“How d’ye do?” says he, when I opened the door to him. “I’m the man you

expect from the office in London. Just say Mr. Dark, will you? I’ll sit

down here till you come back; and, young man, if there is such a thing

as a glass of ale in the house, I don’t mind committing myself so far

as to say that I’ll drink it.”

I got him the ale before I announced him. He winked at me as he put it

to his lips.

“Your good health,” says he. “I like you. Don’t forget that the name’s

Dark; and just leave the jug and glass, will you, in case my master

keeps me waiting.”

I announced him at once, and was told to show him into the library.

When I got back to the hall the jug was empty, and Mr. Dark was

comforting himself with a pinch of snuff, snorting over it like a

perfect grampus. He had swallowed more than a pint of the strongest old

ale in the house; and, for all the effect it seemed to have had on him,

he might just as well have been drinking so much water.

As I led him along the passage to the library Josephine passed us. Mr.

Dark winked at me again, and made her a low bow.

“Lady’s maid,” I heard him whisper to himself. “A fine woman to look

at, but a damned bad one to deal with.” I turned round on him, rather

angry at his cool ways, and looked hard at him just before I opened the

library door. Mr. Dark looked hard at me. “All right,” says he. “I can

show myself in.” And he knocks at the door, and opens it, and goes in

with another wicked wink, all in a moment.

Half an hour later the bell rang for me. Mr. Dark was sitting between

my mistress (who was looking at him in amazement) and the lawyer (who

was looking at him with approval). He had a map open on his knee, and a

pen in his hand. Judging by his face, the communication of the secret

about my master did not seem to have made the smallest impression on

him.

“I’ve got leave to ask you a question,” says he, the moment I appeared.

“When you found your master’s yacht gone, did you hear which way she

had sailed? Was it northward toward Scotland? Speak up, young man,

speak up!”

“Yes,” I answered. “The boatmen told me that when I made inquiries at

the harbor.”

“Well, sir,” says Mr. Dark, turning to the lawyer, “if he said he was

going to Sweden, he seems to have started on the road to it, at all

events. I think I have got my instructions now?”

The lawyer nodded, and looked at my mistress, who bowed her head to

him. He then said, turning to me:

“Pack up your bag for traveling at once, and have a conveyance got

ready to go to the nearest post-town. Look sharp, young man—look

sharp!”

“And, whatever happens in the future,” added my mistress, her kind

voice trembling a little, “believe, William, that I shall never forget

the proof you now show of your devotion to me. It is still some comfort

to know that I have your fidelity to depend on in this dreadful

trial—your fidelity and the extraordinary intelligence and experience

of Mr. Dark.”

Mr. Dark did not seem to hear the compliment. He was busy writing, with

his paper upon the map on his knee.

A quarter of an hour later, when I had ordered the dog-cart, and had

got down into the hall with my bag packed, I found him there waiting

for me. He was sitting in the same chair which he had occupied when he

first arrived, and he had another jug of the old ale on the table by

his side.

“Got any fishing-rods in the house?” says he, when I put my bag down in

the hall.

“Yes,” I replied, astonished at the question. “What do you want with

them?”

“Pack a couple in cases for traveling,” says Mr. Dark, “with lines, and

hooks, and fly-books all complete. Have a drop of the ale before you

go—and don’t stare, William, don’t stare. I’ll let the light in on you

as soon as we are out of the house. Off with you for the rods! I want

to be on the road in five minutes.”

When I came back with the rods and tackle I found Mr. Dark in the

dog-cart.

“Money, luggage, fishing-rods, papers of directions, copy of anonymous

letter, guide-book, map,” says he, running over in his mind the things

wanted for the journey—“all right so far. Drive off.”

I took the reins and started the horse. As we left the house I saw my

mistress and Josephine looking after us from two of the windows on the

second floor. The memory of those two attentive faces—one so fair and

so good, the other so yellow and so wicked—haunted my mind perpetually

for many days afterward.

“Now, William,” says Mr. Dark, when we were clear of the lodge gates,

“I’m going to begin by telling you that you must step out of your own

character till further notice. You are a clerk in a bank, and I’m

another. We have got our regular holiday, that comes, like Christmas,

once a year, and we are taking a little tour in Scotland to see the

curiosities, and to breathe the sea air, and to get some fishing

whenever we can. I’m the fat cashier who digs holes in a drawerful of

gold with a copper shovel, and you’re the arithmetical young man who

sits on a perch behind me and keeps the books. Scotland’s a beautiful

country, William. Can you make whisky-toddy? I can; and, what’s more,

unlikely as the thing may seem to you, I can actually drink it into the

bargain.”

“Scotland!” says I. “What are we going to Scotland for?”

“Question for question,” says Mr. Dark. “What are we starting on a

journey for?”

“To find my master,” I answered, “and to make sure if the letter about

him is true.”

“Very good,” says he. “How would you set about doing that, eh?”

“I should go and ask about him at Stockholm in Sweden, where he said

his letters were to be sent.”

“Should you, indeed?” says Mr. Dark. “If you were a shepherd, William,

and had lost a sheep in Cumberland, would you begin looking for it at

the Land’s End, or would you try a little nearer home?”

“You’re attempting to make a fool of me now,” says I.

“No,” says Mr. Dark, “I’m only letting the light in on you, as I said I

would. Now listen to reason, William, and profit by it as much as you

can. Mr. James Smith says he is going on a cruise to Sweden, and makes

his word good, at the beginning, by starting northward toward the coast

of Scotland. What does he go in? A yacht. Do yachts carry live beasts

and a butcher on board? No. Will joints of meat keep fresh all the way

from Cumberland to Sweden? No. Do gentlemen like living on salt

provisions? No. What follows from these three Noes? That Mr. James

Smith must have stopped somewhere on the way to Sweden to supply his

sea-larder with fresh provisions. Where, in that case, must he stop?

Somewhere in Scotland, supposing he didn’t alter his course when he was

out of sight of your seaport. Where in Scotland? Northward on the main

land, or westward at one of the islands? Most likely on the main land,

where the seaside places are largest, and where he is sure of getting

all the stores he wants. Next, what is our business? Not to risk losing

a link in the chain of evidence by missing any place where he has put

his foot on shore. Not to overshoot the mark when we want to hit it in

the bull’s-eye. Not to waste money and time by taking a long trip to

Sweden till we know that we must absolutely go there. Where is our

journey of discovery to take us to first, then? Clearly to the north of

Scotland. What do you say to that, Mr. William? Is my catechism all

correct, or has your strong ale muddled my head?”

It was evident by this time that no ale could do that, and I told him

so. He chuckled, winked at me, and, taking another pinch of snuff, said

he would now turn the whole case over in his mind again, and make sure

that he had got all the bearings of it quite clear.

By the time we reached the post-town he had accomplished this mental

effort to his own perfect satisfaction, and was quite ready to compare

the ale at the inn with the ale at Darrock Hall. The dog-cart was left

to be taken back the next morning by the hostler. A post-chaise and

horses were ordered out. A loaf of bread, a Bologna sausage, and two

bottles of sherry were put into the pockets of the carriage; we took

our seats, and started briskly on our doubtful journey.

“One word more of friendly advice,” says Mr. Dark, settling himself

comfortably in his corner of the carriage. “Take your sleep, William,

whenever you feel that you can get it. You won’t find yourself in bed

again till we get to Glasgow.”

CHAPTER III.

Although the events that I am now relating happened many years ago, I

shall still, for caution’s sake, avoid mentioning by name the various

places visited by Mr. Dark and myself for the purpose of making

inquiries. It will be enough if I describe generally what we did, and

if I mention in substance only the result at which we ultimately

arrived.

On reaching Glasgow, Mr. Dark turned the whole case over in his mind

once more. The result was that he altered his original intention of

going straight to the north of Scotland, considering it safer to make

sure, if possible, of the course the yacht had taken in her cruise

along the western coast.

The carrying out of this new resolution involved the necessity of

delaying our onward journey by perpetually diverging from the direct

road. Three times we were sent uselessly to wild places in the Hebrides

by false reports. Twice we wandered away inland, following gentlemen

who answered generally to the description of Mr. James Smith, but who

turned out to be the wrong men as soon as we set eyes on them. These

vain excursions—especially the three to the western islands—consumed

time terribly. It was more than two months from the day when we had

left Darrock Hall before we found ourselves up at the very top of

Scotland at last, driving into a considerable sea-side town, with a

harbor attached to it. Thus far our journey had led to no results, and

I began to despair of success. As for Mr. Dark, he never got to the end

of his sweet temper and his wonderful patience.

“You don’t know how to wait, William,” was his constant remark whenever

he heard me complaining. “I do.”

We drove into the town toward evening in a modest little gig, and put

up, according to our usual custom, at one of the inferior inns.

“We must begin at the bottom,” Mr. Dark used to say. “High company in a

coffee-room won’t be familiar with us; low company in a tap-room will.”

And he certainly proved the truth of his own words. The like of him for

making intimate friends of total strangers at the shortest notice I

have never met with before or since. Cautious as the Scotch are, Mr.

Dark seemed to have the knack of twisting them round his finger as he

pleased. He varied his way artfully with different men, but there were

three standing opinions of his which he made a point of expressing in

all varieties of company while we were in Scotland. In the first place,

he thought the view of Edinburgh from Arthur’s Seat the finest in the

world. In the second place, he considered whisky to be the most

wholesome spirit in the world. In the third place, he believed his late

beloved mother to be the best woman in the world. It may be worthy of

note that, whenever he expressed this last opinion in Scotland, he

invariably added that her maiden name was Macleod.

Well, we put up at a modest little inn near the harbor. I was dead

tired with the journey, and lay down on my bed to get some rest. Mr.

Dark, whom nothing ever fatigued, left me to take his toddy and pipe

among the company in the taproom.

I don’t know how long I had been asleep when I was roused by a shake on

my shoulder. The room was pitch dark, and I felt a hand suddenly

clapped over my mouth. Then a strong smell of whisky and tobacco

saluted my nostrils, and a whisper stole into my ear—

“William, we have got to the end of our journey.”

“Mr. Dark,” I stammered out, “is that you? What, in Heaven’s name, do

you mean?”

“The yacht put in here,” was the answer, still in a whisper, “and your

blackguard of a master came ashore—”

“Oh, Mr. Dark,” I broke in, “don’t tell me that the letter is true!”

“Every word of it,” says he. “He was married here, and was off again to

the Mediterranean with Number Two a good three weeks before we left

your mistress’s house. Hush! don’t say a word, Go to sleep again, or

strike a light, if you like it better. Do anything but come downstairs

with me. I’m going to find out all the particulars without seeming to

want to know one of them. Yours is a very good-looking face, William,

but it’s so infernally honest that I can’t trust it in the tap-room.

I’m making friends with the Scotchmen already. They know my opinion of

Arthur’s Seat; they _see_ what I think of whisky; and I rather think it

won’t be long before they hear that my mother’s maiden name was

Macleod.”

With those words he slipped out of the room, and left me, as he had

found me, in the dark.

I was far too much agitated by what I had heard to think of going to

sleep again, so I struck a light, and tried to amuse myself as well as

I could with an old newspaper that had been stuffed into my carpet bag.

It was then nearly ten o’clock. Two hours later, when the house shut

up, Mr. Dark came back to me again in high spirits.

“I have got the whole case here,” says he, tapping his forehead—“the

whole case, as neat and clean as if it was drawn in a brief. That

master of yours doesn’t stick at a trifle, William. It’s my opinion

that your mistress and you have not seen the last of him yet.”

We were sleeping that night in a double-bedded room. As soon as Mr.

