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THE IMPENDING SWORD.





LONDON:
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.






THE
IMPENDING SWORD.

A Novel.



BY
EDMUND YATES,
AUTHOR OF 'BLACK SHEEP,' 'THE ROCK AHEAD,' 'THE YELLOW FLAG,'
ETC. ETC.



     'Put we our quarrel to the will of Heaven,
      Who, when He sees the hours ripe on earth,
      Will rain hot vengeance on the offenders' heads.'
                                                SHAKESPEARE.



IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.



LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8 CATHERINE ST. STRAND.
1874.

[_The right of translation, dramatic adaptation, and reproduction is
reserved_.]






        Affectionately inscribed
                  TO
       MR. AND MRS. J. A. FITHIAN,
           OF NEW YORK CITY,
        BY THEIR ATTACHED FRIEND.







CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

Book the First.
THE EMPIRE CITY.

CHAP.
       I. THE CURTAIN RISES.
      II. THE LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS.
     III. THE SHADOW OF PARTING.
      IV. HELEN'S DIARY.
       V. AN EXPLANATION.
      VI. A MYSTERIOUS COMMISSION.
     VII. CONJUGAL CONFIDENCE.
    VIII. A WANDERING STAR.
      IX. A DINNER OF CELEBRITIES.
       X. NO NONSENSE ABOUT HER.






Book the First.
THE EMPIRE CITY.




CHAPTER I.
THE CURTAIN RISES.


'And you really insist upon my going?'

'Insist is not the word. Stay here if you like it better, and amuse
yourself by drinking brandy-and-soda-water, which, since your visit to
Europe, it seems you cannot do without. All I say is, that I shall go,
and if you want to see some pretty women you had better come with me.'

'What did you say the man's name was? and where does he live?'

'His name is Griswold--Alston E. Griswold--and he lives in
Fifth-avenue, just above Thirty-sixth-street. He runs a bank, and is
all day long in Wall-street, and makes a pile of money, they say. He
ought to, for he lives in elegant style.'

'And his wife--he has a wife, I suppose--what is she like? Does she
come from New England and sing through her nose, or from out West and
drawl like--'

'What stuff you are talking, Redmond! Since you have come back from
Europe there is no bearing with you. Why don't you go back to the
other side and get yourself made a prince, or a duke, or something?'

'Ay, why don't I? Why, because--however, that is none of your
business. Is Mrs. Griswold pretty?'

'Very pretty and excellent style, and always has the nicest people in
New York in her house. Let us go and see them;' and the speaker rose
from the chair which he was occupying in front of one of the
fireplaces of the reading-room of the Union Club, pitching away the
butt-end of his cigar and pulling himself together as though preparing
for a start.

'Wait a minute,' said his friend, yawning lazily; 'I don't like
leaving this fire, it is so confoundedly cold outside.'

'Cold, nonsense; you have got that hideous Ulster coat which you
brought from England, and there are plenty of robes in the coupé. We
shall not be five minutes spinning up to Griswold's, and once there,
you will be very glad you came.'

So the two young men, Redmond Dillon and Charles Vanderlip, went out
into the hall of the club and wrapped themselves up in their
overcoats, and were whirled away up Fifth-avenue as hard as
Vanderlip's wiry little horses could lay their feet to the ground.

Charles Vanderlip was right in saying that his friend Alston Griswold
was very rich, for there were evidences of his wealth and of the
lavish manner in which he spent it before his door was reached.
Although it was early spring, traces of the severe winter yet remained
in huge masses of snow piled up into a high dirty frozen heap, which
extended along either side of the avenue, with interstices cut here
and there to allow of access to the house; but within twenty yards of
either side of Mr. Griswold's house these icy barriers had been
levelled and carted away, a broad canvas-covered passage had been made
from the inner door to the outer edge of the side-walk, and no sooner
was the outside barrier passed than you immediately merged from cold
and dreary darkness into warmth and light, into an atmosphere heavy
with perfume from the innumerable flowering shrubs with which the
rooms, the passages, and the staircases were decorated; into a species
of fairyland, where the ears were greeted with the sound of enlivening
dance-music exquisitely performed, and the eyes were delighted with
the sight of the prettiest women in the world in such perfect
toilettes as the most lavish expenditure could procure.

'This man really does the thing very well indeed,' said Dillon to
Vanderlip, as they made their way down the staircase towards the
parlour where the reception was being held.

'Does he, indeed? How very kind of you to patronise him!' said his
friend with a laugh. 'Why don't you pull your moustache, Redmond, and
say "Haw" to every word, after the true English swell fashion? Wait
until I have presented you to Griswold and you have talked to him, and
then you will find out what a true gentleman and thoroughly good
fellow he is.'

They had gained the door now, and were being carried on with the tide
of humanity that was surging through the room; the crowd was great and
almost constantly in motion, but as the host and hostess stopped every
one to say a few kindly words of recognition as they passed the
mantelpiece, which might in military language be called the saluting
point, Redmond Dillon had plenty of time to take a good look at Mr.
and Mrs. Alston Griswold before his presentation to them.

A man of about six-and-thirty years of age was Alston Griswold, of
middle height, with a thick dark moustache and a small imperial,
bright, frank, honest dark eyes, and a gentlemanly, intelligent,
good-looking face. A few lines here and there round his eyes tell of
business cares, and his shoulders are slightly rounded from frequent
stooping over his desk. For this night, however, he had temporarily
abandoned all thought of business care or worry. You would have
thought him the least preoccupied man in the world, if you had noticed
the gay courtesy with which he addressed each of his guests as they
passed by; you would have thought him the best man in the world, had
you chanced to mark the glance of mingled pride, love, and admiration
which from time to time he threw upon his wife, standing by his side.

Nor could he have bestowed upon her any amount of admiration or
affection which would not have been richly deserved, for Helen
Griswold was a woman among a thousand. Rather under than over the
ordinary height of women, with a figure which, though light and lithe,
was rounded and shapely, with perfect little hands and feet, and with
a gliding walk, such as is rarely seen save among Spanish women, for
one of whom she might have passed. Her eyes were large, soft, and
dark, her complexion creamy, her hair the very darkest shade of brown,
shot here and there with a tinge of deep dull red. Add to this a small
straight nose and a rather large fresh mouth, and you have Helen
Griswold's portrait complete.

By this time the two club men were abreast of their host and hostess,
to whom Vanderlip presented his friend as just returned after a long
absence in Europe. Helen merely bowed and smiled, but her husband
shook hands with Dillon, and laughingly congratulated him on safely
accomplishing a voyage which he himself was about to undertake.

'What did he mean by that?' asked Dillon of his friend when they had
passed through the crowd and were standing in the further room, where
dancing was going on. 'You don't mean to say he is going to Europe?'

'I imagine so by what he said; indeed, I recollect now hearing at the
club he sails in the Calabria to-morrow, and that this is a kind of
farewell-fête.'

'Of course he takes his wife with him?'

'I think not. She would give the world to go, but is encumbered by the
ties of maternity. Her little baby is delicate, and the mother could
neither take her nor go away from her.'

'Isn't Griswold fond of his wife?' asked Dillon, looking through the
arched opening between the rooms at the host and hostess, who, having
finished their reception, were now approaching the dancers.

'Fond of her! He worships the ground she treads; you have only to look
at them to tell that.'

'What makes him leave her, then?'

'Business, my dear fellow, to which, as you appear to have forgotten,
all the men in New York are slaves. Griswold is deeply interested,
amongst other matters, in the establishment of some new telegraphic
line which is to compete with the Western Union, and rumour reports
that his present mission is in search of English capitalists and
English engineers to aid him.'

'And he leaves his wife behind!' said Dillon, shaking his head. 'Poor
child! I thought by the expression of her face that there was
something clouding her happiness even to-night.'

'Yes; in these days, when conjugal fidelity is somewhat at a discount,
their devotion to each other is extraordinary. I never--'

'Say, quick, who is this man leaning against the wall with his arms
folded and looking so intently at Mrs. Griswold?'

Vanderlip looked round in the direction pointed out. His eyes rested
on a tall man, of slim but wiry build, about twenty-eight years of
age, with a long, thin, close-shaved face, small deeply-set eyes, and
thin bloodless lips. His evening dress was scrupulously plain and
neat, and as he leant back against the wall with his legs crossed, one
hand was hidden in his bosom, while with the other, long and lean, he
slowly stroked his chin. His gaze was fixed, and never varied; its
object, as Dillon had remarked, was Mrs. Griswold.

'That,' said Vanderlip, after looking at him, 'is a man of some
importance in this household. His name is Trenton Warren, and he is
perhaps Griswold's most intimate friend. He is a clear-headed 'cute
fellow, versed in all the mysteries of "bulling" and "bearing," and
is supposed to be Griswold's adviser in all matters of business, and
the real mainspring and contriver of these lucky hits by which his
fortune has been made. Trenton Warren is supposed to be quite
necessary to Griswold's existence.'

'And from the way in which he looks at her apparently seems to think
the contemplation of Mrs. Griswold necessary to his own,' said Dillon.
'He hasn't moved his eyes from her since she came into the room.'

'You never were more mistaken in your life, my good friend,' said
Vanderlip, with a smile. 'Perhaps the sole fault of Warren in
Griswold's eyes is that he cannot be brought to admire Mrs. Griswold
sufficiently; that he does not give her credit for the rare qualities
which her husband and his other friends believe her to possess.'

'Do you mean to tell me, then,' asked Dillon, 'that that man is not
reckoned among Mrs. Griswold's admirers--I mean of course admirers in
the proper sense, of whom you may be considered one?'

'Certainly not! It is said that he was averse to his friend's marriage
with the lady, and that he has always entertained somewhat of a
dislike for her since.'

'Didn't approve of the marriage? Ah, perhaps he wanted her for
himself?'

'Bah! Trenton Warren is the last man in the world to whom such an
insinuation could apply. He thinks of business and nothing else, and
is so singularly apathetic about Mrs. Griswold's grace, beauty, and
good qualities, as really to rile and vex her husband, who wishes all
the world to be as cognisant of them as he is himself.'

'What a large-hearted man!' said Dillon, with a cynical smile. 'And so
I am entirely wrong about Mr. Trenton Warren, am I?' he added to
himself, as Vanderlip moved off to speak to some ladies. 'And he has
no admiration for Mrs. Griswold? Well, I am not usually wrong in such
matters, and as I have nothing else to do until Vanderlip is ready to
go, I may as well amuse myself by watching what is going on around
me.'

Let us take advantage of this opportunity to sketch a little of the
previous history, and to describe the relations then existing between
Helen and Alston Griswold and Trenton Warren, three personages who are
to play most important parts in our drama. And first let us see that
Redmond Dillon, clever by nature and sharpened by experience, was not
very far wrong in his judgment of the actual position of affairs. All
that he had heard from Vanderlip about Trenton Warren was correct. The
one annoyance of Alston Griswold's life (out of his business career,
which, as is usually the case, was full of annoyances) was, that his
friend, could never be prevailed upon to speak, as her husband
thought, sufficiently warmly of Helen.

And yet if all had only been known, Warren's appreciation of the woman
at whom he was then gazing, with all his soul glowing in his eyes, was
really greater than that bestowed upon her by her husband. Alston
Griswold thought his wife the prettiest, dearest little creature in
the world--one on whom it was impossible to bestow too great an amount
of petting and affection, one whom it would have been impossible for
him to deceive or betray--far beyond any other woman in the world, but
still a woman, and as such inferior to man; something to be caressed
and petted and spoiled, a pretty plaything, a charming solace for
one's leisure hours, but nothing more. Alston Griswold would have
scouted the idea of talking over any affairs of vital importance with
his wife, of making her the confidante of his business schemes, of
asking her advice in regard to any detail of the great struggles in
which he was constantly engaged; she would not have understood them,
he thought, and why should she be bored with them?

Trenton Warren knows her better than this. His sense is far finer, his
insight far keener, than his friend's, and while he has apparently
stood aloof from any attempt at intimate acquaintance with Helen, and
has been sufficiently sparing of her praises in her husband's ears, he
has brought all his sense and keenness to bear upon the dissection of
her character, and has arrived at a far different estimate of her
mental power. Constant secret study of her tells him that, if she is
not exactly clever, she has an immense fund of common sense,
determination, and patience--tells him also another thing, the thought
of which sends the blood into his pale cheeks, and causes his heart to
throb with exultation. Helen Griswold, this pattern wife, so decorous,
so much respected, so universally looked up to, holds her husband in
highest esteem, in most affectionate appreciation, but of love for
him.--of love, be it understood, in the sense of passion--she has,
according to Warren's idea, not one whit. Such love the placid
easy-going absorbed man of business--so much her elder too, with his
petting parental way--was not one to kindle; and yet such love, if
Warren were any judge, was as necessary to her as air to light or heat
to flame. He had watched her carefully, and he read the necessity for
it in the occasional wearied expression which came across the lustrous
depths of her dark eyes, in a certain unsatisfied restlessness which
from time to time she betrayed; he imagined he had discovered her
craving for love of a distinct kind from that which her husband
bestowed on her, and in this discovery he found hopes for his own
future success.

For this man, outwardly cold, self-possessed, and reticent, so far as
Helen Griswold was concerned, was the slave of a passion, violent,
unreasonable, unconquerable. He struggled against it for a time,
fearing the probable trouble, the danger it would cause him; and when
finally he found resistance to it impossible he determined that by her
alone should its existence be known. All his apparent insensibility to
Helen's charms, all his studied depreciation of Griswold's enthusiasm
about his wife, were caused by what he felt to be the imperative
necessity of keeping his passion hidden until the time should arrive
for declaring it to its object, and to her alone.

And Helen--what was the state of her feelings towards Trenton Warren?
She could scarcely have told you if you had asked her. But in her
secret self she knew that she regarded him with dislike, almost
approaching to loathing, without being able to account to herself for
the detestation he inspired. She was afraid of him without any
definite cause for her fear, suspicious without being able to explain
to herself the reason for her suspicions. That he has any tender
feeling, any of the animal passion which men of his stamp dignify by
the name of love, she does not dream for a moment. Had such an idea
crossed her mind, her dislike of him would have been intensified. It
was on her husband's account that she first conceived this distrust of
Warren, who, she felt certain, was exercising an evil influence, over
Griswold, and worming himself for a bad purpose into her husband's
confidence.

Helen had this conviction so strongly that it would have been
impossible to dispossess her mind of it; and yet, feeling as she did
the difficulty of reasoning it out to herself, she saw clearly the
utter impossibility of making her husband understand it. Even if she
could have explained herself, she doubted very much whether she could
have carried conviction to Alston's mind; for Helen's keen and
accurate judgment had long since taught her to comprehend the exact
manner in which her husband appreciated her, and to know that, though
most kind and loving and admiring, he regarded her merely as a sweet
solace for his hours of relaxation, and would have certainly
misunderstood anything she might have said to him in regard to Trenton
Warren, and imputed it to a womanish jealousy of his male friends.

What was it that filled Helen's mind with these reflections at a time
when she ought to have been thinking either of the gay scene around
her, or of the loneliness which would fall upon her on the morrow,
when her husband should be gone? What was it that set her speculating
upon the motives which could possibly prompt Trenton Warren to be so
assiduous in his attention to her husband, so desirous to conciliate
him and to secure his intimacy and confidence? What was it? She was
answered at once, as she raised her eyes and saw the man who had
occupied her thoughts standing immediately opposite, his gaze bent
full upon her!

Was Trenton Warren taken off his guard? Had the sight of the woman for
whom he had entertained so fierce a passion--sitting there radiant in
youth and beauty, her full evening toilette contrasting somewhat
strangely with her air of preoccupation, almost of sadness--caused him
for an instant to drop the mask? Or did he think the time had come
when the revelation of that passion might in safety be made?
Certainly, there was an expression in his eyes such as Helen had never
seen there before--an expression which caused her to drop her own
instantly in amazement and indignation.

The next moment he was by her side.

'It is strange to see you sitting here alone, Mrs. Griswold,' he said,
with a slight tremor in his voice, which, however, he immediately got
the better of; 'and you are generally so surrounded as to make
approach to you impossible.'

Helen did not look up at him, but there was nothing in his tone or his
words to which she could take exception; so she merely said:

'It is surely not from experience that you say that, Mr. Warren. Your
appreciation of my society has, I imagine, never been so great as to
induce you to take any trouble to enjoy it.'

She was looking straight before her, and the expression of her face
was deadly cold; but the words spoken in her musical voice fell
deliciously on Warren's ear.

'But it is never too late to mend,' he said, 'we are told by our
schoolbooks and by Mr. Charles Reade. If my shortcoming has been so
great I will hasten at once to repair it. They have just started a
waltz, you are not engaged, will you give it to me?'

He bent over her so closely that she felt his warm breath on her hair.
Drawing back hurriedly, she again saw the expression she had already
noticed in his eyes.

'Thank you,' she said, with great coldness; 'I have no intention of
dancing.'

Her frigid decided tone must have struck him, for he looked at her
with surprise, and said,

'You cannot be tired, Mrs. Griswold?'

'Since you say so, of course I cannot,' she replied, looking him full
in the face; 'for what you say, at least in this house, Mr. Warren, is
not to be contradicted; nevertheless, I will take upon myself the risk
of declining to dance and of holding to my word.'

Trenton Warren looked as though he would have spoken, but Helen, by a
slight bow and by an almost imperceptible movement of her hand, gave
him to understand that the interview was at an end.

'The horror with which that man inspires me increases daily,' she said
to herself, as he moved slowly away; 'but never have I seen him so
odious, so offensive as just now. I dread his intimacy with Alston,
not merely on account of the influence which it may have on our
fortune, but from some undefined dread that he will work mischief
between my husband and myself. See him now even at this instant. He
makes his way to Alston's side, and by the expression of Alston's
face, and the way in which he looks towards me, I can tell as
certainly as though I were at his elbow what he is saying. He is
speaking of me kindly, and lovingly too, I am sure; in the confidence
of his friendship he is commenting on my appearance to Trenton Warren.
How blind he is! Can he not detect the contemptuous sneer with which
his friend is listening to him? The very look which I saw in his face
the other day when he complimented me on the possession of that rare
treasure, "a husband who admires his wife and is not ashamed to say
so." No, Alston sees nothing of that and still continues to-- Mr.
Warren takes his leave. Ah, thank Heaven, there is a general move! I
am tired and out of spirits, and shall be only too delighted to get
rid of all these people.'

Trenton Warren accepted one of the numerous offers to him of
conveyance to his house; but although it was sufficiently late when he
reached home, and he knew that the next morning he must be up betimes,
having much important business on hand, he did not think of going to
bed, but throwing himself on a couch, lit a cigar, and became absorbed
in contemplation.

'She hates me,' he muttered, after a pause, slowly expelling a cloud
of smoke; 'and after her treatment of me to-night, I declare I almost
hate her. I hate her for her coldness; the way in which she constantly
avoids me, and for her calm insolence when compelled to acknowledge my
presence. What makes her shun me so, I wonder? Is her avoidance of me
caused by fear, arising from dislike, or is it the vague sense of
displeasure with which a woman regards a man who has found out--while
she meant to keep him at the greatest distance--that her feeling for
her husband, though very pure and very gentle, is but a milk-and-water
feeling after all, without a trace of passion in it? No matter much
which it may be, I shall soon find out. I read somewhere recently that
the first thing to be done by a man who is courting a woman is to make
her think about him, even though it be unpleasantly. So far, I imagine
I have succeeded with Helen Griswold; she cannot keep me out of her
thoughts just now, even though she think of me with dislike and fear.'

Having arrived at which satisfactory conclusion, Mr. Trenton Warren
pitched away his cigar and went to bed.




CHAPTER II.
THE LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS.


'Good-night' and 'good-bye.' These words, uttered by Alston Griswold
to certain departing guests as he stood on the top of what is called
in New York the stoop (equivalent to our steps) outside his open door,
gave a fresh turn to the last proceedings of the evening. Good-bye?
Why, of course, he was going to Europe the next day; most of them had
forgotten that, and many of them thought it a favourable opportunity
for cracking another bottle of champagne to wish their host health,
happiness, and a safe voyage. Those wishes for the prosperity of
others, which always increase in fervour with the advance of the night
and the circulation of the wine, were mingled with the expression of
hopes from some that Griswold would not remain away long; that he was
a representative New Yorker, one of their merchant princes, and a
thoroughly good fellow, and of fears from others lest when he did come
back he should be spoiled and Europeanised, as was the case with too
many of them; but none of these expressions of doubt were whispered
above the speaker's breath, while all the good-byes and God-speeds
were loud and protracted, so that a man of less genial and kindly
impulses than Alston Griswold might have been excused in indulging in
a little self-gratification at the esteem in which he was held, and
the regrets of losing him which were so loudly manifested.

The last guest had gone, and Griswold, after waving his farewell to
them from the door, had turned back into the hall, when it suddenly
struck him that his wife had not been present at these final joyous
ceremonies. To stand well in her eyes, to have her as the mute witness
of the honours paid him in acknowledgment of his social and commercial
position, was his greatest pride, and he was vexed and angry to think
that the warm compliments of which he had just been the recipient had
been unheard by her.

He looked into the supper-room, but she was not there; into the
ball-room, and there he found her on a seat at the far end, listless
and dejected.

'Helen, what ails you?'

And all his anger vanished in an instant as she lifted up her eyes,
and he saw they were filled with tears.

'Helen, my darling, what is the matter? Has anything happened?'

'Nothing, dear,' she said, in a low flat voice. 'Tell me, are the
people all gone? every one, I mean? O, I am so glad!'

'You are over-fatigued, child, that is all,' said he, bending tenderly
down to her.

'I wish it were all,' said Helen, rising and throwing herself into her
husband's arms. 'I am so horribly wretched!'

'Wretched!' he repeated, with infinite tenderness. 'What makes you
wretched, dear?'

'You do, and no one else. You are going to leave me, and it seems
cruel and unkind of you.'

'My sweet Helen, those are very hard words, and--'

'I don't mean them harshly, Alston; but you have no idea how I dread
your absence. If I have any influence with you, you will give up these
plans and stay with me.'

'Put off my voyage now, on the very eve of my departure, with all my
plans arranged? It would be impossible, Helen.'

'Nothing is impossible to you in business if you choose, Alston,' she
replied; 'but you don't choose. You are carried away by the inordinate
ambition to be rich. That contemptible money-worship, which is
everywhere sapping the foundations of New York society, has you for
one of its high-priests, and my comfort and my happiness are nothing
in comparison with your desire for the accumulation of money.'

Griswold was silent for a moment, regarding her earnestly; then he
pushed his hair from off his forehead, and with the faintest sigh and
a grave smile, more in his eyes than on his lips, said,

'You are speaking hurriedly and like a woman, Helen, and do not, I am
sure, mean half you say; but even if I have this wild desire for the
accumulation of money, for whose sake is it indulged in, to whom is
the acquired wealth devoted? Not, I think--' and a grave smile now
broke on to his lips--'not, I think, to myself entirely. I go down
town in the morning in the stage for ten cents, and I return on foot;
my clothes are the standing topic for my friends' abuse and--'

'I know, Alston--I know it all. You are the least selfish of men; and
it is for me and for my sake alone that you are condemning yourself to
a life of slavery, and making both of us wretched. But this is
precisely the reason why I am the person to enjoin you to give it up.
We are quite rich enough for my ambition, dear. Stay with me, and let
us enjoy together what we have. But for Heaven's sake do not leave
me.'

'I love to hear you talk like this,' said he, putting his arm around
her as she pillowed her head on his broad chest and looked up with
soft entreaty into his face. 'It shows you to me as what I have always
known you to be, the most affectionate and most trusting of God's
creatures. But though I would give my life to save you a pang, what
you now ask me is an impossibility. If I had had any idea that you
would have taken my going away so much to heart, I would have
endeavoured, though it would have been difficult, to send some one
else in my place. At this late hour, however, it is impossible to make
any such substitution, and it is imperative that I should go in
person; not merely to look after my own business, but after very large
interests of others, which have been staked on a guarantee that I
would attend to them. Helen, darling, when you say that my inordinate
ambition to be rich and my worship of money are greater than my love
for you, you talk foolishly, and you know it. To part from you will
half break my heart. I would willingly surrender all the profits,
large though we expect them to be, of this projected undertaking, if
by so doing I could remain with you; but I could not do so without a
sacrifice of honour and credit; and, utterly unbusinesslike as you
are, you know the meaning of those two words and the value which is
necessarily attached to them. Do you understand me, child?'

'Yes,' she said, wiping the traces of tears from her face and looking
up at him almost calmly, 'I understand all you say, and I see there is
nothing for me to do but to acquiesce in the arrangement. Only
understand one thing, Alston; this protest of mine against your
leaving me is not the mere pettish fancy of a woman who hates to be
alone, or who is possessed by any absurd jealousy as to what may be
her husband's proceedings during his absence--you and I understand
each other too well for any nonsense of that sort; but I hate you
going away on this voyage, Alston. I have had a presentiment about it
which nothing can dispel, though which I should find impossible to
explain. However, it is useless saying any more about it; only promise
me one thing, that you will never undertake such a voyage again.'

'I promise; that is to say, I promise never to sail again for Europe
unless you go with me. O, you need not purse your little mouth up in
that manner! Charley Vanderlip tells me that his friend Dillon, who
has just returned from the other side, vows that Europe is the only
place in the world fit to live in.'

'Then Mr. Dillon is a--never mind; I will say not a good American
citizen,' said Helen, tossing her head. 'Do you know what o'clock it
is, Alston?'

'Late enough,' said Alston, looking at his watch; 'but I have some
work to do in the library before I can think of rest.'

