As he made the inquiry, Wilfred rose from his seat, parted the heavy

window curtains, and, undoing the wooden shutters, gazed across the

street. The storm had abated, and for the time being, at least, the snow

had ceased to fall. The bright lamp-light from the street fell full on

the massive front of the bank and showed a white face and cruel

merciless gaze turned on the house--the house the Cargills were

occupying.

“Why that was Strangely himself, was it not?” remarked Will, and the

other nodding his reply he added, “Not much of friendship in that

glance, brother-in-law mine; what do you say?”

Half an hour later the new arrival begged permission to retire, on the

plea of fatigue. He had previously urged his sister to give him a

bedroom in the front of the house, if possible. “I want to study the

banker,” he explained, “and I cannot think properly of anyone over my

shoulder, or through a number of empty rooms.” In kissing his sister he

whispered in her ear, “I think things will come all right in time for

Christmas eve.” For a moment she brightened up and then with a little

doleful sigh she replied, “Ah! you do not know how vindictive that

banker is; he is working for revenge, not money.”

“I know, I know,” returned her brother with a touch of impatience.

“Still you just believe what I say, and go to bed in peace. Leave things

to me; I have straightened out worse tangles than this.”

When his sister had left the room he drew a chair in front of the clear

wood fire that burned in the low grate, and drawing to his side a small

table, he leaned his elbow on it with his outspread fingers supporting

his temples. For fully an hour he remained in that position, as

immovable as if cast in bronze. At the end of that time he rose from his

chair pale and almost ghostly in appearance, but with eyes that shone

supernaturally large and bright against the white skin of his face.

There was an air of set tension about the man, which a child would have

recognized and a thick-hided crocodile of the Ganges have given the

right of the road to.

The fire had faded away to smouldering, unnoticeable embers, and the

lamp which had been turned down since his sister left the room was now

blown out. Moving with a stride of extraordinary expression for the life

and vigor the step conveyed, Wilfred stepped to the window, pulled back

the curtains, drew up the blind, and swiftly but noiselessly raised the

window. The bank across the way lay buried in repose. It was now 11.30,

and to all appearances the inmates of the dwelling apartments over it

were all in bed, and presumably asleep. The storm had abated, and only

the dark unstarred sky above and the snow beneath recalled the storm

which had so recently rioted through the street.

Wilfred’s air, as his burning eyes rested on the bank building--or

rather pierced it, for that was the impression their fierce intensity

conveyed--was one of the most imperious command. It was no lifeless

brick and mortar which those compelling orbs transfixed, and which the

moving but voiceless lips ordered to perform their behests. His was a

face for the deadly breach or the forlorn hope, and it grew paler and

paler beyond even the pallor of death; while in spite of the gusts of

icy air which swept in through the open window, the dew gathered, beaded

and broke on his forehead, and mounted the stiffened hair that rose from

his scalp like a frozen crest.

It was evidently no ordinary creature with which this ghostly and

fantastic struggle was being waged. After the first stern bout and

victory, there was a cessation of action for a few minutes, but soon a

new struggle commenced, in which the stern monitor’s visage became that

of unbending command and insistence. There was threat, too, in the eye,

threat of dangerous and instant action.

At this point the watcher seemed to look for some noticeable event in

the house opposite, and surely enough, as if in instant obedience to his

wish, the flicker of a lamp could be seen descending the stairs of the

bank building.

Presently the light drifted into the bank itself and inside the railing

of the president’s office. Then slowly, and as if in a dream, the bearer

could be seen to open the great iron safe and take from thence a

portfolio, from which he carefully selected a document and then returned

it to the safe. At this juncture a night policeman saw the light in the

bank and hurried across the street preparatory to sounding an alarm.

Recognizing the President, however, by the light of his lamp, he

desisted, and stood for a few minutes watching his movements. As he saw

him enter his office and commence to write a letter at his desk he

resumed his round, merely muttering to himself: “Pretty late for banking

business, but I presume he forgot something.”

Returning on his beat half an hour later he saw the banker emerge from

his house, walk across the way and drop a long envelope into the

letter-box of the house opposite, and then slowly and wearily re-enter

his house.

Ten minutes later and the light died out from the banker’s dwelling.

Simultaneously a man, spent and exhausted beyond the possibilities of

ordinary or even extraordinary fatigue, closed his window, sank into an

arm-chair, and lay there with white upturned face, from which the

perspiration dropped in big, round, ice-cold beads. Few would have

recognized in the pallid face, carved by deeply hewn lines, the gay

debonair countenance of Wilfred Wharton, the wit, _bon vivant_ and _bon

camarade_ of the plains and city alike.

The following morning Wilfred was up betimes notwithstanding his

exhausting labors of the night before. As he descended to the

breakfast-room he met his sister, to whose inquiry as to whether he had

been able to devise any means of escape from their desperate situation,

he nodded encouragingly. “But,” he continued, “you must get me the key

of your letter-box at once before your husband comes down. It is

necessary for the success of my plans that I control your correspondence

for a few hours.”

Within the letter-box he found a long envelope bearing the printed name

of the bank. This he promptly opened, and after carefully perusing its

contents, nodded in a satisfied way, and placed it in an inner pocket of

his coat. Then returning the other letters unnoticed to the box, he

carried the key upstairs to his sister.

At breakfast nothing was said of the subject of the note due that day,

but as soon as the servant had left the room, Wilfred plunged into the

subject.

“Now, Ben,” he began, “you have got to follow me blindly in this matter,

or I cannot help you. If you agree to do that, I believe I can get you

out of this mess all right. The first request I have to make is that you

leave town for the day, without having any communication whatever with

the bank. You may return in good time for dinner, and I will promise to

report in full to you then. Now, as for you, Nell, if they send across

for Mr. Cargill from the bank just say your husband is out of town for

the day and will not be back till the evening; and tell them you know

nothing about his business. I am going out of town myself and will not

be back till five o’clock.”

As the morning wore on there might have been seen a look of vast

perplexity and uneasiness on the face of Banker Strangely across the

way--that is to say, while in the privacy of his own room. At ten

o’clock, on going through his private portfolio, he was unable to find

the $5,000 note of hand of his “dear” friend Benjamin Cargill, due that

day. He had spent an hour looking for it, and still finding no trace of

it he sat down to consider the situation. The day before he recollected

destroying some old private papers taken from the same portfolio, and

although he had been exceedingly careful, he now came to the conclusion

that he must have destroyed the note among those papers. The thought of

being baffled of his revenge against Mrs. Cargill for her former

slight--for, as the lady rightly surmised, it _was revenge_ and not

friendship which inspired the banker--consumed his very soul with rage.

Was he to be thus thwarted after tracking his victim down? Not while his

brain performed its accustomed office.

Taking pen in hand he wrote the following letter to his “friend” Mr.

Cargill:

“DEAR SIR:--

“I beg to remind you that your note for $5,000 in my favor is due

here to-day. As I explained to you, if the amount is not paid by

three o’clock the note will go to protest. I shall be very sorry

indeed to have to resort to such measures, but for the reasons

already given you, I have no alternative.”

The reply which was brought back was: “Mr. Cargill is out of town for

the day; the letter will be handed to him on his return.”

This indicated either a neglect or indifference of the banker’s

intentions, which made the latter furious. “I wonder where on earth that

note is,” he remarked under his breath feverishly again and again. And

as the day passed he grew half crazy with rage. At 2.30 he rang his bell

for his signature-book and after opening it at the letter “C,” he

carefully studied the specimen signature given there by Mr. Cargill when

he opened his account. Then from an inner drawer he took a promissory

note blank and slowly filled it in, using for the purpose a bottle of

stale black ink. “It is not forgery,” he murmured, as if excusing

himself to his conscience, “it is only justice.”

Ten minutes later he rang his bell, and sent the note into the general

office with instructions that if it were not taken up by three o’clock,

the teller should take it across to Mrs. Cargill and see her about it.

Then if still unpaid, he directed that the note should be protested.

The note being unpaid, the teller called on Mrs. Cargill, who politely

informed him that she knew nothing about her husband’s affairs. “Did

she not seem anxious and perturbed when she saw the note?”

“No, sir, she looked at the handwriting quietly and inquired who signed

her husband’s name to it.”

“What!” snarled the banker, “what did you say?”

“She inquired who signed her husband’s name to the note, and I replied

of course he signed it himself, and she said, ‘Well, I think I ought to

know Mr. Cargill’s signature, and I never saw it as shaky as that

before; he must have been put out when he signed that document.’”

