CHAPTER IV

Within doors a bedroom, littered and dismantled, showed a pile of

luggage stacked in the middle of the floor. Without was a grey cloudy

sky, such as we sometimes have in June, and a nipping east wind that

blew roughly; a wind almost visible to the man moodily gnawing his

nails at the window. He found no comfort within or without, in the

past or the future. Behind him he had a retrospect of humiliation, of

vain hopes and ambitions; before him no prospect but that dreary one

of starting afresh in a new place among new people, unfriended, save

by three thousand and odd pounds. It had come to this.

"D----n him!" he whispered between his clenched teeth. It was no

formal expletive. He meant it--every letter of it.

By and by he turned from the window, and his eyes fell on a small

article lying on the dressing-table. It was almost the only thing,

save a stout walking-stick, which he had not packed up. It was a

pistol. He had hit on it the day before in a dark nook behind the

medicine bottles in the surgery; and finding it in good condition,

with one barrel of the two undischarged, he had had no difficulty in

conjecturing whose it was and how it came there. No doubt it was

Walton's, the pistol with which he had shot himself--as indeed it was.

Nickson had brought it to the doctor, and the latter with a natural

distaste had thrust it into the first out-of-the-way place which lay

ready to his hand.

This piece of evidence Woolley presently put in his pocket, and taking

his stick left the room; leaving it, as he knew, for good, and not

without a last bitter glance round the place where he had slept, and

schemed, and hoped for two years. He went down the stairs, and through

the house to the back door, seeing no one except Daniel, who was

rubbing down the mare in the yard. To the surgeon's fancy the house,

as he passed through it, seemed abnormally still; as if in the hush

and silence which fall upon a house in the afternoon it awaited

something--as if it knew that something strange was in the air, and

all the stones were saying "Hist!"

Shaking off this feeling, the surgeon took a back path, which, passing

through the shrubbery, came into the main drive near the white gate.

From that point the track mounted between the bracken-covered flanks

of the ravine until it emerged on the crown of the moor. In one place

both path and glen turned at a sharp angle, and Woolley at this corner

happened to lift his eyes. He stopped short with an exclamation.

Before him, strolling slowly along in the same direction as himself,

with his hands behind him and his eyes on the path, was the tall

gentleman--Walton.

"Ah!" Woolley whispered to himself, hating the other the more for

falling in his way now, "the devil take you for a mooning lunatic! I

would like to give you in charge here, and this minute, and swear you

were going to try it again!"

He laughed grimly at this, his first thought; a natural thought

enough, since his intention at starting had been to swear an

information against Walton, and get him locked up if possible; at any

rate, to cause him as much vexation as he could. But that first

natural thought led to another which drove the blood from his cheek

and kindled an unholy fire in his eyes. That revenge was a poor one.

But was there not another within his grasp? What if Walton were found

lying on the path shot and dead, his own pistol beside him?

Ah! what then? What would people say? Would they not say--would not

Nickson be ready to swear that the madman had done it again, and with

more thoroughness? Woolley's hand closed convulsively on the butt of

the weapon in his pocket. One barrel of it was still loaded. No one

had seen him take it. No one knew that he knew of its existence. Would

not even the doctor conclude that Walton had repossessed himself of

it, and in some temporary return of his moody aberration had used

it--this time with fatal effect?

The perspiration stood on the tempted man's brow. Though the wind was

blowing keenly, and a wrack of white clouds was sweeping over his

head, the glen seemed to grow close and confined, roofed in by a

leaden sky. "It is a devil's thought!" he muttered, his eyes on the

figure before him, "a devil's thought!" At that moment there could be

no question with him of the existence of a devil. He felt him at his

elbow tempting him, promising revenge and impunity.

"No! Not that!" He rather gasped the words than said them, yet gasped

them aloud, the more thoroughly to convince himself that he did reject

the idea. "Not that!"

No, not that. Yet he began to walk on at a pace which must bring him

up with the other. His brain too dwelt on the ease and safety with

which he might carry out the scheme. He remembered that before he

turned the corner he had looked back and seen no one. Therefore for

some minutes he was secure from interruption from behind. All round

the ravine he could command the sky-line. There was one no visible. He

and Walton were alone. And he was overtaking Walton.

The latter heard him walking behind him, and turned and stopped. He

showed no surprise on discovering who his follower was, but spoke as

if he had eyes in his back, and had watched him drawing gradually

nearer. "I have been waiting for you, Woolley," he said. "I thought I

should meet you."

"Did you?" Woolley said softly, eying him in a curious fashion, and

himself very pale.

"Yes, I wanted to say this to you." There the tall gentleman paused

and looked down, prodding the turf with his stick. He seemed to find a

difficulty in going on. "It is this," he continued at last. "I have

done you a mischief here, acting honestly, and doing only what seemed

to me to be right. But I have harmed you--that is the fact--and I am

anxious to know that you will not leave here a hardened man--a worse

man than I found you."

"Thank you," the other said. His lips were dry, and he moistened them

with his tongue. But he did not take his eyes from Walton's face.

"If you will let me know," the tall gentleman continued haltingly--he

was still intent upon the ground--"what your plans are, I will see if

I can further them. Until lately I thought you had spoiled my life,

and I bore you malice for it. I would have done you what harm I could.

Now----"

"Yes?"

"I think--I trust it may not be so. I have dwelt too much on that old

affair. I hope to begin a new life now."

"With her?"

The tall gentleman looked up, as if the other had struck him. There

was menace in the tone, and menace more dreadful in the face and

gleaming eyes which he found confronting him. "You fool!" Woolley

hissed--passion in the calmness of his voice--and he took a step

nearer to the other. "You fool, to come and tell me this!--to come and

taunt me! _You_ help me! _You_ pardon me! _You_ will not leave me

worse than you found me! Ay, but you will!" His voice rose. A wicked

smile nickered on his lips. His eyes still dwelling on the other's

face, he drew the pistol slowly from his pocket and levelled it at

Walton's head. "You will, for I--am going--to kill you."

Walton heard the click of the hammer as it rose. For a second, during

which his tongue refused obedience, he tasted of the bitterness of the

cup which he had held to his own lips. It flashed across him, as his

heart gave a bound and stood still, that this was his punishment. Then

he recovered himself.

"Not before that child!" he said coolly. He forced his eyes to quit

the dark muzzle which threatened him and to glance aside.

There was no one there, but Woolley turned to look, and in an instant

Walton sprang upon him, and, knocking up the pistol with his stick,

closed with him. The one loaded barrel exploded in the air, and the

men went writhing and stumbling to and fro, Woolley striking savagely

at the other's face with the muzzle of the pistol. The taller man

contented himself with parrying these attacks, while he clutched

Woolley's left wrist with his disengaged hand.

Presently they were down in a heap together. Then they rose and drew

apart, breathless and dishevelled, but there remained unnoticed on the

ground between them a tiny white object, a small packet about the size

of a letter. It was very light, for in the twinkling of an eye the

wind turned it over and over, and carried it three or four paces away.

"You villain!" Walton gasped, trembling with excitement. His nerves

were shaken as much by the narrowness of his escape as by the

struggle. "You would have murdered me!"

"I would!" the other said, with vengeful emphasis, and the two men

stood a moment glaring at one another. Meanwhile the wind, toying with

the white packet, rolled it slowly along the path; then, getting under

it at a place where a break in the ridge produced an eddy, it began to

hoist it merrily up the slope. At this point Walton's eye, straying

for a second from his opponent, alighted on it.

Just then Woolley spoke. "You have had a lucky escape!" he said, with

a reckless gesture, half menace, half farewell. "Good-bye! Don't come

across my path again, or you will fail to come off so easily. And

don't--don't, you fool!" he added, returning in a fresh fit of anger

when he had already turned his back, "pat a man on the head when you

have got him down, or he will----"

He stopped short, his hand at his breast pocket. For a moment, while

his face underwent a marvellous change, he searched frantically in the

pocket, in other pockets. "My notes!" he panted. "They were here!

Where are they?" Then a dreadful expression of rage and suspicion

distorted his features, and he advanced on Walton, his hands

outstretched. "What have you done with them?" he cried, scarcely able

to articulate. "Where are they?"

"There!" the other answered sternly. He pointed to a little space of

clear turf halfway up the slope. On this the white packet could be

seen fluttering gently over and over. "There! But if you are not

pretty quick, you villain, you will pay a heavy price for this

business!"

With an oath Woolley turned and started up the hill, the tall man

watching his exertions with grim satisfaction. The pursuer speedily

overtook the notes, but to gain possession of them was a different

matter. Three times he stooped to clutch them, and three times a

mischievous gust swept them away. Then he tripped and fell, and his

hat tumbled off, and his oaths flew freely on the breeze.

Altogether it was not a dignified retreat, but it was a very

characteristic one. The last time Walton got a glimpse of him, he was

on the crown of the hill. He was still running, bent double with his

face to the ground, and his hand outstretched. Walton never saw him

again.

The latter, getting back to the house unnoticed, said nothing for the

time of what had happened. But at night before he went to bed he told

the doctor. "He ought to go to prison!" the latter said sternly. He

was shocked beyond measure.

"So ought I," said Walton, "if it is to come to prisons."

"Pish!"

A little word, but it cheered the tall gentleman, who, notwithstanding

his escape, stood in need of cheering. He had not seen Pleasance since

she had escaped from the room after hearing his explanation. She might

have taken his story in many different ways, and he was anxious to

know in which way she had taken it. But all day she had not shown

herself. Even at dinner the doctor apologised for her absence. "She is

not very well," he said. "She was a little upset this morning." And of

course the tall gentleman accepted the excuse with a heavy heart, and

presaged the worst.

But dressing next morning he caught sight of Pleasance on the lawn.

She was walking with her father--talking to him earnestly, as Walton

could see. Apparently she was urging him to some course of action, and

the doctor, with his hands under his coattails, was assenting with a

poor grace.

