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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Once Aboard The Lugger, by
+Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Once Aboard The Lugger
+
+Author: Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
+
+
+Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6410]
+This file was first posted on December 8, 2002
+Last Updated: July 2, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Skip Doughty, Charles Aldarondo and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER--
+
+THE HISTORY OF GEORGE AND HIS MARY
+
+By A. S. M. Hutchinson
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ The Author's Advertisement Of His Novel
+
+
+ BOOK I.
+
+ _Of George._
+
+ I. Excursions In A Garden
+ II. Excursions In Melancholy
+ III. Upon Modesty In Art: And Should Be Skipped
+ IV. Excursions In A Hospital
+ V. Upon Life: And May Be Missed
+ VI. Magnificent Arrival Of A Heroine
+ VII. Moving Passages With A Heroine
+ VIII. Astonishing After-Effects Of A Heroine
+
+
+ BOOK II.
+
+ _Of his Mary._
+
+ I. Excursions In The Memory Of A Heroine
+ II. Excursions In Vulgarity
+ III. Excursions In The Mind Of A Heroine
+ IV. Excursions In A Nursery
+ V. Excursions At A Dinner-Table
+
+
+ BOOK III.
+
+ _Of Glimpses at a Period of this History: Of Love and of War._
+
+ I. Notes On The Building Of Bridges
+ II. Excursions Beneath The Bridge
+ III. Excursions In Love
+ IV. Events And Sentiment Mixed In A Letter
+ V. Beefsteak For 14 Palace Gardens
+ VI. A Cab For 14 Palace Gardens
+
+
+ BOOK IV.
+
+ _In which this History begins to rattle._
+
+ I. The Author Meanders Upon The Enduring Hills; And The Reader Will
+ Lose Nothing By Not Accompanying Him
+ II. An Exquisite Balcony Scene; And Something About Sausages
+ III. Alarums And Excursions By Night
+ IV. Mr. Marrapit Takes A Nice Warm Bath
+ V. Miss Porter Swallows A Particularly Large Sweet
+ VI. The Girl Comes Near The Lugger
+
+
+ BOOK V.
+
+ _Of Mr. Marrapit upon the Rack: Of George in Torment._
+
+ I. Prosiness Upon Events: So Uneventful That It Should Be Skipped
+ II. Margaret Fishes; Mary Prays
+ III. Barley Water For Mr. Marrapit
+ IV. The Rape Of The Rose
+ V. Horror At Herons' Holt
+ VI. A Detective At Herons' Holt
+ VII. Terror At Dippleford Admiral
+ VIII. Panic At Dippleford Admiral
+ IX. Disaster At Temple Colney
+
+
+ BOOK VI.
+
+ _Of Paradise Lost and Found._
+
+ I. Mrs. Major Bids For Paradise
+ II. Mrs. Major Finds The Lock
+ III. Mrs. Major Gets The Key
+ IV. George Has A Shot At Paradise
+ V. Of Twin Cats: Of Ananias And Of Sapphira
+ VI. Agony In Meath Street
+ VII. Mr. William Wyvern In Meath Street
+ VIII. Abishag The Shunamite In Meath Street
+ IX. Excursions In A Newspaper Office
+ X. A Perfectly Splendid Chapter
+
+ _Last Shots from the Bridge_
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTHOR'S ADVERTISEMENT OF HIS NOVEL.
+
+This book has its title from that dashing sentiment, "Once aboard the
+lugger and the girl is mine!" It is not to be read by those who in their
+novels would have the entertainment of characters that are brilliant or
+wealthy, noble of birth or admirable of spirit. Such have no place in
+this history. There is a single canon of novel-writing that we have
+sedulously kept before us in making this history, and that is the law
+which instructs the novelist to treat only of the manner of persons with
+whom he is well acquainted. Hence our characters are commonplace folks.
+We have the acquaintance of none other than commonplace persons, because
+none other than commonplace persons will have acquaintance with us.
+
+And there are no problems in this history, nor is the reader to be
+tickled by any risks taken with nice deportment. This history may be
+kept upon shelves that are easily accessible. It is true that you will
+be invited to spend something of a night in a lady's bedroom, but the
+matter is carried through with circumspection and dispatch. There shall
+not be a blush.
+
+Now, it is our purpose in this advertisement so clearly to give you the
+manner of our novel that without further waste of time you may forego
+the task of reading so little as a single chapter if you consider that
+manner likely to distress you. Hence something must be said touching the
+style.
+
+We cannot see (to make a start) that the listener or the reader of a
+story should alone have the right to fidget as he listens or reads; to
+come and go at his pleasure; to interrupt at his convenience. Something
+of these privileges should be shared by the narrator; and in this
+history we have taken them. You may swing your legs or divert your
+attention as you read; but we too must be permitted to swing our legs
+and slide off upon matters that interest us, and that indirectly are
+relevant to the history. Life is not compounded solely of action. One
+cannot rush breathless from hour to hour. And, since the novel aims to
+ape life, the reader, if the aim be true, cannot rush breathless from
+page to page. We can at least warrant him he will not here.
+
+These are the limitations of our history; and we admit them to be
+considerable. Upon the other hand, the print is beautifully clear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As touching the title we have chosen, this was not come by at the cost
+of any labour. Taken, as we have told, from that dashing sentiment,
+"Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine!" it is a label that might
+be applied to all novels. It is a generic title for all modern novels,
+since there is not one of these but in this form or that sets out the
+pursuit of his mistress by a man or his treatment of her when he has
+clapped her beneath hatches. This is a notable matter. The novelist
+writes under the influences and within the limitations of his age, and
+the modern novelist correctly mirrors modern life when he presents woman
+as for man's pursuit till he has her, and for what treatment he may will
+when he captures her. The position is deplorable, is productive of a
+million wrongs, and, happily, is slowly changing; but that it exists
+is clear upon the face of our social existence, and is even advertised
+between the sexes in love: "You are mine" the man says, and means it. "I
+am yours" the woman declares, and, fruit of generations of dependence,
+freely, almost involuntarily, gives herself.
+
+But of this problem (upon which we could bore you to distraction) we
+are nothing concerned in our novel. Truly we offer you the pursuit of
+a girl; but my Mary would neither comprehend this matter nor wish to
+be other than her George's. From page 57 she waves to us; let us hurry
+along.
+
+
+
+
+  _.... Who so will stake his lot,
+  Impelled thereto by nescience or whim,
+  Cupidity or innocence or not,
+  On Chance's colours, let men pray for him._
+                         RALPH HODGSON.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+Of George.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Excursions In A Garden.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Mr. Christopher Marrapit is dozing in a chair upon the lawn; his darling
+cat, the Rose of Sharon, is sleeping on his lap; stiffly beside him sits
+Mrs. Major, his companion--that masterly woman.
+
+As we approach to be introduced, it is well we should know something of
+Mr. Marrapit. The nervous business of adventuring into an assembly of
+strangers is considerably modified by having some knowledge of the first
+we shall meet. We feel more at home; do not rush upon subjects which are
+distasteful to that person, or of which he is ignorant; absorb something
+of the atmosphere of the party during our exchange of pleasantries with
+him; and, warmed by this feeling, with our most attractive charm of
+manner are able to push among the remainder of our new friends.
+
+Unhappily, the friendly chatter of the neighbourhood, which should
+supply us with something of the character of a resident, is quite
+lacking at Paltley Hill in regard to Mr. Marrapit. Mr. Marrapit
+rarely moves out beyond the fine wall that encircles Herons' Holt,
+his residence; with Paltley Hill society rarely mixes. The vicar,
+with something of a frown, might tell us that to his divers parochial
+subscription lists Mr. Marrapit has consistently, and churlishly,
+refused to give a shilling. Professor Wyvern's son, Mr. William Wyvern,
+has been heard to say that Mr. Marrapit always reminded him "of one
+of the minor prophets--shaved." Beyond this--and how little helpful it
+is!--Paltley Hill society can give us nothing.
+
+In a lower social grade of the district, however, much might be learned.
+In the kitchens, the cottages, and the bar-parlours of Paltley Hill, Mr.
+Marrapit is considerably discussed. Nicely mannered as we are,
+servants' gossip concerning one in our own station of life is naturally
+distasteful to us. At the same time it is essential to our ease on being
+introduced that we should know something of this gentleman. Assuring
+ourselves, therefore, that we shall not be prejudiced by cheap chatter,
+let us hear what the kitchens, the cottages, and the bar-parlours have
+to say.
+
+Let it, at least, be written down; we shall know how to value such
+stuff.
+
+Material for this gossip, then, is brought into the kitchens, the
+cottages, and the bar-parlours by Mr. Marrapit's domestic staff.
+
+Mrs. Armitage, his cook, has given tales of his "grimness" to the
+cottages where her comfortable presence is welcomed on Sunday and
+Thursday afternoons. She believes, however, that he must be a "religious
+gentleman," because (so she says) "he talks like out of the Bible."
+
+This would seem to bear out Mr. William Wyvern's allusion to the minor
+prophet element of his character.
+
+It is the habit of Clara and Ada, his maids, squeezing at the gate from
+positions dangerous to modesty into which their ardent young men have
+thrust them--it is their habit, thus placed, to excuse themselves
+from indelicate embraces by telling alarming tales of Mr. Marrapit's
+"carrying on" should they be late. He is a "fair old terror," they say.
+
+The testimony of Mr. Fletcher, his gardener, gloomy over his beer in
+the bar-parlours, seems to support the "stinginess" that the vicar has
+determined in Mr. Marrapit's character. Mr. Fletcher, for example, has
+lugubriously shown what has to be put up with when in the service of a
+man who had every inch of the grounds searched because a threepenny
+bit had been dropped. "It's 'ard--damn 'ard," Mr Fletcher said on that
+occasion. "I'm a gardener, I am; not a treasure-'unter." Murmurs of
+sympathy chorused endorsement of this view.
+
+Finally there are the words of Frederick, son of Mrs. Armitage, and
+assistant to Fletcher, whose pleasure it is to set on end the touzled
+hair of the youth of Paltley Hill by obviously exaggerated stories of
+Mr. Marrapit's grim rule.
+
+"'E's a tryant," Frederick has said.
+
+Such is an epitome of the kitchen gossip concerning Mr. Marrapit; it is
+wholesome to be away from such tattling, and personally to approach the
+lawn whereon its subject sits.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+This lawn, a delectable sight on this fine July afternoon, is set about
+with wire netting to a height of some six feet. By the energies of Mr.
+Fletcher and Frederick the sward is exquisitely trimmed and rolled; and
+their labours join with the wire netting to make the lawn a safe and
+pleasant exercise ground for Mr. Marrapit's cats.
+
+Back in the days of Mr. Marrapit's first occupancy of Herons' Holt,
+this man was a mighty amateur breeder of cats, and a rare army of cats
+possessed. Regal cats he had, queenly cats, imperial neuter cats; blue
+cats, grey cats, orange cats, and white cats--cats for which nothing was
+too good, upon which too much money could not be spent nor too much love
+be lavished. Latterly, with tremendous wrenchings of the heart, he had
+disbanded this galaxy of cats. Changes in his household were partly
+the cause of this step. The coming of his nephew, George, had seriously
+upset the peaceful routine of existence which it was his delight to
+lead; and a reason even more compelling was the gradual alteration in
+his attitude towards his hobby. This man perceived that the fancier's
+eye with which he regarded his darlings was becoming so powerful as to
+render his lover's eye in danger of being atrophied. The fancier's
+eye was lit by the brain--delighted only in "points," in perfection of
+specimen; the lover's eye was fed by the heart--glowed, not with pride
+over breed, but with affection for cats as cats. And Mr. Marrapit
+realised that for affection he was coming to substitute pride--that
+he was outraging the animals he loved by neglecting the less admirable
+specimens for those perfectly moulded; that even these perfect types he
+was abusing by his growing craze for breeding; polygamy in cats, he came
+to believe, desecrated and eventually destroyed their finer feelings.
+
+Therefore--and the coming of his nephew George quickened his
+determination--Mr. Marrapit dispersed his stud (the word had become
+abhorrent to him), keeping only four exquisite favourites, of which
+the Rose of Sharon--that perfect orange cat, listed when shown at the
+prohibitive figure of 1000 pounds, envy and despair of every cat-lover
+in Great Britain and America--was apple of his eye, joy of his
+existence.
+
+It was the resolve to keep but these four exquisite creatures that
+encompassed the arrival in Mr. Marrapit's household of Mrs. Major, now
+seated beside him upon the lawn--that masterly woman. The fine cat-house
+was pulled down, the attendant dismissed. A room upon the ground floor,
+having a southern aspect, was set apart as bed-chamber and exclusive
+apartment for the four favourites, and Mr. Marrapit sought about for
+some excellent person into whose care they might be entrusted. Their
+feeding, their grooming, constant attention to their wants and the sole
+care of their chamber, should be this person's duties, and it was not
+until a point some way distant in this history that Mr. Marrapit ceased
+daily to congratulate himself upon his selection.
+
+Mrs. Major, that masterly woman, was a distressed gentlewoman. The death
+of her husband, a warehouse clerk, by acute alcoholic poisoning, seems
+to have given her her first chance of displaying those strong qualities
+which ultimately became her chief characteristic. And she was of those
+to whom plan of action comes instantly upon the arrival of opportunity.
+With lightning rapidity this woman welded chance and action; with
+unflagging energy and with dauntless perseverance used the powerful
+weapon thus contrived.
+
+The case of her husband's death may be instanced. Her hysterical
+distress on the day of the funeral (a matter that would have
+considerably surprised the late Mr. Major) was exchanged on the
+following morning for acute physical distress resulting from the means
+by which, overnight, she had tried to assuage her grief. Noticing, as
+she dressed, the subdued and martyrlike air that her face wore, noticing
+also her landlady's evident sympathy with the gentle voice and manner
+which her racking head caused her to adopt, Mrs. Major saw at once
+the valuable aid to her future which the permanent wearing of these
+characteristics might be. From that moment she took up the role of
+distressed gentlewoman--advertised by tight-fitting black, by little
+sighs, and by precise, subdued voice,--and in this guise sought
+employment at an Agency. The agency sent her to be interviewed by
+Mr. Marrapit. Ushered into the study, she, in a moment of masterly
+inspiration, murmured "The sweet! Ah, the sweet!" when viciously
+scratched by the Rose of Sharon, and upon those words walked directly in
+to Mr. Marrapit's heart.
+
+He required a lady--a _lady_ (Mrs. Major smiled deprecatingly) who
+should devote herself to his cats. Did Mrs. Major like cats? Ah, sir,
+she adored cats; her late husband--Words, at the recollection, failed
+her. She faltered; touched an eye with her handkerchief; wanly smiled
+with the resigned martyrdom of a true gentlewoman.
+
+As so-often in this life, the unspoken word was more powerful than
+mightiest eloquence. Mr. Marrapit is not to be blamed for the inference
+he drew. He pictured the dead Mr. Major a gentleman sharing with his
+wife a passion for cats; by memory of which fond trait his widow's
+devotion to the species would be yet further enhanced, would be
+hallowed.
+
+There is the further thought in this connection that once more, as so
+often in this life, the unspoken word had saved the lie direct. Once
+only, in point of fact, had Mrs. Major seen her late husband directly
+occupied with a cat, and the occasion had been the cause of their
+vacating their lodgings in Shepherd's Bush precisely thirty minutes
+later. Mr. Major, under influence of his unfortunate malady, with
+savage foot had sped the landlady's cat down a flight of stairs; and the
+landlady had taken the matter in peculiarly harsh spirit.
+
+All this, however, lay deeply hidden beneath Mrs. Major's unspoken word.
+The vision of a gentle Mr. Major that Mr. Marrapit conjured sealed
+the liking he had immediately taken to Mrs. Major, and thus was she
+installed.
+
+The masterly woman, upon this July afternoon, desisted from her
+crocheting; observed in the dozing figure beside her signs of movement;
+turned to it, ready for speech.
+
+This she saw. From the reluctant rays of a passing sun a white silk
+handkerchief protected a nicely polished head--a little bumpy, fringed
+with soft white hair. Beneath the head a long face, sallow of hue; in
+either cheek a pit; between them a dominating nose carrying eyeglasses.
+A long, spare body in an alpaca coat; long thin legs; brown morocco
+slippers without heels--upon the lap the peerless Rose of Sharon.
+
+"Time for the Rose to go in," Mrs. Major softly suggested.
+
+"The Rose," said Mr. Marrapit, passing a hand gently over the creature's
+exquisite form, "is, I fear, still ailing. Her sleep is troubled; she
+shivers. Her appetite?"
+
+"It is still poorly." The expression was that of a true distressed
+gentlewoman.
+
+"She has need," Mr. Marrapit said, "of the most careful attention, of
+the most careful dieting. Tend her. Tempt her. Take her."
+
+"I will, Mr. Marrapit." Mrs. Major gathered the Rose against her bosom.
+"You will not stay long? It is growing chilly."
+
+"I shall take a brief stroll. I am perturbed concerning the Rose."
+
+"Let me bring you a cap, Mr. Marrapit."
+
+"Unnecessary. Devote yourself, I pray, to the Rose. I am anxious.
+Nothing could console me should any evil thing come upon her. I am
+apprehensive. I look to you. I will take a stroll."
+
+Outside the wire fence Mr. Marrapit and Mrs. Major parted. The masterly
+woman glided swiftly towards the house; Mr. Marrapit, with bent head,
+passed thoughtfully along an opposite path.
+
+And immediately the sleeping garden awoke to sudden activity.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+First to break covert was Frederick, Mr. Fletcher's assistant.
+Abnormally steeped in vice for one so young (this wretched boy was
+but fourteen), with the coolness of a matured evil-doer Frederick
+extinguished his cigarette-end by pressing it against his boot-heel;
+dropped it amongst other ends, toilsomely collected, in a tin box;
+placed the box in its prepared hole; covered this with earth and leaves;
+hooked a basket of faded weeds upon his arm, and so appeared in Mr.
+Marrapit's path with bent back, diligently searching.
+
+Mr. Marrapit inquired: "Your task?"
+
+"Weedin'," said Frederick.
+
+"Weeding what?"
+
+"Weeds," Frederick told him, a little surprised.
+
+Mr. Marrapit rapped sharply: "Say 'sir'."
+
+"Sir," said Frederick, making to move.
+
+Mr. Marrapit peered at the basket. "You have remarkably few."
+
+"There ain't never many," Frederick said with quiet pride--"there ain't
+never many if you keep 'em down by always doin' your job."
+
+Mr. Marrapit pointed: "They grow thick at your feet, sir!"
+
+In round-eyed astonishment Frederick peered low. "They spring up the
+minute your back's turned, them weeds. They want a weed destroyer what
+you pours out of a can."
+
+"You are the weed-destroyer," Mr. Marrapit said sternly. "Be careful.
+It is very true that they spring up whenever _my_ back is turned. Be
+careful." He passed on.
+
+"Blarst yer back," murmured Frederick, bending his own to the task.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+A few yards further Mr. Marrapit again paused. Against a laurel bush
+stood a pair of human legs, the seat of whose encasing trousers stared
+gloomily upwards at the sky. With a small twig he carried Mr.
+Marrapit tapped the seat. Three or four raps were necessary; slowly it
+straightened into line with the legs; from the abyss of the bush a back,
+shoulders, head, appeared.
+
+Just as the ostrich with buried head believes itself hid from
+observation, so it was with Mr. Fletcher, needing peace, a habit to
+plunge head and shoulders into a bush and there remain--showing
+nothing against the sky-line. Long practice had freed the posture from
+irksomeness. As a young man Mr. Fletcher had been employed in a public
+tennis-court, and there had learned the little mannerism to which he now
+had constant resort. In those days the necessity of freeing himself from
+the constant annoyance of nets to be tightened, or of disputes between
+rival claims to courts to be settled, had driven him to devise some
+means of escape. It was essential to the safety of his post, upon
+the other hand, that he must never allow it to be said that he was
+constantly absent from his duties. Chance gave him the very means he
+sought. Bent double into a bush one day, searching a tennis ball, he
+heard his name bawled up and down the courts; he did not stir. Those who
+were calling him stumbled almost against his legs; did not observe
+him; passed on calling. Thereafter, when unduly pressed, it became Mr.
+Fletcher's habit to bury head and arms in a bush either until the hue
+and cry for him had lulled, or until exasperated searchers knocked
+against his stern; in the latter event he would explain that he was
+looking for tennis balls.
+
+The habit had persisted. Whenever irritated or depressed (and this man's
+temperament caused such often to be his fate), he would creep to the
+most likely bush and there disappear as to his upper half. It is a fine
+thing in this turbulent life thus to have some quiet refuge against the
+snarlings of adversity.
+
+Mr. Fletcher drew up now and faced Mr. Marrapit; in his hand a snail.
+
+He said gloomily: "Another one"; held it towards his master's face.
+
+Here is an example of how one deception leads to another. This was no
+fresh snail; often before Mr. Marrapit had seen it. To lend motive to
+his concealment Mr. Fletcher carried always with him this same snail;
+needing peace he would draw it from his pocket; plunge to consolation;
+upon discovery exhibit it as excuse.
+
+"There is an abominable smell here," said Mr. Marrapit.
+
+Mr. Fletcher inhaled laboriously. "It's not for me to say what it is."
+
+"Adjust that impression. Yours is the duty. You are in charge here. What
+is it?"
+
+"It's them damn cats."
+
+"You are insolent, sir. Your insolence increases. It grows unendurable."
+
+Mr. Fletcher addressed the snail. "He asts a question. I beg not to
+answer it. He insists. I tell him. I'm insolent." He sighed; the tyranny
+of the world pressed heavily upon this man.
+
+Mr. Marrapit advertised annoyance by clicks of his tongue: "You are
+insolent when you swear in my presence. You are insolent when you impute
+to my cats a fault that is not theirs."
+
+"I ain't blamin' the cats. It's natural to them. Whenever the wind sets
+this way I notice it. It's blamin' me I complain of. I don't draw the
+smell. I try to get away from it. It's 'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener,
+I am; not a wind-shaft."
+
+Whenever Mr. Marrapit had occasion to speak with Mr. Fletcher, after the
+first few exchanges he would swallow with distinct effort. It was wrath
+he swallowed; and bitter as the pill was, rarely did he fail to force it
+down. Mr. Fletcher spoke to him as no other member of his establishment
+dared speak. The formula of dismissal would leap to Mr. Marrapit's
+mouth: knowledge of the unusually small wage for which Mr. Fletcher
+worked caused it to be stifled ere it found tongue. Thousands of
+inferiors have daily to bow to humiliations from their employers; it
+is an encouraging thought for this army that masters there be who,
+restrained by parsimony, daily writhe beneath impertinences from
+valuable, ill-paid servants.
+
+Mr. Marrapit swallowed. He said: "To the smell of which I complain my
+cats are no party. It is tobacco. The air reeks of tobacco. I will not
+have tobacco in my garden."
+
+Twice, with a roaring sound, Mr. Fletcher inhaled. He pointed towards an
+elm against the wall: "It comes from over there."
+
+"Ascertain."
+
+The gardener plunged through the bushes; nosed laboriously; his
+inhalations rasped across the shrubs. "There's no smoking here," he
+called.
+
+"Someone, in some place concealed, indubitably smokes. Yourself you have
+noticed it. Follow the scent."
+
+Exertion beaded upon Mr. Fletcher's brow. He drew his hand across it;
+thrust a damp and gloomy face between the foliage towards his master.
+
+"I'd like to know," he asked, "if this is to be one of my regular jobs
+for the future? Was I engaged to 'unt smells all day? It's 'ard-damn
+'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a blood-'ound."
+
+But Mr. Marrapit had passed on.
+
+"Damn 'ard," Mr. Fletcher repeated; drew the snail from his pocket;
+plunged to consolation.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+A short distance down the garden Mr. Marrapit himself discovered the
+source of the smell that had offended him. Bending to the left he came
+full upon it where it uprose from a secluded patch of turf: from the
+remains of a pipe there mounted steadily through the still air a thin
+wisp of smoke.
+
+Outraged, Mr. Marrapit stared; fuming, turned upon the step that sounded
+on the path behind him.
+
+The slim and tall young man who approached was that nephew George, whose
+coming into Mr. Marrapit's household had considerably disturbed Mr.
+Marrapit's peace. Orphaned by the death of his mother, George had
+gone into the guardianship of his uncle while in his middle teens. The
+responsibility had been thrust upon Mr. Marrapit by his sister. Vainly
+he had writhed and twisted in fretful protest; she shackled him to her
+desire by tearful and unceasing entreaty. Vainly he urged that his means
+were not what she thought; she assured him--and by her will bore out the
+assurance--that with her George should go her money.
+
+And the will, when read, in some degree consoled Mr. Marrapit for the
+sniffling encumbrance he took back with him to Herons' Holt after the
+funeral. It was a simple and trustful will--commended George into the
+keeping of her brother Christopher Marrapit; desired that George should
+be entered in her late husband's--the medical--profession; and for that
+purpose bequeathed her all to the said brother.
+
+George was eighteen when Mr. Marrapit entered him at St. Peter's
+Hospital in mild pursuit of the qualification of the Conjoint Board of
+Surgeons and Physicians. "I am entering you," Mr. Marrapit had said,
+consulting notes he had prepared against the interview--"I am entering
+you at enormous cost upon a noble career which involves, however, a
+prolonged and highly expensive professional training. Your mother wished
+it."
+
+Mr. Marrapit did not add that George's mother had expressly paid for
+it. This man had the knowledge that Youth would lose such veneration for
+Authority as it may possess were Authority to disclose the motives that
+prompt its actions.
+
+He continued: "For me this involves considerable self-denial and
+patience. I do not flinch. From you it demands unceasing devotion to
+your books, your studies, your researches. You are no longer a boy: you
+are a man. The idle sports of youth must be placed behind you. Stern
+life must be sternly faced."
+
+"I do not flinch," George had replied.
+
+"For your personal expenses I shall make you a small allowance. You will
+live in my house. Your wants should be insignificant."
+
+In a faint voice George squeezed in: "I have heard that one can work far
+better by living near the hospital in digs."
+
+"Elucidate."
+
+"Digs--lodgings. I have heard that one can work far better by living
+near the hospital in lodgings."
+
+"Adjust that impression," Mr. Marrapit had told him. "You are
+misinformed."
+
+George struggled: "I should have the constant companionship of men
+absorbed in the same work as myself. We could exchange views and notes
+in the evenings."
+
+"In your books seek that companionship. With them compare your views.
+Let your notes by them be checked. They are infallible."
+
+George said no more. At that moment the freedom of hospital as against
+the restraint of school, was a gallant steed upon which he outrid all
+other desires. The prospect of new and strange books in exchange for
+those he so completely abhorred, was an alluring delight. It is not
+until the bargain is complete that we discover how much easier to
+polish, and more comfortable to handle, are old lamps than new.
+
+Mr. Marrapit had referred to his notes: "In regard to the allowance I
+shall make you. I earnestly pray no spur may be necessary to urge you
+at your tasks. Yet, salutary it is that spur should exist. I arrange,
+therefore, that in the deplorable event of your failing to pass any
+examination your allowance shall be diminished."
+
+"Will it be correspondingly increased when I pass first shot?"
+
+The fearful possibilities of this suggestion Mr. Marrapit had hesitated
+to accept. Speculation was abhorrent to this man. Visions of success
+upon success demanding increase upon increase considerably agitated him.
+Upon the other hand, the sooner these successes were won, the sooner,
+he reflected, would he be rid of this incubus, and, in the long-run, the
+cheaper. He nerved himself to the decision. "I agree to that," he had
+said. "The compact is affirmed."
+
+It was a wretched compact for George.
+
+But the sum had not yet been fixed. George, standing opposite his uncle,
+twisted one leg about the other; twined his clammy hands; put the awful
+question: "By how much will the allowance be increased or cut down?"
+
+"By two pounds a quarter."
+
+George plunged: "So if I fail in my first exam. I shall get eleven
+pounds at the quarter? if I pass, fifteen?"
+
+Horror widened Mr. Marrapit's eyes; shrilled his voice: "What is the
+colossal sum you anticipate?"
+
+"I thought you said fifty-two pounds a year-a pound a week."
+
+"A monstrous impression. Adjust it. Four pounds a quarter is the sum.
+You will have no needs. It errs upon the side of liberality--I desire to
+be liberal."
+
+George twisted his legs into a yet firmer knot: "But two failures would
+wipe it bang out."
+
+"Look you to that," Mr. Marrapit told him. "The matter is settled."
+
+But it was further pursued by George when outside the door.
+
+"Simply to spite that stingy brute," vowed he, "I'll pass all my exams,
+with such a rush that I'll be hooking sixteen quid a quarter out of him
+before he knows where he is. I swear I will."
+
+It was a rash oath. When Youth selects as weapon against Authority some
+implement that requires sweat in the forging Authority may go unarmed.
+The task of contriving such weapons is early abandoned. In three months
+George's hot resolve was cooled; in six it was forgotten; at the end
+of three years, after considerable fluctuation, his allowance stood at
+minus two pounds for the ensuing quarter.
+
+Mr. Marrapit, appealed to for advance, had raved about his study with
+waving arms.
+
+"The continued strain of renewing examination fees consequent on your
+callous failures," he had said, "terrifies me. I am haunted by the
+spectre of ruin. The Bank of England could not stand it."
+
+Still George argued.
+
+With a whirlwind of words Mr. Marrapit drove him from the study:
+"Precious moments fly even as you stand here. To your books, sir. In
+them seek solace. By application to them refresh your shattered pocket."
+
+Shamefully was the advice construed. George sought and found solace in
+his books by selling his Kirke, his Quain and his Stone to Mr. Schoole
+of the Charing Cross Road; his microscope he temporarily lodged with Mr.
+Maughan in the Strand; to the science of bridge he applied himself with
+a skill that served to supply his petty needs.
+
+Notwithstanding, his career at St. Peter's was of average merit. George
+was now in the sixth year of his studies; and by the third part of his
+final examination, was alone delayed from the qualification which would
+bring him freedom from his uncle's irksome rule.
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+His attempt at this last examination had been concluded upon this July
+day that opens our history, and thus we return to Mr. Marrapit, to
+George, and to the line of smoke uprising from the tobacco.
+
+Mr. Marrapit indicated the smouldering wedge.
+
+George bent forward. "Tobacco," he announced.
+
+"My nose informed me. My eyes affirm. Yours?"
+
+"I am afraid so."
+
+"My simple rule. In the vegetable garden you may smoke; here you may
+not. Is it so hard to observe?"
+
+"I quite forgot myself."
+
+Mr. Marrapit cried: "Adjust that impression. You forgot me. Consistently
+you forget me. My desires, my interests are nothing to you."
+
+"It's a rotten thing to make a fuss about."
+
+"That is why I make a fuss. It _is_ a rotten thing. A disgusting and a
+noisome thing. Bury it."
+
+Into a bed of soft mould George struck a sullen heel; kicked the tobacco
+towards the pit. Mr. Marrapit chanted over the obsequies: "I provide you
+with the enormous expanse of my vegetable garden in which to smoke. Yet
+upon my little acre you intrude. I am Naboth."
+
+Ahab straightened his back; sighed heavily. Naboth started against the
+prick of a sudden recollection:
+
+"I had forgotten. Your examination?"
+
+George half turned away. The bitterest moment of a sad day was come. He
+growled:
+
+"Pipped."
+
+"_Pipped?_"
+
+"Pilled."
+
+"_Pilled?_"
+
+"Spun."
+
+"_Spun?"_
+
+"Three months."
+
+Mr. Marrapit put his hands to his head: "I shall go mad. My brain reels
+beneath these conundrums. I implore English."
+
+The confession of defeat is a thousandfold more bitter when made to
+unkind ears. George paled a little; spoke very clearly: "I failed. I was
+referred for three months."
+
+"I am Job," groaned Mr. Marrapit. "I expected this. The strain is
+unendurable. It is unnatural. The next chance shall be your last. What
+is the fee for re-examination?"
+
+"Five guineas."
+
+"My God!" said Mr. Marrapit.
+
+He tottered away up the path.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Excursions In Melancholy.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Gloom brooded over Herons' Holt that evening. Gloom hung thickly about
+the rooms: blanketed conversation; veiled eyes that might have sparkled;
+choked appetites.
+
+Nevertheless this was an atmosphere in which one member of the household
+felt most comfortable.
+
+Margaret, Mr. Marrapit's only child, was nineteen; of sallow complexion,
+petite, pretty; with large brown eyes in which sat always a constant
+quest--an entreaty, a wistful yearning.
+
+Hers was a clinging nature, readily responsive to the attraction of any
+stouter mind. Enthusiasm was in this girl, but it lay well-like--not
+as a spring. To stir it the influence of another was wanted; of itself,
+spontaneous, it could not leap. Aroused, there was no rush and surge
+of emotion--it welled, rose deeply; thickly, without ripple; crestless,
+flinging no intoxicating spume. Waves rush triumphant, hurtling forward
+the stick they support: the pool swells, leaving the stick quiescent,
+floating.
+
+Many persons have this order of enthusiasm; it is a clammy thing
+to attract. A curate with a glimpse at Shelley's mind once roused
+Margaret's enthusiasm for the poet. It welled so suffocatingly about him
+that he came near to damning Shelley and all his works; threw up his hat
+when opportunity put out a beckoning finger and drew him elsewhere.
+
+Margaret walked in considerable fear of her father; but she clung to him
+despite his oppressive foibles, because this was her nature. She loved
+church; incense; soft music; a prayer-book tastefully bound. She "wrote
+poetry."
+
+Warmed by the gloom that lay over Herons' Holt upon this evening, she
+sat brooding upon her cousin George's failure until a beautiful picture
+was hatched. He had gone to his room directly after dinner; during the
+meal had not spoken. She imagined him seated on his bed, hands deep in
+pockets, chin sunk, brow knitted, wrestling with that old devil despair.
+She knew that latterly he had worked tremendously hard. He had told her
+before the examination how confident of success he was, had revealed how
+much in the immediate prospect of freedom he gloried. She recalled
+his gay laugh as he had bade her good-bye on the first day, and the
+recollection stung her just as, she reflected, it must now be stinging
+him.... Only he must a thousand times more fiercely be feeling the burn
+of its venom....
+
+Margaret moved impatiently with a desire to shake into herself a
+profounder sense of her cousin's misfortune. By ten she was plunged in a
+most pleasing melancholy.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+She was of those who are by nature morbid; who deceive themselves if
+they imagine they have enjoyment from the recreations that provoke
+lightness of heart in the majority. Only the surface of their
+spirits ripples under such breezes; to stir the whole, to produce
+the counterpart of a hearty laugh in your vigorous animal, a feast on
+melancholy must be provided. This is a quality that is common among the
+lower classes who find their greatest happiness in funerals. The sombre
+trappings; white handkerchiefs against black dresses; tears; the mystery
+of gloom--these trickle with a warm glow through all their senses. They
+are as aroused by grief, unpleasant to the majority, as the drunkard is
+quickened by wine, to many abhorrent.
+
+Thus it was with Margaret, and to her the shroud of melancholy in which
+she was now wrapped brought an added boon--arrayed in it she was best
+able to make her verses. Not of necessity sad little verses; many of her
+brightest were conceived in profoundest gloom. With a pang at the heart
+she could be most merry--tinkling out her laughing little lines just as
+martyrs could breathe a calm because, rather than spite of, they were
+devilishly racked.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+But this was no hour for tinkling lines. A manuscript returned by the
+last post emphasised her gloom.
+
+Kissing her father good-night, Margaret crept to her room, aching with
+desire to write.
+
+She undressed, read a portion of the _Imitation_, then to her table by
+the open window.
+
+Two hours brought relief. Margaret placed her poem in an envelope
+against its presentation to George in the morning, then from her window
+leaned.
+
+From her thoughts at once George sped; they rushed across the sleeping
+fields to cling about the person of that Mr. William Wyvern who had
+spoken of Mr. Marrapit as reminding him of a minor prophet--shaved.
+This was Margaret's nightly practice, but to-night this girl was most
+exquisitely melancholy, and with melancholy her thoughts of her William
+were tinged. She had not seen him that day; and now she brooded upon the
+bitter happening that had forced all her meetings with her lover to be
+snatched--fugitive, secret.
+
+For Mr. William Wyvern was not allowed at Herons' Holt. When love first
+sent its herald curiosity into William's heart, the young man had sought
+to relieve its restlessness by a visit ostensibly on George, really upon
+Margaret, and extremely ill-advised in that at his heels gambolled his
+three bull-terriers.
+
+Korah, Dathan, and Abiram these were named, and they were abrupt dogs to
+a point reaching brusqueness.
+
+At the door, as William had approached, beamed Mr. Marrapit; upon the
+drive the queenly Rose of Sharon sat; and immediately tragedy swooped.
+
+The dogs sighted the Rose. Red-mouthed the shining pack flew at her.
+Dignity fell before terror: wildly, with streaming tail, she fled.
+
+Orange was the cat, white the dogs: like some orange and snow-white
+ribbon magically inspired, thrice at enormous speed they set a belt
+about the house. With tremendous bounds the Rose kept before her
+pursuers--heavily labouring, horrid with thirsty glee. Impotent in the
+doorway moaned Mr. Marrapit, his dirge rushing up to a wail of grief
+each time the parti-coloured ribbon flashed before his eyes.
+
+With Mr. Fletcher the end had come. Working indoors, aroused by the din,
+the gardener burst out past his master just as the ribbon fluttered into
+sight upon the completion of its fourth circuit. Like a great avalanche
+it poured against his legs; as falls the oak, so pressed he fell.
+
+Each eager jaw snapped once. Korah bit air, Dathan the cat's right ear.
+She wrenched; freed; sprang high upon the porch to safety, blood on her
+coat.
+
+Abiram put a steely nip upon Mr. Fletcher's right buttock.
+
+William called off his dogs; stood aghast. Mr. Marrapit stretched
+entreating arms to his adored. Mr. Fletcher writhed prone.
+
+The torn Rose slipped to Mr. Marrapit's bosom. Clasping her he turned
+upon William--"You shall pay for this blood!"
+
+William stammered: "I'm very sorry, sir. If--"
+
+"Never again enter my gates. I'll have your curs shot!"
+
+Curs was unfortunate; the evil three were whelped of a mighty strain.
+
+"If your fool of a man hadn't got in the way, the cat would have
+escaped," William hotly cried. Indignant he turned. Banishment was
+nothing then; in time it came to be a bitter thing.
+
+Mr. Marrapit had raged on to Mr. Fletcher, yet writhing.
+
+"You hear that?" he had cried. "Dolt! You are responsible for this!" He
+touched the blood-flecked side, the abrased ear; clasped close the Rose;
+called for warm water.
+
+Mr. Fletcher clapped a hand to his wound as shakily he rose.
+
+"I go to rescue his cat!" he said; "I'm near worried to death by 'ounds.
+I'm a dolt. I'm responsible. It's 'ard,--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I
+am; not a dog muzzle."
+
+A dimness clouded Margaret's beautiful eyes as this bitter picture--she
+had watched it--was again reviewed. She murmured "Oh, Bill!"; stretched
+her soft arms to the night; moved her pretty lips in a message to her
+lover; snuggled between the sheets and made melancholy her bedfellow.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+By seven she was up and in the fresh garden. George was before her.
+
+She cried brightly: "Why, how early you are!" and ran to him--very
+pretty in her white dress: at her breast a rose, the poem fluttering in
+her hand.
+
+"Yes; for once before you."
+
+George's tone did not give back her mood, purposely keyed high. She
+played on it again: "Turning a new leaf?"
+
+He drummed at the turf with his heel: "Yes--for to-day." He threw out a
+hand towards her: "But in the same old book. I've had eight--nine years
+of it, and now there are three more months."
+
+"Poor George! But only three months, think how they will fly!"
+
+He was desperately gloomy: "I haven't your imagination. Each single day
+of them will mean a morning--here; a night--here."
+
+"Oh, is it so hard?"
+
+"Yes, now. It's pretty deadly now. You know, when I wasn't precisely
+killing myself with overwork, I didn't mind so much. When it was three
+or four years, anyway, before I could possibly be free, a few extra
+months or so through failing an exam, didn't trouble me. But this
+is different. I was right up against getting clear of all this"--he
+comprehended garden and house in a sweep of the hand--"counted it a dead
+certainty--and here I am pitched back again."
+
+"But, George, you did work so hard this time. It isn't as though you
+had to blame yourself." She put a clinging hand into his arm. "You
+can suffer no--remorse. That is what makes failure so dreadful--the
+knowledge that things might have been otherwise if one had liked."
+
+George laughed quite gaily. Gloom never lay long upon this young man.
+
+"You're a sweet little person," he said. "You ought to be right, but
+you are wrong. When I didn't work I didn't mind failing. It's when I've
+tried that I get sick."
+
+Margaret's eyes brightened. There was melancholy here.
+
+"Oh, I know what you mean. I know so well. I have felt that. You mean
+the--the haunting fear that you may never be able to succeed; that you
+have not the--the talent, the capacity." She continued pleadingly:
+"Oh, you mustn't think that. You can--you _will_ succeed next time, you
+know."
+
+"Rather!" responded George brightly.
+
+Margaret was quite pained. She would have had him express doubt,
+despondently sigh; would have heartened him with her poem. The confident
+"rather!" jarred. She hurried from its vigour.
+
+She asked: "What had you intended to do?"
+
+"I was to have got a _locum tenens_. I think it would have developed
+into a permanency. A big, rough district up in Yorkshire with a man who
+keeps six horses going. His second assistant--a pal of mine--wants to
+chuck it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why? Oh, partly because he's fed up with it, partly because he wants a
+practice of his own."
+
+"Ah! ... But, George, don't you want a practice of your own? You don't
+want to be another man's assistant, do you?"
+
+George laughed. "I can't choose, Margi. You know, if you imagine there
+are solid groups of people all over England anxiously praying for the
+arrival of a doctor, you must adjust that impression, as your father
+would say. These things have to be bought. I've got about three pounds,
+so I'm not bidding. They seldom go so cheap."
+
+Margaret never bantered. She had no battledore light enough to return
+an airy shuttlecock. Now, as always, when this plaything came
+buoyantly towards her she swiped it with heavy force clean out of the
+conversational field.
+
+She said gravely: "Ah, I know what you mean. You mean that father ought
+to buy you a practice--ought to set you up when you are qualified. I
+can't discuss that, can I? It wouldn't be loyal."
+
+"Of course not. I don't ask you."
+
+They moved towards the sound of the breakfast bell.
+
+"You think," Margaret continued, "that father ought to buy you a
+practice because your mother left him money for the purpose?"
+
+"I know she left him nearly five thousand pounds for my education
+and all that. I think I may have cost him three thousand, possibly
+four--_so_ I think I am entitled to something, _but_ I shan't get it,
+_therefore_ I don't worry. My hump is gone; in three months I shall be
+gone. Forward: I smell bacon!"
+
+Margaret smiled the wan smile of an invalid watching vigorous youth at
+sport. Firmly she banged the shuttlecock out of sight.
+
+"How bright you are!" she told him. "Look, here is a little poem I wrote
+for you last night. It's about failure and success. Don't read it now."
+
+George was very fond of his cousin. "Oh, but I must!" he cried. "I think
+this was awfully nice of you. He's not down yet. Let's sit on this seat
+and read it together."
+
+"Oh, not aloud. It's a silly little thing--really."
+
+"Yes--aloud."
+
+He smoothed the paper. She pressed against him; thrilled as she regarded
+the written lines. George begged her read. She would not--well, she
+would. She paused. Modesty and pride gathered on her cheeks, tuned her
+voice low. She read:
+
+  "So you have tried--So you have known
+  The burning effort for success,
+  The quick belief in your own prowess and your skill,
+  The bitterness of failure, and the joy
+  Of sweet success."
+
+"'Burning effort,'" George said. "That's fine!"
+
+"I'm glad you like that. And 'quick belief'--you know what I mean?"
+
+"Oh, rather."
+
+The poet warmed again over her words.
+
+  "So you have tried--
+  So you have known
+  The blind-eyed groping towards the goal
+  That flickers on the far horizon of Attempt,
+  Gleaming to sudden vividness, anon
+  Fading from sight."
+
+"Sort of blank verse, isn't it?" George asked.
+
+"Well, sort of," the poet allowed. "Not exactly, of course."
+
+"Of course not," George agreed firmly.
+
+Margaret breathed the next fine lines.
+
+  "So you have tried--
+  So you have known
+  The bitter-sweetness of Attempt,
+  The quick determination and the dread despair
+  That grapple and possess you as you strive
+  For imagery."
+
+George questioned: "Imagery...?"
+
+"That verse is more for me than you," the poet explained. "'For
+imagery'--to get the right word, you know."
+
+"Rather!" said George. "It does for me too--in exams, when one is
+floored, you know."
+
+"Yes," Margaret admitted doubtfully. "Ye-es. Don't interrupt between the
+verses, dear."
+
+Now emotion swelled her voice.
+
+  "Success be yours!
+  May you achieve
+  To heights you do not dream you'll ever touch;
+  The power's to your hand, the road before you lies--
+  Forward! The gods not always frown; anon
+  They'll kindly smile."
+
+"Why, that's splendid!" George cried. He put a cousinly arm about
+the poet; squeezed her to him. "Fancy you writing that for me! What a
+sympathetic little soul you are--and how clever!"
+
+Breathless she disengaged herself: "I'm so glad you like it. It's a
+silly little thing--but it's _real_, isn't it? Come, there's father."
+
+She paused against denial of the poem's silliness, affirmation of its
+truth; but George, moody beneath Mr. Marrapit's eye, glinting behind the
+window, had moved forward.
+
+Margaret thrust the paper in her bosom, tucked in where heart might warm
+against heart's child. Constantly during breakfast her mind reverted to
+it, drummed its rare lines.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Upon Modesty In Art: And Should Be Skipped.
+
+
+Yet Margaret had called her poem silly. Here, then, was mock-modesty by
+diffidence seeking praise. But this mock-modesty, which horribly abounds
+to-day, is only natural product of that furious modesty which has come
+to be expected in all the arts.
+
+Modesty should have no place in true art. The author or the painter,
+the poet or the composer should be impersonal to his work. That which he
+creates is not his; it is a piece of the art to which he is servant, and
+as such (and such alone) he should regard it. His in the making and the
+moulding, thereafter it becomes the possession of the great whole to
+which it belongs. If it adorns that whole he may freely admire it; for
+he is impersonal to it.
+
+Unquestionably (or unconsciously) we accept this principle in regard to
+human life. The child belongs not to the mother who conceived it but to
+the race of which it is an atom. It hinders or it betters the race. The
+race judges it. By the race it is honoured or condemned; and to it the
+mother becomes impersonal. As it bears itself among its fellows, so she
+judges it--as the artist's work bears itself in the great art it joins,
+so should he judge it. And if the mother joins in his fellows' praise of
+her child, and if she proclaims her pride in it, is she called wanting
+in modesty?--and if the artist joins in praise of his work, and if he
+freely names it good, must he then be vain, boastful? The race grants
+that the mother who gave it this specimen of its kind has a first right
+to show her pride--to the artist who gives a fair specimen to his art we
+should allow a like voice.
+
+For in demanding modesty--in naming impersonality conceit--we have
+produced also mock-modesty; and because, as a people, we have little
+appreciation of the arts, hence little knowledge, hence no standard by
+which to judge, we continually mistake the one form of modesty for the
+other. Modesty we suspect to be mock-modesty, and mock-modesty we take
+to be pleasing humility.
+
+Coming to literature alone, the author should be impersonal to his work
+and must not cry that the writer is no judge of his own labour. Letters
+is his trade; and just as the mason well knows whether the brick he has
+laid helps or hinders, beautifies or insults the house, so the writer
+should be full cognisant whether his work helps make or does mar the
+edifice called literature. Nor must the term literature be denied to the
+ruck of modern writing. All that is written to interest or to instruct
+goes to make the literature of our day. We have introduced new
+expressions just as we have contrived new expressions in architecture;
+and as in the latter case so in the former the bulk of these is
+ephemeral. Nevertheless they are a part of literature, and all efforts
+in them better or sully the pages which in our day we are adding to the
+book of literature. From this book the winds of cycles to come will blow
+all that is unworthy--only the stout leaves will endure; but, no less
+because you write for the supplement than if you have virtue sufficient
+for the bound volume, remember that in every form of writing there
+are standards of good, and that every line printed helps raise or does
+tarnish the letters of our day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Excursions In A Hospital.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+By the half-past nine train George went to town; an hour later was at
+St. Peter's.
+
+From the bar of the Students' Club a throng of young men of his year
+loudly hailed him. He joined them; took with a laugh the commiserations
+on his failure; wrung the hands of those who had been successful.
+
+The successful young gentlemen were standing drinks-each man his
+round. There was much smoke and much laughter. Amusing experiences were
+narrated. You gathered that all who had passed their examination had
+done so by sheer luck, by astonishing flukes. Not one had ever worked.
+Each had been "ragged" on a subject of which he knew absolutely nothing.
+To the brilliancy with which he had gulled or bluffed his examiner, to
+the diplomacy with which he had headed him off the matters of which he
+knew absolutely less than nothing-to these alone were his success due.
+
+Such is ever Youth's account of battle with Age. Youth is a devil of
+a smart fellow, behind whom Age blunders along in the most ridiculous
+fashion. Later this young blood takes his place in the blundering ranks
+and then does learn that indeed he was right--Age knows nothing. For
+with years we begin to realise our ignorance, and the lesson is not
+complete when the grave slams the book. A few plumb the depths of their
+ignorance before death: these are able to speak--and these are the
+teachers of men. We get here one reason why giants are fewer in our day:
+with the growth of man's imaginings and his inventions there is more
+vanity to be forced through; the truths of life lie deeper hid; more
+phantasms arise to lure us from the quest of realities; the task of
+striking truth accumulates.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Soon after midday the party broke up. Its members lunched early;
+visiting surgeons and physicians went their rounds at half-past one.
+
+George strolled to the Dean's office.
+
+A woebegone-looking youth in spectacles stood before the table; opposite
+sat the Dean. He looked up as George entered, and nodded: he was fond of
+George.
+
+"Come along in," he said; "I shan't be a minute."
+
+He turned to the sad youth. "Now your case, Mr. Carter," he said, "is
+quite unique. In the whole records of the Medical School"--he waved at
+a shelf of fat volumes--"in the whole records of the Medical School we
+have nothing in the remotest degree resembling it. You have actually
+failed twice in--in--"
+
+The Dean searched wildly among a litter of papers; baffled, threw out an
+emphasising hand, and repeated, "_Twice_! Other hospitals, Mr. Carter,
+may have room for slackers--we have not. We have a record and a
+reputation of which we are proud. You are in your second year. How old
+are you?"
+
+A faint whisper said, "Nineteen."
+
+The Dean started. "Nineteen! Oh, dear me, dear me! this is worse than
+I thought--far worse. I am afraid, Mr. Carter, I shall have to write to
+your father."
+
+Guttural with emotion, Mr. Carter gasped: "I mean to work--indeed I do."
+
+Again the Dean frantically searched on his desk to discover the subject
+in which Mr. Carter had failed; again was unsuccessful. Deep thought
+ravelled his brow. His fingers drummed indecision on the table. It was a
+telling picture of one struggling between duty and kindliness--masterly
+as the result of long practice.
+
+"Mr. Carter," the Dean summed up, "I will consider your case more fully
+to-night. Against my better judgment I may perhaps decide not on this
+occasion to communicate with your father. But remember this. At the very
+outset of your career you have strained to breaking-point the confidence
+of your teachers. Only by stupendous efforts on your part can that
+confidence be restored. These failures, believe me, will dog you from
+now until you are qualified--nay, will dog your whole professional
+career. That will do."
+
+In a convulsion of relief and of agitation beneath this appalling
+prospect the dogged man quavered thanks; stumbled from the room.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+George laughed. "Same old dressing-down," he said. "Don't you ever alter
+the formula?"
+
+"It's very effective," the Dean replied. "That's the sixth this morning.
+Unfortunately I couldn't remember in what subject that boy had failed;
+so he didn't get the best part--the part about that being the one
+subject of all others which, if failed in, predicted ruin."
+
+"It was biology in my case," George told him. "I trembled with funk."
+
+"I think most of you do. It's fortunate that all you men when you first
+come up are afraid of your fathers. It gives us a certain amount of hold
+over you. If the thing were done properly, both at the 'Varsities and
+the hospitals, there would be a system of marks and reports just as at
+schools. You are only boys when you first come up, and you should be
+treated as boys; instead, you are left free and irresponsible. It ruins
+dozens of men every year."
+
+"Perhaps that's why I'm here now," George responded. "You know I got
+ploughed?"
+
+The Dean told George how sorry he had been to hear it. He questioned:
+"Bad luck, I suppose? I thought it was a sitter for you this time."
+
+"Yes, rotten luck."
+
+"It's unfortunate, you know. You would have got a house appointment. I'm
+afraid you will miss that mow. There will be a crowd of very hot men
+up with you in October, junior to you, who will get the vacancies. What
+will you do?"
+
+George shrugged and laughed.
+
+The Dean frowned; interpreted the shrug. "Well, you should care," he
+said. "You ought to be looking around you. Won't your uncle help you to
+buy a partnership?"
+
+"We are on worse terms than ever after this failure. Not he."
+
+"And you're not trying to be on good terms, I suppose?"
+
+"Not I."
+
+"You are a remarkably silly young man. You want balance, Leicester, you
+want balance. It would be the making of you to have some serious purpose
+in life. You will run against something of the kind soon--you'll get
+engaged, perhaps, and then you'll regret your happy-go-lucky ways." He
+fumbled amongst a pile of correspondence and drew out a letter. "Now,
+look here, I was thinking of you only a few moments ago. Here's a letter
+from a man who--who--where is it?--Ah, yes--If you could raise 400
+pounds by the time you are qualified I could put you on to a splendid
+thing."
+
+"Not the remotest chance," said George. "The serious purpose must wait.
+I--"
+
+The Dean waved a hand that asked silence; consulted the letter. "This is
+from a man in practice at a place called Runnygate--one of these rising
+seaside resorts--Hampshire--great friend of mine. He's got money, and
+he's going to chuck it--doesn't suit his wife. I told him I'd find a
+purchaser if he would leave it with me. Merely nominal--only 400
+pounds. He says that in a year or so there'll be a small fortune in the
+practice, because a company is taking the place over to develop it. You
+shall have first refusal. Come now, pull yourself together, Leicester."
+
+George laughed. He stood up. "Thanks, I refuse now. What on earth's the
+good?"
+
+"Rubbish," said the Dean. "Think over that serious interest in life. You
+never know your luck."
+
+George moved to the door. "I know my luck all right," he laughed. "Never
+mind, I'm not grumbling with it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Upon Life: And May Be Missed.
+
+
+In the ante-room, as it were, of a very short chapter, we must make
+ready to receive our heroine. She is about to spring dazzling upon our
+pages; will be our close companion through some moving scenes. We must
+collect ourselves, brush our hair, arrange our dress, prepare our nicest
+manner.
+
+And as in ante-rooms there are commonly papers laid about to beguile the
+tedium, and as the faint rustle of our heroine's petticoats is warning
+that George's assertion that he knew his luck is immediately to be
+disproved, let us make a tiny little paper on the folly of such a
+statement.
+
+For of his luck man has no glimmer of prescience. Day by day we
+rattle the box, throw the dice; but of how these will fall we have no
+knowledge. We only hope with the gambler's feverishness; and it is this
+very hazard that keeps us crowding and pushing to hold our place at
+the tables where fortune spins. Grow we sick of the game, sour with our
+luck, weary of the hazard, and relinquish we our place at the table, we
+are pushed back and out--elbowed, thrown, trampled.
+
+We are all treasure-seekers set on a treasure-island in a boundless sea.
+Cruelly marooned we are--flung ashore without appeal, and here deserted
+until the ship that disembarked us suddenly swoops and the press-gang
+snatches us again aboard--again without heed to our desire. Whence the
+ship brought us we do not know, and whither it will carry us we do not
+know; there is none to prick a return voyage disclosing the ultimate
+haven, though pilots there be who pretend to the knowledge--we cannot
+test them.
+
+But the marooners, when they land us, give us wherewith to occupy our
+thoughts. This is a treasure-island. Each man of us they land with a
+pick; the inhabitants tell us of the treasure, and, being acclimatised,
+we set to work to dig and delve. Some work in shafts already sunk, some
+seek to break new ground, but what the pick will next turn up no one
+knows.
+
+And it is this uncertainty, this hazard, that keeps us hammer, hammer,
+hammering; that keeps us, some from brooding against the marooners,
+their wanton desertion of us, our ultimate fate at their hands; others
+from making ready against the return voyage as entreated by the pilots.
+
+Certainly, when the pick strikes a pocket, we turn to carousing; cease
+cocking a timid eye at the horizon.
+
+And now our heroine is beckoning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Magnificent Arrival Of A Heroine.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Until three o'clock George sat in an operating theatre. An unimportant
+case was in process: occasionally, through the group of dressers,
+surgeons and nurses who filled the floor, George caught a glimpse of the
+subject. He watched moodily, too occupied with his thoughts--three more
+months of dependency--to take greater interest.
+
+One other student was present. Peacefully he slumbered by George's side
+until the ring of a dropped forceps awakened him. Noting the cause,
+"Clumsy beast," said this Mr. Franklyn; and to George: "Come on,
+Leicester; my slumber is broken. Let's go for a stroll up West."
+
+In Oxford Street a pretty waitress in a tea-shop drew Mr. Franklyn's
+eye; a drop of rain whacked his nose. He winked the eye; wiped the nose.
+"Tea," said he; "it is going to rain."
+
+He addressed the pretty waitress: "I have no wish to seem inquisitive,
+but which table do you attend?"
+
+The girl jerked her chin: "What's that to you?"
+
+"So much," Mr. Franklyn earnestly told her, "that, until I know, here,
+beautiful but inconvenient, in the doorway I stand."
+
+"Well, all of 'em." She whisked away.
+
+"You're badly snubbed, Franklyn," George said. "This rain is nothing."
+
+A summer shower crashed down as he spoke; a mob of shoppers, breathless
+for shelter, drove them inwards.
+
+"George," said Mr. Franklyn, seating himself, "your base mind thinks I
+have designs on this girl. I grieve at so distorted a fancy. The child
+says prettily that she attends 'all of 'em.' It is a gross case of
+overwork into which I feel it my duty more closely to inquire."
+
+George laughed. "Do you always spend your afternoons like this?"
+
+"As a rule, yes. I have been fifteen years at St. Peter's awaiting that
+day when through pure ennui the examiners will pass me. It will be a sad
+wrench to leave the dear old home." He continued, a tinge of melancholy
+in his voice: "You know, I am the last of the old brigade. The medical
+student no longer riots. His name is no longer a byword; he is a rabbit.
+Alone, undismayed, I uphold the old traditions. I am, so to speak,
+one of the old aristocracy. Beneath the snug characteristics of the
+latter-day student--his sweet abhorrence of a rag, his nasty delight
+in plays which he calls 'hot-stuff,' his cigarettes and his
+chess-playing--beneath these my head, like Henley's, is bloody but
+unbowed. Forgive a tear."
+
+The shower ceased; the tea was finished; the pretty waitress was
+coyly singeing her modesty in the attractive candle of Mr. Franklyn's
+suggestions. George left them at the game; strolled aimlessly towards
+the Marble Arch; beyond it; to the right, and so into a quiet square.
+
+Here comes my heroine.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The hansom, as George walked, was coming towards him--smartly, with
+a jingle of bells; skimming the kerb. As it reached him (recall that
+shower) the horse slipped, stumbled, came on its knees.
+
+Down came the shafts; out shot the girl.
+
+The doors were wide; the impetus took her in her stride. One tiny foot
+dabbed at the platform's edge; the other twinkled--patent leather and
+silver buckle--at the step, missed it, plunged with a giant stride for
+the pavement.
+
+"Mercy!" she cried, and came like a shower of roses swirling into
+George's arms.
+
+Completely he caught her. About his legs whipped her skirts; against him
+pressed her panting bosom; his arms--the action was instinctive--locked
+around her; the adorable perfume of her came on him like breeze from a
+violet bed; her very cheek brushed his lips--since the first kiss it was
+the nearest thing possible to a kiss.
+
+She twisted backwards. Modesty chased alarm across her face--caught,
+battled, overcame it; flamed triumphant.
+
+Fright at her accident drove her pale; shame at the manner of her
+descent--leg to the knee and an indelicacy of petticoats--agitated she
+had glimpsed it as she leapt--flushed her crimson from the line of her
+dress about her throat to the wave of her hair upon her brow.
+
+She twisted back. "Oh, what must you think of me?" she gasped.
+
+He simply could not say.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Moving Passages With A Heroine.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+George could not say.
+
+His senses were washed aswim by this torrent of beauty poured unexpected
+through eyes to brain. It surged the centres to violent commotion, one
+jostling another in a whirlpool of conflict. Out of the tumult alarm
+flashed down the wires to his heart--set it banging; flashed in wild
+message to his tongue--locked it.
+
+The driver in our brains is an intolerable fellow in sudden crisis. He
+loses his head; distracted he pulls the levers, and, behold, in a moment
+the thing is irrevocably done; we are a coward legging it down the
+street, a murderer with bloody hand, a liar with false words suddenly
+pumped.
+
+A moment later the driver is calm and aghast at the ruin he has
+contrived. Why, before God, did he pull the leg lever?--the arm
+lever?--the tongue lever? In an instant's action he has accomplished
+calamity; where sunshine laughed now darkness heaps; where the prospect
+smiled disaster now comes rolling up in thunder.
+
+These are your crises. Again, as now with George, the driver becomes
+temporarily idiot--stands us oafishly silent, or perhaps jerks out some
+stupid words; remembers when too late the quip that would have
+fetched the laugh, the thrust that would have sped the wound. He is an
+intolerable fellow.
+
+"Oh, what must you think of me?"
+
+That pause followed while the driver in George's brain stood gapingly
+inactive; and then came laughter to him like a draught of champagne. For
+the girl put up her firm, round chin and laughed with a clear pipe of
+glee--a laugh to call a laugh as surely as a lark's note will set a
+hedge in song; and it called the laugh in George.
+
+He said: "I am thinking the nicest things of you. But have you dropped
+from the skies?"
+
+"From a _cab_," she protested.
+
+She turned to the road; back to George in dismay, for the catapult, its
+bullet shot, had bolted up the street--was gone from view.
+
+"Oh!--I _was_ in a cab?" she implored.
+
+George said: "It _looked_ like a cab. But a fairy-car, I think."
+
+A pucker of her brows darkened the quick mirth that came to her eyes.
+She cried: "Oh, don't joke. She will be killed."
+
+"You were not alone?"
+
+"No--oh, no! What has happened to her?"
+
+"We had better follow."
+
+She corrected his number. "Yes, I had better. Thank you so much for your
+help." She took a step; faltered upon it with a little exclamation of
+pain; put a white tooth on her lip.
+
+"You have hurt your foot?" George said.
+
+"My ankle, I think. Oh dear!" and then again she laughed.
+
+It came even then to George that certainly she would have made her
+fortune were she to set up a gloom-exorcising bureau--waiting at the end
+of a telephone wire ready to rush with that laugh to banish the imps of
+melancholy. Never had he heard so infectious a note of mirth.
+
+"Oh, what must you think of me?" she ended. "I simply cannot help
+laughing, you know--and yet, oh dear!"
+
+She put the tips of the fingers of a hand against her lower lip, gazed
+very anxiously up the road, and then again she gave that clear pipe of
+laughter.
+
+"I can't help it," she told him imploringly. "I simply cannot help
+laughing. It is funny, you know. She was scolding me--"
+
+"_Scolding_!" George exclaimed.
+
+That beauty should be scolded!
+
+"Scolding--yes. Oh, I'm only a--well, scolding me, and I was wishing,
+_wishing_ I could escape. And then suddenly out I shot. And then I look
+around and she's--" A wave of her hand expressed a disappearance that
+was by magic agency.
+
+"But, _scolding_?" George said. "Need you trouble? She will be all
+right."
+
+"Oh, I must. I live with her."
+
+"Will she trouble about you?"
+
+"I think she will return for me. Please, _please_ go--would you
+mind?--to the corner, and see if there has been an accident."
+
+From that direction a bicyclist approached. George hailed. "Is there a
+cab accident round the corner?"
+
+The youth stared; called "Rats!"; passed.
+
+George interpreted: "It means No. Do you think if you were to take my
+arm you could walk to the turning?"
+
+Quite naturally she slipped a white glove around his elbow. The contact
+thrilled him. "No nice girl, you know, would do this," she said, "with a
+perfect stranger."
+
+George bent his arm a little, the better to feel the pressure of those
+white fingers. "I am not really perfect," he told her.
+
+She took his mood. "Nor I really nice," she joined. "In fact, I'm
+horrible--they tell me. But I think it is wise to follow, don't you?"
+
+"Profoundly wise. Who says you are horrible?"
+
+She gave no answer. Glancing, he saw trouble shade her eyes, tremble her
+lips.
+
+That beauty should know distress!
+
+Very slightly he raised his forearm so that the lock of his elbow felt
+her hand. He had no fine words. This George was no hero with exquisite
+ways. He was a most average young man, and nothing could he find but
+most painfully average words.
+
+"I say, what's up?" he asked.
+
+She spoke defiantly; but some stupid something that she hated yet could
+not repress trembled her lips, robbed her tone of its banter. "What's
+up?" she said. "Why, _you_ would say something was up if you'd just been
+shot plump out of a cab, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Yes, but you were laughing a minute ago." He looked down at her,
+but she turned her face. "Now, now, I believe--" He did not name his
+thought.
+
+She looked up. Her pretty face was red. He saw little flutters of
+eyelids, flutters round the eyes, flutters at the mouth. "Oh," she said,
+"oh, yes, and I don't know why. I'm--I believe--" She tried to laugh,
+but the little flutterings clouded the smile like soft, dark wings
+flickering upon a sunbeam.
+
+"I believe--it's ridiculous to a perfect--imperfect--stranger--I believe
+I'm nearly--crying."
+
+And this inept George could only return: "I say--oh, I say, can I help
+you?"
+
+She stopped; from his arm withdrew her hand. "Please--I think you had
+better go. Please go. Oh, I shall hate myself for behaving like this."
+
+So unhappy she was that George immediately planned her a backdoor of
+excuse. "But you have no occasion to blame yourself," he told her.
+"You've had an adventure--naturally you're shaken a bit."
+
+She was relieved to think he had misunderstood her agitation. "Yes, an
+adventure," she said, "that's it. And I haven't had an adventure for
+years, so naturally--But, please, I think you had better go. If my--my
+friend saw me with you like this she would be angry--oh, very angry."
+
+"But why? She saw you fall. She saw me save you."
+
+"You don't understand. She is not exactly my friend; she is my--my
+employer. I'm a mother's-help."
+
+The mirth that never lay deep beneath those blue eyes of hers was
+sparkling up now; the soft, dark wings were fluttering no longer.
+
+She continued: "A mother's-help. Doesn't that sound wretched? I'm
+terribly slow at learning the mother's-help rules, but I'm positive
+of this rule--mothers' helps may not shoot out of cabs and leave the
+mother; it's such little help--you must see that?"
+
+"But you will be less help still if you stay here for ever with your
+hurt ankle--you must see that? I must stay with you or see you to your
+home."
+
+When she answered, it was upon another change of mood. The soft, dark
+wings were fluttering again; and it was the banter of George's tone
+that had recalled them. For this was an adventure--and she had not known
+adventure for years; for these were flippant exchanges arising out of
+gay young hearts, and they recalled memories of days when such harmless
+bantering was of her normal life; for there had been sympathy in
+George's stammering inquiries, and it recalled the time when she lived
+amidst sympathy and amidst love.
+
+The soft, dark wings fluttered again: "I am very grateful to you for
+helping me," she told him. "You must not think me ungrateful; only, I
+think you had better go. In my position I am not free to--to do as I
+like, talk where I will. You understand?" Her voice trembled a little,
+and she repeated: "You understand?"
+
+George said, "I understand."
+
+
+
+II.
+
+And that was all that passed upon this meeting. A cab swung round the
+opposite corner; pulled up with a rattle; turned towards them; was
+alongside. Within, a brow of thunder sat.
+
+The cabman called, "I knowed you was all right, miss," raised the trap,
+and cheerfully repeated the information to his fare: "I knowed she was
+all right, mum."
+
+The mum addressed gave no congratulation to his prescience. He shut the
+lid; winked at George; behind his hand communicated, "Not 'arf angry,
+she ain't."
+
+The girl ran forward; agitation bound up her hurt ankle. "Oh!" she
+cried, "I am so glad you are safe!"
+
+The thunder-figure addressed said: "Please get in. I have had a severe
+shock."
+
+"This gentleman--" The girl half turned to George.
+
+"Please get in--instantly."
+
+Scarlet the girl went. "Thank you very much," she said to George;
+climbed in beside the cloud of wrath.
+
+Her companion slammed the door; dabbed at George a bow that was like a
+sharp poke with a stick; called, "Drive on."
+
+George stepped into the road, held half a crown to the driver: "The
+address?"
+
+The man stooped. With a tremendous wink answered, "Fourteen Palace
+Gardens, St. John's Wood."
+
+Away with a jingle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Astonishing After-Effects Of A Heroine.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+George did not return to St. Peter's that afternoon; watched the cab
+from view; walked back to Waterloo; thence took train to Paltley Hill
+with mind awhirl.
+
+Recovering from stunning shock the mind first sees a blur of
+events--formless, seething, inextricably tangled. Deep in this boiling
+chaos is one fact struggling more powerfully than the rest to cool and
+so to shape itself. It kicks a leg free here, there an arm, then another
+leg. Its exertions cause the whole more furiously to agitate--the brain
+is afire. Very suddenly this struggling fact jumps free. Laid hold of it
+is a cold spoon which, plunged back into the seething cauldron, arrests
+the turmoil of its contents.
+
+Or again, recovering from sudden shock the mind first sees a great
+whirling, blinding cloud of dust which hides and wreathes about the
+sudden topple of masonry that has provoked it. Here the slowly emerging
+fact may be likened to a clear gangway through the ruin up which the
+fevered owner may walk to investigate the catastrophe's cause and
+extent.
+
+So now with George. If not dazed by stunning shock, he was at least
+awhirl by set back of the swift sequence of events which suddenly
+had buffeted him; and it was not until strolling up from Paltley Hill
+railway station to Herons' Holt that one cooling fact emerged from which
+he might make an ordered examination of what had passed.
+
+The address that the cabman had given him was this fact--14 Palace
+Gardens, St. John's Wood. Here was the gangway through the pile of
+disorder, and here George resolutely made a start of examining events in
+place of wildly beating about through the dust of aimless conjectures.
+
+He visualised this Palace Gardens residence. A gloomy house, he
+suspected,--prison-like; its inhabitants warders, the girl their
+captive. A beautiful picture was thus presented to this ridiculous
+young man. For if the girl were indeed captive, warder-surrounded, how
+gratefully her heart must press towards him who was no turnkey! The more
+irksomely her captors held her, the more warmly would she remember him.