When the teller retired, the banker sank into his chair in a heap as one

who had received a death wound. “Great Heaven,” he ejaculated, “what am

I doing, is that woman going to drive me to perdition? But no, her

remarks are only the silly talk of an ignorant woman. No one knows about

the note being mislaid.” Saying this he drove his hand down savagely on

the gong on his table, and when the clerk appeared in response to his

summons, he bade him in imperious tones to have “that note protested.”

* * * * *

At four o’clock a sleigh drove up to Mr. Cargill’s house, from which

Wilfred alighted after requesting the driver to wait for further

instructions. Learning from Mrs. Cargill of the presentation of the

note, Wilfred re-entered the sleigh, giving the driver fresh directions

in a tone of command very unusual to him. After a drive of a mile the

sleigh stopped at the house of a justice of the peace, for the second

time that day.

On issuing from the house of the justice, Wilfred gave directions to be

driven to the police station. After announcing his wishes there, he

returned to his sister’s house and finding her husband had returned he

carried him off to the office of the Notary Public. At the latter place

they inquired whether a note for $5,000 had been left there for protest

that day. On learning that the note was in the notary’s hands and would

remain there until the morning, the Justice of the peace was again

visited, and an hour later the notary was served with an injunction not

to part with the note of hand.

Once more the sleigh’s sweet bells jangled before the police station and

when it sped on its way again its ample robe enfolded the sturdy albeit

somewhat bandied legs of the night policeman whose acquaintance we have

already made; but who was not now in uniform.

When Mr. Strangely returned to his residence from his own sleigh ride at

5.30 P.M., he was surprised to learn that three gentlemen awaited him in

the parlor.

“Who are they?” he inquired of the servant, and when he learned that Mr.

Cargill was one of the number he rubbed his hands together gleefully and

murmured to himself: “At last, at last, I have got you in the toils, my

lady with the dainty, devilish face that refused me so scornfully a year

ago.”

The look with which he entered the room where his visitors awaited him

had a fine and scornful air of contempt about it, suggestive of

unsatiated conquest, and slaves, male and female--especially

female--dragging at his victorious chariot’s wheel.

“You are come to take up that note, I presume?” he began, addressing Mr.

Cargill and ignoring his companion, “but you are entirely too late.

Honorable men do not come sneaking into a bank two hours after it has

been closed and after their note has gone to protest. To-morrow the

whole town will know that your note has been protested--no not

to-morrow, for that is Christmas Day,--but you will be the talk of the

town the following day, and no doubt _that_ reflection will sweeten your

Christmas dinner--as” he snarled through his shark-like teeth--“as your

wife sweetened mine a year ago, through your accursed interference.”

If he had not been carried away by his feelings he would have noticed

the peculiar expression on the faces of his visitors, but he did not,

and he raved on until, in a stentorian voice, Wilfred bade him be

silent. What was it in the look and voice of that man that made the

banker pause and wince as he met his gaze? “Who are you, sir, that

dare----” he began, but his voice faltered, and his whole frame seemed

to shrink as he met the other’s full lambent eye bent upon him, and felt

it thrilling him through and through.

“I know you, surely,” he said slowly and almost feebly. “I have seen you

before--somewhere,” and then the other’s gaze seemed to freeze him into

silence.

“Listen to me, Banker Strangely, and do not dare to open your mouth till

I have done.”

“You have been engaged in a conspiracy to ruin my friend, Mr. Cargill.

You induced him to give you $5,000 to invest in a mine named the

Longfellow, near Denver, and give you his note for $5,000, and you told

him you were paying $15,000 more, and that, you said, made up the entire

purchase money. To insure his joining you, you showed him a letter from

the manager of the mine named George Williams, showing that very large

profits were being made. You knew Mr. Cargill’s anxiety to make some

money, so that his wife, who had had so many rich offers, might not pine

for the wealth which might have been hers. O, revenge was sweet to you,

and you played your cards well. Too well, my friend, for your own

comfort now. You thought to wreck their happiness this fair Christmas

eve, did you; well, there is going to be some wrecking done, my friend,

but it is here in this house--_your_ home--where it is going to occur

and not over the way in the home of the woman you once said you loved.

“Your whole plot is laid bare. I hold in my hand in your own handwriting

a full and detailed confession of your villainy which you wrote out last

night and sent to my friend, together with the note for $5,000, which

you acknowledged you had got from him by fraud. There it is, and see,

you have endorsed it in your own handwriting, and added your private

stamp to it. In the same letter you gave my friend the name of your

accomplice, George Williams, and his address, and when I showed him your

letter he confessed everything too, and told me a good deal more of your

dealings than was needful for my case.”

“It is all a lie, that letter is a forgery, I never wrote it, and that

note was stolen from the bank last night,” shrieked the banker, goaded

to desperation, “I will send for the police.”

“You need not send far, there is one outside the door,” returned

Wilfred. Then, opening the door, he summoned the officer to enter.

“This officer in private clothes is the policeman who was on duty last

night, and saw you enter the bank office, unlock the safe, take out a

document, and after closing the safe, write a letter which you enclosed

in a long envelope and placed with your own hand in Mr. Cargill’s

letter-box. Am I not right, officer?”

“Entirely correct, sir.”

The banker sat paralyzed, his brain benumbed with the extraordinary

statement made to him. Was it all a dream, or was he going mad? And

then like a flash of lightning he recollected inquiring that morning if

the servant knew what had made his slippers so wet; it was the snow--the

accursed snow, as he crossed the street to Mr. Cargill’s. Ah! now he

knew they were speaking the truth; besides, that was undoubtedly his

handwriting and his seal; and that was beyond all question the genuine

note.

“Then,” resumed the inexorable Wilfred, mindful only of his sister’s

pain, “ignorant of what you had done in your sleeping hours and being

unable to find the note which you had returned to its rightful owner,

you imagined you had mislaid it, and lest your darling revenge for which

you had imperilled your soul, should escape you, you forged a fresh

note, which being of course unpaid, you have sent to the notary’s for

protest.

“Dick Strangely, you have played for a high stake--the wrecking of a

happy home--and you have lost. That is all, this bright snowy Christmas

eve! In my hand here I hold a warrant for your arrest on a charge of

conspiracy with Williams to defraud Cargill, and also on a charge of

forgery. I have obtained an injunction preventing the notary from

parting with the forged note which he holds, and I have Williams safe in

prison ready to bear evidence against you.”

As one by one the banker heard of the steps taken to close every door

against his escape, his head drooped lower and lower.

“Save me,” he murmured brokenly at last, “I’m a poor, desperate,

broken-hearted man, save me, and I’ll make restitution.”

As he glanced on the two faces beside him (the policeman had retired to

the passage) he saw on the one, that of Cargill, a mingling of relief

and amazement--for the revelations were not one whit the less surprising

to him than to the banker--and on the other only relentless

determination.

As he recognized the latter he sank on his knees and begged for mercy,

offering to pay back double what he had defrauded his former friend

Cargill of.

The two brothers-in-law stepped apart for a moment to confer. “Wilfred,”

urged the husband’s voice, “this man was until recently a friend. He

became an enemy because Nell refused him for me. Her rejection of his

desperate love for her has made a scoundrel of him; I imagine it would

have made a villain of me too. I surely can afford to be generous when

I win all around. I cannot send a man I once called by the name of

friend to jail on Christmas eve. Wait here, and I will go across and

talk the matter over with my wife; she ought to be consulted on this

business.”

“Bring her here,” was the laconic reply.

And so it happened that the mercy which Dick Strangely subsequently

received that night was taken humbly and penitently from the hand of the

woman he once professed to love, but whose husband and home he

ultimately tried to ruin.

The banker returned the money that night of which he had defrauded his

friend, and he also returned the mortgages. He offered indeed to pay

back double, but his offer was refused with scorn and loathing.

Dinner at Mr. Cargill’s was an hour late that night, but it was eaten

with great joy and happiness of heart. “The happiest Christmas eve of my

life,” exclaimed Mrs. Cargill with eyes whose radiance was momentarily

dimmed by their moisture; and so said they all.

“Wilfred,” exclaimed the happy wife and sister as she rose from table to

leave the two gentlemen to their after-dinner cigar, “I will never,

never understand how you accomplished what you did. I believe you must

have hypnotized Mr. Strangely. Did you, sir, tell me?”

“Perhaps,” was the reply with a curious smile curling the outer wave of

his moustache. “Ben, the port wine is with you!”

“Tell me, Wilfred, how you managed it,” pressed his brother-in-law.

“Well,” replied the other after a pause, “it is not fair to make me

disclose the secrets of my success, but I had a good deal of influence

over that fellow Strangely, at school. On one occasion I caught him at a

very disgraceful trick and gave him a very memorable thrashing. After

that he seemed to drift into my power somehow, partly by reason of his

disgrace, which I kept to myself, and partly because a good thrashing is

an excellent beginning in hypnotism among boys. As the result, I could

make him do anything I liked. With such a ground-work I had no

difficulty in bringing him under my influence last night, more

especially as I have become a pretty successful hypnotist by long

practice and study.”

