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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dynamiter, by Robert Louis Stevenson
+(#32 in our series by Robert Louis Stevenson)
+
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+
+
+Title: The Dynamiter
+
+Author: Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
+
+Release Date: September, 1996  [EBook #647]
+[This file was first posted on September 13, 1996]
+[Most recently updated: September 2, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE DYNAMITER ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1903 Longmans, Green And Co. edition by David
+Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+THE DYNAMITER
+
+
+
+
+TO MESSRS. COLE AND COX, POLICE OFFICERS
+
+
+
+Gentlemen,--In the volume now in your hands, the authors have
+touched upon that ugly devil of crime, with which it is your glory
+to have contended.  It were a waste of ink to do so in a serious
+spirit.  Let us dedicate our horror to acts of a more mingled
+strain, where crime preserves some features of nobility, and where
+reason and humanity can still relish the temptation.  Horror, in
+this case, is due to Mr. Parnell:  he sits before posterity silent,
+Mr. Forster's appeal echoing down the ages.  Horror is due to
+ourselves, in that we have so long coquetted with political crime;
+not seriously weighing, not acutely following it from cause to
+consequence; but with a generous, unfounded heat of sentiment, like
+the schoolboy with the penny tale, applauding what was specious.
+When it touched ourselves (truly in a vile shape), we proved false
+to the imaginations; discovered, in a clap, that crime was no less
+cruel and no less ugly under sounding names; and recoiled from our
+false deities.
+
+But seriousness comes most in place when we are to speak of our
+defenders.  Whoever be in the right in this great and confused war
+of politics; whatever elements of greed, whatever traits of the
+bully, dishonour both parties in this inhuman contest;--your side,
+your part, is at least pure of doubt.  Yours is the side of the
+child, of the breeding woman, of individual pity and public trust.
+If our society were the mere kingdom of the devil (as indeed it
+wears some of his colours) it yet embraces many precious elements
+and many innocent persons whom it is a glory to defend.  Courage
+and devotion, so common in the ranks of the police, so little
+recognised, so meagrely rewarded, have at length found their
+commemoration in an historical act.  History, which will represent
+Mr. Parnell sitting silent under the appeal of Mr. Forster, and
+Gordon setting forth upon his tragic enterprise, will not forget
+Mr. Cole carrying the dynamite in his defenceless hands, nor Mr.
+Cox coming coolly to his aid.
+
+Robert Louis Stevenson
+Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson
+
+
+
+A NOTE FOR THE READER
+
+
+
+It is within the bounds of possibility that you may take up this
+volume, and yet be unacquainted with its predecessor:  the first
+series of NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS.  The loss is yours--and mine; or to
+be more exact, my publishers'.  But if you are thus unlucky, the
+least I can do is to pass you a hint.  When you shall find a
+reference in the following pages to one Theophilus Godall of the
+Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert Street, Soho, you must be prepared
+to recognise, under his features, no less a person than Prince
+Florizel of Bohemia, formerly one of the magnates of Europe, now
+dethroned, exiled, impoverished, and embarked in the tobacco trade.
+
+R. L. S.
+
+
+
+NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS
+
+A SECOND SERIES
+
+THE DYNAMITER
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN
+
+
+
+In the city of encounters, the Bagdad of the West, and, to be more
+precise, on the broad northern pavement of Leicester Square, two
+young men of five- or six-and-twenty met after years of separation.
+The first, who was of a very smooth address and clothed in the best
+fashion, hesitated to recognise the pinched and shabby air of his
+companion.
+
+'What!' he cried, 'Paul Somerset!'
+
+'I am indeed Paul Somerset,' returned the other, 'or what remains
+of him after a well-deserved experience of poverty and law.  But in
+you, Challoner, I can perceive no change; and time may be said,
+without hyperbole, to write no wrinkle on your azure brow.'
+
+'All,' replied Challoner, 'is not gold that glitters.  But we are
+here in an ill posture for confidences, and interrupt the movement
+of these ladies.  Let us, if you please, find a more private
+corner.'
+
+'If you will allow me to guide you,' replied Somerset, 'I will
+offer you the best cigar in London.'
+
+And taking the arm of his companion, he led him in silence and at a
+brisk pace to the door of a quiet establishment in Rupert Street,
+Soho.  The entrance was adorned with one of those gigantic
+Highlanders of wood which have almost risen to the standing of
+antiquities; and across the window-glass, which sheltered the usual
+display of pipes, tobacco, and cigars, there ran the gilded legend:
+'Bohemian Cigar Divan, by T. Godall.'  The interior of the shop was
+small, but commodious and ornate; the salesman grave, smiling, and
+urbane; and the two young men, each puffing a select regalia, had
+soon taken their places on a sofa of mouse-coloured plush and
+proceeded to exchange their stories.
+
+'I am now,' said Somerset, 'a barrister; but Providence and the
+attorneys have hitherto denied me the opportunity to shine.  A
+select society at the Cheshire Cheese engaged my evenings; my
+afternoons, as Mr. Godall could testify, have been generally passed
+in this divan; and my mornings, I have taken the precaution to
+abbreviate by not rising before twelve.  At this rate, my little
+patrimony was very rapidly, and I am proud to remember, most
+agreeably expended.  Since then a gentleman, who has really nothing
+else to recommend him beyond the fact of being my maternal uncle,
+deals me the small sum of ten shillings a week; and if you behold
+me once more revisiting the glimpses of the street lamps in my
+favourite quarter, you will readily divine that I have come into a
+fortune.'
+
+'I should not have supposed so,' replied Challoner.  'But doubtless
+I met you on the way to your tailors.'
+
+'It is a visit that I purpose to delay,' returned Somerset, with a
+smile.  'My fortune has definite limits.  It consists, or rather
+this morning it consisted, of one hundred pounds.'
+
+'That is certainly odd,' said Challoner; 'yes, certainly the
+coincidence is strange.  I am myself reduced to the same margin.'
+
+'You!' cried Somerset.  'And yet Solomon in all his glory--'
+
+'Such is the fact.  I am, dear boy, on my last legs,' said
+Challoner.  'Besides the clothes in which you see me, I have
+scarcely a decent trouser in my wardrobe; and if I knew how, I
+would this instant set about some sort of work or commerce.  With a
+hundred pounds for capital, a man should push his way.'
+
+'It may be,' returned Somerset; 'but what to do with mine is more
+than I can fancy.  Mr. Godall,' he added, addressing the salesman,
+'you are a man who knows the world:  what can a young fellow of
+reasonable education do with a hundred pounds?'
+
+'It depends,' replied the salesman, withdrawing his cheroot.  'The
+power of money is an article of faith in which I profess myself a
+sceptic.  A hundred pounds will with difficulty support you for a
+year; with somewhat more difficulty you may spend it in a night;
+and without any difficulty at all you may lose it in five minutes
+on the Stock Exchange.  If you are of that stamp of man that rises,
+a penny would be as useful; if you belong to those that fall, a
+penny would be no more useless.  When I was myself thrown
+unexpectedly upon the world, it was my fortune to possess an art:
+I knew a good cigar.  Do you know nothing, Mr. Somerset?'
+
+'Not even law,' was the reply.
+
+'The answer is worthy of a sage,' returned Mr. Godall.  'And you,
+sir,' he continued, turning to Challoner, 'as the friend of Mr.
+Somerset, may I be allowed to address you the same question?'
+
+'Well,' replied Challoner, 'I play a fair hand at whist.'
+
+'How many persons are there in London,' returned the salesman, 'who
+have two-and-thirty teeth?  Believe me, young gentleman, there are
+more still who play a fair hand at whist.  Whist, sir, is wide as
+the world; 'tis an accomplishment like breathing.  I once knew a
+youth who announced that he was studying to be Chancellor of
+England; the design was certainly ambitious; but I find it less
+excessive than that of the man who aspires to make a livelihood by
+whist.'
+
+'Dear me,' said Challoner, 'I am afraid I shall have to fall to be
+a working man.'
+
+'Fall to be a working man?' echoed Mr. Godall.  'Suppose a rural
+dean to be unfrocked, does he fall to be a major? suppose a captain
+were cashiered, would he fall to be a puisne judge?  The ignorance
+of your middle class surprises me.  Outside itself, it thinks the
+world to lie quite ignorant and equal, sunk in a common
+degradation; but to the eye of the observer, all ranks are seen to
+stand in ordered hierarchies, and each adorned with its particular
+aptitudes and knowledge.  By the defects of your education you are
+more disqualified to be a working man than to be the ruler of an
+empire.  The gulf, sir, is below; and the true learned arts--those
+which alone are safe from the competition of insurgent laymen--are
+those which give his title to the artisan.'
+
+'This is a very pompous fellow,' said Challoner, in the ear of his
+companion.
+
+'He is immense,' said Somerset.
+
+Just then the door of the divan was opened, and a third young
+fellow made his appearance, and rather bashfully requested some
+tobacco.  He was younger than the others; and, in a somewhat
+meaningless and altogether English way, he was a handsome lad.
+When he had been served, and had lighted his pipe and taken his
+place upon the sofa, he recalled himself to Challoner by the name
+of Desborough.
+
+'Desborough, to be sure,' cried Challoner.  'Well, Desborough, and
+what do you do?'
+
+'The fact is,' said Desborough, 'that I am doing nothing.'
+
+'A private fortune possibly?' inquired the other.
+
+'Well, no,' replied Desborough, rather sulkily.  'The fact is that
+I am waiting for something to turn up.'
+
+'All in the same boat!' cried Somerset.  'And have you, too, one
+hundred pounds?'
+
+'Worse luck,' said Mr. Desborough.
+
+'This is a very pathetic sight, Mr. Godall,' said Somerset:  'Three
+futiles.'
+
+'A character of this crowded age,' returned the salesman.
+
+'Sir,' said Somerset, 'I deny that the age is crowded; I will admit
+one fact, and one fact only:  that I am futile, that he is futile,
+and that we are all three as futile as the devil.  What am I?  I
+have smattered law, smattered letters, smattered geography,
+smattered mathematics; I have even a working knowledge of judicial
+astrology; and here I stand, all London roaring by at the street's
+end, as impotent as any baby.  I have a prodigious contempt for my
+maternal uncle; but without him, it is idle to deny it, I should
+simply resolve into my elements like an unstable mixture.  I begin
+to perceive that it is necessary to know some one thing to the
+bottom--were it only literature.  And yet, sir, the man of the
+world is a great feature of this age; he is possessed of an
+extraordinary mass and variety of knowledge; he is everywhere at
+home; he has seen life in all its phases; and it is impossible but
+that this great habit of existence should bear fruit.  I count
+myself a man of the world, accomplished, CAP-A-PIE.  So do you,
+Challoner.  And you, Mr. Desborough?'
+
+'Oh yes,' returned the young man.
+
+'Well then, Mr. Godall, here we stand, three men of the world,
+without a trade to cover us, but planted at the strategic centre of
+the universe (for so you will allow me to call Rupert Street), in
+the midst of the chief mass of people, and within ear-shot of the
+most continuous chink of money on the surface of the globe.  Sir,
+as civilised men, what do we do?  I will show you.  You take in a
+paper?'
+
+'I take,' said Mr. Godall solemnly, 'the best paper in the world,
+the Standard.'
+
+'Good,' resumed Somerset.  'I now hold it in my hand, the voice of
+the world, a telephone repeating all men's wants.  I open it, and
+where my eye first falls--well, no, not Morrison's Pills--but here,
+sure enough, and but a little above, I find the joint that I was
+seeking; here is the weak spot in the armour of society.  Here is a
+want, a plaint, an offer of substantial gratitude:  "TWO HUNDRED
+POUNDS REWARD.--The above reward will be paid to any person giving
+information as to the identity and whereabouts of a man observed
+yesterday in the neighbourhood of the Green Park.  He was over six
+feet in height, with shoulders disproportionately broad, close
+shaved, with black moustaches, and wearing a sealskin great-coat."
+There, gentlemen, our fortune, if not made, is founded.'
+
+'Do you then propose, dear boy, that we should turn detectives?'
+inquired Challoner.
+
+'Do I propose it?  No, sir,' cried Somerset.  'It is reason,
+destiny, the plain face of the world, that commands and imposes it.
+Here all our merits tell; our manners, habit of the world, powers
+of conversation, vast stores of unconnected knowledge, all that we
+are and have builds up the character of the complete detective.  It
+is, in short, the only profession for a gentleman.'
+
+'The proposition is perhaps excessive,' replied Challoner; 'for
+hitherto I own I have regarded it as of all dirty, sneaking, and
+ungentlemanly trades, the least and lowest.'
+
+'To defend society?' asked Somerset; 'to stake one's life for
+others? to deracinate occult and powerful evil?  I appeal to Mr.
+Godall.  He, at least, as a philosophic looker-on at life, will
+spit upon such philistine opinions.  He knows that the policeman,
+as he is called upon continually to face greater odds, and that
+both worse equipped and for a better cause, is in form and essence
+a more noble hero than the soldier.  Do you, by any chance, deceive
+yourself into supposing that a general would either ask or expect,
+from the best army ever marshalled, and on the most momentous
+battle-field, the conduct of a common constable at Peckham Rye?'
+{1}
+
+'I did not understand we were to join the force,' said Challoner.
+
+'Nor shall we.  These are the hands; but here--here, sir, is the
+head,' cried Somerset.  'Enough; it is decreed.  We shall hunt down
+this miscreant in the sealskin coat.'
+
+'Suppose that we agreed,' retorted Challoner, 'you have no plan, no
+knowledge; you know not where to seek for a beginning.'
+
+'Challoner!' cried Somerset, 'is it possible that you hold the
+doctrine of Free Will?  And are you devoid of any tincture of
+philosophy, that you should harp on such exploded fallacies?
+Chance, the blind Madonna of the Pagan, rules this terrestrial
+bustle; and in Chance I place my sole reliance.  Chance has brought
+us three together; when we next separate and go forth our several
+ways, Chance will continually drag before our careless eyes a
+thousand eloquent clues, not to this mystery only, but to the
+countless mysteries by which we live surrounded.  Then comes the
+part of the man of the world, of the detective born and bred.  This
+clue, which the whole town beholds without comprehension, swift as
+a cat, he leaps upon it, makes it his, follows it with craft and
+passion, and from one trifling circumstance divines a world.'
+
+'Just so,' said Challoner; 'and I am delighted that you should
+recognise these virtues in yourself.  But in the meanwhile, dear
+boy, I own myself incapable of joining.  I was neither born nor
+bred as a detective, but as a placable and very thirsty gentleman;
+and, for my part, I begin to weary for a drink.  As for clues and
+adventures, the only adventure that is ever likely to occur to me
+will be an adventure with a bailiff.'
+
+'Now there is the fallacy,' cried Somerset.  'There I catch the
+secret of your futility in life.  The world teems and bubbles with
+adventure; it besieges you along the street:  hands waving out of
+windows, swindlers coming up and swearing they knew you when you
+were abroad, affable and doubtful people of all sorts and
+conditions begging and truckling for your notice.  But not you:
+you turn away, you walk your seedy mill round, you must go the
+dullest way.  Now here, I beg of you, the next adventure that
+offers itself, embrace it in with both your arms; whatever it
+looks, grimy or romantic, grasp it.  I will do the like; the devil
+is in it, but at least we shall have fun; and each in turn we shall
+narrate the story of our fortunes to my philosophic friend of the
+divan, the great Godall, now hearing me with inward joy.  Come, is
+it a bargain?  Will you, indeed, both promise to welcome every
+chance that offers, to plunge boldly into every opening, and,
+keeping the eye wary and the head composed, to study and piece
+together all that happens?  Come, promise:  let me open to you the
+doors of the great profession of intrigue.'
+
+'It is not much in my way,' said Challoner, 'but, since you make a
+point of it, amen.'
+
+'I don't mind promising,' said Desborough, 'but nothing will happen
+to me.'
+
+'O faithless ones!' cried Somerset.  'But at least I have your
+promises; and Godall, I perceive, is transported with delight.'
+
+'I promise myself at least much pleasure from your various
+narratives,' said the salesman, with the customary calm polish of
+his manner.
+
+'And now, gentlemen,' concluded Somerset, 'let us separate.  I
+hasten to put myself in fortune's way.  Hark how, in this quiet
+corner, London roars like the noise of battle; four million
+destinies are here concentred; and in the strong panoply of one
+hundred pounds, payable to the bearer, I am about to plunge into
+that web.'
+
+
+
+CHALLONER'S ADVENTURE:  THE SQUIRE OF DAMES
+
+
+
+Mr. Edward Challoner had set up lodgings in the suburb of Putney,
+where he enjoyed a parlour and bedroom and the sincere esteem of
+the people of the house.  To this remote home he found himself, at
+a very early hour in the morning of the next day, condemned to set
+forth on foot.  He was a young man of a portly habit; no lover of
+the exercises of the body; bland, sedentary, patient of delay, a
+prop of omnibuses.  In happier days he would have chartered a cab;
+but these luxuries were now denied him; and with what courage he
+could muster he addressed himself to walk.
+
+It was then the height of the season and the summer; the weather
+was serene and cloudless; and as he paced under the blinded houses
+and along the vacant streets, the chill of the dawn had fled, and
+some of the warmth and all the brightness of the July day already
+shone upon the city.  He walked at first in a profound abstraction,
+bitterly reviewing and repenting his performances at whist; but as
+he advanced into the labyrinth of the south-west, his ear was
+gradually mastered by the silence.  Street after street looked down
+upon his solitary figure, house after house echoed upon his passage
+with a ghostly jar, shop after shop displayed its shuttered front
+and its commercial legend; and meanwhile he steered his course,
+under day's effulgent dome and through this encampment of diurnal
+sleepers, lonely as a ship.
+
+'Here,' he reflected, 'if I were like my scatter-brained companion,
+here were indeed the scene where I might look for an adventure.
+Here, in broad day, the streets are secret as in the blackest night
+of January, and in the midst of some four million sleepers,
+solitary as the woods of Yucatan.  If I but raise my voice I could
+summon up the number of an army, and yet the grave is not more
+silent than this city of sleep.'
+
+He was still following these quaint and serious musings when he
+came into a street of more mingled ingredients than was common in
+the quarter.  Here, on the one hand, framed in walls and the green
+tops of trees, were several of those discreet, bijou residences on
+which propriety is apt to look askance.  Here, too, were many of
+the brick-fronted barracks of the poor; a plaster cow, perhaps,
+serving as ensign to a dairy, or a ticket announcing the business
+of the mangler.  Before one such house, that stood a little
+separate among walled gardens, a cat was playing with a straw, and
+Challoner paused a moment, looking on this sleek and solitary
+creature, who seemed an emblem of the neighbouring peace.  With the
+cessation of the sound of his own steps the silence fell dead; the
+house stood smokeless:  the blinds down, the whole machinery of
+life arrested; and it seemed to Challoner that he should hear the
+breathing of the sleepers.
+
+As he so stood, he was startled by a dull and jarring detonation
+from within.  This was followed by a monstrous hissing and
+simmering as from a kettle of the bigness of St. Paul's; and at the
+same time from every chink of door and window spirted an ill-
+smelling vapour.  The cat disappeared with a cry.  Within the
+lodging-house feet pounded on the stairs; the door flew back,
+emitting clouds of smoke; and two men and an elegantly dressed
+young lady tumbled forth into the street and fled without a word.
+The hissing had already ceased, the smoke was melting in the air,
+the whole event had come and gone as in a dream, and still
+Challoner was rooted to the spot.  At last his reason and his fear
+awoke together, and with the most unwonted energy he fell to
+running.
+
+Little by little this first dash relaxed, and presently he had
+resumed his sober gait and begun to piece together, out of the
+confused report of his senses, some theory of the occurrence.  But
+the occasion of the sounds and stench that had so suddenly assailed
+him, and the strange conjunction of fugitives whom he had seen to
+issue from the house, were mysteries beyond his plummet.  With an
+obscure awe he considered them in his mind, continuing, meanwhile,
+to thread the web of streets, and once more alone in morning
+sunshine.
+
+In his first retreat he had entirely wandered; and now, steering
+vaguely west, it was his luck to light upon an unpretending street,
+which presently widened so as to admit a strip of gardens in the
+midst.  Here was quite a stir of birds; even at that hour, the
+shadow of the leaves was grateful; instead of the burnt atmosphere
+of cities, there was something brisk and rural in the air; and
+Challoner paced forward, his eyes upon the pavement and his mind
+running upon distant scenes, till he was recalled, upon a sudden,
+by a wall that blocked his further progress.  This street, whose
+name I have forgotten, is no thoroughfare.
+
+He was not the first who had wandered there that morning; for as he
+raised his eyes with an agreeable deliberation, they alighted on
+the figure of a girl, in whom he was struck to recognise the third
+of the incongruous fugitives.  She had run there, seemingly,
+blindfold; the wall had checked her career:  and being entirely
+wearied, she had sunk upon the ground beside the garden railings,
+soiling her dress among the summer dust.  Each saw the other in the
+same instant of time; and she, with one wild look, sprang to her
+feet and began to hurry from the scene.
+
+Challoner was doubly startled to meet once more the heroine of his
+adventure, and to observe the fear with which she shunned him.
+Pity and alarm, in nearly equal forces, contested the possession of
+his mind; and yet, in spite of both, he saw himself condemned to
+follow in the lady's wake.  He did so gingerly, as fearing to
+increase her terrors; but, tread as lightly as he might, his
+footfalls eloquently echoed in the empty street.  Their sound
+appeared to strike in her some strong emotion; for scarce had he
+begun to follow ere she paused.  A second time she addressed
+herself to flight; and a second time she paused.  Then she turned
+about, and with doubtful steps and the most attractive appearance
+of timidity, drew near to the young man.  He on his side continued
+to advance with similar signals of distress and bashfulness.  At
+length, when they were but some steps apart, he saw her eyes brim
+over, and she reached out both her hands in eloquent appeal.
+
+'Are you an English gentleman?' she cried.
+
+The unhappy Challoner regarded her with consternation.  He was the
+spirit of fine courtesy, and would have blushed to fail in his
+devoirs to any lady; but, in the other scale, he was a man averse
+from amorous adventures.  He looked east and west; but the houses
+that looked down upon this interview remained inexorably shut; and
+he saw himself, though in the full glare of the day's eye, cut off
+from any human intervention.  His looks returned at last upon the
+suppliant.  He remarked with irritation that she was charming both
+in face and figure, elegantly dressed and gloved; a lady
+undeniable; the picture of distress and innocence; weeping and lost
+in the city of diurnal sleep.
+
+'Madam,' he said, 'I protest you have no cause to fear intrusion;
+and if I have appeared to follow you, the fault is in this street,
+which has deceived us both.'  An unmistakable relief appeared upon
+the lady's face.  'I might have guessed it!' she exclaimed.  'Thank
+you a thousand times!  But at this hour, in this appalling silence,
+and among all these staring windows, I am lost in terrors--oh, lost
+in them!' she cried, her face blanching at the words.  'I beg you
+to lend me your arm,' she added with the loveliest, suppliant
+inflection.  'I dare not go alone; my nerve is gone--I had a shock,
+oh, what a shock!  I beg of you to be my escort.'
+
+'My dear madam,' responded Challoner heavily, 'my arm is at your
+service.'
+
+
+'She took it and clung to it for a moment, struggling with her
+sobs; and the next, with feverish hurry, began to lead him in the
+direction of the city.  One thing was plain, among so much that was
+obscure:  it was plain her fears were genuine.  Still, as she went,
+she spied around as if for dangers; and now she would shiver like a
+person in a chill, and now clutch his arm in hers.  To Challoner
+her terror was at once repugnant and infectious; it gained and
+mastered, while it still offended him; and he wailed in spirit and
+longed for release.
+
+'Madam,' he said at last, 'I am, of course, charmed to be of use to
+any lady; but I confess I was bound in a direction opposite to that
+you follow, and a word of explanation--'
+
+'Hush!' she sobbed, 'not here--not here!'
+
+The blood of Challoner ran cold.  He might have thought the lady
+mad; but his memory was charged with more perilous stuff; and in
+view of the detonation, the smoke and the flight of the ill-
+assorted trio, his mind was lost among mysteries.  So they
+continued to thread the maze of streets in silence, with the speed
+of a guilty flight, and both thrilling with incommunicable terrors.
+In time, however, and above all by their quick pace of walking, the
+pair began to rise to firmer spirits; the lady ceased to peer about
+the corners; and Challoner, emboldened by the resonant tread and
+distant figure of a constable, returned to the charge with more of
+spirit and directness.
+
+'I thought,' said he, in the tone of conversation, 'that I had
+indistinctly perceived you leaving a villa in the company of two
+gentlemen.'
+
+'Oh!' she said, 'you need not fear to wound me by the truth.  You
+saw me flee from a common lodging-house, and my companions were not
+gentlemen.  In such a case, the best of compliments is to be
+frank.'
+
+'I thought,' resumed Challoner, encouraged as much as he was
+surprised by the spirit of her reply, 'to have perceived, besides,
+a certain odour.  A noise, too--I do not know to what I should
+compare it--'
+
+'Silence!' she cried.  'You do not know the danger you invoke.
+Wait, only wait; and as soon as we have left those streets, and got
+beyond the reach of listeners, all shall be explained.  Meanwhile,
+avoid the topic.  What a sight is this sleeping city!' she
+exclaimed; and then, with a most thrilling voice, '"Dear God," she
+quoted, "the very houses seem asleep, and all that mighty heart is
+lying still."'
+
+'I perceive, madam,' said he, 'you are a reader.'
+
+'I am more than that,' she answered, with a sigh.  'I am a girl
+condemned to thoughts beyond her age; and so untoward is my fate,
+that this walk upon the arm of a stranger is like an interlude of
+peace.'
+
+They had come by this time to the neighbourhood of the Victoria
+Station and here, at a street corner, the young lady paused,
+withdrew her arm from Challoner's, and looked up and down as though
+in pain or indecision.  Then, with a lovely change of countenance,
+and laying her gloved hand upon his arm -
+
+'What you already think of me,' she said, 'I tremble to conceive;
+yet I must here condemn myself still further.  Here I must leave
+you, and here I beseech you to wait for my return.  Do not attempt
+to follow me or spy upon my actions.  Suspend yet awhile your
+judgment of a girl as innocent as your own sister; and do not,
+above all, desert me.  Stranger as you are, I have none else to
+look to.  You see me in sorrow and great fear; you are a gentleman,
+courteous and kind:  and when I beg for a few minutes' patience, I
+make sure beforehand you will not deny me.'
+
+Challoner grudgingly promised; and the young lady, with a grateful
+eye-shot, vanished round the corner.  But the force of her appeal
+had been a little blunted; for the young man was not only destitute
+of sisters, but of any female relative nearer than a great-aunt in
+Wales.  Now he was alone, besides, the spell that he had hitherto
+obeyed began to weaken; he considered his behaviour with a sneer;
+and plucking up the spirit of revolt, he started in pursuit.  The
+reader, if he has ever plied the fascinating trade of the
+noctambulist, will not be unaware that, in the neighbourhood of the
+great railway centres, certain early taverns inaugurate the
+business of the day.  It was into one of these that Challoner,
+coming round the corner of the block, beheld his charming companion
+disappear.  To say he was surprised were inexact, for he had long
+since left that sentiment behind him.  Acute disgust and
+disappointment seized upon his soul; and with silent oaths, he
+damned this commonplace enchantress.  She had scarce been gone a
+second, ere the swing-doors reopened, and she appeared again in
+company with a young man of mean and slouching attire.  For some
+five or six exchanges they conversed together with an animated air;
+then the fellow shouldered again into the tap; and the young lady,
+with something swifter than a walk, retraced her steps towards
+Challoner.  He saw her coming, a miracle of grace; her ankle, as
+she hurried, flashing from her dress; her movements eloquent of
+speed and youth; and though he still entertained some thoughts of
+flight, they grew miserably fainter as the distance lessened.
+Against mere beauty he was proof:  it was her unmistakable
+gentility that now robbed him of the courage of his cowardice.
+With a proved adventuress he had acted strictly on his right; with
+one who, in spite of all, he could not quite deny to be a lady, he
+found himself disarmed.  At the very corner from whence he had
+spied upon her interview, she came upon him, still transfixed, and-
+-'Ah!' she cried, with a bright flush of colour.  'Ah!
+Ungenerous!'
+
+The sharpness of the attack somewhat restored the Squire of Dames
+to the possession of himself.
+
+'Madam,' he returned, with a fair show of stoutness, 'I do not
+think that hitherto you can complain of any lack of generosity; I
+have suffered myself to be led over a considerable portion of the
+metropolis; and if I now request you to discharge me of my office
+of protector, you have friends at hand who will be glad of the
+succession.'
+
+She stood a moment dumb.
+
+'It is well,' she said.  'Go! go, and may God help me!  You have
+seen me--me, an innocent girl! fleeing from a dire catastrophe and
+haunted by sinister men; and neither pity, curiosity, nor honour
+move you to await my explanation or to help in my distress.  Go!'
+she repeated.  'I am lost indeed.'  And with a passionate gesture
+she turned and fled along the street.
+
+Challoner observed her retreat and disappear, an almost intolerable
+sense of guilt contending with the profound sense that he was being
+gulled.  She was no sooner gone than the first of these feelings
+took the upper hand; he felt, if he had done her less than justice,
+that his conduct was a perfect model of the ungracious; the
+cultured tone of her voice, her choice of language, and the elegant
+decorum of her movements, cried out aloud against a harsh
+construction; and between penitence and curiosity he began slowly
+to follow in her wake.  At the corner he had her once more full in
+view.  Her speed was failing like a stricken bird's.  Even as he
+looked, she threw her arm out gropingly, and fell and leaned
+against the wall.  At the spectacle, Challoner's fortitude gave
+way.  In a few strides he overtook her and, for the first time
+removing his hat, assured her in the most moving terms of his
+entire respect and firm desire to help her.  He spoke at first
+unheeded; but gradually it appeared that she began to comprehend
+his words; she moved a little, and drew herself upright; and
+finally, as with a sudden movement of forgiveness, turned on the
+young man a countenance in which reproach and gratitude were
+mingled.  'Ah, madam,' he cried, 'use me as you will!'  And once
+more, but now with a great air of deference, he offered her the
+conduct of his arm.  She took it with a sigh that struck him to the
+heart; and they began once more to trace the deserted streets.  But
+now her steps, as though exhausted by emotion, began to linger on
+the way; she leaned the more heavily upon his arm; and he, like the
+parent bird, stooped fondly above his drooping convoy.  Her
+physical distress was not accompanied by any failing of her
+spirits; and hearing her strike so soon into a playful and charming
+vein of talk, Challoner could not sufficiently admire the
+elasticity of his companion's nature.  'Let me forget,' she had
+said, 'for one half hour, let me forget;' and sure enough, with the
+very word, her sorrows appeared to be forgotten.  Before every
+house she paused, invented a name for the proprietor, and sketched
+his character:  here lived the old general whom she was to marry on
+the fifth of the next month, there was the mansion of the rich
+widow who had set her heart on Challoner; and though she still hung
+wearily on the young man's arm, her laughter sounded low and
+pleasant in his ears.  'Ah,' she sighed, by way of commentary, 'in
+such a life as mine I must seize tight hold of any happiness that I
+can find.'
+
+When they arrived, in this leisurely manner, at the head of
+Grosvenor Place, the gates of the park were opening and the
+bedraggled company of night-walkers were being at last admitted
+into that paradise of lawns.  Challoner and his companion followed
+the movement, and walked for awhile in silence in that
+tatterdemalion crowd; but as one after another, weary with the
+night's patrolling of the city pavement, sank upon the benches or
+wandered into separate paths, the vast extent of the park had soon
+utterly swallowed up the last of these intruders; and the pair
+proceeded on their way alone in the grateful quiet of the morning.
+
+Presently they came in sight of a bench, standing very open on a
+mound of turf.  The young lady looked about her with relief.
+
+'Here,' she said, 'here at last we are secure from listeners.
+Here, then, you shall learn and judge my history.  I could not bear
+that we should part, and that you should still suppose your
+kindness squandered upon one who was unworthy.'
+
+Thereupon she sat down upon the bench, and motioning Challoner to
+take a place immediately beside her, began in the following words,
+and with the greatest appearance of enjoyment, to narrate the story
+of her life.
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE DESTROYING ANGEL
+
+
+
+My father was a native of England, son of a cadet of a great,
+ancient, but untitled family; and by some event, fault or
+misfortune, he was driven to flee from the land of his birth and to
+lay aside the name of his ancestors.  He sought the States; and
+instead of lingering in effeminate cities, pushed at once into the
+far West with an exploring party of frontiersmen.  He was no
+ordinary traveller; for he was not only brave and impetuous by
+character, but learned in many sciences, and above all in botany,
+which he particularly loved.  Thus it fell that, before many
+months, Fremont himself, the nominal leader of the troop, courted
+and bowed to his opinion.
+
+They had pushed, as I have said, into the still unknown regions of
+the West.  For some time they followed the track of Mormon
+caravans, guiding themselves in that vast and melancholy desert by
+the skeletons of men and animals.  Then they inclined their route a
+little to the north, and, losing even these dire memorials, came
+into a country of forbidding stillness.
+
+I have often heard my father dwell upon the features of that ride:
+rock, cliff, and barren moor alternated; the streams were very far
+between; and neither beast nor bird disturbed the solitude.  On the
+fortieth day they had already run so short of food that it was
+judged advisable to call a halt and scatter upon all sides to hunt.
+A great fire was built, that its smoke might serve to rally them;
+and each man of the party mounted and struck off at a venture into
+the surrounding desert.
+
+My father rode for many hours with a steep range of cliffs upon the
+one hand, very black and horrible; and upon the other an unwatered
+vale dotted with boulders like the site of some subverted city.  At
+length he found the slot of a great animal, and from the claw-marks
+and the hair among the brush, judged that he was on the track of a
+cinnamon bear of most unusual size.  He quickened the pace of his
+steed, and still following the quarry, came at last to the division
+of two watersheds.  On the far side the country was exceeding
+intricate and difficult, heaped with boulders, and dotted here and
+there with a few pines, which seemed to indicate the neighbourhood
+of water.  Here, then, he picketed his horse, and relying on his
+trusty rifle, advanced alone into that wilderness.
+
+Presently, in the great silence that reigned, he was aware of the
+sound of running water to his right; and leaning in that direction,
+was rewarded by a scene of natural wonder and human pathos
+strangely intermixed.  The stream ran at the bottom of a narrow and
+winding passage, whose wall-like sides of rock were sometimes for
+miles together unscalable by man.  The water, when the stream was
+swelled with rains, must have filled it from side to side; the
+sun's rays only plumbed it in the hour of noon; the wind, in that
+narrow and damp funnel, blew tempestuously.  And yet, in the bottom
+of this den, immediately below my father's eyes as he leaned over
+the margin of the cliff, a party of some half a hundred men, women,
+and children lay scattered uneasily among the rocks.  They lay some
+upon their backs, some prone, and not one stirring; their upturned
+faces seemed all of an extraordinary paleness and emaciation; and
+from time to time, above the washing of the stream, a faint sound
+of moaning mounted to my father's ears.
+
+While he thus looked, an old man got staggering to his feet,
+unwound his blanket, and laid it, with great gentleness, on a young
+girl who sat hard by propped against a rock.  The girl did not seem
+to be conscious of the act; and the old man, after having looked
+upon her with the most engaging pity, returned to his former bed
+and lay down again uncovered on the turf.  But the scene had not
+passed without observation even in that starving camp.  From the
+very outskirts of the party, a man with a white beard and seemingly
+of venerable years, rose upon his knees, and came crawling
+stealthily among the sleepers towards the girl; and judge of my
+father's indignation, when he beheld this cowardly miscreant strip
+from her both the coverings and return with them to his original
+position.  Here he lay down for a while below his spoils, and, as
+my father imagined, feigned to be asleep; but presently he had
+raised himself again upon one elbow, looked with sharp scrutiny at
+his companions, and then swiftly carried his hand into his bosom
+and thence to his mouth.  By the movement of his jaws he must be
+eating; in that camp of famine he had reserved a store of
+nourishment; and while his companions lay in the stupor of
+approaching death, secretly restored his powers.
+
+My father was so incensed at what he saw that he raised his rifle;
+and but for an accident, he has often declared, he would have shot
+the fellow dead upon the spot.  How different would then have been
+my history!  But it was not to be:  even as he raised the barrel,
+his eye lighted on the bear, as it crawled along a ledge some way
+below him; and ceding to the hunters instinct, it was at the brute,
+not at the man, that he discharged his piece.  The bear leaped and
+fell into a pool of the river; the canyon re-echoed the report; and
+in a moment the camp was afoot.  With cries that were scarce human,
+stumbling, falling and throwing each other down, these starving
+people rushed upon the quarry; and before my father, climbing down
+by the ledge, had time to reach the level of the stream, many were
+already satisfying their hunger on the raw flesh, and a fire was
+being built by the more dainty.
+
+His arrival was for some time unremarked.  He stood in the midst of
+these tottering and clay-faced marionettes; he was surrounded by
+their cries; but their whole soul was fixed on the dead carcass;
+even those who were too weak to move, lay, half-turned over, with
+their eyes riveted upon the bear; and my father, seeing himself
+stand as though invisible in the thick of this dreary hubbub, was
+seized with a desire to weep.  A touch upon the arm restrained him.
+Turning about, he found himself face to face with the old man he
+had so nearly killed; and yet, at the second glance, recognised him
+for no old man at all, but one in the full strength of his years,
+and of a strong, speaking, and intellectual countenance stigmatised
+by weariness and famine.  He beckoned my father near the cliff, and
+there, in the most private whisper, begged for brandy.  My father
+looked at him with scorn:  'You remind me,' he said, 'of a
+neglected duty.  Here is my flask; it contains enough, I trust, to
+revive the women of your party; and I will begin with her whom I
+saw you robbing of her blankets.'  And with that, not heeding his
+appeals, my father turned his back upon the egoist.
+
+The girl still lay reclined against the rock; she lay too far sunk
+in the first stage of death to have observed the bustle round her
+couch; but when my father had raised her head, put the flask to her
+lips, and forced or aided her to swallow some drops of the
+restorative, she opened her languid eyes and smiled upon him
+faintly.  Never was there a smile of a more touching sweetness;
+never were eyes more deeply violet, more honestly eloquent of the
+soul!  I speak with knowledge, for these were the same eyes that
+smiled upon me in the cradle.  From her who was to be his wife, my
+father, still jealously watched and followed by the man with the
+grey beard, carried his attentions to all the women of the party,
+and gave the last drainings of his flask to those among the men who
+seemed in the most need.
+
+'Is there none left? not a drop for me?' said the man with the
+beard.
+
+'Not one drop,' replied my father; 'and if you find yourself in
+want, let me counsel you to put your hand into the pocket of your
+coat.'
+
+'Ah!' cried the other, 'you misjudge me.  You think me one who
+clings to life for selfish and commonplace considerations.  But let
+me tell you, that were all this caravan to perish, the world would
+but be lightened of a weight.  These are but human insects,
+pullulating, thick as May-flies, in the slums of European cities,
+whom I myself have plucked from degradation and misery, from the
+dung-heap and gin-palace door.  And you compare their lives with
+mine!'
+
+'You are then a Mormon missionary?' asked my father.
+
+'Oh!' cried the man, with a strange smile, 'a Mormon missionary if
+you will!  I value not the title.  Were I no more than that, I
+could have died without a murmur.  But with my life as a physician
+is bound up the knowledge of great secrets and the future of man.
+This it was, when we missed the caravan, tried for a short cut and
+wandered to this desolate ravine, that ate into my soul, and, in
+five days, has changed my beard from ebony to silver.'
+
+'And you are a physician,' mused my father, looking on his face,
+'bound by oath to succour man in his distresses.'
+
+'Sir,' returned the Mormon, 'my name is Grierson:  you will hear
+that name again; and you will then understand that my duty was not
+to this caravan of paupers, but to mankind at large.'
+
+My father turned to the remainder of the party, who were now
+sufficiently revived to hear; told them that he would set off at
+once to bring help from his own party; 'and,' he added, 'if you be
+again reduced to such extremities, look round you, and you will see
+the earth strewn with assistance.  Here, for instance, growing on
+the under side of fissures in this cliff, you will perceive a
+yellow moss.  Trust me, it is both edible and excellent.'
+
+'Ha!' said Doctor Grierson, 'you know botany!'
+
+'Not I alone,' returned my father, lowering his voice; 'for see
+where these have been scraped away.  Am I right?  Was that your
+secret store?'
+
+My father's comrades, he found, when he returned to the signal-
+fire, had made a good day's hunting.  They were thus the more
+easily persuaded to extend assistance to the Mormon caravan; and
+the next day beheld both parties on the march for the frontiers of
+Utah.  The distance to be traversed was not great; but the nature
+of the country, and the difficulty of procuring food, extended the
+time to nearly three weeks; and my father had thus ample leisure to
+know and appreciate the girl whom he had succoured.  I will call my
+mother Lucy.  Her family name I am not at liberty to mention; it is
+one you would know well.  By what series of undeserved calamities
+this innocent flower of maidenhood, lovely, refined by education,
+ennobled by the finest taste, was thus cast among the horrors of a
+Mormon caravan, I must not stay to tell you.  Let it suffice, that
+even in these untoward circumstances, she found a heart worthy of
+her own.  The ardour of attachment which united my father and
+mother was perhaps partly due to the strange manner of their
+meeting; it knew, at least, no bounds either divine or human; my
+father, for her sake, determined to renounce his ambitions and
+abjure his faith; and a week had not yet passed upon the march
+before he had resigned from his party, accepted the Mormon
+doctrine, and received the promise of my mother's hand on the
+arrival of the party at Salt Lake.
+
+The marriage took place, and I was its only offspring.  My father
+prospered exceedingly in his affairs, remained faithful to my
+mother; and though you may wonder to hear it, I believe there were
+few happier homes in any country than that in which I saw the light
+and grew to girlhood.  We were, indeed, and in spite of all our
+wealth, avoided as heretics and half-believers by the more precise
+and pious of the faithful:  Young himself, that formidable tyrant,
+was known to look askance upon my father's riches; but of this I
+had no guess.  I dwelt, indeed, under the Mormon system, with
+perfect innocence and faith.  Some of our friends had many wives;
+but such was the custom; and why should it surprise me more than
+marriage itself?  From time to time one of our rich acquaintances
+would disappear, his family be broken up, his wives and houses
+shared among the elders of the Church, and his memory only recalled
+with bated breath and dreadful headshakings.  When I had been very
+still, and my presence perhaps was forgotten, some such topic would
+arise among my elders by the evening fire; I would see them draw
+the closer together and look behind them with scared eyes; and I
+might gather from their whisperings how some one, rich, honoured,
+healthy, and in the prime of his days, some one, perhaps, who had
+taken me on his knees a week before, had in one hour been spirited
+from home and family, and vanished like an image from a mirror,
+leaving not a print behind.  It was terrible, indeed; but so was
+death, the universal law.  And even if the talk should wax still
+bolder, full of ominous silences and nods, and I should hear named
+in a whisper the Destroying Angels, how was a child to understand
+these mysteries?  I heard of a Destroying Angel as some more happy
+child might hear in England of a bishop or a rural dean, with vague
+respect and without the wish for further information.  Life
+anywhere, in society as in nature, rests upon dread foundations; I
+beheld safe roads, a garden blooming in the desert, pious people
+crowding to worship; I was aware of my parents' tenderness and all
+the harmless luxuries of my existence; and why should I pry beneath
+this honest seeming surface for the mysteries on which it stood?
+
+We dwelt originally in the city; but at an early date we moved to a
+beautiful house in a green dingle, musical with splashing water,
+and surrounded on almost every side by twenty miles of poisonous
+and rocky desert.  The city was thirty miles away; there was but
+one road, which went no further than my father's door; the rest
+were bridle-tracks impassable in winter; and we thus dwelt in a
+solitude inconceivable to the European.  Our only neighbour was Dr.
+Grierson.  To my young eyes, after the hair-oiled, chin-bearded
+elders of the city, and the ill-favoured and mentally stunted women
+of their harems, there was something agreeable in the correct
+manner, the fine bearing, the thin white hair and beard, and the
+piercing looks of the old doctor.  Yet, though he was almost our
+only visitor, I never wholly overcame a sense of fear in his
+presence; and this disquietude was rather fed by the awful solitude
+in which he lived and the obscurity that hung about his
+occupations.  His house was but a mile or two from ours, but very
+differently placed.  It stood overlooking the road on the summit of
+a steep slope, and planted close against a range of overhanging
+bluffs.  Nature, you would say, had here desired to imitate the
+works of man; for the slope was even, like the glacis of a fort,
+and the cliffs of a constant height, like the ramparts of a city.
+Not even spring could change one feature of that desolate scene;
+and the windows looked down across a plain, snowy with alkali, to
+ranges of cold stone sierras on the north.  Twice or thrice I
+remember passing within view of this forbidding residence; and
+seeing it always shuttered, smokeless, and deserted, I remarked to
+my parents that some day it would certainly be robbed.
+
+'Ah, no,' said my father, 'never robbed;' and I observed a strange
+conviction in his tone.
+
+At last, and not long before the blow fell on my unhappy family, I
+chanced to see the doctor's house in a new light.  My father was
+ill; my mother confined to his bedside; and I was suffered to go,
+under the charge of our driver, to the lonely house some twenty
+miles away, where our packages were left for us.  The horse cast a
+shoe; night overtook us halfway home; and it was well on for three
+in the morning when the driver and I, alone in a light waggon, came
+to that part of the road which ran below the doctor's house.  The
+moon swam clear; the cliffs and mountains in this strong light lay
+utterly deserted; but the house, from its station on the top of the
+long slope and close under the bluff, not only shone abroad from
+every window like a place of festival, but from the great chimney
+at the west end poured forth a coil of smoke so thick and so
+voluminous, that it hung for miles along the windless night air,
+and its shadow lay far abroad in the moonlight upon the glittering
+alkali.  As we continued to draw near, besides, a regular and
+panting throb began to divide the silence.  First it seemed to me
+like the beating of a heart; and next it put into my mind the
+thought of some giant, smothered under mountains and still, with
+incalculable effort, fetching breath.  I had heard of the railway,
+though I had not seen it, and I turned to ask the driver if this
+resembled it.  But some look in his eye, some pallor, whether of
+fear or moonlight on his face, caused the words to die upon my
+lips.  We continued, therefore, to advance in silence, till we were
+close below the lighted house; when suddenly, without one
+premonitory rustle, there burst forth a report of such a bigness
+that it shook the earth and set the echoes of the mountains
+thundering from cliff to cliff.  A pillar of amber flame leaped
+from the chimney-top and fell in multitudes of sparks; and at the
+same time the lights in the windows turned for one instant ruby red
+and then expired.  The driver had checked his horse instinctively,
+and the echoes were still rumbling farther off among the mountains,
+when there broke from the now darkened interior a series of yells--
+whether of man or woman it was impossible to guess--the door flew
+open, and there ran forth into the moonlight, at the top of the
+long slope, a figure clad in white, which began to dance and leap
+and throw itself down, and roll as if in agony, before the house.
+I could no more restrain my cries; the driver laid his lash about
+the horse's flank, and we fled up the rough track at the peril of
+our lives; and did not draw rein till, turning the corner of the
+mountain, we beheld my father's ranch and deep, green groves and
+gardens, sleeping in the tranquil light.
