Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.Borrowed!I sat down at once by Jack’s bedside.“What are you going to tell me?” I asked.“How prosaic you are, Rose.”“Well, you never like me to make a fuss.”“That is true, and no doubt you will act sensibly in the present emergency. It is nice to be pitied, and affection is of value, but sense, oh yes, unquestionably common sense comes first of all.” I could not help gazing at Jack with wide-open round eyes while he was speaking.“You never in your whole life asked me to show feeling or affection,” I managed to gasp out. “What do you mean by regretting it now? Your head must be wandering.”“Well, well, Rose, perhaps it is. It certainly aches badly enough to account for any vagaries in my speech. But now to business—or rather to the kernel of the matter. Rose, I am going to be very ill,verydangerously ill—do you understand?”“I hope I don’t, Jack. You have a bad headache, which will soon get better.”“I repeat, I am going to be dangerously ill. I have taken fever. I know the symptoms, for I have watched them in another.”“In another? Whom do you mean? When have you been with a fever-stricken patient?”“You will start when you hear my next words. I have been nursing my wife through fever.”“Jack—your wife! Are you married? Oh, Jack!”“Well, go on, Rosamund. Get over your astonishment. Say, ‘Oh Jack!’ as often as you like, only believe in the fact without my having to repeat it to you. I am married. My wife has scarlet fever; I have nursed her till I could hold up no longer, and now I have taken it myself.”I looked full into my brother’s face. It was flushed now, and his brown eyes were bright. He was a big fellow, and he looked absolutely handsome as he sat up in bed with the fever gleam shining through his eyes, and a certain sad droop about his still boyish mouth. I own that I never found Jack so interesting before. He had behaved very badly, of course, in marrying any one secretly, but he was the hero of a romance. He had feeling and affection. I quite loved him. I bent forward and kissed him on his cheek.“Go on,” I said. “You want me to help you. Tell me all the story as quickly as you can.”“But you will shrink from me when you know all.”“No, I promise that I won’t. Now do go on.”“I believe I must tell you quickly, for this pain rages and rages, and I can scarcely collect my thoughts. Now then, Rosamund, these are the bare facts. Six months ago I fell in love with Hetty. Her other name doesn’t matter, and who she was doesn’t matter. I used to meet her in the mornings when she walked to a school where she was teaching. We were married and I took her to some lodgings in Putney.”“But you had no money.”“Well, I had scarcely any. I used to make an odd pound now and then by bringing home work to copy, and Hetty did not lose her situation as teacher. She still went to the school, and she told no one of her marriage. I meant to break it to you all when I began to get my salary, for you know my time of apprenticeship will expire at Christmas. Things wouldn’t have turned out so badly, for Hetty has the simplest tastes, poor little darling, if she had not somehow or other got this horrible scarlet fever. She was so afraid I’d take her to the hospital; but not I!—the landlady and I nursed her between us.”“But, Jack, where did you get the money?” The heavy flush got deeper on my brother’s brow. He turned his head away, and his manner became almost gruff.“That’s the awkward part,” he growled. “I—I borrowed the money.”“From whom?”“Chillingfleet.”“Mr Chillingfleet? He’s the head of your firm, isn’t he?”“Yes, yes. I went into his room one day. His private drawer was open; I took four five-pound notes. That was last Monday. He won’t miss them until next Monday—the day he makes up his accounts. I thought Hetty was dying, and the notes stared me in the face, and I—Iborrowedthem. He has tens of thousands of pounds, and I—I borrowed twenty.”“Jack—Jack—you stole them!”I covered my face with my hands; I trembled all over.“Oh, don’t, Rose! call me by every ugly name you like—there, I know I’m a brute.”“No, you’re not,” I said. I had recovered myself by this time. I looked at his poor flushed face, at his trembling hands. He was a thief, he had brought disgrace upon our poor but honest name, but at this moment I loved him fifty times better than George.“Listen to me, Jack,” I said. “I won’t say one other word to abuse you at present. What’s more, I will do what I can to help you.”“God bless you, Rosamund. You don’t really mean that? Really and truly?”“I really and truly mean it. Now lie down and let me put these sheets straight. This is Friday. Something can be done between now and Monday. Are you quite sure that Mr Chillingfleet will not find out the loss of the notes before Monday?”“Yes, he always banks on Monday, and he makes up his accounts then. Rose, you have got no money; you cannot save me.”“I have certainly got no money, Jack, but I have got woman’s wit. Have you spent all the twenty pounds?”“Every farthing. I owed a lot to Mrs Ashton, Hetty’s landlady.”“Now you must give me Hetty’s address.”“Oh, I say, Rose, you are a brick! Are you going to see her?”“Yes, of course.”“Are you going to-day?”“I’ll go, if I possibly can.”“You must be very gentle with her, remember.”“I’ll do my best.”“And for goodness’ sake don’t frighten her about me.”“No.”“You must make up some kind of excuse about me. You must on no account let out that I have caught this horrible thing. Do you understand, Rosamund, if Hetty finds this out it will kill her at once.”“I’ll do my very best for you, Jack. I won’t do anything to injure Hetty. I don’t know her, but I think I can promise that. Now, please, give me her address.”“Twenty-four, Peacock Buildings, fourth story, care of Mrs Ashton. When you get to Putney, you turn down Dorset Street, and it’s the fifth turning to the right. Can you remember?”“Yes, yes. Now lie still. I am going to send mother to you.”When I reached the door, I turned and looked back. Jack was gazing wistfully after me, his eyes were full of tears.“Rose, you’re a brick,” said the poor fellow; and then he turned his face to the wall. I closed the door very softly and went down to the drawing-room where mother sat.I went up to her, and took the mending out of her thin, white hands, and bending down kissed her.“What is the matter, Rose, my dear?” she said. We were not a family for embraces, and she wondered at this mark of demonstration. When she raised her eyes to my face, she could not restrain a little cry, for with all my efforts I did not absolutely conceal the marks of strong emotion.“Mother,” I said, “you must put away your mending for the present.”“Why so, my dear? I am particularly anxious to get on with this invisible darning, for I wish to begin to refront Jack’s shirts to-morrow.”“The shirts must keep, mother. Jack wants you for something else just now—he is very ill.”“Ill? Poor fellow, he did look as if he had a bad headache.”“Yes, I think we ought to send for Mr Ray.”“What! For the doctor? Because of a headache? Rose, dear, are you getting fanciful?”“I trust not, mother, but I really think Jack is ill, and I am afraid it is more than a headache that ails him.”“What do you know about illness, child?”“Well, mother dear, go up yourself and see.” My mother went softly out of the room. Her light footsteps ascended the creaking stairs. I heard her open Jack’s bedroom door and shut it behind her. In about five minutes she had rejoined me in the drawing-room.“Rose, will you put on your hat, and go round to Mr Ray, and ask him to call at once.”My mother now spoke as if the idea of fetching the doctor had originated with herself.“Jack is very ill, Rose,” she said, looking at me, pathetically.“Yes, mother, I fear he is. Now, listen to me, please; if you are going to nurse him, you are not to be tired in any way; you are to have no anxieties down-stairs. When I go out, mother, I am going to fetch in Jane Fleming as well as Mr Ray.”Jane Fleming was a very capable woman who lived in the village; she could take the part of housekeeper, nurse, cook, dressmaker, as occasion offered. She was quiet and taciturn, and kept herself, as the neighbours said, “to herself.” I felt that Jane would be a safe person to listen to Jack’s wanderings, and that my mother might safely sleep while Jane watched by the sick man’s side.Accordingly I said, “I will fetch in Jane Fleming,” and I turned a deaf ear when my mother murmured the word expense.