When Walton descended, however, they were already seated at breakfast,

and nothing was said during the meal either of this prelude or of what

was in their minds. But presently, when the doctor rose, he had

something to say. It was something which it went against the grain to

say; for he walked to the door--they were breakfasting in the hall,

and it stood open--and looked out as if he had more mind to fly than

speak. But he returned suddenly, and sat down with a bump.

"Mr. Walton," he said, his florid face more florid than usual, "I

think there is something I ought to tell you. I do not think that I

can repay you the money you have advanced. And the place is not worth

it. What am I to do?"

"Do?" the other said, looking up. "Take another cup of tea, as I am

doing, and think no more about it."

"That is impossible," Pleasance cried impulsively. She turned red the

next instant, under the tall gentleman's eyes. She had not meant to

interfere.

"Indeed!" he said, rising from his chair. "Then please listen to me.

There came to a certain house a man who had been a thief."

"No!" she said firmly.

"A man hopeless and despairing."

"No."

"Alas! yes," he answered, shaking his head soberly. "These are facts."

"No, no, no!" she cried. There were tears in her eyes. "I do not want

to hear. I care nothing for facts!"

"You will not hear me?"

"No!"

Something in her face, her voice, the pose of her figure told him the

truth. "If you will not listen to me," he said, leaning with both

hands on the table and speaking in a voice scarcely audible to the

doctor, "I will not say what I was going to propose. If I must be

repaid, I must. But you must repay me, Pleasance. Will you?"

The doctor did not wait to hear the answer. He found the open door

very convenient. He got away and to horse with a lighter heart than he

had carried under his waistcoat for months. He felt no great doubt

about the answer; and indeed all that June morning, which was by good

luck as fine as the preceding one had been gloomy, while he rode from

house to house with an unprofessional smile on his lips and in his

eyes, the two left at home walked up and down the lawn in the

sunshine, planning the life which lay before them, and of which every

day was to be as cloudless as this day. A hundred times they passed

and repassed the old sundial, but it was nothing to them. Lovers count

only the hours when the sun does _not_ shine.

THE COLONEL'S BOY

THE COLONEL'S BOY

A stranger, coming upon the Colonel as he sat in the morning-room of

the club and read his newspaper with an angelic smile, would have

sought for another copy of the paper and searched its columns with

pleasant anticipations. But I knew better. I knew that the Colonel,

though he had put on his glasses and was pretending to cull the news,

was only doing what I believe he did after lunch and after dinner, and

after he got into bed, and at every one of those periods when the old

campaigner, with a care for his digestion and his conscience, selects

some soothing matter for meditation. He was thinking of his boy; and I

went up to him and smacked him on the shoulder. "Well, Colonel," I

said, "how is Jim?"

"Hallo! Why, it's Jolly Joe Bratton!" he replied, dropping his

glasses, and gripping my hand tightly--for we did not ride and tie at

Inkerman for nothing. "The very man I wanted to see."

"And Jim, Colonel? How is the boy?" I asked.

"Oh, just as fit as a--a middy on shore!" he answered, speaking

cheerfully, yet, it seemed to me, with an effort; so that I wondered

whether anything was wrong with the boy--a little bill or some small

indiscretion, such as might be pardoned in as fine a lad as ever

stepped, with a six-months'-old commission, a new uniform, and a

station fifty minutes from London. "But come," the Colonel continued

before I could make my comment, "you have lunched, Joe? Will you take

a turn?"

"To be sure," I said; "on one condition--that you let Kitty give you a

cup of tea afterwards."

"That is a bargain!" he answered. And we went into the hall. Every one

knows the "Junior United" hall. I had taken down my hat, and was

stepping back from the rack, when some one coming downstairs two

at a time--that is the worst of having any one under field rank in a

club--hit me sharply with his elbow. Perhaps my coat fits a bit

tightly round the waist nowadays, and perhaps not; any way, I

particularly object to being poked in the back--it may be a fad, or it

may not--and I turned round and cried "Confound----"

I did not say any more, for I saw who had done it. My gentleman

stammered a confused apology, and taking a letter which it seemed I

had knocked out of his hand, from the Colonel, who had politely picked

it up, he passed into the morning-room with a red face. "Clumsy

scoundrel!" I said, but not so loudly that he could hear.

"Hallo!" the Colonel exclaimed, standing still, and looking at me.

"Well?" I said, perhaps rather testily. "What is the matter?"

"You are not on very good terms with young Farquhar, then?"

"I am not on any terms at all with him," I answered grumpily.

The Colonel whistled. "Indeed!" he said, looking down at me with a

kind of wistfulness in his eyes; Dick is tall, and I am--well, I was

up to standard once. "I thought--that is, Jim told me--that he was a

good deal about your house, Joe. And I rather gathered that he was

making up to Kitty, don't you know."

"You did, did you?" I grunted. "Well, perhaps he was, and perhaps he

wasn't. Any way, she is not for him. And he would not take an answer,

the young whipper-snapper!" I continued, giving my anger a little

vent, and feeling all the better for it. "He came persecuting her, if

you want to know. And I had to show him the door."

I think I never saw a man--certainly on the steps of the "Junior

United"--look more pleased than the Colonel looked at that moment.

"Gad!" he said, "Then Jim will have a chance?"

"Ho! ho!" I answered, chuckling. "The wind sets in that quarter, does

it? A chance? I should think he would have a chance, Colonel!"

"And you would not object?"

"Object?" I said. "Why, it would make me the happiest man in the

world, Dick. Are we not the oldest friends? And I have only Kitty and

you have only Jim. Why, it is--it is just Inkerman over again!"

Really it was, and we stumped down the steps in great delight. Only I

felt a little anxious about Kitty's answer, for though I had a

suspicion that her affections were inclined in the right direction, I

could not be sure. The young soldier might not have won her heart as

he had mine: so that I was still more pleased when the Colonel

informed me that he believed Jim intended to put it to the test this

very afternoon.

"She is at home," I said, standing still.

"Ha! ha! ha!" he responded, taking my arm to lead me on.

But I declined to move. "I'll tell you what," I said--"it is a quarter

to four; if Jim has not popped the question by now, he is not the man

I think him. Let us go home, Colonel, and hear the news."

He demurred a little, but I had him in a hansom in the time it takes

to blow "Lights out," and we were bowling along Piccadilly in two

minutes more. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, and, following the

direction of his hand, I was in time to catch a glimpse of Jim's

face--no other's--as he shot past us in a cab going eastwards. It left

us in no doubt, for the lad's cheeks were flushed and his eyes

shining, and as he swept by and saw us, he raised his hat with a

gesture of triumph.

"Gad!" the Colonel exclaimed, "I'll bet a guinea he has kissed her!

Happy dog!"

"Tra! la! la!" I answered. "I dare swear we shall not find Kitty in

tears."

The words were scarcely out of my mouth when the cab swerved to one

side, throwing me against my companion. I heard our driver shout, and

caught sight of a bareheaded man mixed up with the near shaft. The

next moment we gave a lurch and stopped, and a crowd came round us.

The Colonel was the first out, but I joined him as quickly as I could.

"I do not think he is much hurt, sir," I heard the policeman say. "He

is drunk, I fancy. Come, old chap, pull yourself together," he

continued, giving a shake to the grey-haired man whom he and a

bystander were supporting. "There, hold up now. Here is your hat. You

are all right."

And sure enough the man, whose red nose and shabby attire lent

probability to the policeman's charge, managed when left to himself to

keep his balance; but with some wavering. "Hallo!" he muttered,

looking uncertainly upon the crowd round him. "Is my son here to take

me home? Isaac? Where is Isaac?"

"He's one part shaken," the policeman said, viewing him with an air of

experience. "And three parts drunk. He had better go to the station."

"Where do you live?" the Colonel asked.

"Greek Street, Soho, number twenty-seven, top floor"--this was

answered glibly enough. "And I'll tell you what," the man added with a

drunken hiccough and a reel which left him on the policeman's

shoulder--"if any gentleman will take another gentleman home, I will

make him rich beyond the dreams of avarice. I'll present him his

weight in gold. That I will. His weight in gold!"

"I think----" the Colonel began, turning and meeting my eye.

"His weight in gold!" murmured the drunken man.

"Quite so!" I said, accepting the Colonel's unspoken suggestion. "We

will see him home, policeman." And paying our cabman, I hailed a

crawling four-wheeler, into which the officer bundled our man. We got

in, and in a moment were jolting eastwards at a snail's pace.

"Perhaps we might have sent some one with him," the Colonel said,

looking at me apologetically.

"Not at all!" I answered. I have no doubt that we both had the same

feeling, that, happy ourselves, it behooved us to do a good turn to

this poor wretch, whose shaking hands and tattered clothes showed that

he had almost reached the bottom of the hill. I have seen more than

one brother officer, once as gallant a lad as Jim, brought as low;

and, perhaps, but for Providence, old Joe Bratton himself---- But

there, it may have been some such thought as this, or it may have been

an extra glass of sherry at lunch, made us take the man home. We did

it; and the Lord only knows why fellows do things--good or bad.

Hauling out our charge at the door of twenty-seven, we guided him up

the dingy stairs, the gibberish which he never ceased to repeat about

the dreams of avarice and our weight in gold sounding ten times as

absurd on the common stairs of this dirty tenth-rate lodging-house.

The attic gained, he straightened himself, and, winking at us with

drunken gravity, he laid his hand upon the latch of one of the doors.

"You shall see--what you shall see!" he muttered, and throwing open

the door he stumbled into the room. The Colonel raised his eyebrows in

a protest against our folly, but entered after him, and I followed.

We found only one person in the garret, which was as miserable and

poverty-stricken as a room could be; and he rose and faced us with an

exclamation of anger. He was a young fellow, twenty years old perhaps,

of middle size, sallow and dark-eyed; to my thinking half-starved. The

drunken man seemed unaware of his feelings, however; for he balanced

himself on the floor between us, and waved his hand towards him.

"Here you are, gentlemen!" he cried. "I'm a man of my word! Let me

introduce you! My son, Isaac Gold. Did not I tell you? Present

you--your weight in gold--or nearly so!"

"Father!" the lad said, eyeing him gloomily, "go and lie down."