+
+This was the one adventure of my life, until my father had climbed
+to the very topmost point of material prosperity, and I myself had
+reached the age of seventeen.  I was still innocent and merry like
+a child; tended my garden or ran upon the hills in glad simplicity;
+gave not a thought to coquetry or to material cares; and if my eye
+rested on my own image in a mirror or some sylvan spring, it was to
+seek and recognise the features of my parents.  But the fears which
+had long pressed on others were now to be laid on my youth.  I had
+thrown myself, one sultry, cloudy afternoon, on a divan; the
+windows stood open on the verandah, where my mother sat with her
+embroidery; and when my father joined her from the garden, their
+conversation, clearly audible to me, was of so startling a nature
+that it held me enthralled where I lay.
+
+'The blow has come,' my father said, after a long pause.
+
+I could hear my mother start and turn, but in words she made no
+reply.
+
+'Yes,' continued my father, 'I have received to-day a list of all
+that I possess; of all, I say; of what I have lent privately to men
+whose lips are sealed with terror; of what I have buried with my
+own hand on the bare mountain, when there was not a bird in heaven.
+Does the air, then, carry secrets?  Are the hills of glass?  Do the
+stones we tread upon preserve the footprint to betray us?  Oh,
+Lucy, Lucy, that we should have come to such a country!'
+
+'But this,' returned my mother, 'is no very new or very threatening
+event.  You are accused of some concealment.  You will pay more
+taxes in the future, and be mulcted in a fine.  It is disquieting,
+indeed, to find our acts so spied upon, and the most private known.
+But is this new?  Have we not long feared and suspected every blade
+of grass?'
+
+'Ay, and our shadows!' cried my father.  'But all this is nothing.
+Here is the letter that accompanied the list.'
+
+I heard my mother turn the pages, and she was some time silent.
+
+'I see,' she said at last; and then, with the tone of one reading:
+'"From a believer so largely blessed by Providence with this
+world's goods,"' she continued, '"the Church awaits in confidence
+some signal mark of piety."  There lies the sting.  Am I not right?
+These are the words you fear?'
+
+'These are the words,' replied my father.  'Lucy, you remember
+Priestley?  Two days before he disappeared, he carried me to the
+summit of an isolated butte; we could see around us for ten miles;
+sure, if in any quarter of this land a man were safe from spies, it
+were in such a station; but it was in the very ague-fit of terror
+that he told me, and that I heard, his story.  He had received a
+letter such as this; and he submitted to my approval an answer, in
+which he offered to resign a third of his possessions.  I conjured
+him, as he valued life, to raise his offering; and, before we
+parted, he had doubled the amount.  Well, two days later he was
+gone--gone from the chief street of the city in the hour of noon--
+and gone for ever.  O God!' cried my father, 'by what art do they
+thus spirit out of life the solid body?  What death do they command
+that leaves no traces? that this material structure, these strong
+arms, this skeleton that can resist the grave for centuries, should
+be thus reft in a moment from the world of sense?  A horror dwells
+in that thought more awful than mere death.'
+
+'Is there no hope in Grierson?' asked my mother.
+
+'Dismiss the thought,' replied my father.  'He now knows all that I
+can teach, and will do naught to save me.  His power, besides, is
+small, his own danger not improbably more imminent than mine; for
+he, too, lives apart; he leaves his wives neglected and unwatched;
+he is openly cited for an unbeliever; and unless he buys security
+at a more awful price--but no; I will not believe it:  I have no
+love for him, but I will not believe it.'
+
+'Believe what?' asked my mother; and then, with a change of note,
+'But oh, what matters it?' she cried.  'Abimelech, there is but one
+way open:  we must fly!'
+
+'It is in vain,' returned my father.  'I should but involve you in
+my fate.  To leave this land is hopeless:  we are closed in it as
+men are closed in life; and there is no issue but the grave.'
+
+'We can but die then,' replied my mother.  'Let us at least die
+together.  Let not Asenath {2} and myself survive you.  Think to
+what a fate we should be doomed!'
+
+My father was unable to resist her tender violence; and though I
+could see he nourished not one spark of hope, he consented to
+desert his whole estate, beyond some hundreds of dollars that he
+had by him at the moment, and to flee that night, which promised to
+be dark and cloudy.  As soon as the servants were asleep, he was to
+load two mules with provisions; two others were to carry my mother
+and myself; and, striking through the mountains by an unfrequented
+trail, we were to make a fair stroke for liberty and life.  As soon
+as they had thus decided, I showed myself at the window, and,
+owning that I had heard all, assured them that they could rely on
+my prudence and devotion.  I had no fear, indeed, but to show
+myself unworthy of my birth; I held my life in my hand without
+alarm; and when my father, weeping upon my neck, had blessed Heaven
+for the courage of his child, it was with a sentiment of pride and
+some of the joy that warriors take in war, that I began to look
+forward to the perils of our flight.
+
+Before midnight, under an obscure and starless heaven, we had left
+far behind us the plantations of the valley, and were mounting a
+certain canyon in the hills, narrow, encumbered with great rocks,
+and echoing with the roar of a tumultuous torrent.  Cascade after
+cascade thundered and hung up its flag of whiteness in the night,
+or fanned our faces with the wet wind of its descent.  The trail
+was breakneck, and led to famine-guarded deserts; it had been long
+since deserted for more practicable routes; and it was now a part
+of the world untrod from year to year by human footing. Judge of
+our dismay, when turning suddenly an angle of the cliffs, we found
+a bright bonfire blazing by itself under an impending rock; and on
+the face of the rock, drawn very rudely with charred wood, the
+great Open Eye which is the emblem of the Mormon faith.  We looked
+upon each other in the firelight; my mother broke into a passion of
+tears; but not a word was said.  The mules were turned about; and
+leaving that great eye to guard the lonely canyon, we retraced our
+steps in silence.  Day had not yet broken ere we were once more at
+home, condemned beyond reprieve.
+
+What answer my father sent I was not told; but two days later, a
+little before sundown, I saw a plain, honest-looking man ride
+slowly up the road in a great pother of dust.  He was clad in
+homespun, with a broad straw hat; wore a patriarchal beard; and had
+an air of a simple rustic farmer, that was, in my eyes, very
+reassuring.  He was, indeed, a very honest man and pious Mormon;
+with no liking for his errand, though neither he nor any one in
+Utah dared to disobey; and it was with every mark of diffidence
+that he had had himself announced as Mr. Aspinwall, and entered the
+room where our unhappy family was gathered.  My mother and me, he
+awkwardly enough dismissed; and as soon as he was alone with my
+father laid before him a blank signature of President Young's, and
+offered him a choice of services:  either to set out as a
+missionary to the tribes about the White Sea, or to join the next
+day, with a party of Destroying Angels, in the massacre of sixty
+German immigrants.  The last, of course, my father could not
+entertain, and the first he regarded as a pretext:  even if he
+could consent to leave his wife defenceless, and to collect fresh
+victims for the tyranny under which he was himself oppressed, he
+felt sure he would never be suffered to return.  He refused both;
+and Aspinwall, he said, betrayed sincere emotion, part religious,
+at the spectacle of such disobedience, but part human, in pity for
+my father and his family.  He besought him to reconsider his
+decision; and at length, finding he could not prevail, gave him
+till the moon rose to settle his affairs, and say farewell to wife
+and daughter.  'For,' said he, 'then, at the latest, you must ride
+with me.'
+
+I dare not dwell upon the hours that followed:  they fled all too
+fast; and presently the moon out-topped the eastern range, and my
+father and Mr. Aspinwall set forth, side by side, on their
+nocturnal journey.  My mother, though still bearing an heroic
+countenance, had hastened to shut herself in her apartment,
+thenceforward solitary; and I, alone in the dark house, and
+consumed by grief and apprehension, made haste to saddle my Indian
+pony, to ride up to the corner of the mountain, and to enjoy one
+farewell sight of my departing father.  The two men had set forth
+at a deliberate pace; nor was I long behind them, when I reached
+the point of view.  I was the more amazed to see no moving creature
+in the landscape.  The moon, as the saying is, shone bright as day;
+and nowhere, under the whole arch of night, was there a growing
+tree, a bush, a farm, a patch of tillage, or any evidence of man,
+but one.  From the corner where I stood, a rugged bastion of the
+line of bluffs concealed the doctor's house; and across the top of
+that projection the soft night wind carried and unwound about the
+hills a coil of sable smoke.  What fuel could produce a vapour so
+sluggish to dissipate in that dry air, or what furnace pour it
+forth so copiously, I was unable to conceive; but I knew well
+enough that it came from the doctor's chimney; I saw well enough
+that my father had already disappeared; and in despite of reason, I
+connected in my mind the loss of that dear protector with the
+ribbon of foul smoke that trailed along the mountains.
+
+Days passed, and still my mother and I waited in vain for news; a
+week went by, a second followed, but we heard no word of the father
+and husband.  As smoke dissipates, as the image glides from the
+mirror, so in the ten or twenty minutes that I had spent in getting
+my horse and following upon his trail, had that strong and brave
+man vanished out of life.  Hope, if any hope we had, fled with
+every hour; the worst was now certain for my father, the worst was
+to be dreaded for his defenceless family.  Without weakness, with a
+desperate calm at which I marvel when I look back upon it, the
+widow and the orphan awaited the event.  On the last day of the
+third week we rose in the morning to find ourselves alone in the
+house, alone, so far as we searched, on the estate; all our
+attendants, with one accord, had fled:  and as we knew them to be
+gratefully devoted, we drew the darkest intimations from their
+flight.  The day passed, indeed, without event; but in the fall of
+the evening we were called at last into the verandah by the
+approaching clink of horse's hoofs.
+
+The doctor, mounted on an Indian pony, rode into the garden,
+dismounted, and saluted us.  He seemed much more bent, and his hair
+more silvery than ever; but his demeanour was composed, serious,
+and not unkind.
+
+'Madam,' said he, 'I am come upon a weighty errand; and I would
+have you recognise it as an effect of kindness in the President,
+that he should send as his ambassador your only neighbour and your
+husband's oldest friend in Utah.'
+
+'Sir,' said my mother, 'I have but one concern, one thought.  You
+know well what it is.  Speak:  my husband?'
+
+'Madam,' returned the doctor, taking a chair on the verandah, 'if
+you were a silly child, my position would now be painfully
+embarrassing.  You are, on the other hand, a woman of great
+intelligence and fortitude:  you have, by my forethought, been
+allowed three weeks to draw your own conclusions and to accept the
+inevitable.  Farther words from me are, I conceive, superfluous.'
+
+My mother was as pale as death, and trembled like a reed; I gave
+her my hand, and she kept it in the folds of her dress and wrung it
+till I could have cried aloud.  'Then, sir,' said she at last, 'you
+speak to deaf ears.  If this be indeed so, what have I to do with
+errands?  What do I ask of Heaven but to die?'
+
+'Come,' said the doctor, 'command yourself.  I bid you dismiss all
+thoughts of your late husband, and bring a clear mind to bear upon
+your own future and the fate of that young girl.'
+
+'You bid me dismiss--' began my mother.  'Then you know!' she
+cried.
+
+'I know,' replied the doctor.
+
+'You know?' broke out the poor woman.  'Then it was you who did the
+deed!  I tear off the mask, and with dread and loathing see you as
+you are--you, whom the poor fugitive beholds in nightmares, and
+awakes raving--you, the Destroying Angel!'
+
+'Well, madam, and what then?' returned the doctor.  'Have not my
+fate and yours been similar?  Are we not both immured in this
+strong prison of Utah?  Have you not tried to flee, and did not the
+Open Eye confront you in the canyon?  Who can escape the watch of
+that unsleeping eye of Utah?  Not I, at least.  Horrible tasks
+have, indeed, been laid upon me; and the most ungrateful was the
+last; but had I refused my offices, would that have spared your
+husband?  You know well it would not.  I, too, had perished along
+with him; nor would I have been able to alleviate his last moments,
+nor could I to-day have stood between his family and the hand of
+Brigham Young.'
+
+'Ah!' cried I, 'and could you purchase life by such concessions?'
+
+'Young lady,' answered the doctor, 'I both could and did; and you
+will live to thank me for that baseness.  You have a spirit,
+Asenath, that it pleases me to recognise.  But we waste time.  Mr.
+Fonblanque's estate reverts, as you doubtless imagine, to the
+Church; but some part of it has been reserved for him who is to
+marry the family; and that person, I should perhaps tell you
+without more delay, is no other than myself.'
+
+At this odious proposal my mother and I cried out aloud, and clung
+together like lost souls.
+
+'It is as I supposed,' resumed the doctor, with the same measured
+utterance.  'You recoil from this arrangement.  Do you expect me to
+convince you?  You know very well that I have never held the Mormon
+view of women.  Absorbed in the most arduous studies, I have left
+the slatterns whom they call my wives to scratch and quarrel among
+themselves; of me, they have had nothing but my purse; such was not
+the union I desired, even if I had the leisure to pursue it.  No:
+you need not, madam, and my old friend'--and here the doctor rose
+and bowed with something of gallantry--'you need not apprehend my
+importunities.  On the contrary, I am rejoiced to read in you a
+Roman spirit; and if I am obliged to bid you follow me at once, and
+that in the name, not of my wish, but of my orders, I hope it will
+be found that we are of a common mind.'
+
+So, bidding us dress for the road, he took a lamp (for the night
+had now fallen) and set off to the stable to prepare our horses.
+
+'What does it mean?--what will become of us?' I cried.
+
+'Not that, at least,' replied my mother, shuddering.  'So far we
+can trust him.  I seem to read among his words a certain tragic
+promise.  Asenath, if I leave you, if I die, you will not forget
+your miserable parents?'
+
+Thereupon we fell to cross-purposes:  I beseeching her to explain
+her words; she putting me by, and continuing to recommend the
+doctor for a friend.  'The doctor!' I cried at last; 'the man who
+killed my father?'
+
+'Nay,' said she, 'let us be just.  I do believe before, Heaven, he
+played the friendliest part.  And he alone, Asenath, can protect
+you in this land of death.'
+
+At this the doctor returned, leading our two horses; and when we
+were all in the saddle, he bade me ride on before, as he had matter
+to discuss with Mrs. Fonblanque.  They came at a foot's pace,
+eagerly conversing in a whisper; and presently after the moon rose
+and showed them looking eagerly in each other's faces as they went,
+my mother laying her hand upon the doctor's arm, and the doctor
+himself, against his usual custom, making vigorous gestures of
+protest or asseveration.
+
+At the foot of the track which ascended the talus of the mountain
+to his door, the doctor overtook me at a trot.
+
+'Here,' he said, 'we shall dismount; and as your mother prefers to
+be alone, you and I shall walk together to my house.'
+
+'Shall I see her again?' I asked.
+
+'I give you my word,' he said, and helped me to alight.  'We leave
+the horses here,' he added.  'There are no thieves in this stone
+wilderness.'
+
+The track mounted gradually, keeping the house in view.  The
+windows were once more bright; the chimney once more vomited smoke;
+but the most absolute silence reigned, and, but for the figure of
+my mother very slowly following in our wake, I felt convinced there
+was no human soul within a range of miles.  At the thought, I
+looked upon the doctor, gravely walking by my side, with his bowed
+shoulders and white hair, and then once more at his house, lit up
+and pouring smoke like some industrious factory.  And then my
+curiosity broke forth.  'In Heaven's name,' I cried, 'what do you
+make in this inhuman desert?'
+
+He looked at me with a peculiar smile, and answered with an evasion
+-
+
+'This is not the first time,' said he, 'that you have seen my
+furnaces alight.  One morning, in the small hours, I saw you
+driving past; a delicate experiment miscarried; and I cannot acquit
+myself of having startled either your driver or the horse that drew
+you.'
+
+'What!' cried I, beholding again in fancy the antics of the figure,
+'could that be you?'
+
+'It was I,' he replied; 'but do not fancy that I was mad.  I was in
+agony.  I had been scalded cruelly.'
+
+We were now near the house, which, unlike the ordinary houses of
+the country, was built of hewn stone and very solid.  Stone, too,
+was its foundation, stone its background.  Not a blade of grass
+sprouted among the broken mineral about the walls, not a flower
+adorned the windows.  Over the door, by way of sole adornment, the
+Mormon Eye was rudely sculptured; I had been brought up to view
+that emblem from my childhood; but since the night of our escape,
+it had acquired a new significance, and set me shrinking.  The
+smoke rolled voluminously from the chimney top, its edges ruddy
+with the fire; and from the far corner of the building, near the
+ground, angry puffs of steam shone snow-white in the moon and
+vanished.
+
+The doctor opened the door and paused upon the threshold.  'You ask
+me what I make here,' he observed.  'Two things:  Life and Death.'
+And he motioned me to enter.
+
+'I shall await my mother,' said I.
+
+'Child,' he replied, 'look at me:  am I not old and broken?  Of us
+two, which is the stronger, the young maiden or the withered man?'
+
+I bowed, and passing by him, entered a vestibule or kitchen, lit by
+a good fire and a shaded reading-lamp.  It was furnished only with
+a dresser, a rude table, and some wooden benches; and on one of
+these the doctor motioned me to take a seat; and passing by another
+door into the interior of the house, he left me to myself.
+Presently I heard the jar of iron from the far end of the building;
+and this was followed by the same throbbing noise that had startled
+me in the valley, but now so near at hand as to be menacing by
+loudness, and even to shake the house with every recurrence of the
+stroke.  I had scarce time to master my alarm when the doctor
+returned, and almost in the same moment my mother appeared upon the
+threshold.  But how am I to describe to you the peace and
+ravishment of that face?  Years seemed to have passed over her head
+during that brief ride, and left her younger and fairer; her eyes
+shone, her smile went to my heart; she seemed no more a woman but
+the angel of ecstatic tenderness.  I ran to her in a kind of
+terror; but she shrank a little back and laid her finger on her
+lips, with something arch and yet unearthly.  To the doctor, on the
+contrary, she reached out her hand as to a friend and helper; and
+so strange was the scene that I forgot to be offended.
+
+'Lucy,' said the doctor, 'all is prepared.  Will you go alone, or
+shall your daughter follow us?'
+
+'Let Asenath come,' she answered, 'dear Asenath!  At this hour,
+when I am purified of fear and sorrow, and already survive myself
+and my affections, it is for your sake, and not for mine, that I
+desire her presence.  Were she shut out, dear friend, it is to be
+feared she might misjudge your kindness.'
+
+'Mother,' I cried wildly, 'mother, what is this?'
+
+But my mother, with her radiant smile, said only 'Hush!' as though
+I were a child again, and tossing in some fever-fit; and the doctor
+bade me be silent and trouble her no more.  'You have made a
+choice,' he continued, addressing my mother, 'that has often
+strangely tempted me.  The two extremes:  all, or else nothing;
+never, or this very hour upon the clock--these have been my
+incongruous desires.  But to accept the middle term, to be content
+with a half-gift, to flicker awhile and to burn out--never for an
+hour, never since I was born, has satisfied the appetite of my
+ambition.'  He looked upon my mother fixedly, much of admiration
+and some touch of envy in his eyes; then, with a profound sigh, he
+led the way into the inner room.
+
+It was very long.  From end to end it was lit up by many lamps,
+which by the changeful colour of their light, and by the incessant
+snapping sounds with which they burned, I have since divined to be
+electric.  At the extreme end an open door gave us a glimpse into
+what must have been a lean-to shed beside the chimney; and this, in
+strong contrast to the room, was painted with a red reverberation
+as from furnace-doors.  The walls were lined with books and glazed
+cases, the tables crowded with the implements of chemical research;
+great glass accumulators glittered in the light; and through a hole
+in the gable near the shed door, a heavy driving-belt entered the
+apartment and ran overhead upon steel pulleys, with clumsy activity
+and many ghostly and fluttering sounds.  In one corner I perceived
+a chair resting upon crystal feet, and curiously wreathed with
+wire.  To this my mother advanced with a decisive swiftness.
+
+'Is this it?' she asked.
+
+The doctor bowed in silence.
+
+'Asenath,' said my mother, 'in this sad end of my life I have found
+one helper.  Look upon him:  it is Doctor Grierson.  Be not, oh my
+daughter, be not ungrateful to that friend!'
+
+She sate upon the chair, and took in her hands the globes that
+terminated the arms.
+
+'Am I right?' she asked, and looked upon the doctor with such a
+radiancy of face that I trembled for her reason.  Once more the
+doctor bowed, but this time leaning hard against the wall.  He must
+have touched a spring.  The least shock agitated my mother where
+she sat; the least passing jar appeared to cross her features; and
+she sank back in the chair like one resigned to weariness.  I was
+at her knees that moment; but her hands fell loosely in my grasp;
+her face, still beatified with the same touching smile, sank
+forward on her bosom:  her spirit had for ever fled.
+
+I do not know how long may have elapsed before, raising for a
+moment my tearful face, I met the doctor's eyes.  They rested upon
+mine with such a depth of scrutiny, pity, and interest, that even
+from the freshness of my sorrow, I was startled into attention.
+
+'Enough,' he said, 'to lamentation.  Your mother went to death as
+to a bridal, dying where her husband died.  It is time, Asenath, to
+think of the survivors.  Follow me to the next room.'
+
+I followed him, like a person in a dream; he made me sit by the
+fire, he gave me wine to drink; and then, pacing the stone floor,
+he thus began to address me -
+
+'You are now, my child, alone in the world, and under the immediate
+watch of Brigham Young.  It would be your lot, in ordinary
+circumstances, to become the fiftieth bride of some ignoble elder,
+or by particular fortune, as fortune is counted in this land, to
+find favour in the eyes of the President himself.  Such a fate for
+a girl like you were worse than death; better to die as your mother
+died than to sink daily deeper in the mire of this pit of woman's
+degradation.  But is escape conceivable?  Your father tried; and
+you beheld yourself with what security his jailers acted, and how a
+dumb drawing on a rock was counted a sufficient sentry over the
+avenues of freedom.  Where your father failed, will you be wiser or
+more fortunate? or are you, too, helpless in the toils?'
+
+I had followed his words with changing emotion, but now I believed
+I understood.
+
+'I see,' I cried; 'you judge me rightly.  I must follow where my
+parents led; and oh! I am not only willing, I am eager!'
+
+'No,' replied the doctor, 'not death for you.  The flawed vessel we
+may break, but not the perfect.  No, your mother cherished a
+different hope, and so do I.  I see,' he cried, 'the girl develop
+to the completed woman, the plan reach fulfilment, the promise--ay,
+outdone!  I could not bear to arrest so lively, so comely a
+process.  It was your mother's thought,' he added, with a change of
+tone, 'that I should marry you myself.'  I fear I must have shown a
+perfect horror of aversion from this fate, for he made haste to
+quiet me.  'Reassure yourself, Asenath,' he resumed.  'Old as I am,
+I have not forgotten the tumultuous fancies of youth.  I have
+passed my days, indeed, in laboratories; but in all my vigils I
+have not forgotten the tune of a young pulse.  Age asks with
+timidity to be spared intolerable pain; youth, taking fortune by
+the beard, demands joy like a right.  These things I have not
+forgotten; none, rather, has more keenly felt, none more jealously
+considered them; I have but postponed them to their day.  See,
+then:  you stand without support; the only friend left to you, this
+old investigator, old in cunning, young in sympathy.  Answer me but
+one question:  Are you free from the entanglement of what the world
+calls love?  Do you still command your heart and purposes? or are
+you fallen in some bond-slavery of the eye and ear?'
+
+I answered him in broken words; my heart, I think I must have told
+him, lay with my dead parents.
+
+'It is enough,' he said.  'It has been my fate to be called on
+often, too often, for those services of which we spoke to-night;
+none in Utah could carry them so well to a conclusion; hence there
+has fallen into my hands a certain share of influence which I now
+lay at your service, partly for the sake of my dead friends, your
+parents; partly for the interest I bear you in your own right.  I
+shall send you to England, to the great city of London, there to
+await the bridegroom I have selected.  He shall be a son of mine, a
+young man suitable in age and not grossly deficient in that quality
+of beauty that your years demand.  Since your heart is free, you
+may well pledge me the sole promise that I ask in return for much
+expense and still more danger:  to await the arrival of that
+bridegroom with the delicacy of a wife.'
+
+I sat awhile stunned.  The doctor's marriages, I remembered to have
+heard, had been unfruitful; and this added perplexity to my
+distress.  But I was alone, as he had said, alone in that dark
+land; the thought of escape, of any equal marriage, was already
+enough to revive in me some dawn of hope; and in what words I know
+not, I accepted the proposal.
+
+He seemed more moved by my consent than I could reasonably have
+looked for.  'You shall see,' he cried; 'you shall judge for
+yourself.'  And hurrying to the next room he returned with a small
+portrait somewhat coarsely done in oils.  It showed a man in the
+dress of nearly forty years before, young indeed, but still
+recognisable to be the doctor.  'Do you like it?' he asked.  'That
+is myself when I was young.  My--my boy will be like that, like but
+nobler; with such health as angels might condescend to envy; and a
+man of mind, Asenath, of commanding mind.  That should be a man, I
+think; that should be one among ten thousand.  A man like that--one
+to combine the passions of youth with the restraint, the force, the
+dignity of age--one to fill all the parts and faculties, one to be
+man's epitome--say, will that not satisfy the needs of an ambitious
+girl?  Say, is not that enough?'  And as he held the picture close
+before my eyes, his hands shook.
+
+I told him briefly I would ask no better, for I was transpierced
+with this display of fatherly emotion; but even as I said the
+words, the most insolent revolt surged through my arteries.  I held
+him in horror, him, his portrait, and his son; and had there been
+any choice but death or a Mormon marriage, I declare before Heaven
+I had embraced it.
+
+'It is well,' he replied, 'and I had rightly counted on your
+spirit.  Eat, then, for you have far to go.'  So saying, he set
+meat before me; and while I was endeavouring to obey, he left the
+room and returned with an armful of coarse raiment.  'There,' said
+he, 'is your disguise.  I leave you to your toilet.'
+
+The clothes had probably belonged to a somewhat lubberly boy of
+fifteen; and they hung about me like a sack, and cruelly hampered
+my movements.  But what filled me with uncontrollable shudderings,
+was the problem of their origin and the fate of the lad to whom
+they had belonged.  I had scarcely effected the exchange when the
+doctor returned, opened a back window, helped me out into the
+narrow space between the house and the overhanging bluffs, and
+showed me a ladder of iron footholds mortised in the rock.
+'Mount,' he said, 'swiftly.  When you are at the summit, walk, so
+far as you are able, in the shadow of the smoke.  The smoke will
+bring you, sooner or later, to a canyon; follow that down, and you
+will find a man with two horses.  Him you will implicitly obey.
+And remember, silence!  That machinery, which I now put in motion
+for your service, may by one word be turned against you.  Go;
+Heaven prosper you!'
+
+The ascent was easy.  Arrived at the top of the cliff, I saw before
+me on the other side a vast and gradual declivity of stone, lying
+bare to the moon and the surrounding mountains.  Nowhere was any
+vantage or concealment; and knowing how these deserts were beset
+with spies, I made haste to veil my movements under the blowing
+trail of smoke.  Sometimes it swam high, rising on the night wind,
+and I had no more substantial curtain than its moon-thrown shadow;
+sometimes again it crawled upon the earth, and I would walk in it,
+no higher than to my shoulders, like some mountain fog.  But, one
+way or another, the smoke of that ill-omened furnace protected the
+first steps of my escape, and led me unobserved to the canyon.
+
+There, sure enough, I found a taciturn and sombre man beside a pair
+of saddle-horses; and thenceforward, all night long, we wandered in
+silence by the most occult and dangerous paths among the mountains.
+A little before the dayspring we took refuge in a wet and gusty
+cavern at the bottom of a gorge; lay there all day concealed; and
+the next night, before the glow had faded out of the west, resumed
+our wanderings.  About noon we stopped again, in a lawn upon a
+little river, where was a screen of bushes; and here my guide,
+handing me a bundle from his pack, bade me change my dress once
+more.  The bundle contained clothing of my own, taken from our
+house, with such necessaries as a comb and soap.  I made my toilet
+by the mirror of a quiet pool; and as I was so doing, and smiling
+with some complacency to see myself restored to my own image, the
+mountains rang with a scream of far more than human piercingness;
+and while I still stood astonished, there sprang up and swiftly
+increased a storm of the most awful and earth-rending sounds.
+Shall I own to you, that I fell upon my face and shrieked?  And yet
+this was but the overland train winding among the near mountains:
+the very means of my salvation:  the strong wings that were to
+carry me from Utah!
+
+When I was dressed, the guide gave me a bag, which contained, he
+said, both money and papers; and telling me that I was already over
+the borders in the territory of Wyoming, bade me follow the stream
+until I reached the railway station, half a mile below.  'Here,' he
+added, 'is your ticket as far as Council Bluffs.  The East express
+will pass in a few hours.'  With that, he took both horses, and,
+without further words or any salutation, rode off by the way that
+we had come.
+
+Three hours afterwards, I was seated on the end platform of the
+train as it swept eastward through the gorges and thundered in
+tunnels of the mountain.  The change of scene, the sense of escape,
+the still throbbing terror of pursuit--above all, the astounding
+magic of my new conveyance, kept me from any logical or melancholy
+thought.  I had gone to the doctor's house two nights before
+prepared to die, prepared for worse than death; what had passed,
+terrible although it was, looked almost bright compared to my
+anticipations; and it was not till I had slept a full night in the
+flying palace car, that I awoke to the sense of my irreparable loss
+and to some reasonable alarm about the future.  In this mood, I
+examined the contents of the bag.  It was well supplied with gold;
+it contained tickets and complete directions for my journey as far
+as Liverpool, and a long letter from the doctor, supplying me with
+a fictitious name and story, recommending the most guarded silence,
+and bidding me to await faithfully the coming of his son.  All then
+had been arranged beforehand:  he had counted upon my consent, and
+what was tenfold worse, upon my mother's voluntary death.  My
+horror of my only friend, my aversion for this son who was to marry
+me, my revolt against the whole current and conditions of my life,
+were now complete.  I was sitting stupefied by my distress and
+helplessness, when, to my joy, a very pleasant lady offered me her
+conversation.  I clutched at the relief; and I was soon glibly
+telling her the story in the doctor's letter:  how I was a Miss
+Gould, of Nevada City, going to England to an uncle, what money I
+had, what family, my age, and so forth, until I had exhausted my
+instructions, and, as the lady still continued to ply me with
+questions, began to embroider on my own account.  This soon carried
+one of my inexperience beyond her depth; and I had already remarked
+a shadow on the lady's face, when a gentleman drew near and very
+civilly addressed me.
+
+'Miss Gould, I believe?' said he; and then, excusing himself to the
+lady by the authority of my guardian, drew me to the fore platform
+of the Pullman car.  'Miss Gould,' he said in my ear, 'is it
+possible that you suppose yourself in safety?  Let me completely
+undeceive you.  One more such indiscretion and you return to Utah.
+And, in the meanwhile, if this woman should again address you, you
+are to reply with these words:  "Madam, I do not like you, and I
+will be obliged if you will suffer me to choose my own
+associates."'
+
+Alas, I had to do as I was bid; this lady, to whom I already felt
+myself drawn with the strongest cords of sympathy, I dismissed with
+insult; and thenceforward, through all that day, I sat in silence,
+gazing on the bare plains and swallowing my tears.  Let that
+suffice:  it was the pattern of my journey.  Whether on the train,
+at the hotels, or on board the ocean steamer, I never exchanged a
+friendly word with any fellow-traveller but I was certain to be
+interrupted.  In every place, on every side, the most unlikely
+persons, man or woman, rich or poor, became protectors to forward
+me upon my journey, or spies to observe and regulate my conduct.
+Thus I crossed the States, thus passed the ocean, the Mormon Eye
+still following my movements; and when at length a cab had set me
+down before that London lodging-house from which you saw me flee
+this morning, I had already ceased to struggle and ceased to hope.
+
+The landlady, like every one else through all that journey, was
+expecting my arrival.  A fire was lighted in my room, which looked
+upon the garden; there were books on the table, clothes in the
+drawers; and there (I had almost said with contentment, and
+certainly with resignation) I saw month follow month over my head.
+At times my landlady took me for a walk or an excursion, but she
+would never suffer me to leave the house alone; and I, seeing that
+she also lived under the shadow of that widespread Mormon terror,
+felt too much pity to resist.  To the child born on Mormon soil, as
+to the man who accepts the engagements of a secret order, no escape
+is possible; so I had clearly read, and I was thankful even for
+this respite.  Meanwhile, I tried honestly to prepare my mind for
+my approaching nuptials.  The day drew near when my bridegroom was
+to visit me, and gratitude and fear alike obliged me to consent.  A
+son of Doctor Grierson's, be he what he pleased, must still be
+young, and it was even probable he should be handsome; on more than
+that, I felt I dared not reckon; and in moulding my mind towards
+consent I dwelt the more carefully on these physical attractions
+which I felt I might expect, and averted my eyes from moral or
+intellectual considerations.  We have a great power upon our
+spirits; and as time passed I worked myself into a frame of
+acquiescence, nay, and I began to grow impatient for the hour.  At
+night sleep forsook me; I sat all day by the fire, absorbed in
+dreams, conjuring up the features of my husband, and anticipating
+in fancy the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice.  In the
+dead level and solitude of my existence, this was the one eastern
+window and the one door of hope.  At last, I had so cultivated and
+prepared my will, that I began to be besieged with fears upon the
+other side.  How if it was I that did not please?  How if this
+unseen lover should turn from me with disaffection?  And now I
+spent hours before the glass, studying and judging my attractions,
+and was never weary of changing my dress or ordering my hair.
+
+When the day came I was long about my toilet; but at last, with a
+sort of hopeful desperation, I had to own that I could do no more,
+and must now stand or fall by nature.  My occupation ended, I fell
+a prey to the most sickening impatience, mingled with alarms;
+giving ear to the swelling rumour of the streets, and at each
+change of sound or silence, starting, shrinking, and colouring to
+the brow.  Love is not to be prepared, I know, without some
+knowledge of the object; and yet, when the cab at last rattled to
+the door and I heard my visitor mount the stairs, such was the
+tumult of hopes in my poor bosom that love itself might have been
+proud to own their parentage.  The door opened, and it was Doctor
+Grierson that appeared.  I believe I must have screamed aloud, and
+I know, at least, that I fell fainting to the floor.
+
+When I came to myself he was standing over me, counting my pulse.
+'I have startled you,' he said.  'A difficulty unforeseen--the
+impossibility of obtaining a certain drug in its full purity--has
+forced me to resort to London unprepared.  I regret that I should
+have shown myself once more without those poor attractions which
+are much, perhaps, to you, but to me are no more considerable than
+rain that falls into the sea.  Youth is but a state, as passing as
+that syncope from which you are but just awakened, and, if there be
+truth in science, as easy to recall; for I find, Asenath, that I
+must now take you for my confidant.  Since my first years, I have
+devoted every hour and act of life to one ambitious task; and the
+time of my success is at hand.  In these new countries, where I was
+so long content to stay, I collected indispensable ingredients; I
+have fortified myself on every side from the possibility of error;
+what was a dream now takes the substance of reality; and when I
+offered you a son of mine I did so in a figure.  That son--that
+husband, Asenath, is myself--not as you now behold me, but restored
+to the first energy of youth.  You think me mad?  It is the
+customary attitude of ignorance.  I will not argue; I will leave
+facts to speak.  When you behold me purified, invigorated, renewed,
+restamped in the original image--when you recognise in me (what I
+shall be) the first perfect expression of the powers of mankind--I
+shall be able to laugh with a better grace at your passing and
+natural incredulity.  To what can you aspire--fame, riches, power,
+the charm of youth, the dear-bought wisdom of age--that I shall not
+be able to afford you in perfection?  Do not deceive yourself.  I
+already excel you in every human gift but one:  when that gift also
+has been restored to me you will recognise your master.'
+
+Hereupon, consulting his watch, he told me he must now leave me to
+myself; and bidding me consult reason, and not girlish fancies, he
+withdrew.  I had not the courage to move; the night fell and found
+me still where he had laid me during my faint, my face buried in my
+hands, my soul drowned in the darkest apprehensions.  Late in the
+evening he returned, carrying a candle, and, with a certain
+irritable tremor, bade me rise and sup.  'Is it possible,' he
+added, 'that I have been deceived in your courage?  A cowardly girl
+is no fit mate for me.'
+
+I flung myself before him on my knees, and with floods of tears
+besought him to release me from this engagement, assuring him that
+my cowardice was abject, and that in every point of intellect and
+character I was his hopeless and derisible inferior.
+
+'Why, certainly,' he replied.  'I know you better than yourself;
+and I am well enough acquainted with human nature to understand
+this scene.  It is addressed to me,' he added with a smile, 'in my
+character of the still untransformed.  But do not alarm yourself
+about the future.  Let me but attain my end, and not you only,
+Asenath, but every woman on the face of the earth becomes my
+willing slave.'
+
+Thereupon he obliged me to rise and eat; sat down with me to table;
+helped and entertained me with the attentions of a fashionable
+host; and it was not till a late hour, that, bidding me courteously
+good-night, he once more left me alone to my misery.
+
+In all this talk of an elixir and the restoration of his youth, I
+scarce knew from which hypothesis I should the more eagerly recoil.
+If his hopes reposed on any base of fact, if indeed, by some
+abhorrent miracle, he should discard his age, death were my only
+refuge from that most unnatural, that most ungodly union.  If, on
+the other hand, these dreams were merely lunatic, the madness of a
+life waxed suddenly acute, my pity would become a load almost as
+heavy to bear as my revolt against the marriage.  So passed the
+night, in alternations of rebellion and despair, of hate and pity;
+and with the next morning I was only to comprehend more fully my
+enslaved position.  For though he appeared with a very tranquil
+countenance, he had no sooner observed the marks of grief upon my
+brow than an answering darkness gathered on his own.  'Asenath.' he
+said, 'you owe me much already; with one finger I still hold you
+suspended over death; my life is full of labour and anxiety; and I
+choose,' said he, with a remarkable accent of command, 'that you
+shall greet me with a pleasant face.'  He never needed to repeat
+the recommendation; from that day forward I was always ready to
+receive him with apparent cheerfulness; and he rewarded me with a
+good deal of his company, and almost more than I could bear of his
+confidence.  He had set up a laboratory in the back part of the
+house, where he toiled day and night at his elixir, and he would
+come thence to visit me in my parlour:  now with passing humours of
+discouragement; now, and far more often, radiant with hope.  It was
+impossible to see so much of him, and not to recognise that the
+sands of his life were running low; and yet all the time he would
+be laying out vast fields of future, and planning, with all the
+confidence of youth, the most unbounded schemes of pleasure and
+ambition.  How I replied I know not; but I found a voice and words
+to answer, even while I wept and raged to hear him.
+
+A week ago the doctor entered my room with the marks of great
+exhilaration contending with pitiful bodily weakness.  'Asenath,'
+said he, 'I have now obtained the last ingredient.  In one week
+from now the perilous moment of the last projection will draw nigh.
+You have once before assisted, although unconsciously, at the
+failure of a similar experiment.  It was the elixir which so
+terribly exploded one night when you were passing my house; and it
+is idle to deny that the conduct of so delicate a process, among
+the million jars and trepidations of so great a city, presents a
+certain element of danger.  From this point of view, I cannot but
+regret the perfect stillness of my house among the deserts; but, on
+the other hand, I have succeeded in proving that the singularly
+unstable equilibrium of the elixir, at the moment of projection, is
+due rather to the impurity than to the nature of the ingredients;
+and as all are now of an equal and exquisite nicety, I have little
+fear for the result.  In a week then from to-day, my dear Asenath,
+this period of trial will be ended.'  And he smiled upon me in a
+manner unusually paternal.
+
+I smiled back with my lips, but at my heart there raged the
+blackest and most unbridled terror.  What if he failed?  And oh,
+tenfold worse! what if he succeeded?  What detested and unnatural
+changeling would appear before me to claim my hand?  And could
+there, I asked myself with a dreadful sinking, be any truth in his
+boasts of an assured victory over my reluctance?  I knew him,
+indeed, to be masterful, to lead my life at a sign.  Suppose, then,
+this experiment to succeed; suppose him to return to me, hideously
+restored, like a vampire in a legend; and suppose that, by some
+devilish fascination . . . My head turned; all former fears
+deserted me:  and I felt I could embrace the worst in preference to
+this.
+
+My mind was instantly made up.  The doctor's presence in London was
+justified by the affairs of the Mormon polity.  Often, in our
+conversation, he would gloat over the details of that great
+organisation, which he feared even while yet he wielded it; and
+would remind me, that even in the humming labyrinth of London, we
+were still visible to that unsleeping eye in Utah.  His visitors,
+indeed, who were of every sort, from the missionary to the
+destroying angel, and seemed to belong to every rank of life, had,
+up to that moment, filled me with unmixed repulsion and alarm.  I
+knew that if my secret were to reach the ear of any leader my fate
+were sealed beyond redemption; and yet in my present pass of horror
+and despair, it was to these very men that I turned for help.  I
+waylaid upon the stair one of the Mormon missionaries, a man of a
+low class, but not inaccessible to pity; told him I scarce remember
+what elaborate fable to explain my application; and by his
+intermediacy entered into correspondence with my father's family.
+They recognised my claim for help, and on this very day I was to
+begin my escape.
+
+Last night I sat up fully dressed, awaiting the result of the
+doctor's labours, and prepared against the worst.  The nights at
+this season and in this northern latitude are short; and I had soon
+the company of the returning daylight.  The silence in and around
+the house was only broken by the movements of the doctor in the
+laboratory; to these I listened, watch in hand, awaiting the hour
+of my escape, and yet consumed by anxiety about the strange
+experiment that was going forward overhead.  Indeed, now that I was
+conscious of some protection for myself, my sympathies had turned
+more directly to the doctor's side; I caught myself even praying
+for his success; and when some hours ago a low, peculiar cry
+reached my ears from the laboratory, I could no longer control my
+impatience, but mounted the stairs and opened the door.
+
+The doctor was standing in the middle of the room; in his hand a
+large, round-bellied, crystal flask, some three parts full of a
+bright amber-coloured liquid; on his face a rapture of gratitude
+and joy unspeakable.  As he saw me he raised the flask at arm's
+length.  'Victory!' he cried.  'Victory, Asenath!'  And then--
+whether the flask escaped his trembling fingers, or whether the
+explosion were spontaneous, I cannot tell--enough that we were
+thrown, I against the door-post, the doctor into the corner of the
+room; enough that we were shaken to the soul by the same explosion
+that must have startled you upon the street; and that, in the brief
+space of an indistinguishable instant, there remained nothing of
+the labours of the doctor's lifetime but a few shards of broken
+crystal and those voluminous and ill-smelling vapours that pursued
+me in my flight.
+
+
+
+THE SQUIRE OF DAMES (Concluded)
+
+
+
+What with the lady's animated manner and dramatic conduct of her
+voice, Challoner had thrilled to every incident with genuine
+emotion.  His fancy, which was not perhaps of a very lively
+character, applauded both the matter and the style; but the more
+judicial functions of his mind refused assent.  It was an excellent
+story; and it might be true, but he believed it was not.  Miss
+Fonblanque was a lady, and it was doubtless possible for a lady to
+wander from the truth; but how was a gentleman to tell her so?  His
+spirits for some time had been sinking, but they now fell to zero;
+and long after her voice had died away he still sat with a troubled
+and averted countenance, and could find no form of words to thank
+her for her narrative.  His mind, indeed, was empty of everything
+beyond a dull longing for escape.  From this pause, which grew the
+more embarrassing with every second, he was roused by the sudden
+laughter of the lady.  His vanity was alarmed; he turned and faced
+her; their eyes met; and he caught from hers a spark of such frank
+merriment as put him instantly at ease.
+
+'You certainly,' he said, 'appear to bear your calamities with
+excellent spirit.'
+
+'Do I not?' she cried, and fell once more into delicious laughter.
+But from this access she more speedily recovered.  'This is all
+very well,' said she, nodding at him gravely, 'but I am still in a
+most distressing situation, from which, if you deny me your help, I
+shall find it difficult indeed to free myself.'
+
+At this mention of help Challoner fell back to his original gloom.
+
+'My sympathies are much engaged with you,' he said, 'and I should
+be delighted, I am sure.  But our position is most unusual; and
+circumstances over which I have, I can assure you, no control,
+deprive me of the power--the pleasure--Unless, indeed,' he added,
+somewhat brightening at the thought, 'I were to recommend you to
+the care of the police?'
+
+She laid her hand upon his arm and looked hard into his eyes; and
+he saw with wonder that, for the first time since the moment of
+their meeting, every trace of colour had faded from her cheek.
+
+'Do so,' she said, 'and--weigh my words well--you kill me as
+certainly as with a knife.'
+
+'God bless me!' exclaimed Challoner.
+
+'Oh,' she cried, 'I can see you disbelieve my story and make light
+of the perils that surround me; but who are you to judge?  My
+family share my apprehensions; they help me in secret; and you saw
+yourself by what an emissary, and in what a place, they have chosen
+to supply me with the funds for my escape.  I admit that you are
+brave and clever and have impressed me most favourably; but how are
+you to prefer your opinion before that of my uncle, an ex-minister
+of state, a man with the ear of the Queen, and of a long political
+experience?  If I am mad, is he?  And you must allow me, besides, a
+special claim upon your help.  Strange as you may think my story,
+you know that much of it is true; and if you who heard the
+explosion and saw the Mormon at Victoria, refuse to credit and
+assist me, to whom am I to turn?'
+
+'He gave you money then?' asked Challoner, who had been dwelling
+singly on that fact.
+
+'I begin to interest you,' she cried.  'But, frankly, you are
+condemned to help me.  If the service I had to ask of you were
+serious, were suspicious, were even unusual, I should say no more.
+But what is it?  To take a pleasure trip (for which, if you will
+suffer me, I propose to pay) and to carry from one lady to another
+a sum of money!  What can be more simple?'
+
+'Is the sum,' asked Challoner, 'considerable?'
+
+She produced a packet from her bosom; and observing that she had
+not yet found time to make the count, tore open the cover and
+spread upon her knees a considerable number of Bank of England
+notes.  It took some time to make the reckoning, for the notes were
+of every degree of value; but at last, and counting a few loose
+sovereigns, she made out the sum to be a little under 710 pounds
+sterling.  The sight of so much money worked an immediate
+revolution in the mind of Challoner.
+
+'And you propose, madam,' he cried, 'to intrust that money to a
+perfect stranger?'
+
+'Ah!' said she, with a charming smile, 'but I no longer regard you
+as a stranger.'
+
+'Madam,' said Challoner, 'I perceive I must make you a confession.
+Although of a very good family--through my mother, indeed, a lineal
+descendant of the patriot Bruce--I dare not conceal from you that
+my affairs are deeply, very deeply involved.  I am in debt; my
+pockets are practically empty; and, in short, I am fallen to that
+state when a considerable sum of money would prove to many men an
+irresistible temptation.'
+
+'Do you not see,' returned the young lady, 'that by these words you
+have removed my last hesitation?  Take them.'  And she thrust the
+notes into the young man's hand.
+
+He sat so long, holding them, like a baby at the font, that Miss
+Fonblanque once more bubbled into laughter.
+
+'Pray,' she said, 'hesitate no further; put them in your pocket;
+and to relieve our position of any shadow of embarrassment, tell me
+by what name I am to address my knight-errant, for I find myself
+reduced to the awkwardness of the pronoun.'