“If the worst comes I will sell the ruby ring,” I thought to myself, “but I won’t sell it unless all other resources fail me.”I put on my hat and jacket and went out. The shades of evening were already falling. I was dreadfully afraid that I might meet my father and George. I did not wish to see them at that moment. I felt that their coldness and want of sympathy would unnerve me. They would have every reason to be cold, for why should they fuss themselves over Jack’s bad headache? and yet I, knowing the tragedy which lay beneath that apparently commonplace pain, felt that I could not stand the slight sneer of indifference which would greet my announcement at that moment. Jack, compared to George and my father, was a very black sinner indeed. The cardinal sin of theft could be laid at his door. He was guilty of gross deception; he was weak, he was imprudent, nay more, he was mad, for by what sacred right had he bound his own life to that of another, when it was impossible for him to fulfil the vows he had taken?And yet, Jack, I loved you better than I had ever done before in my whole life at that moment; now in your pain, your helplessness, your degradation, I would spare you even from a sneer. You trusted me, Jack, and I resolved to prove myself worthy of your trust, and, if possible, if in any way within my power, to save you.I walked down the village street, and reached Jane Fleming’s house. She was ironing some collars in her neat kitchen.“Jane,” I said, “my brother Jack is ill, and mother wants you to go up and help to nurse him.”“Yes, Miss Rosamund,” replied Jane, in her quiet, unsurprised way. “Am I likely to be required for the night, miss?”“Yes, Jane, you certainly are.”“I’ll be at Ivy Lodge in ten minutes, miss,” replied Jane Fleming.I left the house without another word. Mr Ray lived a little farther off, but I was lucky in finding him also at home. I asked him to call to see Jack at once, and then I turned off in the direction of the railway station. I must be really wary now, for it would be fatal to Jack’s peace of mind were my father and George to see me going to town at that hour. I managed to elude them, however, and going into the ladies’ waiting-room scribbled a little note to my mother.“Dear mother,” I said, “you must not be at all anxious. I am going to town on important business for Jack. Don’t on any account tell father and George, and expect me home some time to-morrow.”I gave my note to a small boy who was lounging about outside the station. He was to deliver the little note into Jane Fleming’s hands. No one else was to get it. I knew Jane sufficiently well to be sure she would give it to my mother unobserved.Shortly afterwards my train came up, and I found myself being whirled back to London in a second-class compartment. Fares were cheap on our line, and I was relieved to find that I had five shillings still untouched in my purse. I got to Paddington in a little over half an hour,—the train I travelled by was an express,—and then stepping into an omnibus I was carried slowly, and with many provoking delays, to Regent Circus. I had never been in London by night before, and the dazzling lights and pushing crowds would have nonplussed me considerably another time. Under ordinary circumstances I might have felt uncomfortable and even a little afraid. Every idea of strict propriety in which I had been brought up would have protested against the situation in which I had placed myself. I was a lady, a very young lady, and it was not correct for me to perambulate these gaslit streets alone.As it turned out, however, I had no time for fear, nor was there the smallest cause for alarm. No one noticed the plainly, almost dowdily dressed girl, as with dull apprehension in her eyes, and a queer reserve fund of fortitude in her heart, she hurried along.I soon reached the house I had visited early in the morning, and almost gave Buttons an electric shock by once more inquiring for Susan Ford. I knew that it was necessary to propitiate Buttons, and poor as I was I expended sixpence on that worthy.“Go and tell Susan that Imustsee her without fail, and at once,” I said.Buttons stuck his tongue into his cheek, very nearly winked at me, but refrained, and promising to do his best, vanished.Susan was evidently busy at this hour. I sat for nearly a quarter of an hour in that cold stone-flagged hall waiting for her. She came down at last, looking perplexed and even cross.“My missisisin a temper, Miss Rosamund. Of course I’m delighted to see you, miss, but I can’t stay; I really can’t. We’re all in no end of confusion up-stairs. Oh, Miss Rosamund, you do look cold and white! I wish I could take you up to my room, but I just daren’t. Is there anything I could do for you, miss? Please say it as quick as you can.”I clutched hold of Susan’s shoulder.“You know the ring,” I said.“Oh yes, miss; you don’t want me to go back to Sam with it now, miss?”“No, no, no! I am not going to sell my precious ruby ring; but, Susan, you said to-day that your mistress sometimes hired out jewels. Fine ladies, who wanted to look extra fine, borrowed jewels. Of course, when they borrowed, they paid. Look at my ring once again, Susan. See! Here under the gas-lamp, does it not sparkle? Would not the gems look well on a small, fair hand?”While I was speaking Susan remained motionless, but I noticed that she began to breathe hard and quick.“I do believe that this will set everything right,” she said, “I do most positively believe it. You give me the ring, miss, and stay here. I’ll be back in a minute; don’t you stir till I come back to you, Miss Rosamund.”“Listen, Susan, I must have money for the ring, money down. The more you can get the better, and I’ll hire it out for one night only. Remember that, Susan, I only hire out the ring for one night.”“All right, miss, give me the ring at once. This may set matters straight again. There ain’t no saying. I’ll attend to all you want, Miss Rosamund, never you fear.”Susan almost snatched the old-fashioned little case out of my hand, sprang up the stairs three steps at a time, and vanished.I waited in the great, cold, empty hall with no other companion than my fast-beating heart.I had a curious sense of loneliness and even desolation, now that I had parted with the ring. It seemed to me that Cousin Geoffrey was near, and that he was looking at me reproachfully. I almost regretted what I had done; if I had known where to find Susan I would have rushed after her, and asked her for my ring back.As it was, I had to restrain my impatience as best I could. Perhaps Susan would be unsuccessful; perhaps in a moment or two she would bring me back the ring. She did nothing of the kind. She kept me waiting for a quarter of an hour, then she came back with five pounds in her hand.“My missis is awfully obliged to you, Miss Rosamund, and—and here’s five sovereigns, miss. I couldn’t get more, I couldn’t really.”“And my ring, Susan, my ring?”“You’ll have it back to-morrow, miss.”“But is my precious ring safe? Is it in the house? Where is it?”“Where is your ring, Miss Rosamund?” Susan stared at me, and spoke almost pettishly. “Didn’t you say you wanted to hire the ring out, miss? Well, and haven’t I done it? The ring is out—it’s seeing company to-night, that ruby ring; it’s having a fine time; it belongs to grand folk for the night, and it’s seeing life, that’s what it is. Oh, I wish I was it! I think, Miss Rosamund, that ring is going to have a lovely time.”“And you’re sure I shall have it back by to-morrow?”“Why, of course, miss. You come here about twelve o’clock. I shouldn’t be surprised if Madame wanted to do another hire with it; she seemed mighty taken with the big ruby, and I dare say the young lady who wears it to-night may want it again. But of course that’s as you please, miss.”