"Great joke! Your weight in gold, gentlemen!"

"Your father was knocked down by a cab," the Colonel said quietly,

"and finding that he was not able to take care of himself we brought

him home."

The young man looked at us furtively, but he did not answer. Instead,

he took his father by the arm and forced him gently to a mattress

which lay in one corner, half hidden by a towel-rail--the latter

bearing a shirt, evidently home-washed and hung out to dry. Twice the

old fool started up muttering the same rubbish; but the third time he

went off into a heavy sleep. There was something pitiful to my eyes in

the boy's patience with him: so that when the lad turned to us at

last, and, with eyes which resented our presence, bade us begone if we

had satisfied our curiosity, I was not surprised that the Colonel held

his ground. "I am afraid you are badly off," he said gently.

"What's that to you?" was the other's insolent reply. "Do you want to

be paid for your services?"

"Steady! steady, my lad!" I put in. "You get nothing by that."

"I think I know you," the Colonel continued, regarding him steadily.

"There was a charge preferred against you, or some one of your name, a

few weeks ago, of personating a candidate at the examination for

commissions in the army. The charge failed, I know."

The young man's colour rose as the Colonel spoke. But his manner

indicated rather triumph than shame, and his dark eyes sparkled with

malice as he retorted: "It failed? Yes, you are right there. You have

been in the army yourself, I dare say?"

"I have," the Colonel said gravely.

"An honourable profession, is it not?" the lad continued in a tone of

mockery. "How many of your young friends, do you think, pass in

honestly? It is a competitive examination, too, mind you. And how many

do you think employ me--me--to pass for them?"

"You should be ashamed to boast of it," the Colonel replied, "if you

are not afraid."

"And what should they be? Tell me that!"

"They are mean fellows, whoever they are."

"So! so! You think so!" the young man laughed triumphantly. And then

all at once the light seemed to die out of his clever face, and I saw

before me only a half-starved lad, with his shabby clerk's coat

buttoned up to his throat to hide the want of a shirt. The same change

was visible, I think, to the Colonel's eye; for he looked at me and

muttered something about the cab. Understanding that he wanted a word

with the young fellow alone, I went to the window and for a moment or

so pretended to gaze through its murky panes. When I turned, the two

men were talking by the door; the drunken father was snoring behind

his improvised screen; and on a painted deal table beside me I

remarked the one and only article of luxury in the room--a small

soiled album. With a grunt I threw it open. It disclosed the portraits

of two lads, simpering whiskerless faces, surmounting irreproachable

dog-collars and sporting pins. I turned a page and came on two more

bearing a family resemblance in features, dog-collars, and pins to the

others. I turned again with a pish! and a pshaw! and found a vacant

place, and opposite it--a portrait of Jim!

I stared at it for a moment in unthinking wonder, and then in a

twinkling it flashed across me what these portraits were, and above

all, what this portrait of Jim, placed in this scoundrel's album

meant. I remembered how anxious the Colonel had been as the lad's

examination drew near; how bitterly he had denounced the competitive

system, and vowed a dozen times a day that, what with pundits and

crammers and young officers who should have been girls and gone to

Girton, the service was going to the dogs. "To the dogs, do you hear

me, sir!" And then I recalled his great relief when the boy came out

quite high up; and the change which had at once taken place in his

sentiments. "We must move with the times, sir; it is no good running

your head against a brick wall! We must move with the times, begad!"

and so forth. And--well, I let fall a pretty strong word, at which the

Colonel turned.

"What is it, Major?" he said. But, seeing me standing motionless by

the window, he turned again and spoke to the young man beside him.

"Well, think about it, and let me know at that address. Now," he

continued, advancing towards me, "what is it, Joe?"

"What is what?" I said. I had shut the album by this time, and was

standing between him and the table on which it lay. I do not know

why--perhaps it came of the kindness he had been doing--but I noticed

in a way I had never noticed before what a fine figure of a man, tall

and straight, my old comrade still was. And a bit of a dimness, such

as I have experienced once or twice lately when I have taken a third

glass of sherry at lunch, came over my sight. "Confound it!" I said.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Something in my eye!"

"Let me get it out," he said--always the kindest fellow under the sun.

"No! I'll get it out myself!" I snarled like a bear with a sore head.

And, without stopping to explain I plunged out of the room and down

the stairs. The Colonel, wondering no doubt what was the matter with

me, followed more at his leisure, after pausing to say a last word to

the young rascal at the door, whom I had not had the patience to speak

to: so that I had already closed a warm dispute with the cabman, by

sending him off with a flea in his ear and his fare to a sixpence,

when the Colonel overtook me.

"What is up, Joe?" he asked, laying his hand on my shoulder.

"That d----d dizziness came over me again. But there, I have always

said the '73 sherry at the club is not sound. I do not feel quite up

to the mark," I continued with truth. "I think I will go home alone,

Colonel--for to-day, if you do not mind."

"I do mind," he said stoutly. "You may want an arm." But somehow I

made it clear to him that I would rather go alone, and that the walk

would do me good, and he got into a hansom at last and drove off, his

grey moustache and fine old nose peering at me round the side of the

cab, until a corner hid him altogether.

I walked on a few paces, waving my umbrella cheerfully. Then I

stopped, and, retracing my steps, I mounted the staircase of

twenty-seven, and without parley opened the door. The young fellow we

had left was pacing the floor, turning over in his mind, I fancied,

what the Colonel had said to him. He stood still on seeing me, and

then glanced round the room. "Have you forgotten anything?" he said.

"Nothing, young man," I answered. "I want to ask you a question."

"You can ask," he replied, eyeing me askance.

"That album," I said, pointing to it--"it contains, I suppose, the

photographs of the people you have been employed to personate?"

"Possibly."

"But does it?"

"I did not know," he said slowly, the most provoking manner, "that I

had to do with a detective. What is the charge?"

"There is no charge," I answered, keeping my temper really admirably.

"But I have seen the face of a friend of mine in that book, and I'll in

a word, I'll be hanged, young man, if I don't learn all about it!" I

continued. "All--do you hear? So there! Now, out with it, and do not

keep me waiting, you young rascal!"

He only whistled and stared; and finding I was getting a little warm,

I took out my handkerchief, and wiping my forehead, sat down, the

thought of the Colonel's grief taking all the strength out of me.

"Look here," I said in a different tone, "I'll take back what I have

just said, and I give you my word of honour I do not want to harm

the--the gentleman. But I have seen his portrait, and, if I know no

more, must think the worse. Now I will give you a ten-pound note if

you will answer three questions."

He shook his head; but I saw that he wavered. "I did not show you the

portrait," he said. "If you have seen it, that is your business. I

will name no names."

"I want none," I answered. I threw open the album at the tell-tale

photograph, and laid my shaky finger on the face. "Was this sent to

you that you might personate the original?"

He nodded.

"From what place?"

He considered a moment. Then he said reluctantly: "From Frome, in

Somerset, I believe."

"Last year?"

He nodded. Alas! Jim had been at a crammer's near Frome. Jim had

passed his examination during the last year. I took out the money and

gave it to the man; and a minute later I was standing in the street

with a sentence common enough at mess in the old days, ringing in my

ears: "Refer it to the Colonel! He is the soul of honour."

The soul of honour! Ay! And what would he think of this? The soul of

honour! And his son, his son Jim, had done this! I walked through the

streets, lost in amazement. I had loved the boy right well myself, and

was ready to choke on my own account when I thought of him. But his

father--I knew that his father was wrapped up in him. His father had

been a mother to him as well, and that for years--had bought him toys

as a lad, and furnished his quarters later with things of which only a

mother would have thought. It would kill his father.

I wiped my forehead as I thought of this and put my latchkey into the

door in Pont Street. I walked in with a heavy sigh--I do not know that

I ever entered with so sad a heart--and the next moment, with a

flutter of skirts, Kitty was out of the dining-room, where I do not

doubt she had been watching for me, and in my arms. Before Heaven!

until I saw her I had not thought of her--I had never considered her

at all in connection with this matter! No, nor how I should deal with

her, until I heard her say, with her face on my shoulder, and her eyes

looking into mine: "Oh, father, father, I am happy! Be the first to

wish me joy."

Wish her joy! I could not. I could only mutter, "Wait, girl--wait,

wait!" and lead her into the dining-room, and, turning my back on her,

go to the window and look out--though for all I saw I might have had

my head in a soot-bag. She was alarmed of course--but to save her that

I could not face her. She came after me and clung to my arm, asking me

again and again what it was.

"Nothing, nothing," I said. "There--wait a minute; don't you know that

I shall lose you?"

"Father," she said, trying to look into my face, "it is not that. You

know you will not lose me! There is something else the matter. There

is something you are hiding from me! Ah! Jim went in a cab, and----"

"Jim is all right." I answered, feeling her hand fall from my arm. "In

that way at any rate."

"Then I am not afraid," she answered stoutly, "if you and Jim are all

right."

"Look here, Kitty," I said, making up my mind, "sit down, I want to

talk to you."

And she did sit down, and I told her all. With some girls it might not

have been the best course; but Kitty is not like most of the girls I

meet nowadays--of whom one half are blue stockings, with no more

fitness for the duties of wives and mothers than the statuettes in a

shop window, and the other half are misses in white muslin, who are

always giggling pertly or sitting with their thumbs in their mouths.

Kitty is a companion, a helpmeet, God bless her! She knows that

Wellington did not fight at Blenheim, and she does not think that

Lucknow is in the Crimea. She knows so much, though she knows no Greek

and she loves dancing--her very eyes dance at the thought of it. But

she would rather sit at home with the man she loves than waltz at

Marlborough House. And if she has not learned a little fortification

on the sly, and does not know how many men stand between Jim and his

company--I am a Dutchman! Lord! when I see a man marry a doll with a

pretty face--not that Kitty has not a pretty face, and a sweet one

too, no thanks to her father--I wonder whether he has considered what

it will be to sit opposite my lady at, say, twenty thousand nine

hundred meals on an average! That is the test, sir.