+
+Had borrowing been in question, the wisdom of our ancestors had
+come lightly to the young man's aid; but upon what pretext could he
+refuse so generous a trust?  Upon none he saw, that was not
+unpardonably wounding; and the bright eyes and the high spirits of
+his companion had already made a breach in the rampart of
+Challoner's caution.  The whole thing, he reasoned, might be a mere
+mystification, which it were the height of solemn folly to resent.
+On the other hand, the explosion, the interview at the public-
+house, and the very money in his hands, seemed to prove beyond
+denial the existence of some serious danger; and if that were so,
+could he desert her?  There was a choice of risks:  the risk of
+behaving with extraordinary incivility and unhandsomeness to a
+lady, and the risk of going on a fool's errand.  The story seemed
+false; but then the money was undeniable.  The whole circumstances
+were questionable and obscure; but the lady was charming, and had
+the speech and manners of society.  While he still hung in the
+wind, a recollection returned upon his mind with some of the
+dignity of prophecy.  Had he not promised Somerset to break with
+the traditions of the commonplace, and to accept the first
+adventure offered?  Well, here was the adventure.
+
+He thrust the money into his pocket.
+
+'My name is Challoner,' said he.
+
+'Mr. Challoner,' she replied, 'you have come very generously to my
+aid when all was against me.  Though I am myself a very humble
+person, my family commands great interest; and I do not think you
+will repent this handsome action.'
+
+Challoner flushed with pleasure.
+
+'I imagine that, perhaps, a consulship,' she added, her eyes
+dwelling on him with a judicial admiration, 'a consulship in some
+great town or capital--or else--But we waste time; let us set about
+the work of my delivery.'
+
+She took his arm with a frank confidence that went to his heart;
+and once more laying by all serious thoughts, she entertained him,
+as they crossed the park, with her agreeable gaiety of mind.  Near
+the Marble Arch they found a hansom, which rapidly conveyed them to
+the terminus at Euston Square; and here, in the hotel, they sat
+down to an excellent breakfast.  The young lady's first step was to
+call for writing materials and write, upon one corner of the table,
+a hasty note; still, as she did so, glancing with smiles at her
+companion.  'Here,' said she, 'here is the letter which will
+introduce you to my cousin.'  She began to fold the paper.  'My
+cousin, although I have never seen her, has the character of a very
+charming woman and a recognised beauty; of that I know nothing, but
+at least she has been very kind to me; so has my lord her father;
+so have you--kinder than all--kinder than I can bear to think of.'
+She said this with unusual emotion; and, at the same time, sealed
+the envelope.  'Ah!' she cried, 'I have shut my letter!  It is not
+quite courteous; and yet, as between friends, it is perhaps better
+so.  I introduce you, after all, into a family secret; and though
+you and I are already old comrades, you are still unknown to my
+uncle.  You go then to this address, Richard Street, Glasgow; go,
+please, as soon as you arrive; and give this letter with your own
+hands into those of Miss Fonblanque, for that is the name by which
+she is to pass.  When we next meet, you will tell me what you think
+of her,' she added, with a touch of the provocative.
+
+'Ah,' said Challoner, almost tenderly, 'she can be nothing to me.'
+
+'You do not know,' replied the young lady, with a sigh.  'By-the-
+bye, I had forgotten--it is very childish, and I am almost ashamed
+to mention it--but when you see Miss Fonblanque, you will have to
+make yourself a little ridiculous; and I am sure the part in no way
+suits you.  We had agreed upon a watchword.  You will have to
+address an earl's daughter in these words:  "NIGGER, NIGGER, NEVER
+DIE;" but reassure yourself,' she added, laughing, 'for the fair
+patrician will at once finish the quotation.  Come now, say your
+lesson.'
+
+'"Nigger, nigger, never die,"' repeated Challoner, with undisguised
+reluctance.
+
+Miss Fonblanque went into fits of laughter.  'Excellent,' said she,
+'it will be the most humorous scene.'  And she laughed again.
+
+'And what will be the counterword?' asked Challoner stiffly.
+
+'I will not tell you till the last moment,' said she; 'for I
+perceive you are growing too imperious.'
+
+Breakfast over, she accompanied the young man to the platform,
+bought him the Graphic, the Athenaeum, and a paper-cutter, and
+stood on the step conversing till the whistle sounded.  Then she
+put her head into the carriage.  'BLACK FACE AND SHINING EYE!' she
+whispered, and instantly leaped down upon the platform, with a
+thrill of gay and musical laughter.  As the train steamed out of
+the great arch of glass, the sound of that laughter still rang in
+the young man's ears.
+
+Challoner's position was too unusual to be long welcome to his
+mind.  He found himself projected the whole length of England, on a
+mission beset with obscure and ridiculous circumstances, and yet,
+by the trust he had accepted, irrevocably bound to persevere.  How
+easy it appeared, in the retrospect, to have refused the whole
+proposal, returned the money, and gone forth again upon his own
+affairs, a free and happy man!  And it was now impossible:  the
+enchantress who had held him with her eye had now disappeared,
+taking his honour in pledge; and as she had failed to leave him an
+address, he was denied even the inglorious safety of retreat.  To
+use the paper-knife, or even to read the periodicals with which she
+had presented him, was to renew the bitterness of his remorse; and
+as he was alone in the compartment, he passed the day staring at
+the landscape in impotent repentance, and long before he was landed
+on the platform of St. Enoch's, had fallen to the lowest and
+coldest zones of self-contempt.
+
+As he was hungry, and elegant in his habits, he would have
+preferred to dine and to remove the stains of travel; but the words
+of the young lady, and his own impatient eagerness, would suffer no
+delay.  In the late, luminous, and lamp-starred dusk of the summer
+evening, he accordingly set forward with brisk steps.
+
+The street to which he was directed had first seen the day in the
+character of a row of small suburban villas on a hillside; but the
+extension of the city had long since, and on every hand, surrounded
+it with miles of streets.  From the top of the hill a range of very
+tall buildings, densely inhabited by the poorest classes of the
+population and variegated by drying-poles from every second window,
+overplumbed the villas and their little gardens like a sea-board
+cliff.  But still, under the grime of years of city smoke, these
+antiquated cottages, with their venetian blinds and rural
+porticoes, retained a somewhat melancholy savour of the past.
+
+The street when Challoner entered it was perfectly deserted.  From
+hard by, indeed, the sound of a thousand footfalls filled the ear;
+but in Richard Street itself there was neither light nor sound of
+human habitation.  The appearance of the neighbourhood weighed
+heavily on the mind of the young man; once more, as in the streets
+of London, he was impressed with the sense of city deserts; and as
+he approached the number indicated, and somewhat falteringly rang
+the bell, his heart sank within him.
+
+The bell was ancient, like the house; it had a thin and garrulous
+note; and it was some time before it ceased to sound from the rear
+quarters of the building.  Following upon this an inner door was
+stealthily opened, and careful and catlike steps drew near along
+the hall.  Challoner, supposing he was to be instantly admitted,
+produced his letter, and, as well as he was able, prepared a
+smiling face.  To his indescribable surprise, however, the
+footsteps ceased, and then, after a pause and with the like
+stealthiness, withdrew once more, and died away in the interior of
+the house.  A second time the young man rang violently at the bell;
+a second time, to his keen hearkening, a certain bustle of discreet
+footing moved upon the hollow boards of the old villa; and again
+the fainthearted garrison only drew near to retreat.  The cup of
+the visitor's endurance was now full to overflowing; and,
+committing the whole family of Fonblanque to every mood and shade
+of condemnation, he turned upon his heel and redescended the steps.
+Perhaps the mover in the house was watching from a window, and
+plucked up courage at the sight of this desistance; or perhaps,
+where he lurked trembling in the back parts of the villa, reason in
+its own right had conquered his alarms.  Challoner, at least, had
+scarce set foot upon the pavement when he was arrested by the sound
+of the withdrawal of an inner bolt; one followed another, rattling
+in their sockets; the key turned harshly in the lock; the door
+opened; and there appeared upon the threshold a man of a very
+stalwart figure in his shirt sleeves.  He was a person neither of
+great manly beauty nor of a refined exterior; he was not the man,
+in ordinary moods, to attract the eyes of the observer; but as he
+now stood in the doorway, he was marked so legibly with the extreme
+passion of terror that Challoner stood wonder-struck.  For a
+fraction of a minute they gazed upon each other in silence; and
+then the man of the house, with ashen lips and gasping voice,
+inquired the business of his visitor.  Challoner replied, in tones
+from which he strove to banish his surprise, that he was the bearer
+of a letter to a certain Miss Fonblanque.  At this name, as at a
+talisman, the man fell back and impatiently invited him to enter;
+and no sooner had the adventurer crossed the threshold, than the
+door was closed behind him and his retreat cut off.
+
+It was already long past eight at night; and though the late
+twilight of the north still lingered in the streets, in the passage
+it was already groping dark.  The man led Challoner directly to a
+parlour looking on the garden to the back.  Here he had apparently
+been supping; for by the light of a tallow dip the table was seen
+to be covered with a napkin, and set out with a quart of bottled
+ale and the heel of a Gouda cheese.  The room, on the other hand,
+was furnished with faded solidity, and the walls were lined with
+scholarly and costly volumes in glazed cases.  The house must have
+been taken furnished; for it had no congruity with this man of the
+shirt sleeves and the mean supper.  As for the earl's daughter, the
+earl and the visionary consulships in foreign cities, they had long
+ago begun to fade in Challoner's imagination.  Like Doctor Grierson
+and the Mormon angels, they were plainly woven of the stuff of
+dreams.  Not an illusion remained to the knight-errant; not a hope
+was left him, but to be speedily relieved from this disreputable
+business.
+
+The man had continued to regard his visitor with undisguised
+anxiety, and began once more to press him for his errand.
+
+'I am here,' said Challoner, 'simply to do a service between two
+ladies; and I must ask you, without further delay, to summon Miss
+Fonblanque, into whose hands alone I am authorised to deliver the
+letter that I bear.'
+
+A growing wonder began to mingle on the man's face with the lines
+of solicitude.  'I am Miss Fonblanque,' he said; and then,
+perceiving the effect of this communication, 'Good God!' he cried,
+'what are you staring at?  I tell you, I am Miss Fonblanque.'
+
+Seeing the speaker wore a chin-beard of considerable length, and
+the remainder of his face was blue with shaving, Challoner could
+only suppose himself the subject of a jest.  He was no longer under
+the spell of the young lady's presence; and with men, and above all
+with his inferiors, he was capable of some display of spirit.
+
+'Sir,' said he, pretty roundly, 'I have put myself to great
+inconvenience for persons of whom I know too little, and I begin to
+be weary of the business.  Either you shall immediately summon Miss
+Fonblanque, or I leave this house and put myself under the
+direction of the police.'
+
+'This is horrible!' exclaimed the man.  'I declare before Heaven I
+am the person meant, but how shall I convince you?  It must have
+been Clara, I perceive, that sent you on this errand--a madwoman,
+who jests with the most deadly interests; and here we are
+incapable, perhaps, of an agreement, and Heaven knows what may
+depend on our delay!'
+
+He spoke with a really startling earnestness; and at the same time
+there flashed upon the mind of Challoner the ridiculous jingle
+which was to serve as password.  'This may, perhaps, assist you,'
+he said, and then, with some embarrassment, '"Nigger, nigger, never
+die."'
+
+A light of relief broke upon the troubled countenance of the man
+with the chin-beard.  '"Black face and shining eye"--give me the
+letter,' he panted, in one gasp.
+
+'Well,' said Challoner, though still with some reluctance, 'I
+suppose I must regard you as the proper recipient; and though I may
+justly complain of the spirit in which I have been treated, I am
+only too glad to be done with all responsibility.  Here it is,' and
+he produced the envelope.
+
+The man leaped upon it like a beast, and with hands that trembled
+in a manner painful to behold, tore it open and unfolded the
+letter.  As he read, terror seemed to mount upon him to the pitch
+of nightmare.  He struck one hand upon his brow, while with the
+other, as if unconsciously, he crumpled the paper to a ball.  'My
+gracious powers!' he cried; and then, dashing to the window, which
+stood open on the garden, he clapped forth his head and shoulders,
+and whistled long and shrill.  Challoner fell back into a corner,
+and resolutely grasping his staff, prepared for the most desperate
+events; but the thoughts of the man with the chin-beard were far
+removed from violence.  Turning again into the room, and once more
+beholding his visitor, whom he appeared to have forgotten, he
+fairly danced with trepidation.  'Impossible!' he cried.  'Oh,
+quite impossible!  O Lord, I have lost my head.'  And then, once
+more striking his hand upon his brow, 'The money!' he exclaimed.
+'Give me the money.'
+
+'My good friend,' replied Challoner, 'this is a very painful
+exhibition; and until I see you reasonably master of yourself, I
+decline to proceed with any business.'
+
+'You are quite right,' said the man.  'I am of a very nervous
+habit; a long course of the dumb ague has undermined my
+constitution.  But I know you have money; it may be still the
+saving of me; and oh, dear young gentleman, in pity's name be
+expeditious!'  Challoner, sincerely uneasy as he was, could scarce
+refrain from laughter; but he was himself in a hurry to be gone,
+and without more delay produced the money.  'You will find the sum,
+I trust, correct,' he observed 'and let me ask you to give me a
+receipt.'
+
+But the man heeded him not.  He seized the money, and disregarding
+the sovereigns that rolled loose upon the floor, thrust the bundle
+of notes into his pocket.
+
+'A receipt,' repeated Challoner, with some asperity.  'I insist on
+a receipt.'
+
+'Receipt?' repeated the man, a little wildly.  'A receipt?
+Immediately!  Await me here.'
+
+Challoner, in reply, begged the gentleman to lose no unnecessary
+time, as he was himself desirous of catching a particular train.
+
+'Ah, by God, and so am I!' exclaimed the man with the chin-beard;
+and with that he was gone out of the room, and had rattled
+upstairs, four at a time, to the upper story of the villa.
+
+'This is certainly a most amazing business,' thought Challoner;
+'certainly a most disquieting affair; and I cannot conceal from
+myself that I have become mixed up with either lunatics or
+malefactors.  I may truly thank my stars that I am so nearly and so
+creditably done with it.'  Thus thinking, and perhaps remembering
+the episode of the whistle, he turned to the open window.  The
+garden was still faintly clear; he could distinguish the stairs and
+terraces with which the small domain had been adorned by former
+owners, and the blackened bushes and dead trees that had once
+afforded shelter to the country birds; beyond these he saw the
+strong retaining wall, some thirty feet in height, which enclosed
+the garden to the back; and again above that, the pile of dingy
+buildings rearing its frontage high into the night.  A peculiar
+object lying stretched upon the lawn for some time baffled his
+eyesight; but at length he had made it out to be a long ladder, or
+series of ladders bound into one; and he was still wondering of
+what service so great an instrument could be in such a scant
+enclosure, when he was recalled to himself by the noise of some one
+running violently down the stairs.  This was followed by the
+sudden, clamorous banging of the house door; and that again, by
+rapid and retreating footsteps in the street.
+
+Challoner sprang into the passage.  He ran from room to room,
+upstairs and downstairs; and in that old dingy and worm-eaten
+house, he found himself alone.  Only in one apartment, looking to
+the front, were there any traces of the late inhabitant:  a bed
+that had been recently slept in and not made, a chest of drawers
+disordered by a hasty search, and on the floor a roll of crumpled
+paper.  This he picked up.  The light in this upper story looking
+to the front was considerably brighter than in the parlour; and he
+was able to make out that the paper bore the mark of the hotel at
+Euston, and even, by peering closely, to decipher the following
+lines in a very elegant and careful female hand:
+
+
+'DEAR M'GUIRE,--It is certain your retreat is known.  We have just
+had another failure, clockwork thirty hours too soon, with the
+usual humiliating result.  Zero is quite disheartened.  We are all
+scattered, and I could find no one but the SOLEMN ASS who brings
+you this and the money.  I would love to see your meeting.--Ever
+yours,
+
+SHINING EYE.'
+
+
+Challoner was stricken to the heart.  He perceived by what
+facility, by what unmanly fear of ridicule, he had been brought
+down to be the gull of this intriguer; and his wrath flowed forth
+in almost equal measure against himself, against the woman, and
+against Somerset, whose idle counsels had impelled him to embark on
+that adventure.  At the same time a great and troubled curiosity,
+and a certain chill of fear, possessed his spirit.  The conduct of
+the man with the chin-beard, the terms of the letter, and the
+explosion of the early morning, fitted together like parts in some
+obscure and mischievous imbroglio.  Evil was certainly afoot; evil,
+secrecy, terror, and falsehood were the conditions and the passions
+of the people among whom he had begun to move, like a blind puppet;
+and he who began as a puppet, his experience told him, was often
+doomed to perish as a victim.
+
+From the stupor of deep thought into which he had glided with the
+letter in his hand, he was awakened by the clatter of the bell.  He
+glanced from the window; and, conceive his horror and surprise when
+he beheld, clustered on the steps, in the front garden and on the
+pavement of the street, a formidable posse of police!  He started
+to the full possession of his powers and courage.  Escape, and
+escape at any cost, was the one idea that possessed him.  Swiftly
+and silently he redescended the creaking stairs; he was already in
+the passage when a second and more imperious summons from the door
+awoke the echoes of the empty house; nor had the bell ceased to
+jangle before he had bestridden the window-sill of the parlour and
+was lowering himself into the garden.  His coat was hooked upon the
+iron flower-basket; for a moment he hung dependent heels and head
+below; and then, with the noise of rending cloth, and followed by
+several pots, he dropped upon the sod.  Once more the bell was
+rung, and now with furious and repeated peals.  The desperate
+Challoner turned his eyes on every side.  They fell upon the
+ladder, and he ran to it, and with strenuous but unavailing effort
+sought to raise it from the ground.  Suddenly the weight, which was
+thus resisting his whole strength, began to lighten in his hands;
+the ladder, like a thing of life, reared its bulk from off the sod;
+and Challoner, leaping back with a cry of almost superstitious
+terror, beheld the whole structure mount, foot by foot, against the
+face of the retaining wall.  At the same time, two heads were dimly
+visible above the parapet, and he was hailed by a guarded whistle.
+Something in its modulation recalled, like an echo, the whistle of
+the man with the chin-beard,
+
+Had he chanced upon a means of escape prepared beforehand by those
+very miscreants whose messenger and gull he had become?  Was this,
+indeed, a means of safety, or but the starting-point of further
+complication and disaster?  He paused not to reflect.  Scarce was
+the ladder reared to its full length than he had sprung already on
+the rounds; hand over hand, swift as an ape, he scaled the
+tottering stairway.  Strong arms received, embraced, and helped
+him; he was lifted and set once more upon the earth; and with the
+spasm of his alarm yet unsubsided, found himself in the company of
+two rough-looking men, in the paved back yard of one of the tall
+houses that crowned the summit of the hill.  Meanwhile, from below,
+the note of the bell had been succeeded by the sound of vigorous
+and redoubling blows.
+
+'Are you all out?' asked one of his companions; and, as soon as he
+had babbled an answer in the affirmative, the rope was cut from the
+top round, and the ladder thrust roughly back into the garden,
+where it fell and broke with clattering reverberations.  Its fall
+was hailed with many broken cries; for the whole of Richard Street
+was now in high emotion, the people crowding to the windows or
+clambering on the garden walls.  The same man who had already
+addressed Challoner seized him by the arm; whisked him through the
+basement of the house and across the street upon the other side;
+and before the unfortunate adventurer had time to realise his
+situation, a door was opened, and he was thrust into a low and dark
+compartment.
+
+'Bedad,' observed his guide, 'there was no time to lose.  Is
+M'Guire gone, or was it you that whistled?
+
+'M'Guire is gone,' said Challoner.
+
+The guide now struck a light.  'Ah,' said he, 'this will never do.
+You dare not go upon the streets in such a figure.  Wait quietly
+here and I will bring you something decent.'
+
+With that the man was gone, and Challoner, his attention thus
+rudely awakened, began ruefully to consider the havoc that had been
+worked in his attire.  His hat was gone; his trousers were cruelly
+ripped; and the best part of one tail of his very elegant frockcoat
+had been left hanging from the iron crockets of the window.  He had
+scarce had time to measure these disasters when his host re-entered
+the apartment and proceeded, without a word, to envelop the refined
+and urbane Challoner in a long ulster of the cheapest material, and
+of a pattern so gross and vulgar that his spirit sickened at the
+sight.  This calumnious disguise was crowned and completed by a
+soft felt hat of the Tyrolese design, and several sizes too small.
+At another moment Challoner would simply have refused to issue
+forth upon the world thus travestied; but the desire to escape from
+Glasgow was now too strongly and too exclusively impressed upon his
+mind.  With one haggard glance at the spotted tails of his new
+coat, he inquired what was to pay for this accoutrement.  The man
+assured him that the whole expense was easily met from funds in his
+possession, and begged him, instead of wasting time, to make his
+best speed out of the neighbourhood.
+
+The young man was not loath to take the hint.  True to his usual
+courtesy, he thanked the speaker and complimented him upon his
+taste in greatcoats; and leaving the man somewhat abashed by these
+remarks and the manner of their delivery, he hurried forth into the
+lamplit city.  The last train was gone ere, after many deviations,
+he had reached the terminus.  Attired as he was he dared not
+present himself at any reputable inn; and he felt keenly that the
+unassuming dignity of his demeanour would serve to attract
+attention, perhaps mirth and possibly suspicion, in any humbler
+hostelry.  He was thus condemned to pass the solemn and uneventful
+hours of a whole night in pacing the streets of Glasgow;
+supperless; a figure of fun for all beholders; waiting the dawn,
+with hope indeed, but with unconquerable shrinkings; and above all
+things, filled with a profound sense of the folly and weakness of
+his conduct.  It may be conceived with what curses he assailed the
+memory of the fair narrator of Hyde Park; her parting laughter rang
+in his ears all night with damning mockery and iteration; and when
+he could spare a thought from this chief artificer of his
+confusion, it was to expend his wrath on Somerset and the career of
+the amateur detective.  With the coming of day, he found in a shy
+milk-shop the means to appease his hunger.  There were still many
+hours to wait before the departure of the South express; these he
+passed wandering with indescribable fatigue in the obscurer by-
+streets of the city; and at length slipped quietly into the station
+and took his place in the darkest corner of a third-class carriage.
+Here, all day long, he jolted on the bare boards, distressed by
+heat and continually reawakened from uneasy slumbers.  By the half
+return ticket in his purse, he was entitled to make the journey on
+the easy cushions and with the ample space of the first-class; but
+alas! in his absurd attire, he durst not, for decency, commingle
+with his equals; and this small annoyance, coming last in such a
+series of disasters, cut him to the heart.
+
+That night, when, in his Putney lodging, he reviewed the expense,
+anxiety, and weariness of his adventure; when he beheld the ruins
+of his last good trousers and his last presentable coat; and above
+all, when his eye by any chance alighted on the Tyrolese hat or the
+degrading ulster, his heart would overflow with bitterness, and it
+was only by a serious call on his philosophy that he maintained the
+dignity of his demeanour.
+
+
+
+SOMERSET'S ADVENTURE:  THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION
+
+
+
+Mr. Paul Somerset was a young gentleman of a lively and fiery
+imagination, with very small capacity for action.  He was one who
+lived exclusively in dreams and in the future:  the creature of his
+own theories, and an actor in his own romances.  From the cigar
+divan he proceeded to parade the streets, still heated with the
+fire of his eloquence, and scouting upon every side for the offer
+of some fortunate adventure.  In the continual stream of passers-
+by, on the sealed fronts of houses, on the posters that covered the
+hoardings, and in every lineament and throb of the great city, he
+saw a mysterious and hopeful hieroglyph.  But although the elements
+of adventure were streaming by him as thick as drops of water in
+the Thames, it was in vain that, now with a beseeching, now with
+something of a braggadocio air, he courted and provoked the notice
+of the passengers; in vain that, putting fortune to the touch, he
+even thrust himself into the way and came into direct collision
+with those of the more promising demeanour.  Persons brimful of
+secrets, persons pining for affection, persons perishing for lack
+of help or counsel, he was sure he could perceive on every side;
+but by some contrariety of fortune, each passed upon his way
+without remarking the young gentleman, and went farther (surely to
+fare worse!) in quest of the confidant, the friend, or the adviser.
+To thousands he must have turned an appealing countenance, and yet
+not one regarded him.
+
+A light dinner, eaten to the accompaniment of his impetuous
+aspirations, broke in upon the series of his attempts on fortune;
+and when he returned to the task, the lamps were already lighted,
+and the nocturnal crowd was dense upon the pavement.  Before a
+certain restaurant, whose name will readily occur to any student of
+our Babylon, people were already packed so closely that passage had
+grown difficult; and Somerset, standing in the kennel, watched,
+with a hope that was beginning to grow somewhat weary, the faces
+and the manners of the crowd.  Suddenly he was startled by a gentle
+touch upon the shoulder, and facing about, he was aware of a very
+plain and elegant brougham, drawn by a pair of powerful horses, and
+driven by a man in sober livery.  There were no arms upon the
+panel; the window was open, but the interior was obscure; the
+driver yawned behind his palm; and the young man was already
+beginning to suppose himself the dupe of his own fancy, when a
+hand, no larger than a child's and smoothly gloved in white,
+appeared in a corner of the window and privily beckoned him to
+approach.  He did so, and looked in.  The carriage was occupied by
+a single small and very dainty figure, swathed head and shoulders
+in impenetrable folds of white lace; and a voice, speaking low and
+silvery, addressed him in these words -
+
+'Open the door and get in.'
+
+'It must be,' thought the young man with an almost unbearable
+thrill, 'it must be that duchess at last!'  Yet, although the
+moment was one to which he had long looked forward, it was with a
+certain share of alarm that he opened the door, and, mounting into
+the brougham, took his seat beside the lady of the lace.  Whether
+or no she had touched a spring, or given some other signal, the
+young man had hardly closed the door before the carriage, with
+considerable swiftness, and with a very luxurious and easy movement
+on its springs, turned and began to drive towards the west.
+
+Somerset, as I have written, was not unprepared; it had long been
+his particular pleasure to rehearse his conduct in the most
+unlikely situations; and this, among others, of the patrician
+ravisher, was one he had familiarly studied.  Strange as it may
+seem, however, he could find no apposite remark; and as the lady,
+on her side, vouchsafed no further sign, they continued to drive in
+silence through the streets.  Except for alternate flashes from the
+passing lamps, the carriage was plunged in obscurity; and beyond
+the fact that the fittings were luxurious, and that the lady was
+singularly small and slender in person, and, all but one gloved
+hand, still swathed in her costly veil, the young man could
+decipher no detail of an inspiring nature.  The suspense began to
+grow unbearable.  Twice he cleared his throat, and twice the whole
+resources of the language failed him.  In similar scenes, when he
+had forecast them on the theatre of fancy, his presence of mind had
+always been complete, his eloquence remarkable; and at this
+disparity between the rehearsal and the performance, he began to be
+seized with a panic of apprehension.  Here, on the very threshold
+of adventure, suppose him ignominiously to fail; suppose that after
+ten, twenty, or sixty seconds of still uninterrupted silence, the
+lady should touch the check-string and re-deposit him, weighed and
+found wanting, on the common street!  Thousands of persons of no
+mind at all, he reasoned, would be found more equal to the part;
+could, that very instant, by some decisive step, prove the lady's
+choice to have been well inspired, and put a stop to this
+intolerable silence.
+
+His eye, at this point, lighted on the hand.  It was better to fall
+by desperate councils than to continue as he was; and with one
+tremulous swoop he pounced on the gloved fingers and drew them to
+himself.  One overt step, it had appeared to him, would dissolve
+the spell of his embarrassment; in act, he found it otherwise:  he
+found himself no less incapable of speech or further progress; and
+with the lady's hand in his, sat helpless.  But worse was in store.
+A peculiar quivering began to agitate the form of his companion;
+the hand that lay unresistingly in Somerset's trembled as with
+ague; and presently there broke forth, in the shadow of the
+carriage, the bubbling and musical sound of laughter, resisted but
+triumphant.  The young man dropped his prize; had it been possible,
+he would have bounded from the carriage.  The lady, meanwhile,
+lying back upon the cushions, passed on from trill to trill of the
+most heartfelt, high-pitched, clear and fairy-sounding merriment.
+
+'You must not be offended,' she said at last, catching an
+opportunity between two paroxysms.  'If you have been mistaken in
+the warmth of your attentions, the fault is solely mine; it does
+not flow from your presumption, but from my eccentric manner of
+recruiting friends; and, believe me, I am the last person in the
+world to think the worse of a young man for showing spirit.  As for
+to-night, it is my intention to entertain you to a little supper;
+and if I shall continue to be as much pleased with your manners as
+I was taken with your face, I may perhaps end by making you an
+advantageous offer.'
+
+Somerset sought in vain to find some form of answer, but his
+discomfiture had been too recent and complete.
+
+'Come,' returned the lady, 'we must have no display of temper; that
+is for me the one disqualifying fault; and as I perceive we are
+drawing near our destination, I shall ask you to descend and offer
+me your arm.'
+
+Indeed, at that very moment the carriage drew up before a stately
+and severe mansion in a spacious square; and Somerset, who was
+possessed of an excellent temper, with the best grace in the world
+assisted the lady to alight.  The door was opened by an old woman
+of a grim appearance, who ushered the pair into a dining-room
+somewhat dimly lighted, but already laid for supper, and occupied
+by a prodigious company of large and valuable cats.  Here, as soon
+as they were alone, the lady divested herself of the lace in which
+she was enfolded; and Somerset was relieved to find, that although
+still bearing the traces of great beauty, and still distinguished
+by the fire and colour of her eye, her hair was of a silvery
+whiteness and her face lined with years.
+
+'And now, mon preux,' said the old lady, nodding at him with a
+quaint gaiety, 'you perceive that I am no longer in my first youth.
+You will soon find that I am all the better company for that.'
+
+As she spoke, the maid re-entered the apartment with a light but
+tasteful supper.  They sat down, accordingly, to table, the cats
+with savage pantomime surrounding the old lady's chair; and what
+with the excellence of the meal and the gaiety of his entertainer,
+Somerset was soon completely at his ease.  When they had well eaten
+and drunk, the old lady leaned back in her chair, and taking a cat
+upon her lap, subjected her guest to a prolonged but evidently
+mirthful scrutiny.
+
+'I fear, madam,' said Somerset, 'that my manners have not risen to
+the height of your preconceived opinion.'
+
+'My dear young man,' she replied, 'you were never more mistaken in
+your life.  I find you charming, and you may very well have lighted
+on a fairy godmother.  I am not one of those who are given to
+change their opinions, and short of substantial demerit, those who
+have once gained my favour continue to enjoy it; but I have a
+singular swiftness of decision, read my fellow men and women with a
+glance, and have acted throughout life on first impressions.
+Yours, as I tell you, has been favourable; and if, as I suppose,
+you are a young fellow of somewhat idle habits, I think it not
+improbable that we may strike a bargain.'
+
+'Ah, madam,' returned Somerset, 'you have divined my situation.  I
+am a man of birth, parts, and breeding; excellent company, or at
+least so I find myself; but by a peculiar iniquity of fate,
+destitute alike of trade or money.  I was, indeed, this evening
+upon the quest of an adventure, resolved to close with any offer of
+interest, emolument, or pleasure; and your summons, which I profess
+I am still at some loss to understand, jumped naturally with the
+inclination of my mind.  Call it, if you will, impudence; I am
+here, at least, prepared for any proposition you can find it in
+your heart to make, and resolutely determined to accept.'
+
+'You express yourself very well,' replied the old lady, 'and are
+certainly a droll and curious young man.  I should not care to
+affirm that you were sane, for I have never found any one entirely
+so besides myself; but at least the nature of your madness
+entertains me, and I will reward you with some description of my
+character and life.'
+
+Thereupon the old lady, still fondling the cat upon her lap,
+proceeded to narrate the following particulars.
+
+
+
+NARRATIVE OF THE SPIRITED OLD LADY
+
+
+
+I was the eldest daughter of the Reverend Bernard Fanshawe, who
+held a valuable living in the diocese of Bath and Wells.  Our
+family, a very large one, was noted for a sprightly and incisive
+wit, and came of a good old stock where beauty was an heirloom.  In
+Christian grace of character we were unhappily deficient.  From my
+earliest years I saw and deplored the defects of those relatives
+whose age and position should have enabled them to conquer my
+esteem; and while I was yet a child, my father married a second
+wife, in whom (strange to say) the Fanshawe failings were
+exaggerated to a monstrous and almost laughable degree.  Whatever
+may be said against me, it cannot be denied I was a pattern
+daughter; but it was in vain that, with the most touching patience,
+I submitted to my stepmother's demands; and from the hour she
+entered my father's house, I may say that I met with nothing but
+injustice and ingratitude.
+
+I stood not alone, however, in the sweetness of my disposition; for
+one other of the family besides myself was free from any violence
+of character.  Before I had reached the age of sixteen, this
+cousin, John by name, had conceived for me a sincere but silent
+passion; and although the poor lad was too timid to hint at the
+nature of his feelings, I had soon divined and begun to share them.
+For some days I pondered on the odd situation created for me by the
+bashfulness of my admirer; and at length, perceiving that he began,
+in his distress, rather to avoid than seek my company, I determined
+to take the matter into my own hands.  Finding him alone in a
+retired part of the rectory garden, I told him that I had divined
+his amiable secret, that I knew with what disfavour our union was
+sure to be regarded; and that, under the circumstances, I was
+prepared to flee with him at once.  Poor John was literally
+paralysed with joy; such was the force of his emotions, that he
+could find no words in which to thank me; and that I, seeing him
+thus helpless, was obliged to arrange, myself, the details of our
+flight, and of the stolen marriage which was immediately to crown
+it.  John had been at that time projecting a visit to the
+metropolis.  In this I bade him persevere, and promised on the
+following day to join him at the Tavistock Hotel.
+
+True, on my side, to every detail of our arrangement, I arose, on
+the day in question, before the servants, packed a few necessaries
+in a bag, took with me the little money I possessed, and bade
+farewell for ever to the rectory.  I walked with good spirits to a
+town some thirty miles from home, and was set down the next morning
+in this great city of London.  As I walked from the coach-office to
+the hotel, I could not help exulting in the pleasant change that
+had befallen me; beholding, meanwhile, with innocent delight, the
+traffic of the streets, and depicting, in all the colours of fancy,
+the reception that awaited me from John.  But alas! when I inquired
+for Mr. Fanshawe, the porter assured me there was no such gentleman
+among the guests.  By what channel our secret had leaked out, or
+what pressure had been brought to bear on the too facile John, I
+could never fathom.  Enough that my family had triumphed; that I
+found myself alone in London, tender in years, smarting under the
+most sensible mortification, and by every sentiment of pride and
+self-respect debarred for ever from my father's house.
+
+I rose under the blow, and found lodgings in the neighbourhood of
+Euston Road, where, for the first time in my life, I tasted the
+joys of independence.  Three days afterwards, an advertisement in
+the Times directed me to the office of a solicitor whom I knew to
+be in my father's confidence.  There I was given the promise of a
+very moderate allowance, and a distinct intimation that I must
+never look to be received at home.  I could not but resent so cruel
+a desertion, and I told the lawyer it was a meeting I desired as
+little as themselves.  He smiled at my courageous spirit, paid me
+the first quarter of my income, and gave me the remainder of my
+personal effects, which had been sent to me, under his care, in a
+couple of rather ponderous boxes.  With these I returned in triumph
+to my lodgings, more content with my position than I should have
+thought possible a week before, and fully determined to make the
+best of the future.
+
+All went well for several months; and, indeed, it was my own fault
+alone that ended this pleasant and secluded episode of life.  I
+have, I must confess, the fatal trick of spoiling my inferiors.  My
+landlady, to whom I had as usual been overkind, impertinently
+called me in fault for some particular too small to mention; and I,
+annoyed that I had allowed her the freedom upon which she thus
+presumed, ordered her to leave my presence.  She stood a moment
+dumb, and then, recalling her self-possession, 'Your bill,' said
+she, 'shall be ready this evening, and to-morrow, madam, you shall
+leave my house.  See,' she added, 'that you are able to pay what
+you owe me; for if I do not receive the uttermost farthing, no box
+of yours shall pass my threshold.'
+
+I was confounded at her audacity, but as a whole quarter's income
+was due to me, not otherwise affected by the threat.  That
+afternoon, as I left the solicitor's door, carrying in one hand,
+and done up in a paper parcel, the whole amount of my fortune,
+there befell me one of those decisive incidents that sometimes
+shape a life.  The lawyer's office was situate in a street that
+opened at the upper end upon the Strand, and was closed at the
+lower, at the time of which I speak, by a row of iron railings
+looking on the Thames.  Down this street, then, I beheld my
+stepmother advancing to meet me, and doubtless bound to the very
+house I had just left.  She was attended by a maid whose face was
+new to me, but her own was too clearly printed on my memory; and
+the sight of it, even from a distance, filled me with generous
+indignation.  Flight was impossible.  There was nothing left but to
+retreat against the railing, and with my back turned to the street,
+pretend to be admiring the barges on the river or the chimneys of
+transpontine London.
+
+I was still so standing, and had not yet fully mastered the
+turbulence of my emotions, when a voice at my elbow addressed me
+with a trivial question.  It was the maid whom my stepmother, with
+characteristic hardness, had left to await her on the street, while
+she transacted her business with the family solicitor.  The girl
+did not know who I was; the opportunity too golden to be lost; and
+I was soon hearing the latest news of my father's rectory and
+parish.  It did not surprise me to find that she detested her
+employers; and yet the terms in which she spoke of them were hard
+to bear, hard to let pass unchallenged.  I heard them, however,
+without dissent, for my self-command is wonderful; and we might
+have parted as we met, had she not proceeded, in an evil hour, to
+criticise the rector's missing daughter, and with the most shocking
+perversions, to narrate the story of her flight.  My nature is so
+essentially generous that I can never pause to reason.  I flung up
+my hand sharply, by way, as well as I remember, of indignant
+protest; and, in the act, the packet slipped from my fingers,
+glanced between the railings, and fell and sunk in the river.  I
+stood a moment petrified, and then, struck by the drollery of the
+incident, gave way to peals of laughter.  I was still laughing when
+my stepmother reappeared, and the maid, who doubtless considered me
+insane, ran off to join her; nor had I yet recovered my gravity
+when I presented myself before the lawyer to solicit a fresh
+advance.  His answer made me serious enough, for it was a flat
+refusal; and it was not until I had besought him even with tears,
+that he consented to lend me ten pounds from his own pocket.  'I am
+a poor man,' said he, 'and you must look for nothing farther at my
+hands.'
+
+The landlady met me at the door.  'Here, madam,' said she, with a
+curtsey insolently low, 'here is my bill.  Would it inconvenience
+you to settle it at once?'
+
+'You shall be paid, madam,' said I, 'in the morning, in the proper
+course.'  And I took the paper with a very high air, but inwardly
+quaking.
+
+I had no sooner looked at it than I perceived myself to be lost.  I
+had been short of money and had allowed my debt to mount; and it
+had now reached the sum, which I shall never forget, of twelve
+pounds thirteen and fourpence halfpenny.  All evening I sat by the
+fire considering my situation.  I could not pay the bill; my
+landlady would not suffer me to remove my boxes; and without either
+baggage or money, how was I to find another lodging?  For three
+months, unless I could invent some remedy, I was condemned to be
+without a roof and without a penny.  It can surprise no one that I
+decided on immediate flight; but even here I was confronted by a
+difficulty, for I had no sooner packed my boxes than I found I was
+not strong enough to move, far less to carry them.
+
+In this strait I did not hesitate a moment, but throwing on a shawl
+and bonnet, and covering my face with a thick veil, I betook myself
+to that great bazaar of dangerous and smiling chances, the pavement
+of the city.  It was already late at night, and the weather being
+wet and windy, there were few abroad besides policemen.  These, on
+my present mission, I had wit enough to know for enemies; and
+wherever I perceived their moving lanterns, I made haste to turn
+aside and choose another thoroughfare.  A few miserable women still
+walked the pavement; here and there were young fellows returning
+drunk, or ruffians of the lowest class lurking in the mouths of
+alleys; but of any one to whom I might appeal in my distress, I
+began almost to despair.
+
+At last, at the corner of a street, I ran into the arms of one who
+was evidently a gentleman, and who, in all his appointments, from
+his furred great-coat to the fine cigar which he was smoking,
+comfortably breathed of wealth.  Much as my face has changed from
+its original beauty, I still retain (or so I tell myself) some
+traces of the youthful lightness of my figure.  Even veiled as I
+then was, I could perceive the gentleman was struck by my
+appearance:  and this emboldened me for my adventure.
+
+'Sir,' said I, with a quickly beating heart, 'sir, are you one in
+whom a lady can confide?'
+
+'Why, my dear,' said he, removing his cigar, 'that depends on
+circumstances.  If you will raise your veil--'
+
+'Sir,' I interrupted, 'let there be no mistake.  I ask you, as a
+gentleman, to serve me, but I offer no reward.'
+
+'That is frank,' said he; 'but hardly tempting.  And what, may I
+inquire, is the nature of the service?'
+
+But I knew well enough it was not my interest to tell him on so
+short an interview.  'If you will accompany me,' said I, 'to a
+house not far from here, you can see for yourself.'
+
+He looked at me awhile with hesitating eyes; and then, tossing away
+his cigar, which was not yet a quarter smoked, 'Here goes!' said
+he, and with perfect politeness offered me his arm.  I was wise
+enough to take it; to prolong our walk as far as possible, by more
+than one excursion from the shortest line; and to beguile the way
+with that sort of conversation which should prove to him
+indubitably from what station in society I sprang.  By the time we
+reached the door of my lodging, I felt sure I had confirmed his
+interest, and might venture, before I turned the pass-key, to
+beseech him to moderate his voice and to tread softly.  He promised
+to obey me:  and I admitted him into the passage and thence into my
+sitting-room, which was fortunately next the door.
+
+'And now,' said he, when with trembling fingers I had lighted a
+candle, 'what is the meaning of all this?'
+
+'I wish you,' said I, speaking with great difficulty, 'to help me
+out with these boxes--and I wish nobody to know.'
+
+He took up the candle.  'And I wish to see your face,' said he.
+
+I turned back my veil without a word, and looked at him with every
+appearance of resolve that I could summon up.  For some time he
+gazed into my face, still holding up the candle.  'Well,' said he
+at last, 'and where do you wish them taken?'
+
+I knew that I had gained my point; and it was with a tremor in my
+voice that I replied.  'I had thought we might carry them between
+us to the corner of Euston Road,' said I, 'where, even at this late
+hour, we may still find a cab.'
+
+'Very good,' was his reply; and he immediately hoisted the heavier
+of my trunks upon his shoulder, and taking one handle of the
+second, signed to me to help him at the other end.  In this order
+we made good our retreat from the house, and without the least
+adventure, drew pretty near to the corner of Euston Road.  Before a
+house, where there was a light still burning, my companion paused.
+'Let us here,' said he, 'set down our boxes, while we go forward to
+the end of the street in quest of a cab.  By doing so, we can still
+keep an eye upon their safety, and we avoid the very extraordinary
+figure we should otherwise present--a young man, a young lady, and
+a mass of baggage, standing castaway at midnight on the streets of
+London.'  So it was done, and the event proved him to be wise; for
+long before there was any word of a cab, a policeman appeared upon
+the scene, turned upon us the full glare of his lantern, and hung
+suspiciously behind us in a doorway.
+
+'There seem to be no cabs about, policeman,' said my champion, with
+affected cheerfulness.  But the constable's answer was ungracious;
+and as for the offer of a cigar, with which this rebuff was most
+unwisely followed up, he refused it point-blank, and without the
+least civility.  The young gentleman looked at me with a warning
+grimace, and there we continued to stand, on the edge of the
+pavement, in the beating rain, and with the policeman still
+silently watching our movements from the doorway.
+
+At last, and after a delay that seemed interminable, a four-wheeler
+appeared lumbering along in the mud, and was instantly hailed by my
+companion.  'Just pull up here, will you?' he cried.  'We have some
+baggage up the street.'
+
+And now came the hitch of our adventure; for when the policeman,
+still closely following us, beheld my two boxes lying in the rain,
+he arose from mere suspicion to a kind of certitude of something
+evil.  The light in the house had been extinguished; the whole
+frontage of the street was dark; there was nothing to explain the
+presence of these unguarded trunks; and no two innocent people were
+ever, I believe, detected in such questionable circumstances.
+
+'Where have these things come from?' asked the policeman, flashing
+his light full into my champion's face.
+
+'Why, from that house, of course,' replied the young gentleman,
+hastily shouldering a trunk.
+
+The policeman whistled and turned to look at the dark windows; he
+then took a step towards the door, as though to knock, a course
+which had infallibly proved our ruin; but seeing us already
+hurrying down the street under our double burthen, thought better
+or worse of it, and followed in our wake.
+
+'For God's sake,' whispered my companion, 'tell me where to drive
+to.'
+
+'Anywhere,' I replied with anguish.  'I have no idea.  Anywhere you
+like.'
+
+Thus it befell that, when the boxes had been stowed, and I had
+already entered the cab, my deliverer called out in clear tones the
+address of the house in which we are now seated.  The policeman, I
+could see, was staggered.  This neighbourhood, so retired, so
+aristocratic, was far from what he had expected.  For all that, he
+took the number of the cab, and spoke for a few seconds and with a
+decided manner in the cabman's ear.
+
+'What can he have said?' I gasped, as soon as the cab had rolled
+away.
+
+'I can very well imagine,' replied my champion; 'and I can assure
+you that you are now condemned to go where I have said; for, should
+we attempt to change our destination by the way, the jarvey will
+drive us straight to a police-office.  Let me compliment you on
+your nerves,' he added.  'I have had, I believe, the most horrible
+fright of my existence.'
+
+But my nerves, which he so much misjudged, were in so strange a
+disarray that speech was now become impossible; and we made the
+drive thenceforward in unbroken silence.  When we arrived before
+the door of our destination, the young gentleman alighted, opened
+it with a pass-key like one who was at home, bade the driver carry
+the trunks into the hall, and dismissed him with a handsome fee.
+He then led me into this dining-room, looking nearly as you behold
+it, but with certain marks of bachelor occupancy, and hastened to
+pour out a glass of wine, which he insisted on my drinking.  As
+soon as I could find my voice, 'In God's name,' I cried, 'where am
+I?'
+
+He told me I was in his house, where I was very welcome, and had no
+more urgent business than to rest myself and recover my spirits.
+As he spoke he offered me another glass of wine, of which, indeed,
+I stood in great want, for I was faint, and inclined to be
+hysterical.  Then he sat down beside the fire, lit another cigar,
+and for some time observed me curiously in silence.
+
+'And now,' said he, 'that you have somewhat restored yourself, will
+you be kind enough to tell me in what sort of crime I have become a
+partner?  Are you murderer, smuggler, thief, or only the harmless
+and domestic moonlight flitter?'
