CHAPTER XXXII

WHY NOT KEEP COMPANY WHEN YOU HAVE A CHANCE? GUIZOT AND

MONTALEMBERT. MRS. BEMBRIDGE CORLETT's EYEGLASSES. KINKAJOUS. THE

PYTHON'S ATTITUDE. AN OSTRICH'S CARESS. HOW SIR COUPLAND MERRIDEW

CALLED ON LADY GWENDOLEN WITH A LETTER. ROYALTY. NECROSIS.

ILLEGIBILITY. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. HOW GWEN CALLED AGAIN IN SAPPS

COURT, AND KNOCKED IN VAIN. HOW OLD MRS. PRICHARD WAS SPIRITED AWAY

TO ROCESTERSHIRE, AND THOUGHT SHE WAS DREAMING

Mr. Percival Pellew and Miss Constance Smith-Dickenson had passed, under

the refining influence of Love, into a new phase, that of not being

formally engaged. It was to be distinctly understood that there was to

be nothing precipitate. This condition has its advantages; very

particularly that it postpones, or averts, family introductions. Yet it

cannot be enjoyed to the full without downright immorality, and it

always does seem to us a pity that people should be forced into Evil

Courses, in order to shun the terrors of Respectability. Why should not

some compromise be possible? The life some couples above suspicion

contrive to lead, each in the other's pocket as soon as the eyes of

Europe wander elsewhere, certainly seems to suggest a basis of

negotiation.

No doubt you know that little poem of Browning about the lady and

gentleman who watched the Seine, and saw Guizot receive Montalembert,

who rhymed to "flare"? Of course, the case was hardly on all fours with

that of our two irreproachables, but we suspect a point in common. We

feel sure that those lawless loiterers in a dissolute capital were

joyous at heart at having escaped the fangs of the brothers of the one,

and the sisters of the other, respectively, although at the cost of

having the World's bad names applied to both. In this case there were no

brothers on the lady's part, and only one sister on the gentleman's. But

Aunt Constance was not sorry for a breathing-pause before being

subjected to an inspection through glasses by the Hon. Mrs. Bembridge

Corlett, which was the name of the unique sister-sample, and herself

subjecting Mr. Pellew to a similar overhauling by her own numerous

relatives. She had misgivings about the _accolade_ he might receive from

Mrs. Amphlett Starfax, and also about the soul-communion which her

sister Lilian, who had a sensitive nature, demanded as the price of

recognition in public a second time of all persons introduced to her

notice.

Mr. Pellew's description of the Hon. Mrs. Corlett had impressed her with

the necessity of being ready to stand at bay when the presentation came

off.

"Dishy will look at you along the top of her nose, with her chin in the

air," said he. "But you mustn't be alarmed at that. She only does it

because her glasses--we're all short-sighted--slip off her nose at

ordinary levels. And when you come to think of it, how can she hold them

on with her fingers when she looks at you. Like taking interest in a

specimen!"

"I am a little alarmed at your sister Boadicea, Percy, for all that,"

said Miss Dickenson, and changed the conversation. This was only a day

or two after the Sapps Court accident, and the phase of not being

formally engaged had begun lasting as long as possible, being found

satisfactory. So old Mrs. Prichard was a natural topic to change to.

"Isn't it funny, this whim of Gwen's, about the old lady you carried

upstairs?"

"What whim of Gwen's?"

"Oh, don't you know. Of course you don't! Gwen's fallen in love with

her, and means to take her to the Towers with her when she goes back."

"Very nice for the old girl. What's she doing that for?"

"It's an idea of hers. However, there is some reason in it. The old

lady's apartments must be dry before she goes back to them, and that may

be weeks."

"Why can't she stop where she is?"

"All by herself? At least, only the cook! When Miss Grahame goes to

Devonshire, Maggie goes with her, to lady's-maid her."

"I thought we were going to be pastoral, and only spend three hundred a

year on housekeeping."

"So we are--how absurdly you do put things, Percy!--when we make a fair

start. But just till we begin in earnest, there's no need for such

strictness. Anyhow, if Maggie doesn't go to Devonshire, she'll go back

to her parents at Invercandlish. So the old lady can't stop. And Gwen

will go back to the Towers, of course. I don't the least believe they'll

hold out six months, those two.... What little ducks Kinkajous are! Give

me a biscuit.... No--one of the soft ones!"

For, you see, they were at the Zoological Gardens. They had felt that

these Gardens, besides being near at hand, were the kind of Gardens in

which the eyes of Europe would find plenty to occupy them, without

staring impertinently at a lady and gentleman who were not formally

engaged. Who would care to study them and _their_ ways when he could see

a Thibetan Bear bite the nails of his hind-foot, or observe the habits

of Apes, or sympathize with a Tiger about his lunch? Our two visitors to

the Gardens had spent an hour on these and similar attractions, noting

occasionally the flavour that accompanies them, and had felt after a

visit to the Pythons, that they could rest a while out of doors and

think about the Wonders of Creation, and the drawbacks they appear to

suffer from. But a friendly interest in a Python had lived and

recrudesced as the Kinkajou endeavoured to get at some soft biscuit, in

spite of a cruel wire screen no one bigger than a rat could get his

little claw through.

"I don't believe that fillah _was_ moving. He was breathing. But he

wasn't moving. I know that chap perfectly well. He never moves when

anyone is looking at him, out of spite. He hears visitors hope he'll

move, and keeps quite still to disappoint them." It was Mr. Pellew who

said this. Miss Dickenson shook her head incredulously.

"He _was_ moving, you foolish man. You should use your eyes. That long

straight middle piece of him on the shelf moved; in a very dignified

way, considering. The move moved along him, and went slowly all the way

to his tail. When I took my eyes off I thought the place was moving,

which is a proof I'm right.... Oh, you little darling, you've dropped

it! I'm so sorry. I must have another, because this has been in the mud,

and you won't like it." This was, of course, to the Kinkajou.

Mr. Pellew supplied a biscuit, but improved the occasion:--"Now if this

little character could only keep his paws off the Public, he wouldn't

want a wire netting. Couldn't you give him a hint?"

"I could, but he wouldn't take it. He's a little darling, but he's

pig-headed...." A pause, and then a quick explanatory side-note:--"Do

you know, I think that's Sir Coupland Merridew coming along that path. I

hope he isn't coming this way.... I'm afraid he is, though. You know who

I mean? He was at the Towers...."

"I know. Yes, it's him. He's coming this way. If he sees it's us, he'll

go off down the side-path. But he won't see--he's too short-sighted.

Can't be helped!"

"Oh dear--what a plague people are! Let's be absorbed in the Kinkajou.

He'll pass us."

But the great surgeon did nothing of the sort. On the contrary he

said:--"I saw it was you, Miss Dickenson." Then he reflected about her

companion, and said he was Mr. Pellew, he thought, and further:--"Met

you at Ancester in July." It was a great relief that he did _not_

say:--"You are a lady and gentleman, and can perhaps explain yourselves.

_I_ can't!" He appeared to decide on silence about _them_, as

irrelevant, and went on to something more to the purpose--"Perhaps you

know if the family are in town--any of them?" Miss Dickenson testified

to the whereabouts of Lady Gwendolen Rivers, and Sir Coupland wrote it

in a notebook. There seemed at this point to be an opportunity to say

how delightful the Gardens were this time of the year, so Miss Dickenson

seized it.

"I didn't come to enjoy the gardens," said the F.R.C.S. "I wish I had

time. I came to see to a broken scapula. Keeper in the Ostrich

House--bird pecked him from behind. Did it from love, apparently. Said

to be much attached to keeper. Two-hundred-and-two, Cavendish Square, is

right, isn't it?"

"Two-hundred-and-two; corner house.... Must you go on? Sorry!--you could

have told us such interesting things." The effect of this one word "us,"

indiscreetly used, was that Sir Coupland, walking away to his carriage

outside the turnstiles, wondered whether it would come off, and if it

did, would there be a family? Which shows how very careful you have to

be, when you are a lady and gentleman.

The former, in this case, remained unconscious of her _lapsus linguae_;

saying, in fact:--"I think we did that very well! I wonder whether he

will go and see Gwen!"

"I hope he will. Do you know, I couldn't help suspecting that he had

something to say about Torrens's eyesight--something good. Perhaps it

was only the way one has of catching at straws. Still, unless he has,

why should he want to see Gwen? He couldn't want to tell her there was

no hope--to rub it in!"

"I see what you mean. But I'm afraid he only put down the address for us

to tell her he did so--just to get the credit of a call without the

trouble."

"When did you take to Cynicism, madam?... No--come, I say--that's not

fair! It's only my second cigar since I came to the Gardens...." The

byplay needed to make this intelligible may be imagined, without

description.

Does not the foregoing lay further stress on the curious fact that the

_passee_ young lady and the oscillator between Pall Mall and that Club

at St. Stephen's--this describes the earlier seeming of these two--have

really vanished from the story? Is it not a profitable commentary on

the mistakes people make in the handling of their own lives?

* * * * *

Sir Coupland Merridew was not actuated by the contemptible motive Aunt

Constance had ascribed to him. Moreover, the straw Mr. Pellew caught at

was an actual straw, though it may have had no buoyancy to save a

swimmer. It must have had _some_ though, or Sir Coupland would never

have thrown it to Gwen, struggling against despair about her lover's

eyesight. Of course he did not profess to do so of set purpose; that

would have pledged him to an expression of confidence in that straw

which he could hardly have felt.

When he called at Cavendish Square two days later at an unearthly hour,

and found Gwen at breakfast, he accounted for his sudden intrusion by

producing a letter recently received from Miss Irene Torrens, of which

he said that, owing to the peculiarity of the handwriting, he had

scarcely been able to make out anything beyond that it related to her

brother's blindness. Probably Lady Gwendolen knew her handwriting

better than he did. At any rate, she might have a shot at trying

to make it out. But presently, when she had time! He, however,

would take a cup of coffee, and would then go on and remove a

portion of a diseased thigh-bone from a Royal leg--that of Prince

Hohenslebenschlangenspielersgeiststein--only he never could get the name

right.

The story surmises that, having carefully read every word of the letter,

he chose this way of letting Gwen know of a fluctuation in Adrian's

eye-symptoms; which, he had inferred, would not reach her otherwise. But

he did not wish false hopes to be built on it. The deciphering of the

illegibilities by Gwen, under correctives from himself, would exactly

meet the case.

"I can _not_ see that 'Rene's writing is so very illegible," said Gwen.

"Now be quiet and let me read it." She settled down to perusal, while

Sir Coupland sipped his coffee, and watched her colour heighten as she

read. That meant, said he to himself, that he must be ready to throw

more cold water on this letter than he had at first intended.

Said Gwen, when she had finished:--"Well, that seems to me very plain

and straightforward. And as for illegibility, I know many worse hands

than 'Re's."

"What's that word three lines down?... Yes, that one!"

"'Dreaming.'"

"I thought it was 'drinking.'"

"It certainly is 'dreaming' plain enough!"

"What do you make of it? Don't read it all through. Tell me the upshot."

"I don't mind reading it. But I'll tell it short, as you're in a hurry.

Adrian dropped asleep on the sofa, and woke with a start,

saying:--'What's become of Septimius Severus on the bookshelf?' It was a

bust, it seems. 'Re said:--'How did you know it had been moved?' and he

seemed quite puzzled and said:--'I can't tell. I forgot I was blind, and

saw the whole room.' Then 'Re said, he must have been dreaming. 'But,'

said he, 'you say it _has_ been moved.' So what does 'Re do but say he

_must_ have heard somehow that it was moved, _because_ it was impossible

that he should have been able to see only just that much and no more....

Oh dear!" said Gwen, breaking off suddenly. "What a pleasure people do

seem to take in being silly!"

Sir Coupland proceeded to show deference to correct form. "It is far

more likely," said he, "that Mr. Torrens had heard someone say the bust

was moved, and had forgotten it till he woke up out of a dream, than

that he should have a sudden flash of vision." A more cautious method

than Irene's, of assuming the point at issue.

Gwen paid no attention to this, putting it aside to apologize to Irene.

"However, 'Re had the sense to write straight to you about it. I'll say

that for her." Then she read the letter again while Sir Coupland spun

out his cup of coffee. She was still dwelling on it when he looked at

his watch suddenly and said: "I must be off. Consider Prince

Hohenschlangen's necrosis!" Then said Gwen, pinning him to truth with

the splendour of her eyes:--"You are perfectly and absolutely certain,

Dr. Merridew, that a momentary gleam of true vision in such a case would

be _impossible_?"

"I never said _that_," said Sir Coupland.

"What _did_ you say?" said Gwen.

"As improbable as you please, short of impossible. Now I'm off.

Impossible's a long word, you know, and very hard to spell." Sir

Coupland went off in a hurry, leaving Irene's letter in Gwen's

possession, which was dishonourable; because he had really read the

injunction it contained, on no account to show it to Gwen in case she

should build false hopes on it. But then Gwen had not read this passage

aloud to him, so he did not know it officially.