So I told Kitty all, and the way she took it showed me that I was

right. "What?" she exclaimed, when I had finished the story, to which

she had listened, with her face turned from me, and her arm on the

mantelpiece, "is that all, father?"

"My dear," I said sadly, "you do not understand." I remembered how

often I had heard--and sometimes noticed--that women's ideas of honour

differ from men's.

"Understand!" she retorted, turning upon me, fiery hot. "I understand

that you think Jim has done this mean, miserable, wretched thing.

Father," she continued, with sudden gravity, and she laid both her

hands on my shoulders, so that her brave eyes looked into my eyes, "if

three people came to you and told you that I had gone into your

bedroom and taken money from the cash-box in your cupboard to pay a

bill of mine, and that when I had done it I had kept it from you, and

told stories about it--if three, four, five people told you that they

had seen me do it, would you believe them?"

"No, Kitty," I said, smiling against my will, "not though five angels

told me so, my dear. I know you too well."

"And, sir, though five angels told me this, I would not believe it! Do

you think I do not know him--and love him?"

And the foolish girl, who had begun to waltz round the room like a mad

thing, stopped and looked at me with tears in her eyes and her lips

quivering.

I could not but take some comfort from her confidence.

"True," I said. "The Colonel brought him up, and it seems hardly

possible that the lad should turn out so bad. But the photograph, my

girl--the photograph? What do you say to that? It was Jim, I swear. I

could not be mistaken. There could not be another so like him."

"There is no one like him," she said softly.

"Very well. And then I have noticed that he has been in bad spirits

lately. I'm afraid--I'm afraid a bad conscience, my dear."

"You dear old donkey!" she answered, shaking me with both her hands.

"That was about me. He has told me all that. He thought Mr.

Farquhar--Mr. Farquhar, indeed!"

"Oh, that was it, was it?" I said. "Well, that may account for his

depression. But look you here, Kitty; was he not rather nervous about

his examination?"

"A little," she answered with reluctance.

"And, nonetheless, did he not come out pretty high?"

"Seventeenth. Thirteen thousand four hundred and twenty-six marks,"

Kitty replied glibly.

"Just so! And if he had failed he would have suffered in your eyes?"

"Not a scrap. And, besides, he did not fail," she retorted.

"But he may have thought he would suffer," I answered, "if he failed.

That would be a sharp temptation, Kitty."

She did not reply at once. She was busy rolling up a ribbon of her

frock into the smallest possible compass, and unrolling it again. At

last--it was clear I had made her think--

"I know he did not do it," she said, "but that is all I do know. I

cannot prove to you that white is not black; but it is not, and I know

it is not."

"Well, my dear, I hope you are right," I answered. And it cheered me

to find that she held him worthy of confidence.

She promised readily to let me have the first word with the lad

when he called next day. And as for undertaking to have nothing more

to do with him if the charge proved to be true, she made nothing of

that--because, as she said, it meant nothing.

"A Jim who had done that would not be my Jim at all," she explained

gaily, "but quite a different Jim--a James, sir."

Certainly, a girl's faith is a wonderful thing. And hers so far

affected me that I regretted I had not taken a bolder course, and,

showing the photograph to the Colonel, had the whole thing threshed

out on the spot. Possibly I might have saved myself a very wretched

hour or two. But no; on second thoughts I could not see how the boy

could be innocent. I could not help piecing the evidence together--the

damning evidence, as it seemed to me; the certain identity of Jim with

the original of the photograph, the arrival of the latter from Frome,

where the lad had spent the last weeks previous to his examination,

the fears he had expressed before the ordeal, and his success beyond

his hopes at it; these things seemed almost conclusive. I had only the

boy's character, his father's training, and his sweetheart's faith, to

set against them.

His sweetheart's faith, did I say? Ah, well! when I came down to

breakfast next morning, whom should I find in tears--and she, as a

rule, the most equable girl in the world--but Kitty.

"Hallo!" I said. "What is all this?"

At the sound of my voice she sprang to her feet. She had been

kneeling by the fireplace groping with her hands inside the fender.

Her cheeks were crimson, and she was crying--yes, certainly crying,

although she tried by a hasty dab of the flimsy thing she calls a

pocket-handkerchief to remove the traces.

"Well!" I said, for she was dumb. "What is it, my dear?"

"I have--torn up a letter," she answered, a little sob dividing the

sentence into two.

"So I see," I answered dryly. "And now, I suppose, you are sorry for

it."

"It was a horrid letter, father," she cried, her eyes shining like

electric lamps in a shower--"about Jim."

"Indeed," I said, with a very nasty feeling inside me. "What about

Jim? And why did you tear it up, my dear? One half of it, I should

say, has gone into the fire."

"It was from--a woman!" she answered.

And presently she told me that the letter, which was unsigned,

asserted that Jim had played with the affections of the writer, and

warned Kitty to be on her guard against him, and not to be a party to

the wrong he was doing an innocent girl.

"Pooh!" I said, with a contemptuous laugh. "That cock will not fight,

my dear. It has been tried over and over again. You do not mean to say

that that has made you cry? Why, if so, you are--you are just as big a

fool as any girl I know."

In truth, I was surprised to find Kitty's faith in her lover, which

had been proof against a charge made on the best of evidence, fail

before an unsigned accusation--because, forsooth, it mentioned a

woman. "What postmark did it bear?" I asked.

"Frome," she murmured.

That was certainly odd--very odd. Pretty devilments I knew those

fellows at crammers' were up to sometimes. Could it be that we were

mistaken in Master Jim, as I have once or twice known a lad's family

to be mistaken in him? Was he all the time an out-and-out bad one? Or

had he some enemy at Frome plotting against his happiness? This seemed

most unlikely and absurd besides; since we had lit upon Isaac Gold by

a chance, and on the portrait by a chance within a chance, and no

enemy, however acute--not Machiavelli himself--could have foreseen the

_rencontre_ or arranged the circumstances which had led me to the

photograph. Therefore, though the anonymous letter might be the work

of an ill-wisher, I did not see how the other could be. However, I

gathered up the few fragments of writing which had escaped the fire,

and put them aside, to serve, if need be, for evidence.

On one thing I was making up my mind, however--I must put an end to

the matter between Jim and my girl unless he could clear himself of

these suspicions--when what should I hear but his voice, and his

father's, in the hall. There is something in the sound of a familiar

voice which so recalls our knowledge of the speaker that I know

nothing which pierces the cloud of doubt more thoroughly. At any rate,

when the two came in, I jumped up and gave a hand to each. Behind

Jim's back one might suspect him: confronted by his open eyes, and his

brown, honest, boyish face--well, by the Lord! I could as soon suspect

my old comrade, God bless him!

"Jim," I found myself saying, his hand in mine, and every one of my

prudent resolutions gone to the wind, "Jim, my boy, I am a happy man.

Take her and be good to her, and God bless you! No, Colonel, no," I

continued in desperate haste, "I do not ask a question. Let the lad

take her. If your son cannot be trusted no one can. There, I am glad

that is settled."

I verily believe I was almost blubbering; and though I said only what

I should have said if this confounded matter had never arisen, I let

drop, it seems, enough to set the Colonel questioning, for in five

minutes I had told him the whole story of the photograph.

It was pleasant to observe his demeanour. Though he never for a moment

lost his faith in Jim--mind, he had not seen the portrait--and his

eyes continued to shoot little glances of confidence at his son, he

drew back his chair and squared his shoulders, and assumed a judicial

air.

"Now, sir," he said, with his hands on his knees, "this must be

explained. We are much obliged to the Major for bringing it to our

notice. You will be good enough to explain, my lad."

Jim did explain; or, rather, he answered frankly that he had never

heard Isaac Gold's name before and certainly had never given him a

photograph, and I believed him. Then he jumped up with his usual

impetuosity and proposed to go at once to Gold's house and see the

photograph, and I was delighted. In half a minute we were all three in

a cab, and in twenty more had the good luck to discover old Gold alone

at home. A five-shilling piece slipped into the drunkard's hand

sufficed to obtain for us the view we desired.

"I suppose it _is_ a likeness of me," Jim murmured, looking hard at

the photograph.

"Certainly it is!" the Colonel replied rather curtly. Up to this

moment he had thought me deceived by a chance resemblance.

"Then let us see who took it, and where it was printed," Jim answered

in a matter-of-fact tone. "I do not believe I have ever been taken in

this dress. See, it bears no photographer's name; so an amateur has

taken it. Let me think."

While he thought, old Gold pottered about the open door of the room on

the watch for Isaac's return. "Yes," Jim said at last, "I think I have

it. I was photographed in this dress as one of a group before a meet

of the hounds at Old Bulcher's.

"At Frome?"

"Yes. And this has been enlarged, I have no doubt, from the head in

the group. But why, or who has done it, or how it comes to be here, I

give you my honour, sir, I know no more than you do."

At this moment young Gold's footsteps were heard ascending. He seemed

to have some suspicion that his secrets were in danger, for he came up

the stairs three at a time, and bounced into the room--looking for a

moment, as his eyes alighted on us and the open album, as if he would

knock us down. When his glance fell on Jim, however, a change came

over him. It was singular to see the two looking at one another, Jim

eyeing him with the supercilious stare of the boy-officer, and young

Gold returning the look with a covert recognition in his defiant eyes.

"Well," said Jim, "do you know me?"

"I have never seen you before, to my knowledge."

"Perhaps you will explain how you came by this photograph?"

"That is my business!" said Gold sternly.

"Oh, is it?" retorted Jim with fire. "We will see about that." I think

it annoyed him, as it certainly did me, to detect in the other's

glance and tone a subtle meaning--a covert understanding. "If you do

not explain, I'll--I will call in the police, my man."

But here the Colonel interfered. He told me afterwards that he felt

some sympathy for Gold. He silenced Jim, and, telling the other that

he should hear from him again, he led us downstairs. I noticed that,

as we passed into the street, he slipped his arm through his son's,

and I have no doubt he managed to convey to the young fellow as

plainly as by words that his faith was unshaken.