“Could you, do you think, have made him do what he did if you had not

known him previously?”

“No, I think I would probably have had to go to work some other way with

him, but I imagine he would have had to disgorge all the same. Hypnotism

as an art is full of resources.”

THE END.

GLANCING SHAFTS.

CHAPTER I.

The place was Euston Square Station, the Metropolitan terminal depot of

the London and Northwestern Railway; the hour 8:15 P.M. when from time

wellnigh immemorial the London limited express has started for Scotland;

the individual a tall, broad-shouldered man of, perhaps, twenty-five

years, and known to the world, if not as yet to fame, as Richard

Dalrymple.

As the traveller hurriedly took his seat in the first-class carriage

which he had given the guard a couple of half-crowns to reserve for his

exclusive use, he looked out with some impatience on a whole landscape

of good-byes.

There were convivial good-byes perceptible in the refreshment

department, there were lovers’ good-byes “the world forgetting by the

world forgot,” then there were the multitudinous good-byes of

good-fellowship. The universal parting injunction to “mind and write

soon” was drowned in the hearty laughter and loud badinage which somehow

or other appear to be inseparable from this station, possibly as a sort

of counterpoise to the somewhat different style of off-going from the

northern and sadder end of the line where the ties of friendship or

kinship are apt to be closer and farewells longer and more affecting.

As Richard Dalrymple looked out upon the scene he thanked his lucky

stars that there was no one there to bid _him_ good-bye, and lest even a

passing acquaintance should recognize him he hurriedly drew the window

curtains and retired into the seclusion of his carriage.

“Thank God,” he murmured to himself as the train moved out of the

station, “I’m glad I’m off. It was safer to run away, she carries

altogether too many guns for me.”

As if to divert his mind from painful thoughts, he glanced out into the

night and watched for a while, after an absent-minded fashion, the

wayside stations as they fled past in endless procession.

Then an inbound express dashed by apparently smashing all the crockery

of the world as it went, and the shock so far dislocated his ideas as to

induce him to leave the window.

“I suppose I may as well make myself comfortable,” he presently murmured

to himself. “Barkirk is four hundred miles away and there is no change

of carriages.”

Saying this, he exchanged his tall hat for the regulation travelling-cap

used in those ante-Pullman days.

As he uncovered his head, his clear-cut profile crowned with a profusion

of light brown curls, such as ladies love to toy with, shone white and

clear against the dark blue of the carriage upholstery.

“A strikingly handsome man both as to feature and complexion,” all women

vowed Richard Dalrymple at first sight--“and a manly-looking man, too,”

they were prone to add when they saw his width of shoulder and length of

limb, and noted the frank fearless look of the well-opened dark blue

eyes.

And yet as he opened his cigar-case to while away with “a weed,” the

tedium of the long hours, there was an air of anxiety perceptible on his

brow and a worn look expressive of much turmoil and uncertainty of mind

visible around his eyes, which, to all appearance, the joy he had

expressed at his escape had not to any appreciable extent relieved.

As the dainty cigar-case of sweet-smelling Russia leather lay in his

grasp a tender look came into his eyes, and opening the clasp, two

lovely bunches of blue Scotch “forget-me-nots” lay before him worked in

silk in marked relief on the soft lining of the case.

As he sat gazing at the small blue flowers a soft mist crept into his

eyes and rose and rose until it blotted out both flowers and cigar-case

and blurred the light blazing overhead.

Then from the innermost receptacle of his pocket-book he took a piece of

soft tissue paper and extracted from it, with much tenderness, the half

of a three-penny piece, which, after putting tenderly to his lips, he

laid alongside the blue “forget-me-nots.”

“It is just three years ago,” he murmured to himself, “since Jeannie

gave me these when I first left for London to try my hand at medicine

there. I remember the very words of the old song which she repeated as

she gave me the half of the broken coin:

‘Now take this lucky thrupenny bit,

’Twill help you bear in mind,

A faithful, loving, trusting heart,

You left in tears behind.’

And although I have never seen my darling since, I have been true to her

in word and thought and deed.

“Yes, indeed, I have,” he repeated almost fiercely, as though someone

had challenged his statement; and then, as if a twinge of remorse

tortured him, he cried out, “Oh, forgive me, pet, if I have ever

wavered, even for a moment; you know I have never loved anyone but you.”

The heavy tears dropped from his eyes, and fell on the blue

“forget-me-nots;” and then, as if ashamed to show his womanishness even

to the walls opposite, he looked out into the night, through which the

express now plunged on its furious way, rocking under its

sixty-miles-an-hour gait.

Richard Dalrymple was what is termed a good, square man, and under the

strongest conceivable temptation to prove himself a renegade he was

doing his utmost, and not by any means with eye-service only, to prove

himself true to his little Scottish sweetheart.

The cause--not of his apostasy, for he was still true in word and deed,

and yes, in thought too, to his _fiancée_--but of his anxiety, was, all

unknown to him, seated in the adjoining carriage with a smile of mingled

triumph and apprehension lighting up her splendid dark eyes.

When Richard Dalrymple had regained his composure and had lit his cigar,

the lady in the next compartment, detecting the odor, smiled again.

“Make yourself at home, _mon prince_,” she murmured with a softer light

in her brilliant eyes--“and good-night--a sweet good-night,” she added

tenderly, throwing a mute kiss with both hands in the direction of the

invisible smoker. “The woman who loves you will keep watch over you,

aroon.”

CHAPTER II.

Miss Gwendoline Beattison, the lady who with her companion, an elderly

Frenchwoman, occupied the adjoining compartment, was the daughter of

General Beattison and of his wife, a Spanish lady of renowned beauty.

After acquiring great wealth in India, General Beattison--a Scotchman by

birth--had returned to his native town, and there during the intervals

of her visiting and education abroad his daughter had resided, and had

made the acquaintance of Richard Dalrymple, the only son of Doctor

Dalrymple, senior physician of the town.

When the younger Dalrymple had established a medical practice in the

West-end of London it seemed only natural that the Beattisons, who

generally spent from five to six months in the Metropolis each year,

should patronize him, more especially as they knew him to be well

trained in his profession, and well thought of among his brother

practitioners.

Dalrymple was an attractive man, a good talker and possessed of a

magnetism which drew other men to him. He was popular and was

accordingly in demand and at no house was he more welcome than at the

home of General Beattison.

But complications soon arose.

Mrs. Beattison had died while her daughter Gwendoline, an only child,

was still in the nursery, and the latter’s education had largely

devolved upon governesses at home and abroad, whom her naturally

dominant will soon reduced to subjection.

The result was that by the time she was sixteen years of age, Miss

Beattison was a law unto herself, and it might be added with some show

of truth, to her father also.

She was now twenty-one years of age and all the talk of “London-town,”

in her matchless beauty--the despair alike of painters and poets. From

her mother she had inherited her black Castilian hair and glorious dark

eyes, together with that magnetism of glance and capacity for arousing

or manifesting passion which seems the heritage of Spain’s seductive

daughters.

From her father’s side had sprung the height and stateliness which

marked her carriage; and the unresting audacity of the warrior’s blood

was readily visible when Miss Gwendoline entered the lists.

Courted by all, and the belle of the London season, Gwendoline was true

to an early--but undisclosed--infatuation for Richard Dalrymple, and

with scant courtesy she refused the best offers of the season “by the

score,” bent upon securing the only being she had made up her mind she

could love.

Richard, although by no means insensible to Miss Beattison’s charms, was

true to his Scotch _fiancée_, and feeling the fair Gwendoline’s passion

for him becoming more and more marked, and unable to see that he was

holding his own satisfactorily, he deemed discretion the better part of

valor and, as we have seen, fled.

Miss Beattison, who had fathomed his plans, determined to follow him,

believing that only some mistaken notion of chivalry on his side kept

them apart, and convinced in her own mind that they were made for each

other, and wholly unwilling that both their lives should be ruined by a

false delicacy on her part.

It will be seen that her views were very far indeed from being orthodox

on the question of woman’s rights, so far as they relate to courtship,

but as against this it may be said that no breath of suspicion had ever

been raised against her fair fame, and that her determination in

following Mr. Dalrymple was consistent with a hereditary obstinacy in

legitimate pursuits, once she was satisfied as to what was the right

thing for her to do.

As Richard Dalrymple finished his third cigar the train was nearing

Rugby station, its first stopping place.

