"It _is_ a matter for wonder," he said quietly. "It's the strangest

thing in the world that I--your husband--should venture to intrude

myself into your presence! Nothing could be more out of the common. But

I have something to say to you--something which must be said sooner or

later--and I may as well speak now."

He paused,--she was silent, looking at him in a sort of sudden fear.

"Sit down," he continued in the same even tones. "You must have a little

patience with me--I'll endeavor to be as brief as possible."

Mechanically she obeyed him and sank into a low fauteuil. She began

playing with the trinkets on her silver chatelaine, and endeavored to

feign the most absolute unconcern, but her heart beat quickly--she could

not imagine what was coming next--her husband's manner and tone were

quite new to her.

"You accused me just now," he went on, "of being a spy. I have never

condescended to act such a part toward you, Clara. When I first married

you I trusted you with my life, my honor, and my name, and though you

have betrayed all three"--she moved restlessly as his calm gaze remained

fixed on her--"I repeat,--though you have betrayed all three,--I have

deliberately shut my eyes to the ruin of my hopes, in a loyal endeavor

to shield you from the world's calumny. Regarding the unhappiness you

have caused the Erringtons,--your own maid Louise Rénaud (who has given

you notice of her intention to leave you) told me all she knew of your

share in what I may call positive cruelty, towards a happy and innocent

woman who has never injured you, and whose friend you declared yourself

to be--"

"You believe the lies of a servant?" suddenly cried Lady Winsleigh

wrathfully.

"Have not _you_ believed the lies of Sir Francis Lennox, who is less

honest than a servant?" asked her husband, his grave voice deepening

with a thrill of passion. "And haven't you reported them everywhere as

truths? But as regards your maid--I doubted her story altogether. She

assured me she knew what money you took out with you yesterday, and what

you returned with--and as the only place you visited in the morning was

the Brilliant Theatre,--after having received a telegram from Lennox,

which she saw,--it was easy for her to put two and two together,

especially as she noticed you reading the letter you had

purchased--moreover"--he paused--"she has heard certain conversations

between you and Sir Francis, notably one that took place at the

garden-party in the summer at Errington Manor. Spy? you say? your

detective has been paid by you,--fed and kept about your own person,--to

minister to your vanity and to flatter your pride--that she has turned

informer against you is not surprising. Be thankful that her information

has fallen into no more malignant hands than mine!"

Again he paused--she was still silent--but her lips trembled nervously.

"And yet I was loth to believe everything"--he resumed half sadly--"till

Errington came and showed me that letter and told me the whole story of

his misery. Even then I thought I would give you one more chance--that's

why I brought him to you and asked you the question before him. One look

at your face told me you were guilty, though you denied it. I should

have been better pleased had you confessed it! But why talk about it any

longer?--the mischief is done--I trust it is not irreparable. I

certainly consider that before troubling that poor girl's

happiness,--you should have taken the precaution to inquire a little

further into the truth of the reports you heard from Sir Francis

Lennox,--he is not a reliable authority on any question whatsoever. You

may have thought him so--" he stopped short and regarded her with

sorrowful sternness--"I say, Clara, you may have thought him so,

once--but _now_? Are you proud to have shared his affections

with--Violet Vere?"

She uttered a sharp cry and covered her face with her hands,--an action

which appeared to smite her husband to the heart,--for his voice

trembled with deep feeling when he next spoke.

"Ah, best hide it, Clara!" he said passionately. "Hide that fair face I

loved so well--hide those eyes in which I dreamed of finding my life's

sunshine! Clara, Clara! What can I say to you, fallen rose of womanhood?

How can I--" he suddenly bent over her as though to caress her, then drew

back with a quick agonized sigh. "You thought me blind, Clara! . . ."

he went on in low tones, "blind to my own dishonor--blind to your

faithlessness,--I tell you if you had taken my heart between your hands

and wrung the blood out of it drop by drop, I could not have suffered

more than I have done! Why have I been silent so long?--no matter

why,--but _now_, now Clara,--this life of ours must end!"

She shuddered away from him.

"End it then!" she muttered in a choked voice. "You can do as you

like,--you can divorce me."

"Yes," said Lord Winsleigh musingly. "I can divorce you! There will be

no defense possible,--as you know. If witnesses are needed, they are to

be had in the persons of our own domestics. The co-respondent in the

case will not refute the charge against him,--and I, the plaintiff,

_must_ win my just cause. Do you realize it all, Clara? You, the

well-known leader of a large social circle--you, the proud beauty and

envied lady of rank and fashion,--you will be made a subject for the

coarse jests of lawyers,--the very judge on the bench will probably play

off his stale witticism at your expense,--your dearest friends will tear

your name to shreds,--the newspapers will reek of your doings,--and

honest housemaids reading of your fall from your high estate, will thank

God that their souls and bodies are more chaste than yours! And

last,--not least,--think when old age creeps on, and your beauty

withers,--think of your son grown to manhood,--the sole heir to my

name,--think of him as having but one thing to blush for--the memory of

his dishonored mother!"

"Cruel--cruel!" she cried, endeavoring to check her sobs, and

withdrawing her hands from her face. "Why do you say such things to me?

Why did you marry me?"

He caught her hands and held them in a fast grip.

"Why? Because I loved you, Clara--loved you with all the tenderness of a

strong man's heart! When I first saw you, you seemed to me the very

incarnation of maiden purity and loveliness! The days of our

courtship--the first few months of our marriage--what they were to you,

I know not,--to me they were supreme happiness. When our boy was born,

my adoration, my reverence for you increased--you were so sacred in my

eyes, that I could have knelt and asked a benediction from these little

hands"--here he gently loosened them from his clasp. "Then came the

change--_what_ changed you, I cannot imagine--it has always seemed to me

unnatural, monstrous, incredible! There was no falling away in _my_

affection, that I can swear! My curse upon the man who turned your heart

from mine! So rightful and deep a curse is it that I feel it must some

day strike home."

He paused and seemed to reflect. "Who is there more vile, more

traitorous than he?" he went on. "Has he not tried to influence

Errington's wife against her husband? For what base purpose? But

Clara,--he is powerless against _her_ purity and innocence;--what, in

the name of God, gave him power over _you_?"

She drooped her head, and the hot blood rushed to her face.

"You've said enough!" she murmured sullenly. "If you have decided on a

divorce, pray carry out your intention with the least possible delay. I

cannot talk any more! I--I am tired!"

"Clara," said her husband solemnly, with a strange light in his eyes, "I

would rather kill you than divorce you!"

There was something so terribly earnest in his tone that her heart beat

fast with fear.

"Kill me?--kill me?" she gasped, with white lips.

"Yes!" he repeated, "kill you,--as a Frenchman or an Italian would,--and

take the consequences. Yes--though an Englishman, I would rather do this

than drag your frail poor womanhood through the mire of public scandal!

I have, perhaps, a strange nature, but such as I am, I am. There are too

many of our high-born families already, flaunting their immorality and

low licentiousness in the face of the mocking, grinning populace,--I for

one could never make up my mind to fling the honor of my son's mother to

them, as though it were a bone for dogs to fight over. No--I have

another proposition to make to you--"

He stopped short. She stared at him wonderingly. He resumed in

methodical, unmoved, business-like tones.

"I propose, Clara, simply,--to leave you! I'll take the boy and absent

myself from this country, so as to give you perfect freedom and save you

all trouble. There'll be no possibility of scandal, for I will keep you

cognizant of my movements,--and should you require my presence at any

time for the sake of appearances,--or--to shield you from calumny,--you

may rely on my returning to you at once,--without delay. Ernest will

gain many advantages by travel,--his education is quite a sufficient

motive for my departure, my interest in his young life being well known

to all our circle. Moreover, with me--under my surveillance--he need

never know anything against--against you. I have always taught him to

honor and obey you in his heart."

Lord Winsleigh paused a moment--then went on, somewhat musingly;--"When

he was quite little, he used to wonder why you didn't love him,--it was

hard for me to hear him say that, sometimes. But I always told him that

you did love him--but that you had so many visits to makes and so many

friends to entertain, that you had no time to play with him. I don't

think he quite understood,--but still--I did my best!"

He was silent. She had hidden her face again in her hands, and he heard

a sound of smothered sobbing.

"I think," he continued calmly, "that he has a great reverence for you

in his young heart--a feeling which partakes, perhaps, more of fear than

love--still it is better than--disdain--or--or disrespect. I shall

always teach him to esteem you highly,--but I think, as matters

stand--if I relieve you of all your responsibilities to husband and

son--you--Clara!--pray don't distress yourself--there's no occasion for

this--Clara--"

For on a sudden impulse she had flung herself at his feet in an

irrepressible storm of passionate weeping.

"Kill me, Harry!" she sobbed wildly, clinging to him. "Kill me! don't

speak to me like this!--don't leave me! Oh, my God! don't, don't despise

me so utterly! Hate me--curse me--strike me--do anything, but don't

leave me as if I were some low thing, unfit for your touch,--I know I

am, but oh, Harry! . . ." She clung to him more closely. "If you leave

me I will not live,--I cannot! Have you no pity? Why would you throw me

back alone--all, all alone, to die of your contempt and my shame!"

And she bowed her head in an agony of tears.

He looked down upon her a moment in silence.

"Your shame!" he murmured. "My wife--"

Then he raised her in his arms and drew her with a strange hesitation of

touch, to his breast, as though she were some sick or wounded child, and

watched her as she lay there weeping, her face hidden, her whole frame

trembling in his embrace.

"Poor soul!" he whispered, more to himself than to her. "Poor frail

woman! Hush, hush, Clara! The past is past! I'll make you no more

reproaches. I--I _can't_ hurt you, because I once so loved you--but

now--now,--what _is_ there left for me to do, but to leave you? You'll

be happier so--you'll have perfect liberty--you needn't even think of

me--unless, perhaps, as one dead and buried long ago--"

She raised herself in his arms and looked at him piteously.

"Won't you give me a chance?" she sobbed. "Not one? If I had but known

you better--if I had understood oh, I've been vile, wicked,

deceitful--but I'm not happy, Harry--I've never been happy since I

wronged you! Won't you give me one little hope that I may win your love

again,--no, not your love, but your pity? Oh, Harry, have I lost

all--all--"

Her voice broke--she could say no more.

He stroked her hair gently. "You speak on impulse just now, Clara," he

said gravely yet tenderly. "You can't know your own strength or

weakness. God forbid that _I_ should judge you harshly! As you wish it,

I will not leave you yet. I'll wait. Whether we part or remain together,

shall be decided by your own actions, your own looks, your own words.

You understand, Clara? You know my feelings. I'm content for the present

to place my fate in your hands." He smiled rather sadly. "But for love,

Clara--I fear nothing can be done to warm to life this poor perished

love of ours. We can, perhaps, take hands and watch its corpse patiently

together and say how sorry we are it is dead--such penitence comes

always too late!"

He sighed, and put her gently away from him.

She turned up her flushed, tear-stained face to his.

"Will you kiss me, Harry?" she asked tremblingly. He met her eyes, and

an exclamation that was almost a groan broke from his lips. A shudder

passed through his frame.

"I can't, Clara! I can't--God forgive me!--Not yet!" And with that he

bowed his head and left her.

She listened to the echo of his firm footsteps dying away, and creeping

guiltily to a side-door she opened it, and watched yearningly his

retreating figure till it had disappeared.

"Why did I never love him till now?" she murmured sobbingly. "Now, when

he despises me--when he will not even kiss me?--" She leaned against the

half-open door in an attitude of utter dejection, not caring to move,

listening intently with a vague hope of hearing her husband's returning

tread. A lighter step than his, however, came suddenly along from the

other side of the passage and startled her a little--it was Ernest,

looking the picture of boyish health and beauty. He was just going out

for his usual ride--he lifted his cap with a pretty courtesy as he saw

her, and said--

"Good-morning, mother!"

She looked at him with new interest,--how handsome the lad was!--how

fresh his face!--how joyously clear those bright blue eyes of his! He,

on his part, was moved by a novel sensation too--his mother,--his proud,

beautiful, careless mother had been crying--he saw that at a glance, and

his young heart beat faster when she laid her white hand, sparkling all

over with rings, on his arm and drew him closer to her.

"Are you going to the Park?" she asked gently.

"Yes." Then recollecting his training in politeness and obedience he

added instantly--"Unless you want me."

She smiled faintly. "I never do want you--do I, Ernest?" she asked half

sadly. "I never want my boy at all." Her voice quivered,--and Ernest

grew more and more astonished.

