Front matter (continued 3)

Out of kindness to fair authoresses, we will give them the staple topics that in real life go to make up after-dinner talk, whether in the messroom, or at the bencher's table, or round the squire's mahogany. And they shall be given in the order in which they stand in the male mind:

1. Horses. 2. Dogs. 3. Game. 4. Guns. 5. Cricket. 6. Politics. 7. 'Shop.'

Where in all this is Woman? Echo answers Where? Conceivably, when every other topic fails, she may be introduced, just in the same way as when all game is done, even rabbits, a trap and clay pigeons are brought out to be knocked over; so, possibly, a fine girl may be introduced into the conversation, sprung out of a trap—but only as a last resource, as a clay pigeon.

The house-door opened once more, this time without the bell being sounded—opened by a latch-key—and immediately Mrs. Sidebottom heard Salome's step in the hall. Salome did not go directly upstairs to remove her bonnet and kiss baby, but entered her mother's room.

Thereat a silence fell on the voices below—a silence that lasted a full minute, and then was broken by the plaintive pipe of the widow lady. She must have a long story to tell, thought Mrs. Sidebottom, who now put down her book, because she had arrived at three pages of description of a bungalow on the spurs of the Himalayas. Then she heard a cry from below, a cry as of pain or terror; and again the male voice was audible, mingled with that of the widow, raised as in expostulation, protest, or entreaty. At times the voices were loud, and then suddenly drowned.

Mrs. Sidebottom laid the book open on the table, turned down to keep her place.

'The doctor, I suppose,' she thought; 'and he has pronounced unfavourably of baby. Can't they accept his verdict and let him go? They cannot do good by talk. I never saw anything so disagreeable as mothers, except grandmothers. What a fuss they are making below about that baby!'

Presently she took up the book again and tried to read, but found herself listening to the voices below, and only rarely could she catch the tones of Salome. All the talking was done by her mother and the man—the doctor.

Then Mrs. Sidebottom heard the door of the widow's apartment open, and immediately after a tread on the stairs. Salome was no doubt ascending to the nursery, but not hurriedly—indeed, the tread was unlike that of Salome. Mrs. Sidebottom put the novel down once more at the description of a serpent-charmer, and went outside her door, moved by inquisitiveness.

'Is that the doctor below?' she asked, as she saw that Salome was mounting the stairs. 'What opinion does he give of little Phil?'

Then she noticed that a great change had come over her hostess. Salome was ascending painfully, with a hand on the banisters, drawing one foot up after the other as though she were suffering from partial paralysis. Her face was white as chalk, and her eyes dazed as those of a dreamer suddenly roused from sleep.

'What is it?' asked Mrs. Sidebottom again. 'Is baby worse?'

Salome turned her face to her, but did not answer. All life seemed to have fled from her, and she did not apparently hear the questions put to her. But she halted on the landing, her hand still on the banisters that rattled under the pressure, showing how she was trembling.

'You positively must tell me,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'What has the doctor said?'

But Salome, gathering up her energy, made a rush past her, ran up two or three steps, then relaxed her pace, and continued to mount, ascending the last portion of the stair as one climbing the final stretch of an Alpine peak, fagged, faint, doubtful whether his strength will hold out till he reach the apex.

Mrs. Sidebottom was offended.

'This is rude,' she muttered. 'But what is to be expected of a bagman's daughter?' She tossed her head and retreated to the study.

Reseating herself, she resumed her novel, but found no further interest in it.

'Why,' she exclaimed suddenly, 'the doctor has not been upstairs; he has not seen baby. This is quaint.'

Mrs. Cusworth did not appear at dinner. Salome told Mrs. Sidebottom that her mother was very, very ill, and prayed that she might be excused.

'Oh!' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I suppose the doctor called to see your mother, and not the baby. You are not chiefly anxious about the latter?'

'Baby is unwell, but mamma is seriously ill,' answered Salome, looking down at her plate.

'Her illness does not seem to have affected her conversational powers,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'I heard her talking a great deal to the doctor; but perhaps that is one of the signs of fever—is she delirious?'

Salome made no reply. She maintained her place at table, deadly pale; and though, during dinner, she endeavoured to talk, it was clear that her mind was otherwise engaged.

Mrs. Sidebottom was thankful when dinner was over. 'Mrs. Philip will never make a hostess,' she said to herself. 'She is heavy and dull. You can't make lace out of stocking yarn.'

When Salome rose, Mrs. Sidebottom said, 'Do not let me detain you from your mother; and, by the way, I don't know if you have family prayers, like them; they are good for the servants, and are a token of respectability—but you will excuse me if I do not attend. I am awfully interested in my novel, and tired after my journey—I shall go to bed.'

Mrs. Sidebottom did not, however, go to bed; she remained by the fire in the study, trying to read, and speculating on Philip's chances of recovering part if not all of her lost money—chances which she admitted to herself were remote.

'There,' said she, 'the servants and the whole household are retreating to their roosts. They keep early hours here. I suppose Salome sleeps below with her mother. Goodness preserve me from anything happening to either the old woman or the baby whilst I am in the house. These sort of things upset the servants, and they send up at breakfast the eggs hardboiled, the toast burnt, and the tea made with water that has not been on the boil.'

Mrs. Sidebottom heaved a sigh.

'This is a stupid book after all,' she said, and laid down the novel. 'I shall go to bed. Bother Mr. Beaple Yeo.'

Beaple Yeo stood between Mrs. Sidebottom just now and every enjoyment. As she read her book Beaple Yeo forced himself into the story. At meals he spoiled the flavour of her food with iodine, and she knew but too surely that he would strew her bed with decimals and banish sleep.

Mrs. Sidebottom drew up the blind of her bedroom window and looked forth on the garden and the vale of the Keld, bathed in moonlight, a scene of peace and beauty. Mrs. Sidebottom was not a woman susceptible to the charms of nature. She was one of those persons to whom nothing is of interest, nothing has charm, virtue, or value, unless it affects themselves beneficially. She had not formulated to herself such a view of the universe, but practically it was this—the sun rises and sets for Mrs. Sidebottom; the moon pursues her silver path about Mrs. Sidebottom; for her all things were made, and all such things as do not revolve about, enrich, enliven, adorn, and nourish Mrs. Sidebottom are of no account whatever.

Now, as Mrs. Sidebottom looked forth she saw a dark figure in the garden; saw it ascend the steps from the lower garden, cross the lawn, and disappear as it passed in the direction of the house out of the range of her vision. The figure was that of a man in a hat and surtout, carrying a walking-stick.

'Well, now,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'this is comical. That man must have obtained admission through the locked garden door, like that other mysterious visitant, and he is coming here after everyone is gone to bed. Of course he will enter by the glass door. I suppose he is the doctor, and they let him come this way to visit the venerable fossil without disturbing the maids. I do hope nothing will happen to her. I should not, of course, wear mourning for her, but for baby I should have to make some acknowledgment, I suppose. Bother it.'

Mrs. Sidebottom went to bed. But, as Beaple Yeo had disturbed her day, so did he spoil her night. She slept indifferently. Beaple Yeo came to her in her dreams, and rubbed her with decimals, and woke her. But other considerations came along with Beaple Yeo to fret and rouse her. Mrs. Sidebottom was a woman of easy conscience. That which was good for herself was, therefore, right. But there are moments when the most obtuse and obfuscated consciences stretch themselves and open their eyes. And now, as she lay awake in the night, she thought of her brother Jeremiah, of the readiness with which she had identified his body, on the slenderest evidence. She might have made a mistake. Then, at once, the thought followed the course of all her ideas, and gravitated to herself. If she had made a mistake, and it should come out that she had made a wrong identification—would it hurt her?

On this followed another thought, also disquieting. How came Jeremiah's will to be without its signature? Should it ever transpire that this signature had been surreptitiously turn away, what would be the consequences to herself?

As she tossed on her bed, and was tormented, now by Beaple Yeo with his speculation, then by Jeremiah asking about his will, she thought that she heard snoring.

Did the sound issue from the room downstairs, tenanted by Mrs. Cusworth, or from the spare chamber?

Mrs. Sidebottom attempted to feel unconcern, but found that impossible. The snoring disturbed her, and it disturbed her the more because she could not satisfy herself whence the sound came.

'Perhaps it is the cook,' she said. 'She may be occupying the room overhead, and cooks are given to stertorous breathing. Standing over the stoves predisposes them to it.'

Finally, irritated, resolved to ascertain whence the sound proceeded, Mrs. Sidebottom left her bed. Her fire was burning. She did not light a candle. She drew on a dressing-gown, and stole into the study, and thence through the door (which, on account of the smoke; had been left ajar) upon the landing-place.

There she halted and listened.

The gaslight in the hall below was left burning but lowered all night, and the moon shone in through a window.

'I do believe the sound proceeds from the spare room,' she said, and softly she stole to the door and turned the handle.

'There can be no one there,' she thought, 'because I was offered the room, and yet the snoring certainly seems to proceed from it. No one can be there—this must be an acoustic delusion.'