“The preacher was entirely right,” he muttered, as he threw away the end

of his cigar; “‘fill a bushel full of wheat and there will be no room

for chaff.’ I have not been thinking enough of Jeannie, or this thing

would never have worried me.

“The dear little darling,” he suddenly burst out with a new accession of

fervor, as he took a photograph from his pocket and kissed it again and

again. “I will have a thousand copies of that photograph made, and I

will put them everywhere in my house and study and in my pockets, so

that people will say ‘what a model lover he is!’ and that will stimulate

me to be still better than I am.”

He kept on talking for some time until he became conscious of an undue

earnestness in his avowals. “Great Heavens!” he suddenly exclaimed, “I

hope I am not protesting too much--Oh no, no--how can I talk like that

when I am within eight hours of the sweetest lips in Christendom, all

mine too--exclusively--unkissed, unreaped for three years and just, just

(here hyperbole failed him)--just too sweet for anything.”

“Those lovely blue eyes, that rounded neck and that yellow hair, and

those dear arms! O dear, I feel them now even after three long years.

“I hate dark eyes and black hair and all your over-ripe Southern beauty;

I wonder I ever gave it a thought; it is so commonplace beside the charm

of the ravishing blond.”

In his excitement he had risen to his feet and was pacing backwards and

forwards in his carriage, thrusting his arms out forcibly in front of

him, as if in an effort to throw off excitement.

In turning, his hand struck the frame of the window forcibly, and the

photograph fell from his grasp underneath the seat.

As he stooped to recover it he saw a handkerchief alongside it. This he

at first mistook for his own until the softness of its texture

undeceived him.

Rising to his feet he held the handkerchief somewhat carelessly to the

light with the air of one who had nothing better to do, to see if he

could discover any initials upon it. As he did so he became conscious of

a subtle perfume, and it moved him horribly, as some men die without

being moved.

His knees gave way through the weakness and he sat down. There was, he

felt, but one person in all England who used that dainty Oriental

perfume. She had told him so, and that one was herself.

Lest there should be any doubt as to the identity of the handkerchief,

there, too, was the monogram in gold and black on the corner, the

initials G. B. subtly intertwined.

In silence Richard Dalrymple sat with whitening face looking at the

delicate piece of cambric in his hands.

“My God!” he suddenly burst out, “What is the matter with me; it is all

I can do to keep myself from kissing it!”

His hand shook as it held the piece of vagrant cambric, and when the

train entered Rugby station a man in the depths of self-abasement knelt

on the floor of Dalrymple’s compartment with his head buried in the

cushions of the seat.

CHAPTER III.

While the train was standing in the station at Rugby, and the majority

of the male passengers were taking their last “night-caps” at the bar of

the refreshment room, before composing themselves finally to sleep, a

voice of somewhat uncertain fibre called to the guard as he passed the

window of the carriage occupied by Richard Dalrymple.

“Guard, come here a minute. Can you tell me how that handkerchief got

into this carriage?” and the speaker handed the dainty piece of cambric

which he had found to the astonished guard.

Before the latter had time to frame a reply a shrill female voice from

the next compartment called out, “Come here at once please, guard,

quick!!”

The call was so urgent and the necessity of the caller apparently so

desperate that, with a hasty “Excuse me, one moment, sir,” to Richard

Dalrymple, the guard stepped to the door of the adjoining compartment.

“Come inside please, guard, I’ve crushed my finger in the window and

can’t get it out.”

As soon as the guard had entered the carriage the lady who had called

him--Miss Beattison’s companion--promptly placed herself in front of the

door to prevent anyone from seeing inside, and then waved the guard

toward her mistress.

“O, conductor, please tell me,” said the other with great eagerness,

“what the gentleman in the next compartment found. I overheard part of

your conversation but not all.”

“Well, miss, he found this handkerchief, and it seems to have startled

him very considerably indeed.”

“O dear, dear, it is one of mine which I must have dropped in that place

to-night. You will remember that you showed us into that compartment

first of all, but I exchanged it for this one because it gave me a

better view of the entrance gate, and enabled me to see who was going

off by train.

“Now, guard, that gentleman next door is a friend of mine, but I would

not for all the world he knew I was near him; he would certainly want

to travel in the same carriage, and that would be quite a nuisance.

“Tell him the handkerchief must have been left there by one of a party

of Northern visitors to London and must have escaped the cleaner’s

notice.

“Be steady now and on no account let him suspect that I am in this

carriage,” and a small golden coin changed hands.

When the guard returned to Dalrymple the latter questioned him as to

what was wrong next door. “Lady jammed her hand in the window, sir.”

“Dear me, and did you raise the window and relieve her hand, poor

thing.”

“Well, no, sir--come to reflect, hang me if I think I did “--this with

evident shamefacedness.

“You are a funny fellow, guard. After being called to open a window and

relieve a suffering damsel, you come away not only without taking off

the pressure, but you forget all about it; get out of my way and I’ll

attend to the suffering lady.”

“Hold on, sir--stop, I say, stop!” called out the guard resisting the

other’s exit, “the lady’s hand is all right now, and besides I haven’t

told you the worst, the lady is in a high fever and--and it looks like

small-pox. I didn’t want to tell you at first,” he went on mendaciously,

“but you have forced it out of me; please don’t say anything about it or

I’ll get into trouble.”

“Great Heavens!” ejaculated the traveller; “what an awful calamity! I

wish you would stand a little further off. Suppose,” he added under his

breath, “I should carry the infection to Jeannie.”

Then he added aloud as the other was leaving, “You have not explained

how that handkerchief came to be in this carriage.”

“Oh, that is a very simple matter, sir,” replied the other promptly with

an “in for a penny in for a pound” air, “a party of ladies came up to

London in this carriage on my last trip, and I suppose one of them

dropped her handkerchief under the seat, by accident. The name on their

trunks was Bertrand, and I heard one of the young ladies called

Georgiana, and the initials being the same,” continued the guard giving

full swing to his imagination, “I suppose the handkerchief belongs to

her.”

“That sounds all right,” returned Dalrymple, giving a side glance at the

piece of cambric as if he would have liked to have asked for it had he

only known what excuse to make for his request.

Now as the lady in the adjoining carriage, anxious that our traveller

should have a reminder of her, had with much and unwonted palpitation of

heart, suggested to the conductor the propriety of returning the

handkerchief to the finder, he had no particular difficulty in meeting

the other’s unspoken request.

“I suppose you may as well place that handkerchief where you found it,”

the guard remarked handing it to Dalrymple as he closed the door, “it is

the usual way.”

“Well, I suppose so,” replied the other with affected indifference,

receiving the precious article from his hands.

As the train sped on its way Dalrymple sat for a while with corrugated

brow, then he suddenly muttered as he lit a last cigar before turning in

for the night:

“That explanation might account for the initials, but how about the

perfume? The coincidence is too striking. I don’t understand it, and I

believe that small-pox scare next door is all a trumped-up affair. I

wonder who the people are who curtain themselves so closely in there,

and what they mean by fooling the guard so.”

He awoke once during the night to find himself with a photograph of his

lady-love in one hand and the handkerchief in the other. This

arrangement stung him to the heart, and he made as though he wanted to

throw the handkerchief out of the window.

“But no!” he said to himself in time, “I might need it as a reminder

that I must brace myself and drive all thoughts of Miss Beattison out of

my mind.”

That this reasoning was faulty was more than proved by the rapid

softening of the severe glance which he directed towards the fluffy

piece of cambric, which, as if half afraid of some necromantic

influence, he held gingerly between his finger and thumb.

“Guard,” he said, “I don’t believe that cock-and-bull story about

small-pox in the next compartment, or that high old tale you told me

about the lady crushing her hand--now who _are_ these people next door

and what little game are they dragging you into?”

“I don’t know anything more about them than I have told you,” returned

the conductor somewhat curtly, “and I’ve got too many daft people

bothering me all the time without hunting up fresh ones.”

Saying this he raised his silver whistle to his lips and blew a loud

blast, at the same time waving his right arm up and down toward the

engineer like a crazy semaphore; all of which was the signal to go

ahead.

Dalrymple retired to his seat with a rather chagrined smile.

“Slightly personal, that remark,” he said as he recomposed himself for

sleep, “but I suppose he _is_ worried quite a good deal by queer people.

This line seems to be haunted to-night.”

CHAPTER IV.

When Dalrymple awoke again, dawn was breaking coldly and slowly among

the mountains of the lake district.

When he put his head out of the window of his carriage, the fresh chilly

air of the hills carried his memory back with a rush to his old Scotch

days, and to the time of his courtship.