+
+I had been already shocked by his lighting a cigar without
+permission, for I had not forgotten the one he threw away on our
+first meeting; and now, at these explicit insults, I resolved at
+once to reconquer his esteem.  The judgment of the world I have
+consistently despised, but I had already begun to set a certain
+value on the good opinion of my entertainer.  Beginning with a note
+of pathos, but soon brightening into my habitual vivacity and
+humour, I rapidly narrated the circumstances of my birth, my
+flight, and subsequent misfortunes.  He heard me to an end in
+silence, gravely smoking.  'Miss Fanshawe,' said he, when I had
+done, 'you are a very comical and most enchanting creature; and I
+can see nothing for it but that I should return to-morrow morning
+and satisfy your landlady's demands.'
+
+'You strangely misinterpret my confidence,' was my reply; 'and if
+you had at all appreciated my character, you would understand that
+I can take no money at your hands.'
+
+'Your landlady will doubtless not be so particular,' he returned;
+'nor do I at all despair of persuading even your unconquerable
+self.  I desire you to examine me with critical indulgence.  My
+name is Henry Luxmore, Lord Southwark's second son.  I possess nine
+thousand a year, the house in which we are now sitting, and seven
+others in the best neighbourhoods in town.  I do not believe I am
+repulsive to the eye, and as for my character, you have seen me
+under trial.  I think you simply the most original of created
+beings; I need not tell you what you know very well, that you are
+ravishingly pretty; and I have nothing more to add, except that,
+foolish as it may appear, I am already head over heels in love with
+you.'
+
+'Sir,' said I, 'I am prepared to be misjudged; but while I continue
+to accept your hospitality that fact alone should be enough to
+protect me from insult.'
+
+'Pardon me,' said he:  'I offer you marriage.'  And leaning back in
+his chair he replaced his cigar between his lips.
+
+I own I was confounded by an offer, not only so unprepared, but
+couched in terms so singular.  But he knew very well how to obtain
+his purposes, for he was not only handsome in person, but his very
+coolness had a charm; and to make a long story short, a fortnight
+later I became the wife of the Honourable Henry Luxmore.
+
+For nearly twenty years I now led a life of almost perfect quiet.
+My Henry had his weaknesses; I was twice driven to flee from his
+roof, but not for long; for though he was easily over-excited, his
+nature was placable below the surface, and with all his faults, I
+loved him tenderly.  At last he was taken from me; and such is the
+power of self-deception, and so strange are the whims of the dying,
+he actually assured me, with his latest breath, that he forgave the
+violence of my temper!
+
+There was but one pledge of the marriage, my daughter Clara.  She
+had, indeed, inherited a shadow of her father's failing; but in all
+things else, unless my partial eyes deceived me, she derived her
+qualities from me, and might be called my moral image.  On my side,
+whatever else I may have done amiss, as a mother I was above
+reproach.  Here, then, was surely every promise for the future;
+here, at last, was a relation in which I might hope to taste
+repose.  But it was not to be.  You will hardly credit me when I
+inform you that she ran away from home; yet such was the case.
+Some whim about oppressed nationalities--Ireland, Poland, and the
+like--has turned her brain; and if you should anywhere encounter a
+young lady (I must say, of remarkable attractions) answering to the
+name of Luxmore, Lake, or Fonblanque (for I am told she uses these
+indifferently, as well as many others), tell her, from me, that I
+forgive her cruelty, and though I will never more behold her face,
+I am at any time prepared to make her a liberal allowance.
+
+On the death of Mr. Luxmore, I sought oblivion in the details of
+business.  I believe I have mentioned that seven mansions, besides
+this, formed part of Mr. Luxmore's property:  I have found them
+seven white elephants.  The greed of tenants, the dishonesty of
+solicitors, and the incapacity that sits upon the bench, have
+combined together to make these houses the burthen of my life.  I
+had no sooner, indeed, begun to look into these matters for myself,
+than I discovered so many injustices and met with so much studied
+incivility, that I was plunged into a long series of lawsuits, some
+of which are pending to this day.  You must have heard my name
+already; I am the Mrs. Luxmore of the Law Reports:  a strange
+destiny, indeed, for one born with an almost cowardly desire for
+peace!  But I am of the stamp of those who, when they have once
+begun a task, will rather die than leave their duty unfulfilled.  I
+have met with every obstacle:  insolence and ingratitude from my
+own lawyers; in my adversaries, that fault of obstinacy which is to
+me perhaps the most distasteful in the calendar; from the bench,
+civility indeed--always, I must allow, civility--but never a spark
+of independence, never that knowledge of the law and love of
+justice which we have a right to look for in a judge, the most
+august of human officers.  And still, against all these odds, I
+have undissuadably persevered.
+
+It was after the loss of one of my innumerable cases (a subject on
+which I will not dwell) that it occurred to me to make a melancholy
+pilgrimage to my various houses.  Four were at that time tenantless
+and closed, like pillars of salt, commemorating the corruption of
+the age and the decline of private virtue.  Three were occupied by
+persons who had wearied me by every conceivable unjust demand and
+legal subterfuge--persons whom, at that very hour, I was moving
+heaven and earth to turn into the street.  This was perhaps the
+sadder spectacle of the two; and my heart grew hot within me to
+behold them occupying, in my very teeth, and with an insolent
+ostentation, these handsome structures which were as much mine as
+the flesh upon my body.
+
+One more house remained for me to visit, that in which we now are.
+I had let it (for at that period I lodged in a hotel, the life that
+I have always preferred) to a Colonel Geraldine, a gentleman
+attached to Prince Florizel of Bohemia, whom you must certainly
+have heard of; and I had supposed, from the character and position
+of my tenant, that here, at least, I was safe against annoyance.
+What was my surprise to find this house also shuttered and
+apparently deserted!  I will not deny that I was offended; I
+conceived that a house, like a yacht, was better to be kept in
+commission; and I promised myself to bring the matter before my
+solicitor the following morning.  Meanwhile the sight recalled my
+fancy naturally to the past; and yielding to the tender influence
+of sentiment, I sat down opposite the door upon the garden parapet.
+It was August, and a sultry afternoon, but that spot is sheltered,
+as you may observe by daylight, under the branches of a spreading
+chestnut; the square, too, was deserted; there was a sound of
+distant music in the air; and all combined to plunge me into that
+most agreeable of states, which is neither happiness nor sorrow,
+but shares the poignancy of both.
+
+From this I was recalled by the arrival of a large van, very
+handsomely appointed, drawn by valuable horses, mounted by several
+men of an appearance more than decent, and bearing on its panels,
+instead of a trader's name, a coat-of-arms too modest to be
+deciphered from where I sat.  It drew up before my house, the door
+of which was immediately opened by one of the men.  His companions-
+-I counted seven of them in all--proceeded, with disciplined
+activity, to take from the van and carry into the house a variety
+of hampers, bottle-baskets, and boxes, such as are designed for
+plate and napery.  The windows of the dining-room were thrown
+widely open, as though to air it; and I saw some of those within
+laying the table for a meal.  Plainly, I concluded, my tenant was
+about to return; and while still determined to submit to no
+aggression on my rights, I was gratified by the number and
+discipline of his attendants, and the quiet profusion that appeared
+to reign in his establishment.  I was still so thinking when, to my
+extreme surprise, the windows and shutters of the dining-room were
+once more closed; the men began to reappear from the interior and
+resume their stations on the van; the last closed the door behind
+his exit; the van drove away; and the house was once more left to
+itself, looking blindly on the square with shuttered windows, as
+though the whole affair had been a vision.
+
+It was no vision, however; for, as I rose to my feet, and thus
+brought my eyes a little nearer to the level of the fanlight over
+the door, I saw that, though the day had still some hours to run,
+the hall lamps had been lighted and left burning.  Plainly, then,
+guests were expected, and were not expected before night.  For
+whom, I asked myself with indignation, were such secret
+preparations likely to be made?  Although no prude, I am a woman of
+decided views upon morality; if my house, to which my husband had
+brought me, was to serve in the character of a petite maison, I saw
+myself forced, however unwillingly, into a new course of
+litigation; and, determined to return and know the worst, I
+hastened to my hotel for dinner.
+
+I was at my post by ten.  The night was clear and quiet; the moon
+rode very high and put the lamps to shame; and the shadow below the
+chestnut was black as ink.  Here, then, I ensconced myself on the
+low parapet, with my back against the railings, face to face with
+the moonlit front of my old home, and ruminating gently on the
+past.  Time fled; eleven struck on all the city clocks; and
+presently after I was aware of the approach of a gentleman of
+stately and agreeable demeanour.  He was smoking as he walked; his
+light paletot, which was open, did not conceal his evening clothes;
+and he bore himself with a serious grace that immediately awakened
+my attention.  Before the door of this house he took a pass-key
+from his pocket, quietly admitted himself, and disappeared into the
+lamplit hall.
+
+He was scarcely gone when I observed another and a much younger man
+approaching hastily from the opposite side of the square.
+Considering the season of the year and the genial mildness of the
+night, he was somewhat closely muffled up; and as he came, for all
+his hurry, he kept looking nervously behind him.  Arrived before my
+door, he halted and set one foot upon the step, as though about to
+enter; then, with a sudden change, he turned and began to hurry
+away; halted a second time, as if in painful indecision; and
+lastly, with a violent gesture, wheeled about, returned straight to
+the door, and rapped upon the knocker.  He was almost immediately
+admitted by the first arrival.
+
+My curiosity was now broad awake.  I made myself as small as I
+could in the very densest of the shadow, and waited for the sequel.
+Nor had I long to wait.  From the same side of the square a second
+young man made his appearance, walking slowly and softly, and like
+the first, muffled to the nose.  Before the house he paused, looked
+all about him with a swift and comprehensive glance; and seeing the
+square lie empty in the moon and lamplight, leaned far across the
+area railings and appeared to listen to what was passing in the
+house.  From the dining-room there came the report of a champagne
+cork, and following upon that, the sound of rich and manly
+laughter.  The listener took heart of grace, produced a key,
+unlocked the area gate, shut it noiselessly behind him, and
+descended the stair.  Just when his head had reached the level of
+the pavement, he turned half round and once more raked the square
+with a suspicious eyeshot.  The mufflings had fallen lower round
+his neck; the moon shone full upon him; and I was startled to
+observe the pallor and passionate agitation of his face.
+
+I could remain no longer passive.  Persuaded that something deadly
+was afoot, I crossed the roadway and drew near the area railings.
+There was no one below; the man must therefore have entered the
+house, with what purpose I dreaded to imagine.  I have at no part
+of my career lacked courage; and now, finding the area gate was
+merely laid to, I pushed it gently open and descended the stairs.
+The kitchen door of the house, like the area gate, was closed but
+not fastened.  It flashed upon me that the criminal was thus
+preparing his escape; and the thought, as it confirmed the worst of
+my suspicions, lent me new resolve.  I entered the house; and being
+now quite reckless of my life, I shut and locked the door.
+
+From the dining-room above I could hear the pleasant tones of a
+voice in easy conversation.  On the ground floor all was not only
+profoundly silent, but the darkness seemed to weigh upon my eyes.
+Here, then, I stood for some time, having thrust myself uncalled
+into the utmost peril, and being destitute of any power to help or
+interfere.  Nor will I deny that fear had begun already to assail
+me, when I became aware, all at once and as though by some
+immediate but silent incandescence, of a certain glimmering of
+light upon the passage floor.  Towards this I groped my way with
+infinite precaution; and having come at length as far as the angle
+of the corridor, beheld the door of the butler's pantry standing
+just ajar and a narrow thread of brightness falling from the chink.
+Creeping still closer, I put my eye to the aperture.  The man sat
+within upon a chair, listening, I could see, with the most rapt
+attention.  On a table before him he had laid a watch, a pair of
+steel revolvers, and a bull's-eye lantern.  For one second many
+contradictory theories and projects whirled together in my head;
+the next, I had slammed the door and turned the key upon the
+malefactor.  Surprised at my own decision, I stood and panted,
+leaning on the wall.  From within the pantry not a sound was to be
+heard; the man, whatever he was, had accepted his fate without a
+struggle, and now, as I hugged myself to fancy, sat frozen with
+terror and looking for the worst to follow.  I promised myself that
+he should not be disappointed; and the better to complete my task,
+I turned to ascend the stairs.
+
+The situation, as I groped my way to the first floor, appealed to
+me suddenly by my strong sense of humour.  Here was I, the owner of
+the house, burglariously present in its walls; and there, in the
+dining-room, were two gentlemen, unknown to me, seated complacently
+at supper, and only saved by my promptitude from some surprising or
+deadly interruption.  It were strange if I could not manage to
+extract the matter of amusement from so unusual a situation.
+
+Behind this dining-room, there is a small apartment intended for a
+library.  It was to this that I cautiously groped my way; and you
+will see how fortune had exactly served me.  The weather, I have
+said, was sultry; in order to ventilate the dining-room and yet
+preserve the uninhabited appearance of the mansion to the front,
+the window of the library had been widely opened, and the door of
+communication between the two apartments left ajar.  To this
+interval I now applied my eye.
+
+Wax tapers, set in silver candlesticks, shed their chastened
+brightness on the damask of the tablecloth and the remains of a
+cold collation of the rarest delicacy.  The two gentlemen had
+finished supper, and were now trifling with cigars and maraschino;
+while in a silver spirit lamp, coffee of the most captivating
+fragrance was preparing in the fashion of the East.  The elder of
+the two, he who had first arrived, was placed directly facing me;
+the other was set on his left hand.  Both, like the man in the
+butler's pantry, seemed to be intently listening; and on the face
+of the second I thought I could perceive the marks of fear.  Oddly
+enough, however, when they came to speak, the parts were found to
+be reversed.
+
+'I assure you,' said the elder gentleman, 'I not only heard the
+slamming of a door, but the sound of very guarded footsteps.'
+
+'Your highness was certainly deceived,' replied the other.  'I am
+endowed with the acutest hearing, and I can swear that not a mouse
+has rustled.'  Yet the pallor and contraction of his features were
+in total discord with the tenor of his words.
+
+His highness (whom, of course, I readily divined to be Prince
+Florizel) looked at his companion for the least fraction of a
+second; and though nothing shook the easy quiet of his attitude, I
+could see that he was far from being duped.  'It is well,' said he;
+'let us dismiss the topic.  And now, sir, that I have very freely
+explained the sentiments by which I am directed, let me ask you,
+according to your promise, to imitate my frankness.'
+
+'I have heard you,' replied the other, 'with great interest.'
+
+'With singular patience,' said the prince politely.
+
+'Ay, your highness, and with unlooked-for sympathy,' returned the
+young man.  'I know not how to tell the change that has befallen
+me.  You have, I must suppose, a charm, to which even your enemies
+are subject.'  He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and
+visibly blanched.  'So late!' he cried.  'Your highness--God knows
+I am now speaking from the heart--before it be too late, leave this
+house!'
+
+The prince glanced once more at his companion, and then very
+deliberately shook the ash from his cigar.  'That is a strange
+remark,' said he; 'and a propos de bottes, I never continue a cigar
+when once the ash is fallen; the spell breaks, the soul of the
+flavour flies away, and there remains but the dead body of tobacco;
+and I make it a rule to throw away that husk and choose another.'
+He suited the action to the words.
+
+'Do not trifle with my appeal,' resumed the young man, in tones
+that trembled with emotion.  'It is made at the price of my honour
+and to the peril of my life.  Go--go now! lose not a moment; and if
+you have any kindness for a young man, miserably deceived indeed,
+but not devoid of better sentiments, look not behind you as you
+leave.'
+
+'Sir,' said the prince, 'I am here upon your honour; assure you
+upon mine that I shall continue to rely upon that safeguard.  The
+coffee is ready; I must again trouble you, I fear.'  And with a
+courteous movement of the hand, he seemed to invite his companion
+to pour out the coffee.
+
+The unhappy young man rose from his seat.  'I appeal to you,' he
+cried, 'by every holy sentiment, in mercy to me, if not in pity to
+yourself, begone before it is too late.'
+
+'Sir,' replied the prince, 'I am not readily accessible to fear;
+and if there is one defect to which I must plead guilty, it is that
+of a curious disposition.  You go the wrong way about to make me
+leave this house, in which I play the part of your entertainer;
+and, suffer me to add, young man, if any peril threaten us, it was
+of your contriving, not of mine.'
+
+'Alas, you do not know to what you condemn me,' cried the other.
+'But I at least will have no hand in it.'  With these words he
+carried his hand to his pocket, hastily swallowed the contents of a
+phial, and, with the very act, reeled back and fell across his
+chair upon the floor.  The prince left his place and came and stood
+above him, where he lay convulsed upon the carpet.  'Poor moth!' I
+heard his highness murmur.  'Alas, poor moth! must we again inquire
+which is the more fatal--weakness or wickedness?  And can a
+sympathy with ideas, surely not ignoble in themselves, conduct a
+man to this dishonourable death?'
+
+By this time I had pushed the door open and walked into the room.
+'Your highness,' said I, 'this is no time for moralising; with a
+little promptness we may save this creature's life; and as for the
+other, he need cause you no concern, for I have him safely under
+lock and key.'
+
+The prince had turned about upon my entrance, and regarded me
+certainly with no alarm, but with a profundity of wonder which
+almost robbed me of my self-possession.  'My dear madam,' he cried
+at last, 'and who the devil are you?'
+
+I was already on the floor beside the dying man.  I had, of course,
+no idea with what drug he had attempted his life, and I was forced
+to try him with a variety of antidotes.  Here were both oil and
+vinegar, for the prince had done the young man the honour of
+compounding for him one of his celebrated salads; and of each of
+these I administered from a quarter to half a pint, with no
+apparent efficacy.  I next plied him with the hot coffee, of which
+there may have been near upon a quart.
+
+'Have you no milk?' I inquired.
+
+'I fear, madam, that milk has been omitted,' returned the prince.
+
+'Salt, then,' said I; 'salt is a revulsive.  Pass the salt.'
+
+'And possibly the mustard?' asked his highness, as he offered me
+the contents of the various salt-cellars poured together on a
+plate.
+
+'Ah,' cried I, 'the thought is excellent!  Mix me about half a pint
+of mustard, drinkably dilute.'
+
+Whether it was the salt or the mustard, or the mere combination of
+so many subversive agents, as soon as the last had been poured over
+his throat, the young sufferer obtained relief.
+
+'There!' I exclaimed, with natural triumph, 'I have saved a life!'
+
+'And yet, madam,' returned the prince, 'your mercy may be cruelty
+disguised.  Where the honour is lost, it is, at least, superfluous
+to prolong the life.'
+
+'If you had led a life as changeable as mine, your highness,' I
+replied, 'you would hold a very different opinion.  For my part,
+and after whatever extremity of misfortune or disgrace, I should
+still count to-morrow worth a trial.'
+
+'You speak as a lady, madam,' said the prince; 'and for such you
+speak the truth.  But to men there is permitted such a field of
+license, and the good behaviour asked of them is at once so easy
+and so little, that to fail in that is to fall beyond the reach of
+pardon.  But will you suffer me to repeat a question, put to you at
+first, I am afraid, with some defect of courtesy; and to ask you
+once more, who you are and how I have the honour of your company?'
+
+'I am the proprietor of the house in which we stand,' said I.
+
+'And still I am at fault,' returned the prince.
+
+But at that moment the timepiece on the mantel-shelf began to
+strike the hour of twelve; and the young man, raising himself upon
+one elbow, with an expression of despair and horror that I have
+never seen excelled, cried lamentably, 'Midnight! oh, just God!'
+We stood frozen to our places, while the tingling hammer of the
+timepiece measured the remaining strokes; nor had we yet stirred,
+so tragic had been the tones of the young man, when the various
+bells of London began in turn to declare the hour.  The timepiece
+was inaudible beyond the walls of the chamber where we stood; but
+the second pulsation of Big Ben had scarcely throbbed into the
+night, before a sharp detonation rang about the house.  The prince
+sprang for the door by which I had entered; but quick as he was, I
+yet contrived to intercept him.
+
+'Are you armed?' I cried.
+
+'No, madam,' replied he.  'You remind me appositely; I will take
+the poker.'
+
+'The man below,' said I, 'has two revolvers.  Would you confront
+him at such odds?'
+
+He paused, as though staggered in his purpose.
+
+'And yet, madam,' said he, 'we cannot continue to remain in
+ignorance of what has passed.'
+
+'No!' cried I.  'And who proposes it?  I am as curious as yourself,
+but let us rather send for the police; or, if your highness dreads
+a scandal, for some of your own servants.'
+
+'Nay, madam,' he replied, smiling, 'for so brave a lady, you
+surprise me.  Would you have me, then, send others where I fear to
+go myself?'
+
+'You are perfectly right,' said I, 'and I was entirely wrong.  Go,
+in God's name, and I will hold the candle!'
+
+Together, therefore, we descended to the lower story, he carrying
+the poker, I the light; and together we approached and opened the
+door of the butler's pantry.  In some sort, I believe, I was
+prepared for the spectacle that met our eyes; I was prepared, that
+is, to find the villain dead, but the rude details of such a
+violent suicide I was unable to endure.  The prince, unshaken by
+horror as he had remained unshaken by alarm, assisted me with the
+most respectful gallantry to regain the dining-room.
+
+There we found our patient, still, indeed, deadly pale, but vastly
+recovered and already seated on a chair.  He held out both his
+hands with a most pitiful gesture of interrogation.
+
+'He is dead,' said the prince.
+
+'Alas!' cried the young man, 'and it should be I!  What do I do,
+thus lingering on the stage I have disgraced, while he, my sure
+comrade, blameworthy indeed for much, but yet the soul of fidelity,
+has judged and slain himself for an involuntary fault?  Ah, sir,'
+said he, 'and you too, madam, without whose cruel help I should be
+now beyond the reach of my accusing conscience, you behold in me
+the victim equally of my own faults and virtues.  I was born a
+hater of injustice; from my most tender years my blood boiled
+against heaven when I beheld the sick, and against men when I
+witnessed the sorrows of the poor; the pauper's crust stuck in my
+throat when I sat down to eat my dainties, and the cripple child
+has set me weeping.  What was there in that but what was noble? and
+yet observe to what a fall these thoughts have led me!  Year after
+year this passion for the lost besieged me closer.  What hope was
+there in kings? what hope in these well-feathered classes that now
+roll in money?  I had observed the course of history; I knew the
+burgess, our ruler of to-day, to be base, cowardly, and dull; I saw
+him, in every age, combine to pull down that which was immediately
+above and to prey upon those that were below; his dulness, I knew,
+would ultimately bring about his ruin; I knew his days were
+numbered, and yet how was I to wait? how was I to let the poor
+child shiver in the rain?  The better days, indeed, were coming,
+but the child would die before that.  Alas, your highness, in
+surely no ungenerous impatience I enrolled myself among the enemies
+of this unjust and doomed society; in surely no unnatural desire to
+keep the fires of my philanthropy alight, I bound myself by an
+irrevocable oath.
+
+'That oath is all my history.  To give freedom to posterity I had
+forsworn my own.  I must attend upon every signal; and soon my
+father complained of my irregular hours and turned me from his
+house.  I was engaged in betrothal to an honest girl; from her also
+I had to part, for she was too shrewd to credit my inventions and
+too innocent to be entrusted with the truth.  Behold me, then,
+alone with conspirators!  Alas! as the years went on, my illusions
+left me.  Surrounded as I was by the fervent disciples and
+apologists of revolution, I beheld them daily advance in confidence
+and desperation; I beheld myself, upon the other hand, and with an
+almost equal regularity, decline in faith.  I had sacrificed all to
+further that cause in which I still believed; and daily I began to
+grow in doubts if we were advancing it indeed.  Horrible was the
+society with which we warred, but our own means were not less
+horrible.
+
+'I will not dwell upon my sufferings; I will not pause to tell you
+how, when I beheld young men still free and happy, married, fathers
+of children, cheerfully toiling at their work, my heart reproached
+me with the greatness and vanity of my unhappy sacrifice.  I will
+not describe to you how, worn by poverty, poor lodging, scanty
+food, and an unquiet conscience, my health began to fail, and in
+the long nights, as I wandered bedless in the rainy streets, the
+most cruel sufferings of the body were added to the tortures of my
+mind.  These things are not personal to me; they are common to all
+unfortunates in my position.  An oath, so light a thing to swear,
+so grave a thing to break:  an oath, taken in the heat of youth,
+repented with what sobbings of the heart, but yet in vain repented,
+as the years go on:  an oath, that was once the very utterance of
+the truth of God, but that falls to be the symbol of a meaningless
+and empty slavery; such is the yoke that many young men joyfully
+assume, and under whose dead weight they live to suffer worse than
+death.
+
+'It is not that I was patient.  I have begged to be released; but I
+knew too much, and I was still refused.  I have fled; ay, and for
+the time successfully.  I reached Paris.  I found a lodging in the
+Rue St. Jacques, almost opposite the Val de Grace.  My room was
+mean and bare, but the sun looked into it towards evening; it
+commanded a peep of a green garden; a bird hung by a neighbour's
+window and made the morning beautiful; and I, who was sick, might
+lie in bed and rest myself:  I, who was in full revolt against the
+principles that I had served, was now no longer at the beck of the
+council, and was no longer charged with shameful and revolting
+tasks.  Oh! what an interval of peace was that!  I still dream, at
+times, that I can hear the note of my neighbour's bird.
+
+'My money was running out, and it became necessary that I should
+find employment.  Scarcely had I been three days upon the search,
+ere I thought that I was being followed.  I made certain of the
+features of the man, which were quite strange to me, and turned
+into a small cafe, where I whiled away an hour, pretending to read
+the papers, but inwardly convulsed with terror.  When I came forth
+again into the street, it was quite empty, and I breathed again;
+but alas, I had not turned three corners, when I once more observed
+the human hound pursuing me.  Not an hour was to be lost; timely
+submission might yet preserve a life which otherwise was forfeit
+and dishonoured; and I fled, with what speed you may conceive, to
+the Paris agency of the society I served.
+
+'My submission was accepted.  I took up once more the hated burthen
+of that life; once more I was at the call of men whom I despised
+and hated, while yet I envied and admired them.  They at least were
+wholehearted in the things they purposed; but I, who had once been
+such as they, had fallen from the brightness of my faith, and now
+laboured, like a hireling, for the wages of a loathed existence.
+Ay, sir, to that I was condemned; I obeyed to continue to live, and
+lived but to obey.
+
+'The last charge that was laid upon me was the one which has to-
+night so tragically ended.  Boldly telling who I was, I was to
+request from your highness, on behalf of my society, a private
+audience, where it was designed to murder you.  If one thing
+remained to me of my old convictions, it was the hate of kings; and
+when this task was offered me, I took it gladly.  Alas, sir, you
+triumphed.  As we supped, you gained upon my heart.  Your
+character, your talents, your designs for our unhappy country, all
+had been misrepresented.  I began to forget you were a prince; I
+began, all too feelingly, to remember that you were a man.  As I
+saw the hour approach, I suffered agonies untold; and when, at
+last, we heard the slamming of the door which announced in my
+unwilling ears the arrival of the partner of my crime, you will
+bear me out with what instancy I besought you to depart.  You would
+not, alas! and what could I?  Kill you, I could not; my heart
+revolted, my hand turned back from such a deed.  Yet it was
+impossible that I should suffer you to stay; for when the hour
+struck and my companion came, true to his appointment, and he, at
+least, true to our design, I could neither suffer you to be killed
+nor yet him to be arrested.  From such a tragic passage, death, and
+death alone, could save me; and it is no fault of mine if I
+continue to exist.
+
+'But you, madam,' continued the young man, addressing himself more
+directly to myself, 'were doubtless born to save the prince and to
+confound our purposes.  My life you have prolonged; and by turning
+the key on my companion, you have made me the author of his death.
+He heard the hour strike; he was impotent to help; and thinking
+himself forfeit to honour, thinking that I should fall alone upon
+his highness and perish for lack of his support, he has turned his
+pistol on himself.'
+
+'You are right,' said Prince Florizel:  'it was in no ungenerous
+spirit that you brought these burthens on yourself; and when I see
+you so nobly to blame, so tragically punished, I stand like one
+reproved.  For is it not strange, madam, that you and I, by
+practising accepted and inconsiderable virtues, and commonplace but
+still unpardonable faults, should stand here, in the sight of God,
+with what we call clean hands and quiet consciences; while this
+poor youth, for an error that I could almost envy him, should be
+sunk beyond the reach of hope?
+
+'Sir,' resumed the prince, turning to the young man, 'I cannot help
+you; my help would but unchain the thunderbolt that overhangs you;
+and I can but leave you free.'
+
+'And, sir,' said I, 'as this house belongs to me, I will ask you to
+have the kindness to remove the body.  You and your conspirators,
+it appears to me, can hardly in civility do less.'
+
+'It shall be done,' said the young man, with a dismal accent.
+
+'And you, dear madam,' said the prince, 'you, to whom I owe my
+life, how can I serve you?'
+
+'Your highness,' I said, 'to be very plain, this is my favourite
+house, being not only a valuable property, but endeared to me by
+various associations.  I have endless troubles with tenants of the
+ordinary class:  and at first applauded my good fortune when I
+found one of the station of your Master of the Horse.  I now begin
+to think otherwise:  dangers set a siege about great personages;
+and I do not wish my tenement to share these risks.  Procure me the
+resiliation of the lease, and I shall feel myself your debtor.'
+
+'I must tell you, madam,' replied his highness, 'that Colonel
+Geraldine is but a cloak for myself; and I should be sorry indeed
+to think myself so unacceptable a tenant.'
+
+'Your highness,' said I, 'I have conceived a sincere admiration for
+your character; but on the subject of house property, I cannot
+allow the interference of my feelings.  I will, however, to prove
+to you that there is nothing personal in my request, here solemnly
+engage my word that I will never put another tenant in this house.'
+
+'Madam,' said Florizel, 'you plead your cause too charmingly to be
+refused.'
+
+Thereupon we all three withdrew.  The young man, still reeling in
+his walk, departed by himself to seek the assistance of his fellow-
+conspirators; and the prince, with the most attentive gallantry,
+lent me his escort to the door of my hotel.  The next day, the
+lease was cancelled; nor from that hour to this, though sometimes
+regretting my engagement, have I suffered a tenant in this house.
+
+
+
+THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Continued).
+
+
+
+As soon as the old lady had finished her relation, Somerset made
+haste to offer her his compliments.
+
+'Madam,' said he, 'your story is not only entertaining but
+instructive; and you have told it with infinite vivacity.  I was
+much affected towards the end, as I held at one time very liberal
+opinions, and should certainly have joined a secret society if I
+had been able to find one.  But the whole tale came home to me; and
+I was the better able to feel for you in your various perplexities,
+as I am myself of somewhat hasty temper.'
+
+'I do not understand you,' said Mrs. Luxmore, with some marks of
+irritation.  'You must have strangely misinterpreted what I have
+told you.  You fill me with surprise.'
+
+Somerset, alarmed by the old lady's change of tone and manner,
+hurried to recant.
+
+'Dear Mrs. Luxmore,' said he, 'you certainly misconstrue my remark.
+As a man of somewhat fiery humour, my conscience repeatedly pricked
+me when I heard what you had suffered at the hands of persons
+similarly constituted.'
+
+'Oh, very well indeed,' replied the old lady; 'and a very proper
+spirit.  I regret that I have met with it so rarely.'
+
+'But in all this,' resumed the young man, 'I perceive nothing that
+concerns myself.'
+
+'I am about to come to that,' she returned.  'And you have already
+before you, in the pledge I gave Prince Florizel, one of the
+elements of the affair.  I am a woman of the nomadic sort, and when
+I have no case before the courts I make it a habit to visit
+continental spas:  not that I have ever been ill; but then I am no
+longer young, and I am always happy in a crowd.  Well, to come more
+shortly to the point, I am now on the wing for Evian; this incubus
+of a house, which I must leave behind and dare not let, hangs
+heavily upon my hands; and I propose to rid myself of that concern,
+and do you a very good turn into the bargain, by lending you the
+mansion, with all its fittings, as it stands.  The idea was sudden;
+it appealed to me as humorous:  and I am sure it will cause my
+relatives, if they should ever hear of it, the keenest possible
+chagrin.  Here, then, is the key; and when you return at two to-
+morrow afternoon, you will find neither me nor my cats to disturb
+you in your new possession.'
+
+So saying, the old lady arose, as if to dismiss her visitor; but
+Somerset, looking somewhat blankly on the key, began to protest.
+
+'Dear Mrs. Luxmore,' said he, 'this is a most unusual proposal.
+You know nothing of me, beyond the fact that I displayed both
+impudence and timidity.  I may be the worst kind of scoundrel; I
+may sell your furniture--'
+
+'You may blow up the house with gunpowder, for what I care!' cried
+Mrs. Luxmore.  'It is in vain to reason.  Such is the force of my
+character that, when I have one idea clearly in my head, I do not
+care two straws for any side consideration.  It amuses me to do it,
+and let that suffice.  On your side, you may do what you please--
+let apartments, or keep a private hotel; on mine, I promise you a
+full month's warning before I return, and I never fail religiously
+to keep my promises.'
+
+The young man was about to renew his protest, when he observed a
+sudden and significant change in the old lady's countenance.
+
+'If I thought you capable of disrespect!' she cried.
+
+'Madam,' said Somerset, with the extreme fervour of asseveration,
+'madam, I accept.  I beg you to understand that I accept with joy
+and gratitude.'
+
+'Ah well,' returned Mrs. Luxmore, 'if I am mistaken, let it pass.
+And now, since all is comfortably settled, I wish you a good-
+night.'
+
+Thereupon, as if to leave him no room for repentance, she hurried
+Somerset out of the front door, and left him standing, key in hand,
+upon the pavement.
+
+The next day, about the hour appointed, the young man found his way
+to the square, which I will here call Golden Square, though that
+was not its name.  What to expect, he knew not; for a man may live
+in dreams, and yet be unprepared for their realisation.  It was
+already with a certain pang of surprise that he beheld the mansion,
+standing in the eye of day, a solid among solids.  The key, upon
+trial, readily opened the front door; he entered that great house,
+a privileged burglar; and, escorted by the echoes of desertion,
+rapidly reviewed the empty chambers.  Cats, servant, old lady, the
+very marks of habitation, like writing on a slate, had been in
+these few hours obliterated.  He wandered from floor to floor, and
+found the house of great extent; the kitchen offices commodious and
+well appointed; the rooms many and large; and the drawing-room, in
+particular, an apartment of princely size and tasteful decoration.
+Although the day without was warm, genial, and sunny, with a
+ruffling wind from the quarter of Torquay, a chill, as it were, of
+suspended animation inhabited the house.  Dust and shadows met the
+eye; and but for the ominous procession of the echoes, and the
+rumour of the wind among the garden trees, the ear of the young man
+was stretched in vain.
+
+Behind the dining-room, that pleasant library, referred to by the
+old lady in her tale, looked upon the flat roofs and netted cupolas
+of the kitchen quarters; and on a second visit, this room appeared
+to greet him with a smiling countenance.  He might as well, he
+thought, avoid the expense of lodging:  the library, fitted with an
+iron bedstead which he had remarked, in one of the upper chambers,
+would serve his purpose for the night; while in the dining-room,
+which was large, airy, and lightsome, looking on the square and
+garden, he might very agreeably pass his days, cook his meals, and
+study to bring himself to some proficiency in that art of painting
+which he had recently determined to adopt.  It did not take him
+long to make the change:  he had soon returned to the mansion with
+his modest kit; and the cabman who brought him was readily induced,
+by the young man's pleasant manner and a small gratuity, to assist
+him in the installation of the iron bed.  By six in the evening,
+when Somerset went forth to dine, he was able to look back upon the
+mansion with a sense of pride and property.  Four-square it stood,
+of an imposing frontage, and flanked on either side by family
+hatchments.  His eye, from where he stood whistling in the key,
+with his back to the garden railings, reposed on every feature of
+reality; and yet his own possession seemed as flimsy as a dream.
+
+In the course of a few days, the genteel inhabitants of the square
+began to remark the customs of their neighbour.  The sight of a
+young gentleman discussing a clay pipe, about four o'clock of the
+afternoon, in the drawing-room balcony of so discreet a mansion;
+and perhaps still more, his periodical excursion to a decent tavern
+in the neighbourhood, and his unabashed return, nursing the full
+tankard:  had presently raised to a high pitch the interest and
+indignation of the liveried servants of the square.  The disfavour
+of some of these gentlemen at first proceeded to the length of
+insult; but Somerset knew how to be affable with any class of men;
+and a few rude words merrily accepted, and a few glasses amicably
+shared, gained for him the right of toleration.
+
+The young man had embraced the art of Raphael, partly from a notion
+of its ease, partly from an inborn distrust of offices.  He scorned
+to bear the yoke of any regular schooling; and proceeded to turn
+one half of the dining-room into a studio for the reproduction of
+still life.  There he amassed a variety of objects,
+indiscriminately chosen from the kitchen, the drawing-room, and the
+back garden; and there spent his days in smiling assiduity.
+Meantime, the great bulk of empty building overhead lay, like a
+load, upon his imagination.  To hold so great a stake and to do
+nothing, argued some defect of energy; and he at length determined
+to act upon the hint given by Mrs. Luxmore herself, and to stick,
+with wafers, in the window of the dining-room, a small handbill
+announcing furnished lodgings.  At half-past six of a fine July
+morning, he affixed the bill, and went forth into the square to
+study the result.  It seemed, to his eye, promising and
+unpretentious; and he returned to the drawing-room balcony, to
+consider, over a studious pipe, the knotty problem of how much he
+was to charge.
+
+Thereupon he somewhat relaxed in his devotion to the art of
+painting.  Indeed, from that time forth, he would spend the best
+part of the day in the front balcony, like the attentive angler
+poring on his float; and the better to support the tedium, he would
+frequently console himself with his clay pipe.  On several
+occasions, passers-by appeared to be arrested by the ticket, and on
+several others ladies and gentlemen drove to the very doorstep by
+the carriageful; but it appeared there was something repulsive in
+the appearance of the house; for with one accord, they would cast
+but one look upward, and hastily resume their onward progress or
+direct the driver to proceed.  Somerset had thus the mortification
+of actually meeting the eye of a large number of lodging-seekers;
+and though he hastened to withdraw his pipe, and to compose his
+features to an air of invitation, he was never rewarded by so much
+as an inquiry.  'Can there,' he thought, 'be anything repellent in
+myself?'  But a candid examination in one of the pier-glasses of
+the drawing-room led him to dismiss the fear.
+
+Something, however, was amiss.  His vast and accurate calculations
+on the fly-leaves of books, or on the backs of playbills, appeared
+to have been an idle sacrifice of time.  By these, he had variously
+computed the weekly takings of the house, from sums as modest as
+five-and-twenty shillings, up to the more majestic figure of a
+hundred pounds; and yet, in despite of the very elements of
+arithmetic, here he was making literally nothing.
+
+This incongruity impressed him deeply and occupied his thoughtful
+leisure on the balcony; and at last it seemed to him that he had
+detected the error of his method.  'This,' he reflected, 'is an age
+of generous display:  the age of the sandwich-man, of Griffiths, of
+Pears' legendary soap, and of Eno's fruit salt, which, by sheer
+brass and notoriety, and the most disgusting pictures I ever
+remember to have seen, has overlaid that comforter of my childhood,
+Lamplough's pyretic saline.  Lamplough was genteel, Eno was
+omnipresent; Lamplough was trite, Eno original and abominably
+vulgar; and here have I, a man of some pretensions to knowledge of
+the world, contented myself with half a sheet of note-paper, a few
+cold words which do not directly address the imagination, and the
+adornment (if adornment it may be called) of four red wafers!  Am
+I, then, to sink with Lamplough, or to soar with Eno?  Am I to
+adopt that modesty which is doubtless becoming in a duke? or to
+take hold of the red facts of life with the emphasis of the
+tradesman and the poet?'
+
+Pursuant upon these meditations, he procured several sheets of the
+very largest size of drawing-paper; and laying forth his paints,
+proceeded to compose an ensign that might attract the eye, and at
+the same time, in his own phrase, directly address the imagination
+of the passenger.  Something taking in the way of colour, a good,
+savoury choice of words, and a realistic design setting forth the
+life a lodger might expect to lead within the walls of that palace
+of delight:  these, he perceived, must be the elements of his
+advertisement.  It was possible, upon the one hand, to depict the
+sober pleasures of domestic life, the evening fire, blond-headed
+urchins and the hissing urn; but on the other, it was possible (and
+he almost felt as if it were more suited to his muse) to set forth
+the charms of an existence somewhat wider in its range or, boldly
+say, the paradise of the Mohammedan.  So long did the artist waver
+between these two views, that, before he arrived at a conclusion,
+he had finally conceived and completed both designs.  With the
+proverbially tender heart of the parent, he found himself unable to
+sacrifice either of these offsprings of his art; and decided to
+expose them on alternate days.  'In this way,' he thought, 'I shall
+address myself indifferently to all classes of the world.'
+
+The tossing of a penny decided the only remaining point; and the
+more imaginative canvas received the suffrages of fortune, and
+appeared first in the window of the mansion.  It was of a high
+fancy, the legend eloquently writ, the scheme of colour taking and
+bold; and but for the imperfection of the artist's drawing, it
+might have been taken for a model of its kind.  As it was, however,
+when viewed from his favourite point against the garden railings,
+and with some touch of distance, it caused a pleasurable rising of
+the artist's heart.  'I have thrown away,' he ejaculated, 'an
+invaluable motive; and this shall be the subject of my first
+academy picture.'
+
+The fate of neither of these works was equal to its merit.  A crowd
+would certainly, from time to time, collect before the area-
+railings; but they came to jeer and not to speculate; and those who
+pushed their inquiries further, were too plainly animated by the
+spirit of derision.  The racier of the two cartoons displayed,
+indeed, no symptom of attractive merit; and though it had a certain
+share of that success called scandalous, failed utterly of its
+effect.  On the day, however, of the second appearance of the
+companion work, a real inquirer did actually present himself before
+the eyes of Somerset.
+
+This was a gentlemanly man, with some marks of recent merriment,
+and his voice under inadequate control.
+
+'I beg your pardon,' said he, 'but what is the meaning of your
+extraordinary bill?'
+
+'I beg yours,' returned Somerset hotly.  'Its meaning is
+sufficiently explicit.'  And being now, from dire experience,
+fearful of ridicule, he was preparing to close the door, when the
+gentleman thrust his cane into the aperture.
+
+'Not so fast, I beg of you,' said he.  'If you really let
+apartments, here is a possible tenant at your door; and nothing
+would give me greater pleasure than to see the accommodation and to
+learn your terms.'
+
+His heart joyously beating, Somerset admitted the visitor, showed
+him over the various apartments, and, with some return of his
+persuasive eloquence, expounded their attractions.  The gentleman
+was particularly pleased by the elegant proportions of the drawing-
+room.
+
+'This,' he said, 'would suit me very well.  What, may I ask, would
+be your terms a week, for this floor and the one above it?'
+
+'I was thinking,' returned Somerset, 'of a hundred pounds.'
+
+'Surely not,' exclaimed the gentleman.
+
+'Well, then,' returned Somerset, 'fifty.'
+
+The gentleman regarded him with an air of some amazement.  'You
+seem to be strangely elastic in your demands,' said he.  'What if I
+were to proceed on your own principle of division, and offer
+twenty-five?'
+
+'Done!' cried Somerset; and then, overcome by a sudden
+embarrassment, 'You see,' he added apologetically, 'it is all found
+money for me.'
+
+'Really?' said the stranger, looking at him all the while with
+growing wonder.  'Without extras, then?'
+
+'I--I suppose so,' stammered the keeper of the lodging-house.
+
+'Service included?' pursued the gentleman.
+
+'Service?' cried Somerset.  'Do you mean that you expect me to
+empty your slops?'
+
+The gentleman regarded him with a very friendly interest.  'My dear
+fellow,' said he, 'if you take my advice, you will give up this
+business.'  And thereupon he resumed his hat and took himself away.
+
+This smarting disappointment produced a strong effect on the artist
+of the cartoons; and he began with shame to eat up his rosier
+illusions.  First one and then the other of his great works was
+condemned, withdrawn from exhibition, and relegated, as a mere
+wall-picture, to the decoration of the dining-room.  Their place
+was taken by a replica of the original wafered announcement, to
+which, in particularly large letters, he had added the pithy
+rubric:  'NO SERVICE.'  Meanwhile he had fallen into something as
+nearly bordering on low spirits as was consistent with his
+disposition; depressed, at once by the failure of his scheme, the
+laughable turn of his late interview, and the judicial blindness of
+the public to the merit of the twin cartoons.
+
+Perhaps a week had passed before he was again startled by the note
+of the knocker.  A gentleman of a somewhat foreign and somewhat
+military air, yet closely shaven and wearing a soft hat, desired in
+the politest terms to visit the apartments.  He had (he explained)
+a friend, a gentleman in tender health, desirous of a sedate and
+solitary life, apart from interruptions and the noises of the
+common lodging-house.  'The unusual clause,' he continued, 'in your
+announcement, particularly struck me.  "This," I said, "is the
+place for Mr. Jones."  You are yourself, sir, a professional
+gentleman?' concluded the visitor, looking keenly in Somerset's
+face.
+
+'I am an artist,' replied the young man lightly.
+
+'And these,' observed the other, taking a side glance through the
+open door of the dining-room, which they were then passing, 'these
+are some of your works.  Very remarkable.'  And he again and still
+more sharply peered into the countenance of the young man.
+
+Somerset, unable to suppress a blush, made the more haste to lead
+his visitor upstairs and to display the apartments.
+
+'Excellent,' observed the stranger, as he looked from one of the
+back windows.  'Is that a mews behind, sir?  Very good.  Well, sir:
+see here.  My friend will take your drawing-room floor; he will
+sleep in the back drawing-room; his nurse, an excellent Irish
+widow, will attend on all his wants and occupy a garret; he will
+pay you the round sum of ten dollars a week; and you, on your part,
+will engage to receive no other lodger?  I think that fair.'
+
+Somerset had scarcely words in which to clothe his gratitude and
+joy.
+
+'Agreed,' said the other; 'and to spare you trouble, my friend will
+bring some men with him to make the changes.  You will find him a
+retiring inmate, sir; receives but few, and rarely leaves the
+house, except at night.'
+
+'Since I have been in this house,' returned Somerset, 'I have
+myself, unless it were to fetch beer, rarely gone abroad except in
+the evening.  But a man,' he added, 'must have some amusement.'
+
+An hour was then agreed on; the gentleman departed; and Somerset
+sat down to compute in English money the value of the figure named.
+The result of this investigation filled him with amazement and
+disgust; but it was now too late; nothing remained but to endure;
+and he awaited the arrival of his tenant, still trying, by various
+arithmetical expedients, to obtain a more favourable quotation for
+the dollar.  With the approach of dusk, however, his impatience
+drove him once more to the front balcony.  The night fell, mild and
+airless; the lamps shone around the central darkness of the garden;
+and through the tall grove of trees that intervened, many warmly
+illuminated windows on the farther side of the square, told their
+tale of white napery, choice wine, and genial hospitality.  The
+stars were already thickening overhead, when the young man's eyes
+alighted on a procession of three four-wheelers, coasting round the
+garden railing and bound for the Superfluous Mansion.  They were
+laden with formidable boxes; moved in a military order, one
+following another; and, by the extreme slowness of their advance,
+inspired Somerset with the most serious ideas of his tenant's
+malady.
