George Manville Fenn (continued 5)

“Renée, my child,” he said at last, “I can hear that you are in trouble.”

There was no reply for a few moments, and then she said softly: “Yes, dear uncle.”

“I do not ask you for your confidence,” he said, “for if it is some trouble between you and your husband it should be sacred. I dreaded this,” he muttered to himself. “Gertrude, my child, I would not, if I could help it, do anything to encourage you to act in disobedience to your parents’ wishes, but be careful how you enter on this proposed alliance. I like it not, I like it not.”

Gertrude did not answer, only stole to the opening, and pressed her warm fresh lips to the cold white hand. Then the young people took their leave, and the yellow-looking house in Wimpole Street resumed its wonted aspect of gloom.

Volume Two—Chapter Seven.

Brought to a Double Head.

“Ah, my dearest boy!” cried Lady Millet, an evening or two later; “I did not expect you.”

“’Spose not,” said Dick shortly; “but I’ve come, all the same.”

“You want money, sir, I suppose; and I will not have papa worried.”

“No, I don’t want money. I’ve come up on particular business.”

“Business! Great heavens, my dear child! what is the matter?”

“Well, I don’t know yet. But, I say, is Gertrude going to marry John Huish?”

“Certainly not—impossible! I have other views for your sister.”

“And what are they?”

“This is a subject I should discuss with your papa, Richard; but you are a man grown now, and I am sorry to say papa does not afford me the support I should like, so I will tell you in confidence. I believe Lord Henry Moorpark will propose directly.”

“Do you? I don’t.”

“What do you mean, Dick?” cried her ladyship sharply.

“That’s what has brought me up to town. Lady Littletown has been stealing a march on you, and is trying to egg him on to propose elsewhere.”

“The wretched scheming creature! Oh! No, no, it is impossible. You are mistaken, my boy.”

“Oh no, I’m not. The old chap is quite on there at Hampton Court. But of course he has no chance.”

“Stop! At Hampton Court? Who is the lady?”

“One of the Miss Dymcoxes’ nieces, living with her aunts in the Palace.”

“Philippa Dymcox’s niece?”

“Yes.”

“Not a Miss Riversley?”

“That’s the name, mamma.”

“How horrible!—Riversleys! Why, they are connected with the Huishes. That Mr John Huish’s father married a Miss Riversley.”

“Very likely,” said Dick Millet coolly. “That’s the lady, all the same—Miss Dymcox’s niece.”

“The Dymcoxes! the paupers! Lady Littletown’s doing! Oh, that woman!”

“You don’t like her, then, mamma?”

“Like her? Ugh!” exclaimed Lady Millet in tones of disgust; “I can soon put a stop to that, my son.” Her ladyship compressed her lips. “But it is all Gertrude’s fault, behaving so ridiculously about that John Huish. I don’t know what she may not have said to Lord Henry the other night. He was almost at her feet, and now he shall be quite. John Huish indeed!—a man going hopelessly to the bad,” Her ladyship rang. “There is no time to be lost. I must act at once. Lord Henry Moorpark must be brought back to his allegiance. Send Miss Gertrude’s maid to ask her to step down here,” continued her ladyship to the servant who answered the bell.

“What are you going to do?”

“Arrange for invitations to be sent out at once. Oh, Dick, my boy, the stories I have heard lately about Mr Huish’s gambling and dissipation are terrible! Gertrude has had a marvellous escape. It is very shocking, for your uncle and father have known the Huishes all their lives. Well?”

“Richards says, my lady, that Miss Millet went out an hour ago.”

“Out? Gone out?”

“Yes, my lady; and Richards found this note left on the dressing-table, my lady, stuck down on the cushion with a pin.”

“Great heavens!” cried Lady Millet, snatching the note from a salver; “there, leave the room.”

The man bowed and moved to the door, in time to open it for Sir Humphrey, who stood beaming at his son, while her ladyship tore open the letter and read:

“Dear Mamma,—I cannot marry Lord Henry Moorpark. Good-bye.”

“That’s all!” cried her ladyship in a perfect wail. “What does it mean?”

“Looks suspicious,” said Dick. “Hullo!” he continued, as the servant reopened the door. “Can’t see visitors.”

“Mr Frank Morrison, sir,” said the man, who looked rather scared at seeing her ladyship sink upon a couch, where Sir Humphrey began to fan her.

“What the deuce does he want?” grumbled Dick. “Hullo, Frank! I was coming to see you about that row with our Renée. Gertrude wrote and told me.”

“My wife here?” said Morrison, who was a good deal excited by wine.

“What, Renée? No!”

“Damn!” cried the young husband, dropping upon a chair, and looking from one to the other.

“Something fresh, then?” cried Dick, growing excited. “Here, why the devil don’t you speak, man?”

“Yes, yes! why don’t you speak?” cried Lady Millet piteously. “Oh, Frank dear, what news? Have you seen Gertrude?”

“No,” he said thickly. “I want Renée.”

“Where is she? Speak, I conjure you!” cried her ladyship.

“Don’t know,” said Morrison, glancing round. “Haven’t been home for days. Went home this afternoon. Had some words and came away again.”

“Well, well, go on! I saw you playing billiards at the club.”

“Yes,” said Morrison, whose brain was clouded with days of excess. “Went home again just now. Going to make it up, and she’d gone. Where is she? Want her directly.”

Dick stood thinking for a few moments, while her ladyship looked at him as if imploring him to speak.

“She’s in it, p’raps,” he said. “Look here, Frank, can you understand me, or have you got D.T. too bad?”

“Yes, I understand,” said the young man thickly.

“Gertrude’s gone away. We think your wife must be in the plot.”

“No,” said Morrison slowly, as he gave his head a shake to clear it, and stood up angry and fierce, while the others hung upon his words as being likely to dispel their fears. “No, poor girl! too much trouble. I’m a villain,” he groaned, “and I struck her to-night; but—but,” he cried excitedly, “she deceived me. Gone with Malpas. She’s false as hell!”

“It’s a lie!” cried Dick fiercely. “Here, father, see to my mother. It’s a lie, I say; and you, Frank Morrison, you’re a cad to dare to—Ah!” said the lad, uttering a shrill cry, and he had just time to drive up a pistol as it exploded, and save his brother-in-law’s brains from being scattered on the wall.

Then there was a fierce struggle, as Frank Morrison strove to direct the revolver at his temples once more, and Dick fought with him bravely till overpowered; but two of the frightened servants ran in, and with their help the madman was secured and held down till the arrival of the nearest doctor, a messenger having been also sent for Dr Stonor, who arrived a couple of hours later; and between them the excitement of the would-be suicide was somewhat allayed, though he was still half mad.

It was the old story—days and days of heavy use of stimulants, till the fevered madness that generally comes in its wake had seized upon an already too excited brain; and it was only by the use of the strongest measures that the medical men were able to restrain their patient’s violence, as he rambled on wildly hour after hour, the burden of his incoherent mutterings being, “My wife! my wife!”

Volume Two—Chapter Eight.

Dick Millet Feels Grown Up.

“Bad?” said Dr Stonor, when he was left alone to attend his patient at Sir Humphrey’s. “Yes, of course he is bad—very bad. But I don’t call this illness. He must suffer. Men who drink always do.”

“But her ladyship, Stonor?” said Sir Humphrey; “will you come and see her now?”

“No,” said the doctor roughly. “What for? Nothing the matter. She can cure herself whenever she likes. What are you going to do about your sister, soldier boy?”

“I—I don’t know,” replied Dick. “Ought I to fetch her back?”

“Yes—no—can’t say,” said the doctor. “Hang this man, how strong he is! Look here, Dick, my boy: here’s a lesson for you. You will be a man some day. When you are, don’t go and poison yourself with drink till your brain revolts and sets up a government of its own. Look at this: the man’s as mad as a hatter, and I shall have to nearly poison him with strong drugs to calm him down. A wild revolutionary government, with death and destruction running riot. Think your sister has gone with John Huish?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Dick, for Sir Humphrey seemed utterly unnerved.

“Don’t see anything to be afraid of, boy. John Huish is a gentleman.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Dick hotly; “and it isn’t gentlemanly to act as he has done about my sister.”

“I shall have to get a strait-waistcoat for this fellow. About your sister. Bah! Human nature. Wait till you get old enough to fall in love, and some lady—mamma, say—wants to marry your pretty little Psyche to an old man. How then, my young Cupid?”

Dick changed colour like a girl.

“I hold to John Huish being a thorough gentleman, my boy. He’s all right. I wish Renée’s husband was as good a man. Yes, I mean you—you drunken, mad idiot I’m going to bring you round, and when I’ve done so, I hope, Dick, if he ever dares to say a word again about your sister Renée—”

“You’ve heard then?”

“Heard? Of course. Doctors hear and know everything. Parson’s nowhere beside a doctor. People don’t tell the parson all the truth: they always keep a little bit back. They tell the doctor all because they know he can see right through them. Lie still, stupid. Ha! he’s calming down.”

“Isn’t he worse, Stonor?” asked Sir Humphrey.

“No; not a bit. And as I was saying, if, when he gets on his legs again, he dares to say a word against his wife, knock him down. I’ll make him so weak it will be quite easy.”

“Well, he deserves it,” said Dick.

“Of course he does. So do you, for thinking ill of your sister. I’ll be bound to say, if you sent to Wimpole Street, you’d find the poor girls there soaking pocket-handkerchiefs.”

“By Jove! yes,” cried Dick, starting at the doctor’s suggestion. “Why, of course. Doctor, you’ve hit it! Depend upon it, they’re gone to Uncle Robert’s, father.”

“Think so, my boy, eh?—think so?” said the old gentleman. “It would be very dull and gloomy.”

“Nonsense!” said the doctor. “My dear boy, the more I think of it, the more likely it seems to me that they have gone there.”

“Yes; that’s it, doctor. Guv’nor, I don’t like to be hard on you, but the doctor’s a very old friend. It’s a nice thing—isn’t it?—that our girls should have to go to Uncle Robert’s for the protection they cannot find here?”

