George Manville Fenn (continued 2)

And so it was that previously, on one of these days when he had to go on business to the Fort, he had told the woman in his hard, matter-of-fact way that he had prayed for guidance, and that he felt it was his duty and her duty that they two should wed.

Sarah, in her hard, matter-of-fact way, asked for time to consider the matter herself, and at the end of a year’s cold, business-like term of probation, she gave Isaac Woodham her hand, left the Fort, and went to live at one of the quarry cottages, which became at once the most spotless in the stone-cutters’ hamlet by the sea.

They neither of them ever displayed any great affection one for the other, but led a quiet, childless, orderly life, in which she—with no pleasant recollections of her sojourn at the Fort, but still with a deep, almost motherly kind of affection for the girl whom she had seen grow up to womanhood—listened to and sided with her husband in his harsh revilings of his tyrant.

It was Isaac Woodham’s never-failing theme—his hatred of his master, whom he looked upon with the bitter, narrow-minded envy of his nature. Every sharp word was magnified, every business order was looked upon as an insulting piece of tyranny, and after obeying in a morose, sulky way, he took his revenge by pitying the owner of the quarry, and praying that he might repent and become a better man.

This went on for years, during which Norman Gartram did not repent after his servant’s ideas of repentance; and had he known the circumstances, he would have said he had nothing to repent of, which, as far as his men were concerned, was perfectly just—his greatest sins being the insistence upon receiving a fair return for the wages he paid, and a rather stern way of giving his orders to all, Woodham being the most trusted for his sterling honesty, albeit Gartram sneered at him as being full of cant.

Then came the catastrophe, with Sarah, the newly-made widow, in her bereavement, feeling that in her hard way she had dearly loved the cold, stern man who had been her husband those last few years; and then she shivered as she thought of the oath he had exacted from her, and felt that it was an order from the unseen world.

Her husband had nursed indifference into hatred, till she was as bitter against Gartram as he was himself; and years passed as the sharer of his troubles had made her so much akin that, like her husband, she was full of the bitter letter of the old Scriptures, without the under-current of the spirit of forgiveness and love.

And so it was that she sat there low in spirit, thinking of the few short hours that would elapse before friends would come and bear away the cold, stern-faced form of him who had been her all, straight to the little chapel-yard, with its rough granite walls, beyond the quarry, where he would be laid to rest, well within hearing of the waves, which would lull him in his long sleep, and near to where all day long rang out the crack of the heavy stone hammers, the ring of the tamping irons, and from time to time the sharp report and the following roar of some charge when a mass of the titanic granite was laid low.

Only a few days could elapse, she thought, before, in obedience to the new orders of a cruel master, she would have to leave the carefully kept cottage which had been her pride—the only pride to which she gave harbour in her breast.

And it would be better so, she thought. The sooner Gartram bade her turn out homeless, almost penniless in the world, the easier would be her task. It would give her fresh cause for hatred, a new stimulus for destroying the man who had caused her husband’s death.

It was hour by hour, with the dead lying so near, becoming easier to her to think of Gartram as her husband’s murderer. Isaac had with his dying lips insisted upon it that this was so, and he could not lie. The seed he had planted then was rapidly growing into a tree, and, accepting the task, she brooded over the deed she was to do, telling herself that it was to give immortal rest to him who was gone before; and once the task was accomplished, she prayed that she might soon rejoin him in the realms of bliss, and look him again in the eyes and say—“It is done.”

How was it to be?

She sat there, with a strange, lurid light in her dark eyes, thinking over the vengeance and of those of whom she had read; of how Jael slew Sisera with the hammer and nail—that deadly enemy of the chosen race. Then of Judith; and a strange exultation filled her breast, and in her weak, ignorant way she began to feel herself more and more as one selected to become the instrument of Heavens punishment upon one accursed.

“The way will be opened unto me,” she said to herself. “The way will be opened unto me, and the wicked shall perish. Yes, husband, you shall rest in peace.”

She started erect in her chair, and turned a fierce look of anger towards the door, as at that moment there was a light step, a shadow fell across the clean white stone, a sweet-toned, tremulous voice uttered her name, and there was the rustling of a dress upon the floor, while the next moment two soft arms were about her neck, her cheeks were wet with another’s tears. For Claude was kneeling by her, with her head resting on the hard, heavily-beating heart, and the girl’s broken voice fell upon her ears.

“My poor, poor Sarah! I could not come to you before. What can I do to help you? What can I say?”

Claude could not see the wild, agonised face, as she rested upon the trembling woman’s breast. There had been kindly, sympathetic, neighbourly words enough spoken to her before, but these—the words of the girl she had years before tended and loved, winning her gentle young love in return—went straight to her overcharged heart. The tears falling for her sorrow seemed to quench the burning glow of bitterness and hate, and the next moment vengeance, and the determination to execute her husband’s command, were swept away: her arms were tightening round the slight, girlish form as if it were something to which she could cling for safety, and the tears that had seemed dried up, after searing her brain, poured forth as she bent down sobbing hysterically, and in broken accents calling her visitor, “My darling bairn.”

Half-an-hour had passed, and the bitter wailing and hysterical cries had ceased, while the suffering woman’s breast heaved slowly now, like the surface of the sea quieting after a storm; but she still held Claude tightly to her, and rocked herself gently to and fro, as in bygone years she had held the girl when some trouble had brought her, motherless, and smarting from some bitter scolding, to seek for consolation and help.

The words came at last to break the silence of the solitary place.

“It was like you to come, my darling, and I shall never, never forget it. It was like you.”

“You know I would have come to you before, but poor papa has been so ill, and I dared not come away. But he is better now, and sitting up.”

The mention of Gartram seemed to harden the woman once more, and with a catching sigh she sat up rigidly in her chair. The thoughts of him who lay waiting in the next chamber brought with them the terrible scenes through which she had passed, and the scale of tenderness which Claude had borne down now rose upward to kick the beam.

“It was a terrible shock to him,” continued Claude. “You have been too full of your own trouble to know, but he was seized with a fit, and when I reached home I thought he was dead.”

The woman drew her breath hard, but did not speak; only sat frowning, her brow a maze of wrinkles, her lips drawn to a thin pink line, and her teeth set fast, gazing once more straight before her at the drawn-down blind.

“Hah!” she ejaculated at last. “It has all come to an end.”

Claude started, and looked up in the woman’s face, the words were spoken in so strange and hard a tone.

“I don’t like to talk to you about the future, and hope,” Claude said at last; “it seems such a vain kind of way to comfort any one in affliction.”

“Yes; life is all affliction,” said the woman bitterly; and she frowned now at the kneeling girl.

“No, no; you must not look at things like that, Sarah. But it is hard to bear. How well I remember coming to see your home directly you were married.”

“Don’t talk about it, child,” said the woman hoarsely.

“No, we’ll talk about something else; or will it not be kinder if I sit with you only, and stay as long as I can?”

“No,” said the woman harshly. “Rennals will take poor Isaac’s place. How soon will it be?”

“How soon?”

“Yes; how soon shall I have to turn out of my poor old home?”

“Don’t talk about it now, Sarah,” said Claude gently. “It will be terribly painful for you, I know.”

“Painful!” said the woman, with a bitter laugh, “to go out once more into the cruel world. But a way will open,” she added to herself; “the time will come.”

Her face grew more stony of aspect moment by moment, as she gazed through her nearly closed eyelids straight before her, heedless of the fact that Claude had risen from her knees, and was holding one of her hands.

“Don’t talk of the world so bitterly, Sarah, dear,” said Claude gently. “I must go now.”

“Yes,” said the woman, in a harsh voice.

“Mary is sitting with papa till I go back, or she would have come with me. She sent her kindest and most sympathetic wishes to you. She is coming to see you soon.”

“Yes,” said the woman again, in the same strange, harsh way.

“You know you have many friends and well-wishers who will be only too glad to help you.”

“Yes; Norman Gartram, whose first thought is to turn me out of the home we have shared so long.”

“Don’t be unjust, Sarah, dear. Papa speaks harshly sometimes, but he has the welfare of all his people at heart.”

“And casts me out on to the high road.”

“Nonsense, dear,” said Claude gently. “Don’t speak in that bitter way, when we are all trying so hard to soften your terrible loss. Papa’s business must go on; and Rennals, naturally, takes poor Woodham’s place. I thought it all over this morning, and I felt that you would consent.”

“To give up the house? Of course; it is not mine.”

“And would be of no use to you now.”

“No;—but a way will open to me yet,” she added to herself.

“Sarah, dear old friend, you could not live alone. You will come back to your own old place with us?”

“What?”

The woman sprang to her feet as if she had received some shock, then reeled, and would have fallen, but for Claude’s quick aid.

“I have been too sudden. I ought to have waited, but I thought it would set your mind at rest.”

“Say that again,” whispered the woman, with her eyes closed.

“There is nothing to say. Papa will agree with me that it would be best to have our dear old servant back again; and, as soon as you can, you will come.”

“No, no; no, no; it is impossible,” cried the woman, with a shudder. “I could not return.”

“You think so now; but papa will consent, and I shall insist, too. But there will be no need to insist. It will be like coming back home.”

“No, I tell you,” cried the woman excitedly; and it was as if a wild fit of delirium had suddenly attacked her. “No, no, Isaac, darling, I cannot, I dare not do this thing.”

“My poor old nurse,” said Claude affectionately; “we will not talk about it now. You must wait, and think how it will be for the best.”

“Be for the best!” she cried, in a wild strange way. “You do not know—you do not know.”

“Oh, yes; better than you do, I am sure. Come, I will leave you now. Don’t look so wildly at me. There, good-bye, dear old nurse—my dear old nurse. Kiss me, as you used when I was quite a child, and try to reconcile yourself to coming to us. It is fate.”

