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Presented to the
LIBRARY of the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

from the Estate
of

PROFESSOR BEATRICE
M. CORRIGAN

MADAME LEROUX.

MADAME LEROUX.

FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE,

AUTHOR OF

THAT UNFORTUNATE MARRIAGE,'' "BLACK SPIRITS AND WHITE,
ETC.

VOLUME II.

LONDON :

RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
NEW BURLINGTON STREET,

in COrfcinftrg t0 Ijcr jHajestn tlje (Queen.

1890

[All Rights Reserved.]

MADAME LEROUX.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE holidays were so near at hand when
Lucy entered on her duties at Douro House
that she found the scholastic routine some-
what disorganised. Every one's thoughts
and efforts were directed towards making a
brilliant figure on the last day of the term.
This was to. be celebrated by a matin£e, at
which a few recitations in French, German,
and English, and some musical pieces, were
to be performed by some of the pupils. But
the whole affair was to assume, as far as
possible, the character of a fashionable
gathering, and to suggest as little as could
be contrived an ordinary school " breaking

VOL. II.

21

MADAME LEROUX.

up," with prize giving, and such antiquated
ceremonials.

Madame Leroux's connection was said to
lie almost exclusively among persons of rank
and fashion, which reputation had filled her
school with the daughters of persons who
had neither. As a matter of fact, there were
scarcely any girls of aristocratic family among
the boarders in Douro House ; but Madame
had established certain select day - classes,
which were attended by girls of first-rate
social standing, whose families lived in the
neighbourhood. Thus the wealthy stock-
brokers' and manufacturers' wives were able
to boast that their girls were schoolfellows of
Lord A.'s, and Sir B. C.'s, and Lady D.'s
daughters ; and they were willing to pay
highly for the privilege.

A great deal was said by Madame Le-
roux herself, and by others, about the "tone"
of her school, It was an unpleasantly preten-
tious tone ; it was also a tone which fos-
tered worldliness, extravagance, and vanity.
But the glamour of it brought grist to Ma-
dame's mill. She herself was wont to speak

MADAME LEROUX.

of it in a frankly cynical fashion to sundry con-
fidential friends entirely outside the sphere
of "prunes and prism." " One is obliged to go
in for super-finery," she would say. " Nothing
•can be more ludicrously vulgar ; but nothing,
in my line of business, pays so well ! "

Lucy, on her arrival at Douro House,
was put under the charge of Fraulein
Schulze, who had orders to set her in the
way of her duties, and initiate her into the
routine of the house. The Fraulein was a
plain, spectacled, hard-featured woman, over
fifty, who seemed to have become a sort of
governessing-machine, and to have neither
loves nor hates, hopes nor fears, nor any
human emotion unconnected with the school-
room. She did not receive Lucy very
graciously. It was very disagreeable, she
grumbled, to have a new teacher just at the
•end of the term, when everything was more
or less in confusion, and she declared —
speaking excellent English with a peculiarly
hideous accent — that Miss Smith would not
have time to learn her " tudies " before the
holidays arrived.

MADAME LEROUX.

During the whole of the first day after
her arrival Lucy did not once see Madame
Leroux. Madame did not take much part
in the general teaching, and sometimes did
not enter the schoolroom for several days
together ; but she was supposed to exercise
a general supervision over all the studies,
and would now and then examine some
special class in her own room. There were,
however, countless masters and mistresses
from outside — " professors " of this and that,
who came and went all day long ; rushing in
to give three or four lessons of fifteen
minutes' duration each, and rushing out
again, watch in hand, to repeat the same
process elsewhere.

Lucy felt almost dizzy in watching this
procession, and wondered how it had been
possible for any of the pupils to learn any-
thing at all on such a system. She began to
understand it somewhat better when she
found that the whole drudgery of teaching
fell on the shoulders of two or three obscure
subordinates ; and that the only object aimed
at and achieved by the payment of guineas

MADAME LEROUX.

and half-guineas for those hurried fifteen
minutes was to enable young ladies to boast
themselves pupils of Herr Getose and Signer
Strilloni.

She perceived, moreover, that the "tone"
of the school did not include courtesy or con-
sideration towards the subordinate teachers ;
and was amazed at the vulgar insolence with
which she was treated by certain of the
boarders. So grossly rude was the be-
haviour of one of them, that Lucy went to
Fraulein Schulze and declared her intention
of complaining to Madame Leroux if the
girl did not amend her manners. But the
old experienced hand assured her that such
a proceeding would be worse than useless.

" What do you suppose Madame would
do ? " asked Fraulein Schulze, her light eyes
blinking through her spectacles, and her
forehead puckered into a frown. " You
don't imagine she would send Miss Cohen
away, do you ? "

" I should think Madame would not let
her remain to give a bad example if she
persists in behaving so unlike a lady."

MADAME LEROUX.

" Sancta Simplicitas ! Do you know-
how much Miss Cohen pays ? Madame can
find many more poor young ladies anxious
to teach the piano than rich ones willing to
learn it. One keeps a school to make
money. If you can fight it out for yourself,
and get the better of Miss Cohen, well and
good. Madame will not interfere. But I
tell you once for all you will do yourself
harm by complaining. If you are zensitif
you should not be a teacher."

On the second day, Lucy saw Madame
Leroux ; and the moment she beheld herr
Fatima's words recurred to her mind : " She
has a daylight manner as well as a daylight
face."

Surely this was a different woman from
her whom she had last seen across Mr.
Adolphus Hawkins's supper table ! The
roses of her complexion had considerably
paled, and her luxuriant curls — not quite so-
luxuriant as in Great Portland Street, Lucy
thought — were partially hidden under a tri-
angular piece of delicate lace. Her dress
was rich and elegant, but subdued in colour

MADAME LEROUX.

and without rustle or glitter. But it was in
the expression of her face — it was in the
manner of moving and speaking, even in the
very tone of the voice, that the remarkable
change consisted which struck Lucy with
astonishment.

This woman — yes, this woman did come
very near (at all events in outward present-
ment) to the ideal schoolmistress she had
pictured to herself. There was nothing prim
or stiff, no assumption of gravity about her.
But the bright vivacity of her glance and
her smile had lost their coquettish poignancy,
and beamed with the kindliest radiance.
Her easy gracefulness, her perfect tact, the
subtle mixture of authority and gentleness in
all she said and did, were admirable ; and
their effect was enhanced by an air of un-
affected good breeding.

Watching her for a while, herself un-
noticed, Lucy recognized distinct traces of
Lady Charlotte Gaunt's manner at her best.
Certain turns of phrase, and even certain
movements of the head, were Lady Charlotte
to the life. Caroline Graham, in short, was

MADAME LEROUX.

acting her former patroness with remarkable
histrionic ability. Her present rendering
was of a softened and favourable kind ; but
it was not difficult to imagine her giving a
very different version of Lady Charlotte's
air noble. Her powers would undoubtedly
be equal to a very scathing caricature.

Madame Leroux was clearly the object
of her pupils' enthusiastic admiration. Her
sayings were quoted, her beauty was praised,
her elegance was held up as a model.
Madame took care never to appear in an
unpopular character. If a reproof were to be
administered or a petition refused, these dis-
agreeable functions were delegated to some
one else. Generally they fell to the lot of
Fraulein Schulze, who didn't mind being
unpopular ; or if she did mind, at all events
made no remonstrance, which did just as
well.

As regarded the material conditions of
her life, one piece of good fortune befel
Lucy ; she had a room to herself. It was a
mere closet at the top of the house, with a
little window in the roof, and originally

MADAME LEROUX.

intended for storing linen or some such
household gear. But such as it was, Lucy
thankfully accepted it. It would be her own.
She could close the door and be alone there.

She soon found, however, that there were
scarcely any minutes available for being
.alone, until bed-time. It was not that her
regular occupations were so incessant ; but in
the bustle of preparation for the matinte a
variety of small tasks devolved on her, for
the simple reason that no one else would
undertake them. And then one or two
pupils who were to play and recite on the
great day had to be unremittingly drilled in
their show pieces during every spare half
hour, until certain combinations of notes and
words lost all significance in Lucy's ear by
sheer iteration ; and became mere irritants to
her quivering nerves and wearied brain.

" If you are zensitiff? Fraulein Schulze
had said, " you ought not to be a teacher."

Lucy was dismayed to discover how
sensitive she was, not only in heart, but in
nerves, in taste, in temper. It was alarming
to feel so weary and disgusted at the first

10 MADAME LEROUX.

trial ! Where were her brave resolves to
earn her bread with cheerfulness, and to
repine at no hardships that made her inde-
pendent, and left her her self-respect ? Was
she going weakly to break down already ?

The truth was, that Lucy — like most
young creatures not inured to the horny-
handed grip of necessity — had softened and
mitigated the more painful details in every
picture she had made of the future in her
own mind. The troubles she had represented
to herself were of the kind which she felt best
able to endure. But Destiny concerns her-
self with no such considerate adjustments.
And Lucy was quite unprepared for most of
the daily slings and arrows which assailed her
fortitude and wounded her feelings. Certainly
Fraulein Schulze was right. It was a terrible
misfortune for a teacher to be sensitive !

She had written a few lines to Mildred
immediately on the conclusion of her engage-
ment with Madame Leroux ; dwelling on her
good fortune, and the high reputation of the
school ; and promising to write more fully
when she should have become initiated into

MADAME LEROUX. n

her new life. But before she found leisure
and opportunity to do so, a letter came from
Mildred, which made her feel utterly forlorn.

The Enderbys were going abroad earlier
than had been at first intended. They were
to spend August and part of September in
Switzerland, and then travel slowly towards
Rome, visiting Venice and the Italian lakes
on their way. The truth was that Sir Lionel,
having once accepted the idea of foreign
travel, grew impatient to try it forthwith.
He was like a child expecting a promised
toy, to whom to-morrow seems an intolerably
long way off.

The letter had been addressed to the
care of Mr. Hawkins ; and having fallen
under Fatima's observation, she had taken
the trouble to forward it. Otherwise, the
chances in favour of its reaching its proper
destination would have been small. Mrs.
Hawkins would have thought it must be
some one else's business to attend to it ; and
Mr. Hawkins would have intended to see to
it at the first moment he could spare ; and so
it might have reached the dustman un-

12 MADAME LEROUX.

opened, in company with a mass of hetero-
geneous documents connected with the
Beneficent Pelican, and other birds of prey.

But it did reach Lucy's hands only two
days later than it should have done ; and she
felt the news it contained to be a severe
blow. She had not realised, until it came,
how much hope lay hidden in her heart of
returning to Enderby Court during the holi-
days ; or, at least, of seeing Mildred fre-
quently if she spent the vacation at Mr.
Shard's house. But now she seemed to feel,
for the first time, the full significance of her
separation from Mildred, and from all her old
life. She cried herself to sleep that night in
her little attic chamber, and awoke the next
morning with a throbbing head and a heavy
heart.

It was within a week of the end of the
school term, when Mr. Shard wrote to inform
her that arrangements had been made for her
to spend the holidays at Douro House. It
was 'not worth while, he said, to incur the
expense of a journey to Westfield and back ;
especially since Sir Lionel and Miss Enderby

MADAME LEROUX. 13

would be abroad, and the Court shut up ; and
since, moreover, her board for the whole of
the first year had been included in the
bargain made with Madame Leroux.

" I paid a heavy premium for you. Lucy,"
wrote Mr. Shard, " and we must get all the
advantage we can. You are very fortunate
to be in such a tip-top establishment. And
I look upon you now as having had an un-
commonly good start given you. All things
considered, you can't expect me to do more
than I have done ; and I rely on your good
sense to follow it up by doing the best you
can for yourself in every way. Indeed, I
look upon this as a sacred duty, and have
endeavoured to carry it out myself through
life. Your Aunt Sarah (she is loth to re-
linquish the old, familiar title, although well
aware, as you are, that she has no legal
right to it) desires her love, and sends the
enclosed. And I am,

"My dear Lucy,

" Yours very truly,

"JACOB SHARD."

i4 MADAME LEROUX.

The " enclosed " was a tiny tract, headed,
•" Stop, Sinner ! ! ! " like a pious sort of hue-
and-cry.

The grief caused by Mildred's letter
drove out any pain which might otherwise
have been occasioned by Mr. Shard's. It
-did not matter where she spent the vacation,
since she could not spend it with the only
creature who loved her.

She was soon startled, however, by find-
ing that she was not expected to remain at
Douro House. On mentioning the matter
to Fraulein Schulze, that lady looked greatly
surprised, and asked how she intended to
live, seeing that Madame would probably go
abroad as usual, and that she and all the
other teachers would be away. This was
alarming. And Lucy took the bold step of
seeking an interview with Madame Leroux
by going straight to her room, without any
preliminary asking of leave to do so.

Madame was seated at a little writing-
table strewn with papers. Most of these
were bills. But there were some private
notes, and one or two theatre-tickets lying

MADAME LEROUX. 15

in a little heap together at her right hand.
Over these she threw her handkerchief be-
fore saying " Come in," in answer to Lucy's
tap at the door.

" Oh, it's you, is it, Miss Smith ? " she
said, looking up ; and then she returned her
pocket-handkerchief to her pocket.

" I beg your pardon, Madame ; I am
afraid you are busy. But I was com-
pelled "

" Yes, I am busy, of course ; I always am
in the last days of term. But say what you
have to say."

Lucy, thinking it the quickest way to
communicate her business, handed Mr.
Shard's letter to Madame Leroux. She
bade Lucy sit down, and, taking the letter,
glanced through it rapidly.

" Well," she said, raising her bright eyes,
"' he seems a sharp practitioner, this Mr.
Shard. But what do you want me to
do?"

" Fraulein Schulze told me " sbegan

Lucy. Then she paused, and went on with
a resolutely composed manner. " I merely

1 6 MADAME LEROUX.

wished to know whether you intend to go
away and shut up this house during the
holidays; because if you do, I — I don't know
what's to become of me ! " And, suddenly
breaking down, she burst into tears.

" Tiens, tiens, liens / " murmured Madame
Leroux. " Don't cry ; it is so disagreeable
to see people cry ! And you'll spoil your
eyes." She spoke half jestingly, but not un-
kindly, and touched Lucy's rich dark hair
with the tips of her fingers. As she did so,
the same dreamy, far-away look came into
her eyes with which she had regarded Lucy
the first time she saw her ; and it was with a
kind of effort, as if rousing herself from a
reverie, that she proceeded. " As it happens,
I am not likely to go abroad this year.
Schulze does not know everything ; it is not
necessary that she should. I shan't keep up
much of an establishment. The servants
will be away. It will be a sort of bivouac.
We will bivouac together, hein ? Don't cry!"
And once more she lightly stroked the girl's
hair. *

In her relief of mind, and in her gratitude

MADAME LEROUX.

at hearing a kind word, Lucy took the white
hand in her own, and kissed it.

Madame drew her hand away, and looked
doubtfully at the girl. She had little sym-
pathy with manifestations of emotion, and
was apt to suspect their genuineness.
" There, there," she said, " don't let us
exaggerate ; there is nothing to make a fuss
about."

" Forgive me," said Lucy, timidly ; " I
felt so lonely, and I have no mother."

VOL. II.

22

CHAPTER XIX.

A STRANGE quietude settled down on Douro
House when the pupils and teachers had
departed, and even the servants had gone
away for the holidays. The blinds were
drawn down and the furniture was muffled
up, and an old woman was installed in the
lower regions as caretaker. But Madame
Leroux stayed on, nevertheless ; and Lucy
stayed with her.

The caretaker was a Savoyarde, whose
son kept a small eating-house in the Soho
district, and she had no acquaintances in
the neighbourhood of Douro House. Nor,
indeed, was her English sufficiently fluent to
enable her to indulge in much gossip, had
she been inclined for it.

"When I stay in town incog." Madame
[ 18]

MADAME LEROUX. 19

Leroux would say to her confidential friends,
" I take good care to have no chattering
Mary Ann's or Betsy Jane's on the premises.
English servants are all spies ; some fools ;
some knaves ; and many all three ! "

On the first evening of the holidays,
Madame Leroux informed Lucy that she
had a private box at the theatre, and asked
if she would like to accompany her to the
play. Lucy gratefully accepted the offer,
and ran to change her dress with some eagei
anticipations of pleasure. Her experiences
of the drama had been confined to seeing a

pantomime at S once or twice, when she

and Mildred were children, and had been
taken by Lady Jane to spend a week at
Christmas in the county town. But she
had never been inside a London theatre, and
the play to be performed to-night was one
which had greatly taken the taste of the
town ; and the manager was keeping his
theatre open beyond the usual season in
order not to interrupt its successful run.

She, therefore, came downstairs prepared
for enjoyment. But she was greatly taken

20 MADAME LEROUX.

aback to find that instead of leaving the
house by the usual egress, they were to slip
out secretly at a back door, which led to
some mews, where a hired carriage was
awaiting them. As Lucy hesitated a moment
on being told to step out at the back door,
Madame Leroux said —

"It is a warm night ; you are not afraid
of walking a few yards bare-headed, are
you ? "

" Oh, no," answered Lucy, moving
quickly forward. But Madame, glancing at
her face, saw an expression there which dis-
pleased her ; and when they were seated in
the carriage, she said —

"You look quite tragical, Miss Smith!
Might I inquire what is the matter ? "

" I did not mean to look tragical,"
answered Lucy, considerably embarrassed.

" Shocked, then, or whatever you like to
call it."

" Only surprised."

" Did you imagine I should advertise my
presence in town by getting into a carriage at
jny own door in broad daylight ? There are

MADAME LEROUX.

neighbours ! I have told every one that I
was going abroad."

" Have you ? " said Lucy, looking up at
her innocently.

" Yes ; and you will please remember
that, for every one connected with the school,
I ant abroad ; and you are staying with some
friends. I don't know that any questions will
be asked ; but if any should be, you will know
what to say. Do you understand me ?" added
Madame, impatiently. " You look as if you
were dreaming."

" Yes, I understand," answered Lucy, in
a low voice.

" And, moreover, whatever amusements I
allow you to share in with me during the
vacation, you will enjoy on condition that you
hold your tongue about them. I should not
venture on appearing at the theatre to-night
only that hardly any of my clientele are in
town now ; and most of them would swear
they were not, anyway. Philistines, prigs,
and puritans are bores ; but, unfortunately,
they are my best- paying customers ! I'm
sure you are intelligent enough to perceive

MADAME LEROUX,

that a certain amount of tact and discretion is
necessary in dealing with people of that sort,
kein ? " Then, as Lucy did not answer, but
merely bent her head submissively, Madame
continued, in a much harder tone, " At all
events, if you do not perceive it, Mrs.
Hawkins has given me a wrong impression
of you altogether."

Lucy's rising spirits were effectually
checked, and she remained pale and silent
for the rest of the evening.

Madame Leroux, on the contrary, threw
off the little cloud of annoyance in a very
few minutes. She held a sort of levde in the
private box, where she sat so as to be almost
hidden from the audience. Several men
lounged in and out, in a free-and-easy sort
of fashion, and stood talking to her between
the acts. Most of them were foreigners.
One or two of them looked at Lucy
curiously ; but no one was introduced to
her, and no one addressed her. She was
conscious, however, in more than one in-
stance, that they were speaking of her —
questioning Madame Leroux about her.

MADAME LEROUX. 23

There was one stout, dark, oily-faced man,
with huge diamond studs — or what looked
like diamonds — in his shirt front, whose
observation was particularly disagreeable to
her. And altogether she felt thoroughly ill
at ease.

All at once she recognized a voice behind
her, and turned round, almost eagerly, to
salute Mr. Frampton Fennell, who had
entered the box, and was giving Madame
Leroux and the others the advantage of his
criticism on the play.

" Oh I— a— Miss— a "

" Smith."

" Exactly ! How d'ye do, Miss Smith ?
I was just saying that when you find a pro-
duction like this running to crowded audi-
ences for more than five hundred consecutive
nights, you have a pretty fair plummet to
sound the depth of degradation to which
the drama — in common with literature
generally, and the fine arts — has fallen in
England."

Mr. Fennell expressed no surprise at
seeing Lucy there. He had an agreeable,

24 MADAME LEROUX.

though vague, recollection of Miss Smith as-
a good listener ; and if a young woman
satisfactorily fulfilled that important function
of her being, all details as to who and what
she was and where she came from, became
superfluous and uninteresting.

For her part, Lucy felt more satisfaction
at beholding Mr. Frampton Fennell than she
would have believed possible a very short
time ago. He was supercilious, he was
vain, he was censorious, he was — the in-
experienced country-bred young lady pre-
sumed to think — ridiculous. But he was a
sort of link with some people who knew her.
And in his manner of looking at and speak-
ing to her, there was no trace of the dis-
respect subtly conveyed by the looks and
manner of some of Madame Leroux's visitors.
It was disrespect of a kind to which Lucy
had never been exposed in her life, but
which she instantly recognized, with a burn-
ing feeling of shame and indignation. On
such points the instincts of the most in-
experienced purity are very sensitive, and
the innocence which is insensible to a taint

MADAME LEROUX. 25

in the moral atmosphere is likely to be but
skin deep.

It was well, perhaps, that Mr. FermeH's-
peculiar form of vanity did not include any
exaggerated estimate of his personal attrac-
tions ; for Lucy's satisfaction at beholding
his scrubby little red moustache, disdainful
nose, and insecure eyeglass, was ingenuously
expressed in her countenance.

Presently it appeared that a discussion
was going on between Madame Leroux and
a group of the men as to a supper to be
eaten at a restaurant after the play. " Oh,
you must come," said the dark, oily-faced
man, speaking in French. " It's all arranged.
And your little friend will come too," he
added, with a familiar nod in the " little
friend's " direction.

Lucy shrank back from the speaker,
and, drawing herself as near as possible to
Madame Leroux, said hurriedly, "No I
Please, no ! I will return home. Let me
go home."

Madame looked thoroughly annoyed.
" What is the matter with you ? " she said

26 MADAME LEROUX.

sharply. Then, almost in a whisper, " You
are making yourself absurd by these sima-
grdes"

" I — I don't think it would be fitting for
me. I cannot go to supper with all these
strangers. Pray let me go home ! " returned
Lucy, in considerable agitation.

" You will go where I go, mademoiselle ;
unless you intend to walk to Kensington
alone at midnight. Upon my word ! 'Not
fitting for you ! ' Trust an ingenuous jeune
meess to scent out impropriety, where per-
sons who know the world perceive none ! "
Madame spoke in a low tone, between her
set teeth, and her eyes sparkled with anger.

Lucy felt the taunt as only a delicate-
minded girl could feel it, to whom the
accusation of mock-modesty was about as
offensive a one as could be made. She was
helpless to resist her employer's will. It was
clearly impossible for her to reach Douro
House alone. She had not even money in
her pocket to pay for a conveyance, sup-
posing she were permitted to take one. She
called all her dignity to her aid, and made

MADAME LEROUX. 27

no further appeal ; but her heart was very
hot within her. It was some comfort to her
to find that Mr. Fennell was to be of the
party ; for, although she was scarcely con-
scious of it, she instinctively relied more on
his protection than on that of Madame
Leroux.

When the play was over, Madame draped
herself in her rich opera-clock, muffled her
head in a very becoming lace scarf, and left
the box on Mr. Fennell's arm, leaving Lucy
to come after as best she might. Nervously
fearful lest the obnoxious oily- faced man
should attempt to escort her, the girl wrapped
her arms tightly in her cloak, and followed
them. In her trepidation she pressed so
closely on Madame as to tread on the hem
of her dress, thereby earning an impatient
frown, bestowed over Madame's shoulder,
and the very audible exclamation, " Dieu !
Quelle est bete ! C'est insupportable ! "

As they stood in the midst of a little
group of men in the entrance of the theatre,
awaiting the carriage which had brought
them there, the occupants of other parts of

28 MADAME LEROUX.

the theatre kept crowding out and streaming
past them. Lucy uttered an exclamation on
seeing the dark, mobile face of Zephany,
looking as strange and exotic amid the
British physiognomies around him as a palm-
tree might look in an oak-wood.

He turned sharply on hearing her voice,
and approached her. " You here, made-
moiselle ! " he said, shaking hands with her.
Then he saluted Madame Leroux with a
deep bow, and a bright, half-jesting smile,
saying, " I see, Madame, you have brought
our young friend to enjoy the comedy. That
was kind.'"'

"And stupid, like a great many other
kind things," she answered, drily. "It is a
mistake to have brought her."

Zephany drew nearer, and evidently
asked some questions, to which Madame
volubly replied ; but their words did not
reach Lucy's ears. She saw Zephany glance,
with his peculiar quickness and keenness of
eye, at the men standing near him. Then
he advanced to where she stood, took her
hand, and placed it firmly under his arm.

MADAME LEROUX. 29

" You are tired, mademoiselle, and would
prefer to go home at once. I shall put you
into a cab, and, if you will allow me, I shall
have the honour of seeing you safe home."

" Oh, thank you ! " began Lucy, eagerly.
But then remembering her penniless condi-
tion, she hesitated, and said, " But I don't
know if — I'm afraid "

Zephany cut her short without ceremony.
•" I have arranged it all with Madame
Leroux," he said. " Come along. If you
do not fear to walk a few steps, we shall find
a cab at the corner of the next street."

She obeyed him unhesitatingly. As they
left the portico of the theatre, she caught
sight of Madame Leroux getting into her
brougham, accompanied by Mr. Frarnpton
Fennell ; while the oily-faced man stood on
the kerbstone, and called out,

"I say, Fennell! I'm going to hail a
hansom, and shall probably be there as soon
as you. But if you arrive first, the supper
is ordered in my name. The waiter knows
all about it."

Lucy felt herself to be trembling and

30 MADAME LEROUX.

unnerved, now that the strain was over.
But Zephany, as they walked along, kept
talking to her in an easy, indifferent,
commonplace tone, in order to give her time
to recover herself".

" I did not see you in the theatre," he
said. " I think I must have been sitting
above your box. Yours was on the lowest
tier, eh ? Yes ; that must have been it. I
was with an interesting sort of man, too. A
man who has been away from England nearly
twenty years, I think, in all sorts of out-of-
the-way places. He brought me a letter from
a relative of mine in Gibraltar. A very
pleasant, bright fellow is Rushmere. Oh,
here is one. Four-wheeler! Allow me,
mademoiselle ; with your permission I will
light my cigar on the box,"

And after placing her in the vehicle, he
clambered up to the seat beside the driver,
leaving her to occupy the interior alone ; an
act of thoughtful delicacy which Lucy felt to
be not the least of her obligations to him.

All the difficulties were not quite at an
end when they reached Douro House ; for

MADAME LEROUX. 31

old Jeanne paid no heed to repeated peals at
the bell. However, she finally stumbled up
the kitchen-stairs, muffled in a mangy -looking
old shawl, and with a coloured cotton hand-
kerchief knotted round her head, and grum-
blingly withdrew the bolts.

" Where was Madame ? " she inquired,
" Madame had her key. Why did people
come home at that hour without a key ? "

But in a minute or two, having lighted
Lucy's candle at the flaring one she carried
in her hand, she plunged down to the kitchen
again, and left the young lady to fasten the
door as she could.

Zephany took leave of Lucy on the

threshold, having ascertained that she was

able to replace the bolt, which moved easily,

" I don't know how to thank you," she

said, holding out her hand to him.

" To thank me ! For what ? That is
nonsense. Good-night, mademoiselle. I
shall tell Fatima to come and pay you a visit.
You are lonely. You will like to see Fatima,
Say not another word of thanks. It is non-
sense. Good-night, good-night ! "

32 MADAME LEROUX.

After that night a new and singular kind
of existence began for Lucy. Hour after
hour she passed absolutely alone, old Jeanne
in the kitchen being the only other denizen
of the house. Sometimes she would not
.see Madame Leroux the whole day long.
Madame would have a cup of coffee carried
up to her room by Jeanne at ten or eleven
o'clock in the morning ; after which she
would go out, and return no more until long
.after Lucy was in bed.

Sometimes Lucy would fancy that she
heard voices in the house late at night ; and
once she was so nervous and uneasy that she
stole out of her little chamber and listened
on the staircase. On that occasion she was
sure that she heard Madame Leroux speak-
ing, and more than one voice replying to
her. That reassured her, at all events, as to
the dread of robbers, which had haunted her
mind as she lay wakeful in the deserted house ;
burglars not being in the habit of holding
animated conversation with the owners of
the dwellings which they visit professionally.
But it was all very strange and disquieting.

MADAME LEROUX. 33

Moreover, her intercourse with Madame
Leroux became painful to her. Madame was
not harsh or sullen in manner; but she
treated Lucy with a disdainful kind- of care-
lessness— tossing her aside, so to say, as one
might do with a fruit whose flavour had been
found disappointing. She made no allusion to
the evening at the theatre, nor did she ever
again invite the girl to accompany her abroad.
For days Lucy did not cross the threshold
of the school. She was at liberty to do so —
being, indeed, left altogether to her own
devices ; but she was timid of venturing out
alone. After a time, however, the monotony
and solitude of her life, and the longing for
fresh air, became so unendurable, that she
took courage to walk as far as Kensington
Gardens, which were at no great distance from
Douro House. She kept near to the groups
of nursemaids and children who were plenti-
fully scattered about there ; and would sit
watching the little ones, and listening to
their prattle with a strange feeling, as though
she were a ghost revisiting a world in which
she had no longer any part.

VOL. ii. 23

34 MADAME LEROUX.

At first she was fearful of encountering
some of Madame's friends. And more than
once she started up from the bench where
she was sitting, and walked away hurriedly,
under the impression that she saw the stout,
oily-faced man approaching, he being of a
type and style commonly enough met with in
London. But it always proved to be a false
alarm. And, thanks, perhaps, to her pre-
caution of placing herself near to family
groups so as to seem as if she belonged to
one or other of them, she was never accosted
or molested in any way. She might almost,
indeed, have been an invisible spirit, for all
the heed that was taken of her.

One afternoon, however, as she was list-
lessly strolling homeward in the wake of a
family procession, she met Zephany. He was
accompanied by a tall, spare man, little past
middle life, who limped slightly in his
gait ; but who, nevertheless, had something
unmistakably soldierly in his bearing, and
whom Zephany presented to her as Mr.
Rushmere.

Lucy looked at him with quick interest,

MADAME LEROUX, 35

for she remembered that Rushmere was the
name of the man whom Miss Feltham had
mentioned when talking of Lady Charlotte
Gaunt's younger days. The face she saw
attracted her at once. It was not a distinctly
handsome face ; but there was a mixture of
strength and gentleness in its expression, and
a frank sincerity in the dark, hazel eyes,
which invited confidence. His hair was
grizzled, but very abundant, and naturally
wavy. He was sunburnt and weather-beaten,
and looked, Lucy thought, like a man who
had known hardship.

She wondered, during the second in
which he was raising his hat to her, whether
this could really be the same man whom
Miss Feltham had spoken of. It seemed
very difficult to her eighteen-years'-old
imagination to picture him and Lady Char-
lotte as lovers. But she decided in her own
mind that it was well he had not married her
ladyship, who, Lucy felt sure, would not
have made him happy !

Mr. Rushmere, all unconscious of the
young lady's approval of his destiny in this

36 MADAME LEROUX.

respect, walked on quietly beside Zephany,
while Lucy questioned the latter about the
Hawkins's, and asked why Fatima had never
come to see her.

" Oh, Mademoiselle, you know the
manage. Fatima is not always at liberty to
do as she would. And, then, the whole
family is so sure that whatever they desire
will infallibly happen the day after to-morrow
that it scarcely seems worth while for any of
them to make any particular effort to-day!
But why should you not come and see
Fatima ? You could get leave, I pre-
sume ? "

" I think I might go wherever I
pleased ; nobody would care," answered
Lucy, with more despondency than bitter-
ness.

"It is settled, then. Fatima and I will
come over by the Underground Railway, and
fetch you. I am busy just now, so it must
be Sunday. On Sunday afternoon, at three
o'clock, expect us," said Zephany, with his
usual prompt decision.

Then he offered to accompany Lucy to

MADAME LEROUX. 37

the door of Douro House. But she assured
him that she had no fear of walking that
short distance alone ; and tripped away,
cheered by the sight of a friendly face, and
even by the prospect of a visit to that dingy
house in Great Portland Street, which had
seemed so dreary to her a few short weeks
ago.

" That's an interesting-looking girl," said
Mr. Rushmere, as the two men proceeded
on their way across Kensington Gardens,
together. Upon which, Zephany broke into
a warm eulogium of Miss Lucy Smith, and
expressed a good deal of sympathy for her
forlorn position. " She is a very sweet young
creature," he said ; " I wish she were in better
hands."

"How's that?"

Then Zephany related what little he
knew of Lucy's history, including the adven-
ture at the theatre, and gave a vivid sketch
of Madame Leroux, in which he certainly
" set down naught in malice," and rendered
full justice to Madame's beauty, accomplish-
ments, and esprit.

MADAME LEROUX

" All the same, your friend seems rather
to have mistaken her vocation," observed
Rushmere, drily. " What on earth could
have induced such a woman to set up as a
schoolmistress ? "

\

CHAPTER XX.

BEFORE the next Sunday Lucy received an
unexpected letter. It was dated from Raven-
shaw, in Cumberland, and ran as follows : —

" DEAR Miss LUCY SMITH,

" I hope you will forgive the liberty I
take in writing to you, but when I had the
honour " (happiness had been written first, but
scratched out, and honour substituted) " of
seeing you at Westfield, you seemed to be
interested in the house called Libburn Farm,
which you mentioned was your birthplace.
I don't know whether you can call to mind
a conversation I had with you at old Mr.
Jackson's, and another at Dr. Goodchild's,
the afternoon before you went away. But, at
any rate, I thought you might be pleased to
[3Q]

MADAME LEROUX.

hear what I could tell you about it, as it is a
place where few strangers come, and you
wouldn't be likely to have many chances of
hearing of it.

" Being at home for three weeks, I took
the opportunity of strolling over to the place.
I used to fish in the burn there when I was
a boy ; and I can't say I ever caught much,
though there is good trout-fishing three miles
lower down, where the stream makes a bit of
a fall, with some rocks, and one or two deep,
still pools. But, of course, you can't care
for all that. The house is stone-built, and
roomy enough. It has a thatched roof, and
a little flower-garden running right down to
the stream, and, being in a hollow, it is pretty
well sheltered from the wind. The people
who had the place when you were born are
gone. The old man died five years ago, but
his widow is living, and has removed over to
Carlisle, where she has a daughter. Libburn
Farm is in the occupation of a man who
knows nothing about Mrs. Smith.