Dark had secured the door and disposed himself comfortably in his bed,

he entered on a detailed narrative of the particulars communicated to

him in the tap-room. The substance of what he told me may be related as

follows:

The yacht had had a wonderful run all the way to Cape Wrath. On

rounding that headland she had met the wind nearly dead against her,

and had beaten every inch of the way to the sea-port town, where she

had put in to get a supply of provisions, and to wait for a change in

the wind.

Mr. James Smith had gone ashore to look about him, and to see whether

the principal hotel was the sort of house at which he would like to

stop for a few days. In the course of his wandering about the town, his

attention had been attracted to a decent house, where lodgings were to

be let, by the sight of a very pretty girl sitting at work at the

parlor window. He was so struck by her face that he came back twice to

look at it, determining, the second time, to try if he could not make

acquaintance with her by asking to see the lodgings. He was shown the

rooms by the girl’s mother, a very respectable woman, whom he

discovered to be the wife of the master and part owner of a small

coasting vessel, then away at sea. With a little maneuvering he managed

to get into the parlor where the daughter was at work, and to exchange

a few words with her. Her voice and manner completed the attraction of

her face. Mr. James Smith decided, in his headlong way, that he was

violently in love with her, and, without hesitating another instant, he

took the lodgings on the spot for a month certain.

It is unnecessary to say that his designs on the girl were of the most

disgraceful kind, and that he represented himself to the mother and

daughter as a single man. Helped by his advantages of money, position,

and personal appearance, he had made sure that the ruin of the girl

might be effected with very little difficulty; but he soon found that

he had undertaken no easy conquest.

The mother’s watchfulness never slept, and the daughter’s presence of

mind never failed her. She admired Mr. James Smith’s tall figure and

splendid whiskers; she showed the most encouraging partiality for his

society; she smiled at his compliments, and blushed whenever he looked

at her; but, whether it was cunning or whether it was innocence, she

seemed incapable of understanding that his advances toward her were of

any other than an honorable kind. At the slightest approach to undue

familiarity, she drew back with a kind of contemptuous surprise in her

face, which utterly perplexed Mr. James Smith. He had not calculated on

that sort of resistance, and he could not see his way to overcoming it.

The weeks passed; the month for which he had taken the lodgings

expired. Time had strengthened the girl’s hold on him till his

admiration for her amounted to downright infatuation, and he had not

advanced one step yet toward the fulfillment of the vicious purpose

with which he had entered the house.

At this time he must have made some fresh attempt on the girl’s virtue,

which produced a coolness between them; for, instead of taking the

lodgings for another term, he removed to his yacht, in the harbor, and

slept on board for two nights.

The wind was now fair, and the stores were on board, but he gave no

orders to the sailing-master to weigh anchor. On the third day, the

cause of the coolness, whatever it was, appears to have been removed,

and he returned to his lodgings on shore. Some of the more inquisitive

among the townspeople observed soon afterward, when they met him in the

street, that he looked rather anxious and uneasy. The conclusion had

probably forced itself upon his mind, by this time, that he must decide

on pursuing one of two courses: either he must resolve to make the

sacrifice of leaving the girl altogether, or he must commit the

villainy of marrying her.

Scoundrel as he was, he hesitated at encountering the risk—perhaps,

also, at being guilty of the crime—involved in this last alternative.

While he was still in doubt, the father’s coasting vessel sailed into

the harbor, and the father’s presence on the scene decided him at last.

How this new influence acted it was impossible to find out from the

imperfect evidence of persons who were not admitted to the family

councils. The fact, however, was certain that the date of the father’s

return and the date of Mr. James Smith’s first wicked resolution to

marry the girl might both be fixed, as nearly as possible, at one and

the same time.

Having once made up his mind to the commission of the crime, he

proceeded with all possible coolness and cunning to provide against the

chances of detection.

Returning on board his yacht he announced that he had given up his

intention of cruising to Sweden and that he intended to amuse himself

by a long fishing tour in Scotland. After this explanation, he ordered

the vessel to be laid up in the harbor, gave the sailing-master leave

of absence to return to his family at Cowes, and paid off the whole of

the crew from the mate to the cabin-boy. By these means he cleared the

scene, at one blow, of the only people in the town who knew of the

existence of his unhappy wife. After that the news of his approaching

marriage might be made public without risk of discovery, his own common

name being of itself a sufficient protection in case the event was

mentioned in the Scotch newspapers. All his friends, even his wife

herself, might read a report of the marriage of Mr. James Smith without

having the slightest suspicion of who the bridegroom really was.

A fortnight after the paying off of the crew he was married to the

merchant-captain’s daughter. The father of the girl was well known

among his fellow-townsmen as a selfish, grasping man, who was too

anxious to secure a rich son-in-law to object to any proposals for

hastening the marriage. He and his wife, and a few intimate relations

had been present at the ceremony; and after it had been performed the

newly-married couple left the town at once for a honeymoon trip to the

Highland lakes.

Two days later, however, they unexpectedly returned, announcing a

complete change in their plans. The bridegroom (thinking, probably,

that he would be safer out of England than in it) had been pleasing the

bride’s fancy by his descriptions of the climate and the scenery of

southern parts. The new Mrs. James Smith was all curiosity to see Spain

and Italy; and, having often proved herself an excellent sailor on

board her father’s vessel, was anxious to go to the Mediterranean in

the easiest way by sea. Her affectionate husband, having now no other

object in life than to gratify her wishes, had given up the Highland

excursion, and had returned to have his yacht got ready for sea

immediately. In this explanation there was nothing to awaken the

suspicions of the lady’s parents. The mother thought Mr. James Smith a

model among bridegrooms. The father lent his assistance to man the

yacht at the shortest notice with as smart a crew as could be picked up

about the town. Principally through his exertions, the vessel was got

ready for sea with extraordinary dispatch. The sails were bent, the

provisions were put on board, and Mr. James Smith sailed for the

Mediterranean with the unfortunate woman who believed herself to be his

wife, before Mr. Dark and myself set forth to look after him from

Darrock Hall.

Such was the true account of my master’s infamous conduct in Scotland

as it was related to me. On concluding, Mr. Dark hinted that he had

something still left to tell me, but declared that he was too sleepy to

talk any more that night. As soon as we were awake the next morning he

returned to the subject.

“I didn’t finish all I had to say last night, did I?” he began.

“You unfortunately told me enough, and more than enough, to prove the

truth of the statement in the anonymous letter,” I answered.

“Yes,” says Mr. Dark, “but did I tell you who wrote the anonymous

letter?”

“You don’t mean to say that you have found that out!” says I.

“I think I have,” was the cool answer. “When I heard about your

precious master paying off the regular crew of the yacht I put the

circumstance by in my mind, to be brought out again and sifted a little

as soon as the opportunity offered. It offered in about half an hour.

Says I to the gauger, who was the principal talker in the room: ‘How

about those men that Mr. Smith paid off? Did they all go as soon as

they got their money, or did they stop here till they had spent every

farthing of it in the public-houses?’ The gauger laughs. ‘No such

luck,’ says he, in the broadest possible Scotch (which I translate into

English, William, for your benefit); ‘no such luck; they all went

south, to spend their money among finer people than us—all, that is to

say, with one exception. It was thought the steward of the yacht had

gone along with the rest, when, the very day Mr. Smith sailed for the

Mediterranean, who should turn up unexpectedly but the steward himself!

Where he had been hiding, and why he had been hiding, nobody could

tell.’ ‘Perhaps he had been imitating his master, and looking out for a

wife,’ says I. ‘Likely enough,’ says the gauger; ‘he gave a very

confused account of himself, and he cut all questions short by going

away south in a violent hurry.’ That was enough for me: I let the

subject drop. Clear as daylight, isn’t it, William? The steward

suspected something wrong—the steward waited and watched—the steward

wrote that anonymous letter to your mistress. We can find him, if we

want him, by inquiring at Cowes; and we can send to the church for

legal evidence of the marriage as soon as we are instructed to do so.

All that we have got to do now is to go back to your mistress, and see

what course she means to take under the circumstances. It’s a pretty

case, William, so far—an uncommonly pretty case, as it stands at

present.”

We returned to Darrock Hall as fast as coaches and post-horses could

carry us.

Having from the first believed that the statement in the anonymous

letter was true, my mistress received the bad news we brought calmly

and resignedly—so far, at least, as outward appearances went. She

astonished and disappointed Mr. Dark by declining to act in any way on

the information that he had collected for her, and by insisting that

the whole affair should still be buried in the profoundest secrecy. For

the first time since I had known my traveling companion, he became

depressed in spirits on hearing that nothing more was to be done, and,

although he left the Hall with a handsome present, he left it

discontentedly.

“Such a pretty case, William,” says he, quite sorrowfully, as we shook

hands—“such an uncommonly pretty case—it’s a thousand pities to stop

it, in this way, before it’s half over!”

“You don’t know what a proud lady and what a delicate lady my mistress

is,” I answered. “She would die rather than expose her forlorn

situation in a public court for the sake of punishing her husband.”

“Bless your simple heart!” says Mr. Dark, “do you really think, now,

that such a case as this can be hushed up?”

“Why not,” I asked, “if we all keep the secret?”

“That for the secret!” cries Mr. Dark, snapping his fingers. “Your

master will let the cat out of the bag, if nobody else does.”

“My master!” I repeated, in amazement.

“Yes, your master!” says Mr. Dark. “I have had some experience in my

time, and I say you have not seen the last of him yet. Mark my words,

William, Mr. James Smith will come back.”

With that prophecy, Mr. Dark fretfully treated himself to a last pinch

of snuff, and departed in dudgeon on his journey back to his master in

London. His last words hung heavily on my mind for days after he had

gone. It was some weeks before I got over a habit of starting whenever

the bell was rung at the front door.

CHAPTER IV.

Our life at the Hall soon returned to its old, dreary course. The

lawyer in London wrote to my mistress to ask her to come and stay for a

little while with his wife; but she declined the invitation, being

averse to facing company after what had happened to her. Though she

tried hard to keep the real state of her mind concealed from all about

her, I, for one, could see plainly enough that she was pining under the

bitter injury that had been inflicted on her. What effect continued

solitude might have had on her spirits I tremble to think.

Fortunately for herself, it occurred to her, before long, to send and

invite Mr. Meeke to resume his musical practicing with her at the Hall.

She told him—and, as it seemed to me, with perfect truth—that any

implied engagement which he had made with Mr. James Smith was now

canceled, since the person so named had morally forfeited all his

claims as a husband, first, by his desertion of her, and, secondly, by

his criminal marriage with another woman. After stating this view of

the matter, she left it to Mr. Meeke to decide whether the perfectly

innocent connection between them should be resumed or not. The little

parson, after hesitating and pondering in his helpless way, ended by

agreeing with my mistress, and by coming back once more to the Hall

with his fiddle under his arm. This renewal of their old habits might

have been imprudent enough, as tending to weaken my mistress’s case in

the eyes of the world, but, for all that, it was the most sensible

course she could take for her own sake. The harmless company of Mr.

Meeke, and the relief of playing the old tunes again in the old way,

saved her, I verily believe, from sinking altogether under the

oppression of the shocking situation in which she was now placed.

So, with the assistance of Mr. Meeke and his fiddle, my mistress got

though the weary time. The winter passed, the spring came, and no fresh

tidings reached us of Mr. James Smith. It had been a long, hard winter

that year, and the spring was backward and rainy. The first really fine

day we had was the day that fell on the fourteenth of March.

I am particular in mentioning this date merely because it is fixed

forever in my memory. As long as there is life in me I shall remember

that fourteenth of March, and the smallest circumstances connected with

it.

