Consequences

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CONSEQUENCES

BY

EGERTON CASTLE

AUTHOR or

"the pride of jennico," etc.

NEW YORK
STREET & SMITH, Publishers

238 William Street

Entered according to act of Confess in the year 1900

By Street & Smith

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

SBLfl

J^cH'>'iS>7c6

CONSEQUENCES.

PART I.
GEORGE KERR.

CHAPTER I.

HOW GEORGE KERR . REPENTED AT LEISURE.

Popular proverbs — those short statements of long experience
— must, from their very essence, be various and even contra-
dictory on almost every question.

Concerning marriage especially — that most solemn, uncer-
tain, and fatal of human engagements — do they wax numer-
ous and conflicting, even as are the consequences of a bid at
the eternal lottery.

"Happy the wooing that's not a long a-doing," is an accept-
able maxim, and a wise, in the estimation at least of young
and ardent love. It fits admirably with other well-known
emotional prognostications anent the risky undertaking:
"Happy is the bride the sun shines on," and such-like. Alas
that its natural cross, "Marry in haste and repent at leisure,"
should ever prove equally opposite !

People who plunge headlong into very early matrimony
have, as a rule, ample opportunity to test the pithiness of both
proverbs.

Rapturous always their first impressions; but, in a little
while, the inevitable sobering process once fairly started —
with the whole of a life stretching drearily before them a
lengthy series of wasted capabilities — grim their reflections on
the endless consequences of one imprudent step !

The various aspects of leisurely repentance formed in the
year 1857 a main theme in the mental existence of Mr. George
Kerr, who was then aged twenty-three.

6 How George Kerr Repented at Leisure.

Arrived at the green door of his little hoiise in Mayf air, he
paused a moment in disheartened and bitter cogitation. No
doubt she was lying in wait for him up-stairs, preparing a
scene in pimishment for their last quarrel. . . . No peace
for him, night or day ! Was it astonishing that he was sick —
sick to death — of all this ?

He turned the key in the door, and let himself in with a
muttered curse on his unhappy home. Contrary to orders,
when all had retired except himself, the lights were still blaz-
ing in the hall ; on the other hand, the lamp had burned itself
out in his smoking-room, and filled it with nauseating dark-
ness. His savage pull at the bell brought the sleepy footman
tumbling up-stairs before his eyes were well opened.

"Why are you not in bed — ^why is there a light in the hall ?"

"Mrs. Kerr has not yet come in," said the man in injured
tones.

"Not come in . . . ?"

There was a lengthy silence.

"You can go to bed," said Greorge at last, with forced calm-
ness. "I rst take that lamp away, and light the candles. I
shall wait up for your mistress."

There had been nothing very particular about the day just
elapsed. It had only differed in details from that of almost
every day since chill disillusion had first entered into George
Kerr's mad paradise — so few weeks after the irrevocable deed
had been sealed — ^but it was destined to have far-reaching con-
sequences.

From the very morning, as the youthful husband sat to a
cold, ill-served, solitary breakfast — the mistress of the house
as usual sleeping late in the day after the worldly exertions
of the night — the sense of his injuries had been strong upon
him.

Only a year ago, at that very hour, he was standing beside
his bride in the solemn Cathedral of Seville, and in galling
contrast to the high hopes, the proud rapture, which then had
filled him, the dead failure of the present rose, specter-like, to
mock him, and would not be laid again. He recalled how he
had looked down with palpitating heart on the blushing, smil-
ing face, lace-veiled, by his side; how the touch of the slim
fingers, as he held them within his, thrilled him through and
through ; with what a tender earnestness, what faith and love
— God knows! — ^he had vowed to cherish her till death; — re-
called the tumult of joy with which he had led her down the
aisle, his wife ! . . .

It would be curious to look back on, in truth, if it were not
almost maddening.

The quarrel had started, trivially enough, by hi* re-

How George Kerr Repented at Leisure. 7

fusal to escort her to the ball that evening. In no humor to
put himseK out for her this day, he had vowed himself deter-
mined to have a quiet evening for once at any price. She
pouted, protested, wept and stormed in vain, finally brushed
away her tears, and, with sudden calm defiance, announced
her determination to go alone.

"If you do," had retorted the husband, fairly roused, "I shall
never forgive you." And thereupon he had flung himself out
of the house, to seek in his club the peace and independence
refused him in his home.

He had not dreamed she would have dared to disobey him
openly ; indeed, such an act of emancipation would have been
considered so marked in those days of sterner social propriety
that he had not for an instant contemplated seriously the pos-
sibility of her carrying out her threat ; and his anger was deep
indeed when he discovered the fact.

Gone to that infernal ball ! Gone, in the very teeth of his
command !

"Before heaven, she actually browbeats me!" he cried, as,
once more alone, he paced the little room from end to end,
gradually collecting his thoughts after the first blank confu-
sion of his rage.

The silver clock on the mantelpiece struck twice in its
chirpy way. She was enjoying herself, without doubt, not
thinlung of returning home for another hour or so, bathing
her soul in the adulation that was as the very breath of life to
her. Oh ! he could see her, prodigal of smiles and those soft
long looks which he had thought were for him alone, yielding
herself, with all the voluptuous grace that had once enthralled
him, to the delight of the dance. And her husband — dangling
fool ! — ^where was he ?

He could hear the half -mocking inquiry some confidential
swain would breathe into the dainty shell of her little ear, and
Carmen's careless answer; "She did not know; at his club,
she supposed."

And the "husband at home," viciously chewing the stump
of an extinct cigar, seething, not in thoughts of jealousy — for
passion had burned itself out long ago, and love had been
stifled by ever-recurring disappointment — but in maddening
anger at the despicable situation he had created for himself,
swore a great oath that he would afford food for such laughter
no longer.

Yet what to do ? Ay, there was the rub !

He could not beat her, he could not break her — and she de-
fied him.

The sense of his own impotence met him on every side.

"Yes, look at yourself!" he snarled, as he caught sight of

8 How He Married in Haste.

his morose face in the glass, and paused in his caged tramp to
glare at it. "Look ! think of your driveling folly, and despise
yourself for one moment of weakness ! You will now have to
put up with the consequences, George Kerr, 'till death do
^ou part!' . . . You are the guardian of a beautiful,
brainless fool, whom you cannot control, with whom you have
nothing in common but the chain which binds you together,
lie almost laughed aloud as he recalled the mad impatience,
the tenacity, the determination with which he carried his
point in the face of so many difficuties — imto this end !

And the thought of the dear old regiment he had sacrificed
with so light a heart came over him with almost a passion of
regret. It was the most glorious, surely, that ever glittered
under the sun. Even now it was starting for another spell
of doughty work in India, while he — here he was, white-
faced, useless, with not even a show of happiness to set off
against his waste of youth.

The weary minutes, feverishly ticked off by the little clock,
had measured two leaden hours before the young man, storm-
spent and heart-sick, could settle on a feasible plan of action.
But at length, as the rays of dawning day were creeping
through the curtain folds a glimmer of light broke over the
chaos of his mind. She had promised to obey and honor him,
as he to cherish her, but she was, even now, sinning against
that vow. And if she refused to keep her part of the contract,
why need he hold himself to his ? Let her obey, as a wife is
bound to obey her husband, or he would put her from him, and
be surely justified before God and man in so doing.

George, under the relief of his new-found determination,
flung himself on a deep arm-chair and gradually fell into a
sort of drowsy, semi-conscious condition, from which a loud
rattle of wheels and a sharp peal of the bell aroused him to a
vivid sense of the moment's importance.

Drawing his weary limbs together, he rose with a stem com-
posure to open the door to his wife.

CHAPTEK II.

HOW HE MARRIED IN HASTE.

It is an idle exercise of the mind, and yet one which has its
fascination in moments of dreamy meditation, that searching
back into the far past of our own or our neighbor's life for
the distant cause, the seemingly unimportant event, which

How He Married in Haste, 9

may have been the starting-point in the present concatenation
of things.

And yet, after all, what is often most striking in such re-
flections is the sometimes inconceivable smallness, even ab-
surdity, of the incident which leads to such far-reaching re-
sults. A thought, a look, a word, is sufficient to start a new
train of circumstances. Our existence has been rolling in its
ordinary groove, we have been treading the road of everyday
life, apparently without a prospect of ever diverging from it,
when there comes a something so trivial as well-nigh to
escape notice — a pebble which did but turn the wheel of for-
tune ever so little from its course, and, behold, what a change !
What strange lands lie befo- : us! — may be, what racking ex-
periences in the narrow circle of our joy and pain !

That the present curious relations of the last two represent-
atives of that ancient race, the Kerrs of Gilham, would never
have come about save for certain side-events, seemingly irrele-
vant, in the life of their grandsire, is a fact which would
doubtless much vex his sturdy old ghost were it brought home
to him. And yet, again, these events would never have oc-
curred had not the course of Lord Wellington's operations in
the Peninsula obliged him to attack Marmont's strong position
of Los Arapiles on the 22d of July, 1812, on which day was
achieved the bloody victory now heralded "Salamanca" on the
colors and standards of thirty-five of our regiments. During
the course of that fierce struggle it fell to the lot o# Lieuten-
ant Kerr, whose captain had already been shot, to dislodge
with a company of Highlanders a party of troublesome Ln-
perial Voltigeurs from a certain crenelated village called
Santa Maria de la Pena. At a critical moment he was,
through the fortune of war, opportunely re-enforced by a party
of the 3d "Ligeros," gallantly led by a Spanish officer, one
Don Atanasio de Ayala, anxious in his burning national pride
to imitate, if possible to rival, the exploits of the Northerners.

It was a hard-fought day. By the time the Imperials had
sullenly but unequivocally yielded the ground, both the Span-
ish and the English officer were severely wounded. Discov-
ered side by side, scarcely breathing, but still alive, they were
carted off to experience together the horrors of a JPeninsular
ambulance. Both were young men, almost boys. They had
seen each other at work, and in the close intimacy in which
they were thus thrown cemented such a friendship as is made
only amid hardships doughtily shared and dangers met in
conunon.

Now, but for that breathless meeting on the torrid crags of
Arapil el Grande, certain human existences would undoubted-
ly, in distant days to come, when Peninsular events had long

lo How He Married in Haste.

passed into the domain of general history, have moved in
widely different channels — one of them, indeed, never have
issued out of the store of infinite life.

In the natural course of things the friends parted, to look
upon each other's face no more. Peace returned; each in
his turn retired to his own home, matured, then married and
settled down ; the Spaniard spinning out his life in the true,
lazy Andalusian way; the Englishman, when the time came,
assuming the reins of government on the ancestral estate of
Gilham, where, toward the end of the year 1850, an awkward
fall between a double rail terminated his well-filled life at
the beginning of its twelfth luster.

During the course of his allotted span this William Kerr of
Gilham had reproduced his existence in three different direc-
tions. A first marriage with the daughter of an ancient house
had given an heir to the proud name and wide lands of Gil-
ham ; of a second, contracted in the autumn of his life, were
born tisvo other children, who, by the way, throxigh the irregu-
lar workings of hereditary chance, proved to be, both in look
and temper, far more true Kerrs than the first-born. For the
latter, although very consciously proud, as in duty bound, of
the headship of his house when it devolved upon him, recalled
in no particular, except perhaps an unimpeachable sense of
duty, the traditional characteristics — ^the warm-hearted im-
pulsiveness and easy-going spirit of his father's race.

On his accession the new squire naturally became guardian
to the offspring of what, in his heart, he had always held as
his sire's senile folly. Of these, the boy, George, was at that
time half-way through his teens, and Susie on the threshold
of womanhood — just an age when the unwelcome charge was
likely to give their guardian most trouble.

He was, however, soon relieved of half his burden, for the
jear of mourning was scarcely out before Susie left the Court
to bestow herself, and her little independent fortune, on a cer-
tain handsome, intellectual, penniless curate, Hillyard by
name, and joyfully set up house in a humble Kentish parson-
age on three hundred a year and her darling brother George's
blessing — a commodity which this young gentleman very gra-
ciously bestowed on the couple, though personally he could not
be said to think much of curates.

But George it was who all his life had been a thorn
in the present squire's side, and he was not so easily got rid
of — a perpetual disturbing element in the matter of Gilham's
otherwise satisfactory existence, even from distant Eton.
Things, bad enough in his unruly boyhood, were at their worst
between them when Alma Mater opened her arms to the
scapegrace. All the Kerrs who were not soldiers had been

How He Married in HastI ii

Trinity men; and George, repairing thither as a matter of
course, his career under the shadow of those time-honored
walls became, in the estimation of a person of his step-broth-
er's temperament, nothing short of scandalous. In truth, it
was a succession of ridiculous scrapes and escapades which
gave the pompous guardian the most exquisite irritation.

On his side. Master George, who considered himself unwar-
rantably hectored and curbed, and kept on an ungentlemanly
short allowance, gradually fought shy of returning to his old
home, despite his pretty sister-in-law's conciliating and wel-
coming presence. And so, there having grown no feeling ex-
cept mutual dislike between the strait-laced methodical squire
and his headstrong, "good-for-nothing" half-brother — who, in-
deed, according to the former's innermost ideas, had no busi-
ness to exist at all — it was but natural that when the young
man came of age, and into the unfettered possession of his
own money, he should shake off his elder's control with the
smallest delay possible.

This was the time when England, after forty years of peace,
and at the lowest military disorganization, having settled in
grim earnest to her contest with her ever-rampant Eastern
rival, was sending the cream of her manhood to the Crimea.

The first use George made of his delightful new liberty was
to drop academic pretensions, and to buy a commission in the
Highland regiment that had known his father so well. And,
curiously enough, this first independent act was the only one
he ever took which met with the unmitigated approval of the
head of his house, who, however strongly he might have ob-
jected to the profession in peace-time, as a snare and a pitfall
for idle youth, now sincerely wished him a martinet of a
colonel, and even considered without too much discomposure
the possible prospect of a soldier's grave in the neighborhood
of Sebastopol.

Hard and grim, however, as that experience proved, it was
far from effecting the desired amendment.

On leaving Krim Tartary, the proud regiment, prouder
than ever, though much thinned and battered, after its two
years of relentless campaigning, was quartered at Gibraltar,
and proceeded to enjoy a period of well-earned rest. George,
who had escaped scot-free from the hazard of lead and steel,
was changed in no way from the scatter-brain, dare-devil un-
dergraduate, save perhaps by an increase of adventurous
spirit, coupled with the fool-hardiness of one who had seen
Death at close quarters, only to laugh in his face.

Andalusia in the spring of the year is, one may take it, a
place where a young man of naturally warm, reckless fancy
,and athletic temperament easily loses bis NorUiarn delibera-

12 How He Married in Haste.

tion, to say the least of it. Now, the subaltern, delighted to
have an opportunity of gratifying his love of adventure, re-
solved to spend his first leave in wandering about Southern
Spain, then supposed to be the home of all that was romantic,
beautiful and dangerous. And refusing all offers of compan-
ionship, he flung himself headlong into the arms of that
fascinating land — determined to enjoy to the uttermost all
that it was capable of yielding — to fall promptly, as do all who
are blessed or cursed with poetic fancy, under its most in-
describable charm.

What is it gives Spain so extraordinary a spell ? it would be
hard to say precisely; but the sunny existence, the graceful
dress, dignified old-world courtesy, old-world habits ; the mag-
nificent, sonorous tongue so sweet in love, so grave and rich
in earnest discourse ; the passionate yet langorous national
music so stirring to young blood; all these things are com-
ponents of the charm to which George abandoned himself with
all the thoroughness and irreflectiveness that characterized
him.

He had reached Seville — Seville, the jewel of the world as
the Spaniards hold it — toward the spring of the year, the pas-
sionate, ripe spring of Spain which, like to the maidens of
that sun-loved land, flowers from pale irmnaturity into warm
development of beauty with magic quickness; and there,
under the vault of burning blue, amid the contrasting light
and shade, in the rambling streets of the old Moorish town,
there came to George Kerr one of those episodes which are
so slight, so trivial, as to pass, in many instances, all unnoted,
but which nevertheless, as has been said, bring in their train
consequences strange, unforeseen, and destined, perchance, to
cliange a man's whole destiny.

In the serene enjoyment of that soundness of body and
freshness of mind which belong by right to the blessed age of
two-and-twenty, the young warrior, immersed in complacent
appreciation of his well-merited spell of freedcmi and laziness,
was sauntering down a narrow, silent, deserted street^ toward
those middle hours of the day when the Spaniard seeks his
siesta, and when, according to his sententious saying, "only
dogs or Englishmen walk abroad."

One of the quaint wrought-iron gateways which mark the
entrance to some private house, through the fantastically in-
terlacing bars of which the passer-by can usually descry the
fresh foliage of palm, i)omegranate and orange trees fiUin??
the umbrageous inner courtyard, arrested his attention. He
stopped and gazed through the scroll work at the mysterious
nook, while a desire, curious in its suddenness, to see some-

How He Married in Haste. 13

thing of the inner life, something more than the threshold of
such a dwelling, took possession of him.

"Now, here is a place," thought he, "with a charming ca-
pacity for romance. Delicious experiences might await a
man in just such a house as this — if he only had the key of
the gate."

He lit his cigarette and pondered. And as he abstractedly
listened to the monotonous ripple of a fountain, hidden be-
hind the tantalizing screen of verdure, the capricious wish
grew and grew in intensity, until it became almost a resolve.

All at once, with fantastic opportuneness, a delightful idea
flashed across his mind. His father, from oft-quoted accounts,
had had a certain Spanish comrade in the old fighting days.
This gallant foreign officer, Don Something or other de
Ayala, whose miniature portrait, in sky blue and silver, hung
even now in the smoking-room at Gilham, hailed, if memory
was not at fault, from Seville.

What if he hunted the old gentleman up? presuming him,
of course, to be still in the land of the living — and why not?
At all hazards, it was worth the trying.

And so well did his energy, and a fair amount of luck, serve
his new purpose, that before sundown, not only had he found
out that his father's old friend was alive, actually in Seville,
and ascertained his address, but had likewise gathered sundry
particulars concerning his family, which consisted, it seemed,
but of his wife and daughter — hermosisima, report said of the
latter, a detail which kept up the interest to its original ex-
alted height.

The following forenoon, of course, saw Greorge at the gate
of the house indicated, which he was pleased to find wrought
in still more delicious vagaries, and affording glimpses of a
patio even greener, shadier and more tempting than that
which had originally inspired him with such curiosity. He
sent up his card by the old dark-visaged servant, on which
to introduce himself, he had previously written, under the title
of his regiment, the words, "Arapil el Grande" — the name of
that place where the Spaniard had proved so true an ally to
his sire, amid the blood and smoke and fury of attack.

In eager expectation, he paced up and down among the
orange trees, starred with white blossoms, which filled the
warm air almost to excess with odorous sweetness. A foun-
tain rose and fell in slender coliunns in each cornor. The
courtyard was surrounded on three sides by the house, a per-
fect remnant of the domestic architecture peculiar to Anda-
lusia in the sixteenth century — architecture in which Moorish
fancy and luxury of detail blended with Christian simplicity.
, It was to the Englishman's imaginative mind ai if he had

14 How He Married in Haste.

stepped straight into the world of days gone by. And, be-
hold! the heavy, nail-studded ogee door moved slowly on its
scrolled hinges, and, standing framed by the darkness beyond,
there appeared a peak-bearded, white-haired old cavalier, but
surely just this instant stepped down from some canvas of
Velasquez to welcome the stranger from the dull days of the
nineteenth century into the glamourous past.

So strong for the minute was the illusion with whi<jh
George was pleased to divert himself, that it was almost with
amazement that he met the old man's earnest greeting, as the
latter, scrutinizing his visitor with kindly eyes, came forward,
holding out his hand, and saying with deep, grave voice in
sonorous Spanish :

"Son of my old friend, you are welcome! Welcome to this,
your house, my son !"

He was a very real jjersonage, after all, despite his weirdly
antique air; and the hand that George now grasped in true
sturdy British fashion was unmistakably flesh and blood,
however agedly etherealized.

Again the worn, kind eyes sought the young man's face,
their scrutiny softening into benevolent pleasure as they
rested on its handsome youthfulness.

"Perhaps you do not speak the Spanish tongue?" said Don
Atanasio in quaint English, with a little evident and guile-
less pride in his own proficiency.

"I have been learning at Gibraltar," quoth George. And
thus the ice being broken, the conversation progressed fluently
enough.

Bending his fine old head, for he was taller than the High-
lander by an inch or so, the Spaniard listened to the visitor's
frank explanation of his appearance in courteous and pleased
attention.

"So my old comrade — God have his soul ! — did not forget to
speak to his children of the Spanish friend. It is well ! it is
well ! and a kind thought of his father's son to come and see
the old man. Methinks it'is as if it were the gallant William
again in the flesh before me. Ah, sir! we were strong, fiery
yoimg men together, and the thought of those early days has
not gone from me. You are welcome indeed ! Welcome for
the sake of the blood that flows in your veins, for the mem-
ory of him that is no more, and for your own sake too, most
heartily."

Taking the blushing Englishman's arm, who, though
touched by his host's genuine emotion, was thoroughly at a
loss how to respond to Qiese flowers of 8i)eech, he led him with
dignified steps into the house.

They passed first through a dark hall, bare, vaulted, echoing

How He Married in Haste. 15

to the sound of their feet, then up a flight of stone stairs into
a large flagged room.

The proportions of this place were so majestic, it rose into
such loftiness, spread into such spacious wideness, that, in
wondering admiration, the young man halted and stared.
Stately, somber visages looked down at him from their tar-
nished frames; tapestry rich-hued, yet faded, hung between
them, out of which as he gazed there started into life the
quaintest depths of fairy forests, the weirdest forms; stern
suits of armor stood in stiff array along the wall, seeming to
retain in their dead emptiness something of the ferocious dig-
nity of the spirits that once animated them, and to glare upon
the world with angry menace in their vacant visors. In the
middle of the floor a hrasero of glowing red copper gave the
last touch of outlandish and mediaeval strangeness to the
scene,

A light tap on his arm recalled him to himself. Before
him, as if she had sprung out of the earth, smiling, handsome,
wrinkled, stood a dame with white hair, lace-veiled, of im-
posing proportions, clad in the picturesque national costume ;
a not incongruous pendant to the solemn leanness of the
cavalier.

"Beloved of my soul, I present to thee the son of my
brother in arms," said Don Atanasio in Spanish, as George
made a low bow ; "the son of that much-beloved and regretted
friend Don William Kerr, of whom I have so often spoken
to thee. A lieutenant of Scots, even as was his father. He
speaks Spanish."

Blissfully ignorant of the chivalrous customs of the coun-
try, George proceeded to press — not knowing he should have
kissed — the very small, very fat hand which, with a guttural
flow of hospitable observations, was warmly extended to him.

But the whole scene assumed a new complexion when, with
a patter of light, quick feet, a fourth person made her en-
trance into the room, and he was further introduced to
"Carmen, my unique daughter."

Just at the age when in a sunny clime a woman attains the
perfection of a bloom as rich and warm as the opening pome-
granate flower; attired, like her mother, as were all Spanish
ladies in those days, in the national dress — even in that land
of exquisite maidens Carmen was a jewel.

At sight of the visitor she stopped short in an attitude of
half-arch half-bashful astonishment, and George realized on
the spot that he had never known before what loveliness a
woman could embody. The first look he cast upon her, taking
in the luster of dark eyes, the curve of red lips, the exquisitely
rounded, satin-clad figure, to end respectfully on a pair of tiny

i6 How He Married in Haste.

slippers which juAt allowed a ray of tender blue stocking to
peer through the cloud of black lace, was simply a revelation.
It seemed to lift him into an existence hitherto unthought of.

As for the cause of his sudden exaltation, she apparently
experienced some occult psychical reaction of the same kind.
Such ecstasies are sympathetic. As her eyes met his they
became troubled, a crimson flush flew to each olive cheek, and
the modest answer to his stammered compliment died away
half finished in an inarticulate murmur.

Meanwhile, all unconscious of the strange operations at
work in those two young heads and hearts so near to him,
Don Atanasio, with that hospitality which is part of the very
spirit of his race, was explaining to his guest that there could
be no question of his living at Seville anywhere but under his
roof; in declaring that his house in town, his villa near
Ronda, his horses, his servants, all his possessions, were at
his disposal whenever and as long as the son of his old friend
chose to make use of them.

And in this manner George Kerr, barely twenty-four hours
after acting on a fantastic desire, the idlest freak of curiosity,
found himself installed as the honored guest of Don Atanasio
de Ayala y Quevedo, and already the abject slave of his
daughter's bright eyes.

Under ordinary circumstances this arrangement, which did
away with all true liberty of action, would very soon have
palled upon him; but as it was, betwitched, spellbound, he
passed day after day in a feverish dream of excitement and
rapture.

He made rapid progress in the language, as well as in the
favor of his simple-minded entertainers. Don Atanasio was
charmed to have found a new listener for his interminable
stories of the War of Independence, so modest and well-be-
haved a youth, who seemed content to sit for hours under his
discourses, with eyes cast down, attending with such deep
interest to his lessons in tactics and his account of the ex-
ploits of "El Lord" and his Spanish allies.

As for the beautiful creature, sole survivor of the many
children who had once gathered round the old couple's knees,
she spoke little to the stranger; but for all that, the most
eloquent and passionate conversation passed daily between the
two under the very nose of the watchful parents. Eye spoke
to eye in question and avowal. The flush on her lovely oval
cheek, the pouting of her fair red mouth, answered many a
time and most satisfactorily the silent disclosure of passion
which the pressure of his hand, the voiceless motion of his
lips, conveyed to the object of his worship.

Long before an opportunity occurred for the open declara-

How He Married in Haste. 17

tion of his feelings, George possessed the rapturous conviction
of being beloved in return, and this state of abeyance, its
delicate, exquisite joys had for him a charm and piquancy
he was half loath to break through.

One day, having for a few moments eluded the surrounding
vigilance, they found themselves face to face alone, and
straightway the burning secret which they had shared
in silence found words at last. In the somber old room,
under the scowling eyes of a score of past-century warriors,
just by the half-shuttered window, where a peep of green
spoke of the budding orange-trees, Carmen and George talked
of eternal love, and, kissing her lips, he vowed himself fit to
die with happiness at her feet.

"I hear, Don Jorge, that you have seen my daughter alone
to-day," said Don Atanasio very gravely that same evening.
"Allow me to reproach you. Among us such conduct is
thought incorrect. Were you more conversant with things
of Spain, I would even call it a breach of honor."

This was a tempting opportunity for George to carry out to
its obvious end the folly which filled his brain, and to avow
the passion which the enthralling episode of that day had
exalted to fever-heat.

"Sir," he replied warmly, "I beseech you to remember that
the rules of honorable behavior differ in various countries.
An English gentleman who loves a woman and would make
her his wife sees no breach of honor in asking her himself.
If, however, I have transgressed, I can but beg your forgive-
ness."

The old man's severe mood slightly softened as the youth,
whose cavalier-like accomplishments he had already had oc-
casion to appreciate, went on without flinching from his gaze :

"I bear, as you know, an ancient name, have an indepen-
dent fortune, and serve in an honorable profession. I ask
your daughter, whom I love and who loves me, for my wife."

This little speech, which George flattered himself was quite
in Spanish style, was listened to in silence by the old Don,
who considered it just pardonable in a foreigner.

"She should not have owned that she loved you," he re-
marked at length; "but what is done is done. We will
advise."

Advise he did in consequence with his loving consort, the
white-haired chaplain, and a few trusted friends — advised in
much anxiety of mind, earnestness, and deliberation; and
finally, in opposition to all the counsel he sought for, carried
the day as his kindly old heart had prompted him from the
first. His solemn approval was given to the engagement, and

i8 How He Married in Haste,

the young man, half bewildered with his own happiness, left
the house till the time came for him to fetch his bride.

George's midsummer madness was having serious conse-
quences. He started back on his journey to Gibraltar to beg
for prolongation of leave in order to go to England and make
arrangements for his new departure.

When he returned to the mess-room and announced his
intention to be married, the joking which was started on the
subject of the disastrous result of the sub's first leave became
so ceaseless and unlicensed as to prove quite intolerable to the
victim's passionate spirit. And when the Colonel, as might
be expected, first pooh-poohed his request for further leave,
and finally flatly refused to grant it, George, not sorry to
escape the galling gibes of his comrades, and momentarily
out of conceit with his regimental life and its irksome re-
straint, while more bent than ever from the very opposition
he encountered on carrying through his determination, an-
nounced his intention of selling out.

On a certain memorable evening toward the end of May
in the same year, a number of the Times was placed in the
hands of Mr. Kerr of Gilham, destined through one minute
portion of its contents to shake that worthy gentleman's soul
with a very paroxysm of virtuous indignation.

He had just returned from a ride round his farms and had
taken up the paper determined beforehand to disagree with
most of its opinions. But he was ill prepared for such a call
upon his wrath as the crisp columns contained for him that
day.

"Gwendolin," said the squire in awful tones, as he stepped
on to the lawn in search of his long-sufFering wife, "I must
beg you to favor me with your attention for a moment. List-
en to this — *0n the twenty-fifth of May, in the Cathedral of
Seville, George Kerr, youngest son of the late William Kerr
of Gilham, Esquire, late of the — th Highlanders, to Dona
Carmen Maria Concepcion, only daughter of Don Atanasio
Ayala y Quevedo !' — eh, what next ?"

"George married!" ejaculated Lady Gwendolin in amaze-
ment. Then, seizing only the bare facts, she exclaimed with
lively feminine interest: "Married to a Spanish girl; I am
sure she is lovely! Oh, Willie, how unkind of him never to
write! How I wish I could see them!"

"Gwendolin!" returned the squire, stiff with horror, "you
do not know what you are saying? Do you not see that
George" — and he shook the sheet with suppressed rage — "that
this depraved man has married a Papist — a Spanish Papist ?
Heaven only knows what the end of it will be; perhaps he
has turned Papist himself. Carmen Maria Concepcion I

How He Married in Haste. 19

Who in his senses would ever have thought of associating
these idolatrous names with the name of Kerr ? By a Romish
priest, in the Cathedral of Seville, you understand — Seville,
the headquarters of the Inquisition."

Even good-tempered, pleasant Lady Gwendolin was not
above the current prejudice against other people's religion.
She looked shocked and unhappy as the truth forced itself
upon her, and lifted her voice in no remonstrance when her
husband, dashing the paper away from him with an indecor-
ous display of excitement very foreign to him, uttered his
command that henceforth the name of George Kerr was not
to be uttered in his presence, and that so long as he was
master of Gilham the shadow of the shameless culprit was
never to darken his doors again.

The two sturdy little boys who were being brought up so
well under their father's methodical rule, who were such
model little boys before his face and such incarnate pickles
behind his back, now looked after his pompous retreating
figure and at their mother's saddened face with round, solemn
blue eyes, whispering to each other that Uncle George had
done something very naughty, and wondering what it could
be.

A few weeks before Susan Hillyard, in her little gabled
parsonage, had received a letter from her brother, setting
forth, in a few kind, careless words, the announcement of
his approaching happiness.

"I know that my good little Susie," said the writer, "will
love my beautiful Carmen as a sister, and rejoice that her
George is the happiest man in the whole world."

Susie had wept tears of mingled dismay and tenderness,
and dispatched a long, loving answer, containing the assur-
ance of her undying aflFection, and her readiness to welcome
with all cordiality her lovely new sister. Though somewhat
inclined to fear he was risking his eternal salvation by such
a step, she was immensely consoled by her husband's philoso-
phical reception of the news; for the Rev. Robert Hillyard,
notwithstanding his official position, was too liberal and open-
minded to blindly condemn any creature for his creed.

CHAPTER III.

FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF A WEDDING DAY.

Carmen halted a moment on the threshold as her husband
opened the door and silently received her; she was clad in
crimson and enveloped in clouds of black lace, glorious, even
against the flood of searching, morning light, in radiant
youthful beauty. She looked at him; then, without a word,
brushed by. Her step was alert and springy; there was not
a shade of fatigue over the warm complexion, under the
superb eyes, in the carriage of the lithe, roimded figure.

"That woman, my iwif e, is peerless — there can be no doubt
of that," thought George, following her movements with a
dark, abstracted look.

There was naught but aesthetic, lifeless criticism in his ad-
miration, mingled with wonder at the uselessness of such
mere bodily perfection. And, in truth, was not that very
beauty of hers — she being his wife, and such as she — but
part of his curse? Did not the exquisite, feather-brained
creature who thus returned defiantly in broad daylight from
her night's amusement bear his name and hold his honor in
her hands?

His black face grew more lowering yet; with a magnificent
show of indifference she was passing up-stairs, when he called
to her to stop, and in so harsh a voice that it imposed imme-
diate, if perchance involuntary, obedience. She paused, one
little foot on the first step, her head thrown back, interrogat-
ing him with languid eye and raised eyebrow.

"Come into my study," he said; "I have much to say to
you."

She hesitated, but, as he opened the door and imperatively
motioned her into the room, look and gesture were too stem
to be resisted, and, with an ill grace, a loud sigh of resigna-
tion, she obeyed. She confronted him sullenly.

"Well, my lovely Carmen," he said after a pause, "I can
see by the brightness of your eyes that you have enjoyed your
evening on this first anniversary of our happy union. All
the more, no doubt, for the absence of your husband. But,"
he continued, with a sudden hard change of tone, as she
ostentatiously yawned behind her fan, "I have to warn you
that, while you live under my roof, it is my intention to
prevent such escapades as to-night's ever happening again."

She turned upon him quickly and merely asked, with a

First Anniversary of a Wedding Day. 2i

little toss of her head, a little .tapping of the crimson slipper
on the ground :

"Is that all you have to say?"

"No," answered the man. "I have much to- speak to you
about, and I am determined you shall hear it now. Sit
down."

"I am going to bed. I am tired," she cried petulantly, but
still avoiding his eye. She gathered her skirts together, and,
as he would have barred her way, with a mixture of childish
passion and fear, she pushed him vigorously aside with one
round bare arm, and like a whirlwind dashed out of the room,
slamming the door behind her.

He made a step forward. Then he flung himself into a
chair, and for a long while remained motionless, absorbed
in thought.

At length he rose and made his way slowly up the stairs;
knocked at his wife's door and listened. There was no
sound within; he tried the handle, but the door was locked.

"Carmen, you had better open ; do not push this too far !"
Her dress rustled as she moved about ; he could hear her dis-
place a chair, and hum a note or two of a waltz tune to her-
self. _

His passion rose. He kicked the door beneath the key-
hole with such force that, with shattered lock, it burst back
quivering on its hinges.

With a scream, suddenly frozen into silence on her open
mouth, she rose and stared at him, and a creeping pallor
sucked the blood from her cheeks.

George closed the door as well as he could, and came up to
her ; he, too, was white to the lips.

"You are curiously mistaken," he said, with forced calm-
ness, "to think you can keep me out of any room in my
house. I am master here ; you have forgotten it too long."

If he had not been so blinded with passion, and so hard in
his new-found strength of purpose, he must have been struck
by the utter childishness of the dilated eyes fixed on him.

"Listen to me," he continued, laying a cold hand on her
wrist. "I have had patience; I have borne with you for a
whole year. It has been as a lifetime of misery to me. I have
had enough of it. I have taken my resolve — I will endure
this sort of existence not an hour longer. Either you shall
submit, absolutely, unquestioningly, uncomplainingly, to my
will for the future; live where I please, as I please— do your
duty as a wife, in humility and obedience ; or, before God ! I
will send you back to your father !"

She wrenched her hand angrily away from him, then sud-
denly burst into tears. His manner frightened her. She had

22 First Anniversary of a Wedding Day.

followed his words, comprehending their drift no more in-
telligently than to realize that he was very angry, as usual,
because she had gone to the ball without him. But the last
phrase struck home. She stepped back as if she had re-
ceived a buffet.

He let her weep, without speaking. She was one of those
rare women to whom tears are no disfigurement. The crys-
tal drops welled up in her lustrous eyes, overflowed on her
peach-like cheeks, without a trace of that red distortion which
marks the grief of ordinary mortals.

His silence emboldened her. From tears she came to sob-
bing reproaches; from reproach to vituperation. Her quick
blood rose as her first fear subsided, the color mantled again
in her cheek, fire dried the moisture of her eye. She flung
her arms about in passionate gesticulation ; the extravagantly
decorated draperies fell away from her bare shoulders, from,
the ripe perfection of her throat.

"Because," she cried, "because, forsooth, I am young and
beautiful, and choose to dance and laugh and enjoy life; be-
cause I do not choose to be buried in your dull, your stupid
country, I am to be cast off in disgrace ! And you dare tell
this to me, George — to me who have given up all, all for you
— ^my land, my people, my parents? Oh, my God, is it pos-
sible? Have you no shame, no heart?"

She paused, panting, and plunged a long look into his fixed,
expressionless eyes. Never had she looked more beautiful
than in her present self-abandonment.

Now, Carmen, dense though she might be in most matters
requiring nice discrimination, or even the use of comm.on
sense, had a keen enough perception of anything that touched
her personal vanity. She suddenly read that in the young
man's eyes which was, as she thought, a revelation of her vic-
tory. And on the spot all her misgivings vanished as if by
magic. A self-satisfied smile hovered for an instant over the
red lips ; then, with the insolence of her newly-found security,
she resumed her seat before the glass.

"God knows I have had cause enough to regret the day
when you came to me with your false promises and lured
me from my beautiful home. How have you kept them?
You have neglected me, abused me, but I refuse the position
you so kindly offer me of a separated woman. I will not have
this undeserved shame cast on me; I will not lose my proper
place in society — what you cannot do, shall not do, is east
me away before the world like a mistress you are tired of."

She looked over her shoulder and shot a conquering glance
at him. She saw that he was shaking with a nervous tremor,
that his eyes were averted as if in fear. She read defeat, she

First Anniversary of a Wedding Day. 23

thought, in every sign, and her foolish heart bounded for
pride.

She compared the rapture with which her slightest favors
had been received by humble adorers but a few hours ago
with the scowling, downcast countenance of him who, in his
own right, now stood in her sanctum. And he, above all men,
blessed in the possession of such a pearl — he it was who this
night had in his anger threatened to cast it from him.

She set her little teeth at her own glowing image; dearly,
dearly should he smart for this, for she could punish him, and
would, till he groveled at her feet. Not till she had half
maddened him by her disdain and the glacial barrier that
would be raised against him would she permit herself to re-
lax in her severity.

She loosened her long tresses, and, passing her jeweled fin-
gers through the heavy black masses, turned them like a
mantilla round her bare shoulders; then, suddenly pretend-
ing to recollect herself in the midst of another proud look
in the glass, she rose, and, with an insufferably dramatic air,
"Have the goodness to leave my room !" she said, loftily, ex-
tending her arm and pointing to the door. "You wished for
separation : you shall have this much of it. Go !"

The compression of George's hands on the chair grew so
violent that the muscles of his arms started into view be-
neath the sleeves. He looked at his wife with a bloodshot,
threatening stare.

"Ah, you wish to rid yourself of me I You shall have your
wish. It is not you who cast me away; it is I who renounce
you !" And, with the gesture of a stage queen, she drew her
wedding-ring from her finger.

"For the outside world I shall still wear a ring, but not the
one over which you made at the altar your perjured oath of
eternal love. Take it — I have done with it and you !"

She flung it at him and then confronted him, maddening
enough in her insolent beauty to drive a calmer man to
frenzy.

And the frenzy came, and bringing with it visions of the
insane joy of destruction ; the overmastering impulse to seize
in his arms the woman who thus taunted him, and crush the
veiy life out of her beautiful, proud body, to force forth her
last agonized breath in one long delirious embrace — ^not of
love, for love is tenderness, but of tritmiph and rage.

He felt himself grow pale as the tiny amulet struck him on
the mouth. Nothing was heard in the room but the constant
matutinal chirrup of the birds outside the light window and
the rattling of the discarded ring. Then, suddenly, with au
inarticulate imprecation, he sprang forward.

24 The Demon Whispers,

She gave a stifled shriek of terror and pain as she found
herself helplessly bound in his anus, her supple frame vainly
writhing in his mad grasp, while a harsh, unknown voice
panted in her ear:

"Our last day ! so be it, Carmen ! I will see you tamed — or
kill you!"

At first she fought like a tigress; but what could her
woman's strength, even in terror, do against his fury ? In his
cruel grip she soon ceased to struggle. Resistless at length,
she lay across his arm, crushed, well-nigh annihilated.

With her submission, his triumph gave way. Blank and
dazed, he released her, and she fell prostrate before him. He
stood, glaring at the lovely form at his feet, seemingly lifeless,
save for an occasional convulsive sigh.

After a while that, too, ceased, and for one agonized ghastly
moment he thought her life was gone. But presently, when,
covering her face with the mantle of her hair, she took to
crying, gently and piteously, like a child, his senses came
back; the horror of the disgrace he had brought upon his man-
hood overpowered him, and he fled from the rooai.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DEMON WHISPERS.

The one sense which now encompassed George's whole being
was of shame. Out into the deserted street he dashed, driven
by a mad desire to fly from his own disgrace. Bareheaded,
frenzied, rushing purposeless this way and that, he might
have been stopped for a madman indeed, had not the early
hour presented but a lifeless town to his first precipitate
flight. But presently, as the furious intensity of emotion
subsided to a duller misery, he slackened his pace, and monot-
onously followed any street that led ahead, dimly finding
some relief in the persistent motion.

Eastward his course lay- — ^far to the east. If his disheveled
attire and the desperate look on his face had excited ere now
suspicious curiosity on the part of the rare policeman, milk-
man and early stall-keeper of deserted Mayfair, they natur-
ally attracted more rudely obtrusive attention among the
busy toilers of Tower Hill and Hackney.

George began to realize that his evening dress, under the
bright sun of six in the morning, in the Whitechapel Road,
was a warrantable cause for the loudly expressed derision
which followed him on ©very side ; and he bethought himself

The Demon Whispers. 25

V

to purchase an overcoat and a hat, fit for daylight wear, at the
first Jew clothier's he could find. Freed from further popular
persecution, he fell back more doggedly than ever on his mel-
ancholy tramp, whither he knew not. On and on till the eun
was already on its downward course, and the turmoil of the
great town had reached its climax. Then he found that his
aimless wayfaring had brought him back to the land of clubs.

In an utterly prostrate condition he had just sufiicient
strength and wits left to crawl into his club and order some
food. But when it came, the very sight of it sickened him,
and the servants looked askance as he drearily ordered brandy
and ice, and drank immoderate quantities of the insidious
mixture.

Staggering to the smoking-room, he fell into the lap of the
first armchair, and sank back overpowered, his giddy brain
slowly revolving under the pulse of the only two thoughts left
in it — that he was a miserable, degraded, futureless man, and
that sleep was the only blessed thing in life — until suddenly
all sensation ceased and he was plunged in profound torpor.

The Middle Ages accepted as an adequate explanation of
many obscure mental phenomena the theory of unseen evil
spirits haunting the path of each human life, ever on the
alert to pounce upon their victim at the first sign of weakness,
and, when once it was fairly in their eager clutches, devoting
their demoniacal ingenuity to its utter perdition, until a
hitherto happy or blameless being was plunged in black de-
spair or reckless vice.

To such a familiar demon had George fallen a victim.

The voices of members broke his sleep, and instantly the
worry was upon him stronger than ever, clutching into his
heart, filling him with still more despairing inability to settle
a definite line of conduct.

He tried to sleep again ; a painful activity seized upon his
brain. He took up a paper and tried to read ; his mind was
paralyzed.

Presently, as if from an immense distance, his attention
was drawn to a paragraph he had been mechanically scanning
for some time. It concerned the suicide of an officer, and
gradually George's wandering faculties became fixed upon its
meaning. A young captain of Hussars, popular, well-to-do,
a favorite with men and comrades, believed by all to be in
the best of health, the best of circumstances, who seemed,
and with reason, up to the day of his vmaccountable action,
perfectly satisfied with his lot, had been discovered shot
through the head, under circumstances conclusively proving
that he had fallen by his own hand.

"Was he married?" wondered George, and read the para-

26 The Last Pipe of Tobacco*

graph again. There was no mention of a wife, and he put
down the paper with a sort of vague surprise. "What a fool
he was to kill himself !"

He took up a fashionable journal, and sighed impatiently
as he skimmed over strings of titles and lists of entertain-
ments; then the sensational heading, "Suicide of an Officer,"
leaped out of the page to his brooding eye once more. He
perused the second account with greater interest and deliber-
ation. It was more detailed, and dwelt with gusto on the
horror of the spectacle, the grief of relatives and friends, the
strangeness of the deed.

"He may have been married in secret — a low marriage, per-
haps !" thought George, working round again to his fix«d idea.

Well, if he were to leave this world, he must do it in an
orderly gentlemanly fashion; the affairs of his household
must be arranged ; his accounts paid ; his last directions writ-
ten down to the minutest item. It was an interesting, even
amusing, exercise for the irritated mind to think out the
proper manner of accomplishing this, and to picture the un-
impeachable, systematic state in which George Kerr's affairs
would be found after that gentleman's sudden demise.

Ballasted with a definite object for action he quitted the
club in a mood very different from that of an hour ago ; curi-
ously placid, gently sad, rather superior and benevolent
toward mankind, as befits one who now has it in his indis-
putable power to place himself beyond the reach of all earthly
disappointments.

CHAPTER V.

THE LAST PIPE OF TOBACCO.

With great deliberation he had himself shaved. Then he
hailed a cabriolet and drove off to his solicitor, from whom,
after a somewhat lengthy interview, he extracted a promise
to have forwarded to his house early next morning some
fifteen hundred pounds, drawn upon capital, and an exact
statement of his financial affairs. The man of law was filled
with the gloomy conviction that so large a sum could be
required in such a hurry for no other purpose than the de-
fraying of some gambling debts.

"I hope you mean to turn over a new leaf, Mr. George," he
said, somewhat severely, as his client rose to go. "Yours is
a tidy little property, but it will not stand many years of
this work."

The young man turned round from tha threshold with a

The Last Pipe of Tobacco. 37

pale and meaning smile. Oh, yes, he was going to turn over
a new leaf — that very day ! And still grimly smiling at the
thought, he jumped again into his cabriolet and gave the
driver the address of his own house.

His wife's little victoria was waiting at the door, and the
footman stood on the steps with a rug over his arm, gaping
at his master as the latter drew up.

A chill struck over George as once more he entered his
home, and was greeted by the ring of his wife's voice on the
stairs, raised in angry rebuke to her maid. Those angry,
overbearing tones which Carmen's voice — the music of which
had once been so sweet to him — could assume at times, had
been one of his first disenchantments.

In the midst of his self-centered cogitations he stood
amazed, aghast! Was it really possible? he asked himself
in utter bewilderment. Going out ! She was actually going
out, intent as ever on finery, admiration, amusement, a few
hours after what had happened, while he

The thought of what he was about to do rose before him,
vivid, specterlike. And he halted on the threshold of his
room, paralyzed in awful realization.

Another woman, with higher ideals, more refined organiza-
tion, would have been filled with contempt for the man who
could use such violence to a woman, were she not depressed
with shame and remorse for having brought so low the one
whose name she bore. But it was not so with George's wife.
When she had regained some calm, the thought of her hus-
band's passionate outbreak, ending in her own complete de-
feat and subjugation, was recalled as a stirring, novel experi-
ence— fearful, in a way, to look back upon, but not without
some wild savor.

In her self-conceit, she never doubted but that, for all his
threats, he loved her still; never doubted but that, although
she had angered him out of bounds, the moving spirit of that
Huger had been his mad passion for her. She would win him
back, now, by everj-- fascination and art she could devise. Oh,
the triumph of bringing once more to her feet the man who
had meant to kill her in his rage ! And again the joy to own
herself vanquished, and him the master, after all !

But as the hours wore on there was no sign of his re-
turn, and Carmen found herself standing by the window
watching every passing conveyance, starting at every bell
with her heart in her mouth, now angry, now frightened, now
on the point of tears. There arrived opportunely a new gown
from the dressmaker. She must try it on, and then she
would drive. She would be back in time to see George before
dinner. In a renewed access of good spirits she was pro-

28 The Last Pipe of Tobacco.

ceeding down the stairs to her carriage even as her husband
entered the house. '

His hand was on the door of the study when he heard the
rustle of her dress approaching. The sound conjured up a
swift bright vision of the past.

Down came Carmen, triumphant in the newest Paris
fashion. Perceiving her husband, she stopped short and gave
a faint cry. Then, with an effort, she descended slowly to
the foot of the stairs and paused again. She was pale, and,
as he saw, was trembling. Then, with a very forced smile:

"Well, George ?" she said, almost meekly.

Her whole behavior and appearance were as a terrible reve-
lation to his guilty conscience. She was afraid of him, poor
silly butterfly thing, fluttering along in the enjoyment of her
beauty and bright attire, to see her shrink from him like
that, and then pitiably try to conciliate him while she trem-
bled at the bare feeling of his proximity! It brought home
to him more than ever what he had done — laid his strong
hand in violence on a woman. With a sort of inward groan,
too bitter to find voice, he turned and rushed into his study,
leaving Carmen blankly staring at the closed door.

"He is still angry," she thought.

Then she boldly opened the door of his study and popped
her head in. His back was turned to her ; he was staring out
of the window. Something in the commonplace attitude gave
her courage.

"George!"

He turned round sharply and faced her — ^pale, silent, for-
bidding— looking at her with distant gaze. She stammered,
retreated, and finally, in desperation, assuming an airy tone,
which sounded hideously incongruous to his ears :

"Remember, we have people to dinner to-night, and after-
ward the opera. I'm going out now ; good-by."

He heard her hasty steps across the hall, the banging of the
house-door, and presently the sound of carriage-wheels roll-
ing away. Then he laughed aloud in bitter mockery of him-
self and her. Poor Carmen ! — unlucky woman !

"A pistol and one moment of firmness," he muttered. "Yes ;
that is the only way out of it."

He took down from a trophy a pair of richly-worked Span-
ish pistols, that of the old Don's wedding gifts which had best
pleased him, and tried the works one after another. But as
he considered their graceful shape and exquisite ornamenta-
tion before loading, a sneer came upon his lips.

"Bah ! they are too beautiful to be good for anything."

He replaced the weapons and unlocked a case of dueling

The Last Pipe of Tobacco. 29

pistols, hair-triggered, of the latest pattern; selected one,
loaded it carefully, and laid it on his writing table.

In this grim company he spent the next two hours, putting
order among his papers. Since, shortly after his marriage.
Carmen's incompetence had forced him to take upon himself
the management of the household, all bills and accounts,
whether for himself or his wife, were left in his room.
Everything was at hand, therefore, and, after some determined
work, in unimpeacheable order.

Then, after a long muse, he took out a copy of his will
and satisfied himself that matters lay even as he still wished.
The tenor of that document was of the simplest. All his
assets went to his wife, subject to some trifling legacies and
a bequest of a few thousands to his sister.

With the money that he expected the next morning, to be
employed according to his written instructions, he considered
that all debts could be settled, and the establishment broken
up without any of the lamentable confusion which generally
follows such a catastrophe as was going to happen in his
household.

And as to Carmen, did he not know her well enough to
foresee how she would take it all ? After the first shock, the
first scenes of hysterics and lamentations, she would not be
long before discovering some solace in her lot. She would
be free, the sole mistress of a pretty fortune, probably return
to Spain, marry again, and spend very happily the remainder
of this brief human existence.

"And so my last instant has come," he thought, dreamily
taking up the pistol, and slowly pushing the hair-trigger
back.

The sharp click struck disagreeably upon his jaded nerves,
and with a sort of revulsion he paused, but only for a mo-
ment.

His heart ceased beating, and he closed his eyes and gently
pulled the trigger.

In the silence of his awful expectation there fell the sound
of another sharp click — that was all.

George opened his eyes, dropped his hand and looked round,
faint and dazed.

So here he was, alive.

Heaving a deep sigh, and intensely irritated at the thought
of having experienced all this emotion uselessly, he rose, and
walked over to the window to examine his weapon. The
hammer had fallen to half-cock.

Very much oppressed, and again with a sickening sensa-
tion of faintness, he dashed up the casement and leaned out
for a breath of air. His groom was passing down the path

30 The Last Pipe of Tobacco.

toward the stables, puffing vigorously at a strong clay pipe.
A whiff of blue smoke floated across George's nostrils.

The smell of the tobacco brought a dimly soothing sensation
to his overstrained nerves. The grateful herb was an old
and trusty friend to him, and now the scent evoked a sudden
craving. He, too, would smoke a last pipe before leaving
this world.

A short clay was selected from the rack. This he filled
slowly and with an earnest countenance lighted it and sank
back in his favorite arm-chair, inhaling the sedative fragrance
and stretching his weary limbs.

He unconsciously enjoyed the luxury of complete relaxation
of mind. He had ceased to suffer, almost ceased to think;
his eyes listlessly followed the curls of blue vapor in their
fantastic rising through the air, while he mechanically puffed
what, to one in his condition, was the most beneficent of es-
sences. And thus by degrees he fell into that restful state
of day-dreaming when ideas meet each other and float vaguely
through the mind.

"If death be rest like this, then death is sweet indeed —
And so George Kerr is dead, poor fellow! Life is a dream,
changing, inconsistent, incomplete — of which the whole
meaning vanishes on waking. If the dream is pleasant, then
sleep on as long as possible; if it is painful, shake yourseK,
make one effort and wake."

And he turned his eyes lazily toward the pistol, and sagely
thought, "No hair-trigger this time !"

But he was so tired that he had not the heart to move, and
so remained passive, while again his thoughts wandered away
in the blue.

"And yet there are good things on earth, otherwise no
man could bear to live ; there are dreams within dreams ; how
few indeed the seeds that fall on congenial ground; how
rarely those souls meet who might live harmoniously to-
gether! Make one mistake, take one wrong turning, and a
whole life is spoiled. What use in experience, save to show
you, too late, what might have been avoided and the tram-
mels that never can be shaken off."

He puffed again ; the pipe was out. Regretfully he looked
at it, wondering whether he might indulge himself in an-
other; but the tobacco was beyond reach on the mantel-shelf;
the pistol was still farther away. He fell again to musing,
contemplating and weighing in his hand the tobacco-dyed
clay.

"I should have liked to go to India vnth the brave fellows
when they deal with those murderous devils."

Here he mad* an effort and got up ; not to fetch th* pistol.

The Last Pipe of Tobacco, 31

however, but — almost mechanically — to fill his pipe again.
"Pity I did not think of it a little sooner; perhaps I might
have worked it, and been even now with the old corps ; they
would have welcomed me back, no doubt." The new train
of thought, leading, as it did, away from present unpleasant
combinations, was a welcome one ; it was, therefore, with pro-
portionate irritation that he found himself recalled to the
actual ugly state of things by a discreet tap at the door, ac-
companied by a confidential cough, unmistakably proceeding
from the footman.

"Come in!" he cried savagely. "What the devil do you
want now?"

A fumbling at the handle reminded him that he had locked
himself in, and he strode across the room to remove the
obstacle.

"Beg pardon, sir," stammered the man, who entered with
visible embarrassment, which the sight of the open pistol-
case and its scattered contents considerably increased. "Mrs.
Kerr has come in, sir, and she sent me to remind you that
there is company to dinner to-night; and will you please to
give me the key of the cellar for to get out the champagne
and burgundy ?"

The message was a second and equally feeble attempt on
the part of Carmen to provoke an interview, if possible a
reconciliation ; but to George, full of his preconceived ideas,
it was but another gross impertinence.

His first movement was one of anger, but the next moment
a very different mood was upon him.

He burst out laughing. What a farce it all was ! He had
been going to shoot himself while she was thinking of the
champagne !

He turned to his desk for the keys, while his shoulders still
shook with vainly-suppressed laughter.

"Here you are," he cried good-naturedly, tossing the bunch
toward the man ; "and tell Mrs. Kerr I beg to be excused from
dinner."

That laugh did George good, and the soothing, grateful
fumes of his old friend had begun. What! was his melan-
choly madness really dissipating? He yawned and stretched
himself, and looked around the room.

He discovered that there must have been a thunderstorm
somewhere; for the brooding heat of the day was replaced by
invigorating freshness, the trees in the little garden dripped
with glistening rain drops, and there rose up a delicious scent
of damp verdure mingled with the vague fragrance of early
summer flowers.

For a few seconds the would-be suicide remained lost in

3a The Last Pipe of Tobacco.

mute enjoyment of the sunset hour, seconds during which the
mere fact of existence was sufficient for content. Then his
mind awoke to reflection.

Here a clatter of plates and glasses, as the footman passed
the door to lay the table in the adjoining room, recalled his
consideration to more sublunary matters — that he was him-
g^ry— prosaically, ravenously, absurdly hungry.

Calling out to the servant, he ordered some meat and bread
to be immediately brought up to his study, together with a
bottle of "that burgundy."

The man, delighted to see his master reverting to more
human instincts, and flattered by the unwonted familiarity,
hastened to lay the cloth on a card-table, which he covered
with a substantial spread.

George sat down with a serious but much less meditative
countenance, and opened immediate relations with the an-
cient bottle.

He was half-way through his repast when the sound of
people moving into the dining-room brought him back to the
sense of his incongruous position.

On the other side of that wall his wife was entertaining
guests whose names he did not even know, while he, the
master of the house — unnoticed, unmissed — ^partook of his
improvised meal in the solitude of the back chamber. ,

"Well," he communed with himself, "I have not shot my-
seK, after all, and it is perhaps a good thing; I am not going
to, either, that seems pretty certain." This, filling his third
glass. "Now what am I going to do? The state of affairs
that has so nearly made a corpse of me cannot be risked
again. No ; from this moment the sort of life I have led here
is over. I drink to a better one, whatever it is to be."

He rose from the table and again sought his arm-chair;
not to muse this time, but to reflect with all the earnestness
and intelligence of his eager mind on the possibility of start-
ing on a fresh journey in life, free and unhampered by a sin-
gle tie of the cM existence — alone in the world again.

George Kerr was dead. The chance thought was taking
root, and rapidly growing into shape. Why not let it b« so ?
It was BO fault of his if George Kerr's death was not an ac-
complished fact; but for the most unforeseen of hazards,
George would now be of this life no more.

Life in the future must be out of England; nay, across
the ocean. The old world was no place for his new career;
he must have fresh fields, fresh motives, a new birth, as it
were. Above all, he must be unknown.

"No one will miss me much. As to poor Susie, she is so
wrapped up in her parson and her chicks that, however she

The Last Pipe of Tobacco, 33

may fret at first, the hundred a year she will gain by my
death will be more useful to her than her good-for-nothing
brother."

He must choose some perfectly definite mode of death, and
so act as to appear to the most critical to have perished
thereby. Death by drowning, then, alone, could answer his
purpose and excite no suspicion. An accident, a boat on the
river — better still, at sea ; body lost, but boat recovered.

It was best, too, that for the world at large his demise
should have the appearance of being accidental.

He would be poor, of course ; but, with the money to arrive
next morning from the solicitors, rich enough for his energy.
What a happy thing had been that quixotic notion of his to
leave his widow so large a sum in hand !

Satisfied with the arrangement of matters so far, he emp-
tied his bottle with much relish, and went out to develop,
under the silent trees of Berkeley Square, in so far as was
now possible, the most minute details of his scheme. Later
in the evening he returned with every particular clearly set-
tled in his head.

Tired out by all the harassing emotions and fatigue of the
last twenty-four hours, he flung himself on a camp-bed in
his dressing-room, and slept heavily and dreamlessly till
morning.

It was nearly midnight when Carmen returned from the
theatre. The maid, who waited in her room, longing for the
hour of her release to bed, heard lootsteps coming up the
stairs — so heavy, wearied, lagging, she could scarcely believe
that they were those of her mistress, who was wont to trip in
so lightly.

Still more surprised was she to mark the depression of
manner, the strange gentleness, unprecedented in the usually
irascible Spaniard. In all the time she had been in Mrs.
Kerr's service she had never known that mood.

When the duties for the night were accomplished, and she
was about to retire. Carmen called her back.

"Mr. Kerr," she said, with a slight hesitation, "is he out ?"

"Oh no, madam !" retorted the maid cheerfully. "Mr. Kerr
has gone to bed in his dressing-room, and has not stirred
since eleven."

Carmen tossed her head and flushed.

"There, that will do," she said sharply. 'TLeave me."

Alone, she stamped her foot with the petulance of a
thwarted child; then she knocked a chair down, coughed,
rustled her dress — all in vain.

She bent her pretty ear to listen at the door; nothing but
the sound of the regular breathing within broke the stillness.

34 The Seafoam Birth of David Fargus.

The daylong effort of acting indifference had tired her.
She had no wish to thwart him more; she would be humble.
She only wanted to be forgiven, but a strange diffidence kept
her from him. lie had dined by himself in his room, he
had retired without seeing her, and was now sleeping — sleep-
ing while she cried.

Now and then she would hold her breath and again listen.
Surely George would hear her, would feel she was miserable,
ay, that she was repentant, and he would hasten to her, over-
come with remorse; with the old tenderness, the old caresses,
she now yearned for so passionately.

At last, in an agony of sobs, burying her face in the pillow
to shut out the darkness of her solitude, she cried herself to
sleep.

On what trivial events does the course of a whole life de-
pend.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEAFOAM BIRTH OF DAVID FARGUS.

Early in the afternoon of the next day George entered the
Old Quebec Hotel, Portsmouth. That old-fashioned and dingy
hostelry was associated in his mind with the brightest epoch
of his life. Here, new to the delights of his new-found in-
dependence, to the soul-stirring prospect of active service,
he had spent the night previous to his embarkation for the
Crimea in the company of a brace of ensigns recently joined
like himself.

But it was from no sentimental attachment to the past
that, at so critical a moment, he chose to return to that well-
remembered haunt, but because its position at the entrance of
the harbor was best suited to his plans.

After depositing his luggage and ordering a good dinner to
be ready in an hour's time, he sauntered along the quay of
the Camber toward the Logs to look for and engage a likely
craft for his strange purpose.

An ancient mariner instantly woke up to the prospect of
business.

"Nice evening for a sail, sir. Tidy little boat there of
mine; take you round the harbor in no time."

"Which is your boat?" asked George, pausing; then,
thoughtfully surveying the one indicated, which in truth
seemed as good as any he would be likely to find: "Do you
think it coi^d take me across to the island to-night and bring
me back to-morrow momipg?"

The Seafoam Birth of David Fargus. 35

"Couldn't find a better sailing boat in the harbor. I'll
bring her round in a jiffy."

"Stop a minute, my man !" cried George ; "I can't start for
a couple of hours at least; but if you will take her round to
the harbor about six o'clock you may come and fetch me at
the Quebec."

"Right, sir, shall I bring my son to look after the boat ?"

"I want no one. I shall sail her myself."

"Well, you see, sir "

"Well, my good man, I fear your boat will not suit me if
you object to trusting it to me. I want particularly to be
alone; and if I can manage a boat myself, I can pay for it,
too!"

"All right, sir, all right! No offense; I only want to
oblige; some gents like to have a man to mind the, boat. I
shall have her round at six. Good-day, sir."

George returned to his hotel and ate his dinner with the
consciousness of one who knows that his physical energies will
soon be severely taxed ; drank his pint of port, then repaired
to his own room and seated himself on the sill of the bow-
window to ruminate. _

And so this was the last day — indeed, the last few hours —
that remained to him to spend under the old personality.
That night George Kerr would sink to the bottom of the sea
and disappear forever from the list of English subjects, while
in the room of that unlucky being would rise one David
Fargus. David Fargus, for the nonce passenger to the New
World ; where to in particular the future to decide.

That morning, in London, he had risen early and ordered
the astonished James to pack up, noiselessly so as not to wake
Mrs. Kerr, the few necessaries sufficient for a couple of days'
outing. Before leaving the house he had withdrawn a hmi-
dred pounds from the money that Perkins, faithful to his
promise, had already sent by a confidential messenger, and
placed that sum in an envelope, together with his written
directions that all his personal debts, as per list inclosed,
should be paid therewith. To this he had further attached his
solicitor's statement, addressed the whole to his wife, and left
it in the drawer of his writing-table.

The remainder of the notes, with all the loose cash he had
in the house, he had taken with him. Having thus finally
settled everything to his satisfaction, he had driven to the
station, stopping, however on his way, at a suitable shop to
purchase a certain bag of water-tight material, which was to
play an important part in his scheme of supposed accidental
death.

This bag he now took out of his portmanteau and care*

36 The Seafoam Birth of David Fargus.

fully packed with a complete suit of clothes and change of
linen, towels, etc., not forgetting a flask of old brandy. All
these articles together barely half filled it, but he nevertheless
tied the mouth with minute precautions.

"There 1 it is water-tight, I hope. Rather heavy, but it will
float easily enough ; it might even play the part of a life-buoy
on emergency," thought he, as he mentally compared its
weight with its bulk. Then, spreading out a quantity of
banknotes, gold, and silver, on the table, he proceeded to
count :

"One thousand three hundred and ninety poimds notes;
seven pound ten gold ; eleven and seven pence small cash — the
capital of David Fargus, Esquire ; about equal to one year of
George Kerr's income. Not much, perhaps; but more than
enough for that valiant soldier of fortune !"

The notes were carefully wrapped in oiled silk, and, to-
gether with the cash and his watch, placed in a money-belt
which he wore next to the skin.

These preparations finished, he took out some note-paper
with his crest and address, sat down to the writing table, and,
after a few minutes' reflection, indited his last letter to his
wife:

"The Quebec Hotel, Portsmouth..

"Carmen: After what happened two nights ago," so ran
the docimient, "you will hardly be astonished at, nor, I sup-
pose, regret, the step which I have taken. Life with you has
become impossible. Your behavior is such as no man could
ever forgive. But I am too sick at heart even to wish to
punish you, and since, as you said yourself on that eventful
night when J was able fully to understand your true character,
you would lose your position in the eyes of the world — that
was all you thought of — if I sent you away from me, I have
taken all my measures to prevent reproach falling on you.

"Every one will believe in the 'accident' you will hear of.

"I leave you to seek your happiness in the path you have
chosen; you are now mistress of your own life, but you may
thank your fate that we have no children, or I could not thus
give you your liberty and the untrammeled possession of my
fortune. Fare you well. Carmen ; I make you no reproaches ;
at the moment of parting forever they would be idle. I hope
sincerely that you may still find happiness on earth, though
you could not find it with me. George Kerr."

"P. S. — I left my last directions with a sum of money in the
drawer of my writing table."