Claude kissed her tenderly, and then, not daring to say more, she hurried from the darkened room, to walk swiftly back, glad that the loneliness of the cliff road enabled her to let tears have their free course for a time.

Could she have seen the interior of the cottage, she would have stared in wonder and dread, for, sobbing wildly and tearing at her breast, with all the unbridled grief of one of her class, Sarah Woodham was walking hurriedly to and fro, like some imprisoned creature trying to escape from the bars which hemmed it in.

“His child,”—she cried,—“his poor, innocent child to draw me there. What did she say? It is fate. Yes, it is fate; and we are but the instruments to work His will.”

She stopped, gazing wildly towards the inner chamber, pausing irresolutely for a few moments before rushing in and flinging herself upon her knees by the dead.

It was an hour after that she came tottering out, to stand by the chair she had occupied, and by which she found a handkerchief Claude had dropped; and, catching it up, she pressed it to her lips.

“His poor, innocent child to lead me there to execute judgment on the evil doer. And I have prayed so hard—so hard—in vain—in vain. Yes, she is right. We are but instruments; and it is my fate.”

She stood with her hands pressed to her brow, as if to keep her throbbing brain from bursting its bonds. Then a strangely-weird, despairing look came across her darkening face, and she let herself sink, as if it were vain to combat more; and there was a terrible silence in the place, as she seemed to be looking forward into the future.

Once again she broke that silence as the turn of her thoughts was made manifest, but her voice sounded harsh and broken, as if the words would hardly come.

“His innocent child—the girl I loved as if she had been my own flesh and blood;” and her voice rose to a wail. Then, after a few moments’ silence: “Yes, I must go. I swore to the dead, and the way is opened now. It is my fate.”

Volume One—Chapter Nine.

The Beggar.

Christopher Lisle sat in his snug, bachelor room at Danmouth, tying a fly with a proper amount of dubbing, hackle, and tinsel, for the deluding of some unfortunate salmon. The breakfast things were still on the table, and there was a cloud over his head, and another cloud in his brain.

The room was bright and pleasant, overlooked the sea, and was just such a place as a bachelor in comfortable circumstances, with a love for outdoor sports, would have called a snuggery. For it was just so tidy as not to be very untidy, with fishing and shooting gear in all directions; pipes in a rack, tobacco jars and cigar boxes on shelves; natural history specimens in trays and cabinets, from pinned beetles up to minerals and fossils; and under a table, in a case, lay Chris Lisle’s largest salmon, carefully cast and painted to fairly resemble life.

The tying of that fly did not progress, and after a good many stoppages it was thrown down impatiently.

“Confound the hook,” cried Chris. “That’s four times I’ve pricked my finger. Everything seems to go wrong. Now, what had I better do? He ought to be well enough to see me now, and so better get it over. I’d no business to go on as I did; but who could help it, bless her, holding her in my arms like that, and loving her as I do? Wrong. Oh, it was honest human nature; and any other fellow would have done the same.

“I suppose I ought to have spoken to the old man first. Though who in the world could think of him at a time like that. But how black he looked; and then there was that confounded good-looking yachtsman there.”

This was a point in the business which required thinking out; and to do this thoroughly Chris Lisle took up a black pipe, filled it, and after lighting it daintily with a good deal of toying with the flame, he threw himself back in his chair, and began to frown and smoke.

“No,” he said aloud, after a long pause. “Nonsense; the old fellow might think something of it, but my darling little Claude—never. And she’s not the girl to flirt and play with any one. No; I know her too well for that—far too well. I frightened her, I was so sudden. A woman is so different to a man, and that wasn’t put on; it was sheer timidity—poor little darling! How I do long to apologise, and ask her to forgive me. I must have seemed terribly awkward and boorish in her eyes, for I pulled up quite sulkily after that facer I got from Mary Dillon. The nasty, spiteful little minx. It was too bad. Fortune-hunter! Why, I’d marry Claudie without a penny, and be glad of the chance. Hang the old man’s money. What do two young people, who love each other dearly, want with money?”

The idea seemed to be absurd, and he sat smoking dreamily for some minutes.

“I’ll serve the spiteful, sharp-tongued little thing out for this,” he said at last. “No, I will not. Rubbish! She didn’t mean it. But I’ll go up and hear how the old man is. He ought to be able to see me this morning, and I’ll speak out plainly this time, and get it over.”

Chris Lisle was not the man to hesitate. He threw aside his pipe, rang for the breakfast things to be cleared away, glanced at the looking-glass to see if he appeared decent, and stuck a straw hat on his crisp, curly hair.

“Not half such a good-looking chap as the yachtsman,” he said, with a half laugh. “Glad of it. Wouldn’t be such a smooth-looking dandy for the world. Why, hang it!” he said with a laugh, as he strode along by the rocky beach in the full tide of his manly vigour, “I could eat a fellow like that. I never thought of it before,” he continued to himself, as he walked on. “Fortune-hunter! I can’t be called a poor man. Two hundred and fifty a year. Why, I never felt short of money in my life. Always seemed to be enough for everything I wanted. Bah! nobody but little midges up there could ever say such a thing as that.”

A peculiar change seemed just then to be taking place in Chris Lisle. The moment before he was swinging easily along, giving a friendly nod here and there to fishermen and loungers, who saluted him with a smile and a “Morn, Mr Chris, sir,” the next he had grown stiff and rigid, as he saw a dingy pulled in to the landing-place some distance ahead, and Glyddyr leap out, the distance fitting so that the young men had to pass each other, which they did with a short nod of recognition.

“Swell!” muttered Chris contemptuous, as he strode on.

“Bumpkin!” thought Glyddyr, as he went in the other direction, and he laughed softly to himself.

A short distance farther along the cliff road Chris came suddenly upon a figure in deep mourning, and he stopped short, with his whole manner changing once more.

“Ah, Mrs Woodham,” he said, in a low voice full of commiseration, “I have not been up to the quarry, but I had not forgotten an old friend. Can I be of any service to you?”

The woman shook her head.

“Don’t do that,” he said kindly. “They will not keep you, but recollect, Sarah, that we are very old friends, and I shall be hurt if you want money and don’t come to me.”

“God bless you, Master Chris,” said the woman hoarsely; “but don’t keep me now.”

She hurried away, and he stood looking after her for a few moments.

“Poor thing!” he said, as he went on. “What trouble to have to bear. Hang it all, I wouldn’t change places with Gartram if I could.”

He went on, thinking deeply about Glyddyr.

“The old man seems to have quite taken to that fellow, and did from the first time he came here with his yacht. Regular sporting chap. Wins heavily on the turf. Bound to say he loses, too. Three hundred thousand pounds, they say, he had when his father died. Well, good luck to him! I hadn’t when mine passed away.”

Chris began to whistle softly as he went on, stopping once to pick a flower from out of a niche where the water trickled down from a crack in the granite, and, farther on, taking out a tiny lens to inspect a fly. Then another botanical specimen took his attention, and was transferred to a pocket-book, and by that time he was up at the castellated gateway and bridge over the well-filled moat of the Fort.

He went up to the entrance, with its nail-studded oaken door, just as he had been hundreds of times before since boyhood, rang, and walked into the hall before the servant had time to answer the bell.

“Anybody at home?” he said carelessly.

“Yes, sir; master’s in the study, and the ladies are in the drawing-room.”

“Mr Gartram well enough to see me, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Doctor Asher was here to breakfast, and master’s going out.”

“All right; I’ll go in.”

There was no announcing. Chris Lisle felt quite at home there, and he crossed the stone-paved hall, gave a sharp tap at the study door, and walked in.

“Morning, sir,” he cried cheerily. “Very glad to hear you are so much better.”

“Thankye,” said Gartram sourly; “but I’m not so much better.”

“Get out,” said Chris.

“What?”

“I mean in the open air.”

“Oh. Well, Mr Lisle, what do you want—money?”

“I? No, sir. Well, yes, I do.”

“Then you had better go to a lawyer. I have done all I could with your father’s estate as your trustee, and if you want to raise money don’t come to me.”

“Well,” said Chris, laughing, “I don’t want to raise money, and I do come to you.”

“What for, sir?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Chris, speaking on the spur of the moment, for an idea had occurred to him. “But suppose we drop the ‘sir’-ing. It doesn’t seem to fit after having known me all these years.”

“Go on. I’m not well. Say what you want briefly. I’m going out.”

“I won’t keep you long, but it may be for your benefit. Look here, guardian, you know what I have a year?”

“Perfectly—two hundred and fifty, if you haven’t been mortgaging.”

“Well, I haven’t been mortgaging. It is not one of my pastimes. But it has occurred to me that I lead a very idle life.”

“Bless my soul!” cried Gartram sarcastically. “When did you discover that?”

“And,” continued Chris, “it seems to me that, as you are growing older—”

Gartram’s face twitched.

“Your health is not anything like what it should be.”

Gartram ground his teeth, but Chris was so intent upon his new idea that he noticed nothing, and went on in a frank, blundering, earnest way.

“Worse still, you have just lost, by that terrible accident, poor Woodham, who was your right-hand man. It would not be a bad thing for you, and it would be a capital thing for me, if you would take me on to be a sort of foreman or superintendent at the quarries. Of course, I don’t mean to go tamping and blasting, but to see that the men did their work properly, that the stones were taken to the wharf, and generally to see to things when you were not there or wanted a rest.”

“At a salary?”

“Salary? Well, I hadn’t thought of that—But yes: at a salary. A labourer’s worthy of his hire. It would make you more independent, and me too. Of course, I am not clever in your business, but I’ve watched the men from a boy, and I know pretty well how things ought to be done; and of course you could trust me as you could yourself.”

