diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/69297-h/69297-h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69297-h/69297-h.htm | 5343 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 5343 deletions
diff --git a/old/69297-h/69297-h.htm b/old/69297-h/69297-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 24b441e..0000000 --- a/old/69297-h/69297-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5343 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html> -<html lang="en"> -<head> - <meta charset="UTF-8"> - <title> - Tales for Christmas Eve, by Rhoda Broughton—A Project Gutenberg eBook - </title> - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> - <style> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2,h3 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} -hr.tiny {width: 10%; margin-left: 45%; margin-right: 45%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} -h3.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - -.tdr {text-align: right;} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; - font-weight: normal; - font-variant: normal; - text-indent: 0; -} - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -.x-ebookmaker .blockquot { - margin-left: 7.5%; - margin-right: 7.5%; -} - -.indentright {margin-right: 6em;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - -.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} - -.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} -.ph2 {text-align: center; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;} - -div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} -div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} - -.xxlarge {font-size: 175%;} -.large {font-size: 125%;} - -.x-ebookmaker .hide {display: none; visibility: hidden;} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; - page-break-inside: avoid; - max-width: 100%; -} - -.poetry-container {text-align: center;} -.poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} -.poetry .verse {text-indent: -2.5em; padding-left: 3em;} -.poetry .indent {text-indent: 1.5em;} -.poetry .first {text-indent: -3.3em; padding-left: 3em;} -.poetry .first2 {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} -@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } -.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block; margin-left: 1.5em;} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; - padding: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - -</style> -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tales for Christmas Eve, by Rhoda Broughton</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Tales for Christmas Eve</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Rhoda Broughton</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 5, 2022 [eBook #69297]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FOR CHRISTMAS EVE ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h1>TALES FOR CHRISTMAS EVE.</h1> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt=""></div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> -<div class="titlepage"> -<p><span class="xxlarge">TALES</span><br> - -FOR<br> - -<span class="xxlarge">CHRISTMAS EVE.</span></p> - -<p>BY<br> - -<span class="large">RHODA BROUGHTON,</span><br> - -AUTHOR OF<br> - -“COMETH UP AS A FLOWER,”<br> - -ETC., ETC.</p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt=""></div> - -<p>LONDON:<br> - -<span class="large">RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON.</span><br> - -1873.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2> -</div> - -<table> - -<tr><td class="tdr" colspan="2"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH       </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1"> 1</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>THE MAN WITH THE NOSE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33"> 33</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>BEHOLD IT WAS A DREAM!</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_83"> 83</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>POOR PRETTY BOBBY</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_131"> 131</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td>UNDER THE CLOAK</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_191"> 191</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND<br> -NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> -<p class="ph2">THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH,<br> - -<small>AND</small><br> - -<small>NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.</small></p> - -<hr class="tiny"> - -<h3 class="nobreak">MRS. DE WYNT TO MRS. MONTRESOR.</h3> -</div> - -<p class="right">“18, <span class="smcap">Eccleston Square</span>,<br> -“<i>May 5th.</i>      </p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My Dearest Cecilia</span>,</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Talk</span> of the friendships of Orestes and -Pylades, of Julie and Claire, what are they to -ours? Did Pylades ever go <i>ventre à terre</i>, -half over London on a day more broiling than -any but an <i>âme damnée</i> could even imagine, in -order that Orestes might be comfortably housed -for the season? Did Claire ever hold sweet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> -converse with from fifty to one hundred house -agents, in order that Julie might have three -windows to her drawing-room and a pretty -<i>portière</i>? You see I am determined not to be -done out of my full meed of gratitude.</p> - -<p>“Well, my friend, I had no idea till yesterday -how closely we were packed in this great -smoky bee-hive, as tightly as herrings in a -barrel. Don’t be frightened, however. By -dint of squeezing and crowding, we have -managed to make room for two more herrings -in our barrel, and those two are yourself and -your other self, <i>i.e.</i> your husband. Let me -begin at the beginning. After having looked -over, I verily believe, every undesirable residence -in West London; after having seen nothing -intermediate between what was suited -to the means of a duke, and what was suited -to the needs of a chimney-sweep; after having -felt bed-ticking, and explored kitchen-ranges -till my brain reeled under my accumulated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> -experience, I arrived at about half-past five -yesterday afternoon at 32, —— Street, May -Fair.</p> - -<p>“‘Failure No. 253, I don’t doubt,’ I said to -myself, as I toiled up the steps with my soul -athirst for afternoon tea, and feeling as ill-tempered -as you please. So much for my spirit of -prophecy. Fate, I have noticed, is often fond of -contradicting us flat, and giving the lie to our -little predictions. Once inside, I thought I had -got into a small compartment of Heaven by -mistake. Fresh as a daisy, clean as a cherry, -bright as a seraph’s face, it is all these, and a -hundred more, only that my limited stock of -similes is exhausted. Two drawing-rooms as -pretty as ever woman crammed with people she -did not care two straws about; white curtains -with rose-coloured ones underneath, festooned -in the sweetest way; marvellously, <i>immorally</i> -becoming, my dear, as I ascertained entirely for -your benefit, in the mirrors, of which there are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> -about a dozen and a half; Persian mats, easy-chairs, -and lounges suited to every possible physical -conformation, from the Apollo Belvedere -to Miss Biffin; and a thousand of the important -little trivialities that make up the sum of a -woman’s life: ormolu garden gates, handleless -cups, naked boys and décolleté shepherdesses; -not to speak of a family of china pugs, with -blue ribbons round their necks, which ought of -themselves to have added fifty pounds a year -to the rent. Apropos, I asked, in fear and -trembling, what the rent might be—‘three -hundred pounds a year.’ A feather would -have knocked me down. I could hardly believe -my ears, and made the woman repeat it -several times, that there might be no mistake. -To this hour it is a mystery to me.</p> - -<p>“With that suspiciousness which is so -characteristic of you, you will immediately -begin to hint that there must be some terrible -unaccountable smell, or some odious inexplicable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> -noise haunting the reception rooms. Nothing -of the kind, the woman assured me, and -she did not look as if she were telling stories. -You will next suggest—remembering the rose-coloured -curtains—that its last occupant was -a member of the demi-monde. Wrong again. -Its last occupant was an elderly and unexceptionable -Indian officer, without a liver, and -with a most lawful wife. They did not stay -long, it is true, but then, as the housekeeper -told me, he was a deplorable old hypochondriac, -who never could bear to stay a fortnight in any -one place. So lay aside that scepticism, which -is your besetting sin, and give unfeigned thanks -to St. Brigitta, or St. Gengulpha, or St. Catherine -of Sienna, or whoever is your tutelar saint, -for having provided you with a palace at -the cost of a hovel, and for having sent you -such an invaluable friend as</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Your attached</span><br> -“<span class="smcap">Elizabeth De Wynt</span>.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>“P.S.—I am so sorry I shall not be in town -to witness your first raptures, but dear Artie -looks so pale and thin and tall after the hooping-cough, -that I am sending him off at once -to the sea, and as I cannot bear the child out -of my sight, I am going into banishment likewise.”</p> - -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span></p> - -<h3 class="nobreak">MRS. MONTRESOR TO MRS. DE WYNT.</h3> -</div> - -<p class="right">“32, —— <span class="smcap">Street, May Fair</span>,<br> -“<i>May 14th</i>.      </p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Dearest Bessy</span>,</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Why</span> did not dear little Artie defer his -hooping-cough convalescence, &c., till August? -It is very odd, to me, the perverse way in -which children always fix upon the most inconvenient -times and seasons for their diseases. -Here we are installed in our Paradise, and -have searched high and low, in every hole -and corner, for the serpent, without succeeding -in catching a glimpse of his spotted tail. Most -things in this world are disappointing, but 32, -—— Street, May Fair, is not. The mystery of -the rent is still a mystery. I have been for my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> -first ride in the row this morning: my horse -was a little fidgety; I am half afraid that my -nerve is not what it was. I saw heaps of people -I knew. Do you recollect Florence Watson? -What a wealth of red hair she had last year! -Well, that same wealth is black as the raven’s -wing this year! I wonder how people can -make such walking impositions of themselves, -don’t you? Adela comes to us next week; I -am so glad. It is dull driving by oneself of an -afternoon; and I always think that one young -woman alone in a brougham, or with only a -dog beside her, does not look <i>good</i>. We sent -round our cards a fortnight before we came up, -and have been already deluged with callers. -Considering that we have been two years -exiled from civilized life, and that London -memories are not generally of the longest, we -shall do pretty well, I think. Ralph Gordon -came to see me on Sunday; he is in the ——th -Hussars now. He has grown up such a <i>dear</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> -fellow, and so good-looking! Just my style, -large and fair and whiskerless! Most men -nowadays make themselves as like monkeys, -or Scotch terriers, as they possibly can. I -intend to be quite a <i>mother</i> to him. Dresses -are gored to as <i>indecent</i> an extent as ever; -short skirts are rampant. I am so sorry; I -hate them. They make tall women look <i>lank</i>, -and short ones insignificant. A knock! Peace -is a word that might as well be expunged from -ones London dictionary.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Yours affectionately,</span><br> -“<span class="smcap">Cecilia Montresor</span>.”</p> - -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">MRS. DE WYNT TO MRS. MONTRESOR.</h3> -</div> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">The Lord Warden, Dover</span>,<br> -“<i>May 18th</i>.      </p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Dearest Cecilia</span>,</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">You</span> will perceive that I am about to -devote only one small sheet of note-paper to -you. This is from no dearth of time, Heaven -knows! time is a drug in the market here, -but from a total dearth of ideas. Any ideas -that I ever have, come to me from without, -from external objects; I am not clever enough -to generate any within myself. My life here is -not an eminently suggestive one. It is spent -in digging with a wooden spade, and eating -prawns. Those are my employments, at least; -my relaxation is going down to the Pier, to see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span> -the Calais boat come in. When one is miserable -oneself, it is decidedly consolatory to see -some one more miserable still; and wretched -and bored, and reluctant vegetable as I am, -I am not <i>sea-sick</i>. I always feel my spirits -rise after having seen that peevish, draggled -procession of blue, green and yellow fellow-Christians -file past me. There is a wind here -<i>always</i>, in comparison of which the wind that -behaved so violently to the corners of Job’s -house was a mere zephyr. There are heights -to climb which require more daring perseverance -than ever Wolfe displayed, with his -paltry heights of Abraham. There are glaring -white houses, glaring white roads, glaring -white cliffs. If any one knew how unpatriotically -I detest the chalk-cliffs of Albion! -Having grumbled through my two little pages—I -have actually been reduced to writing very -large in order to fill even them—I will send off -my dreary little billet. How I wish I could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> -get into the envelope myself too, and whirl up -with it to dear, beautiful, filthy London. Not -more heavily could Madame de Staël have -sighed for Paris from among the shades of -Coppet.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Your disconsolate</span><br> -“<span class="smcap">Bessy</span>.”</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">MRS. MONTRESOR TO MRS. DE WYNT.</h3> -</div> - -<p class="right">“32, —— <span class="smcap">Street, May Fair</span>,<br> -“<i>May 27th</i>.      </p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Oh</span>, my dearest Bessy, how I wish we -were out of this dreadful, dreadful house! -Please don’t think me very ungrateful for saying -this, after your taking such pains to provide -us with a Heaven upon earth, as you -thought.</p> - -<p>“What has happened could, of course, have -been neither foretold, nor guarded against, by -any human being. About ten days ago, Benson -(my maid) came to me with a very long -face, and said, ‘If you please, ’m, did you -know that this house was <i>haunted</i>?’ I was <i>so</i> -startled: you know what a coward I am. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> -said, ‘Good Heavens! No! is it?’ ‘Well, -’m, I’m pretty nigh sure it is,’ she said, and -the expression of her countenance was about -as lively as an undertaker’s; and then she -told me that cook had been that morning to -order in groceries from a shop in the neighbourhood, -and on her giving the man the -direction where to send the things to, he had -said, with a very peculiar smile, ‘No. 32, —— -Street, eh? h’m? I wonder how long <i>you</i>’ll -stand it; last lot held out just a fortnight.’ -He looked so odd that she asked him what he -meant, but he only said, ‘Oh! nothing; only -that parties never <i>did</i> stay long at 32. He -had known parties go in one day, and out the -next, and during the last four years he had -never known any remain over the month.’ -Feeling a good deal alarmed by this information, -she naturally inquired the reason; but -he declined to give it, saying that if she had -not found it out for herself, she had much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> -better leave it alone, as it would only frighten -her out of her wits; and on her insisting and -urging him, she could only extract from him, -that the house had such a villanously bad -name, that the owners were glad to let it for a -mere song. You know how firmly I believe -in apparitions, and what an unutterable fear I -have of them; anything material, tangible, -that I can lay hold of—anything of the same -fibre, blood, and bone as myself, I could, I -think, confront bravely enough; but the mere -thought of being brought face to face with the -‘bodiless dead,’ makes my brain unsteady. -The moment Henry came in, I ran to him, and -told him; but he pooh-poohed the whole -story, laughed at me, and asked whether we -should turn out of the prettiest house in -London, at the very height of the season, -because a grocer said it had a bad name. -Most good things that had ever been in the -world had had a bad name in their day; and,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> -moreover, the man had probably a motive for -taking away the house’s character, some -friend for whom he coveted the charming -situation and the low rent. He derided my -‘babyish fears,’ as he called them, to such an -extent that I felt half ashamed, and yet not -quite comfortable, either; and then came the -usual rush of London engagements, during -which one has no time to think of anything -but how to speak, and act, and look for the -moment then present. Adela was to arrive -yesterday, and in the morning our weekly -hamper of flowers, fruit, and vegetables -arrived from home. I always dress the flower-vases -myself, servants are so tasteless; and as -I was arranging them, it occurred to me—you -know Adela’s passion for flowers—to carry -up one particular cornucopia of roses and -mignonette and set it on her toilet-table, as a -pleasant surprise for her. As I came downstairs, -I had seen the housemaid—a fresh,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> -round-faced country girl—go into the room, -which was being prepared for Adela, with a -pair of sheets that she had been airing over -her arm. I went upstairs very slowly, as my -cornucopia was full of water, and I was afraid -of spilling some. I turned the handle of the -bedroom-door and entered, keeping my eyes -fixed on my flowers, to see how they bore the -transit, and whether any of them had fallen -out. Suddenly a sort of shiver passed over -me; and feeling frightened—I did not know -why—I looked up quickly. The girl was -standing by the bed, leaning forward a little -with her hands clenched in each other, rigid, -every nerve tense; her eyes, wide open, starting -out of her head, and a look of unutterable -stony horror in them; her cheeks and mouth -not pale, but livid as those of one that died -awhile ago in mortal pain. As I looked at -her, her lips moved a little, and an awful -hoarse voice, not like hers in the least, said,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> -‘Oh! my God, I have seen it!’ and then she -fell down suddenly, like a log, with a heavy -noise. Hearing the noise, loudly audible all -through the thin walls and floors of a London -house, Benson came running in, and between -us we managed to lift her on to the bed, and -tried to bring her to herself by rubbing her -feet and hands, and holding strong salts to her -nostrils. And all the while we kept glancing -over our shoulders, in a vague cold terror of -seeing some awful, shapeless apparition. Two -long hours she lay in a state of utter unconsciousness. -Meanwhile Harry, who had been -down to his club, returned. At the end of the -two hours we succeeded in bringing her back -to sensation and life, but only to make the -awful discovery that she was raving mad. -She became so violent that it required all the -combined strength of Harry and Phillips (our -butler) to hold her down in the bed. Of -course, we sent off instantly for a doctor, who,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> -on her growing a little calmer towards evening, -removed her in a cab to his own house. -He has just been here to tell me that she is -now pretty quiet, not from any return to -sanity, but from sheer exhaustion. We are, of -course, utterly in the dark as to <i>what</i> she saw, -and her ravings are far too disconnected and -unintelligible to afford us the slightest clue. I -feel so completely shattered and upset by this -awful occurrence, that you will excuse me, -dear, I’m sure, if I write incoherently. One -thing, I need hardly tell you, and that is, that -no earthly consideration would induce me to -allow Adela to occupy that terrible room. I -shudder and run by quickly as I pass the door.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Yours, in great agitation,</span><br> -“<span class="smcap">Cecilia</span>.”</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">MRS. DE WYNT TO MRS. MONTRESOR.</h3> -</div> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">The Lord Warden, Dover</span>,<br> -“<i>May 28th</i>.      </p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Dearest Cecilia</span>,</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Yours</span> just come; how very dreadful! -But I am still unconvinced as to the house -being in fault. You know I feel a sort of -godmother to it, and responsible for its good -behaviour. Don’t you think that what the -girl had might have been a fit? Why not? -I myself have a cousin who is subject to -seizures of the kind, and immediately on -being attacked his whole body becomes rigid, -his eyes glassy and staring, his complexion -livid, exactly as in the case you describe. Or, -if not a fit, are you sure that she has not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> -been subject to fits of madness? <i>Please</i> be -sure and ascertain whether there is not -insanity in her family. It is so common -nowadays, and so much on the increase, that -nothing is more likely. You know my utter -disbelief in ghosts. I am convinced that -most of them, if run to earth, would turn -out about as genuine as the famed Cock Lane -one. But even allowing the possibility, nay, -the actual unquestioned existence of ghosts in -the abstract, is it likely that there should be -anything to be seen so horribly fear-inspiring, -as to send a perfectly sane person <i>in one -instant</i> raving mad, which you, after three -weeks’ residence in the house, have never -caught a glimpse of? According to your -hypothesis, your whole household ought, by -this time, to be stark, staring mad. Let me -implore you not to give way to a panic which -may, possibly, probably prove utterly groundless. -Oh, how I wish I were with you, to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> -make you listen to reason! Artie ought to -be the best prop ever woman’s old age was -furnished with, to indemnify me for all he -and his hooping-cough have made me suffer. -Write immediately, please, and tell me how -the poor patient progresses. Oh, had I the -wings of a dove! I shall be on wires till I -hear again.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Yours,</span><br> -“<span class="smcap">Bessy</span>.”</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">MRS. MONTRESOR TO MRS. DE WYNT.</h3> -</div> - -<p class="right">“<span class="smcap">No. 5, Bolton Street, Piccadilly</span>,<br> -“<i>June 12th</i>.      </p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Dearest Bessy</span>,</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">You</span> will see that we have left that -terrible, hateful, fatal house. How I wish we -had escaped from it sooner! Oh, my dear -Bessy, I shall never be the same woman again -if I live to be a hundred. Let me try to be -coherent, and to tell you connectedly what -has happened. And first, as to the housemaid, -she has been removed to a lunatic -asylum, where she remains in much the -same state. She has had several lucid intervals, -and during them has been closely, pressingly -questioned as to what it was she saw;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -but she has maintained an absolute, hopeless -silence, and only shudders, moans, and hides -her face in her hands when the subject is -broached. Three days ago I went to see her, -and on my return was sitting resting in the -drawing-room, before going to dress for dinner, -talking to Adela about my visit, when -Ralph Gordon walked in. He has always -been walking in the last ten days, and Adela -has always flushed up and looked happy, poor -little cat, whenever he made his appearance. -He looked very handsome, dear fellow, just -come in from the park in a coat that fitted -like a second skin, lavender gloves, and a -gardenia. He seemed in tremendous spirits, -and was as sceptical as even you could be, as -to the ghostly origin of Sarah’s seizure. ‘Let -me come here to-night and sleep in that -room; <i>do</i>, Mrs. Montresor,’ he said, looking -very eager and excited, ‘with the gas lit and -a poker, I’ll engage to exorcise every demon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> -that shows his ugly nose; even if I should -find—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first">“‘Seven white ghostisses</div> -<div class="verse">Sitting on seven white postisses.’</div> -</div></div> - -<p>“‘You don’t mean really?’ I asked, incredulously. -‘Don’t I? that’s all,’ he answered -emphatically. ‘I should like nothing better. -Well, is it a bargain?’ Adela turned quite -pale. ‘Oh, don’t,’ she said, hurriedly, ‘<i>please</i>, -don’t; why should you run such a risk? -How do you know that you might not be -sent mad too?’ He laughed very heartily, -and coloured a little with pleasure at seeing -the interest she took in his safety. ‘Never -fear,’ he said, ‘it would take more than a -whole squadron of departed ones, with the -old gentleman at their head, to send me -crazy.’ He was so eager, so persistent, so -thoroughly in earnest, that I yielded at last, -though with a certain strong reluctance,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> -to his entreaties. Adela’s blue eyes filled -with tears, and she walked away hastily to -the conservatory, and stood picking bits of -heliotrope to hide them. Nevertheless, Ralph -got his own way; it was so difficult to refuse -him anything. We gave up all our engagements -for the evening, and he did the same -with his. At about ten o’clock he arrived, -accompanied by a friend and brother officer, -Captain Burton, who was anxious to see the -result of the experiment. ‘Let me go up at -once,’ he said, looking very happy and animated. -‘I don’t know when I have felt in -such good tune; a new sensation is a luxury -not to be had every day of one’s life; turn -the gas up as high as it will go; provide a -good stout poker, and leave the issue to Providence -and me.’ We did as he bid. ‘It’s all -ready now,’ Henry said, coming downstairs -after having obeyed his orders; ‘the room is -nearly as light as day. Well, good luck to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> -you, old fellow!’ ‘Good-bye, Miss Bruce,’ -Ralph said, going over to Adela, and taking -her hand with a look, half laughing, half -sentimental—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first">“‘Fare thee well, and if for ever,</div> -<div class="verse">Then for ever, fare thee well,’</div> -</div></div> - -<p>that is my last dying speech and confession. -Now mind,’ he went on, standing by the table, -and addressing us all; ‘if I ring once, <i>don’t</i> -come. I may be flurried, and lay hold of the -bell without thinking; if I ring twice, <i>come</i>.’ -Then he went, jumping up the stairs three -steps at a time, and humming a tune. As for -us, we sat in different attitudes of expectation -and listening about the drawing-room. At -first we tried to talk a little, but it would not -do; our whole souls seemed to have passed -into our ears. The clock’s ticking sounded as -loud as a great church bell close to one’s ear. -Addy lay on the sofa, with her dear little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -white face hidden in the cushions. So we sat -for exactly an hour; but it seemed like two -years, and just as the clock began to strike -eleven, a sharp ting, ting, ting, rang clear and -shrill through the house. ‘Let us go,’ said -Addy, starting up and running to the door. -‘Let us go,’ I cried too, following her. But -Captain Burton stood in the way, and intercepted -our progress. ‘No,’ he said, decisively, -‘you must not go; remember Gordon told us -distinctly, if he rang once <i>not</i> to come. I -know the sort of fellow he is, and that nothing -would annoy him more than having his directions -disregarded.’</p> - -<p>“‘Oh, nonsense!’ Addy cried, passionately, -‘he would never have rung if he had not -seen something dreadful; do, <i>do</i> let us go!’ -she ended, clasping her hands. But she was -overruled, and we all went back to our seats. -Ten minutes more of suspense, next door to -unendurable, I felt a lump in my throat, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> -gasping for breath;—ten minutes on the -clock, but a thousand centuries on our hearts. -Then again, loud, sudden, violent the bell -rang! We made a simultaneous rush to the -door. I don’t think we were one second -flying upstairs. Addy was first. Almost -simultaneously she and I burst into the room. -There he was, standing in the middle of the -floor, rigid, petrified, with that same look—that -look that is burnt into my heart in -letters of fire—of awful, unspeakable, stony -fear on his brave young face. For one instant -he stood thus; then stretching out his arms -stiffly before him, he groaned in a terrible, -husky voice, ‘Oh, my God; I have seen it!’ -and fell down <i>dead</i>. Yes, <i>dead</i>. Not in a -swoon or in a fit, but <i>dead</i>. Vainly we tried -to bring back the life to that strong young -heart; it will never come back again till that -day when the earth and the sea give up the -dead that are therein. I cannot see the page<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> -for the tears that are blinding me; he was -such a dear fellow! I can’t write any more -to-day.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Your broken-hearted</span><br> - -“<span class="smcap">Cecilia</span>.”</p> - -<p>This is a true story.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE MAN WITH THE NOSE.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> -<p class="ph2">THE MAN WITH THE NOSE.</p> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>[The details of this little story are of course imaginary, -but the main incidents are, to the best of my -belief, facts. They happened twenty, or more than -twenty years ago.]</p> - -<hr class="tiny"> -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I.</h3> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Let</span> us get a map and see what places look -pleasantest?” says she.</p> - -<p>“As for that,” reply I, “on a map most -places look equally pleasant.”</p> - -<p>“Never mind; get one!”</p> - -<p>I obey.</p> - -<p>“Do you like the seaside?” asks Elizabeth, -lifting her little brown head and her small -happy white face from the English sea-coast<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> -along which, her forefinger is slowly travelling.</p> - -<p>“Since you ask me, distinctly <i>no</i>,” reply I, -for once venturing to have a decided opinion -of my own, which during the last few weeks -of imbecility I can be hardly said to have had. -“I broke my last wooden spade five and -twenty years ago. I have but a poor opinion -of cockles—sandy red-nosed things, are not -they? and the air always makes me bilious.”</p> - -<p>“Then we certainly will not go there,” says -Elizabeth, laughing. “A bilious bridegroom! -alliterative but horrible! None of our friends -show the least eagerness to lend us their -country house.”</p> - -<p>“Oh that God would put it into the hearts -of men to take their wives straight home, as -their fathers did,” say I, with a cross groan.</p> - -<p>“It is evident, therefore, that we must go -somewhere,” returns she, not heeding the aspiration -contained in my last speech, making her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> -forefinger resume its employment, and reaching -Torquay.</p> - -<p>“I suppose so,” say I, with a sort of sigh; -“for once in our lives we must resign ourselves -to having the finger of derision pointed -at us by waiters and landlords.”</p> - -<p>“You shall leave your new portmanteau at -home, and I will leave all my best clothes, and -nobody will guess that we are bride and -bridegroom; they will think that we have -been married—oh, ever since the world began” -(opening her eyes very wide).</p> - -<p>I shake my head. “With an old portmanteau -and in rags we shall still have the mark -of the beast upon us.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mind much? do you hate being -ridiculous?” asks Elizabeth, meekly, rather -depressed by my view of the case; “because if -so, let us go somewhere out of the way, -where there will be very few people to laugh -at us.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>“On the contrary,” return I, stoutly, “we -will betake ourselves to some spot where such -as we do chiefly congregate—where we shall -be swallowed up and lost in the multitude of -our fellow-sinners.” A pause devoted to reflection. -“What do you say to Killarney?” say I, -cheerfully.</p> - -<p>“There are a great many fleas there, I -believe,” replies Elizabeth, slowly; “flea-bites -make large lumps on me; you would -not like me if I were covered with large -lumps.”</p> - -<p>At the hideous ideal picture thus presented -to me by my little beloved I relapse into inarticulate -idiocy; emerging from which by-and-by, -I suggest “The Lakes?” My arm is -round her, and I feel her supple body shiver -though it is mid July, and the bees are booming -about in the still and sleepy noon garden -outside.</p> - -<p>“Oh—no—no—not <i>there</i>!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>“Why such emphasis?” I ask gaily; “more -fleas? At this rate, and with this <i>sine quâ -non</i>, our choice will grow limited.”</p> - -<p>“Something dreadful happened to me -there,” she says, with another shudder. “But -indeed I did not think there was any harm in -it—I never thought anything would come -of it.”</p> - -<p>“What the devil was it?” cry I, in a jealous -heat and hurry; “what the mischief <i>did</i> you -do, and why have not you told me about it -before?”</p> - -<p>“I did not <i>do</i> much,” she answers meekly, -seeking for my hand, and when found kissing -it in timid deprecation of my wrath; “but I -was ill—very ill—there; I had a nervous -fever. I was in a bed hung with a chintz -with a red and green fern-leaf pattern on it. -I have always hated red and green fern-leaf -chintzes ever since.”</p> - -<p>“It would be possible to avoid the obnoxious<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> -bed, would not it?” say I, laughing a -little. “Where does it lie? Windermere? -Ulleswater? Wastwater? Where?”</p> - -<p>“We were at Ulleswater,” she says, speaking -rapidly, while a hot colour grows on her small -white cheeks—“Papa, mamma, and I; and -there came a mesmeriser to Penrith, and we -went to see him—everybody did—and he -asked leave to mesmerise me—he said I -should be such a good medium—and—and—I -did not know what it was like. I thought it -would be quite good fun—and—and—I let -him.”</p> - -<p>She is trembling exceedingly; even the -loving pressure of my arms cannot abate her -shivering.</p> - -<p>“Well?”</p> - -<p>“And after that I do not remember anything—I -believe I did all sorts of extraordinary -things that he told me—sang and danced, -and made a fool of myself—but when I came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> -home I was very ill, very—I lay in bed for -five whole weeks, and—and was off my head, -and said odd and wicked things that you -would not have expected me to say—that -dreadful bed! shall I ever forget it?”</p> - -<p>“We will <i>not</i> go to the Lakes,” I say, -decisively, “and we will not talk any more -about mesmerism.”</p> - -<p>“That is right,” she says, with a sigh of -relief, “I try to think about it as little as -possible; but sometimes, in the dead black of -the night, when God seems a long way off, and -the devil near, it comes back to me so strongly—I -feel, do not you know, as if he were <i>there</i>—somewhere -in the room, and I <i>must</i> get up -and follow him.”</p> - -<p>“Why should not we go abroad?” suggest -I, abruptly turning the conversation.</p> - -<p>“Why, indeed?” cries Elizabeth, recovering -her gaiety, while her pretty blue eyes begin to -dance. “How stupid of us not to have thought<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> -of it before; only <i>abroad</i> is a big word. -<i>What</i> abroad?”</p> - -<p>“We must be content with something short -of Central Africa,” I say, gravely, “as I think -our one hundred and fifty pounds would -hardly take us that far.”</p> - -<p>“Wherever we go, we must buy a dialogue -book,” suggests my little bride elect, “and I -will learn some phrases before we start.”</p> - -<p>“As for that, the Anglo-Saxon tongue -takes one pretty well round the world,” reply -I, with a feeling of complacent British -swagger, putting my hands in my breeches -pockets.</p> - -<p>“Do you fancy the Rhine?” says Elizabeth, -with a rather timid suggestion; “I know it is -the fashion to run it down nowadays, and call -it a cocktail river; but—but—after all it -cannot be so <i>very</i> contemptible, or Byron -could not have said such noble things about -it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first2">“The castled crag of Drachenfels</div> -<div class="indent">Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine,</div> -<div class="verse">Whose breast of waters broadly swells</div> -<div class="indent">Between the banks which bear the vine,”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>say I, spouting. “After all, that proves -nothing, for Byron could have made a silk -purse out of a sow’s ear.”</p> - -<p>“The Rhine will not do then?” says she, -resignedly, suppressing a sigh.</p> - -<p>“On the contrary, it will do admirably: it -<i>is</i> a cocktail river, and I do not care who -says it is not,” reply I, with illiberal positiveness; -“but everybody should be able to say -so from their own experience, and not from -hearsay: the Rhine let it be, by all means.”</p> - -<p>So the Rhine it is.</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II.</h3> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">I have</span> got over it; we have both got over -it tolerably, creditably; but after all, it is a -much severer ordeal for a man than a woman, -who, with a bouquet to occupy her hands, -and a veil to gently shroud her features, need -merely be prettily passive. I am alluding, I -need hardly say, to the religious ceremony of -marriage, which I flatter myself I have gone -through with a stiff sheepishness not unworthy -of my country. It is a three-days-old -event now, and we are getting used to belonging -to one another, though Elizabeth still takes -off her ring twenty times a day to admire its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> -bright thickness; still laughs when she hears -herself called “Madame.” Three days ago, -we kissed all our friends, and left them to -make themselves ill on our cake, and criticise -our bridal behaviour, and now we are at -Brussels, she and I, feeling oddly, joyfully free -from any chaperone. We have been mildly -sight-seeing—very mildly, most people would -say, but we have resolved not to take our -pleasure with the railway speed of Americans, -or the hasty sadness of our fellow Britons. -Slowly and gaily we have been taking ours. -To-day we have been to visit Wiertz’s pictures. -Have you ever seen them, oh reader? -They are known to comparatively few people, -but if you have a taste for the unearthly -terrible—if you wish to sup full of horrors, -hasten thither. We have been peering -through the appointed peep-hole at the -horrible cholera picture—the man buried alive -by mistake, pushing up the lid of his coffin,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> -and stretching a ghastly face and livid hands -out of his winding sheet towards you, while -awful grey-blue coffins are piled around, and -noisome toads and giant spiders crawl damply -about. On first seeing it, I have reproached -myself for bringing one of so nervous a temperament -as Elizabeth to see so haunting and -hideous a spectacle; but she is less impressed -than I expected—less impressed than I myself -am.</p> - -<p>“He is very lucky to be able to get his -lid up,” she says, with a half-laugh; “we -should find it hard work to burst our brass -nails, should not we? When you bury me, -dear, fasten me down very slightly, in case -there may be some mistake.”</p> - -<p>And now all the long and quiet July -evening we have been prowling together -about the streets. Brussels is the town of -towns for <i>flâner</i>-ing—have been flattening -our noses against the shop windows, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span> -making each other imaginary presents. Elizabeth -has not confined herself to imagination, -however; she has made me buy her a little -bonnet with feathers—“in order to look married,” -as she says, and the result is such a -delicious picture of a child playing at being -grown up, having practised a theft on its -mother’s wardrobe, that for the last two hours -I have been in a foolish ecstasy of love and -laughter over her and it. We are at the -“Bellevue,” and have a fine suite of rooms, -<i>au premier</i>, evidently specially devoted to the -English, to the gratification of whose well-known -loyalty the Prince and Princess of -Wales are simpering from the walls. Is there -any one in the three kingdoms who knows his -own face as well as he knows the faces of -Albert Victor and Alexandra? The long -evening has at last slidden into night—night -far advanced—night melting into earliest day. -All Brussels is asleep. One moment ago I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> -also was asleep, soundly as any log. What is -it that has made me take this sudden, headlong -plunge out of sleep into wakefulness? -Who is it that is clutching at and calling upon -me? What is it that is making me struggle -mistily up into a sitting posture, and try to -revive my sleep-numbed senses? A summer -night is never wholly dark; by the half light -that steals through the closed <i>persiennes</i> and -open windows I see my wife standing beside -my bed; the extremity of terror on her face, -and her fingers digging themselves with painful -tenacity into my arm.</p> - -<p>“Tighter, tighter!” she is crying, wildly. -“What are you thinking of? You are letting -me go!”</p> - -<p>“Good heavens!” say I, rubbing my eyes, -while my muddy brain grows a trifle clearer. -“What is it? What has happened? Have -you had a nightmare?”</p> - -<p>“You saw him,” she says, with a sort of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -sobbing breathlessness; “you know you did! -You saw him as well as I.”</p> - -<p>“I!” cry I, incredulously—“not I. Till -this second I have been fast asleep. <i>I</i> saw -nothing.”</p> - -<p>“You did!” she cries, passionately. “You -know you did. Why do you deny it? You -were as frightened as I?”</p> - -<p>“As I live,” I answer, solemnly, “I know -no more than the dead what you are talking -about; till you woke me by calling me and -catching hold of me, I was as sound asleep as -the seven sleepers.”</p> - -<p>“Is it possible that it can have been a -<i>dream</i>?” she says, with a long sigh, for a -moment loosing my arm, and covering her -face with her hands. “But no—in a dream -I should have been somewhere else, but I was -here—<i>here</i>—on that bed, and he stood <i>there</i>,” -pointing with her forefinger, “just <i>there</i>, between -the foot of it and the window!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>She stops, panting.</p> - -<p>“It is all that brute Wiertz,” say I, in a -fury. “I wish I had been buried alive myself, -before I had been fool enough to take -you to see his beastly daubs.”</p> - -<p>“Light a candle,” she says, in the same -breathless way, her teeth chattering with -fright. “Let us make sure that he is not -hidden somewhere in the room.”</p> - -<p>“How could he be?” say I, striking a match; -“the door is locked.”</p> - -<p>“He might have got in by the balcony,” -she answers, still trembling violently.</p> - -<p>“He would have had to have cut a very -large hole in the <i>persiennes</i>,” say I, half-mockingly. -“See, they are intact and well -fastened on the inside.”</p> - -<p>She sinks into an arm-chair, and pushes her -loose soft hair from her white face.</p> - -<p>“It <i>was</i> a dream then, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>She is silent for a moment or two, while I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -bring her a glass of water, and throw a dressing-gown -round her cold and shrinking -form.</p> - -<p>“Now tell me, my little one,” I say, coaxingly, -sitting down at her feet, “what it was—what -you thought you saw?”</p> - -<p>“<i>Thought</i> I saw!” echoes she, with indignant -emphasis, sitting upright, while her eyes -sparkle feverishly. “I am as certain that I -saw him standing there as I am that I see -that candle burning—that I see this chair—that -I see you.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Him!</i> but who is <i>him</i>?”</p> - -<p>She falls forward on my neck, and buries -her face in my shoulder.</p> - -<p>“That—dreadful—man!” she says, while -her whole body is one tremor.</p> - -<p>“<i>What</i> dreadful man?” cry I, impatiently.</p> - -<p>She is silent.</p> - -<p>“Who was he?”</p> - -<p>“I do not know.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>“Did you ever see him before?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no—no, never! I hope to God I may -never see him again!”</p> - -<p>“What was he like?”</p> - -<p>“Come closer to me,” she says, laying hold -of my hand with her small and chilly fingers; -“stay <i>quite</i> near me, and I will tell you,”—after -a pause—“he had a <i>nose</i>!”</p> - -<p>“My dear soul,” cry I, bursting out with a -loud laugh in the silence of the night, “do not -most people have noses? Would not he have -been much more dreadful if he had had -<i>none</i>?”</p> - -<p>“But it was <i>such</i> a nose!” she says, with -perfect trembling gravity.</p> - -<p>“A bottle nose?” suggest I, still cackling.</p> - -<p>“For heaven’s sake, don’t laugh!” she says, -nervously; “if you had seen his face, you -would have been as little disposed to laugh -as I.”</p> - -<p>“But his nose?” return I, suppressing my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -merriment; “what kind of nose was it? See, -I am as grave as a judge.”</p> - -<p>“It was very prominent,” she answers, in a -sort of awe-struck half-whisper, “and very -sharply chiselled; the nostrils very much cut -out.” A little pause. “His eyebrows were -one straight black line across his face, and -under them his eyes burnt like dull coals of -fire, that shone and yet did not shine; they -looked like dead eyes, sunken, half extinguished, -and yet sinister.”</p> - -<p>“And what did he do?” ask I, impressed, -despite myself, by her passionate earnestness; -“when did you first see him?”</p> - -<p>“I was asleep,” she said—“at least I thought -so—and suddenly I opened my eyes, and he -was <i>there</i>—<i>there</i>”—pointing again with trembling -finger—“between the window and the -bed.”</p> - -<p>“What was he doing? Was he walking -about?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>“He was standing as still as stone—I never -saw any live thing so still—<i>looking</i> at me; -he never called or beckoned, or moved a finger, -but his eyes <i>commanded</i> me to come to him, -as the eyes of the mesmeriser at Penrith did.” -She stops, breathing heavily. I can hear her -heart’s loud and rapid beats.