The old resentment had burned within him hotly as he
wrote, and as he read the letter over it did not strike him as

The Seafoam Birth of David Fargus, 37

too harsh. Directing it to Charles street, he sealed it care-
fully with his signet-ring and went out to post it himself.

As he returned he found his boatman waiting for him, this
time in a very conciliating mood.

The sack, carefully concealed in the folds of a great-coat so
as to look like a bundle of rugs, George carried himself to the
boat, then shoved off, set his sail, and, under the breath of a
fresh northeast breeze, nimbly slid away on his curious expe-
dition, while the boat proprietor gazed after him with a
critical air and condescending approval of the manner in
which the Londoner steered and tacked, until the boat
rounded Block House Point and disappeared.

The solitary sail at the sunset hour on that superb road-
stead, so typical of England's greatness, was impressive and
melancholy. And George felt the sadness of it all steal round
his young heart.

"What! qualms already, David Fargus? This will hardly
do when the hour for action is so near, and we have to kill the
body of George Kerr and to effect the transmigration of his
soul into your personality."

His scheme was tolerably complete already, and during the
long hours he had to cruise about Spithead, waiting for dark-
ness to set in, there was ample opportunity to settle all details
and adapt them to the topographical requirements of the case.

"Yes," thought George, as he turned the boat toward the
glowing west," that patch, for instance, where the gorse creeps
down almost to the water's edge, would not be bad. Nearly
equidistant between the two coast-guards' huts, too. Ah, yes;
hereabout must be the watery grave of George Kerr.

Yet another hour to wait and the tide would turn outward —
so said the calendar — while the moon would not rise before
ten. At the turn of the tide, therefore, should the plunge
be taken.

The tide which he waited for would take the boat, when
left to herself, sufficiently far out to sea to afford no indica-
tion of the place of the supposed accident.

At length the nine strokes of the hour floated away on the
wings of the night air from some old church-steeple, and
George nerved himself for his critical task.

His boots and clothes, strapped into a tight parcel and
weighted, were dropped overboard. When he had ascertained
that they had duly sunk, he threw the buoyant bag on the
water, felt if his money-belt was secure, placed his foot on the
gunwale, and noiselessly capsized his craft.

The icy mantle had hardly closed round his shoulders when
he began to wish he had sailed in closer to the shore before
paaking the plunge.

$8 The Seafoam Birth of David Fargus.

He breasted the dark waves with methodical vigor, all his
energy, mental and physical, fixed upon the task. Yet the
twenty minutes he had allowed himself as its outside duration
elapsed, and he did not seem to have advanced much closer
to the somber line that represented the coast.

In the old times George had excelled in swimming, as in
most forms of athleticism, but the lazy life led since his mar-
riage, and especially the worry and fatigue of the last days,
had lowered his powers more than he could suspect. After
another immense effort to increase his pace, he felt, with
horror, that his strength was giving way. At length, but
some twenty yards from the shore, he ceased to make any
headway, at all, and floated helplessly at the m.ercy of the
current.

The time he had alloted for the ordeal had already merged
into twice its length, the periods of deadly oblivion were grow-
ing more frequent, more prolonged ; had it not been for this
buoyant bag, to which, all unconsciously, he clung with vmre-
laxing grasp, it is more than probable that David Fargus'
career would have proved a short one indeed. But all at once
a sharp pain in the knees recalled his wandering senses. The
conflicting tides, which at that part run parallel to the shore,
had brought him far away from his intended landing-point;
but friendly they had been, and had thrown him on the strand
at last.

The joy of feeling the solid earth again, and the violent
pain in his limbs, restored his waning energy; he gathered
together all his strength for one last exertion and struggled up
on the beach.

Shivering, almost palsied; for, colder even than the water,
every pulse of the breeze cut into his benumbed nakedness
like a knife ; he staggered along the shingle in search of some
sheltering nook, fearful of awakening the attention of chance
watchers — coastguards or sentries — for, towering on his right,
rose, black against the starry sky, the walls of old Fort Monck-
ton.

As he expected, he came upon a suitable nook at the head of
the Kaponier, offering all imaginable advantages under the
circumstances; a screen from the blast, and especially from
the inquisitiveness of any flying sentry who might take it into
his head to cast a glance over the parapet ; and, what was not
to be despised by a man numbed almost to rigidity, steps to sit
upon.

Painfully opening the faithful bag with stiffened fingers,
he first brought out the flask and took a long draught of its
contents, which coursed through his system like fire, and
gave a welcome fillip to the exhausted heart j then, wonder-

The Rev. Hillyard Gamers Documents. 39

fully invigorated, found his towels and fell to rubbing him-
self with increasing energy, and so gradually brought some
warmer movement into his circulation.

"And now the transmigration is effected!" His spirits
mounted to a sense of triumph in the glow of reaction — and
felt as though it were indeed a new life pulsing through his
veins. "Here is David Fargus, risen, like a son of Neptune,
from the foam of the sea, drying his dripping hair in the
darkest comer of an antiquated piece of fortification — a
quaint birthplace, truly!"

By this time he was dressed in the rough blue suit he had
provided for himself, with light shoes on his feet and a yacht-
ing cap on his head. He folded his life-saving bag, pocketed
his flask, and clambered gayly again on to the glacis.

Making straight for the lights of the little village of Alver-
stoke, through the gorse, he soon came upon a hedged lane,
which, upon inquiry of a passer-by, he learned led to the high-
road. This he tramped vigorously along, avoiding the town
for fear of some remote possibility of recognition.

Three days later the brave steamship Columhia was cleaving
through the waters of Southampton Harbor, outward bound.

Smoking his pipe on the fore-deck and perusing with much
interest the graphic account given by some local paper of the
melancholy death by drowning of one Mr. G. Kerr, of Lon-
don, sat Mr. David Fargus, second-class passenger to Vera
Cruz.

CHAPTER VII.

THE REV. ROBERT HILLYARD GARNERS DOCUMENTS.

The Rev. Robert Hillyard sat in his study apparently read-
ing, in reality brooding over the difficulties of adapting a
small income to the requirements of a large family, when
Susie came into the room, her pretty worn face full of trouble,
the last baby on her arm, and an open letter in her hand.

"Please read it, Robert," she said in a trembling voice. "I
am afraid something is wrong."

Then she put the baby on the floor to creep, cast herself
down on a chair, stretched out her arms over her husband's
desk, and broke into tears and sobs.

Her George! her darling George!

The curate kindly laid his thin hand on her sunny hair, and
kept it there while he read the letter, characteristically, with-
out stopping to ask her for an explanation.

It was written in a wild, irregular hand, and worded so con-

40 the Rev. Hillyard Garners Documents.

fusedly that he had to peruse it twice over before he could
gather any definite meaning therefrom.

"I write to you," it began abruptly, "because I do not- know
who else to turn to, or what to do. Your brother George has
left me, and he says he means to kill himself. I am the most
miserable and guilty of women. Come at once and I will show
you the dreadful letter. You will perhaps know what to do.
If George is dead, you will say it is my fault. I know I have
done wrong, but God is my witness how I now repent.
"Your distracted and unhappy sister,

"Carmen."

The curate put the letter carefully in his pocket, and turned
to his wife with a few words of comfort.

Pitying her suspense, he formed the prompt decision of tak-
ing the next train to town and ascertaining himself the state
of affairs. This, and the hope that matters were really not
so bad as they might seem, did a little to stop the flow of
Susie's tears.

Then she had to pack a bag for the curate and get him
something to eat before he started, and collect all their avail-
able funds to give him — very little it was ; such a journey was
to them a terrible outlay. As soon as this was accomplished,
and she stood by her husband's chair, watching him hastily
swallow his poor meal, she had recovered her usual calm
exterior.

"Robert," she said hesitatingly, "what does she mean by
guilty?"

"We cannot tell, my dear," said the curate gently; then he
kissed her and walked off to the station.

When some three hours later he stopped before the little
green door of 3a Charles street, and glanced at the bright
boxes of geranium in the windows, the red blinds, the fresh
paint on the walls, he could not help contrasting in his own
mind the gay outward appearance of the house with the
tragedy he expected to hear of within its walls.

His first act was to walk to the window and pull up the
blinds, regardless of the figure reclining on the sofa, which at
his entrance had immediately raised a handkerchief to its
eyes and given vent to a faint sob. He was determined to
fulfill the unpleasant task he had taken upon himself to the
best of his power.

He took a chair and sat down beside her. The vision of
almost startling beauty she presented to his gaze, heightened
rather than obscured by the sweeping folds of black lace vnth
which she was enveloped, failed to strike him otherwise than
again unfavorably. Nevertheless, his tone was kind as he ad-

The Rev. Hillyard Garners Documents. 41

dressed her, although the sense of the terrible importance of
the hour filled it with a solemnity which alarmed her.

"Mrs. Kerr," he said, "I have come to see how I can help
you ; but, if you wish me to be able to be of any real use, you
must tell me everything without reserve. Have you heard
nothing of George since the letter you wrote about, and which
contained such a terrible threat?"

Carmen shook her head without speaking.

"Then I must see this letter first of all ; where is it ?"

She pointed to an envelope on her dressing-table.

Mr. Hillyard took it and went to the window, where he
perused its contents with a face which grew sterner every
moment, while Carmen watched him apprehensively and felt
her fears increasing to positive terror.

After a pause Mr. Hillyard turned slowly round and looked
at her with a searching condemning gaze.

"There can be no doubt, Mrs. Kerr, that your husband
accuses you of conduct which has driven him to contemplate
suicide. Let us hope, in God's mercy, that he has stopped on
the brink of such a crime, though he seems to be terribly in
earnest. When did you receive this letter?"

"The day before yesterday."

"And you have done nothing — sent no one after him?
This letter is dated Portsmouth ; why did you not go there
yourself ? a timely effort on your part might have averted the
calamity; he even gave you his address; how do you know
that he may not have been almost hoping for some explanation
— an act of repentance from you ? At least you might have
written instantly to his elder brother or to us."

"I don't know; I did not know what to do. I thought
George would be sure to come back; that he wanted to
frighten me. But I have heard nothing since; oh! what shall
I do?"

The curate leaned against the chimney-piece, wondering
indeed what could be done now. He contrasted in his mind
the unfortunate young husband, flying, as he thought, a dis-
honored home, with the resolve of not surviving his shame,
and the guilty wife, lounging on her cushions by the fire in
comparative apathy.

It was, therefore, in a hard tone that, after a lengthy pause,
he requested her to narrate exactly the events which had led to
this climax, and with a great deal of impatient incredulity
that he listened to Carmen's limited view of the whole affair.
That any young man should threaten to destroy himself
merely because he did not like living in London was too pre-
posterous an idea to be entertained for a minute; such, how-
ever, was the gist of her narrative, for the simple reason that

42 The Rev. Hillyard Gamers Documents.

she herself was incapable of seeing any deeper motive in their
periodical altercations. And as she recapitulated them her
natural combativeness gradually assumed the mastery. The
very querulousness of her tone more than ever convinced him
that this woman must indeed be guilty of some unavowed
misbehavior.

With great indignation he at length got up, and, holding out
the letter and angrily tapping it with his foiger :

"In my opinion, Mrs. Kerr," he cried, "your conduct is
inexpressibly shocking. With this letter before you — the last,
probably, that the man to whom you have joined your life
before God will ever have written, and in which, indeed, his
principal thought seems to be that of sparing you merited
sorrow and shame — you can still give way to these recrimina-
tions, hedge yourself in this useless reserve. All that you told
me is perfectly inadequate to explain the despair of my poor
Susie's brother, once the gayest, the most open-hearted fellow
that ever lived ! At your own call I have come to help you,
and to help him, if it be God's will ; but this I insist on — it is
indispensable to success — ^you must tell me the offense your
husband distinctly accuses you of. My character as a gentle-
men and a clergyman ought to satisfy yon that any confidence
will be sacred, and that I shall comply with George's generous
wish that you should be spared all exposure."

At these words, at what she thought was wilful and insult-
ing misapprehension, the anger which had been gathering in
Carmen's heart during the last minutes burst forth.

She glared at him fiercely, and, getting up in her turn,
"Mr. Hillyard," she cried, "I did beg for help from a friend,
but you would come here as a priest. You are no priest in
my eyes. I have nothing to tell you. Under the hypocritical
pretense of helping me in my dreadful trouble, you would
merely try to worm out secrets that have no existence. Why
did not Susie come? She would not be so cruel; she would
have advised me and consoled me. But since you will do
nothing but insult me, you may leave me !"

She sank back on her sofa, sulking, while the curate, be-
wildered, stood wondering whether he was indeed making a
grievous mistake, or if the woman before him was really the
commonplace sinner he had imagined.

Be it as it might, he resolved to waste no further time in
fruitless endeavors to obtain reason and assistance from her,
but to devote all his energies to the task of finding out for
himself what coiiM be done in this desperate case.

A knock at the door stopped him as he was about to take his
leave. The maid entered with a letter, which Carmen seized,

The Rev. Hillyard Garners Documents. 43

opened and read with dilated eyes. All color fled from her
cheeks ; she fell on her knees with a wild scream.

"It is true !" she sobbed. "He is dead ! And he said it was
I who forced him to do it. . . . What does it mean ? Oh,
my beautiful George ! can you prefer death to me ?"

With worst forebodings, Mr. Hillyard picked up and read
the letter, which ran thus:

"The Quebec Hotel, Portsmouth.
"Sir or Madam: A gentleman, who gave his name as G.
Kerr, and whose portmanteau bore the address we now send
this letter to, came to this hotel on Wednesday afternoon last.
After dinner he went out alone, in a sailing boat, announcing
his intention to sail over to Ryde and return the next morn-
ing. The next day, however, the boat in which he had gone
out was discovered some distance out at sea capsized. It is
greatly feared — indeed, it is only too probable — that the un-
fortunate young gentleman has met with a fatal accident, as
nothing has been heard of him since.

"His luggage is still in our possession, and we should be
much obliged by receiving instructions as to what we are to
do with it. The proprietor of the boat also has a claim for
damage and salvage money.

"We are, Sir or Madam,

"Your obedient servants,

"Lambkin Brothers.

"To the Occupier of No. 3a Charles street,
"Berkeley Square, London."

This communication removed any hope or doubt; an acci-
dent which has been announced by the victim in one letter,
and related by witnesses in another, is but too palpably an
accomplished suicide. The curate looked at Carmen ; she was
rocking herself backward and forward in an agony of tears.
To him this passionate sorrow, following on her anger and
previous apathy, was almost incomprehensible; yet he was
touched with pity.

"Mrs. Kerr," he said more gently, as he placed George's
letter and that of the landlord in his pocket-book, "I shall
immediately go down to Portsmouth myself and see what can
be done. I regret that any reproof of mine should have added
to your misery at such a moment. The best, the only thing I
think of to help you now, is to take on myself the responsi-
bility of investigating matters and carrying out George's last
wishes. Therefore, as he mentioned in his letter to you a
packet containing directions and money to be found in his
study, I ask your permission to take it. I shall render you
later an account of the trust."

44 The Rev. Hillyard Gamers Documents.

But seeing that he spoke to deaf ears, that the poor creature-
was incapable of comprehending, even of listening to him,
Mr. Hillyard, thinking it cruel to abandon her in such a con-
dition to the mercy of servants, resolved to pen a hurried let-
ter to Susie before leaving the house.

"Darling Wife (he wrote) : I fear the bad news is but too
true; I am just off to Portsmouth, where the dreadful affair
has taken place. Useless to bid you hope. Your sister seems
in a terrible plight. I cannot make her out ; but the one thing
is certain, that she wants help and consolation. Might you
not come up and see her through it ? I leave all this to you."

He rang the bell, and gave the letter to be posted at once.
Then, opening George's desk, he took possession of the papers
indicated and hurried away to the station.

It was very late that night when he arrived at Portsmouth ;
he was received with much satisfaction at the Quebec, where,
no better tidings awaited him. "The gentleman was surely
drowned, though his body might never be found in such a
tideway."

The next day he had an interview with the boatman, and
was still further confirmed in the theory of premeditation by
the old man's account of the manner in which George had in-
sisted on starting alone on his ill-fated expedition. As a wit-
ness at the subsequent official inquiry, Mr. Hillyard easily
reconciled it with his conscience to keep in the background
all he knew of the real nature of the accident, and the verdict
found was, in consequence, of "Death by misadventure."

Having satisfied all claims at Portsmouth, Mr. Hillyard
returned to London and went to the solicitor, with whom he
had a consultation.

He found Susie at Charles street, unremitting in her atten-
tions to her sister-in-law, whose violent grief was no doubt
sincere, and whose miserable condition removed all harsh feel-
ings from Mrs. Hillyard's heart.

George's will was read, all debts were paid, and the an-
nouncement of his death by accident inserted in the Times.

The next thing to be setted was Carmen's future. One of
Mr. Hillyard's first acts on arriving at Portsmouth had been
to write to Mr. William Kerr, informing him of all he knew,
and asking for his advice. He was too well acquainted with
the family pride of the Kerrs not to feel sure that the squire
would be more anxious even than himself to keep secret the
true cause of his brother's death. But although he did not
anticipate much help from that quarter, he was nevertheless
siirprised at the utter want of feeling displayed in the answer
which was delivered to him next evening at Charles street:

Unlooked-for Legacy of George Kerr. 45

"My Dear Robert : I have just received your letter of the
17th inst., informing me of my step-brother's miserable end.
Inexpressibly shocking as such news must be to me, I can
hardly say that I am surprised. Neither am I willing to
undertake any responsibility whatsoever in the matter.

"When my step-brother contracted his undesirable alliance
I forbid all intercourse between him and us. I owe it to my-
self to persist in this course. As to his widow, I have never
recognized her, and I do not wish even to inquire into the
details of her conduct. I regret for your own sake that you
should have allowed your good-nature to draw you into this
disgraceful business. "Yous sincerely,

"William Kerr (of Gilham)."

All Mr. Hillyard's manly and benevolent feelings were
roused by this narrow-minded brutality, and he irmnediately
offered the shelter of his own house to Carmen, who, how-
ever, declined to avail herself of it, announcing her intention
to return to her father as soon as she possibly could, and press-
ing the moment of departure with feverish haste.

In a couple of days more the Hillyards returned to their
quiet home. After dinner, as they sat together in their little
dining-room, Susie observed to her husband, with a certain
diffidence, "Do you know, dear, I don't think that poor woman
is so much to blame as you seem to. She is but a child in
mind. I believe her worst sin has been her utter inability to
enter into an Englishman's life, especially poor George's."

Robert Hillyard answered nothing; he looked very grave,
and put down untasted the glass he was raising to his lips.
For nothing in the world would he have dispelled Susie's
oiharitable innocence. As she looked at him wistfully, wait-
ing for his verdict, he merely kissed her tenderly, and said,
"I wish there were more women like you, darling."

CHAPTER Vin.

UNLOOKED-FOR LEGACY OF GEORGE KERR.

May again ; a bright fresh morning, with dappled blue sky
— ^just such a day as that which had seen the transmigration
of George Kerr's soul into the person of David Faxgus, three
years ago.

Gazing from the other side of the pavement at a certain
deserted-looking little house, in Charles street, Mayfair, by
pumber 3a, apparently absorb^ in the contemplation of an

46 Unlooked-for Legacy of George Kerr.

agent's advertisement, which adorned the ground-floor win-
dows, stood a man whose still young face, hardened and
weather-beaten, gave token of other than home experiences.

At length, rousing himself from deep abstraction, with the
air of one who takes a sudden resolve, he crossed the street
and rang the bell. A melancholy looking woman of the genus
caretaker opened the door, after a somewhat lengthy delay,
and requested him to state his business.

"I see this house is to be let furnished, I should like to go
over it." The refined voice was in curious contrast with the
unfashionable attire ; the woman hesitated, and measured him
slowly with her eye. Had he an agent's card ?

No ; the stranger had been merely struck with the house as
he passed by. It did not matter.

"Well, I suppose it won't make much odds for once. 'Ouse
is a nice 'ouse; I'll bring you through it."

She led the way, and he followed across a small tiled hall
into a room on the right.

"This is the smoking-room," she said, and fell into an atti-
tude of patient waiting.

The visitor gazed about him with a sort of dreamy wonder.
With the dust and grime of town upon everything, changed
though they were for the worse, every item of the surround-
ings was painfully familiar. He laid his hand on the oaken
writing-table with a lingering touch. The caretaker looked
at him with unintelligent wonder, and he awoke from his
dream of bygone days.

"Who does this house belong to — now ?"

"It belongs now to Sir Reginald Vere, sir; he bought it,
furniture and all, from the former howner," she answered
glibly enough. "That is to say on that gentleman's death ; it
was a regular tragedy, I've heard tell — for he committed
suicide! Oh, it wasn't here, sir! But the 'ouse is a nice
'ouse, and I can't say as I have found it haunted."

She stopped and dragged a dirty forefinger through the dust
of the table beside her.

"Sir Reginald Vere, he didn't seem to care for it, somehow,"
she continued, after a slight pause, encouraged by her visitor's
silent look of inquiry, "and the tradespeople say as how Mrs.
Kerr, that's the widow of the gentleman as made away with
himself, couldn't get out of it soon enough — though that's not
surprising, considering she had his death on her conscience.
She went to Spain, she did. I've heard them say she was a
queer one. Anyhow, she took on av^ful — cried herself ill, she
did. They say she used to scream o' nights that his ghost
had come back. But I can only say / haven't seen him, an4
I've slept here alone these twelve months now."

Unlooked-for Legacy of George Kerr. 47

But here the stranger inteiTupted the slow, monotonous
trickle of words.

"I do not think I need trouble you to go up-stairs ; I have
seen enough, thank you."

The woman watched him as he strode away with dull satis-
faction.

"I would never say anything against the place, though I
think the 'ouse is a nice 'ouse, and ten shilling's a week is ten
shillings a week. But who would have thought a big strong
man like that would be frightened away by the fear of
ghosts !"

So Carmen had grieved; the theory of his death had been
sown broadcast, and she had borne the odium of it and the
sorrow.

Were it even only for ever so short a time, were she per-
haps now happy, consoled, as glad of George Kerr's death as
was David Fargus, he could never atone for the wrong he had
done her.

Conscience smote him keenly; failure seemed to breathe
upon his brilliant scheme. Ah, how harsh had been that last
letter of his! He had not thought of her enough. What a
memory for the solitary woman in the watches of the night,
when she had screamed at her own sick fancy ! He could not-
regret his liberty, but it would forever be embittered by the
thought of this.

And, as he wound toward his hotel, the whole future and
past seemed now to assume a different aspect, and new plans
began to agitate his mind.

Everything had prospered with David Fargus up to this.
The three years spent in Mexico, Central America, and the
Southern States had been full of daring enterprises, as con-
genial to his high energy as they had proved profitable to his
material welfare. He had not known during their lapse one
single moment of regret or an instant of the old distaste of
life.

But on his arrival at Liverpool, something in the very air
of the country — in cloudy sky and narrow horizons, as the
express flew Londonward with him through the green bosom
of the land — had dashed the exuberance of his spirits. The
sight of the little house, and a sullen depth of anger against
his wife, a feeling he had believed dead with the old self, had
stirred within him strangely. On hearing of her grief for
him the revulsion of feeling had been all the stronger for the
hardness of these thoughts.

It seemed to him, with that hot impulsiveness of his — of
which David Fargus had to the full as large a share as George
Kerr — as if he could never again taste peace till he had seen

48 Unlooked-for Legacy of George Kerr,

with his own eyes what had become of the woman he had
abandoned in gayety of heart and misjudged in all sincerity.
She had gone to Seville. Well, Seville was as easy a place for
David Fargus to reach as London had been; and with his
usual decisiveness the original plan of an English tour was
abandoned in favor of instant departure for Spain.

A fortnight later the diligence from Cadiz deposited, for the
third time in his life, George Kerr, or, rather, his alias, with-
in the gates of the eighth marvel of the world.

Thirty years ago it was still considered advisable for trav-
elers, whose knowledge of "things of Spain" was sufficient to
bear out the disguise, to conform to the dress of the country;
David Fargus's life in Spanish America had sufficiently fa-
miliarized him with that swaggering indolence, that careless,
amiable self-confidence, supposed to be specially characteris-
tic of the majo.

Therefore it was a very creditable Andaluz that emerged
from the Cadiz diligence, clad in brown velvet, silver-but-
toned jacket and embroidered leathejLgaiters, with silken sash
binding his lithe waist, clean-shaven, but for a small bunch
of scientifically darkened whiskers on each cheek-bone, and
the indispensable black cape, brilliantly lined inside, care-
lessly thrown over his shoulder, many a well-favored cigar-
maid — good judge in such matters — cast, as she hurried by
from the tobacco factory, a provoking look at him from the
bold languor of her eyes.

His first care was to reconnoiter the familiar neighborhood
of Don Atanasio's house. In those days private houses of the
middle class were generally ready to supplement their in-
come by the reception of "guests ;" and the same evening he
had found and engaged a ground-floor room, the window of
which commanded a view of that very gateway which was
such a historic landmark in his life. A pure Havana to the
host, a pretty compliment to the wife and daughter, and he
was at home in his new quarters. His Spanish was sufficiently
fluent to support the volunteered information that he was an
American from the Southern States, who had lived much in
Spanish lands.

Spaniards are, as a rule, reticent on the subject of their
private affairs. It concerned nobody that the guest should
spend his mornings with unvarying regularity in watching
some opposite house from his grated window; that of an
afternoon he should take post on the shadow side of the street,
"embossed" in his cape, puffing at the eternal cigarette, wait-
ing patiently for a glimpse of a well-known figure. There is
always a sufficiency of neat ankles and roguish eyes in Seville
to justify such an occupation.

Unlooked-for Legacy of George Kerr. 49

Yet the days dawned and closed without bringing any re-
sult. True, Don Atanasio and his wife passed daily under
his eyes, walking devoutly to mass of a morning, or setting
forth on the sunset drive — but they were always alone ; and it
smote the watcher with an odd feeling of guiltiness to mark
how aged they had become. Few people came to the old
house, and after a few days he knew them all by sight. But
of the beautiful form he had loved and hated, he saw not.

At the end of a week he began to despair of success and
was meditating some method of carrying on his search in a
less guarded manner, when the problem was solved in a way
he had never contemplated.

It was early in the day ; bringing in one hand the matutinal
cup of chocolate, surmounted with a roll of whitest bread, and
in the other a basket of dazzling linen — for your true Span-
iard prides himself especially on matters of cuff and shirt-
front — his host had just entered the room. Depositing the
basket on the bed and the breakfast on the sill of the win-
dow, he paused for a few minutes' social chat with his guest,
who, at the moment, stood leisurely lathering his chin with
his fingers preparatory to a clean shave.

"It will be a hot day, senor, for the bull-fight. Chiclana
will do it from the chair to-day."

"Indeed," said the presumed American.

The host refolded a Government cigarette.

"Yes, senor. I have never been in your country, and I
should say you would hardly ever have seen the like of him.
We, in Seville, never have since Montes, and never shall
again." This was conclusive.

But somehow or other his listener did not seem so interested
as he should have been in this momentous topic; he was all
absorbed in looking at a woman who now emerged from the
gated portal of the house opposite, leading with tenderest care
a tottering little child. Half-way across the street she looked
up and he recognized Dona Concepcion's face, transfigured by
an anxious, tender smile.

Following his visitor's intent gaze, the landlord came close
behind him to look out over his shoulder with good-humored
3uriosity, pufiing at the same time a rich fragrance of garlic
upon him.

"Aha !" he cried ; "so the little one is better to-day, and going
out for a walk. Jesul Maria! how doting the grandmother
is!"

The grandmother! Carmen was an only child. She had
married again, then! Well, he was glad her grief had not
proved so overpowering, after all.

"It is a pretty child," he said, after a pause, resuming his

50 Unlooked-for Legacy of George Kerr.

shaving operation with elaborate indifference. "Whose is it?
You say the old lady is the grandmother."

**Yes, senor, and the little chap is the light of her old age.
He lives with the old couple in that great house yonder. Ah,
it is a sad story !"

David Fargus passed the razor over his soapy cheek, while
his ear was bent to listen in keen suspense. Leaning against
the wall and unrolling another cigarette to make it afresh, the
Spaniard proceeded:

"Well, senor, Don Atanasio de Ayala's daughter, who lived
in that house, as pretty a girl she was as any in Seville — and
you must know Seville has the prettiest in the world — ^mar-
ried, some years ago, an Englishman. Many wondered, at
Don Atanasio for permitting it. In this case, at all events, it
did not prosper. A year later the poor young lady returned
here, a widow. The townsfolk talked much about it here in
Seville; she was well known for her beauty. Some said the
Engishman was killed; some that there was an accident.
Anyhow, he had gone where heretics go, and she, in widow's
black, with a face white as a sheet, the image of dolor, and
yet still so lovely that people stopped in the streets to see her
pass. But it is said she could not get her spirits up again.
You should have heard her sing; many a time we listened
from here; it would have made a paving-stone glad. She
was always ailing and fretting, and not even the thought of
the little one to come could draw a smile from her, and so she
had no strength left. A month before the Easter following
she died — of that pretty little boy you saw there. It was
thought the old ones would have died, too — never was seen
such grief; but they had to live for the pohrecito. No won-
der the grandmother dotes upon him. I am glad he is better.
I must not chatter so while you shave."

The American had dropped his razor, and was gazing, open-
mouthed, at space — a deep red streak lengthening down his
chin.

He started to a remembrance of his position, and seizing
a towel, buried his face in it under pretense of stanching the
blood, but in reality to hide the pallor he felt upon him. And
then some one within impatiently summoned his host away,
to his great relief.

He fell into a chair in an agony of thought. Carmen
dead ! — ^the child-wife he remembered to the last as the very
incarnation of youthful strength. She had returned to her
old home, mourning for the man who had so selfishly deserted
her; returned, believing herself a widow, to die herself — to
die in giving life to his son !

He hid his face. The clever scheme, what was it but cow-

Unlooked-for Legacy of George Kerr. 51

ardly, despicable, hideously selfish? And then the child!
O God, what a miserable chaos it all was ! That last terrible
scene between himself and the willful creature he had meant
to subjugate came back to mind now with glaring vividness !

And he who had abandoned his wife must now abandon
their child — ay, must. So skillfully had he encompassed the
death of his old self that any other course would be impossible.
For the boy's own interest it was best so, perhaps. The
child's fortune was well assured — it would accumulate during
his minority. He would be brought up a Spaniard — ^that was
possibly again an advantage for him; it is easy to enjoy life
in that sunny land, away from the constant battling for dis-
tinction, which is the bane of an Englishman's existence. He
must remain forever dead to his child as he was to the whole
world.

After a long battle with himself, he rose and rapidly fin-
ished dressing. As soon as he had seen the entry of his
son's birth in the town registers, satisfied himself of the truth
of the piteous story, that chapter of his life would indeed be
closed forever. And afterward, his one desire was to fly as
soon as possible from the place.

At the Casa di Ayuntamiento he found that the simplest
plan was to ask for anxattested copy of the birth of the child,
giving himself out as a distant relation of the family anxious
to verify the fact. With the help of a graciously-offered
gratuity and a well-turned apology he obtained, without too
much delay, the desired document, which bore witness to the
entrance into this world on March 22, 1858, of one Luis Jorge
Kerr y Ayala, son of D. Jorge Kerr, of London, England, de-
ceased, and of Dona Carmen Maria Concepcion de Ayala y
Quevedo, of Seville, his wife.

The many friends David Fargus had made during his three
years' life in the New World remarked a change in him when
he again returned among them. It was in no very marked
way, perhaps, that he was altered; the pleasant manner, the
indomitable energy were still the same; but an infectious
careless light-heartedness, a certain boyish spring that had
made him such a favorite with them, seemed to have gone
from him, to give way to a premature sedateness of manner.
There was no moroseness about him, he was still a genial com-
panion; but his laugh was more tardy, and the ring of his
song and jest was heard no more round the camp-fire.

PART II.
DAVID FARGUS.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL.

Twenty-five years had elapsed since the imperfect play of a
hair-trigger, while it marked the decaying hour of the frivo-
lous, brilliant existence of Carmen Kerr, became the starting
event of a new and vigorous career for one David Fargus.
His had been on the whole a fine life since then — a life of
active independence which had stamped its character of de-
cision and self-reliance upon him.

In his hale middle age, while his body was scarcely past
its prime, his mind had but reached its full power. His was a
mind destined of its innate excellence to profit peculiarly by
the improving influence of years and experience — all quali-
ties which render a man easy and pleasant of access and in-
creasingly fascinating in intercourse.

His personality, too, had, under his new name, become
famous in his adopted country.

On his first return to the New World, at the time when the
Seceder's resistance to the ideas of the North was waxing ever
fiercer, he was just in the mood to throw himself heart and
soul into any great national movement, in the hope of losing
the haunting entity of his former self.

The interest, moreover, of that many-sided question was
deep enough in itself to engross a young man of romantic and
chivalric tendency, and he naturally ended by attaching him-
self unreservedly to the Seceders' cause.

It could not be long before his special value as a leader of
men made itself felt among the Confederates, and it was at
the head of a corps of those unparalleled Southern Horsemen
that he finally acquired the renown which students of military
history have learned to associate with the name of Colonel
Fargus, Stuart's lieutenant and alter ego.

A shoulder lacerated by a splinter of shell during the mas-

On the Other Side of the Hill. 53

terly retreat of the last day of Gettysbtirg, and the great scar
on. the right cheek — the work of a half -warded Federal
bayonet in that fatal encounter — ^were the sole mementos of
his own personal dangers.

But at this period of his vigorous maturity David Fargus,
seemingly the most successful of men, with nearly every desire
of his hot youth realized, and, according to the common idea,
without a care in the world, came suddenly, as it were, to a
standstill in his prosperous career, and confessed to himself
that it was not enough.

In the journey of life the beginning of the third score in a
man's years is to him as the crest of the mountain's range to
the explorer. The ascent may have been arduous, but the
traveler was fresh and eager ; the day increased in brightness
as he went on, the horizon expanded — ahead was the goal.
Once reached, however, there comes a change; the wayfarer
has lost his keenness ; there are, it may be, scenes more beau-
tiful than he ha.s yet beheld, but at every step the prospect
grows restricted, the world is darkening, the lonely wanderer
feels his energy slowly but surely give way to a yearning for
home and rest.

Years and their memories had gathered on his head — ^not so
many, nor yet so heavily, as to bring any foretaste of old age
with them, but enough to make him think more of the past
and look less to the future. The change which always comes
over a man's views and desires when it strikes home to him
that he is done with the ascending portion of his life, had be^
gun to show itself to him in an indefinite but haunting regret
for the land of his youth.

On an expedition — connected, it is true, with some impor-
tant speculation, but undertaken principally with a view to
seeking in physical fatigue and mental labor the recovery
of his wonted placidity — he was suddenly laid low somewhere
out of the civilized beats by a severe fever. His vigorous
frame repelled the onslaught with little loss of power, but
five nights of bodily anguish left their mark upon him.

The first time he found himself again in "a city," where he
could confront a looking-glass, he was startled to notice sun-
dry flashes of silver about his temples and mustache. This
was the first obtrusive sign of the advancing age he had been
given to speculating about of late — the reality, beginning of
the end.

Before so very long, then, he must resign himself to being
"an old man."

Abstractedly gazing at the keen-featured image before him,
he fell into a painful meditation. At the worst of his recent
fever a rough comrade, who had tended him in that shanty

54 On the Other Side of the Hill.

where he lay, with faithful devotion, had one 3ultry, tempest-
threatened night entertained grave doubts of his patient's
recovery. It was in the darkest watch of those hours as the
fever-stricken man lay trembling between consciousness and
delirium — his pulse at its highest, burning with dry, scorch-
ing heat; had it not been for the rain at dawn — who knows ? —
he might now be lying under the red clay In that dreary
waste, with a ruggedly-hewed stone, or, perhaps, not even
that, to mark the grave of David Fargus. Staring at the
twitching fingers, the ceaselessly tossing head, his sick-nurse
had removed his pipe and delivered himself of the following
remark :

"I reckon. Colonel, if you wish to add a codicil or two to
your last will and testament, you had better jot them down
at once. Pity your folks ain't here I"

The brutal phrase had remained in his mind, and now it
came back with a revealing sense of his own absolute lone-
liness.

Friends he had in plenty; but a relative, his own flesh and
blood — David Fargus, the lonely bachelor, owned none such
on earth. Ah ! but George Kerr ? He had had kindred. ~^he
sturdy young generation, springing from the old tree, would
have been something to be proud of now. George Kerr had
had a brave little sister ; they had loved each other with the
tenderness born of childish associations, of the best and
purest part of life. Poor Susie!

And then there rose a vision of another child-face, a baby-
face with great dark eyes and an aureole of yellow hair, and
though resolutely forced in the background of his mind, never
forgotten, and he had never so much as touched him!

At the end of so many years it was strange how the thought
of the child disturbed him. He must now be a grown man, if
he still lived. After all, what did it matter were he alive or
dead? It was but another fortunate creature spared the evil
of existence. What reason had he to expect the boy to have
escaped the taint of the life he had himself condemned
him to?

The boy came from a good stock on both sides — ^who could
tell ? He might have developed into the sort of man fathers
are proud to own.

But man, who can rule an empire, has little power to con-
trol the small realm of his own brain ; he may lead an army of
thousands, but he is impotent to quell absolutely a single per-
sistent idea.

By degrees, the determination taking root, he discovered
himself, almjost with surprise, making actual preparations for
departure, and devising various schemes for tracing his rela-

The First Link — A Golden One. 55

tives, and perchance, playing the part of beneficent genie in
their lives.

This resolve once come to, a definite object again before
him, his trouble of mind disappeared.

And thus, on a certain June morning in 1881, he found
himself once more on the way to the old country, and in that
state of freedom from ties and trammels which had remained
for David Fargus one of the necessities of existence.

Now, as he stood on the quarter-deck of the Cunarder
bound for home, and watched the shores of his adopted coun-
try slowly recede and fade into the horizon, the anithetical
nature of his present errand, compared with his first crossing
of the ocean, gave a kind of solenmity to the occasion. How
different the spirit in which he was now setting out in mature
age — on a venture as uncertain, as myseriously attractive, as
that which had started his second self !

But as the days rolled by and the proud ship plowed her
way through the salt furrows — every minute, every throb
bringing him nearer to his desire — though his interest in the
enterprise became more absorbing, the first sanguine glow of
expectation gradually faded.

Men who have seen and done much in life remain seldom
long sanguine, and David Fargus, while determining his
course of action, kept rigidly before his mind the possibility
of the unknown son being after all, dead, or, if alive, un-
worthy.

But he had not been in London more than a few days — a
delay inevitable for the arrangement of his monetary affairs,
and actively spent in settling the same — ^when one of those
strokes of luck which are, after all, more frequent in life than
pessimists would have us believe, saved him a long and useless
journey.

CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST LINK — A GOLDEN ONE.

It was on the very evening before his intended departure.

Waiting in the drawing-room of the Naval and Military —
most comfortable of London clubs — for the appearance of the
friend whose guest at dinner he was to be; Fargus was ab-
sently perusing some Service weekly paper, when, under the
rubric "Furloughs to England," he came across a name which
instantly arrested his wandering attention.

Fargus found his gaze riveted on the small-type paragraph :
"L. G. Kerr, — th Dragoon Guards." Aud when his host

56

The First Link— A Golden One.

entered and introduced the fellow-guests collected to do honor
to the American celebrity, Fargus had to make an effort to
shake off a spell of deep abstraction.

So the young generation kept up the old traditions of
devoting their life's energy to the country's service. This
unknown Dragoon Guard, L. G. Kerr, seemed to loom in the
background of every subject of conversation, and engrossed
much of the attention which should have been bestowed on the
exceptional cookery and select vintages provided for the guest
of the evening by a true connoisseur.

Was he nephew or cousin, or a more distant scion of the
dear old family? G. stood for George, of course. It was a
favorite name among the Kerrs. But L.? What did L.
stand for? Where could he have seen those two letters in
conjunction that they should seem so strangely familiar?
L. G. — ^Lionel George, Lawrence, or Lewis? Lewis . . .
Luis!

"Colonel Fai^us, you are eating nothing. Waiter, give
Colonel Fargus some more wine."

With a hand that shook in very unwonted fashion, David
Fargus straightway drained the refilled beaker. Lewis
George! why, those were the names that had formed the
refrain to his thoughts for the last month! Lewis George,
or, rather, as the Spanish had it, Luis Jorge, the name of that
white-faced babe. Carmen's child.

"Yes, as you say. Major Fraser, nowhere in the world does
one drink a better glass of champagne than in England — the
mother country as we call her — and I have traveled a good
deal . . ." And so the dinner wore its dreary length till
its close.

Colonel Fargus' host was reaping the usual bitter reward
of inviting a lion to partake of his hospitality, with the hid-
den purpose of making it roar for the entertainment of his
friends. The best effort of the chef, the Perier-Jouet '74, the
most delicate turning of the conversation to well-remembered
subjects, were all in vain. The Colonel was abstracted, spoke
with an effort, and in that most convivial of hours, after a
good dinner, left the '47 port untasted merely to toy vtdth the
olives on his plate.

Nor in the smoking-room did matters improve." Puffing
mechanically at the superb Laranaga, chosen for his especial
delectation with such minute care. Colonel Fargus sat cross-
legged in his deep arm-chair, and let his eyes roam dreamily
round the room. All at once he rose, and, addressing his host
with the well-remembered and peculiarly charming smile that
would have been sufficient to remove impressions even more
unsatisfactory, "Excuse me," he said; "I see an Army List

The First Link — A Golden One. 57

yonder. I have a reason for wishing to consult one — ^the fate
of an old friend I am anxious about. May I look at it for a
moment ?"

The disappointed entertainer gave the required permission
with all the good grace he could muster, and watched his
guest's proceedings with a certain curiosity.

Fargus withdrew to some little distance from the group, and
holding the book under the light of the lamp on the chimney-
piece with one hand, rapidly turned over the pages with the
other. Presently he started violently, and then became ab-
sorbed in the contemplation of one page for such a lengthy
period that Major Fraser lost patience, turned his back upon
him and gave him up as hopeless, to devote himself to his
other guests.

But the celebrated Southern was, for the moment. Colonel
David Fargus, the American, no more. He was George Kerr,
English, of England's best blood, and he had a son who was a
soldier of the old country. "Lewis George Ayala Kerr.
Born March, 1858." Ay, that was the date, not the shadow of
a doubt — there he was, even if the Spanish name beside the
English ones had not been proof sufficient. **Gazetted from
the R. M. C. in July, 1878, to the — th Dragoon Guards."
In three years the young man had seen service enough to
warrant the pride that swelled the father's heart as, when
sufficiently recovered from the first bewilderment of his dis-
covery, he noticed the crossed swords before the names and
turned to the War Service references. "Attached to Sir H.
Gough's Cavalry Brigade in Afghanistan; present at the
march from Kabul to Kandahar." And again : "Attached to
the — th Regiment in the Transvaal." Truly a goodly record
for so short a time!

Fargus closed the book, and with a curious smile on his
face, a bright, far-off look in his eyes, returned to the smok-
ing circle and joined in the conversation. And now he talked
enough to satisfy all the expectations of host and guests.

But over and above the exchange of words, the interlacing
of ideas and sound wisdom, born of his own warlike ex-
perience, with which he delivered himself anent the misman-
aged, disastrous, and bloody business of the Boer campaign,
were surging private brain-pictures of the little dark-eyed
boy he had seen but once ; the child who was now an English
soldier — and a dashing one, since he had been twice allowed to
see service away from his regiment — an English horse soldier
in that glorious old corps that for two centuries upheld the
prestige of English valor in Spain, in Flanders, in France, the
Crimea, India. With the remembrance of its noble motto
there came before his mind the gallant sight of heavy horse

58

The First Link— A Golden One.

as they had dashed past the Highland Brigade to scatter the
distant swarming mass of Russians on the morning of Bala-
klava. With what envy, what enthusiasm he, the beardless
ensign, had watched them as they rushed to the front ! And
his deserted boy was one of those! It was a novel and deli-
cate emotion to think, all of a sudden, with a sense of pride,
of the son he had abandond.

In accordance with his new schemes, the very next day
found the American alighting among the yellow sands, the
heather, the fragrant pines of Sandhurst, and wending his
way through that picturesque corner of Hampshire, which
meets Surrey and Berkshire.

Skirting the placid lake, hemmed in by greenwood and
timber, on one side of which the mature students of the Staff
College master the more recondite mysteries of warfare, while,
on the other, downy-lipped cadets wrestle with its rudiments,
he walked up the broad gravel road leading to the Grecian
portico of the Military College, and quietly enjoyed his
thoughts and his cigar.

And he paused for a few moments, drawing pleasure from
the fancied vision of his son among those eager polo-players
that were just now careering in wild confusion on the football
plot. The father's curiosity was not devoid of anxiety as he
made his way over to a much be-medaled staff-sergeant, who
was standing under the portico, and realized with a strange
mixture of feelings that, for the very first time, he was about
to speak to some one who must have known his son.

Accosting the veteran, he went straight to the point, with a
simplicity that robbed the errand of half its strangeness.

A young gentleman, by name Lewis G. Kerr, whom he had
reason to be interested in, had been through the College three
years back. He was most desirous for some information con-
cerning him.

The sergeant-major glanced sharply at the speaker; then,
after a second's hesitation, touched his cap and professed
himself both able and willing to assist him.

"There was a Mr. Kerr here, sir, some years ago. I remem-
ber him well. He was gazetted to the — th Dragoon Guards,
I believe. Out in India now. He was a fine young gentle-
man, liked by most. If you will come with me, I can find out
a bit more about him for you, from the back registers."

And acquiescing, Fargus was piloted through long, echoing
passages to the adjutant's office, where the register in question
was soon produced.

"Here you are, sir, Kerr, L. G., Gentleman Cadet, Uni-
versity Candidate, B. A., Edin. Born in Seville, Spain, 12
March, 1858 — he had a bit of a foreign way with him, too,

The First Link— A Golden One. 59

now I think of it, though he did not like to have it said of
him — son of George Kerr, Esq., late — th Highlanders, de-
ceased. Educated Edinburgh University; Trinity College,
Cambridge. London address : Staples Inn, H olborn. Ga-
zetted— and so on. Is that the young gentleman you wanted
to hear about?"

Fargus nodded silently, drew out his note-book, and care-
fully jotted down the memoranda. "A scholar, too! How
well the lad has got on !"

"You say you remember him well, sergeant-major?" he
went on aloud, in his quiet voice, as, the business completed,
they turned away and strolled again toward the parade-
ground.

"Yes, sir, very well. A smart young gentleman ; good drill ;
good at gymnastics and games. I remember him throwing
the hammer, Highland fashion — not running, as they do here
— no one could come near him at that. I am a Scotchman
myself, sir, and I have never seen it better done — so was the
instructor, too, for the matter of that, but Mr. Kerr beat
him."

The visitor had lit another cigar, and now stood on the
steps of the portico, slowly puffing blue smoke and abstracted-
ly gazing into space. The old sergeant, who, finding that the
more good he narrated of the quondam cadet the more the
stranger's face brightened, now warmed perceptibly to the
work of airing his reminiscences, and, after a pause for ap-
proval, took a fresh start.

"Good at book work, too, I believe ; but that had not much
to say to things in that year, for they bundled out all the
young gentlemen at the end of their first term; we thought
we were going to fight the Russians once more, as you
know, sir."

Fargus looked down at his informant's breast, and noticed
on the broad expanse of the staff tunic the green-edged pink
ribbon and the curly Crimean clasps — honorable badges he
had himself been entitled to of old.

"It was cold work in those trenches there, was it not ?" he
said, indicating the decoration with a significant gesture;
"I — that is, I have some old friends who went through it all.
What regiment were you in ?"

"It is curious, sir, but I was in the — ^th, the very regiment
this Mr. Kerr's father belonged to. I think that was what
made the young gentleman take to me first. On parade it
is not a question of choice. Many and many is the talk we
have had about the old times. Not that I could tell him
much about his father, for I was not in his company, and
I scarcely recollect him, save that he was a finely set-up

6o The First Link— A Golden One.

young officer and wild like. But Mr. Kerr that was here,
he would come and get me to talk of Iiim and of our doings ;
he seemed never to tire of hearing me speak about his father,
little as it was I could say, though he never even saw him
himself, as he told me. Yes, sir, he was a nice young gentle-
man, and steady — as young gentlemen go."

Here was a link in the lengthening chain — a golden one.
The boy had not been brought up in ignorance of or indiffer-
ence to the father who died to him before he saw the light.
Discoveries such as these, made with facility now that he
had the proper clew, seemed to bridge over the dark abyss
of time.

"Well, I am really much obliged to you."

"Don't mention it, sir. Thank you, sir" — dexterously slip-
ping into his pocket the sovereign which the visitor pressed
into his white-gloved palm. You are a relative of the young
gentleman, I suppose, if I may make so bold ?"

"No," answered Fargus dreamily, after a pause; "his
father — I knew his father well in my young days. I am only
a friend — a well-wisher to the son."

The veteran eyed him investigatingly.

"Perhaps you would like to see his likeness. Each batch of
young gentlemen have themselves taken regularly in York
Town. They are so pleased when th^ first get into their
uniforms, you know. It is just over the road, sir. I can
show you the way."

It was evidently a happy thought, for the stranger accepted
the proposal with alacrity.

Sergeant-Major Short would have been more than human
if his curiosity had not been thoroughly aroused. Having
conducted his interlocutor to the photographer's door, he re-
tired into the shade of a neighboring public-house to watch
his further proceedings.

After a while the stranger emerged from the studio, and
walked very slowly along the road leading to the station. He
held a small card in his hand which he seemed to contemplate
from every point of view with absorbing interest.

With such notes as Fargus now carried his further course
was one of very plain sailing. The same afternoon he pushed
as far as Cambridge, and the next morning, beneath the July
sunshine, saw him strolling down the majestic, but at this
vacation time deserted. King's Parade toward the well-re-
membered Gothic archway of that noble college which had
known so many generations of Kerrs.

The head porter was soon forthcoming, and at his courteous
request condescended to show the stranger over the venerable

The ^irst Link— A Golden One. 61

institution, little wotting how familiar every stone rose before
his gaze.

Cambridge was a more likely place for Lewis Kerr to re-
visit on his return home than Sandhurst, and David Fargus
deemed it prudent to adopt more devious methods of inquiry
than in his previous voyage of investigation. He therefore
suffered himself to be conducted tourist fashion through
dining-hall, library and chapel; he admired, criticised, and
wondered, and finally succeeded in producing in his decorous
guide the desired loquacity. It was easy to get him on the
subject of generations of students, and a not unnatural tran-
sition to mention, as an instance, a certain family — the Kerrs
of Gilham — ^whom the tourist had known in days gone by.

Yes, there had been some at Trinity to his own knowledge.
But there were none now. No ; there had not been any since
a Mr. L. G. Kerr; and that was four or five years ago. He
(with some disgust) had left before his degree — had gone, it
seemed, into the army. He could not say if he was of the
family the gentleman had known — they came from Yorkshire.
This Mr. Kerr used to go there, now he remembered, by the
way, with his cousin, Mr. Hillyard, a lecturer at one of the
colleges, very highly thought of in the University. Perhaps
the inquirer knew him? No; well, he was away now, any-
how; Gilham, he believed, the name of the place was.

David Fargus seized with avidity upon this first piece of
news. So, despite the squire's enmity, the posthumous son
had after all been made welcome, and acknowledged in the
old home. The great man waived the trivial personality of
the youthful undergraduate — B. A. though he was of some
Scotch University or other, he had left before his degree — an
act of obvious folly, for he might have made a career at the
University.

It was with a feeling almost of tenderness that he stepped
into the small green-paneled room, with mullioned ogee win-
dows looking over the old court — the rooms where his boy
had passed so important a part of his life, and which, by a
pleasing coincidence, were situate on the same stairs as those
where George Kerr had spent his short and profitless spell of
University life. Then the caressing thought came that per-
haps there was more than mere coincidence, that the boy had
probably found out where his unknown father lived, and had
taken a sentimental interest in establishing himself near the
place.

After a short conversation on general topics, undertaken
with a view to draw the other's attention from the subject of
his inquiries, Fargus thanked him and took his leave.

But he failed not to stop at the first bookseller's and pur-

62 More Links in the Golden Chain.

chase the reference books of the required date. Here he
found information which amply compensated him for his lack
of success with the lofty head-porter.

That evening Fargus ate his solitary dinner to the accom-
paniment of many pleasant thoughts. '

Before leaving the table he drew the photograph from his
poeketbook, and gazed at it long and with keen scrutiny ; then
he filled his glass to the brim and drank, with a mental toast,
to the original.

CHAPTER III.

MORE LINKS IN THE GOLDEN CHAIN.

"Pending the boy's arrival in England," had thought Fer-
gus, while maturing his plans at Cambridge, *1 may as well
carry on my investigations at Gilham."

To do so without betraying himself or his purpose only re-
quired a little management. The most direct way was, if
possible, to settle within convenient distance of the Court for
a few months; this accomplished, he would be, in some re-
spects, even more fortiinately situated than the best supported
detective, having the advantage of really belonging to the
society he intended to mix with.

Glancing through a list of suitable residences in that part
of the Riding which is associated with Gilham, the familiar
name of Widley Grange arrested his attention. Widley
Grange — the "Lone Grange," as it was popularly called — the
very place!

This was the very place for him, and he soon closed an en-
gagement with the agents.

The house was, in its old-fashioned way, in solid repair,
and furnished comfortably enough. The local agent had, at
his request, engaged two reliable female servants, suflSciently
past their prime for a bachelor establishment; and he had
secured for himself in London a competent factotimi, des-
tined to act as coachman and valet, and with recommenda-
tions high enough to warrant the corresponding altitude of
salary. To this discreet and capable person he intrusted the
installment of his luggage, the choice of the few rooms to be
inhabited out of the numerous and rambling suites, and the
general preparation of house and stables. He himself re-
mained a few days longer in town to settle private points of
business — among these one which had cost him many hours
of anxious deliberation.

He was too much alive to the risk of missing his son, de-

More Links in the Golden Chain, 63

spite the elaborate and plausible scheme by means of which
he meant to come across him naturally, to leave such a con-
tingency unprovided against, and there seemed to be but
one safe way out of the difficulty. Finally, though not at
first without repugnance, he entered into negotiations with
one of the more respectable private inquiry offices, where he
obtained the services of a trustworthy agent, who was to
watch for the arrival in England of a certain subaltern of
dragoons, and to furnish a daily report of his subsequent
movements.

Satisfied on this important point, Fargus took the road
again to enter upon the possession of his little estate and
commence the operations which were to bring him once more
into contact with his next of kin.

He was much attracted by the aspect of the ancient dwell-
ing-place and the wild beauty of its surroundings when he
now beheld them after so many years. And the familiar
coat of arms, weather-beaten and defaced by time, on the
crumbling key-stone over the hall door, made him feel, for
the first time after his long wanderings, as if he had come
home at last.

His newly discovered attendant received him with the re-
spectful confidential greeting of an old retainer.

"I hope you will approve of my arrangements, sir. You
see, the bedroom for yourself next to the visitor's room, as
you ordered; the dining-room and the study according to
your directions. The kitchens and the female servants' rooms
are quite at the other end of the house. I myself occupy a
room over the stables."

Fargus looked round the large beam-ceiled, wainscoted hall
allotted to him as study with decided approval. With a smile
of commendation he noted the odds and ends of the best fur-
niture sagaciously collected from different parts of the house,
and the trophies of heterogeneous weapons he had accumulat-
ed during many wanderings arranged on one side of the
mantelpiece, not without a show of experience, to balance the
rack containing guns, rifles and rods, on the other. Opening
out of this "study" were the two curious, irregularly shaped
bedrooms, with climbing roses peeping in at the windows, and
full of the sweetness of the old-fashioned flowers in the
neglected garden beyond.

On the threshold of that destined for "the guest" Fargus
again paused. K things prospered him, here he might one
day hope to harbor his son.

"Yes, Turner, everything is as I wish; you could not have
done better."

The new habitat was, moreover, thoroughly congenial to

64 More Links in the Golden Chain.

his tastes; it was sin^larly in harmony with his present pur-
suit; he could remain as long as necessary, look about him
without exciting comments, and on occasion dispense hos-
pitality.

Two days after his arrival, on returning from a ride to
the local town, he found that his first visitor had called:
Major-General Woldham, Woldham Hall, as testified the
card.

Well, it was even better, perhaps to make his first appear-
ance in county society elsewhere than at the Court itself;
and there could be no more favorable opening than this.
After a due lapse of time, he rode forth to return the call.

There are no spots in the kingdom where the special beauty
of prosperous English scenery combines more harmoniously
with undisturbed associations of the past than in Gilham
and its neighborhood. Woldham Hall itself, albeit a building
of no pretentious dimensions, is oae of the most perfect
specimens of fifteenth-century half-timber — so-called black
and white — houses now extant. With its gables and bay
windows, latticed casements, its oaken panels and ceilings,
stairs and galleries, and the wondrous fancy of the black
timbering on its white plaster-work, this ideal mansion rests
with quiet but conscious pride between a tenderly nursed
terrace lawn on one side — the velvet-nap bowling-green of
former days, bounded now by a flower-grown baluster where,
in less secure times, the moat ran its sluggish course — and on
the other a luxuriant demesne of orchards, rose and kitchen
gardens, hothouses and shrubberies, which encompasses and
screens with pleasant motley growth such marring adjuncts
as offices and stable yards.

David Fargus, turning from the white dust and glare of
the highroad into the cool green shadiness of the grounds,
promptly fell a victim to the temptation, and started across
the short tuft at a hard canter. But arrived at the clump of
fir-trees which he had thought must mark the part of the
avenue he aimed at, he found he had lost his bearing, and
was about to retrace his way, when a deep-mouthed, inter-
rogatory, menacious bark made him rein in his horse and look
in the direction whence the challenge seemed to proceed.

Here a graceful picture met his ^es; a tall girl, whose
bright brown head was bared to the snmmer breeze, whose
shapely figure, clad in white, detached itself vividly from the
somber background, stood leaning against the trunk of a giant
fir. Her clear large eyes looked with quiet inquiry at the
intruder; one slender, buff-gauntleted hand was twined re-
strainingly round the neck of a large retriever, who, sabl^

More Links in the Golden Chain. 65

coated, quivering with defiance, stood ready to spring for-
ward in his mistress' defense.

For a moment, bathed in the full splendor of the sun, Far-
gus, curbing his impatient mount with firm hand, paUsed to
enjoy this unexpected vision. Then, uncovering himself, and
bowing, with the ceremonious courtesy habitual to him, he
advanced a little closer on his dancing bay, and addressed
her:

"I fear I am a tresspasser," he said, looking down at her
with the grave eyes that lent a touch of melancholy to his
smile; "I must beg your forgiveness for this intrusion; the
thick turf was so tempting, and I was rash enough to try a
short-cut to the house. General Woldham kindly called on
me, at Widley Grange," he added, as a sort of self-introduc-
tion. *'I hope I may find him at home ?"

The girl, returning his gaze with an easy directness charm-
ing in its modest absence of self -consciousness, answered,
smiling back:

"I am Maude Woldham — ^my father is out driving; but he
cannot be long now." Her voice was singularly harmonious,
and it fell pleasantly on the exile's ear. Then she added,
releasing the retriever, who, satisfied that his interference
was no longer needed, bounded up to make friendly acquaint-
ance with the horse :

"But will you not come up to the house? Mr. Fargus, is
it not?"

Bowing acquiescence, he accepted the offer.

"I must show you the way," said she, laying one hand on
the satin-smooth neck of the horse. "No; pray do not dis-
mount. I like walking fast, and I am sure your horse hates
being led — I know mine does."

The frankness of her manner, the maidenly freedom of her
wide-set gray eyes, the delightful ease of movement with
which she stepped over the uneven ground and bravely kept
up with the steed's impatient gait — all this compelled Far-
gus' interest and admiration.

His fair conductress brought him round by the stables,
modern in their irreproachable neatness, while delightful in
their carefully restored antiquity ; here, at her call, clear and
true as a silver bell, appeared a white-haired groom to take
the visitor's horse; then they proceeded together into the
great, cool hall — in summer-time the usual sitting-room —
the wide doors of which were open all day to the flower-
scented air and to all comers.

A smiling butler, ancient like the groom, promptly api)eared
with a silver tray laden with tea and other good things; Far-
fU8 sat down and looked, around with increasing content—-

66 More Links in the Golden Chain.

everything was homelike, hospitable, simple with the sim-
plicity which only the most perfect refinement can produce.
The old hall, all oak from floor to ceiling; the bowls of roses
on the carved tables, darkened and polished by age alone; the
girl in her young, warm-blooded beauty, and the old house,
fitting in with the time-honored surroimdings while gracefully
contrasting with them — it all formed an attractive picture of
English home-life at its best.

On her side, Maude Woldham, as she poured the yellow
cream into his cup and cut the home-made cake, observed
her new acquaintance with a little wonder and a good deal
of approval.

"Yours is a wonderful mansion!" said Fargus, taking his
cup from her slender hand, sunburnt over its whiteness with
delicate amber. "Apart from its actual beauty, there is that
ideal charm of old associations and memories which fail us
so completely in our surroundings. We Americans who are
unpractical enough to hanker after such things have to seek
them in the mother-country — and lovely she is to us."

"I am glad you like our country," answered the girl, with
kindling cheek and eye; "and still more that you like my
home. I love it — every stick and stone of the old place is
dear to me. You cannot think what a relief it was to come
back to it after three months in London." Then, glancing
at him curiously and a little shyly, "I did not know, how-
ever, that Americans were ever unpractical," she added with
a mischievous smile.

"I can hardly lay claim to being the typical Jonathan," re-
torted Fargus, smiling too; "and America is a large place,
you know. I come from the South, where practicality is
scarcely the predominant national virtue."

"How do you like the Grange ?"

"Better and better every day. I congratulate myself on
having been fortunate enough to secure it."

"And have you made out your relatives ?"

"I have made them out right enough," said Fargus slowly.
"I could claim kinship, I believe, with no less a person than
the squire. By the way, I like the homely fashion in which
every one hereabouts talks of Mr. Kerr as 'the squire,' just as
your father, I hear, is *the general.' But I am certainly not
going to do so. I prefer standing alone too well."

"So you are kin to the squire," Maude said musingly.
"Well, I think you are quite right in not caring to claim the
connection. Have you seen your landlord yet? horrid old
man !"

"Then I may infer the Kfrr family does not find favor in
your eyesi"

More Links in the Golden Chain. 67

"The Kerr family? I did not say the family. Oh, Lady
Gwendolin was charming, and Susie — dear Susie Hillyard, I
loved her.

"She was the squire's half-sister," continued Maude. "Mr.
Hillyard was the Rector of Gilham for five years; that was
how I knew them. Susie was like a mother to me. Her
death was the first sorrow I ever knew."

"So she is dead ?" said Fargus, after a long pause.

"She died last year, only six months after her husband.
Iler daughters live in the village; they are dear good girls,"
with an expressive movement of shapely shoulders. "Yet so
unlike their mother. Then there is Charlie, the brother — a
great man, they say, at the University. And there is another
Kerr I like. Dear old Lewis !" She indicated with a smil-
ing gesture a framed photograph, half hidden behind the roses
on the table.

"May I see?" asked the visitor quietly.

"Mr. Fargus, how foolish you must think me! As if all
this could possibly interest you."

"I assure you," said the other, still extending his hand, "it
interests me exceedingly to hear about these people. Now
this other Kerr, whose portrait — thank you."

He took the portrait to the light. The same face as in the
Sandhurst one, which even now, in a hidden recess of his
pocketbook, lay on his breast; but older, manlier, more vig-
orous.

"You seem quite absorbed in your soldier cousin," said the
girl.

Fargus put down the portrait.

"Your English uniforms, with their perpetual changes, are
a puzzle to me," he said with an effort. "I dare say I, too,
should have liked that — extremely distant relative of mine.
Now, where does he come in ?"

"Oh, he has a strange history. His father, poor Susie's
brother, was, it seems, a very wild young man. He married
a lovely Spanish woman, and a year had not gone by when
he was drowned. She died, in Spain, when Lewis was a
baby, and Lewis was brought up by his grandfather, and only
came to England on his death. Susie loved him so, and it
was when he was staying with her that I saw him first. Mr.
Hillyard brought him over to the Court, and you cannot
conceive his uncle's rudeness to him — at his own table, too.
We were there — ^papa and I — and it made us so angry that we
had the boy to Woldham on the spot. Dad and I always
think alike.

"That finished the squire with me forever, you know. So
I do not think Lewis had much loss there. He went to papa

68 More Links in tlie Golden Chain,

for advice in everything, and now my dear old dad, having
done such a lot for him, is as proud as Punch of his protege,
follows all the Gazettes, and thinks him on the highroad to
glory. It seems he has done wonderfully well for the short
time he has been in the service."

The father listened in silence. Susie dead! He had
feared to meet his sister — ^partly for the perspicacity of her
loving eyes ; partly, on the other hand, from a repugnance to
be greeted as a stranger by her who had been the one pure
affection of his youth.

And now she was beyond his discovery I . . . Well, the
slender pink-cheeked little sister of his young days would still
live for him. But he would yet devise some good for her
children. She had not deserted his as he — the father — had
done; ay, and like the highly virtuous Squire of Gilham,
who had seen fit to visit the father's sins upon the innocent
son! Fargus' cheek glowed at the indignity he would have
smiled at had it been offered to himself.

All that was bitter. Yet sweetness was there, too, coming
from this fair-faced, starry-eyed girl, who spoke so bravely
of his boy, and touched his portrait with such tender fingers.

Fargus aroused himself from his fit of abstraction in time
to see Maude turn joyfully to a white-haired, erect old man,
who had appeared at the open door, and proudly lead him
forward to introduce him as her father.

"Glad to see you, sir; glad to see you!" said the general,
who had little bright-blue eyes under immense bushes of
white eyebrows, and an air of extreme military severity which
ill concealed a kindness almost amounting, as all said who
were fortunate enough to know him well, to weak-mindedness.
"This puss would not let you go, she tells me; I am glad of
it."

"I did not need much pressing," said Fargus, returning the
cordial handshake.

The old man subjected him to a scrutinizing, twinkling
survey, and marched him off to the smoking-room in a most
friendly manner. His comfortable opinion was enhanced on
the production of a deep-colored pipe from the stranger's case,
and when, after half an hour's genial conversation, Fargus
rose to take his leave, the general seized the pretext of a
passing shower to press him to remain and dine there in so
homely and hospitable a manner that refusal would have
seemed ungracious.