Gartram’s face was a study. His illness had exacerbated his temper, and over and over again, as the young man went on in his frank, blundering, honest fashion, he seemed on the point of breaking out. But Chris realised nothing of this. He only grew more sanguine as his new idea seemed to be brighter and more feasible the more he developed it, feeling the while that he was untying an awkward knot, and that his proposals would benefit all.

There was not a gleam of selfishness in his mind, and if Gartram had said: “I like your proposal, and I’ll give you fourteen shillings a week to begin with,” he would have accepted the paltry sum, and felt pleased.

“You see,” he continued, “it would be the very thing; you want a superintendent who would take all the petty worries off your mind.”

“And by-and-by,” said Gartram, suffocating with wrath, “you would like me to offer you a partnership?”

Chris’s eyes flashed.

“Yes, Mr Gartram, I should like that dearly. I never felt till just now that I was a poor man; my wants have been so simple. Yes, by-and-by, you might offer me a partnership if you found me worthy, and you should, sir; I swear you should.”

“And with it my daughter’s hand?”

“I was coming to that, Mr Gartram,” said Chris flushing, and with a proud, happy look in his eyes, as he sat gazing straight out of the window to sea. “I felt, naturally, a shrinking about speaking of that, but Claude and I were boy and girl together. I always liked her, and that liking has grown into a man’s honest, true love. I should have come to you before to explain about what you saw in the glen, but of course, I felt how out of place anything would be from me at a time when you were in trouble and ill, and so I waited till this morning.”

“Yes,” said Gartram hoarsely; “go on.”

“I know I ought not to have spoken to Claude as I did without first speaking to you, but it slipped out without thought, and I ought to say I am sorry, sir; but, feeling as I do, I can only say that I am glad.”

“One moment,” said Gartram, speaking perfectly calmly, but with a voice that sounded as if it were iced; “let us perfectly understand one another—you propose that I should engage you as my foreman?”

“Yes, Mr Gartram,” said Chris quietly. “I have had the education of a gentleman—well, I may say it—my father was a gentleman. I am a gentleman, but I am not proud. I quite agree with you that a man should lead a useful life. I wish to lead a useful life.”

“Exactly,” continued Gartram; “to be my foreman at a salary, with a view to future partnership and my daughter’s hand?”

“Yes, Mr Gartram; and I will make your interests my study. What do you say?”

“Say?” cried Gartram, in a voice of thunder. “Damn your impudence!”

“What!”

“You miserable, insolent, conceited young hound! You come here with such a proposition, after daring, on the strength of the freedom I gave you of my house—for your father’s sake—to insult my daughter as you did up that glen.”

“Miss Gartram has not said I insulted her?” cried Chris.

“I say insulted her with your silly, impudent talk about your love. Why, confound it, sir, what are you—a fool, an idiot, or a conceited, presumptuous, artful beggar?”

“Mr Gartram!—No, I will not be angry,” said Chris, subduing the indignant rage which was in him. “You have been ill and are irritable. I have badly chosen my time. Don’t speak to me like that, sir. I have always looked up to you as a guardian ever since I was left alone in the world. You don’t mean those words, sir. Say you don’t mean them, for Claude’s sake.”

“Silence, sir! For Claude’s sake, indeed. Confound you! How dare you! You must be mad to raise your eyes to her. You contemptible, artful, fortune-hunting scoundrel!”

“Mr Gartram!” cried Chris, flushing with anger now. “How dare you speak to me like this?”

“Because I am in my own house, sir. Because a miserable, mad-brained jackanapes has dared to make an attack upon me and upon my child. Silence—”

“Silence, sir, yourself!” raged Chris.

“What? You insolent dog, I’ll have you turned out of the house. I’ll have you horse-whipped. Dare so much as to speak to my child again. Dare so much as to look at her. Dare to come upon my premises again, and damme, sir, I’ll—I’ll shoot you!”

“You don’t mean it. You shall not mean it,” cried Chris hotly.

“Out of my house, sir!”

“Mr Gartram,” cried Chris, as the old man, half mad with rage and excitement consequent upon the reaction from his fit, strode close up to where his visitor stood.

“I say out of my house, sir, before I have you horse-whipped as I would a dog.”

As he spoke, he gave the young man a thrust, half blow, across the chest, just as the door opened, and the servant announced Mr Glyddyr, stood with open mouth, staring for a moment at the scene, and then, as the new visitor entered, ran back, without stopping to close the door, to announce to Claude and Mary that master was going to have another fit.

“Hah!” cried Gartram, as his eyes lit upon Glyddyr; “you, is it? Look here,” he roared, in a voice choked with passion, “this beggarly, insolent upstart—this puppy that I have helped to rear—has had the audacity to propose for my daughter’s hand.”

“What?” cried Glyddyr, taking his tone from Gartram; and, turning upon Chris, he darted a look mingled of incredulity, threatening and contempt.

“Yes; I am weak from illness, or I’d ask no man’s help. You are young and strong. Take him by the collar, and bundle the insolent scoundrel neck and crop out of the place. That’s right: quick!”

Glyddyr advanced straight to where Chris stood, with a blank look of rage and despair upon his countenance, crushed, drooping, half broken-hearted, as he felt how ingenuous he had been to speak as he had to the hard, grasping man of the world before him; but as Glyddyr laid his hand upon his collar, he uttered a low, hoarse sound, like the growl of an angry beast.

“Now, sir, out you go,” cried Glyddyr, with a mocking, sneering look in his countenance, full of triumph. “Out with you before you are kicked out.”

“Take away your hand,” said Chris, in a low, husky whisper.

“What! No insolence. Out with you!”

“Take away your hand.”

“Do you hear me? Now then, out.”

“Curse you, you will have it, then,” cried Chris, shaking himself free; and then, as Glyddyr recovered himself, and tried to seize him again, Chris’s left fist darted out from his shoulder, there was a low, dull sound, and Glyddyr staggered back for a couple of yards, to fall with a heavy crash, just as, with a shriek of horror, Claude, closely followed by Mary, rushed into the room.

“Chris Lisle, what have you done?” cried Claude, while Mary, whom fate had made the busy help of the family, hurried to Glyddyr’s side, and helped him to rise to a sitting position. He did not attempt to get upon his feet.

“Lost my temper, I suppose,” said Chris, who began to calm down as he saw the effect of his blow. “But it was his own doing. I warned him to keep his hands off.”

“Leave my house, ruffian, before I send for the police.”

“You’ll be sorry for all this, Mr Gartram,” said Chris. “Claude—”

“Silence!” shouted Gartram. “Recollect, my girl, that henceforth this man and we are strangers. Everything between us is at an end. Once more, sir, will you leave my house?”

“Yes, I’ll go,” replied Chris slowly, as his eyes rested on Claude’s. “Don’t think ill of me,” he said to her huskily. “I have done nothing wrong.”

Gartram came between them, and, feeling that time alone could heal the terrible breach, Chris made a gesticulation and walked slowly to the door, where he turned.

“Mr Gartram,” he said, “you’ll bitterly repent this. But don’t think that I shall give up. I’ll go now. One of these days, when you have thought all over, you will ask me to come back, and we shall be friends again. Claude—Mary, all this was not my seeking. Good-bye.”

“Not his seeking!” cried Gartram, sinking into a chair and dabbing his face with his handkerchief. “He wants to kill me: that’s what he’s trying to do. How are you now, Glyddyr? Pray forgive me for bringing this upon you. The scoundrel must be mad.”

“Getting better now, sir,” said Glyddyr; and, as his enemy had gone, beginning with a great show of suffering and effort to suppress it, as his eyes sought sympathy from Claude. He found none, so directed his eyes at Mary, who offered him her hand as he made slowly for the nearest easy chair. “I suppose I was a bit stunned. Not hurt much, I think.”

“I don’t know how to apologise enough,” cried Gartram; “and you two girls, have you nothing to say? An outrageous assault on my guest! But he shall smart for it. I’ll have him summoned.”

“No, no, Mr Gartram, I’m getting all right fast,” said Glyddyr, quickly seizing the opportunity to be magnanimous in Claudes eyes. “Mr Lisle was excited, and he struck me. A blow like that is nothing.”

“Mr Christopher Lisle will find out that a blow such as you’ve received means a great deal more than he thinks, sir. Claude, ring the bell. Have the spirit stand and soda-water brought in. Are you sure you are not seriously hurt, Glyddyr?”

“Quite, sir: a mere nothing. Great pity it happened. Why, ladies, it must have regularly startled you. Miss Gartram, I am very sorry. You look pale.”

“Enough to startle any woman, Glyddyr. But there, it’s all over for the present. You had better leave us now, girls.”

“No, no,” cried Glyddyr, “don’t let me drive them away, sir.”

“It is not driving them away, Mr Glyddyr,” said Gartram shortly. “I wish them to go.”

“I beg pardon, I am sure.”

“Granted, sir; but I like to be master in my own house.”

“Papa, dear, pray, pray be calm,” whispered Claude, who had crept to his side.

“Calm! Of course. I am calm. There, there, there; don’t talk to me, but go, and I said ring for the spirit stand.”

“Yes, papa, I did. I’ll go and send it in.”

“Yes, quickly. You are sure you would not like the doctor fetched, Glyddyr?”

“Oh, certain, sir. There, let it pass now. A mere nothing.”

“Oh, my poor darling Claude,” whispered Mary, taking her cousin’s hand as they went out, and kissing her pale face as the large dark eyes gazed pitifully down in hers.

“Do you understand what it all means, Mary?”

“Only too well, coz: poor Chris has been telling uncle he loved you, and that put our dear tyrant in a passion. Then Mr Glyddyr came, and poor Chris got in a passion too, and knocked him down.”

“Yes,” sighed Claude; “I’m afraid that must be it.”

“Yes, my dear, it’s all cut and dried. You are to be Mrs Glyddyr as soon as they have settled it all.”

