of course simply a robbery. He resisted, I suppose, and
+was killed in the scuffle."
+
+"Does the report read like that?" asked Harriet, faintly.
+
+"It simply says he was stabbed," said George; "but it is plain that
+all the newspapers took up the political-murder notion at once, and
+then, of course, their reports would be made to fit their theory. No
+doubt some ruffian did it who knew that he had a large sum about him
+that day. Very likely he had been traced from the City; he had been
+there to get some securities. I can swear to his having told me that,
+at all events. How very ill you look, Mrs. Routh! This ghastly story
+has been too much for you. I don't think you ever liked poor Deane,
+but no one could know of a man's coming to such an untimely end, if he
+was ever such a bad fellow, and not feel it, especially you. I wish I
+had not said anything. It would have been better for Routh to have
+told you this."
+
+"No, no," said Harriet. "Indeed it is better that I should hear it
+from you, and you are mistaken in supposing I am so much overcome
+entirely on account of--on account of--"
+
+"The murder? Yes?" asked George, looking anxiously at her.
+
+"It is all dreadful; no one in the world can feel it to be more
+dreadful than I do," said Harriet, earnestly.
+
+As she spoke she rose from her chair, pushed her hair off her
+forehead, and began to walk slowly up and down the room. George sat
+still, following her with his eyes, and noting, in all his excitement
+and perturbation of spirit, the change which a few weeks had made in
+her appearance.
+
+"I am grieved and troubled for you, George. I see in this serious
+results for you, and I think more of them."
+
+"For me, Mrs. Routh? What can happen for me in this matter that has
+not already happened? My mother has suffered all she can suffer. Time
+may or may not restore her. Surely the follies and sins of my life
+have been heavily punished. Nothing can undo all this misery; but
+nothing can be added to it either. I have only to set the mystery at
+rest."
+
+"Take care, George," said Harriet, earnestly; "I am not sure of that.
+Let us look at the case in all its bearings. Nothing that you have to
+tell can contradict the evidence given at the inquest, and which
+directs suspicion against you. You did dine with this wretched man;
+you did leave the tavern in his company; you did wear the coat to
+which the waiter swears."
+
+"Ah, by the by," said George, "that was the coat I left at your house.
+Where is it, Mrs. Routh? It must be produced, of course."
+
+He did not yet perceive that she was trying to shake his
+determination; but she answered his question with truly wonderful
+carelessness. "The coat; O yes, I remember. You wrote to me about it.
+It must be here, of course, unless it has been lost in the flitting
+from South Molton-street. He tells me a lot of his things have gone
+astray."
+
+"Well," said George, "that's easily found out. Pray go on, Mrs. Routh.
+You were saying--"
+
+"I was saying, George, that when you put together all the strange
+coincidences in this matter which have led, naturally, it must be
+said, to such a conclusion as that the man who wore the coat which you
+bought at Amherst is the criminal whom the police want to arrest--I
+think you would find it very difficult to prove that you are not the
+man!"
+
+"Good God! You are not serious?" cried George.
+
+"I am perfectly serious," Harriet answered. "How can you prove it? How
+do I, at this moment, know in a manner which I could demonstrate to
+legal satisfaction that you are not the man who did the deed?"
+
+George looked at her in astonishment.
+
+"Of course I _do_ know it--that is, I believe it, which is quite a
+different thing; but supposing I did not believe it, supposing my mind
+were not made up about it, how would you propose to prove it to me?
+Tell me that, and then the strength of my argument, the value of my
+advice, will become evident to you, I think."
+
+Still George looked at her, and his colour rose. He was unaccountably
+embarrassed by the question. The whole thing had appeared to him as
+simple for him as it was terrible for Deane, when Harriet began to
+speak. It bore a very different aspect now.
+
+"I--I should prove that I parted with Deane, that night, at the door
+of the billiard-rooms where we had been playing."
+
+"Outside the door or inside, before witnesses or alone?" interrupted
+Harriet.
+
+"Why, it certainly was outside the door, and we were alone."
+
+"Exactly. Then your having parted with him that night is just what you
+cannot prove; and as you cannot prove that, you can prove nothing. Let
+me repeat to you your own account of that night's proceedings, and you
+will see that you can prove nothing to outweigh the presumptive
+evidence against you. You told me this wretched man had money about
+him which he boasted of; therefore you knew he was a rich prey. You
+had no money--only a few shillings at least; you went to your lodgings
+that night, and left them without notice on the following morning,
+having paid your landlady with a ten-pound note that had been in this
+man's possession. How can you account for that? You went to Amherst,
+where you remained, alone, under a feigned name, for four days; you
+returned to London, where it can be proved the occurrence was, at the
+time, a topic of general discussion, late at night. You went abroad
+the following morning, and at Amsterdam you offered certain valuable
+diamonds for sale. The diamonds are your mother's, you say, and formed
+part of a bracelet given to you by her."
+
+"No, no," said George; "I never would explain that under any
+circumstances."
+
+Harriet smiled, but the steadfast earnestness of her manner was not
+lessened by the smile, which was just a little contemptuous.
+
+"That is precisely what you would be forced to explain," she
+continued. "Certain diamond ornaments were among the articles in the
+possession of the murdered man, says the newspaper report," she
+pointed to the passage with a steady hand. He read it, and listened in
+silence, his face grave and anxious.
+
+"You must account for the diamonds which you sold at Amsterdam; how
+are you to prove, otherwise, that they are not those the wretched man
+wore when he was seen in your company?"
+
+"I remember his studs and his ring," said George, in a low agitated
+voice. "I wonder they have not been traced."
+
+Harriet did not reply for a moment; and the click in her throat was
+painfully hard and audible, as she said at length: "They would have
+been broken up, of course; and remember, George, they were unset
+diamonds you sold at Amsterdam."
+
+George Dallas leaned his elbows on the table, and his head on his
+hands. He looked at Harriet, and her face changed when his gaze was
+removed--changed to a look of sharp, terrible anxiety, to all the
+intentness of one pleading in a desperate cause.
+
+"You must tell the story of your visit to Amherst; you must tell the
+truth about your mother and the jewels; moreover, you must prove it.
+Can your mother do that for you?"
+
+"No," said George, drearily; "but my old nurse can."
+
+"How? Did she see you on the Wednesday, when you arrived at Amherst t
+Did she see you at all until the Monday? Could she swear you were at
+Amherst in the interval? And, supposing she could, what would it
+avail? Look here, George, this man's body was found on the Wednesday
+evening, the eighteenth of April, and the presumption is that it had
+been a night and a day in the river. Do you see what this means?" She
+put her hand on his shoulder, and grasped it securely. He shrunk from
+her light fingers; they hurt his flesh as though they had been steel
+bars. She struck the newspaper lying open on the table with the
+other hand, and said with a desperate effort, "It means this, George:
+The man was found on Wednesday; but the deed was done on Tuesday
+night--done, of course, after you left him; but who can prove that? He
+was seen alive in your company late on Tuesday night, and he was never
+seen alive again. The hours of that night must be accounted for,
+George, if you are to prove yourself guiltless. How can you account
+for them after the time the waiter saw you leave the tavern together?"
+
+George did not answer. She caught her breath and went on, fixing on
+him a sideway look of intense anxiety.
+
+"Can any of the people at the billiard-rooms prove at what hour you
+left them? Can any one at your former lodgings prove at what hour you
+reached home that night?"
+
+"I don't think we left any one after us at the billiard-room but the
+marker," George replied. "By the way, how extraordinary he did not
+come forward at the inquest! He must have noticed Deane's odd
+appearance, and his diamond studs and things. I should think."
+
+"One would think so," said Harriet; "but I dare say the foreign look
+is commonly enough seen in such places. Still the coat must have been
+very conspicuous. I forget whether you said you were in the habit of
+going to those particular billiard-rooms."
+
+"I did not say anything about it, Mrs. Routh. I never was there but
+that once. It is very odd, as you say, about Deane's coat, but the
+poor man hadn't it on. After we left the tavern, I said it was an odd,
+un-English kind of coat, and too warm, I should think, for the
+weather; but he said he had 'the shakes' that day--Yankee for ague,
+you know--and had never worn it before in this country. He carried it
+over his arm, I remember, the cloth side out, and threw it into a
+corner of the billiard-room. I dare say no one saw it."
+
+"Had he put it on when you parted with him?" asked Harriet.
+
+"No," said George; "he was still carrying it over his arm, and I
+remember now that I said to him, 'You had better button that trapper's
+wrap of yours over all that money you've been staggering under the
+weight of.' 'Lightened a little, old fellow, by you,' he said, though
+he had paid his losses in a note, not in gold."
+
+Harriet's face was less anxious now.
+
+"Poor fellow!" George went on, with a slight shudder; "how dreadful it
+is--such light words, too, as we parted with. When he handed me the
+note, he asked for pen and ink, and wrote his name upon it, in full,
+over some initials--A. F., I think--and told me a queer story about an
+old lady who always indorsed her notes with her name, residence,
+and the date of her birth, and how he once traced a forgery by a
+bank-note, purporting to come from her, being devoid of those
+eccentric inscriptions. He was telling me the story as we went out."
+
+George's discursive fancy had wandered from his own position to the
+circumstances which invested Deane's fate with additional sadness to
+his mind. Harriet frowned angrily at this proof of his invincibly
+light nature, and went on sharply:
+
+"All this adds strength to my argument. But I asked you another
+question. Did any one in the house you lodged at know at what hour you
+went home that night? Is any one in a position to prove it?"
+
+"No," said George. "I let myself in with a latch-key, and made no
+noise. I never did when I could help it, there, the old woman was such
+a Tartar."
+
+"Then there is not a flaw in my argument, George," she said, in a
+sweet, solemn tone, which, from the first time he had heard it, had
+had an irresistible charm for the young man; "there is nothing to be
+gained for any one, for any conceivable interest that you are bound to
+consider, for any interest, indeed, except the abstract one of the
+law, in telling what you know of this matter."
+
+"The man's friends," remonstrated George, who, habitually submissive
+to her, did not recoil at the suggestion, as he would infallibly have
+recoiled had it come from any other person; "they may not know, they
+may be in suspense, in misery."
+
+"I hardly think so," said Harriet, and her blue eyes had their coldest
+colour, and her sweet voice its subtlest inflection of scorn. "Did you
+ever hear him mention relative or friend. Did you ever know a man so
+cold, so callous, so base, so shamelessly devoid of any interest
+save in his own pleasure or his own gain? Did you ever know one so
+narrow-hearted, so mean-spirited, of so crafty and cruel a nature?"
+Her energy quite startled George. She was looking straight before her,
+and her hand was raised as though she were tracing a picture as her
+mind produced it. "The man was a reptile, George--a cruel snake in his
+nature. I don't believe any one on earth ever loved him, except his
+mother in his babyhood. I hope she's dead; yes, I trust she's dead!
+And that you should peril your safety, drag your mother's name into
+the police-courts, rouse all the anger, stab all the pride, of your
+stepfather, ruin, or at least greatly injure, your own prospects, by
+the revelations you will be forced to make, supposing (which, I
+confess, I think most difficult and improbable) you do prove your own
+innocence, seems to me utterly monstrous and irrational. Remember, you
+can give justice only negative assistance. If you prove that Deane was
+the victim, and you not the criminal, you can't tell them who the
+criminal is, or give them any information about Deane."
+
+"No," said George, very quickly; "but then, you know, Routh can."
+
+Harriet dropped her hand off his shoulder, and fell into a chair.
+
+"You are overdone, Mrs. Routh," George said, tenderly, as he took her
+hand in his, and resumed his old manner of deferential affection. "You
+have talked too long and too much about this murder, and it has been
+too much for you. I ought to have seen that before. We won't say
+another word about it, until I have consulted Routh. How shocked he
+will be! I will think of all you have said; but I will do nothing
+to-day. I can't even wait to see him now, for I must get down to the
+_Mercury_ office by four. I must leave you now."
+
+"You are sure you will do nothing until we have seen you again?"
+Harriet said, faintly. "George, let nothing induce you to mention the
+matter at the _Mercury_. Only think of the godsend a hint would be to
+them."
+
+"I'll take care," said George. "I will not stir in the matter till I
+have talked it over thoroughly with you."
+
+"You will stay here, George, of course," said Harriet, kindly, holding
+out her hand, but without rising. "We have a room at your disposal
+now, you know."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Routh, I will; but I don't think I shall be more than
+a day or two in London, unless I should be detained by this sad
+business."
+
+"Are you going back to Amsterdam?" asked Harriet.
+
+"No," said George; "I am going to my mother."
+
+
+"I was right," Harriet said, when she was alone, as she lay back in
+her chair, pale and exhausted. "I thought the one strong motive, the
+motive which, though late aroused, has been strong enough to save
+George Dallas from himself, could be powerful now. Twice his mother
+has helped, has saved, at his expense, his worst, his involuntary
+enemy. There was nothing else to work upon, but that has succeeded."
+
+Harriet was right to a certain extent, but not quite right. Another
+motive had helped the end she desired to gain, and George named it to
+his own heart as he walked down to the _Mercury_ office by the name of
+Clare Carruthers.
+
+"You are a wonderful woman, Harry," said Routh, when Harriet had
+concluded the brief statement into which she condensed her report of
+the interview between herself and George. But, though he spoke in a
+tone of strong admiration, and his face relaxed into a look of intense
+relief, he did not hold her in his arms and kiss her passionately now.
+"You are a wonderful woman, and this danger is escaped."
+
+She smiled a little bitterly, very sadly, as she said:
+
+"I don't know. At all events, it is once more tided over."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+THE AMERICAN LETTERS.
+
+
+Stewart Routh was as hard a man as could readily be found, but his
+hardness was not proof against his meeting with George Dallas, and he
+showed Harriet how great a trial it was to him, and how much he feared
+his own constancy, when he told her he thought she had better not be
+present at their meeting. The curse of an unholy alliance had fallen
+upon these two, and was now beginning to make itself felt. Each was
+desirous to conceal from the other the devices to which they were
+compelled to resort, in order to keep up the false appearances to
+which they were condemned; in all their life there was no time in
+which they were free from restraint, except in solitude. But, though
+the effect was in each case the same, the origin was widely different.
+Harriet suffered for her husband's sake; he, entirely for his own. He
+had calculated that if anything in his appearance, voice, and manner,
+should escape his control, George would be certain to impute it to the
+natural feelings of horror and regret with which he would have
+received the intelligence conveyed to him by Harriet, of George's
+discovery of the identity of the murdered man.
+
+"You had better remain upstairs until I call you," Routh had said to
+Harriet, "when Dallas comes to dinner. It will be easier for you," he
+added. Harriet was sitting listlessly by her dressing-table while he
+spoke, and he stood behind her chair, and looked gloomily at the
+reflection of her face in the glass.
+
+She smiled faintly. "Thank you, Stewart," she said; "it will be
+easier." Then, after a brief pause, "Would you very much mind my not
+going down to dinner at all?"
+
+So far from minding it, Routh instantly felt that her absence would be
+a great relief. It would enable him to sound George thoroughly, to
+scheme upon whatever discoveries he should make concerning his future
+plans; and then, Harriet had done all the hard work, had prepared the
+way for him, had got over the difficulty and the danger. A little
+unpleasantness, some disagreeable emotion, must indeed be encountered,
+that was inevitable, but everything might go off well, and if so,
+Harriet's restraining presence, Harriet's face, with its constant
+reminder in it, would be much better out of sight.
+
+"Not at all," he answered. "Stay upstairs if you like. I'll tell
+Dallas you are a little knocked up, but will be all right in the
+morning."
+
+"He will not be surprised, I dare say," she replied, "though it was
+not my way to be knocked up formerly."
+
+"Nor to be always harping on one string, either; and I can't say
+there's a change for the better," said Routh roughly. Once or twice of
+late the innate ruffianism of the man had come out towards her, from
+whom it had once been so scrupulously concealed. But she did not heed
+it; not a quiver crossed the drooping rigid face, at which Routh once
+more glanced covertly before he left the room. It would have been
+impossible to tell whether she had even heard him.
+
+Routh went down to the well-appointed dining-room, so different to the
+scene of the dinners of which George had formerly partaken, in the
+character of his guest. Wherever Harriet was, neatness and propriety
+never were absent, but there was something more than neatness and
+propriety in Routh's house now. Nevertheless, the look which the
+master of the house cast upon the well-laid, well-lighted table, with
+its perfect, unobtrusive, unpretentious appointments, was full of
+gloom. He wished he had not come down so soon; the inevitable meeting
+assumed a more portentous aspect with every minute that it was
+delayed; he wished he had not told Harriet to remain in her room. The
+fact was, Routh was staggered by the first failure of his plans.
+Everything had gone so right with him; his calculations had been
+fulfilled so exactly, so unfailingly, until now, and this unexpected
+accident had befallen through a blunder of his own. True, Harriet had
+met it with amazing tact, and had so treated it, that if only it could
+be further dexterously managed, it might be turned to ultimate
+advantage and an incalculable strengthening of his position. Let him
+keep his thoughts to that view of the question, and keep his nerves
+still. Were they going to play him false now, his nerves, which had
+never failed him before? So Mr. Stewart Routh passed a very unpleasant
+quarter of an hour before his expected guest arrived. He had just had
+recourse, as much in weakness as in nervousness, to a flask of brandy
+which stood on the sideboard, and had drank off half a glassful, when
+a knock at the door was quickly answered by the grave and correct
+man-servant, who formed an important and eminently respectable feature
+of the improved household of the Rouths, and the well-known quick
+tread of Dallas crossed the hall.
+
+"Well, Routh, old fellow!"
+
+"George, my boy; delighted to see you!" and the meeting was over; and
+Routh, looking into the young man's face, saw that not a trace of
+suspicion rested upon it, and that the material before him was as
+plastic as ever.
+
+"Harriet is not very well this evening," said Routh, "and begs you
+will excuse her if she does not make her appearance. I undertook to
+make it all right, and indeed I am rather glad we should be alone just
+at first. I have so much to say and to hear, and Harriet has had a
+long talk with you already."
+
+"Yes," said George, and his smile was at once overcast, and his face
+darkened into gloom, "I had a long talk with her. Of course, Routh,
+she told you the dreadful discovery I have made, and the curious way
+in which I am implicated in this ghastly affair."
+
+"She told me all about it, my dear fellow," returned Routh. "But here
+comes dinner, and we must postpone discussion until afterwards. I can
+only say now that I think Harriet's view of the matter perfectly
+correct, and her advice the soundest possible; it generally is, you
+know of old." And then Routh made a slight signal suggestive of
+caution to his guest, and the two men stood by the fireplace and
+talked of trifles while the irreproachable man-servant set the dishes
+upon the table, assisted by a neat parlour-maid.
+
+While far more serious thoughts were busy in George's mind, over the
+surface of it was passing observation of the changed order of things,
+and an amused perception of the alteration in Routh himself. It was as
+he had said in his letter--he had assumed the responsibility, the
+pose, the prosperity of the genuine plodding "City man;" and he looked
+the part to absolute perfection. "And yet," George thought, "he knows
+that one who was with us two the last time we met has met with a
+violent death; he knows that I am in a position as painful and
+perilous as it is extraordinary, and that he is indirectly mixed up
+with the dreadful event, and he is as cool and unconcerned as
+possible. I suppose it is constitutional, this callousness; but I'm
+not sure it is very enviable. However, one thing is certain--it makes
+him the very best adviser one can possibly have under such
+circumstances. He won't be carried away by the horror of the
+circumstances, anyhow."
+
+The dinner proceeded, and George yielded rapidly to the influences
+which had been so powerful, and which he had been so determined to
+resist, when out of Routh's presence and under the sway of his
+penitence and his determination to reform. The conversation of Routh
+asserted all its old charm; the man's consummate knowledge of the
+world, his varied experience, the perfect refinement and tact which he
+could display at will, the apparent putting off of old things, the
+tone of utter respectability which abled George's newly-sharpened
+conscience to consent to the fascination as readily as his
+predilections, had more than ever an irresistible attraction for the
+young man. During dinner, which, in the altered state of affairs,
+involved the presence of the servant, Routh kept the conversation
+almost entirely to Dallas's own doings, plans, and prospects. He knew
+Amsterdam well, and talked of Dutch art and the history of the Low
+Countries with much skill and fluency. Without an allusion which could
+supply material for the curiosity and the gossip of the servants, he
+made George understand that the Bohemian element had been completely
+banished from his life and its associations; he sketched a plan of
+London life for George, moderately prosperous, quite practical, and
+entirely inoffensive. He made him, in short, as ready to congratulate
+himself on the resumption of their intimacy in the present phase of
+his moral being as he had been to rejoice in its formation under
+former conditions.
+
+Routh's spirits rose with his senses. He felt a depraved pride in the
+devilish skill he possessed in his grand faculty of deception. He
+excelled in it, he revelled in its exercise, and he had not enjoyed
+it, in this orthodox way, of late. He had been making money, it is
+true, and doing some real work as well as a good deal of swindling in
+the process, but he had had only the opportunity of using a certain
+set of his faculties. His persuasive eloquence, his personal
+influence, his skilful and expansive but shrewd falsehood had lain
+dormant for some time. As a singer who has lost his voice for a time
+suddenly finds the liquid notes filling the air with all their
+accustomed power and sweetness, and exults in the recovered faculty,
+so Stewart Routh marked the pleasure, the enthusiasm, almost enabling
+George to forget the coming painful topic of discussion from which
+only a few minutes divided them, as he listened to the voice of the
+charmer, who had never before charmed him so wisely nor so well.
+
+At length the wine was set upon the table, and then they were alone;
+and by this time, so complete did Routh feel his resumption of power
+over George Dallas, that it was with indifference only very little
+feigned that he said:
+
+"And now, George, let us go into this sad business about poor Deane.
+It has quite floored Harriet, as I dare say you guessed."
+
+"And so you give me the same counsel as Harriet has given me," said
+George, when he had to tell his story all over again, and had worked
+himself up into a new fit of excitement over the horror of the murder,
+and the dreadful idea of the ignorance of the deed in which the dead
+man's relatives still remained.
+
+"I do, indeed, George," said Routh, solemnly: "in taking any other
+course you will expose yourself to certain difficulty, and, indeed, to
+imminently probable danger. While you have been telling all this, I
+have been thinking how fortunate it was that I was away at the time,
+and so down upon my luck that I never knew or thought about any public
+affairs, and so did not hear of the murder except in the vaguest way.
+In the peculiar lustre of our London civilization, you know, George,
+somebody found dead in the river is so frequent a mote, that nobody
+thinks about it."
+
+"Not in a general way," said George; "but they made so much of this,
+and were so confident that it was a political affair, I cannot
+understand how any of us escaped hearing of it."
+
+"Yes," acquiesced Routh, "it is very extraordinary, but such things do
+happen. And rather fortunate, it seems, that they do, for if I had
+dropped in on the inquest, it would have been very awkward for you."
+
+"Why?" said George; "after all, the truth must have come out, and all
+this misery about my mother would have been avoided."
+
+An evil look from Routh's eye lighted for a moment on the young man's
+unconscious face, then glanced away, as he said:
+
+"You forget that all I could have said must have strongly favoured the
+notion that the man who wore the coat which the waiter swore to, and
+was last seen with Deane, was the last person who ever saw him alive.
+If I had had time to think, of course I shouldn't have said a word
+about it; but if I had been hurried into speaking, that is what I must
+have said. Come, George, you are much too sensitive about this matter.
+Of course, I'm sorry for Deane, but I care a great deal more for you,
+and I decline to look at any part of this matter except such as
+concerns you. As to his relatives, as that part of the business
+appears to distress you most keenly, I must set your mind at rest by
+informing you that he had not a near relation in the world."
+
+"Indeed!" said George. "How do you know?"
+
+"He told me so," said Routh. "You will say, perhaps, that is not very
+trustworthy evidence, but I think we may take it in this particular
+instance for more than its general worth. He was the coldest, hardest,
+most selfish fellow I ever knew in the whole course of my experience,
+which has included a good deal of scoundreldom, and he seemed so
+thoroughly to appreciate the advantages of such isolation, that I
+believe it really did exist."
+
+"He was certainly a mystery in every way," said George. "Where did he
+live? We never knew him--at least I never did--except loafing about at
+taverns, and places of the kind."
+
+"I don't know where he lived," said Routh; "he never gave me an
+address, or a rendezvous, except at some City eating-house, or
+West-end billiard-room."
+
+"How very extraordinary that no one recognized the description! It was
+in every way remarkable, and the fur-lined coat must have been known
+to some one. If I had seen any mention of the murder, I should have
+remembered that coat in a moment."
+
+"Would you?" said Routh. "Well, it would have thrown me off the scent,
+for I never happened to see it. An American coat, no doubt. However, I
+have a theory, which I think you will agree with, and which is this: I
+suspect he had been living somewhere in another name--he told me he
+wasn't always known by that of Deane--under not very creditable
+circumstances, and as he must have had some property, which, had he
+been identified, must have been delivered up to the authorities, those
+in the secret have very wisely held their tongues."
+
+"You think there was a woman in the case?"
+
+Routh smiled a superior smile.
+
+"Of course I think so; and knowing as much or as little of the man as
+you and I know, we are not likely to blame her much for consulting her
+own interests exclusively. This seems a curious case to us, because we
+happen to know about it; but just think, in this enormous city, in
+this highly criminal age, how common such things must be. How many
+persons may not have dropped out of existence since you and I last
+met, utterly unknown and uncared for, amid the mass of human beings
+here? It is no such rare thing, George, believe me, and you must
+listen to reason in this matter, and not run absurd risks to do an
+imaginary piece of justice."
+
+This was Harriet's counsel merely put in colder, more worldly words.
+Routh watched his listener keenly as he gave it, and saw that his
+purpose was gained. He would have been glad now to have turned the
+conversation into some other channel; and did partially succeed in
+directing it to Dallas's literary prospects and intentions, but only
+for a time. George pertinaciously came back to the murder, to his
+mother's state, to his apprehensions that she might never recover, and
+to his altered feelings towards Mr. Carruthers.
+
+Routh made very effective use of the latter topic. He enlarged upon
+the pride and sensitiveness of Mr. Carruthers; adverted to the
+pleasure with which, in case of her recovery, his mother would hail
+the better state of things for which Mr. Carruthers's letter to his
+stepson, combined with George's adoption of a new and steady career,
+would afford an opening; and congratulated George upon having been
+saved from taking any step which, by bringing public notice upon
+himself in so terrible a matter, must have incensed the proud man, and
+irritated him against him incalculably.
+
+George was amenable to this line of reasoning, and with only
+occasional divergence from the main topic of their discourse, the
+evening passed away, and the two men parted for the night, it having
+been agreed that Harriet should be taken into consultation in the
+morning, and a well-considered letter written to Mr. Carruthers.
+
+George Dallas was in the dining-room on the following morning before
+Routh and Harriet came in, and he found a letter directed to himself,
+in a hand with which he was unacquainted, on the breakfast-table. He
+broke the seal with some alarm and much curiosity. A slip of paper
+folded round two thin limp letters formed the enclosure; it bore only
+the words; "My dear boy, I forgot to give you these letters. You had
+better read them. I think they are from your uncle.--E. B."
+
+George sat down by the window, through which the soft air of a morning
+bright and beautiful even in London came refreshingly in. He looked at
+the postmarks of the two letters, and broke the seal of that which
+bore the earliest date first. As he read the letter, which was long,
+and closely written, ail occasional exclamation escaped him, and when
+he had finished its perusal, he threw it hastily down, and impatiently
+tore open the other. This one, on the contrary, was brief; he had read
+the few lines it contained in a few minutes, with a face expressive of
+the utmost astonishment, when Harriet, whose noiseless step had
+escaped his hearing, entered the room.
+
+Without pausing to exchange the customary greeting, she came quickly
+towards him, and asked him "What was the matter? Had he any bad news?"
+
+"Not bad news, but most astonishing, most unexpected news, Mrs. Routh.
+These letters have been sent to me from Poynings; they are written to
+my mother by my uncle, her only brother, and they announce his
+immediate arrival in England. How fortunate that Ellen should have
+sent them to me! But I don't know what to do about sending the news to
+my mother. She ought to know it. What can I do?"
+
+"Communicate with Mr. Carruthers at once, George," said Harriet, in
+the tone of quiet decision with which she was accustomed to settle
+matters submitted to her judgment. "He is with her, and knows what she
+can bear. Sit down now and have some breakfast, and tell me about this
+uncle of yours. I never heard you mention him."
+
+She took her place at the head of the table. She was dressed, as he
+had been accustomed to see her, with neatness and taste; there was no
+change in her appearance in that respect, yet there was a change--a
+change which had struck George painfully yesterday, and which, in the
+midst of all the agitation of to-day, he could not keep from noticing.
+
+"Are you well, Mrs. Routh?" he asked her, anxiously. "Are you sure you
+are well? I don't like your looks."
+
+"Never mind my looks, George," Harriet said, cheerfully; "I am very
+well. Get on with your breakfast and your story. Routh will be here
+presently, and I want to know all about it before he comes. He gets
+impatient at my feminine curiosity, you know."
+
+The smile with which she spoke was but the ghost of her former smile,
+and George still looked at her strangely, but he obeyed her, and
+proceeded with his breakfast and his story.
+
+"I don't know very much about my mother's family," he said, "because
+they did not like her marriage with my father, and she kept aloof from
+them, and her parents were dead before she had the opportunity of
+appeasing them by making the fine match they would have considered her
+marriage with Mr. Carruthers to be. I know that some of their
+relatives were settled in America,--some at New York, some in South
+Carolina,--and my mother's brother, Mark Felton--queer name,
+puritanical and fanatical, with a touch of the association of
+assassination about it--was sent out to New York when quite a child. I
+forgot to tell you it was my mother's stepfather and her mother who
+objected to her first marriage--her own father died when she was an
+infant; and on her mother's second marriage with a Mr. Creswick--a
+poor, proud, dissipated fellow, I fancy, though I never heard much
+about him--the American branch of the family sent for the boy. My
+mother has told me they would have taken her too, and her stepfather
+would not have made the least objection--we haven't been lucky in
+stepfathers, Mrs. Routh--but her mother would not stand it; and so she
+kept her child. Not for many years, for she married my father when she
+was only seventeen. Her brother was just twenty then, and had been
+taken into the rich American firm of his relatives, and was a
+prosperous man. She knew very little of him, of course. I believe he
+took the same view of her marriage as her mother had taken; at all
+events, the first direct communication between them took place when my
+mother was left a handsome and poor young widow, with one boy, who did
+not make much delay about proving himself the graceless and ungrateful
+son you know him to have been."
+
+George's voice faltered, and an expression of pain crossed his face.
+Harriet looked at him kindly, and laid her soft white hand on his.
+
+"That is all over, you know," she said. "You will not err in that way
+again."
+
+"But the consequences, Mrs. Routh, the consequences. Think of my
+mother _now_. However," and he drew a long breath, and threw his
+shoulders back, like a man who tries to shift a burden, "I must go on
+with my story. There's not much more to tell, however. My mother might
+have had a home for herself and me in her brother's house, but she
+could not bear dependence, and has told me often that she regarded
+unknown relatives as the most formidable kind of strangers. Her
+brother's wife made him resent my mother's determination to remain in
+England, and do the best she could for us both on our small means. Of
+course, all this was an old story long before I knew anything about
+it, and I fancy that it is only lately any correspondence has taken
+place between my mother and her brother. From this letter" (he touched
+the first he had read) "I can divine the nature of that
+correspondence. My mother," said George, sadly, "has appealed to her
+brother on behalf of her prodigal son, and her brother has told her
+his sorrows in return; they have been heavy, and in one respect not
+unlike her own. He, too, has an only son, and seems to find little
+happiness in the fact."
+
+"Did you not know of your cousin's existence until now?" asked
+Harriet.
+
+"O yes, I knew of it, in a kind of way; in fact, I just knew he
+existed, and no more. I don't think my mother knew more. I fancy in
+some previous letter he told her of his wife's death, and the general
+unsatisfactoriness of Arthur."
+
+"He--your uncle, I mean---is then a widower."
+
+"Yes," replied George. "I won't bother you with the whole of this long
+letter, Mrs. Routh; the gist of it is this: My cousin, Arthur Felton,
+is not a good son, nor a good anything, I fancy, for I find my uncle
+congratulating my mother on my affection for her, my good feeling, in
+spite of all--(bless the poor man! he little knew how his words would
+wound, and how ill-deserved is the extenuation!)--and prophesying all
+manner of good things about me. It appears this hopeful son of his has
+been in Europe for some months, and probably in London for some months
+too, as my uncle says--stay, here is the passage: 'Arthur has with him
+a letter of introduction to you and Mr. Carruthers, some trifles from
+this side of the world which I thought you might like, and my
+instructions to make his cousin's acquaintance as soon as possible.
+You speak of George as living habitually in London; I hope by this
+time they have met, are good friends, and are, perhaps, chumming
+together. I have not heard from Arthur for some time. He is a careless
+correspondent, and not at any time so regardful of the feelings of
+other people as he might be. I dare say the first intelligence I shall
+have of him from England, as he cannot possibly want money'--that
+looks bad, Mrs. Routh," said George, breaking off abruptly, and
+looking up at her; "that looks bad--'as he cannot possibly want money,
+will be from you. I know you will receive him kindly, and I earnestly
+hope he may make a favourable impression on Mr. Carruthers.'" Here
+George left off reading the letter, and looked blankly at Harriet.
+
+"And he has never presented himself at Poynings, has he?" she asked.
+
+"Never, that I know of; and of course Ellen Brookes would have told
+me, if he had. Besides, you see this letter was late for the mail, and
+arrived with this other one. My mother never saw either, and they have
+been lying more than six weeks at Poynings."
+
+"No doubt your cousin is still in Paris. All Americans delight in
+Paris. He would be in no hurry to leave Paris, depend on it, if he had
+no more interesting acquaintance than that of an aunt and a cousin to
+make in London, and as much time before him as he chose."
+
+"I should think with you, Mrs. Routh, only that this letter, written
+at New York on the 3rd of April, says my uncle had heard from Arthur,
+who had merely written him a line from London, saying: 'Here I am.
+Particulars by next mail.' The mail brought no particulars, and my
+uncle writes to my mother, subsequently to this long letter, which is
+cheerful enough, you'll observe, that he is a prey to a presentiment
+that something is wrong with Arthur, also that he has conceived the
+strongest wish to come to England and see her, and especially to see
+me--that he has sufficient money and leisure to gratify the
+inclination--that he will wait for the chance of further intelligence
+of Arthur, and to arrange certain business matters, a month longer,
+and then come to England. He seems to have formed a remarkably
+elementary notion of my respected stepfather's manners, customs, and
+general disposition, for he proposes to present himself at Poynings
+immediately on his arrival, and never appears to entertain the least
+misgiving as to the cordiality of his reception. He must have been
+astonished at getting no answer to either letter, and I should think
+must have had his presentiments considerably sharpened and
+strengthened by the fact."
+
+Here George referred to the date of the later of the two letters, and
+exclaimed:
+
+"By Jove! I should not be surprised if he were at Poynings now!"
+
+At this moment Routh entered the room, and, in his turn, had the new
+aspect of affairs explained to him, but at no great length. He
+displayed very little interest in the matter, thought it very probable
+that Mr. Felton might have arrived in England, or even at Poynings,
+but did not see what George could do in that case.
+
+"You can't go and entertain another man at a house where you haven't
+the entrée yourself," he said. "I suppose the old woman will let you
+know if he really comes to Poynings. In the mean time, send the
+letters on to Mr. Carruthers. You expect to get his address from some
+girl or other--his niece, I think I understood Harriet--and ask what
+is to be done. It's rather a lucky turn up, Dallas, I take it, and
+will help your good-boy intentions towards your stepfather
+wonderfully, to have a rich uncle to act as a connecting-link between
+you. By the by, he's sure to set you up in life, George, and
+periodical literature will be robbed of a shining luminary."
+
+George did not altogether like the tone in which all this was said. It
+was a little sneering, and altogether careless. Nothing was so
+difficult to Routh, as it always is to men of his class, as the
+sustained assumption of interest in any affairs but their own; and now
+that his anxieties of the previous day were relieved, and he had no
+immediate object in which Dallas was concerned, to gain, he was
+impatient of any interruption of his immediate pursuits, and harsh and
+rough with him. He sat down, and ate his breakfast hastily, while he
+read a heap of letters which lay beside his plate.
+
+"I don't know, indeed," George had replied good-humouredly to the
+speech which had jarred upon him; "but you are busy, Routh, and I
+won't trouble you with my business just now. Mrs. Routh and I will
+discuss the letter to Mr. Carruthers."
+
+"A telegram for Mr. Dallas," said the irreproachable servant, who
+entered the room while George was speaking. "Please to sign this,
+sir."
+
+Routh looked up from his letters, Harriet set down the teapot, and
+quietly taking up the slip of paper which the man had laid upon the
+table by George's elbow, signed it with his name, writing it with a
+pencil which hung at her waist. The servant left the room, and George
+said:
+
+"I was not wrong. This is from my uncle, and it comes from Amherst. He
+says: 'Meet me at Morley's Hotel this evening, at six.'"
+
+"Very odd," said Routh. "Well, George, I am sure I wish you all manner
+of luck with your American uncle."
+
+He had taken up his hat and gloves as he spoke, and now rang for the
+servant, whom he directed to call a hansom. The man went to the door,
+and transferred the commission to a street-boy lingering about there,
+who ran off, and returned in two minutes with the required vehicle.
+George and Routh were standing on the steps as the boy reappeared,
+talking. They shook hands, and Routh was stepping into the cab, when
+George followed him, and said, in a whisper:
+
+"Was it not extraordinary the boy did not recognize poor Deane?"
+
+"What boy?" said Routh, in astonishment, and stepping back on to the
+flagway.
+
+"Why, that boy; the boy you always employ. He brought you my message
+the other day. Don't you remember it was he brought your note to poor
+Deane that day at the tavern?"
+
+"I did not remember; I did not particularly notice," said Routh.
+"Good-bye." And he jumped into the cab, and was driven away.
+
+George went back into the house, eyed curiously by Jim Swain, who
+touched his cap as he passed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+LOOKING OUT ON THE TAUNUS.
+
+
+It was a beautiful day in the early autumn, and though "all the world"
+had not yet mustered at Homburg von der Höhe, though the hotel of
+"Quarter Sessions" had not yet a tithe of the illustrious names for
+contribution to the visitors' list which it was destined to have, the
+scene presented by the little white town in its setting of green--a
+green nearer to emerald than any between itself and the shores of
+Dublin Bay--was gay, striking, pleasant, and varied. Groups of
+fluttering dresses, whose wearers were further adorned with perfect
+boots and exquisite hats, and could, for the most part, boast of the
+attractions of youth and prettiness, were abroad in the alleys, under
+the shade of the slim, graceful trees. The sounds of distant music
+from the bands dispersed about for the delectation of the visitors,
+and those of glad, careless voices in such leisure talk as suited the
+scene and the season, mingled themselves, and came floating in on the
+warm air at the open windows to regale the ears of such as had not
+gone out to share in the busy idleness of the majority of the
+sojourners at the Baths.
+
+At one of these open windows, which looked out upon a pretty prim
+little garden, bordered on the confines of the broad shady alley down
+to which it stretched by some trees nobler and more rich in foliage
+than their fellows, the strollers in the alley might have observed
+three gentlemen in earnest and protracted conversation. One was
+seated in a large arm-chair, which occupied one of the sides of the
+bay-window; a second leaned against the open frame of the central
+compartment; and the third, a shorter and slighter man than either of
+his companions, stood upright between them, and as he spoke turned his
+head and his keen eyes from one to the other with an animated and
+characteristic gesture. The gentleman seated in the arm-chair was a
+tall, frostily gray, scrupulously dressed, laboriously polite elderly
+man, who constantly twirled a heavy gold eye-glass in very white and
+bony hands. He seemed agitated--indeed, so much so, that some of his
+acquaintances in the far-off English district which had the honour of
+being his home would have found some difficulty in recognizing him. He
+was hardly pompous as he sat this fine morning looking out on the
+Taunus, and taking note of neither mountain, nor valley, nor forest;
+his manner was actually that of a man seeking and welcoming sympathy;
+it really seemed possible that an observer of the scene might have
+ventured on taking the liberty of feeling sorry for Mr. Carruthers of
+Poynings.
+
+The smaller, slighter man, who formed the centre figure of the group,
+was of somewhat remarkable aspect. Very wiry and alert of frame, well
+knit and upright, his figure had a certain youthfulness about it which
+was contradicted by his face--that of a man who had passed the
+confines of middle age. His face was handsome, thoughtful, and bore
+the impress of heavy trouble, and in the dark eyes, and generally in
+the straight and refined features, it presented a strong resemblance
+to that of Mrs. Carruthers.
+
+Not unnaturally, for the gentleman in question was Mark Felton, Mrs.
+Carruthers's brother.
+
+The third component of the group, a young man, who leant against the
+frame of the open window and looked out, his face turned away from the
+speaker and the "other listener," his tall loosely-built figure
+distinctly visible from the road, was George Dallas.
+
+"Under these circumstances, and seeing that waiting was inevitable,
+and that I could do nothing in that matter actively," Mark Felton was
+saying, "I determined to come on here at once. All I heard at
+Poynings--"
+
+"I hope you were properly entertained there?" said Mr. Carruthers, in
+the old "of Poynings" manner.
+
+"Perfectly, my dear sir--perfectly. As I was saying, all I heard at
+Poynings, and what George told me"--he cast a quick glance at his
+nephew here, in which there was already hearty liking--"made me more
+than ever anxious to see Laura. Besides, I was exceedingly anxious to
+make your acquaintance without any further delay."
+
+"A wish which I reciprocated, I assure you, Mr. Felton."
+
+"In bringing George with me, I acted on my own judgment, and on a
+conviction that you would regard the matter as I do. I believed you
+would consider him entitled to see his mother, and would be glad to
+learn from me that his prospects in life are as much improved as his
+inclination and determination to do them honour are genuine and
+strong."
+
+"You are quite right, Mr. Felton," said the honourable old gentleman,
+who had begun to feel himself somehow beaten by fate, and was,
+secretly, immensely relieved that his stepson had made his appearance
+without having been sent for, and in such unexceptionable company. "It
+is necessary now that Mr. Dallas--that--that George" (he got out the
+word with an immense effort, and it meant everything) "should be near
+his mother. I am glad to know he has found a friend in you."
+
+"And I am still more glad to believe," said Mr. Felton, not precisely
+interrupting Mr. Carruthers, but taking advantage of a slight pause to
+speak--"I am glad to know that he found me just when he was learning
+to do without any one."
+
+It is possible that a good deal of Mr. Carruthers's trouble--and he
+had suffered severely since he had left England--had had its origin
+in a conviction, which had stolen upon him at first, and latterly had
+threatened to overwhelm him, that he had not been faultless in his
+conduct towards his wife and his treatment of her son. He had found
+out very shortly after they had left Poynings--for in the deadening of
+her faculties, forgetfulness of her fear of him had come--how mistaken
+he had been in supposing that he had suppressed her love for George,
+her constant remembrance of him, or had supplied by all he had given
+her for the boon he had withheld. In her placid way, when she would
+sit for hours talking softly to herself, his wife had administered
+some very telling lessons to Mr. Carruthers. It was with an uneasy
+surprise that he came to feel how very dear she was to him, how
+indispensable to his life, how strangely the things which had held the
+first places in his estimation, behind which he had ranked her, and
+she had been content humbly to follow, fell away into complete
+insignificance. He actually forgot Poynings at times, and was not
+worried by fears that the lawn was not properly mown and smoothly
+rolled, or by visions of fallen leaves lying about in the sacred
+places. His "business papers" were duly forwarded to him, but they did
+not interest him much; his mind dwelt almost entirely on his wife's
+state, and he was rapidly passing, as might be expected from a man
+whose moral perceptions had been suddenly awakened and enlarged, from
+the recognition of his true share of blame in the calamity which had
+befallen them, to an exaggeration of that share, which rendered him
+almost oblivious of the provocation he had received. Had George Dallas
+suddenly appeared before his stepfather at Poynings, he might not have
+been well received; the influences of old habits, and associations, in
+the sense of the promulgation of the old edict of banishment, might
+have successfully overpowered the new influences striving with pride
+and obstinacy in the by no means bad heart of Mr. Carruthers. But the
+occasion had been most auspicious. Here, in a foreign place, where Mr.
+Carruthers was positively oppressed with a sense of strangeness, and
+where no one was present to know anything about the concession he was
+making, he had but trifling difficulties to overcome, and the meeting
+between the three gentlemen had been kindly, unreserved, and cordial.
+
+The report of his wife's condition, which Mr. Carruthers had made to
+her son and brother, was not very reassuring, and was doubly
+distressing to George, in consequence of the stress which his
+stepfather laid upon the good effect to be anticipated by his
+restoration to her. Had Mr. Carruthers been in a less charitable frame
+of mind, he might have taken the silence and sadness with which George
+received his assurances on this point for sullenness; but he did not,
+he was actually learning to make allowance for the temperaments and
+the feelings of other people.
+
+Mr. Felton and his nephew had arrived at Homburg on the preceding
+evening, and Mr. Felton had communicated by letter with Mr.
+Carruthers, who had named an early hour on the following day for
+receiving his unknown brother-in-law and his little-known stepson.
+Their interview had lasted some time, when Mr. Carruthers expressed
+his belief that good might result to his mother from seeing George.
+
+The young man turned his face from the speaker, and made no answer.
+
+"It will be necessary, of course, to have her physician's advice and
+permission in the first instance," said Mr. Felton, "before either
+George or I can see her. I suppose she is in good hands here?"
+
+"In the best possible," replied Mr. Carruthers. "Dr. Merle is famous
+in the treatment of these strange mental maladies; indeed, it was in
+order to consult him that I changed my plan, and came here instead of
+going to the south of France, as I had intended."
+
+"So Miss Carruthers told me," said Mr. Felton; which simple
+observation caused George Dallas to start perceptibly, and to turn
+abnormally red in the face.
+
+"Indeed," said Mr. Carruthers. "I did not know you had seen my niece."
+
+"No?" said Mr. Felton. "I suppose she left it to me to tell you of her
+prompt politeness to an intruder. When I had seen your housekeeper and
+learned all she could tell me, especially that my sister had not
+received my letters, and knew nothing of my return to England, I
+quickly made up my mind to join you abroad. Miss Carruthers being in
+correspondence with you, and therefore able to give me all the
+information I wanted, was clearly the person I ought to see, so I
+started for the Sycamores, saw her--and a very beautiful and charming
+girl she is--heard from her all she had to tell me, and then went up
+to town to make acquaintance with my nephew."
+
+Mr. Carruthers felt and looked rather conscious and uneasy while Mr.
+Felton was making this explanation. Clare had a considerable
+involuntary share in the self-reproach and regret he was experiencing.
+His wife had been, to a certain extent, sacrificed to her, and the
+remembrance disconcerted him. As for George, where was all his
+resentment against his stepfather now? Where was all his exultation
+that he and destiny united had outwitted the proud and pompous old
+tyrant, as he had called him in his thoughts, and brought about a
+meeting, which his inner consciousness told him had had no trifling
+result for either, between him and the jealously-guarded heiress? It
+augured well for George's future that he felt deeply sorry at the
+moment the girl's name was mentioned that his stepfather had sustained
+this unintentional and unknown wrong at his hands. As things were
+going now, he and Clare might have met, in all probability, openly and
+blamelessly; and George felt, in his altered mood, that he would
+willingly part with the romance and mystery which now attended their
+acquaintance to escape from the sense that he had been uncandid, that
+he had misled the girl by her ardent fancy, and under the temptation
+of resentment against his stepfather. It was too late now, as George
+felt bitterly, for such regret; the future would enable him only so
+far to retrieve the past as the most scrupulous abstinence from
+availing himself of the opportunity whose occurrence he now regretted
+might retrieve it. Clare would probably know him in his true character
+soon; for he saw at once that Mr. Carruthers, having taken the
+generous resolution, had taken it thoroughly; and she would despise
+him for the deceit he had practised towards her, forgetting, in his
+hot-headed resentment against her uncle, and infatuation with herself,
+that such knowledge must come, and such contempt come with it. Heavily
+the punishment of the past was falling upon George Dallas, even in
+this hour of reconciliation, or rehabilitation, of absolute good
+fortune. His uncle had been impressed in his favour beyond his
+expectations; he had learned not to expect much from young men and
+only sons; and George had been perfectly candid with him, so that the
+elder man had gained an insight into his character, full of
+encouragement and hope. Mr. Felton had told him that he should make
+his future safe, so far as pecuniary independence could secure it; and
+though George had suffered severely from want of money, and knew well
+from how much evil he might have been preserved by its possession, he
+did not over-estimate the extent of that security; so that the tide of
+fortune had indeed turned for the prodigal son. But the husks were
+still between his teeth, and bitter in his mouth. There were two women
+in the world infinitely dear to him, and he had injured them both:
+the one, probably, mortally; the other basely, as he now knew and
+felt--how severely, time alone could tell. The fortune with which his
+uncle would endow him could not purchase the reversal of these facts;
+the respectability with which he could cover the past could not efface
+that stain.
+
+"As a man soweth, so shall he reap;" and harvest-time was heavy for
+George.
+
+Thus thinking, George's attention had wandered from the conversation
+between the others, and was only recalled by Mr. Felton's addressing
+him directly.
+
+"Your mother was always in possession of your address, George, was she
+not?"
+
+"Certainly," replied George, "until lately--until her illness. I left
+London for Amsterdam just before it commenced, and did not hear from
+or write to her, beyond a few lines, until I got your letter, sir,"
+turning to Mr. Carruthers.
+
+"That decides it, you see," continued Mr. Felton, in pursuance of the
+remarks which George had not heard. "My sister evidently never
+received any letter or message from Arthur, or, as you suggest, she
+would have put George in communication with him. I can only conclude
+that he left England again to return to some of his continental
+haunts--they were not too reputable," said Mr. Felton bitterly--"and
+has not yet returned. I must only wait, and for every reason I had
+better wait here."