Noiselessly, timidly, she half opened the door. The hinges did not creak. She looked in inquisitively. The blind was drawn down, but the moon, shining through it, filled the room with suffused light.

Mrs. Sidebottom's eyes sought the bed. On it, where had lain the body found in the canal, and much in the same position as that had been placed there, lay the figure of a man, black against the white coverlet, in a great-coat. The face was not visible—the curtain interposed and concealed it.

Mrs. Sidebottom's heart stood still. A sense of sickness and faintness stole over her. She dared not take a step further to obtain a glimpse of the face, and she feared to see it.

With trembling hand she closed the door, and stood on the landing with beating heart, recovering herself. 'What a fool I am to be frightened!' she said, after a minute, and with a sigh of relief. 'Of course—the doctor.'

CHAPTER XXIX.

RECOGNITION.

In one of his essays, Goldsmith relates the anecdote of a painter who set up a picture in the market-place, with a pot of black paint and a brush beside it, and the inscription, 'Please indicate faults.'

When in the evening he revisited his picture, he found it smudged out eventually, as everyone had discovered and marked out a blemish. Next day he set up a replica of the picture, with paint and brush as before, and the inscription, 'Please indicate beauties.'

By evening, the entire canvas was covered with black. Everyone had found a beauty, where previously everyone had detected a fault.

The modern novelist sends his work into the great forum, and without inviting, expects criticism. The printer's ink is always available wherewith to draw attention to his defects. In Goldsmith's apologue the critics found beauties, in the present they see only blemishes, which they dab at venomously, and the sorrowful author sits at evening over his despised and bespattered production, bewildered, and ashamed to find that his earnest work, that has called out his most generous feelings, over which he has fagged and worn himself, is a mass of blunders, a tissue of faults.

Now, one of the salient defects in the work of the author of this story, according to his reviewers, is that he makes his personages talk more smartly than they would naturally. But, he asks, would it be tolerable to the reader, would it be just to the printer—to force upon them the literal transcript of the ordinary conversation that passes between people every day? When we were schoolboys we had a pudding served to us on Wednesdays which we call milestone pudding, not because it was hard, but because it was a plum-pudding with a mile between the plums. Is there not a good mile between our bon mots? Is it legitimate art, is it kind, to make the reader pursue a conversation through several pages of talk void of thought, stuffed with matter of everyday interest? Is it not more artistic, and more humane, to steam the whole down to an essence, and then—well, add a grain of salt and a pinch of spice?

The reader shall be the judge. We will take the morning dialogue between Mrs. Sidebottom and Salome at breakfast.

'Good-morning, Mrs. Sidebottom.'

'I wish you good-morning, Salome.'

Author: Cannot that be taken for granted? May it not be struck out with advantage?

'I hope you slept well,' said Salome.

'Only so so. How is your poor mother?'

'Not much better, thank you.'

'And darling baby?'

'About the same. We have, indeed, a sick house. Tea or coffee, please?'

'Tea, please.'

'Sugar?'

'Sugar, please.'

'How many lumps?'

'Two will suffice.'

'I think you will find some grilled rabbit. Would you prefer buttered egg?'

'Thank you, rabbit,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'I will help myself.'

'I hope your room was comfortable. You must excuse us, we are all much upset in the house, servants as well as the rest. We have had a good deal to upset us of late, and when we are upset it upsets the servants too.'

Author: Now, there! Because we have dared to copy down, word for word, what was said at breakfast, our heroine has revealed herself as tautological. There were positively four upsets in that one little sentence. And we are convinced that if the reader had to express the same sentiment he or she would not be nice as to the literary form in which the sentence was couched, would not cast it thus—'We have been much upset; we have had much of late to disturb our equilibrium, and when we are thrown out of our balance then the servants as well are affected.' That would be better, no doubt, but the reader would not speak thus, and Salome did not.

The author must be allowed to exercise his judgment and give only as much of the conversation as is necessary, and not be obliged to record the grammatical slips, the clumsy constructions, the tedious repetitions that disfigure our ordinary conversation.

The English language is so simple in structure that it invites a profligate usage of it; it allows us to pour forth a flood of words without having first thought out what we intended to say. The sentences tumble higgledy-piggledy from our lips like children from an untidy nursery—some unclothed, one short of a shoe, and another over-hatted. Do we get the Parliamentary debates as they were conducted? Where are the 'hems' and 'haws,' the 'I means' and 'you knows'? What has become in print of the vain repetitions and the unfinished sentences? Is not all that put into order by the judicious reporter? In like manner the novelist is armed with the reporter's powers, and exercising the same discretion passes the words of his creations through the same mill. Using, therefore, the privilege of a reporter, we will once more enter the gallery and take down the conversation that ensued at the breakfast-table between Mrs. Sidebottom and Salome.

'My dear Mrs. P.,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I hope that you were not obliged to call up the doctor in the night.'

'No,' answered Salome, raising her eyebrows.

'But what is the matter with your mother?'

'She has long suffered from heart complaint, and recently she has had much to trouble her. She has had a great shock and is really very unwell, and so is dear baby also; and between both and—and—other matters, I hardly know what I am about.'

'So I perceive,' said Mrs. Sidebottom; 'you have upset the cream.'

Salome had a worn and scared look. Her face had lost every particle of colour the day before. It remained as pale now. She looked as if she had not slept. Her eyes were sunken and red.

'My dear,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'never give in. If I had given in to all the trials that have beset me I should have been worn to fiddle-strings. My first real trial was the loss of Sidebottom, and the serious reduction of my income in consequence; for though he called a house an 'ouse, yet he was in good practice. There is a silver lining to every cloud. I don't suppose I could have got into good society so long as Sidebottom lived, with his dissipated habits about his h's. His aspirate stood during our married life as a wall between us, like that—like that which separated Pyramus from Thisbe.'

Salome made no answer.

'You can have no idea,' continued Mrs. Sidebottom, 'how startled I was in the night by the snoring of the doctor.'

'The doctor?' Salome looked up surprised.

'Yes—he slept, you know, in the spare room.'

A rush of crimson mounted to Salome's cheeks, and then faded from them, leaving them such an ashy gray as succeeds the Alpengluth on the snow peaks at sundown.

'Do you know?—well, really, I must confess my weakness—I was made quite nervous by the snoring. I was so anxious, naturally so anxious for your poor dear mother, and I thought the sounds might proceed from her, and if so I trembled lest they portended apoplexy. Then again, I could not make out whence the snoring proceeded. So, being of an inquiring mind—my dear, if we had not inquiring minds we should not have made Polar expeditions, and discovered the electric telegraph, and measured the distances of the planets—I was resolved to satisfy myself as to those sounds, and I stole out of my room and listened on the landing; and when I was satisfied that the snoring issued from the spare apartment, which I had supposed to be empty, I had the boldness to open the door and peep in.'

'At what o'clock?' asked Salome faintly.

'Oh! gracious goodness, I cannot tell. Somewhere in the small hours. You must know that as I looked out of my window before going to bed I saw the doctor coming through the garden. The moon was shining, and I adore the moon, so I stood at my window in quite a poetic frame. I suppose you told him to come through the garden so as not to disturb the household.'

Salome hesitated. She was trying to pour out a second cup of tea for Mrs. Sidebottom, but her hand shook, and she was obliged to set down the pot. She breathed painfully, and looked at Mrs. Sidebottom with a daze of terror in her eyes.

'Thank you,' said the lady, 'I said I would have a little more tea. Bless me! How your feelings have overcome you. Family affection is charming, idyllic, but—don't spill the tea as you did the cream.'

'Would you kindly pour out for yourself?' asked Salome. 'It is true that my hand shakes. I am not very well this morning.'

'Delighted. As I was saying,' pursued Mrs. Sidebottom, drawing the teapot, sugar-basin, and cream-jug to herself—'as I was saying, in the small hours of the night I was aroused by the snoring and could not sleep. So I rose, and opened the spare room door and looked in.'

Salome's frightened eyes were riveted on her.

'I looked in, and saw a man lying on the bed. I could not see his face. The curtain was in the way, and there was no light save that of the moon. At first I was frightened, and inclined to cry out for sal-volatile, I was so faint. But after a moment or two I recovered myself. This man had on more clothing than—that other one. He wore boots and so on. After the first spasm of dismay I recovered myself, for I said, "It is the doctor sleeping in the house because Mrs. Cusworth is ill." It was the doctor, was it not?'

Salome's scared face, her strange manner, now for the first time inspired Mrs. Sidebottom with the suspicion that she had not hit on the true solution of the mystery.

'But, goodness gracious me!' she exclaimed, 'if it was not the doctor, who could it be? And in the house at night—as on that former occasion—and when Philip is absent, too!'

Salome started from her seat.

'Excuse me,' she said hastily, 'I am—I am unwell.'

She tottered to the door.