It was a pleasant meal.

Fargus heard nothing more that evening on what lay near-
est to his heart. On the contrary, the turn of conversation
obliged him to talk much himself and often about himself.

More Links in the Golden Chain. 69

The general's innocent curiosity about the New World and
his own experiences were such that he could not, without
affectation, have avoided doing so.

Presently the general made a discovery which brought his
delight to a culminating point.

The conversation turned upon military questions — the old
soldier, as Maude said, was never thoroughly happy unless he
talked shop. After delivering himself of divers very sage
remarks on the War of Secession, in which he displayed the
most guileless state of fog on the complicated history of that
movement, and after being tactfully set right by Fargus, he
suddenly exclaimed, good-humoredly :

"You miist have been something more than a looker-on, I'll
warrant."

"I raised and commanded a regiment of horse under Lee,"
answered Fargus in his quiet manner.

Maude looked up quickly at the long scar which started
from the iron-gray wave of hair at the temple and disappeared
in the close-trimmed peaked beard ; her father was silent for
a moment. But as the visitor attempted, unobtrusively, to
launch another topic, the general exploded.

"Why, damme!" he exclaimed, in his excitement, "you do
not mean to say you are the Colonel Fargus? How stupid
of me! I should have recognized the name at once. But
why have you dropped your rank ? Why hide a glorious title,
sir?"

"Oh," rejoined Fargus, "remember we were rebels. More-
over, among the Yankees, colonels, even generals, are rather
common."

But the general was started. He would have no evasions ;
the Potomac, Gettysburg, all the terrible and gallant episodes
of that obstinate struggle, had to be descanted on, until Maude
saw, perhaps with some relief, the quartet of small Wold-
hams trooping in for dessert.

This created a diversion. It was pretty to see them run to
Maude, to see her bright girl-face soften with a maternal
tenderness, to watch the liberality, tempered by prudence,
with which she distributed good things among the little folks.
The children, chubby-faced, clean-skinned, satisfactory speci-
mens of the young generation, hung round the elder sister,
and peered at the stranger's commanding face with round
blue eyes. But his smile and gentle voice soon won them
from their fears, and before long the two youngest hopes
found themselves seated, one on each knee, absorbed in the
contemplation of his repeating watch.

Presently Maude rose, observing that Billy Winky was
coming, and marshaled the little battalion bedward.

70 The Dance of Death.

There was the presiding genie of that house that had, it
seenaed, always held out its hospitality to the fatherless boy,
where he had found friendship and support, where Susie was
talked of in loving words.

She heard the champing of Colonel Fargus' horse and the
beat of a restless hoof on the gravel beneath the window ; then
her father's cheery "Good-night," then the retreating sound
of the horse's feet along the winding road until it faded into
the night's stillness.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

Before a week had elapsed the tenant of the **Lone Grange"
had glided into close and friendly relations with his neigh-
bors of the half -timber house. The general had stopped once
or twice, on his way to or from the county town, to smoke half
a pipe and have another interesting chat with his new ac-
quaintance, each time conveying him back in triumph to
lunch or dinner at the Hall, where Maude always gave him
the welcome. The Hall party, children and all, had come to
tea at the Grange, where Maude had taken possession of the
tea-table, under the spreading chestnut, and ministered to
her host's comfort, while he looked on in aesthetic enjoyment
of the situation.

Round the central figure of the group, that image of radiant
girlhood and womanly sweetness, he had already b^;un, half
unconsciously, to weave a series of rosy schemes, in which a
certain unknown son of his played a prominent part. For
Maude spoke of Lewis frequently, and always with affection-
ate interest. It was Lewis who had given her the black re-
triever, her faithful guardian; it was Lewis who had set up
the basket swing for the children — ^they were then toddling
babies ; Lewis who had first ridden her bay pony, etc., etc.

Fargus, with much private satisfaction, had drawn his own
surmises. Indeed, he ended by settling quite comfortably in
his own mind that the young mistress of Woldham was an
attraction which must inevitably draw the boy there as soon
as might be on his arrival.

It was therefore a grievous blow to all his plans when, after
some three weeks of this pleasant intercourse, Maude's im-
mediate departure for a month's stay at Hombnrg with an
invalid aunt was announced. The girl herself evinced 9,

tht Dance of Death. yt

Vexation which corroborated his own private ideas. There
was a cloud on her face, usually so bright.

"Oh, how I do wish I could stop here! But Aunt Annie
is so delicate, and as I half promised her in London, and now
she counts upon me, I cannot leave her in the lurch. As for
dad, though he has the boys, he is always miserable when I
am away. Happily, he has got you ; you will go and see him
now and again, will you not ?"

She gently drew her fingers from the friendly grasp which
had grown warm and close round them. Looking up to him
with swimming eyes, she met his kindly, searching glance.
But he could not put his sympathy in words. It would be
sad indeed, when the young soldier came home in the first
flush of his joy, to find his mistress, the light of the old
place, gone!

The next morning came a letter to the Grange.

Not an interesting missive to look at; a long envelope, in-
dited in a clerk-like hand, dated from the "Private Inquiry
Office," set forth that the troop-ship on board which, as had
been ascertained, Lieutenant L. G. Kerr was a passenger, had
been spoken off Gibraltar on the previous Saturday, and was
expected to-morrow at Portsmouth, whither an agent was
about to proceed, to report daily the movements of the gen-
tleman.

Fargus turned from the window with a sigh and a smile.
Was he building on sand, after all? He knew that his son
was a scholar, a keen soldier — also a favorite in a certain
guileless, warm-hearted family; but that was all. There
might yet be bitter disappointment for these hoi)es which had
waxed so strong of late. Well, well, these first movements of
the boy — ^which, poor fellow! he little suspected were to be
noted and reported on — would no doubt reveal the young
man's real character.

This plan of spying on his son had been prompted by a
desire so free from all vulgar curiosity, so pure and unselfish
in its ends, that it had now lost all its odious significance to
the father. He waited for the morrow's letter with deep
anxiety.

As he stood thus absorbed in thought, again feeding upon
the future, despite all wiser determinations, the door was
opened by Turner's noiseless hand, and the latter announced,
with his usual soft impressiveness, "Mr. Hillyard."

Fargus laid down his pipe. With some emotion rose be-
fore him the image of the toddling infant boy at Susie's
knee. And he turned round with a cordial smile to greet his
sister's only son. But the first glance was a disappointment.

7^ Itht Dance ot Death.

There was naught in the visitor's features or countenance
which recalled the dear memory.

The keen face, with its pallid beauty; the gray eyes, ob-
servant and secretive; the powerful forehead and the firm
mouth, the cool, self-possessed bearing of the stranger for
whom he had that instant felt a movement of spontaneous
affection, although eliciting his admiration at once, made a
chilling impression. There was naught of Susie there. It
was only a presentment of the father, a man whom Fargus
knew to have been both good and true, but for whom George
Kerr had never had other sympathy than that produced by
tne knowledge of his little sister's happiness.

"While I am happy. Colonel Fargus," the visitor said, as
they shook hands, speaking in a clear, precise, rather high-
toned voice, "to profit by this opportunity on my own account,
I must first of all inform you that I come here as the repre-
sentative of my uncle, Mr. Kerr, with whom I am stopping a
few days. lie has asked me to call upon you, and to express
his regret that his present weak state of health should debar
him from coming himself."

"I am very glad to see you," returned David Fargus, mo-
tioning his guest to an armchair, and pushing the box of
cigars toward him. "As for Mr. Kerr, I shall myself visit
him at the Court."

"That is just what I was going to ask you to do, colonel,"
said Charles Hillyard. "The squire wants to know if you
will waive ceremony and come to lunch to-morrow. In the
country, you know, people do not stand hard and fast on
etiquette, so you will excuse formalities. I believe, however,
that is not what you suffer from most on the other side of
the ocean."

"Pray tell your uncle I shall have great pleasure in com-
ing," answered Fargus, with that grave simplicity that al-
ways proved a barrier against undue familiarity.

Here the conversation languished again. Charles Hillyard
looked curiously round the room, then, in a puzzled way, at
the stranger, who sat in a dignified silence waiting for him
to speak. He made a fresh start.

**We have heard a great deal about you from General Wold-
ham," he said, with well-assumed cordiality, which had not,
however, the genuine ring to his listener's ear. "He rode over
to see the squire yesterday, and spoke mainly about you and
your prowess. You have quite won his heart, colonel."

Under the grave gaze fixed on him Charles Hillyard faltered
a little, and the cheeriness of the last remark was slightly
overdone in consequence.

"Pardon me," interrupted Fargus, smiling, "did not the

The Dance of Death. 73

general also tell you that when I had done with my military
life I bade good-by likewise to military rank? I do not call
myself colonel."

The gentle rebuke brought a quick flush of surprise and a
light glow of annoyance to the visitor's face. ^

"Pray forgive me," he said, with instinctive good breeding,
"though my mistake was a natural one. To those who have
read something of your national conflict, it is hard to dis-
sociate the name of Fargus from the prefix under which it
has become so well known."

The elder man acknowledged, in his own mind, the clever-
ness with which his nephew had disengaged himself; he ap-
preciated, too, the tact the young man now showed in not
resting on the complimentary amendment, but changing the
subject naturally by a question about the Lone Grange.

"We lived here after my father's death — until my poor
mother followed him, in fact." The sadness that deepened in
Fargus' eyes was absent from Charles' unsoftened face. "I
know every nook and corner of the old place," he went on.
"Do you not find it rather large and rambling ?"

"I have made a nest for myself in these four ground-floor
rooms; the rest is condemned, save, of course, servants' of-
fices, which are sufficiently remote to be ignored altogether.
I am perfectly content."

"It is a curious choice," commented Charles.

Charles looked at his cigar meditatively for a while, then,
after another rather hard stare at his host, rose to take his
leave,

"Well, then, to-morrow at one o'clock," said Charles, with
his spasmodic friendliness.

The other accompanied him to the door, where he remained
a few seconds after his guest's departure, lost in thought.

As the young man's slight, well-balanced figure rounded
the grass-plot and passed by the overgrown garden, a shrill,
childish voice cleaved the air.

"Well, Charlie, have you measured him ? How long is he ?"

"Playing truant again, I see !" he said sharply, then shook
his finger and passed on.

"Who is it. Turner ?" asked Fargus, in some surprise, turn-
ing to the servant, who was hovering near the door after
letting the visitor out.

"The young masters from Woldham Hall, if you please,
sir," replied that discreet person. "They said they preferred
to wait till Mr. Hillyard had gone, and they would stroll in
the garden. The cook, sir, wanted to interfere, as they was
eating the peaches, but I said that I thought you would be
displeased if they were disturbed."

74 The Dance of Death.

"Quit© right. Turner. Tell the cook all the peaches are
to be reserved for the young gentlemen. And ask them to
come in."

But at that moment there put in an appearance on the
greensward two sturdy little figures, which made up for
shortness of limb and chubbiness of cheek by a prodigous
amount of mouse-colored cord gaiters, an easy carriage of
the hands in trouser pockets, and an independent manner
of walking,

"Good-afternoon, sir," said the elder of these persons, who
had three more buttons to his gaiters than the yoimger and
weaker copy of himself, lifting his cap.

"How do you do, my man ?" said Fargus, in far too com-
plete sympathy with the spirit of his small visitor to think
of kissing the fruit-stained face.

"We just rode over to see you," continued the sportsaian,
"'cause it's so dull at home without Muddie. Yes, thanks,
I'd like tea, and so would Tom. We've had fruit in the
garden. Cook came out with a rolling-pin, but Turner said
we might go on. We like Turner. We didn't come in at
once, you know, 'cause of Charlie. We thought we'd wait,
'cause we don't like Charlie."

The pair sat down side by side on the sofa, with the gait-
ered legs a long way off the ground, and smiled confidently
at their host, who looked back at them with pleasure and ten-
derness.

Lewis, too, had no doubt been just as sturdy, brave-hearted
a little lad. What pleasures, of the purest in existence, had
not his father deliberately denied himself, when he had left
to others the task of leading the little spirit from childhood
to boyhood.

"Did Charlie measure you?" burst forth the elder boy
again. "I shouldn't have let him measure me; I'd have hit
him in the eye, I would. Did you hit him in the eye?"

"Not exactly," said the man gravely; "but I did not let
him measure me."

The boy swung his legs ecstatically.

"He came last night to dinner, you know. Father talked
of you; father likes you, so do we; we think you are the
nicest man we ever saw. Charlie said he thought you would
turn out a fr — , a fr — , it wasn't a frog, but it was something
like it. And he said he'd soon take your measure. Father
said you were a gi-eat man, and father got quite red and
rapped the table, and we laughed, and Muddie told us to keep
quiet. Muddie and Charlie walked up and down on the ter-
race afterward, and when Muddie came to put us to bed her
face was quite red, too. And she wouldn't talk a bit. And

Tlie Dance of Death. 75

when she kissed us, I said, *I hate Charlie, Muddie; I love
Mr. Fargus.' And now I'll have tea, and so will Tom."

"And so my clever nephew thinks I am a fraud !" said Far-
gus to himself, as the little pair, escorted by the respectfully
protective Turner, at length departed full of cake and bliss,
and proud joint-possessors of an Indian arrow.

Next morning the bay horse carried his master across the
purple heather, on to the well-known Gilham road, through
the great gates, under the limes and chestnuts ; finally before
that picturesque massive pile that had seen the dawn of
George Kerr's strange life.

"All comes in time to him who can wait," thought Fargus,
as he dismounted before the porch he had not seen for some
thirty years. "Ah! good-morning." This aloud to his
nephew, who appeared on the steps and gracefully came for-
ward to receive him.

He ushered the visitor into the dining-hall with an apology.
"If you do not mind waiting a second or two — this is the
most ancient part of the Court, contains the best pictures,
and is generally supposed to be the show-room — I will go and
announce your arrival."

And thus did David Fargus find himself once more under
the converging gaze of his ancestors.

"Back at last, after thirty years!" he muttered in answer
to their mute greeting. "And only home, after all, under a
false character. What do you think of him?" And slowly
he went round the room, stopping to interpellate each vigor-
ous old Kerr face with half-smliing, half -sad recognition.

The stern blue eyes of William Kerr looked down re-
proachfully at his son. "How could you give up our name,
deny our country and our forefathers !" And yet the kindly
moutk whispered to the mind's ear another greeting: "It is
well you have come back at last — do not go again."

It was a noble portrait.

Full of unwonted emotion under the memories of that
long-forgotten affection of his childhood, Fargus turned to
seek, in the feminine gallery, for the delicate outline of the
young mother who had died in giving him birth.

But although female ascendants figured in goodly array
and almost unbroken sequence, from the languorous-eyed,
curly locked, very bare-bosomed beauties of Restoration days,
to the smiling, good-natured image of her who had been his
step-brother's faithful wife, the sweet young face which in
former days had hung in the place of honor over the high
mantel-board had disappeared.

"William all over !" said he to himself, with a sudden up-
rising of the fiery spirit he had believed dead this many a

76

The Dance of Death.

year. "And it tallies well with his treatment of my boy.
But may be he has not done with that branch of his family

yet."

The opening door and the slow advance of a gaunt and
tottering figure broke in upon this train of thought, and
David Fargus, turning, saw the present head of his race. He
had been prepared for a change, but this wreck of a strong
man he had not looked for. The squire was, after all, but
sixteen years or so older than he; but while he felt, in mind
and body, all the vigor of maturity, his brother was indeed
an old man — his face bore that drawn, distressed look which
so painfully betrays the loss of vital power.

jRe received Fargus with a feeble reflex of the pomposity
which had once been so irritating to the latter. For one in-
stant, as they took their seats at the table, Fargus felt his
self-possession fail him beneath a curiously intent look which
appeared suddenly, like the up-leaping of a dying flame, in
the squire's eyes. But the danger was over almost as soon
as perceived.

"I thought I had seen you somewhere before this," the
old man muttered, "but it was a mistake."

Then he drew himself together and addressed his visitor on
the broad subject of America, after the interested manner of
an English county gentleman who has a proper appreciation
of the superiority of his own status.

"My son, sir, has just been there," he explained with com-
placent civility. "He is a great traveler, and is making the
Grand Tour — in our days a Grand Tour must needs be round
the world."

"Lucky fellow!" put in Charles in his dry way.

"He has been two years away. He is my only son now,
and we English landowners think our heirs should remain
as much as possible on the estate, that they may learn the
duties of their position in life."

Fargus admired, as the meal proceeded, the tact and pa-
tience with which Charles humored his uncle. For his part,
he strove to maintain the conversation at a tolerable degree
of interest. But the elaborately served and lengthy repast
was so like those which used, in days gone by, to try his
boyish patience so terribly, that it produced an almost dream-
like effect upon him.

Fargus found it hard to combat the melancholy that was
taking possession of his soul, though the fare was of the best,
though Charles spoke brilliantly and interestingly — as though
with the desire of effacing the disagreeable impression of the
previous day — though the squire himself, when they ad-
journed to the terrace for coffee and cigars, had wonderfully

The Dance of Death. 77

unbent to his guest and seemed a little brightened and in-
vigorated.

Suddenly a tall figure appeared on the sward and hurried
toward them. At sight of him Fargus started to his feet
with a presentment of evil. It was only the rector, but his
was a palid, disturbed face, and he held an orange-colored
envelope in his hand. The squire, undisturbed by such fore-
bodings, called out, for him, quite cheerily:

"Halloa, Mr. Mivart ! You are jiist in time for a cup of
coffee."

The unwilling messenger of evil gave a piteous look at
Charles.

"What is it?" whispered the latter hastily.

"Bad news."

The old man caught the words. He rose at once, straight-
ening his feeble form to rigid attention.

"My son?" he cried in a loud voice.

After a terrible attempt to break gradually the whole mis-
fortune to the unhappy father, the truth had to be told.
His son, the last remaining child, was dead.

For a moment the squire stood with outstretched arms;
then his face grew purple, his eyes started from their orbits ;
before they could receive him in their arms, so swiftly came
the stroke, he had fallen forward on the walk.

As they raised him, and beheld the distorted countenance
streaming with blood, the swollen discolored neck and up-
turned eyes, Fargus alone retained enough self-command to
give him immediate help.

"I have seen this before — cerebral hemorrhage," he said,
quickly loosening the old man's collar and raising his head.
"I should bleed him if I dared. Charlie, send some one for
the doctor. You and I must at once bring him into the
house."

Charlie appreciated the calmness and authority of the
stranger at this crisis, and begged him to remain till the
doctor should have made his appearance. The clergyman
soon made an excuse to withdraw. Thus Fargus and his
nephew found themselves silently watching in the darkened
room by the stricken father's bedside, listening to the sten-
torous breathing which alone betokened life, and busily re-
newing the ice bandages they had laid on his forehead.

When the doctor arrived, tiie visitor from the Lone Grange,
in his turn, was glad to leave. The doctor's look as he had
bent over his patient had been ominous, and confirmed his
own opinion of the case; within a very short time the last
but one, ostensibly, of the direct line in that anoieut house
would have joined the majority.

78 The Dance of Death.

At the moment when all life-energy would have finally
radiated away from that prostrate body, the rightful owner-
ship of those noble lands, the headship of "name, arms and
estates," would devolve, de jure, on the stranger of the Lone
Grange, but de facto, unless the latter chose to prove his
identity, on a certain young soldier who, surely, was far
from dreaming of such an accession of fortune.

The letter which awaited him on his hall table — in the
envelope of the "Argus Office" — was, at such a juncture, in-
vested with a new solemnity of interest. It ran, however,
thus:

"Dear Sir: In accordance with your request, one of our
agents yesterday attended at Portsmouth on the arrival of
the Crocodile troop-ship, and thus reports on the movements
of the officer whom you wish us to watch.

"The gentleman in question did not seem to have any duty
to see to. Soon after disembarking, about 11 a, M., having
arranged about his personal luggage, went to the Naval Club
in company with a friend. About an hour later he came out
alone, took a long walk by himself along Southsea Beach,
returning in time to catch the afternoon train to London,

"FromWaterloo Station he drove straight to Staples Inn,
Chancery Lane (where he has rooms inscribed with his
name). He came out, three hours later, in evening dress,
drove to the Army and Navy Club, Pall Mall, and, after an
interval, apparently for dinner, walked over to the St. James'
Theatre, where he engaged a stall. He had no intercourse
with any one, and after the performance walked leisurely
back to his rooms in Staples Inn.

"We will continue to acquaint you daily with the results
of our observations. We are, etc., etc."

With a sigh of relief Fargus laid down the letter. Simple
enough, these "movements," yet pleasing in their very sim-
plicity, and, coupled with what he already knew concerning
the young man's energy and courage, completing the favor-
able portrait he had so laboriously collated. He would be
worthy of the new and weighty position he would so soon be
called upon to fill.

The next morning early he rode over to the Court. Charles
Hillyard was standing in the porch.

The squire was dead, and Fargus, tactfully shortening the
interview, rode away in a very reflective mood.

Once more in his own room, he sat down to write a short
note to the "Argus Office."

"Dear Sm: Be pleased to look at the obituary notices in

The Dance of Death. 79

the morning papers during the next few days, and, as soon
as you notice announcement of the death of Mr. William
Kerr, of Gilham, Yorkshire, to forward at once a copy of the
paper, with the entry very conspicuously marked, to Mr. L.
G. Kerr, at his chambers in Staples Inn.

"You will understand that this must be done in a strictly
anonymous manner."

"This, I fancy, will bring the boy down — for the funeral,
at least," he said to himself, as he closed the letter.

But, three days later, when that ceremonial took place, and
Fargus attended at the Court, among the numerous guests
assembled to render the last honors to the host, there was no
one to be seen who could in any way be taken for the person
he so longed to meet.

After that solemn rite, with its painful, unnecessary, at-
tendant pomp and show, much disappointed and perplexed,
the father walked back with General Woldham until they
reached the point where their homeward roads diverged.

"By the way, general," he asked, as if casually, "who comes
in for the place now ?"

The general puffed.

"Why, I suppose it will be Lewis Kerr, now in the — th
D. G. Curiously enough, I was just this instant talking
about him to Charles Hillyard, who says he ran up against
him in town yesterday. I knew he must be coming back,
though I did not expect him so soon. But he apparently de-
clined to come down for the funeral."

"That is curious," said Fargus.

"Very. It is the last thing I should have expected of him.
It is not like Lewis. An event like this should bury all
feuds. Decency, sir, should have brought him down."

Fargus returned to his house in a discontented mood.
The evening post brought a partial explanation of the
puzzle, and decided his own course of action. The agent's
daily letter ended by the statement that, on the evening of
th© previous day, Mr. Kerr had driven, with luggage, to Char-
ing Cross Station, booked for Homburg, Germany, and
started for the Continent by the mail. The agent had parted
company with him at Dover, "not having received instruc-
tions to follow the gentleman out of England."

CHAPTEK V.

STRANGE ABODE OF A SCHOLAR AND DRAGOON.

Although Society has been crowded out of the man-
sions of its past glories by the swarming influx of the toilers
who supply its ever-increasing demands, we can yet count one
class of men who, of necessity, live much of their life in the
original dwelling-place of their order — the students and
adepts of the law, who still people those ancient colleges, the
Inns of Court and their dependencies.

There stood in days gone by a goodly number of such
hostels or inns, forming the individual colleges of what our
old annalists termed the "Third Universitie of England,"
but few have retained to the present time their collegiate
character.

Yet among those institutions which have passed from their
high estates as houses of learning and dignity to the deg-
radation of depending for existence on lay patronage, there
still remains one whilom Inn of Chancery, very much as it
was beheld of Shakespeare and inhabited of Johnson. Its
aspect on the Holborn front presents its seven gables, its
bulging corbeled stories of stout beam and hard petrel, un-
touched by the ravages of time, practically unchanged since
the last Tudor; and clinging to its flanks, as moss to a
mighty tree, may be seen just such a parasitic growth of
booth and open shoplet as it, no doubt, always shielded from
the days of its first erection. There are the winding, crazy
stairs that creaked beneath the great lexicographer's ponder-
ous tread, the paneled rooms filled with the memories of
four centuries, the quiet courtyards, oak-ceiled hall, capacious
ghostly kitchens and cellars; altered now in their resigned
decay from the time when Stow wrote of the "Fayrest Hall in
this great law University," when ruffling mootmen and utter
barristers filled chambers and gardens with as much rollick-
ing life as does the modem under-graduate his more prosper-
ous college on the banks of Cam or Isis!

This is old Staple Inn, a too rare relic of "Old London"
architecture, built on the original site of that Hall of the
Wool Staple Merchants where Chaucer dealt with Custom re-
ceipts, the obsolete cognizance of which — a staple of wood —
is even now borne on its escutcheon.

Staple Inn has become rather shabby in itself and in its
inhabitants. Fallen from the honorable intention of its
founders, it has had to seek support from such as choose to

Strange Abode of a Scholar and Dragoon. 8i

give it, and few men who can afford the comforts of modem
chambers seem to care for the thought of settling in that
aged haunt, and any one capable of appreciating the charm
of seclusion in the very heart cf London — ^the charm of liv-
ing amid scenes sacred to the doings and thinkings of so
many bygone generations — could with but little expenditure
of trouble and money make for himself such a nest in the
old rookery as he would be loath to exchange for all the nine-
teenth century Queen Anne glories of sky-threatening man-
sions in more favored quarters.

This is precisely what had been done with a set of attic-
rooms overlooking Holborn on the one side, and the sleepy
courtyard on the other. They had been cleaned and painted
for the first time, perhaps, in this century; their dingy,
shivering casements replaced by new frames and light-stained
diamond panes; the dilapidated outer-door had made way for
a solid "oak" of college-pattern, over the lintel of which the
name of the enterprising tenant was plain to see, in white
letters on a black ground. The old chambers had first as-
sumed this unprecedentedly rejuvenated aspect on becoming
the town residence of Mr. Lewis G. Kerr, B. A., Edin., during
his under-graduate days at Cambridge. And so dear to the
heart of their occupier did they finally grow, that when, in
the course of events, he exchanged the gown for the sword,
and went over the seas on his country's service, he could not
make up his mind to part with his quaint pied-a-terre, but
kept it on as the shrine of his household gods, with the com-
fortable feeling that here he would, at least, always have a
home to return to.

And now, on a hot July day, the young dragoon, back
again at last, bronzed out of all recognition by the Indian
sun, thinned, hardened, something battered by long months
of Central Asian campaigning and a spell of South African
experience, withal rnore vigorous than ever, stood in the mid-
dle of his attic abode, between portmanteaus and bullock-
trunks — gazing with dreamy pleasure on the dusty surround-
^ ings which brought him back in imagination to so many
chapters of his life now closed forever-
Here, after his regiment, was his home; in a comer, the
half-suit of armor worn by some Castilian ancestor, about
which there still hung the quaint old-world atmosphere of
the proud though tumlile-down home of his boyish days; on
three of the four walls the black-oak bookcases, crammed
with the most motley collection of volvimes, some in the
gorgeous armorial bindings of college prizes.

Mr. Kerr traversed his domain with a restless step, now
lightly fingering some dust-covered chattel associated with

82 Strsynge Abode of a Scholar and Dragoon.

a thousand unimportant memories, now pausing by the door
to open the solemn "Grandfather's clock" and restore its sus-
pended animation, and through a glamourous illumination of
shafts of dancing motes there came back upon him, one after
another, each different phase of his past life, inextricably as-
sociated with the memorials surrounding him.

There, before him, hung the water-color sketch of his
father, in Highland uniform, and the miniature frame con-
taining his Crimean medal and clasps; the exquisite head,
also in water-colors, of the young mother who had died in
giving him life ; they had hung in his nursery in far Seville,
where he had been taught to kiss them night and morning
and babble a prayer for the dead Padrecito and Madrecita;
round them were woven almost his first memories.

And in a corner of the bookcase, affectionately preserved
in all their shabbiness in a row to themselves, there were
the queer old school-books in which he had first begun to
learn under the good old English monk, chosen for the high
post of tutor to the orphan boy as much by reason of his
nationality as of his attainments.

What delightful hours those were in the shady court!

How he had longed for the unknown, far-off England ! Don
Atanasio had promised to bring him here himself when he
was old enough for an English school. The dear old grand-
father ! It was for his conscientious self-abnegation in bring-
ing up this, the last scion of his own race, as belonging by
greater right to the dead father's country, that surely he,
Lewis Kerr, owed his memory the keenest gratitude. And
yet when the time came for him to go, and that by himself,
all in his new mourning — for but a fortnight before they had
laid the great hidalgo in his grave — how bitter had been the
parting ! How terrible it was to feel so alone on the thresh-
old of a new life, with no one but a new guardian. Reverend
Mr. Hillyard, unknown but as the writer of two stiff, cold
letters, between him and absolute isolation !

He saw himself again on the deck of the mighty steamer
as she throbbed away in the blue and yellow dawn from the
coast of Spain; a small, shivering boy, for all his thirteen
years, trying hard to combat the tears that would rise to his
eyes, to struggle against the heavy pain at his heart, which,
nevertheless, beat high with the thought of seeing England,
his country, at last. And then the arrival. How well he re-
membered it all — the cold welcome, the sickening disappoint-
ment, until "Aunt Susie" first dawned upon his life, and her
warm arms opened to the desolate little foreigner, never to
close to him again until they grew cold in death.

He had been determined to assert his claim as an English-

Strange Abode of a Scholar and Dragoon, S3

man, in spite of his disadvantages; and he had succeeded.
Even before the happy spell of student life at Edinburgh, he
had forced himself to the front, made himself respected in
class-room and playground. But, oh ! that glorious feeling of
freedom when at sixteen he found himself practically his own
master in the severe old Northern city, where the rough but
genuine cordiality of his older fellow-students made him, for
the first time since his arrival from the distant land of his
birth, feel at home. That was a happy era, for it was during
his first session there that Eobert Hillyard was presented with
the rectorship of Gilham, and that thus was brought about
the meeting with Maude.

Eight years ago ! It was quite a journey down the stream
of life to look back upon, and strange to think that the love
of a little lass of fifteen should have outlived all the experi-
ences, the long absences, the many changes.

She had come upon him at a very bitter moment, but the
warm partisanship of the gray-blue eyes, blazing from Tinder
a cloud of tumbled brown hair, the thrill of the girl's voice,
as he had first heard it, calling to him in pretty, eager con-
ciliation, had more than made up for the offense.

He turned half round in his chair to look for the shield
of arms, displayed over the chimney-piece, between the es-
cutcheon of Alma Mater and that of his particular college.
There the "sable bend, engrailed, on the field," of Kerr of
Gilham, quartered the foreign and more canting arms of
Ayala, a "caravel on a stormy sea, in the heavens a solitary
star."

And now the contemplation brought him back to that
memorable forenoon, the only occasion on which he had set
foot in Gilham Court, when Aunt Susie and the rector had
marched him forth to introduce him to the head of his
family. As they paced through the prosperous country
scenery, he had been amazed to hear that so many of the
broad acres of rich pasture land, stretches of plowed fields, of
green woods and fern-grown covers, belonged to Mr. Kerr, of
Gilham, that relation of his who had never bestowed so much
as one sign of interest on him. And then a winding in the
high-hedged road brought them in front of a towering gate-
way, a curious emotion crept round his heart as he recognized
in the escutcheon over the keeper's lodge those very arms of
Kerr by which he had been taught in the distant land of his
birth to set such store. There was the home of his English
forefathers ; his heart had swelled with so many feelings that
he could not trust himself to speak. In silence he had
threaded his way up to the noble, time-mellowed manorhouse
that had been his father's home. Would he ever forget his

84 Strange Abode of a Scholar and Dragoon.

reception ? How the squire had all but disowned him, almost
shown hiui the door I

As, crimson with indignation, he had risen to take his
leave, and shake oflf his feet the dust of that inhospitable
house, there sprang up in the far end of the great room a
little figure with gold-brown hair. Too confused then to no-
tice all that passed, he had retained but disjointed memories
of the sweetest face ever seen; of the pressure of a little
bare, brown hand; of a tall, white-haired man who likewise
loomed upon him in some unexpected way, and to whom
Aunt Susie, pale and with a troubled countenance, intro-
duced "my brother's son ;" of pleasant words and warm prof-
fers of hospitality. This was the beginning of the intimacy
at Woldham Hall, when life had assumed such a new mean-
ing under the light of Maude's eyes.

The dreamer laid down his burned-out pipe and glanced
once more at the coat -of -arms. His star ! before him always,
in fair weather or foul, in the days when he had fancied
by academic distinctions to win his fastidious little lady's
favor, before he had discovered her paramount weakness for
"buff and burnished steel," and battlefield honors. His eyes
wandered to the Trinity escutcheon with its golden book,
closed, on the chief of gules. Those were good days, too.
He did not regret his present choice, for all it had cost him
the loss of that high degree he had once aimed at, but he
would always be glad of his years in the great quadrangle.

"I wonder who would have enjoyed this superb Villar had
chance decreed that my bones now should be blanching on
Afghan gravel, as those of so many better fellows. Ah, I
suppose you would, old chap."

This mental apostrophe was addressed to one of the por-
traits he had just installed on the writing-table; that of his
cousin, quondam coach, and bosom friend.

Charles Hillyard, Fellow of his College, lecturer in Moral
Sciences, a writer, already of some note, was one of those
men who never can pass unnoticed anywhere. The head
Lewis was gazing at through the smoke of his cigar was such
as a Vandyck would love to paint; with aquiline features,
high forehead, and deep-set gray eyes; a thin but powerful
face, surmounted by a wavy growth of light hair, and ac-
centuated by a light mustache, curling upward in a way that
gave a curious permanent look of sarcasm to the grave, com-
pressed lips. It was a face that might have seemed equally
typical of cavalier, artist, or thinker.

"Not one of the least pleasant events of my return will be
the first evening we spend again together, dear old chap, and
have another of those long jaws which used to follow our

Midnigiit Confidences. 85

coaching in the tutor and pupil days. And, by Jove! I
must write to you this very evening. I dare say you will not
be sorry, either, to see my bullet head again."

CHAPTER VI.

MIDNIGHT CONFIDENCES.

Late in the evening of the next day Lewis was leisurely
wending his way back from his club, his thoughts for the
moment much and pleasantly occupied with anticipations of
proximate meetings with his old chum and his friends in
the North.

As he came through a certain dark short cut for foot-
passengers from Lincoln's Inn Fields — ^which opens into Hol-
born just by the glaring portal of that choice place of enter-
tainment yclept "The Royal," there appeared, across the
torrent of light which makes its entrance so obtrusively
resplendent, a certain tall, familiar figure, a well-known,
keen, pallid face.

"The very man himself, by Heaven !"

He was rushing forward, hand outstretched in all glee,
when a second look brought him to an abrupt standstill.
Charles was not alone; he was doing escort duty to a tall
young woman, whose face was concealed behind a thick veil,
and who held him with close familiarity by the arm. She
was quietly and neatly dressed, but as ladies do not generally
perambulate such quarters in company with bachelor friends
at eleven of the night, Lewis discreetly drew back into the
doorway of a small tobacco shop behind him, not to put his
grave and reverend tutor of yore out of countenance.

The couple took a step or two into the comparative dark-
ness of the alley, where the young woman lifted her veil
and raised her cheek for what was evidently a farewell kiss.
When they again emerged into the light, her companion
hailed a hansom, in which he proceeded to install her, closed
the doors without getting in, and called out to the driver
some address which had no meaning in Lewis' ear. But as
the hansom swung round, and its occupant, bending forward,
sent another kiss from the tips of her fingers to the stationary
figure of his friend, the young man caught a fair view of
her unveiled face for the first time. He started violently.
It was not imagination — features, smile, look, the wave of the
hand itself, the little toss of her head, ay, the very voice, now
crying out, "Good-night, good-by" — it was Maude! And yet

86 Midnight Confidences.

not Maude — another glance at the handsome creature, whom,
during a short pause, occasioned by the block of vehicles, he
had time to examine more critically under the crude electric
light, was sufficient to prove the I'oily of his first impulse, al-
though the marvelous resemblance increased rather than
diminished on scrutiny.

As he gazed after the retreating hansom conflicting
thoughts rushed wildly through his brain. What was the
meaning of this ? Maude, the refined maiden, isolated in her
romantic home, and this very independent young woman, so
indescribably not a lady, who composedly drove away alone
in a hansom at midnight ?

"If it were not for the likeness, of course, I should not
bother my head about it," he thought, looking toward his
cousin, who still stood in the same place. "I don't want to
pry into his private life; I dare say he is no better or no
worse than other men. If it were not that he knew Maude so
well, I should be tempted to think it was a mere coincidence;
there must be something beneath it," and through the con-
fusion of his ideas there suddenly broke the memory of a
certain night, years ago now, when his friend had spoken
strange words to him, conveying nothing to his loyal mind;
unheeded, then, but which now, in the light of this meeting,
returned upon him pregnant with baleful meaning.

Could it be that Charles, too, had fallen in love with
Maude? could it be that, loving her hopelessly, he consoled
himself thus — his friend, whom he had set on so high a
pedestal !

"I will not judge till I hear his story," and, resolutely
emerging from his concealment, he sprang up to the object
of his thoughts.

"Why, Charlie! what can a man of your serious turn be
doing at such a time in the neighborhood of these haunts?
Anyhow, I am glad to meet you, old man!"

"Hallo, Lewis!" exclaimed Mr. Hillyard, drawing back a
pace, with a perceptible start. But the discomposure was too
transient to attract his companion's notice; in another in-
stant their hands were warmly clasped, and, surveying his
quondam pupil from head to foot:

"So you are still in the land of the living!" cried the
"coach." "The last I heard you were skirmishing with Af-
ghans."

"I am, as you see, glad to be of this world still, especially
at a meeting like this. You did not get my letter, then ? ' I
sent it to Cambridge. How is the world behaving to you ?"

"Much as before; you need not have expressed so much
suprise at meeting me here. I came up for some tiresome

Midnight Confidences. 87

business connected with the 'Philosophical/ and afterward
felt the want of something nice and idiotic to vary the enter-
tainment and sweep the cobwebs from my brain."

Lewis evinced no sort of consciousness under his friend's
scrutiny, and the latter proceeded more easily :

"And so here you are again. I think I can guess what has
brought you back."

"What do you mean ? What should have brought me back
but my first long leave?"

"Indeed! nothing else?" then, after a moment's reflection,
in a careless tone, "In that case I think I may have news
for you. It is not really pressing, I assure you. Where are
you staying? I am meditating supper before catching my
train at Euston — will you come with me?"

"I am at my old rooms at Staple's, of course. They are
close by; why shouldn't you come to me? And, I say, now
I have found you, I am not inclined to let you go in such a
hurry; if you don't disdain an improvised couch, I caji
accommodate you with lodgings as well as board."

"That sounds plausible," said Charles ; "done."

At a pleasant pace, in keeping with the warmth of the July
night, they soon exchanged the bustle and glare of Holborn
for the quiet courts of the old Inn.

Ascending the rickety corkscrew stairs they entered the
attic room.

After feeling for matches and lighting his lamp, the host
relieved his guest of hat and stick, and, i)erceiving sundry
letters and papers strewing the floor beneath his open letter-
box, picked them up and turned them over in some surprise.

"Hullo ! who the dickens has sent me a Morning Post,
I'm sure I never ordered one; some way of advertising, I sup-
pose. What are these? Circulars, circulars, price-lists —
rubbish !"

And, tossing the collection on to a side table, he turned
gayly to his friend :

"Now, Sir Cavalier, make yourself at home while I get
supper ready."

"So you have kept up this den of yours. What on earth
could induce any one in your circumstances to fix upon a
ramshackle Inn like this, when there are chambers to be had
in St. James' and other civilized parts, I cannot conceive."

"Without noticing your disparagement of my residence,"
said Lewis good-humoredly, "I may point out that under
present circumstances it would be absurd for me to keep up
an expensive establishment I should only live in for very few
days at a time. Furthermore, were I ten times a millionaire, I
would not give up this haunt of mine for anything, 'leather and

88 Midnight Confidences.

iron dragoon' though I be. And lastly," he went on, as he
selected some special wine-glasses from a cupboard, "the
ownership of these rooms at the time when I threw in my
lot with 'Tommy Atkins' bridged over the difficulty of storing
away all my books, old oak, old arms — all the 'kickshaws' you
used to scoff at, in fact, you Philistine !"

"I should have thought club chambers for yourself when
you came up, more rational, but you were always a little
cracked, you know; and I see that you have not changed."

"I'm glad I have not," returned Lewis simply.

"It's very pretty," continued the other, looking about him
critically, "but it must be extremely uncomfortable."

"Geometry doesn't infest my life," said Lewis, dragging
forward to the table a three-legged stool for himself, and a
four-legged one for his guest ; "and as for solidity, the Chest-
nut battery itself galloping past in Holborn would not so
much as shake my old panels. . . . But come, you don't
seem to be in a sympathetic mood ; sit down. But never fear,
I will pour no inferior stuff in your cup to-night. Now, let
us see. Turn about and look into my cellar. Choose your
tap; I have still some of those choice friends you made ac-
quaintance with up at Trinity — ^like us both, a few years
older; and the better for it, I hope, old man."

Carefully fitting a ponderous black key into the lock of the
seventeenth-century coffer under his window, he lifted the
lid, and, with a twinkle in his merry brown eyes, beckoned to
his friend.

"Here you see, on the right, some of the richest juice the
sun distils from Burgundian hillsides. Now choose your
particular 'wanity,' " Lewis concluded with a laugh, suddenly
changing his style.

"Pour me out some of your 'aurum potabile,' since caviare
is to be the first thing," said Charles, with his slightly con-
temptuous smile, sitting down, notwithstanding, readily
enough, and helping himself to the toothsome conserve.

Charles, on his side, took up his glass and closed his eyes
with mock solemnity as he swallowed the contents.

"Ah! what a fine thing it must be to be able to gratify
one's epicurean tastes! I never was over-wealthy, as you
know, but since my poor governor's death, which you heard
of when you were out in India, I have had to rely entirely
on my own exertions."

Lewis was the last person who could resist him under such
circumstances; with a warm revulsion of feeling he rejoiced
to find himself falling once more under the old spell.

When at length they had done full justice to the im-
provised meal, the dragoon sprang to his feet, and, for th^

Midnight Confidences. 89

sake of greater stretching room, pushed the little dining-
table away into the pantry, ensconced his friend in the arm-
chair, chose his best cigar for him, and filled a favorite pipe
for himself with a lightening heart.

"Now, Charlie," he remarked cheerily, dropping on the
stool in front of him, and stretching his hands on his knees,
"this is indeed like old times, isn't it ? What a piece of luck
to meet you to-night! Do you remember how you used to
lecture me, extra horas, on the necessity of seeing the world
and giving up my silly habit of day-dreaming?"

"I do ; and now that you have knocked about a little more,
you have no doubt learned to look at life from a more practi-
cal point of view."

"Perhaps I have, in certain things. But let us hear more
about yourself."

"About myself I have little to say; my life is quite as
monotonous as it was."

"Indeed!" said Lewis, hesitating for a moment to go on
with what he had on the tip of his tongue, for fear, by enter-
ing on delicate ground, of bringing about an unpleasant ten-
sion. But until he had cleared up what was on his mind, he
felt he could not remain at ease with his friend, and he was
longing to have things straight between them again ; to sweep
away the barriers that seemed to have risen in his absence to
mar their sympathy. "Do you remember," he began slowly,
as if choosing his words, "a certain sultry evening, a little
before the final, up at Trinity? I had that day announced
my intention to enfer the service, and came to your room just
as one of your new pups was about to leave you — Wagner-
like — in Dr. Faustus' den, full of awe for your severe wis-
dom. I, however, who knew your private self intimately,
found you in an unwontedly soft and melancholy mood. Do
you remember that evening?"

Charles turned his head rather suddenly, and looked keen-
ly at the speaker.

"Yes^I think I do; well?"

"We drifted into poetry, music, romance, not to say senti-
ment. I believe you actually quoted Heine."

"Quite a graphic picture! Well?"

"You who never spoke of your own inner thoughts, so that
I believed you really were blessed with an adamantine in-
diiference to sentiment, for once you unbosomed yourself
and told me that you were in love."

An indefinable smile curled Charlie's thin lips; he turned
half round on his chair and looked straight at his friend.

"Your story interests me much. Proceed," he said mock-
ingly.

90 Midnight Confidences.

There was a moment's pause. Lewis, doggedly bent upon
satisfying himself, resumed with an effort:

"Well, we found out that the music told us the same
thing; I wondered who was the lady of your hopeless dreams
— for you spoke of them as hopeless — don't bliish; who could
resist you?"

"I think I see now what you are aiming at ; but still, go on."

"You spoke again out of yoiu* dark corner where your piano
was stowed away — your words were so unlike what I was accus-
tomed to hear from you. 'I sometimes wish,' you said, *I had
never had music instilled in my soul. When I hear melodies
like this, with all their yearnings, it sets me mad for the unat-
tainable; in fact, old fellow, it plays the devil with my com-
mon-sense.' Unfortunately, just as I was worked up to an
intense state of sympathy for you, in came your gyp with
your lamps, and the whole scene underwent a complete trans-
formation. 'Pray don't imagine, my boy,' you then said, 'that
I am a soft idealist, a gentle lunatic like you. I have been
hard hit, I grant you that; but as the soothing dock grows
near the stinging nettle, I trust I have found my antidote to
hand.' And you suggested the case of a man who should
come across a woman the very image, the 'double,' of her
who had ensnared him. 'Now, your idealist,' said you, 'would
go moping about forever for tiie want of his particular bunch
of grapes, but your sensible man takes the one that is with-
in his reach, and is thankful.' I never dreamed you were
really speaking of your own experience — never dreamed that
so extraordinary a coincidence had come your way, nor that
you and I, sympathetic though we were, had the misf ortime to
fall in love with the same girl — ^until to-night!"

Charlie remained silent for a moment, knocking the long
ash off his cigar with his little finger.

"Ah ! so you did see her, then. Well, I confess that you are
about the last person I could have wished to meet me with
that girl. London is large enough to justify me in hoping
that none of my acquaintances, let alone my intimates, would
run across me under the circumstances. However, a total
absence of coincidences in this haphazard world would, after
all, be stranger than the least likely of accidents."

It was indeed typical of the man how soon the erstwhile
coach managed to resume the tone of ascendancy.

"The little I told you," he went on, "the shadowy suggestion
I then threw out, encompassed the broad facts. It was sim-
ply an astonishingly complete instance of personal likeness;
but you were able to-night to judge for yourself of what my
feelings must have been, jny mind being filled with on6 pw>

Midnight Confidences. Oi

ticular image, when I first came across the girl you saw me
with an hour ago."

Charles mused a while, to resume reflection :

"When I saw Maude Woldham, after a long interval, she
had grown from a little girl into the handsome woman who
has turned many heads since she bewitched you. I must say
that, for the first time, I understood the general infatuation,
and felt alarmed to find myself falling in the same way. I
realized one day that as long as I remained within the reach
of her influence I should do no good. I went away; but
somehow or other I could not shake off the impression after
all, even in the midst of the hardest work. And, with that
decision, which you are, I believe, pleased to admire in me, I
resolved never to return to Gilham more. That summer,
therefore, I spent my vacation on a boating trip from Oxford
to Maidenhead. Well, here is the story : One hot afternoon I
was silently sailing past those meadows below Cookham. On
the bank, within four yards of me, I suddenly saw her, as I
thought — there she was, fast asleep among the buttercups, in
the shelter of the hedge. At the moment I thought it was an
hallucination. I let my craft run aground, and the grating of
the keel awoke the vision, who started up and looked at me,
blushing like a poppy. Then my sail entangled itself in some
overhanging bough of the hedge, and the stream turned my
boat round, so that I had to land. She was lovely — you have
seen her, and know the original — and I must suppose my mid-
smnmer madness was contagious. The accident sufficed for an
introduction, and that meeting by the water's edge was the
turning point of two lives."

"By all that is absurd, you have not gone and married her ?"
cried Lewis.

"No ; but it is nearly as bad," returned Charles, with a kind
of sneer ; "instead of letting that curious experience remain an
idyl, I allowed it to form the first canto of a long history, yet
to be concluded. Yes, the day is evidently past when I could
lecture you on the subject of foolishness. I willfully entangle
myself in the new meshes. The long and the short of it all is
that I never could make up my mind to give up that easy
prize. Haunted as I was by what I thought an impossible
phantasy, I hankered for its commonplace, but palpable, image
whose love had not cost me even an effort to win."

"A pretty kettle of fish!" ejaculated Lewis, "And who is
she?"

"The daughter of a comfortable hotel-keeper somewhere up
the river, and who, by the way, is apparently not at all recon-
ciled to the present state of affairs. Pretty for a college
Don!"

gz Midnight Confidences.

"And how on earth can you ever get rid of this poor girl
now?"

"I hold it a wise axiom that says, *As you make your bed, so
you lie.' As it is, well, it is not so bad. She is the handsomest
creature I know, one excepted, and devoted to me. When I
come down every week, tired out, I find a cheerful companion,
with no too exalted ideas to fret herself or me. There are un-
deniable advantages in such a state of things. She is perfectly
satisfied with matters as they are. Since I have chosen the
path, I make the most of my journey."

Lewis did not answer. He was certainly no precision in
matters of morality, but there was unmistakable disenchant-
ment in finding the friend he had been in the habit of looking
iip to as the archtype of intellectual refinement so cynical in
acknowledging a commonplace intrigue.

For a long time the pair remained in reflective silence.

Had Asmodeus, the Bottle Imp, been liberated in London
by some modern Don Cleofas, and alighted with him during
his discreet explorations on the roof of old Staples Inn
that night, he might have thought it curious to bid his
companion look into the attic room, while, for his benefit, he
read the inner thoughts of the two men who alone were still
awake at that late hour.

"That slim, graceful figure you see there, lying his lazy
length in the armchair, the pale, romantic beauty of whose
face would seem lit as by an intense inner life, is at this mo-
ment brooding over some secret temptation. I can not tell
you, Don Cleofas, what his plans are, for they are only half
formed, and I can read but what is ; but his thoughts are full
of doubt and desire.

"As for the other, with the close-cropped brown head and
the unromantic breadth of shoulder, who is squatting on his
three-legged stool, with a short pipe hanging under his thick,
bristly mustache, and with his round eyes staring abstractedly
at his lamp, he is back again to memories, and far away from'
here. A winter scene in a Yorkshire glen, under a dark gray
sky; a small lake, imprisoned below smooth, black ice, sur-
rounded by silent pines, asleep and solemn under masses of
hoar-frost. A slender girl, freshly blossomed into maidenhood,
whose black velvet skirts, heavily furred, are swaying rhyth-
mically to and fro, revealing the daintiest foot as she skates
in long, entrancing sweeps beside him, her little hands im-
prisoned in his, while some rebellious locks of brown hair,
escaping from her fur cap, flutter ever and anon across his
face. Now she stops, panting and tired, and the breath from
her parted lips condenses in iridescent beads on her long eye-

Midniglit Confidences. 93

lashes. How he loves her — loves her very shadow ! Can she
hear the sweet accompaniment playing in his heart to his occa-
sional impersonal remarks? 'How grand that slaty sky! and
that mysterious, silent wood, under the dazzling hoar ! Do you
not like to hear those crows calling to each other the news
from distant parts?' Witch as she is, fairy-like, surely she
hears his meaning rightly. *How beautiful is the place where
you are, for I love you! Were you away, how desolate, de-
spairing this snow-laden sky, what a dirge of misery those
calls !' Would you hear more, Don Cleof as, of the youth's
love-sick fancies, or shall we flit further ?"

"Why don't you tell me something about Maude herself?"
suddenly asked Lewis, starting from his abstraction.

"About Maude Woldham ? What can I tell you about her ?
That she is still Maude Woldham, you know yourself, I sup-
pose?"

"Yes, I know that. But where is she ? What has she been
about all these years? Or are you ashamed to talk of her?"
cried his companion, rather petulantly.

"Not at all, my dear fellow. She is now, I think, at Hom-
burg, combining fashionable amusement with a cure for her
aunt's nerves. As to her doings in general, what can I tell
you but that she has gone through the usual mill of girls
after they are brought to town to be presented ? Half a dozen
proposals, it appears. The legend is, that she does not want
to marry, on account of her old father. My opinion, how-
ever, is that the right man has not yet come forward."

Charles noted with a smile the effect of his last remark.

"I am sorry to see that you have not been cured. Is it pos-
sible you are still reckoning on a similar state of mind in
her?"

"What do you mean ?"

"I believe it is openly admitted that the girl was fond of
you, as the saying goes. But even if she were still the
same "

"Oh, I know your cynical talk about the folly of marriage."

"Well, perhaps I ought not to preach wisdom now, after the
confession which accident has forced from me. To cure this
monomania of sentiment, since more radical remedies are not
available, I should prescribe a little everyday, dragoon-like dis-
sipation. I think it would prove invaluable in your case."

"Oh, master !" interrupted Lewis, with a forced laugh ; "you
are skilled in disputation on moral sciences, but I fear your
utilitarianism obscures your appreciation of morals in life !"

"I am talking sense. But there is something better still,
when a man is as moonstruck as you seem to be; namely, to
seek a cure in alternatives, counter-irritants."

94 Midniglit Con^dences.

"'In the company of some confiding inn-keeper's daughter, 1
presume ?" put in Lewis, now thoroughly vexed.

"I own you have an argumentative weapon against me."
Then, abruptly changing the subject : "Now/' he said, "about
the news I had for you. It is really a fact that your return
is a simple coincidence, or have you heard about the Gilham
affairs?"

"No ; what about Gilham ?" asked Lewis, his mind still run-
ning on ruffled thoughts.

"Why, this simply," said Charlie. "In March last Guy, the
youngest, you know, who was wounded in South Africa, died
on his way home. You laiow that, of course ? Well, about a
week ago the news arrived that Bob, the eldest, who was yacht-
ing with a friend in the Pacific somewhere, had a sunstroke,
and died in two days. But when I asked what had brought you
back, I thought you might have heard of it yourself. Now, do
you begin to understand?"

"Great God !" cried Lewis, who, with undefined insight into
vast possibilities, sprang from his seat in great agitation.

"That is not all. By the by, where is that Post?" Charles
stepped across the room and took up the paper, which
he unfolded. "Hallo !" he cried, in astonishment ; "why, here
is the very thing itself marked out for you, and in red ink.
Who could have sent it ?"

Lewis eagerly seized the newspaper, and, with knitted brow,
sought for the marked paragraph :

"On the 16th inst., at Gilham Court, Yorks, suddenly, Wil-
liam Kerr, Esq., D. L., J. P., aged sixty-three."

"On the 1st of June, on board the yacht Daphne, Robert
William Kerr, eldest and only surviving son of the above,
from the effects of sunstroke, aged thirty-two."

Lewis looketl up with wondering eyes.

"Yes," said Mr. Hillyard, in answer to the look; "the old
man himself had a fit on hearing the news, and is now lying
dead in his bed at Gilham. Now, you know the tenure of the
estate, no doubt. This is the news I had to give you."

Lewis stood staring at his friend. The latter examined him
anew with a strange smile.

"This is a kind of clearance which it would hardly do to con-
template, as a rule," he went on, dryly; "and yet how easily it
could have extended even further — had your sturdy figure, for
instance, intercepted a Boerish bullet."

Lewis did not grasp the meaning in the midst of his giddi-
ness; he was only beginning to realize all the news meant for
him: "Lewis Kerr of Gilham," a fortune, one of the finest
estates in the Riding; and then the old refrain came once

Midnight Confidences. 95

more to the fore. Why, Maude could be mistress of Gilham !
What a prospect open to a simple subaltern !

While the young man thus lost himself, Charles, taking
the paper, examined it wistfully, wondering whether there
was more to be seen in that unsolicited information.

"Have you any idea " he began, looking up from the

■ print. But Lewis suddenly grasped his hand.

"And you, too," he cried, in an altered voice — "you, the
only one of the family who has been good to me — wherever
my home is, yours must be, too, whenever you like to make
it so. Ah, no! poor old chap, you can't!" He already saw
Maude by his side, mistress of his house. "But, never mind,
3'ou shall have a share in this stroke of luck, all the same."

"Stroke of luck!" laughed Charles, as he threw the paper
aside. "Is that all you have to say to this decimation of
your kindred ?"

"Oh, why pretend? They all hated me. The only inter-
course I ever had with any of them, but your own family,
was of the angry kind."

Charles remained a moment lost in thought.

"I suppose you are not thinking of going North with me —
for it was Gilham, not Cambridge, I was bound for — and in-
tended to do so when I met you."

"What do you think?" pondered Lewis; "I ought to go,
ought If not ? Heaven knov/s I would willingly pay the poor
old man the last respects. I can bear him no grudge now
for all his discourtesy (to call it by no harder name) to me."

"Well, I don't know. Do you not think it might look
rather curious under the circumstances; as if you lost no
time to assert your position? However, in this matter you
must use your own judgment."

"Oh ! if you think that, of course, I should not dream of it.
I rather want to be free just now, too."

"Of course, I must go. My sisters and I are his nearest
relatives — after you; moreover, the old man has been rather
good to me. And it is time I took some rest, and I shall ask
you for that promised couch. You must be anxious, at least,
to ruminate over your new prospects."

In his present state, Lewis was glad enough to exert him-
self in mechanical labor, and, entering the adjoining room,
he became very busy in converting that cunning article of
furniture known as a settee bedstead into a bed for his
friend.

"There, I hope," he remarked, as he finally turned down
the cool sheets with the neatness he put into everything,
"you v/lil find the needful rest. As for myself, I prefer this."
And he proceeded to unroll a wide canvas hammock, which

96 Midnight Confidences.

he hooked diagonally across a corner of his small third apart-
ment, and arranged in it one of the pillows of the settee and
covered it with a rug.

"Now we are taut for the night !"

"So you sleep in a hammock in the heart of London 1 you
lunatic you," laughed Charles.

"Judge not without experience," returned the host. "A
good hammock is a very nest for unfeathered bipeds."

"Well, why don't you get into it?" said the other, as his
friend prepared to leave the room.

"Oh, I could not sleep! I must go out and walk a while
and have a good think. Have you all you want? Yes?
Well, I shall not wake you when I come in."

For a long while, however, Charles heard his steps through
the open window on the flagstones, diminishing in the dis-
tance and returning regularly. Dawn had made way for
sunlight, and the busy hum of the thoroughfare was rising
up to the dormer windows before the noctambulist returned
to his suspended couch.

He stopped a moment to gaze at his friend, who, though
still awake, was feigning sleep. Then he proceeded to en-
sconse himself in his paragon hammock, to which he im-
parted for some time a soothing oscillatory motion. To
neither of them did restful sleep pay a visit, for all their eyes
were closed. But the thoughts and schemes that were re-
volving on the pillow of the couch would no doubt have
jarred considerably with the equally fleeting but more har-
monious plans and hopes which succeeded each other as dis-
solving views in the hammock. Both hailed the time for
rising, with pleasure.

After attending to his friend's comforts and seeing him
off, Lewis returned to his room with a sense of relief at being
alone, and fell into a deep reverie.

The meeting with his old chum, so long looked forward
to, had proved in some occult manner thoroughly disappoint-
ing. Had it not been that the new "squire's" head was so
filled with the strangeness of his imexpected position, he
would have been much troubled. As it was, however, he
could think of nothing but Maude.

In two days, perhaps, he would again hold that little hand
in his, look into the depths of those wondrous blue-gray eyes ;
at length pour into her woman's ear the endless tale of that
love she, as a little maid, had tacitly accepted.

Visions of youthful love — only the few who have not early
squandered the freshness of life can realize their glory!

The fever of departure seized him. He again packed some
of the luggage he had so carefully unpacked the day before,

" Qui Part Trop Tot Rivient Trop Tard." 97

sat down to write sundry directions to the family solicitor
and give his address as Homburg, Poste Restante; dragged
his portmanteau down-stairs himself, and, after hasty in-
junctions to the astoTiished porter, jiimped. into the first han-
som that passed before the gates. Not an hour later he was
steaming away from the turmoil of London, in search of the
lady of his thoughts.

CHAPTER VII.
"qui part trop tot revient trop tard."

On his arrival at Homburg, thirty hours later, Levsds, after
a hasty toilet, sallied forth into the sunshine of the little
town. He did not wish to seek Maude at once; he felt too
much like a man in a dream, too confused after these long
hours of ceaseless thinking, to venture entering at once into
her presence.

Dreamily, he turned his steps toward the Kursaal Gar-
dens, whither all Homburg goes to listen to music. The
sky was tremulous with the light of the August sun; but
there was a sort of sparkle in the air which redeemed it from
oppressive heat. The band was playing a swinging waltz tune
as he came up under the shade of the linden trees, and took
a seat in the most secluded corner within view of the prom-
enade and its moving stream of young faces, fluttering mus-
lins and gay colors. In some strange way, the merriment had
an instaneously depressing effect upon him. His heart sank
like lead as he gazed from face to face. Oh, for the wide
horizon, the green, still fields of Woldham !

And then the troubled heart gave a great leap. Not ten
paces away, her delicate head dominating the crowd of
smaller womankind, was she — Maude, his love!

She was advancing with that free, well-poised gait he re-
membered so well. Under the shade of a wide straw hat the
pure oval of her face shone out a little palely, yet "divinely
fair." She came past, and the rays of her blue eyes illumined
the shady corner as she glaivf^ed in his direction. She did
not recognize him. How could she? he asked himself, to
stifle the unreasonable pang that sprang into life under the
gentle indifference of her look.

He would have known her anywhere; and yet how different I
The full-grown woman, in the warm richness of her young
and powerful life, in delicate loveliness of feature, was not
the thin and girlish being of his memories. And yet the

98 " Qui Part Trop Tot Rivient Trop Tard."

face bore the old look. Thank heaven I She was his Maude
still.

A little disdainful, she moved through the throng, suiting
her pace to the slow gait of the feeble woman who leaned on
her strong young arm. A heaven-blue Uhlan and a pink-
cheeked boy, English, every inch of him, were pressing after
her. The attention she vouchsafed them was so detached
and coldly courteous in its impartiality that even the watch-
ful lover could behold their proximity without heartburning.

And, with white drapery fluttering in the breeze that fanned
his face, she, all iinconscious, stepped by. A great rush of
tenderness swelled his heart. Was such happiness to be for
him?

Four, years ago, when they had parted, under the enow-
bound sky, and she had slipped her little fingers, warm from
her muff, into his cold grasp, how frank and firm had been
their pressure, how they had quivered under his passionate
kisses! She had loved him then! But now? What right
had he to expect this child's love to have lasted ?

Madly as her exquisite womanhood set his heart a-beating,
he could wish to have her less beautiful; to him she must
ever have remained the only woman in the world.

Again she passed ; again the glamorous blue ray swept him
with unseeing sweetness. Poor fool! with his heart in his
throat, shaking now as if with palsy !

The very ease with which the longed-for opportunity came
robbed him of all courage. For a few hours, at least, he
would hug his dream of bliss.

Before the burnished twist of hair, that flashed gold in the
sunlight, had been lost in the crowd, the music ceased.
Lewis rose from his seat to follow Maude to her residence, a
purpose he successfully accomplished without attracting at-
tention. He fell to reconnoitering the neighborhood, with a
view to engaging quarters in the immediate vicinity. He
had not far to seek; a minor hotel directly faced the more
pretentious building that sheltered his love, and therein he
straightway secured a front room.

The rest of the day and the long hours of the night he
passed in a kind of waking dream.

For night had descended, with a purple moonless sky;
odors of earth and leaf rose from the cooling soil. One by
one the noises ceased, the townlet was lulled to a restful
silence, broken toward midnight by a sudden brief exodus of
merry, bed-going groups, passing from the Kiirsaal under his
windows.

Half unconsciously Lewis noticed the solitary figure, of a

" Qui Part Trop Tot Rivient Trop Tard." 99

traveler, who followed by a porter in charge of a much-
belabeled portmanteau, crossed over to the hotel opposite.

The stranger stood a moment on the steps before entering,
and, taking off his hat, turned as if to welcome the breeze
that stole fresh from the plains. It was a keen, grave face
in profile, sharply defined against the dark shadow of the
wall.

It was well that Lewis could catch no glimpse of the light
form that next slipped in so quickly, it had been sweet to
think of his darling safe in her virgin sanctuary. Yet it was
Maude who stood in the tiled hall of the hotel, watching with
wide-opened eyes, brilliant with surprised recognition, the
vigorous figure of the gray-clad traveler as he slowly followed
his portmanteau up the stairs.

And late into the night, by her open window she, too, sat
dreaming, so near and yet so far from the poor passion-
tossed watcher who could not sleep for very love of her.

At length, as the dawn of day crept over the heavens, Lewis
flung himself on his bed. But there could be no sleep for so
busy a brain ; burning with fire of hope, chilled with present-
iment of evil.

Toward seven, when Homburg was already astir and abroad,
he was glad to rise once more; and though depressed, he
could not fail to be cheered by the beauty of the day that was
to make or mar him. With courage renewed, he bathed,
dressed, and drank his steaming coffee with a grateful sense
of invigoration. As he stopped on the doorstep, Maude her-
self, the very embodiment of summer sweetness and morning
freshness, came quickly out of the opposite house and turned
up the street. And then he thought that fortune meant to
favor him indeed.

Avoiding the fashionable throng the girl struck into a
solitary side-alley that led to the pine-woods, and Lewis, with
a leaping pulse, doubled his pace, and in a few strides had
overtaken her.

She did not know him; not even when he addressed her in
the old familiar way, and held out his eager hand. Her
first look of surprise changed to a wondering perplexity at
the sound of his voice, as if it struck some chord in memory,
but which aroused faint associations. He had to name him-
seK. He had not forgotten her, changed as she was. And
then, at the easy warmth of her greeting, the growing pos-
sibility of that contingency he dared not contemplate came
upon him with misgiving.

"Lewis!" dropping her sunshade to stretch out both hands
to him; "actually, really you! Where do you spring from?
and what are you doing here? You have not come for the

loo " Qui Part Trop Tot Rivient Trop Tard."

waters, surely?" This with a merry laugh. "Well, I am
heartily glad to see you. But how you have changed 1 I
never should have known you again."

Each sentence was emphasized by a shake of the hand;
not a change of color on the smooth cheeks nor the flutter of
an eyelid over the frank scrutiny of her gaze. No old com-
rade could have been more cheerful in his greeting.

Her careless, friendly self-abandonment, at a time when it
required all his power of control, under the touch of her
hands, filled him suddenly with a sort of anger.