</p> - -<p>“And you?” I say, pressing her more -closely to my side, and smoothing her troubled -hair.</p> - -<p>“I <i>hated</i> it,” she cries, excitedly; “I loathed -it—abhorred it. I was ice-cold with fear and -horror, but—I <i>felt</i> myself going to him.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?”</p> - -<p>“And then I shrieked out to you, and you -came running, and caught fast hold of me, -and held me tight at first—quite tight—but -presently I felt your hold slacken—slacken—and -though I <i>longed</i> to stay with you, though -I was <i>mad</i> with fright, yet I felt myself pulling -strongly away from you—going to him;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> -and he—he stood there always looking—looking—and -then I gave one last loud shriek, -and I suppose I awoke—and it was a dream!”</p> - -<p>“I never heard of a clearer case of nightmare,” -say I, stoutly; “that vile Wiertz! I -should like to see his whole <i>Musée</i> burnt by -the hands of the hangman to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>She shakes her head. “It had nothing to -say to Wiertz; what it meant I do not know, -but——”</p> - -<p>“It meant nothing,” I answer, reassuringly, -“except that for the future we will go and -see none but good and pleasant sights, and -steer clear of charnel-house fancies.”</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III.</h3> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Elizabeth</span> is now in a position to decide -whether the Rhine is a cocktail river or no, -for she is on it, and so am I. We are sitting, -with an awning over our heads, and little -wooden stools under our feet. Elizabeth has -a small sailor’s hat and blue ribbon on her -head. The river breeze has blown it rather -awry; has tangled her plenteous hair; has -made a faint pink stain on her pale cheeks. -It is some fête day, and the boat is crowded. -Tables, countless camp-stools, volumes of black -smoke pouring from the funnel, as we steam -along. “Nothing to the Caledonian Canal!”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> -cries a burly Scotchman in leggings, speaking -with loud authority, and surveying with an -air of contempt the eternal vine-clad slopes, -that sound so well, and look so <i>sticky</i> in -reality. “Cannot hold a candle to it!” A -rival bride and bridegroom opposite, sitting -together like love-birds under an umbrella, -looking into each other’s eyes instead of at -the Rhine scenery.</p> - -<p>“They might as well have stayed at home, -might not they?” says my wife, with a little -air of superiority. “Come, we are not so bad -as that, are we?”</p> - -<p>A storm comes on: hailstones beat slantwise -and reach us—stone and sting us right -under our awning. Everybody rushes down -below, and takes the opportunity to feed -ravenously. There are few actions more disgusting -than eating <i>can</i> be made. A handsome -girl close to us—her immaturity evidenced -by the two long tails of black hair<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> -down her back—is thrusting her knife half -way down her throat.</p> - -<p>“Come on deck again,” says Elizabeth, disgusted -and frightened at this last sight. “The -hail was much better than this!”</p> - -<p>So we return to our camp-stools, and sit -alone under one mackintosh in the lashing -storm, with happy hearts and empty stomachs.</p> - -<p>“Is not this better than any luncheon?” -asks Elizabeth, triumphantly, while the raindrops -hang on her long and curled lashes.</p> - -<p>“Infinitely better,” reply I, madly struggling -with the umbrella to prevent its being -blown inside out, and gallantly ignoring a -species of gnawing sensation at my entrails.</p> - -<p>The squall clears off by-and-by, and we go -steaming, steaming on past the unnumbered -little villages by the water’s edge with church -spires and pointed roof, past the countless -rocks with their little pert castles perched on -the top of them, past the tall, stiff poplar<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> -rows. The church bells are ringing gaily as -we go by. A nightingale is singing from a -wood. The black eagle of Prussia droops on -the stream behind us, swish-swish through the -dull green water. A fat woman who is -interested in it, leans over the back of the -boat, and by some happy effect of crinoline, -displays to her fellow-passengers two yards of -thick white cotton legs. She is, fortunately -for herself, unconscious of her generosity.</p> - -<p>The day steals on; at every stopping place -more people come on. There is hardly elbow -room; and, what is worse, almost everybody -is drunk. Rocks, castles, villages, poplars, -slide by, while the paddles churn always the -water, and the evening draws greyly on. At -Bingen a party of big blue Prussian soldiers, -very drunk, “glorious” as Tam o’ Shanter, -come and establish themselves close to us. -They call for Lager Beer; talk at the tip-top -of their strong voices; two of them begin to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> -spar; all seem inclined to sing. Elizabeth is -frightened. We are two hours late in arriving -at Biebrich. It is half an hour more before -we can get ourselves and our luggage into a -carriage and set off along the winding road to -Wiesbaden. “The night is chilly, but not -dark.” There is only a little shabby bit of a -moon, but it shines as hard as it can. Elizabeth -is quite worn out, her tired head droops -in uneasy sleep on my shoulder. Once she -wakes up with a start.</p> - -<p>“Are you sure that it meant nothing?” she -asks, looking me eagerly in my face; “do -people often have such dreams?”</p> - -<p>“Often, often,” I answer, reassuringly.</p> - -<p>“I am always afraid of falling asleep now,” -she says, trying to sit upright and keep her -heavy eyes open, “for fear of seeing him -standing there again. Tell me, do you think -I shall? Is there any chance, any probability -of it?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>“None, none!”</p> - -<p>We reach Wiesbaden at last, and drive up -to the Hôtel des Quatre Saisons. By this time -it is full midnight. Two or three men are -standing about the door. Morris, the maid, -has got out—so have I, and I am holding out -my hand to Elizabeth, when I hear her give -one piercing scream, and see her with ash-white -face and starting eyes point with her -forefinger——</p> - -<p>“There he is!—there!—there!”</p> - -<p>I look in the direction indicated, and just -catch a glimpse of a tall figure, standing half -in the shadow of the night, half in the gaslight -from the hotel. I have not time for -more than one cursory glance, as I am interrupted -by a cry from the bystanders, and -turning quickly round, am just in time to -catch my wife, who falls in utter insensibility -into my arms. We carry her into a room on -the ground floor; it is small, noisy, and hot,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> -but it is the nearest at hand. In about an -hour she re-opens her eyes. A strong shudder -makes her quiver from head to foot.</p> - -<p>“Where is he?” she says, in a terrified -whisper, as her senses come slowly back. “He -is somewhere about—somewhere near. I feel -that he is!”</p> - -<p>“My dearest child, there is no one here but -Morris and me,” I answer, soothingly. “Look -for yourself. See.”</p> - -<p>I take one of the candles and light up each -corner of the room in succession.</p> - -<p>“You saw him!” she says, in trembling -hurry, sitting up and clenching her hands -together. “I know you did—I pointed him -out to you—you <i>cannot</i> say that it was a -dream <i>this</i> time.”</p> - -<p>“I saw two or three ordinary looking men -as we drove up,” I answer, in a commonplace, -matter-of-fact tone. “I did not notice anything -remarkable about any of them; you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> -know the fact is, darling, that you have had -nothing to eat all day, nothing but a biscuit, -and you are over-wrought, and fancy -things.”</p> - -<p>“Fancy!” echoes she, with strong irritation. -“How you talk! Was I ever one to fancy -things? I tell you that as sure as I sit here—as -sure as you stand there—I saw him—<i>him</i>—the -man I saw in my dream, if it was a -dream. There was not a hair’s breadth of -difference between them—and he was looking -at me—looking——”</p> - -<p>She breaks off into hysterical sobbing.</p> - -<p>“My dear child!” say I, thoroughly alarmed, -and yet half angry, “for God’s sake do not -work yourself up into a fever: wait till to-morrow, -and we will find out who he is, and -all about him; you yourself will laugh when -we discover that he is some harmless bagman.”</p> - -<p>“Why not <i>now</i>?” she says, nervously;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> -“why cannot you find out <i>now</i>—<i>this -minute</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Impossible! Everybody is in bed! Wait -till to-morrow, and all will be cleared -up.”</p> - -<p>The morrow comes, and I go about the -hotel, inquiring. The house is so full, and the -data I have to go upon are so small, that for -some time I have great difficulty in making it -understood to whom I am alluding. At length -one waiter seems to comprehend.</p> - -<p>“A tall and dark gentleman, with a pronounced -and very peculiar nose? Yes; there -has been such a one, certainly, in the hotel, -but he left at ‘grand matin’ this morning; he -remained only one night.”</p> - -<p>“And his name?”</p> - -<p>The garçon shakes his head. “That is unknown, -monsieur; he did not inscribe it in -the visitor’s book.”</p> - -<p>“What countryman was he?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>Another shake of the head. “He spoke -German, but it was with a foreign accent.”</p> - -<p>“Whither did he go?”</p> - -<p>That also is unknown. Nor can I arrive at -any more facts about him.</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV.</h3> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">A fortnight</span> has passed; we have been -hither and thither; now we are at Lucerne. -Peopled with better inhabitants, Lucerne -might well do for Heaven. It is drawing -towards eventide, and Elizabeth and I are -sitting hand in hand on a quiet bench, under -the shady linden trees, on a high hill up -above the lake. There is nobody to see us, -so we sit peaceably hand in hand. Up by the -still and solemn monastery we came, with its -small and narrow windows, calculated to -hinder the holy fathers from promenading -curious eyes on the world, the flesh, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> -devil, tripping past them in blue gauze veils: -below us grass and green trees, houses with -high-pitched roofs, little dormer-windows, and -shutters yet greener than the grass; below us -the lake in its rippleless peace, calm, quiet, -motionless as Bethesda’s pool before the coming -of the troubling angel.</p> - -<p>“I said it was too good to last,” say I, doggedly, -“did not I, only yesterday? Perfect -peace, perfect sympathy, perfect freedom from -nagging worries—when did such a state of -things last more than two days?”</p> - -<p>Elizabeth’s eyes are idly fixed on a little -steamer, with a stripe of red along its side, -and a tiny puff of smoke from its funnel, -gliding along and cutting a narrow white -track on Lucerne’s sleepy surface.</p> - -<p>“This is the fifth false alarm of the gout -having gone to his stomach within the last -two years,” continue I, resentfully. “I declare -to Heaven, that if it has not really<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> -gone there this time, I’ll cut the whole concern.”</p> - -<p>Let no one cast up their eyes in horror, -imagining that it is my father to whom I am -thus alluding; it is only a great uncle by -marriage, in consideration of whose wealth -and vague promises I have dawdled professionless -through twenty-eight years of my life.</p> - -<p>“You <i>must</i> not go,” says Elizabeth, giving -my hand an imploring squeeze. “The man in -the Bible said, ‘I have married a wife, and -therefore I cannot come;’ why should it be a -less valid excuse now a days?”</p> - -<p>“If I recollect rightly, it was considered -rather a poor one even then,” reply I, dryly.</p> - -<p>Elizabeth is unable to contradict this, she -therefore only lifts two pouted lips (Monsieur -Taine objects to the redness of English -women’s mouths, but I do not) to be kissed, -and says, “Stay.” I am good enough to -comply with her unspoken request, though<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> -I remain firm with regard to her spoken -one.</p> - -<p>“My dearest child,” I say, with an air of -worldly experience and superior wisdom, -“kisses are very good things—in fact there -are few better—but one cannot live upon -them.”</p> - -<p>“Let us try,” she says, coaxingly.</p> - -<p>“I wonder which would get tired first?” I -say, laughing. But she only goes on pleading, -“Stay, stay.”</p> - -<p>“How <i>can</i> I stay?” I cry, impatiently; -“you talk as if I <i>wanted</i> to go! Do you -think it is any pleasanter to me to leave you -than to you to be left? But you know his -disposition, his rancorous resentment of fancied -neglects. For the sake of two days’ -indulgence, must I throw away what will -keep us in ease and plenty to the end of our -days?”</p> - -<p>“I do not care for plenty,” she says, with a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> -little petulant gesture. “I do not see that -rich people are any happier than poor ones. -Look at the St. Clairs; they have £40,000 -a-year, and she is a miserable woman, perfectly -miserable, because her face gets red -after dinner.”</p> - -<p>“There will be no fear of <i>our</i> faces getting -red after dinner,” say I, grimly, “for we shall -have no dinner for them to get red after.”</p> - -<p>A pause. My eyes stray away to the -mountains. Pilatus on the right, with his -jagged peak and slender snow-chains about -his harsh neck; hill after hill rising silent, -eternal, like guardian spirits standing hand in -hand around their child, the lake. As I look, -suddenly they have all flushed, as at some -noblest thought, and over all their sullen -faces streams an ineffable rosy joy—a solemn -and wonderful effulgence, such as Israel saw -reflected from the features of the Eternal in -their prophet’s transfigured eyes. The unutterable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> -peace and stainless beauty of earth -and sky seem to lie softly on my soul. -“Would God I could stay! Would God all -life could be like this!” I say, devoutly, and -the aspiration has the reverent earnestness of -a prayer.</p> - -<p>“Why do you say, ‘<i>Would God!</i>’” she -cries, passionately, “when it lies with yourself? -Oh my dear love,” gently sliding her -hand through my arm, and lifting wetly-beseeching -eyes to my face, “I do not know -why I insist upon it so much—I cannot tell -you myself—I daresay I seem selfish and -unreasonable—but I feel as if your going now -would be the end of all things—as if——.” -She breaks off suddenly.</p> - -<p>“My child,” say I, thoroughly distressed, -but still determined to have my own way, -“you talk as if I were going for ever and a -day; in a week, at the outside, I shall be back, -and then you will thank me for the very thing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> -for which you now think me so hard and disobliging.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I?” she answers, mournfully. “Well, -I hope so.”</p> - -<p>“You will not be alone, either; you will -have Morris.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“And every day you will write me a long -letter, telling me every single thing that you -do, say, and think.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>She answers me gently and obediently; but -I can see that she is still utterly unreconciled -to the idea of my absence.</p> - -<p>“What is it that you are afraid of?” I ask, -becoming rather irritated. “What do you -suppose will happen to you?”</p> - -<p>She does not answer; only a large tear falls -on my hand, which she hastily wipes away -with her pocket handkerchief, as if afraid of -exciting my wrath.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>“Can you give me any good reason why I -<i>should</i> stay?” I ask, dictatorially.</p> - -<p>“None—none—only—stay—stay!”</p> - -<p>But I am resolved <i>not</i> to stay. Early the -next morning I set off.</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER V.</h3> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">This</span> time it is not a false alarm; this time it -really has gone to his stomach, and, declining -to be dislodged thence, kills him. My return -is therefore retarded until after the funeral and -the reading of the will. The latter is so satisfactory, -and my time is so fully occupied with -a multiplicity of attendant business, that I -have no leisure to regret the delay. I write to -Elizabeth, but receive no letters from her. This -surprises and makes me rather angry, but does -not alarm me. “If she had been ill, if anything -had happened, Morris would have written. -She never was great at writing, poor little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> -soul. What dear little babyish notes she used -to send me during our engagement; perhaps -she wishes to punish me for my disobedience -to her wishes. Well, <i>now</i> she will see who -was in the right.” I am drawing near her -now; I am walking up from the railway -station at Lucerne. I am very joyful as I -march along under an umbrella, in the grand -broad shining of the summer afternoon. I -think with pensive passion of the last glimpse -I had of my beloved—her small and wistful -face looking out from among the thick fair -fleece of her long hair—winking away her -tears and blowing kisses to me. It is a new -sensation to me to have any one looking tearfully -wistful over my departure. I draw near -the great glaring Schweizerhof, with its colonnaded, -tourist-crowded porch; here are all the -pomegranates as I left them, in their green -tubs, with their scarlet blossoms, and the dusty -oleanders in a row. I look up at our windows;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> -nobody is looking out from them; they are -open, and the curtains are alternately swelled -out and drawn in by the softly-playful wind. -I run quickly upstairs and burst noisily into -the sitting-room. Empty, perfectly empty! I -open the adjoining door into the bedroom, crying -“Elizabeth! Elizabeth!” but I receive no -answer. Empty too. A feeling of indignation -creeps over me as I think, “Knowing the time -of my return, she might have managed to be -indoors.” I have returned to the silent sitting-room, -where the only noise is the wind still -playing hide-and-seek with the curtains. As -I look vacantly round my eye catches sight -of a letter lying on the table. I pick it up -mechanically and look at the address. Good -heavens! what can this mean? It is my own, -that I sent her two days ago, unopened, with -the seal unbroken. Does she carry her resentment -so far as not even to open my letters? I -spring at the bell and violently ring it. It is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> -answered by the waiter who has always specially -attended us.</p> - -<p>“Is madame gone out?”</p> - -<p>The man opens his mouth and stares at -me.</p> - -<p>“Madame! Is monsieur then not aware that -madame is no longer at the hotel?”</p> - -<p>“<i>What?</i>”</p> - -<p>“On the same day as monsieur, madame -departed.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Departed!</i> Good God! what are you talking -about?”</p> - -<p>“A few hours after monsieur’s departure—I -will not be positive as to the exact time, but -it must have been between one and two -o’clock as the midday <i>table d’hôte</i> was in progress—a -gentleman came and asked for madame——”</p> - -<p>“Yes—be quick.”</p> - -<p>“I demanded whether I should take up his -card, but he said ‘No,’ that was unnecessary,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> -as he was perfectly well known to madame; -and, in fact, a short time afterwards, without -saying anything to any one, she departed with -him.”</p> - -<p>“And did not return in the evening?”</p> - -<p>“No, monsieur; madame has not returned -since that day.”</p> - -<p>I clench my hands in an agony of rage and -grief. “So this is it! With that pure child-face, -with that divine ignorance—only three -weeks married—this is the trick she has played -me!” I am recalled to myself by a compassionate -suggestion from the garçon.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it was the brother of madame.”</p> - -<p>Elizabeth has no brother, but the remark -brings back to me the necessity of self-command. -“Very probably,” I answer, speaking -with infinite difficulty. “What sort of looking -gentleman was he?”</p> - -<p>“He was a very tall and dark gentleman -with a most peculiar nose—not quite like any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -nose that I ever saw before—and most singular -eyes. Never have I seen a gentleman who at -all resembled him.”</p> - -<p>I sink into a chair, while a cold shudder -creeps over me as I think of my poor child’s -dream—of her fainting fit at Wiesbaden—of -her unconquerable dread of and aversion from -my departure. And this happened twelve -days ago! I catch up my hat, and prepare to -rush like a madman in pursuit.</p> - -<p>“How did they go?” I ask incoherently; -“by train?—driving?—walking?”</p> - -<p>“They went in a carriage.”</p> - -<p>“What direction did they take? Whither -did they go?”</p> - -<p>He shakes his head. “It is not known.”</p> - -<p>“It <i>must</i> be known,” I cry, driven to frenzy -by every second’s delay. “Of course the -driver could tell; where is he?—where can I -find him?”</p> - -<p>“He did not belong to Lucerne, neither did<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span> -the carriage; the gentleman brought them -with him.”</p> - -<p>“But madame’s maid,” say I, a gleam of -hope flashing across my mind; “did she go -with her?”</p> - -<p>“No, monsieur, she is still here; she was as -much surprised as monsieur at madame’s -departure.”</p> - -<p>“Send her at once,” I cry eagerly; but when -she comes I find that she can throw no light -on the matter. She weeps noisily and says -many irrelevant things, but I can obtain no -information from her beyond the fact that she -was unaware of her mistress’s departure until -long after it had taken place, when, surprised -at not being rung for at the usual time, she -had gone to her room and found it empty, and -on inquiring in the hotel, had heard of her -sudden departure; that, expecting her to return -at night, she had sat up waiting for her -till two o’clock in the morning, but that, as I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span> -knew, she had not returned, neither had anything -since been heard of her.</p> - -<p>Not all my inquiries, not all my cross-questionings -of the whole staff of the hotel, -of the visitors, of the railway officials, of -nearly all the inhabitants of Lucerne and -its environs, procure me a jot more knowledge. -On the next few weeks I look back -as on a hellish and insane dream. I can -neither eat nor sleep; I am unable to remain -one moment quiet; my whole existence, my -nights and my days, are spent in seeking, -seeking. Everything that human despair and -frenzied love can do is done by me. I advertise, -I communicate with the police, I employ -detectives; but that fatal twelve days’ start -for ever baffles me. Only on one occasion do I -obtain one tittle of information. In a village a -few miles from Lucerne the peasants, on the -day in question, saw a carriage driving rapidly -through their little street. It was closed, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> -through the windows they could see the occupants—a -dark gentleman, with the peculiar -physiognomy which has been so often described, -and on the opposite seat a lady lying -apparently in a state of utter insensibility. -But even this leads to nothing.