Lunch was the next conclave of the small household, and although Mr.

Pellew was there--it was extraordinary how seldom he was anywhere

else!--Irene's letter was freely handed round the table and made the

subject of comment.

"It won't do to build upon it," said Cousin Clo.

"Why not?" said Gwen.

"It never does to be led away," said Miss Dickenson. Her reputation for

sagacity had to be maintained.

"Doesn't it?" said Gwen.

Mr. Pellew was bound, in consideration of his company, to dwell upon the

desirableness of keeping an even mind. Having done full justice to this

side of the subject, he added a rider. He had always said the chances

were ten to one Torrens would recover his eyesight, and this sort of

thing looked uncommonly like it. Now didn't it? Whereupon Gwen, who

shook hands with him across the table to show her approval, said that

anyhow she must hear Adrian's own account of this occurrence from his

own mouth forthwith, and she should go back to-morrow to the Towers, and

insist upon driving over to Pensham Steynes, whether or no!

Miss Grahame remonstrated with her later, when Aunt Constance and her

swain had departed to some dissipation--the story is not sure it was not

Madame Tussaud's--and pointed out that she really had solemnly promised

not to see Mr. Torrens for six months. She admitted this, but

counterpointed out that she could just see him for half an hour to hear

his own account of the incident, and then they could begin fair. She was

a girl of her word, and meant to keep it. Only, no date had been fixed.

As for her pledges to assist her cousin's schemes for benefiting Sapps

Court and its analogues, in Drury Lane or elsewhere, was she not going

to carry off the old fairy godmother she had discovered and give her

such a dose of fresh air and good living as she had not had for twenty

years past? Could any Patron Saint of Philanthropy ask more?

Gwen, of course, had her way. She did not cut her visit to Cavendish

Square needlessly short. She remained there long enough to give some

colour to the pretext that she was exploring slums with philanthropy in

view, and actually to make a visit with her cousin to the reconstructed

home of the Wardles in Sapps Court. But no response came to knocking at

door or window, and it was evident that Aunt M'riar had not returned.

Michael Ragstroar, the making of whose acquaintance on this occasion

gratified both ladies, offered to go to The Sun for Uncle Mo and bring

him round; but his offer was declined, as their time was limited. This

must have been a few days before the return of Aunt M'riar and the

children, and in the interim her young ladyship had taken flight to the

home of her ancestors, contriving somehow to convey away with her her

new-made old friend, and to provide her with comfortable lodgment in the

housekeeper's quarters, making Mrs. Masham, the housekeeper, responsible

for her comforts.

As for the old lady herself, she was very far from being sure that she

was not dreaming.

END OF PART I

WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST

PART II

CHAPTER I

MICKY'S AUNT, WHO HAD A COLD. MASCHIL THE CHIEF MUSICIAN, AND DOEG

THE EDOMITE. A SUNDAY-RAPTURE. THE BEER. HOW MISS JULIA HAWKINS

THOUGHT THE GLASS A FRAUD. HOW MICKY DELIVERED HIS MESSAGE. A

CONDITIONAL OFFER OF MARRIAGE. JANUS HIS BASKET. ALETHEA'S AUNT

TREBILCOCK. A SHREWD AND HOOKY KITTEN WHO GOT OUT. HER MAJESTY'S

HORSE-SLAUGHTERER. OF A LEAN LITTLE GIRL. HER BROTHER'S NOSE. HOW

MR. WIX KNOCKED AT AUNT M'RIAR'S DOOR. THE CHAIN. HOW AUNT M'RIAR

IMPRESSED MR. WIX AS AN IDIOT. WHO WAS THE WOMAN? HOW SHE OPENED

THE DOOR FOR MICKY'S SAKE, AND LOOKED HARD AT HER HUSBAND. HIS

LAWFUL WIFE! SCRIPTURE READINGS IN HELL. HOW SHE WENT TO FETCH ALL

THE MONEY SHE HAD IN THE HOUSE. HOW MR. WIX CAPTURED UNCLE MO'S OLD

WATCH. HOW AUNT M'RIAR TRIPPED UNCLE MO UP

The return of the two young pagans to Sapps Court, and the complete

re-establishment of Uncle Mo's household, had to be deferred yet one or

two more days, to his great disappointment. On the morning following

Aunt M'riar's provisional return, the weather set in wet, and the old

boy was obliged to allow that there ought to be a fire in the grate of

Aunt M'riar's wrecked bedroom for at least a couple of days before Dolly

returned to sleep in it. He attempted a weak protest, saying that his

niece was a dry sort of little party that moisture could not injure. But

he conceded the point, to be on the safe side.

Aunt M'riar said never a word to him about the message she had received

from the convict through the boy Micky, and the answer she had returned.

She had not forgotten Uncle Mo's communications with that Police

Inspector, and felt confident that her reception of a message from Mr.

Wix at his old haunt would soon be known to the latter if she did not

keep her counsel about it. The words she used in her heart about it were

nearly identical with Hotspur's. Uncle Moses would not utter what he did

not know. She had not a thought of blame for Mo, for she knew that her

disposition to shield this man was idiosyncrasy--could not in the nature

of things be shared, even by old and tried friends.

There was a fine chivalric element about this defensive silence of hers.

The man was now nothing to her--dust and ashes, dead and done with! This

last phrase was the one her heart used about him--not borrowed from

Browning any more than its other speech from Shakespeare. "I've done

with _him_ for good and all," said she to herself. "But the Law shall

not catch him along o' me." He was vile--vile to her and to all

women--but she could bear her own wrong, and she was not bound to fight

the battles of others. He was a miscreant and a felon, the mere blood on

those hands was not his worst moral stain. He was foul from the terms of

his heritage of life, with the superadded foulness of the galleys. But

she _had_ loved him once, and he was her husband.

Micky kept his word, going over to his great-aunt the following Sunday;

to oblige, as he said. Mrs. Treadwell had a cold, and was confined to

the house; but the boy was a welcome visitor. "There now, Michael," said

she, "I was only just this minute thinking to myself, if Micky was here

he could go on reading me the Psalms, where I am, instead of me putting

my eyes out. For the sight is that sore and inflamed, and my glasses

getting that wore out from being seen through so much, that I can't

hardly make out a word."

Micky's only misgivings on his visits to Aunt Elizabeth Jane were

connected with a Family Bible to which his old relative was devoted, and

with her disposition to make him read the Psalms aloud. Neither of them

attached any particular meaning to the text; she being contented with

its religious _aura_ and fitness for Sunday, and he absorbed in the

detection of correct pronunciation by spelling, a syllable at a time. So

early an allusion to this affliction disheartened Micky on this

occasion, and made him feel that his long walk from Sapps Court had been

wasted, so far as his own enjoyment of it was concerned.

"Oh, 'ookey, Arntey," said he dejectedly, "I say now--look here! Shan't

I make it Baron Munch Hawson, only just this once?" For his aunt

possessed, as well as the Holy Scriptures, a copy of Baron Munchausen's

Travels and a Pilgrim's Progress. Conjointly, they were an Institution,

and were known as Her Books.

But she resisted the secular spirit. "On Sunday morning, my dear!" she

exclaimed, shocked. "How ever you _can_! Now if on'y your father was to

take you to Chapel, instead of such a bad example, see what good it

would do you both."

The ounce of influence that Aunt Elizabeth Jane alone possessed told on

Michael's stubborn spirit, and he did not contest the point. "Give us

the 'Oly Bible!" said he briefly. "Where's where you was?"

"That's a good boy! Now you just set down and read on where I was. 'To,

the, chief, musician,' and the next word's a hard word and you'll have

to spell it." For, you see, Aunt Elizabeth Jane's method was to go

steadily on with a text, and not distinguish titles and stage

directions.

So her nephew, being docile, tackled the fifty-second Psalm, and did not

flinch from _m_, _a_, _s_, mass--_c_, _h_, _i_, _l_, chill; total,

Mass-Chill--nor from _d_, _o_, do; _e_, _g_, hegg; total, Do-Hegg. But

when he came to Ahimelech, he gave him up, and had to be told. However,

he laboured on through several verses, and the old charwoman listened in

what might be called a Sunday-rapture, conscious of religion, but not

attaching any definite meaning to the words. As for Micky, he only

perceived that David and Saul, Doeg the Edomite, and Ahimelech the

Priest, were religious, and therefore bores. He had a general idea that

the Psalmist could not keep his hair on. He might have enjoyed the

picturesque savagery of the story if Aunt Elizabeth Jane had known it

well enough to tell him. But when you read for flavour, and ignore

import, the plot has to go to the wall.

Aunt Elizabeth Jane kept her nephew to his unwelcome devotional

enterprise until the second "Selah"--a word which always seemed to

exasperate him--provoked his restiveness beyond his powers of restraint.

"I say, Aunt Betsy," said he, "shan't I see about gettin' in the beer?"

This touched a delicate point, for his visit being unexpected, rations

were likely to be short.

Some reproof was necessary. "There now, ain't you a tiresome boy,

speaking in the middle!" But this was followed by: "Well, my dear, I

can't take anything myself, the cold's that heavy on me. But that's no

reason against a glass for you, after your walk. On'y I tell you, you'll

have to make your dinner off potatoes and a herring, that you will, by

reason there's nothing else for you. And all the early shops are shut an

hour ago."

Then Michael showed how great his foresight and resource had been.

"Bought a mutting line-chop coming along, off of our butcher. Fivepence

'a'pen'y. Plenty for two if you know how to cook it right, and don't cut

it to waste." In this he showed a thoughtfulness beyond his years, for

the knowledge that the amount of flesh, on any bone, may be

doubled--even quadrupled--by the skill of its carver, is rarely found

except in veterans.

Aunt Elizabeth Jane paid a tribute of admiration. "My word!" said she,

"who ever would have said a boy could! Now you shall cook that chop

while I tell you how." So the fifty-second Psalm lapsed, and Michael was

at liberty to forget Doeg the Edomite.

But the glass of beer claimed attention first, because it would never do

to leave that chop to get cold while he went for it next door. Aunt

Elizabeth Jane allowed Michael to take the largest glass, as he had read

so good and bought his own chop, and with it he crossed the wall into

the garden of The Pigeons, as the story has seen him do before.

Miss Juliarawkins, summoned by a whistle through the keyhole, looked a

good deal better in sackcloth and ashes than she had done in several

discordant colours. She was going to stop as long as ever she could in

mourning for her father, so as to get the wear out of the stuff, and

make it of some use. Some connection might die, by good luck. She was

one of those that held with making the same sackcloth and ashes do for

two.

She looked critically at the rather large tumbler Micky had brought for

his beer, and made difficulties about filling of it right up, even with

the top. For this was a supply under contract. A glass full was to be

paid for as a short half-pint. But as Miss Hawkins truly said, no glass

had any call to be half as big as Saint Paul's. Her customer, however,

was not to be put off in this way. A glass was a glass, and a half-pint

was a half a pint. There was no extry reduction when the glass was

undersized. You took the good with the bad.

A voice Micky knew growled from a recess:--"Give the young beggar full

measure, Juli_ar_. What he means is, you go by a blooming average."

Miss Hawkins filled up the glass this once, but said:--"You tell your

Aunt Treadwell she'll have to keep below the average till Christmas. _I_

never see such a glass!"

Micky was not sorry to find that he could deliver his message direct. He

had not hoped to come upon the man himself. He paid for his beer on

contract terms, and said confidentially:--"I say, missis, I got a

message for him in there."

"Mrs. Treadwell's nephew Michael from next door says he's got a message

for you, and you can say if you'll see him. Or not." This was spoken

snappishly, as though a coolness were afoot.

The man replied with mock amiability, meant to irritate. "You can send

him in here, Juliar. You're open to." But when in compliance with the

woman's curt:--"You hear--you can go in," the boy entered the little

back-parlour, he turned on him suddenly and fiercely, saying:--"You're

the * * * young nark of some damned teck--some * * * copper, by Goard!"

If the boy had flinched before this accusation, which meant that he was

a police-spy employed by a detective, he might have repented it. But

Micky was no coward, and stood his ground; all the more firmly that he

fully grasped the man's precarious position, in the very house where he

had been once before captured. He answered resolutely:--"I could snitch

upon you this minute, master, if I was to choose. But you aren't no

concern of mine, further than I've got a message for you."

"The boy's all safe," said Miss Hawkins briefly, outside. Whereupon the

man, after a subsiding growl or two, said:--"You gave the party my

message? What had she got to say back again? You may mouth it out and

cut your lucky."

Micky gave his message in a plain and business-like manner. "Mrs. Wardle

she's back after the accident, and Mrs. Prichard she's in the country,

and she don't know where."

"Who don't know where? Mrs. Prichard?"

"Mrs. Wardle. I said you was a-coming to see your mother, onlest the old

lady wasn't your mother. Then you shouldn't come."