Very naturally, however, Jim was not satisfied with this or with the

present position of things; which was certainly puzzling. "But, look

here!" he said, standing still in the middle of the pavement, "what is

to be done, sir? That fellow believes or pretends to believe, though

he will not say a word, that I have used him to do my dirty work. And

I have not! Then why the deuce does he parade my photograph? Do you

think--by George! I believe I have got it--do you think it is a case

of blackmail?"

"No," the Colonel said with decision, "it cannot be. We came upon the

photograph by the purest accident. It was not sent to us, or used

against you. No! But see here!" The Colonel in his turn stopped in the

middle of the pavement and struck the latter with his stick. He had

got his idea, and his eyes sparkled.

"Well?" we said.

"Suppose some other fellow employed Gold to pass the examination, and,

having this very fear--of being blackmailed--in his mind, got a

photograph of a friend tolerably like himself? And sent it up instead

of his own? What then?"

"What then? Precisely!" I said. And we all nodded at one another like

so many Chinese mandarins, and the Colonel looked proudly at his son,

as though saying, "Now what do you think of your father, my boy?"

"I think you have hit it, sir!" Jim said, answering the unspoken

question. "There were nearly thirty fellows at Bulcher's."

"And among them there was one low rascal--a low rascal, sir," replied

the Colonel, his eyes sparkling, "who did not even trust his companion

in iniquity, but arranged to have an answer ready if his accomplice

turned upon him! 'I suborned him?' he resolved to say--'I deny it. He

has my name pat enough, but has he any proof? A photograph? But that

is not my photograph!' Do you see, Major?"

"I see," I said. "And now come home with me, both of you, and we will

talk it over with Kitty."

By this time, however, it was two o'clock. Jim, who had only come up

for an hour or two, found he must resign the hope of seeing Kitty

to-day, and take a cab to Charing Cross if he would catch his train.

The Colonel had a luncheon engagement--for which he was already late.

And so we separated then and there in something of a hurry. When I got

back the first question Kitty--who, you may be sure, met me in the

hall--asked was: "Where is Jim, father?" The second: "And what does he

say about the letter?"

"God bless my soul!" I exclaimed, "I never gave a thought to the

letter! I am afraid I never mentioned it, my dear. I was thinking

about the photograph. I fancy we have got to something like the bottom

of that."

"Pooh!" she said. And, she pretended to take very little interest in

the explanation I gave her, though--the sly little cat!--when I

dropped the subject, she was quite ready to take it up again, rather

than not talk about Jim at all.

I am sometimes late for breakfast; she rarely or never. But next

morning on entering the dining-room I found the table laid for one

only, and Matthews, the maid, waiting modestly before the coffeepot.

"Where is Miss Bratton?" I said grumpily, taking the _Times_ from the

fender. "Miss Kitty had a headache," was the answer, "and is taking a

cup of tea in bed, sir." "Ho, ho!" thought I, "this comes of being in

love! Confound the lads! Sausage? No, I won't have sausage. Who the

deuce ordered sausages at this time of year? Bacon? Seems half done.

This coffee is thick. There, that will do! That will do. Don't rattle

those cups and saucers all day! Confound the girl!--do you hear? You

can go!" The way women bully a man when they get him alone is a

caution.

When I returned from my morning stroll, I heard voices in the

dining-room, and looked in to see how Kitty was. Well, she was--in

brief, there was a scene going on. Miss Kitty, her cheeks crimson and

her eyes bright, was standing with her back to the window; and facing

her, half angry and half embarrassed, was Jim. "Hoity, toity, you

two!" I said, closing the door behind me. "These are early times for

this kind of thing. What is up?"

"I'll be hanged if I know, sir!" Jim answered, looking rather foolish.

"What have you got there, my dear?" I continued, for Kitty had one

hand behind her, and I was not slow to connect this hand with the

expression on her pretty face.

"He knows," she said, trembling with anger--the little vixen.

"I know nothing!" Jim returned sheepishly. "I came in, and when

I--Kitty flew out and attacked me, don't you see, sir?"

"Very well, my dear," I answered, "if you do not feel able to explain,

Jim had better go. Only, if he goes now, of course I cannot say when

he will come back."

"I will come back, Kitty, whenever you want me," said the young fool.

"Shut your mouth, sir," I shouted. "Now, Kitty, attend to me. What is

it?"

"Ask him--to whom he gave his photograph at Frome!" she said, in a

breathless sort of way.

"His photograph? Why, that is just what we were talking about

yesterday," I replied sharply. "I thought it did not interest you, my

girl, when I told you all about it last night."

"That photograph!"--with withering contempt--"I do not mean _that!_ Do

you think I suspect him of _that?_" She stepped forward as though to

go to him, and her face altered wonderfully. Then she recollected

herself and fell back. "No," she said coldly, "to what woman, sir, did

you give your photograph at Frome?"

"To no woman at all," he said emphatically.

"Then look at this!" she retorted. She held out as she spoke a

photograph, which I identified at once as the portrait we had seen at

Gold's, or a copy of that one. I snatched it from Jim. "Where did you

get this, my girl?" I asked briskly.

"It came this morning--with another letter from that woman," she

murmured.

I think she began to feel ashamed of herself; and in two minutes I got

the letter from her. It was written by the same hand as the letter of

the day before, and was, like it, unsigned. It merely said that the

writer, in proof of her good faith, enclosed a photograph which Master

Jim--that gay Lothario!--had given her. We were still looking at the

letter, when the Colonel came in. I explained the matter to him, and I

will answer for it, before he understood it, Kitty was more ashamed of

herself than ever.

"This photograph and the one at Gold's are facsimiles," said he

thoughtfully. "That is certain. And both come from Frome. Doesn't it

seem probable that the gentleman who obtained Jim's photograph for his

own purpose last year--to send to Gold--printed off more than one

copy? And having this one by him, and wishing to cause mischief

between Kitty and Jim, thought of this and used it? The sender is,

therefore, some one who passed his examination last year and is still

at Frome."

Jim shook his head.

"If he passed, sir, he would not be at Bulcher's now," he said.

"On second thoughts he may not be," the Colonel replied. "He may have

sent the two letters to Frome to a confidential friend with orders to

post them. Wait--wait a minute," my old chum added, looking at me with

a new light in his eyes. "Where have I seen a letter addressed to

Frome--within the last day or two? Eh? Wait a bit."

We did wait; and presently the Colonel announced his discovery in a

grim voice.

"I have it," he said. "It is that scoundrel, Farquhar!"

"Farquhar!" I said. "What do you mean, Colonel?"

"Just that, Major, just that. Do you remember him knocking against you

in the hall at the club the day before yesterday? He dropped a letter,

and I picked it up. It was addressed--I could not help seeing so

much--to Frome."

"Well," Jim said slowly, "he was at Bulcher's, and he passed last

year."

"And the letter," continued the Colonel in his turn, "was in a large

envelope--an envelope large enough to contain a cabinet photograph."

There was silence in the room. Kitty's face was hidden. Jim moved at

last--towards her? No, towards the door. He had his hand on it when

the Colonel observed him.

"Stop!" he said sharply. "Come back, my boy. None of that. The Major

and I will deal with him."

Jim lingered with his hand on the door.

"Well, sir," he said, "I will only----"

"Come back!" roared the Colonel, but with a smile in his eyes as he

looked at his boy. "You will stop here, you lucky dog, you. And I hope

this will be a lesson to you not to give your photograph to young

ladies at Frome!"

If Kitty squirmed a little at that, she deserved it. I said before

that a woman's faith is a wonderful thing. But when there is another

woman in the case--umph!

* * * * *

"Mr. Farquhar, sir? Yes, sir, he is in the house," the club porter

said, turning in his glass case to consult his book. "I believe he

went upstairs to the drawing-room, sir."

"Thank you," the Colonel replied, and he glanced at me and I at him;

and then, fixing our hats on tightly, and grasping our sticks, we went

upstairs.

We were in luck, as it turned out, for not only was Farquhar in the

drawing-room, but there was no one else in the long, stiff, splendid

room. He looked up from his writing, and saw us piloting our way

towards him between the chairs and tables. And I think he turned

green. At any rate, my last doubt left me at the sight of his face.

"A word with you, Mr. Farquhar," the Colonel said grimly, keeping a

tight hand on my arm, for I confess I had been in favour of more

drastic measures. "It is about a photograph."

"A photograph?" the startled wretch exclaimed, his mouth ajar.

"Well, perhaps I should have said two photographs," the Colonel

replied gravely; "photographs of my son which are lying, one in the

possession of Major Bratton, and one in the album of a friend of

yours, Mr. Isaac Gold."

He tried to frame the words, "A friend of mine!" and to feign

astonishment and stare us down. But it was a pitiable attempt, and his

eyes sank. He could only mutter, "I do not know--any Gold. There is

some mistake."

"Perhaps so," the Colonel answered smoothly. "I hope there is some

mistake. But let me tell you this, Mr. Farquhar. Unless you apply

within a week for leave to resign your commission, I shall lay certain

facts concerning these photographs before the Commander-in-Chief and

before the mess of your regiment. You understand me, I am sure. Very

well. That is all I wish to say to you."

Apparently he had nothing to say to us in return. And we were both

glad to turn our backs on that baffled, spiteful face, in which the

horror of discovery strove with the fear of ruin. It is ill striking a

man when he is down, and I was glad to get out of the house and

breathe a purer air.

We had no need to go to the Commander-in-Chief. Lieutenant Farquhar

applied for leave to resign within the week, and Her Majesty obtained,

I think, a better bargain in Private Isaac Gold, who, following the

Colonel's advice, enlisted about this time. He is already a corporal,

and, aided by an education rare in the ranks, bids fair to earn a

sergeant's stripes at an early date. He has turned over a new

leaf--the Colonel always maintained that he had a keen sense of

honour; and I feel little doubt that if he ever has the luck to rise

to Farquhar's grade, and bear the Queen's commission, he will be a

credit to it and to his friend and brother officer--the Colonel's boy.

Not, mind you, that I think he will ever be as good a fellow as Jim!

No, no.