“Yes, my dear boy, it is, it is,” said the old man querulously; “but I can’t help it. Her ladyship took the reins as soon as we were married, and she’s held them very tightly ever since.”

“Well, we’ll go and see. You’ll stay with Frank Morrison, doctor?”

“Stay, sir? Yes, I will. Think I’m going to be dragged down here from Highgate for nothing? I’ll make Master Morrison play the shoddy-devil in his Yorkshire mill for something. He shall have such a bill as shall astonish him.”

“Here, fetch a cab,” shouted Dick to the man who answered the bell; and soon after the jangling vehicle was taking them to Wimpole Street.

It was four o’clock, and broad daylight, as the cab drew up at Captain Millet’s door, when, in answer to a ring which Dick expected it would take half an hour to get attended to, the door was opened directly by Vidler.

“You were expecting us, then?” said Dick, as the little man put his head on one side, and glanced from the young officer to his father, and back again.

“Yes, sir. Master said you might come at any time, so I sat up.”

“All right, father; they’re here. What time did they come, Vidler?”

“They, sir?”

“Yes—my sisters,” said Dick impatiently. “What time did they come?”

“Miss Renée came here about half-past ten, sir.”

“There, dad,” whispered Dick. “And Frank swore she’d gone off with Malpas. I knew it wasn’t true. He wouldn’t insult a brother officer like that.”

“I’m very glad, my boy—I’m very glad,” said Sir Humphrey feebly; and Dick turned to Vidler again.

“And Miss Gertrude, what time did she get here?”

“Miss Gertrude, sir?”

“Don’t be a stupid old idiot!” cried Dick excitedly. “I say—what—time—did—my—sister—Gertrude-get here?”

“She has not been here, sir,” replied the little man—“not to-night.”

Dick looked blankly at his father, and, in spite of his determination not to believe the story suggested about his sister, it seemed to try and force itself upon his brain.

“Where is Mrs Morrison?” he cried at last.

“Lying down, sir. Salome is watching by her. She seemed in great distress, sir, and,” he added in a whisper, “we think master came out of his room and went to her when we had gone down.”

“Poor Robert!” muttered Sir Humphrey.

“Master’s very much distressed about her, gentlemen. Miss Renée is a very great favourite of his.”

“Is my uncle awake, do you think?”

“I think so, sir,” was the reply.

“Ask him if he will say a few words to my father and me. Tell him we are in great trouble.”

The little man bowed and went upstairs, returning at the end of a minute or two to request them to walk up.

“Last time I was here,” thought Dick, “I asked him for a couple of tenners, and he told me never to come near him again. A stingy old hunks! But, there, he’s kind to the girls.”

The little panel opened as Vidler closed the door, and Sir Humphrey, looking very old, and grey of hair and face, sat looking at it, leaving his son to open the conversation.

“Well, Humphrey, what is it?” said the voice behind the wainscoting.

“How do you do, Bob?” began the old gentleman. “I—I—Richard, my boy, tell your uncle; I’m too weak and upset.”

“We’re in great trouble, uncle,” began Dick sharply.

“Yes, I know,” said the voice. “Renée has fled to me for protection from her husband. You did well amongst you. Poor child!”

“Hang it all, uncle, don’t talk like that!” cried Dick impetuously. “You ought to know that we had nothing to do with it. Help us; don’t scold us.”

“I am helping you,” said the Captain. “Renée stays here with me till she can be sure of a happy home. And, look here,” he continued, growing in firmness, “she has told me everything. If you are a man, you will call out anyone who dares say a word against her fame.”

“It’s all very well, uncle,” said Dick; “but this is 18—, and not your young days. No one has a word to say against Renée. But look here, uncle, that isn’t all. Gertrude has gone off.”

“With John Huish, of course. Ah, Humphrey, how strangely Fate works her ways!”

“But, uncle, they say John Huish has turned out an utter swindler and scamp. Last thing I heard was that he had been expelled from his club.”

“Let them talk,” said Captain Millet quietly. “I say it cannot be true.”

“But, Bob,” faltered Sir Humphrey weakly, “they do make out a very bad case against him.”

“Then you and your boy can take up the cudgels on his behalf. He is son and brother now. There, I am weary. Go.”

“But Renée—we must see her.”

“No; let the poor girl rest. When you can find her a decent home, if she wishes it, she can come.”

The little wicket was closed with a sharp snap, and father and son gazed at each other in the gloomy room.

“Come back home, Dick,” said Sir Humphrey feebly. “And take warning, my boy: be a bachelor. Ladies in every shape and form are a great mistake.”

Dick Millet thought of the glowing charms of Clotilde and Marie Dymcox, but he said nothing, only hinted to his father that he ought to give Vidler a sovereign; and this done, they went back into the cab.

Half an hour later they were back in the room where Frank Morrison lay talking wildly in a loud, husky voice.

“Oh, well, so much the better,” said the doctor, when he heard all. “Capital calming place for your sister at your uncle’s. And as for Gertrude—bless her sweet face!—your uncle must be right. Bet a guinea he knew beforehand. I wish her and John Huish joy, he’ll never make her leave her home, and drink himself into such a state as this.”

“I hope not,” thought Dick; but just then some of the ugly rumours he had heard crossed his mind, and he had his doubts.

“Precious hard on a fellow,” he said to himself, “two sisters going off like that! I wonder what Glen and the other fellows will say. Suppose fate forced me to do something of the same kind!”

Volume Two—Chapter Nine.

Going to Court.

Marcus Glen was not a man given to deep thinking, but one of those straightforward, trusting fellows who, when once he placed faith in another, gave his whole blind confidence, and whom it was difficult afterwards to shake in his belief. He had had his flirtations here and there where his regiment had been stationed, and fancied himself deeply in love; been jilted in a fashionable way, smoked a cigar over it, and enjoyed his meals at the mess as usual. But he had found in Clotilde one so different to the insipid girls of former acquaintance: she was far more innocent in most things, thoroughly unworldly, and at the same time so full of loving passion, giving herself, as it were, to his arms with a full trust and faith, that his pulses had been thoroughly stirred. She told him of her past, and he soon found out for himself that hers had been no life of seasons, with half a dozen admirers in each. He was her first lover, and he told himself—doubtingly—that she was the first woman, and would be the only one, he could ever love.

Their meetings became few and seldom, and were nearly all of a stolen nature, for there could be no disguising the fact that when the young officer called the Honourable Philippa Dymcox was cold and stately; and though her sister seemed to nervously desire to further Glen’s wishes, she stood too much in awe of her sister, and with a sigh forebore.

Dick Millet then had to put his plan in force, and Joseph began to grow comparatively wealthy with the weight of the Queen’s heads that accompanied the notes he bore to the young ladies, and visions of the lodging-house he meant some day to take grew clearer and less hazy in the distance that they had formerly seemed to occupy.

Visits were paid to Lady Littletown’s, and that dame was quite affectionate in her ways, but Clotilde and Marie were rarely encountered there; and when fortune did favour Glen to the extent of a meeting, there were no more inspections of her ladyship’s exotics, no encounters alone, for Lady Littletown was always present; and at last Glen felt that, if he wished to win, it must be by extraordinary, and not by ordinary means.

The slightest hint of this seemed to set Dick on fire.

“To be sure,” he cried; “the very thing! We must carry them off, Glen, dear boy. Like you know who.”

“And do you think our friend Marie will consent to be carried off?”

“Well—er—yes; I dare say she would oppose it at first, but the moment she feels certain that her aunts mean to force her into a marriage with old Moorpark, I feel sure that she will yield.”

“Ah, well,” said Glen, “we shall see; but look here, most chivalrous of youths, and greatest among lovers of romance—”

“Oh, I say, how I do hate it when you take up that horrible chaffing tone!”

“Chaff, my dear boy? No, no, this is sound commonsense! I do not say that under certain circumstances I might not have a brougham in waiting, and say to a lady ‘Here is the licence, let us be driven straight to the church and made one;’ but believe me, my dear Dick, all those romantic, elopement-loving days are gone by. We have grown too matter-of-fact now.”

“Hang matter-of-fact! I mean to let nothing stand in my way, so I tell you! But, I say, have you heard?”

“About your sisters? Yes.”

“Hang it, no!” cried Dick angrily; “let that rest. It’s bad enough meeting Black Malpas at the mess-table, and being kept back by etiquette from hurling knives. I mean about the dinner.”

“What dinner?”

“Dymcoxes’. And we’re not asked. Our dinner’s cold shoulder.”

“A dinner-party?”

“Yes; and those two old buffers are to be there.”

Dick was right, for a dinner was given in the private apartments, where the ladies did their best; but it certainly was not a success, and Marie could not help bitterly contrasting the difference between the repast and its surroundings and that given by Lady Littletown. For the Honourable Misses Dymcox had been unfortunate in the purveyor to whom they had applied to furnish the dinner and all the necessaries. All the linen, the plate, the glass, and, above all, the ornamentation, had a cheap, evening-party supper aspect. There was the plated épergne which showed so much copper that it seemed to be trying to out-brazen the battered Roman cup-shaped wine-coolers, in each of which stood icing a bottle of champagne, quite unknown to fame—a wine with which a respectable bottle of Burton ale would have considered it beneath its dignity to associate. There were flowers upon the table furnished by the pastrycook; and though a couple of shillings would have supplied a modest selection of the real, according to well-established custom these were artificial, many of them being fearfully and wonderfully made.

That artificiality pervaded the whole repast, which from beginning to end was suggestive of oil-made, puffed-up pastry, which would crush into nothing at a touch; while soups, gravies, and the preparations of animal flesh, purveyed and presented under names in John Bull French, with a good deal of à la in the composition, one and all tasted strongly of essence of beef, that delicious combination of tin-pot, solder, resin, and molten glue, which flavours so many of our cheaper feasts.