"If you do, I'll stay," he said stoutly, filled with a chivalrous desire

to console his so suddenly tender mother of his, whatever her griefs

might be. Her eyes filled again, but she tried to laugh.

"No dear--not now,--run along and enjoy yourself. Come to me when you

return. I shall be at home all day. And,--stop Ernest--won't you kiss

me?"

The boy opened his eyes wide in respectful wonderment, and his cheeks

flushed with surprise and pleasure.

"Why, mother--of course!" And his fresh, sweet lips closed on hers with

frank and unaffected heartiness. She held him fast for a moment and

looked at him earnestly.

"Tell your father you kissed me--will you?" she said. "Don't forget!"

And with that she waved her hand to him, and retreated again into her

own apartment. The boy went on his way somewhat puzzled and

bewildered--did his mother love him, after all? If so, he thought--how

glad he was!--how very glad! and what a pity he had not known it before!

CHAPTER XXIX.

"I heed not custom, creed, nor law;

I care for nothing that ever I saw--

I terribly laugh with an oath and sneer,

When I think that the hour of Death draws near!"

W. WINTER.

Errington's first idea, on leaving Winsleigh House, was to seek an

interview with Sir Francis Lennox, and demand an explanation. He could

not understand the man's motive for such detestable treachery and

falsehood. His anger rose to a white heat as he thought of it, and he

determined to "have it out" with him whatever the consequences might be.

"No apology will serve his turn," he muttered. "The scoundrel! He has

lied deliberately--and, by Jove, he shall pay for it!"

And he started off rapidly in the direction of Piccadilly, but on the

way he suddenly remembered that he had no weapon with him, not even a

cane wherewith to carry out his intention of thrashing Sir Francis, and

calling to mind a certain heavy horsewhip, that hung over the

mantel-piece in his own room, he hailed a hansom, and was driven back to

his house in order to provide himself with that implement of castigation

before proceeding further. On arriving at the door, to his surprise he

found Lorimer who was just about to ring the bell.

"Why, I thought you were in Paris?" he exclaimed.

"I came back last night," George began, when Morris opened the door, and

Errington, taking his friend by the arm hurried him into the house. In

five minutes he had unburdened himself of all his troubles--and had

explained the misunderstanding about Violet Vere and Thelma's consequent

flight. Lorimer listened with a look of genuine pain and distress on his

honest face.

"Phil, you _have_ been a fool!" he said candidly. "A positive fool, if

you'll pardon me for saying so. You ought to have told Thelma everything

at first,--she's the very last woman in the world who ought to be kept

in the dark about anything. Neville's feelings? Bother Neville's

feelings! Depend upon it the poor girl has heard all manner of stories.

She's been miserable for some time--Duprèz noticed it." And he related

in a few words the little scene that had taken place at Errington Manor

on the night of the garden-party, when his playing on the organ had

moved her to such unwonted emotion.

Philip heard him in moody silence,--how had it happened, he wondered,

that others,--comparative strangers,--had observed that Thelma looked

unhappy, while he, her husband, had been blind to it? He could not make

this out,--and yet it is a thing that very commonly happens. Our nearest

and dearest are often those who are most in the dark respecting our

private and personal sufferings,--we do not wish to trouble them,--and

they prefer to think that everything is right with us, even though the

rest of the world can plainly perceive that everything is wrong. To the

last moment they will refuse to see death in our faces, though the

veriest stranger meeting us casually, clearly beholds the shadow of the

dark Angel's hand.

"_Apropos_ of Lennox," went on Lorimer, sympathetically watching his

friend, "I came on purpose to speak to you about him. I've got some news

for you. He's a regular sneak and scoundrel. You can thrash him to your

heart's content for he has grossly insulted your wife."

"_Insulted_ her?" cried Errington furiously. "How,--What--"

"Give me time to speak!" And George laid a restraining hand on his arm.

"Thelma visited my mother yesterday and told her that on the night

before, when you had gone out, Lennox took advantage of your absence to

come here and make love to her,--and she actually had to struggle with

him, and even to strike him, in order to release herself from his

advances. My mother advised her to tell you about it--and she evidently

then had no intention of flight, for she said she would inform you of

everything as soon as you returned from the country. And if Lady

Winsleigh hadn't interfered, it's very probable that--I say, where are

you going?" This as Philip made a bound for the door.

"To get my horsewhip!" he answered.

"All right--I approve!" cried Lorimer. "But wait one instant, and see

how clear the plot becomes. Thelma's beauty had maddened Lennox,--to

gain her good opinion, as he thinks, he throws his mistress, Violet

Vere, on _your_ shoulders--(your ingenuous visits to the Brilliant

Theatre gave him a capital pretext for this) and as for Lady Winsleigh's

share in the mischief, it's nothing but mere feminine spite against you

for marrying at all, and hatred of the woman whose life is such a

contrast to her own, and who absorbs all your affection. Lennox has used

her as his tool and the Vere also, I've no doubt. The thing's as clear

as crystal. It's a sort of general misunderstanding all round--one of

those eminently unpleasant trifles that very frequently upset the peace

and comfort of the most quiet and inoffensive persons. But the fault

lies with _you_, dear old boy!"

"With _me_!" exclaimed Philip.

"Certainly! Thelma's soul is as open as daylight--you shouldn't have had

any secret from her, however trifling. She's not a woman 'on

guard,'--she can't take life as the most of us do, in military fashion,

with ears pricked for the approach of a spy, and prepared to expect

betrayal from her most familiar friends. She accepts things as they

appear, without any suspicion of mean ulterior designs. It's a pity, of

course!--it's a pity she can't be worldly-wise, and scheme and plot and

plan and lie like the rest of us! However, _your_ course is plain--first

interview Lennox and then follow Thelma. She can't have left Hull

yet,--there are scarcely any boats running to Norway at this season.

You'll overtake her I'm certain."

"By Jove, Lorimer!" said Errington suddenly. "Clara Winsleigh sticks at

nothing--do you know she actually had the impudence to suggest that

_you_,--you, of all people,--were in love with Thelma!"

Lorimer flushed up, but laughed lightly. "How awfully sweet of her! Much

obliged to her, I'm sure! And how did you take it Phil?"

"Take it? I didn't take it at all," responded Philip warmly. "Of course,

I knew it was only her spite--she'd say anything in one of her tempers."

Lorimer looked at him with a sudden tenderness in his blue eyes. Then he

laughed again, a little forcedly, and said--

"Be off, old man, and get that whip of yours! We'll run Lennox to earth.

Hullo! here's Britta!"

The little maid entered hurriedly at that moment,--she came to ask with

quivering lips, whether she might accompany Sir Philip in his intended

journey to Norway.

"For if you do not find the Fröken at Hull, you will want to reach the

Altenfjord," said Britta, folding hands resolutely in front of her

apron, "and you will not get on without me. You do not know what the

country is like in the depth of winter when the sun is asleep. You must

have the reindeer to help you--and no Englishman knows how to drive

reindeer. And--and--" here Britta's eyes filled--"you have not thought,

perhaps, that the journey may make the Fröken very ill--and that when we

find her--she may be dying--" and Britta's strength gave way in a big

sob that broke from the depths of her honest, affectionate heart.

"Don't--_don't_ talk like that, Britta!" cried Philip passionately. "I

can't bear it! Of course, you shall go with me! I wouldn't leave you

behind for the world! Get everything ready--" and in a fever of heat and

impatience he began rummaging among some books on a side-shelf, till he

found the time-tables he sought. "Yes,--here we are,--there's a train

leaving for Hull at five--we'll take that. Tell Morris to pack my

portmanteau, and you bring it along with you to the Midland

railway-station this afternoon. Do you understand?"

Britta nodded emphatically, and hurried off at once to busy herself with

these preparations, while Philip, all excitement, dashed off to give a

few parting injunctions to Neville, and to get his horsewhip.

Lorimer, left alone for a few minutes, seated himself in an easy chair

and began absently turning over the newspapers on the table. But his

thoughts were far away, and presently he covered his eyes with one hand

as though the light hurt them. When he removed it, his lashes were wet.

"What a fool I am!" he muttered impatiently. "Oh Thelma, Thelma! my

darling!--how I wish I could follow and find you and console you!--you

poor, tender, resigned soul, going away like this because you thought

you were not wanted--not wanted!--my God!--if you only knew how one man

at least has wanted and yearned for you ever since he saw your sweet

face!--Why can't I tear you out of my heart--why can't I love some one

else? Ah Phil!--good, generous, kind old Phil!--he little guesses," he

rose and paced the room up and down restlessly. "The fact is I oughtn't

to be here at all--I ought to leave England altogether for a long

time--till--till I get over it. The question is, _shall_ I ever get over

it? Sigurd was a wise boy--he found a short way out of all his

troubles,--suppose I imitate his example? No,--for a man in his senses

that would be rather cowardly--though it might be pleasant!" He stopped

in his walk with a pondering expression on his face. "At any rate, I

won't stop here to see her come back--I couldn't trust myself,--I should

say something foolish--I know I should! I'll take my mother to

Italy--she wants to go; and we'll stay with Lovelace. It'll be a

change--and I'll have a good stand-up fight with myself, and see if I

can't come off the conqueror somehow! It's all very well to kill an

opponent in battle but the question is, can a man kill his inner,

grumbling, discontented, selfish Self? If he can't, what's the good of

him?"

As he was about to consider this point reflectively, Errington entered,

equipped for travelling, and whip in hand. His imagination had been at

work during the past few minutes, exaggerating all the horrors and

difficulties of Thelma's journey to the Altenfjord, till he was in a

perfect fever of irritable excitement.

"Come on Lorimer!" he cried. "There's no time to lose! Britta knows what

to do--she'll meet me at the station. I can't breathe in this wretched

house a moment longer--let's be off!"

Plunging out into the hall, he bade Morris summon a hansom,--and with a

few last instructions to that faithful servitor, and an encouraging kind

word and shake of the hand to Neville, who with a face of remorseful

misery, stood at the door to watch his departure,--he was gone. The

hansom containing him and Lorimer rattled rapidly towards the abode of

Sir Francis Lennox, but on entering Piccadilly, the vehicle was

compelled to go so slowly on account of the traffic, that Errington, who

every moment grew more and more impatient, could not stand it.

"By Jove! this is like a walking funeral!" he muttered. "I say Lorimer,

let's get out! We can do the rest on foot."

They stopped the cabman and paid him his fare--then hurried along

rapidly, Errington every now and then giving a fiercer clench to the

formidable horsewhip which was twisted together with his ordinary

walking-stick in such a manner as not to attract special attention.

"Coward and liar!" he muttered, as he thought of the man he was about to

punish. "He shall pay for his dastardly falsehood--by Jove he shall!

It'll be a precious long time before he shows himself in society any

more!"

Then he addressed Lorimer. "You may depend upon it he'll shout 'police!

police!' and make for the door," he observed. "You keep your back

against it, Lorimer! I don't care how many fines I've got to pay as long

as I can thrash him soundly!"

"All right!" Lorimer answered, and they quickened their pace. As they

neared the chambers which Sir Francis Lennox rented over a fashionable

jeweller's shop, they became aware of a small procession coming straight

towards them from the opposite direction. _Something_ was being carried

between four men who appeared to move with extreme care and

gentleness,--this something was surrounded by a crowd of boys and men

whose faces were full of morbid and frightened interest--the whole

_cortége_ was headed by a couple of solemn policemen. "You spoke of a

walking funeral just now," said Lorimer suddenly. "This looks uncommonly

like one."

Errington made no reply--he had only one idea in his mind,--the

determination to chastise and thoroughly disgrace Sir Francis. "I'll

hound him out of the clubs!" he thought indignantly. "His own set shall

know what a liar he is--and if I can help it he shall never hold up his

head again!"

Entirely occupied as he was with these reflections, he paid no heed to

anything that was going on in the street, and he scarcely heard

Lorimer's last observation. So that he was utterly surprised and taken

aback, when he, with Lorimer, was compelled to come to a halt before the

very door of the jeweller, Lennox's landlord, while the two policemen

cleared a passage through the crowd, saying in low tones, "Stand aside,

gentlemen, please!--stand aside," thus making gradual way for four

bearers, who, as was now plainly to be seen, carried a common wooden

stretcher covered with a cloth, under which lay what seemed, from its

outline, to be a human figure.

"What's the matter here?" asked Lorimer, with a curious cold thrill

running through him as he put the simple question.

One of the policemen answered readily enough.

"An accident, sir. Gentleman badly hurt. Down at Charing Cross

Station--tried to jump into a train when it had started,--foot

caught,--was thrown under the wheels and dragged along some

distance--doctor says he can't live, sir."