The day began ill, with what superstitious people would think a bad

omen. My mistress remained late in her room in the morning, amusing

herself by looking over her clothes, and by setting to rights some

drawers in her cabinet which she had not opened for some time past.

Just before luncheon we were startled by hearing the drawing-room bell

rung violently. I ran up to see what was the matter, and the quadroon,

Josephine, who had heard the bell in another part of the house,

hastened to answer it also. She got into the drawing-room first, and I

followed close on her heels. My mistress was standing alone on the

hearth-rug, with an appearance of great discomposure in her face and

manner.

“I have been robbed!” she said, vehemently, “I don’t know when or how;

but I miss a pair of bracelets, three rings, and a quantity of

old-fashioned lace pocket-handkerchiefs.”

“If you have any suspicions, ma’am,” said Josephine, in a sharp, sudden

way, “say who they point at. My boxes, for one, are quite at your

disposal.”

“Who asked about your boxes?” said my mistress, angrily. “Be a little

less ready with your answer, if you please, the next time I speak.”

She then turned to me, and began explaining the circumstances under

which she had discovered her loss. I suggested that the missing things

should be well searched for first, and then, if nothing came of that,

that I should go for the constable, and place the matter under his

direction.

My mistress agreed to this plan, and the search was undertaken

immediately. It lasted till dinner-time, and led to no results. I then

proposed going for the constable. But my mistress said it was too late

to do anything that day, and told me to wait at table as usual, and to

go on my errand the first thing the next morning. Mr. Meeke was coming

with some new music in the evening, and I suspect she was not willing

to be disturbed at her favorite occupation by the arrival of the

constable.

When dinner was over the parson came, and the concert went on as usual

through the evening. At ten o’clock I took up the tray, with the wine,

and soda-water, and biscuits. Just as I was opening one of the bottles

of soda-water, there was a sound of wheels on the drive outside, and a

ring at the bell.

I had unfastened the wires of the cork, and could not put the bottle

down to run at once to the door. One of the female servants answered

it. I heard a sort of half scream—then the sound of a footstep that was

familiar to me.

My mistress turned round from the piano, and looked me hard in the

face.

“William,” she said, “do you know that step?” Before I could answer the

door was pushed open, and Mr. James Smith walked into the room.

He had his hat on. His long hair flowed down under it over the collar

of his coat; his bright black eyes, after resting an instant on my

mistress, turned to Mr. Meeke. His heavy eyebrows met together, and one

of his hands went up to one of his bushy black whiskers, and pulled at

it angrily.

“You here again!” he said, advancing a few steps toward the little

parson, who sat trembling all over, with his fiddle hugged up in his

arms as if it had been a child.

Seeing her villainous husband advance, my mistress moved, too, so as to

face him. He turned round on her at the first step she took, as quick

as lightning.

“You shameless woman!” he said. “Can you look me in the face in the

presence of that man?” He pointed, as he spoke, to Mr. Meeke.

My mistress never shrank when he turned upon her. Not a sign of fear

was in her face when they confronted each other. Not the faintest flush

of anger came into her cheeks when he spoke. The sense of the insult

and injury that he had inflicted on her, and the consciousness of

knowing his guilty secret, gave her all her self-possession at that

trying moment.

“I ask you again,” he repeated, finding that she did not answer him,

“how dare you look me in the face in the presence of that man?”

She raised her steady eyes to his hat, which he still kept on his head.

“Who has taught you to come into a room and speak to a lady with your

hat on?” she asked, in quiet, contemptuous tones. “Is that a habit

which is sanctioned by _your new wife?_”

My eyes were on him as she said those last words. His complexion,

naturally dark and swarthy, changed instantly to a livid yellow white;

his hand caught at the chair nearest to him, and he dropped into it

heavily.

“I don’t understand you,” he said, after a moment of silence, looking

about the room unsteadily while he spoke.

“You do,” said my mistress. “Your tongue lies, but your face speaks the

truth.”

He called back his courage and audacity by a desperate effort, and

started up from the chair again with an oath.

The instant before this happened I thought I heard the sound of a

rustling dress in the passage outside, as if one of the women servants

was stealing up to listen outside the door. I should have gone at once

to see whether this was the case or not, but my master stopped me just

after he had risen from the chair.

“Get the bed made in the Red Room, and light a fire there directly,” he

said, with his fiercest look and in his roughest tones. “When I ring

the bell, bring me a kettle of boiling water and a bottle of brandy. As

for you,” he continued, turning toward Mr. Meeke, who still sat pale

and speechless with his fiddle hugged up in his arms, “leave the house,

or you won’t find your cloth any protection to you.”

At this insult the blood flew into my mistress’s face. Before she could

say anything, Mr. James Smith raised his voice loud enough to drown

hers.

“I won’t hear another word from you,” he cried out, brutally. “You have

been talking like a mad woman, and you look like a mad woman. You are

out of your senses. As sure as you live, I’ll have you examined by the

doctors to-morrow. Why the devil do you stand there, you scoundrel?” he

roared, wheeling round on his heel to me. “Why don’t you obey my

orders?”

I looked at my mistress. If she had directed me to knock Mr. James

Smith down, big as he was, I think at that moment I could have done it.

“Do as he tells you, William,” she said, squeezing one of her hands

firmly over her bosom, as if she was trying to keep down the rising

indignation in that way. “This is the last order of his giving that I

shall ask you to obey.”

“Do you threaten me, you mad—”

He finished the question by a word I shall not repeat.

“I tell you,” she answered, in clear, ringing, resolute tones, “that

you have outraged me past all forgiveness and all endurance, and that

you shall never insult me again as you have insulted me to-night.”

After saying those words she fixed one steady look on him, then turned

away and walked slowly to the door.

A minute previously Mr. Meeke had summoned courage enough to get up and

leave the room quietly. I noticed him walking demurely away, close to

the wall, with his fiddle held under one tail of his long frock-coat,

as if he was afraid that the savage passions of Mr. James Smith might

be wreaked on that unoffending instrument. He got to the door before my

mistress. As he softly pulled it open, I saw him start, and the

rustling of the gown caught my ear again from the outside.

My mistress followed him into the passage, turning, however, in the

opposite direction to that taken by the little parson, in order to

reach the staircase that led to her own room. I went out next, leaving

Mr. James Smith alone.

I overtook Mr. Meeke in the hall, and opened the door for him.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” I said, “but did you come upon anybody

listening outside the music-room when you left it just now?”

“Yes, William,” said Mr. Meeke, in a faint voice, “I think it was

Josephine; but I was so dreadfully agitated that I can’t be quite

certain about it.”

Had she surprised our secret? That was the question I asked myself as I

went away to light the fire in the Red Room. Calling to mind the exact

time at which I had first detected the rustling outside the door, I

came to the conclusion that she had only heard the last part of the

quarrel between my mistress and her rascal of a husband. Those bold

words about the “new wife” had been assuredly spoken before I heard

Josephine stealing up to the door.

As soon as the fire was alight and the bed made, I went back to the

music-room to announce that my orders had been obeyed. Mr. James Smith

was walking up and down in a perturbed way, still keeping his hat on.

He followed me to the Red Room without saying a word.

Ten minutes later he rang for the kettle and the bottle of brandy. When

I took them in I found him unpacking a small carpet-bag, which was the

only luggage he had brought with him. He still kept silence, and did

not appear to take any notice of me. I left him immediately without our

having so much as exchanged a single word.

So far as I could tell, the night passed quietly. The next morning I

heard that my mistress was suffering so severely from a nervous attack

that she was unable to rise from her bed. It was no surprise to me to

be told that, knowing as I did what she had gone through the night

before.

About nine o’clock I went with the hot water to the Red Room. After

knocking twice I tried the door, and, finding it not locked, went in

with the jug in my hand.

I looked at the bed—I looked all round the room. Not a sign of Mr.

James Smith was to be seen anywhere.

Judging by appearances, the bed had certainly been occupied. Thrown

across the counterpane lay the nightgown he had worn. I took it up and

saw some spots on it. I looked at them a little closer. They were spots

of blood.

CHAPTER V.

The first amazement and alarm produced by this discovery deprived me of

my presence of mind. Without stopping to think what I ought to do

first, I ran back to the servants’ hall, calling out that something had

happened to my master.

All the household hurried directly into the Red Room, Josephine among

the rest. I was first brought to my senses, as it were, by observing

the strange expression of her countenance when she saw the bed-gown and

the empty room. All the other servants were bewildered and frightened.

She alone, after giving a little start, recovered herself directly. A

look of devilish satisfaction broke out on her face, and she left the

room quickly and quietly, without exchanging a word with any of us. I

saw this, and it aroused my suspicions. There is no need to mention

what they were, for, as events soon showed, they were entirely wide of

the mark.

Having come to myself a little, I sent them all out of the room except

the coachman. We two then examined the place.

The Red Room was usually occupied by visitors. It was on the ground

floor, and looked out into the garden. We found the window-shutters,

which I had barred overnight, open, but the window itself was down. The

fire had been out long enough for the grate to be quite cold. Half the

bottle of brandy had been drunk. The carpet-bag was gone. There were no

marks of violence or struggling anywhere about the bed or the room. We

examined every corner carefully, but made no other discoveries than

these.

When I returned to the servants’ hall, bad news of my mistress was

awaiting me there. The unusual noise and confusion in the house had

reached her ears, and she had been told what had happened without

sufficient caution being exercised in preparing her to hear it. In her

weak, nervous state, the shock of the intelligence had quite prostrated

her. She had fallen into a swoon, and had been brought back to her

senses with the greatest difficulty. As to giving me or anybody else

directions what to do under the embarrassing circumstances which had

now occurred, she was totally incapable of the effort.

I waited till the middle of the day, in the hope that she might get

strong enough to give her orders; but no message came from her. At last

I resolved to send and ask her what she thought it best to do.

Josephine was the proper person to go on this errand; but when I asked

for Josephine, she was nowhere to be found. The housemaid, who had

searched for her ineffectually, brought word that her bonnet and shawl

were not hanging in their usual places. The parlor-maid, who had been

in attendance in my mistress’s room, came down while we were all aghast

at this new disappearance. She could only tell us that Josephine had

begged her to do lady’s-maid’s duty that morning, as she was not well.

Not well! And the first result of her illness appeared to be that she

had left the house!

I cautioned the servants on no account to mention this circumstance to

my mistress, and then went upstairs myself to knock at her door. My

object was to ask if I might count on her approval if I wrote in her

name to the lawyer in London, and if I afterward went and gave

information of what had occurred to the nearest justice of the peace. I

might have sent to make this inquiry through one of the female

servants; but by this time, though not naturally suspicious, I had got

to distrust everybody in the house, whether they deserved it or not.

So I asked the question myself, standing outside the door. My mistress

thanked me in a faint voice, and begged me to do what I had proposed

immediately.

I went into my own bedroom and wrote to the lawyer, merely telling him

that Mr. James Smith had appeared unexpectedly at the Hall, and that

events had occurred in consequence which required his immediate

presence. I made the letter up like a parcel, and sent the coachman

with it to catch the mail on its way through to London.

The next thing was to go to the justice of the peace. The nearest lived

about five miles off, and was well acquainted with my mistress. He was

an old bachelor, and he kept house with his brother, who was a widower.

The two were much respected and beloved in the county, being kind,

unaffected gentlemen, who did a great deal of good among the poor. The

justice was Mr. Robert Nicholson, and his brother, the widower, was Mr.

Philip.

I had got my hat on, and was asking the groom which horse I had better

take, when an open carriage drove up to the house. It contained Mr.