To give the whole a distingué air, the London pastrycook had sent down, beside his red-nosed chef and dubiously bright stewpans, those two well-known, ghastly-white temples, composed of sugar and chalk, which do duty at scores of wedding-breakfasts, and then stand in the pastrycook’s window afterwards covered with glass shades, to keep them from the unholy touch of flies, and their sides from desecration by rubbing shoulders with the penny buns.

It was a mistake, too, to engage Mortimer, the gentleman who waited table for the gentry of Hampton Court, and invariably took the lead in single-handed places and played the part of butler. Mr Mortimer had been in service—the service, he called it—saved money, applied to a rising brewer, and taken a public-house “doing” a great number of barrels per week, so he was informed; but the remarkable fact about that house was that as soon as Mr Mortimer had paid over his hard-earned savings and taken his position as landlord, the whole district became wonderfully temperate, and, to use his own words, “If I hadn’t taken to paying for glasses of ale myself, and so kept the engine going, there would have been next to nothing to do.” The result was that in six months Mr Mortimer had to leave the house, a poorer and a wiser man, picking up odd jobs in waiting afterwards in the Palace and neighbourhood, but retaining his habit of buying himself glasses of ale to a rather alarming extent.

This habit was manifest upon the entrance of the first course, and had greatly exercised Joseph in spirit lest it should be detected. In fact, it became so bad by the time that the remove in the second course was due, that the footman made a strategic movement, inveigling Mr Mortimer into the big cupboard where knives and boots and shoes were cleaned, and then and there locking him up in company with a glass and jug.

Perhaps a viler dinner, worse managed, was never set before guests; but to Lord Henry Moorpark it was a banquet in dreamland, to Mr Elbraham it was a feast, for from the moment he took down Clotilde to that when the ladies rose to return to the drawing-room, he literally gloated over and devoured the Honourable Misses Dymcox’s niece.

Good dinners, served in the most refined style, had lost their charm for the visitors, who seemed perfectly satisfied, Elbraham’s face shining like a sun when he smiled blandly at his vis-à-vis, whose deeply-lined, aristocratic countenance wore an aspect of pleasant satisfaction as he gazed back at the millionaire.

“I say, Moorpark, they look well, don’t they?” said Elbraham.

“They do, indeed,” assented Lord Henry, smiling.

“Make some of them stare on the happy day, I think.”

“They are certainly very, very beautiful women,” replied Lord Henry, smiling and thoughtful.

“Eh—what? Oh, ah—yes: coffee. Thanks; I’ll take coffee.”

This to Joseph, who brought in a black mixture with some thin hot milk and brown sugar to match. Lord Henry also took a cup, but it was observable that neither gentleman got much farther than a couple of spoonfuls.

“Well,” said Elbraham suddenly, stretching out his hairy paws, and examining their fronts and backs, “it’s of no use our sitting here drinking wine, is it?”

“Certainly not,” said Lord Henry, who had merely sipped the very thin champagne at dinner and taken nothing since.

So the gentlemen adjourned to the drawing-room, where certain conversations took place before they left, the effect of which was to send Mr Elbraham back to town highly elate, and Lord Henry to his old bachelor home a sadder, if not a wiser, man.

He had found his opportunity, or, rather, it had been made for him, and he had plainly asked Marie to be his wife.

“I know I ask you to make a sacrifice,” he said—“you so youthful and beautiful, while I am old, and not possessed of the attraction a young man might have in your eyes; but if you will be my wife, nothing that wealth and position can give shall be wanting to make yours a happy home.”

He thought Marie had never looked so beautiful before, as with flushed cheeks she essayed to speak, and, smiling as he took her soft, white hand in his, he asked her to be calm and patient with him.

“I dread your refusal,” he said; “and yet, old as I am, there is no selfishness in my love. I wish to see you happy, my child—I wish to make you happy.”

“She has accepted him,” thought Marie; and her heart began to beat with painful violence, for, Clotilde away, who could say that Marcus Glen would not come to her for sympathy, and at last ask her love. She felt that she could not accept Lord Henry’s proposal, and she turned her face towards him in an appealing way.

“You look troubled, my child,” he said tenderly. “I want you to turn to me as you would to one who has your happiness thoroughly at heart. I want to win your love.”

“My—my aunts know that you ask me this, Lord Henry?” she faltered.

“Yes, they know it; and they wish it, for we have quietly discussed the matter, and,” he added, with a sad smile, “I have not omitted to point out to them how unsuited to you I am as a match. I throw myself then upon your mercy, Marie, but you must not let fear influence you; I must have your heart, my child, given over to my safe-keeping.”

She looked at him wildly.

“Is this hand to be mine?” he whispered. “Will you make the rest of my days blessed with your young love? Tell me, is it to be?”

“Oh, no, no, no, Lord Henry,” she said, in a low, excited tone; “I could not, I dare not say yes. Pray, pray do not ask me.”

“Shall I give you time?” he whispered; “shall I wait a week—a month, for your answer, and then come again and plead?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” she said; “I could—I never could say yes. I like you, Lord Henry, I respect and esteem you—indeed, indeed I do; but I could not become your wife.”

“You could not become my wife,” he said softly. “No, no, I suppose not. It was another foolish dream, and I should have been wiser. But you will not ridicule me when I am gone? I ask you to try and think of the old man’s love with respect, even if it is mingled with pity, for, believe me, my child, it is very true and honest.”

“Ridicule! oh, no, no,” cried Marie eagerly, “I could not do that. You ask me to be your wife, Lord Henry: I cannot, but I have always felt that I loved you as—like—”

“You might say a father or some dear old friend?” said Lord Henry sadly.

“Yes, indeed yes!” she cried.

“Be it so, then,” he said, holding her hand in his in a sad, resigned way. “You are right; it is impossible. Your young verdant spring and my frosted winter would be ill matched. But let me go on loving you—if not as one who would be your husband, as a very faithful friend.”

“Yes, yes, please, Lord Henry,” she said; “I have so few friends.”

“Then you shall not lose me for one,” he continued sadly. “There, there, the little dream is over, and I am awake again. See here, Marie,” he said, drawing a diamond and sapphire ring from his pocket, “this was to be your engaged ring: I am going to place it on your finger now as a present from the dear old friend.”

She shrank from him, but he retained her hand gently, and she felt the ring glide over her finger, a quick glance showing her that her aunts were seeing everything from behind the books they were reading, becoming deeply immersed, though, as they saw how far matters seemed to have progressed.

Mr Elbraham’s wooing was moulded far differently to Lord Henry’s.

It was an understood thing that he was to propose that evening, the dinner being given for the purpose.

“There’s no confounded tom-fool nonsense about me;” and each time Mr Elbraham said this he took out of the morocco white satin-lined case a brilliant half-hoop ring, set with magnificent stones, breathed on it, held it to the light, moistened it between his lips, held it up again, finished by rubbing it upon his sleeve, and returning it to the case.

“That’ll fetch her,” he said. “My! what you can do with a woman if you bring out a few diamonds. I shan’t shilly-shally: I shall come out with it plump;” but all the same, when by proper manoeuvring the Honourable Misses Dymcox had arranged themselves behind books and left the two couples at opposite ends of the room, while they themselves occupied dos-à-dos the ottoman in the centre, Mr Elbraham did not “out with it plump.”

He seated himself as close as decency would permit to Clotilde, and stared at her, and breathed hard, while she returned his look with one that was half mocking, half defiant.

“Been to many parties lately?” he said at last, nothing else occurring to his mind except sentences that he would have addressed to ballet-girls upon their good looks, their agility, and the like.

No; Clotilde had not been to many parties.

“But you like ’em; I’ll bet a wager you like ’em?” said Elbraham with a hoarse laugh.

Oh yes, Clotilde dearly liked parties when they were nice.

There was another interval of hard breathing, during which Mr Elbraham took out and consulted his watch.

The act of replacing that made him remember the ring in the morocco case, and he thrust his finger and thumb in his vest pocket, but it was not there, and he remembered that he had placed it in his trousers pocket.

This was awkward, for Mr Elbraham was stout and his garments tight. Still, he would want it directly, and he made a struggle and dragged it out, growing rather red in the face with the effort.

This gave him something else to talk about.

“Ha! it’s nice to be you,” he said, dropping the case in his vest.

“Why?” said Clotilde, looking amused.

“Because you gal—ladies dress so well; not like us, always in black. That’s a pretty dress.”

“Think so?” said Clotilde carelessly.

“Very pretty. I like it ever so, but it isn’t half good enough for you.—That’s getting on at last,” he muttered to himself.

“Oh yes, but it is. Aunt Philippa said it was a very expensive dress.”

“Tchh, my dear, rubbish! Why, I would not see anyone I cared for in such a dress as that. I like things rich and good, and the best money can buy.”

“Do you?” said Clotilde innocently; but her cheeks began to burn.

“Do I? Yes; I should just think I do. Look here! What do you think of that?”

He took out and opened the little case, breathed on the diamonds, and then held them in a good light.

“Oh, how lovely!” said Clotilde softly.

“Ain’t they?” said Elbraham. “They’re the best they’d got at Hancock’s, in Bond Street. Pretty stiff figure, too, I can tell you.”

“Are you fond of diamonds, Mr Elbraham?” she said, with a peculiar look at him from beneath her darkly fringed lids—a strange look for one so innocent and young.

“Yes, on some people,” he said. “Are you?”

“Oh yes; I love them,” she said eagerly.

“All right, then. Look here, Clotilde; say the word, and you can have diamonds till you are sick of them, and everything else. I—hang it all! I’m not used to this sort of thing,” he said, dabbing his moist face with his handkerchief; “but I said to myself, when I came to-night, ‘I won’t shilly-shally, but ask her out plain.’ So look here, my dear, may I put this diamond ring on the finger of the lady that’s to be Mrs Elbraham as soon as she likes?”

Clotilde darted one luminous look at him which took in his squat, vulgar figure and red face, and then her eyes half-closed, and she saw tall, manly, handsome Marcus Glen look appealingly in her eyes, and telling her he loved her with all his heart.