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Carruthers. "I am very sorry you should have
+anything to distress you, in addition to my wife's illness, in coming
+to England, especially in connection with your son."
+
+A footman--one of the "suite" who had attended Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers
+of Poynings on their departure from that deserted locality--now
+entered, and announced that Dr. Merle had arrived. As it had been
+previously arranged that Mr. Carruthers should consult that high
+authority in their absence, the uncle and nephew took their hats and
+went out into the prim little garden, whence they reached the shady
+road. There they paced up and down, passing and passed by the groups
+of loungers, some of whom were attracted by the preoccupied and
+serious air with which the two gentlemen conversed.
+
+"If I did not know that he had sufficient money to last for a longer
+time than I have been without news of him, and also that he has a
+happy knack of making money wherever he may be, in some way or other,
+I should at once communicate with the police," Mr. Felton was saying.
+
+"Yes," said George; "but the worst of it is, we don't know what police
+to communicate with, whether English or foreign. If he had not taken
+his money out of the Liverpool bank, we might suppose him to be in
+England; but that looks conclusive, doesn't it?"
+
+"It certainly does," said Mr. Felton. "The only clue I have is the
+fact that he did draw the money, and wrote me the line I told you
+of"--he opened his pocket-book mechanically as he spoke, glanced
+at a letter placed within the leaves, replaced the book in his
+breast-pocket, and went on--"promising further particulars. It is
+almost incredible that he should be in England, and not have written
+again. My letters to him, addressed to the Liverpool bank, have not
+been sent for. He got one when he drew the money."
+
+"Yes, I know," said George. They had talked the matter over many
+times, and never drew nearer a conclusion. It was evident to George,
+on the present occasion, that the character of his uncle's
+apprehensions was undergoing a change. At first, he had treated his
+son's silence as only one additional example of the utter callousness
+and indifference to which the father was only too well accustomed.
+George, to whom his cousin was an utter stranger, had accepted his
+uncle's view of the matter, at first, unquestioned; but he had become
+unsatisfied and uncertain about it of late, and was anxious, without
+alarming Mr. Felton, to lead him to take active steps for obtaining
+information of the whereabouts of his son.
+
+"I feel satisfied he left England again, and knows nothing of my
+movements. He will write out to New York, however; and if he has only
+done so now, there will be some delay before he knows I am in Europe."
+
+"Don't you think," asked George, hesitatingly, "he would send to
+Liverpool for the letters, if he were in any uncertainty, before
+writing to New York? I confess I don't like his leaving them
+unclaimed. None of the reasons which may explain his silence reach to
+an explanation of that. I don't think you ought to let much more time
+go over. If you had a likeness of him--" He hesitated very much here,
+and looked aside at his uncle, who turned sharply towards him, and
+said:
+
+"Well! What! If I had a likeness--"
+
+"You might have had it copied, and the photographs distributed to the
+police; so that, if anything should be wrong--"
+
+"Wrong? In what sense, George? Do you begin to fear that anything has
+happened to him? You never said so at first."
+
+"Because I did not think so, uncle: and I am not seriously uneasy
+now--not at all; but I think a reasonable time has elapsed, and we
+ought now to make active inquiry. When he turns up, and finds out what
+trouble and anxiety he has given, he will be more considerate in
+future."
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Felton, with a sigh, "I don't think Arthur is open to
+any conviction of that kind. What do you think it best to do, now?"
+
+"Well, uncle, you see you have been three weeks in Europe, and those
+three weeks make a considerable addition to the time since you heard
+from him. If you write by the next mail to New York for a copy of his
+photograph-- You are sure you have not one with you?"
+
+"Quite sure. Since I found I had not one in my desk, I have searched
+everywhere among my luggage, but I have not one."
+
+"Well, then, if you write by this mail for a copy, and it is sent by
+return mail, if he has not turned up in the mean time, and things go
+on well here, I think you had better put the matter into the hands of
+the police. It is true you do not know whether Arthur is in England
+now, or abroad; but the last place in which you know him to have been
+is London, and from that information they must work."
+
+"True," said Mr. Felton; and then continued, in a slow reluctant tone,
+"I shrink from it, I confess. A matter which is placed in the hands of
+the police always implies something disgraceful; and though I don't
+expect to find that Arthur has disposed of his time and his money very
+creditably, I don't like to make so sure of it as I feel convinced a
+close investigation will make me."
+
+Mr. Felton spoke with some agitation, and George thrilled with a
+mingled feeling of pity and dread, he did not know of what. But he
+said, cheerily:
+
+"Well, sir, let us hope there will be no occasion for making any such
+investigation. You can't have an answer for nearly three weeks, and a
+great deal may happen in that time. Arthur may be here long before
+then, to answer for himself, and laugh at us for our anxiety about
+such a citizen of the world, old and new."
+
+"I don't like it," George thought, as he walked on in silence by the
+side of his uncle--"I don't like it. And it's very plain I am not the
+only black sheep in the family flock, nor, I suspect, the blackest. I
+will see that he writes to New York; and I will tell Routh all about
+this when he comes, and hear what he says. My uncle will not mind my
+telling him now, I dare say."
+
+"When do you expect your friends, George?" asked Mr. Felton, striking
+the chord of George's thought, after the fashion which every one knows
+and nobody can explain.
+
+"To-morrow, or the day after, sir," replied George. "Routh wrote from
+Paris yesterday."
+
+"I am sorry for Mrs. Routh," said Mr. Felton; "she's too secretive and
+too cautious, too silent and too cunning, for my fancy; but she is an
+interesting woman and a wonderfully good wife, I am sure, though of
+the stony order."
+
+"That is come to her lately," said George, in an eager tone, "since
+her health has failed so much. You cannot imagine what a different
+creature she was only a little while ago. She was as bright as the
+sunshine and as gay as a lark. She is, indeed, a wonderful wife--the
+most devoted I ever knew; and her usefulness in everything, in all a
+woman's ordinary ways and in many quite extraordinary, in all Routh's
+business matters, is marvellous. Even her delicate health, though she
+has lost her good looks very much, and her spirits quite, has not made
+any alteration in that. I cannot conceive what Routh would do without
+her."
+
+"H'm! I wonder if he is quite so uncertain," said Mr. Felton drily,
+and to George's surprise. "I don't like your friend, and I don't trust
+Mm."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked George. "Don't trust him? Do you mean that
+you don't trust his feelings or his conduct to Harriet?"
+
+"Precisely so, my dear boy. Mrs. Routh is a devoted wife; but I am
+very much mistaken--and remember I have been playing looker-on for a
+fortnight or so, and interested in my part, too, considering what you
+told me about yourself and these people--if she is not a very unhappy
+one. I do not pretend to explain my convictions, but I am quite clear
+about them. She loves Routh--that's plain enough--but she is miserable
+with him."
+
+"Do you really think so? She is dreadfully changed, I know, but I
+thought it might be only in consequence of her ill health. Miserable
+with him! At all events, he is not unkind to her. I know he is very
+anxious about her health; for he has left London, at much
+inconvenience and great risk of loss, to bring her here for the
+waters."
+
+"And for a turn at the gaming-tables for himself, I fancy. Routh has
+to me the air of a man who has been constrained into temporary
+respectability, and is heartily tired of it."
+
+"I am sorry you have so bad an opinion of him, sir," said George, who
+could not resist an uneasy impression that his uncle was right, and
+that the experiment of a renewed intimacy with Routh was not likely to
+be brilliantly successful, "for I was thinking of consulting him about
+the best way of finding out Arthur's whereabouts."
+
+"No, no," said Mr. Felton, quickly and emphatically; "say nothing to
+him about any business of mine; give the man no pretext to fasten an
+intimacy upon me. We want no cleverness of his kind in our work."
+
+"Very well, sir," said George. He was discontented with his uncle,
+because he had formed what the young man knew in his heart was a just
+opinion of Routh, and discontented with himself because he could not
+combat it. "Of course I will speak of your affairs to no one without
+your permission. But one thing I must say for Routh, I do think he
+loves his wife."
+
+"And I think he hates her," said Mr. Felton.
+
+They had turned in their walk, and were close by the little garden
+gate as he uttered these words. At that moment it opened, and a
+servant appeared. He told the two gentlemen that Mr. Carruthers wished
+to see them, and they followed him silently into the house.
+
+
+*     *     *     *     *
+
+
+"I am quite clear that the experiment may be tried with safety and
+advantage," said Dr. Merle, at the close of a long conversation with
+Mr. Felton and George Dallas. Dr. Merle was an elderly gentleman, with
+a bald head, a thin face, and eyes as piercing, as strong, and as
+resolute as those of an eagle; a sort of man to be "quite clear" about
+his ideas and decisions in general. "I have felt persuaded all along
+that the state of Mrs. Carruthers's nervous system was produced by a
+shock, though Mr. Carruthers had no knowledge of the fact, and could
+supply me with no particulars."
+
+Here was a pretty state of things; Mr. Carruthers of Poynings obliged
+to listen to a stranger informing him that his own wife had received a
+shock on his own premises without his knowledge, confirming the
+opinions of two other presuming individuals, and totally indifferent
+to the effect upon his feelings. But Mr. Carruthers of Poynings bore
+it wonderfully well. He actually nodded acquiescence towards the
+presumptuous doctor, and did not feel in the least angry.
+
+"Yes," repeated Dr. Merle, emphatically, "there has been a shock, no
+doubt about it. The nerves are still very weak, very much shaken, but
+the general health so much re-established, that I do not anticipate
+anything but the best results from the attempt to communicate a
+pleasant and happy impression to Mrs. Carruthers, though, owing to her
+distressing state just now, that impression must necessarily take the
+form of a shock also. But"--and Dr. Merle smiled, and looked at each
+of his hearers in turn--"I think you will agree with me, gentlemen,
+that there is little, if any, reliable evidence that any one was ever
+killed or hurt by an agreeable surprise. Mr. Carruthers has been so
+good as to convey to me that it would be an agreeable surprise to
+my patient to see him and her son together, and I am quite clear that
+the sooner the experiment is tried, and that Mrs. Carruthers knows
+there is also another pleasure in store for her"--with a bow to Mr.
+Felton--"the better."
+
+George stood up, and followed his stepfather mechanically. His
+conviction, from the first moment he had heard of his mother's state,
+had been strong that she would be roused to recollection by the sight
+of him, and restored to a condition which would permit him to
+dissipate the delusion which had so terribly affected her. He only
+knew the secret--he only could undo the ill. Should this fail, he
+would reveal all to Mr. Felton and to his stepfather, whose altered
+conduct to him had removed the danger of any ill results to his mother
+from such a revelation.
+
+Mr. Carruthers preceded George across a wide corridor to a large and
+airy room, where the windows were wide open--where white curtains
+fluttered in the air, scented by the breath of flowers. Just inside
+the door he motioned to George to remain there, and then approached a
+large chair, whose high back hid its occupant from George's sight. He
+stooped over the chair, and said, in a softer voice than the Poynings
+household had been accustomed to hear:
+
+"Laura, I have brought some one to see you this morning."
+
+George could not see from where he stood, but he concluded there was a
+sign of assent, for Mr. Carruthers beckoned him rapidly forward, and
+the next instant he was by his side, and had seen his mother's face.
+Another, and his mother had started up, and, with a piercing cry of
+"George! My son! my son!" had fallen senseless into his arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+MRS IRETON P. BEMBRIDGE.
+
+
+The experiment which Dr. Merle had sanctioned proved successful. The
+wise physician had calmed the apprehensions with which her husband and
+son regarded the swoon into which Mrs. Carruthers had fallen upon
+recognizing George, and had hinted that on her recovery the mother and
+son should be left alone.
+
+"The old gentleman," said Dr. Merle to Mr. Felton, "and a fine old
+gentleman he is--a little peculiar, but it would not do the world any
+harm to have a few more of this sort in it--has told me a good deal of
+the family history intentionally, and some of it unintentionally; and
+I have not the least doubt that the root of Mrs. Carruthers's disease
+is simply her son."
+
+"He has given her some trouble, I know," said Mark Felton, with a
+sigh; "but hardly so much as that comes to, I fancy."
+
+"Well, well, I won't be positive; but I think so. No young man ever
+tells all the truth about his follies; and, indeed, no middle-aged or
+old man, for that matter; and rely upon it, his mother knows more than
+any one else. She will do well, Mr. Felton. She sees him all right, no
+matter how wrong he may have been; there's nothing gravely amiss now.
+We may leave her to time now, and her son's society."
+
+"Do you think I may venture to see her soon?"
+
+"Impossible to say, for a day or two, my dear sir; impossible to say.
+Mr. Carruthers and Mr. Dallas must explain your coming to her. I don't
+prescribe _two_ shocks, you know, even pleasant ones; and then I have
+no doubt you will perfect the cure."
+
+Mr. Felton acknowledged the smooth speech with an absent sort of
+smile, and Dr. Merle took his leave.
+
+"You are sure there is nothing wrong with you, George? You are quite
+sure you are in no danger?" said Mrs. Carruthers, late in the
+afternoon of that day, to her son, as she lay quietly on a large sofa
+drawn close to the window, where the panes were glittering in the
+dying light. Her face was turned towards him, her dark eyes a little
+troubled, and not so bright as they had been, resting fondly and with
+a puzzled expression upon his face, and one thin hand fondly clasped
+in his. George was lying on the floor beside her sofa, his head
+resting against her pillow, and the fingers of her other hand were
+moving softly among his rich brown curls.
+
+"Nothing, indeed, mother. All is well with me--much, much better than
+I ever expected or hoped; but you must not agitate yourself, or ask
+any questions. Dr. Merle and Mr. Carruthers have put me on my honour
+not to talk to you of the past, and we must keep our word, you know;"
+and the young man tenderly kissed the hand he held in his.
+
+"Yes, yes," she said, in an absent, searching tone; "but there is
+something--there was something--I--"
+
+"Hush, mother! In the time to come you shall know everything, but for
+the present you must simply trust me. Indeed, there is nothing wrong.
+I am here with you, brought here and welcomed by Mr. Carruthers. You
+remember that he did not like me, and he had good cause; yes, he had
+good cause, but that is all over now. I am here with his full sanction
+and approbation, and you must be content to know that, to feel it, and
+_to rest_. You have to get strong and well now, mother, and then we
+shall all be quite happy."
+
+"Yes, George, yes. I can rest now," said his mother. And she nestled
+down upon her sofa, and he drew the coverings around her, and they
+both kept silence; and presently, in the autumnal evening, when the
+moon rose over the dark Taunus, and the lights began to sparkle all
+over the little white town, Mrs. Carruthers fell asleep, with her hand
+clasped in that of her son and her worn but always handsome face
+resting against his brown curls.
+
+The days went by, and with the lapse of each Mrs. Carruthers made an
+advance towards the recovery of her health and her faculties. Very
+shortly after their meeting George had spoken to her of his uncle; and
+though he found it difficult to fix her attention or engage her
+interest, he succeeded in ascertaining that she remembered all the
+circumstances of her brother's life, and that he had expressed a wish
+and intention to come to England.
+
+"Mark is not happy in his son," she said one day to Mr. Carruthers and
+George, who had been talking to her by preconcerted arrangement on the
+subject. "I fear he has given him a great deal of trouble. I remember
+in many of his letters he said he was not blessed, like me, with a son
+of whom he could be proud."
+
+George reddened violently as his mother's harmless words showed him.
+how she had concealed all her grief from her brother, and struck him
+with sudden shame and confusion in his stepfather's presence. Mr.
+Carruthers felt inexpressibly confused also; und as readiness was not
+the Grand Lama's forte, he blundered out:
+
+"Well, my dear, never mind about his son. You would be glad to see
+your brother Mark, wouldn't you?"
+
+Mrs. Carruthers looked earnestly at him as she raised herself from her
+pillows, and the faint colour in her cheek deepened into a dark flush
+as she said:
+
+"Glad to see my brother Mark! Indeed I should be. Is he here too?"
+
+So, after long years, the brother and sister met again; and Mark
+Felton was a little diverted from his anxiety about his son by the
+interest and affection with which his sister inspired him, and the
+strong hold which George Dallas gained upon the affections of a man
+who had been sorely wounded in his own hopes and expectations. He was
+not under any mistaken impression about his nephew. He knew that
+George had caused his mother the deepest grief, and had for a long
+time gone as wrong as a young man could go short of entering on a
+criminal career. But he divided the good from the evil in his
+character; he discerned something of the noble and the generous in the
+young man; and if he laid too much to the account of circumstances,
+and handled his follies too tenderly, it was because he had himself
+suffered from all the grief which profligacy, combined with cold and
+calculating meanness, can inflict upon a parent's heart.
+
+George Dallas yielded easily to the influence of happiness. His gay
+and pleasant manner was full of fascination, and of a certain easy
+grace which had peculiar charms for his Transatlantic uncle; and his
+love for his mother was a constant pleasure to her brother to witness,
+and an irresistible testimony to the unspoiled nature of the son.
+True, this affection had not availed to restrain him formerly; but the
+partial uncle argued that circumstances had been against the boy, and
+that he had not had fair play. It was not very sound reasoning, but
+there was nothing to contradict it just at present, and Mr. Felton was
+content to feel rather than to reason.
+
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Routh had arrived at Homburg immediately after Mr. Felton
+and George had reached that place of fashionable resort. Their
+lodgings were in a more central situation than those of Mr. and Mrs.
+Carruthers, and were within easy reach of all the means of diversion
+which the wicked little resort of the designing and their dupes
+commanded. George Dallas did not see much of Routh. He had been
+disturbed and impressed by Mr. Felton's exceedingly emphatic
+expression of opinion respecting that gentleman; he had been filled
+with a vague regret, for which now and then he took himself to task,
+as ungrateful and whimsical, for having renewed his intimacy with
+Routh. His levity, his callousness, respecting the dreadful event
+concerning which he had consulted him, had shocked George at the time,
+and his sense of them had grown with every hour's consideration of the
+matter (and they were many) in which he had since engaged. Nothing had
+occurred to him to reverse or weaken the force of Routh's opinion; but
+he could not get over his heartlessness. They met, indeed, frequently.
+They met when George and his uncle, or his stepfather, or both, walked
+about the town and its environs, or in the gardens; they met when
+George strolled about the salons of the Kursaal, religiously
+abstaining from play,--it was strange how the taste for it had passed
+away from him, and how little he suffered, even at first, in
+establishing the rule of self-restraint; but they rarely met in
+private, and they had not had half an hour's conversation in the week
+which had now elapsed since Routh and Harriet had arrived at Homburg.
+
+But George had seen Harriet daily. Every afternoon he escorted his
+mother during her drive, and then he called on Mrs. Routh. His visits
+tortured her, and yet they pleased her too. Above all, there was
+security in them. She should know everything he was doing; she should
+be quite sure no other influence, stronger, dangerous, was at work,
+while he came to her daily, and talked to her in the old frank way.
+Routh shrank from seeing him, as Harriet well knew, and felt, also,
+that there was security in his visits to her. "He will keep out of
+George's way, of course," she said to herself, when she acquiesced in
+the expediency of following Dallas to Homburg, and the necessity for
+keeping him strictly in sight, for some time at least. "He will not
+undertake the daily torture. No; that, too, must be my share. Well, I
+am tied to the stake, and there is no escape; only an interval of
+slumber now and then, more or less rare and brief. I don't want to tie
+him to it also--he could not bear it as I can."
+
+And she bore it well--wonderfully well, on the whole, though the
+simile of bodily torture is not overdrawn as representing what she
+endured. By a sort of tacit mutual consent, they never alluded to
+Deane, or the discovery of the murder. George, who never could bear
+the sight of a woman's suffering, had a vivid recollection of the
+terrible emotion she had undergone when he disclosed the truth to her,
+and determined to avoid the subject for the future. She understood
+this, but she felt tolerably certain that if any new complication
+arose, if any occasion of doubt or hesitation presented itself, George
+would seek her advice. She should not be kept in ignorance, and that
+was enough. She had ascertained, before they left London, that George
+had not mentioned the matter to Mr. Felton; and when the young man
+told her how otherwise complete his explanation with Mr. Felton had
+been, she felt a degree of satisfaction in the proof of her power and
+influence afforded by this reticence.
+
+The positive injunction which Mr. Felton had laid upon his nephew
+aided George's sensitiveness with respect to Harriet. He felt
+convinced that if his uncle had known her as he knew her, he would
+have been satisfied to confide to her the trouble and anxiety under
+which he laboured, and whose origin was assuming, to George's mind,
+increasing seriousness with every day which passed by without bringing
+news of Mr. Felton's son. But he would not, however he might find
+relief and counsel by doing so, discuss with Harriet a matter which he
+had been positively forbidden to discuss with her husband: he could
+not ask her secrecy without hurting her by an explanation of Mr.
+Felton's ill opinion of Routh. So it happened that these two persons
+met every day, and that much liking, confidence, and esteem existed on
+the man's part towards the woman, and yet unbroken silence was
+maintained on the subject which deeply engaged the minds of both.
+Philip Deane's name was never mentioned by Harriet, nor did Dallas
+speak of Arthur Felton.
+
+So Mrs. Carruthers improved in health. Mr. Carruthers was very
+gracious and affable to his stepson, and terribly nervous and anxious
+about his wife, on whom, if the worthy physician could have been
+brought to consent, he would have kept Dr. Merle in perpetual
+attendance, being incapable of recognizing the importance--indeed,
+almost the existence--of any patient of that gentleman's, except Mrs.
+Carruthers, of Poynings. Mr. Felton heard nothing of his son, and
+waited, frequently discussing the subject with Mr. Carruthers and his
+nephew; and the bright sweet autumn days went on. Afterwards, when
+George reviewed their course, and pondered on the strange and wayward
+ways through which his life had lain, he thought of the tranquillity,
+the lull there had been in that time, with wonder.
+
+The change of scene, the physical effort, a certain inevitable
+deadening effect produced by the lapse of time, more powerful in cases
+of extreme excitement than its space would seem to warrant, had had
+their effect on Harriet's spirits and appearance. She looked more like
+herself, George thought, when he came to make her his daily visit.
+Perhaps he had become more accustomed to the change he had noted with
+solicitude on his return to London; she was certainly more cheerful.
+He did not take account of the fact that he did not see her in Routh's
+company, though his uncle's comment on her husband's feelings towards
+her frequently and painfully recurred to him. Harriet questioned him
+frequently about his mother, and George, full of gratitude for her
+kindness and sympathy, spoke freely of her, of his uncle, of the
+altered position in which he stood with his stepfather, and of his
+improved condition and hopes. There were only two persons of interest
+to him whom he did not mention to Harriet. They were Arthur Felton and
+Clare Carruthers.
+
+"Have you ever been to the Kursaal in the evening?" he asked
+Harriet one day, as they were talking, and looking at the groups of
+gaily-dressed men and women lounging past the window where they were
+seated.
+
+"Yes, I have gone in there once or twice with Stewart; but I got tired
+of it very soon, and I don't want to go again."
+
+"My uncle met an old acquaintance there last evening," George went on;
+"he does not particularly care about it either; but we were strolling
+about the gardens until rather late, and then we went in and had a
+look at the ball-room. I had been watching a lady for some time,
+out-and-out the best dancer in the room, when she came up to my uncle
+and spoke to him, and I find out she is quite a celebrity here."
+
+"Indeed," said Harriet, not vehemently interested.
+
+"Yes, quite," said George; "and judging by what my uncle says, I
+should think she was a celebrity in New York too. I should like to
+show her to you, Mrs. Routh; she is like one of those impossible women
+in the American novels, with clusters of currants made in carbuncles,
+and bunches of cherries in flawless rubies, in their hair--you know
+the kind of thing I mean. I fancy the Phoenix would look shy about
+insuring her wardrobe, and Hancock feel dubious about matching her
+diamonds. Such a twinkling, flashing, guttering, coaxing, flippant
+mortal I never met in my life. I wonder if she dresses as gorgeously
+under the sunshine as under the gas."
+
+"She has quite taken your fancy, George. Did Mr. Felton introduce
+you?"
+
+"Yes. There she stood, looking up in his face, but I am quite sure
+seeing me and every other person in the room at the same time, and
+chattering like a Yankee magpie; so my uncle presented me to--Mrs.
+Ireton P. Bembridge, as he called her, in American fashion. She was
+there, with a whole host of people, and I didn't fancy them, 'ke-inder
+didn't,' as she would say, no doubt, and went away as soon as I
+could."
+
+"Is she a widow?"
+
+"Yes--at least, I think so; I heard nothing of Ireton P."
+
+"She will be cultivating your uncle, or yourself, George. A handsome,
+rich young widow, and an old acquaintance of your uncle's, eh?"
+
+"I don't feel in the least like it, Mrs. Routh, and I am sure the
+sparkling, flashing, dashing lady I met last night would fly at no
+such mean quarry. I have rather a notion, too, that my uncle does not
+like her."
+
+"Have you? Did he seem displeased at the meeting?"
+
+"Not exactly displeased--but--but I am beginning to understand him now
+wonderfully well, and in some things he is so like my mother. Now,
+with her I can always feel whether she likes a person or not without
+her saying a word--I could formerly, I mean, when she was more
+susceptible to impressions than she is now. It's just the same in my
+uncle's case; and I knew, in a minute, he didn't like Mrs. Ireton P.
+Bembridge."
+
+"Where is she staying? At the 'Quatre Saisons,' I suppose?"
+
+"No," said George; "she has one of the Schwarzchild houses. You know
+them, Mrs. Routh?"
+
+"Yes, I know them," said Harriet. "I saw the Frau Schwarzchild
+yesterday, rejoicing in a pink parasol with a coral handle, set with
+turquoises in clumps."
+
+"That's the woman. Shouldn't wonder if the parasol were a waif from
+the wardrobe of Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge. She has, then, one of those
+huge houses for herself and her attendants."
+
+"Did she tell you all this in the ball-room?"
+
+"All _this?_ Bless your innocence, she got through such trivialities
+as these in about two minutes. I might have heard her whole history,
+and Ireton P.'s, no doubt, particulars of his last illness--if he had
+a last illness--included, if I had asked her to dance. And, by Jove!"
+said George, starting up and pushing back the muslin curtain which
+impeded Harriet's view of the street somewhat, "there she is, coming
+down the street in a pony-carriage, and looking like a whole triumphal
+procession on one set of wheels."
+
+Harriet looked out with an assumption of more curiosity than she felt.
+In a low, elegant, but rather over-ornamented equipage, drawn by two
+gray ponies, likewise rather over-ornamented, but very handsome and of
+great value, sat a lady of beauty as undeniable as that of her horses,
+and elegance as striking as that of her carriage. Woman-like, Harriet
+remarked the magnificence of her dress before she noticed the beauty
+of her face, set off as it was by the aid of the most perfect hat and
+feather ever put together by the milliner's art. That beauty was at
+once of the correct and the sparkling order. Her features were of
+statuesque regularity, but they had all the piquant brilliancy of
+rich, glowing, passionate life. Cheeks and lips flushed with the full
+colour of health, masses of hair of the darkest, glossiest brown
+coiled up in endless braids and rolls under the inimitable hat; eyes
+so dark that to call them black was a venial exaggeration; teeth which
+shone like jewels; and in the face, the air, over the whole person and
+equipment of the woman, from the wrists outstretched over the reins
+she held, and on which broad bands of jewels flashed, to the tip of
+the satin boot which protruded beneath the silken carriage-wrap spread
+daintily over her knees, an intolerable consciousness and domineering
+boldness which was simply odious. Her ponies were stepping leisurely;
+her glittering eyes were looking right and left, as though she were
+searching for some one among the scattered groups she passed, and
+every member of which stared at her without disguise. As much of her
+dress as could be seen was a magnificent mixture of satin and lace and
+jewels; and even in her dress there was a daring, reckless something,
+indefinable but distinct, which made the gazers feel that in staring
+at her there was no offence.
+
+"Stunning, isn't she, Mrs. Routh? I beg your pardon for the slang, but
+there is really no other word. Blinding, dazzling, and all the rest of
+it."
+
+"Stunning, certainly, George," said Harriet, smiling; "but, somehow, I
+don't think you care particularly to be stunned."
+
+"Not in the least. She is not a bit my style;" and George, thinking of
+what "his" style was, and how widely it differed from the triumphant
+figure in the ornate carriage out there, let the muslin curtain drop,
+and turned away from the window. Harriet sat down and took up her
+work.
+
+"A woman whom men would love for a little while, and hate bitterly
+after, I fancy; but whom women would hate at once, and always."
+
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had not found among the loungers in the town
+the individual whom her bright black eyes were seeking, when George
+Dallas and Harriet Routh had marked her from the window. She had
+driven rapidly away past the gardens and the Schloss, and when fully
+two miles outside the town she overtook a gentleman sauntering
+leisurely along, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and his
+moody eyes fixed upon the ground. The carriage was close upon him
+before he looked round, though the sound made by the wheels and the
+trotting horses had been distinct in the clear air, as they came along
+the empty road. Then he turned and greeted the lady with effusion. In
+a moment he had taken his place beside her, and was whirled away into
+the green and golden distance of the forest, under the brow-crest of
+Taunus.
+
+"How very odd that you should know him," said the gorgeous lady of the
+pony-carriage to the gentleman seated beside her, as she walked her
+ponies along a shady road, where the slim trees stood on guard on
+either side, and the fallen leaves rustled under the wheels.
+
+"Not so very odd. He is a near relative of one of my most intimate
+friends."
+
+"Ah, his nephew, I suppose you mean, a tall young man with good eyes,
+and a remarkably rich expression of countenance."
+
+"I recognize the description certainly, and it is not flattering. That
+is the individual; his name is Dallas."
+
+"A booby, I'm convinced. How he can be an intimate friend of yours I
+cannot understand."
+
+She said this rather sulkily, which, by adding to its character of
+sincerity, made the indirect flattery in which she was a proficient
+all the more delicious. Her companion's eyes flashed with pleasure as
+he turned them upon her with a look which she did not raise her eyes
+to receive, but which dyed her cheek a deeper rose-tint than before.
+Then she went on:
+
+"He is come here with Mr. Felton to meet his cousin, I suppose. Arthur
+Felton will not like that, I fancy. He regarded this fine family
+reunion as a very decided nuisance, I can assure you."
+
+"I don't quite understand you," her companion said. "Mr. Felton's son
+is not here, that I know of; he certainly had not arrived yesterday,
+for Dallas was at my lodgings, and would have been sure to mention
+it."
+
+"No," replied the lady, with a slow provoking smile, which lighted her
+eyes up with mischief, and showed more of her faultless teeth than
+always glistened on the world. "I know he is not here, but he is
+coming. I gave him a rendezvous here for this very week, in Paris,
+last March."
+
+The gentleman looked at her in such extreme surprise that it quite
+amused her. She did not only smile now, she laughed.
+
+"I will explain my meaning," she said, "in very few words. I have
+known the Feltons all my life, and Arthur has been more or less in
+love with me since he was a boy; rather less than more, perhaps, for
+that's his way, and not at all to the detriment of his being quite as
+much in love with any number of women besides. He and his father never
+got on well. Mr. Felton did not like 'his ways' as the goodies and
+gossips say, and, in particular, he did not like his being in love
+with me, for he can't bear me. Frightfully bad taste, isn't it? Get
+along, President," this to one of the ponies, as she touched him up
+with her whip; "you've had walking enough. Awfully bad taste--thank
+you, you needn't say yes; you're looking unutterable things. Of
+course, I don't mind that particularly, and I don't care for Arthur
+Felton in the ve-ry least," with a most enchanting drawl and the
+faintest pout of the crimson lips. "He made himself a perfect nuisance
+in Paris, and I really must have quarrelled with him, if I had not
+gone away with some friends who wouldn't have Arthur--no, not in the
+ve-ry least," and she repeated the before-mentioned little performance
+quite enchantingly.
+
+"But you agreed to meet him here?" said her companion, very moodily.
+
+"Agreed to meet him here! How ridiculous you are! I gave him
+rendezvous, which I beg to observe is not precisely the same thing as
+agreeing to meet him."
+
+"_Sounds_ like it," said the gentleman, still more sulkily.
+
+"Very true; but it isn't. I meant to come here--I always lay my plans
+long beforehand--just at this time, and I thought I might as well let
+him come here as have him constantly teasing me in the mean time. It
+was a long while off, remember." And her black eyes danced with
+mischief and enticement.
+
+"And where is he now?" asked her companion, after he had given her
+another look which brought the burning colour to her cheeks once more.
+
+"How on earth should _I_ know?" was her answer; and as she made it she
+turned her head round, and looked him full in the face. "How on earth
+should I know?" she repeated. "You don't imagine, I suppose, that I
+correspond with all the friends of my youth. No, no; I never think of
+people when they are out of my sight. I have no one that I care about
+enough to think of in absence, and I never write a letter if I can
+possibly avoid it."
+
+"I understood, when Mr. Felton came to London, he had not heard from
+his son for some time, and he has certainly not seen him there."
+
+"Very likely; Master Arthur is not a particularly dutiful son.
+However, his father will see him here, if he stays till next week,
+that's a fact."
+
+"What sort of person is Mr. Felton's son? I can't say I admire the
+old gentleman much."
+
+"No! Don't get on with him? I should think not, neither do I; but
+Arthur's not in the ve-ry least like him. Not nearly so good-looking;
+not like the Feltons, I should say, at all; like his mother. His
+cousin, though he's a big booby, is a good-looking fellow, and looks
+like a gentleman. Now that's just what Arthur does not look like."
+
+"And what is just what he does look like?" asked her companion, who
+took what he thought was a secret pleasure in hearing this unknown
+admirer of the beautiful woman who had captivated his fancy spoken of
+in depreciating terms. But he was quite mistaken. Mrs. Ireton P.
+Bembridge discerned this amiable sentiment with perfect distinctness,
+and gave it all the nutriment to be supplied by the most consummate
+and dexterous coquetry.
+
+"H'm!" she said, with a bewitching air of thought and deliberation.
+"What does Arthur Felton look like? Very like a Yankee, and a little
+like a Jew;" and she laughed most musically.
+
+
+As Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge drove her gray ponies towards the little
+white town, the carriage passed, near a turn in one of the level shady
+roads, a bench placed between two tall slim trees. Between the bench
+and the road lay a broad pathway, with a grassy edge. A lady,
+simply-dressed, of a small slight figure, and whose face was bent
+downwards, but in whose air there was unmistakable refinement, was
+sitting on the bench, and leaning a little forward, was making marks on
+the ground with her parasol, less in idleness than in the abstraction
+of thought. As the ponies trotted merrily by, and their mistress
+laughed, rather loudly but musically, the lady looked up, and the eyes
+of the two women met. The gentleman who sat by the fair American, and
+who was on the side of the carriage nearest to the pathway, was so
+absorbed in the animated conversation being carried on between them,
+that he did not notice the solitary figure, nor see that anything had
+attracted his companion's attention. Indeed, the attraction was but
+momentary; the look had hardly been interchanged before the carriage
+whirled past Harriet Routh.
+
+She came forward upon the footpath, and looked after the fast-receding
+figure of her husband, as he bent deferentially towards the woman she
+had seen that morning, until she could see it no longer; and still
+stood there when the level shaded road was blank and empty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+ON THE BALCONY.
+
+
+"Are you going out this evening, Stewart?" asked Harriet Routh of her
+husband, as they sat together, after their dinner--which had not been
+a particularly lively meal--was removed. She did not look at him as
+she put the question, but gazed out of the window, holding back the
+curtain, while she spoke. Stewart Routh was examining the contents of
+a heap of letters which lay on the table before him, and did not
+answer for a moment. She repeated the question:
+
+"Are you going out anywhere this evening, Stewart?"
+
+"Of course I am going out," he answered impatiently. "Why do you ask?
+I am not going to be mewed up here in this stifling room all the
+evening."
+
+"No, of course not," she answered very gently and without an
+inflection in her voice to betray that she perceived the irritation of
+his tone. "Of course not. You go out every evening, as every one else
+does here. I only asked because I think of going with you."
+
+"_You_, Harry?" he said, with real embarrassment, but with feigned
+cordiality. "That is a sudden start. Why, you have never been out in
+the evening since we've been here but once, and then you seemed to
+dislike the place very much. Have you not been out to-day?"
+
+"Yes, I have. I walked a long way to-day. But I have a fancy to go to
+the Kursaal this evening. George Dallas tells me a number of new
+people have come, and I have a fancy to see them."
+
+Stewart Routh frowned. He disliked this fancy of his wife's; he did
+not understand it. Harriet had always shrunk from strangers and
+crowds, and had gone to Homburg very unwillingly. On their first
+arrival, when he would have been tolerably willing to take her about
+with him, though he felt a growing repugnance to her society, she
+would not go out except to drink the waters early in the day, and now,
+on an occasion when it was particularly inconvenient to him, she took
+a fancy to go out. Besides, he hated the mention of George Dallas's
+name. There was a tacit sympathy between him and Harriet on this
+point. True, she bore the pain of his daily visits, but then she was
+accustomed to bearing pain. But she rarely spoke of him, and she knew
+his intercourse with Routh was very slight and casual. Harriet
+possessed even more than the ordinary feminine power of divination in
+such matters, and she felt instinctively that Mr. Felton both disliked
+and distrusted her husband.
+
+"It is fortunate we do not want to use Dallas for our purpose any
+longer," Harriet had said to herself on only the second occasion of
+her seeing the uncle and nephew together--"very fortunate; for Mr.
+Felton would be a decided and a dangerous antagonist. Weak and
+wavering as George is, his uncle could rule him, I am sure, and would
+do so, contrary to us." This impression had been confirmed since
+Harriet had watched, as she was in the habit of doing, the proceedings
+of Mr. Felton and George at Homburg. When George visited her, he
+rarely mentioned Routh, and she knew they had not dined together ever
+since they had been there. Assisted, insensibly, by his uncle's
+opinion and influence, George had emancipated himself, as all his
+reflections had dictated, but all his resolutions had failed to
+accomplish. So Harriet ceased to mention George to Routh, and thus it
+was that her speech jarred unpleasantly upon his ear.
+
+"Indeed," he said. "I should think Dallas a very poor judge of what is
+or is not likely to amuse you. However, I'm sorry I can't take you out
+this evening. I have an engagement."
+
+Still she kept her head turned from him and looked out of the window.
+He glanced at her uneasily, cleared his throat, and went on:
+
+"I promised to meet Hunt and Kirkland at the tables to-night and try
+our luck. I'm sorry for it, Harry, and I'll keep to-morrow evening
+quite free. That will do for you, won't it?"
+
+"Yes," she replied; "that will do."
+
+She did not look round, and he did not approach her. He fidgeted about
+the room a little, sorted his letters, tied them up in a bundle,
+locked them into his travelling desk, and finally, with another uneasy
+glance at her, he left the room. Harriet sat quite still, her hand
+upon the curtain, her face towards the window. So she sat for several
+minutes after he had left the house, in evening dress, with a loose
+paletot on, and she had seen him go down the street towards the
+Kursaal. Then she wrote a few lines to George Dallas, and, having sent
+her note, once more seated herself by the window. The room was
+darkening in the quick coming night, and her figure was indistinct in
+its motionless attitude by the window, when George came gaily into her
+presence.
+
+"Here I am, Mrs. Routh. What are your commands? Nothing wrong with
+you, I hope? I can't see you plainly in the dusk. Where's Routh?"
+
+"He has gone out. He had an engagement, and I have a particular fancy
+to go out this evening, to see the world; in fact, at the Kursaal, in
+particular. You are always so kind and obliging, I thought, as Stewart
+could not take me, if your mother did not particularly want you this
+evening, you might give me your escort for an hour."
+
+"Too delighted," said George, with genuine pleasure. "I am quite free.
+Mr. Carruthers is with my mother, and my uncle is writing letters for
+the American mail."
+
+Harriet thanked him, and left the room; but returned almost
+immediately, with her bonnet on, and wearing a heavy black lace veil.
+
+"You will be smothered in that veil, Mrs. Routh," said George, as they
+left the house. "And you won't get the full benefit of this delightful
+evening air."
+
+"I prefer it," she said; "there are some men here, friends of Stewart,
+whom I don't care to see."
+
+They went on, almost in silence, for Harriet was very thoughtful, and
+George was wondering what made her so "low," and whether these friends
+of Routh's were any of the "old set." He hoped, for Harriet's sake,
+Routh was not playing recklessly. He was very clever, of course, but
+still--and with all the wisdom and the zeal of his present mental and
+moral condition, George shook his head at the idea of a deflection
+into gambling on the part of Routh.
+
+The often-described scene at the Kursaal displayed all the customary
+features. Light, gilding, gaiety, the lustre and rustle of women's
+dress, the murmur of voices and the ring of laughter in all the rooms
+not devoted to play; but at the tables, silence, attention, and all
+the variety which attends the exhibition of the passion of gambling in
+all its stages. From the careless lounger, who, merely passing through
+the rooms, threw a few florins on the table to try what the game was
+like, to the men and women who lived for and in the hours during which
+the tables were open to them, all, with the intermediate ranks of
+votaries and degrees of servitude, were there.
+
+George was so accustomed to Harriet's retiring manners, and so
+prepared to find the scene distasteful to her, that he did not notice
+her unwillingness to assume a prominent position in any of the rooms
+through which they passed. As they entered each, she drew him a little
+behind the crowd in occupation, and talked to him about the style of
+the apartment, its decoration, the brilliancy of its light--in short,
+made any commonplace remarks which occurred to her.
+
+They were standing near the door of one of the saloons, and
+Harriet, though her veil was not lifted, was scanning from behind its
+shelter curiously, and with a rapid sharpness peculiar to her, the
+brilliant-dressed crowd, talking, laughing, flirting, lounging on the
+velvet seats, and some furtively yawning in the weariness of their
+hearts; when a sudden brisk general flutter and a pervading whisper
+attracted the attention of both. The movement was caused by the
+entrance of a lady, so magnificently dressed and so extremely handsome
+that she could not have failed to create a sensation in any resort of
+gaiety, fashion, and the pomp and pride of life. The voluminous folds
+of her blue satin dress were covered, overflowed rather, by those of a
+splendid mantilla of black lace, worn Spanish fashion over her head,
+where a brilliant scarlet flower nestled between the rich filmy fabric
+and the lustrous black brown hair coiled closely round it. She came
+in, her head held up, her bright black eyes flashing, her whole face
+and figure radiant with reckless beauty and assertion. Two or three
+gentlemen accompanied her, and her appearance had the same
+processional air which George had commented upon in the morning. The
+lady was Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge.
+
+"We're in luck, Mrs. Routh," said George. "Here comes my uncle's fair
+friend, or fair enemy, whichever she may he, in all her splendour.
+What a pity Mr. Felton is not here! Perhaps she will speak to me."
+
+"Perhaps so," whispered Harriet, as she slipped her hand from under
+his arm, and sat down on a bench behind him. "Pray don't move, please.
+I particularly wish to be hidden."
+
+At this moment, Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, advancing with her train,
+and amid the looks of the assembly, some admiring, some affecting the
+contemptuous, and a few not remarkably respectful, approached George.
+From behind him, where her head just touched the back of his elbow,
+Harriet's blue eyes were fixed upon her. But the triumphant beauty was
+quite unconscious of their gaze. She stopped for a moment, and spoke
+to George.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Dallas. Is Mr. Felton here? No? He is expecting his
+son, I suppose."
+
+"He does not know, madam. He has not heard from him."
+
+"Indeed! But Arthur is always lazy about letter-writing. However, he
+will be here soon, to answer for himself."
+
+"Will he? Do you know, my uncle is very anxious--"
+
+She interrupted him with a laugh and a slight gesture of her hand, in
+which the woman watching her discerned an insolent meaning, then said,
+as she passed on:
+
+"He knows where to find me, if he wants to know what I can tell him.
+Good evening, Mr. Dallas."
+
+"Did you hear that, Harriet?" said George, in an agitated voice, after
+he had watched the brilliant figure as it mingled with the crowd in
+the long saloon.
+
+"I did," said Harriet. "And though I don't understand her meaning, I
+think there is something wrong and cruel in it. That is a bold, bad
+woman, George," she went on, speaking earnestly; "and though _I_ am
+not exactly the person entitled to warn you against dangerous
+friends--"
+
+"Yes, yes, you are," interrupted George, eagerly, as he drew her hand
+again under his arm, and they moved on; "indeed you are. You are the
+best of friends to me. When I think of all the past, I hardly know how
+to thank you enough. All that happened before I went to Amsterdam, and
+the way you helped me out of my scrapes, and all that happened since;
+the good advice you gave me! Only think what would have happened to me
+if I had not acted upon it."
+
+He was going on eagerly, when she stopped him by the iron pressure of
+her fingers upon his arm.
+
+"Pray don't," she said. "I am not strong now. I can't talk of
+these--of anything that agitates me."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said George, soothingly. "I ought to have
+remembered. And also, Mrs. Routh, I know you never like to be thanked.
+What were you going to say when I thoughtlessly interrupted you?"
+
+"I was going to say," she replied, in quite her customary tone, "that
+I don't think this American lady would be a very safe friend, and that
+I don't think she feels kindly towards your uncle. There was something
+malicious in her tone. Is your uncle uneasy about his son?"
+
+The question put George into a difficulty, and Harriet, with unfailing
+tact, perceived in a moment that it had done so. "I remember," she
+said, "the tone in which Mr. Felton wrote of his son, in his first
+letter, was not favourable to him; but this is a family matter,
+George, and you are quite right not to tell me about it."
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Routh," said George. "You are always right, and
+always kind. I must tell my uncle what has passed this evening. Thus
+much I may say to you. He has had no news of his son lately, and will
+be very glad to receive any."
+
+"I don't think he will be glad to receive news of his son through
+_her_," said Harriet. All the time this conversation lasted she had
+been scanning the crowd through which they were moving, and noting
+every fresh arrival.
+
+"Shall we go into the gardens? the lights look pretty," she continued.
+
+George acquiesced, and they passed through the wide doors and down the
+broad steps into the gay scene over which the tranquil starlit sky
+spread a canopy of deep cloudless blue; the blue of tempered steel;
+the dark blue of the night, which is so solemnly beautiful.
+
+
+"Are you always so successful?" a voice, pitched to a low and
+expressive key, said to a lady, who sat, an hour later that night,
+with a heap of gold and silver beside her, under the brilliant light
+which streamed down over the gaming-tables and their occupants, but
+lighted up no such dauntless, bright, conquering beauty as hers. The
+man who had spoken stood behind her; his hand rested on the back of
+her chair, and was hidden in the folds of the laced drapery which fell
+over her dress. She gave him an upward, backward flash of her black
+eyes, and answered:
+
+"Always, and in everything. I invariably play to win. But sometimes I
+care little for the game, and tire of it in the winning. Now, for
+instance, I am tired of this."
+
+"Will you leave it, then?"
+
+"Of course," and she rose as she spoke, took up her money, dropped it
+with a laugh into a silver-net bag, a revival of the old gypsin, which
+hung at her waist, and, drawing her lace drapery round her, moved
+away. The man who had spoken followed her closely and silently. She
+passed into one of the saloons, and out into a long balcony, on which
+a row of windows opened, and which overlooked the gardens filled with
+groups of people.
+
+A band was stationed in one of the rooms which opened upon the
+terrace, and the music sounded pleasantly in the still air.
+
+"And so you are always successful!" said the man who had spoken before
+to the lady, who leaned upon the balcony, with light from within just
+tingeing the satin of her dress, and the faint light of the moon and
+stars lending her grace and beauty a softened radiance which well
+became them, though somewhat foreign to them. "I believe that firmly.
+Indeed, how could you fail? I cannot fancy you associated with defeat.
+I cannot fancy anything but triumph for such a Venus Victrix as you
+are!"
+
+"You say very pretty things," was the slightly contemptuous answer,
+"and you say them very well. But I think I am a little tired of them,
+among other things. You see, I have heard so many of them, ever since
+I can remember. In fact, I have eaten bonbons of every kind, of all
+the colours, as they say in Paris, and they pall upon my taste now."
+
+"You are not easily understood," said her companion; "but you are the
+most enchanting of enigmas."
+
+"Again!" she said, and held up an ungloved hand, on which jewels shone
+in the dim mixed light.
+
+"Yes, again and again!" he replied, and he drew nearer to her, and
+spoke eagerly, earnestly, in low fervent tones. She did not shrink
+from him; she listened, with her arms wrapped in her lace mantle,
+resting upon the balcony, the long black eyelashes shading her eyes,
+and the head, with the scarlet flower decking it, bent--not in
+timidity, but in attentive thought. The man leaned with his back
+against the balcony and his face turned partly towards her, partly
+towards the open windows, through which the light was shining. The
+lady listened, but rarely uttered a word. It was a story, a narrative
+of some kind, which her companion was telling, and it evidently
+interested her.
+
+They were alone. The rooms within filled, and emptied, and filled
+again, and people rambled about them, went out upon the terrace and
+into the gardens; but no one intruded upon the _tête-á-tête_ upon the
+balcony.
+
+A momentary pause in the earnest, passionate flow of her companion's
+speech caused the lady to change her position and look up at him.
+"What is it?" she said.
+
+"Nothing. Dallas passed by one of the windows just now, and I thought
+he might have seen me. He evidently did not, for he's just the
+blundering fool to have come out here to us if he had. It never would
+occur to him that he could be in any one's way."
+
+There was an exasperation in his tone which surprised the lady. But
+she said, calmly, "I told you I thought him a booby." She resumed her
+former position, and as she did so the scarlet flower fell from her
+hair over the parapet. Her companion did not notice the accident,
+owing to his position. She leaned a little more forward to see where
+the flower had fallen. A lady, who had, no doubt, been passing along
+the terrace under the balcony at the moment, had picked it up. Mrs.
+Ireton P. Bembridge saw the blossom with the deep red colour in the
+lady's hand as she walked rapidly away, and was lost to sight at the
+end of the terrace.
+
+A little more time passed, and the American lady and her companion
+left the balcony, passed through the central hall, and reached the
+grand entrance of the Kursaal. A close carriage was in waiting, into
+which the gentleman handed her.