Mrs. Sidebottom, with kindled suspicion, rose also, and deserted an unfinished egg and some buttered toast to go after her. Salome had opened the door and passed through. Before she could close it behind her, Mrs. Sidebottom had grasped it and was at her heels, asking if she really were ill, and if she needed help.

At the same moment that both entered the hall, they saw a man descending the stairs, a man in hat and great-coat, with a leather bag in one hand and a cane in the other. He wore his hair long, and had dark whiskers, curled, but not in the freshest of curls. His nose was red, and his face mottled.

'Mr. Beaple Yeo!' shrieked Mrs. Sidebottom. 'My money! I want—I will have my money!'

The man stood for a moment irresolute on the stairs.

Then a key was turned in the front-door lock, and Philip appeared from the street—returned by an early train.

'Oh, Philip!' screamed Mrs. Sidebottom. 'Here is the man—Beaple Yeo himself! Has been hiding in the spare bedroom all night. He has my money.'

In an instant, the man darted into Mrs. Cusworth's room, and locked the door behind him.

CHAPTER XXX.

EXEUNT.

The man descending the stairs had hesitated, and his hesitation had lost him. Had he made a dash at Mrs. Sidebottom and Salome, swept them aside and gone down the passage to the garden door, he would have escaped before Philip entered. But the sight of Mrs. Sidebottom, her vehement demand for her money, made him turn from her and fly into Mrs. Cusworth's room. Thence he, no doubt, thought to escape to the garden, through the window.

For some moments, after Philip appeared and Mrs. Sidebottom had told him that the swindler was in his house, all three—he, Salome, and Mrs. Sidebottom, stood in the hall, silent.

Then a servant, alarmed by the cry, appeared from the kitchen, and Philip at once bade her hasten after a policeman.

Salome laid her hand on his arm and said supplicatingly, 'No, Philip; no, please!'

But he disregarded her intervention, and renewed the command to the servant, who at once disappeared to obey it.

Then he strode towards the door leading to Mrs. Cusworth's apartments, but Salome, quick as thought, threw herself in his way, and stood against the door, with outstretched arms.

'No, Philip; not—not, if you love me.'

'Why not?'—spoken sternly.

'Because——' She faltered, her face bowed on her bosom; then she recovered herself, looked him entreatingly in the eyes, and said, 'I will tell you afterwards—in private. I cannot now. Oh, Philip—I beseech you!'

'Salome,' said her husband very gravely, 'that man is in there.'

'I know, I know he is,' she answered timorously.

'Oh, Philip, don't mind her. He will get away, and he has my money!' entreated Mrs. Sidebottom on her part.

'Why do you seek to shelter him?' asked Philip of his wife, ignoring the words of his aunt.

'I cannot tell you now. Will you not trust me? Do allow him to escape.'

'Salome!' exclaimed Philip, in such a tone as made her shiver, it expressed so much indignation.

She could say no more in urgence of what she had asked, but looked at him steadily with her great imploring eyes.

Mrs. Sidebottom was not silent; she poured in a discharge of canister, and was cut short by Philip, who, turning sternly to her, said:

'I request your silence. The scoundrel cannot escape. The windows of both rooms are barred, because on the ground floor. He cannot break forth. I have him as in a trap. It is merely a question with me—which my wife must help me to decide—whether to burst open the door now, or wait till the arrival of the constable.'

Then Salome slowly, with heaving breast, and without taking her eyes off her husband's face, let fall her arms and stood back. But even then, as he put his foot against the door, she thrust forth her hand against Mrs. Sidebottom, and said: 'Not she! No, Philip, as you honour me! If you love me—not she!'

Then he turned and said to Mrs. Sidebottom: 'Aunt, I must ask you to remain in the hall. When the maid rings the front door bell, open and let her and the constable in, and bring them at once into Mrs. Cusworth's apartments. Do not enter before.'

He did not burst open the door till he had knocked thrice, and his knock had remained unnoticed. Then, with foot and shoulder against it, he drove it in, and the lock torn off fell on the floor. Instantly, Salome entered after him and shut the door behind her, and stood against it.

The old suspicion, sullenness, and doggedness which Philip had nurtured in him through long years of discouragement and distress, evil tempers that had been laid to sleep for a twelvemonth, rose full of energy to life again. He was angered at the thought that the wretch whom he was pursuing should have taken refuge under his own roof, and worst of all, that his own wife should spread out her arms to protect him.

The hero of a story should be without such blemishes that take from him all lustre and rob him of sympathy. But the reader must consider these evil passions in him as bred of his early experience. They grew necessarily in him, because the seed was sown in him when his heart was receptive, and rich to receive whatever crop was sown there. And again, we may ask: Is the reader free from evil tempers, constitutional or acquired? The history of life is the history of man mastering or being mastered by these; and such is the history of Philip.

In the sitting-room stood a scared group, looking at one another. Mrs. Cusworth by the fireplace, pale as chalk, hardly able to stand, unable to utter a word of explanation or protect, and Beaple Yeo, with his hat on, wearing a great-coat that Philip knew at once—that of his deceased uncle, holding a leather bag in his hand, to which a strap was attached that he was endeavouring to sling over his shoulder, but was incommoded by his cane, of which he did not let go. His face was mottled and his nose very purple—but he had not, like Mrs. Cusworth, lost his presence of mind.

Philip looked hard at him, then his face became hard as marble, and he said, 'So—we meet—Schofield.'

The man had forgotten to remove his hat when attempting to put the strap over his head, and so failed; he at once hastily passed the cane into the hand that held the bag, and said with an air of forced joviality, as he extended his right palm, 'How d'y' do, my boy? glad to see you.'

'Put down that bag,' ordered Philip, ignoring the offered hand. 'Or, here, give it me.'

'No, thank y', my son; got my night togs in there—comb and brush and whisker-curlers.'

'Schofield,' said Philip grimly, 'I have sent for the constable. He will be here in two or three minutes. Give me up that bag. I shall have you arrested in this room.'

'No, you won't, my dear boy,' answered the fellow. 'But, by jove, it isn't kindly—not kindly—hardly what we look for in our children. But, Lord bless you! bless you, the world is becoming frightfully neglectful of the commandment with promise—with promise, my son.'

The impudence of the man, his audacity, and his manner, worked Philip into anger; not the cold bitter anger that had risen before, but hot and flaming.

'Come, no nonsense. Give me that bag now, or I'll take it from you. There is a warrant out for your arrest as Beaple Yeo.' He put his hand forward to snatch the bag from the fellow, but Beaple Yeo—or Schofield quickly brought his stick round.

'My pippin!' said he, 'take care; I have a needle in this, that will run you through if you touch me—though you are my son.'

Philip closed with him, wrenched the stick from him and placed it behind him. But Beaple would not be deprived of his weapon without an effort to recover it, and he made a rush at Philip to beat him aside, as he drew back, which would have led to a fresh test of strength, had not Salome thrown herself between them, and clinging to her husband said. 'Oh, Philip! Philip! He is my father!'

Philip stood back, and he and Schofield faced each other in silence, the latter with his eye on Philip to note how he received the news. Philip grew grayer in tint; and every line in his face deepened; his eyes became more like Cairngorm stones than ever—cold, hard, almost inanimate.

'It is true,' said Schofield; 'my chuck has told you the fact—the very fact. Why should it have been kept from you so long?—so long? The Schofields are a family as good as the Pennycomequicks, and the name is not so much of a mouthfiller, which, at least, is a consolation—a consolation. Now, perhaps, son-in-law, you will allow me to step by? No? Upon my word there would be something un-Christian—something to shock the moral sense even of an old Roman—a classic Roman—for a son-in-law to suffer his father to be arrested beneath his own roof. Besides, dear fellow, there are other considerations. You would hardly wish to have Pennycomequick's firm mixed up with Beaple Yeo, Esquire. It might, you know—you know—injure, compromise, and all that sort of thing—you understand——'

Philip turned to Mrs. Cusworth and asked her, 'Is it true, or—a lie?'

But the old lady was in no condition to answer. She opened her mouth and shut it, like a gasping fish, but no sound issued from her lips.

Then Salome recovered her composure and said, 'Philip! It is indeed true. He is my father. I am not, nor is Janet, her daughter. We are the twin children of her sister, who was married to—and then who was deserted by—this—this man Schofield. She took us, she and her dear good husband, and cared for us as their own—we did not know that we were not her children—that we were her nieces—we were not told.'

'Is this really true?' asked Philip, again looking at Mrs. Cusworth, and his face clouded with the blood that suffused it, but so far beneath the skin that it did not colour, it only darkened it. 'Is this true—or is it a lie told to persuade me to let this scoundrel escape? Either way it will lose its effect. I am just. I will give him over to suffer the consequences of his acts.'

Again Mrs. Cusworth tried to speak, but could not. She grasped at the mantelshelf; she could hardly stay herself from falling.