</p> - -<p>Oh, reader, these things happened twenty -years ago; since then I have searched sea and -land, but never have I seen my little Elizabeth -again.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">BEHOLD, IT WAS A DREAM!</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> -<p class="ph2">BEHOLD, IT WAS A DREAM!</p> - -<hr class="tiny"> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I.</h3> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Yesterday</span> morning I received the following -letter:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="right">“Weston House, Caulfield, ——shire.</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Dinah</span>,—You <i>must</i> come: I -scorn all your excuses, and see through their -flimsiness. I have no doubt that you are -much better amused in Dublin, frolicking -round ball-rooms with a succession of horse-soldiers, -and watching her Majesty’s household -troops play Polo in the Phœnix Park, but no -matter—you <i>must</i> come. We have no particular<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> -inducements to hold out. We lead an -exclusively bucolic, cow-milking, pig-fattening, -roast-mutton-eating and to-bed-at-ten-o’clock-going -life; but no matter—you <i>must</i> -come. I want you to see how happy two dull -elderly people may be, with no special brightness -in their lot to make them so. My old -man—he is surprisingly ugly at the first -glance, but grows upon one afterwards—sends -you his respects, and bids me say that he will -meet you at <i>any</i> station on <i>any</i> day at <i>any</i> -hour of the day or night. If you succeed in -evading our persistence this time, you will be -a cleverer woman than I take you for.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Ever yours affectionately,</span><br> -“<span class="smcap">Jane Watson</span>.</p> - -<p>“<i>August 15th.</i></p> - -<p>“P.S.—We will invite our little scarlet-headed -curate to dinner to meet you, so as -to soften your fall from the society of the -Plungers.”</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>This is my answer:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Jane</span>,—Kill the fat calf in all -haste, and put the bake meats into the oven, -for I will come. Do not, however, imagine -that I am moved thereunto by the prospect -of the bright-headed curate. Believe me, my -dear, I am as yet at a distance of ten long -good years from an addiction to the minor -clergy. If I survive the crossing of that -seething, heaving, tumbling abomination, St. -George’s Channel, you may expect me on -Tuesday next. I have been groping for hours -in ‘Bradshaw’s’ darkness that may be felt, -and I have arrived at length at this twilight -result, that I may arrive at your station at -6·55 <span class="allsmcap">P.M.</span> But the ways of ‘Bradshaw’ are -not our ways, and I <i>may</i> either rush violently -past or never attain it. If I do, and if on my -arrival I see some rustic vehicle, guided by a -startlingly ugly gentleman, awaiting me, I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> -shall know from your wifely description -that it is your ‘old man.’ Till Tuesday, -then,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Affectionately yours,</span><br> -“<span class="smcap">Dinah Bellairs</span>.</p> - -<p>“<i>August 17th.</i>”</p> -</div> - -<p>I am as good as my word; on Tuesday I set -off. For four mortal hours and a half I am -disastrously, hideously, diabolically sick. For -four hours and a half I curse the day on which -I was born, the day on which Jane Watson -was born, the day on which her old man was -born, and lastly—but oh! not, <i>not</i> leastly—the -day and the dock on which and in which the -<i>Leinster’s</i> plunging, courtseying, throbbing -body was born. On arriving at Holyhead, -feeling convinced from my sensations that, as -the French say, I touch my last hour, I indistinctly -request to be allowed to stay on board -and <i>die</i>, then and there; but as the stewardess -and my maid take a different view of my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> -situation, and insist upon forcing my cloak and -bonnet on my dying body and limp head, I at -length succeed in staggering on deck and off -the accursed boat. I am then well shaken up -for two or three hours in the Irish mail, and -after crawling along a slow by-line for two or -three hours more, am at length, at 6·55, landed, -battered, tired, dust-blacked, and qualmish, at -the little roadside station of Caulfield. My -maid and I are the only passengers who -descend. The train snorts its slow way onwards, -and I am left gazing at the calm -crimson death of the August sun, and smelling -the sweet-peas in the station-master’s garden -border. I look round in search of Jane’s -promised tax-cart, and steel my nerves for the -contemplation of her old man’s unlovely -features. But the only vehicle which I -see is a tiny two-wheeled pony carriage, drawn -by a small and tub-shaped bay pony and -driven by a lady in a hat, whose face is turned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> -expectantly towards me. I go up and recognise -my friend, whom I have not seen for two -years—not since before she fell in with her -old man and espoused him.</p> - -<p>“I thought it safest, after all, to come -myself,” she says with a bright laugh. “My -old man looked so handsome this morning, -that I thought you would never recognise him -from my description. Get in, dear, and let us -trot home as quickly as we can.”</p> - -<p>I comply, and for the next half hour sit -(while the cool evening wind is blowing the -dust off my hot and jaded face) stealing -amazed glances at my companion’s cheery -features. <i>Cheery!</i> That is the very last -word that, excepting in an ironical sense, any -one would have applied to my friend Jane -two years ago. Two years ago Jane was thirty-five, -the elderly eldest daughter of a large -family, hustled into obscurity, jostled, shelved, -by half a dozen younger, fresher sisters; an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> -elderly girl addicted to lachrymose verse about -the gone and the dead and the for-ever-lost. -Apparently the gone has come back, the dead -resuscitated, the for-ever-lost been found again. -The peaky sour virgin is transformed into a -gracious matron, with a kindly, comely face, -pleasure making and pleasure feeling. Oh, -Happiness, what powder, or paste, or milk of -roses, can make old cheeks young again in the -cunning way that you do? If you would but -bide steadily with us we might live for ever, -always young and always handsome.</p> - -<p>My musings on Jane’s metamorphosis, combined -with a tired headache, make me somewhat -silent, and indeed there is mostly a -slackness of conversation between the two -dearest allies on first meeting after absence—a -sort of hesitating shiver before plunging -into the sea of talk that both know lie in -readiness for them.</p> - -<p>“Have you got your harvest in yet?” I ask,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> -more for the sake of not utterly holding my -tongue than from any profound interest in the -subject, as we jog briskly along between the -yellow cornfields, where the dry bound sheaves -are standing in golden rows in the red sunset -light.</p> - -<p>“Not yet,” answers Jane; “we have only -just begun to cut some of it. However, thank -God, the weather looks as settled as possible; -there is not a streak of watery lilac in the -west.”</p> - -<p>My headache is almost gone and I am beginning -to think kindly of dinner—a subject from -which all day until now my mind has hastily -turned with a sensation of hideous inward -revolt—by the time that the fat pony pulls up -before the old-world dark porch of a modest -little house, which has bashfully hidden its -original face under a veil of crowded clematis -flowers and stalwart ivy. Set as in a picture-frame -by the large drooped ivy-leaves, I see a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> -tall and moderately hard-featured gentleman -of middle age, perhaps, of the two, rather inclining -towards elderly, smiling at us a little -shyly.</p> - -<p>“This is my old man,” cries Jane, stepping -gaily out, and giving him a friendly introductory -pat on the shoulder. “Old man, this is -Dinah.”</p> - -<p>Having thus been made known to each -other we shake hands, but neither of us can -arrive at anything pretty to say. Then I follow -Jane into her little house, the little house -for which she has so happily exchanged her -tenth part of the large and noisy paternal -mansion. It is an old house, and everything -about it has the moderate shabbiness of old -age and long and careful wear. Little thick-walled -rooms, dark and cool, with flowers and -flower scents lying in wait for you everywhere—a -silent, fragrant, childless house. To me, -who have had oily locomotives snorting and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> -racing through my head all day, its dumb -sweetness seems like heaven.</p> - -<p>“And now that we have secured you, we do -not mean to let you go in a hurry,” says Jane -hospitably that night at bedtime, lighting the -candles on my dressing-table.</p> - -<p>“You are determined to make my mouth -water, I see,” say I, interrupting a yawn to -laugh. “Lone lorn me, who have neither old -man nor dear little house, nor any prospect of -ultimately attaining either.”</p> - -<p>“But if you honestly are not bored you will -stay with us a good bit?” she says, laying her -hand with kind entreaty on my sleeve. “St. -George’s Channel is not lightly to be faced -again.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I shall stay until you are obliged -to go away yourselves to get rid of me,” return -I, smiling. “Such things have happened. Yes, -without joking, I will stay a month. Then, by -the end of a month, if you have not found me<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> -out thoroughly, I think I may pass among men -for a more amiable woman than I have ever -yet had the reputation of.”</p> - -<p>A quarter of an hour later I am laying down -my head among soft and snow-white pillows, -and saying to myself that this delicious sensation -of utter drowsy repose, of soft darkness -and odorous quiet, is cheaply purchased even -by the ridiculous anguish which my own sufferings, -and—hardly less than my own sufferings—the -demoniac sights and sounds afforded by -my fellow-passengers, caused me on board the -accursed <i>Leinster</i>—</p> - -<p class="center">“Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark.”</p> - -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II.</h3> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Well</span>, I cannot say that you look much -rested,” says Jane next morning, coming in to -greet me, smiling and fresh—(yes, sceptic of -eighteen, even a woman of thirty-seven may -look fresh in a print gown on an August -morning, when she has a well of lasting quiet -happiness inside her)—coming in with a bunch -of creamy <i>gloire de Dijons</i> in her hand for the -breakfast table. “You look infinitely more -fagged than you did when I left you last -night!”</p> - -<p>“Do I?” say I, rather faintly.</p> - -<p>“I am afraid you did not sleep much?”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> -suggests Jane, a little crestfallen at the insult -to her feather beds implied by my wakefulness. -“Some people never can sleep the first night -in a strange bed, and I stupidly forgot to ask -whether you liked the feather bed or mattress -at the top.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I did sleep,” I answer gloomily. “I -wish to heaven I had not!”</p> - -<p>“Wish—to—heaven—you—had—not?” repeats -Jane slowly, with a slight astonished -pause between each word. “My dear child, -for what other purpose did you go to -bed?”</p> - -<p>“I—I—had bad dreams,” say I, shuddering -a little and then taking her hand, roses and -all, in mine. “Dear Jane, do not think me -quite run mad, but—but—have you got a -‘Bradshaw’ in the house?”</p> - -<p>“A ‘Bradshaw?’ What on earth do you -want with ‘Bradshaw?’” says my hostess, her -face lengthening considerably and a slight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> -tincture of natural coldness coming into her -tone.</p> - -<p>“I know it seems rude—insultingly rude,” -say I, still holding her hand and speaking -almost lachrymosely: “but do you know, my -dear, I really am afraid that—that—I shall -have to leave you—to-day?”</p> - -<p>“To leave us?” repeats she, withdrawing her -hand and growing angrily red. “What! when -not twenty-four hours ago you settled to stay -<i>a month</i> with us? What have we done between -then and now to disgust you with us?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing—nothing,” cry I, eagerly; “how -can you suggest such a thing? I never had a -kinder welcome nor ever saw a place that -charmed me more; but—but——”</p> - -<p>“But what?” asks Jane, her colour subsiding -and looking a little mollified.</p> - -<p>“It is best to tell the truth, I suppose,” say -I, sighing, “even though I know that you will -laugh at me—will call me vapourish—sottishly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> -superstitious; but I had an awful and hideous -dream last night.”</p> - -<p>“Is that all?” she says, looking relieved, -and beginning to arrange her roses in an old -china bowl. “And do you think that all -dreams are confined to this house? I never -heard before of their affecting any one special -place more than another. Perhaps no sooner -are you back in Dublin, in your own room and -your own bed, than you will have a still worse -and uglier one.”</p> - -<p>I shake my head. “But it was about this -house—about <i>you</i>.”</p> - -<p>“About <i>me</i>?” she says, with an accent of a -little aroused interest.</p> - -<p>“About you and your husband,” I answer -earnestly. “Shall I tell it you? Whether -you say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ I must. Perhaps it -came as a warning; such things have happened. -Yes, say what you will, I cannot -believe that any vision so consistent—so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> -tangibly real and utterly free from the jumbled -incongruities and unlikelinesses of ordinary -dreams—could have meant nothing. Shall I -begin?”</p> - -<p>“By all means,” answers Mrs. Watson, -sitting down in an arm-chair and smiling -easily. “I am quite prepared to listen—and -<i>dis</i>believe.”</p> - -<p>“You know,” say I, narratively, coming -and standing close before her, “how utterly -tired out I was when you left me last night. I -could hardly answer your questions for yawning. -I do not think that I was ten minutes in -getting into bed, and it seemed like heaven -when I laid my head down on the pillow. I felt -as if I should sleep till the Day of Judgment. -Well, you know, when one is asleep one has of -course no measure of time, and I have no idea -what hour it was <i>really</i>; but at some time, in -the blackest and darkest of the night, I -seemed to wake. It appeared as if a noise<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> -had woke me—a noise which at first neither -frightened nor surprised me in the least, but -which seemed quite natural, and which I accounted -for in the muddled drowsy way in -which one does account for things when half -asleep. But as I gradually grew to fuller consciousness -I found out, with a cold shudder, -that the noise I heard was not one that belonged -to the night; nothing that one could -lay on wind in the chimney, or mice behind -the wainscot, or ill-fitting boards. It was a -sound of muffled struggling, and once I heard -a sort of choked strangled cry. I sat up in -bed, perfectly numbed with fright, and for a -moment could hear nothing for the singing of -the blood in my head, and the loud battering -of my heart against my side. Then I thought -that if it were anything bad—if I were going -to be murdered—I had at least rather be in -the light than the dark, and see in what -sort of shape my fate was coming, so I slid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> -out of bed and threw my dressing-gown over -my shoulders. I had stupidly forgotten, in my -weariness, over night, to put the matches by -the bedside, and could not for the life of me -recollect where they were. Also, my knowledge -of the geography of the room was so -small that in the utter blackness, without even -the palest, grayest ray from the window to -help me, I was by no means sure in which -direction the door lay. I can feel <i>now</i> the -pain of the blow I gave this right side against -the sharp corner of the table in passing; I was -quite surprised this morning not to find the -mark of a bruise there. At last, in my groping, -I came upon the handle and turned the key in -the lock. It gave a little squeak, and again I -stopped for a moment, overcome by ungovernable -fear. Then I silently opened the door -and looked out. You know that your door is -exactly opposite mine. By the line of red -light underneath it, I could see that at all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> -events some one was awake and astir within, -for the light was brighter than that given by a -night-light. By the broader band of red light -on the right side of it I could also perceive -that the door was ajar. I stood stock still and -listened. The two sounds of struggling and -chokedly crying had both ceased. All the -noise that remained was that as of some person -quietly moving about on unbooted feet. ‘Perhaps -Jane’s dog Smut is ill and she is sitting -up with it; she was saying last night, I remember, -that she was afraid it was beginning -with the distemper. Perhaps either she or her -old man have been taken with some trifling -temporary sickness. Perhaps the noise of -crying out that I certainly heard was one of -them fighting with a nightmare.’ Trying, by -such like suggestions, to hearten myself up, I -stole across the passage and peeped in——”</p> - -<p>I pause in my narrative.</p> - -<p>“Well?” says Jane, a little impatiently.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>She has dropped her flowers. They lie in -odorous dewy confusion in her lap. She is -listening rather eagerly. I cover my face with -my hands. “Oh! my dear,” I cry, “I do not -think I can go on. It was <i>too</i> dreadful! Now -that I am telling it I seem to be doing and -hearing it over again——”</p> - -<p>“I do not call it very kind to keep me on -the rack,” she says, with a rather forced laugh. -“Probably I am imagining something much -worse than the reality. For heaven’s sake -speak up! What <i>did</i> you see?”</p> - -<p>I take hold of her hand and continue. -“You know that in your room the bed exactly -faces the door. Well, when I looked in, looked -in with eyes blinking at first, and dazzled by -the long darkness they had been in, it seemed -to me as if that bed were only one horrible -sheet of crimson; but as my sight grew clearer -I saw what it was that caused that frightful -impression of universal red——” Again<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> -I pause with a gasp and feeling of oppressed -breathing.</p> - -<p>“Go on! go on!” cries my companion, leaning -forward, and speaking with some petulance. -“Are you never going to get to the -point?”</p> - -<p>“Jane,” say I solemnly, “do not laugh at -me, nor pooh pooh me, for it is God’s truth—as -clearly and vividly as I see you now, strong, -flourishing, and alive, so clearly, so vividly, -with no more of dream haziness nor of contradiction -in details than there is in the view I -now have of this room and of you—I saw you -<i>both</i>—you and your husband, lying <i>dead</i>—<i>murdered</i>—drowned -in your own blood!”</p> - -<p>“What, both of us?” she says, trying to -laugh, but her healthy cheek has rather paled.</p> - -<p>“Both of you,” I answer, with growing excitement. -“You, Jane, had evidently been -the one first attacked—taken off in your sleep—for -you were lying just as you would have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> -lain in slumber, only that across your throat -from there to there” (touching first one ear -and then the other), “there was a huge and -yawning gash.”</p> - -<p>“Pleasant,” replies she, with a slight shiver.</p> - -<p>“I never saw any one dead,” continue I -earnestly, “never until last night. I had not -the faintest idea how dead people looked, even -people who died quietly, nor has any picture -ever given me at all a clear conception of -death’s dread look. How then could I have -<i>imagined</i> the hideous contraction and distortion -of feature, the staring starting open eyes—glazed -yet agonized—the tightly clenched -teeth that go to make up the picture, that is -<i>now, this very minute</i>, standing out in ugly -vividness before my mind’s eye?” I stop, but -she does not avail herself of the pause to make -any remark, neither does she look any longer -at all laughingly inclined.</p> - -<p>“And yet,” continue I, with a voice shaken<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> -by emotion, “it was <i>you</i>, <i>very</i> you, not partly -you and partly some one else, as is mostly the -case in dreams, but as much <i>you</i>, as the <i>you</i> I -am touching now” (laying my finger on her -arm as I speak).</p> - -<p>“And my old man, Robin,” says poor Jane, -rather tearfully, after a moment’s silence, -“what about him? Did you see him? Was -he dead too?”</p> - -<p>“It was evidently he whom I had heard -struggling and crying,” I answer with a strong -shudder, which I cannot keep down, “for it -was clear that he had fought for his life. He -was lying half on the bed and half on the -floor, and one clenched hand was grasping a -great piece of the sheet; he was lying head -downwards, as if, after his last struggle, he -had fallen forwards. All his grey hair was -reddened and stained, and I could see that the -rift in his throat was as deep as that in yours.”</p> - -<p>“I wish you would stop,” cries Jane, pale as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> -ashes, and speaking with an accent of unwilling -terror; “you are making me quite sick!”</p> - -<p>“I <i>must</i> finish,” I answer earnestly, “since -it has come in time I am sure it has come for -some purpose. Listen to me till the end; it -is very near.” She does not speak, and I take -her silence for assent. “I was staring at you -both in a stony way,” I go on, a feeling—if I -felt at all—that I was turning idiotic with -horror—standing in exactly the same spot, -with my neck craned to look round the door, -and my eyes unable to stir from that hideous -scarlet bed, when a slight noise, as of some one -cautiously stepping on the carpet, turned my -stony terror into a living quivering agony. I -looked and saw a man with his back towards -me walking across the room from the bed to -the dressing-table. He was dressed in the -dirty fustian of an ordinary workman, and in -his hand he held a red wet sickle. When he -reached the dressing-table he laid it down on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> -the floor beside him, and began to collect all -the rings, open the cases of the bracelets, and -hurry the trinkets of all sorts into his pockets. -While he was thus busy I caught a full view -of the reflection of the face in the glass—— -I stop for breath, my heart is panting almost as -hardly as it seemed to pant during the awful -moments I am describing.</p> - -<p>“What was he like—what was he like?” -cries Jane, greatly excited. “Did you see -him distinctly enough to recollect his features -again? Would you know him again if you -saw him?”</p> - -<p>“Should I know my own face if I saw it in -the glass?” I ask scornfully. “I see every -line of it <i>now</i> more clearly than I do yours, -though that is before my eyes, and the other -only before my memory——”</p> - -<p>“Well, what was he like?—be quick, for -heaven’s sake.”