She loved him—she told herself she loved him very dearly; but he was poor, and on the one side was life in lodgings in provincial towns wherever the regiment was stationed; on the other side, horses and carriages and servants, a splendid town mansion, diamonds, dresses, the opera, every luxury and gaiety that money could command.

“Poor Marcus!” she sighed to herself. “He’s very nice!”

“Come,” said Mr Elbraham; “I don’t suppose you want me to go down on my knees and propose, do you? I want to do the thing right, but I’m a business man, you know; and, I say, Clotilde, you’re the most beautiful gal I ever saw in my life.”

She slowly raised her eyes to his, and there was a wicked, mocking laugh in her look as she said in a low tone:

“Am I?”

“Yes, that you are,” he whispered in a low, passionate tone.

“You are laughing at me,” she said softly.

“’Pon my soul I’m not,” he whispered again; “I swear I’m not; and I love you—there, I can’t tell you how much. I say, don’t play with me. I’ll do anything you like—give you anything you like. I’ll make the princesses bite their lips with jealousy to see your jewels. I will, honour! May I? Yes? Slip it on? I say, my beautiful darling, when may I put on the plain gold one?”

“Oh, hush!” she whispered softly, as she surrendered her hand, and fixed her eyes in what he told himself was a loving, rapturous gaze upon his; “be content now.”

“But no games,” he whispered; “you’ll be my wife?”

“Yes,” she said in the same low tone, and he raised the beringed hand to his lips, while the Honourable Isabella uttered a little faint sigh, and her book trembled visibly in her attenuated hands.

“Hah!” ejaculated Mr Elbraham; and then to himself: “What things diamonds are!”

Perhaps he would have felt less satisfied if he had known that, when Clotilde fixed her eyes upon his, she was looking down a long vista of pleasure stretched out in the future.

At the same moment the face of Marcus Glen seemed to rise up before her, but she put it aside as she lifted the hand that Elbraham had just kissed.

“He could not have brought me such a ring as that,” she said to herself; and then, “Heigho! poor fellow; but it isn’t my fault. I must tell him I am only doing what my dear aunts wish.”

She placed the ring against her deep-red lips and kissed it very softly, her beautiful eyes with their long fringed lids looking dark and dewy, and full of a delicious languor that made Mr Elbraham sit with his arms resting upon his knees, and gaze at her with half-open mouth, while he felt a strange feeling of triumph at his power as a man of the world, and thought of how he would show off his young wife to all he knew, and gloat over their envy.

Then a sense of satisfaction and love of self came over him, and he indulged in a little glorification of Mr Elbraham.

“Litton’s a humbug,” he said to himself; “I can get on better without his advice than with it. Women like a fellow to be downright with them, and say what he means.”

Volume Two—Chapter Ten.

Glen Declares War.

Dick Millet placed a note in his friend’s hand one day during parade, and Glen thrust it out of sight on the instant, glancing sidewise to see if Major Malpas had noticed the act, and then biting his lip with vexation at Dick being so foolish.

A good deal of the foolishness was on his own side, for had he taken the letter in a matter-of-fact manner, no one would have paid the slightest heed, or fancied that it came from a lady in a clandestine way.

But, as is generally the case in such matters, the person most anxious to keep his correspondence a secret is one of the first to betray himself, and, feeling this, Glen was in no very good humour.

The secret correspondence he had been carrying on with Clotilde was very sweet; but it annoyed him sadly, for his was not a nature to like the constant subterfuge. By nature frank and open, there was to him something exceedingly degrading in the fact that servants were bribed and the aunts deceived; and with a stern determination to put an end to it all, and frankly speak to the Honourable Misses Dymcox concerning his attachment to Clotilde, he went on with his duties till the men were dismissed.

“How could you be so stupid, Dick!” he exclaimed, as soon as they were clinking back, sabre and spur, to their quarters.

“Foolish!” said the little fellow, with a melodramatic laugh; “I thought you would like to get your letter. I don’t care about keeping all the fun to myself.”

“What’s the matter?” said Glen, smiling. “Has the fair Marie been snubbing you?”

“No. Look at your letter,” said the little fellow tragically.

Glen placed his hand in his breast, but, altering his mind, he walked on to his room before taking out the letter and glancing at it; then leaping up, he strode out into the passage and across to Dick’s quarters, to find that gentleman looking the very image of despair.

“Here, what does this mean?” exclaimed Glen. “Why did you not send my note with yours?”

“Did!”

“Then how is it you have brought it back?”

“That scoundrel Joseph!” exclaimed Dick. “I won’t believe but that it’s some trick on his part, for I don’t trust a word he says.”

“What does he say, then?”

“That they returned the notes unopened, and that—can you bear it?”

“Bear it! Bear what? Of course—yes; go on.”

“I’ve heard that Clotilde has accepted Mr Elbraham, and they are going to be married directly.”

Glen stood and glared at him for a moment, and then burst into a hearty laugh.

“Absurd! nonsense! Why, who told you this?”

“Joseph.”

“Rubbish! Joseph is an ass. The fellow forgot to deliver the letters.”

Dick spoke to him again, but Glen did not hear his words in the anger that had taken possession of him. He had, against his will, allowed himself to be swayed by Clotilde, and carried on the clandestine correspondence that was repugnant to his frank nature; and now he blamed himself for his conduct.

“Look here, Dick,” he cried at last, “we have been behaving like a couple of foolish boys ashamed of their feelings, and the consequence is we have been unable to take the part of those two when they have been urged to accept proposals by their aunts.”

“Don’t say they; it is only Clotilde.”

“I’ll wager it is Marie as well, my boy; else why did you get your note back?”

Dick looked staggered, and gazed in his friend’s face.

“I say, you know, what are you going to do?” he said it last.

“Going straight to the private apartments to see the aunts. Come with me?”

“What, to meet the old dragons, and talk about it?”

“Yes, of course. It is cowardly to hold back.”

“That’s—er—a matter of opinion,” said Dick, who looked uneasy. “I—er—don’t think it would be quite wise to go.”

“As you like!” said Glen shortly; and before the boy could quite realise the position the door swung back heavily and his visitor was gone.

“Well,” said Dick thoughtfully, “I could go through a good deal for Marie’s sake, and would give a good deal to see her now, but face those two old Gorgons? No, not this time; I’d rather take a header into the Thames any day, and I don’t believe Glen has gone, after all.”

But he had gone straight to the private apartments, rung, and sent in his card to where the Honourable Misses Dymcox were discussing preparations for the marriage, with their nieces in the room.

“Captain Glen!” exclaimed the Honourable Philippa, starting as she read the card; “so early! What can he want?”

Marie glanced at her sister, and saw that she looked flushed and excited; but as soon as Clotilde found that she was observed, she returned a fierce, defiant glance at Marie’s inquisitive eyes.

“Had—hadn’t we better say ‘Not at home’?” whispered the Honourable Isabella.

“No: it would be cowardly,” replied her sister. “Joseph, you can show up Captain Glen.”

Clotilde rose and left the room, and Marie was following, but her aunt arrested her.

“No, my dear, I would rather you would stay,” she exclaimed; and full of sympathy, but at the same time unable to control a sense of gladness at her heart, Marie resumed her seat just as Ruth entered the room.

The next moment Glen was shown in, and after the customary salutations and commonplace remarks asked for a few minutes’ conversation with the ladies alone.

The Honourable Philippa was a good deal fluttered, but she preserved her dignity, and signed to Marie and Ruth to withdraw, the former darting a look full of meaning as she passed Marcus, who hastened to open the door, the latter glancing up at him for a moment, and he smiled back in her face, which was full of sympathy for him in his pain.

Glen closed the door in the midst of a chilling silence, and returned to his seat facing the thin sisters, feeling that the task he had undertaken was anything but the most pleasant under the sun.

He was, however, too much stirred to hesitate, and he began in so downright a manner that he completely overset the balance—already tottering—of the Honourable Isabella, who felt so sympathetic that she was affected to tears.

“I wished to have a few minutes’ conversation, ladies,” he said, in rather a quick, peremptory tone, “respecting a question very near to my heart, and concerning my future happiness. Let me say, then, plainly, in what is meant to be a manly, straightforward fashion, that I love your niece Clotilde, and I have come to ask your consent to my being a constant visitor here.”

The Honourable Isabella could not suppress it: a faint sigh struggled to her lips, and floated away upon the chilly air of that dismal room, like the precursor of the shower that trembled upon the lashes of her eyes.

“Captain Glen!” cried the Honourable Philippa, making an effort to overcome her own nervousness, and dreading a scene on the part of this downright young man, “you astound me!”

“I am very sorry I should take you so by surprise,” he said quietly. “I hoped that you would have seen what my feelings were.”

“Oh, indeed no!” cried the Honourable Philippa mendaciously, “nothing of the kind—did we, sister?”

The Honourable Isabella’s hands shook a great deal, but she did not speak—only looked piteously at their visitor.

“Perhaps I ought to have made my feelings known sooner,” said Glen. “However, I have spoken now, Miss Dymcox, and—”

“But, Captain Glen, pray spare us, and spare yourself what must be a very painful declaration, when I tell you that our niece is engaged to be married to Mr Elbraham.”

“Then it is true?”

“Oh yes, perfectly true,” said the Honourable Philippa.

Glen drew a long breath, and sat for some moments silently gazing down at the carpet as if he could not trust himself to speak. When he opened his lips again his voice was changed.

“Am I to understand, madam, that Miss Clotilde Dymcox accepts this Mr—Mr Elbraham of her own free choice and will?”

It required a tremendous effort to get out that name “Elbraham,” but he forced it from his lips at last.

“Captain Glen,” said the Honourable Philippa, rising and darting a very severe glance at her sister because she did not rise as well, “this is presuming upon your position here as an acquaintance—a very casual acquaintance. I cannot discuss this matter with you.”

“As you will, madam,” replied Glen, who felt hot with indignant rage. “May I ask your permission to see Clotilde?”

“To see Miss Clotilde Dymcox?” said the Honourable Philippa, with dignity. “Under the circumstances, I think, sister, certainly not.”