+Subconsciously he hoped for a rattle of chains, a scourging with whips.
+Every bond, every stroke would speed her spirit to the recollection of
+their meeting.
+
+But this delectable picture soon faded. Love--and this ridiculous George
+vowed he was in love--love is a mental see-saw. The nicely-balanced
+mind is set suddenly oscillating: now up, commandingly above the world,
+intoxicated with the rush and the elevation; now down to depths made
+horribly deep by contrast, wretchedly jarred by the bump.
+
+A new thought impelled a downward jolt of this kind. Failing a gloomy
+14 Palace Gardens, supposing the girl to be happily situated, it was
+horribly improbable that she would give him a moment's thought. This was
+a most chilling idea. Shivering beneath the douche, George's mind ran
+back along the episode of their meeting to discover arguments that would
+build up the chains and the whips.
+
+Memories banked high on either side. In search of his desire George
+gathered them haphazard, closely examined each.
+
+It was an unsatisfactory business. Here was a memory. She had said
+so-and-so. Yes; but, damn it, that might mean anything. He flung it
+down; took another. She had said so-and-so. Yes; but, damn it, that
+might have meant nothing.
+
+This was very disturbing. He must systematically go through the whole
+pile of memories--upon an ordered plan reconstruct each step of the
+episode.
+
+At first attempt it was a wretched business. Never was builder set to
+work with bricks so impossible as the bricks of conversation with which
+this reconstruction must be done. Each that the girl had supplied
+might dovetail in as he would have it go; upon the other hand it fitted
+equally well when twisted into the form in which, for all he knew, she
+might have constructed it. The bricks George had himself supplied he
+found even more disconcerting--they were stupid, ugly, laughable. He
+shoved them in, and they grinned at him--mocked him. None the less
+he persevered--he must get his answer; he must see both what she had
+thought of him and if she were likely still to be thinking of him. And
+at last the whole passage was reconstructed. He examined it, and once
+more down came the see-saw with a most shattering bump: he had made
+himself an idiot, and stood champion idiot if he believed she were
+likely to remember him.
+
+With a crash George sent the whole pile flying. Let him wander blindly
+in the dust of imaginings rather than be tortured by the grim austerity
+of ordered facts. More than this, there was one most comfortable memory
+to which he desperately clung--that falter in her voice when she had
+said "You understand?" Whenever, during that evening, doubt stirred and
+bade him recognise himself for a fool, George flattened the ugly spectre
+with the arm he contrived out of this memory.
+
+It was a lusty weapon.
+
+But a fresh vexation that lies in wait for all new lovers tore him when
+he got to bed. In the darkness he set his mind solely to recalling the
+girl's face. The picture tantalisingly eluded him. Generalities he could
+recall. She was fair, very, very fair; her hair was shining golden; but
+how was it arranged? In desperation he squirmed off to her eyes--blue;
+no, grey; no, blue. Damn it, he would forget whether she were black or
+white in a minute. Her chin? Ah, he had that!--white and firm and round.
+And her nose?--small, and a trifle tip-tilted. And her mouth?--her
+mouth, oh, heaven, he could not fix her mouth! The distracted young man
+tossed upon his pillow and went elsewhere. Distinctly he could remember
+her little feet with those silver buckles, quite different from any
+other feet. And she held herself slim and supple. Held herself? Why,
+good heavens! she was tall, and he had been thinking of her as short!
+This was appalling! He might meet her and pass her by. He might ... he
+rushed into troubled slumber.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The night gave him little rest. Whilst his body lay heavy, his brain,
+feverishly active, chased through the hours glimpses of the queen of
+his adventure. By early morning he was prodded into consciousness, and
+awaked to find himself instantly confronted with a terrible affair. Into
+his life, so he assured himself, had come a serious interest such as
+that which the Dean had hoped for him.
+
+Here, lying abed with fresh morning smiling in through the open window,
+for the first time he looked forward, following the face he had pursued
+through his dreams, into the future. Its chambers he found ghastly
+barren. He visualised it as a vast unfurnished house. To the merry eye
+with which two days ago he had looked upon the world, the picture,
+had he then conjured it, would have given him no gloom. He would have
+thought it a fine thing, this empty house that was his own--empty, but
+representing freedom.
+
+The matter was different now. Into this empty house had danced the girl.
+Her gay presence discovered its barrenness. There was not a chair on
+which she could sit, not a dish in the larder.
+
+George recalled that tight little practice at Runnygate that might be
+had for 400 pounds; went down to breakfast rehearsing a scene with his
+uncle; was moody through the meal.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+The breakfast dragged past its close. Mr. Marrapit spoke. "The moments
+fly," he observed.
+
+Margaret said earnestly: "Oh, yes, father."
+
+"I was addressing George."
+
+"Ur!" said George, suddenly aroused.
+
+Mr. Marrapit looked at his watch; repeated his observation.
+
+George read his meaning. "I thought of going up by the later train
+to-day," he explained.
+
+"A dangerous thought. Crush it." Mr. Marrapit continued: "Margaret, Mrs.
+Major, I observe you have concluded"; and when the two had withdrawn
+addressed himself again to George: "A dangerous thought. You recall our
+conversation of the day before yesterday?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Yet by later trains, by idleness, you deliberately imperil your
+future?"
+
+George did not answer the question. This was the very opportunity for
+which he had wished. "I would like to talk about my future," he said.
+
+"I dare not dwell upon it," replied Mr. Marrapit.
+
+"I have to. I shall pass all right this time. I want to know--the fact
+is, sir, I know I have slacked in the past; I am a man now, and I--I
+regret it. I fully realise my responsibilities. You may rely that I
+shall make a certainty of the October examination."
+
+"Commendable," Mr. Marrapit criticised.
+
+"I want to know what help I may expect when I qualify."
+
+"I cannot tell you." Mr. Marrapit threw martyrdom into his tone. "I
+am so little," he said, "in your confidence. Your expectations when
+qualified may be enormous. I am not favoured with them." He sighed.
+
+George said: "I mean what help I may expect from you."
+
+The piece of toast rising to Mr. Marrapit's mouth slowly returned
+towards his plate: "Reiterate that. From _me_?"
+
+"From you," said George.
+
+The toast dropped from trembling fingers. "_I_?" Mr. Marrapit dragged
+the word to tremendous length. "I? Is it conceivable that you expect
+money from me?"
+
+"I only ask."
+
+"I only shudder. Might I inquire the amount?"
+
+"The Dean told me of a practice I could have for 400 pounds."
+
+"Tea!" exclaimed Mr. Marrapit on a gasp. "I must steady myself! Tea!" He
+paused; gulped a cup; with alarmed eyes stared at George.
+
+The affair was going no better than George had expected. He remembered
+the face that was dear to him; nerved himself to continue. "I would pay
+it back," he said. "Will you lend me the 400 pounds?"
+
+"I must have air!" Mr. Marrapit staggered to the window. "I reel before
+this sudden assault. For nine years at ruinous cost I have supported
+you. Must I sell my house? Am I never to be free? Must I totter always
+through life with you upon my bowed back? I am Sinbad."
+
+"There's no need to exaggerate or make a scene."
+
+"Did I impel the scene?"
+
+"I only asked you a question," George reminded.
+
+"You have aroused a spectre," Mr. Marrapit answered.
+
+"Well, I may understand that I need expect nothing?"
+
+"I dare not answer you. I am shaken. I tremble."
+
+George rose. Though what hope he had possessed was driven by his uncle's
+attitude, he was as yet only upon the threshold of his love. Hence the
+refusal of what he suddenly desired for that love's sake was not so
+bitter an affair as afterwards it came to be. "This is ridiculous," he
+said; moved to the door.
+
+"To me a tragedy," Mr. Marrapit declaimed from the window, "old as
+mankind; not therefore less bitter--the tragedy of ingratitude. At
+stupendous cost I have supported, educated, clothed you. You turn
+upon me for more. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a
+thankless child! I am Lear."
+
+George tried a thrust: "I always understood my mother left you ample for
+me."
+
+"Adjust that impression. She left me less than a sufficiency--nothing
+approaching amplitude. To the best of my ability I have fulfilled
+my task. It has been hard. I do not complain. I do not ask you for
+repayment of any excess that may have been incurred. But I am embittered
+by yet further demands. I have been too liberal. Had I meted out strict
+justice as I have striven to mete out kindness, my grey hairs would not
+be speeding in poverty to the grave. I am Wolsey."
+
+Upon Wolsey George slammed the door; started for the station.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+Palace Gardens, St. John's Wood, was his aim. There could be no work,
+nor even thought of work, until again he had met his lady. Yet how to
+meet her cost him another of the wrestles with conjecture that had been
+his lot since the cab carried her away.
+
+At first it was easy work. He would call, he decided, with polite
+inquiries; and as he pictured the scene his spirits rose. The
+thunder-figure that had poked a bow at him from the cab would come
+dragonish into the drawing-room where he waited. Her he would charm with
+the suavity of his manners; she would doff the dragon's skin; would
+say (he had read the scene in novels), "You would like to see Miss
+So-and-so?"
+
+The girl would come in ....
+
+With her appearance in his thoughts George's mind swung from coherent
+reasoning into a delectable phantasy ....
+
+A sudden thought swept the filmy clouds-landed him with a bump upon hard
+rock. He was not supposed to know their address. How, to the dragon,
+could he explain the venal trick by which he had acquired it? Now he
+beheld a new picture. Himself in the drawing-room; to him the dragon;
+her first words, "How did you know where we lived?"; his miserable
+answer.
+
+This was very unpleasant. As a red omnibus took him on towards St.
+John's Wood he decided that the meeting must be otherwise effected. The
+girl must sometimes go out. She had called herself a mother's-help; it
+suggested children; and, if children, doubtless her task to take them
+walking. Well, he would take up a post near to the house, and wait--just
+wait.
+
+And then there came a final thought that struck him cold and staring.
+What if she did not live at the house?--was merely about to visit there
+when the accident befell the cab?
+
+It was a sorely agitated young man that stepped off the 'bus and struck
+up Palace Gardens.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+Of his Mary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Excursions In The Memory Of A Heroine.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+AS that cab swung round the corner bearing away the nameless haunter of
+George's dreams, she to the red wrath beside her turned, and, "Oh, Mrs.
+Chater," she said, "I hope you are not hurt!"
+
+By a mercy Mrs. Chater was not hurt. By a special intervention of
+Providence she had escaped a fearful death. Whether she would ever
+recover from the shock was another matter. Whether the shock would prove
+to be that sudden strain on her heart which she had been warned would
+end fatally, might at any moment be proved. Much anybody, except her
+darling children, would care if she were brought home dead in this very
+cab. Never had she known a heart to act as hers was acting now--thumping
+as if it would burst, first quickly then slowly. Perhaps Miss Humfray
+would feel it, and give her opinion.
+
+Where the girl now laid her small hand five infant Chaters had been
+nourished; the massive bosom was advertisement that they had done
+well. Beneath the mingled gusts of hysteria and of wrath it violently
+contracted and dilated; but the heart, terrificly though Mrs. Chater
+said it throbbed, lay too deep to be discerned.
+
+The agitated woman panted, "Can it go on like that?"
+
+"I'm afraid I hardly--" Miss Humfray shifted her hand.
+
+"_Stupid!_ Take off your glove!"
+
+The white kid clung to the warm flesh. Nervous and clumsy the girl
+struggled with it.
+
+"Miss _Humfray!_ How slow you are! _Pull_ it!"
+
+Mrs. Chater grabbed the turned-back wrist. A crack answered the jerk,
+and the glove split away in her hand. "_There!_ Not my fault. Next time,
+perhaps, you will buy gloves sufficiently large. Oh, my poor heart! Now,
+feel. _Press!_"
+
+The girl bit her lip. Humiliation lumped in her throat. She pressed, as
+bid, into that heaving blouse; said she could feel it. It was not very
+violent, she thought. Perhaps if Mrs. Chater lay back and closed her
+eyes--
+
+"_I_ was not able to jump out, you see," said Mrs. Chater, sinking.
+
+"Oh, you don't think I _jumped_ out--and left you? I _wouldn't_.
+Besides, it is the most dangerous thing to do. That would have prevented
+me in any case. I was thrown. I thought I was going to be killed."
+
+"You were with a young man."
+
+"He caught me."
+
+The words came faintly. Nearly the girl was crying. That lump in her
+throat seemed to be squeezing tears from her eyes--silly tears. She
+did not want Mrs. Chater's sympathy, yet could not but reflect what
+disregard for her the utter absence of inquiry showed. Bitter thoughts
+yet more dangerously squeezed the tears. She was a paid _thing_, that
+was all--not even a servant. Mrs. Chater was on kindly terms with her
+servants--had experienced the servant problem and craftily evaded it by
+the familiarity that was too useful to produce contempt--knew her maids'
+young men, entered into their quarrels with their young men, read their
+young men's letters.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Gazing through the cab window, pressed into her corner, the girl felt
+herself friendless, outcast, alone. Again she told herself that she did
+not want Mrs. Chater's sympathy; yet it was the studied withholding of
+it--studied or callous because so natural, the merest conventionalism,
+to have asked, "Were you hurt?"--that made her acutely feel her
+position.
+
+A paradox, she thought, not to want a thing and yet to be wounded
+because it was not hers. A ridiculous paradox--and brightly she tried to
+smile at the silliness of it; blinking the tears that were swelling now,
+her face turned against the window towards the pavement.
+
+A tall, slim girl was passing, holding the arm of a nice-looking little
+old man with a grey moustache and military air. The tall, slim girl
+was laughing down at him, and he looked to be chuckling merrily, just
+as--Her mind swung off, and the tears must be blinked again.
+
+They reminded her, those two, of herself and her father. Such familiar
+friends as they looked so she had been with Dad who idolised her
+and whom she had idolised. Just like that--arm in arm, joking,
+"ragging"--she used to walk with him round about the home in
+Ireland--the world to one another and none else in the world, except the
+mother who was so intimately and inseparably of them that years past her
+death they still spoke of her as if she were alive.
+
+Thus, long after her death, it would be: "Dad, we can't go home by the
+hill; mother never lets Grizzle do that climb after a long day." And:
+"Mary, your mother won't like you being so late; we must turn back."
+And: "Mary, there's the pig by mother's almond tree; run and shoo him."
+
+Partly this refusal to recognise that, though dead, Mother was actually
+gone from them, no longer was sharing their little jokes and duties, was
+because death came with such steady, appreciable, unfrightening steps.
+First the riding stopped, and then the walks made shorter and shorter;
+then the strolls in the garden stopped, and then carrying the couch out
+under the trees--and none of them very fearful, because prepared: it was
+to be--almost the very day could have been named. Thus, when it came,
+though the blow swooped heavy, terrific, she never seemed actually to
+have left them.
+
+"Well, now, dear dears," she had said with a little smile and a little
+sigh, "we have been happy ... only a little way away...."
+
+But with Dad it was different. Somehow, looking back on it, one had
+supposed that nothing would ever touch the cheery little man; that
+she and he would go on and on and on--well, till they grew very old
+together.
+
+Nothing could ever touch him....
+
+"What a wicked beauty, eh, Mary?" he had said when the man brought round
+the half-broken filly that its owner "funked."
+
+And she had laughed and said: "Yes, an angel in a temper--what a run you
+will have, Dad!" and had waved from the gate as the angel in a temper
+curveted away around the corner.
+
+Nothing could ever touch him....
+
+And then the man on a bicycle--with a dent in his hat, she noticed.
+
+"If you can come quickly, missy. Top of the Three Finger field he lays."
+
+Bare-backed she had galloped Grizzle there, and as she sped could not
+for the life of her think of aught else than the dent in the man's hat;
+rode up Three Finger Lane wondering how it came there; approached the
+little group wondering why he did not push it out.
+
+Just as she galloped up they took off their hats. Someone who had been
+on his knees stood upright--she saw the stain of wet earth where he had
+been kneeling; forgot the dented hat; wondered if he knew of the Marvel
+Cleaning Pad that had done so wonderfully with Dad's breeches when he
+took a toss last Friday.
+
+Dad...! Of course...! It was to see Dad that she was here.
+
+Somebody tried to dissuade her ... better wait till they brought him
+home ... could do no good--now.
+
+"Why? Why not see him? Let me pass, Mr. Saunders."
+
+Well, the filly lay across him ... he had begged them not to move her
+because of the pain.... Better come away.
+
+She pushed through them.... Yes, better perhaps not to have seen ... all
+crumpled up....
+
+Recollecting, she could feel distinctly in her knees the creepy damp as
+the moisture of the marshy ground penetrated her skirts, bending over
+the twisted face.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Thereafter a blank of days in which events must have occurred but
+to which memory brought no lamp until the faint crunch as the coffin
+touched the earth seven feet down....
+
+Multitudinous papers after that. Wearying, sickening masses of
+documents; interminable writing of signature; interminable making of
+lists. And then the word LOT. "Lot I," "Lot 2," "Lot 50," "Lot 200"--a
+hammerlike word to thump the brain at night, frightening sleep,
+producing grotesque nightmares, as "Lot 12, a polished oak coffin,
+finished plain, brass Handles."
+
+No! No! That was not to be sold!--leaden hands holding her down;
+stifling hands at her mouth to stay her shouting "Stop!"
+
+Then sudden consciousness--only a dream! Bolt upright in bed staring
+into the darkness. A dream? How much of it a dream? Was it all a dream?
+The fevered brain would fetch her from her bed, groping to Dad's
+room, striking a match--no familiar form upon the bed; a big white
+ticket--"Lot 56."
+
+Back to the hot, crumpled couch, there, tossing, to lie attempting a
+grasp, a realisation of what it all meant....
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+A dark little office in Dublin.... So much the "Lots" had fetched, so
+much the balance at the bank; no investments, it was to be feared; no
+insurance, my dear Miss Humfray; so much the bills and other claims on
+the estate.... "Don't wish to be bothered with figures? Of course not,
+my dear.... And then we come to the balance--I'm afraid a few pounds,
+practically nothing...."
+
+
+
+V.
+
+On the steamer bound for Holyhead.... During the crossing the stifling
+weight that had benumbed her intellect ever since the man with the dent
+in his hat came riding up the drive seemed suddenly to lift. Whipped
+away perhaps by the edged wind that rushed past her from England to
+Ireland sinking in the sea--a wind to cut you to the bone; discovering
+sensation in every marrow; stinging her to clear thought.... That
+idyllic life with Mother and Dad--the world to one another and none else
+in the world beside--had been rather the creation of circumstance than
+of design. Dad's people were furious when he married Mother; in defiance
+of hers, Mother married Dad. Relations on either side had shrieked their
+disapproval of the match, then left the couple to their own adventures.
+A thing to laugh at in those days, but bringing now to the child that
+was left the realisation of not a support in the world.
+
+Her mother's sisters had written after the funeral inviting her to come
+to them in England "while she looked about her." She could recall every
+sentence of that letter. It had burned. Each word, each comma was fresh
+before her eyes as the cab jolted on to Palace Gardens.
+
+"It would have been our pleasure constantly to have entertained you
+during your mother's life-time," they had written, "but she wilfully
+flouted our desires at her marriage and thereafter utterly ignored us.
+The fault for the rift between us was of her making, not ours; we sent
+her an Easter card one year, and had no reply; though we have no
+doubt that your father, not that we would say a word against him now,
+influenced her against her better judgment. However...."
+
+She had written back a hysterical letter.
+
+"Your letter came just after I had returned from burying my dear, dear
+father, who worshipped my darling mother. If I were begging in the
+street, starving, dying, I would not touch a crumb or a penny of
+yours. You are wicked--yes, you are wicked to write to me as you have
+written...."
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+She could not stay in Ireland. Her only friends there lived about the
+dear home that was now no longer a home but a "desirable residence with
+some acres of garden and paddock." Her only friends there were friends
+who had been shared with Mother and Dad--whose presence now would be
+constant reminder of that happy participation now lost. One and all
+offered her hospitality, but she must refuse. "No, no silly idea of
+being a burden to you, dear, dear Mrs. Sullivan--only I can't, can't
+live anywhere near where we used to live."
+
+Years before a great friend of hers had married an English clergyman;
+had written often to her from London of the numerous activities in which
+she was engaged--principal among them a kind of agency and home for
+gentlewomen. "Governesses, dear, and all that kind of thing ... poor
+girls, many of them, who have suddenly had to earn a living."
+
+The correspondence had died, as do so many, from the effects of undue
+urgency at the outset; but she had the address, and was certain there of
+welcome and of aid. "Poor girls who have suddenly had to earn a living."
+The words took on a new meaning: she was of these.
+
+From Euston she drove to the address. Her friend had gone. Yes, the
+present occupant remembered the name. The present occupant had been
+there two years; had taken over the lease from the former tenant because
+the lady was ill and had been ordered abroad. That was all the present
+occupant knew; saw her to the door; closed it behind her.
+
+Alone in London. "Alone in London"--it had been one of Dad's jokes; he
+had written a burlesque on it, and they had played it one Christmas
+to roars of fun. O God! what a thing at which to laugh now that the
+realisation struck and one stood on the pavement in the dark with this
+great city roaring at one!
+
+Cabmen, she had heard, were brutes; but the man who had brought her
+to the house must be appealed to.... Where could she get the cheapest
+lodging of some kind?
+
+How did he know? What was she wanting to pay? ...
+
+The great city roared at her. Her head swum a little. An idler or two
+took up a grinning stand: the thing looked like a cab-fare dispute....
+What was she wanting to pay? ... Well, as little as possible. "I have
+never been in London before, and I don't know anybody. My friend here
+has gone. I have just arrived from Ireland." She began to cry.
+
+He from his box in a moment. "From Ireland!"
+
+Why, he was from Ireland! ... Not likely she was from Connemara? ... She
+was? ... From Kinsloe? ... Why, he knew it well; he was from Ballydag!
+
+He rolled his tongue around other names of the district; she knew them
+all; could almost have laughed at the silly fellow's delight.
+
+Why, the honour it would be if she would come and let his missus make
+her up a bed! "Don't ye cry, missie. Don't ye take on like that. It's
+all right ye are now." He put a huge, roughly great-coated arm about
+her--squeezed her, she believed; helped her into the cab.
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+Missus in the clean little rooms over the rattling mews was no less
+delighted. From Kinsloe? Why, missie saw that canary?--that was a
+present from Betty Murphy in Kinsloe, not three months before!
+
+The canary, aroused by the attention paid it, trilled upward in a
+mounting ecstasy of shrillness that went up and up and up through her
+head ... louder and louder ... shriller and yet more shrill ... bird and
+cage became misty, swum around her.... Missus and Tim must have carried
+her to the bed in which she awoke.
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+Friends in Ireland had given her the addresses of friends in London
+on whom she must call. She visited some houses; then in a sudden wild
+despair tore the list. Either these people were dense of comprehension
+or she clumsy of explanation. To make them realise her position she
+found impossible. They were warmly kind, sympathetic--cheery in that
+lugubrious fashion in which we are taught to be "bright" with the
+afflicted. But when she spoke of the necessity to find employment they
+would warmly cry, "Oh, but you must not think of that yet, Miss Humfray
+... after all you have been through.... You must keep quiet for a
+little."
+
+One and all gave her the same words. An impulse took her to kick over
+the tea-table--anything to arouse these people from their stereotyped
+mood of sympathy with a girl suddenly bereaved,--and to cry, "But don't
+you _understand_? I am living over a mews--over a _mews_ with twelve
+pounds and a few shillings, and then _nothing_--nothing at all."
+
+Wise, perhaps, had she indulged the outburst without the action; wiser
+had she written to some of the friends in Ireland, asked to go back to
+one of them for a while. But the dull grief beneath which she still lay
+benumbed prevented her from other course than tonelessly accepting
+the proffered sympathy; and the thought of returning to Ireland was
+impossible. She tore the list of London friends; appealed to Tim and
+Missus.
+
+Tim was helpful. He had taken fares to an Agency in Norfolk Street--an
+Agency for "Disturbed Gentlewomen," he called it; there took her one
+morning.
+
+"Distressed Gentlewomen," she found the brass plate to read--"The
+Norfolk Street Agency for Distressed Gentlewomen."
+
+A lymphatic-looking young woman, assisting the growth of a singularly
+stout face by sucking a sweet, and wearing brown holland sleeve
+protectors hooked up with enormous safety-pins, received her in the room
+marked "Enquiries"; put her into that labelled "Waiting." Here were two
+copies of the _Christian Herald_, some emigration pamphlets, a carafe
+of water covered by an inverted tumbler dusty with disuse, and three
+elderly females--presumably gentlewomen, possibly distressed, but not
+advertising either condition.
+
+In due time her turn for the room marked "Private"; interrogation by
+Miss Ram, a short, thin lady in black, who bowed more frequently than
+she spoke, possessing a range of inclinations of the head each of which
+had unmistakable meaning.
+
+Position sought?--Oh, anything; governess, companion. Last
+situation?--None; she was inexperienced. Capabilities?--Equally lacking,
+as discovered by a probing cross-examination. Salary required?--Oh,
+anything; whatever was usual; a _home_--that was the chief object in
+view.
+
+Miss Ram entered the details in a severe-looking book with a long
+thin pen--could hold out but faint hopes. The applicants whom she was
+accustomed to suit were "in nine and ninety cases out of one hundred
+cases" accomplished in the domestic or scholastic arts. However. Yes,
+Miss Humfray should call every morning. Better still, stay in the
+waiting-room. Be On the Spot--that was the first requisite for success,
+as Miss Humfray would find whether in a situation or awaiting a
+situation; be On the Spot.
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+On the Spot. A nightmare week in the dingy waiting-room ... thoughts
+probing the mind, stabbing the heart.... Nine till one, a cup of tea
+and a roll at an A.B.C. shop, an aimless walk in the park; two till six,
+good-night to the stout young woman named Miss Porter in "Enquiries,"
+home to the rattling mews and to Missus.
+
+On the Spot. Occasional interviews. "Miss Humfray, a lady will see you."
+... "Oh, too young--far too young." ... "Thank you, that will do, Miss
+Humfray." ... "Oh, not my style at all." ... "Thank you, that will do,
+Miss Humfray."
+
+On the Spot. Fortunately On the Spot one day--a Mrs. Eyton-Eyton, as
+nursery governess, Streatham.
+
+For a week very much On the Spot with Mrs. Eyton-Eyton. Nursery
+governess was a comprehensive word in the Eyton-Eyton vocabulary;
+covered every duty that in a nursery must be performed. One must do
+the nursery fire, sweep the nursery floor, bring up and carry down the
+nursery meals--servants, you see, object to waiting upon one whom, as
+Mrs. Eyton-Eyton with a careless laugh pointed out, they regard as one
+of themselves. Quickly the lesson was appreciated that while a servant
+must never be "put upon," the same consideration need not be extended to
+a lady. Servants are rare in the market, young ladies cheap.
+
+
+
+X.
+
+The lesson of dependence, subserviency, Mary found harder in the
+learning; did not study it; therein reaped disaster.
+
+She arrived on a Tuesday. Upon that day of the following week Mrs.
+Eyton-Eyton paid to the nursery one of her rare visits, beautifully
+gowned, the hired victoria waiting to take her a round of calls.
+
+Lunch, delayed not to disturb the midday sleep of Masters Thomas and
+Richard Eyton-Eyton, was not cleared--Master Thomas still struggling
+with a plate of sago pudding.
+
+Betwixt her children Mrs. Eyton-Eyton--beautifully gowned, hired
+victoria in waiting--took her seat; Mary hovered behind--and catastrophe
+swooped. Master Thomas grabbed for a glass of milk; Mary strove to
+restrain him. There was an awkward struggle, her elbow--or his--caught
+the plate of pudding, tipped the sticky mass into the silken lap of Mrs.
+Eyton-Eyton, beautifully gowned, hired victoria in waiting.
+
+Infuriated, Mrs. Eyton-Eyton turned upon Mary. "Oh, you little fool!"
+
+The rebuke that should have been taken with downcast eyes, murmured
+apologies, was otherwise received.
+
+"Mrs. Eyton! How dare you call me a fool!"
+
+Pause of blank amazement; sago-messed table-napkin in the scented hand;
+sago creeping down the silken skirt. That a nursery governess--not even
+a servant--should so presume!
+
+"Miss Humfray! You forget yourself!"
+
+"No!-No! It is you who forget yourself. How dare you speak to me like
+that!"
+
+Another moment of utter bewilderment; small Eyton-Eytons gazing
+round-eyed; the girl white, heaving; the woman dully red. Then "Pack
+your boxes, Miss!"
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+She was upon the platform at Victoria Station, a porter asking commands
+for her box, before she realised what she had done. A few pounds in her
+purse, and infinitely worse off now than a week before. Then she had no
+"character"; now employment was to be sought with Mrs. Eyton-Eyton as
+her "last place." She would not go back to Missus and Tim. Though they
+had tried to conceal it, secretly, she had seen, they were relieved
+when she left. They had not accommodation for her; latterly she had
+dispossessed of his bed a sailor son on leave from his ship.
+
+She left her box in the cloak-room; turned down Wilton Road from the
+station; penetrated the narrow thoroughfares between Lupus Street and
+the river; secured a bedroom with Mrs. Japes at six shillings a week.
+
+Miss Ram at the Agency would have no more to do with her; had received a
+furious letter from Mrs. Eyton-Eyton; showed in the ledger a cruel line
+of red ink ruled through the page that began "Name: Mary Humfray," and
+ended "Salary:--"
+
+"But I don't know a soul in London."
+
+"You had a very comfortable place. You threw it away. I have a
+reputation for reliable employees which I cannot afford to risk."
+
+A bow closed the interview.
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+It was her landlady's husband, an unshaven, shifty-looking horror, who
+dealt her, as it seemed to her then, the last furious blow.
+
+Returning one evening after an aimless search for employment in shops
+that had earned her rude laughter for her utter inexperience and her
+presumption in supposing her services could be of any value, she found
+Mrs. Japes in convulsive tears, speechless.
+
+What was the matter? Hysterical jerks of the head towards the stairs. Up
+to her room--the cause clear in her rifled box, its contents scattered
+across the floor, the little case in which with her pictures of Mother
+and Dad she kept her money gone.
+
+A little raid by Mr. Japes, it appeared, in which Mrs. Japes's property
+had also suffered.... He had done it before ... a bad lot ... had done
+time ... the rent overdue and the brokers coming in ... she'd best go
+... of course she could tell the police.
+
+Of course she did not tell the police. The whole affair bewildered and
+frightened her.
+
+To another lodging three streets away.... Initiation by the new landlady
+into the mysteries of pawnshops; gradual thinning of wardrobe....
+Answering of advertisements found in the public library in Great Smith
+Street.... Long, feet-aching trudges to save omnibus fares.... Always
+the same outcome. ... Experience?--None. References?--None.... "Thank
+you; I'm afraid--I'm sure it's all right, but one has to be so careful
+nowadays. Good morning." ... Always the same outcome.... The idea of
+writing to Ireland was hardly conceived. ... That life, those friends,
+seemed of a period that was dead, done, gone--ages and ages ago....
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+Again it was a man who dealt the deeper blow--a gentlemanly-looking
+person of whom in Wilton Road one evening she asked the way to an
+address copied from the _Daily Telegraph_. Why, by an extraordinary
+coincidence he was going that way himself, to that very house!--flat,
+rather. Yes, it was his mother who was advertising for a lady-help.
+Might he show her the way? ... It would be very kind of him.
+
+Through a maze of streets, he chatting pleasantly enough, though putting
+now and then curious little questions which she could not understand....
+Hadn't he seen her at the Oxford one night? ... Assuredly he had not;
+what was the Oxford?
+
+He laughed, evidently pleased. "Gad, you do keep it up!" he cried.
+
+So to a great pile of flats; up a circular stair.
+
+"You understand why I can't use the lift?" he said. "They're beastly
+particular here."
+
+She did not understand; supposed it was some question of expense. Thus
+to a door where he took out a latch-key.
+
+It was then for the first moment that a sudden doubt, a horror, took
+her, trembling her limbs.
+
+She looked up at the figures painted over the door.
+
+"Why, it is the wrong number!" she cried.
+
+He had turned the key. "Lord! you do keep it up!" he laughed, his hand
+suddenly about her arm.
+
+Then she knew, and dragged back, sweating with the horror of the thing.
+
+"Ah, let me go--let me go!"
+
+"Oh, chuck it, you little ass!" His arm was about her waist now,
+dragging her; his face close.
+
+With a sudden twist and thrust that took him by surprise she wrenched
+from his grasp; was a flight of stairs away before he had recovered his
+wits; across the hall and running--shaking, hysterical--down the street.
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+Thereafter men were a constant horror to her--adding a new and most
+savage beast to the wolves of noise, of desolation and of despair that
+bayed about her in this grinding city. Unable longer to face them, she
+went again to Miss Ram at the Agency--almost upon her knees, crying,
+trembling, pitching her tale from the man with the dent in his hat to
+the man in Wilton Road.
+
+Miss Ram was moved to the original depths that lay beneath her grim
+exterior; had never realised the actual circumstances; would do what she
+could; no need to be frightened.
+
+Two days later Mary was unpacking her box at 14 Palace Gardens. No
+sharpness, no slight now could prick her spirit; she had learned too
+well; she would not face those streets again.
+
+That was eighteen months, close upon two years ago. Wounds were
+healing now; old-time brightness was coming back to laugh at present
+discomforts. It was only now and again--as now--that she, driven by some
+sudden stress, allowed her mind backwards to wander--bruising itself in
+those dark passages.
+
+The cab stopped. She with a start came to the present; gulped a sob; was
+herself.
+
+Mrs. Chater said: "Run in quickly and mix me a brandy-and-soda."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Excursions In Vulgarity.
+
+
+A violent dispute with the cabman set that disturbed heart yet more
+wildly thumping in Mrs. Chater's bosom; the sight of her husband
+uneasily mooning in the dining-room heated her wrath to wilder
+bubblings.
+
+Mr. Chater--a 'oly dam' terror in Mincing Lane, if his office-boy may be
+quoted--was an astonishingly mild man in his own house.
+
+He said brightly, noting with a shiver the gusty stress of his wife's
+deportment: "You _drove_ up, my dear?--And quite right, too," he hastily
+added, upon a sudden fear that his remark might be interpreted as
+reproach.
+
+"How do you know?" Mrs. Chater's nose went into the brandy-and-soda.
+
+"I saw you from the window," her husband beamed. He repeated, "The
+window," and nervously pointed at it. There was a strained atmosphere in
+the room, and he was a little frightened.
+
+"_Oh!_" Out from the brandy-and-soda came the nose; down went the glass
+with an emphasising bang: "_Oh!_"
+
+Mr. Chater gave a startled little jump. He saw, immediately he had
+spoken, the misfortune into which his admission had plunged him; the
+bang of the glass twanged his already apprehensive nerves, and he jerked
+out, "Certainly, my dear," without any clear grasp as to what he was
+affirming.
+
+"If you had been a _man_," said Mrs. Chater, speaking with a slow and
+extraordinary bitterness--"if you had been a _man_, you would have come
+out and helped me."
+
+"But you had got out when I came to the window, my dear."
+
+"With the _cabman_, I mean." Mrs. Chater fired the word with alarming
+ferocity. "With the _cabman_. Did you not see that violent brute
+insulting me?"
+
+It was precisely because he had observed the episode that Mr. Chater had
+kept well behind the curtain; but he did not adduce the fact.
+
+"I certainly did not," he affirmed.
+
+"Ah! I expect you took precious good care not to. You've done the same
+thing before. Never to my dying day shall I forget the figure you cut
+outside Swan and Edgar's last Christmas. Making me--"
+
+Mr. Chater implored: "Oh, my dear, don't drag that up again!"
+
+"But I _do_ drag it up!" Mrs. Chater a little unnecessarily cried. "I
+_do_ drag it up, and I shall always drag it up--making me a fool as you
+did! I was ashamed of you. I was--"
+
+Mr. Chater nervously wiped his moist palms with his pocket handkerchief:
+"I've told you over and over again, my dear, that I never understood
+the circumstances. There was a great crowd, and I was very much pushed
+about. If I had known the circumstances--"
+
+Mrs. Chater hurled back the word at him: "Circumstances!"
+
+"My dear," the agitated man replied, ticking off the points on soft
+fingers, "my dear, I had gone to the window of Swan and Edgar's, leaving
+you, as you expressly desired, to pay the man _yourself_. When I came
+_back_ to you, what I gathered was that the man was entitled to a
+further _sixpence_ and that you had no _change_."
+
+Mrs. Chater lashed herself with the recollection: "Nothing of the kind!"
+she burst. "Nothing of the kind! What did the man say to you when you
+asked what was the matter?"
+
+"I quite forget."
+
+"You do not forget."
+
+"My dear, I really and truly do forget."
+
+"For the hundredth time, then, let me tell you. He said that if you
+pushed your ugly mug into it he would knock off your blooming head."
+
+"Did he say _mug?_" asked Mr. Chater, assuming the air of one who,
+knowing this at the time, would have committed a singularly ferocious
+murder.
+
+"Well you know that he _did_ say mug--_ugly_ mug. Was _that_ a thing for
+a man of spirit to take quietly? Was _that_ a thing for a wife to
+hear bawled at her husband in the open street with the commissionaire
+grinning behind his hand? To my dying day I shall never forget my
+humiliation when you handed him sixpence."
+
+The unhappy husband murmured: "I do so wish you could, my dear."
+
+Mrs. Chater shook, handled her troops with the skill of a perfect
+tactician, and hurled in the attack upon another quarter.
+
+She said: "Ah, now insult me! Insult me before Miss Humfray! That's
+right! _That's_ right! That's what I'm accustomed to. We all have our
+cross to bear, as the vicar said last Sunday, and open insult from my
+husband is mine. I can't complain; I married you with my eyes open."
+
+Mrs. Chater revealed this secret of her girlhood in a voice which
+implied that most young women go through the ceremony with their eyes
+tightly closed, mixed a second brandy-and-soda for her shattered nerves,
+swallowed it with the air of one draining a poison flask by way of happy
+release from martyrdom, banged down the glass, and, before her amazed
+husband could open his lips, hammered in the attack from a third
+quarter.
+
+"Little you would have cared," cried she, "if a miracle had not saved my
+life this afternoon!"
+
+Mr. Chater stood aghast. "My dearest! Saved you! From what?"
+
+His dearest bitterly inquired: "What does it matter to you? You take no
+interest. If my battered corpse--" Swept to tremendous heights by
+the combined forces of her agitation, her imagination, and her two
+brandys-and-sodas, she rose, pointed though the window. "If my battered
+corpse had been carried up those steps by two policemen this very
+afternoon, what would you have done, I wonder?"
+
+Mr. Chater, apprehension creeping among the roots of his hair, affirmed
+that he would have dropped dead in the precise spot at which he happened
+to be standing at the moment.
+
+Mrs. Chater trumpeted "Never!"--dropped to her chair, and continued.
+"You would have been glad." Her voice shook. "Glad--and in all this wide
+world only my Bob and my blessed lambs in the nursery would have wept
+o'er my body."
+
+Of so melancholy a character was the picture thus presented to her mind,
+augmenting her previous agitation, that the tumult within her welled
+damply through her eyes, with noisy distress through her lips.
+
+Patting her distressed back, imploring her to calm, Mr. Chater begged
+some account of the catastrophe from which she had escaped.
+
+Between convulsive sobs she told him, he bridging the hiatuses of
+emotion with "Oh-dear-oh-dears," in which alarm and sympathy were nicely
+mingled.
+
+Painting details with a masterly hand, "And there was I alone," she
+concluded--"alone, at the mercy of a wild horse and a drunken cabman."
+
+"But Miss Humfray was with you?"
+
+"Miss Humfray managed to jump out and leave me."
+
+Through all this scene--in one form or another a matter of daily
+occurrence, and therefore not to arouse interest--Mary had stood waiting
+its cessation and her orders. Mr. Chater turned upon her. Naturally
+disposed to be kind to the girl, he yet readily saw in his wife's
+statement a way of escape from the castigation he had been enduring.
+As the small boy who has been kicked by the bully will with delighted
+relief rush to the bully's aid when the kicks are at length turned to
+another, urging him on so that he may forget his first prey, so Mr.
+Chater, delighted at his fortune, eagerly joined in turning his wife's
+wrath to Mary's head. For self-preservation, at whatever cost to
+another, is the most compelling of instincts: its power great in
+proportion as we have allowed our fleshly impulses to master us. If,
+when they prompt, we coldly and impersonally regard them, find
+them unworthy and crush them back humiliated, they become in time
+disciplined--wither and die. In proportion as we permit them, upon the
+other hand, they come in time to drive us with a fierceness that cannot
+be checked.
+
+Mr. Chater had disciplined no single impulse that came to him with his
+flesh.
+
+In pious horror he turned upon the girl.
+
+"Managed to jump out!" he exclaimed, speaking as one re-echoing a horror
+hardly to be believed.
+
+"Managed to jump out! Miss Humfray, I would not have thought it of you!"
+
+She cried: "Mr. Chater, I fell!"
+
+Disregarding, and with a deeper note of pained reproach, he continued:
+"So many ties, I should have thought, would have bound you to my wife
+in such an emergency--the length of time you have been with us;
+the unremitting kindness she has shown you, treating you as one of
+ourselves, in sickness tending you, bountifully feeding and clothing
+you, going out of her way to make you happy. Oh, Miss Humfray!"
+
+The strain on his invention paused him. Mrs. Chater, moved by this
+astonishing revelation of her love, assumed an air in keeping--an air
+of some pain but no surprise at such ingratitude. She warmed to this
+husband who, if no hero in the matter of ferocious cabmen, could at
+least champion her upon occasion.
+
+Mary cried: "But I did not jump out! Indeed I did not, Mr. Chater; I
+fell."
+
+Mrs. Chater said _"Fell!"_ With sublime forbearance she added, "Never
+mind; the incident is past."
+
+"Mrs. Chater, you must know that I fell out. I was leaning out--you had
+asked me to see the name of the street--when the horse stumbled."
+
+"It is curious," said Mrs. Chater, with a pained little smile, "that you
+managed to 'fall out' before the horse could recover and bolt."
+
+"Very, very curious," Mr. Chater echoed.
+
+How hateful they were, the girl felt. She broke out: "I--"
+
+"Miss Humfray, that is enough. Help me upstairs. I will lie down."
+
+Mr. Chater jumped brightly to the bell. "My dear, do; I will send you a
+hot-water bottle."
+
+His wife recalled the shortcomings for which she had been taking him to
+task. "Send a fiddlestick," she rapped; "on a boiling day like this!"
+
+She took Mary's arm; leaning heavily, passed from the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Excursions In The Mind Of A Heroine.
+
+
+Her mistress disrobed, head among pillows, slippered, coverleted,
+eau-de-Cologne on temples, with closed eyes inviting sleep to lull the
+tumults of the day. Mary climbed to her room.
+
+About her mouth there was a ridiculous twitching; and as she watched it
+in the mirror she strove to wrap herself in the armour in which she had
+learned to take buffetings.
+
+To be dispassionate was the salve she had schooled herself to use upon
+a wounded spirit--to regard this Mary with the comically twitching face
+whom now she saw in the glass as a second person whose sufferings might
+be coldly regarded and dissected.
+
+It is a most admirable accomplishment. Nothing is so easy as to be
+philosophic upon the cares of another--nothing so easy as to wax
+impatient with an acquaintance who allows himself to be overridden by
+troubles and pains which appear to us of trifling moment. If, then, we
+can school ourselves to regard the figure that bears our name as one
+person, and our ego as another, we have at least a chance of chiding
+that figure out of all the fancied sufferings it may undergo.
+
+With some success Mary had studied the art; now gave that
+Mary-in-the-glass who stood before her a healthy reproof.
+
+"The ridiculous thing you did," Mary-in-the-glass was told--"the
+ridiculous thing you did to make yourself miserable was to go thinking
+about--about Ireland."
+
+The mouth of Mary-in-the-glass ominously twitched.
+
+"There you go again. And it is so absolutely forbidden to think about
+that. Whatever's the use of it?"
+
+Mary-in-the-glass could adduce no reason, and must be prodded.
+
+"Does it do you any good? Does it do _them_ any good, do you suppose, to
+know that you can never think of them without making yourself unhappy?"
+
+Mary-in-the-glass attempted a weak quibble; was instantly snapped.
+
+"I'm not saying you are _never_ to think of them. Goodness knows what
+I should do if I did not. It's all right to think of them when you are
+happy and they can share the happiness with you; but, when you choose
+to be idiotically miserable, that's the time you are not to go whining
+anywhere near them--understand? You only make them unhappy and make your
+troubles worse. Troubles! if you can't see the fun of Mrs. Chater, you
+must be a wretched sort of person. Her face when the cab brought her
+back! And trying to feel her heart! And her rage with that little worm
+of a Mr. Chater! Can't you see the fun of it instead of crying over it?"
+
+Mary-in-the-glass could. The successive recollections induced the
+prettiest dimples on her face. She was at once forgiven.
+
+Indeed, to snuggle back into her and to merge into her again was just
+now very desirable to the censorious Mary-outside-the-glass. For, merged
+in her sentimental and romantic personality, a most delectable line of
+thought could be pursued--a delectable line, since along this trail was
+to be encountered that stranger who had caught her in her wild ejection
+from the cab.
+
+Sinking in a chair, Mary adventured upon it; she was instantly met.
+
+Mary-outside-the-glass essayed her best to prevent the interview.
+"Poof!" Mary-outside-the-glass, that cold young person, sneered. "Poof!
+You little idiot! A stranger with whom you spoke for five minutes, whom
+you will never again see, and from whose recollections you have most
+certainly passed unless to be recalled as a joke--perhaps to some
+other girl!" (A nasty dig that, but they are monsters these
+Marys-outside-the-glass.) "Why, you must be a donkey to think about
+him! For goodness' sake come away before you make yourself too utterly
+ridiculous! You won't. Well, perhaps you will try to recall the figure
+you must have cut in his eyes? Do you remember what you must have looked
+like as you shot out of the cab like a sack of straw? Pretty sight, eh?
+And can you imagine the expression on your face as you banged into his
+arms? Charming you must have looked, mustn't you? And can you by any
+means realise the idiot you must have looked when Mrs. Chater came
+up and swept you off like an escaped puppy, recaptured and in for a
+whipping? Striking figure you cut, didn't you? You didn't happen to
+peep back through the little window at the back of the cab and see him
+laughing, I suppose? Ah, you should have looked...."
+
+And so on. This was the attitude of that cold, calculating,
+dispassionate Mary-outside-the-glass. But Mary smothered the
+voice--would not hear a word of it. Completely she became
+Mary-in-the-glass, that sentimental young woman, and in that personality
+tripped along the path of thought where stood her stranger.
+
+Delectably she relived the encounter. Paced down the street, took again
+his arm; without a fault recalled his words, without a check gave her
+replies; recalled the pitch of his voice to the nicest note, struck
+again the light in his eyes.
+
+Now why? She had met other men; in Ireland had thrice wounded her tender
+heart by negations that had caused three suitors most desperate
+anguish. None had awakened in her a deeper interest; and yet here was
+a stranger--suddenly encountered, as suddenly left--who in her mind had
+appropriated a track which she was eager to make a well-beaten path.
+Why?
+
+But Mary-in-the-glass, that sentimental young woman, was no prober of
+emotions. They veiled the hard business of commonplace life; and amid
+them mistily she now floated afar into dim features where her stranger,
+stranger no more, walked with her hand in hand.
+
+There was attempt at first to construct an actual re-encounter.
+Mary-in-the-glass, that romantic young woman, very speciously pointed
+out that in London when once you see a man you may reasonably suppose
+that you will again meet him. For in London one does not aimlessly
+wander; one has some set purpose and traverses a thousand times the same
+streets, crossing daily at the same points as though upon the pursuit
+of a chalked line. Mary-in-the-glass, therefore, constructing a
+re-encounter, happened to be strolling along the scene of the accident,
+and lo! there was he!
+
+Unhappily this vision was transient. Mary-outside-the-glass, that cold
+young woman, got in a word here that erased the picture. The square
+where the cab crashed was too far afield to take the children for
+their walk; holiday was a boon rarely granted and never granted at
+the particular hour of the catastrophe--the only time of day at which,
+according to the chalked-line theory, she might reasonably expect to
+find the stranger in the same spot.
+
+But Mary did not brood long upon this melancholy obstacle; drove away
+Mary-outside-the-glass; became again Mary-in-the-glass. And they are
+impossible creatures these Marys-in-the-glass. They will approach
+an unbridged chasm across which no Mary-out-side could by any means
+adventure, and, floating the gulf, will deliriously roam in the fields
+beyond.
+
+So now. And in that dream-world of the musing brain Mary with her
+stranger sublimely wandered. With her form and his she peopled all
+the favourite spots she knew; contrived others and strolled in
+them; introduced other persons, and marked their comment on her dear
+companion.
+
+It was he whom she made to do mighty deeds in those misty fields; of
+herself hers were merely a girl's gentle fancies, held modest by
+her sex's natural desire to be loved for itself alone--not for big
+behaviour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Excursions In A Nursery.
+
+
+The loud bang of a door was the gong that called Mary back from
+those pleasant fields. They whirled from her, leaving her in sudden
+realisation of the material.
+
+She glanced at the clock.
+
+"Goodness!" cried she, and fell to scattering her outdoor finery at a
+speed dangerous under any but the deftest fingers. Into a skirt of black
+and a simple blouse she slipped, and down, skimming the stairs, to where
+her charges bided their bedtime.
+
+Opening the nursery door she paused upon the threshold with a little
+"Oh!" of surprise. There was a reek of cigar smoke; its origin between
+the lips of a burly young man who stood drumming a tune upon the
+window-pane.
+
+Mr. Bob Chater turned at her entry. "I've been waiting for you a long
+time," he said.
+
+She asked, "Whatever for?" and in her tone there was a chill.
+
+"Didn't I tell you yesterday that I was coming to see the kids tubbed?"
+
+"I didn't think you meant it."
+
+Mr. Bob Chater laughed. "Well, now you see that I did. I've been looking
+forward to this all day."
+
+Plainly she was perturbed. She said: "Mr. Chater, I really would rather
+you did not, if you don't mind."
+
+"Well, but I do mind, d'you see? I mind very much indeed. It would be
+the bitterest disappointment."
+
+His playfulness sat ill upon him. This was a stout young man,
+black-eyed, dark-moustached, with a thick and heavy look about him.
+
+She would not catch his mood. "I am sure when I ask you--"
+
+"Well, you're jolly well wrong, you know," he laughed; "'cause I ain't
+going."
+
+Mary flushed slightly; moved to the hearthrug where sat David and
+Angela, her small charges, watching, from their toys, the scene.
+
+It occurred to Mr. Bob Chater that she was annoyed.
+
+"I say, be decent to a fellow, Miss Humfray," he said. "Look here, I
+hadn't seen the kids for two years when I came back yesterday. They
+hardly remember their kind big brother." He addressed the small girl
+whose round eyes, moving from speaker to speaker since Mary had entered,
+were now upon him. "Do you, Angela?" he asked.
+
+"I--hate--you," Angela told him, in the slow utterance of one giving
+completest effect to a carefully weighed sentiment.
+
+With equal impressiveness, David, seated beside her, lent his authority
+to the statement. "I--hate--you--too," he joined.
+
+Mr. Bob Chater laughed a little stupidly.
+
+Mary cried: "Oh, Angela! Oh, David! How can you speak like that!"
+
+"He is perfectly abom'able," Angela said, unmoved. "He made Davie cry.
+He trod on Davie's beetle."
+
+The cracked corpse of a mechanical beetle, joy of David's heart, was
+produced in evidence; its distressed owner reddening ominously at this
+renewed recollection of the calamity.
+
+Mary took the sad pieces tenderly. "Silly children! He never meant to
+break it. Oh, such silly children!"
+
+Angela protested, "He did! He did! He put his foot over it while it was
+running, and stopped it. He told David to get it away if he could, and
+David bit his leg, and he said 'Damn you!' and crushed it crack."
+
+Mary whipped a glance at the murderer. She ignored the evidence.
+"To-morrow!" said she. "Why, what fun! To-morrow we'll play hospital
+like we did when Christabel broke her arm. We'll make Mr. Beetle just as
+well as ever he was before!"
+
+"I'll be doctor!" cried David, transported into delight.
+
+"Yes, and Angela nurse. Look, we'll put poor Mr. Beetle on the
+mantelpiece to-night, right out of the draughts. If he got a draught
+into that crack in his back, goodness knows what wouldn't happen. He
+must eat slops like Christabel did. _What_ fun! Now, bed--_bustle!_"
+
+Their adored Mary had restored confidence. They clung about her.
+
+"It was a pure accident," explained Mr. Bob Chater, gloomily watching
+this scene. "I'll buy you another to-morrow."
+
+"There!" Mary cried. "Think of that!"
+
+David reflected upon it without emotion. He regarded his big brother
+sullenly; sullenly said, "I don't want another."
+
+Mary cried brightly: "Rubbish! Come, kiss your brother good-night, and
+say 'thank you!' Both of you. Quick as lightning!"
+
+They hung back.
+
+Mary had obtained so complete a command of their affections that her
+word was the wise law which, ordinarily, they had come unquestioningly
+to accept. In their short lives David and Angela had experienced a
+procession of nurses, of nursery-governesses, of lady-helps, each one of
+whom received or gave her month's notice within a few weeks of arrival,
+and against whom they had conducted a sullen or a violent war. From the
+first it had been different with Miss Humfray. As was their custom (for
+this constant change tried tempers) upon the very day of her arrival
+they had met her with frank hostility, had declared mutiny at her
+first command. But her reception of this attitude they found a new and
+astonishing experience. She had not been shocked, had not been angry,
+had ventured no threat to tell their mother. Instead, at the outbreak of
+defiance, she went into the gayest and most infectious laughter, kissed
+them--and they had capitulated before they realised the event.
+
+A second attempt at mutiny, made upon the following day, met with a
+reception equally novel. Again this pretty Miss Humfray had laughed, but
+this time had fully sympathised with their view of the point at issue
+and had made of the affair a most entrancing game. She, behold, was a
+pirate captain; they were the rebellious crew. In five minutes they had
+marooned her upon the desert island represented by the hearthrug; had
+rowed away with faces which, under her instructions, were properly
+stern; and only when she waved the white flag of truce had they
+taken her aboard again. Meanwhile the subject of the quarrel had been
+forgotten.
+
+Never a dispute arose thereafter. They idolised this pretty Miss
+Humfray: whatsoever she said was clearly right.
+
+Here, however, was a dangerous conflict of opinion. They hung back.
+
+"Quickly," Mary repeated. "Kiss him, and say thank-you quickly, or there
+will be no story when you are in bed."
+
+It was a terrific price to pay; their troubled faces mirrored the
+conflict of decision.
+
+David found solution. In his slow, solemn voice, "You kiss him first,"
+he said. Miss Humfray always took their medicine first, and David argued
+from the one evil necessity to this other.
+
+Mr. Bob Chater laughed delightedly. "That's a brilliant idea!" he cried;
+came two strides towards Mary; put a hand upon her arm.
+
+So sudden, so unexpected was his movement, that by the narrowest chance
+only did she escape his purpose. A jerk of her head, and he had mouthed
+at the air two inches from her face.
+
+She shook her arm free. "Oh!" she cried; and in the exclamation there
+was that which would have given a nicer man pause.
+
+Mr. Bob Chater was nothing abashed. A handsome face and a bold air
+had made conquests easy to him. It was an axiom of his that a girl who
+worked for her living by that fact proclaimed flirtation to be agreeable
+to her--at all events with such as he. Chance had so shaped affairs that
+this was the first time his theory had found disproof. He saw she was
+offended; so much the more tickling; conquest was thereby the more
+enticing.
+
+He laughed; said he was only "rotting."
+
+Mary did not reply. The command to kiss their brother went by default;
+she hurried her charges through the door to the adjoining night nursery.
+
+When they were started upon undressing she came back.
+
+"You're going to let me see you tub them?" Bob asked her.
+
+Busy replacing toys in cupboards, she did not reply.
+
+"You're not angry, are you?"
+
+She gave him no answer.
+
+Bob Chater discarded the laugh from his tone. "If you are angry, I'm
+very sorry. You must have known I was only fooling. It was only to make
+the kids laugh."
+
+So far as was possible she kept her back to him.
+
+The continued slight pricked him. His voice hardened. "When I have the
+grace to apologise, I think you might have the grace to accept it."
+
+Mary said in low tones: "If you meant only to make them laugh, of course
+I believe you. It is all right."
+
+"Good. Well, now, may I see them tubbed?"
+
+"I have told you I would rather not."
+
+"Dash it all, Miss Humfray, you're rather unkind, aren't, you? Here have
+I been away nearly two years--I've been travelling on the Continent for
+the firm-you know that, don't you?"
+
+She said she had heard Mr. and Mrs. Chater talking of it.
+
+"Well, and yet you won't let me come near my darling little sister and
+my sweet little brother to tell 'em all about it?"
+
+"But I'm not keeping you from them, Mr. Chater. You have had plenty of
+time."
+
+"Time! Why, I only got back yesterday!"
+
+"You have been in here this afternoon."
+
+"Ah, they were shy. They're better when you are here."
+
+She had finished her task, and she turned to him. "Mr. Chater, you know
+I could not keep David and Angela from you even if I dreamed of doing
+such a thing. Only, I say I would rather you did not come in while I
+bath them, that is all."
+
+"Yes, but why?"
+
+"Mrs. Chater would not like it for one thing, I feel sure."
+
+"Oh, that's all rot. Mother wouldn't mind--anyway, I do as I like in
+this house."
+
+From all she had heard of Mrs. Chater's beloved Bob, Mary guessed this
+to be true. Long prior to his arrival she had been prejudiced against
+him; acquaintance emphasised the prophetic impression.
+
+"Another night, then," she said.
+
+He felt he was winning. No girl withstood him long.
+
+"No, to-night. Another thing--I want to know you better. This
+arrangement is all new to me. There was a nurse here in your place when
+I went. I've hardly spoken to you. Have you ever been abroad?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you--and the kids--some of my adventures while you're
+tubbing 'em. Lead on."
+
+She was at the night-nursery door. Evidently this man would not see her
+conventional reason for not wishing him at the tubbing. Angela had grown
+a biggish girl since he went away.
+
+She said, "Please not to-night."
+
+"I'm jolly well coming," he chuckled.
+
+The lesson of dependence was wilfully forgotten. Mary agreed with Angela
+and David: she hated this Bob.
+
+"No," she said sharply, "you are not."
+
+He had thrown his cigar into the grate; taken out another; stooped to
+the hearth to scratch a match. His back was to her; to him all her tone
+conveyed was that a "rag" was on hand.
+
+"We'll see," he laughed; struck the match.
+
+She stepped swiftly within the door; closed it.
+
+Bob Chater laughed again; ran across.
+
+The lock clicked as she turned the key.
+
+"Let me in!" he cried, rattling the handle. "Let me in!"
+
+The splash of water answered him.
+
+He thumped the panel. "Open the door!"
+
+"Now, Angela," he heard her say, "quick as lightning with that chimmy."
+
+Bob's face darkened; he damned beneath his breath. Then with a laugh
+he turned away. "I'm going to have some fun with that girl," he told
+himself; and on the way downstairs, her pretty face and figure in his
+mind, pleased himself with vicious anticipation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Excursions At A Dinner-Table.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Two distressing reasons combined to compel Mrs. Chater to give
+Mary place at the evening meal. There was the aggravating fact that
+mothers'-helps, just as if they were ordinary people, must be fed; there
+was also the contingency that servants most strongly objected to serving
+a special meal--even "on a tray"--to one who was not of the family, yet
+who had airs above the kitchen.
+
+Except, then, when there were guests Miss Humfray must be accommodated
+at late dinner. Mrs. Chater considered it annoying, yet found in it
+certain comfortable advantages--as sympathy from friends: "Mustn't it
+be rather awkward sometimes, Mrs. Chater?" A plaintive shrug would
+illustrate the answer: "Well, it is, of course, very awkward sometimes;
+but one must put up with it. That class of person takes offence so
+easily, you know; and I always try to treat my lady-helps as well as
+possible."
+
+"I'm sure you do, Mrs. Chater. How grateful they should be!" And this
+time a sad little laugh would illustrate: "Oh, one hardly expects
+gratitude nowadays, does one?"
+
+Mary at dinner must observe certain rules, however. Certain dishes--a
+little out of season, perhaps, or classed as luxuries--were borne
+triumphantly past her by a glad parlour-maid acting upon a frown and
+a glance that Mrs. Chater signalled. Certain occasions, again, when
+private matters were to be discussed, were heralded by "Miss Humfray,"
+in an inflexion of voice that set Mary to fold her napkin and from the
+room.
+
+The girl greeted these early dismissals with considerable relief.
+Dinner was to her a nightly ordeal whose atmosphere swept appetite
+sky-high--took the savour from meats, dried the throat.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Descending to the dining-room upon this evening, her normal shrinking
+from the meal was considerably augmented. On the previous night--the
+first upon which Mr. Bob Chater's legs had partnered hers beneath the
+table--his eyes (like some bold gallant popping out on modesty whenever
+it dared peep from the doorway) had captured her glance each time
+she ventured look up from her plate. The episode of the nursery was
+equivalent to having slapped the gallant's face, and the re-encounter
+was proportionately uncomfortable.
+
+Taking her place she was by sheer nervousness impelled to meet his
+gaze--so heavily freighted it was as to raise a sudden flush to
+her cheek. Her eyes fled round to Mrs. Chater, received a look that
+questioned the blush, drove it duskier; through an uncomfortable
+half-hour she kept her face towards her plate.
+
+It was illuminative of the relations between husband and wife that Mrs.
+Chater carved; her husband dealt the sweets. The carving knife is the
+domestic sceptre of authority: when it is wielded by the woman, the man,
+you will find, is consort rather than king.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Upon the previous evening Mr. Bob Chater had led the conversation.
+To-night he was indisposed for the position--would not take it despite
+his mother's desperate attempts to board the train of his ideas and
+by it be carried to scenes of her son's adventures. A dozen times she
+presented her ticket; as often Bob turned her back at the barrier.
+
+It was a rare event this refusal of his to carry passengers. So loudly
+did he whistle as a rule as to attract all in the vicinity, convinced
+that there was an important train by which it would be agreeable to
+travel.
+
+For Mr. Bob Chater was a loud young man, emanating a swaggering air
+that the term "side" well fitted. To have some conceit of oneself is
+an excellent affair. The possession is a keel that gives to the craft a
+dignified balance upon the stream of life--prevents it from being sailed
+too close to mud; helps maintain stability in sudden gale. Other craft
+are keelless--they are canoes; bobbing, unsteady, likely to capsize in
+sudden emergency; prone to drift into muddy waters; liable to be swept
+anywhither by any current. Others, again--and Mr. Bob Chater was of
+these--are over-freighted upon one quarter or another: they sail with a
+list. Amongst well-trimmed boats these learn in time not to adventure,
+since here they are greeted with ridicule or with contempt; yet among
+the keelless fleets they have a position of some authority; holding
+it on the same principle as that by which among beggars he who has a
+coin--even though base--is accounted king.
+
+Bob Chater's list was ego-wards. His mighty "I"--I am, I do, I say, I
+know, I think--bulged from him, hanging from his voice, his glance, his
+gesture, his walk. In it Mrs. Chater bathed; to be carried along in the
+train of his mighty "I" was delectable to her. But to-night she could
+not effect the passage.
+
+A final effort she made to get aboard. "And in St. Petersburg!" she
+tempted. "I wonder if you ever saw the _Tsar_ when you were in St.
+Petersburg?"
+
+Bob drove her back: "St. Petersburg's a loathsome place."
+
+Mrs. Chater tried to squeeze through. "So _gay_, they say."
+
+Bob slammed the gate. "I wish you'd _tell_ me something instead of
+expecting _me_ to do all the talking. I want to hear all that's been
+going on here while I've been away, but I'm hanged if I can find out."
+
+A little mortified, Mrs. Chater said: "I've hardly seen you, dear,
+except at meals"--then threw the onus for her son's lack of local
+gossip upon her husband. Addressing him, "You've been with Bob all the
+morning," she told him. "I wonder you haven't given him all the news.
+But, there! I suppose you've done nothing but question him about what
+business he's done!"
+
+Mr. Chater, startled at the novelty of being drawn into table
+conversation while his son and his wife were present, dropped his
+spoon with a splash into his soup, wiped his coat, frowned at the
+parlour-maid, cleared his throat, and, to gain time to determine whether
+he had courage to say that which was burning within him, threw out an
+"Eh?" for his pursuing wife to Worry.
+
+Mrs. Chater pounced upon it; shook it. "What I said was that I suppose
+you've been doing nothing but question poor Bob about what he has done
+for the firm while he's been away."
+
+Mr. Chater nerved himself to declare his mind. "There wasn't very much
+to question him about," he said.
+
+His words--outcome of views forcibly expressed by his partners in
+Mincing Lane that morning--were the foolhardy action of one who pokes a
+tigress with a stick.
+
+The tigress shook herself. "Now, I wonder what you mean by _that_?" she
+challenged.
+
+Mr. Chater dropped the stick; precipitantly fled. "Of course it was all
+new to Bob," he granted, throwing a bone.
+
+Very much to his alarm the tigress ignored the bone; rushed after him.
+"All you seem to think about," cried she, "is making the boy slave. He's
+never had a proper holiday since he left school, and yet the very first
+time he goes off to see the world you must be fidgeting yourself to
+death all the time that he's not pushing the firm sufficiently; and
+immediately he comes back you must start cross-examining just as if he
+was an office-boy--not a word about his health or his pleasure. Oh, no!
+of course not!"
+
+Squirming in misery, Mr. Chater remarked that he had his partners to
+consider. "I'm only too glad that Bob should enjoy himself--only too
+glad. But you must remember, my dear, that part of his expenses for this
+trip was paid for by the firm--the _firm_. He was to call on foreign
+houses--"
+
+The tigress opened her mouth for fresh assault. Mr. Chater hurriedly
+thrust in a bone. "I don't say he hasn't done a great deal for us--not
+at all; I'd be the last to say that. What I say is that in duty to my
+partners I must take the first opportunity to ask him a few questions
+about it. Bob sees that himself; don't you, Bob?"
+
+"Oh, do let's keep shop off the table," Bob snarled. "Fair sickens me
+this never getting away from the office."
+
+"There you are!" Mrs. Chater cried. "There you are! Always business,
+business, business--that's what _I_ complain of."
+
+With astounding recklessness Mr. Chater mildly said: "My dear, you
+started it."
+
+Mrs. Chater quivered: "Ah, put it on me! Put it on me! Somehow you
+always manage to do that. Miss Humfray, when you've _quite_ finished
+your soup _then_ perhaps Clarence can take the plates."
+
+Mary's thoughts, to the neglect of her duty, had crept away beneath
+cover of these exchanges. Now she endured the disaster of amid silence
+clearing her plate with four pairs of eyes fixed upon her. Clarence
+removed the course; Mr. Chater, leaping as far as possible from the
+scene of his ordeal, broke a new topic.
+
+He enticed tentatively: "I saw a funny bit in the paper this morning."
+
+The tigress paused in the projection of another spring; sniffed
+suspiciously. "Oh!"
+
+"About that young Lord Comeragh," Mr. Chater hurried on, delighted
+with his success. "He was up at Marlborough Street police-court this
+morning--at least his butler was; of course his lordship wouldn't go
+himself--charged with furiously driving his motorcar; and who do you
+think was in the car with him at the time? Ah!"
+
+Mrs. Chater, naming a young lady who nightly advertised a pretty leg
+from the chorus of a musical comedy, announced that she would not be
+surprised if that was the person. Being told that it was none other, and
+that Mr. Chater had heard in the City that morning that Lady Comeragh
+was taking proceedings and had named the nicely-legged young lady the
+cause of infidelity, became highly astonished and supremely diverted.
+
+Conversation of a most delectable nature was by this means supplied. A
+pot of savoury gossip, flavoured with scandal, was upon the table; and
+Mary, lost to sight behind the cloud of steam that uprose as the three
+leaped about it, finished her dinner undisturbed.
+
+A nod bade her leave before dessert. As she passed out the signaller
+spoke. "I want to see you," Mrs. Chater said. "Wait for me in the
+drawing-room."
+
+The command was unusual, and Mary, waiting as bid, worried herself with
+surmises upon it. She prayed it did not mean she was to soothe Mr.
+Bob Chater's digestion with lullabies upon the piano; that it boded an
+unpleasant affair she was assured.
+
+She did not err. Mrs. Chater came to her, dyspeptic-flushed, sternly
+browed.
+
+"Miss Humfray, I have one thing to say to you, no more. No explanations,
+no excuses, please. I hear you have been trying to entertain my son
+in the nursery this evening. If that, or anything like it, occurs
+again--You understand?"
+
+"Mrs. Chater--"
+
+A massive hand signalled Stop. "I said 'not a word.' That is all. Good
+night."
+
+And Mary, crimson, to her room.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+Of Glimpses at a Period of this History: of Love and of War.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Notes On The Building Of Bridges.
+
+
+Within the limits of this short section of our story we shall cram two
+months of history, taking but a furtive peep or two at our personages as
+they plod through it.
+
+This is well within our power, since the position of the novelist in
+regard to his characters may be compared with that of the destiny which
+in the largest comedy moves to and fro mankind its actors. As destiny
+moves its puppets, so the novelist moves his--upraising, debasing;
+favouring, tormenting; creating, wiping from the page.
+
+And of the pair the novelist is the more just. Has villainy in a
+novel ever gone unpunished? Has virtue ever failed of its reward?
+Your novelist is of all autocrats the most zealous of right and wrong.
+Villain may through two-thirds of his career enjoy his wicked pleasures,
+exceedingly prosper despite his baseness; but ever above him the cold
+eye of his judge keeps watch, and in the end he is apportioned the most
+horrible deserts that any could wish. Virtue may by the gods be hounded
+and harried till the reader's heart is wrung. But spare your tears;
+before Finis is written, down swoops the judge; the dogs are whipped
+off; Virtue is led to fair pastures and there left smiling.
+
+Contrasted with this autocrat of the printed page, the destiny whose
+comedy began with the world and is indefinitely continued makes sorry
+show. Here the wicked exceedingly flourish and keep at it to the end of
+their chapter; here virtue, battling with tremendous waves of adversity,
+is at last engulfed and miserably drowned. Truly, their fit rewards are
+apportioned, we are instructed, after death. But there is something of a
+doubt; the novelist, in regard to his characters, takes no risks.
+
+Upon another head, moreover, the novelist shows himself the more kindly
+autocrat. There is his power, so freely exercised, to bridge time.