"I am home on leave," he said at last, white to his tremb-
ling lips; "when I came to London, three days ago, I heard
you were here, and so I followed."

The girl gave him a quick, puzzled look; then the bright
smile wavered and faded ; she slowly drew her hands from his
grasp.

"Maude," he cried passionately ; "it is no use beating about
the bush. I must speak to you to-day."

"Dear Lewis," she anowered in soothing tones, "of course I
will listen to you. What has happened ?"

It cut him to the heart to see the uncomprehending kind-
ness of her lovely face ; he could not speak, the words refused
to come. He could only look at her with his poor, htmgry,
clenching hands and trembling as he stood before her.

For a minute she waited ; then, light seemed to break upon
her, and she flushed crimson.

"I think," she said very gently, rather as if in pain, "that
it may be best, Lewis, for both of us, that I should not listen
to what you have to say."

He knew thus, before she had spoken, what his fate was;
but he must speak the pent-up love.

"Maude, I have loved you since I first saw you. Surely
you knew it. You must have felt it. My only thought
since then has been of you. I dreamed of winning fame that
I might win you; I turned soldier that I might fight myself
to the front, achieve something for you. . . . Do you
remember when I last saw you ? Did you not know that I was
tearing myself away from the land where you lived, only to
make myself worthy of you? I thought — God help me! —
that if I were to do some brilliant deed for you, there might
be hope for me. I tried hard, but the fame I longed for falls
to the lot of those who command. T came home as obscure
as when I left — but loving you, Maude, more madly than
ever ! When we parted at thfe gate four years ago, I told you
of my love, you answered nothing; but your sweet eyesl I
saw a light in them that has been my beacon, my guiding
star, ever since. I came home to seek from the woman the

" Qui Part Trop Tot Rivient Trop Tard." loi

mute hope the child had not refused me, and then, with
fresh courage, to take up the battle of life again, to force
iate to make me worthy of you. If you were willing to
wait, I knew I must succeed in the end. On my return I
learned an overwhelming piece of news : I was rich, Maude —
I was somebody at last ; Gilham and all that gi'eat estate was
niine! My only joy in it was that it might be yours; I am
rich enough for my own wants. God forgive me! I was
mad with joy when I thought of you. I started that very
day to seek you, to lay it all at your feet ; what did I care for
it except for you? Maude, I must hear the words from
your lips; tell me yourself that I must kill that hope, grown
to become the very life of my life."

There were tears in her eyes. "Dear Lewis! it can never
be."

"At least you loved me — then. Tell me, you loved me
then."

She hung her head, faltering: "What could such a child
know of love?"

For a second it seemed as if the earth gave way beneath
him.

A look, five minutes together on that sunny morning under
the trembling shadow of a white-faced aspen — and it was
done.

"I am so grieved," came the soft, grave voice, once the
dearest sound on earth, now the most acutely painful. He
glanced down at her flushed face, at tlie tender mouth, drawn
down at the corners with the pitiful, helpless expression of a
scolded child, at the eyes brimming with grief, and thought
the cup of bitterness was full indeed, and that her compassion
he could not bear.

"Good-by, it is good-by, Maude. Do not fear that I shall
ever bring such trouble into your life again."

Mechanically he raised his hat, and, refusing to see her
timidly proffered hand, hurried away along the green avenue
that led to the pine-trees. Before his inward vision stretched
the prospect of an aimless life. How was he ever to have
courage to go on with it?

CHAPTER VIII.

A TAVERN ACQUAINTANCE.

Late in thQ evening of the same day, David Fargue and
Lewis Kerr — ^well-intentioned hunter and unconscious quarry
— distant from each other by some twenty paces only, were
strolling along the ill-condition pavement of a narrow wind-
ing street in the old university tovni of Heidelberg.

By dint of relentless inquiries, Fargus had discovered his
son's hurried flight from Homburg, and puzzled to account
for it, and upset in his calculations, started in pursuit. On
arrival at Heidelberg, after engaging a room at a hotel, he
straightway sallied forth again on his carefully arranged
plan of reconnoitering. It was his intention to make the
round of all places of entertainment, inquiring for a sup-
posititious English friend — a device which he calculated
would secure him an inspection of the visitors' book.

At the very first halt, fortune had favored the amateur
detective. A talkative waiter suddenly pointed out through
the glass door a stalwart, tweed-clad figure rapidly passing
toward the street.

"This is the only gentleman who has come here to-day.
English, too, I will show you the book; you can see for your-
self the last entry — Mr. Kerr, from Homburg."

And thus it happened that a few moments later, David
Fargus found himself dogging .the erratic wanderings of
Lewis Kerr through devious by-lanes and up the High street.

It was a long and monotonous way, scantily lighted.

By-and-by Lewis, who up to that had walked aimlessly,
dived down a side-alley, Fargus, guided by a glimpse of the
broad back under the shine of a rare lamp, sometimes only
by the ring of the clean thread, roamed in pursuit, in and out
lanes through the labyrinth of the older quarter.

Then the footfalls abruptly ceased; there was the sound
of a swinging door. Hounding the corner, Fargus found
himself in an empty street, before an old-fashioned house.

This house was studiously "Gothic," ancient. Wrought-
iron work, grotesquely carved wood, gave it fantastic attrac-
tions ; a hinged signboard, proclaimed, by the light of a small
green lamp, in bristling, curveting black letters, that within
were "Old German" wine-rooms.

The laying out of a wine-room is the object of much at-
tention. The "Alt Deutsche Wein Stuhe" to be found in
almost ©very German town, is usually a place of moderate

"A Tavern Acquaintance.** 103

dimensions — for the consumers of the noble wine do not
come in throngs like the daily beer-swillers.

Fargus had come to a standstill, and now remained lost.
At last he made up his mind and plunged within the lighted
recesses.

In a far comer of a deserted room sat the object of his
pursuit. From the threshold Fargus looked keenly at him.

Square-headed, square-shouldered, bearing the stamp of his
nationality as unmistakably as the stamp of his profession,
the young man sat, gazing in gloomy abstraction at the am-
ber-filled goblet. He raised his head at the sound of the
opening door, and Fargus recognized, beyond hesitation the
original of the much-studied portrait.

With an inward start, the father met the gaze of two
somber yet brilliant eyes. How often had not the George
Kerr of old, during those last unhappy days of his existence, a
quarter century back, beheld just such another haggard young
face, whenever he had chanced to meet his own reflected image.

Maintaining his outward placidity Fargus silently sat at
the nearest table; watched, under cover of his shading hand,
each action of that scowling man who was his son.

Lewis tossed his glass, filled it again, and again emptied the
brimmer. Then he relapsed into his former heavy reflection.

Fargus felt a sharp pang of disappointment; the shaking
hand, the flushed face, and brooding eye were signs that he
had learned to read but too well.

Under the sting of that first impression he now thought of
abandoning this time the creature who had been his sole
thought for so many days, lest the knowing of him should
prove a bitterness. But there came to him a curious, un-
wonted emotion which warned him that Nature was deter-
mined to assert her rights, however late — then the remem-
brance of all the information, collected with so much difli-
culty, concerning his son's past, information which tallied
so ill with the dawning suspicion.

A few minutes of silent watching, and it did not require
his knowledge of physiognomy to discover here was no ordi-
nary ease; some unusual agitation was at work behind the
young soldier's determined potations.

Lewis refilled and emptied his glass, and called out, in
German :

"Herr Wirth, another bottle of the same !"

There was fever in the young man's excited manner, and
Fargus began to feel a new solicitude.

"He is battling with some terrible thought. What can it
be? If I could help him ... if I only knewl"

The host bustled in upon his reflections, and, after placing

104 "A Tavern Acquaintance.'*

the required flask and a dish of meat — evidently some pre-
vious order — before Lewis, turned, smiling and apologetic, to
the late-comer and requested to know his pleasure.

Fergus seized upon this opportunity with beating heart.

"Forgive my troubling you," he said; "I fancy I am not
mistaken in taking you for an Englishman, and, as I hear
you speak the jargon, may I beg you to interpret me to this
fellow?"

Lewis looked up at the speaker, who, with his peaked beard
and the great scar across his face, did not at first sight look
like a countryman. But, falling under the spell of kind eyes
and a sympathetic smile, he suddenly recovered understanding
and courtesy, and rose to his feet likewise.

"Do you want supper, or merely wine?" he inquired.
"There is not much choice of the former in a place like this,
but the wine is good. Perhaps you will do me the favor to
taste this; you might like to have the same — Herr Wirth,
another glass."

The pleasant, refined voice fell gratefuly on the father's
ear.

Accepting the offer, Fargus came and sat down at the same
table; the glasses were filled.

There was a desultory interchange of remarks on the qual-
ity of the beverage. Then a not unnatural silence fell be-
tween them.

Awakening to the fact that the ice so happily broken was
fast setting again, Fargus took a plunge.

Leaning forward and fixing the moody face across the table
with a look of unconscious but compelling earnestness: "I
hope you will forgive my intrusion," said he, "on your
privacy; but when I first saw you it struck me that I knew
your face, and now, on closer examination, I feel almost sure
I do. May I ask if I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr.
Lewis Kerr?"

Called from his far abstraction, Lewis seemed irritated, but
again became subject to some subtle, pleasing influence. At
the last words he turned round and surveyed his interlocutor
with curiosity.

"That is my name," he answered wonderingly. "But I
cannot remember ever having seen you before,"

"You are right," said Fargus, with a smile; %ut I was
looking at a portrait of you, and that quite lately."

"My portrait ? And where ?"

"At Woldham Hall."

The wound was yet too fresh to bear even so slight a touch.
It was a minute or two before he became aware that the
stranger was still speaking.

"A Tavern Acquaintance." 105

"And so, as a two months' tenant of the Lone Grange, I
consider myself quite an old inhabitant. I knew your late
uncle slightly, and am a warm admirer of that fine old house,
the present master of which, I believe, I am now addressing."

Lewis winced. Once more Fargus racked his brain for a
solution, trying to ward off a dread of some hidden disgrace.

"He cannot bear the thought of his home or his old
friends! And yet how well they all spoke of the lad! the
Greneral seemed to love him like a son."

"And so you know the Woldhams!" said Lewis abruptly.
"How curious ! Woldham Hall was as nearly a home as any
place has ever been to me; it is four years since I was there.
The general was very good to me. I suppose he is growing an
old man now?"

"It is a green old age; he looks good for many years to
come. His daughter is beautiful ; I hear she is at Homburg."

As he spoke these words the meaning of it all flashed upon
the father's mind. The surmises he had made regarding a
romantic attachment between the fair mistress of Woldham
and his son had been correct only as regarded the latter, and
the young dragoon had dashed in pursuit of his old sweetheart
only to be refused.

Thereupon ensued silence, this time a fairly protracted one.

The lad was hard hit, thought Fargus. No wonder the
tJiought of his splendid inheritance now brought nothing but
bitterness. "But luckily," urged the wisdom of yearsr and ex-
perience, "it will not last."

Soon Fargus found himself wondering, and with hot indig-
nation, what in the world that girl could mean by rejecting
his son — manly, good-looking fellow as he was — and next
there came a creeping satisfaction in the connected thought
that the all-absorbing interest of happy love was not to come
between the son and his unknown father — at any rate, for a
little while yet.

Throwing all his will into the intensity of his desire, the
father made another determined effort.

"Our meeting to-night," he remarked, "in this quaint
tavern — ancient, at least, in intention — in the heart of a
seventeenth century town, and my recognition of you over a
glass of wine, might form a good opening chapter in a novel
of the old-fashioned school, might it not, Mr. Kerr? . . .
Of what thrilling events and adventures would not this occur-
rence be the starting point! In real life, who knows if we
shall ever look upon each other's face again ?"

Lewis turned his eyes toward his companion with a grate-
ful sense of restfulness upon the calm, kindly face before him;
but he did not speak.

io6 " A Tavern Acquaintance."

"Yet I am wrong," began his companion once more, with
qiiick perception of the young man's unconscious sympathy.
**We are destined to be neighbors for a goodly time to come,
and, I hope, destined to be friends. May I introduce myself to
my actual landlord over there in Yorkshire? — for, strangely
enough, it is now your old manor-house of which I am the
tenant. David Fargus, citizen of Washington, in the United
State, at your service. Shall we not shake hands?"

Lewis extended his hand to find it quickly inclosed in a
warm, firm clasp and gently retained.

"Here is the birth of a new day," said Fargus, glancing
with a smile at the high clock, which now pointed to the
twelfth hour. He retained his son's hand till the last vibra-
tion of the twelve strokes had died away, and then, with a
half -laugh, released it.

The young man brushed his forehead with the gesture of
one awakening from a dream.

"A most extraordinary thing !" he murmured, staring at his
acquaintance with undisguised wonder. "While my hand
lay in yours I seemed to forget how dead tired I am and all
about this splitting head of mine, just as though you actually
mesmerized me. I had a puzzling sensation, too, as if it were
quite natural to have you there — as if your touch and presence
were both familiar and jjleasant. I am afraid I cannot boast
of being altogether in my sound sense to-night."

Stopping short to look more closely at the clean-cut profile
he cried suddenly :

"I have seen you before; yet I cannot think where. I know
now. It was last night ; you landed at the hotel at Homburg
— you stood on the steps, thinking; I saw you from my win-
dow in a little inn opposite — only last night; it seems years
ago."

He felt overcome with great weariness. For three nights
no sleep had descended on his eyes ; now nervous strength was
failing. Fargus' strong, vigorous presence seemed to uphold
and master his mind.

"I am tired out, tired of life. I desire nothing but forget-
fulness. I tried to find it in wine; it was worse than all.
There is but one way to find it, that is in death."

Strange, thought the father, kind were the workings of fate
which had brought him to his son's side at such a moment.
Laying his hand on the other's wrist, he spoke gently but with
an earnestness bom of his own keen sense of the danger of hi%.
utter mental breakdown.

"Rouse yourself ; I do not know what is on your mind, but
you have let yourself run down too low. Think. Tnere is
always plenty left to do in a young life, and ultimately to

"A Tavern Acquaintance." 107

enjoy. Only cowards shrink from the battle's outset. With
a fair name, a good conscience, there is something worth liv-
ing for in every life — ^you are exhausted. Eat."

The anxiety of the elder man's eye relaxed when he eav^
I^ewis draw his plate before him and obey. Tracing the po-
tency of his influence, as much to the young man's condition
as to his own singleness of thought, Fargus watched its
working with satisfaction.

When the last morsel was finished, the father, quietly prof-
fering a cigar carefully selected from his case, the young
man in the same obedient manner kindled the Havana at the
match that was struck for him.

The American followed suit, and there ensued a few mo-
ments of silence, in which both lay back in their chairs,
slowly inhaling and exhaling the fragi-ant smoke; Fargus
keenly watchful, under his half-closed lids, Lewis absorbed
in his new-found, dreamy placidity.

This pleasant state of things was soon disturbed. Bois-
terous laughter and a rattling of canes in the quiet street
heralded the appearance of three hilarious youths, students,
as their colors proclaimed, which gentry burst into the room
and began clattering with sticks on the nearest table.

The hellish clangor broke the spell which seemed to bind
Lewis's thoughts.

"I do believe that you did take me away from myself. I
seem to have been in a dream — during which I see I have
contrived to make a very substantial supper. Was it not
you who ordered me to eat?"

"I suggested it ; you required it. How do you feel now ?"

"Better, thank you. Actually as if I could sleep to-night."

Here the laughter and witticisms round the table where
the cavaliers had settled became so uproarious, that unable
to hear himself speak, Fargus broke off in his talk and half-
turned on his chair to look severely at the delinquents.

"Where do these creatures, in caps so much too small for
their fat heads, come from?" he asked in a low voice, bend-
ing closer to his companion; "the University is not sitting
now."

"Students on a tour," said Lewis in the same tone.

"How absurd they look with their seamed faces and that
painful rotundity of figure!" He was about contemptuously
to turn his back upon the group, when he became aware that
its largest and most obtrusive member was now engaged in
staring at him with as much insolence as two excessively
heated eyes could convey, and paused to return the look with
placid disfavor.

"My dear sir," said Levsds, "allow me to entreat you to bo-

io8 "A Tavern Acquaintance."

stow your attention elsewhere for the moment. Corps stu-
dents often make it a point of honor to be actively imperti-
nent to those outside their order, on the slenderest pretext."

As he spoke, silence fell on the couleur-party, all three of
which looked solemnly toward Fargus; then the first berib-
boned individual rose, with unsteady dignity, and came for-
ward. He stopped within a pace of the Englishman's table,
closed his high heels with a bellicose tap. "Sir," he said in
German, "why did you fix me ? I cannot allow you to do so I"

The admirable correction of this challenge was lost upon
Fargus, who had to address himself to Lewis for interpreta-
tion.

"What does this gentleman say?"

"Oh," cried Lewis hurriedly, anxious to gloss things over,
"he wants to know what you are looking at him for. It is
part of their system to resent being 'fixed,' as they call it.
Mein Herr," he continued, making a slight bow to the corps-
man, "this gentleman is a stranger, and speaks no German.
He did not intend to fix you, but regarded your party with a
traveler's curiosity." And, bowing again, he sat down, in
hopes of having concluded the episode.

"Very well, sir; tell him, then, not to look at us again."

"That I shall not do!" retorted Lewis, stung to anger.
"What the devil do you mean by offering such impertinence
to strangers — ^guests in your land?"

The Bursch wheeled round, and petrified himself into an
attitude of the most rigid dignity.

"Silly youth, I must trouble you for your card."

Lewis pulled out his pocket-book and tossed a card on the
table; the German became preposterously courteous. He
took the card with much apparent satisfaction, touched his
cap, first to one, then to the other, and swaggered back to
his companions, who had looked on in solemn approval.

Though unable to understand a word, Fargus could not
misinterpret the student's tones, nor the anger with which
Lewis had flung his card down.

"What is the meaning of all this? You are not going to
take a challenge from that sodden fool ?"

"If he is not too drunk to forget all about it, it is prob-
able he will send some one in the morning to request the
honor of a fight with me."

There was a long silence, Lewis yawned and leaned again
on the table. "If I could only sleep to-night, the chance of
meeting the great Amadis would tempt me to get up again."

The students retired almost immediately.

Fargus resolved to see his boy back to bis room, and en-

The " Commeut " of Honor. 109

deavor, without seeming indiscreet, to induce him to lie*down
to rest.

When once more left to themselves, he laid his hand on
the young man's shoulder.

"Come, it is time for you to have some sleep. Where are
you stopping?"

"Where am I stopping? Where? I forget; I will sleep
here."

And stretching his arm forward, laid his head on the table.

l^^argus quickly made up his mind. He called the landlord,
and naming his hotel, made it understood he required a guide
thither.

Lewis got up when Fargus took him under the arm. The
hotel soon appeared in sight, when the American dismissed
his guide and hurried his stumbling charge into its shelter.

CHAPTER IX.

THE "comment" of HONOR.

Disdaining the grin of the night-porter, Fargus conveyed
the young man to his own quarters.

He locked the door, perceiving an adjoining bed-room was
vacant, and resolved to usurp it for himself, abandoning his
own bed to his son.

As for Lewis, with a few words of thanks, he flung himself
on the couch.

The elder man stood gazing at him, immersed in thought.

In the relaxation of sleep the young frame looked broad
and powerful. With head thrown back the muscular
column of his throat showed, deeply sunburned. His arms
were folded above his head; this Fargus noted, for it had
been a habit of his own youthful days.

He caught himself sighing, and at length roused himself
from his contemplation, to bend over the reclining form and
loosen the collar and tie, unlace and pull off the boots. Then
he carefully covered the sleeper, drew the blind and curtains,
and after one last look at his son, retired to the next room
and closed the door.

The sun had crossed the meridian before Lewis awoke.

He lay still, enjoying the sensation of lazy well-being in
every limb. Then a curious sensation of unfamiliarity with
his circximstances began to wax disturbingly; and presently
there was the shock of the discovery that he had gone to b«l
in his clothes.

no The "Comment" of Honor.

He sat up, bewildered, struggling to piece together the con-
fused scraps of last night's proceedings. It was in vain he
strove ; he could not recollect how he had gone to bed.

"Confound it!" cried Lewis aloud, tossed petulantly back
his covering, and curved his long legs over the side of the bed,
in which position a knock at the door arrested him.

"Come in," cried he. It was the stranger of last night who
stood on the threshold of the adjoining room, and smiled upon
him with that odd gaze which had bewitched him in the
tavern.

"Well, and how do you feel after sleeping the round of the
clock?" just as if it were all the most natural thing in the
world.

Lewis stared hard, and then rubbed his eyes.

"What are you doing in my room ?" was a counter-question
that not unnaturally rose to his lips. But almost at the same
time his irritated glance fell, and, when he spoke, the words
came forth wonderfully modified, almost apologetic. "May I
ask why you are here, what you are doing in my room ? I beg
your pardon," blundered he, abashed all at once, and with a
confused, humiliated consciousness of the contrast between
liis own unkempt condition and the perfect appointments of
his visitor. "I have the vaguest recollection of what took
place last night — I do remember meeting you. I hope I had
not too much wine on board ?"

"It was not so much a case of too much wine, as of too
little food, I should say, and over-fatigue," answered Fargus
kindly. "Perhaps, also, too much worry in your head."

At this allusion the black cloud settled back on Lewis' face.

The father, turning to draw the curtains and admit the
warm sunlight of a perfect day, went on easily:

"Pardon me for coming in upon you in this manner; I
heard you move first, and call, I thought. I should not have
disturbed that good long sleep of yours. But I must tell you
that this is not really your room, nor even your hotel. Yon
were too sleepy last night to remember where you lodged, and
so I took it upon myself to bring you back with me."

The young man flushed scarlet.

"Was I so bad as all that ?" he asked quickly, and looked so
aghast that the elder man's heart went out to him.

"No, my dear fellow," he answered, gently. "Some people
might have put it down to wine ; but I knew better."

Lewis fixed his eyes on the speaker, who returned his gaze
with one of benevolent amusement, through which the young
man felt an earnest scrutiny which puzzled and embarrassed
him.

"It was really good of you," he said at length— "devilish

If he "Comment^* of Honor. lit

good of you I" with a sudden appreciation of his obligation.
"I have been trying, ever since I awoke this morning, to re-
member how I got home. I had no idea I was trespassing
upon your kindness. I don't know why you took the trouble."

"More surprised would you be if you did!" thought the
father, while aloud he genially remarked:

"Any one would have rendered you the same service. I was
very glad to be of use to you. And now may I beg you to
make use of my traps, exactly as you please. You will find
no razors, but I daresay they can provide you with some sort
of implement in the hotel; and as to other things, the con-
tents of my portmanteau are at your service. Seeing you
have unwittingly partaken of my hospitality, will you give
me the pleasure of extending it at least until after the
luncheon I have just ordered ?"

Lewis hesitated, then eagerly accepted — anything to hush,
for the moment, the clamor of his pain.

"You will find me on the terrace," added Fargus.

Half an hour later they were once more seated opposite
each other on the creeper-hung terrace, some savory dishes
and a long bottle of Rhenish between them.

Lewis would have been other than human not to feel cheered
by the influence of these material things, no less than by his
entertainer's extraordinary gift of pleasant conversation.

The crusty bottle was near emptied.. Lewis suddenly re-
alized that he and this man of many travels and experiences,
soldier at least in knowledge, and sportsman unmistakable,
were old friends already, and that he did not even know his
name.

His growing attraction toward this strange being, and his
simultaneously growing curiosity, prompted him now to
frankly admit his ignorance and beg enlightenment.

"I should so much like to_ know your name," he said
naively.

"Fargus — ^David Fargus," answered the latter, smiling.

"A proud name for an American to bear," cried the young
soldier, who was an eager student of military 'history. "Are
you any relation of the famous Colonel Fargus ?"

There was a moment's pause. Lewis looked up, to see the
stranger's face flush darkly under its bronze, the immense scar
on his forehead standing out Hvidly against the tide of
generous blood.

"Why, good Heavens!" exclaimed the young man, with
lightning intuition, "I believe you are the very man him-
self!"

For the first time in his life Fargus felt an exquisite
pleasure in his fame. Hitherto he had accepted its ad-

ixi The *' Comment *' of Honot.

vantages as his due. Now he was tasting all the satisfac-
tion it is capable of giving. When he spoke his smile was
very sweet.

"So you have found the old soldier out. T had hardly
thought a young blood like you would even know of such
ancient history. Yes, it was a curious time, one that broucrht
to the fore any man with capacity for the art of war. You
have seen service, too, if I am not mistaken ?"

"T was in Afghanistan, and also through that unsavory
Boer business; the latter not one we English like to talk much
about," answered Lewis briefly, taken aback to find the tables
turned upon him. "And is this your first visit to Europe,
sir?" with a pretty, unconscious lapse into the subaltern
fashion of address to soldiers of standing,

"No," answered Fargus, *T am an old traveler in the Old
World as well as the New. My impression of Heidelberg,
for instance, will, no doubt, be limited; nevertheless a pict-
uresque, withal a pleasant one. A remembrance of a tavern
scene, very full of light and shade; of a young Englishman,
immersed in thought, seeking rest and oblivion in the com-
panionship of some excellent Steinberger; three highly ob-
jectionable roysterers — ^have you forgotten them? — on whom
the noble wine seemed to have bad a very different influence,
produce a bit of local color in the shape of a challenge, of
which I fear T am the unwitting cause. So much for the
picturesque. Next the remembrance of an excellent lunch
under the veranda of a hotel, the name of which I shall prob-
ably forget, in the congenial company of any new acquaint-
ance. A pleasant picture to remember, and especi ally to sit in !
Will you take another cup? Here is one of last night's
cigars."

Lewis, every moment sinking more under the charm of his
host's geniality, gazed with admiratio.n.

He was growing talkative himself when their tete-a-tete
was abruptly disturbed.

A waiter came up with a rather dirty card, and asked
whether this was the gentleman's name? *'For," said he,
"two Herren Studenten were without and anxious to see the
gentleman."

Lewis recognized his own card. Throwing it back on the
salver, **Ye8, that is my name. Show the gentlemen to a
private room, and say T shall attend to them. How silly of
me to give them my card!"

"So ^ey have really come with the challenge," said Fargus.
"You are not going to take it up ?"

"If I had not given them my card, T certainly should not
trouble myself much about the fellows."

The "Comment" of Honor. 113

"It is absurd. And it further appears to me that I am the
rig'ht person to speak to these youths."

"Oh, I have not the slightest doubt that you could be ac-
commodated with a duel also! Such creatures are simply
insatiable of honorable quarrels. And, by the way, I should
not wonder if it was the appearance of that scar on your
face, sir, which made them think of you as a person addicted
to that sort of amusement. But, even were you to dream
of favoring them in that preposterous manner, you must not
think that it would release me from my liability; the chal-
lenge was addressed to me personally."

There was a fairly long pause.

"What is it ?" asked Fargus, suddenly bending forward to
smile into the thoughtful eyes.

Lewis laughed, but with a slight embarrassment. I am
almost prompted to ask you for another favor."

"If it is feasible, it is done," was the simple answer.

"It is a favor which, among Englishmen, one would hesi-
tate to ask of one's best and oldest friend. It would take me
out of a fix if you had no objection to be my second."

"Why, of course; and I shall have the pleasure of seeing
you chastise the fellow, I hope."

They both laughed, Lewis with a rising spirit and a certain
pleasurable excitement.

"That is wonderfully good of you. These students would
be proud if they knew who it was that condescends so far to
patronize their tinsel chivalry. I shall not betray your in-
cognito, of course, but mean nevertheless to be worthy of my
second. And now," said the young man gayly, "I must go
and interview the gentlemen. Would you care to be present?"

Fargus emptied his glass and followed in silence.

When they entered the private room the two Germans rose
solemnly, and the ceremonial b^an.

After the exchange of bows, precise on the German side,
sket-chy on the English, Fargus sat down and surveyed the
scene with critical eyes. Lewis, with his hands behind his
back, leaned against the high china-stove and waited.

One of the visitors, who would have been handsome under
rational conditions of life, whose features were almost ob-
literated by the whit« puffiness and the interlacing scars
which proclaimed to the world his untiring devotion to beer
and honor laws, advanced, halted, closed his heels, braced his
knees, made another bow, and observed :

^'Herr Kerr, of the English army? Lieutenant, I pre-
sume?"

Lewis nodded assent,

"Herr Lieutenant, I have the honor to introduce myself:

114 The " Comment " of Honor*

Karl von Ploss." He placed a card on the table, whereupon
ensued a third exchange of bows. "I have also the honor to
present my companion, Herr Ulrich Meyerhoffer, candidat
philosoph."

The philosophical candidate, a square, squat individual,
came forward and likewise saluted.

Then proceedings came to a standstill; the two academic
persons looked in the direction of the sofa, and Lewis recol-
lected himself.

"Mr. — ah — Ferguson?" with an inquiring glance which
Fargus returned acceptingly. "Allow me to introduce Herr
von Ploss and Herr Meyerhoffer. Meine Herren, I present
Mr. Ferguson, my friend. Now we ought to know each
other," he went on in English, with an irrepressible boyish
wink.

"Herr Lieutenant," said the first student, with increased
severity, "we are sent by Herr Graf von Lowenstein to ask
whether you will revoke the expressions you made use of when
addressing him last night."

"Indeed!" returned Lewis, affecting surprise. "Is that
all ? You may tell Graf von Lowenstein that I will do noth-
ing of the kind."

The German bowed again.

"When and how will it then please you to meet the Count?
We are only passing through the town."

"As I, too, am only a visitor here, I should say the sooner
the better. Shall it be to-morrow morning. But since I am
willing so far to honor Count von Lowenstein as to meet him
on account of his own unwarrantable behavior last night, I
shall insist on two or three conditions. As the challenged
party and as a stranger on your land, I have the right to
stipiilate my own convenience."

The student, rather taken aback, acquiesced.

"Being a soldier and not a corps-student, I take no pride
in scars cheaply earned on the Mensur," with an unequivocal
glance at his interlocutor's scarred and furrowed countenace.
"I, therefore, decline to fight with scratching rapiers and in
mattresses."

Herr von Ploss flushed violently to the roots of his pale,
plastered hair. "What do you say to sabers, then ?" trjdng to
hide his anger tmder a sneer. "Officers, even English, can
have no objection to using their swords."
^ "Sabers, by all means," retorted Lewis, with great delibera-
tion; "I have not the slightest objection to meeting your
principal with them — ^without active seconds, of course. I
have one more condition to make : your side must undertake
the management of every detail concerning the encounter.

The *' Comment" of Honor. 115

You are experts in such matters, while my only friend here is,
like me, a stranger."

The ambassadors retired to a comer for a rapid consulta-
tion, exercised in their minds to find a mannerless outlander
ready in matters of honorable difference. "Nil admirari"
is one of the canons of gentlemanly behavior in their order,
and they allowed no word or look to betray their feelings.

Lewis exchanged a friendly look with Fargus, who ap-
preciated the authoritative manner in which his son had as-
sumed the conduct of affairs.

"You seem to be as much at home in German disputations
as these fellows," he remarked; "how do you know the lan-
^age so well?"

"I spent two Semesters here during my undergraduate
days, and have kept it up with a view to the Staff College."

"Herr Lieutenant, we have agreed, unless you should have
objection, that the duel shall take place in a certain inclosed
field behind the Philosopher's Walk. You know the Philo-
sophen Weg?"

"I do," said Lewis shortly.

"We will bring the necessary attendants and the doctor.
I am Graf von Lowenstein's second. Herr Meyerhoffer is
umpire. Yonder gentleman is to be your second. Is this
understood ?"

"Quite," replied the Englishman, and the deputation with-
drew.

"Is not this idiotic?" laughed Lewis. "Can you conceive
how level-headed people like the Germans cannot only toler-
ate, but be proud of, the peculiar ethics of the corps-student ?
For if one broaches the subject of the 'Dufll' with them,
they have scores of reasons in its favor."

"It seems to me," returned Fargus, "that the chief result
of that tender solicitude for their honor is to turn your corps-
student into a highly objectionable rowdy."

"Oh, I must admit you have seen a bad specimen. Most
corps-students are gentlemen."

"You have had no practical experience? Are you any-
thing of a swordsman ?" asked Fargus.

"I am reckoned rather good at that," replied the young
man. "Our last colonel ranked sword exercise next only to
riding in importance. I have had some practice also in Ger-
man play. I think it would not be amiss were I to put my
hand in again. Have you a mind to walk with me as far as
the fencing-room?"

There was no trace of last night's depression left on Lewis.
Fargus felt almost disposed to rejoice at a cause which had pro-
duced such results.

CHAPTER X.

"alt HEIDELBERG, DU FEINE, DU STADT AN EHBE REICH."

"You are a good swordsman. I am glad of that," repeate<l
Fargus, musingly. "How do you come to be a fencer ? Most
of your countrymen now look upon sciwitific fencing as au
un-English pursuit."

"That is a John Bullish idea which is fast disappearing
from the army. In olden days we had the best broadswords-
men in Europe. With me sword-play of every description
has always been a special taste; I began to cultivate the
science at the early age of twelve. I was brought up by my
Spanish grandparents, partly at Seville, where I was bom,
partly in an old, very dilapidated family place they had, near
Eonda — a sort of half castle, half farm, where we used to
pass the summer. There was a large loft in one of the towers,
where old rusty odds and ends of arms and armor and torn
books were stuffed away — a favorite haunt of mine, whither
one day my grandfather traced me unawares, to find me prac-
ticing by myself. It seems he watched me with delight, as I
pinked and hacked the back of a fine old Cordova leather
arm-chair in the true orthodox style. The old man was so
pleased with what he considered an innate taste for gentle-
manly accomplishments that he engaged a man from Seville
to give me lessons. Dear old unsophisticated grandfather!"
Lewis continued. "He little thought what a deal of trouble
it would give me, in after days, to unlearn all the antiquated
passes and tricks. It was the same with my riding. It was
old General Woldham who initiated me to the easy comfort —
to man and beast — of a hunting-seat. Good old soul ! he was
much kinder to me than my ov7n kin!"

"I liked what I saw of him," said Fargus. He had been
greedily taking in every word which unveiled his son's past,
and his pleasure in him grew as he listened ; but it was almost
with a sense of jealousy that he heard of all those who had
taken the father's place, and among whom was divided that
gratitude which might have been centered on him.

"Please forgive my garrulity," cried Lewis, with a quick
blush. "You should not have let me go on prosing about
myself. Here is the University Fencing School. I hope this
does not bore you."

"I have neither found you garrulous nor tiresome," re-
sponded Fargus warmly; "and I am prepared to derive much

"Alt Heidelberg.^ 117

interest in watching you wield the saber. Do you lead the
way."

Being vacation-time, the Fechtboden seemed deserted.
There was none of that busy uproar of clinking, rasping
blades in opposition, of thuds loudly sounding on padded
arms, of monotonous commands, varied at intervals by high-
pitched words of encouragement or objurgation; which in
term-time proclaims academical activity.

Lewis rang, and sent his card to summon the master.

This jovial personage, to while away the hours, had evidently
been solacing himself, in the company of congenial spirits,
with a deep after-dinner draught of Bavarian, made his ap-
pearance in his shirt-sleeves.

The man of the sword at once recognized an old pupil, of
many years back, and was much delighted, from a professional
and artistic point of view, when he learned the immediate
cause of the call.

He introduced the visitors into a large room, the vaulted
ceiling of which was supported by pillars.

"Well, Herr Kerr," cried the master, after suiting his vis-
itor with saber, arm-guard and helmet, "I hope you have not
quite forgotten our old lessons in echt Deutsch fighting.
Now, take your measure; on guard — ^good; straighten your
arm and brace your knee more — ^good ; and now beware of the
Manchette.

"Remember, Herr Kerr, that, among us, the dictates of
manly honor prohibit any retreating; the left foot remains
firm, as by the measure. Cut, parry, or countertime if you
like, redouble, always give and take; but never stop, hesitate,
fall back, or retire the body, after your foreign custom. That
is not correct here. Now straight the arm, brace the knee,
hard with the thumb. And, Herr Kerr, remember the Man-
chette."

A flicking cut over the young man's guard, which sounded
grimly on the gauntlet, emphasized the caution.

Fargus watched with satisfaction. Lewis' play was sharp,
decisive, and neat — severe, as one conversant with the schools
would have called it — and he was in fair condition ; the mas-
ter, on the other hand, although naturally superior in point
of hits, breathed stertorously after ten minutes' play, and per-
spired to confusion.

"You must also beware of lunging too wide, worthy sir," he
remarked, coming with evident relief to a standstill, and mop-
ping his good-humored face ; "you might find it dangerous on
the grass. When is it to be; with whom? You know," he
added, "with one of the profession such things are honorably
safe."

1x8 "Alt Heidelberg.*^

At the mention of the name, however, the jovial lanista was
unable to suppress a whistling ejaculation, and a transient
look of concern shadowed his rubicund visage.

"Graf von Lowenstein, of Munich! Donnerwetter, Herr
Kerr, for your first di:^l you have found a right doughty oppon-
ent! Well, you must not tire your arm. This will suffice
for to-day. You will do; you have improved since you used
to come here. Now, my last counsel: keep your hand warm
before coming on the ground ; a thick glove, for instance, will
keep your wrist subtle — such details have decided the fate of
many an encounter."

"What do you think of the Krummer Sabel, as a sport?"
inquired Lewis of the Colonel.

"I know so little about it. We in America trust more to
lead than to steel. All this appeared very scientific; but it
seems to me that a young man should make more use of his
legs."

"That is the very essence of the echt Deutsch play — every
cut is to be stopped with the blade. Here they look upon all
dodging and springing as derogatory to a gentleman."

"A likely explanation," said Fargus, smiling; "though it
seems rather absurd that people who are not walking beer-
barrels should be expected to forego their natural advantages.
At this well-regulated game there is little danger of severe
cuts."

"Oh, the German saber can wound with quite sufficient
severity, as we shall perhaps see to-morrow. And this re-
minds me that the authorities, although they wink at the
Mensur in a way almost equivalent to licensing, punish all
other forms of duelling with fortress imprisonment, when they
can lay their hands on the actors."

Fargus strove to conceal his concern. The expression of
the master's face, his ejaculation on hearing the name of the
adversary, haunted him.

"They would not imprison a stranger, challenged by a
native !"

"I rather fancy they would, and be only too delighted to get
the chance. This reminds me, that since you are so good as
to stand by me, it would be better to make your preparations
for leaving early to-morrow. These people recognize no dis-
tinction between seconds and principals. I should have told
you of this sooner. Did you contemplate stopping long ?"

"No ; I am as free as possible, and have not the least anxiety
as regards the fortress business — for myself, that is; but what
if you should be wounded?"

"There is little about my pocketing something in the scrim-
mage. If there is a redeeming point in this whole foolery it

"Alt Heidelberg." 119

is the unflinching pluck of the corpsmen. They will do their
best to keep everything secret, for their own sakes ; and I have
no fear but that I can either be hidden up somewhere, or able
to make 'tracks.' I shall get ready to be off early to-morrow;
my business and I have to return to England."

"Listen, my young friend," said Fargus, after a moment's
silence. "I am sorry, now, to have countenanced the affair;
if you will allow me, I shall not leave you till you are through
it. Meanwhile, you had better make my hotel your head-
quarters."

"I shall be very glad," said Lewis, "and am much obliged
for your kindness. Now, what shall we do — ^walk about ?"

"Anywhere you like," answered the American. "I shall
enjoy the stroll in your company. I should congratulate my-
self on our chance meeting, did I not feel I have been the
cause of bringing this unpleasant affair upon you !"

Lewis walked on in silence ; then, with some hesitation :

"I am nothing if not indebted to you. Colonel. Should
matters prove serious — though it would be affectation to inti-
mate that there is any great danger of that — I should still have
reason to be glad of your appearance. I believe you have
saved me from what would have been far worse. Owing to
the utter destruction of hopes I had cherished for years, I felt
last night as if the springs of my life were broken. The
thought of self-destruction was gaining the mastery over me.
Your company did me good. Though, naturally, at the time
I should have preferred being alone, it was a very black spell
that you broke."

Fargus' mind wandered back to the old days^when he, too,
had known the grim fascination.

"I would not presume to moralize," he said ; "but I am glad
the spell is broken. Never allow yourself to become familiar
with the demon of self-destruction."

"Never fear. Indeed, I feel now quite ashamed of my
mawkishness. I have no mind to desert my post in this
world," he suggested, changing the subject ; "shall we turn in
this direction?" And he led his companion along a narrow
lane which wound its abrupt, pebble-paved way up the flank
of the Castle hill. "This town is full of reminiscences for
me."

Fargus assented willingly. Little conversation was at-
tempted until they reached the terrace gardens of a well-
known tavern.

There for a time, standing by the parapet, he seemed lost
in the contemplation of the smiling panorama shimmering in
the hot, sunny air beneath him. The gray-brown roofs of
Heidelberg spread in length between th© hillside and the

120 "Alt Heidelberg."

strand where the Neckar lazily rolled its yellow course, with
now and then a mild foaming over shallows or weirs. Be-
yond, the mellowing vineyards to the south merged into the
pine-clad slopes.

"It is strange," he said, sitting down on the corner of a
table under a tree, and still looking wistfully out across the
land, "to see so little change in the old scenes, when we have
changed so much."

"Dear me !" said Fargus, sitting down in his turn, as, with
a flourish, the waitress placed on the table before them two
tall glasses of amber beer brimming over, "have you changed
so much since your student days ? How long ago may it be ?"

"It is seven years since I sat in this very place, not a very
long time, but the cycle required, as the physiologist tells us,
to renovate every atom of man's physical being. And it seems
to be much the same with the mind," he added.

"You talk like an old man," put in Fargus, willing to humor
his companion in a vein most likely to lead to personal mat-
ters.

"I do not know. It seems to me that the final change,
which really constitutes old age, is one of indifference, that
with it comes a greater state of serenity — a soothing sense
that the battle of life, whether lost or won, is over — that the
days of eagerness are too remote even to be regretted."

He drank half the contents of his frothy beaker, and con-
tinued :

"This is good. I saw you smile indulgently when I spoke
of disappointment. Have you not found most of the rungs
in the ladder of life more or less a disappointment ? Is it not
a fact that whenever you are brought back to the feelings of
old times, you awaken to the discrepancy between anticipa-
tion and reality ? We look to the moment when we shall have
achieved cherished objects of ambition — ^meanwhile, the very
contemplation of a desired future robs what might be an ad-
mirable present of its real savor. When the achievement has
taken place, why is it that we then look back with unavowed
melancholy to the period of our illusions? For, when it has
been secured, the slowly achieved position has lost its satisfac-
tion, our pleasure has been blunted by the gradual process."

Lewis halted, lost in reverie, and Fargus watched him.

"This is a curiously contemplative frame of mind for a sun-
burned dragoon, just home from the wars ! It would seem as
though this German drink had infected you with the dreami-
ness peculiar to the lank-haired German student."

Lewis came back from his distant thoughts and smiled.

**You are right, Colonel; I was again living in the days
when discussion took more willingly a contemplative turn

"Alt Heidelberg." I2i

than it would in the ante-room of a cavalry mess; but this re-
turn to bygone haunts has brought back the past days. Did
you chance to meet Charles Hillyard at Woldham?"

"A handsome, pale university lecturer?" asked Fargus.

"The same. Did you see much of him there ?"

"Not very much; the little I did I found interesting."

"There was one of my disappointments," Lewis went on. "I
wonder if it is he who has changed, or I ? In the old days he
was one of my stars. There is very little I would not have done
for him. We had a room in common under that mossy roof
yonder. He was a good German scholar and I was a poor one.
We were inseparable. This tree was our rallying point for
the morning draught. Before going, would you like to see a
students' Kneipe? Ours, the Carolina, used to be here."

They emptied their glasses and moved toward the house.

A few words to the landlord, who soon recognized one of
his former patrons, induced him to open the sacred precincts
of the Carolina, which, it being vacation-time, now rested in
darkness.

A long, rather narrow room, warmly lighted by stained
glass windows, the rich colored, but highly incorrect, heraldic
panes of which brightened the severely solid furniture. A
ponderous oak table, much rubbed and dented by endless
courses of disciplined compotation, crossed at the honor end
by another, smaller and slightly raised; two formal rows of
hard carved wood chairs, and a dignified presidential throne.
On the table, between a couple of drinking-horns, elaborately
archaic and unwieldy, a heavy wooden tobacco casket. A
large special panel fixed to the wall was devoted to the heavy
china pipes of the members, almost every one of which was
inscribed to its owner by a brother Carolinian; over this
hung a trophy of flags, devices, and club colors, emphasized by
a pair of crossed rapiers. Numerous photographs of indi-
viduals or groups dotted the walls. To one of these Lewis
straightway drew near.

"There we are still!" he called out, pointing to a group
which showed the Carolinians in a forest excursion, seated or
standing in various picturesque attitudes round a very prom-
inent beer-barrel, each man holding his covered glass or his
long pipe in one hand and with the other clasping, in pointedly
devoted manner, some special comrade by the shoulder or the
arm.

"What a ridiculous pair we did look!" laughed Lewis;
"though no worse than the others, of course. And yet we did
meet here, almost every day : and Hillyard — Tipp — was actu-
ally the soul of our parties, though he worked eight hours a
day and accumulated knowledge without ever talking' abo\it it.

122 "Passes, Finctures and Countertime."

I used often to think of the contrast between the student of
Heidelberg and the University lecturer, when, on our return
to college, I watched him from the body of the hall, dining
at the high table — grave, reverend, as befits a Don, and no
doubt talking unimpeachable sense. Now there no longer
seems to be such enviable superiority on his side. I regret
our old relations<^

Talking in this strain, they sallied forth again, toward the
pine woods. Fargus, who felt his curiosity increase, led him
gradually on. And a delight it was to the father to hear the
story of his eon's assimilation to England and things of Eng-
land, at a time when a boy's character and tastes are already
formed ; to hear how he struggles and the unhappy sensitive-
ness of the first years gradually gave place to the pleasures of
independence and of well-earned success. And it stirred him
strangely to leam how strong the love of his father's country
had grown in the boy's heart.

They spent the remainder of the afternoon in an invigorat-
ing walk through the peaceful, romantic scenery of the
Neekarthal. Occasionally, Fargus found himself led out of
his depth on literary excursions. But he enjoyed the converse
perhaps the more for the contrast between what he had the
right to have expected in his son and what he actually found.

And by the time the sky had grown purple and golden over
the pine-bristling hills and they were tramping homeward,
the mutual sympathy had ripened on each side into genuine
appreciation.

And thus, at the end of the first day spent together, Far-
gus, filled with warm and proud satisfaction, hardly knew
what he liked best in his newly-found son, the manly, soldier-
like bearing, or the scholarly refinement.

CHAPTER XI.

"passes, finctures, and countertime."

Lewis slept soundly, with rambling dreams of old times.

Fargus spent the night in wakeful cogitations, and at dawn
arose and made ready for the eventful morning. When the
first stir of life in the house became evident, he summoned
a servant and ordered a substantial breakfast; then he aroused
his neighbor.

"Everything is in full swing," he said briskly, as Lewis put
in his head at the door; "we have a couple of hours before
us; make haste, that we may start early and have time for a.

" Passes, Finctures and Countertime." 123

walk before your fencing bout; it will invigorate you and put
your circulation in order."

The tmtidy brown head disappeared; in due course Lewis
emerged from his chamber as neat and trim and generally pol-
ished as beseems an English officer of dragoons.

After a leisurely meal, and armed with a couple of cigars
from Fargus' case, they sallied forth into the freshness of the
morning. The father's sole thought being now to keep Lewis
in his present collected and cheerful mood, he allowed no
trace of his own misgivings to api)ear in look or word.

"What a delicious day !" said he, as they swimg along. "In
face of scenery like this, under such a sky, does not the errand
on which we are bound seem incongruous ?"

"Yes; the surroundings are more suggestive of an aubade
than a trial by battle," said Lewis.

"Well," he resumed, "I should have scoffed at the idea of
such an enterprise a few days ago; but now, somehow, I rather
enjoy the excitement."

They crossed the Neckar bridge and ascended the right bank
of the river, discussing as they went the question of single
combat; first, the institution as it now exists, then from a
historical and ethical point of view.

"It seems to me almost inconceivable," he remarked at
length, "that, with such a very well-digested system of opin-
ions, you should now find yourself on the way to put your
honor to the test of fencing skill."

"Oh, Colonel," put in Lewis, "do not believe that I con-
sider my 'honor' engaged in the least. It is a mere matter of
convenience. I do not hold with the gentlemen who, by the
way, I now hear are coming up behind us — a man's honor to
be such a delicate, fragile entity that death or murder is
preferable to the risk of its being doubted by the first bully.
Far less do I believe that there is only one kind of honor,
namely, a constant readiness to stake one's body, in good
mediaeval fashion, in support of a position assumed rightly or
wr/)ngly. For the most curious thing about the 'point of honor'
among upholders of the duel is that it applies to physical cour-
age only, never to the moral. As for these persons whom we
are to meet this morning, they have even more curious tenets
on this subject than other Continentals; unlike us who hold a
gentleman to possess courage as a simple matter of course until
he give proof to the contrary, they refuse to believe in the
fortitude of any one who has not earned his credentials in
that ridiculous institution of theirs — the Mensur. I, however,
did a foolish thing, in a moment of mental obfuscation, in
giving my regimental card. But do not believe that I should

124 " Passes, Finctures and Countertime."

have considered my honor attainted had I chosen to decline
the encounter."

As they turned to ascend the Hirschgasse — the lane cele-
brated for leading to the time-honored tavern where are held,
at regular intervals during the session-time, so many glorious
and gory arbitraments — they were overtaken by a carriage;
therein the three corpsmen, lolling back at ease, together with
a bearded and spectacled • personage, presumably the doctor.
Next to the driver sat a "factotum," no doubt well practiced
in such expeditions.

The four occupants, as they rattled past, gravely raised
their hats without turning their heads.

"I am convinced these men think it very 'bad form' of us
not to have driven here in state, as they do. True, it looks as
if we felt sure that we shall not require a conveyance back."
Lewis spoke gayly. "Still," he continued, "it might perhaps
have been wiser to have one. Now, should I be disabled, I
shall have to be deposited in that tavern yonder, where you
may this moment see pompous Herr Meyerhoffer entering
with the servant — in quest of the weapons, I suppose,"

"Please God, we shall be under no necessity of that kind."

But Lewis laughed at his companion's serious look. His
spirits rose perceptibly as the moment approached; indeed,
by the time they reached the place of combat, nothing but the
necessity of keeping up British decorum and a cool, gentle-
manly carriage could subdue a rising sense of jauntiness.

The whole "duel company" now moved together along a by-
path which, winding for a short while through the birchwood,
led to a well-secluded glade. There the Englishman and his
second retired apart for a last few words, while the natives
proceeded to make their final arrangements. The factotum
flew hither and thither, carrying water and a basin to the
doctor, who was spreading his instruments and bandages in
engaging array on the stump of a tree; opening the case of
swords; removing with febrile activity stones and fallen
branches from the spot chosen by the umpire.

Seeing his opponent stripping himself to the waist, Lewis
very cooly began to do likewise.

"Business-like, is it not?" he remarked, with an amused
smile, to Fargus, as the latter silently helped him.

"A business I wish were well over," thought the father, yet
trying to respond with confident ease, as he glanced at the
well-knit, close-muscled frame revealed, and inwardly cursing
the pragmatic fooling which was bringing it into jeopardy.

At this point the umpire came up to them, and, touching his
cap coldly, remarked:

"We are ready."

"Passes, Finctures and Countertime," 125

The count had already assumed the two protective bandages
which German custom prescribes, even for the more severe
saber duels, one to the elbow and the other to the arm-pit.
The factotum had taken his post as look-out man on a slight
knoll whence a view could be had of all approaches. Seeing
that he alone was waited for, and not wishing to appear a
laggard at the fray, Lewis was about to advance somewhat
hurriedly, when the student stopped him. "I perceive you
are without the requisite bindings," he said, a trifle impera-
tively ; "we cannot allow you to proceed thus. As the gentle-
man with you is a stranger, I will have the honor, if you will
so have it, to arrange them myself."

The Englishman surrendered his arm with courteous thanks,
and the neglect was quickly repaired.

Fargus had to own that he was by far from being as cool as
his boy, and was chafing under the obligation to remain
passive. Why had he not taken up this quarrel himself ? He
might have settled that self-sufficient swashbuckler with an
ounce of lead, and thought less about the matter than of see-
ing his brawny boy lose a drop of blood. Ah, well! the die
was cast. God help the good champion !

The fever of fight had come upon Lewis as he took up and
balanced the wide-hilted saber presented to him. The cool
breeze fanning his bare arm and breast, and the "responsive"
weight of the well-mounted saber, sharp as a carving-knife,
heightened that muscular sense. There was naught in him
to recall the dreamy philosopher's mood. But, for all this
nervous tension, he appeared, as Fargus noticed with much
approval, the very picture of self-possession as he stood to
meet his foe.

It was, of course, his first encounter of the kind; whereas
the pale, fat Graf — a notorious duelist — had gone through the
experience many a time and at many a weapon.

They advanced toward each other on the selected spot,
the German with studied coolness, even indolence — the Eng-
lishman with quiet deliberation, strangely at variance with his
gleaming eyes. The seconds placed themselves on either side.
There was a short pause, during which nothing was heard
but the rustling of the trees and the chirp of birds. The
umpire rapidly ascertained that every detail was correct, then
clear rose his voice :

"Engage; are you ready? — go!"

The last word was no sooner out than the corpsman, waking
up as if by magic from his deceptive impassiveness, with the
speed of lightning darted two of those flicks from the wrist
which are so characteristic of German sword-play at his op-
ponent's forearm.

126 ^*!^asses, Pmctufes and Countertlme.**

Had not the latter at that moment instinctively dropped
into his more familiar hanging guard — when the brunt of the
cut was taken up by the convexity of the hilt — ^he would \in-
doubtedly have been disabled from the very outset. As mat-
ters turned out the extreme end of the curved blade reached
his arm, and inflicted thereon a small cross-shaped wound.
Beware of the manchettel the old master had warned him
truly.

"Halt!" shrieked the umpire; and the combatants dropped
their hands, while the doctor examined the cut, in spite of
Lewis' impatient protestations, only, however, to pronounce
it of no consequence, and give permission for the resuming of
the engagement.

The student's white face had remained as expressionless as
a mask, but Lewis' anger was roused by this humiliating hit
at the very first pass. With burning eyes and compressed lips
he now, once more, and this time deliberately, assumed his
English guard, and, at the word of command, led off himself
with such vigor as to frustrate, by forcing his opponent to
use strong parries, all further attempt to score points by in-
sidious flipping.

And now it became a fight, indeed ! The German, firm as a
rock, stopped and returned Lewis' fast-lashing cuts with the
most admirable coolness and precision. Some twenty throws
had thus been exchanged when the umpire's shrill command
again resounded :

"Halt!"

On Lewis' bare chest, extending from the left shoulder to
the right breast, appeared a thin red line; this rapidly
widened, and numberless slender rivulets of blood presently
began to descend in interlacing stripes.

Fargus came forward, deadly pale; Lewis glanced down
at the wound with a careless smile, intent only on trying to
hide his mortification.

"Merely a scratch. Colonel — nothing of any consequence!"

And the surgeon's verdict, after inspection, being that the
wound was not disabling, the pair started off once more.

This time both seemed to have lost their coolness. The
bout was short. After a moment of dead silence, during which
each fixed the other with a glaring eye, and gripped his sword
with twitching hand, Lewis suddenly launched forward a
swinging, English cut at his opponent's body, and the latter,
taken aback by his full lunge, rarely risked in German play,
forgot all his caution, and attempted a counterline. The
result of these unpreconcerted methods of fence was disastrous.

Fargus saw Lewis' blade bury itself deeply in his an-
tagonist's bare flank ; but the cry of triumph which well-nigh

"Passes, Finctures and Countertime." 127

escaped his lips turned to an exclamation of dismay. His
son's face was laid open from the temple to the chin. The
unfortunate German dropi)ed his sward, staggered, clutched
the air, and finally collapsed in a heap on the ground, rolling
partly over, and then lying motionless, and to all appearance
dead, save for a slight twitching of mouth and eyelid. Star-
ing in horror at the ghastly sight of his handiwork, Lewis
stood as if spell-bound — all unconscious of being himself far
more horrible to behold with his cloven cheek gaping hideous-
ly, his right arm and hand, his body down to the waist, by this
time scarlet with streaming blood. Then he reeled suddenly,
and, in his turn, would have fallen, but for Fargus, who, rush-
ing forward, seized him firmly under the arm and conducted
hira to the doctor's tree-stump, on which, disposing with one
sweep of the hand of its array of instruments, he gently
pressed him down.

"Thank God! this is over," said the elder man with a dry
throat ; beads of cold sweat shone on his forehead. "How you
are bleeding, poor boy," attempting with a handkerchief to
hold together the lips of the face-wound. Lewis looked up,
dimly struck by the affectionate, almost paternal, tone of his
new friend's voice, but for the moment unable to speak. "Let
me see," continued Fargus ; "the arm is nothing, the chest not
much — yet how terrible it might have been ! The face-cut is
bad, though. Will these fellows never attend to you?" he
went on, angrily looking round; "what are they all crowding
over that brute for ?"

"I am afraid he is worse than I am," said Lewis, faintly and
indistinctly, for, the wound rapidly stiffening, he could not
move his lips without painful efforts.

"Do not attempt to talk. Hold this tight; I will go and
see."

At that moment, however, the doctor came toward them.

"A bad business," he said, significantly shrugging his
shoulders.

"What ! dead ?" cried the amateur, aghast at his success.

"Not yet, but We have not heard the last of this affair.

And now, what about you?" he added, lifting the handker-
chief. "Hum ! a fine high-quart — six needles or more." And
without further parley he proceeded first briskly to sew up
the open cheek, then to wash and bind the other slashes.

As he was putting the finishing touches to his artistic
arrangements of lint and sparadrap, the servant on the look-
out was heard to give a low cry of warning, and presently a
man rushed through the creaking underwood into the glade.
What he had to communicate was evidently of importance, for
they at once called the servant back, and the four men held an

128 Wanderings.

animated consultation, at the end of which he who had acted
as umpire walked up to Fargus.

"Sir," he said, coldly saluting, "it will not be safe for you
to return to your hotel. A messenger has just been sent by a
friend in the town to warn us that the police have found out
something about this duel, and are on the watch for our re-
turn."

This speech delivered, the Germans took no more notice of
the adverse party than if they had not been, but, gathering
round the doctor, fell to discussing the possibility of removing
their unconscious principal to some place of safety.

Lewis translated the allocution, and held a council of war.

"We cannot go back — if he dies . . . fortress for us;
five years perhaps — for both of us."

"What is to be done?" asked Fargus. "Can those fellows
advise us?"

"They are even in worse plight, and not well disposed
toward us. Only plan I can think of : find our way to some
railway-station as soon as possible. Must walk, too," he
added, having paused to reflect a while.

"But, my dear boy, how far can you walk in this state?
Can you walk at all ?"

"Must. I know the country. To-day to Schoenau, behind
that hill. Let me take your arm — weak on my legs — better
presently."

And without casting a glance behind, the father supporting
his son in tenderest solicitude, they walked slowly away from
that nefarious "field of honor" — even as the students' party,
carrying the inert form of their companion, were silently
leaving it in the opposite direction.

CHAPTEE Xn.

WANDERINGS.

For three long hours the two men tramped onward, in wind-
ing lanes, through mysteriously somber pine-woods, now on
the highroad between the vineyards of the warm hillsides.
But their circtunstances were little conducive to the enjoy-
ment of scenery.

Manfully did Lewis settle down to his task of covering the
twelve miles or more to Weinheim, though every step throbbed
responsive through each of the six needles which held his face
together, and every beat of the slow pulse to that low, gnaw-
ing ache in the heart which loss of blood engenders.

Wanderin gs, 129

Full of solicitude, ever rising and ever repressed in fear of
self-betrayal, the father strove to while away the heavy time
and to lighten the way by the help of his strong arm.

As the sun ascended and the air waxed sultry the calls for
Fargus' brandy-flask and the halts grew more frequent; and
Fargus felt his boy's arm lean heavier on his.

At last, after one of these halts he made a dead stop with
trembling knees.

"You will think me a coward; I can't go another step; I
must lie down."

"A coward! How can you talk so, my dear fellow! If I
told you what I really think of you, it might make you vain.
No, no; you cannot lie down here in this blazing sun; hold up
a bit ; hang on me till we get into the shade yonder."

But Lewis was past holding up. He reeled and staggered,
and Fargus had almost to carry him under the spreading
chestnut-tree he aimed at, which shaded a little oasis of cool,
green turf, where the clear waters of a tiny streamlet sounded
their welcome notes.

With a groan of relief the wounded man let himself down
at full length in the shadow, while his companion moistened
the bandages, noting with deep anxiety how fast they seemed
to dry up again under the heat of the wounds.

"How sickening to have to give up! Ashamed of myself!"

"Now, do not fret," answered the elder man, pouring from
his hat, which he used as a pitcher, a slender, grateful stream
of watei* over the burning head. "You have nothing to be
ashamed of. It is the earache that knocks you down, isn't it?
Take a little more of this brandy-and-water," he continued,
after holding his son's hand- for a moment in his, and sliding
his fingers down to find the faint, unequal pulse. "It will be
easy to get something to give you relief as soon as we can get
to a civilized place. Meanwhile, you must be quiet, and,
above all, no more nonsense and fretting."

Lewis looked up with a sort of grateful smile.

Fargus went on. "You must stop here quite quietly and
rest, while I make off to the nearest village and get a convey-
ance of some kind or other."

A short half -hour of hard walking brought him to a village,
which, as usual in Germany, boasted a rather promising-look-
ing inn. There, in default of any knowledge of the vernacu-
lar, his absolute determination to make himself understood,
backed up by the judicious display of a gold coin, stood him in
good stead.

Fargus stood over the good-natured innkeeper, hurrying
him on, by gesture and personal help, till they drove away
at the fullest speed the state of horse and vehicle would allow.

130 Wanderings.

With a leaping heart he hailed the chestnut-tree again, and
found Lewis an object of solicitude to a trio of swarthy i>e&s-
ants, who were surveying him with great sympathy, and who,
with many gutteral expressions of good will, volunteered to
assist him into the carriage. To Fargus' intense relief, the
patient seemed somewhat the better for his enforced repose;
and when he had installed him as comfortably as possible on
the cushions of the ramshackle chariot, and pulled up a tat-
tered hood to screen him, he gave the order for Weinheim.

Though but a few miles distant, it seemed an endless way.

It was two o'clock when the alighted at the best hostelry in
Weinheim. Fargus engaged a private room for the invalid,
whose condition he explained to the English-speaking waiter
by a cooly mendacious account of a fall in a rocky part of the
woods while on a walking expedition. Having seen his charge
first dispose of a cup of broth and a glass of the best wine,
the American started forth to prepare the way for their next
stage.

Lewis had sketched the general idea of the retreat. Fargus
now busied himself in carrying out the special details.

In an hour he returned, provided with all the necessary in-
formation, and accompanied by a porter laden with various
indispensable purchases ; a traveling-bag, changes of linen, a
soft felt hat for the bandaged head, a straw one for himself —
selected for disguise — several articles of pharmacy, lint,
bandages and so forth. Then he locked himself in with Lewis
and proceeded to minister to the comforts of that jaded youth.

But it was with dimly grateful sense of relief, when
cleansed of dried blood and dust, and liixuriating in fresh
linen, that he found himself again reclining on the bed, with
cool bandages on the fevered wounds. The latter concluded
his preparations with all the expedition, noiselessness and
method of a professional, packing all the necessaries for the
forthcoming journey.

When the time drew nigh for their departure, he came up
to the bedside and gently roused his companion,

"My boy, all our arrangements are made. We start this
evening ostensibly for Darmstadt, but really for Brussels. I
think it safer to cover the whole journey at once, since out of
the country we must. The more I contemplate the possibility
of a prolonged visit to a fortress at the Prussian Government's
expense, the less I like it."

"By all means let us go," said Lewis, striving to conceal by
how much suffering the effort was accompanied.

"We shall have to start pretty soon. Can you stand a four-
teen hours' journey?"

"Under your care I would go further," was the quiet reply.

Wanderings. 131

"Eemember, we are traveling under the style of Messrs.
Thomson. You are my son, Robert Thomson."

As Fargus spoke he threw a curious, wistful glance at
Lewis, but as it was, the young man's energies were too much
centered on the endeavor to carry his injured frame with
some kind of dignity out of the dangers to permit any waste
of strength in watching the outside world. With a mute sign
of acquiescence he received the suggestion and slowly dragged
himself out of the room, leaning heavily on Fargus' arm.

After a short while the sickness, caused by the change from
the reclining to the sitting position, passed away, the transfer
from carriage to train at Weinheim, as well as that from one
train to another at Darmstadt, was successfully accomplished,
as much owing to the patient's dogged pluck as to his com-
panion's long-sighted care.

As police directions, started by the Heidelberg authorities,
were already being issued for their aprehension, Mr. Thomson
and his invalid son, in a specially reserved compartment, were
speeding toward Brussels, via Cologne. But the father only
drew breath in security when, on the following morning, they
crossed the frontier.

"Thank God !" he murmured, as the train at last moved off
from the station and sped on Belgic territory, and he bent
gently forward to look at the apparently somnolent form
stretched at full length on the seat opposite.

As he now glanced at the half -averted face a sudden pallor
overspread his own. Even as he looked, a heavy shuddering
passed over the whole body. The father felt his heart turn
cold. He knew the terrible menace of such signs even before
he raised the dry, twitching hand to feel the wiry beat of the
pulse: fever had set in. He had counted on his boy's unusual
vigor and health, without taking into account how highly
strung his nerves had been by mental trouble but a short time
before.

But David Fargus was not the man to waste his energy on
vain regrets. After altering the patient's position, pulling
down the blinds, opening the window to insure air, he once
more took a seat opposite his son, and, with melancholy look
fixed on the altered face, fell to considering how best to meet
the unexpected emergency.

He could, of course, stop at the nearest town instead of
Brussels, but, while only saving a couple of hours, he would
not then be sure of obtaining such good medical attendance.
And Lewis' life might now depend on medical skill. Fargus
determined to push on to Brussels if possible. At Brussels
matters would be far from being all plain sailing. Burdened
with a possibly delirious man he could not leave for a minute,

132 Wanderings.

he would have to find immediate quarters, and to have to
peregrinate the town from one to another might be death to
his boy.