'I will join you there, then,' said Helen, rising. 'I am not in the
least sleepy, only I must first get rid of this stiff silk dress, and
these bracelets and jewels. I can then send that wretched Hortense to
bed, and I will be down again in five minutes.'

Alston Griswold leaned back in his chair, and looked long and lovingly
at his wife as she glided away, and at the spot which she had occupied
after she had passed out of his sight. Then his brow darkened, and he
thrust his hands deeply into his pockets as he slowly rose from his
seat.

Did he share the presentiment as to his departure which his wife had
confessed? Not the least in the world. He was by far too practical a
man of business to have given way to any such folly. But the word--and
yet-- No, it would be madness. He would be the laughing-stock of
Wall-street and the butt of his clubs if he allowed a woman's weakness
to influence him in a matter where three or four millions were
involved, and in the conduct of which his reputation and his fortune
would be made or marred. He would close up his preparations at once,
and the first thing to be attended to was that letter of instructions.

Acting at once upon this determination, he crossed the hall and
entered the library--an old room furnished with black oak, and
entirely surrounded with antique bookcases filled with a choice
collection, which, indeed, their owner never opened, but which were
Helen's greatest resource and delight. On the other side of the large
open folding-doors were the supper-rooms, the lights in which were
still burning, though the tables had been cleared ere the servants
retired to rest. Griswold looked somewhat surprised when he saw the
room still lighted, and was on the point of ringing the bell; but
remembering there was no one to answer it, he turned back into the
library, lit a cigar, and seating himself at the writing-table, took
from one of the drawers a sheet of paper, two sides of which were
already covered.

By the shaded light of the kerosene lamp, which stood upon the
writing-table, Griswold read this paper carefully through; then laying
it down before him, fell into a train of thought. 'It looks innocent
enough,' he said; 'it might be what I shall tell her it is, when I
put into her hand--a mere paper on business, to be read at a future
time--and yet to think how all-powerful it will be, or ought to be, in
the event of anything happening to me. To be read at some future time,
eh! I think I can see the scene which will occur at that future time
plainly enough; what a commotion there would be in Wall-street, what
an anxiety amongst a certain set to know whether I had carried out the
commission with which I had been intrusted, before I died. The
commission with which I have been intrusted, that is what they would
be anxious about--not me, their agent; only poor Helen would think of
me. What she said just now about her little regard for wealth was true
enough. If the enterprise succeeded, she would be rich as an empress;
if it failed, she would have comparatively little to live upon; but in
neither case would she care much, I flatter myself, if I were gone.
The joys or the woes of life would affect her equally little if I were
not there to share them with her. What a wretchedly gloomy train of
thought I have fallen into!' he muttered, half aloud, striking his
hand upon the desk. 'Hundreds of men go to and return from Europe
every week; it is the boast of the Cunard Company that they have never
lost a passenger, and yet here am I, in rude health and strength,
picturing to myself what is to happen after my immediately approaching
death. Helen must have innoculated me with a touch of her
presentiment; however, I will shake it off at once. I will finish this
letter of instructions, for it is better for her in any contingency to
know exactly how she stands, and then I will get some rest, of which I
fancy I am more than usually in need.'

He drew the paper towards him again, and bending over the desk
commenced writing earnestly. From time to time he paused in his
occupation and stared earnestly before him, as though weighing certain
matters in his mind before committing his thoughts to paper. At
length, after about ten minutes' work, he came to the end of his task;
and, having folded the letter, placed it into an envelope, and was
about to return it to the drawer, when he suddenly stopped.

'No,' he muttered; 'in her present state of mind it is best to be
prudent over such a matter as this. I will not leave it behind for her
and tell her where it is; I will not give it to her myself, for she is
but a woman, and her woman's curiosity might impel her to open it at
once, and that would certainly impose a scene between us; I will send
it to her to-morrow by Warren. Helen will not come down to the wharf;
Warren is sure to be there to see me off, and I will send the letter
to her by him. I have only him to trust to for seeing after her while
I am away, and this little commission will break the ice between them,
and show her to him--though he has never properly valued her--in
colours that must compel him to acknowledge her the perfect wife she
is.'

So saying, he sealed the letter and deposited it in his pocket-book,
after restoring which to his breast he continued his musing.

'What a wonderful stroke of luck for me, situated as I am, to have
made such a friend as Trenton Warren! He will be indispensable to
Helen, and to me as the means of communication with her. I must get
all her letters through him, for I could never make her simple heart
and unbusiness-like head comprehend the necessity for my taking a
false name in England. She would be frightened at the mere idea, and
she must never know it. This necessity alone would oblige me to
endeavour to establish thoroughly good relations between Helen and
Trenton Warren before I sail to-morrow.'

'Before I sail to-morrow.' The words turned his mind into a new train
of thought. Absorbed, he let his chin recline upon his breast, and did
not notice Helen's entrance at the other end of the supper-room. She
was clad in a loose dressing-gown and looked lovely, with her hair
hanging around her shoulders.

When she had progressed halfway up the room, her eyes were attracted
by something shining on the ground just in front of her. Stooping and
picking the object up, she found it to be a portion of a sleeve-link,
an engraved cameo in a gold setting; the gold work had been twisted
and broken under the feet of the throng. All this Helen saw at a
glance; but placing it in the pocket of her dressing-gown, she thought
no more of it, and entered the library to join her husband.




CHAPTER III.
THE SHADOW OF PARTING.


So absorbed was Alston in his rumination, that it was not until he
felt Helen's gentle touch upon his shoulder that he was aware of her
presence.

'Has my melancholy been infectious?' said she, bending tenderly over
him, and bringing her face close to his. 'Is it possible that what I
said about your going could have turned your thoughts in the same
direction?'

'Not at all,' said he, with a half smile; 'my thoughts were of quite
another kind. I was thinking--'

'Hush!' she said, laying her little hand softly on his lips. 'Don't
say you were thinking of business; that hated rival displaces me in
your mind far too much as it is, but to give up to it such moments as
these would be sacrilege. I will be your sole consideration now,
until--until--'

'Until the end of my life,' said Alston, passing his arm tenderly
round her; 'and your jealousy of my absence and all those connected
with it is a mere pretence, a playful pastime, as you very well know.'

'Let us settle it so,' said Helen, 'and quit the subject. Meanwhile,'
she said, taking from her pocket a morocco case, 'I have a present for
you, Alston, and one,' placing it in his hand, 'which I think you will
like.'

He opened it, and saw gleaming on the blue velvet a plain but costly
gold hunting-watch.

'Thanks, dearest one,' he said, taking it in his hand and looking
tenderly up at her. 'I shall like it, because, by its aid, I shall
check off every hour that brings me nearer to my home and to you.'

'Why, Alston,' said Helen, laying her hand tenderly on his, 'do you
know that is quite a poetical sentence? I fear your reputation as a
practical man would be lost for ever if it were known in Wall-street
that you had given utterance to such a remark. But,' she added, taking
the watch from him, 'it will have, I trust, a still stronger value in
your eyes.'

She touched a spring, and the back flying open revealed an admirably
executed coloured photograph, a likeness of herself; underneath was
engraved the date, 'February 20th, 1871.'

'O, how glorious!' said Alston Griswold, with surprise. 'It is a
wonderful likeness,' said he, after a little pause, during which he
had been looking fondly at the picture; 'somewhat too sad and serious,
perhaps, for my Helen.'

'It reflects the shadow of parting which hung over your Helen at the
time it was taken, as the engraved date underneath will never cease to
remind you; you see it, Alston, the one dark day in our married life.'

'You shall regard it in a very different light, dear one,' said her
husband; 'you shall learn to look upon it as the day on which your
husband entered into an undertaking by which his fortune was
perfected, and he was left freed from the cares of business to devote
the remainder of his existence to his wife and his home.'

'God grant it!' said Helen fervently. 'Each time that you look upon
that picture, Alston, think upon what you have said just now, and come
what may, make up your mind not to leave me alone again.'

'You speak of being alone, dear, as though you were on a desolate
island, instead of in New York, surrounded by troops of friends.'

'I am always alone when I am without you; and as to friends, I am not
sanguine as to their taking much interest in our affairs, or helping
me to smooth any difficulties which may arise in my path.'

'There is one, at least, among them of whom you must not speak so
lightly,' said Alston in a grave voice; 'one who has already been
tried and proved himself in the highest degree trustworthy, and in
whom my confidence is such that I am about to ask him for further
proof of his friendship.'

Helen's glance shifted instantly from her husband's face and dropped
upon the ground. She knew instinctively to whom he was alluding.
Should she in that last moment give utterance to her detestation and
distrust? Should she implore Alston to authorise her to deny herself
to Mr. Warren, and entreat him to select some other friend as his
agent in the transaction of any business which might be necessary
between them? She paused for an instant in reflection. What reason
could she give for such a course of action? What real and tangible
ground of complaint had she against this man? None at all. A vague
dislike, an undefined suspicion, were all she could bring forward; and
these her husband's practical common sense would induce him, with all
his love for her, to reject at once.

'I am glad that we possess such a friend, Alston,' said Helen, after a
pause. 'I say "we," because, allied as we are, not merely formally but
in heart, without the smallest shade of division between us, this
mysterious unknown could not be your friend without, as it seems to
me, being mine.'

'There is no mystery about me, dear one,' said Alston, 'for I am
speaking of Trenton Warren; and as to his being your friend, he would
only too gladly prove himself if you would give him greater
opportunity of so doing.'

'Greater opportunity, Alston!' she cried. 'Have I then been remiss
in--'

'Remiss in nothing which concerns the duties of a wife,' said he
tenderly; 'only I thought I had noticed--it may have been
imagination--that there was a certain coldness and avoidance in your
manner towards Warren. He is himself somewhat of my temperament,
Helen, engrossed in business, unaccustomed to make the polite advances
common in society, and liable to take flight immediately if he did not
find his attentions appreciated.'

The bitter word rose in Helen's mouth as she listened. 'I am sorry
that Mr. Warren,' she commenced, and then better reflection came to
her aid, and she broke off that sentence. 'I will not have you compare
Mr. Warren to yourself,' she resumed, 'for there is no one like you in
the world; but I have no doubt that Mr. Warren means very well, and I
certainly had no intention of snubbing him, as you seem to fancy I
have done.'

'That is spoken like my own true little wife,' said Alston. 'Then
depend upon it,' he added, assuming an important air, which, under
other circumstances, Helen would have found amusing, 'depend upon it
that the knowledge of human nature which I possess would prevent my
forming an intimate alliance with one who was not worthy of it, and I
want you and Trenton Warren to be the best of friends. It will be the
greatest comfort to me during my absence to know that I have left you
in the charge of one who is worthy of the thorough confidence which we
both equally place in him.'

'You--you are going to leave me in Mr. Warren's charge, Alston?'

'Why, Helen,' replied her husband, with a laugh, 'you speak as though
you were a trembling captive and he a terrific gaoler into whose
custody I was about to deliver you. When I say take charge, I mean
simply this. During my absence it will be necessary that there should
be some one to whom you can refer in any ordinary matters of your
daily life, whom you can call into your council, and by whose decision
you shall abide at any special crisis which that dear, unbusiness-like
little brain might find itself unable to grapple with. For this
confidential position there is no one so fitted as Trenton Warren. He
knows both my private and my business affairs, has a cool clear head,
and on more than one occasion has shown his devotion to my service. I
have told him what is wanted of him, and he will accept the charge.'

Should she speak then? Should she seize what might be the last
opportunity of declaring to him the dread, strong yet undefinable,
which lay so heavy on her soul? Should she brave the chances of his
raillery, his annoyance, even of his anger, by imploring him not to
leave her in this man's power, not to give him any control whatsoever
over her actions, avowing at the same time frankly that, while she
suspected Trenton Warren of deceit and double dealing, she could give
no reason but that internal consciousness which, however powerful in
its operations, had no practical value.

No, she would not do this; she would not send him forth on that
desolate journey amongst strangers with any doubt or distrust at his
heart. Better for her to bear whatever unpleasantness there might be
in her relations with this man rather than perplex her husband during
his absence with an additional source of anxiety. So she looked at him
with a soft smile and said:

'It will doubtless be all right, Alston; and Mr. Warren and I shall
get on very well together. I suppose I have formed an exaggerated idea
of the horrors of this absence of yours. Mrs. Hotchkins, whose husband
is so frequently called over to the other side, says that the time
slips away without one's noticing it; and that she is quite surprised
when she hears the vessel bringing him is telegraphed at Sandy Hook. I
don't think surprise is exactly the phrase which will express my
feelings when I get that welcome news.'

'No, my love; but, then, you are not Mrs. Hotchkins. Nor have I, I
hope, much in common with the eminent dry-goods man. But she is right,
I daresay, as regards the quick passing of the time.'

'I suppose I shall hear from you constantly, Alston?'

'Certainly, dearest; by every mail.

'And I suppose,' she said, glancing up at him with a demure look,
'that you will wish me to write to you occasionally?'

'Occasionally!' he cried. 'You must let me hear from you equally
constantly. And, by the way, I have something to say to you about
that--'

He checked himself just in time. He was on the point of explaining to
her the arrangement he had made that all her letters to him should be
sent under cover to Warren, but he thought it better to keep silence.
Her simple nature never would understand the business necessity which
induced him to adopt another name during his stay in England, in order
that the nature and extent of his operations might not become known in
Wall-street, and thus influence the position of certain transactions
in which he was already known to be deeply engaged. Her trust in him
he flattered himself, was beyond question; but as he had never
suffered her to have the slightest knowledge of business matters (with
which indeed she had shown no inclination to meddle), she could not be
supposed to comprehend that what he intended to do was what was
constantly done for the purpose of preventing one's rivals from
getting a trade advantage, but would look upon it as a deception which
no honourable man ought, under any circumstances, to permit himself to
practise.

Alston Griswold then made up his mind that he would not intrust his
wife with this part of his intentions on the spot, but would send her
word of it only by the letter of instructions which he had already
written, and which, on the eve of his departure and well on board the
ship, he would give to Warren to take to her. Warren was aware of and
approved of his project of taking a false name; and Warren's judgment
was, in Alston's eyes, indisputable. He would defer letting Helen know
about it until he was safely out of reach of objection.

'You said you had something to say to me about that,' said Helen,
recalling him to the conversation; 'you seem to have fallen into a
reverie.'

'It was but a temporary one, dearest, and is immediately dispelled by
the sound of your voice,' said Alston Griswold, rousing himself. 'We
were talking about your letters to me, and what I want to say to you
is this, that you must write every day.'

'Every day!' cried Helen, in astonishment. 'There is not a mail every
day, Alston; you would receive several by the same post, and find quite a
jumble of news.'

'Nevertheless, you must write every day,' he said with a smile,
'though what you write need not be posted; and as to letters, I do not
intend you to send me letters at all; I intend you to keep a diary.'

'A diary!' she echoed; 'I never did such a thing in my life. I have
begun a dozen, kept them up bravely for the first day or two,
forgotten them for a week, and then descended into a series of entries
"nothing particular."'

Griswold laughed. 'That was because you had other things to engross
your mind; now I hope your diary will be your one absorbing topic. It
will be the sole record I shall ever see of your daily life, which,
though absent, I hope and know I shall in a certain sense fill, and it
therefore must be all-interesting and all-important to me.'

'You have thoroughly studied my weak points, Alston,' said Helen,
with a smile, 'and know that that is an argument that I cannot
withstand--the journal shall be kept.'

'Kept from day to day, copiously and full of detail,' said her
husband; 'do not omit anything because you may think it trivial or
uninteresting; the trivialities are probably what will interest me
most. Let me be able to follow your life from day to day through all
the familiar hours of it, and thus endeavour to cheat myself out of
the sense of separation.'

As he spoke these last words, he bent down, and encircling her with
his arms, pressed her to his heart. 'Now let us go and see the child,'
he said--'my little unconscious rival. If she had not existed, you
would have accompanied me on this trip to the old country, and I
consider myself exceedingly generous in still retaining my affection
for her.'


The Cuba was advertised to sail at three P.M., but early the next
morning the house in Fifth-avenue was astir, and with all the bustle
and confusion occasioned by its master's impending departure. Huge
boxes, packages of coats and rugs and piles of clothing, removed from
drawers and submitted to inspection before being packed, lumbered up
the passage; heterogeneous articles, from paper parcels up to
portmanteaus, were continually arriving, their bearers bringing with
them little notes, the writers of which expressed their hope that they
were not giving their friend too much trouble in asking him 'just to
take this across with him;' friends who lived in the neighbourhood,
and did not care to take the trouble of going down to the ship,
dropped in to say good-bye, and were found wandering all over the
house in search of its owner.

And in the midst of all this confusion and all this crowd, Helen
drifted purposelessly about, spoken to by everybody, but scarcely
comprehending what was said to her, and when replies were desired,
answered them vaguely, her eyes filled with tears, her heart sinking
more and more within her as she watched the hand creeping round the
dial, and bringing nearer and nearer the hour at which her husband was
to start.

It had been originally intended that she should accompany Alston to
the ship and take leave of him on board, but she had abandoned that
idea. It would have been impossible for her, she felt, to have
maintained her calmness at such a moment, and for his sake, as well as
for her own, she determined on not making the attempt.

And now the time had come! She saw it in his face as he slowly made
his way up the stairs to where she stood in the doorway of her
boudoir--her own room where they had spent such happy times, and from
the wall of which his portrait was even then looking at her with
something of a sad expression.

Alston took her by the hand and drew her gently into the room, closing
the door behind him.

'The carriage is at the door, darling,' he said in broken tones, 'and
I have not given myself much more than time to get across to the
Cunard wharf. For both our sakes let us make this scene of parting as
short as possible. My darling, my own heart's darling, God bless and
protect you! Recollect the diary; let it be begun tomorrow and write
it fully and freely. Once more, my own one, farewell!'

He held her yielding form to his heart, pressed one long, long kiss
upon her lips, and was gone.

When the carriage drove into the yard of the Cunard wharf in Jersey
City, Alston Griswold saw at a glance that half New York had come to
see him off. He had caught sight of several friends on board the
ferry-boat, but had no idea of their real number until they clustered
round him as he alighted. Wall-street, of course, was well
represented. There was Uncle Dick, rubicund and genial, smacking his
lips as though the flavour of the terrapin which he had eaten for
luncheon at the corner of Chambers-street still hung about his palate;
and at his elbow, of course, was bright-eyed handsome Billy Barstow,
with his hand on every one's shoulder, and his rich voice proclaiming
every one to be his 'dear old boy,' ready, not merely by word, but in
deed, to do universal kindness. And there was Alf Macgregor, the
banker, whom no amount of American citizenship could deprive of his
keen honest Scottish look and sharp incisive accent, and Willersheim
and Schönbrunn, and all the Hebraic-German clique, and scores of
others, to many of whom Alston Griswold had 'done a good turn,' and
all of whom wished him well.

There was to be a final drink--a parting bumper of champagne--in the
saloon, and, followed by the enthusiastic crowd, Alston made his way
on board. But first he took a look at the chief-steward's cabin, which
had been retained for his use, and which he found literally
overflowing with baskets of flowers and floral offerings in pretty and
quaint devices. Some of these were anonymous tributes, others bore the
owners' cards; but there was one on which his eye at once rested--a
large circular basket of primroses, with, in its centre, made of the
freshest and choicest violets, 'Come back.' It did not give Alston
Griswold much trouble to know who was the donor of that basket, or how
fervent was the prayer expressed in that gift. This thought was put to
flight by the arrival of Billy Barstow, who came to inform Alston that
the champagne was ready in the saloon and that he alone was waited
for.

'Give him two minutes with me first,' said Trenton Warren, suddenly
looking over Barstow's shoulder. 'I want to speak to him on business,
Billy, and I will then hand him over safely to you convivial boys.'

'I was looking anxiously for you, Trenton,' said Griswold, when
Barstow had retired; 'I want, as you know, to make you the recipient
of my last words. Here,' taking it from his pocket and handing it to
his friend, is the final letter of instructions for Helen, telling
her, among other matters, that her letters are to come to me under
cover from you. 'I count upon you to place this in her hands yourself.'

'You may rely upon my doing so,' said Warren.

'And at once, if you please,' said Griswold.

'By at once you mean to-day,' said Warren. 'Have you told Mrs.
Griswold to expect a visit from me?'

'No, I have not; but that need make no difference, you know.'

'Of course not,' said Warren. 'Anything more?'

'Yes,' said Griswold, taking a slip of paper from his pocket, 'the
name under which I propose to pass in England.'

Warren took the paper and glanced at it.

'All right,' he said, with a smile, 'that will do very well; not
remarkable and yet not suspiciously common for a man doing big
business--we consider it adopted. Now we must hurry to the saloon, the
time is just up.'

The saloon was reached, the God-speed toast was drunk with all the
honours, Warren and the New Yorkers returned to the shore, and the big
ship noiselessly and almost invisibly headed into the stream and stood
away upon her ocean voyage cheerily, cheerily.


'He had not warned her that I should come to-day,' said Trenton Warren
to himself, as he landed from the ferry at Desbrosses-street, 'so that
I shall not attempt to intrude upon her grief. The delivery of the
letter will do very well to-morrow, and will give me a night during
which to deliberate on my plan of action.'

The next day about noon Trenton Warren called at the house in
Fifth-avenue, and was told by the servant that Mrs. Griswold was not
well enough to receive visitors.

'Take her this card, if you please,' he said quietly, 'and tell her
that I am the bearer of a message from Mr. Griswold.'

In a few minutes the servant returned.

'Walk this way, if you please,' she said; 'Mrs. Griswold will see
you.' And muttering to himself, 'I thought so,' Trenton Warren marched
onward to the assault.




CHAPTER IV.
HELEN'S DIARY.


'I am to write my letters to him, Alston says, in the form of a
journal, so that when I send them off each week, he may be able "to
follow my life from day to day through all the familiar hours of it,
and so to cheat himself out of the sense of separation." These are
Alston's words, not mine; I have it not in me to think these thoughts,
and so the words would not come.

'And why, I wonder? Am I a heartless woman, or ungrateful, or only
commonplace, and unable to understand the way in which things present
themselves to Alston? At all events, it will do me no good to think
about myself; I shall come to no better liking for myself, to no
clearer conclusion about myself, by questions of this kind. If I
cannot quite understand him, I can at least perfectly obey him, and,
please God, I will do that, as I have always done it; and as he has
said I am to keep a journal, I will keep a journal. So I begin it
thus, in an irregular and unskilful fashion, no doubt, but with the
utmost sincerity of intention to write in it everything which can
interest him (according to his scale and meaning of interest, not of
my own), on the very day after his departure.

'As I know that nothing can be regularly done which is not done at a
set hour, I will begin my journal with a rule for the writing of it.
It is to be for Alston; it is to be his share in the day during his
absence, and it shall be done during that hour when I was always with
him, just before I went up-stairs to see baby fast asleep, and to go
to bed myself; after every one was gone, when we had company at home;
when we had returned, if we had been out, and when we compared notes
of our impressions of the place and the people. In Alston's room, at
Alston's desk, my letter-journal shall be written, and it may be I
shall get over the shyness and the discomfort with which the notion of
writing to him inspires me now, in the custom and familiarity of the
time, and be able to persuade myself that I am only talking to him.

'This, of course, is not beginning; this is only a little rehearsal,
what the jockeys call "a preliminary canter;" I shall start properly
by and by. It is rather odd, when I come to think of it, that I
have never written to Alston in my life, beyond one or two mere notes
just before we married; and he found fault with them, and said they
were stiff and formal, and such as I might have written to my
writing-master, to show him how I had profited by his instructions,
and how attentively I looked to my downstrokes and my loops. I
remember thinking that though Alston said this in jest he was very
nearly right, for I had made three or four fair copies of each note
before I sent it, which was only my foolish girl's notion of respect
for Alston after all, for I am sure I never copied out anything I ever
wrote to Thornton in my life, but just sent it as it was, dashed off
anyhow. This makes it all the more difficult to write to Alston now,
and in journal form too; it is commencing a new correspondence and
learning a new art.

'I have never written down any of the things that have happened to me;
I have just let them slip by as if they were things in a picture or in
a dream, and I am a good way on in my life now--a wife and a mother,
to say nothing at all of my girlhood and the story that was in it,
only a simple story, but the kind of thing women, I should think,
remember always, and I suppose and hope it will be a simple story now
until the end, until Alston and I shall bid baby good-bye in this
world.

'And I hope that day will come for me before it comes for Alston, for
I cannot imagine what I should do with or for baby without him. He
says I am not a helpless but a useful woman, and could stand alone as
well as the avowedly "strong" ones if I had to do it; but, I don't
know, I think Alston is wrong; I fancy the only bit of strength I have
about me is the power of hiding my weakness--well, there's some
defence in that, after all. But O, the pain of knowing oneself to be a
coward! the pain of feeling as I feel this horrid presentiment of evil
in Alston's journey to England, of not being able to hide it _quite_,
and to make the going, which he feels so much, a little easier to him!

'But this talking to myself is not beginning my journal. It is really
very difficult to write the everyday history of one's life in a
disjointed unpremeditated way. Here have I been sitting for the last
twenty minutes staring at the paper, and not writing a line. I cannot
bring myself before myself, as it were--something to be described and
set down in black and white.

'What have I to tell Alston, except that I am writing in my room quite
early in the morning--not as I intend to write in future, when all the
house is quiet, and baby is still fast asleep? I could not sleep last
night for loneliness and trouble, and this haunting something, which
is not presentiment, I suppose, but merely nervousness, and which I
must put down with resolution if I am to be cheerful and useful. This
order of Dr. Benedict, that I am to give up nursing baby, is troubling
me. I feel that he is right; I am not equal to it, and I should harm
the child and myself; and yet I hate the very idea of putting a
strange woman in my own place--a strange woman, just picked up by an
advertisement! If this is to be my journal, it will be nothing but a
list of grievances. Sometimes, ungrateful woman that I am, I think
life is not much more.