+
+By the time he had the door open, the cabs had drawn up beside the
+pavement; and from the two first, there had alighted the military
+gentleman of the morning and two very stalwart porters.  These
+proceeded instantly to take possession of the house; with their own
+hands, and firmly rejecting Somerset's assistance, they carried in
+the various crates and boxes; with their own hands dismounted and
+transferred to the back drawing-room the bed in which the tenant
+was to sleep; and it was not until the bustle of arrival had
+subsided, and the arrangements were complete, that there descended,
+from the third of the three vehicles, a gentleman of great stature
+and broad shoulders, leaning on the shoulder of a woman in a
+widow's dress, and himself covered by a long cloak and muffled in a
+coloured comforter.
+
+Somerset had but a glimpse of him in passing; he was soon shut into
+the back drawing-room; the other men departed; silence redescended
+on the house; and had not the nurse appeared a little before half-
+past ten, and, with a strong brogue, asked if there were a decent
+public-house in the neighbourhood, Somerset might have still
+supposed himself to be alone in the Superfluous Mansion.
+
+Day followed day; and still the young man had never come by speech
+or sight of his mysterious lodger.  The doors of the drawing-room
+flat were never open; and although Somerset could hear him moving
+to and fro, the tall man had never quitted the privacy of his
+apartments.  Visitors, indeed, arrived; sometimes in the dusk,
+sometimes at intempestuous hours of night or morning; men, for the
+most part; some meanly attired, some decently; some loud, some
+cringing; and yet all, in the eyes of Somerset, displeasing.  A
+certain air of fear and secrecy was common to them all; they were
+all voluble, he thought, and ill at ease; even the military
+gentleman proved, on a closer inspection, to be no gentleman at
+all; and as for the doctor who attended the sick man, his manners
+were not suggestive of a university career.  The nurse, again, was
+scarcely a desirable house-fellow.  Since her arrival, the fall of
+whisky in the young man's private bottle was much accelerated; and
+though never communicative, she was at times unpleasantly familiar.
+When asked about the patient's health, she would dolorously shake
+her head, and declare that the poor gentleman was in a pitiful
+condition.
+
+Yet somehow Somerset had early begun to entertain the notion that
+his complaint was other than bodily.  The ill-looking birds that
+gathered to the house, the strange noises that sounded from the
+drawing-room in the dead hours of night, the careless attendance
+and intemperate habits of the nurse, the entire absence of
+correspondence, the entire seclusion of Mr. Jones himself, whose
+face, up to that hour, he could not have sworn to in a court of
+justice--all weighed unpleasantly upon the young man's mind.  A
+sense of something evil, irregular and underhand, haunted and
+depressed him; and this uneasy sentiment was the more firmly rooted
+in his mind, when, in the fulness of time, he had an opportunity of
+observing the features of his tenant.  It fell in this way.  The
+young landlord was awakened about four in the morning by a noise in
+the hall.  Leaping to his feet, and opening the door of the
+library, he saw the tall man, candle in hand, in earnest
+conversation with the gentleman who had taken the rooms.  The faces
+of both were strongly illuminated; and in that of his tenant,
+Somerset could perceive none of the marks of disease, but every
+sign of health, energy, and resolution.  While he was still
+looking, the visitor took his departure; and the invalid, having
+carefully fastened the front door, sprang upstairs without a trace
+of lassitude.
+
+That night upon his pillow, Somerset began to kindle once more into
+the hot fit of the detective fever; and the next morning resumed
+the practice of his art with careless hand and an abstracted mind.
+The day was destined to be fertile in surprises; nor had he long
+been seated at the easel ere the first of these occurred.  A cab
+laden with baggage drew up before the door; and Mrs. Luxmore in
+person rapidly mounted the steps and began to pound upon the
+knocker.  Somerset hastened to attend the summons.
+
+'My dear fellow,' she said, with the utmost gaiety, 'here I come
+dropping from the moon.  I am delighted to find you faithful; and I
+have no doubt you will be equally pleased to be restored to
+liberty.'
+
+Somerset could find no words, whether of protest or welcome; and
+the spirited old lady pushed briskly by him and paused on the
+threshold of the dining-room.  The sight that met her eyes was one
+well calculated to inspire astonishment.  The mantelpiece was
+arrayed with saucepans and empty bottles; on the fire some chops
+were frying; the floor was littered from end to end with books,
+clothes, walking-canes and the materials of the painter's craft;
+but what far outstripped the other wonders of the place was the
+corner which had been arranged for the study of still-life.  This
+formed a sort of rockery; conspicuous upon which, according to the
+principles of the art of composition, a cabbage was relieved
+against a copper kettle, and both contrasted with the mail of a
+boiled lobster.
+
+'My gracious goodness!' cried the lady of the house; and then,
+turning in wrath on the young man, 'From what rank in life are you
+sprung?' she demanded.  'You have the exterior of a gentleman; but
+from the astonishing evidences before me, I should say you can only
+be a greengrocer's man.  Pray, gather up your vegetables, and let
+me see no more of you.'
+
+'Madam,' babbled Somerset, 'you promised me a month's warning.'
+
+'That was under a misapprehension,' returned the old lady.  'I now
+give you warning to leave at once.'
+
+'Madam,' said the young man, 'I wish I could; and indeed, as far as
+I am concerned, it might be done.  But then, my lodger!'
+
+'Your lodger?' echoed Mrs. Luxmore.
+
+'My lodger:  why should I deny it?' returned Somerset.  'He is only
+by the week.'
+
+The old lady sat down upon a chair.  'You have a lodger?--you?' she
+cried.  'And pray, how did you get him?'
+
+'By advertisement,' replied the young man. 'O madam, I have not
+lived unobservantly.  I adopted'--his eyes involuntarily shifted to
+the cartoons--'I adopted every method.'
+
+Her eyes had followed his; for the first time in Somerset's
+experience, she produced a double eye-glass; and as soon as the
+full merit of the works had flashed upon her, she gave way to peal
+after peal of her trilling and soprano laughter.
+
+'Oh, I think you are perfectly delicious!' she cried.  'I do hope
+you had them in the window.  M'Pherson,' she continued, crying to
+her maid, who had been all this time grimly waiting in the hall, 'I
+lunch with Mr. Somerset.  Take the cellar key and bring some wine.'
+
+In this gay humour she continued throughout the luncheon; presented
+Somerset with a couple of dozen of wine, which she made M'Pherson
+bring up from the cellar--'as a present, my dear,' she said, with
+another burst of tearful merriment, 'for your charming pictures,
+which you must be sure to leave me when you go;' and finally,
+protesting that she dared not spoil the absurdest houseful of
+madmen in the whole of London, departed (as she vaguely phrased it)
+for the continent of Europe.
+
+She was no sooner gone, than Somerset encountered in the corridor
+the Irish nurse; sober, to all appearance, and yet a prey to
+singularly strong emotion.  It was made to appear, from her
+account, that Mr. Jones had already suffered acutely in his health
+from Mrs. Luxmore's visit, and that nothing short of a full
+explanation could allay the invalid's uneasiness.  Somerset,
+somewhat staring, told what he thought fit of the affair.
+
+'Is that all?' cried the woman.  'As God sees you, is that all?'
+
+'My good woman,' said the young man, 'I have no idea what you can
+be driving at.  Suppose the lady were my friend's wife, suppose she
+were my fairy godmother, suppose she were the Queen of Portugal;
+and how should that affect yourself or Mr. Jones?'
+
+'Blessed Mary!' cried the nurse, 'it's he that will be glad to hear
+it!'
+
+And immediately she fled upstairs.
+
+Somerset, on his part, returned to the dining-room, and with a very
+thoughtful brow and ruminating many theories, disposed of the
+remainder of the bottle.  It was port; and port is a wine, sole
+among its equals and superiors, that can in some degree support the
+competition of tobacco.  Sipping, smoking, and theorising, Somerset
+moved on from suspicion to suspicion, from resolve to resolve,
+still growing braver and rosier as the bottle ebbed.  He was a
+sceptic, none prouder of the name; he had no horror at command,
+whether for crimes or vices, but beheld and embraced the world,
+with an immoral approbation, the frequent consequence of youth and
+health.  At the same time, he felt convinced that he dwelt under
+the same roof with secret malefactors; and the unregenerate
+instinct of the chase impelled him to severity.  The bottle had run
+low; the summer sun had finally withdrawn; and at the same moment,
+night and the pangs of hunger recalled him from his dreams.
+
+He went forth, and dined in the Criterion:  a dinner in consonance,
+not so much with his purse, as with the admirable wine he had
+discussed.  What with one thing and another, it was long past
+midnight when he returned home.  A cab was at the door; and
+entering the hall, Somerset found himself face to face with one of
+the most regular of the few who visited Mr. Jones:  a man of
+powerful figure, strong lineaments, and a chin-beard in the
+American fashion.  This person was carrying on one shoulder a black
+portmanteau, seemingly of considerable weight.  That he should find
+a visitor removing baggage in the dead of night, recalled some odd
+stories to the young man's memory; he had heard of lodgers who thus
+gradually drained away, not only their own effects, but the very
+furniture and fittings of the house that sheltered them; and now,
+in a mood between pleasantry and suspicion, and aping the manner of
+a drunkard, he roughly bumped against the man with the chin-beard
+and knocked the portmanteau from his shoulder to the floor.  With a
+face struck suddenly as white as paper, the man with the chin-beard
+called lamentably on the name of his maker, and fell in a mere heap
+on the mat at the foot of the stairs.  At the same time, though
+only for a single instant, the heads of the sick lodger and the
+Irish nurse popped out like rabbits over the banisters of the first
+floor; and on both the same scare and pallor were apparent.
+
+The sight of this incredible emotion turned Somerset to stone, and
+he continued speechless, while the man gathered himself together,
+and, with the help of the handrail and audibly thanking God,
+scrambled once more upon his feet.
+
+'What in Heaven's name ails you?' gasped the young man as soon as
+he could find words and utterance.
+
+'Have you a drop of brandy?' returned the other.  'I am sick.'
+
+Somerset administered two drams, one after the other, to the man
+with the chin-beard; who then, somewhat restored, began to confound
+himself in apologies for what he called his miserable nervousness,
+the result, he said, of a long course of dumb ague; and having
+taken leave with a hand that still sweated and trembled, he
+gingerly resumed his burthen and departed.
+
+Somerset retired to bed but not to sleep.  What, he asked himself,
+had been the contents of the black portmanteau?  Stolen goods? the
+carcase of one murdered? or--and at the thought he sat upright in
+bed--an infernal machine?  He took a solemn vow that he would set
+these doubts at rest; and with the next morning, installed himself
+beside the dining-room window, vigilant with eye; and ear, to await
+and profit by the earliest opportunity.
+
+The hours went heavily by.  Within the house there was no
+circumstance of novelty; unless it might be that the nurse more
+frequently made little journeys round the corner of the square, and
+before afternoon was somewhat loose of speech and gait.  A little
+after six, however, there came round the corner of the gardens a
+very handsome and elegantly dressed young woman, who paused a
+little way off, and for some time, and with frequent sighs,
+contemplated the front of the Superfluous Mansion.  It was not the
+first time that she had thus stood afar and looked upon it, like
+our common parents at the gates of Eden; and the young man had
+already had occasion to remark the lively slimness of her carriage,
+and had already been the butt of a chance arrow from her eye.  He
+hailed her coming, then, with pleasant feelings, and moved a little
+nearer to the window to enjoy the sight.  What was his surprise,
+however, when, as if with a sensible effort, she drew near, mounted
+the steps and tapped discreetly at the door!  He made haste to get
+before the Irish nurse, who was not improbably asleep, and had the
+satisfaction to receive this gracious visitor in person.
+
+She inquired for Mr. Jones; and then, without transition, asked the
+young man if he were the person of the house (and at the words, he
+thought he could perceive her to be smiling), 'because,' she added,
+'if you are, I should like to see some of the other rooms.'
+Somerset told her he was under an engagement to receive no other
+lodgers; but she assured him that would be no matter, as these were
+friends of Mr. Jones's.  'And,' she continued, moving suddenly to
+the dining-room door, 'let us begin here.'  Somerset was too late
+to prevent her entering, and perhaps he lacked the courage to
+essay.  'Ah!' she cried, 'how changed it is!'
+
+'Madam,' cried the young man, 'since your entrance, it is I who
+have the right to say so.'
+
+She received this inane compliment with a demure and conscious
+droop of the eyelids, and gracefully steering her dress among the
+mingled litter, now with a smile, now with a sigh, reviewed the
+wonders of the two apartments.  She gazed upon the cartoons with
+sparkling eyes, and a heightened colour, and in a somewhat
+breathless voice, expressed a high opinion of their merits.  She
+praised the effective disposition of the rockery, and in the
+bedroom, of which Somerset had vainly endeavoured to defend the
+entry, she fairly broke forth in admiration.  'How simple and
+manly!' she cried:  'none of that effeminacy of neatness, which is
+so detestable in a man!'  Hard upon this, telling him, before he
+had time to reply, that she very well knew her way, and would
+trouble him no further, she took her leave with an engaging smile,
+and ascended the staircase alone.
+
+For more than an hour the young lady remained closeted with Mr.
+Jones; and at the end of that time, the night being now come
+completely, they left the house in company.  This was the first
+time since the arrival of his lodger, that Somerset had found
+himself alone with the Irish widow; and without the loss of any
+more time than was required by decency, he stepped to the foot of
+the stairs and hailed her by her name.  She came instantly,
+wreathed in weak smiles and with a nodding head; and when the young
+man politely offered to introduce her to the treasures of his art,
+she swore that nothing could afford her greater pleasure, for,
+though she had never crossed the threshold, she had frequently
+observed his beautiful pictures through the door.  On entering the
+dining-room, the sight of a bottle and two glasses prepared her to
+be a gentle critic; and as soon as the pictures had been viewed and
+praised, she was easily persuaded to join the painter in a single
+glass.  'Here,' she said, 'are my respects; and a pleasure it is,
+in this horrible house, to see a gentleman like yourself, so
+affable and free, and a very nice painter, I am sure.'  One glass
+so agreeably prefaced, was sure to lead to the acceptance of a
+second; at the third, Somerset was free to cease from the
+affectation of keeping her company; and as for the fourth, she
+asked it of her own accord.  'For indeed,' said she, 'what with all
+these clocks and chemicals, without a drop of the creature life
+would be impossible entirely.  And you seen yourself that even
+M'Guire was glad to beg for it.  And even himself, when he is
+downhearted with all these cruel disappointments, though as
+temperate a man as any child, will be sometimes crying for a glass
+of it.  And I'll thank you for a thimbleful to settle what I got.'
+Soon after, she began with tears to narrate the deathbed
+dispositions and lament the trifling assets of her husband.  Then
+she declared she heard 'the master' calling her, rose to her feet,
+made but one lurch of it into the still-life rockery, and with her
+head upon the lobster, fell into stertorous slumbers.
+
+Somerset mounted at once to the first story, and opened the door of
+the drawing-room, which was brilliantly lit by several lamps.  It
+was a great apartment; looking on the square with three tall
+windows, and joined by a pair of ample folding-doors to the next
+room; elegant in proportion, papered in sea-green, furnished in
+velvet of a delicate blue, and adorned with a majestic mantelpiece
+of variously tinted marbles.  Such was the room that Somerset
+remembered; that which he now beheld was changed in almost every
+feature:  the furniture covered with a figured chintz; the walls
+hung with a rhubarb-coloured paper, and diversified by the
+curtained recesses for no less than seven windows.  It seemed to
+himself that he must have entered, without observing the
+transition, into the adjoining house.  Presently from these more
+specious changes, his eye condescended to the many curious objects
+with which the floor was littered.  Here were the locks of
+dismounted pistols; clocks and clockwork in every stage of
+demolition, some still busily ticking, some reduced to their dainty
+elements; a great company of carboys, jars and bottles; a
+carpenter's bench and a laboratory-table.
+
+The back drawing-room, to which Somerset proceeded, had likewise
+undergone a change.  It was transformed to the exact appearance of
+a common lodging-house bedroom; a bed with green curtains occupied
+one corner; and the window was blocked by the regulation table and
+mirror.  The door of a small closet here attracted the young man's
+attention; and striking a vesta, he opened it and entered.  On a
+table several wigs and beards were lying spread; about the walls
+hung an incongruous display of suits and overcoats; and conspicuous
+among the last the young man observed a large overall of the most
+costly sealskin.  In a flash his mind reverted to the advertisement
+in the Standard newspaper.  The great height of his lodger, the
+disproportionate breadth of his shoulders, and the strange
+particulars of his instalment, all pointed to the same conclusion.
+
+The vesta had now burned to his fingers; and taking the coat upon
+his arm, Somerset hastily returned to the lighted drawing-room.
+There, with a mixture of fear and admiration, he pored upon its
+goodly proportions and the regularity and softness of the pile.
+The sight of a large pier-glass put another fancy in his head.  He
+donned the fur-coat; and standing before the mirror in an attitude
+suggestive of a Russian prince, he thrust his hands into the ample
+pockets.  There his fingers encountered a folded journal.  He drew
+it out, and recognised the type and paper of the Standard; and at
+the same instant, his eyes alighted on the offer of two hundred
+pounds.  Plainly then, his lodger, now no longer mysterious, had
+laid aside his coat on the very day of the appearance of the
+advertisement.
+
+He was thus standing, the tell-tale coat upon his back, the
+incriminating paper in his hand, when the door opened and the tall
+lodger, with a firm but somewhat pallid face, stepped into the room
+and closed the door again behind him.  For some time, the two
+looked upon each other in perfect silence; then Mr. Jones moved
+forward to the table, took a seat, and still without once changing
+the direction of his eyes, addressed the young man.
+
+'You are right,' he said.  'It is for me the blood money is
+offered.  And now what will you do?'
+
+It was a question to which Somerset was far from being able to
+reply.  Taken as he was at unawares, masquerading in the man's own
+coat, and surrounded by a whole arsenal of diabolical explosives,
+the keeper of the lodging-house was silenced.
+
+'Yes,' resumed the other, 'I am he.  I am that man, whom with
+impotent hate and fear, they still hunt from den to den, from
+disguise to disguise.  Yes, my landlord, you have it in your power,
+if you be poor, to lay the basis of your fortune; if you be
+unknown, to capture honour at one snatch.  You have hocussed an
+innocent widow; and I find you here in my apartment, for whose use
+I pay you in stamped money, searching my wardrobe, and your hand--
+shame, sir!--your hand in my very pocket.  You can now complete the
+cycle of your ignominious acts, by what will be at once the
+simplest, the safest, and the most remunerative.'  The speaker
+paused as if to emphasise his words; and then, with a great change
+of tone and manner, thus resumed:  'And yet, sir, when I look upon
+your face, I feel certain that I cannot be deceived:  certain that
+in spite of all, I have the honour and pleasure of speaking to a
+gentleman.  Take off my coat, sir--which but cumbers you.  Divest
+yourself of this confusion:  that which is but thought upon, thank
+God, need be no burthen to the conscience; we have all harboured
+guilty thoughts:  and if it flashed into your mind to sell my flesh
+and blood, my anguish in the dock, and the sweat of my death agony-
+-it was a thought, dear sir, you were as incapable of acting on, as
+I of any further question of your honour.'  At these words, the
+speaker, with a very open, smiling countenance, like a forgiving
+father, offered Somerset his hand.
+
+It was not in the young man's nature to refuse forgiveness or
+dissect generosity.  He instantly, and almost without thought,
+accepted the proffered grasp.
+
+'And now,' resumed the lodger, 'now that I hold in mine your loyal
+hand, I lay by my apprehensions, I dismiss suspicion, I go further-
+-by an effort of will, I banish the memory of what is past.  How
+you came here, I care not:  enough that you are here--as my guest.
+Sit ye down; and let us, with your good permission, improve
+acquaintance over a glass of excellent whisky.'
+
+So speaking, he produced glasses and a bottle:  and the pair
+pledged each other in silence.
+
+'Confess,' observed the smiling host, 'you were surprised at the
+appearance of the room.'
+
+'I was indeed,' said Somerset; 'nor can I imagine the purpose of
+these changes.'
+
+'These,' replied the conspirator, 'are the devices by which I
+continue to exist.  Conceive me now, accused before one of your
+unjust tribunals; conceive the various witnesses appearing, and the
+singular variety of their reports!  One will have visited me in
+this drawing-room as it originally stood; a second finds it as it
+is to-night; and to-morrow or next day, all may have been changed.
+If you love romance (as artists do), few lives are more romantic
+than that of the obscure individual now addressing you.  Obscure
+yet famous.  Mine is an anonymous, infernal glory.  By infamous
+means, I work towards my bright purpose.  I found the liberty and
+peace of a poor country, desperately abused; the future smiles upon
+that land; yet, in the meantime, I lead the existence of a hunted
+brute, work towards appalling ends, and practice hell's
+dexterities.'
+
+Somerset, glass in hand, contemplated the strange fanatic before
+him, and listened to his heated rhapsody, with indescribable
+bewilderment.  He looked him in the face with curious
+particularity; saw there the marks of education; and wondered the
+more profoundly.
+
+'Sir,' he said--'for I know not whether I should still address you
+as Mr. Jones--'
+
+'Jones, Breitman, Higginbotham, Pumpernickel, Daviot, Henderland,
+by all or any of these you may address me,' said the plotter; 'for
+all I have at some time borne.  Yet that which I most prize, that
+which is most feared, hated, and obeyed, is not a name to be found
+in your directories; it is not a name current in post-offices or
+banks; and, indeed, like the celebrated clan M'Gregor, I may justly
+describe myself as being nameless by day.  But,' he continued,
+rising to his feet, 'by night, and among my desperate followers, I
+am the redoubted Zero.'
+
+Somerset was unacquainted with the name, but he politely expressed
+surprise and gratification.  'I am to understand,' he continued,
+'that, under this alias, you follow the profession of a dynamiter?'
+{3}
+
+The plotter had resumed his seat and now replenished the glasses.
+
+'I do,' he said.  'In this dark period of time, a star--the star of
+dynamite--has risen for the oppressed; and among those who practise
+its use, so thick beset with dangers and attended by such
+incredible difficulties and disappointments, few have been more
+assiduous, and not many--'  He paused, and a shade of embarrassment
+appeared upon his face--'not many have been more successful than
+myself.'
+
+'I can imagine,' observed Somerset, 'that, from the sweeping
+consequences looked for, the career is not devoid of interest.  You
+have, besides, some of the entertainment of the game of hide and
+seek.  But it would still seem to me--I speak as a layman--that
+nothing could be simpler or safer than to deposit an infernal
+machine and retire to an adjacent county to await the painful
+consequences.'
+
+'You speak, indeed,' returned the plotter, with some evidence of
+warmth, 'you speak, indeed, most ignorantly.  Do you make nothing,
+then, of such a peril as we share this moment?  Do you think it
+nothing to occupy a house like this one, mined, menaced, and, in a
+word, literally tottering to its fall?'
+
+'Good God!' ejaculated Somerset.
+
+'And when you speak of ease,' pursued Zero, 'in this age of
+scientific studies, you fill me with surprise.  Are you not aware
+that chemicals are proverbially fickle as woman, and clockwork as
+capricious as the very devil?  Do you see upon my brow these
+furrows of anxiety?  Do you observe the silver threads that mingle
+with my hair?  Clockwork, clockwork has stamped them on my brow--
+chemicals have sprinkled them upon my locks!  No, Mr. Somerset,' he
+resumed, after a moment's pause, his voice still quivering with
+sensibility, 'you must not suppose the dynamiter's life to be all
+gold.  On the contrary, you cannot picture to yourself the
+bloodshot vigils and the staggering disappointments of a life like
+mine.  I have toiled (let us say) for months, up early and down
+late; my bag is ready, my clock set; a daring agent has hurried
+with white face to deposit the instrument of ruin; we await the
+fall of England, the massacre of thousands, the yell of fear and
+execration; and lo! a snap like that of a child's pistol, an
+offensive smell, and the entire loss of so much time and plant!
+If,' he concluded, musingly, 'we had been merely able to recover
+the lost bags, I believe with but a touch or two, I could have
+remedied the peccant engine.  But what with the loss of plant and
+the almost insuperable scientific difficulties of the task, our
+friends in France are almost ready to desert the chosen medium.
+They propose, instead, to break up the drainage system of cities
+and sweep off whole populations with the devastating typhoid
+pestilence:  a tempting and a scientific project:  a process,
+indiscriminate indeed, but of idyllical simplicity.  I recognise
+its elegance; but, sir, I have something of the poet in my nature;
+something, possibly, of the tribune.  And, for my small part, I
+shall remain devoted to that more emphatic, more striking, and (if
+you please) more popular method, of the explosive bomb.  Yes,' he
+cried, with unshaken hope, 'I will still continue, and, I feel it
+in my bosom, I shall yet succeed.'
+
+'Two things I remark,' said Somerset.  'The first somewhat staggers
+me.  Have you, then--in all this course of life, which you have
+sketched so vividly--have you not once succeeded?'
+
+'Pardon me,' said Zero.  'I have had one success.  You behold in me
+the author of the outrage of Red Lion Court.'
+
+'But if I remember right,' objected Somerset, 'the thing was a
+fiasco.  A scavenger's barrow and some copies of the Weekly Budget-
+-these were the only victims.'
+
+'You will pardon me again,' returned Zero with positive asperity:
+'a child was injured.'
+
+'And that fitly brings me to my second point,' said Somerset.  'For
+I observed you to employ the word "indiscriminate."  Now, surely, a
+scavenger's barrow and a child (if child there were) represent the
+very acme and top pin-point of indiscriminate, and, pardon me, of
+ineffectual reprisal.'
+
+'Did I employ the word?' asked Zero.  'Well, I will not defend it.
+But for efficiency, you touch on graver matters; and before
+entering upon so vast a subject, permit me once more to fill our
+glasses.  Disputation is dry work,' he added, with a charming
+gaiety of manner.
+
+Once more accordingly the pair pledged each other in a stalwart
+grog; and Zero, leaning back with an air of some complacency,
+proceeded more largely to develop his opinions.
+
+'The indiscriminate?' he began.  'War, my dear sir, is
+indiscriminate.  War spares not the child; it spares not the barrow
+of the harmless scavenger.  No more,' he concluded, beaming, 'no
+more do I.  Whatever may strike fear, whatever may confound or
+paralyse the activities of the guilty nation, barrow or child,
+imperial Parliament or excursion steamer, is welcome to my simple
+plans.  You are not,' he inquired, with a shade of sympathetic
+interest, 'you are not, I trust, a believer?'
+
+'Sir, I believe in nothing,' said the young man.
+
+'You are then,' replied Zero, 'in a position to grasp my argument.
+We agree that humanity is the object, the glorious triumph of
+humanity; and being pledged to labour for that end, and face to
+face with the banded opposition of kings, parliaments, churches,
+and the members of the force, who am I--who are we, dear sir--to
+affect a nicety about the tools employed?  You might, perhaps,
+expect us to attack the Queen, the sinister Gladstone, the rigid
+Derby, or the dexterous Granville; but there you would be in error.
+Our appeal is to the body of the people; it is these that we would
+touch and interest.  Now, sir, have you observed the English
+housemaid?'
+
+'I should think I had,' cried Somerset.
+
+'From a man of taste and a votary of art, I had expected it,'
+returned the conspirator politely.  'A type apart; a very charming
+figure; and thoroughly adapted to our ends.  The neat cap, the
+clean print, the comely person, the engaging manner; her position
+between classes, parents in one, employers in another; the
+probability that she will have at least one sweet-heart, whose
+feelings we shall address: --yes, I have a leaning--call it, if you
+will, a weakness--for the housemaid.  Not that I would be
+understood to despise the nurse.  For the child is a very
+interesting feature:  I have long since marked out the child as the
+sensitive point in society.'  He wagged his head, with a wise,
+pensive smile.  'And talking, sir, of children and of the perils of
+our trade, let me now narrate to you a little incident of an
+explosive bomb, that fell out some weeks ago under my own
+observation.  It fell out thus.'
+
+And Zero, leaning back in his chair, narrated the following simple
+tale.
+
+
+
+ZERO'S TALE OF THE EXPLOSIVE BOMB. {4}
+
+
+
+I dined by appointment with one of our most trusted agents, in a
+private chamber at St. James's Hall.  You have seen the man:  it
+was M'Guire, the most chivalrous of creatures, but not himself
+expert in our contrivances.  Hence the necessity of our meeting;
+for I need not remind you what enormous issues depend upon the nice
+adjustment of the engine.  I set our little petard for half an
+hour, the scene of action being hard by; and the better to avert
+miscarriage, employed a device, a recent invention of my own, by
+which the opening of the Gladstone bag in which the bomb was
+carried, should instantly determine the explosion.  M'Guire was
+somewhat dashed by this arrangement, which was new to him:  and
+pointed out, with excellent, clear good sense, that should he be
+arrested, it would probably involve him in the fall of our
+opponents.  But I was not to be moved, made a strong appeal to his
+patriotism, gave him a good glass of whisky, and despatched him on
+his glorious errand.
+
+Our objective was the effigy of Shakespeare in Leicester Square:  a
+spot, I think, admirably chosen; not only for the sake of the
+dramatist, still very foolishly claimed as a glory by the English
+race, in spite of his disgusting political opinions; but from the
+fact that the seats in the immediate neighbourhood are often
+thronged by children, errand-boys, unfortunate young ladies of the
+poorer class and infirm old men--all classes making a direct appeal
+to public pity, and therefore suitable with our designs.  As
+M'Guire drew near his heart was inflamed by the most noble
+sentiment of triumph.  Never had he seen the garden so crowded;
+children, still stumbling in the impotence of youth, ran to and
+fro, shouting and playing, round the pedestal; an old, sick
+pensioner sat upon the nearest bench, a medal on his breast, a
+stick with which he walked (for he was disabled by wounds)
+reclining on his knee.  Guilty England would thus be stabbed in the
+most delicate quarters; the moment had, indeed, been well selected;
+and M'Guire, with a radiant provision of the event, drew merrily
+nearer.  Suddenly his eye alighted on the burly form of a
+policeman, standing hard by the effigy in an attitude of watch.  My
+bold companion paused; he looked about him closely; here and there,
+at different points of the enclosure, other men stood or loitered,
+affecting an abstraction, feigning to gaze upon the shrubs,
+feigning to talk, feigning to be weary and to rest upon the
+benches.  M'Guire was no child in these affairs; he instantly
+divined one of the plots of the Machiavellian Gladstone.
+
+A chief difficulty with which we have to deal, is a certain
+nervousness in the subaltern branches of the corps; as the hour of
+some design draws near, these chicken-souled conspirators appear to
+suffer some revulsion of intent; and frequently despatch to the
+authorities, not indeed specific denunciations, but vague anonymous
+warnings.  But for this purely accidental circumstance, England had
+long ago been an historical expression.  On the receipt of such a
+letter, the Government lay a trap for their adversaries, and
+surround the threatened spot with hirelings.  My blood sometimes
+boils in my veins, when I consider the case of those who sell
+themselves for money in such a cause.  True, thanks to the
+generosity of our supporters, we patriots receive a very
+comfortable stipend; I myself, of course, touch a salary which puts
+me quite beyond the reach of any peddling, mercenary thoughts;
+M'Guire, again, ere he joined our ranks, was on the brink of
+starving, and now, thank God! receives a decent income.  That is as
+it should be; the patriot must not be diverted from his task by any
+base consideration; and the distinction between our position and
+that of the police is too obvious to be stated.
+
+Plainly, however, our Leicester Square design had been divulged;
+the Government had craftily filled the place with minions; even the
+pensioner was not improbably a hireling in disguise; and our
+emissary, without other aid or protection than the simple apparatus
+in his bag, found himself confronted by force; brutal force; that
+strong hand which was a character of the ages of oppression.
+Should he venture to deposit the machine, it was almost certain
+that he would be observed and arrested; a cry would arise; and
+there was just a fear that the police might not be present in
+sufficient force, to protect him from the savagery of the mob.  The
+scheme must be delayed.  He stood with his bag on his arm,
+pretending to survey the front of the Alhambra, when there flashed
+into his mind a thought to appal the bravest.  The machine was set;
+at the appointed hour, it must explode; and how, in the interval,
+was he to be rid of it?
+
+Put yourself, I beseech you, into the body of that patriot.  There
+he was, friendless and helpless; a man in the very flower of life,
+for he is not yet forty; with long years of happiness before him;
+and now condemned, in one moment, to a cruel and revolting death by
+dynamite!  The square, he said, went round him like a thaumatrope;
+he saw the Alhambra leap into the air like a balloon; and reeled
+against the railing.  It is probable he fainted.
+
+When he came to himself, a constable had him by the arm.
+
+'My God!' he cried.
+
+'You seem to be unwell, sir,' said the hireling.
+
+'I feel better now,' cried poor M'Guire:  and with uneven steps,
+for the pavement of the square seemed to lurch and reel under his
+footing, he fled from the scene of this disaster.  Fled?  Alas,
+from what was he fleeing?  Did he not carry that from which he fled
+along with him? and had he the wings of the eagle, had he the
+swiftness of the ocean winds, could he have been rapt into the
+uttermost quarters of the earth, how should he escape the ruin that
+he carried?  We have heard of living men who have been fettered to
+the dead; the grievance, soberly considered, is no more than
+sentimental; the case is but a flea-bite to that of him who should
+be linked, like poor M'Guire, to an explosive bomb.
+
+A thought struck him in Green Street, like a dart through his
+liver:  suppose it were the hour already.  He stopped as though he
+had been shot, and plucked his watch out.  There was a howling in
+his ears, as loud as a winter tempest; his sight was now obscured
+as if by a cloud, now, as by a lightning flash, would show him the
+very dust upon the street.  But so brief were these intervals of
+vision, and so violently did the watch vibrate in his hands, that
+it was impossible to distinguish the numbers on the dial.  He
+covered his eyes for a few seconds; and in that space, it seemed to
+him that he had fallen to be a man of ninety.  When he looked
+again, the watch-plate had grown legible:  he had twenty minutes.
+Twenty minutes, and no plan!
+
+Green Street, at that time, was very empty; and he now observed a
+little girl of about six drawing near to him, and as she came,
+kicking in front of her, as children will, a piece of wood.  She
+sang, too; and something in her accent recalling him to the past,
+produced a sudden clearness in his mind.  Here was a God-sent
+opportunity!
+
+'My dear,' said he, 'would you like a present of a pretty bag?'
+
+The child cried aloud with joy and put out her hands to take it.
+She had looked first at the bag, like a true child; but most
+unfortunately, before she had yet received the fatal gift, her eyes
+fell directly on M'Guire; and no sooner had she seen the poor
+gentleman's face, than she screamed out and leaped backward, as
+though she had seen the devil.  Almost at the same moment a woman
+appeared upon the threshold of a neighbouring shop, and called upon
+the child in anger.  'Come here, colleen,' she said, 'and don't be
+plaguing the poor old gentleman!'  With that she re-entered the
+house, and the child followed her, sobbing aloud.
+
+With the loss of this hope M'Guire's reason swooned within him.
+When next he awoke to consciousness, he was standing before St.
+Martin's-in-the-Fields, wavering like a drunken man; the passers-by
+regarding him with eyes in which he read, as in a glass, an image
+of the terror and horror that dwelt within his own.
+
+'I am afraid you are very ill, sir,' observed a woman, stopping and
+gazing hard in his face.  'Can I do anything to help you?'
+
+'Ill?' said M'Guire.  'O God!'  And then, recovering some shadow of
+his self-command, 'Chronic, madam,' said he:  'a long course of the
+dumb ague.  But since you are so compassionate--an errand that I
+lack the strength to carry out,' he gasped--'this bag to Portman
+Square.  Oh, compassionate woman, as you hope to be saved, as you
+are a mother, in the name of your babes that wait to welcome you at
+home, oh, take this bag to Portman Square!  I have a mother, too,'
+he added, with a broken voice.  'Number 19, Portman Square.'
+
+I suppose he had expressed himself with too much energy of voice;
+for the woman was plainly taken with a certain fear of him.  'Poor
+gentleman!' said she.  'If I were you, I would go home.'  And she
+left him standing there in his distress.
+
+'Home!' thought M'Guire, 'what a derision!'  What home was there
+for him, the victim of philanthropy?  He thought of his old mother,
+of his happy youth; of the hideous, rending pang of the explosion;
+of the possibility that he might not be killed, that he might be
+cruelly mangled, crippled for life, condemned to lifelong pains,
+blinded perhaps, and almost surely deafened.  Ah, you spoke lightly
+of the dynamiter's peril; but even waiving death, have you realised
+what it is for a fine, brave young man of forty, to be smitten
+suddenly with deafness, cut off from all the music of life, and
+from the voice of friendship, and love?  How little do we realise
+the sufferings of others!  Even your brutal Government, in the
+heyday of its lust for cruelty, though it scruples not to hound the
+patriot with spies, to pack the corrupt jury, to bribe the hangman,
+and to erect the infamous gallows, would hesitate to inflict so
+horrible a doom:  not, I am well aware, from virtue, not from
+philanthropy, but with the fear before it of the withering scorn of
+the good.
+
+But I wander from M'Guire.  From this dread glance into the past
+and future, his thoughts returned at a bound upon the present.  How
+had he wandered there? and how long--oh, heavens! how long had he
+been about it?  He pulled out his watch; and found that but three
+minutes had elapsed.  It seemed too bright a thing to be believed.
+He glanced at the church clock; and sure enough, it marked an hour
+four minutes faster than the watch.
+
+Of all that he endured, M'Guire declares that pang was the most
+desolate.  Till then, he had had one friend, one counsellor, in
+whom he plenarily trusted; by whose advertisement, he numbered the
+minutes that remained to him of life; on whose sure testimony, he
+could tell when the time was come to risk the last adventure, to
+cast the bag away from him, and take to flight.  And now in what
+was he to place reliance?  His watch was slow; it might be losing
+time; if so, in what degree?  What limit could he set to its
+derangement? and how much was it possible for a watch to lose in
+thirty minutes?  Five? ten? fifteen?  It might be so; already, it
+seemed years since he had left St. James's Hall on this so
+promising enterprise; at any moment, then, the blow was to be
+looked for.
+
+In the face of this new distress, the wild disorder of his pulses
+settled down; and a broken weariness succeeded, as though he had
+lived for centuries and for centuries been dead.  The buildings and
+the people in the street became incredibly small, and far-away, and
+bright; London sounded in his ears stilly, like a whisper; and the
+rattle of the cab that nearly charged him down, was like a sound
+from Africa.  Meanwhile, he was conscious of a strange abstraction
+from himself; and heard and felt his footfalls on the ground, as
+those of a very old, small, debile and tragically fortuned man,
+whom he sincerely pitied.
+
+As he was thus moving forward past the National Gallery, in a
+medium, it seemed, of greater rarity and quiet than ordinary air,
+there slipped into his mind the recollection of a certain entry in
+Whitcomb Street hard by, where he might perhaps lay down his tragic
+cargo unremarked.  Thither, then, he bent his steps, seeming, as he
+went, to float above the pavement; and there, in the mouth of the
+entry, he found a man in a sleeved waistcoat, gravely chewing a
+straw.  He passed him by, and twice patrolled the entry, scouting
+for the barest chance; but the man had faced about and continued to
+observe him curiously.
+
+Another hope was gone.  M'Guire reissued from the entry, still
+followed by the wondering eyes of the man in the sleeved waistcoat.
+He once more consulted his watch:  there were but fourteen minutes
+left to him.  At that, it seemed as if a sudden, genial heat were
+spread about his brain; for a second or two, he saw the world as
+red as blood; and thereafter entered into a complete possession of
+himself, with an incredible cheerfulness of spirits, prompting him
+to sing and chuckle as he walked.  And yet this mirth seemed to
+belong to things external; and within, like a black and leaden-
+heavy kernel, he was conscious of the weight upon his soul.
+
+
+I care for nobody, no, not I,
+And nobody cares for me,
+
+
+he sang, and laughed at the appropriate burthen, so that the
+passengers stared upon him on the street.  And still the warmth
+seemed to increase and to become more genial.  What was life? he
+considered, and what he, M'Guire?  What even Erin, our green Erin?
+All seemed so incalculably little that he smiled as he looked down
+upon it.  He would have given years, had he possessed them, for a
+glass of spirits; but time failed, and he must deny himself this
+last indulgence.
+
+At the corner of the Haymarket, he very jauntily hailed a hansom
+cab; jumped in; bade the fellow drive him to a part of the
+Embankment, which he named; and as soon as the vehicle was in
+motion, concealed the bag as completely as he could under the
+vantage of the apron, and once more drew out his watch.  So he rode
+for five interminable minutes, his heart in his mouth at every
+jolt, scarce able to possess his terrors, yet fearing to wake the
+attention of the driver by too obvious a change of plan, and
+willing, if possible, to leave him time to forget the Gladstone
+bag.
+
+At length, at the head of some stairs on the Embankment, he hailed;
+the cab was stopped; and he alighted--with how glad a heart!  He
+thrust his hand into his pocket.  All was now over; he had saved
+his life; nor that alone, but he had engineered a striking act of
+dynamite; for what could be more pictorial, what more effective,
+than the explosion of a hansom cab, as it sped rapidly along the
+streets of London.  He felt in one pocket; then in another.  The
+most crushing seizure of despair descended on his soul; and struck
+into abject dumbness, he stared upon the driver.  He had not one
+penny.
+
+'Hillo,' said the driver, 'don't seem well.'
+
+'Lost my money,' said M'Guire, in tones so faint and strange that
+they surprised his hearing.
+
+The man looked through the trap.  'I dessay,' said he:  'you've
+left your bag.'
+
+M'Guire half unconsciously fetched it out; and looking on that
+black continent at arm's length, withered inwardly and felt his
+features sharpen as with mortal sickness.
+
+'This is not mine,' said he.  'Your last fare must have left it.
+You had better take it to the station.'
+
+'Now look here,' returned the cabman:  'are you off your chump? or
+am I?'
+
+'Well, then, I'll tell you what,' exclaimed M'Guire; 'you take it
+for your fare!'
+
+'Oh, I dessay,' replied the driver.  'Anything else?  What's IN
+your bag?  Open it, and let me see.'
+
+'No, no,' returned M'Guire.  'Oh no, not that.  It's a surprise;
+it's prepared expressly:  a surprise for honest cabmen.'
+
+'No, you don't,' said the man, alighting from his perch, and coming
+very close to the unhappy patriot.  'You're either going to pay my
+fare, or get in again and drive to the office.'
+
+It was at this supreme hour of his distress, that M'Guire spied the
+stout figure of one Godall, a tobacconist of Rupert Street, drawing
+near along the Embankment.  The man was not unknown to him; he had
+bought of his wares, and heard him quoted for the soul of
+liberality; and such was now the nearness of his peril, that even
+at such a straw of hope, he clutched with gratitude.
+
+'Thank God!' he cried.  'Here comes a friend of mine.  I'll
+borrow.'  And he dashed to meet the tradesman.  'Sir,' said he,
+'Mr. Godall, I have dealt with you--you doubtless know my face--
+calamities for which I cannot blame myself have overwhelmed me.
+Oh, sir, for the love of innocence, for the sake of the bonds of
+humanity, and as you hope for mercy at the throne of grace, lend me
+two-and-six!'
+
+'I do not recognise your face,' replied Mr. Godall; 'but I remember
+the cut of your beard, which I have the misfortune to dislike.
+Here, sir, is a sovereign; which I very willingly advance to you,
+on the single condition that you shave your chin.'
+
+M'Guire grasped the coin without a word; cast it to the cabman,
+calling out to him to keep the change; bounded down the steps,
+flung the bag far forth into the river, and fell headlong after it.
+He was plucked from a watery grave, it is believed, by the hands of
+Mr. Godall.  Even as he was being hoisted dripping to the shore, a
+dull and choked explosion shook the solid masonry of the
+Embankment, and far out in the river a momentary fountain rose and
+disappeared.
+
+
+
+THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Continued)
+
+
+
+Somerset in vain strove to attach a meaning to these words.  He
+had, in the meanwhile, applied himself assiduously to the flagon;
+the plotter began to melt in twain, and seemed to expand and hover
+on his seat; and with a vague sense of nightmare, the young man
+rose unsteadily to his feet, and, refusing the proffer of a third
+grog, insisted that the hour was late and he must positively get to
+bed.
+
+'Dear me,' observed Zero, 'I find you very temperate.  But I will
+not be oppressive.  Suffice it that we are now fast friends; and,
+my dear landlord, au revoir!'
+
+So saying the plotter once more shook hands; and with the politest
+ceremonies, and some necessary guidance, conducted the bewildered
+young gentleman to the top of the stair.
+
+Precisely, how he got to bed, was a point on which Somerset
+remained in utter darkness; but the next morning when, at a blow,
+he started broad awake, there fell upon his mind a perfect
+hurricane of horror and wonder.  That he should have suffered
+himself to be led into the semblance of intimacy with such a man as
+his abominable lodger, appeared, in the cold light of day, a
+mystery of human weakness.  True, he was caught in a situation that
+might have tested the aplomb of Talleyrand.  That was perhaps a
+palliation; but it was no excuse.  For so wholesale a capitulation
+of principle, for such a fall into criminal familiarity, no excuse
+indeed was possible; nor any remedy, but to withdraw at once from
+the relation.
+
+As soon as he was dressed, he hurried upstairs, determined on a
+rupture.  Zero hailed him with the warmth of an old friend.
+
+'Come in,' he cried, 'dear Mr. Somerset!  Come in, sit down, and,
+without ceremony, join me at my morning meal.'
+
+'Sir,' said Somerset, 'you must permit me first to disengage my
+honour.  Last night, I was surprised into a certain appearance of
+complicity; but once for all, let me inform you that I regard you
+and your machinations with unmingled horror and disgust, and I will
+leave no stone unturned to crush your vile conspiracy.'
+
+'My dear fellow,' replied Zero, with an air of some complacency, 'I
+am well accustomed to these human weaknesses.  Disgust?  I have
+felt it myself; it speedily wears off.  I think none the worse, I
+think the more of you, for this engaging frankness.  And in the
+meanwhile, what are you to do?  You find yourself, if I interpret
+rightly, in very much the same situation as Charles the Second
+(possibly the least degraded of your British sovereigns) when he
+was taken into the confidence of the thief.  To denounce me, is out
+of the question; and what else can you attempt?  No, dear Mr.
+Somerset, your hands are tied; and you find yourself condemned,
+under pain of behaving like a cad, to be that same charming and
+intellectual companion who delighted me last night.'
+
+'At least,' cried Somerset, 'I can, and do, order you to leave this
+house.'
+
+'Ah!' cried the plotter, 'but there I fail to follow you.  You may,
+if you please, enact the part of Judas; but if, as I suppose, you
+recoil from that extremity of meanness, I am, on my side, far too
+intelligent to leave these lodgings, in which I please myself
+exceedingly, and from which you lack the power to drive me.  No,
+no, dear sir; here I am, and here I propose to stay.'
+
+'I repeat,' cried Somerset, beside himself with a sense of his own
+weakness, 'I repeat that I give you warning.  I am the master of
+this house; and I emphatically give you warning.'
+
+'A week's warning?' said the imperturbable conspirator.  'Very
+well:  we will talk of it a week from now.  That is arranged; and
+in the meanwhile, I observe my breakfast growing cold.  Do, dear
+Mr. Somerset, since you find yourself condemned, for a week at
+least, to the society of a very interesting character, display some
+of that open favour, some of that interest in life's obscurer
+sides, which stamp the character of the true artist.  Hang me, if
+you will, to-morrow; but to-day show yourself divested of the
+scruples of the burgess, and sit down pleasantly to share my meal.'