“Oh, my little pet,” he murmured, turning to the photograph in his hand,

“it seems but yesterday since you and I plighted our troth to each other

on just such a hillside as this one here. I remember the smell of the

heather that day, and how I could hardly find you a place to sit down on

in the soft velvety sward, because you said you never liked to crush the

bonny blue-bells--and they were all around us; and the lark, I

recollect, rose from our feet and soared aloft, and we said it was

singing us a wedding march.

“And that big intrusive bumble-bee too, that would fly around our

heads--we could not bear to hurt it, we were so happy ourselves, and I

have never even killed a wasp since for the memory of the time. Ah! and

I remember too, Jeannie, the touch of your dear little hand so plump and

firm, and the look in your bonny blue eyes when I told you I loved you

and asked you to marry me; you looked so beautiful and shy.

“I was the happiest man on earth till that day, and there never has

anything come between us, until now.”

As he ended there was a sharp tone of anger in his last words, and

rising quickly and with much energy he opened the window and threw from

it with all his force the poor little piece of monogrammed cambric,

which had been lying on the seat before him.

As this little incident culminated the train was slowing down to enter

the small station where travellers to the Lakes break their journey, and

a barefooted youngster who had run out to meet the train caught the

feather-like handkerchief as it fluttered and eddied from the advancing

train.

A lady sitting at the adjoining window which was open, heard the violent

banging of the sash ahead and saw the handkerchief thrown forcibly out.

“Call to that boy instantly, madame, to give you that handkerchief.”

The speaker was Miss Beattison, and as she made way for her companion at

the window the natural pallor of her face became almost ghastly as she

placed her hand to her side.

“Oh! _oh!_ OH!” she moaned, “at last he has broken my heart. Now indeed

I know how much he hates and loathes me by his throwing my poor little

handkerchief out of the window as if it was infected by the plague. Oh

how he must despise me!” Here gentle nature came to the relief of the

sad-eyed, heavy-hearted sleepless one, and she burst into a flood of

passionate tears.

“Has the boy got the handkerchief?” she inquired through her sobs.

“Yes, mademoiselle, here he comes with it, running alongside the train.”

“Oh, take it from him quickly, dear,” the sobbing maiden faltered, “or I

think I shall die of shame and mortification.”

“Boy, bring that handkerchief here, it belongs to me,” shouted a

commanding voice from the carriage ahead--and at the sound of it the

tears in Miss Beattison’s eyes stood still--a frozen cataract.

“The lady wants it, sir; she says it is hers,” protested the boy.

“Oh, madame, slay that boy,” said Miss Beattison in a fierce little

whisper.

“The lady is mistaken, bring that handkerchief here at once.”

“But it is a lady’s handkerchief, sir,” urged the boy.

“Bring it here at once, you little devil, or I’ll break your neck.”

Coarse words these, and oh how impolite to the other claimants, and yet

sweeter far to the straining ears of the offended one than the softest

music!

But the boy was “dour” in the face of ugly words or threats, and he held

out the handkerchief to the lady at the window.

“No, no, give it to the gentleman,” said madame, and after a moment’s

hesitation the boy threw the handkerchief into the carriage where

Dalrymple was standing.

Dalrymple endeavored to reward the boy by throwing him a shilling, but

the threat was not forgotten and the boy who came of a fighting stock

threw the coin back into the carriage.

Dalrymple saw with surprise a coin of large dimensions fall into the

boy’s hands from the other window, and he lighted a matutinal cigar to

try and cipher out the peculiar kind of lunatics there were imprisoned

in that adjoining compartment.

As for the eventful handkerchief, as if he were ashamed of having had it

brought back he let it lie where it fell.

Next door an unusual occurrence had already taken place. Rising to her

feet and swaying to and fro in the excess of her emotion, and with her

beautiful eyes swimming in happy tears, Gwendoline Beattison threw

herself on the hard bosom (but not hard heart) of her old companion and

friend, and murmured as she flung her arms around her neck, “Oh, it was

all a mistake. He did not intend to throw away my handkerchief. Did you

notice how furious he was, the darling, when he thought some one was

going to take it, eh?” At which, by way of reply, the truthful companion

groaned with much and genuine distress.

“I shall find out all about this mystery of the next compartment once I

get to Carlisle station,” muttered Richard Dalrymple to himself. “We

stop there fifteen minutes for breakfast, and it will be strange if I

can’t find out what particular kind of asylum I have next door then.”

Saying this he relit his cigar and gave his eyes to the dreamy study of

the Northern landscape, while his mind projected itself ahead to the

meeting so soon to take place between himself and his sweetheart, from

whom he had been parted for three long years.

But “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee,” especially

when it is a woman’s wit which is the disturbing influence.

At the last station before entering Carlisle, Miss Beattison called the

guard to her, and begged that he would find an empty carriage in the

rear of the train (their carriage was now in front) for herself and

companion, into which they could change the moment the gentleman in the

adjoining compartment should leave it for his breakfast.

“But suppose he does not leave it?” gloomily queried the guard; “men who

smoke so much in the early morning can easily wait for their breakfast

until they get home.”

“Well, in that case,” responded the lady, “we will try some other plan,

but this will do until we know it can’t be carried out; and at Carlisle

we will keep our curtains closed until you give us warning to change, in

case he should feel inclined to satisfy his curiosity about us.”

“By the way, guard,” resumed the lady, after a momentary pause, and with

a little tremor in the voice, “did you happen to notice what he did with

the handkerchief?”

“Yes, madam, it is lying on the seat in front of him and he is studying

a photograph.”

“That is all, guard, thank you,” returned the lady in a fainter tone, as

she leaned her head back on the cushioned partition.

“You look faint, mademoiselle,” said her companion, hastening to her

side with an anxious look in her eyes--“will mademoiselle try a little

sal-volatile?”

“Thank you, no,” replied her mistress; “I think it is only that I am a

little faint after my long night’s travel.”

She sat in silence for a few minutes while the companion watched the

pallid face, and the white lids and long dark lashes which hid the

beautiful eyes.

There was a saddened droop in the beautiful mouth with its gracefully

curved lips, as if Cupid’s bow had been bent just a little awry. And

where, oh where, was that imperious look which was wont to be enthroned

on that boldly rounded chin? The change was Love the humiliator’s work.

The silken scarf thrown over the shapely head had fallen aside and now

showed the beautiful hair in all the graceful abandon consequent upon a

night’s comfortless travel.

The dusky tresses with the wave of a wind-swept banderol in them grew

low and luxurious over the broad white forehead, and curled upwards in

wealthy profusion over the graceful head.

The beautiful and strongly marked eyebrows, the densely fringed lids and

all the component parts of superlative beauty were there.

Men talk of alabaster loveliness, of faces pale and perfect as flawless

marble, but these similes fell far short of Miss Beattison’s complexion,

which was the despair of the rest of the sex. In her case these would

have been dead illustrations of a living glorious beauty to which

neither nature nor art could furnish an analogy or an expression.

Her beautiful eyes, now closed in heart-breaking reflections, like her

other perfections defied descriptions and beggared eulogy!

Even Byron, grand-master in the art of portraying woman’s ravishing

beauty, recorded his failure to describe the beauty of lovely eyes, and

his words might well be appropriated for Miss Beattison:

“Her eye’s dark charm ’twere vain to tell

But gaze on that of the Gazelle,

It will assist thy fancy well.”

Suddenly the dark eyes opened widely, and the taper fingers clenched in

a paroxysm of emotion.

“Oh, why should I waste myself upon a man who does not care for me?” she

cried out bitterly. “What have I done that Heaven should grant me power

to love only one man when it makes that man despise me, and prefer an

ignorant Scotch country girl, whose love as compared with mine is as the

shallow sea-shell to the bottomless ocean.”

“Oh, mademoiselle, give him up--let us go back, he is not worthy of you;

there are a thousand handsomer, cleverer men--distinguished men too--who

would kneel at your feet to-morrow--yes, mademoiselle, and put proud

coronets there too; and splendid men, too, ah! if the poor companion

could but choose! there are some ravishing gentlemen who visit you, and

think you that I would run after a country doctor and break my heart

when all the great world would come to me? Ah, _mon Dieu_, no.”

“Hush, madame,” replied the other, “you do not know what you are talking

about. I know--of course I know, and the thought drives me nearly crazy

with rage against myself--that I am doing an indelicate and unmaidenly

thing in following up Dr. Dalrymple. Oh, I have fought against this love

on my knees--yes, on my bended knees--but I cannot help myself. I love

him, _I love him_, I LOVE HIM! Even when I wore short dresses he was,

all unknown to him, the idol of my childhood. Yes, I used to dream about

him and pray God to give me him for a dear husband when I grew up. I

remember him as he used to come up the church aisle on Sundays, and as

he passed our cross-pew I used to redden until I fancied all the people

in the church knew about my love for him. And during the sermon I never

recollected the text, or remembered what the old clergyman said, I was

just thinking of Richard (that is what I called him in my mind) and

longing to run my fingers through his bonny curly brown hair. And oh

when his moustache began to grow, as soon as I noticed it I insisted on

being put into long dresses so that I might, as it were, keep in step

with him; and when I went abroad it was still the same all the years I

was away; nothing ever took his boyish image out of my heart. I did not

flirt and carry on like other girls, I just thought of him and waited,

oh, so patiently! until my education should be completed, and I could

return home practically my own mistress.