+Whereas destiny makes us to watch those in whom we are interested plod
+every inch and step of their lives-over each rut, through each swamp,
+up each hill,-the novelist, upon his characters coming to places dull or
+too difficult, immediately veils from us their weary struggles. Destiny
+will never grant such a boon: we must watch our friends even when they
+bore us, even when they cause us pain. Yet this boon is the commonest
+indulgence of the novelist-as it now (to become personal) is mine.
+
+I bridge two months.
+
+And you must imagine this bridge as indeed a short and airy passage
+across a valley, down into which the persons of our story must carefully
+climb, across which they must plod, and up whose far side they must
+laboriously scramble to meet us upon the level ground. For we are
+much in the position, we novel readers, of village children curiously
+watching a caravan of gipsies passing through their district. The
+gipsies (who stand for our characters) plod wearily away along a bend
+of dusty road. The children cease following, play awhile; then by a
+short-cut through the fields overtake the travellers as again they come
+into the straight.
+
+So now with you and me. We have no need to follow our gipsies down
+the valley that takes two months in the traversing: we skip across the
+bridge.
+
+But, leaning over, we may take a shot or two at them as here and there
+they come into view.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Excursions Beneath The Bridge.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Thus we see the meeting again of George and Mary.
+
+When the agitated young man on the day following the cab accident
+had alighted from the omnibus at the bottom of Palace Gardens he was
+opposite No. 14 by half-past ten; waiting till eleven; going, convinced
+she did not live there; returning, upon the desperate hope that indeed
+she did; waiting till twelve--and being most handsomely rewarded.
+
+Her face signalled that she saw him, but her eyes gave no
+recognition--quickly were averted from him; the windows behind her had
+eyes, she knew.
+
+My agitated George, who had made a hasty step at the red flag that
+fluttered on her cheeks, as hastily stepped away beneath the chill of
+her glance; in tremendous perturbation turned and fled; in tremendous
+perturbation turned and pursued. In Regent's Park he saw her produce a
+brilliant pair of scarlet worsted reins, gay with bells; heard her hiss
+like any proper groom as tandemwise she harnessed David and Angela,
+those restive steeds.
+
+The equipage was about to start--she had cracked her whip, clicked her
+tongue--when with thumping heart, with face that matched the flaming
+reins, hat in hand he approached; spoke the driver.
+
+Her steeds turned about; with wide, unblinking eyes, searched his face
+and hers.
+
+"Your faces are very red," Angela said. "Are you angry?"
+
+"You have got very red faces," David echoed. "Are you in a temper?"
+
+Mary told them No; George said they were fine horses; felt legs; offered
+to buy them.
+
+His words purchased their hearts, which were more valuable.
+
+After the drive they would return to the stable, which was this seat,
+Mary told him; she could not stay to speak to him any longer. George
+declared he was the stable groom and would wait.
+
+Away they dashed at handsome speed, right round the inner circle;
+returned more sedately, a little out of breath. There had been,
+moreover, an accident: leader, it appeared, had fallen and cut his
+knees.
+
+"I shied at a motor," David explained, proud of the red blood now that
+the agony was past.
+
+George unharnessed them; dressed the wounds; scolded the coachman
+because no feed had been brought for the horses; promised that to-morrow
+he would bring some corn--bun corn.
+
+"Will you come to-morrow?" Angela asked.
+
+George glanced at Mary. "Yes," he told them.
+
+"Every to-morrow?"
+
+"Every to-morrow."
+
+Tremendous joy. Well delighted, they ran to a new game.
+
+Every to-morrow ran but to three: George and Mary had by then exchanged
+their histories. The pending examination was discussed, and Mary simply
+would not speak to him if, wasting his time, he came daily to idle with
+the children (so she expressed it). She would abandon the Park, she told
+him--would take her charges to a Square gardens of which they had the
+entry, where George might not follow.
+
+George did not press the point. As he wrestled out the matter in the
+hours between their meetings she was a fresh incentive to work. But once
+a week he must be allowed to come: here he was adamant, and she gladly
+agreeable. Saturday mornings was the time arranged.
+
+Mary had been fearful at this first re-encounter that it would be the
+last. The children would certainly tell their mother; Mrs. Chater would
+certainly make an end to the acquaintance.
+
+"Ask them not to tell," George had suggested.
+
+Impossible to think of such a thing: it would be to teach them deceit.
+
+"Well, I'll ask them."
+
+"But that would be just as bad. No--if they tell, it cannot be helped.
+And after all--"
+
+"Well, after all...?"
+
+"After all--what would it matter?"
+
+George said: "It would matter to me--a lot."
+
+He glanced at her, but she was looking after Angela and David. He asked:
+"Wouldn't it matter to you?"
+
+She flushed a little; answered, with her eyes still averted towards the
+children, "Why--why, of course I should mind. I mean--"
+
+But there are meanings for which it is difficult to find clothes in
+which they may decently take the air; and here the wardrobe of Mary's
+mind stood wanting.
+
+George enticed. "Do you mean you would be sorry not to--not to--"
+
+He also found his wardrobe deficient.
+
+Then Mary sent out her meaning, risking its decency. "Why, yes, I would
+be sorry not to see you again; why should I mind saying so? I have liked
+meeting you." And, becoming timid at its appearance, she hurried after
+it a cloak that would utterly disguise it. "I meet so few people," she
+said.
+
+But George was satisfied; she had said she would mind--nay, even though
+she had not spoken it, her manner assured him that indeed she would
+regret not again meeting him. It was a thought to hug, a memory to spur
+his energies when they flagged over his studies; it was a brush to paint
+his world in lively colours.
+
+Nor, as the future occurred, need either have had apprehension that the
+children would tell their mother and so set up an insurmountable barrier
+between them. A previous experience had warned Angela that it were
+wise to keep from her mother joys that were out of the ordinary run of
+events.
+
+Returning homeward that day, a little in advance of Mary, she therefore
+addressed her brother upon the matter.
+
+"Davie, I hope that man will come to-morrow."
+
+"I hope it, too."
+
+"We won't tell mother, Davie."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because mother'll say No."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because she _always_ says No, stupid."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, Davie, you _are_ stupid! I don't know why; I only _know_. Don't you
+remember that lady that used to talk to Miss Humf'ay and play with us?
+Well, when we told mother, mother said No, didn't she? and the lady
+played with those abom'able red-dress children that make faces instead."
+
+"Will he play with the abom'able red-dress children that make faces if
+we tell mother?"
+
+"Of _course_ he will."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They always _do_, stupid."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Angela ran back. "Oh, Miss Humf'ay, Davie is so _irrating!_ He will say
+_Why_ ...."
+
+There is a lesson for parents in that conversation, I suspect.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Leaning from our bridge we may content ourselves with a hurried shot
+at George, laboriously toiling at his books, sedulously attending his
+classes, with his Mary spending glorious Saturday mornings that, as
+they brought him nearer to knowledge of her, sent him from her yet more
+fevered; and, straining towards another point, we will focus for an
+instant upon Margaret his cousin, and Bill Wyvern, her adored.
+
+Mr. William Wyvern had most vigorously whacked about among events since
+that evening when his Margaret had composed her verses for George. At
+that time a fellow-student with George at St. Peter's Hospital, he had
+now abandoned the profession and was started upon the literary career
+(as he named it) that long he had wished to follow. The change had been
+come by with little difficulty. Professor Wyvern--that eminent biologist
+whose fame was so tremendous that even now a normally forgetful Press
+yet continued to paragraph him while he spent in absent-minded seclusion
+the ebb of that life which at the flood had so mightily advanced
+knowledge--Professor Wyvern was too much attached to his son, too docile
+in the hands of his loving wife, to gainsay any wish that Bill might
+urge and that Mrs. Wyvern might support.
+
+Bill achieved his end: the stories he had had printed in magazines,
+secretly shown to his proud mother, were now brought forth and chuckled
+over with glee by the Professor. The famous biologist struggled through
+one of the stories, vowed he had read them all, cheerily patted Bill's
+arm with his shaky old hand, and cheerfully abandoned the hope he had
+held of seeing his son a great surgeon.
+
+It was Bill's burning ambition to obtain a post upon a paper. Not until
+later did he learn that it is the men outside the papers who must have
+a turn for stringing sentences; that those inside are machines, cutting
+and serving the material with no greater interest in it than has the
+cheesemonger in the cheese he weighs and deals. Meanwhile, the glimpse
+we may take of him shows Bill Wyvern urging along his pen until clean
+paper became magic manuscripts; living upon a billow of hope when the
+envelopes were sped, submerged beneath oceans of gloom when they were
+returned; trembling into Fleet Street deliciously to inhale the thick
+smell of printer's ink that came roaring up from a hundred basements;
+with goggle eyes venerating the men who with assured steps passed in
+and out the swing-doors of castles he burned to storm; snatching brief
+moments for the boisterous society of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, those
+rare bull-terriers; and finally, expending with his Margaret moments
+more protracted--stealthy meetings, for the most part--in Mr. Marrapit's
+shrubbery.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+But two more peeps from our bridge need we take, and then our characters
+will be ready to meet us upon the further side.
+
+A glance from here will reveal to us Mrs. Major, that masterly woman,
+inscribing in her diary:
+
+"_Getting on with Mr. M. Should sue. Precip. fat._"
+
+Fill out the abbreviations to which Mrs. Major, in her diary, was prone,
+and we have:
+
+"_Getting on with Mr. Marrapit. Should succeed. Precipitancy fatal._"
+
+Succeed in what? To what would precipitancy of action be irreparable?
+Listen to a conversation that may enlighten us--spoken upon the lawn
+of Herons' Holt; Mr. Marrapit in his chair making a lap for the Rose of
+Sharon; Mrs. Major on a garden seat, crocheting.
+
+A stealthy peep assuring her that his eyes were not closed, Mrs. Major
+nerved herself with a deep breath; with a long sigh let it escape in the
+form, "A year ago!"--dropped hands upon her lap and gazed wistfully at
+the setting sun. She had seen the trick very successfully performed upon
+the stage.
+
+Mr. Marrapit turned his eyes upon her.
+
+"You spoke, Mrs. Major?"
+
+With an admirable start Mrs. Major appeared to gather in wandering
+fancies. "I fear I was thinking aloud, Mr. Marrapit. I beg pardon."
+
+"Do not. There is no occasion. You said 'A year ago.'"
+
+"Did I, Mr. Marrapit?"
+
+"Certainly," said Mr. Marrapit.
+
+A pause followed. The wistful woman felt that, were the thing to be done
+properly, the word lay with her companion. To her pleasure he continued:
+
+"To-day, then, is an anniversary?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Of a happy event, I trust?"
+
+Mrs. Major clasped her hands; spoke with admirable ecstasy. "Oh, Mr.
+Marrapit, of a golden--golden page in my life."
+
+"Elucidate," Mr. Marrapit commanded.
+
+Mrs. Major put into a whisper:
+
+"The day I came here."
+
+Mr. Marrapit slowly moved his head towards her.
+
+Her eyes were averted. "The time has passed swiftly," he said.
+
+Mrs. Major breathed: "For me it has flown on--on--" She searched wildly
+for a metaphor. "On wings," she concluded.
+
+Again there was a pause, and again Mrs. Major felt that for this passage
+to have fullest effect the word lay with Mr. Marrapit. But Mr. Marrapit,
+himself considerably perturbed, did not speak. The moments sped. Fearful
+lest they should distance beyond recovery the sentiments she felt she
+had aroused, Mrs. Major hastened to check them.
+
+She said musingly: "I wonder if they are right?"--sighed as though
+doubtful.
+
+"To whom do you refer?"
+
+"Why, the people who say that time flies when it is spent in pleasant
+company."
+
+"They are correct," Mr. Marrapit affirmed.
+
+"Oh, I do not doubt it for my part, Mr. Marrapit. I never knew what
+happiness was until I come here--came here. But if--" The masterly woman
+paused.
+
+"Continue" Mr. Marrapit commanded.
+
+The hard word was softly spoken. Mrs. Major's heart gave two little
+thumps; her plan clear before her, pushed ahead. "But if to you also,
+Mr. Marrapit, the time has seemed to fly, then--then Mr. Marrapit, my
+company has--has been agreeable to you?"
+
+Certainly there was a softness in Mr. Marrapit's tones as he made
+answer.
+
+"It has, Mrs. Major," he said, "it has. Into my establishment you have
+brought an air of peace that had for some time been lacking. Prior to
+your arrival, I was often worried by household cares that should not
+fall upon a man."
+
+Earnestly Mrs. Major replied: "Oh, I _saw_ that. I strove to lift them."
+
+"You have lifted them. You have attended not only my cats but my
+kitchen. I am now able often to enjoy such evenings as these. This peace
+around us illustrates the tranquillity you have brought--"
+
+The tranquillity was at that moment disastrously shattered. A bed of
+shrubbery lay within a few feet of where they sat. What had appeared
+to be a gnarled stump in its midst now quivered, broadened, fell into a
+line with the straightening back of Mr. Fletcher.
+
+Mr. Marrapit was startled and annoyed. "What are you doing there, sir?"
+
+"Snailin'," said Mr. Fletcher gloomily; exhibited his snail.
+
+"Snail elsewhere. Do not snail where I am."
+
+"I snails where there's snails."
+
+"Cease snailing. You must have been there hours."
+
+"What if I have? This garden's fair planted with snails."
+
+"Snail oftener. Depart."
+
+Mr. Fletcher moved a few steps; then turned. "I should like to ast if
+this is to be part of my regular job. First you says 'cease snailin','
+then you says 'snail oftener,' then you says 'snail elsewhere.'
+Snails take findin'. They don't come to me; I has to go to them. It's
+'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a lettuce-leaf."
+
+He gloomily withdrew.
+
+Mr. Marrapit's face was angrily twitching. The moment was not propitious
+for continuing her conversation, and with a little sigh Mrs. Major
+withdrew.
+
+But it was upon that night that she inscribed in her diary:
+
+_"Getting on with Mr. M. Should suc. Precip. fat."_
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+A last peep, ere we hurry across the bridge, will disclose to us Mr. Bob
+Chater still pressing upon Mary the attentions which her position, in
+relation to his, made it so difficult for her to escape. Piqued by her
+attitude towards him, he was the more inflamed than ordinarily he would
+have been by the fair face and neat figure that were hers. Yet he made
+no headway; within a month of the date of his return to Palace Gardens
+was as far from conquest as upon that night in the nursery.
+
+To a City friend, Mr. Lemuel Moss, dining at 14 Palace Gardens with him
+one night, he explained affairs.
+
+"Dam' pretty girl, that governess of yours, or whatever she is," said
+Mr. Moss, biting the end from a cigar in the smoking-room after dinner.
+"Lucky beggar you are, Bob. My mater won't have even a servant in the
+place that wouldn't look amiss in a monkey-house. Knows me too well,
+unfortunately," and Mr. Moss, taking a squint at himself in the
+overmantel, laughed--well enough pleased.
+
+Bob pointed out that there was not so much luck about it as Mr. Moss
+appeared to think. "Never seen such a stand-offish little rip in all my
+life," he moodily concluded.
+
+"What, isn't she--?"
+
+Bob understood the unvoiced question. "Won't even let a chap have two
+minutes' talk with her," he said, "let alone anything else."
+
+Mr. Moss stretched himself along the sofa; rejoined: "Oh, rats! Rats!
+You don't know how to manage 'em--that's what it is."
+
+"I know as well as you, and a dashed sight better, I don't mind
+betting," Bob returned with heat. In some circles it is an aspersion
+upon a man's manliness to have it hinted that a petticoat presenting
+possibilities has not been ruffled.
+
+"Well, it don't look much like it. I caught her eye in the passage when
+we were coming downstairs, and you don't tell me--not much!"
+
+"Did you though?" Bob said. Himself he had never been so fortunate.
+
+"No mistake about it. Why, d'you mean to say you've never got as far as
+that, even?"
+
+"Tell you she won't look at me."
+
+Mr. Moss laughed. Enjoyed the "score" over his host for a few moments,
+and then:
+
+"Tell you what it is, old bird," said he, "you're going the wrong way
+about it. I know another case just the same. Chap out Wimbledon way.
+His people kept a girl--topper she was, too--dark. He was always messing
+round just like you are, and she was stand-offish as a nun. One night
+he came home early, a bit screwed--people out--girl in. Met her in the
+drawing-room. Almost been afraid to speak to her before. Had a bit of
+fizz on board him now--_you_ know; didn't care a rip for anybody. Gave
+her a smacking great kiss, and, by Gad!--well, she _was_ all right. Told
+him she'd always stood off up to then because she was never quite sure
+what he meant--afraid he didn't mean anything, and that she might get
+herself into no end of a row if she started playing around. Same with
+this little bit of goods, I'll lay."
+
+Bob was interested. "Shouldn't be surprised if you're right," he said;
+and moodily cogitated upon the line of action prescribed.
+
+Mr. Moss offered to bet that where girls were concerned he was never
+far wrong. "Slap-dash style is what they like," he remarked, and with a
+careless "It's all they understand" dismissed the subject.
+
+It remained, however, in Bob's mind throughout the evening; sprang
+instantly when, after breakfast upon the following day, he caught a
+glimpse of Mary as he prepared for the City.
+
+Standing for a moment in the hall, it occurred to him that this very
+evening offered the opportunity he sought. Mr. and Mrs. Chater were
+to dine at the house of a neighbour. The invitation had included
+Bob--fortunately he had refused it. Returning to the morning-room, "I
+shan't be in to-night," he told his mother.
+
+"Then I needn't order any dinner for you?"
+
+"No." He hung about irresolute, then lit a cigar, and between the puffs,
+"Shall you be late?" he asked carelessly.
+
+"Sure to be," Mrs. Chater told him. "It's going to be a big bridge
+drive, you know. We shan't get back before midnight. Don't sit up for
+us, dear."
+
+Bob inhaled a long breath from his cigar, exhaled it deliciously. The
+chance for the slap-dash style was at hand.
+
+"Oh, I'll be later than you. Lemmy Moss has got a bachelors' party on.
+We're going to have a billiard match."
+
+"That's capital then, dear. I shall let the servants go to Earl's
+Court--I've promised them a long time."
+
+Bob whistled gaily as he mounted his 'bus for the City. The opportunity
+was surely exceptional.
+
+At eight o'clock he returned; noiselessly let himself in.
+
+The gas in the hall burned low. Beneath the library door gleamed a
+stronger light. Bob turned the handle.
+
+Mary was curled in a big chair with a book. Certainly the opportunity
+was exceptional.
+
+At the noise of his entry she sprang to her feet with a little cry. "Oh,
+dear!" she exclaimed: "what a fright you gave me!"
+
+Bob pushed the door. He laughed. "Did I?"; came towards her. "Are you
+all alone? What a shame!"
+
+"Minnie is in the kitchen, I think. Mrs. Chater said you wouldn't be in
+to-night."
+
+"Why do you think I came?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I came to see you."
+
+She gave a nervous little laugh and made to pass him.
+
+Bob fell back a pace, guarding the door. "Don't you think that was
+thoughtful of me?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean. There was no need."
+
+"What! No need! You all alone like this when all the rest are enjoying
+themselves!"
+
+"So was I. A long evening with a book."
+
+She had fallen back as he, speaking, had slowly advanced.
+
+Now the great chair in which she had been seated was alone between them.
+
+"Oh, books! Books are rot." He stepped around the chair.
+
+She fell back; was cornered between the hearth and a low table.
+
+Bob dropped into the chair; boldly regarded her; his eyes as expressive
+of his slap-dash intentions as he could make them: "Look here, I want
+you to enjoy yourself for once. I'm going to take you to a music-hall or
+somewhere."
+
+He stretched a foot; touched her.
+
+She drew back close against the mantelpiece, her agitation very evident.
+
+"Well, don't that please you?"
+
+"You know it is impossible."
+
+Bob paid no regard. This was that same diffidence with which the chap
+near Wimbledon had had to contend.
+
+"We'll come out of the show early and have a bit of supper and be back
+before half-past eleven. Who's to know? Now, then?"
+
+"It's very kind of you. I know you mean it kindly--"
+
+"Of course I do--"
+
+"But I'd rather not."
+
+"Are you afraid?"
+
+She was desperately afraid. Her face, the shaking of her hand where it
+was pressed back against the wall, and the catch in her voice advertised
+her apprehension. She was afraid of this big young man confidently
+lolling before her.
+
+She said weakly: "It would not be right."
+
+Bob sat up. "Is that all?" he laughed. His hands were upon the arms of
+the chair, and he made to pull himself up towards her.
+
+She saw her mistake. "No," she cried hurriedly--"no; I would not go with
+you in any case."
+
+A shadow flickered upon Bob's face. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean what I say. Please let me pass."
+
+"I want to be friends with you. Why can't you let me?"
+
+"Please let me pass. Mr. Chater."
+
+Bob lay back. He said with a laugh, "Well, I'm not stopping you, am I?"
+
+She hesitated a moment. The passage between the table and the long
+chair was narrow. But truly he was not stopping her--so far as one might
+judge.
+
+She took her skirts about her with her left hand; stepped forward; was
+almost past the chair before he moved.
+
+Then he flung out a hand and caught her wrist, drawing her.
+
+"Now!" he cried, and his voice was thick.
+
+She gave a half-sound of dismay--of fear; tried to twist free. Bob
+laughed; pulled sharply on her arm. She was standing sideways to
+him--against the sudden strain lost her balance and half toppled across
+the chair.
+
+As Bob reflected, when afterwards feeding upon the incident, had he not
+been as unprepared as she for her sudden stumble, he would have made--as
+he put it--a better thing of it. As it was, her face falling against
+his, he was but able to give a half kiss when she had writhed herself
+free and made across the room.
+
+But that embrace of her had warmed Bob's passions. Springing up, he
+caught her as she fumbled with the latch; twisted her to him.
+
+For a moment they struggled, he grasping her wrists and pressing towards
+her.
+
+With the intention of encircling her waist he slipped his hold. But
+panic made her the quicker. Her outstretched arms held him at bay for
+a breathing space; then as he broke them down she dealt him a swinging
+blow upon the face that staggered him back a step, his hand to his
+cheek.
+
+Mrs. Chater opened the door.
+
+"Oh, he kissed me! He kissed me!" Mary cried.
+
+Bob said very slowly, "You--infernal--little--liar."
+
+Mrs. Chater glowered upon Mary with cruel eyes. "It was a fortunate
+thing," she said coldly, "that a headache brought me home. Go to your
+room, miss."
+
+We may hurry across the bridge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Excursions In Love.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Saturday was the day immediately following this scene.
+
+George, on a 'bus carrying him towards Regent's Park, was in spirit
+at one with the gay freshness that gave this September morning a
+spring-like air.
+
+A week of torrid heat, in which London crawled, groaned, and panted, had
+been wiped from the memory by an over-night thunderstorm that burst the
+pent-up dams of heaven and loosed cool floods upon the staring streets.
+No misty drizzle nor gusty shower it had been, but a strong, straight,
+continuous downpour, seemingly impelled by tremendous pressure. Dusty
+roofs, dusty streets, dusty windows it had scoured and scrubbed and
+polished; torrents had poured down the gutters--whenever temporarily the
+pressure seemed to relax, the ears of wakeful Londoners were sung to by
+the gurgle and rush of frantic streams driving before them the collected
+debris of many days.
+
+Upon this morning, in the result, a tempest might have swept the town
+and found never a speck of dust to drive before it. The very air had
+been washed and sweetened; and London's workers, scurrying to and from
+their hives, seemed also to have benefited by some attribute of the
+downpour that tinted cheeks, sparkled eyes, and, rejuvenating limbs,
+gave to them a new sprightliness of movement.
+
+George, from his 'bus, caught many a bright eye under a jaunty little
+hat; gave each back its gleam from the depths of gay lightness that
+filled his heart. Nearing the Park he alighted; made two purchases. From
+a confectioner bun-corn for David and Angela, those ramping steeds;
+from a florist the reddest rose that an exhaustive search of stock could
+discover.
+
+Mary had from him such a rose at their every meeting. She might not wear
+it back to Palace Gardens--it would not flourish beneath Mrs. Chater's
+curiosity; but while they were together she would tuck it in her bosom,
+and George tenderly would bear it home and set it in a vase before him
+to lend him inspiration as he worked.
+
+It is almost certain that such a part is one for which flowers were
+especially designed.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Those splendid steeds, David and Angela, having been duly exercised,
+groomed, and turned out to browse upon bun-corn, George rushed at once
+upon the matter that was singing within him.
+
+Where he sat with his Mary they were sheltered from any but chance
+obtrusion. She had taken off her gloves, and George gave her hands, as
+they lay in her lap, a little confident pat. It was the tap of the baton
+with which the conductor calls together his orchestra--for this was a
+song that George was about to tune, very confident that the chords of
+both instruments that should give the notes were in a harmony complete.
+
+He said: "Mary, do you know what I am going to talk about?"
+
+She had been a little silent that morning, he had thought; did not
+answer now, but smiled.
+
+He laid a hand upon both hers. "You must say 'yes.' You've got to say
+'yes' about twenty times this morning, so start now. Do you know what
+I'm going to talk about?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"No objections this time?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He laughed; gave her hand a little smack of reproof. (You who have loved
+will excuse these lovers' absurdities.) "No, no; you are only to say
+'yes' when I tell you. No objections to the subject this morning?"
+
+His Mary told him "No."
+
+"Couldn't have a better morning for it, could we?"
+
+She took a little catch at her breath.
+
+George dropped the banter in his tone. "Nothing wrong to-day, is there,
+dear? Nothing up?"
+
+How sadly wrong everything in truth was she had determined not to
+tell him until she more certainly knew its extent. She shook her head;
+reassuringly smiled.
+
+"Well, that's all right--there couldn't be on a morning like this. Now
+we've got to begin at the beginning. Mary, I planned it all out last
+night--all this conversation. We've got to begin at the beginning--Do
+you know I've never told you yet that I love you? You knew it, though,
+didn't you, from the first, the very first? Tell me from when?"
+
+"George, this is awfully foolish, isn't it?"
+
+"Never mind. It's jolly nice. It's necessary, too. I've read about it.
+It's always done. Tell me from when you knew I loved you."
+
+"After last Saturday."
+
+"Oh, Mary! Much earlier than _that_! You must have!"
+
+"Well, I thought perhaps you--you cared after that first day when you
+came here."
+
+"Not before that?"
+
+She laughed. "Come, how _could_ I? Why, I'd hardly seen you."
+
+"Well, I did, anyway," George told her. "I loved you from the very
+minute you shot out of the cab that day. There! But even this isn't the
+proper thing. I've been promising myself all night to say four words to
+you--just four. Now I'm going to say them: Mary, I love you."
+
+She looked in his eyes for a moment, answering the signal that shone
+thence; and then she laughed that clear pipe of mirth which was so
+uniquely her own possession.
+
+"Oh, I say, you mustn't do that," George cried. He was really perturbed.
+
+"I can't help it. You are so utterly foolish."
+
+"I'm not. It's the proper thing. I tell you I've planned it all out. I
+love you. I've never said it to you before. Now it's your turn."
+
+"But what on earth am I to say?"
+
+"You've got to say that you love me."
+
+"You're making a farce of it."
+
+"No, I tell you I've planned it all out. I can't go on till you've said
+it."
+
+"You can't expect me to say: 'George, I love you.' It's ridiculous. It's
+like a funny story."
+
+"Oh, never mind what it's like. Do be serious, Mary. How can I be sure
+you love me if you won't tell me?"
+
+For the first moment since its happening the thought of Bob Chater and
+of Mrs. Chater passed completely from Mary's mind. She looked around:
+there was no soul in sight. She listened: there was no sound. She
+clasped her fingers about his; leaned towards him, her face upturned....
+
+He kissed her upon the lips....
+
+"The plans," said George after a moment, "have all gone fut. I never
+thought of that way."
+
+"It's much better," Mary said.
+
+"The other's not a patch upon it," said George.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+You must conjecture of what lovers think when, following their first
+kiss, they sit silent. It is not a state that may be written down in
+such poor words as your author commands. For the touch of lips on lips
+is the key that turns the lock and gives admission to a world dimly
+conceived, yet found to have been wrongly conceived since conceived
+never to be so wonderful or so beautiful as it does prove. Nor, ever
+again, once the silence is broken and speech is found, has that world an
+aspect quite the same. For the door that divides this new world from the
+material world can never from the inside be closed. It is at first--for
+the space of that silence after the first kiss--pushed very close by
+those who have entered; but, soon after, the breath of every rushing
+moment blows it further and further ajar. Drab objects from the outer
+world drift across the threshold and obtrude their presence--vagabond
+tramps in a rose-garden, unpleasant, marring the surroundings, soiling
+the atmosphere. Cares drift in, worldly interests drift in; in drift
+smudgy, soiled, unpleasant objects brushing the door yet wider upon
+its hinges till it stands back to its furthest extent and the
+interior becomes at one with the outer world. The process is gradual,
+indiscernible. When completed the knowledge of what has been done dawns
+suddenly. One knocks against an intruder especially drab, starts into
+wakefulness to rub the bruise, and looking around exclaims, "And this is
+love!"
+
+Well, it was love. But a rose-garden will not long remain beautiful if
+no care is taken of what may intrude.
+
+If we but stand sentinel at the door, exercising a nice discretion, the
+garden may likely remain unsoiled, its air uncontaminated.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+George said that though across the first portion of the scheme he had so
+laboriously planned he had been shot at lightning speed by the vehicle
+of Mary's action, its latter portion yet remained to be discussed.
+"We've got to marry, dearest--and as quick as quick. We can't go on like
+this--seeing each other once a week. No, not even if it were once a day.
+It's got to be always."
+
+"Always and always, dear," Mary said softly.
+
+Women are more intoxicated than men by the sudden atmosphere of that
+new world. The awe of it was still upon her. The light of love comes
+strongly to men, with the sensation of bright sunshine; to women as
+through stained glass windows, softly.
+
+She continued: "Fancy saying 'always' and being glad to say it! I never
+thought I could. Do you know--will this frighten you?--I am one of those
+people who dread the idea of 'always.' I never could bear the idea of
+looking far, far ahead and not seeing any end. It frightened me. Ever
+since father died, I've been like that--even in little things, even in
+tangible things. When we go to the seaside in the summer I never
+can bear to look straight across the sea. That gives me the idea of
+always--of long, long miles and miles without a turn or a stop. I
+want to think every day, every hour, that what I am doing can't go
+on--mustchange. It suffocates me to think otherwise. I want to jump out,
+to scream."
+
+Then she gave that laugh that seldom failed to come to her relief,
+and said: "It's a sort of claustrophobia--isn't that the word?--on a
+universal scale. But why is it? And why am I suddenly changed now? Why
+does the thought of always, always, endless always with you, bring a
+sort of--don't laugh, dear--a sort of bliss, peace?"
+
+This poor George of mine, who was no deep thinker, nevertheless had the
+reason pat. He said:
+
+"I think because the past has all been unhappy and because this, you
+know, means happiness."
+
+She gave a little sigh; told him: "Yes, that's it--happiness."
+
+
+
+V.
+
+And now they fell to making plans as mating birds build nests. Here a
+bit of straw and there a tuft of moss; here a feather, there a shred
+of wool--George would do this and George would do that; here the
+house would be and thus would they do in the house. Probabilities were
+outraged, obstacles vaulted.
+
+Castles that are builded in the air spring into being quicker than
+Aladdin's palace--bricks and mortar, beams and stones are featherweight
+when handled in the clouds; every piece is so dovetailed, marked and
+numbered that like magic there springs before the eye the shining
+whole--pinnacled, turreted, embattled.
+
+Disaster arrives when the work is completed. "There!" we say, standing
+back, a little flushed and out of breath with the excitement of the
+thing. "There! There's a place in which to live! Could any existence be
+more glorious?" And then we advance a step and lean against the walls
+to survey the surrounding prospect. It is the fatal action. The material
+body touches the aerial structure and down with a crash the castle
+comes--back we pitch into the foundations, and thwack, bump, thwack,
+comes the masonry tumbling about us, bruising, wounding.
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+George had built the castle. Mary had sat by twittering and clapping her
+hands for glee as higher and higher it rose. He knew for a fact, he told
+her, that his uncle had not expended upon his education much more than
+half the money left him for the purpose. He was convinced that by
+hook or by crook he could obtain the 400 pounds that would buy him the
+practice at Runnygate of which the Dean had told him. They would have
+a little house there--the town would thrive--the practice would
+nourish--in a year--why, in a year they would likely enough have to be
+thinking of getting a partner! And it would begin almost immediately!
+In three weeks the examination would be held. He could not fail to
+pass--then for the 400 pounds and Runnygate!
+
+And then, unhappily, George leaned against this castle wall; provoked
+the crash.
+
+"Till then, dear," he said, "you will stay with these Chater people.
+I know you hate it; but it will be only a short time, a few weeks at
+most."
+
+Instantly her gay twittering ceased. Trouble drove glee from her eyes.
+Memory chased dreams from her brain. Distress tore down the gay colours
+from her cheeks. She clasped her hands; from her seat half rose.
+
+"Oh!" she cried; and again, "Oh! I had forgotten!"
+
+"Forgotten? Forgotten what?"
+
+"Dearest, I should have told you at the beginning, but I could not. I
+wanted to wait until I knew. I have not seen her yet this morning."
+
+My startled George was becoming pale. "Knew what? Seen whom? What do you
+mean?"
+
+She said, "No, I won't tell you. I won't spoil all this beautiful
+morning we have spent. I will wait till next week."
+
+"Mary, what do you mean? Wait till next week? No. You must tell me now.
+How could I leave you like this, knowing you are in some trouble? What
+has happened? You must tell. You must. I insist."
+
+"Ah, I will." Her agitation, as her mind cast back over the events of
+the previous night, was enhanced by the suddenness of the change from
+the sunshine in which she had been disporting to the darkness that now
+swept upon her. She was as a girl who, singing along a country lane, is
+suddenly confronted from the hedgeside by some ugly tramp.
+
+She said, "You know that young Mr. Chater?"
+
+Dark imaginings clouded upon George's brow. "Yes," he said. "Yes;
+well--?"
+
+"Last night--" And then she gave him the history of events.
+
+This simple George of mine writhed beneath it.
+
+It was a poison torturing his system, twisting his brow, knotting his
+hands. Her presence, when she finished, did not stay his cry beneath
+his rackings: he was upon his feet. "By Gad," he cried, "I'll thrash the
+life out of him! The swine! By Gad, I'll kill him!"
+
+She laid a hand upon his arm. "Georgie, dear," she pleaded. "Don't,
+don't take it like that. I haven't finished."
+
+Roughly he turned upon her. "Well, what else? What else?"
+
+"I haven't seen him since. He went away early this morning for the
+week-end. And I have not seen Mrs. Chater again either. I am to see her
+this afternoon. She sent me word to take the children as usual and that
+she would see me at three."
+
+My poor George bitterly broke out: "Oh! Will she? That's kind of her!
+That's delightful of her! Are you going to see her?"
+
+"Of course I shall see her."
+
+"'Of course'! 'Of course'! I don't know what you mean by talking in that
+tone. You won't stay there another minute! That's what you'll tell her
+if you insist upon seeing her. If you had behaved properly you'd have
+walked out of the house there and then when it happened last night."
+
+Spite of her trouble Mary could not forbear to laugh. "Dearest, how
+could I?"
+
+But this furious young man could not see her point. His fine passion
+swept him above contingencies.
+
+"Well, then, this morning," he laid down. "The first thing this morning
+you should have gone." He supplied detail: "Packed your box, and called
+a cab and gone."
+
+His dictatory air drew from her another sad little laugh.
+
+"Oh, George, dear," she cried, "gone where?"
+
+It was a bucket of water dashed upon his flames, and for a moment they
+flickered beneath it--then roared again: "_Where? Anywhere!_"
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "you are stupid! You don't see--you don't understand!
+Easy to say 'anywhere,' but where--_where_? I have no money. I have no
+friends--I--"
+
+The knowledge of her plight and her outlook crowded upon her speech;
+broke her voice.
+
+Her distracted George in a moment had her hands in his. "Oh, my dear,"
+he cried, "what a fool I am! What a beast to storm like that! I was
+so wild. So mad. Of course you had to think before you moved. You were
+right, of course you were right. But, my darling, I'm right now. You see
+that, don't you? You can't stay a moment longer with those beasts."
+
+And then he laughed grimly. "Especially," he added, "after what I'm
+going to do to Master Bob."
+
+She too laughed. The thought of Bob learning manners beneath the tuition
+of those sinewy brown hands that were about hers was very pleasant to
+her. But it was a pleasure that must be denied--this she saw clearly as
+the result of weary tossings throughout the night; and now she set about
+the task of explaining it to George.
+
+She said: "Oh, my dear, you're not right. Georgie, I can't go--if Mrs.
+Chater will let me stay I must stay."
+
+He tried to be calm, to understand these women, to understand his Mary.
+"But why?" he asked. "Why?"
+
+"Dearest, because I must bridge over the time until you are ready to
+take me. You see that?"
+
+"Of course. But why there? You can easily get another place."
+
+"Oh, easily! If you had been through it as I have been! The first thing
+they ask you for is a reference from your former situation. Think what a
+reference Mrs. Chater would give me!"
+
+He would not agree. He plunged along in his blundering, man fashion:
+"In time you could get a place where they would not ask questions--or
+rather--yes, of course this is it. Tell them frankly all that happened.
+Who could see you and not believe you? Tell them everything. There must
+be some nice people in the world."
+
+"There may be. But they don't want helps or governesses--in my
+experience." The little laugh she gave was sadly doleful.
+
+He was still angry. "You can't generalise like that. There are thousands
+who would believe you and be glad to take you. Suppose you have to wait
+a bit--well, you have a little money that she must give you; and I--oh,
+curse my poverty!--I can borrow, and I can sell things."
+
+The help that a man would give a woman so often has lack of sympathy; he
+is unkind while meaning to be kind. George's obdurateness, coming when
+she was most in need of kisses, hurt her. Trouble welled in her eyes.
+
+"I wouldn't do that," she said. "For one thing, we want all our money.
+Why throw it away to get me out of a place in which I shall only be
+for a few weeks longer? Another thing--another thing--" She dragged
+a ridiculous handkerchief from her sleeve; dabbed her brimming eyes.
+"Another thing--I'm afraid to risk it. I'm afraid to be alone and
+looking for a place again. There--now you know. I'm a coward."
+
+She fell to sniffing and sobbing; and her wretched George, cursing
+himself for the grief he had evoked, cursing Bob Chater, cursing Mrs.
+Chater, cursing his uncle Marrapit, put his arms about her and drew her
+to him. She quivered hysterically, and he frantically moaned that he
+was a beast, a brute, unworthy; implored forgiveness; entreated calm; by
+squeezing her with his left arm and with his right hand dabbing her eyes
+with her handkerchief, screwed to a pathetic little damp ball, strove to
+stem the flood that alarmingly welled from them.
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+It was an awful position for any young man; and just as my poor George,
+distinguished in nothing, inept, bewildered, was in a mood murderous to
+the whole world save this anguished fairy, a wretched old gentleman
+must needs come sunning himself down the path, making for this seat with
+hobbling limbs.
+
+He collapsed upon it, and then, glancing to his right, was struck with
+palpitations by sight of the heaving back of a young woman over whose
+shoulder glared at him with hideous ferocity the face of a young man.
+
+"Dear me, dear me," said he; "nothing wrong, sir, I trust?"
+
+"Go away!" roared my distracted George.
+
+"Eh?" inquired the old gentleman, horribly startled.
+
+"Go away! Go away!"
+
+The fire of those baleful eyes, of that bellowing voice, struck terror
+into the aged heart. He clutched his stick.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear," said he; hobbled away at a speed dangerous to his
+life and limbs to seek protection of a park-keeper.
+
+The sobs grew longer, less hysterical: changed into long "ohs" of
+misery; died away.
+
+"There, there," said George, patting, dabbing. "There, there."
+
+With a final frantic sniff she recovered her self-possession.
+
+"I'm a little f--fool," said she.
+
+"I'm a brute," said George.
+
+The bitter knowledge nerved each to better efforts. Calm reigned.
+
+Mary said, "Now you must listen and believe, dear."
+
+"Let me have your hand, then."
+
+She gave it with a little confiding, snuggling movement, and she
+continued: "You must believe, because I have thought it all out, whereas
+to you it is new. If I were a proper-spirited girl"--she rebuked his
+negation with a gesture--"if I were a proper-spirited girl I know I
+should leave Mrs. Chater at once--walk out and not care what I might
+suffer rather than stay where I had been insulted. Girls in books would
+do it. Oh, Georgie, this isn't books. This is real. I have been through
+it, and I would die sooner than face it again. You know--I have told
+you--what it is like being alone in cheap lodgings in London. Afraid of
+people, dear. Afraid of men, afraid of women. I couldn't, could not go
+through it again. And after all-don't you see?--if Mrs. Chater will
+let me stay, what have I to mind? I shall be better off than before, if
+anything. Mrs. Chater has always been--well, sharp. She may be a little
+worse--there's nothing in that. But this Bob Chater, since he came, has
+been the worst part of it. And as things are now, his mother watchful
+and he--what shall I say? angry, ashamed--why, he will pay no further
+attention to me. Come, am I not right? Isn't it best?--if only she will
+let me stay."
+
+"I don't like it," George said. "I don't like it."
+
+"Dearest, nor I. But we can't, can't have what we like, and this will be
+the best of the nasty things. For so short a time, too. I'm quite bright
+about it. Am I not? Look at me."
+
+George looked. Then he said, "All right, old girl."
+
+She clapped her hands. "Only one thing more. You mustn't seek out--you
+mustn't touch the detestable Bob."
+
+With the gloom of one relinquishing life's greatest prize George said,
+"I suppose I mustn't." He added, "I tell you what, though. You mustn't
+interfere with this. I'll save it up for him. The day I take you out and
+marry you I'll pull him out--and pay him."
+
+They parted upon the promises that Mary would write that evening to tell
+him of the result of her interview with Mrs. Chater, and that, in the
+especial circumstances, he might come to see her in the Park for just
+two minutes on Monday morning.
+
+And each went home, thinking, not of that portending interview with Mrs.
+Chater, but upon the love they had declared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Events And Sentiment Mixed In A Letter.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+At ten o'clock that night Mary took up her pen.
+
+"First, my dear, to tell you that it is all right. I may stay. I had
+lunch with the children in the nursery, and just as we had finished
+a maid came to say that Mrs. Chater would see me in the study. Down I
+crawled, wishing that I was the heroine of a novel who would have passed
+firmly down the stairs and into the room, 'pale, but calm and serene.'
+Oh! I was pale enough, I feel sure. But as to serene!--my heart was
+flapping about just like a tin ventilator in a wind, and I was jumpy all
+over. You see what a coward am I.
+
+"Mrs. Chater had grown since last I saw her. Of that I am convinced. She
+sat, enormous, thunder-browed, bolt upright in a straight chair. I stood
+and quivered. Books are all wrong, dear. In books the consciousness of
+virtue gives one complete self-possession in the face of any accusation,
+however terrible. In books it is the accuser of the innocent who is ill
+at ease. Oh, don't believe it! Mrs. Chater had the self-possession, I
+had the jim-jams.
+
+"'I have not seen you since last night,' she said.
+
+"I gave a kind of terrified little squeak. I had no words.
+
+"'Your version of what happened I do not wish to hear,' she went on.
+
+"This relieved me, because for the life of me I could not have told her
+had she wished to hear it. So I gave another little mouse-squeak.
+
+"'My son has told me.' Her voice was like a deep bell. 'How you can
+reconcile your conduct with the treatment that you have received at my
+hands, here beneath my roof'--she was very dramatic at this point--'I do
+not know.'
+
+"Nor did I--but not in the way she meant. I was thinking how ignoble was
+my meek attitude in light of what had happened. But you don't know what
+it was like, facing that woman and dreading the worse fate of being
+turned out into this awful London again. Another wretched little squeak
+slipped out of me, and she went on.
+
+"'My boy,' said she, 'has implored me to overlook this matter. My
+boy has declared there were faults on both sides' (!!!!). 'If I acted
+rightly as a mother, what would I do?'
+
+"I didn't tell her, Georgie. Could I tell her that if she acted rightly
+as a mother she would box her boy's fat ears until his nose bled? I
+couldn't. I squeaked instead.
+
+"'If I acted rightly as a mother,' said she, 'I would send you away. I
+am not going to.'
+
+"I squeaked.
+
+"'I choose to believe that your behaviour in this matter was a slip. I
+believe the episode will be a lesson to you. That is all. Go.' I goed."
+
+
+
+II.
+
+George, when he had read thus far, was broadly grinning. Obviously
+Mrs. Chater was not such a bad sort after all. If--as no doubt--she
+implicitly believed her son's version of the incident, then her attitude
+towards Mary was, on the whole, not so bad.
+
+But his Mary, when she had written thus far, laid down her pen, put her
+pretty head upon the paper and wept.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" she choked. "There, that will make you think it was all
+right. You shall never know--never--what really happened. Oh, Georgie,
+Georgie, come very quick and take me away! How can I go on living with
+these beasts? Oh, Georgie, be quick, be quick!"
+
+Then this silly Mary with handkerchief, with india-rubber, and with
+pen-knife erased a stain of grief that had fallen upon her pretty story;
+sniffed back her tears; lifted again her pen.
+
+Now she wrote in an eager scrawl; nib flying. Had her George not been so
+very ordinary a young man he must have perceived the difference between
+that first portion so neatly penned--parti-coloured words showing where
+the ink had dried while the poor little brain puzzled and planned at
+every syllable--and this where emotion sped the thoughts.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+"So that's all right" (she wrote), "and now we've only got to wait, a
+few, few weeks. Dearest, will they fly or will they drag? What does love
+do to time, I wonder--whip or brake?--speed or pull? Georgie mine, I
+feel I don't care. If the days fly I shall be riding in them--galloping
+to you, wind in the face; shouting them on; standing up all flushed with
+the swing and the rush of it; waving to the people we go thundering past
+and gazing along the road where soon I will see you--nearer and nearer
+and nearer.
+
+"And if the days creep? Well, at first, after that picture, the thought
+seems melancholy, unbearable. But that is wrong. The realisation will
+not be unbearable. If they creep, why, then I shall lie in them, very
+comfortable, very happy; dreaming of you, seeing you, speaking with you,
+touching you. Yes, touching you. For, my dear, you are here in the
+room with me as I write. I look up just to my right, and there you are,
+Georgie mine; sitting on the end of my bed, smiling at me. You have
+not left me, my dear, since we parted on the seat this morning. Why, I
+cannot even write that it is only in imagination that I see you. For me
+it is not imagination. I do, do see you, Georgie mine. You are part of
+me, never to leave me.
+
+"How new, how different, love makes life! Everything I do, everything
+I see, everything I hear has a new interest because it is something to
+share with you, something to save up and tell you. I am in trouble
+(you understand that I am not, shall never be again; this is only
+illustration--you must read it 'if I were in trouble'). I am in trouble,
+and you are sharing it with me, sympathising so that trouble is an
+unkind word for what is indeed but an opportunity acutely to feel
+the joy of loving and being loved. I am happy, and the happiness is a
+thousandfold increased because it comes to me warmed through you. I
+am amused, and it is something to tell you and to laugh at the more
+heartily by the compelling sound of your own laughter.
+
+"Everything is new. Why, my very clothes are new. Look, here in my left
+hand is my handkerchief. Only a handkerchief this morning, and to other
+eyes still but a handkerchief. But to mine! Why, you have had it in your
+hand and indeed it speaks to me of you. Here you laid your arm, this was
+the side upon which you touched me as we sat together, here in my hair
+your fingers caressed me--each and all they are new--different from this
+morning.
+
+"Are you thinking me silly when I write like this, or are you dreadfully
+bored with it? I can't help it, Georgie; love means so much more to us
+women than to you men. It is essentially different. When a man in
+love thinks of the woman he thinks of her as 'mine,' and that thrills
+him--possession. But when the woman thinks of him she thinks of
+herself as 'his,' and that moves every fibre of her, strikes every
+chord--capitulation. The man expresses love by saying 'You are mine';
+the woman by 'I am yours.' That is how it is with me. I sing to myself
+that I am yours, yours, yours. I want you to have every bit of me. I
+want you to know every thought I have. If I had bad thoughts, I would
+tell them you. If I had desires, I would make them known and would
+not blush. I want you to see right into my very heart. I want to lay
+everything before you--to come to you bound and naked. That is what love
+is with women, dear. Some of us resist it, school it otherwise--but I do
+not think they are happy; not really happy. It is our nature to be as I
+have said, and to fight against nature is wearying work, leaving marks:
+it is to get tossed aside out of the sun.
+
+"Are you thinking me unutterably tiresome and foolish?--but you will not
+think that; because you love me.
+
+"Ah, let me write that again!-because you love me. And let me write
+this: I love you.
+
+"My dear, is not that curious?--the precious joy of saying 'I love you,'
+and the constant yearning to hear it said. Not lovers alone have this
+joy and this desire. Mothers teach their babies to say 'I love you,
+mother,' and constantly and constantly they ask, 'Do you love me, baby?
+'--yes, and are not satisfied until they have the assurance. And babies,
+too, will get up suddenly from their toys to run to say, 'Mother, I _do_
+love you.'
+
+"Why is it? Why is love so doubted that it must for ever be declared? So
+doubted that even those who do love must constantly be proclaiming
+the fact to the object of their affections, impelled either by the
+subconscious fear that that object mistrusts the devotion, or by the
+subconscious fear that they themselves are under delusion and must
+protest aloud--just as a child upon the brink of being frightened in the
+dark will say aloud, 'I'm not afraid!' Why is it?
+
+"Actions are allowed to proclaim hate, deeds suffice to advertise
+sympathy, but love must be testified by bond. To what crimes must love
+have been twisted and contorted that it should come to such a pass? How
+often must it have been used as disguise to be now thus suspected?
+
+"You never knew I thought of things like this, did you?
+
+"My dear dear, I who am so frivolous think of yet deeper things. And I
+would speak of them to you tonight, for I would have you know my heart
+and mind as, dearest (how dear to think!), you know my face. Yes, of
+deeper things. I suppose clever people would laugh at the religion my
+mother and father lived in, taught me, died in, and now is mine. They
+believed--and I believe--in what I have heard called the Sunday School
+God! the God who lives, who listens, and to whom I pray. I have read
+books attempting to shatter this belief--yes, and I think succeeding
+because written with a cunning appeal only to the intelligence of man.
+Can such a Being as God exist? they ask. And since man's intelligence
+can only grasp proved facts, proofs are heaped upon proof that
+He cannot. The impossibilities are heaped until man must--of his
+limitations--cry that it is impossible. But in my belief God is above
+the possibilities--not to be judged by them, not to be reduced to them.
+I suppose such a belief is Faith--implicit Faith--the Faith that we are
+told makes all things possible. Well, fancy, for the sake of having a
+'religion' that comes into line with 'reason,' abandoning the sense of
+comfort that comes after prayer! Fancy receiving a 'reasoned' belief and
+paying for it the solace of entreating help in the smallest trouble and
+in the largest!
+
+"Do you know, my dear dear, that I pray for you every night?--for your
+health, your happiness, and your success?
+
+"Now you know a little more of me. Is there more to learn, I wonder? Not
+if I can make it clear.
+
+"The candle is in a most melancholy condition: in the last stage of
+collapse. I have prodded it out from its socket with my knife and set it
+flabbily on a penny--so it must work to its very last drop of life. That
+will not be long delayed. I shall suddenly be plunged into darkness
+and must undress in the dark. I shall be smiling all the time I am
+undressing, my thoughts with you.
+
+"At eleven--ten minutes' time--I am to be leaning from the window gazing
+at Orion as you too--so we agreed--will be gazing. Each will know
+the other has his thoughts, and we will say 'good-night.' How
+utterly foolish! How contemptibly absurd, common!--and how mystically
+delightful! You and I with Orion for the apex of eye's sight and our
+thoughts flying from heart to heart the base!
+
+"Georgie mine, if we had never met could we have ever been so happy?
+Impossible! Impossible! Before I pray for you to-night, I thank God for
+you.
+
+"I have kissed the corner where I shall just be able to squeeze
+in--good-night."
+
+Such was her letter-disloyal to women in its exposure of those truths
+of women's love which are theirs by the heritage of ages, by their
+daily training from childhood upward, and against which they should most
+desperately battle; simple in its ideas of religion; silly in its baby
+sentiment.
+
+Such was my Mary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Beefsteak For 14 Palace Gardens.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Friday was the night of the incident in the library between Bob Chater
+and Mary; Saturday the exchange of love in the Park between Mary and
+her George; Saturday evening the writing of Mary's letter; upon Monday
+George read it.
+
+Now it was Monday morning, and precisely at ten o'clock three persons
+set out for the same seat in Regent's Park--the mind of each filled with
+one of the others, empty of all thought of the third.
+
+Mary--accompanied by David and Angela--carried towards the seat the
+image of her George, but had no heed of Mr. Bob Chater's existence; she
+was the magnet that drew Bob, ignorant of George; George sped to his
+Mary and had no thought of Bob.
+
+Our young men were handicapped in point of distance. Mary, with but
+a short half-mile to go, must easily be first to make the seat; Bob,
+coming to town from a week-end up the river, would occupy little short
+of an hour. George from Herons' Holt to that dear seat, allowed full
+seventy-five minutes.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Upon the whole, Mr. Bob Chater had not enjoyed his week-end; ideally
+circumstanced, for once the attractions it offered had failed to allure.
+
+Mr. Lemmy Moss, in the tiny riparian cottage he rented for the summer
+months, was the most excellent of hosts; Claude Avinger was widely known
+as a rattling good sort; the three young ladies who came down early on
+Sunday morning and had no foolish objections to staying indecorously
+late, were in face, figure and morals all that Bob, Lemmy, and Claude
+could desire. Yet throughout that day in the cushioned punt Bob won more
+pouts than smiles from the lady who fell to his guardianship.
+
+Disgustedly she remarked to her friends on the home journey, "Fairly
+chucked myself at him, the deadhead "--wherein, I apprehend, lay her
+mistake. For whether a man's assault upon a woman be dictated by love
+or desire, its vehemence is damped by acquiescence, spurred by rebuff.
+Doubtless for our lusty forefathers one-half the fascination of
+obtaining to wife the naked ladies who caught their eye lay in the
+tremendous excitement of snatching them from their tribes; while for the
+ladies, the joy of capture comprised a great proportion of the amorous
+delights.
+
+The characteristics remain. Maidens are more decorously won to-day;
+their tribes do not defend them; but they do the fighting for
+themselves. The sturdier the defence they are able to make, the greater
+the joy of at length being won; while, for the suitor, the more pains he
+hath endured in process of conquest the more keenly doth he relish his
+captive.
+
+So with Bob. The young lady fairly chucking herself at him in the punt
+he could not forbear to contrast with the enticing reserve of Mary. The
+more playfully (or desperately, poor girl) she chucked herself at him,
+the more did her charms cloy as against those of that other prize who so
+stoutly kept him at arm's-length. Nay, the more strenuously did she
+seek to entice his good offices, the more troubled was he to imagine why
+another of her sex should so slightingly regard him.
+
+Thus, as the day wore on, was Bob thrice impelled towards Mary--by
+initial attraction of her beauty; by natural instinct to show himself
+master where, till now, he had been bested; and by the stabbings of his
+wounded vanity.
+
+On Monday morning, then, he caught the ten o'clock train to town, hot
+in the determination immediately to see her and instantly to press his
+suit. He would try, he told himself, a new strategy. Bold assault had
+been proved ill-advised; for frontal attack must be substituted an
+advance more crafty. Its plan required no seeking. He would play--and,
+to a certain extent, would sincerely play--the part of penitent. He
+would apologise for Friday's lapse; would explain it to have been the
+outcome of sheer despair of ever winning her good graces.
+
+As to where he would find her he had no doubts. Dozing one day over a
+book, he had not driven David and Angela from the room until they
+had forced upon him a wearisome account of the secluded seat they had
+discovered in Regent's Park. His patience in listening was an example of
+the profit of casting one's bread upon the waters; for, making without
+hesitation for the seat, he discovered Mary.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+The children, as he approached, were standing before her. David had
+scratched his finger, and the three were breathlessly examining the
+wounded hand for traces of the disaster. Brightly Mary was explaining
+that the place of the wound was over the home of very big drops of
+"blug," which could not possibly squeeze out of so tiny a window; when
+Angela, turning at footsteps, exclaimed: "Oh, dear, oh, dear, what
+_shall_ we do? Here's Bob!"
+
+Alarm drummed in Mary's heart: fluttered upon her cheeks. She had felt,
+as she told her George, so certain that from Bob she had now not even
+acknowledgment to fear, that this deliberate intrusion set her mind
+bounding into disordered apprehensions--stumbling among them, terrified,
+out of breath.
+
+When he had raised his hat, bade her good morning, she could but sit
+dumbly staring at him-questioning, incapable of speech.
+
+It was Angela that answered his salutation: "Oh, why _have_ you come
+here? You spoil _everything_."
+
+"Hook!" said Bob.
+
+David asked: "What's hook?"
+
+"Run away."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I tell you to."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Bob exclaimed: "Hasn't mother told you not to say 'Why' like that? Run
+away and play. I want to speak to Miss Humfray."
+
+David swallowed the rising interrogation; substituted instead an
+observant poke: "Miss Humfray doesn't want to speak to you. She hates
+you."
+
+The uncompromising directness of these brats, their gross
+ill-mannerliness, was a matter of which Bob made constant complaint to
+his mother. The belief that he observed a twitch at the corner of Mary's
+mouth served further to harden his tones.
+
+He said: "Look here, you run away when I tell you, or I'll see you don't
+come out here any more."
+
+"Why?"
+
+Bob swallowed. It was necessary before he spoke to clear his tongue of
+the emotions that surged upon it.
+
+Angela, in the pause, entreated David: "Oh, don't keep saying 'Why?',
+David," and before he could ask the reason she addressed Bob: "We won't
+go for you. If Miss Humf'ay tells us to go, _then_ we will go."
+
+Bob looked at Mary. "I only want to speak to you for a minute."
+
+Amongst the slippery apprehensions in which she had taken flight Mary
+had struggled to the comfortable rock that Bob's appearance must have
+been chance, not deliberate--how should he have known where to seek
+them? Sure ground, too, was made by the belief that it were well to take
+the apology with which doubtless he had come--well to be on good terms.
+
+Encouraged by these supports, "Shoo!" she cried to her charges. "Don't
+you hear what your brother asks?"
+
+"Do _you_ want us to go?"
+
+"Oh, shoo! shoo!"
+
+Laughing, they shoo'd.
+
+Bob let them from earshot. "I want to say how sorry I am about Friday
+night."
+
+"I have forgotten all that."
+
+"I want to know that you have forgiven me."
+
+"I tell you I have forgotten it."
+
+"That is not enough. You can't have forgotten it." He took a seat beside
+her; repeated: "You can't have forgotten it. How can you have forgotten
+a thing that only happened three days ago?"
+
+"In the sense that I have wiped it out--I do not choose to remember it."
+
+"Well, I remember it. I cannot forget it. I behaved very badly. I want
+to know that you forgive me."
+
+She told him: "Yes, then--oh yes, yes." His persistence alarmed her, set
+her again to flight among her apprehensions.
+
+"Not when you say it like that."
+
+Her breath came in jerks, responsive to the unsteady flutters of her
+heart. She made an effort for control; for the first time turned to him:
+"Mr. Chater, please go."
+
+Her words pricked every force that had him there--desire, obstinacy,
+wounded vanity.
+
+"Why do you say that?" he asked.
+
+"You happened to be passing--"
+
+"Nothing of the kind," he told her.
+
+"You have come purposely?" One foothold that seemed safe was proving
+false.
+
+"Of course. I tell you--why won't you believe me?--that I have been
+ashamed of myself ever since that night. At the first opportunity I have
+come straight to tell you so, I ought to be in the City. I could not
+rest until I had made my apology."
+
+"Well, you have made it--I don't mean to say that sharply. I think--I
+think it is very nice of you to be so anxious, and I freely accept your
+apology. But don't you see that you are harming me by staying here? I
+beg you to go."
+
+"How am I harming you? Am I so distasteful to you that you can't bear me
+near you?"
+
+This was the personal note that of all her apprehensions had given Mary
+greatest alarm. "Surely you see that you are harming me--I mean hurting
+me--I mean, yes, getting me into trouble by staying like this with me.
+Mrs. Chater might have turned me off on Saturday--"
+
+"I spoke for you."
+
+"Yes." The words choked her, but she spoke them--"I am grateful to you
+for that. But if she found me talking to you again--especially if she
+knew you came here to see me, she would send me away at once. She told
+me so."
+
+"How is she to know?"
+
+"The children--"
+
+"I'll take care of that."
+
+"You can't prevent it. In any case--"
+
+Bob said bitterly: "In any case! Yes, that's it. In any case you hate
+the sight of me."
+
+She cried: "Oh, why will you speak like that? I mean that in any case it
+is not right. I promised."
+
+Bob laughed. "If that's all, it is all right. You didn't promise for
+me."
+
+"It makes no difference. You say you are sorry--I believe you are sorry.
+You can only show it one way. Mr. Chater, please leave me alone."
+
+Her pretty appeal was fatal to her desire. It enhanced her graces.
+In both phrase and tone it was different from similar request in the
+petulant mouths of those ladies amongst whom Bob purchased his way.
+Dissatisfied, they would have said "Oh, chuck it! Do!" But "Mr. Chater,
+please leave me alone!"--that had the effect of moving Mr. Chater a
+degree closer along the seat.
+
+He said: "You shan't have cause to blame me. Look here, you haven't
+asked me to explain my conduct on Friday."
+
+"I don't wish you to."
+
+"Don't you want to know?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Aren't you curious?" His voice was low with a note of intensity. This
+was love-making, as he knew the pursuit.
+
+He went on: "I'm sure you're curious. Look here, I'm going to tell you."
+
+"I'm going," she said; made to rise.
+
+He caught her hand where it lay on her lap; pressed her down. "You're
+not. If you do I shall follow--but I won't let you," and he pressed
+again in advertisement.
+
+Now she was alarmed--not for the result of this interview, but for its
+very present perils. Fear strangled her voice, but she said, "Let me
+go."
+
+"You must hear me, then."
+
+"I wish to go."
+
+"You must stay to hear me." He believed a fierce assault would now win
+the heights. He released her hand; but she was still his prisoner, and
+he leant towards her averted head.
+
+"I'm going to tell you why I behaved like that that night. It was
+because I could not contain myself any longer. You had always been so
+icy to me; kept me at arm's-length, barely let me speak to you; and all
+the time I was burning to tell you that I loved you--there, you know
+it now. On that night you were still cold when you might have been only
+barely civil and I could have contained myself. But you would not give
+me a word, and at last all that was in me for you burst out and I could
+not hold myself. It was unkind; it was frightening to you, perhaps; but
+was it a crime?--is it a crime to love?"
+
+His flow checked, waiting an impulse from her.
+
+She was but capable of a little "Oh!"--the crest of a gasp.
+
+He misread her emotion. "Has it all been pretence, your keeping me from
+you like this? I believe it has. But now that you know you will be kind.
+Tell me. Speak."
+
+Encouraged by her silence he took her hand.
+
+That touch acted as a cold blast upon her fevered emotions. Now she was
+calm.
+
+She shook off his hand. "Have you done?"
+
+The tone more than the question warned him.
+
+"Well?" he said; sullen wrath gathering.
+
+"Well, never speak to me again."
+
+"You won't be friends?"
+
+"Friends! With you!"
+
+Her meaning--that he had lost--stung him; her tone--that she despised
+him--was a finger in the wound.
+
+He gripped her arm. "You little fool! How are you going to choose? If
+I want to be friends with you, how are you going to stop it? By God,
+if you want to be enemies it will be the worse for you. If I can't be
+friends with you at home, I'll get you turned out and I'll make you be
+friends outside."
+
+She was trying to twist her arm from his grasp.
+
+He gripped closer. "No, I don't mean that. I love you--that's why I talk
+so when you rebuff me. I'll not hurt you. We shall--I will be friends."
+
+His right arm held her. He slipped his left around her, drew her to
+him, and with his lips had brushed her cheek before she was aware of his
+intention.
+
+The insult swept her free of every thought but its memory. By a sudden
+motion she slipped from his grasp and to her feet; faced him.
+
+"You beast!" she cried. "You beast!"
+
+He half rose; made a half grab at her.
+
+She stepped back a pace; something in her action reminded him of that
+stinging blow she had dealt him in the library; he dropped back to his
+seat and she turned and fled up the path whither Angela and David had
+toddled.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+It was while Bob sat gazing after her, indeterminate, that he felt a
+hand from behind the seat upon his shoulder; looked up to see a tall
+young man, fresh faced, but fury-browed, regarding him.
+
+"What's your name?" asked George.
+
+"What the devil's that to do with you?"
+
+The tone of the first question had been of passion restrained. The
+passion broke now from between George's clenched teeth, flamed in his
+eyes.
+
+He tightened his grip upon the other's shoulder so that he pinched the
+flesh.
+
+"A lot to do with me," he cried. "Is it Chater?"
+
+"What if it is? Let me go, damn you!"
+
+"Let you go! I've been itching for you for weeks! What have you been
+saying to Miss Humfray?"
+
+"Damn you! Take off your hand! She's a friend of yours, is she?"
+
+My furious George choked: "Engaged to me." Further bit upon his passion
+he could not brook. He brought his free hand down with a crash upon
+the face twisted up at him; relaxed his hold; ran round the seat--those
+brown hands clenched.
+
+If Bob Chater at no time had aching desire for a brawl, he was at least
+no coward: here the events he had suffered well sufficed to whip
+his blood to action. He sprang to his feet, was upon them as George,
+sideways to him, came round the arm of the seat; lunged furiously and
+landed a crack upon the cheekbone that spun George staggering up the
+path.
+
+It was a good blow, a lusty blow--straight from the shoulder and with
+body and leg work behind it; a blow that, happier placed, might well
+have won the battle.
+
+A ring upon Bob's finger cut the flesh he struck, and he gave a savage
+"Ha!" of triumph as he saw George go spinning and the red trickle come
+breaking down his cheek.
+
+A great ridge in the gravel marked the thrust of foot with which George
+stayed his stagger, from which he impelled the savage spring that
+brought him within striking distance.
+
+There was no science. This was no calmly prepared fight with cool brains
+directing attack, searching weak points, husbanding strength, deft in
+defence. Here was only the animal instinct to get close and wound; to
+grapple and wound again.
+
+George it was that provoked this spirit. Till now he had not seen this
+flushed face before him. But he had for many days conjured it up in
+his fancy--sharpening upon it the edge of his wrath, bruising himself
+against the wall of wise conduct that kept him from meeting and visiting
+upon it the distress his Mary had endured.
+
+Now that he saw it in the flesh (and it was not unlike his conception),
+he came at it with the impulse of one who, straining against a rope,
+rushes headlong forward when a knife parts the bond.
+
+The impulse thus given more than countered the greater bulk and reach
+that should have told in Bob's scale. Bob felt his wits and his courage
+simultaneously deserting him before the pell-mell of blows that came
+raining against his guard. Whensoever he effected a savage smash that
+momentarily checked the fury, it served but to bring back this seemingly
+demented young man with a new rush and ardour.
+
+Bob gave step by step, struck short-arm, felt the faint saltness of
+blood upon his lips, staggered back before a tremendous hit between the
+eyes, stumbled, tripped, fell.
+
+"Get up!" George bellowed; waited till Bob came rushing, and sent him
+reeling again with a broken tooth that cut the brown knuckles.
+
+Bob lacked not courage and had proved it, for he was sorely battered.
+But the pluck in him was whipped and now venom alone bade him make what
+hurt he could.
+
+His heavy stick was leaning against the seat. He seized it; swung it
+high; crashed a blow that must have split the head it aimed.
+
+George slipped aside; the blow missed. He poised himself as Bob,
+following the impulse, went staggering by; put all his weight behind a
+crashing hit and sent him spinning prone with a blow that was fittingly
+final to the exhibition of lusty knocks.
+
+Bob propped himself on one arm, rose to his feet; glared;
+hesitated--then fell to brushing his knees.
+
+It was a masterly white flag.
+
+"Had enough?" George panted. "Had enough? Are you whipped, you swine?"
+
+Bob assiduously brushed.
+
+"When you're better, let me know," George cried; turned and hurried up
+the path whither Mary had disappeared.
+
+The forced draught of fury, pain, and exertion sent Bob's breath roaring
+in and out in noisy blasts--now long and laboured, now spasmodic quick.
+
+He examined his bill of health and damage. Face everywhere tender to the
+touch; clothes dust-covered and torn; both knees of trousers rent; silk
+hat stove in when in a backward rush he had set his foot upon it. His
+tongue discovered a broken tooth, his handkerchief a bleeding nose, his
+fingers blood upon his chin, trickling to his shirt front.
+
+So well as might be he brushed his person; straightened his hat; clapped
+handkerchief to his mouth; past staring eyes, grinning faces, hurried
+out of the Park to bury himself in a cab.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+From a window Mrs. Chater saw the bruised figure of her darling boy
+alight; with palpitating heart rushed to greet him.
+
+"Bob! My boy! My boy! What has happened?"
+
+Her boy brushed past; bounded to his room. Laboriously, sick with fear,
+the devoted mother toiled in pursuit--found him in his room tearing off
+his coat.
+
+"My boy! My boy!"
+
+Her boy bellowed: "_Hot water!_"
+
+Can a mother's tender care cease towards the child she bare?
+
+Oh! needless to ask such a question, you for whom is pictured this
+devoted woman plunging at breakneck speed for the bathroom, screaming as
+she runs: "Susan! Kate! Jane! Jane! Kate! Susan!"
+
+Doors slammed, cries echoed, stairs shook, as trembling servants rushed
+responsive.
+
+Crashing of cans, rushing of water, called them to the bathroom.
+
+"Oh, m'am! What is it?"
+
+Water flew in sprays as the agonised mother tested its temperature with
+her hands; cans rattled as she kicked them from where, in dragging one
+from the shelf, the others had clattered about her feet.
+
+Jane, Kate, and Susan clustered in alarm about the door: "Oh, m'am!
+M'am! Whatever is it?"
+
+Mrs. Chater gave no reply. Her can full, she plunged through them. This
+way and that they dodged to give her passage; dodge for dodge, demented,
+hysterical, she gave them--slopping boiling water on to agonised toes;
+bursting through at last; thundering up the stairs.
+
+The three plunged after her: "Oh, m'am! M'am! Whatever is it?"
+
+The devoted woman paused at the head of the stairs; screamed down
+orders: "Sticking-plaster! Lint! Cotton-wool! Mr. Bob has had an
+accident! Hot-water bottles! Ice! Doctor! Go for the doctor, one of
+you!"
+
+A figure with battered face above vest and pants bounded from its room.
+"No!" Bob roared. "No!"
+
+"No!" Mrs. Chater echoed, not knowing to what the negative applied, but
+hysterically commanding it.
+
+"No!" screamed the agitated servants, one to another.
+
+"No! no doctor!" bellowed Bob; grabbed the can from his mother; shot
+back to his room.