“Of course, Susan. Well, I am very much obliged to you, and I will call to-morrow at noon.” I slipped the five sovereigns into my purse, shook hands with Susan, and left the house. I felt wonderfully independent; the touch of the gold had done this. It was marvellous with what a sense of power I now looked around me. I felt at that instant what a gulf there was between the rich and the poor. With five shillings I could be timid; with five pounds I could be wonderfully calm, collected, and brave.I walked as composedly down the gaslit streets as if I had done so every evening of my life. I entered a grocer’s shop and bought half a pound of tea, very good tea. I also bought sugar, Brand’s meat jelly, and a pound of paraffin candles. As I was leaving the shop I thought how fond mother was of rusks when she was ill. I turned back and got some. I was now quite laden with parcels, and as I knew I must purchase several more, and could not possibly carry them all in my hands, the next thing was to secure a basket. I was not long in discovering a sort of bazaar, where miscellaneous articles of every description were to be had. I chose a serviceable basket, paid for it, popped my groceries in, and went out. I soon added to the store a chicken, two pounds of beef for beef-tea, a loaf of bread, and some fresh butter. Finally I placed on the top of the basket a bunch of fine hothouse grapes, two or three lemons, some oranges, and, lastly, a great lovely bunch of chrysanthemums.Now, I felt that I was ready for Putney.I retraced my steps to Regent Circus, and after a little delay found myself in an omnibus which would finally land me at Victoria.I need not describe my brief journey to Putney; I had no adventures on the road. No one spoke rudely to me, or stared at me, or molested me in any fashion. The train was punctual, and my fellow-passengers civil.When I got out at Putney station I did not lose my way, for Jack’s directions were explicit, and my head felt wonderfully clear.It was, however, between nine and ten o’clock at night when I arrived at the lodging-house where my brother’s poor young wife lay ill.I knocked at the door, and the landlady, who had watery eyes and an ugly sodden sort of face, presently answered the summons.She opened the door about six inches, and stared at me suspiciously from head to foot.“Does Mrs Lindley live here?” I asked.“No, there’s no one of that name in the house.” She prepared to shut the door in my face.“Stay,” I exclaimed, pressing my hand against the panel of the door, “there is a young lady here who is very ill. I am her husband’s sister, and I have come with a message from him, and I have brought several things that she wants. I must see her at once.”The landlady looked at the heavy basket in my hand. She glanced at my face, which I am sure was resolved in expression. She listened to my voice, which was firm.“Oh, you mean Mrs Gray,” she exclaimed. “Yes, poor thing, she’s as bad as bad can be. I suppose you had better come up and see her, if you have any message from her husband. It’s a perfect worry to hear her calling out for him all the time, and maybe you can quiet her down a bit.”The landlady mounted the narrow stairs slowly. They were dirty, as stairs in all such houses are; there were many gaps in the banisters, and many sad rents and signs of wear on the greasy carpets. I could have moralised, as I walked up the stairs behind the broad-backed landlady. I could have stored up materials for an excellent little essay on the shady side of lodging-house life. But my heart was too full just then to think of anything but the girl whom I was about to visit, the girl whom my brother had married without even giving her his rightful name.Poor people are often the proudest, and we Lindleys had what is commonly called “honest pride.” That simply means that wewerehonest; we had no double dealings; we paid our way not only with coin of the realm, but with promises which were kept, with endeavours which terminated in results. It could not enter into our heads to cheat our brothers; we could do without luxuries, but we could not part with even a hair’s-breadth of honour.The first scapegrace in a family like ours causes, therefore, those anguished blushes, those shrinkings of the soul which are about the worst forms of pain. I felt as if I were being roasted at a slow fire of public condemnation as I followed Mrs Ashton up-stairs. I was almost sorry at that moment that my conscience was so tender.The landlady did not stop until she reached the attic floor; then she turned and pointed to the door of a room which was slightly open.“Mrs Gray’s in there,” she said; “you can go in.”She did not offer to come with me. On the contrary she turned her broad back and descended the stairs with many bumps and bangs. I walked softly into the small low attic which had been thrown open for my entrance.My steps were light, and the room was almost entirely in shadow, for the fire had gone out, and one solitary candle was already dying in its socket.Light as my footfall was, however, it was heard, for a high-pitched, querulous, weak voice said instantly:—“Is that you, Jack? Is that really you at last?”“No,” I replied to the voice, “I am not Jack, but I am the next best thing, I am Jack’s sister. I have brought you a great many messages from him. Now lie quite still, until I light a candle, and then I will tell you everything.”The figure in the bed gave utterance to a queer kind of astonished groan, but no further sound of any kind came from the lips. I fumbled in my basket until I found the pound of candles; I lit one at the expiring embers in the socket, found two showy candlesticks on the mantelpiece, filled both, and lighted them, and then, going over to the bed, bent down to take a good look at my sister.I saw a small dark face; two big beautiful eyes looked up at me; a weak little peevish mouth trembled; the lips were drawn down; I saw that tears, and perhaps hysterics, were close at hand. I touched the girl’s forehead with my hand, it was damp from weakness, but there was no fever.“Before I tell you any of my story I must make you comfortable, Hetty,” I said.“Hetty?” she whispered, in a kind of terror. “Howdoyou know anything about me?”“Jack has told me, of course; it’s all right, I assure you. He is prevented coming to-night, so I am going to be your nurse. Oh, yes, I will talk to you presently, but not yet, not until you have had some food, and I have made you comfortable.”I now observed that the girl’s face was ghastly pale. Yes, the fever was gone, but she was in almost the last extremity of weakness. I rushed again to my basket, took out the tin of Brand’s jelly, opened it, and gave her a spoonful. It acted as a stimulant at once, and I felt that I might leave her while I ran down-stairs to interview the landlady.Oh, the wonders that a purse full of money can effect! With the chink of that gold I softened Mrs Ashton’s obdurate heart. Jack’s wife became “Poor dear!” and an object of the deepest interest in her eyes. She bundled up-stairs herself, to re-light the fire in the miserable attic. She supplied me with unlimited warm water, clean towels, and clean sheets, and when I asked her if she could roast a fowl, and send it up hot in about an hour’s time, she readily promised to do what I required.In her absence I affected wonders in the attic room. I made it cheerful with fire-light and candle-light. I opened the window and let in some purer air. Having fed my patient, I proceeded to comb out her beautiful curly dark hair. I then washed her face and hands, and made the bed over again with the clean sheets.When the landlady brought up the fowl nicely done to a turn, we were both ready for it. The good food, the care, the cheerful light, the purer atmosphere had already done wonders for Hetty. She lost the nervous, frightened manner which at first had made it almost distressing to speak to her. Her eyes shone; the colour dawned faintly in her white cheeks, and when I fed her with tender bits of chicken, she even smiled up into my face with a world of love and gratitude in her eyes.“You are good to me, miss,” she whispered.“You must not call me miss, my name is Rosamund. I am your husband’s sister.”But this allusion made her blush painfully, and she drew once more into her shell.When Hetty and I had finished our chicken, I set what was left carefully away, and putting out one of the candles sat down by the bedside, and told my new sister that she must go to sleep.“But you, miss?—oh! I beg your pardon,”—she stopped, confusion in her tone.“Never mind,” I said, soothingly. I saw this was not the time to commence her education. “Go to sleep,” I said, and bending forward I touched her forehead lightly with my lips. Her eyes looked full back into mine. I had never seen such a wealth of love in any eyes. The lids fell languidly over them. She obeyed me with a happy, satisfied sigh.

