CHAPTER XII.

"What had the fellow meant?" George puzzled over that point on his way

back to N----town. It had been more than a mere ranting denunciation of

the "rich man" as a "rich man". The indignation had been evidently

personal to himself.

"If I'd been here, I'd not ha' let my wife sit at table wi' ye! It

passes me that ye are not ashamed to come to this county again." How did

the man know that he had ever been before?

To tell the truth, Mr. Sauls had once or twice felt in Meg's presence a

little ashamed of a certain old story, though he did not regard the sins

of his youth with the loathing that filled Barnabas Thorpe's soul at the

thought of past backsliding.

Very few men's lives could be laid entirely open to the inspection of a

good woman, George supposed; and he had never professed to be one of the

"unco guid".

He grew angrier still with the preacher, at the thought of his ferreting

out and telling Meg that tale, and he pictured the horror with which she

would hear it.

George used to notice long ago with some amusement (he had often been

privately amused with Miss Deane) that she was apt to be rather sweeping

in her condemnations; seeing, in her extremely youthful innocence, only

black and white, with no shades of grey between; judging with the crude

severity that has not known temptation. It did not "amuse" him now to

think of that.

That hypocrite would paint his portrait as a profligate, and a seducer

of innocence; and Meg, looking at it all from a woman's point of view,

would feel as if her hand had touched pitch in touching his.

"For commend me to a preacher for hunting down a scandal, and to a good

woman for a hard sentence," he thought bitterly. Yet, if she could only

know, even then, even in his rowdy, unsatisfactory boyhood, he had not

been so utterly bad.

"Innocence" had never been the worse for him--never once. It was not

"innocence" that he had flirted with in the hotel in the market town of

Clayton; he and all the rest of the rather fast set he had affected in

those days. There are country girls as far from simplicity as any town

maiden; as there are town maidens as freshly innocent as cowslips in a

field. Lydia Tremnell, the pretty saucy school-friend of the

hotel-keeper's daughter, certainly had not belonged to the latter genus;

and, possibly, Mr. Sauls wouldn't have paid her attention if she had.

At one and twenty George had had no liking for bread-and-butter misses.

If he had met a girl of Meg's type _then_, he would have found her dull;

but he followed the prevailing fashion and raved about Lydia, who,

indeed, was pretty enough to charm most men's senses, and witty, too, in

a rather pert fashion.

Now he came to think of it (but it was all so long ago!) he had a faint

recollection of a very irate cousin of Lydia's who came to fetch her

home, very much against her will; could _that_ have been Barnabas

Thorpe?

He had kept up a half-joking correspondence with her afterwards; but no

one could have been more astonished than he was when the young woman

turned up at his rooms in London one day, and threw herself utterly and

completely on his protection!

Looking back now across the years that separated his ambitious and

successful manhood from his unpromising youth, Mr. Sauls said to

himself, "what a young idiot he had been!" but it had been no case of

betrayal.

He had never promised Lydia marriage; he had never lured her up to town;

he would have sent her home, if she had chosen--only he was no Joseph.

Yes! what a fool he had been; Meg would call him by a harder name!

There had been a very curious end to the vulgar story. Lydia fell ill

with a most malignant form of small-pox when she had been with him a

week.

She clung desperately to him then, entreating him to hold by her, not to

send her away to die in a hospital; she had an absolute unreasoning fear

of hospitals. She hardly expected him to accede to her agonised prayers;

she would not have stood by him or by any one else in a like case; and,

what there was of good in George Sauls, she had never been the woman to

find out; but he did accede to them, greatly to her wonder.

George was not in love with her, he had not a shred of respect for her;

but, when she turned to him in direst need, the something not ignoble in

him responded and he _did_ not desert her. To say that that loathsome

disease had no terrors for him would scarcely be true; but he had a

constitutional dislike to running away, and he faced the terrors; which,

perhaps, on the whole, might be counted very much to his credit.

Lydia died after a week's illness. "I don't want to live with marks on

my face," she had said. "What should I do, grown ugly? but you have been

better than most men would have been." She had no qualms about her

soul, and no longing for her mother. She had no violent affection for

any one or anything, except, perhaps, her own beautiful body, which had

been spoilt by the marks on it. If George Sauls had been a poor man, he

would not have been troubled with her.

George experienced none of the terrible remorse that the preacher would

have felt in like circumstances; but, nevertheless, while he stood by

Lydia's grave, he made some resolutions which he kept.

Probably, in any case, the stronger qualities of the man, the intense

ambition, and keen pleasure in work, the sweetening affection for the

mother and sister he pulled up with him, would have asserted themselves,

and kept his coarser qualities in subjection as he grew older; but the

episode of Lydia and the hours spent beside her bedside ripened him

fast. He made an end of the sowing of wild oats. They didn't pay!

He had lived a clean life since; but Meg would not know that--and it was

fifteen years ago!

George felt it unfair that so old a sin should rise up now to blacken

his image in the mind of the woman he had the misfortune to love.

He had been surprised when he had first heard the name of Tremnell

again; but Lydia's mother had never so much as seen him, and _his_ name

bore no association for her. He had changed it, on coming into money,

and was Cohen-Sauls, instead of Cohen, now; and his cool assurance had

carried him safely through the unexpected encounter. The difference

between thirty-six and twenty-one was so wide that he hardly even felt

self-conscious.

It was odd that the preacher should have recognised him. "The pious

humbug!" said George between his teeth; "at least, my hands are cleaner

than his! I never took advantage of her faith, though certainly I never

had the chance. He'll draw a sweet picture of the wicked man for her; I

shall point a moral to several sermons. If I might meet him this once,

with no woman standing by, perhaps I might deliver a message too. Hallo,

what's this?"

He had been walking quickly, not looking much at the flat landscape

around him; but his eye was caught by a newly made fence round the

"Pixies' Pool" which lay a little off the regular track.

Moved by curiosity, he turned towards it, and leaning his arms on the

rail, stared down into the salt depths that had had such fascination for

Meg.

Mr. Sauls was not in the least imaginative, but while thus engaged he

had rather an odd sensation,--a sensation as if some one behind him were

watching him; and he turned round sharply.

No one was by his side; it must have been fancy; but, the next minute,

he did descry a man walking along the track he had just left, walking at

full speed, with a long swinging step; and, with the man's approach, Mr.

Sauls recognised the preacher.

Barnabas came deliberately towards him.

"Have the pixies granted me my wish?" thought George with a sneer. "Now,

my holy friend, we'll have it out! I wouldn't have gone out of my way to

quarrel with you, for her sake; but if you choose to follow me, why, the

meekest of men could not stand that."

He lighted a cigar leisurely, and, with his back against the rail,

awaited the preacher's approach; with a satisfaction which, perhaps, the

"meekest of men" would hardly have experienced.

"I wanted to catch ye up," said Barnabas; and so the two stood face to

face at last, with no one between them.

"At your service," said George. His tone was lazily insolent, though, as

a rule, he carefully abstained from patronising his inferiors in rank.

He scanned Barnabas between half-shut eyelids. It was not the least of

this fellow's offences that he looked so honest.

"I followed to give ye back this. It's not fitting my wife should tak'

aught fro' ye; I'd liefer ye had it again. She's no need o' diamonds,

an' if she had, they shouldna be bought wi' your money. She's obliged to

'ee, sir," with an evident after-thought; "an' here they be."

"I am sorry to disoblige," said George, lifting his shoulders. "I will

not press a gift on Mrs. Thorpe against her will. When she gives it back

to me herself, I'll take it; till then _I_ had 'liefer' she kept it."

The preacher put the locket down on the rail that fenced the pond.

"She'll not do that," he said quietly. "Take it or leave it, as you

like; it's yours." And he turned to go.

"Stop!" said George, standing upright. "You were loud enough in your

denunciations when a lady,"--somehow he hated saying "your wife"--"when

a lady was present. Let's hear the whole matter now. When did you meet

me before, and where? And why, pray, don't you take this opportunity for

a word in season? Do you only preach under shelter of petticoats?"

"There's been matter enough atwixt you and me," said Barnabas. Good God!

there had been matter enough, indeed!

He would have answered Mr. Sauls differently in his hot youth; now,

after many seasons of constant labour for a Master who claimed his

fighting powers, his reply came slowly, with no loss of self-command;

but none the less forcibly for that.

"I've seen ye twice afore. If it were twice fifteen years ago I'd know

ye again. I saw ye once fooling with a maid, teachin' her the devil's

game, that meant play to ye, and death to her. I saw ye a second time

standin' by her grave."

The veil of those fifteen years seemed lifted for a moment; both men

felt themselves back in that London churchyard thick with fog, with

Lydia's grave between.

"She paid the price, and you got off scot free," said the preacher. "It

seemed to me then as if it would ha' evened things to ha' laid ye dead

too; but they held me back, and now----" He broke off short, and there

was silence for a moment.

George broke it with the elaborately nonchalant accent that showed he

was a little stirred. "Ah well! I was shockingly out of training in

those days," said he. "It was lucky that you didn't yield to your desire

to even things; for you'd have swung for it, you know. Let's hear all

you have to say; for you won't get another chance of converting this

reprobate--and _now_!" For all the studied coolness of his tone, his

fingers clenched; it was not Lydia he was thinking of now.

"And now," said the preacher steadily, "I will let vengeance alone. No,

I've naught to say. I didn't come to preach to ye; I've hated ye too

much for that. Ye asked me where we'd met, and why I said ye are no fit

company for _her_. Now ye know."

"Thanks!" said George. "Yes--now I know." That stress on the "her," that

reverence and something more than reverence in the preacher's voice,

stung his desire to quarrel. It became uncontrollable; he must.

"I don't pretend to piety," he said, playing with the chain of the

locket he had picked up, after all; for his common-sense could not

allow him to leave it hanging on a fence. "I am no saint, as you are

very much aware. Perhaps that's why I've an unholy horror of men who

make sermons a vehicle for love-making, and catch good women by trading

on an instinct for self-sacrifice; women who would never dream of

looking at them, if they were approached in any other way. I may have

done things to be ashamed of; most men have. But there are forms of

hypocrisy that make one sick to contemplate. I don't know that I was

ever a hypocrite." He put up his eyeglass, and stared at the preacher

slowly from head to foot. "Nevertheless, I own that your plan has paid

best. I congratulate you on the success of your preaching."