</p> - -<p>“The first moment that I caught sight of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> -him,” continue I, speaking quickly, “I felt -certain that he was Irish; to no other nationality -could such a type of face have belonged. -His wild rough hair fell down over his forehead, -reaching his shagged and overhanging -brows. He had the wide grinning slit of a -mouth—the long nose, the cunningly twinkling -eyes—that one so often sees, in combination -with a shambling gait and ragged tail-coat, at -the railway stations or in the harvest fields at -this time of year.” A pause. “I do not know -how it came to me,” I go on presently; “but -I felt as convinced as if I had been told—as if -I had known it for a positive fact—that he -was one of your own labourers—one of your -own harvest men. Have you any Irishmen -working for you?”</p> - -<p>“Of course we have,” answers Jane, rather -sharply, “but that proves nothing. Do not -they, as you observed just now, come over in -droves at this time of the year for the harvest?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>“I am sorry,” say I, sighing. “I wish you -had not. Well, let me finish; I have just -done—I had been holding the door-handle -mechanically in my hand; I suppose I pulled -it unconsciously towards me, for the door -hinge creaked a little, but quite audibly. To -my unspeakable horror the man turned round -and saw me. Good God! he would cut my -throat too with that red, <i>red</i> reaping hook! I -tried to get into the passage and lock the -door, but the key was on the inside. I -tried to scream, I tried to run; but voice and -legs disobeyed me. The bed and room and -man began to dance before me; a black earthquake -seemed to swallow me up, and I suppose -I fell down in a swoon. When I awoke <i>really</i> -the blessed morning had come, and a robin was -singing outside my window on an apple bough. -There—you have it all, and now let me look -for a ‘Bradshaw,’ for I am so frightened and -unhinged that go I must.”</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III.</h3> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">I must</span> own that it has taken away appetite,” -I say, with rather a sickly smile, as we -sit round the breakfast table. “I assure you -that I mean no insult to your fresh eggs and -bread-and-butter, but I simply <i>cannot</i> eat.”</p> - -<p>“It certainly was an exceptionally dreadful -dream,” says Jane, whose colour has returned, -and who is a good deal fortified and reassured -by the influences of breakfast and of her -husband’s scepticism; for a condensed and -shortened version of my dream has been told -to him, and he has easily laughed it to scorn. -“Exceptionally dreadful, chiefly from its extreme<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span> -consistency and precision of detail. But -still, you know, dear, one has had hideous -dreams oneself times out of mind and they -never came to anything. I remember once I -dreamt that all my teeth came out in my -mouth at once—double ones and all; but that -was ten years ago, and they still keep their -situations, nor did I about that time lose any -friend, which they say such a dream is a sign -of.”</p> - -<p>“You say that some unaccountable instinct -told you that the hero of your dream was one -of my own men,” says Robin, turning towards -me with a covert smile of benevolent contempt -for my superstitiousness; “did not I understand -you to say so?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” reply I, not in the least shaken by his -hardly-veiled disbelief. “I do not know how -it came to me, but I was as much persuaded of -that, and am so still, as I am of my own -identity.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>“I will tell you of a plan then to prove the -truth of your vision,” returns he, smiling. “I -will take you through the fields this morning -and you shall see all my men at work, both -the ordinary staff and the harvest casuals, Irish -and all. If amongst them you find the counterpart -of Jane’s and my murderer” (a smile) “I -will promise <i>then</i>—no, not even <i>then</i> can I -promise to believe you, for there is such a -family likeness between all Irishmen, at all -events, between all the Irishmen that one sees -<i>out</i> of Ireland.”</p> - -<p>“Take me,” I say, eagerly, jumping up; -“now, this <i>minute</i>! You cannot be more -anxious nor half so anxious to prove me a false -prophet as I am to be proved one.”</p> - -<p>“I am quite at your service,” he answers, -“as soon as you please. Jenny, get your hat -and come too.”</p> - -<p>“And if we do <i>not</i> find him,” says Jane, -smiling playfully—“I think I am growing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> -pretty easy on that head—you will promise to -eat a great deal of luncheon and never <i>mention</i> -‘Bradshaw’ again?”</p> - -<p>“I promise,” reply I, gravely. “And if, on -the other hand, we <i>do</i> find him, you will promise -to put no more obstacles in the way of -my going, but will let me depart in peace -without taking any offence thereat?”</p> - -<p>“It is a bargain,” she says gaily. “Witness, -Robin.”</p> - -<p>So we set off in the bright dewiness of the -morning on our walk over Robin’s farm. It is -a grand harvest day, and the whitened sheaves -are everywhere drying, drying in the genial -sun. We have been walking for an hour and -both Jane and I are rather tired. The sun -beats with all his late-summer strength on our -heads and takes the force and spring out of our -hot limbs.</p> - -<p>“The hour of triumph is approaching,” says -Robin, with a quiet smile, as we draw near an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> -open gate through which a loaded wain, shedding -ripe wheat ears from its abundance as it -crawls along, is passing. “And time for it too; -it is a quarter past twelve and you have been -on your legs for fully an hour. Miss Bellairs, -you must make haste and find the murderer, -for there is only one more field to do it in.”</p> - -<p>“Is not there?” I cry eagerly, “Oh, I <i>am</i> -glad! Thank God, I begin to breathe again.”</p> - -<p>We pass through the open gate and begin to -tread across the stubble, for almost the last -load has gone.</p> - -<p>“We must get nearer the hedge,” says -Robin, “or you will not see their faces; they -are all at dinner.”</p> - -<p>We do as he suggests. In the shadow of -the hedge we walk close in front of the row -of heated labourers, who, sitting or lying -on the hedge bank, are eating unattractive -looking dinners. I scan one face after another—honest -bovine English faces. I have seen a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> -hundred thousand faces <i>like</i> each one of the -faces now before me—very like, but the exact -counterpart of none. We are getting to the -end of the row, I beginning to feel rather -ashamed, though infinitely relieved, and to -smile at my own expense. I look again, and -my heart suddenly stands still and turns to -stone within me. He is <i>there</i>!—not a hand-breadth -from me! Great God! how well I -have remembered his face, even to the unsightly -smallpox seams, the shagged locks, the -grinning slit mouth, the little sly base eyes. He -is employed in no murderous occupation <i>now</i>; -he is harmlessly cutting hunks of coarse bread -and fat cold bacon with a clasp knife, but yet -I have no more doubt that it is <i>he</i>—he whom -I saw with the crimsoned sickle in his stained -hand—than I have that it is I who am stonily, -shiveringly, staring at him.</p> - -<p>“Well, Miss Bellairs, who was right?” asks -Robin’s cheery voice at my elbow. “Perish<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> -‘Bradshaw’ and all his labyrinths! Are you -satisfied now? Good heavens!” (catching a -sudden sight of my face) “How white you are! -Do you mean to say that you have found him -at last? Impossible!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I have found him,” I answer in a low -and unsteady tone. “I knew I should. Look, -there he is!—close to us, the third from the -end.”</p> - -<p>I turn away my head, unable to bear the -hideous recollections and associations that the -sight of the man calls up, and I suppose that -they both look.</p> - -<p>“Are you sure that you are not letting your -imagination carry you away?” asks he presently, -in a tone of gentle kindly remonstrance. -“As I said before these fellows are -all so much alike; they have all the same -look of debased squalid cunning. Oblige -me by looking once again, so as to be quite -sure.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>I obey. Reluctantly I look at him once -again. Apparently, becoming aware that he -is the object of our notice, he lifts his small -dull eyes and looks back at me. It is the -same face—they are the same eyes that -turned from the plundered dressing-table to -catch sight of me last night. “There is no -mistake,” I answer, shuddering from head -to foot. “Take me away, please—as quick as -you can—out of the field—home!”</p> - -<p>They comply, and over the hot fields and -through the hot noon air we step silently -homewards. As we reach the cool and ivied -porch of the house I speak for the first time. -“You believe me <i>now</i>?”</p> - -<p>He hesitates. “I was staggered for a -moment, I will own,” he answers, with -candid gravity; “but I have been thinking -it over, and on reflection I have come to -the conclusion that the highly excited state -of your imagination is answerable for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> -heightening of the resemblance which exists -between all the Irish of that class into an -identity with the particular Irishman you -dreamed of, and whose face (by your own showing) -you only saw dimly reflected in the glass.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Not</i> dimly,” repeat I emphatically, “unless -I now see that sun dimly” (pointing to him, -as he gloriously, blindingly blazes from the -sky). “You will not be warned by me then?” -I continue passionately, after an interval. -“You will run the risk of my dream coming -true—you will stay on here in spite of it? -Oh, if I could persuade you to go from home—anywhere—anywhere—for -a time, until the -danger was past!”</p> - -<p>“And leave the harvest to itself?” answers -he, with a smile of quiet sarcasm; “be a loser -of two hundred or three hundred pounds, -probably, and a laughing-stock to my acquaintance -into the bargain, and all for—what? -A dream—a fancy—a nightmare!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>“But do you know anything of the man?—of -his antecedents?—of his character?” I -persist eagerly.</p> - -<p>He shrugs his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“Nothing whatever; nothing to his disadvantage, -certainly. He came over with a -lot of others a fortnight ago, and I engaged -him for the harvesting. For anything I -have heard to the contrary, he is a simple inoffensive -fellow enough.”</p> - -<p>I am silenced, but not convinced. I turn -to Jane. “You remember your promise: you -will now put no more hindrances in the way -of my going?”</p> - -<p>“You do not mean to say that you are -going, really?” says Jane, who is looking -rather awed by what she calls the surprising -coincidence, but is still a good deal heartened -up by her husband’s want of faith.</p> - -<p>“I do,” reply I, emphatically. “I should -go stark staring mad if I were to sleep<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> -another night in that room. I shall go -to Chester to-night, and cross to-morrow from -Holyhead.”</p> - -<p>I do as I say. I make my maid, to her -extreme surprise, repack my just unpacked -wardrobe and take an afternoon train to -Chester. As I drive away with bag and baggage -down the leafy lane, I look back and see -my two friends standing at their gate. Jane -is leaning her head on her old man’s shoulder, -and looking rather wistfully after me: an expression -of mingled regret for my departure -and vexation at my folly clouding their kind -and happy faces. At least my last living -recollection of them is a pleasant one.</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV.</h3> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> joy with which my family welcome my -return is largely mingled with surprise, but -still more largely with curiosity, as to the -cause of my so sudden reappearance. But I -keep my own counsel. I have a reluctance -to give the real reason, and possess no -inventive faculty in the way of lying, so -I give none. I say, “I <i>am</i> back: is not -that enough for you? Set your minds at rest, -for that is as much as you will ever know -about the matter.”</p> - -<p>For one thing, I am occasionally rather -ashamed of my conduct. It is not that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> -impression produced by my dream is <i>effaced</i>, -but that absence and distance from the scene -and the persons of it have produced their -natural weakening effect. Once or twice -during the voyage, when writhing in laughable -torments in the ladies’ cabin of the steamboat, -I said to myself, “Most likely you are a fool!” -I therefore continually ward off the cross-questionings -of my family with what defensive -armour of silence and evasion I may.</p> - -<p>“I feel convinced it was the husband,” says -one of my sisters, after a long catechism, -which, as usual, has resulted in nothing. “You -are too loyal to your friend to own it, but I -always felt sure that any man who could take -compassion on that poor peevish old Jane must -be some wonderful freak of nature. Come, -confess. Is not he a cross between an ourang-outang -and a Methodist parson?”</p> - -<p>“He is nothing of the kind,” reply I, in some -heat, recalling the libelled Robin’s clean fresh-coloured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> -<i>human</i> face. “You will be very -lucky if you ever secure any one half so kind, -pleasant, and gentleman-like.”</p> - -<p>Three days after my return, I receive a -letter from Jane:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="right">“Weston House, Caulfield.</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Dinah</span>,—I hope you are safe -home again, and that you have made up your -mind that two crossings of St. George’s -Channel within forty-eight hours are almost -as bad as having your throat cut, according to -the programme you laid out for <i>us</i>. I have -good news for you. Our murderer elect is -<i>gone</i>. After hearing of the connection that -there was to be between us, Robin naturally -was rather interested in him, and found out -his name, which is the melodious one of Watty -Doolan. After asking his name he asked other -things about him, and finding that he never -did a stroke of work and was inclined to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span> -tipsy and quarrelsome, he paid and packed him -off at once. He is now, I hope, on his way -back to his native shores, and if he murder -anybody it will be <i>you</i>, my dear. Good-bye, -Dinah. Hardly yet have I forgiven you for -the way in which you frightened me with -your graphic description of poor Robin and -me, with our heads loose and waggling.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“Ever yours affectionately,</span><br> -“<span class="smcap">Jane Watson</span>.”</p> -</div> - -<p>I fold up this note with a feeling of exceeding -relief, and a thorough faith that I have -been a superstitious hysterical fool. More resolved -than ever am I to keep the reason for -my return profoundly secret from my family. -The next morning but one we are all in the -breakfast-room after breakfast, hanging about, -and looking at the papers. My sister has just -thrown down the <i>Times</i>, with a pettish exclamation -that there is nothing in it, and that it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> -really is not worth while paying threepence a -day to see nothing but advertisements and -police reports. I pick it up as she throws it -down, and look listlessly over its tall columns -from top to bottom. Suddenly my listlessness -vanishes. What is this that I am reading?—this -in staring capitals?</p> - -<p class="center">“<span class="smcap">Shocking Tragedy at Caulfield.<br> -Double Murder.</span>”</p> - -<p>I am in the middle of the paragraph before -I realise what it is.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“From an early hour of the morning this -village has been the scene of deep and painful -excitement in consequence of the discovery of -the atrocious murder of Mr. and Mrs. Watson, -of Weston House, two of its most respected -inhabitants. It appears that the deceased had -retired to rest on Tuesday night at their usual -hour, and in their usual health and spirits. -The housemaid, on going to call them at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span> -accustomed hour on Wednesday morning, received -no answer, in spite of repeated knocking. -She therefore at length opened the door -and entered. The rest of the servants, attracted -by her cries, rushed to the spot, and -found the unfortunate gentleman and lady -lying on the bed with their throats cut from -ear to ear. Life must have been extinct for -some hours, as they were both perfectly cold. -The room presented a hideous spectacle, being -literally swimming in blood. A reaping hook, -evidently the instrument with which the crime -was perpetrated, was picked up near the door. -An Irish labourer of the name of Watty -Doolan, discharged by the lamented gentleman -a few days ago on account of misconduct, has -already been arrested on strong suspicion, as at -an early hour on Wednesday morning he was -seen by a farm labourer, who was going to his -work, washing his waistcoat at a retired spot -in the stream which flows through the meadows -below the scene of the murder. On being -apprehended and searched, several small articles -of jewelry, identified as having belonged to -Mr. Watson, were discovered in his possession.”</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>I drop the paper and sink into a chair, feeling -deadly sick.</p> - -<p>So you see that my dream came true, after -all.</p> - -<p>The facts narrated in the above story -occurred in Ireland. The only liberty I have -taken with them is in transplanting them to -England.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> -<h2 class="nobreak">POOR PRETTY BOBBY.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> -<p class="ph2">POOR PRETTY BOBBY.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="tiny"> -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I.</h3> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Yes</span>, my dear, you may not believe me, -but I can assure you that you cannot dislike -old women more, nor think them more contemptible -supernumeraries, than I did when -I was your age.”</p> - -<p>This is what old Mrs. Wentworth says—the -old lady so incredibly tenacious of life (incredibly -as it seems to me at eighteen) as to have -buried a husband and five strong sons, and yet -still to eat her dinner with hearty relish, and -laugh at any such jokes as are spoken loudly -enough to reach her dulled ears. This is what -she says, shaking the while her head, which—poor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> -old soul—is already shaking a good deal -involuntarily. I am sitting close beside her -arm-chair, and have been reading aloud to -her; but as I cannot succeed in pitching -my voice so as to make her hear satisfactorily, -by mutual consent the book has been dropped -in my lap, and we have betaken ourselves -to conversation.</p> - -<p>“I never said I disliked old women, did -I?” reply I evasively, being too truthful -altogether to deny the soft impeachment. -“What makes you think I do? They are -infinitely preferable to old men; I do distinctly -dislike <i>them</i>.”</p> - -<p>“A fat, bald, deaf old woman,” continues -she, not heeding me, and speaking with slow -emphasis, while she raises one trembling hand -to mark each unpleasant adjective; “if in the -year ’2 any one had told me that I should have -lived to be that, I think I should have killed -them or myself! and yet now I am all three.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>“You are not <i>very</i> deaf,” say I politely—(the -fatness and baldness admit of no civilities -consistent with veracity)—but I raise -my voice to pay the compliment.</p> - -<p>“In the year ’2 I was seventeen,” she says, -wandering off into memory. “Yes, my dear, -I am just fifteen years older than the century -and <i>it</i> is getting into its dotage, is not it? -The year ’2—ah! I that was just about the -time that I first saw my poor Bobby! Poor -pretty Bobby.”</p> - -<p>“And who <i>was</i> Bobby?” ask I, pricking up -my ears, and scenting, with the keen nose of -youth, a dead-love idyll; an idyll of which -this poor old hill of unsteady flesh was -the heroine.</p> - -<p>“I must have told you the tale a hundred -times, have not I?” she asks, turning her -old dim eyes towards me. “A curious tale, -say what you will, and explain it how you -will. I think I <i>must</i> have told you; but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> -indeed I forgot to whom I tell my old stories -and to whom I do not. Well, my love, you -must promise to stop me if you have heard it -before, but to me, you know, these old things -are so much clearer than the things of -yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“You never told me, Mrs. Hamilton,” I say, -and say truthfully; for being a new acquaintance -I really have not been made acquainted -with Bobby’s history. “Would you mind -telling it me now, if you are sure that it -would not bore you?”</p> - -<p>“Bobby,” she repeats softly to herself, -“Bobby. I daresay you do not think it a -very pretty name?”</p> - -<p>“N—not particularly,” reply I honestly. -“To tell you the truth, it rather reminds me -of a policeman.”</p> - -<p>“I daresay,” she answers quietly; “and -yet in the year ’2 I grew to think it the -handsomest, dearest name on earth. Well,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> -if you like, I will begin at the beginning and -tell you how that came about.”</p> - -<p>“Do,” say I, drawing a stocking out of my -pocket, and thriftily beginning to knit to assist -me in the process of listening.</p> - -<p>“In the year ’2 we were at war with -France—you know that, of course. It seemed -then as if war were our normal state; I could -hardly remember a time when Europe had -been at peace. In these days of stagnant -quiet it appears as if people’s kith and kin -always lived out their full time and died -in their beds. <i>Then</i> there was hardly a house -where there was not one dead, either in battle, -or of his wounds after battle, or of some -dysentery or ugly parching fever. As for us, -we had always been a soldier family—always; -there was not one of us that had ever worn -a black gown or sat upon a high stool with -a pen behind his ear. I had lost uncles and -cousins by the half-dozen and dozen, but,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> -for my part, I did not much mind, as I knew -very little about them, and black was more -becoming wear to a person with my bright -colour than anything else.”</p> - -<p>At the mention of her bright colour I -unintentionally lift my eyes from my knitting, -and contemplate the yellow bagginess of the -poor old cheek nearest me. Oh, Time! Time! -what absurd and dirty turns you play us! -What do you do with all our fair and goodly -things when you have stolen them from us? -In what far and hidden treasure-house do -you store them?</p> - -<p>“But I did care very much—very exceedingly—for -my dear old father—not so old -either—younger than my eldest boy was -when he went; he would have been forty-two -if he had lived three days longer. Well, well, -child, you must not let me wander; you must -keep me to it. He was not a soldier, was not -my father; he was a sailor, a post-captain in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> -his Majesty’s navy and commanded the ship -<i>Thunderer</i> in the Channel fleet.