" But my mother minds seeing her. She
didn't like folks to stare at her (Mrs. Smith,

MADAME LEROUX. 41

I mean), being in deep trouble ; and she
always wore a thick black veil when she
went out, though she might have walked
miles on the fell-side without meeting any
living thing but the sheep. But my mother
saw her twice in Mrs. Ellergarth's parlour.
She was a very handsome lady, and had a
way with her as if she had been used to
everything much better than she found at
Libburn Farm ; though old Mrs. Ellergarth
was a very decent body, and used to have
families out from Carlisle to board and lodge
in the summer-time. But when Mrs. Smith
was there it was well on in the autumn — fine,
clear weather, but the cold was rather sharp,
and came early. My mother minds it all
very well.

" For a long time she kept between the
leaves of a book a bit out of a newspaper
describing the shipwreck where Mr. Josiah
Smith, second in command on board the
Siren, a large trading-vessel bound for Aus-
tralia from the Port of London, lost his life,
with nearly all hands. Mrs. Smith gave the
paper to Mrs. Ellergarth to read all about

42 MADAME LEROUX.

her late husband, and Mrs. Ellergarth cut
the piece out and gave it to my mother. I
am sorry to say it has got lost in course of
time, otherwise I would have forwarded it.
But my mother is clear about the name of the
ship, and Mr. Josiah Smith.

"If ever you found yourself in the neigh-
bourhood, mother and father would be proud
to see you at Ravenshaw. I hope you will
excuse me for troubling you with this long
letter. I tried twice to make it shorter, but
then I found I left out the chief things I
wanted to say ; so send off this as it is, though
very unworthy your perusal. I thought per-
haps you might like to have a blossom or
two out of the garden, so I picked this
forget-me-not down by the burn.
" Believe me to remain,

" Dear Miss Lucy Smith,
" Yours respectfully,

" EDGAR TOMLINE, JUN.

" P.S. — Mother remembers Mr. and Mrs,
Marston coming to Libburn Farm when you
were but a baby, and Mrs. Marston taking to

MADAME LEROUX. 43:

you so wonderfully ; which doesn't surprise
me at all, for I don't see how she could help
it— E. T."

This letter moved Lucy greatly, and gave
shape to many indefinite longings and specu-
lations over which she had been brooding in
her solitude. The thought of her mother
had been haunting her persistently of late.
Sometimes the fancy would strike her as she
walked along the street, or watched the peo-
ple moving to and fro in Kensington Gar-
dens, that this or that woman who passed
her by as the merest stranger might be the
mother who had given her life ; and she
would turn cold and faint with emotion.

In former days Lucy had almost per-
suaded herself that her mother must be dead,,
or she would surely have made some sign in
all these years. She would surely have
yearned for a sight of her child, and for
ocular assurance of its well-being. But of
late her mind had busied itself with suggest-
ing excuses and explanations for her mother's-
long neglect. Who could tell what motives

44 MADAME LEROUX.

might have guided her ? — what necessities
might have constrained her? In her loneli-
ness Lucy clung more and more to the belief
that her mother was living, and that she might
one day be restored to her. She would sit
dreaming of such a meeting, and making
pictures in her mind, as rose-coloured as the
ending to a child's fairy tale : " And so they
all lived happy ever after."

But now this letter served to give more
definiteness to her dreams, and even to sug-
gest some possibilities of endeavouring to
trace her mother ; although these were very
vague as yet, like shapes flitting dimly
through the twilight. Among the other
theories which she had imagined to account
for her mother's absolute silence and neglect
was the supposition that she might be
ignorant of the name of the place to which
Mr. Marston removed when he gave up his
business in Carlisle, and so might not know
where to seek her child.

She kissed the faded forget - me - nots
gathered at her birthplace, and thought with
yearning pity and tenderness of the sorrow-

MADAME LEROUX. 45

stricken young widow awaiting the birth of
her child under such desolate circumstances.

And, then, after all these thoughts, she
thought a little of Mr. Edgar Tomline ; and
remarked to herself that it was really very
kind of him to have taken all this trouble,
and that she had evidently been right in
judging him to have a good heart under his
rough exterior.

Poor Edgar! He had been tossed by
conflicting feelings in composing that letter,
He had feared, now that it was too warm,
and now that it was too cold. At one time
he thought his copiousness would weary
Lucy, and at another he was convinced she
would find his account of Libburn sadly bald,
and wanting in details. But what troubled
him most was the postscript. He had said
that Mrs. Marston's partiality for Lucy did
not surprise him at all, and that he didn't see
how she could help it ! These seemed, on
looking back, to be audaciously bold words.
He imagined Lucy's reading them thus or
thus ; and their making this or that impres-
sion on her. But he never imagined their

46 MADAME LEROUX.

making absolutely no impression at all ;
which was the cruel fact !

But, at any rate, he was, before long, sent
into a state of tumultuous joy and excitement
by the receipt of a reply to his epistle, in
Lucy's handwriting.

He carried it out on to the fell to read ;
miles away from any human habitation. The
sky was blue ; the sun was bright ; a lark
was trilling and soaring overhead. He cast
himself down on the turf, and leaning his
elbow on a grassy hillock, prepared to read.
But just as his fingers — great, strong fingers,
but deft, too, with trained neatness and
dexterity of movement — were about to open
the envelope, he stopped in a nervous
tremor. Suppose she should be angry —
offended !

But there was certainly no anger in the
lines which met his eyes — nothing but grati-
tude, and thanks, and, best of all, a request
that he would do her a service ! Would he,
if it were not asking too much, be so very
kind as to see Mrs. Ellergarth the next time
he happened to be in Carlisle ? Lucy wished

MADAME LEROUX, 47

to know where Mrs. Smith had gone to on
first leaving Libburn Farm after her little
daughter's birth, and to what address Mrs.
Ellergarth was in the habit of writing in her
subsequent communications ; and, in short,
any particulars about her mother, however
trifling.

" I do not know what the distance may
be," wrote Lucy, " but I suppose it likely
that you occasionally visit Carlisle. If I am
wrong, pray excuse me. I will ask you, in
any case, to let me have Mrs. Ellergarth's
address, as I wish to communicate with her
direct. But my communications would, no
doubt, be better received if you could be so
very good as to pave the way for them by a
little explanation as to who I am, and by re-
calling to Mrs. Ellergarth circumstances and
people that she may not remember after all
these years with your mother's clearness of
mind. Pray give my hearty thanks to Mrs.
Tomline for her interesting contribution to
the contents of your letter. I am so glad to
have the forget-me-nots ! It was a most
kind thought to send them."

48 MADAME LEROUX.

Edgar Tomline's letter had broken up
the dreary stagnation of Lucy's life ; and
although to the eye of cool reason there
might not appear to be anything in it on
which to ground bright or hopeful anticipa-
tions, yet it had undoubtedly cheered her.

Zephany was struck by the change in her
face when he appeared, true to his appoint-
ment, on the following Sunday ; and Fatima,
embracing her friend, exclaimed —

" Why, you don't look so very dreadful ! "

" I am glad of that," answered Lucy,
laughing ; " one must not repine at looking
only rather dreadful ! "

" No ; but I mean — Zephany said you
were so pale, and — and — well, you are pale,
now that little flush has faded. It's London,
I suppose. Perhaps you want a tonic ? "

" The sight of friends is the best of
tonics ; but you have not been in any hurry
to give it me. I thought you had forgotten
all about me, Fatima ! "

Fatima began eagerly protesting that she
had been meaning and hoping to pay a visit
to Douro House daily for weeks past, when

MADAME LEROUX. 49

Zephany cut short her voluble explanation by
saying, curtly —

"There, there, enough! Miss Smith
understands all about it. She knows that
to-morrow is the day when the Hawkins
family perform all their social duties — and
most of the others. If one can have patience
until to-morrow, one will find them the most
^energetic, punctual, accurate people in the
world. Ea ! Vamos ! "

As they walked towards the station of the
Underground Railway, whence they were to
start for Great Portland Street, Lucy asked
Zephany if he had seen his friend, Mr.
Rushmere, since their meeting in Ken-
sington Gardens, adding, " I liked his face."

"It was mutual," answered Zephany.
44 He liked yours."

"Was his lameness caused by a wound
got in battle ? He must surely have been in
the army ! "

" You are right ; he was in the army ;

tut his lameness is the result of an accident,

which cut short his career. He has told me

all about himself. That is to say, he has

VOL. n. 24

So MADAME LEROUX.

told me a good deal. No man can tell
another all about himself. His family were
in trade. He was an only son, and his
father lost what money he had soon after
Rushmere got his commission ; but there
was a rich uncle who promised to make the
young man his heir. With his uncle he
quarrelled a entrance (I fancy it was about
some love story ; but I know nothing of that)r
and the rich man disinherited him like an
uncle at the Comedie Fran9aise. Rushmere
led a wild unsettled sort of life in India. He
was in the service of some native prince at
one time ; and then he wandered half over
the globe seeking his fortune. But all the
while his fortune had stayed quietly at home
in Britain, and there he found her when he
came back. Less than two years ago he saw
an advertisement concerning himself in an
English newspaper. He was at that time on
a small tea plantation in Ceylon, in which he
had embarked —in company with a few other
men — all the modest sum he was worth in
the world. The rich uncle had relented at
the last, and bequeathed him a very hand-

MADAME LEROUX. 51

some independence. He was obliged to
come to England on business connected with
this inheritance. But he is very undecided
whether he will remain in this country or not ;
he has no relations living, and one's crop of
friends is apt to grow very thin after nearly
twenty years' absence. To be sure, he
won't have any difficulty in making new
ones now. The rich uncle has provided for
that ! "

All this confirmed Lucy in the persuasion
that the lame, sunburnt man, whom she had
met in Kensington Gardens was the same
Ralph Rushmere who had figured in Miss
Feltham's reminiscences. But she resolved
to say nothing about this to the Hawkins's.
Miss Feltham had spoken confidentially.
Moreover Mr. Rushmere had not, apparently,
alluded to his acquaintance with Lord Grim-
stock's family in talking to Zephany ; and,
since he had been silent about it, Lucy would
be so too.

She was received by Mr. Hawkins with
cordiality, and by Mrs. Hawkins with her
habitual sweet and cool serenity ; and by

52 MADAME LEROUX.

both, exactly as if they had parted from her
yesterday. The house, she thought, looked
a few shades dingier than her recollection
had represented it ; but, otherwise, all was
unchanged. Fatima's room (from which the
little bed she had occupied had not been
removed) wore its old peculiar aspect of
the greatest possible amount of untidiness
compatible with perfect cleanliness. Fatima
manifested, in her person and her dress, an
almost feline daintiness, and aversion from
soil or stain. But this quality was more
like the instinct of some desert creature
than the systematic neatness of a civilized
young lady ! If Fatima could but have
fresh air and fresh water, it troubled her
very little to be surrounded by disorder.

" Now, tell me," she began, when she
and Lucy were alone together, " how do you
get on ? How does Madame treat you ?
Zephany said he thought you were very
lonely. It's a shame to leave you like that !
Not but what / should prefer her room to
her company."

As a matter of fact, Lucy was disposed

MADAME LEROUX. 53

to agree with this preference. But she was
averse from launching forth into blame of
Madame Leroux, or even from discussing
her at all with Fatima. She therefore
changed the subject to one on which she
felt she had a right to speak fully and
freely ; and as to which it was a relief to
pour out some part of what was in her
heart.

She briefly narrated all that she knew of
her birth and early life, and then told Fatima
of Edgar Tomline's letter, and of her hope
that she might some day discover her
mother. Fatima listened with sympathetic
interest ; but she did not encourage Lucy
in the idea that her mother was still alive.
Indeed, she privately suspected that, if she
were alive, a mother who could utterly
neglect her child, and make no sign during
so many years, would be very little worth
finding.

Lucy, however, clung to her more san-
guine view. Why should her mother be
dead ? She would still be in the prime of
life. And so many circumstances might

54

MADAME LEROUX.

conceivably have prevented her from claim-
ing her child after the death of its adopted
parents !

" Perhaps — indeed, almost certainly — she
was poor," said Lucy, eagerly. " The more
she loved me, the less she might be willing
to make me share her poverty. I can fancy
now, better than I could before, what a hard
life she may have had, if, as Mr. Shard
always supposed, she had to get her living
as a teacher — I mean how impossible it may
have been for her to keep up anything of a
home for me and herself. Do you know, I
have an idea sometimes that she may have
emigrated to some colony ? My father,
perhaps, had connections or friends in Aus-
tralia ; his ship traded there."

" I tell you what, Lucy," exclaimed
Fatima, at length, " if Mr. Rushmere should
come in this evening, as he often does now
on a Sunday, ask him if he ever chanced
to meet with, or hear of, your father or
mother. He has been all over the world."

" And has probably met with more than
one Mr. and Mrs. Smith in the course of

MADAME LEROUX.

55

his travels," replied Lucy, shaking her head
and smiling gravely.

" Well, it will be no harm to ask. And
it is possible, you know. Everything is
possible."

CHAPTER XXI.

IN the course of the afternoon, Mr. Haw-
kins offered to give the ladies a drive before
dinner, and proposed taking them round the
Regent's Park. The two girls thought it
a very pleasant project, and said so, heartily ;
but Mrs. Hawkins inquired, with quiet dis-
dain, " Have you ordered a carriage from
the livery stables, Adolphe ? A carriage
and pair it must be, of course, if any large
selection of our party is to go."

" No, Marie ; I have not. The fact is, I
thought a couple of hansoms — Fatima could
go with me, and you and Miss Smith in the
other "

" Ah ! Exactly ! I suspected some non-
sense of that kind. You know perfectly well,
mon ami, that nothing would induce me to

MADAME LEROUX. 57

make one in that sort of procession. Two
hansom cabs in the Regent's Park on a
Sunday ! Ah ! par exemple ! "

"Now, Miss Smith, I appeal to you!""
said Mr. Hawkins, spreading his arms wide,
and then clasping his hands together, tragic-
ally. " Is this not exasperating ? Does it
not throw a man back upon himself to be
treated in this way ? Marie knows that if I
could afford a carriage and pair, or a coach
and four with outriders, she should have it.
But that is out of the question. I endea-
vour to please her to the utmost extent of
my means, and this is how my attempt is
received ! "

" You may depend on it that is how
all such attempts will be received by me,
Adolphe," replied his wife, calmly. " Do
you not consider it too bad, Miss Smith, that
Adolphe should expect me to accept such a
proposition, when, if he had not thrown away
my dot as well as his own money, I should be
able, at this moment, to have my own vic-
toria, and turn out decently ? However, I
can stay at home. That is simple. But I

58 MADAME LEROUX.

-decline to exhibit myself in the style of a
tallow-chandler's wife taken out for her
Sunday treat."

Mr. Hawkins muttered in a deep voice,
*' No matter! Let it go! Let all go!"
slapped his forehead and dashed out of the
room.

As soon as he was gone, Lucy said,
•" Pray think no more about the drive ; at
least, as far as I am concerned. Perhaps
Fatima will come out with me on foot. I
shall enjoy the stroll quite as much."

" Not at all, my dear Miss Smith," replied
Mrs. Hawkins, with her serenest smile. "You
and Fatima will like the drive. I beg you
to have it. It would not do for me to con-
sent to drive about the Park in a hired
cab, for I should never get a remise out of
Adolphe again ; and I know he could afford
it just now. I beg, as a personal favour to
myself, that you will go. It is so much
better for Adolphe to spend his money in
that way — giving some one a little enjoyment
out of it — than for him to "

Mrs. Hawkins was not explicit as to the

MADAME LEROUX, 59

alternative. The alternatives, in fact, were
numerous ; and might even include the pre-
mature payment of a bill not yet demanded
with the persuasive eloquence of a lawyer's
letter.

Lucy suggested that Mr. Hawkins, having
left the house in some agitation, had, in all
probability, relinquished the idea of the drive
altogether ; but Marie shook her head with
a smile of superior knowledge, justified with-
in the next minute by their seeing Mr. Haw-
kins dash up to the door in a hansom cab,
followed by a second empty one, and hearing
him call out in a cheerful voice as he entered
the house, " Now, then, are these young
ladies ready ? Don't let us lose the best
hours of the afternoon ! "

The two girls were put into the vehicle,
while Zephany and Mr. Hawkins occupied
the other. And as they drove along, Lucy
— chiefly with the object of keeping the con-
versation away from Madame Leroux and
her doings — returned to Edgar Tomline's
letter. Fatima inquired what sort of a per-
son he was, and Lucy at once endeavoured

60 MADAME LEROUX.

to describe him with an unembarrassed
warmth of friendliness, which was about the
worst augury possible for the poor young-
man's secret hopes. " He is rather rough,
and you might fancy him hard at first ; but
there is a great deal of sensitiveness under
that exterior." And then she instanced the
circumstance of his sending her the forget-
me-nots from the little garden at Libburn
Farm.

" Now I call that sweet of him. What
a thoroughly good fellow he must be ! " ex-
claimed Fatima. It never entered her head
to rally her friend on having made a con-
quest. There were many young ladies who
never took their afternoon airing in a hansom
cab, and to whom the Regent's Park was
merely a "geographical expression," like
Whitechapel, who would at once have drawn
the conclusion, not only that Edgar Tomline
was in love with Lucy, but that Lucy was
fully conscious of that fact. For how else
could one account for a young man's taking
trouble about what could not in itself afford
him any amusement, or minister to his egoism ?

MADAME LEROUX. 61

But Fatima's life on the borders of
Bohemia had given her no such highly civi-
lized insight. Had it been suggested to her
that young Tomline was moved by a passion
for Miss Lucy Smith, she would have con-
sidered that natural and probable ; but she
did not consider it either unnatural or impro-
bable that a young man should perform such
little acts of kindness as writing that letter
and sending those flowers out of sheer good
fellowship and kindness of heart. As to
Lucy's being aware of Mr. Tomline's pas-
sion, and encouraging it simply to feed her
vanity, such behaviour might be expected in
a Madame Leroux, but to impute it to a
high-minded girl of delicate feelings Fatima
would have thought grievously insulting.
Fatima certainly had a good deal of savage
simplicity about her, and was lamentably
ignorant of the best Society.

Notwithstanding the ignominy of the
hired cab, Lucy found the drive in the
comparatively fresh — though positively un-
fashionable— air of the Regent's Park exhila-
rating ; and as they returned towards Great

62 MADAME LEROUX.

Portland Street she almost determined to
say a word or two to Mr. Rushmere, in
accordance with her friend's suggestion,
should she have the opportunity of doing
so that evening. Fatima was greatly in-
terested in talking about Mr. Rushmere ;
and, indeed, Lucy perceived, from sundry
words and hints, that the Hawkins's
cherished some bright, though undefined,
visions in connection with Mr. Rushmere>
and grew cheerful at the mention of his
name.

At first Lucy accounted for this by sup-
posing that the sight of a living example of
one of those sudden turns of fortune which
Mr. Hawkins was always expecting for him-
self had raised that gentleman's spirits, and
encouraged him in a firmer faith in his own
" luck." But a word dropped by Fatima
when they were alone together showed that
some more concrete hopes had been founded
on Mr. Rushmere's inheritance.

" Uncle Adolphe wants him to take a
lot of shares and be director of a company
he is getting up ; and I wish he would, don't

MADAME LEROUX. 65

you ? " said Fatima, in the tone of one who
is not doubtful of assent.

Lucy was silent. It appeared to her so
clear that Mr. Hawkins's speculations were
not likely to be of the sort one would wish
one's friends to embark in, that she felt
astonished at Fatima's speaking in that
confident way.

After a little hesitation, Lucy said, " Is
it such a very promising affair, then ? What
is the object of the company ? "

" Oh, I don't know at all ; but poor
Uncle Adolphe is always saying that if he
could get hold of a man of capital he would
be sure to make a splendid coup — and it
does seem hard on him that the people who
have taken up his schemes have never had
any money ! I daresay Uncle Adolphe
might make his fortune if he could only
get a start. And, besides, Mr. Rushmere
has plenty of money, so it wouldn't matter
much if he did lose a little of it."

With which naive and characteristic
compendium of the Hawkins's business
creed, Fatima stuck a silver dagger of

MADAME LEROUX.

Oriental workmanship through the thick
coils of her black hair and went gaily down
to dinner with her arm round Lucy's waist.

Enlightened by these hints, Lucy saw
clearly that even Marie inclined with un-
usual complacency to her husband's sanguine
prophecies of the enormous success to be
achieved by his newest scheme.

This was, as well as Lucy could make
out, a project for producing a cheap sub-
stitute for tea. The homely herbs known
respectively as milfoil and calamint were to
be grown on an extensive scale — picked,
-dried, and mingled together in certain pro-
portions to form a mixture which Mr. Haw-
kins had decided, after some consideration,
to call Millamint. Millament tea was to be
sold to the public at a price which, while
temptingly low to the consumer, would
'ensure to the vendor a net profit of ninety-
five per cent. Mr. Hawkins was very par-
ticular as to the accuracy of his figures, and
checked Fatima for speaking loosely of cent.
per cent.

" I daresay it will be detestably nasty,"

MADAME LEROUX.

Mr. Hawkins was rolling out sentences
VOL. n. 25

66 MADAME LEROUX.

into which he kept weaving bits from the
rough draft of his new prospectus, and
enjoying himself considerably ; but his wife
interposed by saying in her sweet, silvery
tones,

" Oh, never mind all that, Adolphe !
That doesn't matter at all. What does
matter, is to start the company, and sell off
all your own shares as soon as ever they
will fetch a good price."

From which it will be seen that Marie's
view was of that wholly unvarnished kind
which frequently characterises the feminine
view of " business." The masculine specu-
lator— whether from the superior strength
of his imagination, or from the wider range
of sympathies evoked by dealing with affairs
of more far-reaching public interest — usually
desires to frame his theories with less
cynical simplicity. And Adolphus Hawkins,
although led by circumstances into some
doubtful practices, was always impelled to
satisfy the higher needs of his nature by
presenting his schemes to himself in the
best possible form of words.

MADAME LEROUX. 67

Towards eight o'clock Mr. Rushmere
gratified general expectation by appearing in
Mr. Hawkins's drawing-room. The agree-
able impression he had made on Lucy at
first was confirmed and deepened by observ-
ing him more at leisure. He looked older
and more worn than she had thought him
•on seeing him in Kensington Gardens.
And she noticed that, although there was
an almost boyish brightness in his smile, yet
when his face was in repose, it fell into an
•expression of thoughtful melancholy, almost
like the face of one who is listening to a
sad story. The fancy crossed her mind that
he had undergone some sorrow which had
left ineffaceable marks on his soul as the
tiger's claws had done on his body.

Small would have been Lucy's chance
of obtaining an uninterrupted exchange of
words with a person possessing, as Mr.
Rushmere did, the supreme fascination, in
Adolphus Hawkins's eyes, of holding capital
at his own disposal, but for the entrance of
Harrington Jersey, who diverted Hawkins's
attention. Jersey had been made free of the

68 MADAME LEROUX.

great British tea speculation, and having re-
cently joined the staff of a newly-established
comic paper, he had promised to give
" Millamint" a puff, as soon as the company
for the sale of that admirable commodity
should be so far established as to invite the
co-operation of discerning shareholders.

" I shall have to chaff you, you know,'r
said Jersey. " The boss wouldn't stand a
direct recommendation to the public to keep
its kettle boiling and try Millamint. That
wouldn't wash at all."

" Of course — of course, my dear boy ! As
much chaff as you like. ' Vacant chaff well
meant for grain,' as Shakespeare says, Oh,
Tennyson, is it ? Sure ? It sounds uncom-
monly like Shakespeare, don't it ? But the
grand thing is to be mentioned — kept before

the public eye. Something in verse now !

It would be the making of us to have a verse
from ' Momus ' to put into the advertise-
ments ! You could knock it off in no time.
There are lots of rhymes to Millamint."

" Are there, by George ? Perhaps you'd
mention a few of them ! " returned Jersey, not

MADAME LEROUX. 69

altogether gratified at being told that what he
was asked to do was so easy.

"Oh, heaps!" said Hawkins, excitedly —
41 Lint, splint, flint — I'll find you a
dozen."

" Is he silly, ce cher Adolphe /" exclaimed
Marie, coming to the rescue, with a dewy air
•of ingenuous freshness on her. " No ; but
seriously, Jersey, it would, of course, be the
sort of thing that demands a special gift. So
few people can do it. / always fancy — but
then I know I am dreadfully ignorant about
literary matters — that it must, au fond, be far
more easy to write sonnets, and — and things,
don't you know — than to throw off little
sparkling vers de soctiti, like your ' Songs of
the Tea Kettle.' '

While the Hawkins's were thus en-
deavouring to engage the good will of
"" Momus " in the person of " Momus's "
gifted contributor, Lucy, finding herself near
to Mr. Rushmere, took courage to say to
him —

"Mr. Rushmere, I want to ask you a
question ; but I must preface it by a word of

70 MADAME LEROUX.

explanation, otherwise it would sound simply
silly."

He turned round at once, and gave her

o

his attention, with quiet earnestness.

" I take leave to doubt any question that
you put seriously sounding silly," he said,
with a little smile, and a gravely benevolent
look in his eyes; "but ask it in your own
way."

" I will put it as shortly as I can," said
Lucy ; and then paused a moment, colouring
a little as she found herself obliged to begin
with an autobiographical statement.

" I was an adopted child. My father died
in a shipwreck before I was born, and my
mother — not being able to provide for me —
entrusted me to some people who were the
best of parents to me, and whom I dearly
loved. They are dead, too, now ; so that I
have been twice orphaned. But I did not
mean to say all that. The question I wished
to ask is this : — In your travels did you ever
meet or hear of a Mr. Josiah Smith (that
was my father's name), who was second
officer on board a ship called the Siren,,

MADAME LEROUX. 71

trading to Australia, between nineteen and
twenty years ago ? "

Rushmere looked thoughtful, and shook
his head.

" No," said he, after a pause. " I think
I may say never. The Siren, eh ? She was
lost with nearly all hands when only a few
days from Melbourne. I now remember
reading about it in the newspapers. The
wreck made some sensation on account of
the hardships of the few survivors who were
finally rescued from an open boat. It must
have happened just about the time that
I left England, or within a few months
after it."

And his face took the brooding look
of remembered sorrow which Lucy had
noticed in it before. But almost imme-
diately he roused himself, and glancing at
her with a quick look of kindly interest,
he said,

" And your mother ? "

"I do not even know whether she is
living or dead. But I cannot help always
hoping, and often believing, that she is

72 MADAME LEROUX.

alive." Then, anticipating something which
she read in his face, she added quickly,
" She probably knows as little where to find
me, as I know where to find her."

The grave sympathy of his manner
encouraged her to go on. And in a few
words she told him the main circumstances
of her little history, even down to the letter
she had received from Ravenshaw describing
her birthplace.

" Do you know," said Mr. Rushmere
after listening closely, " I fancy your idea
that your mother may have gone to Aus-
tralia not at all an unlikely one. It would
account for her complete disappearance out
of your life, supposing her to be living. And
since your father was in the habit of making
voyages to Australia, it is possible enough
that Mrs. Smith may have known of friends,
perhaps even relatives, in one or other of
the colonies. I think I know some persons
who might be able to assist you in getting
information, although the lapse of time is so
considerable that possibly all traces may be
lost. But if you will allow me, I shall be

MADAME LEROUX. 73

very glad to cause some inquiry to be
made, quietly. And if, meanwhile, your
Cumberland friend should have made
any discoveries nearer home, all the
better ! "

Lucy began to thank him warmly. But
he delicately tried to relieve her from any
sense of obligation, by assuring her that he
had occasion to write to Melbourne on his
own account, and that it could not cost him
any appreciable trouble to add a few lines
on her behalf.

Before she went back to Douro House
that evening, Mr. Rushmere told her that he
should be compelled to leave town shortly on
business connected with some of his property.
And he said kindly, as he shook hands and
bade her good night,

" Perhaps, when next we meet, I may
have some news to give you ; or you may
have some to give me. But I hope you will
not be too much cast down if neither my
inquiries nor yours prove of any avail ? "

" No ; thank you, I hope not. And, at
any rate," she went on with the frank warmth

74 MADAME LEROUX.

of her nature, " I shall have one more plea-
sant thing to think of all my life ; for there is
nothing gives one such a glow of strength
and comfort as being sure that there are kind
and true people in the world."

CHAPTER XXII.

THE end of the holidays, and the return of
the pupils to Douro House, put an end to
the abnormal and depressing life which Lucy
had been leading, and she resumed her school
work with eagerness.

The sight of lively faces, the sound of
young voices, the sense of having distinct
duties to perform, instead of dreaming away
her days in the heavy atmosphere of aimless
and lonely leisure, were most welcome to
her. Nor was it a slight relief to know when
she lay down at night in her closet of a room,
that there were fellow- creatures within call,,
other and nearer than old Jeanne in the
distant kitchen. For many a night the girl
had lain awake trembling with nervous
apprehension — frightened now at the vague
[75]

76 MADAME LEROUX.

murmur of voices from Madame Leroux's
sitting-room, and now at the blank silence,
which she imagined might be broken the
next moment by a sound of stealing foot-
steps on the stairs. It was a terrible life for
a young girl to lead. And Lucy seemed to
feel more • keenly how terrible it had been
when she looked back on those weeks,
than during the time when they had been
passing.

But, although her present life was far
more tolerable, it was by no means a pleasant
one. The hope which she had indulged
in for a moment, of making a friend of her
employer, had been roughly dispelled. She
knew that Madame Leroux had not forgotten
the evening at the theatre, although she
never spoke of it — or rather, because she
never spoke of it. But Madame's feeling of
annoyed resentment was far deeper than
Lucy conceived— for she credited Lucy with
-drawing a great many inferences which she
did not draw, and imputing a great deal of
evil which it had not crossed her mind to
imagine.

MADAME LEROUX. 77

" If I had known what a little stuck-up,
puritanical fool the girl was, I should never
have trusted her. Now, of course, in her
pinafore propriety, and total ignorance of
any life outside the nursery and the school-
room, she sets us all down as abandoned
reprobates ! Marie Hawkins thoroughly
deceived me about her — cheated me in fact.
I wish the girl had never darkened my
doors ! "

Nevertheless, she felt no immediate fear
that Lucy would speak evil of her, or betray
her. She could not withhold that tribute
of belief in the girl's honour and trust-
worthiness. But it would be a great mis-
take to suppose that she liked her any the
better for it.

Madame Leroux had for many years
shaped her life in accordance with certain
maxims of expediency which she called "my
philosophy." Hers was not the ignorant
selfishness of an infant or an idiot that will
devour sweet- tasting poison, or set the house
on fire to warm itself at the blaze. The
science of life she believed to consist in

78 MADAME LEROUX,

taking care that self-indulgence stopped
short of hurting itself — an achievement for
ever impossible to beings swayed by spiritual
emotions as well as bodily desires ; since the
aim in itself is fatally injurious to those per-
ceptions which save us from hurting our-
selves. Madame Leroux did not know, or
had forgotten, that the function of conscience
is not solely to register unpleasant memories
of every moral bruise ; but, like the antenna
of certain insects, to warn us against contacts
which are likely to bruise us.

There had been a time, in her youth,
when passion had carried her, as on a strong
tide, beyond the limits of selfish prudence,
which she now prided herself on observing.
But, although imprudent, it had not been
unselfish. And the fires of her love-romance
had been fed by a good deal of very prosaic
fuel — not to speak of certain sulphurous
vapours contributed to the flame by vanity,
jealousy, and falsehood. She looked back on
that episode in her life without tenderness— a
sure proof that it had been devoid of any
spirit of self-sacrifice.

MADAME LEROUX. 79

And, in truth, the only creature for whom
Caroline Leroux felt anything like genuine
attachment was one who had inflicted on
her a good deal of suffering and many
injuries.

She had been married ten years ago to an
Italian, born in Paris, whose father, a political
exile, had translated his patronymic of Rossi
into Leroux. The son inherited from his
father a handsome, dark-eyed southern face,
and a native gift of song. But he had,
moreover, a remarkably beautiful tenor voice,
on which the impoverished family founded
brilliant hopes. Many professional judges
among old Jacopo Rossi's countrymen in
Paris had prophesied great things from the
young fellow's charming and sympathetic
tenore leggiero, if he would but cultivate it
diligently. This condition was chiefly in-
sisted on by a snuffy old maestro di canto,
who expressed no very confident hopes of its
fulfilment.

" I have seen so much of it, mio caro"
said Professor Agrodolce, with a sceptical
shrug. "If you offered me my choice

8o MADAME LEROUX.

between the voice of a Rubini in a man's
throat and a second-rate organ in a woman's,
I would prefer the chance of making a great
singer out of the latter. Young men, espe-
cially tenors, are more conceited, obstinate,
and idle than girls are. And then, it's so
hard to keep 'em from smoking, drinking,
and going to the devil generally."

But if Stefano Rossi, who was always
called Etienne Leroux, had some tendencies
to travel in that direction, they did not
show themselves in devotion to absinthe or
excessive indulgence in tobacco.

After very brief preliminary studies, he
made a successful ddbut on the operatic stage
in a small town in Italy. When Agrodolcer
who hadx shaken his head at Etienne's impa-
tience oi\ steady work, and had counselled
two years \more study in the Conservatoire,
was triumphantly informed by Jacopo of his
son's success, the old maestro took a pinch of
snuff and remarked pitilessly, " My dear
friend, Etienne would be perfectly sure to
make a splendid career — if it could consist
entirely of first appearances."

MADAME LEROUX. 81

The singing-master's bitter word was
applicable not only to Monsieur Etienne
Leroux's operatic career, but more or less to
the whole of his existence.