Philip Nicholson and two persons in plain clothes, not exactly servants

and not exactly gentlemen, as far as I could judge. Mr. Philip looked

at me, when I touched my hat to him, in a very grave, downcast way, and

asked for my mistress. I told him she was ill in bed. He shook his head

at hearing that, and said he wished to speak to me in private. I showed

him into the library. One of the men in plain clothes followed us, and

sat in the hall. The other waited with the carriage.

“I was just going out, sir,” I said, as I set a chair for him, “to

speak to Mr. Robert Nicholson about a very extraordinary circumstance—”

“I know what you refer to,” said Mr. Philip, cutting me short rather

abruptly; “and I must beg, for reasons which will presently appear,

that you will make no statement of any sort to me until you have first

heard what I have to say. I am here on a very serious and a very

shocking errand, which deeply concerns your mistress and you.”

His face suggested something worse than his words expressed. My heart

began to beat fast, and I felt that I was turning pale.

“Your master, Mr. James Smith,” he went on, “came here unexpectedly

yesterday evening, and slept in this house last night. Before he

retired to rest he and your mistress had high words together, which

ended, I am sorry to hear, in a threat of a serious nature addressed by

Mrs. James Smith to her husband. They slept in separate rooms. This

morning you went into your master’s room and saw no sign of him there.

You only found his nightgown on the bed, spotted with blood.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, in as steady a voice as I could command. “Quite

true.”

“I am not examining you,” said Mr. Philip. “I am only making a certain

statement, the truth of which you can admit or deny before my brother.”

“Before your brother, sir!” I repeated. “Am I suspected of anything

wrong?”

“There is a suspicion that Mr. James Smith has been murdered,” was the

answer I received to that question.

My flesh began to creep all over from head to foot.

“I am shocked—I am horrified to say,” Mr. Philip went on, “that the

suspicion affects your mistress in the first place, and you in the

second.”

I shall not attempt to describe what I felt when he said that. No words

of mine, no words of anybody’s, could give an idea of it. What other

men would have done in my situation I don’t know. I stood before Mr.

Philip, staring straight at him, without speaking, without moving,

almost without breathing. If he or any other man had struck me at that

moment, I do not believe I should have felt the blow.

“Both my brother and myself,” said Mr. Philip, “have such unfeigned

respect for your mistress, such sympathy for her under these frightful

circumstances, and such an implicit belief in her capability of proving

her innocence, that we are desirous of sparing her in this dreadful

emergency as much as possible. For those reasons, I have undertaken to

come here with the persons appointed to execute my brother’s warrant—”

“Warrant, sir!” I said, getting command of my voice as he pronounced

that word—“a warrant against my mistress!”

“Against her and against you,” said Mr. Philip. “The suspicious

circumstances have been sworn to by a competent witness, who has

declared on oath that your mistress is guilty, and that you are an

accomplice.”

“What witness, sir?”

“Your mistress’s quadroon maid, who came to my brother this morning,

and who has made her deposition in due form.”

“And who is as false as hell,” I cried out passionately, “in every word

she says against my mistress and against me.”

“I hope—no, I will go further, and say I believe she is false,” said

Mr. Philip. “But her perjury must be proved, and the necessary

examination must take place. My carriage is going back to my brother’s,

and you will go in it, in charge of one of my men, who has the warrant

to take you in custody. I shall remain here with the man who is waiting

in the hall; and before any steps are taken to execute the other

warrant, I shall send for the doctor to ascertain when your mistress

can be removed.”

“Oh, my poor mistress!” I said, “this will be the death of her, sir.”

“I will take care that the shock shall strike her as tenderly as

possible,” said Mr. Philip. “I am here for that express purpose. She

has my deepest sympathy and respect, and shall have every help and

alleviation that I can afford her.”

The hearing him say that, and the seeing how sincerely he meant what he

said, was the first gleam of comfort in the dreadful affliction that

had befallen us. I felt this; I felt a burning anger against the wretch

who had done her best to ruin my mistress’s fair name and mine, but in

every other respect I was like a man who had been stunned, and whose

faculties had not perfectly recovered from the shock. Mr. Philip was

obliged to remind me that time was of importance, and that I had better

give myself up immediately, on the merciful terms which his kindness

offered to me. I acknowledged that, and wished him good morning. But a

mist seemed to come over my eyes as I turned round to go away—a mist

that prevented me from finding my way to the door. Mr. Philip opened it

for me, and said a friendly word or two which I could hardly hear. The

man waiting outside took me to his companion in the carriage at the

door, and I was driven away, a prisoner for the first time in my life.

On our way to the justice’s, what little thinking faculty I had left in

me was all occupied in the attempt to trace a motive for the

inconceivable treachery and falsehood of which Josephine had been

guilty.

Her words, her looks, and her manner, on that unfortunate day when my

mistress so far forget herself as to strike her, came back dimly to my

memory, and led to the inference that part of the motive, at least, of

which I was in search, might be referred to what had happened on that

occasion. But was this the only reason for her devilish vengeance

against my mistress? And, even if it were so, what fancied injuries had

I done her? Why should I be included in the false accusation? In the

dazed state of my faculties at that time, I was quite incapable of

seeking the answer to these questions. My mind was clouded all over,

and I gave up the attempt to clear it in despair.

I was brought before Mr. Robert Nicholson that day, and the fiend of a

quadroon was examined in my presence. The first sight of her face, with

its wicked self-possession, with its smooth leering triumph, so

sickened me that I turned my head away and never looked at her a second

time throughout the proceedings. The answers she gave amounted to a

mere repetition of the deposition to which she had already sworn. I

listened to her with the most breathless attention, and was

thunderstruck at the inconceivable artfulness with which she had mixed

up truth and falsehood in her charge against my mistress and me.

This was, in substance, what she now stated in my presence:

After describing the manner of Mr. James Smith’s arrival at the Hall,

the witness, Josephine Durand, confessed that she had been led to

listen at the music-room door by hearing angry voices inside, and she

then described, truly enough, the latter part of the altercation

between husband and wife. Fearing, after this, that something serious

might happen, she had kept watch in her room, which was on the same

floor as her mistress’s. She had heard her mistress’s door open softly

between one and two in the morning—had followed her mistress, who

carried a small lamp, along the passage and down the stairs into the

hall—had hidden herself in the porter’s chair—had seen her mistress

take a dagger in a green sheath from a collection of Eastern

curiosities kept in the hall—had followed her again, and seen her

softly enter the Red Room—had heard the heavy breathing of Mr. James

Smith, which gave token that he was asleep—had slipped into an empty

room, next door to the Red Room, and had waited there about a quarter

of an hour, when her mistress came out again with the dagger in her

hand—had followed her mistress again into the hall, where she had put

the dagger back into its place—had seen her mistress turn into a side

passage that led to my room—had heard her knock at my door, and heard

me answer and open it—had hidden again in the porter’s chair—had, after

a while, seen me and my mistress pass together into the passage that

led to the Red Room—had watched us both into the Red Room—and had then,

through fear of being discovered and murdered herself, if she risked

detection any longer, stolen back to her own room for the rest of the

night.

After deposing on oath to the truth of these atrocious falsehoods, and

declaring, in conclusion, that Mr. James Smith had been murdered by my

mistress, and that I was an accomplice, the quadroon had further

asserted, in order to show a motive for the crime, that Mr. Meeke was

my mistress’s lover; that he had been forbidden the house by her

husband, and that he was found in the house, and alone with her, on the

evening of Mr. James Smith’s return. Here again there were some grains

of truth cunningly mixed up with a revolting lie, and they had their

effect in giving to the falsehood a look of probability.

I was cautioned in the usual manner and asked if I had anything to say.

I replied that I was innocent, but that I would wait for legal

assistance before I defended myself. The justice remanded me and the

examination was over. Three days later my unhappy mistress was

subjected to the same trial. I was not allowed to communicate with her.

All I knew was that the lawyer had arrived from London to help her.

Toward the evening he was admitted to see me. He shook his head

sorrowfully when I asked after my mistress.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that she has sunk under the horror of the

situation in which that vile woman has placed her. Weakened by her

previous agitation, she seems to have given way under this last shock,

tenderly and carefully as Mr. Philip Nicholson broke the bad news to

her. All her feelings appeared to be strangely blunted at the

examination to-day. She answered the questions put to her quite

correctly, but at the same time quite mechanically, with no change in

her complexion, or in her tone of voice, or in her manner, from

beginning to end. It is a sad thing, William, when women cannot get

their natural vent of weeping, and your mistress has not shed a tear

since she left Darrock Hall.”

“But surely, sir,” I said, “if my examination has not proved

Josephine’s perjury, my mistress’s examination must have exposed it?”

“Nothing will expose it,” answered the lawyer, “but producing Mr. James

Smith, or, at least, legally proving that he is alive. Morally

speaking, I have no doubt that the justice before whom you have been

examined is as firmly convinced as we can be that the quadroon has

perjured herself. Morally speaking, he believes that those threats

which your mistress unfortunately used referred (as she said they did

to-day) to her intention of leaving the Hall early in the morning, with

you for her attendant, and coming to me, if she had been well enough to

travel, to seek effectual legal protection from her husband for the

future. Mr. Nicholson believes that; and I, who know more of the

circumstances than he does, believe also that Mr. James Smith stole

away from Darrock Hall in the night under fear of being indicted for

bigamy. But if I can’t find him—if I can’t prove him to be alive—if I

can’t account for those spots of blood on the night-gown, the

accidental circumstances of the case remain unexplained—your mistress’s

rash language, the bad terms on which she has lived with her husband,

and her unlucky disregard of appearances in keeping up her intercourse

with Mr. Meeke, all tell dead against us—and the justice has no

alternative, in a legal point of view, but to remand you both, as he

has now done, for the production of further evidence.”

“But how, then, in Heaven’s name, is our innocence to be proved, sir?”

I asked.

“In the first place,” said the lawyer, “by finding Mr. James Smith;

and, in the second place, by persuading him, when he is found, to come

forward and declare himself.”

“Do you really believe, sir,” said I, “that he would hesitate to do

that, when he knows the horrible charge to which his disappearance has

exposed his wife? He is a heartless villain, I know; but surely—”

“I don’t suppose,” said the lawyer, cutting me short, “that he is quite

scoundrel enough to decline coming forward, supposing he ran no risk by

doing so. But remember that he has placed himself in a position to be

tried for bigamy, and that he believes your mistress will put the law

in force against him.”

I had forgotten that circumstance. My heart sank within me when it was

recalled to my memory, and I could say nothing more.

“It is a very serious thing,” the lawyer went on—“it is a downright

offense against the law of the land to make any private offer of a

compromise to this man. Knowing what we know, our duty as good citizens

is to give such information as may bring him to trial. I tell you

plainly that, if I did not stand toward your mistress in the position

of a relation as well as a legal adviser, I should think twice about

running the risk—the very serious risk—on which I am now about to

venture for her sake. As it is, I have taken the right measures to

assure Mr. James Smith that he will not be treated according to his

deserts. When he knows what the circumstances are, he will trust

us—supposing always that we can find him. The search about this

neighborhood has been quite useless. I have sent private instructions

by to-day’s post to Mr. Dark in London, and with them a

carefully-worded form of advertisement for the public newspapers. You

may rest assured that every human means of tracing him will be tried

forthwith. In the meantime, I have an important question to put to you

about Josephine. She may know more than we think she does; she may have

surprised the secret of the second marriage, and may be keeping it in

reserve to use against us. If this should turn out to be the case, I

shall want some other chance against her besides the chance of

indicting her for perjury. As to her motive now for making this

horrible accusation, what can you tell me about that, William?”

“Her motive against me, sir?”