I sat down at once by Jack’s bedside.

“What are you going to tell me?” I asked.

“How prosaic you are, Rose.”

“Well, you never like me to make a fuss.”

“That is true, and no doubt you will act sensibly in the present emergency. It is nice to be pitied, and affection is of value, but sense, oh yes, unquestionably common sense comes first of all.” I could not help gazing at Jack with wide-open round eyes while he was speaking.

“You never in your whole life asked me to show feeling or affection,” I managed to gasp out. “What do you mean by regretting it now? Your head must be wandering.”

“Well, well, Rose, perhaps it is. It certainly aches badly enough to account for any vagaries in my speech. But now to business—or rather to the kernel of the matter. Rose, I am going to be very ill,verydangerously ill—do you understand?”

“I hope I don’t, Jack. You have a bad headache, which will soon get better.”

“I repeat, I am going to be dangerously ill. I have taken fever. I know the symptoms, for I have watched them in another.”

“In another? Whom do you mean? When have you been with a fever-stricken patient?”

“You will start when you hear my next words. I have been nursing my wife through fever.”

“Jack—your wife! Are you married? Oh, Jack!”

“Well, go on, Rosamund. Get over your astonishment. Say, ‘Oh Jack!’ as often as you like, only believe in the fact without my having to repeat it to you. I am married. My wife has scarlet fever; I have nursed her till I could hold up no longer, and now I have taken it myself.”

I looked full into my brother’s face. It was flushed now, and his brown eyes were bright. He was a big fellow, and he looked absolutely handsome as he sat up in bed with the fever gleam shining through his eyes, and a certain sad droop about his still boyish mouth. I own that I never found Jack so interesting before. He had behaved very badly, of course, in marrying any one secretly, but he was the hero of a romance. He had feeling and affection. I quite loved him. I bent forward and kissed him on his cheek.

“Go on,” I said. “You want me to help you. Tell me all the story as quickly as you can.”

“But you will shrink from me when you know all.”

“No, I promise that I won’t. Now do go on.”

“I believe I must tell you quickly, for this pain rages and rages, and I can scarcely collect my thoughts. Now then, Rosamund, these are the bare facts. Six months ago I fell in love with Hetty. Her other name doesn’t matter, and who she was doesn’t matter. I used to meet her in the mornings when she walked to a school where she was teaching. We were married and I took her to some lodgings in Putney.”