Caroline had met him in Paris ; she was
then a little over twenty-seven years of age,
and in the very prime and flower of her
beauty. She was established (by the assist-
ance, as was understood, of distinguished
patrons) as junior partner in a fashionable
school in London, and was spending the
vacation with some Parisian friends, whose
daughter had been her schoolfellow. At this
time Etienne Leroux had been before the
public several years in Italy and France.
The season of " first appearances " was over
long ago, and yet the fame and fortune he
had confidently expected lingered unaccount-
ably on their way. His voice, however,
retained a great deal of its beauty, although,
in the endeavour to cover defects of training,
he had latterly begun to force it a little. And
his velvety dark eyes had lost none of their
pathetic beseechingness when they looked at
a pretty woman — or at a woman whom he
VOL. IT. 26

82 MADAME LEROUX.

wanted to persuade that he thought her
pretty. But there was no need of any pre-
tence on this score when his soft, brilliant
glances were directed towards Caroline
Graham — and he charmed her.

For his part, he had long been wishing
to go to London. It had been suggested to
him by a violinist who knew our metropolis
that, with good introductions, lucrative en-
gagements might be found in the salons of
the English aristocracy. Etienne thought
the prospect seductive. He cherished a
contempt for English artistic judgment,
which, combined with their guineas, would
counterbalance any humiliation he might be
exposed to from British morgue and hauteur.
Miss Graham was understood to have friends
of very high rank ; she was also a partner in
a flourishing business, and the idea of a wife
able to support one in comfort was tempting
to a tenore leggiero whose high notes were
beginning to be produced with a disagreeable
effort. Besides, Caroline was a very brilliant,
accomplished, attractive woman, and he was
in love with her — which was undoubtedly a

MADAME LEROUX. 83

desirable addition to the list of inducements
to make her his wife.

Caroline, on her side, had visions of a
future to be shaped in accordance with her
tastes and vanities. Each was ready to be-
lieve in the devotion of the other ; for it is
noteworthy that egoism is generally disposed
to reckon confidently on the unselfishness of
other people. But these mutual illusions
were of short duration. Madame Leroux
intended, on her return to London, to take
steps for withdrawing from the school ; she
purposed giving private lessons, which would
leave her more liberty to enjoy shining in
that section of the foreign artistic world
into which Etienne had introduced her, and
where she was greatly admired. But her
husband would not hear of this plan ; on the
contrary, he insisted on her making a strong
effort to buy out the other partner — an
elderly woman, who was not unwilling to
retire. A considerable sum had to be
borrowed in order to achieve this ; and
thus the undertaking, carried on thence-
forward in the sole name of Madame Le-

84 MADAME LEROUX.

roux, was rather heavily weighted from the
beginning.

Caroline yielded to her husband with a
docility which surprised herself. His un-
doubting naif, unaffected selfishness, mastered
her. She had in former days laughed to
scorn all guidance and principle which had
clashed with her own inclination ; she had
rebelled against the demands of a higher
standard of life than that which her un-
disciplined will chose to accept as desirable ;
and now she bent her neck to the yoke of a
lower nature than her own. If it be true
that " we needs must love the highest when
we see it," then Caroline Graham had never
caught a glimpse of the highest. But by
an inevitable law, every sacrifice she made
for Etienne endeared him to her. Long
aftkr what he called his " love " for her had
burnt itself to ashes, she continued to cling
to him with a feeling which was not affection,
or tenderness, or pity, but was partly com-
pounded of all these ; and subtly mingled
with them \ was. a sense of superiority — of
protection. ^>he was too intelligent not to

MADAME LEROUX. 85

know that the stupid people whom she
sneered at as Philistines, and prigs, and
Puritans, would despise her if they could
know her as she was. But such admiration
and regard as Etienne Leroux had ever felt
for her had been founded on no mistaken
estimate of her moral qualities. He might
be very angry with her, but he could,
assuredly, never look down upon her.

Within two years of their marriage he
suddenly accepted an engagement with an
operatic troupe who were going on a tour to
South America. He had grown disgusted
with London, where he had met with but
mediocre success ; and his poor opinion of
English musical taste had been thus cor-
roborated after an unexpectedly disagreeable
fashion. One of his great quarrels with his
wife was that she did not " push " him with
sufficient zeal among her fashionable con-
nection. Caroline knew infinitely better than
he did to what point such "pushing" was
practicable, and when further persistence
would have fatally injured her without bene-
fiting him. And at the bottom of his mind

86 MADAME LEROUX.

he believed her representations. But he
chose to vent his ill-humour and dis-
appointed vanity by reproaching her with
his want of success.

To be sure, this was doubly unreason-
able, since, according to his own theory of
English stupidity in musical matters, it was
clear that the better he sang, the less they
must like him ! But Etienne's mind was not
logical. He professed, indeed, a generous
impatience of la fredda ragione, or cold
reason ; and considered an oath and an
abusive epithet a very sufficient refutation
of any argument which he happened to
dislike.

The fact was, he was sick of England,
he hated the country, he hated the people,
and he declared that the climate made him
ill. And, accordingly, he concluded the
engagement for South America without con-
sulting his wife, who, indeed, knew nothing
of the matter until it was irrevocably settled.
And this was the first severe blow he had
inflicted on her.

But it was by no means the last. The

MADAME LEROUX. 87

process of deterioration in such a man was
naturally rapid. After his return to Europe
lie did not come to London for several years.
His wife met him once or twice on the
Continent, where he led a wandering life,
falling continually into a lower and lower
place in his profession. Personal vanity had
been Etienne Leroux's only substitute for
self respect, and when he reached the point
at which he no longer cared to brush his
coat, or dye his moustache, the man's moral
degradation seemed suddenly revealed to all
observers,

He demanded, and received, assistance
from his wife, as a matter of course ; but he
generally contented himself by making his
demands by letter. Once, however, feeling
dissatisfied with the amount sent him, he
presented himself to Caroline in the midst
of a school term, and made himself so
generally disagreeable that she was com-
pelled to forbid him the house under pain
of cutting off the supplies altogether. He
was at that time quite sufficiently alive to
his own interest to understand the danger of

MADAME LEROUX.

making such an esclandre as would ruin the
school. Indeed, a part of his more offensive
behaviour had been the result of calculation.
He must make Caroline see what he was
capable of, unless he were appeased by
money. Du reste, why should they not be
good friends ? Only she must be made to-
see reason.

Gradually it came to be believed in the
school that Madame Leroux was a widow.
She had never explicitly said so, but she
had allowed the legend to grow unchecked.
And so she lived with this secret in her life,
and carrying a burthen of difficulties which
grew heavier year by year.

And yet she could be brilliant, sparkling,
full of wild gaiety at times, and her chief
source of exhilaration was — her looking-
glass ! This may seem incredible to a great
many persons, who would find nothing
improbable in the statement that she
habitually raised her spirits by opium or
brandy. But her mirror beguiled her more
effectually from dwelling on the only prospect
which had power to quell and terrify Caroline

MADAME LEROUX. 89.

Leroux — the prospect of old age. To be
faded, wrinkled, and disregarded ; to see the
eyes of men glance past her coldly, or turn
away from her with disgust — this seemed to
her the intolerable fate which brought with
it no compensations. But she was still
attractive ; still an object of admiration, and
a woman whom men vied with each other
to please. She kept her mind resolutely
turned away from the cold horror that lay in
wait for her in the future ; and avoided
solitude which was liable to be haunted by
gloomy thoughts, as the desert is by swift,
soft- footed, hungry beasts. Her health was
excellent : only sometimes, after an interview
with Etienne, who had now taken up his
abode in a lodging in Soho, and had lost the
last remnant of his voice, she would be
attacked by a fit of sleeplessness. In such a
case she at once resorted to a phial of
chloral ; for wakeful nights and painful
images would surely hasten the approach of
the spectre she dreaded.

Madame Leroux's disappointment in
Lucy, and consequent displeasure with

90 MADAME LEROUX.

Marie Hawkins, had kept her away from
the house in Great Portland Street during
the whole of the vacation. She would
willingly have got rid of Lucy, but that the
acceptance of the premium had bound her to
keep Miss Smith a twelvemonth. And she
would have been well inclined to purchase
Miss Smith's departure by refunding a por-
tion of the money paid with her ; yet the
sacrifice would have been so inconvenient
at that time that she hesitated to make it.
Ready money was not plentiful with Madame
Leroux. She had neither taste nor talent
for economy. The interest on the loan con-
tracted to buy out her late partner was
heavy ; Etienne's demands had been a
steady drain upon her purse for years ;
and her whole expenditure was on a lavish
scale.

For the present, things must take their
course. But the disagreeable associations
connected with Miss Smith were rapidly
storing up a fund of positive dislike to her
in the mind of her employer, and during
the first weeks of the school-term several

MADAME LEROUX. 91

small circumstances contributed to increase
it. Lucy was not popular with a large
section of the boarders, who looked on Miss
Cohen as their leader. Some contemptuous
and stinging truths with which Lucy had
replied to the wealthy boarder's clumsy
rudeness had not only rankled in Miss
Cohen's memory, but had really given a
shock to her conception of the fitness of
things. She pronounced Miss Smith to be
"stuck up!" Had she been lazy, mean,
false, spiteful — any or all of these defects
might have been condoned as being natural
enough in a penniless, insignificant school-
teacher. But to be " stuck-up " was an
intolerable usurpation of the privileges of
her betters.

"Miss Cohen is rude and stupid, of
course," said Fraulein Schulze to Madame,
in the tone of one admitting the damp-
ness of the English climate, or any other
generally recognized and irremediable fact.
" But, as I tell her, little Smith is too
sensitiff"

" Sensitive ! Miss Smith is too self-

92 MADAME LEROUX.

opinionated —too fond of lecturing and
exhibiting her own superiority," returned
Madame sharply. And she thought to
herself how remarkably circumstances were
corroborating her mistrust and repulsion
towards Lucy. Although, in truth, it was
no more remarkable than that objects
should look yellow to a patient with the
jaundice.

But notwithstanding these disagreeable
results of Mrs. Hawkins's recommendation,
Madame Leroux's anger against that lady —
never very deep — was dying away. It was
very natural that Marie should be eager for
a transaction which, doubtless, had put a few
pounds in her pocket ; and very probably
she had been ignorant of the impracticable
character of the girl. " At any rate, it is an
amusing house to go to. There are no pre-
tences to make, and none of that fear of
something slipping out which tires one so —
for Marie knows all about Etienne. Why
should I let that little fool divide me from
people that suit me ? I won't."

Thus argued Madame Leroux, in her

MADAME LEROUX.

93

own mind ; and the same evening she drove
to Great Portland Street, and appeared,
radiant in a piquant costume of black lace
and crimson ribbons, in the Hawkins's
drawing-room.

CHAPTER XXIII.

WHATEVER cause Marie Hawkins had as-
signed for her friend's protracted absence,
it had not, apparently, entered into her head
to resent it ; and, being received with perfect
cordiality, Madame Leroux enjoyed finding
herself once more in that social atmosphere
which was not painfully rarified by chilly
principles and lofty aims, such as she de-
tested with all her might. But she was
resolved, nevertheless, to express her disap-
proval of Lucy's behaviour — partly because
she thought Marie deserved a scolding for
misleading her, and partly to prepare the
way for getting rid of Miss Smith whenever
that could be done without paying too dear
for it.

Marie received her scolding with perfect
[ 94 ]

MADAME LEROUX. 95

temper, but, at the same time, with a certain
mild, invincible persistence in her own
opinion.

''You acted rashly, and without your
usual discretion, ma belle, in taking her with
you to the theatre under the circumstances,"
she said, with a smile and slightly raised
eyebrows. And she stuck to this refrain
through all Madame's fluent sarcasm and
indignation against poor Lucy's " imperti-
nence and ingratitude," with the un impas-
sioned insistance of some little brook whose
murmur may be temporarily overpowered by
a hail-storm, but which will be heard long
after the pelting force has spent itself.

In response to a hint about the possibility
of coming to some arrangement with Mr.
Shard, inducing him to receive back a por-
tion of the premium and break Lucy's en-
gagement, Marie shook her head.

" I don't think he intends to trouble him-
self any more about her," she said. " She is
not his own niece ; only a niece by marriage,
I think. Anyhow, he does not think she has
any further claim on him. That premium

96 MADAME LEROUX.

he considered to be her dot or portion to
start her in the world. He told Adolphe
so."

This coincided with the impression
Madame Leroux had received from Mr.
Shard's letter to Lucy, which she had seen.
It crossed her mind that the position might
be all the more manageable for not having to
reckon with that " sharp practitioner." But
she merely said, " I am not the only person,
then, who finds the young lady a little too
oppressive ? I daresay she has been in the
habit of lecturing this poor uncle of hers, and
explaining to him what was proper."

" Miss Smith was very nice while she
was here, and she never lectured anybody,"
answered Marie, without the least heat.

Madame gave a little impatient laugh.
" Since you find Miss Smith so charming
perhaps you would be willing to receive her
back again," she said.

" Receive her ? Receive Miss Smith, do
you say ? Charmed ! By all means ! " ex-
claimed Mr. Hawkins, coming close up to
the two ladies. He had only caught a word

MADAME LEROUX. 97

or two of the last sentences, and had no idea
of the general drift of the conversation. But
he was in a very expansive mood. A vision
of " Millamint; the British Tea!" in big
letters on every hoarding in London, was
intoxicating him ; and intoxication of any
sort always made him good-natured.

" De grace, Adolphel I beg you will
not talk nonsense," interposed his wife, who
was far from intending to commit herself to
any Quixotic invitation without a previous
guarantee for compensation, either in the
form of a weekly payment, or by some less
direct method.

Madame Leroux understood it all very
well, and smiled to herself ; but without any
bitterness. This was a medium in which
she was quite at her ease. It is not every
fish that is happiest in the most crystalline
water. She tapped Adolphus lightly on the
arm, and said, good-temperedly, " Ah ! you
will always be soft about a pair of beaux
yeux. And the little simpleton is pretty be-
yond a doubt. But that is not so much of a
compensation to us women who have to darn
VOL. ii. 27

98 MADAME LEROUX.

up what she ravels out, and endure her self-
righteous wrong-headedness, as you might
imagine."

Mr. Hawkins smiled in a vapfue manner,

o

and his thoughts were evidently far away.
(He was beholding, with his mind's eye, a
colossal coloured picture, representing a
venerable grandmother, a stalwart father, a
comely mother, two chubby children, and a
seraphic baby in a cradle, all strikingly alike
as to the complexion, grouped in a cottage
parlour with a kettle steaming like a geyser,
the tea-things on the table, and a large red
canister conspicuously labelled " Millamint,"
which the whole family was fixedly con-
templating with a tender and adoring smile.)

"What has your husband got into his
head ? " asked Madame Leroux. "He looks
as if he had found the philosopher's stone,
or 'struck ile,' which I should prefer, for my
own part."

The prospects of British tea were ex-
plained to her with great fervour by Mr.
Hawkins; and the fact that Adolphe had
really got some one with money to take

MADAME LEROUX. 99

the thing up was stated with quiet com-
placency by Mrs. Hawkins.

Caroline Leroux was accustomed to Mr.
Hawkins' sanguine visions of fortune, and
to seeing him watch his iridescent soap-
bubbles with a confidence in their turning

o

into precious globes of solid rock-crystal,
which no experience had as yet been able
to destroy.

But this time it was clear that he had
the whole family with him. Even Marie's
neutral scepticism was permeated with a
little flush of rose-coloured anticipations.
And as to Fatima, she was frankly
elated.

Poor Uncle Adolphe would have a
chance now ; and it was high time he should
have it ! Fatima had a confused idea that
some compensation was due to Uncle
Adolphe for the inexorableness with which
the laws of the universe had hitherto been
enforced against him. To be sure, people
who loved to croak always harshly insisted
that nothing could come of nothing. But
Uncle Adolphe had tried to get something

too MADAME LEROUX.

, — -»

out of nothing so often ! It did seem very
hard that he should not be able to succeed
for once.

The only drawback to Fatima's delight
in the flourishing prospects of British tea,
arose from the coldness with which Zephany
regarded them. Zephany had neither money
nor influence to help or hinder the scheme,
so his opinion about it was of no conse-
quence to Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins. But it
was of consequence to Fatima.

Zephany had for years been an example
of steady rectitude to her in the midst of a
life whose principles partook of the nature of
a dissolving view ; and what had been objec-
tionable on Monday, when there was nothing
to be got by it, was apt to melt into a quite
different and defensible shape under the new
light of Tuesday, when it was perceived to
be profitable. It was not that Zephany ever
preached ; nor, indeed, had he any lofty
creed which he could recite off-hand, and by
which he consciously guided his life. He
probably held no active belief which would
have branded a lie as a very serious offence.

MADAME LEROUX. 101

But there was a quality of invincible sincerity
in the man that made humbug odious to him,
as certain persons are peculiarly sensitive to
foul air.

Zephany had been Fatima's friend and
confidant ever since she was a child of four-
teen, when he had first come to lodge with
the Hawkins's. They had been at that time
under a great pressure of money difficulties,
and had been glad to receive his modest
payment for the one room he occupied.
Since then their fortunes had often fluctu-
ated, and they had removed from one house
to another. But whether their tendency
were upward or downward, Zephany had
accompanied them in all their migrations
during those six chequered years.

A singular kind of friendship had sprung
up between him and the Hawkins's, which
at first sight might have seemed a very
unlikely consummation. But Zephany was
a man with considerable sensibility for the
domestic affections ; and to his loneliness the
family life was attractive, although the scene
of it was scarcely more stable and permanent

i (52- MADAME LEROUX.

than a Tartar tent. But Home is, happily,
a portable institution.

It was not probable that this mutual
liking (for the Hawkins's, on their side, were
attached to Zephany, who had various quali-
ties severally attractive to each member of
the family), which had been growing and
strengthening for six years, should be easily
disturbed. Nevertheless, a threatening cloud
had arisen at one moment.

Zephany's friend, Mr. Rushmere, falsified
Mr. Hawkins's favourable opinion of him
by utterly refusing to give the support of his
name to the British Tea Company. Neither
would he invest sixpence in the shares. " I
don't believe in the thing, my dear sir," he
had said, quite simply. " The prospectus
does not persuade me in the least. I may,
of course, be wrong ; but I don't believe in
it." And he appeared to think this reason
for not embarking in it final.

Marie had ventured to say, in her inno-
cent voice, and with her forehead very
smooth and candid, " But I thought that
some companies were like the things on the

MADAME LEROUX. 103

Stock Exchange, don't you know — where
nobody gets anything solid for his money in
the form of silk, or diamonds, or hogsheads,
or bales, but where bits of paper are worth
less to-day and more to-morrow, like lottery
tickets or the name of a racehorse. I can't
express it very clearly, but I daresay you
know what I mean."

" My dear lady, that kind of Association,
professing to sell a desirable article, and only
anxious to sell shares that turn into withered
leaves for the deluded buyers, is simply a
swindling transaction."

"No!" said Marie, clasping her hands
prettily, and looking up at his worn brown
face, with a faint blush spreading slowly over
her own fair smooth one. "' Then of course
they are quite different from this tea com-
pany, because there is the article, and they
only want to sell as much of it as they
possibly can ! "

"Of course," answered Mr. Rushmere.
And the subject was dropped.

But it was a tremendous disappointment.
And Adolphus Hawkins' strong revulsion of

io4 MADAME LEROUX.

feeling made him inclined to quarrel with
Zephany, who surely might, had he chosen
to be zealous, have induced his friend Rush-
mere to do something, even had it been but
to invest a few hundreds — " a few paltry
hundreds!' — said Hawkins, with that large
disdain for sums expressible by three figures
not unusual in a fervid speculator contem-
plating the investment of other people's
money.

But Zephany did not wait to be attacked.
Soon after Mr. Rushmere's departure from
London, he burst forth one day, with his
loudest voice, and fiercest intensity of gaze,
" What is this ? What do you mean ? You
are angry ! You are sullen ! You look at
me with reproach, and pretend to be cold
and distant ! For what ? " Then, folding
his arms, and changing to a low tone, and an.
articulation seeming to be ground out with
some difficulty between his teeth, " I shall
tell you. Because this Englishman — whom
I only know through a letter from one of
my kindred at Gibraltar, unseen by me for
twenty-five years — has not chosen to risk

MADAME LEROUX.

his money on your pot-herbs." Then, with
a sudden explosive kind of shout — " This is
a nonsense ! " And falling into a lower key,
but still speaking with glowing anger, he
proceeded, " I say not that I approve your
scheme. That matters nothing. But am I
the dry nurse of Mr. Rushmere, to thrust it
in his mouth with a spoon if I did approve
it ? He is not an infant, nor a fool. He can
judge. He will do as seems good to him. If
you must be angry and sullen — which is a
nonsense — be angry with your Englishman.
For me, I will not be ill-treated for a non-
sense ! "

It was quite impossible to carry on an
ambushed warfare by means of inuendos, and
nods, and becks, and offensively elaborate
politeness with Zephany. He could use
sarcasm and irony, and join in a conversa-
tional war-dance, where those verbal wea-
pons were employed alternately as spear
and shield, and could make points and sallies,
and wheel and turn with considerable agility
and gusto — so long as it was all in mere
sport ; but the instant that he detected a

106 MADAME LEROUX.

seriously hostile intention, or that his own
feelings were engaged, he was apt to lose
patience, rush at the foe, pounce on him with
breathless rapidity, and drag him forth by
the scruff of the neck to fight out the combat
in the open, where spears are spears, and
spades are spades, and there are no half-
lights.

This explosion very speedily cleared the
atmosphere, and had the advantage of
making it plain to Adolphus Hawkins -
genuinely to his satisfaction — for smoulder-
ing ill-will was repugnant to his disposition—
that he really had no grievance against
Zephany at all. Marie did not quite take
this view, but she saw that the grievance lay
in the very texture of Zephany's character,
which was beyond the power of any of them
to alter, and she was not angry with him.

As to Mr. Rush mere, he was absent from
London, and not expected to return shortly.
It was, therefore, not necessary to readjust,
their opinion of him for immediate practical
application to their behaviour ; but it is
certain that they neither of them dreamed of

MADAME LEROUX. 107

quarrelling with their new acquaintance. To
know a man with thousands of pounds at his
command had something of the effect for
Adolphus that is produced on a dweller in a
Southern city by the sound of fountains. It
is delightful to be assured of so abundant a
water-supply, even though one may not be
suffering from immediate thirst.

But since the enlightened capitalist who
had at length given Adolphus Hawkins a
chance was not Mr. Rushmere, who was he ?
No other than Mr. Clampitt of Lamb's
Conduit Street, the old gentleman who
modestly concealed his services to fellow-
citizens in distress under the allegorical
figure of a Beneficent Pelican. This title
had doubtless been chosen with reference to
the legendary virtues of the pelican towards
its young. But any one who had happened
to witness — at Zoological Gardens, or else-
where— the solemn voracity with which that
large-beaked biped disposes of its fish, might
possibly think the name more completely
appropriate than had been intended.

Mr. Clampitt was niggardly and sus-

io8 MADAME LEROUX.

picious, but he was also insatiably covetous.
There had been a recent brilliant example of
what can be done by starting a company, if
judiciously " promoted " and audaciously
puffed. An association for the sale of coffee
made of a vegetable substance which cer-
tainly was not the coffee-berry, was doing a
great stroke of business with its shares, which
were, indeed, still rising; and Mr. Hawkins'
scheme of utilising Calarmntha officinalis and
Achillcea millefolium appeared to come pecu-
liarly apropos. Since it was possible to realise
thousands by the mere announcement of
coffee which was not coffee, why should it
not be possible to engage the favour of the
public for tea which was not tea ?

Mr. Clampitt was tempted. But, although
on entering into this speculation he remained
as anonymous as in the Loan Society, he did
not, as in that case, engross the whole of the
business. For his justly-earned reputation —
variously expressed by calling him a keen
blade, a hard old file, a knowing card, or with
more solemnity of eulogium, a man who knew
the value of money — drew several moneyed

MADAME LEROUX. 109

persons towards the undertaking, as a load-
stone draws a needle. And, without as yet
rivalling the plate-glass and mahogany
establishment of the coffee which was not
coffee, the shares of the tea which was not
tea appeared to promise large profits — for
those intelligent business persons who should
know when to sell.

Madame Leroux might easily have had
too much of this great theme if the Hawkins
family had been the only talkers ; but, be-
sides Zephany, several men dropped in after
the old fashion in the course of the evening,
and Madame's chair was soon surrounded.
Harrington Jersey, who came in late, did not
make one of the admiring circle. He merely
bowed, and had a smile flashed at him from
a distance.

Jersey's inclination to flirt with Madame
Leroux had been chiefly stimulated by the
fatuous airs of Frampton Fennell. When
Fennell was not there, Jersey's ardour cooled
down to a very temperate tepidity. And,
besides, of late, during Madame's withdrawal
from the house in Great Portland Street,

no MADAME LEROUX.

Jersey's affections had been swinging back
towards sweet-tempered little Fatima, whose
figure, and foot, and hair would not easily
be beaten ; and whose admiration for the
"Songs -'of the Tea-Kettle" discovered a
basis of solid judgment under her simplicity
of manner which outweighed a great deal
of tinsel.

" Your flashy clever woman is always too
clever or not clever enough," said Jersey to
himself. " And she is never thoroughly
appreciative."

It thus befel that there was no word
exchanged between Jersey and Madame
Leroux until the latter was just going away,
when she asked for her cloak ; for it had
begun to rain and the air outside the warm
gas - lighted drawing - room was chilly.
Jersey, happening to be nearest the door,
ran down to the hall to fetch it for her.

When he returned she was standing
opposite to the chimney-glass ; and the rest,
who had risen from their seats when she did,
were grouped to the right and left of her.
J.ersey came behind her with the cloak, and,

. MADAME LEROUX. in

as he dropped it on to her shoulders, said,
in a random way, to Mrs. Hawkins, "What's
become of your Nabob — that rich fellow
from India whom I met here ? He's a great
friend of the Sheik's, I know — Rushmere.
What's become of Mr. Ralph Rushmere?"

A curious movement, that was neither a
start nor a shudder, but rather like a great
throb pulsing all through her body, shook
the mantle off Caroline Leroux's shoulders,
and it slipped in a heap on to the floor,
while she put out her hand with a groping
action, as though she were suddenly stricken
blind.

The groping hand encountered an arm
firmly stretched forth from behind her and
clutched it. The arm was Zephany's, and
the next moment her eyes met his in the
glass. Her face looked strangely ghastly,
for the artificial colour stood out suddenly
glaring on cheeks from which all the
blood had receded, and her first instinctive
movement was to rub her handkerchief
roughly across her face so as to neutralize
this effect.

it2 MADAME LEROUX.

The time which sufficed for all this to
pass was measured by seconds. Jersey, still
standing behind Madame Leroux, had
stooped to pick up the fallen cloak, and it
was not until he heard Zephany's voice,
saying, " You turned dizzy; sit down," that
he was aware anything unusual had hap-
pened. Madame Leroux sat down on the
chair which Zephany had pushed close to
her as he spoke, and there was a chorus of
sympathising exclamations and inquiries.

"Yes," said she, panting a little, " I felt a
sudden rush of dizziness ; it's over now. I
never fainted in my life, but that must be
something like fainting, I fancy. I hope I
am not becoming apoplectic."

She spoke with complete self-possession
and without the least exaggeration of
manner.

" I had better get home," she said, after
a short pause, during which she had sat
quite still, with closed eyes, while Marie held
a vinaigrette to her nose. Then she arose,
nodded " good- night " all round, and, leaning
on Jersey's arm, went slowly downstairs.

MADAME LEROUX.

Zephany had withdrawn into the back-
ground, and stood a little apart, near the
piano, pressing his mouth on his clenched
hand — a habitual attitude of his when medi-
tating.

" I suppose it was the heat," said Marie,
returning to the drawing-room, after having
seen her friend into the brougham that was
waiting for her. " This room does feel stuffy
and oppressive on coming back into it."

" Yes," assented Zephany, " it is close/'
But he knew it was not the heat which had
sent that sickening rush of faintness over
Caroline Leroux, for he had seen her face in
the glass.

VOL. II

28

CHAPTER XXV.

MANY possibilities of emotion may remain
latent within us, and hidden even from our-
selves. Caroline Leroux would certainly not
have expected to feel that shock of mingled
feelings which the sudden mention of Ralph
Rushmere's name had produced in her. She
had for years been uncertain whether he
were living or dead. But if it had been
possible for the question to present itself to
her, how she would be affected by hearing
that he was alive and in England, she would
have been sure that the tidings would leave
her mind collected and her nerves calm.

But it had not been so. Nor was her
agitation wholly due to surprise ; for as she
sat alone in her own room at midnight, hear-
ing over and over again Jersey's careless

MADAME LEROUX. 115

words, a chill quiver ran through her at
intervals, and her hands were cold.

" Bah ! What queer machines we are ! "
she exclaimed, in a loud whisper, as she held
out her hand before her, and perceived that
it was visibly trembling.

Then she got up and walked once or
twice across the room. But her limbs felt
weak and tired, and she soon sat down again.

" I must have something to warm my
blood," she said, to herself. " I must have
some wine to get rid of this chill sensation."

But Fraulein Schulze had the housekeep-
ing keys, and had been in bed hours ago ;
and Madame Leroux was not one of those
women who keep a private store of stimu-
lants. All at once she bethought her that
the last time she was in Paris, she had filled
a small travelling flask with Cognac, which
had remained untouched during the home-
ward journey. After a little search she found
her dressing-bag at the bottom of a ward-
robe, and in it the flask nearly full. She
poured out a small quantity of the liquid, and
swallowed it undiluted.

n6 . MADAME LEROUX.

" Ah — h — h !" she sighed, drawing a long
breath, and giving a little shudder of satisfac-
^ion, as her blood began to circulate more
regularly, and a feeling of comforting warmth
stole into her hands and feet. Then, throw-
ing herself into a luxuriously easy-chair, she
addressed her own image in the cheval-glass
opposite, "Well, my friend, have you had
enough for the present of making yourself
a fool ? Are you ready to behave like a
woman with a little brains and resolution ?
Voyons ! "

Then she set herself to think.

Rushmere alive and in London might
mean no more for her than the existence of
any other among the millions of fellow-
creatures in that vast city. But Rushmere

alive and in London, and rich That

might be different.

" I wonder how he got his riches," she
thought. " Ralph Rushmere a rich man
seems like a contradiction in terms. It
wasn't in him to make money. Can he have
inherited, after all ? "

She sat musing, thrown back in the easy-

MADAME LEROUX. 117

chair, her hands clasped behind her head,
and an intent frown upon her brow. Did
she wish to see Rushtnere again ? She was
not sure what her choice might be if it were
left perfectly free, but she was aware of an
inward recoil at the thought of meeting him.
However, her choice was probably not free.
Since he frequented die Hawkins's house, she
was exposed to being brought face to face
with him unawares. And that she resolved,
in any case, to avoid. If they were to meet
she would be prepared.

"I'll write to Zephany !" That was the
first step she resolved on. " And," she
added, after an instant's reflection, " I'll write
to-night. To-morrow I might begin to hesi-
tate, and think it out all over again. But
that would only be from some hitch in the
machinery." And she looked at herself in
the glass with a strange mocking smile.
" New \ am clear, and the wheels and
springs are going smoothly. I'll write to
Zephany."

She went at once to a dainty little daven-
port which stood in a corner of the room,

MADAME LEROUX.

and wrote in French, with her usual steady,
minute, foreign handwriting.

" I desire to say a word to you. It would
be very amiable if you would come here to-
morrow between five and six. That is the
best hour for me. But I shall stay at home
all day, and will give orders that M. le Pro-
fesseur Zephany is to be admitted whenever
he calls. — C. LEROUX."

" I think," she said, as she lay down in
her bed, " that I shall sleep to-night without
chloral." And she did.

She had said confidently in her note that
she would remain at home the whole of the
following day. But before she left her room
the next morning a summons came which
frustrated that intention.

A letter was brought to her, with an
urgent demand for an immediate answer.
The messenger was waiting ; and the mes-
senger was no other than the old Savoyarde

Jeanne, who had acted as caretaker durin^
j r>

the holidays. Madame Leroux dismissed
the maid who had brought her the letter,
before opening it. But in less than two

MADAME LEROUX. 119

minutes the bell was sharply rung, and
Madame, standing with her back to the
servant, in her white peignoir, and with her
hair hanging down, ordered the messenger
to be sent upstairs at once.

" What is it ? " she asked, in a quick,
peremptory voice, as soon as the old
woman had entered and shut the door
behind her.

" Monsieur wants money," answered
Jeanne, with perfect composure.

" Wants money ! Very likely ; but is that
a reason for disturbing and startling me at
this hour ? '' answered Madame. But she
was obviously relieved from a vague fear of
something worse.

" I know nothing," said the old woman
with a shrug. "My son thought I had
better come to you, or else they will turn
him out of his lodgings."

" Turn him out of his lodgings ?. Let
them ! " exclaimed Madame, with a little
stamp of her foot.

" He's ill. He has one of his attacks,
My son thought he ought not to be moved.

120 MADAME LEROUX.

But I know nothing. It is not my business,"
said Jeanne, in a hard, grumbling tone.

Caroline wrung her hands, and walked
two or three paces across the room. Then
she stopped short, and said with an effort,
" I must go myself. You have a cab
here?"

" Yes ; my son said it would be quickert
and he was sure you would pay."

Fraulein Schulze was sent for, and while
Madame rapidly dressed herself for going
out, she told the Fraulein that she was sud-
denly called away to attend on a sick friend,
"A foreigner who can speak scarcely any
English," said Madame, hurriedly tying on
her bonnet. " I cannot leave the case en-
tirely to strangers. I shall return as soon
as possible — directly I have put things en
train. But I cannot name any hour. You
can tell them all in the school why I am
obliged to be absent It will be better to
do so."

Fraulein Schulze did not detain her by
any inconvenient demonstrations of sympathy
or anxiety ; and Madame hastened down-

MADAME LEROUX. 121

stairs with a quick, firm step, leaving old
Jeanne to follow, slow and sour-faced as
ever.

It was past four o'clock in the afternoon
before the mistress of Douro House returned
to it. The first words she said on entering
the house, were, " Has any one called to ask
for me ? "

The servant's answer was in the negative.
" He will be here between five and six,
then," she said to herself. Only a few
minutes previously, on her way home, she
had remembered that Zephany might pos-
sibly have called in her absence.