'A happy idea has just occurred to me. Suppose I write my journal in a
retrospective sense? Suppose I bring myself before myself as I was,
and thus make it easier to take up the history of myself as I am? All
the earlier portion will be for myself; and when I come abreast of the
present time, I will write it for Alston.

'The notion pleases me; I had almost forgotten myself as I was, and
now I shall live within my own sight over again. I have bought such a
pretty book, in vellum binding, with gilded leaves and lock, and in
that I am going to write the story of my childhood and my girlhood,
for no eyes but my own--and Thornton's when I am dead, if he lives
longer than I do, as Heaven grant he may--he, too, as well as Alston.
I will shut myself up; I will see no one. I will work hard, and by
this day week I shall have written up to the present and done my
letter so as to mail it to Europe.'

Into her pretty book, in vellum binding, with gilded leaves and lock,
Mrs. Alston Griswold pasted the foregoing prefatory pages; and then
settled herself seriously to her task, and wrote as follows:


'My life commenced with the greatest misfortune which can signalise
the beginning of any existence: My mother died shortly after my birth.
How much more I should have had to remember, how many more pleasures,
how much happiness, if I had ever been to any one what baby is to me!
Every one was very kind to me, and I was a happy child; but there was
nothing very particular in my childhood except about my going to
school, and that is particular, because it brought Thornton and me
together and did away with my loneliness. For I certainly was lonely
when father was away at the Mills all day, and aunt Catherine busy all
day long about the house, evidently finding me very much in the way,
and so glad when papa sent me to bed early, and she could have those
long talks with him, which, I felt certain, made papa so depressed and
melancholy next day.

'If I were writing a novel now, and had to draw a picture of
home--Holland Mills was its commonplace name--I wonder could I make it
all picturesque and interesting? I don't think I could; and yet the
long low green and white house was pretty--and the fields, the
orchards, the river, were all beautiful to me. I could describe every
part of the road between the Mills and the minister's house,
Thornton's home--for Thornton's father was our minister, and his
mother was our school-madam; but the minister did the most of the
teaching.

'My place was beside Thornton on the very first day when aunt
Catherine took me to school, and he became my friend and protector,
and I his plague and oppressor, from that instant. What patience he
had with me! and how naughty I was! I was a pretty child, and always
very trim and neat: aunt Catherine never would have tolerated any
untidiness or disorderly ways, and I regarded Thornton's plain
features, much too large for his narrow face, and his untidy clothes,
worn anyhow and much patched and darned, with great contempt. But
Thornton soon made me ashamed of such a feeling. He helped me with my
tasks, he even did some of them for me; he taught me to feel a
moderate degree of interest in the subjects of our studies, in which
he repeatedly shot far beyond me; he got me out of scrapes, and kept
me out of mischief; he defended me against my adversaries, fought and
punished them; he saved the life of my little dog, when it was
drowning in the millstream, at the risk of his own (poor little Taffy!
she is stuffed and under a glass case in Alston's study; and that is
more of Alston's kindness to me, for I am sure he does not like her,
and she _isn't_ naturally done); he stole apples for me, and he lent
me his own skates in the ice-season, when aunt Catherine would not
hear of my having a pair.

'I put these foolish-sounding trifling things down because I want to
bring back to myself the assurance that Thornton was always like a
brother to me.

'The first thing that I can remember as troubling the busy
tranquillity of my school life was my coming to understand why aunt
Catherine and papa always had so much to talk about, and why the
talking never did them any good. I was growing up into a staid little
person, as Alston says I am now, when the word "difficulties" began to
be familiar to me. It never has the sad and hopeless meaning in
America that it has in the old countries of Europe, I am told; but
"difficulties" are not easy or pleasant anywhere, and papa was not a
man to bear them well. He gave way very much, and I used to tell
Thornton about it, and he and I used to consult together and discuss
what could be done.

'Thornton had only one solution to offer; it was that he should marry
me. This, he said, would save a great deal of expense, by taking me
completely off my father's hands. But I saw that that plan would not
be of much use, because some one must have given us something to live
upon, and that some one would certainly not have been Thornton's
father; for he was very poor, and Thornton was studying as hard as he
could, that he might be able to go into business and assist his
father. So that idea did not come to anything; and when we were a year
older, and the "difficulties" were a year worse, Thornton got a
situation in New York, and he and I parted.

'It was very hard--very hard indeed--to part: I don't mean to deny
that or to make any mistake with myself about it; but I do wish to
assert most distinctly, though only for my own satisfaction, that
there never was any engagement between Thornton and me.

'I know Thornton loved me as a man loves a woman whom he would make
the partner of his life--as Alston loves me, but without Alston's
curious notion of the essential difference and distance between men
and women. Thornton, though a highly-cultivated man, thought me
perfectly capable of understanding the best of his studies, if not of
following their details, of sharing his interest in every sense; but
Alston could not think thus, and though he is most tender and
indulgent, he is not confidential. I should be the most ungrateful of
women were I to murmur; but I do wish sometimes for a little more
confidence, even at the cost of a little less indulgence.

'But I am wandering from my intention to record exactly what was the
state of things between Thornton and me when our schooldays came to an
end, and he went to take a small post with but poor pay at New York. I
know that he loved me--that was frankly acknowledged between us; but
there was no thought that we should marry, then or ever. I loved him
too; but not with love such as I have heard and read of, but have
never known; love which must mean misery, I think, because it causes
one to sacrifice duty, and common sense and all one's obligations
towards other people, to its own imperious claims. I knew that I could
not be Thornton's wife without harming him and all concerned; and
that, however much I might believe that it would be the happiest fate
to be his wife, happiness of that particular kind, was not destined to
be mine. I do not say our parting was not sad, but I am quite safe in
saying that it was not bitter.

'A little while after Thornton went away to New York I first saw
Alston. He came to Holland Mills on some business connected with
papa's affairs, and merely in a business capacity. My father and he
had not met previously, and we knew nothing of him except that he was
a prosperous merchant of New York, and I think we had a little of the
sense of shrinking and depression--I mean aunt Catherine and I
had--which comes to unprosperous people in the sight of those whose
lot is far different. A very little time, a very brief acquaintance
with Mr. Griswold, did away with such a feeling as this, and turned
him into a friend.

'My father took to him from the first, and as to aunt Catherine, I
never knew her to like any man who was not a minister so much, or to
believe in him so implicitly. He brought relief and cheerfulness with
him, that was plain, and at first all he did was quite for papa's
sake. After a while, he began to care very much about me, and, like a
gentleman, as he is in everything, he told me that he loved me, and
hoped I might in time come to love him well enough to marry him, but
that I must not regard the matter as having anything whatever to do
with the efforts he was making on my father's behalf. He would
continue them as zealously as ever, whether I decided for or against
him.

'I can never forget how Alston appeared that day. I had not thought
about loving him, though of course I knew, as every woman knows such
things, how he felt towards me; but when he spoke this to me, I felt
that it would not be hard to love such a man, and that it would be a
blessed fate to become his wife.

'He did not press me for an answer then; he said I must consider it
until his next visit, and I promised him that I would do so. But
before his next visit, ah, what a change had fallen on us all! My
father had met with a terrible accident in the mill; he was hopelessly
injured, and when Alston came it was to see him on his deathbed.

'The last hours of my dear father would have been very sad had it not
been for Alston. All was confusion in his affairs; there had not been
time to disentangle them, as Alston was striving to do, and he could
not have died in peace without the assurance which Alston gave him
that aunt Catherine and I should be well cared for. He would not tell
my father that he had asked me to marry him, because he feared my
father might ask me for a promise made to _himself_, and so fetter the
freedom of my will; but when I understood this reticence and the high
honour that dictated it, and how much it would rejoice my father and
take the sting from his death to know that I should be safe, with
_such_ safety, I told him in Alston's presence that he had asked me to
be his wife, and that I had reserved the answer until now. My father
placed my hand in Alston's, and from that moment I believe not one
care belonging to this world troubled him. He told aunt Catherine that
he did not wish any needless delay to be made about the marriage, that
it should take place when a decent time should have elapsed after his
death.

'When the sad funeral was over, as soon as I could bear to see him, I
told Alston all about Thornton. The "all" was not very much, but he
still more fully proved to me that he was a high-minded man by the way
in which he heard it, and the unasked promise which he gave me that
Thornton's interests should also be his care. He could not do anything
to help him just then, without sending to New York for him (I have
omitted to mention that Thornton had got a better berth than his
first, and gone to New Orleans), but there was something which he had
in view that he thought would exactly suit him likely to turn up after
a while.

'He wished me to write at once to Thornton and tell him of my
approaching marriage, but not to mention his intention of serving him;
that, he said, would come more graciously afterwards. I did write to
Thornton, but he did not answer my letter until he addressed me as
Alston's wife, and then I did not hear from him again for a long
time--he had gone on a trip to the Dominion for his employers--not
until just before baby was born.

'But I am not jotting down my own story, for, after all, there is not
much of Thornton in that, though I seem to put a great deal of him in
this. Our wedding was a very quiet one, and on my wedding-day I took
leave of the Mills.

'Alston wound up all poor papa's affairs, sold the place, paid the
debts, and arranged for aunt Catherine's boarding at Mrs. Broom's very
near our house in New York. Alston proposed, in his delicate generous
way, to make aunt Catherine's allowance appear to come from the sale,
that she should still suppose herself to be under obligation to her
brother only; but I soon made him understand that would be a hopeless
attempt. There is not a better head for business in the States than
aunt Catherine's, and she understood papa's affairs as well as he did;
she could not have been misled about the origin of a dollar.

'But, as I told Alston, she and I are not of the mean sort who hate to
be obliged to a friend because we feel ourselves incapable of
gratitude; we both accepted his kindness as loyally as he offered it,
and I don't think there is a happier old lady in New York than aunt
Catherine--with baby, who has cut me out completely, to come and see,
and unlimited sermons to listen to--Mrs. Broom's boarding-house goes
in for ministers, and they have several denominations there.

'I was bewildered when Alston brought me home. It took me some little
time to get accustomed to the luxurious house and the stir of society,
and even to the fact of living in a city. I felt too small, too young,
and too ignorant. But Alston helped me, Alston encouraged me, Alston
had perfect patience with me; and if he would only have made me more
of a confidant, and less of an idol, I should have had not one
unfulfilled wish.

'All this shall be for his return, please God. I am growing older so
rapidly, so much older than is told by years, and when he sees me a
sensible mother, he cannot help thinking I am fit to be regarded as a
wise wife.

'But I must stop. It is baby's bed-time, and I can go on when she and
I are dressed, until lunch. This really must be put in journal form,
"posted up" to yesterday, before to-night, that I may keep my promise
to Alston--the promise he asked me with almost his last kiss--"You
will be sure to begin to-morrow."'




CHAPTER V.
AN EXPLANATION.


Helen Griswold laid down her pen; placed the sheet of paper which she
had just covered with her neat writing in a drawer of her davenport;
ranged her natty desk implements, and then, resting her chin in the
palms of her hands and looking wistfully before her, she fell
a-thinking. Was the sense of her husband's absence growing real and
painful? Had the effort of this unwonted method of communication with
him roused her to a realisation of the great change that had fallen
upon her daily life? Perhaps so. But there was more perplexity than
pain in Helen's face, and Griswold's departure, though painful,
was in no way perplexing. There was something lurking in her mind
to-day--there had been something lurking in her mind yesterday--which
she dreaded to call out and gaze upon in the open light.

After a little she rose restlessly, and with an impatient sigh, and
passed into the adjoining room, where she found her infant just awake,
and was soon absorbed in the pleasant duties and interest of her
nursery. Then came a walk with the child and its nurse, and Helen
reëntered her house, feeling composed and cheerful, and full of good
resolutions for the wise disposition of her time during her husband's
absence; a disposition by which she almost unconsciously provided for
the elimination of the one disturbing depressing element.

She had just reached her room and was laying aside her bonnet when the
servant brought a message from Mr. Warren. That gentleman requested
that he might be admitted to her presence, and said that he had come
upon special business from Mr. Griswold.

'He knows how to make me receive him,' Helen thought bitterly; and her
eyes flashed and her brows contracted. 'He knows I cannot let the maid
take a refusal to such a plea as that.'

'Tell Mr. Warren I will be with him in a few minutes,' she said; and
went on mechanically arranging her dress.

As she was fastening her linen cuffs, she was reminded of the trifling
incident of the finding of the sleeve-link, and it occurred to her
that the ornament in question belonged to Trenton Warren. Surely it
was a carved gem; one of a pair which she had seen him wear,
respectively representing the heads of Hebe and Ganymede. She was glad
to have recollected this circumstance; it would give her something
indifferent, something safe, to talk about. She looked about for the
link; she had taken it out of her pocket the night before, and laid it
down on her dressing-table. It was not there. She called her maid,
and asked her if she had noticed a gentleman's sleeve-link in the
ring-tray. Her maid replied that she had seen it, and supposing it to
belong to Mr. Griswold, she had slipped it into his dressing-bag just
before he closed it. Mrs. Griswold remarked carelessly that it was
rather provoking, that the sleeve-link was not Mr. Griswold's, but
that it could not be helped, and it did not matter.

She lingered, unwilling to go down, and hoping, when at length she
could not defer doing so any longer, that as soon as Mr. Warren should
have informed her of the nature of the business, real or pretended, on
which he had come, some other visitor might arrive and interrupt the
_tête-à-tête_, which was extremely disagreeable to her in prospect and
most ill-timed.

It was impossible longer to loiter, and Mrs. Griswold went
down-stairs, her long dress trailing, her small head rather
disdainfully held up and back, her countenance wearing an expression
which all her customary associates, save one, would have regarded
with surprise. In the presence of that one, whose ear had caught her
first footfall upon the thickly-carpeted stairs, she stood in a few
moments and his glance caught the unfamiliar expression and read it
aright--without, indeed, its inmost meaning, its complications of
origin, but still clearly enough.

Trenton Warren was standing in the same place from whence he had
watched her so closely on the night which had so severely taxed his
self-command and her patience.

He was handsomely dressed in his usual accurate unexaggerated style,
in a light gray morning suit, and he had an air of perfect leisure
about him, simple leisure which was not without its charm.

It was the kind of manner which pleases women who live in a business
atmosphere, among men who are generally either occupied or over-tired;
it said so intelligibly, 'Here I am entirely devoted to your service,
having got everything off my mind but yourself.'

As all the women of his acquaintance knew Trenton Warren to be as busy
a man as his fellows, the compliment was real, and so the manner was
effective. He was decidedly liked by women; perhaps the solitary
exception to that rule was the one woman for whom he wore this manner
most elaborately, most watchfully, most invariably. But Helen Griswold
did not like even the air of leisure which was so captivating to other
women. It had the misfortune to link itself to the one drawback, the
one discomfort, the one injury of her life, and so, woman-like, she
distorted its meaning, she refused its tribute.

He, too, she bitterly thought, had the presumption to regard her as an
ornament, as a being incompetent to fill a serious and sympathetic
place in her husband's life; he, too, held that women should be
excused from business, and so he came to her a totally unreal
creature, a drawing-room lounger, with malice in his quiet smile and
insulting depreciation under his deferential address, and the
acquiescence in her uselessness which encouraged Alston in his one
fault, and made her heart sick with a powerless anger, to which her
unerring woman's instinct, as she called it--the least trustworthy
guide any woman can follow except within a very limited track--assured
her that Trenton Warren was perfectly conscious.

He had never found her in a less conciliatory humour than on the
present occasion. The undefined struggle in her own heart, the signs
that a great change was passing over her, the introspection which had
been so entirely foreign to her mind and habits, the little lingering
bitterness which had mingled with the solemn tenderness of a parting
with Alston, imparted into it by her feeling that she in reality knew
nothing about the purpose and details of the business which was taking
him so far away from her for so long; all this had prepared her to
receive his visit with anything but welcome. And as he looked at her
he knew that, too, and she saw that he knew it.

Helen Griswold was not sufficiently a woman of the world to be
mistress of those fine shades of manners which are such powerful
weapons on the woman's side of social warfare; but she conveyed to
Trenton Warren with quite sufficient accuracy a sense that she
expected him to deliver his message and go, before they had exchanged
two sentences. She did not take her customary seat, but placed herself
on an ordinary chair in an attitude which had a provoking coolness
about it; and she looked over, not at Trenton.

He had seen her husband later than she had; her husband's parting
words had been for him; would she not display some curiosity as to the
final interview--some interest? Not she; not a jot! So he made up his
mind at once that he would not use any _ménagements_ with her, but
show her at once and plainly the position in which 'that enviable ass,
Griswold'--for thus Mr. Trenton Warren called his confiding absent
friend in his thoughts--had placed her.

'You have some business to be communicated to my husband, I believe?'
said poor Helen, with her very best imitation of slightly patronising
unconcern.

'O dear, no,' replied Warren, putting his hand into his breast-pocket
and taking out a letter. 'I have no business to communicate _to_ Mr.
Griswold; my commission is _from_ him.'

`To me?' The colour flushed over her face.

'To you,' he answered with a bow, and then went on without looking at
her, his eyes bent on the letter in his hand. 'You are aware that I
met Mr. Griswold at the steamer. He had some last words to say to
me--last words which gratified me very much, Mrs. Griswold, because
they proved the sincerity and genuineness of his confidence in me; he
intrusted me with--'

'That letter, which I can see from here is addressed to me. Please to
give it to me sir!'

He glanced at her very slightly, smiled also very slightly, and laid
the letter on the table, by her side. She had not made the least
gesture like taking it from his hand.

'I thank you,' she said, but did not take up the letter. 'I thought my
husband had given me his final instructions; but perhaps he had
forgotten something. I am sorry you should have had the trouble of
coming during business hours.' Then with a total change of tone, 'I
think you lost a sleeve-link here the other evening, which I picked
up; but most unfortunately it has--'

'Excuse me, Mrs. Griswold,' said Warren, in a firm tone, 'if in my
turn I interrupt you. I have something to say, and I do not wish to
turn to irrelevant matter's until it has been said. I did not come
here merely to bring you a letter, which I might have sent you by a
messenger; I came here for a more serious purpose, which may or may
not be corroborated by Mr. Griswold's letter--I know nothing of its
contents--to tell you that your husband has intrusted you to my care,
and wished you to refer to me in his absence in any case in which you
might experience difficulty or require advice.'

So far Helen had heard him with varying colour and a beating heart,
half choked with anger and an undefined dread but now she rose, and
laying her hand upon the letter, said, in an unsteady voice, 'Your
communication is an extraordinary one, Mr. Warren. I think--I think
you can hardly expect me to say that it is welcome. I would rather
read my husband's letter before I hear more.'

'You wish me to leave you?' asked Warren, who had risen when she rose,
but made no sign of an intention to go away.

'I do.'

'I cannot obey you, Mrs. Griswold. Let me beg that you will resume
your seat and listen to me. I am an unwelcome visitor, I know, and you
take my communication badly for some reason which I do not understand,
but which I hope to surmount.'

He controlled himself perfectly; his tone was quite deferential, and
not the faintest, most flickering smile passed over his face.

She had slowly reseated herself, and sat holding the letter and
looking at him with a fixed frown.

'Griswold felt this parting, in more than its sentimental aspect, very
seriously--he thought of your position gravely, and of your
inexperience and habitual dependence upon him for guidance. He deputed
me, as his most intimate friend--indeed, the only one who is
thoroughly acquainted with the business which has taken him to
England--to act for him in several affairs here--things with which I
need not trouble you--and to take care of you and baby; I use his own
words. In the first place, I must apprise you that all your letters to
your husband--the charming daily record which you have promised him'
(Helen started and winced with pain. That her husband should have
talked so familiarly of her with any man--with this man of all
men!)--'must reach him through me.'

'Through you? I do not understand what you mean.'

'Then I will make my meaning plainer. Every letter which you write to
your husband must be sent to my office, under cover to me, to be
forwarded from thence. Such are Griswold's explicit directions. Please
to look at this memorandum.'

He laid a leaf, torn from a note-book, before her; it bore these
words:


'_All letters written to me by my wile, or sent to my private address
to be forwarded, are to be sent under cover to Trenton Warren to his
office, when he will dispatch them to me_.'

                                          'ALSTON GRISWOLD.'


'I see,' said Helen, 'that your statement is correct, that Mr.
Griswold has made this extraordinary arrangement, and that, much as I
dislike it I am bound to conform to it. But you, Mr. Warren, _you_ are
bound to explain it. Have the goodness to do so.'

'Ah, ha!' he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders, full of
impertinent depreciation to her angered eyes; 'that, I regret to say,
it is not in my power to do!'

'What, do you pretend that after your last words with my husband,
after undertaking the charge he laid upon you, after bringing me this
letter and this memorandum, you do not know why Mr. Griswold made such
an arrangement?'

'Pardon me, I do not pretend, I do not say, anything of the sort. I am
perfectly well aware of the motive which led to Mr. Griswold's making
the arrangement which is unpleasant to you, but which I am constrained
to commend as a wise and proper one. I merely say that I regret that
it is not in my power to inform you of his reasons.'

'You refuse to tell me; you acknowledge that you are in my husband's
confidence more completely than I am--you tell me so in fact,
commending his unexplained directions to me--and you expect me to
tolerate all this. For what do you take me, Mr. Warren?'

The struggle in Helen's mind and feelings while she spoke these
brave-sounding words was severe. Under the smooth leisurely manner of
Warren there was an ill-disguised consciousness of power which
frightened her, and there was that nameless something that had already
been haunting her. She was not exactly a courageous, but she was a
singularly sincere woman, and there is always more or less bravery in
truthful actions. She made a sudden resolution even while her blood
was cold, as she asked the question of herself: 'Has Alston put
himself in this man's power?' She would quarrel with Warren _à
l'outrance_ then and there. She would put an end to this evil
influence in her life; it should haunt her no longer. She would
justify herself to Alston if he blamed her by confiding in him, as she
had not yet done by telling him, the inmost dread of her heart. If he
treated it as a folly, she would say let it be a folly in his eyes,
_let it be a folly of hers_, which she should look to him to respect.
A full presentiment and an intimation which she truly and fully
believed (there was a dash of superstition about Helen Griswold)--with
which women with more mind than any one who has taken the trouble to
develop, and an unconsciously unsatisfied heart one occasionally
possessed--told her that in an utter breach with this man, a
determined stand against him, lay her only safety. She would make the
utter breach now on the spot; she would take a determined stand.

With the wonderful quickness of thought, all this passed through her
mind, and her resolution was taken before Trenton Warren answered her
angry question, which he did with considerable deliberation. He too,
had been making a resolution; he, too recognised this interview as a
crisis in his relations with this woman--this woman so beautiful in
his sight, so captivating, so far removed--unless, indeed, his skill
and daring, his 'good play,' as he called it ii his inmost thoughts,
chanced to bring her near. The events of that morning had curtailed.
the space between them in an unexpected, unlooked-for manner. And he
entirely misinterpreted the irrepressible symptoms of emotion in
Helen's manner. He saw hat, with all her braving out of the position
she was afraid of him; and, as he judged her only from the shallow
depths of his own consciousness, as one who did not love her husband
with passion, and therefore did not love him at all, it never occurred
to him that she feared him for her husband's sake--he sought and found
a meaner motive for her fear. Why should she fear him? Why should she
shrink from the notion of his influence with the husband she assuredly
did not love, if she were unconscious that he had not an influence
over herself which she dreaded? Fear comes not of indifference, nor is
one with disdain! The hope which he had secretly cherished in his
treacherous breast in a smouldering state for months past sprang up
into a flame under the influence of Helen's misinterpreted anger. The
mental process in his case was as swift as in hers, and it was after
only a brief pause between question and answer that he replied to her.

'I refuse to tell you, Mrs. Griswold. It is impossible that I should
violate your husband's injunctions on this point, and I hasten to
reply to your other question. I do expect you to tolerate my conduct,
because you _must_ recognise that honour dictates it, though you may
not understand what it costs me; and I take you for the best of wives
and the most fascinating of women.'

He approached her as he spoke with his hand held out, and a smile upon
his face which drove the last faint scruples of prudence far from the
exasperated woman whom he had so thoroughly roused; but Helen rolled
her chair some feet back upon the castors, and, with a slight wave of
her hand, rejected his. Very beautiful she looked--more beautiful than
he had ever seen her--her great eyes ablaze, so that they shone like
jewels, as she said:

'And _I_ take _you_ for the falsest of men. You have always been my
enemy, and I have always known it--known it so long and so well, felt
it so constantly, that it is a relief to me to tell you so. Keep this
secret from me! Do you think Alston will keep it, when I ask him to
explain it to me? No; you know he will not, though you would have made
me despise and distrust him, if you could. Yes, you would, and you
tried, tried hard, for some purpose of your own--I do not know and I
do not care for what purpose--to divide us utterly. You succeeded in
part--thank God, only in part did you succeed! Alston would have made
me his friend and confidant only for you. But you made him
contemptuous of my intelligence; you persuaded him that women are
unsafe in matters of business; you divided me from one-half my
husband's life, and made it a mystery to me. But for you I should have
been his companion in everything. I tell you, Mr. Warren, I distrusted
you from the first. I saw you had an influence which you were using
ill, I--'

'You did me the honour and yourself the injury of being jealous of me,
Mrs. Griswold. It is a mistake which young wives are apt to make with
respect to their husbands' friends, and one which frequently costs
them a good deal.'