</p> - -<p>“I had struck seventeen in the year ’2, as -I said before, and had just come home from -being finished at a boarding-school of repute -in those days, where I had learnt to talk the -prettiest <i>ancien régime</i> French and to hate -Bonaparte with unchristian violence from a -little ruined <i>émigre maréchale</i>; had also, with -infinite expenditure of time, labour, and -Berlin wool, wrought out ‘Abraham’s Sacrifice -of Isaac’ and ‘Jacob’s First Kiss to Rachel,’ -in finest cross-stitch. Now I had bidden -adieu to learning; had inly resolved never -to disinter ‘Télémaque’ and Thompson’s -‘Seasons’ from the bottom of my trunk; had -taken a holiday from all my accomplishments -with the exception of cross-stitch, to which -I still faithfully adhered—and indeed, on the -day I am going to mention, I recollect that -I was hard at work on Judas Iscariot’s face in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> -Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’—hard at -work at it, sitting in the morning sunshine, -on a straight-backed chair. We had flatter -backs in those days; our shoulders were not -made round by lolling in easy-chairs; indeed, -no <i>then</i> upholsterer made a chair that it was -possible to loll in. My father rented a house -near Plymouth at that time, an in-and-out -<i>nooky</i> kind of old house—no doubt it has -fallen to pieces long years ago—a house all -set round with unnumbered flowers, and about -which the rooks clamoured all together from -the windy elm tops. I was labouring in -flesh-coloured wool on Judas’s left cheek, -when the door opened and my mother entered. -She looked as if something had freshly pleased -her, and her eyes were smiling. In her -hand she held an open and evidently just-read -letter.</p> - -<p>“‘A messenger has come from Plymouth,’ -she says, advancing quickly and joyfully towards<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> -me. ‘Your father will be here this -afternoon.’</p> - -<p>“‘<i>This afternoon!</i>’ cry I, at the top of my -voice, pushing away my heavy work-frame. -‘How delightful! But how?—how can that -happen?’</p> - -<p>“‘They have had a brush with a French -privateer,’ she answers, sitting down on another -straight-backed chair, and looking again over -the large square letter, destitute of envelope, -for such things were not in those days, ‘and -then they succeeded in taking her. Yet they -were a good deal knocked about in the process, -and have had to put into Plymouth to refit, -so he will be here this afternoon for a few -hours.’</p> - -<p>“‘Hurrah!’ cry I, rising, holding out my -scanty skirts, and beginning to dance.</p> - -<p>“‘Bobby Gerard is coming with him,’ continues -my mother, again glancing at her despatch. -‘Poor boy, he has had a shot through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> -his right arm, which has broken the bone, so -your father is bringing him here for us to -nurse him well again.’</p> - -<p>“I stop in my dancing.</p> - -<p>“‘Hurrah again!’ I say brutally. ‘I do not -mean about his arm; of course I am very -sorry for that; but at all events, I shall see him -at last. I shall see whether he is like his -picture, and whether it is not as egregiously -flattered as I have always suspected.’</p> - -<p>“There were no photographs you know in -those days—not even hazy daguerreotypes—it -was fifty good years too soon for them. -The picture to which I allude is a miniature, at -which I had stolen many a deeply longingly admiring -glance in its velvet case. It is almost -impossible for a miniature not to flatter. To -the most coarse-skinned and mealy-potato-faced -people it cannot help giving cheeks of -the texture of a rose-leaf and brows of the -grain of finest marble.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>“‘Yes,’ replies my mother, absently, ‘so you -will. Well, I must be going to give orders -about his room. He would like one looking -on the garden best, do not you think, -Phœbe?—one where he could smell the flowers -and hear the birds?’</p> - -<p>“Mother goes, and I fall into a meditation. -Bobby Gerard is an orphan. A few years ago -his mother, who was an old friend of my -father’s—who knows! perhaps an old love—feeling -her end drawing nigh, had sent for -father, and had asked him, with eager dying -tears, to take as much care of her pretty forlorn -boy as he could, and to shield him a -little in his tender years from the evils of this -wicked world, and to be to him a wise and -kindly guardian, in the place of those natural -ones that God had taken. And father had -promised, and when he promised there was -small fear of his not keeping his word.</p> - -<p>“This was some years ago, and yet I had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span> -never seen him nor he me; he had been almost -always at sea and I at school. I had heard -plenty about him—about his sayings, his waggeries, -his mischievousness, his soft-heartedness, -and his great and unusual comeliness; -but his outward man, save as represented in -that stealthily peeped-at miniature, had I never -seen. They were to arrive in the afternoon; -but long before the hour at which they were -due I was waiting with expectant impatience -to receive them. I had changed my dress, and -had (though rather ashamed of myself) put -on everything of most becoming that my -wardrobe afforded. If you were to see me as -I stood before the glass on that summer afternoon -you would not be able to contain your -laughter; the little boys in the street would -run after me throwing stones and hooting; but -<i>then</i>—according to the <i>then</i> fashion and standard -of gentility—I was all that was most elegant -and <i>comme il faut</i>. Lately it has been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> -the mode to puff oneself out with unnatural -and improbable protuberances; <i>then</i> one’s -great life-object was to make oneself appear as -scrimping as possible—to make oneself look -as flat as if one had been ironed. Many people -<i>damped</i> their clothes to make them stick -more closely to them, and to make them define -more distinctly the outline of form and -limbs. One’s waist was under one’s arm’s; -the sole object of which seemed to be to -outrage nature by pushing one’s bust up into -one’s chin, and one’s legs were revealed through -one’s scanty drapery with startling candour as -one walked or sat. I remember once standing -with my back to a bright fire in our long -drawing-room, and seeing myself reflected in -a big mirror at the other end. I was so thinly -clad that I was transparent, and could see -through myself. Well, in the afternoon in -question I was dressed quite an hour and a -half too soon. I had a narrow little white<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> -gown, which clung successfully tight and -close to my figure, and which was of so moderate -a length as to leave visible my ankles -and my neatly-shod and cross-sandled feet. -I had long mittens on my arms, black, and -embroidered on the backs in coloured silks; -and above my hair, which at the back was -scratched up to the top of my crown, towered -a tremendous tortoise-shell comb; while on -each side of my face modestly drooped a -bunch of curls, nearly meeting over my nose.</p> - -<p>“My figure was full—ah! my dear, I have -always had a tendency to fat, and you see -what it has come to—and my pink cheeks -were more deeply brightly rosy than usual. I -had looked out at every upper window, so as -to have the furthest possible view of the road.</p> - -<p>“I had walked in my thin shoes half way -down the drive, so as to command a turn, -which, from the house, impeded my vision, -when, at last, after many tantalising false<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> -alarms, and just five minutes later than the -time mentioned in the letter, the high-swung, -yellow-bodied, post-chaise hove in sight, -dragged—briskly jingling—along by a pair of -galloping horses. Then, suddenly, shyness -overcame me—much as I loved my father, it -was more as my personification of all knightly -and noble qualities than from much personal -acquaintance with him—and I fled.</p> - -<p>“I remained in my room until I thought I -had given them ample time to get through the -first greetings and settle down into quiet talk. -Then, having for one last time run my fingers -through each ringlet of my two curl bunches, -I stole diffidently downstairs.</p> - -<p>“There was a noise of loud and gay voices -issuing from the parlour, but, as I entered, -they all stopped talking and turned to look at -me.</p> - -<p>“‘And so this is Phœbe!’ cries my father’s -jovial voice, as he comes towards me, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span> -heartily kisses me. ‘Good Lord, how time -flies! It does not seem more than three -months since I saw the child, and yet then she -was a bit of a brat in trousers, and long bare -legs!’</p> - -<p>“At this allusion to my late mode of attire, -I laugh, but I also feel myself growing scarlet.</p> - -<p>“‘Here, Bobby!’ continues my father, taking -me by the hand, and leading me towards a -sofa on which a young man is sitting beside -my mother; ‘this is my little lass that you -have so often heard of. Not such a very little -one, after all, is she? Do not be shy, my boy; -you will not see such a pretty girl every day -of your life—give her a kiss.’</p> - -<p>“My eyes are on the ground, but I am -aware that the young man rises, advances (not -unwillingly, as it seems to me), and bestows a -kiss, somewhere or other on my face. I am -not quite clear <i>where</i>, as I think the curls impede -him a good deal.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>“Thus, before ever I saw Bobby, before ever -I knew what manner of man he was, I was -kissed by him. That was a good beginning, -was not it?</p> - -<p>“After these salutations are over, we subside -again into conversation—I sitting beside my -father, with his arm round my waist, sitting -modestly silent, and peeping every now and -then under my eyes, as often as I think I may -do so safely unobserved, at the young fellow -opposite me. I am instituting an inward comparison -between Nature and Art: between the -real live man and the miniature that undertakes -to represent him. The first result of -this inspection is disappointment, for where -are the lovely smooth roses and lilies that I -have been wont to connect with Bobby Gerard’s -name? There are no roses in his cheek, -certainly; they are paleish—from his wound, -as I conjecture; but even before that accident, -if there were roses at all, they must have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> -mahogany-coloured ones, for the salt sea winds -and the high summer sun have tanned his fair -face to a rich reddish, brownish, copperish -hue. But in some things the picture lied not. -There is the brow more broad than high; the -straight fine nose; the brave and joyful blue -eyes, and the mouth with its pretty curling -smile. On the whole, perhaps, I am not disappointed.</p> - -<p>“By-and-by father rises, and steps out into -the verandah, where the canary birds hung -out in their cages are noisily praising God -after their manner. Mother follows him. I -should like to do the same; but a sense of -good manners, and a conjecture that possibly -my parents may have some subjects to discuss, -on which they would prefer to be without the -help of my advice, restrain me. I therefore -remain, and so does the invalid.</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II.</h3> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">For</span> some moments the silence threatens to -remain unbroken between us; for some moments -the subdued sound of father’s and -mother’s talk from among the rosebeds and -the piercing clamour of the canaries—fish-wives -among birds—are the only noises that -salute our ears. Noise we make none ourselves. -My eyes are reading the muddled -pattern of the Turkey carpet; I do not know -what his are doing. Small knowledge have I -had of men saving the dancing-master at our -school; a beautiful new youth is almost as -great a novelty to me as to Miranda, and I am<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> -a good deal gawkier than she was under the -new experience. I think he must have made -a vow that he would not speak first. I feel -myself swelling to double my normal size with -confusion and heat; at last, in desperation, I -look up, and say sententiously, ‘You have -been wounded, I believe?’</p> - -<p>“‘Yes, I have.’</p> - -<p>“He might have helped me by answering -more at large, might not he? But now -that I am having a good look at him, I see -that he is rather red too. Perhaps he also -feels gawky and swollen; the idea encourages -me.</p> - -<p>“‘Did it hurt very badly?’</p> - -<p>“‘N—not so very much.’</p> - -<p>“‘I should have thought that you ought -to have been in bed,’ say I, with a motherly -air of solicitude.</p> - -<p>“‘Should you, why?’</p> - -<p>“‘I thought that when people broke their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> -limbs they had to stay in bed till they were -mended again.’</p> - -<p>“‘But mine was broken a week ago,’ he -answers, smiling and showing his straight -white teeth—ah, the miniature was silent -about <i>them</i>! ‘You would not have had me -stay in bed a whole week like an old woman?’</p> - -<p>“‘I expected to have seen you much <i>iller</i>,’ say -I, beginning to feel more at my ease, and with -a sensible diminution of that unpleasant swelling -sensation. ‘Father said in his note that -we were to nurse you well again; that -sounded as if you were <i>quite</i> ill.’</p> - -<p>“‘Your father always takes a great deal -too much care of me,’ he says, with a slight -frown and darkening of his whole bright face. -‘I might be sugar or salt.’</p> - -<p>“‘And very kind of him, too,’ I cry, firing -up. ‘What motive beside your own good -can he have for looking after you? I call -you rather ungrateful.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>“‘Do you?’ he says calmly, and without -apparent resentment. ‘But you are mistaken. -I am not ungrateful. However, naturally, -you do not understand.’</p> - -<p>“‘Oh, indeed!’ reply I, speaking rather -shortly, and feeling a little offended, ‘I daresay -not.’</p> - -<p>“Our talk is taking a somewhat hostile -tone; to what further amenities we might -have proceeded is unknown; for at this point -father and mother reappear through the window, -and the necessity of conversing with -each other at all ceases.</p> - -<p>“Father staid till evening, and we all -supped together, and I was called upon to sit -by Bobby, and cut up his food for him, as he -was disabled from doing it for himself. Then, -later still, when the sun had set, and all his -evening reds and purples had followed him, -when the night flowers were scenting all the -garden, and the shadows lay about, enormously<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> -long in the summer moonlight, father -got into the post-chaise again, and drove away -through the black shadows and the faint -clear shine, and Bobby stood at the hall-door -watching him, with his arm in a sling and a -wistful smile on lips and eyes.</p> - -<p>“‘Well, we are not left <i>quite</i> desolate this -time,’ says mother, turning with rather tearful -laughter to the young man. ‘You wish that -we were, do not you, Bobby?’</p> - -<p>“‘You would not believe me, if I answered -“No,” would you?’ he asks, with the same -still smile.</p> - -<p>“‘He is not very polite to us, is he, Phœbe?’</p> - -<p>“‘You would not wish me to be polite in -such a case,’ he replies, flushing. ‘You would -not wish me to be <i>glad</i> at missing the chance -of seeing any of the fun?’</p> - -<p>“But Mr. Gerard’s eagerness to be back at -his post delays the probability of his being -able to return thither. The next day he has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -a feverish attack, the day after he is worse; -the day after that worse still, and in fine, it -is between a fortnight and three weeks before -he also is able to get into a post-chaise and -drive away to Plymouth. And meanwhile -mother and I nurse him and cosset him, -and make him odd and cool drinks out of -herbs and field-flowers, whose uses are now -disdained or forgotten. I do not mean any -offence to you, my dear, but I think that -young girls in those days were less squeamish -and more truly delicate than they are nowadays. -I remember once I read ‘Humphrey -Clinker’ aloud to my father, and we both -highly relished and laughed over its jokes; -but I should not have understood one of the -darkly unclean allusions in that French book -your brother left here one day. <i>You</i> would -think it very unseemly to enter the bedroom -of a strange young man, sick or well; but as -for me, I spent whole nights in Bobby’s,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> -watching him and tending him with as little -false shame as if he had been my brother. I -can hear <i>now</i>, more plainly than the song -you sang me an hour ago, the slumberous -buzzing of the great brown-coated summer -bees in his still room, as I sat by his bedside -watching his sleeping face, as he dreamt unquietly, -and clenched, and again unclenched, -his nervous hands. I think he was back in -the <i>Thunderer</i>. I can see <i>now</i> the little -close curls of his sunshiny hair straggling -over the white pillow. And then there came -a good and blessed day, when he was out of -danger, and then another, a little further on, -when he was up and dressed, and he and I -walked forth into the hayfield beyond the -garden—reversing the order of things—<i>he</i>, -leaning on <i>my</i> arm; and a good plump solid -arm it was. We walked out under the heavy-leaved -horse-chestnut trees, and the old and -rough-barked elms. The sun was shining all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> -this time, as it seems to me. I do not believe -that in those old days there were the same -cold unseasonable rains as now; there were -soft showers enough to keep the grass green -and the flowers undrooped; but I have no -association of overcast skies and untimely -deluges with those long and azure days. We -sat under a haycock, on the shady side, and -indolently watched the hot haymakers—the -shirt-sleeved men, and burnt and bare-armed -women, tossing and raking; while we breathed -the blessed country air, full of adorable scents, -and crowded with little happy and pretty-winged -insects.</p> - -<p>“‘In three days,’ says Bobby, leaning his -elbow in the hay, and speaking with an eager -smile, ‘three days at the furthest, I may go -back again; may not I, Phœbe?’</p> - -<p>“‘Without doubt,’ reply I, stiffly, pulling a -dry and faded ox-eye flower out of the odorous -mound beside me; ‘for my part, I do not see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> -why you should not go to-morrow, or indeed—if -we could send into Plymouth for a chaise—this -afternoon; you are so thin that you look -all mouth and eyes, and you can hardly stand, -without assistance, but these, of course, are -trifling drawbacks, and I daresay would be -rather an advantage on board ship than otherwise.’</p> - -<p>“‘You are angry!’ he says, with a sort of -laugh in his deep eyes. ‘You look even prettier -when you are angry than when you are -pleased.’</p> - -<p>“‘It is no question of my looks,’ I say, still -in some heat, though mollified by the irrelevant -compliment.</p> - -<p>“‘For the second time you are thinking me -ungrateful,’ he says, gravely; ‘you do not tell -me so in so many words, because it is towards -yourself that my ingratitude is shown; the -first time you told me of it it was almost the -first thing that you ever said to me.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>“‘So it was,’ I answer quickly; ‘and if the -occasion were to come over again, I should say -it again. I daresay you did not mean it, but -it sounded exactly as if you were complaining -of my father for being too careful of you.’</p> - -<p>“‘He <i>is</i> too careful of me!’ cries the young -man, with a hot flushing of cheek and brow. -‘I cannot help it if it make you angry again; -I <i>must</i> say it, he is more careful of me than he -would be of his own son, if he had one.’</p> - -<p>“‘Did not he promise your mother that he -would look after you?’ ask I eagerly. ‘When -people make promises to people on their death-beds -they are in no hurry to break them; at -least, such people as father are not.’</p> - -<p>“‘You do not understand,’ he says, a -little impatiently, while that hot flush still -dwells on his pale cheek; ‘my mother was -the last person in the world to wish him to -take care of my body at the expense of my -honour.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>“‘What are you talking about?’ I say, looking -at him with a lurking suspicion that, despite -the steady light of reason in his blue -eyes, he is still labouring under some form of -delirium.</p> - -<p>“‘Unless I tell you all my grievance, I see -that you will never comprehend,’ he says sighing. -‘Well, listen to me and you shall hear -it, and if you do not agree with me, when I -have done, you are not the kind of girl I take -you for.’</p> - -<p>“‘Then I am sure I am not the kind of girl -you take me for,’ reply I, with a laugh; ‘for I -am fully determined to disagree with you entirely.’</p> - -<p>“‘You know,’ he says, raising himself a -little from his hay couch and speaking with -clear rapidity, ‘that whenever we take a -French prize a lot of the French sailors are -ironed, and the vessel is sent into port, in the -charge of one officer and several men; there is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> -some slight risk attending it—for my part, I -think <i>very</i> slight—but I suppose that your -father looks at it differently, for—<i>I have never -been sent</i>.’</p> - -<p>“‘It is accident,’ say I, reassuringly; ‘your -turn will come in good time.’</p> - -<p>“‘It is <i>not</i> accident!’ he answers, firmly. -‘Boys younger than I am—much less trustworthy, -and of whom he has not half the -opinion that he has of me—have been sent, -but <i>I</i>, <i>never</i>. I bore it as well as I could for a -long time, but now I can bear it no longer; it -is not, I assure you, my fancy; but I can see -that my brother officers, knowing how partial -your father is to me—what influence I have -with him in many things—conclude that my -not being sent is my own choice; in short, -that I am—<i>afraid</i>.’ (His voice sinks with a -disgusted and shamed intonation at the last -word.) ‘Now—I have told you the sober -facts—look me in the face’ (putting his hand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> -with boyish familiarity under my chin, and -turning round my curls, my features, and the -front view of my big comb towards him), ‘and -tell me whether you agree with me, as I said -you would, or not—whether it is not cruel -kindness on his part to make me keep a whole -skin on such terms?’</p> - -<p>“I look him in the face for a moment, trying -to say that I do not agree with him, but -it is more than I can manage. ‘You were -right,’ I say, turning my head away, ‘I <i>do</i> -agree with you; I wish to heaven that I could -honestly say that I did not.’</p> - -<p>“‘Since you do then,’ he cries excitedly—‘Phœbe! -I knew you would, I knew you -better than you knew yourself—I have a -favour to ask of you, a <i>great</i> favour, and one -that will keep me all my life in debt to you.’</p> - -<p>“‘What is it?’ ask I, with a sinking heart.</p> - -<p>“‘Your father is very fond of you——’</p> - -<p>“‘I know it,’ I answer curtly.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>“‘Anything that you asked, and that was -within the bounds of possibility, he would do,’ -he continues, with eager gravity. ‘Well, -this is what I ask of you: to write him a line, -and let me take it, when I go, asking him to -send me home in the next prize.’</p> - -<p>“Silence for a moment, only the haymakers -laughing over their rakes. ‘And if,’ -say I, with a trembling voice, ‘you lose your -life in this service, you will have to thank me -for it; I shall have your death on my head -all through my life.’</p> - -<p>“‘The danger is infinitesimal, as I told you -before,’ he says, impatiently; ‘and even if it -were greater than it is—well, life is a good -thing, very good, but there are better things, -and even if I come to grief, which is most unlikely, -there are plenty of men as good as—better -than—I, to step into my place.’