"What did she say about Skillicks?"

"Said Mrs. Prichard come from Skillickses. Three year agone."

"You hear that, Miss Hawkins?" Mr. Wix seemed pleased, as one who had

scored, adding:--"I knew it was the old woman.... Anything else she

said?"

Micky appeared to consider his answer; then replied:--"Said I wasn't to

split upon you."

"What the Hell does she say that for? She don't know who I am."

Micky considered again, and astutely decided, perceiving his mistake, to

say as little as possible about Aunt M'riar's seeming interest in Mr.

Wix's safety from the Law. Then he said:--"She don't know nothing about

you, but when I says to her the Police was after you, she cuts in sharp,

and says, she does, that was no concern o' mine, and I was to say

nothing to them, and they wouldn't say nothing to me."

Mr. Wix said, "Rum!" and Miss Hawkins, who had been keeping her ears

open close at hand, looked in through the barcasement to say:--"You go

_there_, Wix, and back to gaol you go! I only tell you." And retired,

leaving the convict knitting tighter the perplexed scowl on his face. He

called after her:--"Come back here, you Juliar!"

"I can hear you."

"What the Devil do you mean?"

"Can't you see for yourself? This woman don't want the boy to get fifty

pound. If I was in her shoes, I shouldn't neither." Micky only heard

this imperfectly.

"You wouldn't do anything under a hundred, _you_ wouldn't. Good job for

me they don't double the amount.... Easy does it, Juliar--only a bit of

my fun!" For Miss Hawkins, even as a woman stung by a cruel insult, had

shown her flashing eyes, heightened colour, and panting bosom at the

bar-opening as before. Mr. Wix seemed gratified. "Pity you don't flare

up oftener, Juliar," said he. "You've no idea what a much better woman

you look. Damn it, but you _do_!"

The woman made an effort, and choked her anger. "God forgive you, Wix!"

said she, and fell back out of sight. Michael thought he heard her sob.

He was not too young to understand this little drama, which took less

time to act than to tell.

The convict had lost the thread of his examination, and had to hark

back. _Why_ was it, Mrs. Prichard had gone away into the country?... Oh,

the house had fallen down, had it? But, then, how came Mrs. Wardle to be

living in it still? Because, said Michael, it was only the wall fell off

of the front, and now Mr. Bartlett he'd made all that good, and Mrs.

Prichard was only kep' out by the damp. Did Mrs. Wardle _really_ not

know where Mrs. Prichard was? She had not told Michael, that was all he

could say. Old Mo he'd never slept out of the house, only the family.

And they was coming back soon now. Was old Mo an invalid, who never went

out? "No fear!" said Michael. "He's all to rights, only a bit oldish,

like. He spends the afternoons round at The Sun, and then goes home to

supper." The interview ended with a present of half-a-bull to Micky from

the convict, which the boy seemed to stickle at accepting. But he took

it, and it strengthened his resolution not to turn informer, which was

probably Mr. Wix's object.

He came away with an impression that Miss Hawkins had said:--"The boy's

lying. How could the front-wall of a house fall down?" But he had heard

no more and was glad to come away. He went back to his Aunt Betsy and

cooked his chop under her tutelage. What a time he had been away, said

she!

If Micky had remembered word for word the whole of this interview, he

might have had misgivings of the effect of one thing he had said

unawares. It was his reference to Uncle Mo's absence at The Sun during

the late afternoon. Manifestly, it left the house in Mr. Wix's

imagination untenanted, during some two hours of the day, except by Aunt

M'riar, and the children perhaps. And what did _they_ matter?

"You're mighty wise, Juliar, about the party of the house and the

fifty-pun' reward." So said the convict when the woman came back, after

seeing that Micky had crossed the wall unmolested by authority. "Folk

ain't in any such a hurry to get a man hanged when they know what'll

happen if they fail of doing it. Not even for fifty pound!"

"What _will_ happen?"

"Couldn't say to a nicety. But she would stand a tidy chance of getting

ripped up, next opportunity." He seemed pleased at his expression of

this fact, as he took the first pulls at a fresh pipe, on the

window-seat with his boots against the shutter and a grip of interlaced

fingers behind his close-cut head for support. Why in Heaven's name does

the released gaol-bird crop his hair? One would have thought the first

instinct of regained freedom would have been to let it grow.

Miss Hawkins looked at him without admiration. "I often wonder," said

she, "at the many risks I run to shelter you, for you're a bloody-minded

knave, and that's the truth. It was a near touch but I might have lost

my licence, last time."

"The Beaks were took with your good looks, Juliar. They're good judges

of a fine woman. An orphan you was, too, and the mourning sooted you,

prime!" He looked lazily at her, puffing--not without admiration, of a

sort. Her resentment seemed to gratify him more than any subserviency.

He continued:--"Well, nobody can say I haven't offered to make an honest

woman of _you_, Juliar."

"Much it was worth, your offer! As if you was free! And me to sell The

Pigeons and go with you to New York! No--no! I'm better off as I am,

than that."

"I'm free, accordin' to Law. Never seen the girl, nor heard from

her--over twenty years now--twenty-three at least. Scot-free of _her_,

anyhow! Don't want none of her, cutting in to spoil my new start in

life. Re-spectable man--justice of peace, p'r'aps." He puffed at his

pipe, pleased with the prospect. Then he sounded the keynote of his

thought, adding:--"Why--how much could you get for the freehold of this

little tiddleywink?"

If Miss Julia had been ever so well disposed towards being made

technically an honest woman by her betrayer of auld lang syne, this

declaration of his motives might easily have hardened her heart against

him. What fatuity of affection could have survived it? Yet his candour

was probably his only redeeming feature. He was scarcely an invariable

hypocrite; he was merely heartless, sensual, and cruel to the full

extent of man's possibilities. Nevertheless, he could and would have

lied black white with a purpose. He was, this time, thrown off his

guard, as it were, and truthful by accident. Whether the way in which

the woman silently repelled his offer was due to her disgust at its

terms, or whether she had her doubts of the soundness of his

jurisprudence, the story can only guess. Probably the latter. She merely

said:--"I'm going to open the house," and left his inquiry unanswered.

This was notice to him that his free run of the lower apartments was

ended. He went upstairs to some place of concealment.

* * * * *

"What was you and young Carrots so busy about below here?" said Uncle Mo

next day, coming down the stairs to breakfast in the kitchen an hour

later than Aunt M'riar.

"Telling me of his Aunt Betsy yesterday. Mind your shirt-sleeve. It's

going in the butter."

"What's Aunt Betsy's little game?... No, it's all right--the butter's

too hard to hurt.... Down Chiswick way, ain't she?"

"Hammersmith." Aunt M'riar wasn't talkative; but then, this morning, it

was bloaters. They should only just hot through, or they dry.

"Who was the bloke he was talking about? Somebody he called _him_."

Uncle Mo's ears had been too sharp.

"There!--I've no time to be telling what a boy says. No one any good,

I'll go bail!" Whereupon, as Uncle Mo's curiosity was not really keenly

excited, the subject dropped.

But, as a matter of fact, Michael had contrived in a short time to give

an account of his experience of yesterday. And he had left Aunt M'riar

in a state of disquiet and apprehension which had to be concealed,

somehow. For she was quite clear that she would not take Mo into her

confidence. She saw she had to choose between risking an interview with

this convict husband of hers, and giving him up to the Law, probably to

the gallows.

The man would come again to seek out his old mother, to extort money

from her; that was beyond a doubt. But would he of necessity recognise

the wife of twenty-three years ago in the very middle-aged person Aunt

M'riar saw in the half of a looking-glass that Mr. Bartlett's careful

myrmidons had not broken? Would she recognise him? Need either see the

other? Well--no! Communications might be restricted to speech through a

door with the chain up.

She took the boy Michael freely into her confidence about her

unwillingness to see this man. But that she could do on the strength of

his bad character; her own relation to him of course remained concealed.

She puzzled her confidant not a little by her seeming inconsistency--so

repugnant was she to the miscreant himself, yet so anxious that he

should not fall into the hands of the Police. Micky kept his perplexity

to himself, justifying his mother's estimate of his character.

But this much was clearly understood between them, that should the

convict be seen by Micky on his way to the house, he should forthwith

take one of two courses. If Uncle Mo was absent at the time, he was to

warn Aunt M'riar of Mr. Wix's approach. If otherwise, he was to warn the

unwelcome visitor of the risk he would run if he persisted in his

attempt to procure an interview. Of course the chances were that Micky

would be away on business, selling apples, potatoes, and turnips.

As it turned out, however, he was able to observe one of the conditions

of this compact.

* * * * *

It was on the Tuesday following the boy's visit to his great-aunt that

Mrs. Tapping had words with her daughter Alethea. They arose out of

Alethea's young man, an upstart. At least, he was so designated by Mrs.

Tapping, for aspiring to the hand of this young lady; who, though plain

by comparison with her mother at the same age, and no more figure than

what you see, was that sharp with her tongue when provoked, it made your

flesh curdle within you to hear her expressions. We need hardly say that

we have to rely on her mother for these facts. It was, however, the

extraction of Alethea that determined the presumptuousness of her young

man's aspirations. He was marrying into two families, the Tappings and

the Davises, which, though neither of them lordly, had always held their

heads high and their behaviour according. Whereas this young Tom was

metaphorically nobody, though actually in a shoe-shop and giving

satisfaction to his employers, with twenty-one shillings a week certain

and a rise at Christmas. You cannot do that unless you are a physical

entity, but when your grandmother is in an almshouse and your father met

his death in an inferior capacity at a Works, you have no call to give

yourself airs, and the less you say the better.

This brief sketch of the _status quo_ was given to Mrs. Riley by Mrs.

Tapping, in her woollen shawl for the first time, because of the sharp

edge in the wind, with a basket on her arm that Janus would have found

useful, owing to its two lids, one each side the handle. They were at

the entrance to Mrs. Riley's shop, and that good woman was bare-armed

and bonnetless in the cold north wind. She had not lost her Irish

accent.

"It is mesilf agrays with you intoirely," said she sympathetically.

"Not but what I do freely admit," said Mrs. Tapping, pursuing her topic

in a spirit of magnanimity, "that young Rundle himself never makes bold,

and is always civil spoke, which we might expect, seeing what is called

for, measuring soles. For I always do say that the temptation to forget

theirself is far more than human, especially flattenin' down the toe to

get the len'th, though of course the situation would be sacrificed, and

no character." This was an allusion to the delicacy of the position of

one who adjusts a sliding spanner to the foot of Beauty, to determine

its length to a nicety. The subject suggests curious questions.

Suppose--to look at its romantic side, as easier of discussion--that

you, young lady, were passionately adored by the young man at your

shoe-shop, and he were to kiss your foot as Vivien did Merlin's, could

you--would you--complain at the desk and lose him his situation? And how

about the Pope? Is his Holiness never measured--_sal a reverentia!_--for

his shoes? Or does the Oecumenical Council guess, and strike an

average? However, the current of the story need not be interrupted to

settle that.

"He intinds will," said Mrs. Riley. This was merely a vague compliment

to Alethea's suitor. "Ye see, me dyurr, it's taking the young spalpeen's

part she'll be, for shure! It is the nature of thim." That is to say,

lovers.

"But never to the point of calling tyrant, Mrs. Riley. Nor ojus

vulgarity. Nor epithets I will not repeat, relating to family

connections. Concerning which, _I_ say, God forgive Alethear! For the

accommodation at a nominal rent of persons in reduced circumstances is

not an almshouse, say what she may. And her Aunt Trebilcock is not a

charitable object, nor yet a deserving person, having mixed with the

best. And in so young a girl texts are not becoming, to a parent."

"Which was the tixt, thin?" said Mrs. Riley, interested. "I'm bel'avin'

ye, me dyurr!" This was to encourage Mrs. Tapping, and disclaim

incredulity.

"Since you're asking me, Mrs. Riley ma'am, I will not conceal from you

the Scripture text used only this morning by my own daughter, to my

face. 'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a

fall.' Whereupon I says to Alethear, 'Alethear,' I says, 'be truthful,

and admit that old Mrs. Rundle and your Aunt Trebilcock are on a

dissimular footing, one being distinctly a Foundation in the Whitechapel

Road, and the other Residences, each taking their own Milk.'" Some

further particulars came in here, relating to the bone of that mornin's

contention, which had turned on Mrs. Tapping's objections to her

daughter's demeaning, or bemeaning, herself, by marrying into a lower

rank of life than her own.

All this conversation of these two ladies has nothing to do with the

story. The only reason for referring to it is that it took place at this

time, just opposite Mrs. Riley's shop, and led her to remark:--"You lave

the young payple alone, Mrs. Tapping, and they'll fall out. You'll only

kape thim on, by takin' order with thim. Thrust me. Whativer have ye got

in the basket?"