+
+'Man!' cried Somerset, 'do you understand my sentiments?'
+
+'Certainly,' replied Zero; 'and I respect them!  Would you be
+outdone in such a contest? will you alone be partial? and in this
+nineteenth century, cannot two gentlemen of education agree to
+differ on a point of politics?  Come, sir:  all your hard words
+have left me smiling; judge then, which of us is the philosopher!'
+
+Somerset was a young man of a very tolerant disposition and by
+nature easily amenable to sophistry.  He threw up his hands with a
+gesture of despair, and took the seat to which the conspirator
+invited him.  The meal was excellent; the host not only affable,
+but primed with curious information.  He seemed, indeed, like one
+who had too long endured the torture of silence, to exult in the
+most wholesale disclosures.  The interest of what he had to tell
+was great; his character, besides, developed step by step; and
+Somerset, as the time fled, not only outgrew some of the discomfort
+of his false position, but began to regard the conspirator with a
+familiarity that verged upon contempt.  In any circumstances, he
+had a singular inability to leave the society in which he found
+himself; company, even if distasteful, held him captive like a
+limed sparrow; and on this occasion, he suffered hour to follow
+hour, was easily persuaded to sit down once more to table, and did
+not even attempt to withdraw till, on the approach of evening,
+Zero, with many apologies, dismissed his guest.  His fellow-
+conspirators, the dynamiter handsomely explained, as they were
+unacquainted with the sterling qualities of the young man, would be
+alarmed at the sight of a strange face.
+
+As soon as he was alone, Somerset fell back upon the humour of the
+morning.  He raged at the thought of his facility; he paced the
+dining-room, forming the sternest resolutions for the future; he
+wrung the hand which had been dishonoured by the touch of an
+assassin; and among all these whirling thoughts, there flashed in
+from time to time, and ever with a chill of fear, the thought of
+the confounded ingredients with which the house was stored.  A
+powder magazine seemed a secure smoking-room alongside of the
+Superfluous Mansion.
+
+He sought refuge in flight, in locomotion, in the flowing bowl.  As
+long as the bars were open, he travelled from one to another,
+seeking light, safety, and the companionship of human faces; when
+these resources failed him, he fell back on the belated baked-
+potato man; and at length, still pacing the streets, he was goaded
+to fraternise with the police.  Alas, with what a sense of guilt he
+conversed with these guardians of the law; how gladly had he wept
+upon their ample bosoms; and how the secret fluttered to his lips
+and was still denied an exit!  Fatigue began at last to triumph
+over remorse; and about the hour of the first milkman, he returned
+to the door of the mansion; looked at it with a horrid expectation,
+as though it should have burst that instant into flames; drew out
+his key, and when his foot already rested on the steps, once more
+lost heart and fled for repose to the grisly shelter of a coffee-
+shop.
+
+It was on the stroke of noon when he awoke.  Dismally searching in
+his pockets, he found himself reduced to half-a-crown; and when he
+had paid the price of his distasteful couch, saw himself obliged to
+return to the Superfluous Mansion.  He sneaked into the hall and
+stole on tiptoe to the cupboard where he kept his money.  Yet half
+a minute, he told himself, and he would be free for days from his
+obseding lodger, and might decide at leisure on the course he
+should pursue.  But fate had otherwise designed:  there came a tap
+at the door and Zero entered.
+
+'Have I caught you?' he cried, with innocent gaiety.  'Dear fellow,
+I was growing quite impatient.'  And on the speaker's somewhat
+stolid face, there came a glow of genuine affection.  'I am so long
+unused to have a friend,' he continued, 'that I begin to be afraid
+I may prove jealous.'  And he wrung the hand of his landlord.
+
+Somerset was, of all men, least fit to deal with such a greeting.
+To reject these kind advances was beyond his strength.  That he
+could not return cordiality for cordiality, was already almost more
+than he could carry.  That inequality between kind sentiments
+which, to generous characters, will always seem to be a sort of
+guilt, oppressed him to the ground; and he stammered vague and
+lying words.
+
+'That is all right,' cried Zero--'that is as it should be--say no
+more!  I had a vague alarm; I feared you had deserted me; but I now
+own that fear to have been unworthy, and apologise.  To doubt of
+your forgiveness were to repeat my sin.  Come, then; dinner waits;
+join me again and tell me your adventures of the night.'
+
+Kindness still sealed the lips of Somerset; and he suffered himself
+once more to be set down to table with his innocent and criminal
+acquaintance.  Once more, the plotter plunged up to the neck in
+damaging disclosures:  now it would be the name and biography of an
+individual, now the address of some important centre, that rose, as
+if by accident, upon his lips; and each word was like another turn
+of the thumbscrew to his unhappy guest.  Finally, the course of
+Zero's bland monologue led him to the young lady of two days ago:
+that young lady, who had flashed on Somerset for so brief a while
+but with so conquering a charm; and whose engaging grace,
+communicative eyes, and admirable conduct of the sweeping skirt,
+remained imprinted on his memory.
+
+'You saw her?' said Zero.  'Beautiful, is she not?  She, too, is
+one of ours:  a true enthusiast:  nervous, perhaps, in presence of
+the chemicals; but in matters of intrigue, the very soul of skill
+and daring.  Lake, Fonblanque, de Marly, Valdevia, such are some of
+the names that she employs; her true name--but there, perhaps, I go
+too far.  Suffice it, that it is to her I owe my present lodging,
+and, dear Somerset, the pleasure of your acquaintance.  It appears
+she knew the house.  You see dear fellow, I make no concealment:
+all that you can care to hear, I tell you openly.'
+
+'For God's sake,' cried the wretched Somerset, 'hold your tongue!
+You cannot imagine how you torture me!'
+
+A shade of serious discomposure crossed the open countenance of
+Zero.
+
+'There are times,' he said, 'when I begin to fancy that you do not
+like me.  Why, why, dear Somerset, this lack of cordiality?  I am
+depressed; the touchstone of my life draws near; and if I fail'--he
+gloomily nodded--'from all the height of my ambitious schemes, I
+fall, dear boy, into contempt.  These are grave thoughts, and you
+may judge my need of your delightful company.  Innocent prattler,
+you relieve the weight of my concerns.  And yet . . . and yet . .
+.'  The speaker pushed away his plate, and rose from table.
+'Follow me,' said he, 'follow me.  My mood is on; I must have air,
+I must behold the plain of battle.'
+
+So saying, he led the way hurriedly to the top flat of the mansion,
+and thence, by ladder and trap, to a certain leaded platform,
+sheltered at one end by a great stalk of chimneys and occupying the
+actual summit of the roof.  On both sides, it bordered, without
+parapet or rail, on the incline of slates; and, northward above
+all, commanded an extensive view of housetops, and rising through
+the smoke, the distant spires of churches.
+
+'Here,' cried Zero, 'you behold this field of city, rich, crowded,
+laughing with the spoil of continents; but soon, how soon, to be
+laid low!  Some day, some night, from this coign of vantage, you
+shall perhaps be startled by the detonation of the judgment gun--
+not sharp and empty like the crack of cannon, but deep-mouthed and
+unctuously solemn.  Instantly thereafter, you shall behold the
+flames break forth.  Ay,' he cried, stretching forth his hand, 'ay,
+that will be a day of retribution.  Then shall the pallid constable
+flee side by side with the detected thief.  Blaze!' he cried,
+'blaze, derided city!  Fall, flatulent monarchy, fall like Dagon!'
+
+With these words his foot slipped upon the lead; and but for
+Somerset's quickness, he had been instantly precipitated into
+space.  Pale as a sheet, and limp as a pocket-handkerchief, he was
+dragged from the edge of downfall by one arm; helped, or rather
+carried, down the ladder; and deposited in safety on the attic
+landing.  Here he began to come to himself, wiped his brow, and at
+length, seizing Somerset's hand in both of his, began to utter his
+acknowledgments.
+
+'This seals it,' said he.  'Ours is a life and death connection.
+You have plucked me from the jaws of death; and if I were before
+attracted by your character, judge now of the ardour of my
+gratitude and love!  But I perceive I am still greatly shaken.
+Lend me, I beseech you, lend me your arm as far as my apartment.'
+
+A dram of spirits restored the plotter to something of his
+customary self-possession; and he was standing, glass in hand and
+genially convalescent, when his eye was attracted by the dejection
+of the unfortunate young man.
+
+'Good heavens, dear Somerset,' he cried, 'what ails you?  Let me
+offer you a touch of spirits.'
+
+But Somerset had fallen below the reach of this material comfort.
+
+'Let me be,' he said.  'I am lost; you have caught me in the toils.
+Up to this moment, I have lived all my life in the most reckless
+manner, and done exactly what I pleased, with the most perfect
+innocence.  And now--what am I?  Are you so blind and wooden that
+you do not see the loathing you inspire me with?  Is it possible
+you can suppose me willing to continue to exist upon such terms?
+To think,' he cried, 'that a young man, guilty of no fault on earth
+but amiability, should find himself involved in such a damned
+imbroglio!'  And placing his knuckles in his eyes, Somerset rolled
+upon the sofa.
+
+'My God,' said Zero, 'is this possible?  And I so filled with
+tenderness and interest!  Can it be, dear Somerset, that you are
+under the empire of these out-worn scruples? or that you judge a
+patriot by the morality of the religious tract?  I thought you were
+a good agnostic.'
+
+'Mr. Jones,' said Somerset, 'it is in vain to argue.  I boast
+myself a total disbeliever, not only in revealed religion, but in
+the data, method, and conclusions of the whole of ethics.  Well!
+what matters it? what signifies a form of words?  I regard you as a
+reptile, whom I would rejoice, whom I long, to stamp under my heel.
+You would blow up others?  Well then, understand:  I want, with
+every circumstance of infamy and agony, to blow up you!'
+
+'Somerset, Somerset!' said Zero, turning very pale, 'this is wrong;
+this is very wrong.  You pain, you wound me, Somerset.'
+
+'Give me a match!' cried Somerset wildly.  'Let me set fire to this
+incomparable monster!  Let me perish with him in his fall!'
+
+'For God's sake,' cried Zero, clutching hold of the young man, 'for
+God's sake command yourself!  We stand upon the brink; death yawns
+around us; a man--a stranger in this foreign land--one whom you
+have called your friend--'
+
+'Silence!' cried Somerset, 'you are no friend, no friend of mine.
+I look on you with loathing, like a toad:  my flesh creeps with
+physical repulsion; my soul revolts against the sight of you.'
+
+Zero burst into tears.  'Alas!' he sobbed, 'this snaps the last
+link that bound me to humanity.  My friend disowns--he insults me.
+I am indeed accurst.'
+
+Somerset stood for an instant staggered by this sudden change of
+front.  The next moment, with a despairing gesture, he fled from
+the room and from the house.  The first dash of his escape carried
+him hard upon half-way to the next police-office:  but presently
+began to droop; and before he reached the house of lawful
+intervention, he fell once more among doubtful counsels.  Was he an
+agnostic? had he a right to act?  Away with such nonsense, and let
+Zero perish! ran his thoughts.  And then again:  had he not
+promised, had he not shaken hands and broken bread? and that with
+open eyes? and if so how could he take action, and not forfeit
+honour?  But honour? what was honour?  A figment, which, in the hot
+pursuit of crime, he ought to dash aside.  Ay, but crime?  A
+figment, too, which his enfranchised intellect discarded.  All day,
+he wandered in the parks, a prey to whirling thoughts; all night,
+patrolled the city; and at the peep of day he sat down by the
+wayside in the neighbourhood of Peckham and bitterly wept.  His
+gods had fallen.  He who had chosen the broad, daylit, unencumbered
+paths of universal scepticism, found himself still the bondslave of
+honour.  He who had accepted life from a point of view as lofty as
+the predatory eagle's, though with no design to prey; he who had
+clearly recognised the common moral basis of war, of commercial
+competition, and of crime; he who was prepared to help the escaping
+murderer or to embrace the impenitent thief, found, to the
+overthrow of all his logic, that he objected to the use of
+dynamite.  The dawn crept among the sleeping villas and over the
+smokeless fields of city; and still the unfortunate sceptic sobbed
+over his fall from consistency.
+
+At length, he rose and took the rising sun to witness.  'There is
+no question as to fact,' he cried; 'right and wrong are but
+figments and the shadow of a word; but for all that, there are
+certain things that I cannot do, and there are certain others that
+I will not stand.'  Thereupon he decided to return to make one last
+effort of persuasion, and, if he could not prevail on Zero to
+desist from his infernal trade, throw delicacy to the winds, give
+the plotter an hour's start, and denounce him to the police.  Fast
+as he went, being winged by this resolution, it was already well on
+in the morning when he came in sight of the Superfluous Mansion.
+Tripping down the steps, was the young lady of the various aliases;
+and he was surprised to see upon her countenance the marks of anger
+and concern.
+
+'Madam,' he began, yielding to impulse and with no clear knowledge
+of what he was to add.
+
+But at the sound of his voice she seemed to experience a shock of
+fear or horror; started back; lowered her veil with a sudden
+movement; and fled, without turning, from the square.
+
+Here then, we step aside a moment from following the fortunes of
+Somerset, and proceed to relate the strange and romantic episode of
+THE BROWN BOX.
+
+
+
+DESBOROUGH'S ADVENTURE:  THE BROWN BOX
+
+
+
+Mr. Harry Desborough lodged in the fine and grave old quarter of
+Bloomsbury, roared about on every side by the high tides of London,
+but itself rejoicing in romantic silences and city peace.  It was
+in Queen Square that he had pitched his tent, next door to the
+Children's Hospital, on your left hand as you go north:  Queen
+Square, sacred to humane and liberal arts, whence homes were made
+beautiful, where the poor were taught, where the sparrows were
+plentiful and loud, and where groups of patient little ones would
+hover all day long before the hospital, if by chance they might
+kiss their hand or speak a word to their sick brother at the
+window.  Desborough's room was on the first floor and fronted to
+the square; but he enjoyed besides, a right by which he often
+profited, to sit and smoke upon a terrace at the back, which looked
+down upon a fine forest of back gardens, and was in turn commanded
+by the windows of an empty room.
+
+On the afternoon of a warm day, Desborough sauntered forth upon
+this terrace, somewhat out of hope and heart, for he had been now
+some weeks on the vain quest of situations, and prepared for
+melancholy and tobacco.  Here, at least, he told himself that he
+would be alone; for, like most youths, who are neither rich, nor
+witty, nor successful, he rather shunned than courted the society
+of other men.  Even as he expressed the thought, his eye alighted
+on the window of the room that looked upon the terrace; and to his
+surprise and annoyance, he beheld it curtained with a silken
+hanging.  It was like his luck, he thought; his privacy was gone,
+he could no longer brood and sigh unwatched, he could no longer
+suffer his discouragement to find a vent in words or soothe himself
+with sentimental whistling; and in the irritation of the moment, he
+struck his pipe upon the rail with unnecessary force.  It was an
+old, sweet, seasoned briar-root, glossy and dark with long
+employment, and justly dear to his fancy.  What, then, was his
+chagrin, when the head snapped from the stem, leaped airily in
+space, and fell and disappeared among the lilacs of the garden?
+
+He threw himself savagely into the garden chair, pulled out the
+story-paper which he had brought with him to read, tore off a
+fragment of the last sheet, which contains only the answers to
+correspondents, and set himself to roll a cigarette.  He was no
+master of the art; again and again, the paper broke between his
+fingers and the tobacco showered upon the ground; and he was
+already on the point of angry resignation, when the window swung
+slowly inward, the silken curtain was thrust aside, and a lady,
+somewhat strangely attired, stepped forth upon the terrace.
+
+'Senorito,' said she, and there was a rich thrill in her voice,
+like an organ note, 'Senorito, you are in difficulties.  Suffer me
+to come to your assistance.'
+
+With the words, she took the paper and tobacco from his unresisting
+hands; and with a facility that, in Desborough's eyes, seemed
+magical, rolled and presented him a cigarette.  He took it, still
+seated, still without a word; staring with all his eyes upon that
+apparition.  Her face was warm and rich in colour; in shape, it was
+that piquant triangle, so innocently sly, so saucily attractive, so
+rare in our more northern climates; her eyes were large, starry,
+and visited by changing lights; her hair was partly covered by a
+lace mantilla, through which her arms, bare to the shoulder,
+gleamed white; her figure, full and soft in all the womanly
+contours, was yet alive and active, light with excess of life, and
+slender by grace of some divine proportion.
+
+'You do not like my cigarrito, Senor?' she asked.  'Yet it is
+better made than yours.'  At that she laughed, and her laughter
+trilled in his ear like music; but the next moment her face fell.
+'I see,' she cried.  'It is my manner that repels you.  I am too
+constrained, too cold.  I am not,' she added, with a more engaging
+air, 'I am not the simple English maiden I appear.'
+
+'Oh!' murmured Harry, filled with inexpressible thoughts.
+
+'In my own dear land,' she pursued, 'things are differently
+ordered.  There, I must own, a girl is bound by many and rigorous
+restrictions; little is permitted her; she learns to be distant,
+she learns to appear forbidding.  But here, in free England--oh,
+glorious liberty!' she cried, and threw up her arms with a gesture
+of inimitable grace--'here there are no fetters; here the woman may
+dare to be herself entirely, and the men, the chivalrous men--is it
+not written on the very shield of your nation, honi soit?  Ah, it
+is hard for me to learn, hard for me to dare to be myself.  You
+must not judge me yet awhile; I shall end by conquering this
+stiffness, I shall end by growing English.  Do I speak the language
+well?'
+
+'Perfectly--oh, perfectly!' said Harry, with a fervency of
+conviction worthy of a graver subject.
+
+'Ah, then,' she said, 'I shall soon learn; English blood ran in my
+father's veins; and I have had the advantage of some training in
+your expressive tongue.  If I speak already without accent, with my
+thorough English appearance, there is nothing left to change except
+my manners.'
+
+'Oh no,' said Desborough.  'Oh pray not!  I--madam--'
+
+'I am,' interrupted the lady, 'the Senorita Teresa Valdevia.  The
+evening air grows chill.  Adios, Senorito.'  And before Harry could
+stammer out a word, she had disappeared into her room.
+
+He stood transfixed, the cigarette still unlighted in his hand.
+His thoughts had soared above tobacco, and still recalled and
+beautified the image of his new acquaintance.  Her voice re-echoed
+in his memory; her eyes, of which he could not tell the colour,
+haunted his soul.  The clouds had risen at her coming, and he
+beheld a new-created world.  What she was, he could not fancy, but
+he adored her.  Her age, he durst not estimate; fearing to find her
+older than himself, and thinking sacrilege to couple that fair
+favour with the thought of mortal changes.  As for her character,
+beauty to the young is always good.  So the poor lad lingered late
+upon the terrace, stealing timid glances at the curtained window,
+sighing to the gold laburnums, rapt into the country of romance;
+and when at length he entered and sat down to dine, on cold boiled
+mutton and a pint of ale, he feasted on the food of gods.
+
+Next day when he returned to the terrace, the window was a little
+ajar, and he enjoyed a view of the lady's shoulder, as she sat
+patiently sewing and all unconscious of his presence.  On the next,
+he had scarce appeared when the window opened, and the Senorita
+tripped forth into the sunlight, in a morning disorder, delicately
+neat, and yet somehow foreign, tropical, and strange.  In one hand
+she held a packet.
+
+'Will you try,' she said, 'some of my father's tobacco--from dear
+Cuba?  There, as I suppose you know, all smoke, ladies as well as
+gentlemen.  So you need not fear to annoy me.  The fragrance will
+remind me of home.  My home, Senor, was by the sea.'  And as she
+uttered these few words, Desborough, for the first time in his
+life, realised the poetry of the great deep.  'Awake or asleep, I
+dream of it:  dear home, dear Cuba!'
+
+'But some day,' said Desborough, with an inward pang, 'some day you
+will return?'
+
+' Never!' she cried; 'ah, never, in Heaven's name!'
+
+'Are you then resident for life in England?' he inquired, with a
+strange lightening of spirit.
+
+'You ask too much, for you ask more than I know,' she answered
+sadly; and then, resuming her gaiety of manner:  'But you have not
+tried my Cuban tobacco,' she said.
+
+'Senorita,' said he, shyly abashed by some shadow of coquetry in
+her manner, 'whatever comes to me--you--I mean,' he concluded,
+deeply flushing, 'that I have no doubt the tobacco is delightful.'
+
+'Ah, Senor,' she said, with almost mournful gravity, 'you seemed so
+simple and good, and already you are trying to pay compliments--and
+besides,' she added, brightening, with a quick upward glance, into
+a smile, 'you do it so badly!  English gentlemen, I used to hear,
+could be fast friends, respectful, honest friends; could be
+companions, comforters, if the need arose, or champions, and yet
+never encroach.  Do not seek to please me by copying the graces of
+my countrymen.  Be yourself:  the frank, kindly, honest English
+gentleman that I have heard of since my childhood and still longed
+to meet.'
+
+Harry, much bewildered, and far from clear as to the manners of the
+Cuban gentlemen, strenuously disclaimed the thought of plagiarism.
+
+'Your national seriousness of bearing best becomes you, Senor,'
+said the lady.  'See!' marking a line with her dainty, slippered
+foot, 'thus far it shall be common ground; there, at my window-
+sill, begins the scientific frontier.  If you choose, you may drive
+me to my forts; but if, on the other hand, we are to be real
+English friends, I may join you here when I am not too sad; or,
+when I am yet more graciously inclined, you may draw your chair
+beside the window and teach me English customs, while I work.  You
+will find me an apt scholar, for my heart is in the task.'  She
+laid her hand lightly upon Harry's arm, and looked into his eyes.
+'Do you know,' said she, 'I am emboldened to believe that I have
+already caught something of your English aplomb?  Do you not
+perceive a change, Senor?  Slight, perhaps, but still a change?  Is
+my deportment not more open, more free, more like that of the dear
+"British Miss" than when you saw me first?'  She gave a radiant
+smile; withdrew her hand from Harry's arm; and before the young man
+could formulate in words the eloquent emotions that ran riot
+through his brain--with an 'Adios, Senor:  good-night, my English
+friend,' she vanished from his sight behind the curtain.
+
+The next day Harry consumed an ounce of tobacco in vain upon the
+neutral terrace; neither sight nor sound rewarded him, and the
+dinner-hour summoned him at length from the scene of
+disappointment.  On the next it rained; but nothing, neither
+business nor weather, neither prospective poverty nor present
+hardship, could now divert the young man from the service of his
+lady; and wrapt in a long ulster, with the collar raised, he took
+his stand against the balustrade, awaiting fortune, the picture of
+damp and discomfort to the eye, but glowing inwardly with tender
+and delightful ardours.  Presently the window opened, and the fair
+Cuban, with a smile imperfectly dissembled, appeared upon the sill.
+
+'Come here,' she said, 'here, beside my window.  The small verandah
+gives a belt of shelter.'  And she graciously handed him a folding-
+chair.
+
+As he sat down, visibly aglow with shyness and delight, a certain
+bulkiness in his pocket reminded him that he was not come empty-
+handed.
+
+'I have taken the liberty,' said he, 'of bringing you a little
+book.  I thought of you, when I observed it on the stall, because I
+saw it was in Spanish.  The man assured me it was by one of the
+best authors, and quite proper.'  As he spoke, he placed the little
+volume in her hand.  Her eyes fell as she turned the pages, and a
+flush rose and died again upon her cheeks, as deep as it was
+fleeting.  'You are angry,' he cried in agony.  'I have presumed.'
+
+'No, Senor, it is not that,' returned the lady.  'I--' and a flood
+of colour once more mounted to her brow--'I am confused and ashamed
+because I have deceived you.  Spanish,' she began, and paused--
+'Spanish is, of course, my native tongue,' she resumed, as though
+suddenly taking courage; 'and this should certainly put the highest
+value on your thoughtful present; but alas, sir, of what use is it
+to me?  And how shall I confess to you the truth--the humiliating
+truth--that I cannot read?'
+
+As Harry's eyes met hers in undisguised amazement, the fair Cuban
+seemed to shrink before his gaze.  'Read?' repeated Harry.  'You!'
+
+She pushed the window still more widely open with a large and noble
+gesture.  'Enter, Senor,' said she.  'The time has come to which I
+have long looked forward, not without alarm; when I must either
+fear to lose your friendship, or tell you without disguise the
+story of my life.'
+
+It was with a sentiment bordering on devotion, that Harry passed
+the window.  A semi-barbarous delight in form and colour had
+presided over the studied disorder of the room in which he found
+himself.  It was filled with dainty stuffs, furs and rugs and
+scarves of brilliant hues, and set with elegant and curious
+trifles-fans on the mantelshelf, an antique lamp upon a bracket,
+and on the table a silver-mounted bowl of cocoa-nut about half full
+of unset jewels.  The fair Cuban, herself a gem of colour and the
+fit masterpiece for that rich frame, motioned Harry to a seat, and
+sinking herself into another, thus began her history.
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE FAIR CUBAN
+
+
+
+I am not what I seem.  My father drew his descent, on the one hand,
+from grandees of Spain, and on the other, through the maternal
+line, from the patriot Bruce.  My mother, too, was the descendant
+of a line of kings; but, alas! these kings were African.  She was
+fair as the day:  fairer than I, for I inherited a darker strain of
+blood from the veins of my European father; her mind was noble, her
+manners queenly and accomplished; and seeing her more than the
+equal of her neighbours, and surrounded by the most considerate
+affection and respect, I grew up to adore her, and when the time
+came, received her last sigh upon my lips, still ignorant that she
+was a slave, and alas! my father's mistress.  Her death, which
+befell me in my sixteenth year, was the first sorrow I had known:
+it left our home bereaved of its attractions, cast a shade of
+melancholy on my youth, and wrought in my father a tragic and
+durable change.  Months went by; with the elasticity of my years, I
+regained some of the simple mirth that had before distinguished me;
+the plantation smiled with fresh crops; the negroes on the estate
+had already forgotten my mother and transferred their simple
+obedience to myself; but still the cloud only darkened on the brows
+of Senor Valdevia.  His absences from home had been frequent even
+in the old days, for he did business in precious gems in the city
+of Havana; they now became almost continuous; and when he returned,
+it was but for the night and with the manner of a man crushed down
+by adverse fortune.
+
+The place where I was born and passed my days was an isle set in
+the Caribbean Sea, some half-hour's rowing from the coasts of Cuba.
+It was steep, rugged, and, except for my father's family and
+plantation, uninhabited and left to nature.  The house, a low
+building surrounded by spacious verandahs, stood upon a rise of
+ground and looked across the sea to Cuba.  The breezes blew about
+it gratefully, fanned us as we lay swinging in our silken hammocks,
+and tossed the boughs and flowers of the magnolia.  Behind and to
+the left, the quarter of the negroes and the waving fields of the
+plantation covered an eighth part of the surface of the isle.  On
+the right and closely bordering on the garden, lay a vast and
+deadly swamp, densely covered with wood, breathing fever, dotted
+with profound sloughs, and inhabited by poisonous oysters, man-
+eating crabs, snakes, alligators, and sickly fishes.  Into the
+recesses of that jungle, none could penetrate but those of African
+descent; an invisible, unconquerable foe lay there in wait for the
+European; and the air was death.
+
+One morning (from which I must date the beginning of my ruinous
+misfortune) I left my room a little after day, for in that warm
+climate all are early risers, and found not a servant to attend
+upon my wants.  I made the circuit of the house, still calling:
+and my surprise had almost changed into alarm, when coming at last
+into a large verandahed court, I found it thronged with negroes.
+Even then, even when I was amongst them, not one turned or paid the
+least regard to my arrival.  They had eyes and ears for but one
+person:  a woman, richly and tastefully attired; of elegant
+carriage, and a musical speech; not so much old in years, as worn
+and marred by self-indulgence:  her face, which was still
+attractive, stamped with the most cruel passions, her eye burning
+with the greed of evil.  It was not from her appearance, I believe,
+but from some emanation of her soul, that I recoiled in a kind of
+fainting terror; as we hear of plants that blight and snakes that
+fascinate, the woman shocked and daunted me.  But I was of a brave
+nature; trod the weakness down; and forcing my way through the
+slaves, who fell back before me in embarrassment, as though in the
+presence of rival mistresses, I asked, in imperious tones:  'Who is
+this person?'
+
+A slave girl, to whom I had been kind, whispered in my ear to have
+a care, for that was Madam Mendizabal; but the name was new to me.
+
+In the meanwhile the woman, applying a pair of glasses to her eyes,
+studied me with insolent particularity from head to foot.
+
+'Young woman,' said she, at last, 'I have had a great experience in
+refractory servants, and take a pride in breaking them.  You really
+tempt me; and if I had not other affairs, and these of more
+importance, on my hand, I should certainly buy you at your father's
+sale.'
+
+'Madam--' I began, but my voice failed me.
+
+'Is it possible that you do not know your position?' she returned,
+with a hateful laugh.  'How comical!  Positively, I must buy her.
+Accomplishments, I suppose?' she added, turning to the servants.
+
+Several assured her that the young mistress had been brought up
+like any lady, for so it seemed in their inexperience.
+
+'She would do very well for my place of business in Havana,' said
+the Senora Mendizabal, once more studying me through her glasses;
+'and I should take a pleasure,' she pursued, more directly
+addressing myself, 'in bringing you acquainted with a whip.'  And
+she smiled at me with a savoury lust of cruelty upon her face.
+
+At this, I found expression.  Calling by name upon the servants, I
+bade them turn this woman from the house, fetch her to the boat,
+and set her back upon the mainland.  But with one voice, they
+protested that they durst not obey, coming close about me, pleading
+and beseeching me to be more wise; and, when I insisted, rising
+higher in passion and speaking of this foul intruder in the terms
+she had deserved, they fell back from me as from one who had
+blasphemed.  A superstitious reverence plainly encircled the
+stranger; I could read it in their changed demeanour, and in the
+paleness that prevailed upon the natural colour of their faces; and
+their fear perhaps reacted on myself.  I looked again at Madam
+Mendizabal.  She stood perfectly composed, watching my face through
+her glasses with a smile of scorn; and at the sight of her assured
+superiority to all my threats, a cry broke from my lips, a cry of
+rage, fear, and despair, and I fled from the verandah and the
+house.
+
+I ran I knew not where, but it was towards the beach.  As I went,
+my head whirled; so strange, so sudden, were these events and
+insults.  Who was she? what, in Heaven's name, the power she
+wielded over my obedient negroes?  Why had she addressed me as a
+slave? why spoken of my father's sale?  To all these tumultuary
+questions I could find no answer; and in the turmoil of my mind,
+nothing was plain except the hateful leering image of the woman.
+
+I was still running, mad with fear and anger, when I saw my father
+coming to meet me from the landing-place; and with a cry that I
+thought would have killed me, leaped into his arms and broke into a
+passion of sobs and tears upon his bosom.  He made me sit down
+below a tall palmetto that grew not far off; comforted me, but with
+some abstraction in his voice; and as soon as I regained the least
+command upon my feelings, asked me, not without harshness, what
+this grief betokened.  I was surprised by his tone into a still
+greater measure of composure; and in firm tones, though still
+interrupted by sobs, I told him there was a stranger in the island,
+at which I thought he started and turned pale; that the servants
+would not obey me; that the stranger's name was Madam Mendizabal,
+and, at that, he seemed to me both troubled and relieved; that she
+had insulted me, treated me as a slave (and here my father's brow
+began to darken), threatened to buy me at a sale, and questioned my
+own servants before my face; and that, at last, finding myself
+quite helpless and exposed to these intolerable liberties, I had
+fled from the house in terror, indignation, and amazement.
+
+'Teresa,' said my father, with singular gravity of voice, 'I must
+make to-day a call upon your courage; much must be told you, there
+is much that you must do to help me; and my daughter must prove
+herself a woman by her spirit.  As for this Mendizabal, what shall
+I say? or how am I to tell you what she is?  Twenty years ago, she
+was the loveliest of slaves; to-day she is what you see her--
+prematurely old, disgraced by the practice of every vice and every
+nefarious industry, but free, rich, married, they say, to some
+reputable man, whom may Heaven assist! and exercising among her
+ancient mates, the slaves of Cuba, an influence as unbounded as its
+reason is mysterious.  Horrible rites, it is supposed, cement her
+empire:  the rites of Hoodoo.  Be that as it may, I would have you
+dismiss the thought of this incomparable witch; it is not from her
+that danger threatens us; and into her hands, I make bold to
+promise, you shall never fall.'
+
+'Father!' I cried.  'Fall?  Was there any truth, then, in her
+words?  Am I--O father, tell me plain; I can bear anything but this
+suspense.'
+
+'I will tell you,' he replied, with merciful bluntness.  'Your
+mother was a slave; it was my design, so soon as I had saved a
+competence, to sail to the free land of Britain, where the law
+would suffer me to marry her:  a design too long procrastinated;
+for death, at the last moment, intervened.  You will now understand
+the heaviness with which your mother's memory hangs about my neck.'
+
+I cried out aloud, in pity for my parents; and in seeking to
+console the survivor, I forgot myself.
+
+'It matters not,' resumed my father.  'What I have left undone can
+never be repaired, and I must bear the penalty of my remorse.  But,
+Teresa, with so cutting a reminder of the evils of delay, I set
+myself at once to do what was still possible:  to liberate
+yourself.'
+
+I began to break forth in thanks, but he checked me with a sombre
+roughness.
+
+'Your mother's illness,' he resumed, 'had engaged too great a
+portion of my time; my business in the city had lain too long at
+the mercy of ignorant underlings; my head, my taste, my unequalled
+knowledge of the more precious stones, that art by which I can
+distinguish, even on the darkest night, a sapphire from a ruby, and
+tell at a glance in what quarter of the earth a gem was
+disinterred--all these had been too long absent from the conduct of
+affairs.  Teresa, I was insolvent.'
+
+'What matters that?' I cried.  'What matters poverty, if we be left
+together with our love and sacred memories?'
+
+'You do not comprehend,' he said gloomily.  'Slave, as you are,
+young--alas! scarce more than child!--accomplished, beautiful with
+the most touching beauty, innocent as an angel--all these qualities
+that should disarm the very wolves and crocodiles, are, in the eyes
+of those to whom I stand indebted, commodities to buy and sell.
+You are a chattel; a marketable thing; and worth--heavens, that I
+should say such words!--worth money.  Do you begin to see?  If I
+were to give you freedom, I should defraud my creditors; the
+manumission would be certainly annulled; you would be still a
+slave, and I a criminal.'
+
+I caught his hand in mine, kissed it, and moaned in pity for
+myself, in sympathy for my father.
+
+'How I have toiled,' he continued, 'how I have dared and striven to
+repair my losses, Heaven has beheld and will remember.  Its
+blessing was denied to my endeavours, or, as I please myself by
+thinking, but delayed to descend upon my daughter's head.  At
+length, all hope was at an end; I was ruined beyond retrieve; a
+heavy debt fell due upon the morrow, which I could not meet; I
+should be declared a bankrupt, and my goods, my lands, my jewels
+that I so much loved, my slaves whom I have spoiled and rendered
+happy, and oh! tenfold worse, you, my beloved daughter, would be
+sold and pass into the hands of ignorant and greedy traffickers.
+Too long, I saw, had I accepted and profited by this great crime of
+slavery; but was my daughter, my innocent unsullied daughter, was
+SHE to pay the price?  I cried out--no!--I took Heaven to witness
+my temptation; I caught up this bag and fled.  Close upon my track
+are the pursuers; perhaps to-night, perhaps to-morrow, they will
+land upon this isle, sacred to the memory of the dear soul that
+bore you, to consign your father to an ignominious prison, and
+yourself to slavery and dishonour.  We have not many hours before
+us.  Off the north coast of our isle, by strange good fortune, an
+English yacht has for some days been hovering.  It belongs to Sir
+George Greville, whom I slightly know, to whom ere now I have
+rendered unusual services, and who will not refuse to help in our
+escape.  Or if he did, if his gratitude were in default, I have the
+power to force him.  For what does it mean, my child--what means
+this Englishman, who hangs for years upon the shores of Cuba, and
+returns from every trip with new and valuable gems?'
+
+'He may have found a mine,' I hazarded.
+
+'So he declares,' returned my father; 'but the strange gift I have
+received from nature, easily transpierced the fable.  He brought me
+diamonds only, which I bought, at first, in innocence; at a second
+glance, I started; for of these stones, my child, some had first
+seen the day in Africa, some in Brazil; while others, from their
+peculiar water and rude workmanship, I divined to be the spoil of
+ancient temples.  Thus put upon the scent, I made inquiries.  Oh,
+he is cunning, but I was cunninger than he.  He visited, I found,
+the shop of every jeweller in town; to one he came with rubies, to
+one with emeralds, to one with precious beryl; to all, with this
+same story of the mine.  But in what mine, what rich epitome of the
+earth's surface, were there conjoined the rubies of Ispahan, the
+pearls of Coromandel, and the diamonds of Golconda?  No, child,
+that man, for all his yacht and title, that man must fear and must
+obey me.  To-night, then, as soon as it is dark, we must take our
+way through the swamp by the path which I shall presently show you;
+thence, across the highlands of the isle, a track is blazed, which
+shall conduct us to the haven on the north; and close by the yacht
+is riding.  Should my pursuers come before the hour at which I look
+to see them, they will still arrive too late; a trusty man attends
+on the mainland; as soon as they appear, we shall behold, if it be
+dark, the redness of a fire, if it be day, a pillar of smoke, on
+the opposing headland; and thus warned, we shall have time to put
+the swamp between ourselves and danger.  Meantime, I would conceal
+this bag; I would, before all things, be seen to arrive at the
+house with empty hands; a blabbing slave might else undo us.  For
+see!' he added; and holding up the bag, which he had already shown
+me, he poured into my lap a shower of unmounted jewels, brighter
+than flowers, of every size and colour, and catching, as they fell,
+upon a million dainty facets, the ardour of the sun.
+
+I could not restrain a cry of admiration.
+
+'Even in your ignorant eyes,' pursued my father, 'they command
+respect.  Yet what are they but pebbles, passive to the tool, cold
+as death?  Ingrate!' he cried.  'Each one of these--miracles of
+nature's patience, conceived out of the dust in centuries of
+microscopical activity, each one is, for you and me, a year of
+life, liberty, and mutual affection.  How, then, should I cherish
+them! and why do I delay to place them beyond reach!  Teresa,
+follow me.'
+
+He rose to his feet, and led me to the borders of the great jungle,
+where they overhung, in a wall of poisonous and dusky foliage, the
+declivity of the hill on which my father's house stood planted.
+For some while he skirted, with attentive eyes, the margin of the
+thicket.  Then, seeming to recognise some mark, for his countenance
+became immediately lightened of a load of thought, he paused and
+addressed me.  'Here,' said he, 'is the entrance of the secret path
+that I have mentioned, and here you shall await me.  I but pass
+some hundreds of yards into the swamp to bury my poor treasure; as
+soon as that is safe, I will return.'  It was in vain that I sought
+to dissuade him, urging the dangers of the place; in vain that I
+begged to be allowed to follow, pleading the black blood that I now
+knew to circulate in my veins:  to all my appeals he turned a deaf
+ear, and, bending back a portion of the screen of bushes,
+disappeared into the pestilential silence of the swamp.
+
+At the end of a full hour, the bushes were once more thrust aside;
+and my father stepped from out the thicket, and paused and almost
+staggered in the first shock of the blinding sunlight.  His face
+was of a singular dusky red; and yet for all the heat of the
+tropical noon, he did not seem to sweat.
+
+'You are tired,' I cried, springing to meet him.  'You are ill.'
+
+'I am tired,' he replied; 'the air in that jungle stifles one; my
+eyes, besides, have grown accustomed to its gloom, and the strong
+sunshine pierces them like knives.  A moment, Teresa, give me but a
+moment.  All shall yet be well.  I have buried the hoard under a
+cypress, immediately beyond the bayou, on the left-hand margin of
+the path; beautiful, bright things, they now lie whelmed in slime;
+you shall find them there, if needful.  But come, let us to the
+house; it is time to eat against our journey of the night:  to eat
+and then to sleep, my poor Teresa:  then to sleep.'  And he looked
+upon me out of bloodshot eyes, shaking his head as if in pity.
+
+We went hurriedly, for he kept murmuring that he had been gone too
+long, and that the servants might suspect; passed through the airy
+stretch of the verandah; and came at length into the grateful
+twilight of the shuttered house.  The meal was spread; the house
+servants, already informed by the boatmen of the master's return,
+were all back at their posts, and terrified, as I could see, to
+face me.  My father still murmuring of haste with weary and
+feverish pertinacity, I hurried at once to take my place at table;
+but I had no sooner left his arm than he paused and thrust forth
+both his hands with a strange gesture of groping.  'How is this?'
+he cried, in a sharp, unhuman voice.  'Am I blind?'  I ran to him
+and tried to lead him to the table; but he resisted and stood
+stiffly where he was, opening and shutting his jaws, as if in a
+painful effort after breath.  Then suddenly he raised both hands to
+his temples, cried out, 'My head, my head!' and reeled and fell
+against the wall.
+
+I knew too well what it must be.  I turned and begged the servants
+to relieve him.  But they, with one accord, denied the possibility
+of hope; the master had gone into the swamp, they said, the master
+must die; all help was idle.  Why should I dwell upon his
+sufferings?  I had him carried to a bed, and watched beside him.
+He lay still, and at times ground his teeth, and talked at times
+unintelligibly, only that one word of hurry, hurry, coming
+distinctly to my ears, and telling me that, even in the last
+struggle with the powers of death, his mind was still tortured by
+his daughter's peril.  The sun had gone down, the darkness had
+fallen, when I perceived that I was alone on this unhappy earth.
+What thought had I of flight, of safety, of the impending dangers
+of my situation?  Beside the body of my last friend, I had
+forgotten all except the natural pangs of my bereavement.
+
+The sun was some four hours above the eastern line, when I was
+recalled to a knowledge of the things of earth, by the entrance of
+the slave-girl to whom I have already referred.  The poor soul was
+indeed devotedly attached to me; and it was with streaming tears
+that she broke to me the import of her coming.  With the first
+light of dawn a boat had reached our landing-place, and set on
+shore upon our isle (till now so fortunate) a party of officers
+bearing a warrant to arrest my father's person, and a man of a
+gross body and low manners, who declared the island, the
+plantation, and all its human chattels, to be now his own.  'I
+think,' said my slave-girl, 'he must be a politician or some very
+powerful sorcerer; for Madam Mendizabal had no sooner seen them
+coming, than she took to the woods.'
+
+'Fool,' said I, 'it was the officers she feared; and at any rate
+why does that beldam still dare to pollute the island with her
+presence?  And O Cora,' I exclaimed, remembering my grief, 'what
+matter all these troubles to an orphan?'
+
+'Mistress,' said she, 'I must remind you of two things.  Never
+speak as you do now of Madam Mendizabal; or never to a person of
+colour; for she is the most powerful woman in this world, and her
+real name even, if one durst pronounce it, were a spell to raise
+the dead.  And whatever you do, speak no more of her to your
+unhappy Cora; for though it is possible she may be afraid of the
+police (and indeed I think that I have heard she is in hiding), and
+though I know that you will laugh and not believe, yet it is true,
+and proved, and known that she hears every word that people utter
+in this whole vast world; and your poor Cora is already deep enough
+in her black books.  She looks at me, mistress, till my blood turns
+ice.  That is the first I had to say; and now for the second:  do,
+pray, for Heaven's sake, bear in mind that you are no longer the
+poor Senor's daughter.  He is gone, dear gentleman; and now you are
+no more than a common slave-girl like myself.  The man to whom you
+belong calls for you; oh, my dear mistress, go at once!  With your
+youth and beauty, you may still, if you are winning and obedient,
+secure yourself an easy life.'
+
+For a moment I looked on the creature with the indignation you may
+conceive; the next, it was gone:  she did but speak after her kind,
+as the bird sings or cattle bellow.  'Go,' said I.  'Go, Cora.  I
+thank you for your kind intentions.  Leave me alone one moment with
+my dead father; and tell this man that I will come at once.'
+
+She went:  and I, turning to the bed of death, addressed to those
+deaf ears the last appeal and defence of my beleaguered innocence.
+'Father,' I said, 'it was your last thought, even in the pangs of
+dissolution, that your daughter should escape disgrace.  Here, at
+your side, I swear to you that purpose shall be carried out; by
+what means, I know not; by crime, if need be; and Heaven forgive
+both you and me and our oppressors, and Heaven help my
+helplessness!'  Thereupon I felt strengthened as by long repose;
+stepped to the mirror, ay, even in that chamber of the dead;
+hastily arranged my hair, refreshed my tear-worn eyes, breathed a
+dumb farewell to the originator of my days and sorrows; and
+composing my features to a smile, went forth to meet my master.
+
+He was in a great, hot bustle, reviewing that house, once ours, to
+which he had but now succeeded; a corpulent, sanguine man of middle
+age, sensual, vulgar, humorous, and, if I judged rightly, not ill-
+disposed by nature.  But the sparkle that came into his eye as he
+observed me enter, warned me to expect the worst.
+
+'Is this your late mistress?' he inquired of the slaves; and when
+he had learnt it was so, instantly dismissed them.  'Now, my dear,'
+said he, 'I am a plain man:  none of your damned Spaniards, but a
+true blue, hard-working, honest Englishman.  My name is Caulder.'
+
+'Thank you, sir,' said I, and curtsied very smartly as I had seen
+the servants.
+
+'Come,' said he, 'this is better than I had expected; and if you
+choose to be dutiful in the station to which it has pleased God to
+call you, you will find me a very kind old fellow.  I like your
+looks,' he added, calling me by my name, which he scandalously
+mispronounced.  'Is your hair all your own?' he then inquired with
+a certain sharpness, and coming up to me, as though I were a horse,
+he grossly satisfied his doubts.  I was all one flame from head to
+foot, but I contained my righteous anger and submitted.  'That is
+very well,' he continued, chucking me good humouredly under the
+chin.  'You will have no cause to regret coming to old Caulder, eh?
+But that is by the way.  What is more to the point is this:  your
+late master was a most dishonest rogue, and levanted with some
+valuable property that belonged of rights to me.  Now, considering
+your relation to him, I regard you as the likeliest person to know
+what has become of it; and I warn you, before you answer, that my
+whole future kindness will depend upon your honesty.  I am an
+honest man myself, and expect the same in my servants.'
+
+'Do you mean the jewels?' said I, sinking my voice into a whisper.
+
+'That is just precisely what I do,' said he, and chuckled.
+
+'Hush!' said I.
+
+'Hush?' he repeated.  'And why hush?  I am on my own place, I would
+have you to know, and surrounded by my own lawful servants.'
+
+'Are the officers gone?' I asked; and oh! how my hopes hung upon
+the answer!
+
+'They are,' said he, looking somewhat disconcerted.  'Why do you
+ask?'
+
+'I wish you had kept them,' I answered, solemnly enough, although
+my heart at that same moment leaped with exultation.  'Master, I
+must not conceal from you the truth.  The servants on this estate
+are in a dangerous condition, and mutiny has long been brewing.'
+
+'Why,' he cried, 'I never saw a milder-looking lot of niggers in my
+life.'  But for all that he turned somewhat pale.