She looked white and weary ; and she
caught a side light on her face in the glass as
she removed her bonnet that startled her
with a vision of a haggard line round her
mouth. She sank into a seat, and covered
her eyes with her clasped hands. The sum-
mons that morning had been a severe strain
upon her. Etienne had plunged himself into
debt as deeply as he had found it possible to
do. And on being urged to pay his rent, a
furious fit of anger had brought on a violent

122 MADAME LEROUX.

attack of coughing, accompanied by spitting
of blood, from which he had suffered more
than ever of late.

Old Jeanne's son, Louis Montondon, who
kept an eating-house in Soho, which Mon-
sieur Leroux patronized, had been sent for
by the lodging-house people, as being the
only acquaintance of their lodger accessible
to them ; and Louis had at once despatched
his mother to Madame Leroux, as we have
seen. Whether the Montondons knew
Etienne and Caroline to be husband and
wife, or whether they suspected that there
was a less avowable tie between them, they
troubled themselves to make no inquiries.
They understood that Madame desired
discretion from them, and that it would be
made worth their while to be discreet. So
long as Monsieur's score was paid at the
eating-house, and Madame gave Jeanne
periodical employment during the holidays,
they were quite content with their patrons.
And gradually Louis Montondon had come
to be on something like confidential terms
with them both, V

MADAME LEROUX 123

" He is better. He will get over it.
The doctor says he- may live for years, with
care. But he must be tranquil, and have no
undue excitement. An excellent prescription.
Tranquillity and the absence of undue excite-
ment for Etienne Leroux ! Why did not the
wise physician add that he must find two new
sovereigns in his stockings every morning ?
But I must contrive some means to limit
his expenditure, or it will be downright ruin.
There's no use in trying to fight off the truth.
Money was running very short already. And

now this new outbreak ! If he takes to

gambling, in addition to all the rest .

I must think ; I must think ! " Caroline
smoothed back the hair from her forehead
with both hands, pressing them hard against
her temples, as though the action had some
coercive power over her thoughts.

After a while she rang her bell and
ordered a warm bath to be prepared ; and,
having bathed, she made a long and elaborate
toilet with locked doors.

" When, about a quarter-past five o'clock,
Professor Zephany was ushered into

J24 MADAME LEROUX.

Madame's private sitting-room, he thought
he had never seen her look so attractively
handsome. She was somewhat paler than
usual, but her eyes were full of a soft
brilliancy beneath their pencilled brows and
dark lashes, and the curly tendrils of her hair
were disposed with a charming, careless-
seeming grace. She wore a dark-grey dress
of some soft rich silken fabric, and there were
jewels on the white hands that peeped out
from beneath lace ruffles. She watched
Zephany's face at the moment he entered, and
was satisfied by its expression that she was
looking well. And let it be understood that
Madame Leroux had no design against
Zephany's peace of mind. She was simply
making him a test of the impression she
might hope to produce on some one else.

" Thank you for coming," she said, hold-
ing out her hand. He bowed over it, and
hoped she had quite recovered from last
night's indisposition ; and then he sat down
and waited for her to speak.

" You were announced as Professor
Zephany," she said. " That is what I

MADAME LEROUX. 125

wished ; I do not receive many male visitors,
as you may suppose — but a professor one
may always see on business."

" I understood that from the wording of
your note," he answered, with a quick flash
of intelligence.

" Ah, what a comfort to deal with a man
like you ! You don't want everything
explained three times over, and then mis-
understand it at the end. You are not dull
of comprehension."

" I am not" assented Zephany, with
emphatic conviction.

" And since you are not, you perceived
that it was the sudden mention of a name
which upset me last night."

Zephany bent his head with grave friend-
liness. This candour conciliated him.

" And I want you to tell me all about the
owner of that name, whom I have not seen
or heard of for years."

" What I can tell is soon told. You are
asking about Mr. Rushmere ?"

"Yes."

" Mr. Rushmere made my acquaintance

iz6 MADAME LEROUX.

about two months ago, by bringing- me a
letter from my uncle, a Jewish merchant in
Gibraltar. He was formerly in the army, but
an injury received accidentally, obliged him
to leave it. He has been wandering about
the world a good many years; chiefly in
India. He came last from Ceylon. I have
understood him to say that he has no rela-
tives, and scarcely a friend left in England.
He is in this country now on business of his
own, but is uncertain whether he shall remain
here or go back to Ceylon. That is all I
know."

" He is not married ?"

\

Zephany shook his head.

" Thank youv" said Madame, and then
mused a s little. At length, looking full at
Zephany, she askfcd, " Can you tell me what
are his circumstances ? When I knew him
he was poor." \

Zephany returned her gaze with an
intentness which the vainest of women could
scarcely have interpreted in a flattering sense.

"Oh!" said he. "You want to know
about his money ? "

MADAME LEROUX. 127

Madame Leroux took a rapid resolution.
" Yes," she answered, " I want to know about
his money, and I will tell you, briefly, why.
It is an old, old story. Two foolish young
people who fancied themselves more deeply
in love than any young people, wise or
foolish, ever had been before, not a penny in
the world between them, and a rich, cruel
uncle who forbade the banns. Nothing at
all original, you see ! " She stopped, and
looked at him with a half-humorous, half-
melancholy smile.

Zephany's countenance remained quite
grave as he responded, " But that is only the
rirst chapter of the story, Madame."

For an instant a white, shocked look
came into her face, and she asked in a
breathless way, as if the words had been
forced from her against her will, " Has he
told you anything about his youth ?"

" Nothing of any love-story — not a word."

" Because," she went on, more com-
posedly, " frankly, his version might differ
from mine ; and yet mine is the true one.
One of the foolish young people in question

128 MADAME LEROUX.

was not altogether foolish. She saw that
although ' egotism for two ' may be delightful,
poverty for two is a worse business than
when it has to be borne singly. In short,
marriage at that time would have meant
starvation for the body ; and a long, in-
definite engagement would have meant that
gradual draining away of youth, and hope,
and joy, and energy, which is no better than
slow starvation for the soul. So she had the
courage to turn the page, and break off that
story at what you call the first chapter — not
wholly selfishly ; no, not wholly selfishly. I
should like him to know that," added Caroline
Leroux, with an indescribable intonation,
which touched her hearer.

" She did well," he said, gently, " I
mean she did well to act so, if she felt
so."

" Oh, my good friend," she answered, in
a lighter tone, " well or ill, it is done ; and
she is not the woman to sit down and bewail
the past with a litany of ' ifs.' But if — you
really must allow me that one, because it
carries a cheerful possibility ! — if he has

MADAME LEROUX. 129

inherited his uncle's fortune after all, we may
see plainly that everything has been for the
best, in this best of all possible civilized
communities."

" He has inherited it ; but only quite
lately."

She clapped her hands together. " I am
glad of it ! " she said, softly. " ' Wisdom is
justified of her children,' and that young
woman did him a good turn when she shut
down the page and stopped short at the first
chapter. I'm ever so much obliged to you,
Zephany," she said in a cordial tone, giving
him her hand as he rose to go away. <( To
tell you the truth — as most people do, with a
flourish, after it has been found out — I had
had my painful thoughts about that poor
fellow. I did not know whether he was
alive or dead, and the sound of his name
last night struck a chord that I thought had
gone to join the ' eternal silences ' many a
year ago. But why tell you all that ? You
saw it clearer and plainer than I can say it."

He held her hand for a moment, looking
at her with more benevolence than she had
VOL. ii. 29

1 3o MADAME LEROUX.

ever seen in his eyes before, although she
had often seen more admiration.

" That is good," he said, simply.

"And there is one more favour I want
to beg of you — you will not say anything
to — to Mr. Rushmere about this conversa-
tion ? "

" I shall speak of it to no one," he
answered. " You may trust me."

She clasped her hands firmly together,
looked at him seriously for a moment,
and answered with a brief, emphatic nod,
" I do."

CHAPTER XXV.

THE chill of latter autumn was making

itself felt in Westfield, and the fine clumps

of trees in the park around Enderby Court

wore as many tints as a painter's palette.

The gardeners were daily busied in sweeping

away the fallen leaves from lawn, and drive,

and pathway ; a faint white mist floated

morning and evening over the low-lying

grounds ; sportsmen were active in covert

and stubble ; industrious housewives stood

•close to cottage windows to catch the last

waning daylight for their knitting or darning,

and remarked every afternoon that the days

-did draw in wonderful, sure-/y ; the glow

behind the red curtains of the " Enderby

Arms " looked tempting to slow-footed

labourers carrying home a heavy weight of

132 MADAME LEROUX.

mud on their shoe-soles from field and
furrow ; and Mr. Jackson's chronic trouble
with his joints grew sharper.

All these symptoms of approaching
winter were looked upon in Westfield as
being a natural portion of that constitution
of things whereof the memory of man ran
not to the contrary. For if there were per-
sons who remembered Mr. Jackson before
his rheumatics had crippled him, yet there
had always been in the remotest times some
Goody or Gaffer rheumatic enough to keep
up the charter of our climate and give
occupation to Dr. Goodchild. The course of
Nature, in fact, appeared likely to continue
in those parts with an unvarying regularity
which would have sufficed to make the
villagers scoffingly sceptical of Darwinian
theories of evolution — if they had ever hap-
pened to hear of them ; and the close of
that year of grace promised to bring nothing
more unexpected than a rise in the price
of coals, and a new baby at the Rectory.

And yet one morning tidings were rapidly
spread through the village which seemed

MADAME LEROUX. 133

almost as startling to many there, as though
a small earthquake had shaken Westfield to
its foundations. It was rumoured that Sir
Lionel Enderby was dead — had died sud-
denly far away in a foreign country ; and
there was general curiosity and consternation.

In every dwelling for miles round — from
the ale-house to the Rectory, from Lord
Percy Humberstone's Elizabethan mansion
to Goody Bloxham's Victorian model cottage
— this news formed an engrossing topic of
conversation.

Those Westfieldians who had any per-
sonal acquaintance with the servants at the
Court assumed the airs of a privileged caste,
and put down outsiders on points of detail
as if they had been augurs in whose pre-
sence the profane vulgar had ventured to
discuss the divination ex ccelo. And be-
yond this select circle there were various
degrees of dogmatic inaccuracy, reaching
even to that outer circumference where Giles
Ploughman, with a slow shake of the head,
mentioned to the other farm-servants as-
sembled at supper, that he had heerd 'twas

134 MADAME LEROUX.

mortal unhealthy abroad ; and illustrated this
position by the narrative of a brother of his
own, who, being a wild young chap, and
falling a prey to the seductions of the re-
cruiting sergeant, had been sent "abroad,"
and was forthwith carried off by yellow
fever, complicated with rum.

After the first shock, it appeared in
various social discussions of the sad event
that it was no more than had been very
generally expected. For there were, it
seemed, a great many persons in Westfield
who had been quite sure of what would
happen ; only, from motives of delicacy, they
had not assumed any offensive superiority
over their less prescient neighbours by
mentioning it beforehand.

Mr. Pinhorn's shop was one of the great
centres of gossip on this occasion. Mrs,
Jackson spoke authoritatively in the present
crisis, as one who had lived ten years at the
Court, and knew the ways of high families.
And it turned out that she was among those
far-seeing spirits who could have foretold
just how things would be, but had been re-

MADAME LEROUX. 135

strained by her constitutional objection to
talking and prating.

" I should think Lady Charlotte might
repent now" said Mrs. Jackson, in her thin,
acid tones. She was seated on the one
wooden chair in Mr. Pinhorn's shop, and
addressed an audience composed of the
grocer himself, Dr. Goodchild's cook, and
one of the under-gardeners from Enderby
Court

" Ahem ! " coughed Mr. Pinhorn, glancing
nervously at the gardener. " Of course, my
Lady will be dreadfully cut up."

" She shouldn't have let him take such a
journey, then ! In my lady's time — I mean
Lady Jane Enderby' s — it would niver have
been thought of."

It may be stated that Lady Charlotte had
gone away without causing any orders to be
given for the alteration of the sink in Mrs.
Jackson's kitchen ; and Mrs. Jackson felt
that this neglect restored to her the full
liberty of general censure which imparted
so much pungency to her conversation.

"Why, I've been told Sir Lionel was

136 MADAME LEROUX.

recommended to travel by the faculty," said
Mr. Stokes, the under-gardener ; a south
countryman, with a good-natured, surprised-
looking face, and mild blue eyes.

" Ah ! And it ain't always safe to go
along with the faculty," returned Mrs. Jack-
son. " A person must keep their eyes open
and judge for themselves. Not but what I
always call in the doctor if anything ails me ;
and so does Jackson. We can afford to pay
for what we have, visits and physic and all.
But I don't give up to 'em in everything.
And I hold by my own opinion about blue
pill."

" I'm sure master never ordered Sir
Lionel abroad," put in Dr. Goodchild's cook.
" But he says going abroad had nothing to
do with it. I heard him telling missis that
it was something — Annie something, he called
it, of the heart — that was just as likely to
have killed him in his own lib'ary at the
Court as anywheres else. Master saw a
letter from Lord Grimstock to Mr. Arden."

"'Just as likely !'" repeated Mrs. Jack-
son, with ineffable scorn. " Ah, it's easy

MADAME LEROUX. 137

talking. If ifs and an's was pots and pans,
there'd be no trade for tinkers. But we do
know as Sir Lionel didn't die in his lib'ary ;
and did die pretty near as soon as he was
took away from it. We do know that. And
I like judging from facts myself, and not
going by what was 'just as likely.' '

Mr. Stokes slowly rubbed his hand
through his hair. He had a dim conviction
that Mrs. Jackson was wrong somehow ; but
he felt her dialectics to be formidable. And
he remarked afterwards in confidence to Mr.
Pinhorn that Hannah Jackson was one of
them women as would talk a horse's hind-
leg off; but she didn't quite know every-
thing, neyther.

" Dear, dear, dear," said Mr. Pinhorn,
with an air of general sympathy, "to think
that we shall never see Sir Lionel among us
again ! It's just like when my lady was
carried off so sudden in London. Do you
think " — addressing Stokes in a lowered tone
of voice — " that they'll bring the — the body
home ? "

Mr. Stokes professed himself ignorant on

1 38 MADAME LERO UX.

the subject ; but Mrs. Jackson's omniscience
was no more at fault here than on any other
point concerning the manners and customs
of high families. And she declared it was a
matter of course that Sir Lionel should be
brought back and laid in the family vault
alongside of my lady.

" And poor Miss Enderby ! What a blow
for her ! Such an affectionate daughter ! I
don't know a sweeter young lady than Miss
Enderby, let the other be where she will,"
said Mr. Pinhorn, with some genuine feeling.
The cook and the under-gardener heartily
coincided with him ; and thus encouraged by
public opinion, Mr. Pinhorn went on —

"Ah! Her and her friend, poor Miss
Lucy Mars ton, what a sweet young pair they
made ! Poor Miss Lucy Marston ! I don't
know that I ever saw prettier eyes than
hers, nor a gracefuller figure. And then
such a lively way with her ! "

" She were like a moss-rose with the dew
on it, were Miss Lucy," chimed in the under-
gardener.

"She '// feel it dreadful, when she comes to

MADAME LEROUX.

hear of it," pursued Mr. Pinhorn. " She was;
as much attached to the family at the Court,
as though she belonged to it. And so she
did in a way. For ever since she was that

high — ••

But here Mrs. Jackson felt it necessary
to interpose with a firm protest.

" Well, I don't know what you may think
of it, Mr. Pinhorn," she said, standing up
and folding her hands tightly on the flap-
basket she carried, " but / consider it a'most
ondecent to be running on in that way about
eyes and figures when the family's in such
deep affliction. And I can tell you one
thing : Lady Charlotte wouldn't be best
pleased to hear her niece, Miss Enderby, of
Enderby Court, evened to a fondling like
that there Lucy Smith ; for Smith her name
is, if she's got a name at all. And she'd
been misbehaving some way or another, or
else she'd never ha' been sent off from the
Court all of a hurry, the way she was, and no
reason given. You can't suppose but what
folks '11 tell fast enough if there's anything.
to be proud of ; that you niver can suppose,

140 MADAME LEROUX.

Mr. Pinhorn ! So when folks are so mighty
close and stand-offish, you're at liberty to
think bad of 'em."

" I should call it a very harsh-minded
person that thought bad of Miss Lucy with-
out better cause than that," returned Mr.
Pinhorn 3 with some spirit. He was fortified
by the evident sympathy of Mr. Stokes.
And he did not at all like being lectured in
the presence of Dr. Goodchild's cook.

" Oh, harsh-minded ! You can't be

soft enough to please all the softies. And
Mr. Shard, that's Mr. Marston's own wife's
sister's husband, he said hed done all he
-could for the girl, as was that stubborn she
heeded neither bit nor bridle. And I could
see for myself there was a uppishness about
her as didn't bode no good. And he'd
washed his hands of her, that's what Law-
yer Shard said."

"Well," said Mr. Stokes, in his slow,
south-country speech, " by what I can hear,
Lawyer Shard's hands won't be none the
worse of a little washing ! "

And the under-gardener lounged out of

MADAME LEjROUX, 141

the shop, conscious of having scored one
against the terrible Mrs. Jackson.

Thus the news was canvassed throughout
Westfield ; and nearly everywhere Sir Lionel
was spoken of with a kindly regret. He
had not exercised any active influence among
them like Lady Jane ; but he had borne his
honours meekly. He had oppressed no
man ; he had dispensed liberal charities ;
and he had lived chiefly on his own estate.

"He was a thoroughly kind-hearted
man. He had his weaknesses. But, Lord
bless me, so have we all ! So have we all !
Humanum est errare" said Dr. Goodchild,
in the tone of a man conscious of making a
handsomer admission than could have been
justly expected of him.

"It was a great shock to me," said the
Rector. " Mrs. Griffiths had a telegram
from Lord Grimstock just as he was starting
for Italy. She sent up a man on horseback
to me with it. I fell back in my chair when
I read it. It came to me like a thunderbolt
out of a clear sky. I suppose you were as
much taken by surprise as any of us, doctor ?"

MADAME LEROUX.

Dr. Goodchild pursed up his mouth, and
nodded his head twice or thrice with a slight
frown. " I had my own views of the case,"
said he, mysteriously. " But there are cir-
cumstances in which it is well — in fact,
•essential — to keep the patient in ignorance
of his real state. Sir Lionel had a fixed idea
that he was dyspeptic. And I know that
Brimblecombe — Bromley Brimblecombe, the
great specialist — treated him at one time for
dyspepsia. But, as to being surprised, my
•dear sir, I had my own views of the case.
And if any person had asked me whether I
thought Sir Lionel Enderby likely to die of
aneurism of the heart, I might not have
chosen to give that person my opinion, but
I know ve — ery well what it would have
been."

Poor Sir Lionel's body was brought
home, as Mrs. Jackson had foretold, and
placed beside his wife's in Westfield Church-
yard. And Lord Grimstock, who had ac-
companied his brother-in-law's remains on
that last grisly journey, appeared as chief
mourner at the funeral. The Earl made a

MADAME LEROUX. 143

good impression on all who saw him there ;
and the assembly was a very large one, in-
cluding a great number of the neighbouring
gentry, as well as all the tenantry and inhabi-
tants of Westfield who could possibly manage
to be present. Good Mrs. Griffiths declared
that the sight of his lordship had upset her
more than anything else, for he did remind
her so of her late dear lady. And the like-
ness between him and Lady Jane was gene-
rally observed. He was, personally, almost
a stranger to Westfield ; but it appeared that
he was acquainted with several matters con
cerning the village which it behoved him to
know. For instance, he took an early
opportunity of setting the Rector's mind at
rest with regard to sundry poor pensioners
who had been mainly supported by the
bounty of Enderby Court. And, in fact, he
informed Mr. Arden that ample provision
would be made for carrying on all the
charities established by his late sister and
her husband.

Within a short time it was generally
known that the bulk of Sir Lionel's large

i44 MADAME LEROUX.

wealth was left to Miss Enderby ; and that
her uncle, Lord Grimstock, had been ap-
pointed Mildred's guardian and trustee. It
was understood, also, that Sir Lionel had
several times expressed a wish that Lady
Charlotte would continue to live with her
niece, and fill a mother's place towards her ;
but that a very munificent bequest to her
ladyship had been hampered by no condi-
tions. All the old servants had been re-
membered, and there were liberal legacies
to all the charitable institutions of the
county.

There had been some anxiety in the
village to know whether my lady and Miss
Enderby would come back to the Court at
once. Westfield was of opinion that that
would be tvhe proper course to take. Where
else could th<e ladies be so comfortable and
quiet as in their own home. And it was
well known that Miss Enderby loved the
country. But the question was not settled
in accordance with the opinion of Westfield.
Lord Grimstock, in talking to Mr. Arden,
mentioned that his sister and niece would

MADAME LEROUX. 145

spend the winter in Italy. It was thought
•desirable for Mildred to remain in the South
— not in Rome, where this great afflic-
tion had befallen her — but in some sunny,
sheltered spot on the Riviera. She had
felt the shock of her father's sudden death
very severely, and the doctors did not advise
her immediate return to England in that
wintry season.

Mr. Shard had contrived, on some pre-
text of business, to obtain access to Lord
Grimstock during the few hours he remained
.at Ende.rby Court on the morning after the
funeral. He ventured to inquire what were
his lordship's commands as to this and that
matter. Lady Charlotte had been good
•enough to approve of what he had done.
He had had the honour of keeping her lady-
.ship informed, by letter, of what was going
•on. Her ladyship had manifested a con-
fidence in his judgment, which he humbly
hoped Lord Grimstock might see fit to
-continue.

" I should have thought, sir, that it was
more necessary to keep Sir Lionel Enderby

VOL. II. ?O

]46 MADAME LEROUX.

informed as to his own property than my
sister," remarked Lord Grimstock, looking
with considerable distaste at the man before
him.

Mr. Shard had assumed a manner for the
occasion, compounded of business-like alacrity
and sorrowing sympathy. And as he stood
there, rubbing his hands, bowing after each
sentence, and every now and then raising his
voice to a plaintive squeak, it must be owned
that Mr. Shard did not appear to advantage.
So little was Lord Grimstock prepossessed in
his favour, that he had not asked him to sit
down, but had risen himself, and stood lean-
ing against the mantelpiece ; hoping, in this
way, to cut the colloquy short.

"Oh, as to Sir Lionel," answered Mr.
Shard, " tacking " with instantaneous readi-
ness, and putting on the bluff air of an old
family retainer, whose attachment has been
too well tested to need assertion, " it isn't
since yesterday, my lord, that I have had the
privilege of knowing and serving my late
lamented patron. I have lived in Westfield
a good many years now, my lord. But

MADAME LEROUX. 147

Lady Charlotte was kind enough latterly, to
take a good deal of trouble off Sir Lionel's
shoulders. He was never strong, and minor
details worried him."

Here Mr. Shard relapsed into affliction,
and blew his nose in a manner to suggest
that he was almost tearful.

" I presume, sir," said Lord Grimstock,
" that you can, for the present, refer all
matters as to which you are in doubt, to Mr.
Bates, the steward ? "

"If such is your lordship's pleasure —
undoubtedly," answered Mr. Shard, swallow-
ing his mortification with considerable power
of self-command. " Mr. Bates has not
treated me exactly — has shown some jealousy
— but far be it from me to intrude my per-
sonal feelings at a moment like this. Bye
and bye Lady Charlotte may feel herself able
to lay my case before your lordship. Mean-
while I will do my best to keep things going
smoothly. I have the interests of the family
more at heart — naturally after all these
years ! — than any private pique or annoy-
ance of my own."

148 MADAME LEROUX.

Lord Grimstock hesitated a second. The
man spoke fairly, and, after all, he reflected,
he (Lord Grimstock) knew nothing against
him.

" Thank you," he said, more graciously
than he had spoken yet. " I shall be obliged
to you."

Mr. Shard bowed low, and rewarded his
lordship by taking his leave without further
parley. At the door he paused and turned.

" Might I venture," he said, humbly, " to
ask how Miss Enderby is ? She is adored
by every one in the village, high and low
alike ; but I may, perhaps, be allowed to
claim some special interest in her, from her
having been the playfellow from infancy of
my niece."

Mr. Shard had rapidly calculated that it
might be worth while to have a second string
to his bow. Hostility to Lucy was needful
to please my lady, but it did not follow that
it was equally sure to please my lord. And
it might even happen that Miss Enderby
should now choose to hold out and have
Lucy reinstated.

MADAME LEROUX.

149

"Miss Enderby was greatly prostrated
by the shock at first," answered Lord Grim-
stock, once more freezing into stiffness.
" But we are under no serious .apprehen-
sions about her."

And when the door was closed behind
his visitor he said to himself, "Well, if
Mildred's bosom friend is the niece of that
fellow, I don't wonder at Charlotte's anxiety
to break off the connection. How in the
world could poor dear Jane have taken
a fancy to any one belonging to him ! "

CHAPTER XXVI.

ALTHOUGH Lord Grimstock had not thought
himself called upon to enter into such par-
ticulars with Mr. Shard, yet there had been
a moment when he and Lady Charlotte had
felt no little apprehension about their niece's
health. Mildred had been with her father
at the moment of his death, and the
shock of its suddenness had been terribly
severe.

All had been going so well up to that
fatal day. Sir Lionel had been pleased with
his journey ; had enjoyed Switzerland and
the Italian lakes ; and had been in particu-
larly good spirits ever since their arrival in
Rome, where he had established himself for
the winter in a patrician palace. He had
brought letters of introduction from Dr. Lux
[150]

MADAME LEROUX. 151

and others, to members of various foreign
learned societies in Rome, where the
descendants of those barbarians who helped
to destroy it expend a vast amount of
erudition in elucidating its ruins, and an
«qual amount of energy in defending their
own elucidations and attacking other people's.
Sir Lionel, however, had none of that odium
archceologicum which strikes an outsider with
surprise such as the poet hints it is natural to
feel touching the ire of celestial souls. His
urbanity was unruffled by rival claims on his
belief; and the shallowness of his learning
•enabled him even to accept conflicting
theories without knowing it !

He had just returned one afternoon from
a drive in the Campagna, in company with a
learned gentleman, who, having worked out
an elaborate plan of Roman topography in
Bonn, was naturally unwilling to have it
disturbed by a too close examination of
•existing fragments in Rome ; and who, con-
sequently, spent the greater part of his time
in visiting the objects of interest outside the
walls of the Eternal City.

152 MADAME LEROUX.

This gentleman was an accomplished
scholar, and amiable companion (for such
persons as held no obstinate theories of
Roman topography) ; and Sir Lionel had
enjoyed his drive. He had just declared,
in answer to his daughter's inquiry, that he
felt no disagreeable amount of fatigue from
having climbed the long marble staircase
leading to his apartment, when he fell back
fainting in his chair, and never recovered
consciousness.

Lady Charlotte's position was one of
terrible anxiety. A telegram was, of courser
immediately despatched to her brother. But,,
let him hasten as he would, three days must
elapse before he could possibly reach Rome.
And, meanwhile, a vast number of painful
formalities had to be complied with — espe-
cially since it was known to have been Sir
Lionel's wish to be interred beside his wife
in Westfield. Immense difficulties, of an
official kind, lay in the way of carrying out
this wish ; for it is a great error to. suppose
that Red Tape is a peculiarly English insti-
tution. And, indeed, it may perhaps be laid

MADAME LEROUX. 155;

down as a general observation, that the
emptiest parcels are everywhere tied up with,
the most elaborate involutions of it.

Lady Charlotte declared afterwards to-
her brother that she did not know how she
should have got through those terrible days
between Sir Lionel's death and his (Lord
Grimstock's) arrival, if it had not been for
Richard Avon. Richard had devoted him-
self to her, and had managed everything.
And it had been, Lady Charlotte considered,
absolutely providential that Richard should
have arrived as he did from Brindisi in time
to help them at their need.

l< Which Avon is that?" asked Lord
Grimstock.

"Your namesake, our cousin Reginald's
son. He had two sons, you know, but the
eldest died. That was altogether a sad
business. It made me feel an old woman
when a bronzed creature, with a beard, pre-
sented himself before me as ' little Dick
Avon.' I remember him as a child at
Avonthorpe. He has the Gaunt eyes, like
Mildred's"

MADAME LEROUX.

In old days, when they were boy and
girl together, Reginald Avon had been very
much in love with his beautiful cousin,
Charlotte Gaunt. Neither her inclination
nor her ambition allowed her to think for
a moment of marrying Reg, who was heir to
an impoverished estate and one of the most
ancient names in the kingdom. But yet her
cousinly regard for him was certainly all the
more tender for that young romance. And
.after his marriage, Charlotte was the one of
Lord Grimstock's children who maintained
the closest friendship and intimacy with the
Avons of Avonthorpe.

They were a numerous family. Two
sons and five daughters were born in the
•old house, and for some years Avonthorpe
was a pleasant home, full of mirth and
laughter, and bright young faces. But then
came troubles — troubles so crushing as to
break Mr. Avon's heart, and shorten his
days. His elder son contracted such heavy
•debts at the University, as seriously crippled
his father's means to discharge them. But
worse remained behind. The young man

MADAME LEROUX. 155

continued to run a course of extravagance
and dissipation, which ruined his own health
and almost ruined the family fortunes.
Cedric Avon died in his twenty-sixth year,
and judicious friends said to each other that
he had lived five years too long.

But his own family neither said nor
thought so ; to the last he was the idol of
his mother and sisters. And even his father,
although outwardly more stern, clung to the
prodigal with a softer affection than he had
ever bestowed on Dick.

Dick was the fourth in order of seniority
(two sisters coming between him and Cedric),
and had never been of much account with
any of them. Dick had grown up in the
belief that the world was made chiefly for
Cedric, and that any enjoyments or indul-
gences vouchsafed to himself were due to
the kind liberality of his elder brother, who
shared with him — whatever he did not want
wholly for himself.

And the brothers were good friends, so
far as the difference of age between them
permitted. Cedric went to Christ Church,

156 MADAME LEROUX.

while Richard was still in a lower form at
Eton. But after Cedric's first year at the
University it was found impossible to con-
tinue the expense of keeping the younger
boy at Eton. He was brought home, and
arrangements were made for his reading with
the old bachelor-curate of the parish — from
whom he learned, perhaps, more about fly-
fishing than any other distinct branch of
mundane knowledge.

But, looking on the little world around
him with honest, kindly eyes, Dick learned
a good many things for himself.

One result of his observations was that
he relinquished all hope of going to the
University, or of being substantially assisted
with money from home, to make his way in
any career whatever. There had been a
talk at one time of getting him attached to
some foreign Legation, with the view of his
entering diplomacy as a profession. When
he was a small boy, the Navy had been
thought of ; and, when he had become a big
boy, the Army. But no practical step had
been taken in either of these directions.

MADAME LEROUX. 157

Dick felt no special vocation for any of
them ; but he would, probably, have accepted
his fate and done his best in whatever line
of life his parents had chosen for him had
things gone smoothly from the beginning.
Things had gone very roughly, however —
very roughly for father, mother, and sis-
ters, at least — although, perhaps, with fatal
smoothness for the scapegrace who was slip-
ping with ever-increasing velocity along the
downward slope to ruin. Dick saw one by
one the luxuries and elegancies of their
home curtailed — the girls' saddle-horses sold,
his mother's carriage put down, the staff of
servants reduced, and he resolved that for
him no such sacrifices should be made. He
would not, knowingly, make his mother's
pale cheek more haggard, nor bow his father's
shoulders with an added weight of care.

He thought long and earnestly how he
could best find bread for himself in the
world, and one day he gravely proposed to
his father to let him emigrate to Australia.

" Emigrate ! " said Mr. Avon, turning his
eyes with a dazed, absent look on his son.

158 MADAME LEROUX.

" It needn't cost much, sir," said Dick,
simply. "A moderate outfit, and a few
pounds in my pocket, just so as to be able
to turn round for a week or two after I land.""

"Why, what — what could you do?""
asked his father, in the nervous, hesitating
way which had grown on him of late.

" I can walk all day without being tired,
sir ; I can jump up to my own eyebrows
standing; I'm a fairish shot ; I can stick on
to anything with four legs that I ever saw
yet — although, of course, I haven't such a
seat as Cedric's ; and — and I have a magni-
ficent appetite," added the boy, with a smile,
which irradiated his face, and was almost
irresistibly infectious.

Mr. Avon, however, did not smile. He
continued to look dreamily at his son ; and
said, in a low voice, " What would your
mother say ? "

" Oh, mother wouldn't mind, sir ; it would
be so much better for Cedric, and all of you.
You see, father," went on Richard, with
simple earnestness, " it's not a bit of use my
staying here and eating my head off. You

MADAME LEROUX. 159

have so many expenses. I'm too old for the
navy. The army would swallow up a lot of
money for coaching and cramming, and,
even if I was lucky enough to pass, I'm
afraid I couldn't live on my pay. In fact, do
what I could in England, I should have to-
cost you something. Out in the bush it
would be different ; and — in fact, sir, Mr.
Hopkins has a relative, a sheep farmer, in a
large way out in Victoria, and he thinks he
might help me to a berth."

Mr. Hopkins was the curate.

As Reginald Avon listened to his younger
son, a mist seemed suddenly to be cleared
away from his mind, and he saw the irre-
vocable past with a clear vision.

" Dick, Dick," groaned the father, laying
his hand on the boy's shoulder, and turning
away his head. " It's hard upon you.
It's cruelly hard upon you, Dick ! "

But the end of it was that Dick went to
Australia.

It is not needful to describe minutely what
befell him there. He had a tough struggle
for the first two years, during which time,

160 MADAME LEROUX.

although the magnificent appetite of which
he had jestingly boasted was never abso-
lutely unsatisfied, yet it may be said that of
the comforts (not to speak of the luxuries)
of life, Richard Avon had but few and far
between glimpses. At the end of two years
he was beginning to do fairly well, and
sober people prophesied that if he remained
ten or fifteen years more in the colony he
might realise a fair competency. But it was
not in the decrees of fate that an Avon of
Avonthorpe should found a family out in the
new world — at least not in that generation.

Cedric Avon died in his twenty-sixth
year, as has been stated, and five years later
his father followed him, a prematurely aged,
broken man, and then it behoved Dick to
return and take possession of the old home
and the poor remnant of the family property.