+
+"Where is the flower you wore in your hair to-night?" he said, as he
+lingered, holding the carriage door in his hand; "have you taken it
+out? Are you going to give it to me?" Exciting boldness was in his
+voice, and his keen dark eyes were aflame.
+
+"Impertinent! I lost it; it fell over the balcony while you were
+talking--talking nonsense, I fancy."
+
+"I will find it when you are gone. I may--No, I will keep it."
+
+"Some one has been too quick for you," she said, with a mischievous
+laugh. "I saw some one pick it up and walk off with it, very quickly
+too."
+
+"What? and you--"
+
+"Don't be foolish," she interrupted him; "shut the door, please, I'm
+cold. I want to pull the glass up--I want to get home. There,
+good-night. Pooh, are you a booby also? It was only a woman!"
+
+A brilliant light was given by the lamps in the portico, and it shone
+on her face as she leaned a moment from the carriage window and looked
+full at him, a marvellous smile on her curved lips and in her black
+eyes. Then the carriage was gone, and he was standing like a man in a
+dream.
+
+
+"Has Mrs. Routh come in?" George had asked, anxiously, of the English
+servant at Routh's lodgings, half an hour before.
+
+"Yes, sir; but she has gone to her room, and she told me to give you
+this."
+
+It was a note, written hastily in pencil, on a card:
+
+
+"I felt so ill, after you left me to get me the lemonade, that I was
+afraid to wait for your return, and came home at once. Pray forgive
+me. I know you will come here first, or I would send to your own
+house.
+
+"H. R."
+
+
+"Tell Mrs. Routh I hope to see her to-morrow," said George, "and to
+find her better." Then he walked slowly towards his mother's house,
+thinking as he went of Clare Carruthers, of the Sycamores, and of how
+still, and solemn, and stately that noble avenue of beeches in which
+he saw her first was then doubtless looking in the moonlight; thinking
+the harmless thoughts of a young man whom love, the purifier, has come
+to save. A carriage passing him with bright lamps, and a swift vision
+of sheeny blue seen for an instant, reminded him of Mrs. Ireton P.
+Bembridge, and turned his thoughts to the topic of his uncle's
+anxiety. When he reached home, he found Mr. Felton alone; and told him
+at once what had passed.
+
+"You are quite correct in supposing that I don't particularly like
+this woman, George," said Mr. Felton, after they had talked for some
+time, "and that I should prefer any other channel of intelligence. But
+we must take what we can get, and it is a great relief to get any. It
+is quite evident there's nothing wrong with him. I don't allude to his
+conduct," said Mr. Felton, with a sigh. "I mean as to his safety. I
+shall call on her to-morrow."
+
+George bade his uncle good-night, and was going to his own room, when
+a thought struck him, and he returned.
+
+"It has just occurred to me, uncle," he said, "that Mrs. Bembridge may
+have a likeness of Arthur. From the account you give of her, I fancy
+she is likely to possess such trophies. Now we may not require to use
+such a thing at all, and you have sent for one under any
+circumstances; still, when you see her, if you consider it expedient,
+you might ascertain whether she has one in her possession. If her
+information is not satisfactory, to have a likeness at hand will save
+time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.
+
+
+Mr. Fulton was scrupulously polite towards women. His American
+training showed in this particular more strongly than in any other,
+and caused him to contrast advantageously with the pompous and
+self-engrossed Mr. Carruthers of Poynings, who was not a general
+favourite in the small society with whom he condescended to mix while
+in "foreign parts," as he carefully designated the places of his
+sojourn which were so unfortunate as not to be under British rule. Mr.
+Carruthers was apt to apologize, or rather to explain, the temporary
+seclusion in which Mrs. Carruthers's delicate health obliged him to
+remain, on the rare occasions when he encountered any of his
+acquaintances with a highly offensive air of understanding and
+regretting the loss he was obliged to inflict upon them; and the
+innocent and worthy gentleman would have been very much astonished if
+it had been revealed to him that his condescension had generally the
+effect of irritating some and amusing others among the number of its
+recipients. The manners of his brother-in-law were at once more simple
+and more refined. There was no taint of egotism in them, and, though
+his engrossing cares, added to a naturally grave disposition, made him
+serious and reserved, every one liked Mr. Felton.
+
+Except Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, who disliked him as much as she could
+be at the trouble of disliking anybody--which, indeed, was not much,
+for her real nature was essentially trivial, and her affections,
+except for herself and her enmities, alike wavering, weak, and
+contemptible. Mr. Felton neither liked nor respected the brilliant
+woman who was so much admired and so very much "talked about" at
+Homburg; but he said nothing of his contumacious dissent from the
+general opinion except to George, and was gravely courteous and
+acquiescent when the lady, her dress, her ponies, her "dash," and her
+wealth--the latter estimated with the usual liberality of society in
+such cases--were discussed in his presence. They had been pretty
+freely discussed during a few days which preceded the conversation
+concerning her which had taken place between the uncle and nephew.
+When they met again on the following morning, George asked Mr. Felton
+when he intended to visit Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, and was informed
+that his uncle purposed writing to the lady to inquire at what time it
+be her pleasure and convenience to receive him. George looked a
+little doubtful on hearing this. The remembrance of Harriet's strongly
+expressed opinion was in his mind, and he had a notion that his uncle
+would have done more wisely had he sought her presence unannounced.
+But such a proceeding would have been entirely inconsistent with Mr.
+Felton's notions of the proper and polite, and his nephew dismissed
+the subject; reflecting that, after all, as she had said "he knows
+where to find me if he wants to know what I can tell him," she could
+not refuse to see him. So Mr. Felton's note was written and sent, and
+an answer returned which perfectly justified George's misgiving that
+if Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge were afforded an opportunity of offering
+Mr. Felton an impertinence, she would not hesitate to avail herself of
+it.
+
+The answer was curt and decisive. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was
+particularly engaged that day, and would be particularly engaged the
+next; on the third she would receive Mr. Felton at three o'clock. Mr.
+Felton handed the missive to his nephew with an expression of
+countenance partly disconcerted and partly amused.
+
+"I thought so," said George, as he tossed the dainty sheet of paper,
+with its undecipherable monogram and its perfume of the latest
+fashion, upon the table--"I thought so. We must only wait until
+Thursday, that is, unless we chance to meet your fair correspondent in
+our walks between to-day and Thursday."
+
+But Mr. Felton and his nephew did not chance to meet Mrs. Ireton P.
+Bembridge either on that or on the succeeding day. Once they saw her
+pony-carriage coming towards them, but it turned off into another
+road, and was out of sight before they reached the turn.
+
+"I am pretty sure she saw and recognized us," George Dallas thought;
+"but why she should avoid my uncle, except out of sheer spite, I
+cannot imagine."
+
+There was no farther to look for the lady's motive. Sheer spite was
+the highest flight of Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge's powers of revenge or
+anger. She was an accomplished and systematic coquette; and, having
+more brains than heart, however mediocre her endowments in either
+sense, she was perfectly successful. She disliked Mr. Felton, because
+he had never betrayed any admiration or even consciousness of her
+beauty, and it was very annoying to a woman of her stamp to have tried
+her arts unsuccessfully on an elderly man. She had tried them merely
+in an idle hour, and with the amiable purpose of enjoying the novelty
+of such a conquest; but she had failed, and she was irritated by her
+failure.
+
+If Mr. Felton had even sheltered himself behind the rampart of his
+years, it would have been more tolerable--if he had extended a kind of
+paternal protection to her, for instance. But he did not; he simply
+paid her ordinary attentions in his customary grave way, whenever he
+was brought in contact with her, and, for the rest, calmly ignored
+her. When his son appeared in her train, she had not the satisfaction
+of believing she could make the father wretched by encouraging him.
+Mr. Felton had graver cause than any she could help to procure for
+him, for disapproval of his son's conduct in most respects. She
+counted for nothing in the sum of his dissatisfaction, but she
+certainly became more distasteful to him when she was added to the
+number of its components. Mark Felton had wounded the sensitive
+self-love of a woman who knew no deeper passion. She was animated by
+genuine spite towards him, when she declined to accede to his request
+for an immediate interview.
+
+By what feeling was Stewart Routh, who was with her when she received
+Mr. Felton's note, and who strongly urged the answer she sent to it,
+actuated t He would have found it difficult to tell. Not jealousy; the
+tone in which she had spoken of Arthur Felton precluded that feeling.
+Routh had felt that it was genuine, even while he knew that this woman
+was deliberately enslaving him, and therefore was naturally suspicious
+of every tone in which she spoke of any one. But his judgment was not
+yet entirely clouded by passion; he had felt, in their brief
+conversation relative to Arthur Felton, that her tone had been true.
+He hated George Dallas now; he did not deceive himself about that.
+There was a vague dread and trouble in his thoughts concerning the
+young man. Once he had only despised him. He no longer despised him;
+but he hated him instead. And this hatred, further reaching than love,
+included all who were connected with George, and especially Mr.
+Felton, whose grave and distant manner, whose calm and penetrating
+glance, conveyed keen offence to Stewart Routh. They had not spoken of
+the matter to each other; but Routh had felt, as soon and as strongly
+as Harriet, that his influence over Dallas was at an end. As it
+happened, he had successfully used that influence for the last time in
+which he could foresee any need for its employment, and therefore Mr.
+Felton had not done him any practical injury; but that did not matter:
+he hated him all the same.
+
+He had watched the smile with which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge read Mr.
+Felton's note a little anxiously. He did not dare to ask her from whom
+the missive came, but she graciously gave him the information.
+
+"He wants to see me, to find out Master Arthur's doings," she said,
+with a ringing mischievous laugh. "Not that I know anything about him
+since he left Paris, and I shall have to look serious and listen to
+more preaching than goes well with the sunshine of to-day. It's
+rather a nuisance;" and the lady pouted her scarlet lips very
+effectively.
+
+"Don't see him," said Routh, as he leant forward and gazed at her with
+eager admiration. "Don't see him. Don't lose this beautiful day, or
+any part of it, for him. You can't give him any real information."
+
+"Except that his son is coming here," she said, slyly.
+
+"I forgot," said Stewart Routh, as he rose and walked moodily to the
+window.
+
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge smiled a little triumphantly, and said,
+gaily: "He shall wait for the news. I dare say it will be quite as
+welcome to-morrow."
+
+"Don't say to-morrow either," said Routh, approaching her again, as
+she seated herself at her writing-table, and bending so as to look
+into her eyes.
+
+"Why?" she asked, as she selected a pen.
+
+"Because I must go away on Thursday. I have an appointment, to meet a
+man at Frankfort. I shall be away all day. Let this anxious parent
+come to you in my absence; don't waste the time upon him."
+
+"And if the time does not seem so wonderfully precious to me, what
+then?" said the lady, looking straight at him, and giving to her voice
+a truly irresistible charm, a tone in which the least possible rebuke
+of his presumption was mingled with the subtlest encouragement. "What
+then?" she repeated. ("Decidedly, he is dreadfully in earnest," she
+thought.)
+
+"Then," said Routh, in a low hoarse voice, "then I do not say you are
+deceiving me, but I am deceiving myself."
+
+So Mr. Felton received the answer to his note, and found that he must
+wait until the following Thursday.
+
+People talked about Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge at Homburg as they had
+talked about her at New York and at Paris, at Florence and at Naples;
+in fact, in every place where she had shone and sparkled, distributed
+her flashing glances, and dispensed her apparently inexhaustible
+dollars. They talked of her at all the places of public resort, and in
+all the private circles. Mr. Felton was eagerly questioned about his
+beautiful compatriot by the people whom he met at the springs and in
+the gardens, and even by the visitors to Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers.
+Probably he did not know much about her; certainly he said little. She
+was a widow, without near relations, childless, and possessed of a
+large fortune. There was no doubt at all about that. Was she
+"received" in her own country? Yes, certainly. He had never heard
+anything against her. Her manners were very independent, rather too
+independent for European ideas. Very likely Mr. Felton was not a
+judge. At all events, ladies rarely visited the brilliant American.
+Indeed! But that did not surprise him. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge did
+not care for ladies' society--disliked it, in fact--and had no
+hesitation about saying so. Women did not amuse her, and she cared
+only for being amused. This, with the numerous amplifications which
+would naturally attend such a discussion, had all been heard by
+George, and was just the sort of thing calculated to excite the
+curiosity and interest of a young man of his disposition and
+antecedents. But it all failed to attract him now. Life had become
+very serious and real to George Dallas of late, and the image he
+carried about with him, enshrined in his memory, and sanctified in his
+heart, had nothing in common with the prosperous and insolent beauty
+which was the American's panoply.
+
+It was rather late in the afternoon of the day on which Mr. Felton had
+received Mrs. Bembridge's note, before George presented himself at
+Harriet's lodgings. He had been detained by his mother, who had kept
+him talking to her a much longer time than usual. Mrs. Carruthers was
+daily gaining strength, and her pleasure in her son's society was
+touching to witness, especially when her husband was also present. She
+would lie on her sofa, while the two conversed, more and more freely,
+as the air of making one another's acquaintance which had attended
+their first few days together wore off, and was replaced by pleasant
+companionship. At such times George would look at his mother with his
+heart full of remorse and repentance, and think mournfully how he had
+caused her all the suffering which had indirectly led to the result
+for which she had not dared to hope. And when her son left her, quiet
+tears of gratitude fell from his mother's eyes--those eyes no longer
+bright indeed, but always beautiful. There was still a dimness over
+her mind and memory: she was easily interested in and occupied with
+things and subjects which were present; and her son was by no means
+anxious for her entire awakening as to the past. Let the explanation
+come when it might, it must be painful, and its postponement was
+desirable. There were times, when they were alone, when George saw a
+troubled, anxious, questioning look in his mother's face, a look which
+betokened a painful effort of the memory--a groping look, he described
+it to himself--and then he would make some excuse to leave her, or to
+procure the presence of a third person. When they were no longer
+alone, the look gradually subsided, and placid calm took its place.
+
+That calm had been uninterrupted during their long interview on the
+morning in question. For the first time, George talked to his mother
+of his literary plans and projects, of the fair measure of success
+which had already attended his efforts, of his uncle's generosity to
+him--in short, of every pleasing subject to which he could direct her
+attention. The time slipped by unnoticed, and it was with some
+self-reproach that George found he had deferred his visit to Harriet
+to so late an hour.
+
+This self-reproach was not lessened when he reached Harriet's
+lodgings. He found her in her accustomed seat by the window, but
+totally unoccupied, and his first glance at her face filled him with
+alarm.
+
+"You are surely very ill, Mrs. Routh," he said. "There is something
+wrong with you. What is it?"
+
+Harriet looked at him with a strange absent look, as if she hardly
+understood him. He took her hand, and held it for a moment, looking at
+her inquiringly. But she withdrew it, and said:
+
+"No, there is nothing wrong with me. I was tired last night, that is
+all."
+
+"I am afraid you thought me very stupid, Mrs. Routh; and so I was
+indeed, to have kept you waiting so long, and not brought you the
+lemonade you wished for, after all. I was so frightened when I
+returned to the place where I had left you, and you were not there.
+The fact was, I got the lemonade readily enough; but I had forgotten
+my purse, and had no money to pay for it, so I had to go and find
+Kirkland in the reading-room, and got some from him."
+
+"Was he alone?"
+
+"Kirkland? O yes, alone, and bored as usual, abusing everybody and
+everything, and wondering what could possibly induce people to come to
+such a beastly hole. I hate his style of talk, and I could not help
+saying it was odd he should be one of the misguided multitude."
+
+"Did you see Mr. Hunt?"
+
+"Yes; he was just leaving when I met him, not in the sweetest of
+tempers. The way he growled about Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge (her mere
+name irritates him) amused me exceedingly."
+
+"Indeed. How has she provoked his wrath?"
+
+"I could not wait to hear exactly, but he said something about some
+man whom he particularly wanted as a 'pal' here--delightful way of
+talking, his! beats Kirkland's--having fallen into her clutches. I
+suppose he is left lamenting; but I fancy Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge is
+the safer companion of the two, unless the individual in question is
+uncommonly sharp."
+
+Harriet looked attentively and searchingly at George. His
+unconsciousness was evidently quite unfeigned, and she refrained from
+asking him a question that had been on her lips.
+
+"I came back to look for you as soon as ever I could get rid of Hunt,"
+continued George; "but you had disappeared, and then I came here at
+once. Routh had not come in, I think, then?"
+
+"No," said Harriet, curtly.
+
+Then the conversation drifted to other matters, and George,
+who felt unusually happy and hopeful that day, was proportionately
+self-engrossed, and tested Harriet's power of listening considerably.
+She sat before him pale and quiet, and there was never a sparkle in
+her blue eyes, or a flush upon her white cheek; yet she was not cold,
+not uninterested, and if the answers she made, and the interest she
+manifested, were unreal, and the result of effort, at least she
+concealed their falsehood well. He talked of his mother and of his
+uncle, and told her how Mr. Felton had made him a present of a
+handsome sum of money only that morning.
+
+"And, as if to prove the truth of the saying that 'it never rains but
+it pours,'" said George, "I not only got this money from him, which a
+little time ago would have seemed positive riches to me, and a longer
+time ago would have saved me from--well, Mrs. Routh, I need not tell
+_you_ from what it would have saved me; but I got a handsome price for
+my story, and a proposal from the _Piccadilly_ people to do another
+serial for them, to commence in November."
+
+"Do you really think, George," Harriet said, as if her attention had
+not extended to the concluding sentence--"do you really think that
+money would have kept you all right?"
+
+George reddened, and looked disconcerted; then laughed uneasily, and
+answered:
+
+"I know what you mean. You mean that I know myself very little if I
+lay the blame of my sins and follies on circumstances, don't you?"
+
+She did not answer him, nor did she remove her serious fixed gaze from
+his face.
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is what you mean, and you are right. Still, I
+think the want of money made me reckless, made me worse than I should
+otherwise have been. I might not have spent it badly, you know, after
+all. I don't feel any inclination to go wrong now."
+
+"No; you are under your mother's influence," said Harriet. And then
+George thought how much he should like to tell this woman--for whom he
+felt so much regard, and such growing compassion, though he could not
+give any satisfactory reason for the feeling--about Clare Carruthers.
+He thought he should like to confess to her the fault of which he had
+been guilty towards the unconscious girl, and to ask her counsel. He
+thought he should like to acknowledge the existence of another
+influence, in addition to his mother's. But he restrained the
+resolution, he hardly knew why. Harriet might think him a presumptuous
+fool to assign any importance to his chance meeting with the young
+lady, and, besides, Harriet herself was ill, and ill at ease, and he
+had talked sufficiently about himself already. No, if he were ever to
+mention Clare to Harriet, it should not be now.
+
+"Routh is too rich now, too completely a man of capital and business,
+for me to hope to be of any use to him with my little windfalls," said
+George, heartily; "but of course he knows, and you too, I shall never
+forget all I owe him."
+
+Harriet forced herself to smile, and utter some commonplace sentences
+of deprecation.
+
+"There is one thing I want to do with some of the money I have been
+paid for my story," said George, "and I want to consult you about it.
+I have to touch on a painful subject, too, in doing so. You remember
+all about the bracelet which my dear mother gave me? You remember how
+we broke it up together that night?"
+
+Harriet remembered. She did not tell him so in words, but she bent her
+head, and turned it from him, and set her face towards the street.
+
+"You remember," he repeated. "Pray forgive me, if the allusion is
+agitating. We little thought then what had happened; however, we won't
+talk about _that_ any more. What I want to do is this: you have the
+gold setting of the bracelet and the blue stones, sapphires,
+turquoises: what do you call them? I want to replace the diamonds. I
+can do so by adding a little of my uncle's gift to my own money, and,
+when you return to England, I shall get the gold and things from you.
+I can easily procure the Palais Royal bracelet--Ellen will get it for
+me--and have the other restored exactly. If my mother is ever well
+enough to be told about it--and there is every probability that she
+will be, thank God--I think she will be glad I should have done this."
+
+"No doubt," said Harriet, in a low voice. She did not start when he
+spoke of the strange task they had executed in concert on that
+memorable night, and no outward sign told how her flesh crept. "No
+doubt. But you will not have the bracelet made in England?"
+
+"No," said George; "I shall have it made in Paris. I will arrange
+about it when my uncle and I are passing through."
+
+"When does Mr. Felton go to England?"
+
+"As soon as he gets his letters from New York, if his son does not
+turn up in the mean time. I hope he may do so. When do you think of
+returning?"
+
+"I don't know," said Harriet, moodily. "If it depended on me,
+to-morrow. I hate this place."
+
+Energy was common to Harriet's mode of speech, but vehemence was not;
+and the vehemence with which she spoke these words caused George to
+look at her with surprise. A dark frown was on her face--a frown which
+she relaxed with a visible effort when she perceived that he was
+looking at her.
+
+"By the by," she said, rising and going to a table in a corner of the
+room, "you need not wait for my return to have the bracelet made. My
+desk always travels with me. The little packet is in it. I have never
+looked at or disturbed it. You had better take it to Paris with you,
+and give your directions with it in your hand. There will be no
+occasion, I should think, to let the jeweller see the other."
+
+She opened the desk as she spoke, and took, from a secret drawer a
+small packet, folded in a sheet of letter-paper, and sealed. George
+Dallas's name was written upon it. It was that which she had put away
+in his presence so many months before (or years, was it, or
+centuries?). He took it from her, put it into his pocket, unopened,
+and took leave of her.
+
+"You won't venture out this evening, Mrs. Routh, I suppose?" said
+George, turning again to her when he had reached the door.
+
+"No," said Harriet. "I shall remain at home this evening." When he
+left her, she closed and locked her desk, and resumed her place at the
+window. The general dinner-hour was drawing near, and gay groups were
+passing, on their way to the hotels and to the Kursaal. The English
+servant, after a time, told Harriet that the dinner she had ordered
+from a restaurant had been sent in; should it be served, or would she
+wait longer for Mr. Routh?
+
+Dinner might be served, Harriet answered. Still she did not leave the
+window. Presently an open carriage, drawn by gray ponies, whirled by.
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was unaccompanied, except by her groom. The
+carriage went towards the Schwarzchild House. She was going to dine at
+home, probably. The servant asked if she should close the blinds. No,
+Harriet preferred them left as they were; and when she had made a
+pretence of dining, she once more took her place by the window. Lights
+were brought, but she carried them to the table in the corner of the
+room, where her desk stood, and sat in the shadow, looking out upon
+the street. Soon the street became empty, rain fell in torrents, and
+the lights glimmered on the surface of the pools. The hours passed.
+Harriet sat motionless, except that once or twice she pressed her
+hands upon her temples. Once she murmured, half audibly:
+
+"I wonder if I am going mad?"
+
+At eleven o'clock Routh came home. He opened the door of the room in
+which Harriet was sitting, came in, and leaned against the wall
+without speaking. In quick instinctive alarm she went to the table in
+the corner, took up a candle, and Held it towards his face. He was
+quite pale, his eyes were glassy, his hair was disordered. In a moment
+Harriet saw, and saw for the first time in her life, that he was
+intoxicated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+RECOGNITION.
+
+
+With the unexpected return of George Dallas to London from Amsterdam,
+an occurrence against which so much precaution had been taken, and
+which had appeared to be so very improbable, a sense of discouragement
+and alarm had stolen over Stewart Routh. In the coarse bold sense of
+the term, he was a self-reliant man. He had no faith in anything
+higher or holier than luck and pluck; but, in those mundane gods, his
+faith was steadfast, and had been hitherto justified. On the whole,
+for an outcast (as he had been for some time, that time, too, so
+important in a man's life) he had not done badly; he had schemed
+successfully, and cunning and crime had availed him. He was a callous
+man by nature, of a base disposition; and, under any circumstances,
+would have been cool-headed and dogged. In the circumstances in which
+he found himself, his dogged cool-headedness was peculiarly useful and
+valuable. He had relied upon them without any doubt or misgiving until
+the day on which he was convinced by George Dallas's appearance on
+the stage, which he believed him to have abandoned for an indefinite
+time, that he had made a miscalculation. Then a slow cold fear
+began to creep over him. Had his luck--what marvellous luck it had
+been!--turned? Believers in such a creed as his are mostly
+superstitious fanatics. He had felt some such dread; then, from the
+moment when Harriet--Harriet, who should have seen that he had
+blundered: confound the woman, was _she_ losing her head?--had told
+him, in her smooth encouraging way, that this new difficulty should be
+surmounted as the others had been. Not the smallest touch of
+repentance, not the slightest shadow of remorse, fell upon him with
+the stirring of this fact--only a hard, contemptuous anger against
+himself and Harriet, and a bitter scornful hatred for the young man
+who had been his tool for so long, and might now, in a moment, be
+turned into the agent of his punishment. When George Dallas left
+Harriet after the discussion which had terminated in his promise not
+to move in the matter of the identification of Deane, Stewart Routh,
+though he bore himself with calmness in his talk with his wife, had
+invariably writhed and raged under the galling sense of the first
+check he had received. If he could have done it safely, if the deed
+would not have been more fatal than the conjuncture he feared, he
+would have murdered Dallas readily; and he told himself so. He had
+none of the poetry, none of the drama of crime about him. He was not a
+man to kill one human being because it suited his purpose to do so,
+and then to hesitate about killing another, if a still more powerful
+preventive presented itself; he was incapable of the mixture of base
+and cruel motives with the kind of sentimental heroics, with which the
+popular imagination endows criminals of the educated classes. He had
+all the cynicism of such individuals, cynicism which is their
+strongest, characteristic; but he had nothing even mock heroic in his
+composition. His hatred of George was mixed with the bitterest
+contempt. When he found the young man amenable beyond his
+expectations; when he found him unshaken in the convictions with which
+Harriet had contrived to inspire him and hardly requiring to be
+supported by his own arguments, his reassurance was inferior to his
+scorn.
+
+"The fool, the wretched, contemptible idiot!" Routh said, as he looked
+round his dressing-room that night, and noted one by one the signs
+which would have betokened to a practised eye preparations for an
+abrupt departure, "it is hardly worth while to deceive him, and to
+rule such a creature. He was full of suspicion of me before he went
+away, and the first fruits of that pretty and affecting conversation
+of his, under the influence of his mother and the territorial
+decencies of Poynings, was what he flattered himself was a resolution
+to pay me off, and be free of me. He yields to my letter without the
+slightest difficulty, and comes here the moment he returns. He
+believes in Harriet as implicitly as ever; and if he is not as fond of
+me as he was, he is quite as obedient." The cynical nature of the man
+showed itself in the impatient weariness with which he thought of his
+success, and in the levity with which he dismissed, or at least tried
+to dismiss, the subject from his mind. There was, however, one
+insuperable obstacle to his getting rid of it--his wife.
+
+Harriet had miscalculated her strength; not the strength of her
+intellect, but that of her nerves, and the strain had told upon them.
+She still loved her husband with a desperate kind of love; but all its
+peace, all its strength, all its frankness--and even in the evil life
+they had always led it had possessed these qualities--had vanished.
+She loved him now with all the old intensity of passion, but with an
+element of fierceness added to it, with a horrid craving and fear,
+sometimes with a sudden repulsion, which she rebelled against as
+physical cowardice, causing her to shrink from him in the darkness,
+and to shut her ears from the sound of his breathing in his sleep.
+And then she would upbraid herself fiercely, and ask herself if she,
+who had given him all her life and being, who had renounced for
+him--though she denied to herself that such renunciation was any
+sacrifice, for did she not love him, as happy women, the caressed of
+society, do not know how to love--home, name, kindred, and God, could
+possibly shrink from him now? She had not played any pretty little
+game of self-deception; she had not persuaded herself that he was
+other than he really was; she did not care, she loved _him_, just as
+he was, no better and no worse. She lived for him, she believed in,
+she desired, she asked no other life; and if a terrible anguish had
+come into that life latterly, that was her share of it, her fair
+share. It was not easy, for she was a woman and weak; her nerves would
+thrill sometimes, and phantoms swarm about her; sleeplessness would
+wear her down, and a spell be set upon her lips, under which they
+strove vainly to curve with their old smile, and to utter their old
+words of endearment and protestation; for she scorned and hated
+herself for such weakness, and could have torn her rebellious flesh
+with rage, that sometimes it would creep and turn cold when he touched
+her, or even when he only spoke. She fought this false and dastardly
+weakness, as she called it, with steady bravery, and with the resolve
+to conquer, which is always half a moral battle; but she did not
+conquer it, she only quelled it for a little while. It returned on
+occasions, and then it tortured and appalled her even more than when
+the foe had been always in position.
+
+All such conflicts of feeling had the effect of narrowing the sphere
+of her life, of concentrating her whole attention on, and intensifying
+her absorption in, her husband. A lassitude which her own good sense
+told her was dangerous began to take possession of her. They were
+better off now--she did not rightly know how, or how much, for she had
+gradually lapsed from her previous customary active overseeing of
+Routh's affairs, and had been content to take money as he gave it, and
+expend it as he desired, skilfully and economically, but with an
+entire indifference, very different from the cheerful, sunny household
+thriftiness which had formerly been so marked a feature in their
+Bohemian life, and had testified, perhaps more strongly than any other
+of its characteristics, to the utter deadness of the woman's
+conscience. His comforts were as scrupulously looked after as ever,
+and far more liberally provided for; but the tasteful care for her
+home, the indescribable something which had invested their life with
+the charm of a refinement contrasting strangely with its real
+degradation, had vanished. Harriet's manner was changed--changed to a
+quietude unnatural to her, and peculiarly unpleasant to Routh, who had
+had a scientific appreciation of the charm of steady, business-like,
+calm judgment and decision brought to bear on business matters; but
+discarded, at a moment's notice, for sparkling liveliness and a power
+of enjoyment which never passed the bounds of refinement in its
+demonstrativeness. "Eat, drink, and be merry" had been their rule of
+life in time that seemed strangely old to them both; and if the woman
+alone had sometimes remarked that the precept had a corollary, she did
+not care much about it. "To-morrow ye die" was an assurance which
+carried little terror to one absolutely without belief in a future
+life, and who, in this, had realized her sole desire, and lived every
+hour in the fulness of its realization. Stewart Routh had never had
+the capacity, either of heart or of intellect, to comprehend his wife
+thoroughly; but he had loved her as much as he was capable of loving
+any one, in his own way, and the strength and duration of the feeling
+had been much increased by their perfect comradeship. His best aid in
+business, his shrewd, wise counsellor in difficulty, his good comrade
+in pleasure, his sole confidant--it must be remembered that there was
+no craving for respect on the one side, no possibility of rendering
+it, no power of missing it, on the other--and the most cherished wife
+of the most respectable and worthy member of society might have
+compared her position with that of Harriet with considerable
+disadvantage on many points.
+
+Things were, however, changed of late, and Harriet had begun to feel,
+with something of the awfully helpless, feeble foreboding with which
+the victims of conscious madness foresee the approach of the foe, that
+there was some power, whose origin she did not know, whose nature she
+could not discern, undermining her, and conquering her unawares. Was
+it bodily illness? She had always had unbroken health, and was slow to
+detect any approach of disease. She did not think it could be that,
+and conscience, remorse, the presence, the truth, of the supernatural
+components of human life, she disbelieved in; therefore she refused to
+take the possibility of their existence and their influence into
+consideration. She was no longer young, and she had suffered--yes, she
+had certainly suffered a very great deal; no one could love as she
+loved and not suffer, that was all. Time would do everything for her;
+things were going well; all risk was at an end, with the procuring of
+George's promise and the quieting of George's scruples (how feeble a
+nature his was, she thought, but without the acrid scorn a similar
+reflection had aroused in her husband's mind); and every week of time
+gained without the revival of any inquisition, was a century of
+presumptive safety. Yes, now she was very weak, and certainly not
+quite well; it was all owing to her sleeplessness. How could any one
+be well who did not get oblivion in the darkness? This would pass, and
+time would bring rest and peace. Wholly possessed by her love for her
+husband, she was not conscious of the change in her manner towards
+him. She did not know that the strange repulsion she sometimes felt,
+and which she told herself was merely physical nervousness, had so
+told upon her, that she was absent and distant with him for the most
+part, and in the occasional spasmodic bursts of love which she yielded
+to showed such haunting and harrowing grief as sometimes nearly
+maddened him with anger, with disgust, with _ennui_--not with
+repentance, not with compassion--maddened him, not for her sake, but
+for his own.
+
+The transition, effected by the aid of his intense selfishness, from
+his former state of feeling towards Harriet, to one which required
+only the intervention of any active cause to become hatred, was not a
+difficult matter to a man like Routh. Having lost all her former
+charm, and much of her previous usefulness, she soon became to him a
+disagreeable reminder. Something more than that--the mental
+superiority of the woman, which had never before incommoded him, now
+became positively hateful to him. It carried with it, now that it was
+no longer his mainstay, a power which was humiliating, because it was
+fear-inspiring. Routh was afraid of his wife, and knew that he was
+afraid of her, when he had ceased to love her, after he had begun to
+dislike her; so much afraid of her that he kept up appearances to an
+extent, and for a duration of time, inexpressibly irksome to a man so
+callous, so egotistical, so entirely devoid of any sentiment or
+capacity of gratitude.
+
+Such was the position of affairs when George Dallas and Mr. Felton
+left London to join Mr. and Mrs. Carruthers at Homburg. From the time
+of his arrival, and even when he had yielded to the clever arguments
+which had been adduced to urge him to silence, there was a sense of
+insecurity, foreboding in Routh's mind; not a trace of the sentimental
+superstitious terror with which imaginary criminals are invested after
+the fact, but with the reasonable fear of a shrewd man, in a
+tremendously dangerous and difficult position, who knows he has made a
+false move, and looks, with moody perplexity, for the consequences
+sooner or later.
+
+"He must have come to England, at all events, Stewart," Harriet said
+to her husband, when he cursed his own imprudence for the twentieth
+time; "he must have come home to see his uncle. Mr. Felton would have
+been directed here to us by the old woman at Poynings, and we must
+have given his address. Remember, his uncle arrived in England the
+same day he did."
+
+"I should have sent him to George, not brought George to him," said
+Routh. "And there's that uncle of his, Felton; he is no friend of
+ours, Harriet; he does not like us."
+
+"I am quite aware of that," she answered; "civil as he is, he is very
+honest, and has never pretended to be our friend. If he is George's
+friend, and George has told him anything about his life since he has
+known us, I think we could hardly expect him to like us."
+
+Her husband gave her one of his darkest looks, but she did not remark
+it. Many things passed now without attracting her notice; even her
+husband's looks, and sometimes his words, which were occasionally as
+bitter as he dared to make them.
+
+He was possessed with a notion that he must, for a time at least, keep
+a watch upon George Dallas; not near, indeed, nor apparently close,
+but constant, and as complete as the maintenance of Harriet's
+influence with him made possible. For himself, he felt his own
+influence was gone, and he was far too wise to attempt to catch at it,
+as it vanished, or to ignore its absence. He acquiesced in the tacit
+estrangement; he was never in the way, but he never lost sight of
+George; he always knew what he was doing, and had early information of
+his movements, and with tolerable accuracy, considering that the spy
+whose services he employed was quite an amateur and novice.
+
+This spy was Mr. James Swain, who took to the duties of his new line
+of business with vigorous zeal, and who seemed to derive a grim kind
+of amusement from their discharge. Stewart Routh had arrived with
+certainty at the conclusion that the young man had adhered to the
+promised silence up to the time of his leaving England with his uncle,
+and he felt assured that Mr. Felton was in entire ignorance of the
+circumstances which had had such terrible results for Mrs. Carruthers.
+It was really important to him to have George Dallas watched, and, in
+setting Jim Swain to watch him, he was inspired by darkly sinister
+motives, in view of certain remote contingencies--motives which had
+suggested themselves to him shortly after George's unhesitating
+recognition of the boy who had taken Routh's note to Deane, on the
+last day of the unhappy man's life, had solved the difficulty which
+had long puzzled him. Only second in importance to his keeping George
+Dallas in view was his not losing sight of the boy; and all this time
+it never occurred to Routh, as among the remote possibilities of
+things, that Mr. Jim Swain was quite as determined to keep an eye on
+him.
+
+
+Harriet had acquiesced in her husband's proposal that they should go
+to Homburg readily. It happened that she was rather more cheerful than
+usual on the day he made it, more like, though still terribly unlike,
+her former self. She was in one of those intervals in which the
+tortured prisoner stoops at the stake, during a temporary suspension
+of the inventive industry of his executioner. The fire smouldered for
+a little, the pincers cooled. She was in the hands of inflexible
+tormentors, and who could tell what device of pain might attend the
+rousing from the brief torpor? Nature must have its periods of rest
+for the mind, be the agony ever so great; and hers was of the slow and
+hopeless kind which has such intervals most surely, and with least
+efficacy. One of them had come just then, and she was placid, drowsy,
+and acquiescent. She went with Routh to Homburg; he managed to make
+some hopeful, promising, and credulous acquaintances on the way, and
+was besides accredited to some "business people," of perfectly
+authentic character, at Frankfort, in the interest of the flourishing
+Flinders.
+
+The change, the novelty, the sight of gaiety in which she took no
+share, but which she looked on at with a partial diversion of her
+mind, did her good. It was something even to be out of England; not a
+very rational or well-founded relief, but still a relief, explicable
+and defensible too, on the theory to which she adhered, that all her
+ills were merely physical. The torpid interval prolonged itself, and
+the vital powers of the sufferer were recruited for the wakening.
+
+This took place when Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge's pony-carriage passed
+her as she sat by the side of the broad shaded road, and the woman's
+splendid black eyes met hers. When her husband passed her without
+seeing her, absorbed in passionate admiration, which any child must
+have recognized as such, for the beautiful woman whose pony-carriage
+was like a triumphal chariot, so royal and conquering of aspect was
+she.
+
+Keen were the tormentors, and full of avidity, and subtle was the new
+device to tax the recruited strength and mock the brief repose. It was
+raging, fierce, fiery, maddening jealousy.
+
+
+It was late in the afternoon of the day on which Mrs. Ireton P.
+Bembridge had sent her answer to Mr. Felton's note, and while George
+Dallas was sitting with Mrs. Routh, that the beautiful widow and her
+companion--this time exploring the forest glades in another direction,
+in which they met but few of the visitors to the springs--once more
+mentioned Mr. Felton and his son. The gray ponies were going slowly,
+and the French groom in attendance was considering the probable
+direction of the "affair" in which his mistress had so precipitately
+engaged herself, and which, being conducted in the English tongue, was
+interpreted to him by glances and tones only. The beauty of the face
+on which Stewart Routh was gazing in an intensity of admiration, with
+a certain desperation in it, in which a cleverer woman than this one
+would have seen indications of character to warn and alarm her, but
+which this one merely recognized as a tribute due to her, was
+marvellously bright and soft, as the slanting rays of the sun came
+through the tree stems, and touched it lingeringly, lovingly. Her
+black eyes had wonderful gleams and reflections in them, and the
+masses of her dark hair were daintily tinged and tipped with russet
+tints. She was looking a little thoughtful, a little dreamy. Was she
+tired, for the moment, of sparkling? Was she resting herself in an
+array of the semblance of tenderness, more enchanting still?
+
+"You knew him, then, in your husband's lifetime? He is not a new
+acquaintance?"
+
+"What a catechist you are!" she said, with just a momentary glance at
+him, and the least flicker of a smile. "I did know him in my husband's
+lifetime, who highly disapproved of him, if you care for _that_ piece
+of information; we were great friends and he was rather inclined to
+presume upon the fact afterwards."
+
+She lingered upon the word, and gave it all the confirmatory
+expression Routh had expected and feared.
+
+"And yet you make an appointment with him to meet him _here_, in this
+place, where every one is remarked and speculated upon; here, alone,
+where you are without even a companion--" He paused, and with a light,
+mocking laugh, inexpressibly provoking, she said:
+
+"Why don't you say a 'sheep-dog'! We know the immortal Becky quite as
+well as you do. In the first place, my appointment with Arthur Felton
+means simply nothing. I am just as likely to break it as to keep it;
+to go to London, or Vienna, or Timbuctoo, to-morrow, if the fancy
+takes me; or to stay here, and have him told I'm not at home when he
+calls, only that would please his father; and Mr. Felton is about the
+only male creature of my acquaintance whom I don't want to please. In
+the second place, I don't care one straw who remarks me, or what they
+remark, and have no notion of allowing public opinion to take
+precedence of my pleasure."
+
+She laughed again, a saucy laugh which he did not like, gave him
+another glance and another flicker of her eyelash, and said:
+
+"Why, how extremely preposterous you are! You know well, if I cared
+what people could, would, might, or should say, I would not allow you
+to visit me every day, and I would not drive you out alone like this."
+
+The perfect unconcern and freedom of the remark took Routh by
+surprise, and disconcerted him as completely as its undeniable truth.
+He kept silence; and Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, amused at the blank
+expression of his countenance, burst into a hearty fit of laughter
+this time.
+
+"I tell you I don't care about public opinion. All the men admire me,
+no matter what I do; and all the women hate me, and would hate me all
+the same, for my beauty--which I entirely appreciate, you know--if I
+made my life as dull and decorous, as miserable, squalid, and canting,
+as I make it pleasant, and joyous, and 'not the thing.' Neither men
+nor women dare to insult me; and if they did, I should know how to
+meet the emergency, I assure you, though I am not at all clever. I am
+only courageous--'plucky,' your English ladies call it, I think, in
+the last new style of stable and barrack-room talk. I am that; I don't
+think that I could be afraid of anything or any one."
+
+"Not of a man who really loved you with all the force and passion of
+his heart?" said Routh, in a hoarse whisper, and bending a fierce dark
+look upon her.
+
+"Certainly not," she replied, lightly; but the colour rose in her
+cheek, and her breath came a little quicker. "I don't believe in
+people loving with passion and force, and all that sort of thing. It
+is pretty to talk about on balconies, and it looks well on paper, in a
+scrawly hand, running crookedly up into the corner, and with plenty of
+dashes, and no date--" And here she laughed again, and touched up the
+grays. Routh still kept silence, and still his dark look was bent upon
+her.
+
+"No, no," she went on, as the rapid trot of the ponies began again to
+sound pleasantly on the level road, and she turned them out of the
+forest boundaries towards the town, "I know nothing about all that,
+except _pour rire_, as they say in Paris, about everything under the
+sun, I do believe. To return to Arthur Felton; he is the last person
+in the world with whom I could imagine any woman could get up anything
+more serious than the flimsiest flirtation."
+
+"You did 'get up' that, however, I imagine?" said Routh.
+
+"Of course we did. We spouted very trite poetry, and he sent me
+bouquets--very cheap ones they were, too, and generally came late in
+the evening, when they may, being warranted not to keep, be had at
+literally a dead bargain; and we even exchanged photographs--I don't
+say portraits, you will observe. His is like enough; but that is
+really nothing, even among the most prudish of the blonde misses. I
+wonder the haberdashers don't send their likenesses with their bills,
+and I shall certainly give mine to the postman here; I am always
+grateful to the postman everywhere, and I like this one--he has nice
+eyes, his name is Hermann, and he does not smoke."
+
+"What a degenerate German!" said Routh. "And so Mr. Arthur Felton has
+your likeness?"
+
+"Had---had, you mean. How can I tell where it is now?--thrown in the
+fire, probably, and that of the reigning sovereign of his affections
+comfortably installed in the locket which contained it, which is
+handsome, I confess: but he does not so much mind spending money on
+himself, you see. It is exactly like this."
+
+She placed her whip across the reins, and held all with the left hand,
+whilst she fumbled with the right among the satin and lace in which
+she was wrapped, and drew out a short gold chain, to which a
+richly-chased golden ball, as large as an egg, was attached. Turning
+slightly towards him, and gently checking her ponies, she touched a
+spring, and the golden egg opened lengthways, and disclosed two small
+finely-executed photographs.
+
+One was a likeness of herself, and Routh made the usual remarks about
+the insufficiency of the photographic art in certain cases. He was
+bending closely over her hand, when she reversed the revolving plate,
+and showed him the portrait on the other side.
+
+"That is Arthur Felton," she said.
+
+Then she closed the locket, and let it drop down by her side amid the
+satin and the lace.
+
+The French groom had in his charge a soft India shawl in readiness for
+his mistress, in case of need. This shawl Stewart Routh took from the
+servant, and wrapped very carefully round Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge as
+they neared the town.
+
+"The evening has turned very cold," he said; and, indeed, though she
+did not seem to feel it, and rather laughed at his solicitude, Routh
+shivered more than once before she set him down, near the Kursaal, and
+then drove homewards, past the house where his wife was watching for
+her, and waiting for him.
+
+Routh ordered his dinner at the Kursaal, but, though he sat for a long
+time at the table, he ate nothing which was served to him. But he
+drank a great deal of wine, and he went home, to Harriet--drunk.
+
+"How horribly provoking! It must have come undone while I was handling
+it to-day," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge to her maid, when that
+domestic was attiring her for dinner. "I had the locket, open, not an
+hour ago."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," answered the maid, examining the short gold chain; "it
+is not broken, the swivel is open."
+
+"And of all my lockets, I liked my golden egg best," lamented Mrs.
+Ireton P. Bembridge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+A FIRST APPEAL.
+
+
+"Stewart," said Harriet Routh to her husband in a tone of calm,
+self-possessed inquiry, on the following day, "what has happened? What
+occurred yesterday, which you had not the courage to face, and
+deprived yourself of the power of telling me?"
+
+As Harriet asked him this question, she unconsciously assumed her
+former manner. Something told her that the cause of Routh's conduct,
+and of the distress of mind which she read in his face, was not
+connected with the subject that was torturing her. Anything apart from
+that, any misfortune, any calamity even, might draw them together
+again; might teach him anew his need of her, her worth to him--she
+felt some alarm, but it was strangely mingled with satisfaction. The
+sharp agony she had endured had impaired her faculties so far, had
+dulled her clear understanding so far, that the proportions of the
+dangers in her path had changed places, and the first and greatest
+danger was this stranger--this beautiful, dreadful woman. In that
+direction was the terrible impotence, the helpless horror of weakness,
+which is the worst attribute of human suffering; in every other, there
+was the power to exercise her faculties, to rally her presence of
+mind, to call on her fertility of resource, to act for and with him.
+With him at her side, and in his cause, Harriet was consciously
+strong; out from a trouble in which he should be arrayed against her,
+in which he should be her enemy, she shrank, like a leaf from the
+shrivelling touch of fire.
+
+She was standing by his side as she asked him the question, in the
+familiar attitude which she had discarded of late. Her composed figure
+and pale calm face, the small firm white hand, which touched his
+shoulder with the steady touch he knew so well, the piercing clear
+blue eyes, all had the old promise in them, of help that had never
+failed, of counsel that had never misled. He thought of all these
+things, he felt all these things, but he no longer thought of, or
+remembered, or looked for the love which had been their motive and
+their life. He sat moodily, his face pale and frowning, one clenched
+hand upon his knee, the other restlessly drumming upon the table; his
+eyes were turned away from her, and for some time after she had spoken
+he kept a sullen silence.
+
+"Tell me, Stewart," she repeated, in a softer voice, while the hand
+that touched his shoulder moved gently to his neck and clasped it. "I
+know there is something wrong, very wrong. Tell me what it is."
+
+He turned and looked full at her.
+
+"Do you remember what you said, Harriet, when that letter came from
+Poynings--what you said about the hydra and its heads?"
+
+"I remember," she answered. Her pale cheek grew paler; but she drew
+nearer to his side, and her fingers clasped his neck more closely and
+more tenderly. "I remember. Another head has sprung up, and is
+menacing you."
+
+"Yes," he said, half fiercely, half wearily. "This cursed thing is
+never to be escaped nor forgotten. I believe. I can hardly tell you
+what has happened, Harry, and even you will hardly see your way out of
+this."
+
+A touch of feeling for her was in his voice. He really did suffer in
+the anticipation of the shock she would have to sustain.
+
+"Tell me--tell me," she repeated, faintly, and with a quick
+involuntary closing of her eyes, which would have told a close
+observer of constant suffering and apprehension.
+
+"Sit down, Harry." He rose as he spoke, placed her in his chair, and
+stood before her, holding both her hands in his.
+
+"I have found out that the man we knew as Philip Deane was--was Arthur
+Felton, George Dallas's cousin, the man they are inquiring about, whom
+they are expecting here."
+
+She did not utter a cry, a groan, or any sort of sound. She shrank
+into the chair she was sitting in, as if she cowered for life in a
+hiding-place, her outstretched hands turned cold and clammy in her
+husband's grasp. Into her widely opened blue eyes a look of
+unspeakable horror came, and the paleness of her cheeks turned to
+ashen gray. Stewart Routh, still standing before her holding her
+hands, looked at her as the ghastly change came over her face,
+telling--what words could never tell--of the anguish she was
+suffering, and thought for a moment that she was dying before his
+face. The breath came from her lips in heavy gasps, and her low white
+brow was damp with cold sluggish drops.
+
+"Harriet," said Routh--"Harriet, don't give way like this. It's
+awful--it's worse than anything I ever thought of, or feared. But
+don't give way like this."
+
+"I am not giving way," she said. Drawing her hands from his hold, she
+raised them to her head, and held them pressed to her temples while
+she spoke. "I will not give way. Trust me, as you have done before.
+This, then, is what I have felt coming nearer and nearer, like a
+danger in the dark--this--this dreadful truth. It is better known than
+vague. Tell me how you have discovered it."
+
+He began to walk up and down the room, and she still sat cowering in
+her chair, her hands pressing her temples, her eyes, with their
+horror-stricken looks, following him.
+
+"I discovered it by an extraordinary accident. I have not seen much of
+Dallas, as you know, and I know nothing in particular about Mr. Felton
+and his son. But there is a lady here--an American widow--who knows
+Felton well."
+
+"Yes," said Harriet, with distinctness; and now she sat upright in her
+chair, and her low white brow was knitted over her horror-stricken
+eyes. "Yes, I have seen her."
+
+"Have you indeed? Ah! well, then, you know who I mean. She and he were
+great friends--lovers, I fancy," Routh went on, with painful effort;
+"and when they parted in Paris, it was with an understanding that they
+were to meet here just about this time. She met George Dallas, and
+told him, not that, but something which made him understand that
+information was to be had from her, and she has appointed an interview
+with Mr. Felton for to-morrow."