“No, no, not against you. I can see plainly enough that she accuses you

because it is necessary to do so to add to the probability of her

story, which, of course, assumes that you helped your mistress to

dispose of the dead body. You are coolly sacrificed to some devilish

vengeance against her mistress. Let us get at that first. Has there

ever been a quarrel between them?”

I told him of the quarrel, and of how Josephine had looked and talked

when she showed me her cheek.

“Yes,” he said, “that is a strong motive for revenge with a naturally

pitiless, vindictive woman. But is that all? Had your mistress any hold

over her? Is there any self-interest mixed up along with this motive of

vengeance? Think a little, William. Has anything ever happened in the

house to compromise this woman, or to make her fancy herself

compromised?”

The remembrance of my mistress’s lost trinkets and handkerchiefs, which

later and greater troubles had put out of my mind, flashed back into my

memory while he spoke. I told him immediately of the alarm in the house

when the loss was discovered.

“Did your mistress suspect Josephine and question her?” he asked,

eagerly.

“No, sir,” I replied. “Before she could say a word, Josephine

impudently asked who she suspected, and boldly offered her own boxes to

be searched.”

The lawyer’s face turned red as scarlet. He jumped out of his chair,

and hit me such a smack on the shoulder that I thought he had gone mad.

“By Jupiter!” he cried out, “we have got the whip-hand of that

she-devil at last.”

I looked at him in astonishment.

“Why, man alive,” he said, “don’t you see how it is? Josephine’s the

thief! I am as sure of it as that you and I are talking together. This

vile accusation against your mistress answers another purpose besides

the vindictive one—it is the very best screen that the wretch could

possibly set up to hide herself from detection. It has stopped your

mistress and you from moving in the matter; it exhibits her in the

false character of an honest witness against a couple of criminals; it

gives her time to dispose of the goods, or to hide them, or to do

anything she likes with them. Stop! let me be quite sure that I know

what the lost things are. A pair of bracelets, three rings, and a lot

of lace pocket-handkerchiefs—is that what you said?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your mistress will describe them particularly, and I will take the

right steps the first thing to-morrow morning. Good-evening, William,

and keep up your spirits. It shan’t be my fault if you don’t soon see

the quadroon in the right place for her—at the prisoner’s bar.”

With that farewell he went out.

The days passed, and I did not see him again until the period of my

remand had expired. On this occasion, when I once more appeared before

the justice, my mistress appeared with me. The first sight of her

absolutely startled me, she was so sadly altered. Her face looked so

pinched and thin that it was like the face of an old woman. The dull,

vacant resignation of her expression was something shocking to see. It

changed a little when her eyes first turned heavily toward me, and she

whispered, with a faint smile, “I am sorry for you, William—I am very,

very sorry for you.” But as soon as she had said those words the blank

look returned, and she sat with her head drooping forward, quiet, and

inattentive, and hopeless—so changed a being that her oldest friends

would hardly have known her.

Our examination was a mere formality. There was no additional evidence

either for or against us, and we were remanded again for another week.

I asked the lawyer, privately, if any chance had offered itself of

tracing Mr. James Smith. He looked mysterious, and only said in answer,

“Hope for the best.” I inquired next if any progress had been made

toward fixing the guilt of the robbery on Josephine.

“I never boast,” he replied. “But, cunning as she is, I should not be

surprised if Mr. Dark and I, together, turned out to be more than a

match for her.”

Mr. Dark! There was something in the mere mention of his name that gave

me confidence in the future. If I could only have got my poor

mistress’s sad, dazed face out of my mind, I should not have had much

depression of spirits to complain of during the interval of time that

elapsed between the second examination and the third.

CHAPTER VI.

On the third appearance of my mistress and myself before the justice, I

noticed some faces in the room which I had not seen there before.

Greatly to my astonishment—for the previous examinations had been

conducted as privately as possible—I remarked the presence of two of

the servants from the Hall, and of three or four of the tenants on the

Darrock estate, who lived nearest to the house. They all sat together

on one side of the justice-room. Opposite to them and close at the side

of a door, stood my old acquaintance, Mr. Dark, with his big snuff-box,

his jolly face, and his winking eye. He nodded to me, when I looked at

him, as jauntily as if we were meeting at a party of pleasure. The

quadroon woman, who had been summoned to the examination, had a chair

placed opposite to the witness-box, and in a line with the seat

occupied by my poor mistress, whose looks, as I was grieved to see,

were not altered for the better. The lawyer from London was with her,

and I stood behind her chair.

We were all quietly disposed in the room in this way, when the justice,

Mr. Robert Nicholson, came in with his brother. It might have been only

fancy, but I thought I could see in both their faces that something

remarkable had happened since we had met at the last examination.

The deposition of Josephine Durand was read over by the clerk, and she

was asked if she had anything to add to it. She replied in the

negative. The justice then appealed to my mistress’s relation, the

lawyer, to know if he could produce any evidence relating to the charge

against his clients.

“I have evidence,” answered the lawyer, getting briskly on his legs,

“which I believe, sir, will justify me in asking for their discharge.”

“Where are your witnesses?” inquired the justice, looking hard at

Josephine while he spoke.

“One of them is in waiting, your worship,” said Mr. Dark, opening the

door near which he was standing.

He went out of the room, remained away about a minute, and returned

with his witness at his heels.

My heart gave a bound as if it would jump out of my body. There, with

his long hair cut short, and his bushy whiskers shaved off—there, in

his own proper person, safe and sound as ever, was Mr. James Smith!

The quadroon’s iron nature resisted the shock of his unexpected

presence on the scene with a steadiness that was nothing short of

marvelous. Her thin lips closed together convulsively, and there was a

slight movement in the muscles of her throat. But not a word, not a

sign betrayed her. Even the yellow tinge of her complexion remained

unchanged.

“It is not necessary, sir, that I should waste time and words in

referring to the wicked and preposterous charge against my clients,”

said the lawyer, addressing Mr. Robert Nicholson. “The one sufficient

justification for discharging them immediately is before you at this

moment in the person of that gentleman. There, sir, stands the murdered

Mr. James Smith, of Darrock Hall, alive and well, to answer for

himself.”

“That is not the man!” cried Josephine, her shrill voice just as high,

clear, and steady as ever, “I denounce that man as an impostor. Of my

own knowledge, I deny that he is Mr. James Smith.”

“No doubt you do,” said the lawyer; “but we will prove his identity for

all that.”

The first witness called was Mr. Philip Nicholson. He could swear that

he had seen Mr. James Smith, and spoken to him at least a dozen times.

The person now before him was Mr. James Smith, altered as to personal

appearance by having his hair cut short and his whiskers shaved off,

but still unmistakably the man he assumed to be.

“Conspiracy!” interrupted the prisoner, hissing the word out viciously

between her teeth.

“If you are not silent,” said Mr. Robert Nicholson, “you will be

removed from the room. It will sooner meet the ends of justice,” he

went on, addressing the lawyer, “if you prove the question of identity

by witnesses who have been in habits of daily communication with Mr.

James Smith.”

Upon this, one of the servants from the Hall was placed in the box.

The alteration in his master’s appearance evidently puzzled the man.

Besides the perplexing change already adverted to, there was also a

change in Mr. James Smith’s expression and manner. Rascal as he was, I

must do him the justice to say that he looked startled and ashamed when

he first caught sight of his unfortunate wife. The servant, who was

used to be eyed tyrannically by him, and ordered about roughly, seeing

him now for the first time abashed and silent, stammered and hesitated

on being asked to swear to his identity.

“I can hardly say for certain, sir,” said the man, addressing the

justice in a bewildered manner. “He is like my master, and yet he

isn’t. If he wore whiskers and had his hair long, and if he was, saving

your presence, sir, a little more rough and ready in his way, I could

swear to him anywhere with a safe conscience.”

Fortunately for us, at this moment Mr. James Smith’s feeling of

uneasiness at the situation in which he was placed changed to a feeling

of irritation at being coolly surveyed and then stupidly doubted in the

matter of his identity by one of his own servants.

“Can’t you say in plain words, you idiot, whether you know me or

whether you don’t?” he called out, angrily.

“That’s his voice!” cried the servant, starting in the box. “Whiskers

or no whiskers, that’s him!”

“If there’s any difficulty, your worship, about the gentleman’s hair,”

said Mr. Dark, coming forward with a grin, “here’s a small parcel

which, I may make so bold as to say, will remove it.” Saying that, he

opened the parcel, took some locks of hair out of it, and held them up

close to Mr. James Smith’s head. “A pretty good match, your worship,”

continued Mr. Dark. “I have no doubt the gentleman’s head feels cooler

now it’s off. We can’t put the whiskers on, I’m afraid, but they match

the hair; and they are in the paper (if one may say such a thing of

whiskers) to speak for themselves.”

“Lies! lies! lies!” screamed Josephine, losing her wicked self-control

at this stage of the proceedings.

The justice made a sign to two of the constables present as she burst

out with those exclamations, and the men removed her to an adjoining

room.

The second servant from the Hall was then put in the box, and was

followed by one of the tenants. After what they had heard and seen,

neither of these men had any hesitation in swearing positively to their

master’s identity.

“It is quite unnecessary,” said the justice, as soon as the box was

empty again, “to examine any more witnesses as to the question of

identity. All the legal formalities are accomplished, and the charge

against the prisoners falls to the ground. I have great pleasure in

ordering the immediate discharge of both the accused persons, and in

declaring from this place that they leave the court without the

slightest stain on their characters.”

He bowed low to my mistress as he said that, paused a moment, and then

looked inquiringly at Mr. James Smith.

“I have hitherto abstained from making any remark unconnected with the

immediate matter in hand,” he went on. “But, now that my duty is done,

I cannot leave this chair without expressing my strong sense of

disapprobation of the conduct of Mr. James Smith—conduct which,

whatever may be the motives that occasioned it, has given a false color

of probability to a most horrible charge against a lady of unspotted

reputation, and against a person in a lower rank of life whose good

character ought not to have been imperiled even for a moment. Mr. Smith

may or may not choose to explain his mysterious disappearance from

Darrock Hall, and the equally unaccountable change which he has chosen

to make in his personal appearance. There is no legal charge against

him; but, speaking morally, I should be unworthy of the place I hold if

I hesitated to declare my present conviction that his conduct has been

deceitful, inconsiderate, and unfeeling in the highest degree.”

To this sharp reprimand Mr. James Smith (evidently tutored beforehand

as to what he was to say) replied that, in attending before the

justice, he wished to perform a plain duty and to keep himself strictly

within the letter of the law. He apprehended that the only legal

obligation laid on him was to attend in that court to declare himself,

and to enable competent witnesses to prove his identity. This duty

accomplished, he had merely to add that he preferred submitting to a

reprimand from the bench to entering into explanations which would

involve the disclosure of domestic circumstances of a very unhappy

nature. After that brief reply he had nothing further to say, and he

would respectfully request the justice’s permission to withdraw.

The permission was accorded. As he crossed the room he stopped near his

wife, and said, confusedly, in a very low tone:

“I have done you many injuries, but I never intended this. I am sorry

for it. Have you anything to say to me before I go?”

My mistress shuddered and hid her face. He waited a moment, and,

finding that she did not answer him, bowed his head politely and went

out. I did not know it then, but I had seen him for the last time.

After he had gone, the lawyer, addressing Mr. Robert Nicholson, said

that he had an application to make in reference to the woman Josephine

Durand.

At the mention of that name my mistress hurriedly whispered a few words

into her relation’s ear. He looked toward Mr. Philip Nicholson, who

immediately advanced, offered his arm to my mistress, and led her out.

I was about to follow, when Mr. Dark stopped me, and begged that I

would wait a few minutes longer, in order to give myself the pleasure

of seeing “the end of the case.”