“Now, madame, do you think that love like that is going to stop because

a thing seems unmaidenly, when all the happiness of my life is concerned

in the result? Do you know that Dr. Dalrymple is now on his way to see

his _fiancée_, and that this is the most crucial period of my whole

life? Oh, if I were a man, and our positions reversed, I would carry him

off!”

Madame was in despair--she held up her wrinkled hands and exclaimed

again and again, “_mon Dieu, mon Dieu!_” and then her womanly heart

coming to her aid, she took the beautiful head between her hands and

kissed it again and again. “God is good,” she said, softly but

hopefully, “maybe it will all come right yet.”

Large tears--the advance guard of grief’s thunder shower which indicates

but does not relieve the pent-up passion--gathered slowly and fell from

Miss Beattison’s eyes, and the white teeth tried hard to restrain the

quivering lip. But the effort was in vain, the rising sob refused to be

quelled, and unable any longer to restrain her emotion, Miss Beattison

covered her face and sobbed out her very soul on her old companion’s

sympathetic shoulder.

“Ah,” muttered the companion aside to herself, “if I were a man and had

a knife I would kill you!” and she shook her clenched fist at the

invisible traveller next door.

When Carlisle station was reached Dr. Dalrymple stepped quickly from his

carriage, thinking to catch a glimpse of the inmates of the adjoining

compartment.

The curtains, however, were closed, and no sign of life was visible.

“Asleep, I imagine,” soliloquized the Doctor, “well, I suppose I may as

well have some breakfast,” saying which he sauntered in the direction of

the first-class restaurant.

When he returned the window of the carriage next door was in the same

condition. “Still asleep,” he murmured as he lit his cigar, and the

train moved outward.

Dr. Dalrymple was in error, however, for the change of carriage had been

effected while he was at breakfast and his whilom companions were now a

dozen carriages to the rear.

At the next station, the first on Scotch soil, noticing the adjoining

door open, Dr. Dalrymple inquired of the guard if the ladies were still

inside the carriage. “No, sir, they left at Carlisle,” replied the

guard, an answer literally correct and yet giving, and intended to give,

the impression that the ladies had left the train at the station named.

“Well, well, I wonder who they were--something unique, I should say----”

“Yes, sir, quite so,” said the guard as he left the door, adding to

himself, “I seem to have more than the average of unique people this

trip.”

CHAPTER V.

When Richard Dalrymple reached Barkirk he was considerably surprised to

see General Beattison’s carriage awaiting the arrival of the train.

“Some visitor to the old general,” he surmised, adding under his breath

with a long drawn sigh of uncertain meaning, “It really does look as if

I was never to be allowed to forget that family.”

The visitor, whoever it was, was slow to alight, and Dr. Dalrymple’s

hack drove off without his having cleared up the point.

The new arrival’s welcome to his native home, after so long an absence,

was the heartiest conceivable, and so thoroughly was he taken possession

of, that it looked as if only by some desperate subterfuge would he be

able to tear himself away to call upon the object of his affections.

And here it should be told that the engagement between Richard Dalrymple

and Miss Jeannie Farquharson has been maintained as a profound secret

by request of the latter, in order not to antagonize a wealthy and

cantankerous aunt, her sole remaining relative. This state of affairs

had limited the correspondence between the two, as their letters had to

pass through the hands of a third person, who, knowing how cruel the

tender mercies of a gossiping Scotch town are, did not care to receive

too many lest she should arouse curiosity and set too many tongues

wagging at her own expense.

At last, under pretence of a visit to his old friend Miss Farquharson

the elder, Richard Dalrymple stood in the drawing room of Laburnum Lodge

awaiting with a beating heart the arrival of his _fiancée_. The servant

had said Miss Farquharson was out but would return in a few minutes, and

would he see Miss Jeannie?

Would he! The gods were at last propitious!

When the servant went upstairs to announce his arrival, he expected to

hear, maybe, a little glad cry, and the instant rush of descending

skirts.

But no, the house was still, and after a minute or two the servant

returned to say Miss Jeannie would be down directly. For a moment the

room seemed to grow chilly, but his face brightened and the temperature

rose again when he reminded himself that no doubt she had heard of his

arrival, and it was necessary for her still to dissemble her love before

tattling servants.

Presently he heard the sound of a soft foot-fall on the stairs and the

_frou-frou_ of a lady’s dress gliding downward from step to step. His

heart beat faster, the color slowly left his cheek, and a happy

expectant light shone in his eyes.

Yes, there, at last, the queen of all his hopes and joys stood in the

doorway, not indeed the Scotch lassie of his recollection and his

dreams, but a vision of fair Northern loveliness whose very perfection

chained to his side the arms he had raised to embrace her, and nailed

his feet to the floor; so that the passionate embrace of welcome which

he had so often rehearsed in his own mind, all miscarried.

“Miss Farquharson--Jeannie--my darling!” he exclaimed with a faltering

voice regaining control of himself and stretching out, not his arms but

his hand, “I scarcely know you, you have grown so beautiful--what, what

have you done with my shy little Scotch lassie?” Then he laid his hands

on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes.

Yes, they at least were the same, they had not changed while he dreamed

of them these three long years, but they were not wont to droop before

his gaze then as now.

Then his arms stole softly around the lissom waist, and gently and

almost reverentially he stooped his lips to hers.

“Oh, please, Dick, don’t,” suddenly exclaimed the young lady with a

struggle, and a rapidly rising color in the clear brown cheek.

“Why, Jeannie dear, what is the matter?” queried her lover in a

distressed tone. “Don’t you love me any longer, darling?”

“Oh no, it is not that, Dick dear,” with faltering voice; “but we have

been parted so long, and I’ve hardly got accustomed to you yet, you seem

so formidable to me now, remember you were hardly more than a boy when

you left; and now you have grown so big and strong and manly-looking, it

doesn’t seem at all the same thing to kiss you now.”

“Well, darling, if that is all, the strangeness will soon pass, but

dear me! this seems a cool meeting for lovers.”

“Let us sit down, Dick, and talk things over,” replied Jeannie, taking

his hand and leading him to the sofa.

But Miss Farquharson’s knock was heard at the door, and they had only

time to hurriedly appoint a meeting for the following day at the lonely

Granton Falls, when the elder lady entered the room.

Richard Dalrymple’s mind was ill at ease during the rest of the day, and

he was glad when the evening came around and he could have a

confidential chat with the special friend and mentor of his old school

days--Alec Douglas.

He determined to unbosom himself to his former “chum,” and receive from

him the sweet solace of his sympathy as in the days of yore, when he

knew Alec to be as true as steel and the best secret-keeper in the

world.

Richard explained at length to his friend his relations with Miss

Jeannie Farquharson, but he was too much of a Bayard to allude to Miss

Beattison’s infatuation and its effect upon himself and his actions.

Alec Douglas sat silent while his friend unbosomed himself. He

interrupted by no comment, but that he listened attentively may be

gathered from the fact that his cigar went out unnoticed, and presently

fell from his lips altogether without awaking his consciousness to the

fact.

As his silence remained unbroken even after the close of the other’s

confidence, Dr. Dalrymple inquired what he thought of the situation. He

fancied that the expression on his friend’s face lacked the old-time

sympathy he was wont to express, and yet that failed to qualify his

astonishment when the other rose to his feet and after the merest

pretence of looking at his watch, announced that he must leave to keep

an appointment with a client.

“About your inquiry, Dick, as to what I think of the situation I can’t

say anything, but I consider that I am the last person you should ask

such a question,” saying which he strode out into the night.

“Well, I’m----blest if I don’t think everyone has gone back on me since

I left. My sweetheart is like an icicle and my old friend is as chilly

as a Norway blizzard. I feel like Rip Van Winkle who outlived or

outslept all his friendships.

“What did he mean, I wonder, about his being the last person in the

world I ought to ask? Is he so proud of his legal reputation that he

thinks it beneath him to give an opinion about a friend’s love troubles?

I suppose that is it, but if it is, this wretched little town hardens

the heart worse than much abused London does.”

CHAPTER VI.