“Never,” said Claude, frowning and looking like a softened edition of her father.

“And as that sets poor Chris at liberty,” continued Mary, with one of her mischievous looks, “and you don’t want him, there may be a bit of a chance for poor little me.”

“Mary, dear!” said Claude, in a voice full of remonstrance.

“It’s rather bad taste of you, for though Mr Glyddyr is very handsome, I think Chris is the better man. Mr Glyddyr seems to me quite a coward making all that fuss, so that we might sympathise with him. Better have had poor Chris.”

“Mary, dear, how can you make fun of everything when I am in such terrible trouble?”

“It’s because I can’t help it, Claude, I suppose. But oh, I am sorry for you if uncle makes you marry handsome Mr Glyddyr.”

“Mary!”

“I cannot help it, dear; I must say it. He’s a coward. He was hurt, of course, but not so much as he pretended. Chris Lisle knocked him right down, and he wouldn’t get up for fear he should get knocked down again. Didn’t Chris look like a lion?”

“It is all very, very terrible, Mary, and I want your help and sympathy so badly.”

“I can’t help you, coz; I’m too bad. And all this was my fault.”

“No; not all,” said Claude sadly. “Papa has been thinking about Mr Glyddyr for a long time, and dropping hints to me about him.”

“Yes; and you’ll have to take him.”

“No,” said Claude, with quiet firmness; and her father’s stern, determined look came into her eyes. “No, I will never be Mr Glyddyr’s wife.”

“But uncle will never forgive poor Mr Lisle.”

“Don’t say that, Mary. Never is a terrible word. Papa loves me, and he would like to see me happy.”

“And shall you tell him you love Chris?”

“No,” said Claude sternly.

“If you please, ma’am, Mrs Woodham is here,” said one of the servants; and Claude’s face grew more troubled as she asked herself what her father would say to the step she had taken, in bidding the unhappy woman come and resume her old position in the house.

She had not long to wait.

As she rose to cross the room she caught sight of Glyddyr looking back at the windows on leaving the house, and heard the study bell ring furiously.

“Quick, Mary!” she cried, as she rushed through the door, being under the impression that her father had had another seizure.

The relief was so great as she entered the study and found him standing in the middle of the room, that she threw herself in his arms.

“I thought you were taken ill again,” she gasped, as she clung, to him, trembling.

He was evidently in a fury, but his child’s words were like oil upon the tempestuous waves.

“You—you thought that?” he said, holding her to his breast and patting her cheek tenderly. “You thought that, eh? And they say in Danmouth that everybody hates me. That there isn’t a soul here who wouldn’t like to dance upon my grave.”

“Papa, dear, don’t talk like that.”

“Why not? the ungrateful wretches! I’ve made Danmouth a prosperous place. I spend thousands a year in wages, and the dogs all turn upon me and are ready to rend the hand that feeds them. If they are not satisfied with their wages, they wait till I have some important contract on the way, and then they strike. I haven’t patience with them.”

“Father!” cried Claude firmly, “Doctor Asher said you were not to excite yourself in any way, or you would be ill.”

“And a good thing, too. Better be ill, and die, and get out of the way. Hated—cursed by every living soul.”

Claude clung more tightly to him, laid her head upon his breast, and placed her hand across his lips as if to keep him from speaking.

A smile came across the grim face, but there was no smile in his words as he went on fiercely, after removing the hand and seeming about to kiss it, but keeping it in his hand without.

“Everything seems to go against me,” he cried. “Mr Glyddyr—just going—I was seeing him to the door, when, like a black ghost, up starts that woman Sarah Woodham. What does she want?”

“I’ll tell you, dear, if you will sit down and be calm.”

“How the devil can I be calm,” he raved, “when I am regularly persecuted by folk like this?”

But he let Claude press him back into an easy chair, while, feeling that she was better away, Mary Dillon crept softly out of the room.

“Well, then,” he said, as if his child’s touch was talismanic, and he lay back and closed his eyes, “I’ll be calm. But you don’t know, Claude, you can’t tell how I’m persecuted. I’m robbed right and left.”

“Papa, my dear father, you are as rich as ever you can be, so what does it matter?”

“Who says I’m rich? Nonsense! Absurd! And then look at the worries I have. All the trouble and inquest over that man’s death, and through his sheer crass obstinacy.”

“Why bring that up again, father, dear?”

“Don’t say father. Call me papa. Whenever you begin fathering me, it means that you are going to preach at me and bully me, and have your own way.”

“Then, papa, dear, why bring that up again?”

“I didn’t. It’s brought up and thrust under my very nose. Why is that woman here?”

“Papa—”

“Now, it’s of no use. Claude: that man regularly committed suicide out of opposition to me. He destroyed a stone worth at least a hundred pounds by using that tearing dynamite, which smashes everything to pieces; and then, forsooth, he charges me in his dying moments with murdering him, and the wretched pack under him take up the cry and bark as he did. Could anything be more unreasonable?”

“No, dear, of course not. But the poor fellow was mad with agony and despair. It was so horrible for him, a hale, strong man, to be cut down in a moment.”

“He cut himself down. It would not have happened if he had done as I ordered.”

“You must forgive all that now. He knew no better; and as for the workmen, you know how easily they are influenced one way or the other.”

“Oh, yes, I know them. And now this woman’s here begging.”

“No, papa, dear.”

“I say she is. I could see it in her servile, shivering way, as soon as she caught my eye; now, look here, Claude, I shan’t give her a shilling.”

Claude held his hand to her cheek in silence.

“I won’t pay for the man’s funeral. I’m obliged to pay the doctor, because I contracted for him to attend the ungrateful hounds; but I will not help her in the least, and I’ll have no more of your wretched tricks. I’m always finding out that you are helping the people and letting them think it is my doing. Now, then, I’ve done, and I want to be at peace, so go and send that woman away, or I shall be ill.”

Claude clung a little more closely to her father, nestling, as it were, in his breast.

“Well,” he said testily, “why don’t you go?”

“My father is the leading man in this neighbourhood,” said Claude, in a soft, soothing tone, “and the people don’t know the goodness of his heart as I do.”

“Now, Claudie, I won’t have it. You are beginning to preach at me, and give me a dose of morals. My heart has grown as hard as granite.”

“No, it has not,” said Claude, kissing his veined hand. “It is as soft and good as ever, only you try to make it hard, and you say things you do not mean.”

“Ah, now!” he shouted, “you are going to talk about that Lisle, and I will not have his cursed name mentioned in the—”

“I was not going to talk about Christopher Lisle,” said Claude, in the same gentle, murmuring voice, whose tones seemed to soothe and quiet him down; “I was going on to say that I want the people—the weak, ignorant, easily-led people—about here to love and venerate my dear father’s name.”

“And they will not, do what you will. The more you do for them, the less self-helpful they are, and the more they revile and curse. Why, if I was ruined to-morrow, after they’ve eaten my bread for years, I believe they’d light a bonfire and have a dance.”

“No, no; no, no,” murmured Claude. “You have done too much good for them.”

“I haven’t. You did it all, you hussy, and pretended it was I,” he said grimly, as he played with her glossy hair.

“I did it with your money, dear, and I am your child. I acted as I felt you would act if you thoroughly knew the circumstances, but you had no time. What is the use of having so much money if no good is done?”

“For ungrateful people.”

“We are taught to do good for evil, dear.”

“What! for a race of thieves who are always cursing and reviling us? There, I’m busy and tired, Claudie. I’ve listened to your moral lesson very patiently, and now I want to be at rest. But I forbid you to help that wretched woman. She and her husband always hated me. Confound ’em, they were always insulting me. How dare they—actually publicly insult me—in that miserable little chapel.”

“Insulted you? What do you mean?”

“Why, they prayed for my heart to be softened, hang ’em!”

“Oh, father, dear!”

“There you go again. Papa—papa—papa. Don’t forget that we do belong to the aristocracy after all. Now, go and send that dreadful woman away.”

“I cannot, dear.”

“Cannot?”

“No, papa. She has come to stay.”

“Sarah Woodham? To stay? Here?”

“Yes, dear. Poor thing: she is left penniless, almost, for Woodham did not save.”

“No, of course not. They none of them do.”

“He spent all he had to spare,” continued Claude, in the same gentle, murmuring tone, as she pressed her father’s hand to her cheek. “Everything he could scrape together he gave to the poorer chapel people.”

“Yes, I know; in his bigoted way to teach me what to do. And don’t keep on rubbing your cheek against my hand. Any one who saw you would think you were a cat.”

“So, papa dear, as we want a good, trustworthy woman in the house, and Sarah was with us so long, and knew our ways so well, I arranged for her to come back.”

“Claude!”

“Yes, dear; and these years of her married life, and the sad end, will be to her like a mournful dream.”

“I—”

Norman Gartram made an angry gesture, but Claude’s arms stole round his neck, her lips pressed his as she half lay upon his breast, and with the tears gently falling and hanging like pearls in his grisly beard, she said in a low, sweet voice,—

“And some day, father dear, at the last, as she thinks of what an asylum this has been to her, she will go down to her grave blessing your name for all the good that you have done, and this will make me very happy, dear, and so it will you.”

There was a long silence in the room, and Norman Gartram’s face began to grow less rugged. It was as if there was something of the same look as that in his child’s, when, with a tender kiss upon his brow, she left his arms and half playfully whispered,—

“Am I to go and send Sarah Woodham away?”

“No,” he said hastily, as his old look returned; “you are as bad as your poor, dear mother, every bit. No,” he cried, with an angry flush. “I won’t do that, though. Not a farthing of my money shall go towards paying for that man’s funeral.”

“Father, dear—”

“Papa.”

“Then papa, dear,” said Claude quietly, “I have paid everything connected with poor Woodham’s funeral.”