She darted another fierce look at the Honourable Isabella, who was growing weaker and more agitated moment by moment, as she asked herself whether it was possible that, in spite of the disparity of their ages, she might yet try to soothe Marcus Glen’s wounded spirit, and offer him the sympathy of her virgin heart.

“I ask it in justice to myself, madam,” cried Glen, “for your niece—”

He was going to say more, but he checked himself, and bit his lips. “Of course, ladies, you would be present.”

“Impossible!” said the Honourable Philippa grimly.

“Don’t—don’t you think, sister,” faltered the Honourable Isabella, “that—that—Captain Glen might—might just see—just see Clotilde—for a few moments?”

“No!” said the Honourable Philippa, with quite a snap of her artificial teeth, and the Honourable Isabella seemed to shrink back into herself, quite dismayed by her sister’s almost ferocious way.

“I thank you, Miss Isabella,” said Glen, so warmly that the poor old lady’s heart began to palpitate at an unwonted rate, and she trembled and her hands were agitated, as if she would gladly have laid them in their visitor’s broad palms.—“You decline, then, to allow me to see Miss Clotilde?”

The Honourable Philippa bowed, and turned to her sister to see if she made as dignified a response to his appeal; but to her horror she saw her sister shaking her head violently as Glen now appealed to her in turn.

“Then, madam,” cried Glen angrily, “I give you fair warning that I shall spare no pains to gain an interview with your niece, for I do not, I will not believe that this is honest. It cannot be, and I am certain that the poor girl has been forced into this engagement. Ladies, I will say no more, for I fear that if I do I shall lose my temper. Miss Dymcox, good-morning. Miss Isabella, I thank you for your show of sympathy; good-bye.”

He felt that there could be no excuse for a longer stay, and strode angrily from the room; but he had hardly reached the foot of the stairs before he became aware of the fact that Marie was coming out of the schoolroom, where Ruth was now alone and a witness of what passed.

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Glen joyously, as he sprang forward and caught both Marie’s hands in his, making her flush and tremble with the warmth of his greeting. “Tell me, dear Marie, the meaning of all this dreadful news.”

She did not speak, but, giving herself up to the joy of the situation, she let her hands rest in his and gazed wistfully in his face, while Ruth sat in her place in the schoolroom and trembled, she knew not why.

“You do not speak,” said Glen. “Tell me, for heaven’s sake tell me, that this is all in opposition to your sister’s wishes.”

Marie still gazed wistfully in his face, and her hands, in spite of herself, returned the warm pressure of his.

“Surely—oh no; I will not believe it!” cried Glen. “It cannot be so. Marie, dear Marie, pray have compassion on me and tell me the truth.”

“Do—you wish me to tell you?” she said in a low voice that trembled with suppressed emotion.

“Yes, everything. If you have any feeling for me, tell me honestly all.”

Marie’s hands trembled more and more, and her colour went and came as she spoke.

“I will tell you what you wish, Captain Glen,” she said, in her low rich tones; “but do not blame me if it gives you pain.”

“I will not; only pray put an end to this terrible anxiety.”

There was a few moments’ silence, and then Glen said huskily:

“You know how Clotilde loved me, Marie?”

Marie’s dark eyes gazed fully, pityingly into his, but there was a slight curl of scorn upon her upper lip as she remained silent.

“No,” she said slowly, as she shook her head; “no, I do not.”

“You—do not!”

Marie hesitated to plant so sharp a sting in his heart, but, still, she panted to speak—to tell him that he had wasted his honest love upon one who did not value it, in the hope that he might turn to her; but at the same time she feared to overstep the mark, and her compunction to hurt the man she loved came and went.

“Why do you not tell me what you mean?” he said, pressing one of her hands so that he caused her intense pain.

“Because I shrink from telling you that Clotilde never cared for you in the least,” she said bitterly.

“How dare you say that?” he cried.

“If she had loved you, Captain Glen, would she have accepted Mr Elbraham for the sake of his wealth?”

He would have dropped her hand, but she held fast, full of passionate grief for him as she saw how deadly pale he had turned, and had they been in a less public place she would have clung to him, and told him how her heart bled for his pain.

“You are her sister, and could not say that which was false,” he said simply. “Tell me, then, is this all true?”

“Do you doubt me?” she asked, looking full in his eyes.

He held her hands, and looked down in the dark, handsome face that gazed so unflinchingly in his.

“No,” he said softly, “no;” and raising one of her hands to his lips, he kissed it, and then turned and left the place.

Marie’s reverie, as she stood there holding one soft hand pressed over the back of the other, where Marcus Glen’s lips had been, was interrupted by the voice of Clotilde.

“Rie: has he gone?”

“Yes,” said her sister, with a look of disgust, almost loathing, in her face.

“Poor boy! I hope he won’t mind much. I say, Rie, you can have him now. I’ll make you a present of his love. No, I won’t,” she said, flashing into life. “You shan’t look at him. If you do, I’ll tell him such things about you as shall drive him away.”

The sisters stood there upon the stairs gazing angrily one at the other, and Ruth, whose heart felt very sore, watched them in turn, and thought how hard all this was for Captain Glen, and also, with a sigh, how weak he must be.

“But they are both so handsome,” she said to herself half aloud; and then, with a kind of shiver, she began to think about Mr Montaigne.

Volume Two—Chapter Eleven.

Lady Littletown’s Diplomacy.

Mr Elbraham had not been long making up his mind to eschew shilly-shallying, and to propose at once. He was a clever man of business, and no one knew better than he how to work a few shares upon the Stock Exchange, and float a company so as to pour thousands into the laps of its promoters; but he had a weak side, and his late action was taken a good deal on account of the opposition he met with from his private secretary.

“Going to dine with ‘the maids of honour’ at Hampton Court!” said this latter gentleman, looking up in astonishment as his principal announced his intention; “why, you grumbled at having to go to Lady Littletown’s the other day, and she does give good dinners.”

“Capital,” said the financier, smacking his lips.

“But you won’t get anything fit to eat at the Palace.”

“My object is to get into better society,” said the financier promptly; “and the Dymcoxes are people of position. Of course, you know I met them there.”

“Ah, to be sure; so you did. Well, they certainly belong to a good family.”

“Yes,” said Mr Elbraham, strutting pompously up and down the room. “Lovely girl that Miss Clotilde!”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Arthur Litton; “she is handsome, certainly.”

“Humph! I should think she is, sir.”

“But I’ve seen many finer women,” continued Litton. “Not my style of girl at all.”

“Should think not, indeed,” said Elbraham hotly. “Bah, sir! stuff, sir! rubbish, sir! What do you know about handsome women?”

“Well, certainly,” said Litton humbly, and with a smile, as the financier walked away from him down the room—a smile which was replaced by a look as serious as that of the proverbial judge, when the great man turned; “I suppose my opinion is not worth much.”

“I should think not, indeed. I tell you she is magnificent.”

“Oh, nonsense, my dear sir,” said Litton warmly; “handsome if you like, but magnificent—no! You know dozens of finer women.”

“Maybe, maybe,” said the financier.

Litton paused for a few moments, tapping his teeth as if undecided, till his chief paused and looked at him curiously.

“Well, what is it?” he said.

“Look here, Mr Elbraham,” said Litton, “I suppose we are not very good friends?”

“H’m, I don’t know. You are in my pay,” said the financier coarsely, “so you ought to be one of my best friends.”

“You’ve said too many sharp things to me, Mr Elbraham, to make me feel warmly towards you; but, all the same, I confess that you have done me some very good turns in money matters; and I hope, though I take your pay, that I am too much of a gentleman to stand by and see anyone take a mean advantage of a weakness on your part.”

“Weakness? My part!” said the financier fiercely, as if the very idea of his being weak was absurd.

“Yes, sir, weakness. Look here, Mr Elbraham, I should not like to see you taken in.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Mean?” said Litton. “Well, Mr Elbraham, I’m not afraid of you; so whether you are offended or not, I shall speak out.”

“Then speak out, sir, and don’t shilly-shally.”

“Well, sir, it seems to me that there’s a good deal of fortune-hunting about. Those Dymcox people have good blood, certainly; but they’re as poor as rats, and I’ll be bound to say nothing would please the old aunts better than hooking you, with one of those girls for a bait.”

“Will you have the goodness to reply to that batch of letters, Mr Litton?” said Elbraham haughtily. “I asked your opinion—or, rather, gave you my opinion—of Miss Clotilde Dymcox, and you favour me with a pack of impertinent insinuations regarding the family at Hampton Court.” Mr Elbraham went angrily out into the hall to don his light and tight overcoat and grey hat, and walk down to the station.

As Litton heard the door close he sank back in his chair at the writing-table, and laughed silently and heartily.

“Ha, ha, ha!” he ejaculated; “and this is your clever financier—this is your man far above the ordinary race in shrewdness! Why am I not wealthy, too, when I can turn the scoundrel round my finger, clever as he believes he is? Clever, talented, great! Why, if I metaphorically pull his tail like one would that of a pig, saying, ‘You shan’t go that way!’ he grunts savagely, and makes straight for the hole.”

Arthur Litton took one of Mr Elbraham’s choice cigars from his case, deliberately pitched aside the letters he had to answer, struck a light, placed his heels upon the table, and, balancing his chair upon two legs, began to smoke.

“Well, so far so good,” he said at last, as he watched the aromatic rings of smoke ascend towards the ceiling. “I suppose it is so. Mr Elbraham is one of the cleverest men on ’Change, and he manages the money-making world. I can manage Mr Elbraham. Ergo, I am a cleverer man than the great financier; but he makes his thousands where I make shillings and pence. Why is this?”

The answer was all smoke; and satisfactory as that aromatic, sedative vapour was in the mouth, it was lighter than the air upon which it rose, and Arthur Litton continued his soliloquising.