+
+'Did they tell you,' I continued, 'that Madam Mendizabal is on the
+island? that, since her coming, they obey none but her? that if,
+this morning, they have received you with even decent civility, it
+was only by her orders--issued with what after-thought I leave you
+to consider?'
+
+'Madam Jezebel?' said he.  'Well, she is a dangerous devil; the
+police are after her, besides, for a whole series of murders; but
+after all, what then?  To be sure, she has a great influence with
+you coloured folk.  But what in fortune's name can be her errand
+here?'
+
+'The jewels,' I replied.  'Ah, sir, had you seen that treasure,
+sapphire and emerald and opal, and the golden topaz, and rubies red
+as the sunset--of what incalculable worth, of what unequalled
+beauty to the eye!--had you seen it, as I have, and alas! as SHE
+has--you would understand and tremble at your danger.'
+
+'She has seen them!' he cried, and I could see by his face, that my
+audacity was justified by its success.
+
+I caught his hand in mine.  'My master,' said I, 'I am now yours;
+it is my duty, it should be my pleasure, to defend your interests
+and life.  Hear my advice, then; and, I conjure you, be guided by
+my prudence.  Follow me privily; let none see where we are going; I
+will lead you to the place where the treasure has been buried; that
+once disinterred, let us make straight for the boat, escape to the
+mainland, and not return to this dangerous isle without the
+countenance of soldiers.'
+
+What free man in a free land would have credited so sudden a
+devotion?  But this oppressor, through the very arts and
+sophistries he had abused, to quiet the rebellion of his conscience
+and to convince himself that slavery was natural, fell like a child
+into the trap I laid for him.  He praised and thanked me; told me I
+had all the qualities he valued in a servant; and when he had
+questioned me further as to the nature and value of the treasure,
+and I had once more artfully inflamed his greed, bade me without
+delay proceed to carry out my plan of action.
+
+From a shed in the garden, I took a pick and shovel; and thence, by
+devious paths among the magnolias, led my master to the entrance of
+the swamp.  I walked first, carrying, as I was now in duty bound,
+the tools, and glancing continually behind me, lest we should be
+spied upon and followed.  When we were come as far as the beginning
+of the path, it flashed into my mind I had forgotten meat; and
+leaving Mr. Caulder in the shadow of a tree, I returned alone to
+the house for a basket of provisions.  Were they for him?  I asked
+myself.  And a voice within me answered, No. While we were face to
+face, while I still saw before my eyes the man to whom I belonged
+as the hand belongs to the body, my indignation held me bravely up.
+But now that I was alone, I conceived a sickness at myself and my
+designs that I could scarce endure; I longed to throw myself at his
+feet, avow my intended treachery, and warn him from that
+pestilential swamp, to which I was decoying him to die; but my vow
+to my dead father, my duty to my innocent youth, prevailed upon
+these scruples; and though my face was pale and must have reflected
+the horror that oppressed my spirits, it was with a firm step that
+I returned to the borders of the swamp, and with smiling lips that
+I bade him rise and follow me.
+
+The path on which we now entered was cut, like a tunnel, through
+the living jungle.  On either hand and overhead, the mass of
+foliage was continuously joined; the day sparingly filtered through
+the depth of super-impending wood; and the air was hot like steam,
+and heady with vegetable odours, and lay like a load upon the lungs
+and brain.  Underfoot, a great depth of mould received our silent
+footprints; on each side, mimosas, as tall as a man, shrank from my
+passing skirts with a continuous hissing rustle; and but for these
+sentient vegetables, all in that den of pestilence was motionless
+and noiseless.
+
+We had gone but a little way in, when Mr. Caulder was seized with
+sudden nausea, and must sit down a moment on the path.  My heart
+yearned, as I beheld him; and I seriously begged the doomed mortal
+to return upon his steps.  What were a few jewels in the scales
+with life? I asked.  But no, he said; that witch Madam Jezebel
+would find them out; he was an honest man, and would not stand to
+be defrauded, and so forth, panting the while, like a sick dog.
+Presently he got to his feet again, protesting he had conquered his
+uneasiness; but as we again began to go forward, I saw in his
+changed countenance, the first approaches of death.
+
+'Master,' said I, 'you look pale, deathly pale; your pallor fills
+me with dread.  Your eyes are bloodshot; they are red like the
+rubies that we seek.'
+
+'Wench,' he cried, 'look before you; look at your steps.  I declare
+to Heaven, if you annoy me once again by looking back, I shall
+remind you of the change in your position.'
+
+A little after, I observed a worm upon the ground, and told, in a
+whisper, that its touch was death.  Presently a great green
+serpent, vivid as the grass in spring, wound rapidly across the
+path; and once again I paused and looked back at my companion, with
+a horror in my eyes.  'The coffin snake,' said I, 'the snake that
+dogs its victim like a hound.'
+
+But he was not to be dissuaded.  'I am an old traveller,' said he.
+'This is a foul jungle indeed; but we shall soon be at an end.'
+
+'Ay,' said I, looking at him, with a strange smile, 'what end?'
+
+Thereupon he laughed again and again, but not very heartily; and
+then, perceiving that the path began to widen and grow higher,
+'There!' said he.  'What did I tell you?  We are past the worst.'
+
+Indeed, we had now come to the bayou, which was in that place very
+narrow and bridged across by a fallen trunk; but on either hand we
+could see it broaden out, under a cavern of great arms of trees and
+hanging creepers:  sluggish, putrid, of a horrible and sickly
+stench, floated on by the flat heads of alligators, and its banks
+alive with scarlet crabs.
+
+'If we fall from that unsteady bridge,' said I, 'see, where the
+caiman lies ready to devour us!  If, by the least divergence from
+the path, we should be snared in a morass, see, where those myriads
+of scarlet vermin scour the border of the thicket!  Once helpless,
+how they would swarm together to the assault!  What could man do
+against a thousand of such mailed assailants?  And what a death
+were that, to perish alive under their claws.'
+
+'Are you mad, girl?' he cried.  'I bid you be silent and lead on.'
+
+Again I looked upon him, half relenting; and at that he raised the
+stick that was in his hand and cruelly struck me on the face.
+'Lead on!' he cried again.  'Must I be all day, catching my death
+in this vile slough, and all for a prating slave-girl?'
+
+I took the blow in silence, I took it smiling; but the blood welled
+back upon my heart.  Something, I know not what, fell at that
+moment with a dull plunge in the waters of the lagoon, and I told
+myself it was my pity that had fallen.
+
+On the farther side, to which we now hastily scrambled, the wood
+was not so dense, the web of creepers not so solidly convolved.  It
+was possible, here and there, to mark a patch of somewhat brighter
+daylight, or to distinguish, through the lighter web of parasites,
+the proportions of some soaring tree.  The cypress on the left
+stood very visibly forth, upon the edge of such a clearing; the
+path in that place widened broadly; and there was a patch of open
+ground, beset with horrible ant-heaps, thick with their artificers.
+I laid down the tools and basket by the cypress root, where they
+were instantly blackened over with the crawling ants; and looked
+once more in the face of my unconscious victim.  Mosquitoes and
+foul flies wove so close a veil between us that his features were
+obscured; and the sound of their flight was like the turning of a
+mighty wheel.
+
+'Here,' I said, 'is the spot.  I cannot dig, for I have not learned
+to use such instruments; but, for your own sake, I beseech you to
+be swift in what you do.'
+
+He had sunk once more upon the ground, panting like a fish; and I
+saw rising in his face the same dusky flush that had mantled on my
+father's.  'I feel ill,' he gasped, 'horribly ill; the swamp turns
+around me; the drone of these carrion flies confounds me.  Have you
+not wine?'
+
+I gave him a glass, and he drank greedily.  'It is for you to
+think,' said I, 'if you should further persevere.  The swamp has an
+ill name.'  And at the word I ominously nodded.
+
+'Give me the pick,' said he.  'Where are the jewels buried?'
+
+I told him vaguely; and in the sweltering heat and closeness, and
+dim twilight of the jungle, he began to wield the pickaxe, swinging
+it overhead with the vigour of a healthy man.  At first, there
+broke forth upon him a strong sweat, that made his face to shine,
+and in which the greedy insects settled thickly.
+
+'To sweat in such a place,' said I.  'O master, is this wise?
+Fever is drunk in through open pores.'
+
+'What do you mean?' he screamed, pausing with the pick buried in
+the soil.  'Do you seek to drive me mad?  Do you think I do not
+understand the danger that I run?'
+
+'That is all I want,' said I:  'I only wish you to be swift.'  And
+then, my mind flitting to my father's deathbed, I began to murmur,
+scarce above my breath, the same vain repetition of words, 'Hurry,
+hurry, hurry.'
+
+Presently, to my surprise, the treasure-seeker took them up; and
+while he still wielded the pick, but now with staggering and
+uncertain blows, repeated to himself, as it were the burthen of a
+song, 'Hurry, hurry, hurry;' and then again, 'There is no time to
+lose; the marsh has an ill name, ill name;' and then back to
+'Hurry, hurry, hurry,' with a dreadful, mechanical, hurried, and
+yet wearied utterance, as a sick man rolls upon his pillow.  The
+sweat had disappeared; he was now dry, but all that I could see of
+him, of the same dull brick red.  Presently his pick unearthed the
+bag of jewels; but he did not observe it, and continued hewing at
+the soil.
+
+'Master,' said I, 'there is the treasure.'  He seemed to waken from
+a dream.  'Where?' he cried; and then, seeing it before his eyes,
+'Can this be possible?' he added.  'I must be light-headed.  Girl,'
+he cried suddenly, with the same screaming tone of voice that I had
+once before observed, 'what is wrong? is this swamp accursed?'
+
+'It is a grave,' I answered.  'You will not go out alive; and as
+for me, my life is in God's hands.'
+
+He fell upon the ground like a man struck by a blow, but whether
+from the effect of my words, or from sudden seizure of the malady,
+I cannot tell.  Pretty soon, he raised his head.  'You have brought
+me here to die,' he said; 'at the risk of your own days, you have
+condemned me.  Why?'
+
+'To save my honour,' I replied.  'Bear me out that I have warned
+you.  Greed of these pebbles, and not I, has been your undoer.'
+
+He took out his revolver and handed it to me.  'You see,' he said,
+'I could have killed you even yet.  But I am dying, as you say;
+nothing could save me; and my bill is long enough already.  Dear
+me, dear me,' he said, looking in my face with a curious, puzzled,
+and pathetic look, like a dull child at school, 'if there be a
+judgment afterwards, my bill is long enough.'
+
+At that, I broke into a passion of weeping, crawled at his feet,
+kissed his hands, begged his forgiveness, put the pistol back into
+his grasp and besought him to avenge his death; for indeed, if with
+my life I could have bought back his, I had not balanced at the
+cost.  But he was determined, the poor soul, that I should yet more
+bitterly regret my act.
+
+'I have nothing to forgive,' said he.  'Dear heaven, what a thing
+is an old fool!  I thought, upon my word, you had taken quite a
+fancy to me.'
+
+He was seized, at the same time, with a dreadful, swimming
+dizziness, clung to me like a child, and called upon the name of
+some woman.  Presently this spasm, which I watched with choking
+tears, lessened and died away; and he came again to the full
+possession of his mind.  'I must write my will,' he said.  'Get out
+my pocket-book.'  I did so, and he wrote hurriedly on one page with
+a pencil.  'Do not let my son know,' he said; 'he is a cruel dog,
+is my son Philip; do not let him know how you have paid me out;'
+and then all of a sudden, 'God,' he cried, 'I am blind,' and
+clapped both hands before his eyes; and then again, and in a
+groaning whisper, 'Don't leave me to the crabs!'  I swore I would
+be true to him so long as a pulse stirred; and I redeemed my
+promise.  I sat there and watched him, as I had watched my father,
+but with what different, with what appalling thoughts!  Through the
+long afternoon, he gradually sank.  All that while, I fought an
+uphill battle to shield him from the swarms of ants and the clouds
+of mosquitoes:  the prisoner of my crime.  The night fell, the roar
+of insects instantly redoubled in the dark arcades of the swamp;
+and still I was not sure that he had breathed his last.  At length,
+the flesh of his hand, which I yet held in mine, grew chill between
+my fingers, and I knew that I was free.
+
+I took his pocket-book and the revolver, being resolved rather to
+die than to be captured, and laden besides with the basket and the
+bag of gems, set forward towards the north.  The swamp, at that
+hour of the night, was filled with a continuous din:  animals and
+insects of all kinds, and all inimical to life, contributing their
+parts.  Yet in the midst of this turmoil of sound, I walked as
+though my eyes were bandaged, beholding nothing.  The soil sank
+under my foot, with a horrid, slippery consistence, as though I
+were walking among toads; the touch of the thick wall of foliage,
+by which alone I guided myself, affrighted me like the touch of
+serpents; the darkness checked my breathing like a gag; indeed, I
+have never suffered such extremes of fear as during that nocturnal
+walk, nor have I ever known a more sensible relief than when I
+found the path beginning to mount and to grow firmer under foot,
+and saw, although still some way in front of me, the silver
+brightness of the moon.
+
+Presently, I had crossed the last of the jungle, and come forth
+amongst noble and lofty woods, clean rock, the clean, dry dust, the
+aromatic smell of mountain plants that had been baked all day in
+sunlight, and the expressive silence of the night.  My negro blood
+had carried me unhurt across that reeking and pestiferous morass;
+by mere good fortune, I had escaped the crawling and stinging
+vermin with which it was alive; and I had now before me the easier
+portion of my enterprise, to cross the isle and to make good my
+arrival at the haven and my acceptance on the English yacht.  It
+was impossible by night to follow such a track as my father had
+described; and I was casting about for any landmark, and, in my
+ignorance, vainly consulting the disposition of the stars, when
+there fell upon my ear, from somewhere far in front, the sound of
+many voices hurriedly singing.
+
+I scarce knew upon what grounds I acted; but I shaped my steps in
+the direction of that sound; and in a quarter of an hour's walking,
+came unperceived to the margin of an open glade.  It was lighted by
+the strong moon and by the flames of a fire.  In the midst, there
+stood a little low and rude building, surmounted by a cross:  a
+chapel, as I then remembered to have heard, long since desecrated
+and given over to the rites of Hoodoo.  Hard by the steps of
+entrance was a black mass, continually agitated and stirring to and
+fro as if with inarticulate life; and this I presently perceived to
+be a heap of cocks, hares, dogs, and other birds and animals, still
+struggling, but helplessly tethered and cruelly tossed one upon
+another.  Both the fire and the chapel were surrounded by a ring of
+kneeling Africans, both men and women.  Now they would raise their
+palms half-closed to heaven, with a peculiar, passionate gesture of
+supplication; now they would bow their heads and spread their hands
+before them on the ground.  As the double movement passed and
+repassed along the line, the heads kept rising and falling, like
+waves upon the sea; and still, as if in time to these
+gesticulations, the hurried chant continued.  I stood spellbound,
+knowing that my life depended by a hair, knowing that I had
+stumbled on a celebration of the rites of Hoodoo.
+
+Presently, the door of the chapel opened, and there came forth a
+tall negro, entirely nude, and bearing in his hand the sacrificial
+knife.  He was followed by an apparition still more strange and
+shocking:  Madam Mendizabal, naked also, and carrying in both hands
+and raised to the level of her face, an open basket of wicker.  It
+was filled with coiling snakes; and these, as she stood there with
+the uplifted basket, shot through the osier grating and curled
+about her arms.  At the sight of this, the fervour of the crowd
+seemed to swell suddenly higher; and the chant rose in pitch and
+grew more irregular in time and accent.  Then, at a sign from the
+tall negro, where he stood, motionless and smiling, in the moon and
+firelight, the singing died away, and there began the second stage
+of this barbarous and bloody celebration.  From different parts of
+the ring, one after another, man or woman, ran forth into the
+midst; ducked, with that same gesture of the thrown-up hand, before
+the priestess and her snakes; and with various adjurations, uttered
+aloud the blackest wishes of the heart.  Death and disease were the
+favours usually invoked:  the death or the disease of enemies or
+rivals; some calling down these plagues upon the nearest of their
+own blood, and one, to whom I swear I had been never less than
+kind, invoking them upon myself.  At each petition, the tall negro,
+still smiling, picked up some bird or animal from the heaving mass
+upon his left, slew it with the knife, and tossed its body on the
+ground.  At length, it seemed, it reached the turn of the high-
+priestess.  She set down the basket on the steps, moved into the
+centre of the ring, grovelled in the dust before the reptiles, and
+still grovelling lifted up her voice, between speech and singing,
+and with so great, with so insane a fervour of excitement, as
+struck a sort of horror through my blood.
+
+'Power,' she began, 'whose name we do not utter; power that is
+neither good nor evil, but below them both; stronger than good,
+greater than evil--all my life long I have adored and served thee.
+Who has shed blood upon thine altars? whose voice is broken with
+the singing of thy praises? whose limbs are faint before their age
+with leaping in thy revels?  Who has slain the child of her body?
+I,' she cried, 'I, Metamnbogu!  By my own name, I name myself.  I
+tear away the veil.  I would be served or perish.  Hear me, slime
+of the fat swamp, blackness of the thunder, venom of the serpent's
+udder--hear or slay me!  I would have two things, O shapeless one,
+O horror of emptiness--two things, or die!  The blood of my white-
+faced husband; oh! give me that; he is the enemy of Hoodoo; give me
+his blood!  And yet another, O racer of the blind winds, O
+germinator in the ruins of the dead, O root of life, root of
+corruption!  I grow old, I grow hideous; I am known, I am hunted
+for my life:  let thy servant then lay by this outworn body; let
+thy chief priestess turn again to the blossom of her days, and be a
+girl once more, and the desired of all men, even as in the past!
+And, O lord and master, as I here ask a marvel not yet wrought
+since we were torn from the old land, have I not prepared the
+sacrifice in which thy soul delighteth--the kid without the horns?'
+
+Even as she uttered the words, there was a great rumour of joy
+through all the circle of worshippers; it rose, and fell, and rose
+again; and swelled at last into rapture, when the tall negro, who
+had stepped an instant into the chapel, reappeared before the door,
+carrying in his arms the body of the slave-girl, Cora.  I know not
+if I saw what followed.  When next my mind awoke to a clear
+knowledge, Cora was laid upon the steps before the serpents; the
+negro with the knife stood over her; the knife rose; and at this I
+screamed out in my great horror, bidding them, in God's name, to
+pause.
+
+A stillness fell upon the mob of cannibals.  A moment more, and
+they must have thrown off this stupor, and I infallibly have
+perished.  But Heaven had designed to save me.  The silence of
+these wretched men was not yet broken, when there arose, in the
+empty night, a sound louder than the roar of any European tempest,
+swifter to travel than the wings of any Eastern wind.  Blackness
+engulfed the world; blackness, stabbed across from every side by
+intricate and blinding lightning.  Almost in the same second, at
+one world-swallowing stride, the heart of the tornado reached the
+clearing.  I heard an agonising crash, and the light of my reason
+was overwhelmed.
+
+When I recovered consciousness, the day was come.  I was unhurt;
+the trees close about me had not lost a bough; and I might have
+thought at first that the tornado was a feature in a dream.  It was
+otherwise indeed; for when I looked abroad, I perceived I had
+escaped destruction by a hand's-breadth.  Right through the forest,
+which here covered hill and dale, the storm had ploughed a lane of
+ruin.  On either hand, the trees waved uninjured in the air of the
+morning; but in the forthright course of its advance, the hurricane
+had left no trophy standing.  Everything, in that line, tree, man,
+or animal, the desecrated chapel and the votaries of Hoodoo, had
+been subverted and destroyed in that brief spasm of anger of the
+powers of air.  Everything, but a yard or two beyond the line of
+its passage, humble flower, lofty tree, and the poor vulnerable
+maid who now knelt to pay her gratitude to heaven, awoke unharmed
+in the crystal purity and peace of the new day.
+
+To move by the path of the tornado was a thing impossible to man,
+so wildly were the wrecks of the tall forest piled together by that
+fugitive convulsion.  I crossed it indeed; with such labour and
+patience, with so many dangerous slips and falls, as left me, at
+the further side, bankrupt alike of strength and courage.  There I
+sat down awhile to recruit my forces; and as I ate (how should I
+bless the kindliness of Heaven!) my eye, flitting to and fro in the
+colonnade of the great trees, alighted on a trunk that had been
+blazed.  Yes, by the directing hand of Providence, I had been
+conducted to the very track I was to follow.  With what a light
+heart I now set forth, and walking with how glad a step, traversed
+the uplands of the isle!
+
+It was hard upon the hour of noon, when I came, all tattered and
+wayworn, to the summit of a steep descent, and looked below me on
+the sea.  About all the coast, the surf, roused by the tornado of
+the night, beat with a particular fury and made a fringe of snow.
+Close at my feet, I saw a haven, set in precipitous and palm-
+crowned bluffs of rock.  Just outside, a ship was heaving on the
+surge, so trimly sparred, so glossily painted, so elegant and
+point-device in every feature, that my heart was seized with
+admiration.  The English colours blew from her masthead; and from
+my high station, I caught glimpses of her snowy planking, as she
+rolled on the uneven deep, and saw the sun glitter on the brass of
+her deck furniture.  There, then, was my ship of refuge; and of all
+my difficulties only one remained:  to get on board of her.
+
+Half an hour later, I issued at last out of the woods on the margin
+of a cove, into whose jaws the tossing and blue billows entered,
+and along whose shores they broke with a surprising loudness.  A
+wooded promontory hid the yacht; and I had walked some distance
+round the beach, in what appeared to be a virgin solitude, when my
+eye fell on a boat, drawn into a natural harbour, where it rocked
+in safety, but deserted.  I looked about for those who should have
+manned her; and presently, in the immediate entrance of the wood,
+spied the red embers of a fire, and, stretched around in various
+attitudes, a party of slumbering mariners.  To these I drew near:
+most were black, a few white; but all were dressed with the
+conspicuous decency of yachtsmen; and one, from his peaked cap and
+glittering buttons, I rightly divined to be an officer.  Him, then,
+I touched upon the shoulder.  He started up; the sharpness of his
+movement woke the rest; and they all stared upon me in surprise.
+
+'What do you want?' inquired the officer.
+
+'To go on board the yacht,' I answered.
+
+I thought they all seemed disconcerted at this; and the officer,
+with something of sharpness, asked me who I was.  Now I had
+determined to conceal my name until I met Sir George; and the first
+name that rose to my lips was that of the Senora Mendizabal.  At
+the word, there went a shock about the little party of seamen; the
+negroes stared at me with indescribable eagerness, the whites
+themselves with something of a scared surprise; and instantly the
+spirit of mischief prompted me to add, 'And if the name is new to
+your ears, call me Metamnbogu.'
+
+I had never seen an effect so wonderful.  The negroes threw their
+hands into the air, with the same gesture I remarked the night
+before about the Hoodoo camp-fire; first one, and then another, ran
+forward and kneeled down and kissed the skirts of my torn dress;
+and when the white officer broke out swearing and calling to know
+if they were mad, the coloured seamen took him by the shoulders,
+dragged him on one side till they were out of hearing, and
+surrounded him with open mouths and extravagant pantomime.  The
+officer seemed to struggle hard; he laughed aloud, and I saw him
+make gestures of dissent and protest; but in the end, whether
+overcome by reason or simply weary of resistance, he gave in--
+approached me civilly enough, but with something of a sneering
+manner underneath--and touching his cap, 'My lady,' said he, 'if
+that is what you are, the boat is ready.'
+
+My reception on board the Nemorosa (for so the yacht was named)
+partook of the same mingled nature.  We were scarcely within hail
+of that great and elegant fabric, where she lay rolling gunwale
+under and churning the blue sea to snow, before the bulwarks were
+lined with the heads of a great crowd of seamen, black, white, and
+yellow; and these and the few who manned the boat began exchanging
+shouts in some lingua franca incomprehensible to me.  All eyes were
+directed on the passenger; and once more I saw the negroes toss up
+their hands to heaven, but now as if with passionate wonder and
+delight.
+
+At the head of the gangway, I was received by another officer, a
+gentlemanly man with blond and bushy whiskers; and to him I
+addressed my demand to see Sir George.
+
+'But this is not--' he cried, and paused.
+
+'I know it,' returned the other officer, who had brought me from
+the shore.  'But what the devil can we do?  Look at all the
+niggers!'
+
+I followed his direction; and as my eye lighted upon each, the poor
+ignorant Africans ducked, and bowed, and threw their hands into the
+air, as though in the presence of a creature half divine.
+Apparently the officer with the whiskers had instantly come round
+to the opinion of his subaltern; for he now addressed me with every
+signal of respect.
+
+'Sir George is at the island, my lady,' said he:  'for which, with
+your ladyship's permission, I shall immediately make all sail.  The
+cabins are prepared.  Steward, take Lady Greville below.'
+
+Under this new name, then, and so captivated by surprise that I
+could neither think nor speak, I was ushered into a spacious and
+airy cabin, hung about with weapons and surrounded by divans.  The
+steward asked for my commands; but I was by this time so wearied,
+bewildered, and disturbed, that I could only wave him to leave me
+to myself, and sink upon a pile of cushions.  Presently, by the
+changed motion of the ship, I knew her to be under way; my
+thoughts, so far from clarifying, grew the more distracted and
+confused; dreams began to mingle and confound them; and at length,
+by insensible transition, I sank into a dreamless slumber.
+
+When I awoke, the day and night had passed, and it was once more
+morning.  The world on which I reopened my eyes swam strangely up
+and down; the jewels in the bag that lay beside me chinked together
+ceaselessly; the clock and the barometer wagged to and fro like
+pendulums; and overhead, seamen were singing out at their work, and
+coils of rope clattering and thumping on the deck.  Yet it was long
+before I had divined that I was at sea; long before I had recalled,
+one after another, the tragical, mysterious, and inexplicable
+events that had brought me where was.
+
+When I had done so, I thrust the jewels, which I was surprised to
+find had been respected, into the bosom of my dress; and seeing a
+silver bell hard by upon a table, rang it loudly.  The steward
+instantly appeared; I asked for food; and he proceeded to lay the
+table, regarding me the while with a disquieting and pertinacious
+scrutiny.  To relieve myself of my embarrassment, I asked him, with
+as fair a show of ease as I could muster, if it were usual for
+yachts to carry so numerous a crew?
+
+'Madam,' said he, 'I know not who you are, nor what mad fancy has
+induced you to usurp a name and an appalling destiny that are not
+yours.  I warn you from the soul.  No sooner arrived at the island-
+-'
+
+At this moment he was interrupted by the whiskered officer, who had
+entered unperceived behind him, and now laid a hand upon his
+shoulder.  The sudden pallor, the deadly and sick fear, that was
+imprinted on the steward's face, formed a startling addition to his
+words.
+
+'Parker!' said the officer, and pointed towards the door.
+
+'Yes, Mr. Kentish,' said the steward.  'For God's sake, Mr.
+Kentish!'  And vanished, with a white face, from the cabin.
+
+Thereupon the officer bade me sit down, and began to help me, and
+join in the meal.  'I fill your ladyship's glass,' said he, and
+handed me a tumbler of neat rum.
+
+'Sir,' cried I, 'do you expect me to drink this?'
+
+He laughed heartily.  'Your ladyship is so much changed,' said he,
+'that I no longer expect any one thing more than any other.'
+
+Immediately after, a white seaman entered the cabin, saluted both
+Mr. Kentish and myself, and informed the officer there was a sail
+in sight, which was bound to pass us very close, and that Mr.
+Harland was in doubt about the colours.
+
+'Being so near the island?' asked Mr. Kentish.
+
+'That was what Mr. Harland said, sir,' returned the sailor, with a
+scrape.
+
+'Better not, I think,' said Mr. Kentish.  'My compliments to Mr.
+Harland; and if she seem a lively boat, give her the stars and
+stripes; but if she be dull, and we can easily outsail her, show
+John Dutchman.  That is always another word for incivility at sea;
+so we can disregard a hail or a flag of distress, without
+attracting notice.'
+
+As soon as the sailor had gone on deck, I turned to the officer in
+wonder.  'Mr.  Kentish, if that be your name,' said I, 'are you
+ashamed of your own colours?'
+
+'Your ladyship refers to the Jolly Roger?' he inquired, with
+perfect gravity; and immediately after, went into peals of
+laughter.  'Pardon me,' said he; 'but here for the first time I
+recognise your ladyship's impetuosity.'  Nor, try as I pleased,
+could I extract from him any explanation of this mystery, but only
+oily and commonplace evasion.
+
+While we were thus occupied, the movement of the Nemorosa gradually
+became less violent; its speed at the same time diminished; and
+presently after, with a sullen plunge, the anchor was discharged
+into the sea.  Kentish immediately rose, offered his arm, and
+conducted me on deck; where I found we were lying in a roadstead
+among many low and rocky islets, hovered about by an innumerable
+cloud of sea-fowl.  Immediately under our board, a somewhat larger
+isle was green with trees, set with a few low buildings and
+approached by a pier of very crazy workmanship; and a little
+inshore of us, a smaller vessel lay at anchor.
+
+I had scarce time to glance to the four quarters, ere a boat was
+lowered.  I was handed in, Kentish took place beside me, and we
+pulled briskly to the pier.  A crowd of villainous, armed
+loiterers, both black and white, looked on upon our landing; and
+again the word passed about among the negroes, and again I was
+received with prostrations and the same gesture of the flung-up
+hand.  By this, what with the appearance of these men, and the
+lawless, sea-girt spot in which I found myself, my courage began a
+little to decline, and clinging to the arm of Mr. Kentish, I begged
+him to tell me what it meant?
+
+'Nay, madam,' he returned, 'YOU know.'  And leading me smartly
+through the crowd, which continued to follow at a considerable
+distance, and at which he still kept looking back, I thought, with
+apprehension, he brought me to a low house that stood alone in an
+encumbered yard, opened the door, and begged me to enter.
+
+'But why?' said I.  'I demand to see Sir George.'
+
+'Madam,' returned Mr. Kentish, looking suddenly as black as
+thunder, 'to drop all fence, I know neither who nor what you are;
+beyond the fact that you are not the person whose name you have
+assumed.  But be what you please, spy, ghost, devil, or most ill-
+judging jester, if you do not immediately enter that house, I will
+cut you to the earth.'  And even as he spoke, he threw an uneasy
+glance behind him at the following crowd of blacks.
+
+I did not wait to be twice threatened; I obeyed at once, and with a
+palpitating heart; and the next moment, the door was locked from
+the outside and the key withdrawn.  The interior was long, low, and
+quite unfurnished, but filled, almost from end to end, with sugar-
+cane, tar-barrels, old tarry rope, and other incongruous and highly
+inflammable material; and not only was the door locked, but the
+solitary window barred with iron.
+
+I was by this time so exceedingly bewildered and afraid, that I
+would have given years of my life to be once more the slave of Mr.
+Caulder.  I still stood, with my hands clasped, the image of
+despair, looking about me on the lumber of the room or raising my
+eyes to heaven; when there appeared outside the window bars, the
+face of a very black negro, who signed to me imperiously to draw
+near.  I did so, and he instantly, and with every mark of fervour,
+addressed me a long speech in some unknown and barbarous tongue.
+
+'I declare,' I cried, clasping my brow, 'I do not understand one
+syllable.'
+
+'Not?' he said in Spanish.  'Great, great, are the powers of
+Hoodoo!  Her very mind is changed!  But, O chief priestess, why
+have you suffered yourself to be shut into this cage? why did you
+not call your slaves at once to your defence?  Do you not see that
+all has been prepared to murder you? at a spark, this flimsy house
+will go in flames; and alas! who shall then be the chief priestess?
+and what shall be the profit of the miracle?'
+
+'Heavens!' cried I, 'can I not see Sir George?  I must, I must,
+come by speech of him.  Oh, bring me to Sir George!'  And, my
+terror fairly mastering my courage, I fell upon my knees and began
+to pray to all the saints.
+
+'Lordy!' cried the negro, 'here they come!'  And his black head was
+instantly withdrawn from the window.
+
+'I never heard such nonsense in my life,' exclaimed a voice.
+
+'Why, so we all say, Sir George,' replied the voice of Mr. Kentish.
+'But put yourself in our place.  The niggers were near two to one.
+And upon my word, if you'll excuse me, sir, considering the notion
+they have taken in their heads, I regard it as precious fortunate
+for all of us that the mistake occurred.'
+
+'This is no question of fortune, sir,' returned Sir George.  'It is
+a question of my orders, and you may take my word for it, Kentish,
+either Harland, or yourself, or Parker--or, by George, all three of
+you!--shall swing for this affair.  These are my sentiments.  Give
+me the key and be off.'
+
+Immediately after, the key turned in the lock; and there appeared
+upon the threshold a gentleman, between forty and fifty, with a
+very open countenance, and of a stout and personable figure.
+
+'My dear young lady,' said he, 'who the devil may you be?'
+
+I told him all my story in one rush of words.  He heard me, from
+the first, with an amazement you can scarcely picture, but when I
+came to the death of the Senora Mendizabal in the tornado, he
+fairly leaped into the air.
+
+'My dear child,' he cried, clasping me in his arms, 'excuse a man
+who might be your father!  This is the best news I ever had since I
+was born; for that hag of a mulatto was no less a person than my
+wife.'  He sat down upon a tar-barrel, as if unmanned by joy.
+'Dear me,' said he, 'I declare this tempts me to believe in
+Providence.  And what,' he added, 'can I do for you?'
+
+'Sir George,' said I, 'I am already rich:  all that I ask is your
+protection.'
+
+'Understand one thing,' he said, with great energy.  'I will never
+marry.'
+
+'I had not ventured to propose it,' I exclaimed, unable to restrain
+my mirth; 'I only seek to be conveyed to England, the natural home
+of the escaped slave.'
+
+'Well,' returned Sir George, 'frankly I owe you something for this
+exhilarating news; besides, your father was of use to me.  Now, I
+have made a small competence in business--a jewel mine, a sort of
+naval agency, et caetera, and I am on the point of breaking up my
+company, and retiring to my place in Devonshire to pass a plain old
+age, unmarried.  One good turn deserves another:  if you swear to
+hold your tongue about this island, these little bonfire
+arrangements, and the whole episode of my unfortunate marriage,
+why, I'll carry you home aboard the Nemorosa.'  I eagerly accepted
+his conditions.
+
+'One thing more,' said he.  'My late wife was some sort of a
+sorceress among the blacks; and they are all persuaded she has come
+alive again in your agreeable person.  Now, you will have the
+goodness to keep up that fancy, if you please; and to swear to
+them, on the authority of Hoodoo or whatever his name may be, that
+I am from this moment quite a sacred character.'
+
+'I swear it,' said I, 'by my father's memory; and that is a vow
+that I will never break.'
+
+'I have considerably better hold on you than any oath,' returned
+Sir George, with a chuckle; 'for you are not only an escaped slave,
+but have, by your own account, a considerable amount of stolen
+property.'
+
+I was struck dumb; I saw it was too true; in a glance, I recognised
+that these jewels were no longer mine; with similar quickness, I
+decided they should be restored, ay, if it cost me the liberty that
+I had just regained.  Forgetful of all else, forgetful of Sir
+George, who sat and watched me with a smile, I drew out Mr.
+Caulder's pocket-book and turned to the page on which the dying man
+had scrawled his testament.  How shall I describe the agony of
+happiness and remorse with which I read it! for my victim had not
+only set me free, but bequeathed to me the bag of jewels.
+
+My plain tale draws towards a close.  Sir George and I, in my
+character of his rejuvenated wife, displayed ourselves arm-in-arm
+among the negroes, and were cheered and followed to the place of
+embarkation.  There, Sir George, turning about, made a speech to
+his old companions, in which he thanked and bade them farewell with
+a very manly spirit; and towards the end of which he fell on some
+expressions which I still remember.  'If any of you gentry lose
+your money,' he said, 'take care you do not come to me; for in the
+first place, I shall do my best to have you murdered; and if that
+fails, I hand you over to the law.  Blackmail won't do for me.
+I'll rather risk all upon a cast, than be pulled to pieces by
+degrees.  I'll rather be found out and hang, than give a doit to
+one man-jack of you.'  That same night we got under way and crossed
+to the port of New Orleans, whence, as a sacred trust, I sent the
+pocket-book to Mr. Caulder's son.  In a week's time, the men were
+all paid off; new hands were shipped; and the Nemorosa weighed her
+anchor for Old England.
+
+A more delightful voyage it were hard to fancy.  Sir George, of
+course, was not a conscientious man; but he had an unaffected
+gaiety of character that naturally endeared him to the young; and
+it was interesting to hear him lay out his projects for the future,
+when he should be returned to Parliament, and place at the service
+of the nation his experience of marine affairs.  I asked him, if
+his notion of piracy upon a private yacht were not original.  But
+he told me, no.  'A yacht, Miss Valdevia,' he observed, 'is a
+chartered nuisance.  Who smuggles?  Who robs the salmon rivers of
+the West of Scotland?  Who cruelly beats the keepers if they dare
+to intervene?  The crews and the proprietors of yachts.  All I have
+done is to extend the line a trifle, and if you ask me for my
+unbiassed opinion, I do not suppose that I am in the least alone.'
+
+In short, we were the best of friends, and lived like father and
+daughter; though I still withheld from him, of course, that respect
+which is only due to moral excellence.
+
+We were still some days' sail from England, when Sir George
+obtained, from an outward-bound ship, a packet of newspapers; and
+from that fatal hour my misfortunes recommenced.  He sat, the same
+evening, in the cabin, reading the news, and making savoury
+comments on the decline of England and the poor condition of the
+navy, when I suddenly observed him to change countenance.
+
+'Hullo!' said he, 'this is bad; this is deuced bad, Miss Valdevia.
+You would not listen to sound sense, you would send that pocket-
+book to that man Caulder's son.'
+
+'Sir George,' said I, 'it was my duty.'
+
+'You are prettily paid for it, at least,' says he; 'and much as I
+regret it, I, for one, am done with you.  This fellow Caulder
+demands your extradition.'
+
+'But a slave,' I returned, 'is safe in England.'
+
+'Yes, by George!' replied the baronet; 'but it's not a slave, Miss
+Valdevia, it's a thief that he demands.  He has quietly destroyed
+the will; and now accuses you of robbing your father's bankrupt
+estate of jewels to the value of a hundred thousand pounds.'
+
+I was so much overcome by indignation at this hateful charge and
+concern for my unhappy fate that the genial baronet made haste to
+put me more at ease.
+
+'Do not be cast down,' said he.  'Of course, I wash my hands of you
+myself.  A man in my position--baronet, old family, and all that--
+cannot possibly be too particular about the company he keeps.  But
+I am a deuced good-humoured old boy, let me tell you, when not
+ruffled; and I will do the best I can to put you right.  I will
+lend you a trifle of ready money, give you the address of an
+excellent lawyer in London, and find a way to set you on shore
+unsuspected.'
+
+He was in every particular as good as his word.  Four days later,
+the Nemorosa sounded her way, under the cloak of a dark night, into
+a certain haven of the coast of England; and a boat, rowing with
+muffled oars, set me ashore upon the beach within a stone's throw
+of a railway station.  Thither, guided by Sir George's directions,
+I groped a devious way; and finding a bench upon the platform, sat
+me down, wrapped in a man's fur great-coat, to await the coming of
+the day.  It was still dark when a light was struck behind one of
+the windows of the building; nor had the east begun to kindle to
+the warmer colours of the dawn, before a porter carrying a lantern,
+issued from the door and found himself face to face with the
+unfortunate Teresa.  He looked all about him; in the grey twilight
+of the dawn, the haven was seen to lie deserted, and the yacht had
+long since disappeared.
+
+'Who are you?' he cried.
+
+'I am a traveller,' said I.
+
+'And where do you come from?' he asked.
+
+'I am going by the first train to London,' I replied.
+
+In such manner, like a ghost or a new creation, was Teresa with her
+bag of jewels landed on the shores of England; in this silent
+fashion, without history or name, she took her place among the
+millions of a new country.
+
+Since then, I have lived by the expedients of my lawyer, lying
+concealed in quiet lodgings, dogged by the spies of Cuba, and not
+knowing at what hour my liberty and honour may be lost.
+
+
+
+THE BROWN BOX (Concluded)
+
+
+
+The effect of this tale on the mind of Harry Desborough was instant
+and convincing.  The Fair Cuban had been already the loveliest, she
+now became, in his eyes, the most romantic, the most innocent, and
+the most unhappy of her sex.  He was bereft of words to utter what
+he felt:  what pity, what admiration, what youthful envy of a
+career so vivid and adventurous.  'O madam!' he began; and finding
+no language adequate to that apostrophe, caught up her hand and
+wrung it in his own.  'Count upon me,' he added, with bewildered
+fervour; and getting somehow or other out of the apartment and from
+the circle of that radiant sorceress, he found himself in the
+strange out-of-doors, beholding dull houses, wondering at dull
+passers-by, a fallen angel.  She had smiled upon him as he left,
+and with how significant, how beautiful a smile!  The memory
+lingered in his heart; and when he found his way to a certain
+restaurant where music was performed, flutes (as it were of
+Paradise) accompanied his meal.  The strings went to the melody of
+that parting smile; they paraphrased and glossed it in the sense
+that he desired; and for the first time in his plain and somewhat
+dreary life, he perceived himself to have a taste for music.
+
+The next day, and the next, his meditations moved to that
+delectable air.  Now he saw her, and was favoured; now saw her not
+at all; now saw her and was put by.  The fall of her foot upon the
+stair entranced him; the books that he sought out and read were
+books on Cuba, and spoke of her indirectly; nay, and in the very
+landlady's parlour, he found one that told of precisely such a
+hurricane, and, down to the smallest detail, confirmed (had
+confirmation been required) the truth of her recital.  Presently he
+began to fall into that prettiest mood of a young love, in which
+the lover scorns himself for his presumption.  Who was he, the dull
+one, the commonplace unemployed, the man without adventure, the
+impure, the untruthful, to aspire to such a creature made of fire
+and air, and hallowed and adorned by such incomparable passages of
+life?  What should he do, to be more worthy? by what devotion, call
+down the notice of these eyes to so terrene a being as himself?
+
+He betook himself, thereupon, to the rural privacy of the square,
+where, being a lad of a kind heart, he had made himself a circle of
+acquaintances among its shy frequenters, the half-domestic cats and
+the visitors that hung before the windows of the Children's
+Hospital.  There he walked, considering the depth of his demerit
+and the height of the adored one's super-excellence; now lighting
+upon earth to say a pleasant word to the brother of some infant
+invalid; now, with a great heave of breath, remembering the queen
+of women, and the sunshine of his life.
+
+What was he to do?  Teresa, he had observed, was in the habit of
+leaving the house towards afternoon:  she might, perchance, run
+danger from some Cuban emissary, when the presence of a friend
+might turn the balance in her favour:  how, then, if he should
+follow her?  To offer his company would seem like an intrusion; to
+dog her openly were a manifest impertinence; he saw himself reduced
+to a more stealthy part, which, though in some ways distasteful to
+his mind, he did not doubt that he could practise with the skill of
+a detective.
+
+The next day he proceeded to put his plan in action.  At the corner
+of Tottenham Court Road, however, the Senorita suddenly turned
+back, and met him face to face, with every mark of pleasure and
+surprise.
+
+'Ah, Senor, I am sometimes fortunate!' she cried.  'I was looking
+for a messenger;' and with the sweetest of smiles, she despatched
+him to the East End of London, to an address which he was unable to
+find.  This was a bitter pill to the knight-errant; but when he
+returned at night, worn out with fruitless wandering and dismayed
+by his fiasco, the lady received him with a friendly gaiety,
+protesting that all was for the best, since she had changed her
+mind and long since repented of her message.
+
+Next day he resumed his labours, glowing with pity and courage, and
+determined to protect Teresa with his life.  But a painful shock
+awaited him.  In the narrow and silent Hanway Street, she turned
+suddenly about and addressed him with a manner and a light in her
+eyes that were new to the young man's experience.
+
+'Do I understand that you follow me, Senor?' she cried.  'Are these
+the manners of the English gentleman?'
+
+Harry confounded himself in the most abject apologies and prayers
+to be forgiven, vowed to offend no more, and was at length
+dismissed, crestfallen and heavy of heart.  The check was final; he
+gave up that road to service; and began once more to hang about the
+square or on the terrace, filled with remorse and love, admirable
+and idiotic, a fit object for the scorn and envy of older men.  In
+these idle hours, while he was courting fortune for a sight of the
+beloved, it fell out naturally that he should observe the manners
+and appearance of such as came about the house.  One person alone
+was the occasional visitor of the young lady:  a man of
+considerable stature, and distinguished only by the doubtful
+ornament of a chin-beard in the style of an American deacon.
+Something in his appearance grated upon Harry; this distaste grew
+upon him in the course of days; and when at length he mustered
+courage to inquire of the Fair Cuban who this was, he was yet more
+dismayed by her reply.
+
+'That gentleman,' said she, a smile struggling to her face, 'that
+gentleman, I will not attempt to conceal from you, desires my hand
+in marriage, and presses me with the most respectful ardour.  Alas,
+what am I to say?  I, the forlorn Teresa, how shall I refuse or
+accept such protestations?'
+
+Harry feared to say more; a horrid pang of jealousy transfixed him;
+and he had scarce the strength of mind to take his leave with
+decency.  In the solitude of his own chamber, he gave way to every
+manifestation of despair.  He passionately adored the Senorita; but
+it was not only the thought of her possible union with another that
+distressed his soul, it was the indefeasible conviction that her
+suitor was unworthy.  To a duke, a bishop, a victorious general, or
+any man adorned with obvious qualities, he had resigned her with a
+sort of bitter joy; he saw himself follow the wedding party from a
+great way off; he saw himself return to the poor house, then robbed
+of its jewel; and while he could have wept for his despair, he felt
+he could support it nobly.  But this affair looked otherwise.  The
+man was patently no gentleman; he had a startled, skulking, guilty
+bearing; his nails were black, his eyes evasive; his love perhaps
+was a pretext; he was perhaps, under this deep disguise, a Cuban
+emissary!
+
+Harry swore that he would satisfy these doubts; and the next
+evening, about the hour of the usual visit, he posted himself at a
+spot whence his eye commanded the three issues of the square.
+
+Presently after, a four-wheeler rumbled to the door, and the man
+with the chin-beard alighted, paid off the cabman, and was seen by
+Harry to enter the house with a brown box hoisted on his back.
+Half an hour later, he came forth again without the box, and struck
+eastward at a rapid walk; and Desborough, with the same skill and
+caution that he had displayed in following Teresa, proceeded to dog
+the steps of her admirer.  The man began to loiter, studying with
+apparent interest the wares of the small fruiterer or tobacconist;
+twice he returned hurriedly upon his former course; and then, as
+though he had suddenly conquered a moment's hesitation, once more
+set forth with resolute and swift steps in the direction of
+Lincoln's Inn.  At length, in a deserted by-street, he turned; and
+coming up to Harry with a countenance which seemed to have become
+older and whiter, inquired with some severity of speech if he had
+not had the pleasure of seeing the gentleman before.
+
+'You have, sir,' said Harry, somewhat abashed, but with a good show
+of stoutness; 'and I will not deny that I was following you on
+purpose.  Doubtless,' he added, for he supposed that all men's
+minds must still be running on Teresa, 'you can divine my reason.'
+
+At these words, the man with the chin-beard was seized with a
+palsied tremor.  He seemed, for some seconds, to seek the utterance
+which his fear denied him; and then whipping sharply about, he took
+to his heels at the most furious speed of running.