It was as deliberate an insult as could have been elaborated. Mr. Sauls

felt better when he had said that. The pleasure of telling Meg's husband

what he thought of him was worth a good deal; and his words hit.

Barnabas flushed hotly, and stood crushing his fingers together.

"I'm sworn not to fight on my own quarrel," he said in a choked voice;

and the reply cost him a hard struggle with the "old Adam". Meekness was

not the preacher's natural characteristic.

"That was a most convenient oath!" said George. Was the man a coward? he

wondered. "Do you go so far as turning the other cheek?"

"I'm not meaning to fight with ye; I told her I'd not do it; but," said

the preacher, drawing his breath hard, "it 'ud take more nor a man to do

_that_."

"Ah! I am glad you draw the line at _that_," said George. Again it was

the pronoun that was more than he could stand. He raised his cane with a

sudden swift movement.

"Come! you draw it at the 'other cheek,' eh?"

Barnabas sprang forward and caught the descending blow on the palm of

his hand; his fingers closed on the cane. He jerked it out of his

enemy's grasp, broke it across his knee, and flung it into the pool. God

knew how fierce was the longing in him to send Mr. Sauls after it. He

had forced his assailant backwards in the half-minute's struggle, and

George himself had wondered for a second whether a plunge into the black

water would be the end of it all.

"Ye can think me a coward if ye choose," said Barnabas. "Happen I'd be

one if I broke an oath for your thinking. I'll not fight with ye, man."

George, who had felt the preacher's strength, eyed him thoughtfully.

Even he recognised that it was not fear that had flashed into those blue

eyes a few moments ago.

"Well, you see," he remarked coolly, "men who won't fight usually _are_

cowards in this wicked world; and poor men who walk off with confiding

young ladies, blest with rich papas, usually have an eye to the main

chance; but I own I--I half believe you honest after all."

"I'd just as lief ye' didn't," said Barnabas shortly; "I'm not wishful

for your good opinion."

And Mr. Sauls turned and went his way, a little breathless; for, if

Barnabas hadn't fought, he'd done something rather like it; but George

liked him a shade the better for that last unsaintly speech.

"I am afraid the preacher would have got the best of it, though I am not

a weakling," he reflected. "He would have liked to put me on my back

too. He didn't enjoy having to refuse that fight and play the peaceful

_rôle_, in spite of 'not being wishful for my good opinion'. Is he,

after all, more fanatic than hypocrite? Can he be----Hallo! where am I

getting to?"

His reflections were cut short by his foot sinking ankle-deep in a bog.

Mr. Sauls turned to the right and walked a few paces further; then,

becoming aware that some one was following him, was about to turn round,

laughing at the foolish fancy that had attacked him for the second time,

when a sudden shock brought bright flashes of light before his eyes; the

earth seemed to spin round with him, the ground gave way. He was struck

down by a blow from behind, and fell without a cry, lying still and

white amongst the rank grass.

* * * * *

The next morning Barnabas and Margaret started for London.

Meg had packed her few possessions before day-break, and was standing by

her window with her bundle beside her, when Mrs. Tremnell called her

downstairs.

"There's Granny Dale wanting to see you, Margaret. Tom won't let her in

the house; he's that angry with her for something Barnabas told him

she'd said to you. But she won't go away. She just rampages outside in a

way that is most annoying for a decent person to listen to."

"I'll come," said Meg, though rather unwillingly; and she ran down into

the paved yard, guided by the sound of Granny Dale's shouts.

Granny stopped "rampaging" at the sight of her; and burst at once into a

whining torrent of apology for past bad behaviour to the sweet lady who,

she was sure, would "forgive a poor owd body, who hadn't touched bite or

sup since, for thinkin' on it".

The old woman looked dirtier and more disreputable than ever; and her

eyes had a malicious and rather scornful gleam in them that belied her

words, the while Meg confusedly accepted her repentance.

"It was all my silliness, granny," cried the preacher's wife.

"An' it's like the dear to say so! Didn't I knaw as yo'd not be down on

a poor soul as has wark eno' to keep hersel', let alone her son and her

deead darter's son, out o' the house? Yo' as be th' apple o' thy

husband's eye too; for sartain I wur 'mazed to say----"

"Ask what she's wanting, and cut it short," said Tom, to Meg's relief

appearing behind her. "What a little fool ye were to come down,

Barnabas' wife! I'd ha' made short work of her. Well, granny, what's the

output? What do 'ee want Mrs. Thorpe to do for 'ee that you're so sweet

on her to-day?"

"If she'd just spake a word for me to the preacher." And this time there

was a genuine anxiety in granny's tone. "He's that angered wi' me that

he's gi'en me ower to the devil."

"Oh Lord!" said Tom, "but there wasn't much required on the part of

Barnabas. The devil must ha' cried small thanks for givin' him his own."

"Don't, Tom; she is so unhappy," said Meg. "I am sure the preacher did

not mean that," turning to granny. "No man could give any one to the

devil--even if he wanted to."

"Couldn't he now?" cried the old woman sharply. "Thee's but out o' th'

egg-shell, my dear; an', happen, ye doan't knaw that as well as I! I

doan't want 'ee to tell me what can an' can't. I want 'ee to spake a

word for me, an' get him to take off his curse an' come an' look to my

pig, as is ta'en wi' sickness, an' to see to my donkey, as has broke

his knees, an' to find Timothy--Timothy, as has never come whoam all

this blessed night."

Her voice broke into a wail with the recapitulation of her woes. Granny

could not cry; she was too old for tears to be near the surface; but she

covered her face with her ragged skirt, and moaned like a banshee.

"He allus stood atween me an' them," rocking herself to and fro; and

whether "them" meant heavenly or diabolical powers, or both, Meg could

not tell.

"He wur allus there when I wur took bad; an' now he's angered wi' me,

and, if ye don't spake a word, my pig 'ull die, and Timothy won't never

be found, an' I'll die wi' no one to say a prayer for me, an' the devil

'ull ha' my soul!"

Tom laughed hard-heartedly at the climax. "And serve ye right," he said.

"Look 'ee, granny: Mrs. Thorpe's a deal too soft-hearted, but I ain't,

and ye'd best be off now. Hullo! here is the preacher. Come, lad;

granny's wantin' your wife to coax ye to cheat Satan, as she says ye've

made her ower to."

Barnabas Thorpe's face wore the rather strained look that Meg had

learned to know meant a night's "wrestling with the spirit," probably on

the marshes.

He found it hard to pray under a roof; and these nightly communings

seemed a sort of necessity to him, giving him fresh power for the work

that had a physical as well as a spiritual side.

"What are ye doin' here?" he said sternly; and the old woman edged away

from him in such evident fear that Meg's chivalry was aroused; she could

never bear to see any one frightened.

"What have you said to make her fancy such terrible things?" she cried.

"Naught but the truth," said Barnabas. "Have me an' mine done anything

but good to 'ee, Granny Dale? For what did ye set to work to hurt my

wife wi' your foul tongue? For love o' wickedness? _I_ never sent ye to

th' devil. Ye are fond o' his service wi'out my sending."

"Which was what I said," laughed Tom. "No, it ain't no use your lookin'

shocked at us, Barnabas' wife. Granny should ha' minded which side her

bread's buttered, and kep' a civil tongue. She'll get no more fro' me."

And granny wailed again, as well she might; for no more from Tom meant

short commons in the winter. It was hard to say which oppressed her

most, the spiritual or the temporal look-out.

Meg looked from one brother to the other. There was something grotesque

in the scene; but the old woman's genuine misery moved her.

"Oh, _do_ go and help her!" she exclaimed. "Barnabas, do go--for my

sake!"

She hardly expected her appeal to be successful; but it was, and on the

instant.

Granny, who had been watching furtively behind her uplifted skirt,

stopped moaning at once.

"Come along; though ye doan't deserve it," said the preacher. "Ye can

tell me what's wrong as we go. Catch hold of my arm, for we'll ha' to

hurry. I'll be back in time, Margaret; I can run comin' home."

And granny, clutching his arm hard, poured forth the tale of her

misfortunes while she trotted by his side, with evident relief at being

reconciled to the "powers that be".

"It is very extraordinary," said Meg.

Tom laughed gruffly.

"Ay, it is. I doan't know how ye do it, but ye _do_ twist him round

that little finger o' yours, times; though ye look as if butter wouldn't

melt i' your mouth."

"It is extraordinary that that old woman should feel safe if the

preacher forgives her, and given over to the devil if he is angry. If he

were a Roman Catholic priest, one could understand it; but Barnabas, who

thinks the pope 'Antichrist,' and a priest a 'messenger of Satan'!"

"H'm! Natures come out th' same, whether they're Methodies, or

Catholics, or Heathen Chinees. There'll allus be some as like to put a

shelter 'twixt them an' th' Almighty. Happen moast women do; an' whether

it's pope, or kirk, or priest, 'tain't much real odds, I expects. It

saves them trouble. Barnabas is cocksure o' everything, an' it's

cocksureness as takes; an' so long as he's strong, weak foalk 'ull cling

to him. That ain't odd as t'other. Well, it's moast a pity ye are goin',

now ye ha'e got sure we ain't ogres. My word! how scared ye were of us

at first! Do 'ee mind running away i' th' middle o' dinner? An' how ye

looked when I axed your name? I shook i' my shoes then!"

"You have all been very good to me," cried Meg gratefully. "Oh, let me

say it for once, Tom."

He grunted impatiently.

"And I shouldn't 'look' if you called me 'Margaret' now--I should like

it."

"No," said Tom, puckering up his face into rather an odd expression. "Ye

shall be 'Barnabas' wife' to me till th' end o' th' chapter."

He went off whistling, and Meg presently went down to the field to wait

for Barnabas.

Granny Dale's cottage was some way off; but she had no doubt that the

preacher would be back in time; she had implicit faith in his promises,

and there were still a few minutes to spare when she saw him return.

She noticed again, when he drew near, that he looked worn and harassed;

but his expression softened, as it always did, at sight of her.

"Ye'll be glad enough to leave th' place," he said. His voice sounded so

dispirited that Meg, with an unusual impulse, put her arm through his as

they stood together, and moved closer to him.

It had been dawning on her of late that this man's love for her gave her

a power to help or hinder him, such as no one else, not even Tom,

possessed; and that, occasionally, for all his strength, he needed help.