Mrs. Avon, in her first letters, had urged
his immediate return. She was lost, help-
less, miserable. He must come back at once,
and take care of her and the girls. She
wrote as though it had been possible for her
son to settle all his affairs in five minutes,

MADAME LEROUX. 161

and start for England at any hour of the day,
and on any day of the month.

Mrs. Avon was a woman of whom her
acquaintances admiringly remarked that she
had such a truly feminine, clinging nature,
and peculiarly needed the masculine support
of husband, son, or brother. The truth was
that she had a sort of feeble obstinacy which
was very difficult to deal with. She was
unyieldingly bent on getting her own way
beforehand, but easily alarmed at the conse-
quences of having got it ; and her masculine
" supports " were chiefly needed to carry the
responsibility of her impulsive self-will.

Richard had replied assuring his mother
that he would do his utmost to wind up his
business affairs and dispose of his property
promptly ; but that he did not anticipate that
could be done under six months. He was
perfectly aware that there was no pressing
necessity for his instant return, and he knew
that the family circumstances must be such
as to make it most important that he should
realise his small Australian property to the
best advantage.

VOL. n. 31

162 MADAME LEROUX.

When he arrived at Brindisi on his home-
ward voyage he found a letter from his
mother at the Post Restante. Mrs. Avon
had let the shooting at Avonthorpe, shut up
the house, and betaken herself to Chelten-
ham with her daughters for the rest of the
winter. She hoped Richard would join them
there by and by, but she had made arrange-
ments which would prevent the family from
occupying their old home again until the
spring.

" I think mother half repents having
asked me to come home in such a hurry,"
said Dick to himself, on reading this epistle.
" Perhaps she's afraid I may be bringing a
wife to Avonthorpe, and turn her and the
poor girls out to live on her miserable little
jointure. But she shouldn't have let the
shooting and shut up the house without con-
sulting me. I must be master there now I've
given up everything out yonder. I'll do the
best I can for my mother and the girls, poor
things! but I can't be at Avonthorpe and
not be master."

Dick, with his resolute manly face, and

MADAME LEROUX, 163

frank blue eye, looked very well fitted to play
the master. He had gone away from his
home a stripling under eighteen. He was
returning to it a man of six-and-twenty. The
eight years had made little change in some of
those whom he had left behind ; but for him
they had been years of growth and ripening.
His mother's letter at all events absolved
him from any obligation to hasten his
journey ; and he resolved, being there, to see
something of Italy — especially since he fore-
saw that he was not likely soon to have
money and leisure to revisit it. He had
spent a week in Naples, and was intending
to devote a fortnight to seeing Rome, where
chance brought him into contact with the
Enderbys. Lady Charlotte gave him so
cordial a reception as touched him greatly.
Dick Avon had not lost his relish for sweet
words and kind looks by being surfeited with
them. And Lady Charlotte was very sweet
to him, with an almost maternal softness ;
and very much interested in hearing all that
he could tell her of the family fortunes. Dick
was perfectly frank and confidential with her.

1 64 MADAME LEROUX.

He had nothing to conceal. And, besides,
was not Aunt Charlotte — as he had learned
to call her in his childhood —his near kins-
woman ?

Lady Charlotte, for her part, was not
able to be quite so frank ; for she could not
confide to him her real opinion of Mrs,
Avon, who had never been included in the
regard with which she clung to her cousin.
Indeed her ladyship had always privately
wondered what in the world Reg could have
seen in that insipid little woman ; as other
ladies and gentlemen have wondered before
and since respecting the matrimonial choice
of their old sweethearts.

To Sir Lionel Lady Charlotte was not
reticent on the subject of Mrs. Avon's sel-
fishness and the weak indulgence and blind
idolatry which had caused her to sacrifice
Richard's interests entirely to his brother's.

"And now the silly, selfish little thing
shuts up his house and rushes off to some
watering-place at the very moment of his
return to England ! She doesn't deserve to
bear the name of Avon. Do you know,.

MADAME LEROUX. 165

Lionel, that there have been Avons at Avon-
thorpe in a right line from father to son,
since the Heptarchy ? "

Whether Sir Lionel, whose grandfather
had trundled a barrow, attached quite the
due importance to this circumstance may be
doubted. But at any rate he took a great
liking to Dick Avon, and made him welcome
in the Palazzo Curiazii with genial courtesy.
As to Mildred, she made friends with him in
five minutes ; and they called one another
•cousins, as though they had known each
other all their lives. And thus it had come
to pass that Lady Charlotte told her brother
she did not know how she should have lived
through those terrible days had it not been
for Dick Avon.

Mildred fell into a state of alarming
prostration after her father's death. Her
whole nature, physical and moral, seemed,
as it were, to be stunned. She lay apatheti-
cally on her couch or chair all day long, and
could not be roused to express a wish, except
that they would let her be quiet, and not talk
to her. Lady Charlotte remembered her

1 66 MADAME LEROUX.

sister's anxieties about Mildred in her child-
hood— anxieties which she had then thought
overstrained, but which she now was feeling
keenly. The girl's vitality seemed to be at
a perilously low ebb. She was to be removed
from Rome as soon as possible ; and the
physicians advised that she should remain,
on the Riviera until the spring was well
advanced. And here, again, Richard was
most useful. He helped to make all arrange-
ments for lightening the fatigues and dis-
comforts of the journey, and even accom-
panied them to Bordighera.

Before they parted, Mildred had confided
a mission to him. Richard was to see Lord
Grimstock in England, and to ask him if
Mildred might be allowed to have Lucy
with her for a time when she returned home,

" I cannot talk of it to Aunt Charlotte
now," Mildred said, in a faint, toneless voice.
" Aunt Charlotte and Lucy never understood
each other. And, besides, I do not want to-
pain Aunt Charlotte now. She has trouble
and anxiety enough with me as it is. And
I can never forget how good she was to my

MADAME LEROUX.

167

dear father, and how highly he regarded her.
But, Cousin Dick, if I could have the hope
of seeing Lucy again, I would be quite
patient. And that would help me to get
strong again sooner than anything. I know
it would ! "

Cousin Dick undertook the mission to
Lord Grimstock. And he fancied that there
was a brighter gleam in Mildred's eyes
already at the thought of it.

CHAPTER XXVII.

MADAME LEROUX'S dislike to Miss Smith had
been suddenly and unexpectedly quickened.
She began to fear that Lucy might — whether
consciously or unconsciously, mattered little,
injure her in the opinion of Mr. Rushmere.

Fatima, who was always staunchly loyal
to her friend, chose one evening when Ma-
dame Leroux was at the Hawkins's house,
to launch forth into a panegyric on Lucy ;
and to add that all the gentlemen who had
met her in that house were enraptured with
her. Fatima was moved to do this, partly
because Madame had spoken slightingly of
cette petite Smith before a circle of men who
were present, but of whom Zephany was not
one.

" Ah, really ? " said Madame, turning
[168]

MADAME LEROUX. 169

round, with a smile of the most winning
good humour — for she was playing to an
appreciative audience. Frampton Fennell
was there, and Harrington Jersey ; the un-
stable Jersey, who was weakly veering round
again, and drifting into a sham flirtation for
the sake of a sham victory over a sham rival.
'" Really ? But, Fatima, ma mignonne, you
must admit that it is particularly unfortunate
for a governess in a girls' school to be so
immensely popular with one sex and so
utterly unpopular with the other ! The girls
at Douro House can't bear her. I'm sorry.
It is, of course, a bore of bores for me ; but it
is a sad and stubborn fact — as stubborn a
little fact as Miss Smith herself! "

" I don't mean that gentlemen admire her
in that way," protested Fatima, vaguely.
(Poor Fatima was no match for Madame
Leroux, even when she was not vexed and
indignant, as she was feeling at this moment.)
" But I know that Zephany thinks no end
of her, and that Mr. Rushmere considers her
one of the most interesting, amiable, attrac-
tive girls he ever met in his life. He talked

170 MADAME LEROUX.

to her the whole evening when she was
here."

" Oho ! Your nabob has had the honour
of an introduction to Miss Smith, then ? "
said Madame Leroux, with seeming careless-
ness, but with an inward start of surprise and
annoyance.

" Yes," said Marie, interposing. And
her cool, clear tones produced an effect as of
dew after a sultry sunset. " But Fatima is too
vehement. Qiias tu, done Fatima ? Mr.
Rushmere was very kind, and promised to
write some letters to Australia for Miss
Smith. Something about her relations there,
I believe. Miss Smith is always very nice
when she is here. I told you so, you know."

The vision of Miss Smith on such terms
of intimate acquaintance with Rushmere, that
the latter had written letters on her family
business, was peculiarly disagreeable to Caro-
line Leroux. She had been disappointed to
learn that Rushmere had left London, and
that the time of his return was uncertain.
Having made up her mind that she would
meet him, she desired that the meeting might

MADAME LEROUX. 171

be soon. But now the possibility was sug-
gested to her that, while he for the present
was beyond her reach, he might actually be
in correspondence with Lucy Smith ! There
was no danger now of Madame Leroux's
being overcome by emotion at the mention
of Rushmere's name. She had spoken of
him freely to the Hawkins's, but without
hinting that she had ever known him before.
And Zephany had kept her secret with
complete fidelity.

Before leaving the Hawkins's, she had
drawn forth a full account of the rise and
progress of Lucy's acquaintance with Mr.
Rushmere. It dismayed her. She had not
formed to herself any clear picture of Lucy's
existence during the holidays at Douro
House. She had once or twice thought,
carelessly, that it must be dull ; adding the
commentary, that it served her right, since
she had chosen to set herself offensively
against Madame's way of giving her amuse-
ment and companionship. But this glimpse
of Lucy leading a life entirely disconnected
from the interests and duties, the approval or

172

MADAME LEROUX.

disapproval, of Douro House — walking in
Kensington Gardens, spending the evening
in Great Portland Street, was not only
surprising, but absolutely disquieting. And
Miss Smith had been so cunningly silent
about it all ! There was no knowing what
such a deep little thing might do next !

But there were complex motives at work
to strengthen Madame Leroux's desire to rid
herself of this girl, and among them was
the deep-lying conviction, unacknowledged
to herself, tnat " this girl " had some feeling
akin to contempt for Madame Leroux.

Now Madame Leroux, like a good many
other peqple who are lavish of their contempt,
had a particular objection to incurring it.
Anger, disapproval, opposition — all these she
could meet victoriously. Even a religious
despondency as to the state of her soul,
coupled with an admiring admission that
her beauty and cleverness laid her open to
peculiar temptations, did not humiliate her.
She had encountered that in one memorable
instance ; and had rather enjoyed the sense
•of her intellectual superiority over the feeble

MADAME LEROUX. 173

character which was subject to the spell of
her attractions whilst condemning it as a sin,
and struggling against it as a snare. But she
was inwardly convinced that in the mind of
Miss Lucy Smith there were no illusions
about her. And to be judged without
illusions seemed intolerable to her imagi-
nation.

Some of Madame's admirers considered
her chief charm to lie in her frank disdain
of humbug. And she did disdain it — in
other people. Nay, her disdain extended to
those persons whom she humbugged herself.
All the savour would have disappeared from
her life if she had failed to deceive them.
But to despise them for being deceived,
seemed to her in some way to restore the
balance of her self-esteem.

One afternoon, two days subsequent to
Madame's evening visit to the Hawkins's,
Lucy appeared at the house in Great Port-
land Street, and asked to speak with Mr.
Hawkins. She was shown into the office,
from whence the last of the Beneficent
Pelican's borrowers had just departed, and

T74 MADAME LEROUX.

where Mr. Hawkins was locking up his desk,
preparatory to turning the gas out, and going
upstairs. It was a gloomy November day,
and the dingy little black den smelt close, and
felt chilly in spite of the gas. Mr. Hawkins
turned it up again with a flare when he
saw who his visitor was, and pulled forward
a chair for her, and shook hands very
cordially.

In a few words she told him that Madame
Leroux had dismissed her ; that Madame
had promised to return half the premium
which had been paid ; and that she (Lucy)
would be required to leave Douro House at
the end of the current week. The poor
child had wept many bitter tears, and had
passed a night of wakeful misery. But she
was steady and tearless now. There was a
fund of energy and courage in her nature,
which responded to the need for action
and decision.

" I hope you will forgive me for troubling
you, Mr. Hawkins," she said. " But you
have been so kind to me, I thought I might
venture to ask your advice. And I am very

MADAME LEROUX. 175

friendless here. My only friends are away
travelling abroad, and I am not even sure
where a letter would reach them at this
moment. Besides, time presses."

Mr. Hawkins replied with warm, and
evidently sincere, assurances of his good will
to serve and assist her with his best wisdom.
Lucy was a little surprised to find that her
news did not appear to strike him as being of
a fatal or agitating nature. To her it had
seemed to imply a sort of cataclysm.

But Mr. Hawkins had merely said on
hearing her first announcement, "Dear, dear!
How's that?"

Somehow this coolness gave her courage.
The case could not be so exceptionally bad.
To Mr. Hawkins's experience it evidently
seemed remediable. Before starting from
Douro House she had resolved to ask him
if he would allow her to return to his house
for a week or two until she should have found
some other employment. But there was
another question to which it first behoved
her to have an answer ; and she asked it
leaning a little forward, with hands clasped

1 76 MADAME LEROUX.

together on her knee, and her eyes fixed
earnestly on Mr. Hawkins.

" Do you think, that it would be right for
me to appropriate that money — the portion
of the premium which Madame Leroux
means to repay — or ought I to send it to
Mr. Shard?"

" God bless my soul, certainly not ! " ex-
claimed Adolphus hotly. " The idea is
absurd ! "

The idea of spontaneously returning"
money to any one would have struck him as
being eccentric to the verge of sanity. But
a moment's reflection assured him that in
this case there could be no defence whatever
for so ill-advised a precedent.

" Shard mentioned to me distinctly that
that money was to be expended for your
benefit ; was yours, in short. You need have
no scruples. Don't say a syllable of the
kind to him. Give it back, indeed ! "

Lucy drew a little breath of relief. And
then proceeded rather timidly to ask if Mr.
and Mrs. Hawkins would consent to receive
her again.

MADAME LEROVX. 177

"Of course, if you did me that favour,
I should pay for my board," she said,
blushing.

" Don't say a word about that, my dear.
We shall only be too delighted to have you
.among us again. Marie will welcome you
heartily ; and as to Fatima, she will be ready
to jump out of her skin with joy."

" Thank you, thank you, thank you, with
all my heart ! " said Lucy, with the tears
brimming up into her eyes.

Then she added, " But I must write to
my — to Mr. Shard, to tell him what has
happened. He wrote to me in a tone which
made me feel that he did not wish to be
-considered in any way responsible for me.
I understood that perfectly well. But
still I think he ought to be told ; ought he
not ? "

" Shall / write him a few lines explaining
the circumstances ? I shall put your case a
great deal better for you than you would for
yourself," said Mr. Hawkins, looking at her
with genuine sympathy.

" Oh that would be so good of you ! But
VOL. ii. 32

178 MADAME LEROUX.

you are busy. I ought not to give you that
trouble."

"It will cost me no trouble, my dear.
No trouble in the world ! " In saying which
Adolphus Hawkins spoke with more literal
truth than he was aware of. For, although
he had fully meant what he said in making
that offer, yet the letter to Mr. Shard went
to increase the vast multitude of ideas unem-
bodied into acts in which were comprised
many of Mr. Hawkins's best intentions, and
never got written at all. " Don't be down-
cast, my dear Miss Smith. With your
abilities you are sure to do well. In fact,"
continued Adolphus, warming as he went on,
into one of his sanguine visions, " I think it
likely that this little contretemps may turn
out to be the very best thing for you that
could have happened. You will probably
find a position in some private family — some
thoroughly first - rate family, where your
manners and accomplishments will be appre-
ciated as they deserve. A school, after all,
must consist of .mixed elements. That vulgar
young person, Miss Cohen, now, on whose

MADAME LEROUX. 179

account chiefly you tell me Madame Leroux
is parting with you — well, it certainly will be
an unmitigated advantage to be clear of such
girls as Miss Cohen. Ah, Mammon, Mam-
mon ! The worship of the Golden Calf ! "
exclaimed Mr. Hawkins, straightening a pile
of little pamphlets on tinted paper, bearing
the title, " Millamint ; or, Home Treasures."
"It perverts the best natures to some extent
Not that I would have you think too hardly
of Madame Leroux. After all, you know,
she has to carry on her business as best she
can. We don't live in Arcadia. I only wish
we did ! But now come upstairs and see
Marie and Fatima. I have no hesitation in
saying that I believe this will be the tide in
your affairs, which taken at the flood will
lead to your establishment in a very superior
family."

Mrs. Hawkins and Fatima were both
as cordial as possible. But notwithstand-
ing Mr. Hawkins's disclaimer, Marie showed
no reluctance whatever to settle with Miss
Smith the terms on which that young lady
could be lodged and boarded in her house.

i8o MADAME LEROUX.

Lucy left Great Portland Street with a
heart wonderfully lightened. It was impos-
sible— it would even, she felt, have been
ungrateful — not to be cheered by the kind-
ness she had met with. And in spite of
herself she was a little infected by Mr.
Hawkins' sanguine talk. She checked her-
self for this ; and called to mind, as a cor-
rective, the confidence she had heard him
express as to schemes and plans of his own,
which nevertheless had left him with the
salary of the secretary to the Beneficent
Pelican for his main subsistence. " But
then," said Lucy to herself, " I am not ex-
pecting anything so magnificent as Mr.
Hawkins's visions. A very modest salary
would content me, and there must be nice
homes where a governess would be kindly
treated. Miss Feltham's life was as happy

as possible, until ." The warm current

of hopefulness was checked. Her thoughts
had turned to Mildred, and to the long, long
time which had elapsed since she had heard
from her.

" I suppose she is too busy enjoying all

MADAME LEROUX. 181

the beautiful new sights around her," thought

Lucy, with a faint touch of bitterness. But

the bitterness was transient. She did not

really doubt that Mildred continued constant

and loyal-hearted. Letter- writing had always

been a disagreeable task to Mildred, requiring

an effort. (Indeed, Mildred's feeling was not

apt to express itself in words, either written

or spoken. And she would often, even

when they were children, sit silent for half-

an-hour together by Lucy's side, conscious

of needing no speeches to make her affection

understood.) And, besides, she could not

guess how precious even a few lines full of

the old familiar loving confidence would be

to Lucy now — coming into her dull and

lonely life, like a sunbeam into a cold dark

room. Lucy told herself that she did not

desire that Mildred should guess it. It

would only distress her uselessly. For what

could she do ? She must naturally obey her

aunt's decision as to what was best. And

not even at this crisis in her fortunes had

Lucy for a moment contemplated making an

appeal to Lady Charlotte's pity.

1 82 MADAME LEROUX.

She did not know that her last letter had
arrived in Milan after the Enderbys had left
it, and had never come into Mildred's hands.
But that had not been the reason why no
communication had come to her for so long
a time. Mildred would not have reckoned
so closely with her friend. It was true that
she disliked writing ; and it was true also
that she had not unlimited time at her dis-
posal. Nevertheless, there was a letter to
Lucy lying unfinished in Mildred's desk,
when the catastrophe of her father's death
interrupted the whole course of her life with
the suddenness of an earthquake. And the
poor little letter, which would have been
such a cordial to the spirit of the lonely
girl in London, was swept away with other
broken plans, and frustrated hopes, and un-
fulfilled desires, for ever.

Lucy left Douro House without a parting
word from Madame Leroux. Madame was
busy, and could not be seen. But she sent
word by Fraulein Schulze that Miss Smith
was at liberty to refer to her for a certificate
of competency to teach French and music.

MADAME LEROUX. 183

And in this way Lucy found herself once
more an inmate of the house in Great Port-
land Street.

She soon perceived signs of a more
liberal expenditure than when she had been
there before. The table was spread in a
less fluctuating fashion. There was now a
good dinner every day. Marie was not
requested to take the air in a hansom cab,
but had a hired brougham whenever she
chose to order it. And Fatima came to
Lucy one day with a twenty-pound note in
her hand, the first instalment of an allowance
for dress which Uncle Adolphe was hence-
forth going to make her regularly.

Fatima, in truth, possessed about fifty
pounds a-year of her own ; but it was
administered by Uncle Adolphe, who gave
her a sovereign or two when he could, and
was extremely sorry when he couldn't. But
Fatima had no idea of making any selfish
claim. Uncle Adolphe and Cousin Marie
had fed her, and clothed her, and lodged her
^ver since she was little. They were very
kind to her ; and if her fifty pounds had

1 84 MADAME LEROUX,

suddenly swelled into five hundred, she
would assuredly have had no thought of
separating her interests from theirs.

There were some delicate blossoms and
wholesome simples growing, on that border-
land of Bohemia, among the thistles, and
tares, and nettles.

But in other respects, besides material
comforts, Lucy noted changes. The old
habittids still came from time to time ; but
there was also a new, and, she thought, less
agreeable set of guests who took to frequent-
ing Mrs. Hawkins's drawing-room, and were
sometimes even asked to dinner. There/
was the great Mr. Bliffkins, of Bliffkins and
Mugg, who, greatly to Lucy's surprise,
addressed her as " Miss," without the addi-
tion of her surname ; and walked warily
among his aspirates, like a man in tight
boots along a pebbly path. And once she
caught a glimpse of Mr. Clampitt — only a
glimpse, for he never joined the society in
the drawing-room ; but, when he came, was
ushered into the dining-room, where the
table was spread with papers. The glimpse

MADAME LEROUX. 185

showed her a pair of rounded shoulders, clad
in a very dusty coat ; and the back of a bald
head, considerably elongated from stem to
stern, so to speak, and singularly flat at the
top.

The British Tea Company was rising at
a rapid rate above the horizon, and a ray or
two from it seemed to be already gilding
some hitherto impecunious lives. Lucy in-
stinctively mistrusted the whole affair ; and
partly justified her mistrust to herself by
remembering that Mr. Rushmere — a man of
wide experience and bright intelligence —
had mistrusted it also. And she resolved
not to let herself be tempted, by the force
of example into any lotus-eating, idle trust
in the morrow ; but to endeavour, as ener-
getically as she could, to find the means of
earning her bread.

Sometimes it seemed to her that she had
no right to enjoy sundry little luxuries which
were placed at her disposal. But how refuse
kindness that was so freely offered ? She
was made welcome to share in the family
prosperity. And even Marie often urged

1 86 MADAME LEROUX.

her to accept a place in a carriage, a seat
at the theatre, a bouquet, an excursion into
the country, and so on.

For Marie's prudence took the form of
getting all that was to be got out of the
present. And every little treat that they
could enjoy, with ready money, she looked
on as so much laid up for a rainy day —
something, that is to say, which the creditors
would not be able to touch when the crash
came.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LIFE seemed to Lucy in those days some-
thing like a game in which the players should
be expected to put together a puzzle map
with fragments that did not fit. Her efforts
to find suitable employment — by dint of
answering advertisements, applying to agents,
and so on — were unremitting. Mr. Haw-
kins, indeed, took her to task about wearing
herself out needlessly. Millamint shares
were going off well, and the world was really
far too agreeable a place to be spoiled by
that kind of thing. It was clear, too, that
Miss Smith had more accomplishments and
better manners than half the governesses
who were getting eighty or a hundred pounds
a year.

" Your kind estimate of me is far too

1 88 MADAME LEROUX.

high, Mr. Hawkins," Lucy said. " But even
supposing it were not, I should hardly get a
situation by sitting still and meditating on
my own acquirements."

" Tout vient a point pour qui salt at-
tendre" remarked Mr. Hawkins, conveying
in his manner a mixture of airy lightness and
solid knowledge of the world.

"Well," answered Lucy, laughing, "din-
ner-time will certainly come if I wait for it.
But will dinner ? " And she went on day
after day in her quest, which still continued
fruitless.

It was on one of these occasions that the
comparison of the puzzle map occurred to-
her mind. There seemed to be so many
cases where her offer and the employer's
demand almost fitted each other — but not
quite ! It was terribly trying to be told that
she was precisely the young person whom
Mrs. Brown would have liked as governess
to her two little boys, if only she could have
undertaken to teach them the Slojd system
acquired in Sweden. But the Slojd system
acquired in Sweden was indispensable, and

MADAME LEROUX. 189

the negociation must be broken off; or to
hear that had she applied six days earlier
for the post of reader and companion to
Lady Green, she would probably have ob-
tained it, since Lady Green liked her voice
and general demeanour a great deal better
than those of the lady whom she had en-
gaged.

And all the persons who would have
engaged her, but couldn't, were so extremely
easy to satisfy ; whereas all those who could
have engaged her but wouldn't, put forward
extravagant pretensions, and offered the
most moderate rate of payment. In one
or two cases where she had personal inter-
views with ladies to whom the agent had
sent her, she was examined and catechised
with a searching sternness which suggested
that these matrons held the fact of wanting
to be employed as a governess to constitute
a prima facie case against her of the gravest
suspicion ; while others waved her off at
once with smiling tolerance, and the state-
ment that she was a great deal too young,
and not at all the sort of person they wanted

MADAME LEROUX.

— as if she had been a child wanting to play
at governess during lesson time.

Singularly enough, the first practical move
towards getting her employment originated
with Mr. Clampitt.

Mr. Clampitt had seen some papers in
Lucy's handwriting — for in her eagerness to-
be of use to the Hawkins' she had offered
to copy Out advertisements and prospectuses
for the printer, address circulars, and so
forth — and he had expressed approval of the
neat, clear, character. It was during a fore-
noon, when the family were alone, and Mr.
Clampitt was looking through a mass of
printed and written documents with Mr.
Hawkins. The considerable quantity of the
documents, in fact, was the chief reason why
the dining-room was being used at that mo-
ment instead of the office. The office was
small, and cold, and dark ; and, moreover,.
nearly all its available space was already
filled with the archives of the Beneficent
Pelican. And the table in the dining-room
afforded accommodation for spreading out
papers. That room afforded, besides, a

MADAME LEROUX. 191

roaring fire, kept up at some one else's ex-
pense— a circumstance not unappreciated by
Mr. Clampitt in the winter weather.

"A very good writing; clear as print,"
said Mr. Clampitt, with emphatic approba-
tion. He had been previously informed
that the writing had been done by a young
friend "to oblige"; so that he was under
no apprehension of spoiling the market by
praising the work of some one who would
expect to be paid for it.

Lucy was out, and Fatima seized the
occasion to sound her friend's praises to Mr.
Clampitt — as she was, in fact, ready to sound
them under most circumstances.

" The young lady who wrote those copies
does everything well," she said, eagerly.
" And she is so pretty ! "

" Ay, ay ! But that's having more than
her share, ain't it ? When a young lady's
pretty, we don't expect her to write so as
you can read every letter," returned Mr.
Clampitt, jocosely.

Mr. Clampitt's features had a somewhat
unfinished look ; such as may be seen in a

192 MADAME LEROUX.

sculptor's studio, when the inferior workman
has cut the mass of marble into a rough-
hewn stage of resemblance to the human face
divine, and before the master has finished it
with those minute differences which, taken
all together, make up so vast a difference.
He had a broad face, surrounded by a fringe
of grey whiskers, and surmounted by a wide
mass of bulging forehead, with ragged, red-
dish eyebrows, beneath which a pair of pale
blue eyes, a fleur de tete, blinked in a weak-
sighted manner.

Mention has already been made of the
remarkable flatness of Mr. Clampitt's cra-
nium. One felt, indeed, in front of that
wide, bulging brow, somewhat as the be-
holder feels on contemplating the west front
of St. Peter's at Rome — instinctively im-
pelled, that is, to step backward so as to get
a glimpse of the dome. Only in Mr. Clarn-
pitt's case, no amount of backing or distance
could lend that last enchantment to the view,
since the dome did not exist. It may be
added, that the dustiness which Lucy had
perceived on the back of Mr. Clampitt's coat

MADAME LEROUX. 193

was consistently carried out in the rest of
his attire ; and that his large, coarse, stumpy-
fingered hands in particular, were very dirty.

" Ha, ha, ha ! " laughed Mr. Hawkins—
not with effusive adulation, but merely as a
polite recognition of the joke. " Very true
— very true ! Some sages have held that
to be pretty comprises the whole duty of
woman, and, to judge by what one sees,
some of the pretty ones seem to think so
themselves ! "

" I wonder," said Marie, who was always
practical according to her lights, and not
easily diverted into a zig-zag course of con-
versation by too great quickness in taking
up merely verbal suggestions for discursive-
ness, " I wonder whether Mr. Clampitt could
make any use of Miss Smith's services for
the British Tea Company — could give her
any employment ! She would be glad to
earn even very little just for the present."

Mr. Clampitt suddenly bowed his
shoulders more than ever in looking over
the papers, and blinked his eyes uneasily.

" No, no ; I think not," he said at once,
VOL. n. 33

194 MADAME LEROUX.

fingering the documents and pushing them
hither and thither on the table in a rough,
irritable way. " I don't see the least
chance — not the slightest."

He suspected a trap, but he was not
going to fall into it; his having praised the
writing, under the supposition that it had
been gratuitous, bound him to nothing, as
the Hawkins' should soon see, if they tried
it on with him I

. " Pooh, my dear," said Mr. Hawkins,
loftily. " Miss Smith has very different
views ; a girl with her accomplishments "

" I am quite sure Miss Smith has no
views which would prevent her from being
grateful for a little patronage from Mr.
Clampitt," interposed Marie, who had been
watching that gentleman with her limpid,
unembarrassed gaze. " Accomplishments
don't go far towards getting one's bread ; and
as to adding any butter to it, it takes very
great business talents — solid abilities, to do
that in these hard times."

Mr. Clampitt had often been dumbly
conscious of precisely these sentiments him-

MADAME LEROVX. 195

self — especially when observing, with some
bitterness, the care Adolphus Hawkins took
of his nails, and the trenchant way in which
he would settle questions of the Queen's
English for advertising purposes ; saying,
curtly, without any specific explanation —

" Oh, no — no ; ' had it have been other-
wise,' won't do at all ! " when Mr. Clampitt
was certain that the phrase expressed his
meaning genteelly.

He remained silent for a few minutes,
and then proceeded with the work before
him as if he had forgotten all about Marie's
suggestion. But he had not forgotten.
Before he went away he came and stood in
front of Mrs. Hawkins with his hat on his
head. He meant no disrespect to her by
this ; it was simply his habit to pick up his
hat from under the table when he rose to
leave the house, and to put it on his head as
the most convenient and natural place for it.

" What kind of work does she want ? " he
asked without preamble.

"Miss Smith ? " answered Marie, under-
standing him at once. " Almost any kind of

196 MADAME LEROUX.

work. Governess in a school, or private
family ; companion to an old lady — or a
young one ; reader ; amanuensis — anything
of that sort."

" Because," said Mr. Clampitt slowly,
" there's a party I once knew something of
in connection with the Pelican, before his
time," with a jerk of the head towards
Adolphus. "A party that required some
tempo'ry accommodation. But he's done
very well for himself since. He introduced
a borrower to us the other day. He's a
dentist now."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Hawkins, with an
involuntary slackening in the tense look of
ingenuous interest with which she had been
listening to Mr. Clampitt. " But I am afraid
Miss Smith has no skill which could be made
available for dentistry."

" It's nothing to do with the teeth.
The party keeps a sekkertary, p'raps
more than one, to do a lot of writing for
him."

" How good of you to think of it ! "
exclaimed Mrs. Hawkins, looking up at him.

MADAME LEROUX. 197

"And might Miss Smith use your name as a
reference ? "

"As far as my opinion of the hand-
writing. I couldn't speak to her character,
you know."

" Oh ! " burst out Fatima, meaning to
protest a little vehemently. But her cousin
stopped her with a rapid sentence uttered
under her breath in French.

" I will lay it before Miss Smith," she
said, sweetly. " And perhaps Mr. Clampitt
would kindly give us his friend's address, so
that Miss Smith might call if she entertains
the idea."

" He isn't exactly a friend o' mine. I
merely knew him through his wanting a little
tempo'ry accommodation. And it's no good
calling without you write first for an appoint-
ment. But there's his address."

Mr. Clampitt fumbled in a leather
pocket-book stiff with grease and dirt, and
full of miscellaneous papers. At length,
from the midst of a roll of very soiled bank
notes, where it had accidentally got wedged,
he pulled forth a card which he handed to

198 MAD A. WE LEROVX.

Mrs. Hawkins. Then, with a muffled
" Mornin'," which he intended as a farewell
salutation to the company, he walked
away.

The first thing patima did, as soon as
the door had closed behind him, was to run
to the sideboard, pour out a glass of water
from a bottle which stood there, and offer it
to Marie ; who at once dipped her fingers
in it and dried them on her handkerchief.

"What's the matter?" inquired Adol-
phus, who had withdrawn his attention from
the conversation some time back.

"He is such a pig I" said Fatima,
making a crescendo on each syllable, and
almost screaming the last, as a climax.

"Allans, Fatima!" said Marie, quietly.
" Don't be silly. " You were not asked to
take his card. And, as for me — voild!"
And she held up her plump white hands,
over which she had just sprinkled a few
drops of eau de Cologne, from a little gold-
capped bottle she carried in her pocket. " I
would take another card if he'd give me a
few of the notes wrapped up with it."

MADAME LER.OUX, 199

" The notes were filthy, too ! " objected
Fatima, with a little grimace of disgust.

Mrs. Hawkins shook her head and
shrugged her pretty shoulders. Marie was
not acquainted with Cicero, and if she had
been, would have taken care not to quote
him ; perceiving a great deal too clearly the
image of herself which was admired in
masculine minds, and having not the least
desire to correct it. Otherwise " non olet
unde sit " would tersely have expressed her
sentiments.

" What card are you talking about ? "
asked Adolphus, and then his wife repeated
to him what Mr. Clampitt had said.

At first Adolphus treated the idea as
preposterous, and not to be even mentioned
to Miss Smith. It was quite out of the
question that a young lady such as she was
should condescend to ask employment from
old Clampitt's acquaintance.

" He's an ignorant old Harpagon," said
Mr. Hawkins, who had latterly had fresh
cause for discontent with Clampitt's avarice.
" He doesn't understand the principles of—

MADAME LEROUX.

of— He doesn't understand any prin-

ciples, in short, and wants to pare down the
advertisements of Millamint. There's no
greatness of view in Clampitt ; none of the
boldness in enterprise which has made
British commerce what it is. Clampitt is
like a man who would hesitate to pick up
a diamond because he must let fall his
handful of halfpence to do it." And Mr.
Hawkins walked impatiently up and down
the dining-room, glowing with the vision of
how sagaciously he would scatter his thou-
sands as the husbandman scatters his seed-
corn — if he only had them.