Richard Dalrymple spent a restless night, and counted the minutes almost

until it was time to meet his _fiancée_ at Granton Falls.

He had some difficulty in evading his friends, but finally managed to be

at the place of rendezvous some twenty minutes before the time fixed.

The place appointed was the corner of a stone bridge which spanned the

Eildon river at Granton Falls, the said falls being simply a succession

of small rapids.

As Richard looked over the bridge he noticed the footpath about fifty

feet lower than the bridge, and said with some anxiety: “I hope Jeannie

did not mean the footpath at the falls, for if she goes there while I am

here I can’t get to her without breaking my neck over those rocks.”

At that instant the sharp ring of a horse’s hoofs on the hard granite

road aroused his attention, and turning round slowly, to his utter

bewilderment, he saw Miss Beattison, unattended by her groom, reining in

her horse by his side.

“How do you do, Doctor Dalrymple? Will you please help me to dismount, I

have something to say to you.”

Then she tied her horse to the nearest sapling, and came to his side;

her face white and almost stern in its set expression.

“Are you wondering how I came to be here? Well I came by the same train

as you did, to find out for myself whether the secret of your

indifference to me was to be found here, in this little country town;

and if it was the case, dear, as I had heard that you loved another,

why, then, I determined I should end my most miserable life, for to me

death is a thousand times better than life without you. Please do not

think ill of me, for, as Heaven is my witness, this unrequited love is

more than I can bear. This lonely walk what does it mean? Are you

waiting now to keep some appointment?”

As Gwendoline Beattison stood before Richard Dalrymple in all the pride

of her splendid beauty, pleading the cause of her own desperate heart,

his brain reeled before this fresh temptation. Did the struggle of all

these long months and the resolution displayed in his flight count for

nothing? Had he come all these long four hundred miles only to

capitulate here? Perish the thought, and yet his breath came fast and

faster as he gazed upon her, and his eyes faltered and fell before the

terrible battery of hers. He held up his hands, palm outward, as a

drowning man who finds the current too strong for him, and murmured,

“Leave me. For God’s sake go away and leave me.”

That is what he meant to say--and perhaps it is what he did say--but

every sense he had was surrendering to the irresistible usurper, and he

could not be sure that even his speech was not betraying him.

He tried to think of Jeannie, but his very soul shook as if there, too,

in the very holy of holies of his heart, a traitor was offering

capitulation on the conqueror’s own terms.

Every glance was a temptation to the stricken man as Gwendoline

Beattison stood before him. Her closely fitting habit revealed every

throb of the over-charged bosom and told all too plainly the tempest

which was convulsing it. His own heart bounded madly in response, every

fibre of his powerful frame thrilled in sympathy with the passion which

shook the voluptuous figure before him, and his eyes no longer sought

the ground but, alas!--_bon gré mal gré_--soon outdid hers in their

fiery candor.

Words failed them both. It was the silence of the duel when the smallest

flash of the blade may mean a life. As deadly was their silence and as

vital, but their eyes--ah, their eyes spoke with a measureless volume

and thrill, which deadened their ears to every earthly sound.

“Oh, why can’t you love me, dear? am I so unattractive that you must run

away from me?”

As Gwendoline Beattison said this, a wonderfully soft and pathetic look

came into her beautiful eyes, and, as if unable longer to control

herself, she placed her two trembling hands on Richard Dalrymple’s

shoulders.

“Why is it, dear--won’t you tell me?” and the voice which had been

shaken by passion became strangely gentle and tender as the straying

hands growing bolder stole around his neck and her beating heart in dire

proximity fired his own anew.

Oh, Jeannie Farquharson why do you not hurry to the relief of your

faltering lover, true to you so long in the face of a desperate

temptation, but now, alas, in the toils!

Too late! the perfume which surrounded the fair temptress like an

atmosphere was in his nostrils, the intoxication of her gaze mounted to

his brain; her touch thrilled him to his finger-tips, his very soul

tottered on its throne, and in another instant their lips met in a long

clinging kiss--a kiss never to be undone, never to be forgotten, the

kiss of a lifetime after which man and woman ought to die eternally,

since in its rapture they have beggared Paradise!

The long ecstatic kiss ended at last, the tumultuously beating feminine

heart grew still, the living, throbbing being in Richard Dalrymple’s

arms became a dead weight, and Gwendoline Beattison sank back

insensible, a victim to her own uncontrollable emotion.

“Oh, Dick, Dick, where are you? I saw you a minute ago.”

Such was the cry--all too late--which, welcome beyond words a few

minutes ago, now sounded like the knell of doom in Richard Dalrymple’s

ears.

Placing Miss Beattison’s inanimate form gently against a mossy knoll

our perturbed hero presented himself over the wall of foliage and called

to his lady-love, “Oh wait there, I will be with you in a minute.”

“No, stay where you are,” came back the silvery response; “you can’t

come down, I will cross the river on the stepping stones and come to

you.”

“Oh, but this is awful,” muttered Richard under his breath, “Jeannie

will be here in three minutes and will find Miss Beattison, and how on

earth can I explain things?”

Then he turned his attention to Miss Beattison, who was slowly regaining

consciousness. “Are you feeling better?” he began with a wonderful

softness and shamefacedness in eye and tone, when suddenly a piercing

scream made him leap to his feet and run to the other side of the

bridge.

“My God! Jeannie has fallen in and been swept over the rapids.”

Then he sped like a deer across the bridge, down the sloping bank at the

further side and past the rushing rapids to the whirling pool where poor

Jeannie, still partially buoyed up by her clothes, was whirling around

in the grasp of the fatal current.

CHAPTER VII.

A wild thrill of remorse shot through Richard Dalrymple’s heart even as

he sprang headlong into the whirlpool, and then he felt as if he was

fighting for his life in the embrace of a hundred devil-fish.

This way and that the currents buffeted him, fed in their strength by

the momentum of the rapids above, until all the breath was battered out

of his body. Suddenly a wayward current threw him against a projecting

rock which he caught, thereby probably saving his life. A coward would

have ceased his efforts at this point, but not so Richard Dalrymple.

Once more the form of his sweetheart met his eye, this time in the pool

beyond. Gathering himself up with such strength as he had left, he

climbed over the intervening rocks and again plunged to the rescue.

This time his effort was successful. With choking words of

encouragement, to cheer his sweetheart, who was fast losing

consciousness, by an Herculean effort he swam with her to the lower

shore and pushed her gently before him on to the low bank. All at once

the friendly swirl of the current changed and he was borne out into the

centre of the whirlpool. Again he caught the point of a rock, this time

with his feet, and by swimming with all his force, he maintained for a

short space a precarious foothold.

He knew that in a very few minutes, his strength being gone, he must

cease his efforts and then----

His brain seemed to become cleared as his strength failed. “Perhaps

things are happening for the best,” he thought as his arms became like

lead, his feet wavered in their hold, and a circling wave caught him in

its arms and whirled him off into the lower rapids.

When through the rush of water in his ears he heard a loud cry and his

failing sight caught the figure of a woman on horseback dashing in to

the foaming current, even in his death throes his heart thrilled as he

recognized the form of Miss Beattison.

“Steady, Saladin, steady, now.” He heard the ringing tones, he felt a

strong touch on his shoulder, and then he was dragged from the foaming

water, out of the jaws of death and on to the shelving edge of pebbles

which here replaced the jagged rock.

Although considerably bruised by being hurled against the rock by the

powerful current, none of Richard Dalrymple’s bones were broken and in a

few minutes he was able to rise to his feet. He had already been assured

by Miss Beattison that Miss Farquharson was reviving. As he rose Miss

Beattison was standing by the side of Saladin, who was still panting

from his tremendous fight with the current. Saladin’s head was between

the two, and it seemed at first as if neither cared to round the

dangerous point and meet each other after the episode of the bridge.

This time, however, the man was the bolder, and presently Richard

Dalrymple stood face to face with Gwendoline Beattison. For an instant

her eyes met his with a startled look of conscious shyness, then the

downward sweep of the dark lashes veiled their expression, and only the

faint color in the cheeks told of the maiden’s agitation.

“Miss Beattison, you have saved my life, I thank you for it;” here he

raised her hand and gently kissed it; “but indeed I think it would have

been better for us all if you had let me drown. Try to forget all that

has passed between us to-day, and permit me to assist you to your

saddle. I must go to Miss Farquharson’s aid.”

“Miss Farquharson is in good hands, she is with the gentleman she is

about to marry,” was the response in a somewhat uneven tone of voice.

“What can you mean, Miss Beattison? Miss Farquharson is engaged to

myself.”

“To you?” exclaimed the other reining in her horse abruptly. “Oh, the

shock of your narrow escape must have then affected your brain,--but

look for yourself.”