+
+"Yes," repeated Harriet, "I understand. When she and he meet, she will
+tell him his son is coming here. His son will not come. How did you
+discover what you have discovered?"
+
+He took out of his pocket a large locket like a golden egg, and opened
+it by touching a spring. It opened lengthwise, and held it towards
+Harriet. She looked at one of the photographs which it enclosed, and
+then, pushing it from her, covered her face with her hands.
+
+"She showed me that yesterday," Routh continued, his throat drier, his
+voice more hesitating with every word he spoke, "when she told me she
+was expecting him--and I contrived to secure it."
+
+"For what purpose?" asked Harriet, hoarsely.
+
+"Don't you see, Harriet," he said, earnestly, "that it is quite plain
+Dallas has never seen a likeness of his cousin, or he must have
+recognized the face? Evidently Mr. Felton has not one with him. Dallas
+might not have seen this; but then, on the other hand, he might; and
+to prevent his seeing it, even for a few hours, until we had time to
+talk it over, to gain ever so little time, was a great object."
+
+"You took a strange way of gaining time, Stewart," said Harriet. "Had
+you come home last night in a state to tell me the truth, time would
+really have been gained. We might have got away this morning."
+
+"Got away!" said Routh. "What do you mean? What good could that do?"
+
+"Can you seriously ask me?" she returned. "Does any other course
+suggest itself to you?"
+
+"I don't know, Harry. I am bewildered. The shock was so great that the
+only thing I could think of was to try and forget it for a little. I
+don't know that I ever in my life deliberately drank for the purpose
+of confusing my thoughts, or postponing them, before; but I could not
+help it, Harry. The discovery was so far from any apprehension or
+fancy I had ever had."
+
+"The time was, Stewart," said Harriet, slowly and with meaning, "when,
+instead of 'confusing' or 'postponing' any trouble, dread, or
+difficulty, you would have brought any or all of them to me at once;
+unhappily for us both, I think that time is past."
+
+He glanced at her sharply and uneasily, and an angry flush passed over
+his face.
+
+"What cursed folly have you got in your head? Is it not enough that
+this fresh danger has come down upon me--"
+
+"Upon _us_, you mean," she interrupted, calmly.
+
+"Well, upon _us_, then--but you must get up an injured air, and go on
+with I don't know what folly? Have done with it; this is no time for
+womanish nonsense--"
+
+"There is so much womanish nonsense about me! There is such
+reasonableness in your reproach!"
+
+Again he looked angrily at her, as he walked up and down the room with
+a quicker step. He was uneasy, amazed at the turn she had taken, at
+the straying of her attention from the tremendous fact he had
+revealed; but, above and beyond all this, he was afraid of her.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and said, "Let it drop, let it
+drop; let me be as unreasonable as you like, and blame me as much as
+you please, but be truer to yourself, Harriet, to your own helpful
+nature, than to yield to such fancies now. This is no time for them.
+We must look things in the face, and act."
+
+"It is not I, but you, who refuse to look things in the face, Stewart.
+This woman, whom I do not know, who has not sought my acquaintance,
+whose name you have not once mentioned before me, but who makes you
+the confidant of her flirtations and her appointments--she is young
+and beautiful, is she not?"
+
+"What the devil does it matter whether she is or not?" said Routh,
+fiercely. "I think you are bent on driving me mad. What has come to
+you? I don't know you in this new character. I tell you, this woman--"
+
+"Mrs. Bembridge," said Harriet, calmly.
+
+"Mrs. Bembridge, then, has been the means of my making a discovery
+which is of tremendous importance, and thus she has unconsciously
+saved me from an awful danger.
+
+"By preventing George Dallas from finding out this fact for a little
+longer?"
+
+"Precisely so. Now I hope you have come to yourself, Harriet, and will
+talk rationally about this."
+
+"I will," she said, rising from her chair and approaching him. She
+placed her hands upon his shoulders, and looked at him with a steady,
+searching look. "We will talk this out, Stewart, and I will not shrink
+from anything there is to be said about it; but you must hear me then,
+in my turn. We are not like other people, Stewart, and our life is not
+like theirs. Only ruin can come of any discord or disunion between
+us."
+
+Then she quietly turned away and sat down by the window, with her head
+a little averted from him, waiting for him to speak. Her voice had
+been low and thrilling as she said those few words, without a tone of
+anger in it, and yet the callous man to whom they were addressed heard
+in them something which sounded like the warning or the menace of
+doom.
+
+"When Dallas knows what we now know, Harriet," said Routh, "he will
+come to us and tell us his discovery, and then the position of affairs
+will be that for which we were prepared, if we had not succeeded in
+inducing him to be silent about Deane's identity."
+
+"Exactly so," said Harriet; "with the additional difficulty of his
+having concealed his knowledge."
+
+"Yes," said Routh; "but that is _his_ affair, not ours. He concealed
+his knowledge because he was compromised. There is nothing to
+compromise me. I neglected a public duty, certainly, in favour of a
+private friendship; but that is a venial offence."
+
+It was wonderful to see how the callousness of the man asserted
+itself. As he arranged the circumstances, and stated them, he began to
+regain his accustomed ease of manner.
+
+"It is unfortunate that he should be compromised in this double way,
+and, of course, there will be a great deal to go through, which will
+be hard to bear, and not easy to manage; but, after all, the thing is
+only as bad as it was when Dallas came back. Don't you see that,
+Harriet?"
+
+"I see that, Stewart, but I also see that he will now have a tenfold
+interest in finding out the truth. Hitherto he might have been content
+with clearing himself of suspicion, but now he will be the one person
+most deeply interested in discovering the truth."
+
+"But how can he discover it?" said Routh: his face darkened, and he
+dropped his voice still lower. "Harriet, have you forgotten that if
+there be danger from him, there is also the means of turning that
+danger on himself? Have you forgotten that I can direct suspicion
+against him tenfold stronger than any that can arise against me?"
+
+She shivered, and closed her eyes again. "No, I have not forgotten,"
+she said; "but oh, Stewart, it is an awful thing to contemplate--a
+horrible expedient."
+
+"Yet you arranged it with a good deal of composure, and said very
+little about its being horrible at the time," said Routh, coarsely. "I
+hope you are not going to be afflicted with misplaced and ill-timed
+scruples now. It's rather late in the day, you know, and you'll have
+to choose, in that case, between Dallas and me."
+
+She made him no answer.
+
+"The thing is just this," he continued: "Dallas cannot come to any
+serious grief, I am convinced; but, if the occasion arises, he must be
+let come to whatever grief there may be--a trial and an acquittal at
+the worst. The tailor's death, and his mother's recovery, will tell in
+his favour, though I've no doubt he will supply all the information
+Evans would have given, of his own accord. I think there is no real
+risk; but, Harriet, much, very much, depends on you."
+
+"On me, Stewart! How?"
+
+"In this way. When Dallas comes to see you, you must find out whether
+any other clue to the truth exists; if not, there is time before us.
+You must keep up the best relations with him, and find out all he is
+doing. Is it not very odd that he has not mentioned his uncle's
+solicitude about his son to you?"
+
+"I don't think so, Stewart. I feel instinctively that Mr. Felton
+dislikes and distrusts us (what well-founded dislike and distrust it
+was!" she thought, mournfully, with a faint pity for the unconscious
+father)--"and George knows it, I am sure, and will not talk to me
+about his uncle's affairs. He is right there; there is delicacy of
+feeling in George Dallas."
+
+"You seem to understand every turn in his disposition," said Routh,
+with a sneer.
+
+"There are not many to understand," replied Harriet, simply. "The good
+and the evil in him are easily found, being superficial. However, we
+are not talking of his character, but of certain irreparable harm
+which we must do him, it seems, in addition to that which we have
+done. Go on with what you were saying."
+
+"I was saying that you must find out what you can, and win his
+confidence in every way. I shall keep as clear of him as possible,
+under any circumstances. If the interview of to-morrow goes off
+without any discovery, there will be a chance of its not being made at
+all."
+
+"Impossible, Stewart--quite impossible," said Harriet, earnestly. "Do
+not nourish any such expectation. How long, do you suppose, will Mr.
+Felton remain content with expecting his son's arrival, and hearing no
+news of him? How soon will he set inquiries on foot which must end in
+discovery? Remember, hiding is possible only when there is no one
+seeking urged by a strong motive to find. Listen to me, now, in your
+turn, and listen to me as you used to do, not to cavil at my words, or
+sneer at them, but to weigh them well. This is a warning to us,
+Stewart. I don't talk superstition, as you know. I don't believe any
+nonsense of the kind; but this I do believe, because experience
+teaches it, that there are combinations of circumstances in which the
+wise may read signs and tokens which do not mislead. Here is just such
+a case. The first misfortune was George's return; it was confirmed by
+his uncle's arrival; it is capped by this terrible discovery. Stewart,
+let us be warned and wise in time; let us return to England at
+once--to-morrow. I suppose you will have the means of learning the
+tenor of Mr. Felton's interview with this lady who knew his son so
+well. If no discovery be then made, let us take it as another
+indication of luck, circumstance, what you will, and go."
+
+"What for?" said Routh, in amazement. "Are you returning to that
+notion, when all I have said is to show you that you must not lose
+sight of Dallas?"
+
+"I know," she said--"I know; but you are altogether wrong. George
+Dallas must make the discovery some time, and must bear the brunt of
+the suspicion. I don't speak in his interests, but in yours--in mine.
+Let it come when it may, but let us be away out of it all. We have
+money now, Stewart--at least, we are not so poor but that we may make
+our way in another country--that we may begin another life. Have I
+ever talked idly, Stewart, or given you evil counsel? No, surely not.
+In all the years for which you have been all the world to me, I have
+never spoken vainly; let me not speak vainly now. I might implore, I
+might entreat," she went on, her eyes now bright with eagerness and
+her hands clasped. "I might plead a woman's weakness and natural
+terror; I might tell you I am not able for the task you dictate to me;
+but I tell you none of these things. I am able to do and to suffer
+anything, everything, that may or must be done, or suffered for you. I
+don't even speak of what I have suffered; but I say to you, be guided
+by me in this--yield to me in this. There is a weak spot in our
+stronghold; there is a flaw in our armour. I know it. I cannot tell, I
+cannot guess where it is. An instinct tells me that ruin is
+threatening us, and this is our way of escape. Oh, my husband, listen
+to me!"
+
+He was standing opposite to her, leaning against an angle of the wall,
+mingled fury and amazement in his face, but he did not interrupt her
+by a word or a sign.
+
+"There is no power in me," she went on, "to tell you the strength of
+my conviction that this is the turning-point in our fate. Let us take
+the money we have, and go. Why should you stay in England, Stewart,
+more than in any other country? We have no ties but one another." She
+looked at him more sharply here, through all her earnestness.
+"Friendships and the obligations they bring are not for us. The world
+has no home bonds for us, Where money is to be made you can live, in
+such content as you can ever have; and where you are I am as content
+as I can ever be."
+
+"You are a cheerful counsellor," Routh broke out, in uncontrollable
+passion. "Do you think I am mad, woman, when I have played so
+desperate a game, and am winning it so fast, that I should throw up my
+cards now? Let me hear no more of this. Come to your senses, if you
+can, and as soon as you can, for I will not stand this sort of thing,
+I can tell you. I will not leave this place an hour sooner than I
+intended to leave it. And as to leaving England, if the worst came to
+pass that could happen, I should hardly be driven to that extremity.
+What devil is in you, Harriet, to prompt you to exasperate, me, when I
+looked to you for help?"
+
+"What devil is in _you_," she answered him, rising as she spoke, "that
+is prompting you to your ruin? What devil, do I say? Words, mere
+words. What do I know or believe of God, or devil, or any ruling power
+but the wicked will of men and women, to waylay, and torture, and
+destroy? The devil of blindness is in you, the devil of wilfulness,
+the devil of falsehood and ingratitude; and a blacker devil still, I
+tell you. See that it does not rend you, as I read in the old
+book--for ever closed for me."
+
+Her breast was heaving violently, and her eyes were unnaturally
+bright, but there was not a ray of colour in her face, and her voice
+was rapid and unfaltering in its utterance. Routh looked at her, and
+hated her. Hated her, and feared her, and uttered never a word.
+
+"The madness that goes before destruction is coming fast upon you,"
+she said; "I see it none the more clearly because that destruction
+must involve me too. Let it come; I am ready for it, as I have been
+ready for any evil for a long time now. You speak idle words to me
+when you reproach me, Stewart. I am above and beyond reproach from
+you. I am as wicked a woman, if the definition of good and evil be
+true, as ever lived upon this earth; but I have been, and am, to you
+what no good woman could be--and look to it, if you requite me ill. I
+don't threaten you in saying this--no threats can come from me, nor
+would any avail--but in your treachery to me, its own punishment will
+be hidden, ready to spring out upon and destroy you. Scorn my
+influence, slight my counsel, turn a deaf ear to the words that are
+inspired by love such as only a wretch like me, with no hope or faith
+at all in Heaven, and only this hope and faith on Earth, can feel--and
+see the end."
+
+He stepped forward and was going to speak, but she put out her hand
+and stopped him.
+
+"Not now. Don't say anything to me, don't ask me anything now. Don't
+speak words that I must be doomed for ever to remember--for ever to
+long to forget. Have so much mercy on me, for the sake of the past and
+for the sake of the present. Ruin is impending over us; if you will,
+you may escape it; but there is only one way."
+
+She had drawn near the door as she spoke the last words. In another
+instant she had left him.
+
+Left him in a most unenviable state of bewilderment, rage, and
+confusion. The emotion which had overpowered him when he had made the
+discovery of yesterday was almost forgotten in the astonishment with
+which Harriet's words had filled him. An uneasy sense, which was not
+anything so wholesome as shame, was over him. What did she know of his
+late proceedings? Had she watched him? Had any of the gossiping
+tongues of the place carried the tidings of the beautiful American's
+openly paraded conquest? No, that could hardly be, for Harriet knew no
+one at Homburg but George, and George knew nothing about him. Was he
+not always with either his mother, or his uncle, or with Harriet
+herself? Besides, George would not say anything to Harriet that could
+hurt her. The fellow was a fool and soft-hearted, his quondam friend
+thought, with much satisfaction. He must set it right with Harriet,
+however; under any circumstances he must not quarrel with her; in this
+fresh complication particularly. It could only be a general notion
+that she had taken, and he must endeavour to remove it; for though he
+was horribly weary of her, though he hated her at that moment, and
+felt that he should very likely continue to hate her, even at that
+moment, and while resolved to disregard her advice, and utterly
+unmoved by her appeal, he knew he could not afford to lose her aid.
+
+If the beautiful American could have seen the visions of probabilities
+or possibilities in which she was concerned, that floated through
+Stewart Routh's mind as he stood gazing out of the window when his
+wife had left him, she might, perhaps, have felt rather uneasy at the
+revelation. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was not an adept at reading
+character, and sometimes, when a disagreeable impression that her new
+admirer was a man of stronger will and tougher material than she
+altogether liked to deal with, crossed her mind, she would dismiss it
+with the reflection that such earnestness was very flattering and very
+exciting for a time, and the duration of that time was entirely within
+her choice and discretion.
+
+Stewart Routh stood at the window thinking hurriedly and confusedly of
+these things. There was a strange fear over him, with all his
+assurance, with all the security which he affirmed over and over again
+to himself, and backed up with a resolution which he had determined
+from the first to conceal from Harriet.
+
+"If my own safety positively demands it," he thought, "Jim's evidence
+about the note will be useful, and the payment to the landlady will be
+tolerably conclusive. Dallas told Harriet the initials were A.F. I
+wonder it never occurred to me at the time."
+
+Presently he heard Harriet's step in the corridor. It paused for a
+moment at the sitting-room, then passed on, and she went out. She was
+closely veiled, and did not turn her head towards the window as she
+went by. Routh drew nearer and watched her, as she walked swiftly
+away. Then he caught sight of George Dallas approaching the house. He
+and Harriet met and shook hands, then George turned and walked beside
+her. They were soon out of sight.
+
+"I don't think I shall see much more of Homburg," George was saying.
+"My mother has taken an extraordinary longing to get back to Poynings.
+Dr. Merle says she must not be opposed in anything not really
+injurious. She is very anxious I should go with her, and Mr.
+Carruthers is very kind about it."
+
+"You will go, George, of course?"
+
+"I don't quite know what to do, Mrs. Routh. I don't like to let my
+mother go without me, now that things are so well squared; I don't
+like to persuade her to put off her journey, and yet I feel I ought,
+if possible, to remain with my uncle until his truant son turns up."
+
+"Has--has nothing been heard of him yet?"
+
+"Not a word. I was awfully frightened about it, though I hid it from
+my uncle, until I met Mrs. Ireton P. &c. But though she didn't say
+much, I could see by her manner it was all right. Bless you, she knows
+all about him, Mrs. Routh. I dare say he'll appear next week, and be
+very little obliged to us all for providing a family party for him
+here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+DURING THE LULL.
+
+
+On the appointed day, at the appointed hour, Mr. Felton, accompanied
+by his nephew, called on Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, who received the
+two gentlemen with no remarkable cordiality. Coquetry was so
+inseparable from her nature and habits, that she could not forbear
+from practising a few of her fascinations upon the younger man and she
+therefore relaxed considerably from the first formality of her
+demeanour after a while. But George Dallas was the least promising and
+encouraging of subjects for the peculiar practice of the beautiful
+widow, and he so resolutely aided his uncle in placing the
+conversation on a strictly business footing, and keeping it there, as
+to speedily convince the lady that he was entirely unworthy of her
+notice. She was not destitute of a certain good nature which rarely
+fails to accompany beauty, wealth, and freedom, and she settled the
+matter with herself by reflecting that the young man was probably in
+love with some pretty girl, to whom he wrote his verses, and
+considered it proper to be indifferent to the attractions of all
+female charmers beside. She did not resent his inaccessibility; she
+merely thought of it as an odd coincidence that Mr. Felton's nephew
+should be as little disposed to succumb to love as Mr. Felton himself,
+and felt inclined to terminate the interview as soon as possible.
+Consequently, she made her replies to Mr. Felton's questions shorter
+and colder as they succeeded one another, so that he felt some
+difficulty in putting that particular query on which George had laid
+restricted stress. He did not perceive how deep and serious his
+nephew's misgivings had become, and George grasped at every excuse
+that presented itself for deferring the awakening of fears which, once
+aroused, must become poignant and terrible. He had learnt from Mrs.
+Ireton P. Bembridge some of the facts which she had communicated to
+Routh: young Felton's intention of visiting Homburg at about the
+period of the year which they had then reached; his departure from
+Paris, and the unbroken silence since maintained towards her as
+towards Mr. Felton himself. The information she had to give was in
+itself so satisfactory, so tranquillizing, that Mr. Felton, who had no
+reason to expect obedience from his son, felt all his fears--very
+dim and vague in comparison with those which had assailed George's
+mind--assuaged. It was only when his nephew had given him some very
+expressive looks, and he had seen the fine dark eyes of Mrs. Ireton P.
+Bembridge directed unequivocally towards the allegorical timepiece
+which constituted one of the chief glories of the Schwarzchild
+mansion, that he said:
+
+"My nephew has never seen his cousin, Mrs. Bembridge, and I have no
+likeness of him with me. I know you are a collector of photographs;
+perhaps you have one of Arthur?"
+
+"I had one, Mr. Felton," replied Mrs. Bembridge, graciously, "and
+would have shown it to Mr. Dallas with pleasure yesterday, but,
+unfortunately, I have lost it in some unaccountable way."
+
+"Indeed," said Mr. Felton; "that is very unfortunate. Was it not in
+your book, then?"
+
+"I wore it in a locket," said the lady, with a very slight accession
+to the rich colour in her cheek--"a valuable gold locket, too. I am
+going to have it cried."
+
+"Allow me to have that done for you," said Mr. Felton. "If you will
+describe the locket, and can say where you were yesterday, and at what
+time, I will take the necessary steps at once; these may not succeed,
+you know; we can but try."
+
+So Mrs. Bembridge described the lost trinket accurately, and the visit
+came to a conclusion. As the two gentlemen were leaving the house,
+they met Mr. Carruthers, who accosted Mr. Felton with stately
+kindliness, and, entering at once into conversation with him,
+prevented the interchange of any comment upon the interview which had
+just taken place between the uncle and nephew. George left the elder
+gentlemen together, and turned his steps towards Harriet's lodgings.
+In a few minutes he met her and joined her in her walk, as Routh had
+seen from the window.
+
+He stood there, long after George and Harriet had passed out of sight,
+thinking, with sullen desperate rage, of all she had said. He felt
+like an animal in a trap. All his care and cunning, all his caution
+and success, had come to this. It was strange, perhaps--if the
+probability or the strangeness of anything in such a condition of mind
+as his can be defined--that he seldom thought of the dead man. No
+curiosity about him had troubled the triumph of Routh's schemes. He
+had met so many men in the course of his life who were mere waifs and
+strays in the world of pleasure and swindling; who had no ties and no
+history; about whom nobody cared; for whom, on their disappearance
+from the haunts in which their presence had been familiar, nobody
+inquired; that one more such instance, however emphasized by his own
+sinister connection with him, made little impression on Stewart Routh.
+Looking back now in the light of this revelation, he could not
+discover that any intimation had ever been afforded to, or had ever
+been overlooked by him. The dead man had never dropped a hint by which
+his identity might have been discovered, nor had he, on the other
+hand, ever betrayed the slightest wish or purpose of concealment,
+which probably would have aroused Routh's curiosity, and set his
+investigative faculties to work. He had never speculated, even at
+times when all his callousness and cynicism did not avail to make him
+entirely oblivious of the past, on the possibility of his learning
+anything of the history of Philip Deane; he had been content to accept
+it, as well as its termination, as among the number of the wonderful
+mysteries of this wonderful life, and had, so far as in him lay,
+dismissed the matter from his mind. Nothing that had ever happened in
+his life before had given him such a shock as the discovery he had
+made yesterday. The first effect on him has been seen; the second,
+ensuing on his conversation with his wife, was a blind and desperate
+rage, of a sort to which he had rarely yielded, and of whose danger he
+was dimly conscious even at its height. He was like a man walking on a
+rope at a giddy elevation, to whom the first faint symptoms of vertigo
+were making themselves felt, who was invaded by the death-bringing
+temptation to look down and around him. The solemn and emphatic
+warning of his wife had had its effect upon his intellect, though he
+had hardened his heart against it. It was wholly impossible that her
+invariable judgment, perception, and reasonableness--the qualities to
+which he had owed so much in all their former life--could become
+immediately valueless to a man of Routh's keenness; he had not yet
+been turned into a fool by his sudden passion for the beautiful
+American; he still retained sufficient sense to wonder and scoff at
+himself for having been made its victim so readily; and he raged and
+rebelled against the conviction that Harriet was right, but raged and
+rebelled in vain.
+
+In the whirl of his thoughts there was fierce torture, which he strove
+unavailingly to subdue: the impossibility of evading the discovery
+which must soon be made; the additional crime by which alone he could
+hope to escape suspicion; a sudden unborn fear that Harriet would fail
+him in this need--a fear which simply signified despair--a horrid,
+baffled, furious helplessness; and a tormenting, overmastering passion
+for a woman who treated him with all the calculated cruelty of
+coquetry--these were the conflicting elements which strove in the
+man's dark, bad heart, and rent it between them, as he stood idly by
+the window where his wife had been accustomed to sit and undergo her
+own form of torture.
+
+By degrees one fear got the mastery over the others, and Routh faced
+it boldly. It was the fear of Harriet. Suppose the worst, came to the
+worst, he thought, and there was no other way of escape, would she
+suffer him to sacrifice George? _He_ could do it; the desperate
+resource which he had never hinted to her was within his reach. They
+had talked over all possibilities in the beginning, and had agreed
+upon a plan and direction of flight in certain contingencies, but he
+had always entertained the idea of denouncing George, and now, by the
+aid of Jim Swain, he saw his way to doing so easily and successfully.
+Harriet had always been a difficulty, and now the obstacle assumed
+portentous proportions. He had no longer his old power over her. He
+knew that; she made him feel this in many ways; and now he had aroused
+her jealousy. He felt instinctively that such an awakening was full of
+terrible danger; of blind, undiscoverable peril. He did not indeed
+know by experience what Harriet's jealousy might be, but he knew what
+her love was, and the ungrateful villain trembled in his inmost soul
+as he remembered its strength, its fearlessness, its devotion, its
+passion, and its unscrupulousness, and thought of the possibility of
+all these being arrayed against him. Not one touch of pity for her,
+not one thought of the agony of such love betrayed and slighted, of
+her utter loneliness, of her complete abandonment of all her life to
+him, intruded upon the tumult of his angry mind. He could have cursed
+the love which had so served him, now that it threatened opposition to
+his schemes of passion and of crime. He did curse it, and her, deeply,
+bitterly, as one shade after another of fierce evil expression crossed
+his face.
+
+There was truth in what she had said, apart from the maudlin sentiment
+from which not even the strongest-minded woman, he supposed, could
+wholly free herself--there was truth, a stern, hard truth. He could
+indeed escape now, taking with him just enough money to enable them to
+live in decent comfort, or to make a fresh start in a distant land,
+where only the hard and honest industries throve and came to good. How
+he loathed the thought! How his soul sickened at the tame, miserable
+prospect! He would have loathed it always, even when Harriet and he
+were friends and lovers; and now, when he feared her, when he was
+tired of her, when he hated her, to contemplate such a life _now_, was
+worse--well, not worse than death, that is always the worst of all
+things to a bad man, but something too bad to be thought of. There was
+truth in what she had said, and the knowledge of what was in his own
+thoughts, the knowledge she did not share, made it all the more true.
+Supposing he determined to denounce George, and supposing Harriet
+refused to aid him, what then? Then he must only set her at defiance.
+If such a wild impossibility as her betraying him could become real,
+it would be useless. She was his wife; she could not bear witness
+against him; in that lay his strength and security, even should the
+very worst, the most inconceivably unlikely of human events, come to
+pass. And he would set her at defiance! He kept up no reticence with
+himself now. Within a few days a change had come upon him, which would
+have been terrible even to him, had he studied it. He hated her. He
+hated her, not only because he had fallen madly in love with another
+woman and was day by day becoming more enslaved by this new passion;
+not chiefly even because of this, but because she was a living link
+between him and the past. That this should have happened now! That she
+should have right and reason, common sense, and all the force of
+probability on her side, in urging him to fly, now--now when he was
+prospering, when the success of a new speculation in which he had
+just engaged would, with almost absolute certainty, bring him
+fortune,--this exasperated him almost to the point of frenzy.
+
+Then there arose before his tossed and tormented mind the vision of a
+blissful possibility. This other beautiful, fascinating woman, who had
+conquered him by a glance of her imperial eyes, who had beckoned him
+to her feet by a wave of her imperial hand--could he not make her love
+him well enough to sacrifice herself for him also? Might he not escape
+from the toils which were closing around him into a new, a glorious
+liberty, into a life of wealth, and pleasure, and love? She had
+yielded so immediately to the first influence he had tried to exert
+over her; she had admitted him so readily to an intimacy to whose
+impropriety, according to the strict rules of society, she had
+unhesitatingly avowed herself aware and indifferent; she had evinced
+such undisguised pleasure in his society, and had accepted his
+unscrupulous homage so unscrupulously, that he had as much reason as a
+coarse-minded man need have desired for building up a fabric of the
+most presumptuous hope.
+
+As these thoughts swept over him, Routh turned from the window, and
+began again to stride up and down the room. His dark face cleared up,
+the hot blood spread itself over his sallow cheek, and his deep-set
+eyes sparkled with a sinister light. The desperate expedient to which
+he had resorted on the previous day had gained him time, and time was
+everything in the game he designed to play. The discovery would not be
+made for some time by George Dallas. When it should be made, his
+triumph might be secured, he might be beyond the reach of harm from
+such a cause, safe in an elysium, with no haunting danger to disturb.
+The others concerned might be left to their fate--left to get out of
+any difficulty that might arise, as best they could. The time was
+short, but that would but inspire him with more courage and
+confidence; the daring of desperation was a mood which suited Stewart
+Routh well.
+
+Hours told in such cases. The fire and earnestness with which he had
+spoken to the beautiful widow had evidently surprised and, he thought,
+touched her. If the demonstration had not been made in his own favour,
+but in that of another, no one would have more readily understood than
+Stewart Routh how much beauty of form and feature counts for in the
+interpretation of emotion, how little real meaning there may be in the
+beam of a dark bright eye, how little genuine emotion in the flush of
+a rose-tinted cheek. But it was his own case, and precisely because it
+was, Stewart Routh interpreted every sign which his captor had made
+according to his wishes rather than by the light of his experience.
+Indeed, he had little experience of a kind to avail him in the present
+instance; his experience had been of stronger, even more dangerous,
+types of womanhood than that which Mrs. Bembridge represented, or of
+the infinitely meaner and lower. As he mused and brooded over the
+vision which had flashed upon him, not merely as a possibility to be
+entertained, as a hope to be cherished, but as something certain and
+definite to be done, his spirits, his courage, his audacity rose, and
+the dark cloud of dread and foreboding fell from him. He had so long
+known himself for a villain, that there was not even a momentary
+recoil in his mind from the exceeding baseness of the proceeding which
+he contemplated.
+
+"I can count upon a fortnight," he said to himself while completing a
+careful toilet, "and by that time I shall either be away from all this
+with her, or I shall be obliged to put George Dallas in jeopardy. If I
+fail with _her_--but I won't think of failure; I cannot fail." He left
+a message with Harriet, to the effect that he should not dine at home
+that day (but without any explanation of his further movements), and
+went out.
+
+
+"I do not see the force of your reasons for objecting to my
+introducing you to my mother," said George Dallas to Harriet. Mrs.
+Carruthers had passed them in an open carriage during their walk, and
+George had urged Harriet to make his mother's acquaintance.
+
+"Don't you?" she replied, with a smile in which weariness and sadness
+mingled. "I think you would, if you thought over them a little. They
+include the necessity for avoiding anything like an unpleasant or
+distressing impression on her mind, and you know, George," she said,
+anticipating and silencing deprecation by a gesture, "if she remembers
+your mention of me at all, she can remember it only to be distressed
+by it; and the almost equally important consideration of not incurring
+your stepfather's anger in any way."
+
+"As for that, I assure you he is everything that is kind to me now,"
+said George.
+
+"I am happy to hear it; but do not, therefore, fall into an error
+which would come very easy to your sanguine and facile temperament. Be
+sure he is not changed in his nature, however modified he may be in
+his manners. Be quite sure he would object to your former associates
+just as strongly as ever; and remember, he would be right in doing
+so. Will you take my advice once more, George? You have done it
+before--" she stopped, and something like a shudder passed over her;
+"let bygones be completely bygones. Never try to associate the life
+and the home that will be yours for the future with anything in the
+past--least, oh least of all, with us."
+
+"What do you mean, Mrs. Routh?" George asked her eagerly. "Do you mean
+that you want to give me up? I know Routh does--he has not spoken to
+me a dozen times of his own accord since he has been here---but you,
+do _you_ want to get rid of me?"
+
+She paused for a moment before she answered him. Should she say Yes,
+and be done with it? Should she let things drift on to the inevitable
+end, yielding to the lassitude of mind and body which was stealing
+over her? Should she gain another argument to use in a renewed appeal
+to her husband for the flight in which she saw the sole prospect of
+safety, by providing herself with the power of telling him a rupture
+had taken place between herself and Dallas, and her power of guiding
+him was gone? The temptation was strong, but caution, habitual to her,
+instinctive in her, restrained her. Not yet, she thought; this may be
+my next move. George repeated his question:
+
+"Do you mean that _you_ want to get rid of me?"
+
+"No," she answered, "I do not, George. I was only led into overstating
+what I do want, that you should conform to your stepfather's
+reasonable wishes. He has been generous to you, be you just towards
+him."
+
+"I will," said George warmly. "I wonder how far he will carry his
+newly-found good will. I wonder--" he paused; the name of Clare
+Carruthers was on his lips; in another moment he would have spoken of
+her to Harriet. He would have told her of the self-reproach, mingled,
+however, with hope, which daily grew and throve in the congenial soil
+of his sanguine nature; he would have pierced Harriet's heart with a
+new sorrow, a fresh remorse, by telling her of another life, young,
+innocent, and beautiful, involved in the storm about to burst, whose
+threatenings were already sounding in the air. But it was not to
+be--the name of Clare Carruthers was never to be spoken by George to
+Harriet. Apparently she had not heard his last words: her attention
+had strayed; she was very weary.
+
+"I must go home," she said abruptly. "We are close to your mother's
+house. You had better go to her now; she has returned from her drive."
+
+"Let me see you home," said George; "pray don't dismiss me in this
+way."
+
+"No, no," she said, hurriedly; "let me have my own way, please. You
+will come to me to-morrow, and let me know your plans."
+
+She stood still, and put out her hand so decidedly in the attitude of
+farewell, that he had no choice but to take leave of her. They parted
+on the shaded road, close to the garden gate of Mr. Carruthers's
+house. As Harriet walked away with her usual rapid step, George looked
+after her very sadly.
+
+"She is fearfully changed," he said; "I never saw anything like it.
+Since I went to Amsterdam she might have lived twenty years and been
+less altered. Can it be that my uncle is right, that Routh ill-treats
+her? I wonder if there's any truth in what those fellows said last
+night about him and Mrs. Ireton P.? If there is, it's an infernal
+shame--an infernal shame." And George Dallas opened the little gate in
+the wall, and walked up the garden with a moody countenance, on which,
+however, a smile showed itself as he lifted his hat gaily to his
+mother, who nodded to him from the window above. His spirits rose
+unaccountably. The positive information which Mrs. Bembridge had
+afforded Mr. Felton relative to his son's expected arrival had
+immensely relieved George's mind. He was satisfied with the progress
+of his novel; day by day his mother's health was improving. His
+prospects were bright. The distressing recollection of Deane, and the
+unhappy consequences of the tragedy, were becoming light and easy to
+him; sometimes he forgot all about it. If he could but win his
+stepfather's confidence and regard sufficiently to induce him to
+pardon his clandestine acquaintance with Clare, he would be altogether
+happy. How serene and beautiful the weather was! He stood in the
+verandah, which extended into the garden, bare-headed, and inhaled the
+sweet air with keen pleasure. His impressionable nature readily threw
+off care and caught at enjoyment.
+
+"It's such a glorious afternoon, mother," he said, as he entered Mrs.
+Carruthers's sitting-room; "I'm sure you must have enjoyed your
+drive."
+
+"I did, very much," his mother replied. "The air seems rather closer,
+I think, since I came in. I fancy we shall have a storm."
+
+"O, no," said George carelessly. Then he said: "Shall I read you my
+last chapter? I want to post it this evening. It's a funny chapter,
+mother. I bring in the queer old bookseller I told you about, who
+persisted in being his own banker."
+
+"I remember, George. What are you looking at?" He had taken up a
+letter from the table beside her, and was scrutinizing the address
+closely. "Are you admiring the handwriting? That is a letter from
+Clare Carruthers."
+
+"O," said George. And he laid down the letter, and went to fetch his
+manuscript. So it was she who had forwarded Mr. Felton's letters to
+him! Ellen must have asked her to do so--must, therefore, have talked
+of him--have mentioned him in some way. But had she done so in a
+manner to arouse any suspicion in Clare's mind of his identity? Did
+Clare remember him? Did she think of him? Would she forgive him when
+she should know all? These and scores of cognate questions did George
+Dallas put vainly to himself while he read to his mother a chapter of
+his novel, which certainly did not gain in effect by his abstraction.
+It pleased the listener, however, and she knew nothing of his
+preoccupation; and as he made the packet up for post he came to a
+resolution that on the following day he would tell Harriet "all about
+it," and act on her advice.
+
+With nightfall the wind arose, and a storm blew and raged over the
+little town, over the dark range of the Taunus, over the lighted
+gardens deserted by their usual frequenters, and, all unheeded, over
+the brilliant rooms where the play, and the dancing, and the music,
+the harmless amusement and the harmful devilment, went on just as
+usual. It blew over the house where Harriet lived, and raged against
+the windows of the room in which she sat in silence and darkness,
+except for the frequent glimmer which was thrown into the apartment
+from the street light, which shuddered and flickered in the rain and
+wind. Hour after hour she had sat there throughout the quiet evening
+during the lull, and when the darkness fell and the storm rose she
+laid her pale cheek against the window-pane and sat there still.
+
+The shaded roads were deeply strewn with fallen leaves next day, and
+the sun-rays streamed far more freely through the branches, and
+glittered on pools of water in the hollows, and revealed much
+devastation among the flower-beds. Rain and wind had made a
+wide-spread excursion that night; had crossed the Channel, and rifled
+the gardens and the woods of Poynings, and swept away a heavy tribute
+from the grand avenue of beeches and the stately clump of sycamores
+which Clare Carruthers loved.
+
+George had finished a drawing very carefully from the sketch which he
+had made of the avenue of beeches, and, thinking over his approaching
+communication to Harriet, he had taken the drawing from its place of
+concealment in his desk, and was looking at it, wondering whether the
+storm of the past night had done mischief at the Sycamores, when a
+servant knocked at the door of his room. He put the drawing out of
+sight, and bade the man come in. He handed George a note from Harriet,
+which he read with no small surprise.
+
+It told him that Routh had been summoned to London, on important
+business, by a telegram--"from that mysterious Flinders, no doubt,"
+thought George, as he looked ruefully at the note--and that they were
+on the point of starting from Homburg. "Seven o'clock" was written at
+the top of the sheet. They were gone then; had been gone for hours. It
+was very provoking. How dreary the place looked after the storm! How
+chilly the air had become! How much he wished Arthur would "turn up,"
+and that they might all get away!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+THE SEVERING OF THE HAIR.
+
+
+The storm which had swept unheeded over the heads bent over the
+gaming-tables at the Kursaal that wild autumn night, was hardly wilder
+and fiercer than the tempest in Stewart Routh's soul, as he, making
+one of the number of the gamblers, played with a quite unaccustomed
+recklessness, and won with surprising sequence. This was earlier in
+the night, when the powers of the air were only marshalling their
+forces, and the elemental war had not extended beyond the skirmishing
+stage. Many times he looked impatiently round, even while the ball was
+rolling, as if expecting to see some one, who still did not appear;
+then he would turn again to the green board, again stake and win, and
+resume his watch. At length a touch on his elbow caused him to look
+round in a contrary direction, where he saw a man standing, who
+immediately handed him a note and went away. Then Routh smiled, read
+the words the note contained, smiled again, swept up the money which
+lay before him, and left the room. The battle had fairly begun as he
+stepped out from the shelter of the portico, and, buttoning his coat
+tightly across his chest, and pulling his hat down to his eyebrows,
+set himself, with bent head, against the storm. His way led him past
+his own lodgings, and as he took it on the opposite side of the
+street, he saw, indistinctly, Harriet's figure, as she sat close
+beside the window, her head against the panes. Something dreary and
+forsaken in the aspect of the window, with its flimsy curtains wide
+apart, the indistinct form close against the glass, no light within
+the room, made Routh shiver impatiently as he looked at it; and just
+then the light in the street flickered and swerved violently under the
+influence of a sudden blast, which drove a sharp cascade of rain
+rattling against the window.
+
+"Moping there in the dark," said Routh, with an oath, "and making
+things a hundred times worse, with her cursed whining and temper."
+
+The Schwarzchild mansion was near, and he was soon removed as far from
+all associations with discomfort and dreariness as brilliant light, a
+blazing fire of odorous wood burning in a room too large to be
+overheated by it, luxurious surroundings, and pleasant expectation
+could remove him from such discordant realities. Presently Mrs. Ireton
+P. Bembridge made her appearance. The room was a long one, and she
+entered by a door which faced the chimney where he was standing. Much
+as he had admired her, irresistibly as her beauty had captivated him
+with its ordinary charm, of recklessness and lustre, with its rare,
+far-between moments of softness and grace, he had never really
+understood until now how beautiful she was. For there was a mingling
+of both moods upon her as she came towards him, her amber silk dress,
+with the accustomed drapery of superb black lace falling round her,
+and sweeping the ground in folds such as surely no other mere gown,
+made by mundane milliner, had ever accomplished. Rich purple amethysts
+were on her neck and on her wrists, and gleamed on the comb which held
+the coils of her hair. Wax-lights in profusion shed their softened
+light upon her, upon the cream and rose tints of her brow and cheeks,
+upon the scarlet of her lips, upon the marvellous darkness of her
+eyes; and the capricious blaze from the burning logs shot quivering
+streaks of light among the folds of her dress, glancing over the
+jewels she wore, and playing redly on the hand which she held out,
+while yet some steps divided her from Routh, gazing at her in
+absorbed, almost amazed admiration.
+
+"How tired and pale you look!" she said, as he took the proffered
+hand, and she allowed him to hold it. The words were slowly spoken, in
+the tone of solicitude for him, which is one of the most potent
+weapons in a beautiful woman's armoury. "Sit there," she went on,
+drawing her hand gently from his hold and indicating a seat, while she
+settled herself into the recesses of a huge German sofa. "How could
+you imagine I would go to the Kursaal to-night? Just listen!" She held
+her hand up; a cloud of filmy lace fell back from the beautiful round
+white arm. Then she dropped the hand slowly, and waited for him to
+speak. He spoke with strange difficulty; the spell of the power of her
+beauty was upon him. This was not what he had intended. He had meant
+to conquer, not to be conquered; to sway, not to be ruled.
+
+"I thought," he said, in a low tone, "you would have come,
+because--I--I did not know you would allow me the happiness of coming
+here."
+
+"Did you not? I think you don't understand me yet. I wished to see
+you, you know, and I did not wish to go out this evening. It is quite
+simple, is it not?"
+
+"It is indeed, for such a woman as you."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Is not that rather an awkward speech--rather an equivocal compliment?
+How _posed_ you look!"
+
+She laughed again, Routh felt unspeakably embarrassed; he had a sense
+of being at a disadvantage, which was unpleasant. She saw it, and
+said:
+
+"What a temper you have! You'd be rather hard to please, I fancy, if
+one were in any sense bound to try."
+
+"Don't jest with me," said Routh, suddenly and sternly, and he rolled
+his chair deliberately near her as he spoke. "You did not allow me,
+you did not invite me to come here to-night; you did not do this,
+which seems so 'simple' to you, because you are as much braver than
+every other woman as you are more beautiful,"--he looked into her dark
+eyes, and their lids did not droop,--"only to jest with me, only to
+trifle with me, as you trifle with others. You are a wonderfully
+puzzling woman, I acknowledge; no woman ever so puzzled me before.
+Each time I see you, there is something different, something new in
+your manner, and each time it is as though I had to begin all over
+again; as if I had not told you that I love you, as if you had not
+listened and confessed that you know it. Why have you sent for me? You
+dismissed me yesterday with something which you tried to make look and
+sound like anger--ineffectually, for you were not angry. And I was
+prepared for the same line of tactics to-day. Well, you send for me. I
+am here. You come to me a thousand times more beautiful"--he dropped
+his voice to a whisper, and she grew pale under the fixed fire of his
+eyes,--"infinitely more beautiful than I have ever seen you; and in
+your eyes and in your smile there is what I have never seen in them;
+and yet you meet me with mere jesting words. Now, this you do not
+mean; what is it that you _do_ mean?"
+
+He rose, and leaned against the mantelpiece, looking down upon her
+bent head, with the light shining on the jewels in her hair. She did
+not speak.
+
+"What is that you _do_ mean?" he repeated. She had laid one arm along
+the cushioned side of the sofa, the side near him. He clasped it,
+above the wrist, impressively, not caressingly, and at the touch, the
+words he had spoken to her before, "Would you not be afraid of a man
+who loved you with all the passion of his heart?" recurred to her, and
+she felt that so this man loved her, and that she was afraid of him.
+
+"I dare say many others have loved you, and told you so," he
+continued, "and I don't ask you how you received their professions. I
+know the world too well, and what it brings to men and women, for any
+such folly. That is of the past. The present is ours. I ask you why
+you have brought me here? A woman who resents such words as those I
+have spoken to you before now, does not give a man the chance of
+repeating them. You have not sent for me to tell me that you are
+insulted and outraged, to talk the cant of a hypocritical society to
+me. I should not love you, beautiful as you are, if you were such a
+fool."
+
+He saw that his audacity was not without its charm for her; her head
+was raised now, and her dark eyes, looking up, met his looking down,
+as she listened, with parted lips and deep-drawn breath.
+
+"Be sure of this," he said, "no man has ever loved you as I love you,
+or been willing to stake so much upon your love." The sinister truth
+which lurked in these words lent the sinister expression to his face
+again for a moment which she had sometimes seen in it. "How much I
+stake upon it you will never know. So be it. I am ready, I am willing.
+You see I am giving you time. I am not hurrying you into rash speech.
+I dare say you were not at all prepared for this when you and I met,
+and you took the initiative in what you intended to be an ordinary
+watering-place flirtation--while you were waiting for Arthur Felton,
+perhaps?" he said, savagely, for, as he went on, the savage nature of
+the man was rising within him, and for all that his grasp was on her
+soft white arm, and his gaze was searching the depths of her dark
+eyes, he was speaking rather to himself than to her; rather to the
+unchained devil within, than to the beautiful fatality before him.
+
+"It is possible you had some such notion," he said. "I don't ask you
+to acknowledge it, for if so, you have abandoned it." He stooped
+lower, his eyes looked closer into hers. She shrank back, and covered
+her face with her disengaged hand. "Yes," he went on, in a gentle
+tone, "I know you soon discovered that I am not made for make-believes;
+and now--now that you have sent for me, and I am here, what is it
+that you mean? You _cannot_ make me the pastime of an hour; you
+_cannot_ shake off the hold which such love as mine lays upon your
+life--would still lay upon it were you a feebler woman than you are.
+What then? Are you going to take the wine of life, or are you going to
+content yourself with the vapid draughts you have hitherto drank? You
+must tell me, and tell me to-night, what it is you mean; for a crisis
+in my life is come, and I must know, without paltering or delay, how
+it is to be dealt with."
+
+He lifted his hand from her arm, and standing directly before her,
+bade her look up and speak to him. She did not move. Then he sat down
+on a velvet footstool before her sofa, and drew her hands away from
+before her face. There were signs of agitation on it, and he read
+them, not quite correctly perhaps, but to his own satisfaction.
+
+"Listen to me," he said, in the gentlest tones within the compass of
+his voice. "I have a right--have I not?--to ask you, to know what is
+your meaning towards me? What did you bring me here for? Remember the
+words I have spoken to you, not once only, or twice; remember the
+story I told you on the balcony yonder; remember the tone you have
+occasionally adopted in all your levity, and then do not attempt to
+deny my right to speak as I am speaking, and to demand your answer."
+
+"You--you found me alone here--in my own house--and--"
+
+"Absurd!" he cried. "You are talking nonsense, and you know it. Did
+you not intend me to understand that I should find you alone? Did your
+note, your summons (I tore it up, but you remember the words as well
+as I do), mean anything else? Do you not know this is all folly? There
+is no need to play with _me_. I am a sure prize or victim, which you
+please; you know that well enough, and I must know which you _do_
+please, for this is, as I said before, a crisis for me. Which is it?"
+he said, and he held her hands more tightly, and looked at her with a
+pale face. "Which is it? Mere coquetry--a dangerous game with a man
+like me I warn you--a game you won't find it possible to play; or--or
+the deep, deep love of a lifetime--the devotion which will never
+swerve or falter--the passion which will blot out from your knowledge
+or your fears everything beyond itself."
+
+Weak, imaginative, without principle, easily ruled by strength, though
+a despot to weakness, the woman he addressed listened to him like one
+in a dream. Not until afterwards did a sense of being tricked and
+trapped come to her. Had her demeanour towards Routh really implied
+all this! Had she yielded to the rapacity for admiration, to the
+thirst for conquest, which had always dominated in her nature, once
+too often, and far too completely? This was precisely what she had
+done, and she had fallen into the hands of a stronger being than
+herself. In a blind, vague, groping kind of way she felt this, and
+felt that she could not help or deliver herself, and felt it with
+something like fear, even while her imagination and her vanity were
+intoxicated by the mingling of defiance and pleading in his words, in
+his tones, and in his looks.
+
+"You and I," he went on, "would say to others, would say to each other
+in some of our moods, or would have said when first we met, that no
+such thing as this all-sufficing love exists, but each of us knows
+well that it does, and may and _shall_ be ours! This is what _I_ mean.
+Again I ask you, what is _your_ meaning in all this?"
+
+"I don't know," she replied, releasing her hands, and rising. He
+allowed her to pass him, and to walk to the fireplace. She stood
+there, her radiant figure glittering in the lustre of the fire and the
+wax-lights. She stood there, her head bent, her hands before her, the
+fingers interlaced. After a minute, Routh followed her, and stood
+before her.
+
+"Then you will not answer me--you will not tell me what your meaning
+was in sending for me to-night?"
+
+There was tenderness in his tone now, and the slight inflection of a
+sense of injury which rarely fails with a woman.
+
+"Yes," she said, looking up full at him, "I will tell you. I wanted to
+let you know that I think of going away."
+
+"Going away!" cried Routh, in unbounded amazement--"Going away! What
+do you mean?"
+
+"Just what I say," she replied, recovering herself, and resuming her
+usual tone and manner as soon as he released her from the spell of his
+earnestness and passion--"I am going away. I don't treat you quite so
+badly as you try to make out, you see, or I should not tell you about
+it, or consult you, or anything, but just go--go right away, you know,
+and make an end of it."
+
+Routh's stern face flushed, and then darkened with a look which
+Harriet had learned to know, but which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had
+never seen. She did not see it now, and continued:
+
+"I sent for you to tell you this. I don't like the place; I'm tired of
+it. It's too small, and yet every one comes here, and I'm talked of.