'Very well,' said Philip, looking fixedly at Schofield. 'Let us suppose that it is true; that I have been trifled with, deceived, dishonoured. Very well. We will suppose it is so. Then let it come out. I will be no party to lying, dissimulation, to the screening of swindlers and scoundrels of any sort. My house is not a receiving house for stolen goods. I will return to the robbed that of which they have been despoiled. Hand me the bag.'

He spoke with a hard, metallic voice; scarce a trace of feeling was in it, save of the grate of animosity; his strong eye had no yielding in it, no light, only a sort of phosphorescent glimmer passing over it. He stooped, picked up the cane, and held it in his right hand, like a quarter-staff, and in his firm, knotted fist, cane though it was, it had the appearance of being a weapon capable of being used with deadly emphasis.

'Now, then,' said Philip, 'put down that bag; there, on the chair near me. Instantly.'

Schofield looked into his face and did not venture to disobey. The iron resolution, the forceful, earnest, the remorseless determination there were not to be trifled with. Schofield put down the bag as desired.

'The key.'

Sulkily, the fellow drew it from his trousers-pocket and flung it on the ground.

'Pick it up.'

Schofield hesitated. He would not stoop. He dreaded a blow on the head; on the back of the head, which would fell him if he stooped, such a blow as he would himself deal the man before him if he had a stick in his hand, and could induce him to bend at his feet.

As he hesitated, and a spark appeared in the eye of Philip, Salome stooped, rose, and handed the key to her husband.

He did not thank her. He did not look at her. He kept his eye steadily on Schofield—scarcely glancing at the bag as he opened it, and then only rapidly and cursorily at its contents—never for more than a second allowing it to be off his opponent, never allowing him to move a muscle unobserved, never to frame a thought unread. But, for all the speed with which he glanced at the contents of the bag, he saw that it contained a great deal of money. It was stuffed with bank-notes, and the figures on these notes were high. Philip leisurely reclosed and relocked the bag, put the key in his pocket and passed the strap over his own head.

Then only did a slight, almost cruel smile, stir the corners of his lips as he saw the blankness of Schofield and the break-up of his assurance.

'Now, I suppose, I may go?' said the rogue.

'No,' answered Philip, 'I do nothing by half. I have my old scores against Schofield as well as the new scores—which are not my own—against Beaple Yeo.'

'But,' said the man, in a shaking voice, 'it will be so terribly bad for you to have the concern here mixed up with me—and you should consider that—the Bridlington scheme was a famous one, and was honest as the daylight. It must have rendered twenty-five per cent.—twenty-five as I am an honest man—and I should have become a millionaire. Then wouldn't you have been proud of me, eh?—it was a good scheme and must have answered, only who was to dream that no land could be bought?'

He eyed Philip craftily, then looked at the door, then again at Philip—as soon expect to find yielding in him as to see honey distil out of flint. So he turned to Salome. 'Speak a word for your father, child!' he said in a low tone.

Salome shrank from him and turned to Philip, who put out his steady hand and thrust her back, not roughly but firmly, towards Schofield.

Then in a sudden frenzy of fear and anger the fellow screamed, 'Will you let me pass?'

'The constable will be here directly, and then I will; not till then,' said Philip.

'Bah! the constable!' scoffed Schofield. 'You have sent to have a constable summoned. But where is he? Looking for a policeman is like searching for a text. You know he's somewhere, but can't for the life of you put your thumb on him. Look here, Philip,' he lowered his voice to a sort of whine, 'I'm awfully penitent for what I have done. Cut to the heart, gnawing of conscience, and all that sort of thing. It is a case of the prodigal father returning to the discreet and righteous son, and instead of running to meet me and help me, and giving me a good dinner—a good dinner, you know, and all that sort of thing, you threaten me with constables and conviction. I couldn't do it myself. 'Pon my word I couldn't. I suppose it is in us. I'm too much of a Christian—a true Christian, not a mere professor. I'm ashamed of you, Philip; I'm sorry for you. I sincerely am. I'm terribly afraid for you that you are the Pharisee despising me the humble, penitent Publican.' The fellow was such a rascal that he could adapt himself to any complexion of man with whom he was, and he tried on this miserable cant with Philip in the hope that it would succeed. But as he watched his face, and saw no sign of alteration of purpose in it, he changed his tone, and said sullenly, with a savagery in the sullenness: 'Come, let me go; if I am brought to trial, I can tell you there will be pretty things come out, which neither you nor your wife will like to hear, and which will not suffer her to hold up her head very stiffly—eh?'

He saw that he had made Philip wince.

At that moment the house door-bell rang, and he heard that the police-constable had arrived.

He turned, went to the fireplace, grasped the poker, and swinging it above his head rushed upon Philip. Salome uttered a cry. Mrs. Cusworth's hand let go its grasp of the chimney-piece and she fell.

All happened in a moment—a blow of the poker on Philip's arm—and Schofield was through the door and down the passage to the garden.

'Run after him, policeman, run!' screamed Mrs. Sidebottom, as she admitted the constable.

But Schofield had gained the start, and when the policeman reached the door in the wall of the lower garden he found it locked, and had to retrace his steps to the house. Time had been gained. No sooner was Schofield outside the garden than he relaxed his steps, and sauntered easily along the path till he reached the canal. He followed that till he arrived at a barge laden with coal, over the side of which leaned a woman, with a brown face, smoking a pipe.

'My lass!' said Schofield, 'I've summat to tell thee—in private;' and he jumped on board and went down the ladder into the little cabin.

The woman, Ann Dewis, slowly drew her pipe out of her mouth and went after him to the hatch, looked in, and said, 'What be 't, lad? Eh, Earle! Tha'rt come. Tak' t' pipe, I've kept it aleet a' these years. Ah sed ah would, and ah've done it.'

CHAPTER XXXI.

ESTRANGEMENT.

One! Two! Three!

Hark! on the church bell: then, again—

One! Two! Three!

'It is a woman or a little girl,' said those listening.

Then again—

One! Two! Three!

'A woman. Who can she be? Who is ill? But—how old?' Then, again, the bell—

One! Two! Three!————up to forty-six.

'Aged forty-six! Who can it be?'

Many faces appeared at the windows and doors of the street at Mergatroyd, and when the sexton emerged from the belfry, he was saluted with inquiries of, 'Who is dead? Forty-six years old—who can she be?'

'Mrs. Cusworth. Dropped dead with heart complaint.'

Now, in Yorkshire, when a man dies, then the bell tolls, Four, four, four; when a boy, then Four, four, two; when a woman dies, then as above, Thrice three; and when a girl, Three, three, two; after which, in each case, the age is tolled.

'Fiddlesticks!—you may say what you will, it is fiddlesticks,' said Mrs. Sidebottom impatiently. She was in the study with Philip. 'I never heard of anything so monstrous, so inhuman. I could not have believed it of you. And yet—after what I have seen, I can believe anything of you.'

Philip was unmoved. 'The plunder of that wretched fellow,' he said unconcernedly, 'shall be placed in proper hands. How much there is I cannot now say, and I do not know how many persons he has defrauded, and to what an extent. Whether all will get back everything is not certain; probably they will receive a part, perhaps a large part, but not all.'

'It is preposterous!' burst in Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I have been the means of catching him. No one would have had a farthing back but for my promptitude, my energy, and my cleverness. Did not I track him here, and act as his gaoler, and drive him into a corner whilst you secured the money? And you say that I am to share losses equally with the rest! No such a thing. I shall have my money back in full; and the rest may make the best of what remains, and thank me for getting them that. As for what you say, Philip, I don't care who hears me, I say it is fiddlesticks—it is fiddlestick-ends.'

'I should have supposed, Aunt Louisa, that by this time you would have known that when I say a thing I mean it, and if I mean a thing I intend to carry it out unaltered.' Then after a pause: 'And now I am sorry to seem inhospitable, but under the painful circumstances—with death again in this house, and with my child ill, I am obliged to recommend you to return at once to York, and when there, not again to consult Mr. Smithies. It is more than probable that this reliable man of business of yours, whom you set to watch me, has sold you to that rascal Beaple Yeo—or whatever his name be.'

'Oh, gracious goodness!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom. 'To be sure I will return to York. I wouldn't for the world incommode you in a house of mourning. I know what it is; the servants off such heads as they have, which are heads of hair and nothing else, and everything in confusion, and only tongues going. I wouldn't stay with you at this most trying time, Philip, not for worlds. I shall be off by the next train.'

Philip was left to himself.

His wife was either upstairs with the baby, or was below with the corpse of one whom she had looked up to and loved as a mother. Surely it was his place to go to her, draw her into the room where they could be by themselves, put his arm about her, and let her rest her head on his breast and weep, to the relief of her burdened heart.

But Philip made no movement to go to his wife.

She was alone, without a friend in the house. Her sister was away, her baby was ill. A death entails many things that have to be considered, arranged, and provided. Philip knew this. He sent word to the registrar of the death; he did nothing more to assist Salome. He rang the bell, and when after a long time a servant replied to the summons, he gave orders that clean sheets should be put on the bed lately occupied by Mrs. Sidebottom. He would, he said for awhile, sleep there.