+
+"No doctor!" Mrs. Chater screamed to the white-faced pack upon the
+stairs; fled after him.
+
+"My boy! Tell me!"
+
+Her boy raised his dripping face from the basin. "For God's sake shut
+the door!" he roared.
+
+She did. "Tell me!" she trembled.
+
+"It's that damned girl."
+
+"That girl?"
+
+"Miss Humfray!"
+
+"Miss Humfray! Done that to you! Oh, your poor face! Your poor face!"
+
+"No!--no! Do be quiet, mother! Some infernal man she goes about with in
+the Park! I spoke to him and he set on me!"
+
+"The infamous creature! The wicked, infamous girl! A bad girl, I knew
+it!--"
+
+Agitated tapping at the door: "The cotton-wool m'am." "Sticking-plaster,
+m'am." "'Ot bottle, m'am."
+
+"Go away!" roared Bob. "Go away! O-oo, my face!" He hopped in wrath and
+pain. "Send those damned women away!"
+
+Mrs. Chater rushed to the door. Passing, she for the first time caught
+full sight of her son's face now that the hot water had exposed its
+wreck. "Oh, your eyes! Your poor eyes! They're closing up!"
+
+Bob staggered to the mirror; discovered the full horror of his marred
+beauty. "Curse it!" he groaned and gave an order.
+
+Mrs. Chater flew to the telephone.
+
+In the office of Mr. Samuel Hock, purveyor of meat, by appointment, to
+the Prince of Wales, the telephone bell sharply rang. Mr. Hock stepped
+to the receiver, listened, then bellowed an order into the shop:
+
+"One of beefsteak to 14 Palace Gardens, sharp!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A Cab For 14 Palace Gardens.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+With tremendous strides, with emotion roaring in and out his nostrils in
+gusty blasts of fury, my passionate George encompassed the Park this way
+and that until he came at length upon his trembling Mary.
+
+Save for that first blow where Bob's ring had marked his cheek he had
+suffered but little in the fight--sufficiently, notwithstanding, coupled
+with his colossal demeanour, for Mary's eyes to discover that something
+was amiss.
+
+She came to him; cried at a little distance: "Oh, dearest, I--I could
+not meet you at the seat."
+
+Then she saw more clearly. She asked: "What has happened?" and stood
+with quivering lip recording the flutters of her heart.
+
+George took one hand; patted it between both his. For the moment his
+boiling anger cooled beneath grim relish of his news. "I've pretty well
+killed that Chater swine," he said.
+
+"Mr. Chater?--you've met Mr. Chater?"
+
+Now emotion boiled again in her turbulent George. He said: "I saw you
+run from him. I saw--what had he been doing?"
+
+"Oh, Georgie!"
+
+"Well, never mind. I'd rather not hear. I've paid him for it, whatever
+it was."
+
+"You fought? Oh, and your face--and your hand bleeding too!"
+
+Tears stood in this ridiculous Mary's eyes. Women so often cry at the
+wrong moment. They should more closely study their men in the tremendous
+mannish crises that come to some of us. This was no moment for tears; it
+was an hour to be Amazon. To be hard-eyed. To count the scalps brought
+home by the brave--in delight to squeal over them; in pride to clap the
+hands and jump for joy at such big behaviour.
+
+My Mary erred in every way. Her moistening eyes annoyed George.
+
+"Oh, don't make a fuss about that, Mary," he cried irritably. "It's
+nothing. Master Bob won't be able to see for a month."
+
+"Oh, George, why did you do it?"
+
+Then the tremendous young man flamed. "Why did I do it? 'Pon my soul,
+Mary, I simply don't understand you sometimes. You've made me stand by
+and see you insulted for a month, and then I see him catch hold of you,
+and you run, and I go and thrash him, and you say, 'Why did you do
+it?' _Do_ it? _Do_ it? Why, good Lord, what would you have had me
+do--apologise for you?"
+
+She turned away, dropped his hand.
+
+My unfortunate George groaned aloud: sprang to her. "Mary, darling,
+dearest, you know I didn't mean that."
+
+She kept her face from him; her pretty shoulders heaved.
+
+He cried in misery, striving to see her face: "What a brute I am! What a
+brute! Mary, Mary, you know I didn't mean that."
+
+She gasped: "You ge-get angry so quick."
+
+"I know, I know. I'm not fit--I couldn't help--Mary, do look up."
+
+She swallowed a sob; gave him her little hand.
+
+He squeezed it, squeezed it as it were between his love for her and the
+tremendous passion that was consuming him. Contrition at his sharp words
+to her hammered the upper plate, wrath at the manner of her reception of
+his news was anvil beneath. The poor fingers horribly suffered.
+
+There are conditions of the male mind--and this George was in the very
+heart of one--when softness in a woman positively goads to fury.
+The mind is in an itching fever, and--like a bull against a
+gate-post--requires hard, sharp corners against which to rub and ease
+the irritation. Comes the lord and master home sulky or in fury, the
+wise wife will meet him with a demeanour so spiked that he may scratch
+his itching at every turn. To be soft and yielding is the most fatal
+conduct; it is to send the lumbering bull crashing through the gate-post
+into the lane to seek solace away from the home paddock.
+
+Unversed in these homely recipes, this simple Mary had at least the wit
+not to cry "Oh!" in pain and move her hand. They found a seat, and for
+good five minutes this turbulent George sat and threshed in his wrath
+like a hooked shark--this little hand the rope that held him. Soon its
+influence was felt. His tuggings and boundings grew weaker. The venom
+oozed out of him.
+
+He uncovered the crushed fingers; raising, pressed them to his lips.
+
+He groaned. "Now you know me at last."
+
+She patted those brown hands; did not speak.
+
+"You know the awful temper I've got," he went on. "Uncontrollable--angry
+even with you--foul brute--"
+
+"But I annoyed you, Georgie."
+
+He flung out an accusatory hand against himself. "How? By being sweet
+and loving! Why, what a brute I must be!"
+
+She told him: "You shan't call yourself names. In fact, you mustn't.
+Because that is calling me names too. We belong, Georgie."
+
+The pretty sentiment tickled him. Gloom flew from his brow before
+sunshine that took its place. He laughed. "You're a dear, dear old
+thing."
+
+She gave a whimsical look at him. "I ought to have said at once what I
+am going to say now: Did you hurt him much?"
+
+"I bashed him!" George said, revelling in it. "I fairly bashed him!"
+
+She snuggled against this tremendous fellow.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+It was a park-keeper who, from that opium drug of sweet silence with
+which lovers love to dull their senses, recalled them to the urgency for
+action.
+
+The park-keeper led David by one hand, Angela by the other, whence
+he had found them wandering. Disappointment that their owner was
+a protected lady instead of a nicely-shaped nursemaid whom by this
+introduction he might add to his recreations, delivered him of stern
+reproof at the carelessness which had let these children go astray.
+
+"I would very much like to know," he concluded, "what their ma would
+say."
+
+"My plump gentleman," said George pleasantly, "meet me at this
+trysting-place at noon to-morrow, and your desire shall be gratified."
+
+The park-keeper eyed him; thought better of the bitter words he had
+contemplated; contented himself with: "Funny, ain't yer?"
+
+"Screaming," said George. "One long roar of mirth. Hundreds turned away
+nightly. Early doors threepence extra. Bring the wife."
+
+The park-keeper withdrew with a morose air.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+And now my George and his Mary turned upon the immediate future. Conning
+the map of ways and means and roads of action, a desolate and almost
+horrifying country presented itself. No path that might be followed
+offered pleasant prospects. All led past that ogre's castle at 14 Palace
+Gardens; at the head of each stood the ogress shape of Mrs. Chater,
+gnashing for blood and bones over the disaster to her first-born. She
+must be faced.
+
+George flared a torch to light the gloom: "But why should you go near
+her, dearest? Let me do it. I'll take the children back. I'll see her.
+I'll get your boxes."
+
+Even the sweetest women trudge through life handicapped by the
+preposterous burden of wishing to do what their sad little minds
+hold right. It is a load which, too firmly strapped, makes them dull
+companions on the highway.
+
+Mary said: "It wouldn't be _right_, dear. The children are in my charge;
+how could I send them back to their mother in the care of a strange
+man? And it wouldn't be right to myself, either. It would look as if I
+admitted myself in the wrong. No; I must, must face her."
+
+George's torch guttered; gave gloom again. He tried a second: "Well,
+I'll come with you. That's a great idea. She won't dare say much while
+I'm there."
+
+"Oh, it wouldn't be _right_, Georgie. You oughtn't to come to the
+house--to see her--after what you've done to the detestable Bob. No,
+I'll go alone and I'll go now. You shall come as far as the top of the
+road and there wait."
+
+"And then?" George asked.
+
+This was to research the map for rest-houses and for fortunes that might
+be won after the ogre castle had been passed.
+
+Mary conned and peered until the strain squeezed a little moisture in
+her eyes. "I don't know," she said faintly.
+
+Her bold George had to know. "It won't be for very long, dear old girl.
+You must find another situation. Till then a lodging. I know a place
+where a man I know used to have digs. A jolly old landlady. I'll raise
+some money--I'll borrow it."
+
+Mary tried to brighten. "Yes, and I'll go to that agency again. I must,
+because I shall have no character, you see. I'll tell her everything
+quite truthfully, and I think she'll be nice."
+
+"It's no good waiting," George said. His voice had the sound of a
+funeral bell.
+
+Mary arose slowly, white. She said: "Come along."
+
+With a tumbril rumble in their ears, the children dancing ahead, they
+started for Palace Gardens.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+The groans and curses of her adored Bob, his bulgy mouth and shutting
+eyes, his tender nose and the encrimsoned water where he had layed his
+wounds--these had so acted upon Mrs. Chater's nerves, plunged her into
+such vortex of hysteria, that the manner of her reception of Mary was
+true reflection of her fears, nothing dissembled.
+
+Withdrawing her agitated face from the dining-room window as Mary and
+the children approached, she bounded heavily to the door; flung it ajar;
+collapsed to her knees upon the mat; clasped David and Angela to that
+heaving bosom.
+
+"Safe!" she wailed. "Safe! Thank God, my little lambs are safe!"
+
+Distraught she swayed and hugged; kissed and moaned again.
+
+David pressed away. "You smell like whisky, mummie," he said.
+
+It was a dash of icy water on a fainting fit; wonderfully it strung the
+demented woman's senses. She pushed her little lambs from her; fixed
+Mary with awful eye.
+
+"So you've come back--_Miss?_"
+
+Mary quivered.
+
+"I wonder you dared. I wonder you had the boldness to face me after
+your wicked behaviour. You've got nothing to say for yourself. I'm not
+surprised--"
+
+Mary began: "Mrs. Chater, I--"
+
+"Oh, how can you? How can you dare defend yourself? Never, never in
+all my born days have I met with such ingratitude; never have I been
+deceived like this. I took you in. I felt sorry for you. I fed you,
+clothed you, cared for you, treated you as one of my own family; and
+this is my reward. There you stand, unable to say a word--"
+
+"If you think, Mrs. Chater--"
+
+"Don't _speak_! I won't hear you. Here have I day after day been
+entrusting my beloved lambs to your care, and heaven alone knows what
+risks they have run. My boy--my Bob, who would die rather than get a
+living soul into trouble--sees you with this man you have been going
+about with. He does his duty to me, his mother, and to my precious
+lambs, his brother and sister, by reproving you, and you set this
+man--this low hired bully--upon him to murder him. I'll have the law
+on the coward. I'll punish him and I'll punish you, miss. No wonder you
+were frightened when my Bob caught you. No wonder."
+
+"That is untrue, Mrs. Chater."
+
+"Don't _speak!_"
+
+"I will speak. I shall speak. It is untrue."
+
+"You dare--"
+
+"It is a lie. Yes, I don't mind what I say when you speak to me like
+that. It is a wicked lie."
+
+"Girl--!"
+
+"If your son told you he caught me with the man who thrashed him as he
+deserved, he told you a lie. He never saw me with him. He followed me
+into the Park this morning and tried to repeat what he did on Friday
+night. He is a coward and a cad. The man to whom I am engaged caught him
+at it and thrashed him as he deserved. There! Now you know the truth!"
+
+Very white, my ridiculous Mary pressed her hand to her panting breast;
+stopped, choked by the wild words that came tumbling up into her mouth.
+
+Very red, swelling and panting in turkey-cock fury, Mrs. Chater,
+towering, swallowed and gasped, breathless before this vixenish attack.
+
+But she was the first to find speech; and incoherently she stormed as
+at a scratching do those persons whose true selves lie beneath a tissue
+film of polish.
+
+She bubbled and panted: "Oh, you wicked girl!--oh, you wicked girl!--oh,
+you wicked girl!--bold as brass-calling me a liar--_me_--and my
+battered boy--engaged indeed!--I'll have the law and the police and
+the judges--my solicitors--libel and assault, and slander and attempted
+murder--boxes searched--my precious lambs to hear their mother spoken
+to like this--get out of the hat-rack, David, and go upstairs this
+instant--Angela, don't stand there--if I wasn't a lady I'd box your
+ears, miss--only a week ago didn't I give you a black silk skirt of
+mine?--and fed you like a princess, with a soft feather pillow too,
+because you said the bolster made your head ache--servants to wait on
+you hand and foot--and this is my reward--how I keep my hands off you
+heaven only knows--but you shall suffer, miss--oh, yes you shall--I'll
+give you in charge--I'll call a policeman."
+
+She turned towards the kitchen stairs; screamed "Susan! Kate! Jane!
+Susan!"
+
+Small need to bellow. Around the staircase corner three white-capped
+heads--Kate holding back Susan, Susan restraining Jane, Jane holding
+Kate--had been with delighted eyes and straining ears bathing in this
+rare scene. With glad unanimity they broke their restraint one upon the
+other; crushed pell-mell, hustling up the narrow stairs.
+
+Mrs. Chater plumped back into a chair; with huge hands fanned her heated
+face. "Fetch a policeman!"
+
+They plunged for the door.
+
+Bob's swollen countenance came over the banisters. He roared "Stop!"
+
+Kate, Jane and Susan swung between the conflicting authorities.
+
+"Call a policeman! Summon a constable! Fetch an officer!" In
+gusty breaths from behind Mrs. Chater's hands, working like a red
+paddle-wheel, came the commands.
+
+"Stop!" roared Bob; and to enforce pushed forward the battered face till
+it stuck out flat over the hall.
+
+His alarmed mother screamed: "Bob, you'll fall over the banisters!"
+
+The two kept up a battledore and shuttlecock of agitated conversation.
+
+"Well, stop those women!" Bob cried; "for God's sake, stop them, mother!
+What on earth are you thinking of?"
+
+"I'll give her in charge!"
+
+"You can't, you can't. Oh, my God, what a house this is!"
+
+"She called me a liar!"
+
+"You can't charge her for that."
+
+"She half murdered you!"
+
+"She never touched me. Why don't you do as I told you? Why don't you
+send her away?"
+
+"Mercy, Bob! you'll fall and kill yourself!"
+
+"Do as I say, then! Do as I say!"
+
+"Well, put back your head! Put back your head."
+
+"Do as I say, then!"
+
+Mrs. Chater stopped the paddle-wheel; rose to her feet. Bob's ghastly
+face drew in to safer limits. She addressed Mary: "Again my boy has
+interceded for you. Oh, how you must feel!" She addressed the maids: "Is
+her box packed?"
+
+They chorused "Yes"; pointed, and Mary saw her tin box, corded, set
+against the wall.
+
+"Call a cab," Mrs. Chater commanded; and as the whistle blew she turned
+again upon Mary.
+
+"Now, miss, you may go. I pack you off as you deserve. But before you
+go--"
+
+The battered face shot out again above the banisters: "Pay her her wages
+and send her away, mother. Do, for goodness' sake, send her away!"
+
+"Wages! Certainly not! Mercy! Your head again! Go back, Bob!"
+
+The maddened, pain-racked Bob bellowed: "Oh, stop it! stop it! I shall
+go mad in a minute. She is entitled to her wages. Pay her."
+
+"I won't!"
+
+"Well, I will. Susan! Susan, come up here and take this money. How much
+is it?"
+
+"She is not to be paid," Mrs. Chater trumpeted.
+
+"She is to be paid," bawled her son. "Do you want an action brought
+against you? Oh, my God, what a house this is!"
+
+"My boy! You will fall! Very well, I'll pay her." Mrs. Chater turned to
+Mary. "Again and yet again my son intercedes for you, miss. Oh, how you
+must feel!" She grabbed around her dress for her pocket; found a purse;
+produced coins; banged them upon the table. "There!"
+
+And now my Mary, who had stood upright breasting these successive
+surges, spoke her little fury.
+
+With a hand she swept the table, sending the coins flying this way and
+that--with them a card salver, a vase, a pile of prayer-books. With her
+little foot she banged the floor.
+
+"I would not touch your money--your beastly money. You are contemptible
+and vulgar, and I despise you. Mr. Chater, if you are a man you
+will tell your mother why you were thrashed. Do you dare to say you
+interfered because you found me with someone? Do you dare?"
+
+With masterly strategy Bob drove home a flank attack. To have affirmed
+he did dare might lead to appalling outburst from this little vixen. He
+said very quietly, as though moved by pity: "Please do not make matters
+worse by blustering, Miss Humfray." He sighed: "I bear you no ill-will."
+
+My poor Mary allowed herself to be denuded of self-possession. His words
+put her control to flight; left her exposed. Tears started in her eyes.
+She made a little rush for the stairs. "Oh, you coward!" she cried. "You
+coward! I will make you say the truth."
+
+Would she have clutched the skirts of his dressing-gown, forgetting the
+proper modesty of a nice maiden, and dragged him down the stairs?
+Would she indelicately have pursued him to his very bedroom, and there,
+regardless of his scanty dress, have assaulted him?
+
+Bob believed she would. It is so easy for the world's heroines to remain
+calm against attack. My Mary was made of commoner stuff--the wretched,
+baser clay of which not I, but my neighbours, not you, but your
+acquaintances, are made.
+
+Bob believed she would. He cried, "Send her away! Why the devil don't
+you send her away?"; gathered his skirts; fled for the safety of a
+locked door.
+
+Mrs. Chater believed she would. Mrs. Chater plunged across the hall;
+stood, an impassable and panting guardian, upon the lowermost step. Her
+outstretched arm stayed Mary; a voice announced, "The cab'm."
+
+My Mary stood a moment; little fists clenched, flashing eyes; blinked
+against the premonition of a rush of tears; then, as they came, turned
+for the door.
+
+"Go!" trumpeted Mrs. Chater. "Go!"
+
+Mary was upon the mat when Angela and David made a little rush; caught
+her skirts. The alarming scenes had hurtled in sequence too rapid and
+too violent to be by the children understood. But a scrap here and a
+scrap there they had caught, retained, correctly interpreted; and the
+whole, though it supplied no reason, told clearly that their adored Mary
+was going from them.
+
+"You're coming back soon, aren't you?" David cried.
+
+"You're not going away, are you, Miss Humf'ay?" implored Angela.
+
+Mrs. Chater shrilled: "Children, come away. Come here at once."
+
+Mary dropped one knee upon the mat; caught her arms about the
+children. She pressed a cool face against each side her wet and burning
+countenance, gave kisses, and upon the added stress of this new emotion
+choked: "Good-bye, little ducklings!"
+
+"Oh, darling, _darling_ Miss Humf'ay, we _will_ be good if you'll stay!"
+They felt this was the desperate threat that so often followed their
+misdemeanours put into action.
+
+She held them, hugging them. "It isn't that. You have been good."
+
+"Then you said you would stay for ever and ever if we were good."
+
+"Not ever and ever; I said--I said perhaps a fairy prince would come to
+take me. Didn't I?"
+
+This was the romance that forbade tears. But David had doubts. He
+regarded the hansom at the door: "That's a cab, not a carriage. Fairy
+princes don't come in cabs."
+
+"The prince is waiting. Kiss me, darling Davie. Angie, dear, dear Angle,
+kiss me."
+
+She rose. Mrs. Chater had come from the stairs, now laid hands upon the
+small people and dragged them back from the pretty figure about which
+they clung.
+
+They screamed, "Let me go!"
+
+David roared; dropped prone upon the mat to kick and howl: "Take away
+your _hand_, mother!"
+
+Angela gasped: "Oh, comeback, comeback, darling Miss Humf'ay!"
+
+With a glare of defiance into Mrs. Chater's stormy eyes, my Mary stooped
+over David.
+
+"David!" The calm ring of the tones he had learned to obey checked his
+clamour, his plunging kicks. She stooped; kissed him. "Be good as gold,"
+she commanded. "Promise."
+
+"Good as gold--yes--p'omise," David choked.
+
+Angela was given, and gave, the magic formula. Mary stepped back. Susan
+slammed the door.
+
+With quivering lips my Mary walked to the cab.
+
+"Drive down the street," she choked; lay back against the cushions; gave
+herself to shaking sobs.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Her George met her a very few yards down the street. He gave an order to
+the cabman and sat beside her.
+
+It was not long before her grief was hushed. She dried her eyes; nestled
+against this wonderful fellow who, as love had now constituted her
+world, was the solace against every trouble that could come to her, the
+shield against any power that might arise to do her hurt.
+
+They debated the position and found it desperate; discussed the
+immediate future to discover it threatening. Yet the gloom was
+irradiated by the glowing light of the prospective future; the rumbling
+of present fears was lost in the tinkling music of their voices,
+striking notes from love.
+
+The cab twisted this way and that; clattered over Battersea Bridge, down
+the Park, to the right past the Free Library, and so into Meath Street
+and to the clean little house of the landlady whom George knew.
+
+To her, in the tiny sitting-room, the story was told.
+
+It appeared that she had never yet taken a lady lodger. In her street
+ladies were regarded with suspicion; that no petticoats were ever to be
+fetched across the threshold was a rule to which each medical student
+who engaged her rooms must first subscribe.
+
+None the less she was here acquiescent. She knew George well; had for
+him an affection above that which commonly she entertained for the noisy
+young men who were her means of livelihood. Mary should pay for the
+little back bedroom that Mr. Thornton had; and, free of charge, should
+have use of the sitting-room rented by Mr. Grainger. There would be no
+lodgers until the medical schools reopened in October.
+
+So it was settled--and together in the sitting-room where Mrs. Pinking
+made them a little lunch again they debated the immediate future. It
+was three weeks before George's examination was due. Again he declared
+himself confident that, when actually he had passed, his uncle would
+not refuse the 400 pounds which meant the world to them--which meant
+the tight little practice at Runnygate. But the intervening weeks were
+meanwhile to be faced. Mary must have home. At the Agency she must pour
+forth her tale and seek new situation till they could be married. If the
+Agency failed them--They shuddered.
+
+Revolving desperate schemes for the betterment of this position into
+which with such alarming suddenness they had been thrust, George took
+his leave. He would have tarried, but his Mary was insistent that his
+work must not be interfered with. Upon its successful exploitation
+everything now depended.
+
+Brightly she kissed her George good-bye. He was not to worry about her.
+She was to be shut from his mind. To-morrow she would go to the Agency.
+He might lunch with her, and, depend upon it, she would greet him with
+great news.
+
+So they parted.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+In which this History begins to rattle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Author Meanders Upon The Enduring Hills; And The Reader Will Lose
+Nothing By Not Accompanying Him.
+
+
+In pursuit of our opinion that the novel should hark back to its origin
+and be as a story that is told by mouth to group of listeners, here we
+momentarily break the thread.
+
+It is an occasion for advertisement.
+
+As when the personal narrator, upon resumption of his history, will at a
+point declare, "Now we come to the exciting part," so now do I.
+
+Heretofore we have somewhat dragged. We have been as host and visitor at
+tea in the drawing-room. Guests have arrived; to you I have introduced
+them, and after the shortest spell they have taken their leave.
+
+My Mary and my George--favoured guests--have sat with us through our
+meal; but how fleeting our converse with those others--with Mr. William
+Wyvern, with Margaret, with Mrs. Major and with Mr. Marrapit! I grant
+you cause to grumble at their introduction, so purposeless has been
+their part. I grant you they have been as the guests at whose arrival,
+disturbing the intimate chatter, impatient glances are exchanged; at
+whose departure there is shuffle of relief.
+
+Well, I promise you we shall now link our personages and set our history
+bounding to its conclusion. We have collected them; now to switch on the
+connection and set them acting one against the other until the sparks do
+fly; watching those sparks shall be your entertainment.
+
+The switch which thus sets active the play of forces I shall call
+circumstance. If it has been long delayed, I have the precedent of
+all the story of human life as my excuse. For we are the children
+of circumstance. We move each in our little circle by a stout hedge
+encompassed. Circumstance suddenly will break the wall: some fellow man
+or woman is flung against us, and immediately the quiet ambulation of
+our little circle is for some conflict sharp exchanged. To-day we are at
+peace with the world, to-morrow warring with all mankind.
+
+I say with all mankind, because so narrow and so selfish is our outlook
+upon life that one single man or woman--a dullard neighbour or a
+silly girl--who may interfere with us, throws into turmoil our whole
+existence. Walls of impenetrable blackness shut out all life save only
+this intruder and ourself; that other person becomes our world--engaging
+our complete faculties.
+
+Deeper misfortune cannot be conceived. It is through allowing such
+occurrences to crush us that brows are wrinkled before their time;
+nerves broken-edged while yet they should be firmly strung; death
+reached ere yet the proper span of life is lived.
+
+For these unduly wrinkled brows, too early broken nerves, too soon
+encountered graves, civilised man has agreed upon an excuse. He names it
+the strain of life in modern conditions. There is no body in this plea.
+It is not the conditions that matter; it is our manner of receiving
+those conditions. Bend to them and they will crush; face them and they
+become of no avail; allow them to be the Whole of life, and immediately
+they are given so great a weight that to withstand them is impossible;
+regard them in their proper proportion to the scheme of things, and they
+become of airy nothingness.
+
+For if we regulate each to its right importance all that surrounds us,
+not forgetting that since life is transient time is the only ultimate
+standard of value, how unutterably insignificant must small human
+troubles appear in their relation to the whole scheme of things, to the
+enduring hills, the immense seas, vast space.
+
+Gain strength from strength. Compare vexations encompassed by the
+artifice of man with the tremendous life that is mothered by nature.
+
+Gain strength from strength. Set troubles against the enduring hills,
+misfortunes against the immense seas, perplexities against vast space,
+torments against the stout trees. Learn to take tribute of strength from
+every object that is built of strength--the strength of solidity that
+a stout beam may give, the strength of beauty that from a picture or a
+statuary irradiates.
+
+Gain strength from strength. It is a first principle of warfare to band
+undisciplined troops with tried regiments, to shoulder recruits with
+veterans. The horse-breaker will set the timid colt in harness with the
+steady mare. Thus is stiffening and a sense of security imparted to
+the weaker spirit; timidity oozes and is burned by the steady flame
+of courage that from the stronger emanates. In the heat of that flame
+latent strength warms and kindles in the weaker.
+
+Gain strength from strength. Seek intercourse with the minds that are
+above you; if not to be encountered, they are to be purchased in books.
+Avoid communion with the small minds below you and of your level.
+
+No man, nor book, nor thing can be touched without virtue passing thence
+into you. See to it that who or what you touch gives you strength, not
+weakness; uplifts, not debases. The aspiring athlete does not seek to
+match his strength against inferiors. These give him--easy victory.
+Contact with them is for him effortless; they tend to draw him to their
+plane. Rather, being wise, he shuns them to pit his prowess against such
+as can give him best, from whom he may learn, out of whom he will take
+virtue, by whom he will be raised to all that is best in him. Gain
+strength from strength. The attributes strength and weakness are
+as infectious as the plague. Make your bed so that you may lie with
+strength and catch his affection.
+
+I do not pretend that these are thoughts which influenced the persons of
+my history. My unthinking George and my simple Mary would care nothing
+for such things. Sight of the enduring hills would evoke in my George
+the uttered belief that they would be an infernal sweat to climb; sound
+of the immense seas if in anger would move my Mary to prayer for all
+those in peril on the wave, if in lapping tranquillity to sentimental
+thoughts of her George. But they had laughter and they had love.
+Adversity can make little fight against those lusty weapons.
+
+And now we have an exquisite balcony scene and rare midnight alarms for
+your delectation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+An Exquisite Balcony Scene; And Something About Sausages.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+On that day when George left his Mary at the little lodgings in Meath
+Street, Battersea, Bill Wyvern returned to Paitley Hill after absence
+from home for a week upon a visit.
+
+His Margaret was his first thought upon his arrival. Letters between
+the pair were, by the sharpness of Mr. Marrapit's eye, compelled to be
+exchanged not through the post but by medium of a lovers' postal box
+situate in the hole of a tree in that shrubbery of Herons' Holt where
+they were wont by stealth to meet. Thus when Bill, upon this day of his
+return, scaled the tremendous wall and groped among the bushes, he
+saw the trysting bower innocent of his love--then searched and found a
+letter.
+
+A sad little note for lover's heart. Mr. Marrapit, it said, abed of a
+chill, prevented Margaret meeting her Bill that afternoon. Her father
+must be constantly ministered; impossible to say when she would be
+released. She heard him calling, she must fly to him. With fondest love.
+No time for more.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The lines chilled Bill's heart. His was a fidgety and nervous love
+that took fright at shadow of doubt. The week that had divided him
+from Margaret was the longest period they had not embraced since their
+discovery one of another. Was it not possible, he tortured himself,
+that loss of his presence had blurred his image in her heart? Countless
+heroes of his own stories who thus had suffered rose to assure him that
+possible indeed it was. The more he brooded upon it the more probable
+did it become.
+
+Bedtime found him desolated. In apprehension he paced his room. The
+thought of sleep with this devil of doubt to thump his pillow was
+impossible. Leaning from his window he gazed upon the stars and groaned;
+dropped eyes to the lawn, silvered in moonlight, and started beneath the
+prick of a sudden thought. It was a night conceived for lovers' tryst.
+He would seek his Margaret's open window, whistle her from her bed, and
+bring this damned doubt of her to reality or knock the ghostly villain
+dead.
+
+It was an inspiriting thought, and Bill started to whistle upon it until
+he remembered the demeanour in which he would have sent forth one of
+his own heroes upon such a mission. "Dark eyes gleaming strangely from a
+pale, set face," he would have written. Bill's eyes were of a clearest,
+childlike blue which interfered a little with the proper conception of
+the role he was to play; but blanketing his spirits in melancholy he
+stepped from his room and passed down the stairs.
+
+That favoured bull-terrier Abiram, sleeping in the hall, drummed a
+tattoo of welcome upon the floor.
+
+"Chuck it," said Bill morosely.
+
+The "faithful hound" that gives solace to the wounded heart is a pretty
+enough thing in stories; Abiram had had no training for the part. This
+dog associated his master not with melancholy that needed caressing but
+with wild "rags" that gave and demanded tremendous spirits.
+
+Intelligence, however, showed the wise creature that the tone of that
+command meant he was to be excluded from whatever wild rag might be
+now afoot. It was not to be borne. Therefore, to lull suspicion,
+Abiram ceased his drumming; rose when Bill had passed; behind him crept
+stealthily; and upon the door being opened bounded around his master's
+legs and into the moonlight with a joyous yelp.
+
+Fearful of arousing Korah and Dathan in their kennels to tremendous din
+if he bellowed orders, Bill hissed commands advising Abiram to return
+indoors under threat of awful penalties.
+
+Abiram frisked and skipped upon the lawn like a young lamb.
+
+Bill changed commands for missiles.
+
+Abiram, entering into the thing with rare spirit, caught, worried, and
+killed each clod of earth hurled at him, then bounded expectant forward
+for the next sacrifice that would be thrown for his delight in this
+entrancing game.
+
+"Very well," spoke Bill between his teeth. "Very well. You jolly well
+come, my boy. Wait till you get near enough for me to catch you, that's
+all."
+
+Beneath this understanding they moved forward across the lawn and down
+the road; Abiram sufficiently in the rear to harass rats that might be
+going about their business, without himself being in the zone of his
+master's strength.
+
+Heaving a sigh burthened with fond memory as he passed the wall
+of Herons' Holt where it gave upon the secret meeting-place in the
+shrubbery, Bill skirted the grounds; for the second time in his life
+passed through the gate and up the drive.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Well he knew his adored's window. From the shrubbery she had pointed it
+him. Now with a bang of the heart he observed that the bottom sash stood
+open so that night breezes, mingling freely with the perfumes of her
+apartment, unhindered could bear in to her his tremulous love-signals.
+
+He set a low whistle upon the air. It was not louder, he felt, than the
+agitated banging of his heart that succeeded it.
+
+Again he whistled, and once again. There was a rustling from within.
+
+"Margaret!" he softly called. "Margaret!"
+
+She appeared. The blessed damosel leaned out. About her yearning face
+the long dark hair abundantly fell; her pretty bed-gown, unbuttoned low,
+gave him glimpse of snowy bosom, beautifully rounded.
+
+"Oh, Bill!" she cried, stretching her arms.
+
+Then, glancing downwards at her person, she stepped back swiftly.
+Reappearing, the soft round of her twin breasts was not to view.
+
+She had buttoned up her night-dress.
+
+"Oh, Bill!"
+
+"Oh, Margaret!"
+
+"_Wow!_" spoke Abiram in nerve-shattering welcome. "_Wow!_"
+
+The blessed damosel fled. Bill plunged a kick. Abiram took the skirt of
+it; waddled away across the lawn, his waving stern expressing pleasure
+at having at once shown his politeness by bidding a lady good evening,
+and at being, like true gentleman, well able to take a hint.
+
+Bill put upon the breeze:
+
+"It's all right. He's gone."
+
+No answer. Shuddering with terror lest that hideous _wow!_ had disturbed
+the house the blessed damosel lay trembling abed, the coverings pressed
+about her straining ears.
+
+"He's gone," Bill strained again, his larynx torn with the rasp of
+whispers that must penetrate like shouts and yet speed soft-shod. "He's
+gone!"
+
+Margaret put a white leg to the ground--listened; drew forth its
+companion--listened; glimpsed her white legs; shuddered at such
+immodesty with a man so close; veiled them to their toes with her
+bed-gown; listened; stepped again to the window.
+
+"Oh, Bill!"
+
+"Oh, Margaret!"
+
+"Has anyone heard, do you think?"
+
+"My darling, not a soul. It sounded loud to us. Oh, Margaret--"
+
+"Hush! Yes?"
+
+"Do you know why I am come?"
+
+"Hush!--no."
+
+"I thought--from your note--that you didn't care to see me again. I
+thought-being away like that--that you found you didn't-love me after
+all. Oh, I was tortured, Margaret. Oh--!"
+
+"Hush! Listen!"
+
+"Damn!" said Bill.
+
+The blessed damosel poked her beautiful head again into the night. "It's
+all right. I thought I heard a sound. We must be careful."
+
+"Oh, Margaret, I was tortured--racked. I had to come to you. Tell me I
+was wrong in thinking--"
+
+"Oh, Bill, Bill, I--"
+
+This girl was well-nigh in a swoon of delicious excitement. Emotion took
+her and must be gulped ere she found voice. She stretched her arms down
+towards him.
+
+"Oh, Bill, I thought so, too."
+
+A steely pang struck at his heart. "You thought you didn't love me after
+all?"
+
+"No, no, no."
+
+Emotion dragged her from the window to her waist. Her long hair cascaded
+down to him so that the delicious tips, kissing his face, might by his
+lips be kissed.
+
+"No, no," she breathed; "I thought the same of you. I thought you might
+have found--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Hush!"
+
+"Damn!" said Bill.
+
+She reappeared; again her tresses trickled to him. "It's all right. I
+thought you might have found you didn't love me after all. Dearest, not
+hearing from you--"
+
+In sympathy of spirit Bill groaned: "What could I do?"
+
+She clasped her hands in a delicious ecstasy. "I know, I know. But you
+know how foolish I am. I felt--oh, Bill, forgive me!--I felt that, if
+you had really cared, a way of sending me a message might have been
+found. Of course, it was impossible. And there was more than that. When
+we parted last week, I thought you seemed not to care very much--"
+
+"Oh, Margaret!"
+
+"I know, I know. I know now how foolish I was, but that is what I
+thought--and, Bill, it tortured me. I've not been able to sleep at
+nights. That is how I was awake just now."
+
+"Margaret, I believe you're crying."
+
+"I'm so--so happy now."
+
+"Oh, so am I! Aren't you glad I came, Margaret?"
+
+She murmured, "Oh, Bill!"; gave him a smile that pictured her answer.
+
+Mutually they gazed for a space, drinking delight.
+
+Her thirst quenched, Margaret said:
+
+"Bill, those nights, those terrible nights when I have been doubtful of
+you, filled me with thoughts that shaped into a poem last night."
+
+"A poem to me?"
+
+"About us. Shall I read it?--now that the doubt is all over."
+
+He begged her read.
+
+She was a space from his sight; then, bending down to him, in her hand
+paper of palest heliotrope, whispered to him by light of the beautiful
+moon:
+
+  "Our meeting! Do you remember, dear,
+  How Nature knew we met?
+  Twilight soft with a gentle breeze
+  Bearing scent of the slumbering seas;
+  Music sweet--'twas a nightingale,
+  Trilling and sobbing from laugh to wail--
+  Golden sky that was flecked with red
+  (Ribands of rose on a golden bed).
+  Ah, love! when first we met!"
+
+She paused. "It was raining as a matter of fact, dearest," she
+whispered, "and just after breakfast. But you know what I mean. That is
+the imagery of it--as it seemed to me."
+
+Bill said: "And to me; a beautiful imagery."
+
+She smiled in the modest pride of authorship: "Oh, it's nothing, really.
+You know how these things come. To you in prose, to me in song. One has
+to set them down."
+
+"One is merely the instrument," Bill said.
+
+"Yes, the instrument." She hugged the phrase. "The _instrument_. How
+cleverly you put things!"
+
+Bill disavowed the gift. Margaret breathed, "Oh, you do; I have so often
+noticed it." Bill again denied.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+Conventionality demanded this little exchange of them, and to-day the
+empress sway of conventionality is rarely rebelled. Even, as here, when
+treading the path of love, the journey must constantly be stopped while
+handfuls of the sweet-smelling stuff are tossed about our persons.
+Neglect the duty and you must walk alone. For to neglect conventionality
+is like going abroad without clothes; the naked man appears. Now,
+nothing can be more utterly horrid to our senses than a stark woman or
+stark man walking down the street. We should certainly pull aside the
+blind to have a peep, and the more we could see of the nakedness the
+further would we crane our heads (provided no one was by to watch); but
+to go out and chat, to be seen in company with the naked creature,
+is another matter. We would sooner chop off our legs. So with the
+conventions. The fewer of them you wear, the more naked (that is to say,
+real) do you become. Eyes will poke at you round the blinds, but you
+must walk quickly past the gate, please. If you will not go through
+the machine and come out a nice smooth sausage, well, you must remain
+original flesh and gristle; but you will smell horrid in nice noses.
+
+Is it not warming, as you read this, to know perfectly well that you are
+not one of the sausages?
+
+
+
+V.
+
+When they had sufficiently daubed themselves, Margaret asked:
+
+"Shall I read the next verse? That was the imagery of our meeting; this
+of our parting."
+
+Bill gulped. This man was fondling the scented tresses that trickled
+about his face; speech was a little difficult.
+
+She put her page beneath the moon; gave her voice to its rapture:
+
+  "Our parting! Do you remember, dear,
+  How Nature our folly knew?
+  Mournful swish of the sobbing rain;
+  Distant surge of the Deep in pain;
+  Whispering wail of the wandering wind,
+  Seeking, sobbing, a rest to find;
+  Fitful gleam from a troubled sky
+  (Nature weeping to see love die).
+  Ah, love, when last we met!
+
+"It was a perfect day, really," she said. "Very hot, and just before
+lunch, do you remember? But there, again, it is the _imagery_ of it
+as it seemed to our inner selves. It comes to one, and one is the
+_instrument_."
+
+Bill's voice was hoarse. "Margaret, come down to me," he said.
+
+"I dare not."
+
+"You must. I must touch you--kiss you. You must come down!"
+
+"Bill, I dare not; I should be heard."
+
+He bitted his next words as they came galloping up. Dare he give them
+rein? And then again he bathed in the ecstasy of the scene. The black
+square of the open window; the scented roses that framed it; the silver
+night that lit its picture--her dusky face between her streaming hair,
+her white arms, bare to where the pushed-back sleeves gave them to the
+soft breeze to kiss, the soft outline of her breast where the press of
+her weight drew close her gown.
+
+It was not to be borne. The bitted words lashed from his hold. He
+gasped:
+
+"Then I am coming up!"
+
+Was she aghast at him? he asked himself. He stood half-checked while her
+steady eyes left his face, roamed from him--contrasting, as ashamed he
+felt, the purity of the still night with the clamour of his turbulent
+passions--and settled on an adjacent flowerbed.
+
+At last she spoke, very calmly.
+
+"There is a potting-box just there," she said. "If you turned it on end
+you could reach the window, and then--"
+
+The box gave him two feet of reach. He jumped for the ledge--caught it;
+pulled; fetched the curve of an arm over the sill.
+
+Then between earth and paradise he hung limp; for a sudden horror was in
+his Margaret's eyes.
+
+She put upon his brow a hand that pressed him back; gave words to her
+pictured alarm: "A step upon the gravel!"
+
+'Twixt earth and window, with dangling legs and clutching arms, in
+muscle-racking pain he hung.
+
+Truly a step, and then another step.
+
+And then a very tornado of sound beat furiously upon the trembling
+night; with it a flash; from it the pattering of a hundred bullets.
+
+Someone had discharged a gun.
+
+As Satan was hurled, so, plumb out of the gates of Paradise, Bill fell.
+And now the still air was lashed into a fury of sound-waves, tearing
+this way and that in twenty keys; now the sleeping garden was torn by
+rushing figures, helter-skelter for life and honour.
+
+Sounds!--the melancholy bellow of that gardener, Mr. Fletcher, as the
+recoil of the bell-mouthed blunderbuss he had fired hurled him prone
+upon the gravel; the dreadful imprecations of Bill striving to clear
+his leg of the potting-box through whose side it had plunged; piercing
+screams of Mrs. Major from a ground-floor room; shrills of alarm from
+Mr. Marrapit; _gurr-r-ing_ yelps from Abiram in ecstasy of man-hunt.
+
+Rushing figures!--Bill, freed from his box, at top speed towards the
+shrubbery; Mr. Fletcher, up from his fall, with tremendous springs
+bounding across the lawn; Abiram in hurtling pursuit.
+
+More sounds!--panic screams from Mr. Fletcher, heavily labouring; the
+protest of a window roughly raised; from George's head, thrust into the
+night: "Yi! Yi! Yi! Hup, then! Good dog! Sock him! Sock him! Yi! Yi!
+Yi!"
+
+We must seek the fuse that touched off this hideous turbulence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Alarums And Excursions By Night.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+We are going into a lady's bedroom, but I promise you the thing shall be
+nicely done: there shall not be a blush.
+
+It was midnight when Bill Wyvern projected the scheme whose execution
+we have followed through sweetness to disaster. Two hours earlier the
+Marrapit household had sought its beds.
+
+It was Mr. Marrapit's wise rule that each member of his establishment
+should pass before him as he or she sought their chambers. Night is the
+hour when the thoughts take on unbridled licence; and he would send
+his household to sleep each with some last admonition to curb fantastic
+wanderings of the mind.
+
+Upon this night Mr. Marrapit was himself abed of the chill that Margaret
+had mentioned in her note to Bill. But the review was not therefore
+foregone. Upon his back, night-capped head on pillow propped, he lay as
+the minute-hand of his clock ticked towards ten.
+
+His brow ruffled against a sound without his door. He called:
+
+"Mrs. Armitage!"
+
+"Sir?" spoke Mrs. Armitage through the oak.
+
+"Breathe less stertorously."
+
+Mrs. Armitage, his cook, waiting outside upon the mat, gulped wrath;
+respirated through open mouth.
+
+The clock at Mr. Marrapit's elbow gave the first chime of ten. Instantly
+Mrs. Armitage tapped.
+
+"Enter," said Mr. Marrapit.
+
+She waddled her stout figure to him. Behind her Clara and Ada, those
+trim maids, took place.
+
+Mr. Marrapit addressed her. "To-morrow, Mrs. Armitage, arouse your girls
+at six. Speed them at their toilet; set them to clean your flues."
+He glanced at a tablet taken from beneath his pillow. "At 4.6 this
+afternoon I smelt soot."
+
+"The flues were cleaned this morning, sir."
+
+"Untrue. Your girls were late. Prone in suffering upon my couch, my ears
+tell me all that is accomplished in every part of the house. Ten minutes
+after your girls descended I heard the kitchen fire roar. I suspect
+paraffin."
+
+Mrs. Armitage wriggled to displace the blame. "I rose them at six, sir.
+They sleep that heavy and they take that long to dressing, it's a wonder
+to me they ever do get down."
+
+Mr. Marrapit addressed the sluggards. "Shun the enervating couch. Spring
+to the call. Cleanliness satisfied, adorn not the figure; pursue the
+duties. Ponder this. Seek help to effect it. Contrive a special prayer.
+To your beds."
+
+They left him; upon the mat encountered Frederick, and him, in abandon
+of relief, dug vitally with vulgar thumbs.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Squirming, Frederick, the gardener's boy, advanced to the bedside.
+
+Mr. Marrapit sternly regarded him: "Recite your misdeeds."
+
+"I've done me jobs, sir."
+
+"Prostrated, I cannot check your testimony. One awful eye above alone
+can tell. Upon your knees this night search stringently your heart.
+Bend."
+
+Frederick inclined his neck until his forehead was upon the coverlet.
+Mr. Marrapit scanned the neck.
+
+"Behind the ears are stale traces. Cleanse abundantly. To your bed."
+
+Without the door Frederick encountered Mr. Fletcher. "You let me catch
+you reading abed to-night," Mr. Fletcher warned him.
+
+"Cleanse yer blarsted ear-'oles," breathed Frederick, pushing past.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Mr. Fletcher moved in to the presence.
+
+"Is all securely barred, bolted and shuttered?" Mr. Marrapit asked.
+
+"It's all right."
+
+"I am apprehensive. This is the first night I have not accompanied you
+upon your round. Colossal responsibility lies upon you. Should thieves
+break through and steal, upon your head devolves the crime."
+
+Wearily Mr. Fletcher repeated: "It's all right."
+
+Mr. Marrapit frowned: "You do not inspire confidence. Sleep films your
+eye. I shudder for you. Women and children are in your care this night.
+The maids, Mrs. Armitage, Mrs. Major, my daughter, the young life of
+Frederick, are in your hands. What if rapine and murder, concealed in
+the garden, are loosed beneath my roof this night?"
+
+Mr. Fletcher passed a fist across his brow; spoke wearily: "It's all
+right, Mr. Marrapit. I can't say more; I can't do more. I tell you again
+it's all right."
+
+"Substantiate. Adduce evidence."
+
+Mr. Fletcher raised an appealing hand: "How can I prove it? My word's a
+good word, ain't it? I tell you the doors are locked. I can't bring 'em
+up to show you, can I? I'm a gardener, I am."
+
+"By zeal give proof. Set your alarum-clock so that twice in the night
+you may be roused. Gird then yourself and patrol. But lightly slumber.
+Should my bell sound in your room spring instantly to my bedside. To
+your couch."
+
+Battling speech, Mr. Fletcher moved to the door. At the threshold
+protest overcame him. He gave it vent: "I should like to ast if I was
+engaged to work by night as well as day? Can't I even have me rest?
+'Ow many nights am I to patrol the house? It's 'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a
+gardener, I am; not a watchdog."
+
+"Away, insolence."
+
+Insolence, upon the stairs, morosely descending, drew aside to give room
+to Margaret and George.
+
+Margaret parted her lips at him in her appealing smile. "Oh, Mr.
+Fletcher," in her pretty way she said, "you locked me out. Indeed you
+did." She smiled again; tripped towards Mr. Marrapit's door.
+
+Mr. Fletcher stayed George, following. "Mr. George, did you shut up
+secure behind Miss Margaret?"
+
+George reassured him; questioned his earnestness.
+
+Mr. Fletcher pointed through a window that gave upon the garden. "I've
+the 'orrors on me to-night," he said. "According to Master there's
+rapine lurking in them bushes. Mr. George, what'll I do if there's
+rapine beneath this roof to-night?"
+
+"Catch it firmly by the back of the neck and hold its head in a bucket
+of water," George told him.
+
+Mr. Fletcher passed, pondering the suggestion. "Only something to do
+with rats after all," he cogitated with wan smile of relief.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+Margaret, at her father's bedside, luxuriously mouthed the fine phrases
+of the Book of Job which nightly she read him. Her chapter finished, she
+inquired: "Shall I read on?"
+
+"Does Job continue?"
+
+"No, father. The next begins, 'Then answered Bildad, the Shuite.'"
+
+George coughed upon the threshold.
+
+"Terminate," said Mr. Marrapit. "Bildad is without."
+
+"Oh, father, George is not!"
+
+"He torments me. He is Bildad. Terminate. To your bed."
+
+She pressed a warm kiss upon Job's brow; took on her soft cheek the
+salute of his thin lips. "You have everything, dear father?"
+
+"Prone on my couch I lack much. I am content. You are a good girl,
+Margaret."
+
+"Oh, father!" She tripped from the room in a warmth of satisfaction.
+
+The rough head of Bildad the Shuite came round the door; spoke "Good
+night."
+
+"Approach," said Job. Bildad's legs came over the mat. "You seek your
+room? But not your couch?"
+
+"I'm going to bed, if that's what you mean," George told him.
+
+Mr. Marrapit groaned. "Spurn it. Shun sloth. In the midnight oil set the
+wick of knowledge. Burn it, trim it, tend it."
+
+George withdrew to his room; set the midnight pipe in his mouth; leaning
+from his window sped his thoughts to Battersea.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+One member of the house remained to be sent to sleep. Mrs. Major put a
+soft knuckle to the door; came at the call; whispered "I thought I might
+disturb you."
+
+"You never disturb me, Mrs. Major."
+
+A little squeak sprung from the nutter in the masterly woman's heart.
+
+"You sigh, Mrs. Major?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Marrapit, I can't bear to see you lying there. The"--she paused
+against an effort, then took the aspirate in a masterly rush--"the house
+is not the same without you."
+
+"Your sympathy is very consoling to me, Mrs. Major."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Marrapit!" She plunged a shaft that should try him: "I wish I
+had the right to give you more."
+
+"Your position in this house gives you free access to me, Mrs. Major.
+Regard your place as one of my own circle. Do not let deference stifle
+intercourse."
+
+The masterly woman hove a superb sigh. "If you knew how I feel your
+kindness, Mr. Marrapit. Truly, as I say to myself every night, fair is
+my lot and goodly is my--" Icy dismay took her. Was the missing word
+"hermitage" or "heritage"? With masterly decision she filled the blank
+with a telling choke; keyed her voice to a brilliant suggestion of
+brightness struggling with tears: "The sweetling cats are safely
+sleeping. I have come straight from them. Ah, how they miss you! How
+well they know you suffer!"
+
+"They do?" A tremble of pleasure was in Mr. Marrapit's voice.
+
+"They does--do." Mrs. Major recited their day, gave their menu. "I must
+not tarry," she concluded; "you need rest. Good night, Mr. Marrapit.
+Good night."
+
+"Good night, Mrs. Major."
+
+Mr. Marrapit put out his candle.
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+And now in every room, save one, Sleep drew her velvet fingers down
+recumbent forms; pressed eyelids with her languorous kiss; upon her warm
+breast pillowed willing heads; about her bedfellows drew her Circe arms.
+
+Mrs. Major's room was that single exception, and it is that masterly
+woman's apartment we now shall penetrate.
+
+Hurrying to semi-toilet; again assuring herself that the key was turned;
+peering a last time for lurking ravishers beneath the bed, Mrs. Major
+then fumbled with keys before her box--threw up the lid.
+
+Down through a pile of garments plunged her arm. Her searching fingers
+closed about her quest and a very beautiful smile softened her face--a
+smile of quiet confidence and of trust.
+
+In greater degree than men, women have this power of taking strength
+from the mere contact of an inanimate object. A girl will smile all
+through her sleep because, hand beneath pillow, her fingers are about
+a photograph or letter; no need, as with Mrs. Major there was no need,
+even to see the thing that thus inspires. The pretty hand will delve to
+recesses of a drawer, and the thrill that brings the smile will run
+up from, it may be, a Bible, a diary, or a packet of letters touched.
+Dependent since Eden, woman is more emotionally responsive to aught that
+gives aid than is man; for man is accustomed to battle for his prizes,
+not to receive them.
+
+Mrs. Major drew up, that smile still upon her face, and the moon through
+uncurtained window gave light upon the little joy she fetched from the
+depths of her trunk.
+
+"Old Tom Gin."
+
+The neck of Old Tom's bottle clinked against a glass; Old Tom gurgled
+generously; passed away through the steady smile he had inspired.
+
+       *       *        *       *        *
+
+Mrs. Major set a carafe of water upon a little table; partnered it with
+Old Tom; reclined beside the pair on a comfortable seat; closed her
+eyes.
+
+At intervals, as the hand crept between eleven and twelve of the clock,
+she would open them; when she did so diluted Old Tom in the glass fell
+lower, full-bodied Old Tom in the bottle marched steadily behind.
+
+The further Old Tom crept downwards from the neck of his captivity, with
+the greater circumspection did Mrs. Major open her eyes. Considerable
+practice had told this masterly woman that Old Tom must be commanded
+with a steady will: else he took liberties. Eyes suddenly opened annoyed
+Old Tom, and he would set the furniture ambulating round the room in a
+manner at once indecorous in stable objects and calculated to bewilder
+the observer. Therefore, upon setting down her glass, this purposeful
+woman would squarely fix the bureau that stood opposite her, would for
+a moment keep her gaze upon it with a sternness that forbade movement,
+then gently would close her eyes. When Old Tom must be again interviewed
+she would lift the merest corner of an eyelid; catch through it the
+merest fraction of the bureau; determine from the behaviour of this
+portion the stability of the whole.
+
+Thus if the corner she sighted showed indecorous propensities--as,
+swelling and receding, fluttering in some ghostly breeze, or altogether
+disappearing from view,--she would drop her lid and wait till she might
+catch it more seemly. This effected, she would work from that fixed
+point, inch by inch, until the whole bureau was revealed--swaying a
+little, perhaps, but presently quiescent.
+
+When, and not until, it was firmly anchored she would slowly start
+her eye in review around the other objects of her apartment. If
+the wash-stand had tendency to polka with the bed, or the wardrobe
+unnaturally to stretch up its head through the ceiling, Mrs. Major would
+march her gaze steadily back to the bureau, there to take fresh strength
+and start again. When all was orderly--then Old Tom.
+
+Masterly in all things, this woman was most masterly in her cups.
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+Into Mr. Marrapit's dreams there came a whistle.
+
+He pushed at Sleep; she crooned to him and he snuggled against her.
+
+Upon his brain there rapped a harsh _Wow_!
+
+He wriggled from his bedfellow; she put an arm about him, drew him to
+her.
+
+Now there succeeded a steady wash of sound--rising, falling, murmuring
+persistent against his senses.
+
+He turned his back upon Sleep. She crooned; he wriggled from her.
+Seductively she followed; he kicked a leg and jarred her, threw an arm
+and hurt her. Disgusted, she slipped from bed and left him, leaving a
+chilly space where she had warmly lain.
+
+Mr. Marrapit shivered; felt for Sleep; found her gone; with a start sat
+upright.
+
+The breakwater gone, that wash of sound which had lapped around his
+senses rushed in upon them. Lingering traces of the touch of Sleep still
+offered resistance--a droning hum. The wash surged over, poured about
+him--_VOICES_!
+
+Mr. Marrapit violently cleared his throat. The voices continued.
+Violently again. They still continued. Tremendously a third time. They
+yet continued. From this he argued that they could not be very close to
+his door. Intently he listened, then located them--they came from the
+garden. He felt for the bell-push that carried to Mr. Fletcher's room;
+put his thumb upon it; steadily pressed.
+
+Sleep toyed no tricks in Mr. Fletcher's bed. Like some wanton mistress
+discovered in the very act of betrayal, she at the first tearing clamour
+of the electric bell bounded from the sheets, scuttled from the room.
+
+"Rapine!" cried Mr. Fletcher; plunged his head beneath the bedclothes
+and wrestled in prayer.
+
+The strident gong faltered not nor failed. Steady and penetrating it
+dinned its hideous call. Mr. Fletcher waited for screams. None came. He
+pushed the sheet between his chattering teeth, listened for cudgelling
+and heavy falls. None came. That bell had single possession of the
+night. The possibility that only patrolling was required of him nerved
+him to draw from his concealment. He lit a candle; into trousers pushed
+his quivering legs; upon tottering limbs passed up the stairs to Mr.
+Marrapit's room.
+
+"Judas!" Mr. Marrapit greeted him.
+
+Mr. Fletcher sighed relief: "I thought it was rapine."
+
+"You have betrayed your trust. You are Iscariot."
+
+"I come when you rung."
+
+"Silence. I have heard voices."
+
+"God help us," Mr. Fletcher piously groaned; the candle in his shaking
+hand showered wax.
+
+"Blasphemer! He will not help the craven. Gird yourself."
+
+"I'll call Mr. George."
+
+"Refrain. I will attend to that. Gird yourself. Take the musket from the
+hall. It is loaded. Patrol!"
+
+"I don't want the musket."
+
+"Be not overbold. Outside you may be at their mercy."
+
+"_Outside!_"
+
+"Assuredly."
+
+"Me patrol outside!"
+
+"That is your task. Forward!"
+
+By now Mr. Marrapit had risen; swathed himself in a dressing-gown.
+Sternly he addressed Mr. Fletcher: "As you this night quit yourself so
+will I consider the question of your dismissal. If blood is spilt this
+night it will be upon your head."
+
+Mr. Fletcher trembled. "That's just it. It's 'ard--damn 'ard--"
+
+"Forward, Iscariot." Mr. Marrapit drove Judas before him; in the hall
+took down the gun and pressed it into the shaking hands. He drew the
+bolts, impelled Iscariot outward, and essayed to close the door.
+
+Mr. Fletcher clutched the handle. Mr. Marrapit pushed; hissed through
+the crack: "Away! Search every nook. Penetrate each fastness. Use
+stealth. Track, trace, follow!"
+
+Discarding entreaty, Mr. Fletcher put hoarse protest through the slit of
+aperture that remained: "I should like to ast if I was engaged for this,
+Mr. Marrapit," he panted. "I'm a gardener, I am--"
+
+"I recognise that. To your department. With your life forefend it."
+
+Mr. Marrapit fetched the door against the lintel; in the brief moment he
+could hold it close slid the lock.
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+No tremor of fear or of excitement ruffled this remarkable man. Calm in
+the breezes of life he was calm also in its tempests. This is a natural
+corollary. As a man faces the smaller matters of his life so he will
+face its crises. Each smallest act accomplished imprints its stamp upon
+the pliable mass we call character; our manner of handling each tiniest
+common-place of our routine helps mould its form; each fleeting thought
+helps shape the mould.
+
+The process is involuntary and we are not aware of its working.
+Character is not made by tremendous thumps, but by the constant
+patterings of minutest touches. The athlete does not build his strength
+by enormous exertions, but by consistent and gentle training. Huge
+strains at spasmodic intervals, separated by periods in which he lies
+fallow in sloth, add nothing to his capacity for endurance; it is by the
+tally of each minute of his preparation that you may read how he
+will acquit himself against the test. Thus also with the shaping of
+character, and thus was Mr. Marrapit, collected in minor affairs, mighty
+in this crisis.
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+Turning from the door he marched steadily across the hall towards the
+stairs to arouse George.
+
+At the lowermost step a movement on the landing above made him pause. He
+was to be spared the trouble. Placing the candle upon a table he looked
+up. He spoke. "George!"
+
+"Wash it?" said a voice. "Wash it?"
+
+"Wash nothing," Mr. Marrapit commanded. "Who is this?"
+
+The answer, starting low, ascended a shrill scale: "Wash it? Wash it?
+Wash it?"
+
+"Silence!" Mr. Marrapit answered. "Descend!"
+
+He craned upwards. The curl-papered head of Mrs. Major poked at him over
+the banisters.
+
+"Darling," breathed Mrs. Major. "Darling--_um!_"
+
+"Mrs. Major! What is this?"
+
+"Thash what _I_ want to know," said Mrs. Major coquettishly. "Wash it?
+Wash _ish_ it?"
+
+"You are distraught, Mrs. Major. Have no fear. To your room."
+
+The curl-papered head waggled. Mrs. Major beamed. "Darling.
+Darling--um!"
+
+"Exercise control," Mr. Marrapit told her. "Banish apprehension. There
+are thieves; but we are alert."
+
+The head withdrew. Mrs. Major gave a tiny scream: "Thieves!" She took a
+brisk little run down the short flight which gave from where she stood;
+flattened against the wall that checked her impulse; pressed carefully
+away from it; stood at the head of the stairs facing Mr. Marrapit.
+
+He gazed up. "I fear you have been walking in your sleep, Mrs. Major."
+
+Mrs. Major did not reply. She pointed a slippered toe at the stair below
+her; swayed on one leg; dropped to the toe; steadied; beamed at Mr.
+Marrapit; and in a high treble coquettishly announced, "_One_!"
+
+Mr. Marrapit frowned: "Retire, Mrs. Major."
+
+Mrs. Major plumped another step, beamed again: "_Two_!"
+
+"You dream. Retire."
+
+Mrs. Major daintily lifted her skirt; poised again. The projected
+slipper swayed a dangerous circle. Mrs. Major alarmingly rocked. That
+infamous Old Tom presented three sets of banisters for her support; she
+clutched at one; it failed her; "Three four five six seven eight nine
+ten--_darling_!" she cried; at breakneck speed plunged downwards, and
+with the "_Darling_!" flung her arms about Mr. Marrapit's neck.
+
+Back before the shock, staggering beneath the weight, Mr. Marrapit went
+with digging heels. They could not match the pace of that swift blow
+upon his chest. Its backward speed outstripped them. With shattering
+thud he plumped heavily to his full length upon the floor; Mrs. Major
+pressed him to earth.
+
+But that shock was a whack on the head for Old Tom that temporarily
+quieted him. "What has happened?" Mrs. Major asked, clinging tightly.
+
+Mr. Marrapit gasped: "Release my neck. Remove your arms."
+
+"Where are we?"
+
+"You are upon my chest. I am prone beneath you. Release!"
+
+"It's all dark," Mrs. Major cried; gripped firmer.
+
+"It is not dark. I implore movement. Our juxtaposition unnaturally
+compromises us. It is abhorrent."
+
+Mrs. Major opened the eyes she had tightly closed during that staggering
+journey and that shattering fall. She loosed her clutch; got to her
+knees; thence tottered to a chair. That infamous Old Tom raised his head
+again; tickled her brain with misty fingers.
+
+Mr. Marrapit painfully rose. He put a sympathetic hand upon the seat of
+his injury; with the other took up the candle. He regarded Mrs. Major;
+suspiciously sniffed the air, pregnant with strange fumes; again
+regarded his late burden.
+
+Upon her face that infamous Old Tom set a beaming smile,
+
+"Follow me, Mrs. Major," Mr. Marrapit commanded; turned for the
+dining-room; from its interior faced about upon her.
+
+With rare dignity the masterly woman slowly arose; martially she poised
+against the hat-rack; with stately mien marched steadily towards him.
+
+Temporarily she had the grip of Old Tom--was well aware, at least, of
+his designs upon her purity, and superbly she combated him.
+
+With proud and queenly air she drew on--Mr. Marrapit felt that the swift
+suspicion which had taken him had misjudged her.
+
+Mrs. Major reached the mat. Old Tom gave a playful little twitch of her
+legs, and she jostled the doorpost.
+
+With old-world courtesy she bowed apology to the post. "Beg pardon," she
+graciously murmured; stood swaying.
+
+
+
+X.
+
+Step by step with her as she had crossed the hall, Mr. Fletcher,
+recovering from the coward fear in which he shivered outside the door,
+had crept forward along the path around the house. As Mrs. Major stood
+swaying upon the threshold of the dining-room he reached the angle;
+peered round it; in horror sighted Bill's figure pendant from Margaret's
+window.
+
+Thrice the bell-mouth of his gun described a shivering circle; tightly
+he squeezed his eyelids--pressed the trigger.
+
+BANG!
+
+Mr. Marrapit bounded six inches--hardly reached the earth again when,
+with a startled scream, Mrs. Major was upon him, again her arms about
+his neck.
+
+And now shriek pursued shriek, tearing upwards through her throat. Old
+Tom had loosed the ends of all her nerves. Like bolting rabbit in young
+corn the tearing discharge of that gun went madly through them, and
+lacerated she gave tongue.
+
+Stifled by the bony shoulder that pressed against his face, Mr. Marrapit
+went black. He jerked his head free, put up his face, and giving cry for
+cry, shrilled, "George! George! George!"
+
+The din reached George where from his window he leaned, crying on Abiram
+in the man-hunt across the garden. He drew in his head, bounded down the
+stairs. Over Mrs. Major's back, bent inwards from the toes to the rock
+about which she clung, Mr. Marrapit's empurpled face stared at him.
+
+Upon George's countenance the sight struck a great grin; his legs it
+struck to dead halt.
+
+Mrs. Major's shrieks died to moans.
+
+"Action!" Mr. Marrapit gasped. "Remove this creature!"
+
+George put a hand upon her back. It shot a fresh shriek from her; she
+clung closer.
+
+"Pantaloon!" Mr. Marrapit strained. "Crush that grin! Action! Remove
+this woman! She throttles me! The pressure is insupportable. I am
+Sinbad."
+
+George again laid hands. Again Mrs. Major shrieked; tighter clung.
+
+Mr. Marrapit, blacker, cried, "Zany!"
+
+"Well, what the devil can I do?" George asked, hopping about the pair;
+Mrs. Major's back as responsive to his touch as the keys of a piano to
+idle fingers.
+
+"You run to and fro and grin like a dog," Mr. Marrapit told him. "Each
+time you touch her she screams, grips me closer. I shall be throttled.
+Use discretion. Add to mine your assurance of her safety. She is not
+herself."
+
+George chuckled. "She's not. She's tight as a drum."
+
+"Liar!" moaned Mrs. Major.
+
+"Intoxicated?" Mr. Marrapit asked.
+
+"Blind."
+
+Sharp words will move where entreaty cannot stir.
+
+Mrs. Major relaxed her hold; spun round. "Monster" and "Perjurer" rushed
+headlong to her lips. "Ponsger!" she cried; tottered back against the
+sofa; was struck by it at the bend of her knees; collapsed upon it. Her
+head sunk sideways; she closed her eyes.
+
+"You can see for yourself," George said.
+
+Mr. Marrapit sniffed: "My nose corroborates."
+
+"Ponsger!" the prone figure wailed.
+
+Mr. Marrapit started: "Mrs. Major!"
+
+She opened her eyes: "Call me Lucy. Darling-_um!_" She began to snore.
+
+"Abhorrent!" Mr. Marrapit pronounced.
+
+Whisperings without made him step to the door. White figures were upon
+the stairs. "To your beds!" he cried.
+
+"Oh, whatever is it, sir?" Mrs. Armitage panted.
+
+"Away! You outrage decency." Mr. Marrapit set a foot upon the stairs.
+The affrighted figures fled before him.
+
+George, when his uncle returned, was peering through the blind. "Who
+the devil loosed off that gun? It is immaterial. All events are buried
+beneath this abhorrent incident. The roof of my peace has crashed about
+me." Mr. Marrapit regarded the prone figure. "Her inspirations grate
+upon me; her exhalations poison the air. Rouse her. Thrust her to her
+room."
+
+"You'll never wake her now till she's slept it off."
+
+"Let us then essay to carry her. She cannot remain here. My shame shall
+not be revealed, nor hers uncovered."
+
+George began: "To-morrow--"
+
+"To-morrow I speed her from my gates. My beloved cats have been in the
+care of this swinish form. They have been in jeopardy. I tremble at
+their escape. To-morrow she departs."
+
+A sudden tremendous idea swept over George, engulfing speech.
+
+With no word he moved to the sofa; grasped the prone figure; put it upon
+its weak legs. They gave beneath it. "You must take her feet," he said.
+
+Averting his gaze, Mr. Marrapit took the legs that Old Tom had
+devitalised. The procession moved out; staggered up the stairs.
+
+Heavy was the burden; bursting with vulgar laughter was George; but that
+huge idea that suddenly had come to him swelled his muscles, lent him
+strength.
+
+He heaved the form upon the bed.
+
+On the dressing-table a candle burned. By its light Mr. Marrapit
+discovered Old Tom's bottle, two fingers of the villain yet remaining.
+
+He beat his breast. "Extinguish that light. I to my room. Seek Fletcher.
+He patrols the garden for malefactors. In the morning I will see you.
+Before this disaster my chill is sped. You are of my flesh. Cleave unto
+me. In our bosoms let this abhorrent sore be buried. Seek Fletcher."
+
+The distraught man tottered to his room.
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+George went slowly down the stairs, bathing in the delicious thrills of
+unfolding the wrappings from about his great idea. He had yet had time
+but to feel its shape and hug it as a child will feel and hug a doll
+packed in paper. Now he stripped the coverings, and his pulses thumped
+as he saw how fine was it. Almost unconscious to his actions he unbarred
+the door; stepped into the thin light; was not aroused until, treading
+upon Mr. Fletcher's musket, his idea was suddenly jolted from him.
+
+Here the gun that gave the echoes; where the hand that started it?
+
+A hoarse cry came to him: "Mr. George! Mr. George!"
+
+He looked along the sound. Above a hedge below the lawn an apple-tree
+raised its branches. Within them he could espy a dark mass that as he
+approached took form. Mr. Fletcher.
+
+The grass hushed George's footsteps. Rounding the hedge he came upon the
+little drama that gave that note of dread to Mr. Fletcher's calls.
+
+Beneath the gardener's armpits one branch of the apple-tree passed;
+behind his knees another. Between them hung his heavy seat. Whitely a
+square of it peered downwards; melancholy upon the sward lay the lid of
+corduroy that should have warmed the space. For ten paces outwards from
+the tree-trunk there stretched a pitted path. Abiram, as George came,
+turned at this path's extremity; set his sloe eye upon the dull white
+patch in Mr. Fletcher's stern; hurled forward up the track; sprang and
+snapped jaws an inch below the mark as Mr. Fletcher mightily heaved.
+
+A lesser dog would have yapped bafflement, fruitlessly scratched upwards
+from hind legs. Abiram was perfect dog of the one breed of dog that
+is in all things perfect. Silently he plodded back; turned; ran; leapt
+again. Again Mr. Fletcher heaved, and again the fine jaws snapped an
+inch beneath the pallid square of flesh.
+
+As once more uncomplaining he turned, Abiram sighted George; ruffled.