A GOOD MAN'S DILEMMA

A GOOD MAN'S DILEMMA

The clock of St. Martin's was striking ten as Archdeacon Yale, of

Studbury, in Gloucestershire, who had taken breakfast at the Athenaeum,

walked down the club steps, eastward bound. He was a man of fresh

complexion and good presence; of tolerable means and some reputation

as the author of a curiously morbid book, "Timon Defended." As he

walked the pavement briskly, an unopened letter which peeped from his

pocket seemed--and rightly--to indicate a man free from anxieties: a

man without a care.

Before he left the dignified stillness of Pall Mall, however, he found

leisure to read the note. "I enclose," wrote his wife, "a letter which

came for you this morning. I trust, Cyprian, that you are not fretting

about the visitation question and that you get your meals fairly well

cooked." The Archdeacon paused at this point and smiled as at some

pleasant reminiscence. "Give my love to dear Jack. Oh--h'm--I do not

recognise your correspondent's handwriting."

"Nor do I!" the Archdeacon said aloud; and he opened the enclosure

with a curiosity that had in it no fear of trouble. After glancing at

the signature, however, he turned into a side street and read the

letter to the end. He sighed. "Oh dear, dear!" he muttered. "What

can I do? I must go! There is no room for refusal. And yet--oh

dear!--after all these years. Number 14, Sidmouth Street, Gray's Inn

Road? What a place!"

It was a shabby third-rate lodging-house place, as perhaps he knew.

But he called a cab and had himself driven thither forthwith. At the

corner of the street he dismissed the cab and looked about him

furtively. For a man who had left his club so free from care, and

whose wife at Studbury and son at Lincoln's Inn were well, he wore an

anxious face. It could not be--for he was an Archdeacon--that he was

about to do anything of which he was ashamed. Bishops, and others of

that class, may be open to temptations, or have pages of their lives

folded down, which they would not wish turned. But an Archdeacon?

Yet when he was distant a house or so from No. 14 he started guiltily

at a very ordinary occurrence; at nothing more than the arrival of a

hansom cab at the door. True, a young woman descended from it, and let

herself into the house with a latchkey. But young women and latchkeys

are common in London, as common as--as dirt. It could hardly be that

which darkened his face as he rang the bell.

In the hall, where a dun was sitting, there was little to remove the

prejudice he may have conceived; little, too, in the dingy staircase,

cumbered with plates and stale food; or in the first-floor rooms,

from which some one peeped and another whispered, and both giggled;

or in that second-floor room, at once smart and shabby, and remarkable

for many photographs of one young girl, where he was bidden to

wait--little or nothing. But when he had pished and pshawed at the

tenth photograph, he was called into an inner room, where a strange

silence prevailed. Involuntarily he stepped softly. "It was kind of

you to come," some one said--some one who was lying in a great chair

brought very near to the open window that the speaker might breathe

more easily--"very kind. And you have come so quickly."

"I have been in London some days," he answered gently, the fastidious

expression gone from his face. "Your daughter's letter followed me

from the country and reached me an hour ago. It has been no trouble to

me to come. I am only pained at finding you so ill."

"Ah!" she answered. Doubtless her thoughts were busy; while his flew

back nearly thirty years to a summer evening, when he had walked with

her under the trees in Chelsea Gardens and heard her pour into his

ear--she was a young actress in the first blush of success--her hopes

and ambitions. There was nothing in the memory of which he had need to

be ashamed. In those days he had been reading for orders, and, having

lodgings in a respectable street, had come by chance to know two of

his neighbours--her mother and herself. The two were living a quiet

domestic life, which surprised and impressed him. The girl's talent

and the contrast between her notoriety and her simple ways had had a

charm for him. For some months the neophyte and the actress were as

brother and sister. But there the feeling had stopped; and when his

appointment to a country curacy had closed this pretty episode in his

life, the exchange of a few letters had but added grace to its ending.

Now old feelings rose to swell his pity as he traced the girl's

features in the woman's face. "You have a daughter. You have been

married since we parted," he said.

"Yes. It is for her sake I have troubled you," was her answer. "She is

a good girl--oh, so good! But she has no one in the world except me,

and I am leaving her. Poor Grissel!"

"She is on the stage?" he inquired gravely.

"Yes; and she has succeeded young, as I did. We have not been unhappy

together. You remember the life my mother and I had? I think it has

been the same over again."

She smiled ever so little. He remembered something of the quiet pathos

of that life. "Your husband is dead?" he asked.

"Dead! I wish he were!" she answered bitterly, the smile passing from

her face. "My girl had better be alone than with her father. Ah, you

do not know! When he went to America years ago--with another woman--I

thanked God for it. Dead? Oh, no! There is no chance that he is dead."

Mr. Yale was shocked. "You have not got a divorce?" he said.

"No. After he left me I fell ill, and there were expenses. We were

very poor until last year, when Grissel made a good engagement. That

is why we are here. Now that her name is known he will come back and

find her out. She plays as Kittie Latouche, but the profession know

who she is, and--and what can I do? Oh, Mr. Yale! tell me what I can

do for her."

Her anxiety unnerved him. Her terror of the future, not her own, but

her child's, wrung his heart. He had a presentiment whither she was

leading him; and he tried to escape, he tried to murmur some

commonplace of encouragement.

"You may yet recover," he urged. "At any rate, there will be time to

talk of this again."

"There will not be time," she entreated him. "I have scarcely three

days to live, and then my child will be alone. Oh, Mr. Yale! help me.

She is young and handsome, with no one to guide her. If her father

return, he will be her worst enemy. There is some one, too--some

gentleman--who has fallen in with her, and been here. He may be a

friend--what you were to me--or not! Don't you understand me?" she

cried piteously. "How can I leave her unless you--there is no one else

whom I can ask--will protect her?"

He started and looked round for relief, but found none. "I? It is

impossible!" he cried. "Oh dear, dear! I am afraid that it is

impossible, Mrs. Kent."

"Not impossible! I do not ask you to give her a home or money! Only

care. If you will be her guardian--her friend----"

She was a woman dying in sore straits. He was a merciful man. In the

end he promised to do what she wished. Then he hastened to escape her

gratitude, unconscious, as he passed down the stairs, of the

whispering and giggling, the slatternliness and dirt, which had been

so dreadful to him on his entrance.

He walked along Oxford Street in a reverie, "Poor thing!" falling from

him at intervals, until he reached the corner of Tottenham Court Road,

and his eye rested upon a hoarding--at the first idly, then with a

purpose, finally with a sidelong glance. The advertisement which had

caught his attention was a coarse engraving of half a dozen heads,

arranged in a circle, with one in the centre. Under this last, which

was larger and more staring, and less to be evaded than the others,

appeared the words, "Miss Kittie Latouche." He went on with a shiver,

crossing here and there to avoid the hoardings, but only to fall in

with a string of sandwich-men bearing the same device. He plunged into

the haven of Soho as if he were a political conspirator.

The portrait and the name of his ward! In a few days he would be left

in charge of an actress whose name was known to all London--guardian,

_in loco parentis_, what you will, of the closest and most

responsible, to a giddy girl of unknown antecedents, and too

well-known name! He wondered whether Archdeacon had ever been in such

a position before, a position which it would be hard to acknowledge

and impossible to explain. He could talk of his old friendship for her

mother, the actress, and his duty to a dying woman. But would the

world believe him? Would even his wife believe him? Would not she read

much between the lines, though the space were white as snow? He, a man

of nearly sixty, grew red and white by turns as he thought of this.

"I will tell Jack the story," was his first resolve. "I will tell it

him at dinner to-night," he groaned. But would he have the courage? He

had much respect for his son's practical nature. He had heard him

called "hard as nails." And when he found himself opposite to him, and

eyed the close-shaven young lawyer, who looked a decade older than his

years, he resorted to a subterfuge.

"Jack," he said, "I want your opinion for a friend of mine."

"It is at your service, sir," his son said, his hand upon the

apricots. "What is the subject? Law?"

"Not precisely," the Archdeacon replied, clearing his throat. "It is

rather a question of knowledge of the world. You know, my boy," he

went on, "that I have a very high opinion of your discretion."

"You are very good," said Jack. And he did that which was unusual with

him. He blushed; but the other did not observe it.

"My friend, who, I may say, is a clergyman in my archdeaconry," the

elder gentleman resumed, "has been appointed guardian--it is a

ridiculous thing for a man in his position--to a--a young actress. She

is quite a girl, I understand, but of some notoriety."

"Indeed," said Jack drily. "May I ask how that came about? Wards of

that kind do not fall from heaven--as a rule."

The Archdeacon winced. "He tells me," he explained, "that her mother

was an old friend of his, and when she died, some time back, she left

the girl as a kind of legacy, you see."

"A legacy to him, sir?"

"To him, certainly," the elder man said in some distress. "You follow

me?"

"Quite so," said Jack. "Oh, quite so! A common thing, no doubt. Did

you say that your friend was a married man, sir?"

"Yes," the Archdeacon replied faintly.

"Just so! just so!" his son said, in the same tone, a tone that was so

dreadful to the Archdeacon that it needed Jack's question, "And what

is the point upon which he wants advice?" to induce him to go on.

"What he had better do, being a clergyman."

"He should have thought of that earlier--ahem!--I mean it depends a

good deal on the young lady. There are actresses _and_ actresses, you

know."

"I suppose so," the Archdeacon admitted grudgingly. He was in a mood

to see the darkest side of his difficulty.

"Of course there are!" Jack said, for him quite warmly. And indeed

that is the worst of barristers. They will argue in season and out of

season if you do not agree with them quickly. "Some are as good--as

good girls as my mother when you married her, sir."

"Well, well, she may be a good girl--I do not know," the elder man

allowed.

"You always had a prejudice against the stage, sir."

The Archdeacon looked up sharply, thinking this uncalled for; unless,

horrible thought! his son knew something of the matter, and was

chaffing him. He made an effort to get on firmer ground. "Granted she

is a good girl," he said, "there are still two difficulties. Her

father is a rascal, and there is a man, probably a rascal too, hanging

about her, and likely to give trouble in another way."