Mrs. Tapping explained that she was using it to convey a kitten, born in

her establishment, to Miss Druitt at thirty-four opposite, who had

expressed anxiety to possess it. It was this kitten's expression of

impatience with its position that had excited Mrs. Riley's curiosity.

"Why don't ye carry the little sowl across in your hands, me dyurr?"

said she; not unreasonably, for it was only a stone's-throw. Mrs.

Tapping added that this was no common kitten, but one of preternatural

activity, and possessed of diabolical tentacular powers of entanglement.

"I would not undertake," said she, "to get it across the road, ma'am,

only catching hold. Nor if I got it safe across, to onhook it, without

tearing." Mrs. Riley was obliged to admit the wisdom of the Janus

basket. She knew how difficult it is to be even with a kitten.

This one was destined to illustrate the resources of its kind. For as

Mrs. Tapping endeavoured to conduct the conversation back to her

domestic difficulties, she was aware that the Janus basket grew suddenly

lighter. Mrs. Riley exclaimed at the same moment:--"Shure, and the

little baste's in the middle of the road!" So it was, hissing like a

steam-escape, and every hair on its body bristling with wrath at a large

black dog, who was smelling it in a puzzled, thoughtful way, _sans

rancune_. A cart, with an inscription on it that said its owner was

"Horse-Slaughterer to Her Majesty," came thundering down the street,

shaking three drovers seriously. The dog, illuminated by some new idea,

started back to bark in a sudden panic-stricken way. Who could tell what

new scourge this was that dogdom had to contend with?

Her Majesty's Horse-Slaughterer pulled his cart up just in time. It

would else have run over a man who was picking the kitten up. All the

males concerned exchanged execrations, and then the cart went on. The

dog's anxiety to smell the phenomenon survived, till the man kicked him

and told him to go to Hell.

"Now who does this here little beggar belong to?" said the man, whom

Mrs. Riley did not like the looks of. Mrs. Tapping claimed the cat, and

expressed wonder as to how it had got out of the basket. Heaven only

knew! It is only superhuman knowledge, divine or diabolical, that knows

how cats get out of baskets; or indeed steel safes, or anything.

"As I do not think, mister," said Mrs. Tapping--deciding at the last

moment not to say "my good man"--"it would be any use to try getting of

it inside of this basket out here in the street, let alone its aptitude

for getting out when got in, I might trouble you to be so kind as to

fetch it into my shop next door here, by the scruff of its neck

preferable.... Thank you, mister!" She had had some idea of making it

"Sir," but thought better of it.

The kitten, deposited on the counter, concerned itself with a

blue-bottle fly. The man remarked that it was coming on to rain. Mrs.

Tapping had not took notice of any rain, but believed the statement. Why

is it that one accepts as true any statement made by a visibly

disreputable male? Mrs. Tapping did not even look out at the door, for

confirmation or contradiction. She was so convinced of this rain that

she suggested that the man should wait a few minutes to see if it didn't

hold up, because he had no umbrella. His reply was:--"Well, since you're

so obliging, Missis, I don't mind if I do. My mate I'm waiting for,

he'll be along directly." He declined a chair or stool, and waited,

looking out at the door into the _cul de sac_ street that led to Sapps

Court, opposite. Mrs. Tapping absented herself in the direction of a

remote wrangle underground, explaining her motive. She desired that her

daughter, whose eyesight was better than her own, should thread a piece

of pack-thread through a rip in the base of the Janus basket, which had

to account for the kitten's appearance in public. She did not seem

apprehensive about leaving the shop ungarrisoned.

But had she been a shrewder person, she might have felt misgivings about

this man's character, even if she had acquitted him of such petty theft

as running away with congested tallow candles. For no reasonable theory

could be framed of a mate in abeyance, who would emerge from anywhere

down opposite. A mate of a man who seemed to be of no employment, to

belong to no recognised class, to wear description-baffling clothes--not

an ostler's, nor an undertaker's, certainly; but some suspicion of one

or other, Heaven knew why!--and never to look straight in front of him.

Without some light on his vocation, imagination could provide no mate.

And this man looked neither up nor down the street, but remained

watching the _cul de sac_ from one corner of his eye. It was not coming

on to rain as alleged, and he might have had a better outlook nearer the

door. But he seemed to prefer retirement.

The wrangle underground fluctuated slightly, went into another key, and

then resumed the theme. A lean little girl came in, who tapped on the

counter with a coin. She called out "'A'p'orth o' dips!" taking a tress

of her hair from between her teeth to say it, and putting it back to

await the result. She had a little brother with her, who was old

enough to walk when pulled, but not old enough to discipline his

own nose, being dependent on his sister's good offices, and her

pocket-handkerchief. He offered a sucked peardrop to the kitten, who

would not hear of it.

There certainly was no rain, or Mrs. Riley would never have remained

outside, with those bare arms and all. There she was, saying

good-evening to someone who had just come from Sapps Court. The man in

the shop listened, closely and curiously.

"Good-avening, Mr. Moses, thin! Whin will we see the blessed chilther

back? Shure it's wakes and wakes and wakes!" Which written, looks odd;

but, spoken, only conveyed regretful reference to the time Dave and

Dolly had been away, without taxing the hearer's understanding. "They

till me your good lady's been sane, down the Court."

Uncle Mo had just come out, on his way to a short visit to The Sun. He

was looking cheerful. "Ay, missis! Their aunt's bringin' of 'em back

to-morrow from Ealing. _I_'ll be glad enough to see 'em, for one."

"And the owld sowl upstairs. Not that I iver set my eyes on her, and

that's the thrruth."

"Old Mother Prichard? Why--that's none so easy to say. So soon as her

swell friends get sick of her, I suppose. She's being cared for, I take

it, at this here country place."

"'Tis a nobleman's sate in the Norruth, they sid. Can ye till the name

of it, to rimimber?" Mrs. Riley had an impression shared by many, that

noblemen's seats are, broadly speaking, in the North. She had no

definite information.

Uncle Mo caught at the chance of warping the name, uncorrected. "It's

the Towels in Rocestershire," said he with effrontery. "Some sort of a

Dook's, good Lard!" Then to change the subject:--"She won't have no

place to come back to, not till Mrs. Burr's out and about again."

"The axidint, at the Hospital. No, indade! And how's the poor woman,

hersilf? It was the blissin' of God she wasn't kilt on the spot!"

"It warn't a bad bit of luck. She'll be out of hospital next week, I'm

told. They're taking their time about it, anyhow! Good-night to ye,

missis! The rain's holdin' off." And Uncle Mo departed. Aunt M'riar had

insisted on his not discontinuing any of his lapses into bachelorhood

proper; which implies pub or club, according to man's degree.

* * * * *

Just a few minutes ago--speaking abreast of the story--Aunt M'riar,

getting ready at last to do a little work after so much tidying up, had

to go to the door to answer a knock. Its responsible agent was Michael,

excited. "It's _him_!" said he. "I seen him myself. Over at Tappingses.

And Mr. Moses, he's a-conversing with Missis Riley next door." He went

on to offer to make an affidavit, as was his practice, not only on the

Testament, but on most any book you could name.

It was not necessary: Aunt M'riar believed him. "You tell him," she

replied, "that Mrs. Prichard's gone away, and no time fixed for coming

back. Then he'll go. If he don't go, and comes along, just you say to

him Mr. Wardle he'll be back in a minute. He'll be only a short time at

The Sun."

"I'll say wotsumever you please, Missis Wardle. Only that won't carry no

weight, not if I says it ever so. He's a sly customer. Here he is

a-coming. Jist past the post!" That is, the one Dave broke his head off.

Aunt M'riar's heart thumped, and she felt sick. "_You_ say there's no

one in the house then," said she. This was panic, and loss of judgment.

For the interview was palpable to anyone approaching down the Court.

Micky must have felt this, but he only said:--"I'll square him how I

can, missis," and withdrew from the door. Mr. Wix's lurching footstep,

with the memory of its fetters on it, approached at its leisure. He

stopped and looked round, and saw the boy, who acknowledged his stare.

"I see you a-coming," said Michael.

Mr. Wix said:--"Young Ikey." He appeared to consider a course of action.

"Now do you want another half-a-bull?"

"Ah!" Micky was clear about that.

"Then you do sentry-go outside o' this, in the street, and if you see a

copper turning in here, you run ahead and give the word. Understand?

This is Wardle's, ain't it?"

"That's Wardle's. But there ain't nobody there."

"You young liar. I saw you talking through the door, only this minute."

"That warn't anybody, only Aunt M'riar. Party you wants is away--gone

away for a change. Mr. Moses ain't there, but he'll be back afore you

can reckon him up. You may knock at that door till you 'ammer in the

button, and never find a soul in the house, only Aunt M'riar. You try!

'Ammer away!" There was a _faux air_ of self-justification in this,

which did not bear analysis. Possibly Micky thought so himself, for he

vanished up the Court. He would at least be able to bring a false alarm

if any critical juncture arose.

The ex-convict watched him out of sight, and then knocked at the door,

and waited. The woman inside had been listening to his voice with a

quaking heart--had known it for that of her truant husband of twenty

years ago, through all the changes time had made, and in spite of such

colour of its own as the prison taint had left in it. And he stood there

unsuspecting; not a thought in his mind of who she was, this Aunt

M'riar! Why indeed should he have had any?

She could not trust her voice yet, with a heart thumping like that. She

might take a moment's grace, at least, for its violence to subside. She

sat down, close to the door, for she felt sick and the room went round.

She wanted not to faint, though it was not clear that syncope would make

matters any the worse. But the longer he paused before knocking again,

the better for Aunt M'riar.

The knock came, a _crescendo_ on the previous one. She _had_ to respond

some time. Make an effort and get it over!

"That * * * young guttersnipe's given me a bad character," muttered Wix,

as he heard the chain slipped into its sheath. Then the door opened, and

a tremulous voice came from within.

"What is it ... you want?" it said. Its trepidation was out of all

proportion to the needs of the case. So thought Mr. Wix, and decided

that this Aunt M'riar was some poor nervous hysteric, perhaps an idiot

outright.

"Does an old lady by the name of Prichard live here, mistress?" He hid

his impatience with this idiot, assuming a genial or conciliatory

tone--a thing he perfectly well knew how to do, on occasion. "An old

lady by the name of Prichard.... You've got nothing to be frightened of,

you know. I'm not going to do _her_ any harm, nor yet you." He spoke as

to the idiot, in a reassuring tone. For the hysterical voice had tried

again for speech, and failed.

Aunt M'riar mustered a little more strength. "Old Mrs. Prichard's away

in the country," she said almost firmly. "She's not likely to be back

yet awhile. Can I take any message?"

"Are _you_ going in the country?"

"For when she comes back, I should have said."

"Ah--but when will that be? Next come strawberry-time, perhaps! I'll

write to her."

"I can't give her address." Aunt M'riar had an impression that the

omission of "you" after "give" just saved her telling a lie here. Her

words might have meant: "I am not at liberty to give her address to

anyone." It was less like saying she did not know it.

His next words startled her. "_I_ know her address. Got it written down

here. Some swell's house in Rocestershire." He made a pretence of

searching among papers.

Aunt M'riar was so taken by surprise at this that she had said

"Yes--Ancester Towers" before she knew it. She was not a person to

entrust secrets to.

"Right you are, mistress! Ancester Towers it is." He was making a

pretence, entirely for his own satisfaction, of confirming this from a

memorandum. Mr. Wix had got what he wanted, but he enjoyed the success

of his ruse. Of course, he had only used what he had just overheard from

Uncle Moses.

The thought then crossed Aunt M'riar's mind that unless she inquired of

him who he was, or why he wanted Mrs. Prichard, he would guess that she

knew already. It was the reaction of her concealed knowledge--a sort of

innocent guilty conscience. It was not a reasonable thought, but a vivid

one for all that--vivid enough to make her say:--"Who shall I say asked

for her?"

"Any name you like. It don't matter to me. I shall write to her myself."

Guilty consciences--even innocent ones--can never leave well alone. The

murderer who has buried his victim must needs hang about the spot to be

sure no one is digging him up. One looks back into the room one lit a

match in, to see that it is not on fire. A diseased wish to clear

herself from any suspicion of knowing anything about her visitor,

impelled Aunt M'riar to say:--"Of course I don't know the name you go

by." Obviously she would have done well to let it alone.

A person who had never borne an _alias_ would have thought nothing of

Aunt M'riar's phrase. The convict instantly detected the speaker's

knowledge of himself. Another thought crossed his mind:--How about that

caution this woman had given to Micky? Why was she so concerned that the

boy should not "split upon" him? "Who the devil are you?" said he

suddenly, half to himself. It was not the form in which he would have

put the question had he reflected.

The exclamation produced a new outcrop of terror or panic in Aunt

M'riar. She found voice to say:--"I've told you all I can, master." Then

she shut the door between them, and sank down white and breathless on

the chair close at hand, and waited, longing to hear his footsteps go.

She seemed to wait for hours.