+Ah, you sneer! Well, I know. I remember all I have said about that,
+but it is one thing to be talked of in London or Paris, and quite
+another to be the object of the daily curiosity and the malice--"
+
+"You mean the envy, don't you?"
+
+"No, I don't, I mean the malice; well the envy, or the malice, or only
+the observation, if you like, of always the same people, whom I meet
+in always the same places. This is a part of my reason, but only a
+part. I don't like Mr. Felton, I don't like Mr. Dallas; less than any
+people in the world I choose to have them to spy and overlook me;
+and--and--I don't want to be here when that man comes."
+
+Routh stood before her quite silent.
+
+"You know--you remember," she said with a smile, "Arthur Felton.
+By-the-by, you need not make faces about my wearing his photograph any
+more, for I've lost it--lost it before I got home yesterday. In fact,
+I suspect he is in some trouble--perhaps in some disgrace--and I have
+no fancy for being here when he arrives, to have him quarrelling with
+me if I avoid him, and his father regarding me with horror if I don't;
+so--" and here she knelt on the white rug and stretched out her hands
+to the fire, which shone reflected in her upraised eyes--"so I am
+going to--" She paused, tantalizing him.
+
+"To--?" he repeated after her, almost in a whisper.
+
+"To London," she said; and laughed and looked at him, and rose. "Now
+sit down, and let us talk it over, and be reasonable."
+
+Still quite silent, Routh obeyed her. His manner, his look was
+changed. He was thoughtful; but an air of relief had come upon him, as
+if unexpected help had reached him from an unforeseen quarter.
+
+
+There was no light in the window, as Routh passed it by, returning to
+his lodgings. But there was a lamp in the hall, at which he lighted a
+candle, and went into the sitting-room.
+
+Harriet was still sitting by the window; she did not raise or turn her
+head, and Routh thought she was sleeping. He went up close to her, and
+then she languidly opened her eyes and rose.
+
+"Have you fallen asleep here, in the dark, Harriet?" said Routh, "and
+without a fire! How imprudent and unnecessary!"
+
+"I am not cold," she said; but she shivered slightly as she spoke.
+Routh took up a shawl which lay upon a chair and wrapped it round her.
+She looked at him, quietly but sharply.
+
+"Don't be afraid; I am all right to-night, Harry," he said. "I've won
+a lot of money at the tables, and I've been thinking over what we were
+saying this morning--" He paused a moment, and then went on with some
+constraint in his voice: "I think you are right so far, that the
+sooner we get away from this the better. I will consider the rest of
+the matter when we get to London."
+
+Harriet looked at him still, closely and sharply, but she said
+nothing.
+
+"You are too tired to talk about anything to-night, Harry, I see,"
+said Routh, with good humour which did not sit on him very naturally,
+"so we will not talk. But would it be possible for you to be ready to
+start in the morning?"
+
+"Yes," said Harriet, quietly, and without showing the least surprise
+by voice or countenance, "I will have everything ready."
+
+
+Homburg von der Höhe was graced for only a few days longer by the
+beautiful American. Her pony-carriage and the gray ponies, the French
+groom, the luxurious wrappings, the splendid vision of satin, and
+lace, and jewels, all disappeared, and the Schwarzchild mansion was
+for a while desolate, until again occupied by the numerous progeny of
+a rich and rusty Queen's counsel.
+
+It was understood that Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had returned to Paris.
+"Every season is the right season for Paris with those Americans,"
+said a contemptuous Briton, who secretly held himself aggrieved by the
+abrupt departure of the handsome widow, who had never appeared more
+than conscious of his existence, certainly not interested in the fact;
+"it draws them like a loadstone."
+
+"She has evidently heard nothing of Arthur," said Mr. Felton to his
+nephew, "or she would have sent us word."
+
+He spoke timidly, and glanced at George with anxious eyes. George
+looked undisguisedly serious and troubled.
+
+"I wish your letters had arrived, uncle," he replied. "I begin to fear
+we shall not see Arthur here; and--and to be sorry that so much time
+has been lost."
+
+
+A week later George Dallas wrote to Harriet Routh from Paris as
+follows:
+
+
+"Hôtel du Louvre, Paris, October.
+
+"My Dear Mrs. Routh,--I am here with my uncle. My mother and Mr.
+Carruthers are travelling more slowly. We are all to meet in London.
+Meantime a circumstance has occurred which may prove of great, and
+must be of some, importance to Mr. Felton and to myself. I am
+compelled to ask your assistance, which I know you will give me with
+all your accustomed readiness and kindness.
+
+"Accompanied by my uncle, I went this morning to a jeweller's shop in
+the Rue de la Paix to order the bracelet you know of to be re-made for
+my mother. I had not previously undone the packet containing the gold
+band and the turquoises, which you sealed up and kept in your desk for
+me, since the day you gave it to me at Homburg. The things were
+wrapped up in letter-paper, you will remember. I opened the packet on
+the counter of the jeweller's shop, shook the turquoises into a box he
+handed me for the purpose, and was holding up the gold band for him to
+examine, when my uncle, who was looking at the paper I had laid down,
+suddenly called to me, and pointing to some writing on it--mere
+memoranda, apparently, of articles to be purchased (I enclose a
+correct copy)--exclaimed, 'That is Arthur's writing!' I saw at once
+that it was his writing, and determined to apply to you in the first
+place for information on the matter. It is now clear that my cousin
+has passed under another name than his own, and that Routh and perhaps
+you have known him. There is a date, too, upon the paper--10th of
+April of this year. You took the paper out of the lower division of
+your desk. You may be able to tell us all that we have so long been
+anxious to know, at once. Pray answer this without delay. I think it
+best not to write to Routh, because my uncle and he are almost
+strangers, and also, dear Mrs. Routh, because it comes naturally to me
+to address myself to you. How strange that all this time you and Routh
+should have known Arthur, and I, living in intimacy with you both,
+should have been in a manner seeking him! You will, no doubt, be able
+to tell us everything without an hour's delay; but, in any case, we
+shall be in London in a week, and shall have Arthur's portrait to show
+you. I am sure this letter is very ill expressed, but I am still
+bewildered at the strangeness of the occurrence. Write at once. My
+room is No. 80.
+
+"Always yours affectionately,
+
+"George Dallas.
+
+"P. S. The jeweller of the Rue de la Paix is a jewel among his tribe.
+He undertakes to replace the diamonds, and, as far as I can judge--to
+be sure it's only a little way--with stones just as fine as those I
+sold at A--, for a third less than the money his Hebrew Dutch
+_confrère_ gave me. I had a mind to tell him the value of the original
+diamonds, but I didn't--the honestest of the jewellers is only human,
+and it might tempt him to raise the price and not the value. But I
+think he recognized a master-mind in my uncle."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+MOVING ON.
+
+
+Unconscious of the inquietude of her own brother and of her son, happy
+in a reunion which she had never ventured to hope for, still
+sufficiently weakened by her illness to be preserved from any mental
+investigation of "how things had come about," acquiescent and
+tranquil, Mrs. Carruthers was rapidly getting well. The indelible
+alteration which her beauty had sustained--for it was beauty
+still--the beauty of a decade later than when George had seen his
+mother through the ball-room window at Poynings--had touched her
+morally as well as physically; and a great calm had come upon her with
+the silver streaks in her rich dark hair, and the fading of the colour
+in her cheek.
+
+The relation between George's mother and her husband had undergone an
+entire change. Mr. Carruthers had been excessively alarmed when he
+first realized the nature of his wife's illness. He had never come in
+contact with anything of the kind, and novelty of any description had
+a tendency to alarm and disconcert Mr. Carruthers of Poynings. But he
+was not in the least likely to leave any manifest duty undone, and he
+had devoted himself, with all the intelligence he possessed (which was
+not much), and all the heart (which was a great deal more than he or
+anybody else suspected), to the care, attention, and "humouring" which
+the patient required. From the first, Mrs. Carruthers had been able to
+recognize this without trying to account for it, and she unconsciously
+adopted the best possible method of dealing with a disposition like
+that of her husband. She evinced the most absolute dependence on him,
+and almost fretful eagerness for his presence, an entire forgetfulness
+of the former supposed immutable law which had decreed that the
+convenience and the pleasure of Mr. Carruthers of Poynings were to
+take precedence, as a matter of course, of all other sublunary things.
+Indeed, it was merely in a technical sense that, as regarded the
+little world of Poynings, these had been considered sublunary. Its
+population concerned themselves infinitely less with the
+"principalities and powers" than with the accuracy of the temperature
+of Mr. Carruthers's shaving-water, and the punctuality with which Mr.
+Carruthers's breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served. It had never
+occurred to his loving and dutiful wife that any alteration in this
+principle of life at Poynings could possibly be effected, and thus the
+more superficial faults of the character of a genuinely worthy man had
+been strengthened by the irresponsibility of his position until they
+bade fair to overpower its genuine worth. But all this had changed
+now, changed in a fashion against which there was no appeal Mr.
+Carruthers was no longer the first. His hours, his habits, his
+occupations, had to give way to the exigencies of a misfortune which
+struck him on the most sensitive point, and which invested him with a
+responsibility not to be trifled with or shared. It was characteristic
+of him that he became excessively proud of his care of his wife. The
+pomposity and importance with which he had been wont to "transact his
+public business" was now transferred to his superintendence of his
+patient; and the surveillance and fussiness which had made life rather
+a burdensome possession to the household and retainers of Poynings
+impressed themselves upon the physicians and attendants promoted to
+the honour of serving Mrs. Carruthers, As they were, in the nature of
+things, only temporary inflictions, and were, besides, accompanied by
+remarkably liberal remuneration, the sufferers supported them
+uncomplainingly.
+
+It was also characteristic of Mr. Carruthers that, having made up his
+mind to receive George Dallas well, he had received him very well, and
+speedily became convinced that the young man's reformation was
+genuine, and would be lasting. Also, he had not the least suspicion
+how largely he was influenced in this direction by Mark Felton's
+estimate of the young man--an estimate not due to ignorance either,
+for George had hidden nothing in his past career from his uncle except
+his acquaintance with Clare Carruthers, and the strange coincidence
+which connected him with the mysterious murder of the 17th of April.
+Mr. Carruthers, like all men who are both weak and obstinate, was
+largely influenced by the opinions of others, provided they were not
+forced upon him or too plainly suggested to him, but that he was
+currently supposed to partake or even to originate them. He had not
+said much to his wife about her son; he had not referred to the past
+at all.
+
+It was in his honourable, if narrow, nature to tell her frankly that
+he had recognized his error, that he knew now that all his generosity,
+all the other gifts he had given her, had not availed, and could not
+have availed, while George's society had been denied; but the
+_consigne_ was, "Mrs. Carruthers must not be agitated," and the great
+rule of Mr. Carruthers's life at present was, that the _consigne_ was
+not to be violated. Hence, nothing had been said upon the subject, and
+after the subsidence of her first agitation, Mrs. Carruthers had
+appeared to take George's presence very quietly, as she took all other
+things.
+
+The alteration which had taken place in his wife had tended to allay
+that unacknowledged ill which had troubled Mr. Carruthers's peace, and
+exacerbated his temper. The old feeling of jealousy died completely
+out. The pale, delicate, fragile woman, whose mind held by the past
+now with so very faint a grasp, whose peaceful thoughts were of the
+present, whose quiet hopes were of the future, had nothing in common
+with the beautiful young girl whom another than he had wooed and won.
+As she was now, as alone she wished to be, he was first and chief in
+her life, and there was not a little exaction or temporary
+fretfulness, a single little symptom of illness and dependence, which
+had not in it infinitely more reassuring evidence for Mr. Carruthers
+than all the observance of his wishes, and submission to his domestic
+laws, which had formerly made it plainer to Mr. Carruthers of Poynings
+that his wife feared than that she loved him.
+
+And, if it be accounted strange and bordering on the ludicrous that,
+at Mr. Carruthers's respectable age, he should still have been subject
+to the feelings tauntingly mentioned as the "vagaries" of love, it
+must be remembered that George's mother was the only woman he had ever
+cared for, and that he had only of late achieved the loftier ideals of
+love. It was of recent date that he learned to hold his wife more dear
+and precious than Mr. Carruthers of Poynings.
+
+He was not in the least jealous of George. He liked him. He was
+clever, Mr. Carruthers knew; and he rather disapproved of clever
+people in the abstract. He had heard, and had no reason to
+doubt--certainly none afforded by his stepson's previous
+career--that literary people were a bad lot. He supposed, innocent Mr.
+Carruthers, that, to be literary, people must be clever. The inference
+was indisputable. But George did not bore him with his cleverness. He
+never talked about the _Piccadilly_ or the _Mercury_, reserving his
+confidences on these points for his mother and his uncle. The family
+party paired off a good deal. Mr. Carruthers and his wife, Mark Felton
+and his nephew. And then Mr. Carruthers had an opportunity of becoming
+convinced that the doubts he had allowed to trouble him had all been
+groundless, and to learn by experience that, happy in her son's
+society, truly grateful to him for the kindness with which he watched
+George, she was happier still in his company.
+
+To a person of quicker perception than Mr. Carruthers, the fact that
+the invalid never spoke of her faithful old servant would have had
+much significance. It would have implied that she had more entirely
+lost her memory than other features and circumstances of her condition
+indicated, or that she had regained sufficient mental firmness and
+self-control to avoid anything leading directly or indirectly to the
+origin and source of a state of mental weakness of which she was
+distressingly conscious. But Mr. Carruthers lacked quickness and
+experience, and he did not notice this. He had pondered, in his
+stately way, over Dr. Merle's words, and he had become convinced that
+he must have been right. There had been a "shock." But of what nature?
+How, when, had it occurred? Clearly, these questions could not now,
+probably could not ever, be referred to Mrs. Carruthers. Who could
+tell him? Clare? Had anything occurred while he had been absent during
+the days immediately preceding his wife's illness? He set himself now,
+seriously, to the task of recalling the circumstances of his return.
+
+He had been met by Clare, who told him Mrs. Carruthers was not quite
+well. He had gone with her to his wife's room. She was lying in her
+bed. He remembered that she looked pale and ill. She was in her
+dressing-gown, but otherwise dressed. Then she had not been so ill
+that morning as to have been unable to leave her bed. If anything had
+occurred, it must have taken place after she had risen as usual
+Besides, she had not been seriously ill until a day or two
+later--stay, until how many days? It was on the morning after Mr.
+Dalrymple's visit that he had been summoned to his wife's room; he and
+Clare were at breakfast together. Yes, to be sure, he remembered it
+all distinctly. Was the "shock" to be referred to that morning, then?
+Had it only come in aid of previously threatening indisposition? These
+points Mr. Carruthers could not solve. He would question Clare on his
+return, and find out what she knew, or if she knew anything. In the
+mean time, he would not mention the matter at all, not even to his
+wife's brother or her son. Mr. Carruthers of Poynings had the "defects
+of his qualities," and the qualities of his defects, so that his
+pride, leading to arrogance in one direction, involved much delicacy
+in another, and this sorrow, this fear, this source, of his wife's
+suffering, whatever it might be, was a sacred thing for him, so far as
+its concealment from all hitherto unacquainted with it was concerned.
+Clare might help him to find it out, and then, if the evil was one
+within his power to remedy, it should be remedied; but in the mean
+time, it should not be made the subject of discussion or speculation.
+Her brother could not possibly throw any light on the cause of his
+wife's trouble; he was on the other side of the Atlantic when the
+blow, let it have come from whatever unknown quarter, had struck her.
+Her son! Where had he been? And asking himself this question, Mr.
+Carruthers began to feel rather uncomfortably hot about the ears, and
+went creaking up the stairs to his wife's sitting-room, in order to
+divert his thoughts as soon as possible. He saw things by a clearer
+light now, and the recollection of his former conduct to George
+troubled him.
+
+He found his stepson and Mark Felton in Mrs. Carruthers's room. The
+day was chilly and gloomy, and eminently suggestive of the advantages
+possessed by an English country mansion over the most commodious and
+expensive of foreign lodging-houses. George had just placed a shawl
+round his mother's shoulders, and was improving the fastenings of the
+windows, which were in their normal condition in foreign parts.
+
+"Mark has been talking about Poynings," said Mrs. Carruthers, turning
+to her husband with a smile, "and says he never saw a place he admired
+more, though he had only a passing glimpse of it." Mr. Carruthers
+was pleased, though of course it was only natural that Mr. Felton
+should never have seen any place more to be admired by persons of
+well-regulated taste than Poynings.
+
+"Of course," he said, with modest admission, "if you come to talk
+about the Dukeries, and that kind of thing, there's nothing to be said
+for Poynings. But _it is_ a nice place, and I am very fond of it, and
+so is Laura."
+
+He was rather alarmed, when he had said this, to observe his wife's
+eyes full of tears. Tears indicated recollection, and of a painful
+kind, he thought, being but little acquainted with the intricate
+symptoms of feminine human nature, which recollection must be avoided,
+or turned aside, in a pleasurable direction.
+
+Now George's cleverness was a direction of the required kind, and Mr.
+Carruthers proceeded to remark that George must make drawings for his
+mother of all the favourite points of view at Poynings.
+
+"There's the terrace, George," he said, "and the 'Tangle,' where
+your mother loves to spend the summer afternoons, and there's the
+beech-wood, from the hill behind the garden, and the long avenue.
+There are several spots you will like, George, and--and," said Mr.
+Carruthers, magnanimously, and blushing all over his not much withered
+face, like a woman, "I'm only sorry you are to make acquaintance with
+them so late in the day."
+
+He put out his hand, with true British awkwardness, as he spoke, and
+the young man took it respectfully, and with an atoning pang of shame
+and self-reproach. But for his mother's presence, and the imperative
+necessity of self-restraint imposed by the consideration of her health
+and the danger of agitation to her, George would have inevitably told
+his stepfather the truth. He felt all the accumulated meanness of an
+implied falsehood most deeply and bitterly, and might have been
+capable of forgetting even his mother, but for a timely warning
+conveyed to him by the compressed lips and frowning brows of his
+uncle. As for his mother, neither he nor Mr. Felton could judge of the
+effect produced upon her by the words of her husband. She had turned
+away her head as he began to speak.
+
+"I was just going to tell Laura what I thought of doing, if you and
+she approve," Mr. Felton hastened to say. "You see, I am getting more
+and more anxious about Arthur, and I don't think he will turn up here.
+I thought if George and I were to go on to Paris and make some
+inquiries there--I know pretty well where he went to there, and what
+he did--we need not make more than a few days' delay, and then go on
+to London, and join you and Laura there. What do you say?"
+
+"I think it would do nicely," said Mr. Carruthers. "You and George
+would hardly like our rate of travelling under any circumstances." It
+would have afforded any individual endowed with good humour and a
+sense of the ludicrous great amusement to observe the pleasure and
+importance with which Mr. Carruthers implied the seriousness of his
+charge, and the immense signification of a journey undertaken by Mrs.
+Carruthers of Poynings. "We shall stay some time in town," he
+continued, "for additional medical advice; and then, I hope, we shall
+all go down to Poynings together."
+
+"I have secured rooms for George and myself in Piccadilly," said Mark
+Felton, in a skilfully off-hand manner. "It would never do for two
+jolly young bachelors like him and me to invade Sir Thomas Boldero's
+house. Even "--and here Mr. Felton's countenance clouded over, and he
+continued absently--"even if Arthur did not join us; but I hope he
+will--I hope he will."
+
+Mr. Carruthers was singularly unfortunate in any attempt to combine
+politeness with insincerity. He had a distinct conviction that his
+wife's nephew was a "good-for-nothing," of a different and more
+despicable order of good-for-nothingness from that which he had
+imputed to his stepson in his worst days; and though he would have
+been unfeignedly pleased had Mr. Felton's inquietude been set at rest
+by the receipt of a letter from his son, he was candidly of opinion
+that the longer that young gentleman abstained from joining the
+family-party, the more peaceful and happy that family-party would
+continue to be.
+
+However, he endeavoured to rise to the occasion, and said he hoped
+"Mr. Arthur" would accompany his father to Poynings, with not so very
+bad a grace considering.
+
+The diversion had enabled George to recover himself, and he now drew a
+chair over beside his mother's, and began to discuss the times and
+distances of their respective journeys, and other cognate topics of
+conversation. Mr. Carruthers liked everything in the planning and
+settling line, and it was quite a spectacle to behold him over the
+incomprehensible pages of Bradshaw, emphasizing his helplessness with
+his gold spectacles.
+
+"I suppose ten days will see us all in London," he said to Mr. Felton,
+"if you leave this with George to-morrow, and we leave on Monday. I
+have written to my niece. Sir Thomas and Lady Boldero never come to
+town at this season, so I have asked Clare to come up and see that the
+house is all comfortable for Laura. Clare can stay at her cousin's
+till we arrive."
+
+"Her cousin's?" asked Mark Felton; and George blessed him for the
+question, for he did not know who was meant, and had never yet brought
+himself to make an inquiry in which Clare Carruthers was concerned,
+even by implication.
+
+"Mrs. Stanhope, Sir Thomas's daughter," said Mr. Carruthers; "she was
+married just after we left Poynings."
+
+"The young lady of whom Captain Marsh made such appropriate mention,"
+thought George.
+
+"I ha-ve no town-house," continued Mr. Carruthers with more of the old
+pompous manner than Mr. Felton had yet remarked in him. "Laura prefers
+Poynings, so do I; and as my niece came down only this spring and has
+been detained in the country by several causes, we have not thought it
+necessary to have one."
+
+"I should think you would find a town-house a decided nuisance," said
+Mr. Felton, frankly; "and if Miss Carruthers has Sir Thomas Boldero's
+and Mrs. Stanhope's to go to, I don't see that she wants anything
+more."
+
+"You forget," said Mr. Carruthers in a quiet tone, which,
+nevertheless, conveyed to Mr. Felton's quick apprehension that he had
+made a grave mistake, and implied to perfection the loftiness of
+rebuke--"you forget that Miss Carruthers is the heiress of Poynings!"
+
+"Ah, to be sure, so I do," said Mark Felton, heartily, "and I beg her
+pardon and yours; but at least I shall never forget that she is the
+most charming girl I ever saw in my life." And then, as if a secret
+inspiration led him to put the question which George longed to hear
+and dared not ask, he said:
+
+"When is Miss Carruthers to arrive in London?"
+
+"Only three or four days before we shall get there, I fancy. My love,"
+turning abruptly to Mrs. Carruthers, as a happy idea struck him, by
+which her additional comfort might be secured, "what would you think
+of my desiring Clare to bring Brookes up with her? Should you like to
+have her with you when you are in town?"
+
+Mrs. Carruthers turned a face full of distress upon her husband in
+reply to his kind question. It was deeply flushed for a moment, then
+it grew deadly pale; her eyes rolled towards George with an expression
+of doubt, of searching, of misty anguish which filled him with alarm,
+and she put out her hands with a gesture of avoidance.
+
+"O no, no," she said, "I cannot see her yet--I am not able--I don't
+know--there's something, there's something."
+
+It might have struck Mr. Carruthers and Mark Felton too, had they not
+been too much alarmed to think of anything but Mrs. Carruthers's
+emotion, that when they both approached her eagerly, George did not
+attempt to do so. He rose, indeed, but it was to push back his chair
+and get out of their way. Mr. Carruthers asked her tenderly what was
+the matter, but she replied only by laying her head upon his breast in
+a passion of tears.
+
+In the evening, when Dr. Merle had seen Mrs. Carruthers, had said a
+great deal about absolute quiet, but had not interdicted the purposed
+return to England, when it had been decided that there was to be no
+leave-taking between her and her brother and son, who were to commence
+their journey on the morrow, Mr. Carruthers, sitting by his wife's
+bed, where she then lay quietly asleep, arrived at the conclusion that
+the old nurse was connected with the "shock." The idea gave him acute
+pain. It must have been, then, something that had some reference to
+his wife's past life, something in which he and the present had no
+share. Very old, and worn, and troubled Mr. Carruthers looked as the
+darkness came on and filled the room, and once more the night wind
+arose, and whistled and shrieked over Taunus. He began to wish
+ardently, earnestly, to get home. It was very strange to look at his
+wife, always before his eyes, and know she had a terrible secret
+grief, which had thus powerfully affected her, and not to dare to
+question her about it. This fresh confirmation of the fact, this new
+manifestation of her sufferings, after so peaceful an interval, had in
+it something awful to the mind of Mr. Carruthers.
+
+The brother and the son in their different ways were equally disturbed
+by the occurrence--Mark Felton in his ignorance and conjecture, George
+in the painful fulness of his knowledge and his self-reproach.
+
+And as Mark Felton's look had alone arrested George's impulsive desire
+to reveal his knowledge of Poynings to Mr. Carruthers, so the
+remembrance of all Routh and Harriet had said to him of the
+difficulty, the embarrassment, the probable danger of an
+acknowledgment, alone arrested his desire to inform his uncle of the
+dreadful error which had caused his mother's illness.
+
+Mark Felton and George Dallas left Homburg for Paris on the following
+day. They had separated for the night earlier than usual, and George
+had employed himself for some hours in writing a long and confidential
+letter to his friend Cunningham. It was addressed to that gentleman at
+the _Mercury_ office, and it contained full details of every
+particular which he had been able to learn connected with his missing
+cousin. The purpose of the letter was an urgent request that
+Cunningham would at once communicate with the police on this matter,
+and it concluded with these words:
+
+"I cannot conquer my apprehensions, and I will not yet communicate
+them to my uncle. But, mark this, I am convinced we shall learn
+nothing good at Paris; and we have done very wrong in not putting the
+police to work long ago. Don't laugh at me, and call me a novelist in
+action. I never felt so sure of anything I had not seen as I am of
+Arthur Felton's having come to serious grief."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+PAUL WARD.
+
+
+The autumn tints were rich and beautiful upon the Kent woods, and
+nowhere more rich or more beautiful than in Sir Thomas Boldero's
+domain. The soft grass beneath the noble beeches was strewn with the
+russet leaves a little earlier than usual that year, and somewhat more
+plentifully, for the storm had shaken them down, and had even rent
+away a branch here and there from some of the less sturdy trees. And
+then the forester made his inspection, and the fallen branches were
+removed, and duly cut and housed for winter fire-wood, and it chanced
+that the hitherto forgotten log on which George Dallas had sat one
+spring morning was carried away with them.
+
+Clare Carruthers missed it from its accustomed place as she rode down
+the glade which she still loved, though it had a painful association
+for her now. Every day her eyes had rested on the rugged log, and
+every day she had turned them away with a sigh. To-day it was there no
+longer, and its absence was a relief. She reined Sir Lancelot up for a
+moment, and looked at the vacant space. The earth lay bare and brown
+where the log had been; there was no grass there.
+
+"It won't be hidden until the spring," she thought, impatiently. "I
+wish--I wish I could forget the place in which I saw him first! I wish
+I could forget that I ever had seen him!"
+
+Then she turned her head away with an effort and a sigh, and rode on.
+
+Clare was going over from the Sycamores to Poynings. She had occasion
+to see the housekeeper, started early, and, as usual, unattended, save
+by Cæsar, who bounded along now by the side of Sir Lancelot, anon a
+considerable way in advance, doing the distance twice over, after the
+fashion of dogs, and evidently compassionating the leisurely pace to
+which his equine friend and comrade was condemned.
+
+The months which had elapsed since her inauspicious meeting among the
+beeches with Paul Ward had had much inquietude and mysterious trouble
+in them for the girl whose graces they had but ripened and perfected,
+on whose fair face they had impressed a premature but very beautiful
+thoughtfulness. To one so young, so innocent, so carefully shielded
+from evil, living in so pure and calm an atmosphere of home, and yet
+around whom the inevitable solitude of orphanhood dwelt, the presence
+of a secret cause of sorrow, doubt, perplexity, was in itself a burden
+grievous to be borne. Clare could not help, dwelling perpetually on
+the only mystery which had ever come into her tranquil conventional
+life, and the more she shrank from the contemplation, the more it
+pressed itself upon her; Sometimes, for days and weeks together, the
+remembrance of it would be vague and formless, then it would take
+shape again and substance, and thrill her with fresh horror, distract
+her with new perplexity. Sometimes she would address herself with all
+the force of her intelligence to this mysterious remembrance, she
+would arrange the circumstances in order and question them, and then
+she would turn away from the investigation cold and trembling, with
+all the terrible conviction of the first moment of revelation forcibly
+restored.
+
+The dreadful truth haunted her. When Sir Thomas Boldero asked her
+ladyship if there was any news in the _Times_ each morning (for the
+Sycamores was governed by other laws than those which ruled Poynings,
+and Lady Boldero, who was interested in politics after her preserves
+and her linen-presses, always read the papers first), Clare had
+listened with horrid sickening fear for many and many a day. But
+suspense of this sort cannot last in its first vitality, and it had
+lessened, but it was not wholly dead even yet. One subject of
+speculation frequently occupied her. Had he seen the warning she had
+ventured to send him? No, she would sometimes say to herself,
+decisively, no, he had not seen it. His safety must have been
+otherwise secured; if he had seen it, he would know that the terrible
+truth was known to her, and he would never have dared to recall
+himself to her memory. For he did so recall himself, and this was the
+most terrible part of it all for Clare. On the first day of each month
+she received the current number of the _Piccadilly_, and there was
+always written on the fly-leaf, "From Paul Ward." No, her attempt had
+failed; such madness, such audacity, could not otherwise be accounted
+for. For some time Clare had not looked at the books which reached her
+with this terribly significant imprint. She had not destroyed them,
+but she had put them away out of her sight. One day, after her
+cousin's marriage, and when her thoughts--forcibly distracted for some
+time by the preparations, the hospitalities, and the rejoicings
+attendant on that event--had flown back to the subject which had such
+tormenting attraction for her, a sudden impulse of utter incredulity
+seized her. Nothing was changed in the facts, nothing in the
+circumstances; but Clare laid aside reason under the suddenly exerted
+power of feeling, and refused to believe that Paul Ward had murdered
+the unknown man in whose company he had been, and who undoubtedly had
+been murdered.
+
+"I _won't_ believe it! I don't believe it!"
+
+These words have often been uttered by the human will, when tortured
+by the terrible impotence of human despair, as unreasonably, as
+obstinately, as Clare Carruthers spoke them, and with infinitely more
+suffering implied in the inevitable reaction. But they can seldom have
+brought greater relief. A generous, reckless impulse of youth, partly
+against the terrible knowledge of evil, partly against her own
+suffering, which wearied and oppressed her spirit, distant, vague,
+even chimerical as she told herself it was, animated her resolution.
+She rose, and stretched her arms out, and shook her golden head, as
+though she discarded a baleful vision by a strong act of her will.
+
+"I shall never see him again," she thought. "I shall never know his
+fate, unless, indeed, he becomes famous, and the voice of his renown
+reaches me. I shall never know the truth of this dreadful story; but,
+strong as the evidence is, I never will believe it more. Never,
+never!"
+
+Clare Carruthers was too young, too little accustomed to the sad
+science of self-examination, too candidly persuadable by the natural
+abhorrence of youth for grief, to ask herself how much of this
+resolution came from the gradual influence of time--how much from the
+longing she felt to escape from the constant pressure of the first
+misery she had ever known. The impulse, the resolution, had come to
+her, with her first waking thoughts, one glorious morning in the early
+autumn--the morning which saw George Dallas and his uncle arrive at
+Homburg, and witnessed Mr. Carruthers's reception of his stepson. This
+resolution she never abandoned. That day she had taken the books out
+of their hiding-place, and had set herself to read the serial story
+which she knew was written by him. Something of his mind, something of
+his disposition, would thus reveal itself to her. It was strange that
+he remembered to send her the books so punctually, but that might mean
+nothing; they might be sent by the publisher, by his order. He might
+have forgotten her existence by this time. Clare was sensible, and not
+vain, and she saw nothing more than a simple politeness in the
+circumstance. So she read the serial novel, and thought over it; but
+it revealed nothing to her. There was one description, indeed, which
+reminded her, vaguely, of Mrs. Carruthers, as she had been before her
+illness, as Clare remembered her, when she had first seen her, years
+ago. Clare liked the story. She was not enthusiastically delighted
+with it. A change which her newly-formed resolution to believe him
+innocent, to chase from her all that had tormented her, could never
+undo, had passed upon Clare, since her girlish imagination had been
+ready to exalt Paul Ward, "the author," Paul Ward, "the artist," as
+she had called him, with all the reverence her innocent heart accorded
+to such designations, into a hero; she had less impulse in her now,
+she had suffered, in her silent unsuspected way, and suffering is a
+sovereign remedy for all enthusiasm except that of religion. But she
+discerned in the story something which made her reason second her
+resolution. And from that day Clare grieved no more. She waited, she
+did not know for what; she hoped, she did not know why; she was
+pensive, but not unhappy. She was very young, very innocent, very
+trustful; and the story of the murder was six months old. So was that
+of the meeting, and that of the myrtle-sprig; and all three were
+growing vague.
+
+The young girl's thoughts were very busy as she rode from the
+Sycamores to Poynings, but not exclusively with Paul Ward.
+
+Her life presented itself in a more serious aspect to her then than it
+had ever before worn. All things seemed changed. Her uncle's letters
+to her had undergone a strange alteration. He wrote now to her as to
+one whom he trusted, to whom he looked for aid, on whom he purposed to
+impose a responsible duty. The pompousness of Mr. Carruthers's nature
+was absolutely inseparable from his style of writing as from his
+manner of speech, but the matter of his letters atoned for their
+faults of manner. He wrote with such anxious affection of his wife, he
+stepson, whose name Clare had never heard pronounced by his lips or in
+his presence. Above all, he seemed to expect very much from Clare.
+Evidently her life was not to be empty of interest for the future, if
+responsibility could fill it; for Clare was to be intrusted with all
+the necessary arrangements for Mrs. Carruthers's comfort, and Mrs.
+Carruthers was very anxious to get back to England, to Poynings, and
+to Clare! The girl learned this with inexpressible gladness, but some
+surprise. She was wholly unaware of the feelings with which Mrs.
+Carruthers had regarded her, and the intentions of maternal care and
+tenderness which she had formed--feelings she had hidden, intentions
+she had abandoned from motives of prudence founded on her thorough
+comprehension of the besetting weakness of her husband's character.
+
+Clare had not the word of the enigma, and it puzzled her. But it
+delighted her also. Instinctively she felt there was something of Mark
+Felton's doing in this. He had impressed her as favourably as she had
+impressed him. She had recognized his possession of the two great
+qualities, feeling and intelligence, and her own kindred endowments
+had answered to them at once.
+
+Was she going to be happy and useful? Was she going to be something
+more than the rich Miss Carruthers, the heiress of Poynings, who had
+every luxury life could supply, except that of feeling herself of
+active individual importance to any living creature? Was Poynings
+going to be as pleasant as the Sycamores, and for a more worthy
+reason? Clare felt in her honest young heart that the superiority of
+the Sycamores consisted principally in the fact that the uncle who
+inhabited that abode was never in her way, whereas the uncle who ruled
+at Poynings was generally otherwise, and unpleasant. It was very
+ungrateful of her to feel this; but she did feel it. Was all this
+going to be altered? Was she going to have the sort of feeling that
+might have been hers if she had not been the heiress of Poynings, but
+the real, own daughter of a kind lady who needed and would accept all
+her girlish love and eager, if unskilful, care? It must be so, Clare
+thought, now Mrs. Carruthers had her son with her, and she no longer
+felt that there was injustice done to her, for which Clare was made
+the reason or the pretext, she would allow her to be all she had
+always desired to be. How much uselessness, unreality, weariness, fell
+away from Clare Carruthers as she rode on, the beautiful healthful
+colour rising higher in her cheeks as the glad thoughts, the vague,
+sweet, unselfish hopes of the future, expanded in her young heart! She
+would tell Mrs. Carruthers some day when she was quite well, when
+there should be no longer any danger of doing her harm by the
+revelation, about the mystery which had caused her so much suffering,
+and then, when there should be perfect confidence between them, she
+would tell her how she had discovered that she, too, was acquainted
+with Paul Ward. Clare had never speculated seriously upon the cause of
+Mrs. Carruthers's illness. Her first convictions were, that it had
+originated in some trouble about her son. The old housekeeper's
+manner, the removal of the portrait, had sufficed for Clare. This was
+a sacred sorrow, sacred from Clare's curiosity, even in her thoughts.
+And now it was at an end, probably thanks to Mark Felton; but, at all
+events, it was quite over. In the time to come, that future which
+Clare's fancy was painting so brightly, as her horse carried her
+swiftly over the familiar road, Mrs. Carruthers might even love her
+well enough to tell her the story of the past, and what that terrible
+grief had been.
+
+
+"I am to take Thomas up to town with me, Mrs. Brookes, and I only wish
+you were coming too," said Clare to the housekeeper at Poynings, as a
+concluding item of the budget of news she had to tell. Clare was in
+high spirits by this time. Mrs. Brookes was much more friendly than
+usual to the young lady, whom she, too, had always regarded with
+jealousy, and almost dislike, as the enemy of George.
+
+"I am better here, Miss Carruthers," said Mrs. Brookes. "I daresay
+there won't be much delay in London--for Mrs. Carruthers and master, I
+mean. You'll stay awhile with Mrs. Stanhope, belike?"
+
+"O dear no--I certainly shall not," replied Clare, with the prettiest
+air of importance. "I shall come down with my uncle and aunt. My uncle
+says we are to come as soon as the doctors will let us go."
+
+"And Mr. Felton also, you say, Miss Carruthers?"
+
+"Yes, and Mr. Dallas. How delighted I am, Mrs. Brookes--how delighted
+you must be!" The girl's face flushed deeply. She was all glowing with
+the generous ardour of her feelings. She had taken off her hat, and
+was standing before the open window in the morning-room, her habit
+gathered up in one hand, her slight figure trembling, her beautiful
+face radiant.
+
+"I am sure it has been almost as hard for you as for his mother. I
+could not say anything about it before, Nurse Ellen"--it was
+the first time Clare had ever called the old woman by this
+name--"because--because I knew nothing--no one ever told me anything,
+and I must have seemed to blame my uncle. But, indeed, it pained me
+very much, and now--now I am so happy!"
+
+Bright swift tears sparkled in her golden-brown eyes. She dashed them
+away, and, taking the old woman's hands in hers, she said, with
+girlish archness,
+
+"You must not hate me any more, Nurse Ellen, for 'Master George' and I
+are going to be very good friends."
+
+"Hate you, my dear young lady!" said Mrs. Brookes, who was too old to
+blush externally, but who certainly felt like blushing. "How can you
+have such fancies? Who could hate _you?_"
+
+"You--you dear, faithful old thing! But it's all right now; and, Nurse
+Ellen," she said, seriously, "I am sure we owe all this happy change
+to Mr. Felton. The moment I saw that man, I felt he had come to do
+good. By-the-by, my uncle tells me there is no news of Mr. Felton's
+son yet. I suppose you never saw him, nurse?"
+
+"La, bless you, no, my dear. I never saw his father till the day he
+came here. Mr. Arthur was born in America."
+
+"Did he ever come to England before? Did Mrs. Carruthers ever see
+him?"
+
+"Never. He told his father he would see his aunt the first thing he
+did, and he never came anigh the place. I doubt he's a black sheep,
+Miss Carruthers."
+
+"I hope not, for his father's sake, nurse."
+
+And then Clare proceeded to make various arrangements with Mrs.
+Brookes, thinking the while: "Arthur Felton never was here. Mrs.
+Carruthers never saw him. For a moment I fancied he might have been
+Paul Ward."
+
+"I wonder what I shall think of George Dallas?" thought Clare as she
+rode away from Poynings in the afternoon, having given Thomas the
+necessary orders. "I wonder what he will think of me? I dare say he
+does not like the idea of me much. Perhaps I should not like the idea
+of _him_, if he were in my place and I in his; but, as it is, _I
+decidedly do_."
+
+
+Attended by her maid and Thomas, Miss Carruthers went to London on the
+following day. Mrs. Stanhope met her at the railway station, and took
+her home with her. The footman was despatched to Sir Thomas Boldero's
+house in Chesham-place. In the course of the evening he went to Mrs.
+Stanhope's house, and asked to see Clare. His errand was to inform her
+that Mr. Felton and Mr. Dallas had arrived in London, and were
+particularly desirous of seeing Miss Carruthers. He (Thomas) had Mr.
+Felton's orders to ascertain from Miss Carruthers whether she would
+see them, on the following day, at Chesham-place, and if so, at what
+hour. He was to take her answer to Mr. Felton's lodgings in
+Piccadilly.
+
+"When did the gentlemen arrive?" Miss Carruthers asked.
+
+Thomas could not say exactly, but he thought they had only just
+reached London. They had overcoats on, and looked "travellers-like."
+
+Clare sent word to Mr. Felton that she should be at Cheshamplace at
+noon the next day, and would be very happy to see him. She did not
+mention Mr. Dallas, but it was by no means necessary she should do so.
+
+Punctually at twelve on the following day, Mrs. Stanhope's brougham
+deposited Clare Carruthers at Sir Thomas Boldero's house. It was in
+process of preparation for the expected guests; but had not quite
+thrown off the drowsy unoccupied look of a house whose owners were
+absent. Its appearance bore the same relation to the state it would
+assume by-and-by as that of an individual who has just persuaded
+himself to rise, and is yawning and shivering in the process, bears to
+that of the same individual in his tubbed, dressed, shaved,
+breakfasted, newspaper-read, hatted, gloved, and ready-for-the-day
+condition.
+
+Clare got out of the carriage, gave the coachman some directions,
+stood at the door until he had driven off, and made a remark or
+two (ever reminiscent of Poynings punctiliousness) relative to the
+area-railings and door-steps to Thomas before she entered the house.
+He listened gravely, promised to attend to these matters, and then
+said:
+
+"Mr. Dallas has been here some time, ma'am."
+
+"Indeed!" said Clare, pausing just inside the hall-door. "Is Mr.
+Felton not here?"
+
+"He will be here directly, ma'am. He came with Mr. Dallas, but went
+away again. I showed Mr. Dallas into the study, ma'am."
+
+Clare felt rather embarrassed. She wished Mrs. Stanhope had been with
+her--she wished Mr. Felton had remained until she came, or had taken
+his nephew with him. It was so awkward to have to introduce herself to
+George Dallas, a stranger, and yet not exactly a stranger. She
+hesitated; her colour rose. What should she do? What was not the
+easiest or pleasantest thing to do--for that would be to go to the
+drawing-room and remain there until Mr. Felton should come, leaving
+Mr. Dallas to a similar vigil in the study--but the kindest. Clearly,
+to give Mrs. Carruthers's son the friendliest greeting in her power,
+to show him, in her little way, how pleased she was at the family
+reunion, how much she desired to be numbered among his friends.
+
+The study windows faced the street; he had probably seen the carriage,
+and heard her voice. He might be even now hurt by her tarrying.
+
+Clare delayed no longer. She crossed the hall, opened the door of Sir
+Thomas Boldero's study, saw a man's figure close to one of the
+windows, shut the door, took two or three steps, and said, in the
+sweet gentle tone which was one of her peculiar charms:
+
+"Mr. Dallas, I am so much pleased."
+
+Then the figure turned away from the window, and Clare found herself
+in the presence of Paul Ward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+ANOTHER RECOGNITION.
+
+
+The same day which had witnessed the departure from Homburg of Mr. and
+Mrs. Carruthers, and the commencement of the journey which had London
+for its destination, beheld that city in an unusually agreeable aspect
+in point of weather. The sun was warm and bright; the sadness and
+sweetness of autumn filled the air, and lent their poetical charm to
+the prosaic streets, and impressed themselves sensibly and
+unacknowledged upon the prosaic dwellers therein. People who had no
+business or pleasure, or combination of both, to call them abroad,
+went out on that day, and rode or drove or walked, because the rare
+beauty and charm of the day imperatively required such homage. Women
+and children were out in the Parks, and, but for the fallen leaves
+upon the ground, and the peculiar sigh which made itself heard now and
+again among the trees--a sound which the ear that has once learned to
+distinguish it never fails to catch when the summer is dead--the
+summer might be supposed to be still living.
+
+The brightest thoroughfare in London, Piccadilly, was looking very
+bright that autumn day, with all the windows of the few houses which
+can lay claim to anything of the beauty of grandeur glittering in the
+sun, and an astounding display of carriages, considering the season,
+enlivening the broad sloping road. The Greek Park was dotted over with
+groups of people, as in the summer-time, and along the broad path
+beyond the iron railings solitary pedestrians walked or loitered,
+unmolested by weather, just as it suited their fancy. The few and
+far-between benches had their occupants, of whom some had books, some
+cigars, and some babies. Perambulators were not wanting, neither were
+irascible elderly gentlemen to swear at them. It was happily too hot
+for hoops.
+
+This exceptional day was at its best and brightest when Harriet Routh
+came down the street in which she lived, crossed Piccadilly, and
+entered the Park. She was, as usual, very plainly dressed, and her
+manner had lost none of its ordinary quietude. Nevertheless, a close
+observer would have seen that she looked and breathed like a person in
+need of free fresh air, of movement, of freedom; that though the
+scene, the place in which she found herself, was indifferent to her,
+perhaps wholly unobserved by her, the influence upon her physical
+condition was salutary. She did not cross the grass, but walked
+slowly, and with her eyes turned earthwards, along the broad path near
+the railings. Occasionally she looked up, and lifted her head, as if
+to inhale as much as possible of the fresh air, then fell into her
+former attitude again, and continued her walk. Her face bore an
+expression of intense thought--the look of one who had brought a
+subject out with her in her mind, which subject she was resolved to
+think out, to look at in every aspect, to bring to a final decision.
+She kept a straight, clear course in her walk, looking neither to the
+right nor to the left, pondering deeply, as might have been seen by
+the steady tension of her low white forehead and the firm set of her
+lips. At last she paused, when she had traversed the entire length of
+the walk several times, and looked about her for an unoccupied seat.
+She descried one, with no nearer neighbour than the figure of a boy,
+not exactly ragged, but very shabby, extended on the grass beside it,
+resting on his elbows, with a fur cap pulled down over his eyes,
+leaving the greater portion of a tangled head exposed to view, and a
+penny illustrated journal, whose contents, judging by the intentness
+with which he was devouring them, must have been of a highly
+sensational character, stretched out on the ground before him. Harriet
+took no notice of the boy, nor did he perceive her, when she seated
+herself on the bench by which he lay. She sat down noiselessly, folded
+her hands, and let her head fall forward, looking out with the distant
+absorbed gaze which had become habitual to her. She sat very still,
+and never for a moment did the purpose in her face relax. She was
+thinking, she was not dreaming.
+
+After a while she looked at her watch, and rose. At the first step
+which she made on the grass, and towards the railings, her silk dress
+rustled over the outspread paper from which the boy was reading. She
+looked down, apologetically; the boy looked up angrily, and then Mr.
+James Swain jumped up, and made the movement which in his code of
+manners passed for a bow to Harriet.
+
+"Ah, is it you, Jim?" she said. "Are you not busy to-day?"
+
+"No, mum, I ain't," said Jim. "Mr. Routh hadn't no messages this
+mornin', and I ain't been lucky since."
+
+"It's a nice day for you to have a little time to yourself," said
+Harriet. "I hope you got all the commissions I left for you."
+
+"I did, mum, and thank'ee," said Jim. Harriet had remembered the
+street-boy when she was leaving home, and had charged her servants to
+employ him. She had not the slightest suspicion of the extensive use
+which Routh was in the habit of making of his services.
+
+"The windows is to be cleaned," said Jim, suggestively. "There warn't
+time, mum; you come home so unexpected."
+
+"Very well," said Harriet. "I suppose you can clean them, can't you?"
+
+"Mr. Harris said as I might try," returned Jim. Mr. Harris was the
+irreproachable man-servant attached to Routh's modest establishment in
+Mayfair.
+
+Harriet moved on, and Jim Swain stood still, looking after her. She
+was a puzzle to him, and an object of constant interest. By little and
+little Jim had come to know a good deal about Stewart Routh and his
+daily life, and he had abandoned the first theory which had presented
+itself to his mind, and which had owed its inspiration to the
+illustrated penny literature which formed his intellectual food. He no
+longer believed Harriet a persecuted victim of her husband's
+groundless jealousy. For reasons of his own, equally strong and
+secret, Mr. James Swain had taken a lively interest in George Dallas,
+had experienced certain emotions on seeing him, and had taken very
+kindly to the business of espionage in which Routh had engaged his
+services, without affording him any indication of its purpose. At
+first the boy had conceived an idea that Dallas was the object of
+Harriet's supposed preference and Routh's supposed jealousy, but he
+abandoned that notion very speedily, and since then he had not
+succeeded in forming any new theory to his satisfaction. From the
+conversation of the servants, Jim had learned that Mr. Dallas and Mr.
+Felton, with whose personal appearance the boy was equally familiar,
+had gone to the same place in foreign parts as that to which Mr. and
+Mrs. Routh had gone a little later, and knowing this, Jim thought more
+and more frequently over certain circumstances which he had kept to
+himself with extraordinary discretion--discretion, indeed, which
+nothing but the strongest possible sense of self-interest, as
+inseparable from its observance, could have enabled him to preserve.
+
+"He don't like him," Jim would say to himself, with frequent
+repetition, "he don't like him, can't abear him; I knows that precious
+well. And he can't be afraid of him, as I can see, for he certainly
+warn't neither in nor near _that_ business, and I'm blest if he knows
+anythin' about it. Wotever can he want to know all about him for, and
+keep a-follerin' him about? It ain't for no good as _he_ follers
+anybody, I'll take my davy." And Mr. James Swain's daily reflections
+invariably terminated with that formula, which was indeed a simple and
+accurate statement of the boy's belief. His abandonment of his
+theories concerning Harriet had worked no change in his mind towards
+Routh. His familiarity with Routh's servants, his being in a manner
+free of the house--free, but under the due amount of inspection
+and suspicion justified by his low estate--enlightened him as to
+Harriet's domestic position, and made him wonder exceedingly, in his
+half-simple, half-knowing way, how "the like of her could be spoony on
+sich a cove as him," which was Mr. James Swain's fashion of expressing
+his sense of the moral disparity between the husband and wife.