</p> - -<p>“‘It will be small consolation to the people -who are fond of you that some one better than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> -you is alive, though you are dead,’ I say, tearfully.</p> - -<p>“‘But I do not mean to be dead,’ he says, -with a cheery laugh. ‘Why are you so -determined on killing me? I mean to live -to be an admiral. Why should not I?’</p> - -<p>“‘Why indeed?’ say I, with a feeble echo of -his cheerful mirth, and feeling rather ashamed -of my tears.</p> - -<p>“‘And meanwhile you will write?’ he says -with an eager return to the charge; ‘and -<i>soon?</i> Do not look angry and pouting, as -you did just now, but I <i>must</i> go! What is -there to hinder me? I am getting up my -strength as fast as it is possible for any human -creature to do, and just think how I should -feel if they were to come in for something really -good while I am away.’</p> - -<p>“So I wrote.</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III.</h3> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">I often</span> wished afterwards that my right -hand had been cut off before its fingers had -held the pen that wrote that letter. You -wonder to see me moved at what happened so -long ago—before your parents were born—and -certainly it makes not much difference now; -for even if he had prospered then, and come -happily home to me, yet, in the course of -nature he would have gone long before now. -I should not have been so cruel as to have -wished him to have lasted to be as I am. -I did not mean to hint at the end of my story -before I have reached the middle. Well—and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> -so he went, with the letter in his pocket, and -I felt something like the king in the tale, who -sent a messenger with a letter, and wrote in -the letter, ‘Slay the bearer of this as soon as -he arrives!’ But before he went—the evening -before, as we walked in the garden after -supper, with our monstrously long shadows -stretching before us in the moonlight—I do -not think he said in so many words, ‘Will you -marry me?’ but somehow, by some signs or -words on both our parts, it became clear to us -that, by-and-by, if God left him alive, and if -the war ever came to an end, he and I should -belong to one another. And so, having understood -this, when he went he kissed me, as he -had done when he came, only this time no one -bade him; he did it of his own accord, and a -hundred times instead of one; and for my -part, this time, instead of standing passive like -a log or a post, I kissed him back again, most -lovingly, with many tears.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>“Ah! parting in those days, when the last -kiss to one’s beloved ones was not unlikely to -be an adieu until the great Day of Judgment, -was a different thing to the listless, unemotional -good-byes of these stagnant times of -peace!</p> - -<p>“And so Bobby also got into a post-chaise -and drove away, and we watched him too, till -he turned the corner out of our sight, as we -had watched father; and then I hid my face -among the jessamine flowers that clothed the -wall of the house, and wept as one that would -not be comforted. However, one cannot weep -for ever, or, if one does, it makes one blind -and blear, and I did not wish Bobby to have a -wife with such defects; so in process of time I -dried my tears.</p> - -<p>“And the days passed by, and nature went -slowly and evenly through her lovely changes. -The hay was gathered in, and the fine new -grass and clover sprang up among the stalks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> -of the grass that had gone; and the wild roses -struggled into odorous bloom, and crowned -the hedges, and then <i>their</i> time came, and they -shook down their faint petals, and went.</p> - -<p>“And now the corn harvest had come, and -we had heard once or twice from our beloveds, -but not often. And the sun still shone with -broad power, and kept the rain in subjection. -And all morning I sat at my big frame, and -toiled on at the ‘Last Supper.’ I had finished -Judas Iscariot’s face and the other Apostles. -I was engaged now upon the table-cloth, -which was not interesting and required not -much exercise of thought. And mother sat -near me, either working too or reading a good -book, and taking snuff—every lady snuffed in -those days: at least in trifles, if not in great -things, the world mends. And at night, when -ten o’clock struck, I covered up my frame and -stole listlessly upstairs to my room. There, I -knelt at the open window, facing Plymouth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> -and the sea, and asked God to take good care -of father and Bobby. I do not know that I -asked for any spiritual blessings for them, I -only begged that they might be alive.</p> - -<p>“One night, one hot night, having prayed -even more heartily and tearfully than my -wont for them both, I had lain down to sleep. -The windows were left open, and the blinds -up, that all possible air might reach me from -the still and scented garden below. Thinking -of Bobby, I had fallen asleep, and he is still -mistily in my head, when I seem to wake. -The room is full of clear light, but it is not -morning: it is only the moon looking right in -and flooding every object. I can see my own -ghostly figure sitting up in bed, reflected in -the looking-glass opposite. I listen: surely I -heard some noise: yes—certainly, there can be -no doubt of it—some one is knocking loudly -and perseveringly at the hall-door. At first I -fall into a deadly fear; then my reason comes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> -to my aid. If it were a robber, or person -with any evil intent, would he knock so -openly and clamorously as to arouse the -inmates? Would not he rather go stealthily -to work, to force a <i>silent</i> entrance for himself? -At worst it is some drunken sailor from -Plymouth; at best, it is a messenger with -news of our dear ones. At this thought I -instantly spring out of bed, and hurrying on -my stockings and shoes and whatever garments -come most quickly to hand—with -my hair spread all over my back, and utterly -forgetful of my big comb, I open my door, and -fly down the passages, into which the moon -is looking with her ghostly smile, and down -the broad and shallow stairs.</p> - -<p>“As I near the hall-door I meet our old -butler, also rather dishevelled, and evidently -on the same errand as myself.</p> - -<p>“‘Who <i>can</i> it be, Stephens?’ I ask, trembling -with excitement and fear.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>“‘Indeed, ma’am, I cannot tell you,’ replies -the old man, shaking his head, ‘it is a very -odd time of night to choose for making such a -noise. We will ask them their business, whoever -they are, before we unchain the door.’</p> - -<p>“It seems to me as if the endless bolts -would never be drawn—the key never be -turned in the stiff lock; but at last the door -opens slowly and cautiously, only to the width -of a few inches, as it is still confined by the -strong chain. I peep out eagerly, expecting I -know not what.</p> - -<p>“Good heavens! What do I see? No -drunken sailor, no messenger, but, oh joy! oh -blessedness! my Bobby himself—my beautiful -boy-lover! Even <i>now</i>, even after all these -weary years, even after the long bitterness -that followed, I cannot forget the unutterable -happiness of that moment.</p> - -<p>“‘Open the door, Stephens, quick!’ I cry, -stammering with eagerness. ‘Draw the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> -chain; it is Mr. Gerard; do not keep him -waiting.’</p> - -<p>“The chain rattles down, the door opens -wide, and there he stands before me. At once, -ere any one has said anything, ere anything -has happened, a feeling of cold disappointment -steals unaccountably over me—a nameless sensation, -whose nearest kin is chilly awe. He -makes no movement towards me; he does not -catch me in his arms, nor even hold out his -right hand to me. He stands there still and -silent, and though the night is dry, equally -free from rain and dew, I see that he is -dripping wet; the water is running down from -his clothes, from his drenched hair, and even -from his eyelashes, on to the dry ground at -his feet.</p> - -<p>“‘What has happened?’ I cry, hurriedly, -‘How wet you are!’ and as I speak I stretch -out my hand and lay it on his coat sleeve. -But even as I do it a sensation of intense cold<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> -runs up my fingers and my arm, even to the -elbow. How is it that he is so chilled to the -marrow of his bones on this sultry, breathless, -August night? To my extreme surprise he -does not answer; he still stands there, dumb -and dripping. ‘Where have you come from?’ -I ask, with that sense of awe deepening. ‘Have -you fallen into the river? How is it that you -are so wet?’</p> - -<p>“‘It was cold,’ he says, shivering, and speaking -in a slow and strangely altered voice, -‘bitter cold. I could not stay there.’</p> - -<p>“‘Stay where?’ I say, looking in amazement -at his face, which, whether owing to the -ghastly effect of moonlight or not, seems to -me ash white. ‘Where have you been? -What is it you are talking about?’</p> - -<p>“But he does not reply.</p> - -<p>“‘He is really ill, I am afraid, Stephens,’ I -say, turning with a forlorn feeling towards the -old butler. ‘He does not seem to hear what I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> -say to him. I am afraid he has had a thorough -chill. What water can he have fallen into? -You had better help him up to bed, and get -him warm between the blankets. His room -is quite ready for him, you know—come in,’ I -say, stretching out my hand to him, ‘you will -be better after a night’s rest.’</p> - -<p>“He does not take my offered hand, but he -follows me across the threshold and across the -hall. I hear the water drops falling drip, drip, -on the echoing stone floor as he passes; then -upstairs, and along the gallery to the door of -his room, where I leave him with Stephens. -Then everything becomes blank and nil to me.</p> - -<p>“I am awoke as usual in the morning by -the entrance of my maid with hot water.</p> - -<p>“‘Well, how is Mr. Gerard this morning?’ I -ask, springing into a sitting posture.</p> - -<p>“She puts down the hot water tin and stares -at her leisure at me.</p> - -<p>“‘My dear Miss Phœbe, how should <i>I</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> -know? Please God he is in good health and -safe, and that we shall have good news of him -before long.’</p> - -<p>“‘Have not you asked how he is?’ I ask -impatiently. ‘He did not seem quite himself -last night; there was something odd about -him. I was afraid he was in for another touch -of fever.’</p> - -<p>“‘Last night—fever,’ repeats she, slowly -and disconnectedly echoing some of my words. -‘I beg your pardon, ma’am, I am sure, but I -have not the least idea in life what you are -talking about.’</p> - -<p>“‘How stupid you are!’ I say, quite at the -end of my patience. ‘Did not Mr. Gerard -come back unexpectedly last night, and did -not I hear him knocking, and run down to -open the door, and did not Stephens come too, -and afterwards take him up to bed?’</p> - -<p>“The stare of bewilderment gives way to a -laugh.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>“‘You have been dreaming, ma’am. Of -course I cannot answer for what you did last -night, but I am sure that Stephens knows no -more of the young gentleman than I do, for -only just now, at breakfast, he was saying that -he thought it was about time for us to have -some tidings of him and master.’</p> - -<p>“‘A dream!’ cry I indignantly. ‘Impossible! -I was no more dreaming then than I -am now.’</p> - -<p>“But time convinces me that I am mistaken, -and that during all the time that I thought I -was standing at the open hall-door, talking to -my beloved, in reality I was lying on my bed -in the depths of sleep, with no other company -than the scent of the flowers and the light of -the moon. At this discovery a great and terrible -depression falls on me. I go to my -mother to tell her of my vision, and at the -end of my narrative I say,</p> - -<p>“‘Mother, I know well that Bobby is dead,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span> -and that I shall never see him any more. I -feel assured that he died last night, and that -he came himself to tell me of his going. I am -sure that there is nothing left for me now but -to go too.’</p> - -<p>“I speak thus far with great calmness, but -when I have done I break out into loud and -violent weeping. Mother rebukes me gently, -telling me that there is nothing more natural -than that I should dream of a person who -constantly occupies my waking thoughts, nor -that, considering the gloomy nature of my -apprehensions about him, my dream should be -of a sad and ominous kind; but that, above -all dreams and omens, God is good, that He -has preserved him hitherto, and that, for her -part, no devil-sent apparition shall shake her -confidence in His continued clemency. I go -away a little comforted, though not very much, -and still every night I kneel at the open window -facing Plymouth and the sea, and pray for my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> -sailor boy. But it seems to me, despite all -my self-reasonings, despite all that mother -says, that my prayers for him are prayers for -the dead.</p> -<hr class="tb x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> - -<h3 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV.</h3> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Three</span> more weeks pass away; the harvest -is garnered, and the pears are growing soft and -mellow. Mother’s and my outward life goes -on in its silent regularity, nor do we talk -much to each other of the tumult that rages—of -the heartache that burns, within each -of us. At the end of the three weeks, as we -are sitting as usual, quietly employed, and -buried each in our own thoughts, in the parlour, -towards evening we hear wheels approaching -the hall-door. We both run out -as in my dream I had run to the door, and -arrive in time to receive my father as he steps<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> -out of the carriage that has brought him. -Well! at least <i>one</i> of our wanderers has come -home, but where is the other?</p> - -<p>“Almost before he has heartily kissed us -both—wife and child—father cries out, ‘But -where is Bobby?’</p> - -<p>“‘That is just what I was going to ask -you,’ replies mother quickly.</p> - -<p>“‘Is not he <i>here</i> with you?’ returns he -anxiously.</p> - -<p>“‘Not he,’ answers mother, ‘we have -neither seen nor heard anything of him for -more than six weeks.’</p> - -<p>“‘Great God!’ exclaims he, while his face -assumes an expression of the deepest concern, -‘what <i>can</i> have become of him? what <i>can</i> -have happened to the poor fellow?’</p> - -<p>“‘Has not he been with you, then?—has -not he been in the <i>Thunderer</i>?’ asks mother, -running her words into one another in her -eagerness to get them out.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>“‘I sent him home three weeks ago in a -prize, with a letter to you, and told him to -stay with you till I came home, and what can -have become of him since, God only knows!’ -he answers with a look of the profoundest -sorrow and anxiety.</p> - -<p>“There is a moment of forlorn and dreary -silence; then I speak. I have been standing -dumbly by, listening, and my heart -growing colder and colder at every dismal -word.</p> - -<p>“‘It is all my doing!’ I cry passionately, -flinging myself down in an agony of tears on -the straight-backed old settle in the hall. -‘It is my fault—no one else’s! The very -last time that I saw him, I told him that he -would have to thank me for his death, and -he laughed at me, but it has come true. If I -had not written <i>you</i>, father, that accursed -letter, we should have had him here <i>now</i>, this -<i>minute</i>, safe and sound, standing in the middle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> -of us—as we never, <i>never</i>, shall have him -again!’</p> - -<p>“I stop, literally suffocated with emotion.</p> - -<p>“Father comes over, and lays his kind -brown hand on my bent prone head. ‘My -child,’ he says, ‘my dear child,’ (and tears are -dimming the clear grey of his own eyes), -‘you are wrong to make up your mind to -what is the worst at once. I do not disguise -from you that there is cause for grave anxiety -about the dear fellow, but still God is good; -He has kept both him and me hitherto; into -His hands we must trust our boy.’</p> - -<p>“I sit up, and shake away my tears.</p> - -<p>“‘It is no use,’ I say. ‘Why should I -hope? There is no hope! I know it for a -certainty! He is <i>dead</i>’ (looking round at -them both with a sort of calmness); ‘he died -on the night that I had that dream—mother, -I told you so at the time. Oh, my Bobby!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> -I knew that you could not leave me for ever -without coming to tell me!’</p> - -<p>“‘And so speaking, I fall into strong hysterics -and am carried upstairs to bed. And -so three or four more lagging days crawl by, -and still we hear nothing, and remain in -the same state of doubt and uncertainty; -which to me, however, is hardly uncertainty; -so convinced am I, in my own mind, that my -fair-haired lover is away in the land whence -never letter or messenger comes—that he has -reached the Great Silence. So I sit at my -frame, working my heart’s agony into the -tapestry, and feebly trying to say to God that -He has done well, but I cannot. On the contrary, -it seems to me, as my life trails on -through the mellow mist of the autumn mornings, -through the shortened autumn evenings, -that, whoever has done it, it is most evilly -done. One night we are sitting round the -little crackling wood fire that one does not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> -need for warmth, but that gives a cheerfulness -to the room and the furniture, when the butler -Stephens enters, and going over to father, -whispers to him. I seem to understand in -a moment what the purport of his whisper -is.’</p> - -<p>“‘Why does he whisper?’ I cry, irritably. -‘Why does not he speak out loud? Why -should you try to keep it from me? I know -that it is something about Bobby.’</p> - -<p>“Father has already risen, and is walking -towards the door.</p> - -<p>“‘I will not let you go until you tell me,’ -I cry wildly, flying after him.</p> - -<p>“‘A sailor has come over from Plymouth,’ -he answers hurriedly; ‘he says he has news. -My darling, I will not keep you in suspense -a moment longer than I can help, and -meanwhile pray—both of you pray for -him!’</p> - -<p>“I sit rigidly still, with my cold hand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> -tightly clasped, during the moments that next -elapse. Then father returns. His eyes are -full of tears, and there is small need to ask -for his message; it is most plainly written on -his features—death, and not life.</p> - -<p>“‘You were right, Phœbe,’ he says, brokenly, -taking hold of my icy hands; ‘you knew best. -He is gone! God has taken him.’</p> - -<p>“My heart dies. I had thought that I had -no hope, but I was wrong. ‘I knew it!’ I -say, in a dry stiff voice. ‘Did not I tell you -so? But you would not believe me—go on!—tell -me how it was—do not think I cannot -bear it—make haste!’</p> - -<p>“And so he tells me all that there is now -left for me to know—after what manner, and -on what day, my darling took his leave of -this pretty and cruel world. He had had his -wish, as I already knew, and had set off -blithely home in the last prize they had captured. -Father had taken the precaution of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> -having a larger proportion than usual of the -Frenchmen ironed, and had also sent a greater -number of Englishmen. But to what purpose? -They were nearing port, sailing prosperously -along on a smooth blue sea, with a -fair strong wind, thinking of no evil, when a -great and terrible misfortune overtook them. -Some of the Frenchmen who were not ironed -got the sailors below and drugged their grog; -ironed them, and freed their countrymen. -Then one of the officers rushed on deck, and -holding a pistol to my Bobby’s head bade him -surrender the vessel or die. Need I tell you -which he chose? I think not—well” (with -a sigh) “and so they shot my boy—ah me! -how many years ago—and threw him overboard! -Yes—threw him overboard—it makes -me angry and grieved even now to think of it—into -the great and greedy sea, and the vessel -escaped to France.”</p> - -<p>There is a silence between us: I will own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> -to you that I am crying, but the old lady’s -eyes are dry.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she says, after a pause, with a sort -of triumph in her tone, “they never could say -again that Bobby Gerard was <i>afraid</i>!</p> - -<p>“The tears were running down my father’s -cheeks, as he told me,” she resumes presently, -“but at the end he wiped them and said, -‘It is well! He was as pleasant in God’s -sight as he was in ours, and so He has taken -him.’</p> - -<p>“And for me, I was glad that he had gone -to God—none gladder. But you will not -wonder that, for myself, I was past speaking -sorry. And so the years went by, and, as -you know, I married Mr. Hamilton, and lived -with him forty years, and was happy in the -main, as happiness goes; and when he died -I wept much and long, and so I did for each -of my sons when in turn they went. But -looking back on all my long life, the event<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> -that I think stands out most clearly from it -is my dream and my boy-lover’s death-day. -It <i>was</i> an odd dream, was not it?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">UNDER THE CLOAK.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -<p class="ph2">UNDER THE CLOAK.</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">If</span> there is a thing in the world that my soul -hateth, it is a long night journey by rail. In -the old coaching days I do not think that I -should have minded it, passing swiftly through -a summer night on the top of a speedy coach -with the star arch black-blue above one’s -head, the sweet smell of earth and her numberless -flowers and grasses in one’s nostrils, -and the pleasant trot, trot, trot, trot, of the -four strong horses in one’s ears. But by railway! -in a little stuffy compartment, with -nothing to amuse you if you keep awake; -with a dim lamp hanging above you, tantalizing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> -you with the idea that you can read -by its light, and when you try, satisfactorily -proving to you that you cannot; and, if you -sleep, breaking your neck, or at least stiffening -it, by the brutal arrangement of the hard -cushions.</p> - -<p>These thoughts pass sulkily and rebelliously -through my head as I sit in my salon, in the -Ecu at Geneva, on the afternoon of the fine -autumn day on which, in an evil hour, I have -settled to take my place in the night train for -Paris. I have put off going as long as I can. -I like Geneva, and am leaving some pleasant -and congenial friends, but now go I -must. My husband is to meet me at the -station in Paris at six o’clock to-morrow -morning. Six o’clock! what a barbarous hour -at which to arrive! I am putting on my bonnet -and cloak; I look at myself in the glass -with an air of anticipative disgust. Yes, I look -trim and spruce enough now—a not disagreeable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> -object perhaps—with sleek hair, quick -and alert eyes, and pink-tinted cheeks. Alas! -at six o’clock to-morrow morning, what a -different tale there will be to tell! dishevelled, -dusty locks, half-open weary eyes, a disordered -dress, and a green-coloured countenance.