" Bien, bien, Clampitt is all that you
chose. Do sit down, Adolphe ! You make
one giddy. But all the same I shall
certainly mention this chance to Miss Smith.
Her few pounds won't last for ever, and
what is, she to do when they are gone ? I
presume you don't think we could keep her ?
Because if any such folly is flitting through
your brain, mon ami, you had better frighten
it away as soon as possible. Mr. Shard
might not like to suggest the workhouse if

MADAME LEROUX.

he were appealed to, but that is what he
would mean — rather than spend a penny
himself. And, for my part, I have my
private conviction that those great friends
she talks of will do nothing for her. Miss
Smith may not mean to deceive (though she
is not so silly and ingenue as you think her),
but the fact is, she does not even know
where her dear friends are at this moment !
What is their name, Fatima ? Enderby
isn't it ? "

" Enderby ! " exclaimed Mr. Hawkins,
with a start. "Good Heavens! I saw, a
week or two back, in the Morning Post, that
Sir Lionel Enderby, of Enderby Court, had
died suddenly in Rome."

" That is Lucy Smith's old friend.
Enderby Court is the name of the place
where she was almost brought up. She has
been talking a great deal to me about them
lately," said Fatima, clasping her hands, and
turning pale. "But are you sure, Uncle
Adolphe ? "

" Sure that I saw the announcement ?
Yes Bless my soul ! It didn't strike me

MADAME LEROUX.

at the time about Miss Smith. In fact, I
think I must have taken the words in with
my eyes mechanically, my mind being full
of other things. Dear, dear, dear ! "

"Ah!" said Marie, placidly. "You see
he is dead, and the family have given Miss
Smith no intimation of it."

" You think she doesn't know, eh ? "
'asked Adolphus, with a somewhat rueful
and puzzled air.

" Not the least in the world. I dare say
there was no such great intimacy as Miss
Smith gave us to understand."

" You are wrong, Marie ; indeed you
are ! " cried Fatima. " She is the soul of
truth. I am sure of it."

" Very well ; if so, that only proves that
these Enderbys are behaving badly to her.
Either she boasted a little, or they are
unkind ; \ that is quite clear ! " returned
Marie, with perfect amiability. "At any
rate, you perceive the urgent necessity there
is for her to do something. Adolphe, my
opinion is that she will at once try what can
be done with this recommendation of le vieux

MADAME LEROUX. 203

Clampitt. She is not silly. I always saw
that, and even Caroline Leroux, who has
taken her so much en grippe, cannot say that
Miss Smith is silly ! "

When Lucy returned from her quest,
which had once more proved a vain one,
Fatima met her, and, taking her by the
hand, said, softly, and in a tone of deep
feeling —

" I am so sorry ; I have bad news to
give you, dear. News that will grieve you
very much."

Lucy pulled off her hat mechanically
and sat down. Her thoughts had flown at
once to Mildred. There alone her affections
were vulnerable. She looked up at Fatima,
unable to speak.

" Your old friend, Sir Lionel Enderby,
dear ; he is -

Fatima paused.

" 111 ? " asked Lucy, in a faint voice.

" He is dead, dear."

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE feelings of a bold aeronaut resolved to
mount among the stars, who should find
himself at starting encumbered with a com-
panion laden with an excess of ballast against
the risk of too great altitudes ; insisting on
keeping control of the valves ; and ready
with the grappling-irons to clutch at some-
thing solid on brief notice, might faintly
image forth those of Adolphus Hawkins when
endeavouring to raise the big balloon called
Millamint, in conjunction with Mr. Clampitt.
He was checked at every turn.

Mr. Clampitt's avarice, like Macbeth's
ambition, let "I dare not" wait upon "I
would." It was not that Mr. Clampitt had
any objection to ' play false " that he might
" wrongly win ;" what he objected to was the
[ 204 ]

MADAME LEROUX. 205

risk which, in this imperfect state of existence,
attends the most careful and ingenious play.
And then it was so difficult to make him
see, as Adolphus Hawkins daily endeavoured
to do, that to boggle over sixpence after
having spent two shillings was to render
the whole half-crown of no avail. He
fought for his sixpences. But the bait of
making exorbitant profits out of Millamint
was irresistible.

Perhaps there is no class of persons for
whom a sort of limited infallibility is more
largely claimed, than " men of business."
The infirmities and stupidities to which some
of them are obviously liable in all other
departments of life are popularly assumed
to fall away from them directly they enter
the charmed circle of " business." As if
money-getting were a territory outside the
operation of those laws which govern the
play of human character elsewhere ; or as
if we did not witness frequent failure in
even the most unscrupulous efforts to grow
rich !

When Mr. Clampitt, who was known

206 MADAME LEROUX.

{chiefly on the strength of an all-absorbing
greed, which left him comparatively in-
different to everything on earth except
pounds, shillings, and pence) to be such an
excellent man of business, took up the
British Tea Company, several men who had
twice as many brains as he, were led to do
so too ; arguing that old Clampitt was a deal
too fond of money to run any risks ; which
was something like saying of a hungry wolf
that he was a great deal too voracious ever to
choke himself with a bone.

However, the Company was " floated,"
and solid cash was actually paid for shares in
it. And in spite of the dead weight of old
Clampitt's ignorance, avarice, and suspicion,
Mr. Hawkins was for some weeks in buoyant
spirits. He cherished the most extravagant
anticipations of the vast sums to be made by
the Company, and withstood Marie's per-
sistent advice to sell his shares when they
advanced, as they soon did, to a surprisingly
high figure.

" I have a great respect for your mother-
wit, my dear," said Adolphus. " And for

MADAME LEROUX. 207

the general brightness of your intelligence.
But you don't understand business. Women
never do. They are bold or timid in the
wrong place. Now is the moment to be
bold ! "

Whereupon Marie said no more, but
ordered the neat brougham, which was
always at her disposal now, and drove to a
jeweller's, where she expended all her
savings and every farthing of ready cash,
which had been given her for the month's
housekeeping, in the purchase of a diamond
ring. She was a very fair judge of diamonds,
and not at all likely to be cheated in the price
of them.

Meanwhile Lucy Smith had justified Mrs.
Hawkins's opinion of her good sense by de-
termining to apply to the dentist of whom
Mr. Clampitt had spoken. Hitherto she had
found no employment that promised better,
and the chief temptation to her to try this
opening was that she might thus continue
to live under the Hawkins's roof. For Mr.
Clampitt had mentioned that the "sekker-
taries "were not expected to reside on their

2o8 MADAME LEROUX.

employer's premises. They worked only
during certain fixed hours of the day, and
were at liberty in the evening.

The news of Sir Lionel's death had
greatly affected her ; but Mildred's blank
silence after it, oppressed her with such a
weight of loneliness as made her cling almost
convulsively to this family, where she had,
at least, the comfort of seeing friendly faces.
She had written at once to Mildred, on
hearing of Sir Lionel's death, a long letter,
pouring out all her heart, and begging for a
word in reply. She did not know where to
direct it abroad, and sent it, therefore, to
Enderby Court, where it was certain that
Mrs. Griffiths, or some one in charge, would
know where to forward it ; and it was for-
warded duly, and duly reached its destination,
but not until after great delay.

Lady Charlotte, when she and Mildred
left Rome, desired Mrs. Griffiths to sus-
pend the transmission of any correspond-
ence which might arrive at the Court until
further orders. Lord Grimstock was, of
course, in constant communication with his

MADAME LEROUX. 209

sister ; and to him, as executor and trustee
under Sir Lionel's will, all business communi-
cations touching the property were addressed
direct. No letters were likely, Lady Char-
lotte opined, to be sent to Enderby Court
except formal notes of condolence from dis-
tant county neighbours, or such other matters
as she might well be excused from taking
any immediate trouble about. They tra-
velled slowly on Mildred's account, halting
at several places along the Riviera before
arriving at the villa where they were to
remain until the spring.

When Lucy's letter finally reached
Bordighera, Lady Charlotte recognized the
handwriting at once ; she was familiar with
Lucy's hand from having seen it in manifold
extracts and copies made for poor Sir Lionel.
Lady Charlotte would not for the world have
descended to suppress the letter ; but she
thought herself justified in keeping this one
back until her niece should be stronger.
Mildred was still very weak, and subject to
fainting fits on any agitation.

When at length Lucy's letter was put
VOL. ii. 34

2io MADAME LEROUX.

into her hand one exquisite sunny day, as
she sat in the garden gazing at the palm-
trees and the lapis-lazuli plain of the Medi-
terranean, Sir Lionel Enderby had been dead
nearly two months, and many other things
had happened.

Among the rest, it had happened that
Lucy Smith had called by appointment to
see Mr. Tudway Didear, or, as he preferred
to style himself, Professor Tudway Didear.

This gentleman lived in a large, hand-
some house, in a street turning northward
from the western extremity of Oxford Street.
The front of it was painted a deep crimson,
in the most approved fashion. In summer,
window-boxes full of flowers, and in winter,
glass cases full of ferns adorned the windows.
The plate-glass glittered. So did a large
brass plate on the door bearing the words
Tudway Didear, followed by a miscellaneous
escort of letters of the alphabet, which — as
was taken for granted by those beholders
who troubled themselves to consider the
matter at all — Dignified the various learned
bodies, whereof Mr. Didear was a member

MADAME LEROUX. 211

by virtue of his skill in dentistry. These
were nearly all foreign ; a dentist, apparently,
resembling a prophet, in respect of meeting
scant recognition among the learned in his
own country.

An imposing-looking servant, clad in a
glossy suit of black, and with the correctest
of white cravats, opened the door, and
ushered Lucy and her companion (for she
had induced Fatima to accompany her) into a
gorgeous waiting-room, all gilding and red
satin. Fatima passed in at once ; but Lucy,
catching a glimpse of other persons there,
hanging over the picture-books which were
strewn on the centre table, drew back, and
whispered to the servant that she thought
there was some mistake ; she had called

there by appointment ; and . The man

interrupted her, respectfully asking her
name, and adding that the Professor was for
the moment engaged, but would, doubtless,
receive the ladies as near as possible to the
time named.

" We are not patients," said Lucy.

The man stopped short and stared at

MADAME LEROUX.

her. " But you say you have an appoint-
ment, madam ? "

" Yes," answered Lucy, quietly. " It is
about the situation of secretary."

" O-o-oh ! " exclaimed the man, lengthen-
ing out the syllable, and staring at Lucy.
" Then you should have rung the airey-bell !
However," after a pause and a renewed
stare— not performed insolently — "as you
are here, I'll show you down. This way,
please."

He opened a red baize-covered swing-
door, which closed a passage from the en-
trance hall, and Lucy and Fatima followed
him.

The change from one side of that door
to the other was as great as from the vision
of the Fairy Realms of Bliss beheld by a
child at the Pantomime, to the stage-car-
penter's view of that enchanted kingdom,
in a world of ropes, pulleys, flaring gas-jets,
and unpainted canvas. On the hall side was
fine India matting strewn with soft rugs,
and adorned by massive vases full of pot-
pourri. On the other side were bare boards,

MADAME LEROUX. 213

unbeautified even by the scrubbing-brush, and
an odour of dry, close, mouldintss ascending
from the kitchen stairs.

"Just you go right down there, Miss,
and speak to Mrs. Parfitt. She's the cook,
but she'll know all about it. I can't stop.
And thereupon the servant took his glossy
broadcloth and his irreproachable cravat into
the hall again. The man's intention was to
be civil and serviceable, but he kept his
" madams " and his manners for the class
cf visitors who paid the Professor, and not
for those whom the Professor paid.

" But what — we're going into the kit-
chen ! " exclaimed Fatima, in a tone of
strong protest.

" Certainly, since we were told to speak
to the cook," replied Lucy. The absurdity
of the position had some relish for her in
spite of all her troubles. Whatever might be
in store for her, she had not yet arrived at
the pitch of depression when all sense of
humour is stifled under a superincumbent
weight of woe.

Into the kitchen they went, and found a

2i4 MADAME LEROUX.

decent-looking woman at tea there, with a
young servant of the housemaid class.

"Are you Mrs. Parfitt ?" asked Lucy, in
her clear, soft tones.

"Yes, I am," answered Mrs. Parfitt,
rising and rubbing her hands, and looking
at Lucy with the same expression of per-
plexity which the man had shown. Fatima,
with her wits sharpened by residence in
London and the tents on the borders of
Bohemia, at once drew the conclusion that
no creature bearing the quality of "lady"
impressed on her aspect and manners, had
ever descended those stairs within Mrs.
Parfitt's experience.

Lucy briefly explained her errand, but
added that she feared Mr. Didear would not
be able to keep his appointment with her,
as she had observed several persons in the
waiting-room.

" Oh, that won't make no difference if he
wants to see you," said Mrs. Parfitt. " The
patients '11 have to wait or come again. But
I don't quite know—-
At this moment a shrill whistle called

MADAME LEROUX. 215

Mrs. Parfitt to a speaking-tube in the pas-
sage outside the kitchen door. The woman
put her ear to it, listened a moment, and
then said, " It's all right. One of you young
ladies is Miss Smith, ain't you ? Then
you're to go and wait in the writing-room,
and the Professor '11 be down directly."

So saying she opened a door, desired
Lucy and Fatima to enter, and went away.

They found themselves in a room which
had originally been neither more nor less than
the back kitchen or scullery of the house,
and was so dark that the gas was kept alight
there nearly all day long. This made its
atmosphere heavy and suffocating, as though
the breathable portion of it were on the
point of being exhausted, and yet it was very
far from being comfortably warm. The
stone-flagged floor probably contributed to
the sensation of chill which assailed the feet
of those who remained there many minutes.
It was covered with oil-cloth a good deal
worn. In the centre of the room stood a
deal table, common enough as to make and
material, but somewhat uncommon as to its

2l6

MADAME LEROUX.

size, which was very large. On this table,
which was splashed with ink, as though it
had been played upon with that fluid through
a garden-hose, were spread piles of printed
papers, a much-thumbed " Blue Book " or
directory to the genteeler parts of town, and
two huge pewter ink-stands, with a few steel
pens in common wooden handles. Four
kitchen chairs, some pegs for hanging up
hats or cloaks, and a white-faced, loud-ticking
clock fixed on the wall, completed the inven-
tory of the furniture.

Two young women were seated at the
table in the act of writing, and on the floor
beside each of them was placed a clothes-
basket, such as washerwomen use, into which
envelopes containing printed circulars were
tossed as fast as they were directed ; and the
clothes-baskets were nearly full.

" I hope we do not disturb you. We
were told to come in here," said Lucy, gently.

One of the young women, a flaxen-
haired, pale girl, who looked tired or sullen,
or both, merely nodded. But the other one
raised her eyes and said, " Not at all. Won't

MADAME LEROUX. 217

you sit down ? " and then resumed her writ-
ing. For a minute or so no sound was heard
except the scratching of the pens, and the
loud, hard ticking of the clock. And then
the flaxen-haired girl, throwing herself back
in her chair, said wearily, " One thousand
three hundred and five since Tuesday after-
noon. I'm pretty nearly through my share
of S.W. How have you got on, Peggy ? "

" Middling," returned the girl addressed
as Peggy. " I don't mean to let my feelings
run away with me to the extent of giving
old Diddleum a brass farthing's worth more
work than is in the bond."

The other laughed in a dreary way, and
said, addressing Fatima, " I suppose it's a
fair question, seeing you here : Are you
applying for an engagement ? "

Fatima hesitated an instant ; but Lucy
at once n plied, " /am thinking of applying.
Do you think there is a vacancy ? "

"Oh, yes; I suppose so. We're rather
slack just now ; but there's generally plenty
of work."

" Yes," said Peggy. " Old Diddleum

218 MADAME LEROUX.

takes care that Satan shan't find any mischief
for our hands to do, if being idle gives him
a chance."

At this moment a heavy step was heard
descending the kitchen stairs. Both Peggy
and her companion bent over their writing
with sudden diligence, and presently the
door was flung open, and Professor Tudway
Didear marched into the room.

He was a broad heavily-built man, of
middle height, with a perfectly clean-shaven
face, and grizzled hair cropped short, smooth,
and even all over his head, after a fashion
more commonly seen on the Continent than
in England. He wore ordinary morning
clothes — the only peculiarity being that he
had no neckcloth, and that his shirt had a
broad, falling collar, fastened at the throat
with a gold stud set with pearls ; and on the
little finger of his left hand — a strong, flexible
hand, scrupulously cared for, as beseems the
hand of a dentist — he wore a great, showy,
ruby ring, lie had a bullying air of com-
mand ; and Lucy noticed with surprise that
the two young women not only stood up

MADAME LEROUX. 2 1 9

when he entered, but remained standing
until he said to them curtly, " You'd better
get on," when they resumed their seats and
their work.

" Are you Miss Smith ? " he asked, ad-
dressing Fatima.

(Fatima maintained afterwards, with per-
fect good humour, that they had all, from
the footman to the Professor, thought her
plain face answered much better to the idea
of a young person called Smith, and wanting
to be employed by Mr. Didear, than Lucy's
did.)

" Oh ! " said Mr. Didear, when his error
had been corrected. " It's you ? Well, you
wrote me a letter mentioning the name of
Mr. Clampitt, eh ? "

Lucy bowed.

" Here it is" (taking it from his pocket).
"Wrote it yourself?"

"Yes, certainly."

" Just take a pen — give her yours, Miss
Barton — and write a few words from dicta-
tion, will you ? "

Lucy's sense of the ludicrous had quite

220 MADAME LEROUX.

overcome her first feeling of annoyance at
the man's tone, and as she took the pen from
the girl Peggy, her fingers shook with the
effort to stifle a laugh. Not so Fatima,
whose long black eyes looked very wrath-
fully upon these proceedings.

" Write," said Mr. Didear, clasping his
hands behind his back and taking two steps
in one direction and two steps back again
along the wall under the clock, " ' the inven-
tions applied by Professor Tudway Didear to
the operations of dental surgery mark the ne
plus ultra of odontological science achieved
within the present century.' That '11 do. Let
me see. Hah ! — yes ; same hand. Only
you've hurried this a little. H'm ! Got
the ne plus ultra all right, I see. A young
person who applied last week spelt it with
a • k.' "

This was too much for Lucy, who covered
her face with her handkerchief, and made a
desperate effort to convert an irresistible
burst of laughter into an excusable fit of
coughing.

"That was very absurd of her," she

MADAME LEROUX. 221

gasped, looking up at length, with eyes full
of water.

Mr. Didear stood by suspicious. He did
not believe in the cough at all ; and he had
his doubts whether all that hilarity were
occasioned by the misspelling of a Latin
word, which even he, the Professor, might
very likely have written wrongly if he had
never seen it in print ! — and yet, what else
could there be for any one to laugh at ? If
the girl turned out a giggling fool she would
not suit him ; which would be a pity, since
he liked her writing. It was legible, and yet
not common.

" I beg your pardon," said Lucy, making
a strong effort to regain her self-possession.
" I must not waste your time. Do you
think you should be able to give me em-
ployment ? "

" I think so. At the present moment
there is no great pressure ; but in about a
fortnight we shall be very busy — mind what
you are about, Miss Barton ! those lines ain't
straight. I'm not going to allow crooked
directions to emanate from these premises,

222 MADAME LEROUX.

as you ought to be aware by this time ! — and
then I might take you on."

" The duties are ? "

" What you see. Mainly addressing cir-
culars. There may be a few letters occa-
sionally, but my private secretary, upstairs,
does most of that. It's a different depart-
ment. Hours, from nine to one and two to
six, inclusive. That's the regular thing.
Extra time is extra pay."

" And the terms ? " said Lucy, colouring
nervously.

" The wages I pay are fifteen shillings a
week. Take it or leave it. Same to all.
No difference made. If any one is under
the mark, I don't pay less ; I get rid of
'em."

Mr. Didear did not mention what he
would do in the case of any one being over
the mark. But, probably, the hypothesis
had never occurred to him.

" Thank you," said Lucy. " Then if I
am disengaged in about a fortnight from this
time, may I write to you ? "

" Yes ; or come. All engagements begin

MADAME LEROUX. 22.3

on a Monday, and are by the week ; termin-
able at a week's notice."

" On either side, of course," said Lucy,
bowing farewell to the young women at the
table, and passing out of the room.

" Well," said Mr. Didear, as he followed
her and Fatima up the kitchen stairs, " I
should expect any one to stay and finish up a
job of work if we happened to be in the thick
of it. Oh, look here, I forgot to mention,
you mustn't come in and out this way.
There's another entrance for the employees.
Parfitt will show you. But as you are up
here — Rogers, show this party out."

" Good heavens, Lucy, you surely don't
think of ever going near that dreadful man
again ! " burst out Fatima, as soon as they
were clear of the house. " Cest inouil "

Lucy laughed a little, and then looked
grave. " Fatima," she said, " I have found
out one thing : it is not at all enough to be
willing to work, to earn your bread. I used
to think it was. The pay is very little. But
it would save me from eating up the last
pound of my tiny capital. And, after all, I

224 MADAME LEROUX.

don't know that I should be a bit more
unhappy directing envelopes in that back
kitchen, than hearing Miss Heavysides
trample through the ' Moonlight Sonata,' or
being obliged to endure Miss Cohen's con-
tempt for my poverty and general insignifi-
cance, uttered in such an epigrammatic form
as, ' Well, I'm sure ! It seems beggars want
to be choosers ! ' '

"Well," said Fatima, musingly. "Per-
haps as a stop-gap, and if you don't get a

situation within a fortnight . And then

you could always leave that creature directly
anything better offered, couldn't you ? "

" Oh yes, of course ! " answered Lucy,
cheerfully. She was but eighteen. And
sordid troubles still appeared to her merely
like parentheses in the story of life.

CHAPTER XXX.

IT was characteristic of that general pre-
paration for the unexpected which formed
a large part of the Hawkins's philosophy,
that none of- the family expressed or felt any
special surprise at seeing a girl like Lucy
apparently abandoned to her fate, and left to
sink or swim, a lonely waif, in the deep,
black sea of London.

Lucy was often lost in wonder as she
thought of it all herself, but the Hawkins's
accepted such vicissitudes, both for them-
selves and their friends, as being part of the
general constitution of things. Mr. Shard
was, of course, a hard, selfish^ unfeeling
curmudgeon. But hard, selfish, unfeeling-
curmudgeons were amongst the most
ordinary phenomena of life. And as to the
VOL. ii. L 225 ] 35

226 MADAME LEROUX.

cooling-off of Lucy's grand friends — well,
really, neither was that unprecedented.

Lucy had never said a word of blame or
anger, but, piecing together things she had
let fall in talking of Enderby Court, and
adding to them all that Mr. Shard had said
when in town, Marie Hawkins had convinced
herself that it was Lady Charlotte Gaunt wrho
had arranged to send Lucy away from West-
field, and had paid Mr. Shard for getting it
done. But be that as it might, it was clear
that the Enderbys meant to drop Miss Smith
now, at all events. All the more reason for
Miss Smith to do what she could for herself.
And Mrs. Hawkins, accordingly, encouraged
her to accept the dentist's offer.

Lucy waited out the fortnight before
making up her mind to do so. But during
that time nothing in the shape of remune-
rative employment had presented itself. She
had, indeed, been offered the entire charge
of an imbecile and sickly young woman and
her wardrobe, for the liberal remuneration
of food and lodging, she to pay her own
laundress's bill ; and on declining it on the

MADAME LEROUX. 227

ground that she would thus have no penny
for clothing or any other necessary expense,
she had been somewhat severely rated by
the imbecile young woman's mother, who
wondered what things were coming to, when
persons like Lucy turned up their noses at a
good roof over their heads, and a sufficiency
of wholesome victuals !

Zephany had been consulted on the
subject of Mr. Tudway Didear. Zephany
had been prospering lately ; and his pros-
perity had come about chiefly through Mr.
Rushmere's instrumentality. Rushmere had
expressed his surprise that a man of
Zephany's extraordinary attainments as a
linguist should have failed to obtain per-
manent employment. Whereupon Zephany
had replied, "My friend, extraordinary
attainments are not wanted in any line of
business. A man does not want his horse
to fly ; he only wants him to run faster than
other men's horses."

" Well, but you can run faster than most
horses ! And you are not obliged to
mention that you can fly, also. No need to

228 MADAME LEROUX.

tell people that you could, if you pleased,
write their letters for them in Greek, Arabic,
Turkish, or Hebrew, as well as in German,
French, Spanish, and Italian ! "

" That is true," answered Zephany,
candidly, with his rare smile displaying the
wonderful range of teeth.

And soon after that conversation Mr.
Ferdinand Zephany was installed in the post
of foreign correspondent in the important
City house of Steinmetz, Williams, Bauer,
and Steinmetz.

This made no difference in his relations
with the Hawkins's— except the characteristic
difference that Zephany at once insisted on
paying them a higher rent for his bedroom.
He still continued to be the confidential
friend and familiar inmate of the family, and
the special oracle and counsellor of Fatima.

She it was who asked him to make some
inquiries about Mr. Tudway Didear, and the
result of them was that Zephany reported the
man to be a notorious charlatan, looked down
upon by all his more respectable colleagues,
but nevertheless a charlatan of ability.

MADAME LEROUX. 229

" He is a clever manipulator, but all his
circulars, and reclames, and pretensions to
science are pure charlatanerie. He is a
quack and a liar," said Zephany, with his
usual forcible directness.

But he did not feel justified in advising
Miss Smith to refuse the dentist's offer. To
him, as to the Hawkins's, " ups and downs"
of fortune appeared to be very much matters
of course ; and he was sufficiently imbued
with the tenets of Bohemia to consider the
quack dentist's service every whit as desirable
as that of Madame Leroux. As regards the
worship of the Genteel, Zephany was a stiff-
necked heretic and unbeliever.

Lucy did not choose to go to Mr.
Didear's house on the Monday he had
indicated without any further notice, but she
sent a note to say that unless she meanwhile
heard from him to the contrary, she would
present herself to begin work on the follow-
ing Monday morning.

Punctually at nine o'clock she rang the
bell at the dentist's street door. No sooner
had she done so than she remembered the

230 MADAME LEROUX.

servant's admonition on the former occasion
that she should have rung the " airey bell."
However, she could but stand her ground
now, and wait until Rogers should appear.
Rogers did not appear. (She learned after-
wards that that black-coated functionary was
only engaged for the hours during which Mr.
Didear received his patients.) The door was
opened by a housemaid, who was sweeping
and dusting the hall.

Before Lucy could say a word this woman
exclaimed, " Laws, if I didn't just guess it
was you ! The Professor told Miss Barton
you was coming to-day. But you hadn't
ought to be ringing at this door. I
should catch it if he knew you got in the
front way."

" But," said Lucy mildly, " I don't know
any other way."

"Well, come along in. P'raps he didn't
hear the ring, as he's at his fiddling ; and if
he says anything I shall just tell him it was a
parcel for Mrs. Parfitt rung the wrong bell
by mistake."

As Lucy passed through the hall, she was

MADAME LEROUX. 231

aware of a droning, vibrating sound, like the
buzz of a gigantic blue-bottle ; and when the
red-baize door was closed behind her and the
friendly housemaid, the latter said —

" It's a mercy he's got that cheller to
let off some of his overbearin'gness on."

" What is it he has ?" asked Lucy, doubt-
fully.

" A cheller — violin cheller," answered the
housemaid, making the action of drawing a
bow across the strings. " He plays it by the
hour, setting up in his bedroom in a flannel
gownd. Sometimes he begins at six in the
morning. I suppose it does ward off some
of his aggorance. Not that / should take
any of his sauce, if he offered it to me ; nor
yet Mrs. Parfitt wouldn't. But the way he
does bully that Miss Saunders, that he calls
his private secretary, words can't depicture.
You underground young ladies," continued
the housemaid, thus designating the inferior
scribes by an ingenious periphrasis, " are
better off than her. He can't keep bounc-
ing up and down the kitchen stairs twenty
times in the hour, like he bounces in and

232 MAD A ATE LEROUX.

out of the back parlour to worry Miss
Saunders."

Lucy found Miss Peggy Barton and the
flaxen-haired girl, whose name was Jones,
hanging up their hats and cloaks in the room
where they wrote ; and they returned her
salutations with civility, but with a certain
distance, and something like an air of
mistrust.

" Could you," asked Lucy, hesitatingly,
" be so kind as to tell me what I ought to do
first ? "

" Oh, yes," answered Miss Barton; "old
Diddleum don't intend you to waste your
time whilst he pays for it. He gave me this
bundle ready for you on Saturday night.
You've got to write 'With Professor Tudway
Didear's compliments ' at the top of all these
circulars" — pushing a packet across the table
towards her — " and when you have finished
them, you're to direct the envelopes from that
list of addresses marked with a blue pencil in
the directory ; and then you're to write at the
top of the circulars on pink paper, 'With
Tudway Didear's respectful compliments,'

MADAME LEROUX. 233

and they're to be addressed from the lists
marked in red. So there's your work cut out
for you."

Lucy took the circulars and began to
write. The other two girls kept silence, but
cast scrutinising glances at her from time to
time as she plied her pen. At length Miss
Barton said —

" You're a quick writer, ain't you ? "

" I think I am," answered Lucy, looking
up with a little smile.

Something in her face determined Peggy
Barton to speak frankly.

" Look here," she said ; " don't you get
that first lot of circulars done before one
o'clock, whatever you do ; else old Diddleum
will expect us all to do the same ; and that
would be awfully rough on Isabel Jones,
who's a slow writer by nature, and if she
hurries, her hand gets illegible."

" There you go, Peggy ! " said Isabel
Jones in a warning voice.

" Oh, bother!" returned the lively Peggy.
" Miss Smith won't tell. She isn't that sort.
Why, if we didn't stick together a little, old

234 MADAME LEROUX.

Diddleum would eat us up alive. If we
don't put some sort of a limit to our work,
he'll never put one for us. We don't want
to be unfair, Miss Smith," pursued Peggy,
watching Lucy's face. " You see, Diddleum
considers what we do a fair amount for the
day, else he'd never put up with it, you may
bet your boots. But we have to make up
our minds to get through so much, and no
more. He's one of the too-clever-by-half, he
is ! If he treated people like Christians they
wouldn't grudge him good measure. But,
as it is, I make a rule, Miss Smith, to
lay my pen down at the stroke of one by
that clock, even if I'm in the middle of a
Svord. And you'll find you'll have to do it too."

" I will divide this heap of papers, and
see what proportion of them I can get
through in half an hour," said Lucy. " Then
I shall be able to calculate my rate of work,
and compare it with yours."

Peggy nodded approvingly, observing that
she had been sure Miss Smith was the right
sort, and even Miss Jones looked a little
more cheerful. And after that, they worked

MADAME LEROUX. 235

with very little further interchange of words,
until the white-faced clock struck one, when
they laid down their pens, and prepared to
eat their luncheon.

Lucy had brought a packet of sand-
wiches with her, and the other girls pulled out
some cold meat and bread from their little
black bags ; and Mrs. Parfitt was petitioned
to supply them with a jug of water and
three tumblers. Lucy spread the clean
white napkin in which Fatima had enveloped
her paper parcel of sandwiches over one end
of the tab'e for a cloth, and invited the
others to share that luxury with her ; a little
attention which was received with an
effusiveness that surprised her.

" Thank you, Miss Smith," said Peggy
Barton, laying her bread and meat neatly on
a square of clean paper, placing the whole
on the napkin, and surveying the effect with
complacency.

" Don't it look nice, Isabel ? Old
Diddleum would like us to eat out of a
trough like pigs ; unless he'd like better
that we didn't eat at all ! "

MA DA ME LEHO UX.

" May I ask," inquired Lucy, feeling that
general good-fellowship had been establish-
ed, "why you call Mr. Didear 'Old
Diddleum?'"

Peggy burst into a hearty young laugh.
" Oh,'' she said, "because he diddles people ;
cheats them, you know. It isn't very
elegant. But how could you say anything
elegant of him ? "

" I tell Peggy," remarked Miss Jones, in
her slow, throaty voice, " that she'll forget
herself some day, and call him Diddleum to
his face."

" I nearly did once," said Peggy, with a
fresh burst of laughter ; " and if it wasn't
for mother, I should wish I had. If it
wasn't for mother, I'd never enter his horrid
old den again the longest day I have to live.
But mother's an invalid, and we have to eke
out the little she's got somehow. And, you
see, the good of this place is that I can
go home at six and look after mother, and
give her her tea, and stop with her. Other-
wise, Miss Smith, there have been
moments when I could have knocked

MADAME LEROUX.

him down and trampled on him, only for
mother ! "

The picture of Peggy Barton — who was
a short, slight, little creature — felling Mr.
Tudway Didear to the earth was a suffi-
ciently comical one. Lucy laughed, and
observed that "the Professor was more obliged
to Mrs. Barton than he had any idea of.

"Oh, of course it's only the feeling. I
couldn't really do it, I know ; but I do feel
like a raging tigress sometimes, Miss Smith,"
said Peggy, shaking the crumbs off, and
folding up the napkin neatly.

" I shouldn't think any one would come
here from choice," remarked Isabel Jones.
" When Bill gets a situation — that's my
second brother — / shan't come any more ;
father says so. Father's a working jeweller,
but he can't always work because of the
asthma ; and, with six at home, of course he
can't afford to keep us all idle. But, when
once Bill's earning, good-bye to Mr. Tudway
Didear. I wouldn't come back of my own
free will, not if he offered me five pound a
week and a four-wheeler to fetch me morning

238 MADAME LEROUX.

and evening," concluded Miss Jones, con-
scious of having uttered a strong hyperbole,
but one which was not too strong to express
her feeling.

" I suppose you do it for pocket money ? "
said Peggy, with a little hesitation.

" I ? " returned Lucy. " I do it because
I am very poor, and must earn my bread."

"No! Why, dear me! Isabel and I
made up our minds when we saw you the
other day that you were a swell that had just
t;iken a fancy to get some money for gloves
or something."

" Indeed, I am very far from being a
' swell,' " replied Lucy, with a smile.