“But you had no money.”

“Well, I had scarcely any. I used to make an odd pound now and then by bringing home work to copy, and Hetty did not lose her situation as teacher. She still went to the school, and she told no one of her marriage. I meant to break it to you all when I began to get my salary, for you know my time of apprenticeship will expire at Christmas. Things wouldn’t have turned out so badly, for Hetty has the simplest tastes, poor little darling, if she had not somehow or other got this horrible scarlet fever. She was so afraid I’d take her to the hospital; but not I!—the landlady and I nursed her between us.”

“But, Jack, where did you get the money?” The heavy flush got deeper on my brother’s brow. He turned his head away, and his manner became almost gruff.

“That’s the awkward part,” he growled. “I—I borrowed the money.”

“From whom?”

“Chillingfleet.”

“Mr Chillingfleet? He’s the head of your firm, isn’t he?”

“Yes, yes. I went into his room one day. His private drawer was open; I took four five-pound notes. That was last Monday. He won’t miss them until next Monday—the day he makes up his accounts. I thought Hetty was dying, and the notes stared me in the face, and I—Iborrowedthem. He has tens of thousands of pounds, and I—I borrowed twenty.”

“Jack—Jack—you stole them!”

I covered my face with my hands; I trembled all over.

“Oh, don’t, Rose! call me by every ugly name you like—there, I know I’m a brute.”

“No, you’re not,” I said. I had recovered myself by this time. I looked at his poor flushed face, at his trembling hands. He was a thief, he had brought disgrace upon our poor but honest name, but at this moment I loved him fifty times better than George.

“Listen to me, Jack,” I said. “I won’t say one other word to abuse you at present. What’s more, I will do what I can to help you.”

“God bless you, Rosamund. You don’t really mean that? Really and truly?”

“I really and truly mean it. Now lie down and let me put these sheets straight. This is Friday. Something can be done between now and Monday. Are you quite sure that Mr Chillingfleet will not find out the loss of the notes before Monday?”

“Yes, he always banks on Monday, and he makes up his accounts then. Rose, you have got no money; you cannot save me.”

“I have certainly got no money, Jack, but I have got woman’s wit. Have you spent all the twenty pounds?”

“Every farthing. I owed a lot to Mrs Ashton, Hetty’s landlady.”

“Now you must give me Hetty’s address.”

“Oh, I say, Rose, you are a brick! Are you going to see her?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Are you going to-day?”

“I’ll go, if I possibly can.”

“You must be very gentle with her, remember.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“And for goodness’ sake don’t frighten her about me.”

“No.”

“You must make up some kind of excuse about me. You must on no account let out that I have caught this horrible thing. Do you understand, Rosamund, if Hetty finds this out it will kill her at once.”

“I’ll do my very best for you, Jack. I won’t do anything to injure Hetty. I don’t know her, but I think I can promise that. Now, please, give me her address.”

“Twenty-four, Peacock Buildings, fourth story, care of Mrs Ashton. When you get to Putney, you turn down Dorset Street, and it’s the fifth turning to the right. Can you remember?”

“Yes, yes. Now lie still. I am going to send mother to you.”

When I reached the door, I turned and looked back. Jack was gazing wistfully after me, his eyes were full of tears.

“Rose, you’re a brick,” said the poor fellow; and then he turned his face to the wall. I closed the door very softly and went down to the drawing-room where mother sat.

I went up to her, and took the mending out of her thin, white hands, and bending down kissed her.

“What is the matter, Rose, my dear?” she said. We were not a family for embraces, and she wondered at this mark of demonstration. When she raised her eyes to my face, she could not restrain a little cry, for with all my efforts I did not absolutely conceal the marks of strong emotion.

“Mother,” I said, “you must put away your mending for the present.”

“Why so, my dear? I am particularly anxious to get on with this invisible darning, for I wish to begin to refront Jack’s shirts to-morrow.”

“The shirts must keep, mother. Jack wants you for something else just now—he is very ill.”

“Ill? Poor fellow, he did look as if he had a bad headache.”

“Yes, I think we ought to send for Mr Ray.”

“What! For the doctor? Because of a headache? Rose, dear, are you getting fanciful?”

“I trust not, mother, but I really think Jack is ill, and I am afraid it is more than a headache that ails him.”

“What do you know about illness, child?”

“Well, mother dear, go up yourself and see.” My mother went softly out of the room. Her light footsteps ascended the creaking stairs. I heard her open Jack’s bedroom door and shut it behind her. In about five minutes she had rejoined me in the drawing-room.

“Rose, will you put on your hat, and go round to Mr Ray, and ask him to call at once.”

My mother now spoke as if the idea of fetching the doctor had originated with herself.

“Jack is very ill, Rose,” she said, looking at me, pathetically.

“Yes, mother, I fear he is. Now, listen to me, please; if you are going to nurse him, you are not to be tired in any way; you are to have no anxieties down-stairs. When I go out, mother, I am going to fetch in Jane Fleming as well as Mr Ray.”

Jane Fleming was a very capable woman who lived in the village; she could take the part of housekeeper, nurse, cook, dressmaker, as occasion offered. She was quiet and taciturn, and kept herself, as the neighbours said, “to herself.” I felt that Jane would be a safe person to listen to Jack’s wanderings, and that my mother might safely sleep while Jane watched by the sick man’s side.

Accordingly I said, “I will fetch in Jane Fleming,” and I turned a deaf ear when my mother murmured the word expense.

“If the worst comes I will sell the ruby ring,” I thought to myself, “but I won’t sell it unless all other resources fail me.”

I put on my hat and jacket and went out. The shades of evening were already falling. I was dreadfully afraid that I might meet my father and George. I did not wish to see them at that moment. I felt that their coldness and want of sympathy would unnerve me. They would have every reason to be cold, for why should they fuss themselves over Jack’s bad headache? and yet I, knowing the tragedy which lay beneath that apparently commonplace pain, felt that I could not stand the slight sneer of indifference which would greet my announcement at that moment. Jack, compared to George and my father, was a very black sinner indeed. The cardinal sin of theft could be laid at his door. He was guilty of gross deception; he was weak, he was imprudent, nay more, he was mad, for by what sacred right had he bound his own life to that of another, when it was impossible for him to fulfil the vows he had taken?