Did it occur to Philip that there was cruelty in leaving his young wife alone at night, with a sick baby, and with the body of the woman, who had been to her as a mother, lying waiting for burial downstairs? Did it occur to him that she might feel infinite desolation at night, if he were away from her? He thought only of himself, of the wrong done to him.

'She married me, and never told me who she was. She married me, lying under a false name.'

Salome had not realized, indeed, had not perceived, how deep and fatal a rift had been cloven in her relations with Philip. The fall of her mother, the efforts to restore life, the arrival of the doctor, the conviction struggled against but finally submitted to that life was extinct, had concentrated and engrossed all her faculties. Then, when she knew that death was again in the house, there sprang out of that knowledge many imperious duties that exacted of Salome full attention and much thought. Mrs. Sidebottom had volunteered no help. Upon Salome everything depended. She had not the time to consider how Philip would take the startling revelation made to him. Salome was not one to give up herself to emotion. She braced herself to the discharge of the duties that devolved on her. Quiet, very pale, and hollow-eyed, she went about the house. From the nursery she found that the nurse had escaped, deserting the baby, that she might talk over the events that had occurred in the kitchen. The cook, Salome found, had made the pastry with washing instead of baking powder, and the housemaid had found too much to talk about to make the beds by four o'clock in the afternoon.

Only, when everything in the house had been seen to, a woman provided to attend to the dead, and all the trains off their lines set on them again, only then could Salome sit down and write to her sister of their common loss.

After this was done she wrote a few notes to friends, and then, lacking stamps, came with the packet to Philip's door.

He was seated at his secretaire writing, or pretending to write, with his brows bent, when he heard her distinct and gentle tap at the door. He knew her tap, it was like that of no one else, and he called to her to enter.

'My dear,' she said, 'I have not been able to come to you before. I have had so much to do; and—dear, I have wanted to speak to you; but, as you know, in such a case as this, personal wants must be set aside. Have you any stamps? I require a foreign one.'

He hardly looked up from the desk, but signed with the quill that she should shut the door. He was always somewhat imperious in his manner.

She shut the door, and came over to him, and laid the letters on his desk.

'You will stamp them for me, dear?' she said, and rested her hand lightly on his shoulder.

Then she saw how stern and set his face was, and a great terror came over her.

'Oh, Philip!' she said; and then, 'I know what you are taking to heart, but there is no changing the past, Philip.'

Sometimes we have seen the reflection of the sun in rippled waters out of doors sent within on the ceiling. How it dances; is here and there; now extinct, then once more it flashes out in full brilliancy. So was it with the colour in Salome's face; it started to one cheek, burnt there a moment, then went to the temples, then died away wholly, and in another moment was full in her face, the next to leave it ashy pale. Her voice also quivered along with the colour in her face, in rhythmic accord. Philip withdrew his shoulder from the pressure of her hand, and slowly stood up.

'I shall be obliged if you will take a chair,' said he formally, 'as I desire an interview, but will undertake to curtail it as much as possible, as likely to be painful to both.'

She allowed her hand to fall back, and then drew away a step. She would not take a chair, as he had risen from his.

'Philip,' she said, 'I am ready to hear all you have to say.'

She spoke with her usual self-possession. She knew that they must have an explanation about what had come out. There was always something in her voice that pleased; it was clear and soft, and the words were spoken with distinctness. In nothing, neither in dress, in movement, nor in speech, was there any slovenliness in Salome. There was some perceptible yet indefinable quality in her voice which at once reached the heart.

Philip felt this, but put the feeling from him, as he had her hand.

'Salome,' said he, not looking at her, except momentarily, 'a cruel trick has been played on me.'

'Philip,' said she quietly but pleadingly, 'that man, as I told you, is my father, but I did not know it till yesterday. I had no idea but that I was the daughter of those who had brought me here, and who gave themselves out to be my parents. I will tell you what I know, but that is not much. He—I mean that man—had married my mother, who was the sister of her who is below, dead. He got into trouble somehow; I do not know what kind of trouble it was, but it was, I suppose, a disgraceful one, for he had to leave the country, and it was thought he would not venture back to England. My real mother, grieved at the shame, died and left us to her sister, who with her husband, Mr. Cusworth, cheerfully undertook the care of us, adopted us as their own, and when they came here shortly after, gave out that we were their children, partly to save us the pain of knowing that our father had been a——well, what he was, partly also to screen us from his pursuit should he return, and also, no doubt, the more to attach us to themselves. As you know, shortly before Mr. Cusworth, our reputed father, was to be taken into partnership, a terrible accident happened and he was killed. Janet and I do not remember him. Since then mamma—I mean my aunt—and we children lived in this house with dear, kind, Uncle Jeremiah. Whether he knew the truth about us I have not been told. We never had any doubt that she whom we loved and respected as a mother was our real mother. Then, on the occasion of the terrible flood and the death of Uncle Jeremiah' or just after, he—I mean our father—reappeared suddenly, and without having let mamma know that he was yet alive. He came here in great destitution, wanted money, and even clothing. Mamma—you know whom I mean, really aunt—she was in great straits what to do. She did not venture openly to allow him to appear, and she suffered him to visit her secretly through the lower garden-door, and to come to her sitting-room; she gave him money and he went away. That was how her two hundred and fifty pounds went, about which you asked so many questions, and which she was afraid of your inquiring too much about. My father had then assumed the name of Beaple Yeo. She also allowed him to take uncle's great-coat and hat, which were laid out in the spare room for distribution. You told her to dispose of them as she saw fit.'

Philip hastily raised his hand.

Mrs. Sidebottom had hit the right nail on the head in her explanation of that mysterious visit to his house—and then he had scouted her explanation. He lowered his hand again, and Salome, who had supposed that he desired to speak, and had stopped, resumed what she was relating. 'Mamma heard nothing more of him after that till yesterday, when he reappeared. He was, he said, again in trouble, which meant, this time, that he must leave the country to avoid imprisonment. But he was not in a hurry to leave too hastily; he would wait till the vigilance of the police was relaxed, nor would he go in the direction they expected him to take. He had come, he said, to ascertain Janet's address. He intended, he said, to go to her. My mother refused to give it. I trust she remained firm in her refusal, but of that I am not sure. He said that if I had not been married he would have carried me off with him; it would not be so dull for him if he had a daughter as a companion. Janet knew about him and her relationship to him. I did not. When he came here first of all, Janet was in my mother's room, and the matter could not be concealed from her.'

'Do you mean seriously to tell me that till yesterday you were ignorant of all this?'

'Yes.'

'Ignorant when you married me that your name was Schofield, and not Cusworth?'

'Of course, Philip; of course.' She spoke with a leap of surprise in her tone and in her eyes. It was a surprise to her that he should for a moment suppose it possible that she was capable of deceiving him, that he could think her other than truthful.

'Then at that first visit you were told nothing; only Janet was let into the secret?'

'Yes, dear Philip.'

'What! the giddy, light-hearted Janet was made a confidante in a matter of such importance, and you the clear of intellect, prompt in action, close of counsel, were left in the dark? It is incredible.'

'But it is true, Philip.'

Thereupon ensued silence.

She looked steadily at him with her frank eyes.

'Surely, Philip, you do not doubt my word? Mamma only told Janet because the secret could not be kept from her. At that time my sister slept in mamma's room, and spent the greater part of the day with her, so that it was not possible to keep from her the sudden arrival of—of him.' She shuddered at the thought of the man who was her father. She put her hands over her face that burnt with an instantaneous blaze, but withdrew them again directly, to say vehemently, 'But, Philip, surely it cannot be. You do not doubt me?' She looked searchingly at him. 'Me!'

He made no reply. His face was set. Not a muscle moved in it.

'Philip!' she said, with a catch of pain—a sudden spasm in her heart and throat. 'Philip, the sense of degradation that has come on me since I have known the truth has been almost more than I could bear Not because of myself. What God sends me, that I shall find the strength to bear. I am nobody, and if I find that I am the child of someone worse than nobody—I must endure it. What crushes me is the sense of the shame I have brought on you, Philip, and the sorrow that a touch of dishonour should come to you through me. But I cannot help it. There is no way out of it. It has come on us without fault of ours, and we must bear it—bear it together. I'—she spread out her hands—'I would lay down my life to save you from anything that might hurt you, that might grieve your proud and honourable spirit. But, Philip, I can do nothing. I cannot unmake the fact that I am his daughter and your wife.'

'I shall never, never forgive that the truth was kept from me. The marriage was a fraud practised on me.'

'My dear mother—you know whom I mean—acted with the kindest intentions, but I cannot excuse her for not speaking.'

'Janet knew, as you tell me, and she said nothing.'

'Mamma urged her to remain silent.'

'I was sacrificed,' said Philip bitterly. 'Upon my word, this is a family that transmits from one generation to another the fine art of hoaxing the unsuspicious.'