Probably it was little over a minute when the man outside knocked

again--a loud, sepulchral, single knock, with determination in it. Its

resonance in the empty house was awful to the lonely hearer.

But Aunt M'riar's capacity for mere dread was full to the brim. She was

on the brink of the reaction of fear, which is despair--or, rather,

desperation. Was she to wait for another appalling knock, like that, to

set her heartstrings vibrating anew? To what end? No--settle it now,

under the sting of this one.

She again opened the door as before. "I've told you all I know about

Mrs. Prichard, and it's true. You must just wait till she comes back. I

can't tell you no more."

"I don't want any more about Mrs. Prichard. I want to see side of this

door. Take that * * * chain off, and speak fair. I sent you a civil

message through that young boy. He gave it you?"

"He told me what you said."

"What did he say I said? If he told you any * * * lies, I'll half murder

him! What did he say?"

"He said you was coming to see your mother, and Mrs. Prichard she must

be your mother if she comes from Skillicks. So I told him she come from

Skillicks, three year agone. Then he said you wanted money of Mrs.

Prichard...."

"How the devil did he know that?"

"He said it. And I told him the old lady had no money. It's little

enough, if she has."

"And that was all?"

"All about Mrs. Prichard."

"Anything else?"

"He told me your name."

"What name?"

"Thornton Daverill." The moment Aunt M'riar had said this she was sorry

for it. For she remembered, plainly enough considering the tension of

her mind, that Micky had only given her the surname. Her oversight had

come of her own bitter familiarity with the name. Think how easy for her

tongue to trip!

"Anything else?"

"No--nothing else."

"You swear to Goard?"

"I have told you everything."

"Then look you here, mistress! I can tell you this one thing. That young

boy never told you Thornton. I've never named the name to a soul since I

set foot in England. How the devil come you to know it?"

Aunt M'riar was silent. She had given herself away, and had no one but

herself to thank for it.

"How the devil come you to know it?" The man raised his voice harshly to

repeat the question, adding, more to himself:--"You're some * * * jade

that knows me. Who the devil _are_ you?"

The woman remained dumb, but on the very edge of desperation.

"Open this damned door! You hear me? Open this door--or, look you, I

tell you what I'll do! Here's that * * * young boy coming. I'll twist

his neck for him, by Goard, and leave him on your doorstep. You put me

to it, and I'll do it. I'm good for my word." A change of tone, from

savage anger to sullen intent, conveyed the strength of a controlled

resolve, that might mean more than threat. At whatever cost, Aunt M'riar

could not but shield Micky. It was in her service that he had provoked

this man's wrath.

She wavered a little, closed the door, and slipped the chain-hook up to

its limit. Even then she hesitated to withdraw it from its socket. The

man outside made with his tongue the click of acceleration with which

one urges a horse, saying, "Look alive!" She could see no choice but to

throw the door open and face him. The moment that passed before she

could muster the resolution needed seemed a long one.

That she was helped to it by an agonising thirst, almost, of curiosity

to see his face once more, there can be no doubt. But could she have

said, during that moment, whether she most desired that he should have

utterly forgotten her, or that he should remember her and claim her as

his wife? Probably she would not have hesitated to say that worse than

either would be that he should recognise her only to slight her, and

make a jest, maybe, of the memories that were his and hers alike.

She had not long to wait. It needed just a moment's pause--no more--to

be sure no sequel of recognition would follow the blank stare that met

her gaze as she threw back the door, and looked this husband of hers

full in the face. None came, and her heart throbbed slower and slower.

It would be down to self-command in a few beats. Meanwhile, how about

that chance slip of her tongue? "Thornton" had to be accounted for.

The man's stare was indeed blank, for any sign of recognition that it

showed. It was none the less as intent and curious as was the scrutiny

that met it, looking in vain for a false lover long since fled, not a

retrievable one, but a memory of a sojourn in a garden and a collapse in

a desert. So little was left, to explain the past, in the face some

violence had twisted askew, close-shaved and scarred, one white scar on

the temple warping the grip in which its contractions held a cold green

orb that surely never was the eye that was a girl-fool's _ignis fatuus_,

twenty odd years ago. So little of the flawless teeth, which surely

those fangs never were!--fangs that told a tale of the place in which

they had been left to decay; for such was prison-life three-quarters of

a century since. It was strange, but Aunt M'riar, though she knew that

it was he, felt sick at heart that he should be so unlike himself.

He was the first to speak. "You'll know me again, mistress," he said. He

took his eyes off her to look attentively round the room. Uncle Mo's

sporting prints, prized records of ancient battles, caught his eye.

"Ho--that's it, is it?" said he, with a short nod of illumination, as

though he had made a point as a cross-examiner. "That's where we

are--Figg and Broughton--Corbet--Spring?... That's your game, is it? Now

the question is, where the devil do I come in? How come you to know my

name's Thornton? That's the point!"

Now nothing would have been easier for Aunt M'riar than to say that Mrs.

Prichard had told her that her only surviving son bore this name. But

the fact is that the old lady, quite a recent experience, had for the

moment utterly vanished from her thoughts, and the man before her had

wrenched her mind back into the past. She could only think of him as the

cruel betrayer of her girlhood, none the less cruel that he had failed

in his worst plot against her, and used a legitimate means to cripple

her life. She could scarcely have recalled anything Mrs. Prichard had

said, for the life of her. She was face to face with the past, yet

standing at bay to conceal her identity.

Think how hard pressed she was, and forgive her for resorting to an

excusable fiction. It was risky, but what could she do? "I knew your

wife," said she briefly. "Twenty-two years agone."

"You mean the girl I married?" He had had to marry one of them, but

could only marry one. That was how he classed her. "What became of that

girl, I wonder? Maybe you know? Is she alive or dead?"

"I couldn't say, at this len'th of time." Then, she remembered a

servant, at the house where her child was born, and saw safety for her

own fiction in assuming this girl's identity. Invention was stimulated

by despair. "She was confined of a girl, where I was in service. She

gave me letters to post to her husband. R. Thornton Daverill." That was

safe, anyhow. For she remembered giving letters, so directed, to this

girl.

The convict sat down on the table, looking at her no longer, which she

found a relief. "Did that kid live or die?" said he. "Blest if I

recollect!"

"Born dead. She had a bad time of it. She came back to London, and I

never see any more of her." Aunt M'riar should have commented on this

oblivion of his own child. She was letting her knowledge of the story

influence her, and endangering her version of it.

The man stopped and thought a little. Then he turned upon her suddenly.

"How came you to remember that name for twenty-two years?" said he.

A thing she recollected of this servant-girl helped her at a pinch. "She

asked me to direct a letter when she hurt her hand," she said. "When

you've wrote a name, you bear it in mind."

"What did she call the child?"

"It was born dead."

"What did she mean to call it?"

The answer should have been "She didn't tell me." But Aunt M'riar was a

poor fiction-monger after all. For what must she say but "Polly, after

herself"?

"Not Mary?"

Then Aunt M'riar forgot herself completely. "No--Polly. After the name

you called her, at The Tun." She saw her mistake, too late.

Daverill turned his gaze on her again, slowly. "You seem to remember a

fat lot about this and that!" said he. He got down off the table, and

stepped between Aunt M'riar and the door, saying: --"Come you here,

mistress!" The harshness of his voice was hideous to her. He caught her

wrist, and pulled her to the window. The only gas-lamp the Court

possessed shone through it on her white face. "Now--what's your * * *

married name?"

Aunt M'riar could not utter a word.

"I can tell you. You're that * * * young Polly, and your name's

Daverill. You're my lawful wife--d'ye hear?" He gave a horrible laugh.

"Why, I thought you was buried years ago!"

She began gasping hysterically:--"Leave me--leave me--you are nothing to

me now!" and struggled to free herself. Yet, inexpressibly dreadful as

the fact seemed to her, she knew that her struggle was not against the

grasp of a stranger. Think of that bygone time! The thought took all the

spirit out of her resistance.

He returned to his seat upon the table, drawing her down beside him.

"Yes, Polly Daverill," said he, "I thought you dead and buried, years

ago. I've had a rough time of it, since then, across the water." He

paused a moment; then said quite clearly, almost passionlessly:--"God

curse them all!" He repeated the words, even more equably the second

time; then with a rough bear-hug of the arm that gripped her

waist:--"What have _you_ got to say about it, hay? Who's your * * *

husband now? Who's your prizefighter?"

The terrified woman just found voice for:--"He's not my husband." She

could not add a word of explanation.

The convict laughed unwholesomely, beneath his breath. "_That's_ what

you've come to, is it? Pretty Polly! Mary the Maid of the Inn! The man

you've got is not your husband. Sounds like the parson--Holy Scripture,

somewhere! I've seen him. He's at the lush-ken down the road. Now you

tell the truth. When's he due back here?"

She had only just breath for the word seven, which was true. It was past

the half-hour, and he would not have believed her had she said sooner.

But it was as though she told him that she knew she was helplessly in

his power for twenty-five minutes. Helplessly, that is, strong

resolution and desperation apart!

"Then he won't be here till half-past. Time and to spare! Now you listen

to me, and I'll learn you a thing or two you don't know. You are

my--lawful--wife, so just you listen to me! Ah, would you?..." This was

because he had supposed that a look of hers askant had rested on a knife

upon the table within reach. It was a pointed knife, known as "the bread

knife," which Dolly was never allowed to touch. He pulled her away from

it, caught at it, and flung it away across the room. "It's a narsty,

dangerous thing," he said, "safest out of the way!" Then he went

on:--"You--are--my--lawful--wife, and what St. Paul says mayhap you

know? 'Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as it is fit in the

Lord.' ... What!--me not know my * * * Testament! Why!--it's the only *

* * book you get a word of when you're nursing for Botany Bay fever. God

curse 'em all! Why--the place was Hell--Hell on earth!"

Aunt M'riar now saw too late that she should not have opened that door,

at any cost. But how about Micky? Surely, however, that was a mere

threat. What had this man to gain by carrying it out? Why had she not

seen that he would never run needless risk, to gain no end?

The worst thorn in her heart was that, changed as he was from the

dissolute, engaging youth that she had dreamed of reforming, she still

knew him for himself. He was, as he said, her husband. And, for all that

she shrank from him and his criminality with horror, she was obliged to

acknowledge--oh, how bitterly!--that she wanted help against herself as

much as against him. She was obliged to acknowledge the grisly force of

Nature, that dictated the reimposition of the yoke that she had through

all these years conceived that she had shaken off. And she knew that she

might look in vain for help to Law, human or theological. For each in

its own way, and for its own purposes, gives countenance to the only

consignment of one human creature to the power of another that the slow

evolution of Justice has left in civilised society. Each says to the

girl trapped into unholy matrimony, from whom the right to look inside

the trap has been cunningly withheld:--"Back to your lord and master! Go

to him, he is your husband--kiss him--take his hand in thine!" Neither

is ashamed to enforce a contract to demise the self-ownership of one

human being to another, when that human being is a woman. And yet Nature

is so inexorable that the victim of a cruel marriage often needs help

sorely--help against herself, to enable her, on her own behalf, to shake

off the Devil some mysterious instinct impels her to cling to. Such an

instinct was stirring in Aunt M'riar's chaos of thought and feeling,

even through her terror and her consciousness of the vileness of the man

and the vileness of his claim over her. The idea of using the power that

her knowledge of his position gave her never crossed her mind. Say

rather that the fear that a call for help would consign him to a just

retribution for his crimes was the chief cause of her silence.

A dread that she might be compelled to do so was lessened by his next

speech. "You've no call to look so scared, Polly Daverill. You do what

I tell you, and be sharp about it. What are you good for?--that's the

question! Got any money in the house?"

She felt relieved. Now he would take his arm away. That arm was all the

worse from the fact that her shrinking from it was one-sided. "A

little," she answered. "It's upstairs. Let me get it."

He relaxed the arm. "Go ahead!" he said. "I'll follow up."

She cried out with sudden emphasis:--"No--I will not. I will not." And

then with subdued earnestness:--"Indeed I will bring it down. Indeed I

will."

"You won't stick up there, by any chance, till your man that's not your

husband happens round?"

She addressed him by name for the first time. "Thornton, did I ever tell

you a lie?"

"I never caught you in one, that I know of. Cut along!"

She went like a bird released. Once in her room, and clear of him, she

could lock her door and cry for help. She turned the key, and had

actually thrown up the window-sash, when her own words crossed her

mind--her claim to veracity. No--she would keep a clear conscience, come

what might. She glanced up the Court, and saw Micky coming through the

arch; then closed the window, and took an old leather purse from the

drawer of the looking-glass Mr. Bartlett's men had not broken. It

contained the whole of her small savings.

After she left the room, Daverill had glanced round for valuables. An

old silver watch of Uncle Mo's, that always stopped unless allowed to

lie on its back, was ticking on the dresser. The convict slipped it into

his pocket, and looked round for more, opening drawers, looking under

dish-covers. Finding nothing, he sat again on the table, with his hands

in the pockets of his velveteen corduroy coat. His face-twist grew more

marked as he wrinkled the setting of a calculating eye. "I should have

to square it with Miss Juliar," said he, in soliloquy. He was evidently

clear about his meaning, whatever it was.