'I was not jealous of you,' she said indignantly. 'I could not
entertain so base a feeling. Why should not Alston have friends, as
many and as close as he pleased? But you were his enemy--not his
friend; because you were my enemy; because you would have degraded me
if you could--yes, degraded me, I repeat--by making my husband treat
me as a toy or an indulged pet, not as an equal associate.'

'You are simply doing him a monstrous injustice,' said Warren, with a
sudden abatement of sarcasm in his tone and manner, and a not
unsuccessful assumption of hurt-feeling, of deferential
explanatoriness; 'you are imputing that which is in the nature of the
man to an external influence. Griswold is a very good fellow, and my
best friend; but his notions of women, all his theories about them,
differ from mine widely. He believes in the intellectual inferiority
of women as he believes in their physical beauty, and likes it as
much. Long before he married you, he told me a clever woman was, to
his mind, an anomaly, and a clever wife a nuisance; that he did not
believe any woman in the world could understand business or hold her
tongue; and he meant to conduct his domestic relations, if he ever
found any, on Hotspur's theory, and, while giving his wife all due
credit for discretion, making sure that she "would not tell that which
she did not know." This root of bitterness was none of my planting,
nor have I watered it. You have spoken with harsh frankness to me,
Mrs. Griswold; let me speak with frankness that shall not be harsh to
you. I have contemplated your domestic life with pain--'

'Indeed, and why? It is an unenviable one.'

'So you believe, because you have little experience and an unawakened
heart. If you only knew what home might be, and love, the love of a
man to whom you would be more than the fairest of women, the dearest
of friends, the most trusted of counsellors, the sharer of every
feeling, the companion of every thought! Would not that be the ideal
of earthly happiness?'

His voice had become low, tender, and persuasive, and his words had a
strange influence on Helen. She seemed to forget _him_, to be
conscious of them only, to have been sent by them into a dream.

'Happiness more than earthly,' she said, as if to herself, hardly
knowing that she spoke.

'Such happiness might have been yours. Be honest, be patient, be true
with yourself and with me, and you must acknowledge that it could
never have come with your marriage with Griswold. He is the best of
fellows, but it is not in him to appreciate you. You are a woman for a
man to love with his whole mind and with all the strength of his
pride. If fate had made you _my_ wife you would have been so loved.'

He moved a step nearer to her, and stepped before her, looking at her
with eyes whose gaze she dared not meet.

'You may as well hear me out,' he went on, with a tremor in his voice;
'since your ill-placed suspicions have forced me to clear myself from
the charge which you have brought against me, it is fair that you
should listen to me. When you believed that I was estranging Griswold
from you, undervaluing you to him, I was tortured with envy of his
lot, and silent about you because I dared not speak to my friend of
his wife lest he should--slow as his mind is, except when business is
concerned--suspect that I loved her.'

'You are a wicked man,' cried Helen, rising from her chair and
speaking almost inarticulately in a passion of rage, shame, and fear.
The undefined thing which had been haunting her, the shadow with which
she had refused to parley, the shapeless dread which had troubled the
last hours of her husband's presence in his home, the phantom that had
stolen to her side when she was recording the blameless thoughts of
her innocent heart, had assumed form, consistency, and spoke to her
with a human voice and undissembled speech. This, then, was what it
had all meant, and the thing which she had feared had come upon her in
a shape worse than her fears. It was this man's prejudice, continued
dislike, that she had fancied were in the atmosphere of her home,
tainting it, and filtering drops of poison into her cup of life; but
now she found it was his love, his deadly, hateful, treacherous,
dastardly love. Good God! How she loathed and feared him, for her
husband had gone away and left her in this man's power. Without his
aid she could not even communicate with him, and he--and he, he was
free to write whatsoever he pleased to Alston. It said much for
Helen's courage and principle that she never dreamt, in the moment
when all this was fresh and clear and terrible before her, of any
compromise. She would keep this man at defiance, she would brave him.

'You are a wicked man,' she said, 'a traitor to your friend, and a
coward to me; you take a dastardly advantage of my unprotected
position, and the blind confidence which my husband places in you, and
you insult me in my solitude. Leave my house, sir, and send me at once
my husband's address in England. I refuse to transmit my letters
through you. I repudiate all acquaintance with you henceforth from
this hour; and if you attempt to presume upon the mistake Alston has
made, I shall inform him word for word of what has occurred today. Let
me pass, sir, or I will ring for my servants!'

Warren bad interrupted her on her way to the door, and was standing
before it, his hand behind his back pressed upon the upper panel.

'She did not say she would tell him _whether or no_,' was his rapid
reflection, and there was a gush of guilty hope in the thought, for
this man believed women to be virtuous only in the degree in which
also they were fools, and he held Helen to be no fool.

'I entreat you to pause,' he said gently, 'before you make a scandal
in the house. I am resolved to speak to you, and nothing short of your
making such a scandal can deter me. I have offended you by telling you
the truth, only a little more deeply than you were previously
offended. I am very unfortunate, but I have justified myself, and I
repeat it; I love you--I love you as I have never even persuaded
myself that I loved any other woman! I ask nothing--I seek nothing
from you but the toleration of a sentiment which does you no
dishonour, which is stronger than my will, for your husband's sake and
your own.'

'And I tell you,' she cried, wild and reckless with anger, 'that I
will not tolerate it, either for my husband's sake or my own, for it
_does_ me dishonour. It may be, as you say, that mine is an unawakened
heart, but my conscience is unused to slumber' (in after days she
remembered this fatal admission, and raged blindly and in vain against
the impulse which had induced her to make it), 'and now I am not going
to make any scandal, I am not going to endeavour to pass that door
until you think fit to stand aside and no longer use virtual violence
to me in my own house. See, I resume my seat; I shall retain it until
you rid me of your presence; and I tell you quite plainly my
determination. I demand of you my husband's address in England, and if
you refuse to give it, I think it fair to warn you that I shall follow
him to London by the next steamer; and once there, I shall have no
difficulty in finding him.'

At the words 'I shall follow him,' Trenton Warren had started and left
the door. He now turned abruptly to one of the windows, and stood
there looking out, his face set and pale, for a full minute after she
had concluded her slowly-delivered sentence.

When he turned to speak to her, she marked the whiteness of his face,
and believed her threat had frightened him.

'I _cannot_ give you your husband's address,' he said. 'I can write to
him, and telling him that you are dissatisfied--as doubtless your own
letters will convey--advise him to intrust you with the truth
concerning his business in London in every respect. But no matter what
you threaten, or what you do, I cannot, I will not, depart from his
wishes in this matter.'

He slowly approached her, but did not pass round the table which stood
between them; then suddenly seated himself, and studiously averting
his eyes from her--indeed, Helen Griswold never caught his glance
again during the remainder of the interview--he went on speaking in a
dogged tone.

'I have made a blunder, Mrs. Griswold, and made a fool of myself! I
cannot unsay what I have said, for it is true; the explanation of all
the past which has offended you is the offence of the present. I have
loved you, but I may cease to love you by an effort. A man does not go
on loving with any kind of love very long if he is quite without hope;
_and I am quite without hope_.'

The emphasis on these words would have conveyed a warning to the ear
of a practised woman of the world; to Helen they conveyed merely an
assurance, a relief, a mitigation of insult.

'Suppose,' he continued, 'we discuss the matter reasonably, not so
much in your interest or in mine, as in that of Griswold, your husband
and my friend?'

'Your friend?'

'Yes, my friend. Women like you insist upon pushing everything to its
extreme verge; because I am not the soul of honour, I must be a mere
villain; because I love you, I must, in every other sense and way, be
false to my friendship with your husband--a weak notion, a shallow
judgment! Accept my assurance that you are mistaken, and let me go on.
A total breach between us will only make Alston suspicious and
unhappy, and, perhaps, morose. He is the sort of man to suspect that a
cool man like me does not make love to a married woman without
something like encouragement; another case of a weak notion and a
shallow judgment. But I will relieve you of my presence. I will
abandon the charge laid upon me by Griswold, which you so much resent,
and he may never know it, until time shall have changed everything,
enabled me to meet you with indifference, which has hitherto been
impossible, and you to conquer your repugnance.'

In the evenness of his speech there was something artificial, which
might have warned her had the temptation to snatch at the relief in
his words been one whit less strong. But she heard no warning, only a
blessed promise; only an indication that the cloud which had fallen
upon her might be made to pass away, and leave a better and surer
brightness than ever behind it.

'I will forgive, I will forget everything,' she said eagerly, and with
a bright and beautiful blush, 'if you will go away and leave me; if
you will never attempt to see me during Alston's absence. If I may be
quite sure of that, and calculate upon it, I will never mention
anything to him. It would be an awful pain to me to do so; it is an
immense relief that you do not force me to tell it. I will send my
letters through you; I will ask you no question, if you will promise
me, when you pass that door to-day, I shall see you no more until
Alston has returned!'

'And I have come to my senses. The terms are hard, but I accept them.
Only you forget, Mrs. Griswold, that you are exacting a very difficult
thing from me; the relinquishment of my business, the placing it in
the hands of other people, for at least the same term as that of
Griswold's absence.'

'Why, would you leave New York?'

'How could I remain in New York and never come here, break through all
my former habits, and neglect every recognition of Griswold, without
being suspected of a motive; and from the suspicion of a motive to the
discovery of its nature the interval is very, very short. No, I must
leave New York, where lots of men know how I stand with Griswold, and
have been seriously supposed to stand with you. I will do so; but in
your turn you must promise me, in addition to your forgiveness,
absolute silence towards Griswold.'

'Of course,' said Helen impatiently. 'I only care that he may never
have the pain of knowing.'

'You mistake me again. I do not allude to that, but to my absence from
New York. Men are too busy, and we signify too little to one another,
for any risk to arise, or any one comparing notes with Griswold, when
he comes back, about how long I have been away. But he must not be
allowed to think that, for the sake of a mere pleasure trip--I should
go to the Western States--I abandoned the charge he laid upon me, and
broke the promise I made him at the last moment.'

'You are scrupulous enough in small matters,' thought Helen; but she
only assented aloud again, impatiently.

'Then I have your promise, Mrs. Griswold, your positive assurance,
that your letters to your husband shall contain no intimation whatever
of my absence from New York?'

'They shall contain no mention of you whatever.'

'Pardon me, that will not do. Your correspondence with your husband is
to be in journal form--you are right, it was not very delicate in him
to tell any one anything of the kind--'

'I did not speak, sir.'

'True, there was no need of speech; but that journal, if it contains
no mention of me, will be very unlike what Griswold expects.'

'I cannot help that. I can suppress all mention of you, but I cannot
write letters about you, if that is the meaning you are aiming at. But
you need not hesitate for that consideration. I shall merely have to
remind my husband that we never agreed about you, and to say that I
avoided on purpose the disagreeable subject.'

A momentary gleam of fury shot across Warren's face; but he suppressed
it, and made her a slightly artificial bow.

'This is agreed to, then,' he said; 'and so this interview, which had
so stormy a beginning, ends peaceably. I am utterly beaten, Mrs.
Griswold, acknowledging my defeat, and accepting the penalty. You will
see me no more during Griswold's absence, and when we next meet the
old things will have passed away.'

He bowed deeply and slowly, and walked out of the room with a quiet
deliberate step; but there was something in his air, in his attitude,
in his smile, as little like a beaten man as could be. When he had
left the house--she waited, listening for the closing of the
street-door--Helen Griswold lay back in her chair, and wept such bitter
tears of anger, humiliation, and loneliness as her eyes had never
before shed.

This terrible interview had terminated much better than she could have
hoped. She had got rid of Warren, who would be powerless for the
future to harm her, and she had avoided the necessity for wounding her
husband. When he returned, she not only hoped that foreign travel and
new acquaintances would have weaned him from his infatuation for
Warren, but supplied him with a sounder standard whereby to measure
his claim to regard. But where was the triumph which she ought to have
felt at such a solution of the difficulty which had beset and harassed
her whole married life? No signs of triumph came to the overwrought
feelings and tired nerves; on the contrary, a strange kind of terror,
depression, and misery settled down upon her, the more irresistible as
she endeavoured to disentangle and sort the incidents of the interview
which had just taken place. Her woman's instinct really aroused, and
not wrong for once, told her the victory had been too easily won.

     *     *     *     *     *     *

'So there is an end of my journal,' wrote Helen the same night, when
she was the only person awake under the roof. 'All my pretty and
pleasant plans of setting down the inmost feelings of my heart, of
recording them and every incident of the growth of my mind for
Alston's eyes to see, are quite at an end. There is a secret in my
life now which he must never know, and a dread within my breast which
I cannot say to him that he might soothe it. How wretched they make
me! how I detest them! Good heavens, how miserable one may be with
everything beside one's-self to make one happy! I read over and over
again the few pages I wrote this morning, and I ask myself, Can it be
that I wrote them, and that since then I have learned so much of life,
seen so much of human nature? That such treachery should exist as
Trenton Warren's; that such credulity should exist as Alston's; that
such blindness could be as mine! Thank God he has really promised to
go away. I shall hardly breathe until he has gone, and I shall never
stir beyond the door. He said he would go at once. How _am_ I to write
to Alston? The journal plan I must abandon; I feel that would now be
impossible. I must only just do one common every-day letter. Alston
will not like it--he will reckon it as only one of my compromises. No
matter; it is a convenient excuse for faults far worse even than I
have ever committed.'




CHAPTER VI.
A MYSTERIOUS COMMISSION.


Brown-Street, New York, is not a savoury locality. Although it is
situated in the heart of the city, lying midway between the palatial
splendour of the 'up-town' domestic residences and the enormous
blocks of buildings forming the 'down-town' commercial establishments;
though it runs parallel with, and at no great distance from, the
famous Broadway; and though it has in its rear a magnificent square,
where are to be found some of the grand old-fashioned roomy mansions
which by their size and substantiality might well put the gimcrack
erections of Fifth-avenue to the blush, yet is Brown-street a place of
'no 'count.'

The houses are for the most part two-storied buildings of the
shabbiest description; the iron railings which should guard the
'stoop' or flight of steps leading to the doors are generally wanting,
having been extracted feloniously for the purpose of sale, or broken
up and converted into handy weapons of attack and defence by the
Hibernian residents of the colony. The street-doors are but seldom
closed, standing three or four inches open, but creaking furiously
when further demands are made upon them, as though they had conceded
all they meant to give; the windows of the first-floors are uniformly
furnished with outside Venetian shutters, which, no matter what may be
the time of year, are generally closed during the morning, while in
the afternoon the passer-by can discern through them the half-dressed
figures of frowsy women and girls, who have no scruple about entering
into conversation or indulging in humorous repartee.

What the second-floor contained, none save those who have made their
way into such penetralia (among which number I am not one) can say,
but there is no doubt as to the purposes to which the underground
cellars are applied. These are lager-beer saloons, dram-shops,
whisky-stores, in some instances pretended billiard-halls or
pistol-galleries, but in every case pandering to the vilest tastes of
degraded humanity.

Stumble down these steep, broken, slippery steps and you stumble into
Hades, you plunge head foremost into the infernal regions. Here, for
the gratification of his countrymen, Max Heilbronn has opened a German
gehenna, where Schinken and Blutwurst, dried and highly-seasoned
Lachs, provoke the thirst of the Teutons, and induce them to wind up
with something far stronger than the mild and insipid lager-beer with
which they commence their potations. There Tim O'Dwyer, to insure the
happiness of his compatriots, unfurled the green flag over the 'Ould
Ireland' store, strewed the stained and battered tables with the
latest received numbers of the _Bloody Pike_, the _Patriot's Vitriol
Bottle_, and other cheerful publications, and provided a stock of
Bourbon and rye, after the consumption of which his customers would
clear the floor and betake themselves to dancing jigs, breaking heads,
biting each other's noses off, and other national pastimes.

The street itself, like the majority of the streets of the sort in New
York, is strewn with garbage and refuse of every description; no need
for its inhabitants to copy the example of their more respectable
neighbours, and nightly put forth the barrow filled with the cinders
and sweepings of the day; for what the Brown-street denizens have to
get rid of, they adopt a more easy way with, and throwing it into the
middle of the street, there let it lie. The only one portion of the
road which is kept at all decent is the track of the horse-cars, which
enormous lumbering vehicles permeate a portion of the street, and by
their noise, the cracking of their drivers' whips, and the jangling of
their bells attached to the horses, dispel some of the monotony which
settles down on the neighbourhood during the daytime.

Some days after Trenton Warren's interview with Helen Griswold, and
late in the afternoon, just when the early spring sun had withdrawn
his brightness from the world, and the keen savage wind, sweeping
through the wide thoroughfares, had reminded men that the reign of
winter could scarcely be called at an end, a motley company was
assembled in one of the Brown-street cellars, known to its frequenters
as Naty Underwood's. A fat man Naty Underwood, with a round face and
pendulous cheeks, little thin slits of eyes, and an upturned
inquisitive nose; altogether not unlike a pig, whence probably the
playful designation 'Porky' by which he is known to his familiars; a
reserved man given to much quiet expectoration, a skilful concoctor of
drinks, but always in a quiet manner and as unlike the conventional
idea of a 'bar-keeper' as possible.

Yet bar-keeping was Naty Underwood's trade, and by the exercise
of it he lived. That dark smoke-discoloured saloon, whose original
gaudily-stencilled walls now bore huge blots and stains, caused in
some places by damp, in others by the sudden outburst of effervescent
drinks, was his whisky-store; those long-necked labelled bottles on
the wooden counter before him were his stock-in-trade, and the men
lounging around were his customers.

Most of these latter, who belonged to that indescribable class of
shabby-genteel people so common in New York--people who seem to have
no recognised mode of living, who are thin, starved, and ragged, and
yet always seem to have enough money to purchase a drink or to pay for
a five-cent ride in the cars--most of these _habitués_ of the saloon
seem known to each other. At the end of the room, however, and just
within the swing door by the bottom of the steps, was one who was
evidently a stranger; a tall thin man, with a hard round glazed hat
pressed down over a mass of tangled hair, and with a thick full beard.
He was dressed in a rough short pea-jacket with huge horn buttons, and
coarse blue-serge trousers, and looked like the second or third mate
of an English collier. He sat with one hand leaning on the table and
with his hat pulled well down over his eyes, but from time to time,
from under the shade of its broad stiff brim, he looked sharply round
at the assembled company as though he half anticipated interruption or
attack, or glanced impatiently at the door as though expecting some
one whose arrival had been unreasonably postponed.

Unquestionably, this stranger's appearance at Naty's aroused much
curiosity amongst the ordinary frequenters of the saloon. There was a
tendency amongst them to resent what they considered intrusion, and a
chance dropper-in to their charmed circle; though this was a feeling
which found no favour with the host, who was only desirous of
increasing the number of his guests; and on the present, as well as on
several previous occasions, sharp though low muttered contentions had
passed between him and them on the subject. Questions as to what the
stranger might want there, what a Johnny Bull was crowding into those
diggings for, and why Naty didn't take upon himself to 'snake him out
of that,' were all met by the bar-keeper with the reply that it was
'none of their business.'

A hint from long, Abe Stevens that he didn't pan out upon Johnny
Bulls, and another from wiry Zeek Grimes that he didn't freeze to dock
wallopers, were also thrown away upon Naty, and it seemed probable
that the landlord would have been called to account even if the
comfort of the guests had not been interfered with, had not a
clattering on the steps and the swinging open of the door diverted
public attention.

These noises were followed by the entrance of a man who, after casting
a rapid glance round the room, in b and exchanging a scarcely
perceptible sign with the stranger in the sailor's dress, walked up to
the bar amid universal signs of recognition and welcome, and clapped
his long lean hand into the fat moist palm of Naty Underwood.

A low blackguard-looking fellow this, with his hang-dog air and the
shifty furtive glance out of his deep-set eyes; his cheeks were thin
and hollow, his unfringed lips bloodless and closely set together;
there was nothing of the rough about his physique; no jowl or jaw or
lowering cranium, no bull neck; washed and decently dressed he might
have passed muster as an ordinary citizen, but now his clothes were of
antiquated cut and shiny with grease, his boots broken and bulging,
his battered hat stuck on the top of his narrow thin head. That he was
known to all, and popular as well, there could be little doubt, for
the landlord gripped his hand with friendly warmth, and his entrance
was received with cries of 'Hullo, Eph!' and 'Bully for you!' These
salutations seemed rather to disconcert the new arrival, who glanced
doubtingly to the corner where the sailor was seated; then, after
ordering a hot whisky-punch, made his way towards him and took his
seat beside him.

'You seem a powerful favourite here,' said the sailor sneeringly, in
between his teeth. 'Bully for you and be hanged to it! What did you
bring me here for? You knew I wanted to be quiet and unobserved; why
did you name for our meeting this place, where you are apparently as
well known as a nigger minstrel and as much thought of?'

The man was at first taken aback by this unexpected attack, but soon
recovered himself.

'What place should I have named?' said he, in very much the same tone
as the sailor had used. 'It is a pity I didn't propose to meet you at
the Brevoort House, or in the hall of the Union Club; they would have
been pleased to see me there, wouldn't they?' he added, glancing down
at his clothes. 'I can't face the music right away, even if you can. I
know this to be a safe and quiet place, where we can have our pow-wow
in peace, and that is why I brought you here.'

There was something defiant in the air with which he regarded his
companion across the table. Perhaps this was the influence of the
whisky-punch, which had been brought to him while he was speaking, and
of which he took a large gulp.

'Dry up,' said the sailor savagely; 'I don't want any more excuses. I
told you to find a place where we could talk without having our
conversation listened to, and you say you have done so in bringing me
here.'

'And I repeat it,' said the man. 'There was no possibility of your
taking me to a respectable house, therefore it devolved upon me to
bring you to a crib like this. I should not have proposed it,' he
added, dropping his voice, 'if you had been in your old style, but
like this'--and he laid his hand lightly on the sailor's rough
pea-jacket--'it is right enough.'

'I don't see it,' said the sailor gruffly.

'You never do see anything unless it answers your own purpose,' said
the man with a familiar laugh, 'and then it's astonishing how clear
your sight becomes. This is how it is: You're a sailor, you see--may
be mate of a liner--may be attached to one of the big steam
companies--and you have got something you want to dispose of something
that you have not paid any duty on, perhaps something that has been
handed over to you by a passenger who left the other side under a sort
of cloud, and he could not conveniently move it ashore himself--you
want to dispose of it as I say, and Eph Jenkins has been recommended
to you, and you have arranged to meet Eph Jenkins here; the boys round
here know Eph, and will pretty soon guess that that is the sort of
business you and he have together.'

`That is extremely satisfactory,' sneered the sailor, pushing back
from his forehead some of the overhanging hair which seemed to
inconvenience him, and gazing hard at his companion; 'you are still
living the same kind of life then?'

'Did you expect me to have been made Secretary to the Treasury, or to
have become mayor of New York?' asked the other.

`No,' said the sailor quietly, 'I didn't know but that even a greater
change might have befallen you. I thought perhaps you might have
become honest.'

'No,' said the man, with a short laugh, 'you didn't think that, or you
would not have summoned me to do some work for you. Honest!' he cried,
dropping his voice to a low hissing whisper, 'what have such as I, or
you, for the matter of that, to do with honesty? I was honest once,
but in those days I could have been of no service to you. It is only
since I became the degraded brute I am that I fell within your
clutches, was made your tool, and employed by you to do your dirty
work.'

'For such, let me remark, you have been duly paid.'

'Paid!' cried the man. 'I have received money with which I have bought
more whisky, in the hope of making myself drunk, and cheating myself
into forgetfulness of the times when I was decent and respectable;
money which has kept me from starving, and rendered me available for
whatever you might order me to do.'

'Exactly,' said the sailor; 'you have a command of virtuous
indignation which would obtain for you the greatest applause at the
Bowery, Mr. Jenkins, and extort a perfect ovation of pea-nuts, but I
confess you are to me most pleasing when practical. You have done work
for me--dirty work you are pleased to call it--and have been paid for
it, and how you spent your money was, of course, no affair of mine.
Now, as I have already explained to you, I have some very important
work to which you must devote your very best energies. If you carry it
through successfully--and you are perfectly able to do so if you
refrain from drink and one or two other little weaknesses--I shall
make it my business to see that your future is provided for. If, on
the contrary, by any negligence of yours you fail, I shall use such
hold as I have over you in the opposite direction. You comprehend me?'

'Perfectly,' said the man, who had dropped his air of bravado; 'what
am I to do?'

'You have here,' said the sailor, taking from his inner breast-pocket
a tolerably thick packet, 'a letter of instructions, written out in
the fullest possible detail. There is nothing you can want to know
that you will not find herein. I may, however, tell you at once, that
the service I impose upon you requires you to leave New York; it may
be many weeks before you are able to return. Under the circumstances,
however, in which you are now situated,' he said, looking around him
with an air of disgust, 'you will be rather pleased at the chance of
getting away. It isn't a bad billet, you will find. You are to live
like a gentleman among gentlemen, but it will require great discretion
on your part, and especially abstinence from that;' and he lightly
touched the empty glass on the table.

'I understand,' said Jenkins; 'and you may depend upon my being
careful. And if I pull it off all right, you will keep to your
promise?'

'You never knew me break my word yet, either in reward or punishment,'
said the sailor. 'By the way, do you retain that old accomplishment,
the exhibition of which on your part first brought us into contact--I
mean the power of successfully imitating my handwriting?'

'I think so,' said Jenkins, hanging his head.