"Who is he,--what's his name?"

"Lennox, sir--leastways, that's the name on his card--and this is the

address. Sir Francis Lennox, I believe it is."

Errington uttered a sharp exclamation of horror,--at that moment the

jeweller came out of the recesses of his shop with uplifted hands and

bewildered countenance.

"An accident? Good Heavens!--Sir Francis! Up-stairs!--take him

up-stairs!" Here he addressed the bearers. "You should have gone round

to the private entrance--he mustn't be seen in the shop--frightening

away all my customers--here, pass through!--pass through, as quick as

you can!"

And they did pass through,--carrying their crushed burden tenderly along

by the shining glass cases and polished counters, where glimmered and

flashed jewels of every size and lustre for the adorning of the children

of this world,--slowly and carefully, step by step, they reached the

upper floor,--and there, in a luxurious apartment furnished with almost

feminine elegance, they lifted the inanimate form from the stretcher and

laid it down, still shrouded, on a velvet sofa, removing the last number

of _Truth_, and two of Zola's novels, to make room for the heavy,

unconscious head.

Errington and Lorimer stood at the doorway, completely overcome by the

suddenness of the event--they had followed the bearers up-stairs almost

mechanically,--exchanging no word or glance by the way,--and now they

watched in almost breathless suspense while a surgeon who was present,

gently turned back the cover that hid the injured man's features and

exposed them to full view. Was _that_ Sir Francis? that blood-smeared,

mangled creature?--_that_ the lascivious dandy,--the disciple of

no-creed and self-worship? Errington shuddered and averted his gaze from

that hideous face,--so horribly contorted,--yet otherwise deathlike in

its rigid stillness. There was a grave hush. The surgeon still bent over

him--touching here, probing there, with tenderness and skill,--but

finally he drew back with a hopeless shake of his head.

"Nothing can be done," he whispered. "Absolutely nothing!"

At that moment Sir Francis stirred,--he groaned and opened his

eyes;--what terrible eyes they were, filled with that look of intense

anguish, and something worse than anguish,--fear--frantic fear--coward

fear--fear that was almost more overpowering than his bodily suffering.

He stared wildly at the little group assembled--strange faces, so far as

he could make them out, that regarded him with evident compassion,--what

--what was all this--what did it mean? Death? No, no! he thought madly,

while his brain reeled with the idea--death? What _was_ death?--darkness,

annihilation, blackness--all that was horrible--unimaginable! God! he

would _not_ die! God!--who _was_ God? No matter--he would live;--he

would struggle against this heaviness,--this coldness--this pillar of

ice in which he was being slowly frozen--frozen--frozen!--inch by--inch!

He made a furious effort to move, and uttered a scream of agony, stabbed

through and through by torturing pain.

"Keep still!" said the surgeon pityingly.

Sir Francis heard him not. He wrestled with his bodily anguish till the

perspiration stood in large drops on his forehead. He raised himself,

gasping for breath, and glared about him like a trapped beast of prey.

"Give me brandy!" he muttered chokingly. "Quick--quick! Are you going to

let me die like a dog?--damn you all!"

The effort to move,--to speak,--exhausted his sinking strength--his

throat rattled,--he clenched his fists and made as though he would

spring off his couch--when a fearful contortion convulsed his whole

body,--his eyes rolled up and became fixed--he fell heavily

back,--_dead_!

Quietly the surgeon covered again what was now nothing,--nothing but a

mutilated corpse.

"It's all over!" he announce briefly.

Errington heard these words in sickened silence. All over! Was it

possible? So soon? All over!--and he had come too late to punish the

would-be ravisher of his wife's honor,--too late! He still held the whip

in his hand with which he had meant to chastise that--that distorted,

mangled lump of clay yonder, . . . pah! he could not bear to think of

it, and he turned away, faint and dizzy. He felt,--rather than saw the

staircase,--down which he dreamily went, followed by Lorimer.

The two policemen were in the hall scribbling the cut-and-dry

particulars of the accident in their note-books, which having done, they

marched off, attended by a wandering, bilious-looking penny-a-liner who

was anxious to write a successful account of the "Shocking Fatality," as

it was called in the next day's newspapers. Then the bearers departed

cheerfully, carrying with them the empty stretcher. Then the jeweller,

who seemed quite unmoved respecting the sudden death of his lodger,

chatted amicably with the surgeon about the reputation and various

demerits of the deceased,--and Errington and Lorimer, as they passed

through the shop, heard him speaking of a person hitherto unheard of,

namely, Lady Francis Lennox, who had been deserted by her husband for

the past six years, and who was living uncomplainingly the life of an

art-student in Germany with her married sister, maintaining, by the work

of her own hands, her one little child, a boy of five.

"He never allowed her a farthing," said the conversational jeweller.

"And she never asked him for one. Mr. Wiggins, his lawyer--firm of

Wiggins & Whizzer, Furnival's Inn,--told me all about his affairs. Oh

yes--he was a regular "masher"--tip-top! Not worth much, I should say.

He must have spent over a thousand a year in keeping up that little

place at St. John's Wood for Violet Vere. He owes me five hundred.

However, Mr. Wiggins will see everything fair, I've no doubt. I've just

wired to him, announcing the death. I don't suppose any one will regret

him--except, perhaps, the woman at St. John's Wood. But I believe she's

playing for a bigger stake just now." And, stimulated by this thought,

he drew out from a handsome morocco case a superb pendant of emeralds

and diamonds--a work of art, that glittered as he displayed it, like a

star on a frosty night.

"Pretty thing, isn't it?" he said proudly. "Eight hundred pounds, and

cheap, too! It was ordered for Miss Vere, two months ago, by the Duke of

Moorlands. I see he sold his collection of pictures the other day.

Luckily they fetched a tidy sum, so I'm pretty sure of the money for

this. He'll sell everything he's got to please her. Queer? Oh, not at

all! She's the rage just now,--I can't see anything in her myself,--but

I'm not a duke, you see--I'm obliged to be respectable!"

He laughed as he returned the pendant to its nest of padded amber satin,

and Errington,--sick at heart to hear such frivolous converse going on

while that crushed and lifeless form lay in the very room

above,--unwatched, uncared-for,--put his arm through Lorimer's and left

the shop.

Once in the open street, with the keen, cold air blowing against their

faces, they looked at each other blankly. Piccadilly was crowded; the

hurrying people passed and re-passed,--there were the shouts of omnibus

conductors and newsboys--the laughter of young men coming out of the St.

James's Hall Restaurant; all was as usual,--as, indeed, why should it

not? What matters the death of one man in a million? unless, indeed, it

be a man whose life, like a torch, uplifted in darkness, has enlightened

and cheered the world,--but the death of a mere fashionable "swell"

whose chief talent has been a trick of lying gracefully--who cares for

such a one? Society is instinctively relieved to hear that his place is

empty, and shall know him more. But Errington could not immediately

forget the scene he had witnessed. He was overcome by sensations of

horror,--even of pity,--and he walked by his friend's side for some time

in silence.

"I wish I could get rid of this thing!" he said suddenly, looking down

at the horsewhip in his hand.

Lorimer made no answer. He understood his feeling, and realized the

situation as sufficiently grim. To be armed with a weapon meant for the

chastisement of a man whom Death had so suddenly claimed was, to say the

least of it, unpleasant. Yet the horsewhip could scarcely be thrown away

in Piccadilly--such an action might attract notice and comment.

Presently Philip spoke again.

"He was actually married all the time!"

"So it seems;" and Lorimer's face expressed something very like

contempt. "By Jove, Phil! he must have been an awful scoundrel!"

"Don't let's say any more about him--he's dead!" and Philip quickened

his steps. "And what a horrible death!"

"Horrible enough, indeed!"

Again they were both silent. Mechanically they turned down towards Pall

Mall.

"George," said Errington, with a strange awe in his tones, "it seems to

me to-day as if there were death in the air. I don't believe in

presentiments, but yet--yet I cannot help thinking--what if I should

find my Thelma--_dead_?"

Lorimer turned very pale--a cold shiver ran through him, but he

endeavored to smile.

"For God's sake, old fellow, don't think of anything so terrible! Look

here, you're hipped--no wonder! and you've got a long journey before

you. Come and have lunch. It's just two o'clock. Afterwards we'll go to

the Garrick and have a chat with Beau Lovelace--he's a first-rate fellow

for looking on the bright side of everything. Then I'll see you off this

afternoon at the Midland--what do you say?"

Errington assented to this arrangement, and tried to shake off the

depression that had settled upon him, though dark forebodings passed one

after the other like clouds across his mind. He seemed to see the

Altenguard hills stretching drearily, white with frozen snow, around the

black Fjord; he pictured Thelma, broken-hearted, fancying herself

deserted, returning through the cold and darkness to the lonely

farm-house behind the now withered pines. Then he began to think of the

shell-cave where that other Thelma lay hidden in her last deep

sleep,--the wailing words of Sigurd came freshly back to his ears, when

the poor crazed lad had likened Thelma's thoughts to his favorite

flowers, the pansies--"One by one you will gather and play with her

thoughts as though they were these blossoms; your burning hand will mar

their color--they will wither and furl up and die,--and you--what will

you care? Nothing! No man ever cares for a flower that is withered,--not

even though his own hand slew it!"

Had he been to blame? he mused, with a sorrowful weight at his heart.

Unintentionally, had he,--yes, he would put it plainly,--had he

neglected her, just a little? Had he not, with all his true and

passionate love for her, taken her beauty, her devotion, her obedience

too much for granted--too much as his right? And in these latter months,

when her health had made her weaker and more in need of his tenderness,

had he not, in a sudden desire for political fame and worldly honor,

left her too much alone, a prey to solitude and the often morbid musings

which solitude engenders?

He began to blame himself heartily for the misunderstanding that had

arisen out of his share in Neville's unhappy secret. Neville had been

weak and timid,--he had shrunk nervously from avowing that the notorious

Violet Vere was actually the woman he had so faithfully loved and

mourned,--but he, Philip, ought not to have humored him in these

fastidious scruples--he ought to have confided everything to Thelma. He

remembered now that he had once or twice been uneasy lest rumors of his

frequent visits to Miss Vere might possibly reach his wife's ears,--but,

then, as his purpose was absolutely disinterested and harmless, he did

not dwell on this idea, but dismissed it, and held his peace for

Neville's sake, contenting himself with the thought that, "If Thelma

_did_ hear anything, she would never believe a word against me."

He could not quite see where his fault had been,--though a fault there

was somewhere, as he uneasily felt--and he would no doubt have started

indignantly had a small elf whispered in his ear the word "_Conceit._"

Yet that was the name of his failing--that and no other. How many men,

otherwise noble-hearted, are seriously, though often unconsciously,

burdened with this large parcel of blown-out Nothing! Sir Philip did not

appear to be conceited--he would have repelled the accusation with

astonishment,--not knowing that in his very denial of the fault, the

fault existed. He had never been truly humbled but twice in his

life,--once as he knelt to receive his mother's dying benediction,--and

again when he first loved Thelma, and was uncertain whether his love

could be returned by so fair and pure a creature. With these two

exceptions, all his experience had tended to give him an excellent

opinion of himself,--and that he should possess one of the best and

loveliest wives in the world, seemed to him quite in keeping with the

usual course of things. The feeling that it was a sheer impossibility

for her to ever believe a word against him, rose out of this inward

self-satisfaction--this one flaw in his otherwise bright, honest, and

lovable character--a flaw of which he himself was not aware. Now, when

for the third time his fairy castle of perfect peace and pleasure seemed

shaken to its foundations,--when he again realized the uncertainty of

life or death, he felt bewildered and wretched. His chiefest pride was

centred in Thelma, and she--was gone! Again he reverted to the miserable

idea that, like a melancholy refrain, haunted him--"What if I should

find her _dead_!"

Absorbed in painful reflections, he was a very silent companion for

Lorimer during the luncheon which they took at a quiet little restaurant

well known to the _habitués_ of Pall Mall and Regent Street. Lorimer

himself had his own reasons for being equally depressed and

anxious,--for did he not love Thelma as much as even her husband

could?--nay, perhaps more, knowing his love was hopeless. Not always

does possession of the adored object strengthen the adoration,--the

rapturous dreams of an ideal passion have often been known to surpass

reality a thousandfold. So the two friends exchanged but few

words,--though they tried to converse cheerfully on indifferent

subjects, and failed in the attempt. They had nearly finished their

light repast, when a familiar voice saluted them.

