HE'S HERE AGAIN!
"He has but stumbled in the path
Thou hast in weakness trod."--A. A. PROCTER.
"He's here again, Mum."
He was there at the servant's entrance to the highly respectable
boarding-house in the Rue Millevoye. It was five in the morning--a
winter's morning.
Mrs. Rowe hastened from her room, behind the business parlour, in her
dressing-gown, her teeth chattering, and her eyes flashing the fire of
hate. The boarders sleeping upstairs would not have known the godly
landlady, who glided about the house by day, rubbing her hands and
hoping every soul under her roof was comfortable--or would at once
complain to her, who lived only to make people comfortable--bills being
but mere accidental accessories, fortuitously concurrent with the
arrival of a cab and the descent of luggage.
"At the back door, mum, with his coat tucked over his ears, and such a
cold in his head. Shall I show him in?"
"My life is a long misery, Jane," Mrs. Rowe said, under her voice.
"La! mum, it's quite safe. I'm sure I shouldn't trouble much about
it--'specially in this country, as----"
"Silence!" Mrs. Rowe hissed. The thorns in her cross consisted chiefly
of Jane's awkward attempts at consolation. "The villain is bent on my
ruin. A bad boy he was; a bad man he is. Show him in; and see that
François doesn't come here. Get some coffee yourself, Jane, and bring
it. Let the brute in."
"You're hard upon him, mum, indeed you are. I'm sure he'd be a credit
to----"
"Go, and hold your tongue. You presume, Jane, on the privileges of an
old servant."
"Indeed I hope not, mum; but----"
"Go!"
Jane went to summon the early visitor; and was heard talking amiably to
him, as she led him to the bureau. "Now, you must be good, Mr. Charles,
to-day, and not stay more than a quarter of an hour. Don't talk loud,
like the last time; promise me. Missus means well--you know she does."
With an impatient "All right" the stranger pushed into the business
parlour, and sharply closed the door.
Mrs. Rowe stood, her knuckles firmly planted upon the closed desk, her
face rigidly set, to receive her visitor--keeping the table between him
and herself. He was advancing to take her hand.
"Stand there," she said, with an authority he had not the courage to
defy. He stood there--abashed, or hesitating as to the way in which he
should enter upon his business.
"Well!" Mrs. Rowe said, firmly and impatiently.
Mr. Charles, stung by the manner, turned upon his victim. "Well!" he
jeered, "yes, and well again, Mrs. Rowe. Is it necessary for me to
explain myself? Do you think I have come to see _you_!"
"I have no money at present; I wrote you so."
"And I didn't believe you, and have come to fetch what you wouldn't
send. If you think I'm going into a corner to starve for your personal
satisfaction, you are very much mistaken. I'm surprised you don't
understand me better by this time."
"You were a rascal, Charles, before you left school."
"School! Pretty school! D--n it, don't blame me--woman!"
Mrs. Rowe was alarmed by the outburst, lest it should wake some of the
boarders.
"The Dean and his lady are sleeping overhead. If you don't respect me,
think----"
"I'm not here to respect, or think about anybody. I'm cast alone into
the world--tossed into it; left to shift for myself, and to be ashamed
of myself; and I want a little help through it, and it's for you to give
it me, and give it me YOU SHALL."
Mr. Charles held out his left hand, and slapped its open palm vehemently
with his right--pantomime to indicate the exact whereabouts he had
selected for the reception of Mrs. Rowe's money.
"I told you I had no money. You'll drive me from this house by bringing
disgrace upon it."
"That's very good," Mr. Charles said, with a cruel laugh. "That's a
capital joke."
Jane entered with coffee. "That's right," she whispered, encouragingly
to Mr. Charles; "laugh and be cheerful, Mr. Charles, and make haste with
your coffee."
The face of Mr. Charles blackened to night. He turned like a tiger upon
the servant. "Laugh and be cheerful?" he roared; and then he raised a
hoarse mock laugh, that moved Mrs. Rowe, in her agony of fear, to turn
the key in the lock of her desk.
Shaking her hands wildly in the air, Jane left the room, and shut the
door.
"You are an arrant coward, Charles," Mrs. Rowe hissed, leaning across
the table and shaking her head violently.
Mr. Charles imitated her gesture, answering--"I am what heartless people
have made me. I have been dragged up under a cloud; made the scape-goat.
How often in the course of your hypocritical days have you wished me
dead? You hear I've a cough; but I cannot promise you it's a churchyard
one. I'm a nuisance; but I suppose I'm not responsible for my existence,
Mrs. Rowe. _I_ was not consulted."
"Viper!"
"And devil too, when needful: remember that." Mr. Charles moved round
the table in the direction of the desk.
"Stand where you are. I would rather give you the clothes from my back
than touch you." Mrs. Rowe, as she stood still turning the lock of the
bureau, and keeping her angry eyes fixed upon the man, was the picture
of all the hate she expressed.
She never took her eyes off him, nor did he quail, while she fumbled in
the drawer in which she kept money. The musical rattle of the gold smote
upon the ear of Mr. Charles.
"Pretty sound," he said, with a smile of hate in his face; "but there is
crisp paper sounds sweeter. Mrs. Rowe, I'm not here for a couple of
yellow-boys. Do you hear that?" He banged the table, and advanced a
step.
"You can't bleed a stone, miscreant."
"Nay, but you can break it, Mrs. Rowe. I mean business to-day. The rarer
I make my visits the better for both of us."
"I am quite of that opinion."
"Then make it as long as you like; you know how."
"Is this ever to end? Have you no shame? Charles, you will end with some
tragedy. A man who can play the part you are playing, must be ready for
crime!"
Mr. Charles shook his head in impatient rage, and made another step
towards Mrs. Rowe.
"Move nearer, and I wake the house, come what may." Mrs. Rowe's face
looked like one cut in grey stone.
"What! and wake the Dean and his lady! What! affright the Reverend
Horace Mohun who counts Mrs. Rowe among the milk-white sheep of his
flock! No; Mrs. Rowe is too prudent a woman--Now." As he ended, she drew
forth a roll of notes. He made a clutch at them--and she started back.
"Charles, it has come to that! Robber! It will be murder some day."
"This day--by----"
Mr. Charles looked the man to make his word good.
Mrs. Rowe was amazed and terrified by the fiend she had conjured up in
the man. He seized the table, and looked a giant in the mighty
expression of his iron will.
"Lay that roll upon the table--or I'll shiver it into a thousand
pieces--and then--and then----Am I to say more?"
Mrs. Rowe fell into a chair. Mr. Charles was at her in an instant, and
had possession of the notes. The poor woman had swooned.
He rang the bell--Jane appeared.
"Look after her," said Mr. Charles, his eyes flaming, as they fell on
the unconscious figure of Mrs. Rowe. "But let me out, first."
"You'll kill me with fright, that you will. What have you done to your
own----"
"Mind your own business. A smell of salts'll put her right enough."
Mr. Charles was gone.
"And what a sweet gentleman he can be, when he likes," said Jane.