There was the alternative of a hospital. In England he
would not hesitate a moment to take the sick man direct to
such an institution, where he would be sure of receiving the
best care. Could he be as sure in a Belgian hospital ?

Fargus resolved not to let him out of his own keeping.
What gold could purchase for him, gold should be forthcom-
ing for. Luckily he had provided himself with plenty of
money, and he could do no more than hope in the all-powerful
persuasiveness of a well-filled purse.

But in an unexpected way the difficulty was lightened. At
Liege, just as the train was moving away, a burly Belgian
burst open the door and tumbled headlong into the carriage,
and they were off at full si)eed before he could perceive that
he had intruded upon a reserved compartment and an invalid.
When he did so, he confounded himself in apologies. The man
had a pleasant, open countenance, and positively radiated
affluence, good-nature and self-satisfaction. He looked at
Lewis, prostrate and speechless, with sympathy, clacking his
tongue after the fashion of his countrymen.

Fargus hailed the amiable giant as a possible angel of suc-
cor. In a few words he explained the state of affairs, and
begged him to suggest some hotel where they could be re-
ceived, and the most skillful doctor known in Brussels.

The Fleming's eyes grew rounder as he listened, and his
interest in the traveling Englishman rose to a pitch of excite-
ment. Surveying the unconscious hero with increasing ad-
miration, he chuckled or groaned alternately, as delight over
the downfall of the Teuton, or commiseration over the sad
plight of his antagonist, possessed his soul.

When Fargus proffered his request, he cried cheerily:

"As to that I should be delighted if you will allow me to
offer you the hospitality of my bachelor quarters. Here is
my card, sir" — fumbling vigorously in a waistcoat pocket,
which his rotundity of form rendered rather difficult of ac-
cess— "M. Frederic Bocage, bon bourgeois et Bruxellois, at
your service. Your son shall receive every care. I shall
have the house kept as quiet as possible ; but you understand,
sir, now and again a bachelor establishment may be rather
noisy."

"I am sincerely grateful for your kindness," said Fargus,
"but if you knew of some quiet quarters, where we could have
good attendance and be sure of being undisturbed, it would
be better in every way we should remain independent. It is
only as a last resource," he added, smiling;, "that I should

Wanderings, 133

dream of taking advantage of your most hospitable offer, and
bringing the trouble of such a serious illness into your house.
I cannot be mistaken ; my son is in a very dangerous state."

M. Bocage, awed by the dignity of manner which Fargus
maintained, did not press the invitation further. He knew
of rooms overlooking the Gardens, close to his own house,
where he had no doubt they would be received, and which were
comfortable, large and airy.

"If you will allow me, I will conduct you thither and go
for the doctor — my friend Bertrand, a man of the greatest
ability ; for I agree with you your son looks very ill."

The Belgian was as good as his word, and of invaluable
help at the trying juncture of their arrival. Lewis was in a
state of stupor, and it was with difficulty that he was got safely
to the house whither M. Bocage brought them, and where
the sight of his visage and the genial authority of his cheery
voice smoothed over the landlady's dubiousness. Leaving the
father to see to the patient, he bustled off in quest of the
physician.

Having undressed his son, and seen him stretched between
fresh white sheets, with iced compresses on his forehead, Far-
gus sat down by the bedside to wait for the doctor, whose
arrival was promised before evening.

Twilight was spreading apace, and through the half -open
window came a glimpse of promised sky, in marked contrast
with the darkness and repose of the silent room.

It was exactly a week since he had left the Lone Grange
in pursuit of his unknown boy; only four days since he had
first spoken to him ; now there was not a thought, not a pros-
pect in his life, which was not absolutely encompassed by him.
Had he known him and loved him all his twenty-five years
of existence, helped him, trained him to be what he was —
he did not think he wotdd feel differently now, that his
anxiety could be more poignant, or his tenderness more ex-
quisitely keen.

Fargus gently lifted the hand that lay in his own — what
a strong brown hand it was ! how doughtily it had wielded the
sword so chivalrously taken up in defense of a stranger!
Lewis' hand was a little large, and there, straight across each
strong palm, amid the inexplicable and generally absolutely
personal designs, ran the imusual, unbroken, transverse line,
held with pride by the Kerr family to be a special character-
istic of their race.

There came a pleasure to Fargus each time he succeeded
in tracing some likeness to himself or his family in the stran-
ger son. Beside the odd way in which the latter seemed to have
reproduced in his own so many of the phases of his father'f

134 Wanderings.

life, there were a number of unmistakable and interesting
signs of hereditary connection about him ; something in the
carriage of the head and the general bearing recalling to the
self-made American the personality of his own English father ;
such family traits Fargus had looked for and welcomed.

The smile which this last discovery had evoked ended in a
sigh. To have ignored him till his brave manhood, to have
found him such as he was — ^f or there was not one point so
far Fargus would have wished different in his son — ^and to
lose him, perhaps, after all!

Suddenly the sick man began muttering to himself. Then
he sat up, and Fargus could see him staring fixedly before
him. Presently he spoke again:

"Hear how the seconds fly I I shall soon be there; she is
waiting for me." He stretched out his hand, laid it on the
watch which ticked on the table beside him. "It beats with
mine! I know her heart beats with mine. Maude, I have
returned! Where is she?" The words became indistinct
again and died away in confusion on his pillows.

Fargus, with a heavy heart, lit a candle, placed the watch
where it could no longer disturb the patient, and once more
applied the iced bandages. A knock at the front door and
the approach of a firm, quiet tread on the stairs announced
that welcome arrival.

Hurrying out to meet him, Fargus arrested the new-comer
on the landing to explain the patient's state and the history
of its causes with all possible brevity, after which he intro-
duced him into the sick-room, and with a sad nod indicated
the bed where the wounded man at that moment again started
to a sitting posture, and, bending forward, held out his
clenched right hand, with thumb extended, as though grasp-
ing a sword.

"There — there! No? Fll get at you, though." A terrific
spring would have thrown him upon the floor but for the
father's detaining grasp.

The doctor, a f resh-complexioned man of middle-age, with
a thoughtful bald head and practiced keenness of eye, looked
quickly from the fevered countenance on the bed to the pale
one bending so anxiously forward.

'TTour son, sir?" he asked, as he drew out his watch; then,
without giving time for a reply: "Needless to inquire; the
resemblance speaks for itself.

•'Yes; traumatic meningitis I fear," he said corroborative-
ly; then, as if in answer to a sort of gray, stricken look
upon the other's face: "Not necessarily fatal. Your son
seems to have a strong constitution — indeed, by your ac-
count, must be made of solid material to have done what

Wanderings. 135

he has done under the circumstances. Of course, that forced
march in the heat, not to speak of the careless, insufficiently
antiseptic treatment of the wounds, is sufficient to account
for the present state of things. Much will depend on con-
stant watchfulness. You must have a professional nurse."

"No, doctor; I mean to nurse my boy myself."

"Trained nurses are best in cases like these. Your son is
delirious; he may be violent; he is a powerful man."

"I have experience of such cases. I shall manage him."

"But you will have to watch him day and night; it is too
much for one person."

"I shall not leave him day or night. I have no objection to
a trained helper," added Fargus, "and shall be grateful if
you can send one over."

On the doctor's grave face there crept a look of sym-
pathy.

"You must have your way, I see," he said with a tran-
sient smile, as he sat down to write his prescription; "and,
on the whole, it may be your son's best chance. No one
ought to be able to nurse him better than his father."

After giving directions for the treatment, promising to
send a hospital attendant and to call early in the morning,
the physician took his leave.

As soon as he had dispatched a servant for the medicines,
Fargus came back to the bedside.

The bright eyes opened and looked at him with intentness.

"I must get up," said Lewis ; "it will not do to be late at the
rendezvous."

With gentle force the nurse pressed him down again.

"Lie still, my boy — lie still. Rest in me."

The touch of the father's hands, the soft earnestness of hia
voice, seemed to soothe Lewis for a moment.

A sudden hope sprang into life within Fargus' breast. He
was not blind to the danger of his boy's state, and knew that
few recovered from this terrible disease. But his boy should
not die. Fargus remembered the influence he had so
strangely exercised over him at their first meeting ; it actually
seemed as if this power would stand him in good stead now.

And day and night for a whole week the father wrestled
for his son's life, catching the merest snatches of sleep on
his chair (always holding one hot hand in his). It was evi-
dent that the same besetting theme haunted the poor un-
hinged brain throughout. Its ravings took the same course
day after day — eager, restless pursuit; a transient ecstasy of
joy. But never, even in his most violent frenzy, did Far-
gus' voice, look and touch fail in the end to soothe his son.
The doctor called him a bom nurse.

136 Wanderings.

One morning, while Lewis slept, the fever fell. Fargus,
sitting at the head of the bed, must have dropped into a
doze. He was startled into wakefulness by the feeling of
the patient's hand in his. It was no longer burning with
the dry heat* but blessedly cool and moist.

Softly he rose to his feet and bent over the sick man.
Lewis was sleeping quietly, with light regular breathing, and
the beard was dewed with perspiration.

Fargus had kept up while matters were at the worst with-
out unbending; the relief shook him with emotion. He
noislessly walked to the window and glanced forth, crying
voicelessly from the depths of his swelling heart, "Thank
God!"

When he came back to the bedside, Lewis, awakened by
the slight noise, opened his eyes and raised them to his face.

"Colonel Fargus," he said, in a very weak, weary voice.

"Yes, my dear boy."

"Have I been ill?"

"Very ill, for more than a week."

Lewis closed his eyes again, while his companion measured
out some medicine. Then with slow deliberation :

"You have been here all the while ?"

**Yes, of course. Drink this."

Lewis obeyed, with a faint smile.

"And you have been nursing me?" he resumed, after swal-
lowing the mixture.

"Why, certainly, Robert Thompson; don't you remember
I am your father?"

The patient paused to gather his wandering reminiscences.

"I remember, we were going to Brussels; are we there
now?"

"Yes ; I can have no more talking, or you will be ill again."

The young man was mute for a few minutes, then the
unconsciously plaintive voice was lifted in gentle persistence :

"You have been very good to me."

"Fathers sometimes are to their sons."

"Am I to call you father, then ?" with another feeble smile.

"Every one believes us to be father and son; you had bet-
ter do so. And now I exercise my parental authority in
ordering you to silence again, and if possible to sleep."

For a few days everything went smoothly. Lewis, at first
so weak, seemed to gain strength steadily. He slept much
and ate well, and appeared to enjoy in placidity the happiness
of retiiming health.

But after that there came a halt. With increasing strength
came increased mental activity, and with the latter depres-
sion, loss of appetite — every night rising temperature.

Wanderings, 137

The doctor owned himself puzzled. Lewis had been fever-
ish, moody, irritable, and evidently in pain, and had at
length fallen asleep with his throbbing head between his
father's hands.

"I cannot make it out," said the physician. "He was on
as fair a way to recovery as ever I saw. The inflammation
is over, the wounds healing fast ; and now these fever symp-
toms, this renewal of suffering — above all, his depression.
. . . If we do not take care we shall have a relapse, and
then — Have you any reason to think there may be some-
thing weighing on his mind?"

"He had a great disappointment just before this illness."

The doctor pondered. He had grown to take a deep extra-
professional interest in the case, and had an admiration for
the devoted father; he did not mean to let their patient slip
through his fingers.

"Can you do nothing to remove this mental worry ?"

Fargus shook his head.

"We must change the treatment, rouse him, distract his
mind and make it work in different channels. We shall have
him up to-morrow, I think. A little fresh air will do him
good. Mr. Thomson, you must do your utmost to keep your
son from brooding. Such cases sometimes turn into melan-
cholia."

During that night Fargus watched his son — unknown to
the latter. As he heard him moan and toss in his sleep, or
saw him, from his place of observation, staring with wide-
eyed misery into space, he swore to himself that, if human
agency could encompass it, the woman whose name had been
with such unconscious and pathetic frequency upon his lips
should learn to love him as he deserved.

What could be her reason for refusing him? she who had
known him for years. And how he loved her ! In those de-
lirious utterances of his, what a wealth of tenderness was
there betrayed! what a devotion!

Where could she have found a match for him?

The more he thought the more convinced the father be-
came there must be some misunderstanding at the bottom —
that Maude, who had loved his boy in years gone by, who
had seemed so heart-whole, save for her undisguised prefer-
ence for her old comrade, could not be in earnest in thus
blighting his life. Some mischief-maker might have come
between them, and Fargus' brow darkened — serene-faced
Charlie, who wanted her for himself, perchance ? There was
a task for the father ; it was well he had returned in time to
unravel the plot.

CHAPTER XIII.
"a bolt from the blue."

Toward the sunset hour of the next day Lewis sat on the
Iialcouy, propped with pillows, enjoying the evening breeze.
The patient had been declared convalescent ; the change from
bed to armchair seemed to have been successful. There was
no return of fever. Fargus' determination to keep him from
brooding had been so delicately manoeuvred, it was impossible
for a sweet-tempered nature, like Lewis', not to be benefi-
cently influenced by it.

M. Bocage, who had kept the sick-room supplied with fruit
and every kind of delicacy, had begged for an interview to
say good-by before leaving on a journey. The Belgian's
jolly presence, hearty laugh, cheerful conversation, never de-
void of mother-wit, had amfused Lewis and shaken him out
of himself.

The day had passed well; matters looked promising again
to Fargus.

"It is cheerful to see your head out of its swaddling bands."

"By the way," interrupted Lewis, "did I rave at all ?"

"Of course you raved," replied Fargus. "A good deal
about fighting, as far as I could make out."

Lewis heaved a sigh of relief.

"I suppose I shall be plagued with questions about this face
of mine."

"You are not, I hope, thinking of returning to England
too soon. It will take you some time to recover completely;
remember, it has been a touch-and-go business with you."

"I should like to get back in a week. There are things I
must see to: that succession so unexpectedly devolving on
me. And this reminds me, by the way, that my solicitors
were to keep me acquainted with the progress of affairs. I
wonder if they have written to Homburg."

The latter, resolved to keep the conversation off the un-
fortunate topic, answered without the slightest curiosity:

"Shall I write and have them forwarded?"

"That would be good of you. I must keep myself ac-
quainted with the development of my fortunes, and whether
my presence is required over the water."

"I hope it is not," said Fargus, forseeing that an early
return might put a stop to the intimacy which had grown so
precious. "You know," he went on, "I do not want to let
you out of my supervision until you are really restored."

"A Bolt From the Blue." 139

"Unless it be quite necessary, I have no -wish to move. I
have no superfluity of energy, and I shall inflict my company
upon you as long as you will tolerate it. The debt I owe
you is great already, yet I mean to eke it out still further."

Part of the pleasant hour was allowed to glide by in
silence, as they watched the gorgeous copper sunset. By-
and-by Lewis, who was languidly stretching himself in his
armchair, went on again, as if in continuance of a private
strain of thought:

"Convalescent after a dangerous, exhausting illness must
be a delicious period when there is no canker of the mind
to poison every thought of the future."

"That," said Fargus, in a quiet authoritative manner —
"that is a thing, if you like, that I will not tolerate. Brood-
ing is an indulgence it is your duty to deny yoiirself. You
have been disappointed in one direction, in a matter near
your heart, as you said, and as, indeed, your every look and
word betrays. Do not think I have no sympathy there; I
have had myself at least one such experience in days of
old, and I don't mind telling you that I allowed myself to
sink deeper than you under the discouragement. But man's
fate is to struggle all his life for happiness. And, my dear
boy, forgive me for telling you that it is unmanly to give
up the struggle because a particular happiness appears un-
attainable. To a fellow like you, is there nothing in the
world but a woman's love?"

Lewis looked up hastily, but Fargus went on steadily, never
removing his firm, kindly gaze from his son's face :

"I know it is a woman who has caused this sorrow. I may
say I guess who she is — is there nothing else in life to look
to? Duty, for instance, which men like you can so well
fulfill ; study, which one of your attainments should prosecute
to ever greater extent; fame to be achieved while you have
still the spring of youth within you. Such things, I know,
will not replace the love that is lost; but, still, they are
worth living for. She who is truly loved can never be re-
place, for she has been invested in our eyes with every-
thing we look for in woman. But it behooves a man to re-
main worthy of the one he has chosen, although he may have
given up all hope of winning her. I would not even urge
you to try and forget. You have much that you cannot lose
— a good name, a past honorable achievement, as I heard
before I met you, and in attainments, as I found out for
myself. Is it worthy to give yourself up to profitless pin-
ing?"

Lewis had listened with a dreamy look.

"You are right," he answered simply, glancing up with t

I40 *' A Bolt From tlie Blue."

grateful smile. '^I have been hard hit; all I can undertake
is to try. It is good of you to speak to me like this. For-
give me for asking, but what is it makes you take such in-
terest in me? Why are you so kind? Our acquaintance is
of short standing ; outside events have made it intimate, thus
far all the services have been on your side."

A shade came over Fargus' face. But he answered with
resolute cheerfulness :

"I might reply that, having found in foreign parts a pleas-
ant companion, I naturally learned to take an interest in
him. But when I find in that companion a friend of friends,
and one of the few relatives I know of mine in England —
for my family, Mr. Kerr, is a distant offshoot of yours — one
whom I expect to see much of later as a country neighbor,
my interest in him becomes even less wonderful. Now let
us, if you will, come to an agreement, and then drop the
subject : for the time which we are destined to spend together,
never ask me why I wish to be kind."

Lewis extended his hand silently, and the other clasped it
with warm pressure.

The invalid took his lecture to heart, and made persistent
efforts to respond to his companion's bracing cheerfulness.
The latter kept the tenor of the conversation on vigorous
subjects — army matters, travels, adventures and sport, the
qualifications, duties and responsibilities of a landed pro-
prietor, and all other topics he could think of with so much
tact and variety, that Lewis never suspected he was being
kept in intellectual leading-strings.

On the morning of the third day after that evening con-
clave Lewis was in his room dressing. He was sitting in his
shirt-sleeves, taking a rest and looking more placid than he
had ever done since their acquaintance, when Fargus brought
in a letter.

"Just the one I expected," said Lewis, glancing at it. "I
dare say you will have to help me to make out its meaning.
Jjegal English will be more than I can master at present."

He leisurely opened the jenvelope, while Fargus remarked,
after scanning the heavens, that it would be a perfect day
for their first drive; that the carriage would come round in
an hour.

Receiving no response, he turned round to find his son,
with ashen lips, staring, as if in petrified amazement, at the
open letter. Then blood suffused the young man's pale face;
he started to his feet with a strangled exclamation of anger,
only to grow white again and stagger back with a sudden
failing of strength.

"What is the matter?" cried Fargus, rushing toward him

" A Bolt From the Blue." 141

and seizing his hand, which was cold and clammy. "Here,
take some brandy," hastily pouring a little in a glass and
forcing it to his lips.

Lewis drank the dram and seemed to recover himself. Put-
ting Fargus away from him with a mechanical sweep of his
arm, he began to i)eruse it again with the most earnest at-
tention.

After a little while Lewis looked up with dazed eyes and
seemed to catch sight of Fargus for the first time.

"I can't make it out, all the letters jump about so. Will
you please read it to me — slowly."

With a vague presentiment of evil Fargus picked up the
letter.

" 'From Perkins and Stubbs, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Re
Gilham Estate. Private and confidential.'

" 'Dear Sir : We think it would be strongly advisable for
you to return to England as soon as you conveniently can.
Circumstances have come to our knowledge with reference
to the above which we feel certain will cause you as much
surprise as they have to txs, and which we think will require
your immediate attention.

" *Mr. Charles Hillyard called on us this morning to ob-
tain our advice on the question of heir-at-law to the late
William Kerr of Gilham. It would seem that he is in posses-
sion of documents which he strongly believes must establish
his claim to the succession, by entail, over your head, on the
plea . . .'"

The steady voice faltered as the meaning of the words was
borne in upon the reader; he broke off with a deep exclama-
tion.

There was a silence. Lewis muttered without looking up :
"Go on, I am b^inning to understand. I must hear it all."
Fargus clenched his fist. It was a rare experience for him
to be strongly moved by anger. But an almost murderous
fury against the man who dared to cast such an insult at his
boy shook him to the very depths of his being. "Oh, to have
him by the throat, kin though he be, within the grasp of
these strong hands !"

"Please go on," said Lewis again.

It required all the elder man's force of will not to baferay
himself now. With a wonderful mastery over his voice he
began once more, glad that his boy, absorbed in his own tur-
moil of thoughts, could not notice the change which he felt
on his own face.

** *, , , of illegitimacy on your wd«, W9 had to inf orm

142 "A Bolt From the Blue."

Mr. Hillyard that as we had hitherto always acted in your
interest, and especially as you had requested us on the death
of your uncle, previous to your departure abroad, to watch
over your affairs, we could not undertake to act for him in
the matter. We informed him we should communicate with
you. We gather that Mr. Hillyard is anxious to come to
an amicable settlement by private agreement. More infor-
mation we cannot give yoti, as Mr. Hillyard was naturally
very reticent.

" 'Hoping to hear from you at your earliest convenience,

'''We are,' etc."

He read on to the end without faltering. Here was a
Nemesis indeed! The sin of his selfish youth had found
him out at last.

Who would believe him if, as a last resource, to prevent a
flagrant injustice, he were obliged to come forward and tell
the true history of David Fergus and George Kerr? What
a train of miserable, humiliating, ridiculous litigation, if
nothing worse, such a course would entail, and with what
slender chance of victory! And if it failed, how ignomin-
ious, how dishonoring! nothing short of criminal conspiracy
in the eyes of judges and laymen, between two men hitherix)
held as models of honor!

"Thank you," said Lewis in a loud voice, after a while,
lifting his head again and looking at his companion.

It was a haggard, drawn face, with the stamp upon it of
his recent fight against death; but the father's heart swelled
as he marked the look of proud composure it now bore.

"Thank you; I wish you would be so good as to leave me
to myself a little. I must think."

Fargus, with a sad look, was about to comply in silence,
when Lewis, struck by the alteration of his features, caught
at his hand.

"Why, you seem quite upset yourself ! Yon are very good
to me."

Fargus wrung his hand.

"You mean to fight it out, my boy?"

"To the last penny of my fortune," answered Lewis.

When Fargus returned he was calmer and more hopeful.

Scanning the past in minutest detail, he could not recol-
lect anything, save the tinfortunate fact of his reputed sui-
cide to support the extraordinary charge. On the other
hand, the position his son had always had In the Hillyard
family, his nearest relatives, would be strong presumptive
evidence in his favor; that none of them had doubted his
right to the name until it became profitable to the next-of-

" A Bolt From tLe Blue." 143

kin so to do — one who had always up to this cheerfully
claimed cousinship with him — might go some way toward
shaking the latter's credit, whatever "proofs" he might have
collated in his greed.

It was balm to Fargus to see his boy determined to take up
the fight for his own and his father's honor.

When he came back to Lewis' room, and found the young
man bent more doggedly than ever on resistance, more sul-
lenly fierce against the treachery that cast the slur upon him,
there was also a new satisfaction. The shock seemed to have
had, on the whole, a bracing effect upon the sick man, by in-
stilling a healthy combative tone into the brain. There was
some color on Lewis' face; he walked his room with head
more erect and a firmer tread.

"I have no proofs to stake against Charlie's documents,
whatever they may be — curse him!" he cried, stopping in
front of Fargus, and striking the letter as he spoke. "What
proofs can a man have whose father died before he was bom,
whose mother died in giving him birth ? I am George Kerr's
son, and my mother was as pure as yours."

"I know it," said Fargus, looking deep into his eyes.

Lewis was too much comforted to notice the strangeness
of the words.

"Ah, Colonel Fargus! what should I do without you? Yet
I have no right to weary you."

"Lewis," said Fargus, "you are my fictitious son, remem-
ber, so forgive this familiarity, and I do not conceal from
you that you have grown dear to me since we two have been
thrown together. I am a lonely man — there is no being in
this whole world that David Fargus can claim kindred with —
and you, not so desolate, stand likewise somewhat strangely
dependent upon yourself. Let me see you through this new
trouble. I have a cool head and a free one, while you must
not overtax yours, as yet, and a man will require all hia
wits to unravel Master Hillyard's tangle."

Lewis* hesitating expression vanished under the deep sym-
pathy.

"You heap benefits upon me. I can not refuse the offer
of your help and friendship at such a moment. You are
right. Colonel Fargus: I am alone in the world — ^utterly
alone. I thought I had lost so much, I had at least a trusty
friend left. What a fool thing he has turned out to be !"

"Perhaps." suggested Fargus, "we are making moimtains
out of mole-hills."

"I have no doubt it is trumpery," said Lewis abstractedly;
"but clever trumpery, coming from that quarter; and trum-
pery carefully elaborated in the dark may be difficult to dis-

144 "A Bolt From the Blue.'*

prove. I believe I had lost everything when — ^when we first
met. Now I find I had still to lose the only real friend I
ever made. In your case, the kindness has been all on your
side. Charlie and I were chirms for years. Curse that suc-
cession, it has lost me my old comrade, and may now lose me
my name — ^the name I have been so proud of.

"Now I understand the change I found in Charles when
I met him, though he tried to blind me to it. Let him look
out; I have a greater stake than he: he fights for money, I
for my name."

There was a long silence in the room.

After a painful spell of cogitation, Lewis spoke again:

"Yes, I will fight it out, were it only for my dead mother's
sake. I must retiirn to London as soon as possible."

"I cannot think of letting you travel for several days.
Correspond with your lawyer from here. Write to-day, stat-
ing your determination, announcing your return for next
week. Shall I pen it, and you will sign ?"

"Yes," returned Lewis, after consideration; "I shall re-
quire strength and all the wits I possess to fight a man like
Charlie — amicable settlement, forsooth! It makes me sick
at heart to think of the fellow I had placed on such a pedes-
tal plotting against me above-board, since he, who was the
first to announce to me the turn affairs had taken at Gilham,
never gave me the slightest hint of his intention to try and
ruin me — ^worse than ruin me! I don't feel very strongly
about the estate, but I will not have my mother's good fame
sullied. And, above all, I will not have my father's name
taken away from me. I never knew him; but my grand-
father, and, later on, my father's sister, taught me to be proud
of him; and pride in my name has become a sort of religion
with me. I will tell you some day all I know about them —
meanwhile, you must help me to get strong again. I am not
yet fit to undertake business."

"No," said Fargus, with renewed concern; "to-day is de-
voted to fresh air, and I hear the carriage at the door. We
shall be back in time to write to London."

During this constant companionship Fargus had ample
opportunity to learn more about his son's affairs, and, inci-
dentally, something about those of his other relations.

The father, as soon almost as he had read the letter of ill
news, had come to the conclusion that here was the clew —
here the reason oi Maude's incomprehensible repudiation of
her old love. Charles Hillyard had remained at Gilham; he
was to have dined at Woldham the very night of the funeral ;
as the elder man remembered now he must have been quick
indeed to work his evil purpose for the news to have reached

Dea Ex MacHna. 145

Maude so soon. Yet it was like the general's impetuosity,
more especially if artfully worked upon, to lose not a second
to write in warning to his darling.

Meanwhile Lewis, on his side, had drifted toward deeper
suspicion of him. Was it not possible, even probable, that
Charlie — since he was capable of double-dealing at all — might
have played him false in other quarters? The strange dis-
covery on the night of their meeting had forced a portentous
confession out of him. Since he could lie at all, he might
have lied about Maude — ay, and to her!

The more Lewis thought of her sudden coldness — that cold-
ness tempered with compassion which had struck him as so
hopeless — the more he came to fancy he saw through it the
handiwork of his false friend.

And thus, contrary to Fargus' first misgivings, the shock
of this bad news did not retard the progress of recovery.
Day by day the doctor was able to report progress, and at the
end of the week felt justified in sanctioning the return home.

"I can only offer you a little room in an old, rather dilapi-
dated Inn," said Lewis, while his face brightened at the
prospect with a look of pleasure; "but I undertake to sup-
ply you with good books, good wine, and good cigars, and
you will see London from a less conventional point of view
than from a West-End hotel. I can make a show of re-
turning your hospitality."

"It will be a fit sequel to my journey in search of novel
impressions," replied Fargus, hugging with delight the pros-
pect of a prolonged course of intimacy.

CHAPTER XIV.

DEA EX MACHINA.

London again, on a tawny September afternoon. Beauti-
ful, at least to the two travelers whom a hansom has just
disgorged in front of the massive gateway of Staple Inn: to
Fargus, filled with the memories and emotions which a return
to England each time awakened; to Lewis, who had a cat-
like attachment to his old haunts

The friends felt nothing but a healthy hunger as a result
of the short day's travel, and had agreed to proceed at once
in quest of food, after depositing their luggage at the iiui.
But on their way out Lewis paused a moment to give direc-
tions to the jovial, red-faced, red-waistcoated porter anent
the preparation of his rooms.

Z46 Dea Ex Macbina.

The young man, having concluded his instructions, was
about to hail his companion, when the porter stopped him,
and, looking full of importance and mystery, observed in a
confidential whisper :

"Beg pardon, sir, I don't know if you'd like the other gen-
tleman to hear, but there has been a lady here twice already
to inquire after you."

"A lady ? What sort of a lady ?"

"Young lady, sir, smartly dressed — ^that is all I know, sir,"
said the porter, with just the suspicion of a twinkle in his
eye. "She wanted to see you most particularly."

"Why — ^who on earth — Did she leave no name?"

"No, sir; said you would not know it if she were to, and
wanted to know when you'd be back."

^'This is mysterious. You are sure she meant me?"

"Oh, no doubt about that, sir ; she said Mr, L. G. Kerr."

"And you are sure it was a ladyf What was she like?"

"Tall, well dressed ; seemed a handsome kind of lady — can't
tell you more nor that, sir. She called again yesterday in
a hansom. I told her you would be back to-day, and she
looked pleased and asked at what time you might likely to be
in."

"WeU?"

"That I couldn't tell; she said she would try and find you
at home."

A man who consorts with a high ideal has rarely grounds
to dread the specters of past pleasures. Lewis Kerr did not
need to waste time in analyzing his recollections.

"Well, then, if this person calls again when I am in I
will see her; if I am out, ask her to fix an hour." And turn-
ing to Fargus he took his arm, and they crossed over to the
Bull Inn in quest of their meal.

"And who is she ?" asked the latter carelessly.

"I really could not tell you," answered Lewis. "Some
young lady anxious to meet me. I caoinot think who it can
be."

Fargus shot a swift, anxious look at him, but felt rebuked
as he met his son's clear, straightforward eyes.

After an old-fashioned English repast they returned across
the road and mounted the twisted flight that led to Lewis'
pignon sur rue.

"Well, Mr. Thomson, father mine," cried the latter as he
ushered Fargus into his rooms, "this is my English home —
a poor thing, sir, but mine own — indeed, the only home I
have ever known in my paternal country. Come what may,

Dea Ex MacHina. 147

of tMs at least I am master, and, humble as it is, I trust you
will look upon it as yoxxrs also."

Fargus crossed the threshold of his son's little home in a
silence that he could not break. Then, standing in the mid-
dle of the room, he slowly scanned the surroundings with a
tenderly appreciative eye. The curious retreat might have
been that of bookworm, student, or philosopher, to judge
fi'om the mass of volumes that lined the walls from floor to
pent-up ceiling; or of artist, to go by the quaint, motley
furniture, the odd relics of antiquity, the pictures, the
"curios"; but for the extraordinary order and neatness more
characteristic of the soldier, with which every comer of space
was utilized without crowding the modest limits. A home,
thought the father, exactly fitted to its owner.

His pleased and wandering gaze suddenly became fixed as
he caught sight of the pictures over the mantel-shelf. He
walked across the room to look more closely. His own por-
trait and Carmen's. What a beautiful creature she had
been ! Since he had known his son, David Fargus had never
had another harsh thought for his dead wife. And under-
neath those two well-remembered portraits, the sword, the
Highland dirk and medals, and other chattels which had be-
longed to George Kerr.

David Fargus felt his eyes moisten as they fell upon these
relics of his own past, so piously collected and enshrined in
his boy's lonely home.

The young man came up and followed the direction of his
eyes.

"That is my father's portrait," he explained gravely, "taken
when he was about my own age. Was he not a fine fellow?
And that is my poor young mother. Damn that cur who is
trying to cast infamy upon her memory! Now tell me can-
didly, Colonel Fargus, do you see the likeness between my
father and me ?"

He placed his back to the chimney-piece and stood under
the picture, looking eagerly at his companion. Fargus re-
mained a moment lost in thought, comparing, with heaven
knows what sadness and pride, the young, expectant face of
the living with the painted image of the supposed dead. But
the father was pleased to see one, and there was no mistak-
ing the conviction of his assurance.

"You are like him — very like, dear boy."

"Not such a good-looking fellow, of course," said Lewis,
with a blush of pleasure. "Still I always thought there was
a look of myself there. I am glad you see it too. Now sit
down in my own armchair. It is time for yoixr smoke.
Which will you have, pipe or cigar ?"

148 Dea Ex Machina.

"A pipe. It is more homely, and I already feel so much at
home," replied Fargus, who sat down, with a contented sigh.

"Would you like this one?" he asked, producing a very
black clay pipe mounted in silver and amber; "it is one of
my few heirlooms; no one but myself has ever used it since
I had it. I treasure it as the apple of my eye. I will trust
it to your hand."

He placed the object in Fargiis' outstretched palm — the
identical grimy pipe, the trusty friend, under whose soothing
influence that first self of his had awakened from the mad-
ness that led to death, so many years ago now, before its
present owner had seen the light of day! Fargus looked
down at it with dilating eye.

"It was my father's," said Lewis, here interrupting the
flood of reminiscence, with a smile at his companion's mute
solemnity of contemplation ; "that is why it is so precious to
me. It came to me with all the other things when I set up
my college rooms. Mrs. Hillyard, his sister, you know, who
had preserved them for me, used to say it was his favorite
pipe."

Fitting the amber mouthpiece to his lips with an odd famil-
iarity, Fargus lit that memorable relic and sank back in his
chair, while Lewis rummaged about the room.

At last, when everything was again in the absolute order,
of the picturesque as well as handy kind, he sat down op-
posite his guest, and filled a pipe for himself.

"I am tired," said he, enjoyably drawing his first puff.
"I am not quite so robust yet as I might be. I am glad to
think I shall have you at my elbow in all these affairs."

"So am I. I am as much interested in them as you are."

"It is very odd," said Lewis; "I am so accustomed to look
to you for help it all seems perfectly natural. But, still, it
is most extraordinarily self-denying of you, when I come to
think of it.

"This suspense is wearing, though I try not to brood over it
too much. Let us hope I shall learn something definite at
Perkins' to-morrow. Hallo ! who goes there ?"

A smart rattle, as of some one tapping with a stick or um-
brella. Lewis, full of curious anticipation, went to open the
door, but the next moment, with a stifled exclamation, stepped
back into the room.

A young woman, dressed with quiet simplicity in soft pale
gray, with a large black Rubens hat, wreathed with many
falling feathers, on her shapely head, a gray parasol in one
hand and a somewhat bulky reticule in the other, stood on
the threshold against the light of the stair window.

On hearing Lewis' ejaculation, Fargus roSe and hastily ad-

Dea Bx MacHina. X49

vanced, only to halt in his turn with every sign of the most
unmitigated astonishment.

"Miss Woldham !" he cried.

The visitor, who had seemed inclined to beat a retreat, on
sight of the elder man, recovered her self-possession as he
spoke. With great deliberation she walked into the room,
looking from one to the other with a slowly dawning smile of
peculiar significance. Lewis was the first to find out his
mistake — he had been tricked again by that resemblance! —
and frowning upon Maude's double, stood waiting with im-
patience for her next move, while Fargus, all at sea and
shaken out of his usual self-possession, surveyed the new-
comer with eyes in which wonder was now melting into joy-
ful anticipation.

"Look again, old gentleman," their visitor said, "are you
sure I am the real Miss Woldham?"

At this Fargus entered upon a new amazement, to give
place to an expression of the most complete mystification.
Maude Woldham never spoke with that twang, that vulgarity
of diction, however strangely similar the tones of the voice
might be; nor had Maude Woldham's eyes — as he examined
closer — that unflinching stare; nor were the beautiful lines
of her face so boldly marked. But if not Maude Woldham —
who, in the name of heavens ?

"This is Mr. Kerr's rooms — ^L. G. Kerr — ain't it? because
that's the person I've come to see."

She turned to Lewis as she spoke.

"And you're the man, I take it ?" she pursued.

Lewis glared at her without answering — ^was it a planned
insult of Charlie's?

Fargus came to the rescue with a sudden intuition of
some of his son's feelings. "These are Mr. Lewis Kerr's
rooms, madam, and, as you have guessed, this gentleman is
Mr. Kerr himself," pressing his hand in friendly warning on
the young man's shoulder. "He has been very ill — is not
yet strong. Will you not take a seat ?"

"Thanks, I will," responded the lady, taking possession of
the armchair, and tossing reticule and parasol on the couch.
Once more addressing Lewis, while she proceeded leisurely to
divest large but well-shaped hands of their long gloves : "Oh,
my!" she remarked, "these are funny stairs of yours," be-
stowing pleased and smiling looks upon her astonished hosts.

Lewis and Fargus exchanged a glance of amazement; the
latter was beginning to enjoy the humorous side, and a rather
dry smile wandered about his mouth.

"And so you are Mr. Kerr. I am glad I have found you.
You've just come back from Inja, haven't you?"

150 Dea Ex Machina.

"Now that you are quite at home," with scathing polite-
ness, "I presume I may ask what I owe the honor of your
visit to? You appear to know a good deal about me; but I
have yet to learn whom I have the privilege to address."

"You've never seen me before, then ? Are you sure you've
never known any one — something like me? Think well; that
one over there seemed to think I was quite a friend of his at
first."

The two men again exchanged a glance. But one thing
was clear to both; the girl knew perfectly to whom it was she
bore so marvelous a likeness.

"You do look cross!" still tauntingly fixing Lewis; **per-
haps it was a little cool my bouncing in that way. But
there's one thing I wanted to find out for sure. And didn't
I do it, too ? I'd rather not have found it out so true. And
shall I tell you how? I saw it written on your face, Mr.
Kerr, even before the old gentleman was kind enough to say
it for me."

There was a pause. Lewis threw himself on his stool and
folded his arms with the air of one who resigns himself to a
trying infliction.

"I shan't try your patience," she said gravely. "I have
come here on a serious matter to you — and to me ;" this with
a sudden hard compression of her full red lips. "To begin
with, my name's Hilda Hillyard — Mrs. Hillyard."

Neither Lewis nor Fargus was able to restrain a movement
of surprise.

The girl looked from one to the other with a bitter defiance.

"What makes you both gape at me like that? If there
is any reason why I should not be Charles Hillyard's wife
kindly mention it."

She waited for a reply; receiving none, broke into scoffing
laugh.

"Maybe you've heard of him paying his court elsewhere?"
— ^her lips trembling as she spoke. The friends became lost
in amazement ; their visitor, who had leaned forward to watch
their faces, fell back with a sigh of relief. She resinned,
after a pause:

"You've heard nothing? I am glad of it. You're surprised
he should marry me because I'm not a lady. You're right,
Fm not; now I don't mind telling you Fm not his wedded
wife, though it's well-nigh four years that I've been as good
as one to him."

The silence that ensued seemed to gall the reckless speaker.

I'Perhaps you're that particular, you'd rather not have any-
thing to do with me ? I am afraid you'll be sold in the end."

The brazen look was as a cold douche to Lewis. He turned

Dea Ex Machina. 15X

away his head with vexation. Fargxis, more tolerant, more
far-seeing, cast a grave, not unkind, glance upon the girl,
under which her eyes fell ; the bold, handsome features worked
with sudden emotion.

**I'm not ashamed of what I have done. There's many a
fine lady, who flaunts about the court, and shakes hands with
the Queen, has not as clear a sheet to show as me; many a
wedded wife hasn't been as true to her husband as I have to
Charlie. I don't care whether he marries me or not, but he
don't leave me."

Her face set into a look of determination. She looked
straight before her, dropping each word slowly with em-
phatic meaning.

"We are quite in the dark," put in Fargus gently. "Why
should Mr. Hillyard leave you ? And — forgive me if I appear
rude ; but what has this to do with us ?"

Fargus' manner seemed to please. She smiled upon him
broadly, and, with a childish change of mood, replied almost
gayly:

"Why, it has a good deal to do with that young man. I've
come to tell him about it; but he's cross. Come now, that's
better — you look a deal nicer when you're good-tempered.
And you'll live to thank me on your bended knees before I've
done. But" — looking wise — "as it is something private and
confidential, I'd better know who the old gentleman is. Will
you introduce him ?"

In answer to an acquiescent glance Lewis complied with the
request.

"I'm not much the wiser," remarked the visitor candidly.
"Look here, Mr. Kerr, you'll be just as much in a hat as me,
if your friend was to split upon us. So perhaps you'd bet-
ter send him away."

This was qualified with an amiable smile at Fargus.

The latter looked amused, but Lewis responded impatiently :

"Mr. Fargus is quite to be trusted ; he is my adviser upon
most important legal business at present. Anything you
have to say to me must be said before him."

"It would serve you right if I were to leave you in the
lurch. But I won't — first, because I believe you're a good
sort; second, because I like the looks of him even better
than you; thirdly, because it would not suit my book.
You've important legal matters? Then, I dare say all my
news won't be as much news to you as I thought."

Lewis bent forward. She surveyed him a moment with a
malicious smile, and looked round the room.

"Why, I declare, if that isn't a tea-tray, with everything
jis handy as can be. Now, look here, you can smoke your

152 Dea Ex Machina,

pipes, if you'll let me have a cup of tea. I'm just dropping
for it.''

"It is not made yet," groaned Lewis. "I can get you some
before long. In the mean time, perhaps, you will be kind
enough to state your business."

"Now, don't you bother," said the damsel, rising. "You
sit down there; you don't look over-well. I'll cook the tea."
And with much neatness she proceeded to arrange the cups
and light the spirit-lamp, perfectly at home. "This is like
the place Charlie has at his college," she remarked.

"You have been to Cambridge, have you ?" said Lewis, be-
coming rather tickled.

"Yes, once. He don't like my being seen there. They
won't have ladies about the colleges — so he said."

As she stood up, leaning on the back of the chair, her hands
behind her, the careless attitude displayed the magnificent
lines of her figure in all their warm, firm perfection. Far-
gus stood watching the scene in silence.

The girl glanced over her shoulder and met Lewis' burning
glance.

"You look as if you could eat me!" she cried. "Well, is
that Miss Woldham better than me ?" And with a bold move-
ment she drew herself up and turned slowly round. After a
second devoted to the enjoyment of the impression, she sat
down by the table, and pursued with great composure: "I
don't think she is. She may be a lady; a lady is only a
woman ; I know what sort of a woman I am, and I'm as good
as her."

Then, with her broad smile, that displayed teeth of the
most perfect regularity and whiteness, she again looked from
one man to the other in that self-satisfied and good-tempered
way, poured out two cups of tea, and handed them graciously.

"I wonder, now, if you think me cheeky to call on you in
this way," she remarked, sipping her own portion.

"We are delighted with the visit," said Lewis gravely; **but
I own I shall feel a desire to hear more of its purpose."

"Well, one of my purposes was to see the effect of my ap-
pearance upon you — it beats all I expected. You must be
as bad as Charlie himself about that girl. That was one of
the reasons why writing would not do. Now, to come to the
other : I think you expect to come into a certain property ?"

"Perfectly. I have come into one."

"Well, Charlie thinks he has found means of coming in for
it."

"But if you can tell me how he hopes to keep me out, that
would, I confess, be news, as you have it."

"It would be silly to ask," replied the girl^ after the miaxr

Dea Ex Machina. 153

ner of a humorous proposition, "if you are really anxious to
get that fine property, I take it."

"I mean to get it," Lewis replied, "for more reasons than
one."

"We are of a mind on one point, because I mean not to let
him get it, if I can prevent it."

"But," interposed Fargus, "what are your reasons? I pre-
sume he believes he has a good chance of success."

"My reasons," cried the girl, "is that I have found out his
little game — I'm not going to be given the slip in this man-
ner. I've been as good and faithful to him as any wife.
I've always put him first and foremost. I've given in to all
his fancies, and what do you think those fancies were? —
why, to make me look as much as possible like that girl of
his. What do you think his little plan now is? Why, to
pension me off — who would have given him money if I had
had it, earned it for him, if he would have let me — ^pension
me off, that he might go and play the squire on his land and
marry her; that's all. Now, so long as he has only his col-
lege-money to live on, she won't look at him; nor would he
marry her on small means. And ladies, you know, ain't as
easily satisfied as one like me; now you know my reason
for wanting to keep him out of the property. I don't want
none of these changes."

Lewis had grown crimson. "That girl of his" in connec-
tion with Charles, made him shudder. He rose and paced the
room uneasily, for the first time dreading Charlie as a rival
with burning jealousy.

"I won't let him go," she pursued doggedly. "Just fancy,
making a dummy of me. But, won't there be a jolly row
when he finds the papers gone !"

"What papers ?" cried Lewis, coming to a standstill.

**Why, them papers I have brought to you. Just hand
me my bag there, please." She tugged out of the reticule an
immense envelope, bulky with inclosures, and tied together
with string, and placed it on the table. "Now listen to me,"
she went on laying her open palm over the bundle. "It's a
good turn I've come to do you, and before I let you have
them — ^which I think you ought to be pleased to have — ^you
must swear never to let on how you came by them."

"I don't know that I can in honor take advantage of this.
How did you come by these documents."

The girl arched her straight eyebrows and looked at him,
but aloud she ejaculated triumphantly:

"What! Not if they are actually addressed to youl" hold-
ing Tip the bundle so that Lewis could read on the envelope

X54 Sudden Development of Brain.

his own name in the clear well-remembered handwriting of
his old guardian.

CHAPTER XV.

SUDDEN DEVELOPMENT OF BRAIN IN A DUMMY.

"My God I Uncle Robert's writing!" exclaimed Lewis in
fear and anticipation, and stretched forth his hand to seize
the parcel. The visitor enjoyed the situation too keenly to
relinquish it so promptly. She whipped the papers behind
her back.

"No, you don't, my lad ; till I've had my say. Besides, you
want to know how I've come by them, first. If I can't show
you I've come by them honestly, perhaps you'd rather not
have them, though, if nicely cooked and dished up, I'll be
bound they can be made to prove that you've no more right
to the estate — nor to the name of Kerr, for all that — than
that gentleman yonder."

Quivering with impatience, Lewis turned to Fargus, and
the latter came forward and addressed the girl with gentle
authority.

"You are keeping my poor friend in cruel suspense. I
am certain that nothing you can have got hold of would
ever prove what you suggest, but you understand that those
letters must be of great importance to Mr. Kerr, as they are
addressed to him. Will you not give them without delay?"

"I won't tease him any more," answered she, "and he don't
seem strong enough to bear it. I'd like you to hear what I
have to say, first. I'd like to tell you how I came by them.
I don't care that you should think too bad of me. If I don't
have my say before you get hold of this, you'll be far too
busy grubbing at what's inside to listen to me. Now, don't
go on so, Mr. Kerr ; it's as well, as I'm sure your friend will
agree with me, that you should learn what that cousin of
yours has been up to. May be, too, I'd like you to hear how
clever I've been, and how I've circumvented him. But first
of all, you won't split on me ?"

"One instant," said Fargus; "will you allow me to speak
apart with my friend for half a minute?"

Receiving a careless nod of acquiescence in answer, Far-
gus drew his son into the inner room.

"You have confidence in me; leave me the management of
this. You do not realize what an extraordinary piece of
luck this is; a positive godsend! Let the girl have her own

Sudden Development of Brain. 155

way. The more she says, the more shall we learn of what
might have remained sealed to us. She will prove an all-
valuable ally."

"I hardly know if I am justified."

"Can you not trust your honor in my hands, Lewis ?"

The young man winced under the glance of reproach. All
he knew of his kind friend's honored past, rose up before
him.

"Forgive me, I put everything without reserve in your
hands."

"I accept the charge," answered Fargus.

They re-entered the room where Miss Hilda sat awaiting
them.

"We give you our word of honor, as gentlemen," said the
American, "that no one shall ever hear from us that you
have been mixed up in this business. Does that satisfy you ?"

"It'll have to do. I'll trust you, though I've small reason
to believe in a gentleman's honor. Well, my name's Hilda
Wren. For four years I've lived as Charles Hillyard's wife.
The first time I saw him, up the river, I thought he was so
handsome he looked like a prince. I said to myself, 'That's
the man for me.' I loved him then, and I've never changed.
I love him still, for all his black falseness to me. He said
he could not marry me, because the old fools at the Univer-
sity had made a law against Dons marrying. I know it's no
longer so ; I found that out too. He took a house for me in
Vincent Square. Do you know the place? Anyhow, I've
made him a nice cosy home there all these years, though it
was dull to be so much alone. I'd have been glad to help
him more; I could have earned money easy; there is not a
swagger shop in London that wouldn't pay high to have me
about. He wouldn't hear of it. I was to live like a lady —
slow work enough I found it; but I saw him every week.
We'd go out a drive together, go to the theatre, or a day in
the coimtry ; and I was happy, and never a suspicion came till
a fortnight ago.

"It was a small thing put me on the scent. I set to work
then and made it out ; my eyes are well opened now."

Despite the men's eagerness for their visitor to have said
her say, with the unread bundle of papers and its contents
hanging, a sword of Damocles over their heads, they could
not help feeling sympathy with her.

"In August, Charlie had told me he was off a-yachting with
a friend; I hadn't seen him for nearly a month. It wasn't
true — he was at Gilham ; I found it out afterward. A lonely
month for me; no letters, not a bit of change. We used to
go away somewhere at that time, the happiest bit of the

156 Sudden Development of Brain,

whole year to me. I thought he was having a holiday after
his hard work. As I'm telling you, it passed the middle of
the month, and Charlie turned up unexpected. Wasn't I
glad ! When I think of it I could beat my head against the
wall! He looked ill, I thought, and worried like. It was
hot. I didn't mind his being grumpy, with the joy of having
him there. After tea, he went sound asleep on the sofa; I
didn't mind, either. I thought, 'He's real tired !' and went to
put a pillow under his head. I saw his pocket-book sticking
out of his pocket. A thought came over me I'd like to see
if he'd got my photo safe where we'd put it together in a kind
of secret place. He never felt me touch it, and I pulled it
out."

She caught her breath with a sort of gasping laugh.

"There it was, sure enough! I was pleased, and then I
had another happy thought. I'd had my photo taken while
he was away; an uncommon good one. I said to myself it
would be fun to put in one of the new ones instead of the
old thing. I pulled out the old photo from under the slab.
Guess what I found ! Another photo underneath. I thought
it was one of myself, I never saw anything so like; but I
couldn't be such a fool for long. Well, I thought that he
kept it there just because it was so like me. Silly thing to
think. But I couldn't make it out ; I thought he was still as
fond of me as I of him. I pulled it out; on the back of it
was written: 'To darling Susie from Maud Woldham, Sep-
tember 14, 1876,' the photographer some man in York. That
minute he stirred in his sleep, just as I was going to have a
look at the papers. I stuff everything back and lay the case
on the ground beside him, to look just as if it had fallen out
of his pocket. I went back to the window to think. I
didn't want him to know I suspected. If he thought I was
watching him, he'd be close as wax, he's so clever, I'd never
have a chance against him. I soon settled in my mind I'd
not let on, and there were three or four queer things about
it. First of all, the photo was given to his mother — I knew
her name was Susie ; then, it was taken in York, and Gilham,
where his mother lived, is near there; so I said to myself,
'It's clear the girl comes from that part, too'; the date was
before he even met me; the girl's hair was done just the
same way he made me do mine when he knew me first. That
last set me thinking. After a bit he wakes up ; when he finds
the book on the floor he gives a sharp glance at me; I was
stailing at him quite cheerful ; he puts it in his pocket with-
out a word. *My girl,' says he, 'go and put on your bonnet
and we'll have some dinner. I've been debating whether I'd
start on a journey to-night; the business is important and

Sudden Development of Brain. 157

I've made up my mind it's better to go to-night.' 'Where are
you going?' *I'm going to Southampton,' he said, scowling
at me, *from there to the South of Spain.' "

"To Spain!" interrupted both men with a cry of amaze-
ment ; Lewis looked across to Fargus with a bitter smile, and
said:

"He is determined to leave no stone unturned."

Miss Wren caught up the remark and pointed it with char-
acteristic directness:

"No, that he won't!" she cried. "Your mother was
Spanish, wasn't she ?"

"Yes," answered Lewis, reddening again with indignation.

"He's gone to rake up something about her. Don't take
on like that. Who cares about what he may try to do — so
long as he don't succeed? It's uncommon lucky for you I
had my finger in his pie. You're beginning to find it more
interesting than you thought. I begged hard to take me
along with him to Spain, partly to see the face he'd make. I
didn't believe a word about his going. I thought he was off
again to Gilham. He said he couldn't. I asked him what he
was going for. He said : 'Business, money matters. A rela-
ton of mine's dead. If I find out what I want, I ought to
have his money.' I noticed he was in mourning. I began to
think he might be telling the truth. *Go and get your bonnet
on — we have just three hours left together,' pulling out his
watch. All my doubts of him came back. So when I came
down-stairs to go out I listened outside the door, and peeped
through the key-hole, before going in, and I could just see
him as busy as possible stuffing letters and papers into his
dispatch-box. When I turned the handle and came in he
gave a start, shut up everything and quickly locked the box.
'Hilda,' he said, 'you see this box. It contains papers re-
garding that inheritance ; they are very important ; you must
leave it at my solicitor's to-morrow. I am going to write a
letter for you to take to him. I meant to leave it myself, but
it was after hours; if I wait I'll miss my boat.' 'I'll do it,'
says I. Then he wrote the letter for me. Then we went out
for dinner. He was very nice. During dinner he pulled
out his pocket-book to get a banknote, and laid it on the table.
I took it up careless-like to look at it, to find out if he'd got
my picture still, and pulled it about as if to set it straight.
The other photo was gone. I knew then there was something
behind it."

The narrator paused. Fargus, looking kindly at her,
thought her face seemed pale.

"You are tired," said he ; "you had better rest a little."

"I've not told you tlie half yet. I'm not tired; you don't

158 Sudden Development of Brain.

fancy these have been pleasant things for me? Not that a
woman who has loved and trusted a man with her whole
heart for years can find out he is a villain and feel none the
worse for it! I love him; if I didn't I wouldn't be here.
He'll always be the one man for me, and I mean to keep him.
But it's been cruel hard. You haven't heard the worst, nor
how I found him out. That girl's photograph, and the hurry
he had been in to shove in the papers and the photo didn't
let me sleep that night, after he was gone — it was to South-
ampton, after all. I went to the station and saw his ticket.
The next day I couldn't eat, read, walk, work, or think of any-
thing but that box. I sat down and stared at it from morning
till night wondering what was along with that photo. I could
stand it no longer. I fetched all my keys and tried them.
Trust Charlie for a good lock on his secrets ! Not one would
fit. I thought I must find out, come what might. So I go
down to the landlady, a shrewd body, and I say, over a cup of
tea, in a careless way: 'There's a dressing-case of mine got
locked vsdth a snap and the key inside, and I've tried every
key in the place. It's a Chubb lock. I'll have to break it
open.' *Don't you do that; take it over to the shop, they'll
open it for you. We did that and got a new key and no
trouble.' 'Give me the address and I'll go.' I took it coolly,
never pretended it was anything of importance. As soon as I
could I made off up-stairs, and off in a hansom with the box.
To cut it short, 1 was that grand and airy at Chubb's the
smart young man never dreamed of suspecting my story, but
opened the box and measured the lock for a new key. I had
to order a new one for appearances' sake. The lock does shut
of itself. Back I got into my hansom. I couldn't keep my
fingers out of the box, but rummaged in it all the way home.
One thing I made out — the girl's photo was not in it ; he had
taken it with him ; a bad sign.

"Soon as I got in I turned all the papers on my dressing-
table and sat down. There was a big envelope tied up with
your name on the top, Mr. Kerr, and lots of letters about
business that looked dull enough; that was all. Nothing
about the girl. I began to think I was sold; I turned over
every nook. Then I took up this here envelope : 'Lewis Kerr,
Esq.' 'Now, where the dickens have I heard that name?'
Then I remembered you were that cousin he used to be such
chums with. I used to wish you to Jericho, when you kept
him away from me. That was in the first year I knew him.
I could see nothing in these stupid lawyer's letters, so the
papers he spoke of as so important must be in that packet,
yet it was addressed to another man. I got curious and un-
tied the string. There were a lot of letters and things inside;

Sudden Development of Brain. 159

you'll see it for yourself. I couldn't understand what there
was so precious about them. One never knows what a man
like Charlie can make of things. It didn't seem a bit inter-
esting to me. What could it matter to Charlie about your
father and your mother? The letter to you at the top said
itself the papers were of no importance. So it was all queer he
should be that anxious. I thought I'd read the business let-
ters. I read them. They did tell me lots. The first thing
was Charlie might come into a grand fortune. So it was
true what he said. *Now he can marry me.' Simple of me.
Then I wondered why he hadn't wanted me to know. 'Hilda,'
said I, 'read on before you make a fool of yourself.' The
next thing became clear to me was it was your fortune he
was after. That's how he comes to have the letters addressed
to you. And yet I felt as if things weren't quite on the
square. 'If he can play hanky-panky with his chum, it may
be a bad look for me.' After that 1 opened the last lawyer's
letter; I've got it in my pocket. I'll read it to you now, if
you will give us some light."

Lewis rose to obey, and Miss Wren, who had been impa-
tiently tapping her foot during this delay, spread out a crum-
pled letter under the light, and once more raised her voice
with sarcastic emphasis:

" 'Dear Sir : We think that it would be better if you
would let us have the safe custody of the documents, as on
them depends everything. It is advisable you should investi-
gate yourself the registers of birth and baptism in Seville.
Although we may look upon the proofs already in your hands
as practically sufficient if utilized to their full powers, the
matter would, of course, be settled beyond the possibility of
dispute, should the date of the claimant's birth be found not
to tally with the requirements of his case.

" 'With reference to the young woman in question, we cer-
tainly opine that, considering the very handsome compensa-
tion you would, in case of success, be willing to offer her, you
need anticipate little trouble. Meanwhile, we agree with you
that the sooner an understanding is come to the better, and
we shall be happy to undertake the necessary negotiations
should you feel siifficiently confident of success to venture on
the expense.'

"That is all; though my head went round as I read it, I
said to myself : 'That's about that girl.' You may well look
at each other ; to think of me, such an innocent ! 'That's all
right,' I says ; 'it's that girl.' I put up the papers and closed
the box and went about the room singing, all the time I kept
saying: 'It's that other girl he wants to get rid of.' All at

l6o Sudden Development of Brain.

once I knew I was lying to myself. *I must find out for cer-
tain, or I shall die.* I made up my mind to open the letter
he had given me to take with the box to the solicitor's. So I
light my spirit-lamp and boil my kettle and hold the letter
over the steam and open it as easy as anything, and after I'd
opened it I stood staring at it, and. Lord bless me !

"I know that letter by heart. It's short. It went on this
way:

" 'Dear Sir : I was not able to leave the documents with
you, of which you have the copy, this afternoon. I steam to-
morrow morning for Gibraltar, my dispatch-box, containing,
among other things, the papers in question, will be left at
your office. In default of a better messenger in my hurry, it
will be brought to you by the young woman I spoke to you
about. It may be as well that you should see her. In great
haste, yours;' and so on.

"When I read that I seemed to go mad like. I rolled on
the ground; I could have killed myself, only that it woTild
have made things too easy for him. Then I read everything
over again. I thought of everything. That Woldham girl
was a grand young lady, for wasn't she his mother's friend?
When he found he couldn't have her, he finds me, and I'm so
like her, he takes me instead. That's why he made me do
my hair so, and dress so particular — now like this, now like
that; he never went yachting at all. All those letters were
addressed to Gilham, and there he was, seeing her again, and
making up to her. When he finds he can do a friend out of a
fortune, and step into riches and grandeur, he'll cast off the
wretched dummy, and get the real one! That's where he's
wrong. I've sworn I'll keep him, and I will !"

Panting, she walked the room in a fierce manner, clenching
her hands as she went, while the friends heard the sound of a
suppressed sob. When she returned, and stood again within
the circle of the light, she was dry-eyed, and the magnificence
of her beauty struck them with fresh force.

"Did you ever see that Woldham girl in a dress like this ?"
she asked sharply, "or a hat like this?" sizing the black-
plumed headgear that lay on the sofa, and planting it roughly
on her head. "Answer, can't you ?"

"I have only seen Miss WoldharQ for three years or more,
and that only for a short while," answered Lewis.

But Fargus was more willing to humor the girl, the reason
for which was so pathetic. He shifted the candles to exam-
ine her by a better light, and exclaimed in tones of surprised
conviction :

"I do remember, now that you ask, I have teen Mis* Wold-

Sudden Development of Brain. i6i

ham dressed just like you at Woldham. I used to think it
looked as if it had come out of an old picture."

"I knew it," cried Hilda Wren, stamping her foot. "All
along he's made me dress like her. I'm a dummy, I tell you —
a blessed dummy ! But I'll make him smart for this," resum-
ing her pacing about the room. "He always pretended to care
so much about fashion. I was to wear this, that ; one wants
to look nice, and I never thought of anything except: 'Isn't
Charlie proud of me !' Oh, what a blasted idiot I have been !
I'd have torn the cursed things to bits and dashed it on the
floor. I'd have torn the rags off my back, rather than have
done it, if I'd known."

She paused, and suddenly her tragic airs fell from her.

"It was a good idea to put on those clothes he made rae get
last, and let you see me in them. Mr. Kerr seems bad ; head
aching, eh ? I shan't be long finishing. I made up my mind
to play a big game to prevent Charlie dropping me. *I may
whistle for him, if he gets the fortune, so I'm determined he
shan't; nothing worse can happen to me; if he can't have
her, he'll come back to me, sooner or later! There was a
chance that way, and none the other. I thought it well over,
and how I'd bring you the papers. My first idea was to burn
them, when I'd reflected the papers were yours by rights, then
I wanted to find out quite clear about that Woldham girl.
So I had to go to the lawyers first, with the empty box.
That old duffer, that was so free with his good advice about
getting rid of troublesome young women — may be I'll worm
something out of him, too. After a week, I'd everything
clear in my head, and I began to think it time to settle my
fine young man's business, when I got a letter to spur me up.
It was as cold as you please, saying he hoped I'd done his
commission ; that he couldn't tell when he would be back — not
for ever so long. TJiat letter told me something else. He
wasn't pleased with the way things were going over there. I
knew by the crossing of his t's that he was fit to be tied when
he wrote; I guessed that he was safe to be coming home al-
most immediately; and wanted to blind me, he did not mean
to come here ; it was plain that he was beginning the cooling-
off business. My blood was up, and without any more ado I
clinched the matter. I took out the packet of papers that
meant a fortune to Charlie, a slap in the face for you, and
the sack for me, and put them carefully in my hand-bag,
locked the box, and buried the key in the garden. Then I
fastened up the letter I was to bring to the lawyer; you'd
never have known it had been touched. Well, I got there in
time.

" 'Mr. Hodgson in, young man ?' says I. 'I'll see, madam,'

i62 Sudden Development of Brain.

says he; 'what business, may I ask?' 'Say it's Mrs. Hill-
yard, please,' says I, *and give him this,' and handed him the
letter. Presently he comes back and says Mr. Hodgson would
see me. And up-stairs I went, him carrying the box for me.
There was a little old gent sitting at a desk; he was as like
a weasel as ever I see. 'Sit down, madam,' says he, 'Is that
the box? Put it down, William, and leave us. So you've
brought this from Mr. Hillyard. I see this letter's dated a
week back.' 'Couldn't come sooner,' said I, smiling at him.
He frowned, but didn't seem to have a word to say. 'He gave
it to me,' I said (talking of the box, you know), 'the day he
went off. I didn't know it was so pressing till I got a letter
from him this morning, saying he hoped I'd done his com-
mission. He wrote from a place called Sevilla.' I thought,
'If I want him to speak up, I'll have to improve a bit.' So on
I went again: 'I'm to call on you for something concern-
ing myself besides — I'm sure I don't know why.' At that he
was really taken in, as he was humming and hawking. That
seemed to touch him up. 'Have you that letter here?' he
asks, as dry as can be. 'No, I haven't,' says I; 'if I had, you
shouldn't see it. I don't mind telling you that Charlie
seemed uncommon jolly over his business there — and he says
great things is coming.' I knew I'd have to tell a lie or two."

The girl's mimicry was marvelous.

"You'd have laughed a bit if you'd been there, especially
if you'd known what I was up to. Then I went on : 'I haven't
come here to be snapped at with cross-questions, and it's
a pity for me to waste this lovely afternoon in this stuffy
little hole of yours. I've done the job as Charlie told me. If
you've nothing to say, it don't matter. I suppose I shall hear
all about it when he comes back.' I jumped up and made be-
lieve to go. 'Wait a bit, madam,' says he, waving his hand.
'I have something to say, rather of a delicate nature, so I
must beg you to listen to me quietly. When I have done, you
will see it is all to your advantage, on the whole.' 'Now for
Charlie's handsome compensation,' thinks I. 'The case is
this,' says the old man. 'Mr. Hillyard has explained to me the
nature of his relations with you. You know they are such
as cannot last forever.' 'No, I don't,' said I. 'You should
know it, madam. Mr. Hillyard's connection with you is not
what his family or friends would approve of.' 'You mean,'
said I, 'that I'm only kept. I'll have you know,' I said, 'that
Mr. Hillyard would have married me years ago, only he'd lose
what he calls his fellowship if he did, and that's worth a pot
of money to him.' 'My dear young lady,' he says, 'it would be
false kindness to allow you to mistake your position, but it's
snorp thnn n ^o?.t since that regulation's been done away with.'

Sudden Development of Brain. 163

I couldn't speak, for that came hard on me, I own. 'Without
any further beating about the bush. Miss Wren, I must inform
you Mr. Hillyard's life is about to change. He has come, or
is about to come, into some landed property. He will have to
reside in the country and undertake the duties of his new
position.' I knew right well what he meant. 'Well, I don't
quite see what that's to do with me; I don't mind — I was
brought up in the country myself.' 'This is wasting my val-
uable time. Miss Wren,' said he. 'Mr. Hillyard has been
some time in coming to his resolution, but has made up his
mind, and he has charged me to let you know it, that there
might not be too much sentiment.' I kept up my part well.
'So he has made up his mind to drop me, has he ? Suppose,
now, I mean to stick to him.'