'That's right,' said the sailor; 'you may find it useful in this
adventure. Now, as regards money. Here,' handing him a roll of dollar
bills, 'is some to carry you on for the present. I don't at all
imagine it will be enough, as you are by no means to stint yourself;
and when you require more, you will find an address in the letter I
have given you, to which you are to write for it. Be sure not to write
to me, as I may probably be away from New York.'

'I understand,' said Jenkins, 'perfectly.'

'Then I don't think there is any reason for our stopping any longer in
this delightful tavern,' said the sailor, rising.

When they reached the top of the steps and were in the open street, he
turned round, and giving Jenkins his hand, said:

'Good-night. Be sharp and prudent in this matter for your own sake.
And, by the way, from that letter of instructions there is only one
detail omitted--bear it well in mind. It is this: that when I direct
you to go to Norfolk I shall mean Chicago.'




CHAPTER VII.
CONJUGAL CONFIDENCE.


Bleeker-Street is not attractive, either for rambling or residence.
The tall houses present all the outward and visible signs of
over-habitation with which eyes accustomed to exercise themselves in
great cities are familiar, and the passage of the often-recurring
tramways keeps up a perpetual vibration and a remorseless noise which
banish all rest and peace for the sojourner. It is a street to live in
only under pressure of necessity; and it is to be presumed that the
people who do live in it have no great latitude for choice.

There are, however, degrees of discomfort, disorderliness, and
out-of-elbow makeshift even in Bleeker-street, for the houses have
numerous and desultory inmates, of all arms in the serried ranks of
humanity fighting in the battle of life--only among the rank and file
though, be it understood; and the parlours all along the line of the
house fronts are mostly occupied by respectable artisans, with a
sprinkling of superannuated _rentiers_ in a small way.

An observer ascending from story to story would find the status of the
dwellers in the monotonous dreary houses progressing crab fashion. The
poorer in circumstances, the lower in position, the inmate, the higher
tip he, she, or they--or much more usually he and she and they--dwelt
in the swarming buildings.

To Bleeker-street Ephraim Jenkins took his way when his mysterious
authoritative employer dismissed him; and one of the poorest,
dingiest, and most crowded of its houses received his somewhat
slouching form. His form was a little less slouching than when he had
struggled down to the place of rendezvous to meet the sailor; the most
inveterate loafer pricks up for a little while under the proud
consciousness of having got something to do for which he is going to
be paid.

Ephraim Jenkins did not object to a temporary occupation of a kind to
leave him a future margin of idleness, without danger of coming to
want; and it was with a decided accession of cheerfulness to his
countenance and alacrity to his step that he climbed the stair of one
of the least inviting of the houses in Bleeker-street to the topmost
story, and presented himself in a dull, close, ill-furnished room,
carpetless, curtainless, and forlorn-looking. This room had one tenant
already--a woman, who sat in an attitude expressive of deep
despondency and utter listlessness beside the rusty stove, leaning her
head against the wall, and with her hands folded in her black stuff
apron.

This woman moved when Ephraim Jenkins entered; but before her glance
turned towards him it fell upon an object, commonplace in itself, but
to which that unconscious spontaneous look lent a pathetic interest;
it was an empty cradle. The woman was still young, and though not
quite handsome, was very comely. She had kindly bright dark eyes,
black hair, a fresh colour, and a singularly honest expression of
countenance. She was neatly though poorly dressed, in what seemed to
be an attempt at mourning, but wore no new article of attire; though
it was evident the motive of the attempt was recent, for when she
spoke to Jenkins, it was with streaming eyes and a broken voice.

'What a time you have been away, and how lonely I have felt!' she
said, as he hung his hat on a nail, and threw himself heavily into one
of the two chairs in the room.

'Yes, Bess, I've been a goodish bit about it; but it's been worth it,'
he replied; 'the tide's on the turn, my girl, and we shall do well
now.'

'It's turned too late for me, then. O, Eph, to think it was only
yesterday we buried him! It seems like a year of misery.'

The empty cradle had a melancholy meaning. This woman's infant had
suddenly sickened and died three days before, and one of the
repetitions, countless as human lives, of the human tragedy was going
on in that shabby room in Bleeker-street. The woman would not be
comforted, because the child was not.

'Poor little Ted!' said Jenkins, with an awkward tenderness of a man
honestly endeavouring to soothe a grief which he does not share, and
hardly comprehends. 'I daresay it is much better for him; but it's
hard on you, Bess, considering how fond you were of him, and how you
never grudged the trouble; but he'd never have been well, you know.
Even our turn of luck couldn't have straightened his little legs or
strengthened his little back; and you would only have fretted worse to
see him growing up not able to get along for himself.'

'That's true, Eph; but I can't think about it now,' said the woman
with an impatient shiver, as she rose and dried her eyes. 'I would
rather have "the trouble," as you call it, and him, than any luck you
can tell me of without him.'

'Of course, of course,' assented Ephraim; 'and you must not think I
don't miss him too, Bess. Children ain't as much to men as they are to
women, because men have so much more to think of.' Mr. Jenkins's
_bonâ-fide_ belief in his own occupied mind and industrious life was
something edifying to behold, not to say humorous. 'And you know,
Bess, you're a deal more to me than any children could ever be, and I
can't bear to see you fretting.'

She had begun to lay out some tea-things in a noiseless tidy way, and
he drew his chair to the table with a not unskilful assumption of
wanting his tea. Ephraim Jenkins was loose and a loafer, but he was
not more than 'half bad,' and the other half was redeemed by a very
genuine and constant love for his wife. She saw the best side of his
character always, and she formed an extremely erroneous estimate,
happily for her, of the whole of it.

'While the tea is drawing, I will tell you all about it, Bess,' he
said; and she sat down quietly, looking straight at him, and evidently
trying hard to rally her spirits and fix her attention. 'I thought it
was only a temporary job to buy a horse at some Western fair, or to go
and look at some premises, or to follow up some debtor,' began
Jenkins; 'and I was not a little stumped when I found that Warren
wanted me for a big job and some time--three months certain, Bess.'

'Three months! What for?'

'Well, that's it. I don't exactly know what for. At least, I know what
I've got to do, but I don't know what it means; however, it's no
business of mine, as you'll see.'

Thereupon Ephraim Jenkins proceeded to give his wife an account of the
interview between himself and Warren. It was a garbled account, and it
presented the mission he had undertaken in a light which he perfectly
well knew was not its real one; but he had an elastic conscience, and
was apt to accommodate circumstances to his wife's notions when they
differed from his own, rather than to abide by the cold, unyielding,
and inconvenient letter of facts. He made out to her that he was to be
employed as an agent, not as a substitute; for he had an instinctive
consciousness that she would take alarm at the other view of the
transaction, and discern the existence of indefinite danger in the
very evident trickery which it implied. He did not propose to himself
to give so very free a version of the transaction as he found himself
led into giving, but the fact was, that when he had concluded what he
called an 'account' of the interview from which he had just returned,
his wife had only two clear ideas about it--the first that he was
going to leave her for he did not exactly know how long, the second
that he was going to conduct certain business operations of a kind
with which she had no reason at all to believe him practically
acquainted. She was not an educated woman, but neither was she
ignorant, and it struck her as a most unaccountable imprudence that a
man of business should put affairs into the hands of a person who had
neither knowledge nor position to bring to the transaction of them.

Ephraim Jenkins perceived at once that his story had not satisfied his
wife, and that he must improve upon it if he hoped to serve the first
important end to be gained, _i.e_. her willing acquiescence in their
indefinite separation.

'Whatever I shall tell her'--so ran the ingenuous current of his
thoughts--'I must not let out that I am going to pass for an
independent gentleman, for, of course, she would like to have her
share in a game of that kind, and why shouldn't she?'

'I don't understand it plain enough yet, Eph,' she said; and Eph knew
the resolute ring in the voice, quite free from temper, but meaning
him to mind it. 'You must be more distinct, please. And I should like
you to tell me how it is that you and this Warren have turned friends
again. I never knew much about your quarrel or how you were mixed up
with him at first; but it seems to me, considering he wouldn't answer
your letters or see you or help you to get anything to do for some
time back, he must have some very strong reason for changing round all
of a sudden, and putting you into a thing which must want management
and must mean confidence.'

'Ain't she shrewd!' thought Jenkins rather admiringly, though his
wife's shrewdness bothered him just then; 'goes straight at it and
hits it in the hull's-eye.' And then he formed a resolution.

'You are quite right, Bess,' he replied. 'I am sure his reason is a
very strong one, only I don't know it, and it don't matter to me, for
I am safe to get paid, and you see that's the chief thing, and I'm
sure you'll allow--and there's the queerest tricks going on in
business, tricks that would make you stare to hear of and you could
hardly believe. If there is any such tricks up in this game, you
understand, it's Warren will be playing them, not me, and they don't
concern me; and you may take your oath Warren knows what he's about.
But I am going to tell you something, Bess, which I have not told you
before, just because we have always had enough trouble to get along,
and a big share of it has been yours, my girl, and I did not want to
make it bigger by giving things a look of greater hardship and blacker
injustice than they need have; but I can't go on without telling you
now, Bess, when you ask me how it comes that Warren has changed his
mind and his hand about me. You know he is not aware of your
existence!'

'Yes,' Bess replied anxiously, 'I know you thought it better he should
not know you were married.'

'I had my reasons. Long ago, Warren said to me he would never get me
another job, or help me with another cent, if I mixed myself up in any
affair with a woman. I have no doubt he did not mean by that if I
married, for he never thought of such a thing, but he just said that,
and he meant it. "He would not have any woman told anything about his
affairs," he said, "and I had better act on the caution."

'I did, Bess, _you_ know how, and I have been obliged to stick to it. If
I had gone to him and pleaded poor little Ted, instead of softening
him, the notion of the poor little crippled baby would only have
exasperated him, and he would have told me I was a cursed fool, and
might take the consequences. It was only while he believed me to be
knocking about alone, and at his beck and call, that I could count on
Warren's remembering me sometimes for his own sake; and so I never
told him I had a wife, Bess, and I can't tell him now; but I will when
this job is through, for I mean to save every cent I can while it is
on, and then we will set up in some little way, and I will be steady.'

Poor Bess had heard many such promises already during the two years
she had been Ephraim Jenkins's wife, and had tested their
worthlessness, but she still cherished the delusion concerning her
husband, which, however foolish, is always lovable and excusable in a
woman; and therefore she smiled, faintly indeed, for the little tenant
had left its cradle empty too lately for the mother's lips to smile in
full or genuinely, and said, 'I know you will, Eph; I know you will.'

'That's hearty, my girl, and encourages a man. I will say for you,
Bess, you never do nag, not even in your own mind, you know. I know
you don't, for I should see it in your face if you held your tongue
ever so. And now for what I promised to tell you. There is a reason
why Warren should help me, why he should turn round after all his
hardness and put a job into my hands rather than into any one else's;
for he is my brother, Bess; yes, indeed, my father was his father,
but his mother was his father's wife, and my mother was that wife's
maid--that's all the difference! Only a trifle!' he added, with a
bitter laugh, 'but it made a deuced deal of difference to me. My
father's wife died when Warren and I were young children, and we grew
up together in a rather indecent sort of fellowship, I daresay--he in
the parlour, and I in the stable-yard; but we were never long parted,
and there has always been some sort of feeling--a bad sort generally
on his side--between us. I have been a loafer and a ne'er-do-well; it
is not elevating and encouraging to have such a family history as mine
to look back upon; though, mind, I don't mean to lay the blame on
that, Bess; that's cant, and cowardly too! Now you know all about it,
and you understand why Warren, when he wants some one to help him and
to keep it dark, sends for me.'

'Yes, I understand that now, and a good many other things as well,'
said Bess, 'and I do hope, Eph, you will get free of him by this job,
and let us make a fair start. But what am I to do? I must try to get
some plain sewing, I suppose, and stay here, unless I can get a
cheaper place!'

'Plain sewing be hanged!' exclaimed Ephraim, slapping the rickety
table with his hand and making the cracked crockery-ware ring; you
sha'n't go in for _that_. I've got a notion, Bess, and I think you
will like it. You know what the doctor said, don't you, about poor
little Ted's death, and your having to be careful on account of
leaving off nursing so suddenly?'

Bess nodded; her eyes filled with tears.

'Well, then'--he spoke with a little effort, creditable to the poor
loafer--'look here,' taking a newspaper from his pocket, 'here's an
advertisement for a wet-nurse. "Wanted immediately, by Mrs. Alston
Griswold, of Fifth-avenue, a young woman to undertake the charge of a
delicate infant." What do you say to trying for the place at once? for
I must leave you tomorrow, Bess; it's hard lines, but Warren must have
his dollar's worth for his dollar; it will be a good one, I'm sure,
and if you were to get it, my mind would be at rest about you.'

'O, Eph, to have a child at my breast, and little Ted in his grave!'
cried the young mother, with a burst of infinitely touching sorrow,
and threw her arms around the 'loafer's' neck.

He let her cry in silence for a few moments, and then she recovered
herself, and said:

'This is foolish, I know. The idea is a good one, Eph; but I don't
think it can be done. Do you know anything about Mrs. Griswold?'

'No, I don't,' said Jenkins, with an odd look, which his wife did not
observe; 'but where's the difficulty? The advertisement is only this
morning's, and you might see after the place to-night.'

'No lady would take me without a recommendation, and where am I to get
one?'

'O, for the matter of that,' said Jenkins incautiously, 'I'll write
you out half-a-dozen different ones in half-a-dozen different hands;
and the last lady you lived with can be gone to Europe, so that she
can't be applied to.'

One of Mr. Jenkins's accomplishments was a faculty for writing several
different hands, which Bess never liked, though she had hitherto
regarded it with only a vague disfavour and distrust. But she coloured
violently when Jenkins said this, and hastily bade him:

'Hush, hush you are only jesting, and I don't like such jests. No; I
will go to this lady, and try if she will engage me when I tell her
the truth about our little Ted.'

     *     *     *     *     *     *

Bess Jenkins put on her mourning bonnet and shawl--the only new
articles of attire in her scanty wardrobe--and the two set off to walk
to Fifth-avenue. On the way Jenkins confided to his wife--being forced
to do so in order that she might be able to write to him during his
absence--that condition of his undertaking which he had been most
strenuously cautioned against revealing: his assumption of the name of
Warren. Bess was vaguely alarmed when she heard it, and when he told
her she must let no one see the address upon her letters; but she felt
that remonstrance was now useless, and so she submitted.




CHAPTER VIII.
A WANDERING STAR.


In that tall square block of buildings known as Vernon-chambers,
Piccadilly, a London bachelor must be fastidious indeed if he cannot,
no matter what his tastes may be, find a residence to suit him.

There are suites of rooms, easy of access and commanding enormous
rents, and there are single apartments, so loftily situate that they
look down upon Buckingham Palace in the distance, which, can be had
for a small sum--that is to say, a comparatively small sum when the
situation and accommodation are taken into consideration.

The advantages of a residence in Vernon-chambers are great and
manifold. It is a great thing for a young man new to the metropolis,
and just commencing his career in diplomacy, law, or commerce--for
commerce has been found to pay, and is now quite as fashionable as any
of the learned professions--to be enabled to put 'Vernon-chambers'
on his card, it being a recognised address amongst those
dinner-and-ball-giving members of society, the cultivation of whose
good will is so necessary to the well-being of all young men.

Then, again, it is in the most desirable quarter of the town; handy to
the clubs and to the park; within a shilling fare of all the theatres;
and yet providing its inhabitants--those who dwell in the topmost
stories at all events--with plenty of fresh air; and the pleasant
expanse of the Green-park to look upon, instead of the dismal line of
brick or stucco abomination on which most Londoners are compelled to
feast their eyes when they come to the window in ungratified search
for light and air.

It is probable, however, that none of these considerations figured as
inducements in the mind of Mr. Bryan Duval, when, some three years
before the period of our story, he took a set of rooms on the second
floor, and agreed, without hesitation or attempt at abatement, to pay
for them the rather stiff price of three hundred a year.

Mr. Duval did not go much into fashionable society; but at such great
houses as he was in the habit of frequenting in the season he would
have been as welcome if he lived in Greek-street, Soho--a choice
locality, in which, indeed, at some anterior period of his life, he
had once pitched his tent. He was not a member of any club, and he
would as soon have thought of going into the Thames as into the park;
he hated fresh air (his first order in connection with his new rooms
was to have double windows made to exclude the noise), and, if he
occasionally looked out on the Green-park, it was not with any idea of
pleasing his eyes with its verdure, or amusing himself with
contemplating what was going on there, but rather in a fit of
abstraction, when he had got into what he had called 'a knot' in the
work on which he was engaged, and during the disentanglement of which
he would, perhaps, lean his forehead against the window, and stare
straight out before him, with a prolonged gaze, which saw nothing.

It was not to be imagined, however, that Mr. Duval had selected this
residence haphazard; he had a motive for everything he did; and, when
it suited him, was ready to explain it in the most candid manner.

'I took these rooms,' he would say to any inquiring friend, 'and
I pay about twice what they are really worth, because I wanted
them. My business lies sometimes in Bayswater, and sometimes in
Basinghall-street'--he would smile grimly as he pronounced the last
name--'and I want to be right in the centre, "the hub of the wheel,"
as they say in America, whence I can fly out east or west with equal
ease. Then again, of late years, a certain number of swells, not being
able to spend their money quickly enough on the turf, have chosen to
mix themselves up with my profession, and this is a handy kind of
place to come and see me at when they want. I have not any feeling for
them but one of intense contempt; but that, of course, I keep to
myself. Out of them I get a certain portion of my bread-and-cheese,
and so I treat them civilly enough, never rubbing them the wrong way,
never bowing down and worshipping them. Then, again, I want large
rooms, for there are books and papers, and files of playbills, and all
sorts of things knocking about; and there is a little slip of a room
out there--the warm-bath, I call it--where my secretary works; and
altogether the crib suits me, and is not so bad.'

'The crib,' as Mr. Duval called it in his pleasant _argot_, was
furnished and fitted with such good taste that it might have puzzled
an ingenious Sybarite to suggest an improvement in it.

It has been said that the arrangement of a room often furnishes an
index to the owner's mind; and if there be truth in the dictum, Mr.
Bryan Duval must be a singular compound of many apparently
antagonistic qualities.

The broad, cosy-cushioned, spring-seated ottoman, or divan, in green
and gold, which ran the whole length of one side of the room, was
counter-balanced by three or four grave, high-backed, Puritan-looking
chairs, in the darkest of brown leather; a huge, massive black oak
writing-table, littered all over with papers, proof-sheets, and bills,
had its pendant in an elegant sandalwood davenport, inlaid with
mosaic, on which lay a green velvet blotting-book, with raised crest
and monogram. The wall opposite to the ottoman was taken up by a large
black oak bookcase, and among the treasures which filled it, and
overflowed on to the floor, were rare elzevirs in creamy vellum
covers, British classics in stout old leather jackets, a splendid
edition of French plays--ancient and modern--rare works on costume
splendidly illustrated, novels of the day, blue-books, political
pamphlets, two or three thick rolls of Irish ballads bought in Dublin
streets, French pasquinades, and comic songsters. A great roaring
double breechloader, by Lancaster, hung close over the head of an
ancient arquebuse, the stock of which was elegantly inlaid with pearl
and ivory, and on the writing-table a gold-hilted dagger--said to
have been worn by Henry of Navarre--lay side by side with a very
vicious-looking six-shooter, with an inscription on its barrel: 'Jacob
F. Bodges and Co., Danville, Pa.'

Nor was the room without examples of art; a wonderfully executed copy
of Greuze's 'La Cruche Cassée' hung in the place of honour, proof
engravings after Sir Joshua Reynolds and Landseer occupied every
available space on the walls, and in a recess, half shaded by
deep-green velvet curtains, was a marvellous Venus, by Pradier. But,
_en revanche_, the mantelpiece was studded with Danton's comic
caricatures of celebrities, and on the wall, suspended by the
frame of Sir Joshua's 'Strawberry Girl,' which overlapped it, was a
flaring-coloured lithograph of Pat Hamilton, in his favourite
character of Bryan Boroo, with on it a memorandum, in Mr. Duval's own
hand: 'Wants situation in third act altered; address Wolverhampton
till 29th.'

On a fine morning in early spring the occupant of these rooms stood
with his back to the fireplace, where--for the cold winds had not yet
abated--some logs were burning on the iron dogs, with an open letter
in his hand.

Mr. Bryan Duval was a man of middle size, with small, clear-cut,
regular features, and large, dark, melancholy eyes; his soft dark hair
was parted in the middle, and taken back behind his ears; his
moustaches and imperial were long, and carefully trained--there were
times when the exigencies of his profession required that these
luxurious appendages should be shaved off, and then, though he was
far too conscientious in his art not to sacrifice to it his personal
vanity, Mr. Duval mourned and refused to be comforted.

He was gorgeously dressed in a loose jacket and trousers of violet
velvet, his small shirt collar, turned down over the deep crimson
necktie, was clasped at his throat with a diamond stud, and on the
little finger of his small white right hand he wore a massive gold
signet ring, engraved with a viscount's coronet of the Duvals, of
which great family he always stated his father was a scion.

As Mr. Duval read the letter attentively, which was stamped with a
coronet and a large initial L, he brushed away with his hand the
wreaths of blue smoke from his cigar, which interfered with its proper
perusal, and shook his head slowly.

'It won't do, my dear Laxington,' he muttered, half aloud; 'it really
cannot be thought of. It is all very well for you to say that you will
stand the racket, that I shall not be liable for a penny, and shall
only have to give my name; but you don't appear to understand that
that is the exact commodity which is more valuable to me than anything
else! It is solely on the strength of my name that I hold my position.
I cannot afford to be connected with failure, and failure--and dead
failure--it undoubtedly will be, if your lordship proposes to take the
Pomona, in order that little Patty Calvert may play leading parts!
What a wonderful thing it is,' continued Mr. Duval, throwing down the
letter, and plunging his hands into his trousers pockets, 'to see a
man in Laxington's position so eager for such an affair as this! I
don't think, if I had been born a peer of the realm, with a couple of
hundred thousand a year, and vast family estates, that I should have
cared to go into management. I imagine I could have filled up my time
in a better way than that, and made a good thing of it too. Good
heavens, what a taste! To smell gas and orange-peel, to be pushed
about by carpenters and supers, to be estimated a nincompoop, and to
have to pay a couple of hundred a week for the pleasure! Let me see,'
he continued, taking up the letter, '"clear half the receipts, no
risk, only give your name. Think of it, and let me know. Yours
sincerely, Laxington." No, I think not. Very affectionate, but it
won't do. There is no part in any piece of mine which little Patty
could attempt to touch, and I have no time to write one for her; so we
shall have to fall back upon burlesques and breakdowns and Amazons in
their war paint, and that kind of thing, which would not suit my book
at all. Besides, that little door, just by the opposite prompt private
box, going between the house and the stage, would be always on the
swing, and we should have H.R.H.'s and foreign ambassadors, and Tommy
This of the Life Guards, and Billy That of the Garrick Club, always
tumbling about behind the scenes. I don't think I would entertain it
if I were free; but with this American business on hand, it is not
worth thinking of a second time, and so I will tell L. at once.'

He touched a handbell as he spoke, and a gray-haired keen-looking man
presented himself at the door.

'Good-morning, Mr. Marks,' said Duval. 'Come in, pray. You have
brought your usual budget with you, I perceive,' pointing to a bundle
of letters which the secretary held in his hand; 'anything of
importance?'

'No, sir,' replied Mr. Marks, 'not of any particular importance.
Price, the manager of the Alexandria at Ruabon, offers ten shillings a
night for the _Cruiskeen Lawn_ for a week certain.'

'Does he!' interposed Mr. Duval, smiling and showing all his white
teeth; 'and he has the impudence to call himself "Price." Of course,
no!'

'I have written so, sir,' said Mr. Marks. 'They want the music for
_Anne of Austria_ at Durham, and the plot of the scenery for _Varco
the Vampire_ at Swansea. I have sent the usual note to the Sunday
papers announcing that _Pickwick's Progress_ will be put into
rehearsal at the Gravity on Monday. By the way, sir, will you allow me
to suggest that that name has been used before?'

'What name, my dear Mr. Marks?' said Bryan Duval, looking up with an
affectation of the greatest innocence.

'Pickwick, sir,' said Mr. Marks; 'Mr. Dickens has a work in which that
name occurs.'

'Ah,' said Mr. Duval, stroking his silky moustache, 'by the way, now
you mention it, I think he has--curious that that idea did not occur
to me before. However, this is _Pickwick's Progress_, and I don't
think Mr. Dickens or Mr. Anybodyelse has ever had anything of that
sort; at all events, I am clear they can say nothing about
infringement of copyright, so we will hold to _Pickwick's Progress_,
Mr. Marks. Anything else?'

'A newspaper, sir, from Melbourne, evidently sent by Mr. Prodder.'

'Prodder,' repeated Mr. Duval, closing his eyes; 'ah, I remember--the
stage-struck pork-butcher. Yes, and what of Prodder?'

'He seems to have made a great success with Romeo, sir; the paper says
he quite hit the taste of the Melbourne audience.'

'Ah, that is not very complimentary to the Melbourne audience, is it,
Marks? However, anything more?'

'Yes, sir, a letter from Mr. Van Buren, acknowledging the receipt of
your signed copy of the engagement, saying he will take your rooms at
the Hoffman House, and either he or Mr. Jacobs will be at the Cunard
wharf when the Cuba comes in.'

'Good,' said Bryan Duval, slowly rubbing his hands together. 'Van
Buren is a man of business. That engagement is going to turn up
trumps, Marks, and my old friends, the Yankees, are going to do me
another good turn. By the way, any reply from Miss Montressor?'