It was an idea slow to take root, an idea she was half afraid of, which,

once accepted, might work strange wonders.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"It's a fearful thing to hate a man!" said the preacher. "One fasts and

prays all night, but in the morning it's still there, and stronger. One

thinks that one has been on the Lord's side, and wakes up to see that in

one's heart one has been on the devil's--and after years. For 'Whoso

hateth his brother'--and after years!"

The horror in his face was so intense, bringing out a curious likeness

to the father, to whom, in the main, he was so unlike, that Meg's desire

to comfort waxed strong.

"You _are_ on the Lord's side, Barnabas!" she cried. "He knows that you

are, whatever your heart may say. Your whole will and life are His.

Well," after a pause, "did you find granny's son for her?"

"Happen we'll find him in London," said Barnabas. "It's nearer hell than

any other place i' God's earth, an' Timothy has a natural hankerin'

after what's foul."

"You hate going there," said Meg softly; "but I am glad you are coming

with me, Barnabas. Even though I am going to my father--I am glad! As

for Timothy, I don't see how it's possible to find him in London. I

almost think" (with a shudder) "that he is better lost. Even you can't

convert him, for there's nothing in him to convert."

But the man's face brightened.

"Glad, are ye?" he said. "There's naught that's impossible, my lass!"

And so life at the farm came to an end; and they went out together

again.

THIRD PART.

CHAPTER I.

Barnabas Thorpe stood preaching by the river. He had preached in

northern manufacturing towns, where the struggle for life is hard; he

had preached by the sea shore, and in little outlying hamlets in the

mining districts; but he had spoken nowhere as he spoke to-day in

London.

This city, of great wealth and great poverty; of idlers and slaves;

these churches, where the rich man sat on cushioned seats, and the poor

man on benches hard as charity; these women, with hoarse voices and

hungry eyes, who followed him in the streets; these children, for whom

the Kingdom of Heaven might indeed be open, but for whom earth had more

kicks than blessings--all these stung him to a passionate eloquence that

almost touched despair.

Did Luxury never look backwards over her shoulder at the black misery

treading close at her heel? he wondered. Would the men of Sodom and

Gomorrah rise up in judgment on this place?

Perhaps (though he did not know it, being little given to analysis), a

sharp personal want pointed his realisation of the contrast between the

Dives and the Lazarus of London; for his wife at this moment was with

her father.

He stood on a barrel by the water's edge--the Thames was neither sweet

nor clean at Stepney--and preached of Heaven in the midst of, what

seemed to him, an uncommonly good imitation of hell.

It was a close evening; but there was a fine drizzling rain falling,

that damped everything except the preacher's ardour, which always burnt

more fiercely for opposition, either physical or moral.

Even without his barrel he would have been a head taller than most of

his hearers. His vigorous manhood was in strong contrast to the stunted

specimens of riverside humanity gathered round him--under-sized,

unhealthy youths, who looked as if they had done nothing but "loaf" from

the day they were born; girls with straight fringes, and paper feathers

stuck in their hats, and just a sprinkling of navvies, a burlier and

more hopeful, though brutal, element.

Barnabas Thorpe's voice rang through the heavy air, and all these faces

were upturned towards him, as if under a spell. To his left stood a

group of swarthy-complexioned foreign sailors; black-haired, with

earrings in their ears. One of them wore a saffron-coloured handkerchief

round his throat, and had a green parrot on his wrist; he made a spot of

brightness in the prevailing dun colour of the crowd.

Probably these strangers understood hardly one word in ten of that

vehement discourse, delivered with a strong L----shire drawl; but they

also listened, as if something in the man's personality, the something

stronger than words, held their attention.

With those closely packed squalid houses on the one side of him; with

the slowly flowing river, whose waters had given the quietus to so many

a miserable body (as for the desperate souls, God only knew what had

become of them), on the other, he painted that second coming, when the

glory of the Lord shall flash from East to West, and His judgment shall

tarry no longer.

There was a mark on the preacher's left shoulder where some one had

playfully thrown a rotten egg at him, and a cut across his forehead, to

which he put his handkerchief once or twice; both were visible signs

that, in spite of the present breathless lull, Barnabas was not likely

to suffer from too much adulation. Indeed, he was a fighter born, and it

was, perhaps, the impress of strenuous effort that made his rugged face

a striking and rather refreshing sight in the midst of men who looked,

for the most part, as if the beast had decidedly got the better of the

angel in them.

He stood bare-headed, his hand stretched out, his gaunt figure

silhouetted against the leaden sky, pleading with passionate force. He

felt the misery of London too strong for him at times; the atmosphere

oppressed him both mentally and physically; but the very sense of

oppression made preaching a relief. Better wear himself out striving

against this horror, than acquiesce, letting it stifle and choke him.

There was a stir, a movement; the preacher lost hold of his audience.

Suddenly, as the snapping of the thread of a necklace which has been

strained tight sends each bead a different way, so attention was snapt,

the spell broken.

The preacher, looking over the heads of the people, saw, first, a

confused mass of jeering, struggling lads, coming towards him, shouting

hoarsely; then, that they had in their midst some poor creature whom

they were baiting mercilessly, some one either drunk or mad; then, that

they scattered a little to the right and left, and the man (he could see

it was a man now) had broken loose and made a dash forward, panting and

stumbling.

Instinctively, Barnabas shouted encouragingly, and jumping off his

barrel, held out his hands. He could never, for the life of him, keep

clear of a fray--especially if it were a case of overwhelming odds.

The victim, when he heard the shout, looked up; his face ghastly, his

eyes wide open, with the strained, agonised look of a hunted hare. His

persecutors were closing on him again; when, with an inarticulate cry,

he shook himself free once more, and, running desperately forward, fell

at the preacher's feet, clinging to his knees. "Doan't let them!" he

cried; and Barnabas recognised him as Timothy.

For one moment the preacher hesitated; he had a horror of the man.

Then, "They'll shut me up!" cried Timothy; and there was a ring of

mortal terror in his voice.

Barnabas himself would, any day, have preferred to face death to a long

imprisonment. He freed himself from Timothy's grasp, and stepped between

hunter and hunted.

"I think ye should be 'shamed!" he said. "Ha' ye nought better to do

than to hound that poor creature to death or to Bedlam? which, happen,

is a deal worse! Let him be; he's past doin' any harm. Any way, ye'll

ha' to do wi' me first."

There was a pause; the united strength of all this riff-raff would,

probably, have been more than a match for the preacher; but no one quite

cared to be the first to make the rush and "do wi' him".

A big coalheaver in the background shouted derisively: "A nice,

white-livered set you are! Blessed if the Methody ain't a match for all

of you!"

And then, all at once, the group broke up and scuttled away, dividing

itself among the labyrinth of squalid streets that sloped down to the

river; and tramp, tramp, with heavy, warning steps, in their tightly

buttoned swallow-tail coats and white trousers, came a detachment of

four City police, who promptly arrested Barnabas for making a

disturbance, and Timothy for being drunk, on the king's highway.

"_That_ he's not," remarked the preacher. "He's got too little, not too

much, aboard this time."

But he went to the police station without remonstrance, for he didn't

mean to lose sight of Timothy.

Certainly Barnabas ought to have had enough of taking uncalled-for

responsibilities on his shoulders; but there were some simple lessons

which Dame Experience never could teach him, though she tried her

hardest, and punished him well for his denseness in learning. He never

could turn a deaf ear to a cry for mercy, nor refrain from burning his

own fingers in attempts to save other people's from fire. If his

doctrines were narrow, his pity was wide. It is a combination of

characteristics that gives an infinity of trouble--especially to the

owner.

Timothy complicated matters by dropping on the floor of the police

station in an exhausted heap; but the officer in charge, having at last

arrived at the conclusion that the idiot was ill, not drunk, and that

the preacher had protected, not assaulted him, dismissed both with a

warning; and Barnabas found himself saddled with this most

unprepossessing incubus, whose present helplessness was his only

recommendation.

It was as well, after all, that Margaret was not with him, he reflected;

he could not have borne to have had Timothy under the same roof with

her. The preacher had said many times, in the course of his experiences

in London, that it was "as well"; and said it with a sigh.

He lodged at this time in one of the streets turning out of Commercial

Road. He always seemed to have an extraordinary knack of getting

employment. His fingers, which never _held_ money long, were seldom at a

loss in making it; and, perhaps, his luck had something to do with the

fact that no one ever forgot him, his personality being so strongly

marked.

He had made one friend in London during that short visit fifteen years

before, namely Giles Potter, rat catcher, bird fancier, and bird

stuffer; and some people whispered dog stealer as well. Why the tipsy,

jolly, old reprobate was so fond of the preacher, of all men, no one

ever knew.

The Barnabas Thorpe of the present, with his fanatical and

water-drinking earnestness, who preached in season and out of season,

would seem to have little to do with the desperate and crack-brained

young sailor, whom Giles had held back from murdering the man who had

robbed him of his sweetheart in the winter of 1834; but Giles had

recognised and welcomed him.

The preacher worked all day in the back room of 33 Walton Street, curing

and stuffing with fingers that were a good deal steadier than his

companion's, and in grave silence for the most part, till the light

faded, when he would go out into the streets to preach; all the

suppressed energy of those long hours in a close atmosphere finding vent

in sermons that attracted larger crowds daily, and were beginning to be

talked about, even in the West End. Giles would go to hear him

sometimes; a disreputable, slouching old figure, in a rough fur cap; a

figure with loose thick lips and stubbled chin and kindly merry black

eyes.

"Lord bless you, I always knew Barnabas had something queer inside him!"

he would say; "but I didn't reckon it would take this shape. To think of

him turning Methody! But he was bound to be something. If he hadn't

turned saint, he'd have swung from the gallows by now; he's the sort who

serves any master hard, whether it's God, or the devil! Let's drink to

his being made archbishop! He'd wake them all up a bit."

Giles drank to that end pretty often, and Barnabas did the work

meanwhile: the business had not been so flourishing for years.

Possibly it was out of consideration for those services, or, possibly,

because, with all his faults, a kinder-hearted old rascal never

breathed, that Giles, after much grumbling, allowed Barnabas to bring

Timothy under his roof.