“You have?”

“Yes; you are very generous to me with money, and I had plenty to do that.”

“Yes; and stinted yourself in clothes. You don’t dress half well enough. Well, there, it’s done now, and we can’t alter it. I suppose these people will think it was my doing.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Of course. Well, as to this woman, keep her and nurse and pamper her, and pay her the largest wages you can; and mark my words, my pet, she’ll turn round and worry us for what we have done.”

“I have no fear, dear. I know Sarah Woodham too well, and I can do anything I like with her.”

“Yes, as you can with me, you hussy,” he cried. “Duke—King—why, I’m like water with you, Claude. But,” he cried, shaking a finger at her, “there are things, though, in which I mean to have my way.”

Claude flushed up, and a hard look came into her eyes.

But no more was said then.

Volume One—Chapter Ten.

Denise.

“What the deuce brought you here?”

“Train my boy. Saw in the shipping news that The Fair Star was lying in Danmouth. Felt a bit seedy, and knew that you would give me a berth aboard, and here I am.”

“So I see.”

“Well, don’t be so gloriously glad, dear boy. Don’t go out of your mind and embrace me. I hate to be kissed by a man; it’s so horribly French.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

“Certainly not; but you seemed to be in such raptures to meet me that I was obliged to protest.”

“Now, look here, Gellow, it’s not of the slightest use for you to hunt me about the country. I have no money, and I can’t pay.”

“I never said a single word about money, dear boy.”

“No; but you look money, and think money, and smell of money. Good heavens, man, why don’t you dress like a gentleman, and not come down to the seaside like the window of a pawnbroker’s shop?”

“Dress like a gentleman, sir? Why, I am dressed like a gentleman. These are real diamond studs, sir. First water. Rings, chain, watch, everything of the very best. Never catch me wearing sham. Look at those cuff studs. As fine emeralds as you’d see.”

“Bah! Why don’t you wear a diamond collar, and a crown. I believe you’d like to hang yourself in chains.”

“My dear Glyddyr, how confoundedly nasty you can be to the best friend you have in the world.”

“Best enemy; you are always hunting me for money.”

“Yes; and going back poorer. You are such a one to wheedle a fresh loan.”

“Yes; at a hundred per cent.”

“Tchah! Nonsense! But, I say, nothing wrong about the lady, is there?”

“Hold your tongue, and mind your own business.”

“Well, that is my business, you reckless young dog. If you don’t make a rich match, where shall I be?”

“Here, what are you doing?”

“Ringing the bell, dear boy.”

“What for?”

“Well, that’s fool. I have come all this way from town, had no end of trouble to run you down at your hotel, and then you think I don’t want any breakfast.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr Glyddyr wants breakfast in directly. Here, what have you got? No, never mind what you’ve got. I’ll have broiled chicken and a sole. A fresh chicken cut up, mind; none of your week-old, cooked stales. Coffee and brandy. Mr Glyddyr’s order, you know.”

The waiter glanced at Glyddyr where he sat pretending to read the paper, and receiving a short nod, he left the room.

“Now, once more, why have you come down?”

“First and foremost, I have picked up three or four good tips for Newmarket. Chances for you to make a pile.”

“You are very generous,” sneered Glyddyr. “Your tips have not turned out so very rosy—so far.”

“Well, of course it’s speculation. Have a cigar?”

Glyddyr made an impatient gesture.

“Then I will. Give me an appetite for the dejooney.”

The speaker lit a strong cigar that had an East London aroma, and went on chatting as he lolled back in his chair, and played with his enormously thick watch-chain.

“A smoke always gives me an appetite; spoils some people’s. Well, you won’t take the tips?”

“No; I’ve no money for betting.”

“Happy to oblige you, dear boy. Eh? No! All right. Glad you are so independent. It’s going on bloomingly, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“The miller’s lovely daughter,” sang the visitor, laughingly. “I mean the stonemason’s.”

Glyddyr muttered an oath between his teeth.

“Hush! Don’t swear, dear boy—the waiter.”

For at that moment the man brought in a tray, busied himself for a time till all was ready, and left the room.

“That’s your sort,” said Glyddyr’s visitor, settling himself at the table. “Won’t join me, I suppose? Won’t have an echo?”

“What do you mean?”

“Second breakfast. Eh? No? All right. Hah! Very appetising after a long journey—confoundedly long journey. You do put up in such out of the way spots. Quite hard to find.”

“Then stop away.”

“No, thanks. Now look here, Glyddyr, dear boy, what’s the use of your cutting up rusty when we are obliged to row so much in the same boat?”

“Curse you! I’d like to throw you overboard.”

“Of course you would, my dear fellow, but you see you can’t. Rather an awkward remark though, that, when I’m coming for a cruise with you in the yacht—my yacht.”

Glyddyr crushed up the newspaper into a ball, and cast it across to the corner of the room.

“What’s the matter, old man? I say, what a delicious sole! Ever catch any on the yacht?”

The sound of Glyddyr’s teeth grating could be plainly heard.

“Be no good to throw me overboard to feed the fishes, my dear boy. I’m thoroughly well insured, both as to money—and protection,” he added meaningly. “Hope this fish was not fed in that peculiar way. Tlat! Capital coffee. Now then, talk. I can eat and listen. How is it going on with the girl?”

“Reuben Gellow, your insolence is insufferable.”

“My dear Gellow, I must have a thou, to-morrow,” said the visitor, mockingly. “Your words, dear boy, when you want money; the other when you don’t want money. What a contrast! Well, I don’t care. Capital butter this! It shows me that everything is progressing well with the pretty heiress, and that Parry Glyddyr, Esquire, will pay his debts like a gentleman. Come, old fellow, don’t twist about in your chair like a skinned eel.”

“Curse you, who skinned me?”

“Not I, dear boy. Half a dozen had had a turn at you, and that lovely epi—what-you-may-call-it of yours was hanging upon you in rags. I only stripped the rest off, so as to give you a chance to grow a new one, and I’m helping you to do it as fast as you can. Come, don’t cut up rough. Be civil, and I’ll keep you going in style so that you can marry her all right, and have two children and live happy ever after.”

“Look here,” said Glyddyr, getting up and pacing the room furiously, while his visitor calmly discussed his breakfast, “you have something under all this, so open it out.”

“No, dear boy, only the natural desire to see how you are getting on. You owe me—”

“Curse what I owe you!”

“No, no, don’t do that. Pay it.”

“You know I cannot.”

“Till you’ve made a good marriage; and you cannot live in style and make a good marriage without my help, my dear Glyddyr.”

“You and your cursed fraternity hold plenty of security, so leave me in peace.”

“I will, dear boy; but I want my trifle of money, and you are not getting on as fast as I could wish, so I’ve come to help you.”

“Come to ruin me, you mean.”

“Wrong. I have my cheque book in my pocket, and if you want a few hundreds to carry on the war, here they are.”

“At the old rate,” sneered Glyddyr.

“No, my dear fellow. I must have a little more. The risk is big.”

“Yes. Might fail, and blow out my brains.”

“Ex-actly! How I do like this country cream.”

Glyddyr threw himself into his seat with a crash.

“That was all a metaphor,” he said bitterly.

“What was, dear boy?”

“About the Devil and Dr Faustus.”

“Of course it was. Why?”

“Faustus was some poor devil hard up, and the other was not a devil at all, but a confounded money-lender. It was a bill Faustus accepted, not a contract.”

“I daresay you are right, Glyddyr. Have a drop of brandy? Eh? No? Well, there’s nothing like a chasse with a good breakfast, and this is really prime.”

“Well, I’ll grin and bear it till I’m free,” said Glyddyr. “You want to know how I am getting on. You need not stay.”

“But I want a change, and I can help you, perhaps.”

“You’ll queer the whole affair if you stay here. Once it is so much as suspected that I am not as well off as I was—”

“That you are an utter beggar—I mean a rum beggar.”

“Do you want me to wring your neck?”

“The neck of the goose that lays the golden eggs? No. They don’t kill geese that way.”

”—The whole affair will be off.”

“Old man’s a rum one, isn’t he?”

“How do you know?”

“How do I know?” said Gellow, with a quiet chuckle. “That’s my business. I know everything about you, my dear boy. I have a great personal interest in your proceedings, and every move is reported to me.”

“And, to make matters worse, you have yourself come down to play the spy.”

“Not a bit of it, my dear Glyddyr; but you have cursed and bullied me at such a tremendous rate, that, as I have you on the hook, I can’t help playing you a little.”

“Oh!” snarled Glyddyr furiously.

“But, all the same, I am the best friend you have in the world.”

“It’s a lie!”

“Is it? Well, we shall see. I want you to marry King Gartram’s daughter, and I’ll let you have all you want to carry it out. And by the way, here are three letters for you.”

He took the letters out of his pocket-book, and handed them.

“There you are: Parry Glyddyr, Esq, care of Reuben Gellow, Esq, 209 Cecil Street, Strand.”

“Why, they’ve been opened!”

“Yes, all three—and read.”

“You scoundrel!” roared Glyddyr. “Do you dare to sit there and tell me that you have had the effrontery to open my letters and read them?”

“I didn’t tell you so.”

“But you have read them?”

“Every line.”

“Look here, sir,” cried Glyddyr, rising fiercely, “I found it necessary to have my letters sent to an agent.”

“Reuben Gellow.”

“To be forwarded to me where I might be yachting.”

“So as to throw your creditors off the scent.”

“And you, acting as my agent, have read them.”

“In your interest, dear boy.”

“Curse you! I don’t care what happens now. All is at an end between us, you miserable—”

“Go it, old fellow, if it does you good; but I didn’t open the letters.”

“Then who did?”

“Denise.”

Glyddyr’s jaw dropped.