+
+This was the second time that Jim had seen Mrs. Routh since her return
+from the trip which he had been told was specially undertaken for the
+benefit of her health. The first time was on the day of her arrival,
+when Jim had fortunately been "handy," and had helped with the
+luggage. He had made his observations then upon Harriet's appearance
+with all his native impudence; for though the element of suspicion,
+which lent his interest in Harriet something tragic, had died out of
+it, that interest continued lively; but he had admitted that it was
+pardonable that she should look "precious blue and funky" after a
+journey.
+
+But looking at her more attentively on this second occasion, and when
+there was no journey in the case, Jim arrived at the conclusion that
+whatever had "ailed" Mrs. Routh before she left home ailed her still.
+
+"Uncommon ill she do look, to be sure," he said to himself, as he
+crumpled up the exciting fiction which he had been reading, and which
+"left off" at a peculiarly thrilling crisis, and wedged the
+illustrated journal into his cap; "uncommon ill. Wot's the good of all
+them baths and things, if she's to come back lookin' like this--a deal
+worse, _I_ call it, and much miserabler in her mind? Wotever ails
+her?"
+
+At this point in his cogitations Jim began to move on, slowly indeed,
+and keeping his eye on Harriet, who had reached one of the gates of
+the Park opening into Piccadilly, had passed through it, and was just
+about to cross to the opposite side. She stood for a moment
+irresolute, then turned, came through the gate again, and rapidly
+approached Jim, beckoning him towards her as she came.
+
+She stood still as the boy ran up to her, and pointed to one of the
+smaller but much decorated houses on the opposite side of the way.
+
+"Jim," she said, "you see that house, where the wide windows are, all
+one pane, and the bright balconies there, the house with the wide
+door, and the heavy carved railings?"
+
+"Yes, mum, I see," said Jim.
+
+"Go to that house, and ask if anything has been heard from Mr. Felton.
+Ask when he is expected--he has taken lodgings there--whether any
+other gentleman is expected to come with him--and, Jim, be sure to ask
+in particular whether any letters have been received for Mr. Felton,
+and sent on to him."
+
+Jim Swain looked at Harriet. There was something strange as well as
+intelligent in the look, but she saw only the intelligence. It
+harmonized with the thought in her own mind, and she replied to it:
+
+"You think, perhaps, they may not like to tell you," she said.
+"Perhaps they may not. But you may tell whoever answers you that Mr.
+Felton's sister wishes to know--" Jim still looked at her, and Harriet
+felt that he did so, but this time she did not catch his eye. "Be
+quick," she said, "and bring me the answer yonder." She pointed to the
+bench on which she had been sitting, and which was beyond the reach of
+observation from the house she had indicated, and walked away towards
+it as she ceased speaking. "It cannot be helped," she said. "The risk
+is a trifling one at worst, and must be run. I could not put Harris in
+communication with any one on a false pretext, and I can trust this
+boy so far not to say he has asked this question for me. I cannot bear
+it any longer. I must know how much time there is before me. I _must_
+have so much certainty; if not, I shall go mad."
+
+She had reached the bench now, and sat down in the former attitude.
+
+"Once before I asked myself," she muttered, "if I was going mad. I did
+not feel more like it then than now--not so like it, indeed. I knew
+what he was doing then, I had found him out. But I don't know now--I
+don't know now. I am in the dark, and the tide is rising."
+
+Jim came back from his errand. He had been civilly answered by a
+woman-servant. Mr. Felton was expected in a few days; the exact day
+was not yet named. No letters had been received for him. He had sent
+no orders relative to the forwarding of any. Having delivered his
+message so far, Jim Swain hesitated. Harriet understood the reticence,
+and spared a momentary thought for passing wonderment at this little
+touch of delicacy in so unpromising a subject for the exhibition of
+the finer emotions.
+
+"Did the person who answered you ask you any question?" she said.
+
+"No, mum," said Jim, relieved. Harriet said no more, she knew he had
+not made the false statement which had proved to be needless, and
+something assured her that there was no necessity that she should
+caution Jim to say nothing concerning this commission. Now she went
+away in reality--went home. She ascended the stairs to her room, and
+looked at her face in a glass as she took her bonnet off, and thought,
+"I wonder if people can see in my face that I am turning into a
+coward, and am going mad? I could not knock at that door and ask that
+simple, natural question for myself--_I could not_: and a little while
+ago, _since_--ay, _long-since_--I could have done anything. But not
+now--not now. When the time comes, when the waiting is over, when the
+suspense is ended, then I may be strong again, if indeed I am not
+quite mad by then; but now--now I cannot do anything--I cannot even
+_wait_."
+
+The fixed look had left her face, and was succeeded by a painful
+wildness, and an expression almost like that of some present physical
+terror. She pressed her hands upon her temples and rocked herself to
+and fro, but there was no wild abandonment of grief in the gesture.
+Presently she began to moan, but all unconsciously; for catching the
+sound after a little, she checked it angrily. Then she took up some
+needlework, but it dropped from her hands after a few minutes. She
+started up, and said, quite aloud, "It's no use--it's no use; I _must_
+have rest!" Then she unlocked her dressing-case, took out a bottle of
+laudanum, poured some of the contents into a glass of water, drank the
+mixture, and lay down upon her bed. She was soon in a deep sleep which
+seemed peaceful and full of rest. It was undisturbed. A servant came
+into the room, but did not arouse her, and it was understood in the
+house that "master" would probably not return to dinner.
+
+Mr. James Swain turned his steps in the direction of the delectable
+region in which his home was situated. He was in so far more fortunate
+than many of his class that he had a home, though a wretched one. It
+consisted of a dingy little room at the back of the third story in a
+rickety house in Strutton-ground, and was shared with a decrepit
+female, the elder sister of the boy's dead mother, who earned a
+frightfully insufficient subsistence by shoe-binding. More precarious
+than ever was this fragile means of living now, for her sight was
+failing, as her strength had failed. But things had been looking up
+with Jim of late, odd jobs had been plenty, his services had reached
+in certain quarters the status of recognized facts, and the street-boy
+was kind to his old relative. They were queer people, but not
+altogether uninteresting, and, strange to say, by no means unhappy.
+Old Sally had never been taught anything herself but shoe-binding, or
+she would have imparted instruction to Jim. Now Jim had learned to
+read in his mother's lifetime, and before his father had "come to
+grief" and been no more heard of, and it was consequently he who
+imparted instruction to his aunt. She was as fond of penny romances as
+the boy himself, and was wonderfully quick at discovering the
+impenetrable mysteries and unwinding the labyrinthine webs of those
+amazing productions. So Jim, cheered by the prospect of a lucrative
+job for the morrow, purchased a fresh and intensely horrible
+pennyworth by the way, and devoted himself for the evening to the
+delectation of old Sally, who liked her murders, as she liked her tea
+and her snuff, strongly flavoured.
+
+The pennyworth lasted a good while, for Jim read slowly and
+elaborately, and conversational digressions occurred frequently. The
+heroine of the story, a proud and peerless peeress, was peculiarly
+fascinating to the reader and the listener.
+
+"Lor, Jim," said old Sally, when the last line had been spelled over,
+and Jim was reluctantly obliged to confess that that was "all on
+it"--"lor, Jim, to think of that sweet pretty creetur, Rorer."--the
+angelic victim of the story was known to mortals as Aurora,--"knowing
+as how her ladyship 'ad been and done it all, and dyin' all alone in
+the moonshine, along o' thinkin' on her mother's villany."
+
+Ordinarily, when Jim Swain lay down on his flock bed in the corner, he
+went to sleep with enviable rapidity; but the old woman's words had
+touched some chord of association or wonder in his clumsily arranged
+but not unintelligent mind; so that long after old Sally, in her
+corner of her little room, was sound asleep, Jim sat up hastily, ran
+his hands through his tangled hair, and said aloud:
+
+"Good Lord! that's it! She's _sure_ she knows it, she knows he did it,
+and she hidin' on it, and kiverin' of it up, and it's killing her."
+
+The stipulated hour in the morning beheld Jim Swain engaged in the
+task of window-cleaning, not very unpleasant in such weather. He
+pursued his occupation with unusual seriousness; the impression of the
+previous night remained upon him.
+
+The back parlour, called, of course, the "study" in Routh's house,
+deserved the name as much or as little as such rooms ordinarily merit
+it. The master of the house, at least, used the room habitually,
+reading there a little, and writing a great deal. He had been sitting
+before a bureau, which occupied a space to the right of the only
+window in the apartment, for some time, when Harriet came to ask him
+if the boy, who was cleaning the windows, might go on with that one.
+
+"Certainly," said Routh, absently; "he won't disturb me."
+
+It would have required something of more importance than the presence
+of a boy on the other side of the window to disturb Routh. He was
+arranging papers with the utmost intentness. The drawers of the bureau
+were open on either side, the turned-down desk was covered with
+papers, some tied up in packets, others open: a large sheet, on which
+lines of figures were traced, lay on the blotting-pad. The dark
+expression most familiar to it was upon Stewart Routh's face that
+morning, and the tightly compressed lips never unclosed for a moment
+as he pursued his task. Jim Swain, on the outside of the window, which
+was defended by a narrow balcony and railing, could see him
+distinctly, and looked at him with much eagerness while he polished
+the panes. It was a fixed belief with Jim that Routh was always "up
+to" something, and the boy was apt to discover confirmation in the
+simplest actions of his patron. Had another observer of Routh's
+demeanour been present, he might, probably, have shared Jim's
+impression; for the man's manner was intensely preoccupied. He read
+and wrote, sorted papers, tied them up, and put them away, with
+unremitting industry.
+
+Presently he stretched his hand up to a small drawer in the upper
+compartment of the bureau; but, instead of taking a paper or a packet
+from it, he took down the drawer itself, placed it on the desk before
+him, and began to turn over its contents with a still more darkly
+frowning face. Jim, at the corner of the window furthest from him,
+watched him so closely that he suspended the process of polishing; but
+Routh did not notice the cessation. Presently he came upon the papers
+which he had looked for, and was putting them into the breast-pocket
+of his coat, when he struck the drawer with his elbow, and knocked it
+off the desk. It fell on the floor, and its contents were scattered
+over the carpet. Among them was an object which rolled away into the
+window, and immediately caught the attention of Jim Swain. The boy
+looked at it, through the glass, with eyes in which amazement and fear
+contended. Routh picked up the contents of the drawer, all but this
+one object, and looked impatiently about in search of it. Then Jim,
+desperately anxious to see this thing nearer, took a resolution. He
+tapped at the window, and signed to Routh to open it and let him in.
+Routh, surprised, did so.
+
+"Here it is, sir," said Jim, not entering the room, but sprawling
+over the window-sill, and groping with his long hands along the border
+of a rug which sheltered the object of Routh's search from his
+observation--"here it is, sir. I see it when it fell, and I knowed
+you couldn't see it from where you was."
+
+The boy looked greedily at the object in his hand, and rolled it about
+once or twice before he handed it to Routh, who took it from him with
+a careless "Thank you." His preoccupied manner was still upon him.
+Then Jim shut down the window again from the outside and resumed his
+polishing. Routh replaced the drawer. Jim tried very hard to see where
+he placed the object he had held for a moment in his hand, but he
+could not succeed. Then Routh locked the bureau, and, opening a door
+of communication with the dining-room, Jim caught a momentary sight of
+Harriet sitting at the table, and went to his breakfast.
+
+The seriousness of the previous night had grown and deepened over the
+boy. Abandoning the pursuit of odd jobs precisely at the hour of the
+day when he usually found them most plentiful, Jim took his way
+homewards with headlong speed. Arrived within sight of the wretched
+houses, he paused. He did not wish any one to see what he was going to
+do. Fortune favoured him. As he stood irresolute at one end of the
+narrow street, his aunt came out of the door. She was going, he knew,
+to do her humble shopping, which consisted, for the most part, in
+haggling with costermongers by the side of their carts, and cheapening
+poor vegetables at the stalls. She would not be coming back just
+yet. He waited until she had turned the opposite corner, and then
+plunged into the open doorway and up the dark staircase. Arrived at
+the room which formed his sole habitation, Jim shut the door, and
+unceremoniously pulled away his flock bed, rolled up neatly enough in
+a corner, from the wall. This wall was covered with a paper once
+gaudy, now dreary with the utter dreariness of dirt charged on bright
+colour, and had a wooden surbase about a foot in depth. Above the
+surbase there was a hole, not so large as to be easily remarked in a
+place where dilapidation of every sort was the usual state of things,
+and in this hole Jim insinuated his hand. There was suggestive
+dexterity in the way he did this; the lithe fingers had suppleness and
+readiness, swiftness and accuracy of touch, which, if there had been
+any one to care for the boy, that one would doubtless have noticed
+with regret. If he were not already a thief, Jim Swain possessed some
+of the physical requisites for that profession. Presently he withdrew
+the lithe hand, and looked steadfastly at the object which it had
+extracted from the hole in the wall. He turned it over and over, he
+examined it within and without, then he put it back again in the
+hiding-place, and replaced his bed.
+
+Old Sally was much surprised, when she returned from her "marketing,"
+to find her nephew at home. The apparition of Jim in the daytime,
+except on stray occasions, when, fortune being unpropitious, he would
+come home to see what his aunt could do for him in the way of dinner,
+was exceedingly rare. But he explained it now by saying he was tired,
+and had been well paid for a job he had done that morning. He proposed
+that he should get something choice that day for dinner, and stay "in"
+until evening.
+
+"There's a new play at the 'Delphi to-night," said Jim, "and there'll
+be plenty of jobs down that way, callin' cabs and helpin' visitors to
+the hupper circles, as can't afford 'em, across the street. They're
+awful bewildered, mostly, when they come out of the theayter, and
+dreadful timid of the 'busses."
+
+Very silent, and apparently sleepy, was Mr. James Swain all day; and
+as his old aunt sat patiently toiling by the window, he lay upon his
+bed with his knees up, and his hands crossed on the top of his tousled
+head. Allowing for the difference created by refinement, education,
+and the habit of thinking on a system, only possible to the educated,
+there was some resemblance in the expression of the boy's face to that
+which Harriet Routh's had worn yesterday, when she had carried the
+burden of her thoughts, under the clear sky and the sunshine, in the
+Green Park. Jim Swain, too, looked as if he alone, unaided as she, was
+thinking it out.
+
+
+The new play at the Adelphi was very successful. The theatre was
+crowded; the autumnal venture had turned out admirably; and though the
+audience could not be called fashionable, it was perhaps rather more
+animated and satisfactory in consequence. Jim Swain's most sanguine
+hopes were realized. The night was fine; people did not mind waiting a
+few minutes; good humour and threepenny-pieces were abundant. A
+tolerable sprinkling of private carriages relieved the plebeian
+plenitude of cabs, and these vehicles were called up with an energy to
+which, in the season, human nature would hardly have been equal. Tim
+was extremely active in summoning them, and had just returned
+breathless to the portico of the theatre to catch another name, and
+rush away again to proclaim it to the listening flunkies, when he was
+arrested by the sight of a gentleman whose face he knew, who was
+standing under the garish light of the entry with a lady, whose hand
+rested on his arm, and whose face was turned upward towards him, so
+that the full glare of the light fell upon it. Her tall figure, the
+splendour of her dress, the careless grace of her attitude, the
+appearance of unconsciousness of the general observation she was
+attracting, even in that self-engrossed crowd--pardonably
+self-engrossed, considering that it was occupied with the care of
+getting home as soon as possible--would have made her a sufficiently
+remarkable object to attract Jim's attention; but there was more than
+perception of all these things in the look which he fixed upon her. He
+stood still, a little in the shade. Routh did not see him. The lady
+was looking at him, and he saw nothing but her face--nothing but the
+brilliant dark eyes, so bright for all the world, so soft for only
+him; nothing but the crimson lips, which trembled; the rose-tinted
+cheek, which paled only at his words--only under his glance.
+
+Her carriage was called. She walked towards it with her dress sweeping
+round her, and the other people fell back, and let her pass,
+naturally, and not by the urgency of the dingy officials who brawl and
+fight on such occasions. When she had taken her seat in the carriage,
+Routh followed her, and then Jim started forward. There was no
+footman, so the man with the badge and the lantern, well known and
+prized of unprotected females with a taste for theatre-going, asked,
+"Where to?" Jim, quite close, and totally unobserved, listened
+eagerly. The lady's voice replied, "Home."
+
+"Home," said the man with the lantern, and instantly turned his
+attention to the next departures. Jim Swain glanced at the carriage;
+it had no rumble, only a footboard. As it drove off slowly, for the
+Strand was crowded, he dashed into the jumble of cabs and omnibuses
+and followed it, running desperately, but dexterously too, and
+succeeded in keeping up with it until, at a point of comparative
+obscurity, he clambered up on the footboard.
+
+The carriage rolled westward, and carried Jim Swain with it until it
+reached one of the small so-called squares which are situated between
+Brompton proper and Chelsea. Then it stopped before a house with a
+heavy stone portico and a heavy stone balcony. Jim slid lightly to the
+ground, and hid himself in the shelter of the heavy stone portico of
+the adjoining house. Routh got out of the carriage; and when the
+house-door was opened, and a flood of light issued from it, he handed
+out the lady. She stood breathing the sweet air a moment, and the
+light once more touched her face and her dress with a rich radiance.
+
+"It's her," said Jim. "It's her--_her_ and _him_."
+
+"What a lovely night!" said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, and then the
+door closed on her and Routh, and Jim stood still in his hiding-place
+until the carriage had slowly departed to the adjacent mews. Then he
+emerged from the portico, went up the steps of the house the lady and
+her companion had entered, and looked at the number on the door,
+distinctly visible by the light of the gas-jet within.
+
+"Number four," said Jim; "now for the name of the square;" and he
+crossed the road, skirted the railings of the enclosed patch of brown
+ground and stunted shrubs, and took the opposite side of the way. The
+night was clear and bright, and the name of the square was distinctly
+legible.
+
+"Hollington-square," said Jim. "They called Mrs. Bembridge's carriage.
+I have not a bad head for names, but I'll get Teddy Smith to write
+these down. And I can't stand it any longer; I must do something. I'll
+try and get Mr. Dallas to let me speak to him when he comes from
+abroad, and then I'll tell him all about it. I suppose," said Jim very
+ruefully, "if he thinks right to tell, they'll lag me; but it can't be
+helped. Almost every one as I've knowed gets lagged some time or
+other."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+THE FALLING OF THE SWORD.
+
+
+Stewart Routh left his house in Mayfair at an early hour on the day
+following that which had witnessed the eccentric proceedings and
+subsequent resolution of Jim Swain. Things were prospering with him;
+and the vague dread which had fallen on him had been dissipated. Hope
+and defiance divided his mind between them. His speculations were all
+doing well; there was money to be had--money easy to be realized, on
+which he could lay his hand at very short notice, and there was
+triumphant successful love. So much had hope to feed on--assuredly no
+insufficient aliment. Defiance reared itself against Fate. The time
+was drawing near, approaching with fearfully rapid strides, when the
+contingency, long contemplated, successfully eluded for a period
+beyond his expectation, kept off by such unlikely accidents and
+combinations as might almost have justified his daring faith in his
+luck, but recognized of late as inevitable, must be realized, when the
+identity of the murdered man must be known, and the perilous
+investigation must begin. So be it, he was ready to meet the danger if
+it must be met; but he hoped no such necessity would arise. His
+influence over the beautiful woman whom he now really loved with all
+the passion he had at first feigned was becoming every day stronger
+and more complete. He knew that the strength of his nature had subdued
+her; she had no pride, she had only vanity; and Stewart Routh made the
+mistake to which selfish and interested natures are prone. He forgot
+to calculate upon the influence of selfishness and calculation when
+their employ must necessarily be in opposition to him. His egotism
+injured the balance of his intellect, and now he had not the aid of
+Harriet's calm, cool, unerring judgment in his scheme to restore that
+balance. His position with regard to Harriet was the most troublesome
+topic of his thoughts just now. He tried to forget it often, but he
+did not succeed; not that any sentimental obstacle to the most
+complete oblivion presented itself. Routh never bestowed a backward
+glance upon the life of self-sacrifice and devotion to him, of
+fidelity which, however depraved in its manifestations, was still
+fidelity, fond and true as the best man who ever lived an honest and
+virtuous life in the face of heaven and earth might be proud to
+inspire, which had been that of the woman whom he had deliberately
+betrayed, and was now prepared deliberately to abandon. He would have
+sneered at such a suggestion as a contemptible weakness. Harriet had
+been undeniably useful to him. He did not attempt to deny the fact to
+himself; but circumstances had arisen which prevented his making use
+of her in the future, and consequently, as this instrument was
+unfortunately living, intelligent, peculiarly acute, and animated by
+one of the strongest of human passions, had become dangerous. Harriet
+had been agreeable to him too--it has been said that he had loved her
+after his fashion; but this had been all over months ago; and the
+deadest of all mortal things, to a man of Stewart Routh's stamp, is a
+dead love; it has not even the dreary faculty of ghostliness--it
+cannot haunt. The uncomplaining, active, hard-working, inventive,
+untiring comrade, the passionately loving wife, the shrewd,
+unscrupulous, undaunted, steel-nerved colleague, was nothing more to
+him now than a dangerously sharp-witted, suspicious woman, who knew a
+great deal too much about him, and was desperately in his way. The
+exhilaration of his spirits and the partial intoxication of his new
+passion had done away with the fear of Harriet which had taken
+possession of him, but they had intensified his dislike, and one
+thought presented itself with peculiar distinctness to Stewart Routh
+as he went City-wards that morning. It was:
+
+"If it was only to get out of her sight, to be rid of her for ever,
+what a relief it would be!"
+
+He had been at some pains to keep up appearance with his wife since
+their return to London. To the step which he meditated a quarrel with
+her was in no way necessary; and in the event of his failing to bring
+his plans to maturity before the inevitable discovery, it was all
+important that they should be agreed on the line of action to be
+taken. Harriet could not, indeed, oppose him successfully in his
+determination, if the occasion should arise, to throw the charge of
+the murder upon George Dallas; but she might render his position
+extremely perilous if she did not second him. What reason had he to
+fear? The estrangement between them had been growing wider, it was
+true, but it had not been exclusively of his making; she had held
+aloof from him as much as he from her, and he acknowledged that, if no
+infidelity had existed upon his part, it would still have taken place.
+From the moment they ceased to be comrades in expedients, and became
+accomplices in crime, the consequences made themselves felt. Routh did
+not believe in blessings or in curses, but he did not dispute the
+inevitable result of two persons finding out the full extent of each
+other's wickedness--that those two persons, if obliged to live
+together, will find it rather uncomfortable. The worst accomplice a
+man can have is his wife, he had often thought; women always have some
+scruple lurking somewhere about them, a hankering after the ideal, for
+the possibility of respecting a man in some degree. When he had been
+forced to see and to believe in the intensity of his wife's silent
+sufferings, it had occurred to him more than once to think, "she would
+not be so miserable if she had done it herself; she would have been
+much jollier. Nothing ever will cure some women of sentiment."
+
+Did it ever occur to him that it had not been worth his while to do
+what he had done? that, on the whole, it had not paid? No, never.
+Routh had been angry with Harriet when the matter had been brought up
+between them, had complained that it was always "cropping up;" but the
+truth was, he thought of it himself much more frequently than it was
+impressed on him by any allusion from without; and he never ceased to
+remind himself that the deed had been necessary, indispensable. It had
+brought him money when money must have been had, or all must have
+ended for him; it had brought him money when money meant a clearing
+and brightening of his sky, an utter change in his life, the cessation
+of a hazardous and ignoble warfare, the restoration to a peaceful and
+comparatively safe career. He was in a difficult position now, it was
+true--a position in which there was peril to be surmounted only by
+dauntlessness, prudence, and coolness; but he was dauntless, prudent,
+and cool. Had all this never been, what might have been his position?
+When Deane and he had met, his luck had been almost at its lowest;
+and, in the comradeship which had ensued, there had always been
+burning anger and intense humiliation on Routh's part, and cool,
+sneering, heartless boasting on Deane's. Routh was the cleverer man of
+the two, and incomparably the greater villain; but Deane had elements
+of rascality in him which even Routh had felt himself entitled to
+despise. And he had hated him. Routh, in his cool manner of thinking
+things over, had not failed to take this feeling into due account. He
+would not have killed Deane only because he hated him; he was too true
+to his principles to incur so tremendous a risk for the simple
+gratification of even the worst sentiment, of even sentiment
+intensified into a passion, but he allowed it sufficient weight and
+influence effectually to bar the entrance of a regret when the larger
+object had also been attained. He had no pity for his victim, not even
+the physical sensation which is experienced by men whose organization
+and associations are not of the brutal kind, when temper,
+circumstances, or sudden temptation have impelled them to deeds of
+cruelty; he had hated Deane too much for that. He never thought of the
+crime he had committed without dwelling on the conduct which had made
+him resolve upon it. How the man had played with his necessities, had
+tricked him with compromising confidences, had duped him with false
+promises, had led him to the very brink of the abyss, and there had
+struggled with him--with him, a desperate man! Fool--fool! one must go
+over the brink, then; and who should it but be the weaker? who should
+hold his ground but the stronger--but he who had everything to gain?
+He thought over all these things again to-day, methodically, arranging
+the circumstances as they had occurred in his mind. He recalled the
+hours of suspense through which he had lived on that day when Deane
+had promised to bring him a sum of money, representing his own
+interest in the mining company, which sum was to secure to Routh the
+position he had striven hard to attain, and rescue him from the
+consequences of a fraudulent transfer of shares which he had already
+effected. It had come to a question of hours, and the impatience and
+suspense had almost worn out Routh's strong nerves, almost deprived
+him of his self-command. How well he remembered it; how he lived
+through all that time again! It had never been so vivid in his
+remembrance, with all the vitality of hate and anger, often as he had
+thought of it, as it was to-day.
+
+The heartless trifling, the petty insolence of the rich rascal, who
+little guessed the strength and resolution, the daring and
+desperation, of the greater, if worse, villain, came back as freshly
+to Stewart Routh's vindictive memory as if he had not had his ghastly
+revenge and his miserable triumph months ago, as if he had suffered
+and winced under them but yesterday. And that yesterday! What a
+glorious day in his life it had been! Presently he would think about
+that, and nothing but that; but now he must pursue his task of memory
+to the end. For he was not his own master in this. Once set to
+thinking of it, to living it all over again, he had no power to
+abridge the history.
+
+He had to remember the hours during which he had waited for Deane's
+coming, for the payment of the promised money; he had to remember how
+they waned, and left him sick with disappointment, maddened with
+apprehension; how he had determined he would keep the second
+appointment with Deane: he did not fear his failing in that, because
+it was for his own pleasure; and then, for the first time in his life,
+had felt physically unable to endure suspense, to keep up appearances.
+He had to remember how he had shrunk from the coarse insolence with
+which he knew Deane would sport with his fears and his suspense in the
+presence of George Dallas, unconscious of their mutual position; how
+all-important it was that, until he had wrung from Deane the promised
+money, he should keep his temper. He had to remember how the idea that
+the man who had so far broken faith with him already, and might break
+faith with him altogether, and so ruin him utterly (for if he had
+failed then, and been detected, hope would have been at an end for
+him), was within a few yards of him, perhaps with the promised money
+in his pocket, at that moment, had occurred to him with a strange
+fascination. How it had intensified his hatred of Deane; how it had
+deepened his sense of his own degradation; how it had made him rebel
+against and curse his own poverty, and filled his heart with
+malediction on the rich man who owned that money which meant safety
+and success to him. He had to remember how Deane had given no answer
+to his note, temperately worded and reasonable (Harriet had kept to
+the letter of the truth in what she had said of it to George Dallas),
+but had left him to all the tortures of suspense. He had to remember
+how the desire to know whether Deane really had had all day in his
+possession the money he had promised him, and had kept him expecting,
+grew imperative, implacable, irresistible; how he had hung about the
+tavern, and discovered by Deane's boasting words to his companion that
+he had guessed aright, had followed them, determined to have an answer
+from Deane. He had to remember how he strove with anger, with some
+remnants of his former pride, which tortured him with savage
+longings for revenge, while he waited about in the purlieus of the
+billiard-rooms whither Deane and Dallas had gone. He remembered how
+lonely and blank, how quiet and dreary, the street had become by the
+time the two came out of the house together and parted, in his
+hearing, with some careless words. He had to remember how he
+confronted Deane, and was greeted with a taunt; how he had borne it;
+how the man had played with his suspense, and ostentatiously displayed
+the money which the other had vainly watched and waited for all day;
+and then, suddenly assuming an air of friendliness and confidence, had
+led him away Citywards, without betraying his place of residence,
+questioning him about George Dallas. He had to remember how this had
+embittered and intensified his anger, and how a sudden fear had sprung
+up in his mind that Deane had confided to Dallas the promises he had
+made to him, and the extent to which their "business" relations had
+gone. A dexterous question or two had relieved this apprehension, and
+then he had once more turned the conversation on the subject in which
+he was so vitally interested. He had to remember--and how vividly he
+did remember, with what an awakening of the savage fury it had called
+into life, how Deane had met this fresh attempt--with what a cool and
+tranquil assertion that he had changed his mind, had no further
+intention of doing any business in Routh's line--was going out of
+town, indeed, on the morrow, to visit some relations in the country,
+too long neglected, and had no notion when they should meet again.
+
+And then--then Stewart Routh had to remember how he had killed the man
+who had taunted, deceived, treated him cruelly; how he had killed him,
+and robbed him, and gone home and told his wife--his comrade, his
+colleague, his dauntless, unscrupulous Harriet. He had to remember
+more than all this, and he hated to remember it. But the obligation
+was upon him; he could not forget how she had acted, after the first
+agony had passed over, the first penalty inflicted by her physical
+weakness, which she had spurned and striven against. So surely as his
+memory was forced to reproduce all that had gone before, it was
+condemned to revive all that had come after. But he did not soften
+towards her that day, no, not in the least, though never had his
+recollection been so detailed, so minute, so calm. No, he hated her.
+She wearied him; she had ceased to be of any service to him; she was a
+constant torment to him. So he came back to the idea with which his
+reflections had commenced, and, as he entered on the perusal of the
+mass of papers which awaited his attention in his "chambers" in
+Tokenhouse-yard--for he shared the business-abode of the invisible
+Flinders now--he repeated:
+
+"What a relief it would be to get away from her for ever!" Only a few
+days now, and the end must come. He was a brave man in his evil way,
+and he made his calculations coolly, and scanned his criminal
+combinations without any foolish excess of confidence, but with
+well-grounded expectation. For a little longer it would not be
+difficult to keep on fair terms with Harriet, especially as she had
+renewed her solitary mode of life, and he had taken the precaution of
+pretending to a revived devotion to play, since the auspicious
+occasion on which he had won so largely at Homburg. Thus his absence
+from home was accounted for; and as she had not the slightest
+suspicion that Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was in London, had never
+displayed the least jealousy, except on the one occasion when he had
+shown her the locket, and had unhesitatingly accepted his explanation
+of their sudden return to England, he had no reason to trouble himself
+about her. To sedulously avoid exciting her suspicion and jealousy
+now, and when the proper time should arrive, to confirm the one and
+arouse the other so effectually by desertion, infidelity, and insult,
+as to drive her at once to free herself from him by the aid of the
+law--this was his scheme. It looked well; he knew Harriet, he
+thought, thoroughly, and he might safely calculate upon the course she
+would adopt. It was strange, if human inconsistency can ever be
+strange, that Stewart Routh, a man of eminently vindictive
+disposition, entirely forgot to take into account that the woman thus
+desperately injured might also seek her revenge, which would consist
+in declining to take her own freedom at the price of giving him his.
+
+Perhaps if the depths of that dark heart had been sounded, the
+depths beyond its own consciousness--the unvisited, unquestioned,
+profound--it would have been discovered that this man was so entirely
+accustomed to the devotion of the woman who loved him with a desperate
+though intelligent love, that even in her utmost despair and extreme
+outrage of wrong he felt assured she would do that which it was his
+will she should do.
+
+During all this mental review he had hardly bestowed a thought on
+George Dallas. He would be safe enough in the end, if the worst came
+to the worst. It had suited him to magnify the strength of the chain
+of coincidences, which looked like evidence, in discussing them with
+George, and he had magnified it; it suited him to diminish that
+strength in discussing them with himself, and he diminished it. A good
+deal of suffering and disgrace to all the "Felton-Dallas-Carruthers
+connection," as he insolently phrased it in his thoughts, must come to
+pass, of course, but no real danger. And if it were not so? Well, in
+that case, he really could not afford to care. When he had wanted
+money, Deane (he still thought of him by that name) had had to give
+way to that imperative need. Now he wanted safety, and Dallas must pay
+its price. There was something of the sublime of evil in this man's
+sovereign egotism. As he turned his mind away from the path it had
+been forced to tread to the end, he thought, "there is a touch of the
+whimsical in everything; in this it is the demi-semi-relationship
+between Harriet and these people. I suppose the sensitive lady of
+Poynings never heard of her stepfather Creswick's niece."
+
+A letter for Mr. Routh, a delicate, refined-looking letter, sealed
+with the daintiest of monograms, the thick board-like envelope
+containing a sheet of paper to match, on which only a few lines are
+scrawled. But as Stewart Routh reads them, his sinister dark eyes
+gleam with pleasure and triumph, and his handsome evil face is deeply
+flushed.
+
+"Bearer waits." Mr. Routh writes an answer to the letter, short but
+ardent, if any one had now been there to judge by the expression of'
+his face while he was writing it. He calls his clerk, who takes the
+letter to "bearer;" but that individual has been profiting by the
+interval to try the beer in a closely adjacent beer-shop, and the
+letter is laid upon a table in the passage leading to Stewart Routh's
+rooms, to await his return from the interesting investigation.
+
+Another letter for Mr. Routh, and this time also "bearer waits."
+Waits, too, in the passage, and sees the letter lying on the table,
+and has plenty of time to read the address before the experimenting
+commissionaire returns, has it handed to him, and trudges off with it.
+
+Presently the door at the end of the passage opens, and Routh comes
+out. "Who brought me a letter just now?" he says to the clerk, and
+then stops short, and turns to "bearer."
+
+"O, it's you, Jim, is it? Take this to Mrs. Routh."
+
+Then Stewart Routh went back to his room, and read again the note to
+which he had just replied. It was from Harriet, and contained only
+these words:
+
+"Come home at the first possible moment. A letter from G. D., detained
+by accident for two days, has just come, and is of the utmost
+importance. _Let nothing detain you_."
+
+The joy and triumph in his face had given way to fury; he muttered
+angry oaths as he tore the note up viciously.
+
+"All the more reason if the worst has come--or is nearer than we
+thought--that I should strike the decisive blow to-day. She has all
+but made up her mind--she must make it quite up to-day. This is
+Tuesday; the Asia sails on Saturday. A letter from Dallas only cannot
+bring about the final crash: nothing can really happen till he is
+here. If I have only ordinary luck, we shall be out of harm's way by
+then."
+
+A little later Stewart Routh made certain changes in his dress, very
+carefully, and departed from Tokenhouse-yard in a hansom, looking as
+unlike a man with any cares, business or other kind, upon his mind as
+any gentleman in all London. "Queen's-gate, Kensington," he said to
+the driver; and the last words of the letter, daintily sealed, and
+written on board-like paper, which was in his breast-pocket at that
+moment, were:
+
+"_I will wait for you in the carriage at Queen's-gate_."
+
+"I'm glad I see'd that 'ere letter," said Jim Swain to himself, as,
+deeply preoccupied by the circumstances of the preceding day, he faced
+towards Routh's house, "because when I put Mr. Dallas on this here
+lay, I needn't let out as I spied 'em home. I can 'count for knowin'
+on the place permiskus." And then, from an intricate recess of his
+dirty pocket, much complicated with crumbs and fragments of tobacco,
+Jim pulled out a crumpled scrap of paper. "Teddy wrote it down quite
+right," he said, and he smoothed out the paper, and transferred it,
+for safer keeping, to his cap, in which he had deposited the missive
+with which he was charged.
+
+When Jim Swain arrived at his destination, and the door was opened to
+him, Harriet was in the hall. She seemed surprised that he had brought
+her a written answer. She had expected merely a verbal reply, telling
+her how soon Routh would be home. Jim pulled his cap off hastily,
+taken by surprise at seeing her, and while he handed her the note,
+looked at her with a full renewal of all the compassion for her which
+had formerly filled his untaught but not untender heart. He guessed
+rightly that he had brought her something that would pain her: She
+looked afraid of the note during the moment she held it unopened in
+her hand; but she did not think only of herself, she did not forget to
+be kind to him.
+
+"Go down to the kitchen, and cook will give you some dinner, Jim," she
+said, as she went into the dining-room and shut the door; and the boy
+obeyed her with an additional sense of hatred and suspicion against
+Routh at his heart.
+
+"I'm beginning to make it all out now," he thought, as he disposed of
+his dinner in most unusual silence. "The other one put Routh up to it
+all, out of spite of some kind. It was a plant of _hers_, it was; and
+this here good 'un--for she _is_ good--is a-sufferin' for it all,
+while he's a carryin' on." Shortly after Jim Swain took a rueful leave
+of the friendly cook, and departed by the area-gate. Having reached
+Piccadilly, he stood still for a moment, pondering, and then took a
+resolution, in pursuance of which he approached the house at which he
+had made a similar inquiry the day before, and again asked if there
+was any news of Mr. Felton. "Yes," the servant replied; "a telegram
+had been received from Paris. The rooms were to be ready on the
+following day. Mr. Felton and Mr. Dallas were coming by the tidal
+train."
+
+"I've a mind to go back and tell her," said Jim to himself. "She must
+want to know for some particular reason, or she wouldn't have sent me
+to ask yesterday, and she wouldn't have let me catch her out in
+tellin' a crammer if there warn't somethin' in it. But no," said Jim
+sagely, "I won't. I'll wait for Mr. Dallas; there ain't long to wait
+now."
+
+Jim Swain's resolution had an important consequence, which came about
+in a very ordinary and trifling way. If the boy had gone back to
+Routh's house, and had been admitted into the hall, he would have seen
+a piece of paper lying on the door-mat, on which his quick eyes would
+instantly have recognized the calligraphic feat of his accomplished
+friend, Teddy Smith; and he would have regained possession of it. But
+Jim did not return, and the paper lay there undisturbed for some
+hours--lay there, indeed, until it was seen by the irreproachable
+Harris when he went to light the gas, picked up, perused by him, and
+taken to his mistress, who was sitting in the drawing-room quite
+unoccupied. She looked up as the servant entered; and when the room
+was lighted, he saw that she was deadly pale, but took no notice of
+the paper which he placed on the table beside her. Some time after he
+had left the room her glance fell upon it, and she stretched out her
+hand wearily, and took it up, with a vague notion that it was a
+tax-gatherer's notice. But Harriet Routh, whose nerves had once been
+proof against horror, dread, suffering, danger, or surprise, started
+as if she had been shot when she saw, written upon the paper: "Mrs.
+Bembridge, 4 Hollington-square, Brompton."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+"CRUEL AS THE GRAVE."
+
+
+"I do not know what he is doing," Harriet had repeated to herself in
+sore distress; "I do not know what he is doing. I am in the dark, and
+the tide is rising."
+
+The jealous agony she had suffered at Homburg was harder to bear than
+the uncertainty which had been her lot since her return. The intense
+passion of jealousy sprung up within her was a revelation to this
+woman of the violence of her nature, over which a stern restraint had
+been kept so long that quiet and calm had grown habitual to her while
+nothing troubled or disputed her love; but they deserted her at the
+first rude touch laid upon the sole treasure, the joy, the punishment,
+the occupation, mainspring, and meaning of her life. Under all the
+quiet of her manner, under all the smoothness of her speech, Harriet
+Routh knew well there was a savage element in the desperation of her
+love for Routh, since he had committed the crime which sets a man
+apart from his fellows, marked with the brand of blood. She had loved
+him in spite of the principles of her education, in defiance of the
+stings of her conscience, dead now, but which had died hard; but now
+she loved him in spite of the promptings of her instincts, in spite of
+the revulsion of her womanly feelings, in defiance of the revolt of
+her senses and her nerves. The more utterly lost he was the more she
+clung to him, not indeed in appearance, for her manner had lost its
+old softness, and her voice the tone which had been a caress; but in
+her torn and tortured heart. With desperate and mad obstinacy she
+loved him, defied fate, and hated the world which had been hard to
+him, for his sake.
+
+With the first pang of jealousy awoke the fierceness of this love,
+awoke the proud and defiant assertion of her love and her ownership in
+her breast. Never would Harriet have pleaded her true, if perverted,
+love, her unwavering, if wicked, fidelity, to the man who was drifting
+away from her; the woman's lost soul was too generous for that; but he
+was hers, her own;--purchased;--God, in whom she did not believe, and
+the devil, whom she did not fear, alone knew at what price;--and he
+should not be taken from her by another, by one who had done nothing
+for him, suffered nothing for him, lost nothing for him. Her
+combativeness and her craft had been called into instant action by the
+first discovery of the unexpected peril in which her sole treasure was
+placed. She understood her position perfectly. No woman could have
+known more distinctly than Harriet how complete is the helplessness of
+a wife when her husband's love is straying from her, beckoned towards
+another--helplessness which every point of contrast between her and
+her rival increases. She was quite incapable of the futile strife, the
+vulgar railing, which are the ordinary weapons of ordinary women in
+the unequal combat; she would have disdained their employment; but
+fate had furnished her with weapons of other form and far different
+effectiveness, and these she would use. Routh had strong common-sense,
+intense selfishness, and shrewd judgment. An appeal to these, she
+thought, could not fail. Nevertheless, they _had_ failed, and Harriet
+was bewildered by their failure. When she made her first appeal to
+Routh, she was wholly unprepared for his refusal. The danger was so
+tremendous, the unforeseen discovery of the murdered man's identity
+had introduced into their position a complication so momentous, so
+insurmountable, that she had never dreamed for a moment of Routh's
+being insensible to its weight and emergency. But he rejected her
+appeal--rudely, brutally, almost, and her astonishment was hardly
+inferior to her anguish. He must indeed be infatuated by this
+strange and beautiful woman (Harriet fully admitted the American's
+beauty--there was an element of candour and judgment in her which made
+the littleness of depreciating a rival impossible) when he could
+overlook or under-estimate the importance, the danger, of this
+newly-arisen complication.
+
+This was a new phase in her husband's character; this was an aspect
+under which she had never seen him, and she was bewildered by it, for
+a little. It had occurred to her once, on the day when she last saw
+George Dallas--parting with him at the gate of his mother's house--to
+think whether, had she had any other resource but her husband, had the
+whole world outside of him not been a dead blank to her, she could
+have let him go. She had heard of such things; she knew they happened;
+she knew that many women in "the world" took their husbands'
+infidelity quietly, if not kindly, and let them go, turning them to
+the resources of wealth and pleasure. She had no such resources, nor
+could these have appeased her for a moment if she had had. She cared
+nothing for liberty, she who had worn the chain of the most abject
+slavery, that of engrossing passionate love for an unworthy object,
+willingly, had hugged it to her bosom, had allowed it, without an
+effort to alleviate the pain, to eat into her flesh, and' fill it with
+corruption. But, more than this, she could not let him go, for his own
+sake; she was true to the law of her life, that "honour rooted in
+dishonour" knew no tarnishing from her; she must save him, for his own
+sake--from himself, she must save him, though not to bring him back to
+her--must save him, in spite of himself, though she longed, in the
+cruel pangs of her woman's anguish, to have done with it--to have
+found that nothingness in which she had come to believe as the "end
+all," and had learned to look to as her sovereign good.
+
+She had reached such a conclusion, in her meditations, on the night of
+the great storm at Homburg; she had determined on a course to be
+adopted for Routh's sake. She would discard fear, and show him that he
+must relinquish the desperate game he was playing. She would prove to
+him that fate had been too strong for him; that in Mrs. Ireton P.
+Bembridge the fatality which was destined to destroy him existed; that
+her acquaintance with Arthur Felton, and her knowledge of Arthur
+Felton's affairs, into whose extent Routh had no possible pretext for
+inquiry, must necessarily establish the missing link. She would hide
+from him her own sufferings; she would keep down her jealousy and her
+love; she would appeal to him for himself; she would plead with him
+only his own danger, only the tremendous risk he was involving himself
+in. Then she must succeed; then the double agony of jealousy of him
+and fear for him in which she now lived must subside, the burning
+torment must be stilled. The time might perhaps come in which she
+should so far conquer self as to be thankful that such suffering had
+brought about his safety, for there could be no real security for them
+in London, the terrible fact of Deane's identity with Arthur Felton
+once known. After that discovery, no arguments could avail with
+George; the strength of all those which she had used would become
+potent against her, their weight would be against her--that weight
+which she had so skilfully adjusted in the balance. After all, she
+thought that night, as she sat in the darkness and idly watched the
+lightning, hearing the raging wind unmoved, what would a little more
+misery matter to her? Little, indeed, if it brought him safety; and it
+should, it must!
+
+From this condition of mind she had been roused by Routh's startling
+announcement of their departure on the morrow. The effect produced
+upon Harriet was strange. She did not believe that Routh had been only
+to the gaming-rooms that night: she felt an immutable conviction that
+he had seen Mrs. Bembridge, and she instantly concluded that he had
+received a rebuff from the beautiful American. Inexpressibly
+relieved--though not blind enough to be in the least insensible to the
+infamy of her husband's faithlessness, and quite aware that she had
+more, rather than less, to complain of than she had previously
+believed;--for she rightly judged, this woman is too finished a
+coquette to throw up her game a moment before her own interest and
+safety absolutely obliged her to do so--she acquiesced immediately.
+
+Had Stewart Routh had the least suspicion of the extent of his wife's
+knowledge of his life at Homburg, he could not have been lulled into
+the false security in which he indulged on his return to London. He
+perceived, indeed, that Harriet closely noted the state of his
+spirits, and silently observed his actions. But he was used to
+that. Harriet had no one to think of but him, had nothing to care
+about but him; and she had always watched him. Pleasantly, gaily,
+before;--coldly, grimly, now: but it was all the same thing. He was
+quite right in believing she had not the least suspicion that Mrs.
+Ireton P. Bembridge was in London, but that was the sole point on
+which he was correct. Had he known how much his wife knew, he would
+have affected a dejection of spirits he was far from feeling, and
+would have disarmed her by greater attention to her during the few
+hours of each day which he passed at home.
+
+Harriet was at a loss to account for his cheerfulness; but strong of
+mind and heart as she was, she was not altogether free from the
+weakness of catching at that interpretation of a mystery in which
+there was some relief for her own pain. So she concluded that he had
+been only passingly, and not deeply, hurt by the coquetry of the woman
+who had attracted him, and that he had recovered from the superficial
+wound, as soon as he became again immersed in the schemes which had
+awaited him in London.
+
+He had told her little concerning these schemes, but she considered
+this reticence due to her own withdrawal from her former active
+participation in the business of his life, and it was an additional
+inducement to her to hope that Routh was taking the resolution which
+she desired. "When we get back to London I will think about it," he
+had said, and she clung to the hope, to the half-promise in the words.
+He was surely settling affairs so as to enable him to avoid the
+bursting of the storm. The tacit estrangement between them would
+account for his doing this silently; his vile temper, which Harriet
+thoroughly understood, and never failed to recognize in action, would
+account for his denying her the relief of knowing his intentions. Many
+small things in his daily life, which did not escape the quickened
+perception of his wife, betokened a state of preparation for some
+decided course of action. The time of explanation must necessarily
+come; meanwhile she watched, and waited, and suffered.
+
+How she suffered in every hour of her life! Yet there was a kind of
+dulness over Harriet too. She recurred little to the past in point of
+feeling; she thought over it, indeed, in aid of the action of her
+reason and her will, but she did not recall it with the keenness
+either of acute grief for its vanished happiness, such as it had been,
+or of remorse and terror for its deep and desperate guilt. The burden
+of the day was enough now for this woman, whose strength had lasted so
+long, endured so much, and given way so suddenly.
+
+But time was marching on, the inevitable end drawing near, and Harriet
+had been utterly unprepared for the second shock, the second
+unexpected event which had befallen. She had opened George Dallas's
+letter with the Paris postmark almost without an apprehension. The
+time for the thing she feared had not yet come; and here was a thing
+she had never feared, a possibility which had never presented itself
+to her imagination, brought at once fully before her. She had done
+this thing. One moment's want of caution, in the midst of a scene in
+which her nerves had been strung to their highest tension, and this
+had been the result. Had no other clue existed, these few lines of
+writing would furnish one leading unerringly to discovery. Supposing
+no other clue to exist, and Routh to pretend to inability to identify
+the writing, there were several common acquaintances of Dallas and
+Deane who _could_ identify it, and render a refusal the most dangerous
+step which Routh could take.
+
+She sat for several minutes perfectly still, her face colourless as
+marble, and her blue eyes, fixed with a painful expression of terror,
+under the shock of this new discovery. She had had no worse
+apprehension than that the letter would announce the day of George's
+intended return, and for that she was prepared; but this! It was too
+much for her, and the first words she uttered showed that her mind had
+lost its strict faculty of reasoning; they broke from her with a
+groan:
+
+"I--I it is who have destroyed him!"
+
+But, even now, weakness and exaggeration had no long duration in
+Harriet Routh's mind. By degrees she saw this in its true light, an
+alarming, a terrible coincidence indeed, an addition to the danger of
+their position, but not necessarily a fatal catastrophe. Then she saw
+new light, she caught at a new idea, a fresh, bright hope. This would
+avail with Routh; this would drive away his irresolution; this would
+really inspire him with the true conviction of their danger; this,
+which would throw the whole burden of identification upon him; this,
+which would establish a strong and intimate link between him and the
+dead man; for the "articles to be purchased," named in the memorandum
+of which George had sent her a copy, were simply shares in companies
+with every one of which Stewart Routh was connected. Only George's
+ignorance of such matters had prevented his recognizing the meaning of
+the memorandum.