"It _is_ Errington,--I thocht I couldna be mistaken! How are ye both?"

Sandy Macfarlane stood before them, unaltered, save that his scanty

beard had grown somewhat longer. They had seen nothing of him since

their trip to Norway, and they greeted him now with unaffected

heartiness, glad of the distraction his appearance afforded them.

"Where do you hail from, Mac?" asked Lorimer, as he made the new-comer

sit down at their table. "We haven't heard of you for an age."

"It _is_ a goodish bit of time," assented Macfarlane, "but better late

than never. I came up to London a week ago from Glasgie,--and my heed

has been in a whirl ever since. Eh, mon! but it's an awful place!--maybe

I'll get used to't after a wee whilie."

"Are you going to settle here, then?" inquired Errington, "I thought you

intended to be a minister somewhere in Scotland?"

Macfarlane smiled, and his eyes twinkled.

"I hae altered ma opee-nions a bit," he said. "Ye see, ma aunt in

Glasgie's deed--"

"I understand," laughed Lorimer. "You've come in for the old lady's

money?"

"Puir body!" and Sandy shook his head gravely. "A few hours before she

died she tore up her will in a screamin' fury o' Christian charity and

forethought,--meanin' to mak anither in favor o' leavin' a' her warld's

trash to the Fund for Distributin' Bible Knowledge among the

Heathen--but she never had time to fulfill her intention. She went off

like a lamb,--and there being no will, her money fell to me, as the

nearest survivin' relative--eh! the puir thing!--if her dees-imbodied

spirit is anywhere aboot, she must be in a sair plight to think I've got

it, after a' her curses!"

"How much?" asked Lorimer amused.

"Oh, just a fair seventy thousand or so," answered Macfarlane

carelessly.

"Well done, Mac!" said Errington, with a smile, endeavoring to appear

interested. "You're quite rich, then? I congratulate you!"

"Riches are a snare," observed Macfarlane, sententiously, "a snare and a

decoy to both soul and body!" He laughed and rubbed his hands,--then

added with some eagerness, "I say, how is Lady Errington?"

"She's very well," answered Sir Philip hurriedly, exchanging a quick

look with Lorimer, which the latter at once understood. "She's away on a

visit just now. I'm going to join her this afternoon."

"I'm sorry she's away," said Sandy, and he looked very disappointed;

"but I'll see her when she comes back. Will she be long absent?"

"No, not long--a few days only"--and as Errington said this an

involuntary sigh escaped him.

A few days only!--God grant it! But what--what if he should find her

_dead_?

Macfarlane noticed the sadness of his expression, but prudently forbore

to make any remark upon it. He contented himself with saying--

"Weel, ye've got a wife worth having--as I dare say ye know. I shall be

glad to pay my respects to her as soon as she returns. I've got your

address, Errington--will ye take mine?"

And he handed him a small card on which was written in pencil the number

of a house in one of the lowest streets in the East-end of London.

Philip glanced at it with some surprise.

"Is _this_ where you live?" he asked with emphatic amazement.

"Yes. It's just the cleanest tenement I could find in that neighborhood.

And the woman that keeps it is fairly respectable."

"But with your money," remonstrated Lorimer, who also looked at the

card, "I rather wonder at your choice of abode. Why, my dear fellow, do

you _know_ what sort of a place it is?"

A steadfast, earnest, _thinking_ look came into Macfarlane's deep-set,

grey eyes.

"Yes, I do know, pairfectly," he said in answer to the question. "It's a

place where there's misery, starvation, and crime of all sorts,--and

there I am in the very midst of it--just where I want to be. Ye see, I

was meant to be a meenister--one of those douce, cannie, comfortable

bodies that drone in the pulpit about predestination and original sin,

and so forth a--sort, of palaver that does no good to ony resonable

creature--an' if I had followed out this profession, I make nae doot

that, with my aunt's seventy thousand, I should be a vera comfortable,

respectable, selfish type of a man, who was decently embarked in an

apparently important but really useless career--"

"Useless?" interrupted Lorimer archly. "I say, Mac, take care! A

minister of the Lord, _useless_!"

"I'm thinkin' there are unco few meen-isters o' the Lord in this warld,"

said Macfarlane musingly. "Maist o' them meen-ister to themselves, an'

care na a wheen mair for Christ than Buddha. I tell ye, I was an altered

man after we'd been to Norway--the auld pagan set me thinkin' mony an'

mony a time--for, ma certes! he's better worthy respect than mony a

so-called Christian. And as for his daughter--the twa great blue eyes

o' that lassie made me fair ashamed o' mysel'. Why? Because I felt that

as a meen-ister o' the Established Kirk, I was bound to be a sort o'

heep-ocrite,--ony thinkin', reasonable man wi' a conscience canna be

otherwise wi' they folk,--and ye ken, Errington, there's something in

your wife's look that maks a body hesitate before tellin' a lee.

Weel--what wi' her face an' the auld _bonde's_ talk, I reflectit that I

couldna be a meen-ister as meen-isters go,--an' that I must e'en follow

oot the Testament's teachings according to ma own way of thinkin'.

First, I fancied I'd rough it abroad as a meesionary--then I remembered

the savages at hame, an' decided to attend to them before onything else.

Then my aunt's siller came in handy--in short, I'm just gaun to live on

as wee a handfu' o' the filthy lucre as I can, an' lay oot the rest on

the heathens o' London. An' it's as well to do't while I'm alive to see

to't mysel'--for I've often observed that if ye leave your warld's gear

to the poor when ye're deed, just for the gude reason that ye canna tak

it to the grave wi' ye,--it'll melt in a wonderfu' way through the hands

o' the 'secretaries' an' 'distributors' o' the fund, till there's

naething left for those ye meant to benefit. Ye maunna think I'm gaun to

do ony preachin' business down at East-end,--there's too much o' that

an' tract-givin' already. The puir soul whose wee hoosie I've rented

hadna tasted bit nor sup for three days--till I came an' startled her

into a greetin' fit by takin' her rooms an' payin' her in advance--eh!

mon, ye'd have thought I was a saint frae heaven if ye'd heard her

blessin' me,--an' a gude curate had called on her just before and had

given her a tract to dine on. Ye see, I maun mak mysel' a _friend_ to

the folk first, before I can do them gude--I maun get to the heart o'

their troubles--an' troubles are plentiful in that quarter,--I maun live

among them, an' be ane o' them. I wad mind ye that Christ Himsel' gave

sympathy to begin with,--he did the preachin' afterwards."

"What a good fellow you are, Mac!" said Errington, suddenly seeing his

raw Scotch friend with the perverse accent, in quite a new and heroic

light.

Macfarlane actually blushed. "Nonsense, not a bit o't!" he declared

quite nervously. "It's just pure selfishness, after a'--for I'm simply

enjoyin' mysel' the hale day long. Last nicht, I found a wee cripple o'

a laddie sittin' by himsel' in the gutter, munchin' a potato skin. I just

took him,--he starin' an' blinkin' like an owl at me,--and carried him

into my room. There I gave him a plate o' barley broth, an' finished him

up wi' a hunk o' gingerbread. Ma certes! Ye should ha' seen the rascal

laugh. 'Twas better than lookin' at a play from a ten-guinea box on the

grand tier!"

"By Jove, Sandy, you're a brick!" cried Lorimer, laughing to hide a very

different emotion--"I had no idea you were that sort of chap."

"Nor had I," said Macfarlane quite simply--"I never fashed mysel' wi'

thinkin' o' ither folks troubles at a'--I never even took into

conseederation the meanin' o' the Testament teachings till--I saw your

leddy wife, Errington." He paused a moment, then added gravely--"Yes--and

I've aften fancied she maun be a real live angel,--an' I've sought

always to turn my hand to something useful and worth the doin',--ever

since I met her."

"I'll tell her so," said poor Philip, his heart aching for his lost love

as he spoke, though he smiled. "It will give her pleasure to hear it."

Macfarlane blushed again like any awkward schoolboy.

"Oh, I dinna ken aboot that!" he said hurriedly. "She's just a grand

woman anyway." Then, bethinking himself of another subject, he asked,

"Have you heard o' the Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy lately?"

Errington and Lorimer replied in the negative.

Macfarlane laughed--his eyes twinkled. "It's evident ye never read

police reports," he said--"Talk o' misters,--he's a pretty specimen!

He's been hunted out o' his place in Yorkshire for carryin' on

love-affairs wi' the women o' his congregation. One day he locked

himsel' in the vestry wi' the new-married wife o' one o' his preencipal

supporters--an' he had a grand time of it--till the husband came an'

dragged him oot an' thrashed him soundly. Then he left the

neighborhood--an' just th' ither day--he turned up in Glasgie."

Macfarlane paused and laughed again.

"Well?" said Lorimer, with some interest--"Did you meet him there?"

"That did I--but no to speak to him--he was for too weel lookit after to

need my services," and Macfarlane rubbed his great hands together with

an irrepressible chuckle. "There was a crowd o' hootin' laddies round

him, an' he was callin' on the heavens to bear witness to his purity.

His hat was off--an' he had a black eye--an' a' his coat was covered wi'

mud, an' a policeman was embracin' him vera affectionately by th' arm.

He was in charge for drunken, disorderly, an' indecent conduct--an' the

magistrate cam' down pretty hard on him. The case proved to be

exceptionally outrageous--so he's sentenced to a month's imprisonment

an' hard labor. Hard labor! Eh, mon! but that's fine! Fancy him at

work--at real work for the first time in a' his days! Gude Lord! I can

see him at it!"

"So he's come to that!" and Errington shrugged his shoulders with weary

contempt. "I thought he would. His career as a minister is ended, that's

one comfort!"

"Don't be too sure o' that!" said Sandy cautiously. "There's always

America, ye ken. He can mak' a holy martyr o' himsel' there! He may gain

as muckle a reputation as Henry Ward Beecher--ye canna ever tell what may

happen--'tis a queer warld!"

"Queer, indeed!" assented Lorimer as they all rose and left the

restaurant together. "If our present existence is the result of a

fortuitous conglomeration of atoms,--I think the atoms ought to have

been more careful what they were about, that's all I can say!"

They reached the open street, where Macfarlane shook hands and went his

way, promising to call on Errington as soon as Thelma should be again at

home.

"He's turned out quite a fine fellow," said Lorimer, when he had gone.

"I should never have thought he had so much in him. He has become a

philanthropist."

"I fancy he's better than an ordinary philanthropist," replied Philip.

"Philanthropists often talk a great deal and do nothing."

"Like members of Parliament," suggested Lorimer, with a smile.

"Exactly so. By-the-by--I've resigned my candidateship."

"Resigned? Why?"

"Oh, I'm sick of the thing! One has to be such a humbug to secure one's

votes. I had a wretched time yesterday,--speechifying and trying to

rouse up clodhoppers to the interests of their country,--and all the

time my darling at home was alone, and breaking her heart about me! By

Jove! if I'd only known! When I came back this morning to all this

misery--I told Neville to send in my resignation. I repeated the same

thing to him the last thing before I left the house."

"But you might have waited a day or two," said Lorimer wonderingly.

"You're such a fellow of impulse, Phil--"

"Well, I can't help it. I'm tired of politics. I began with a will,

fancying that every member of the house had his country's interests at

heart,--not a bit of it! They're all for themselves--most of them, at

any rate--they're not even sincere in their efforts to do good to the

population. And it's all very well to stick up for the aristocracy; but

why, in Heaven's name, can't some of the wealthiest among them do as

much as our old Mac is doing, for the outcast and miserable poor? I see

some real usefulness and good in _his_ work, and I'll help him in it

with a will--when--when Thelma comes back."

Thus talking, the two friends reached the Garrick Club, where they found

Beau Lovelace in the reading-room, turning over some new books with the

curious smiling air of one who believes there can be nothing original

under the sun, and that all literature is mere repetition. He greeted

them cheerfully.

"Come out of here," he said. "Come into a place where we can talk.

There's an old fellow over there who's ready to murder any member who

even whispers. We won't excite his angry passions. You know we're all

literature-mongers here,--we've each got our own little particular stall

where we sort our goods--our mouldy oranges, sour apples, and

indigestible nuts,--and we polish them up to look tempting to the

public. It's a great business, and we can't bear to be looked at while

we're turning our apples with the best side outwards, and boiling our

oranges to make them swell and seem big! We like to do our humbug in

silence and alone."

He led the way into the smoking-room--and there heard with much surprise

and a great deal of concern the story of Thelma's flight.