" You're a lady," said Peggy Barton,
quickly. " I don't set up to be anything
grand myself, but of course I can see that
you are a lady."

Lucy made no answer ; it was just two
o'clock, and work must be resumed. But as
she presented Mr. Tudway Didear's compli-
ments, in her neatest characters, she could
not help reflecting, with some wonder, on
the difference between poor Peggy Barton,

MADAME LEROUX. 239

in her shabby frock and worn shoes, and
Miss Cohen, who cost her parents a hundred
and fifty guineas a year at Madame Leroux's
fashionable boarding-school.

When six o'clock came, she found that
her shoulders ached, and her hand felt stiff,
and her head heavy. The constrained
posture, to which she was unused, was
fatiguing, and the close atmosphere of the
room was very oppressive.

" You must show me the way out,
please," she said, when the others were
getting ready to go away. " Otherwise I
shall not know where to get admittance to-
morrow."

" Ah ! " said the irrepressible Peggy,
"and a very nice way it is, to make ladies
walk through the mews in all weathers ! "

" The mews ! "

" Yes ; the mews. All among the stable
litter, and the wet coach-wheels spinning
round to give you a shower-bath, and the
grooms passing their remarks. No wonder
you look astonished. But that's the way we
have to come, if we want to be let in at all.

MADAME LEROUX.

Oh, you don't know half the charms of
the place yet. To-day has been a day of
peace. Old Diddleum hasn't been down
once. But— well, I dare say you'll have
the pleasure of a visit from him before
long."

Sure enough, they left the house by a
back door which led directly into some mews
behind it. Emerging thence, they came up
a side-alley into the street adorned by Mr.
Tudway Didear's crimson facade. Miss
Barton and Miss Jones made Lucy observe
certain landmarks — such as the number of
lamp-posts from the corner, and a house
with newly painted railings opposite — so that
she might not miss her way on the morrow.
And then they bade her good night, and
walked away together.

As they went, Lucy heard Peggy Barton
say to her companion, " Mother's sure to
have the kettle boiling. She's always so
glad to see me back. That's the good bit
of the day." And she thought that if she
had a mother to welcome her home — a
mother whom she might tend, and for whom

MADAME LEROUX.

241

she might work, all the hardships would be
cheaply purchased.

Peggy's threadbare shawl, and rusty hat,
and boots pervious to the street mud, were
transfigured into something precious, in the
light of loving duty ; and Lucy was con-
scious of envying her lot as she looked after
the commonplace little figure through a mist
of unshed tears.

VOL. II.

CHAPTER XXXI.

TOWARDS the end of January, Richard Avon
presented himself at Lord Grimstock's family
mansion in London. He was received with
the utmost friendliness, and his kinship with
the Gaunts was not only allowed, but insisted
on. Lord Grimstock introduced him to the
Countess as " my young cousin, Dick Avon,
Adelaide ; who has been so good and help-
ful to Charlotte in all her troubles."

Dick had been to Cheltenham to see his
mother and sisters, and had paid a visit to
Avonthorpe, where he proposed installing
himself as soon as the shooting should be
over. " I hope to be settled in the old place
by the seventh or eighth of February,"
said he.

Lord Grimstock, who prided himself on

MADAME LEROUX. 243

his knowledge of agricultural matters, was
much interested to hear Dick's projects for
the management of the bit of land which still
remained to him as heir of Avonthorpe ;
and full of practical suggestions. And then
Lady Grimstock had to be minutely informed
of all the circumstances of the time succeed-
ing Sir Lionel Enderby's death ; and to have
a description of the villa at Bordighera ; and
a verbatim account of what the physician in
Rome had said about poor darling Mildred ;
and how dear Charlotte had borne up under
her trial.

" Dear Charlotte's " handsome legacy
from Sir Lionel had raised her into the posi-
tion of a very important personage in the
family. The Countess of Grimstock reflected,
with great satisfaction, that she had always
behaved well to her sister-in-law — even to
the point of agreeing with Reginald that it
was right for him to allow her a yearly sum
of money which could ill be spared. And
Adelaide, who was a well-meaning, not very
wise, gentlewoman, was ahnost disposed to
look upon Charlotte's good fortune as a

244 MADAME LEROUX.

reward to herself for her exemplary beha-
viour. Since what could a maiden aunt,
having property at her own disposal, do with
it, except leave it to Lord Grimstock's
younger children ?

But all these matters did not make Dick
rnmindful of his promise to Mildred ; and
before he left the house, he took an oppor-
tunity to prefer her request that she might
have Lucy with her again on her return to
England.

To his surprise, Mildred's uncle seemed
strangely indisposed to countenance any
renewal of intimacy between the girls.

" Mildred thinks," said Dick, with his
usual straightforwardness, " that Aunt Char-
lotte (I've been used to call her so ever
since I was a little chap in petticoats) is pre-
judiced against Miss Marston ; and that in
short they don't understand one another."

" H'm ! Well, I own that I had some
such idea myself at one time. For Charlotte
has immense — a — a force of character ; and
is not easily swayed by other people's
opinions. But I have seen reason to

MADAME LEROUX. 245

believe that Charlotte is right in this
case."

" Have you seen Miss Marston, my
lord ? "

" N — no ; no, I cannot say that I have
seen her," answered Lord Grimstock, slowly.
His whole manner was slow ; and he carried
the Gaunt dignity as if he felt himself a little
overweighted occasionally. Whereas Char-
lotte bore her share of it with the proud
exultation of an ensign carrying the tattered
glory of his regiment ; or an acolyte bearing
aloft the banner of his faith ; or any one, in
short, who finds his personal distinction
agreeably involved in the proclamation of a
great principle.

" No," proceeded his lordship, after a
pause. " But I have met her uncle, a per-
son named Shard, at Westfield ; and I assure
you he is a most objectionable fellow —
thoroughly objectionable — cunning, fawning,
and vulgar."

" Well ; but, my dear lord, it doesn't
follow that his niece is like him."

"It does not follow, of course ; bv no

246 MADAME LEROL'X.

means. But — you have no idea how
thoroughly objectionable the fellow is ! "

" Well, I assure you, Lord Grimstock, I
think the hope of seeing her friend again
would be the very best tonic for Mildred you
could possibly administer, and would do more
to restore her health and spirits than any-
thing else ; I do indeed."

" Bless my soul ! " said his lordship, with
a stately kind of helplessness in the face of so
unaccountable a phenomenon. " It is incon-
ceivable to me — altogether inconceivable ! "

For Lord Grimstock could not dissociate
the idea of Miss Lucy Marston from the
bowing, fawning, vulgar figure, with cunning
eyes and a squeaking voice which remained
in his memory as Mr. Shard the lawyer.

Not only was the prospect of having to
be in frequent communication with Mr.
Shard on business connected with the En-
derby estate extremely distasteful to him,
but Lord Grimstock's observation and infor-
mation had led him to believe that he should
not be serving his niece's interests by allow-
ing Mr. Shard to have any share of that

MADAME LEROUX. 247

business in his hands. In a word, he had
resolved to give Mr. Shard no employment
at Enderby Court ; and under these circum-
stances it would, of course, be extremely
awkward and unpleasant if Mildred insisted
on installing Mr. Shard's niece as her bosom

o

friend and companion.

Still, Mildred's health was of too great
importance to be trifled with. Lord Grim-
stock would undoubtedly have been kind to
his orphan niece, had she been penniless ;
but he would not have regarded her quite as
he did now, with the knowledge that she was
one of the greatest heiresses in England.
And, before we blame him too severely,
let us consider how few persons there are
(besides ourselves and our friends) who
habitually estimate their fellow-creatures
apart from external accidents, such as half a
million in Government Consols or the Ribbon
of the Garter.

It was at length agreed on, that if Mil-
dred, on her return to England in the spring,
should still desire to see Miss Marston,
Miss Marston should be allowed to visit

248 MADAME LEROUX.

her ; and Lord Grimstock undertook to gain
Lady Charlotte's consent to the arrange-
ment.

Lord Grimstock had some private doubts
of succeeding in this undertaking. He
knew of old the difficulty of dealing with
what he had called, in speaking to Dick
Avon, Charlotte's force of character. He
remembered the stormy days of her youth,
and how their mother had been crushed by
the recoil upon herself of the arrogant self-
will she had encouraged towards others.
Nevertheless the power lay solely with him,
as Mildred's guardian, and he did not believe
that Charlotte would drive him to exercise
it in opposition to herself. She, too, would
feel, as he did, that it was important not
to allow the girl to pine or fret.

"And I cannot think," said Lord Grim-
stock to himself finally, " that Mildred will
persist in this infatuation when, by and by,
her mind shall have recovered its tone."

At the end of the interview Dick con-
sidered himself at liberty to write and tell
Mildred what he had done ; and the hope

MADAME LEROUX. 249

contained in his letter fully justified his
prediction to Lord Grimstock, that it would
act as the most potent of tonics.

It brought a tinge of colour into Mil-
dred's cheek and a brightness to her eyes,
which gladdened Lady Charlotte's heart.
They were both in the garden of the villa
at Bordighera when the packet from the post
was brought to them. Mildred was ordered
to be as much in the air as possible, and
sometimes spent the whole day in the
garden. Lady Charlotte, looking up from
her own correspondence, was struck by the
new light in the girl's face.

"Whom is your letter from, Mildred?"
she asked.

" From Cousin Dick," answered Mildred,
flushing still more brightly, and smiling a
little, with an absent look in her eyes.

Lady Charlotte looked down again at the
letter lying on her lap, but she did not see
a word of it. She was making delightful
pictures of the future in her own mind.

Very shortly after Richard Avon's arrival
in Rome, Lady Charlotte had mentally con-

MADAME LEROUX.

structed a romance, of which Richard and
Mildred were to be the hero and heroine.
Long before that time she had given a
good deal of thought to the question of
Mildred's marriage.

Mildred, her ladyship thought, would not
be an easy person to provide for matrimoni-
ally. She was wealthy, sufficiently pretty, of
an amiable disposition, and (on the mother's
side, at least) high-born. But Lady Char-
lotte felt that it would not be absolutely easy
to guide her for her good. There was an
undoubted touch of the Gaunt obstinacy
about Mildred — something of what Lord
Grimstock had so politely called " force of
character." Lady Charlotte had never
allowed her will to come into direct conflict
with Mildred's, the only point on which she
had seriously thwarted her (sending Lucy
away) having been achieved surreptitiously.
And Lady Charlotte earnestly desired that
no conflict of wills should ever take place
between them.

But besides this Gaunt force of character
— so admirable, unless when it. came un-

MADAME LEROUX. 251

fortunately into collision with some other
Gaunt's force of character bearing down in
an opposite direction — there was another
quality, inherited from her father's side of
the house, which might stand in the way
of her making a thoroughly satisfactory
marriage. This was a certain resolute
simplicity, so to say — a steady sticking to
the plain unvarnished fact, which had been
eminently characteristic of Sir Lionel.

It did not detract from this quality that
Sir Lionel had been vain, and fanciful on
many points. No man can be sincere beyond
the range of his intelligence. But in all such
matters as his mind recognised to be facts,
Sir Lionel had been absolutely clear and
candid. Lady Charlotte could not be said
to be an untruthful woman. She considered
herself to be eminently truthful ; holding it
far beneath the dignity of a Gaunt to palter
or pretend. Nevertheless, she habitually-
dressed up her thoughts about herself and
other people in imaginary trappings. And
facts were apt to be disguised beyond re-
cognition in the process.

25 2 MADAME LEROUX.

Now this tone of mind was foreign to
Mildred, who was essentially matter-of-fact.
There were many points, indeed, on which
Lucy would have been far better able to
sympathise with Lady Charlotte than Mil-
dred was ; for Lucy had a great deal of
romance in her nature. And Lady Char-
lotte was highly romantic. All her girlish
haughtiness and pride of birth and beauty,
in her younger days, had been very different
from the prosaic vulgarity which seeks to
crush a rival by a finer gown, or stare an
unknown "nobody" out of countenance.

Her own love-story had been spoiled,
and blurred by bitter tears ; but she wished
that Mildred's should be a bright, unsullied
page. And she wanted it to be really a
love-story. No mere mariage de convenance
would have satisfied Lady Charlotte ; al-
though, of course, Mildred's husband must
fulfil all worldly requirements also. Fortu-
nately, Mildred's wealth was so great, as to
put the money question entirely in the
background. And why, this being the case,
should not Mildred marry Dick Avon ?

MADAME LEROUX. 253

There was something in the scheme irre-
sistibly attractive to Lady Charlotte. There
would be a kind of poetical justice in her
helping poor Reg's son to fortune and hap-
piness. And Dick, too, who had had such
hard measure dealt to him — it would be very
delightful to act fairy-godmother to Dick,
bringing in her hand the beautiful princess
with her golden dower. On his side, he
came of some of the best blood in England.
His grandmother had been a Gaunt; and
even his mother, selfish and silly though she
might be, was a well-born woman. The
Avons had never made a mesalliance. And
Dick's personal qualities were such as might
win the heart of any girl.

" With Mildred's fortune to keep it up
Richard might accept a Peerage," mused
Lady Charlotte. "His grandfather refused
one. Baron Avon of Avonthorpe ! He
would like to keep the old name."

And then she reflected that Dick's was
just the character to attract Mildred. His
unaffected, straightforward manner and quiet
sweetness of temper, that had yet no touch

2 54 MADAME LEROUX.

of mawkish weakness, were admirably suited
to Mildred's disposition. Of course, this was
no moment to speak of marrying or giving
in marriage. And, in any case, there was
plenty of time before a word need be said.
A short time ago, Mildred, with her seven-
teen years, had seemed little more than a
child — at an age when some girls are accom-
plished ball-room belles, and flirts of some
experience. But she seemed to have made
a sudden leap from childhood to womanhood
since her father's death.

" That letter is the first thing that has
made her smile and look like herself since
poor Lionel died," thought Lady Charlotte,
who saw every turn of her niece's coun-
tenance while seemingly absorbed in looking
through her own correspondence.

And then she resolved above all things to
be prudent, and not to risk anything by a
premature hint. Matters were going on
even better than she had ventured to hope.
The only check to her complacency arose
from the thought that her brother Reginald
might not see the Avon alliance in quite so

MADAME LEROUX. 255

roseate a light as it appeared to her. Lord
Grimstock might possibly look to Mildred's
making a more splendid marriage. He
might desire a coronet for his wealthy niece.
But, really, who was there, among possible
matches, who could shed a lustre on the
daughter of Jane Gaunt, and the heiress of
Enderby Court ? And, of course, Reginald
would not play the cruel uncle in a story-
book. If the young people were in earnest,
they might be married with no more oppo-
sition than would serve to give zest to the
whole affair.

Lady Charlotte had got to this point in
her meditations — they had not occupied more
than a couple of minutes, reckoning by
material time ; although they had flashed
backwards and forwards through many years
of the past and the future — when she re-
placed the letter in her hands within the
envelope, and said, in a quiet voice, " And
what does cousin Dick say ? "

" Oh, he says I can't show you the

letter, Aunt Charlotte, because there is a
little secret in it. Something I asked him to

256 MADAME LEROUX.

do for me ; and he has done it. But you
will know all about it when we get to
England."

" Well, I must repress my curiosity as
best I may. Meanwhile, you can tell me, I
suppose, whether he has seen your uncle ;
and when he goes to Avonthorpe ; and how-
he is getting on ? "

Lady Charlotte knew better than to
suspect that anything in the nature of love-
making had already begun between the young
people. But she was delighted that a con-
fidence had been established. And had she
known the subject of their confidence, it
would have detracted very little from her
satisfaction. In the prospect of a marriage
between Richard Avon and Mildred
Enderby, the figure of Miss Lucy Marston
sank into complete insignificance.

" Well," said Mildred, looking back at
her letter, " he doesn't say much about him-
self. I think he is like me in finding letter-
writing hard work. But he has called on
Uncle Reginald ; and he saw Aunt Adelaide ;
and his mother and sisters are very well ; and

MADAME LEROUX. 257

he found an old acquaintance — a chum, he
says — whom he knew in Australia, living at
a place near Avonthorpe, where he has just
come into some property — the chum has, not
Dick, you know."

" Dear me ! " exclaimed Lady Charlotte,
leaning back in the garden-chair, and letting
her large grey eyes rove absently over the
sunny landscape. " I wonder who that can
be ? I don't remember any people near
Avonthorpe who had a son in Australia,
except poor dear Dick himself, who ought
never to have been sent out like a scapegoat
into the wilderness. There were the Mor-
dykes — but it could not be any of them ;
and Lord Addenbrook had only daughters ;

and "

"No, no, Aunt Charlotte ; Cousin Dick
says — I will read you his very words — 'An
old Australian chum of mine has just come
into some property a mile or two from my
place, by the death of a rich uncle. Is it not
odd, our tumbling against each other here ?
It makes the world seem very small. I wish I
had an uncle in the wholesale stationery line ! ' "
VOL. ii. 37

258

MADAME LEROUX.

" Oh ! That sort of person ! " exclaimed
Lady Charlotte, in a tone which implied that
" that sort of person " could have no sort of
interest for her.

But' it is never safe to assume one's com-
plete isolation from the influence of any
fellow-creature. The vibrations of every
life, like waves of sound, spread far and wide
with incalculable effects ; and the presence of
"that sort of person" had made Charlotte
Gaunt's heart throb passionately when she
was a girl in the pride of her beauty,
and he Lieutenant Ralph Rushmere, of the
Engineers.

CHAPTER XXXII.

HER engagement at the dentist's occupied
nearly the whole of Lucy's time, so that she
did not see so much of the domestic life at
the Hawkins's as had been the case when
she lived there before. She often remained
at Mr. Didear's until ten o'clock at night ; for
there happening to come a considerable press
of work after Lucy had been in his employ-
ment a few weeks, Mr. Didear offered her
extra pay for overtime, if she would remain
to ten o'clock on certain evenings in the
week.

He came down late one afternoon to
make this proposal to them all, in his
usual agreeable manner — suggestive of an
official accustomed to deal with refractory
paupers.

[ 259 ]

260 MADAME LEROUX.

" What will be the amount of the extra
pay ? " inquired Lucy.

" Sixpence an hour," answered Mr. Tud-
way Didear, promptly. " Take it or leave
it. Four hours extra at sixpence, three
nights a week, makes six shillings ; and very
good pay, too. Pretty nearly double the rate
of your regular wages. Forty-eight hours a
week at fifteen shillings comes to threepence
three-farthings an hour exactly. Those are
my terms. I never haggle."

Peggy Barton was afraid she should not
be able to work overtime. Her mother
could not spare her.

" Bosh ! " said the Professor. " An ex-
cuse for laziness ! But as you please. And
you ?" he said, wheeling round upon the other
two girls with a pouncing suddenness which
made them start and shrink like the crack of
a whip. "No shilly-shally ! Yes or no !"

"Well, sir, I'll stay Mondays and Wed-
nesdays," said Isabel Jones. " I couldn't be
spared on Saturday nights if it were ever so."

"Jones — Mondays and Wednesdays,"
said Mr. Tudway Didear, making an entry in

MADAME LEROUX. 261

his note-book. Then he looked up at Lucy,
who said " Yes," in a tone as curt as his own.

He stared at her for a moment, and then
turned to Peggy Barton with an angry
shaking movement of the head, like a dog
worrying a rat.

" Look here ! You'll please to understand
that when I have to get rid of superfluous
hands in the dead season, you'll be the one
to go ! I don't keep employees who decline
work when it's offered them."

Then he added to his notes the entry,
"Smith — Mondays, Wednesdays, and Satur-
days," and tramped out of the room.

" Oh, you brute, you !" exclaimed Peggy,
as soon as the heavy footsteps had died away
up the stairs. " Shouldnt I like to hit out at
you straight from the shoulder ! " and Peggy
doubled her poorlittle fist and looked ferocious.

" He'll give you the sack, Peggy," said
Miss Jones, who was apt to take a dis-
couraging view of her friend's prospects.

" Not he ! Very well, then, let him ! "
returned Peggy, with a spirit equal to either
fortune.

262 MADAME LEROUX.

" Oh, no ! He- surely would not be
capable of that in earnest," said Lucy.

" Capable ! Miss Smith, there's nothing
he ain't capable of — except behaving like a
human being. The thing in all the world
I should enjoy most would be to see him
soundly horse-whipped, and if it wasn't for
mother I'd do it myself! "

The mention of her mother gave Peggy's
Amazonian ardour pause. She stopped, sat
down again to her work, and wrote on in
silence for a few minutes. Then looking up
she said with a piteous quiver at the corners
of her mouth, " I say, Isabel, you don't really
think he will sack me, do you ?"

"Just as likely as not," returned Miss
Jones, lugubriously.

" The doctor ordered mother strengthen-
ing jelly yesterday," said Peggy, and a tear
fell on to the envelope she was directing.
She hastily wiped it off with her handker-
chief, but another and another followed, and
at length the girl leaned back in her chair
crying silently.

" Don't fret," said Lucy ; " I am sure you

MADAME LEROUX. 263

are too useful to be sent away. Think how
much work you do for such little pay ! "

"Ah, but there's lots ready to do it for
less, Miss Smith," sobbed poor Peggy, whose
emotion became more uncontrolled at the
sound of the kind word. " That is true,
though he says it ! It's awful to think how
little a girl can earn for working her life out.
It would be hard to stay over hours because
of mother ; but that would be better than
losing it altogether."

" I know what riled him," observed Isabel
Jones, nodding her head slowly, as she tossed
an envelope into the basket.

" Oh, so do I," said Peggy, with a couple
of quick answering nods. " I can see through
him well enough — with his mean, paltry,
nasty, envious disposition."

"What was it?" asked Lucy, wonder-
ingly.

"You," answered Isabel.

« I !__/ offended him ? How ? "

" Oh, because you're a lady ! " said Peggy,
vehemently. " Because he knows you can't
help looking down on him though you are so

264

MADAME LEROUX.

quiet. That's what riled him to begin with ;
that's at the bottom of his prancing about
like a mad bull, and being so outrageous all
this week."

"You don't seriously suppose that the
man threatened you as he did simply because
/ had annoyed him — unconsciously, Heaven
knows ! " exclaimed Lucy, with a shocked,
anxious face.

"Oh, don't you vex yourself, Miss
Smith," said Peggy. " You can't help it ; it
isn't your fault if he's a mean, spiteful,
venomous low-bred cockatrice ! "

"Shut up, Peggy. He's coming back,"
said Isabel Jones, huskily.

And the next moment they heard Mr.
Didear's footsteps returning down the
stairs.

He entered the room with a frown on his
face, evidently intended to strike awe, and
began at once in a more bullying tone than
usual.

" Miss Smith, I forgot just now to point
out to you that you are guilty of some
impropriety in your speaking to me." Here

MADAME LEROUX. 265

he paused ; but, as Lucy merely looked at
him without answering, he proceeded : " You
say 'Yes' or 'No,' in a manner I'm not
accustomed to."

Here he paused again ; and Lucy said,
" I assure you I have no idea what you
mean ; I thought you expressly desired me
to answer ' Yes 'or ' No ' ! "

Didear grew red, and the veins of his
forehead swelled with anger as he ex-
claimed—

"Very well, Miss Smith — very fine! I
suppose you consider that witty ! But I look
upon it as impertinence — downright imperti-
nence! You ought to say 'Yes, sir,' and
' No, sir' That is what I'm accustomed to,
and what I will have from you, so long as
you're my paid servant. Do you hear ? "

" I hear," said Lucy, fronting him like an
image of astonishment.

" Then you'll be good enough to obey
orders. I don't know what you may be
outside of this house, and I don't care. You
may be as good as me, for all I know. But
inside these doors you're my paid servant,

266 MADAME LEROUX.

and you'll behave as such. I'll have no
yessing and noing from my employees, so
don't try it on."

"If you please, sir," began Peggy, red-
nosed and tearful, but with the ghost of her
native vivacity asserting itself indefinably
through all, " I've been thinking it over, and
if it will be a convenience to you I will stay
overtime this week and next."

" No you don't, Miss Barton ! You've
given your answer, and you'll just stick to it,
and so shall I." And with an impartial scowl
all round, Professor Tudway Didear once
more departed.

There was silence, only broken by the
busy pens and the cold-blooded tick-tack of
the clock. Lucy's pen was not busy. She
sat as if she were positively benumbed with
astonishment — pondering if it were not all an
ugly dream. " Do you think," she said at
length, "that the man can be in his right
mind?"

"In his right mind ! " repeated Miss
Jones, slowly. " Laws, yes ! He's making
heaps and heaps of money."

MADAME LEROUX. 267

" I don't wonder at your feeling like that,
Miss Smith," said Peggy, her speech broken
by struggling with sniffs and sobs. " People
talk about something being too good to be
true. I dare say you fancied old Diddleum
was too bad to be true. But it's my — my
belief that nothing's too bad to be true of
men. They're ever such cruel bullies. Why
mother — nobody knows what mother went
through when I was little, with father
pounding her to a jelly and pawning the
blankets off her bed in the middle of winter !
He killed himself with drink at last ; and
moth — mother tried to keep him from it. /
wouldn't ! I'd have poured it down his throat
in the middle of the night, and mixed hen-
bane, or lucifers, or something with it to
make it act the quicker ! "

"My father isn't like that," said Isabel
Jones, whose strong point was certainly not
quickness of sympathy. "He belongs to
the Blue Ribbon, and goes to Ebenezer of a
Sunday."

Lucy's mind was in a tumult. Meekness,
as we know, was not among the most pro-

268

MADAME LEROUX.

minent of her virtues ; and righteous disgust
and indignation were now boiling within her.
For some time her strongest desire was to
inform Mr. Tudway Didear in brief and
cutting phrase that she intended at once
to leave his house and never return to
it. But as she bent over her writing,
mechanically copying out the same words
over and over again, and catching a
side glimpse, whenever she looked up, of
Peggy Barton's tear - stained and rueful
visage, an impulse grew and gathered force
in her mind, until it was no longer to be
resisted.

When six o'clock struck, she laid down
her pen, pushed aside her papers, and, rising
up, walked towards the door.

There was an unusual light in her eyes,
which both the other girls noticed. Neither
of them spoke until she had her hand on the
lock of the door, when Peggy said in a low,
awe-stricken voice, "You haven't got your
hat on, Miss Smith."

"I am going," said Lucy, resolutely, "to
speak to Mr. Tudway Didear."

MADAME LEROUX. 269

She went up the kitchen stairs with a
quick, steady step, and into the hall. Here
she paused. Her knowledge of the house
comprised only the big, gorgeous waiting-
room, now empty and deserted, and the
operating room on the other side of the hall.
Where to find Mr. Didear, she was alto-
gether uncertain. " I will find him," she
said, uttering the words to herself in a
whisper. " It matters nothing what such a
man thinks of me. But that poor thing—
Suddenly the brum-brum of the violoncello
sounded from a little back parlour behind
the waiting-room. Without a moment's
hesitation Lucy opened the door, and
walked in.

There sat Mr. Tudway Didear attired in
a dark flannel dressing-gown, with his violon-
cello between his knees and a music-stand
in front of him. The room was extremely
hot, for gas was flaring in a chandelier sus-
pended from the ceiling, and a red fire
glowing in the grate. On a cushion in front
of the fire lay a huge Persian cat, luxuriously
stretching herself in the warmth, and

270 MADAME LEROUX.

emitting a deep, purring sound as if in
emulation of the violoncello.

To say that Mr. Didear was surprised
when he beheld Lucy standing in the door-
way would be but faintly to describe his
sensations. An expression alnjost of alarm
passed over his face. Miss Smith's eyes
were very bright and her countenance was
full of excitement — albeit excitement of a
subdued and concentrated kind. No doubt
she was in a furious temper. He had
noticed her quick, angry flush, and the
sparkle in her eyes when he spoke down-
stairs. He rather enjoyed seeing them then,
since tryanny would be but a flat business
unless one's victims were sensitive to it.
But Mr. Didear was one of those persons
who require an audience of two or three for
the sustainment of their powers. He was
occasionally liable to be cowed or quelled in
a tete-a-tete.

He stared at Lucy without uttering a
word. But she was too much absorbed in
an inward vision that urged her on, to care
for that. Indeed, she was scarcely conscious

MADAME LEROUX. 271

of his looks. She closed the door behind
her, and advancing a few steps into the room
until she stood opposite to his chair, said,

" I am come to beg something of you."

If before she spoke Mr. Didear's feeling
had been astonishment, it might now be
described as stupefaction. His jaw almost
dropped as he continued to stare at her.

" I came to beg/' pursued Lucy, with
intense eagerness, " that you will reassure
that poor little Miss Barton. She is in
great distress. She thinks you are angry
with her. You don't know, perhaps, that
she has a sick mother whom she works for.
I am sure you do not mean to send her
away. But she is afraid. If you would only
say a word it would lighten her heart. Oh !
and I meant to say — perhaps I ought to
have begun with that — that if my mode of
speaking gave you any offence it was quite
involuntary. I didn't intend to annoy you.
I will call you ' sir.' I will try to remem-
ber it."

The dentist's thoughts had been active
while Lucy was speaking. He had no

272 MADAME LEROUX.

immediate intention of discharging Peggy
Barton, who worked well and understood his
requirements. But Peggy Barton's going or
staying was not important. Miss Smith, on
the other hand, had made herself valuable
to him already. He had thought of includ-
ing some correspondence — the writing of
notes to make appointments with certain of
his more distinguished patients, and so forth
— in her extra work on the Saturday evening
when she would be alone. He was quite
aware that her style of writing such notes
would be superior to Peggy Barton's, or
even, probably, to that of Miss Saunders,
his much-enduring private secretary. He
had expected when he first saw Miss Smith
abruptly enter the room to hear her announce
angrily that she was going to leave him. It
was certainly agreeable to him to find that
her errand was so totally different a one,
and the revulsion of feeling carried him
even beyond the point of his habitual
insolence.

"Are you aware," said he, addressing
her from his chair, while she stood before

MADAME LEROUX. 273

him, "that you have taken a most un-
common liberty in coming in here ? "

" I am very sorry ," began Lucy,

pressing her hands tightly together.
He interrupted her.

"It's no good being very sorry ! — you
must not do this kind of thing! — marching
about as if the house belonged to you !
None of my omployees have ever ventured
to think of such a thing."

Lucy stood still, with downcast eyes and
changing colour ; and she kept repeating to
herself, " Peggy's poor sick mother," to keep
down the indignant words quivering on her
lips.

" Pray, did Miss Barton ask you to come
and speak for her ? "

" Miss Barton knows nothing about it ;
indeed, no one knows what I came for."

" Well, I will say for Miss Barton, that
I don't believe she would ever have ventured
to intrude upon me in this way."

<l She is very much afraid of you,"
answered Lucy.

Perhaps she could have said nothing
VOL. n. 38

274

MADAME LEROUX.

more likely to propitiate Didear on Peggy's
behalf, but the words had been uttered
without calculation.

" And you, I suppose," returned Mr.
Didear, with his fullest bullying voice, " are
afraid of nobody ! "

Lucy was silent for a moment ; then she
said, quietly, " I should be afraid to lose my
employment if I had a sick mother depen-
dent on it for her comfort, as Miss Barton
has. I think one is always more afraid for
others than for oneself."

This certainly was a most singular young
woman ! And her submission did not for a
moment deceive him as to her real attitude
of mind towards herself. He was inwardly
convinced that even if she sank on her knees
before him, she would in reality be looking
down on him, not up to him. But, at all
events, he might make the others believe
that he had subdued her pride, whatever
his own secret conviction on the subject
might be.

" I shall expect you," he said, with a
terrier-like shake of the head, "to repeat to

MADAME LEROUX. 275

me to-morrow in the writing-room, and in the
presence of Miss Jones and Miss Barton,
your apology for speaking disrespectful."

" Then," said Lucy, looking sraight at
him, with a glance which she flattered herself
was very calm, but which Didear felt to be
mysteriously scorching, " I may tell Peggy
Barton you don't mean to send her away ? "

" I don't know anything of Peggys or
Pollys. I am not so familiar with my
omployees as you seem to be. As to Miss
Barton, I have no intention of parting with
her at present. If I had, nothing you could
say would hinder it, I can tell you. And
now perhaps you'll be good enough to with-
draw— and sharp, too. Don't open the door
wide, and shut it quick behind you. My cat
feels the cold."

When Lucy ran down the kitchen stairs,
she found Isabel and Peggy cloaked and
hatted, ready to go away, but lingering with
irrepressible curiosity to know something of
Miss Smith's interview with Didear. "Are
you going away, Miss Smith ? Have you
given him notice ? " asked Peggy wistfully.

276 MADAME LEROUX.

" No ; I am not going, and neither are
you," answered Lucy smiling, and patting
the girl's shoulder. " He says he has no
intention of parting with you."

" No ! " exclaimed Peggy, clasping her
hands and making her eyes very round.

" Now, then, ain't you young ladies
pretty near ready to be off ? " said Mrs.
Parntt's voice from the kitchen. " The
Professor'll cut up very rough if the gas is
burning there after you've done work."

The three girls hurried out ; and Lucy
parted with the other two, as usual, at the
corner of the street

" Oh, ain't I just thankful ! " said Peggy
to her friend as they walked quickly
along.

" I dare say he knows well enough he
can't get girls to do the work we do at any
moment," observed Miss Jones, with some
inconsistency, seeing that she had previously
pronounced it likely enough Peggy should
be discharged.

" Don't you believe it ! " said the more
enerous-minded Peggy. " It's Miss Smith's

MADAME LEROUX. 277

doing. I'd lay my life it is. She's a regular
angel ; and mother'll say so too."

When Lucy reached the house in Great
Portland Street, she found Fatima alone in
the drawing-room ; and, the moment she had
entered it, Fatima ran to see that the door
was quite shut, and then said, in a low,
mysterious tone, " Oh, Lucy, such dreadful
news ! Old Clampitt has bolted ! "

This announcement in itself conveyed
nothing very harrowing to Lucy's appre-
hension. But she perceived that worse
remained behind. And yet Fatima's manner,
though emphatic, and almost tragical, in-
describably conveyed the idea that she was,
on the whole, rather enjoying herself.