In the meantime, the justice had pronounced the necessary order to have

the quadroon brought back. She came in, as bold and confident as ever.

Mr. Robert Nicholson looked away from her in disgust and said to the

lawyer:

“Your application is to have her committed for perjury, of course?”

“For perjury?” said Josephine, with her wicked smile. “Very good. I

shall explain some little matters that I have not explained before. You

think I am quite at your mercy now? Bah! I shall make myself a thorn in

your sides yet.”

“She has got scent of the second marriage,” whispered Mr. Dark to me.

There could be no doubt of it. She had evidently been listening at the

door on the night when my master came back longer than I had supposed.

She must have heard those words about “the new wife”—she might even

have seen the effect of them on Mr. James Smith.

“We do not at present propose to charge Josephine Durand with perjury,”

said the lawyer, “but with another offense, for which it is important

to try her immediately, in order to effect the restoration of property

that has been stolen. I charge her with stealing from her mistress,

while in her service at Darrock Hall, a pair of bracelets, three rings,

and a dozen and a half of lace pocket-handkerchiefs. The articles in

question were taken this morning from between the mattresses of her

bed; and a letter was found in the same place which clearly proves that

she had represented the property as belonging to herself, and that she

had tried to dispose of it to a purchaser in London.” While he was

speaking, Mr. Dark produced the jewelry, the handkerchiefs and the

letter, and laid them before the justice.

Even Josephine’s extraordinary powers of self-control now gave way at

last. At the first words of the unexpected charge against her she

struck her hands together violently, gnashed her sharp white teeth, and

burst out with a torrent of fierce-sounding words in some foreign

language, the meaning of which I did not understand then and cannot

explain now.

“I think that’s checkmate for marmzelle,” whispered Mr. Dark, with his

invariable wink. “Suppose you go back to the Hall, now, William, and

draw a jug of that very remarkable old ale of yours? I’ll be after you

in five minutes, as soon as the charge is made out.”

I could hardly realize it when I found myself walking back to Darrock a

free man again.

In a quarter of an hour’s time Mr. Dark joined me, and drank to my

health, happiness and prosperity in three separate tumblers. After

performing this ceremony, he wagged his head and chuckled with an

appearance of such excessive enjoyment that I could not avoid remarking

on his high spirits.

“It’s the case, William—it’s the beautiful neatness of the case that

quite intoxicates me. Oh, Lord, what a happiness it is to be concerned

in such a job as this!” cries Mr. Dark, slapping his stumpy hands on

his fat knees in a sort of ecstasy.

I had a very different opinion of the case for my own part, but I did

not venture on expressing it. I was too anxious to know how Mr. James

Smith had been discovered and produced at the examination to enter into

any arguments. Mr. Dark guessed what was passing in my mind, and,

telling me to sit down and make myself comfortable, volunteered of his

own accord to inform me of all that I wanted to know.

“When I got my instructions and my statement of particulars,” he began,

“I was not at all surprised to hear that Mr. James Smith had come back.

(I prophesied that, if you remember, William, the last time we met?)

But I was a good deal astonished, nevertheless, at the turn things had

taken, and I can’t say I felt very hopeful about finding our man.

However, I followed my master’s directions, and put the advertisement

in the papers. It addressed Mr. James Smith by name, but it was very

carefully worded as to what was wanted of him. Two days after it

appeared, a letter came to our office in a woman’s handwriting. It was

my business to open the letters, and I opened that. The writer was

short and mysterious. She requested that somebody would call from our

office at a certain address, between the hours of two and four that

afternoon, in reference to the advertisement which we had inserted in

the newspapers. Of course, I was the somebody who went. I kept myself

from building up hopes by the way, knowing what a lot of Mr. James

Smiths there were in London. On getting to the house, I was shown into

the drawing-room, and there, dressed in a wrapper and lying on a sofa,

was an uncommonly pretty woman, who looked as if she was just

recovering from an illness. She had a newspaper by her side, and came

to the point at once: ‘My husband’s name is James Smith,’ she says,

‘and I have my reasons for wanting to know if he is the person you are

in search of.’ I described our man as Mr. James Smith, of Darrock Hall,

Cumberland. ‘I know no such person,’ says she—”

“What! was it not the second wife, after all?” I broke out.

“Wait a bit,” says Mr. Dark. “I mentioned the name of the yacht next,

and she started up on the sofa as if she had been shot. ‘I think you

were married in Scotland, ma’am,’ says I. She turns as pale as ashes,

and drops back on the sofa, and says, faintly: ‘It is my husband. Oh,

sir, what has happened? What do you want with him? Is he in debt?’ I

took a minute to think, and then made up my mind to tell her

everything, feeling that she would keep her husband (as she called him)

out of the way if I frightened her by any mysteries. A nice job I had,

William, as you may suppose, when she knew about the bigamy business.

What with screaming, fainting, crying, and blowing me up (as if _I_ was

to blame!), she kept me by that sofa of hers the best part of an

hour—kept me there, in short, till Mr. James Smith himself came back. I

leave you to judge if that mended matters. He found me mopping the poor

woman’s temples with scent and water; and he would have pitched me out

of the window, as sure as I sit here, if I had not met him and

staggered him at once with the charge of murder against his wife. That

stopped him when he was in full cry, I can promise you. ‘Go and wait in

the next room,’ says he, ‘and I’ll come in and speak to you directly.’”

“And did you go?” I asked.

“Of course I did,” said Mr. Dark. “I knew he couldn’t get out by the

drawing-room windows, and I knew I could watch the door; so away I

went, leaving him alone with the lady, who didn’t spare him by any

manner of means, as I could easily hear in the next room. However, all

rows in this world come to an end sooner or later, and a man with any

brains in his head may do what he pleases with a woman who is fond of

him. Before long I heard her crying and kissing him. ‘I can’t go home,’

she says, after this. ‘You have behaved like a villain and a monster to

me—but oh, Jemmy, I can’t give you up to anybody! Don’t go back to your

wife! Oh, don’t, don’t go back to your wife!’ ‘No fear of that,’ says

he. ‘My wife wouldn’t have me if I did go back to her.’ After that I

heard the door open, and went out to meet him on the landing. He began

swearing the moment he saw me, as if that was any good. ‘Business

first, if you please, sir,’ says I, ‘and any pleasure you like, in the

way of swearing, afterward.’ With that beginning, I mentioned our terms

to him, and asked the pleasure of his company to Cumberland in return,

he was uncommonly suspicious at first, but I promised to draw out a

legal document (mere waste paper, of no earthly use except to pacify

him), engaging to hold him harmless throughout the proceedings; and

what with that, and telling him of the frightful danger his wife was

in, I managed, at last, to carry my point.”

“But did the second wife make no objection to his going away with you?”

I inquired.

“Not she,” said Mr. Dark. “I stated the case to her just as it stood,

and soon satisfied her that there was no danger of Mr. James Smith’s

first wife laying any claim to him. After hearing that, she joined me

in persuading him to do his duty, and said she pitied your mistress

from the bottom of her heart. With her influence to back me, I had no

great fear of our man changing his mind. I had the door watched that

night, however, so as to make quite sure of him. The next morning he

was ready to time when I called, and a quarter of an hour after that we

were off together for the north road. We made the journey with

post-horses, being afraid of chance passengers, you know, in public

conveyances. On the way down, Mr. James Smith and I got on as

comfortably together as if we had been a pair of old friends. I told

the story of our tracing him to the north of Scotland, and he gave me

the particulars, in return, of his bolting from Darrock Hall. They are

rather amusing, William; would you like to hear them?”

I told Mr. Dark that he had anticipated the very question I was about

to ask him.

“Well,” he said, “this is how it was: To begin at the beginning, our

man really took Mrs. Smith, Number Two, to the Mediterranean, as we

heard. He sailed up the Spanish coast, and, after short trips ashore,

stopped at a seaside place in France called Cannes. There he saw a

house and grounds to be sold which took his fancy as a nice retired

place to keep Number Two in. Nothing particular was wanted but the

money to buy it; and, not having the little amount in his own

possession, Mr. James Smith makes a virtue of necessity, and goes back

overland to his wife with private designs on her purse-strings. Number

Two, who objects to be left behind, goes with him as far as London.

There he trumps up the first story that comes into his head about rents

in the country, and a house in Lincolnshire that is too damp for her to

trust herself in; and so, leaving her for a few days in London, starts

boldly for Darrock Hall. His notion was to wheedle your mistress out of

the money by good behavior; but it seems he started badly by quarreling

with her about a fiddle-playing parson—”

“Yes, yes, I know all about that part of the story,” I broke in, seeing

by Mr. Dark’s manner that he was likely to speak both ignorantly and

impertinently of my mistress’s unlucky friendship for Mr. Meeke. “Go

on to the time when I left my master alone in the Red Room, and tell me

what he did between midnight and nine the next morning.”

“Did?” said Mr. Dark. “Why, he went to bed with the unpleasant

conviction on his mind that your mistress had found him out, and with

no comfort to speak of except what he could get out of the brandy

bottle. He couldn’t sleep; and the more he tossed and tumbled, the more

certain he felt that his wife intended to have him tried for bigamy. At

last, toward the gray of the morning, he could stand it no longer, and

he made up his mind to give the law the slip while he had the chance.

As soon as he was dressed, it struck him that there might be a reward

offered for catching him, and he determined to make that slight change

in his personal appearance which puzzled the witnesses so much before

the magistrate to-day. So he opens his dressing-case and crops his hair

in no time, and takes off his whiskers next. The fire was out, and he

had to shave in cold water. What with that, and what with the flurry of

his mind, naturally enough he cut himself—”

“And dried the blood with his nightgown?” says I.

“With his nightgown,” repeated Mr. Dark. “It was the first thing that

lay handy, and he snatched it up. Wait a bit, though; the cream of the

thing is to come. When he had done being his own barber, he couldn’t

for the life of him hit on a way of getting rid of the loose hair. The

fire was out, and he had no matches; so he couldn’t burn it. As for

throwing it away, he didn’t dare do that in the house or about the

house, for fear of its being found, and betraying what he had done. So

he wraps it all up in paper, crams it into his pocket to be disposed of

when he is at a safe distance from the Hall, takes his bag, gets out at

the window, shuts it softly after him, and makes for the road as fast

as his long legs will carry him. There he walks on till a coach

overtakes him, and so travels back to London to find himself in a fresh

scrape as soon as he gets there. An interesting situation, William, and

hard traveling from one end of France to the other, had not agreed

together in the case of Number Two. Mr. James Smith found her in bed,

with doctor’s orders that she was not to be moved. There was nothing

for it after that but to lie by in London till the lady got better.

Luckily for us, she didn’t hurry herself; so that, after all, your

mistress has to thank the very woman who supplanted her for clearing

her character by helping us to find Mr. James Smith.”

“And, pray, how did you come by that loose hair of his which you showed

before the justice to-day?” I asked.

“Thank Number Two again,” says Mr. Dark. “I was put up to asking after

it by what she told me. While we were talking about the advertisement,

I made so bold as to inquire what first set her thinking that her

husband and the Mr. James Smith whom we wanted might be one and the

same man. ‘Nothing,’ says she, ‘but seeing him come home with his hair

cut short and his whiskers shaved off, and finding that he could not

give me any good reason for disfiguring himself in that way. I had my

suspicions that something was wrong, and the sight of your

advertisement strengthened them directly.’ The hearing her say that

suggested to my mind that there might be a difficulty in identifying

him after the change in his looks, and I asked him what he had done

with the loose hair before we left London. It was found in the pocket

of his traveling coat just as he had huddled it up there on leaving the

Hall, worry, and fright, and vexation, having caused him to forget all

about it. Of course I took charge of the parcel, and you know what good

it did as well as I do. So to speak, William, it just completed this

beautifully neat case. Looking at the matter in a professional point of

view, I don’t hesitate to say that we have managed our business with

Mr. James Smith to perfection. We have produced him at the right time,

and we are going to get rid of him at the right time. By to-night he

will be on his way to foreign parts with Number Two, and he won’t show

his nose in England again if he lives to the age of Methuselah.”