"Ingenuous boy!" he said kindly, clapping Philip on the shoulder. "How

could you be such a fool as to think that repeated visits to Violet

Vere, no matter on what business, would not bring the dogs of scandal

yelping about your heels! I wonder you didn't see how you were

compromising yourself!"

"He never told _me_ a word about it," interposed Lorimer, "or else I

should have given him a bit of my mind on the subject."

"Of course!" agreed Lovelace. "And--excuse me--why the devil didn't you

let your secretary manage his domestic squabbles by himself?"

"He's very much broken down," said Errington. "A hopeless, frail,

disappointed man. I thought I could serve him--"

"I see!" and Beau's eyes were bent on him with a very friendly look.

"You're a first-rate fellow, Errington,--but you shouldn't fly off so

readily on the rapid wings of impulse. Now I suppose you want to shoot

Lennox--that can't be done--not in England at any rate."

"It can't be done at all, anywhere," said Lorimer gravely. "He's dead."

Beau Lovelace started back in amazement. "Dead! You don't say so! Why,

he was dining last night at the Criterion--I saw him there."

Briefly they related the sudden accident that had occurred, and

described its fatal result.

"He died horribly!" said Philip in a low voice. "I haven't got over it

yet. That evil, tortured face of his haunts me."

Lovelace was only slightly shocked. He had known Lennox's life too well,

and had despised it too thoroughly, to feel much regret now it was thus

abruptly ended.

"Rather an unpleasant exit for such a fellow," he remarked. "Not

aesthetic at all. And so you were going to castigate him?"

"Look!" and Philip showed him the horsewhip; "I've been carrying this

thing about all day,--I wish I could drop it in the streets; but if I

did, some one would be sure to pick it up and return it to me."

"If it were a purse containing bank-notes you could drop it with the

positive certainty of never seeing it again," laughed Beau. "Here, hand

it over!" and he possessed himself of it. "I'll keep it till you come

back. You leave for Norway to-night, then?"

"Yes. If I can. But it's the winter season--and there'll be all manner

of difficulties. I'm afraid it's no easy matter to reach the Altenfjord

at this time of year."

"Why not use your yacht, and be independent of obstacles?" suggested

Lovelace.

"She's under repairs, worse luck!" sighed Philip despondingly. "She

won't be in sailing condition for another month. No--I must take my

chance--that's all. It's possible I may overtake Thelma at Hull--that's

my great hope."

"Well, don't be down in the mouth about it, my boy!" said Beau

sympathetically. "It'll all come right, depend upon it! Your wife's a

sweet, gentle, noble creature,--and when once she knows all about the

miserable mistake that has arisen, I don't know which will be greatest,

her happiness or her penitence, for having misunderstood the position.

Now let's have some coffee."

He ordered this refreshment from a passing waiter, and as he did so, a

gentleman, with hands clasped behind his back, and a suave smile on his

countenance, bowed to him with marked and peculiar courtesy as he

sauntered on his way through the room. Beau returned the salute with

equal politeness.

"That's Whipper," he explained with a smile, when the gentleman was out

of earshot. "The best and most generous of men! He's a critic--all

critics are large-minded and generous, we know,--but he happens to be

remarkably so. He did me the kindest turn I ever had in my life. When my

first book came out, he fell upon it tooth and claw, mangled it, tore it

to ribbons, metaphorically speaking,--and waved the fragments mockingly

in the eyes of the public. From that day my name was made--my writings

sold off with delightful rapidity, and words can never tell how I

blessed, and how I still bless, Whipper! He always pitches into

me--that's what's so good of him! We're awfully polite to each other, as

you observe--and what is so perfectly charming is that he's quite

unconscious how much he's helped me along! He's really a first-rate

fellow. But I haven't yet attained the summit of my ambition,"--and here

Lovelace broke off with a sparkle of fun in his clear steel-grey eyes.

"Why, what else do you want?" asked Lorimer laughing.

"I want," returned Beau solemnly, "I want to be jeered at by _Punch_! I

want _Punch_ to make mouths at me, and give me the benefit of his

inimitable squeak and gibber. No author's fame is quite secure till dear

old _Punch_ has abused him. Abuse is the thing nowadays, you know.

Heaven forbid that I should be praised by _Punch_. That would be

frightfully unfortunate!"

Here the coffee arrived, and Lovelace dispensed it to his friends,

talking gaily the while in an effort to distract Errington from his

gloomy thoughts.

"I've just been informed on respectable authority, that Walt Whitman is

the new Socrates," he said laughingly. "I felt rather stunned at the

moment but I've got over it now. Oh, this deliciously mad London! what a

gigantic Colney Hatch it is for the crazed folk of the world to air

their follies in! That any reasonable Englishmen with such names as

Shakespeare, Byron, Keats, and Shelley, to keep the glory of their

country warm, should for one moment consider Walt Whitman a _poet_! Ye

gods! Where are your thunderbolts!"

"He's an American, isn't he?" asked Errington.

"He is, my dear boy! An American whom the sensible portion of America

rejects. We, therefore,--out of opposition,--take him up. His

chief recommendation is that he writes blatantly concerning

commonplaces,--regardless of music or rhythm. Here's a bit of him

concerning the taming of oxen. He says the tamer lives in a

"'Placid pastoral region.

There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds

to break them,--

Some are such beautiful animals, so lofty looking,--some are

buff-colored, some mottled, one has a white line running

along his back, some are brindled,

Some have wide flaring horns (a good sign!) look you! the bright

hides

See the two with stars on their foreheads--see the round bodies

and broad backs

How straight and square they stand on their legs--'"

"Stop, stop!" cried Lorimer, putting his hands to his ears. "This is a

practical joke, Beau! No one would call that jargon poetry!"

"Oh! wouldn't they though!" exclaimed Lovelace. "Let some critic of

reputation once start the idea, and you'll have the good London folk who

won't bother to read him for themselves, declaring him as fine as

Shakespeare. The dear English muttons! fine Southdowns! fleecy

baa-lambs! once let the Press-bell tinkle loudly enough across the

fields of literature, and they'll follow, bleating sweetly in any

direction! The sharpest heads in our big metropolis are those who know

this, and who act accordingly."

"Then why don't _you_ act accordingly?" asked Errington, with a faint

smile.

"Oh, I? I can't! I never asked a favor from the Press in my life--but

its little bell has tinkled for me all the same, and a few of the

muttons follow, but not all. Are you off?" this, as they rose to take

their leave. "Well, Errington, old fellow," and he shook hands warmly,

"a pleasant journey to you, and a happy return home! My best regards to

your wife. Lorimer, have you settled whether you'll go with me to Italy?

I start the day after to-morrow."

Lorimer hesitated--then said, "All right! My mother's delighted at the

idea,--yes, Beau! we'll come. Only I hope we shan't bore you."

"Bore me! you know me better than that," and he accompanied them out of

the smoking-room into the hall, while Errington, a little surprised at

this sudden arrangement, observed--

"Why, George--I thought you'd be here when we came back from

Norway--to--to welcome Thelma, you know!"

George laughed. "My dear boy, I shan't be wanted! Just let me know how

everything goes on. You--you see, I'm in duty bound to take my mother

out of London in winter."

"Just so!" agreed Lovelace, who had watched him narrowly while he spoke.

"Don't grudge the old lady her southern sunshine. Errington! Lorimer

wants brushing up a bit too--he looks seedy. Then I shall consider it

settled--the day after to-morrow, we meet at Charing Cross--morning

tidal express, of course,--never go by night service across the Channel

if you can help it."

Again they shook hands and parted.

"Best thing that young fellow can do!" thought Lovelace as he returned

to the Club reading-room. "The sooner he gets out of this, into new

scenes the better,--he's breaking his heart over the beautiful Thelma.

By Jove! the boy's eyes looked like those of a shot animal whenever her

name was mentioned. He's rather badly hit!"

He sat down and began to meditate. "What can I do for him, I wonder?" he

thought. "Nothing, I suppose. A love of that sort can't be remedied.

It's a pity--a great pity! And I don't know any woman likely to make a

counter-impression on him. He'd never put up with an Italian beauty"--he

paused in his reflections, and the color flushed his broad, handsome

brow, as the dazzling vision of a sweet, piquant face with liquid dark

eyes and rippling masses of rich brown hair came flitting before

him--"unless he saw Angela," he murmured to himself softly,--"and he

will not see her,--besides, Angela loves _me_!"

And after this, his meditations seemed to be particularly pleasant, to

judge from the expression of his features. Beau was by no means ignorant

of the tender passion--he had his own little romance, as beautiful and

bright as a summer day--but he had resolved that London, with its love

of gossip, its scandal, and society papers,--London, that on account of

his popularity as a writer, watched his movements and chronicled his

doings in the most authoritative and incorrect manner,--London should

have no chance of penetrating into the secret of his private life. And

so far he had succeeded--and was likely still to succeed.

Meanwhile, as he still sat in blissful reverie, pretending to read a

newspaper, though his thoughts were far away from it, Errington and

Lorimer arrived at the Midland Station. Britta was already there with

the luggage,--she was excited and pleased--her spirits had risen at the

prospect of seeing her mistress soon again,--possibly, she thought

gladly, they might find her at Hull,--they might not have to go to

Norway at all. The train came up to the platform--the tickets were

taken,--and Sir Philip, with Britta, entered--a first-class compartment,

while Lorimer stood outside leaning with folded arms on the

carriage-window, talking cheerfully.

"You'll find her all right, Phil, I'm positive!" he said. "I think it's

very probable she has been compelled to remain at Hull,--and even at the

worst, Britta can guide you all over Norway, if necessary. Nothing will

daunt _her_!"

And he nodded kindly to the little maid who had regained her rosy color

and the sparkle of her eyes in the eagerness she felt to rejoin her

beloved "Fröken." The engine-whistle gave a warning shriek--Philip

leaned out and pressed his friend's hand warmly.

"Good-bye, old fellow! I'll write to you in Italy."

"All right--mind you do! And I say--give my love to Thelma!"

Philip smiled and promised. The train began to move,--slowly at first,

then more quickly, till with clattering uproar and puffing clouds of

white steam, it rushed forth from the station, winding through the

arches like a black snake, till it had twisted itself rapidly out of

sight. Lorimer, left alone, looked after it wistfully, with a heavy

weight of unuttered love and sorrow at his heart, and as he at last

turned away, those haunting words that he had heard under the pines at

the Altenfjord recurred again and again to his memory--the words uttered

by the distraught Sigurd--and how true they were, he thought! how

desperately, cruelly true!

"Good things may come for others--but for _you_, the heavens are empty!"

CHAPTER XXX.

"Honor is an old-world thing, but it smells sweet to those in

whose hand it is strong."--OUIDA.

Disappointment upon disappointment awaited Errington at Hull.

Unfortunately, neither he nor Britta knew of the existence of the good

Norwegian innkeeper, Friedhof, who had assisted Thelma in her

flight--and all their persistent and anxious inquiries elicited no news

of her. Moreover, there was no boat of any kind leaving immediately for

Norway--not even a whaler or fishing-smack. In a week's time,--possibly

later,--there would be a steamer starting for Christiansund, and for

this, Errington, though almost mad with impatience, was forced to wait.

And in the meantime, he roamed about the streets of Hull, looking

eagerly at every fair-haired woman who passed him, and always hoping

that Thelma herself would suddenly meet him face to face, and put her

hands in his. He wrote to Neville and told him to send on any letters

that might arrive for him, and by every post he waited anxiously for one

from Thelma but none came. To relieve his mind a little, he scribbled a

long letter to her, explaining everything, telling her how ardently he

loved and worshipped her--how he was on his way to join her at the

Altenfjord,--and ending by the most passionate vows of unchanging love

and fidelity. He was somewhat soothed when he had done this--though he

did not realize the fact that in all probability he himself might arrive

before the letter. The slow, miserable days went on--the week was

completed--the steamer for Christiansund started at last,--and, after a

terribly stormy passage, he and the faithful Britta were landed there.

On arrival, he learned that a vessel bound for the North Cape had left

on the previous day--there would not be another for a fortnight. Cursing

his ill-luck, he resolved to reach the Altenfjord by land, and began to

make arrangements accordingly. Those who knew the country well

endeavored to dissuade him from this desperate project--the further

north, the greater danger, they told him,--moreover, the weather was,

even for Norway, exceptionally trying. Snow lay heavily over all the

country he would have to traverse--the only means of conveyance was by

carriole or _pulkha_--the latter a sort of sledge used by the

Laplanders, made in the form of a boat, and generally drawn by reindeer.