Jack nodded and sagely pondered the position. "I think I should advise

your friend to get some respectable woman to live with the girl," he

suggested, "and play the duenna--first getting rid of your second

rascal."

"But how will you do that? And what would you do about the father?"

"Buy him off!" said Jack curtly. "As to the lover, have an interview

with him. Say to him, 'Do you wish to marry my ward? If you do, who

are you? If you do not, go about your business.'"

"But if he will not go," the Archdeacon said, "what can my friend do?"

"Well, indeed," replied Jack, looking rather nonplussed, "I hardly

know, unless you make her a ward of court. You see," he added

apologetically, "your friend's position is a little--shall I say a

little anomalous?"

The Archdeacon shuddered. He dropped his napkin and picked it up

again, to hide his dismay. Then he plunged into a fresh subject. When

his son upon some excuse left him early, he was glad to be alone. He

had now a course laid down for him, and acting upon it, he next day

saw the landlady in Sidmouth Street and requested her to take charge

of the young lady in the event of the mother's death and to guard her

from intrusion until other arrangements could be made. "You will look

to me for all expenses," the Archdeacon added, seizing with eagerness

the only ground on which he felt himself at home. To which the

landlady gladly said she would, and accepted Mr. Yale's address at the

Athenaeum Club as a personal favour to herself.

So the Archdeacon, free for the moment, went down to Studbury, and

as he walked about his shrubberies with the scent of his wife's

old-fashioned flowers in the air, or sat drinking his glass of

Leoville '74 after dinner while Vinnells the butler, anxious to get to

his supper, rattled the spoons on the sideboard, he tried to believe

it a dream. What, he wondered, would Vinnells say if he knew that

master had a ward, and that ward a play-actress? Or, as Studbury would

prefer to style her, a painted Jezebel? And what would Mrs. Yale say,

who loved lavender, and had seen a ballet--once? Was Archdeacon ever,

he asked himself, in a position so--so anomalous before?

"My dear," his wife remarked when he had read his letters one morning,

a week or two later, "I am sure you are not well. I have noticed that

you have not been yourself since you were in London."

"Nonsense," he replied tartly.

"It is not nonsense. There is something preying on your mind. I

believe," she persisted, "it is that visitation, Cyprian, that is

troubling you."

"Visitation? What visitation?" he asked incautiously. For indeed he

had forgotten all about that very important business, and could think

only of a visitation more personal to himself. Before his wife could

hold up her hands in astonishment, "What visitation! indeed!" he had

escaped into the open air. Mrs. Kent was dead.

Yes, the blow had fallen; but the first shock over, things were made

easy for him. He wrote to his ward as soon after the funeral as seemed

decent, and her answer pleased him greatly. Ready as he was to scent

misbehaviour in the air, he thought it a proper letter, a good girl's

letter. She did not deny his right to give advice. She had not, she

said, seen the gentleman he mentioned since her mother's death,

although Mr. Charles Williams--that was his name--had called several

times. But she had given him an appointment for the following Tuesday,

and was willing that Mr. Yale should see him on that occasion.

All this in a formal and precise way; but there was something in the

tone of her reference to Mr. Williams which led the Archdeacon to

smile. "She is over head and ears in love," he thought. And in his

reply, after saying that he would be in Sidmouth Street on Tuesday at

the hour named, he added that if there appeared to be nothing against

Mr. Charles Williams he, the Archdeacon, would have pleasure in

forwarding his ward's happiness.

"I am going to London to-morrow, my dear, for two nights," he said to

his wife on the Sunday evening. "I have some business there."

Mrs. Yale sat silent for a moment, as if she had not heard. Then she

laid down her book and folded her hands. "Cyprian," she said, "what is

it?"

The Archdeacon was fussing with his pile of sermons and did not turn.

"What is what, my dear?" he asked.

"Why are you going to London?"

"On business, my dear; business," he said lightly.

"Yes, but what business?" replied Mrs. Yale with decision. "Cyprian,

you are keeping something from me; you were not used to have secrets

from me. Tell me what it is."

But he remained obstinately silent. He would not tell a lie, and he

could not tell the truth.

"Is it about Jack?" with sudden conviction. "I know what it is; he has

entangled himself with some girl!"

The Archdeacon laughed oddly. "You ought to know your son better by

this time, my dear. He is about as likely to entangle himself with a

girl as--as I am."

But Mrs. Yale shook her head unconvinced. The Archdeacon was a

landowner, though a poor one. It was his ambition, and his wife's,

that Jack should some day be rich enough to live at the Hall, instead

of letting it, as his father found it necessary to do. But while the

Archdeacon considered that Jack's way to the Hall lay over the

woolsack, his wife had in view a short cut through the marriage

market; being a woman, and so thinking it a small sin in a man to

marry for money. Consequently she lived in fear lest Jack should be

entrapped by some penniless fair one, and was not wholly reassured

now. "Well, I shall be sure to find out, Cyprian," she said warningly,

"if you are deceiving me."

And these words recurred disagreeably to the Archdeacon's mind on his

way to town and afterwards. They rendered him as sensitive as a mole

in the sunshine. He found London almost intolerable. He could not walk

the streets without seeing those horrid placards, nor take up a

newspaper without being stared out of countenance by the name "Kittie

Latouche." While his conscience so multiplied each bill and poster and

programme that in twenty-four hours London seemed to him a great

hoarding of which his ward was the sole lessee.

Naturally he shrank into himself as he passed down Sidmouth Street

next day. He pondered, standing on the steps of No. 14, what the

neighbours thought of the house; whether they knew that "Kittie

Latouche" lived there. He was spared the giggling and dirty plates on

the stairs, but looking round the room at the ten photographs, and

thinking what Mrs. Yale would say could she see him, he shuddered.

Nervously he picked up the first pamphlet he saw on the table. It was

a trifle in one act: "The Tench," Lacy's edition, by Charles Williams.

He set it down with a grimace, and a word about birds of a feather.

And then the door by which he had entered opened behind him, and he

turned.

One look was enough. The kindly expression faded from his handsome

features. His face turned to flame. The veins of his forehead swelled

with passion, and he strode forward as though he would lay hands on

the intruder. "How dare you," he cried when he could find his

voice--"how dare you follow me? How dare you play the spy upon me,

sir? Speak!"

But Jack--for Jack it was--had no answer ready. He seemed to have lost

for once (astonished at being taken in this way, perhaps) his presence

of mind. "I do not--understand," he said helplessly.

"Understand? You understand," the Archdeacon cried, his son's very

confusion condemning him unheard, "that you have meanly followed me

to--to detect me in--in----" And then he came to a deadlock, and,

redder than before, thundered, "Are you not ashamed of yourself, sir?"

"I thought I saw a back I knew," Jack muttered, looking everywhere but

at his father, which was terribly irritating. "I was coming through

the street."

"You were coming through the street? I suppose you often pass through

Sidmouth Street!" retorted the Archdeacon with withering sarcasm. But

his wrath was growing cool.

"Very often," said Jack so sturdily that his father could not but

believe him, and was further sobered. "I saw a back I thought I knew,

and I came in here. I had no intention of offending you, sir. And now

I think I will go," he added, looking about him uneasily, "and--and

speak to you another time."

But the Archdeacon's anger was quite gone now. A wretched

embarrassment was taking its place as it dawned upon him that after

all Jack might by pure chance have seen him enter and have followed

innocently. In that case how had he committed himself by his

outbreak--how indeed! "Jack," he said, "I beg your pardon. I beg your

pardon, Jack. I see I was mistaken. Do not go, my boy, until I have

explained to you why I am here. It is not," he went on, smiling a

wretched smile at the pretty faces round him, "quite the place in

which you would expect to find me."

"It is certainly not the place in which I did expect to find you,"

Jack said bluntly. And he looked about him, also in a dazed fashion,

as if the Archdeacon and the photographs were not a conjunction for

which he was prepared.

"No, no," assented the Archdeacon, wincing, however. "But it is the

simplest piece of business in the world which has brought me here."

And he recalled to his son's memory their talk at the club.

"Ah, I understand!" Jack said, as if he did, too. "You have come about

your friend's business."

The Archdeacon could not hide a spasm. "Well, not precisely. To tell

you the truth, there never was a friend, Jack. But," he went on

hurriedly, holding up a hand of dignified protest, for Jack was

looking at him queerly, very queerly, "you know me too well to doubt

me, I hope, when I say there is no ground for doubt?"

The son's keen eyes met the father's for an instant, and then a rare

smile softened them as the men's hands met. "I do, sir. You may be

sure of that!" he said brightly.

The Archdeacon cleared his throat. "Thank you," he said; "now I think

you will understand the position. Miss Kent, the young lady in

question, lives here; and I have called to-day to see her by

appointment."

"The dickens you have! It is like your impudence!" cried some

one--some one behind them.

Both men swung round at the interruption. In the doorway, holding the

door open with one hand, while with the other set against the wall he

balanced himself on his feet, stood a smart Jewish-looking man. "The

dickens you have!" this gentleman repeated, leering on the two most

unpleasantly. "So that is your game, is it? Ain't you ashamed of

yourself," he continued, addressing himself to the shuddering

Archdeacon--and how far away seemed Vinnells and the lavender, and the

calm delights of Studbury at that moment!--"ain't you ashamed of

yourself, old man?"

"This is a private room," Jack said sternly, anticipating his father's

outburst. "You do not seem to be aware of it, my friend."

"A private room, is it?" the visitor replied, closing one eye with

much enjoyment. "A private room, and what then?"

"This much, that you are requested to leave it."

"Ho, ho!" the man replied; "so you would put me out of my daughter's

room, would you--out of my own daughter's room? I daresay that you

would like to do it." Then, with a sudden change to ferocity, he

added, "You are bragging above your cards, young man, you are! Dry up,

do you hear? Dry up."

And Jack did dry up, falling back against the table with a white face.

The Archdeacon, even in his own misery--misery which far exceeded his

presentiments--saw and marvelled at his son's collapse. That Jack,

keen, practical, hard-headed, should be so completely overwhelmed by

collision with this creature, so plainly scared by his insinuations,

infected the Archdeacon with a kind of terror. Yet, struggling against

the feeling, he forced himself to say, "You are Mr. Kent, I presume?"