It was a relief to hear that and it was almost as great a comfort to

find, from what Mr. Dark said next, that my mistress need fear nothing

that Josephine could do for the future.

The charge of theft, on which she was about to be tried, did not afford

the shadow of an excuse in law any more than in logic for alluding to

the crime which her master had committed. If she meant to talk about it

she might do so in her place of transportation, but she would not have

the slightest chance of being listened to previously in a court of law.

“In short,” said Mr. Dark, rising to take his leave, “as I have told

you already, William, it’s checkmate for marmzelle. She didn’t manage

the business of the robbery half as sharply as I should have expected.

She certainly began well enough by staying modestly at a lodging in the

village to give her attendance at the examinations, as it might be

required; nothing could look more innocent and respectable so far; but

her hiding the property between the mattresses of her bed—the very

first place that any experienced man would think of looking in—was such

an amazingly stupid thing to do, that I really can’t account for it,

unless her mind had more weighing on it than it was able to bear,

which, considering the heavy stakes she played for, is likely enough.

Anyhow, her hands are tied now, and her tongue too, for the matter of

that. Give my respects to your mistress, and tell her that her runaway

husband and her lying maid will never either of them harm her again as

long as they live. She has nothing to do now but to pluck up her

spirits and live happy. Here’s long life to her and to you, William, in

the last glass of ale; and here’s the same toast to myself in the

bottom of the jug.”

With those words Mr. Dark pocketed his large snuff-box, gave a last

wink with his bright eye, and walked rapidly away, whistling, to catch

the London coach. From that time to this he and I have never met again.

A few last words relating to my mistress and to the other persons

chiefly concerned in this narrative will conclude all that it is now

necessary for me to say.

For some months the relatives and friends, and I myself, felt sad

misgivings on my poor mistress’s account. We doubted if it was

possible, with such a quick, sensitive nature as hers, that she could

support the shock which had been inflicted on her. But our powers of

endurance are, as I have learned to believe, more often equal to the

burdens laid upon us than we are apt to imagine. I have seen many

surprising recoveries from illness after all hope had been lost, and I

have lived to see my mistress recover from the grief and terror which

we once thought would prove fatal to her. It was long before she began

to hold up her head again; but care and kindness, and time and change

wrought their effect on her at last. She is not now, and never will be

again, the woman she was once; her manner is altered, and she looks

older by many a year than she really is. But her health causes us no

anxiety now; her spirits are calm and equal, and I have good hope that

many quiet years of service in her house are left for me still. I

myself have married during the long interval of time which I am now

passing over in a few words. This change in my life is, perhaps, not

worth mentioning, but I am reminded of my two little children when I

speak of my mistress in her present position. I really think they make

the great happiness, and interest, and amusement of her life, and

prevent her from feeling lonely and dried up at heart. It is a pleasant

reflection to me to remember this, and perhaps it may be the same to

you, for which reason only I speak of it.

As for the other persons connected with the troubles at Darrock Hall, I

may mention the vile woman Josephine first, so as to have the sooner

done with her. Mr. Dark’s guess, when he tried to account for her want

of cunning in hiding the stolen property, by saying that her mind might

have had more weighing on it than she was able to bear, turned out to

be nothing less than the plain and awful truth. After she had been

found guilty of the robbery, and had been condemned to seven years’

transportation, a worse sentence fell upon her from a higher tribunal

than any in this world. While she was still in the county jail,

previous to her removal, her mind gave way, the madness breaking out in

an attempt to set fire to the prison. Her case was pronounced to be

hopeless from the first. The lawful asylum received her, and the lawful

asylum will keep her to the end of her days.

Mr. James Smith, who, in my humble opinion, deserved hanging by law, or

drowning by accident at least, lived quietly abroad with his Scotch

wife (or no wife) for two years, and then died in the most quiet and

customary manner, in his bed, after a short illness. His end was

described to me as a “highly edifying one.” But as he was also reported

to have sent his forgiveness to his wife—which was as much as to say

that _he_ was the injured person of the two—I take leave to consider

that he was the same impudent vagabond in his last moments that he had

been all his life. His Scotch widow has married again, and is now

settled in London. I hope her husband is all her own property this

time.

Mr. Meeke must not be forgotten, although he has dropped out of the

latter part of my story because he had nothing to do with the serious

events which followed Josephine’s perjury. In the confusion and

wretchedness of that time, he was treated with very little ceremony,

and was quite passed over when we left the neighborhood. After pining

and fretting some time, as we afterward heard, in his lonely parsonage,

he resigned his living at the first chance he got, and took a sort of

under-chaplain’s place in an English chapel abroad. He writes to my

mistress once or twice a year to ask after her health and well-being,

and she writes back to him. That is all the communication they are ever

likely to have with each other. The music they once played together

will never sound again. Its last notes have long since faded away and

the last words of this story, trembling on the lips of the teller, may

now fade with them.

THE NINTH DAY.

A little change in the weather. The rain still continues, but the wind

is not quite so high. Have I any reason to believe, because it is

calmer on land, that it is also calmer at sea? Perhaps not. But my mind

is scarcely so uneasy to-day, nevertheless.

I had looked over the newspaper with the usual result, and had laid it

down with the customary sense of disappointment, when Jessie handed me

a letter which she had received that morning. It was written by her

aunt, and it upbraided her in the highly exaggerated terms which ladies

love to employ, where any tender interests of their own are concerned,

for her long silence and her long absence from home. Home! I thought of

my poor boy and of the one hope on which all his happiness rested, and

I felt jealous of the word when I saw it used persuasively in a letter

to our guest. What right had any one to mention “home” to her until

George had spoken first?

“I must answer it by return of post,” said Jessie, with a tone of

sorrow in her voice for which my heart warmed to her. “You have been

very kind to me; you have taken more pains to interest and amuse me

than I am worth. I can laugh about most things, but I can’t laugh about

going away. I am honestly and sincerely too grateful for that.”

She paused, came round to where I was sitting, perched herself on the

end of the table, and, resting her hands on my shoulders, added gently:

“It must be the day after to-morrow, must it not?”

I could not trust myself to answer. If I had spoken, I should have

betrayed George’s secret in spite of myself.

“To-morrow is the tenth day,” she went on, softly. “It looks so selfish

and so ungrateful to go the moment I have heard the last of the

stories, that I am quite distressed at being obliged to enter on the

subject at all. And yet, what choice is left me? what can I do when my

aunt writes to me in that way?”

She took up the letter again, and looked at it so ruefully that I drew

her head a little nearer to me, and gratefully kissed the smooth white

forehead.

“If your aunt is only half as anxious to see you again, my love, as I

am to see my son, I must forgive her for taking you away from us.” The

words came from me without premeditation. It was not calculation this

time, but sheer instinct that impelled me to test her in this way, once

more, by a direct reference to George. She was so close to me that I

felt her breath quiver on my cheek. Her eyes had been fixed on my face

a moment before, but they now wandered away from it constrainedly. One

of her hands trembled a little on my shoulder, and she took it off.

“Thank you for trying to make our parting easier to me,” she said,

quickly, and in a lower tone than she had spoken in yet. I made no

answer, but still looked her anxiously in the face. For a few seconds

her nimble delicate fingers nervously folded and refolded the letter

from her aunt, then she abruptly changed her position.

“The sooner I write, the sooner it will be over,” she said, and

hurriedly turned away to the paper-case on the side-table.

How was the change in her manner to be rightly interpreted? Was she

hurt by what I had said, or was she secretly so much affected by it, in

the impressionable state of her mind at that moment, as to be incapable

of exerting a young girl’s customary self-control? Her looks, actions,

and language might bear either interpretation. One striking omission

had marked her conduct when I had referred to George’s return. She had

not inquired when I expected him back. Was this indifference? Surely

not. Surely indifference would have led her to ask the conventionally

civil question which ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would have

addressed to me as a matter of course. Was she, on her side, afraid to

trust herself to speak of George at a time when an unusual tenderness

was aroused in her by the near prospect of saying farewell? It might

be—it might not be—it might be. My feeble reason took the side of my

inclination; and, after vibrating between Yes and No, I stopped where I

had begun—at Yes.

She finished the letter in a few minutes, and dropped it into the

post-bag the moment it was done.

“Not a word more,” she said, returning to me with a sigh of relief—“not

a word about my aunt or my going away till the time comes. We have two

more days; let us make the most of them.”

Two more days! Eight-and-forty hours still to pass; sixty minutes in

each of those hours; and every minute long enough to bring with it an

event fatal to George’s future! The bare thought kept my mind in a

fever. For the remainder of the day I was as desultory and as restless

as our Queen of Hearts herself. Owen affectionately did his best to

quiet me, but in vain. Even Morgan, who whiled away the time by smoking

incessantly, was struck by the wretched spectacle of nervous anxiety

that I presented to him, and pitied me openly for being unable to

compose myself with a pipe. Wearily and uselessly the hours wore on

till the sun set. The clouds in the western heaven wore wild and

tortured shapes when I looked out at them; and, as the gathering

darkness fell on us, the fatal fearful wind rose once more.

When we assembled at eight, the drawing of the lots had no longer any

interest or suspense, so far as I was concerned. I had read my last

story, and it now only remained for chance to decide the question of

precedency between Owen and Morgan. Of the two numbers left in the

bowl, the one drawn was Nine. This made it Morgan’s turn to read, and

left it appropriately to Owen, as our eldest brother, to close the

proceedings on the next night.

Morgan looked round the table when he had spread out his manuscript,

and seemed half inclined to open fire, as usual, with a little

preliminary sarcasm; but his eyes met mine; he saw the anxiety I was

suffering; and his natural kindness, perversely as he might strive to

hide it, got the better of him. He looked down on his paper; growled

out briefly, “No need for a preface; my little bit of writing explains

itself; let’s go on and have done with it,” and so began to read

without another word from himself or from any of us.

BROTHER MORGAN’S STORY of FAUNTLEROY.

CHAPTER I.

It was certainly a dull little dinner-party. Of the four guests, two of

us were men between fifty and sixty, and two of us were youths between

eighteen and twenty, and we had no subjects in common. We were all

intimate with our host, but were only slightly acquainted with each

other. Perhaps we should have got on better if there had been some

ladies among us; but the master of the house was a bachelor, and,

except the parlor-maids who assisted in waiting on us at dinner, no

daughter of Eve was present to brighten the dreary scene.

We tried all sorts of subjects, but they dropped one after the other.

The elder gentlemen seemed to be afraid of committing themselves by

talking too freely within hearing of us juniors, and we, on our side,

restrained our youthful flow of spirits and youthful freedom of

conversation out of deference to our host, who seemed once or twice to

be feeling a little nervous about the continued propriety of our

behavior in the presence of his respectable guests. To make matters

worse, we had dined at a sensible hour. When the bottles made their

first round at dessert, the clock on the mantel-piece only struck

eight. I counted the strokes, and felt certain, from the expression of

his face, that the other junior guest, who sat on one side of me at the

round table, was counting them also. When we came to the final eight,

we exchanged looks of despair. “Two hours more of this! What on earth

is to become of us?” In the language of the eyes, that was exactly what

we said to each other.