+George spoke his name. Abiram wagged that short tail that marked his
+Champion Victor Wild blood, shook the skull that spoke to the same
+mighty strain.
+
+This dog expected in his human friends that same devotion to duty which
+is the governing trait of his breed. His shake implied, "No time for
+social niceties, sir. I have a job in hand."
+
+"Call 'im off, Mr. George," Mr. Fletcher implored. "Call 'im--_ur!_"--he
+heaved upward as Abiram again sprang--"off," he concluded, sinking once
+more as the bull-terrier trotted up the little path.
+
+It was a fascinating scene. "You're quite safe," George told him.
+
+"Safe! I'm _tired!_ I can't keep on risin' and fallin' all night. It's
+'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a--_ur!_" He heaved again.
+
+George told him: "You do it awfully well, though; so neat."
+
+"Call 'im off," Mr. Fletcher moaned. "He'll have me in a minute. He's
+'ad a bit off of me calf; he's 'ad a piece out of me trousers. He'll go
+on. He's a methodical dog--_ur!_"
+
+George took a step; caught Abiram's collar. "How on earth did you get up
+there?"
+
+"Jumped."
+
+"Jumped! You couldn't jump up there!"
+
+Mr. Fletcher took a look to see that Abiram was securely held; then
+started to wriggle to a pose of greater comfort. "I'd jump a house with
+that 'orror after me," he said bitterly. By intricate squirmings he laid
+a hand upon the cold patch of flesh that gazed starkly downwards from
+his stern. "If I ain't got hydrophobia I've got frost-bite," he moaned.
+"Cruel draught I've had through this 'ole. Take 'im off, Mr. George."
+
+George was scarcely listening. His thoughts had returned to the
+delicious task of fingering his great idea.
+
+"Take 'im off, Mr. George," Mr. Fletcher implored.
+
+George passed a handkerchief under Abiram's collar; tugged for the gate;
+there dispatched the dog down the road.
+
+Abiram shook his head; trotted with dejected stern. A job had been left
+unfinished.
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+Hallooing safety to the apple-tree, too preoccupied to inquire further
+into the reason for the gun and the presence of Bill's dog, George
+turned for the house.
+
+Awakening birds carolled his presence. They hymned the adventures of
+the day that Dawn, her handmaiden, came speeding, silver-footed,
+perfume-bearing, fresh from her dewy bath, to herald.
+
+George put up an answering pipe. For him also the day was
+adventure-packed and must lustily be hymned. Entering Mr. Marrapit's
+study he drew the blinds; upon a telegraph form set Mary's name and her
+address; pondered; then to these words compressed his great idea:
+
+"_Go agency this morning. Get name on books. Meet you there. Think can
+get you situation here. George._"
+
+"Immediately the office opens," said George; trod up to his room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Mr. Marrapit Takes A Nice Warm Bath.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+As Mr. Marrapit had said, the disaster of the night had sped his
+complaint.
+
+He appeared at breakfast. No word was spoken. He ate nothing.
+
+Once only gave he sign of interest. Midway through the meal muffled
+sounds came to the breakfast party. Scufflings in the hall struck an
+attentive light in Mr. Marrapit's eyes; slam of the front door jerked
+him in his seat; wheels, hoofs along the drive drew his gaze to the
+window. A cab rolled past--a melancholy horse; a stout driver, legs set
+over a corded box; a black figure, bolt upright, handkerchief to eyes.
+
+The vision passed. Mr. Marrapit gazed upwards; his thin lips moved.
+
+Vulgar curiosity shall not tempt us to pry into the demeanour with
+which, an hour earlier, this man had borne himself in the study with
+Mrs. Major. Of that unhappy woman's moans, of her explanations, of the
+tears that poured from her eyes--bloodshot in a head most devilishly
+racked by Old Tom--we shall not speak.
+
+Margaret stretched her hand for more bread. Despite the moving scenes in
+which during the night she had travelled with her Bill, her appetite
+was nothing affected. With her meals her sentimentality was upon the
+friendliest terms. This girl was most gnawed by hunger when by emotion
+she was most torn.
+
+She stretched for a third slice.
+
+Mr. Marrapit cleared his throat. The sound shot her. She caught his
+eye and the glance pierced her. Her outstretched hand dropped upon the
+cloth, toyed with crumbs.
+
+Mr. Marrapit said: "I perceive you are finished?"
+
+Margaret murmured: "Yes." Her voice had a tremulous note. It is a bitter
+thing to lose a slice of bread-and-butter for which the whole system
+imperatively calls.
+
+"Withdraw," Mr. Marrapit commanded.
+
+She put a lingering glance upon the loaf; wanly glided from the room.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+As she closed the door George prepared for his great idea. He drank
+deeply of a cup of tea; drew down his cuffs; pondered them. They were
+covered in pencilled notes, evolved by desperate work all that morning,
+to aid him when the hour was at hand.
+
+He absorbed Note I; spoke: "I am afraid last night's events very much
+distressed you, sir--"
+
+"They are interred. Do not resurrect them."
+
+George hurried to Note 2. "My sympathies with you--"
+
+"Let the dead bury the dead. Mourn not the past."
+
+George skipped to Note 3. "What I am concerned about is the cats."
+
+"You are?"
+
+"Oh, sir, indeed I am. I am not demonstrative. Perhaps you have not
+guessed my fondness for the cats?"
+
+"I have not."
+
+"Believe me, it is a deep affection. When I saw that unhappy woman
+tigh--under the influence of spirits, what was my first thought?"
+
+"Supply the answer."
+
+George took another glimpse at Note 3. "What was my first thought?"
+he repeated. "Was it distress at sight of a woman so forgetful of her
+modesty? No. Was it sympathy for the cruel deception that had been
+practised upon you? Forgive me, sir, it was not." (He glanced at his
+notes.) "What, then?"
+
+He paused brightly.
+
+"It is your conundrum," said Mr. Marrapit. "Solve it."
+
+George raised an impressive hand. "What, then? It was the thought of the
+risks that the cats I so loved had run whilst beneath the care of this
+woman."
+
+Mr. Marrapit's groan inspirited George. He was on the right track. He
+took Note 4. "I asked myself, Who is responsible for the jeopardy in
+which these creatures have been placed? Heaven knows, I said, what they
+may not have suffered. This woman may have neglected their food, she may
+have neglected their comforts. In a drunken fit she might have poisoned
+them, beat them, set furious dogs upon them."
+
+Mr. Marrapit writhed in anguish.
+
+George acted as Note 4 bade him. He dropped his voice. "Let us trust,
+sir," he said, "that none of these things has taken place."
+
+"Amen," Mr. Marrapit murmured. "Amen."
+
+George's voice took a sterner note. "But, I asked myself, Who is
+responsible for those horrors that might have been, that may have been?"
+
+Mr. Marrapit dropped his head upon his hands. He murmured: "I am.
+Peccavi."
+
+George rose in noble calm. He read Note 5; gave it with masterly effect:
+"No, sir. I am."
+
+"You!"
+
+"I! I have not slept since I leftyou, sir. I have paced my room and" (he
+read a masterly note) "remorse has paced with me, step by step, hour by
+hour. Did I help my uncle, I asked myself, when he was selecting this
+Mrs. Major? No. Was I by his right hand to counsel and advise him?
+No. Has not my training at hospital, my intercourse with ten thousand
+patients, taught me to read faces like an open book? It has. Should not
+I then have been by his side to help him when he selected a woman for
+the post of caring for our-forgive me, sir, I said 'our'--caring for our
+cats? I should. I asked myself how I could make amends. Only by begging
+my uncle's forgiveness for my indifference and by imploring him to let
+me help him in the choice of the next woman he selects."
+
+A masterly pause he followed with an appeal sent forth in tones of rare
+beauty: "Oh, sir, I do beg your forgiveness; I do implore you let me
+make amends by helping you in your next choice."
+
+Mr. Marrapit wiped moist eyes. "I had not suspected in you this
+profundity of feeling."
+
+George said brokenly: "I have given you no reason."
+
+Mr. Marrapit replied on a grim tone: "Assuredly you have not."
+
+George glanced at Note 6; fled from the danger zone.
+
+"Where I fear the mistake was made in Mrs. Major," he hurried, "was that
+she was not a perfect lady. Our--forgive me for saying 'our'--our cats
+are refined cats, cats of gentle birth, of inherent delicacy. Their
+attendant should be of like breeding. She should be refined, her birth
+should be gentle, her feelings delicate. She should be a lady."
+
+"You are right," Mr. Marrapit said. "As sea calleth to sea, as like
+calleth to like, so would an ebb and flow of sympathy be set in motion
+between my cats and an attendant delicately born. Is that your meaning?"
+
+George murmured in admiration: "In beautiful words that is my meaning."
+He paused. Now the bolt was to be shot, and he nerved himself against
+the strain. He fired: "I have a suggestion."
+
+"Propound."
+
+No further need for notes. George pushed back his cuffs; gulped the
+agitation that swelled dry and suffocating in his mouth. "This is my
+suggestion. Because I have had experience in the reading of faces;
+because I wish to make recompense for my share in the catastrophe of
+Mrs. Major's presence; because--"
+
+"You are drowning beneath reasons. Cease bubbling. Strike to the
+surface."
+
+George had not been drowning. He had been creeping gingerly from
+stepping-stone to stepping-stone. The endeavour had been to come as
+close as possible to the big rock upon which he intended to spring. The
+less the distance of the leap the more remote the chance of slipping
+down the rock and being whirled off in swift water. It is a method of
+progression by which, in the race of existence, many lives are lost.
+The timid will hobble from stone to stone, landing at each forward point
+more and yet more shaky in the knees. The torrent roars about them. Sick
+they grow and giddy; stepping-stones are green and slimy; the effort of
+balancing cannot be unduly prolonged.
+
+Ere ever they feel themselves ready for the leap they slip, go whirling
+and drowning downstream past the stepping-stones that are called
+Infirmity of Purpose. Or they may creep close enough the rock, only to
+find they have delayed over their hobbling progression until the rock is
+already so crowded by others who have been bolder over the stones as to
+show no foothold remaining. They leap and fall back.
+
+We are all gifted with strength sufficient for that spring; but disaster
+awaits him who scatters his energies in a hundred hesitating little
+scrambles.
+
+Now George sprang; poised upon that last "because."
+
+"And because--I wish--" He sprang--"Therefore I suggest that I should go
+to town to-day and search every agency until I find you a lady I think
+suitable."
+
+The thud of his landing knocked the breath out of him. In terror he lay
+lest Mr. Marrapit's answering words should have the form of desperate
+fellows who would hurl him from his hold, throw him back.
+
+"I agree," Mr. Marrapit said.
+
+George was drawn to his feet. He could have whooped for joy.
+
+"I agree. I have misjudged you. In this matter I lay my trust in you.
+Take it, tend it, nurse it; cherish it so that it may not be returned to
+me cold and dead. Speed forth."
+
+"Have I a free hand?" George asked.
+
+"Emphatically no. Every effort must be made to keep down expenses. Here
+are two shillings. Render account. As to salary--"
+
+George burst out: "Oh, she'll come for anything."
+
+Mr. Marrapit started. "She? Whom?"
+
+George threw a blanket to hide the hideous blunder. "Told of such a home
+as this is," he explained, "a true lady would come for anything."
+
+The blunder sank, covered. "I earnestly pray that may be so," Mr.
+Marrapit said. "I doubt. Rapacity and greed stalk the land. Mrs. Major
+had five-and-twenty pounds per annum. I will not go above that figure."
+
+George told him: "Rely upon me. But, by a free hand I meant a free hand
+as to engaging what I may think a suitable person."
+
+"Emphatically no. You are the lower court. Sift sheep from goats. Send
+sheep here to me. I am the tribunal. I will finally select."
+
+The refusal placed a last obstacle in the path of George's scheme, but
+he did not demur. Primarily he dared not. To demur might raise again
+that blunder he had let escape when he had said, "She'll come for
+anything"; this time it might rage around and not be captured. All might
+be wrecked. Secondly he felt there to be no great need for protest. The
+confidence of having won thus far gave him courage against this final
+difficulty.
+
+"Trust me, sir," he said.
+
+Very soberly he paced from the room; gently closed the door; with the
+tread of one bearing a full heart heavily moved up the stairs.
+
+He reached his room; ripped off sobriety. "Oh, Mary!" he exultantly
+cried, "if I can get you down here, old girl!"
+
+Mr. Marrapit, meanwhile, stepped to the room where his cats lived;
+lovingly toyed with his pets; took the Rose of Sharon a walk in the
+garden. He was in pleasant mood. Great had been the distress of the
+night, but this man had enjoyed a luxurious warm bath--in crocodile's
+tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Miss Porter Swallows A Particularly Large Sweet.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Mary in the little Battersea lodgings was at breakfast when her George's
+telegram arrived. She puckered over its mystery; shaped events this way
+and that, but could make of them no keyhole that the message would fit
+and unlock.
+
+She flew among the higher improbabilities: George, she conjectured, had
+misrepresented this stony-hearted uncle; last night had told all to Mr.
+Marrapit, and Mr. Marrapit had warmed to her and bade him fetch her to
+Herons' Holt. She ripped George's description of his uncle from about
+the old man; dressed Mr. Marrapit in snowy locks and a benign smile;
+pictured him coming down the steps with outstretched hand to greet her.
+She heard him say, "My daughter"; she saw him draw George to her, lock
+their hands; she heard him murmur, "Bless you, my children."
+
+This was a romantic young woman. A poached egg was allowed to grow cold
+as she trembled over her delectable fancies.
+
+But a glance at the telegram pulled her from these delicious flights;
+bumped her to earth. "_Think can get you situation here._" "Situation"
+drove the fatherly air from Mr. Marrapit; once more rehabilitated him as
+her George presented him--grim and masterly.
+
+Further conjecture altogether drove Mr. Marrapit from the picture. What
+situation could be offered her in the Marrapit household? Why should
+"here" mean Herons' Holt? It must mean at a house in the district.
+
+Upon the magic carpet of this new thought my Mary was whirled again in
+an imaged paradise. She would be near her George.
+
+High in these clouds she ran to her bedroom for her hat; but with it
+there descended upon her head a new thought that again sent her toppling
+earthwards. Characterless, and worse than characterless, how was she
+to get any such delightful post? My Mary started up the street for the
+Agency, blinking tears.
+
+At Battersea Bridge a new thought came sweeping. She clutched on to it;
+held it fast. Into her tread it put a spring; to her chin gave a brave
+tilt. If everything failed, if of the telegram nothing came, why, at
+least she had the telegram!--was making for the Agency under a direct
+command from her George. The thought swelled her with confidence and
+comfort. How warm a thing it was to feel that she did not face the world
+alone! Her George's arm was striking for her, her George's hand was
+pointing a terse command. "Go to Agency." She was obeying him; she
+belonged to him.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Mary had intended to wait outside the Agency until her George should
+arrive and explain his mysterious message. But she was scarcely at the
+building when Miss Ram, also arriving, accosted her--took her upstairs.
+Miss Ram quite naturally regarded the meeting as evidence that Mary had
+come for help. Mary, in a flutter as to George's intentions, could but
+meekly follow.
+
+In the room marked "Private," settled at her table, Miss Ram icily
+opened the interview. "I have heard from Mrs. Chater. I did not expect
+to see you again."
+
+Mary began: "I don't know what you have heard--"
+
+Miss Ram stretched for a letter.
+
+"Oh, I don't wish to," Mary cried; put out a hand that stayed the
+action. "To hear all she says would again begin it all. It would be like
+her voice. It would be like being with her again. Please, please, Miss
+Ram, don't tell me."
+
+"You have your own version?"
+
+"I have the truth." Mary pointed at the letter-file. "The truth isn't
+there. Mrs. Chater isn't capable of the truth. She cannot even recognise
+the truth when she hears it."
+
+In yet more freezing tones Miss Ram replied: "She is an old and valued
+client."
+
+"You only know her in this office," Mary told her. "You don't know her
+in her home."
+
+"I have suited her with other young ladies. I have heard of her from
+them."
+
+"And they have spoken well of her?"
+
+"Discounting the prejudice of a late employee, they have spoken well."
+
+"Was her son there with them?"
+
+"They have not told me so."
+
+"Ah!" said Mary; sat back in her chair.
+
+"Then your version is about the son?"
+
+Mary nodded. Recollection put a silly lump in her throat.
+
+Miss Ram said: "Miss Humfray, when I received that letter from Mrs.
+Chater, I said I would have no more to do with you. I told Miss Porter
+I would not see you. Why, out of all my ladies, do you come back to me
+characterless from your situations? I will listen to your story. Make
+it very brief. Don't exaggerate. I have sat in this chair for seventeen
+years. I can distinguish in a minute between facts and spleen. You
+desire to tell your version?"
+
+"I must," Mary said. "What I'd like to do would be to get up and say,
+'If you doubt me, I'll not trouble to convince you.' I'd like to walk
+out and leave you and face anything rather than 'explain.' Why should
+I 'explain' to anybody? But I'm not going to walk out. I haven't the
+pluck. I know what it is like to be alone out there." She gave a little
+choke. "I've learnt that much, anyway." She went on. "I'll just tell
+you, that's all. I don't want your sympathy; I only want your sense of
+justice."
+
+"I like your spirit," Miss Ram said. It was a quality she rarely found
+in her applicants. "Go on."
+
+Then Mary told. She phrased bluntly. Her recital was after the manner of
+the fireworks called "Roman candles." These, when lit, pour out fire and
+smoke in a rather weak-kneed dribble. They must be held tightly. When
+tensely enough constricted, of fire and smoke there is little, but at
+intervals out there pops an exceedingly luminous ball of flame.
+
+My Mary kept the pressure of pride upon her throat. There was no dribble
+of emotion. Only the facts popped out--hard and dry, and to Miss
+Ram intensely illuminative. Mary did not mention George's name. She
+concluded her narrative with jerky facts relative to the scene in the
+Park. "Then I ran away," she said, "and a friend of mine came up. He had
+seen. And he thrashed him. When I got back to Mrs. Chater's her son had
+arrived--battered. He told his mother that he had seen me with a man and
+had interfered. That the man assaulted him. That's all."
+
+"The miserable hound!" pronounced Miss Ram with extraordinary ferocity.
+
+From a drawer in her desk she took a manuscript book, bound in limp
+leather, tied with blue ribbon. Herein were contained the remarkable
+thoughts which from time to time had come to this woman during her
+seventeen years' occupancy of the chair in which she sat. Upon the
+flyleaf was inscribed "Aphorisms: by Eugenie Ram." It was her intent
+to publish this darling work when beneath each letter of the alphabet
+twelve aphorisms were written.
+
+"The miserable hound!" cried she, when the full tale of Mr. Bob Chater's
+vileness was told; drew "Aphorisms" towards her and wrote in hot blood.
+
+Then looked at Mary. "_L,_" she read, "_L. Lust. Lust is the sound meat
+of natural instinct gone to carrion. Men eat meat, wolves eat carrion.
+Some men are wolf-men_--Hand me the dictionary, Miss Humfray. Two r's in
+carrion. I _thought_ so. Thank you."
+
+She replaced "Aphorisms." "My dear, I will do what I can for you," she
+told Mary. "I _do_ believe you. Go into the interview room. I hear a
+step."
+
+
+
+III.
+
+That step was George's. Abashed in this home of women he shuffled
+uneasily in the passage, then put a hesitating knuckle upon "Enquiries."
+
+From within a violent movement was followed by a strange guttural sound.
+George entered.
+
+With scarlet face and watery eyes, Miss Porter--the stout young woman
+who presided over this department, and whose habit it was to suck sweets
+the better to beguile the tedium of her duties--gazed at him; made
+guttural sounds. The start of George's knock had caused this girl
+to swallow a particularly large sweet, and its downward passage was
+inflicting upon her considerable pain.
+
+Her face was an alarming sight. "I'm afraid--" George began.
+
+"Pardon!" gasped Miss Porter, driving the sweet with a tremendous
+swallow. "Pardon!"
+
+"Not at all," George pleasantly said. "Not at all. I called with
+reference to a lady-help."
+
+The grinding sweet forbade the pleasant dalliance
+
+Miss Porter could have wished with this handsome young man. In a brave
+spasm (this girl was in great suffering), "I will tell the Principal,"
+she said; trod heavily to Miss Ram's door.
+
+Fate is an abominable trickster; loves to tease us. With one hand
+it gave Miss Porter a delectable male; with the other prevented her
+enjoying him. Furthermore, it prematurely deprived her of a fine sweet.
+
+Reappearing and holding the door ajar: "Miss Ram will see you," she
+murmured. Tears were in this girl's eyes; the bolted sweet was still
+paining her very much indeed.
+
+IV.
+
+In two clever bows Miss Ram without a word greeted George; indicated a
+chair.
+
+George sat down. "I want," he began--"that is, my uncle wants, a
+lady-help--"
+
+"Name, please," rapped Miss Ram, opening the ledger.
+
+George gave it; stretched a leg to indicate a confidence he did not
+feel; pitched his voice to aid the presentment. "When I say lady-help--"
+
+"Address, please," said Miss Ram with a pistol-snap.
+
+George withdrew the signs of confidence with a jerk. He gave the
+information. Then waited Miss Ram to give him a lead. He had twice been
+shot; was in no desire again to expose his person.
+
+Miss Ram fixed her small black eyes upon him. She said nothing. The
+intrusion of a young man into matters essentially domestic she strongly
+disapproved. Under "D" in "Aphorisms" this woman had a trenchant note
+touching this matter. "_D. Domesticity. Domesticity_," said this note,
+"_is the offspring of all the womanly virtues. The virtues impregnate
+the woman, and domesticity is the resultant child. Absence of a single
+womanly trait aborts or debilitates the offspring. Men have nothing
+whatever to do with it, and nothing is more abominable than a man who
+meddles with domestic matters._"
+
+The rays of Miss Ram's disconcerting eye pushed George steadily
+backwards from the rock of such small confidence as remained to him.
+Assailed by the inquiring bows with which she now interrogated his
+further purpose, he slipped from it, plunged wildly into the sea of what
+he required, and for five minutes beat this way and that, hurling the
+splash of broken sentences at Miss Ram's unbending countenance.
+
+Beginning a description of Mr. Marrapit's household, he floundered
+thence to a description of the required lady's duties; abandoning that
+unfinished, splashed to a description of the manner of person for whom
+he sought.
+
+It was his object to paint a character and appearance as near to his
+Mary's as he could master; to induce Miss Ram to suggest her as likely
+candidate for the post. He could not introduce his Mary to his uncle
+unless she came under the auspices of some recognised institution.
+
+So he floundered on.
+
+Miss Ram did not move. His struggles grew less; he caught at haphazard
+words; flung them desperately; at last relapsed; sat sweating.
+
+Miss Ram poked him with a questioning bow. He did not stir.
+
+With a further bow she accepted his defeat; handed him a pink paper.
+"Now, kindly fill up this form. State precisely what you require. Write
+clearly, please."
+
+George obeyed. Miss Ram studied the answers to her printed
+interrogations; opened her ledger. "I have several suitable ladies."
+She started to read a list. "Miss Minna Gregor; aged 25; daughter of
+the late Humphrey Gregor, stockbroker; three years' character from Mrs.
+Mountsaffron of Charles Street, to whom she was lady-help and from whom
+an excellent reference may be obtained."
+
+"Too old," said George.
+
+Miss Ram frowned; returned to the ledger. "Miss Ellen Hay; aged
+20; daughter of Lieutenant Hay, late R.N. For two years with Mrs.
+Hoyle-Hoyle of Knightsbridge."
+
+George squeaked, "Too young." He had not anticipated this ordeal.
+
+Miss Ram read on. At the fifteenth name George was in desperate
+agitation. His list of objections was exhausted. Each protest had
+narrowed his field.
+
+"This is the last upon my books," Miss Ram severely told him. "She
+fills all your requirements. None of your objections applies. You will
+certainly engage her."
+
+"I feel sure I shall," George brightly said. If this was the last name
+it must be Mary.
+
+"I am glad to hear that," Miss Ram announced. "You are hard to please.
+This is a most admirable young woman."
+
+George leaned forward with an expectant smile. Miss Ram read: "Miss Rosa
+Brump--"
+
+George's smile died. An "Eh?" was startled out of him.
+
+"Brump," said Miss Ram testily. "Brump. B-r-u-m-p, _Brump_."
+
+George said "Oh!"; ran a finger around the inside of his collar.
+
+Miss Ram read on, emphasising the Brumps with the suggestion of a ball
+bouncing from rock to rock:
+
+"Miss Rosa _Brump_; aged 21; daughter of the late Selwyn Agburn _Brump_,
+barrister-at-law. Companion to Miss Victoria Shuttle of Shuttle Hall,
+Shuttle, Lines, until that lady's death. The late Miss Shuttle dying
+suddenly, Miss _Brump_ has no reference from her. What that reference
+would have been, however, is clearly evidenced by the fact that in her
+will Miss Shuttle bequeathed 'to my faithful companion Rosa _Brump_,'
+her terra-cotta bust of the late Loomis Shuttle, Esq., J.P., inventor of
+the Shuttle liquid manure."
+
+Miss Ram wagged a finger at George. "That speaks for itself," she said.
+
+George did not answer. He was in a confusion of fear. This terrible
+woman would force Miss Brump upon him. He was powerless in her hands. He
+was in chains.
+
+"Does it not?" poked Miss Ram.
+
+"Rather," said George. "Oh, rather."
+
+"Very good. I congratulate your uncle upon obtaining this estimable
+young woman. She should call here in a few minutes. You can then make
+final arrangements. Meanwhile, this form--"
+
+George hurled himself free from this hypnotic panic. Anything must be
+done to shake off this intolerable Brump.
+
+"One moment," he said. "I had forgotten--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What colour is Miss Brump's hair?"
+
+"Her _what?_"
+
+"Hair. Her hair."
+
+"How extraordinary! Brown."
+
+George effected an admirable start. He echoed: "_Brown?_ Oh, not brown?"
+
+"Certainly. Brown."
+
+George mournfully shook his head. "Oh, dear! How unfortunate! I'm afraid
+Miss Brump will not suit, Miss Ram. My uncle--extraordinary foible--has
+a violent objection to brown hair. He will not have it in the house."
+
+"Unheard of!" Miss Ram snapped. "Unheard of!"
+
+George rubbed together his sweating palms; blundered on. "None the less
+a fact," he said impressively. He dropped his voice. "It is a very sad
+story. He had fifteen brothers--"
+
+"Fifteen!"
+
+"I assure you, yes. All were black-haired except one, who was brown--the
+first brown-haired child in the history of the house. 'Bantam' they used
+to call him when they were girls and boys together--'Bantam.'"
+
+"_Girls_! You said brothers!"
+
+"Ah, yes. Girls as well. Twelve, twelve girls."
+
+"Twelve girls and fifteen boys!"
+
+"I assure you, yes. A record. As I was saying, the brown-haired child,
+he took to drink. It is most painful. Died in a madhouse. My uncle, head
+of the family, reeled beneath the stigma--reeled. Vowed from that day
+that he would never let a brown-haired person cross his threshold."
+
+George wiped his streaming face; sat back with a sigh. Miss Brump was
+buried.
+
+Miss Ram's next words caused him to start in his seat.
+
+"But your hair is brown."
+
+My contemptible George, all his lies now rushing furious upon him, put
+his hand to his head; withdrawing it, gazed at the palm with the air of
+one looking for a stain.
+
+"How about _that_?" rapped Miss Ram.
+
+George gave a wan smile. "It is my misfortune," he said simply--"my
+little cross. We all have our burdens in this life, Miss Ram. Pardon me
+if I do not care to dwell upon mine."
+
+With a bow Miss Ram indicated sympathy; decorously closed the subject.
+
+George gave a little sigh. With a simulation of brightness he proceeded:
+"You are sure you have no other lady?"
+
+"I have one," said Miss Ram. "She would not suit."
+
+"May I be allowed to judge?"
+
+Miss Ram turned to the ledger. "'Miss Mary Humfray.'"
+
+George started. "It is nothing," he explained. "One of those shivers;
+that is all."
+
+Miss Ram bowed. "'Miss Mary Humfray; aged 21; only child of the late
+Colonel Humfray, Indian Army; references from former employer not good,
+but with extenuating circumstances.'"
+
+"I think she might suit," George said. "She--she--" he groped
+wildly--"she is the daughter of a colonel."
+
+"So were four others."
+
+George wiped his brow. "The--the _only_ daughter."
+
+"You consider that a merit?"
+
+"My uncle would. He has curious ideas. He is himself an only child."
+
+Miss Ram stared. George had the prescience of trouble, but could not
+find it. "Oh, yes," he said, "oh, yes."
+
+"Fifteen brothers and twelve sis--"
+
+George saw the gaping pit; sprang from it. "_Has_ an only child," he
+corrected. "_Has_, not _is_."
+
+Miss Ram glared, continued: "What of the absence of character?"
+
+"I imagine the fact of being an only child would override that. You said
+there were extenuating circumstances?"
+
+"There are. I personally would speak for the young lady."
+
+Excitement put George upon his feet. "I thank you very much, Miss Ram. I
+feel that this lady will suit."
+
+"You have asked nothing about her. With the others you were unusually
+particular."
+
+"I act greatly by instinct. It is a family trait. Something seems to
+assure me in this case."
+
+Miss Ram gazed searchingly at George; answered him upon an interested
+note. "Indeed!" she spoke. "Remarkable. Pray pardon me." She drew
+"Aphorisms" from its drawer; hesitated a moment; with flowing pen wrote
+beneath "I."
+
+She turned towards George. "Pray pardon me," she repeated. "What you
+tell me of acting by instinct greatly interests me as a student of
+character. In this little volume here I--allow me." She emphasised with
+a quill-pen. "_I. Instinct. Instinct is the Almighty's rudder with which
+He steers our frail barques upon the tempestuous sea of life at moments
+when otherwise we should be quite at a loss. Some of us answer quickly
+to this mysterious helm and for example something seems to tell them in
+the middle of the night that the house is on fire, and they get up and
+find it is. Let those who don't answer quickly beware!_"
+
+"That's awfully well put," said George. "Awfully well."
+
+For the first time Miss Ram smiled. "You would wish to interview the
+young lady?" she asked. "Fortunately she is present. Kindly step to the
+Interview Room."
+
+She led the way. With thundering pulses George followed. His Mary rose.
+Miss Ram introduced them.
+
+George rolled his tongue in a dry mouth; passed it over dry lips. He had
+no words.
+
+"Have you no questions?" Miss Ram asked severely.
+
+For a third time since he had entered this building, panic broke damply
+upon George's brow. He blew his nose; in a very faint voice asked: "Your
+age is twenty-one?"
+
+Upon an agitated squeak his Mary told him: "Yes."
+
+"Ah!" In desperation he paused: caught Miss Ram's awful eye; was goaded
+to fresh plunge. "Ah, one-and-twenty?"
+
+In a tiny squeak Mary replied: "Yes."
+
+He shuffled in desperation. "When will you be twenty-two?"
+
+"In February."
+
+"Ah! February." This was awful. "February."
+
+Miss Ram's eye stabbed him again.
+
+"February. Then you must be twenty-one now?"
+
+"_Tch-tch!_" sounded Miss Ram.
+
+"Twenty-one," George stammered. "Twenty-one--"
+
+From the other room at that moment Miss Porter called.
+
+"I am required," said Miss Ram, "elsewhere. I will return in a moment."
+She passed out; closed the door.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+"My darling!" cried George.
+
+"Georgie!"
+
+They embraced.
+
+He held her to him; kissed the soft gold hair.
+
+On a movement in the next room his Mary wriggled free. "Tell me."
+
+"By Gad, it's been awful! Did you hear me in that room?"
+
+She nodded, laughing at him. He kissed the smiles.
+
+"Oh, do be careful! Let _go_, George; let _go_. I couldn't hear what you
+said. But you were hours--_hours_."
+
+"Years," said George. "Years. Aeons of time. I have aged considerably. I
+thought it would never end. It was appalling."
+
+She clasped her pretty hands. "But tell me, George. Do tell me. I don't
+understand _anything_. What has _happened?_"
+
+"Give me time," George told her. "I am not the same George. The
+light-hearted George of yore is dead under Miss Ram's chair. I am old
+and seamed with care."
+
+"George, _do, do_ tell me! Don't fool."
+
+"I'm not fooling. I can't fool. You don't realise what I have been
+through. You have no heart. I can't fool. When I was a child I thought
+as a child; I did childish things. But now that I have been through
+Miss Ram's hands my bright boyhood is sapped. I am old and stricken in
+years."
+
+"Oh, Georgie, _do, do_ tell me!"
+
+This ridiculous George gave a boyish laugh; clasped his Mary again;
+squeezed her to him till she gasped. "I've got you, Mary!" he said. He
+kissed the gold hair. "I've got you. I'm going to see you every day.
+You're coming down to live at Herons' Holt."
+
+Then he told her.
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+Miss Ram returned; directed at George a bow that Was one huge note of
+interrogation.
+
+"Quite satisfactory," George replied. "I am sure my uncle will agree."
+
+"There is, of course," objected Miss Ram, "the unfortunate matter of
+references."
+
+George took a frank air. "Miss Ram, I am quite willing to take your
+personal assurances on that matter. On behalf of my uncle I accept
+them."
+
+"I will send a written statement of the matter," said Miss Ram. Her air
+was dogged.
+
+"I most solemnly assure you that is unnecessary."
+
+Miss Ram killed him with a bow. "It is my custom. I have the reputation
+of seventeen years to sustain."
+
+George quailed.
+
+"Your uncle," Miss Ram exclaimed, "will also wish to see Miss Humfray.
+She shall go this afternoon."
+
+"Not this afternoon," George told her. "No. To-morrow. He could not see
+her to-day."
+
+"Very well. To-morrow. To-night I will write the references to him.
+Kindly pay the fee to Miss Porter in the office. Good morning!"
+
+She pushed him off with a stabbing bow. He fled.
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+In that delectable interview during Miss Ram's absence George had
+arranged with his Mary that this was a day to be celebrated. She should
+not proceed instantly to be weighed by Mr. Marrapit; let that ordeal be
+given to the morrow. This splendid day should splendidly end; tremendous
+gaiety should with a golden clasp fasten the golden hours of the
+morning. In the afternoon he had a lecture and clinical demonstrations.
+Like a horse he would work till half-past six. At seven he would meet
+his Mary in Sloane Square.
+
+So it was. At that hour George from the top of his 'bus spied his Mary
+upon the little island in the Square. He sprang down and his first
+action was to show a fat and heavy sovereign, pregnant with delights,
+lying in his palm.
+
+"Borrowed," said George. "One pound sterling. Twenty shillings net. And
+every penny of it is going to fly."
+
+He called a hansom, and they smoothly rolled to Earl's Court.
+
+When sovereigns are rare possessions, how commanding an air the feel of
+one imparts! Mary watched her George with pride. How masterful was he!
+How deferential the head waiter at the restaurant in the Exhibition
+became! The man was putting them off with an inner table. Her George by
+a look and a word had him in a minute to right-abouts, and one of the
+coveted tables upon the verandah was theirs. Waiters flocked about. With
+such an air did George command the cheapest wine upon the list that
+the waiter, whose lip ordinarily would have curled at such an order,
+hastened to its execution with dignity of task, deference of service.
+
+They ate robustly through the menu: faltered not nor checked at a single
+dish. They passed remarks upon their neighbours. At intervals George
+would say, "Isn't this fine, Mary?"; or his Mary would say, "Oh,
+Georgie, isn't this splendid?" And the other would answer, "Rather!"
+
+A meal and a conversation to make your proper lovers shudder! There was
+no nibbling at and toying with food; there was no drinking and feasting
+from the light of one another's eyes. When George felt thirsty he
+would put his nose in the cheap claret and keep it there till mightily
+refreshed; such hungry yearnings as his Mary felt she satisfied with
+knife and fork. These were very simple children and exceedingly healthy.
+
+But while his Mary's tongue ached with a cold, cold ice, George was
+in the pangs of mental arithmetic. As the bill stood, that pregnant
+sovereign had given birth to all the delights of which it was capable;
+was shattered and utterly wrecked in child-bed.
+
+A waiter came bustling. There was just time. George leant across. "Mary,
+when I ask you if you'll have coffee, say you prefer it outside--it's
+cheaper there."
+
+"Coffee, sir?"
+
+"Special coffee," George ordered nonchalantly. "Yes, two. One moment.
+Would you rather have your coffee outside near the band, Mary?"
+
+His Mary was splendid. She looked around the room, she looked into the
+cool night--and there her eye longer lingered. "It's cooler outside,"
+she said. "I think it would be nicer outside, if you don't mind."
+
+"All right."
+
+"Sure you don't mind?"
+
+"Oh, no; no, not a bit. Bill, waiter."
+
+The waiter bowed low over his munificent tip; dropped it into a jingling
+pocket. George gathered his miserable change; slid it silently to where
+it lay companionless; with his Mary passed into the warm night.
+
+In the Empress Gardens they found a hidden table; here sipped coffee,
+and here were most dreadfully common. Mary's hand crept into her
+George's; they spoke little. The warm night breeze gently kissed their
+faces; the band stirred deepest depths; they set their eyes upon the
+velvety darkness that lay beyond the lights, and there pictured one
+another in a delectable future. Mary saw a very wonderful George; now
+and then glimpsed a very happy little Mary in a wonderful home. George
+also saw a happy little Mary in a wonderful home, but he more clearly
+followed a very wonderful George, magnificently accomplishing the mighty
+things that made the little Mary happy.
+
+       *       *        *       *        *
+
+George kissed his Mary upon the doorstep of the Battersea lodgings;
+caught the last train to Paltley Hill; and as he walked home from the
+station the scented hedges murmured to him with his Mary's voice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+The Girl Comes Near The Lugger.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+At breakfast upon the following day George set forth the result of
+his labours; with urgent eloquence extolled the virtues of this Miss
+Humfray.
+
+Before Mr. Marrapit's plate lay an open envelope; upon the back George
+could read the inscription "Norfolk Street Agency for Distressed
+Gentlewomen."
+
+What had Miss Ram said of his Mary? The thought that she had written
+a reference which at the last moment would dash into dust this mighty
+scheme, was as a twisting knife in George's vitals. Every time that Mr.
+Marrapit stretched his hand for the letter the agitated young man upon
+a fresh impulse would dash into defiant eulogy of his darling; and so
+impetuous was the rush of his desperate words that at the beat of every
+new wave Mr. Marrapit would withdraw his startled hand from the letter;
+frown at George across the coffee-pot.
+
+At last: "Sufficient," he announced. "Curb zeal. Mount discretion.
+Satisfy the demands of appetite. You have not touched food. Tasks he
+before you. Do not starve the brain. I am tired of your eulogies of this
+person. For twenty-one minutes you have been hurling advertisements at
+me. I am a hoarding."
+
+The bill-sticker pushed a piece of bacon into a dry mouth; sat with
+goggling eyes.
+
+The hoarding continued: "I have here this person's reference. It is
+good."
+
+"Down shot the piece of bacon; convulsively bolted like Miss Porter's
+sweet.
+
+"Good!" cried George.
+
+"I said good. For faulty articulation I apologise."
+
+"I know, I heard. I meant that I am pleased."
+
+"Strive to express the meaning. The person arrives for inspection
+at mid-day. For your assistance I tender thanks. The incident is now
+closed. Do you labour at hospital to-day?"
+
+George had determined to be at the fount of news. In town, uncertain, he
+could have applied himself to nothing. He said:
+
+"No, here; I work here to-day."
+
+"To your tasks," commanded Mr. Marrapit.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+George went to his room, but his tasks through that morning lay
+neglected.
+
+Impossible to work. He was in a position at which at one time or another
+most of us are placed. He was upon one end of a balanced see-saw, and he
+was blindfolded so that it was impossible to see what might happen upon
+the other extremity. Suddenly he might be swung up to highest delight;
+suddenly he might be dashed earthwards to hit ground with a jarring
+thud. The one eventuality or the other was certain; but he must sit
+blindfold and helpless--unable to affect the balance by an ounce. Here
+is the position in which all of us are made cowards. Bring the soldier
+into action, and his blood will run hot enough to make him intoxicated
+and insensible to fear; hold him in reserve, and courage will begin to
+ooze. Give us daylight in which we may see aught that threatens us, and
+likely enough we shall have desperate courage sufficient to rush in and
+grapple; it is in the darkness that uncertainty sets teeth chattering.
+More prayers are said, and with more devotion, at night than in the
+morning. We creep and crawl and squirm to heaven when the uncertainty of
+the night has to be faced; but we can get along well enough, thank you,
+when we spring out of bed with the courage of morning.
+
+George could not work until he knew whether he was to be swung high
+or thrown low. He paced his room; glimpsed his watch; tremendously
+smoked--and groaned aloud as, at every turn, he would receive the
+buffets of recollection of some important point upon which he had
+omitted to school his Mary.
+
+In those desperate moments he decided finally that Margaret should not
+be told that Mary and he were so much more than strangers. Supposing all
+went well, and his Mary came to Herons' Holt, her safety and his would
+certainly be imperilled by giving the key of their secret to his
+cousin. It was a hard resolve. About the beautiful romance of the thing
+Margaret's nature would have crooned as a mother over her suckling. She
+would have mothered it, cherished it, given them a hundred opportunities
+of exchanging for clasps and whispers the chilly demeanour they must
+bear one to another. But the pleasure must be foregone. My George had
+the astonishing sense to know that the animal instinct in Margaret's
+nature would outride the romance. Twice the countless years that
+separate us from the gathering of our first instincts may pass, and this
+the strongest of them--the abhorrence of secrecy-will never be uprooted.
+When all life was a ferocious struggle for life, secrecy--and it would
+have been the secret of a store of food--was inimical to the existence
+of the pack: it was opposed to the first of the slowly forming laws of
+nature. There must be equality of opportunity that all might equally
+be tested. Thus it was that a secret hoard of food, when come upon,
+instantly was noised abroad by the discoverer, and its possessor torn
+to death; and thus it is to-day that a secret once beyond the persons
+immediately concerned is carried from mouth to mouth till the world has
+it, and its first possessors take the violence of discovery.
+
+For a reason that was almost similar George negatived the impulse which
+bade him meet his Mary at the station, walk with her to the house, and
+leave her before the gates. For, supposing again that she were accepted
+and came to Herons' Holt, this suspicious meeting would come flying to
+Mr. Marrapit upon the breezes that whirl in and out of every cranny
+and nook in small communities. Towns are blind and deaf; villages have
+peeping eyes, straining ears, loose mouths, that pry and listen and
+whisper.
+
+Almost upon the hour of twelve there came to the agitated young man's
+ears a ring that could be none other than hers.
+
+He tip-toed to the banisters; peered below. His Mary was ushered in.
+
+While she stood behind the maid who tapped on Mr. Marrapit's door, she
+glanced up. George had a glimpse of her face; waved encouragement from
+the stairhead.
+
+The maid stood aside. His Mary passed in to the ogre's den.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Clad in a dressing-gown, Mr. Marrapit was standing against the
+fireplace. My trembling Mary settled just clear of the closing door;
+took his gaze. He put his eye upon her face; slowly travelled it down
+her person; rested it upon her little shoes; again brought it up; again
+carried it down; this time left it at her feet.
+
+The gaze seemed to burn her stockings. She shuffled; little squirms of
+fright nudged her. She glanced at her feet, fearful of some hideous hole
+in her shoes.
+
+"I am--" she jerked.
+
+Then Mr. Marrapit spoke: "I see you are. Discontinue."
+
+The command was shot at her. Trembling against the shock she could only
+murmur: "Discontinue?"
+
+"Assuredly. Discontinue. Refrain. Adjust."
+
+"Discontinue...?" With difficulty she articulated the word, then put
+after it on a little squeak: "... What?"
+
+"It," rapped Mr. Marrapit.
+
+"I am afraid--"
+
+"I quake in terror."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"Pah!" Mr. Marrapit exclaimed. "You said 'I am.' Were you not about to
+say 'I am standing on the polished boards'?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I believed that was in your mind. Let it now enter your mind. You are
+on the polished boards. You have high heels. I quake in terror lest they
+have left scratch or blemish. Adjust your position."
+
+Mary stepped to the carpet. She was dumb before this man.
+
+Mr. Marrapit bent above the polished flooring where she had stood.
+"There is no scratch," he announced, "neither is there any blemish." He
+resumed his post against the fireplace and again regarded her: "You are
+young."
+
+"I am older really."
+
+"Elucidate that."
+
+"I mean--I am not inexperienced."
+
+"Why say one thing and mean another? Beware the habit. It is perilous."
+
+"Indeed it is not my habit."
+
+"It is your recreation, then. Do not indulge it. Continue."
+
+"I am young, but I have had experience. I think if you were to engage me
+I would give you satisfaction."
+
+"Adduce grounds."
+
+"I would try in every way to do as you required. I understand I am to
+look after cats."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Here."
+
+"Abandon that impression. I have not said so."
+
+"No, I mean if you engage me."
+
+"Again you say one thing and mean another. I am suspicious. It is a
+habit."
+
+"Oh, _indeed_ it is not."
+
+"Then if a recreation, a recreation to which you are devoted. You romp
+in it. Twice within a minute you have gambolled."
+
+My Mary blinked tears. Since rising that morning, her nerves had been
+upon the stretch against this interview. She had schooled herself
+against all possibilities so as to win into the house of her dear
+George, yet at every moment she seemed to fall further from success.
+
+"You ca-catch me up so," she trembled.
+
+Mr. Marrapit expanded upwards. "Catch you up! A horrible accusation. The
+table is between us."
+
+"You mis-misunderstand me." She silenced a little sniff with a dab of
+her handkerchief. She looked very pretty. Mr. Marrapit placed beside her
+the mental image of Mrs. Major; and at every point she had the prize. He
+liked the soft gold hair; he liked the forlorn little face it enframed;
+he liked the slim little form. His cats, he suspected, would appreciate
+those nice little hands; he judged her to have nice firm legs against
+which his cats could rub. Mrs. Major's, he apprehended, would have been
+bony; not legs, but shanks.
+
+Mary made another dab at her now red little nose. The silence increased
+her silly fright. "You mis-misunderstand me," she repeated.
+
+With less asperity Mr. Marrapit told her: "I cannot accept the blame.
+You wrap your meanings. I plunge and grope after them. Eluding me, I am
+compelled to believe them wilfully thrown. Strive to let your yea be yea
+and your nay nay. With circumspection proceed."
+
+Mary gathered her emotion with a final little sniff. "I like ca-cats."
+
+"I implore you not to accuse me of misunderstanding you. A question is
+essential. You do not always pronounce 'cats' in two syllables?"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"Satisfactory. You said 'ca-cats.' Doubtless under stress of emotion.
+Proceed."
+
+Mary sniffed; proceeded. "I like ca-cats--cats. If you were to engage me
+I am sure your cats would take to me."
+
+"I admit the possibility. I like your appearance. I like your voice.
+Had you knowledge of the acute supersensitiveness of my cats you would
+understand that they will appreciate those points. I do not require in
+you veterinary knowledge; I require sympathetic traits. I do not engage
+you to nurse my cats--though, should mischance befall, that would come
+within your duties,--but to be their companion, their friend. You are a
+lady; themselves ancestral they will appreciate that. I understand
+you are an orphan; there also a bond links you with them. All cats are
+orphans. It is the sole unfortunate trait of their characters that they
+are prone to forget their offspring. In so far as it is possible to
+correct this failing amongst my own cats, I have done my best. Amongst
+them the sanctity of the marriage tie is strictly observed. The word
+stud is peculiarly abhorrent to me. Polygamy is odious. There is a final
+point. Pray seat yourself."
+
+Mary took a chair. Mr. Marrapit, standing before her, gazed down upon
+her. From her left he gazed, then from her right. He returned to the
+fireplace.
+
+"It is satisfactory," he said. "You have a nice lap. That is of first
+importance. The question of wages has been settled. Arrive to-morrow.
+You are engaged."
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+Of Mr. Marrapit upon the Rack: of George in Torment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Prosiness Upon Events: So Uneventful That It Should Be Skipped.
+
+
+If we write that Mary's first month at Herons' Holt was uneventful, we
+use the term as a figure of speech that must be taken in its accepted
+sense; not read literally. For it is impossible that life, in whatever
+conditions, can be eventless. The dullest life is often with events the
+most crowded. In dulness we are thrown back upon our inner selves, and
+that inner self is of a construction so sensitive that each lightest
+thought is an event that leaves an impression.
+
+In action, in gaiety, in intercourse we put out an unnatural self to
+brunt the beat of events. We are upon our guard. There are eyes watching
+us, and from their gaze we by instinct fend our inner self just as by
+instinct we fend our nakedness.
+
+Overmuch crowded with such events, the inner self is prone to shrivel,
+to fade beneath lack of nutriment; and it may happen that in time the
+unnatural self will take its place, will become our very self.
+
+That is gravely to our disadvantage. Overmuch in action, the man of
+affairs may win the admiration of a surface-seeing world; may capture
+the benefits of strong purpose, of wealth, and of position. But he is
+in danger of utterly losing the fruits that only by the inner, the
+original, and true self can be garnered.
+
+Life presents for our pursuit two sets of treasures. The one may be had
+by the labours of the hands; the other by exercise of the intellect--the
+true self. And at once this may be said: that the treasures heaped by
+the hands soil the hands, and the stain sinks deep. The stain enters the
+blood and, thence oozing, pigments every part of the being--the face,
+the voice, the mind, the thoughts. For we cannot labour overlong in the
+fields without besweating the brow; and certainly we cannot ceaselessly
+toil after the material treasures of life without gathering the traces
+of that labour upon our souls. It stains, and the stain is ugly.
+
+Coming to treasures stored by exercise of the intellect, the true
+self, these also put their mark upon the possessor; but the action is
+different and the results are different. Here the pigment that colours
+the life does not come from without but distils from within. Man does
+not stoop to rend these treasures from the earth; he rises to them. They
+do not bow; they uplift. They are not wrenched in trampling struggle
+from the sties where men battle for the troughs; they are absorbed from
+the truths of life that are as breezes upon the little hills. They are
+in the face of Nature and in Nature's heart; they are in the written
+thoughts of men whose thoughts rushed upward like flames, not
+dropped like plummet-stones--soared after truth and struck it to our
+understanding, not made soundings for earthy possessions showing how
+these might be gained.
+
+Yet it is not to be urged that the quest of material treasures is to
+be despised, or that life properly lived is life solely dreaming among
+truths. The writer who made the story of the Israelites sickening of
+manna, wrapped in legend the precept that man to live must work for
+life. We are not living if we are not working. We cannot have strength
+but we win meat to make strength.
+
+No; my protest is against the heaping of material treasure to the
+neglect of treasure stored by the true self. Material treasure is not
+ours. We but have the enjoyment of it while we can defend it from the
+forces that constantly threaten it. Misfortune, sorrow, sickness--these
+are ever in leash against us; may at any moment be slipped. Misfortune
+may whirl our material treasures from us; sorrow or sickness may canker
+them, turn them to ashes in the mouth. They are not ours; we hold them
+upon sufferance. But the treasures of the intellect, the gift of
+being upon nodding terms with truth, these are treasures that are our
+impregnable own. Nothing can filch them, nothing canker them: they are
+our own--imperishable, inexhaustible; never wanting when called upon;
+balm to heal the blows of adversity, specific against all things malign.
+Cultivate the perception of beauty, the knowledge of truth; learn to
+distinguish between the realities of life and the dross of life; and you
+have a great shield of fortitude of which certainly man cannot rob you,
+and against which sickness, sorrow, or misfortune may strike tremendous
+blows without so much as bruising the real you.
+
+And it is in the life that is called uneventful that there is the most
+opportunity for storing these treasures of the intellect. Perhaps there
+is also the greater necessity. In the dull round of things we are thrown
+in upon ourselves, and by every lightest thought and deed either are
+strengthening that inner self or are sapping it. Either we are reading
+the thoughts of men whose thoughts heap a priceless store within us,
+or we are reading that which--though we are unaware--vitiates and puts
+further and further beyond our grasp the truths of life; either we are
+watching our lives and schooling them to feed upon thoughts and deeds
+that will uplift them, or we are neglecting them, and allowing them
+to browse where they will upon the rank weeds of petty spites, petty
+jealousies, petty gossipings and petty deeds. In action we may have no
+time to waste over this poisonous herbage; but in dulness most certainly
+we do have the temptation--and as we resist or succumb so shall we
+conduct ourselves when the larger events of life call us into the lists.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Margaret Fishes; Mary Prays.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Mary's first month at Herons' Holt was uneventful: need not be recorded.
+We are following the passage of the love 'twixt her and George; and
+within the radius of Mr. Marrapit's eye love durst not creep. She saw
+little of her George. They were most carefully circumspect in their
+attitude one to another, and conscience made their circumspection trebly
+stiff. There are politenesses to be observed between the inmates of a
+house, but my Mary and my George, in terror lest even these should be
+misconstrued, studiously neglected them.
+
+The aloofness troubled Margaret. This girl wrapped her sentiment about
+Mary; delighting in one who, so pretty, so young, so gentle-voiced, must
+face life in an alien home. The girls came naturally together, and it
+was not long before Margaret bubbled out her vocation.
+
+The talk was upon books. Margaret turned away her head; said in the
+voice of one hurrying over a commonplace: "I write, you know."
+
+She tingled for the "Do you?" from her companion, but it did not come,
+and this was very disappointing.
+
+She stole a glance at Mary, sitting with a far-away expression in her
+eyes (the ridiculous girl had heard an engine whistle; knew it to be the
+train that was taking her George to London). Margaret stole a glance at
+Mary; repeated louder: "I write, you know."
+
+It fetched the delicious response. Mary started: "Do you?"
+
+Margaret said hurriedly: "Oh, nothing worth speaking of."
+
+Mary said: "Oh!"; gave her thoughts again to the train.
+
+It was wretched of her. "Poems," said Margaret, and stressed the word
+"_Poems_."
+
+Mary came flying back from the train. "Oh, how interesting that is!"
+
+At once Margaret drew away. "Oh, it is nothing," she said, "nothing."
+She put her eyes upon the far clouds; breathed "Nothing" in a long sigh.
+
+From this it was not a far step to reading, with terrible reluctance,
+her poems to Mary; nor from this again was it other than an obvious step
+to telling of Bill. Her pretty verses were so clearly written at some
+heart which throbbed responsive, that Mary must needs put the question.
+It came after a full hour's reading--the poet sitting upon her bed in a
+litter of manuscripts, Mary in a low chair before her.
+
+In a tremulous voice the poet concluded the refrain of an exquisite
+verse:
+
+  "Beat for beat, your heart, my darling,
+          Beats with mine.
+  Skylarks carol, quick responsive,
+          Love divine."
+
+The poet gave a little gulp; laid down her paper.
+
+Mary also gulped. From both their pretty persons emotion welled in a
+great flood that filled the room.
+
+"I'm sure that is written _to_ somebody," Mary breathed.
+
+Margaret nodded. This girl was too ravished with the grip of the thing
+to be capable of words.
+
+Mary implored: "Oh, do tell me!"
+
+Then Margaret told the story of Bill--with intimate details and in the
+beautiful phrases of the poet mind she told it, and the flooding emotion
+piled upwards to the very roof.
+
+Love has rightly been pictured as a naked babe. Men together will
+examine a baby--if they must--with a bashful diffidence that pulls down
+the clothes each time the infant kicks; women dote upon each inch of its
+chubby person. And so with love. Men will discuss their love--if they
+must--with the most prudish decorum; women undress it.
+
+It becomes essential, therefore, that what Margaret said to Mary must
+not be discovered.
+
+When she had ceased she put out a hand for the price of her confidence:
+"And have you--are you--I know practically nothing about you, Mary,
+dear. _Do_ tell me, are _you_ in love?"
+
+Bang went the gates of Mary's emotion. Here was awful danger. She
+laughed. "Oh, I've no time to fall in love, have I?"
+
+Margaret sighed her sympathy; then gazed at Mary.
+
+Mary read the gaze aright. These were women, and they read one another
+by knowledge of sex. Mary knew Margaret's gaze to be that of an archer
+sighting at his mark, estimating the chances of a hit. She saw the arrow
+that was to come speeding at her breast; gathered her emotions so that
+she should not flinch at the wound.
+
+Margaret twanged the bow-string. "No time to fall in love?" she
+murmured. She fitted the shaft; let fly. "Do you like George, dear?"
+
+Mary stooped to her shoe-laces. Despite her preparations the arrow had
+pierced, and she hid her face to hide the blood.
+
+"George?" said she, head to floor.
+
+"Yes, George. Do you like George?"
+
+My Mary sat up, brazen. "George? Oh, you mean your cousin? I daresay
+he's very nice. Practically I've never even spoken to him since I've
+been here."
+
+"I know. Of course he's very busy just now. Do you think you would like
+him if you did know him?"
+
+It was murderous work. Mary was beginning to quiver beneath the arrows;
+was in terror lest she should betray the secret. A desperate kick was
+necessary. She wildly searched for a foothold; found it; kicked:
+
+"I'm sure I shouldn't like him."
+
+The poet softly protested: "Oh why, Mary?"
+
+"He's clean-shaven."
+
+"And you don't like a--"
+
+"I can't stand a--"
+
+"But if he had a--"
+
+"Oh, if he had a--Margaret, I hear Mr. Marrapit calling. I must fly."
+She fled.
+
+Upon a sad little sigh the poet moved to her table; drew heliotrope
+paper towards her; wrote:
+
+  "Why are your hearts asunder, ye so fair?"
+
+A thought came to her then, and she put her pen in her mouth; pursued
+the idea. That evening she walked to the gate and met George upon his
+return. After a few paces, "George," she asked, "do you like Mary?"
+
+George was never taken aback. "Mary? Mary who?"
+
+"Miss Humfray."
+
+"Oh, is her name Mary?"
+
+"Of course it is." Margaret slipped her arm through George's; gazed up
+at him. "Do you like her, George?"
+
+"Like whom?"
+
+"Why, Mary--Miss Humfray."
+
+"Oh, I think she's a little better than Mrs. Major--in some ways. If
+that's what you mean."
+
+Margaret sighed. Such mulish indifference was a dreadful thing to this
+girl. But she had set her heart on this romance.
+
+"George, dear, I wish you would do something for me."
+
+"Anything."
+
+"How nice you are! Will you grow a moustache?"
+
+She anxiously awaited the answer. George took his handkerchief from his
+pocket and wiped his eyes. He did not speak.
+
+She asked him: "What is the matter?"
+
+He said brokenly: "You know not what you ask. I cannot grow a moustache.
+It is my secret sorrow, my little cross. There is only one way. It is
+by pushing up the hairs from inside with the handle of a tooth-brush
+and tying a knot to prevent them slipping back. You have to do it every
+morning, and I somehow can never remember it."
+
+Margaret slipped her arm free; without a word walked to the house.
+
+She was hurt. This girl had the artistic temperament, and the artistic
+temperament feels things most dreadfully. It even feels being kept
+waiting for its meals.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+George followed the pained young woman into the house; set down in the
+hall the books he carried; left the house again; out through the gate,
+and so, whistling gaily along roads and lanes, came to the skirts of
+an outlying copse. By disused paths he twisted this way and that to
+approach, at length, a hut that once was cottage, whose dilapidated air
+advertised long neglect.
+
+It was a week after Mary's arrival at Herons' Holt that, quite by
+chance, George had stumbled upon this hut. He had taken his books into
+the copse, had somehow lost his way in getting out, and through thick
+undergrowth had plumped suddenly upon the building. Curiosity had taken
+him within, shown him an outer and an inner room, and, in the second, a
+sight that had given him laughter; for he discovered there sundry empty
+bottles labelled "Old Tom," a glass, an envelope addressed to Mrs.
+Major. It was clear that in this deserted place--somehow chanced
+upon--the masterly woman had been wont, safe from disturbance, to meet
+the rascal who, taken to Herons' Holt on that famous night, had so
+villainously laid her by the heels.
+
+Nothing more George had thought of the place until the morning of this
+day when, leaving for hospital, his Mary had effected a brief whispered
+moment to tell him that Mr. Marrapit had thought her looking pale, had
+told her to take a long walk that afternoon. Immediately George gave her
+directions for the hut; there he would meet her at five o'clock; there
+not the most prying eye could reach them.
+
+Now he approached noiselessly; saw his pretty Mary, back towards him,
+just within the threshold of the open door. It was their first secluded
+meeting since she had come to Herons' Holt.
+
+Upon tip-toe George squirmed up to her; hissed "I have thee, girl";
+sprang on his terrified Mary; hugged her to him.
+
+"The first moment together in Paltley Hill!" he cried. "The first holy
+kiss!"
+
+His Mary wriggled. "George! You frightened me nearly out of my life.
+It's not holy. You're hurting me awfully."
+
+"My child, it is holy. Trust in me."
+
+"George, you _are_ hurting."
+
+"Scorn that. It is delicious!"
+
+He let her from his arms; but he held her hands, and for a space,
+looking at one another, they did not speak. Despite he was in wild
+spirits, despite her roguishness, for a space they did not speak. His
+hands were below hers and about hers. The contact of their palms was
+the junction whence each literally could feel the other's spirit being
+received and pouring inwards. The metals were laid true, and without
+hitch or delay the delectable thrill came pouring; above, between their
+eyes, on wires invisible they signalled its safe arrival.
+
+They broke upon a little laugh that was their utmost expression of the
+intoxication of this draught of love, just as a man parched with thirst
+will with a little sigh put down the glass that has touched him back to
+vigour. Dumb while they drank, their innate earthiness made them dumb
+before effort to express the spiritual heights to which they had been
+whirled. In that moment when, spirit mingling with spirit through the
+medium of what we call love, all our baseness is driven out of us, we
+are nearest heaven. But our vocabulary being only fitted for the needs
+about us, we have no words to express the elevation. Debase love and we
+can speak of it; let it rush upwards to its apotheosis and we must be
+dumb.
+
+With a little laugh they broke.
+
+"Going on all right, old girl?" George asked.
+
+"Splendidly."
+
+"Happy?"
+
+She laughed and said: "I will give the proper answer to that. How can I
+be other than happy, oh, my love, when daily I see your angel form?"
+
+"I forgot that. Yes, you're a lucky girl in that way--very, very lucky.
+Beware lest you do not sufficiently prize your treasure. Cherish it,
+tend it, love it."
+
+"Oh, don't fool, George. Whenever we have two minutes together you waste
+them in playing the goat. Georgie, tell me--about your exam."
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+She was at once serious. "To-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow I thrust my angel form into the examination room. To-morrow
+my angel voice trills in the examiners' ears."
+
+"I thought you had a paper first, before the viva?"
+
+"Do not snap me up, girl. I speak in metaphors. To-morrow my angel hand
+glides my pen over the paper. On Thursday my angel tongue gives forth my
+wisdom with the sound of a tinkling cymbal."
+
+"The paper to-morrow, the viva on Thursday?"
+
+He bowed his angel head.
+
+"George, don't, _don't_ fool. Are you nervous? Will you pass?"
+
+"I shall rush, I shall bound. I shall hurtle through like a great
+boulder."
+
+"_Georgie!_ Will you?"
+
+He dropped his banter. "I believe I shall, old girl. I really think I
+shall. I've simply sweated my life out these weeks--all for you."
+
+She patted his hand. "Dear old George! How I shall think of you! And
+then?"
+
+"Then--why, then, we'll marry! Mary, I shall hear the result immediately
+after the viva. Then I shall rush back here and tackle old Marrapit at
+once. If he won't give me the money I think perhaps he'll lend it, and
+then we'll shoot off to Runnygate and take up that practice and live
+happily ever after."
+
+With the brave ardour of youth they discussed the delectable picture;
+arranged the rooms they had never seen; planned the daily life of which
+they had not the smallest experience.
+
+Twice in our lives we can play at Make-Believe--once when we are
+children, once when we are lovers. And these are the happiest times
+of our lives. We are not commoners then; we are emperors. We touch the
+sceptre and it is a magic wand. We rule the world, shaping it as we
+will, dropping from between our fingers all the stony obstacles that
+would interfere with its plasticity. Between childhood and love, and
+between love and death, the world rules us and bruises us. But in
+childhood, and again in love, we rule the world.
+
+So they ruled their world.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+That night Mary prayed her George might pass his examination--a prayer
+to make us wise folk laugh. The idea of our conception of the Divinity
+deliberately thrusting into George's mind knowledge that he otherwise
+had not, the idea of the Divinity deliberately prompting the examiners
+to questions that George could answer--these are ludicrous to us in
+our wisdom. We have the superiority of my simple Mary in point of
+intelligence; well, let us hug that treasure and make the most of it.
+Because we miss the sense of confidence with which Mary got from her
+knees; passed into her dreams. With our fine intellects we should lie
+awake fretting such troubles. These simple, stupid Marys just hand the
+tangle on and sleep comforted. They call it Faith.
+
+Yes, but isn't it grand to be of that fine, brave, intellectual,
+hard-headed, business-like stamp that trusts nothing it cannot see and
+prove? Rather!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Barley Water For Mr. Marrapit.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Up the drive George came bounding with huge strides. The fires of
+tremendous joy that roared within him impelled him to enormous energy.
+
+Upon the journey from Waterloo to Paltley Hill he could with difficulty
+restrain himself from leaping upon the seat; bawling "I've passed! I've
+passed! I'm qualified!" He could not sit still. He fidgeted, wriggled;
+thrust his head first from one window, then from the other. Every foot
+of the line was well known to him. To each familiar landmark his spirit
+bellowed: "Greeting! When last you saw me I was coming up in a blue
+funk. Now! Oh, good God, now--" and he would draw in, stride the
+carriage, and thrust his head from the other window.
+
+His four fellow-passengers regarded him with some apprehension. They
+detected signs of lunacy in the young man; kept a nervous eye cocked
+upon the alarm cord; at the first stopping place with one accord arose
+and fled. One, signing herself "Lady Shareholder," had her alarming
+experience in her daily-paper upon the following morning.
+
+At his station George leapt for the platform a full minute before the
+train had stopped. Up the lanes he sent his bursting spirits flying
+in shrill whistlings and gay hummings; slashed stones with his
+stick; struck across the fields and took gates and stiles in great
+spread-eagled vaults.
+
+So up the drive, stones still flying, whistlings still piping.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Upon the lawn he espied Mr. Marrapit and his Mary. She, on a garden
+seat, was reading aloud from the _Times_; Mr. Marrapit, on a deep chair
+stretched to make lap for the Rose of Sharon, sat a little in advance of
+her.
+
+George approached from Mr. Marrapit's flank; soft turf muffled his
+strides. The warm glow of kindliness towards all the world, which his
+success had stoked burning within him, put a foreign word upon his
+tongue. He sped it on a boisterous note:
+
+"Uncle!" he cried. "Uncle, I've passed!"
+
+Mary crushed the _Times_ between her hands; bounded to her feet. "Oh!"
+she cried. "Hip! hur--!"
+
+She bit the final exclamation; dropped to her seat. Mr. Marrapit had
+twisted his eye upon her.
+
+"You are in pain?" he asked.
+
+"No--oh, no."
+
+"You have a pang in the hip?"
+
+"Oh no--no."
+
+"But you bounded. You cried 'hip'! Whose hip?"
+
+"I was startled."
+
+"Unsatisfactory. The brain, not the hip, is the seat of the emotion.
+Elucidate."
+
+"I don't know why I said 'hip.' I was startled. Mr. George startled me."
+
+"Me also he startled. I did not shout hip, thigh, leg nor knee. Control
+the tongue."
+
+He turned to George. "Miss Humfray's extraordinary remark has projected
+this dilatory reception of your news. I beg you repeat it."
+
+Sprayed upon between mortification and laughter at the manner of his
+greeting, George's enthusiasm was a little damped. But its flame was too
+fierce to be hurt by a shower. Now it roared again. "I've passed!" he
+cried. "I'm qualified!"
+
+"I tender my felicitations. Accept them. Leave us, Miss Humfray. This is
+a mighty hour. Take the Rose. Give her cream. Let her with us rejoice."
+
+Mary raised the cat. She faced about so that she directly shut Mr.
+Marrapit from his nephew; with her dancing eyes spoke her happiness to
+her George; passed down the lawn.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Mr. Marrapit drew in the lap he had been making. He sat upright. "Again,
+accept my felicitations," he said. "They are yours. Take them."
+
+With fitting words George took them. Mr. Marrapit continued: "It is a
+mighty hour. Through adversity we have won to peace, through perils to
+port, through hurts to harbour."
+
+He paused.
+
+"You mean--" George said, groping.
+
+"Do not interpose. It is a mighty hour. Let this scene sink into our
+minds and march with us to the grave. Here upon the lawn we stand.
+Westward the setting sun. Creeping towards us the lengthening shadows.
+Between us the horrid discord which has so long reigned no longer
+stands. It is banished by a holy peace. The past is dead. My trust is
+ended. The vow which I swore unto your mother I have steadfastly kept. I
+would nourish you, I declared, until you were a qualified physician.
+You are a qualified physician. I have nourished you. Frequently in the
+future, upon a written invitation, I trust you will visit this home in
+which your youth has been spent. When do you leave?"
+
+The query towards which Mr. Marrapit had been making through his psalm
+came to George with a startling abruptness that was disconcerting. He
+had not anticipated it. He jerked: "When do I--leave?"
+
+"Certainly. The hour of your departure, unduly deferred by idleness and
+waywardness upon which we will not dwell, is now at hand. When does
+it fall? Not to-night, I trust? A last night you will, I hope, spend
+beneath my roof. To-morrow, perchance? What are your plans?"
+
+George flamed. "You're in a mighty hurry to get rid of me."
+
+Mr. Marrapit cast upward his eyes. He groaned:
+
+"Again I am misunderstood. All my life I have been misunderstood." He
+became stern. "Ingrate! Is it not patent to you that my desire is not to
+stand in your way? You have earned manhood, freedom, a charter to wrest
+money from the world. I might stay you. I do not. I bid you Godspeed."
+
+George remembered his weighty purpose. Making for it, he became humble.
+"I am sorry," he said. "I see what you mean. I appreciate your kindness.
+You ask what are my plans. I have come specially to lay them before
+you."
+
+Mr. Marrapit clutched the seat of his chair with the action of one
+waiting a dentist's torture. He had a premonition that support of some
+kind would be necessary. "Proceed," he said.
+
+George said: "My plans--" He swallowed. "My plans--" Again he swallowed.
+His plans were red-hot within him, but he sought despairingly for one
+that would not at the very outset turn Mr. Marrapit into screams. "My
+plans--" he stammered.
+
+"My God!" Mr. Marrapit groaned. "My God! What is coming?"
+
+George said on a rush: "These are my plans. I intend to marry--"
+
+Mr. Marrapit gave a faint little bark.
+
+"Then--then--" said George, floundering. "After that--then--I intend to
+marry--I--"
+
+"Bigamy," Mr. Marrapit murmured. "Bigamy."
+
+"Not twice. I am nervous. I intend to marry. I want to buy a little
+seaside practice that is for sale."