'Yes, sir,' said Mr. Marks, 'this,' touching a small pink note. 'She
will be here at eleven, precisely.'

'That with a woman means half-past twelve,' said Duval, nodding his
head. 'All right. Now be good enough to write a letter for my
signature in reply to this from Lord Laxington--polite, of course, but
giving no loophole, saying that I should have been delighted, &c., but
that I have made other arrangements which prevent the possibility--you
understand. You may mention that I am going to America--no, on second
thoughts we must let the newspapers have that information first; they
would be wild if it leaked out through private sources.'

Mr. Marks bowed and retired to the warm-bath, Bryan Duval lit another
cigar, threw himself on the divan, and taking out a small gilt-edged
memorandum-book, began looking through its leaves, and scratching a
few figures upon them. 'That's it,' he said to himself after a pause.
'I have three hundred and eighty pounds in the bank now. _Pickwick's
Progress_, if it makes anything like a hit, will probably be good for
thirty pounds a night--let's say sixty; then before I sail, the
returns from the provinces for _Anne of Austria, Varco the Vampire_,
and the _Cruiskeen Lawn_--the idea of that fellow wanting it for ten
shillings a night--ought to bring me eighty pounds--eighty! O,
more--let's say two hundred and eighty. I should think that that must
be something like a thousand pounds that I ought to take away with me.
Then Van Buren's Varieties holds three thousand people at a dollar
each--three thousand dollars are six hundred pounds--but the exchange
will probably have risen by the time I get there--let us call it
eight hundred. It costs them to pull up the curtain two hundred
dollars a night. I will make an alteration there, however--great
reduction--let's call it seventy dollars. Seventy as against three
thousand--let me see,' said Bryan Duval, slowly pulling at his
imperial, 'I think I must bring back to England in three months' time
at least ten or twelve thousand pounds--'

His calculations were cut short by a whistle from a mouth-piece in the
wall, to which he applied his ear; immediately answering with the
words: 'Show her up.' 'Miss Montressor below, eh?' he muttered,
repeating the information which had been given him through the pipe.
'Now, I think I have got a card in Miss Montressor, if I only handle
her rightly.'

He opened a door of communication with his dressing-room, disappeared
for a moment, and returned with his hair fresh brushed, and a scented
handkerchief peeping out of his jacket pocket. Then he stepped on to
the staircase, and, as Miss Montressor reached the landing, he took
her by both hands and led her into the room.

Miss Clara Montressor was a woman of about six-and-twenty, not tall,
but what Mr. Duval called 'a good stage height,' not stout, but well
developed. Her features were anything but faultless, yet her face, as
a whole, was very pretty, and her expression quite charming. She had
long lustrous eyes, which, whether they were green or gray, no one had
ever been able to determine. Lord Alicampayne of the Life Guards said
they were 'bwight blue,' but Miss Theresa Colombo of the T.R.D.L.,
whose salary was two pounds a week less than Miss Montressor's, and
who did not get half so many bouquets, said they were 'cat's eyes.'
Her nose was a little retroussé, but she had rich pouting lips, sound
small white teeth, and her complexion was such as you only see on a
peach, or on a lady who uses _Poudre à la Bismuth, dite Veloutine_.
Her hair, which was one of her chief attractions, was gold-brown, and
she had had the sense not to attempt to change its colour. Altogether,
Miss Montressor was a very nice-looking person, and very becomingly
dressed.

So Mr. Bryan Duval thought, as he seated her on the divan and took up
his position in one of the high-backed armchairs in front of her. Mr.
Duval's thoughts about his present visitor, and indeed about most
ladies, were wholly professional--his time was too valuable to be
taken up with flirtation, and he had a free and-easy manner with him
which, while it was very agreeable, obviously meant nothing.

'It was very good of you to come here this morning, Miss Montressor,'
he commenced, sitting back and waving his scented pocket-handkerchief
gently in the air--it was excellent Ess. Bouquet, and he knew that
Patchouli and Jockey Club were about Miss Montressor's mark.

'It was very good of you to send for me, Mr. Duval,' said Miss
Montressor, without the slightest embarrassment, 'and I was very glad
to come--putting aside any question of business--I was anxious to see
what you were like without any make-up.'

'Well,' said Duval, jumping up from his seat and striking an attitude,
'and how do you find me?'

'O, exactly the same,' replied the visitor; 'there is no mistaking
those raven locks and those spikes,' drawing her finger across her
upper lip. 'You are not like old Franklin, who is quite black, or
rather quite blue, at night, and a lively piebald--like a horse in a
circus--when he comes to rehearsal in the morning. O, it must be
delightful to be made love to by you, more especially after a
fortnight's Juliet to Hedger's Romeo, and Mr. Hedger always will take
his supper between the acts, and he is so partial to spring onions.'

'Horrible Hedger!' cried Duval, throwing up his hands; 'my taste in
that line, my dear, don't go beyond the slightest _soupçon_ of garlic,
and I religiously deny myself that when I am acting. One great fault
of our English actors is that they know nothing of the delicacies of
the _cuisine_.'

'O, but you do, and you are yourself a most wonderful cook. I know all
about that,' she cried, clapping her hands. 'I heard it from a Mr.
Foster, an American gentleman whom I was introduced to the other day,
and who knew you when you first went out to New York.'

'Ah, by the way, I had a letter from Foster last night. He told me he
had met you, and sent you a rather jolly message, which I will deliver
to you later on.'

'Why not now?'

'Pleasure after business, my dear. I never do anything until the
business which I am transacting is out of hand. By the way, will you
have a glass of sherry? You can sip that and talk business at the same
time.'

'I think I will, please,' said Miss Montressor simply; 'and is there a
biscuit anywhere about? I am awful hungry.'

'Awfully hungry, my dear Clara,' said Bryan Duval, touching her
arm lightly with his finger; 'awfully, not awful--adverb, not
adjective--don't mind my telling you, do you, dear? These little
slips, you know, are awkward in public. A biscuit? Hundreds!
thousands! and something better than a biscuit--look here!'

He darted into the ante-room and speedily returned with a silver
waiter, covered with a white cloth, which he placed before her.

'Plovers' eggs, my dear Clara,' he cried, handing her a plate;
'shilling apiece in Covent-garden. I tell you the price, not to stint
you, but to tickle your appetite--Vienna bread from Popowaski's, the
man in the Quadrant; country butter just out of the refrigerator;
Oloroso sherry, and a bottle of Brighton seltzer. One, two, three, and
you're off.'

'What a ridiculous fellow you are!' said Miss Montressor, with a
plover's egg between her pretty, jewel-laden fingers. 'I have always
thought of you as a suffering lover, the fiery Raoul, the heart-broken
Edgar, but here, at home, you are as jolly as a sandboy.'

'That's because I have to be so uniformly miserable on the stage, my
dear,' said Mr. Duval, taking some choice loose tobacco out of the
drawer, and rolling up a _papelito_, 'and one cannot be always doing
the water-cart business. Are the plovers' eggs good?'

'Divine.'

'And the Oloroso?'

'Delicious--quite a nutty flavour.'

'O, don't,' cried Bryan Duval, putting up his hand, 'that is out of
the advertisement of the Standard Sherry. However, I am glad you like
it; and now to business. You have considered my proposition?'

'I have.'

'And you agree to it?'

'Provided the terms suit me; you were to mention them at this
meeting.'

'Wisest of females,' said Bryan, puffing a cloud of blue smoke through
his nose, and watching it waft away, 'so I was! I don't think there
will be any difficulty about them--sixty pounds a week, and half a
clear benefit in every town where we stop a fortnight.'

Miss Montressor threw her egg-shell into the plate, wiped her dainty
fingers on the napkin, and said, in a deep tragic voice:

'Selim, take me. I am yours!'

'Here,' cried Bryan Duval, in very deep chest notes, 'here and
hereafter--ha! ha! cue for prompter to ring for trap. Then we may look
upon that as settled.'

'That's so, colonel,' said Miss Montressor, with a slight nasal
intonation; 'they are all colonels out there, are they not?'

'There is my hand upon it--tip us your flipper,' cried Bryan Duval;
and after shaking hands with his visitor, he hitched up his trousers
and danced a few steps of the hornpipe round the room. 'Marks shall
draw up the agreement, and we will have it properly signed and sealed.
I will let you know the date of sailing, but you had better get ready
at once. O, by the way, Foster's message.'

'O yes! what was it?' cried Miss Montressor eagerly.

'Foster is one of those Americans who, when they crawl out of the
commercial shell in which they are engaged all day, find no such
pleasure, no such thorough change, as the theatre affords them. He is
over here on commercial matters, but he is mad about theatricals; and
he is going to give a dinner at Richmond on Sunday, and he wants you
to go.'

Miss Montressor hesitated for a moment. She had certain relations, of
which no one but herself and those in her immediate household were
aware, and she wondered whether these 'relations' would prove a
hindrance to her accepting the invitation.

Bryan Duval saw the look in her face, and had a vague idea of what she
was pondering over--vague, but still an idea--he had known so many
Miss Montressors in his life.

'Don't hesitate,' he said; 'don't make any mistake about it;
it is going to be a tremendously jolly party; lots of people you
know--fellows in the Guards, and fellows on the press, and a good
dinner, and no end of fun. Say "yes."'

'I will,' said Miss Montressor. 'You can tell Mr. Foster I shall be
delighted to come.'

'Right,' said Bryan Duval. 'Then I will drive you down. I will tool my
chestnuts up to the villa at four P.M. precisely.'

Miss Montressor stepped into her neat little brougham in a very
complacent state of mind. She had long wished to be a star, but her
chances in this hemisphere had not been great. Here was a fulfilled
ambition, accompanied, indeed, with certain difficulties, which,
however, the lady felt disposed to treat philosophically as mere
points of detail. She had time to make up her mind as to her mode of
action on a certain complex line very near her hand before the
brougham stopped at the unpretending entrance to her very pretty abode
at Brompton. She rather expected to find Mr. Dolby waiting for her,
and her first question to her maid was whether he had yet arrived.
The answer was in the affirmative, so she went straight into the
drawing-room, where she found Mr. Dolby occupied in patiently
examining the contents of a photograph-book, with which he had been
long familiar. Miss Montressor skilfully assumed a tone, not only of
satisfaction, but of girlish elation, as she ran forward, exclaiming:
'Isn't it delightful? It's all settled!'

Mr. Dolby closed the photograph-book, replaced it on the table, and
looked up at her. There was no elation nor delight in his countenance
as he said: 'Are you alluding to the engagement?'

'Of course I am. What else do you suppose I was talking about?'

'I did not presume to guess. You are extravagantly delighted or
inconceivably distressed, in the wildest spirits or in the depths of
despair, so frequently, for causes which my incomplete male
understanding is incapable of discerning, that I did not know whether
it might be a question of a new trimming, or an exchange of dogs
between you and Miss Campbell, which had produced that very becoming
animation to which you have not treated me lately.'

'O,' said Miss Montressor, 'you are out of temper. You were yesterday,
you know, and you have not got over it. How I hate men who keep up
spite! I have a great mind not to tell you anything that has occurred
to-day.'

'I should be aghast at the threat if I did not know by experience that
you are what you call "dying to tell me;" whereas I am quite willing
to hear, and I can therefore wait,' said Mr. Dolby.

All this was rather trying, and calculated to damp the high spirits
with which Miss Montressor had returned; but she was accustomed to the
acerbity of Mr. Dolby's humour, and she made light of it. 'What an
unpleasant man he would be as a husband!' she often thought in her odd
frank way. 'I would not be his wife for any consideration; he would
bully any one he could not get away from awfully.'

This familiar reflection passed through her mind on the present
occasion; but it did not impair the cheerfulness of her countenance,
or the glee in her voice, as she proceeded in a rather chattering
style to repeat to Mr. Dolby the particulars of her interview with
Bryan Duval, and to dilate upon the thorough appreciation of her gifts
and powers which that prince of dramatists, actors, and good fellows
had displayed. 'So encouraging,' she said, 'and so delightful, to find
a person really above the jealousy which had hitherto led to her being
so unjustly treated.'

After all, the faculty for discovering and utilising the powers of
others to hit the public taste was the great secret of the great
actor.

Miss Montressor did not know whether Bryan Duval had been quite so
judicious and wise in the selection of certain other members of the
company whom he proposed to take with him; she had her doubts on that
point; but one must only work with the materials one has at hand. His
fair Clara, in the character of critic and practical philosopher,
afforded Mr. Dolby not a little amusement; and as he was not easily or
often amused, he encouraged her to talk much more than usual. Mr.
Dolby was not very communicative, nor did he, as a rule, like much
talking--a defect in his disposition by no means agreeable to Miss
Montressor's taste. He was rather given to absence of mind, and that
is a tendency much disliked and resented by women, not unnaturally.
Sometimes Mr. Dolby would fall into fits of musing, under whose
influence he would rise and pace the room slowly to and fro, to and
fro, with an utter abstraction in his face, which told Miss Montressor
that his mind was far away, and that she was utterly banished from it,
that she had no place at all, not even as a speck on the horizon, in
his mental vision.

During these fits of abstraction he did not talk to himself aloud,
indeed, but his lips moved; and his knitted brows, and the inward look
of his eyes, were plain indications that he was not merely absent in
the direct sense of idle purposeless reverie, but that some subject of
deep, concentrated, and all-absorbing interest was occupying all the
approaches to the citadel of thought.

Miss Montressor regarded this kind of thing as tiresome, a bore, and a
mistake, a serious drawback to Mr. Dolby's excellence as a companion;
but it inspired her with no further feeling, it wakened no curiosity.
Business was almost as occult a phrase for Miss Montressor as it was
for Helen Griswold, and she invariably concluded either that something
had gone wrong in business or that Mr. Dolby was meditating some coup
in business when he forgot to listen to her, left off talking to her,
and walked up and down her pretty drawing-room, touching the chairs
and tables unconsciously as he passed them with his finger tips, as
she remembered having heard some one say Dr. Johnson used to touch the
posts in Fleet-street.

Miss Montressor would have been seriously annoyed, however, if Mr.
Dolby had gone off into one of his fits of absence on the present
occasion. Her own business was in the wind now, and she considered it
worthy of his undivided attention. He did not try her patience on this
point; he listened with genuine interest, which received a quite
perceptible stimulus when Miss Montressor mentioned that all the
arrangements and preparations were being greatly assisted and
facilitated by her American friend, Mr. Foster.

'Foster!' said Mr. Dolby, stooping to pick up his paper-knife; 'the
New York man, I suppose?'

'Yes, I think so; a very pleasant agreeable man, and very fond of
theatricals. He saw Bryan Duval years ago in New York, and called on
him as soon as he came to London. He gave me a delightful sketch of
the reception we are certain to meet with, and has promised us private
introductions to no end.'

'Foster I' repeated Mr. Dolby, in a pondering tone. 'I don't think I
know any one of the name--it is not common among us. What sort of
looking man is he?'

'Decidedly good-looking--more like an Englishman than an American, I
fancy, according to our notions of what you call the "American type."'

Mr. Dolby laughed. 'Don't talk stuff about the American type, my
child; there is no such thing. There are scores of types among us, the
most cosmopolitan and practical nation in the world. I now remember
exactly what you mean by Mr. Foster's being more like an Englishman
than an American. You mean that he looks healthy, cheery, and as if
neither his sleep nor his digestion was ever troubled by overwork and
anxiety. This is one of the favourite delusions of superficial writers
and random talkers. Nothing has struck me, since I have been in
London, more forcibly than the absence of the so-called English type
among Englishmen. The rosy complexions, the stalwart forms, the
unembarrassed open countenances, are just as scarce in London city as
in New York; everybody looks anxious, it seems to me, and most people
look tired. What is Foster?'

He asked the question with a strange suddenness. One would have
thought by his manner he had forgotten Miss Montressor's mention of
her friend in the discussion of the abstract question; but he had not.

'What is he? I don't know; I did not hear; but I presume he is over
here on business of some kind. O, yes, by the bye, he must be, for
Bryan Duval told me Mr. Foster had come against his will, and wants to
get back. That doesn't look like pleasure, does it?'

'Not particularly. However, Mr. Foster is no concern of mine, only
your meeting any New York man reminds me to impress upon you that you
must not talk about me. Are you attending to me, Clara?'

'O, yes, I am attending to you; and I am sure you need not be afraid
of my telling anything you don't want to have known. I have kept you
dark everywhere, and it is rather dull, I can tell you.'

'Rather dull, is it?' said Mr. Dolby, with a smile. 'You would like a
little more dash about our cosy little arrangements, wouldn't you? You
would like me to do the dinner-at-Richmond and drag-to-races business.
Mr. Foster has been putting that into your head. No, no, my dear, that
is not my line at all; and you must take me as I am, you know. You are
going to star it besides, and you will have plenty of fun and frolic
when away from me; and I am all alone by myself in this big place.'

Miss Montressor gave her head a toss, half disdainful, half
incredulous. She remembered the ease with which Mr. Dolby had made her
acquaintance, and she believed in his constancy as little as she
valued it.

'I shall not inquire too minutely into your sources of consolation,'
she said; 'and if I were discontented with the present state of
things, you may be quite certain that I should let you know it. It is
only men's wives, remember, who have to put up with the style of life
they don't like, because their husbands do like it; as for us, _Vive
la liberté!'_

'By all means,' said Mr. Dolby. 'I echo the sentiment which you have
declaimed so prettily.'

She had advanced her right foot, tossed her arm over her upreared
head, and made believe to wave a flag with a gesture full of spirit.
She often produced effects in private life of which her stage
performances fell very far short.

'And since you have mentioned dinners at Richmond,' said Miss
Montressor, with characteristic inconsequence, 'I may as well tell you
at first as last that I am going to dine at Richmond with Duval and
the whole lot. It is Mr. Foster's dinner, and he has sent me an invite
through Duval, so I said I should be delighted. Duval drives me
down--he is to call for me at four.'

She spoke with considerable volubility, which Mr. Dolby correctly
interpreted.

'All right,' he replied; 'have we not just agreed _Vive la liberté?_
and especially the _liberté_ which brings such pleasant things in its
train by its prolonged life. I am particularly grateful to my
hospitable compatriot with a taste for theatricals, for I am obliged
to go to Brighton to-morrow, and I shall not get back until Monday
morning.'

'I was just about to tell you I should not see you again till then, so
it all happens most conveniently. He doesn't like it a bit,' thought
Miss Montressor, 'but he carries it off pretty well--rather a clever
invention, that Brighton business; but it doesn't impose on me.' She
remarked aloud simultaneously, with great good humour, 'This is really
fortunate, as it turns out; but you might have come, you know, if you
hadn't any objection to meeting Mr. Foster--Bryan Duval would have got
an invite for you directly.'

'Thanks,' said Mr. Dolby, with perfect gravity; 'such a kindness would
have been invaluable under other circumstances; but, as you have just
said, I have no fancy for meeting Mr. Foster.'

'That is lucky,' thought Miss Montressor, as Mr. Dolby bade her adieu,
'for I have.'




CHAPTER IX.
A DINNER OF CELEBRITIES.


Mr. Duval, punctual to his appointment, pulled up the spanking
chestnuts on to their haunches at Miss Montressor's door exactly at
four o'clock on Sunday afternoon. They were very spanking chestnuts
indeed, and the mail-phaeton glistened with varnish, and on every
place on the harness where it was possible massive pieces of
silver-plate had been put. All this was, of course, exaggerated and
_outré_, and quite foreign to Bryan Duval's good taste; but that good
taste had been swamped by a long connection with theatricals, and the
wondering stares of the public, which he would formerly have shrunk
from, he now took delight in, and disdained no method by which they
might be attracted.

The phaeton, the horses, and the harness; the huge bearskin rug, with
the French viscount's coronet, in red, elaborately displayed in one
corner of it, which enwrapped his legs; the very costume of Mr. Duval
himself, far more French than English, in its curly-brimmed hat, its
brilliant necktie, its small jean boots with glittering tips, and its
faultless _peau de Suède_ gloves--all these were merely so many
component parts of the general advertisement.

When people stopped in the street and nudged each other, muttering, as
he could plainly see by the motion of their lips, 'That's Bryan
Duval!' the actor-author inwardly winked, chuckling at the notoriety,
and recognising the success of the performance--inwardly only, for he
knew what a mistake it would have been to do away with the mysterious
interest with which he was regarded by dropping into the comedian or
buffoon, and therefore, when any public eye was on him, his face
preserved the look of suffering earnestness which it was accustomed to
wear on the stage.

When the garden-gate was opened, at the ring of the very elaborate
groom who had slid himself into the road before the horses stopped,
Miss Montressor appeared at the inner door of the villa; and very
pretty and picturesque she looked in her velvet skirt, and her upper
dress of fine gray cloth velvet, bound and buttoned, and her small
_chic_ bonnet to match.

'How good of you to be so punctual!' she said, with a bright smile.

'And how noble of you to be ready at the appointed time!' he cried,
from the phaeton. 'I will give you two extra sobs in your next tragic
part as a reward.'

'You are a horror,' she said, shaking her handsome parasol at him, 'to
speak of your own genius in that way--won't you come in?'

'No, thanks,' said Bryan, with a smile, which was so peculiar that
Miss Montressor flushed slightly, and said in reply:

'There is no one here.'

'O, I don't mean that,' said Duval; 'and I should not have minded in
the least if there had been; but we may as well take advantage of the
brightness of the day, and have a stroll in Richmond-park before
dinner.'

'O, that will be delightful!' said Miss Montressor. 'I am perfectly
ready to start at once. Justine, have I got everything?'

Justine, who was really Jane Clark, but who had adopted her present
appellation from the name of a soubrette in a melodrama, replied in
the affirmative, and Miss Montressor having taken her place by Bryan's
side, they drove away.

The wind was cool, but there was a bright sun, and the road was
enlivened with crowds of people making the most of this, the first day
of anything like fine weather, to escape from the dark streets to
which they had been so long confined. They were off to the
river-side public-houses of Putney and Mortlake, where they would talk
over the details of the race between Oxford and Cambridge, which had
recently been decided, or to the gardens of Kew, where they would pant
in the tropical houses, and examine with intense interest the
prospects of the budding trees and shrubs. They were pleasure-going
people for the most part, who were accustomed to rank the theatre as
one of their chief amusements, and who, from their hard benches in the
pit, made a point of seeing any play which had a successful run at
least once. So that Bryan Duval was well known by sight to most of
them, as well as to the omnibus drivers, who would lean back, and roar
in a hoarse voice behind their wash-leather gloves to the conductor:
'Know him? Dooval, the hactor!'

It is not to be supposed that Mr. Duval was unmindful of the sensation
he caused. When the omnibus men touched their hats to him, he raised
his own with a grave graceful bow; but even when he spoke to his
companion he still preserved the same impressive look upon his face.

'You see, Clara, my dear,' he said, with easy familiarity, though his
lips never relaxed one whit, 'you see how very effective this is.
People often ask me why I keep a mail-phaeton, and a brougham, and
these chestnuts, and all the rest of it; they wonder I don't go about
in a hansom cab; they say I should be much more independent, and it
would be so much cheaper; but independently of the fact that I prefer
my own handsome phaeton and comfortable brougham to any hansom cab, I
find that the expense of them is almost met by the purposes they serve
as an advertisement. Now this drive to-day is worth to me considerably
more than a half column over the clock in the _Times_. These people
would glance at that--they wouldn't read it; they never do read long
advertisements--and forget all about it the next minute; but when they
go home to-night, they will say to the children who are sitting up for
them, or to the old man for whom it was too long a walk, "Who do you
think we saw to-day? Why, Dooval, the performer--him that makes love
so well--and driving such a swell trap!" and then one or the other of
them will say they haven't seen me on the stage for some time, and
wonder what I am doing, or what new piece I have written; and then
they will look out the advertisement in the weekly paper, and you may
take your oath that the money for a couple of hundred pit seats is as
good as in my pocket at present.'

As they turned into Richmond-park they saw approaching them, by
another road, a well-appointed drag, with four splendid roan horses,
and driven by a tall gentlemanly-looking man, with a wonderfully
woe-be-gone countenance. On the box beside him sat an over-dressed
young person with blonde hair, and a face that was blue in the sun and
streaky in the shade. She was talking volubly to her companion, but
none of her sallies seemed to have the slightest effect in rousing
him.

'That's Laxington,' said Duval, as the two vehicles neared each other,
'and Patty Calvert by his side, of course. You know Laxington, don't
you? Ah, then don't be surprised if the bow which he gives you is a
very cool one; it is as much as his life is worth to take notice of
any other woman when the fair Patty is by him. He is too much of a
gentleman not to be courteous to everybody, but my idea is, that he
has a very bad time of it. And now just look at those fellows on the
top of the drag. Two or three of them can trace their descent back to
the Conqueror--though they would have no pull over me there; there is
no better blood than that of the Duvals in all France, my dear Clara,
though that, perhaps, does not interest you--and the rest are the sons
of fellows who have made their money by brewing, or mining, or
carrying goods by railway, or some other gentlemanly occupation of the
same kind, and yet there is not a ghost of an idea among the whole
lot! I assure you, beyond telling a broad story and retailing the
gossip of the backstairs, they have not a word to say for themselves.
Dining in their company is the hardest work I know--harder even than
it must be for you to listen to the odoriferous protestations of Mr.
Hedger's Romeo.'

'I can fancy it,' she said, 'from my little experience in that line.
But,' she added, looking saucily up at him, 'what do you do it for? I
am always seeing your name in the papers as dining with swells--if you
dislike it so, why do you do it?'