The capabilities of the carriole would be exhausted as soon as the

snow-covered regions were reached--and to manage a _pulkha_

successfully, required special skill of no ordinary kind. But the

courageous little Britta made short work of all these difficulties--she

could drive a _pulkha_,--she knew how to manage reindeer,--she

entertained not the slightest doubt of being able to overcome all the

obstacles on the way. At the same time, she frankly told Sir Philip that

the journey would be a long one, perhaps occupying several days--that

they would have to rest at different farms or stations on the road, and

put up with hard fare--that the cold would be intense,--that often they

would find it difficult to get relays of the required reindeer,--and

that it might perhaps be wiser to wait for the next boat going to the

North Cape.

But Errington would hear of no more delays--each hour that passed filled

him with fresh anxieties--and once in Norway he could not rest. The idea

that Thelma might be ill--dying--or dead--gained on him with redoubled

force,--and his fears easily communicating themselves to Britta, who was

to the full as impatient as he, the two made up their minds, and

providing every necessary for the journey they could think of, they

started for the far sunless North, through a white, frozen land, which

grew whiter and more silent the further they went,--even as the brooding

sky above them grew darker and darker. The aurora borealis flashed its

brilliant shafts of color against the sable breast of heaven,--the tall

pines, stripped bare, every branch thick with snow and dropping icicles,

stood,--pale ghosts of the forest,--shedding frozen tears--the moon,

more like steel than silver, shone frostily cold, her light seeming to

deepen rather than soften the dreariness of the land--and

on--on--on--they went, Britta enveloped to the chin in furs, steadily

driving the strange elfin-looking steeds with their horned heads casting

long distorted shadows on the white ground,--and Philip beside her,

urging her on with feverish impatience, while he listened to the smooth

trot of the reindeer,--the tinkle of the bells on their harness, and the

hiss of the sledge across the sparkling snow.

Meanwhile, as he thus pursued his long and difficult journey, rumor was

very busy with his name in London. Everybody--that is, everybody worth

consideration in the circle of the "Upper Ten"--was talking about

him,--shrugging their shoulders, lifting their eyebrows and smiling

knowingly, whenever he was mentioned. He became more known in one day

than if he had served his country's interests in Parliament for years.

On the very morning after he had left the metropolis en route for

Norway, that admirably conducted society journal, the _Snake_,

appeared,--and of course, had its usual amount of eager purchasers,

anxious to see the latest bit of aristocratic scandal. Often these good

folks were severely disappointed--the _Snake_ was sometimes so

frightfully dull, that it had actually nothing to say against

anybody--then, naturally, it was not worth buying. But this time it was

really interesting--it knocked down--or tried to knock down--at one

blow, a formerly spotless reputation--and "really--really!" said the

Upper Ten, "it was dreadful, but of course it was to be expected! Those

quiet, seemingly virtuous persons are always the worst when you come to

know them, yet who would have thought it!" And society read the

assailing paragraph, and rolled it in its rank mouth, like a bon-bon,

enjoying its flavor. It ran as follows:--

"We hear on excellent authority that the Norwegian 'beauty,' Lady

Bruce-Errington, wife of Sir Philip Bruce-Errington, is about to sue for

a divorce on the ground of infidelity. The offending dama in the

question is an admired actress, well-known to the frequenters of the

Brilliant Theatre. But there are always two sides to these affairs, and

it is rumored that the fair Norwegian (who before her marriage, we

understand, was a great adept in the art of milking reindeer on the

shores of her native Fjord) has private reasons of her own for desiring

the divorce, not altogether in keeping with her stated reasons or her

apparent reserve. We are, however, always on the side of the fair sex,

and, as the faithless husband has made no secret of his new liaison, we

do not hesitate to at once pronounce in the lady's favor. The case is

likely to prove interesting to believers in wedded happiness, combined

with the strictest moral and religious sentiments."

Quite by accident this piece of would-be "smartness" was seen by Beau

Lovelace. He had a wholesome contempt for the _Snake_--and all its

class,--he would never have looked at it, or known of the paragraph, had

not a friend of his at the Garrick pointed it out to him with half a

smile and half a sneer.

"It's a damned lie!" said Beau briefly.

"That remains to be proved!" answered his friend, and went away

laughing.

Beau read it over and over again, his blood firing with honest

indignation. Thelma! Thelma--that pure white lily of womanhood,--was she

to have her stainless life blurred by the trail of such a thing as the

_Snake_?--and was Errington's honor to be attainted in his absence, and

he condemned without a word uttered in his defence?

"Detestable blackguard!" muttered Lovelace, reverting in his mind to the

editor of the journal in question. "What's his name I wonder?" He

searched and found it at the top of a column--"Sole Editor and

Proprietor, C. Snawley-Grubbs, to whom all checks and post-office orders

should be made payable. The Editor cannot be responsible for the return

of rejected MSS."

Beau noted the name, and wrote the address of the office in his

pocket-book, smiling curiously to himself the while.

"I'm almost glad Errington's out of the way," he said half aloud. "He

shan't see this thing if I can help it, though I dare say some

particularly affectionate friend will send it to him, carefully marked.

At any rate, he needn't know it just yet--and as for Lorimer--shall I

tell him! No, I won't. I'll have the game all to myself--and--by Jove!

how I _shall_ enjoy it!"

An hour later he stood in the office of the _Snake_, courteously

inquiring for Mr. Snawley-Grubbs. Apparently he had come on horseback,

for he held a riding-whip in his hand,--the very whip Errington had left

with him the previous day. The inky, dirty, towzle-headed boy who

presided in solitary grandeur over the _Snake's_ dingy premises, stared

at him inquiringly,--visitors of his distinguished appearance and manner

being rather uncommon. Those who usually had business with the great

Grubbs were of a different type altogether,--some of them discarded

valets or footmen, who came to gain half a crown or five shillings by

offering information as to the doings of their late masters and

mistresses,--shabby "supers" from the theatres, who had secured the last

bit of scandal concerning some celebrated stage or professional

"beauty"--sporting men and turf gamblers of the lowest class,--

unsuccessful dramatists and small verse writers--these, with now and

then a few "ladies"--ladies of the bar-room, ballet, and demi-monde,

were the sort, of persons who daily sought private converse with

Grubbs--and Beau Lovelace, with his massive head, fine muscular figure,

keen eyes, and self-assertive mien, was quite a novel specimen of

manhood for the wondering observation of the office-boy, who scrambled

off his high chair with haste and something of respect as he said--

"What name, sir, please?"

"Beaufort Lovelace," said the gentleman, with a bland smile. "Here is my

card. Ask Mr. Grubbs whether he can see me for a few minutes. If he is

engaged--editors generally are engaged--tell him I'll wait."

The boy went off in a greater hurry than ever. The name of Lovelace was

quite familiar to him--he knew him, not as a distinguished novelist, but

as "'im who makes such a precious lot of money." And he was breathless

with excitement; when he reached the small editorial chamber at the top

of a dark, narrow flight of stairs, wherein sat the autocratic Snawley,

smiling suavely over a heap of letters and disordered MSS. He glanced at

the card which his ink-smeared attendant presented him.

"Ah, indeed!" he said condescendingly. "Lovelace--Lovelace? Oh yes--I

suppose it must be the novelist of that name--yes!--show him up."

Shown up he was accordingly. He entered the room with a firm tread, and

closed the door behind him!

"How do you do, my dear sir!" exclaimed Grubbs warmly. "You are well

known to me by reputation! I am charmed--delighted to make the personal

acquaintance of one who is--yes--let me say, who is a brother in

literature! Sit down, I beg of you!"

And he waved his hand towards a chair, thereby displaying the great

rings that glittered on his podgy fingers.

Beau, however, did not seat himself--he only smiled very coldly and

contemptuously.

"We can discuss the fraternal nature of our relationship afterwards," he

said satirically, "Business first. Pray, sir,"--here he drew from his

pocket the last number of the _Snake_--"are you the writer of this

paragraph?"

He pointed to it, as he flattened the journal and laid it in front of

the editor on the desk. Mr. Snawley-Grubbs glanced at it and smiled

unconcernedly.

"No I am not. But I happen to know it is perfectly correct. I received

the information on the highest--the very highest and most credible

authority."

"Indeed!" and Beau's lip curled haughtily, while his hand clenched the

riding-whip more firmly. "Then allow me to tell you, sir, that it is

utterly false in every particular--moreover--that it is a gross

libel,--published with deliberate intent to injure those whom it

presumes to mention,--and that, whoever wrote it,--you, sir, you alone

are responsible for a most mischievous, scandalous, and damnable lie!"

Mr. Grubbs was in no wise disconcerted. Honest indignation honestly

expressed, always amused him--he was amused now.

"You're unduly excited, Mr. Lovelace," he said with a little laugh.

"Permit me to remark that your language is rather extraordinary--quite

too strong under the circumstances! However, you're a privileged

person--genius is always a little mad, or shall we say,--eccentric?--I

suppose you are a friend of Sir Philip Errington, and you naturally feel

hurt--yes--yes, I quite understand! But the scourge of the press--the

wholesome, purifying scourge, cannot be withheld out of consideration

for private or personal feelings. No--no! There's a higher duty--the

duty we owe to the public!"

"I tell you again," repeated Lovelace firmly--"the whole thing is a lie.

Will you apologize?"

Mr. Grubbs threw himself back in his chair and laughed aloud.

"Apologize? My dear sir, you must be dreaming! Apologize? Certainly not!

I cannot retract the statements I have made--and I firmly believe them

to be true. And though there is a saying, 'the greater the truth the

greater the libel,' I'm ready, sir, and, always have been ready, to

sacrifice myself to the cause of truth. Truth, truth for ever! Tell the

truth and shame the devil! You are at liberty to inform Sir Philip

Errington from me, that as it is my object--a laudable and praiseworthy

one, too, I think--to show up the awful immorality now reigning in our

upper classes, I do not regret in the least the insertion of the

paragraph in question. If it only makes him ashamed of his vices, I

shall have done a good deed, and served the interests of society at

large. At the same time, if he wishes to bring an action for libel--"

"You dog!" exclaimed Lovelace fiercely, approaching him with such a

sudden rapid stride that the astonished editor sprang up and barricaded

himself behind his own chair. "You hope for that, do you? An action for

libel! nothing would please you better! To bring your scandalous printed

trash into notoriety,--to hear your name shouted by dirty hawkers and

newsboys--to be sentenced as a first-class misdemenent; ah, no such luck

for you! I know the tricks of your vile trade! There are other ways of

dealing with a vulgar bully and coward!"

And before the startled Grubbs could realize his position, Lovelace

closed with him, beat him under, and struck the horsewhip smartly cross

his back and shoulders. He uttered a yell of pain and fury, and strove

vigorously to defend himself, but, owing to his obesity, his muscles

were weak and flabby, and he was powerless against the activity and

strength of his opponent. Lash after lash descended regularly and

mercilessly--his cries, which gradually became like the roarings of a

bull of Basban, were unheard, as the office-boy below, profiting by a

few idle moments, had run across the street to buy some chestnuts at a

stall he particularly patronized. Beau thrashed on with increasing

enjoyment--Grubbs resisted him less and less, till finally he slipped

feebly down on the floor and grovelled there, gasping and groaning. Beau

gave him one or two more artistic cuts, and stood above him, with the

serene, triumphant smile of a successful athlete. Suddenly a loud peal

of laughter echoed from the doorway,--a woman stood there, richly

dressed in silk and fur, with diamonds sparkling in her ears and

diamonds clasping the long boa at her throat. It was Violet Vere.

"Why, Snawley!" she cried with cheerful familiarity. "How are you? All

broken, and no one to pick up the pieces! Serve you right! Got it at

last, eh? Don't get up! You look so comfortable!"

"Bodily assault," gasped Grubbs. "I'll summons--call the police--call,"

his voice died away in inarticulate gurglings, and raising himself, he

sat up on the floor in a sufficiently abject and ludicrous posture,

wiping the tears of pain from his eyes. Beau looked at the female

intruder and recognized her at once. He saluted her with cold courtesy,

and turned again to Grubbs.

"_Will_ you apologize?"

"No--I--I _won't_!"

Beau made another threatening movement--Miss Vere interposed.

"Stop a bit," she said, regarding him with her insolent eyes, in which

lurked, however, an approving smile. "I don't know who you are, but you

seem a fighting man! Don't go at him again till I've had a word. I say,

Grubbs! you've been hitting at me in your trashy paper."

Grubbs still sat on the floor groaning.