+
+Mr. Marrapit repeated the faint little bark. He was lying back, eyes
+half closed, face working upon some inward stress.
+
+"Those are my plans," George summarised: "to marry and buy this
+practice."
+
+A considerable pause followed. The workings of Mr. Marrapit's face
+ceased; he opened his eyes, sat up. "When?" he asked.
+
+"At once."
+
+"This practice--"
+
+"I have it in my eye."
+
+"Immaterial. Have you it in your pocket?"
+
+"You mean the price?"
+
+"I mean the money wherewith to finance these appalling schemes."
+
+"Not exactly. It is about that I wish to speak to you."
+
+"To _me?_"
+
+"Yes. I wanted to ask--"
+
+"You intend to ask me for money?"
+
+"I want to suggest--"
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Four--five hundred pounds."
+
+"Great heaven!" Mr. Marrapit wildly fingered the air. Margaret, at the
+end of the lawn, crossed his vision. He called huskily: "Margaret!"
+
+She tripped to him. "Father! What is it?"
+
+"Barley water!" Mr. Marrapit throated. "Barley water!"
+
+While she was upon her errand no--words passed between the two. Mr.
+Marrapit took the glass from her in shaking hands. "Leave us," he said.
+He drank of his barley water; placed the glass upon the bench beside
+him; gave George a wan smile. "I am stricken in years," he said. "I
+have passed through a trance or conscious nightmare. You will have had
+experience of such affections of the brain. I thought"--the hideous
+memory shook him--"I thought you asked me for five hundred pounds."
+
+George said defiantly: "I did."
+
+Mr. Marrapit frantically reached for the barley water; feverishly
+gulped. "I shall have a stroke," he cried. "My hour is at hand."
+
+My poor George flung himself on a note of appeal. "Oh, I say, uncle,
+don't go on like that! You don't know what this means to me."
+
+"I do not seek to know. I am too fully occupied with its consequences to
+myself; it means a stroke. I feel it coming. My tomb yawns."
+
+George gripped together his hands; paced a few strides; returned. "Oh,
+for heaven's sake, don't go on like that! Won't you listen to me? Is it
+impossible to speak with you as man to man? If you refuse what I ask,
+you have only to say no."
+
+"You promise that?"
+
+"Of course; of course."
+
+"I say it now, then. No."
+
+"But you haven't heard me."
+
+"Unnecessary."
+
+The tortured young man raised his voice.
+
+"It is necessary! You shall! You must!"
+
+"Barley water!" Mr. Marrapit gasped. "Barley water! I am going to be
+murdered."
+
+"Oh, this is insupportable!" George cried.
+
+"I endorse that. A double death threatens me. I shudder between a stroke
+and a blow. I shall be battered to death on my own lawn."
+
+"If you would only listen to me," George implored. "Why can we never be
+natural when we meet?"
+
+"Search your heart for the answer," Mr. Marrapit told him. "It is
+because your demands are unnatural."
+
+"You haven't heard them. Listen. I am on the threshold of my career.
+I am sure you will not ruin it. The real price of this practice is
+650 pounds--the value of a year and a half's income; that is the usual
+custom. I am offered it for four hundred. Then I want to marry and to
+have a little balance with which to start--say 100 pounds for that. That
+makes 500 pounds altogether. I implore you to lend--lend, not give--that
+sum. I will pay you back 50 pounds at the end of the first year and a
+hundred a year afterwards. Interest too. I don't know much about these
+things. Any interest you like. We would get a solicitor to draw up an
+agreement. Say you will lend the money. I feel sure you will."
+
+"You delude yourself by that assurance."
+
+"Oh, wait before you refuse. My prospects are so bright if only you
+will help me. I have no one else to whom I can turn. It is only a loan I
+ask."
+
+"It is refused."
+
+George stamped away, hands to head. The poor boy was in agony. Then
+returned:
+
+"I won't believe you. You will not be so heartless. Think over what I
+have said. Tell me to-night--to-morrow."
+
+"My answer would be the same."
+
+"You absolutely refuse to lend me the money?"
+
+"I refuse. It is against my principles."
+
+My frantic George clutched at a shimmering hope. "Against your
+principles to lend? Do you mean that you will give--give me 500 pounds?"
+
+"Barley water!" Mr. Marrapit gasped. He drank; gasped: "Give 500 pounds!
+You are light-headed!"
+
+"Then lend it!" George supplicated on a last appeal. "Make any
+conditions you please, and I will accept them. Uncle, think of when you
+were a young man. Remember the time when you were on the threshold of
+your career. Think of when you were engaged as I am now engaged. Imagine
+your feelings if you had been prevented marrying. You won't stand in
+my way? The happiest life is before me if you will only give your aid.
+Otherwise--otherwise--oh, I say, you won't refuse?"
+
+"I implore you to close this distressing scene."
+
+"Will you lend me the money?"
+
+"My principles prevent me."
+
+"Then damn your principles!" George shouted. "Damn your principles!"
+
+While he had been battering his head against this brick wall he had been
+saved pain by the hope that a last chance would carry him through. Now
+that he realised the futility of the endeavour, the stability of the
+wall, he had time to feel the bruising he had suffered--the bitterness
+of failure and of all that failure meant. The hurts combined to make him
+roar with pain, and he shouted furiously again: "Damn your principles!"
+
+"Barley water!" throated Mr. Marrapit on a note of terror. He reached
+for the glass. It was empty.
+
+He struggled to his feet; got the chair between George and himself;
+cried across it: "Beware how you touch me."
+
+"Oh, I'm not going to touch you. You needn't be afraid."
+
+"I have every need. I am afraid. Keep your distance. You are not
+responsible for your actions."
+
+"You needn't be afraid, I tell you. It is too ridiculous."
+
+"I repeat I have need. Keep your distance. My limbs tremble as one in a
+palsy." Mr. Marrapit gripped the chair-back; his shudders advertised his
+distress.
+
+"I only want to say this," George declaimed, "that if you refuse what
+I ask, you are refusing what is lawfully mine. My mother left you 4000
+pounds for my education. At the outside you have spent three. The 500
+pounds is mine. I have a right to it."
+
+"Keep your distance, sir."
+
+My furious George took three steps forward.
+
+"Can you answer what I say?" he shouted.
+
+Mr. Marrapit gave a thin cry: turned, and with surprising bounds made
+across the lawn. A slipper shot from his foot. He alighted upon a
+stone; bounded heavenwards with a shrill scream; and hopping, leaping,
+shuffling, made the corner of the house.
+
+George swung on his heel. It occurred to him to visit Bill Wyvern.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+The Rape Of The Rose.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Bill was away from home, the maid who answered the door told George;
+Mrs. Wyvern was out; the Professor was in his study.
+
+George found the great biologist warming his chilly old bones in a vast
+armchair before a fire.
+
+With a twinkling of his sky-blue eyes that spoke to pleasant temper, the
+Professor greeted George; nodded him into an opposite seat.
+
+"I am reading a letter," he announced. This man spoke very slowly, never
+abbreviated; had now an air of child-like happiness. "It is a letter
+from Bill."
+
+George said: "Ah, what is Bill doing? I've not seen him for days."
+
+Professor Wyvern chuckled away and fumbled with clumsy old fingers among
+the closely-written sheets on his lap. One he selected and inclined
+towards George. Its upper half was thickly lettered in heavy red type,
+prominent among which there bawled forth in wavy capitals, thickly
+underscored:
+
+  "THE DAILY." EVERYBODY'S PAPER. PRICE 1/2d.
+
+"Hot stuff!" George cried. "Is old Bill on the staff of the _Daily_?"
+
+"Old Bill is on the staff of the _Daily_," the Professor returned with
+more chuckling. "You have heard of it?"
+
+"Well, it's advertised everywhere. You can't get away from it. First
+number out to-morrow, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it is. I think it will be a very terrible production--a very
+horrible production indeed. But I am an annual subscriber because
+of Bill, and I have written a short article for the first issue also
+because of Bill. Bill says" (the Professor fumbled again; ran his nose
+twice up and down each sheet; finally struck the passage) "Bill says,
+'You were a brick, dear old governor, to send that article. It is a most
+thundering scoop for the _Daily_, and made the Boss most awfully bucked
+up with me. You are a brick, dear old Governor."
+
+A little tear rolled out of Professor Wyvern's silly old eye, and he
+blew his nose in a series of terrific thunder-claps.
+
+"There!" he said. "You see how pleased Bill is with himself. I am afraid
+he uses the most terrible expressions in his letters, but he does not
+use them when he is writing his stories. He is a clever boy, and I am
+very proud of him. Now let me tell you." He fell to nosing the sheets
+again. "All this first part is about his dogs. '... if Abiram and Dathan
+start scrapping, just hoof Abiram--it's his fault.'"
+
+The Professor looked up at George. "I would more readily kick a police
+constable than I would kick Abiram," he said. "I must tell Hocken all
+this."
+
+He continued, "'... see that Korah is kept short of meat for a bit ...
+when they are exercising, for goodness' sake don't let them be taken
+down Windmill Lane. There is a collie there that they have got a grudge
+against and will tear to bits if they catch.'"
+
+The Professor paused. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! I must give all this part to
+Hocken to keep. Ah! Now here is about his work. They have engaged him
+at four pounds a week. He does not know exactly what he is. Not a
+sub-editor. Not a reporter. He thinks they will put him on to what he
+calls 'special jobs,' or he may have to do what he calls 'ferret round'
+and find jobs for himself. The understanding is that he is only on
+probation. If he does anything very good they will put him on the
+permanent staff; if not, he is liable to go at a week's notice. Then he
+says, 'Tell all this to George, and give him my love. He was up for his
+exam--'"
+
+Professor Wyvern broke off. "Dear me!" he cried; "oh, dear me, I have
+forgotten! You have been up for your examination?"
+
+George nodded.
+
+Kindly old Professor Wyvern misinterpreted the lack of enthusiasm. "When
+I was a medical student," he said, "I failed dozens of times in my final
+examination--dozens. It's no criterion of knowledge, you know: it
+is just luck. Never let examination failure dishearten you. Go along
+happily, George, and take your chance when it comes."
+
+"It's come," George said, beaming; recollection of his splendid success
+temporarily overshadowed recollection of his tragic failure.
+
+"You have qualified?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The Professor's sky-blue eyes danced with glee. He struggled on to his
+tottery old legs; before George could save him the exertion, had hobbled
+over the hearth-rug and was wringing his hand in tremendous pleasure.
+
+"Well done, George!" he bubbled. "Well done! Well done! It is the
+most splendid news. I have not had such a happy day for a long time.
+Qualified! Well, that is splendid! Splendid!"
+
+He fell back into his chair, panting with his excitement. "Ring that
+bell, George. We must celebrate this."
+
+A maid appeared. "Susan," said the Professor, "bring up a small bottle
+of champagne and two glasses. Mr. George has passed his examination. Be
+very quick, Susan."
+
+Susan was very quick. The cork popped; the glasses foamed and fizzed.
+"Now we will have one glass each," the Professor said. "I think, it will
+kill me at this hour, and if my wife catches me she will send me to bed;
+so we must be very quick. Now, this is your health, George. God bless
+you and good luck!"
+
+He drained his glass like the brave old boy that he was; and when his
+eyes had done streaming, and he had finished gasping and choking, bade
+Susan hurry away the signs of the dreadful deed before her mistress
+should catch her.
+
+"And now tell me your plans, George. Which road to Harley Street, eh?"
+
+Then George poured into those kindly old ears all the tragic story--the
+girl he was going to marry; the practice he was going to buy; the
+wrecker who had wrecked his fair ships ere ever he had put to sea.
+
+There were in the Professor's nature no sympathies that enabled him even
+to comprehend miserliness in any degree. Made aware of the taint in Mr.
+Marrapit, he became red and furious in his abhorrence of it. With snorts
+and fumes he punctuated the recital; when it closed, burst out: "Why,
+but it is yours! the money is yours. It is misappropriation."
+
+"That's just what I say."
+
+"Well, he must be made to give it you." George laughed grimly. "I say
+that, too. But how?"
+
+"Are you certain of your facts, George?"
+
+"I've been to Somerset house and seen my mother's will."
+
+"Legally, then--we'll get it out of him by law."
+
+"I've thought of that," George said. "I don't think it is possible.
+Look, the passage runs like this. I have it word for word. 'To my
+brother Christopher Marrapit 4000 pounds, and I desire him to educate in
+the medical profession my son George.' Not even 'with which I desire
+him,' you see. I don't think there's any legal way of getting the money
+I want--the five hundred."
+
+
+
+II.
+
+For full ten minutes Professor Wyvern made no answer. He stared in the
+fire, and every now and again one of his little chuckles set his bent
+old shoulders bobbing. Upon a longer chuckle they waggled for a
+space; then he turned to George. "Not legally; well, then, what about
+illegally, George?"
+
+George did not comprehend.
+
+"A very bad notion has come into my head," the Professor continued. "I
+ought to be ashamed of it, but I am not. I think it would be very funny.
+I think your uncle would deserve it. I am sure it would be very funny,
+and I think it would be proper and justifiable."
+
+"Go on," George said. "Tell me."
+
+The Professor's old shoulders bobbed about again. "No, I will not tell
+you," he said. "I will not be a party to it; because if my wife found
+out she would send me to bed and keep me there. But I will tell you a
+little story, George. If it sets up a train of action that you like to
+follow--well, I think it will be very funny. Only, don't tell me."
+
+"I say, this is mysterious. Tell me the story."
+
+"Yes, I will. This is the story. When I was a student in Germany we had
+a professor called Meyer. He wore a wig because he was quite bald. He
+was very sensitive about his baldness and would have no one know--but we
+knew. Upon one afternoon there was a great violinist who was coming to
+play at our town. All the professors announced that for this occasion
+they would postpone the lectures they should then have given, so that
+their classes might attend the concert. But this Professor Meyer said
+that he would not postpone his lecture. It was a link in a series, you
+understand--not to be missed,--so his class, of which I was one; were
+very furious. We told him that we were entitled to a holiday this day
+since all had it, but he would not hear us. We were very angry, for
+this holiday was our right. Now, also, one week before the concert the
+burgomaster of our town was to give a great banquet to the celebration
+of the centenary of a famous citizen. Here our Professor Meyer was to
+make a speech. Well, when he remained adamant, determined to give us
+no holiday, we had a great meeting, and thus we arranged to procure
+the holiday that was ours by right. Our plot was justified by his
+mulishness. He should lose the thing he most cherished--he should lose
+his wig two days before his banquet with the burgomaster. One of us
+would take his wig, seizing him as by night he walked to his rooms.
+Before his distress we should be most sympathetic, offering every aid.
+Perchance he would encourage our efforts by offer of the prize we most
+desired. The plot worked, with no misadventure, to a brilliant triumph.
+We took the wig. We enveloped him in our sympathy. 'Search out and
+restore my wig,' said he, 'and you shall have your holiday.' Then we
+found his wig and we enjoyed the holiday that was our right. That is the
+story," Professor Wyvern ended.
+
+Mystification clouded George's face. He pushed out a leg, stared at the
+toe. He stared at the fire; at the Professor, chuckling and rubbing
+his hands, he stared. His brain twisted the story this way and that,
+striving to dovetail it into his own circumstances.
+
+In such a process the eyes are the mouth of the machine whence the
+completed manufacture sends forth its sparkling. But while the mechanism
+twists and turns the fabrics there is no sparkle--the eyes are clouded
+in thought, as we say.
+
+The eyes that George turned upon toe, upon fire, and upon Professor
+Wyvern, were dull and lack-lustre. The machine worked unproductive;
+there was a cog that required adjustment, a lever that wanted a pull.
+
+George sought the foreman machinist; said slowly: "But I don't see how
+the story helps me?"
+
+"Well, you must think over it," Professor Wyvern told him. "I dare
+not tell you any more. I must be no party to the inference that can be
+drawn. But do you not see that the thing our Professor cherished most
+was his wig? Now, Bill has told me that the thing your uncle cherishes
+above all price is--"
+
+Click went the machine; round buzzed the wheels; out from George's eyes
+shot the sparkles. He jumped to his feet, his face red. "Is his cat!" he
+cried. "His Rose of Sharon! I see it! I see it! By Gad, I'll do it! Look
+here now--"
+
+"No, I will not," the Professor said. "I do not wish to know anything
+about it. I hear my wife's step."
+
+"I understand. All right. But don't tell a soul--not even Bill."
+
+"I cannot tell, because I do not know. But I suspect it is something
+very funny," and the Professor burst into a very deep "Ho! ho! ho!"
+
+"My dearest," said Mrs. Wyvern at the door, "whatever can you be
+laughing at so loudly?"
+
+"Ho! ho! ho! ho!" boomed the Professor, belling like a bloodhound. "It
+is something very funny."
+
+Mrs. Wyvern kissed the thin hairs on the top of his mighty head. "Dear
+William, I do trust it was not one of those painful stories of your
+young days."
+
+George stayed to dinner. By nine he left the house. He did not make for
+home. Striking through lanes he climbed an ascending field, mounted a
+stile, and here, with an unseeing eye upon Herons' Holt twinkling its
+bedroom lights in the valley below, he smoked many pipes, brooding upon
+his scheme.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+It was not a melancholy process. Every now and again a crack of laughter
+jerked him; once he took his pipe from his mouth and put up a ringing
+peal of mirth that sent a brace of bunnies, flirting near his feet,
+wildly scampering for safety. Long he brooded....
+
+A church clock gave him eleven. At ten he had been too deeply buried.
+Now his head was pushed clear from the burrow in which he had been
+working, and the sound caught his attention. No light now pricked
+Herons' Holt upon the dusky chart stretched beneath him. Its occupants
+were abed.
+
+"I'll do it to-night!" cried George. "I'll do it at once!"
+
+He drew on his pipe. A full cloud of smoke came. The pipe was well
+alight, and caution bidding him that it were well to bide a while
+so that sleep might more cosily warm the beds of the household, he
+determined that he would have out his last smoke as plotter: his next
+would be smoked as doer of the deed.
+
+He rehearsed his plan. A knife would slip back the catch of the window
+behind which the Rose of Sharon lay. Possessing himself of her person
+he would speed to that tumbled hut in the copse. There she might lie in
+safety for the night: neither hut nor copse was in any man's road. Upon
+the morrow, when the hideous circumstance had been discovered, he would
+bear himself as events seemed to demand. He would be boundless in his
+sympathy, a leader in the search. If the idea of reward did not occur to
+Mr. Marrapit, he must suggest it. Unlikely that in the first moment
+of loss, when the Rose would still seem to be near, the reward would
+approach the figure at which he aimed. That was for his cunning to
+contrive. But obviously it would be impossible permanently to keep the
+Rose in the hut. To-morrow, when pretending to search for her he could
+guard the place where she lay; but he could not always be sentinel.
+The countryside would be scoured; no stone left unturned, no spinney
+unbeaten.
+
+As he saw the matter, the plan would be to get somewhere down the
+railway line on pretext of a clue, taking the Rose of Sharon with him;
+for the success of the whole scheme depended upon his concealing the cat
+until Mr. Marrapit should be upon his bended knees in his distress,
+in deepest despair as to the Rose's recovery, and hence would be
+transported to deepest gratitude when it was restored to his arms.
+George told himself he must be prepared against the eventuality of his
+uncle failing to offer in public reward so large a sum as 500 pounds.
+That did not greatly distress. Best indeed if that sum were offered,
+but, failing it, it was upon Mr. Marrapit's gratitude that George
+ultimately reckoned. Surely when he "found" the cat it would be Mr.
+Marrapit's natural reply to give in exchange the sum he had that
+afternoon so violently refused. At the least, he could not refuse to
+lend it.
+
+Early in his brooding George had decided he must not tell his Mary.
+First, it would be cruel to set her upon the rack of acting a part
+before Mr. Marrapit, before the household, before every questioner she
+must encounter; second--second, my ignoble George had doubts as to in
+what spirit his Mary would regard this plot did he make her partner in
+it. That it was wholly justifiable he personally would have contended
+before archangels. This miserly uncle was keeping from him money that
+was as incontestably his own as the being which also his mother
+had given him. Before all the angelic host he would thus have
+protested-without stammer, without blush; with the inspiration of
+righteousness, with the integrity of innocence. But to protest his
+cause before his Mary was another matter. There might be no occasion
+to protest; his Mary might see eye to eye with him in the matter. She
+might; but it was an eventuality he did not care to try against a test.
+His Mary was a girl--and girls are in their conduct narrowed by scruples
+that do not beset men. His Mary--and this it was that would make a test
+so violent--his Mary was his Mary, and well he knew, and loved, the
+little heart so delicately white as instantly to discover the finest
+specks of sootiness--if specks there were--in any breeze that might
+cross its surface.
+
+No, he would not tell his Mary. When the thing was done--when he, the
+black-hearted rogue, had the little saint safe in the toils she would
+find so delicious, then--then he would tell her, would silence her
+frightened squeals--if she squealed--by his intention to pay back the
+money, whether won as reward (which was improbable) or earned as token
+of gratitude (which was highly likely). He had only asked to borrow, and
+it should only be a loan.
+
+Across the dark fields in spirit he kissed his little saint. ... Of
+course--of course--one must admit these brutal things--of course the
+scheme might fail. Anything might happen to crash it about his ears.
+That was a deadly, dismal thought, but he flattened it from sight with
+that lusty hammer that gay youth uses--"I shan't be any worse off if it
+does fail."
+
+The smoke came through his pipe in burning whiffs. He shook it bowl
+downwards. Ashes and sparks fell in a shower. The pipe was done.
+
+_Whoop! forrard!_ The game was afoot.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+A moon as clear as that which shone when Bill stole to Herons' Holt
+to woo his blessed damosel, gave a clear light to George as now he
+approached the house. He took his way across the fields, and his
+progression was that of no stealthy-footed conspirator. Two miles of
+downward-sloping land lay between the stile whereon he had brooded and
+the home that his plottings were to disturb. In buoyant spirits--for
+this was action, and action makes lusty appeal to youth--he trotted or
+galloped as the descent was easy or sharply inclined; the low hedges he
+took in great sprawling jumps, the ditches in vast giant strides--arms
+working as balance-pole, humming as he ran.
+
+Upon the lawn he became more cautious. But the moon showed Herons' Holt
+sleepy-eyed-blinds drawn.
+
+The cats' parlour, back of the house, gave upon a little strip of turf
+that kept away the kitchen garden. George drew his knife; approached the
+window. Now he was a criminal indeed.
+
+To slip the catch was easy work; between upper and lower sash there was
+clear space. George inserted his pen-knife. Tip of blade grated against
+catch; a little pressure--an answering movement; a little more--and,
+_click_, the trick was done!
+
+Now he raised the sash, and now he is in the room. Glimmer of a match
+shows him the sleeping-baskets; its steadier flame discloses the Rose,
+snugly curled, a little free of her silken coverlet.
+
+Wake, now, Rose--as an older school of novelists would have addressed
+you. Wake, Rose! Wake, pretty Rose! Queenly Rose, awake! Wake precious,
+virgin Rose! Squeal! scratch! bite! Claw those wicked hands descending
+into your pure bed! Spring like spotless maiden aroused to find ravisher
+at her couch! Spring, Rose, spring! Squawking news of outrage to all the
+house, bound wildly, Rose, about this room that else you shall not see
+until through searing perils you have passed! Spring! Rose, spring!
+
+Not Rose!
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The ravisher's hands descended upon her person--she only purred. They
+passed about her warm and exquisite form--she purred the more. They
+tickled her as they laid hold--she stretched a leg; purred with fuller
+note. Perchance this virgin cat dreamed of some gallant young Tom wooing
+her bed; perchance these ticklings had their deliciously transfigured
+place in her visions; perchance--she only purred.
+
+Now George tucked her beneath his arm. Legs dangled wretchedly; gallant
+young Tom leapt from her dreams and she awoke. She stirred. George had a
+foot upon the window-sill, and the night air ruffled her downy coat.
+She was pressed against bony ribs; a rough arm squeezed her wretchedly;
+long, poky fingers tortured her flank; her legs draggled dismally. She
+voiced protest in a plaintive, piercing, long-drawn _"Mi-aow!"_
+
+_Clout!_
+
+Ah, Rose! Pretty, foolish Rose--as our older school again would have
+written--why did you entertain sensuous dreams when you should have been
+stirring?
+
+_"Mi-aow!"_
+
+_Clout!_
+
+Too late, Rose! Too late! That beauteous head--that prize-winning head
+which from kittenhood upwards has known none other than caress, is now
+a mark for battering bumps if you do but open those perfect jaws--those
+prize-winning jaws. Too late, Rose! Too late! Do not cry now, Rose! The
+ravisher has you. His blood congeals in terror at your plaintive cry.
+In his brutish panic he will answer it with thuds. Too late, Rose! Too
+late!
+
+"_Mi-aow!_"
+
+_Clout!_
+
+Ah, Rose, Rose!
+
+He is outside now. "Shut up, you fat idiot!" he hisses. Squeezing her
+yet more villainously with one arm, with the other he draws down the
+sash. Through the gate, into the lane, over the stream, down the ride,
+into the copse--up to the hut.
+
+The outer door hangs grinningly upon its hinges. The door going to
+the inner room has a working latch; George kicks it open; elbows it to
+behind him; drops the Rose with jarring plump; strikes a match. There is
+the dusty pile of Old Tom bottles, there the little heap of bracken upon
+which Mrs. Major doubtless had reclined while with Old Tom she talked.
+Excellent!
+
+The match goes out. He lights another. The Rose is standing forlornly at
+his feet. While the match lasts he lifts her to the bracken bed; presses
+her down; backs out; closes the door.
+
+His watch, put beneath the moon, tells him it is upon one o'clock. He
+pulls to the outer door; wedges beneath it a stump of wood that keeps it
+firmly shut; makes for home.
+
+In an hour he is sleeping the dreamless, childlike slumber that comes
+to those who, setting their hand to the plough, have manfully laboured a
+full day's work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Horror At Herons' Holt.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Sleep does not necessarily shun the bed of the wicked. She is a wanton
+mistress, and will cuddle where her fancy chances, careless whether vice
+or virtue is her bedfellow; coy when most eagerly supplicated, seductive
+when least desired.
+
+George, steeped in crime, snuggled warmly to her until aroused by a rude
+shaking.
+
+Night-capped and dressing-gowned, white-faced and trembling, awful in
+grief Mr. Marrapit stood near him.
+
+"Get up! The Rose of Sharon is lost."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"I tell you it is so. Up!"
+
+George pushed a shaking leg out of bed. He was had unawares. As a
+sleeper pitched sleeping into the sea, so from unconsciousness he was
+hurled plump into the whirlpool of events. And as the sleeper thus
+immersed would gulp and sink and kick, so now he blinked, shivered, and
+gasped.
+
+He repeated: "Impossible!"
+
+"I tell you it is so. I have eyes; I have been to her room." Mr.
+Marrapit's voice rose in a wailing cry. "I have been to her room. Gone!
+Gone!"
+
+George put out the other leg--crime-steeped legs that quivered. He had
+looked for a space between awaking and meeting his uncle in which to
+prepare his plans, rehearse his words. This abrupt rousing stampeded his
+senses. He quavered "Wher--where can she be?"
+
+Mr. Marrapit flung up his arms. "Oh, my God! If I knew that would I be
+here? Up! Up! Join the searchers in the garden."
+
+George pushed a criminal leg into his trousers. Conscience made thumbs
+of his fingers, trembled his joints. He hopped frantically, thrusting
+with the other foot.
+
+"Dance!" Mr. Marrapit moaned bitterly. "Dance! That is right! Why do you
+not sing also? This is nothing to you! Dance on! Dance on!"
+
+George cannoned the wash-stand. "It _is_ something to me. I can hardly
+believe it!"
+
+"Is sorrow expressed in a gavotte? Grief in a hornpipe?"
+
+"I'm not dancing. My damned bags are stuck!"
+
+Mr. Marrapit wrung his hands. "Discard them! Discard them! Must decency
+imperil the Rose?"
+
+With a tremendous kick George thrust in past the obstruction.
+
+"They're on now--my slippers--coat--what shall I do?"
+
+"Join the searchers. Scour the grounds. Search every shrub. Climb every
+tree."
+
+The agonised man led downstairs. "I found the window open," he moaned.
+"Night by night, year in year out, I have shut it. Impossible that I
+forgot. If I forgot, the Rose is in the garden or in the vicinity. If I
+did not forget, the window was forced--the Rose was stolen. A detective
+shall decide."
+
+George grew quite cold. Employment of a detective had not occurred to
+him. They were at the front door. He put a hand on Mr. Marrapit's arm.
+"Oh, not a detective. Don't get a detective."
+
+"If need be I will get forty detectives. I will blacken the countryside
+with detectives."
+
+George grew quite hot. "Uncle, let us keep this private. Leave it with
+me. Rely on me. I will find your cat."
+
+"Into the garden," cried Mr. Marrapit. "Join the searchers. They have
+failed once. Lead, animate, encourage."
+
+"And you won't get a detective?"
+
+Mr. Marrapit did not reply. He had opened the hall door; Mr. Fletcher in
+the middle distance approached moodily.
+
+Mr. Marrapit thrust out a hand. "Back! Back!" he cried hoarsely.
+
+Wearily Mr. Fletcher gave answer. "It's no use, Mr. Marrapit. It's no
+good saying 'back.' I've been back. I've been back and I've been front
+and I've been both sides. I've looked here, I've looked there; I've
+looked up, I've looked down. I'm giddy with looking." He approached;
+stood before them. Woe heavily draped herself about this man.
+
+"Oh, easily discouraged!" Mr. Marrapit cried.
+
+"Oh, infirm of purpose! Back, faint-heart! Do not say die."
+
+Faint-heart mopped a streaming brow. "But I do say die. I do say die,
+Mr. Marrapit, and I damn well shall die if I go creepin' and crawlin'
+and hissin' much longer. It's 'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not
+a cobra."
+
+Mr. Marrapit slammed the door. George hurried out of sight; in the
+kitchen garden sat down to think. He was frightened. Thus far the plot
+had not worked well. Detectives!
+
+He gave an hour to the search he was ostensibly conducting; when he
+again entered the house was more easy-minded. Employed in meditation
+that hour gave him back his coolness of the night. Rudely awakened,
+given no time in which firmly to plant his feet, securely to get a
+purchase with his hands before the storm burst, he had been whirled
+along helpless and bewildered before Mr. Marrapit's gusty agony. Instead
+of resisting the torrent, directing its course, he had been caught where
+it surged fiercest, hurled down-stream. In the vulgar simile of his
+reflections he was rotting the whole show.
+
+But now he had steadied himself. He girded his loins against the part he
+had to play; with new determination and confidence entered the house.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+There was no breakfast at Herons' Holt that morning. When George,
+dressed, bathed and shaved, sought out his uncle, it was to find Mr.
+Marrapit in the study.
+
+The distracted man was pacing the floor, a closely written sheet of
+paper in his hands. He turned upon George.
+
+"In the hour of my travail I am also beneath the burden of earlier
+griefs. Yesterday a disastrous scene took place between us. Oaths rasped
+from your lips."
+
+"Forget that, sir. Forget it."
+
+"That is my desire. Misery wails through the corridors. In her presence
+let us bury private differences. In this appalling catastrophe every
+help is required. You have youth, manhood; you should be invaluable."
+
+George declared: "I mean to be. I will not rest until the Rose is
+restored."
+
+This was perfectly true, as he was to discover.
+
+"Commendable," Mr. Marrapit pronounced. Now that this volunteer was
+enlisted, Mr. Marrapit discarded supplication, resumed mastery. "While
+you have searched," he said, "I have schemed." He indicated the paper he
+carried. "These are my plans. Peruse them."
+
+George read; returned the paper. "If these arrangements do not restore
+the Rose," he declared, "nothing will. I see you do not mention my name.
+I fear you doubted my assistance. I think I will join the--the----"--he
+glanced at the paper--"the _extra-mural_ searchers. I know the
+countryside well. I can go far and fast."
+
+Mr. Marrapit agreed. "Summon the household," he commanded.
+
+George called Margaret; the two carried out the order.
+
+In a semicircle the household grouped about their master; from Mrs.
+Armitage at the one horn to George at the other they took their
+places--Mrs. Armitage, Clara, Ada, Mr. Fletcher, Frederick, Mary,
+Margaret, George.
+
+Paper in hand Mr. Marrapit regarded them. He pointed at Frederick.
+
+"That boy is sucking a disgusting peppermint. Disgorge."
+
+Glad of relief, all eyes went upon the infamous youth. He purpled,
+struggled, gulped, swallowed--from his eyes tears streamed.
+
+"Stiffneck!" Mr. Marrapit thundered. "Disgorge, I said. You are
+controlled by appetite; your belly is your god."
+
+"Well, I ain't 'ad no breakfast," Stiffneck answered fiercely. Like Miss
+Porter upon a similar occasion this boy was in great pain.
+
+"And no breakfast shall you have until the Rose is restored. Heartless!
+How can you eat while she, perhaps, does starve?" The angry man
+addressed the group. "These are the plans for her recovery. Give ear.
+You, vile boy, will rush to the dairy and order to be sent at once as
+much milk as Mrs. Armitage will command you. Mrs. Armitage, you with
+your maids--Fletcher, you with that boy, are the _intramural_
+workers, the workers within the walls. George, Margaret, Miss
+Humfray--_extra-mural_. Mrs. Armitage, with milk let every bowl and
+saucer be filled. Fletcher, at intervals of thirty feet along the wall
+let these be placed. If our wanderer is near she will be attracted.
+Margaret, with Miss Humfray to the village. Collect an army of village
+boys. Describe our Rose. Set them to scour the countryside for her.
+Yourselves join that search. Let the call of 'Rose! Rose!' echo through
+every lane. George, you also will scour far and wide. Upon your way
+despatch to me a cab from the station. I drive to the post-office to
+telephone for a detective. I have not yet decided which detective. It is
+a momentous matter." He flung out both hands. "To your tasks! Let zeal,
+let love for our lost one spur each to outvie the efforts of another.
+Fletcher, raise the window. That pungent boy has poisoned the air."
+
+They trooped from him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A Detective At Herons' Holt.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Bolt Buildings, Westminster, is a colossal red structure reared upon
+the site of frightened-looking little houses which fell beneath the
+breaker's hammer coincident with the falling in of their lease. Here you
+may have a complete floor of rooms at from three to five hundred a
+year; or, high under the roof, you may rent a single room for forty-five
+pounds.
+
+Mr. David Brunger, Private Detective and Confidential Inquiry Agent,
+appeared on the books of the Bolt Buildings management as lessee of one
+of these single rooms. The appearance of his quarters as presented to
+the visitor had, however, a more pretentious aspect.
+
+Shot to the topmost floor in the electric lift, passing to the left
+and up five stairs in accordance with the lift boy's instructions,
+the intending client would be faced by three doors. Upon the first was
+inscribed:
+
+  DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks).
+
+Upon the middle door:
+
+  DAVID BRUNGER (Private).
+
+And upon the third:
+
+  DAVID BRUNGER (Office).
+
+These signs of large staff and flourishing business were in keeping with
+the telling advertisements which Mr. David Brunger from time to time
+caused to appear in the Press.
+
+"Watch your wife," said these advertisements, adding in smaller type
+that had the appearance of a whisper: "David Brunger will watch her."
+"What keeps your husband late at office?" they continued. "David Brunger
+will find out. Confidential inquiry of every description promptly and
+cheaply carried out by David Brunger's large staff of skilled detectives
+(male and female). David Brunger has never failed. David Brunger has
+restored thousands of pounds' worth of stolen property, countless
+missing relatives. David Brunger, 7 Bolt Buildings, Strange Street, S.W.
+Tel. 0000 West."
+
+In London, with its myriad little eddies of crime and matrimonial
+infelicity, there is a neat sum to be made out of detective work.
+Scotland Yard wolfs the greater part of these opportunities; there are
+established names that absorb much of the remainder. In the surplus,
+however, there is still a livelihood for the David Brungers. For if the
+Brungers do not go nosing after silken petticoats covering aristocratic
+but wanton legs; if the Brungers do not go flying across the Continent,
+nose to ground, notebook in hand, after the fine linen worn by my lord
+who is making holiday with something fair and frail under the quiet
+name of Mr. and Mrs. Brown; if the Brungers are not employed to draggle
+silken petticoats and fine linen through the Divorce Court, there is
+work for them among humbler washing baskets. Jealous little shop-keepers
+have erring little wives, and common little wives have naughty little
+husbands: these come to your Brungers. And if, again, the Brungers
+do not dog the footsteps of your fifty-thousand-pound men, your
+embezzlement-over-a-period-of-ten-years men, your cheque-forging
+men--if the Brungers are invited to do no dogging after these, there are
+pickings for them in less flashy crimes. Hiding in cupboard work while
+the sweated little shop-assistant slips a marked shilling from the till,
+hiding in basement work while a trembling little figure creeps down and
+pilfers the stock--these are the pranks that come to your Brungers.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+While Mr. Marrapit at Herons' Holt was addressing to his household
+grouped about him his orders relative to the search for the Rose of
+Sharon, Mr. David Brunger at Bolt Buildings was entering the door marked
+"DAVID BRUNGER (Private)."
+
+A telephone, a gas stove, a roll-top desk, an office chair, an armchair,
+a tiny deal table and a wooden-seated chair comprised the furniture of
+the apartment.
+
+"For myself, I like severity and simplicity of surroundings," Mr. David
+Brunger in the office chair would tell a client in the armchair. "For
+_myself_--" and he would waggle his head towards the side walls with an
+air that seemed to imply prodigal luxury in the fittings of "(Clerks)"
+and "(Office)."
+
+Entering the room Mr. Brunger unlocked the roll-top desk; discovered the
+stump of a half-smoked cigarette; lit it and began to compare the day's
+racing selections of "Head Lad," who imparted stable secrets to one
+tipster's organ, with those of "Trainer," who from the knowledge of his
+position very kindly gave one horse snips to another.
+
+At ten o'clock the large staff of trained detectives (male and female),
+mentioned in Mr. Brunger's advertisements, came pouring up the stairs,
+knocked at the door and filed into the room. Its name was Issy Jago, a
+Jewish young gentleman aged seventeen, whose appearance testified in the
+highest manner to the considerable thrift he exercised in the matter of
+hair-dressers and toilet soap.
+
+Mr. Issy Jago sat himself on the wooden-seated chair before the small
+deal table; got to work upon his finger-nails with the corner of an
+omnibus ticket; proceeded to study the police court reports in the
+_Daily Telegraph_.
+
+It was his duty, whenever he noted plaintiffs or defendants to whom Mr.
+David Brunger's services might be of benefit, to post to them Mr.
+David Brunger's card together with a selection of entirely unsolicited
+testimonials composed and dictated by Mr. Brunger for the occasion.
+
+Also his duty to receive clients.
+
+When a knock was heard at "DAVID BRUNGER (Clerks)" Mr. Issy Jago
+would slip through from "DAVID BRUNGER (Private)" to the tiny closet
+containing the cistern into which the door marked "DAVID BRUNGER
+(Clerks)" opened. Sliding through this door in such a manner as to give
+the client no glimpse of the interior, he would inform the visitor,
+with a confidential wink, "Fact is we have a client in there--a very
+well-known personage who does not wish it to be known that he is
+consulting us." The impressed caller would then be conducted into "DAVID
+BEUNGER (Private)."
+
+Between "DAVID BRUNGER (Private)" and "DAVID BRUNGER (Office)," on the
+other hand, there was no communication. Indeed there was no room behind
+"(Office)": the door gave on to the roof. When, therefore, a hesitating
+client chose to knock at "(Office)" Mr. Issy Jago, emerging from
+"(Private)," would give the whispered information: "Fact is there's a
+very important private consultation going on in there--Scotland Yard
+consulting us." And the impressed client would forthwith be led into
+"DAVID BRUNGER (Private)."
+
+In either event, the client trapped, Mr. Issy Jago would skip into
+"(Clerks)" and sit on the cistern till Mr. Brunger's bell summoned him.
+
+For the privilege of adding to the dignity of his single apartment
+by having his name inscribed upon the cistern cupboard and upon the
+emergency exit to the roof, Mr. Brunger paid thirty shillings extra per
+annum.
+
+III.
+
+By half-past ten Mr. Brunger was occupied in composing an unsolicited
+testimonial to be sent to the wife of a green-grocer in the Borough who,
+on the previous day, had summoned her husband for assault at Lambeth
+Police-Court.
+
+"I had suspicions but no proof of my 'usband's infidelity," dictated
+Mr. Brunger, pacing the floor, "until I enlisted your services. I must
+say--"
+
+At that moment the telephone bell rang. Mr. Brunger ceased dictation;
+took up the receiver.
+
+"Are you David Brunger, the private detective?" a voice asked.
+
+"We are," replied Mr. Brunger in the thin treble he used on first
+answering a call. "Who are you, please?"
+
+"I am Mr. Christopher Marrapit of Herons' Holt, Paltley Hill, Surrey.
+I--"
+
+"One moment," piped Mr. Brunger. "Is it confidential business?"
+
+"It is most urgent business. I--"
+
+"One moment, please. In that case the private secretary must take your
+message."
+
+Mr. Brunger laid down the receiver; took a turn across the room;
+approached the telephone; in a very deep bass asked, "Are you there?"
+
+The frantic narrative that was poured into his ears he punctuated with
+heavy, guttural "Certainly's," "Yes's," "We comprehend's," "We follow
+you's." Then: "Mr. David Brunger himself? I'm afraid that is impossible,
+sir. Mr. Brunger has his hands very full just now. He is closeted
+with Scotland Yard. At this moment, sir, the Yard is consulting him
+...'m...'m. Well, I'll see, sir, I'll see. I doubt it. I very much doubt
+it. But hold the line a minute, sir."
+
+In his capacity of Mr. David Brunger's private secretary, Mr. David
+Brunger drank from the carafe of water on the mantelpiece to clear his
+tortured throat.
+
+In his capacity of the great detective and confidential inquiry agent
+himself, he then stepped to the telephone and, after exhibiting a power
+of invention relative to startling crimes in hand that won even the
+admiration of Mr. Issy Jago, announced that he would be with Mr.
+Marrapit at three o'clock.
+
+"It may be a big job, Issy," he remarked, relighting the stump of
+cigarette, "or it may be a little job. But what I say and what I do is,
+_impress your client. Impress your client,_ Issy. Let that be your maxim
+through life. And if I catch you again takin' a draw at my cigarette
+when my back's turned, as I see you just now, I'll damn well turn you
+inside out and chuck you through that door. So you watch it. You've made
+this smoke taste 'orrid-'orrid. No sauce, now; no sauce."
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+By two o'clock the results of Mr. Marrapit's colossal scheme began to
+pour in.
+
+The bowls of milk, gleaming along the wall of Herons' Holt, drew every
+stray cat within a radius of two miles. Beneath, each armed with a
+clothes-prop, toiled Mr. Fletcher and Frederick under the immediate
+generalship of Mr. Marrapit.
+
+Throughout the morning cats bounded, flickered and disappeared upon the
+wall. Fat cats, thin cats; tom cats, tabby cats; white cats, black cats,
+yellow cats, and grey cats; young cats and old cats. As each appeared,
+Mr. Marrapit, first expectant then moaning, would wave his assistants to
+the assault. Up would go the clothes-prop of Mr. Fletcher or Frederick;
+down would go the stranger cat. It was exhausting work.
+
+At two-thirty the village boys who had been searching were mustered at
+the gate. Each bore a cat. Some carried two. Leaving his clothes-prop
+lancers, Mr. Marrapit hurried down the drive to hold review.
+
+"Pass," he commanded, "in single file before me."
+
+They passed. "Dolt! Dolt!" groaned Mr. Marrapit, writhing in the
+bitterness of crushed hope as each cat was held towards him. "Dolt and
+pumpkin-head! How could that wretched creature be my Rose?"
+
+How, indeed, when at that moment the Rose of Sharon in the ruined hut
+was lapping milk taken her by George in a lemonade bottle, her infamous
+captor smoking on the threshold?
+
+Precisely at three o'clock Mr. David Brunger arrived. Conducted to the
+room whence the Rose had disappeared, the astute inquiry agent was there
+closeted with Mr. Marrapit for half an hour. At the end of that time Mr.
+Marrapit appeared on the lawn. His face was white, his voice, when he
+spoke, hollow and trembling. He called to the clothes-prop lancers:
+
+"Cease. Cease. Withdraw the milk. The Rose of Sharon is not strayed. She
+is stolen!"
+
+"Thenk Gord!" said Frederick. "Thenk Gord! I've pretty well busted
+myself over this game."
+
+Mr. Fletcher said nothing; drew his snail from his pocket; plunged head
+downwards in a bush. Woe sat heavy upon him; beneath the indignity and
+labour of thrusting at stranger cats with a clothes-prop this man had
+grievously suffered.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+The Rose was stolen. That was Mr. Brunger's discovery after examination
+of the window-latch where George's knife had marked it, the sill where
+George's boots had scratched it. Outside the great detective searched
+for footmarks--they had been obliterated by heavy rainfall between
+the doing of the hideous deed and its discovery. Upon the principle of
+impressing his client, however, Mr. Brunger grovelled on the path with
+tape measure and note-book; measured every pair of boots in the house;
+measured the window; measured the room; in neat little packets tied up
+specimens of the gravel, specimens of the turf, specimens of hair from
+the Rose of Sharon's coat, picked from her bed.
+
+It was six o'clock when he had concluded. By then George had returned;
+the three held council in the study. Addressing Mr. Marrapit, Mr.
+Brunger tapped his note-book and his little packages. "We shall track
+the culprit, never fear, Mr. Marrapit," he said. "My impression is that
+this is the work of a gang--a _gang_."
+
+"Precisely my impression," George agreed.
+
+Mr. Brunger took the interruption with the gracious bow of one who
+condescends to accept a pat on the back from an inferior. Mr. Marrapit
+twisted his fingers in his thin hair; groaned aloud.
+
+"A _gang,_" repeated Mr. Brunger, immensely relishing the word. "We
+detectives do not like to speak with certainty until we have clapped our
+hands upon our men; we leave that for the amateurs, the bunglers--the
+_quacks_ of our profession." The famous confidential inquiry agent
+tapped the table with his forefinger and proceeded impressively. "But I
+will say this much. Not only a gang, but a desperate gang, a dangerous,
+stick-at-nothing gang."
+
+Mr. Marrapit writhed. The detective continued: "What are our grounds for
+this belief?" he asked. "What are our _data_?"
+
+He looked at George. George shook his head. Easy enough, and useful,
+to acquiesce in the idea of a gang, but uncommonly hard to support the
+belief. He shook his head.
+
+Mr. Brunger was disappointed; a little at sea, he would have clutched
+eagerly at any aid. However, "impress your client." He continued: "These
+are our data. We have a valuable cat--a cat, sir, upon which the eyes of
+cat-breeders are enviously fixed. Take America--you have had surprising
+offers from America for this cat, sir, so you told me?"
+
+"Eight hundred pounds," Mr. Marrapit groaned.
+
+"Precisely. Observe how our data accumulate. We have dissatisfaction
+among breeders at home because you will not employ this cat as, in their
+opinion, for the good of the breed, she should be employed."
+
+Mr. Marrapit moaned: "Polygamy is abhorrent to me."
+
+"Precisely. Our data positively pile about us. We have a thousand
+enthusiasts yearning for this cat. We have your refusal to sell or
+to--to--" Mr. Brunger allowed a hiatus delicately to express his
+meaning. "Then depend upon it, sir, we have a determination to secure
+this cat by foul means since fair will not avail. We have a conspiracy
+among unscrupulous breeders to obtain this valuable cat, and hence, sir,
+we have a gang--a _gang_."
+
+Mr. Marrapit put his anguish of mind into two very deep groans.
+
+"Keep calm, my dear sir," Mr. Brunger soothed. "We shall return your
+cat. We have our data." He continued: "Now, sir, there are two ways of
+dealing with a _gang_. We can capture the _gang_ or we can seduce the
+_gang_--by offering a reward."
+
+George jumped in his chair. "Anything wrong?" Mr. Brunger inquired.
+
+"Your--your extraordinary grasp of the case astonishes me," George
+exclaimed.
+
+"Experience, sir, experience," said Mr. Brunger airily. Addressing Mr.
+Marrapit, "We must put both methods to work," he continued. "I shall
+now go to town, look up the chief breeders and set members of my trained
+staff to track them. Also I must advertise this reward. With a cat of
+such value we cannot use half measures. Shall we say one hundred pounds
+to start with?"
+
+"Barley water!" gasped Mr. Marrapit. "Barley water!"
+
+George sprang to the sideboard where always stood a jug of Mr.
+Marrapit's favourite refreshment. Mr. Marrapit drank, agitation rattling
+the glass against his teeth.
+
+"Think what it means to you, sir," persuaded Mr. Brunger, a little
+alarmed at the effects of his proposal.
+
+The detective's tone had a very earnest note, for he was thinking
+with considerable gratification what the hundred pounds would mean to
+himself. On previous occasions he had urged rewards from his clients,
+put Mr. Issy Jago in the way of securing them, and paid that gentleman a
+percentage.
+
+"Think what it means to you," he repeated. "What is a hundred pounds or
+thrice that sum against the restoration of your cat? Come, what is it,
+sir?"
+
+"Ruin," answered Mr. Marrapit, gulping barley water. "Ruin."
+
+Mr. Brunger urged gravely: "Oh, don't say that, sir. Think what our dumb
+pets are to us. I've got a blood-'ound at home myself that I'd give
+my life for if I lost--gladly. Surely they're more to us, our faithful
+friends, than mere--mere--"
+
+"Pelf," supplied George, on a thin squeak that was shot out by the
+excitement of seeing events so lustily playing his hand.
+
+"Mere pelf," adopted Mr. Brunger.
+
+Mr. Marrapit gulped heavily at the barley water; set his gaze upon
+a life-size portrait in oils of his darling Rose; with fine calm
+announced: "If it must be, it must be."
+
+With masterly celerity Mr. Brunger drew forward pen and paper;
+scribbled; in three minutes had Mr. Marrapit's signed authority to offer
+one hundred pounds reward.
+
+He put the document in his pocket; took up his hat. "To-morrow," he
+said after farewells, "I or one of my staff will return to scour the
+immediate neighbourhood. It has been done, you tell me, but only by
+amateurs. The skilled detective, sir, will see a needle where the
+amateur cannot discern a haystack."
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+He was gone. His last words had considerably alarmed George. No time was
+to be lost. All was working with a magic expediency, but the Rose
+must not be risked in the vicinity of one of these needle-observing
+detectives. She must be hurried away.
+
+"Uncle," George said, "I did not say it while the detective was here--I
+do not wish to raise your hopes; but I believe I have a clue. Do not
+question me," he added, raising a hand in terror lest Mr. Marrapit
+should begin examination. "I promise nothing. My ideas may be wholly
+imaginary. But I believe--I believe--oh, I believe I have a clue."
+
+Mr. Marrapit rushed for the bell. "Recall the detective! You should have
+spoken. I will send Fletcher in pursuit."
+
+George seized his uncle's arm. "On no account. That is why I did not
+speak before. I am convinced I can do better alone."
+
+"You do not convince me. You are an amateur. We must have the skilled
+mind. Let me ring."
+
+George was in terror. "No, no; do you not see it may be waste of time?
+Let me at least make sure, then I will tell the detective. Meanwhile
+let him pursue other clues. Why send the trained mind on what may be a
+goose-chase?"
+
+The argument had effect. Mr. Marrapit dropped into a chair.
+
+George explained. To follow the clue necessitated, he said, instant
+departure--by train. He would write fullest details; would wire from
+time to time if necessary. His uncle must trust him implicitly. The
+detective must not be told until he gave the word.
+
+Eager to clutch at any hope, Mr. Marrapit clutched at this. George was
+given money for expenses; at eight o'clock left the house. There had
+been no opportunity for words with his Mary. She did not even know
+that Mr. Marrapit had refused the money that was to mean marriage and
+Runnygate; she had not even danced with her George upon his success in
+his examination. Leaving the household upon his desperate clue, George
+could do no more than before them all bid her formal farewell. At
+half-past eight he is cramming the peerless Rose of Sharon into a basket
+taken from Mr. Fletcher's outhouses; at nine the villain is tramping
+the railway platform, in agony lest his burden shall mi-aow; at ten the
+monster is at Dippleford Admiral; at eleven the traitor is asleep in the
+bedroom of an inn, the agitated Rose uneasily slumbering upon his bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Terror At Dippleford Admiral.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+"Impress your client," was the maxim of Mr. David Brunger. "Make a
+splash and keep splashing," was that of Mr. Henry T. Bitt, editor of
+Fleet Street's new organ, the _Daily_.
+
+Muddy pools were Mr. Bitt's speciality. His idea of the greatest
+possible splash was some stream, pure and beautiful to the casual eye,
+into which he could force his young men and set them trampling the
+bottom till the thick, unpleasant mud came clouding up whence it had
+long lain unsuspected. There was his splash, and then he would start to
+keep splashing. By every art and device the pool would be flogged till
+the muddy water went flying broadcast, staining this, that, and the
+other fair name to the nasty delight of Mr. Bitt's readers. Scandal was
+Mr. Bitt's chief quest. Army scandal, navy scandal, political scandal,
+social scandal--these were the courses that Mr. Bitt continuously strove
+to serve up to his readers. Failing them--if disappointingly in evidence
+on every side was the integrity and the honour for which Mr. Bitt raved
+and bawled when in the thick of splashing a muddy pool,--then, argued
+Mr. Bitt, catch hold of something trivial and splash it, flog it,
+placard it, into a sensational and semi-mysterious bait that would set
+the halfpennies rising like trout in an evening stream.
+
+Bringing these principles-indeed they won him his appointment--to the
+editorship of the _Daily_, Mr. Bitt was set moody and irritable by the
+fact that he had no opportunity to exercise them over the first issue of
+the paper.
+
+But while preparing for press upon the second night the chance came.
+There was no scandal, no effective news; but there was matter for a
+sensational, semi-mysterious "leading story" in a tiny little scrap of
+news dictated by Mr. David Brunger, laboriously copied out a dozen times
+by Mr. Issy Jago and left by that gentleman at the offices of as many
+newspapers.
+
+Seven sub-editors "spiked" it, three made of it a "fill-par.," one gave
+it a headline and sent it up as an eight-line "news-par."; one, in the
+offices of the _Daily_, read it, laughed; spoke to the news-editor;
+finally carried it up to Mr. Bitt.
+
+Mr. Bitt's journalistic nose gave one sniff. The thing was done. Some
+old idiot was actually offering the ridiculously large sum of one
+hundred pounds for the recovery of a cat. Here, out of the barren,
+un-newsy world, suddenly had sprung a seed that should grow to a forest.
+The very thing. The _Daily_ was saved.
+
+Away sped a reporter; and upon the following morning, bawling from the
+leading position of the principal page of the _Daily_, introducing a
+column and a quarter of leaded type, these headlines appeared:
+
+  COUNTRY HOUSE OUTRAGE.
+
+  VALUABLE CAT STOLEN.
+
+  SENSATIONAL STORY.
+
+  HUGE REWARD.
+
+  CHANCE FOR AMATEUR DETECTIVES.
+
+All out of Mr. Issy Jago's tiny little paragraph.
+
+_Daily_ readers revelled in it. It appeared that a gang of between five
+and a dozen men had surrounded the lonely but picturesque and beautiful
+country residence of Mr. Christopher Marrapit at Herons' Holt, Paltley
+Hill, Surrey. Mr. Marrapit was an immensely wealthy retired merchant
+now leading a secluded life in the evening of his days. First among
+the costly art and other treasures of his house he placed a magnificent
+orange cat, "The Rose of Sharon," a winner whenever exhibited. The gang,
+bursting their way into the house, had stolen this cat, despite Mr.
+Marrapit's heroic defence, leaving the unfortunate gentleman senseless
+and bleeding on the hearth-rug. Mr. Marrapit had offered 100 pounds
+reward for the recovery of his pet; and the _Daily_, under the heading
+"Catchy Clues," proceeded to tell its readers all over the country how
+best they might win this sum.
+
+All out of Mr. Issy Jago's tiny little paragraph.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+_Daily_ readers revelled in it. Upon three of their number it had a
+particular effect.
+
+Bill Wyvern had not been at the _Daily_ office that night. Employed
+during the day, he had finished his work at six; after a gloomy meal had
+gone gloomily to bed. This man was on probation. His appointment to a
+permanent post depended upon his in some way distinguishing himself; and
+thus far, as, miserable, he reflected, he utterly had failed. The "copy"
+he had done for the first issue of the _Daily_ had not been used; on
+this day he had been sent upon an interview and had obtained from his
+subject a wretched dozen words. These he had taken to the news-editor;
+and the news-editor had treated them and him with contempt.
+
+"But that's all he would say," poor Bill had expostulated.
+
+"All he would say!" the news-editor sneered. "Here, Mathers, take this
+stuff and make a quarter-col. interview out of it."
+
+Thus it was in depressed mood that Bill on the following morning opened
+his _Daily._
+
+The flaring "Country House Outrage" hit his eye; he read; in two minutes
+his mood was changed. A sensation at Paltley Hill! At Mr. Marrapit's!
+Here was his chance! Who better fitted than he to work up this story?
+Fortunately he knew Mr. Henry T. Bitt's private address; had the good
+sense to go straight to his chief.
+
+A cab took him to the editor's flat in Victoria Street. Mr. Bitt was
+equally enthusiastic.
+
+"Hot stuff," said Mr. Bitt. "You've got your chance; make a splash. Go
+to the office and tell Lang I've put you on to it. Cut away down to the
+scene of the outrage and stay there as our Special Commissioner till I
+wire you back. Serve it up hot. Make clues if you can't find 'em. Hot,
+mind. H-O-T."
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Professor Wyvern was the second reader upon whom the sensational story
+had particular effect.
+
+Through breakfast the Professor eyed with loving eagerness the copy of
+the _Daily_ that lay folded beside his plate.
+
+At intervals, "I have made a very good breakfast, now," he would say.
+"Now I will try to find what Bill has written in this terrible paper."
+
+But thrice Mrs. Wyvern lovingly checked him. "Dear William, no. You have
+hardly touched your sole. You must finish it, dear, every scrap, before
+you look at the paper. You have been eating such good breakfasts lately.
+Now, please, William, finish it first."
+
+"It is as big as a shark," the Professor grumbles, making shots with his
+trembling fork.
+
+"Dear William, it is a very small sole."
+
+At last he has finished. A line catches his eye as he unfolds the
+_Daily_, and he chuckles: "Oh, dear! This is a very horrible paper.
+'Actress and Stockbroker--Piccadilly by night.'"
+
+"Dear William, we only want to read what Bill has written. An interview,
+he tells us, with--"
+
+Dear William waggles his naughty old head over the actress and the
+stockbroker; shaky fingers unfold the centre pages; nose runs up one
+column and down another, then suddenly starts back burnt by the flaring
+"Country House Outrage."
+
+"Dearest! Dearest! Whatever is the matter?"
+
+But dearest is speechless. Dearest can only cough and choke and splutter
+in convulsions of mirth over some terrific joke of which he will tell
+Mrs. Wyvern no more than: "He has done it. Oh, dear! oh, dear! He has
+done it. Oh, dear! This will be very funny indeed!"
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+It will be seen that two out of the three readers particularly
+interested in Mr. Bitt's splash were agreeably interested. Upon the
+third the effect was different.
+
+It was George's first morning in the little inn at Dippleford Admiral.
+An unaccustomed weight upon his legs, at which thrice he sleepily kicked
+without ridding himself of it, at length awoke him.
+
+He found the morning well advanced; the disturbing weight that had
+oppressed him he saw to be a hairy object, orange of hue. Immediately
+his drowsy senses awoke; took grip of events; sleep fled. This object
+was the Rose of Sharon, and at once George became actively astir to the
+surgings of yesterday, the mysteries of the future.
+
+Pondering upon them, he was disturbed by a knock that heralded a voice:
+"The paper you ordered, mister; and when'll you be ready for breakfast?"
+
+"Twenty minutes," George replied; remembered the landlady had overnight
+told him she was a little deaf; on a louder note bawled: "Twenty
+minutes, Mrs. Pinner!"
+
+Mrs. Pinner, after hesitation, remarked: "Ready now? Very well, mister";
+pushed a newspaper beneath the door; shuffled down the stairs.
+
+In the course of his brief negotiations with Mrs. Pinner upon the
+previous evening, George, in response to the proud information that the
+paper-boy arrived at nine o'clock every morning on a motor bicycle,
+had bellowed that he would have the _Daily_. For old Bill's sake he had
+ordered it; with friendly curiosity to see Bill's new associations he
+now withdrew his legs from beneath the Rose of Sharon; hopped out of
+bed; opened the paper.
+
+Upon "Country House Outrage" George alighted plump; with goggle eyes,
+scalp creeping, blood freezing, read through to the last "Catchy Clue";
+aghast sank upon his bed.
+
+It had got into the papers! Among all difficult eventualities against
+which he had made plans this had never found place. It had got into the
+papers! The cat's abduction was, or soon would be, in the knowledge of
+everyone. This infernal reward which with huge joy he had heard offered,
+was now become the goad that would prick into active search for the
+Rose every man, woman, or child who read the story. It had got into the
+papers! He was a felon now; fleeing justice; every hand against him.
+Discovery looked certain, and what did discovery mean? Discovery meant
+not only loss of the enormous stake for which he was playing--his
+darling Mary,--but it meant--"Good God!" groaned my miserable George,
+"it means ruin; it means imprisonment."
+
+Melancholy pictures went galloping like wild nightmares through this
+young man's mind. He saw himself in the dock, addressed in awful words
+by the judge who points out the despicable character of his crime;
+he saw himself in hideous garb labouring in a convict prison; he
+saw himself struck off the roll at the College of Surgeons; he saw
+himself--"Oh, Lord!" he groaned, "I'm fairly in the cart!"
+
+Very slowly, very abject, he peeled off his pyjamas; slid a white and
+trembling leg into his bath.
+
+But the preposterous buoyancy of youth! The cold water that splashed
+away the clamminess of bed washed, too, the more vapoury fears from
+George's brain; the chilly splashings that braced his system to a
+tingling glow braced also his mind against the pummellings of his
+position. Drying, he caught himself whistling; catching himself in such
+an act he laughed ruefully to think how little ground he had for good
+spirits.
+
+But the whistling prevailed. This ridiculous buoyancy of youth! What
+luckless pigs are we who moon and fret and grow besodden with the waters
+of our misfortunes! This cheeky corkiness of youth! Shove it under the
+fretted sea of trouble, and free it will twist, up it will bob. Weight
+it and drop it into the deepest pool; just when it should be drowned,
+pop! and it is again merrily bobbing upon the surface.
+
+It is a sight to make us solemn-souled folk disgustingly irritated. We
+are the Marthas--trudging our daily rounds, oppressed with sense of the
+duties that must be done, with the righteous feeling of the hardness of
+our lot; and these light-hearts, these trouble-shirkers, this corkiness
+of youth, exasperate us enormously. But the grin is on their side.
+
+The whistling prevailed. By the time George was dressed he had put his
+position into these words--these feather-brained, corky, preposterous
+words: "By gum!" said George, brushing his hair, "by gum! I'm in a devil
+of a hole!"
+
+The decision summed up a cogitation that showed him to be in a hole
+indeed, but not in so fearsome a pit as he had at first imagined. He had
+at first supposed that within a few minutes the earth would be shovelled
+in on him and be buried. Review of events showed the danger not to be
+so acute. On arrival the previous night, after brief parley with Mrs.
+Pinner he had gone straight to his room, bearing the Rose tight hid in
+her basket. No reason, then, for suspicion yet to have fallen upon him.
+He must continue to keep the Rose hid. It would be difficult, infernally
+difficult; but so long as he could effect it he might remain here
+secure. The beastly cat must of course be let out for a run. That was a
+chief difficulty. Well, he must think out some fearful story that would
+give him escape with the basket every morning.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Breakfast was laid in a little sitting-room over the porch, adjoining
+his bedroom. George pressed the poor Rose into her basket; carried it
+in.
+
+Mrs. Pinner was setting flowers on the table. George carried the basket
+to the window; placed it on a chair; sat upon it. With his right hand
+he drummed upon the lid. It was his purpose to inspire the Rose with a
+timid wonder at this drubbing that should prevent her voicing a protest
+against cramped limbs.
+
+"Some nice tea and a bit of fish I'm going to bring you up, mister,"
+Mrs. Pinner told him.
+
+Recollecting her deafness, and in fear lest she should approach the
+basket, George from the window bellowed: "Thank you, Mrs. Pinner. But I
+won't have tea, if you please. Won't have tea. I drink milk--_milk_. A
+lot of milk. I'm a great milk-drinker."
+
+The Rose wriggled. George thumped the basket. "As soon as you like, Mrs.
+Pinner. As quick as you like!"
+
+Mrs. Pinner closed the door; the Rose advertised her feelings in a long,
+penetrating mi-aow. In an agony of strained listening George held his
+breath. But Mrs. Pinner heard nothing; moved steadily downstairs. He
+wiped his brow. This was the beginning of it.
+
+When Mrs. Pinner reappeared, jug of milk and covered dish on a tray,
+George's plan, after desperate searchings, had come to him.
+
+He gave it speech. "I want to arrange, Mrs. Pinner--"
+
+"If you wait till I've settled the tray, mister, I'll come close to you.
+I'm that hard of hearing you wouldn't believe."
+
+George sprang from the basket; approached the table. His life depended
+upon keeping a distance between basket and Pinner.
+
+"I want to arrange to have this room as a private sitting-room."
+
+It had never been so used before, but it could be arranged, Mrs. Pinner
+told him. She would speak to her 'usband about terms.
+
+"And I want to keep it very private indeed, I don't want anyone to enter
+it unless I am here." George mounted his lie and galloped it, blushing
+for shame of his steed. "The fact is, Mrs. Pinner, I'm an inventor. Yes,
+an inventor. Oh, yes, an inventor." The wretched steed was stumbling,
+but he clung on; spurred afresh. "An inventor. And I have to leave
+things lying about--delicate instruments that mustn't be disturbed.
+Awfully delicate. I shall be out all day. I shall be taking my invention
+into the open air to experiment with it. My invention--" He waved his
+hand at the basket.
+
+Mrs. Pinner quite understood; was impressed. "Oh, dear, yes, mister. To
+be sure. An inventor; fancy that, now!" She gazed at the basket. "And
+the invention is in there?"
+
+"Right in there," George assured her.
+
+"You'll parding my asking, mister; but your saying you have to take it
+in the open hair--is it one of them hairships, mister?"
+
+"Well, it _is,_" George said frankly. This was a useful idea and he
+approved it. "It _is._ It's an airship."
+
+"Well, I never did!" Mrs. Pinner admired, gazing at the basket. "A
+hairship in there!"
+
+"_Mi-aow!_" spoke the Rose--penetrating, piercing.
+
+Mrs. Pinner cocked her head on one side; looked under the table. "I
+declare I thought I heard a cat," she puzzled. "In this very room."
+
+George felt perfectly certain that his hair was standing bolt upright on
+the top of his head, thrusting at right angles to the sides. He forced
+his alarmed face to smile: "A cock crowing in the yard, I think, Mrs.
+Pinner."
+
+Mrs. Pinner took the explanation with an apologetic laugh. "I'm that
+hard o' hearing you never would believe. But I could ha' sworn. Ill not
+keep you chattering, sir." She raised the dish cover.
+
+A haddock was revealed. A fine, large, solid haddock from which a cloud
+of strongly savoured vapour arose.
+
+George foresaw disaster. That smell! that hungry cat! Almost he pushed
+Mrs. Pinner to the door. "That you, thank you. I have everything now. I
+will ring if--"
+
+"_Mi-aow!_"
+
+"Bless my soul!" Mrs. Pinner exclaimed. "There is a cat"; dropped on
+hands and knees; pushed her head beneath the sofa.
+
+George rushed for the basket. Wreaking his craven alarm upon the hapless
+prisoner, he shook it; with a horrible bump slammed it upon the floor;
+placed his foot upon it.
+
+Mrs. Pinner drew up, panting laboriously. "Didn't you hear a cat,
+mister?"
+
+George grappled the crisis. "I did not hear a cat. If there were a cat
+I should have heard it. I should have felt it. I abominate cats. I can
+always tell when a cat is near me. There is no cat. Kindly leave me to
+my breakfast."
+
+Poor Mrs. Pinner was ashamed. "I'm sure I do beg you parding, mister.
+The fact is we've all got cats fair on the brain this morning. In this
+here new paper, mister, as perhaps you've seen, and they're giving us
+a free copy every day for a week, there's a cat been stole, mister. A
+hundred pounds reward, and as the paper says, the cat may be under your
+very nose. We're all a 'unting for it, mister."
+
+She withdrew. George crossed the room; pressed his head, against the
+cold marble of the mantelpiece. His brows were burning; in the pit of
+his stomach a sinking sensation gave him pain. "All a 'unting for it!
+all a 'unting for it!"
+
+When the Rose had bulged her flanks with the complete haddock, when,
+responsive to a "Stuff your head in that, you brute," the patient
+creature had lapped a slop-bowl full of milk, George again imprisoned
+her; rushed, basket under arm, for open country.
+
+Mr. Pinner in the bar-parlour, as George fled through, was reading from
+a paper to a stable hand, a servant girl, and a small red-headed Pinner
+boy: "It may be in John o' Groats," he read, "or it may be in Land's
+End." He thumped the bar. "'Ear that! Well, it may be in Dippleford
+Admiral."
+
+It was precisely because it was in Dippleford Admiral that his young
+inventor lodger fled through the bar without so much as a civil "good
+morning."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the post-office, keeping a drumming foot on the terrified Rose,
+George sent a telegram to Mr. Marrapit.
+
+_"Think on track. Must be cautious. Don't tell Brunger."_
+
+He flung down eightpence halfpenny; fled in the direction of a wood that
+plumed a distant hill. Fear had this man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Panic At Dippleford Admiral.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+George left Dippleford Admiral that night.
+
+He left at great speed. There was no sadness of farewell. There was no
+farewell.
+
+Returning at seven o'clock to his sitting-room at the inn, melancholy
+beneath a hungry and brooding day in the woods with the Rose tethered
+to a tree by the length of two handkerchiefs, he ordered supper--milk,
+fish, and chops.
+
+Mrs. Pinner asked him if that would be all. She and 'usband were going
+to a chapel meeting; the servant girl was out; there would only be a
+young man in the bar.
+
+George took the news gratefully. His nerves had been upon the stretch
+all day. It was comforting to think that for a few hours he and this
+vile cat would have the house to themselves.
+
+Immediately Mrs. Pinner left the room he greedily fell to upon the
+chops. All day he had eaten nothing: the Rose must wait. Three parts of
+a tankard of ale was sliding at a long and delectable draught down upon
+his meal when the slam of a door, footsteps and a bawling voice in
+the yard told him that Mrs. Pinner and 'usband had started, chatting
+pleasantly, for their chapel meeting.