“I’m afraid that I shall never make any money upon ’Change, or by bolstering up bad companies, and robbing the widow, the orphan, the retired officer, and the poor parson of their savings. It is not my way. I should have no compunction if they were fools enough to throw me their money. I should take it and spend it, as Elbraham and a score more such scoundrels spend theirs. What does it matter? What is the difference to him between having a few hundred pounds more or less in this world? They talk about starvation when their incomes are more than mine. They say they are beggared when they have hundreds left. Genteel poverty is one of the greatest shams under the sun.”

“Not a bad cigar,” he said, after a fresh pause. “He has that virtue in him, certainly, he does get good cigars; and money! money! money! how he does get money—a scoundrel!—while I get none, or next to none. Well, well, I think I am pulling the strings in a way that should satisfy the most exacting of Lady Littletowns, and it is ridiculous how the scoundrel of a puppet dances to the tune I play.”

He laughed in a way that would have made his fortune had he played Mephistopheles upon the stage. Then, carefully removing a good inch and a half of ash:

“And now, my sweet old match-maker,” he continued, “will you keep your promise? I am a poor unlucky devil, and the only way to save me is by settling me with a rich wife such as she promises.

“Hum, yes!” he said softly, “a wife with a good fortune. Elbraham takes one without a penny, for the sake of her looks; the aunts sell the girl for the sake of his money. A cheerful marriage, and,” he added cynically, “as the French say, après?”

“Take my case, as I am in a humour for philosophising. I am to be introduced to a rich lady, and shall marry her for the sake of the fortune. She will marry me for my youth, I suppose, and good looks—I suppose I may say good looks,” he continued, rising, crossing the room, and gazing in the glass. “Yes, Arthur, you may add good looks, for you are a gentlemanly fellow, and just of an age to attract a woman who is decidedly off colour.”

He paused, rested his elbows upon the chimney-piece, and kept on puffing little clouds of smoke against the mirror, watching them curiously as they obliterated his reflection for the moment, and then rolled slowly up, singularly close to the glass.

He did this again and again, watching his dimly-seen reflection till it had grown plain, and then he laughed as if amused.

“Yes, I am decidedly good-looking, and I say it without vanity,” he continued, “for I am looking at myself from a marketable point of view. And the lady? Suppose I always look at her through the clouds, for she will be elderly and plain—of that I may rest assured; but I can gild her; she will be gilded for me, and as the Scots say, ‘a’ cats are grey i’ the dark!’ so why should I mind? If I wed the fairest woman under the sun I should forget her looks in a week, while other men worried me by their admiration. So there it is, ladies and gentlemen; the fair Clotilde and the manly Arthur Litton about to be sold by Society’s prize-auction to the highest bidders, and this is the land where slavery is unknown—the land of the free! This, ladies and gentlemen, is Christian England!”

He seemed to be highly amused at this idea, and laughed and gazed at himself in the glass as if perfectly satisfied that his face would make a change in his lot, after which he threw away the remains of the cigar he was smoking, and taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, he walked across to Elbraham’s cabinet, which he unlocked, and helped himself to a couple of the best Rothschilds, one of which he lit.

Arthur Litton was very thoughtful now, and it took some time to get to work; but he finished the task entrusted to him, and then, after a little consideration, he rose to go, making his way to Lady Littletown’s.

Her ladyship was at home, in the conservatory, the footman said; and treating the visitor as an old friend, he opened the drawing-room door, and Litton walked in unannounced.

Her ladyship was busy, in a pair of white kid gloves, snipping off faded leaves and flowers, and she left her occupation to greet her visitor.

“Well, Arturo, no bad news, I hope?”

“Only that the great Potiphar, the man of money, is completely hooked, and determined to embark upon the troubled sea of matrimony.”

“Is that bad news?” said her ladyship. “I call it a triumph of diplomacy, Arturo. Spoils from the enemy!”

“Then you are satisfied?”

“More than satisfied, my clever diplomat, and you shall have your reward.”

“When?”

Lady Littletown snipped here and snipped there, treating some of her choicest flowers in a way that would have maddened her head gardener had he seen, for unfaded flowers dropped here and there beneath the stands in a way that showed her ladyship to be highly excited.

“Now look here, Arturo,” she exclaimed at last, as she turned upon him, and seemed to menace him with her sharp-pointed scissors, which poked and snipped at him till a bystander might have imagined that Lady Littletown took him for a flower whose head gave her offence—“Now look here, Arturo, do you want to make me angry?”

“No: indeed no,” he cried deprecatingly.

“Then why do you ask me such a question as that?”

“Well,” he said, smiling, “is it not reasonable that I should feel impatient?”

“Perhaps so. I’ll grant it; but, my good boy, you must be a man of the world; and now that we are upon that subject, let us understand one another.”

“By all means,” assented Litton eagerly.

“First of all, though, I cannot worry myself with too much work at once. I have those two girls to marry, and I must get that out of hand before I undertake more.”

“Exactly; and all is now in train.”

“Many a slip, Arturo, ’twixt cup and lip; but we shall see—we shall see.”

Her ladyship went on snipping vigorously.

“I want you to understand me. To speak plainly, Arturo, you are a gentleman of great polish.”

“Thanks,” he said, bowing.

“And a good presence.”

He bowed again.

“You are not quite handsome, but there is an aristocratic, well-bred look about you that would recommend you to any lady—and I mean you to marry a lady.”

“Yes, by all means. Pray don’t find me a young person who might pass for a relative of the great Elbraham.”

“My good boy, there is no such party in the field; and if there were, I should not allow you to try and turn up that haughty aristocratic nose at her. A hundred thousand pounds, dear Arturo, would gild over a great many blemishes.”

“True, O queen!” he said, smiling.

“As I said before, let us understand one another. You must not be too particular. Suppose the lady chances to be old?”

Litton made a grimace.

“And rich—very rich?”

“That would make amends,” he said with a smile.

“I could marry you myself, Arturo,” she continued, looking very much attenuated and hawk-like as she smiled at him in a laughing way.

“Why not?” he cried eagerly, as the richly-furnished home and income opened out to his mind ease and comfort for life.

“Because I am too old,” she said, smiling at the young man’s impetuosity.

“Oh, no,” he cried; “you would be priceless in my eyes.”

“Hold your tongue, Arturo, and don’t be a baby,” said her ladyship. “I tell you I am too old to be foolish enough to marry. There are plenty of older women who inveigh against matrimony, and profess to have grown too sensible and too wise to embark in it, who would give their ears to win a husband.”

“Why should not Lady Littletown be placed in this list?” said Litton meaningly.

“Because I tell you she is too old in a worldly way. No, my dear boy, when an elderly woman marries, it is generally because she is infatuated with the idea of possessing a young husband. She thinks for the moment that he woos her for her worldly store; but she is so flattered by his attentions that these outweigh all else, and she jumps at the opportunity of changing her state.”

“Again, then,” he whispered impressively, “why should not this apply to Lady Littletown?”

“Silence, foolish boy!” she cried, menacing him again with the scissors, and holding up her flower-basket as if to catch the snipped-off head. “I tell you I am too old in a worldly way, When a matter-of-fact woman reaches my years, and knows that she has gradually been lessening her capital in the bank of life, she tries to get as much as possible in the way of enjoyment out of what is left.”

“Exactly,” he cried eagerly.

“She takes matters coolly and weighs them fairly before her. ‘If,’ she says, ‘I take the contents of this scale I shall get so much pleasure. If I choose the contents of this other scale, I shall again obtain so much.’”

“Well, what then?” said Litton, for her ladyship paused in the act of decapitating a magnificent Japan lily.

“What then? Foolish boy! Why, of course she chooses the scale that will give her most pleasure.”

“Naturally,” he said.

“Then that is what I do.”

“But would not life with a man who would idolise you be far beyond any other worldly pleasure?”

“Yes,” said her ladyship drily; “but give me credit, mio caro Arturo, for not being such an old idiot as to believe that you would idolise me, as you call it.”

“Ah, you don’t know,” he cried.

“What you would be guilty of to obtain a good settlement in life, my dear boy?”

“You insult me,” he cried angrily.

“Oh no, my impetuous young friend; but really, Arturo, that was well done. Capital! It would be winning with some ladies. Rest assured that you shall have a rich wife. As for me, I have had you in the scale twice over. I did once think of marrying you.”

“You did?” he cried with real surprise.

“To be sure I did,” she said quietly. “Why not? I said to myself, ‘I am careless of the opinion of the world, and shall do as I please;’ and I pictured out my home with you, a distingué man, at the head.”

“You did?” he said excitedly.

“Of course I did. And then I pictured it as it is, with Lady Littletown, a power in her way, a well-known character in society, whose word has its influence, and one who can sway the destinies of many, in many ways, in the world.”

“No; say in one,” he exclaimed rather bitterly—“in the matrimonial world.”

“As you will, cher Arthur,” replied her ladyship. “You see, I am frank with you. I weighed it all carefully, as I said, and weighed it once again, to be sure that I was making no mistake, and the result was dead against change.”

“Highly complimentary to me!”

“A very excellent thing for you, my dear boy; for you would have led a wretched life.”

“Assuming that your ladyship’s charms had conquered my youthful, ardent heart?” he said.

“Silly boy! you are trying to be sarcastic,” said Lady Littletown. “Pish! I am too thick-skinned to mind it in the least. Be reasonable and listen, dear brother-in-arms.”

“Why not lover-in-arms?” he cried quickly—“in those arms.”

Lady Littletown placed her scissors in the hand that held the basket, raised her square gold eyeglass, and looked at her visitor.

“Well done, Arturo! excellent, mon général! Why, you would carry the stoutest fort I set you to attack in a few days. I have not heard anything so clever as that apt remark of yours for months. Really,” she continued, dropping the glass and resuming her scissors, “I am growing quite proud of you—I am indeed.”

“And so you mock at me,” he said angrily.

“Not I, Arturo; you were only practising; and it was very smart. No, my dear, it would not do for you; and I tell you frankly, you have had a very narrow escape.”

“Why?” he said; and his eyes glanced round at the rich place with its many indications of wealth, and as he noted these there came to his memory his last unpaid bill.