"I am, sir; yours to command," swaggered the wretch.

"Then I may tell you that your daughter," the Archdeacon continued,

resuming something of his natural self-possession, "was left in my

charge by your wife, and that I am here in consequence of that

arrangement."

"Gammon!" Mr. Kent replied, distinctly, putting his tongue in his

cheek. "Gammon! Do you think that that story will go down with me? Do

you think it will go down with any one?"

"It is the truth."

"All right; but look here, when did you see my wife? On her death-bed.

And before that--not for twenty years. Well, what do you make of it

now? Why," he exclaimed, with admiration in his tone, "you have the

impudence of the old one himself! Fie on you, sir! Ain't you ashamed

of hanging about stage doors, and following actresses home at your

age? But I know you. And your friends shall know you, Archdeacon Yale,

of the Athenaeum Club. You will hear more of this!"

"You are an insolent fellow!" the clergyman cried. But the

perspiration stood in great beads upon his brow, and his quivering

lips betrayed the agony of his soul as he writhed under the man's

coarse insinuations. The awkwardness, the improbability of the tale he

would have to tell in his defence flashed across his mind while the

other spoke. He saw how cogently the silence he had maintained about

the matter would tell against him. He pictured the nudge of one

friend, the wink of another, and his own crimsoning cheeks. His son's

unwonted silence, too, touched him home. Yet he tried to bear himself

as an innocent man; he struggled to give back look for look. "You are

a madman and a scoundrel, besides being drunk!" he said stoutly. "If

it were not so, or--or I were as young as my son here----"

"I do not see him," the man answered curtly.

"Jack!" the Archdeacon cried, purple with indignation. "Jack! if you

have a voice, speak to him, sir!"

"It won't do," Mr. Kent replied, shaking his head. "Call him Charley,

and I might believe you."

"Charley?" repeated the Archdeacon mechanically.

"Ay, Charley--Charley Williams. Oh I know him, too," with vulgar

triumph. "I have not been hanging about this house for two days for

nothing. He has been here heaps of times! What you two are doing

together beats me, I confess. But I am certain of this, that I have

caught you both--killed two birds with one stone."

It was the Archdeacon's turn to fall back, aghast. The light that

shone upon him with those words so blinded him that every spark of his

anger paled and dwindled before it. His son, Charles Williams? He

sought in that son's eyes some gleam of denial. But Jack's eyes

avoided his; Jack's downcast air seemed only too strongly to confirm

the charge. The shock was a severe one, taking from him all thought of

himself. The why and wherefore of his presence there could never again

be questioned. A real sorrow, a real trouble, gave him courage.

"Jack!" he said, "we had better go from here. Come with me. For you,

sir," he continued, turning to the actor, "your suspicions are natural

to you. Nothing I can say will remove them. So be it. They affect me

not one whit. It is enough for me that I came here in all honour, and

with an honourable purpose."

"Indeed," replied Mr. Kent mockingly. "Indeed? And your son, Mr.

Charles Jack Williams Yale, Archdeacon? No doubt you will answer for

him, as he has not got a word to say for himself? He, too, came with

an honourable purpose, I suppose? Oh yes, of course; we are all

honourable men!"

For an instant the Archdeacon quailed. He saw the pitfall dug before

him. He knew all that his answer would imply of disappointed hopes and

a vain ambition. He recognised all that might be made of it by his

listeners, friend or foe, and he blenched. But the cynical eye and

sneering lip of the wretch recalled him to himself. Nay, he seemed to

rise above himself, as he replied more sternly, "Yes, sir; I _will_

answer for my son, as for myself! I will answer for him that he came

here in all honour."

The man sneered still. But he knew better things if he did not ensue

them, and he stood aside with secret respect and let the two go

unmolested.

"Sir," Jack said, when they had walked halfway down the street in

silence, which his father showed no sign of breaking, "you are

thinking more ill of me than I deserve."

"You gave a false name," the Archdeacon snarled.

"Not in a sense--not wilfully, I mean. I wrote a play some time ago,

and, as is usual for professional men, I submitted it under a _nom de

plume_. I was known as Charles Williams at the theatre, and I had no

more idea of doing wrong when I was introduced to Grissel in that name

than I have now."

"I hope not," the Archdeacon said grimly. He was not a man to go back

from an engagement. "I trust not," he added with a bitterness. "You

may break your word to the girl if you please, but I will not break

mine to the mother. So help me Heaven!"

"Sir," Jack said, his utterance a little husky, "God bless you! She is

a good girl, and some day she will honour you as I do."

They parted without more words. The Archdeacon, hardly master of his

thoughts, walked on until he reached the corner of Oxford Street.

There he paused, and seeing girls pass, young, graceful, soft-eyed,

leaning back in carriages with parcels round them, ay, and thinking

that Jack might have chosen out of all these, while he had chosen

in Sidmouth Street--Sidmouth Street, Gray's Inn Road--he could not

stifle a groan. He plunged recklessly across and found himself

presently in St. James' Square, and round and round this he walked,

fighting the battle with himself. His poor wife, that was the burden

of his cry. His poor wife, and the shock it would be to her, and the

downfall of hopes! He knew that she a woman would recoil from such a

daughter-in-law far more than he did, who had known Grissel's mother,

and knew that actresses may be good and true women. It would be

dreadful for her, with her old-world notions; the Archdeacon knew it.

But he valued one thing above even the peace of his home, and that was

his honour. It was not in sarcasm we called him a good man. To break

his word to the dead woman who had trusted him; to leave this girl,

whom it behooved him to protect, in the hands of her wretched father,

and so to leave her with her faith in goodness shattered--this he

could not do.

But he was tempted to think hard things of Jack, to think that Jack,

who had never given him the heartache before, had better not have been

born than bring this trouble on them. It went no farther than

temptation; and he was marvellously thankful next morning that

he had not framed the thought in words; for, as he entered the

breakfast-room, looking a year older than he had looked, chipping his

egg yesterday, the hall-porter put a telegram into his hands. "Come at

once--Jack," were the words that first made themselves intelligible to

him; and then, a few seconds later, the address "St. Thomas's

Hospital."

How swiftly does a great misfortune, a great loss, a great pain, expel

a less! I have known a man lose his wife and go heavily for a month,

and then losing a thousand pounds become as oblivious of her as if she

had never been born. But the Archdeacon was not such a man, and

rattling towards Westminster in a cab he felt not only that a thousand

pounds would be a small price to pay for his son's safety, but that,

if Providence should take him at his thought, he might have worse news

for his wife than those tidings which had almost aged him in a night.

His son, however, met him at the great gates, whole and sound, but

with a grave face. "You are too late, sir," he said quietly. But he

flushed a little at the grasp of his father's hand, and a little more

when the Archdeacon told him to pay the cabman a double fare. "I have

brought you here for nothing. He died a quarter of an hour ago,

sinking very rapidly after I sent to you."

"Who? Who died?" the Archdeacon asked, pressing one hand heavily on

the other's shoulder, as they walked back towards the bridge.

"Mr. Kent."

The elder man said nothing for a while--aloud at least. But presently

he asked Jack to tell him about it.

"There is little to tell. After we left him he went out. Going home

late last night, and not I fear sober, he was run down by a road-car.

When they brought him to the hospital he was hopelessly injured, but

quite sensible. They fetched his daughter, and then he asked for

me--as your son. He did not know my address, but the assistant-surgeon

happened to be a friend of mine, and did, and he sent a cab for me."

And really that seemed all. "It is very, very sudden; but--Heaven

forgive me!--I cannot regret his death," the clergyman said. "It is

impossible."

They had reached the corner of the bridge. "There is something else I

should tell you," Jack said nervously. "When he had sent for me he had

a lawyer brought, and made his will."

"His will!" the Archdeacon repeated, somewhat startled. "Had he

anything to leave?" He asked the question, rather in pity for so

wretched a creature as the man seemed to him, than out of curiosity.

"If we may believe him," Jack said slowly, "and I think he was telling

the truth, he was worth thirty thousand pounds."

"Impossible!" the Archdeacon cried.

"I do not know," replied Jack. "But we shall learn. He said he had

made it in oil, and had come home a poor man to see how his wife and

child would receive him. I do not think he was all bad," Jack

continued thoughtfully. "There must have been a streak of romance in

him."

"I fear," the Archdeacon muttered very sensibly, "that it is all

romance!"

But it was not all romance; there is oil in the States yet, and Mr.

Kent, of whom since he is dead we all speak with respect, by hook or

crook had got his share. The thirty thousand pounds were discovered

pleasantly fructifying in Argentine railways, and proved as many

reasons why Mrs. Yale, when Jack's fate became known to her, should

smile again. The Archdeacon put it neatly: To marry an actress is a

grave offence because a common one, and one easily committed; but to

marry an actress with thirty thousand pounds! Such ladies are not

blackberries, not do they grow on every bush.

"Mr. and Mrs. John Yale have not yet established themselves at the

Hall. They live at Henley, and their house is the summer resort of all

kinds of people, among whom the Archdeacon is a very butterfly. An

idea prevails--though a few of us are in the secret--that Mrs. Jack

comes, in common with so many pretty women, of an old Irish family;

and the other day I overheard an amusing scrap of conversation at her

table. 'Mrs. Yale,' some one said, 'do you know that you remind me, I

if may say it without offence, of Miss Kittie Latouche, the actress?'"

"Indeed?" the lady replied with a charming blush. "But do you know

that you are on dangerous ground? My husband was in love with that

lady before he knew me. And I believe that he regrets her now."

"Tit for tat!" cried Jack. "Let us all tell tales. If my wife was not

in love with one Mr. Charles Williams a month--only a month--before

she married me, I will eat her."

"Oh, Jack!" the lady exclaimed, covered with confusion. But this story

would not be believed in Studbury, where Mrs. John passes for being a

little shy, a little timid, and not a little prudish.

BAB

BAB