The boy came running down the Court, and entering the front-yard, whose

claim to be a garden was now _nil_, tapped at the window excitedly.

Daverill went to the door and opened it.

"Mister Moses coming along. Stopping to speak to Tappingses. You'd best

step it sharp, Mister Wix!"

"Polly Daverill, look alive!" The convict shouted at the foot of the

stairs, and Aunt M'riar came running down. "Where's the * * * cash?"

said he.

"It's all I've got," said poor Aunt M'riar. She handed the purse to

him, and he caught it and slipped it in a breast-pocket, and was out in

the Court in a moment, running, without another word. He vanished into

the darkness.

Five minutes later, Uncle Mo, escaping from Mrs. Tapping, came down the

Court, and found the front-door open and no light in the house. He

nearly tumbled over Aunt M'riar, in a swoon, or something very like it,

in the chair by the door.

CHAPTER II

HOW ADRIAN TORRENS COULD SING WITHOUT WINCING. FIGARO. DICTATION OF

LETTERS. HOW ADRIAN BROKE DOWN. THE LERNAEAN HYDRA'S EYE-PEEPS. HOW

ADRIAN COULD SEE NOTHING IN ANY NUMBER OF LOOKING-GLASSES. HOW

GWEN, IN SPITE OF APPEARANCES, HELD TO THE SOLEMN COMPACT. SIR

MERRIDEW'S TREACHERY. SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. HOW GWEN HAD BEEN TO LOOK

AT ARTHUR'S BRIDGE. A KINKAJOU IS NOT A CARCAJOU. OF THE

PECULIARITIES OF FIRST-CLASS SERVANTS. MRS. PICTURE'S STORY

DIVULGED BY GWEN. HOW DAVE'S RIVAL GRANNIES WERE SAFEST APART

Old folk and candles burn out slowly at the end. But before that end

comes they flicker up, once, twice, and again. The candle says:--"Think

of me at my best. Remember me when I shone out thus, and thus; and never

guttered, nor wanted snuffing. Think of me when you needed no other

light than mine, to look in Bradshaw and decide that you had better go

early and ask at the Station." Thus says the candle.

And the old man says to the old woman, and she says it back to

him:--"Think of me in the glorious days when we were dawning on each

other; of that most glorious day of all when we found each other out,

and had a tiff in a week and a reconciliation in a fortnight!" Then each

is dumb for a while, and life ebbs slowly, till some chance memory stirs

among the embers, and a bright spark flickers for a moment in the dark.

The candle dies at last, and smells, and mixes with the elements. And

some say you and I will do the very same--die and go out. Possibly! Just

as you like! Have it your own way.

It is even so with the Old Year in his last hours. Is ever an October so

chill that he may not bid you suddenly at midday to come out in the

garden and recall, with him, what it was like in those Spring days when

the first birds sang; those Summer days when the hay-scent was in

Cheapside, and a great many roses had not been eaten by blights, and it

was too hot to mow the lawn? Is ever a November so self-centred as to

refuse to help the Old Year to a memory of the gleams of April, and the

nightingale's first song about the laggard ash-buds? Is icy December's

self so remorseless, even when the holly-berries are making a parade of

their value as Christmas decorations?--even when it's not much use

pretending, because the Waits came last night, and you thought, when you

heard them, what a long time ago it was that a little boy or girl, who

must have been yourself, was waked by them to wonder at the mysteries of

Night? But nothing is of any use in December, because January will come,

and this year will be dead and risen from its tomb, and the

metaphorically disposed will be hoping that Resurrection is not so

uncomfortable as all that comes to.

That time was eight weeks ahead one morning at Pensham Steynes, which

has to be borne in mind, as the residence of Sir Hamilton Torrens,

Bart., when the blind man, his son, was dictating to his sister Irene

one of the long missives he was given to sending to his _fiancee_ in

London. It was just such a late October day as the one indirectly

referred to above; in fact, it would quite have done for a Spring day,

if only you could have walked across the lawn without getting your feet

soaked. The chance primroses that the mild weather had deluded into

budding must have felt ashamed of their stupidity, and disgusted at the

sight of the stripped trees, although they may have reaped some

encouragement from a missel-thrush that had just begun again after the

holiday, and been grateful to the elms and oaks that had kept some

decent clothing on them. Irene had found one such primrose in a morning

walk, and a confirmation of it in the morning's _Times_.

"Why didn't you say the ground was covered with them, 'Re? I could have

believed in any number on your authority. Surely, a chap with his eyes

out is entitled to the advantages which seeing nothing confers on him.

Do please perjure yourself about violets and crocuses on my behalf. It

is quite a mistake to suppose I shall be jealous. You've no idea what a

magnanimous elder brother you've got." So Adrian had said when they came

in, and had felt his way to the piano--it was extraordinary how he had

learned to feel his way about--and had played the air of "Sumer is

ycumin in, lhude sing cucu," with the courage of a giant. Not only that,

but actually sang it, and never flinched from:--"Groweth seed and

bloweth meed and springeth wood anew." And his heart was saying to him

all the while that he might never again see the springing of the young

corn, and the daisies in the grass, and the new buds waiting for the

bidding of the sun.

Irene, quite alive to her brother's intrepidity, but abstaining

resolutely from spoken acknowledgment--for would not that have been an

admission of the need for courage?--had gone through a dramatic effort

on her own behalf, a kind of rehearsal of the part she had to play. She

had arranged writing materials for action, and affected the attitude of

a patient scribe, longing for dictation. She had assumed a hardened

tone, to say:--"When you're ready!" Then Adrian had deserted the piano,

and addressed himself to dictation. "Where were we?" said he. For the

letter was half written, having been interrupted by visitors the day

before.

"When the Parysfort women came in?" said Irene. "We had got to the old

woman. After the old woman--what next?"

Adrian repeated, "After the old woman--after the old woman." Then he

said suddenly:--"Bother the old woman. I tell you what, 'Re, we must

tear this letter up, and start fair. Those people coming in spoiled it."

His tone was vexed and restless. The weariness of his blindness galled

him. This fearful inability to write was one of his worst trials. He

fought hard against his longing to cry out--to lighten his heart, ever

so little, by expression of his misery; but then, the only one thing he

could do in requital of the unflagging patience of this dear amanuensis,

was to lighten the weight of her sorrow for him. And this he could only

do by showing unflinching resolution to bear his own burden. One worst

unkindest cut of all was that any word of exasperation against the

cruelty of a cancelled pen might seem an imputation on her of

ineffective service, almost a reproach. It was perhaps because the

visitors of yesterday were so evidently to blame for the miscarriage of

this letter, that Adrian felt, in a certain sense, free to grieve aloud.

It was a relief to him to say:--"The Devil fly away with the Honourable

Misses Parysforts!"

"Suppose we have a clean slate, darling, and I'll tear the letter up,

old woman and all. Or shall I read back a little, to start you?"

"Oh no--please! On no account read anything again.... Suppose I confess

up! Make some stars, and go on like this:--'These are not Astronomy, but

to convey the idea that I have forgotten where I was, and that we have

to make it a rule never to re-read, for fear I should tear it up. I

believe I was trying to find a new roundabout way of saying how much

more to me you were than anything in Heaven or Earth.'" The dictation

paused.

"Go on," said the amanuensis. "After 'Heaven and Earth'?" She paused

with an expectant pen, her eyes on the paper. Then she looked up, to see

that her brother's face was in his hands, dropped down on the

side-cushion of the sofa. She waited for him to speak, knowing he would

only think she did not see him. But she had to wait overlong for the

lasting powers of this excuse; so she let it lapse, and went to sit

beside him, and coaxed his hands from his face, kissing away something

very like a tear. "But why now, darling?" said she. "You know what I

mean. What was it in the letter?"

"Why--I was going to say," replied Adrian, recovering himself, "I was

going on to 'the thing that makes day of my darkness' or something of

that sort--some poetical game, you know--and then I thought what a many

things I could write if I could write them myself, and shut them in the

envelope for Gwen alone, that I can't say now, though the dearest sister

ever man had yet writes them for me. I _can_ say to _her_, darling, that

if I were offered my eyesight back, by some irritating fairy

godmother--that kind of thing--in exchange for the Gwen that is mine, I

would not accept her boon upon the terms. I should, on the contrary,

wish I were the Lernaean Hydra, that I might give the balance of seven

pairs of eyes rather than ..."

"Rather than lose Gwen." Irene spoke, because he had hesitated.

"Exactly. But I got stuck a moment by the reflection that Gwen's

sentiments might not have remained altogether unchanged, in that case.

In fact, she might have run away, at Arthur's Bridge. It is an obscure

and difficult subject, and the supply of parallel cases is not all one

could wish."

"I don't see why we shouldn't put all or any of that in the letter." For

Irene always favoured her brother's incurable whimsicality as a resource

against the powers of Erebus and dark Night, and humoured any approach

to extravagance, to disperse the cloud that had gathered. This one

pleased him.

"How shall we put it?... somehow like this.... By-the-by, do you know

how to spell Lernaean?..." He paused abruptly, and seemed to listen.

"Sh--sh a minute! What's that outside? I thought I heard somebody

coming." Irene listened too.

"Ply hears somebody," she said. And then she had all but said "Look at

him!" in an unguarded moment.

An instant later the dog had started up and scoured from the room as if

life and death depended on his presence elsewhere. Adrian heard

something his sister did not, and exclaimed "What's that?"

"Nothing," said Irene. "Only someone at the front-door. Ply's always

like that."

"I didn't mean Ply. Listen! Be quiet." The room they were in was remote

from the front-door of the house, and the voice they heard was no more

than a musical modulation of silence. It had a power in it, for all

that, to rouse the blind man to excitement. He had to put a restraint on

himself to say quietly:--"Suppose you go and see! Do you mind?" Irene

left the room.

Anyone who had seen Adrian then for the first time, and watched him

standing motionless with his hands on a chairback and the eyes that saw

nothing gazing straight in front of him, but not towards the door, would

have wondered to see a man of his type apparently so interested in his

own image, repeated by the mirror before him as often as eyesight could

trace its give-and-take with the one that faced it on the wall behind

him. He was the wrong man for a Narcissus. The strength of his framework

was wrong throughout. Narcissus had no bone-distances, as artists say,

and his hair was in crisp curls, good for the sculptor. No one ever

needed to get a pair of scissors to snip it. But though anyone might

have marvelled at Adrian Torrens's seeming Narcissus-like intentness on

his own manifold image, he could never have surmised that cruel

blindness was its apology. He could never have guessed, from anything in

their seeming, that the long perspective of gazing orbs, vanishing into

nothingness, were not more sightless than their originals.

He only listened for a moment. For, distant as she was, Irene's cry of

surprise on meeting some new-comer was decisive as to that new-comer's

identity. It could be no one but Gwen. Irene's welcome settled that.

The blind man was feeling his way to the door when Gwen opened it. Then

she was in his arms, and what cared he for anything else in the heavens

above or the earth beneath? His exultation had to die down, like the

resonant chords in the music he had played an hour since, before he

could come to the level of speech. Then he said prosaically:--"This is

very irregular! How about the solemn compact? How are we going to look

our mamma in the face?"

"Did it yesterday evening!" said Gwen. "We had an explosion.... Well, I

won't say that--suppose we call it a warm discussion, leading to a more

reasonable attitude on the part of ... of the people who were in the

wrong. The other people, that is to say!"

"Precisely. They always are. I vote we sit on the sofa, and you take

your bonnet off. I know it's on by the ribbons under your chin--not

otherwise."

"What a clever man he is--drawing inferences! However, bonnets _have_

got very much out of sight, I admit. Hands off, please!... There!--now I

can give particulars."

Irene, who--considerately, perhaps--had not followed closely, here came

in, saying:--"Stop a minute! I haven't heard anything yet....

There!--now go on."

She found a seat, and Gwen proceeded.

"I came home yesterday, with an old woman I've picked up, who certainly

is the dearest old woman...."

"Never mind the old woman. Why did you come?"

"I came home because I chose. I came here because I wanted to.... Well,

I'll tell you directly. What I wish to mention now is that I have not

driven a coach-and-six through the solemn compact. I assented to a

separation for six months, but no date was fixed. I assure you it

wasn't. I was looking out all the time, and took good care."

"Wasn't it fixed by implication?" This was Irene.

"Maybe it was. But _I_ wasn't. We can put the six months off, and start

fair presently. Papa quite agreed."

"Mamma didn't?" This was Adrian.

"Of course not. That was the basis of the ... warm discussion which

followed on my declaration that I was coming to see you to-day. However,

we parted friends, and I slept sound, with a clear conscience. I got up

early, to avoid complications, and made Tom Kettering drive me here in

the dog-cart. It took an hour and a half because the road's bad. It's

like a morass, all the way. I like the sound of the horse's hoofs when I

drive, not mud-pie thuds."