" What has he run away for ? " asked
Lucy

" Hush ! It's all up with Millamint. At
least, Marie says she is sure of it ; and even
Uncle Adolphe is down, down, down in his
boots. That old wretch ! " continued Fatima,
stamping her foot. "If he only had had
courage to stand firm a few weeks, Uncle
Adolphe is certain it would all have turned

278 MADAME LEROUX.

out splendidly. But old Clampitt" (with
another stamp) " was terrified at the first
little cloud in the sky. And he's as rich !—
but he has bolted, put himself and his hoards
out of reach, and ruined everything ! "

" Where is Mr. Hawkins ?"

" Hush ! Uncle Adolphe is on his way
to Brussels. What would be the good of his
staying to be a victim when old Clampitt is
safe in America, or somewhere ? "

" And your cousin ?"

Fatima put her lips close to the other
girl's ear. " Packing up her jewellery," she
whispered.

" Oh ! " exclaimed Lucy, trembling as a
new and terrible idea rushed into her mind.
" But shall you — shall you all go away ? "

"It is not certain, but — Zephany is to
bring word this evening what is being said
in the City. If things look very bad, Marie
and I must start for Paris to-morrow."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CAROLINE LEROUX debated long and
anxiously within herself, as to how she
should approach Rushmere.

Had he been in town, she could have
found, or made, opportunities of meeting
him. She would have preferred that this
meeting should appear to come about by
chance. But the chance seemed remote.
And the more she meditated, the stronger
grew her desire to see him again — to test
her power ; to win back some part of her
old empire over him.

She did not desire, nor expect, to re-
suscitate the passion of their youth. That
lay in ashes. But she did desire to use
some influence over this man, and to assure
herself of the possibility of help from him ;
[ 279 ]

280

MADAME LEROUX.

feeling that the need of help approached
more surely day by day.

Her memory of Rushmere's nature
taught her that the chord to touch in him
was generosity. She would win compassion
from his chivalry, though tenderness might
be dead. And then admiration would come
back. Caroline intended to be pitied admir-
ingly. There should be no condescension
in the feeling she would inspire.

She had lost little of her beauty ; and
she had gained in self-possession, in insight
into the character and motives of others.
She was more brilliant, more attractive,
better able to charm the intellect and sway
the feelings of such a man as Ralph Rush-
mere, than she had been when he knew her
years ago, as an impulsive, inexperienced
girl.

Love, indeed — that was different ! But
love did not enter into the thought of her
future relations with Rushmere. If love
were recalled at all between them, it must
be only as the faint perfume of dried rose-
leaves suggests the fresh-blown rose— a

MADAME LEROUX. 281

perfume that could not be, unless the rose
were dead.

She had no doubt of her power to be
supremely interesting to him. She was not,
she told herself, one of those dull women
whose vanity blinds them to the vanity of
others. She would use Rushmere's self-
esteem, not stupidly ignore it. He could
not be drawn by vulgar, childish flattery,
such as would succeed with Frampton Fen-
nell or Harrington Jersey. But, neverthe-
less, there must be, she did not doubt, some
sort of flattery which wrould be sweet to
him — perhaps the flattery of assuming that
he despised flattery !

It was inevitable that she should think
of him only in relation to herself; all her
cleverness could not prevent her from attri-
buting to herself an exaggerated importance
in his life. Only the higher wisdom, in
which sympathy overpowers egoism, can
save us from such errors.

After much inward debate, which took
the form of a series of imaginary interviews,
in which she and Rushmere played now one

282 MADAME LEROUX.

part and now another, she resolved to write
to him. She procured from Zephany the
address of Rushmere's London bankers, who
would forward letters to him ; and this is
what she wrote : —

' ' I am Caroline Graham.

" I begin thus to secure your attention,
and because the signature at the end of this
letter would otherwise be meaningless to
you.

" I have learnt accidentally that you are
in England. For a long time I thought you
were dead ; the report came from India that
you had been disabled by a severe accident,
which was expected to terminate fatally.

" Something like a thick, chill curtain of
fog seemed to hide all your life from me
when I tried to picture it in the present. I
did try, but my imagination of you could live
only in the past ; the rest was blank. Had
I done the best for you, after all ? Since
you were destined to die in your youth, had
we not better .have snatched that present
happiness which seemed within our reach ?

MADAME LEROUX. 283

It was not within our reach — it never had
been. In my heart I always knew that ;
and you, too, must see it now. But I was
very young still, and I suffered bitterly.

" Well, I have survived it, and my life
has not been all miserable. I only tell you
these things, as briefly and baldly as I can,
so as to link what I have to say now on
to that past time. What I have now to say
is this — Will you come and see me ?

" I heard your name mentioned by
chance the other day, and the sound seemed
to pierce me ; and yet afterwards I rejoiced.
I rejoiced to know that you were still on
this planet ; that you were in England ; that
the world had gone well with you. And
part of my rejoicing — you know I never
loved pretences — arose from the selfish
satisfaction of feeling that I was justified —
I had done rightly, then! That much, at
least, was clear. The romantic young love
must, in any case, have burnt itself out ;
but I had saved it from making a bonfire
of all other good things in life.

" Friendship is — not better ; a peach is

284 MADAME LEROUX.

more delicious than wheaten bread, but one
cannot live on peaches. But friendship is
dear. And friendships are no more all alike
than faces are. Ours should have a tender-
ness in it beyond the common. Do you
believe that ' a sorrow's crown of sorrow is
remembering happier things ? ' No ; that
remembrance of happier things alone makes
some sorrows endurable.

" But I would not have you suppose that
I have become a weakly wailing, feebly
sentimental, woman. I am the Caroline of
old in some respects, chiefly, perhaps, in this :
that if I am struck sharply, fire glances out,
not tears. The tears, if they come, flow
from a deeper spring, and — mostly — under-
ground.

" Will you come to me ? I tell you
frankly that I wish it very much.

" CAROLINE G. LEROUX."

" Within a week," she thought, " I shall
have an answer. Perhaps the answer will
be his coming himself."

From the moment of despatching her

MADAME LEROUX 285

letter, she was possessed with a nervous
anxiety as to the answer. She started at
every knock at the door, and her hand
trembled when she received her correspond-
ence from the servant every morning. She
was astonished at herself. Her cynical, care-
less self-possession seemed to have deserted
her. Her days were haunted by the ghost
of her youth. She, who had despised vain
regrets, and had boasted to Zephany that
she was not the woman to bewail the past
in a litany of " if's," now found herself
musing by the hour on what might have
been !

Etienne Leroux was sinking fast. Rapid
consumption had declared itself. And this
illness was a constant claim on her, to which
it was not always possible to respond. As
it was, she felt the business of the school
slipping from her grasp. She was less there
than she ought to have been ; and when
attempting to perform her duties, would be
seized with fits of absence and inattention
which it was impossible wholly to conceal
from the quick eyes around her. Fraulein

286 MADAME LEROUX.

Schulze was staunch and steady, but Fraulein
Schulze could not replace Madame.

Madame was conscious of her own
supremacy, and enjoyed it. For years she
had felt something of the pleasure of a con-
summate actress in playing her part in the
school. But now it was all wearisome — a
heavy burthen which irked her.

The clutch of a dying hand had seized
her with an egoism more fierce and more
intense than her own. There was no affec-
tion in its eager clinging, but it wrung her
heart with an aching pity. Etienne had no
one but her to look to ; no one !

And yet there had been another helpless
life once, with a higher claim on her, which
she had shaken off with small compunction.
Caroline Leroux had been hard, and false,
and cruel to those who merited nothing but
good at her hands. This wretched Etienne
was a poorer, narrower, lower creature than
she was ; he clung to her, and she pitied him.
Between two unequal natures, toleration,
compassion, beneficence — if they exist at all
— will flow from the higher to the lower, and

MADAME LEROUX. 287

not otherwise. And, partly, Etienne's frank,
unscrupulous, stupid selfishness conquered
hers, as it had done in the early days of their
marriage.

She supplied him liberally with money, of
which he was wantonly lavish ; but that was
the easiest part of her task. It was not
judged prudent to remove him from his
lodgings in Soho, nor did he desire it. He
had never expressed a wish to go away, ex-
cept once, when, during a whole week, he
had moaned to be taken to Naples. Let
them carry him to Naples! If he could
reach Naples, he should be able to breathe
freely ; he should recover. It was noticeable
that he never spoke of Paris, of his father, or
his family there. Old Jacopo Rossi was still
living, a vigorous man of seventy ; and there
were sisters, too, married in France. But he
mentioned none of them.

Caroline had written to his father, telling
him of Etienne's state, and the old man had
answered her. What could he do ? he asked.
Etienne had gone his own way, and lived
his own life. Jacopo had no assistance to

288

MADAME LEROUX.

give him. He should rather have expected
assistance from his son. Nevertheless, if
Etienne wished to see him, and Madame
would forward the railway fare, Jacopo Rossi
would come to England. But Etienne did
not wish to see him. He revolted against
any hint that his life was menaced, and
repelled the suggestion of his father's visit
with anger.

Every day, and sometimes twice a day,
Caroline went to the old house in a dark
narrow street, where her husband lay dying,
surely — but oh, how slowly ! It might last for
many months yet, this waning of a vitality
which flickered up now and again, filling the
dying man with false hopes, and a fictitious,
momentary strength. His room was abund-
antly decorated with flowers ; food and wine
of the choicest were supplied to him ; and, for
the rest, whatever could be done, was done.
He was faithfully waited on by old Jeanne
Montondon ; and her son came in to look
after him whenever he could spare time from
his business at the eating-house. Bcoks were
utterly distasteful to him. His sole amuse-

MADAME LEROUX. 289

ments consisted in an occasional game of
dominoes with some shabby fellow-country-
man, who submitted to be snarled and sworn
at for the sake of the glass of good wine which
Etienne was able to dispense to his visitors ;
and in the conversation of some underling at
the Italian Opera, who would retail to him
the latest green-room gossip, and listen to the
vaunting narrative — interrupted by racking
fits of coughing — of his own success when,
per Dio ! his voice and style had been un-
matched in Europe.

While Caroline remained with him, he
was usually tranquil. But as the moment of
her departure approached he became rest-
lessly irritable ; and either insisted, with
feeble fury, that she should stay, or implored
it with fretful moans and reproaches. Daily
she had to endure this painful parting scene.
Consideration for her — self-restraint for her
sake — were no more to be expected from
Etienne than from a sick tiger.

All this told upon her health, fine though
it was. She watched herself anxiously in the
glass, and fancied she saw her cheek grow
VOL. ii. 39

290 MADAME LEROUX.

hollow, and lines come across her forehead.
Sometimes she resolved to give herself a
respite from those dreadful visits to Soho ;
and yet the next summons from Etienne was
at once complied with. If she refused to go,
his querulous voice rang in her ears, and she
saw the haggard entreaty in his large dark
eyes — those eyes which had once so charmed
her, but behind whose soft lustre, as she had
learned to know, there dwelt a nature harder
than the nether millstone.

This double life had been going on for
some two months, when Madame Leroux
wrote to Rushmere. And now her thoughts
were busy, night and day, with the expecta-
tion of his answer. Almost as Etienne
clung to her, so she seemed to cling to
Rushmere. She was greedy to have admir-
ation, influence, companionship once more.
And she yearned for a strong arm to lean
on — a faithful heart to take counsel with.
She could not strike down the dying hand
that clutched her ; but sometimes she felt, in
these days, as if its touch were draining
away her life.

MADAME LEROUX. 291

At length it came, the expected letter.
She recognised it at once. She could have
picked it out from a thousand. It was
written on blue-tinted office paper, in the
round, boyish hand she knew ; only some-
what closer and more cramped than in the
old time.

She rlew upstairs to her own room, with
a step as swift and light as that of the
youngest schoolgirl in the house. She
locked her door, drew her easy-chair close to
the window, and tore open the envelope.
But then, before beginning to read, she
paused a moment with her hand pressed on
her heart.

" How it beats !" she whispered. " Dieu !
I am losing my nerve altogether ! I used to
think it impossible that my courage could
ever break down. And it was not for want
of being tried, either ! "

Then she unfolded the letter, and read : —

" I do not see what good end could be
answered by our meeting. At first I thought
I would not answer your letter. But as you

292 MADAME LEROUX.

are under much misapprehension about me, I
have resolved to state my view of the case
plainly, and save you from further attempts
to delude me, or yourself. You have written
what you think I believe, or what you wish
me to believe. I will tell you what I know.

" You say events have justified your
conduct. Nothing can justify it so long a3
right and wrong and dark and light can be
distinguished one from the other.

" I loved you with all my heart and soul.
I loved you so that to lose you nearly broke
my heart. When I was forced to join my
corps in India I urged you to come with me.
You refused. You gave reasons which
seemed good and prudent. I acquiesced. I
would send for you as soon as I knew
precisely what my plans and prospects were.
I wrote to you within a fortnight of my
arrival in India, and I sent you my uncle's
letter. He was displeased at my intention
of marrying you — foolishly and unreasonably
displeased, because his only ground of dis-
pleasure was that you were a penniless
dependent. He gave me my choice between

MADAME LEROUX. 293

inheriting his wealth and giving you up, or
marrying you and having a hundred a year
settled on me at once with no hope of future
assistance from him. I did not balance an
instant. There was no merit in that. Apart
from my love, with the tie there was between
us, I should have been a cold, selfish villain
to hesitate. What was poverty, what was
struggle, if we could be together ? And I
had the less self-reproach in asking you to
share my life, because I should be taking
you from a home where — you had told me
so a hundred times — your proud spirit was
constantly chafed and hurt.

" I wrote to you with a heart as full of
love and truth and trust as man ever offered
to woman, and how did you answer me ?•

" You ' felt that we had been led away
by foolish passion ; ' you ' must be wise for
both ; ' such poverty as we had to face was
' the worst sort of poverty, a wretched
struggle to keep up appearances.' In short,
you were admirably prudent, wonderfully
wise !

" Still I did not disbelieve in your

294 MADAME LEROUX.

affection for me even then. How could I
disbelieve in it ? I thought you were
romantically and mistakenly sacrificing your-
self to what you thought my worldly welfare.
I wrote again and again. I offered to leave
the army, and to emigrate to Australia,
where I had friends who would help me to
find employment. We should have where-
withal to live until I could earn a fortune for
you. Have you forgotten all that I said ?
Perhaps ; but I remember every word of it.
I, you see, was in earnest.

" At length my importunity tired you I
received my last letter back again. You
had written on it ' This must cease.'

" At first I was bewildered — almost
stunned — but a light was soon shed on your
motive for treating me so.

" A man arrived from England who
knew Lord Grimstock's family. When he
found that I knew them also, he told me
that they were in great trouble because the
second son, Hubert Gaunt, was bent on marry-
ing a little girl who was his sister's protegee
and paid companion. The girl was despe-

MADAME LEROUX. 295

rately fond of him, and Lady Grimstock, one
of the proudest women in England, was
almost beside herself. The matter was
spoken of half-jestingly, as a piece of idle
gossip.

l< But to me it was a revelation. I was
shaken roughly and thoroughly out of my
fool's paradise. A hundred circumstances
which had seemed strange and unaccountable
to me when I was in England, were ex-
plained in one flash. All your love for
me, your protestations, your caresses, had

been Well, I did not mean to touch upon

your feelings. You might plead and per-
suade, and argue about them. But facts are
too strong for you. My letter sent back
with those cruel words written across it — my
letter is a fact. I have not looked at it
again from the day it reached me. It would
be like rousing up a venomous snake to sting
me. But I have it. It cannot be explained
away.

" For a long time I was almost mad with
misery. When the accident happened which
disabled me, I hoped it would kill me. But

296

MADAME LEROUX.

I lived. And the far deeper wound you
gave me, healed too ; but not so quickly.

" I made up my mind to write to you
fully and plainly, once for all : not from
cruelty— I do not wish to hurt you (if any
words of mine could hurt you) — but to con-
vince you that you cannot deceive or cajole
me any more. I had heard of you as being
brilliant, admired, and among the gayest of
the gay, when I little guessed who was the
woman so described.

" For the sake of the lost love of my
youth, my Caroline, whose name you bear —
you were never that dear girl, I would have

died for I am glad to know that you

are not in poverty.

" Knowing this makes it easier to say
that I will never willingly see you again.
" RALPH RUSHMERE."

Caroline lay back in her chair in a sort of
stupor ; but a stupor in which suffering was
active, although the power of thought seemed
steeped in a helpless lethargy. Every fibre
of her vanity and proud self-confidence

MADAME LEROUX. 297

quivered like a bruised surface roughly
handled, as certain passages in Rushmere's
letter repeated themselves over and over
again in her brain.

The sense of repulse was sickening. But
it was not defeat. It should not be defeat.

As she began to recover from the first
shock, the most distinct sensation in her
mind was a passionate desire to vanquish
him. He would never willingly see her
more ? Then he should see her unwillingly.
She would make him sue to her. She would
bring him to her at any cost. He might
reproach her, rage against her, hate her — no
matter! Anything would be better than
beating herself against this hard indifference,
this frozen contempt.

" Oh ! " she cried, starting up and pressing
her hands against her temples, as she began
to pace up and down the room, "that he
should write so to me — to me ! " She tore
and twisted at the handkerchief in her hand,
in a paroxysm of passionate resentment.
" But if he has made me suffer, he shall
suffer more."

298 MADAME LEROUX.

At that moment she was wholly possessed
by the burning- desire to conquer Rush-
mere's resolution to avoid her. Let him
but come — let him but see her, and hear
her voice again, he should not long- main-
tain that calm, superior attitude of steadfast
disapproval.

She rushed to her writing-desk, and
wrote :—

"You must speak with me — if not as a
friend, then as an enemy : what you will.
But I have something to tell you that you
must hear — something that concerns not only
you and me, but another. I am tied here by
attendance on a sick and dying man, or I
would go to you wherever you might choose
to appoint. You will not, I presume, doubt
that what I have to say is urgent, since, in
order to say it, I force my unwelcome
presence on you. In the catalogue of my
basenesses which you treasure in your
memory, there cannot, at least, be included
a servile readiness to fawn upon the hand
that lashes me. — C. G. L."

MADAME LEROUX. 299

Later on in the same day she wrote
another letter, and desired that the reply
should be addressed, under cover, to " Mon-
sieur Louis Montondon, Restaurant du Mont
Blanc, Soho."

She had not committed herself to any-
thing, she reflected, by writing that letter.
But she would gather up the scattered
strands of her history, so as to hold them in
her own hand, and have power to guide
events as she might hereafter see fit. If she
trembled inwardly as to the result of this
return upon her past, no one would know it ;
and at least it would give her a hold upon
Rushmere which he would not find it easy to
shake off.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE collapse of " Millamint " was disastrous
and complete. Whether any large sums
could ever have been realised by the
original promoters of the Company was
doubtful. But Mr. Clampitt's defection
had, at any rate, destroyed all chance of
that.

As to the Hawkins's, although they
bemoaned themselves loudly, and inveighed
against Clampitt, their case did not appear to
any of their friends to be one which called
for deep compassion. To most persons who
knew them, the ebbing of the tide after high
water did not appear more certain than the
overthrow, sooner or later, of all Adolphus'
speculations.

Nor, in fact, were the Hawkins's them-
[300]

MADAME LEROUX. 301

selves by any means in such low spirits as
their utterances might seem to indicate.
They had but to strike their tents like the
gipsies, and remove to some new camping-
ground where the neighbouring hen-houses
might perhaps be better stocked, or worse
guarded ; and where, at all events, they
might reckon on baked hedgehog, and free
pasturage in some one else's meadow for the
ponies of the caravan.

Lucy remarked with amazement that
Mrs. Hawkins wore the same indescribable
air of enjoying herself, which she had ob-
served in Fatima when she first announced
the news.

"Well, Miss Smith, what did I tell you ?"
said Marie, coming downstairs with a card-
board box full of jewels in her hand. " I
knew Adolphe was too sanguine all along.
If he had but invested my dot in Govern-
ment securities, or secured it to me by means
of trustees, I should now be in a very
different position."

" But Uncle Adolphe would have been
all right if it had not been for that wretch

302

MADAME LEROUX.

Clampitt! It's all his fault," cried Fatima,
folding her arms tragically.

" Oh, pour <^a — oui ! Le vieux Clampitt
is an imbecile. And fancy, Fatima, Adolphe
has left his silver cigar-case behind him after
all ! I reminded him to put it in the pocket
•of his paletot. But he was so upset that he
thought of nothing."

Lucy could not but gather some hope
from the serenity of Mrs. Hawkins's face
and manner. Things could not, surely, have
com&y:o such an extremity as that Mrs.
Hawkins would be obliged to fly from her
home ! - The question was a burning one for
Lucy. If Mrs. Hawkins and Fatima went
away, what was to become of her ? She had
still some pounds of the money refunded
by Madame Leroux, and there was the
pittance she earned, enough to give her
bread. But where could she find a refuge if
these people, her only friends in the wide
world of London, went away ?

When she spoke to Fatima she found
that the subject, had already been discussed
in her absence.

MADAME LEROUX. 303

" Marie spoke to Zephany," said Fatima.
" And he said he would make some inquiries
for some place, some lodging where you
would be safe for a time. It might be a
very humble place, but—

"It must be a very humble place! I
can afford to pay for no other. I should be
very grateful to Mr. Zephany if he would
—Oh, Fatima, what will become of me if
you go away ? I shall be so desolate ! "
And the poor child burst into tears.

Fatima, from whom the ruin of Millamint
and its attendant disasters had not drawn a
tear, immediately began to cry too, from
sympathy. And Mrs. Hawkins, presently
entering the room, found them sobbing
together.

But Marie was not going to join in their
sobs. She mildly reproved them, with a
placid smile, for being so childish, and at
once offered a practical suggestion. Was
there not, perhaps, some young ^ woman
among those employed by the dentist, in
whose family Miss Smith could board for a
while if the worst came to the worst ?

304

MADAME LEROUX.

" Oh ! " cried Lucy clasping her hands
together, and looking up quickly through
her tears, " Peggy Barton ! I will ask Peggy
Barton. I am sure she will help me if she
can. I wonder I did not think of her
befc-e."

" Voila ! You see it is much better to
think over things quietly than to cry — riesi-
ce-pas? Let me see," pulling out an
enamelled bijou watch, the product of
popular confidence in British Tea — " it is
now barely half-past seven. I think you
had better go to this young person at once.
We don't know what may happen to-
morrow. Do you know where she lives ? "

Lucy did not know, beyond the fact that
it was not very far from Oxford Street !
But she had no doubt she could get the
address from Mrs. Parfitt, Mr. Tudway
Didear's cook. While she was speaking
they heard the sound of a latch-key in the
hall door, and Zephany came in.

He went up at once to Mrs. Hawkins,
and said something to her in a low tone, of
which Lucy could not help hearing the

MADAME LEROUX. 305

words, " execution in the house," and " Clam-
pitt's liabilities." Marie listened, nodding
her head gently from time to time, as if she
were hearing the expected confirmation of
an opinion she had long maintained ; but
without the smallest manifestation of dis-
tress. When he had finished, she said
aloud. " Thanks so much, Zephany. Now
I want to tell you what we have been
thinking of for Miss Smith."

Zephany at once approved the idea of
applying to Peggy Barton and her mother.
Peggy's name was familiar to them all ; for
Lucy had been in the habit of talking over
her daily adventures at the dentist's, and
relieving her spirits by dwelling on the
comic side of them to sympathetic listeners.

" Well," said Zephany, " you had better
see these people to-night. Lose not a
moment. If you allow me, Mademoiselle,
I will accompany you at once. I will get
a cab" (which word Zephany always pro-
nounced keb : his linguistic abilities break-
ing down at the attempt to reproduce the
short English a !)

VOL. n. 40

306 MADAME LEROUX.

" Oh, it is good of you, Mr. Zephany !
But-

" Mademoiselle," returned Zephany, se-
verely, "it is not from you that I expected
to hear that word. ' But' is for imbeciles."

" My ' but ' only referred to my unwilling-
ness to trouble you," said Lucy, smiling
faintly, and rising from her chair to get
ready. " Oh, I know you will not be
thanked ! but you can't help my feeling
grateful ! "

Fatima pleaded to be allowed to go too,
and the two girls left the room together.
As soon as they were gone, Zephany said
to Mrs. Hawkins —

"It is better that I go and see these
Bartons. From what Miss Smith says, I
believe they are good people, and to be
trusted ; but, although she is full of intel-
ligence, she is young and inexperienced. /
shall see what they are at a glance — in one
flash ! " opening his eyes wide for a moment,
and raising and lowering his eyebrows
rapidly.

Then Lucy and Fatima came downstairs,

MADAME LEROUX. 307

and all three set off in a cab to Mr. Tudway
Didear's. There they were able, through
the assistance of Mrs. Parfitt, to get Peggy
Barton's address from Miss Saunders, the
"private secretary."

The Bartons, it appeared, lived at no
great distance from Soho Square, and when
the cab stopped at the street and number
indicated, they found themselves in front of
a poor-looking foreign eating-house, bearing
the inscription in tarnished gilt letters,
" Restaurant du Mont Blanc, L. Mon-
tondon."

But there was a side door, with a series
of bell-handles one above the other ; and
above the topmost one was nailed a card,
on which was written, in Peggy's own clerkly
characters, "Mrs. John James Barton. Miss
Barton." The door being open, Zephany
decided that they had better go upstairs
without further ceremony ; that Lucy should
first knock at Mrs. Barton's door, and that
he and Fatima should wait outside on the
landing until they received permission to enter.

As they went along the dimly-lighted

308

MADAME LEROUX.

passage and up the first flight of stairs, the
neighbourhood of the restaurant kitchen
announced itself disagreeably ; but at the
top of the house, where Mrs. Barton lived,
the air was sweeter, and they could see by
the light of a candle stuck in a tin reflector
against the wall, that the floor of the landing
was clean, and that a mat had been laid
before the door. There was also a large
wooden box, which looked like a sea-chest,
standing outside on the landing, apparently
from want of space to stow it within.

On this box Fatima and Zephany at
once seated themselves as nonchalantly as
they would have availed themselves of a
velvet sofa, or a school-bench, or a Turkish
divan, or the Lord Chancellor's woolsack, or
any other sitting accommodation they might
have chanced to find there. While they
were mounting the stairs, Zephany had
whispered that he knew something of the
keeper of the restaurant, whose mother, old
Jeanne, had been employed by Madame
Leroux ; and that the place, though humble,
was respectable.

MADAME LEROUX. 309

" They are rather greedy, hard people —
in brief, Savoyards" said Zephany, uttering
the word with a sort of suppressed snarl,
intended to convey, in a concentrated and
expressive form, his opinion of those hardy
mountaineers. " But, du reste, decent ; and
not thieves."

Their footsteps must have been heard by
those on the other side of the door, for no
sooner had Lucy given a gentle tap than
Miss Peggy Barton appeared, peering out
on to the landing, and holding the door
jealously in her hand, so that nothing was
visible of the interior, except a stream of
ruddy light.

" Does Mrs. Barton live " began

Lucy ; but before she could finish the sen-
tence, Peggy cried, in a tone of joyful
surprise, " Why, it's never you, Miss Smith !
Oh, mother, here's Miss Smith come to see
us ! This is an unexpected pleasure ! Do
please walk in." And Peggy, in her
eagerness, almost pulled Lucy into the
room.

It was a larger room than she had expected.

3io

MADAME LEROUX.

The house was old, and had once been
handsome, and it was planned on a more
ample scale than could have been found in
a modern dwelling of an equally poor
class.

A bright fire was burning in a somewhat
squeezed little grate. The floor was un-
carpeted, but there was a rug made of
fragments of cloth sewn together in front
of the hearth, and beside it, in a big wicker
chair, propped up by cushions, there sat a
small, feeble, pale-faced woman, who bore
the same sort of likeness to Peggy that a
yard of chintz, faded by much wear and the
vicissitudes of many wash-tubs bears to its
fellow newly cut from the same web, and
fresh from the factory.

There was a bed on the side of the
room opposite to the fireplace, and under the
window stood a mysterious piece of furniture,
which turned out on after acquaintance to
be a sofa-bedstead, but which had that
shabby, slinking, almost deprecating look
that may be observed in the human subject
when he has no distinct and recognized

MADAME LEROUX. 311

calling in life, but belongs to the miscel-
laneous class of those supposed to make
themselves " generally useful."

There was a large old-fashioned chest of
drawers between the corner of the room and
the side of the fireplace, opposite to the
wicker chair, and above it were fixed some
deal shelves, decorated with red and gold
paper, whereon were displayed some cups
and saucers, one or two books, a small
workbox, and several large Indian shells.
These, together with an old pocket-compass,
suspended by a green ribbon over the
mantelpiece, a lithograph of Messrs. Macabe
and M 'Coil's magnificent ship Hector, 1,777
tons register, and a panoramic view of the
harbour of Sydney, New South Wales,
seemed to suggest that the late Mr. John
James Barton had been connected with a
seafaring life.

A kettle was singing on the hob, and
tea things were spread on a round table
drawn up by the fire. The mother and
daughter had evidently just finished their
evening meal.

312

MADAME LEROUX.

" Oh, Miss Smith ? I am sure I am

most happy " said Mrs. Barton, in a

faded little voice which seemed to match her
face. "You'll excuse my not rising. I'm a
sad invalid. Peggy, my dear, another cup
and saucer."

Lucy checked these hospitable intentions
by saying that she had come on business.
She would not detain Mrs. Barton long ; but
she had some friends with her. Might they
be allowed to come in ?

Peggy was out on the landing before she
had made an end of her speech, begging
Miss Smith's friends to walk in. She was
evidently much astonished on seeing
Zephany ; and told her mother, afterwards,
that she had little expected to see a black-
bearded foreigner, with an eye that looked
as if it could scorch a hole in a blanket.
But she tried politely to repress all mani-
festations of surprise.

As for Mrs. Barton, she was not only
bewildered, but slightly alarmed, and visibly
shrank away to the farther side of her chair,
when Zephany, bowing, and addressing her

MADAME LEROUX. 313

as " Madame," offered an apology for his
intrusion.

" I'm sure any friend of Miss Smith's — "
quavered Mrs. Barton, feebly ; and then
stopped, unable to say any more.

Fatima meanwhile had perched herself
on the sofa-bedstead, and was smiling and
nodding at Peggy, whom she had seen
before.

Zephany, who took on himself to be
spokesman, told Mrs. Barton that, owing to
the unexpected departure of the lady in
whose house she had been living, Miss
Smith, being a stranger in London, found
herself suddenly in need of a home ; and had
ventured to ask Mrs. Barton if she could
recommend her a respectable family where
she might be received for a time.

" I suppose," said Peggy, in her quick,
impulsive way, " our place would be too poor
for Miss Smith ; else a shake-down here with
us for a time "

" Oh, it is what I should be most thank-
ful for ! " said Lucy. " Pray do not speak of
your home being too poor for me ! I am

MADAME LEROUX.

very poor, and should be grateful if you
would take me in. Only, perhaps," she
added, glancing at Mrs. Barton, " as your
mother is an invalid, it might disturb her to
have a stranger "

"No, that it wouldn't ; would it,
mother ? " burst out Peggy, alert and eager
in a moment. "And, as for accommodation,
there's my little room — the landlord wouldn't
fresh paper us, so I got a bucket of white-
wash and did the walls myself. Poor we
may be ; but dirty, we wouldn't. And there's
that sofa-bedstead — the very thing for me,
and really much handier, being so near to
mother in case she wanted anything in the
night. And, if you'll excuse the light a
moment, I'll show Miss Smith the room, and
she can judge whether she would be able to
put up with it."

Suiting the action to the word, Peggy
snatched up the lamp from the table, and
ushered Lucy into the adjoining room, which
was bare and poor enough, but perfectly
clean, and with a good iron bedstead in it.

Zephany's rapid vehemence being thus

MADAME LEROUX. 315

reinforced by Peggy's kindred quickness,
they whirled poor Mrs. Barton's mind along
with such a sense of breathless swiftness,
that she held on to the arms of her chair, as
though she were afraid of being carried away
bodily. Zephany and Peggy had arranged
everything before the others clearly under-
stood that the negotiation had begun. The
only hitch was as to price ; Peggy demand-
ing half-a-crown a week less than Zephany
thought fair. But he soon settled the matter
by saying in his sternest voice (which made
Mrs. Barton quail among her cushions), " On
our terms, or not at all ! We cannot allow
you to cheat yourself! "

But Peggy only rubbed her hands, and
said, saucily, " You're an uncommonly hard
hand at a bargain, sir ; but I suppose it must
be as you say ! "

Everything being thus agreed upon, even
to the hour at which Lucy was to arrive
at the Bartons' the following afternoon,
Zephany drew off his forces with decisive
rapidity, only pausing to make a speech of
politeness to Mrs. Barton, which made her

MADAME LEROUX.

so nervous that, although her lips were seen
to move faintly, no audible words came from
them.

Lucy, when she reached Great Portland
Street again, felt as though she were in a
dream. But as she entered the house a
letter was handed to her which startled her
into a state of excited emotion.

It was from Edgar Tomline, and informed
her that he had been unable to elicit from old
Mrs. Ellergarth any information as to where
Lucy's mother had gone on leaving Libburn
Farm. " But," he wrote, " what is very
strange is that there is some one inquiring
about you. Mrs. Ellergarth had an anony-
mous letter sent on to her from the present
tenant of Libburn, where it had been
addressed, asking for information about Mr.
and Mrs. Marston who adopted a little girl
between eighteen and nineteen years ago ;
and whether the child was still living."

END OF SECOND VOLUME.

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Second Thoughts.

Belinda.

" Doctor Cupid."

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The Wooing o't.
Her Dearest Foe.
Look Before you Leap.
The Admiral's Ward.
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The House by the Churchyard

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The Last of the Cavaliers.
Sir Charles Danvers.

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Ellen Middleton.

Ladybird.

Too Strange not to be True.

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The ' First Violin.'

Borderland.

Healey.

Kith and Kin.

Probation.

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An Ugly Duckling.

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Comin' thro' the Rye.
Sam's Sweetheart.

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Adam and Eve.
Dorothy Fox.

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The Initials.
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George Geith of Fen Court.
Berna Boyle.

By JANE A US TEN.

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The Watsons.
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Pride and Prejudice.
Sense and Sensibility.

"HERIOT'S CHOICE," by ROSA N. CAREY, and "SIR
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