'Philip!' A rush of indignant blood mantled her face, and then left it again. She heaved a sigh, and said, 'If I had known before I married you whose daughter I was I would on no account have taken you. I would have taken no honest man for his own sake, no other for my own.'

'You know what Schofield was to me—to me above every man. I can recall when I told you and Janet and your mother how he had embittered my life, how he had ruined my father—and you all kept silence.'

'Philip, you are mistaken; I never heard that.'

'At all events your mother and Janet heard me—heard me when they knew I was engaged to you, and they told me nothing. It was infamous, unpardonable. They knew how I hated that man before I was married. They knew that I would rather have become allied to a Hottentot than to such an one as he. They let me marry you in ignorance—it was a fraud; and how, I ask'—he raised his voice in boiling anger—'how can I trust you when you profess your ignorance?' He sprang to his feet and walked across the room. 'I don't believe in your innocence. It was a base, a vile plot hatched between you all, Schofield and the rest of you. Here am I—just set on my feet and pushing my way in an honest business, and find myself bound by an indissoluble bond to the daughter of the biggest scoundrel on the face of the globe.'

Salome did not speak. To speak would be in vain.

He was furious; he had lost his trust in her.

She began to tremble, as she had trembled when Mrs. Sidebottom had seen her on the stairs—a convulsive shivering extending from the shuddering heart outwards to the extremities, so that every hair on her head quivered, every fold in her gown.

'And now,' pursued Philip, 'the taint is transmitted to my child. It might have been endurable had I stood alone. It is intolerable now. These things run in the blood like maladies.'

She was nigh on fainting; she lifted one hand slightly in protest; but he was too angry to attend to any protest.

'Can I doubt it? The clever swindler defrauded my father, and the clever daughter uses the inherited arts and swindles the son. How do I know but that the same falsehood, low, cunning, and base propensities may not lurk inherent in my child, to break out in time and make me curse the day that I gave to the world another edition of Beaple Yeo, alias Schofield, bearing my hitherto untarnished name?'

Then she turned and walked to the door, with her hands extended as one blind, stepping slowly, stiffly, as if fearful of stumbling over some unseen obstacle. She went out, and he, looking sullenly after her, saw of her only the white fingers holding the door, and drawing it ajar, and trying vainly to shut it, pinching them in so doing, showing how dazed she was—instinctively trying to shut the door, and too lost to what she was about to see how to do it.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE FLIGHT OF EROS.

The funeral of Mrs. Cusworth was over.

The blinds were drawn up at last.

When the service at the grave was concluded, Philip and Salome returned to their home, if that may be called home from which the elements that go to make up home—trust, sympathy, pity, forgiveness—have fled.

The sun streamed in at the windows, broke in with a rude impatience, as the blinds mounted, and revelled on the floors again, and reflected itself in glass and gilding and china, brought out into bloom again the faded flowers on the carpets, and insisted on the bunches of roses and jessamine and nondescripts on the wall-papers putting on their colours and pretence of beauty.

But there was no sunshine streaming into the shadowed hearts of Philip and Salome, because over both the hand of Philip held down the blinds.

Philip, always cold, uncommunicative, allowing no one to lay finger on his pulse, resenting the slightest allusion to his life apart from business—Philip had made no friend in Mergatroyd, only acquaintances—drew closer about him the folds of reserve.

At one time much fuss was made about the spleen, but we have come now to disregard it, to hold it as something not to be reckoned with; and Philip regarded the heart as we do our spleens.

Philip was respected, but was not popular with his own class, and was respected, but not popular, among the operatives of his mill. Some men, however self-contained, are self-revealing in their efforts after concealment. So was it with Philip.

Shrewd public opinion in Mergatroyd had gauged and weighed him before he supposed that it was concerned about him. It pronounced him proud and honest, and capable, through integrity of purpose, of doing a cruel, even a mean, thing. He had been brought up apart from those modifying forces which affect, or ought to affect, the conduct governed by principle. Principle is a good thing as a direction of the course of conduct, but principle must swerve occasionally to save it from becoming a destructive force. In the solar system every planet has its orbit, but every orbit has its deflections caused by the presence of fellow planets. Philip as a child had never lain with his head on a gentle bosom, from which, as from a battery, love had streamed, enveloping him, vivifying, warming the seeds of good in him. He reckoned with his fellow-men as with pieces of mechanism, to be used or thrown aside, as they served or failed. He had been treated in that way himself, and he had come to regard such a cold, systematic, material manner of dealing with his brother men as the law of social life.

That must have been a strange experience—the coming to life of the marble statue created by Pygmalion. How long did it take the veins in the alabaster to liquefy? How long before the stony breast heaved and pulsation came into the rigid heart? How long before light kindled in the blank eye, and how long before in that eye stood the testimony to perfect liquefication, a tear?

There must have been in Galatea from the outset great deficiency in emotion, inflexibility of mind, absence of impulse; a stony way of thinking of others, speaking of others, dealing with others; an ever-present supposition that everyone else is, has been, or ought to be—stone.

Philip had only recently begun to mollify under the influence of Salome. But the change had not been radical. The softening had not extended far below the surface, had not reached the hard nerves of principle.

In the society of his wife, Philip had shown himself in a light in which no one else saw him. As the sun makes certain flowers expand, and these flowers close the instant the sun is withdrawn, so was it with him. He was cheerful, easy, natural with her, talked and laughed and showed her attentions; but when he came forth into the outer world again he exhibited no signs of having unfurled.

Now that his confidence in his wife was shaken, Philip was close, undemonstrative, in her presence as in that of his fellows. He was not the man to make allowances, to weigh degrees of fault. Allowances had not been made for his shortcomings in his past life, and why should he deal with Salome as he had not been dealt by? Fault is fault, whether in the grain or in the ounce.

When Philip said the prayer of prayers at family devotions, and came to the petition, 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us,' he had no qualms of conscience, not a suspicion that his conduct was ungenerous.

He forgave Salome—most certainly he forgave her. He bore no malice against her for having deceived him. He was ready to make her an allowance of forty pounds per annum for her clothing, and thirty pounds for pocket or pin money. Should she fall ill, he would call in a specialist regardless of expense; if she wanted to refurnish the drawing-room he would not grudge the cost. Would a man be ready to do all this unless he forgave a trespass against him? He could not take her head, and lay it on his shoulder, and stroke the golden hair, and kiss the tears from her eyes—but then he did not ask of Heaven to pet and mollycoddle him, only to forgive him, and he did forgive Salome.

He saw that his wife's heart ached for her mother; that she felt keenly the loss of her who had been to her the representative of all maternal tenderness and consideration. That was natural and inevitable. But everyone has to undergo some such partings; it is the lot of humanity, and Salome must accommodate herself to her bereavement. He saw that she was without an intimate friend in the place, to whom she could pour out her heart, and of whom take counsel; but then, he also had been friendless, till he came not to require a friend and to value human sympathy. What he did not appreciate, she must learn to do without.

He saw that she was distressed and in agony of mind because he was offended with her; but this afforded him no regret. She had sinned against him and must accept the consequences. It was a law of nature that sin should meet with punishment, and the sinner must accept his chastisement as his due. What were the consequences in comparison with the weight of her transgression?

Procrustes had a bed on which he tied travellers, and if their length exceeded that of the bed he cut off their extremities; but if they were shorter, he had them stretched to equal it. Philip had his iron bed of principle, on which he extended himself, and to this he would fit his poor, tender, suffering wife.

As he and Salome returned together from the funeral they hardly spoke to each other on the way. Her hand was on his arm, trembling with grief and mute, disregarded appeal. He knew that she was crying, because she continually put her kerchief to her eyes. Tears are a matter of course at funerals, as orange-blossoms are a concomitant of weddings. Mrs. Cusworth, though not Salome's mother, had stood to her for eighteen years in the relation of one; tears, therefore, thought Philip, were proper on this occasion—very proper.

He did not blame her for crying—God forbid!

For his own part, Philip had regarded Mrs. Cusworth with dislike; he had seen how commonplace, unintellectual a woman she was; but it was of course right, quite right and proper, that Salome should see the good side of the deceased.

Philip wore his stereotyped business face at the funeral, the face he wore when going through his accounts, hearing a sermon, reprimanding a clerk, paying his rates. He was somewhat paler than usual, but the most attentive observer could not say that this was caused by feeling and was not the effect of contrast to his new suit of glossy black mourning. Not once did he draw the little hand on his arm close to his side and press it. He let it rest there with as much indifference as if it were his paletôt.

On reaching the house, he opened the door with his latchkey, and stood aside to allow Salome to enter. Then he followed, hung his hat on the stand, and blew his nose. He had avoided blowing his nose at the grave or in the street, lest it should give occasion to his being supposed to affect a grief he did not feel; and Philip was too honest to pretend what was unreal, and afraid to be thought to pretend.

He followed Salome upstairs.

On reaching the landing where was his study door, Salome turned to look at him before ascending further. Her face was white, her eyes red with weeping. Wondrously beautiful in colour and reflected light was her ruddy gold hair bursting out from under the crape bonnet above her pallid face.