+
+Harry was at first so taken aback that he neglected to pursue; and
+by the time he had recovered his wits, his best expedition was only
+rewarded by a glimpse of the man with the chin-beard mounting into
+a hansom, which immediately after disappeared into the moving
+crowds of Holborn.
+
+Puzzled and dismayed by this unusual behaviour, Harry returned to
+the house in Queen Square, and ventured for the first time to knock
+at the fair Cuban's door.  She bade him enter, and he found her
+kneeling with rather a disconsolate air beside a brown wooden
+trunk.
+
+'Senorita,' he broke out, 'I doubt whether that man's character is
+what he wishes you to believe.  His manner, when he found, and
+indeed when I admitted that I was following him, was not the manner
+of an honest man.'
+
+'Oh!' she cried, throwing up her hands as in desperation, 'Don
+Quixote, Don Quixote, have you again been tilting against
+windmills?'  And then, with a laugh, 'Poor soul!' she added, 'how
+you must have terrified him!  For know that the Cuban authorities
+are here, and your poor Teresa may soon be hunted down.  Even yon
+humble clerk from my solicitor's office may find himself at any
+moment the quarry of armed spies.'
+
+'A humble clerk!' cried Harry, 'why, you told me yourself that he
+wished to marry you!'
+
+'I thought you English like what you call a joke,' replied the lady
+calmly.  'As a matter of fact, he is my lawyer's clerk, and has
+been here to-night charged with disastrous news.  I am in sore
+straits, Senor Harry.  Will you help me?'
+
+At this most welcome word, the young man's heart exulted; and in
+the hope, pride, and self-esteem that kindled with the very thought
+of service, he forgot to dwell upon the lady's jest.  'Can you
+ask?' he cried.  'What is there that I can do?  Only tell me that.'
+
+With signs of an emotion that was certainly unfeigned, the fair
+Cuban laid her hand upon the box.  'This box,' she said, 'contains
+my jewels, papers, and clothes; all, in a word, that still connects
+me with Cuba and my dreadful past.  They must now be smuggled out
+of England; or, by the opinion of my lawyer, I am lost beyond
+remedy.  To-morrow, on board the Irish packet, a sure hand awaits
+the box:  the problem still unsolved, is to find some one to carry
+it as far as Holyhead, to see it placed on board the steamer, and
+instantly return to town.  Will you be he?  Will you leave to-
+morrow by the first train, punctually obey orders, bear still in
+mind that you are surrounded by Cuban spies; and without so much as
+a look behind you, or a single movement to betray your interest,
+leave the box where you have put it and come straight on shore?
+Will you do this, and so save your friend?'
+
+'I do not clearly understand . . .' began Harry.
+
+'No more do I,' replied the Cuban.  'It is not necessary that we
+should, so long as we obey the lawyer's orders.'
+
+'Senorita,' returned Harry gravely, 'I think this, of course, a
+very little thing to do for you, when I would willingly do all.
+But suffer me to say one word.  If London is unsafe for your
+treasures, it cannot long be safe for you; and indeed, if I at all
+fathom the plan of your solicitor, I fear I may find you already
+fled on my return.  I am not considered clever, and can only speak
+out plainly what is in my heart:  that I love you, and that I
+cannot bear to lose all knowledge of you.  I hope no more than to
+be your servant; I ask no more than just that I shall hear of you.
+Oh, promise me so much!'
+
+'You shall,' she said, after a pause.  'I promise you, you shall.'
+But though she spoke with earnestness, the marks of great
+embarrassment and a strong conflict of emotions appeared upon her
+face.
+
+'I wish to tell you,' resumed Desborough, 'in case of accidents. .
+. .'
+
+'Accidents!' she cried:  'why do you say that?'
+
+'I do not know,' said he, 'you may be gone before my return, and we
+may not meet again for long.  And so I wished you to know this:
+That since the day you gave me the cigarette, you have never once,
+not once, been absent from my mind; and if it will in any way serve
+you, you may crumple me up like that piece of paper, and throw me
+on the fire.  I would love to die for you.'
+
+'Go!' she said.  'Go now at once.  My brain is in a whirl.  I
+scarce know what we are talking.  Go; and good-night; and oh, may
+you come safe!'
+
+Once back in his own room a fearful joy possessed the young man's
+mind; and as he recalled her face struck suddenly white and the
+broken utterance of her last words, his heart at once exulted and
+misgave him.  Love had indeed looked upon him with a tragic mask;
+and yet what mattered, since at least it was love--since at least
+she was commoved at their division?  He got to bed with these
+parti-coloured thoughts; passed from one dream to another all night
+long, the white face of Teresa still haunting him, wrung with
+unspoken thoughts; and in the grey of the dawn, leaped suddenly out
+of bed, in a kind of horror.  It was already time for him to rise.
+He dressed, made his breakfast on cold food that had been laid for
+him the night before; and went down to the room of his idol for the
+box.  The door was open; a strange disorder reigned within; the
+furniture all pushed aside, and the centre of the room left bare of
+impediment, as though for the pacing of a creature with a tortured
+mind.  There lay the box, however, and upon the lid a paper with
+these words:  'Harry, I hope to be back before you go.  Teresa.'
+
+He sat down to wait, laying his watch before him on the table.  She
+had called him Harry:  that should be enough, he thought, to fill
+the day with sunshine; and yet somehow the sight of that disordered
+room still poisoned his enjoyment.  The door of the bed-chamber
+stood gaping open; and though he turned aside his eyes as from a
+sacrilege, he could not but observe the bed had not been slept in.
+He was still pondering what this should mean, still trying to
+convince himself that all was well, when the moving needle of his
+watch summoned him to set forth without delay.  He was before all
+things a man of his word; ran round to Southampton Row to fetch a
+cab; and taking the box on the front seat, drove off towards the
+terminus.
+
+The streets were scarcely awake; there was little to amuse the eye;
+and the young man's attention centred on the dumb companion of his
+drive.  A card was nailed upon one side, bearing the
+superscription:  'Miss Doolan, passenger to Dublin.  Glass.  With
+care.'  He thought with a sentimental shock that the fair idol of
+his heart was perhaps driven to adopt the name of Doolan; and as he
+still studied the card, he was aware of a deadly, black depression
+settling steadily upon his spirits.  It was in vain for him to
+contend against the tide; in vain that he shook himself or tried to
+whistle:  the sense of some impending blow was not to be averted.
+He looked out; in the long, empty streets, the cab pursued its way
+without a trace of any follower.  He gave ear; and over and above
+the jolting of the wheels upon the road, he was conscious of a
+certain regular and quiet sound that seemed to issue from the box.
+He put his ear to the cover; at one moment, he seemed to perceive a
+delicate ticking:  the next, the sound was gone, nor could his
+closest hearkening recapture it.  He laughed at himself; but still
+the gloom continued; and it was with more than the common relief of
+an arrival, that he leaped from the cab before the station.
+
+Probably enough on purpose, Teresa had named an hour some thirty
+minutes earlier than needful; and when Harry had given the box into
+the charge of a porter, who sat it on a truck, he proceeded briskly
+to pace the platform.  Presently the bookstall opened; and the
+young man was looking at the books when he was seized by the arm.
+He turned, and, though she was closely veiled, at once recognised
+the Fair Cuban.
+
+'Where is it?' she asked; and the sound of her voice surprised him.
+
+'It?' he said.  'What?'
+
+'The box.  Have it put on a cab instantly.  I am in fearful haste.'
+
+He hurried to obey, marvelling at these changes, but not daring to
+trouble her with questions; and when the cab had been brought
+round, and the box mounted on the front, she passed a little way
+off upon the pavement and beckoned him to follow.
+
+'Now,' said she, still in those mechanical and hushed tones that
+had at first affected him, 'you must go on to Holyhead alone; go on
+board the steamer; and if you see a man in tartan trousers and a
+pink scarf, say to him that all has been put off:  if not,' she
+added, with a sobbing sigh, 'it does not matter.  So, good-bye.'
+
+'Teresa,' said Harry, 'get into your cab, and I will go along with
+you.  You are in some distress, perhaps some danger; and till I
+know the whole, not even you can make me leave you.'
+
+'You will not?' she asked.  'O Harry, it were better!'
+
+'I will not,' said Harry stoutly.
+
+She looked at him for a moment through her veil; took his hand
+suddenly and sharply, but more as if in fear than tenderness; and
+still holding him, walked to the cab-door.
+
+'Where are we to drive?' asked Harry.
+
+'Home, quickly,' she answered; 'double fare!'  And as soon as they
+had both mounted to their places, the vehicle crazily trundled from
+the station.
+
+Teresa leaned back in a corner.  The whole way Harry could perceive
+her tears to flow under her veil; but she vouchsafed no
+explanation.  At the door of the house in Queen Square, both
+alighted; and the cabman lowered the box, which Harry, glad to
+display his strength, received upon his shoulders.
+
+'Let the man take it,' she whispered.  'Let the man take it.'
+
+'I will do no such thing,' said Harry cheerfully; and having paid
+the fare, he followed Teresa through the door which she had opened
+with her key.  The landlady and maid were gone upon their morning
+errands; the house was empty and still; and as the rattling of the
+cab died away down Gloucester Street, and Harry continued to ascend
+the stair with his burthen, he heard close against his shoulders
+the same faint and muffled ticking as before.  The lady, still
+preceding him, opened the door of her room, and helped him to lower
+the box tenderly in the corner by the window.
+
+'And now,' said Harry, 'what is wrong?'
+
+'You will not go away?' she cried, with a sudden break in her voice
+and beating her hands together in the very agony of impatience.  'O
+Harry, Harry, go away!  Oh, go, and leave me to the fate that I
+deserve!'
+
+'The fate?' repeated Harry.  'What is this?'
+
+'No fate,' she resumed.  'I do not know what I am saying.  But I
+wish to be alone.  You may come back this evening, Harry; come
+again when you like; but leave me now, only leave me now!'  And
+then suddenly, 'I have an errand,' she exclaimed; 'you cannot
+refuse me that!'
+
+'No,' replied Harry, 'you have no errand.  You are in grief or
+danger.  Lift your veil and tell me what it is.'
+
+'Then,' she said, with a sudden composure, 'you leave but one
+course open to me.'  And raising the veil, she showed him a
+countenance from which every trace of colour had fled, eyes marred
+with weeping, and a brow on which resolve had conquered fear.
+'Harry,' she began, 'I am not what I seem.'
+
+'You have told me that before,' said Harry, 'several times.'
+
+'O Harry, Harry,' she cried, 'how you shame me!  But this is the
+God's truth.  I am a dangerous and wicked girl.  My name is Clara
+Luxmore.  I was never nearer Cuba than Penzance.  From first to
+last I have cheated and played with you.  And what I am I dare not
+even name to you in words.  Indeed, until to-day, until the
+sleepless watches of last night, I never grasped the depth and
+foulness of my guilt.'
+
+The young man looked upon her aghast.  Then a generous current
+poured along his veins.  'That is all one,' he said.  'If you be
+all you say, you have the greater need of me.'
+
+'Is it possible,' she exclaimed, 'that I have schemed in vain?  And
+will nothing drive you from this house of death?'
+
+'Of death?' he echoed.
+
+'Death!' she cried:  'death!  In that box that you have dragged
+about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at
+the trigger's mercy, the destroying energies of dynamite.'
+
+'My God!' cried Harry.
+
+'Ah!' she continued wildly, 'will you flee now?  At any moment you
+may hear the click that sounds the ruin of this building.  I was
+sure M'Guire was wrong; this morning, before day, I flew to Zero;
+he confirmed my fears; I beheld you, my beloved Harry, fall a
+victim to my own contrivances.  I knew then I loved you--Harry,
+will you go now?  Will you not spare me this unwilling crime?'
+
+Harry remained speechless, his eyes fixed upon the box:  at last he
+turned to her.
+
+'Is it,' he asked hoarsely, 'an infernal machine?'
+
+Her lips formed the word 'Yes,' which her voice refused to utter.
+
+With fearful curiosity, he drew near and bent above the box; in
+that still chamber, the ticking was distinctly audible; and at the
+measured sound, the blood flowed back upon his heart.
+
+'For whom?' he asked.
+
+'What matters it,' she cried, seizing him by the arm.  'If you may
+still be saved, what matter questions?'
+
+'God in heaven!' cried Harry.  'And the Children's Hospital!  At
+whatever cost, this damned contrivance must be stopped!'
+
+'It cannot,' she gasped.  'The power of man cannot avert the blow.
+But you, Harry--you, my beloved--you may still--'
+
+And then from the box that lay so quietly in the corner, a sudden
+catch was audible, like the catch of a clock before it strikes the
+hour.  For one second the two stared at each other with lifted
+brows and stony eyes.  Then Harry, throwing one arm over his face,
+with the other clutched the girl to his breast and staggered
+against the wall.
+
+A dull and startling thud resounded through the room; their eyes
+blinked against the coming horror; and still clinging together like
+drowning people, they fell to the floor.  Then followed a prolonged
+and strident hissing as from the indignant pit; an offensive stench
+seized them by the throat; the room was filled with dense and
+choking fumes.
+
+Presently these began a little to disperse:  and when at length
+they drew themselves, all limp and shaken, to a sitting posture,
+the first object that greeted their vision was the box reposing
+uninjured in its corner, but still leaking little wreaths of vapour
+round the lid.
+
+'Oh, poor Zero!' cried the girl, with a strange sobbing laugh.
+'Alas, poor Zero!  This will break his heart!'
+
+
+
+THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Concluded)
+
+
+
+Somerset ran straight upstairs; the door of the drawing-room,
+contrary to all custom, was unlocked; and bursting in, the young
+man found Zero seated on a sofa in an attitude of singular
+dejection.  Close beside him stood an untasted grog, the mark of
+strong preoccupation.  The room besides was in confusion:  boxes
+had been tumbled to and fro; the floor was strewn with keys and
+other implements; and in the midst of this disorder lay a lady's
+glove.
+
+'I have come,' cried Somerset, 'to make an end of this.  Either you
+will instantly abandon all your schemes, or (cost what it may) I
+will denounce you to the police.'
+
+'Ah!' replied Zero, slowly shaking his head.  'You are too late,
+dear fellow!  I am already at the end of all my hopes, and fallen
+to be a laughing-stock and mockery.  My reading,' he added, with a
+gentle despondency of manner, 'has not been much among romances;
+yet I recall from one a phrase that depicts my present state with
+critical exactitude; and you behold me sitting here "like a burst
+drum."'
+
+'What has befallen you?' cried Somerset.
+
+'My last batch,' returned the plotter wearily, 'like all the
+others, is a hollow mockery and a fraud.  In vain do I combine the
+elements; in vain adjust the springs; and I have now arrived at
+such a pitch of disconsideration that (except yourself, dear
+fellow) I do not know a soul that I can face.  My subordinates
+themselves have turned upon me.  What language have I heard to-day,
+what illiberality of sentiment, what pungency of expression!  She
+came once; I could have pardoned that, for she was moved; but she
+returned, returned to announce to me this crushing blow; and,
+Somerset, she was very inhumane.  Yes, dear fellow, I have drunk a
+bitter cup; the speech of females is remarkable for . . . well,
+well!  Denounce me, if you will; you but denounce the dead.  I am
+extinct.  It is strange how, at this supreme crisis of my life, I
+should be haunted by quotations from works of an inexact and even
+fanciful description; but here,' he added, 'is another:  "Othello's
+occupation's gone."  Yes, dear Somerset, it is gone; I am no more a
+dynamiter; and how, I ask you, after having tasted of these joys,
+am I to condescend to a less glorious life?'
+
+'I cannot describe how you relieve me,' returned Somerset, sitting
+down on one of several boxes that had been drawn out into the
+middle of the floor.  'I had conceived a sort of maudlin toleration
+for your character; I have a great distaste, besides, for anything
+in the nature of a duty; and upon both grounds, your news delights
+me.  But I seem to perceive,' he added, 'a certain sound of ticking
+in this box.'
+
+'Yes,' replied Zero, with the same slow weariness of manner, 'I
+have set several of them going.'
+
+'My God!' cried Somerset, bounding to his feet.
+
+'Machines?'
+
+'Machines!' returned the plotter bitterly.  'Machines indeed!  I
+blush to be their author.  Alas!' he said, burying his face in his
+hands, 'that I should live to say it!'
+
+'Madman!' cried Somerset, shaking him by the arm.  'What am I to
+understand?  Have you, indeed, set these diabolical contrivances in
+motion? and do we stay here to be blown up?'
+
+'"Hoist with his own petard?"' returned the plotter musingly.  'One
+more quotation:  strange!  But indeed my brain is struck with
+numbness.  Yes, dear boy, I have, as you say, put my contrivance in
+motion.  The one on which you are sitting, I have timed for half an
+hour.  Yon other--'
+
+'Half an hour!--' echoed Somerset, dancing with trepidation.
+'Merciful Heavens, in half an hour?'
+
+'Dear fellow, why so much excitement?' inquired Zero.  'My dynamite
+is not more dangerous than toffy; had I an only child, I would give
+it him to play with.  You see this brick?' he continued, lifting a
+cake of the infernal compound from the laboratory-table.  'At a
+touch it should explode, and that with such unconquerable energy as
+should bestrew the square with ruins.  Well now, behold!  I dash it
+on the floor.'
+
+Somerset sprang forward, and with the strength of the very ecstasy
+of terror, wrested the brick from his possession.  'Heavens!' he
+cried, wiping his brow; and then with more care than ever mother
+handled her first-born withal, gingerly transported the explosive
+to the far end of the apartment:  the plotter, his arms once more
+fallen to his side, dispiritedly watching him.
+
+'It was entirely harmless,' he sighed.  'They describe it as
+burning like tobacco.'
+
+'In the name of fortune,' cried Somerset, 'what have I done to you,
+or what have you done to yourself, that you should persist in this
+insane behaviour?  If not for your own sake, then for mine, let us
+depart from this doomed house, where I profess I have not the heart
+to leave you; and then, if you will take my advice, and if your
+determination be sincere, you will instantly quit this city, where
+no further occupation can detain you.'
+
+'Such, dear fellow, was my own design,' replied the plotter.  'I
+have, as you observe, no further business here; and once I have
+packed a little bag, I shall ask you to share a frugal meal, to go
+with me as far as to the station, and see the last of a broken-
+hearted man.  And yet,' he added, looking on the boxes with a
+lingering regret, 'I should have liked to make quite certain.  I
+cannot but suspect my underlings of some mismanagement; it may be
+fond, but yet I cherish that idea:  it may be the weakness of a man
+of science, but yet,' he cried, rising into some energy, 'I will
+never, I cannot if I try, believe that my poor dynamite has had
+fair usage!'
+
+'Five minutes!' said Somerset, glancing with horror at the
+timepiece.  'If you do not instantly buckle to your bag, I leave
+you.'
+
+'A few necessaries,' returned Zero, 'only a few necessaries, dear
+Somerset, and you behold me ready.'
+
+He passed into the bedroom, and after an interval which seemed to
+draw out into eternity for his unfortunate companion, he returned,
+bearing in his hand an open Gladstone bag.  His movements were
+still horribly deliberate, and his eyes lingered gloatingly on his
+dear boxes, as he moved to and fro about the drawing-room,
+gathering a few small trifles.  Last of all, he lifted one of the
+squares of dynamite.
+
+'Put that down!' cried Somerset.  'If what you say be true, you
+have no call to load yourself with that ungodly contraband.'
+
+'Merely a curiosity, dear boy,' he said persuasively, and slipped
+the brick into his bag; 'merely a memento of the past--ah, happy
+past, bright past!  You will not take a touch of spirits? no?  I
+find you very abstemious.  Well,' he added, 'if you have really no
+curiosity to await the event--'
+
+'I!' cried Somerset.  'My blood boils to get away.'
+
+'Well, then,' said Zero, 'I am ready; I would I could say, willing;
+but thus to leave the scene of my sublime endeavours--'
+
+Without further parley, Somerset seized him by the arm, and dragged
+him downstairs; the hall-door shut with a clang on the deserted
+mansion; and still towing his laggardly companion, the young man
+sped across the square in the Oxford Street direction.  They had
+not yet passed the corner of the garden, when they were arrested by
+a dull thud of an extraordinary amplitude of sound, accompanied and
+followed by a shattering fracas.  Somerset turned in time to see
+the mansion rend in twain, vomit forth flames and smoke, and
+instantly collapse into its cellars.  At the same moment, he was
+thrown violently to the ground.  His first glance was towards Zero.
+The plotter had but reeled against the garden rail; he stood there,
+the Gladstone bag clasped tight upon his heart, his whole face
+radiant with relief and gratitude; and the young man heard him
+murmur to himself:  'Nunc dimittis, nunc dimittis!'
+
+The consternation of the populace was indescribable; the whole of
+Golden Square was alive with men, women, and children, running
+wildly to and fro, and like rabbits in a warren, dashing in and out
+of the house doors.  And under favour of this confusion, Somerset
+dragged away the lingering plotter.
+
+'It was grand,' he continued to murmur:  'it was indescribably
+grand.  Ah, green Erin, green Erin, what a day of glory! and oh, my
+calumniated dynamite, how triumphantly hast thou prevailed!'
+
+Suddenly a shade crossed his face; and pausing in the middle of the
+footway, he consulted the dial of his watch.
+
+'Good God!' he cried, 'how mortifying! seven minutes too early!
+The dynamite surpassed my hopes; but the clockwork, fickle
+clockwork, has once more betrayed me.  Alas, can there be no
+success unmixed with failure? and must even this red-letter day be
+chequered by a shadow?'
+
+'Incomparable ass!' said Somerset, 'what have you done?  Blown up
+the house of an unoffending old lady, and the whole earthly
+property of the only person who is fool enough to befriend you!'
+
+'You do not understand these matters,' replied Zero, with an air of
+great dignity.  'This will shake England to the heart.  Gladstone,
+the truculent old man, will quail before the pointing finger of
+revenge.  And now that my dynamite is proved effective--'
+
+'Heavens, you remind me!' ejaculated Somerset.  'That brick in your
+bag must be instantly disposed of.  But how?  If we could throw it
+in the river--'
+
+'A torpedo,' cried Zero, brightening, 'a torpedo in the Thames!
+Superb, dear fellow!  I recognise in you the marks of an
+accomplished anarch.'
+
+'True!' returned Somerset.  'It cannot so be done; and there is no
+help but you must carry it away with you.  Come on, then, and let
+me at once consign you to a train.'
+
+'Nay, nay, dear boy,' protested Zero.  'There is now no call for me
+to leave.  My character is now reinstated; my fame brightens; this
+is the best thing I have done yet; and I see from here the ovations
+that await the author of the Golden Square Atrocity.'
+
+'My young friend,' returned the other, 'I give you your choice.  I
+will either see you safe on board a train or safe in gaol.'
+
+'Somerset, this is unlike you!' said the chymist.  'You surprise
+me, Somerset.'
+
+'I shall considerably more surprise you at the next police office,'
+returned Somerset, with something bordering on rage.  'For on one
+point my mind is settled:  either I see you packed off to America,
+brick and all, or else you dine in prison.'
+
+'You have perhaps neglected one point,' returned the unoffended
+Zero:  'for, speaking as a philosopher, I fail to see what means
+you can employ to force me.  The will, my dear fellow--'
+
+'Now, see here,' interrupted Somerset.  'You are ignorant of
+anything but science, which I can never regard as being truly
+knowledge; I, sir, have studied life; and allow me to inform you
+that I have but to raise my hand and voice--here in this street--
+and the mob--'
+
+'Good God in heaven, Somerset,' cried Zero, turning deadly white
+and stopping in his walk, 'great God in heaven, what words are
+these?  Oh, not in jest, not even in jest, should they be used!
+The brutal mob, the savage passions . . . . Somerset, for God's
+sake, a public-house!'
+
+Somerset considered him with freshly awakened curiosity.  'This is
+very interesting,' said he.  'You recoil from such a death?'
+
+'Who would not?' asked the plotter.
+
+'And to be blown up by dynamite,' inquired the young man,
+'doubtless strikes you as a form of euthanasia?'
+
+'Pardon me,' returned Zero:  'I own, and since I have braved it
+daily in my professional career, I own it even with pride:  it is a
+death unusually distasteful to the mind of man.'
+
+'One more question,' said Somerset:  'you object to Lynch Law?
+why?'
+
+'It is assassination,' said the plotter calmly, but with eyebrows a
+little lifted, as in wonder at the question.
+
+'Shake hands with me,' cried Somerset.  'Thank God, I have now no
+ill-feeling left; and though you cannot conceive how I burn to see
+you on the gallows, I can quite contentedly assist at your
+departure.'
+
+'I do not very clearly take your meaning,' said Zero, 'but I am
+sure you mean kindly.  As to my departure, there is another point
+to be considered.  I have neglected to supply myself with funds; my
+little all has perished in what history will love to relate under
+the name of the Golden Square Atrocity; and without what is
+coarsely if vigorously called stamps, you must be well aware it is
+impossible for me to pass the ocean.'
+
+'For me,' said Somerset, 'you have now ceased to be a man.  You
+have no more claim upon me than a door scraper; but the touching
+confusion of your mind disarms me from extremities.  Until to-day,
+I always thought stupidity was funny; I now know otherwise; and
+when I look upon your idiot face, laughter rises within me like a
+deadly sickness, and the tears spring up into my eyes as bitter as
+blood.  What should this portend?  I begin to doubt; I am losing
+faith in scepticism.  Is it possible,' he cried, in a kind of
+horror of himself--'is it conceivable that I believe in right and
+wrong?  Already I have found myself, with incredulous surprise, to
+be the victim of a prejudice of personal honour.  And must this
+change proceed?  Have you robbed me of my youth?  Must I fall, at
+my time of life, into the Common Banker?  But why should I address
+that head of wood?  Let this suffice.  I dare not let you stay
+among women and children; I lack the courage to denounce you, if by
+any means I may avoid it; you have no money:  well then, take mine,
+and go; and if ever I behold your face after to-day, that day will
+be your last.'
+
+'Under the circumstances,' replied Zero, 'I scarce see my way to
+refuse your offer.  Your expressions may pain, they cannot surprise
+me; I am aware our point of view requires a little training, a
+little moral hygiene, if I may so express it; and one of the points
+that has always charmed me in your character is this delightful
+frankness.  As for the small advance, it shall be remitted you from
+Philadelphia.'
+
+'It shall not,' said Somerset.
+
+'Dear fellow, you do not understand,' returned the plotter.  'I
+shall now be received with fresh confidence by my superiors; and my
+experiments will be no longer hampered by pitiful conditions of the
+purse.'
+
+'What I am now about, sir, is a crime,' replied Somerset; 'and were
+you to roll in wealth like Vanderbilt, I should scorn to be
+reimbursed of money I had so scandalously misapplied.  Take it, and
+keep it.  By George, sir, three days of you have transformed me to
+an ancient Roman.'
+
+With these words, Somerset hailed a passing hansom; and the pair
+were driven rapidly to the railway terminus.  There, an oath having
+been exacted, the money changed hands.
+
+'And now,' said Somerset, 'I have bought back my honour with every
+penny I possess.  And I thank God, though there is nothing before
+me but starvation, I am free from all entanglement with Mr. Zero
+Pumpernickel Jones.'
+
+'To starve?' cried Zero.  'Dear fellow, I cannot endure the
+thought.'
+
+'Take your ticket!' returned Somerset.
+
+'I think you display temper,' said Zero.
+
+'Take your ticket,' reiterated the young man.
+
+'Well,' said the plotter, as he returned, ticket in hand, 'your
+attitude is so strange and painful, that I scarce know if I should
+ask you to shake hands.'
+
+'As a man, no,' replied Somerset; 'but I have no objection to shake
+hands with you, as I might with a pump-well that ran poison or
+bell-fire.'
+
+'This is a very cold parting,' sighed the dynamiter; and still
+followed by Somerset, he began to descend the platform.  This was
+now bustling with passengers; the train for Liverpool was just
+about to start, another had but recently arrived; and the double
+tide made movement difficult.  As the pair reached the
+neighbourhood of the bookstall, however, they came into an open
+space; and here the attention of the plotter was attracted by a
+Standard broadside bearing the words:  'Second Edition:  Explosion
+in Golden Square.'  His eye lighted; groping in his pocket for the
+necessary coin, he sprang forward--his bag knocked sharply on the
+corner of the stall--and instantly, with a formidable report, the
+dynamite exploded.  When the smoke cleared away the stall was seen
+much shattered, and the stall keeper running forth in terror from
+the ruins; but of the Irish patriot or the Gladstone bag no
+adequate remains were to be found.
+
+In the first scramble of the alarm, Somerset made good his escape,
+and came out upon the Euston Road, his head spinning, his body sick
+with hunger, and his pockets destitute of coin.  Yet as he
+continued to walk the pavements, he wondered to find in his heart a
+sort of peaceful exultation, a great content, a sense, as it were,
+of divine presence and the kindliness of fate; and he was able to
+tell himself that even if the worst befell, he could now starve
+with a certain comfort since Zero was expunged.
+
+Late in the afternoon, he found himself at the door of Mr. Godall's
+shop; and being quite unmanned by his long fast, and scarce
+considering what he did, he opened the glass door and entered.
+
+'Ha!' said Mr. Godall, 'Mr. Somerset!  Well, have you met with an
+adventure?  Have you the promised story?  Sit down, if you please;
+suffer me to choose you a cigar of my own special brand; and reward
+me with a narrative in your best style.'
+
+'I must not take a cigar,' said Somerset.
+
+'Indeed!' said Mr. Godall.  'But now I come to look at you more
+closely, I perceive that you are changed.  My poor boy, I hope
+there is nothing wrong?'
+
+Somerset burst into tears.
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN
+
+
+
+On a certain day of lashing rain in the December of last year, and
+between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, Mr. Edward
+Challoner pioneered himself under an umbrella to the door of the
+Cigar Divan in Rupert Street.  It was a place he had visited but
+once before:  the memory of what had followed on that visit and the
+fear of Somerset having prevented his return.  Even now, he looked
+in before he entered; but the shop was free of customers.
+
+The young man behind the counter was so intently writing in a penny
+version-book, that he paid no heed to Challoner's arrival.  On a
+second glance, it seemed to the latter that he recognised him.
+
+'By Jove,' he thought, 'unquestionably Somerset!'
+
+And though this was the very man he had been so sedulously careful
+to avoid, his unexplained position at the receipt of custom changed
+distaste to curiosity.
+
+'"Or opulent rotunda strike the sky,"' said the shopman to himself,
+in the tone of one considering a verse.  'I suppose it would be too
+much to say "orotunda," and yet how noble it were!  "Or opulent
+orotunda strike the sky."  But that is the bitterness of arts; you
+see a good effect, and some nonsense about sense continually
+intervenes.'
+
+'Somerset, my dear fellow,' said Challoner, 'is this a masquerade?'
+
+'What?  Challoner!' cried the shopman.  'I am delighted to see you.
+One moment, till I finish the octave of my sonnet:  only the
+octave.'  And with a friendly waggle of the hand, he once more
+buried himself in the commerce of the Muses.  'I say,' he said
+presently, looking up, 'you seem in wonderful preservation:  how
+about the hundred pounds?'
+
+'I have made a small inheritance from a great aunt in Wales,'
+replied Challoner modestly.
+
+'Ah,' said Somerset, 'I very much doubt the legitimacy of
+inheritance.  The State, in my view, should collar it.  I am now
+going through a stage of socialism and poetry,' he added
+apologetically, as one who spoke of a course of medicinal waters.
+
+'And are you really the person of the--establishment?' inquired
+Challoner, deftly evading the word 'shop.'
+
+'A vendor, sir, a vendor,' returned the other, pocketing his poesy.
+'I help old Happy and Glorious.  Can I offer you a weed?'
+
+'Well, I scarcely like . . . ' began Challoner.
+
+'Nonsense, my dear fellow,' cried the shopman.  'We are very proud
+of the business; and the old man, let me inform you, besides being
+the most egregious of created beings from the point of view of
+ethics, is literally sprung from the loins of kings.  "De Godall je
+suis le fervent."  There is only one Godall.--By the way,' he
+added, as Challoner lit his cigar, 'how did you get on with the
+detective trade?'
+
+'I did not try,' said Challoner curtly.
+
+'Ah, well, I did,' returned Somerset, 'and made the most
+incomparable mess of it:  lost all my money and fairly covered
+myself with odium and ridicule.  There is more in that business,
+Challoner, than meets the eye; there is more, in fact, in all
+businesses.  You must believe in them, or get up the belief that
+you believe.  Hence,' he added, 'the recognised inferiority of the
+plumber, for no one could believe in plumbing.'
+
+'A propos,' asked Challoner, 'do you still paint?'
+
+'Not now,' replied Paul; 'but I think of taking up the violin.'
+
+Challoner's eye, which had been somewhat restless since the trade
+of the detective had been named, now rested for a moment on the
+columns of the morning paper, where it lay spread upon the counter.
+
+'By Jove,' he cried, 'that's odd!'
+
+'What is odd?' asked Paul.
+
+'Oh, nothing,' returned the other:  'only I once met a person
+called M'Guire.'
+
+'So did I!' cried Somerset.  'Is there anything about him?'
+
+Challoner read as follows:  'MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN STEPNEY.  An
+inquest was held yesterday on the body of Patrick M'Guire,
+described as a carpenter.  Doctor Dovering stated that he had for
+some time treated the deceased as a dispensary patient, for
+sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and nervous depression.  There was
+no cause of death to be found.  He would say the deceased had sunk.
+Deceased was not a temperate man, which doubtless accelerated
+death.  Deceased complained of dumb ague, but witness had never
+been able to detect any positive disease.  He did not know that he
+had any family.  He regarded him as a person of unsound intellect,
+who believed himself a member and the victim of some secret
+society.  If he were to hazard an opinion, he would say deceased
+had died of fear.'
+
+'And the doctor would be right,' cried Somerset; 'and my dear
+Challoner, I am so relieved to hear of his demise, that I will--
+Well, after all,' he added, 'poor devil, he was well served.'
+
+The door at this moment opened, and Desborough appeared upon the
+threshold.  He was wrapped in a long waterproof, imperfectly
+supplied with buttons; his boots were full of water, his hat greasy
+with service; and yet he wore the air of one exceeding well content
+with life.  He was hailed by the two others with exclamations of
+surprise and welcome.
+
+'And did you try the detective business?' inquired Paul.
+
+'No,' returned Harry.  'Oh yes, by the way, I did though:  twice,
+and got caught out both times.  But I thought I should find my--my
+wife here?' he added, with a kind of proud confusion.
+
+'What? are you married?' cried Somerset.
+
+'Oh yes,' said Harry, 'quite a long time:  a month at least.'
+
+'Money?' asked Challoner.
+
+'That's the worst of it,' Desborough admitted.  'We are deadly hard
+up.  But the Pri--- Mr. Godall is going to do something for us.
+That is what brings us here.'
+
+'Who was Mrs. Desborough?' said Challoner, in the tone of a man of
+society.
+
+'She was a Miss Luxmore,' returned Harry.  'You fellows will be
+sure to like her, for she is much cleverer than I.  She tells
+wonderful stories, too; better than a book.'
+
+And just then the door opened, and Mrs. Desborough entered.
+Somerset cried out aloud to recognise the young lady of the
+Superfluous Mansion, and Challoner fell back a step and dropped his
+cigar as he beheld the sorceress of Chelsea.
+
+'What!' cried Harry, 'do you both know my wife?'
+
+'I believe I have seen her,' said Somerset, a little wildly.
+
+'I think I have met the gentleman,' said Mrs. Desborough sweetly;
+'but I cannot imagine where it was.'
+
+'Oh no,' cried Somerset fervently:  'I have no notion--I cannot
+conceive--where it could have been.  Indeed,' he continued, growing
+in emphasis, 'I think it highly probable that it's a mistake.'
+
+'And you, Challoner?' asked Harry, 'you seemed to recognise her
+too.'
+
+'These are both friends of yours, Harry?' said the lady.
+'Delighted, I am sure.  I do not remember to have met Mr.
+Challoner.'
+
+Challoner was very red in the face, perhaps from having groped
+after his cigar.  'I do not remember to have had the pleasure,' he
+responded huskily.
+
+'Well, and Mr. Godall?' asked Mrs. Desborough.
+
+'Are you the lady that has an appointment with old--' began
+Somerset, and paused blushing.  'Because if so,' he resumed, 'I was
+to announce you at once.'
+
+And the shopman raised a curtain, opened a door, and passed into a
+small pavilion which had been added to the back of the house.  On
+the roof, the rain resounded musically.  The walls were lined with
+maps and prints and a few works of reference.  Upon a table was a
+large-scale map of Egypt and the Soudan, and another of Tonkin, on
+which, by the aid of coloured pins, the progress of the different
+wars was being followed day by day.  A light, refreshing odour of
+the most delicate tobacco hung upon the air; and a fire, not of
+foul coal, but of clear-flaming resinous billets, chattered upon
+silver dogs.  In this elegant and plain apartment, Mr. Godall sat
+in a morning muse, placidly gazing at the fire and hearkening to
+the rain upon the roof.
+
+'Ha, my dear Mr. Somerset,' said he, 'and have you since last night
+adopted any fresh political principle?'
+
+'The lady, sir,' said Somerset, with another blush.
+
+'You have seen her, I believe?' returned Mr. Godall; and on
+Somerset's replying in the affirmative, 'You will excuse me, my
+dear sir,' he resumed, 'if I offer you a hint.  I think it not
+improbable this lady may desire entirely to forget the past.  From
+one gentleman to another, no more words are necessary.'
+
+A moment after, he had received Mrs. Desborough with that grave and
+touching urbanity that so well became him.
+
+'I am pleased, madam, to welcome you to my poor house,' he said;
+'and shall be still more so, if what were else a barren courtesy
+and a pleasure personal to myself, shall prove to be of serious
+benefit to you and Mr. Desborough.'
+
+'Your Highness,' replied Clara, 'I must begin with thanks; it is
+like what I have heard of you, that you should thus take up the
+case of the unfortunate; and as for my Harry, he is worthy of all
+that you can do.'  She paused.
+
+'But for yourself?' suggested Mr. Godall--'it was thus you were
+about to continue, I believe.'
+
+'You take the words out of my mouth,' she said.  'For myself, it is
+different.'
+
+'I am not here to be a judge of men,' replied the Prince; 'still
+less of women.  I am now a private person like yourself and many
+million others; but I am one who still fights upon the side of
+quiet.  Now, madam, you know better than I, and God better than
+you, what you have done to mankind in the past; I pause not to
+inquire; it is with the future I concern myself, it is for the
+future I demand security.  I would not willingly put arms into the
+hands of a disloyal combatant; and I dare not restore to wealth one
+of the levyers of a private and a barbarous war.  I speak with some
+severity, and yet I pick my terms.  I tell myself continually that
+you are a woman; and a voice continually reminds me of the children
+whose lives and limbs you have endangered.  A woman,' he repeated
+solemnly--'and children.  Possibly, madam, when you are yourself a
+mother, you will feel the bite of that antithesis:  possibly when
+you kneel at night beside a cradle, a fear will fall upon you,
+heavier than any shame; and when your child lies in the pain and
+danger of disease, you shall hesitate to kneel before your Maker.'
+
+'You look at the fault,' she said, 'and not at the excuse.  Has
+your own heart never leaped within you at some story of oppression?
+But, alas, no! for you were born upon a throne.'
+
+'I was born of woman,' said the Prince; 'I came forth from my
+mother's agony, helpless as a wren, like other nurselings.  This,
+which you forgot, I have still faithfully remembered.  Is it not
+one of your English poets, that looked abroad upon the earth and
+saw vast circumvallations, innumerable troops manoeuvring, warships
+at sea and a great dust of battles on shore; and casting anxiously
+about for what should be the cause of so many and painful
+preparations, spied at last, in the centre of all, a mother and her
+babe?  These, madam, are my politics; and the verses, which are by
+Mr. Coventry Patmore, I have caused to be translated into the
+Bohemian tongue.  Yes, these are my politics:  to change what we
+can, to better what we can; but still to bear in mind that man is
+but a devil weakly fettered by some generous beliefs and
+impositions, and for no word however nobly sounding, and no cause
+however just and pious, to relax the stricture of these bonds.'
+
+There was a silence of a moment.
+
+'I fear, madam,' resumed the Prince, 'that I but weary you.  My
+views are formal like myself; and like myself, they also begin to
+grow old.  But I must still trouble you for some reply.'
+
+'I can say but one thing,' said Mrs. Desborough:  'I love my
+husband.'
+
+'It is a good answer,' returned the Prince; 'and you name a good
+influence, but one that need not be conterminous with life.'
+
+'I will not play at pride with such a man as you,' she answered.
+'What do you ask of me? not protestations, I am sure.  What shall I
+say?  I have done much that I cannot defend and that I would not do
+again.  Can I say more?  Yes:  I can say this:  I never abused
+myself with the muddle-headed fairy tales of politics.  I was at
+least prepared to meet reprisals.  While I was levying war myself--
+or levying murder, if you choose the plainer term--I never accused
+my adversaries of assassination.  I never felt or feigned a
+righteous horror, when a price was put upon my life by those whom I
+attacked.  I never called the policeman a hireling.  I may have
+been a criminal, in short; but I never was a fool.'
+
+'Enough, madam,' returned the Prince:  'more than enough!  Your
+words are most reviving to my spirits; for in this age, when even
+the assassin is a sentimentalist, there is no virtue greater in my
+eyes than intellectual clarity.  Suffer me, then, to ask you to
+retire; for by the signal of that bell, I perceive my old friend,
+your mother, to be close at hand.  With her I promise you to do my
+utmost.'
+
+And as Mrs. Desborough returned to the Divan, the Prince, opening a
+door upon the other side, admitted Mrs. Luxmore.
+
+'Madam and my very good friend,' said he, 'is my face so much
+changed that you no longer recognise Prince Florizel in Mr.
+Godall?'
+
+'To be sure!' she cried, looking at him through her glasses.  'I
+have always regarded your Highness as a perfect man; and in your
+altered circumstances, of which I have already heard with deep
+regret, I will beg you to consider my respect increased instead of
+lessened.'
+
+'I have found it so,' returned the Prince, 'with every class of my
+acquaintance.  But, madam, I pray you to be seated.  My business is
+of a delicate order, and regards your daughter.'
+
+'In that case,' said Mrs. Luxmore, 'you may save yourself the
+trouble of speaking, for I have fully made up my mind to have
+nothing to do with her.  I will not hear one word in her defence;
+but as I value nothing so particularly as the virtue of justice, I
+think it my duty to explain to you the grounds of my complaint.
+She deserted me, her natural protector; for years, she has
+consorted with the most disreputable persons; and to fill the cup
+of her offence, she has recently married.  I refuse to see her, or
+the being to whom she has linked herself.  One hundred and twenty
+pounds a year, I have always offered her:  I offer it again.  It is
+what I had myself when I was her age.'
+
+'Very well, madam,' said the Prince; 'and be that so!  But to touch
+upon another matter:  what was the income of the Reverend Bernard
+Fanshawe?'
+
+'My father?' asked the spirited old lady.  'I believe he had seven
+hundred pounds in the year.'
+
+'You were one, I think, of several?' pursued the Prince.
+
+'Of four,' was the reply.  'We were four daughters; and painful as
+the admission is to make, a more detestable family could scarce be
+found in England.'
+
+'Dear me!' said the Prince.  'And you, madam, have an income of
+eight thousand?'
+
+'Not more than five,' returned the old lady; 'but where on earth
+are you conducting me?'
+
+'To an allowance of one thousand pounds a year,' replied Florizel,
+smiling.  'For I must not suffer you to take your father for a
+rule.  He was poor, you are rich.  He had many calls upon his
+poverty:  there are none upon your wealth.  And indeed, madam, if
+you will let me touch this matter with a needle, there is but one
+point in common to your two positions:  that each had a daughter
+more remarkable for liveliness than duty.'
+
+'I have been entrapped into this house,' said the old lady, getting
+to her feet.  'But it shall not avail.  Not all the tobacconists in
+Europe . . .'
+
+'Ah, madam,' interrupted Florizel, 'before what is referred to as
+my fall, you had not used such language!  And since you so much
+object to the simple industry by which I live, let me give you a
+friendly hint.  If you will not consent to support your daughter, I
+shall be constrained to place that lady behind my counter, where I
+doubt not she would prove a great attraction; and your son-in-law
+shall have a livery and run the errands.  With such young blood my
+business might be doubled, and I might be bound in common gratitude
+to place the name of Luxmore beside that of Godall.'
+
+'Your Highness,' said the old lady, 'I have been very rude, and you
+are very cunning.  I suppose the minx is on the premises.  Produce
+her.'
+
+'Let us rather observe them unperceived,' said the Prince; and so
+saying he rose and quietly drew back the curtain.
+
+Mrs. Desborough sat with her back to them on a chair; Somerset and
+Harry were hanging on her words with extraordinary interest;
+Challoner, alleging some affair, had long ago withdrawn from the
+detested neighbourhood of the enchantress.
+
+'At that moment,' Mrs. Desborough was saying, 'Mr Gladstone
+detected the features of his cowardly assailant.  A cry rose to his
+lips:  a cry of mingled triumph . . .'
+
+'That is Mr. Somerset!' interrupted the spirited old lady, in the
+highest note of her register.  'Mr. Somerset, what have you done
+with my house-property?'
+
+'Madam,' said the Prince, 'let it be mine to give the explanation;
+and in the meanwhile, welcome your daughter.'
+
+'Well, Clara, how do you do?' said Mrs. Luxmore.  'It appears I am
+to give you an allowance.  So much the better for you.  As for Mr.
+Somerset, I am very ready to have an explanation; for the whole
+affair, though costly, was eminently humorous.  And at any rate,'
+she added, nodding to Paul, 'he is a young gentleman for whom I
+have a great affection, and his pictures were the funniest I ever
+saw.'
+
+'I have ordered a collation,' said the Prince.  'Mr. Somerset, as
+these are all your friends, I propose, if you please, that you
+should join them at table.  I will take the shop.'
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1}  Hereupon the Arabian author enters on one of his digressions.
+Fearing, apparently, that the somewhat eccentric views of Mr.
+Somerset should throw discredit on a part of truth, he calls upon
+the English people to remember with more gratitude the services of
+the police; to what unobserved and solitary acts of heroism they
+are called; against what odds of numbers and of arms, and for how
+small a reward, either in fame or money:  matter, it has appeared
+to the translators, too serious for this place.
+
+{2}  In this name the accent falls upon the E; the S is sibilant.
+
+{3}  The Arabian author of the original has here a long passage
+conceived in a style too oriental for the English reader.  We
+subjoin a specimen, and it seems doubtful whether it should be
+printed as prose or verse:  'Any writard who writes dynamitard
+shall find in me a never-resting fightard;' and he goes on (if we
+correctly gather his meaning) to object to such elegant and
+obviously correct spellings as lamp-lightard, corn-dealard, apple-
+filchard (clearly justified by the parallel--pilchard) and opera
+dancard.  'Dynamitist,' he adds, 'I could understand.'
+
+{4}  The Arabian author, with that quaint particularity of touch
+which our translation usually praetermits, here registers a
+somewhat interesting detail.  Zero pronounced the word 'boom;' and
+the reader, if but for the nonce, will possibly consent to follow
+him.
+
+
+
+
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