By this time the two had rounded the corner which hid Miss Farquharson

from view, and a glance revealed his friend, Alec Douglas, sitting on a

boulder with his arm round the waist of Miss Farquharson, whose head lay

confidingly on his shoulder.

For a moment, Richard Dalrymple stiffened as if turned into marble, and

then arresting the motion of his companion with a wave of his hand he

stepped swiftly over the noiseless stretch of sand towards the pair

whose backs were towards him.

CHAPTER VIII.

“My darling,” he heard the voice of his friend Alec Douglas saying,

“what should I have done if you had been drowned, my bonnie blue-eyed

forget-me-not. Who rescued you?”

The grim listener had heard the name of that little flower before, and

his lip curled scornfully and bitterly as he heard it now applied by the

mouth of another to the woman whom he had always worshipped as his own.

Just for a moment he experienced a passing twinge as a reminder of the

scene on the bridge where he had scarcely proven himself the knight

without reproach.

But that was only a momentary yielding to a terrible temptation; a man

surrenders very little in such an encounter compared with a woman.

Thus he reasoned to himself while his heart told him that such an

argument in his case was false, false as the bottomless pit; and that

never again in life could he rebuild against that besieger on the

bridge, the broken walls and citadel of his heart.

But no man lessens his rage at the defection of another--especially if

that other is a woman upon whom he has claims--simply because he happens

to be conscious of a like personal frailty; and so, although he

staggered under the accusation of his own heart, Richard Dalrymple

abated not one whit the contempt of the glance he turned on the

unconscious Jeannie.

And beyond all doubt he suffered acutely, although in the tumult of his

mind he was conscious of wondering why he did not suffer more. The

treachery of his sweetheart shattered an idol on whose worn shrine he

had lavished all the love and fealty of his manhood’s freshest years,

and around which he had twined the fairest garlands which youth’s blind

unquestioning idolatry can weave.

That the idol he had worshipped was nobler than the divinity it

represented, goes without saying where youth’s lofty ideal is unchecked

and uncorrected by a continual comparison with the original.

Thus poor Jeannie had fallen not only from herself, but she had fallen

deeper far from the high ideal her lover had fixed in his mind.

“A badly broken idol,” Richard Dalrymple said in looking at Jeannie--and

notwithstanding all the ravage done to his own feelings, he was

painfully conscious that it was a badly damaged idolater too, who looked

on.

“Who rescued you, my darling?” repeated Alec Douglas.

“Oh dear, dear,” sobbed his companion, “how can I tell you? the man who

saved my life was your friend Richard Dalrymple, and--- and he believes

I am engaged to be married to him. Oh, please don’t be angry with--me,

it was only a girlish love which I have outgrown, and I don’t love

anyone but you, darling. I had not written to him for months and I

thought he would understand that I wished everything to end between us.”

To the onlooker the idol seemed more than broken now, it was pulverized

to very fine powder indeed.

A heavy shadow falling across the two lovers caused them to turn, and to

find themselves face to face with a haggard and dishevelled man, whose

pallid face and dark upbraiding eye, caused them to spring hastily to

their feet.

Before the image confronting them both found themselves speechless.

“Is that true what you have been saying, Jeannie?” inquired Richard in a

hollow voice, “that your love for me was but a girlish fancy, and that

you love Douglas here--my old friend Alec, to whom I confided my secret

last night?”

No answer save that of downcast eye and burning cheek, and presently a

glance of wonderful regret and misery under the long level lashes.

“Betrayed by both betrothed and bosom friend! have _you_ nothing to say,

Douglas?”

“Yes, indeed, I have, Dalrymple,” replied the other; “now, old friend,

bear with me awhile. I swear to you I did not know of your engagement

until last night--and as far as Jeannie is concerned, she was just

telling me that as she had not written you for so long she thought you

would understand that she wished to end the engagement. You know,”

turning softly to Jeannie and laying a gentle caressing hand on her

head, “if there is one thing this little girl dreads more than another

it is anything approaching a quarrel, and she put off telling you of

the change in her feelings thinking that you would scold and make a

dreadful upset about it. Of course the whole thing is a terrible mistake

all through, but, Dick, I never betrayed a friend in my life, and I

would have killed myself rather than have made love to your sweetheart

if I had known it.”

At this the gentle Jeannie gave a scarcely perceptible toss of her fair

head as if to say, “That just shows how much wiser my way was.”

“I see, I see,” exclaimed the other bitterly, “I have only my own blind

unsuspecting devotion to thank for all this. If I had doubted and

mistrusted like other men this thing would never have happened. Alec, I

bear _you_ no malice, you did not know. Jeannie, you made light work of

a heart that deserved better from you.”

“Oh, Dick, _dear_ Dick, please----” began Jeannie, but he waved her

away. “Please leave me,” he added bitterly, “and if I must do without

your love, at least spare me the insult of your pity. Take back your

forget-me-nots and broken coin,” he added, taking the cigar-case and

coin from his pocket and handing them to her still wet with the whirling

pool from which he had saved her.

Jeannie would have replied, but the wise Alec, recognizing that much

lee-way must be allowed to the disappointed lover, motioned her not to

speak, and in silence they left as Richard turned on his heel and strode

away across the sand.

When he turned he expected to find himself if not face to face with, at

least within reach of, Miss Beattison, and the fact that she was not in

sight sent a keen and to him mysterious pang to his heart. He felt he

needed the sympathy of someone whose tenderness would not be an insult,

and now the only being whom he felt could have poured balm on his wounds

had disappeared.

He sat down by the water’s edge to think out the new scheme of his life

under the altered conditions of the morning, and somehow the tumult of

the broken waves seemed a suitable back ground to his thoughts.

For a while he sat in silence revolving the morning’s events in his

mind, and after a time he drew from his pocket two objects which we, the

readers, have seen before.

One was the photograph of Miss Farquharson, and the other the

handkerchief found in the train. The former, blurred and defaced by the

action of the water in his rescue of Miss Farquharson, caused him to

smile a sad, bitter, miserable smile, to which a tear would have been

preferable.

“The river ends it all,” he said as he tossed the photograph into the

torrent, “I almost wish it had ended me too.”

Then his eye fell upon the cambric handkerchief found in the train, and

a warmth seemed to steal from it, wet and crumpled as it was, which set

his heart beating to a faster measure.

“It seems to me,” he said softly, “as if all these long years I had been

prizing the shell and neglecting the priceless pearl.” Then, as he

kissed the handkerchief again and again--and now at last without

remorse--his mind travelled back to the scene on the bridge. Again in

his vision there arose the love illumined eyes and passionate glance of

the woman whom he was fain to confess now he had loved fondly even when

he fled from her. The passion of her presence seemed again to thrill him

as he sat there pressing her handkerchief to his lips, and in the fever

of his unrest he sprang to his feet and turned towards the highway, only

to find himself face to face with Gwendoline Beattison herself.

For a moment the love-light still burning in his eyes seemed to surprise

and dazzle her, and then as he opened wide his arms and murmured the one

word “darling,” she fled to his heart with a glad cry.

There, eye to eye, heart to heart, and soul to soul, love’s dominion was

restored, and Cupid’s glancing arrows at length found their rightful

mark.

THE END.

* * * * *

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

lack of arrangement in the deceased’s affairs=> lack of arrangement in

the deceaseds’ affairs {pg 42}

here and may be there=> here and maybe there {pg 49}

Madame Tassaud’s Chamber of Horrors=> Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of

Horrors {pg 50}

vis-a-vis=> vis-à-vis {pg 100}

the custom-house officers came abroad=> the custom-house officers came

aboard {pg 132}

coresponding relief or elation=> corresponding relief or elation {pg

132}

relief in excitment=> relief in excitement {pg 132}

The concagious excitement=> The contagious excitement {pg 133}

the last glimspe of verdure=> the last glimpse of verdure {pg 141}

Three week later=> Three weeks later {pg 161}

fade as even great warrior=> fade as even great warriors {pg 175}

well-preserved gentlemen of some forty years=> well-preserved gentleman

of some forty years {pg 220}

by the waiter’s munifience=> by the waiter’s munificence {pg 231}

Felix Johnston found opportunities=> Felix Johnstone found opportunities

{pg 235}

her bright head high in air=> her bright head high in the air {pg 249}

that must be by brother Wilfred=> that must be my brother Wilfred {pg

250}

unbending command and insistance=> unbending command and insistence {pg

257}

retired into the the seclusion=> retired into the seclusion {pg 278}

little piece of monogramed=> little piece of monogrammed {pg 297}

feather-like handerchief=> feather-like handkerchief {pg 297}

he was considerable surprised=> he was considerably surprised {pg 309}