"We didn't hear any sound at all, except Ply.... Yes, dear!--of course

_you_ heard. I apologize." Irene said this to Achilles, who, catching

his name, took up a more active position in the conversation, which he

conceived to be about himself. Some indeterminate chat went on until

Gwen said suddenly:--"Now I want to talk about what I came here for."

"Go it!" said Adrian.

"I want to know all about what 'Re said to Dr. Merridew in her

letter.... Well, what's the matter?"

Amazement on Irene's fact had caused this. "And that man calls himself

an F.R.C.S.!" said she.

Adrian, uninformed, naturally asked why not. Gwen supplied a clue for

guessing. "He said he couldn't read your handwriting, and gave me your

letter to make out."

"What nonsense! I write perfectly plainly."

"So I told him. But he maintained he had hardly been able to make out a

word of it. Of course I read it. Your caution to him not to tell me was

a little obscure, but otherwise I found it easy enough. Anyhow, I read

all about it. And now I know."

"Well--I'll never trust a man with letters after his name again. Of

course he was pretending."

"But what for?"

"Because he wanted to tell you, and didn't want to get in a scrape for

betraying my confidence."

Adrian struck in. Might he ask what the rumpus was about? Why Sir

Merridew, and why letters?

Irene supplied the explanation. "I wrote to him about you and Septimius

Severus.... Don't you recollect? And I cautioned him particularly not to

tell Gwen.... Why not? Why--of course not! It was sheer, inexcusable

dishonesty, and I shall tell him so next time I see him."

Gwen appeared uninterested in the point of honour. "I wonder," she said,

"whether he thought telling me of it this way would prevent my building

too much on it, and being disappointed. That would be so exactly like

Dr. Merridew."

"I think," said Adrian deliberately, "that I appreciate the position.

Septimius Severus figures in it as a bust, or as an indirect way of

describing a circumstance; preferably the latter, I should say, for it

must be most uncomfortable to be a bust. As an Emperor he is

inadmissible. I remember the incident--but I suspect it was only a

dream." His voice fell into real seriousness as he said this; then went

back to mock seriousness, after a pause. "However, I am bound to say

that 'inexcusable dishonesty' is a strong expression. I should suggest

'pliable conscience,' always keeping in view the motive of ... Yes,

Pelides dear, but I have at present nothing for you in the form of cake

or sugar. Explain yourself somehow, to the best of your ability." For

Achilles had suddenly placed an outstretched paw, impressively, on the

speaker's knee.

"I see what it was," said Gwen. "You said 'pliable conscience'--just

now."

"Well?"

"He thought he was the first syllable. Never mind _him_! I want you to

tell me about Septimius Severus. He's what I came about. What was it

that happened, exactly?" Thereupon Adrian gave the experience which the

story knows already, in greater detail.

In the middle, a casual housekeeper was fain to speak to Miss Torrens,

for a minute. Who therefore left the room and became a voice,

housekeeping, in the distance.

Then Gwen made Adrian tell the story again, cross-examining him as one

cross-examines obduracy in the hope of admissions that will at least

countenance a belief in the truth that we want to be true. If Adrian had

seen his way to a concession that would have made matters pleasant, he

would have jumped at the chance of making it. But false hope was so much

worse than false despair. Better, surely, a spurious growth of the

latter, with disillusionment to come, than a stinted instalment of the

former with a chance of real despair ahead. Adrian took the view that

Sir Coupland was really a weak, good-natured chap who had wanted Gwen to

have every excuse for hope that could be constructed, even with unsound

materials; but who also wanted the responsibilities of the jerry-builder

to rest on other shoulders than his own. Gwen discredited this view of

the great surgeon's character in her inner consciousness, but hardly had

courage to raise her voice against it, because of the danger of

fostering false hopes in her lover's mind. Nevertheless she could not be

off fanning a little flame of comfort to warm her heart, from the

conviction that so responsible an F.R.C.S. would never have gone out of

his way to show her the letter if he had not thought there was some

chance, however small, of a break in the cloud.

After Sir Coupland's letter and its subject had been allowed to lapse,

Gwen said:--"So now you see what I came for, and that's all about it.

What do you think I did, dearest, yesterday as soon as I had seen my old

lady comfortably settled? She was dreadfully tired, you know. But she

was very plucky and wouldn't admit it."

"Who the dickens _is_ your old lady?"

"Don't be impatient. I'll tell you all in good time. First I want to

tell you where I went yesterday afternoon. I went across the garden

through the rose-forest ... you know?--what you said must be a

rose-forest to smell like that...."

"I know. And you went through the gate you came through,"--even so a

Greek might have spoken to Aphrodite of "the sea-foam you sprang

from"--"and along the field-path to the little bridge fat men get stuck

on...." This was an exaggeration of an overstatement of a disputed fact.

"Yes, my dearest, and I was there by myself. And I stood and looked over

to Swayne's Oak and thought to myself if only it all could happen again,

and a dog might come with a rush and kiss me, and paw me with his dirty

paws! And then if you--_you_--_you_ were to come out of the little

coppice, and come to the rescue, all wet through and dripping, how I

would take you in my arms, and keep you, and not let you go to be shot.

I _would_. And I would say to you:--'I have found you in time, my

darling, I have found you, in time to save you. And now that I have

found you, I will keep you, like this. And you would look at me, and see

that it was not a forward girl, but me myself, your very own, come for

you.... I wonder what you would have said."

"I wonder what I should have said. I think I know, though. I should have

said that although a perfect stranger, I should like, please, to remain

in Heaven as long--I am quoting Mrs. Bailey--as it was no inconvenience.

I might have said, while in Heaven, that we were both under a

misapprehension, having taken for granted occurrences, to the

development of which our subsequent experiences were essential. But I

should have indulged the misapprehension...."

"Of course you would. Any man in his senses would...."

"I agree with you."

"Unless he was married or engaged or something."

"That might complicate matters. Morality is an unknown quantity.... But,

darling, let's drop talking nonsense...."

"No--don't let's! It's such sensible nonsense. Indeed, dearest, I saw it

all plain, as I stood there yesterday at Arthur's Bridge. I saw what it

had all meant. I did not know _at the time_, but I should have done so

if I had not been a fool. I did not see then why I stood watching you

till you were out of sight. But I do see now."

Adrian answered seriously, thoughtfully, as one who would fain get to

the heart of a mystery. "I knew quite well then--I am convinced of

it--why I turned, when I thought I was out of sight, to see if you were

still there. I turned because my heart was on fire--because my world was

suddenly filled with a girl I had exchanged fifty words with. I was not

unhappy before you dawned--only tranquil."

"What were you thinking of, just before you saw me, when you were wading

through the wet fern? I think _I_ was only thinking how wet the ferns

must have been. How little I thought then who the man was, with the

dog! You were only 'the man' then."

"And then--I got shot! I'm so glad. Just think, dearest, what a

difference it would have made to me if that ounce of lead had gone an

inch wrong...."

"And you had been killed outright!"

"I didn't mean that. I meant the other way. Suppose it had missed, and I

had finished my walk with my eyes in my head, and come back here and got

an introduction to the girl I saw in the Park, and not known what to say

to her when I got it!"

"I should have known you at once."

"Dearest love, some tenses of verbs are kittle-cattle to shoe behind.

'Should have' is one of the kittlest of the whole lot. You would have

thought me an interesting author, and I should have sent you a copy of

my next book. And then we should have married somebody else."

"Where is the organ of nonsense in Poets' heads, I wonder. It must be

this big one, on the top."

"No--that's veneration. My strong point. It shows itself in the

readiness with which I recognise the Finger of Providence. I discern in

the nicety with which old Stephen's bullet did its predestined work a

special intervention on my behalf. A little more and I should have been

sleeping with my fathers, or have joined the Choir of Angels, or anyhow

been acting up to my epitaph to the best of my poor ability. A little

less, and I should have gone my way rejoicing, ascribing my escape from

that bullet to the happy-go-lucky character of the Divine disposition of

human affairs. I should never have claimed the attentions due to a

slovenly, unwholesome corpse...."

"You shall _not_ talk like that. Blaspheme as much as you like. I don't

mind blasphemy."

Adrian kissed the palm of the hand that stopped his mouth, and continued

speech, under drawbacks. "An intelligent analysis will show that my

remarks are reverential, not blasphemous. You will at least admit that

there would have been no Mrs. Bailey."

Gwen removed her hand. "None whatever! Yes, you may talk about Mrs.

Bailey. There would have been no Mrs. Bailey, and I should never have

lain awake all night with your eyes on my conscience.... Yes--the night

after mamma and I had tea with you...."

"My eyes on your conscience! Oh--my eyes be hanged! Would I have my eyes

back now?--to lose _you_! Oh, Gwen, Gwen!--sometimes the thought comes

to me that if it were not for my privation, my happiness would be too

great to be borne--that I should scarcely dare to live for it, had the

price I paid for it been less. What is the loss of sight for life to set

against...."

"Are you aware, good man, that you are talking nonsense? Be a reasonable

Poet, at least!"

She was drawing her hand caressingly over his, and just as she said

this, lifted it suddenly, with a start. "Your ring scratches," said she.

"Does it?" said he, feeling it. "Oh yes--it does. I've found where. I'll

have it seen to.... I wonder now why I never noticed that before."

"It's a good ring that won't scratch its wearer. I suppose I was

unpopular with it. It didn't hurt. Perhaps it was only in fun. Or

perhaps it was to call attention to the fact that you have never told me

about it. You haven't, and you said you would."

"So I did, when we had The Scene." He meant the occasion on which,

according to Gwen's mamma, she had made him an offer of her affections

in the Jacobean drawing-room. "It's a ring with magic powers--nothing to

do with any young lady, as you thought. It turns pale at the approach of

poison."

"Let's get some poison, and try. Isn't there some poison in the house?"

"I dare say there is, in the kitchen. You might touch the bell and ask."

"I shall do nothing of the sort. I mean private poison--doctor's

bottles--blue ones with embossed letters.... _You_ know?"

"_I_ know. My maternal parent has any number. But all empty, I'm afraid.

She always finishes them. Besides--don't let's bring her in! She has

such high principles. However, I've got some poison--what an Irish

suicide would consider the rale cratur--only I won't get it out even for

this experiment, because I may want it...."

"You _may want it_!"

"Of course." He suddenly deserted paradox and levity, and became

serious. "My dearest, think of this! Suppose I were to lose you, here in

the dark!... Oh, I know all that about duty--_I_ know! I would not kill

myself at once, because it would be unkind to Irene. But suppose I lost

Irene too?"

"I can't reason it out. But I can't believe it would ever be right to

destroy oneself."

"Possibly not, but once one was effectually destroyed...."

"That sounds like rat-paste." Gwen wanted to joke her way out of this

region of horrible surmise.

But Adrian was keen on his line of thought. "Exactly!" said he. "Vermin

destroyer. _I_ should be the vermin. But once destroyed, what contrition

should I have to endure? Remorse is a game that takes two selves to play

at it--a criminal and a conscientious person! Suppose the rat-paste had

destroyed them both!"

"But would it?"

"Absolute ignorance, whether or no, means an even chance of either. I

would risk it, for the sake of that chance of rich, full-blown

Non-Entity. Oh, think of it!--after loneliness in the dark!--loneliness

that once was full of life...."

"But suppose the other chance--how then?"

"Suppose I worked out as a disembodied spirit--and I quite admit it's as

likely as not, neither more nor less--it does not necessarily follow

that Malignity against Freethinkers is the only attribute of the

Creator. When one contemplates the extraordinary variety and magnitude

of His achievements, one is tempted to imagine that He occasionally

rises above mere personal feeling. It certainly does seem to me that

damning inoffensive Suicides would be an unwarrantable abuse of

Omnipotence. The fact is, I have a much better opinion of the Most High

than many of His admirers."

"But, nonsense apart.... Yes--it _is_ nonsense!... do you mean that you

would kill yourself about me?"

"Yes."

"I'm so glad, because I shan't give you the chance. But dear, silly

man--dearest, silliest man!--I do wish you would give me up that bottle.

I'll promise to give it back if ever I want to jilt you. Honour bright!"

"I dare say. With the good, efficacious poison emptied away; and tea, or

rum, or Rowland's Macassar instead! I cannot conceive a more equivocal

position than that of a suicide who has taken the wrong poison under the

impression that he has launched himself into Eternity."

"Oh no--I could never do that! It would be such a cruel hoax. Now,

dearest love, do let me have that bottle to take care of. Indeed, if

ever I jilt you, you shall have it back. Engaged girls--honourable

ones!--always give presents back on jilting. _Do_ let me have it!"