"You'll repent it, Barnabas!" he said. "Mark my words, we shall have an

inquest and no end of bother; and you'll wish you had taken good advice,

which is always as much wasted on you as good beer. That's as

evil-looking a sneak as ever I saw, and he's capable of dying on purpose

to spite you. Bring him in, if you're a fool; but you'll live to repent

it!"

Something in the words made the preacher's careworn face graver still.

"Happen I may," he said. "He said as bad luck was following me, but I

ain't goin' to be stopped by that."

"Best turn him out again to make his ill prophecies in the gutter," said

Giles crossly.

The two men were standing in the doorway now, Barnabas having deposited

Timothy on his own bed upstairs, and come down to breathe the cool night

air.

In Commercial Road the shops and warehouses were still alight; he could

hear the continual roar of the traffic, but this little off-street was

nearly dark, and the battered figure-head of a ship gleamed ghostly and

white in the yard. The preacher stretched himself wearily and then

smiled.

"That old _Miranda_ must feel precious queer here," said he. He stepped

into the yard, and put his hand on it. He had been sickened by what he

had been hearing; his patient, in mortal terror of death, had been

pouring forth a crazy confession of iniquities that made the preacher's

brain reel, though he had heard a good many "confessions" before now.

Was it possible that any human being could really have committed all

these unspeakable horrors, or were they the mad imaginings of a diseased

brain? And was Timothy possessed by an unclean spirit, like the people

in the Bible whom the Christ cured?

Barnabas at that moment felt that it would be easier to pray for fire

from Heaven to destroy, than for healing power to save. Surely it was

time for that second coming that should purge the world of its sins! How

he hated this place!

Then the touch of the figure-head under his hand brought him a vision of

nights at sea; the hum of the great vans in Commercial Road changed to

the sound of water, and his soul was refreshed. The everlasting power he

had felt near in the salt strength of the sea, in the solemn wideness of

his native marshes, in the cold stillness of many an early morning among

the hills, was alive still. His heart went out to the strong Maker of

all things, with a cry for strength.

"What are you thinking of?" said Giles.

"I was thinking," said the preacher, "that if I was never to see the

country again, still I'd ha' been luckier than most o' the people here,

seein' I've been bred in it. An' that I've been an unprofitable servant,

too easy disgusted and weary in His service; that I've been given much

an' done little. I've had a near sight o' the Maker as town folk miss;

an' yet I ha' been cold an' out o' heart. I've been thinkin' I'll do

more if He'll show me how."

Giles put his head on one side, like a wise old bird, and peered up at

Barnabas through the gathering gloom.

"I wouldn't say that if I was you," he remarked. "Don't you be righteous

overmuch; it ain't safe."

But the preacher went back to his post with fresh zeal.

Timothy was sitting upright, staring and pointing wildly at a corner of

the room; he shrieked to Barnabas to come and stand between him and

"it".

It was curious how, in his extremity, with the terror of death before

him, he clung to Barnabas, whom he had always feared and hated, as the

only person capable of exorcising the horrors that surrounded him.

Barnabas lighted a candle and examined the corner.

"There's naught there!" he said.

"It's shifted; it wur afeart o' ye; it's behind me now!" cried Timothy.

"It's makin' signs; it's pointin' to its head, and I didn't go to kill

him. I only meant--it's comin' nearer--doan't, doan't! Ah!----"

There was another agonised shriek. Timothy tried to spring out of bed,

the drops of sweat standing on his forehead.

Barnabas put his hands on the madman's shoulders and forced him back.

This sort of thing had been going on at intervals for the last three

hours, and the preacher began to feel as if he were the unwilling

spectator of the tortures of the damned. Indeed, he believed, almost as

firmly as the miserable Timothy, that there was a devil in the room.

"It's no good doing that, man," he said at last, when Timothy made

another frantic attempt to hide. "If it's a spirit ye are scared of, ye

can't escape it so. If ye ha' done it a wrong, confess afore it's too

late; and the Lord will, mayhap, ha' mercy on ye an' lay it."

"You'll not call in any one to shut me up, and I'll tell ye," said

Timothy. "I'll be glad to get rid of 'em; but you'll not shut me up! The

stones wur burning through my cap into my brain; I see 'em all on fire

now--there! blazin' away. Ye _must_ see 'em. Look inside the cap there

in the corner, where it's standin' again."

The preacher glanced at Timothy's cloth cap, an ordinary enough article,

such as nearly all the L----shire men of that part wore, himself

included. He picked it up and shook it. Needless to say, no burning

stones fell out. Possibly the whole story was a delusion, but he could

not look on at this agony of terror any longer.

"Tell me what ye ha' done, an' ease your mind," he said.

"Ye'll not let me hang: ye'll not tell!" said Timothy. "Swear ye'll

not."

"There's no need," said the preacher, "for _me_ to swear, who've never

betrayed any man, nor never could. I'll not betray ye."

"It wur the back o' his skull," said Timothy, in an eager whisper; "just

here," putting his hand up to indicate the place. "He didn't bleed much,

but went down straight; an' I turned him over an' tuk 'em out o' his

pocket. I'd think it wur a dream, only he's followed me ever since.

That's becos they've not buried him. Ye'll find him two stones' throw

from the Pixies' Pond, lyin' very white an' quiet as if there weren't no

more mischief in him; but there be; he b'ain't one to forget, an' he's

tryin' to drag me to hell. He's makin' signs now. Barnabas, Barnabas,

he's----"

"How long ago did ye kill him?" said the preacher.

"Eh? how long? I should think it must ha' been a matter o' ninety-nine

years or maybe a hundred. Quite a hundred takin' it all round; what with

the time I was hidin' in the marshes, with him allus creepin' round and

peepin' behind bushes at me--tho' all the time pretendin' to lie quite

stiff, for I kep' goin' back to see--an' the time I was gettin' to town,

where they came hollerin' arter me an' said as I was mad. They allus say

that, if one speaks the truth."

"So they do," said Barnabas. "So ye knocked a man down in the

Caulderwell marsh and robbed him, and ran away and came to London, eh?"

"That's it!" cried Timothy. He leaned forward and caught the preacher's

coat, holding him as a drowning man might clutch at an arm stretched out

to save.

"An' he won't forget; he's been huntin' me ever since, like a cat a

mouse, an' he'll have me this night if ye won't lay him; for I feel him

gettin' stronger every minute, an' I'm growin' weaker. He's a bit scared

o' ye, but if ye leave me a minute--there, there! he's yammerin' for me

from behind that curtain. Oh, doan't let him, for God's sake, Barnabas!"

The poor wretch was shaking from head to foot. The spirit he feared was

the mad creation of his own brain; yet, none the less, it _was_ hunting

him to death. Barnabas Thorpe stood upright, and lifted up his hands

solemnly.

"If there is any evil spirit here," he said, and his voice rang with

undoubting conviction, "I bid it begone, in the name of Jesus Christ the

Master." Timothy fell back panting, with a look of utter relief.

"Ay, it's gone; I seed it go!" he said.

CHAPTER II.

A week had gone by, and Margaret was still at Bryanston Square.

She had lost count of time; she could not have told how long ago she had

left the preacher on the threshold of the old house in which her

childhood and girlhood had been passed.

"Ye'll find me when ye want me. Ye'd best stay wi' him till th' end,"

Barnabas had said.

He had caught a glimpse of the grand hall, of the painted walls and

ceilings; then the door had shut between them, and he had turned away

rather grimly. Those heathen gods and goddesses seemed to the preacher

fitting ornaments for the "heathenism" of luxury. But Margaret had gone

up the shallow stairs, looking neither to right nor left, straight to

her father at last! no one hindering. Mr. Deane was propped up on

pillows; his breath was coming short and fast, his eyes were very

bright, his whole soul seemed in them. When Meg crossed the room, the

strained look relaxed; when she knelt by his side, he laughed weakly.

"Ah, I thought you'd do it, Meg!" he said. "Forgive? why, little

daughter, between you and me that's not the word! but you're--you're

mine again--and home!"

He shut his eyes then, like a tired child who goes to sleep when its

treasure is put into its hand; and Meg knelt on motionless, with her

head on the pillow by his side. She had neither sight nor hearing for

any one else.

He dozed, it might be for half an hour; then woke again, and the nurse,

who had been sitting at the foot of the bed, got up and moved softly

about, and brought a cup of arrowroot to him, and Meg fed him in

spoonfuls.

He was too weak to lift his hand to his lips; but he whispered to her to

turn to the light, and to take off her bonnet, that he might see her

better. She laid it on the floor by her side, uncovering the short waves

of hair, that grew, exactly as her father's grew, low on the forehead.

"Has he cut off your hair, Meg?" said Mr. Deane. The sight seemed to

distress, even to make him a little angry. "He had no business to do

that!"

"He didn't," said Meg. "I cut it off myself long ago. Barnabas was sorry

when he noticed that it was gone."

"Well, I'm glad he had the grace to be sorry. Don't go away." And he

fell asleep again, with his hand on hers.

It was like a dream to be sitting in that softly carpeted room, with the

scent of roses in the air, and the companions of her girlhood round her.

Laura came softly in presently, and sat down beside her. The sisters

looked at each other for a moment, not daring to speak, lest they should

wake him. Laura tried to smile a welcome; then her blue eyes filled with

unusual tears.

"Meg, Meg! Is it you really? Will you vanish, if I kiss you? Is it safe

to try?" she asked under her breath.

Meg leaned forward, without releasing her hand, and they kissed softly.

"I shall stay--till the end," she whispered in return.

So, very quietly and gently, Margaret Thorpe stole back to the place Meg

Deane had left; but knew, even while her heart was filled with

thankfulness, that, though the place might be the same, yet the girl who

had left it would return no more.

Mr. Deane woke with a contented smile on his lips. "I dreamt of you, my

Meg," he said. And, from that moment, he seemed to have simply put aside

all that had happened since Meg had been his spoilt darling of long ago.

His mind wandered to her nursery rather than to her girlish days--to

that very far away time, before Mrs. Russelthorpe's reign, when his

little girl had sat on his knee, and ruled him with sweet baby tyranny.

Margaret tried once to recall his mind to the present; for her heart

ached for a few words that she might treasure--words spoken to her real

and womanly self; but the attempt distressed him, and she gave it up.

She slept on the sofa in his room; for he became uneasy when she was out

of his sight; but the ebbing away of his life was quiet and gradual as

the ebb of a summer sea.

Perhaps the faculty he had always possessed of forgetting troublesome

matters helped to make his last days happy.