“Because I have a horrible temper, and I am a terrible tyrant. Of course you would have married me for my money and position.”

“Don’t say that,” cried Litton.

“Don’t be a donkey, Arthur, mon cher,” said the lady. “Well, to proceed: I should have married you because you were young and handsome.”

“Your ladyship seemed to indicate just now that I was not handsome,” said Litton.

“Did I? Well, I retract. I do think you handsome, Arturo, and I should have been horribly jealous of you as soon as I found that you were paying your court elsewhere.”

“Does your ladyship still imagine that I could be such a scoundrel?” cried Litton, in indignant tones.

The square golden eyeglass went up again.

“Excellent, Arturo, my dear boy! You would have made a fortune upon the stage in tragi-comedy. Nothing could have been finer than that declaration. Really, I am proud of you! But I should have led you a horrible life, and been ready to poison you if I found you out in deception.”

“Lady Littletown, I hope I am a gentleman,” said the visitor haughtily.

“I hope you are, I’m sure, my dear boy,” said her ladyship, smiling at him serenely. “But, as you see, I could not have put up with my money being lavished upon others; and hence I thought it better to let someone else have you.”

“But, my dear Lady Littletown—”

“Ah, tut, tut, tut! no rhapsodies, please, my sweet ingenuous Lubin. I am no Phyllis now, believe me, and all this is waste of words. There, be patient, my dear boy, and you shall have a rich wife, and she shall be as young as I can manage; but, mind, I do not promise beauty. Do you hear? Are the raptures at an end?”

“Oh yes, if you like,” he said bitterly.

“I do like, my dear boy; so they are at an end. Really, Arturo, I feel quite motherly towards you, and, believe me, I shall not rest until I see you well mated.”

“Thanks, my dear Lady Littletown,” he said; “and with that, I suppose, I am to be contented.”

“Yes, sir; and you ought to be very thankful, Do you hear?”

“Yes,” he replied, taking and kissing one of her ladyship’s gardening gloves. “And now I must be for saying au revoir.”

“Au revoir, cher garçon!” replied her ladyship; and she followed her visitor out of the conservatory into the drawing-room, and rang the bell for the servant in attendance to show him out.

“It wouldn’t have been a bad slice of luck to have married her and had this place. But, good heavens, what an old hag!”

“I should have been an idiot to marry him,” said her ladyship, as soon as she was alone. “He is very handsome and gentlemanly and nice; but he would have ruined me, I am sure of that. Ah well, the sooner I find him someone else with a good income the better. Let him squander that. Why—”

She stopped short.

“How stupid of me! The very thing! Lady Anna Maria Morton has just come in for her brother’s estate.”

Lady Littletown stood thinking.

“She is fifty if she is a day, perhaps fifty-five, and as tremulous as Isabella Dymcox. But what of that? Dear Anna Maria! I have not called upon her for a fortnight. How wrong! I shall be obliged to have a little partie carrée to dinner. Let me see—Lady Anna Maria, Arthur, myself, and—dear, dear—dear, dear me! Who shall I have that is not stupid enough to spoil sport?”

She walked about in a fidgety manner, and then picked up her card-basket, raised the square gold eyeglass, and turned the cards over in an impatient manner.

“Not one—not one!” she cried reluctantly. “Never mind; she shall come to a tête-à-tête dinner, and Arthur shall drop in by accident, and stop. Dear boy, how I do toil and slave on his behalf! But stay,” she added, after a pause; “shall I wait and get the Dymcox business over first? No; what matters? I am diplomat enough to carry on both at once; and, by-the-bye, I must not let that little military boy slip through my fingers, for he really is a prize. Taken with Marie; but that won’t do,” she continued. “Moorpark must have her, and I dare say somebody will turn up.”

She took her seat at the table then, and began to write a tiny note upon delicately-scented paper. The first words after the date were: “My dearest Anna Maria,” and she ended with: “Your very affectionate friend.”

Volume Two—Chapter Twelve.

A Matter-of-Fact Match.

Dick Millet received a note in his uncle’s crabbed hand one morning at Hampton Court, obtained leave, and hurried up to town, calling at Grosvenor Square to hear the last news about Gertrude, but finding none.

On arriving at Wimpole Street, Vidler opened the door to the visitor, and smiled as he did so in rather a peculiar way.

“Can I speak to my uncle?” said Dick importantly. And he was shown up into the drawing-room, which seemed more gloomy now, lit as it was by four wax-candles, which were lost, as it were, in a great mist of old-time air, that had been shut up in that room till it had grown into a faded and yellow atmosphere carefully preserved from the bleaching properties of the sun.

The little opening was to his right, with the white hand visible on the ledge; but Dick hardly saw it, for, as he entered, Gertrude ran to his arms, to fall sobbing on his neck, while John Huish came forward offering his hand.

“Then it was you, John Huish, after all?” Dick exclaimed angrily, as he placed his own hand behind his back.

“Yes, it was I. What else could I do, forbidden as I was to come to the house? Come, my dear Dick, don’t be hard upon me now.”

“But,” exclaimed Dick in a puzzled way, “how was all this managed?”

“Shall we let that rest?” said Huish, smiling. “Neither Gertrude nor I are very proud of our subterfuges. But come, we are brothers now. We can count upon you, can we not, to make friends with her ladyship.”

“I—don’t know,” said Dick quietly, for his mind was busy with the thoughts of the awkward reports he had heard concerning Huish and his position at various clubs, and he asked himself whether he should be the friend and advocate of a man who was declared to be little better than a blackleg.

“Surely I can count upon you,” said Huish, after a pause.

“Suppose we step down into the dining-room,” said Dick stiffly; but he gave his sister an encouraging smile as she caught his hand.

“Dick,” she whispered, “what does this mean?”

“Only a little clearing up between John Huish and me, dear,” he said. “After that, I dare say I shall be able to tell you I’m glad you’re his wife.”

Gertrude smiled, and Huish followed down to the dining-room, which, lit by one candle, looked like a vault. Arrived here, though, Dick turned sharply upon his brother-in-law.

“Now, look here, John Huish,” he said, “I won’t quarrel about the past and this clandestine match, for perhaps, if I had been situated as you were, I should have done the same; but there is something I want cleared up.”

“Let us clear it up at once then,” said Huish, smiling. “What is it?”

“Well, there are some sinister reports about you—you see, I speak plainly.”

“Yes, of course. Go on.”

“Well, they say commonly that you have been playing out of the square at the clubs; that you’ve been expelled from two, and that your conduct has been little better than that of a blackleg. John Huish, as a gentleman and my brother-in-law, how much of this is true? Stop a moment,” he added hastily. “I know, old man, what it is myself to be pinched for money, and how a fellow might be tempted to do anything shady to get some together to keep up appearances. If there has been anything queer it must be forgiven; but you must give me your word as a man that for the future all shall be right.”

“My dear Dick,” cried Huish, “I give you my word that all in the future shall be square, as you term it; and I tell you this, that if any man had spoken such falsehoods about my wife’s brother, I should have knocked him down. There isn’t a word of truth in these reports, though I must confess they have worried me a great deal. Now, will you shake hands?”

“That I will,” cried Dick eagerly; “and I tell you now that I am glad that you have thrown dust in our eyes as you have. I always liked you, Huish, and you were about the only man from whom I never liked to borrow money.”

“Why?” said Huish, smiling.

“Because I was afraid of losing a friend. Come up now, for Gertrude will be in a fidget to know what we have been saying.—Gertrude, my dear,” he said as they re-entered the drawing-room, “it’s all right.”

An hour later Dick parted from the young couple at the little house they had taken in Westbourne Road, and cabbed back, to send her ladyship into a fainting fit by the announcement that his sister and her husband had been at his uncle’s.

“For,” said Lady Millet, “I can never forgive Gertrude; and as to that dreadful man Huish, in marrying him she has disgraced herself beyond the power to redeem her lot. Ah me! and these are the children I have nurtured in my bosom.”

It was rather hard work for Dick Millet, with his own love affairs in a state of “check,” with no probability of “mate,” but he felt that he must act; and in his newly assumed character of head of the family he determined to go and try to smooth matters over at Chesham Place, and took a hansom to see Frank Morrison, who was now back at his own house, but alone, and who surlily pointed to a chair as he sat back pale and nervous of aspect, wrapped in a dressing-gown.

“Look here, Frank,” said Dick, sitting down, and helping himself to a cigar, “we’re brothers-in-law, and I’m not going to quarrel. I’ve come for the other thing.”

“My cigars, seemingly,” said the other.

“Yes; they’re not bad. But look here, old fellow, light up; I want to talk to you.”

“If you want to borrow twenty pounds, say so, and I’ll draw you a cheque.”

“Hang your cheque! I didn’t come to borrow money. Light up.”

Morrison snatched up a cigar, bit off the end, and lit it, threw himself back in his chair, and began to smoke quickly.

“Go on,” he said. “What is it?”

“Wait a minute or two,” said Dick. “Smoke five minutes first.”

Morrison muttered something unpleasant, but went on smoking, and at last Dick, who was sitting with his little legs dangling over the side of the chair, began.

“Fact is,” he said, “I’m going to speak out. I shan’t quarrel, and I’m such a little chap that you can’t hit me.”

“No; but I could throw you downstairs,” said Morrison, who was half amused, half annoyed by his visitor’s coming, though in his heart of hearts he longed to hear news of Renée.

“I saw my uncle yesterday.”

“Indeed! Poor old lunatic! What had he got to say?”

“Ah, there you are wrong!” said Dick sharply. “He said something which you will own proved that he was no lunatic.”

“What was it?” said Morrison coldly.

“That you were a confounded scoundrel.”

Frank Morrison jumped up in his chair, scowling angrily; but he threw himself back again with a contemptuous “Pish!”

“Proves it, don’t it?”

“Look here,” cried Morrison angrily, “I’ve had about enough of your family, so please finish your cigar and go.”

“Shan’t. There, it’s no use to twist about. I’ve come on purpose to sit upon you.”