</p> - -<p>I turn away with a pettish gesture, and -reflecting that at least there is no wisdom -in living my miseries twice over, I go downstairs, -and get into the hired open carriage -which awaits me. My maid and man follow -with the luggage. I give stricter injunctions -than ordinary to my maid never for one moment -to lose her hold of the dressing-case, -which contains, as it happens, a great many -more valuable jewels than people are wont -to travel in foreign parts with, nor of a -certain costly and beautiful Dresden china and -gold Louis Quatorze clock, which I am carrying -home as a present to my people. We<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> -reach the station, and I straightway betake -myself to the first-class Salle d’Attente, there -to remain penned up till the officials undo the -gates of purgatory and release us—an arrangement -whose wisdom I have yet to learn. -There are ten minutes to spare, and the salle -is filling fuller and fuller every moment. -Chiefly my countrymen, countrywomen, and -country children, beginning to troop home to -their partridges. I look curiously round at -them, speculating as to which of them will be -my companion or companions through the -night.</p> - -<p>There are no very unusual types: girls -in sailor hats and blonde hair-fringes; strong-minded -old maids in painstakingly ugly -waterproofs; baldish fathers; fattish mothers; -a German or two, with prominent pale eyes -and spectacles. I have just decided on the -companions I should prefer; a large young -man, who belongs to nobody, and looks as if<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> -he spent most of his life in laughing—(Alas! he -is not likely! he is sure to want to smoke!)—and -a handsome and prosperous-looking young -couple. They are more likely, as very probably, -in the man’s case, the bride-love will overcome -the cigar-love. The porter comes up. The key -turns in the lock; the doors open. At first -I am standing close to them, flattening my -nose against the glass, and looking out on the -pavement; but as the passengers become more -numerous, I withdraw from my prominent -position, anticipating a rush for carriages. I -hate and dread exceedingly a crowd, and -would much prefer at any time to miss my -train rather than be squeezed and jostled by -one. In consequence, my maid and I are -almost the last people to emerge, and have -the last and worst choice of seats. We run -along the train looking in; the footman, my -maid, and I—full—full everywhere!</p> - -<p>“Dames Seules?” asks the guard.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>“Certainly not! neither ‘Dames Seules,’ nor -‘Fumeurs,’ but if it must be one or the other, -certainly ‘Fumeurs.’”</p> - -<p>I am growing nervous, when I see the footman, -who is a little ahead of us, standing with -an open carriage door in his hand, and signing -to us to make haste. Ah! it is all right! it -always comes right when one does not fuss -oneself.</p> - -<p>“Plenty of room here, ’m; only two gentlemen!”</p> - -<p>I put my foot on the high step and climb -in. Rather uncivil of the two gentlemen! -neither of them offers to help me, but they -are not looking this way I suppose. “Mind -the dressing-case!” I cry nervously, as I -stretch out my hand to help the maid Watson -up. The man pushes her from behind; in she -comes—dressing-case, clock and all; here we -are for the night!</p> - -<p>I am so busy and amused looking out of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span> -window, seeing the different parties bidding -their friends good-bye, and watching with indignation -the barbaric and malicious manner -in which the porters hurl the luckless luggage -about, that we have steamed out of the station, -and are fairly off for Paris, before I have the -curiosity to glance at my fellow-passengers. -Well! when I do take a look at them, I do not -make much of it. Watson and I occupy the -two seats by one window, facing one another. -Our fellow travellers have not taken the other -two window seats; they occupy the middle -ones, next us. They are both reading behind -newspapers. Well! we shall not get much -amusement out of them. I give them up as -a bad job. Ah! if I could have had my wish, -and had the laughing young man, and the -pretty young couple, for company, the night -would not perhaps have seemed so long. However -I should have been mortified for them to -have seen how <i>green</i> I looked when the dawn<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span> -came; and, as to these commis voyageurs, I do -not care if I look as green as grass in their -eyes. Thus, all no doubt is for the best; and -at all events it is a good trite copy-book -maxim to say so. So I forget all about them: -fix my eyes on the landscape racing by, and -fall into a variety of thoughts. “Will my husband -really get up in time to come and meet -me at the station to-morrow morning? He -does so cordially hate getting up. My only -chance is his not having gone to bed at all! -How will he be looking? I have not seen him -for four months. Will he have succeeded in -curbing his tendency to fat, during his Norway -fishing? Probably not. Fishing, on the -contrary, is rather a <i>fat-making</i> occupation; -sluggish and sedentary. Shall we have a -pleasant party at the house we are going to, -for shooting? To whom in Paris shall I go -for my gown? Worth? No, Worth is beyond -me.” Then I leave the future, and go back into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> -past enjoyments; excursions to Lausanne; -trips down the lake to Chillon; a hundred -and one pleasantnesses. The time slips by: -the afternoon is drawing towards evening; a -beginning of dusk is coming over the landscape.</p> - -<p>I look round. Good Heavens! what can -those men find so interesting in the papers? -I thought them hideously dull, when I looked -over them this morning; and yet they are -still persistently reading. What can they -have got hold of? I cannot well see what the -man beside me has; vis-à-vis is buried in an -English <i>Times</i>. Just as I am thinking about -him, he puts down his paper, and I see his -face. Nothing very remarkable! a long black -beard, and a hat tilted somewhat low over his -forehead. I turn away my eyes hastily, for -fear of being caught inquisitively scanning -him; but still, out of their corners I see that -he has taken a little bottle out of his travelling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> -bag, has poured some of its contents into a -glass, and is putting it to his lips. It appears -as if—and, at the time it happens, I have no -manner of doubt that he is drinking. Then I -feel that he is addressing me. I look up and -towards him: he is holding out the phial to -me, and saying—</p> - -<p>“May I take the liberty of offering Madame -some?”</p> - -<p>“No thank you, Monsieur!” I answer, shaking -my head hastily and speaking rather abruptly. -There is nothing that I dislike more -than being offered strange eatables or drinkables -in a train, or a strange hymn book in -church.</p> - -<p>He smiles politely, and then adds—</p> - -<p>“Perhaps the <i>other</i> lady might be persuaded -to take a little.”</p> - -<p>“No thank you, sir, I’m much obliged to -you,” replies Watson briskly, in almost as ungrateful -a tone as mine.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>Again he smiles, bows, and re-buries himself -in his newspaper. The thread of my -thoughts is broken, I feel an odd curiosity as -to the nature of the contents of that bottle. -Certainly it is not sherry or spirit of any kind, -for it has diffused no odour through the carriage. -All this time the man beside me has -said and done nothing. I wish he would move -or speak, or do something. I peep covertly at -him. Well! at all events, he is well defended -against the night chill. What a voluminous -cloak he is wrapped in; how entirely it -shrouds his figure; trimmed with <i>fur</i> too! -why it might be January instead of September. -I do not know why, but that cloak makes me -feel rather uncomfortable. I wish they would -both move to the window, instead of sitting next -us. Bah! am <i>I</i> setting up to be a timid dove? -I, who rather pique myself on my bravery—on -my indifference to tramps, bulls, ghosts? The -clock has been deposited with the umbrellas,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> -parasols, spare shawls, rugs, etc., in the netting -above Watson’s head. The dressing-case—a -very large and heavy one—is sitting on her -lap. I lean forwards and say to her—</p> - -<p>“That box must rest very heavily on your -knee, and I want a footstool—I should be -more comfortable if I had one—let me put my -feet on it.”</p> - -<p>I have an idea that, somehow, my sapphires -will be safer if I have them where I can -always feel that they are <i>there</i>. We make -the desired change in our arrangements. Yes! -both my feet are on it.</p> - -<p>The landscape outside is darkening quickly -now; our dim lamp is beginning to assert its -importance. Still the men read. I feel a sensation -of irritation. What can they mean by -it? it is utterly impossible that they can decipher -the small print of the <i>Times</i>, by this -feeble shaky glimmer.</p> - -<p>As I am so thinking, the one who had before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span> -spoken lays down his paper, folds it up -and deposits it on the seat beside him. Then, -drawing his little bottle out of his bag a second -time, drinks, or seems to drink, from it. Then -he again turns to me—</p> - -<p>“Madame will pardon me, but if Madame -<i>could</i> be induced to try a little of this; it is -a cordial of a most refreshing and invigorating -description; and if she will have the amiability -to allow me to say so, Madame looks -faint.”</p> - -<p>(What <i>can</i> he mean by his urgency? <i>Is</i> it -pure politeness? I wish it were not growing so -dark.) These thoughts run through my head -as I hesitate for an instant what answer to -make. Then an idea occurs to me, and I -manufacture a civil smile and say, “Thank -you very much, Monsieur! I am a little faint, -as you observe. I think I will avail myself of -your obliging offer.” So saying, I take the -glass, and touch it with my lips. I give you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> -my word of honour that I do not think I did -more; I did not mean to swallow a drop, but I -suppose I must have done. He smiles with a -gratified air.</p> - -<p>“The other lady will now, perhaps, follow -your example?”</p> - -<p>By this time I am beginning to feel thoroughly -uncomfortable: <i>why</i>, I should be -puzzled to explain. What <i>is</i> this cordial that -he is so eager to urge upon us? Though determined -not to subject <i>myself</i> to its influence, -I <i>must</i> see its effect upon another person. -Rather brutal of me, perhaps; rather in the -spirit of the anatomist, who, in the interest of -science, tortures live dogs and cats; but I am -telling you <i>facts</i>—not what I ought to have -done, but what I <i>did</i>. I make a sign to -Watson to drink some. She obeys, nothing -loath. She has been working hard all day; -packing and getting under weigh, and she is -tired. There is no feigning about her! She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> -has emptied the glass. Now to see what comes -of it—what happens to my live dog! The -bottle is replaced in the bag; still we are -racing, racing on, past the hills and fields and -villages. How indistinct they are all growing! -I turn back from the contemplation of the outside -view to the inside one. Why, the woman -is asleep already! her chin buried in her chest; -her mouth half open; looking exceedingly -imbecile and very plain, as most people, when -asleep out of bed, do look. A nice invigorating -potion, indeed! I wish to Heaven that I had -gone in Fumeurs, or even with that cavalcade -of nursery-maids and unwholesome-looking -babies in Dames Seules, next door. At all -events, I am not at all sleepy myself: that is a -blessing. I shall see what happens. Yes, by-the-by, -I must see what he meant to happen: -I must affect to fall asleep too. I close my -eyes, and gradually sinking my chin on my -chest, try to droop my jaws and hang my<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span> -cheeks, with a semblance of bonâ-fide slumber. -Apparently I succeed pretty well. After the -lapse of some minutes, I distinctly feel two -hands very cautiously and carefully lifting and -removing my feet from the dressing-box.</p> - -<p>A cold chill creeps over me, and then the -blood rushes to my head and ears. What am -I to do? what am I to do? I have always -thought the better of myself ever since for it; -but, strange to say, I keep my presence of -mind. Still affecting to sleep, I give a sort of -kick, and instantly the hands are withdrawn -and all is perfectly quiet again. I now feign -to wake gradually, with a yawn and a stretch; -and, on moving about my feet a little, find that, -despite my kick, they have been too clever for -me, and have dexterously removed my box and -substituted another. The way in which I -make this pleasant discovery is that, whereas -mine was perfectly flat at the top, on the surface -of the object that is now beneath my feet<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> -there is some sort of excrescence—a handle of -some sort or other. There is no denying it—brave -I <i>may</i> be—I may laugh at people for -running from bulls; for disliking to sleep in a -room by themselves, for fear of ghosts; for -hurrying past tramps: but now I am most -thoroughly frightened. I look cautiously, in a -sideways manner, at the man beside me. How -very still he is! Were they <i>his</i> hands, or the -hands of the man opposite him? I take a -fuller look than I have yet ventured to do; -turning slightly round for the purpose. He is -still reading, or at least still holding the paper, -for the reading must be a farce. I look at his -hands: they are in precisely the same position -as they were when I affected to go to sleep, -although the pose of the rest of his body is -slightly altered. Suddenly, I turn extremely -cold, for it has dawned on me that they are not -real hands—they are certainly false ones. Yes, -though the carriage is shaking very much with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span> -our rapid motion, and the light is shaking, too, -yet there is no mistake. I look indeed more -closely, so as to be quite sure. The one nearest -me is ungloved; the other gloved. I look at -the nearest one. Yes, it is of an opaque waxen -whiteness. I can plainly see the rouge put -under the finger-nails to represent the colouring -of life. I try to give one glance at his face. -The paper still partially hides it; and as he is -leaning his head back against the cushion, -where the light hardly penetrates, I am completely -baffled in my efforts.</p> - -<p>Great Heavens! what is going to happen -to me? what shall I do? how much of him -is <i>real</i>? where are his <i>real</i> hands? what is -going on under that awful cloak? The fur -border touches me as I sit by him. I draw -convulsively and shrinkingly away, and try to -squeeze myself up as close as possible to the -window. But alas! to what good? how absolutely -and utterly powerless I am! how entirely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span> -at their mercy! And there is Watson still -sleeping swinishly! breathing heavily opposite -me. Shall I try to wake her? But to what -end? She, being under the influence of that vile -drug, my efforts will certainly be useless, and -will probably arouse the man to employ violence -against me. Sooner or later in the -course of the night I suppose they are pretty -sure to murder me, but I had rather that it -should be later than sooner.</p> - -<p>While I think these things, I am lying -back quite still, for, as I philosophically reflect, -not all the screaming in the world will -help me: if I had twenty-lung power I could -not drown the rush of an express train. Oh, -if my dear boy were but here,—my husband -I mean,—fat or lean, how thankful I should -be to see him! Oh, that cloak, and those -horrid waxy hands! Of course I see it now! -They remained stuck out, while the man’s real -ones were fumbling about my feet. In the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> -midst of my agony of fright, a thought of -Madame Tussaud flashes ludicrously across -me. Then they begin to talk of me. It is -plain that they are not taken in by my feint -of sleep: they speak in a clear, loud voice, -evidently for my benefit. One of them begins -by saying, “What a good-looking woman she -is—evidently in her première jeunesse too”—(Reader, -I struck thirty last May)—“and also -there can be no doubt as to her being of -exalted rank—a duchess probably.”—(A dead -duchess by morning, think I grimly). They -go on to say how odd it is that people in my -class of life never travel with their own -jewels, but always with paste ones, the real -ones being meanwhile deposited at the bankers. -My poor, poor sapphires! good-bye—a -long good-bye to you. But indeed I will -willingly compound for the loss of you and -the rest of my ornaments—will go bare-necked, -and bare-armed, or clad in Salviati<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> -beads for the rest of my life, so that I do but -attain the next stopping place alive.</p> - -<p>As I am so thinking, one of the men looks, -or I imagine that he looks, rather curiously -towards me. In a paroxysm of fear lest they -should read on my face the signs of the agony -of terror I am enduring, I throw my pocket -handkerchief—a very fine cambric one—over -my face.</p> - -<p>And now, oh reader, I am going to tell you -something which I am sure you will not -believe; I can hardly believe it myself, but, -as I so lie, despite the tumult of my mind—despite -the chilly terror which seems to be -numbing my feelings—in the midst of it all -a drowsiness keeps stealing over me. I am -now convinced either that vile potion must -have been of extraordinary strength, or that -I, through the shaking of the carriage, or the -unsteadiness of my hand, carried more to my -mouth, and swallowed more—I did not <i>mean</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> -to swallow any—than I intended, for—you -will hardly credit it, but—I <i>fell asleep</i>!</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>When I awake,—awake with a bewildered -mixed sense of having been a long time asleep,—of -not knowing where I am—and of having -some great dread and horror on my mind—awake -and look round, the dawn is breaking. -I shiver, with the chilly sensation that the -coming of even a warm day brings, and look -round, still half unconsciously, in a misty way. -But what has happened? how empty the carriage -is! the dressing-case is gone! the clock -is gone! the man who sat nearly opposite me -is gone! <i>Watson is gone!</i> but the man in the -cloak and the wax hands still sits beside me! -Still the hands are holding the paper; still the -fur is touching me! Good God! I am tête-à-tête -with him! A feeling of the most appalling -desolation and despair comes over me—vanquishes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> -me utterly. I clasp my hands together -frantically, and, still looking at the dim -form beside me, groan out—“Well! I did -not think that Watson would have forsaken -me!” Instantly, a sort of movement and -shiver runs through the figure: the newspaper -drops from the hands, which however -continue to be still held out in the same position -as if still grasping it; and behind the -newspaper, I see by the dim morning light -and the dim lamp-gleams that there is no real -face but a mask. A sort of choked sound is -coming from behind the mask. Shivers of -cold fear are running over me. Never to this -day shall I know what gave me the despairing -courage to do it, but before I know what -I am doing, I find myself tearing at the cloak,—tearing -away the mask—tearing away the -hands. It would be better to find <i>anything</i> -underneath—Satan himself,—a horrible dead -body—anything—sooner than submit any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> -longer to this hideous mystery. And I am -rewarded. When the cloak lies at the bottom -of the carriage—when the mask, and the false -hands and false feet—(there are false <i>feet</i> too)—are -also cast away, in different directions, -what do you think I find underneath?</p> - -<p>Watson! Yes: it appears that while I slept—I -feel sure that they must have rubbed some -more of the drug on my lips while I was unconscious, -or I never could have slept so -heavily or so long—they dressed up Watson in -the mask, feet, hands, and cloak; set the hat -on her head, gagged her, and placed her beside -me in the attitude occupied by the man. They -had then, at the next station, got out, taking -with them dressing-case and clock, and had -made off in all security. When I arrive in -Paris, you will not be surprised to hear that it -does not once occur to me whether I am looking -green or no.</p> - -<p>And this is the true history of my night<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> -journey to Paris! You will be glad, I daresay, -to learn that I ultimately recovered my -sapphires, and a good many of my other ornaments. -The police being promptly set on, the -robbers were, after much trouble and time, at -length secured; and it turned out that the man -in the cloak was an ex-valet of my husband’s, -who was acquainted with my bad habit of -travelling in company with my trinkets—a -bad habit which I have since seen fit to -abandon.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>What I have written is literally true, though -it did not happen to myself.</p> - -<p class="center">THE END.</p> - -<hr class="tiny"> - -<p class="center">BILLING, PRINTER, GUILDFORD, SURREY.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> - -<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p> - -<p>An incorrect page number in the Table of Contents has been corrected.</p> -</div></div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TALES FOR CHRISTMAS EVE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may -do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected -by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark -license, especially commercial redistribution. -</div> - -<div style='margin-top:1em; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person -or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the -Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when -you share it without charge with others. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work -on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the -phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: -</div> - -<blockquote> - <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most - other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions - whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms - of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online - at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you - are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws - of the country where you are located before using this eBook. - </div> -</blockquote> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg™ License. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format -other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain -Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -provided that: -</div> - -<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation.” - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ - works. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. - </div> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right -of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, -Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up -to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread -public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state -visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. -</div> - -</div> -</body> -</html> |