And yet, Jack, I loved you better than I had ever done before in my whole life at that moment; now in your pain, your helplessness, your degradation, I would spare you even from a sneer. You trusted me, Jack, and I resolved to prove myself worthy of your trust, and, if possible, if in any way within my power, to save you.

I walked down the village street, and reached Jane Fleming’s house. She was ironing some collars in her neat kitchen.

“Jane,” I said, “my brother Jack is ill, and mother wants you to go up and help to nurse him.”

“Yes, Miss Rosamund,” replied Jane, in her quiet, unsurprised way. “Am I likely to be required for the night, miss?”

“Yes, Jane, you certainly are.”

“I’ll be at Ivy Lodge in ten minutes, miss,” replied Jane Fleming.

I left the house without another word. Mr Ray lived a little farther off, but I was lucky in finding him also at home. I asked him to call to see Jack at once, and then I turned off in the direction of the railway station. I must be really wary now, for it would be fatal to Jack’s peace of mind were my father and George to see me going to town at that hour. I managed to elude them, however, and going into the ladies’ waiting-room scribbled a little note to my mother.

“Dear mother,” I said, “you must not be at all anxious. I am going to town on important business for Jack. Don’t on any account tell father and George, and expect me home some time to-morrow.”

I gave my note to a small boy who was lounging about outside the station. He was to deliver the little note into Jane Fleming’s hands. No one else was to get it. I knew Jane sufficiently well to be sure she would give it to my mother unobserved.

Shortly afterwards my train came up, and I found myself being whirled back to London in a second-class compartment. Fares were cheap on our line, and I was relieved to find that I had five shillings still untouched in my purse. I got to Paddington in a little over half an hour,—the train I travelled by was an express,—and then stepping into an omnibus I was carried slowly, and with many provoking delays, to Regent Circus. I had never been in London by night before, and the dazzling lights and pushing crowds would have nonplussed me considerably another time. Under ordinary circumstances I might have felt uncomfortable and even a little afraid. Every idea of strict propriety in which I had been brought up would have protested against the situation in which I had placed myself. I was a lady, a very young lady, and it was not correct for me to perambulate these gaslit streets alone.

As it turned out, however, I had no time for fear, nor was there the smallest cause for alarm. No one noticed the plainly, almost dowdily dressed girl, as with dull apprehension in her eyes, and a queer reserve fund of fortitude in her heart, she hurried along.

I soon reached the house I had visited early in the morning, and almost gave Buttons an electric shock by once more inquiring for Susan Ford. I knew that it was necessary to propitiate Buttons, and poor as I was I expended sixpence on that worthy.

“Go and tell Susan that Imustsee her without fail, and at once,” I said.

Buttons stuck his tongue into his cheek, very nearly winked at me, but refrained, and promising to do his best, vanished.

Susan was evidently busy at this hour. I sat for nearly a quarter of an hour in that cold stone-flagged hall waiting for her. She came down at last, looking perplexed and even cross.

“My missisisin a temper, Miss Rosamund. Of course I’m delighted to see you, miss, but I can’t stay; I really can’t. We’re all in no end of confusion up-stairs. Oh, Miss Rosamund, you do look cold and white! I wish I could take you up to my room, but I just daren’t. Is there anything I could do for you, miss? Please say it as quick as you can.”

I clutched hold of Susan’s shoulder.

“You know the ring,” I said.

“Oh yes, miss; you don’t want me to go back to Sam with it now, miss?”

“No, no, no! I am not going to sell my precious ruby ring; but, Susan, you said to-day that your mistress sometimes hired out jewels. Fine ladies, who wanted to look extra fine, borrowed jewels. Of course, when they borrowed, they paid. Look at my ring once again, Susan. See! Here under the gas-lamp, does it not sparkle? Would not the gems look well on a small, fair hand?”

While I was speaking Susan remained motionless, but I noticed that she began to breathe hard and quick.

“I do believe that this will set everything right,” she said, “I do most positively believe it. You give me the ring, miss, and stay here. I’ll be back in a minute; don’t you stir till I come back to you, Miss Rosamund.”

“Listen, Susan, I must have money for the ring, money down. The more you can get the better, and I’ll hire it out for one night only. Remember that, Susan, I only hire out the ring for one night.”

“All right, miss, give me the ring at once. This may set matters straight again. There ain’t no saying. I’ll attend to all you want, Miss Rosamund, never you fear.”

Susan almost snatched the old-fashioned little case out of my hand, sprang up the stairs three steps at a time, and vanished.

I waited in the great, cold, empty hall with no other companion than my fast-beating heart.

I had a curious sense of loneliness and even desolation, now that I had parted with the ring. It seemed to me that Cousin Geoffrey was near, and that he was looking at me reproachfully. I almost regretted what I had done; if I had known where to find Susan I would have rushed after her, and asked her for my ring back.

As it was, I had to restrain my impatience as best I could. Perhaps Susan would be unsuccessful; perhaps in a moment or two she would bring me back the ring. She did nothing of the kind. She kept me waiting for a quarter of an hour, then she came back with five pounds in her hand.

“My missis is awfully obliged to you, Miss Rosamund, and—and here’s five sovereigns, miss. I couldn’t get more, I couldn’t really.”

“And my ring, Susan, my ring?”

“You’ll have it back to-morrow, miss.”

“But is my precious ring safe? Is it in the house? Where is it?”

“Where is your ring, Miss Rosamund?” Susan stared at me, and spoke almost pettishly. “Didn’t you say you wanted to hire the ring out, miss? Well, and haven’t I done it? The ring is out—it’s seeing company to-night, that ruby ring; it’s having a fine time; it belongs to grand folk for the night, and it’s seeing life, that’s what it is. Oh, I wish I was it! I think, Miss Rosamund, that ring is going to have a lovely time.”

“And you’re sure I shall have it back by to-morrow?”