"The old man told me I'd be a fool for my pains, for I'd
lose the compensation Charlie was ready to give me, and he
jawed a lot about the impossibility of my being able to bring-
in a breach of promise (as if I would try such a thing!) after
living with him four years. Well, after a good deal of talk,
he tells me the compensation Charlie '11 give me is three
hundred a year, as long as I never come near him, or write,
and I left him, saying I'd think over it all. He stood look-
ing after me, grinning and rubbing his hands, and thinking
himself so jolly clever. And me going off with the papers
in the bag on my arm !

"Don't you think I am a fool not to take that compensa-
tion? Do you know, that lawyer fellow said I could make a
real good marriage with such a fortune?"

She sprang from her chair and flung the papers across the
table to Fargus, who caught them between his hands.

"Now you can have them ; I've done with the things. And
I'll make off with myself; it's getting late."

Brave as she was, her voice broke a little.

"Don't look at me like that!" turning on Fargus; "don't
pity me — I can't bear it." But before he could answer she
had recovered herself. "Not a looking-glass in the place,"
she observed, planting her hat on her head ; "just like a man's
room? Good-by, Mr. Kerr; I'm real sorry to see you look so
ill. And good-by, Mr. What's-your-name. I believe you
have the brains of both of you under your hair, for I am
blessed if that young friend of yours seems to know if he's
standing on his head or his heels. Perhaps you won't mind
dropping me a line some time to say how the whole affair
goes off, and what Charlie's up to. He'll be fit to murder
me."

"I shall certainly write if you wish," answered Fargus,
shaking her warmly by the hand; "but where to?"

164 " Litera Scripta Manet."

"Send your letter to the Keppel Head, Vauxhall Bridge
Road, care of Miss Polly Evans. I've your word you'll never
let on to Charlie? Sooner or later he must find out it was
I who took these things ; but I'd as lief he never knew of this
visit of mine to you."

"He never shall know from us. You have laid my friend
under great obligations. Miss Wren. If ever I can be of use
to you in any way, do not hesitate to write. I will in my
turn give you my address in the country. Mr. Kerr," he
added with a smile, after penciling his direction, "is rather
too young to be able to befriend you. But an old man like
me has his privileges."

She took the card and gave the speaker a grateful glance.

"You're real kind," she said. > "I trust you a long way, for
all I've only known you a couple of hours. You have a true
friend there, Mr. Kerr; you're in luck. Good-by. I'll get
a cab for myself."

The door closed after her.

CHAPTER XVI.

"litera scripta MANET."

The father and son stood facing each other, too full of
thoughts for speech. Fargus broke the silence.

"A strange turn in our affairs," he said, "but one which
will wonderfully simplify matters."

Lewis sat down with an unconscious gesture of bewilder-
ment.

"The whole business is sickening. I seem no better than
Charlie. We should have told her that we declined to have
anything to say to such underhand ways."

Fargus held the papers in his hand, with a troubled eye.
Was that sensitive honor of his boy to be now another ob-
stacle to overcome? Difficulties lay on every side.

**Lewis, this is overstrained. Are not these papers ad-
dressed to you? Are they not yours by right?"

"Give them to me, then. I may as well know the worst at
once. I make a poor return to you for all you have done
to me."

"You are weak and ill," said the father, "and sorely tried,
or I confess your want of confidence would be wounding.
Come, my boy; leave the perusal of these documents to me."

Lewis rested his throbbing forehead on his hand;

^ "Litera Scripta Manet." 165

"Let me see my uncle's letter, at any rate," he said dog-
gedly.

"You could not read it. I can see by your manner that
you are almost blind again with headache."

In compliance with a nod of assent from his companion,
Fargus pulled the letter out of its envelope. "What if the
elder Hillyard were to bring the same indictment as the
younger?" It was impossible further to combat Lewis'
feverish determination, and he began to read aloud in a voice
that grew firmer as he proceeded. The letter was dated a
couple of years back, and ran thus:

" *My Dear Lewis : It is nearly two years since you passed
out of my tutelage; but, knowing that it was your wish, and
especially that of my wife, I have continued to look after
your interests in general. The hour is now drawing very
nigh, however, when I shall have to resign all earthly charges.
My doctor here, as well as the specialist I have consulted in
London, both admit that my time is likely to be limited, and
when this is received by you the great change will have taken
place for me.

" 'Business matters, however, are not what I have now to
write about; you will find, I trust, that all your worldly af-
fairs are well cared for and managed by Perkins.

" *Af ter accepting the medical men's verdict, I set to work
and put all my papers into final order, and in so doing I
came across a bundle of papers, some of which concern you
directly. These are the letters and other documents which
came twenty-four years ago, before you were born. I con-
sidered it my duty to gather and to retain (for my own
safeguard and justification), when, on your father's death, at
my wife's request, I undertook to assist his helpless widow in
her trouble, and began those relations by correspondence with
your grandfather, Don Atanasio de Ayala, which ultimately
led to my undertaking the duties of guardian to you.

" *I have thought of destroying these papers. But I was
restrained by scruples of conscience. Rightfully they are
yours, and now my purpose in writing is to advise you
strongly to burn this bundle unread. No good can come of
raking up old family misunderstandings, the last effect of
which has been visible in Mr. Kerr's persistently hostile at-
titude toward you. You will do wisely in leaving the past
undisturbed.

" *I cannot even send you this, as I hear with satisfaction
that you have been allowed to volunteer for active service in
Afghanistan. You will receive the packet, therefore, when
you return to England, as I sincerely hope, safe and sound.

i66 " Litera Scripta Manet."

Let me say, ever since your grandfather on his death asked
me to take an interest in you, I have watched your career
with no feelings but those of satisfaction ; I feel sure the rest
of your journey through this life will be marked by the
same sense of duty and moral refinement I have observed in
you. In this hope I must say, what is beyond doubt, a last
adieu to you. Yours affectionately,

"'Robert Hillyaed.'

"My dear boy," said Fargus, looking his son full in the
eyes, and throwing into his gaze and voice all the intensity
of his desire, "you hear what this message from the grave tells
you. Will you burn at once, or trust me to examine, these
relics so unfortunately preserved. And if, on examination, I
agree with your guardian, will you let me fulfill his wishes ?
Let us settle this business now and forever."

Lewis returned Fargus' gaze with a sort of fascination,
and then slowly extended his hand as if in token of acquies-
cence. Without delay he withdrew into the other room,
and, lighting a candle, perused the papers hurriedly. Every
word of that farewell letter to Carmen was branded in his
mind, but now, the plausible constructions which might have
been put upon every bitter sentence seemed to flash out por-
tentously.

He turned to the brief lines in which William Kerr re-
pudiated his brother's widow, and his face burned with indig-
nation at the brutality of their barely-veiled insinuations.
What sudden working of fate, having brought back from the
grave, by an extraordinary malice, this damning circum-
stantial evidence, now placed it within the grasp of the man
who had been the unwitting originator of all the mischief ?

These papers formed a chain of evidence almost complete
against Lewis, and, aghast at finding that his own rash acts
had, in the old days, forged the first and strongest links,
David Fargus was seized with a perfect frenzy of impatience
to destroy them while he had the power.

Beginning with his own and Carmen's letters, he held the
yellow leaves to the flame and watched their glowing an-
nihilation. The last blackened scraps of the squire's letter
were vanishing under a licking tongue of fire, when Lewis
entered the room.

"Colonel Fargus," he cried sharply, "what are you doing?"

Holding a crumpled bunch of paper over the candle Fargus
restrained Lewis' hasty approach with an iron grip; then,
the destroying element having invaded the last corner of the
last writhing sheet, he turned to him with undisguised ela-
tion, and answered:

Scylla. 167

"Carrying out your guardian's direction. Listen, Lewis
Kerr of Gilham; your case is as clear as the flame which has
now consiuned all this folly. Don't look at me with that
stupefaction. These papers should have been burned long
ago. I have done what it would have been your duty to the
memory of your father and mother to do yoiirself."

"Oh, why did you not let me see them?"

"There was nothing but the history of a quarrel and of
the circumstances which attended the death by drowning of
(ieorge Kerr, your father. The reason I have burned them
is because, morbid as you are, after your illness, you would
have pored over those old letters till you made yourself ill
again. I have burned them to keep them from you, as well
as to insure their not falling into Charlie's hands again. Do
you doubt me now ? Do you doubt your mother, after all ?"

Lewis' brow cleared. How could he have doubted, even
for a moment?

He said so aloud with a shaking voice.

"Not mad, but upset by all this."

"Thank God, all's well that ends well, and your future ia
bright once more. Now," with a cheery change of manner,
"it is past nine o'clock. It has been a long, eventful day.
Let us go out and dine, after that to bed. Your head will
rest the better for some supper and a good glass of wine."

CHAPTEK XVII.

SOTLLA.

In that queer old attic, which to Fargus had already grown
one of the pleasantest spots on earth, the two men sat the
next morning over a late breakfast.

Outside the world was gloomy. The rain was dropping
from the gabled roof and beating the casement.

Inside the quaint bachelor home looked the very shrine
of comfort, and such had been Fargus' first thought as he
emerged from his bed-room and found Lewis leaning against
the chimney-piece quietly scanning the morning paper as
he waited for his guest. Lewis Kerr, rich enough to gratify
all his peculiar tastes, was pleased to surround himself with
household items attractive to the eye. Tea wa.s fragrantly
brewing in a silver pot, which Fargus suddenly recognized as
one of George Kerr's wedding presents; a rye loaf stood
crustily inviting on an ancient and precious oaken platter;
bacon and eggs reposed crisp on a Dutch plate. Lewis had

i68 Scylla.

slept soundly, and had awakened strong and refreshed to find
life decidedly brighter and more interesting, in spite of
damp and gloomy weather.

Fargus, on his side, perceiving the beneficial change in his
son's mind, was not slow to respond to it. The morning meal
was thus a cheerful one.

"I feel a different being this morning," observed Lewis, as
he sat down to the breakfast table. "Upon my word, Colonel,
though I was very angry, I quite see now how wise you were
to keep those papers from me just then. You will have to
tell me what was in them."

"Of course I shall," said Fargus, quietly sipping his tea.
"It is necessary you should know all the facts of the case, for
your adversary is pretty sure to introduce them to you under
some vivid artificial light whenever he tries conclusions with
you about this intended amicable arrangement."

None could have guessed from the speaker's manner how
sorely his spirit quailed from the prospect. It was inevitable
that on him should devolve the duty of preparing Lewis
against the forthcoming revelations of Charles Hillyard.
The night had been spent thinking over the simplest way of
dealing with the case — to tell his son the story of George
Kerr's suicide as set forth by these letters. But best that he
should learn it from the lips of him who could argue with
absolute conviction the falseness of Charles Hillyard's in-
terpretation. The burden of the father's secret anxiety could
not but be lessened to find Lewis in such healthy frame of
mind that morning.

"I see no reason to repent my decision of last night. What
was it Talleyrand said about letters ? 'Give me three lines of
a man's handwriting, and I'll hang him.' This shows what
his masterly cunning thought of the capabilties of 'black and
white' for being twisted to any purpose. Your cousin's
scheme for utilizing these letters was too clever to justify me,
as your adviser, in leaving them in existence an hour longer.
I might have had a fit in the night, gone mad, or broken
my neck; and, however sensibly you may be disposed to look
on things this morning, I had good reasons to mistrust your
quixotic turn of mind, not to foresee the possibility of your
being tempted by specious arguments to give them up again.
A soldier is notoriously a bad business man."

Lewis smiled at this lecture.

"I grant you," answered Levris, meditatively, "you would
prove a far better match than I for Charlie. Indeed, the
gusts of anger I cannot restrain every time I think of him
paralyze my common sense. I ought to thank Heaven it has

Scylla. 169

been settled as it is; I can hardly imagine how I ehould have
come out of it."

"I am deeply curious," said Fargus, "to see how Mr. Hill-
yard's game will go on now that the trimips are all in our
hands. That young man is clever. He would play, I am
sure, an admirable hand at *poker.' I met him, as I told
you, several times at Gilham, and noticed his striking face,
though I cannot say I felt much attracted by his cold, calcu-
lating character, which for all his polish of manner, I could
not help finding out somehow. As for you, all this business
has been a rude awakening to the fact that a few friendships
can stand the test of clashing interests. And yet yours was
a friendship of more than usual closeness, was it not ?"

"I can answer for my side, at least," said Lewis. "I looked
upon him as the Breton knight of the legend might have
looked on his frere d'armes, as the gold digger, your Bret
Harte tells us of, looks on his partner ; and besides this, to his
influence I attributed whatever success I had at college. He
was, in fact, my high ideal of the Englishman, in those days
when all my eagerness was to make myself worthy of my
country, I would have done anything for him. And now here
I am, face to face with the fact that Charlie, for self-interest,
steps from his high pedestal to the low level of pettifogging
schemer."

"And this youthful fascination of yours," asked Fargus,
leaning back in his chair, "this romantic affection, was it re-
ciprocated ?"

"We were great friends, though his liking for me was, of
course, of a different kind ; such as befited a coach toward his
pupil, a thoroughbred Englishman toward a semi-foreigner, a
man of standing toward one decidedly his junior. I really
believe he would have gone out of his way to do me a good
turn. And I have come to the conclusion," continued Lewis,
"that money considerations alone could not have induced him
to act so dishonorably. There must have been a stronger
lever at work. Yesterday's revelations confirmed much that
before I had only suspected. Colonel Fargus, it is useless
for me to try to conceal what you know already, though I
have never told it to you in so many words. I had reasons
to think Maude Woldham might love me as I loved her. It
has been the aim of my life to try and win her. When I
heard of my accession to the Gilham fortune I started off
after her to Homburg, at once, full of not unjustifiable hopes.
I asked her to be my wife — and was refused. I believe that,
had it not been for that blander on the question of my birth-
right, Maude might have remained true to her tacit pledge
to me. How could she think of mating herself to a poor devil

lyo Scylla.

whose very name is supposed to be his own only on suffer-
ance 2 There was pity in her eyes when she recognized me;
but that pity only accentuates the insult and the grief."

"All this may be true," said Fargus, quietly. "But instead
of fixing the past, fix the future. The elaborately-con-
structed plot which was to deprive you of the woman you
want, the name that belongs to you, and the fortune that
awaits you, falls to pieces now that its main prop has been
removed. What follows ? You become one of the great land-
owners, the head of one of the oldest families in that part of
England which Miss Woldham brightens with her presence.
And with reference to what has taken place between you and
her, don't you think it better that she should have refused you
through some hidden reason which she could not tell you to
your face — ^perhaps, acting under some order written to her
by her father — than that her motive should have been mere
indifference? Her sense of generosity (1 know the girl's
charming nature, for all that our acquaintance is but of a
few weeks' standing) when she learns the truth, will warm her
heart toward you more than the knowledge of your prosper-
ity. As for the father, from the drift of the conversation we
have had together, I know his dream would be to see his
girl happily married, if marriage did not take her away from
him."

"My dear Colonel," cried Lewis, "what good your talk does
me ! I declare you are a very alchemist of the mind."

"By the way," said Fargus, smiling, "I came last night to
the conclusion that it really seems a pity to waste these au-
tumn days in London. Our reason for remaining on here
has been happily removed, the best thing we can do is to
take a train for Yorkshire to-morrow or the next day. More-
over, it is time you should make act of presence on your
estate. If you do not care for the lonely splendor of the
Court, my shooting-box will give you the warmest of wel-
comes. I propose, then, to start myself to-morrow, and that
you should follow in a day or two. You must consult Per-
kins, and best by yourself, though all you need say is that
you believe your cousin's claim will come to nothing, and
that, since no active steps have been taken by the other side
as yet, you, at any rate, will quietly continue to act as if you
had never heard of it."

Lewis looked as if the proposal were tempting enough.

He said, after reflecting a while: "And if you will be so
^ood as to have me, I should rather go to you. I shall see
more of you ; and, besides, I hardly like to go to Gilham until
it is evident that Charlie has abandoned the field."

"There need be no fear about that," answered Fargus, when

Scylla. X71

the sound of a letter falling through the slit of the letter-
box attracted his attention.

"By Jove!" said Lewis, looking at the clock, "we are late
this morning. Probably Perkins' missive to fix an hour for
our interview."

Lewis proceeded in quest of the letter. When he returned
he was holding the still unopened envelope in his hand.

"From Charles Hilly ard," he said, briefly.

He tore the cover open and studied the commvmication for
a few seconds, then tossed it with a dry laugh across the
table to his companion, who sat watching him with some
tmeasiness. The letter contained a few careless lines in the
small cramped handwriting peculiar to many scholars, and
merely begged the recipient to fix the earliest date possible
for an interview on matters of the utmost importance.

"Cool, is it not?" mused Lewis. "Not a hint of what he
is up to, though Perkins told him he would write to me about
the business,"

"There is no need for you to see him, surely," urged Far-
gus. "This letter was written last night ; he evidently knows
nothing of the loss he has sustained. When he finds out that
he has lost the trick, his rage will be fearful for a little while;
and you, my boy, have got a hot temper of your own, too,
and are not especially disposed to be deferential with him just
now. I confess I am of opinion that it would be better to
wait a while, and exchange your ideas by letter for the pres-
ent."

"No, no," cried Lewis. "You have been right and wise in
all your,advice, but I cannot agree with you there. Why,
Charles would think I am shirking the ordeal. Since I must
see him, the sooner this hateful business is over the better.
Besides," with a half-malicioiis smile, "I should rather like to
see him before he makes the discovery of the empty dispatch-
box. I am curious to hear his version of the case. I should
not be sorry to give him a bit of my mind, either."

Fargus looked at his son, and there was a somewhat per-
turbed speculation in his eye.

"Excuse me," Lewis proceeded with great briskness, "there
is the morning paper — I shall send a telegram to Charles to
say I shall be ready any time after three to-day."

And, without waiting for an answer, ran out of the room.
The well-assumed placidity of expression departed from Far-
gus' face. Charles Hillyard, whether cynically self-confi-
dent or maddened by disappointment, might say things to
Lewis which might be as hard to disprove as they would be
cruel to hear. And it rested with the father to try and ex-
plain awny to his boy in some plausible manner all the mis-

1/2 Scylla.

leading evidences with which that friend of his was waiting
to buffet him — doubly hard in the face of Lewis' susceptibil-
ity on matters that had been a source of pride to him, and
one the success of which was problematic. Yet it had to be
iindertaken, and Fargus accepted it as a first expiation of
his past selfishness.

When Lewis returned from his errand and the two sat
down opposite each other by the blazing hearth, the elder,
feeling the uselessness of delay, plunged into the heart of the
business with all the facility he could summon.

"Now about my report," said he, "concerning the relics
which I cremated yesternight. I must ask you whether you
ever heard any theory advanced on the subject of your
father's death, other than what you have told me?"

Lewis frowned ; then he answered slowly :

"Never. I must own since all this ado on the subject has
been raised, I have been going over what I know of the past
in my own mind; and I have more than once thought that
the other side may possibly wish to make out that he com-
mitted suicide. It seems absurd, but the idea has haunted
me of late."

"As it happens," replied Fargus, "my dear fellow, you have
made a shrewd guess ; that is one of the chief points on which
your cousin bases his plan of campaign. And in fact it ap-
pears it was generally rumored at the time that your father
did commit suicide. It was not set afloat by your relations,
for Mr. Kerr, who had quarreled with your father on his mar-
riage, was never heard to speak of him. Your uncle Hill-
yard, on the other hand, was far too discreet and conscien-
tious to ventilate such a theory. George Kerr — ^who set out
one evening to take a solitary sail round Portsmouth Har-
bor— never came home again."

Lewis was the first again to break the silence.

"I never knew, I never dreamed of such a thing till the
other day. Were the gossips busy about my mother, too ?"

"No," cried the father emphatically "No, Lewis ; that was
left to your cousin, when he found it suited his interest. And
now this brings me to the papers. You heard from your
uncle's words, the first and most important, you know, is
the last letter of your father; that letter points to a very
angry quarrel between him and your mother. Do you know
anything about their short married life ?"

"The only person who could have given me any informa-
tion was Aunt Susie Hillyard," Lewis answered. "And she
was always so frightfully cut up when she talked about her
brother that I never liked to broach the subject ; but I do re-
member her saTiny that my mother was a spoiled beauty, and

Scylla. 173

my father a wild, irrepressible boy, and she feared they often
fell out ; but she was sure they loved each other, all the same.
But please go on, sir; what about these letters?"

"It is not likely," Fargus went on — "it is not likely, I say,
that she could have made him happy in the long run. It is
probable that they fought desperately, and that is just what
the letter in question seemed to point to. At any rate, when
your father wrote from Portsmouth, there is no doubt he was
in hot anger. He bade his wife farewell forever, telling her
he was glad they had no children. It would seem it was sui-
cide he meditated, for he added 'Every one will believe in
the accident you will hear of.' Now, Lewis, be calm. If it
be true that your father meant to do away with himself, if
the only deduction one could draw from his letter in con-
junction with subsequent events is that he did do so, that is
the worst that can be said. It may be a source of grief to
you, but, reflect, the man who contemplates suicide does so,
in nine cases out of ten, in a state of mind akin to insanity.
A young man of no occupation — I believe you said your
father gave up the army to marry — may well fall into that
state which culminates in the madness of self-destruction;
you know how near you were yourself to it, and from how
inadequate a m-otive. I am beginning to think, after all, I
need not have mistrusted your common sense."

Lewis gave a faint smile; and Fargus, taking up the cold
pipe, puffed at it with a great appearance of content.

"The first most obvious thing to be noted is that your
father makes absolutely no accusation which could, except
by the most gratuitous implication, be looked upon as affect-
ing your mother's honor; moreover, if his angry departure
from his home, and his threats of self-destruction had been
brought about by the discovery of some shameful misconduct
on her part, that would have involved the existence of a third
person, to whom there was not even an allusion in the letter.
I think this is a circumstance which would have gone some
way toward demolishing Mr. Hillyard's theory. In the second
place, concerning your father's belief in his own childless-
ness— ^which, no doubt, would have been used as one of the
claimant's strongest arguments, it can prove absolutely
nothing one way or another; your mother herself could
hardly at that time have known of her condition. You think
things are beginning to shape themselves, do you? Ton be-
gin to understand how it is that these letters, conveying to
any right-minded i)erson none of the evil meaning your
cousin would fain find in them, could make a pretty case
against you."

174 Scylla.

"You put things very clearly. Colonel. What of the other
letters?"

"Oh, the others," returned Fargus, "the others are of small
importance compared with that letter of your father's which
was evidently the pivot on which turned the whole scheme;
they are only important as connected with and corroborative
of it. Your mother, on receipt of the same, wrote in great
distress to your father's sister, imploring her to come and
advise her. This, in itself, is not the act of a woman who
has sinned against her husband and been found out. Never-
theless, this incoherent scrawl, in which the writer childishly
announces she has had a 'dreadful letter,' that her husband
means to kill himself, that she does not know what to do —
in which she blames herself, yet calls him very cruel in the
same breath, might easily have been utilized to its fullest
extent by the counsel for the claimant, as implying a full
confession of guilt."

"And is that really all?" asked Lewis at last, with a sigh
of relaxation. "Is it really on no better grounds than those
that Charles is trying to impeach my position ?"

"That is all," answered the father; "insuflBcient grounds,
indeed, to convince a man of honor, but quite sufficient for
a petifogging lawyer and an unprincipled claimant. The
rest of the papers consisted of a letter from the squire of
Gilham. He stated that he saw no reason for departing from
his determination — taken on the occasion of your father's
marriage. It was a churlish letter, and revealed all the bit-
terness of an old grudge. There were the Portsmouth letters
and the newspaper paragraphs relative to your father's mode
of death, which, if suicide, was so cleverly contrived to seem
accident. They were of no value to Charlie, save in connec-
tion with the rest."

The young man remained plunged in reflection. He knew
the worst, that was a relief; and the worst, after all, resolved
itself into two facts ; that his parents had quarreled, and that
his father had committed suicide — painful facts for their
son to have to learn, but by no means such as could, with-
out willful distortion, be made to impugn his mother's honor
and his right to his name.

"Thank you," he said at length; "you have been as frank
as you have been kind. I do not deny that, however great a
blow the story of my father's death must be to me, I am re-
lieved to find these proofs of Charlie's contained nothing
worse. Indeed," he added, smiling, "I have had so many blows
lately that I think I am rather hardened to them now. We
had better go out and get our lunch over, or we shall not be
back for the claimant. I say we, though I really dg uqX

Scylla. 175

know. Colonel Fargus, if this time the interview had not bet-
ter be a tete-a-tete between the prinepals."

"What, discard your legal adviser already ?"

"I should like to have you. I was only thinking of expe-
diency."

"Do you think your cousin would absolutely object ?" asked
Fargus. "I do not mind that in the least. If Mr. Hillyard
is ashamed to say before a third person what must be blazoned
before the world if he gain his object, down goes that in my
black book as another mark against him. Lewis, I cannot
abandon you at this moment. You will scarcely be able to
meet that cold-blooded relative on an equal footing, though
you have the whip hand of him. Impulsive natures are at a
disadvantage on such occasions. Therefore, unless you say
in so many words that you have a personal objection to it, I
shall see you through the business to the end."

"Very well, then — that is settled," said Lewis, simply.

As the father and son were entering the coffee-room of the
Bell, in quest of the midday meal, Charles Hillyard, sitting
in that sanctum of legal learning, was concluding, for the
benefit of its owner, the account of his recent journey.

"No doubt," remarked the solicitor after some reflection,
apparently devoted to the unsatisfactoriness of the narra-
tive, "we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that we have
as yet failed to get hold of the proof positive we wanted,
however morally convincing the evidence you possess is. All
things considered, if you feel yourself equal to carrying it
through with the necessary ease, that personal interview you
spoke of undertaking to-day might lead to a private agree-
ment which would simplify matters. You can represent to
the young man how immensely to his advantage it will be
to avoid the scandal of a public trial.

"We received your dispatch-box. Do you contemplate tak-
ing these important documents with you this afternoon ?"

"Of course not," answered Charles. "I have with me the
copies I made myself and which I showed you, which will be
quite sufficient for the occasion. But I suppose Mr. Kerr
will want to satisfy himself as to their genuineness, and that
he must do here."

"I am glad to hear you say so," said the lawyer. "I con-
fess that I was surprised to find that you could confide a
matter of such importance to a person like Miss Wren. She
placidly admitted that it was only when you wrote again
from abroad that she was reminded of her promise."

Here the old gentleman suddenly came to a standstill, and
gave a piizzled, not to say anxious, look at his client's dark-
ening face.

176 Scylla.

"This is very odd !" proceeded the legal luminary. "I never
thought of it till this moment. Miss Wren certainly gave me
to understand that in that very letter you expressed yourself
extremely satisfied with the progress of your business in
Spain."

Charles started from his abstraction and shot an angry
glance at the speaker.

"That is impossible! I never mentioned about it."

"I cannot have been mistaken," murmured the other. "Am
I not correct, also, in believing that you desired me to take
the opportunity afforded to broach the subject it was ar-
ranged I should settle with her ?"

"Certainly not," replied Charles, with increasing surprise.

"My dear sir," said the lawyer, "allow me to remark that
it is you who have been premature in your manner of deal-
ing with this person. Whether she had some inkling of your
proposed generosity to her and wished to secure it, she told
me that in your letter from Spain you had most expressly re-
quested her to come to me."

"I told her to go to you with the box, of course," said
Charles, "nothing more. So you told her all about it. Well,
you had no end of a scene."

"She took the news with perfect composure, and seemed,
indeed, very much gratified and impressed by the figure of
your intended annuity. Of course, she knows that nothing
is yet settled, but she left with the promise to think over the
matter on her side."

Charles Hillyard's face, instead of clearing during this
soothing speech, grew blacker and blpcker as it proceeded.
"So she agreed ?" he asked abruptly at its conclusion.

"Practically, my dear sir."

"Without a protest? Without wanting to see me?"

"With the most absolute coolness."

For a minute or two the young man remained absorbed in
thought. Then he seemed to come to some settled conclu-
sion, and suddenly his scowling brow lightened.

"Well, perhaps it is as well so; I am surprised. But the
deed being done beyond undoing, I hope I may find it for
the best, after all. It had to be done some time. I confess,"
he went on, with a short laugh, "I expected more trouble
than that ; but, as you remarked with true wisdom, there are
few wounds to people's feelings which money cannot heal.
And now," he added, taking up his hat, "I see your clock
points to the quarter ; I must be off — I am due at Staple Inn
at three."

"Then you do not wish me to accompany you?" asked the
lawyer.

Charles Hillyard Expounds His Ceise. 177

"I think not; I know my soi-disant cousin by heart, and
I shall be able to lay the siege against his weak side all the
better for being alone. I hope to let you know to-morrow
that he has proved amenable to reason."

Thus spoke Mr. Hillyard with careless confidence.

But when he had reached the top landing of the set of
stairs leading to Lewis' high-perched chambers for a mo-
ment he found himself wishing that he had indeed deputed
the disinterested man of law to manage this cold business
now with friend, even as with mistress. But with Charles
Hillyard hesitation was a weakness of invariably short dura-
tion.

He knocked, and following the invitation to come in,
opened the door and was confronted by Colonel Fargus, who
greeted the visitor with a cold, dry smile.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHARLES HILLYARD EXPOUNDS HIS CASE.

The meeting was so absolutely unexpected, withal so par-
ticularly undesirable, Mr. Hillyard halted in blank am.aze-
ment.

"Colonel Fargus !" he ejaculated in tones too spontaneous
to express aught but the most unmitigated surpise and an-
noyance.

Fargus met the suspicious glance which accompanied his
handsome nepheVs exclamation with one In which a cer-
tain enjoyment of the situation was blended vdth very dis-
tinct disfavor.

"How do you do ?" he said quietly, crossing his arms as he
spoke, as if to obviate the necessity of offering his hand.

The occasions were few, indeed, on which Charles Hillyard
had ever been discomposed by such keen yet seemingly fool-
ish vexation. The unreasoned antipathy he felt for the trans-
atlantic lion whom his simple Woldham friends had pro-
moted on so short an acquaintance to so high a place in their
esteem was unaccountable, even to his most secret self, but
none the less real.

As promptly discarding all outward semblance of perturba-
tion, he was inwardly resolving to get rid of the unwelcome
third as speedily as possible.

Lewis had not spoken. Leaning against the high mantel-
piece, he stood motionless, sternly facing the visitor, with-
out attempting the smallest advance.

178 Charles Hillyard Expounds His Case,

Charles, though he had, of course, realized that, warned
of the object of his interview, Lewis would meet him in no
conciliatory modd, was not prepared for such determined
enmity as was here displayed. Without other reason than
his prejudice, he connected this unexpected dignity of anger
with the presence of Fargus.

Nodding to Lewis, he addressed him with a coolness born as
much of his habitual and almost tmconscious contempt for
him as of the combative feelings caused by Fargus' prox-
imity.

"I understood from your telegram that you meant me to
come here to-day, Lewis; and I thought I would find you
alone. I fear I have disturbed you tete-a-tete with Colonel
Fargus," turning to the latter with that affection of pleas-
antness which is popularly described as "from the teeth out."

"Not at all," quietly answered the person referred to.

"I must say it is most curious," proceeded Charles, bestow-
ing a keen look on the mysterious American, "to meet you
here, Colonel, with Mr. Kerr."

"Really?" queried Fargus, with gentle malice.

Then there followed a silence in the attic room, which, as
neither Fargus nor Lewis was Vidlling to break it, fell awk-
wardly upon their visitor.

After standing for a minute or two gazing from the
former's placid countenance to the latter's irate face, he
again lifted his voice with a show of insolence that betrayed
his irritation.

"Well, since you are so pressing, I will take a chair.
Thanks." And sitting down straddle legs on one of the old
oak seats, he folded his arms across the top of its straight
back, and, looking up scrutinizingly at his cousin, proceeded
pleasantly: "What have you been about? Where did you
get that slash?"

"A duel in Germany."

Nothing repressed by the tone of the reply, Charles gave a
short, contemptuous laugh, and went on in the same banter-
ing manner: "It is in your Southern blood, and you cannot
help it, I suppose — ^but I didn't think — no, I did not think
you were quite the donkey to go on the Mensur. But there
is one thing I am even more curious to learn, and that is
how the dickens you come to be acquainted with our colonel.
Have you been to Gilham since your return ?"

"No," answered Lewis, again with the curtness that would
not waste a word. "I met Colonel Fargus in Germany."

"In Germany — in Germany! . . . Oh, I see, at Hom-
burg, of course." There was a cold smile on Charles' lips, a
slight arching of the calm brows, as he spoke, sufficient to

Charles Hillyard Expounds His Case. 179

point his meaning ; and Lewis, more galled by this than by an
open taunt, flushed crimson, but could not at the moment
trust himself to speak, for the fierceness of his resentment.

Once more there came an irksome silence, and Charles, for
all his well-tempered armor of self-control and self-esteem,
found it difficult to oppose an impassible front to the undis-
guised hostility of the two men.

"At any rate," he began once more, this time with some
sharpness, "it cannot matter to me much, either how you have
contrived to bring back such a 'Schmiss' from your wild
expedition to Homburg. But as I am here on business of im-
portance to myself, as well as to you, Lewis, it is, I think,
better that we should soon settle down to the discussion of it."

Neither Lewis nor Fargus offering any deprecation of this
statement, Mr. Hillyard pursued, after a marked pause:
"However, I do not offer to withdraw, considering that I am
here by appointment, and that I have already lost twenty
minutes in waiting for your leisure."

"I beg to state," said Lewis, "that it is I who am waiting."

Charles' nostrils dilated, and the crimson mounted to his
face.

"You force me, then, into the position of begging you to
dismiss your guest. Pray forgive me, Colonel Fargus, for a
seeming discourtesy."

Despite his hard judgment on his nephew, Fargus could not
but admire, if only from an aesthetic point of view, the de-
termined self-control of the young man's manner in the face
of such odds. "What a pity," thought he to himself, as,
merely bowing in reply, he now, at a sign from his son, ad-
vanced to the table and took a seat thereat.

"Whatever you may have to say to me, Charles," said
Lewis, without stirring from the position he had taken from
the first, "say it now, before Colonel Fargus, who has my
full confidence in this matter, and upon whose advice I am
determined to act in all that regards it."

Charles' brow darkened. His weak-minded cousin acting
under the advice of this impenetrable, unaccountable Ameri-
can ! What might that portend ? — no good, certainly ; no help
to the easy settlement of this disagreeable business.

"This is folly, Lewis," he cried, in a hard tone. "I must
decline to discuss intimate matters before an absolute
stranger."

"Colonel Fargus acts as my legal adviser for the pres-
ent," reiterated Lewis. There was an ominous gleam in his
eye.

"Your legal adviser!" repeated the college Don, with an-
other of his quick, contemptuous laughs. "It is as like you to

i8o Charles Hillyard Expounds His Case.

make an American colonel your adviser in a matter of this
kind, as it is, when returning unscathed from serious war-
fare, to seek the adornment of a Schlaeger cut."

"You lose," thought Fargus, as he quietly watched the
scene and forebore to take notice in any way of the dis-
paraging allusion to himself, "all your advantage, my friend,
as soon as you release your grasp on your temper."

"I do not suppose," resumed Lewis doggedly, "that your
purpose here to-day is to discuss my mental weaknesses. I
tell you Colonel Fargus remains by my wish ; I give you the
opportunity you desired to speak with me upon matters you
state to be of importance."

"You are a fool, Lewis !" pronounced Mr. Hillyard slowly.
"You are aware, I know, of the present state of affairs, yet
would make a man who can only be the most casual acquaint-
ance of yours privy to what I must say to you to-day."

"I am aware of the true state of affairs."

Lewis spoke quietly enough, though his mouth quivered
with anger.

"You will repent your unwarrantable offensiveness to me,
and this absurdity in dragging a third person into our busi-
ness. I warn you fairly what I must speak upon to-day will
be no pleasant hearing for you. However, a willful man, I
supiwse, must have his way."

Still Lewis remained silent.

After a few minutes' impatient waiting, Charles carelessly
turned his back on Fargus, and observed in his old patroniz-
ing manner: "Seeing your present mood, it would be idle,
I presvune, to try and convince you that in this errand of
mine I am really actuated to a great extent by friendly feel-
ings."

"It would," interrupted Lewis, with a sweep of the hand.

"Quite so. Yet it remains a fact that in seeking a private
interview I have been prompted mainly by the desire to spare
you as much as possible, under the circumstances."

Again Lewis vouchsafed no reply ; but a tightening of the
lip and a red flash of the eye betrayed how intensely his
cousin's words and manner tried his small remnant of pa-
tience.

Charles paused as if to select his words, while his eyes mus-
ingly wandered over the quartered coat-of-arms wherein
Lewis' family pretensions were blazoned above the portraits
of his father and mother. At length, with a certain effort, he
began to expound his case with that thoughtful choice of lan-
guage so familiar, and once so pleasing to Lewis.

"It may be as well that I should first briefly recapitulate
the main points in the family history of Kerr of Gilham

Charles Hillyard Expounds His Case. i8i

which have led to the present deadlock. Mr. William George
Kerr, my grandfather, whose death occurred in '46, had is-
sue: by his first wife, William, the late head of the family;
by his second, George, who died in '57, and Susan, my
mother, who died two years ago. Mr. William Kerr, who
died last July, had then no issue living. The estate is entail
on the heirs male. The question now is, who is the heir-at-
law? I think this is the case in a nutshell."

Lewis nodded impatiently, and Charles proceeded: "This
question of heirship unfortunately raises a point, which, but
for the unforeseen contingency of the imtimely death, with-
out issue themselves, of the late squire's two sons, no one
would have had any interest in investigating. And it is the
strange irony of fate that the task of lifting the veil which,
covers the parentage of my old friend and pupil should de-
volve upon me."

Tumultuously Lewis' heart began to beat; the sickening
slander was coming home at last.

"I need hardly say, Lewis," proceeded the speaker, with an
unconscious deepening of his voice, "that it is serious grief
to me to have to say all this to you. The name which you
bear is yours only by prescription, so to speak, and it is my
painful task "

"Oh, for God's sake," interrupted Lewis, stamping his foot
furiously, "a truce to your hypocritical sympathy ! Since you
could turn traitor to friendship, have the courage of your
opinion — say your say, at least."

"This anger is futile," answered Charles, "and unjust, too.
I may appear selfish in insisting, as I mean to do, on my
legal and moral right. Granted. It is, I repeat, almost en-
tirely for your sake I wish the case to be kept from a court
of law, where I should have to assert my claim without
mincing matters, and where the fact would be made brutally
public that you cannot prove yourself to be the son of the
late George Kerr and that I can prove the contrary."

"Charles Hillyard, you are a liar as well as a hypocrite and
traitor!"

Fargus' strong arm was in an instant interposed between
Lewis' furious gesture of menace and the motionless figure
of the visitor.

"My dear boy," he said, with kind severity, "you are now
putting yourself in the wrong. Better let me conduct this
business for you."

Charles had not stirred a muscle under his cousin's threat-
ened onslaught, but his face had hardened into colder con-
tempt; when Lewis, yielding to the firmness of Fargus' hand.

i83 Charles Hillyard Expounds His Case.

resumed his place, he addressed himself to the latter, and
said, with a sarcastic smile:

"I see now that my old pupil has done wisely, after all, in
taking you as adviser in this affair. You Americans are
proverbially cool-headed. Colonel Fargus. I now agree with
you in thinking that it may be as well if our friend will leave
you to act for him in an affair he is so evidently unfit to man-
age himself."

"You hear, Lewis," said Fargus, resuming his seat in the
arm-chair, and half turning to his son. "Will you retire
pro tempore figuratively into the background, and trust me to
discuss Mr. Hillyard's business with him ?"

"Pray do," said Lewis; "you know I have given you a
moral power of attorney."

"Then, sir, I am at your service," turning again toward
Charles, who promptly resumed the thread of his exposition.

"I said that I had the proofs in my possession that my
friend here, Lewis, was not the son of George Kerr, and, in
consequence, not the heir-at-law. Here they are." And he
placed a bundle of papers on the table by his side.

"In 1856," proceeded Charles, "George Kerr married, at
Seville, Dona Carmen de Ayala. They lived together, I
gather from the dates, one year and a day, so unhappily that
at last, after making a shocking discovery concerning his
wife's conduct, George Kerr left her and committed suicide."

Lewis' face became ashen. It was hard, even after all
Fargus' careful preparation, to have to hear attacked the
honor of the woman who had borne him and not smite the
slanderer to earth. He clenched his fist and turned his eyes
slowly toward Fargus, but meeting the same grave and con-
fident smile as heretofore, took courage from it for further
self-control and patience.

"Yes?" said Fargus, as he bent toward Charles Hillyard.
The latter had paused. Surprised at the silence, he turned
sharply, to catch the mute intercourse between the two men.

"Yes — and then ?" asked Colonel Fargus.

"Then, Mrs. George Kerr returned immediately to her
country, and in the natural course of time her child was
bom. That child was christened Luis Jorge Kerr. The
squire, at Gilham, refused steadily to recognize him. My
father, moved by feelings of benevolence, and prevailed upon
by my mother, who loved to imagine that something was left
in this world of her dead brother, accepted the office of guar-
dian to the young outlander, while I became, out of personal
liking, as they say, his guide, philosopher, and friend."

Here Charles stopped again, as if waiting for objections.

"That is not all, surely," said Fargus.

Charles Hilly ard Expounds His Case. 183

"Of course that is not all. It is, so to speak, the broad
sketch."

"Thus far," said Fargus, composedly, "the story is one of
a man who, five-and-twenty years ago, is alleged to have com-
mitted suicide because he was not happy with the foreign
woman he had married, and of his posthumous son, who had
one bad uncle and one good one, after the fashion of fairy
tales. You will be able to prove, I suppose, that George
Kerr had positive cause to suspect his wife; secondly, that
his death really was the result of suicide, not accident, as
reported by the papers at the time; thirdly, that his suicide,
if suicide there was, was brought about by horror at his
wife's behavior; lastly, that the posthumous child could not
by any possibility be his son. Unless you can prove all that,
your story would hardly be adequate to support your im-
portant claim. You have, of course, more facts in reserve ?"

"It is quite a pity you were not a lawyer. Colonel Far-
gus," said Charles, with mocking admiration. "I have facts
in reserve. I can prove, to the hilt, almost every one of the
points you have raised. Of the excessively unhappy life led
by George Kerr and his wife, and of the last scene between
them, evidently brought about by the discovery which led to
his flying a dishonored house, I have sufficient testimony,
having found some of the servants who were at that time in
George Kerr's employment. But in this case personal evi-
dence is not even required, as there is extant a letter from
George Kerr himself which shows explicitly that his life with
his wife was miserable, and further points to one particular,
unpardonable offense, which has driven him in disgust to
make away with himself. In further proof of the question of
suicide is the summary of the inquiry into the alleged acci-
dent, if it be read in the light afforded by the dead man's
letter. And, finally, there is Mrs. Kerr's own letter to my
mother, in which, at the same time, she admits her guilt and
announces it as the cause of her husband's death. There is
no actual proof that Lewis cannot be the child of that union
— for he was born in March, 1858, while his putative father
died in the month of July preceding — but, unfortunately for
him, two passages in the existing documents fill up the
lacunes. In one of them George Kerr writes : 'Thank God,
we have no children.' In the other Mrs. Kerr, struck with
remorse, admits: 'I know I have been guilty towards him.'
Lastly, I can prove from various letters written by the late
Mr. Kerr to my father, that the belief in the illegitimacy of
this boy born in foreign parts was shared by all his English
relations, except, as I have said, my mother."
, "Before I ask you, Mr. Hillyard," said Fargus, "how these

184 Charles Hillyard Expounds His Case.

documents — the most important of which undoubtedly should,
by rights, have been surrendered long ago to my friend —
have come into your hands, I should like to know how you
propose to prove their authenticity ?"

"Upon my word, Colonel," exclaimed Charles, with a
laugh, "one might almost imagine that you had prepared the
defense at leisure, so methodically do you survey my means
of attack."

Fargus answered with a grave inclination of the head.

"You have not answered my question," said he.

"Your objection was so very obvious. Their authenticity
can, of course, be established beyond doubt. My uncle's
handwriting and my father's are easily verifiable. There
was at first a certain difficulty in connection with that of the
late George Kerr; but it was found that his last will was
holograph, that it was proved, and ' is, of course, accessible
to experts. As to Mrs. Kerr's letters, I will now inform you
that I have just returned from Spain, whither I went to
verify certain data — among others, the handwriting of Lewis'
mother. I obtained leave to take away sundry old letters,
photographs of which I can let you see whenever you wish."

"What would those courteous Spanish people say to that
sample of an English gentleman's conduct," put in Lewis,
scornfully, "could they but have known your purpose?"

"Their thoughts on the subject would cause me little con-
cern. Does not your church teach that?"

"Your knowledge of the rules of my religion is as insuffi-
cient, Charles, as your conception of the rules of honor," said
Lewis, in icy tones. "You have obtained some of my mother's
letters by means of lies worthy of a private detective, not of
a gentleman; just as you have retained, for your own pur-
pose, papers which belonged to me — which, plainly worded,
is theft."

"Lewis," said Fargus, "let me again entreat you not to
speak another word. This is a consultation. We shall waste
much of our purpose if you condescend to angry recrimina-
tion, however true what you say may be, and however justified
you may be in saying it."

Charles felt the backhander more keenly under the dis-
passionate form in which it was administered that the angry
insult of his poor cousin ; but, without changing his manner,
he said very quietly:

"After this little expression of opinion on my character, I
shotdd be quite justified in abandoning my present friendly
intentions, and in letting matters go through the regular
channels, with all its consequent publicity. But, having

Charles Hillyard Expounds His Case. 185

gone so far through an exceedingly unpleasant ordeal, I
consider it worth my while to see it to the end."

"I am glad to hear you say so," said Fargus; "but as the
unparliamentary expressions were on our side, would it not
be advisable for you to explain how you have come into the
possession of things which we might claim as our own?"

"I have no objections," said Charles, carelessly. "My uncle,
William Kerr, gave the papers to me, or, rather, directed me
where and how to get them, before he died. He recovered
consciousness toward the middle of the night," he added to
Fargus, as if anticipating an objection, "for half an hour or
so. He was terribly babbling, but he was able to make his
meaning clear through sheer determination. I confess I had
been thinking somewhat of the succession myself, but there
was no mistaking the emphasis with which he said, *No
bastard here.' "

"And how could the squire come into the possession of
these unlawful goods?" asked Fargus.

"The squire was my father's executor, and must have found
this bundle among my father's papers. They were addressed
to Lewis, with a letter in my father's hand, but unsealed.
He always had a deep resentment against Lewis, and it was
a sore point with him that my father and mother should
receive him as they did."

"May I ask," said Lewis, in a low voice, "if you consider
you have also a right to your father's letter to me — ^whether
you read it, and mean to keep it to use against me ?"

"I most certainly read the letter, and I should use it were
it likely to prove of any use to me. I do not in the least at-
tempt to deny it, but I am quite certain, on the other hand,
that, could he have foreseen the death of both the direct
heirs, he would have felt bound to make use of them him-
self and assure the succession to the legitimate heir."

"Surmises as to the probable conduct of Lewis' late g:uar-
dian are useless as evidence," interposed Fargus, anxious to
forestall his son's reply; "and it remains a fact, Mr. Hill-
yard, that you have unlawfully appropriated letters for the
purpose of damaging their rightful owner and advancing
your private interests. You are wise, certainly, as far as
your own interests are concerned, in desiring to avoid pub-
licity."

"My dear sir," returned Charles in a bland voice, "I am
not in the least afraid of the world's verdict any more than
of the jury's. But I believe," he added, wtih a cynical smile,
"the world would not be hard on the successful claimant."

"At any rate," said Fargus, feeling an uprising of anger
hard to conceal, "X am 0x19 with 70U in dosiring to avoid the >

1 86 Charles Hilly ard Expounds His Case.

open scandal. I presume that you have now adverted to
every proof you possess of the irrefragable character of your
claim."

"I have."

"And you hold there copies of all important documents ?"

"Yes," said Charles after a pause, devoted to the endeavor
to understand the drift of this question.

"Very good. What have you got to propose to him ?"

"First," said Charles, "that he should read the attested
copies, which I shall have prepared and sent to-morrow.
Then, if he should wish to see the originals, that he should
call at my solicitor's and satisfy himself, and if he comes to
the conclusion that his chances of establishing his legitimacy
are too slender to justify his risking an action in defense,
that he should come to an agreement, resigning his claim.
I may point out how excessively damaging such a public trial
would be to him in his regiment if he fails."

"Thank you for your forethought," said Lewis, endeavor-
ing to conceal, under an ironical smile, how sore a point
this reference to his beloved regiment touched upon. "Let
me repeat your own words, and that with a clearer conscience.
I am not afraid of publicity."

Fargus, with a warning glance at the young man, again
interposed his quiet voice:

"You have no objection, I presume, to allow me to ex-
amine these wonderful documents ?" he asked of Charles, who
in reply handed him the parcel.

Fargus withdrew near the window and silently proceeded
to read them. Lewis watched him at first in some surprise,
but remembering the promise made to Miss Wren, and
thought he understood the menoeuvre, though it somewhat
grated upon his particular ethics.

At length the reader looked up. His task was completed.
The papers contained an accurate copy of those which he had
destroyed the night before; there was nothing new in them
save some marginal hieroglyphics in shorthand, evidently
added by Charles as memoranda for his own use.

"Did I understand you to say you had no other copy?" he
asked.

"Yes," answered Mr. Hillyard ; "this is the only one for the
present. You would, I suppose, like to keep it, but I should
prefer you to have one that is properly certified."

"One moment," said Fargus, reflectively, and he walked
across the room to Lewis, who made way for him on the
hearth.

"Lewis, you have deputed me to act for you," he said,
gravely, to his son.

Charles Hillyard Expounds His Case. 187

Then, as both men stood watching him with some surprise,
he deliberately turned round, threw the parcel at the back
of the grate, and planted himself before the fire, in an atti-
tude which seemed quietly to defy interference, while the
leaping flames toyed with and licked their new prey, and,
soaring, flashed with it into nothingness.

Lewis who had made a quick gesture as if to prevent the
deed, at a look from Fargus restrained himself, and took a
hasty turn round the room in a high state of perturbation.
Charles remained motionless, but the first unmitigated as-
tonishment upon his face merged into open and somewhat
irritated contempt.

"This behavior. Colonel Fargus, I might have expected
from one of Lewis' stamp, but hardly from you. Did I not
distinctly state that these papers were only copies? If, in-
deed, I had been foolish enough to bring the originals, such
a stratagem would have been treacherous, but at least com-
prehensible."

"Mr. Hillyard," answered Fargus in his tranquil way,
though there was just the suggestion of an irrepressible
twinkle in his eye. "I never pretended to be other than
mortal man, and mortal man, you know, is liable to error.
I regret to have fallen in your estimation. May it console
you, for having had to behold such an instance of human
weakness, to reflect that, at any rate, it has been futile as far
as you are concerned."

Charles now got up. There was an ugly look on his face.

"I do not understand you. Colonel Fargus," he said inso-
lently. "Good-by, Lewis. Take my advice; to-morrow you
shall have these papers; read them yourself and judge for
yourself, and do not hand over your will and conscience into
the keeping of this" — here the speaker measured Fargus with
a cold, challenging glance, and paused — "this disinterested,
brand-new friend of yours."

"Good-by, Mr. Hillyard," said Fargus. "We shall meet
again, I daresay, when I hope I may not have the misfor-
tune to find so much disfavor in your eyes. I go back to
my Lone Grange to-morrow. Perhaps we may meet down
there."

CHAPTEK XIX.

CHARYBDIS.

The sun had just cleared the golden belt of mist on the
horizon; emerald-tinted gleamed the crest of the wooded
slopes of Gilham, while the hollow folds of the land still lay-
in glaucous shadow.

Alone in the midst of his lonely demesne stood Fargus,
and watched with delight the secrets of morning unfolding,
and blushing, and ripening. Unable in his solitude to use
that precious power by which man can relieve the over-
pressure of his mind, and communicate of his joy or sorrow
to fellow-man, he had risen with the birds to seek the ever-
ready companionship of nature and the freedom of air and
space.

He had taken his gun, almost mechanically, from the rack
as he passed out, and swung a cartridge-belt over his shoulder.
But the innocent blood of the wild things of moor and brush-
wood was not to lie on his soul that morn.

Crushing the heather beneath his feet, dashing the dew
sparkles from gorse and juniper bush, the man tramped on-
ward, following his thought, till his aimless march brought
him to the crest of an almost imperceptible rising sweep of
ground, whence the eye dominated a wide stretch of country.
To the south, beneath him, on ever-deepening levels, belted in
by stripes of solemn firs, by rolling masses of yellowing tim-
ber, by horizon waves of faint blue mountains, lay the rich
meadows of Gilham, the prosperous village dominated by the
single tower of the Court, proudly upreared above the trees.

Fargus let his eyes roam from that distant joyful glint to
the cold thin line of the empty flagstaff over the Court tower,
and his heart grew warm with a presentiment of coming good.

Anxious to be ready with some news against his guest's
arrival, anent that dear wish of his soul, the father, on the
first afternoon after his home-coming, had hied him to Wold-
ham, intent on reconnoitering how the land lay there. Maude
was away — a cause of great regret — on a visit somewhere in
the neighborhood, and not expected back for a few days ; but
the General was at home and unaffectedly delighted to see
his friend, and in the untidy smoking-room, amid, the pipes
and guns and sport trophies, they had had a lengthy talk. From
almost the first words spoken it had been evident to Fargus
that, as far at least as the old man was concerned, he had
misjudged Charles, and that no misrepresentation had been

CHarybdis. 189

made here to blight Lewis' position. General Woldham was
quite eager to speak of the "young squire," delighted and
amazed to hear that Fargus had already made acquaintance
with him, and excited beyond measure by a graphic account
of the duel and its results. His pipe went out, his blue eyes,
bright and keen as steel, sparkled and danced under the
bushy white brows, while the most complete assortment of
snorts and sniffs were produced to punctuate the visitor's
deliberate narrative of the encounter, the flight across the
hills, and the fever episode in Brussels. The old soldier, of
course, was bound to some highly proper indignation on the
subject of dueling itself, and vowed he would give Mr. Kerr
a piece of his mind about his folly, and pished and pshawed
at the description of the subaltern's scarred face; but he
asked for a second description of the fight, insisted on an
illustration of the bouts, to Fargus' great amusement, with
the help of a crop and a walking-stick, and there was an ir-
repressible chuckle somewhere subterraneously and a certain
unctuous gloating over the detail of blows exchanged, and
the foreigner's final undoing, which would not have deceived
a child as to the nature of his real feelings.

And after that the General had gone on to talk about
Lewis and the old days, and his affection for him ; and roused
into greater unreserve by Fargus' tactful guidance, there had
escaped from his lips a phrase which caused the other father
a warm pleasure. "Upon his word," he had said, "he did not
know, after all, any one he would desire more as mate for his
Maude."

"I used to think they fancied each other. Certainly
Maude does not care for any one else — at any rate, she has
refused offer after offer, and good fellows, too. I don't say
that I was very sorry, for I can't spare my girl easily, you
know, Fargus. But, by Jove! when I heard our fine young
gentleman had flown abroad instead of coming here, as he
should have done, I made sure I knew what he had gone for.
But it seem's I'm all at sea. My girl came back with never
a word about him, and now you tell me he was quietly re-
visiting the scenes of his student days at Heidelberg. Can't
make out what you were all posting-off to Germany for, when
Lewis ought to have been at Gilham."

"I daresay Mr. Kerr will explain," had answered Fargus,
careful to conceal the satisfaction which the beginning of
the General's speech had caused him, and keeping his own
counsel in face of the very natural exasperation which
marked the end. "Young men are erratic at times : I do not
pretend to understand them. All I can tell you about Lewis

190 Charybdis.

Kerr is that I found him a plucky fellow and an excellent
companion."

After which the conversation had diverged into other chan-
nels, for Fargus was too well bred and too wise to push the
General further than he seemed inclined to go upon the
delicate topic, however tempting the opportunity might seem.
But enough had been said to confirm his secret hopes.
Whether Charles had prejudiced Maude against her girlhood's
choice, it was just possible he might have written — at any
rate, whatever may have been the influence at work which
caused her to refuse him, that must Lewis find out for him-
self. It was not for Fargus to interfere here; the coast was
clear of material obstacles, the weapon vnelded by the false
friend had broken in his hand, and here was the General as
ready to welcome his old favorite as son-in-law as he had been
ready to act a father's part to him in his somewhat deserted
boyhood. This would be precious news to welcome the lover
on the morrow. Her father had as good as said that if
Maude's heart was not Lewis', that it belonged to none. Who
could know the bent of that maiden mind better than he,
between whom and his beautiful daughter there existed the
closest confidence and most exquisite tenderness? Lewis
with these odds in his favor had but to fight on for his hap-
piness.

Fargus was a man of wide experience; his checkered life
had carried him through many strange adventures, the like
of which befall few people. He had a partly inborn, partly
acquired, facility for discovering men's inward through their
outward self, and reading with clear eye the weakness or the
vice that lay behind fair presentiments; he had a straight,
decisive judgment of conduct and events, but there was a
very important element he had never cared to study, and
which had remained in consequence as a sealed book to him.
Of womanhood — the womankind, that is, reared in loving
homes and shielded from the outer guile and the vulgar
curses of life — of the maidens that dream away their ex-
istence in innocency such as is scarce comprehensible to those
that have had to face the world as it is from childhood up-
ward.

And now, as he stood upon the moor and sent his glance
toward that special gable in the old black and white house
which marked, as he knew, the bower of its fair mistress, he
hugged himself to think that she was destined to be the
blessing of his son's young manhood.

The day was broad when the faint clang of a church bell
in the distance recalled him to the flight of time. He glanced

Charybdis. 191

at his watch — it marked the half -hour after nine; he remem-
bered that he was hungry and had not yet broken his fast.

"Yes, Dinah," he said, looking kindly at the retriever, who,
perceiving him to be awakened from his prolonged immo-
bility, "come on, old lady; you shall have a good breakfast
to make up for the loss of your sport."

With agitated tail and nose to earth Dinah bounded off in
the direction indicated, and her master swung after her down
the slope at a right sturdy pace. As he anticipated, there
was a letter addressed in Lewis' somewhat precise and for-
eign-looking caligraphy. Such a thick letter! What could
the boy have to say to swell his envelope to these dimen-
sions ?

Fargus weighed the missive in his hand and hesitated to
open it — an unusual shadow of evil came athwart his own
heart. In another minute, however, he laughed at himself :

"Positively I am as bad as a lover about his mistress over
this big boy of mine. How now, David Fargus ! presentiment
because there is a cloud over the sun, and because a letter
from Staple Inn seems too fat ! You are getting old."

He broke open the envelope with a steady hand, and drew
forth three closely-written sheets. The clouds drifted and
drifted, darker and closer. Rain fell. Sunshine flashed out
again, and the blue sky broke once more over a sparkling,
dripping earth. Once Turner, the discreet, passed his head
in at the door and noislessly withdrew it. Still Fargus sat
absorbed over that lengthy letter, moving only to turn the
sheets this way and that as he read and pondered, and read
again :

"My Dear Colonel Fargus" (Lewis had written) : "I fear
that when this comes under your eyes your first impulse will
be to mentally declare that you wash your hands of one so
ungrateful and foolish. But as you have proved of more help
to me in my serious trouble — been more friendly, more dis-
interestedly kind in every possible way — than I can express,
I am emboldened to open out my whole mind to you once
more and expose my present difficulty.

"It was a great blow to me to learn that what I had endeav-
ored to drive from my mind as an exaggeration, .self-tor-
menting fancy — the suspicion of my father having com-
mitted suicide — ^was actually an indisputable fact. Yet
when you placed my case and Charles Hillyard's before one,
I own you spoke so clearly, so plausibly, that your words
seemed to carry conviction with them ; and su'bsequently, dur-
ing that first visit of Charles', my anger against him seemed
to prevent me from reasoning. When I was no longer under

192 Charybdis.

the spell of your cheering, vigorous, sympathetic presence, I
had time to reflect; and last night Charles Hillyard came
again. He was in bitter anger, and said bitter things; he
had discovered the loss of the papers, of course, and also
knew how it happened. His very first words were so insult-
ing to me, so outrageous about you, that, in the indignation
they roused, I told him I would neither listen nor speak to
him. He was obliged to leave me without obtaining any
satisfaction as to what had become of the documents — ^though
it is quite evident he believes you have them. But what he
said I had to hear, and it has sunk deep into my heart.

" 'You have read these papers, Lewis,' he said ; 'you have
seen with your own eyes how this George Kerr you claim as a
father wrote to your mother! No man can forgive her be-
havior, he says. He is too sick at heart even to try and pun-
ish her, but after his awful discovery he cannot live with
her. But he will not ruin her in the eyes of the world.
These are his words, Lewis: "I will give you your liberty
and my money, but I will die!" Read that letter, Lewis —
read it, if you have it, for, I suspect, your wonderfiil new
friend has got hold of the papers, as he seems to have got
hold of your conscience — for God knows what private aim of
his own — ^but if you have them in your possession, study them
alone, honestly, away from his perverting influence, then dare
to say you believe your mother innocent, yourself true-bom 1
dare to come and offer yourself as the last link of the chain
of true Kerrs !' I can laugh at it now, though it angered me
so much at the time that, but for that insolence, I think I
could have cried out to him that he was right, that I should
fight him no more. For when he spoke of that letter he had
the accent of truth in his voice. And oh ! Colonel Fargus, I
could not turn upon him and say: 'You have twisted the
words to your own evil meaning — thus, and not so, did my
father write.' I could not even say to him: 'I will read,
and prove you liar from your own mouth!' Why did you
bum those letters? What lies before me but either to take
upon me honors and riches I can never establish, to my own
mind, a moral right to ; or blast myself bastard, for the sake
of a quiet conscience? Better, indeed, would have been the
lawsuit, the open scandal, than this. At least, if by law I
had been proclaimed legitimate, I could in peace of mind
have accepted the position, and for the sake of my name and
all it means to me I should have risked the alternative. I
believe, with you, that these letters prove nothing to absolute
certainty; on the other hand, I see, with Hillyard, that they
lay my parentage open to strong suspicion. You, in yonr
kindness and anxiety to befriend one to whom you had taken

Charybdis. 193

a liking, thought better, in the absence of any distinct proof,
to spare me the knowledge of this suspicion. There are men,
no doubt, who would laugh to think that on a mere suspicion
I should meditate giving up name and fortune. I repeat, if
I could fight it out with Hillyard in fair and open fight, I
should do so, and accept the verdict of the court, whichever
way it went, as final. But a series of extraordinary events
have rendered this impossible. I have been legally estab-
lished heir to Gilham by the revengeful cleverness of a jealous
woman, and by your well-meaning but mistaken destruction
of evidence against me. Can I take advantage of this? I
know what you would say to me. All night, I tell you, I battled
with myself, but my conscience, my honor, are too strong for
me, and I have made up nay mind, unless I can prove myself,
to myself, a Kerr, I must abandon everything to Charles. I
was so worn out and sick at heart this morning that I was
sorely tempted to write to him and have done with it all and
go back to India at once. I will do nothing without hearing
from you ; I hold to showing you what I fear this letter may
lead you to doubt — ^that indeed my confidence in you is not
shaken. I promise to take no steps without hearing from
you, to wait patiently for your answer to this. Think for me,
judge for me, and help me to safeguard my honor as you
would have helped your own son; had you had one. No sac-
rifice can be considered when such a point is at stake; but
your decision will relieve me from this constant mental con-
flict. I shall write to the General when everything is set-
tled and I am outward-bound once more; meanwhile, you will
keep my counsel.

"Yours ever sincerely and grateftilly,

"Lewis Kerr."
"P. S. — ^Do you remember my asking you whether there was
resemblance between George Kerr's portrait and myself? I
used to think so. This morning I held it beside my face be-
fore the glass and studied both images. I could see no like-
ness. Everything seems to have gone from me — even the
memories that have grown into my life."

A deep sigh escaped from Fargus' lips when he at length
looked up from the letter, and, refolding the closely-covered
sheets with almost tender care, placed them in his breast-
pocket. He then rose and stood looking out across the wide
prospect, checkered now with strong lights and shadows from
a cloud-riven yet sun-bright sky.

So it has come to it at last. The veil must be lifted, the
secret unfolded. David Fargus, the loved and admired com-
panion, the trusty friend, must reveal himself in his tru«

194 Cliarybdis.

colors. And George Kerr, whose memory, in spite of one
supposed unhappy deed, was kept in honor by his own, must
reappear in all his deceitfulness before the eyes of the one
being he loved — ^with a love that seemed revengful for his
long immunity from human ties, so keen was it, so all-absorb-
ing, so potent now for pain or joy.

How different from under the glamour of his adventurous,
careless youth did the past appear now in the garish light of
the pitiless present I Heedless disregard of another's possible
sorrow; gross egotism, which had led him to act a ghastly
lie, to desert his child, to disown his name. And from it,
behold what a train of consequences, circling wider and wider
till the lives of many innocent beings are drawn into the
spreading wrong! The death of her whom he had vowed to
guard and cherish so long as life remained; the grief and
lonely old age of her parents, who had confided her to his
guidance and keeping ; the shadow across his sister's life ; the
melancholy struggle of his son's childhood and youth, and
this insult to name and honor in his manhood; the dead
squire's breach of trust and dying act of enmity; the temp-
tation to Charles Hillyard and his fall from moral altitude
to qualified dishonesty and vulgar greed; and the last wide
ripple bringing such poignant misery to Lewis, cutting him
apart from the true, sweet girl who had loved him — no doubt
loved him still — to poor, passionless Hilda, ruined and like to
be abandoned to heaven knows what unimaginable depths.

But the circle could and should be broken here, and the
happiness of two lives, at least, be saved from out of the
wreck. Thank God for that; thank God that by his own
humiliation and suffering the father had it still in his power
to save them to the son.