"You must eat those words," went on the Vere calmly. "Eat 'em up with

sauce for dinner. The 'admired actress well known at the Brilliant,' has

nothing to do with the Bruce-Errington man,--not she! He's a duffer, a

regular stiff one--no go about him anyhow. And what the deuce do you

mean by calling me an offending dama. Keep your oaths to yourself, will

you?"

Beau Lovelace was amused. Grubbs turned his watering eye from one to the

other in wretched perplexity. He made an effort to stand up and

succeeded.

"I'll have you arrested, sir!" he exclaimed shaking his fists at Beau,

and quivering with passion, "on a charge of bodily assault--shameful

bodily assault, sir!"

"All right!" returned Beau coolly. "If I were fined a hundred pounds for

it, I should think it cheap for the luxury of thrashing such a hound!"

Grubbs quaked at the determined attitude and threatening eye of his

assailant, and turned for relief to Miss Vere whose smile, however, was

not sympathetic.

"You'd better cave in!" she remarked airily. "You've got the worst of

it, you know!"

She had long been on confidential terms with the _Snake_ proprietor, and

she spoke to him now with the candor of an old friend.

"Dear me, what do you expect of me!" he almost whimpered. "I'm not to

blame! The paragraph was inserted without my knowledge by my

sub-editor--he's away just now, and--there! why?" he cried with sudden

defiance, "why don't you ask Sir Francis Lennox about it? He wrote the

whole thing."

"Well, he's dead," said Miss Vere with the utmost coolness. "So it

wouldn't be much use asking _him_. HE can't answer,--you'll have to

answer for him."

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed Mr. Grubbs. "He can't be dead!"

"Oh, yes, he can, and he _is_," retorted Violet. "And a good job too! He

was knocked over by a train at Charing Cross. You'll see it in to-day's

paper, if you take the trouble to look. And mind you contradict all that

stuff about me in your next number--do you hear? I'm going to America

with a Duke next month, and I can't afford to have my reputation

injured. And I won't be called a 'dama' for any penny-a-liner living."

She paused, and again broke out laughing, "Poor old Snawley! You do look

so sore! Ta-ta!" And she moved towards the door. Lovelace, always

courteous, opened it for her. She raised her hard, bright eyes, and

smiled.

"Thanks! Hope I shall see you again some day!"

"You are very good!" responded Beau gravely.

Either his tone, which was one chill indifference, or some thing in his

look, irritated her suddenly--for a rash of hot color crimsoned her

face, and she bit her lips vexedly as she descended the office-stairs.

"He's one of your high-and-mighty sort," she thought disdainfully, as

she entered her cosy brougham and was driven away. "Quite too awfully

moral!" She pulled a large, elaborately cut glass scent-bottle out of

the pocket of her cloak, and, unscrewing the gold top, applied it, not

to her nose but her mouth. It contained neat Cognac--and she drank a

goodly gulp of it with evident relish, swallowing a scented bon-bon

immediately afterwards to take away the suspicious odor. "Yes--quite too

awfully moral!" she repeated with a grin. "Not in my line at all! Lord!

It's lucky there are not many such fellows about, or what would become

of _me_? A precious poor business I should make of it!"

Meanwhile, Lovelace, left alone again with Mr. Grubbs, reiterated his

demand for an apology. Grubbs made a rush for the door, as soon as Miss

Vere had gone, with the full intention of summoning the police, but Beau

coolly placed his back against it with resolute firmness, and flourished

his whip defiantly.

"Come, sir, none of this nonsense!" he said sternly. "I don't mean to

leave this spot till I have satisfaction. If Sir Francis Lennox wrote

that scandalous paragraph the greater rascal he,--and the more shame to

you for inserting it.--You, who make it your business to know all the

dirty alleys and dark corners of life, must have known _his_ character

pretty thoroughly. There's not the slightest excuse for you. Will you

apologize?--and retract every word of that paragraph, in your next

issue?"

Grubbs, breathless with rage and fear, glared at him, but made no

answer.

"If you refuse to comply," went on Beau deliberately, balancing the

horsewhip lightly on his hand, "I'll just tell you what the consequences

will be. I've thrashed you once--and I'll thrash you again. I have only

to give the cue to several worthy fellows of my acquaintance, who don't

care how much they pay for their fun, and each of them in turn will

thrash you. As for an action for libel, don't expect it--but I swear

there shan't be a safe corner in London for you. If, however, you

publish next week a full retraction of your printed lie--why, then

I--shall be only too happy to forget that such an individual as yourself

burdens this planet. There are the two alternatives--choose!"

Grubbs hesitated, but coward fear made him quail the prospect of

unlimited thrashings.

"Very well," he said sullenly. "Write what you want put in--I'll attend

to it--I don't mind obliging Miss Vere. But all the same, I'll have

_you_ arrested!"

Beau laughed. "Do so by all means!" he said gaily. "I'll leave my

address with you!" He wrote rapidly a few lines on a piece of paper to

the following effect--

"We have to entirely contradict a statement we made last week respecting

a supposed forthcoming divorce case in which Sir Philip Bruce-Errington

was seriously implicated. There was no truth whatever in the statement,

and we herewith apologize most humbly and heartily for having

inadvertently given credence to a rumor which is now proved to be

utterly false and without the slightest shadow of a foundation."

He handed this to Grubbs.

"Insert that word for word, at the head of your paragraphs," he said,

"and you'll hear no more of me, unless you give me fresh provocation.

And I advise you to think twice before you have me arrested--for I'll

defend my own case, and--ruin you! I'm rather a dangerous customer to

have much to do with! However, you've got my card--you know where to

find me if you want me. Only you'd better send after me to-night if you

do--to-morrow I may be absent."

He smiled, and drew on his gloves leisurely, eyeing meanwhile the

discomfited editor, who was furtively rubbing his shoulder where the

lash had stung it somewhat severely.

"I'm exceedingly glad I've hurt you, Mr. Grubbs," he said blandly. "And

the next time you want to call me your brother in literature, pray

reflect on the manner in which my fraternal affection displayed itself!

_good_ morning!"

And he took his departure with a quiet step and serene manner, leaving

Snawley-Grubbs to his own meditations, which were far from agreeable. He

was not ignorant of the influence Beau Lovelace possessed, both on the

press and in society--he was a general favorite,--a man whose opinions

were quoted, and whose authority was accepted everywhere. If he appeared

to answer a charge of assault against Grubbs, and defended his own case,

he certainly would have the best of it. He might--he would have to pay a

fine, but what did he care for that? He would hold up the _Snake_ and

its proprietor to the utmost ridicule and opprobrium--his brilliant

satire and humor would carry all before it--and he, Snawley-Grubbs,

would be still more utterly routed and humiliated. Weighing all these

considerations carefully in his mind, the shrinking editor decided to

sit down under his horsewhipping in silence and resignation.

It was not a very lofty mode of action--still, it was the safest. Of

course Violet Vere would spread the story all through _her_ particular

"set"--it made him furious to think of this yet there was no help for

it. He would play the martyr, he thought--the martyr to the cause of

truth,--the injured innocent entrapped by false information--he might

possibly gain new supporters and sympathizers in this way if he played

his cards carefully. He turned to the daily paper, and saw there

chronicled the death of Sir Francis Lennox. It was true, then. Well! he

was not at all affected by it--he merely committed the dead man in the

briefest and strongest language to the very lowest of those low and

sulphurous regions over which Satan is supposed to have full sway. Not a

soul regretted Sir Francis--not even the Vere, whom he had kept and

surrounded with every luxury for five years. Only one person, a fair,

weary faced woman away in Germany shed a few tears over the lawyer's

black-bordered letter that announced his death to her--and this was the

deserted wife,--who had once loved him. Lady Winsleigh had heard the

news,--she shuddered and turned very pale when her husband gently and

almost pityingly told her of the sudden and unprepared end that had

overtaken her quondam admirer--but she said nothing. She was presiding

at the breakfast-table for the first time in many years--she looked

somewhat sad and listless, yet lovelier so than in all the usual pride

and assertive arrogance of her beauty. Lord Winsleigh read aloud the

brief account of the accident in the paper--she listened dreamily, still

mute. He watched her with yearning eyes.

"An awful death for such a man, Clara!" he said at last in a low tone.

She dared not look up--she was trembling nervously. How dreadful it was,

she thought, to be thankful that a man was dead!--to feel a relief at

his being no longer in this world! Presently her husband spoke again

more reservedly. "No doubt you are greatly shocked and grieved," he

said. "I should not have told you so suddenly--pardon me!"

"I am not grieved," she murmured unsteadily. "It sounds horrible to say

so--but I--I am afraid I am _glad_!"

"Clara!"

She rose and came tremblingly towards him. She knelt at his feet, though

he strove to prevent her,--she raised her large, dark eyes, full of dull

agony, to his.

"I've been a wicked woman, Harry," she said, with a strange, imploring

thrill of passion in her voice, "I am down--down in the dust before you!

Look at me--don't forgive me--I won't ask that--you _can't_ forgive

me,--but _pity_ me!"

He took her hands and laid them round his neck,--he drew her gently,

soothingly,--closer, closer, till he pressed her to his heart.

"Down in the dust are you?" he whispered brokenly. "My poor wife! God

forbid that I should keep you there!"

BOOK III.

THE LAND OF THE LONG SHADOW

CHAPTER XXXI.

"They have the night, who had, like us, the day--

We, whom day binds, shall have the night as they--

We, from the fetters of the light unbound,

Healed of our wound of living, shall sleep sound!"

SWINBURNE.

Night on the Altenfjord,--the long, long, changeless night of winter.

The sharp snow-covered crests of the mountains rose in white appeal

against the darkness of the sky,--the wild north wind tore through the

leafless branches of the pine-forests, bringing with it driving pellets

of stinging hail. Joyless and songless, the whole landscape lay as

though frozen into sculptured stone. The Sun slept,--and the Fjord,

black with brooding shadows, seemed silently to ask--where? Where was

the great king of Light?--the glorious god of the golden hair and ruddy

countenance?--the glittering warrior with the flaming shield and spear

invincible? Where had he found his rest? By what strange enchantment had

he fallen into so deep and long a drowsiness. The wind that had rioted

across the mountains, rooting up great trees in its shrieking career

northwards, grew hushed as it approached the Altenfjord--there a weird

stillness reigned, broken only by the sullen and monotonous plash of the

invisible waves upon the scarcely visible shore.

A few tiny, twinkling lights showed the irregular outline of Bosekop,

and now and then one or two fishing-boats with sable sails and small

colored lamps at mast and prow would flit across the inky water like

dark messengers from another world bound on some mournful errand. Human

figures, more shadowy than real, were to be seen occasionally moving on

the pier, and to the left of the little town, as the eye grew accustomed

to the moveless gloom, a group of persons, like ghosts in a dream, could

be dimly perceived, working busily at the mending of nets.

Suddenly a strange, unearthly glow flashed over the sombre scene,--a

rosy radiance deepening to brilliant streaks of fire. The dark heavens

were torn asunder, and through them streamed flaring pennons of

light,--waving, trembling, dancing, luminous ribbons of red, blue,

green, and a delicious amber, like the flowing of golden wine,--wider,

higher, more dazzlingly lustrous, the wondrous glory shone aloft, rising

upward from the horizon--thrusting long spears of lambent flame among

the murky retreating clouds, till in one magnificent coruscation of

resplendent beams a blazing arch of gold leaped from east to west,

spanning the visible breath of the Fjord, and casting towards the white

peaks above, vivid sparkles and reflections of jewel-like brightness and

color. Here was surely the Rainbow Bridge of Odin--the glittering

pathway leading to Valhalla! Long filmy threads of emerald and azure

trailed downwards from it, like ropes of fairy flowers, binding it to

the earth--above it hung a fleece-like nebulous whiteness,--a canopy

through which palpitated sudden flashes of amethyst. Then, as though the

arch were a bent bow for the hand of some heavenly hunter, crimson beams

darted across it in swift succession, like arrows shot at the dark

target of the world. Round and round swept the varying circles of

color--now advancing--now retreating--now turning the sullen waters

beneath into a quivering mass of steely green--now beating against the

snow-covered hills till they seemed pinnacles of heaped-up pearls and

diamonds. The whole landscape was transformed,--and the shadowy cluster

of men and women on the shore paused in their toil, and turned their

pale faces towards the rippling splendor,--the heavy fishing-nets

drooping from their hands like dark webs woven by giant spiders.

"'Tis the first time we have seen the Arch of Death this year," said one

in awed accents.

"Ay, ay!" returned another, with a sigh. "And some one is bound to cross

it, whether he will or no. 'Tis a sure sign!"