+
+The dish cleared, George arranged his prisoner's supper; stepped to the
+basket to fetch her to it. As he lifted her splendid form there came
+from behind him an exclamation, an agitated scuffling.
+
+In heart-stopping panic George dropped the cat, jumped around. The
+red-headed Pinner boy, whom that morning he had seen in the bar-parlour,
+was scrambling from beneath the sofa, arms and legs thrusting his
+flaming pate at full-speed for the door.
+
+"Stop!" George cried, rooted in alarm.
+
+The red-headed Pinner boy got to Ms feet, hurled himself at the door
+handle.
+
+"Stop!" roared George, struggling with the stupefaction that gripped
+him. "Stop, you young devil!"
+
+The red-headed Pinner boy twisted the handle; was half through the door
+as George bounded for him.
+
+"Par-par!" screamed the flaming head, travelling at immense speed down
+the passage. "Par-par! It ain't a hairship. It's a cat!"
+
+George dashed.
+
+"Par-par! Par-par! It's a cat!" The redheaded Pinner boy took the first
+short flight of stairs in a jump; rounded for the second.
+
+George lunged over the banisters; gripped close in the flaming hair;
+held fast.
+
+For a full minute in silence they poised--red-headed Pinner boy, on
+tip-toe as much as possible to ease the pain, in acute agony and great
+fear; George wildly seeking the plan that must be followed when he
+should release this fateful head.
+
+Presently, with a backward pull that most horribly twisted the
+red-headed face: "If you speak a word I'll pull your head off," George
+said. "Come up here."
+
+The pitiful procession reached the sitting-room. "Sit down there,"
+George commanded. "If you make a sound I shall probably cut your head
+clean off. What do you mean by hiding in my room?"
+
+Between gusty pain and terror: "I thought it was a hairship."
+
+"Oh!" George paced the room. What did the vile boy think now? "Oh, well,
+what do you think it is now?"
+
+"I believe it's the cat wot's in the piper."
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?" Yes, this was a very horrible position indeed.
+"Oh, you do, do you? Now, you listen to me, my lad: unless you want your
+head cut right off you sit still without a sound."
+
+The red-headed Pinner boy sat quite still; wept softly. Life, at the
+moment, was a bitter affair for this boy.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+George paced. The hideous nightmares of the morning had returned
+now--snorting, neighing, trampling iron-shod; stampeding in hideous
+irresistible rushes. This was the beginning of the end. He was
+discovered--his' secret out.
+
+Flight--immediate flight--that was the essential course. Par-par, thanks
+to sweet heaven, was at a chapel meeting. The thing could be done.
+A timetable upon the mantelpiece told him that a down-train left the
+station at 8.35. It was now eight. Better a down-train than an up. The
+further from London the less chance of this infernal _Daily_ with its
+Country House Outrage. Examining the time-table he determined upon
+Temple Colney--an hour's run. He had been there once with Bill.
+
+But what of this infernal red-headed Pinner boy? In agony wrestling with
+the question, George every way ran into the brick wall fact that there
+was no method of stopping the vile boy's mouth. The red head must be
+left behind to shriek its discovery to par-par. All that could be done
+was to delay that shriek as long as possible.
+
+George packed his small hand-bag; placed upon the table money to pay his
+bill; lifted the crime-stained basket; addressed the red-headed Pinner
+boy:
+
+"Stop that sniffling. Take that bag. You are to come with me. If you
+make a sound or try to run away you know what will happen to you. What
+did I tell you would happen?"
+
+"Cut me 'ead off."
+
+"Right off. Right off--_slish_! Give me your hand; come on."
+
+Through a side door, avoiding the bar, they passed into the street.
+Kind night gave them cloaks of invisibility; no one was about. In a few
+minutes they had left the bold village street, were in timid lanes that
+turned and twisted hurrying through the high hedges.
+
+Half a mile upon the further side of the station George that morning had
+passed a line of haystacks. Now he made for it, skirting the railway by
+a considerable distance.
+
+The red-headed Pinner boy, exhausted by the pace of their walk, not
+unnaturally nervous, spoke for the first time: "Ain't you going to the
+station, mister?"
+
+"Station? Certainly not. Do you think I am running away?"
+
+The red-headed Pinner boy did not answer. This boy was recalling in
+every detail the gruesome story, read in a paper, of a bright young lad
+who had been foully done to death in a wood.
+
+George continued: "I shall be back with you at the inn this evening, and
+I shall ask your father to give you a good thrashing for hiding in my
+room."
+
+In an earnest prayer the red-headed Pinner boy besought God that he
+might indeed be spared to receive that thrashing.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+They reached the haystack. George struck a match; looked at his watch.
+In seven minutes the train was due.
+
+The ladder George had noticed that morning was lying along the foot of
+a stack. Uprearing it against one partially demolished, "Put down that
+bag," he commanded. "Up with you!"
+
+Gustily sniffing in the huge sighs that advertised his terror, the
+red-headed Pinner boy obeyed. George drew down the ladder. "Stop up
+there; I shall be back in five minutes. If you move before then--"
+
+He left the trembling boy out of his own agitated fear to fill the
+unspoken doom. He walked slowly away in the direction opposite from the
+station until the haystack was merged and lost in the blackness that
+surrounded it. Then, doubling back, he made for the road; pounded along
+it at desperate speed.
+
+Most satisfactorily did that bounding, lurching, stumbling run along the
+dark, uneven lane punish this crime-steeped George. Well he realised,
+before he had sped a hundred yards, that guilt lashes with a double
+thong. She had scourged him mentally; now with scorpions she physically
+lashed him. As it had been racked throbbed that left arm encircling
+the basket wherein in wild fear the Rose clung to ease the dreadful
+bruisings that each oscillation gave her; as it were a ton-weight did
+that hand-bag drag his right arm, thud his thigh; as he were breathing
+fire did his tearing respirations sear his throat; as a great piston
+were driving in his skull did the blood hammer his temples.
+
+Topping a low rise he sighted the station lights below. Simultaneously,
+from behind a distant whistle there sprang to his ears the low rumble of
+the coming train.
+
+This history is not to be soiled with what George said at the sound.
+With the swiftness and the scorching of flame his dreadful commination
+leapt from the tortured Rose, terrified in her basket, to the red-headed
+Pinner boy wrestling in prayer upon the haystack--from the roughness of
+the lane that laboured his passage to the speed of the oncoming train
+that hammered at his fate.
+
+He hurled himself down the rise; with his last breath gasped for a
+ticket; upon a final effort projected himself into the train; went prone
+upon a seat. He was away!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was when George was some fifteen minutes from Temple Colney that the
+red-headed Pinner boy, bolstered up with prayer, commended his soul to
+God; slipped with painful thud from the haystack; pelted for Par-par.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Disaster At Temple Colney.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Three days have passed.
+
+That somewhat pale and haggard-looking young man striding, a basket
+beneath his arm, up the main street of Temple Colney is George. The
+villagers stop to stare after him; grin, and nudge into one another
+responsive grins, at his curious mannerisms. He walks in the exact
+centre of the roadway, as far as he can keep from passers-by on either
+side. Approached by anyone, he takes a wide circle to avoid that person.
+Sometimes a spasm as of fear will cross his face and he will violently
+shake the basket he carries. Always he walks with giant strides. Every
+morning he shoots out of the inn where he is staying as though sped on
+the blast of some ghostly current of air; every evening, returning, he
+gives the impression of gathering himself together on the threshold,
+then goes bolting in at whirlwind speed. He is a somewhat pale and
+haggard young man.
+
+The villagers know him well. He is the young hairship inventor who has
+a private sitting-room at the Colney Arms. Certain of them, agog to pry
+his secret, followed him as he set out one day. They discovered nothing.
+For hours they followed; but he, glancing ever over his shoulder,
+pounded steadily on, mile upon mile--field, lane, high road, hill and
+dale. He never shook them off though he ran; they never brought him
+to standstill though indomitably they pursued. Towards evening the
+exhausted procession came thundering up the village street.
+
+It was a very pale and haggard young man that bolted into the Colney
+Arms that night.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Three days had passed.
+
+If George had the _Daily_ to curse for the miserable life of secrecy
+and constant agony of discovery that he was compelled to lead, he had
+it also to bless that his discovery by the red-headed Pinner boy had
+not long ago led to his being run to earth. In its anxiety to cap the
+satisfactory splash it was making over this Country House Outrage,
+the _Daily_ had overstepped itself and militated against itself. Those
+"Catchy Clues" were responsible. So cunningly did they inspire the taste
+for amateur detective work, so easy did they make such work appear, that
+Mr. Pinner, having thrashed silence into his red-headed son, kept that
+son's discovery to himself. As he argued it--laboriously pencilling down
+"data" in accordance with the "Catchy Clue" directions,--as he argued
+it--if he communicated his knowledge to the _Daily_ or to the local
+police, if he put them--(the word does not print nicely) on the scent,
+ten to one they would capture the thief and secure the reward. No, Mr.
+Pinner intended to have the reward himself. Therefore he hoarded his
+secret; brooded upon it; dashed off hither and thither as the day's news
+brought him a Catchy Clue that seemed to fit his data.
+
+But of this George knew nothing. Steeped in crime this miserable young
+man dragged out his awful life at Temple Colney: nightmares by night,
+horrors by day.
+
+Every morning with trembling fingers he opened his _Daily_; every
+morning was shot dead by these lines or their equivalent:
+
+  COUNTRY HOUSE OUTRAGE.
+
+  FRESH CLUE.
+
+  CAT SEEN.
+
+  SENSATIONAL STORY.
+
+After much groaning and agony George would force himself to know the
+worst; after swearing furiously through the paragraphs of stuffing with
+which Mr. Bitt's cunning young man skilfully evaded the point, would
+come at last upon the "fresh clue" and read with a groan of relief that,
+so far as the truth were concerned, it was no clue at all.
+
+But the strain was horrible. All Temple Colney read the _Daily_; eagerly
+debated its "Catchy Clues."
+
+Yet George could not see, he told himself, that he would better his
+plight by seeking fresh retreat. If the _Daily_ were to be believed, all
+the United Kingdom read it and discussed its Catchy Clues. He decided it
+were wiser to remain racked at Temple Colney rather than try his luck,
+and perhaps be torn to death, elsewhere.
+
+Twice he had been moved to abandon his awful enterprise--in the train
+fleeing from the red-headed Pinner boy; pounding across country pursued
+by curious inhabitants of Temple Colney. On these occasions this
+miserable George had been minded to cry defeated to the circumstances
+that struck at him, to return to Herons' Holt with the cat whilst yet he
+might do so without gyves on his wrists.
+
+But thought of his dear Mary hunted thought of this craven ending. "I'll
+hang on!" he had cried, thumping the carriage seat: "I'll hang on! I'll
+hang on! I'll hang on!" he had thumped into the table upon his weary
+return to the inn on the day he had been followed.
+
+He had cause for hope. When, on his second morning at Temple Colney, the
+_Daily_ had struck him to white agony by its newest headlines; cooling,
+he was able to find comfort in the news it gave to the world. "On the
+advice of the eminent detective, Mr. David Brunger, who has the case in
+hand, the reward has been raised to 125 pounds."
+
+"Whoop!" cried George, spirits returning.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Three days had passed.
+
+Rain began to fall heavily on this afternoon. Usually--even had there
+been floods--George did not return to the inn until seven o'clock. The
+less he was near the abode of man the safer was his vile secret. But
+to-day, when the clouds told him a steady downpour had set in, he put
+out for his lodging before three. He was in high spirits. Success was
+making him very bold. At Temple Colney, thus far, no breath of suspicion
+had paled his cheek; at Herons' Holt events were galloping to the end he
+would have them go. That morning the _Daily_ had announced the raising
+of the reward to 150 pounds. True, the _Daily_ added that Mr. Marrapit
+had declared, absolutely and finally, that he would not go one penny
+beyond this figure. George laughed as he read. In four days his uncle
+had raised the offer by fifty pounds; at this rate--and the rate would
+increase as Mr. Marrapit's anguish augmented--the 500 pounds would soon
+be reached. And then! And then!
+
+Through the pouring rain George whistled up the village street, whistled
+up the stairs, whistled into the sitting--room. Then stopped his
+tune. The buoyant notes of triumph dwindled to a tuneless squeak, to a
+noiseless breathing--Bill Wyvern, seated at a table, sprung to meet him.
+
+"What ho!" cried Bill. "They told me you wouldn't be in before seven!
+What ho! Isn't this splendid?"
+
+George said in very hollow voice: "Splendid!" He put the basket on a
+chair; sat on it; gave Bill an answering, "What ho!" that was cheerful
+as rap upon a coffin lid.
+
+"Well, how goes it?" Bill asked eagerly.
+
+George put out a hand. "Don't come over here, dear old fellow. I'm
+streaming wet. Sit down there. How goes what?"
+
+"Why, the clue--your clue to this cat?"
+
+"Oh, the clue--the clue. Yes, I'll tell you all about that. Just wait
+here a moment." He rose with the basket; moved to the door.
+
+"What on earth have you got in that basket?" Bill asked.
+
+"Eggs," George told him impressively. "Eggs for my uncle."
+
+"You must have a thundering lot in a basket that size."
+
+"Three or four hundred," George said. "Three or four hundred eggs."
+
+He spoke in the passionless voice of one in a dream. Indeed he was in a
+dream. This horrible contingency had so set him whirling that of clear
+thought he was incapable. Moving to his bedroom he thrust the basket
+beneath the bed; came out; locked the door; took the key; returned to
+Bill.
+
+Bill came over and slapped him on the back. "Expect you're surprised to
+see me?" he cried. "Isn't this ripping, old man?"
+
+"Stunning!" said George. "Absolutely stunning." He sank on a chair.
+
+Bill was perplexed. "You don't look best pleased, old man. What's up?"
+
+This was precisely what George wished to know. Terror of hearing some
+hideous calamity stayed him from putting the question. He gave a pained
+smile. "Oh, I'm all right. I'm a bit fagged, that's all. The strain of
+this search, you know, the--"
+
+"I know!" cried Bill enthusiastically. "I _know_. You've been splendid,
+old man. Finding out a clue like this and pluckily carrying it through
+all by yourself. By Jove, it's splendid of you!--especially when you've
+no reason to do much for your uncle after the way in which he's treated
+you. I admire you, George. By Gad, I _do_ admire you!"
+
+"Not at all!" George advised him. "By no means, old fellow." He wiped
+his brow; his mental suffering was considerable.
+
+"I say, I can see you're pretty bad, old man," Bill continued. "Never
+mind, I'm here to help you now. That's what I've come for."
+
+George felt that something very dreadful indeed was at hand. "How did
+you find out where I was?" he asked.
+
+"From old Marrapit."
+
+"Marrapit? Why, but my uncle won't let you come within a mile of him."
+
+"Ah! that's all over now." A very beautiful look came into Bill's eyes;
+tenderness shaded his voice: "George, old man, if I can track down the
+hound who has stolen this cat your uncle has practically said that he
+will agree to my engagement with Margaret."
+
+George tottered across the room; pressed his head against the cold
+window-pane. Here was the calamity. He had thought of taking Bill into
+his confidence--how do so now?
+
+"I say, you do look bad, old man," Bill told him.
+
+"I'm all right. Tell me all about it."
+
+"Well, it's too good--too wonderful to be true. Everything is going
+simply splendidly with me. I'm running this cat business for the
+_Daily_--my paper, you know. It's made a most frightful splash and the
+editor is awfully bucked up with me. I'm on the permanent staff, six
+quid a week--eight quid a week if I find this cat. I'm working it from
+Herons' Holt, you know. I'm--"
+
+George turned upon him. "Are you 'Our Special Commissioner at Paltley
+Hill'?"
+
+"Rather! Have you been reading it? Pretty hot stuff, isn't it? I say,
+George, wasn't it lucky I chucked medicine! I told you I was cut out
+for this kind of thing if only I could get my chance. Well, I've got my
+chance; and by Gad, old man, if I don't track down this swine who's got
+the cat, or help to get him tracked down, I'll--I'll--" The enthusiastic
+young man broke off--"Isn't it great, George?"
+
+My miserable George paced the room. "Great!" he forced out. "Great!"
+This was the infernal Special Commissioner whom daily he had yearned to
+strangle. "Great! By Gad, there are no words for it!"
+
+"I knew you'd be pleased. Thanks awfully--_awfully_. Well, I was telling
+you. Being down there for the paper I simply had to interview Marrapit.
+I plucked up courage and bearded him. He's half crazy about this
+wretched cat. I found him as meek as a lamb. Bit snarly at first, but
+when he found how keen I was, quite affectingly pleasant. I've seen
+him every day for the last four days, and yesterday he said what I told
+you--I came out with all about Margaret and about my splendid prospects,
+and, as I say, he practically said that if I could find the cat he'd be
+willing to think of our engagement."
+
+"But about finding out where I was? How did you discover that?"
+
+"Well, he told me. Told me this morning." Bill shuffled his legs
+uncomfortably for a moment, then plunged ahead. "Fact is, old man,
+he's a bit sick with you. Said he'd only had one telegram from you
+from Dippleford Admiral and one letter from here. Said it was
+unsatisfactory--that it was clear you were incapable of following up
+this clue of yours by yourself. You don't mind my telling you this, do
+you, old man? You know what he is."
+
+George gave the bitter laugh of one who is misunderstood, unappreciated.
+"Go on," he said, "go on." He was trembling to see the precipice over
+which the end of Bill's story would hurl him.
+
+"Well, as I said--that it was clear you could not carry through your
+clue by yourself. So I was to come down and help you. That was about ten
+o'clock, and I caught the mid-day train--I've been here since two. Well,
+Brunger--the detective chap, you know--Marrapit was going to send him on
+here at once--"
+
+This was the precipice. George went hurtling over the edge with whirling
+brain: "Brunger coming down here?" he cried.
+
+"Rather! Now, we three together, old man--"
+
+"When's he coming?" George asked. He could not hear his own voice--the
+old nightmares danced before his eyes, roared their horrors in his ears.
+
+Bill looked at the clock. "He ought to be here by now. He ought to have
+arrived--"
+
+The roaring confusion in George's brain went to a tingling silence;
+through it there came footsteps and a man's voice upon the stairs.
+
+As the tracked criminal who hears his pursuer upon the threshold, as
+the fugitive from justice who feels upon his shoulder the sudden hand
+of arrest, as the poor wretch in the condemned cell when the hangman
+enters--as the feelings of these, so, at this sound, the emotions of my
+miserable George.
+
+A dash must be made to flatten this hideous doom. Upon a sudden impulse
+he started forward. "Bill! Bill, old man, I want to tell you something.
+You don't know what the finding of this cat means to me. It--"
+
+"I do know, old man," Bill earnestly assured him. "You're splendid, old
+man, splendid. I never dreamt you were so fond of your uncle. Old man,
+it means even more to me--it means Margaret and success. Here's Brunger.
+We three together, George. Nothing shall stop us."
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+The sagacious detective entered. George gave him a limp, damp hand.
+
+"You don't look well," Mr. Brunger told him, after greetings.
+
+"Just what I was saying," Bill joined.
+
+Indeed, George looked far from well. Round-shouldered he sat upon the
+sofa, head in hands--a pallid face beneath a beaded brow staring out
+between them.
+
+"It's the strain of this clue, Mr. Brunger," Bill continued. "He's on
+the track!"
+
+"You are?" cried the detective.
+
+"Right on," George said dully. "Right on the track."
+
+"Is it a gang?"
+
+"Two," George answered in the same voice. "Two gangs."
+
+The sagacious detective thumped the table. "I said so. I knew it. I told
+you so, Mr. Wyvern. But _two_, eh? _Two_ gangs. That's tough. One got
+the cat and the other after it, I presume?"
+
+"No," said George. He was wildly thinking; to the conversation paying no
+attention.
+
+"No? But, my dear sir, one of 'em _must_ have the cat?"
+
+George started to the necessities of the immediate situation; wondered
+what he had said; caught at Mr. Brunger's last word. "The cat? Another
+gang has got the cat."
+
+"What, three gangs!" the detective cried.
+
+"Three gangs," George affirmed.
+
+"Two gangs you said at first," Mr. Brunger sharply reminded him.
+
+My miserable George dug his fingers into his hair. "I meant three--I'd
+forgotten the other."
+
+"Don't see how a man can forget a whole _gang_," objected the detective.
+He stared at George; frowned; produced his note-book. "Let us have the
+facts, sir."
+
+As if drawn by the glare fixed upon him, George moved from the sofa to
+the table.
+
+"Now, the facts," Mr. Brunger repeated. "Let's get these gangs settled
+first."
+
+George took a chair. He had no plan. He plunged wildly. "Gang A, gang B,
+gang C, gang D--"
+
+Mr. Brunger stopped short in the midst of his note.
+
+"Why, that's _four_ gangs!"
+
+The twisting of George's legs beneath the table was sympathetic with
+the struggles of his bewildered mind. He said desperately, "Well, there
+_are_ four gangs."
+
+The detective threw down his pencil. "You're making a fool of me!" he
+cried. "First you said two gangs, then three gangs--"
+
+"You're making a fool of yourself," George answered hotly. "If you knew
+anything about gangs you'd know they're always breaking up--quarrelling,
+and then rejoining, and then splitting again. If you can't follow, don't
+follow. Find the damned gangs yourself. You're a detective--I'm not. At
+least you say you are. You're a precious poor one, seems to me. You've
+not done much."
+
+In his bewilderment and fear my unfortunate George had unwittingly
+hit upon an admirable policy. Since first Mr. Marrapit had called Mr.
+Brunger it had sunk in upon the Confidential Inquiry Agent that indeed
+he was a precious poor detective. In the five days that had passed he
+had not struck upon the glimmer of a notion regarding the whereabouts
+of the missing cat. This was no hiding in cupboard work, no marked coin
+work, no following the skittish wife of a greengrocer work. It was
+the real thing--real detective work, and it had found Mr. Brunger
+most lamentably wanting. Till now, however, none had suspected
+his perplexity. He had impressed his client--had bounced,
+noted, cross-examined, measured; and during every bounce, note,
+cross-examination and measurement fervently had prayed that luck--or the
+reward--would help him stumble upon something he could claim as outcome
+of his skill. George's violent attack alarmed him; he drew in his horns.
+
+"Ah! don't be 'ot," he protested. "Don't be 'ot. Little
+misunderstanding, that's all. I follow you completely. Four gangs--_I_
+see. _Four_ gangs. Now, sir."
+
+It was George's turn for fear. "Four gangs--quite so. Well, what do you
+want me to tell you?"
+
+"Start from the beginning, sir."
+
+George started--plunged head-first. For five minutes he desperately
+gabbled while Mr. Brunger's pencil bounded along behind his splashing;
+words. Every time the pencil seemed to slacken, away again George would
+fly and away in pursuit the pencil would laboriously toil.
+
+"Four gangs," George plunged along. "Gang A, gang B, gang C, gang D.
+Gang A breaks into the house and steals the cat. Gang B finds it gone
+and tracks down gang C."
+
+"Tracks gang A, surely," panted Mr. Brunger. "Gang A had the cat."
+
+"Gang B didn't know that. I tell you this is a devil of a complicated
+affair. Gang B tracks down gang C and finds gang D. They join. Call 'em
+gang B-D. Gang A loses the cat and gang C finds it. Gang C sells it to
+gang B-D, which is run by an American, as I said."
+
+"Did you?" gasped Mr. Brunger without looking up.
+
+"Certainly. Gang B-D hands it over to gang A by mistake, and gang A
+makes off with it. Gang C, very furious because it is gang A's great
+rival, starts in pursuit and gets it back again. Then gang B-D demands
+it, but gang A refuses to give it up."
+
+"Gang C!" Mr. Brunger panted. "Gang C had got it from gang A."
+
+"Yes, but gang A got it back again. Gang B-D--Look here," George broke
+off, "that's perfectly clear about the gangs, isn't it?"
+
+"Perfectly," said Mr. Brunger, feeling that his reputation was
+gone unless he said so. "Wants a little studying, that's all. Most
+extraordinary story I ever heard of."
+
+"I'm dashed if I understand a word of it," Bill put in. "Who _are_ these
+gangs?"
+
+George rose: "Bill, old man, I'll explain that another time. The fact
+is, we're wasting time by sitting here. I was very near the end when you
+two arrived. The cat is here--quite near here."
+
+The detective and Bill sprang to their feet. George continued: "It's
+going to change hands either tonight or to-morrow. If you two will
+do just as I tell you and leave the rest to me, we shall bring off a
+capture. To-morrow evening I will explain everything."
+
+The detective asked eagerly; "Is it a certainty?"
+
+"Almost. It will be touch and go; but if we miss it this time it is a
+certainty for the immediate future. I swear this, that if you keep
+in touch with me you will be nearer the cat than you will ever get by
+yourselves."
+
+Sincerity shone in his eyes from these words. The detective and Bill
+were fired with zeal.
+
+"Take command, sir!" said Mr. Brunger.
+
+"All right. Come with me. I will post you for the night. We have some
+distance to go. Don't question me. I must think."
+
+"Not a question," said the detective: he was, indeed, too utterly
+bewildered.
+
+George murmured "Thank heaven!"; took his hat; led the way into the
+street. In dogged silence the three tramped through the rain.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+George led for the Clifford Arms, some two miles distant. For the
+present he had but one object in view. He must get rid of Bill and this
+infernal detective; then he must speed the cat from Temple Colney.
+
+As he walked he pushed out beyond the primary object of ridding himself
+of his companions; sought the future. In the first half-mile he decided
+that the game was up. He must deliver the Rose to his uncle immediately
+without waiting for the reward to be further raised. To hang on for
+the shadow would be, he felt, to lose the substance that would stand
+represented by Mr. Marrapit's gratitude.
+
+But this preposterous buoyancy of youth! The rain that beat upon his
+face cooled his brow; seemed to cool his brain. Before the first mile
+was crossed he had vacillated from his purpose. When he said to his
+followers "Only another half-mile," his purpose was changed.
+
+This preposterous corkiness of youth! It had lifted him up from the sea
+of misfortune in which he had nigh been drowned, and now he was assuring
+himself that, given he could hide the Rose where a sudden glimmering
+idea suggested, he would be safer than ever before. The two men who
+were most dangerous to him--the detective and the _Daily's_ Special
+Commissioner at Paltley Hill, now slushing through the mud behind--were
+beneath his thumb. If he could keep them goose-chasing for a few days or
+so--!
+
+The turn of a corner brought them in view of the Clifford Arms. George
+pointed: "I want you to spend the night there and to stay there till I
+come to-morrow. A man is there whom you must watch--the landlord."
+
+"One of the gangs?" Mr. Brunger asked, hoarse excitement in his voice.
+
+"Gang B--leader. Don't let him suspect you. Just watch him."
+
+"Has he got the cat?"
+
+With great impressiveness George looked at the detective, looked at
+Bill. Volumes of meaning in his tone: "_Not yet!_" he said.
+
+Bill cried: "By Gad!" The detective rubbed his hands in keen
+anticipation.
+
+They entered the inn. Bill gave a story of belated tourists. A room
+was engaged. In a quarter of an hour George was speeding back to Temple
+Colney.
+
+At the post-office he stopped; purchased a letter-card; held his pen a
+while as he polished the glimmering idea that now had taken form; then
+wrote to his Mary:--
+
+"My dearest girl in all the world,--You've never had a line from me
+all this time, but you can guess what a time I've been having. Dearest
+darling, listen and attend. This is most important. Our future depends
+upon it. Meet me to-morrow at 12.0 at that tumbled-down hut in the copse
+on the Shipley Road where we went that day just before my exam. Make any
+excuse to get away. You must be there. And don't tell a soul.
+
+"Till to-morrow, my darling little Mary.--G."
+
+He posted the card.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VI.
+
+Of Paradise Lost and Found.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Mrs. Major Bids For Paradise.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Impossible to tell how far will spread the ripples from the lightest
+action that we may toss into the sea of life.
+
+Life is a game of consequences. A throws a stone, and the widening
+ripples wreck the little boats of X and Y and Z who never have even
+heard of A. Every day and every night, every hour of every day and
+night, ripples from unknown splashes are setting towards us--perhaps
+to swamp us, perhaps to bear us into some pleasant stream. One calls it
+luck, another fate. "This is my just punishment," cries one. "By my
+good works I have merited this," exclaims another; but it is merely the
+ripple from some distant splash--merely consequences. Consequences.
+
+A sleepy maid in Mr. City Merchant's suburban mansion leaves the
+dust-pan on the stairs after sweeping. That is the little action she has
+tossed into the sea of life, and the ripples will wreck a boat or two
+now snug and safe in a cheap and happy home many miles away. Mr. City
+Merchant trips over the dustpan, starts for office fuming with rage,
+vents his spleen upon Mr. City Clerk--dismisses him.
+
+Mr. City Clerk seeks work in vain; the cheap but happy home he shares
+with pretty little Mrs. City Clerk and plump young Master City Clerk is
+abandoned for a dingy lodging. Grade by grade the lodging they must seek
+grows dingier. Now there is no food. Now they are getting desperate.
+Now pneumonia lays erstwhile plump Master City Clerk by the heels and
+carries him off--consequences, consequences; that is one boat wrecked.
+Now Mr. City Clerk is growing mad with despair; Mrs. City Clerk is
+well upon the road that Master City Clerk has followed. Mr. City Clerk
+steals, is caught, is imprisoned--consequences, consequences; another
+boat wrecked. Mrs. City Clerk does not hold out long, follows Master
+City Clerk--consequences, consequences. Three innocent craft smashed up
+because the housemaid left the dustpan on the stairs.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Impossible to tell how far will speed the ripples from the lightest
+action that we may toss into the sea of life. Solely and wholly because
+George abducted the Rose of Sharon, Miss Pridham, who keeps the general
+drapery in Angel Street, Marylebone Road, sold a pair of green knitted
+slippers, each decorated with a red knitted blob, that had gazed
+melancholy from her shop window for close upon two years.
+
+It was Mrs. Major who purchased them.
+
+Since that terrible morning on which, throat and mouth parched, head
+painfully throbbing through the overnight entertainment of Old Tom, Mrs.
+Major had been driven from Mr. Marrapit's door, this doubly distressed
+gentlewoman had lived in retirement in a bed-sitting-room in Angel
+Street. She did not purpose immediately taking another situation. This
+woman had sipped the delights of Herons' Holt; her heart was there, and
+for a month or two, as, sighing over her lot, she determined, she would
+brood in solitude upon the paradise she had lost before challenging new
+fortunes.
+
+The ripples of the abduction of the Rose reached her. This was a
+masterly woman, and instanter she took the tide upon the flood.
+
+Mrs. Major was not a newspaper reader. The most important sheet of the
+_Daily_, however, she one day carried into her bed-sitting-room wrapped
+about a quartern of Old Tom. It was the day when first "Country House
+Outrage" shouted from the _Daily's_ columns.
+
+Idly scanning the report her eye chanced upon familiar names. A common
+mind would have been struck astonished and for some hours been left
+fluttering. Your masterly mind grasps at once and together a solution
+and its possibilities. Without pause for thought, without even sniff of
+the new quartern of Old Tom, Mrs. Major sought pen and paper; wrote with
+inspired pen to Mr. Marrapit:
+
+"I do not even dare begin 'Dear Mr. Marrapit.' I have forfeited the
+right even to address you; but in the moment of your great tribulation
+something stronger than myself makes me take up my pen--"
+
+Here Mrs. Major paused; read what she had written; without so much as
+a sigh tore the sheet and started afresh. That "something stronger than
+myself makes me" she felt to be a mistake. Something decidedly stronger
+than herself sat in the quartern bottle a few inches from her nose, and
+it occurred to her that a cruel mind might thus interpret her meaning.
+She tore the sheet. This was a masterly woman.
+
+"I dare not even begin 'Dear Mr. Marrapit.' I have forfeited the right
+even to address you; but in the moment of your tribulation I feel that I
+must come forward with my sympathy. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, may I say with my
+aid? I feel I could help you if only I might come to dear, dear Herons'
+Holt. When I think of my angel darling Rose of Sharon straying far from
+the fold my heart bleeds. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, I cannot rest, I cannot
+live, while my darling is wandering on the hillside, or is stolen, and
+I am unable to search for her. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, think of me, I implore
+you, not as Mrs. Major, but as one whom your sweet darling Rose loved.
+If the Rose is anywhere near Herons' Holt, she would come to me if I
+called her, I feel sure, more readily than she would come to anyone
+else except yourself, and you are not strong enough to search as I would
+search. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, let me come to Herons' Holt in this terrible
+hour. Do not speak to me, do not look at me, Mr. Marrapit. I do not ask
+that. I only beg on my bended knees that you will let me lay myself at
+night even in the gardener's shed, so that I may be there to tend my
+lamb when she is found, and by day will be able to search for her. That
+is all I ask.
+
+"Of myself I will say nothing. I will not force upon you the
+explanations of that dreadful night which you would not take from my
+trembling lips. I will not tell you that, maddened by the toothache,
+I was advised to hold a little drop of spirit in the tooth, and that,
+never having touched anything but water since I and my dear little
+brother promised my dying mother we would not, the spirit went to my
+head and made me as you saw me. I will not write any of those things,
+Mr. Marrapit; only, oh, Mr. Marrapit, I implore you to let me come and
+look for my Rose. Nor will I tell you how fondly, since I left you, I
+have thought of all your nobility of character and of your goodness to
+me, Mr. Marrapit. Wronged, I bear no resentment. I have received too
+much kindness at your hands. Ever since I left you I have thought of
+none but the Rose and you. Shall I prove that? I will, Mr. Marrapit--"
+
+Here again Mrs. Major paused; thoughtfully scratched her head with her
+penholder. Like authors more experienced, her emotions had driven her
+pen to a point demanding a special solution which was not immediately
+forthcoming. She had galloped into a wood. How to get out of it?
+
+Mrs. Major scratched thoughtfully; gazed at Old Tom; gazed round the
+room; on a happy inspiration gazed from the window. Miss Pridham's
+general drapery was immediately opposite. A bright patch of green in
+the window caught Mrs. Major's eye. She recognised it as the knitted
+slippers she had once or twice noticed in passing.
+
+The very thing! Laying down her pen the masterly woman popped across
+to Miss Pridham's; in two minutes, leaving that lady delighted and
+one-and-eleven-three the richer, was back with the green knitted
+slippers with the red knitted blobs.
+
+She took up her pen and continued:
+
+"Ever since I left I have thought of none but the Rose and you. Shall I
+prove that? I will, Mr. Marrapit. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, I make so bold as
+to send you in a little parcel a pair of woollen slippers that I have
+knitted for you."
+
+Mrs. Major examined them. Such sun as creeps into Angel Street,
+Marylebone Road, jealous of rival brightness had filched their first
+delicate tint of green, had stolen the first passionate scarlet of the
+red blobs. She continued:
+
+"They are a little faded because on every stitch a bitter tear has
+fallen. Yes, Mr. Marrapit, my tears of sorrow have rained upon these
+slippers as I worked. Oh, Mr. Marrapit, they are not damp, however.
+Every evening since they were finished I have had my little fire lighted
+and have stood the slippers up against the fender; and then, sitting on
+the opposite side of the hearth, just as I used to sit for a few minutes
+with you after we had brought in the darling cats, I have imagined that
+your feet were in the slippers and have imagined that I am back where I
+have left my bleeding heart. I never meant to dare send them to you, Mr.
+Marrapit, but in this moment of your tribulation I make bold to do so.
+Do not open the parcel, Mr. Marrapit, if you would rather not. Hurl it
+on the fire and let the burning fiery furnace consume them, tears and
+all. But I feel I must send them, whatever their fate.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Marrapit, let me come to Herons' Holt to find my darling
+Rose!--then without a word I will creep away and die.--LUCY MAJOR."
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Upon the following morning there sped to Mrs. Major from Herons' Holt a
+telegram bearing the message "Come."
+
+Frantic to clutch at any straw that might bring to him this Rose, Mr.
+Marrapit eagerly clutched at Mrs. Major. He felt there to be much truth,
+in her contention that his Rose, if secreted near by, would come quicker
+at her call than at the call of another. His Rose had known and loved
+her for a full year. His Rose, refined cat, did not take quickly
+to strangers, and had not--he had noticed it--given herself to Miss
+Humfray. Therefore Mr. Marrapit eagerly clutched at Mrs. Major.
+
+As to the remainder of her letter--it considerably perturbed him. Had
+he misjudged this woman, whom once he had held estimable? All the
+delectable peace of his household during her reign, as contrasted with
+the turmoil that now had taken its place, came back to him and smote his
+heart. He opened the slippers, noted the tear-stains. Had he misjudged
+her? What more likely than her story of the racking tooth that must
+be lulled with a little drop of spirit? Had he misjudged her? But as
+against that little drop of spirit, how account for the vast and empty
+bottle of Old Tom found in her room? Had he misjudged her?
+
+In much conflict of mind this man paced the breakfast room, a green
+knitted slipper with red knitted blob in either hand.
+
+It was thus that Margaret, entering, found him.
+
+With a soft little laugh, "Oh, father!" she cried, "what have you got
+there?"
+
+Mr. Marrapit raised the green knitted slippers with the red knitted
+blobs. "A contrite heart," he answered. "A stricken and a contrite
+heart."
+
+He resumed his pacing. Margaret squeezed round the door which happily
+she had left ajar; fled breakfastless. Quick at poetic image though she
+was, the symbol of a contrite heart in a pair of green knitted slippers
+with red knitted blobs was not clear to this girl. In her father it
+alarmed her. This great sorrow was perchance turning his brain.
+
+Mr. Marrapit laid the slippers upon his dressing-table; that afternoon
+greeted Mrs. Major with a circumspect reserve. Combining the vast and
+empty bottle of Old Tom with the fact that never had his judgment of man
+or matter failed him, he determined that Mrs. Major was guilty. But
+not wilfully guilty. Tempted to drown pain, she had succumbed; but the
+slippers were the sign of a contrite heart.
+
+The masterly possessor of the contrite heart betrayed no signs of its
+flutterings and its exultant boundings at being once more in paradise.
+This was a masterly woman, and, masterly, she grasped at once her
+position--without hesitation started to play her part.
+
+In Mr. Marrapit's study she stood humbly before him with bowed head;
+did not speak. Her only sounds were those of repressed emotion as Mr.
+Marrapit recited the history of the abduction. The white handkerchief
+she kept pressed against her chin punctuated the story with sudden
+little dabs first to one eye then the other. Little sniffs escaped her;
+little catches of the breath; tiny little moans.
+
+She choked when he had finished: "Let me see--my darling's--bed."
+
+Mr Marrapit led the way. Above the silk-lined box whence George had
+snatched the Rose, the masterly woman knelt. She fondled the silken
+coverlet; her lips moved. Suddenly she dashed her handkerchief to her
+eyes; with beautiful moans fled hurriedly to the bedroom that had been
+allotted her.
+
+It was an exquisitely touching sight. Mr. Marrapit, greatly moved, went
+to his room; took out the green knitted slippers with the red knitted
+blobs. Had he misjudged this woman?
+
+Ten minutes later he again encountered Mrs. Major. Now she was girt
+against the weather and against exercise. Beneath her chin were firmly
+knotted the strings of her sober bonnet; a short skirt hid nothing
+of the stout boots she had donned; her hand grasped the knob of a
+bludgeon-like umbrella.
+
+The masterly woman had removed all traces of her emotion. In a voice
+humble yet strong, "I start to search, Mr. Marrapit," she said. "I will
+find the Rose if she is to be found."
+
+So deep sincerity was in her speech, so strong she seemed, so restful
+in this crisis, that Mr. Marrapit, watching her stride the drive,
+again fell to pacing and cogitation--had he misjudged her? Almost
+unconsciously he moved upstairs to his room; drew those green slippers
+with red blobs from their drawer.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+Had Mr. Marrapit doubted the sincerity of Mrs. Major's search, assuredly
+he would have misjudged her. In her diary that night the masterly woman
+inscribed:
+
+"_Am here; must stick_."
+
+Her best chance of sticking, as well she knew, lay in finding the Rose.
+Could she but place that creature's exquisite form in Mr. Marrapit's
+arms, she felt that her reward would be to win back to the paradise from
+which Old Tom had driven her.
+
+Therefore most strenuously she scoured the countryside; pried into
+houses; popped her head into stable doors. This woman nothing spared
+herself; in the result, at the end of two days, was considerably
+dejected. For it was clear to her that the Rose had not strayed, but had
+been stolen; was not concealed in the vicinity of Herons' Holt, but had
+been spirited to the safety of many miles. She was driven to accept
+Mr. Brunger's opinion--the Rose had been stolen by some eager and
+unscrupulous breeder to be used for gross purposes.
+
+It was upon the evening of the second day in paradise that this woman
+settled upon this gloomy conclusion. Gloomy it was, and desperately,
+sitting in her bedroom that night, the masterly woman battled for some
+way to circumvent it. To that entry made in her diary on the night of
+her arrival she had added two further sentences:
+
+_"Hate that baby-faced Humfray chit."
+
+"Certain cannot stick unless find cat."_
+
+Opening her diary now she gazed upon these entries; chewed them. They
+were bitter to the taste. To agony at what she had lost was added
+mortification at seeing another in her place; and rankling in this
+huge wound was the poison of the knowledge that she could not win
+back. Circumstances were too strong. The cat was not to be found,
+and--stabbing thought--"certain cannot stick unless find cat."
+
+This way and that the masterly woman twisted in search of a means to
+circumvent her position. It might be done by accomplishing the overthrow
+of this baby-faced chit. If the baby-faced chit could be made to
+displease Mr. Marrapit and be turned out, it would surely be possible,
+being ready at hand, to take her place. But how could the baby-faced
+chit be made to err?
+
+This way and that Mrs. Major twisted and could find no means. Always she
+was forced back to the brick-wall fact--salvation lay only in finding
+the cat. That would accomplish everything. She would have succeeded
+where the baby-faced chit had failed; she would have proved her
+devotion; she, would have earned, not a doubt of it, the reward of
+re-entry into paradise that Mr. Marrapit in his gratitude would more
+than offer--would press upon her.
+
+But the cat was not to be found.
+
+Beating up against the desperate barrier of that thought, Mrs. Major
+groaned aloud as she paced the room, threw up her arms in her despair.
+The action caused her to swerve; with hideous violence she crashed her
+stockinged foot against the leg of the wash-stand.
+
+Impossible to tell how far will spread the ripples of the lightest
+action we may toss upon the sea of life. The stunning agony in this
+woman's toes, as, hopping to the bed, she sat and nursed them, with the
+swiftness of thought presented to her a solution of her difficulty that
+struck her staring with excitement.
+
+Her first thought in her throbbing pain was of remedy for the bruise.
+"Bruise" brought involuntarily to her mind the picture of a chemist's
+shop in the Edgware Road, not far from Angel Street, whose window she
+had seen filled with little boxes of "Bruisine," the newest specific for
+abrasions. Thence her thoughts, by direct passage, jumped to the time
+when last she had noticed the shop--she had been returning from a stroll
+by way of Sussex Gardens. And it was while mentally retracing that walk
+down Sussex Gardens that Mrs. Major lit plump upon the solution of her
+difficulty. She had noticed, let out for a run from No. 506, an orange
+cat that was so precisely the image of the Rose of Sharon that she had
+stopped to stroke it for dear memory's sake. Often since then she had
+spoken to it; every time had been the more struck by its extraordinary
+resemblance to the Rose. She had reflected that, seen together, she
+could not have told them apart.
+
+Mrs. Major forgot the throbbing of her abrased toes. Her brows knitted
+by concentration of thought, very slowly the masterly woman concluded
+her disrobing. Each private garment that she stripped and laid aside
+marked a forward step in the indomitable purpose she had conceived. As
+her fingers drew the most private from her person, leaving it naked, so
+from her plan did her masterly mind draw the last veil that filmed it,
+leaving it clear. When the Jaeger nightdress fell comfortably about her,
+her purpose too was presentable and warm.
+
+Every day and every night, every hour of every day and night, ripples
+from unknown splashes are setting towards us. From this masterly
+woman, in process of toilet, ripples were setting towards a modest and
+unsuspecting cat lying in sweet slumber at 506 Sussex Gardens, off the
+Edgware Road.
+
+For the masterly woman had thus determined--she would have that cat that
+was the Rose's second self. The Rose was in the hands of some villain
+breeder and would never be returned; small fear of discovery under that
+head. This cat was the Rose's second self; differences that Mr. Marrapit
+might discover, lack of affection that he might notice, could be
+attributed to the adventures through which the Rose had passed since her
+abduction. Under this head, indeed, Mrs. Major did not anticipate great
+difficulty. Similar cats are more similar than similar dogs. They
+have not, as dogs have, the distinguishing marks of character and
+demonstrativeness. In any event, as the masterly woman assured herself,
+she ran no peril even if her plot failed. She would say she had found
+the cat, and if Mr. Marrapit were convinced it was not his Rose--well,
+she had made a mistake, that was all.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Upon the morrow, playing her hand with masterly skill, Mrs. Major
+sought interview with Mr. Marrapit. With telling dabs of her pocket
+handkerchief at her eyes, with telling sniffs of her masterly nose, she
+expressed the fear that she had outstayed his kindness in receiving her.
+He had granted her request--he had let her come to Herons' Holt; but two
+days had passed and she had not found his Rose. True, if she had longer
+she could more thoroughly search; but as an honest woman she must admit
+that she had been given her chance, had failed.
+
+Upon a wailing note she ended: "I must go."
+
+"Cancel that intention," Mr. Marrapit told her. Her honesty smote this
+man. Had he misjudged her?
+
+She smothered a sniff in her handkerchief: "I must go. I must go. I have
+seen that you regard me with suspicion. Oh, you have reason, I know; but
+I cannot bear it."
+
+"Remove that impression," spoke Mr. Marrapit. He _had_ misjudged this
+woman; he was convinced of it.
+
+Mrs. Major gave her answer in the form of two smothered sniffs and a
+third that, eluding her handkerchief, escaped free and loud--a telling
+sniff that advertised her distress; wrung Mr. Marrapit's emotions.
+
+He continued: "Mrs. Major, at a future time we will discuss the painful
+affair to which you make reference. At present I am too preoccupied
+by the calamity that has desolated my hearth. Meanwhile, I suspend
+judgment. I place suspicion behind me. I regard you only as she whom my
+Rose loved."
+
+"Do you wish me to stay a little longer?" asked Mrs. Major, trembling.
+
+"That is my wish. Continue to prosecute your search."
+
+Trembling yet more violently Mrs. Major said: "I will stay. I had not
+dared to suppose I might stop more than two days. I brought nothing with
+me. May I go to London to get clothes? I will return to-morrow morning."
+
+"Why not to-night?"
+
+"Early to-morrow would be more convenient. I have other things to do in
+London."
+
+"To-morrow, then," Mr. Marrapit agreed.
+
+At the door Mrs. Major turned. Her great success at this interview
+emboldened her to a second stroke. "There is one other thing I would
+like to say, if I dared."
+
+"Be fearless."
+
+She plunged. "If Heaven should grant that I may find the Rose, I implore
+you not to distress me by offering me the reward you are holding out. I
+could not take it. I know you can ill afford it. Further than that, to
+have the joy of giving you back your Rose would be reward enough for me.
+And to know that she was safe with you, though I--I should never see her
+again, that would make me happy till the end of my days."
+
+Her nobility smote Mr. Marrapit. Cruelly, shamefully, he _had_ misjudged
+her. Her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, very gently Mrs. Major closed
+the door; very soberly mounted the stairs.
+
+Out of earshot, she walked briskly to her room; drew forth her diary; in
+a bold hand inscribed:
+
+"_Absolutely certain shall stick._"
+
+The masterly woman lunched in town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Mrs. Major Finds The Lock.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+By six o'clock Mrs. Major had all ready for her adventure. In the little
+room at Angel Street she deposited a newly purchased basket; at eight
+o'clock started for Sussex Gardens.
+
+Twice, while passing down the terrace at about nine, she had seen the
+cat she now pursued let out for what was doubtless its nightly run.
+
+On each occasion she had observed the same order of events, and she
+judged them to be of regular occurrence. Out from No. 506 had stepped a
+tall man, long-haired, soft-hatted, poetically bearded. Behind him had
+followed the cat. The cat had trotted across the road to the gardens;
+the tall man had walked slowly round the enclosure. Returning, he had
+called. The cat had walked soberly forth from the railings and the pair
+had re-entered the house.
+
+II.
+
+Matters fell this night precisely as the sapient woman had conjectured.
+Shortly before nine she took up position against the railings in a dark
+patch that marked the middle point between two lamps, some doors
+above 506. No tremor agitated her form; in action this woman was most
+masterly.
+
+A church clock struck a full clear note, another and another. The
+after-humming of the ninth had scarcely died when the blackness that
+lay beneath the fanlight of 506 was split by a thin rod of yellow light.
+Instantly this widened, served for a moment to silhouette a tall figure,
+then vanished as the door slammed. The tall figure stepped on to the
+pavement; a cat at its feet trod sedately across the road. The tall
+figure turned; in a moment was meditatively pacing the pavement opposite
+where Mrs. Major stood.
+
+Mrs. Major gave him twenty yards. Then she hurried along the railings to
+where the cat had tripped. Six feet inwards, delicately scratching the
+soil beneath a bush, she espied it.
+
+The masterly woman pressed her face between the rails; stretched a
+snapping finger and thumb; in an intense voice murmured, "Tweetikins
+puss!"
+
+Tweetikins puss continued thoughtfully to turn the soil. This was a
+nicely mannered cat.
+
+"Tweety little puss!" cooed Mrs. Major. "Tweety pussikins! puss, puss!"
+
+Tweety pussikins turned to regard her. Mrs. Major moistened her finger
+and thumb; snapped frantically. "Puss, puss--tweety pussy!"
+
+Tweety pussy advanced till the snapping fingers were within an inch of
+its nose.
+
+"Pussikins, pussikins!" implored Mrs. Major.
+
+Pussikins very deliberately seated itself; coiled its fine tail about
+its feet; regarded Mrs. Major with a sphinx-like air.
+
+Mrs. Major pressed till the iron railings cut her shoulders. She
+stretched the forefinger of her extended arm; at great peril of slipping
+forward and rasping her nose along the rails effected to scratch the top
+of the sphinx's head.
+
+"Puss, puss! Tweety, _tweety_ puss!"
+
+By not so much as a blink did tweety puss stir a muscle.
+
+Mrs. Major was in considerable pain. Her bent legs were cramped; the
+railings bit her shoulder; her neck ached: "Tweety little puss! Tweety
+puss! Puss! _Drat_ the beast!"
+
+In great physical agony and in heightening mental distress--since
+time was fleeting and the cat as statuesque as ever,--Mrs. Major again
+dratted it twice with marked sincerity and a third time as a sharp sound
+advertised the splitting of a secret portion of her wear against the
+tremendous strain her unnatural position placed upon it. Unable longer
+to endure the pain of her outstretched arm, she dropped her hand to
+earth; with a masterly effort resumed her smiling face and silky tone.
+Repeating her endearing cooings, she scratched the soil, enticing to
+some hidden mystery.
+
+The demon of curiosity impelled this cat's doom. For a moment it
+eyed the scratching fingers; then stretched forward its head to
+investigation.
+
+The time for gentle methods was gone. Mrs. Major gripped the downy
+scruff of the doomed creature's neck; dragged the surprised animal
+forward; rudely urged it through the railings; tucked it beneath her
+cloak; sped down the road in the same direction that the tall figure had
+taken.
+
+But where the tall figure had turned round the gardens Mrs. Major kept
+straight. Along a main street, into a by-street, round a turning,
+across a square, up a terrace, over the Edgware Road--so into the
+bed-sitting-room at Angel Street.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+Speeding by train to Herons' Holt upon the following morning, beside
+her the basket wherein lay the key that was to open paradise, Mrs. Major
+slightly altered her plans. It had been her intention at once to burst
+upon Mr. Marrapit with her prize--at once to put to desperate test
+whether or no he would accept it as the Rose. But before Paltley Hill
+was reached the masterly woman had modified this order. The cat she had
+abducted was so much the facsimile of the Rose that for the first time
+it occurred to her that, like the Rose, it might be valuable, and that a
+noisy hue and cry might be raised upon its loss.
+
+If this so happened, and especially if Mr. Marrapit were doubtful that
+the cat was his Rose, it would be dangerous to let him know that she
+had made her discovery in London. Supposing he heard that a London cat,
+similar to the Rose in appearance, were missing, and remembered that
+this cat--of which from the first he had had doubts--was filched from
+London? That might turn success into failure. The chances of such events
+were remote, but the masterly woman determined to run no risks. She
+decided that on arrival at
+
+Paltley Hill she would conceal her cat; on the morrow, starting out
+from Herons' Hill to renew her search, would find it and with it come
+bounding to the house.
+
+As to where she should hide it she had no difficulty in determining. She
+knew of but one place, and she was convinced she could not have known a
+better. The ruined hut in the copse off the Shipley Road, whither in the
+dear, dead days beyond recall she had stolen for Old Tommish purposes,
+was in every way safe and suitable. None visited there at ordinary
+times; now that the country-side was no longer being searched for the
+Rose save by herself, it was as safe as ever. She would leave her cat
+there this day and night.
+
+Upon this determination the remarkable woman acted; before proceeding to
+Herons' Holt secured her cat in that inner room of the hut where, but a
+few days previously, the Rose herself had lain.
+
+When she reached the house a maid told her that Mr. Marrapit was
+closeted with young Mr. Wyvern.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+During the afternoon Mrs. Major visited her cat, taking it milk. That
+evening, Mary and Margaret being elsewhere together, she was able to
+enjoy a quiet hour with Mr. Marrapit.
+
+He was heavily depressed: "A week has passed, Mrs. Major. Something
+tells me I never again will see my Rose. This day I have sent young Mr.
+Wyvern and Mr. Brunger after my nephew George. The clue he claims to
+know is my last chance. I have no faith in it. Put not your trust--" Mr.
+Marrapit allowed a melancholy sigh to conclude his sentence. This man
+had suffered much.
+
+Mrs. Major clasped her hands. "Oh, do not give up hope, Mr. Marrapit.
+Something tells me you _will_ see her--soon, very soon."
+
+Mr. Marrapit sighed. "You are always encouraging, Mrs. Major."
+
+"Something tells me that I have reason to be, Mr. Marrapit. Last night I
+dreamed that the Rose was found." The encouraging woman leaned forward;
+said impressively, "I dreamed that I found her."
+
+Mr. Marrapit did not respond to her tone. Melancholy had this man in
+leaden grip. "I lose hope," he said. "Man is born unto trouble as the
+sparks fly upward. Do not trust in dreams."
+
+"Oh, but I _do_!" Mrs. Major said with girlish impulsiveness. "I _do_.
+I always have. My dreams so often come true. Do not lose hope, Mr.
+Marrapit." She continued with a beautiful air of timidity: "Oh, Mr.
+Marrapit, I know I am only here on sufferance, but your careworn air
+emboldens me to suggest--it might keep your poor mind from thinking--a
+game of backgammon such as we used to play before--" She sighed.
+
+"I should like it," Mr. Marrapit answered.
+
+Mrs. Major arranged the board; drew Mr. Marrapit's favourite chair to
+the table; rattled the dice. After a few moves, "Oh, you're not beating
+me as you used to," she said archly.
+
+"I am out of practice," Mr. Marrapit confessed.
+
+Mrs. Major paused in the act of throwing her dice. "Out of practice! But
+surely Miss Humfray plays with you?"
+
+"She does not."
+
+Mrs. Major gave a sigh that suggested more than she dared say.
+
+She sighed again when the game was concluded. Mr. Marrapit sat on.
+"Quite like old times," Mrs. Major murmured. "Good night, Mr. Marrapit;
+and don't lose hope. Remember my dream."
+
+"Quite like old times," Mr. Marrapit murmured.
+
+The masterly woman ascended the stairs rubbing her hands.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+Mrs. Major ate an excellent breakfast upon the following morning. She
+was upon the very threshold of winning into paradise, but not a tremor
+of nervousness did she betray or feel. This was a superb woman.
+
+At eleven she left the house and took a walk--rehearsing the manner
+in which she had arranged to burst in upon Mr. Marrapit with the cat,
+checking again the arguments with which she would counter and lull any
+doubts he might raise.
+
+At twelve she entered the hut.
+
+Mrs. Major was in the very act of leaving the building, the cat
+beneath her arm, when a sound of voices and footsteps held her upon the
+threshold. She listened; the sounds drew near. She closed the door; the
+sounds, now loud, approached the hut. She ran to the inner room; a hand
+was laid upon the outer latch. She closed the door; applied her eye to a
+crack; George and Mary entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Mrs. Major Gets The Key.
+
+
+George carried a basket. He laid it upon the floor. Then he turned and
+kissed his Mary. He put his arms about her; held her to him for a moment
+in a tremendous hug; pressed his lips to hers; held her away, drinking
+love from her pretty eyes; again kissed her and again hugged.
+
+She gasped: "I shall crack in half in a minute if you will be so
+ridiculous."
+
+He laughed; let her free. He led to the tottering bench that stood
+across the room, sat her there, and taking her little gloved hand patted
+it between his.
+
+"Fine, Mary," he said, "to see you again! Fine! It seems months!"
+
+"Years," Mary whispered, giving one of the patting hands a little
+squeeze. "Years. And you never sent me a line. I've not had a word with
+you since you came up on the lawn that day and said you had passed your
+exam. You simply _bolted_ off, you know."
+
+"You got my letter, though, this morning?" George said. He dropped
+her hand; fumbled in his pocket for his pipe. He was becoming a little
+nervous at the matter before him.
+
+Mary told him: "Well, that was _nothing_. It was such a _frantic_
+letter! What is all the mystery about?"
+
+"I'll tell you the whole story." George got from the bench and began to
+pace, filling his pipe.
+
+With a tender little smile Mary watched her George's dear face. Then, as
+he still paced, lit his pipe, gustily puffed, but did not speak, a tiny
+troubled pucker came between her eyes. There was a suspicion of a silly
+little tremor in her voice when at last she asked: "Anything wrong, old
+man?"
+
+George inhaled a vast breath of smoke; let it go in a misty cloud. With
+a quick action he laid his pipe upon the table; sprang to her side.
+His right arm he put about her, in his left hand he clasped both hers.
+"Nothing wrong," he cried brightly; "not a bit wrong. Mary, it's a game,
+a plot, a dickens of a game."
+
+"Well, tell me," she said, beaming.
+
+"It wants your help."
+
+"Well, tell me, tell me, stupid."
+
+"You will help?"
+
+"Of course, if I can. Oh, do tell me, Georgie!"
+
+"I'll show you, that's quicker."
+
+He sprang to the basket; unstrapped the lid; threw it back. A most
+exquisite orange head upreared. A queenly back arched. A beautiful
+figure stepped forth.
+
+"_George!_" Mary cried. "George! _The Rose!_ You've found her!"
+
+George gave a nervous little crack of laughter. "I never lost her."
+
+"Never lost her! No, but she's been--"
+
+"I've had her all the time!"
+
+"_All the_--"
+
+"I took her!"
+
+"You _took_ her! _You_--took her! Oh, George, speak sense! Whatever
+can you mean?" Mary had jumped to her feet when first the Rose stepped
+forth; now was close to her George--face a little white, perplexed;
+hands clasped.
+
+He cried: "Sweetest dove of a Mary, don't talk like that. Sit down and
+I'll tell you."
+
+"But what have you done?--what have you _done?_"
+
+The true woman was in that question. How they jostle us, these women,
+with their timid little flutterings when we are trying to put a case
+before them in our manlike way!--first spoiling their palate with all
+the sugar, so that they may not taste the powder.
+
+"I'll tell you what I've done if you'll only sit down."
+
+She went to the seat.
+
+"Now laugh, Mary. You simply must laugh. I can't tell you while you look
+like that. Laugh, or I shall tickle you."
+
+She laughed merrily--over her first bewilderment. "But, Georgie, it's
+something fearful that you've done, isn't it?"
+
+He sat beside her; took her hands. "It's terrific. Look here. From the
+beginning. When I told old Marrapit I'd passed my exam. I asked for that
+500 pounds--you know--to start us."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"He refused. He got in an awful state at the bare idea. I asked him
+to lend it--he got worse. Mary, he simply would not give or advance a
+penny: you know what that meant?"
+
+The dejected droop of her mouth gave answer.
+
+"Well, then, I concocted a plot. Old Wyvern helped me--Professor Wyvern,
+you know. I thought that if I took his cat, his beloved Rose, and lay
+low with her for a bit, he would--"
+
+"Oh, _George!_"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Nothing--finish."
+
+"--He would be certain to offer a reward. And I guessed he wouldn't mind
+what he paid. So I thought I'd take the cat and hang on till he offered
+L500, or till I thought he'd be so glad to get the Rose back that he'd
+do what I want out of pure gratitude. Then I'd bring it back and get
+the money--say I'd found it, you see, and--and--wait a bit--for heaven's
+sake don't speak yet." George saw his Mary was bursting with words; as
+he judged the look in her eyes they were words he had reason to fear.
+Shirking their hurt, he hurried along. "Don't speak yet. Get the money,
+and then we'd save up and pay him back and then tell him. There!"
+
+She burst out: "But, George--how _could_ you? Oh, it's wrong--it's
+_awful!_ Why, do you know what people would call you? They'd say you're
+a--yes, they'd say you're a--"
+
+He snatched the terrible word from her lips with a kiss.
+
+"They'd say I was a fool if I let Marrapit do me out of what is my own.
+That's the point, Mary. It's my money. I'm only trying to get what is my
+own. I felt all along you would see that; otherwise--" He hesitated.
+He was in difficulties. Manlike, he suddenly essayed to shoot the
+responsibility upon the woman. "--Otherwise I wouldn't have done it," he
+ended.
+
+His Mary had the wit to slip from the net, to dig him a vital thrust
+with the trident: "If you thought that, why didn't you tell me?"
+
+The thrust staggered him; set him blustering: "Tell you! Tell you! How
+could I tell you? I did it on the spur of the moment."
+
+"You could have written. Oh, Georgie, it's wrong. It _is_ wrong."
+
+He took up the famous sex attack. "Wrong! Wrong! That's just like a
+woman to say that! You won't listen to reason. You jump at a thing and
+shut your eyes and your ears."
+
+"I _will_ listen to reason. But you haven't _got_ any reason. If you
+had, why didn't you tell me before you did it?"
+
+He continued the sex assault; flung out a declamatory hand. "There you
+go! Why didn't I tell you? I've told you why. I tell you I did it on the
+spur of the moment--"
+
+But she still struggled. "Yes, that's just it. You didn't think. Now
+that you are thinking you must see it in its proper light. You _must_
+see it's wrong."
+
+"I don't. I don't in the least."
+
+"Well, why are you getting in such a state about it?"
+
+"I'm not getting in a state!"
+
+"You are." His Mary fumbled at her waist-belt. "You
+are. You're--saying--all sorts--of--things.
+You--said--I--was--just--like--a--woman." Out came this preposterous
+Mary's pocket handkerchief; into it went Mary's little nose.
+
+George sprang to her. "Oh, Mary! Oh, I say, don't cry, old girl!"
+
+The nose came out for a minute, a very shiny little nose. "I can't
+help crying. This is an--an _awful_ business." The shiny little nose
+disappeared again.
+
+George tried to pull away the handkerchief, tried to put his face
+against hers. A bony little shoulder poked obstinately up and prevented
+him. He burst out desperately. "Oh, damn! Oh, what a beast I am! I'm
+always making you cry. Oh, damn! Oh, Mary! I can't do anything right.
+I've had an awful time these days--and I was longing to see you,--and
+now I've called you names and been a brute."
+
+His Mary gulped the tears that were making the shiny little nose every
+minute more shiny. Never could she bear to hear her George accuse
+himself. Upon a tremendous sniff, "You haven't been a brute," she said,
+"--a bit. It's my--my fault for annoying you when I don't properly
+understand. Perhaps I don't understand."
+
+He put an arm about her. "You don't, Mary. Really and truly you don't.
+Let me tell you. Don't say a word till I've done. I'll tell you first
+why I've brought the Rose here. You see, I can't keep her anywhere
+else. I'm being chased about all over England. Bill and that infernal
+detective are after me now, and I simply must hide the beastly cat where
+it will be safe. Well, it's safest here--here, right under their noses,
+where nobody will ever look because everyone thinks it miles away by
+now. I can't stop near it, because I must be away on this clue they
+think I've got--especially now I've got mixed up with the detectives:
+see? So I want you just to come up from the house every day and feed the
+cat. You'll be perfectly safe, and it can't be for very long. You would
+do that, wouldn't you? Oh, Mary, think what it means to us!"
+
+She polished the shiny little nose: "I'd do anything that would help
+you. But, Georgie, it's not _right_; it's _wrong_. Oh, it is wrong! I
+don't care _what_ you say."
+
+"But you haven't heard what I've got to say."
+
+"I have. I've been listening for hours."
+
+"No, no, Mary. No, I haven't explained yet. You're too serious about
+it. It isn't a bit serious. It's only a frightful rag. And nobody will
+suffer, because he'll get his money back. And, think--think what it
+means. Now, do listen!"
+
+She listened, and her George poured forth a flood of arguments that were
+all mixed and tangled with love. She could not separate the two. This
+argument that he was right was delectably sugared with the knowledge
+that the thing was done for her; that delicious picture of the future,
+when it was swallowed, proved to be an argument in favour of his
+purpose. Love and argument, argument and love--she could not separate
+them, and they combined into a most exquisite sweetmeat. The arm her
+George had about her was a base advantage over her. How doubt her George
+was right when against her she could feel his heart! How be wiser than
+he when both her hands were in that dear brown fist?
+
+She was almost won when with a "So there you are!" he concluded. She had
+been won if she had much longer remained beneath the drug of his dear,
+gay, earnest words.
+
+But when he ceased she came to. The little awakening sigh she gave was
+the little fluttering sigh of a patient when the anesthetic leaves the
+senses clear.
+
+She looked at her George. Horrible to dim the sparkling in those
+dear eyes, radiant with excitement, with love. Yet she did it. The
+goody-goody little soul of her put its hands about the little weakness
+of her and held it tight.
+
+She said: "I do, _do_ see what you mean, Georgie. But I do, _do_ think
+it's wrong."
+
+And then the little hands and the brown fist changed places. For she
+put one hand below the fist, and with the other patted as she gave
+her little homily--goody-goody little arguments, Sunday-school little
+arguments, mother-and-child little arguments. And very timidly she
+concluded: "You are not angry, Georgie, are you?"
+
+This splendid George of hers gave her a tremendous kiss. "You're a
+little saint; you're a little idiot; you're a little angel; you're
+a little goose," he told her. "But I love you all the more for it,
+although I'd like to shake you. I _would_ like to shake you, Mary.
+You're ruining the finest joke that ever was tried; and you're ruining
+our only chance of marrying; and goodness only knows what's going to
+happen now."
+
+She laughed ever so happily. It was intoxicating to bend this dear
+George; intoxicating to have the love that came of bending him.
+
+"But I _am_ right, am I not?" she asked.
+
+George said: "Look here, saint and goose. I'm simply not going to chuck
+the thing and all our happiness like this. I'll make a bargain. Saint
+and goose, we'll say you are right, but you shall have one night to
+think over it. One night. And this afternoon you will go to Professor
+Wyvern and tell him everything and hear what he thinks about it--what an
+outsider thinks: see? Yes, that's it. Don't even spend a night over it.
+Have a talk with Professor Wyvern, and if you still think I ought to
+chuck it, write to me at once, and to-morrow I'll come down and creep
+in unto my uncle with the cat, and say: 'Uncle, I have sinned.' There,
+Mary, that's agreed, isn't it?"
+
+"That's agreed," she joined. "Yes, that's fair."
+
+He looked at his watch. "I must cut. I must catch the one-thirty train.
+I must calm Bill and the 'tec. in case you--Mary, _do_ weigh whatever
+Wyvern says, won't you?"
+
+She promised; gave her George her hope that the Professor would make her
+see differently.
+
+"That's splendid of you!" George cried. "Saint and goose, that's sweet
+of you. Mary, I'm sure he will. Look here, I must fly; come half-way
+to the station. The cat's all right here. Pop up and feed her this
+afternoon."
+
+They pressed the door behind them; hurried down the path.
+
+It was precisely as they turned from the lane into the high-road, that
+Mrs. Major, a cat beneath her arm, went bounding wildly through the
+copse towards Herons' Holt.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+George Has A Shot At Paradise.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Two hours after George, leaving his Mary near Paltley Hill railway
+station, had got back to his inn at Temple Colney, a very agitated
+young man booked from Temple Colney to Paltley Hill and was now speeding
+between them in the train.
+
+He had the carriage to himself. Sometimes he sat, hands deep in pockets,
+legs thrust before him, staring with wide and frightened eyes at the
+opposite seat. Sometimes he paced wildly from door to door, chin sunk on
+breast, in his eyes still that look of frantic apprehension. Sometimes
+he would snatch from his pocket a telegram; glare at it; pucker his
+brows over it; groan over it.
+
+George was this feverish young man.
+
+On his table in his room at the inn he had found this telegram awaiting
+him. He had broken the envelope, had read, and immediately a tickling
+feeling over his scalp had sent a dreadful shiver through his frame:
+
+"_Return at once. Cat found.--Marrapit._"
+
+He had plumped into a chair.
+
+For a space the capacity for thought was gone. In his brain was only
+a heavy drumming that numbed. Beneath the window a laden cart went
+thumping by--thump, thump; thump, thump--cat found; cat found. The cart
+drubbed away and was lost. Then the heavy ticking of the clock edged
+into his senses--tick, tock; tick, tock--cat found; cat found.
+
+Then thought came.
+
+Cat found!--then all was lost. Cat found!--then some damned prowling
+idiot had chanced upon the hut.
+
+This miserable George had felt certain that Professor Wyvern's arguments
+would overcome his Mary's scruples. That little meeting with his Mary
+had made him the more desperately anxious for success so that he might
+win her and have her. And now--cat found!--all over. Cat found! His
+pains for nothing!
+
+Then came the support of a hope, and to this, hurrying back to the
+station, speeding now in the train, most desperately he clung. The
+Rose, he struggled to assure himself, had not been found at all. It was
+impossible that anyone had been to the hut. Some idiot had found a
+cat that answered to the Rose's description, and had telegraphed the
+discovery to his uncle; or someone had brought a cat to his uncle and
+his uncle was himself temporarily deluded.
+
+Wildly praying that this might be so, George leaped from the train at
+Paltley Hill; went rushing to the hut. Outside, for full ten minutes he
+dared not push the door. What if he saw no Rose? What if all were indeed
+lost?
+
+He braced himself; pushed; entered.
+
+At once he gave a whoop, and another whoop, and a third. He snapped his
+fingers; cavorted through the steps of a wild dance that considerably
+alarmed the noble cat that watched him.
+
+For there was the Rose!
+
+
+
+II.