She said nothing, but waited expectantly, with her brown eyes on his face. He received the look with imperturbable self-restraint, opened his door, and without a word went into his study.

Salome's bosom heaved, a great sob broke from it; and then she hastily continued her ascent. She had made her final appeal, and it had been rejected.

Mrs. Cusworth had died worth an inconsiderable sum, and that she had left to Janet, as more likely to need it than Salome.

And now that the last rites had been paid to the kindhearted, if stupid and illiterate old woman, who had loved Salome as her own child, Salome turned to her baby to pour forth upon it, undivided, the rich torrent of her love, gushing tinged with blood from a wounded heart.

There exists a sympathetic tie in nature and in human relations of which Philip had never thought—that between the mother and the babe. And now the wrong done to the mother reacted, revenged itself on her child. The little one had been ailing for a while, now it became seriously ill. The strain to which Salome had been put made itself felt in the weak frame of the infant that clung to her breast. Salome would allow no one to nurse her darling but herself whilst its precious life was in danger, and the child would, on its part, allow no one else to touch it. It sobbed and cried and demanded of its mother infinite patience and pity, unwearied rocking in her arms and hugging to her heart, a thousand kisses, and many tears, words of infinite love and soothing addressed to it, soft sighs breathed over it from an utterly weary bosom, and earnest prayers, voiceless often, but ever ascending, as the steam of the earth to heaven.

For awhile, care for the babe excluded all other thoughts, devoured all other cares. Through the long still night Salome was by her child; she did not go to bed, she sat in the room by its crib, sometimes taking it on her lap, in her arms, then, when it was composed to sleep, laying it again in its cradle. She heard every stroke of the clock at every hour. She could not sleep, she could but watch and pray.

Every hour or two Philip came to inquire after his child. He stood by the cradle when it was sleeping there, stooped and looked at the flushed face and the little clenched hands; but when it was on Salome's lap or in her arms he did not come so near, he stood apart, and instead of examining the child himself, asked about it. Salome controlled herself from giving way to feeling; her composure, the confidence with which she acted, impressed Philip with the idea that she had got over all other troubles except that caused by the child's illness; and were this to pass that she would be herself again.

But, through all her thought for the child ran the burning, torturing recollection of what Philip had said concerning it. She was not sure that he desired that it should live—live to grow up a Beaple Yeo—a Schofield. The house was perfectly still. All the servants were asleep. Only Salome was awake upstairs, when at four o'clock in the morning, as the day was beginning to break raw and gray in the east, and to look wanly in through the blind into the sick room—Philip entered.

Salome was kneeling by the crib—a swing crib of wood on two pillars. She knelt by it, she had been rocking, rocking, rocking, till she could no more stir an arm. Aching in all her joints, with her pulses hammering in her weary brain, she had laid both hands on the crib side, and her brow against it also. Was she asleep, or was she only fagged out and had slidden into momentary unconsciousness through exhaustion of power? Her beautiful copper hair, burnished in every hair, reflected the light of the lamp on the dressing-table. On one delicate white finger was the golden hoop. She did not hear Philip as he entered. Hitherto, whenever he had come through the door, she had looked up at him wistfully. Now only she did not, she remained by the crib, holding to it, leaning her brow on it, and tilting it somewhat on one side.

He stood by her, and looked down on her, and for a while a softness came over his heart, a stirring in its dead chambers as of returning life. He saw how worn out she was. He saw that she who had been so hearty, so strong, in a few days had become thin and frail in appearance, that the fresh colour had gone from her cheek, the brightness from her eye, that the sweet dimple had left her mouth. He saw her love and self-devotion for her child, the completeness with which her soul was bound up in it. And he saw how lonely she now was without her mother to talk to about the maladies, the acquirements, and the beauty of her darling.

She did not glance up at that moment, or she would have seen tokens of melting in his cold eye.

He remained standing by her, and he looked at the child now sleeping quietly. It was better, he trusted. It could hardly be so still unless it was better.

Then, all at once. Salome recovered consciousness, saw him, and said, 'Oh, Philip, you do not want him to die?'

Philip drew himself up.

'You have the crib too much tilted,' he said. He put his hands to it to counterbalance her weight, but she raised her head from the side and the crib righted itself. He still kept his hand where he had placed it, without any reason for so doing.

'Philip,' she said again, with passionate entreaty in her voice, 'you do not wish my darling to die?'

'How can you ask such a foolish question?' he answered. 'I am afraid the long night-watching has been too much for you.'

'Oh, Philip—you do love him? You do love him—although there is something of me in him. But——' she said hastily, 'he is mostly yours. He is like you, he has dark hair and eyes, and his name is Philip, and of course he is, he is a Pennycomequick! Oh, Philip! You love him dearly?'

'Of course I love him; he is my child. Why do you doubt?'

'Because,' she said, 'I—I am his mother. But that is all—I am only a sort of superior nurse. He is a Pennycomequick through and through, and there is no—no—nothing of what you dread in him.'

'Yes, he is a Pennycomequick.'

'He can, he will be no other than a good and noble man. He can, he will be that, if God spares him.'

'So I trust.'

'Oh, Philip—he is better, so much better. I am sure there is a turn. I thank God—indeed, indeed I do. Look at his dear little face; it is cool again.'

He had his hand on the side of the crib, and he stooped to look at the sleeping babe. And, as he was so doing, Salome, who still knelt, put her lips timidly to his hand and kissed it—kissed it as it rested on the side of her babe's crib.

Then he withdrew his hand. He took his kerchief out of his pocket, wiped it, said coldly, 'Yes, the child is better,' and left the room.

Philip went to bed. He had not asked Salome if she were going to rest, he had not called up the nurse to relieve her, though he saw and admitted that she was worn out. He had withdrawn his hand from her lips not with intention to hurt her, but to show her that he was opposed to sentimentality, and not inclined to be cajoled into a renewal of confidence by such arts. That which angered and embittered him chiefly was the fact that he was tied to a woman of such disreputable parentage. Then, in the next place, he could not forgive the fraud practised on him in making him marry her in ignorance of her real origin. He did not investigate the question whether Salome were privy to it. He thought that it was hardly possible she could have been kept in complete ignorance of the truth. It was known to her sister. Some suspicion of it at least must have been entertained by her. A fraud, a scandalous one, had been perpetrated—on her own showing by her sister and reputed mother—and even supposing she were not guilty of taking share in it, she must reap the consequences of the acts of her nearest relatives. Mrs. Cusworth and Mrs. Baynes were beyond the reach of his anger, therefore it must fall on the one accessible.

Salome had acquired by marriage with him a good position and a comfortable home, and it was conceivable that for the sake of these prospective advantages she would have acquiesced, if not actually concurring, in the wretched mean plot which had led to his connection with her—the daughter of the most despicable of men, and his own personal enemy.

Philip went to bed and fell asleep, satisfied with himself that he had acted aright, and that suffering was necessary to Salome to make her feel the baseness of her conduct.

Salome finding that the child fretted, took it out of the cot, drew it to her bosom, and seated herself by the window. She had raised the blind and looked out at the silvery morning light breaking in the east, and the pale east was not more wan than her own face. When Psyche let fall the drop of burning wax on the shoulder of Cupid, the god of Love leaped up, spread his wings and fled. Psyche stood at the window watching his receding form, not knowing whither he went, but knowing that he went from her without prospect of return. So now did Salome look from the window gazing forth into the cold sky, looking after lost love—gone—gone, apparently, past recall.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

EXILE.

Days passed, and the house had settled into formal ways. The meals were at the usual hours, to the minute. Philip went to the office at the usual time, and at the usual time returned from it; everything had again entered into its routine as before. But the relations between husband and wife were not improved. They met at meals, rarely else. At table a conventional conversation was maintained. Philip occupied his bachelor apartments, and expressed no intention of leaving them. Beyond the formal inquiries after Salome's health in the morning, he took no interest in her condition of mind and body. He did not perceive that she still suffered, was becoming thin, pale, and worn. He could not have invented a more cruel torture than this daily life of chill intercourse between them, and Salome felt that it was becoming insupportable. She attended to the household duties. She looked after his comforts, saw that his room was properly dusted, that his papers, his books were always in the same place, that his clothing was in order, that strict punctuality was observed in all that concerned him—he accepted this as of course, and was unaware that every element that conduced to his well-being was not present naturally. He did not know that his wife entered his room when he was away and rectified the little neglects and transpositions of the housemaid; he did not know how much time, and how many tears were given to his shirts and his socks and collars. He was unaware of the patient consideration devoted to the dinner, to ensure that he should have an appetizing meal after his work in the office during the day. He did not entertain the suspicion that the regularity of the house was only effected by constant urgency and supervision.

That there was a change in the relations of Philip and his wife did not strike the outer world, which had not been invited by him previously to consider the nature and closeness of those relations. In the presence of others Philip was courteous and formal towards his wife now, but he had been courteous and formal towards her in public before. He had not called upon the neighbours and acquaintances to rejoice with him because he had found domestic happiness; he did not invite them now to lament with him because he had discovered it to be chimerical.