“Now, then, you volcanic eruption of a man; who’s your friend, eh? I went down to the office yesterday morning. ‘Lady waiting in your room, sir,’ says my clerk. ‘Who is it?’ says I. ‘Wouldn’t give her name,’ says my clerk. ‘Wants money then,’ says I to myself; and goes up, and there was Madame Denise just finishing reading number three.”

“Good heavens!” muttered Glyddyr, blankly.

“‘I came, sare,’ she says, with one of her pretty, mocking laughs, ‘to ask you for ze address of my hosband, but you are absent, it ees no mattair. I find tree of my hosband’s lettaires, and one say he sup-poz my hosband go to Danmout. Dat is all.’”

“Then she’ll find me out, and come down here and spoil all.”

“Divil a doubt of it, me boy, as Paddy says.”

“But you—you left the letters lying about.”

“Not I. They came by the morning’s post. How the deuce could I tell that she would hunt me up, and then open her ‘hosband’s’ letters.”

“I am not her husband;” cried Glyddyr furiously. “That confounded French marriage does not count.”

“That’s what you’ve got to make her believe, my dear boy.”

“And if it did, I’d sooner smother myself than live with the wretched harpy.”

“Yes; I should say she had a temper Glyddyr. So under the circumstances, dear boy, I thought the best thing I could do was to come down fast as I could and put you on your guard.”

“My dear Gellow.”

“Come, that’s better. Then we are brothers once again,” cried Gellow, with mock melodramatic fervour.

“Curse the woman!”

“Better still; much better than cursing me.”

“Don’t fool, man. Can’t you see that this will be perfect destruction?”

“Quite so, dear boy; and now that this inner man is refreshed with food, so kindly and courteously supplied by you, he is quite ready for action. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Think she will come down?”

“Think? No, I don’t. Ah, Parry Glyddyr, what a pity it is you have been such a wicked young man!”

“Do you want to drive me mad with your foolery?”

“No; only to act. There, don’t make a fuss about it. The first thing is to throw her off the scent. She knows you may be here.”

“Yes.”

“Well, she’ll come down and inquire for you. She is not obliged to know about the people at the Fort; your yacht put in here for victualling or repairs.”

“Well?”

“When she comes, she finds you have sailed, and if we are lucky she will feel that she has missed you, and go back.”

“If she would only die!” muttered Glyddyr, but his visitor caught his words.

“Not likely to. Sort of woman with stuff enough in her to last to a hundred. It strikes me, dear boy, that you are in a fix.”

Glyddyr sat frowning.

“And now you see the value of a friend.”

“Yes,” said Glyddyr thoughtfully. “I must go.”

“And you must take me too. If she sees me, she will smell a rat.”

“Yes, confound you, and one of the worst sort. There, ring that bell.”

“What for—brandy? Plenty here.”

“No, man, for the bill; I must be off at once.”

Volume One—Chapter Eleven.

How to Reach the Fair Star.

As Burns said, matters go very awkwardly sometimes for those who plot and plan—as if some malicious genius took delight in thwarting the most carefully-laid designs, and tangling matters up, till the undoing seems hopeless.

Chris Lisle had had a bad time mentally. He was wroth against Gartram and Glyddyr, and far more wroth with himself for letting his anger get the better of him.

“It was as if I had made up my mind to fight against my own interests, for I could not have done that man a greater service than to strike him.”

“That’s it, sure enough,” he said. “This good-looking yachting dandy is the man, and it was enough to make poor Claudie think me a violent ruffian, upon whom she must never look again. But I will not give her up. I’d sooner die; and, bless her, she will never allow herself to be forced into marrying such a man as that, good-looking as he is. Well, we shall see.”

To go up to the Fort and apologise seemed to him impossible, and he spent his time wandering about the shore, the pier, harbour and rocks, everywhere, so that he could keep an eye on Glyddyr’s proceedings.

He told himself that he merely went down to breathe the fresh air, but the air never seemed to be worth breathing if he could not watch the different trimly-rigged yachts lying in the harbour, the smartest and best kept one of all being The Fair Star.

Glyddyr stayed at the hotel while his yacht was in the harbour, and Chris avoided that hotel on principle; but all the same he seemed to be attracted to it, and several times over the young men had met, to pass each other with a scowl, but they had not spoken since the day they had encountered up at the Fort.

There was a lurking hope, though, in Chris’s breast, that sooner or later he would meet Claude, and come to an explanation.

“Just to ask her,” he said, “to wait. I know I’m poor; at least, I suppose I am, but I’ll get over that, and force myself somehow into a position that shall satisfy the old man. He will not be so hard upon me when he sees what I have done. How unlucky in my choice of time. He was in a horrible fit of irritability from his illness, and I spoke to him like a weak boy. I ought to have known better.”

Just then he caught sight of a dress in the distance, and his heart began to beat fast.

“It’s Claude!” he exclaimed, and he increased his pace.

“No, it is not,” he said, slackening directly. “Stranger.”

If he could have seen two hundred yards farther, and round a corner, he would not have checked his pace, but then his were ordinary eyes, and he continued his course, looking half-inquiringly at the figure which had attracted his attention, and gradually grew more curious as he became aware of the fact that the lady was fashionably dressed, and very elegant in her carriage.

The next minute he saw that she was young, and almost directly that she was very handsome, while, to complete his surprise, she smiled, showing her white teeth, and stopped short.

“I demand your pardon, monsieur,” she said, in a particularly rich, sweet voice, and pronouncing the words with a very foreign accent, “but I am so strange at zis place. I want ze small ship yacht Ze Fair Star. You will tell me?”

“Oh, certainly,” said Chris quickly; “one, two, three, four,” he continued pointing to where several graceful-looking yachts swung at their buoys. “That is it, the fourth from the left.”

“Ah, but yes, I see. One—two—tree—four, and zat is Ze Fair Star?”

There was something droll and yet prettily piquant about her way of speaking, and in spite of himself Chris smiled, and the stranger laughed a little silvery laugh.

“I say someting founay, n’est-ce pas?” she said.

“I beg your pardon,” cried Chris. “I don’t think I made myself understood.”

“Ah, perfectly. I am not Engleesh, but I understand. I count one, two, tree, four, and zat is Ze Fair Star, nombair four. Is it not so?”

“Quite right,” said Chris.

“But how shall I get to him?”

“You must go down to the landing-place and hail her, or else hire a boatman to take you to her.”

“Hail! What is hail?”

“Call—shout to the men on board.”

“But, yes: I am vairay stupide. But where is ze boat to take me. I am so strange here at zis place.”

“If you will allow me, I will show you.”

“Ah, I tank you so much,” and in the most matter-of-fact way, the stranger walked beside Chris towards the harbour, smiling and chatting pleasantly.

“I make you laugh vairay much,” she said merrily; and then, “aha! ze charmante young lady is your friend. I will find my own way now.”

She looked curiously at Chris, who had suddenly turned scarlet and then ghastly pale, for at the lane leading to the harbour they had come upon Claude and Mary, both looking wonderingly at him and his companion, and passing on without heeding his hurried salute.

“No, no,” said Chris, recovering himself quickly; and there was a flash of anger in his eyes as he continued rather viciously, “I will see you to the harbour, and speak to one of the boatmen for you.”

“I thank you so vairay much,” she said; “but I understand you wish to go back to ze two ladies.”

“You are mistaken,” he said coldly; “this way, please. It is very awkward for a stranger, and especially for a foreign lady.”

She smiled, looking at him curiously, and, aware that they were the object of every gaze, Chris walked on by her trying to be perfectly cool and collected; but, as he replied to his companions remarks, feeling more awkward than he had ever felt in his life, and growing moment by moment more absent as in spite of his efforts he wondered what Claude would think, and whether he could overtake her afterwards and explain.

“I am French, and we speak quite plain, what we do tink,” she said laughingly; “here you have been vairay good to me, but you want to go to ze ladies we encounter; is it not so?—Ah!”

The laughing look changed to one full of vindictive anger, as she muttered that quick, sharp cry, and increased the pace almost to a run.

Chris stared after his companion, seeming to ask himself whether she was a mad woman, but almost at the same moment he caught sight of Glyddyr and a showily—dressed stranger, just at the end of the little half-moon shaped granite pier which sheltered the few fishing luggers, brigs and schooners, and formed the only harbour for many miles along the coast.

They were sixty or eighty yards away, and as he saw Chris’s late companion running towards them, Glyddyr stepped down from the harbour wall, and, with less activity, his companion followed, that being a spot where some rough granite steps led down to the water, and where boats coming and going from the yachts were moored.

Chris stood still for a moment or two, and then, carried away by an intense desire to see the end of the little adventure, he walked slowly down towards the pier, gradually coming in sight of Glyddyr and his companion, as the little gig into which they had descended was pulled steadily out towards the yacht.

There were plenty of loungers close up by the houses beneath the cliff, and sailors seated about the decks of the vessels, but the pier was occupied only by the handsomely-dressed woman, who increased her pace to a run, and only paused at the end, where she stood gesticulating angrily, beating one well-gloved hand in the other as she called upon the occupants of the boat to stop.

The stranger looked back at her and raised his hat, but Glyddyr sat immovable in the stern, looking straight out to sea, while the sailors bent to their oars, and made the water foam.

Chris stopped short some thirty yards from the end.

“It is no business of mine,” he thought. “Is this one of Mr Glyddyr’s friends?”

Then he felt a thrill of excitement run through him as he heard the woman shriek out, shaking her fist threateningly,—

“Lâche! Lâche!” And then in quick, passionate, broken English, “You will not stop? I come to you.”

Chris heard a shout behind him, and stood for a few moments as if petrified, for, with a shrill cry, the woman sprang right off the pier, and he saw the water splash out, glittering in the morning sun.