+
+When George had indulged his transports till he was calmer, he took a
+moment's swift thought to decide his action.
+
+Since someone was bouncing a spurious Rose on his uncle, he must delay,
+he decided, no longer--must dash in with the true Rose at once. Surely
+his uncle's delight would be sufficient to arouse in him the gratitude
+that would produce the sum necessary for Runnygate!
+
+Previously, when he had reflected upon the plan he should follow on
+restoring the cat, he had been a little alarmed at the difficulties
+he foresaw. Chief among them was the fact that his uncle, and the
+detective, and heaven knew who else besides, would require a plausible
+and circumstantial story of how the Rose had been found--might wish to
+prosecute the thief. How to invent this story had caused George enormous
+anxiety. He shuddered whenever he thought upon it; had steadily put it
+behind him till the matter must be faced.
+
+But this and all other difficulties he now sent flying. The relief of
+freedom from the badgering he had endured since he abducted the Rose;
+the enormous relief of finding that the Rose was not, after all, gone
+from the hut; the tearing excitement of the thought that he had his very
+fingers upon success--these combined to make him reckless of truth and
+blind to doubts. He relied upon his uncle's transports of delight on
+recovering the Rose--he felt that in the delirious excitement of that
+joy everything must go well and unquestioned with him who had brought it
+about. As to his Mary's scruples--time enough for them when the matter
+was done.
+
+This was George's feeling at the end of his rapid cogitation. A
+heartless chuckle he gave as he thought of Bill and Mr. Brunger at
+the inn, closely dogging the landlord; then he seized the cat and in a
+second was bounding through the copse to Herons' Holt as Mrs. Major, a
+short space ago, had bounded before him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Of Twin Cats: Of Ananias And Of Sapphira.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+The maid who opened the door told George that the master awaited him in
+the study.
+
+Nothing of George's excitement had left him during the rush down to the
+house. His right arm tucked about the cat he carried, with his left hand
+impulsively he pushed open the door; with a spring eagerly entered.
+
+Even as he stepped over the threshold the bubbling words that filled his
+mouth melted; did not shape. In the atmosphere of the apartment there
+was that sinister element of some unseen force which we detect by medium
+of the almost atrophied sense that in dogs we call instinct. As dogs
+will check and grow suspicious in the presence of death that they cannot
+see, but feel, so my George checked and was struck apprehensive by the
+sudden sensation of an invisible calamity.
+
+The quick glance he gave increased the sudden chill of his spirits.
+He saw Mr. Marrapit standing against the mantelshelf--dressing-gowned,
+hands behind back, face most intensely grim; his glance shifted and he
+froze, for it rested upon Mrs. Major--hidden by a table from the waist
+downwards, prim, bolt upright in a chair, face most intensely grim; his
+eyes passed her and now goggled in new bewilderment, for they took in
+his Mary--seated upon the extreme edge of the sofa, a white tooth upon
+lower lip, face most intensely woebegone.
+
+George stood perfectly still.
+
+Like the full, deep note of a huge bell, Mr. Marrapit's voice came
+booming through the fearful atmosphere.
+
+"Well?" boomed Mr. Marrapit.
+
+The cat beneath George's arm wriggled.
+
+Boom and wriggle touched George back to action from the fear into which
+the invisible something and the fearful panorama of faces had struck
+him.
+
+After all--let have happened what might have happened--he had the cat!
+
+He swung the creature round into his hands; outstretched it. He took a
+step forward. "Uncle!" he cried, "uncle, I have found the Rose!"
+
+"Hem!" said Mrs. Major on a short jerk.
+
+From Mary there came a violent double sniff.
+
+George stood perfectly still; the unseen horror he felt to be rushing
+upon him, but it remained invisible. With considerably less confidence
+he repeated:
+
+"The Rose, uncle."
+
+"Hem!" said Mrs. Major on a yet shorter jerk; from Mary a double sniff
+yet more violent.
+
+Mr. Marrapit raised a white hand.
+
+"Hark!" said Mr. Marrapit.
+
+Alarmed, his nerves unstrung, with straining ears George listened. The
+tense atmosphere made him ajump for outward sounds.
+
+"Hark!" boomed Mr. Marrapit; lowered the warning hand; at George
+directed a long finger. "Are you not afraid that you will hear upon the
+threshold the footsteps of the young men who will come in, wind you up,
+and carry you out?"
+
+"What on earth--?" George asked.
+
+Mr. Marrapit poked the extended finger towards him. "Ananias!" he
+boomed. He poked at my quivering Mary. "Sapphira!"
+
+"Hem!" said Mrs. Major. "Hem!"
+
+George recovered. "Is this a joke?" he asked. "I tell you--look for
+yourself--I have found the Rose."
+
+Mr. Marrapit stooped to Mrs. Major's lap, hidden by the table. With a
+most queenly creature in his arms he stood upright. "Here is the Rose,"
+said he.
+
+Instantly George forgot all that had immediately passed. Instantly
+he remembered that a bogus Rose was what he fully expected to see.
+Instantly fear fled. Instantly assurance returned.
+
+In a full and confident note, "Uncle," he said, "you have been
+deceived!"
+
+His words let loose a torrent upon him.
+
+Mr. Marrapit with one arm clasped to his breast the cat he had raised
+from Mrs. Major's lap. Alternately raising and lowering the other hand,
+his white hair seeming to stream, his eyes flashing, he took on, to
+George's eyes, the appearance of an enraged prophet bellowing over the
+cities of the Plain.
+
+"I _have_ been deceived!" he cried. "You are right. Though you have the
+forked tongue of an adder, yet you speak truly. I have been deceived.
+Woe is me for I have been most wickedly deceived by those who eat of my
+bread, who lie beneath my roof. I have cherished vipers in my bosom, and
+they have stung me. Bitterly have I been deceived."
+
+He paused. A low moan from Mrs. Major, handkerchief to eyes, voiced the
+effect of his speech upon her; in racking sniffs Mary's emotion found
+vent. But upon George the outburst had a cooling result--he was certain
+of his ground.
+
+He said solidly: "That's all rot."
+
+"Rot!" cried Mr. Marrapit.
+
+"Yes, rot. You work yourself up into such a state when you get like
+this, that you don't know what you're talking about--vipers and all that
+kind of thing. When you've calmed down and understand things, perhaps
+you'll be sorry. I tell you you've been deceived. That's not the Rose
+you've got hold of. This is the Rose. Someone has made a fool of you.
+Someone--"
+
+Between two violent sniffs, "Oh, George, don't, don't!" came from his
+Mary.
+
+Startled, George checked.
+
+"Monster, be careful," said Mr. Marrapit. "Beware how much deeper you
+enmire yourself in the morass of your evil. Put down that miserable
+creature you hold. I place Mrs. Major's Rose beside it. Look upon them."
+
+George looked. With staring eyes he gazed upon the two cats. With arched
+tails they advanced to exchange compliments, and the nearer they stood
+together the less Rose-like became the cat he had brought into the room.
+For the cat that Mr. Marrapit had produced--Mrs. Major's cat, as he
+called it--was the Rose herself; could be none other, and none other
+(when thus placed alongside) could be she.
+
+Struck unconscious to his surroundings by this appalling spectacle,
+George slowly stooped towards the cats as though hypnotised by the
+orange coats. His eyes goggled further from his head; the blood went
+thumping in his temples. He was aghast and horror-struck with the
+stupefaction that comes of effort to disbelieve the eyes. But he did
+disbelieve his eyes. How possibly trust them when from the Rose's very
+bed he had taken the Rose herself and held her till now when he produced
+her? He did disbelieve his eyes.
+
+He gave Mrs. Major's cat a careless pat. By an effort throwing a
+careless tone into his voice, "A very good imitation," he said. "Not at
+all unlike the Rose!"
+
+Mr. Marrapit became an alarming sight. He intook an enormous breath that
+swelled him dangerously. He opened his lips and the air rushed out with
+roaring sound. Again he inspired, raised his clenched hands above his
+head, stood like some great tottering image upon the brink of internal
+explosion.
+
+As upon a sudden thought, he checked the bursting words that threatened
+from his lips; allowed his pent-up breath to escape inarticulate; to his
+normal size and appearance shrank back when it was gone.
+
+With an air of ebbing doubt, "Not at all unlike?" he questioned.
+
+George replied briskly. He forced himself to take confidence, though
+every moment made yet more difficult the struggle to disbelieve what his
+eyes told him. "Not at all unlike," he affirmed. "Very similar, in fact.
+Yes, I should say very similar indeed."
+
+Still in the same tone of one who is being reluctantly convinced, Mr.
+Marrapit again played Echo's part: "Very similar indeed? You grant
+that?"
+
+"Certainly," George admitted frankly. "Certainly. I do not wonder you
+were mistaken."
+
+"Nor I," Mr. Marrapit smoothly replied. "Indeed, in Mrs. Major's cat I
+detect certain signs which my Rose has long borne but which she has no
+longer, if the cat you bring is she?"
+
+"Eh?" said George.
+
+"Certain signs," Mr. Marrapit repeated, with the smoothness of flowing
+oil, "which I recollect in my Rose. The mark, for example, where her
+left ear was abrased by Mr. Wyvern's blood-thirsty bull-terrier."
+
+George stooped to the cats. Pointing, he cried triumphantly: "Yes, and
+there is the mark!"
+
+"Yes," Mr. Marrapit pronounced mildly. "Yes, but you are now looking at
+Mrs. Major's cat."
+
+"Hem!" said Mrs. Major. "Hem!"
+
+Like one who has stepped upon hot iron George started back, stared
+aghast. A further "hem," with which a chuckle was mixed, came from Mrs.
+Major; from my collapsed Mary upon the edge of the sofa a sniff that was
+mingled groan and sob.
+
+George put a hand to his head. This young man's senses were ajostle and
+awhirl. Well he remembered that mark which by disastrous blunder he had
+indicated on Mrs. Major's cat; vainly he sought it on his own. Yet his
+was the Rose. Was this a nightmare, then, and no true thing? He put his
+hand to his head.
+
+"Looking at Mrs. Major's cat," repeated Mr. Marrapit, his tone smooth as
+the trickle of oil.
+
+George fought on. "Quite so. Quite so. I know that. That is what makes
+it so extraordinary--that this cat which you call Mrs. Major's and think
+is the Rose should have the very mark that our Rose had."
+
+"But our Rose has not--if that is she."
+
+"Ah! not now," George said impressively. "Not now. It healed. Healed
+months ago. Don't you remember my saying one morning, 'The Rose's ear is
+quite healed now'?"
+
+"I do not, sir," snapped Mr. Marrapit, with alarming sharpness.
+
+"Oh!" said George. "Oh!"
+
+"Hem!" fired Mrs. Major. "Hem! Hem!"
+
+"That tail," spoke Mr. Marrapit, a sinister hardness now behind the
+oiliness. "Mark those tails."
+
+George marked. To this young man's disordered mind the room took on the
+appearance of a forest of waving tails.
+
+"Well?" rapped Mr. Marrapit. "You note those tails? Mrs. Major's cat has
+a verdant tail, a bush-like tail. Yours has a rat tail. Do you recollect
+my pride in the luxuriousness of the Rose's tail?"
+
+George blundered along the path he had chosen. "Formerly," he said, "not
+latterly. Latterly, if you remember, there was a remarkable falling off
+in the Rose's tail. Her tail moulted. It shed hairs. I remember worrying
+over it. I remember--"
+
+A voice from the sofa froze him. "Oh, George, don't, don't!" moaned his
+Mary.
+
+Recovering his horror, he turned stiffly upon her. "If you mean me, Miss
+Humfray, you forget yourself. I do not understand you. Kindly recollect
+that I have another name."
+
+The hideous frown he bent upon his Mary might well have advertised
+the sincerity of his rebuke. He faced Mr. Marrapit, blundered on. "I
+remember noticing how thin the Rose's tail was getting." He gathered
+confidence, pushed ahead. "You have forgotten those little points, sir.
+Upset by your loss you have jumped at the first cat like the Rose that
+you have seen." He took new courage, became impressive. "You are making
+a fearful mistake, sir--an awful mistake. A mistake at which you will
+shudder when you look back--"
+
+"Incredible!"
+
+Mr. Marrapit, swelling as a few moments earlier he had swollen, this
+time burst to speech. He raised his clenched fists; in immense volume of
+sound exploded. "Incredible!"
+
+George misinterpreted; was shaken, but hurried on. "It is. I admit it.
+It is an incredible likeness. But look again, sir."
+
+Mr. Marrapit gave instead a confused scream.
+
+Alarmed, George made as if to plunge on with further protests. "George!
+George!" from his Mary checked him. Furious, he turned upon her; and in
+that moment Mr. Marrapit, recovering words, turned to Mrs. Major.
+
+"As you have restored my treasure to my house, Mrs. Major, so now
+silence this iniquitous man by telling him what you have told me. I
+implore speed. Silence him. Utterly confound him. Stop him from further
+perjury before an outraged Creator rains thunderbolts upon this roof."
+
+With a telling "Hem!" the masterly woman cleared for action. "I will,
+Mr. Marrapit," she bowed. She murmured "Rosie, Rosie, ickle Rosie!" The
+cat Mr. Marrapit had lifted from her lap sprang back to that enticing
+cushion.
+
+Gently stroking its queenly back, to the soft accompaniment of its
+majestic purr, in acid-tipped accents she began to speak.
+
+She pointed at the cat that now sat at George's crime-steeped boots.
+"When I was out this morning I found that cat in a little copse on the
+Shipley Road. At first I thought it was our darling Rose. Suddenly I
+heard voices. I did not wish to be seen, because, dear Mr. Marrapit, if
+it was the Rose I had found, I wanted to bring it to you alone--to be
+the first to make you happy. So I slipped into a disused hut that stands
+there. Footsteps approached the door and I went into an inner room."
+
+Mrs. Major paused; shot a stabbing smile at George.
+
+And now my miserable George realised. Now, visible at last, there rushed
+upon him, grappled him, strangled him, the sinister something whose
+presence he had scented on entering the apartment. No sound came from
+this stricken man. He could not speak, nor move, nor think. Rooted he
+remained; dully gazed at the thin lips whence poured the flood that
+engulfed and that was utterly to wreck him.
+
+The masterly woman continued. She indicated the rooted figure in the
+middle of the room, the collapsed heap upon the sofa's edge. "Those two
+entered. He had a basket. Oh, what were my feelings when out of it he
+took our darling Rose!"
+
+For the space of two minutes the masterly woman advertised the emotions
+she had suffered by burying her face in the Rose's coat; rocking gently.
+
+Emerging, she gulped her agitation; proceeded. "I need not repeat again
+all the dreadful story I heard, Mr. Marrapit? Surely I need not?"
+
+"You need not," Mr. Marrapit told her. "You need not."
+
+With a masterly half-smile, expressive of gratitude through great
+suffering, Mrs. Major thanked him. "Indeed," she went on, "I did not
+hear the whole of it. It was so dreadful, I was so horrified, that I
+think I fainted. Yes, I fainted. But I heard them discuss how he had
+stolen the Rose so they might marry on the reward when it was big
+enough. He had kept the darling till then; now it was her turn to take
+charge of it--"
+
+Mrs. Major ceased with a jerk, drew in her legs preparatory to flight.
+
+For the rooted figure had sprung alarmingly to life. George would not
+have his darling Mary blackened. He took a stride to Mrs. Major; his
+pose threatened her. "That's untrue!" he thundered.
+
+"Ho!" exclaimed Mrs. Major. "Ho! A liar to my face! Ho!"
+
+"And you are a liar," George stormed, "when you say--"
+
+"Silence!" commanded Mr. Marrapit. "Do not anger heaven yet further. Can
+you still deny--?"
+
+"No!" George said very loudly. "No! No! I deny nothing. But that woman's
+a liar when she says Miss Humfray discussed the business with me, or
+that it was Miss Humfray's turn to take the damned cat. Miss Humfray
+knew nothing about it till I told her. When she heard she said it was
+wrong and tried to make me take the cat back to you."
+
+In his wrath George had advanced close to Mrs. Major. He stretched a
+violent finger to an inch from her nose. "That's true, isn't it? Have
+the grace to admit that."
+
+Indomitable of purpose, the masterly woman pressed back her head as far
+as the chair would allow, tightened her lips.
+
+The violent finger followed. "Say it's true!" George boiled.
+
+His Mary implored: "Oh, George, don't, don't!"
+
+The furious young man flamed on to her. "Be quiet!"
+
+Mr. Marrapit began a sound. The furious young man flamed to him: "You be
+quiet, too!" He thrust the dreadful finger at Mrs. Major. "Now speak the
+truth. Had Miss Humfray anything to do with it?"
+
+This tremendous George had temporary command of the room. The masterly
+woman for once quailed. "I didn't hear that part," she said.
+
+George drew in the fearful finger. "That's as good as the truth--from
+you." He rounded upon Mr. Marrapit. "You understand that. This has been
+my show."
+
+"A blackguard show," pronounced Mr. Marrapit. "A monstrous and an
+impious show. A--"
+
+"I don't want to hear that. Whatever it is you are the cause of it. If
+you had done your duty with my mother's money--"
+
+A figure passed the open French windows along the path. Mr. Marrapit
+shouted "Fletcher!" The gardener entered.
+
+"But you've betrayed your trust," George shouted. He liked the fine
+phrase and repeated it. "You've betrayed your trust!"
+
+Mr. Marrapit assumed his most collected air. "Silence. Silence, man of
+sin. Leave the house. Return thanks where thanks are due if I do not
+hound the law upon you. Take that girl. That miserable cat take. Hence!"
+
+Mary got to her feet, put a hand on her George's arm. "Do come, dear."
+
+The wild young man shook her off. "I'll go when it pleases me!" he
+shouted at Mr. Marrapit.
+
+"You shall be arrested," Mr. Marrapit returned. He addressed Mary.
+"Place that cat in that basket Carry it away."
+
+George stood, heaving, panting, boiling for effective words, while
+his Mary did as bade. Awful visions of her George, fettered between
+policemen, trembled her pretty fingers. At last she had the basket
+strapped, raised it.
+
+"Come, George," she said; and to Mr. Marrapit, "I'm so sorry, Mr.
+Marrapit. I--"
+
+It gave her furious George a vent. "Sorry! What are you sorry about?
+What have you done?" He roared over to Mrs. Major: "What other lies have
+you been telling?" He lashed himself at Mr. Marrapit. "Set the law on
+me? I jolly well hope you will. It will all come out then how you've
+behaved--how you've treated me. How you've betrayed--"
+
+"Fletcher," Mr. Marrapit interrupted, "remove that man. Take him out.
+Thrust him from the house."
+
+"Me?" said Mr. Fletcher. "Me thrust him? I'm a gardener, I am; not a--"
+
+"Duty or dismissal," pronounced Mr. Marrapit. "Take choice." He turned
+to the window. "Come, Mrs. Major."
+
+George dashed for him. "You're not going till I've done with you!"
+
+Violence was in his tone, passion in his face.
+
+Alarmed, "Beware how you touch me!" called Mr. Marrapit; caught Mr.
+Fletcher, thrust him forward. "Grapple him!" cried Mr. Marrapit.
+
+Mr. Fletcher was violently impelled against George; to save a fall
+clutched him. "Don't make a scene, Mr. George," he implored.
+
+George pushed him away. Mr. Fletcher trod back heavily upon Mr.
+Marrapit's foot. Mr. Marrapit screamed shrilly, plunged backwards into a
+cabinet, overturned it, sat heavily upon its debris.
+
+A laugh overcame George's fury. He swung on his heel; called "Come" to
+his Mary; stalked from the house.
+
+As they passed through the gate, "Oh, Georgie!" his Mary breathed. "Oh,
+Georgie!"
+
+He raged on to her: "What on earth made you say you were sorry? You've
+no spirit, Mary! No spirit!"
+
+The tremendous young man stalked ahead with huge strides.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In deep melancholy, sore beneath the correction Mr. Marrapit had heaped
+upon him, Mr. Fletcher wandered from the study; turned as he reached the
+path. "Me grapple him!" said Mr. Fletcher. "Me a craven! Me thrust
+him from the house! It's 'ard--damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a
+Ju-jitsu."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Agony In Meath Street.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Silent, gloom-ridden, my sniffing Mary, my black-browed George laboured
+to the station. Silent they sat upon a bench waiting the London train.
+
+George bought his Mary a piece of chocolate from the automatic machine;
+she was a forlorn picture as with tiny nibbles she ate it, tears in her
+pretty eyes. In the restaurant George bought himself a huge cigar. This
+man was a desperate spectacle as with huge puffs he smoked, hands deep
+in pockets, legs thrust straight, brows horribly knitted.
+
+They had no words.
+
+The train came in. George found an empty compartment; helped his poor
+Mary to a corner; roughly dumped the cat-basket upon the rack; moodily
+plumped opposite his Mary.
+
+They had no words.
+
+It was as the train moved from the third stop that Mary, putting a giant
+sniff upon her emotions, asked her George: "Wher--where are we going,
+dear?"
+
+It was not until the fifth stop that George made answer. "Those
+Battersea digs," he told her.
+
+They had no words.
+
+At Queen's Road station gloomily they alighted; silently laboured to the
+house of Mrs. Pinking.
+
+George answered her surprise. "Miss Humfray will have these rooms again,
+Mrs. Pinking, if you will be so kind; and I--" He checked. "Could you
+let us have some tea, Mrs. Pinking? Afterwards I'll have a talk with
+you. We've got into a--We're very tired. If you could just let us have
+some tea, then I'll explain."
+
+In silence they ate and drank. George was half turned from the table,
+gloomily gazing from the window. Tiny sniffs came from his Mary; he had
+no words for her; looked away.
+
+But presently there was a most dreadful choking sound. He sprang
+around. Most painfully his Mary was spluttering over a cup of tea. With
+trembling hands she put down the cup; her face was red, convulsively
+working.
+
+George half rose to her. "Don't cry, darling Mary-kins. Don't cry."
+
+She set down the cup; swallowed; gasped, "I'm not crying--I'm
+la-laughing," and into a pipe of gayest mirth she went.
+
+Gloom gathered its sackcloth skirts; scuttled from the room.
+
+George roared with laughter; rocked and roared again. When he could
+get a catch upon his mirth there was the clear pipe of his Mary's glee,
+clear, compelling, setting him off again. When she would gasp for breath
+there was her dear George, head in those brown hands, shaking with
+tremendous laughter--and she must start again.
+
+She gasped: "George! If you could have seen yourself standing there
+telling those awful stories--!"
+
+He gasped: "When I mistook the cats--!"
+
+She gasped: "Mr. Marrapit's face--!"
+
+He gasped: "Mrs. Major's--!"
+
+The exhaustion of their mirth gave them pause at last. George wiped his
+running eyes; Mary tremendously blew her little nose, patted her gold
+hair where it eagerly straggled.
+
+"I feel better after that," George said.
+
+She told him, "So do I--heaps. It's no good being miserable over what is
+past, is it, dear?"
+
+"Not a bit; not the slightest. Come and sit on the sofa and let's see
+where we are." She put that golden head upon his manly shoulder; he
+fetched his right arm about her; she nursed her hands upon the brown
+fist that came into her lap; that other brown hand he set upon the
+three.
+
+Together they viewed their prospects--gloomy pictures.
+
+"But we're fairly in the cart," George summed up. "We are, you know."
+
+His ridiculous Mary gave him that lovers' ridiculous specific. "We've
+got each other," she told him, snuggling to him.
+
+George kissed her. He fumbled in his pockets. "I've got just about three
+pounds--over from what Marrapit gave me for the clue-hunting. I say,
+Mary, it's pretty awful."
+
+She snuggled the closer.
+
+Early evening, tip-toeing through the window, was drawing her dusky
+hangings about the room when at length George withdrew the brown hands;
+stirred.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Upon a little sigh Mary let go the string that held the dreams she had
+been dreaming. Like a great gay bundle of many-coloured toy balloons
+suddenly released, they soared away. She came to the desperate present;
+noted her George filling his pipe.
+
+He got upon his legs; paced the floor, puffing.
+
+It was his characteristic pose when he was most tremendous. She watched
+this tremendous fellow adoringly.
+
+He told her: "I've settled it all, Marykins. I've fixed it all up. We'll
+pull through right as rain." He caught the admiring glance in his Mary's
+eye; inhaled and gusted forth a huge breath of smoke; repeated the fine
+sentence. "We'll pull through right as rain."
+
+"Dear George!" she softly applauded.
+
+He pushed ahead. "There's this locum tenens I was going to take up in
+the North. I haven't offed that yet--haven't refused it, I mean. Well,
+I shall take it. The screw's pretty rotten, but up in the North--in the
+North, you know--well, it's not like London. It's cheap--frightfully
+cheap. You can live on next to nothing--"
+
+She pushed out the irritating, practical, womanish side of her. "_Can_
+you? How do you _know_, Georgie?"
+
+We men hate these pokes at our knowledge; women will not understand
+generalisations. George jerked back: "How do I _know_? Oh, don't
+interrupt like that, Mary. Everybody knows that living is cheap in the
+North--in the _North_."
+
+"Of course," she excused herself. "Of course, dear, I see."
+
+"Well, where was I? Frightfully cheap, so the screw won't matter. I'll
+take the job, dearest. I'll take it for next month. And--listen--we'll
+marry and go up there together and live in some ripping little rooms.
+There!"
+
+She was flaming pink; could only breathe: "Georgie, _dear!_"
+
+He stopped his pacing to give her a squeezing hug, a kiss upon the
+top of the gold hair. Then he went through the steps of a wild dance.
+"Marry!" he cried. "Marry, old girl, and let everybody go hang! We'll
+have to work it through a registrar. I'm not quite sure how it's done,
+but I'll find out tomorrow. I know you both have to have been resident
+in the place for a week or so--I'll fix all that. Then we'll peg along
+up in the North; and we'll look out for whatever turns up, and we'll
+save, and in time we'll buy a practice just like Runnygate."
+
+Now he sat beside his Mary again; with a tremendous brush painted in
+more details of this entrancing picture. Every doubt, every difficulty
+he threw to tomorrow--that glad sea in which youth casts its every
+trouble. Was he sure he still had the refusal of this locum?--rather!
+but he would make certain, tomorrow. Was he sure they both could live
+upon the salary?-rather! he would prove it to-morrow. Could they really
+get married at a registrar's within a few days?-rather! he'd fix that up
+to-morrow. As to the money necessary for the marriage, necessary to tide
+over the days till the locum was taken up, why, he knew he could borrow
+that--from the Dean or from Professor Wyvern--to-morrow.
+
+They were upon the very crest and flood of their delight when George
+noted the gathering dusk.
+
+"I say, it's getting late!" he exclaimed. "I must fix it up with Mrs.
+Pinking. We've made no arrangement with her yet."
+
+Mary agreed: "Yes, dear." She went on, pretty eyes shining, face aglow:
+"Oh, Georgie, think of the last time you brought me here! I had nothing
+to expect but going out to work again; and you weren't qualified. And
+now--now, although we've lost our little Runnygate home" (she could not
+stop a tiny sigh), "we're actually going to be married in a few days!
+Georgie, I shan't sleep for hoping everything will turn out all right
+to-morrow."
+
+"It will," George told her. "It will. Right as rain, old girl."
+
+Her great sigh of contentment advertised the drink she took of that
+sparkling future. "Think of us being together always in a week or
+so--belonging! Where will you stay till then? Quite close. Get a room
+quite close, Georgie?"
+
+He stared at her. "Why, you old goose, I'm not going."
+
+She echoed him: "Not going?"
+
+"Of course not. I'm going to get a bedroom here, and we'll have all our
+meals and everything in here. We're not going to part again, Marykins.
+Not much!"
+
+That maddening handicap beneath which the sweetest women trudge shackled
+Mary, deluged this joy.
+
+"Oh, Georgie!" she said; and again trembled, "Oh, Georgie!"
+
+My impulsive George scented the damp. "Well?" he asked. "Well?
+Whatever's--?"
+
+"Oh, Georgie, you can't have a room here. We can't have all our meals
+together here?"
+
+He realised the trouble. He broke out: "Why ever not? Why ever--?"
+
+"It wouldn't be _right_! Georgie, it _wouldn't_ be right!"
+
+Her impulsive George choked for words. "Not right! 'Pon my soul, Mary, I
+simply don't understand you sometimes. Not _right! Why_ isn't it right?"
+
+It was so difficult to tell. "You don't understand, dear--"
+
+"No, I'm damned if I do. I'm sorry, Mary, but you are so funny, you
+women. It's so exasperating after the--the devil of a day I've had. Just
+when I've fixed up everything you turn round and"--he threw out an angry
+hand--"_Why_ isn't it right?"
+
+This poor little Mary clung to her little principles. "Don't you see?
+we're engaged, dear; and being engaged, we oughtn't to live alone like
+this. People would--"
+
+He began to rave. Certainly he had had a devil of a day; and this was a
+maddening buffet.
+
+"People!" he cried. "People! People! You're always thinking of people,
+you women! Who's to know? Who on earth's to know?"
+
+The instinct of generations of training gave her the instinctive reply
+in the instinctive sweet little tone: "We should know, Georgie," she
+said.
+
+He flung up his arms: "Oh, good God!"
+
+He swallowed his boiling irritation; laughed 'spite himself; went to
+his Mary. "Mary, don't be such an utter, utter goose. It's too, too
+ridiculous."
+
+She took his kiss; but she held her stupid little ground.
+
+"It wouldn't be right, Georgie, _really_!"
+
+Her George clanged the bell with a furious stroke that brought Mrs.
+Pinking in panic up the stairs. Holding himself very straight, speaking
+in sentences short and hard, paying to his Mary no smallest attention,
+he made the arrangements. Miss Humfray would take on her bedroom again.
+By the week. If Mrs. Pinking would be so kind as to allow them the same
+terms. He thanked her. That was settled, then. He would look in in the
+morning. He would say good night, Mrs. Pinking.
+
+Mrs. Pinking gave him good night; busied herself with the tea-things.
+
+Her presence enabled this brutal George to preserve his stony bearing;
+denied his pretty Mary opportunity to melt him with her tears.
+
+Hard as flint, "Well, good night," he said to her. "I'll look in
+to-morrow morning."
+
+Upon a little sniff, "Good night," she whispered; strangled an "Oh,
+George! George!"
+
+She followed him to the door. He was down the stairs before she could
+command her voice for: "Where shall you go, George?"
+
+With the reckless fury of one who sets forth to plunge into the river,
+he called back, "I? I? Oh, _anywhere--anywhere_. Who cares where _I_
+go?"
+
+The hall door slammed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Late into that night while a young woman sobbed her pretty eyes out upon
+a pillow in a back room of Meath Street, Battersea, a young man, who
+furiously had been pacing London, paced and repaced the street from end
+to end, gazing the windows of the house where she lay. This young man
+muttered, gesticulated, groaned. "Oh, damn!" was his song. "Oh, Mary!
+Oh, what a cursed brute I am!"
+
+It was a bitter ending to a fearful day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+Mr. William Wyvern In Meath Street.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+George spent the night--such of it as remained after his bitter moanings
+outside his Mary's lodging--with the Mr. Franklyn who had accompanied
+him on that little "stroll up west" that had terminated in the cab
+adventure nearly three months before. Of all his student friends who
+would give him a bed, Mr. Franklyn, because in a way associated with
+his Mary, had come most prominently into his mind. That same association
+gave him a lead from which to pour out his reply to Mr. Franklyn's
+rallying, as they sat at supper, upon his gloom.
+
+"You remember that day after the July exam, when we went up west
+together?" he began.
+
+Mr. Franklyn remembered; in some gloom shook his head over the
+recollection. "That waitress you left me with in the shop," said Mr.
+Franklyn sadly, "she--"
+
+"Oh, hang the waitress! Listen, Franklyn, After I left you I turned
+up past the Marble Arch--" He proceeded with some account of the love
+between him and his Mary; skipped all details relating to the cat; came
+to the impending marriage; sought advice upon the prospects of a man
+marrying on a locum's earnings.
+
+Mr. Franklyn listened with great sympathy. "It's a rum thing you should
+be placed like that, George," he said. "I'm in just the same position."
+
+George exclaimed eagerly--in love, youth warms to a companion--"You
+are!"
+
+"Well, not exactly," Mr. Franklyn admitted. "Very nearly. I've got
+myself into a brute of a fix over a girl in the lager-beer garden at
+Earl's Court. She--"
+
+George bounced from the table, seized his hat. "Who cares a damn about
+your lager-beer girls?" he shouted; slammed from the house.
+
+It was then, while Mr. Franklyn laboriously indited a letter in reply to
+one received from the lager-beer girl's mother, that George paced Meath
+Street.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+At breakfast with Mr. Franklyn upon the following morning, he was in
+brighter trim--apologised for his over-night abruptness; apologised for
+the hasty meal he was making; announced that he was off to see his Mary.
+
+As he lit his pipe, "I'll see you at hospital this morning some time,
+old chap," he said. "I shall dash in to fix up with the Dean about
+taking Bingham's place in that practice up in Yorkshire."
+
+Mr. Franklyn prodded for another slice of bacon. "You can't, old chap,"
+he remarked. "That's filled."
+
+George shouted: "Filled! What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, taken--gone. Simpson's got it--ten days ago."
+
+An icy chill smote my poor George. After the dreadful loss of
+Runnygate everything had depended upon this appointment with its salary
+considerably above the average.
+
+"Simpson! Simmy got it!" he shouted. "What the blazes does Simmy mean by
+taking it? He knew I was after it."
+
+"My good lad, you never came near the place after you'd qualified. If
+Simmy hadn't taken it someone else would. Bingham was in a hurry."
+
+Blankly George stared before him. At length, "I suppose there are
+several other jobs going?" he asked.
+
+"None on the Dean's list," said Mr. Franklyn. "I was looking at it last
+night."
+
+Beneath this new distress George postponed the burning desire to clasp
+his Mary in his arms and beg forgiveness. He hurried to hospital; made
+for the Dean's office. Here disaster was confirmed. Simpson had already
+taken the Yorkshire place; the Dean had no other posts on his lists.
+"Only this Runnygate practice," he said. "I haven't seen you since you
+qualified. Can you raise the price?"
+
+George, rising and making for the door, could only shake his head. There
+was something at his throat that forbade speech. Runnygate and all that
+Runnygate meant--the dear little home, the tight little practice, the
+tremendous future--was a bitter picture now that it was so utterly lost;
+now that even this place in Yorkshire was also gone.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Great pity!" the Dean told him. "I've kept it for you. Lawrence, the
+man who's leaving it, is coming to see me at five this evening. I shall
+have to help him find another purchaser."
+
+
+
+III.
+
+The infernal something in George's throat gripped the harder as he took
+his way to his Mary. He cursed himself for that hideous cat enterprise.
+Had he never undertaken it, had he continued instead to entreat and
+implore, there was always the chance that his uncle would have relented
+and advanced the money sufficient for Runnygate.
+
+As things were, he stood for ever damned in his uncle's eyes; further,
+by his folly he had encompassed his darling Mary's ejection from a home
+where she might comfortably have stayed till he was in position to marry
+her; further, he had just missed the assistantship which, to his present
+frame of mind, seemed the sole post in the world that would give him
+sufficient upon which to call his Mary wife.
+
+The desperate thoughts augmented his fearful remorse at his treatment
+of her overnight. Arrived at Meath Street, admitted by Mrs. Pinking, he
+bounded up the stairs, tremendous in his agony of love.
+
+His Mary had her pretty nose pressed flat against the window. With dim
+eyes she had been gazing for her George in the opposite direction from
+that he had approached.
+
+He closed the door behind him.
+
+"Mary!" he called, arms outstretched.
+
+Into them she flung herself.
+
+They locked in a hug so desperate as only love itself could have borne.
+
+He poured out his remorse; beside him on the sofa she patted those brown
+hands. He told his gloomy tale; she patted the more lovingly--assured
+him that, if the Yorkshire place had failed, something equally good
+would turn up.
+
+But he was in desperate despondency. "It's all that infernal cat, Mary,"
+he groaned; she kissed that knotted forehead.
+
+He asked her: "By the way, where's that other brute?--the beast we
+brought here with us?"
+
+She peered low. "I've just fed the poor thing."
+
+Attracted by her movement, that orange cat which had wrought the fearful
+disaster came forth from beneath the table.
+
+"G-r-r-r!" George growled; stamped his foot.
+
+The orange cat again took shelter.
+
+"Ah, don't frighten it, dear," Mary told him. "It's done no harm."
+
+George rose. He was too tremendously moved to contain himself while
+seated. "Done no harm!" he cried. He took a step to the window. "Done
+no--" He stopped short. "Oh, Lord! I say, Mary! Oh, Lord! here's Bill!"
+
+Mary fluttered to his side; saw Bill Wyvern disappear beneath the porch
+of the door.
+
+A knock; shuffling in the passage; footsteps up the stairs.
+
+"By Gad! I'd forgotten all about old Bill," George said.
+
+Then Bill entered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Abishag The Shunamite In Meath Street.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+The most tremendous crises between man and man commonly begin with
+exchange of the customary banalities. Charlotte Corday gave Marat
+_"Bonsoir, citoyen,"_ ere she drove her knife. This was no cloak to hide
+her purpose. We are so much creatures of convention that the man who
+sets out, hell in breast, to avenge himself upon another, cannot forbear
+to give him greeting before ever he comes upon the matter between them.
+
+George, involuntarily straightening his back as he remembered how
+desperately he had hoodwinked this Bill, had upon a fool's errand packed
+him to that inn, as involuntarily passed him the customary words.
+
+"Hullo, Bill!" he said. "How on earth did you know I was here?"
+
+He awaited the burst of reproach; the torrent of fury.
+
+These did not come. About Bill's mouth, as from George to Mary he
+glanced, there were the lines of amusement; no menace lay in his clear
+blue eyes.
+
+"Went to look for you at the hospital," Bill replied. "Met that man
+Franklyn, and he told me you very probably were here."
+
+George pushed ahead with the banalities. "Surprised to see Miss
+Humfray here?" he asked. "You met her, of course, at my uncle's
+while--while"--this was dangerous ground, and he hurried over it--"while
+I was away," he said quickly; blew his nose.
+
+Bill told him: "Yes. Not a bit surprised." The creases of amusement
+became more evident. He shook Mary's hand.
+
+"Ah!" George said. "Um! Quite so. Sit down, Bill."
+
+They took seats. Constraint was upon these people; each sat upon the
+extreme edge of the chair selected.
+
+After a pause, "You've been to Herons' Holt, then?" George remarked.
+
+"Yesterday. Yesterday night."
+
+"Ah! Yesterday. Thursday, so to speak. Um! Margaret quite well?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+The deadly pause came on again. Mary looked appealing to her George.
+George, his right boot in a patch of sunlight, earnestly was watching it
+as, twisting it this way and that, the polish caught the rays.
+
+It lay with herself to make a thrust through this fearful silence. Upon
+a timid little squeak she shot out: "Mr. Marrapit quite well?"
+
+"Quite," Bill told her. "Quite. A little bit--" He checked; again the
+silence fell.
+
+Mary no longer could endure it. Impulsively leaning forward, arms
+outstretched, hands clasped, "Oh, Mr. Wyvern!" she cried. "You're _not_
+angry with George, _are_ you? He _couldn't_ help sending you to that
+inn, _could_ he?"
+
+Constraint fled. "Of course I'm not," Bill declared. "Not a bit. I've
+come here to congratulate you both. I--"
+
+George sprang forward; grasped Bill's hand. "Good old buck!" he cried.
+"Good old Bill! I'm awfully sorry, Bill. You're a stunner, Bill. Isn't
+he a stunner, Mary?"
+
+"He _is_ a stunner," Mary agreed.
+
+The stunner, red beneath this praise, warmly returned George's grip.
+When they released, "I say, George, you _are_ an ass, you know," he
+said. "Why on earth didn't you tell me what you were up to?"
+
+"You weren't there, old man, when it began. You were in London. How on
+earth was I to know your paper would come plunging into the business?"
+The memory of the pains that paper had caused him swept all else from
+George's mind. Indignation seized him. "It was a scandalous bit of work,
+Bill. 'Pon my soul it's simply shameful that a newspaper can go and
+interfere in a purely private matter like that. Yes, it is, Mary. Don't
+you interrupt. Bill understands. I don't blame you, Bill; you were doing
+your duty. I blame the editor. What did he want to push into it for? I
+tell you that paper drove me up and down the country till I was pretty
+well dead. It's all very well for you to grin, Bill."
+
+"I'm not grinning."
+
+"You are grinning." George threw a bitter note into his declamations.
+"Of course, you can afford to grin. What was agony to me was hot
+stuff for you. I expect you've made your reputation over this show.
+Everything's turned out all right for you--"
+
+Bill took that bitter note. "Rather!" he broke in. "Rather! I pulled it
+off, didn't I? I found the rotten cat, didn't I? I wasn't made a fool of
+for two days in a country inn, was I? I've not got the sack all through
+you, have I?"
+
+George instantly forgot his personal sorrows. "Oh, I say, Bill, you
+haven't, have you?"
+
+Bill, not expecting the interruption, confessed a little lamely: "No,
+I haven't. I _haven't_--as it turns out. But I might have--if it wasn't
+for--" He paused a moment; sadly said, "Anyway, just as I thought I'd
+got her, I've lost Margaret again."
+
+In those fierce days when her Bill was the Daily Special Commissioner,
+Margaret had confided in Mary the promise Mr. Marrapit had made should
+Bill find the cat. Now Mary was filled with sympathy. "Oh, Mr. Wyvern!"
+she cried, "I _am_ sorry! What has happened? How do you know? Do tell us
+everything of when you went to Herons' Holt last night."
+
+Bill took a chair. He said gloomily: "There's not much to tell. I felt
+I couldn't wait at that infernal inn any longer, so I left the detective
+in charge, went to the inn where we'd found George, didn't see him, and
+came back to Herons' Holt. I saw old Marrapit for about two minutes in
+the hall. He foamed at me all about George, foamed out that I was one of
+George's friends, and foamed me out of the door before I could get in a
+word. Said I never was to come near the place again. I asked him about
+Margaret, and he had a kind of fit--a kind of fit."
+
+George said softly: "I know what you mean, old man."
+
+"A kind of fit," Bill gloomily repeated. Then he struck one clenched
+fist into the palm of the other hand. "And hang it!" he cried, "I've won
+her! According to the bargain old Marrapit made with me, I've won her.
+If it had not been for me you wouldn't have taken the cat to that hut
+in the wood, and if you hadn't taken it there Marrapit wouldn't have it
+_now_. It's through me he got it, isn't it?"
+
+"Bill," George told him, "it is. You rotted my show all right. No
+mistake about that."
+
+It was a fearful situation as between these two young men. In silence,
+in gloom, they gazed each upon the ground.
+
+Bill took a glance at George's face; turned hurriedly from the despair
+there stamped; set his eyes upon my pretty Mary. He gave a sigh.
+
+"But, George, old man, you've come out of it the better," he said.
+"You've lost the money you wanted, but you've got your--you've got Miss
+Humfray. I've lost my--I've lost Margaret."
+
+In great melancholy George rose; crossed to his Mary; sat upon the arm
+of her chair; caressed her pretty shoulders.
+
+"You don't know what you're talking about, Bill. Bill, we're in a most
+fearful hole. We haven't got a sou, and I've got no work. You're doing
+well. You're making money. You're bound to get Margaret in time. As for
+us--"
+
+Bill was deeply stirred. "I say, I am sorry," he told them. He sat up
+very straight. "Look here, don't get down on your luck. Come out and
+have lunch with me and tell me just how you're fixed. If a small loan
+will do you any good I'm certain my guv'nor will stand it. He likes
+you awfully, George. Come on. I shan't see you again otherwise for some
+time. I'm off on another Special Commissioner job for the _Daily_, you
+know."
+
+George gave a slight shudder. "Oh? Thank goodness, I'm not the object of
+it this time. What is it?"
+
+"What is it? Why, you've seen the _Daily_ this morning, haven't you?"
+
+"I'll never open the infernal thing again."
+
+Bill did not heed the aspersion. "It's really rather funny, you know,"
+he went on. "Look here." He tugged at his pocket; produced a _Daily_.
+
+A pencil dislodged by the paper fell to the ground; rolled beneath the
+table.
+
+Bill stooped after it. The cat that lay there, disturbed, walked
+forth--arching its proud orange back.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+With eyes that goggled tremendously Bill stared at it; with a finger
+that shook he pointed at it; turned his head to George. "George," he
+asked, "whose cat is that?"
+
+George looked at Mary; gave a bitter little laugh. "I suppose it's
+ours," he replied. "Eh, Mary?"
+
+A sad little smile his Mary gave, "I suppose it is," she agreed.
+
+From one to the other Bill looked, suspicion in those goggling eyes.
+
+"You _suppose_ it is?" he emphasised. Again he swiftly looked from
+George to Mary; again stared at the splendid orange form. "George," he
+said sharply--"George, what is that cat's name?"
+
+George regarded him with a whimsical smile. "Bill, you old duffer, you
+don't think it's the Rose, do you?"
+
+Yet more sharply than before Bill spoke. "George, is that cat's name
+Abishag?"
+
+"_Abishag?_ What an awful--"
+
+Bill turned from him with an impatient gesture. He called to the cat,
+"Abishag! Abishag!"
+
+With upreared tail the fine creature trotted to him.
+
+"Good Lord!" George broke out. "Is that _your_ cat, Bill?"
+
+Bill turned upon him. "_My_ cat! You know thundering well it's not my
+cat."
+
+"But it knows you, Mr. Wyvern," Mary told him wonderingly.
+
+There was sorrow, a look of pity in this young man's eyes as
+reproachfully he regarded my Mary.
+
+He swung round upon George. "George, you've made a fool of me once--"
+
+"I don't know what on earth's the matter with you," George told him.
+
+With knitted brows Bill for a moment searched his face. "I ask you
+point-blank," he said slowly. "Did you steal this cat, George?"
+
+George struck the stern young man upon the back. "Is _that_ what you're
+driving at, you old ass? Stole it! D'you suppose I'll ever _touch_ a
+cat again? That's the infernal cat Mrs. Major left in that hut when she
+hooked off the Rose. Marrapit told you, didn't he?"
+
+Into a chair Bill collapsed--legs thrust straight before him, head
+against the cushioned back. He gasped. "George, this is a licker, a
+fair licker." Enormously this staggered man swelled as he inhaled a
+tremendous breath; upon a vast sigh he let it go. "That cat--" he said.
+He got to his legs and paced the room; astonished, Mary and George
+regarded him. "That cat--I'll bet my life that's the cat!"
+
+
+
+III.
+
+My Mary was trembling before this fearful agitation. For support she
+took her George's hand. "Oh, Mr. Wyvern!" she cried, "whatever is
+it? Have we got into another awful trouble through those dreadful,
+_dreadful_ cats?"
+
+"Look at the _Daily_," Bill said. "Look at the _Daily_. George, give me
+a cigarette. I must smoke. This is an absolute licker."
+
+My frightened Mary jumped for the paper where it had fallen; spread
+it upon the table; opened it. "Oh, George!" she cried. "Oh, George!";
+pressed a pretty finger upon these flaming words:
+
+  ANOTHER CAT OUTRAGE.
+
+  AMAZING STORY.
+
+  MR. VIVIAN HOWARD'S FAMOUS PET
+
+  STOLEN WHILE BACK TURNED.
+
+  "DAILY" OFFER.
+
+  500 POUNDS FOR OUR READERS.
+
+My Mary's golden head, my George's head of brown, pressed and nudged as
+with bulging eyes they read the crisp, telling paragraphs that followed
+in a column of leaded type.
+
+Readers of the _Daily_, it appeared, would be astonished to learn
+that the abduction of Mr. Marrapit's famous cat, the Rose of
+Sharon--concerning the recovery of which all hope had now been
+abandoned--had been followed by a similar outrage of a nature even more
+sensational, more daring.
+
+Mr. Vivian Howard, the famous author and dramatist, whose new novel,
+"Amy Martin," _Daily_ readers need not be reminded, was to start in the
+_Daily_ as a feuilleton on Monday week, had been robbed of his famous
+cat "Abishag the Shunamite."
+
+The whole reading public were well aware of Mr. Howard's devotion to
+this valuable pet. Scarcely a portrait of Mr. Howard was extant that did
+not show Abishag the Shunamite by his side.
+
+It was a melancholy coincidence that in the interview granted to the
+_Daily_ by Mr. Howard last Saturday he had told that Abishag had sat
+upon his table while every single word of the manuscript of "Amy
+Martin" was penned. He had admitted that she was his mascot. Without
+her presence he could not compose a line. _Daily_ readers would imagine,
+then, Mr. Howard's prostration at his appalling loss.
+
+The occurrence had taken place on Monday night. As _Daily_ readers were
+well aware, Mr. Howard had for some weeks been staying at the house of
+his widowed mother in Sussex Gardens. Nightly at nine it had been his
+custom to stroll round the gardens before settling down for three hours'
+work upon "Amy Martin." During his stroll Abishag would slip into the
+gardens, meeting her master upon his completion of the circuit.
+
+According to this practice, Mr. Howard, on Monday night, had followed
+his usual custom. He believed he might possibly have walked a little
+slower than usual as he was pondering deeply over his final revise of
+the proof of "Amy Martin." Otherwise his programme was identical with
+its usual performance. But upon his return the cat was not to be found.
+
+Theories, suggestions, investigations that had already been made,
+followed. The _Daily_ abundantly proved that the cat had not strayed
+but had been deliberately stolen by someone well acquainted with Mr.
+Howard's nightly promenade; pointed out that this second outrage showed
+that no one possessing a valuable cat was safe from the machinations of
+a desperate gang; asked, Where are the police? and concluded with the
+pica sub-head:
+
+  "DAILY" OFFER.
+
+The _Daily,_ it appeared, on behalf of the whole reading public of Great
+Britain, the Colonies, America, and the many Continental countries
+into whose tongues Mr. Howard's novels had been translated, offered 500
+pounds to the person who would return, or secure the return of, Abishag
+the Shunamite, and thus restore peace to the heart of England's premier
+novelist, whose new story, "Amy Martin," would start in the _Daily_ on
+Monday week.
+
+A sketch-map of Sussex Gardens, entitled "Scene of the Outrage," showed,
+by means of dotted lines, (A) Route taken by Mr. Vivian Howard; (B)
+Route into Gardens taken by cat; (C) Supposed route taken by thief.
+
+Mr. Henry T. Bitt had achieved a mammoth splash.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+The golden head and the head of brown lifted simultaneously from the
+paper; stared towards Bill, pacing, smoking.
+
+Tremendous possibilities flickered in George's mind; made his
+voice husky. "Bill," he asked, "do you believe that cat is this
+Abishag--Vivian Howard's Abishag?"
+
+Bill nodded absently. This man's thoughts were afar--revolving this
+situation he had named "licker." "Look at the description," he said.
+"Look at the cat. It knows its name, doesn't it? I've seen a life-size
+painting of Abishag. It's a cert."
+
+George dropped upon the sofa; his thoughts, too, rushed afar.
+
+Tremendous possibilities danced a wild jig in his Mary's pretty head;
+trembled her voice. "Oh, Mr. Wyvern!" she appealed, "what does it mean?
+What does it mean--for us?"
+
+"It's a licker," Bill told her. "It's a fair licker."
+
+Mary dropped by her George's side; to his her thoughts rushed.
+
+Presently Bill threw away his cigarette; faced George. He said slowly:
+"Mrs. Major must have stolen this cat, George. But how did she get it?
+She's been at Herons' Holt the last week."
+
+Mary gave a little jump. "Oh, Mr. Wyvern, she went up to town on Monday
+till Tuesday."
+
+Bill struck a hand upon the table. "That fixes it. By gum, that
+fixes it! I tell you what it is, George. I tell you what it is. I
+believe--yes, I believe she'd seen this cat before, knew it was like the
+Rose, and meant to have palmed it off on old Marrapit herself so as to
+get him to take her back. Margaret told me all about her getting the
+sack. I bet my life that's it. By gum, _what_ a splash for the _Daily!_"
+And upon this fine thought the young man stood with sparkling eyes.
+
+George timidly touched the castles he had been building: "Bill, where do
+I--where do Mary and I come in?"
+
+Bill clapped his hands together. "Why, my good old buck, don't you
+see?-don't you realise?-you get this L500. Just do you, eh?"
+
+_"Runnygate!"_ George burst out with a violent jerk; clasped his Mary in
+an immense hug.
+
+_"Runnygate!"_ came thickly from his Mary, face squashed against this
+splendid fellow.
+
+When they unlocked my blushing Mary suddenly paled: "Oh, but you, Mr.
+Wyvern--you found it really."
+
+"Not much," Bill declared. "Not likely. You found it. I couldn't have
+the reward, anyway. I'm one of the staff." He repeated the fine words:
+"One of the _staff_."
+
+She made to thank him. "Besides," he interrupted her, "I'll make a lot
+out of it. I'm doing awfully well. The chief was awfully pleased with
+the way I ran that Rose of Sharon job. Of course this is twice as big a
+splash, because Vivian Howard's mixed up in it. Look what a boost it
+is for our new serial--look what a tremendous ad. it is for the paper!
+Directly Howard came to us the editor dropped the Rose like a hot coal;
+plumped for this and put me in charge. Now I've pulled it off, just
+think how bucked up he'll be! It's a licker, George--a licker all
+round."
+
+"Bill," George said, "I can't speak about it. My head's whirling. I
+believe it's a dream."
+
+Indeed this George had rushed through so much in the past hours, was
+now suddenly come upon so much, that the excitement, as he attempted
+realisation, was of stunning effect. He sat white, head in hands.
+
+"Jolly soon show you!" Bill cried. "Come to the office straight away.
+Bring the cat. I was to meet the chief and Vivian Howard there at
+twelve."
+
+George sprang to his feet; ruddy again of face. "Come on!" he cried.
+"Bill, if it isn't his Abishag, if there's any hitch, I'll--I'll--oh,
+Mary, don't build too highly on this, old girl!"
+
+"Shall I come, Georgie?"
+
+George hesitated. "Better not. Better not, if you don't mind. I couldn't
+bear to see your face if Vivian Howard says it isn't the cat."
+
+White-faced, between tears and smiles, his Mary waved from the window as
+George, cat under arm, turned the corner with Bill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Excursions In A Newspaper Office.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+Silent, white and stern of face, occupied with immense thoughts, the
+young men sat as the cab they had found outside Battersea Park station
+sped them towards Fleet Street.
+
+They were upon the Embankment, rattling beneath Hungerford Bridge, when
+from the tangle of his plans Bill at last drew a thread; weaved it to
+words. "George, we mustn't tell the chief anything about your being
+mixed up with the other cat outrage--the Rose. It might be awkward."
+
+George shifted the hand that firmly held Abishag on the seat between
+them; squeezed that fine creature's head to him with his arm; with his
+handkerchief wiped his sweating palms.
+
+"It's _going_ to be awkward," he said--"damned awkward! I see that. Oh,
+Bill!"
+
+He groaned. This young man was in desperate agitation.
+
+"Buck up," Bill told him. "This is a cert. Safe as houses."
+
+"All very well for you, Bill. I seem to have been living one gigantic
+lie all the past week."
+
+"Well, you have, you know," Bill granted. "By gum, you have! But you
+aren't now. You didn't steal _this_ cat. You found it just as anyone
+else might have found it. All I tell you is: Don't say anything about
+the Rose. Don't open your mouth, in fact. Leave the gassing to me."
+
+It was upon this repeated injunction that my poor George tottered up the
+stairs of the _Daily_ office, cat in arm, in Bill's wake.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+Bill rapped upon Mr. Bitt's door; poked in his head at the answering
+call; motioned my trembling George to wait; stepped over the threshold.
+
+Mr. Bitt sat behind a broad table; before him, deep in an armchair,
+smoking a cigarette, lay Mr. Vivian Howard.
+
+"Ah! Wyvern," spoke Mr. Bitt. "Mr. Howard, this is Mr. Wyvern, one of my
+brightest young men. From to-day he takes in hand this business."
+
+Mr. Vivian Howard did not rise; stretched a white hand to Bill. This
+man had an appreciation of the position he had won. This man stood for
+English literature. Within a wide estimate of public opinion, and
+within that immense estimate of him that was his own, this man stood for
+literature. In a manner worthy of his proud standing this man comported
+himself. The talents that were his belonged to the nation, and very
+freely he gave them to the people. This man did not deny himself to the
+crowd as another might have denied himself. Of him it never could be
+said that he missed opportunity to let the public feed upon him. This
+man made such opportunities. Where excitement was, there this man,
+pausing between his novels, would step in. If a murder-trial had the
+public attention this man would write upon that trial; if interest
+were fixed upon a trade dispute this man would by some means draw that
+interest upon himself. Nothing was too small for this man. Walking the
+public places he did not shrink from recognition; he gladly permitted
+it. Not once but many times, coming upon a stranger reading one of
+his novels, he had announced himself; autographed the copy. This man's
+character was wholly in keeping with his gifts.
+
+Yet beautifully he could preserve the dignity that was his right.
+Preserving it now, he gave his hand to Bill but did not move his
+position.
+
+"It is a great pleasure to me to meet you, sir," Bill told him.
+
+"You have only lately joined the ranks of journalism, Mr. Bitt tells
+me," Mr. Vivian Howard graciously replied. "It is the stepping-stone to
+literature. Never forget that. Never lose sight of that. I shall watch
+your career with the greatest interest."
+
+Mr. Bitt broke in a trifle impatiently: "Well, well, we must keep to
+business just now. Mr. Howard will kindly give us a daily interview,
+Wyvern, until the feuilleton starts, or until the cat is found. You'd
+better--"
+
+Bill took a pace back; faced them both. "No need," he cried in bursting
+words. "The cat is found!"
+
+The cigarette dropped from Mr. Vivian Howard's lip to his waistcoat. He
+brushed at it violently; burnt his fingers; brushed again; swore with
+a ferocity that would have astonished his admirers; sprang to his feet
+amid a little shower of sparks and cloud of ash. "Found!" he exclaimed;
+jabbed a burnt finger in his mouth and thickly repeated, "Found!"
+
+Mr. Bitt simultaneously rose. "Found?" cried Mr. Bitt. "What the--"
+
+"I have the finder here," Bill told them; stepped to the door.
+
+On legs that shook my agitated George advanced.
+
+Mr. Vivian Howard drew forth his suffering finger with a loud pop; made
+three hasty strides to George; took the cat. "Abishag!" he cried in
+ecstasy, "Abishag!"
+
+In very gloomy tones Mr. Bitt announced that he was bust. "Well, I'm
+bust!" he said. "I'm bust. It _is_ your cat, eh?"
+
+Mr. Vivian Howard nodded the head he was bending over his Abishag.
+
+Bill signalled to George a swift wink. George drew a handkerchief; wiped
+from his face the beaded agony.
+
+Mr. Bitt dropped heavily into his seat. "Of course I'm very glad, Mr.
+Howard," he announced stonily. "_Very_ glad. At the same time--at the
+same _time_--" He turned upon George with a note that was almost savage.
+"You, sir!" he cried.
+
+George started painfully.
+
+"How the--How did you come to find this cat?"
+
+George forced his pocket handkerchief into his trousers pocket; rammed
+it down; cleared his throat; ran a finger round the inside of his
+collar; cleared again; said nothing.
+
+Bill hurried to the rescue. "Like this, sir. Let me tell you. This
+gentleman was at Paltley Hill, a place on the South-Western. He used to
+live there. He found the cat in a deserted kind of hut, took charge of
+it. I happened to meet him and brought him along. By Jove, sir, only
+published this morning and found within a few hours! It's pretty good,
+isn't it?"
+
+Mr. Bitt spoke with great disgust. "Pretty _good!_" he cried bitterly.
+"Pretty _good!_" He had no fit words in which to express his feeling.
+"Kindly step in there a moment," he addressed George.
+
+George trembled into the adjoining room indicated; closed the door.
+
+Mr. Bitt turned to Mr. Vivian Howard. "It will always be a great
+pleasure to me," he told the great novelist, "to think that the _Daily_
+was the means of restoring your cat."
+
+"I never shall forget it," Mr. Vivian Howard assured him. The famous
+author placed himself upon the couch, caressed Abishag the Shunamite
+upon his lap. "Never shall forget it. It was more than good of you,
+Mr. Bitt, to take up the matter and offer so handsome a reward. It was
+public-spirited."
+
+Mr. Bitt's deprecatory little laugh had a rueful note.
+
+He nerved himself to step upon the delicate ground that lay between him
+and his purpose. This man had not known Mr. Vivian Howard sufficiently
+long to put to him directly that the reward was offered, and gladly
+agreed to by Mr. Howard, for purposes of respective self-advertisement
+agreeable at once to the paper and to the man who stood for English
+literature. He nerved himself:
+
+"When you say public-spirited, Mr. Howard, you use the right term. I do
+not attempt to deny that I fully appreciated that this reward for your
+cat, and the interview you agreed to give us, would greatly benefit
+our paper. Why should I deny it? We editors must be business men first,
+nowadays; journalists afterwards. But I do ask you to believe me, Mr.
+Howard, that in offering this reward, in arousing this interest, I had
+in view also a matter that has been my aim since I was at College."
+
+Mr. Bitt's college was Rosa Glen College, 156 Farmer Road, Peckham; but
+he preferred the briefer designation.
+
+"The aim," he continued, gathering courage as he detected in Mr. Vivian
+Howard's face a look which seemed to show that the famous author was
+advancing upon the delicate ground to meet him, "the aim of attracting
+the people to good literature."
+
+Mr. Vivian Howard, as standing for that literature, took the implied
+compliment with a bow. "I congratulate you, Mr. Bitt."
+
+"Now, the _Daily_ is young," Mr. Bitt earnestly continued. "The
+_Daily_ has yet to make its way. If your 'Amy Martin' starts in normal
+circumstances a week hence, it will mean that this contribution to our
+highest literature will fall only to a comparatively small circle
+of people. But if--but if, as I had hoped, we had morning by morning
+attracted more and more readers by the great interest taken in your
+loss, 'Amy Martin' would then have introduced our best fiction to a
+public twice or thrice as large as our present circulation represents."
+
+"You mean--?" the great author inquired.
+
+"I mean," Mr. Bitt told him, "that for this reason I cannot but
+regret that the excitement aroused should disappear with our issue of
+to-morrow. I mean, Mr. Howard, that for the reason I have named I
+do think it is almost our _duty_--our _duty_, for the reason I have
+named--to conceal the cat's recovery for--er--for a day or so."
+
+Mr. Bitt blew his nose violently to conceal his agitation. This man was
+now in the precise centre of the delicate ground; was in considerable
+fear that it might open and swallow him.
+
+But Mr. Vivian Howard's reply made that ground of rock-like solidity.
+
+"As you put the matter, Mr. Bitt, I must say I agree. It would be false
+modesty on my part to pretend I do not recognise the worth of 'Amy
+Martin,' and the desirability of introducing it as widely as possible.
+Certainly that could best have been accomplished by Abishag not having
+been recovered so soon. But as it is--I do not see what can be done. You
+do not, of course, suggest deliberate deception of the public?"
+
+"Certainly _not!_" cried Mr. Bitt with virtuous warmth. Since this was
+precisely what he did suggest and most earnestly desired, he repeated
+his denial: "Certainly _not_! At the same time--"
+
+"One moment," Mr. Vivian Howard interrupted. "This cat was obviously
+stolen by someone and placed in the hut where it was found. Very well.
+We prosecute. We prosecute, and I could give you every morning my views
+on the guilt or otherwise--"
+
+Mr. Bitt shook his head. "I had thought of that. It won't do. It won't
+do, Mr. Howard. For one thing, a rigorous prosecution and sentence might
+create bad feeling against the paper. You have no idea how curious the
+public is in that way. For another, you, as the injured party, ought
+not to comment; and certainly I could not publish your views. The matter
+would be _sub judice_ directly arrest was made; and I once got into very
+serious trouble over a _sub judice_ matter--very serious trouble indeed.
+I shall not touch the law, Mr. Howard. It is unwise. At the same time,
+I think the thief should be made to suffer--be given a thorough fright.
+Now, if we inform the public that practically our Special Commissioner
+has his hand on the cat--which will be perfectly true--and is almost
+certain as to the identity of the thief--if we keep this up for the
+few days necessary for the publication of those magnificent articles
+of yours on 'What my Loss means to Me,' we shall be accomplishing three
+excellent objects. We shall be terrifying an evil-doer--we may take it
+for granted he reads the _Daily_; we shall be giving the public those
+articles which most certainly ought not to be lost to literature; and we
+shall be widening the sphere of influence of 'Amy Martin.'"
+
+Mr. Vivian Howard did not hesitate. "It is impossible to override your
+arguments, Mr. Bitt. I think we shall be doing _right_."
+
+Mr. Bitt concealed his immense joy. "I am convinced of it, Mr. Howard,"
+he said. "_Convinced_. The modern editor and the man of letters of your
+standing have enormous responsibilities."
+
+Impelled by the virtuous public duty they were performing, the two men
+silently grasped hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A Perfectly Splendid Chapter.
+
+
+Mr. Bitt turned to Bill; indicated the door behind which my poor George
+was wrestling in prayer. "The only difficulty is with that chap in
+there. He knows the cat is found! How can we--"
+
+"If you will leave that to me, sir," Bill told him, "I think I can
+arrange it without difficulty."
+
+"Or danger?" added Mr. Vivian Howard, who, standing for English
+literature, would not lightly imperil his integrity.
+
+"Or the least danger," Bill affirmed. "He's a kind of friend of
+mine--did I mention that, sir? I'll fix it up in a minute."
+
+He stepped briskly to George; closed the door behind him.
+
+George said faintly: "Say it quick, Bill. Quick."
+
+"You've got it, old man. Got it."
+
+George rose to his feet; stretched his arms aloft; wildly waved them.
+The tremendous shout for which he opened his mouth was stayed upon his
+lips by Bill's warning finger. He hurled himself on a couch; rolled in
+ecstasy.
+
+Rapidly Bill outlined the proposals. Then he struck a heavy hand upon
+George's shoulder. "And I've got it too!" he cried in an exultant
+whisper. "I've got it too! I've got Margaret!"
+
+"Margaret! However--?"
+
+"Like this. Plain as a fiddle-stick. To-morrow, when we get out this
+story about practically having our hand on the thief, I shall go bang
+down to Marrapit with the paper and tell him I know it was Mrs. Major
+who took the cat. You can imagine the state that'll put 'em both in.
+Then--then, my boy, I shall say 'Let Margy and me carry on and fix it
+up forthwith, and I'll promise Mrs. Major shall never hear a word more
+about the matter.' He'll agree like a shot. The chief's not going to
+prosecute, you see; so neither Mrs. Major nor you ever will hear a word
+more. George, we've done it! Done it! You've got your Mary and I've got
+my Margy!"
+
+With swelling bosoms, staring eyes, upon this tremendous happening the
+two young men clasped hands; stood heavily breathing. These men were
+glimpsing heaven.
+
+When they unlocked, George said: "There's one thing, Bill. Go in and
+tell that precious pair they can hold over the discovery till they
+please and that I shall never breathe a word. But tell 'em this: I don't
+agree unless I have my cheque right away."
+
+Bill advised no stipulations.
+
+George stood firm: "I don't care a snap, Bill. I will have it now. I've
+been badgered about quite enough. I want to feel safe. I'll either lose
+it all or have it all. No more uncertainty. Anything might happen during
+the week, for all I know."
+
+Bill took the message.
+
+Upon immediate payment Mr. Bitt at first stuck. "He might turn back on
+us, or start blackmailing us. He may have stolen the cat himself for all
+we know."
+
+"All the more likely, in that case, to keep his mouth shut," commented
+Mr. Vivian Howard. Despite he stood for literature, this man had strong
+business instincts.
+
+Bill urged compliance. He knew this finder of the cat; would speak for
+him as for himself.
+
+Mr. Bitt put a quill into his inkstand; took George's name; wrote a
+slip; handed it to Bill. "Take that to the cashier, Wyvern. He'll give
+you the cheque. Clear your friend out. Eh? No--no need for me to see him
+again. Of course you must get his story of how he found the cat, to use
+when the 'What my Loss means to Me' articles run out. Then come back and
+we'll fix up to-morrow's account."
+
+A cabman drove to St. Peter's Hospital a seemingly insane young man,
+who bounded into the cab with a piece of paper in his hand; who sang and
+rattled his heels upon the foot-board, shouted to passers-by; who paid
+with two half-crowns; who bounded, paper still fluttering in hand, up
+the steps of the Dean's entrance with a wild and tremendous whoop.
+
+George had scarcely explained to the Dean an incoherent story of L500
+won through a newspaper competition, when the Mr. Lawrence, M.R.C.S.,
+L.R.C.P., whose practice was at Runnygate, arrived.
+
+Informally the purchase was at once arranged; a further meeting settled.
+George bolted to another cab; drove to Meath Street by way of the
+florist near Victoria Station; took aboard an immense basket of flowers.
+
+At the house he gathered the flowers beneath his arm; on the way
+upstairs shifted them to his hands; flung wide the door.
+
+His Mary, white, a tooth on a trembling lip, her pretty hands clasped,
+was before him. In a great whirling shower he flung the blossoms about
+her; then took her in his arms.
+
+"Runnygate, Mary! Darling old girl, Runnygate!"
+
+He kissed his Mary.
+
+Last Shots from the Bridge.
+
+If you had patience for another peep from the bridge that I can build,
+you might catch a glimpse or so.
+
+Bending over you might see Bill seated at the editor's table of the
+editor's room of a monstrously successful monthly magazine of most
+monstrous fiction that Mr. Bitt's directors have started; Margaret, that
+sentimental young woman, by her husband's side is correcting the
+proofs of a poem signed "Margaret Wyvern." It is of the most exquisite
+melancholy.
+
+Bending over you might see George upon one of the summer evenings when,
+his duties through, he is taking his Mary for a drive in the country
+behind that rising seaside resort Runnygate. They are plunging along in
+a tremendous dogcart drawn by an immense horse. George is fully occupied
+with his steed; Mary, peeping at constant intervals through the veil
+that hides the clear blue eyes and the ridiculous little turned-up nose
+of her baby, at every corner says: "Oh, George! Georgie, do be careful!
+We were on _one_ wheel then, I _know_ we were!" But along the level the
+wind riots at her pretty curls as she sits up very straight and very
+proud, smiling at this splendid fellow beside her.
+
+Bending over you might see the garden of Herons' Holt, Mr. Fletcher
+leading from the house the fat white pony and tubby wide car which Mrs.
+Marrapit, formerly Mrs. Major, has prevailed upon her husband to buy.
+The pony has all the docile qualities of a blind sheep, but Mr. Fletcher
+is in great terror of it. When, while being groomed, it suddenly lifts
+its head, Mr. Fletcher drops his curry-comb and retires from the stall
+at great speed. "It's 'ard," says Mr. Fletcher--"damn 'ard. I'm a
+gardener, I am; not a 'orse-breaker."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Once Aboard The Lugger, by
+Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
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