+
+And now Harriet rose; and as she paced the room, the colour came back
+to her cheek, the light came back to her eyes. A new life and fresh
+energy seemed to spring up within her, and she grasped George's letter
+in her hand, and struck it against her bosom with an action of the
+hand and a responsive movement of the breast which was almost
+triumphant. This thing which she had done, which had looked like ruin,
+would be her way of escape.
+
+Routh's refusal to return home immediately annoyed, puzzled, and
+disheartened her. Why was he so hard to move, so difficult to
+convince, so insensible to danger? His plea was business; if this
+business was what she hoped and believed it to be, that of
+preparation, he should have come home to learn the new and urgent need
+for its expedition. Why was he so hard to her? Why had he no thought
+for her wishes, no compassion on her suspense? Harriet could not but
+ask herself that, though she strove against the deadly suffering the
+answer brought her.
+
+Thus the time wore on drearily, until Harriet carelessly took from the
+table the slip of paper which contained a whole revelation for her.
+
+Of the hours which succeeded she could not have given an account
+herself. How the fury of jealousy, of love betrayed, of faith
+violated, was reawakened within her, and inflamed to the wildest and
+most desperate pitch; how she writhed under the shame and the scorn
+which her husband's baseness forced her to feel. She had had
+profoundest pity, readiest help for the criminal; but for this
+pitiful, cowardly, cruel liar nothing but contempt--nothing! Ah, yes,
+something more, and that made it all the harder--contempt and love.
+
+The woman was here, then--here, in London, on the spot to ruin him,
+lured hither by him. His false heart planned; his guilty hands dug the
+pit into which he was to fall; and now his feet were close upon the
+brink. This rendered him deaf and blind; for this he had basely
+deceived her, his best, his only friend; for this he had come to
+regard and treat her as his enemy; and now Harriet had to make a
+desperate effort indeed to rally all her strength and courage. She had
+to put the suffering aside, to let all her hopes go, to face a new and
+almost desperate condition of affairs, and to think how he was to be
+saved. It must be in spite of himself. This time, it must be in
+defiance of himself.
+
+She had passed through a long period of suffering--if time is to be
+measured by pain--before Routh came home. She had not nearly thought
+it out; she had only reached a resolution to be patient and peaceful,
+and to conceal her knowledge of his treachery, if any effort could
+give her the strength to do so, when she heard his key in the lock,
+and the next moment his hand on the door-handle.
+
+There was confusion in the expression of Eolith's shifty black eyes,
+some embarrassment in the tone of his voice. They were slight; but she
+saw and understood them. Her heart gave one angry bound under the
+paper which lay securely in her bosom, but her steady face took no
+change from the pulsation.
+
+"Sorry I couldn't get back. I got away as soon as I could," said
+Routh, as he threw aside his coat and put his hat down. Harriet pushed
+a chair towards him, and he sat down before she answered:
+
+"I am sorry, too, Stewart. I can hardly think any business can have
+equalled in importance such an occurrence as this."
+
+She put George Dallas's letter into his hand, and eagerly watched him,
+while with a face convulsed by anger, hatred, and all unholy passions,
+he read it.
+
+If she could have seen his heart! If she could have read the devilish
+project that filled it! If she could have seen that in the discovery
+of the new and urgent danger he had seen, not blind to that danger
+indeed, but catching at the chance included in it, a means of
+realizing his atrocious plot against her! If she could have
+distinguished, amid the surging, passionate thoughts and impulses
+which raged within him, this one, which each second made more clear:
+
+"This is my opportunity. All is settled, all is right; she and I are
+safe. I have triumphed, and this cursed letter gives me a better
+chance than any I could have formed or made. This infernal idiot is
+always my curse and my dupe; however, he has done me a good turn this
+time."
+
+If Harriet, watching the changes in her husband's countenance, could
+have read these thoughts, she might have interpreted aright the
+ferocity which blazed in his wicked eyes, while a cynical sneer curled
+his lip, as he flung the letter violently on the floor, starting up
+from his chair.
+
+Harriet had seen Routh in a passion more than once, though only once
+had that passion been directed against herself, and she was not a
+woman, even when its victim, to be frightened by a man's temper. But
+she was frightened now, really and truly frightened, not, however, by
+the violence of his rage, but because she did not believe in it. She
+did not understand his game; she saw he was playing one; why he
+feigned this fury she could not comprehend, but she knew it was
+feigned, and she was frightened. Against complicated deception of this
+kind she was powerless.. She could not oppose successful art to the
+ingenious skill with which he was courting his own ruin, to save him.
+She could not disentangle this thought from the confusion in her
+brain; she felt only its first thrill of conviction, she only shrank
+from it with swift, sharp, physical pain, when Routh turned upon her
+with a torrent of angry and fierce reproaches.
+
+"This is your doing," he said, the violence of his simulated anger
+hurrying his words, and rendering them almost unintelligible. "I owe
+it to you that this cursed fool has me in his power, if the idiot only
+finds it out, and knows how to use it, more securely than I ever had
+him in mine. This is your skill and your wisdom; your caution and your
+management, is it? Like a fool, I trusted a woman--you were always so
+sure of yourself, you know, and here's the result. You keep this
+pretty piece of conviction in your desk, and produce it just in the
+nick of time. I don't wonder you wanted me home; I don't wonder you
+were in such a hurry to give me such a proof of your boasted
+cleverness."
+
+Her clear blue eyes were upon him; his restless black eyes shifted
+under her gaze, but could not escape it. She did not release him for
+an instant from that piercing look, which became, with each word he
+spoke, more and more alight with scorn and power. The steady look
+maddened him, the feigned passion changed to real rage, the man's evil
+face paled.
+
+She slightly raised her hand, and pointed to the chair he had left; he
+kicked it savagely away. She spoke, her hands still extended.
+"Stewart, I do not understand you, but I am not taken in by you. What
+are you aiming at? Why are you pretending to this violent and
+unreasonable anger?"
+
+"Pretending!" he exclaimed, with an oath; "it is no pretence, as you
+shall find. Pretending! Woman, you have ruined me, and I say--"
+
+"And _I_ say," she interposed, as she slowly rose, and stood upright
+before him, her head raised, her steady eyes still mercilessly set on
+his, "this is a vain and ridiculous pretence. You cannot long conceal
+its motive from me: whatever game you are playing, I will find it
+out."
+
+"Will yon, by--?" he said, fiercely.
+
+"I will, for your own sake," she answered calmly. And, standing before
+him, she touched him lightly on the breast with her small white hand.
+"Stop! don't speak. I say, for your own sake. You and I, Stewart, who
+were once one, are two now; but that makes no change in me. I don't
+reproach you."
+
+"Oh, don't you?" he said. "I know better. There's been nothing but
+whining and reproaches lately."
+
+"Now you are acting again, and again I tell you I will find out why.
+The day of reproach can never--shall never--come; the day of ruin is
+near, awfully near--"
+
+"You've taken care of that."
+
+"Again! You ought to know me better, Stewart; you can't lie to me
+undetected. In time I shall know the truth, now I discern the lie. But
+all this is vain. Read once more." She took up the letter, smoothed it
+out, and held it towards him. He struck it out of her hand, and cursed
+her.
+
+She looked at him in blank amazement for a moment, and then said:
+
+"You are not drunk again, Stewart? You are not mad? If you are not,
+listen to me, for your fate is rushing upon you. The time may be
+counted by hours. Never mind my share in this new event, never mind
+what you really think, or what you pretend to think about it. It makes
+my appeal to you strong, irresistible. This is no fit of woman's
+terror; this is no whim, no wish to induce you to desert your
+harvest-field, to turn your back upon the promise of the only kind of
+life you care to live. Here is a link in the evidence against you, if
+suspicion lights upon you (and it must), which is of incontestable
+strength. Here, in Arthur Felton's writing, is the memoranda of the
+shares which you bought and paid for with Arthur Felton's money.
+Stewart, Stewart, are you blind and mad, indeed, that you stay here,
+that you let the precious time escape you, that you dally with your
+fate? Let us begone, I say; let us escape while we may. George Dallas
+is not our only foe, not our only danger--formidable, indeed; but
+remember, Stewart, Mr. Felton comes to seek for his son; remember that
+we have to dread the man's father!"
+
+The pleading in her voice was agonizing in its intensity, the lustrous
+excitement in her blue eyes was painful, the pallor of her face was
+frightful. She had clasped her hands round his arm, and the fingers
+held him like steel fetters. He tried to shake off her hold, but she
+did not seem aware of the movement.
+
+"I tell you," she continued, "no dream was ever wilder than your hope
+of escape, if those two men come to London and find you here; no such
+possibility exists. Let us go; let us get out of the reach of their
+power."
+
+"By--, I'll put myself out of Dallas's reach by a very simple
+method, if you don't hold your cursed tongue," said Routh, with such
+ferocity that Harriet let go her hold of him, and shrank as if he had
+struck her. "If you don't want me to tell Mr. Felton what has become
+of his son, and put him on to George's trail myself, you'll drop this
+kind of thing at once. In fact," he said, with a savage sneer, "I
+hardly think a better way out of our infernal blunder could be found."
+
+"Stewart, Stewart!" She said no more.
+
+"Now listen to me, Harriet," he went on, in furious anger, but in a
+suppressed tone. "If you are anything like the wise woman you used to
+be, you won't provoke a desperate man. Let me alone, I tell you--let
+me get out of this as I best can. The worst part of it is what you
+have brought upon me. I don't want George Dallas to come to any
+serious grief, if I can help it; but if he threatens danger to me, he
+must clear the way, that's all. I dare say you are very sorry, and all
+that. You rather took to Master George lately, believed in his
+prudence, and his mother, and all that kind of thing; but I can't help
+that. I never had a turn for sentiment myself; but this you may
+be sure of--only gross blundering can bring anything of the kind
+about--if any one is to swing for Dean, it shall be Dallas, and not
+I."
+
+A strong shudder shook Harriet's frame as she heard her husband's
+words. But she repressed it, and spoke:
+
+"You refuse to listen to me, then, Stewart. You will not keep your
+promise--your promise which, however vague, I have built upon and
+lived upon since we left Homburg? You will not 'think of' what I said
+to you there? Not though it is a thousand times more important now?
+You will not leave this life, and come away to peace and safety?"
+
+"No, no; a thousand times no!" said Routh, in the wildest fury. "I
+will not--I will not! A life of peace and safety; yes, and a life of
+poverty, and you--" he added, in a tone of bitterest scorn and hatred.
+
+A wonderful look came into the woman's face as she heard his cruel and
+dastardly words. As the pink had faded into the white upon her cheeks,
+so now the white deadened into gray--into an ashen ghostly gray, and
+her dry lips parted slowly, emitting a heavy sigh.
+
+He made a step or two towards the door, she retreating before him. And
+when he had almost reached it, she fell suddenly upon her knees, and
+flung her arms round him with desperate energy.
+
+"Stewart," she said, in a whisper indeed, yet in a voice to be heard
+amid a whirlwind, "my husband, my love, my life, my darling, don't
+mind me! Leave me here; it will be safer, better, less suspicious. Go
+away, and leave me. I don't care, indeed. I don't want to go with you.
+Go alone, and make sure of your safety! Stewart, say you'll go--say
+you'll go!"
+
+While she was speaking, he was striving to loosen her hold upon him,
+but in vain. A short brief warfare was waged in that moment in his
+soul. If he softened to her now, if he yielded to her now, all was
+undone. And yet what love was this--what strange, and wondrous, and
+potent kind of love was this? Not the kind of love which had looked at
+him, an hour or two ago, out of the rich black eyes of the American
+widow, that had trembled in the tones of her voice. But a vision of
+the beauty he coveted, of the wealth he needed, of the freedom he
+panted for, rose before Routh's bewildered brain, and the strife
+ended. Evil had its own way unchecked henceforth to the end.
+
+He raised his right arm and struck her heavily upon the face; the
+clasp of her hands gave way, and she sank upon the floor. Then he
+stepped over her, as she lay prostrate in the doorway, and left the
+room. When she raised herself, she pushed back her hair, and looked
+round with a dreary amazement upon her troubled face, and she heard
+the key turned in his dressing-room door.
+
+The day had dawned when Harriet Routh went gently upstairs to her
+bed-room. She was perfectly calm. She opened the window-shutters and
+let the light in before she lay down on her bed. Also, she unlocked a
+box, which she took from her wardrobe, and looked carefully into it,
+then put it away satisfied. As she closed her eyes, she said, half
+aloud, "I can do no more; but she can save him, and she shall."
+
+
+At one o'clock on the following day, Harriet Routh, attired, as usual,
+in simple but ladylike dress, and presenting an appearance on which
+the most impertinent of pages would not have dared to cast an
+imputation, presented herself at No. 4 Hollington-square, Brompton.
+Mrs. Bembridge lived there, but Mrs. Bembridge was not at home, and
+would not be at home until late in the evening. Would the lady leave
+her name? 'No; but she desired Mrs. Bembridge might be informed that a
+lady had called, and would call again at the same hour on the morrow,
+who had found an article of dress lost at Homburg by Mrs. Bembridge,
+and which she would restore to Mrs. Bembridge in person, but not
+otherwise.
+
+As Harriet was returning home, she walked down Piccadilly, and saw Mr.
+Felton and George Dallas alighting from a cab at the door of the house
+in which their lodgings had been engaged.
+
+
+"Very fair, too," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, when she received
+Harriet's message from her maid, "and very natural she should expect a
+reward. Ladies often take advantage of that kind of thing to give
+money to the poor. I shan't grudge her any thing she may ask in
+reason, I shall be so glad to get back my golden egg."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+"INFORMATION RECEIVED."
+
+
+When George Dallas knew that his meeting with Clare Carruthers was
+imminent, he told his uncle one of the two circumstances of his life
+which he had hitherto concealed from him. As George expected, Mr.
+Felton received the communication with some seriousness. "A little
+while ago, George," he said, "this might have upset the new and good
+understanding happily established between Mr. Carruthers and yourself,
+but I am in hopes it will not do so now. I think the old gentleman's
+nature is fine and forgiving, when one gets beneath the crust, and I
+am not afraid now. The chance of seeing the young lady, not in his
+presence, for the first time--that would have been awkward and
+dangerous indeed--is most fortunate. You must make your peace with her
+in the first instance."
+
+Enough of the old habit of trick and expedient still adhered to
+George, in his improved moral condition, to induce him to entertain a
+passing thought that perhaps the necessity for Mr. Carruthers knowing
+he had had any previous acquaintance with Clare, might never arise; if
+she did not see that he must be told, George need not feel himself
+bound to tell him. But he rejected the impulse after a very little
+while, and was ashamed of it. When, therefore, Mr. Felton had left
+George alone at Sir Thomas Boldero's house, he had done so with
+intention, and without any purpose of returning.
+
+"Meet me at my rooms afterwards," he had said to George. "And tell
+Miss Carruthers I will take leave to call on her at Mrs. Stanhope's
+this afternoon." George agreed, premising that he must look in at the
+_Mercury_ office first, but would then be at his uncle's service. Left
+alone, he had applied himself, in a condition of extreme mental
+discomposure, to thinking of what he should say to Clare, and how he
+should say it. He had almost arranged a satisfactory programme before
+she came; after--well, after, he did not speak or look in the least
+like what he had intended, and if any one had asked him for an account
+of their interview (which no one did, it was destined to be utterly
+forgotten and overwhelmed in the tide of events), he would have been
+quite incapable of satisfying the demand.
+
+The interview lasted long, and when, at its close, George Dallas put
+Clare Carruthers into her cousin's carriage, her face was closely
+veiled, and the little hand which lingered in his had not yet done
+trembling. As he stood on the door-step and watched the carriage out
+of sight, the young man's face was pale and agitated, but full of deep
+and sacred happiness too. An expression of resolve and hope, of
+courage and power, was upon his features, such as they had never
+before worn. Had he recalled the resolution he had taken for the time
+when Clare Carruthers should know Paul Ward as George Dallas, and had
+he renewed it, with fresh heart and energy, not unaided now by
+circumstances, not frowned upon by fate, no longer friendless? However
+that may have been, he carried a humbled and grateful heart with him,
+and felt himself a widely different man as he entered the dingy
+precincts of the _Mercury_ office, from what he had been the last time
+he had crossed that threshold.
+
+Mr. Cunningham was "in," and not only could see George, but was
+particularly anxious to see him.
+
+"I was just writing to you, old fellow," he said, leaving off shaking
+hands with George, and beginning to tear up a brief and scrawly
+manuscript on flimsy which lay before him. "You have come in time to
+save me trouble and fourpence sterling."
+
+"Anything about the business I wrote to you about?" asked George.
+
+"Just that, sir. Of course I attended to it at once, and put Tatlow on
+to it on your account. They're said to be cautious chaps, the
+detectives, and of course it wouldn't pay for them to be said to be
+anything else; but I'm hanged if I ever believed it before. You may
+talk of depth, but Tatlow's unfathomable. Has the job from yon, sir,
+per medium of your humble servant, and flatly declines to report
+progress to me; goes in for doing business only with the principal,
+and when he comes to me not a word can I get out of him, except that
+he must know the address of a certain individual named Paul Ward."
+
+"Paul Ward?" exclaimed George.
+
+"Yes, Paul Ward! Great, fun, isn't it, George? And I really could not
+resist the joke of quizzing the detective a little bit. I was
+immensely tickled at the idea of your employing the man, and his
+looking after you. So I told him I knew Mr. Dallas was acquainted with
+a gentleman of that name, and could give him all the information he
+required."
+
+George could not laugh, but he tried to smile. Nothing could lend the
+subject of his uncle's suspense and anxiety even a collaterally
+amusing effect for him, and this statement puzzled him.
+
+"What on earth can I have to do with the matter?" he said. "The man
+must be travelling very far indeed out of the right tracks. No one in
+the world, as it is pretty plain, can be more ignorant of Felton's
+affairs than I am. He must be on a totally wrong scent; and if he has
+blundered in this way, it is only waste of time and money to employ
+him."
+
+"Well," said Cunningham, a little disappointed that George did not
+enjoy the keenness of the capital joke as much as he did, "you must
+settle all that with him yourself, and find out from him, if you
+can--and, by Jove, I doubt it--how Paul Ward has got mixed up in your
+cousin's affairs (if he has got mixed up in them--and, mind, I don't
+feel sure even of that--he certainly did not say so) without your
+being a party to the transaction. I just gave Tatlow your address in
+Piccadilly, and told him you'd be there in a day or two."
+
+"What did he say?" asked George, whose sense of mystification was
+increasing.
+
+"Said he should call every day until you arrived,--no doubt he has
+been there to-day, or you'll find him there when you get home,--and
+disappeared, having got all the information I chose to give him, but
+not what he wanted; which is, I take it, the correct thing to do to a
+detective who observes the laws of discretion too absolutely."
+
+Cunningham was laughing his jolly laugh, and George was wondering what
+Tatlow meant, when the entrance of a third individual on office
+business interrupted the friends' talk. George took leave, and went
+down-stairs. Arrived at the door, he stopped, ran up the first flight
+of dirty stairs again, and turned into a small room, dimly lighted by
+a dirty skylight, to the right of the first landing. In this
+sanctuary, strong smelling of dust, size, and printer's ink, lay
+files, bound and unbound, of the _Mercury_. A heavy volume was open on
+the clumsy thick-legged table which filled up the centre of the room.
+It contained the files of the newspaper for the first half of the
+current year.
+
+"Let me see," said George, "she was not quite sure about the 22nd; but
+it must have been about that date."
+
+Then he turned the leaves, and scanned the columns of advertisements,
+until he found in one the warning which Clare Carruthers had sent to
+Paul Ward. His eyes filled with tears as he read it. He called up one
+of the office people, and had a copy of the paper of that date looked
+for, out of which he carefully cut the advertisement, and consigned it
+to the keeping of the pocketbook which he always carried about him. He
+placed the little slip of printed paper in the same compartment in
+which Clare Carruthers's unconscious gift had so long lain hidden. As
+George threw open the doors of the hansom in which he had been driven
+from the _Mercury_ office to Piccadilly, Jim Swain came to the wheel,
+and, touching his tousled head, asked if he might speak to him.
+
+"Certainly," said George, getting out; "any message from Mr. Routh?"
+
+"No, sir," said Jim, "it's not; it's somethin' very partic'lar,
+as I as 'ad to say to you this long time. It ain't rightly about
+myself--and--"
+
+"Never mind, Jim; you can tell me all about it in the house," said
+George cheerily. "Come along." He opened the door with his key, and
+let himself and Jim into the hall. But there Mr. Felton met him, his
+face grave and care-worn, and, as George saw in a minute, with some
+additional lines of trouble in it.
+
+"I'm so glad you have come, George. I found letters here when I got
+back."
+
+"Letters from New York?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+George left Jim standing on the mat, going with his uncle into the
+room he had just left.
+
+Mr. James Swain, who was accustomed to pass a good deal of his life in
+waiting about on steps, in passages, at horses' heads, and
+occasionally in kitchens, and to whom the comfortable hall of the
+house in Piccadilly presented itself as an agreeable temporary abode,
+considered it advisable to sit down and attend the leisure of Mr.
+Dallas. He had been for some minutes engaged partly in thinking what
+he should say to Mr. Dallas, partly in counting the squares in the
+tiles which floored the hall, hearing all the while a subdued sound of
+voices from the adjoining room, when a strange sort of cry reached his
+ears. He started up, and listened intently. The cry was not repeated;
+but in a few moments Mr. Felton came into the hall, looking
+frightened, and called loudly down the lower staircase for assistance.
+Two servants, a man and a woman, came quickly, and in the mean time
+Jim looked in at the open door. In another minute they were all in the
+dining-room in a confused group, gathered round an arm-chair, in which
+was lying the insensible death-like figure of George Dallas, his
+collar and necktie torn off, his waistcoat open, several letters on
+the table before him, and a card on the floor at his feet.
+
+It was a very complete and dead swoon, and there was no explanation of
+it; none to be given to the servants, at least. Jim Swain did not
+touch George--he only looked on; and as, at the suggestion of the
+woman, they opened the window, and pushed the chair on which George
+was lying within the current of air, he picked up the card, over which
+one of the castors had passed. It was a small photographic portrait.
+The boy looked at it, and recognized, with surprise, that it was the
+likeness of Mr. Deane--that it was a fac-simile of a portrait he had
+looked at and handled a very little while ago. He put it down upon the
+table, and made to Mr. Felton the business-like suggestion that a
+doctor had better be sent for, and he had better be sent to fetch him,
+which was immediately acceded to.
+
+When Jim returned, bringing with him a general practitioner, he was
+told that Mr. Dallas had "come to," but was "uncommon weak and
+confused, and crying like a child when he wasn't shivering," so that
+Jim felt his chances of an interview were small indeed.
+
+"I can't see him, of course, and I wanted to, most partic'lar. He
+brought me in, hisself."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," said the male domestic, with importance; "but you
+can't see him, and there's no good in your waiting about here. Look
+round at eleven to-morrow, and I'll see what can be done for you."
+
+Jim had nothing for it but to go disconsolately away. So he went.
+
+
+While George Dallas and Clare Carruthers were talking together at Sir
+Thomas Boldero's house in Chesham-place, while the hours--never to be
+forgotten by either--were passing over them, the same hours were
+witnessing an interview not less-momentous for Harriet Routh and her
+beautiful foe.
+
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge was ready to receive her visitor; and as her
+coquetry and vanity were omnivorous, much as she despised women, and
+sincerely as she enjoyed the knowledge of her power to make most of
+them envious and miserable, she had dressed herself very carefully.
+She was just a little bored by her present mode of existence. Routh
+could not be much with her; and though she had brought herself to
+believe that she really did feel an absorbing passion for him,
+somehow or other it left a good deal of her thoughts and her time
+unabsorbed, and she did not exactly know how to dispose of either. The
+romance of this kind of incognito life was all very well in its way,
+which was a pleasant way, and as far as it went, which certainly was
+very far, but not quite far enough. And she did get horribly bored,
+there was no denying it. When Routh's daily letter had been read--for
+she exacted that of him, of him who hated letter-writing, and whose
+hard actuality of nature needed all the incitement of her beauty, her
+coquetry, and her artfulness to rouse him to sentiment and give his
+language the eloquence of love--she had nothing but novels to fall
+back upon, and the vague prospect of a supplementary note or two, or
+trying on a new dress, or thinking what theatre she would go to, or
+what direction her afternoon drive should take. She was glad of the
+chance of seeing a new face, though it was only a woman's; and then
+the reason for receiving her was so sound, it was impossible Routh
+could object. Indeed, she could not see the force of his objections to
+her going out more, and seeing people in general; it could not matter
+now, and would sound better hereafter than this hidden residence in
+London; however, it could not last long, and it was very romantic,
+very. She had not had much chance in all her previous prosperous life
+of playing at romance, and she liked it; she would not like it, if it
+continued to mean boredom, much longer, but there was no danger of
+that.
+
+No. 4 Hollington-square was one of those London houses which every one
+knows, furnished for people who take houses for the season, prettily,
+flimsily, sparingly; a house which tenants with money and taste could
+make very striking and attractive, which tenants without money and
+without taste would find very tolerable in its original condition.
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge possessed both; and as she made it a rule to
+have every advantage procurable by the use of either, the drawing-room
+in which she awaited the coming of her visitor was as pretty and
+coquettish a room as could easily have been seen. She had chosen a
+becoming costume, and an equally becoming attitude; and she looked
+beautiful indeed, in her rich morning dress of black silk, faced with
+rose-coloured satin and costly lace. The masses of her dark hair were
+coiled smoothly round her head, her white arms were without a jewel to
+turn the eye from their shapely beauty. She glanced at one of the many
+mirrors in the room as the page announced "a lady," and felt perfectly
+satisfied.
+
+The room was long and narrow, though not large; and as Harriet walked
+from the door to the hearth-rug on which Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
+stood, having gracefully risen in an attitude especially intended for
+her visitor's admiration, that lady had time to observe her
+appearance, and to experience a certain vague sense of discomfort not
+altogether unlike alarm. She saw a face which she remembered, but with
+which she could not connect any distinct recollection; a pale, fair,
+determined face with smooth light-brown hair framing a broad low brow,
+with keen piercing blue eyes, which looked steadily at her, and never
+dropped their fine-fringed lids, blue eyes in which power, will, and
+knowledge dwelt, as the shallow-souled woman they looked at, and
+through, felt, but did not understand. A face, so fixed in its
+expression of irremediable woe, a face so lost with all its
+self-possession, so full of despair with all its might of will, that
+a duller intellect than that of a meagre-brained woman must have
+recognized a story in it such as happily few human beings have to tell
+or to conceal. Harriet did not speak, or make any sign of salutation;
+but when she had quite reached her, Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge recovered
+herself, and said, with all her accustomed grace:
+
+"I am so much obliged to you for calling. Pray take a seat. I think I
+know to what I am indebted for the pleasure of your visit;" and then
+she sank gracefully back into her low chair, and smiled her very best
+smile. The very best of those suited to the feminine capacity, of
+course. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had quite a different set of smiles
+for men.
+
+"I am quite sure you do not," said Harriet, in a low firm voice, and
+without availing herself of the invitation to be seated. "I am quite
+sure you have no notion of my business here. You shall know it; it is
+important, but brief."
+
+"Madam," said the other, sitting upright, and turning slightly pale.
+
+Harriet extended her hand with a gesture habitual to her, and said:
+
+"Stay. You must hear me for your own sake. You will do well to hear me
+quietly, and to give me your very best attention. If I do not make the
+impression on you which I desire and intend to make, there is one
+other person beside myself who will suffer by my failure, and that
+person is you."
+
+She dropped her hand and drew her breath. Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
+looked at her with frightened distended eyes, speechless.
+
+"You think I have come on a false pretext, and I have done so, to a
+certain extent. You lost an article of ornament or dress at Homburg?"
+
+"I did--a locket," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, a little relieved,
+and glancing unconsciously towards her silver purse, which was at
+hand, and through whose meshes gold shone.
+
+"I know, but I have not brought you your locket. You lost something
+else at Homburg, and I have brought it, to prove that you had better
+hear me, and that you must." And then Harriet laid upon the table,
+near by the side of the silver purse, a crushed and faded flower,
+whose rich luscious blossom had been of the deepest crimson in the
+time of its bloom, when it had nestled against a woman's silken hair.
+
+"What is it? What do you mean? Good God, who are you?" said Mrs.
+Ireton P. Bembridge, shrinking back as Harriet made the one step
+necessary to enable her to reach the table.
+
+"I am Stewart Routh's wife," she replied, slowly, and without changing
+her tone, or releasing the other woman from her steady gaze.
+
+This time Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge sprang to her feet, with a face as
+white as death.
+
+"Don't be frightened," said Harriet, with the faintest glimmer of a
+contemptuous smile, which was the last expression having relation to
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge personally, that showed itself in her face,
+until the end. "I did not come here to inspire you with any fear of
+me; I did not come here on your account at all, or on mine; but for
+another motive."
+
+"What, what is it?" said her hearer, nervously reseating herself.
+
+"My husband's safety," said Harriet; and as she spoke the words, Mrs.
+Ireton P. Bembridge felt that an illusion was rolled away from her for
+ever. He belonged to this pale stern woman, whose unsparing eyes were
+fixed upon her, whose unfaltering voice had not a tone of doubt or
+weakness in it. In every line of her countenance was the assertion of
+her right, against which the other felt powerless, and in whose
+presence her self-confidence was utterly subdued.
+
+Calm and still, Harriet Routh stood before her, her head bent forward,
+her hands clasped and pressed steadily against her waist.
+
+"I have no time to lose," she said, "and the briefest explanation
+will, in this case, be the best. When that flower fell from your hair
+over the balcony at the Kursaal at Homburg, it fell at my feet. I was
+on the terrace beneath. If once, during the time you and he stood
+there, my husband had looked away from you and over the rail, he would
+have seen me. But he did not. I had come to that particular spot
+accidentally, though I was there that night because I suspected,
+because I knew, that he was there with you, and I would not condemn
+him unseen, unconvicted."
+
+Cowering before her, her pale face in her shaking hands, the other
+woman listened.
+
+"I heard all he said to you. Don't start; it was very pretty. I know
+it all, by heart; every intonation, every hesitation--all the lying
+gamut from end to end. I heard all the story he told you of his
+marriage: every incident, every declaration, every sentiment, was a
+lie! He told you he had married a poor, passionate, silly girl, who
+had compromised herself through her undisciplined and unreturned love
+for him, for pity--for a man's pity for a woman! A lie. He told you
+his wife was an oddity, a nervous recluse, oblivious of all but her
+health and her valetudinarian fancies; that she had no love for him,
+or any one; no mind, no tastes, no individuality; that his life was a
+dreary one, and the oscillation of a heart which had never been hers
+towards so irresistible a woman as you (and he was right, so far; you
+are very, very beautiful--I saw that, and granted it to myself, at
+once) was no sin, no dishonesty, against her. All a lie. Look at me,
+if you have the little courage needed for looking at me, and tell me
+if it could be true!"
+
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge looked at her, but only to drop her head into
+her hands, and moan in the presence of the white face and the steady
+sparkling blue eyes.
+
+"This was the lie he told you concerning me. The lie he told you about
+himself was more important in its results; and as it flattered you, of
+course you gave it ready credence. No doubt you believe it still,
+though you must know him better now. He told you a story of his
+misunderstood, undervalued life; of family pride, and grandeur, and
+wealth--of family ties severed in consequence of the charitable,
+chivalrous, self-sacrificing marriage he had made; of obscurity nobly
+borne and toil willingly encountered, of talents unremittingly
+exercised without fame or reward, of high aspirations and future
+possibilities, if only the agency of wealth and the incentive of
+_love_ might be his. And this flimsy tale caught your fancy and your
+faith. It was so charming to fill the vacant place in the
+misunderstood man's life, so delightful to be at once queen and
+'consoler, to supply all the deficiencies of this deplorable wife. It
+was just the programme to catch the fancy of a woman like you,
+beautiful, vain, and empty."
+
+There was neither scorn nor anger in Harriet's voice; there was merely
+a dash of reflection, as if she had strayed for a moment from the
+track of her discourse.
+
+"But it was all a lie," she went on. "His story of me, and his story
+of himself, were both equally false. Into the truth, as regards
+myself, I do not choose to enter. It is needless, and you are as
+incapable of understanding as you are indifferent to it. The truth
+about him I mean to tell you for his sake."
+
+"Why?" stammered the listener.
+
+"Because he is in danger, and I want to save him, because I love
+him---_him_, mind you, not the man you have fancied him, not the
+persuasive bland lover you have found him, no doubt; for I conclude he
+has not changed the character he assumed that night upon the balcony;
+but the hard, the cruel, the desperate man he _is_. I tell you"--she
+drew a little nearer, and again Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge shrank from
+her--"he is a swindler, a liar, and a thief; he has lived by such
+means for years, was living by them when he married me. They are
+failing him now, and he feels the game is up here. What his exact plan
+is, of course I do not know; but that it includes getting you and your
+fortune into his power I have no doubt."
+
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge shivered now under the unsparing gaze. If
+only this woman would turn her eyes away from her, she thought, in the
+midst of her fear and amazement--the eyes that pierced her, that
+suffocated her, like the gripe of a fierce hand upon her throat. She
+did not know his plan. No; but who could look at her and doubt that,
+if she chose to know it, she could force the information from her
+hearer? Who could listen to her cold even tones, and dream of
+resisting their implacable power?
+
+"Whatever his plan may be," Harriet continued, "he is entirely
+absorbed in it, and he is indifferent to all beside. Mind, I don't say
+you count for nothing in this: you are too vain to believe, I am too
+wise to say, anything of the kind. But your beauty, which he likes,
+would never have tempted him to an insane disregard of his safety,
+would never have kept him here when the merest prudence should have
+driven him far away. He wants you, but he wants your money more
+urgently and desperately. He needs time to win you and it, no matter
+how he means to do it, and time is what he has not to give, time is
+the one stake it is ruin to him to risk in this game. Do you hear me?
+Do you understand me?"
+
+The blank white face feebly looked a negative.
+
+"No. Then I will put it more plainly. My husband, your lover, the man
+who is trying to ruin you in reputation, that he may have the power to
+ruin you in fortune, is in imminent danger. Flight, and flight alone,
+could save him; but he refuses to fly, because he will not leave
+_you_."
+
+"What--what has he done?"
+
+"He has been concerned in a robbery," said Harriet with perfect
+composure, "and I know the police are on the right track, and will
+soon come up with him. But he is desperate, and refuses to go. I did
+not know why until yesterday, when I found you had followed him from
+Homburg--by arrangement, of course. Tush, woman! don't try to deny it.
+What does it matter to me? A lie more or less, a villany more or less,
+makes no difference in him for me; but I knew then why he was
+obstinately bent on waiting for his fate."
+
+"I--I don't believe you," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge; and she half
+rose from her chair, and stretched her hand towards the bell. But
+Harriet stopped her by the lifting of a finger.
+
+"O yes, you do," she said; "you believe me implicitly. You have been
+afraid of this man--even when he has flattered you, and won upon you
+most; you have never felt sure of him, and you know I am telling you
+the truth. But you are weak, and you would like to think you had not
+been quite so egregiously deceived. I cannot, for his sake, leave you
+this comfort. You lost a locket at Homburg--a golden egg-shaped
+toy--with two portraits in it, one of yourself, the other of a young
+man, a countryman of yours, an admirer. You prized the thing, you
+showed it to my husband, you talked of its value--is this true?"
+
+"Yes, yes, it is true--what then?"
+
+"This then: he stole that locket from you, as he sat by you, in your
+carriage, and talked sentiment and compliment to you. He stole the
+locket--it does not sound nice or heroic; he stole it, I tell you."
+
+"Impossible--impossible."
+
+"Am I in the confidence of your mind? Do I know the contents of your
+jewel-case? But this is folly, this is pretence; you know in your soul
+that I am telling you the truth. And now for the reason of my telling
+it. If you think I am a jealous woman, come here to expose my husband
+to my rival, and take him from her by even such desperate means, you
+make my task harder, by giving me blind folly to deal with. I came
+with no thought of myself or you: though I do, indeed, save you by
+coming, I have no care, no wish to do so; you are nothing to me, but a
+danger in his path. That his safety will be yours too, is your
+fortune, not my doing. I care not; it might be your destruction, and
+it would be all one to me. I am not jealous _of you_; you are nothing
+to me, and he has long been lost to me. But he must not be lost to
+himself too, and for that I am here. I can do nothing with or for him
+more, but you can: he loves you, after his fashion, and you can save
+him."
+
+"I--I save him--from what? how? what do you mean? If you have told me
+the truth, why should I, if I could?"
+
+Calmly and contemplatively Harriet looked at her; calmly she said, as
+if to herself:
+
+"And I am sure he thinks you love him! Wonderful, very wonderful;
+but," she went on with quicker utterance, "that does not matter. You
+can save him. I will answer your last question first: to convince you
+that this _must_ be done, for your own sake, will save time. You did
+not know his character until now, but I think you know something of
+his temper; I think you understand that he is a desperate man. Suppose
+you break with him now--and your mind has been made up to do that for
+several minutes--suppose you determine to save yourself from this
+swindler, this liar, this thief, to keep your character, and your
+money, and your beauty for a different fate, do you think he will let
+you go? How do you propose to escape him? You don't know. You are
+terribly frightened at the idea. I have come to tell you."
+
+"You are a dreadful woman--you are a wicked, dreadful woman," said
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge with a moan.
+
+"Yes," said Harriet, "I am a wicked, dreadful woman, but you need not
+fear me, though you have done me some wrong too, even according to
+your code, I think. Rouse yourself, and listen to me while I tell you
+what you must do."
+
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge tried to obey her; she shook back the hair
+which had fallen over her face, and looked up with eyes less scared,
+and more intelligent.
+
+"If my husband has not left England by to-morrow," said Harriet with
+clear, distinct emphasis, "it will be too late to save him from the
+clutches of the law. Nothing will induce him to leave England while
+you remain here. What!" she said, with a sudden rush of burning
+red into her face and an indescribable fierce change of tone and
+manner. "What! You were going, were you--and together? Tell me
+instantly--instantly, I say--what is this I see in your face?"
+
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge caught at Harriet's gown, and stammered:
+
+"Don't, don't; I'll tell you!"
+
+"Do you think I am going to strike you or kill you; do you think I
+would touch you with one finger?" said Harriet, in her former tone,
+and drawing her dress from the woman's grasp with a quiet determined
+movement. "Tell me instantly, and don't fear. You were going away--and
+together? Where were you going, and when?"
+
+"To New York--on Saturday."
+
+Harriet Routh turned abruptly from her, and for one minute's duration
+of awful silence her face was hidden. Then, with a sound like a sigh
+and a sob, but such a sound as the listener had never heard before,
+she resumed her former position. The other dared not look at her for
+many minutes. When she did, Harriet's face fixed itself for ever on
+her memory as the ideal of the face of one who had died of sheer pain.
+
+"Thank you. The acknowledgment at least is brave and true, and makes
+the rest easy. Am I to conclude you do not wish now to carry out this
+arrangement?"
+
+"Oh no, no. For God's sake, save me!"
+
+"In saving him. Yes. You must leave England to-night, and he must
+follow you to-morrow. Don't be frightened; I said follow, not meet
+you. You must really go. No pretence will avail. He could not be
+deceived in this. You must cross the Channel to-night, and telegraph
+to him to-morrow from some French town, which you can leave upon the
+instant, if you choose. That is your own affair. You may return to
+England to-morrow night, if you please, and reach Liverpool in time to
+sail for New York on Saturday. Thus you will escape him, and be free.
+He will not follow you against your will to New York, where you are
+protected by your friends and your position. You have but to write and
+forbid his doing so."
+
+"I think--I think I understand," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, in a
+voice full of submission and entreaty; "but how am I to account for
+going away?"
+
+"At what hour do you expect him here to-day?" asked Harriet, in a
+business-like tone, without noticing the question.
+
+"At nine in the evening."
+
+"It is now nearly three. The tidal train for Folkestone starts at six.
+Your arrangements for next Saturday are all made, of course?"
+
+"They are." Wonder and fear and a strange sense of dependence on this
+dreadful woman were growing on Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge with every
+moment.
+
+"Then all is easy--if you can trust your maid."
+
+"I can, implicitly; but what must she do?"
+
+"Settle everything here, and take your luggage to Liverpool. You will
+not be able to make an hour's delay on your return; you must go
+straight through. You must travel without a servant for once--no--take
+your page; he is better out of the way--"
+
+"I will do as you tell me; but you have not said how I am to account
+for going."
+
+"No," said Harriet, absently; "but that will be easy. He will
+think you a fool, and easily frightened, but your vanity must bear
+that--it's not a heavy price to pay for safety."
+
+There was a pretty writing-table in the room, covered with elegant
+trifles. Harriet approached it, and opened a blotting-book. Some
+sheets of thick perfumed paper, with dainty monogram and motto, lay
+within it. On one of them she wrote as follows:
+
+"All is discovered. Your wife has been here, and has terrified me by
+her threats. Our scheme must be abandoned. I cannot stay an hour here,
+not even to consult you; I am in fear of my life. Come to me at once,
+to Amiens. I leave to-night, and will telegraph from thence. If you do
+not join me on Saturday morning, I shall conclude you have given me
+up."
+
+She rose, and desired Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge to take her place.
+
+"Copy that," she said, briefly; but before the other took up the pen,
+she read the lines and exclaimed:
+
+"I dare not--I dare not; he will kill you."
+
+"That is _my_ business," said Harriet fiercely. "Write!"
+
+She copied the letter slowly, and trembling as she wrote, folded,
+sealed, and directed it.
+
+"When is it to be sent?"
+
+"When I have seen you off. I will take care he receives it," said
+Harriet, as she put it in her pocket. "Now go and give your
+directions, and make your preparations."
+
+They looked at each other for a moment, and Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
+left the room without another word. When she was alone, Harriet sat
+down by the table wearily, and covered her face with her hands. Time
+went on, but she did not move. Servants came in and went out of the
+room, but she took no notice. At length Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
+entered in travelling dress, and with a paler face than any mirror she
+had ever looked into had ever reflected. At the same moment a carriage
+came to the door.
+
+"You are quite ready?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"It is time to go."
+
+"Let us go. One minute. Mrs. Routh, I--I don't think I quite knew what
+I was doing. Can you forgive me?" She half extended her hand, then
+drew it back, as she looked into Harriet's marble face.
+
+"Forgive you! What do you mean? You are nothing to me, woman; or, if
+anything, only the executioner of a sentence independent of you."
+
+Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge did not attempt to speak again. As they went
+out of the door, a telegram was handed to her. It was from Routh.
+"Impossible to see you to-night. Letter by post."
+
+She handed the paper silently to Harriet, who read it, and said
+nothing until they were seated in the carriage.
+
+"Does that make any difference?" then asked Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge
+timidly.
+
+"To _you_, none. Possibly it may to me; he need not know so soon."
+
+Not another word was spoken between them. Harriet stood on the
+platform at the railway station until the train moved off, and as Mrs.
+Ireton P. Bembridge caught the last glimpse of her stern white face,
+she threw herself back in the carriage, in which she was fortunately
+alone, in an hysterical agony of tears.
+
+
+Routh did not come home that night; he sent a message that business
+detained him in the City, and that he wished his letters and some
+clothes sent to him in the morning.
+
+"This is well," said Harriet; "he is making his preparations, and he
+does not wish to see me before he must. The night can hardly pass
+without my hearing or seeing George."
+
+Late that evening Harriet posted the letter which Mrs. Ireton P.
+Bembridge had written. But the evening and the night passed, and
+George Dallas did not come or send. The hours were full of the agony
+of suspense for Harriet. They brought another kind of suffering to Mr.
+Felton and his nephew.
+
+At eight o'clock that evening George Dallas, alias Paul Ward, as the
+police phrase had it, was arrested at Mr. Felton's lodgings, charged
+with the murder of Mr. Felton's son. George's agent had done his work
+well, and the notes changed at Amsterdam, which the old bookseller's
+death had released from their hiding-place and put in circulation, had
+furnished the clue to Mr. Tatlow's dexterous fingers. The notes bore
+Arthur Felton's initials; they had been paid to him by the Liverpool
+Bank; they were indorsed in full, with date too, by Paul Ward.
+
+"And a case," said Mr. Tatlow, who had a turn for quotation, "neater,
+completer, in every feater, I don't think I ever was in."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+AT THE TIDAL TRAIN.
+
+
+"There's a job for you to-day, Jim," said the irreproachable Harris to
+Mr. James Swain, when he presented himself at half-past eight at
+Routh's house, according to his frequent custom.
+
+"I didn't come after no jobs this mornin'," said Jim; "I come to see
+the missis."
+
+"Ah, but you can't see her, she ain't up, and the job is particular
+wanted to be done."
+
+Jim looked moody and discontent, but cheered up when Harris
+represented that he might see Mrs. Routh on his return. The "job" was
+the delivery of Routh's clothes and letters, as directed, at his
+chambers in Tokenhouse-yard. The boy was troubled in his mind,
+irresolute. George Dallas's sudden illness, the photograph he had
+seen, these things added to the perplexity he was in already. Perhaps
+he had better speak to Mrs. Routh first; he did not know; at all
+events, he might tell her what had occurred yesterday, without
+mentioning the portrait, and see what effect it had upon her. He had
+thought about it all, until, between his imperfect knowledge of facts,
+his untaught intelligence, and his genuine but puzzled good-will, he
+was quite bewildered. He had brought with him that morning, with a
+vague notion that it might perhaps be advisable to show it to Mrs.
+Routh, but a settled resolution to show it to Mr. Dallas, the object
+which he kept carefully secreted in the hole in the wall at home, and
+as he trudged away Citywards, carrying a small leather bag containing
+the required clothes and letters, he turned it over and over in his
+grimy pocket and grew more and more thoughtful and depressed.
+
+Arrived at Tokenhouse-yard, the clerk took the bag from him, and
+suggested that he had better wait, in case Mr. Routh should require
+his further services. So Jim waited, and presently Routh came out into
+the passage. Jim's private opinion of Stewart Routh's character and
+disposition has been already stated; of his personal appearance he
+entertained an equally low one, and much opposed to the general
+sentiment. "An ill-looking, down-looking dog I call him," Jim had said
+to himself more than once; "more like the Pirate of the Persian Gulf,
+or the Bandit of Bokarer, I think, than anybody as I knows out of the
+pictures."
+
+More ill-looking, more down-looking than ever Jim Swain thought
+Stewart Routh when he spoke to him that morning. His face was
+colourless, his eyes bloodshot, the glance troubled and wandering, his
+voice harsh and uneven. He gave Jim a brief order to meet him at the
+London-bridge railway-station the same evening at a quarter to six. "I
+shall have a message for you," said Routh. "Be punctual, remember."
+And then he turned away abruptly and went into his room, shutting the
+door roughly.
+
+"He ain't in the best of humours, even of his own, and they're none on
+'em good," thought Jim, as he turned out of Tokenhouse-yard and took
+his way westward again, keeping his hand permanently in his pocket
+this time. A fresh disappointment awaited him at Routh's house. Mrs.
+Routh had gone out immediately after she had breakfasted. Did she know
+he wanted to see her? Jim asked. Harris was rather tickled by the
+question.
+
+"I say," he remarked, "you're getting on, Jim; you'll be as impident
+as a cock sparrow presently. I didn't happen to tell her; but if I
+'ad, do you think she'd a stayed in to give you the chance?"
+
+"Yes, I do; wot's more, I'm sure she would," said Jim, and walked
+moodily away, leaving Mr. Harris in a fine attitude of surprise upon
+the threshold. When that functionary finally left off looking after
+the boy, and shut the door, he did so to the accompaniment of a
+prolonged whistle.
+
+It was only ten o'clock, and Jim had been told to go to Mr. Dallas's
+at eleven. The interval troubled him; he could not settle his mind to
+the pursuit of odd jobs. He did not mind "hanging about;" he would
+hang about Piccadilly till the time came. But when Jim reached the
+house in which Mr. Felton and Mr. Dallas lodged, he was surprised to
+find it an object of lively curiosity to a number of persons who were
+crowding the pavement, notwithstanding the active interference of a
+policeman, endeavouring to clear a passage for two ladies whose
+carriage was before the door, and one of whom was evidently in the
+deepest distress. Jim plunged at once into the heart of the concourse,
+and asked a number of eager questions, to which he received
+simultaneous but contradictory replies.
+
+"He's dead!" "No, he isn't." "He's his brother, I tell you; I heard
+the cook a-tellin' the milk-boy." "He ain't his brother; the old 'un's
+his uncle; and he's been and murdered his cousin." Such were a few of
+the sentences Jim caught as his curiosity and anxiety rose to frenzy.
+
+"_Wot_ is it? wot is it? Do tell me. Is anything wrong with Mr.
+Dallas?" he asked imploringly of the servant who had opened the door
+to the two ladies (who had at last succeeded in entering the house),
+and was just about to shut it in the faces of a few scores of anxious
+inquirers endeavouring to pierce the depths of the hall, and to see
+through the dining-room doors. "Don't you know me? I was here
+yesterday. I have been here before. I was to see Mr. Dallas at eleven.
+Can't I see him? Is he worse?"
+
+The woman did know the boy, and she at once admitted him.
+
+"Come in," she said; "I'll tell you inside. It's a deal worse than his
+death that's the matter." So Jim vanished into the house, a
+distinction which, being unattainable by themselves, was regarded with
+much indignation by the crowd. Temporarily dispersed by the active
+policeman, they gathered again, hoping the boy would come out, when
+they might pounce upon and extract information from him. But they
+waited in vain; the boy did not come out. The carriage still remained
+at the door, and in about an hour a gentleman of grave and busy aspect
+issued from the maddeningly mysterious mansion, stepped into the
+vehicle, and was driven rapidly away. The crowd was not in luck; no
+one heard the order given to the coachman. Then such silence and
+desolation as can ever fall on Piccadilly fell upon the scene, and the
+gay-looking, brightly-decorated house obstinately hid its secret.