Then once more a thrill of excitement ran through him, as, thinking to himself that there would be ten feet of water off there at that time of the tide, and that it was running like a mill-race by the end of the pier, he dashed along as fast as he could go, casting off his loose flannel jacket and straw hat, bearing a little to his left, and plunging from the pier end into the clear tide.

As he rose from his dive, he shook his head, and saw a hand beating the water a dozen yards away; then this disappeared, and a patch of bright silk, inflated like a bladder, rose to the surface, and then two hands appeared, and, for a moment or two, the white face of the woman.

All the time Chris was swimming vigorously in pursuit.

The tide carried him along well, and as he made the water foam with his vigorous strokes, he took in the fact that Glyddyr was standing up in the gig, and that his companion was gesticulating and calling upon the men to row back. The pier, too, was resounding with the trampling of feet, and men were shouting orders as they came running down.

There was plenty of help at hand, but Chris knew that there was time for any one to drown before a boat could be manned, cast off and rowed to the rescue. If help was to come to the half-mad woman, it must be first from him, and then from Glyddyr’s gig, which seemed to be stationary, as far as the swimmer could see.

But he had no time for further thought; his every effort was directed to reaching the drowning woman, and it seemed an age before he mastered the distance between them, and then it was just as she disappeared. But, raising himself up, he made a quick turn, and dived down and caught hold of the stiff silken dress, to rise the next moment, and then engage in an awkward struggle, for first one and then another clinging hand paralysed his efforts. He tried to shake himself clear and get hold of the drowning woman free from her hands, but it was in vain. She clung to him with the energy of despair, and, in spite of his efforts to keep his head up, he was borne down by the swift tide; the strangling water bubbled in his nostrils, and there was a low thundering in his ears.

A few vigorous kicks took him to the surface again, and, in his helplessness, he looked wildly round for help, to see that Glyddyr’s gig was still some distance away; but the men were backing water, and the stranger was leaning over the stern, holding the boat-hook towards them.

Then the tide closed over his head again, and a chilling sense of horror came upon him; but once more the dim shades of the water gave place to the light of day, and he managed to get partially free, and again to make desperate strokes to keep himself on the surface.

But he felt that his strength was going, and that, unless help came quickly, there was to be the end.

A shout away on the left sent a momentary accession of strength through him, and he fought desperately, but in vain, for again his arm was pinioned, and the water rolled over his head just as he felt a sharp jerk, and, half-insensible, he was drawn up to the stern of a boat.

What happened during the next few minutes was a blank. Then Chris found himself being lifted up the rough granite steps on to the pier, amidst the cheering of a crowd; and in a hoarse voice he gasped,—

“The lady; is she safe?”

“All right, Mr Lisle, sir,” cried one of the men. “She’s all square.”

Then a strange voice close to his ear said hastily,—

“Yes; all right. You go.”

He did not realise what it meant for a few moments, but as he was struggling to his feet, to stand, weak and dripping, in the midst of a pool of water, the same voice said,—

“That’s right, my lad. Carry her up to my hotel.”

“No, no, my lads,” cried Chris confusedly to the too willing crowd of fishermen about him; “I’m all right. I can walk. Who has my jacket and hat?”

“Here, what’s all this?” said another voice, as some one came pushing through the crowd.

“Only a bit of an accident, sir,” said the same strange voice. “Lady—friend of mine—too late for the boat—slipped off the end of the pier.”

“And Mr Chris Lisle saved her, sir.”

“Humph! Whose boat is that—Mr Glyddyr’s?”

“Yes, friend of mine, sir,” said the same strange voice. “There, don’t lose time, my lads. Quick, carry her to my hotel.”

“Can I be of any assistance?” said another voice.

“No, thank you. I can manage.”

“Nonsense, sir; the lady’s insensible. Asher, you’d better go with them to the hotel.”

Chris heard no more, but stood looking confusedly after the crowd following the woman he had saved, and as he began to recover himself a little more, he realised that the strange voice was that of the over-dressed man who had been in Glyddyr’s boat, and that Gartram and then Doctor Asher had come down the pier, and had gone back to the cliff road, while he, though he hardly realised the fact that it was he—so strangely confused he felt—was seated on one of the low stone mooring posts, with a rough fisherman’s arm about his waist, and the houses on the cliff and the boats in the harbour going round and round.

“Come, howd up, brave lad,” said a rough voice.

“Here, drink a tot o’ this, Master Lisle, sir,” said another, and a pannikin was held to his lips.

“Seems to me he wants the doctor, too,” said another.

“Nay, he’ll be all right directly. That’s it, my lad. That’s the real stuff to put life into you. Now you can walk home, can’t you? A good rub and a run, and you’ll be all right. I’ve been drownded seven times, I have, and a drop of that allus brought me to.”

“That’s very strong,” gasped Chris, as he coughed a little.

“Ay, ’tis,” said the rough seaman, who had administered the dose. “It’s stuff as the ’cise forgot to put the dooty on.”

“I can stand now,” said Chris, as the sense of confusion and giddiness passed off; and when he rose to his feet, the first thing he caught sight of was Glyddyr’s gig, by where the yacht was moored.

“Who saved me?”

“That gent in Captain Glyddyr’s boat, my son. Got a howd on you with the boat-hook, and, my word, he’s given you a fine scrape. Torn the flannel, too.”

“Thank you, thank you. I can manage now.”

“No, you can’t, sir. You’re as giddy as a split dog-fish. You keep a hold on my arm. That’s your sort. I’ll walk home with you. Very plucky on you, sir. That gent’s wife, I suppose?”

“Eh? Yes. I don’t know.”

“Didn’t want to be left behind, I s’pose. Well, all I can say is, he’d ha’ been a widower if it warn’t for you.”

By this time they were at the shore end of the pier, but Chris still felt weak and giddy, and leaned heavily upon the rough seaman’s arm, walking slowly homeward, with quite a procession of blue-jerseyed fishers and sailors behind.

Then, as from out of a mist in front he caught a gleam of a woman’s dress, and the blood flushed to his pale face as he saw that Claude was coming toward him, but stopped short, and it was Mary Dillon’s hand that was laid upon his arm, and her voice which was asking how he was.

Volume One—Chapter Twelve.

The Gift of a White Card.

A hasty note had been despatched to the Fort by Glyddyr, announcing that a friend had come down from town, and that to entertain him he was going to take him for a short cruise in his yacht. Then there were the customary hopes that Gartram was better, and with kindest regards to Miss Gartram, Glyddyr remained his very sincerely.

“I don’t like going off like this,” grumbled Glyddyr; “it looks as if I were being scared away.”

“Well, that is curious,” said Gellow, with mock seriousness.

“And it’s like retreating from the field and leaving it to Lisle.”

“Who the deuce is Lisle?”

“Eh? A man I know. Had a bit of a quarrel with him,” said Glyddyr hastily.

“Quarrel? What about?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing.”

Gellow talked in a light, bantering strain, but behind the mask of lightness he assumed, a keen observer would have noticed that he was all on the strain to notice everything, and he noted that there was something under Glyddyrs careless way of turning the subject aside.

“Rival, of course,” thought Gellow.

They were walking down toward the pier, and as they neared the sea Glyddyrs pace grew slower, and his indecision more marked.

“I can’t afford to trifle with this affair,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll go.”

“Well, don’t go. Stop and order a nice piquant delicate little dinner in case Madame Denise comes, something of the Trois Frères Provençaux style, and I’ll stop and dine with you, play gooseberry, and keep you from quarrelling.”

“Come along,” said Glyddyr sharply; “we’ll go, but I believe she will not come. No, I won’t go. Suppose she does come down, and I’m not here, and she begins to make inquiries?”

“Bosh! If she comes and finds you are not here, the first inquiry she makes will be for when you went away, the second, for where you went.”

“Possibly.”

“Then let drop to some one that you are going to Redport, or Rainsbury, and she’ll make at once for there.”

“Confound you!” cried Glyddyr sharply. “Nature must have meant you for a fox.”

“You said a rat just now, dear boy. I never studied Darwin. Have it your own way. That our boat?”

“That’s my boat,” said Glyddyr sharply, as they reached the end of the pier.

“In with you, then,” cried Gellow; and then, in a voice loud enough to be heard on the nearest brig in the harbour, “Think the wind will hold good for Redport?”

Glyddyr growled, and followed his companion into the boat, which was pushed off directly.

“I don’t believe she’ll come down,” he whispered to Gellow, as the two sailors bent to their oars, and the boat began to surge through the clear water.

“Not likely,” said Gellow. “Look!”

Glyddyr gave a hasty glance back, and saw that which made him sit fast staring straight before him, and say, in a quick low voice,—

“Give way, my lads; I want to get on board.”

Then followed the excited appearance of the lady at the end of the pier, the cries to them to stop, and the plunge into the water.

“Well, she is a tartar,” whispered Gellow.

“Don’t look back, man.”

“Oh, all right. Water isn’t deep, I suppose?”

“Look, sir,” cried one of the sailors. “Shall we row back?”

“No; go on.”

“Water’s ten foot deep, sir, and the tide’s running like mad,” cried the man excitedly.

“Some one will help the lady out,” said Glyddyr hastily. “Plenty of hands there.”

“Hooray!” cried one of the men, as Chris leaped off the pier.

“Tell them to back water,” whispered Gellow excitedly. “It’s murder, man.”

Glyddyr made no reply, but seemed as if stricken with paralysis, as he looked back with a strangely confused set of thoughts struggling together in his brain, foremost among which, and mastering all the others, was one that seemed to suggest that fate was saving him from endless difficulties, for if the woman whom he could see being swept away by the swift current sank, to rise no more, before his boat reached her, his future would be assured.