"Sure!" they all agreed, in hushed voices as faint and far-off as the

breaking of the tide against the rocks on the opposite coast.

As they spoke, the fairy-like bridge in the sky parted asunder and

vanished! The brilliant aurora borealis faded by swift degrees--a few

moments, and the land was again enveloped in gloom.

It might have been midnight--yet by the clock it was but four in the

afternoon. Dreary indeed was the Altenfjord,--yet the neighboring

village of Talvag was even drearier. There, desolation reigned

supreme--it was a frozen region of bitter, shelterless cold, where the

poverty-stricken inhabitants, smitten by the physical torpor and mental

stupefaction engendered by the long, dark season, scarcely stirred out

of their miserable homes, save to gather extra fuel. This is a time in

Norway, when beyond the Arctic Circle, the old gods yet have sway--when

in spite of their persistent, sometimes fanatical, adherence to the

strictest forms of Christianity, the people almost unconsciously revert

to the superstitions of their ancestors. Gathering round the blazing

pine-logs, they recount to one another in low voices the ancient legends

of dead and gone heroes,--and listening to the yell of the storm-wind

round their huts, they still fancy they hear the wild war-cries of the

Valkyries rushing past air full gallop on their coal-black steeds, with

their long hair floating behind them.

On this particular afternoon the appearance of the "Death-Arch," as they

called that special form of the aurora, had impressed the Talvig folk

greatly. Some of them were at the doors, and, regardless of the piercing

cold, occupied themselves in staring languidly at a reindeer sledge

which stood outside one of the more distant huts, evidently waiting for

some person within. The hoofs of the animals made no impression on the

hardened snow--now and again they gently shook the tinkling bells on

their harness, but otherwise were very patient. The sledge was in charge

of a youthful Laplander--a hideous, stunted specimen of humanity, who

appeared to be literally sewed up from head to foot in skins.

This cortege was evidently an object of curiosity,--the on-lookers eyed

it askance, and with a sort of fear. For did it not belong to the

terrible _bonde_, Olaf Güldmar?--and would not the Laplander,--a useful

boy, well known in Talvig,--come to some fatal harm by watching, even

for a few minutes, the property of an acknowledged pagan? Who could

tell? The very reindeer might be possessed by evil spirits,--they were

certainly much sleeker and finer than the ordinary run of such animals.

There was something uncanny in the very look of them! Thus the

stupefied, unreasoning Talvig folk muttered, one to another, leaning

drowsily out of their half-open doors.

"'Tis a strange thing," said one man, "that woman as strong in the fear

of the Lord as Lovisa Elsland should call for one of the wicked to visit

her on her death-bed."

"Strange enough!" answered his neighbor, blinking over his pipe, and

knocking down some of the icicles pendent from his roof. "But maybe it

is to curse him with the undying curse of the godly."

"She's done that all her life," said the first speaker.

"That's true! She's been a faithful servant of the Gospel. All's right

with her in the next world--she'll die easily."

"Was it for her the Death-Arch shone?" asked an old woman, suddenly

thrusting her head, wrapped in a red woollen hood, out of a low doorway,

through which the light of a fire sparkled from the background, sending

vivid flashes across the snow.

The man who had spoken last shook his head solemnly.

"The Death-Arch never shone for a Christian yet," he said gravely. "No!

There's something else in the wind. We can't see it--but it will

come--it must come! That sign never fails."

And presently, tired of watching the waiting sledge and the passive

Laplander, he retreated within his house, shutting his door against the

darkness and the bitter wind. His neighbors followed his example,--and,

save for two or three red glimmers of light here and there, the little

village looked as though it had been deserted long ago--a picture of

frost-bound silence and solitude.

Meanwhile, in Lovisa Elsland's close and comfortless dwelling, stood

Olaf Güldmar. His strong, stately figure, wrapped in furs, seemed almost

to fill the little place--he had thrown aside the thick scarf of wadmel

in which he had been wrapped to the eyes while driving in the teeth of

the wind,--and he now lifted his fur cap, thus displaying his silvery

hair, ruddy features, and open, massive brow. At that moment a woman who

was busying herself in putting fresh pine-logs on the smouldering fire,

turned and regarded him intently.

"Lord, Lord!" she muttered--"'tis a man of men,--he rejoiceth in his

strength, even as the lion,--and of what avail shall the curse of the

wicked avail against the soul that is firmly established!"

Güldmar heard her not--he was looking towards a low pallet bed, on which

lay, extended at full length, an apparently insensible form.

"Has she been long thus?" he asked, in a low voice.

"Since last night," replied the woman--no other than Mr. Dyceworthy's

former servant, Ulrika. "She wakened suddenly, and bade me send for you.

To-day she has not spoken."

The _bonde_ sighed somewhat impatiently. He approached the now blazing

pine-logs, and as he drew off his thick fur driving-gloves, and warmed

his hands at the cheerful blaze, Ulrika again fixed her dull eyes upon

him with something of wonder and reluctant admiration. Presently she

trimmed an oil-lamp, and set it, burning dimly, on the table. Then she

went to the bed and bent over it,--after a pause of several minutes, she

turned and made a beckoning sign with her finger. Güldmar advanced a

little,--when a sudden eldritch shriek startled him back, almost

curdling the blood in his veins. Out of the deep obscurity, like some

gaunt spectre rising from the tomb, started a face, wrinkled,

cadaverous, and distorted by suffering,--a face in which the fierce,

fevered eyes glittered with a strange and dreadful brilliancy--the face

of Lovisa Elsland, stern, forbidding, and already dark with the shadows

of approaching death. She stared vacantly at Güldmar, whose picturesque

head was illumined by the ruddy glow of the fire--and feebly shaded her

eyes as though she saw something that hurt them. Ulrika raised her on

her tumbled pillow, and saying, in cold, unmoved tones--"Speak now, for

the time is short," she once more beckoned the _bonde_ imperatively.

He approached slowly.

"Lovisa Elsland," he began in distinct tones, addressing himself to

that ghastly countenance still partly shaded by one hand. "I am

here--Olaf Güldmar. Dost thou know me?"

At the sound of his voice, a strange spasm contorted the withered

features of the dying woman. She bent her head as though to listen to

some far-off echo, and held up her skinny finger as though enjoining

silence.

"Know thee!" she babbled whisperingly. "How should I not know the

brown-haired Olaf! Olaf of the merry eye--Olaf, the pride of the Norse

maiden?" She lifted herself in a more erect attitude, and stretching out

her lean arms, went on as though chanting a monotonous recitative.

"Olaf, the wanderer over wild seas,--he comes and goes in his ship that

sails like a white bird on the sparkling waters--long and silent are the

days of his absence--mournful are the Fjelds and Fjords without the

smile of Olaf--Olaf the King!"

She paused, and Güldmar regarded her in pitying wonder. Her face changed

to a new expression--one of wrath and fear.

"Stay, stay!" she cried in penetrating accents. "Who comes from the

South with Olaf? The clouds drive fast before the wind--clouds rest on

the edge of the dark Fjord--sails red as blood flash against the

sky--who comes with Olaf? Fair hair ripples against his breast like

streaming sunbeams; eyes blue as the glitter of the northern lights, are

looking upon him--lips crimson and heavy with kisses for Olaf--ah!" She

broke off with a cry, and beat the air with her hands as though to keep

some threatening thing away from her. "Back, back! Dead bride of Olaf,

torment me no more--back, I say! See,"--and she pointed into the

darkness before her--"The pale, pale face--the long glittering hair

twisted like a snake of gold,--she glides along the path across the

mountains,--the child follows!--the child! Why not kill the child as

well--why not?"

She stopped suddenly with a wild laugh. The _bonde_ had listened to her

ravings with something of horror, his ruddy cheeks growing paler.

"By the gods, this is strange!" he muttered. "She seems to speak of my

wife,--yet what can she know of her?"

For some moments there was silence. Lovisa seemed to have exhausted her

strength. Presently, however, she put aside her straggling white hairs

from her forehead, and demanded fiercely--

"Where is my grandchild? Where is Britta?"

Neither Güldmar nor Ulrika made any reply. But Britta's name recalled

the old woman to herself, and when she spoke again it was quite

collectedly, and in her usual harsh voice. She seemed to forget all that

she had just uttered, for she turned her eyes upon the _bonde_, as

though she had but then perceived him.

"So you are come, Olaf Güldmar!" she said. "It is well--for the hand of

Death is upon me."

"It is well, indeed, if I can be of service, Lovisa Elsland," responded

Güldmar, "though I am but a sorry consoler, holding as I do, that death

is the chief blessing, and in no way to be regretted at any time.

Moreover, when the body grows too weak to support the soul, 'tis as well

to escape from it with what speed we may."

"Escape--escape? Where?" asked Lovisa. "From the worm that dieth not?

From the devouring fame that is never quenched? From the torturing

thirst and heat and darkness of hell, who shall escape?"

"Nay, if that is all the comfort thy creed can give thee," said the

_bonde_, with a half-smile, "'tis but a poor staff to lean on!"

Lovisa looked at him mockingly. "And is thine so strong a prop to thy

pride?" she asked disdainfully. "Has Odin so endowed thee that thou

shouldst boast of him? Listen to me, Olaf Güldmar--I have but little

strength remaining, and I must speak briefly. Thy wife--"

"What of her?" said the _bonde_ hastily. "Thou knewst her not."

"I knew her," said Lovisa steadily, "as the lightning knows the tree it

withers--as the sea knows the frail boat it wrecks for sport on a windy

day. Thou haughty Olaf! I knew her well even as the broken heart knows

its destroyer!"

Güldmar looked perplexedly at Ulrika. "Surely she raves again?" he said.

Ulrika was silent.

"Rave? Tell him I do not rave!" cried Lovisa rising in her bed to utter

her words with more strength and emphasis. "May be I have raved, but

that is past! The Lord, who will judge and condemn my soul, bear witness

that I speak the truth! Olaf Güldmar, rememberest thou the days when we

were young?"

"'Tis long ago, Lovisa!" replied the _bonde_ with brief gentleness.

"Long ago? It seems but yesterday! But yesterday I saw the world all

radiant with hope and joy and love--love that to you was a mere

pastime--but with _me_--" She shuddered and seemed to lose herself in a

maze of dreary recollections. "Love!" she presently muttered--"'love is

strong as death,--jealousy is cruel as the grave--the coals thereof are

coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame!' Even so! You, Olaf

Güldmar, have forgotten what I remember,--that once in that yesterday of

youth, you called me fair,--once your lips branded mine! Could I forget

that kiss? Think you a Norse woman, bred in a shadow of the constant

mountains, forgets the first thrill of passion waked in her soul? Light

women of those lands where the sun ever shines on fresh follies, may

count their loves by the score,--but with us of the North, _one_ love

suffices to fill a lifetime. And was not my life filled? Filled to

overflowing with bitterness and misery! For I loved you, proud Olaf!--I

loved you--" The _bonde_ uttered an exclamation of incredulous

astonishment. Lovisa fixed her eyes on him with a dark scorn. "Yes, I

loved you,--scoffer and unbeliever as you were and are!--accursed of God

and man! I loved you in spite of all that was said against you--nay, I

would have forsaken my creed for yours, and condemned my soul to the

everlasting burning for your sake! I loved you as _she_--that pale,

fair, witch-like thing you wedded, could never love--" Her voice died

away in a sort of despairing wail, and she paused.

"By my soul!" said the _bonde_, astounded, and stroking his white beard

in some embarrassment. "I never knew of this! It is true that in the hot

days of youth, mischief is often done unwittingly. But why trouble

yourself with these memories, Lovisa? If it be any comfort,--believe me,

I am sorry harm ever came to you through my thoughtless jesting--"

"It matters not!" and Lovisa regarded him with a strange and awful

smile. "I have had my revenge!" She stopped abruptly,--then went

on--"'Twas a fair bride you chose, Olaf Güldmar--child of an alien from

these shores,--Thelma, with the treacherous laughter and light of the

South in her eyes and smile! And I, who had known love, made friends

with hate--" She checked herself, and looked full at the _bonde_ with a

fiendish joy sparkling in her eyes. "She whom you wedded--she whom you

loved so well,--how soon she died!"

There was something so suggestive and dreadful in the expression of her

face as she said this, that the stout heart of the old _bonde_, pulsated

more quickly with a sudden vague distrust and dread. She gave him no

time to speak, but laying one yellow, claw-like hand on his arm, and

raising her voice to a sort of yell, exclaimed triumphantly--

"Yes, yes! how soon she died! Bravely, bravely done! And no one ever

guessed the truth--no one ever knew I _killed_ her!"