“Look here,” cried Morrison sternly, “has your sister sent you?”

“No. I’ve come of my own free will, as I tell you, to show you what a fool you are, and to try and bring you to your senses.”

“You are very ready at calling people fools,” said Morrison, biting his nails.

“Well, don’t you deserve to be called one for acting as you have acted? What did you do? Went mad after a woman who didn’t care a sou for you; neglected a dear, good girl who did care for you, and exposed her to the persecutions of a scoundrel who has no more principle than that.”

He snapped his fingers, and, instead of firing up with rage, Morrison turned his face away and smoked furiously.

“Now, isn’t that all true, Frank? Here, give me a light.”

Morrison lit a spill, passed it to his brother-in-law, and sank back in his chair.

“I say,” continued Dick, as he lit his cigar again, “isn’t it (puff) quite (puff) true?”

“I suppose so,” said the other listlessly. “She never cared for me, though, Dick. That scoundrel and she were old flames.”

“First, a lie; second, true,” said Dick quietly. “Renée is as good as gold; and when she found she was to be your wife, she accepted the inevitable and tried to do her duty, poor girl! She was already finding out what a bad one Malpas was.”

“Curse him! don’t mention his name here!” cried Morrison savagely.

“I say she was already finding out what a cursed scoundrel Malpas was when she married you.”

“She encouraged his visits afterwards,” cried Morrison fiercely. “The villain owned it to me.”

“And you didn’t thrust your fist down his throat?”

Morrison got up and paced the room.

“Look here, Frank, old fellow: you are beginning to find out what a donkey you have been. You are easy-going, and it’s no hard job to lead you away. Now tell me this: didn’t Malpas introduce you to a certain lady?”

“Yes,” was the sulky reply.

“Of course,” said Dick. “He takes you and moulds you like putty, introduces you to people so as to make your wife jealous, out of revenge for your supplanting him, and then tries to supplant you in turn.”

“Dick Millet,” cried Morrison, “you mean well, but I can’t bear this. Either be silent or go. If I think of the scene on that dreadful night when I was sent home by a note written by that scoundrel of a brother-in-law of yours—”

“Meaning yourself?” said Dick coolly.

“I mean that double-faced, double-lived, double-dyed traitor, John Huish.”

“What!”

“The man who has fleeced me more than Malpas—curse him!—ever did.”

“Gently! I won’t sit and hear John Huish maligned like that.”

“Maligned!” cried Morrison, with a bitter laugh.

“As if anyone could say anything bad enough of the scoundrel!”

“Look here, Frank,” said Dick rather warmly, “I came here to try and do you a good turn, not to hear John Huish backbitten. He’s a good, true-hearted fellow, who has been slandered up and down, and he don’t deserve it.”

Morrison sat up, stared at him in wonder, and then burst into a scornful laugh.

“Dick Millet,” he exclaimed, “you called me a fool a little while ago. I won’t call you so, only ask you whether you don’t think you are one.”

“I dare say I am,” said Dick sharply. “But look here, are you prepared to prove all this about John Huish?”

“Every bit of it, and ten times as much,” said Morrison. “Why, this scoundrel won or cheated me of the money that paid for his wedding trip. He was with me till the last instant. Yes, and, as well as I can recollect, after he had got your sister away.”

Dick’s cigar went out, and his forehead began to pucker up.

“Look here,” he said: “you told me that he sent you the note that made you go home that night. Where were you?”

“At a supper with some actresses.”

“But John Huish was not there!”

“Not there. Why, he was present with the lady who was his companion up to the time that he honoured your sister with his name. I believe he visits her now.”

“I can’t stand this,” cried Dick, throwing away his cigar. “How a fellow who calls himself a man can play double in this way gets over me. Frank Morrison, if I did as much I should feel as if I had ‘liar’ written on my face, ready for my wife to see. It’s too much to believe about John Huish. I can’t—I won’t have it. Why, it would break poor little Gerty’s heart.”

“Break her heart!” said Morrison bitterly. “Perhaps she would take a leaf out of her sister’s book.”

“Confound you, Frank Morrison!” cried Dick, in a rage, as he jumped up and faced his brother-in-law. “I won’t stand it. My two sisters are as pure as angels. Do you dare to tell me to my face that you believe Renée guilty?”

There was a dead silence in the room, and at last Frank Morrison spoke.

“Dick,” he said, and his voice shook, “you are a good fellow. You are right: I am a fool and a scoundrel.”

“Yes,” cried Dick; “but do you dare to tell me you believe that of Renée?”

“I’d give half my life to know that she was innocent,” groaned Morrison.

“You are a fool, then,” cried Dick, “or you’d know it. There, I didn’t come to quarrel, but to try and make you both happy; and now matters are ten times worse. But I won’t believe this about John.”

“It’s true enough,” said Morrison sadly. “Poor little lass! I liked Gertrude. You should not have let that scoundrel have her.”

“We have a weakness for letting our family marry scoundrels.”

“Yes,” said Morrison, speaking without the slightest resentment; “she had better have had poor Lord Henry Moorpark.”

“Oh!” said Dick. “There, I’m going. ’Day.”

He moved towards the door, but Morrison stopped him.

“Dick,” he said; “did Renée know you were coming?”

“No,” was the curt reply.

“Is she—is she still at your uncle’s?”

“Yes, nearly always.”

“Is she—is she well?”

“No. She is ill. Heartsick and broken; and if what you say is true, she will soon have poor Gerty to keep her company.”

Dick Millet hurried away from his brother-in-law’s house, pondering upon his own love matters, and telling himself that he had more to think of than he could bear.

In happy ignorance of her ladyship’s prostrate state, John Huish, soon after his brother-in-law’s departure, hurried off to pay a hasty visit to his club, where he asked to see the secretary, and was informed that that gentleman was out. He threw himself into a cab, looking rather white and set of countenance as he had himself driven to Finsbury Square, where Daniel looked at him curiously as he ushered him into the doctor’s room.

“My dear, dear boy, I am glad!” cried the doctor, dashing down his glasses. “You did the old lady, after all, and carried the little darling off. Bless her heart! Why, the gipsy! Oh, won’t I talk to her about this. That’s the best thing I’ve known for years. What does your father say?”

“He wrote me word that he was very glad, and said he should write to Gertrude’s uncle.”

“Ah, yes. H’m!” said the doctor. “Best thing, too. They were once very great friends, John.”

“Yes, I have heard so,” said Huish. “I think Captain Millet loved my mother.”

“H’m, yes,” said the doctor, nodding. “They quarrelled. Well, but this is a surprise! You dog, you! But the secrecy of the whole thing! How snug you kept it! But, I say, you ought to have written to us all.”

“Well, certainly, I might have written to you, doctor, but I confess I forgot.”

“I say, though, you should have written to the old man.”

“We did, letter after letter.”

“Then that old—there, I won’t say what, must have suppressed them. She was mad because her favourite lost. It would have been murder to have tied her up to that wreck. I say, though, my boy,” continued the doctor seriously, “I don’t think you ought to have carried on so with Frank Morrison. He has had D.T. terribly.”

“What had that to do with me?” said Huish. “If a man will drink, he must take the consequences.”

“Exactly,” said the doctor coldly; “but his friends need not egg him on so as to win his money.”

“He should not choose scoundrels for his companions,” said Huish coldly.

“H’m, no, of course not,” said the doctor, coughing, and hurrying to change the conversation. “By the way, why didn’t you tell me all this when you came last?”

“How could I?” said Huish, smiling. “I was not a prophet.”

“Prophet, no! but why keep it secret then?”

“Secret? Well,” said Huish; “but really—I was not justified in telling it then.”

“What I not when you had been married?”

“I don’t understand you,” said Huish, with his countenance changing.

“I mean,” said the doctor, “why didn’t you tell me when you were here a fortnight ago; and—let me see,” he continued, referring to his note-book, “you were due here last Wednesday, and again yesterday.”

John Huish drew a long breath, and the pupils of his eyes contracted as he said quietly:

“Why, doctor, I told you that I had been on the Continent, and only returned two days ago.”

“Yes; of course. We know—fashionable fibs: Out of town; not at home, etcetera, etcetera.”

“My dear doctor,” said Huish, fidgeting slightly in his seat, “I have always made it a practice to try and be honest in my statements. I tell you I only came back two days ago.”

“That be hanged, John Huish!” cried the doctor. “Why, you were here a fortnight ago yesterday.”

“Nonsense,” cried Huish excitedly. “How absurd!”

“Absurd? Hang it, boy! do you think I’m mad? Here is the entry,” he continued, reading. “Seventh, John Huish, Nervous fit—over-excitement—old bite of dog—bad dreams—dread of hydrophobia. Prescribed, um—um—um—etcetera, etcetera. Now then, what do you say to that?”

“You were dreaming,” said Huish.

“Dreaming?” said the doctor, laughing. “What! that you—here, stop a moment.” He rang the bell. “Ask Daniel yourself when you were here last.”

“What nonsense!” said Huish, growing agitated. Then as the door opened, “Daniel,” he said quietly, “when was I here last?”

“Yesterday fortnight, sir,” said the man promptly.

“That will do, Daniel!” and the attendant retired as Huish sank back in his chair, gazing straight before him in a strange, vacant manner. “What a fool I am!” muttered the doctor. “I’ve led him on to it again. Hang it! shall I never understand my profession?”

“I’ll go now,” said Huish drearily, as he rose; but Dr Stonor pressed him back in his seat.

“No, no; sit still a few minutes,” he said quietly.

“I—I thought it was gone,” said Huish; “and life seemed so bright and happy on ahead. Doctor, I’ve never confessed, even to you, what I have suffered from all this. I have felt horrible at times. The devil has tempted me to do the most dreadful things.”

“Poor devil!” said the doctor. “What a broad back he must have to bear all that the silly world lays upon it!”

“You laugh. Tell me, what does it mean? How is it? Do I do things in my sleep, or when I am waking, and then do they pass completely away from my memory? Tell me truly, and let me know the worst. Am I going to lose my reason?”