Apparently he utterly forgot the existence of the preacher. The grown-up

daughter had given him more pain than pleasure; but the baby girl had

been an unmixed joy. He loved to call her by the old pet names of her

childhood. Laura, who came every day, watched her sister wonderingly.

Once, when Meg playfully answered some allusion to an old family joke,

Laura felt a sudden longing to thrust aside the veil, to ask Meg about

all the strange experiences that were surely in the background, to beg

her to say whether the preacher was kind or cruel to her; but they both

refrained from bringing any subject into that chamber which was already

sanctified by the approach of the great healer.

Mrs. Russelthorpe came in one day, and stood by the bedside.

Mr. Deane turned his head away from her, as if her presence reminded him

of something he preferred to forget; then, apparently with some effort,

he recalled his thoughts.

"You must make friends with your aunt, little Meg. We must bury old

grudges before--what is it?--before the sun goes down. It is going down

fast!"

Meg held out her hand across the bed--for his sake she would have made

friends with any one; but Mrs. Russelthorpe shook her head. "There is no

need for us to go through that farce; for his thoughts have wandered

again."

"Aunt Russelthorpe," said Meg, "let us both watch by him now; we both

care for him--there is room for us both."

"No!" said her aunt. "There is room for only one of us two, Margaret;

and he has chosen. Let us have no pretences. Stay where you are. You

have won!" and Meg stayed.

She used to read to him by the hour, because he loved the sound of her

voice, going on and on in the low monotonous key that soothed him. It

was doubtful whether he ever followed the sense of what she read, and,

as a matter of fact, Meg, though she would sit half the day with her

hand in his and her head bent over a book, would have been puzzled if

called on to give an account of what her tongue had been mechanically

repeating.

The atmosphere was so peaceful that it seemed as if Time himself stood

still for a space with folded wings. "You are keeping so close to me,

little Meg," her father said once with a dreamy smile,--"so close, that

if you don't take care, when I go through the great gates, you will slip

in too by mistake."

Meg pressed closer to him still; and yet, for all her clinging, she knew

that there was a life's experience, even now, between him and her.

A thick velvet curtain, curiously embroidered in gold silks, hung across

the door. It shut out the whole of the outside world for five days.

At the end of that time, Laura, pushing it aside, touched Meg's shoulder

as she sat in her usual place.

"Your husband is outside," she said. "I passed him on my way in. He told

me to tell you that he should like a minute's sight of you, but that you

need not hurry--he could wait."

Meg made a sign that she would come; and presently, taking a shawl from

Laura, slid gently out of the room, while her father's eyes were closed.

She opened the front door and stood at the top of the steps, shivering a

little, though the evening was hot, for the flower-scented room upstairs

was hotter.

A street musician was playing, and some children were shouting and

dancing. After the silence she had left behind that curtain, the merry

tune and the unsubdued voices sounded strangely loud and bold.

"My lass," said the preacher. "Ye are lookin' liker a bit o' moonlight

than ever! Come down to me."

And Meg, putting the shawl over her head, ran down, and stood beside him

on the pavement. They walked down the length of the square together. The

street player ceased playing for a moment to stare at the woman who had

stepped out of the front door of No. 35 to keep company with a working

man, and then the tune ground on again.

"Barnabas," she said in a low voice, "I shall come to you the very

moment that--that he does not need me. I do not think Aunt Russelthorpe

would keep me a second."

"And you'll not need to ask her!" said the preacher quickly. "Come to me

any time, lass; though ye'll find it a bit uncomfortable, I'm afear'd!

Still, we'll do somehow."

He frowned, considering the possibilities of Giles' house, then turned

to her with a smile. "Do you feel as if ye'd stepped backwards a year or

so?"

"No!" said Margaret. "There is no such thing as 'going back,' in

reality. Is that Laura making a sign to me? No! it is only the lace

curtain moving. He is still asleep, then. Tell me why you came,

Barnabas. Had you anything especial to say to me?"

But her glance still rested anxiously on the window.

"Ay, I had some'ut to tell ye," he answered; "though I had nigh

forgotten it in seeing ye. I've been a bit fashed about--ye'll be

surprised, Margaret--about Mr. Cohen. Do you know whereabouts he lives?

Happen, it was a delusion; but yet, I'd as lief be sartain that it's

_not_ him who is lyin' murdered i' the marshes."

He paused; but Margaret was too much surprised to speak.

"I'd ha' liked," he went on, more to himself than her, "I'd ha' liked to

ha' had it out betwixt him and me, in a fair fight wi' no quarter

asked--only I was sworn, and I'm glad I didn't. But that's one thing;

and to think o' him bein' struck down from behind, lyin' there alone for

days an' nights, helpless i' the sunlight an' the moonlight; cut off

wi'out the chance of givin' a free blow; that's different. Where does

he live? I must make my mind easy."

Meg was thoroughly roused this time, even to a momentary forgetting of

that room upstairs.

"Mr. Sauls murdered!" she said. "It can't be true. What makes you fancy

that? It is too horrible; it can't be true!"

She looked at his troubled face anxiously. Had his violent feeling

against Mr. Sauls, and his equally strong remorse and efforts to subdue

it, given rise to a morbid imagination on the subject? She knew (she

understood the preacher better than of old) how violent both his hate

and his horror of himself for so hating could be.

"Ay, it's horrible," he answered. "Margaret! when the lust for a man's

blood has been strong, and then one hears of a sudden that, mayhap, the

man's been killed, one feels as if one's own thought had gotten shape

and killed him!"

There was a thrill in the preacher's voice that made Meg draw closer to

him. They had reached the end of the square, but she turned again.

"Will you not tell me more?" she asked.

He hesitated. "If I tell ye, do ye hold that I tell ye as countin' ye

one wi' mysel'? An' will 'ee feel bound, as I hold myself bound, to keep

it secret?"

"Yes," said Meg.

"Some one confessed to me that he'd killed a man as was walking alone

across the marshes, an' robbed him. And it came to my mind as it were

Mr. Sauls. There aren't many about us as are worth the robbing, an' very

few but labourers as takes that way to th' farm. The man as told me was

in a sort o' fever; I didn't think he was goin' to live, and no more did

he; he was terrible scared o' dying, or I fancy he'd never ha' let it

out. All one night he was very bad; then he quieted down an' slept, an'

awoke up a bit better, eatin' as if he'd been clemmed, but not takin'

notice o' what I said to him, nor seemingly understandin' a word. I

tried to persuade him to gi'e himsel' up to justice, but it seemed just

waste o' breath. I went down to get him some'ut more to eat, an' when I

came back he were gone! he must ha' got his clothes on and just slipped

through the window; happen, he understood a bit more nor I thought!"

"Who is the man?" asked Meg, in a horrified whisper.

"I'd as lief not tell ye that," said Barnabas; "for ye'd better not

know."

"If--if it is true--what shall you do?"

"Nothing!" he answered decidedly. "What is told i' that way must be as

safe as if it hadn't been breathed. I'd ha' tried to make the murderer

confess and be hung, for the savin' o' his soul; but I'd not tell on him

mysel', I'd sooner go to the gallows; an', mind, ye ha' sworn it shall

be th' same wi' you, Margaret."

"Yes," she said; "it shall be the same with me--as if I were yourself."

She spoke solemnly, though little guessing all that that promise would

mean.

"And after all," she added more lightly, for, indeed, this idea was too

startling to realise, "after all, Mr. Sauls is, probably, perfectly well

and comfortable. I cannot remember his address, but my sister may know

it. I will ask her for it, and send it down to you. Ah, she is waving

her hand to me at the window. Father must be awake."

"I must e'en let ye go, I suppose," said Barnabas; "for, an' I hold ye,

your soul 'ull slip through my fingers, an' go an' watch by him all the

same. God be with ye, my dear!"

He released her unwillingly, and Margaret ran back to her father. Mr.

Deane was wide awake and slightly flushed.

"Meg! Meg! I dreamed I had lost you, that you had leaped over a

precipice," he cried.

He was excited, and not quite himself. He recognised her on her return

to his room; but, as the day wore on, he became more feverish, and in

the evening he was delirious.

All through the night he talked eagerly to his dead wife, evidently

believing her to be present; but in the small hours the fever left him,

and, in the collapse that followed it, he died. He died with Meg's hand

clasped in his, with his head on his sister's shoulder; but unconscious

of the presence of either of the women, each of whom had, in her way,

loved him better than all else in the world.

Laura stood at the foot of the bed during the last terrible hour, with

her arm round Kate, who had come just in time. Kate kept turning her

beautiful head away,--she could hardly bear to see this death struggle.

Margaret's eyes never moved from her father's face. When Mr. Deane's

head fell forward on his breast, the last sobbing breath drawn, the

awful involuntary fight for life over, Meg's expression relaxed, as if

she, too, were relieved.

"It is over!" she said.

Only when some one tried to unclasp the living hand from his she fell on

her knees with a smothered cry--after all, she had not gone with him.

Laura led Kate away, crying bitterly; if Mr. Deane had been the best and

most dependable father on earth, instead of merely the most charmingly

affectionate when he happened to be at home, they would not have loved

him more, possibly they would have loved him less; for a woman's love

will fill up the measure wherein a man falls short of what he might have

been.

Mrs. Russelthorpe closed his eyes--eyes that had looked their last on a

world which had generally treated him very well; then went to her room

with lips pressed closely together.

Meg knelt on till the grey dawn crept in, and some one entering

disturbed her.

"You can do no more for him now. Come away; indeed, Meg, you _must_

come," said Laura.

Laura looked pale, and even a little nervous. She dreaded Meg's grief,

remembering how "hard" the little sister, whom they had rather

neglected, had always taken everything.

But this Meg was not the "little sister" of old; or rather, perhaps, her

identity was hidden under a new garb.

She rose from her knees dry-eyed and composed.

"I am going back to my husband," she said. "Father does not want me now,

as you say. Barnabas has been very good. He has waited all these days. I

should like to stay till after the funeral, but----"

"Come home with me!" said Laura.

She put her hand on her sister's arm and grasped her tightly.

"Don't disappear, Meg! I don't want to lose you; you--you are so like

_him_," she whispered, with a glance at the bed, where that quiet figure

lay in the deep peace that neither grief nor love should ever move

again.