'As a matter of business, my dear,' said he, bending down, and
speaking to her quietly, 'because the Duvals lost all their property
in the first revolution, and because the beautiful estate of
Knochnabocklish, County Tipperary, which belonged to my mother's
family, was long since sold in the Encumbered Estates Court; because I
have my own way to fight in the world, and to do that, I must take
whatever weapon comes ready to my hand. Do you imagine that I like
going to these dinners? Do you think I don't know the terms on which I
am received--as a superior Jack Pudding, a table buffoon, a breaker of
that dead dull silence, which without me, or some one equivalent to
me, would reign unrelieved throughout the whole dreary banquet? By
Jove, when the thought comes over me sometimes, I am ready to start up
and rush out of the place, I am so ashamed of myself for having
descended to such depths;' and Mr. Duval sent his whip curling over
the beads of the chestnuts, causing them to plunge and dart off into a
mad gallop.

Miss Montressor neither felt nor showed the smallest fear. Had Lord
Laxington or any of his friends been her charioteer on the occasion,
she might possibly have speedily arranged an impromptu little scene;
but she knew that any such device would be thrown away upon Bryan
Duval, so she merely said:

'How a burst of passion suits you! You look remarkably well when you
are in a rage.'

'Thanks, generous stranger,' said Bryan, conscious that the deer were
his sole audience, and therefore permitting himself to lapse into a
grin. 'It is ages since I have let out in that way, and it will be
ages before I do so again. Thank Heaven, we shall have none of that
sort to-day. Foster left the invitations in my hands, and I think I
have got together rather a good party.'

As he spoke, they drew up to the door of the Star and Garter.
Patricians as well as plebeians had taken advantage of the brightness
of the day; there was a goodly show of drags and private carriages,
from which the horses had been removed, and the hall was filled with
persons who had either just arrived, or who were waiting for other
members of their party. The groom was moving slowly off with the
spanking chestnuts, and Bryan Duval, with Miss Montressor on his arm,
was just ascending the steps, when a gentleman, separating himself
from a knot of persons with whom he had been in conversation, advanced
towards him--a man about the middle height, and a little under middle
age, with a thick dark moustache and frank honest eyes.

'What, Foster, arrived already?' cried Bryan Duval. 'This is
delightful. You know Miss Montressor, I believe?'

'Miss Montressor's reputation was familiar to me before I left my own
country,' said Mr. Foster, raising his hat, 'and _I_ have had the
pleasure of becoming personally acquainted with her since my arrival
here.'

'Very prettily said, Foster,' said Bryan Duval, as they shook hands.
'We came down early, in order that we might have a stroll in the park
before dinner, and get an appetite for all your good things.'

'That's just what I proposed myself,' said Mr. Foster. 'I was naming
it to our friends when you drew up. Let's join them, and all go
together.'

They passed through the house into the garden, where some ten or a
dozen people were gathered together on the lawn. There, in a loose
brown overcoat, with heavy fur collar and cuffs, bell-crowned hat,
fashionably-cut trousers, and patent-leather boots, was Pierrefonds,
the celebrated dramatist, the man who had first introduced burlesques
to the English stage--not the music-hall and breakdown ribaldry of the
present day, but a combination of polished verse, of Attic wit, and
French allusion which, some years ago, had made the fortunes of the
Parthenon Theatre, and mainly helped to establish the great reputation
of Madame Vaurien, its directress. Pierrefonds's bodily strength is
not so great as in those days; his back is a little bowed, and his
walk is somewhat shaky; but he is as quick-brained in his work, and as
clever at tongue fence, as when the public thronged the pit to roar at
his puns, and the brightest spirits of the day gathered in the
green-room to revel in his repartee.

The heavily-built, heavy-browed man in the dark-red beard, dressed in
a suit of dark gray, with his hands in villanous mauve-coloured
gloves, clasped behind his back, is Bob Spate, whose sparkling little
comedies have in the last few years made the fortune of the little
Imperial Theatre, and who is, perhaps, at the present time the most
popular dramatist in England. He is a sad man, sparing of his speech
and more sparing of his smile, giving one the idea either of being
fond of solitude, or unaccustomed to and uncomfortable in the style of
company in which he found himself. People who did not know his story
wondered at such a successful man, wondered how one on whom the
world's favour shone so brightly could be so melancholy, almost so
morose.

They did not know that years ago, when the Imperial Theatre was called
'Higg's Hall of Amusement,' Bob Spate, then a young man, had written
several of the comedies which had since so entranced the world, and
had hawked them about here and there to London and provincial
managers, always receiving them back upon his hands with a half civil,
half contemptuous refusal. How was he, they argued, who was only a
fifth-rate actor at a pound a week, to be able to write a comedy, or
even, could he do so, what benefit could they reap by the production
of the work of an unknown man? So Bob Spate struggled and struggled in
poverty, in sickness, and ofttimes in hunger; struggled on, and saw
his wife die, and his children shrunken and wan and ailing, with the
bitter knowledge that what he had written was better than nine-tenths
of what he saw so highly paid for, but with the conviction that Fate
was against him.

When bright little Lotty Bennett made her first attempt at
establishing herself in life, and taking the dirty old Higg's Hall,
changed it into the bright Imperial, she thought that as she herself
was new in management, and she had a new company of actors, she might
try a new author; and remembering Bob Spate, who had been an old
friend of hers, and in whose energy and talent he had always faith,
produced one of his comedies on her opening night. The success was
immense, and from that time Bob Spate's fortune was made; wealth is
his now, and honour, and such position as he chooses to take. What are
they to him? Can they bring back to him the wife of his youth, whom he
saw die by his side, not from actual starvation, indeed, but from lack
of such necessaries as her delicate condition required? Can they
efface from his mind the privations suffered by his children and
himself? Can they bring back to him the youthful energy, the sanguine
hope, the bright happy view of life so long since fled? I trow not. It
is no wonder to me that Bob Spate is grave and reticent.

Anything but grave and reticent, however, is the gentleman standing
next to him. Mr. Orlando Bounce is the youngest of elderly gentlemen,
the brightest, cheeriest, emptiest rattletrap who for a half century
has been acting light lovers and dashing roués, and who, if rumour is
to be believed, has, during the same period, played the very same
parts in private life. Old-fashioned is a sad epithet, but it is
really applicable to Mr. Orlando Bounce; the peculiar roll of his
blue-black hair, the peculiar side-cock of his shiny hat, his swinging
gait, the elaborate motions of his arms--all these are essentially
old-fashioned; and when he bends in his back, and throws out his right
arm and right leg with studied grace, you are reminded of Charles
Surface, Captain Absolute, and all the riotous, swaggering young
heroes of the comedies of those days. Before the arrival of Miss
Montressor he has been paying great attention to the two ladies
between whom he was standing, but they neither of them seemed to be
much impressed by his attention. 'Get along, 'Lando, you are always
talking such stuff,' is what one of them says to him. These are Rose
and Blanche Wogsby, daughters of old Wogsby, manager of the northern
circuit, and prime favourites in London. There is an extraordinary
difference in their appearance: Blanche is very fair, with light-blue
eyes and delicate skin, and a pretty bud of a mouth; Rose is tall and
angular and swarthy, with dark hair, a strong jaw, and an underhanging
lip--Blanche is a fool, Rose a remarkably clever girl. 'Blanche Wogsby
is a fool,' frankly remarks Mr. Wuff, the great theatrical impresario,
'but she is always safe for a dozen stalls a night from the young
fellows who are spoony about her; but when it comes to the question of
the tear-and-tatters fakement, when you want the real grit and no
mistake about it, you must go to Rose. She will turn out a regular
Rachel, you may depend upon it!' Mr. Wuff pronounced this word like
the name of the lady who refused to be comforted, but meant to allude
to the great French actress.

All present, both ladies and gentlemen, were, or seemed to be, greatly
delighted at the new arrival. Bryan Duval was a general favourite. He
was so kind and good-natured, so ready to lend any of his colleagues a
helping hand, that they even forgave him his success. Miss Montressor
was popular too, considering her prettiness and the position she had
won for herself; more especially popular just at this moment, for the
news of her American engagement had got wind, and it was felt that she
would be out of all competitors' way for some time to come.

When the first greetings were over, Bryan Duval proposed that they
should stroll towards the park, and thither they all repaired; Mr.
Foster offering his arm to Miss Montressor, and remaining at some
little distance behind the others.

'Do you know,' said he, 'that I am really very glad to have made your
acquaintance--no, no,' he added quickly, as she looked up in his face
and smiled rather maliciously; 'when I say so, it is not the ordinary
compliment which you evidently imagine it to be. When you know me
better, you will find I am not given to paying compliments, and that I
invariably mean what I say.'

'I am glad to hear it in this case, at all events,' said Miss
Montressor, with a little bow.

'It is the case,' he said. 'I felt interested in you long before I saw
you. The fact is, Miss Montressor, I am a very busy man, far more
immersed in business, environed by it, and tied down to it, than any
of the gentlemen whom I have met here, and who are called your "City
men," and when I am at home in New York the one relaxation I allow
myself is the theatre.'

This man was a new experience to Miss Montressor, so far more earnest
and dignified than the usual run of her associates. She tried to fall
into his vein, and said quietly:

'I can understand its being a great resource to you.'

'It is a great relief,' he replied, 'in enabling me to throw off, for a
time at least, the dull cares and worries, and to fill my mind with
pictures and stories sufficiently absorbing to prevent its straying to
Wall-street and its ties. I have the pleasure of acquaintance with Mr.
Leonard Serbski; you have heard of him?'

'Certainly,' said Miss Montressor; 'he is the son of old James
Serbski, who was so great in the _Bandit_, and whose portrait hangs in
all the theatrical print-shops, is he not?'

'The same,' replied Mr. Foster; 'a very handsome and gentlemanly
fellow, and a very good actor. He has heard of you too, not merely
through the medium of the English theatrical newspapers, but from
people who have seen you, and has more than once mentioned your name
to me.'

Miss Montressor was delighted with the compliment, under which she
purred like a cat.

'I had no idea,' she said, raising her eyebrows, and throwing an
expression of childish incredulity, which she knew was very becoming,
into her face--'I had no idea that anybody in America had ever heard
of poor little me; I thought I was going out there entirely unknown,
and that I should have great difficulty in making my way.'

'You will find that you have happily deceived yourself,' said Mr.
Foster, with a smile. 'You will find that we Americans have a much
livelier and deeper interest in all matters appertaining to literature
and art than our more sober cousins on this side the Atlantic, that
all artists of any reputation are known to us, and that when they come
to our shores, they may be certain of a right hearty welcome.'

'I am very glad to hear you say so,' said Miss Montressor; 'and I only
wish--it is a selfish thing to say, is it not?--that chance had sent
you back to New York before our arrival, that I might be certain of
having at least one personal friend.'

'It would have delighted me to have been of service to you, and
perhaps I may even yet have the opportunity. When do you sail?'

'I think Mr. Duval mentioned the Cuba as the name of the vessel in
which our passage was engaged.'

'The Cuba!' repeated Mr. Foster. 'I am almost afraid that I shall be
unable to get back by her, although I have made such progress in the
business which brought me over here--business, you see, again, Miss
Montressor--that I think it will not be necessary for me to remain in
England so long as I at first anticipated.'

'If you were a married man, Mr. Foster, that would, I imagine, be very
pleasant news to some one who is, what you call, "on the other side."'

'_If I were a married man!_' he exclaimed, with a laugh. 'Why, do you
mean to say, Miss Montressor, that you have any doubt on the subject.'

'Well, you certainly have what I may call a family look about you,'
she said, casting a careless glance over him; 'but as I have never
heard you mention your wife, I concluded you were a bachelor.'

'I take it as a compliment,' he said, with another laugh, but this
time more nervously and more seriously than before, 'or rather as a
credit to myself, that even in the two short interviews which we have
had since I made your acquaintance, I have not said something about
my wife. It is the humour of most of my friends in New York to say
that--excepting business matters, of course, where I never permit any
domestic thoughts to intrude--that Helen's name is scarcely ever out
of my mouth.'

'And quite right too,' said Miss Montressor. 'I detest a man who is
married and ashamed of it, and who, when away from home, goes about,
as it were, sailing under false colours. And so Mrs. Foster is called
Helen? It is a very pretty name.'

'And she is a very pretty woman,' said Foster enthusiastically; 'and
not merely that, but the best and dearest little woman in the world.
Here,' he added, plunging his hands into his waistcoat-pocket, and
taking out from thence his watch, 'here is her portrait.' As he spoke,
he placed the watch in Miss Montressor's hand.

Miss Montressor took the watch, and looked at its back, which was
merely of engine-turned gold; then she pressed her fingers all round
in search of some hidden spring, but finding none, shook her head
blankly, and gave it back to her companion.

'I can see no portrait,' she said half pettishly.

'Of course not,' said he, with a laugh. 'You would not have me carry
such a treasure as that for every one to see whenever I wanted to know
the time. There,' he added, as the spring flew back and revealed the
miniature, 'now you see my darling.'

'What a sweet face!' cried Miss Montressor, clapping her hands; 'so
soft and pensive and loving! I don't wonder at your being fond of her,
Mr. Foster, or being anxious to get back to her.'

'She is all that you say,' cried Mr. Foster, 'and more, God bless her!'

'It is quite refreshing, in these times of separation and divorce
courts, and all that sort of thing,' said Miss Montressor, 'to find
such regular spooniness existing between a married couple. But if you
are so fond of each other, why on earth didn't you bring her with
you?'

'Didn't I tell you that I came over here on business, and that I never
allowed even Helen to interfere with me when I am so engaged? Besides,
she could not leave the child, which is indeed,' said Mr. Foster, 'the
sweetest and most engaging--'

'Yes,' interrupted Miss Montressor; 'you may spare your rhapsodies
about him, or her, or it. I don't go in for babies.'

'I am sure you would feel interested in her, if you only saw it; not
merely is she the prettiest, tiniest mite, but she would move your
sympathy for her bad health.'

'It has bad health, has it?' asked Miss Montressor carelessly.

'Very bad,' replied Foster. 'My wife's strength is scarcely equal to
the discharge of her maternal duties, and she has had to engage a
wet-nurse for the little one.'

'I hate wet-nurses,' said Miss Montressor shortly.

'They are not generally very trustworthy,' said Foster, 'but from a
letter I have here' (producing one from his breast-pocket, and opening
it), 'we seem to have found an exceptional treasure. Helen writes me in
the strongest terms of the respectability of Mrs. Jenkins.'

'Mrs. Jenkins?' replied Miss Montressor, pricking up her ears. 'Who is
she?'

'The wet-nurse of whom I have just spoken to you. You ought to have a
kindly feeling towards her; for Helen tells me that she is an
Englishwoman, and married to an Englishman for some time settled in
New York.'

An instantaneous gloom spread over Miss Montressor's face, and she
walked on by her companion's side in silence. Mrs. Jenkins? The name
was common enough among English people, and yet a horrible feeling of
fear crept over the young woman who chose to call herself Clara
Montressor--a feeling of fear lest this Mrs. Jenkins, now occupying
the situation of wet-nurse in Mr. Foster's family, should be none
other than her own sister Bess.

She had not heard from Bess for months, but the last letter was dated
from New York, and spoke of the shifty, hand-to-mouth existence which
she and her husband were leading. Could it be possible that they could
have fallen so low, that poverty could have come upon them so rapidly,
as to induce her to undertake such a menial position? Was her husband
dead? could he have deserted her? or what was the cause of her sudden
collapse?

The more she thought over this matter, the more angry and impatient
she grew; and Mr. Foster, noticing her preoccupation, thought it best
not to attempt to renew the conversation just then.

Did ever anything happen so unfortunately? At any other time it would
not have mattered in the least. Between Bess Jenkins, the wet-nurse in
New York, and Clara Montressor, the theatrical star in London, there
was a great gulf fixed; but when the theatrical star shifted its orbit
to the city where her humble relation was living, the latter would
naturally and undoubtedly proclaim to the world the family tie
existing between them, and endeavour to make the most of it to aid her
fallen fortune.

What should she do? what should she do? The saturnine face of Mr.
Dolby rose before her mind in a minute. How should she treat him in
regard to this matter? Certainly not tell him, for more reasons than
one. He would be the last man in the world from whom she would receive
any sympathy, and, besides, she does not choose to let him know the
fact of the relationship. Towards him, then, she would preserve
absolute silence; and a little further reflection decided her that her
best plan was to wait, become better acquainted with Mr. Foster, and
if she found him the good and honest man which, from her slight
acquaintance with him, she fancied him to be--for even with her
associates, and her experience of the world, she still believed in
goodness and honesty--perhaps tell him the truth, and get his help in
suppressing it. Yes, that was the course she would take; and having
determined on it, she put the subject aside, and looked up at her
companion, as though to say she were ready to renew the conversation.

'How pensive you have been!' said Foster earnestly. 'I did not like to
break in upon your reverie.'

'I am very much obliged to you for leaving me to myself for those few
moments,' she said, with a laugh; 'it doesn't sound complimentary, but
it is true. You see, I am about to take what may be a rather serious
step in my life, for if I succeed in America, my career is certain,
and if I fail it may be wrecked, not merely there, but here; ill news
travels apace, and it would soon be known that the London star had
made a fiasco.'

'Even then, former experiences prove that your compatriots would
retain their opinion of their favourite, and decline to accept our
verdict,' said Mr. Foster. 'However, you need not be under any
apprehensions of the sort; as I have told you before, you are sure to
succeed.'

'I have great faith in Bryan Duval,' said Miss Montressor, 'and full
reliance upon his generalship--he is popular too in New York, I
understand.'

'Very popular indeed,' said Mr. Foster; 'he has achieved what is
rather difficult there, a society reputation. This reputation he
apparently wants to extend, for he has asked me for an introduction to
my wife.'

'And you have given it to him?'

'Well, no,' said Mr. Foster, rather confusedly. 'There are--there are
some reasons why I could not do so conveniently--in writing, I mean.
Of course, I should be only too glad that both he and you should know
Mrs.--Mrs. Foster, but I prefer waiting to introduce you personally on
my arrival in New York; in case I cannot, there is yet a chance of my
leaving by the same steamer. I see the others are making for the
hotel, and I suppose, in my capacity of host, I ought to be the first
there.'

It was a very good dinner, and went off remarkably well. In addition
to the company already named, there were present Mr. Wuff, the
celebrated manager of the Great National Theatre, who was supposed to
be devoted to the legitimate drama, and where the performances at
present consisted in a short farce, followed by a long 'oriental
spectacular burlesque,' introducing horses, elephants, camels, and
dancing women; Viscount Koolese, who was supposed to be ruining
himself for Mademoiselle Petitpois, who brought with him his friend
Captain Clinker, the well-known gentleman rider, who said nothing, but
whenever he was amused hissed loudly through his teeth as though he
were cleaning a horse; a sound which seemed very unpleasant to the
theatrical people present. There was another manager too--Mr.
Hodgkinson of the Varieties--who kept up a running fire of argument
throughout the dinner with Bryan Duval; the actor-author, whether he
believed in it or not, maintaining that the drama should be the school
of poetry and refinement, and that all the theatrical managers should
be made with a view to that end--sentiments which Mr. Hodgkinson
violently pooh-poohed, declaring that his chief aim was to give
whatever amusement paid the best.

'Let 'em have it,' said Mr. Hodgkinson, who prided himself on being an
eminently practical man, striking his fist upon the table; 'dogs and
monkeys, Shakespeare, the "Perfect Cure," Tom Mugger in four farces a
night; or old Bounce here as Charles Surface, and all the rest of the
Sheridan fakement--and the public is always wanting one or other of
them, and my notion is, give them all a turn.'

Mr. Foster had placed Miss Montressor on his right hand, and though
there was, of course, no opportunity and no occasion for returning to
the subjects which they had touched upon in the park, he kept up a
constant conversation with her. When the party was about breaking up,
he proposed that she should return to town in his Victoria, where, as
the night was somewhat cold, she would be warmer and more comfortable
than in Bryan Duval's phaeton. Miss Montressor gladly accepted the
offer, and, of course, Mr. Duval made no difficulty. He would, he
thought, propose to drive Blanche Wogsby home, and take the
opportunity of finding out whether she was really such a fool as she
looked, or whether there would be any use in writing a part for her.

So the party broke up and the guests dispersed, and Bryan Duval, in
taking farewell of Miss Montressor, told her that if the letters which
he expected in the morning arrived, he should be able to let her know
for certain the day of sailing for New York.

'It has been a delightful day, Mr. Foster,' said the actress, as they
drove homewards, 'and I have enjoyed it immensely. Will you be able to
give us any such outings in America?'

'I hope many such,' said Mr. Foster; 'but unless you take more care of
yourself, I fear you will not be there to enjoy them. Seriously, your
English spring weather is proverbially treacherous, and the wind
tonight has a touch of east in it, which should induce you to wrap
your shawl more closely round you.'

'I want to wrap myself up,' said Miss Montressor, justly estimating
the truth of his words, 'for I am particularly susceptible to cold,
but I cannot for this bothering pin.'

'What is the matter with the pin?' said Mr. Foster, laughing.

'It is not half strong enough to hold the shawl together. I cannot
imagine how Justine sent me out with such a stupid thing.'

'Perhaps this will prove more effectual?' said Mr. Foster, taking the
breast-pin from his cravat and offering it to her.

'Thanks very much,' she cried, accepting it with great readiness.
'What a very pretty pin! I love these cameos, and this is such a
good-looking boy, with a straight nose and a queer cap on his head.'

'A Phrygian cap,' said Mr. Foster, laughing. 'It is a head of Ganymede.
I had it set as a pin, I thought it so handsome.'

'Do you mean to say you brought it with you from Phrygia, or wherever
it is?' asked the actress, who was vague in her geography.

'No, no,' said Mr. Foster, laughing still more; 'but it was a
sleeve-link when I first found it among my clothes when I opened my
portmanteau in London. I suppose it belonged to my wife, as she is
fond of such things, and that it was put up with my things by
accident.'

The shawl comfortably pinned round her, Miss Montressor settled
herself down to her corner, and neither she nor her companion spoke
much more, being occupied with their own reflections. But when Mr.
Foster took leave of her, he reminded her of Bryan Duval's last words,
and told her that if he were prevented from sailing in the Cuba, he
should certainly accompany the theatrical party down to Liverpool, and
take leave of them on board.

Miss Montressor had been in very good spirits all day, notwithstanding
the annoyance which, as we have seen, one portion of Mr. Foster's
communication had caused her. She was agreeably conscious that her
looks had been at their best. She was sufficiently refined, more by
nature than by education, to recognise a gentleman when she met one,
and to enjoy the ease and security conveyed by association with
gentlemen. Mr. Foster had struck her from the first as a gentleman;
not very brilliant indeed, but kind, courteous, and considerate--the
sort of man who did not make women uncomfortable by either his looks
or his language--and Miss Montressor appreciated this. She did not
belong in the least to the reckless class among her order, and she had
an almost morbid longing to be treated like a lady, as she expressed
it, without the stately flattery on the one hand, or the freedom and
easiness of the other, which ordinarily characterises the manner of
the men with whom she habitually associated, and which were just as
equally distasteful to her. Mr. Foster had gratified this longing; he
had treated her with all the courtesy which he could have extended to
the highest social position, and with a confidential fearlessness that
had gone to the heart of the woman, who had always been poor in
friends. When the pleasant day came to an end, Miss Montressor entered
her pretty little house with a light step and a light heart,
notwithstanding a vexation about Bess. By this time she had come to
think of some means of getting over what would turn up. The day had
seemed very short, and yet almost every minute of it had been full of
pleasure. She was a little tired--those long pleasant days do tire
one, after all--but she was not so cross as usual when, the
feverishness of amusement having passed away, she returned to the home
enlivened by no kindred presence. She answered her maid cheerfully, as
the girl tripped down to the garden-gate at the summons of the bell,
and let her mistress in.

'Yes, thank you, Justine, I am all right--rather tired; but we have
had a delightful day.'

Justine removed the dainty bonnet and the filmy lace mantle, folded
the absurd parasol, which looked like a summer cabbage on a stalk, so
flounced and furbelowed was the little silken dummy utterly useless
as a sunshade, and while her mistress undid the buttons of her
silver-gray silk gown, fetched a white morning robe, in which she
clothed her tall full form. During these preliminary operations of her
night toilette Miss Montressor talked away gaily--not about the day's
proceedings, but about numerous trifles connected with her approaching
journey and her sojourn in America. But when her hair had been brushed
and the maid's duties were nearly completed, a trifling circumstance
occurred which disturbed Miss Montressor's serenity. Her draped
dressing-table stood in front of the large window of her bedroom, a
French window opening to the floor, and looking out upon the trim
little grassy terrace which ran along the back of the house, and from
whence the garden, very pretty and effective for its extent, was
reached by two steps. On this dressing-table stood her tolerably
well-stored jewel-box. Miss Montressor was replacing some ornaments
she had worn that day in the satin-lined tray of the casket when she
perceived that the window was open, and asked Justine angrily whether
she had been aware of this.

'No,' Justine replied; 'she hadn't noticed it.'

'Then you ought to have noticed it,' said Miss Montressor; 'such
carelessness is abominable. Any one who pleased might have taken my
jewel-box off the table without the least difficulty. The idea of
leaving the window open on a Sunday, with no one in the house but
yourself and such a lot of tramps about!'