“Why, of course, miss. You come here about twelve o’clock. I shouldn’t be surprised if Madame wanted to do another hire with it; she seemed mighty taken with the big ruby, and I dare say the young lady who wears it to-night may want it again. But of course that’s as you please, miss.”

“Of course, Susan. Well, I am very much obliged to you, and I will call to-morrow at noon.” I slipped the five sovereigns into my purse, shook hands with Susan, and left the house. I felt wonderfully independent; the touch of the gold had done this. It was marvellous with what a sense of power I now looked around me. I felt at that instant what a gulf there was between the rich and the poor. With five shillings I could be timid; with five pounds I could be wonderfully calm, collected, and brave.

I walked as composedly down the gaslit streets as if I had done so every evening of my life. I entered a grocer’s shop and bought half a pound of tea, very good tea. I also bought sugar, Brand’s meat jelly, and a pound of paraffin candles. As I was leaving the shop I thought how fond mother was of rusks when she was ill. I turned back and got some. I was now quite laden with parcels, and as I knew I must purchase several more, and could not possibly carry them all in my hands, the next thing was to secure a basket. I was not long in discovering a sort of bazaar, where miscellaneous articles of every description were to be had. I chose a serviceable basket, paid for it, popped my groceries in, and went out. I soon added to the store a chicken, two pounds of beef for beef-tea, a loaf of bread, and some fresh butter. Finally I placed on the top of the basket a bunch of fine hothouse grapes, two or three lemons, some oranges, and, lastly, a great lovely bunch of chrysanthemums.

Now, I felt that I was ready for Putney.

I retraced my steps to Regent Circus, and after a little delay found myself in an omnibus which would finally land me at Victoria.

I need not describe my brief journey to Putney; I had no adventures on the road. No one spoke rudely to me, or stared at me, or molested me in any fashion. The train was punctual, and my fellow-passengers civil.

When I got out at Putney station I did not lose my way, for Jack’s directions were explicit, and my head felt wonderfully clear.

It was, however, between nine and ten o’clock at night when I arrived at the lodging-house where my brother’s poor young wife lay ill.

I knocked at the door, and the landlady, who had watery eyes and an ugly sodden sort of face, presently answered the summons.

She opened the door about six inches, and stared at me suspiciously from head to foot.

“Does Mrs Lindley live here?” I asked.

“No, there’s no one of that name in the house.” She prepared to shut the door in my face.

“Stay,” I exclaimed, pressing my hand against the panel of the door, “there is a young lady here who is very ill. I am her husband’s sister, and I have come with a message from him, and I have brought several things that she wants. I must see her at once.”

The landlady looked at the heavy basket in my hand. She glanced at my face, which I am sure was resolved in expression. She listened to my voice, which was firm.

“Oh, you mean Mrs Gray,” she exclaimed. “Yes, poor thing, she’s as bad as bad can be. I suppose you had better come up and see her, if you have any message from her husband. It’s a perfect worry to hear her calling out for him all the time, and maybe you can quiet her down a bit.”

The landlady mounted the narrow stairs slowly. They were dirty, as stairs in all such houses are; there were many gaps in the banisters, and many sad rents and signs of wear on the greasy carpets. I could have moralised, as I walked up the stairs behind the broad-backed landlady. I could have stored up materials for an excellent little essay on the shady side of lodging-house life. But my heart was too full just then to think of anything but the girl whom I was about to visit, the girl whom my brother had married without even giving her his rightful name.

Poor people are often the proudest, and we Lindleys had what is commonly called “honest pride.” That simply means that wewerehonest; we had no double dealings; we paid our way not only with coin of the realm, but with promises which were kept, with endeavours which terminated in results. It could not enter into our heads to cheat our brothers; we could do without luxuries, but we could not part with even a hair’s-breadth of honour.

The first scapegrace in a family like ours causes, therefore, those anguished blushes, those shrinkings of the soul which are about the worst forms of pain. I felt as if I were being roasted at a slow fire of public condemnation as I followed Mrs Ashton up-stairs. I was almost sorry at that moment that my conscience was so tender.

The landlady did not stop until she reached the attic floor; then she turned and pointed to the door of a room which was slightly open.

“Mrs Gray’s in there,” she said; “you can go in.”

She did not offer to come with me. On the contrary she turned her broad back and descended the stairs with many bumps and bangs. I walked softly into the small low attic which had been thrown open for my entrance.

My steps were light, and the room was almost entirely in shadow, for the fire had gone out, and one solitary candle was already dying in its socket.

Light as my footfall was, however, it was heard, for a high-pitched, querulous, weak voice said instantly:—

“Is that you, Jack? Is that really you at last?”

“No,” I replied to the voice, “I am not Jack, but I am the next best thing, I am Jack’s sister. I have brought you a great many messages from him. Now lie quite still, until I light a candle, and then I will tell you everything.”

The figure in the bed gave utterance to a queer kind of astonished groan, but no further sound of any kind came from the lips. I fumbled in my basket until I found the pound of candles; I lit one at the expiring embers in the socket, found two showy candlesticks on the mantelpiece, filled both, and lighted them, and then, going over to the bed, bent down to take a good look at my sister.

I saw a small dark face; two big beautiful eyes looked up at me; a weak little peevish mouth trembled; the lips were drawn down; I saw that tears, and perhaps hysterics, were close at hand. I touched the girl’s forehead with my hand, it was damp from weakness, but there was no fever.

“Before I tell you any of my story I must make you comfortable, Hetty,” I said.

“Hetty?” she whispered, in a kind of terror. “Howdoyou know anything about me?”

“Jack has told me, of course; it’s all right, I assure you. He is prevented coming to-night, so I am going to be your nurse. Oh, yes, I will talk to you presently, but not yet, not until you have had some food, and I have made you comfortable.”

I now observed that the girl’s face was ghastly pale. Yes, the fever was gone, but she was in almost the last extremity of weakness. I rushed again to my basket, took out the tin of Brand’s jelly, opened it, and gave her a spoonful. It acted as a stimulant at once, and I felt that I might leave her while I ran down-stairs to interview the landlady.