"I promised Barnabas that I would not stay," said Margaret; but a quiver

passed over her face. Laura drew her gently out of the room and shut the

door.

"I could not tell you in there," she said, with the sentiment that we

all have against talking of mundane matters in the chamber of death,

"but I have a message for you from your husband. I went down to give him

the address you asked me for yesterday, because I wished to speak to

him, to see for myself what sort of a man he is. While I was speaking to

him he"--Laura hesitated a second--"he was summoned away. He bid me tell

you that he may be absent several days, but that you were not to 'fash'

about him, but just bide quiet; if he were not here when the end came, I

told him I would take you back with me. He said you would know that he

would come for you so soon as ever he could."

"Yes, I know," said Meg simply. "What was the call?"

"He said he was called to a place where he could not have you by him."

Laura coloured, wondering what the next question would be; but Meg was

apparently satisfied.

The preacher's movements were apt to be erratic, and his decisions were

often arbitrary. The "call" might probably be to some abode of vice and

misery into which he shrank from taking her.

"Are you sure you want me, Laura?"

"Quite sure," said Laura emphatically.

She put her arm round her sister while she spoke, and the two left the

house together. Barnabas Thorpe had been arrested on Mrs. Russelthorpe's

doorstep before Laura's eyes; but there was, she assured herself, no

need to tell Meg that, just now.

If he were innocent he would be set free again, and would come to claim

his wife quite soon enough; if he were guilty--but no! oddly enough,

Laura found it simply impossible to believe him guilty. The big gaunt

man with the deeply furrowed face and the eager eyes, that had the look

of the enthusiast and potential martyr in them, had impressed her

curiously. Laura had felt no name too bad for the canting rascal who had

stolen Margaret; but the reality and intense personality of the preacher

had at least momentarily pierced through her prejudice.

Barnabas Thorpe was no hypocrite; her womanly instinct spoke for him,

though her pride and reason were against him. The last-named qualities

woke up only when the spell of his presence was removed.

"I am glad he has gone; after all, you belong to us, Meg," she said.

CHAPTER III.

While Mr. Deane's life was ebbing slowly away in Bryanston Square,

George Sauls was making a good fight for his at the farm.

Tom Thorpe had found him on the afternoon of the preacher's departure,

the sun shining down pitilessly on the upturned face, the arms spread

wide.

Lifting him up, Tom found the wound at the back of the head, made with a

bill-hook or hatchet. Whoever had done that, had also turned his victim

over to rifle the pockets; for a man hit from behind would naturally

fall on his face, and, moreover, the pockets were empty.

"Dead as a door nail!" said Tom. He had remarkably good nerve, but this

was a ghastly discovery to come on, on a fine summer's day.

Mr. Sauls was wet with dew; he must have lain there all night. A spider

had spun a thread across his chest; it glittered with diamond drops,

more numerous and less costly than those that had been stolen. Tom, in

lifting him, disturbed also a small brown bird, that had been debating

whether this gentleman was really dead--so dead that she might venture

to pick off that bit of white cotton hanging from the lining of his

pocket, and use it for her household purposes. She had been hopping

gradually nearer, but had had her suspicion that, for all his stillness,

he was not quite harmless yet; her instinct was keener than Tom's.

Mr. Sauls suddenly opened his eyes and looked at Tom.

"Not at all!" he said. "I'm not dead yet." And then he relapsed into

unconsciousness; and, for once in his life, Tom was startled.

"I don't say but what it's queer to ha' one's foot knock up agin a

murdered man when one's mind's runnin' on naught but crops," he

explained afterwards; "but I ain't a maid wi' nerves; I didn't mind

that. It wur his eyes openin' and fixin' me, just as I wur thinkin'

there'd ha' to be an inquest, as did gi'e me a bit of a turn. Besides,

he'd no business to come to life; he had ought to ha' been killed wi' a

mark that deep at the bottom o' his skull."

The doctor, when at last they got one, was of the same opinion; the

wound would have killed most men, he said; and why Mr. Sauls didn't die,

remained a mystery, except, of course, that he was treated with

exceptional skill.

George clung to life with that tenacity which he showed in everything.

He was dangerously ill for a fortnight; then began to recover, to the

surprise of every one, except his mother, who had been quite hopeful all

along, and had replied cheerfully to an attempt to warn her of the

probable end.

"Danger? My dear sir, it will be dangerous for the man who tried to

murder George! but, please God, my son will live to see that villain

hang."

Mr. Sauls had been carried to the farm, that being the only house near.

Tom had bound up the patient's head as best he could, regretting that

the preacher's more practised and skilful fingers were not available. It

seemed barely possible that Mr. Sauls could live till further aid should

arrive.

Mr. Thorpe rode into N---- and gave notice to the police of what had

occurred. He went also to the inn, and, assisted by the landlord,

searched for some clue as to the whereabouts of the unfortunate man's

relatives. They found a letter torn in half, and lying in the fireplace

of the room Mr. Sauls had slept in. Piecing it together, they made out

the signature:--

"Your affectionate old mother,

"Rebecca Sauls."

And the address: "20 Hill Street".

Mr. Thorpe sat down and wrote a letter to Mrs. Sauls, acquainting her

with the evil chance that had befallen her son. Writing was not the

labour to him that it was to Barnabas, for he had been a scholar in his

day. The letter was clear and well expressed.

"If you wish to come to the farm to nurse Mr. Sauls," he wrote as an

after-thought, "we shall be honoured in doing our best to make you

comfortable."

It was kindly done, for he had a nervous dislike to strangers; but the

old fellow was too true a gentleman at heart to be anything but cordial

in the circumstances: and Mrs. Sauls accepted his invitation without a

moment's hesitation. She would have started off for the North Pole, if

George had happened to come to grief there!

Tom was relieved when he saw her settled in the sick room, taking

possession with an air of assured capability. He would have done his

best for any man thrown on his mercy, and picked up wounded by the way;

but he was glad to be rid of the care of _this_ patient.

"That chap hates us," he remarked. "Oh, ay--I know, dad; he could be

civil (leastways as a rule) because he wanted to come, and he ain't the

soart to let his temper play maister to his wants; but we're the last

he'll like bein' obligated to--more especial as I fancy he an' Barnabas

have had words."

"What makes you think that?" said his father.

"Long John told me that much," said Tom. "He overheard some'ut behind a

hay rick. I wur down on him for eavesdropping, an' I doan't know what

'twas about----Hallo! what are ye wantin'?" The last question was

addressed to a man who had come up behind the Thorpes.

"I was sent up to make inquiries as to how soon the gentleman will be

fit to give evidence," said the stranger.

He had been listening with all his ears, and it struck him that he had

collected a not unimportant fact himself. So Mr. Sauls and the preacher

had had words!

Tom shrugged his shoulders; on the whole, it did not seem probable that

Mr. Sauls' evidence would ever be given on this side of the grave. At

present, he lay babbling the wildest nonsense, while the would-be

murderer was probably escaping comfortably.

At last, however, there came a day when George woke up with recognition

in his eyes. His mother, who was sitting by him, trembled with pleasure

when she saw it. He looked ghastly enough with his sallow face swathed

in white bandages; but Rebecca Sauls had never heard any sound that so

nearly moved her to happy tears as the sound of her son's voice speaking

sensibly, albeit somewhat crossly again.

"What _are_ you doing here, mother?" said he. "I suppose I've been ill;

but I'm sure there couldn't have been the least necessity for you to

come. What's been the matter with me?" He put his hand to his head and

tried hard to sit upright, but fell back. "H'm! I must have been rather

bad," he said. "Have I been falling from a five storey window? It feels

like it. I wish I could remember! I say, this isn't my room, and where

the deuce----"

"You are in Caulderwell Farm," said his mother. "You have been very ill.

Mr. Tom Thorpe picked you up in the marsh, near what they call the

'Pixies' Pool'."

"Well, go on," he said sharply. A horrible fear that he had lost his

memory came over him.

"He brought you here because this was the only house near; and his

father wrote to me, thinking that you were dying--I told them they were

wrong, my dear. You are going to get well."

She was afraid of exciting him; and yet, compelled by the intense

anxiety of his expression, and knowing her son, knew better than to

refuse to satisfy him.

"What was the matter with me?" he asked.

"The matter was a blow on the back of your head," she began.

Then she paused, for George laughed with grim satisfaction. "Ah! I

remember," he said. "I remember now! mother, I was afraid----"

He left the sentence unfinished, not caring to say what he had feared.

"I remember," he repeated again; "he hit me from behind in the dusk.

Yes, and his brother thought I was done for, and I sat up and startled

him, and then it got dark again. Upon my word, the saints hit hard! But

he should have made quite sure while he was about it; dead men tell no

tales! I think I am alive enough to give him trouble yet! A half-killed

enemy is a dangerous thing, isn't it?"

"My dear," said his mother, putting her wrinkled hand on his, "I hope

that whoever attempted to kill you may find that true; but you must get

well before anything. Don't let yourself get excited now, only just

tell me, who was it?"

"Who? there was only one man within a mile of me!" said George. "It was

the preacher! I didn't see him, naturally, for I've no eyes behind; but

he must have run after me, and taken payment for old debts! He had had

provocation enough. I declare, if he'd given me warning and hit fairly,

I'd have cried 'quits'; but to cant about being 'sworn' and then to hit

in the dark----"

"If there is any law in England they ought to hang him for it," said

Mrs. Sauls. "I cannot remember ever to have heard of so wicked and

shameful a crime!"

And George smiled. "No?" he said. "And you've heard of a good many too!

Do you know I doubt whether the judge will see that the fact of its

being _I_ who suffered, so increases the crime as to render it blacker

than any other on the records! Judges are so dense. Why, mother, I

believe you are crying! I shouldn't have thought it of you!"

"I don't know whatever makes me," she said, hastily drying her eyes. "It

was joy at hearing you laughing at me, like yourself, my boy, I suppose.

If you'd only heard the nonsense you've been chattering all day and

night, and the way you've been calling for some one!"

"Have I?" he said uneasily. "For whom? for you?"

The old woman met his glance with a look of such tenderness as

transfigured her harsh features.

"No; men don't call for their mothers like _that_," she said. "It was

just a sick fancy, and I took care nobody but me heard--though I know

better than to take account of such things. Bless you! I've put it all

out of my head now. I have a bad memory for what's said in fever."