Justine stood convicted, and could only promise that she would be more
careful for the future; she was rather saucy sometimes, and ready with
an answer to a rebuke, but on this occasion she said very little.
There had been no one about the place, and though she had been
the only person in the house--the cook and the page having had a
holiday--she had hardly left Miss Montressor's room, had indeed been
reading at the open window the greater part of the day. But Justine,
after her mistress was in bed, while folding up the shawl she had worn
that day in so preoccupied a mood that she did not observe the pin
with the carved gem for its head which was stuck into the soft woollen
fabric, remembered, with a great sense of relief for the escaped
danger, how there had come to the house late in the afternoon a man in
the dress of a sailor who spoke like an American. This man had been
rather hard to get rid of. He had pertinaciously pressed his claim for
a little assistance, and had been hard to persuade that the lady was
not really at home. 'Just fancy,' thought Justine, 'if he had slunk
round to the back of the house and seen the window open, and made off
with the jewel-case; and I only wonder he didn't get hold of that or
of something, for he was as objectionable a tramp as ever I saw.'

But that she had ever seen this objectionable tramp before, or heard
his voice in any other capacity, Justine was totally unconscious; of
which testimony to the efficacy of the change of costume the man in
the sailor's dress was complacently aware. If Justine's quick eyes
were deceived, it would deceive those of other people. A preliminary
risk had been successfully run, and the omen was good.




CHAPTER X.
NO NONSENSE ABOUT HER.


On the day following the dinner at Richmond, Mr. Dolby presented
himself at Miss Montressor's abode somewhat later than she had looked
for his coming.

He did not find the fair lady in a very serene mood--she was tired;
several small domestic occurrences had ruffled her temper--which, to
say the truth, was not a bad one--during the early part of the day,
and when they met there was in the manner of both those latent
symptoms of ill-humour which arise so often between persons in the
habit of being much in each other's society, and who have, therefore,
cast off the self-restraint which occasionally tends to hypocrisy, but
has, nevertheless, a wholesome influence in human intercourse.

Mr. Dolby omitted to tell Miss Montressor that she was looking
beautiful--and that was a grave offence. He, moreover, omitted to
exhibit any very lively curiosity as to the proceedings of the
previous day, and though Miss Montressor did not care a straw where he
had passed the interval between their last and their present meeting,
or would not think of troubling herself to make an inquiry about his
proceedings, she was not prepared to find him equally philosophical.

'I suppose you forgot all about the Richmond dinner?' she said to him,
when a few phrases, of course, had passed between them.

'O no, I didn't forget it,' he said, 'but I suppose one dinner at
Richmond resembles another very much, except in point of talk. People
eat the same things, drink the same things, wear the same things, and
get intensely bored earlier or later in the evening, such as the case
may be.'

'It was considerably later last evening,' replied Miss Montressor,
with an aggravating smile, which, however, failed to aggravate Mr.
Dolby, or to tempt him into an inquiry as to the vivifying principle
of the previous day's entertainment. A more acute observer than Miss
Montressor might have discerned in Mr. Dolby's manner preoccupation
rather than indifference; but she was not an acute observer, and she
was so honestly and unaffectedly interested in herself; and not
interested in other people, that she resented his indifference. It
would never have occurred to this woman--who, after all, was
simple-minded--that any one who came to see her could think of
anything but her, at least during the visit; and she therefore
promptly resolved to punish Mr. Dolby for his departure from the laws
laid down by her code of what was due to her. He did not seem inclined
to take up the challenge she had flung down to him, and she found
herself obliged to put an aggressive question.

'I suppose you don't care to know about the party yesterday,' she
said, 'because it's quite clear I enjoyed myself, though you were not
there; and men always resent that, though they can get away from us
and be as jolly as possible.'

'My dear girl,' said Mr. Dolby, taking the inevitable photograph-book
off the table, and carefully opening its ormolu clasps, as if the
investigation of its contents offered to him a mental prospect of the
most charming description, 'your theories about men are utterly
absurd! I have told you so more than once, and I am not disposed to
discuss the subject. I am very glad you had a pleasant day at
Richmond, and--though I don't care for _réchaffés_ in general, and you
told me on Saturday who was to be there and all about it--I really
didn't suppose you had any new or startling details to communicate.
However, I don't at all mind hearing about the day if you are disposed
to tell me. What did you wear? who did you go with? was the wine good?
what hour did you get back?'

He had spoken in a monotonous tone of voice, with his eyes cast down,
and turning over the clicking leaves of the photograph-book with one
finger. Miss Montressor snatched it out of his hand with a suddenness
which obliged him to look up, and he saw in her face that she was
downright angry, which he had not intended her to be at this stage of
the proceedings. A little later anger would be a wholesome sentiment,
which he proposed to awaken; so he smiled, took her hand, and said,
with an attempted playfulness:

'Come--come, Clara, let us be friends; we're both a little bit out of
sorts. I don't know what cause you may have; probably nothing more
serious than your day yesterday having been too pleasant and having
lasted too long. By the bye, what hour did you get back?'

'O, it was very late,' said Miss Montressor, withdrawing her hand, but
not captiously, and arranging her bracelets. 'It was, in fact, awfully
late, and Justine had got into the horrors under the influence of a
solitary Sunday, and was full of possible robbers and tramps with a
taste for murder; so I went to bed in rather an ill-temper, and
several things which have happened to-day have not improved me. I have
not seen you so disagreeable for an age; what's wrong?'

'I am excessively disappointed, Clara, and I am afraid you will be so
too; but it cannot be helped. I find I shall not be able to go with
you to Liverpool.'

'Not able to go with me to Liverpool, after promising that you would?'
said Miss Montressor, with a good deal of vehemence. 'I never heard
such a thing. That's really too bad, and I'm quite certain there is no
real reason for it. I never knew you to be prevented doing a thing
that you really cared to do. You are throwing me over, sir.'

'I am not throwing you over,' said Mr. Dolby coolly, 'and your
suspicions are equally unjust to me and uncomplimentary to yourself. I
told you I should see you off, and I not only wished to do so, but did
not foresee the slightest difficulty about it; the difficulty has
arisen, however. There is a man coming from New York whom I must see,
and I can only see him on this day week, the day you leave.'

'How did you know?' said she quickly. 'There is no mail in.'

'And you never heard of the Atlantic cable, I suppose? A message
cabled this morning, my child; and though I am your slave, you know, I
have troublesome business for my second master, whom I am obliged to
serve, and this time his claims are paramount. Don't get angry--don't
spoil the last few hours we shall have together for some time by
causeless pique and silly petulance--that sort of thing does not
attract me, and you don't look handsome when you are out of temper. I
would go if I could. I cannot go, and there's an end of it.'

'Please keep your comments on my temper to yourself,' said Miss
Montressor, with an air of steady and determined ill-humour, which, as
Mr. Dolby had truly remarked, did not become her. Like all under-bred
women, she could not venture on anger; that most disfiguring of
passions was destructive to her dignity. She stood up, brought both
hands resolutely down upon the table before her, and said, with a
slight stamp of her foot:

'It is not business that prevents you, and I don't believe a word of
it; it is because you are afraid of being seen with me. You have
always been playing a game of hide-and-seek--you are no better than
other people, and I am no worse, and I hate such hypocrisy. Who are
you keeping up a character for, or with, a character that is to suffer
because you are civil to an actress, who was going by herself to the
other side of the world? I suppose you think there is more chance of
your being seen in Liverpool than London by some "goody" acquaintance,
who would be excessively shocked.'

'Please don't talk in that tone, Clara. _It's_ rather shocking--though
I don't expect you to understand why. However, I don't mind telling
you that you are not altogether wrong, though you put my objection to
being seen with your pleasant associates on a totally mistaken
footing; and as I don't like to part with you in a fit of offence, I
shall take the trouble of explaining to you again that it is a matter
of great importance to me not to be seen at present by any New York
people, and not to have my name mentioned in the hearing of such. I
have told you that the business I am engaged upon in London might be
seriously compromised by manoeuvring friends from the other side, that
my whole fortune is involved in it--an argument whose strength you
might very fairly comprehend, though, mind, I do not mean to say you
are as mercenary as most women, or more expensive than others; but
after all, a very little imprudence on your part, you see, might make
a considerable difference to you, and all the difference to me. The
truth is, I have the appointment in London I have told you of and I
could not go down to Liverpool and run the risk of being seen there by
the set who I am advised are coming from New York by the mail that
will arrive just before the Cuba goes out; so now you know all about
it. You will take my word, won't you, that I am very sorry; and you
will take that frown off your face, for I really want to talk to you
seriously, and this is childish, however pretty.'

Miss Montressor was endowed with very good sense, and it showed her at
once that Dolby was speaking the truth. She did not understand much
about his business--she had never cared enough about him to try;--but
she was alive to the reasonableness of his refusal to gratify her
wish--a wish dictated a good deal more by _amour propre_ than any
sentimental longing to enjoy his society to the last possible moment.
She accordingly recovered herself; and with no more protest than a
dubious shake of the head, resumed her seat and prepared to listen to
Mr. Dolby.

'Well,' she said, 'go on; what have you got to say to me?'

'That,' said Mr. Dolby seriously, 'I have always found you
trustworthy. Nine women out of ten, on being told that it was a matter
of importance to me that no American in London should know that am in
London, would have betrayed the fact to every American of her
acquaintance, from an amiable desire to penetrate the motive of my
injunction. I am quite sure that you have scrupulously observed it.'

'Certainly,' said she; 'it don't matter to me. Why should I go and
talk about you when you ask me not? That would be simply perverse.'

'Nine women out of ten, my dear,' said Mr. Dolby, 'are perverse. I
esteem myself very fortunate to have found the exceptional tenth.'

'I hate men who are always sneering at women,' said Miss Montressor;
'it's a bad sign.'

'For the women?'

'No, sir, for the men. But I daresay you have been very ill-treated in
your time; only it doesn't matter to me what women you think ill of,
provided you think well of me, so I will take the compliment. I assure
you once again that I never mentioned your name to any American--or
rather, I should say, to the only American I know.

'That is Mr. Foster,' said Mr. Dolby, with a slight effort.

'Yes,' said Miss Montressor, 'to Mr. Foster. I like him so much,' she
added in a brisk parenthesis. 'Do you know him?'

'No,' said Mr. Dolby; 'never heard of him. What's his business?'

'O, I am sure I don't know. You don't suppose he talked of business
yesterday, or would bother me about it under any circumstances. He was
much too jolly for that. I hate your concentrated men who cannot think
of anything but money-making, and cannot talk of anything except the
way they make it.'

'You like the money though,' said Dolby.

'O yes, I like the money; but I like it as a result, just as one likes
dinner. Dinner would be a nuisance if one had to see it cooked and
know how it is done; so would money if one had to superintend the
getting of it. Mr. Foster never alludes to business.'

'Ah, well,' said Mr. Dolby, 'that is no proof that he may not be in
something that would clash with me, and it is highly important that he
should not know of my existence,--here at least. Was there any one
with him yesterday?'

'No; he came alone--I mean not with Duval and me in the mail
phaeton--and was the life of the evening--such a charming man!'

'Married?' asked Mr. Dolby.

'Yes, married; and to a charming wife, if one may judge by the way he
talked about her.'

'What wretched taste!' said Mr. Dolby. 'You hate a man who talks about
business. I hate a man who talks about domesticities. I go so far with
the Orientals as this, that men should not talk about their womankind
or suffer them to be mentioned to them in general, except by very
intimate friends, who ought to be mutual.'

'How do you know that we are not very intimate friends?' said Miss
Montressor, suddenly assuming an air of coquettishness. The serious
tone of the interview had been unduly prolonged for her taste, and she
had no capacity for ethics.

'It must be a very sudden intimacy if it exists,' said Mr. Dolby
angrily.

'I didn't say it was not; one doesn't take a lifetime to like a man,
to find it out, and let him know the fact.'

'No,' said Mr. Dolby, 'one doesn't; nor does he take a lifetime to
reciprocate, even though he has this charming wife, and talks the most
arrant nonsense about her.'

'Mr. Foster talks no nonsense,' said Miss Montressor, 'about her or
about me, which is what you mean to imply. He made himself exceedingly
agreeable--shall I tell you how?' (There was a sudden depth in her
voice and a sudden depth in her eyes which would have had pathetic
meaning to any one capable of reading it.) 'You don't answer; well,
then, I will. By treating me exactly like a lady, with the respect he
might have paid to his wife or his sister, and without the smallest
intimation, except when I turned the conversation in that direction,
that he remembered that I was only an actress.'

'Pooh!' said Dolby, in a tone of exaggerated contempt, and watching
her closely as he spoke; 'that is the stalest trick. A man gets
introduced to you because you are an actress simply, and ingratiates
himself with you by pretending to forget it. You ought to be too sharp
to be done by such an artifice as that, and have too much respect for
your profession to be pleased by it. After all, my dear, what's your
claim to consideration and admiration? First, that you are a pretty
woman, which is always the first claim that any woman can have;
secondly, that you are a popular actress. When a man attempts to put
either admiration or consideration on any other footing, he is in
reality flattering you with an additional assumption that you are a
fool. I was more honest than your new admirer, Miss Montressor.'

'My new admirer, as you choose to call him, Mr. Dolby, is at least
more courteous than you are. I heard him tell Duval, to whom he does
not speak on business matters, that he would postpone an important
one, for the purpose of accompanying us to Liverpool.'

Mr. Dolby drew a long breath, and his nostrils expanded slowly--a
symptom of emotion with which Miss Montressor was acquainted.

'I have roused him now in earnest,' she said to herself; 'we shall
have a storm.'

But she either misinterpreted the source of this manifestation, or Mr.
Dolby exhibited great self-control. Instead of the passion with which
she expected to be rebuked, he simply replied, leaning back indolently
in his chair, and clasping his hands over his head, with an air of
absolute leisure, 'Lucky dog who can postpone business for pleasure.'

'He regards it as a very great pleasure, I assure you, Mr. Dolby. He
said he would not lose the last sight of us for any consideration, and
deeply regretted his absence from New York during cur stay.'

'Of course he introduced you to his charming wife.'

'Not just yet--not by letter, I mean. He hopes to be able to return
before our engagement terminates; and to have, as he expressed it,
"the pleasure of making the introduction in person."'

Mr. Dolby laughed an exceedingly insolent laugh.

'And you believe that?'

'Yes,' she said. 'Don't you?'

'Certainly not. I believe he has not the slightest intention that you
should know his wife--it might not be convenient; he might not have
quite so strong an opinion of your discretion as I have--he has not
had so much time to found one, you know--and circumstances may defeat
his hope of getting back during your stay. I don't think you will make
Mrs. Foster's acquaintance, but I suppose you will find Mr. Foster
waiting to receive you at Liverpool on your return.'

'He says so,' she answered, 'if he does not come to New York. It is
all very well your sneering at a man you know nothing about, but I
believe in Mr. Foster, and you shall not sneer me out of it.'

'I have no wish to interfere with your faith in him or in time,' said
Mr. Dolby; 'but with reference to this same coming back, have you
anything to say about me?'

Miss Montressor blushed violently. The cold cynicism of his tone hurt
her. She was not sensitive, and she did not care about him, but she
was proud in her way, and he had offended her.

'I do not understand your meaning,' she said. 'I do not know what you
are driving at.'

'Not at an enigma, my dear. I do not want you to go away with any
notion of acting a little private drama in addition to those in which
I have no doubt you will make a stunning success in my country. You
know well enough what a matter-of-fact fellow I am, how entirely
averse to acting off the boards. I am not jealous, it is too much
trouble, and I like to leave people as much freedom of action as I
claim for myself; still I like things on the square, you know; and it
strikes me very forcibly that it might suit your book to put our
future relations upon a tolerably liberal footing.'

'Do you mean to say you want to get rid of me?' said Miss Montressor,
surprised for the moment out of her coquetry into very real disgust.

'Certainly not; but, unless I am very much mistaken, it might be
convenient to you to be aware that you can get rid of me, without any
manoeuvring on the subject, without making an enemy of me, and without
incurring any grave risk of breaking my heart.'

'I don't believe you have any heart to break,' said she.

'O yes, I have; quite as much as is convenient to myself; or pleasant
for you. Look here, Clara, there is a long parting before us--at all
events, a parting you have chosen to make, in the interests of your
professional career. I think you are quite right, and I don't want to
hamper your action with any consideration for the future. When you
return, I shall be very glad to see you, but you can choose for
yourself; without any reproach from me, whatever may be the end of
your choice, the exact character of our future relations. You can take
them up at their present point, if you please; you can reduce them to
simple friendship. I don't believe in platonics, remember, as a
starting-point, but I believe in them as a terminus. You know where I
am always to be heard of. I presume I shall hear from you during your
stay in America, but if it bores you to write, I shall not tie you to
a correspondence; on your return to England, any communication you may
choose to make to me shall, as we say in business, "receive my prompt
consideration."'

With these words Mr. Dolby rose, buttoned his coat, took up his hat
and gloves, and offered Miss Montressor his hand, with the cool ease
of an ordinary morning visitor. She was so thoroughly taken aback by
his demeanour, that for once in her life nature and training alike
failed her. She was entirely unequal to the emergency, so she stood
perfectly still and perfectly silent, without making any movement in
answer to the gesture by which he invited her to shake hands. In
another instant Mr. Dolby had left the room, and she heard him walk
quietly down-stairs and out of the house, before she recovered
herself.

For a good hour Miss Montressor sat in her drawing-room, under the
impression of this extraordinary parting scene. It was a demonstration
not only unlike but entirely opposed to anything which she had
previously remarked in Mr. Dolby's character. If this woman had been
naturally very clever--or had learned by education to decipher the
relations between cause and effect, as they are, indicated by the
actions of human beings--she would probably have hit upon the truth;
she would probably have discerned that Mr. Dolby had for the nonce
assumed her profession, that she had seen him in the character of an
actor, performing a part as carefully rehearsed as any that she had
ever played, and with far more serious meaning.

During her confused meditations it had crossed her mind vaguely that
there might be a motive for his extraordinary conduct; for the
senseless outburst of jealousy which, though he strenuously denied it,
his line of action betrayed.

'What can he mean by it?' she asked herself a score of times,
something within her heart contending with the natural and somewhat
flattering interpretation which she placed upon his behaviour. She
remembered his ill-humour when they first met, and it flashed across
her mind as a possibility that he might have come with the
predetermination to quarrel with her. But why? She had given him no
offence, their last interview had been conducted on the footing of a
perfectly good understanding; and the mention of Mr. Foster, to which
his present freak manifestly referred, had only arisen on the present
occasion.

Miss Montressor was lost in a maze; but among its bewilderments love
had no place, as she was quite conscious that she could be perfectly
happy without Mr. Dolby, could it be proved that he had made up his
mind to do without her. And she was not vehemently impatient to emerge
from the maze.

The cogitation of an hour ended, after all, in the contented
conviction on her part that the sole motive of Mr. Dolby's conduct was
jealousy, mingled with a perception that he was a stronger-willed and
worse-tempered man than she had hitherto believed him to be.

The practical conclusion at which she arrived was that she would leave
Mr. Dolby to himself for a day or two. He had spoken of 'faith in
time,' and though Miss Montressor was not apt in poetry, she was
capable of prosaic adaptation of the adage. She would try the effect
of time at very little cost to herself. It was a matter of comparative
indifference whether she saw Mr. Dolby the next day, or the next day
but one, or the next day but two; he should have a wholesome interval
to come to his senses, and she really had a great deal to do in
preparing for her voyage to America.

Within an hour and a half after Mr. Dolby's precipitate exit from Miss
Montressor's abode, that lady was engaged in the prosaic occupation of
making out, with Justine's assistance, an inventory of the finery
which, apart from her stage wardrobe, she considered it necessary to
take to New York; then an inventory of that which she was leaving
behind. These grave matters of business were of sufficient importance
to shroud in temporary oblivion anything so insignificant as a quarrel
with Mr. Dolby--which might, perhaps, be called a lover's quarrel on
his side, but which, to Miss Montressor, had simply the commonplace
aspect of a fit of unqualified ill-temper.

'He is a surly brute!' was her summary; 'and I will just leave him to
come out of his sulk.'

     *     *     *     *     *     *

The next day but one went over, the first stage in the process of Mr.
Dolby's coming to his senses in Miss Montressor's mental time-table.
The hours did not drag; there was plenty to do, there were many people
to see; and the more Miss Montressor dwelt upon the prospect of
her Transatlantic trip, higher rose the hopes of reaching her
ambition--the expectant star about to get a real opportunity of
shining for the first time could not trouble her head with such
mundane matters as a sullen admirer.

The next day but two went over, and Mr. Dolby neither came nor wrote.
No conciliatory bouquet, no reconciliatory bracelet, came as a token
of regret and repentance. Things were looking serious, and Miss
Montressor was sorry--sorry, not with the interested annoyance of a
woman of her class who has awakened to the fear of losing a rich
lover, but sorry with a genuine kindheartedness, reluctant to part
with an old friend on bad terms; and with something of the
irresistible tenderness which all but a thoroughly heartless woman
must feel towards one whose feelings she believes herself to have
miscalculated and wounded unawares.

'Who could have thought,' she said to herself on the morning of the
third day, 'that he cared about me so much?' A shallow generalisation;
but somehow one would have liked Miss Montressor less if she had been
more clear-sighted--if she had been able to read between the lines on
this occasion.

At noon of the third day Miss Montressor took a resolution and
a sheet of her very best note-paper, with a very dainty monogram in
rose-colour and silver, and scrawled upon it just two of those
characteristic lines which mean so much and say so little, which are
full of apology without humiliating concession, and full of attraction
without formal invitation.

This letter she despatched by her page, who returned considerably
before she looked for him, bringing back the letter, with the
unexpected intelligence that Mr. Dolby had left his lodgings at
Queen-street, Mayfair, 'for good;' and also that the people at the
house had no address and no instructions for the forwarding of
communications intended for him.

Miss Montressor had literally never been so taken aback in all her
life.

'What could it mean?' she again asked herself, this time without the
vaguest indication of an answer; and now she was alarmed as well as
sorry. Was this indeed to be a fatal and irreparable breach?

Rather late on the same evening a four-wheeled cab drove up at the
door of No. 192 Queen-street, Mayfair. Two females occupied the
vehicle, one of whom was presumably, by her dress and appearance, a
respectable upper servant, perhaps a lady's maid. Her dress was plain,
but suitable to such an assumption, and she was closely veiled.
Leaving her companion, who was somewhat similarly attired, in the cab,
this person rang the bell and requested to see the mistress of the
house. A respectable-looking middle-aged woman, with a countenance
exhibiting that peculiar mixture of conventional complacency and
ever-present anxiety which characterises the London lodging-house
keeper, presented herself in answer to this request, and begged that
the lady would step into her little room. The visitor explained at
once, to avoid disappointing the expectation which was very plainly
written in the landlady's anxious face, that she had not come to
engage rooms, that she had merely called to make inquiry. This
announcement was met with no decrease of civility, and the invitation
to walk in was repeated.

It then appeared that the visitor had called to inquire about the
lodger who had recently left No. 192, and the interview between the
two women very rapidly assumed the aspect of a gossiping chat. Mrs.
Watts was very sorry to part with her lodger, 'which he was quite the
gentleman,' and had gone away with his luggage in a cab, and himself
in a hansom. There was a deal of luggage; them big boxes as come from
New York, and looks like ladies' boxes mostly. Mrs. Watts could not
say where he had gone to--certainly she had seen the labels; but they
were two brass labels slipped into the ticket grooves, with New York
in black letters upon the metal.

'Was there any name upon the trunks?' asked the visitor.

Mrs. Watts was quite sure there was no name anywhere, nor upon the
strapped-up package of railway rugs, canes, and umbrellas.

'Did Mrs. Watts,' asked the visitor, 'entertain any doubt whatever
upon the subject?'

'He had left in the evening, and she had heard the driver of the
hansom directed to Euston Station, to catch the Liverpool mail.'

This was conclusive, and the visitor, taking a polite leave of Mrs.
Watts, got into the cab and drove home without exchanging a single
word with her companion.

'He is mad,' thought Miss Montressor during that silent drive, and
there was a strange complacency in her mind at this conclusion--'he is
stark mad with jealousy--who would have thought it? Well, he will get
over it, I suppose, and it don't matter to me.'

A reader of Miss Montressor's thoughts and an observer of Miss
Montressor's ways would have been struck by the extraordinary
frequency with which that little phrase, it don't matter to me,'
turned up in Miss Montressor's meditations, and found utterance in
Miss Montressor's speech. It don't matter to me, but it is better than
any play I ever had a part in, or any play I know anything about, for
I firmly believe he has gone to New York beforehand to watch me.'

It was not, on the whole, an unnatural conclusion; it only lacked one
element of probability. Mr. Dolby's unexpected access of jealousy had
come on apropos of Mr. Foster. Mr. Foster was not gone nor going to
New York. This circumstance struck Miss Montressor after some time,
but she got over the little difficulty by reasoning from the
particular to the general, and making up her mind that Mr. Dolby had
suddenly arrived at the conclusion that she was not to be trusted
either here or there. There was something flattering in this
conclusion, even to a woman who did not care a straw about him, and
who was in her way, and according to her light, frank and honest. Miss
Montressor liked the flattery, accepted the conclusion, did not
trouble herself to reconcile it with Mr. Dolby's story of his
appointment in London, and supposed they should meet over there, and
it would be all good fun.


     *     *     *     *     *     *


Only one incident remains to be recorded with regard to Miss
Montressor's visit to Mr. Dolby's former abode. It was not under that
familiar name that she inquired for him; it was not in that name that
Mrs. Watts praised the amiability, and lamented the departure of her
late lodger, nor had that been the name inscribed upon the note with
the rose-and-silver monogram.




END OF VOL. I.




LONDON:
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.









End of Project Gutenberg's The Impending Sword (Vol. 1 of 3), by Edmund Yates

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 61949 ***