He made a feeble effort, though, to save the drowning pair, giving orders in a half-hearted way, trembling violently the while, and unable to crush the hope that the attempt might be unsuccessful.

The men backed water rapidly, and Gellow raised the boat-hook, holding it well out over the stern in time to make the sharp snatch, which took effect in Chris’s back, and holding on till more help came and they reached the pier.

“It’s all over,” whispered Glyddyr bitterly, as willing hands dragged Chris and his insensible companion up the steps.

“Not it,” was whispered back. “Will you leave yourself in my hands?”

“I am in them already.”

“Don’t fool,” said Gellow quickly. “You have got to marry that girl for your own sake.”

“And for yours.”

“Call it so if you like; but will you trust me to get you out of this scrape?”

“Yes, curse you: do what you like.”

“Bless you, then, my dear boy; off you go.”

“What do you mean?”

“Be off to the yacht, set sail, and don’t come back to Danmouth till I tell you it’s safe.”

“Do you mean this?”

“Of course. But keep me posted as to your whereabouts.”

“Here?”

“No; in town.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“Fight for your interests, and mine. That woman’s my wife, come down after me, and I’m going to take her home. See?”

“Not quite.”

“Then stop blind. Be off, quick.”

This hurried colloquy took place in the boat by the rough granite stairs, the attention of those about being taken up by the two half-drowned people on the pier, the excited talk making the words inaudible save to those concerned.

“Now, then,” whispered Gellow, “you’ll leave it to me?”

“Yes,” said Glyddyr, hesitating.

“Carte blanche?”

“You’ll do nothing—”

He did not finish the sentence.

“Carte blanche?” said Gellow again.

“Well, yes.”

“Right; and every lie I tell goes down to your account, dear boy. Bye-bye. Off you go,” he said aloud, as he sprang on the stones. “I’m very sorry, Glyddyr; I apologise. If I had known she would follow me, I wouldn’t have come.”

“Give way,” said Glyddyr, thrusting the boat from the steps; and he sank down in the stern, heedless of the dripping seat, and thinking deeply as the pier seemed to slip away from him, and with it the woman who had for years been, as he styled it, his curse.

He only glanced back once, and saw that Chris Lisle was being helped up into a sitting position, but the little crowd closed round him, and he saw no more, but sat staring hard at his yacht, and seeing only the face of the woman just drawn from the sea.

Then he seemed to see Chris recovering, and taking advantage of his absence to ruin all his hopes with Claude.

“If these two, Claude and Denise, should meet and talk,” he thought.

“If Gartram should learn everything. If Denise should not recover. Hah!”

Glyddyr uttered a low expiration of the breath, as he recalled how closely Gellow’s interests were mixed up with his own.

“And I have given him carte blanche,” he thought; “and he will say or do anything to throw them off the scent—or do anything,” he repeated, after a pause. “No, he dare do no harm; he is too fond of his own neck.”

He had come to this point when he reached the side of his long, graceful-looking yacht, and as soon as he was aboard he gave his orders; the mooring ropes were cast off, and the sails hoisted. Then, fetching a glass from the cabin, Glyddyr carefully scanned the pier and shore, but could see nothing but little knots of people standing about discussing the adventure, while the largest knots hung about the door of the hotel.

Almost at the same moment, Gellow was using the telescope in the hotel hall.

“Right,” he said to himself, as he closed it, upon seeing that the sails of the yacht were being hoisted. “Good boy; but you’ll have to pay for it. Well, doctor, how is she?”

Doctor Asher had just come down from one of the bed-chambers.

“Recovering fast,” said that gentleman, following Gellow into a private room, “but very much excited. She will require rest and great care for some days.”

Gellow tapped him on the breast, and gave him a meaning look.

“No, she won’t, doctor,” he said, in a low voice. “I must get her home at once. Most painful for us both to stop. People chattering and staring, and that sort of thing. Most grateful to you for your attention,” he continued, taking out his pocket-book, opening it quickly, and drawing therefrom two crisp new five-pound notes. “Let me see, you doctors prefer guineas,” he said, thrusting his hand into his pocket.

“No, no, really,” protested Asher, as his eyes sparkled at the sight of the notes.

“Ah, well, I shall not press you, doctor; but I’m down and you are down after this painful affair, so what do you say to prescribing for us both pints of good cham and a seltzer, eh? Not bad, eh?”

“Excellent, I’m sure,” said Asher, smiling; “but really I cannot think of—er—one note is ample.”

“Bosh, sir!” cried Gellow, crumpling up both, and pressing them into the doctor’s hand. “Professional knowledge must be paid for. Here, waiter; wine-list. That’s right. Bottle of—of—of—of—Oh, here we are. Dry Monopole and two seltzers—no, one will do. Must practise economy; eh, doctor?”

The waiter hurried out, and Gellow continued confidentially,—

“Bless her! Charming woman, but bit of a tyrant, sir. Love her like mad don’t half express it; but there are times when a man does like a run alone. Just off with a friend for a bit of a cruise when the check-string was pulled tight. You understand?”

“Oh, yes; I begin to understand.”

“Ah, here’s the stimulus, and I’m sure we require it.”

Pop!

“Thanks, waiter. Needn’t wait. Now, doctor: bless her—the dear thing’s health. Hah, not bad—for the country. I may take her back to-day, eh?”

“Well, er—if great care were taken, and you broke the journey if the lady seemed worse—I—er—think perhaps you might risk it,” said Asher, setting down his empty glass. “Of course you would take every precaution.”

“Who would take more, doctor? Put out, of course; but the weaker sex, eh? Yes, the weaker sex.”

He refilled the doctor’s glass and his own.

“An accident. Pray, don’t think it was anything else; and, I say: you will contradict any one who says otherwise?”

“Of course, of course.”

“There are disagreeable people who might say that the poor dear sprang off the pier in a fit of temper at being left behind, but we know better, eh, doctor?”

“Oh, of course,” said Asher, playing with and enjoying his glass of champagne.

“It’s a wonderful thing, temper. Take a cigar?”

“Thanks, no. I never smoke in the daytime.”

“Sorry for you, doctor. Professional reasons, I suppose?”

Asher bowed.

“I was going to say,” continued Gellow, carefully selecting one out of the four cigars he carried, for no earthly reason, since he would smoke all the others in their turn. “I was going to say that it is a wonderful thing how Nature always gives the most beautiful women the worst tempers.”

“Compensation?” hazarded Asher.

“Eh? Yes; I suppose so. Going, doctor?”

“Yes; other patients to see.”

“Then my eternal gratitude, sir, for what you have done, and with all due respect to you and your skill, I hope I may never have to place a certain lady in your care again. Shake hands, my dear sir. Doctor Asher, I think you are called? That name will be engraven on the lady’s heart.”

“You will take the greatest care?” said Asher.

“Of course.”

“And break the journey, if needful?”

“And break the journey if I think it needful. You need be under no apprehension, my dear doctor. Good-morning, and goodbye.

“Yes; bless her! I’ll take the greatest care, Asher, by gad!” said Gellow to himself, as he saw the doctor pass the window, when he filled his own glass, took a hasty sip, and then drew out his pocket-book.

“Shall I make a lump charge on this journey,” he said, “or put down the separate items? Better be exact,” he muttered, and he carefully wrote down,—

“Doctor’s fees, twenty guineas; lunch for doctor, one guinea.”

“Always as well to be correct,” he muttered, as he replaced his pencil in the book, and drew round the elastic band with a snap. “How am I to know about how she is going on? By jingo!”

He started, so sudden was the apparition of the woman, who flung open the door, and closed it loudly, being evidently in a fierce fit of excitement and rage.

“Where is my hosband?” she cried, speaking in a low voice, and through her teeth.

Gellow beckoned her to the window, and pointed out to where The Fair Star was careening over, with a pleasant breeze sending her rapidly through the water.

“He is dere,” she said, watching the yacht through her half-closed eyes.

“Yes, he’s off. Gave me the slip while I was helping you. By jingo, ma’am, you had a narrow escape.”

“And you came down here to reveal him I was coming,” she said, turning upon him suddenly, with her eyes widely open and flashing.

“Come, I like that,” he replied, with cool effrontery. “How the dickens should I know that you were coming down here?”

She did not reply, but stood gazing at him searchingly.

“But I wish to goodness you hadn’t come.”

“And why, monsieur, do you wish that I shall not come?”

“Because you spoil sport. Do you know that Glyddyr owes me thousands?”

“Of francs? He is vairay extravagant.”

“Francs, be hanged! Pounds. I came down here to try and get some, and just as I’d got him safe, and he was taking me aboard his yacht to give me some money, you came and had that accident.”

“Yais, I come and had that ac-ceedon,” said the woman through her teeth. “Where to is he gone, monsieur?”

“Glyddyr? Ah! that’s what I should like to know. Going to sail back to London, I expect. Gravesend, perhaps. How are you now?”

“He will come back here?” said the woman, paying no heed to the question.

Gellow burst into a roar of laughter.

“What for you laugh?” said the woman angrily. “Am so I redeeculose in dese robe which do not fit me?”

“Eh? Oh, no. ’Pon honour I never noticed your dress. With a face like yours one does not see anything else.”

“Aha, I see,” said the woman, raising her eyebrows. “You flatter me, monsieur. I am extreme oblige. You tell me my face is handsome?”

“Yes; and no mistake.”

“You tell me somting else I do not know at all.”

“Eh? Oh, very well. I will when I think of it.”

“You tell me now. What for you laugh?”

“Eh, why did I laugh?” The woman screwed up her eyelids, and nodded her head a great deal.

“I remember now. It was at your thinking that Glyddyr would come back here.”

“He has sail away in his leettler sheep—in his yacht. Why will he not come back to-night, to-morrow, the next day?”

“Shall I tell you?”

“Yes; you shall tell me.”