"Ah," he said, "you're the wisest woman I know! There's no doubt from

whom I got my brains. When I'm Lord Chancellor, I'll own you gave me a

good many shoves uphill."

He laughed, but there was a meaning under the joke. Mr. Sauls' vulgar

old mother had a large place in the heart which, as well as the brains,

he perhaps inherited from her. He pulled her towards him, and kissed

her.

"Thanks!" he said. And Rebecca Sauls knew quite well that the thanks

were not so much for the "shoves uphill" as for the "bad memory".

"I wish I could give you all you want, my son," she said sadly.

If her own life's blood could have given him his heart's desire, he

should have had it, of course.

He recovered tolerably steadily after that, bending his endeavours to

that end with a sort of dogged patience, obeying the doctor's orders,

and refusing to allow himself to get excited, because he was so

determined that he would get well.

He was not a sweet-tempered invalid, like Mr. Deane. He had been strong

all his life, and it exasperated him to feel himself weak and dependent;

but his mother rejoiced rather than otherwise when George was cross: it

was a good sign, she thought, and better for him.

Only on one point he insisted--whatever might be the risk of moving him,

he would not stay one day longer than was absolutely necessary under the

farm roof.

Every one remonstrated, even Tom; who, though he had no great liking for

Mr. Sauls, felt it a slur on their hospitality that any guest should

leave them before he was fit to walk across a room.

"If ye aren't comfortable, ma'am, I'm sorry," said Tom. "But doan't 'ee

let him go fro' this and die on the road! It ain't fair on us; and,

considerin' I picked your son up, ye might listen to me."

"He wants to see you," said Mrs. Sauls, nodding her head with an

emphatic little gesture. She had tried to dissuade George from this

interview, but he would have it. "I am afraid I must ask you to go to

him, Mr. Thomas; but please remember that he is ill."

Tom stared, and then laughed good-naturedly; the old lady spoke sharply,

but her hand was shaking as she stood holding up her silk gown in the

middle of the yard.

"Are ye feared I'll talk too loud?" he said. "I know how to behave in a

sick room, ma'am. Dad and I tuk very good care o' him afore ye came.

I'll leave my boots in the kitchen, and tread as soft as I can."

She followed him upstairs and stood outside the door. Tom wondered, half

amused, what she imagined he was likely to do to her precious son. Did

she fancy that he would quarrel with a sick man? why should he? He

supposed she distrusted him because he looked so queer.

"Well, sir; are ye feelin' a bit better?" he asked as he entered. Mr.

Sauls was in an elaborate fur-trimmed dressing-gown (he had a strong

taste for personal luxury), and was sitting in an armchair that his

mother had sent to N----town for, and a screen was arranged to keep out

the draught.

His face was thin, and so were the brown hands that lay on his knee; he

did not look fit to be out of bed.

"Oh yes, I'm better," he said. "I've cheated the undertaker and mine

enemy this time!"

"I'm glad o' that," said Tom heartily. "Do you know who your enemy is,

sir?"

Mr. Sauls looked at him rather oddly. "I believe so."

"Come!" said Tom cheerfully; "that's a good thing. Ye'll not gi'e him

the chance o' playin' that game twice, I should think. There's a

policeman downstairs wantin' to speak wi' ye, sir. I was goin' to let

him in, when Mrs. Sauls axed me to go up mysel' first. Do ye want for

aught? We'd liefer ye stayed wi' us till ye can be moved safely. Why,

th' country side 'ull cry shame on us if we let ye be jolted along that

road afore your wound's rightfully healed."

"Ah," said George, "the country side will understand why I couldn't stay

under your roof, and why you won't want to keep me."

The real kindliness of Tom Thorpe's hospitality made him flinch a little

from what he meant to say.

"It's difficult to come to the point," he went on; "because I must own

that I am under a heavy obligation to you. Probably--no, certainly--I

should have died if you had not picked me up; and my mother and I have

been living in your father's house, and have received kindness at his

hands----"

"Well?" said Tom.

George Sauls sat upright, his thin face flushing slightly.

"Well!" he said; "I can't prosecute your brother while I am eating your

father's bread and salt, and I won't insult you by thanking you for your

hospitality in the circumstances. As soon as I am outside your door, of

course I shall give my evidence. No doubt you will agree with me that

the sooner I go the better."

He watched Tom narrowly while he spoke. He was prepared for a burst of

anger; "these hunchbacks generally have queer tempers," he thought; and

it is a ticklish business to tell a man who has taken you into his house

that you intend to bring an action against his brother for attempted

murder.

"Do ye mean," said Tom slowly, "that ye are goin' to swear as Barnabas

tried to kill ye?"

"I am going to swear that, to the best of my belief, he did," said

George. "I didn't, of course, see my assailant; I tried to force a

quarrel on your brother, and he refused to fight with me on religious

grounds." He shrugged his shoulders slightly. For a few seconds the

preacher had imposed even on him; he remembered he had half believed the

man honest; but, in his right mind, George felt that a fellow who

refused to fight "on religious grounds" was capable of any meanness;

and, possibly, as a rule he was right; only his pocket measure couldn't

gauge exceptions.

"It would have been pleasanter," he continued, "to have left your house

without mentioning my intention of proceeding against your brother; but

I confess I have a prejudice in favour of fair play, and I owe you an

apology for having accepted your hospitality. I don't carry sentiment so

far as to refrain from prosecuting the preacher because you carried me

home; but I will certainly refuse to answer any questions while I am

under this roof. Probably the delay will give the culprit time to

escape; but----"

"Look 'ee here," said Tom; and he spoke so quietly that Mrs. Sauls,

listening outside, afraid lest George in his weak state should be

injured, could not distinguish the words. "Look 'ee here. Ye are ill; so

I can't answer ye as I would like. Ye say Barnabas meant to murder ye,

an' left ye for dead. Keep your opinion; you're welcome; no one 'ull be

wishful to share it wi' ye, I'm thinking; but, when you come to

'probably,' _I_ know what he'd probably do, if he was here--an', by your

leave, I'll do it for him."

He opened the door wide, and shouted down the stairs:--

"Ask the man from N----town to step up at once, Cousin Tremnell. Mr.

Sauls has important evidence to give, an' it won't keep!"

Then he turned to that gentleman with a short laugh:

"If ye mean to throw mud at Barnabas, do it an' welcome," said he. "It

doan't seem to me greatly to your credit, sir; an' I doan't fancy ye'll

find it stick. Ye needn't wait to be clear o' this roof; we're much

obliged, but (I'm speaking for Barnabas) we'd rayther ye _didn't_

delay."

"H'm," said George; "he is more fortunate than most prophets--his own

brother swears by him!"

CHAPTER IV.

Meg sat in the nursery in Laura's home, with Laura's child on her lap.

The child had been ailing, but had finally fallen asleep with his head

on her shoulder. Margaret was fond of children, and little boys

especially generally took to her.

This year-old baby, who was too young to regard her with wonder or pity,

was a comfort to her, and she felt most at ease in his society. Laura

was kind, but brimming over with unspoken questions; and Laura's husband

obviously patronised the "poor thing" who had made such a "shocking

mistake," and who must, he thought, be truly glad to find herself in

comfortable quarters again!

She had made mistakes enough, to be sure! She had committed a most

terrible and fatal one in marrying for any reason but that which alone

sanctifies marriage; but, at least, she was not ashamed of her preacher.

Meg's soft grey eyes would brighten dangerously when this portly and

rather self-indulgent gentleman too evidently pitied her. What was he

that he should dare to despise Barnabas Thorpe?

Nevertheless, her heart warmed to Laura. The tie of blood drew the

sisters together: they mourned the same father, at any rate; though, in

Meg's case, the mourning was tempered by deep thankfulness in having

been allowed to see him once more.

Laura came into the room presently, and sat down on the low

rocking-chair by the fireplace, letting her busy hands be idle for once,

while she watched the sister who had the fascination of an enigma for

her.

The semi-darkness, the cosy quietness of the nursery, thawed their

mutual reserve.

"I expect that Barnabas will come for me to-morrow. I wonder what can

have kept him so long," said Meg. "I am glad that you persuaded me to

stay here with you, Laura. It is good for one to have a breathing space

to bury remembrances in. I don't think that I missed a word or look of

father's while I was with him, now I feel as if I could put that away.

One doesn't forget, but one must lay one's grief decently below the

surface; and you have given me time to do that."

"I hate to think that you may be spirited away--and to I don't know what

hardships," cried Laura impetuously.

But Meg shook her head. "I don't want to stay for ever! It is very

pretty and 'soft'; it has been pleasant to sit in easy chairs and tread

on velvety carpets, and, above all, to see you again; but I couldn't

bear to live this life now. Even as it is, I feel as if there were a

sort of disloyalty in the enjoyment of it. You must not fancy that I am

being dragged away against my will, when Barnabas fetches me. I believe

you imagine all sorts of horrors, Laura; but, indeed, I am telling you

the truth! The preacher is very good to me. I don't think there is

another man in the world who would have been so good."

"He ought to be," said Laura; "seeing that you threw away everything

else for love of him."

"Oh no, it was not for love!" cried Meg. "And he never supposed that it

was."

"Then you were madder than I thought." Laura sat bolt upright to give

force to her emphatic whisper. She had grown stout and matronly since

the days when she had advised her sister to "marry any decently rich man

who would be good to her," and her views had ripened. "If people marry

for love, at least they have their cake, even though they may get

through it pretty soon, and go hungry when it's eaten. I've sometimes

thought that I hardly saw that side of the question enough when I was

young. I was terribly afraid of sentiment. But you, Meg--you, who of all

women I ever met were the most high-flown!--if you didn't love him, what

possessed you?"

"It is an old story now," said Meg, colouring. "Let it be. Barnabas

understands about it. No one else ever will." She was silent for a few

minutes, thinking of that scene at Ravenshill which she had but half

understood at the time. "It is only afterwards that we know what we have

done! I wonder whether all things that have happened to us will be seen

by us in the right colours and the right proportion, as soon as we are

in the next world. Will they all seem to shift into different places,

like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope?"

"My dear," said Laura, with the twinkle that Meg remembered of old, "I

am distinctly of the earth, earthy. I don't know, and I don't much care,

about the next world; but I am curious about this one. I should like to

hear what happened to the Meg I used to know. Where did he take you?

Were you tolerably happy, or--or not?"