Adrian laughed at her earnestness. "_I'm_ not going to poison myself,"

said he. "Unless you jilt me! So it comes to exactly the same thing,

either way. There--be easy now! I've promised. Besides, the Warroo or

Guarano Indian who gave it me--out on the Essequibo; it was when I went

to Demerara--told me it wouldn't keep. So I wouldn't trust it. Much

better stick to nice, wholesome, old-fashioned Prussic Acid." He had

quite dropped his serious tone, and resumed his incorrigible levity.

"Did you really have it from a wild Indian? Where did he get it? Did he

make it?"

"No--that's the beauty of it. The Warroos of Guiana are great dabs at

making poisons. They make the celebrated Wourali poison, the smallest

quantity of which in a vein always kills. It has never disappointed its

backers. But he didn't make this. He brought it from the World of

Spirits, beyond the grave. It is intended for internal use only, being

quite inoperative when injected into a vein. Irene unpacked my valise

when I came back, and touched the bottle. And an hour afterwards she saw

that her white cornelian had turned red."

"Nonsense! It was a coincidence. Stones do change."

"I grant you it was a coincidence. Sunrise and daybreak are

coincidences. But one is because of t'other. Irene believed my poison

turned her stone red, or she would never have refused to wear it a

minute longer, from an unreasonable dislike of the Evil One, whose

influence she discerned in this simple, natural phenomenon. I considered

myself justified in boning the ring for my own use, so I had it enlarged

to go on my finger, and there it is, on! I shall never see it again,

unless Septimius Severus turns up trumps. What colour should you say it

was now?"

Gwen took the hand with the mystic ring on it, turning it this way and

that, to see the light reflected. "Pale pink," she said. "Yes--certainly

pale pink." She appeared amused, and unconvinced. "I had no idea 'Re was

superstitious. You are excusable, dearest, because, after all, you are

only a man. One expects a woman to have a little commonsense. Now

if...." She appeared to be wavering over something--disposed towards

concessions.

"Now if what?"

"If the ring had had a character from its last place--if it had

distinguished itself before...."

"Oh, I thought I told you about that. I forgot. It was a ring with a

story, that came somehow to my great-great-grandfather, when he was in

Paris. It had done itself great credit--gained quite a reputation--at

the Court of Louis Quatorze, on the fingers I believe of the Marchioness

de Brinvilliers and Louise de la Valliere.... Yes, I think both, but

close particulars have always been wanting. 'Re only consented to wear

it on condition she should be allowed to disbelieve in it, and then when

this little stramash occurred through my bringing home the Warroo

poison, her powers of belief at choice seem to have proved

insufficient.... Isn't that her, coming back?"

It was; and when she came into the room a moment later, Gwen

said:--"We've been talking about your ring, and a horrible little bottle

of Red Indian poison this silly obstinate man has got hidden away and

won't give me."

"I know," said Irene. "He's incorrigible. But don't you believe him,

Gwen, when he justifies suicide. It's only his nonsense." Irene had come

back quite sick and tired of housekeeping, and was provoked by the

informal _status quo_ of the young lady and gentleman on the sofa into

remarking to the latter:--"Now you're happy."

"Or ought to be," said Gwen.

"Now, go on exactly where you were," said Irene.

"I will," said Adrian. "I was just expressing a hope that Gwen had been

regular in her attendance at church while in London." He did not seem

vitally interested in this, for he changed almost immediately to another

subject. "How about your old lady, Gwen? She's your old lady, I suppose,

whose house tumbled down?"

"Yes, only not quite. We got her out safe. The woman who lived with her,

Mrs. Burr.... However, I wrote all that in my letter, didn't I?"

"Yes--you wrote about Mrs. Burr, and how she was a commonplace person.

We thought you unfeeling about Mrs. Burr."

"I was, quite! I can't tell you how it has been on our consciences,

Clo's and mine, that we have been unable to take an interest in Mrs.

Burr. We tried to make up for it, by one of us going every day to see

her in the hospital. I must say for her that she asked about Mrs.

Prichard as soon as she was able to speak--asked if she was being got

out, and said she supposed it was the repairs. She is not an imaginative

or demonstrative person, you see. When I suggested to her that she

should come to look after Mrs. Prichard in the country, till the house

was rebuilt, she only said she was going to her married niece's at

Clapham. I don't know why, but her married niece at Clapham seemed to me

indisputable, like an Act of Parliament. I said 'Oh yes!' in a convinced

sort of way, as if I knew this niece, and acknowledged Clapham."

"Then you have got the old lady at the Towers?"

"Yes--yesterday. I don't know how it's going to answer."

Adrian said: "Why shouldn't it answer?"

Irene was sharper. "Because of the servants, I suppose," said she.

Gwen said:--"Ye-es, because of the household."

"I thought," said Adrian, "that she was such a charming old lady." This

took plenty of omissions for granted.

"So she is," said Gwen. "At least, _I_ think her most sweet and

fascinating. But really--the British servant!"

"_I_ know," said Irene.

"Especially the women," said Gwen. "I could manage the men, easily

enough."

"You _could_," said Adrian, with expressive emphasis. And all three

laughed. Indeed, it is difficult to describe the subserviency of her

male retinue to "Gwen o' the Towers." To say that they were ready to

kiss the hem of her garment is but a feeble expression of the truth.

Say, rather, that they were ready to fight for the privilege of doing

so!

"I can't say," Gwen resumed, "precisely what I found my misgivings on.

Little things I can't lay hold of. I can't find any _fault_ with

Lutwyche when she was attending on the dear old soul in Cavendish

Square. But I couldn't help thinking...."

"What?"

"Well--I thought she showed a slightly fiendish readiness to defer to my

minutest directions, and perhaps, I should say, a fell determination not

to presume." Telegraphies of slight perceptive nods and raised eyebrows,

in touch with shoulder shrugs not insisted on, expressed mutual

understanding between the two young ladies. "Of course, I may be wrong,"

said Gwen. "But when I interviewed Mrs. Masham last thing last night, it

was borne in upon me, Heaven knows how, that she had been in collision

with Lutwyche about the old lady."

"What is it you call her?" said Irene. "Old Mrs. Picture? There's

nothing against her, is there?"

Adrian had seemed to be considering a point. "Did you not say

something--last letter but one, I think--about the old lady's husband

having been convicted and transported?"

"Oh _yes_!--but that's not to be talked about, you know! Besides, it was

her son, not her husband, that I wrote about. I only found out about the

husband a day or two ago. Only you must be very careful, dearest, and

remember it's a dead secret. I promise not to tell things, and then of

course I forget, when it's you. Old Mrs. Picture would quite understand,

though, if I told her."

Adrian said that he really must have some more of the secret to keep, or

it would not be worth keeping.

So Gwen told them then and there all that old Mrs. Picture had told her

of her terrible life-story. It may have contained things this present

narrative has missed, or _vice versa_, but the essential points were the

same in both.

"What a queer story!" said Adrian. "Did the old body cry when she told

it?"

"Scarcely, if at all. She looked very beautiful--you've no idea how

lovely she is sometimes--and told it all quite quietly, just as if she

had been speaking of someone else."

"I have always had a theory," said Adrian, "that one gets less and less

identical, as Time goes on...."

"What do you mean by that?" said Gwen.

"Haven't the slightest idea!" Adrian had been speaking seriously, but at

this point his whimsical mood seized him. He went on:--"You don't mean

to say, I hope, that you are going to make meaning a _sine qua non_ in

theories? It would be the death-knell of speculation."

"You don't know what a goose you are engaged to, Gwen," said Irene

parenthetically.

"Yes, I do. But he meant something this time. He _does_, you know, now

and again, in spite of appearances to the contrary. What _did_ you mean,

please?"

"I can only conjecture," said Adrian incorrigibly. Then, more in

earnest:--"I think it was something like this. I know that I am the same

man that I was last week so long as I remember what happened last week.

Suppose I forget half--which I do, in practice--I still remain the same

man, according to my notion of identity. But it is an academical

notion, of no use in everyday life. A conjurer who forgets how to

lay eggs in defiance of natural law, or how to find canaries in

pocket-handkerchiefs, is not the same conjurer, in practical politics.

And yet he is the same man. Dock and crop his qualities and attributes

as you will, he keeps the same man, academically. But not for working

purposes. By the time you can say nothing about him, that was true of

him last week, he may just as well be somebody else."

"Mind you recollect all that, and it will do in a book," said his

sister. "But what has it to do with Gwen's old woman?"

"Yes--what has it to do with my old woman?" said Gwen.

"Didn't you say," Adrian asked, "that the old lady told all about her

past quite quietly, just as if she had been speaking of somebody else?

Your very expression, ma'am! You see, she was to all intents and

purposes somebody else then, or has become somebody else now. I always

wonder, whether, if one had left oneself--one of one's selves--behind

in the past, like old Mrs. Picture, and some strange navigation on the

sea of life were to land one in a long-forgotten port, where the memory

still hung on, in a mind or two, of the self one had left behind--would

the self one had grown to be bring conviction to the mind or two?

Wouldn't the chance survivors who admitted that you were Jack or Jim or

Polly be discouraged if they found that Jack or Jim or Polly had

forgotten the old pier that was swept away, or the old pub which the new

hotel was, once. Wouldn't they discredit you? Wouldn't they decide that,

for all your bald, uninteresting identity--mere mechanical sameness--you

wouldn't wash?"

"Rip van Winkle washed," said Gwen.

"Because Washington Irving chose. I sometimes imagine Rip isn't really

true. Anyhow, his case doesn't apply. _He_ remembered everything as if

it was yesterday. For him, it _was_ yesterday. So he was the same man,

both in theory and practice. Jack and Jim and Polly were to forget, by

hypothesis."

"Does old Mrs. Picture?" asked Irene.

"I should say--very little," said Gwen. "Less now than when I took her

first to Cavendish Square. She'll get very communicative, I've no doubt,

if she's fed up, in the country air. I shall see to that myself. So Mrs.

Masham had better look out."

"There's mamma!" said Irene suddenly. "I'll go and see that she gets her

writing things.... No--don't you move! She won't come in here. She wants

to write important letters. You sit still." And Irene went off to

intercept the Miss Abercrombie her father had married all those years

ago instead of Gwen's mother. She does not come much into this story,

but its reader may be interested to know that she was an enthusiastic

Abolitionist, and a friend of the Duchess of Sutherland. There was only

one thing in those days that called for abolition--negro slavery in

America; so everyone who recollects the fifties will know what an

Abolitionist was. Nevertheless, though Lady Torrens happens to keep

outside the story, it would have been quite another story without her.

Adrian was a good son, and loved his mother duly. She returned his

affection, but could not stand his poetical effusions, which she thought

showed an irreverent spirit. We are not quite sure they did not.

CHAPTER III

HOW AN OLD LADY WAS TAKEN FOR A DRIVE, AND SAW JONES'S BULL, ALL IN

A DREAM. STRIDES COTTAGE AND A STRANGE CONTIGUITY. AFTER SIXTY

YEARS! HOW TOBY SMASHED A PANE OF GLASS WITH A HORSE-CHESTNUT, AND

NEARLY HAD NO SUGAR IN HIS BREAD-AND-MILK. HOW THE OLD BODY

CURTSIED AND THE OLD SOUL DIDN'T GO TO SLEEP. HOW GWEN NEARLY

FORGOT TO INTRODUCE THEM. HOW MRS. PICTURE KNOCKED UP AND RAN

DOWN,--BUT WOULD NOT HAVE MUTTON BROTH. BUT NEITHER KNEW! HOW MRS.

PICTURE THOUGHT MRS. MARRABLE A NICE PERSON. HOW GWEN LUNCHED WITH

HER PARENTS. "REALLY, OUR DAUGHTER!" HOW LOOKING AMUSED DOES NO

GOOD. WAS GWEN JONES'S BULL, OR HOW? NORBURY AS AN ORACLE. HOW THE

EARL WENT ROUND TO SEE THE FAIRY GODMOTHER

It had all come on the old woman like a bewildering dream. It began with

the sudden appearance, as she dozed in her chair at Sapps Court, all the

memories of her past world creeping spark-like through its half-burned

scroll, a dream of Gwen in her glory, heralded by Dave; depositing

Dolly, very rough-headed, on the floor, and explaining her intrusion

with some difficulty owing to those children wanting to explain too.

This was dreamlike enough, but it had become more so with the then

inexplicable crash that followed a discomfort in the floor; more so with

that strange half-conscious drive through the London streets in the glow

of the sunset; more so yet, when, after an interval of real dreams, she

woke to the luxury of Sister Nora's temporary arrangements, pending the

organization of the Simple Life; more dreamlike still when she woke

again later, to wonder at the leaves of the creeper that framed her

lattice at the Towers, ruby in the dawn of a cloudless autumn day, and

jewelled with its dew. She had to look, wonderingly, at her old

unchanged hands, to be quite sure she was not in Heaven. Then she caught

a confirmatory glimpse of her old white head in a mirror, and that

settled it. Besides, her old limbs ached; not savagely, but quite

perceptibly, and that was discordant with her idea of Heaven.