He refused to Salome none of those attentions which are required by common politeness; what she missed were those which spring out of real affection. His behaviour to her in public was unchanged, and he carried this manner into his private interviews with her. Such interviews were now brief and business-like. He no longer spoke to her about what was past, he never referred to her father. He never allowed her to entertain the smallest hope that his behaviour would change.

Philip rarely spoke to a servant, never except on business; and he was surprised one day when the nurse ventured to intrude on his privacy and ask leave to say something to him.

Philip gave the required permission ungraciously.

Then the woman said:

'Please, sir, the missus be that onconsiderate about hersen that she'd never think o' telling nobody about nowt that was wrong with her. And so, I dare say, you don't know, sir, that it is not all well wi' her. Shoo has sudden faintive's, and they come on ow'er often. Shoo makes light o't, but don't better of it. I sed to her, shoo ought to tell you, but shoo wouldn't. And, please sir, shoo's a good missus, and too precious to be let slip through the fingers for not looking after what's amiss i' time. So—sir—I've made bould to say a word aboot it.'

Philip was surprised, even shocked.

'I will see to it,' he said; and then, 'That will do.'

He took occasion to speak with Salome about her health, and now his eyes were opened to see how delicate she had become. She admitted her fainting-fits, but made light of them.

'I have been overtaxed, that is all, Philip. I shall soon be quite myself again.'

'You have had a good deal of anxiety, no doubt, and that may account for it. Still—it would be a satisfaction to have an opinion. Do you care for Mr. Knight?'

'Oh no, Philip—he is very clever, but too young. I should not like to have Mr. Knight here about me. But I assure you, it is nothing!—I mean there is nothing really the matter with me. It used to be said that I had all the physique of us two sisters, and Janet all the verve.'

'I wish you to have proper advice. You understand. I wish it.'

'Then, Philip, I will let anyone you like come and see me, or I will go to anyone you recommend.'

'I have no knowledge of doctors,' he said almost contemptuously.

'If I might have a choice——' she hesitated.

'Of course you may—in reason.'

'There is Mr. John Dale; he was dear Uncle Jeremiah's best friend, and he is Janet's guardian. I always liked him, and he knows about us sisters. Besides, I do want to see him and ask him what he thinks about Janet; but he is a long way off, he is at Bridlington. If you think it would be extravagant sending so far, I would go myself gladly and see him. Indeed, I dare say the journey would do me good.'

'Very well,' said Philip, 'I'll telegraph for Mr. Dale.'

'And then,' added Salome, 'if you do not object, he can overhaul baby and see that the darling is sound as a bell. But—there is no need at all to telegraph. I know quite well what is the matter with me. It is nothing that any doctor can cure.'

'What is it?'

'I have had a good deal to worry me, to make me unhappy. I cannot sleep, I am always thinking. I can see no way out of the trouble. If there were the tiniest thread to which I could lay hold, then I should soon be well—but there is none. It reminds me of what I have read about the belief the North American Indians have concerning their origin. They were, they say, once in a vast black abyss in the centre of the earth, and there were tiny fibres hanging from the roof, and some of them laid hold of these fibres, and crawled up them, and following them came to the surface of earth and saw the sun, but others never touched a depending thread, and they wander on in timeless darkness, without a prospect, and without cognizance of life.'

'Well——'

'And I am like these, only with this pang, that I have been in the light. No—there is no fibre hanging down for me.'

She spoke timidly, and in a tone of half inquiry.

He did not answer.

'Philip, you must believe my word when I say that I never knew till the night before you heard it, that I was not what it had been given out I was.'

'We will not debate that matter again,' said Philip sharply. 'It can lead to nothing.'

'There is, then, no fibre,' she said sadly, and withdrew.

John Dale arrived, bluff, good-natured, boisterous.

'Hallo! what is the matter with you?' was his first salutation; and when he had heard what her ailments of body were—she made light of them to him—he shook his head and said bluntly, 'That's not all—it is mental. Now, then, what is it all about?'

'Mamma was taken suddenly ill and died; it was a dreadful shock to me. Then baby was unwell, and I had to watch him night and day; he would let no one else be with him.'

'But the expression of your face is changed, and neither your mother nor baby has done that. You are in some trouble. A doctor is a confessor. Come, what is up?'

Then she told him—not all, but a good deal. She told him who she was, and how she had discovered her origin—that her father was the man who had started the swindle about Iodinopolis, but that Beaple Yeo was not his real name; he had assumed that in place of his true name, Schofield.

'What—the scoundrel who did for Nicholas Pennycomequick?'

Salome bowed her head.

'I see it all,' said Dale. 'I never met that fellow Schofield, but I knew Nicholas Pennycomequick, and I know how he was ruined. I had no idea that the fellow Yeo, whom I met at Bridlington, was the same. Now, my dear child, I understand more than you have told me. I shall not give you any medicine, but order you away from Mergatroyd.'

'I cannot—I cannot leave baby.'

'Then take baby with you.'

Salome shook her head.

She also saw that nothing would do her good save an escape from the crushing daily oppression of Philip's coldness and stiff courtesy.

A day or two later she received a letter with a foreign postmark, and she tore it open eagerly, for she recognised her sister's handwriting.

The letter was short. Janet complained of not getting any better; her strength was deserting her. And she added: 'Oh, Salome, come to me, come to me if you can, and at once. He is here.'

There was no explanation as to who was implied, but Salome understood. Her sister was ill, weak, and was pestered by the presence of that man—that horrible man who was their father.

She went to Philip's door and tapped. She was at once admitted.

'Philip,' she said, 'I refused to take Mr. Dale's advice on Tuesday, I will take it now if you will allow me. I have heard from Janet. She is ill.' The tears came into her eyes. 'She is very ill, and entreats me to fly to her without delay.'

She said nothing to him of who she had heard was with her sister.

'I am quite willing that you should go,' he said.

The words were hard. The lack of feeling in them touched her to the quick.

'Very well, Philip,' she said; 'with your consent I will go. Baby must do without me for a while, unless,' she brightened, 'unless you will allow me to take baby and nurse with me.'

'No,' answered Philip, 'on no account. Go yourself, but I cannot entertain that other proposal.'

She sighed.

'Where is Janet?' he asked.

'At Andermatt—on the St. Gothard. The air is bracing there.'

'Very well. You will want money. You shall have it.'

'And how long may I stay?'

'That entirely remains with yourself. As far as I am concerned, I am indifferent.'

So Salome was to go. She was now filled with a feverish impatience to be off—not that she cared for herself, that the change might do her good—but because the leaving home would be to her agony, and she was desirous to have the pang over.

She felt that she could not endure to live as she had of late, under the same roof with her husband and yet separated from him, loving him with her faithful, sincere heart, and meeting with rebuff only; guiltless, yet regarded as guilty, her self-justification disregarded, her word treated as unworthy of credence. No—she could not endure the daily mortification, and she knew that it would be well for her to leave; but for all that she knew that the leaving home would be to her the acutest torture she could suffer. She must leave her dear child, uncertain when she would see it again. She did not hide from herself that if she left, she left not to return till some change had taken place in Philip's feelings towards her. She could not return to undergo the same freezing process. But she raised no hopes on what she knew of Philip's character. As far as she was acquainted with it—it was unbending. Salome had that simple faith which leads one to take a step that seems plain, without too close a questioning as to ultimate consequences. She had been told by the doctor whom she trusted that she must go away from Mergatroyd, and immediately came the call of her sister. To her mind, this was a divine indication as to the course she must take, and she prepared accordingly to take it.

At the best of times it is not without misgiving and heartache that we leave home, if only for a holiday, and only for a few weeks; we discover fresh beauties in home, new attractions, things that require our presence, and obstruct our departing steps. A certain vague fear always rises up, lest we should never return, at least, that when we return something should be changed that we value, something going wrong that we have left right, some one face be missing that we hold to with infinite love. It is a qualm bred of the knowledge of the uncertainty of all things in this most shifting world, a qualm that always makes itself felt on the eve of departure. With Salome this was more than a qualm; she was going, she knew not to what; she was going, she knew not for how long; and the future drew a gray impenetrable veil before her eyes—she could not tell, should she return, to what that return would be. She did not reckon about her child. She could not, she would not be separated from it—but whether Philip would let the child go to her, or insist on her return to the child, that she did not ask. The future must decide. Whatever she saw to be her duty, that she would do. That was Salome's motive principle. She would do her duty anywhere, at any sacrifice: when she saw what her duty was.

A cab was procured from the nearest town, four miles distant, to take Salome to the station.

Oh the last clasp of her babe! The tearful eyes, the quivering mouth, the beating heart, the inner anguish; and then——as she ran downstairs, with her veil drawn over her face, Philip encountered her un the landing, and offered her—not his cheek, not his heart—but his arm to take her to the cab.

END OF VOL. II.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.