"I was happy when he was preaching," said Meg. "What shall I tell you?"

She reflected a moment, and then began drawing word pictures of scenes

by the way--of the tramps they had talked to; of the gipsies over whose

fires they had sat; of meetings on heathery hills, and on village

commons. She dwelt rather on the lighter side of her experiences, and

her stories illustrated the gentler traits of the preacher's

character--his tenderness for very old people and young children, and

his hopefulness. She told how he had given a screw of tobacco to a dirty

old tramp incarcerated in a far-off northern gaol, and how, on the

beadle's rebuking him for his leniency, he had said: "She's ower ninety,

man! ower deaf to hear the preachin' o' goodwill; but the 'baccy 'ull

carry a bit o' th' message, an' she'll understan' that".

And she laughed a little over the minor perplexities that had beset her

own path when she had struggled along by his side.

"It is different now, for I am older, and have grown accustomed to so

much; but oh, Laura, I did not laugh then! So many funny things happened

to me, small troubles that I had never reckoned on. For example, my

boots wore out. I remember that we were walking along the bed of a

stream, and every stone I trod on hurt me. You don't know how they hurt,

when one's feet are blistered, and one's boots are in holes. It was only

six weeks since I had left Aunt Russelthorpe's house, and it seemed too

strange and unnatural to go to the preacher about that sort of thing. I

couldn't ask him for money. I thought it would be easier to walk

barefoot than to do that; and, after all, one can get through almost

anything if one determines that one will. So I limped on, and should

have reached the next village all right, if I hadn't trodden on a bit of

broken glass. I was unlucky that day; it went through the hole right

into my heel. I sat down on a stone and clenched my hands together; I

was so afraid of fainting, and the sharp pain made me feel sick. I can

see that valley now, with the purple heather and bracken glowing on each

side, and the big boulders, and the brown stream brawling in the middle

of it, and the preacher tramping steadily along, with his back to me.

Of course, he discovered, after a time, that I was not by him, and

turned back to look for me; and, just when he reached me, a round soft

sheep with curly horns and a broad face jumped up close behind my stone

and scuttled away up the hill. It startled me so that it shook the

tears, which I had been trying to keep back, down my cheeks, and I found

myself sobbing like a baby. Barnabas stood and stared at me; I had never

done that sort of thing before, and he was immensely surprised. Then he

said: 'You poor little soul, ye just doan't knaw what to do for

weariness'. And he sat down and consoled me as if I had been ten instead

of twenty-one; and cut my boot off with his pocket-knife, and took the

splinter of glass out; and finally picked me up and carried me into the

next village. From that day, he took only too much care of me; but he is

always tender to any one who is unhappy."

Her thoughts had flown to another time when the difficulties of the life

she had chosen had pressed on her more heavily than during those first

experiences of physical discomfort.

"He thinks," she said in a low voice, "that no mistake and no sin can be

so strong as God is. It is that belief which gives him power over those

who have fallen very low. Of course most people agree with him in

theory, but he is quite sure of it practically, which is different."

"He has need of his hopefulness," said Laura drily. She had just made up

her mind to tell Meg of the arrest; but the nurse came in at that

moment, and she put off breaking the news a little longer.

Meg gave up the baby reluctantly, and they went down into the lamp-lit

dining-room; Laura very full of thought. This fanatical preacher, with

his mania for "converting," with his pernicious views about the

intrinsic evil of wealth, had done plenty of harm, she considered; and

yet she allowed to herself that his influence was for good too. Margaret

was morally a stronger woman now than she had been in her variable and

emotional girlhood. Laura remarked also that, though no one could call

her sister "pretty" in these days, yet the distinction which she had

always possessed was hers still and in larger measure. Meg looked like a

queen in disguise in her shabby dress. Alas! alas! and it was all wasted

on a street "tuborator," who, at the best, was a mad enthusiast, and, at

the worst, a shameful rogue!

Laura's meditations made her unusually silent. Mr. Ashford talked on

somewhat pompously, and pressed Meg to eat with rather patronising

warmth, for "it was not every day that Mrs. Thorpe got such a meal"; and

Meg herself did her best to rise to the occasion and converse pleasantly

with her host.

The silver, and the cut glass, and the flowers pleased her eye; for

pretty things were to Margaret, as they had been to her father, very

sweet. She had spoken the truth when she had said she could not have

borne to live in luxury now; yet for a breathing space she enjoyed it.

In nine cases out of ten it is the people with the keenest senses who

take to asceticism. He who has never been intoxicated by the scent of

flowers has never known the necessity of retiring into a wilderness.

Dinner was half over when Laura saw Meg's colour change. "It is only the

man from the bonnet shop. It cannot be any one for you, Meg," she said

quickly. Indeed, she fancied that she had good reason to know that it

could not possibly be Barnabas Thorpe. Was he not in Newgate?

"It is not Barnabas. It is--_Tom_!" cried Margaret.

She rose hastily from her chair; and Laura, following the direction of

her eyes, saw Tom's queer deformed figure through the open door. He had

been standing in the hall; but when Margaret's exclamation reached him,

he walked into the dining-room, thinking she had meant to call him.

To Laura this extraordinary person seemed a threatening embodiment from

that outside world which claimed her sister. To Mr. Ashford he was a

most impertinent intruder; but Meg made a quick step towards him. "Oh,

Tom, is anything wrong at the farm?" she asked. And then turning to

Laura: "This is my brother-in-law."

"I should ask your pardon for disturbing you, ma'am," said Tom, looking

at Laura; "but I ha' need of a word with Barnabas' wife."

The accent, and still more the decided way in which he stated what he

wanted, reminded Laura of the preacher.

He spoke quite civilly, but the peremptoriness jarred on her. Tom Thorpe

was possessed by a sort of defiant repulsion, and glowered indignantly

on Margaret and her fine relatives. So she was here in this grand room

feasting and amusing herself? but she was "Barnabas' wife" all the same,

and he was in prison!

"You shall have as many words as you like with me at once," said

Margaret. "May I take him into the library, Laura? Oh, I hope that

_your_ father is not ill?"

Tom glanced at the bit of crape on her sleeve and answered, softened:

"No, no, lass. Naught o' that kind's happened. Dad's right enough.

There's naught but what ye must know already."

"But she does not know!" Laura murmured faintly.

Ten minutes later they heard Meg's visitor go.

"Dear me! Your poor sister will hardly like to appear again to-night,"

Mr. Ashford said compassionately. "She must be terribly ashamed of her

scamp of a husband, though that kind of thing is what she must expect

after having----Oh, here she is!"

Margaret's head was very erect, and there was a bright spot of colour on

each cheek.

"My brother-in-law has been telling me that my husband has been arrested

on Mr. Sauls' charge, and taken to gaol," she said. And there was a

prouder ring than usual in her generally low voice. "Mr. Sauls' brain

must have suffered! I am sorry for him."

"You are angry with him, you mean!" remarked Laura.

"No," said Mrs. Thorpe. "Any one who is so mad as to think it possible

that Barnabas could have done such a thing is not worth being angry

with. He knows no better, I suppose, poor thing!"

Laura looked at her husband with a momentary gleam of fun.

"I must get a room close to Newgate, so that I can go in and out as

often as I am allowed," continued Meg. "Tom is going to take me to the

prison to-morrow. Will you excuse me if I go and put my things together

now?"

Laura laughed, albeit a little sadly, when the door closed behind her.

"It has been a queer story from first to last," she said. "But do you

think, after that, that she is ashamed of him?"

"She doesn't care much for him," said Mr. Ashford. "If she did, she

would be more anxious."

An hour later Margaret had finished packing her clothes into a small

bundle, and stood considering a leathern box she held in her hands:

should she take it with her or not?

She opened it with the reverent touch a woman gives to relics. There was

the pearl ring that her mother, another Margaret, had worn; Laura's

first baby socks tenderly treasured; and an unfinished silk purse that

had been in process of making when death took that, as well as all other

tasks, from the pretty hands that had been so prone to give.

There also was a faded bundle of letters tied with ribbon. The last that

Meg unfolded had been penned two days before the writer's death. No one

had imagined that she was in any danger; but there was an undercurrent

of foreboding, sounding through the overflowing tender happiness which

the letter expressed, a foreboding which, as Meg remembered to have

heard, had wakened Mr. Deane's anxiety and brought him home just in

time.

"Indeed, sweetheart, an' I were to die to-morrow, I should want you only

to remember that no woman was ever happier than I have been, and I think

none other was ever so happy, seeing that none other was your wife. I

long to make up to those not so fortunate as I; but I cannot. I would

pray for a long life, only not beyond yours; but if it is not given me"

(again that iteration of warning, mingling with her passionate

satisfaction in her married life), "I shall yet have been more blessed

than any other woman. It will have been worth while to have lived only

to have loved you--and----"

Meg put the letter down--surely this was too sacred for any eyes but his

to whom it was written; a shame came over her that she had read so much.

Some one else had once said to her: "It is worth while". This dead

voice, that was yet so instinct with life, now, after all these years,

reiterated it.

She gave Laura the box the next morning, before she left.

"It wouldn't be safe to carry jewels with me to the part of London I am

going to," she explained. "Will you take care of them for me? They are

best left behind."

She turned the key in the lock, and put the box in Laura's hands.

"There are letters there too," she said. "They are so alive, that, I

suppose, father could not bear to burn them. I began to read one; but I

did not finish it--I felt as if I oughtn't to."

"Ought not? Why, he left them to you especially!" said Laura. "Who has a

better right?"

"I felt as if _I_ had no right to them," said Meg.

CHAPTER V.

Even more than knowledge, pain is power.

--_Illingworth._

And on his brest a bloudie crosse he bore,

The deare remembrance of his dying Lord

For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore,

And dead as living ever Him ador'd.

--_Spenser._

It was on a close breathless day in September that Meg first saw

Newgate.

Nearly fifty years have wrought many changes for the better (as well as

some few for the worse) in London.

The Holborn Tom and Meg Thorpe walked down was more unsavoury, noisier,

and far less regulated as to traffic than the Holborn of to-day.

The immense flow of people, the street cries, the jostling and bustling,

were new to Meg; for, though she had lived in London half her life, she

had never seen this side of it before.

All at once she understood how it had impressed Barnabas.

"He thinks London so terrible, and overpowering!" she said. "And I never

knew what he meant! Now, I see----"