+
+
+The woman who recognized Jim told him the story of the events which
+had occurred in the hall, speaking in a hurried whisper and with much
+genuine womanly compassion. Jim heard her with a beating heart and
+shaking limbs. As the boy leaned against the wall, regardless of the
+damaging properties of his tousled head resting on the spotless paint,
+he wondered if this was like fainting, and whether he should be able
+to keep from "going off" like Mr. Dallas.
+
+"We're strangers to Mr. Felton, of course," said the woman; "and it's
+natural everybody as can should like to keep their troubles to
+themselves, for it don't do no good tellin' of 'em, and people don't
+think no more of you; but there's things as can and things as can't be
+hid, and them as can't has been a takin' place here."
+
+"Yes," said Jim, faintly; for the words he had heard in the crowd were
+ringing in his ears; "yes, yes; but tell me--"
+
+"I'll tell you, as plain as I can make it out. Mr. Felton had some
+letters yesterday--letters as come from America--and there were a
+carte of his son in 'em; he hasn't seen nor yet heard of him for ever
+so long; and when Mr. Dallas see the carte he knew as the man was the
+same as was murdered, and never found out, in the spring."
+
+"Well?" said Jim. "Yes? Go on." The faint feeling was subsiding; he
+was beginning to understand.
+
+"It were an awful shock for Mr. Dallas to find out as his cousin had
+been murdered, and to have to break it to the father; and no wonder he
+fainted over it. Nobody knows how he did it, but there must have been
+a dreadful scene; for I shouldn't ha' known Mr. Felton from the dead
+when I went to ask, through their not answering James's knock, whether
+they was a goin' to have any dinner. He was sittin' in his chair,
+white and quiet; and Mr. Dallas--he as had been took so bad himself in
+the beginnin'--he was kneeling on the ground beside him, and I think
+his arm was round his neck; but I couldn't see his face, for he only
+put out his hand, and says he, 'No, thank you, Mary; go away for a
+little, please.' I waited in the passage, but I never heard a word
+pass between them; and we didn't know whatever could be the matter,
+for we only knew about the letters after Mr. Dallas had been took up."
+
+"Mr. Dallas took up? They said that outside, but I thought it must be
+their larks. Wotever do you mean? Go on--go on; tell me, quick!"
+
+"It's quite true; no larks at all. It might be about eight or nine,
+and we was all sittin' downstairs, a talkin' about the parlours, and a
+very quick ring comes to the 'all-door. James opens it, and in comes
+two men, very short and business-like, which they must see Mr. Dallas,
+and can't take no denial. So James goes to the door to ask if Mr.
+Dallas will see them, but they're too quick for James, and walk in;
+and in two minutes there's a great to do and explanation, and Mr.
+Dallas is took up."
+
+"But wot for?--what had he done?" asked Jim.
+
+"Murdered his cousin, don't I tell you!" said the woman a little
+snappishly. "Ain't I a-tellin' of you as plain as I can speak. He'd
+been and murdered this other gentleman wot nobody knew, in the spring,
+and then he sets the police a lookin' after his cousin, and just tells
+them enough to make them know as the other gentleman was him, which
+they'd never had a notion of before, so they come and took him on
+suspicion of the murder, and Mr. Felton went away with him. We was all
+there, when they put the handcuffs on him, and his uncle he stopped
+him in the 'all, as they was goin' to the cab, and says he, 'George,
+my boy, I do this, that no one may think I'm deceived;' and he put his
+hands on his shoulders and kisses him, as if he was a woman, before us
+all."
+
+Jim listened, pale and breathless, but quite silent.
+
+"Mr. Felton were out pretty near all night; and when he come 'ome, the
+gentleman as is here now were with him. He hasn't been to bed at all,
+and I haven't seen him, but just when I let the lady in, which she's a
+sweet-lookin' creature, and has been cryin' dreadful."
+
+"Let me see Mr. Felton," said Jim, catching the woman by her dress,
+and speaking with the utmost eagerness and passion, "let me see him. I
+came to see Mr. Dallas about this business, let me see Mr. Felton."
+
+"_You_ came! why what have you got to do with it?" said the woman; her
+curiosity vehemently aroused.
+
+"I will tell you all about it," said Jim, adroitly; "you shall hear it
+all afterwards--a cur'ous story as any one ever had to tell. Mr.
+Dallas never did it--not he, _I_ know better than that. I can tell Mr.
+Felton a great deal."
+
+"I must ask if he will see you," said the woman; "if he won't, perhaps
+the lawyer--"
+
+"No, no, it must be Mr. Felton himself. Let me into the room."
+
+She offered no resistance, and in another minute Jim was in the
+presence of a group composed of Mr. Felton, a grave gentleman, who
+looked like a lawyer, a beautiful girl, who was Clare Carruthers, and
+a plain, clever-looking young woman, who was Clare's cousin, Mrs.
+Stanhope. The lawyer and Mrs. Stanhope were seated by a table in close
+conversation, which they carried on in lower tones. Clare Carruthers
+and Mr. Felton stood upon the hearth-rug, the girl's golden head was
+resting on her companion's shoulder, and she was crying silently but
+unrestrained.
+
+"Is he very, very ill?" she had said, a little before Jim entered the
+room.
+
+"Not seriously so, my dear, and indeed nothing could be more fortunate
+than that his strength failed him so completely. It gives us time, and
+I need it, I am so bewildered even yet."
+
+"Did Mr. Lowther say--say that he was not--not brought before the
+magistrates, not brought into that dreadful place, to-day?" said
+Clare, her voice hardly audible for her sobs.
+
+"Yes, my dear. Think a little, I could not be here if he had not so
+much respite. Clare, I am a chief witness; I must be there, you know,
+to tell them about--about my son--" He paused, and closed his eyes for
+a few minutes.
+
+"The case was called _pro formâ_ this morning, but Mr. Lowther's
+partner, his brother, easily procured a delay. George was too ill to
+appear, but he sent me word that there was nothing seriously wrong."
+
+"Can no one see him?" asked Clare imploringly. "Oh, Mr. Felton, can no
+one go to him? Can no one give him any comfort--help him to bear it?
+Are they so cruel as that, are they so cruel?"
+
+"Hush, dear, it is not cruel; it is right. No one can see him for the
+present but Mr. Lowther--Mr. James Lowther, who is with him now, I
+dare say, who will be here this afternoon."
+
+"How can you bear it? how are you ever to bear it?" she said.
+
+"My dear, I must bear it; and I have time before me in which to
+suffer: this is the time for action. You must help me, Clare, my dear,
+brave girl. I sent for you for this; I sent for you, at his desire, my
+child. His last words were, 'My mother, my mother, she is coming home
+to-morrow.' I told him to be satisfied she should be kept from the
+knowledge of all this." He shuddered from head to foot. "Clare, are
+you strong enough to redeem my promise? Can you hide all that has
+happened from her? Can you be with her, watching her, keeping a calm
+face before her? My dear, have you strength for this?"
+
+She lifted her golden head, and looked at him with her innocent
+fearless eyes.
+
+"I have strength to do anything that he--that George desires, and you
+think is right."
+
+"Then that is your share of our dreadful task, my dear. God knows it
+is no light or easy share."
+
+Clare's tears streamed forth again. She nestled closer to him, and
+whispered:
+
+"Is there no--no hope?"
+
+"None," he replied. "If it had been possible for George to be
+mistaken, I have had the sight of my own eyes. Clare, they brought me
+my son's coat! Ay, like Jacob, they brought my son's coat. My own last
+gift to him, Clare." His eyes were dry and bright, but their sockets
+had deepened since the day before, and his voice had the febrile
+accent of intense grief and passion restrained by a powerful will.
+
+"What George must have suffered!" she said, still in a broken whisper,
+her tear-stained face upon his breast.
+
+"Ah, yes, it is all dim to me still. Mr. Lowther and I have been
+searching out the truth all night, but we are still in confusion.
+Tatlow is coming presently, and you must go away, my dear, you must go
+home. You have your share to do, and need strength to do it. You shall
+know all I learn from hour to hour. Mrs. Stanhope, will you--who is
+this? What brings you here, boy?"
+
+"Sir," stammered Jim, who, though he had the wizened mannish
+look peculiar to his tribe, was only a boy, and was desperately
+frightened--"sir, I came to tell you that I know the man as didn't do
+it, and I know the man as did."
+
+Mr. Felton loosed his hold of Clare and came forward. Mr. Lowther rose
+hurriedly from his seat; he did not share the blank, incredulous
+surprise of Mr. Felton. The two ladies drew near each other.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Mr. Lowther.
+
+Jim told him.
+
+"What are you come for? What--" began Mr. Felton; but Mr. Lowther made
+a sign to him to be silent, and addressing Jim in a quiet, friendly
+voice, took him by the arm and led him to a chair.
+
+"Sit down there, my boy," he said, "and don't be afraid. You must have
+come here of your own free will, and we do not doubt you have come for
+a good purpose. You have something important to tell Mr. Felton. You
+know Mr. Dallas, I think, and I gather from what you said just now
+that you know what he is accused of." Jim assented by a downcast nod.
+"There, tell us all about it. Take your time, and don't get
+frightened." So saying, and giving the boy a reassuring pat upon the
+shoulder, the lawyer sat down upon a chair opposite to Jim, and spread
+his hands upon his knees in an attitude of serious, but not stern,
+attention. The two women looked on in silent suspense, and Mr. Felton,
+guided by a glance from Mr. Lowther, moved a little to the back of the
+chair on which Jim was seated.
+
+"Come," said Mr. Lowther, giving him another pat, "we are all anxious
+to hear what you have got to say. Speak up, my boy."
+
+"Sir," began Jim, "I should like to ask you something first. Is it
+true, as the gentleman 'at was murdered was Mr. Dallas's own cousin?"
+
+"Only too true. He was Mr. Felton's son," and the lawyer eyed the
+unhappy father, as if measuring the strength he could command to bear
+this new trial. Mr. Felton came to Jim's side, and touched him kindly
+on the arm.
+
+"Don't be afraid to speak before me," he said. "You may; and don't
+keep us waiting any longer, my good boy."
+
+Then Jim made a desperate effort, and told his story; told it in his
+ignorant blundering fashion; told it with circumlocution and
+hesitation, but never interrupted. Mr. Lowther heard him without a
+word, and held Mr. Felton and the two women silent by the unspoken
+counsel of his glance.
+
+"I had done many an odd job at the house in South Molton-street," said
+the boy, when he had told them a good deal about himself, in a
+rambling way, "and I knowed Mr. Routh well, but I don't suppose he
+knowed me; and when I saw him a-lingerin' about the tavern, and
+a-lookin' in at the winder, he wosn't no stranger to me. Well, he giv'
+me the letter, and I giv' it to the gentleman. He had a beard as came
+down in a point, and was sharp with me, but not so sharp as the
+waiter, as I giv' _him_ his own sauce, and the gentleman laughed, and
+seemed as if he didn't object to me holdin' of my own; but Mr. Dallas,
+which I didn't know his name then, he didn't laugh, and he asks the
+gentleman if there weren't no answer, and the gentleman says no, there
+weren't none, and somehow I seemed to know as he wanted to spite Mr.
+Routh. So I felt cur'ous about it, partickler when I see as Mr. Routh
+looked savage when I came out of the coffee-room and told him there
+weren't no answer. You must understand," said Jim, who had regained
+his composure now, and was in the full tide of his discourse, which he
+addressed exclusively to Mr. Lowther, with the instinctive delicacy
+which Harriet Routh had once observed in the neglected boy, "as I was
+not to say he was there, I were merely to give the note. He giv' me
+sixpence, and he went away down the Strand. I got a horse-holdin' job
+just then, and it were a long 'un; and there I was when the two gents
+came to the door, a-smokin' their cigars, and then the gent as I held
+his horse took him from me, and I hadn't nothing better to do than
+follow them, which I did; for who should I see but Mr. Routh
+a-skulkin' along the other side of the Strand, as if he wanted to keep
+'em in sight without their seein' of him. I follered them, sir, and
+follered them feelin' as if I was one of them 'ere wild Ingins in the
+_'Alfpenny_ _'Alf-hours_ on a trail, until I follered them to Boyle's
+billiard-rooms, as I knows it well, and had swep' it often on a Sunday
+mornin'. They went in, and I was tired of hanging about, and was goin'
+away, when I see Mr. Routh again; there weren't nobody in the street
+but him and me. I skulked into a lane, and watched him. I don't know
+why I watched him, and I don't know how long we was there--I a little
+way down the lane, and he a-saunterin' up and down, and lookin' at the
+doors and the windows, but never goin' nigh the house. It must ha'
+been very late when the two gents came out, and I was very tired; but
+the old woman--that's my aunt, sir--and me had had a row in the
+mornin', and I thought I'd like to giv' her a fright, and stay out all
+night, which I haven't often slep' in the streets, considerin'."
+
+Jim had ceased to wriggle about on his chair, to twist his cap between
+his hands, and to shuffle his feet upon the floor. He was nearly as
+motionless as the listeners, who heard him in breathless silence. By
+degrees Clare had drawn nearer to Mr. Felton, and she was now
+standing, her hand in his, her head in its former place upon his
+shoulder, behind Jim's chair. But the character of the group formed by
+the two was no longer what it had been; the girl was supporting the
+man now; the girl was silently nerving him to courage and resolution.
+
+"They came out, sir," the boy continued, "very friendly-like and
+good-humoured, and Mr. Dallas he were a-laughin', and he shook hands
+with the other gent, which he called hisself Mr. Deane--it were on the
+note; and he went away whistlin' down the very lane as I was in,
+passed me close, and never saw me. I saw him, though, quite plain, and
+I thought, 'You've been winnin', and you likes it;' but still I had my
+eye on Mr. Routh, and presently I sees him speakin' to the other gent,
+as was puttin' on his big fur coat, which it had a 'ood to it as I
+never see one like it afore. I thought they wouldn't be pleasant
+together, and they wasn't, not to judge by their voices, and I heerd
+the other gent give a sneerin' kind of a laugh, which were
+aggravatin'; and soon they walked away together, through the Bar and
+up Fleet-street, and I follered 'em, for I thought I'd sleep under the
+dry arch of the bridge, and get a chance of odd jobs at the early
+trains in the mornin', which they're profitable if you ain't too
+tired. They was talkin' and talkin', and the oddest thing was that I
+knew they was quarrellin', though I couldn't hear a word they said,
+and I knew the other gent was a-sneerin' and a-aggeravatin' of Mr.
+Routh, and yet they was arm-in-arm all the time like brothers. They
+went on, and there wasn't a livin' bein' in the street but them and me
+and an odd p'liceman or so, wot took no notice, only beat their 'ands
+together and passed by. All on a sudden, when they was near the
+bridge, and close to all the little narrow streets down there, I gets
+tired, and don't seem to care about follerin' of 'em; and then, while
+I'm thinkin' of makin' for the dry arch, I misses of 'em, and they're
+gone."
+
+The boy stood up now, and his cap fell unheeded on the floor. The
+embarrassment, the confusion, the vulgarity of his manner were gone;
+he met the lawyer's piercing gaze unabashed; he lifted his hand and
+moved it with an expressive gesture.
+
+"It was gettin' light overhead, and I was tired, and my head begin to
+turn. I sat down in a doorway; there wasn't no one to move me on, and
+I must ha' fell asleep, for I don't remember any more until I heard
+something pass by me very quick,--quite near me, as near as Mr. Dallas
+passed me in the lane. I looked up pretty smart, and, sir, it were a
+man."
+
+"Mr. Routh?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"Yes, sir, it were Mr. Routh. His head were down, and he was goin' as
+quick as any man could walk, short of running, but he did not run. I
+roused up, and wondered where the other gent was, and then I see a
+narrow passage a little way off the doorway where I was a settin',
+leadin' straight to the river. I thought they must ha' turned down
+there to have their talk out, when I missed them so sudden. I went
+down the passage, and at the end of it was stones and mud and the
+river; and there was no one there. But O, sir,"--and here Jim began to
+tremble and to look nervously round towards Mr. Felton,--"there were
+blood on the edge of the stones, and footsteps in the mud where the
+water was a-creepin' up, and there was no one there."
+
+A convulsive sob burst from Clare's lips; but Mr. "Felton clasped her
+closer to him, and kept her quiet.
+
+"A dreadful sight--a dreadful discovery," said Mr. Lowther; "but, my
+boy," and again he touched Jim gently on the arm, "why did you conceal
+it? Did you not understand the crime that had been committed? Did you
+not know all that happened afterwards?"
+
+"Sir," said Jim, boldly, but not without an effort, "I was not sure; I
+thought it might have been a fight, and that ain't murder anyways. I
+didn't know as how it had been stabbin' until I see it in _Lloyd's
+Weekly_, for I kep' away on purpose."
+
+Here Jim put his hand into his pocket, and drew it out again closed
+round some object which he had still a lingering reluctance to show.
+
+"I'll tell you all the truth, sir, though I daresay I must get into
+trouble. If it hadn't been as I was afraid of getting into it, I
+should ha' spoke before when I see Mrs. Routh, as is a good lady,
+a-frettin' herself to death, and him a-deceivin' of her. When I was
+a-looking close at the stones and the mud, and the blood upon 'em,
+which the tide was very nigh upon it afore I came away, I see
+something nearly stamped into the mud as looked like gold, and I
+fished it out, and I knew it were something as I had seen hangin' on
+the other gent's chain, which he was a-twiddlin' on it with his
+fingers when I giv' him the note in the coffee-room. I fished it out,
+sir, and I kep' it, and I was afraid to take it to the pawnshop when I
+heerd as the body was found; and as it were a murder, I was afraid to
+sell it neither, and I hid it in the wall, and--and," said Jim,
+speaking with great rapidity and earnestness, "I am glad I've told the
+truth, for Mr. Dallas's sake, and I'm ready to suffer for it, if I
+must. Here it is, sir." Then the boy unclosed his hand, and placed in
+that of Mr. Lowther a locket in the form of a golden egg.
+
+"It opens in the middle," said Jim, "and there's pictures in it: one
+is Mr. Deane's, and the other is a lady's. I know where she lives, and
+I saw Mr. Routh with her on Monday night. Mr. Routh has another, just
+the same as this,--on the outside anyways."
+
+"Do you recognize this trinket?" asked Mr. Lowther of Mr. Felton, who
+replied:
+
+"I do. It was my son's."
+
+
+A few minutes of close and anxious consultation between the gentlemen
+followed, and then Mr. Lowther, telling Jim that he must remain with
+Mr. Felton until his return, went out, and was driven away in Mrs.
+Stanhope's carriage. Mr. Felton and the two women treated the boy with
+kind consideration. In the frightful position in which they were all
+placed, there was now a prospect of relief, not, indeed, from the
+tremendous calamity, but from the dreadful danger, and Jim, as the
+medium through which the hope shone, was very valuable to them. Food
+was given him, of a quality rare to the street-boy, and he ate it with
+sufficient appetite. Thus the time passed, until Mr. Lowther returned,
+accompanied by a small smart man in a gray suit, who was no other than
+Mr. Tatlow, and whose first words to Mr. Felton were:
+
+"It's all right, sir. We've got the other warrant."
+
+Then Mr. Felton sent Clare and her cousin away, and Jim, having been
+cheered and consoled by many a reassuring word and promise from Mr.
+Felton, whose strength and self-control proved themselves to the
+utmost on this occasion, underwent a long and searching examination
+from Mr. Lowther and the self-congratulatory Tatlow.
+
+The afternoon was already advanced, and Mr. Tatlow had gone away and
+returned again, when the boy's explanation was concluded, and the
+plans formed upon it were finally arranged. Then the lawyer's
+quick eye noticed symptoms of giving way in Mr. Felton. There were
+many hours of excitement and strain upon the nerves still to be
+endured, and not yet might he be free to face the grief which was
+his---pre-eminently his; not yet must he seek solitude, to mourn for
+his only son. Anguish, fear, and fatigue were setting their mark upon
+him, but he must not yet have even bodily rest.
+
+"You will not come with us?" said Mr. Lowther.
+
+"No," replied Mr. Felton, with an irrepressible shudder. "I could not
+see that mail before _I must_."
+
+"You will lie down and rest?"
+
+"Not yet. I will rest to-night. I must see my brother-in-law, who will
+reach London this evening, and tell him all that has happened."
+
+"Your brother-in-law?"
+
+"Mr. Carruthers, my sister's husband. Much depends on George's mother
+being kept in ignorance, and Mr. Carruthers must be prepared."
+
+During this short dialogue, Jim had been speaking eagerly to Mr.
+Tatlow, apparently urging very strongly an earnest appeal. On its
+cessation, Mr. Tatlow addressed Mr. Lowther.
+
+"He agrees to everything, if one of you gentlemen will write to Mrs.
+Routh for him. That's it, ain't it?" said he, turning again to Jim.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the boy, with an earnestness of entreaty in his voice
+and his look which touched the listeners. "If one of you will write to
+_her_. I don't mean a letter of your own--grand like--for then she
+mightn't believe it, and she might think as I was paid. I did it for
+Mr. Dallas; but I don't think as I should have done it if he hadn't
+been bad to her, and if I hadn't seen her a-dyin' day after day, as
+courageous as can be, but still a-dyin', and he a-neglectin' of her
+first and deceivin' of her after."
+
+"She is this man's accomplice," said Mr. Lowther, moodily.
+
+"Perhaps so, to a certain extent," said Mr. Felton; "but she is to be
+pitied, too. I saw that. I saw a little way into her life at Homburg,
+and, from all George has told me, I would be as little hard with her
+as possible. He cannot escape us, she cannot shield him; let us hear
+what the boy wishes to say to her, and then decide. Tell me," he said,
+kindly, to Jim, "what do you wish to say to this lady?"
+
+"You must understand," said Mr. Tatlow, "that you can't send your
+letter till we've got him."
+
+"I don't want to, sir," said Jim. "I think as he's runnin' away from
+her to-night, partik'lar as the lady is gone."
+
+(Mr. Tatlow had ascertained the fact of Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge's
+departure during his brief absence.)
+
+"He didn't go home last night, and I think as he's afraid to face her,
+and is runnin' away to-night."
+
+"Very well, then," said Mr. Lowther, "I will write the letter. You
+shall tell me what to say, and it shall be sent to her this evening."
+
+So Jim dictated, with infinite difficulty and astonishing slowness,
+and Mr. Lowther wrote:
+
+"_Dear Ma'am,--This comes from Jim Swain, as wouldn't like to hurt
+you, but has to tell at last, because of Mr. Dallas being took for
+what he didn't do. I wanted to see you to-day, but you was out, and I
+couldn't, and I come down here and heard of Mr. Dallas being took.
+You, weren't in it, dear ma'am, I'm sure, and so I have told the
+gentlemen and Mr. Tatlow, which has me in charge at present; but you
+know it, and that Mr. Dallas did not do it, and Mr. Routh did. I
+followed them all the night it was done, and I saw Mr. Dean and Mr.
+Routh going down to the river, and I went down to the river, when one
+was gone away alive and the other couldn't be found, only his blood on
+the stones, and I found the gold thing he had on his chain, which the
+gentleman has it now, and Mr. Routh have the same in a little drawer
+in the big desk in the parlour. I haven't hid anything, dear ma'am,
+and Mr. Routh will be took, at six o'clock, at the railway, where he
+told me to meet him, which so I am to do. I know about a lady, too,
+which her picture is in the gold thing, and I would have told you
+about her if I could have seen you to-day. I hope you won't be hurt. I
+didn't mean to do it to hurt you. I wish I hadn't been so secret so
+long_."
+
+When Jim had formally made his mark, the letter was sealed and
+directed, and Mr. Lowther took charge of it.
+
+
+Considerably before the platform of the London-bridge railway-station,
+from which the tidal train for Folkstone was about to start, had
+received the usual crowd of passengers and their friends, a lady,
+plainly dressed and closely veiled, made her unobtrusive appearance
+upon it. "I am waiting to see a friend off," she had said, as the
+official at the barrier questioned her, and she attracted no further
+notice. Slowly and with downcast eyes, and hands which clasped each
+other closely under her shawl, she walked up and down, keeping close
+to the wall, and allowing the groups, as they began to form, to form
+between her and the edge of the platform. Once or twice she unclasped
+her hands, and lifted her veil, and breathed deeply, then after one
+piercing glance, which comprehended every face under the roof within
+its vision, dropped it again. Once, as she did this, a nursemaid with
+a child in her arms at the back of the platform noticed her, and said
+to a fellow-servant:
+
+"That woman's face is enough to frighten one; she looks like death!"
+
+But life was strong in Harriet Routh, and hope was strong in her also,
+a terrible hope, indeed, which to any suffering less than hers would
+have worn the semblance of despair. A little while now and he would be
+safe, safe for the present, for the next few hours which were so
+all-important. The letter she had written, telling him all she had
+done, and why, would await him at Amiens, and show him that all his
+plans were vain, would convince him at last. The arrangement of his
+money matters, which he must have made for the flight he contemplated,
+would avail in the case of this flight which she had imposed upon him.
+A little more torture, a little more suspense, and something like rest
+would come. Perhaps she should be able to sleep a little to-night,
+while he would be speeding through the darkness to safety. Something
+like a forlorn sense of peace came to her with the anticipation. So
+she walked up and down, thinking these thoughts, and sometimes lapsing
+into a mental blank, out of which condition she would come with a
+start, to go into a kind of vision of the last two days--of the woman
+she had so completely mastered--of the last time she had seen her
+husband's face--of the blow he had struck her; but she felt no anger
+in the remembrance; what did it matter now, in the face of this great
+crisis? It was strange that she had heard nothing of George, and the
+fact rendered her only the more eager and apprehensive. He was busy
+with the investigation, which must end in--what? In that which she had
+now effectually prevented. So she walked up and down, thinking, and
+the platform became peopled, and all the fuss and hurry of the
+departure of the tidal train was around her. Presently, as she reached
+the end of the platform, and turned, to resume her walk, she saw her
+husband, coming quickly towards the line of carriages, carrying the
+small bag which had been sent to him at Tokenhouse-yard in the
+morning, and which she had packed with reference to this occasion.
+Routh, indeed, had been not a little surprised by its contents. He
+came along the platform, the bag in one hand, a letter in the other,
+looking frowningly round, as though in search of somebody. She shrank
+back, as much out of sight as possible. Presently, just as he was
+stepping into a carriage, Jim Swain appeared, and went up to him. A
+few words passed between them, and then Harriet saw two persons, one
+of whom was a smart, slightly built man in a gray suit, address him.
+Straining her eyes with a fixed intensity of gaze which made her brain
+ache, she looked. He tore the letter in his hand to pieces, with
+inconceivable quickness, the fragments fluttering to the ground,
+turned, and with one of his unknown interlocutors on either side, and
+Jim following--how strange the boy looked, Harriet thought--walked
+along the platform, passed through the barrier, and was lost to her
+gaze at the distant entrance.
+
+Harriet stood rooted to the spot. It was not until all the passengers
+had taken their places, and the train had gone off with a shriek and a
+pant, that she had the power to move. Then a moan of utter despair
+burst from her white lips, and a cold thrill shook her limbs, as she
+murmured:
+
+"He has been called back on business, and he is lost, utterly lost."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+"STRONG AS DEATH."
+
+
+Unspeakable terror laid its paralysing grasp upon Harriet; upon her
+heart, which ceased, it seemed to her, to beat; upon her limbs, which
+refused to obey the impulse of her will. Alone she stood upon the
+platform, long after the train had disappeared, and thought failed her
+with the power of movement; a blank fell upon her. A porter addressed
+her, but she stared stupidly in his face, and made no reply.
+
+"The lady's ill," the man said to another; "I had better take her to
+the waiting-room, and fetch a cab. If you'll come this way, ma'am--"
+
+Then Harriet's faculties awoke with a start. "No, thank you," she
+said; "I must get home." And she walked swiftly and steadily away. Two
+of the superior officials were talking together close to the door
+through which she had to pass, and she heard one of them say:
+
+"Very quietly done, if it was so; and I'm pretty sure it was; I
+couldn't be mistaken in Tatlow."
+
+The words conveyed no meaning, no alarm to Harriet. She went on, and
+out into the crowded street. She walked a long way before she felt
+that she could bear the restraint, the sitting still implied by
+driving in any vehicle. But when she reached Tokenhouse-yard, and
+found that nothing was known there of Routh, that no message had been
+received from him since he had left that evening, she got into a cab
+and went home. No news there, no message, no letter. Nothing for her
+to do but wait, to wait as patiently as she could, while the servants
+speculated upon the queer state of affairs, commented upon "master's"
+absence on the preceding night, and hoped he had not "bolted"--a
+proceeding which they understood was not uncommon in the case of
+gentlemen of Routh's anomalous and dim profession. Nothing for her to
+do but to wait, nothing but the hardest of all tasks, the most
+agonizing of all sufferings. And this was the night which was to have
+brought her, with utter despair for herself, rest. Rest of body, which
+she had never so sorely needed, and had never felt so impossible of
+attainment. Her iron strength and endurance were gone now. Her whole
+frame ached, her nerves thrilled like the strings of a musical
+instrument, a terrible interior distraction and hurry came over her at
+intervals, and seemed to sweep away her consciousness of reality
+without deadening her sense of suffering. She did not now wonder
+whether she was going mad; since she had known the very, very worst of
+her own fate, that fear had entirely left her. She wondered now
+whether she was dying. Wondered, with some curiosity, but no fear;
+wondered, with a vague feeling of the strangeness of the irruption of
+utter nothingness into such a chaos of suffering and dread as life had
+become to her. There would be rest, but not the consciousness of it;
+she would no more exist. A little while ago she would have shrunk from
+that, because love remained to her; but now--If she could but know the
+worst, know the truth, know that he could not be saved, or that he was
+safe, she would not care how soon she ceased to be one of the facts of
+the universe. _She_ had never mattered much; she did not much matter
+now. But these thoughts crossed her mind vaguely and rarely; for the
+most part it was abandoned to the tumultuous agony of her ignorance
+and suspense. Still no letter, no message. The time wore on, and it
+was nine o'clock when Harriet heard a ring at the door, and a man's
+voice asking to see Mrs. Routh. It was not a voice she knew; and even
+while she eagerly hoped the man might have come to her from Routh, she
+trembled at the thought that he might be the bearer of a communication
+from. George Dallas, for whose silence she had been thankful, but
+unable to account.
+
+The man was a clerk from Mr. Lowther's office, and his errand was to
+deliver to Mrs. Routh a letter, "on very important business," he said,
+which he had directions to give into her own hands. He executed his
+commission, retired promptly, and Harriet was left alone to find the
+solution of all her doubts, the termination of all her suspense, in
+Jim Swain's letter.
+
+The approaches to the Mansion House police-court, and the precincts of
+the court itself, were densely crowded. All sorts of rumours prevailed
+respecting the reported discovery of the mystery which had perplexed
+the police and the public in the spring. The arrest of two persons at
+different places, and the reports, garbled, exaggerated, and distorted
+as they were, of the circumstances which had led to the discovery
+which directed suspicion towards the second of the two accused persons
+had keenly excited the public curiosity. The proceedings of the
+coroner's inquest upon the body of the unknown man had been raked up
+and read with avidity; and the oozing out of even the smallest
+particulars relative to the two prisoners was eagerly watched for by
+the greedy crowd. Curiosity and expectation were obliged to satisfy
+themselves for the nonce with the proceedings in the case of Stewart
+Routh. George Dallas was unable to appear; since the previous day his
+illness had materially increased, and the official medical report
+pronounced it to be brain fever. Unconscious of the tremendous danger
+in which he stood, oblivious even of the frightful discovery which had
+struck him so heavy a blow, George Dallas lay, under suspicion of a
+dreadful crime, in prison-ward, and under prison watch and care. So
+attention and curiosity centred themselves in Stewart Routh, and the
+wildest stories were propagated, the wildest conjectures ran riot.
+
+The prisoner had been brought up, with the customary formalities, at
+an early hour, and the examination, which was likely to last some
+time, had begun, when Mr. Felton, who was in the court with Mr.
+Carruthers, pressed that gentleman's arm, and whispered: "Look there!
+To the left, just under the window. Do you see her?"
+
+"I see a woman--yes," replied Mr. Carruthers.
+
+"His wife!" said Mr. Felton, in a tone of compassionate amazement. It
+was his wife. Thus Routh and Harriet found themselves face to face
+again. As the prisoner's eye, shifting restlessly around him, seeing
+curious faces, full of avidity, but not one ray of compassion, fell
+upon her, every trace of colour faded out of his cheek, and he drew
+one deep, gasping breath. Had she betrayed him? He should soon know;
+the story about to be told would soon enlighten him. Did he really
+think she had done so? Did he really believe it for one minute? No. He
+had tried, in the blind fury of his rage, when he found himself
+trapped, balked, hopelessly in the power of the law, and the game
+utterly up--when, in the loneliness of the night, he had brooded
+savagely over the hopes he had entertained, over the dazzling pictures
+his fancy had painted, then he had tried to accuse her, he had hated
+and execrated her, and tried to accuse her. But in vain; he was not a
+fool, villain as he was, and his common sense forbade the success of
+the attempt. And now, when he saw her, her from whom he had last
+parted with a cruel blow, and a word that was more cruel, it was as
+though all his past life looked out at him through her woful blue
+eyes. Awfully it looked at him, and held him fascinated, even to a
+brief oblivion of the scene around him. She had raised her veil, not
+quite off her face, but so that he could see her distinctly, and when
+he looked at her, her lips parted, in a vain heroic attempt to smile.
+But they only quivered and closed again, and she knew it, and drew the
+veil closely round her face, and sat thenceforth, her head falling
+forward upon her breast, her figure quite motionless.
+
+The ordinary business of the place and the occasion went on,
+intensified in interest to the spectators by the presence of the
+murdered man's father, in the sensational character of a witness.
+Harriet's relation to the prisoner was not divined by the public, and
+so she passed unnoticed.
+
+Jim Swain was, of course, the chief witness, and he told his story
+with clearness and directness, though he was evidently and deeply
+affected by the sight of Harriet, whom his quick eye instantly
+recognized. She took no notice; she did not change her position, or
+raise her veil as the examination of the boy proceeded, as minute by
+minute she heard and felt the last chance, the last faint hope of
+escape, slip away, and the terrible certainty of doom become clearer
+and more imminent. She heard and saw the boy whose story contained the
+destruction of hope and life, showed her the utter futility of all the
+plans they had concocted, of all the precautions they had taken;
+showed her that while they had fenced themselves from the danger
+without, the unsuspected ruin was close beside them, always near,
+wholly unmoved. It had come, it had happened; all was over, it did not
+matter how. There was no room for anger, no power of surprise or
+curiosity left in her mind. As the golden locket was produced, and the
+identity of the portrait with that of the murdered man was sworn to, a
+kind of vision came to her. She saw the bright spring morning once
+more, and the lonely bridge; she saw the river with the early sunlight
+upon it; she saw herself leaning over the parapet and looking into the
+water, as the parcel she had carried thither with careful haste sank
+into the depth and was hidden. She saw herself returning homeward, the
+dangerous link in the evidence destroyed, passing by the archway,
+where a boy lay, whom she had pitied, even then, in her own great and
+terrible anguish. If anything could be strange now, it would be
+strange to remember what he then had in his possession, to render all
+her precaution vain. But she could not feel it so, or think about it;
+all things were alike to her henceforth, there was no strangeness or
+familiarity in them for evermore. Occasionally, for a minute, the
+place she was in seemed to grow unreal to her, and to fade; the next,
+she took up the full sense of the words which were being spoken, and
+every face in the crowd, every detail of the building, every accident
+of the scene, seemed to strike upon her brain through her eyes. She
+never looked at Jim, but she saw him distinctly; she saw also the look
+with which Routh regarded him.
+
+That look was murderous. As the boy's story made his motives evident,
+as it exposed the fallacious nature of the security on which Routh had
+built, as it made him see how true had been Harriet's prevision, how
+wise her counsel--though he hated her all the more bitterly as the
+knowledge grew more and more irresistible--the murderous impulse rose
+to fury within him. Standing there a prisoner, helpless, and certain
+of condemnation, for he never had a doubt of that, the chain he had
+helped to forge by his counsel to Dallas was too strong to be broken;
+he would have taken two more lives if he had had the power and the
+chance--the boy's, and that accursed woman's. Not his wife's, not
+Harriet's; he knew now, he saw now, she had not brought him to this.
+But the other, the other who had tempted him and lured him; who had
+defeated him, ruined him, and escaped. He knew her shallow character
+and her cold heart, and his fierce, vindictive, passionate, sensual
+nature was stirred by horrid pangs of fury and powerless hate as he
+thought of her--of the triumphant beauty which he had so coveted, of
+the wealth he had so nearly clutched--triumphant, and happy, and
+powerful still, while he--he! Already the bitterness and blackness of
+death were upon him.
+
+And the boy! So powerful, even now, was the egotism of the man's
+nature, that he winced under the pain of the defeat the boy had
+inflicted upon him--winced under the defeat while he trembled at the
+destruction. He had kept him near him, under his hand, that if the
+need should arise he might use him as an instrument for the ruin of
+George Dallas, and so had provided for his own ruin. The active hate
+and persistent plan of another could not have worked more surely
+against him than he had himself wrought, and the sense of the boy's
+instrumentality became unbearably degrading to him, wounding him where
+he was most vulnerable.
+
+Thus all black and evil passions raged in his heart; and as his wife
+looked in his face, she read them there as in a printed book, and once
+again the feeling of last night came over her, of the strangeness of a
+sudden cessation to all this, and also something like a dreary
+satisfaction in the knowledge that it was within her power and his to
+bid it all cease--to have done with it.
+
+Looking at him, and thinking this, if the strange dream of her mind
+may be called thought, the curiosity of the crowd began to anger her a
+little. What was the dead man to them, the nameless stranger, that
+they should care for the discovery--that they should come here to see
+the agony of another man, destined, like the first, to die? The
+popular instinct filled her with loathing, but only momentarily; she
+forgot to think of it the next minute, and the vagueness came again,
+the film and the dimness, and again the acute distinctness of sound,
+the intensity of vision.
+
+It was over at length. The prisoner was committed for trial. As he was
+removed with the celerity usual on such occasions, Harriet made a
+slight sign to the solicitor acting for Routh--a sign evidently
+preconcerted, for he approached the magistrate, and addressed him in a
+low voice. The reply was favourable to his request, and he, in his
+turn, signed to Harriet, who left her place and came to where he was
+standing. He placed her in the box, and she stood there firmly, having
+bowed to the magistrate, who addressed her:
+
+"You are the prisoner's wife?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"You wish to speak to me?"
+
+"I wish to ask your permission to see my husband before he is
+removed."
+
+"You may do so. Take care of the lady."
+
+This to one of the officials. The tone of the magistrate's reply to
+Harriet was compassionate, though he spoke briefly; and he looked
+intently at her as she bowed again and turned meekly away. He has
+said, since then, that he never saw supreme despair in any face
+before.
+
+"You have not much time," the policeman said, not unkindly, who
+conducted her to the lock-up cell where Routh was. She made no answer,
+but went in, and the door was locked behind her. He was sitting on a
+bench exactly in front of the door, and the moment she passed it her
+eyes met his. Fury and gloom were lowering upon his face; he looked up
+sullenly at her, but did not speak. She stood by the door, leaning
+against it, and said, in a low tone:
+
+"I have but a little time, they tell me. I am come to learn your will.
+It was agreed between us, once, that if the worst came, I should
+supply you with the means of disposing of your fate. I remembered that
+agreement, and I have brought you _this_."
+
+She put her hand to her bosom, and took out of her dress a small
+phial. It contained prussic acid, and was sealed and stoppered with
+glass.
+
+He started and groaned, but did not yet speak.
+
+"The worst has come," she said. "I do not say you ought not to face it
+out, still I only do as you once desired me to do in such a case. The
+decision is with yourself. This is my only opportunity of obeying you,
+and I do so."
+
+"The worst has come," he said, in a hoarse voice, not in the least
+like his own; "you are sure the worst has come? He said it was a bad
+case, a very bad case. Yes, the worst has come."
+
+Her hand was stretched out, the phial in it. He made no attempt to
+take it from her. She held it still, and spoke again:
+
+"I have very little time. You will be searched presently, they tell
+me, and this will be found, it may be. I have obeyed you to the last,
+as from the beginning."
+
+"There's no chance--you are quite sure there is no chance?"
+
+"I am quite sure there is no chance. I have always known, if this
+happened, there could be no chance."
+
+He muttered something under his breath.
+
+"I do not hear you," she said. "You are reproaching me, I dare say,
+but it is not worth while. If you make no use of this, you will have
+time to reproach me as much as you like. If you do make use of it,
+reproach is past, with time and life. Have you decided?"
+
+"No," he said; "give it to me. If I use it, it must be very soon--if
+not, never."
+
+She laid the phial on the bench beside him, and he took it up, and
+placed it in his breast-pocket. She did not touch him, but when she
+had laid the phial down, stepped back, and leaned against the door.
+
+"Is there anything you want to know--anything I can tell you?" she
+asked. "Again, my time is very short."
+
+"No," he said; "if I make up my mind to go through this, I shall know
+all I want; if I don't, I need not know anything."
+
+"Just so," she said, quietly. He looked on the ground, she looked at
+him.
+
+"Harriet," he said, suddenly, "I am sorry, I--"
+
+"Hush," she said, flushing scarlet for one brief moment, and putting
+out her hand. "No more. All is over, and done with. The past is dead,
+and I am dead with it. Not a word of me."
+
+"But if--if--" he touched his coat-pocket. "I must first know what is
+to become of you."
+
+"Must you?" she said, and the faintest possible alteration came in her
+voice--a little, little softening, and a slight touch of surprise. "I
+think you might have known that I shall live until I know you are no
+longer living."
+
+"Sorry to interrupt you, ma'am," said the policeman who had brought
+Harriet to the cell, unlocking the door with sharp suddenness--"very
+sorry, I'm sure; but--"
+
+"I am quite ready," said Harriet; and, as Routh started up, she
+turned, and was outside the door in an instant. Two policemen were in
+the passage; at the door through which she had been led from the
+court, Routh's solicitor was standing. He took her arm in his, and
+brought her away by a private entrance. They did not speak till she
+was in the street, where she saw, at a little distance, a crowd
+collected to watch the exit of the prison-van. He called a cab.
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"My house."
+
+"I will go with you."
+
+"No, thank you. Indeed, I would rather go alone."
+
+"I shall see you this evening."
+
+She bent her head in reply.
+
+When she was seated in the cab she put out her hand to him, and as she
+leaned forward he saw her awful face.
+
+"God help you, Mrs. Routh," he said, with intense pity. Then she said,
+in a clear low voice, whose tone he remembers, as he remembers the
+face, these words:
+
+"There is no God. If there were, there could be no such men as he, and
+no such women as I."
+
+When she was a short distance from the police-court, and beyond the
+solicitor's sight, she called to the driver from the window that she
+had changed her purpose, and desired to be set down at St Paul's
+Churchyard.
+
+
+The arrival of the prison-van at Newgate excited the usual sensation
+which it produces among the public who congregate in the neighbourhood
+of the prison, to see it discharge its wretched contents; the majority
+of the crowd were, as usual, of the dangerous classes; and it would
+have afforded matter of speculation to the curious in such things to
+look at their faces and calculate, according to the indices there
+given, how many of the number would one day take a personal part in a
+spectacle similar to that at which they were gazing with a curiosity
+which renewed itself daily. On this occasion the sentiment prevalent
+on the outside of the grim fortress of crime was shared in an unusual
+degree by the officials, and general, not criminal, inhabitants. Not
+that a supposed murderer's arrival was any novelty at Newgate, but
+that the supposed murderer in the present instance was not of the
+class among which society ordinarily recruits its murderers, and the
+circumstances both of the crime and of its discovery were exceptional.
+Thus, when the gate unclosed by which the prisoners were to be
+admitted, the yard was full of spectators.
+
+Four prisoners were committed that day: a burglar and his assistant; a
+merchant's clerk who had managed a forgery so remarkably cleverly that
+it needed only not to have been found out, to have been a stroke of
+brilliant genius; and Stewart Routh. The door was opened, the group
+of spectators gathered around. First the burglar, a wiry little man,
+more like the tailor of real life than the conventional hero of the
+centre-bit and the jemmy. Next, his assistant, an individual of jovial
+appearance, tempered with responsibility, like a popular president of
+school feasts, or the leader of a village choir. Thirdly, the forger,
+remarkable for nothing in his appearance except its abjectness of
+fright and bewilderment. These had emerged from the darksome recesses
+of the hideous caravan, the first and no slight instalment of their
+punishment, and had been received with comparative indifference. A
+passing glance was all that was accorded to them by the spectators
+waiting the appearance of the "gentleman" who was in such very serious
+"trouble."
+
+But the gentleman did not follow his temporary associates, though the
+policeman in attendance held the door open, and called to him to "come
+on." Then he stepped into the van and up to the compartment in which
+Routh had been placed. After an elapse of a full minute he emerged,
+and addressing the lookers-on generally, he said:
+
+"There's something queer the matter with him, and I think he's dead!"
+
+A stir and confusion among the crowd, and the governor called for. A
+matter-of-fact turnkey advances, saying, in a business-like tone:
+
+"Haul him out, and let's see."
+
+They do haul him out, and they do see. His face is rather bluish in
+colour, and his eyes are open, but his hands are clenched, and his
+tongue is rigid. And he is quite dead. So there is a great sensation
+around the prison. The senseless figure is carried into the prison,
+the door is promptly shut, and the rumour spreads through the crowd,
+trying to find chinks which do not exist, and to hear sounds
+inaudible, that the "murder" case is disposed of, the prisoner having
+tried, condemned, and executed himself. And, though the incident is
+highly sensational, the general feeling is disappointment.
+
+A woman, plainly dressed and closely veiled, who has been lingering
+about the street for some time, and was there when the van arrived,
+has seen the figure lifted from the van and has heard the rumour. But
+she waits a little while longer, until a policeman comes out of a
+side-entrance, and while some eager inquirers, chiefly women, question
+him, and he tells them it is quite true, the man committed for trial
+for the river-side murder is really dead, she stands by and listens.
+Then she draws her shawl closely round her, and shivers, and goes
+away. After she has taken a few steps, she falters and sways a little,
+but she leans against the wall, her hands pressed upon her breast, but
+quietly, attracting no attention, until she has regained her composure
+and her breath, and then goes on, along the street, and so out into
+Holborn.
+
+
+"She has not been seen or heard of, at his chambers or at home," said
+Mr. Carruthers to Mr. Felton late that evening. "Nothing is known of
+her. They say she has no friends; I could not find out from the
+servants that she has a single acquaintance even to whose house she
+could have gone."
+
+Mr. Felton was infinitely distressed by this news which Mr.
+Carruthers, whose active benevolence, guided by the judgment of
+others, knew no bounds, brought to his brother-in-law, who was at
+length exhausted, and unable to rise. They had heard early in the
+afternoon of the death of Routh, and had at once been aroused to the
+warmest compassion for Harriet. Clare, having left the unconscious
+Mrs. Carruthers tranquilly asleep, had gone to Mr. Felton's lodgings,
+and was there when her uncle came in with his report.
+
+"Laura has no suspicion?" asked Mr. Felton.
+
+"Not the slightest. She has no notion that you and George are not
+still in Paris. I must say Clare is an admirable girl to keep a secret
+and play a part."
+
+Clare blushed a little at her uncle's praise.
+
+"What is to be done now about this unfortunate woman? She must be
+found. Apart from every other consideration, George would be
+infinitely distressed if any harm came to her."
+
+"I really don't know," said Mr. Carruthers. "There seems to be no clue
+to her probable movements, and--Come in." This was in answer to a
+knock at the door.
+
+Jim Swain came in, his face full of eagerness:
+
+"Have you found her, sir? Is she at home? Does she know?"
+
+"No, Jim," said Mr. Felton, "she's not at home, and no one knows
+anything of her."
+
+"Sir," exclaimed Jim--"miss, I'm sure she's somewheres about the
+prison. Has any one thought of lookin' for her there? She'd go there,
+sir and miss--she'd go there. Take me with you, and let us go and look
+for her. I daren't go alone; she wouldn't listen to me, she wouldn't
+look at me; but I'm sure she's there."
+
+"Uncle," said Clare, earnestly, "I am sure he is right--I feel sure
+he is right. Pray go; take one of the servants and him. The carriage
+is waiting for me; take it and go."
+
+Mr. Carruthers did as she desired. It was wonderful to see the
+change that had come over him with the awakening of his better nature.
+He had always been energetic, and now he forgot to be pompous and
+self-engrossed.
+
+The streets in the dismal quarter of the prison were comparatively
+silent and empty when Mr. Carruthers called to the coachman to stop,
+and got out of the carriage, Jim descending from the box, and they
+began their dismal search. It was not prolonged or difficult.
+
+They found her sitting on the ground, supported by the prison wall, in
+an angle where after nightfall there was little resort of footsteps
+and but dim light--a corner in which the tired wayfarer might rest,
+unquestioned, for a little, by either the policeman or the passer-by.
+And no more tired wayfarer had ever sat down to rest, even in the
+pitiless London streets, than the woman who had wandered about until
+the friendly night had fallen, and had then come there to die, and
+have done with it.
+
+They took her to her own home, and when they removed her shawl a slip
+of paper, on which George Dallas's name was written, was found pinned
+to the front of her dress. It contained these words:
+
+"The boy's story is true. I did not keep the diamonds taken out of the
+studs. You sold them when you sold your mother's. I was always sorry
+you ever knew us. H. Routh."
+
+
+*     *     *     *     *
+
+
+George Dallas is in New York with Mr. Felton, who is winding-up all
+his affairs, with a view to a permanent residence in England. Jim
+Swain, whose education includes the art of writing now, is attached to
+the personal service of Mr. Dallas, who is understood to be his
+uncle's heir.
+
+Miss Carruthers is at Poynings, not to be tempted by London and its
+pleasures; but the absence of the young and beautiful heiress is not
+so deeply deplored by "society" as it would be, were it not generally
+known that she is engaged.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+-------------------------------
+JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Black Sheep, by Edmund Yates
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 59927 ***