This was to be the expiation. What would that boy of
his, who had learned to trust him, who revered him for past
achievements and loved him for present good — what would
that white-souled man, who held honor so high that he pre-
ferred expatiation and disgrace and the relinquishing of the
woman he loved to the shadow of a stain upon it — and this
with such a simple heroism as to be fain to ask pardon for
the trouble caused — what would he think of his father when
the shameful truth had to be told ? A father whom this son,
having fought his way to honorable manliness — not by his
help, but, indeed, in spite of him — owed nothing to, but
much misery in the past and in the present. A father whom
the son is never to acknowledge before the world, and whom
he cannot even acknowledge to himself without regret.
Oh, it would be hard to have to do this — to lose the esteem,
the affection so happily won, so highly prized; to feel that all

The Lone Grange Has Visitors. 195

he could hope for now in their stead was anger, contempt,
or, perchance — for his boy was generous — pity and forgive-
ness ; and these were cold feelings for love to think on.

Yet, after all, as he stood there, and measured past and
future with even mind, and calmly faced the coming bitter-
ness and humiliation, a great thankfulness, a triumphant
pride, rose paramount like a flood in his heart; that his son
was what he was, and that he — his father — ^was at hand to
help him in his need, and could help him at last by the sac-
rifice of self.

CHAPTEK XX.

THE LONE GRANGE HAS VISITORS.

Holding a cup of cold tea in his hand, Fargus paced his
room with heavy, regular tread, so lost to outer things that
the sharp sound of the hall-door bell, the approach of steps
along the flagged passage, struck indeed upon his ear, but
brought no meaning to his mind; neither did he notice his
servant's entrance upon his privacy, nor the subdued murmur
of his voice. Indeed, he only became aware of that worthjr's
respectful presence when, turning in his measured tramp, he
came upon him suddenly — and then with a vague memory of
words still ringing in the air,

"What was that you said, Turner?"

"There is a young lady without, sir, who gives her name as
Miss Wren, and would like to speak with you, she says, sir."

Fargus' face marked strong displeasure. Could ever in-
trusion be more inopportune. But in another minute his
innate sense of justice triumphed over the natural irritation.
She had been told to come if she needed help. Moreover, she
might be the bearer of news — useful, if not important.

"Ask the lady to step in here," he said, thoughtfully scan-
ning the servant's face and wondering with some annoyance
what scandal and gossip this strange appearance of Maude's
double would create in his bachelor household. Turner with-
drew to fulfill the order, and presently, the door noiselessly
closing behind her, the visitor and her host stood face to
face alone.

To the latter's satisfaction, she was closely veiled with
white gossamer.

"An unexpected pleasure. Miss Wren!" said Fargus pleas-
antly, stretching out his hand as he spoke. "What has
brought you hare ? No bad news, I hope."

196 Tlie Lone Grange Has Visitors.

Without seeming to notice the proffered greeting, the girl
threw up her veil with a passionate gesture of weariness.

"Let me sit down," she said in a sort of cry, and she flung
herself into the arm-chair he was about to move toward her
and turned her face, haggard for all its rounded beauty and
paled from its warm richness of bloom, to look at him with
fevered eyes.

"You want to know what has brought me here, and if it is
bad news. It is bad news. Oh, never fear — nothing about
that precious friend of yours. There is nothing new about
him, it's about myself. I've been a fool, that's what it
comes to. And now I have come on a fool's errand."

"W hat is it ?" said Fargus, sitting down opposite to her, and
bending forward to fix upon her a gaze full of kindliness. He
felt both pity and liking for this curious undisciplined crea-
tuVe, child in artless impulse and woman in passionate de-
termination.

"It's just this," she cried. "Oh, I know you'll think I am
mad ! I want you to give me back those papers, since it was
you who took them from me. You won't, I know, but a
drowning man '11 catch at a straw, they say. I had no right
to have brought them to you, and they can't mean as much
to you as they do to me."

Through their covering gloves the shapely hands, inter-
laced upon her lap, showed convulsive clutchings, and she
returned his glance from hollow eyes, that looked as if they
had not closed in slumber through long, weary nights.

"My dear child," he answered very gently, "have you come
all this way to ask me to do an impossible thing? Those
papers I saw burned myself the very night after you brought
them. But even were it not so, they belonged to Mr. Kerr
by right, and I could never have returned them to you for
Mr. Hillyard's peculiar designs."

She listened in silence, compressing her lips till all the
carmine flew from them.

"Of course," she said at length, nodding her head in dreary
acceptance of his reasoning. "Didn't I say I was a fool ? He
has left me."

She turned her head sharply from him, for a second her
whole frame quivering in a brave struggle against herself,
but the next she had thrown herself on the arm of the chair
and had broken into a storm of long-drawn sobs.

She was not one "of the crying sort," she had said, and in
truth her weeping was far removed from the facile, elegant
tear-shedding of which her sex possesses the monopoly.

Very much disturbed, and quite nonplussed as to what
could be done for her, Fargus took what was perhaps the

The Lone Grange Has Visitors. 197

wisest course, and left her alone. She raised herself pres-
ently and quitted her chair, to walk over to the window.
There she stood with her face to the breeze, and battled with
her pain in silence. Then, as the feminine instinct began
to reassert itself, she fell to fingering her hair and smoothing
her gown, and to lay the pretty cloak neatly across a chair.
She next looked at Fargus, who had noticed these signs with
much relief, and a faint, melancholy, shy smile stole over
her lips.

"Can I get you anything? Let me give you a glass of
wine."

She looked up again, and, at the sympathetic tone of his
voice, the tears glistened again under her heavy lids.

"I'd rather have some milk, thank you. I've had precious
little breakfast, and I've walked a terrible way. I thought
I'd get some more in the village, but there's no village, it
seems."

He got a glass and filled it from his breakfast table. She
sat down to it, and seizing the brown loaf in her strong
hands to break off a crusty portion, fell to with right good
will.

"That's done me good, I think," she said. "What a fool
you must think me. But I've had a cruel time lately, and I
don't feel like my regular self at all. So you've burned them
papers. Perhaps it's as well. I came to make you give them
back. But since you say they're burned there's an end of
it. I thought to have brought him back with them, though
he pretends what I've done won't prevent anything. I have
been mad like ever since I saw him, and his words and his
laugh when he left me have been in my ears night and day."

"You have seen him again — ^was he terribly angry?" asked
Fargus,

"Angry ! Oh, that he was, but you would not have thought
it to see him. He was as cool and quiet as ever, smiling
most of the time. It was the next day after I'd been to you
that he came. Well, I was sitting by the window looking
out, when I saw a hansom come whisking round the square.
'Lord!' says I, 'whatever shall I do if that's Charlie?' Sure
enough, as it came along, there he sat, as pale as death. He
looked up at me as he jumped out in a black sort of way.
So then he comes in, without a word, and walks up to me,
and putting his hand under my chin, looks hard into my eyes.
*It is you,' he says, and he b^ns to walk the room, looking
nasty and damning under his mustache, I answered him
back, as bold as you please. 'Yes, I know what you mean ; I
might pretend innocent, but I won't. You thought that you
could make use of me and amuse yourself with me and drop

198 The Lone Grange Has Visitors.

me, just as the fancy took you; but I'm not so dense that I
can't see clear through your little business. Master Charlie,'
says I. 'Can you, indeed?' says he with a sort of a snarl,
stopping before me. 'Well, since you've been so very clever
about my affairs, tell me how you've done it, and why.'
'Nothing incomprehensible at all about it,' says I. *I don't
want you to grow so rich that I'm no longer good enough
for you. I found out your game, and you gave me the chance
to prevent it, and I took it.' He seemed staggered at that,
and he looked at me with a funny look from head to foot.
And as he looked the anger seemed to go out of his eyes, and
there came into them a cold, nasty, hard kind of stare. Then
he began to whistle to himself, soft and low, and I had to
sit down, for my legs were shaking under me. I knew it was
all up somehow, but the look of him made me feel like death."

"And then?" said Fargus, as she paused, closing her eyes
and apparently absorbed in the unpleasant memory. "Did he
succeed in making you confess all that happened ?"

"I told him of myself. I told him all I'd done. I wanted
him to know the sort of woman he'd made a fool of, thinking
he could pension her off in the end. But he lay on the sofa,
quite calm and collected. He would smile, now and again,
to himself. But when I came to mentioning you he pricked
up his ears and listened eagerly enough. 'I know the man,'
he says ; 'I know him well ; so he took the papers, did he ? So
that's the game, is it?' says he, and gets up and begins to
tramp about again. Then he goes back to his sofa and asks
me many questions about you — every word you said, and how
you looked, and where you put the papers when I gave them
to you, and he seemed quite pleased like after a bit. But I
thought I'd die if he left me like that. I flung my arms
round him and begged and prayed him to forgive me, and
only not to leave me. He stood quite still — never raised a
finger to push me off — Charlie is always the gentleman; but
my arms fell off of themselves — I might as well have been
hugging a block of ice. 'What's the matter with you?' he
asks. 'Haven't you got it all your own way?' *0h, Charlie,'
says I. 'Have you no pity for me, that loved you all these
years — ^will you go to that other girl, after all?' 'Why, how
can I?' says he, laughing; 'don't I say you've been too clever
for me? Haven't you given away the papers, and ain't I
helpless without them ?' And then he walks out of the room,
still laughing to himself, runs down-stairs, and I hear the
front door bang. I knew he never meant to come back.
And I began to think, 'He's that clever, may be he'll get
round the old gentleman'; and then I thought, 'If I get the
papers first, I'll win him back.'

The Lone Grange Has Visitors. 199

"So I looked out your station, arrived last night, and here
I am. I've been beforehand with Charlie, anyhow, haven't
1?"

"He has certainly not come to me," said Fargus. "But I
have no doubt he will come to make the same request and to
receive the same answer."

"I couldn't rest, you see," she said wearily. "May be,
thought I, he's making love to that girl on the sly; may be
I've not kept him out of his big fortune, and if he makes
love to her how could she help herself? — she'll marry him
without. I was determined," and, as she spoke, her face
took that look of strange decision that Fargus knew already,
"I was determined that if I found out there was talk of mar-
riage I would go to the girl myself; for all his sharpness, he
never seemed to think of how I've got him in my power there.
But I've seen her," she added, more pensively, "and I own
I'd rather not to have to do it."

"You've already seen Miss Woldham!" ejaculated Fargus.

"Oh, not to speak to, only as she went by; course I knew
her, since I know myself. I'd have a funny story to tell her,
and it would come hard on her, if she loved Charlie. But
he's mine, and she shan't have him."

"Do not excite yourself," said Fargus. "There is no ques-
tion of marriage between Miss Woldham and any one at
present. If there were, the man would not be Mr. Hillyard."

"Think not ? You don't know Charlie, I suspect ; once he's
set on a thing, he's a devil to get it. If you could have
seen how he got round me when father wanted me to come
back — ^poor father! Tell you what, old gentleman, you said
you'd do me a good turn if you could, and now I'll claim it.
You're settled down here for a bit, aren't you ? Well, if you
find out that this man, who belongs to me, is making up to
the other girl, you'll just let me know, and I'll just hop
down and spoil the little game! Will you do that for me?"

She rose and stood impatiently over him. Fargus delayed
his reply.

" 'Tisn't so much to ask, I'm sure," she urged at length in
injured tones, plumping sulkily back into her chair.

"Come, come," answered Fargus, smiling, "I have really no
business to promise such a thing. Nevertheless, I think I may
promise that if such an unlikely event should come to pass
I will immediately inform you of it, on the condition that
you promise to come to me first."

"So that you may be sure to have your finger in the pie !
Well, that's pretty good for one that doesn't like to in-
terfere!" cried Hilda. "My! but you're a queer gentleman!"

200 The Lone Orange Has Visitors.

"I confess you seem to have me there," returned Fargus.
"Anyhow, I hold to my point; it is for you to decide now."

The girl's spirits Lad risen visibly.

"Oh! I don't mind a bit," she responded. "I've not the
slightest objection to come to see you first if I do not have to
come here again. She lives close to you, doesn't she, and you
know her well?"

"She lives a couple of miles away, and I know her very
well."

"Seems nice, sweet-tempered, I must say," Miss Wren pro-
ceeded. "I put up, you know, at that little pot-house near
the station — Gilham Arms, they call it. Oh, never fear, I
was all veiled up, for I didn't want to have people taking me
for the other girl. So I've been precious careful that none
but an idiot of a servant should see me without my veil on.
I did want to have a peep at the Woldham girl, and, as good
luck would have it, as I sat by the window just after tea
last evening, there comes a big dog-cart rumbling down the
street, a fine old gentleman, very stiff, with white hair, driv-
ing of it, and all the people touching their hats to him. He
gets out at the station wonderful quick for such an old fel-
low, when down the steps I sees her come running to meet
him. No mistake about her, either. Black hat, gray gown
and all. I knew her in a moment. Kind of thing that
makes you feel queerish, you know, to see your portrait run-
ning about. Well, she hugged the old gentleman — he's her
father, I take it — and he hugged her back; seems as if they
were desperate fond of each other. Then they both toddled
up into the dog-cart, and he gives her the reins and off they
whisk. A fine-looking pouple, though of course it wouldn't
become me to go into fits over her good looks, would it ? Isn't
it strange, now, to think of her, not a bit different from me,
except that she was born a lady-baby, going off so happy like
to her grand home, and with Charlie ready to kiss the dust
off her shoes; and me, thrown aside, looked down upon,
having to scheme and fight for my rights, and not a roof to
shelter me if I can't keep Charlie ? That father of hers seems
reglilar set on her; so was my father on me, once, and as
proud of me, though you wouldn't think it if you knew him
now. My father is short and fat, though," she added medi-
tatively, "and had a jolly red face — it was my mother had
the looks."

Fargus could not help smiling at the naivete of the last
phase, but during the preceding narrative he had glanced at
the clock more than once with some consternation. It was
close on noon, and he had much before him. That letter to
prepare him for the strange news had to be written and sent

The Lone Grange Has Visitors. 201

as soon as possible. But his garrulous visitor, lolling com-
fortably back in her chair, did not seem to have the faintest
idea of moving.

"My dear young lady," he said at length, "it is getting late ;
I must point out that, glad as I am to have seen you, and
much as I appreciate the value of the news you have brought
me, it would be exceedingly awkward for both of us to be
discovered tete-a-tete in this manner, and I cannot guarantee
myself from chance visitors."

Hilda's lip curled with a smile of much amusement.

"Lor', an old fellow like you!" she ejaculated with a giggle.

"Supposing Mr. Hillyard should come."

The girl sprang up to her feet in blank dismay.

"Mercy on us!" she shrieked, "it's as much as my whole
life is worth to meet him here ! He'd never forgive me if he
thought I was playing him false again. Tell you what, you'll
have to hide me till it's dark."

"My dear Miss Wren, that's impossible."

There was a tinge of exasperation in Fargus' voice.

"You must, for I won't go. I'll stop in the pantry, in the
box-room, anywhere you like." She stamped her foot.
"Heaven knows he may be on the road already! I mean
what I say; I won't go till I know it's safe. You'll have
to keep me, I say. It isn't much to ask you, but it is life
or death to me."

Fargus ran his hand through his hair with a despairing
gesture. He knew enough of Miss Wren already to realize
that he might as well hope to influence a stone by argument
or threats, as to turn her from her purpose. He was himself
anxious that Charles Hillyard should not discover this visit,
and from Lewis' letter his appearance that day was not an
unlikely contingency.

After a minute devoted to reflection, he took up a railway
time-table, which he studied critically, and then:

"Listen," he said, looking up. "I am willing you should re-
main here till nightfall, since there seems, indeed, nothing else
to be done. There is a room yonder, prepared for an expected
guest; you can take possession of it, and I promise you will
be undisturbed there. When it is dark my servant will drive
you into Norton in time for the eight o'clock train up. At
any rate, this is the best I can do for you."

Hilda was beaming once more.

"That'll do, capital!" she cried. "I always thought you
were a rattling good sort," and, gathering up her scattered
belongings, she followed her host into the pretty wainscoted
chamber leading out of the study, already decked and pre-
pared for Lewis' advent.

202 The Lone Grange Has Visitors.

Having seen her installed in a deep arm-ctair, out of range
of the window, where tall hollyhocks nodded in between screens
of reddening creepers, Fargus provided her with a book or
two and some papers, and left her to her own devices, prom-
ising, furthermore, to supply her with food when the time
came.

Once more back in his sitting-room, he sat down to indite a
telegram to Lewis, which, copied at last, ran thus:

"Eeceived your letter and fully understand your point of
view ; nevertheless, be of good heart. I have unexpected news
for you which will completely satisfy your scruples. Letter
follows to-night. Fargus."

This done, he rang the bell and, musing, waited for the
servant's appearance.

"Turner, I want you to have your dinner early and to go
to Norton as soon as possible afterward to send this telegram.
Be careful that it is absolutely correct."

"Yes, sir."

"You will be back in time to catch the eight-five train for
town to-night. I shall want you to drive in the lady who
came this morning. You can lay out cold lunch for me be-
fore you go."

"Yes, sir."

The invaluable factotum, whatever may have been his pri-
vate reflections, withdrew without moving a muscle of his
face. But Fargus knew he could trust him, and was, more-
over, conscious of having created a reciprocal feeling in the
man's mind.

When the door had closed behind the dignified figure, Far-
gus once more fell to measuring the room with slow tread,
after his fashion when especially absorbed in thought.

After a while he drew forth Lewis' letter, which he care-
fully re-read and finally destroyed with minute care. Then
he sat down to his writing table, opened his desk for some
fooolscap paper and began to write.

Though the shaft of light which struck, slanting and gold-
en, through the low window, had already traveled along a
considerable arc on the brick floor before he laid down his pen,
sighing and stretching himself after the long constraint, his
task was little more than half completed. He carefully
locked the sheets he had just written in his traveling-desk,
and hurried to the dining-room to repair his neglect of hos-
pitable duties. Presently, with a well-stocked tray, he stood
outside Hilda's door and knocked several times in vain.

At length she bade him come in, and, as he entei>ed, raised

The Lone Grange Has Visitors. 205

a flushed and smiling face from the soft-cushioned back of
the arm-chair.

"I do believe I've been asleep," she said, rubbing her eyes
like a child; "I was that tired I never slept a wink last
night."

"It will do you good," responded Fargus kindly, and placed
the tray upon the table. "I had f orgottten all about you, and
I was quite afraid you would think I meant to starve you."

"Well, I couldn't think so now, anyhow," said the girl.
"My ! what a lot of nice things you've brought me ! Ah ! I do
love the country taste of things. Thank you for your trouble.
I'm happier than I've been this long time: I feel I could
enjoy my food now as I haven't enjoyed a bit since Charlie
left. I think he can't but come back to rae in the end,
especially when he finds he can't have the other."

"Indeed, I trust you will have your wish," replied Fargus,
unwilling to damp her renewed cheerfulness, and marveling
at her wonderful buoyancy of temperament. "And now I
shall not disturb you again till evening ; you would like some
tea before you go, no doubt."

She nodded brightly and gratefully over her glass, and he
withdrew to snatch a hasty meal before returning to finish the
interrupted task. This at last accomplished, he critically
perused the lengthy document, folded it and inserted it in a
stout legal envelope, which he next proceeded to direct, and
finally to seal with a signet ring.

Then, lying back in his chair, and gazing at the envelope
before him, he heaved a deep sigh.

"Done, once for all, thank God," he murmured low to him-
self. "Now is the mischief at last repaired — the treacherous
black and white so carelessly cast about in the old days, to be
afterward so cleverly collected, is now replaced by other 'writ-
ten words that remain,' and that will prove to my boy what
he feared never could now be proved. And now Lewis' name,
honor, fortune, even his happiness in love, please God, is se-
cure. Better perhaps it were if Fargus died, for then this ac-
cession would not include an imdesirable parent. But, oh, my
son! my dear boy! how I long to see with living eyes the
shadow of pain at length cleared from your brave young face.
I could hardly have had the courage to tell you my shabby
story with my own lips, I fear. This you will read alone" —
and Fargus wistfully fingered the envelope — "and thus shall
I be spared your first and natural anger. And afterward, per-
haps, if the ardent desire of your heart and mine is accom-
plished; when Maude is your wife, and you "have a child of
your own to love; then, perhaps, you will come to think less
harshly of the father who sinned against you so terribly — and

204 The " Slip," or " Hangman's " Knot.

he may see his dream come to pass, of spending some of his
old age as your friend under the shelter of your blessed home
at last."

Fargus fell to considering the terms of the letter to be dis-
patched to Lewis that night, and the subsequent course of
events. He would summon Lewis to him at once ; then, after
breaking the seal of silence that had held his past for five-and-
twenty years, after removing his son's doubts as to his parent-
age, he would advise him to take immediate possession of his
estate. Of course, he would obtain from the young man, be-
fore the veil was lifted, a promise upon his honor to respect
the secret. He would counsel him also to wait a while before
again putting his fate to the crucial test with Maude; for
Hilda's words that morning remained dimly haunting him:
"You little know Charlie, once he is set on a thing." What if
this were the true explanation of the mystery he had sought
to solve by the theory of secret and premature slander ? The
more he thought of it, the more plausible it seemed, and he
marveled that such simple explanation should not have sug-
gested itself sooner to him. Charlie Hillyard, clever beyond
the ordinary run of men, with his fine air of natural distinc-
tion, his delicately satirical manner, his high-bred refinement,
a man of learning — ^was he not just the being to compel almost
any girl to answering passion? Could Lewis but be per-
suaded to wait, time would soon prove to Maude that Charles
Hillyard was not coming forward to take her as his wife : of
that he could trust a betrayed and revengeful woman to take
good care. And then would not Maude's heart again turn to
the faithful lover she must naturally meet so often and learn
to appreciate — and then there would be happiness, life-long
happiness, for both !

At that moment a shadow fell across the bright window;
Fargus looked up, and saw, with a start, Charles Hillyard,
who stood looking in upon him with hard, inimical eyes.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE "slip," or "hANOMAnV KNOT.

For a moment Fargus remained gazing at the startling ap-
parition; but when it opened its lips to speak in mocking
tones, he smiled at his own amazement.

"Good-afternoon, Colonel Fargus; you seem immersed in
very deep thought. Excuse this irregular way of presenting
myself."

The " Slip," or " Hangman's " Knot. 205

"Oh, so you have come!" responded Fargus, qiiietly. *1
was expecting a visit from you. Pray, come in."

"Thanks. I will come in this way," and the speaker, with-
out waiting for reply, swung one long leg after the other
across the window-sill, where he remained sitting for a mo-
ment, while Fargus, motionless in his chair, awaited his pleas-
ure. "You have fixed upon a lonely spot here. Colonel," pur-
sued the young man at length, as if this were the outcome of
his reflections. "How easy it is to walk in upon you! Are
you not afraid of tramps or burglars ?"

Fargus smiled, and drew out of the drawer of his writing-
table a long American navy revolver of plain and peculiarly
business-like appearance, which he laid down beside him and
patted with a significant gesture.

"With this in my hand," said he, "I hold the lives, or any
particular limb I may select for destruction, of six men at my
pleasure."

Charles Hillyard shot a look of keen scrutiny at the calm,
bearded face still turned smilingly toward him, then dropped
his eyes with a sudden frown.

"Will you not take a chair ?" The conventional handshake
had not been proffered on either side. "And do you not think
you will find your hat rather warm in the room ?"

Charles rose from the sill to fling himsef into an arm-chair
opposite the American. Silence followed, during which Far-
gus noticed his nephew's keen, observant glance become riveted
on the long envelope which lay, its bold, clear direction upper-
most, on the blotter before him. Without ostentation he took
it up in his hand for a moment, then, quietly drawing the desk
nearer, placed the letter in one of the inner compartments,
and finally locked the receptacle with a key attached to his
watch-chain. This accomplished, he turned toward his guest,
to find him still intent, but smiling curiously.

"It is lucky I found you in," began Mr. Hillyard, "for I
have come all the way from London to see you."

"Have you, indeed?" answered Fargus, with a gentle tone
of irony. "I am sure I ought to feel greatly favored."

Mr Hillyard laughed shortly.

"As to that, I come to you because it suits n:iy interest. I
hope we may be undisturbed."

"I expect no visitors. Greneral Woldham is the only one of
my neighbors who knows of my return; and he has gone to
York till to-morrow. We are sure to be left quite by our-
selves."

"Glad to hear it," said Charles, who, however, relapsed once
more into abstraction. Then all at once he sat up and clasp-
ing his hands round his knee, looked straight and hard at

2o6 The " Slip," or " Hangman's " Knot.

Fargus. "Do you know. Colonel Fargus," he propounded,
with marked deliberation, "that this notion of yours of com-
ing to settle down in a solitary house four times too large for
you, ostensibly for the sake of those wide acres of shooting
you never shot over "

"I beg your pardon," interrupted the host, who seemed to
listen with amusement, "as a strict matter of fact, I have shot
over some of them, and that only yesterday."

"Pshaw !" cried his nephew, waiving the interruption aside,
"which you do not shoot over, I say ; which you even leave at
the very time when the only game the place can boast of is
coming into season. No doubt you went to pursue your real
game on the Continent" — with a scornful laugh — "but for
people who are not in your confidence, this sudden disappear-
ance of yours, to return in the equivocal position of tutelary
famulus to the claimant of a neighboring estate, is open to
some adverse comment."

"My dear Mr. Hillyard," said Fargus with great calm, "I
am not so conceited as to think that any of my movements are
likely to excite interest among people they cannot possibly
concern; if they were to do so I would not care, nor, with
greater reason, should you. I suppose, when you talk of what
people think, you allude to your own feelings in the matter."

"You evade the question, and evasion is tantamount to ad-
mission. You admit, I say," said Charles, "that your erratic
behavior, your very presence here, is suspicious ?"

"I admire the rapidity of your deductive reasoning, but I do
not indorse your conclusion. I admit nothing ; I evade noth-
ing. There is nothing in my coming here or going some-
where else, my shooting or not shooting, my making friends
with a singularly pleasant and clever young man, and, in con-
sequence, wishing to stand by him at a moment when he has
need of a friend — nothing, I say that cannot be explained, in
the most obvious and simple manner in two words — individual
taste."

The veins on Charles Hillyard's broad forehead swelled with
a sudden flushing of his cold face.

"I certainly have not come to have a skirmish of empty
words with you. Colonel Fargus, the last time we met you
showed yoiu-self my enemy."

"No, no, my dear sir," interposed Fargus; "enemy is the
wrong word ; indeed, I wish you well. Say adversary."

"Adversary be it ; what does it matter ? I have come to play
an open game with you, sir "

"That you will always find to your advantage," interrupted
Fargus. "Had you not played in the dark so much heretofore
you might not have lost the trick."

The " Slip,*' or " Hangman»s " Knot. 207

"Pray let me speak," cried Charles, angrily. "I am here,
Colonel Fargus, in consequence of that covert hint of yours,
to come to some agreement advantageous to us both."

"A covert hint of mine ? Please explain."

"What an actor you are !" exclaimed the young man, with
undisguised insolence. "You are right to be cautious on prin-
ciple, but surely this is a rather unnecessary assumption of in-
nocence. It forces me to be all the plainer with you. You,
Colonel Fargus, have come down here on the chance of mak-
ing a good thing out of a contested inheritance, aiding and
abetting the unrightful claimant. Oh, I have followed you
step by step since you swooped down into this part of the
world ; I have pieced the whole plot together. When you first
arrived on the scene, it is true, you puzzled me considerably.
Your appearance at the Lone Grange was very nicely timed, it
must be owned. How you managed to collate so much before-
hand of Lewis' history I cannot pretend to discover — but it
little matters. Whether you are the real Fargus or not is like-
wise immaterial. It quite suffices that you did find out all
you required concerning the supposed next heir during the
time you spent here before the squire's death. After that
event, which coincides neatly with Lewis' return from India,
you start off to Homburg. Without loss of time you got
round him completely, and one way or another have persuaded
him to think and act exactly as it suits your purpose. By the
same extraordinary luck which throughout has attended your
clever schemes, the master key to the situation has actually
been placed in your hands by one careless act of mine. Mark
you. Colonel Fargus, I do not accuse Lewis of conspiring with
you to this fraud. You are willing to wait; you keep these
proofs of my rights and his inability from him; you bide your
time, and back this pitiful dupe of yours with any amount of
fair words now. But when once he has entered into posses-
sion, when he has married perhaps, on the strength of it, and
spent money as fast as most young men do on such occasions,
then will be your opportunity. Then, indeed, will your hold on
the situation prove, if cleverly utilized, a very mine of wealth
to you; then, you think, will Lewis be willing to barter con-
science for the sake of position, and wife, and chidren per-
haps ; and then will those papers be as valuable an investment
as can be imagined. Poor simpleton Lewis, he little knows
what a fate it is I would try to save him from !"

"Upon my word," said Fargus, who had listened courteous
and unruffled as ever, "you have made a very ingenious story
of it all, and I am glad to hear you are at least willing to
credit your cousin with common honesty at present, though

2o8 The " Slip," or " Hangman's » Knot.

you seem inclined to refuse it to him in the future you have
sketched out for him. But you have more to say, no doubt ?"

"Ah," muttered Charles, "I thought we should come to busi-
ness ! Yes, I have still to touch upon the point which alone
interests you. Well, sir, in plain words, what are your hopes
worth? What are you willing to sell your chance of future
hush-money for ?"

"Really," said Fargus, an undefinable smile on his face, "I
hardly know which to admire most in you — ^your delightful
frankness in communicating your thoughts or your skillful
reticence in concealing them. You were flattering enough to
say, when last we met, that I should have made a good ad-
vocate; let me return the compliment now, and regret, from
the aesthetic point of view, that your talents should have been
lost to diplomacy."

For a moment, blackly and in silence, he scanned his com-
panion's face, then said :

"You think. Colonel Fargus, that this woman's treachery
has left me powerless. You are wrong; I am determined to
get my own. Although these documents would facilitate mat-
ters for me, they are not indispensable. Now listen again;
give them up to me. I know you have got them — I even saw
you put them in your desk just now, or I am much mistaken.
Give them up to me, and I am willing in exchange to bind
myself to pay you right well for them when I come into the
estate. I will bind myself thereto by deed beforehand, if you
like. The property will bear a strain, and I am prepared to
make a sacrifice; anything in reason you ask shall be forth-
coming."

"Is it not curious," said Fargus, "that if these papers are
tiot necessary to your designs, you should be willing to go to
such lengths to get them back ?"

Charles now fairly gnashed his teeth.

"Yes or no ?" he exclaimed, fiercely, coming up close to Fer-
gus, and standing over him menacingly.

"No," cried the latter in a loud voice, rising in his turn and
confronting his nephew with commanding eyes . "Mr. Hill-
yard, clever as you are, you have mistaken your man this
time!"

There was a dead silence. Charles tried to fight his adver-
sary's glance with defiant eyes, only to turn away at last and
fall to perambulating the room, unable to remain still any
longer under the pulse of his angry blood.

Fargus strolled to the window, and for a while looked out
with rapidly recovering placidity, then came back to his writ-
ing-table, and, sitting on the edge of it in a careless attitude,
fell to filling a pipe; and to give him the necessary opportuni-

The " Slip," or " Hangman's " Knot. 209

ty to cool down, bestowing no more attention for tlie present
on his nephew, who continued his walk to and fro behind him.

Presently the fitful footsteps on the brick floor ceased, and,
with a sudden sense of caution, though he had no explicable
reason for alarm, the American dropped his hand on the re-
volver, which still reposed on the table by his side. But his
caution was too late; there was not the danger. Suddenly,
with a rude slash, a bight of cord fell about his shoulders, and,
with lightning speed, two feverish hands bore it down and
tightened it mercilessly over his elbows.

"My last resort, Colonel," said a panting whisper in his ear,
while Charles' white face bent over him, and the same ruth-
lessly determined hands wound the fall of the rope round his
throat, and, directed by well thought-out premeditation, se-
cured the end to the prisoner's wrists, which were now fiercely
pulled together, careless of possible dislocation.

"Sorry for you," said Charles, rapidly securing the last
knot. "But you must be still, or you will strangle yourself."

The whole onslaught was carried on with such nervous,
savage vigor, and had taken him so completely unawares,
that, despite superior physical strength, Fargus found him-
self overpowered, helplessly bound, and at his nephew's
mercy, without having been able to make even a show of
resistance.

"You cowardly dog !" he cried, indignantly. Struggling to
his feet, he threw all of his power into one effort to release
himself, the only result of which, however, was to produce an
ominous foretaste of the strangulation he had just been
warned against, and a conviction that the cord, far from yield-
ing, would cut him to the bone.

"I don't know," said Charles, who had confidently watched
the experiment, and now came round in front of his prisoner
and examined him with a pale smile that had something al-
most fiendish in its calm satisfaction. "I don't know whether
you are acquainted with the peculiarity of the slip, or hang-
man's knot; such a knot now secures your elbows, and you
have an opportunity to recognize its absolute steadfastness."

Fargus sat down again without answering, and waited for
his assailant's next move. Mr. Hillyard drew from his pocket
a silk handkerchief, which he proceeded to fold with slow de-
liberation.

"I wish," he remarked, "to use as little violence as possible ;
but lest you should take it into your head to call for assist-
ance, I shall have to gag you, and when I have got out the
papers I want "

"Pray don't do that," interrupted Fargus, who now once
more compelled Charles' secret admiration by his control

2IO The "Slip," or "Hangman's" Knot.

over emotion. "Since that wound to my face, I find it some-
what difficult to breathe freely through the nostrils alone. I
acknowledge myself vanquished. If I were to call, there is no
one about who could help me; but I will give you my word not
to do so. You are master of the situation."

Charles hesitated, but ultimately replaced the handkerchief
in his pocket.

"It is true," said he, coolly; "your servant has gone to
Norton. I saw him on the road. You might scream forever
before any one could hear you from the kitchen. You see.
Colonel, I did not expect to find you so difficult to convince.
But I knew you had those papers — that they must be in the
house, and that if I had to search it through and through I
should find them in the end.

"I have," said Fargus, "given you my word. Now let me
tell you that the documents you look for are not here, nor, in-
deed, any longer in existence."

Charles gazed at the elder man as if uncertain whether such
a plea could be made in sober earnest.

"The key of your desk is, I believe, on your watch-chain.
Allow me to detach it."

The blood mounted to Fargus' face as the young man's fair
head bent over his breast and the unscrupulous fingers neatly
detached the small ring of keys. Yet anger was quickly
merged in the consternation of realizing that disloyal eyes
were going, from the very outset, to pry into that secret he
was so earnest to keep from all except his son.

"You are disgracing your name," he said, as his nephew now
quietly turned to the writing-table and inserted the key into
the lock of the desk ; "and what is, no doubt, more to you, you
are playing the fool. You will find there none but private
papers, which you have no right to lay a finger on."

Charles looked round, while he raised the lid of the desk
with one hand.

"You seem strangely anxious to keep me from this desk, if it
contains nothing of importance to me."

He stooped over the open box, searched for and drew out the
long envelope. "Aha ! what of this ? This bold address," tak-
ing a step toward the bound man, and looking down on him
with mocking eyes, "I had seen already, as the letter lay on
your table, and it struck me that you must be a very method-
ical person to load your piece so long before you mean to fire
it off. It was written too minutely for me to make out at
such a distance, but what does it say ? 'In the matter of the
Estate of GiUiam.' You appear somewhat upset. It would
have been better, would it not now, to have closed with my
offer at once? You did not know your man. Now I will tell

The "Slip," or "Hangman's" Knot. 211

you, just to show who is the fool this time, that I was ready
to give you well-nigh a third of my coming f ortiine — it is now
once more practically mine, you see," shaking the packet be-
fore the prisoner's eyes, "for my chances were uncommonly
poor without this."

Fargus remained silent. Mr. Hillyard, with a smile of in-
solent triumph, placed the papers in his breast-pocket, closed
the desk, and laid the key on the lid.

"Now, Colonel Fargus," he said, "I believe we are quits. I
regret to have to tear myself away, but I think I had better
cut across the moor, whence I can take train for London. I
hope your servant may return to release you. As for me, no
one has seen me here or hereabouts but you. Good-after-
noon !"

"One moment!" cried Fargus. "A few minutes more or
less can make little difference to you," pursued the latter in
the same manner. "You have rendered me perfectly helpless,
and you know my servant could not possibly be back from the
town yet. Do you not think it might be advisable to examine
that packet before you carry it away with you ?"

A darkening shadow came over the visitor's triumphant
face. Sitting down on the sill, he pulled out the parcel in
question. As he did so the seal for the first time attracted
his attention. He looked at it closely.

"The Kerrs' talbots! How on earth Oh, that nin-
compoop Lewis again, of course !" and tore open the envelope
with impatient hand.

For the moment he seemed actually stunned.

"You see," put in Fargus, "that what I said was true ; these
matters do not concern you. You would do better to believe
me when I tell you that I have too sincere a regard for Lewis,
too deep a conviction of his rights, not to have destroyed all
the circumstantial evidence you had collected, at once, when
I had the chance."

Charles turned a murderous look upon the si)eaker, but re-
sumed his examination without replying.

"And now," continued Fargus, "perhaps you will be good
enough to restore these private writings of mine into the en-
velope and replace them in the desk.

"No, by !" answered the nephew, hoarsely. "I don't

forget how obviously anxious you were to keep me from it.
-A-s, by your own handwriting, it concerns Gilham, it must
concern me."

"Do so, then, but never presume again to call yourself gen-
tleman," exclaimed Fargus. "The perusal of other people's
letters is evidently a favorite practice of yours. God indeed

«ia The Circle Narrows.

was merciful in that he spared your mother the knowledge of
you as you are !"

Coming" over to the table, he once more spread the written
sheets out before him, and began to glance through them with
cynical deliberation.

Matters were past remedy, and Fargus waited for what
should follow.

There was not long to wait. Charles Hillyard had barely
turned over the first sheet when he gave vent to a prolonged
whistle.

"Indeed ! So that is your game, Colonel Fargus. No won-
der my modest offer did not tempt you, when you aim at
nothing less than the whole pile. So it is to be a venerable
dodge of personation after all. And who is to oust you if your
son — the heir but for you — chooses to acknowledge his parent
resuscitated from over the seas, to share in his good luck ? It
is a clever scheme, Colonel, upon my word !"

During the course of this insulting summing-up of his be-
havior Fargus had grown quite calm again.

"I neither expect you to believe, nor care whether you do or
not, that I am George Kerr. If, however, you read further
in the papers that you have now violated, you will see that
my sole object in disclosing the secret of my past to my son
is to remove any lurking doubt he may have as to his birth-
right, and if I choose to give him what belongs to me, there
is no law of God or man to forbid me.

"If you choose to go on with it now, you will see that I de-
cline to touch a penny of my son's money, and charge Lewis
most solemnly to keep the secret from every one."

"You are really exceedingly entertaining!" broke in
Charles. "I daresay you think, too, that you will be able to
carry through this gigantic fraud of yours without further
opposition. I fancy I may have some disagreeable little sur-
prise in store for you there. Let me see ; I am quite anxious
to find out first how you work your case out."

CHAPTER XXn.

THE CIRCLE NARROWS.

Once more there was silence, while Charles now method-
ically perused the close writing. Fargus rose from his chair,
wearied by his strained position and galled by his bonds, and
began to walk to and fro with heavy tread.

At length Charles slowly freed him, not to speak, but to
favor him with another prolonged scrutiny. He had absently

The Circle Narrows. ai3

taken up the pistol that lay at his elbow on the table, and, as
though unconscious of the act, was weighing and balancing it
in his hand. The young man's handsome face bore again a
different expression, and in it Fargus thought he discovered
now a sullen, despairing consciousness of defeat.

But in reality the disappointed man was still too firmly per-
suaded that the hateful interloper was an adventurer of the
worst description to assign any but the lowest motives to his
conduct.

He was roused from his darkling speculations by his com-
panion, who, installing himself as comfortably as his fetters
would allow on a corner of the broad table, thus addressed
him:

"You are beaten, my dear nephew. And now let me speak
to the practical man, and suggest that it might be more ad-
vantageous to have me as a friend than as an enemy."

Here Charles' gathering rage broke loose, all the more
virulent for being an unfamiliar emotion with him.

"Stop a moment. Colonel Fargus!" he exclaimed, with a
furious gesture of the hand that toyed with the pistol; "all
this paternal drivel may have hoodwinked that simpleton
Lewis, but I am not allured so smoothly, I can tell you in

two words what you are, and what, by ! I mean to

bring home to you ; a swindler, a clever swindler, sir. Deter-
mined to sneak yourself into the property you somehow or
other got wind of, and too clever — I misjudged you there — to
openly blazon your insolent and ridiculous impersonation of
the late George Kerr to the world at large, you thought you
would at least supply the required paternity to the unrightful
heir. Once established as his father, you would never think
of dispossessing him — of course not; there would remain a
charming mystery between you two, a romantic situation ad-
mirably suited to that dolt's sentimental mania; one which,
properly farmed, would prove, however, a very pretty invest-
ment. But, mark me, Mr. Fargus, or Colonel Fargus, or who-
ever the devil you are, I will have none of it I"

"You impudent jackanapes!" interrupted Fargus, "you for-
get yourself!" A sharp wrench at his shoulder checked the
indignant movement with which he would have beaten aside
the menacing barrel, and reminded him forcibly of his helpless
position.

"It is you who forget yourself. Colonel Fargus! For the
moment, at least, I am master of the situation. Insolent, am
I? What if I were to chastise you for your insolence, your
cursed assumption of authority ?" He stopped a moment and
bent his head nearer, to peer into Fargus' face with eyes haK
closed, lowered brow and curling lip. "You forget we are

at4 ^^^ Circle Narrows.

here alone. What if I could not resist the temptation, which
has just seized me, to make sure ? Here is your pistol in my
hand; there are your letters telling a circumstantial tale, and
looking as though written for a testament. Its wild improba-
bility would be more readily believed from the dead than
from the living. Colonel Fargus, so it is likely I should have
to make some judicious cuttings there, you know. . . .
What, I say, if when your servant returns he should find you
stretched there with a bullet in your head and your hand still
clutching the weapon that sped it? You are a man of mys-
terious habits, whom no one here knows anything about;
what more plausible than a suicide, eh. Colonel ?"

Fargus, in his helplessness, felt his blood run cold. A vis-
ion of descending death smote his strong heart with terror.

"What if the suicide were to be consummated now?"
Charles went on, once more taking aim with the revolver.

Fargus sprang up with a cry that rang loudly through the
room.

"Madman ! do you really mean murder ?"

The burst of mocking laughter which escaped Charles' lips
suddenly died upon them. A door swung violently open. A
look of fearful astonishment, then of returning rage, passed
over his pale face, as petrified into his menacing attitude, he
stared at the apparition.

"Maude . . . ? Hilda, you again !" An uncontrollable
spasm passed through his frame. He raised his hand and
shook it angrily at the intruder. There was a flash, a loud
explosion, a scream; Fargus felt the well-remembered pufF of
a bullet by his cheek, and turned round. With an exclama-
tion of dismay he saw Hilda Wren, her arm still extended
with a gesture at once forbidding and entreating, in the act
of falling forward. The bullet had dashed through her open,
deprecating palm, unflinchingly sped through the shoulder, to
end its straight course in the oaken doorcase behind her.

Fargus could not stop her fall; he looked back fiercely at
Charles, who stood as if petrified, still holding the smoking
pistol in his outstretched hand.

"Merciful God ! you have done murder, after all !"

But the young man seemed too completely dazed to under-
stand the meaning of the words; he turned his head away.
Fargus thought that he was meditating escape.

"Coward!" he thundered, "would you dare to nin away?"

This time the accusation stung Charles. Answering only
with a dark look of anger, he threw the pistol from him and
crossed hastily over to where Hilda lay, her dark head pil-
lowed on the uninjured arm, the other still rigidly out-
stretched. He dropped on one knee and stooped to raise her.

The Circle Narrows. 215

but the sight of her impassive face, ashen white against the
deep blood stains that spread with such suggestive rapidity
under the thin fabric of the summer dress, seemed to strike
him with a terrible apprehension.

"Good Lord, she looks like death !"

"It will be death if this bleeding be not stopped," exclaimed
Fargus. "Take that clasp knife on the table and cut me out
of these ingenious bonds of yours, unless you mean to murder
the poor girl in deliberate earnest! Pull yourself together,
man ! Ah, at last ! Now, in that room to the right you will
find water, towels, sponges — ^bring me a sheet off the bed, too;
I must have something to make bandages of. Hurry, man,
hurry!"

Fargus, the moment he found himself unpinioned, had lift-
ed the heavy, inert form onto the broad settee, slipped a big
book from the table under the helpless head, and now, with-
out a moment's hesitation, set to work with skillful touch to
cut the sopping clothes from the bleeding arm and shoulder.
As the white, firm-skinned flesh was laid bare before him, it
was with a sense of relief he noticed that the direction the
bullet haa taken was one which rendered the hurt, if the
hemorrhage was only got under, not otherwise serious.

An extemporized tampon to the shoulder and a tourniquet
to the armpit, hastily fabricated from strips of torn sheets and
a stout silver pencil-case, sufiiced for the moment to meet the
principal danger — the welling bursts of bright red blood which
drained away, with each slow heart-beat, a portion of that un-
conscious life.

The two worked earnestly together, but, save for the few
laconic directions of Fargus, in complete silence.

At the American's suggestion they carried the still inani-
mate woman into the adjoining room, and laid her on the bed,
where, after some minutes, they succeeded in bringing back
consciousness.

Fargus, who, on the first flush of returning life, had laid a
gentle hand on her arm, lest some sudden movement should
undo all his handiwork, now bent over her and spoke with
soothing distinctness into her ear :

"Don't be afraid; it was an accident, but there is no
danger."

But, without heeding him, her circled, purple-lidded eyes
sought her lover's face with a gaze of wistful deprecation :

"Oh, my God !" murmured the quivering lips, *'Charlie, I
prevented you doing it. It was murder ! Oh, Charlie !"

The young man's look in answer was inscrutable. He
walked away, out of sight of the languid, blood-stained figure,
and stood by the open window.

2l6 The Circle Narrows,

The momentary bright flush upon Hilda's face faded again
into pallor ; with a shiver and a sigh she closed her eyes.

"Mr. Hillyard," said Fargus in his low, even voice, "shut
the window, please; Miss Wren is cold. Thank you. You
know your way about the house, I believe? Will you be so
kind as to go to the kitchen and tell the housekeeper to come
here?"

Returning the suspicious glance his nephew cast upon him,
before leaving the room, Fargus, when he had traced the re-
treating steps to a sufficient distance, turned once more to
his patient.

"Try not to give way to agitatioife" said he. "You are now
in no danger if you do nothing to bring on the bleeding again.
You saved my life to-day, for though that foolish fellow did
not mean murder, as you thought, that playing at it was a
dangerous thing, and, had it not been for your opportime ap-
pearance, my child, your lover would now be in an awkward
fix, I fancy. Hillyard vnll come to see things in their true
light by-and-by. You may live to look upon this day's work
as the best thing that could have happened both for you and
for him. You guess my meaning, I see; and you may be
sure I believe what I say. Short as has been our acquaint-
ance, I think we can trust each other. Here, drink a little
more of this brandy. Are you in great pain ?"

"Yes," answered Hilda faintly. "My hand is so cold, and
my shoulder burns like a coal."

"But you can bear it. You must pay the price of success,
you know."

She smiled gratefully back at his kindly face ; but he per-
emptorily interrupted the eager assurance that rose to her
lips.

"Here is Mrs. Sutton, my housekeeper ; she will sit with you
till the doctor makes his appearance, and Charles shall go for
him at once. I am convinced there is good to come out of
this business."

After a few brief orders to the old housekeeper, who cour-
tesied a trembling and bewildered acquiescence under the
stern eye that admitted of neither question nor outcry, Fargus
turned to leave the room in time to arrest Charlie on the
threshold.

"You must not go in again; you will only disturb her.
Come with me ; there is something which it is necessary should
be arranged between us now."

Chaxlie silently acquiesced, and the two men passed to-
gether into the sitting-room.

Pointing to the scattered fragments of his whilom bonds, he
remarked dryly to his companion :

The Circle Narrows. 317

"Your scientific slip-knot might well have meant an equally
artistic and secure noose for your own neck, Mr. Hillyard.
You would have found the theory of suicide somewhat difficult
to maintain, I fear, had that poor girl's interruption been but
one minute later — indeed, if that bullet had sped but one inch
more to the right, you would have had quite as difficult a task
to prove manslaughter only under such suspicious circum-
stances."

"Pray," asked Charles with a sneer, "is this the theme you
would confer with me upon?"

Fargus turned to answer hotly enough, but as his eyes fell
upon the young man a change came over his face.

"You are right," said he at length. "This is a time for
deeds, not words ; it is important that Miss Wren should have
proper surgical treatment as soon as possible — you will have
to go for the doctor at once."

Charles started with an expression of angry unwillingness-
Fargus continued unperturbed :

"It is, I see, an unwelcome task. My presence here is abso-
lutely indispensable, for were the bandages to get displaced,
the girl would simply bleed to death in a few minutes. You
cannot, therefore, in common humanity, refuse a service
whicn you alone can undertake. Come to the stables with me,
while I saddle a horse for you; we can there talk over that
matter which must be settled before you start."

Charles bowed his head after another rapid self -consulta-
tion.

"Do you know of a reliable surgeon?" asked the latter,
with his hand on the latch of the stable door.

"Only the doctor who usually attends at the court," an-
swered his nephew. "I shall have to hunt up some other fel-
low. Dr. Smith is such an old gossip, and " He stopped

abruptly under the indignation which blazed upon him from
the other man's eyes.

"You forget," he said, calmly enough, "that the case is one
which admits of no delay. Miss Wren is in great suffering;
her state is serious enough to demand the best care obtainable.
You will, therefore, go to Dr. Smith. What explanation do
you intend to give the doctor about this accident ?"

"I ?" cried Charles quickly. "What do you mean ? I shall
give none."

"Then, have you thought of what my explanation must be?"

The young man quailed under the steady gaze that never
quitted his face. "What do you intend to say, may I ask?"
he inquired.

"The truth."

Charles answered by a slight increase of pallor. Fargus left

3i8 The Circle Narrows.

the harness-room for the loose-box, where, amid the amber
straw, a slender-limbed, sleek-coated mare turned to look at
him with velvet eyes, pricking her dainty ears, and sniffing the
air with scarlet nostrils.

"Come," he resumed in less severe tones, "I am anxious to
save you as much as possible from the consequences of your
reckless proceedings to-day. Some scandal must inevitably
arise; I shall not be the one to spread it — it lies with you to
reduce it to a minimum."

"Explain yourself," said Charles, shortly.

"If it be published to the world at large," Fargus went on
quietly, as he fitted the snaffle, "that Mr. Hillyard, the rising
economist, the university don, the bearer of a hitherto so
honorable name, feloniously broke into one Mr. Fargus' house,
in order to steal some papers which he believed to be in Mr.
Fargus' custody — ^papers which the said Mr. Hillyard himself
has no right to claim, but with the aid of which he hoped to
dispossess his cousin, his friend, of an inheritance — if it were
published to the world that, to this end, he first assaulted
treacherously, then bound, and threatened to murder Mr. Far-
gus in cold blood — a consummation only prevented by the
timely interference of a young lady, Mr. Hillyard's mistress,
who, in despair at his desertion of her, had come to the Lone
Grange to seek news of him, and who, interrupting him at
this interesting juncture, was herself grievously wounded by
him — all this, methinks, would not redound much to Mr. Hill-
yard's reputation. Hush! Allow me to finish, pray! That
is what I should have to say, did you oblige me to it. I should
owe it to my own honor to clear my house from the smirch
of the scandal you have cast upon it ; and Miss Wren, who, no
doubt, overheard all that passed between us, would have to
bear witness to my veracity. But another course is open to
you. Let the world hear only that Mr. Hillyard, while pay-
ing a visit to this Mr. Fargus, with his wife, had the mis-
fortune to shoot the latter through the incautious handling
of a revolver. Amazement at your secret and unequal mar-
riage, gossip about it, there may be, but your good name will
be safe, and any one who has the good fortune to make
acquaintance with your wife will readily understand the
weakness."

"Still trying on the game of benevolent relation. Colonel, I
see. What a simple way of getting rid of the awkward conse-
quences attending the strange discovery of a fine young
woman, to all appearance comfortably established at the Lone
Grange on the most intimate terms with that grave and re-
served persoa, Colonel Fargus ! I grant you have concocted

The Circle Narrows. 219

a pretty likely plot ; but, after all, I am not quite so absolutely
in your power as you are pleased to suppose."

Fargus, one hand on the mare's bridle, had listened with
immovable intentness to this speech; and Charles, gaining
fresh confidence in himself from his silence, proceeded :

''What if the world at large should be told how a certain
Miss Wren — a young lady whose antecedents will not bear
close investigation — when discovered by Mr. Hillyard in-
stalled at the Lone Grange, with the most admirable self-
sacrifice rushed in between her quondam lover and her elderly
entertainer, to preserve the latter from the possibly unpleasant
results of the former's not unnatural jealousy, and is there-
upon most accidentally hurt in the scuffle ; how Colonel Far-
gus, in this dilemna, endeavors by threats to palm off the
aforesaid compromising young woman as the wife of a man
who had once been an admirer of hers, and who, in an attempt
to unravel a swindle, has still more foolishly given that ad-
venturer a hold upon him? Would that redound much to
Colonel Fargus' credit ?"

The elder man flvmg the bridle away from him with so
sharp a gesture that, with a snort, the startled animal plunged
backward. Then slowly he advanced toward Charles, his
figure seeming to dilate, as he came ; his eyes, stern and pierc-
ing, fixed upon his nephew as if they would search down into
the depths of his soul for his most secret thought; his face
crimson with a generous flow of anger. He laid one hand
upon the young man's shoulder. The latter almost staggered
under it, as if he felt it crush him toward the earth.

"Look at me," he said, "and dare to repeat that infamy —
infamy to her whose only fault has been love for you ! to me
for your own consciousness of its falseness !"

Then, as Charles could find no word to answer, Fargus went
on in a voice that, despite himself, thrilled his hearer :

"Not by one word will I answer what you know to be a lie.
Charles Hillyard, go your way ; I have done with you. You
can do me no harm nor all the evil tongues of the world.
Here, sir; the horse is ready; and remember — if the warning
carry any weight to such as you — ^that a life endangered by
you hangs on your promptitude."

Still speechless, Charles, mechanically obedient to the
strong will, mounted as he was told and gathered the reins
into his hand.

Then Fargus, leading the mare through the gate, turned her
head in the direction of the town, and released her with a
stem "Go!"

Instinctively Charles pressed his heels to the sides of his

aao To a Wedding Ring.

mount; lifting her graceful head to the breeze, she broke into
a frolicsome canter.

Bareheaded stood David Fargus looking after them.

Slowly he retraced his steps, pausing a moment to gaze at
the desolate old house. Of all the scenes ever acted under its
low roof, none stranger, surely, than what had taken place this
dayl

CHAPTER XXin.

. . . TO A WEDMNQ RING.

Over the purple moor, blind to the beauty of sky and earth,
Charles, shut up for the moment within the small world of his
own mind, was conscious of but one clear conception; the
necessity of speedily fulfilling his obnoxious errand.

Never pausing, never even questioning with himself, it was
only when he drew rein before the doctor's pretentious gran-
ite-built house and dismounted to ring the bell that he felt,
with some surprise, the exhaustion of the unwonted exercise
and noticed the steaming distress of his horse. He passed his
hand over his wet brow, as if awakening from a dream.

Approaching footsteps resounding along the flagged hall in-
side warned him that he must come to some settlement in the
present curious dilemma. Hurriedly determining to commit
himself to nothing, he was somewhat relieved to hear that
Dr. Smith was out, but was expected home every minute.

The proposal to wait hastily declined, Charles wrote a brief
message ^at a visitor of Colonel Fargus', at the Lone
Grange, had been accidentally shot by a revolver, and that
Colonel Fargus begged Dr. Smith to attend to the case as soon
as possible.

"It is urgent," added he to the servant, "do not forget."
And satisfied that he had conscientiously fulfilled his under-
taken duty, he turned the little mare's head homeward.

He went but slowly, avoiding the high-road, to minimize the
risk of an encounter with the doctor before he had resolved
how to act.

He had reached the outskirts of the town, the sun had just
dipped below the horizon; Charles shivered; he was cold and
weary, angry and sore perplexed. The scale seemed irre-
vocably turned against him. The long-craved-for dream of
love ; the riches which to him meant so much, the deprivation
of which had galled him in secret all his life ; position, power,
more open fields for his great talents, for his widespreading
ambition — all this had been almost within his grasp, and inch

To a Wedding Ring. ^u

by inch it was slipping from him by the unexpected inter-
ference of a stranger, without whose help his only opponent
would been as wax in his hands.

Involuntarily he reined in his horse and struck his forehead
in passionate irritation at hia own impotence and aridity of
device.

As he paused in the solitary lane and glanced hopelessly
over the darkening vista there came vipon his inattentive ear
the brisk trot of a horse over the side turf of the road, al-
ready at close quarters, and, looking round, he saw with a
contraction of the heart that Maude Woldham was beside
him.

The recognition was mutual. Miss Woldham reined in her
bright bay cob with a cry of frank amazement.

"Charlie! how extraordinary you should be herel I have
just this instant come from your sisters, and they said you
were installed at Cambridge until Christmas. Why, you are
riding Mr. Fargus' mare. Are you stoppng with him, then ?
How unkind the girls will think it of you not to have gone to
see them!"

There was a heightened glow upon her cheeks, a sparkling
joyousness in her eyes.

Without a word he extended his hand, but before it could
close round the slim fingers, she had drawn them back from
his touch with a slight scream.

"Oh! what is it? Your cuff is steeped in blood! Are you
hurt?"

Charles flushed a sullen crimson.

"I have had to go to Colonel Fargus, on business," he
answered haltingly. "There was an accident ... to one
of his dogs ; caught its leg in a trap, or something. I never
noticed the disgusting mess the brute had made of me till this
minute." Tighter and tighter the meshes of the net seemed
to be closing round him.

The girl glanced at him wonderingly; something in his
tone struck her as strange, while his evident want of feeling
for the dumb sufferer impressed her animal-loving mind dis-
agreeably.

"Mr. Fargus has only one dog. Poor Dinah ! I am so sorry
she is hurt," she cried, reproachfully.

There was a pause; Miss Woldham observed briskly that
night was coming on.

"Papa would be really angry if he knew I was on the road
so late, but luckily he has gone to York for the night."

"Our ways lie together, I think," said Charles, rousing
himself. "I trust you have no objection to my company?"

"I shall be very glad," answered Maude, lightly; "and as

^22 To a Wedding Ring.

it happens I could not have gone over the moor by myself at
this hour, your escort will be doubly acceptable. I am sorry
we cannot indulge in a good canter, but I think it would be
rather hard on poor Lady Jane; you must have been taking
her at an awful pace." The scrutinizing gaze that swept his
reeking steed here ended on the rider's face. "And you, too,
look dreadfully tired; are you ill? Is anything the matter
with you, Charlie ?"

They had reached the turning-point of the road, from which
the path across the heath branched off. To the right rose
viilham, with its sky-defying pride of turret, pinnacle and
vane. And between him and that vision came the swaying
litheness of his companion's form, her sweet, inquiring glance,
the tantalizing beauty of her face. . . . Maude and Gil-
ham — the exquisite woman, the goodly inheritance! By
heaven, he would not give them up without another effort I

Drawing his horse closer to hers, as they turned away from
the road on to the springy turf, he bent forward and fixed his
eyes upon her with passionate intensity :

"Maude," he said, in a low voice, "I am in great trouble of
mind." In the waning light he saw the spreading iris of her
blue eyes look fearlessly and pityingly back upon him.
"Listen to me, Maude/' he went on, in quick, whispered tones
that quivered to the wild beating of his heart; "you alone can
help me — but you must have patience and let me tell you all
first, before I can show you how. A month ago, as I watched
beside my uncle's death-bed, he most urgently implored me
to take into my possession and make proper use of some
papers addressed to Lewis, which I was to find in his desk.
Now, it seems that just before he died, my father, who was, as
you know, Lewis' guardian, had gathered certain documents
together for Lewis, who was then in India ; but his death com-
ing comparatively suddenly in the end, they were discovered
by the squire, his executor, unsealed."

A look of astonishment came over Maude's face, but she
said nothing, and Charles went on with fresh impetus:

"Forgive this long preamble. My uncle then gave these
papers to me, and made me understand that the use he wished
me to make of them was to keep an interloper from inheriting
Gilham. I carried out his instructions, examined the parcel
and found proofs that Lewis has no right to the name he
bears; in fact, that Gilham is mine, if I only assert my
claim."

Maude, her brow slightly contracted with the effort of com-
prehension, here broke out with an abrupt exclamation of
incredulity.

"Lewis! How can it be possible? I don't understand."

To a Wedding Ring. 223

"Have you never heard of the suicide of my uncle, George
Kerr, the man supposed to be Lewis' father ? Never heard of
that strange scandal that the family tried so hard, and in vain,
to hush up ? Maude, did it never strike you as strange tihat the
squire all but publicly disowned his supposed nephew ? Lewis is
the son of George Kerr's wife, but not of George Kerr ; it was
the knowledge of his dishonor that drove my mother's brother
to his death. I had the proofs of it in my hand, I tell you,
Maude, only a week ago. Lewis would have instantly with-
drawn his claim, could I once have convinced him that there
was even room for the shadow of a doubt. The papers were
treacherously stolen from me before I could show them to him
myself. He has fallen into the hands of a sort of adventurer,
and now acts altogether under his advice, and looks upon me
as the basest of individuals for even attempting to establish
my rights."

"I would like to understand a little better," interrupted
Maude. A curious stillness seemed to have come over her,
and she had bent her head as if in profound thought. "This
— this discovery of yours was known to Mr. Hillyard and to
Susie, and yet both treated Lewis as if he were one of the
family. Susie often told me that she loved him like a son,
and loved him chiefly because of his resemblance to his
father."

"Oh! my poor mother could never believe ill of any one;
not even of the woman who drove her brother to suicide — and
my father, he was slow to pronounce judgment, unless judg-
ment was imperatively required. To me, however, the proofs,
that were so providentially placed in my hands, are as con-
vincing as they are to the lawyer to whom they were shown."

Charles, emboldened by her pensive attitude and silence,
began again in louder and more assured tones than he had
yet been master of:

"You can see why the loss of these documents should be
such a misfortune for me? Have you not seen how I love
you? how I have loved you for years? I valued this uiiox-
pected inheritance only because it would set me free to tell
you of my love. Whatever you may have heard of me during
that long time — ^whatever doubts you may have about me — do
not doubt the singleness of my passion. Maude, I have some-
times thought that, in secret, your heart was not averse to
me. My beautiful Maude, tell me that you will not refuse
me, if, as master of Gilham, I come to lay all its wealth and
pride at your feet. Give me your promise, and I will have
strength to fight the fight to the end, and gain it, too. Just
now you appeared upon me as a messenger of comfort. I

224 To a Wedding Ring.

must win, even against greater odds. May I accept the good
omen ?"

Charlie's voice had risen once more, clear and sonorous in
the silence of the desolate heath. Yet she said not a word.

That silence which had at first encouraged him now struck
the woer with misgivings.

"Do you think that I am pressing my love on the strength
of a hopeless cause ? Believe me, it is not so. Lewis himself
is, unconsciously, my strongest ally; for if he can but once
be brought to see the truth of my statement — be made to
understand the whole case as it really is — he will be the first
to withdraw from the contest in my favor. But to do so, it
is necessary to unmask the unblushing swindler who has got
the lad in his clutches, and to unravel a pretty well-concocted
conspiracy. But with you as an ally, with the sympathy of
your father, whose opinion has such weight with every one, I
cannot doubt of ultimate success. Maude, darling love, will
you help me and give me courage ?"

"Mr. Hillyard," cried the girl at last, in accents of such
concentrated indignation that her voice was almost unrecog-
nizable, "that is enough." Then, slowly, so that each word
fell by itself, as it were, with the deliberation of a blow,
"And this is Susie's son! this cowardly, treacherous thief!
Oh, let me speak!" passionately overbearing his inarticulate
cry of protestation. "I have listened to your insults patiently
enough, heaven knows ! I must answer now, or I shall choke.
You ask me, sir — me ! — to help you in your infamous plot ! —
to be your ally in striving to ruin the life of your yoimg
cousin — to blast his good name! you hold out your chance
of success in such a scheme as an inducement for me to
marry you. Truly, I believe you deem me a fit mate for
such as you, to dare to come to me with your vile proposal !"

"Before Heaven, Maude, I have not deserved this at your
hands! In all openness and honesty, all confidence in you,
deepest love — yes, Maude, love — I told you how I was placed ;
I offered you all a man can offer."

"All opeimess and honesty!" echoed Maude, in scathing
bitterness. "Yes. I will grant you were open enough, in all
conscience, but honesty — save the mark! Honesty in one
who, of his own mouth, confesses to having read and appro-
priated papers addressed to another ! Then you find in these
papers proofs, forsooth! — proofs that are convincing to your
greedy, envious eyes, which some lawyer tells you would make
what you call a 'good case,' and show that your cousin is no
Kerr — rob him of his land, his name that he holds so dear.
Of the blast, the stigma, on him, your own kin ; you rake up
some miserable old story. I know it all j Susie often told me

To a Wedding Ring. 225

about her brother's death — and you come to me to get my
father to lend weight of his countenance to such a conspiracy
— my father, the soul of honor and chivalry, who loves Lewis

almost like a son I ought to be flattered, truly, by your

confidence, your love. I don't care what sort of evidence you
have. Lewis is a Kerr, every inch of him; every one has
always said so. One has only to compare him with some of
the family portraits to be convinced of it. If all you say
were true — you whom Lewis loved — you his friend of years —
if you had one generous impulse in your soul, you would
have thrust these proofs into the fire, and buried their secrets
in your heart."

"I see," said Charlie, bitterly, "I see I have made a great
mistake. The boy and girl attachment is reviving."

"You are wrong as well as insolent, Mr. Hillyard," said
Maude, her hot blood tingling in every vein at the insinua-
tion. "Lewis is not my lover. But, of course, faithfulness
to a friend is a matter I could not expect you to understand."
She paused, and her thoughts wandered back to a scene under
a silver-leaf aspen which trembled under the morning sun —
and there rose in her generous heart a tide of affectionate
pity for the brave, loyal fellow who had looked at her with
such true, sad eyes as she had given the death-blow to his
hopes that sunny morning. "But I will tell you this," she
added, with renewed indignation, "that were you as rich and
great as you would make yourself — were you the head of Gil-
ham and master of all the country besides, and were Lewis
as poor as you wish him to be, as nameless, as humiliated, I
would marry him, cheerfully and gladly, rather than become
your wife! I liked you for the sake of my dear Susie; I
used to enjoy hearing Lewis sing the litany of your praise;
but now," gathering up her reins and turning back, as her
horse made a spring forward, to cast a Parthian shaft at the
scowling, gloom-enveloped figure behind her — "now that I
know you, as no one evidently has known you yet, I have no
words to tell you how I hate and despise you !"