The wine was excellent, and I think we all came separately and secretly

to the same conclusion—that our chance of getting through the evening

was intimately connected with our resolution in getting through the

bottles.

As a matter of course, we talked wine. No company of Englishmen can

assemble together for an evening without doing that. Every man in this

country who is rich enough to pay income-tax has at one time or other

in his life effected a very remarkable transaction in wine. Sometimes

he has made such a bargain as he never expects to make again. Sometimes

he is the only man in England, not a peer of the realm, who has got a

single drop of a certain famous vintage which has perished from the

face of the earth. Sometimes he has purchased, with a friend, a few

last left dozens from the cellar of a deceased potentate, at a price so

exorbitant that he can only wag his head and decline mentioning it;

and, if you ask his friend, that friend will wag his head, and decline

mentioning it also. Sometimes he has been at an out-of-the-way country

inn; has found the sherry not drinkable; has asked if there is no other

wine in the house; has been informed that there is some “sourish

foreign stuff that nobody ever drinks”; has called for a bottle of it;

has found it Burgundy, such as all France cannot now produce, has

cunningly kept his own counsel with the widowed landlady, and has

bought the whole stock for “an old song.” Sometimes he knows the

proprietor of a famous tavern in London, and he recommends his one or

two particular friends, the next time they are passing that way, to go

in and dine, and give his compliments to the landlord, and ask for a

bottle of the brown sherry, with the light blue—as distinguished from

the dark blue—seal. Thousands of people dine there every year, and

think they have got the famous sherry when they get the dark blue seal;

but the real wine, the famous wine, is the light blue seal, and nobody

in England knows it but the landlord and his friends. In all these

wine-conversations, whatever variety there may be in the various

experiences related, one of two great first principles is invariably

assumed by each speaker in succession. Either he knows more about it

than any one else, or he has got better wine of his own even than the

excellent wine he is now drinking. Men can get together sometimes

without talking of women, without talking of horses, without talking of

politics, but they cannot assemble to eat a meal together without

talking of wine, and they cannot talk of wine without assuming to each

one of themselves an absolute infallibility in connection with that

single subject which they would shrink from asserting in relation to

any other topic under the sun.

How long the inevitable wine-talk lasted on the particular social

occasion of which I am now writing is more than I can undertake to say.

I had heard so many other conversations of the same sort at so many

other tables that my attention wandered away wearily, and I began to

forget all about the dull little dinner-party and the badly-assorted

company of guests of whom I formed one. How long I remained in this not

over-courteous condition of mental oblivion is more than I can tell;

but when my attention was recalled, in due course of time, to the

little world around me, I found that the good wine had begun to do its

good office.

The stream of talk on either side of the host’s chair was now beginning

to flow cheerfully and continuously; the wine-conversation had worn

itself out; and one of the elder guests—Mr. Wendell—was occupied in

telling the other guest—Mr. Trowbridge—of a small fraud which had

lately been committed on him by a clerk in his employment. The first

part of the story I missed altogether. The last part, which alone

caught my attention, followed the career of the clerk to the dock of

the Old Bailey.

“So, as I was telling you,” continued Mr. Wendell, “I made up my mind

to prosecute, and I did prosecute. Thoughtless people blamed me for

sending the young man to prison, and said I might just as well have

forgiven him, seeing that the trifling sum of money I had lost by his

breach of trust was barely as much as ten pounds. Of course, personally

speaking, I would much rather not have gone into court; but I

considered that my duty to society in general, and to my brother

merchants in particular, absolutely compelled me to prosecute for the

sake of example. I acted on that principle, and I don’t regret that I

did so. The circumstances under which the man robbed me were

particularly disgraceful. He was a hardened reprobate, sir, if ever

there was one yet; and I believe, in my conscience, that he wanted

nothing but the opportunity to be as great a villain as Fauntleroy

himself.”

At the moment when Mr. Wendell personified his idea of consummate

villainy by quoting the example of Fauntleroy, I saw the other

middle-aged gentleman—Mr. Trowbridge—color up on a sudden, and begin to

fidget in his chair.

“The next time you want to produce an instance of a villain, sir,” said

Mr. Trowbridge, “I wish you could contrive to quote some other example

than Fauntleroy.”

Mr. Wendell naturally enough looked excessively astonished when he

heard these words, which were very firmly and, at the same time, very

politely addressed to him.

“May I inquire why you object to my example?” he asked.

“I object to it, sir,” said Mr. Trowbridge, “because it makes me very

uncomfortable to hear Fauntleroy called a villain.”

“Good heavens above!” exclaimed Mr. Wendell, utterly bewildered.

“Uncomfortable!—you, a mercantile man like myself—you, whose character

stands so high everywhere—you uncomfortable when you hear a man who was

hanged for forgery called a villain! In the name of wonder, why?”

“Because,” answered Mr. Trowbridge, with perfect composure, “Fauntleroy

was a friend of mine.”

“Excuse me, my dear sir,” retorted Mr. Wendell, in as polished a tone

of sarcasm as he could command; “but of all the friends whom you have

made in the course of your useful and honorable career, I should have

thought the friend you have just mentioned would have been the very

last to whom you were likely to refer in respectable society, at least

by name.”

“Fauntleroy committed an unpardonable crime, and died a disgraceful

death,” said Mr. Trowbridge. “But, for all that, Fauntleroy was a

friend of mine, and in that character I shall always acknowledge him

boldly to my dying day. I have a tenderness for his memory, though he

violated a sacred trust, and died for it on the gallows. Don’t look

shocked, Mr. Wendell. I will tell you, and our other friends here, if

they will let me, why I feel that tenderness, which looks so strange

and so discreditable in your eyes. It is rather a curious anecdote,

sir, and has an interest, I think, for all observers of human nature

quite apart from its connection with the unhappy man of whom we have

been talking. You young gentlemen,” continued Mr. Trowbridge,

addressing himself to us juniors, “have heard of Fauntleroy, though he

sinned and suffered, and shocked all England long before your time?”

We answered that we had certainly heard of him as one of the famous

criminals of his day. We knew that he had been a partner in a great

London banking-house; that he had not led a very virtuous life; that he

had possessed himself, by forgery, of trust-moneys which he was doubly

bound to respect; and that he had been hanged for his offense, in the

year eighteen hundred and twenty-four, when the gallows was still set

up for other crimes than murder, and when Jack Ketch was in fashion as

one of the hard-working reformers of the age.

“Very good,” said Mr. Trowbridge. “You both of you know quite enough of

Fauntleroy to be interested in what I am going to tell you. When the

bottles have been round the table, I will start with my story.”

The bottles went round—claret for the degenerate youngsters; port for

the sterling, steady-headed, middle-aged gentlemen. Mr. Trowbridge

sipped his wine—meditated a little—sipped again—and started with the

promised anecdote in these terms:

CHAPTER II.

What I am going to tell you, gentlemen, happened when I was a very

young man, and when I was just setting up in business on my own

account.

My father had been well acquainted for many years with Mr. Fauntleroy,

of the famous London banking firm of Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy &

Graham. Thinking it might be of some future service to me to make my

position known to a great man in the commercial world, my father

mentioned to his highly-respected friend that I was about to start in

business for myself in a very small way, and with very little money.

Mr. Fauntleroy received the intimation with a kind appearance of

interest, and said that he would have his eye on me. I expected from

this that he would wait to see if I could keep on my legs at starting,

and that, if he found I succeeded pretty well, he would then help me

forward if it lay in his power. As events turned out, he proved to be a

far better friend than that, and he soon showed me that I had very much

underrated the hearty and generous interest which he had felt in my

welfare from the first.

While I was still fighting with the difficulties of setting up my

office, and recommending myself to my connection, and so forth, I got a

message from Mr. Fauntleroy telling me to call on him, at the

banking-house, the first time I was passing that way. As you may easily

imagine, I contrived to be passing that way on a particularly early

occasion, and, on presenting myself at the bank, I was shown at once

into Mr. Fauntleroy’s private room.

He was as pleasant a man to speak to as ever I met with—bright, and

gay, and companionable in his manner—with a sort of easy, hearty,

jovial bluntness about him that attracted everybody. The clerks all

liked him—and that is something to say of a partner in a banking-house,

I can tell you!

“Well, young Trowbridge,” says he, giving his papers on the table a

brisk push away from him, “so you are going to set up in business for

yourself, are you? I have a great regard for your father, and a great

wish to see you succeed. Have you started yet? No? Just on the point of

beginning, eh? Very good. You will have your difficulties, my friend,

and I mean to smooth one of them away for you at the outset. A word of

advice for your private ear—Bank with us.”

“You are very kind, sir,” I answered, “and I should ask nothing better

than to profit by your suggestion, if I could. But my expenses are

heavy at starting, and when they are all paid I am afraid I shall have

very little left to put by for the first year. I doubt if I shall be

able to muster much more than three hundred pounds of surplus cash in

the world after paying what I must pay before I set up my office, and I

should be ashamed to trouble your house, sir, to open an account for

such a trifle as that.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” says Mr. Fauntleroy. “Are _you_ a banker? What

business have you to offer an opinion on the matter? Do as I tell

you—leave it to me—bank with us—and draw for what you like. Stop! I

haven’t done yet. When you open the account, speak to the head cashier.

Perhaps you may find he has got something to tell you. There! there! go

away—don’t interrupt me—good-by—God bless you!”

That was his way—ah! poor fellow, that was his way.

I went to the head cashier the next morning when I opened my little

modicum of an account. He had received orders to pay my drafts without

reference to my balance. My checks, when I had overdrawn, were to be

privately shown to Mr. Fauntleroy. Do many young men who start in

business find their prosperous superiors ready to help them in that

way?

Well, I got on—got on very fairly and steadily, being careful not to

venture out of my depth, and not to forget that small beginnings may

lead in time to great ends. A prospect of one of those great

ends—great, I mean, to such a small trader as I was at that

period—showed itself to me when I had been some little time in

business. In plain terms, I had a chance of joining in a first-rate

transaction, which would give me profit, and position, and everything I

wanted, provided I could qualify myself for engaging in it by getting

good security beforehand for a very large amount.

In this emergency, I thought of my kind friend, Mr. Fauntleroy, and

went to the bank, and saw him once more in his private room.

There he was at the same table, with the same heaps of papers about

him, and the same hearty, easy way of speaking his mind to you at once,

in the fewest possible words. I explained the business I came upon with

some little hesitation and nervousness, for I was afraid he might think

I was taking an unfair advantage of his former kindness to me. When I

had done, he just nodded his head, snatched up a blank sheet of paper,

scribbled a few lines on it in his rapid way, handed the writing to me,

and pushed me out of the room by the two shoulders before I could say a

single word. I looked at the paper in the outer office. It was my

security from the great banking-house for the whole amount, and for

more, if more was wanted.

I could not express my gratitude then, and I don’t know that I can

describe it now. I can only say that it has outlived the crime, the

disgrace, and the awful death on the scaffold. I am grieved to speak of

that death at all; but I have no other alternative. The course of my

story must now lead me straight on to the later time, and to the

terrible discovery which exposed my benefactor and my friend to all

England as the forger Fauntleroy.

I must ask you to suppose a lapse of some time after the occurrence of

the events that I have just been relating. During this interval, thanks

to the kind assistance I had received at the outset, my position as a

man of business had greatly improved. Imagine me now, if you please, on

the high road to prosperity, with good large offices and a respectable

staff of clerks, and picture me to yourselves sitting alone in my

private room between four and five o’clock on a certain Saturday

afternoon.

All my letters had been written, all the people who had appointments

with me had been received. I was looking carelessly over the newspaper,

and thinking about going home, when one of my clerks came in, and said

that a stranger wished to see me immediately on very important

business.