Her whip whistled into the dark air with a sound that
struck him as though she had aimed the cut at his face, there
was a dull thud of hoofs striking on the tiirf, then the re-
treating, precipitate cadence of a wild gallop.

He shook his reins and started off on his way. His mind
was made up; the habit of stern practicality was too deeply
ingrained to permit him to contemplate, after the first heat
of passion had dissipated. The battle was lost and won ; he
was beaten; the feverish dream was over. He would throw
up the sponge — let Lewis step in, while Charles Hillyard
retired gracefully from the scene. His position in his own

226 To a Wedding Ring.

world could be no worse than before; he would have the
enviable position of lecturer and coach to youthful under-
graduates, and of husband to — Hilda. . . ,

Down deep in his heart somewhere had blossomed shyly, and
all unknown, a curious attachment to the handsome, faithful
girl, and now, no longer overshadowed by more ambitious
passions, he found that it had struck deeper root than he
could have believed.

She had played him a scurvy trick, it was true, but it was in
fear of losing him — him, whom Maude had just now covered
with contempt. What if she, too, were to fail him ? He had
never doubted. But she was badly wounded, and by his
hand. What if she should die ? What would become of him
now without Hilda?

By a happy coincidence, as Charles staggered into the
lighted sitting-room at the Grange, to read reassurance of his
deadly fear in Fargus' placid look, the bustling little doctor
entered by the opposite door.

Fargus rose and greeted him in a few words, then markedly
gave place to his nephew.

There was a moment's pause; resting his hands on the
table, as if to support himself, but speaking with all his old
deliberateness, "Doctor," said the young man, "the person
who has been so imfortxinately wounded is my wife. I need
not say how anxious I feel to hear your opinion of her case."

As soon as he had spoken he shot at Fargus a look full of
such implacable defiance that it told of an undying enmity
more explicitly than whole volumes of words. But even his
keen eyes, sharpened as they were by hatred, could read
neither triumph nor pleasure on the elder man's cabn face.

"Mrs. Hillyard is in this room," Fargus was saying; "will
you be so good as to go in to her ?"

Hilda's wounds had been examined and dressed again.
The doctor, after many compliments to Charles on his wife's
great fortitude and her splendid physique, to Fargus on his
success and promptitude in arresting the blood-flow, had
assured them that she was in no danger, and taken his leave.

In the dimly-lit room Charles was sitting alone by her bed-
side. The patient's eyes were closed; she seemed satisfied
with Charles' presence and the mute assurance she had read
in his face that his anger against her was over. Prepared by
Fargus' few words of comfort, she was happy enough in the
present, and, in her woman's shrewdness, had accepted the
title bestowed on her by the doctor in the most natural
manner.

Charles looked at her for a while in silence. Presently h«

Man Proposes. 227

stooped and kissed her left hand — then the large, taper third
finger, on which sat that plain gold ring with its tacit lie.

Startled by the action she turned her pallid face languidly
toward him, and saw that in her lover's eyes which she had
never seen before — something like real tenderness.

And in answer to the mute, astonished inquiry :

"My girl," he said, still trying to speak in the careless,
patronizing manner he generally assumed toward her, "I
wonder whether you would like me to put that ring on your
finger before the altar, the registrar, and all the rest of it V

After the doings of the day, Hilda's nerves were scarcely as
strong as was their wont. The tears again welled to the
heavy lids as she pulled his hand feely up to her hot lips.

"Oh, Charlie ! Charlie ! are you really going to raise me to
you at last ? Plow can I thank you ? — how can I tell you how
I love you ? Oh, Charlie ! and after what I did !"

"There, don't cry, child. There, my girl, we shall let by-
gones be bygones, and start afresh."

CHAPTER XXIV.

MAN PROPOSES.

Along a northward-bound line, weighted with living
freight, a noble engine dashed its panting way. In the win-
dow-corner of his well-cushioned carriage sat Lewis Kerr,
watching, as they flew past him, the tinted hedgerows, the
beautiful homesteads, the wide stretches of pasture, the busy
towns.

Once he drew from his pocketbook the charm that had
removed the evil spell — a letter, the cover of which was ad-
dressed in goodly round style to Lewis Kerr of Gilham, Es-
quire, and the contents of which he had already so studied
as to know them almost by heart.

The letter was dated some five days back at midnight, and
thus had Fargus written to his son at the close of that event-
ful day which had seen the final crumbling of Charles Hill-
yard's scheme and the rise of Hilda Wren's new hopes :

"My dear Lewis : Your letter would have been a very griev-
ous trouble to me, were I not happily able (owing to a con-
catenation of circumstances which will seem to you the most
extraordinary, the most unforseeable) to give you that very
proof without which you now propose to abandon fortune
and happiness. I can prove to you, and beyond all doubt,

228 Man Proposes.

that you are George Kerr's son, and that as such you have the
most indisputable right to his name and the property that
would have been his.

"Something very inopportune has occurred which must
retard your arrival. Miss Wren, poor girl I in great and
natural anxiety concerning her lover, landed here to-day, to
seek some information concerning his movements. She was
still here when, as fate would have it, Mr. Hillyard him-
self made his appearance — on what errand I imagine you can
guess; then he had the misfortune to wound her seriously
while incautiously playing with one of my revolvers. It was
purely accidental, and he has shown more feeling for her than
I could have believed possible. Meanwhile, however, she will
not be fit to move for a day or two, and as he is constantly
with her you will understand why I think it better to post-
pone your visit. These are strange things to happen in my
quiet house, are they not? One thing is certain, namely,
that your cousin has finally abandoned all idea of contest-
ing your rights any further, though I should be conveying a
false impression were I to allow you to believe that he is any-
thing but furious at the turn affairs have taken. Now, my
dear boy, it is very late and I am very tired after an exciting
day. Keep a good heart till we meet. I shall telegraph as
soon as the coast is clear, and then you will come at once,
will you not? I have satisfactory news for you on other
scores besides that one vital question.

"General Woldham and I have had long gossips about you.
He really loves you like a son. Charles Hillyard seems to
have kept his evil counsel to himself very closely, after all.
So much the better for all parties ; more I cannot say now,
"Ever yours,

**David Fargus."

When Lewis reached the end, he replaced the letter in the
case and musingly drew out the telegram that had reached
him the previous night up in his attic rooms. It contained
but the most laconic message: "From David Fargus, Widley
Grange, to Lewis Kerr, Staple Inn, London. Come." Noth-
ing more, but the four letters of that little word seemed to
flash out of the pink paper. It seemed to mean so much.
Ah I the world was a glad and good place; it was well to be
alive and young.

Lewis greeted them all as old friends. He was not recog^
nized at first; it was so many years since he had been there;
but the porter, having put his single eye to good purpose,
soon discovered the identity of the only passenger the train
had left to them from the label on his portmanteau. An ez"

r

Man Proposes. 229

cited whisper went round the little station: "'Tis young
squire himself I"

"We did not think you'd take us unawares like that, sir,"
said the station-master, coming up and touching his cap with
a new deference. "Folks have been talking of getting up a
welcome for you. But we're right glad to see you here at
last, sir, all the same."

Lewis laughed as he responded suitably. But, in his heart,
the little tribute to his position, and especially the unques-
tioning way it seemed to have been accepted, was pleasant
to him.

It was now only three of the afternoon, on a mellow, sunny,
brisk-breathing day, and the thought of a walk along the
country roads was inviting after an eight hours' railway
journey, and so Mr. Kerr of Gilham, announcing his deter-
mination to make use of his legs, engaged the flyman with
his ramshackle vehicle to convey his luggage to the Lone
Grange, and set off at a swinging pace.

And now a turn of the road brought him upon one of the
avenues leading to Gilham itself, and in the undulations of
the park he saw the herded deer; saw the noble, ancient
house between the trees. He stood and gazed, and his heart
swelled with a feeling he had never before experienced — the
pride of possession. "Mine — mine — mine!" he could say of
each rich acre that he had been traversing, each living thing
that met his glance, each stone of the home his forefathers'
hands had raised.

A quaint idea crossed his brain. "I feel," he thought,
"like the Marquis of Carabas — the ogre is dead, and his lands
are mine. And presently I shall lead the princess home ; and
the good friend through whom all these good things have
come to pass" — here he laughed in the lightness of his heart
at the comparison of grave Fargus to Puss in the fairy tale —
"the dear friend shall come and share them, and be honored
by us and our children."

Presently, as he walked on, the sound of voices struck upon
his ear, then the impetuous barking of several dogs, and
upon this a dachshund and two brown spaniels tore out
of the underwoods toward him with a great appearance of
ferocious resentment, which, however, soon subsided into ab-
ject amiability of recognition when they came close enough.
Next, well-known tones were heard, freely damning the noisy
rovers with the same well-known emphasis, and the spare
figure of the general himself emerged upon the path a little
higher up. He stood with a sedate black retriever beside
him. The keeper, a picturesque iigure in far better clothea

230 Man Proposes.

than the master, remaining respectfully distant among the
brush-wood.

Lewis sprang forward, and the next minute the old man
had seized him by both hands with a cry of delighted recog-
nition.

"Lewis, my boy, glad to see you again I Hang you, where
have you been all this while ?"

There was a hurried interchange of greeting and explana-
tion, and presently, the first emotion having subsided, the
general linked his arm affectionately through that of the
young man, dismissed the attendant keeper with, a pleasant
nod over his shoulder, and carried his visitor onward along
the path.

"Gad! I knew you at once, in spite of that scar on your
face. And, by the way, tell us about it. How was it we
never heard you were wounded ?"

Then, wheeling his companion round again, and halting,
the old man looked into his embarrassed countenance with a
suppressed enjoyment of his own great joke. In another in-
stant he had exploded, and was slapping Lewis on the shoul-
der.

"Why, I know all about it. Confound you, sir! so you've
killed your man already, and pocketed this pretty little token
to improve your beauty, have you? And what do you think
the ladies will say to that face of yours, sir?" — this with an
elaborate wink. "I believe some will like you all the better
for it. When did you come? You are stopping at Fargus',
are you not? Capital fellow that! And you were on your
way to pay us a dutiful visit, I assume?"

"Why, no. General. I have only just arrived from town,
and was finding my way to the Grange by the short cut. I
thought you would condone the trespass."

"Why, I suppose I shall have to condone it," quoth the
veteran. "You are a great man in these parts, and you will
soon grow accustomed to lording it about here." This idea
tickled the general afresh. "So you have only just arrived.
There will be news here for you. Fine goings on there have
been at the Lone Grange with that scamp of a cousin of
yours. You must have heard something of It, I expect."

"I heard of the accident, sir, if that is what you mean,"
answered Lewis, whose heart began to beat faster.

"Aha! the accident? You do know then. Well, what do
you think of your precious cousin, my boy? You used to
look upon him as a sort of little God Almighty. What do
you think of him now, eh? Scamp! With his air of wise
superiority, taking us all in; coming among us to lay down
the law, knowing better than anybody. Gad! A humbug,

Man Proposes, 231

that is what he is — ^married in secret to some poor disrepu-
table creature and leaving her to starve — starve, people tell
me — while he comes here among us with his wisdom. It
makes me sick I"

There was no mistaking the genuineness of the amaze-
ment depicted on Lewis' countenance as he stopped during
this tirade, and ejaculated under his voice :

"Charles married ! — are you sure. General ? Married ?"

"Yes, my boy, married. No mistake about it, Lewis. Old
Smith told me in detail. Old story, you know — low mar-
riage; gets tired of her; wants to drop her. The poor woman
is miserable; comes after him here; finds out he's at the
Grange, and follows him there. Frightful scene between
them; and the upshot of it all is she is shot. An 'accident,'
they give out ; but. Lord ! I dare say he was in such a rage at
being found out he did not know what he was doing. It is
hard to get at the truth. Anyhow, he went to fetch Smith
for her himself, and seemed quite in a way about her. Smith
says. If it had not been for Fargus, as Smith told me, she
would have bled to death in ten minutes. That is a pretty
thing to happen in a fellovr's house, is it not? LucIq^ for
Hillyard he had to do with such a man as Fargus! The
colonel would not tell even me anything about the occur-
rence. 'Whole affair accidental,' says he, when I rode over
to see him and asked him for the rights of the story. But I
honor him for it, Lewis. What was it you heard, may I
ask, since you knew there had been an accident?"

Lewis roused himself to answer with great caution :

"I know no more than you do, sir. My only informant
was Colonel Fargus, who wrote to beg me to put off my visit
on account of an accident which had occurred to a visitor
of his."

"Well, Smith told me a good deal," said General Woldham.
There is no raistake about the marriage, for Hillyard himself
informed me he was married. Ay, for I met him and asked
him. And there is no mistalie about her status either, for,
according to Smith, she spoke broad Cockney, and scattered
her h's and all that kind of thing. Fine, handsome woman.
Smith says; and then what do you think he added — ^'most
extraordinary resemblance to Miss Woldham,' he said. But
he stuck to his point, damned little pill-box !"

Lewis made no answer, and for a while they meditatively
progi'essed together.

"Here I must leave you for the present, I fear, sir," said
he; but the general's thin old hand held him tightly by the
arm.

^32 Man Proposes.

"No, no, my boy! Come and pay your respects to Maude
first, and take a cup of tea. She will be delighted to see you,"

Lewis threw an anxious glance at the kind, wrinkled face,
with its meaning smile.

"I wish I could think it would be a pleasant surprise for
her," he said at last, almost bitterly.

"Hullo, hullo!" cried the general. "Why, you \ised not
to think so humbly of yourself, or be so shy of your old "

On the point of saying "sweetheart," the old man checked
himself to substitute "playfellow."

With head half turned away, Lewis fell to decapitating
undergrowth twigs with flips from his stick. The general
went on in puzzled and slightly exasperated tones:

"Of course, you know your own business best; but I must
say, Lewis, if it comes to a question of being pleased to see
you, you have not seemed over-anxious to give us a chance.
Why, I made up my mind you would run down here first of
all. But instead of coming to us, or coming to show your-
self on your property, you fly off to Germany, and never
even seem to think of taking train to pay a visit to Maude,
who is within a few hours of you. And then you tell me you
think she may not want to see you. It is all a blanked rid-
dle to me."

Lewis wheeled round and confronted the speaker.

"Didn't Maude tell you then?" he asked, in a low voice.
"I did go to Homburg. I did see her, sir. And I made a fool
of myself."

The General's eyes grew round and his face grew red.

"You saw Maude! You went after her to Homburg — I
was right, then. And she sent you about your business?
Why the dickens did she do that?"

"I cannot say, sir," said Lewis, with extreme simplicity.
"It has come pretty hard on me, I assure you."

The old man marked how Lewis' lip trembled as he spoke.

"Oh, tut, tut, tut! She did not mean it. Why, I pro-
posed to her mother four times before she would have me,
and, what is more, I would have gone on till I had got her.
And Maude is just such another as she was. They never
know their own minds. They like you, but they don't like
the thought of harness. They are coy. Why, the sly puss,
she never told her old dad a word about it, though she did
hang her head a bit, now I come to think of it. I fancied
she was not quite herseK. I thought it was because you had
not come near us. I gave her a hint or two, the other day,
that we might be expecting a new neighbor to visit us — about
a fellow who had been in the wars, and was going to settle

Man Proposes. 233

hereabouts, and she has brightened up uncommonly ever
since."

Lewis grew crimson and white again in rapid succession.

"My God !" he murmured, "if I could only believe it !"

The general watched him from the corner of his eye, and
fell to chuckling, in a delighted state of excitement.

"Believe it? Come and see for yourself, my boy. Come
and see for yourself !"

The father's confidence was infectious. A fire of joy
coursed through his frame. With transfigured countenance
he turned toward his companion, and seized his hand.

"Then I have your permission, sir ; you yourself encourage
my hope."

"I don't say I think any man alive equal to my girl; but
there is no one I would trust her to sooner than you, Lewis.
You will settle down on your place, as you ought to. I am
afraid," said the general, smiling, "I should not be quite so
ready to hand her over to you if I thought you meant to
carry her off. I care little for the mere fact of your being
so rich. I want a good fellow, of good blood, that will make
my girl a good husband. I am none the less pleased she
should make the match of the county — eh, my boy ?"

A flickering shadow had descended upon the ecstasy of
Lewis' face as he listened.

"Before we go any further," he said, quickly, "there is
something I must tell you which I had well-nigh forgotten.
Something which may be the explanation of Maude's rejec-
tion of me at Homburg."

"Well, out with it," said the old man, looking keenly at
Lewis.

"The fact is, my cousin Hillyard has been getting up a
scheme against me — a scheme to dispossess me of my imcle's
property, on the score of alleged illegitimacy on my side."

Lewis spoke with determined clearness; the trouble had
gone too deep not to leave him very sore still.

"The devil he did!" cried General Woldham. "Wanted to
make out you were not a Kerr, did he ? Scamp ! Why, my
lad, I'd know you for one of the family in a thousand. You
are as like the squire — ^your grandfather, that is — as two peas.
And I knew him well. You not a Kerr!" snorted the gen-
eral, working himself up. "No, your worthy cousin did not
tell me that— he knew better than to tell me that. What
did he go on to support such a suggestion ?"

"Thank God," said Lewis very low, "the dastardly scheme
has collapsed from the very outset. And yet it was wdl
worked out — some old letters of my father's and my Spanish
mother's, coupled with the sad story of my father's death.

234 God Disposes.

the fact of my having been born abroad, and the squire's
refusal to have anything to do with me, were pieced together
into such a damning array of circumstantial evidence against
me that, at one time, only a few days ago, I was almost
ready to believe myself an interloper, and to go back to
India, never to show my face again in the old country.
Thank God, it was not true, and the scheme has fallen
through! Colonel Fargus — oh, sir, if it had not been for
him I hardly know what I should have dune these times!
has written to me to say that he has secured the actual
proof of the slander; that he has seen Charles, who is com-
pletely convinced himself, and who has abandoned his claim.
I do not know what the proofs are yet. The colonel has done
everything for me. I believe it was the late squire, on his
death-bed, who set all this mischief working,"

"Just like the cantakerous old numskull," muttered the
general. "He hated your father — quarreled with him, turned
him out of the house. I well remember hearing about it all
from my poor old aunt, who had this place at the time.
And he hated you simply because you are his son. But
that your own cousin, a man who was your friend, should
lend himself to such a thing! And so you thought Maude
had heard something, did you ? No, my lad ; you may think
yourself very much in love, but you don't know my girl
if you fancy she would lend an ear to such a thing as that.
Bless me! I don't pretend to know why she would not say
'yes' then, but I lay my oath that was not the reason. And
now come and find out for yourself, as I said before."

Lewis' pulses beat thickly at the prospect which seemed
to grow nearer and more assured every instant.

"Perhaps I had better see those proofs Colonel Fargus has
for me first, sir," he said, as quietly as he could.

"Damn the boy!" cried the general. "I was not such a
hang-off, punctilious sort of lover as all that. Your nose
alone, sir, is proof sufficient for me. Come along; give me
your arm again. Maudy will be on the look-out for her
dad. Begad ! she little guesses the visitor T am bringing by
the ear to see her !"

CHAPTEK XXV.

GOD DISPOSES.

"So Fargus has helped you along, has he? Thorough good
fellow that — never was a man I liked more; couldn't have
a better friend, Lewis ! But why did you never come to me,
my boy? I would have settled that Hillyard chap in ten

God Disposes, 335

minutes. 'Confound your letters and your trumpery evi-
dence, sir!' I would have said to him. 'You tell me Lewis
is from the wrong side, do you ? Very well ; stand him before
his grandfather's picture, the Peninsular man; then come
and repeat that to me, sir.' I should have liked to see him
then, my boy. Whole thing would have burst like an air-
bubble.

"So Mr. Hillyard wanted to oust you, did he, and set
up that low wife of his as mistress of Gilham, I suppose?
Upon my word, he has turned out well! I met him the day
before yesterday, just as I was coming away from Fargus.
Very down he looked, too, and not over-pleased to see me.
'Funny stories these are about you, Charlie,' said I. *We
hear you have married a wife.' He made no answer, but
gave a queer kind of smile. But I was not to be put off
in that way. So I asked him point-blank if it was true it
was his wife that was hurt. 'Was that what you heard?'
he answered me; 'that is true, anyhow.' So then I whipped
up my horse and rode off, giving him the 'Good-afternoon'
pretty shortly. He called after me, 'Good-by, general; it
will be a long time before you see me in this part of the
world again.' And yesterday, I hear, he and his wife went
off together to London. As for the Hall, he certainly shall
never cross my doors again. But you are not listening to
me, man. Oh, bless you, you need not apologize! I have
been young myself once; and in love, too, more than once.
I know all about it. And here we are. We shall find her
ladyship in the library, I dare say."

As they approached the open door of the old house, Lewis
found it indeed increasingly difficult to follow any thought
but the central one of Maude. It was too late now to pause
and examine the wisdom of this hurried visit, nor could he
collect his tumultuous senses to settle with himself what he
would say to her. He was carried away, unable to resist
the current of his companion's slapdash geniality; the past
was all a mistake; he was going to see her again — Maude,
his own Maude, at last !

He was stumbling across the threshold, when the general
checked him sharply by the arm.

"One moment, Lewis," he whispered. "Don't you mention
that fellow Charlie's name to Maudy. You are hardly likely
to. She was terribly fond of his mother, and I think she
liked him, too, in a way. And when she heard of the scamp
having made a match like that, it quite upset her. She
would not believe it at first; and then I never saw a girl
look so angry. She turned quite white, and could hardly

a36 God Disposes.

epeak for a bit. I suppose Smith could not keep quiet about
his story of the woman's likeness."

"Of course — I know," he answered mechanically, while his
eyes wandered around the great, dark hall with eager yet
almost fearful seeking.

"She must be out," said the good man, with a cheerful
philosophy. "Come and have a pipe in the smoking-room.
She is svire to come in to give me my tea in a little while."

As he spoke he marshaled his visitor through the stately
library, where the tea paraphernalia were already arrayed,
to his particular and beloved sanctum at the end of it. Here
he provided himself with a pipe, and scoffed good-humoredly
at the absent fashion in which Lewis took the implement
proffered him, only to lay it down unfilled on the table. In
unconscious, silent reverie, the young man was gazing around
the comfortable, untidy room that was so full of memories
for him, when Maude used to come and listen to their talk,
between the smile of her father and the silent adoration of
his guest.

"Well, you are a sociable fellow!" he was beginning in a
bantering tone, turning once more to Lewis, when a change
on the latter's absent face, as he intently gazed out of the
window, hushed the speaker to silence. Maude was passing
slowly across the terrace toward the house, her special canine
attendant following her with solemn step. She glided noise-
lessly on the soft turf past the window, with beautiful bent
head, unconscious of observation, and apparently mindful
only of the world of her own thoughts.

While she approached and until she disappeared, there
was silence in the room. The old man looked alternately
at the graceful figure that seemed as if floating by in the
sunlight — a vision of youthful perfection — ^to the watchful,
almost ecstatic face of his companion, who had risen to his
feet and stood gazing at it, with all his soul in his eyes,
as if completely forgetful of his surroundings.

When she had passed out of sight the two men looked at
each other.

"Oh, sir," said Lewis, almost in a whisper, "if these should
be false hopes after all!"

"Not a bit of it!" ejaculated the other. "Lewis, I know
what I am talking about ; I am not a child or a fool. Hush !"
putting his finger to his lips as a light footfall sounded from
without, "Tell you what, by boy," struck by a brilliant idea,
and burning to assist in the bringing together of the young
couple he held in such affection, a delicate task he consid-
ered especially suited to his great diplomatic capacity; "tell
you what, man, I'll go and prepare the way for you a bit,

God Disposes. 337

eh ?" chuckling and winking in irrepressible glee. "You stop
here, you know, eh?" ,

The further door of the library creaked on its hinges, and
the slow rustle of Maude's gown came in upon them through
the parted curtains; then the sound of her voice calling:

"Dad— tea!"

"Coming," grunted the general, pushing the bewildered
Lewis aside, after further bestowing upon him sundry
highly-expressive winks and admonition, and trotting briskly
off in a convulsion of subdued chuckles.

"Well, dad, have you been in long?" came the dear, tender
voice; then the general's reply, in laboriously natural tones;
then the rattle of teacups, and a silence.

Like one in a dream who can comprehend, enjoy and suf-
fer, but is powerless either to suggest or control, Lewis stood
motionless, where he had been placed, all his faculties
wrapped in what was now almost an agony of listening.
With all the glowing reality of second-sight the scene on
the other side of the wall rose before his mind.

"Why, papa, what on earth is the matter?"

A ripple of laughter tripped up and shook the witching
voice as it again broke the silence. Lewis remembered how
she used to look when she laughed.

"What makes you think there is anything the matter with
me, eh, you puss ?"

Interval of snorts and renewal of laughter.

"Dad, there is no use in trying to deceive me. You have
been up to something, I know. There is the stamp of guilt
on your face. Confess, dad, confess! You will be happier,
and be able to enjoy your tea when it is off your mind."

"Pooh, pooh! nonsense, child!" with a suspicion of tart-
ness. "Don't know what you mean," with some solemnity.

"Yes, dad."

A sudden cessation of laughter.

"I met a friend of ours to-day, my pet — ^an old friend, I
think I may call him, though he is a new neighbor."

"Yes, dad."

A change, a slightly tremulous tone in the voice, now
suddenly become grave.

"We had a long walk, child. I met him in the pine-woods,
the short cut to the Grange, you know. Tell you the truth,
I have been expecting him this last week, but all this row —
Charlie Hillyard's business, and all the rest — ^kept him
away."

"Yes, dad; I, too, wondered why he did not come."

The last words were spoken with a slight hesitation, and
in a perceptibly lower key.

338 God Disposes.

"Oh, you were expecting him, were you, eh ? The old man
is to be kept in the dark, eh ? Never to know what is going
on under his nose, eh? There, there, never look so scared,
my pet ; I am only joking. Fact jis, this new neighbor of
ours has been confiding in your old dad. Queer, outlandish
sort of thing to do; but the fellow, as you know, is full of
old-fashioned notions of honor and loyalty and the like.
Can't say I think the worse of him for that. I must let him
speak for himself, must not I? The young birds must fly
out of the nest some day, and in this case it will not be
very far."

The old voice quavered a little. There was a smothered
exclamation. Lewis knew the warm young arms were round
the father's neck, and that the beautiful head was lying on
his shoulder. And the young man's heart beat so quickly,
so loudly, that he feared, clenching his hands, it might drown
the soft tones he was straining every nerve to catch.

"Well, well," said the general, "as I told him, I do not
so much disapprove. There you come back from your for-
eign trip as demure and close as a nun, and know your
poor old father is racking his brains over the fellow's ex-
traordinary prcoeedings. Oh, oh! that is a tell-tale blush!
Yes, I have heard all about it; he went after you, but there
was some little mistake, eh? He is a good fellow, Maude.
He has promised to remain dovsna here, and not carry you
away from me. And as for that ugly scar — though we can-
not say he got it in regular warfare; though I cannot pre-
tend it is becoming — I )am sure you would not have him
without it for the world now, eh ? . . . What ! won't you
speak, my child? Ah, well, if your mother had been alive
you would have told her all, I'll be bound."

"Oh, darling!" said Maude, in low, caressing tones, "do
not say that — I will tell you all. Indeed, I am not ashamed
of my love for him, now that I know he loves me, too ; I am
proud of it — ^more proud, more blessed than ever woman
was ! Darling, forgive me ; I could not tell you before. You
see, I did not know; I only thought — feared — hoped. He
never spoke a •vvord of love to me — I thought he always
treated me like a child — ^but from the first moment I saw
him I knew I should never care for another man. Don't
look so surprised, dad. From the first you said he was a
man after your own heart. But I never dared to think he
loved me, though at times there was a look in his eyes, when
he turn^i them on me, that would set me fancying and
wondering. And then, about Homburg. Yes, I will tell you
the truth ; a thought did flash through my mind when I saw
him there — 'Has he come for me?' But then — ^then — ^then I

God Disposes. ^39

only saw him once, for a second, the night he came ; the day
after he was gone. Dear dad, do you wonder I did not
speak of it? But now I think I know what it meant.
There was a mistake, as you said. He must have seen me
next morning with some one else — early in the morning,
among the trees. It was Lewis; he had followed me from
the hotel. Poor Lewis! it seems he had come all the way
after me, too. I could not tell you that, either; it was not
my secret, you see. But now that he has spoken to you, that
you have assured him there was nothing in that silly boy
and girl affair "

"Why — what the dickens!" interrupted the general. "He
— him! Who's he? Told you what? What boy and girl
affair? What are you talking about?"

"Father, how strange you are! Did you not tell Colonel
Fargus?"

"Fargus!" with a shout of astonishment and despair;
"what the devil should I tell Fargus anything about it for?"

A moment's dead silence. Then — could that unknown,
hard, fierce voice be Maude's?

"Who, then, have you been talking about all this time?"

"Why, who should I have been talking about ? Lewis, of
course. What! you don't mean to say you thought it was
Fargus ? Oh, damn it all !" in a sudden frightened whisper.

Then Maude, speaking again in the same strange accents:

"So Lewis is not content with what I told him. I told
him plainly enough I never could love him now."

"Hush! hush!" in the father's tremulous undertone. "It
is my mistake. Maude, come to me — don't look like that,
child. Oh, Lord! what have I done? There, my darling!
there, my darling! It will come all right. Eh! what, child
— are you angry with me ? What is it ? Oh, Lord !"

"Don't try your hand at match-making any more, dad,"
with a quivering attempt at lightness. Then there was a
sharp sound, as if she smote her hands together, and a sud-
den, low cry, as if of pain. "Oh, father ! father ! father !"

"Maude — my poor girl!"

A low sob, strangled, and the old man's voice raised in
incoherent, soothing terms, and muffled as if his head were
enveloped in something soft and close.

"My dream is gone. I don't want to leave you ever."

When the general — ^limp, tottering, the very shadow of
the cheerful, vigorous, self-sufficient general of an hour be-
fore— crept at length around the smoking-room ciirtain once
more, it was to find that Lewis was gone.

CHAPTEK XXVI.

DEADLOCK.

The window of the guest-chamber at Widley Grange was
open to the fragrant breeze of the moor, and through it the
wild hollyhocks peeped in upon a picture of more than usual
order and comfort.

Lewis's room! The master of the house had been, un-
wontedly particular as to the perfection therein of the small-
est detail, and now it was ready and awaiting the long-
expected visitor.

And, as he looked, a dreamy smile crept under Fargus's
mustache. Before a certain dear, tired brown head pressed
yonder pillow to-night the father would have confessed and
been judged. Despite the coming ordeal, despite the un-
sparing clearness of vision with which he looked forward to
its possible results, there had come to him, once familiarized
with the idea of self-disclosure, a secret foolish and un-
acknowledged sweetness in the thought that the barrier he
had himself erected would at last be broken between him
and his son. And besides, there was the keen satisfaction
arising from the certitude of being able thereby to assure this
son a fair future and mental peace, of being able to expiate
to the full, and repair the old wrong, no matter at what
cost to himself.

And thus it came to pass, David Fargus, confident in his
power of benefiting him, awaited his visitor with almost
joyful anticipation.

He glanced at the clock, which marked close upon four,
and thought with impatience of the three long hours that
had yet to elapse before he could clasp the brave young
hand; then, pausing in his pensive walk, he suddenly stood
gazing at his own reflection in the looking-glass, struck by
a curious thought.

No doubt that face of his, however battered, burned and
worn, was like his son's, but the most salient features — the
mouth and chin — were hidden by the close, thick beard.
Why not remove this mask, originally adopted to disguise
the very identity he was now anxious to vindicate? Once
more shaven, but for his heavy mustache, the resemblance
between them would be something striking, or else he was
much mistaken. Moreover, David Fargus' connection with
the youthful portrait, now in the Staple Inn chambers^ would

Deadlock. S41

then perchance be apparent — that portrait which Lewis did
resemble.

Delighted with the idea, Fargus returned to his own room,
rang for his man, ordered some shaving water, and forthwith
began clipping the silken, brown, silver-streaked hair from
cheek and chin as close as scissors could reach.

But as Turner was hastening to him with the steaming
jug, the unwonted sound of wheels broke upon the outer
silence.

Lewis already? Impossible! He drew near the window
and looked out over the hedge to see and recognize the well-
known portmanteau and traveling-bag on the box of the
station fly, and the next minute to discover further, not
without an inexplicable misgiving, that the ramshackle
vehicle was empty.

While he stood staring somewhat blankly at the again
departing carriage. Turner, who had gone out to attend the
bell, re-entered the room.

"Mr. Kerr's luggage just arrived from the station, sir. Mr.
Kerr sent word that he was walking up."

Fargus drew a smiling breath of relief. The probable de-
lay was not unwelcome, after all. But the business must
be hurried with; it could not be very long now before the
visitor made his appearance.

"Turner," he said, stopping the servant as he noiselessly
retired, "judging from your appearance, you must have good
razors."

"Yes, sir."

"Please lend me one — and, by the way, I have not shaved
myself for more than twenty years. Among your numerous
qualifications would you reckon a competence to shave me?"

"Certainly, sir."

Ten minutes later Fargus emerged from the careful hands
of his attendant a curiously altered being. Though the
peaked beard had been a not unpleasing adjunct to his
grave, rather melancholy countenance, its removal disclosed
to advantage the handsome lines of mouth and chin, and
reduced his age to all appearance some ten years. He paused
to contemplate himself with a satisfied smile ; the likeness to
Lewis was wonderful.

The task completed, Fargus strolled into his wild garden —
to look forth, across the privet bushes, toward the Woldham
pine-woods.

Five o'clock by his infallible watch. What was the boy
about? Then a sudden light gleamed through the growing
anxiety. Of course, of course, he had gone to Woldham!
Having placed himself so near the magic circle by taking

242 Deadlock,

the short cut through the woods, the lover had heen unable
to resist the attraction.

As the afternoon dragged on, however, and still there came
no sign of his son, he began to grow warm with a new hope.

The wind ran with little shivers through the hollyhocks.
There were great cloud banks to the west. "We shall have
rain to-morrow," thought Fargus. "I am glad it is fair at
least to-day, for my boy's home-coming."

And then, as he reached the end of the narrow path once
more, it was to see a dark figure rapidly emerging from the
borderland of pines into the slanting sunlight of the heath.
Could it be Lewis? This man's shoulders were rounded, he
stumbled occasionally, and dragged his feet, although he
came so quickly, in a way as unlike as possible from the
young soldier's upright carriage and clear, swinging gait.
Perhaps there had been an accident. For a moment the
watcher's heart grew cold, and the bright view became black
to his eyes; but the next minute all was clear again; it was
Lewis, and he was only within a few yards of him now.

Li the revulsion of his hurrying joy, Fargus waved his
hand and ran back to the little gate to welcome him. Lewis
was rounding the hedge, swaying and tripping over the rough
ground, as Fargus emerged from the garden gatei and met
him face to face. But all the father's warm delight was
swept away by a chilling doubt, and the words of welcome
died unspoken on his lips when he encountered the haggard,
unrecognizing stare of two blood-shot eyes, which were fixed
on him till their owner moved quickly out of his path and
started again on his headlong way. Fargus hied after his
son.

"Lewis, what is it? For God's sake, what has happened?
Is it possible you don't know me? Pshaw! I had forgotten
about that beard of mine!"

At the sound of the voice, the bent, hurrying figure started,
halted and wheeled slowly around upon the pursuer.

The young man's face was hard-set ; there was inexpressible
bitterness, unmistakable enmity, in his eyes as he measured
Fargus from head to foot, and smiled in a way which made
the latter's blood run cold.

"Is this indeed you. Colonel Fargus? You must forgive
me for my stupidity in not recognizing you under your
altered aspect!"

The voice was as much changed as the rest of the man.
For a while the father could only stare ; then, when he tried
to speak, he found that, under the angry antagonism, which
it was so hard to meet from those eyes, ideas and words
seemed to fail him alike. He could only stammer again:

Deadlock, 243

"Lewis, what has happened? Has Charles Hillyard
dared "

"I have heard something that was news to me," answered
Lewis, incisively. "I have been at Woldham; I should not
have been surprised to find you thus beautified and young
after what I heard there, should I? It is a great improve-
ment. Colonel Fargus ; I congratulate you in every way."

"Lewis, are you mad?" with an outburst of indignant af-
fection. "My boy, things have gone wrong with you again;
but what can have come between you and me? Tell me
what has happened at Woldham. I thought you must have
gone there, and my instinct about it was right. Oh, why
did you not come straight to me first?"

"You would have prepared me, I suppose?"

"Prepared you for what? Is it Hillyard again — has he
come between you and your happiness here, too?"

He was interrupted by a fierce grasp on his arm as Lewis
stepped closely up to him and looked into his face.

"Is it possible. Colonel Fargus, that you are speaking in
good faith? Is it possible that you do not know — that you
have been true, after all? Bah!" flinging himself away
with violence; "what a fool you must think me, to imagine
I can be taken in by this! No, by God! you shall not feel
my pulse! I am sick of this pretense!"

"Come into the house," said Fargus, gravely. "There is
a terrible misunderstanding here, or else you are, indeed,
delirious. Lewis, you owe me an explanation ; you must tell
me what is the meaning of this."

Again giving him a mistrustful yet wavering look, the
young man sullenly complied. When they came into the old,
pleasant room Fargus had left so full of hope, the latter
said, in accents almost of entreaty:

"Now, Lewis, speak."

"Colonel Fargus, I — I may be wronging you; pray God
I am. And yet why should I wish it, after all? It means
happiness to her; why should I grudge her her happiness?"

"My dear, dear boy 1 Do try and tell me what it is."

"Are you sure you are alone — that no one is within hear-
ing?"

More and more convinced that Lewis' senses were wander-
ing, the father, in great distress, rose to hiunor him, opened
the heavy doors of the adjacent rooms, to close them again
and assure him of the impossibility of being overheard.
When he came back, however, and sat down opposite his son,
the look that the latter fixed upon him was once more keen
and reasoning as his own.

"Do you really wish to hear my news. Colonel Fargus?

244 Deadlock.

Do you really need to be told that Maude Woldham never
loved Charles Hillyard; that, although she may once have
loved Lewis Kerr, the man who has won her heart — who holds
it now — is no other than Colonel Fargus himself?"

For a second the father again thought the speaker mad;
but the next moment, with dire, irresistible conviction, the
truth of these evil tidings was borne in upon him. Maude
loved him — ^him, Fargus ! It was he who had killed his son's
happiness. How terrible it was! A spasm passed over his
face, and beads of cold sweat broke upon his forehead; his
parched tongue cleaved to his palate.

The cruel scrutiny of Lewis' eyes relaxed. He flung him-
self on a chair, and buried his face in his hands.

"Forgive me, Fargus," he cried. "I see I have been
wrong. Everything is wrong, is it not ? I ask your pardon ;
I must have been mad indeed to doubt you."

"My God!" The words burst from Fargus' lips at length,
with a sort of groan. "It is incredible, impossible! — an old
man like me! Lewis, it cannot be true!'"

Lewis looked up again — read consternation written on
every drawn feature; met distressful eyes that eagerly sought
his face, only to be averted again as if in shame; and, seeing
thus broken down, thus struck with innocent anguish of
guilt, the man he had learned to honor as single in strength
and dignity among men, was smitten with remorse in his
turn.

He rose and went over to his host. Their eyes met in a
long, deep look.

"Do you account yourself an old man?" said Lewis, sadly.
"What do years signify if years bring no waste ? What have
they brought to you but greater wealth of mental and bodily
strength? A man is aged as he feels — do you feel old? I
take it, there is not a man of thirty within this wide horizon
you could not dispose of out of hand; and in point of in-
fluence What is there strange in her, too, having felt

what I, careless fellow that I am, who have knocked about
the world so much already, succumbed to at our very first
meeting? You went often to Woldham; she saw you often.
No, there is nothing incredible, nothing impossible, in the
matter. It was natural she should love you, when she
thought that you loved her; it was natural she should love
you, even without thought of return. But it is the end of
my hopes — ^yes, the end!" raising his voice to drown the
attempted protest. "I heard it from her own lips, I tell you ;
she did not know I was near. The poor old general had
set me there to listen, while he prepared the way for me,
as he said. But she thought he was speaking of you. I

Deadlock. 245

cannot tell you how it came; but I know the truth at last —
the truth! She will never care for man again. Her whole
heart is yours — she is all yours ! Oh, if you could have been
there in my stead! She loves you as wholly as I love her.
Can I say more?"

Stricken by the magnitude of the unforeseen disaster, Far-
gU8 sat in hopeless silence. As a flash of lightning darts its
far-reaching glare across mighty space, to die next instant
in utter blackness, so a brief apprehension of the endless
import of this revelation, in all its manifold phases, had
broken upon the darkness of his thoughts, only to leave
them again in fathomless misery.

"You never suspected this," pursued Lewis, halting in
front of him once more, and now speaking in milder accents.
"Your surprise is as genuine as your distress. But can you
wonder at my suspicions? Was it conceivable that woman
could be so deceived ? And then to find you so altered, look-
ing so changed, so handsome, so young again! Oh, why
have you cut off your beard. Colonel Fargus?"

A smdle of exceeding pain quivered on the elder man's
mouth.

"That I shall tell you by-and-by. It had nothing to do
with Maude Woldham."

This simple statement laid at last the ever-recurring doubt.

"I might have known," said Lewis, "that you could play
no one false, let alone me — you who, when I was despondent,
urged me not to yield ; who have secured me my rights — my
rights ! What do I care for them ? What is their value now ?
Charlie might as well have had them all. What a mockery
it all is! And yet I am blackly ungrateful to you! Could
you but know what this is to me!"

"Who could have foreseen," interrupted Fargus, hoarsely —
"I, who have had no thought of woman's love for more than
half a lifetime — that this should come upon me ?"

"I could, I suppose, had I been here to see," cried Lewis.
"Colonel Fargus, what comes to you as a trouble would have
meant to me happiness beyond dreams. And out of this
miserable waste and discord nothing is to come but more
waste and discord; misery for me, sorrow for her — ^poor
Maude ! She cast me off with contempt. She called my love
persecution. Can a man ever forget that ? It has seared me to
the soul ! I, whose whole being was encompassed by but one
thought, that — Heaven forgive me! — I would gladly damn
my eternal soul for her love!"

Lewis stood still, and again lifted his hands to his head
with a gesture of passionate bewilderment.

"Colonel Fargus, you do not speak; but you must forgive

246

Deadlock.

me. Colonel Fargus, I do believe you when you say you
knew nothing of this. I believe you are all I thought you
were; but, now that you do know, is it possible that you can
throw away the prize within your grasp? Think of it,
colonel — she loves you. You cannot be in earnest when you
say you do not mean to take advantage of this."

Fargus rose from his chair with a stiff, slow movement.
In a moment he had decided upon his course of action.
He would speak now, tell his heavy and precious secret,
though the moment was inauspicious indeed.

"You do not answer," said Lewis, impatiently.

"I do not answer, my boy, because to me the question is
painful in its absurdity. Not more surely than if I were
stretched on my deathbed are such things over for me. And
now — would to God it could prove anything but further
grief to you! — I will tell you how it is that the news you
have brought to me to-day is indeed a calamity to me.
These proofs, Lewis, that I wrote to you about "

Lewis, who had looked up, impressed by the strange solem-
nity of his companion's manner, here again broke forth
impetuously :

"The proofs ! the proofs ! In God's name. Colonel Fargus,
do not talk about that now! What can it be to me with-
out her?"

"But you must listen to me, Lewis. It is absolutely neces-
sary— if not for your own sake, for mine."

"For yours — ^what do you mean?"

"This question concerns me as nearly as you; my fate
is bound up with yours; in your misfortune vanish all my
hopes. It is the death-blow to my happiness. I speak in
riddles, I know; but all will soon be clear to you. You
have wondered often at the strange interest I seemed to take
in you. You wondered, yet you were grateful to me for
what you called my kindness, and you were as willing as I,
in the openness of your heart, to take advantage of those
incidents which ripened into affectionate intimacy the ac-
quaintance begun in a seemingly casual meeting."

"Seemingly?" echoed Lewis, with a frown.

"Yes, seemingly. When the stranger, David Fargus,
crossed your path for the first time, one night, in an out-of-
the-way, empty tavern-room, it was of set and deliberate pur-
pose. He had gone over there to seek you."

The frown deepened on Lewis' face. He bent his head
to listen with a quickening breath.

"Fortune favored the scheme. Acquaintance soon ripened
into intimacy, intimacy to affection. You could not suspect
that this American's very presence in Europe was connected

Deadlock, 247

with you. Far less could you imagine, when we listened
together to the history recounted, with such unwarrantable
conclusions from insufficient facts, by Charles Hillyard — ^the
story of your father you never knew — that I, your informal
adviser, not only knew already every detail thereof, but
much more besides than any one else in the room."

Lewis had started violently at the mention of his father,
but he said nothing, and continued to look keenly into the
speaker's eyes.

"What this knowledge is," pursued Fargus, "I will now
tell you in a few words. It never could occur to you, since
it never occurred to George Kerr's contemporaries, that no
man should really be accounted dead on the ground of mere
disappearance. For God's sake, Lewis, be calm! Your
father was not drowned, as you and every one else were led
to believe. And with this indubitable fact are connected the
coming over of David Fargus and his present relations
with you."

"My father — alive! You have seen him?" cried Lewis,
jumping up and staring wildly at the speaker. "He is alive
now ?"

A look from Fargus was sufficient assent.

"You come from him! Where is he. Colonel Fargus?"
Then the ringing excitement of the voice suddenly dropped.
"Why this mystery? Why have I been so long disowned?
It is incredible! I have cherished and hugged the pride of
my dead father all my life. What can I now feel if it be
true that he is living, and that for five-and-twenty years he
has ignored me, cast me away ? What am I to think of this
sudden interest taken in me by the man who now claims
to be my father ?"

Fargus had grown whiter than ever under this cruel
arraignment, but he made no attempt to check it, and Lewis,
carried away by the current of his bitterness, went on :

"Pah! what a day's work this has been! Am I also to
find that even that supposed friendship was also but an
element in this disinterested scheme? That the man to
whom I confided not only my private affairs, but my most
cherished hopes, was after all but an emissary cleverly pre-
paring the way to place me in the position it was requisite
I should occupy? But I interrupted your exposition of the
case. Colonel Fargus. Let me hear the message."

"Lewis," he answered, deliberately — there was an immense
sadness beneath his calm — "Lewis, your impatient, hasty con-
clusions at the very outset of a difficult explanation are im-
just to your father; unjust to me, with whom none of your

24$

Father and Son.

previous relations have given you a right to assume a
sneering tone."

Lewis waved his hand impatiently. "Go on, in Heaven's
name! This is a cruel blow to me."

After a short pause of painful consideration, Fargus went
over to his desk and brought out the manuscript.

"In this," he said, "you will find all. I wrote it for you,
as soon as I received your last letter — ^wrote it with the sole
intention of giving you back your peace of mind. One
moment more," he added, as Lewis hastily extended his
hand. "Every word you will read here is true in fact and
in spirit. As a legal document in your favor — as a document,
I say, to prove your position as the legitimate son of George
Kerr, and in his absence as the heir-in-law — I know its value
is nil. Happily, no such thing is required now. What
was, however, required, what was due to you, was a state-
ment of such evidences as would disburden your mind of that
gnawing doubt, that uneasiness, which has of late helped
to poison it."

Lewis spread the papers on the table without a word, and
almost threw himself upon them in a vain endeavor to
decipher them in the darkness, while, with a heavy nigh,
Fargus rose and left the room.

CHAPTER XXVn.

FATHER AND SON.

Oppressed by the accumulated disappointments, Fargus in-
stinctively sought the cool twilight spaces out of doors.

He was standing beneath the room he had just left; the
servant had even then brought in the lamp, and Lewis,
once more alone, was at last about to read for himself the
story of his father's life.

Fargus stopped and watched the silent scene within. The
light fell full upon the young man's troubled forehead; not-
withstanding the distance, every shade upon it was visible
to the watcher, as, seated facing him, his elbows upon the
table, Lewis closely scanned the written sheets. From his
post in the outer darkness Fargus could follow his progress
almost line by line; in his mind was looking over the broad,
bent shoulder, seeing the words as they passed beneath the
downcast eyes ; he could have told well-nigh the very thoughts,
the impatience, suspicion, anxiety, that were stimggling be-
hind the drawn brows over these first pages of careful prep-

Father and Son. 249

aration, and necessarily somewhat lengthy preamble. Pres-
ently the reader made a startled movement, bent over the
writing with staring intentness for a moment, then looked
up and dropped his hands, and, as under the light his face
was blasted with a white, stony astonishment, Fargus knew
that the name adopted by the George Kerr of old, on the day
of his civil death, had now, for the first time, appeared on
the pages of his biography.

After a long interval Lewis brushed his forehead with the
familiar gesture, and once again resumed his task. And the
father knew that under the son's gaze was now spread forth
the strange history of George Kerr's transmigration of soul,
of his varied life under the new personality, his sudden return
to things of old, and the novel relations which had existed be-
tween him and his new-found kinsfolk until the present hour ;
and he earnestly watched for any indication of the mood in
which these revelations were received.

During the perusal of this last part Lewis paused several
times. When he came to the end he slowly gathered the
papers together, replaced them in their envelope. Then, with
his profile blackly defined against the inner light, he became
wrapped in stillness, as though pliuiged in profoundest con-
verse with himself. Fargus re-entered the room.

His son turned upon him a hard, scrutinizing glance; his
face was as a sealed book to the father's eager eyes. The
latter's heart sank.

"Great God! he does not believe me! Oh, Lewis, my own
boy!" The last words forced themselves audibly from hia
lips.

The young man seemed moved by this cry of anguish, so
unlike the usual deliberate speech of the man. Rising to his
feet, he advanced and faltered out:

"What can I say? Colonel Fargus, I am utterly be-
wildered."

"Colonel Fargus!" repeated the other. "It is so, then.
I am only David Fargus! Of course, how could Fargus
claim George Kerr's son? And yet," with savage earnest-
ness, "you are my boy, and I do claim you — and all I have
tried to do for you shall not have been done in vain! You
must believe that I am your father, that I am the George
Kerr whom the world has forgotten and will never know

again

l»

Without taking his eye off Lewis' now wondering counte-
nance, he seized the lamp with one hand and with the other
grasped the young man's arm.

"Come and see for yourself !" he cried, and drew him into
th« adjacent bedroom, baiting with him in front of tbo

250 Father and Son.

mirror. There, clasping him round the neck, he drew the
youthful face near his own and, stooping forward, held the
steady light aloft. /

Their eyes met in the glass. Brown eyes in both faces
(set wide apart and well covered under an energetic brow),
with the same double furrow between, fostered by habitually
reflective mood, less deep-set, perhaps, in the younger face,
but not brighter. Now, with pupils widened in the insuf-
ficient light, and under the strain of growing emotion, they
were strangely alike, for all the five-and-twenty years of life
which separated them.

As the first recognition of this unthought-of resemblance
flashed upon Lewis, he made a movement as if to disengage
himself and turn around upon his companion. But ho
checked himself and peered into the glass, to become finally
quite absorbed in contemplation.

Never before had Lewis subjected human physiognomy to
such unsparing scrutiny. Feature by feature, line by line, he
compared the two faces reflected before him with intent,
eager, yet deliberate criticism. In some details they were
unlike. His own straight nose, somewhat short and wide,
in no way recalled that of Fargus — high-bridged, aquiline of
bend and narrow of nostril. The ears, too, were dissimilar,
in his case smaller and less masculine, inherited, in fact,
from the^delicate beauty of his Spanish mother. But in all
the other features which gave character to a, face the repro-
duction was unmistakable, and shone forth assertingly, since
Fargus's masking beard had been discarded.

The strong, square chin with the cleft dent — a well-known
Kerr characteristic; the straight mouth, larger and less thin-
lipped in Lewis, but unmistakably cut on the same lines, set
with the same firm yet kindly decisiveness ; the square brow,
solid and smooth, with low-growing hair of the same brovra,
now touched with gray upon the elder man — all tallied un-
mistakably, unusually, even down to the curious coincidence
of the deep scar, still red and angry upon the son's pale
face, while showing markedly upon the father's cheek, white
even as the recent invalid's where the razor had passed that
day.

And presently, as Lewis gazed, a sudden discomposure
spread over his countenance.

Fargus put down the lamp on the table, and with a twist
of his fingers turned up the ends of his mustache after the
Velasquez-like manner which Lewis cultivated. This last
touch was almost magical, qualifying as it did the habitual
gravity of his mien.

"Now, my son," said he, speaking to him for the first time

Father and Son. 251

in the Spanish tongue, "thou no doubt seest my reason for
attempting to regenerate myself a little. Dost thou want
further proof, Lewis, my son? Give me thy hand."

There was music for Lewis' ears in that language, the
sound of which was associated with the only "home" he had
ever known. He was, however, too bewildered by the torrent
of new conceptions that during the last hour had swept
through his mind to feel fresh surprise.

Noting the increased intentness in his son's looks, Fargus
again approached the light, took the young man's hand, and
turned it palm upward.

"Lewie, all I want is to show thee another sign of thy
heredity. See that straight line, cutting thy hand from side
to side with such curiously marked definition."

Without answering, Lewis looked obediently down upon a
palm of a description to have indeed puzzled a chiromancist.

"No doubt you never even noticed this peculiarity; and
yet it is quite singular, quite unlike the irregular and broken
lines, with ends overlapping, which you would find, more
or less diversfied, but always essentially the same, on other
people's hands. Now, there is the mark on your hand. I
looked for it and found it when you lay ill and unconscious'
in Brussels; and here it is on mine!"

Fargus turned his own hand supine, and placed it beside
his son's; they were identical in their unusual characteristic.
After a moment's pause he closed it again, and silently
pointed to the signet-ring, on which Lewis at one glance
recognized the ancient crest, and a moment later the same
heraldic device upon the inner case of the watch, which was
next proffered for his inspection.

"But why have recourse to such by-evidence ? Lewis, bring
before your mind the portrait of your father, taken when
he was no older than you are now. Through the mask of
these many years can you not see the same man again
before you?"

In that almost spiritualized state, born of great mental
excitement, which in singleness of thought is akin to dream-
ing, Lewis found his gaze riveted on the bright eyes which
looked with masterful glow so straight into his. A vision of
the portrait arose before him and overlapped the living image,
to fade away again and leave him gazing at the reality, un-
certain for a moment which was which. Those were in truth
the same eyes that had watched him in pained faithfulness
in his cradle at Seville, in his lonely Edinburgh lodgings, in
his College rooms, in Staple Inn !

They stood face to face one moment, with eyes searching

2S2 Father and Son.

each other's thoughts; then their hands joined by one warm
impulse, and the younger, in a low, humble voice murmured :

"I do believe — forgive me."

At this, Fargus, the stem and self-possessed, broke down;
tears started to his eyes.

"Forgive you, my son!" he cried, in halting accents; "is it
not I who should ask to be forgiven for the past, and still
more for the harm I have unwittingly caused you now? — I,
who never deserted a son like you, my big, brave, clever boy !"

He paused, and for a while silently contemplated the young
man from head to foot, with pride burning through his wet
lashes.

"And yet it has been my fate to bring nothing to you,
after all, but misery. My first step across your path all but
cost you your life . . . my very efforts to help you on
toward happiness have destroyed your hopes."

Letting the young man's hand fall, Fargus stopped, his
face stamped with such depth of sadness that Lewis' heart
was filled with compassion.

Filial respect is innate in all refined natures, but filial love
can only spring from prolonged association. It was this sense
of respect, however, which stirred Lewis' brave, warm heart
into protest at last.

"For God's sake, sir, do not so misunderstand me! Do
not believe that I would now take upon myself to pass judg-
ment on — on my father's actions. I am — ^we are both victims
of circumstances. The past is beyond recall."

"One thing, at least, sir, you have done for me to-day, for
which I owe you gratitude — ^you have roused me from my
foolish weakness ; the time has come to be a man once more,
and resiune self-control. Before I again leave England you
must be restored to your rightful position as the master of
Gilham "

"Lewis!" cried Fargus. "Is it possible you can so mis-
conceive the position ? Never, never speak so again. I know
you did not mean this affront. George Kerr is dead — dead
to all but you. The money is yours, the place is yours; do
with them what you will, but for God's sake never insult
me again by offering them to me!"

Dinner was over at last; host and guest sat on either side
of the hearth with unen joyed pipe in hand, absently watching
the metamorphosis from yellow flame to red and gray ash
of the piled-up wood fire. The meal had been an unpleasant
ordeal.

Before the end of dinner many had been the spells of

Father and Son. 253

meditative silence between father and son as they sat oppo-
site each other, and when they at last adjourned to the study
both by tacit consent yielded to the impression of the hour,
and fell into silence, to follow undisturbedly the drift of
their own thoughts.

And then to Fargus slowly but fatally there once more
unrolled itself to view a picture of the consequences he had
brought upon himself and others by his own acts. Lewis
was indeed now master of his inheritance, but at what cost —
only through the incongruous interference of an angry
woman! From the father nothing had come but failure,
irremediable miscarriage of purpose; worse than all, his was
the black shadow now cast upon his son's life — upon two
young lives; for bitter, no doubt, were the thoughts evolved
at that very moment within the lovely head yonder among
the pines on the hill. What would he not give to be able
to recall, if it could be done without jeopardy to Lewis' pros-
pects, their former easy relations of friend to friend, instead
of this ghastly constraint, this terrible playing at father
and son?

Such were the thoughts which for Fargus, on that long-
looked-for evening, fQled the silence of the chamber at the
Lone Grange.

In equally absorbed mood sat Lewis, absently smoking, now
gazing with unsettled speculation at the figure opposite him,
at once so familiar and so strange in its new character, now
dreamily peering into the dance of flame on the hearth. He
had said he would be a man again, would cut off the past with
its clinging and disabling sorrow, its sapping longings and un-
manly weakess of despair, and begin a new life ; ay, but how ?
His heart grew faint at the thought of existence at Gilham
Court in deadly monotony and tantalizing proximity to his
lost ideal.

Could he leave that pale, sad man who was his father ? could
he refuse the duty he had cast upon him, and abandon the
headship of his house? And with a weary sigh he would see
all his plans crumble again into blank uncertainty, and chide
himself in vain for the mental palsy which seemed to make
him so absolutely indifferent to the great fact that he had
found a father.

The clock-hand went its dreary round twice over the hours,
the fire fell and sank low, the pipes had long been cold, when
the eyes of both men met again at last. In one look each saw
how devious paths of thought had brought them to the same
point — a dull and blank wall of utter hopelosaneas. There
was no need for words.

Farjfus rose with a sigh of weariness.

254 I^atlier and Son.

"When I think, my dear boy, that you, on whora I have

brought all this — ^you spoke about my forgiveness " He

paused in eloquent speechlessness; then, as one who gives up
the search after an impossible solution, continued : "To-mor-
row, perhaps, we may come to a decision as to what is best to
do; now my head is spent. Good-night. Do not brood too
much ; to-morrow we shall talk. God bless you, Lewis !"

He lit a candle for his guest, then one for himself. The
light flickered upon his face, and Lewis, with a sudden sharp
pang, saw how lined and worn and drawn it was. Only a few
hours ago the young man had bitterly reproached him for his
youthful appearance ; now, as he stood, and in silence pressed
his hand, his father looked indeed an old man.

With the relief-bringing hour of dawn, sleep came upon
Lewis' tired brain. He had passed most of the night in
ceaseless walking up and down the room, fighting with the
problem he was unable to conquer, and at last, worn out with
fatigue, both mental and physical, he had flung himself, with-
out undressing, on his bed. And now sleep had come to him ;
but it was the unrestf ul, dream-tossed sleep of a mind swing-
ing on the hinge of indecision, from recurring worry of boot-
less search to recurring failure.

It was dark around him, and yet there was light somewhere.
Chilled to the marrow, still \inder the spell of his nightmare,
he sprang from the bed and pushed open the door, dimly won-
dering to find it ajar, for he remembered to have closed it
over night. In the inner room a candle was fitfully burning
itself out in its socket. Seized with a childish terror, he
rushed to Fargus' room and knocked loudly. There was no
answer. He took up the flickering light and went in. The
room was cold and empty. The bed was undisturbed. Hardly
knowing what he was doing, with dread apprehensions upon
him, he came back again, and began to search the house.
With the draught in the cold passage the dying flamie went
out, but the cold light of breaking day was already spreading
through the curtainless windows, and showed him each room
as he entered it as forlorn and abandoned as the last. Up and
down numberless stairs and passages, into chamber after
chamber, he hurried in frenzied seeking, ever and anon calling
Fargus' name in fearsome voice, to receive no answer save the
dismal, ghostly echo of the empty house, to find everywhere the
same silence and void — all empty and solitary as in his dream.

With that last vision of his father's face, grown so old and
sorrow-stricken in his eyes, he returned at length to the study,
too much troubled even to feel shame of the terror which en-
compassed him. There, in the shuttered darkness, he had to
procure another candle, and, as the light shot up, his eyes fell

Father and Son. 255

upon the white glimmer of an envelope prominent upon the
green cloth of the center table. He lifted it with a shaking
hand, to find his name upon it — ^his name in his father's writ-
ing— and tore it open.

"Dear Son (it read) : "I must go. The whole of the
night I have spent in trying to think what is best to do.
There is only one way; I must leave you. Better, perhaps,
for you had I never sought you at all ; and if now by going '
from you in this hurried manner, and seeming to desert you
again, I cause you fresh trouble, you will forgive me, thinking
how terrible it is for me. I must leave you, dear son. This
is to be my punishment for a selfish past, and as such I accept
it, and hope that it may remove one cause of distress in your
life. Do not henceforth think of the father, but only of the
friend who would have made the sacrifice of leaving you
sooner had he suspected that he could ever stand between you
and your happiness.

"And now the time has come. I will not wait to meet you
again; you have had too many painful scenes through me
already. I give myself until the candle burns out to be under
the same roof with you, then I will look once more upon your
face — that face which has grown so dear to me — as you sleep
there next to me, and then take up my lonely life again.
Good-by, dear Lewis. Burn this letter. I know you will
respect my secret. Do not seek to find me. Do what your
heart and judgment prompt you. I have confidence in both.
I have confidence also in your future. God bless you !"

Lewis read these lines, incoherently, hurriedly dropped from
a trembling pen. In the silence and cold of his solitude the
misery of his dream returned upon him with an iron grip as
he realized their import. His father, like his love, had left
him — ^had faded out of his life forever.

Suddenly a flash of energy roused him. The words of the
letter seemed to print themselves in fire upon his brain.
"I give myself till the candle burns out." The candle had
only just burned out. It was but a few moments ago since his
father, that melancholy, aged figure, had towered over him,
light in hand, and entered into his dreams— only a few mo-
ments ago that a door had really been opened, that the gate
had closed, echoing in his half -conscious brain. Fargus was
gone, indeed, but he could not be far. off.

And at once, under the thought, the paralyzing horror of
his nightmare gave way to a warm glow of reaction. With
the fever of sudden resolution, he dashed into the hall and
out of the house.

It was the opening of a sullen day. Drizzling rain slanted
from heaven to earth, with fine, almost invisible, persistence.

256 Father and Son.

He had reached that gently rising eminence which dominated
so much of the country round; there, panting for breath, he
paused and scanned the horizon with anxious, peering eye.
Nothing but gray, gray sky and earth on every side — not a
living being in sight.

And yet, "He cannot have gone far. The candle has only
just burned out." In a sort of despairing anger at thus realiz-
ing in waking life the dread desertion of his dream, Lewis
called out the words aloud, "He must be stopped — he must be
stopped 1"

Again he turned and slowly cast a straining glance around ;
at that moment a ray of yellow light darted between great
banks of clouds in the east, and swept more warmly over part
of the dull field of view; and then, across the gilded path of
that blessed ray, was seen a dark point, slowly moving.

With a stifled cry of triumph, Lewis sprang in pursuit,
with elbows pressed to his sides, bounding like a hound over
the plain, conscious of but one thing, that he must cover the
space between them before the figure disappeared.

It was not so far — half a mile at most, for Fargus had had
but little start. And yet, in rage at his impotency, upborne
by the intensity of his desire, he pressed on, on still, imtil it
seemed as if he had been running for hours already.

He had gained on the figure markedly, yet now it seemed, as
it swam and faded before his startling gaze, to be steadily in-
creasing the distance between them once more. His feet were
weighted down with iron weights, the cold and the numbness
were reaching his knees ; in another moment he knew that he
would fall, and that his father would silently, fatally continue
on his way and disappear forever. He stopped, and the whole
of his life energy was thrown into a wild, appealing, angry
cry:

"Halt ! for Heaven's sake, halt !"

The call was, for all the effort it represented, but a feeble
one, but it reached the lonely traveler in the silence of the
moorland. He, too, came abruptly to a standstill, as if it had
struck him like a shot, and then turned round, looking vaguely
about him. Lewis waved his arm and beheld, as it were
through a circling mist, how the figure began to retrace its
steps and oome toward him, first slowly, presently at a run.

For e moment he lost consciousness, all was dark before
him ; but the next minute his hands were grasped with a warm,
living, strong pressure that seemed to send thrills of new life
to his heart, to fill it with strange, unwonted comfort.

He looked up at the anxious, white face bending over him —
the face of his father !

Tears welled into his eyes and flowed down his cheeks. He

Father and Son. 257

did not know it. He only felt intense and keen relief and
inexpressible comfort. Then he found himself speaking in
hurried, passionate accents :

"You were going ; I, too, must go ; I cannot live here. We
will go together. There can be no home for us here now ; but
the world lies wide before us. Will you not take me with
you and remain my guide, friend, companion ? Afterward we
will return here — afterward, when we can come back to-
gether."

And then, receiving no reply, looking up in fear to meet no
compliance in the loving eyes, which were so sad as they
looked back at him, as sad as in his dream, there broke forth a
cry from his very heart :

"Father, you will not leave me? Father!'*

The gathering sunlight had grown upon the dull day and
driven the mists aside, and turned the drenching wet of leaf
and grass-blade to a tangle of diamond and gold. Shoulder
to shoulder, under the promise of a glorious noon, went father
and son together across the moorland, on their way out into
the world.

THE END.

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