Oh, the wonders that a purse full of money can effect! With the chink of that gold I softened Mrs Ashton’s obdurate heart. Jack’s wife became “Poor dear!” and an object of the deepest interest in her eyes. She bundled up-stairs herself, to re-light the fire in the miserable attic. She supplied me with unlimited warm water, clean towels, and clean sheets, and when I asked her if she could roast a fowl, and send it up hot in about an hour’s time, she readily promised to do what I required.

In her absence I affected wonders in the attic room. I made it cheerful with fire-light and candle-light. I opened the window and let in some purer air. Having fed my patient, I proceeded to comb out her beautiful curly dark hair. I then washed her face and hands, and made the bed over again with the clean sheets.

When the landlady brought up the fowl nicely done to a turn, we were both ready for it. The good food, the care, the cheerful light, the purer atmosphere had already done wonders for Hetty. She lost the nervous, frightened manner which at first had made it almost distressing to speak to her. Her eyes shone; the colour dawned faintly in her white cheeks, and when I fed her with tender bits of chicken, she even smiled up into my face with a world of love and gratitude in her eyes.

“You are good to me, miss,” she whispered.

“You must not call me miss, my name is Rosamund. I am your husband’s sister.”

But this allusion made her blush painfully, and she drew once more into her shell.

When Hetty and I had finished our chicken, I set what was left carefully away, and putting out one of the candles sat down by the bedside, and told my new sister that she must go to sleep.

“But you, miss?—oh! I beg your pardon,”—she stopped, confusion in her tone.

“Never mind,” I said, soothingly. I saw this was not the time to commence her education. “Go to sleep,” I said, and bending forward I touched her forehead lightly with my lips. Her eyes looked full back into mine. I had never seen such a wealth of love in any eyes. The lids fell languidly over them. She obeyed me with a happy, satisfied sigh.

Chapter Five.Lady Ursula.Hetty slept fairly well. I sat broad awake by her bedside. I was too young, too fresh, too strong to be exhausted by this evening’s excitement and hurry. I was not tired enough to drop asleep in the hard chair by my sister’s bedside. My pulses were beating high. I sat all through the long night, excited, anxious, full of a thousand forebodings and troubles. I gave my patient Brand’s jelly and grapes when she woke in the night, and early in the morning I boiled an egg, made some crisp toast, and a teapot of fragrant tea, and gave Hetty her breakfast. Afterwards I washed and dressed her; I combed out her hair, and tied it into a soft mass. I straightened the bed, and made it look as tidy as such a miserable bed could be, and then putting some grapes within reach, and the flowers on a little table, where she could look at them, I ran down-stairs to interview the landlady.“I am glad to tell you,” I said, “that my sister seems much better this morning.”“Oh, ay, miss, I’m sure I’m pleased to hear it.” The landlady was all beams and curtsies. “I always said, pore dear, that it was care she wanted—and all I could I give her, as Mr Gray can testify; but when a woman has got to ’arn her living ’ard, she has no power to spend much time a-cookin’, and a-cleanin’, and a-nursin’, and a-messin’. It’s always a-nursin’ and a-messin’ with the sick, and I han’t got the time, so I’m glad you has come in, miss.”“Yes, but I must go away for some hours,” I said, “and I want my sister to be taken all possible care of in my absence. Will you do that for me, Mrs Ashton? I will come back as early in the afternoon as I can.”“To be sure I will, my dear.”“Here is a piece of paper on which I have written what she is to eat, and how often she is to be fed.”“Well, dear, I’ll do my ’umble best. I’m not good at readin’ and writin’, but Mary Ann in the kitchen can spell out what you has writ down, miss, I make no doubt.”I left the paper in Mrs Ashton’s hands, and went back again to Hetty.“Hetty,” I said, “I must go away for a few hours. Mrs Ashton will take all possible care of you.” I stopped, distressed by the piteous, helpless expression on her face.“Mrs Ashton doesn’t take any care of me,” said Hetty. “She leaves me all day long, and never, never comes near the room. Yesterday the fire went out, and I got so hungry, so dreadfully hungry. Then the hunger went off, and I felt only cold and very faint. I thought perhaps I was dying. Don’t leave me with Mrs Ashton, miss.”“You must call me Rosamund, Hetty. Now listen. Don’t tremble, dear. I am obliged to leave you. I have a mother and father, and—and—brothers. Your Jack is one of my brothers. I will come back again as soon as ever I can; and when I come I shall probably bring you a message from Jack.”“Won’t Jack come to see me himself to-day?”“I’m afraid not. Jack does not forget you, Hetty, but the fact is, he is ill. He has a bad headache, and has to be nursed.”“Oh,” she said gently, and without any of the alarm I had anticipated. “Sometimes his head aches fearfully, I know; I have seen it. I have sat up all night nursing his headache. Who is taking care of him now?”“His mother and mine, the tenderest and best of human beings.”I felt a break in my voice as I said this. I knew my mother was no longer first in Jack’s affections. I felt an unreasonable and ridiculous sense of jealousy on my mother’s account.“Good-bye, Hetty,” I said hastily; “I will bring you news of Jack; and try and believe one thing—the Mrs Ashton of yesterday and the Mrs Ashton of to-day are two distinctly different people. You will be taken care of, my dear, and remember I expect to see you looking quite bright and well this evening.”Then I ran down-stairs and out of the house. It was still too early to go to Madame Leroy’s, but the comfortable chink of gold in my purse enabled me to spend my time profitably. I laid in fresh provisions both for Hetty and for Jack. At twelve o’clock exactly I arrived at Madame Leroy’s. To my surprise Susan herself opened the door for me. I think she must have been waiting on the mat inside, for the moment I rang, the door was pulled open, and Susan said breathlessly:“Oh, come in, Miss Rosamund, come up-stairs.”“Where is my ring, Susan?” I said, resisting her impetuous push. “Give me back my ring at once and let me go. I have really a great deal to do, and have not time to wait to chat with you.”“It isn’t me, miss, as wants to keep you, it’s Madame Leroy herself.”“Madame Leroy? Whatdoyou mean?”“And I haven’t got the ring, miss. When I asked Madagie for it this morning, she said, ‘When the young person calls, show her up to my private room at once.’ She said ‘young person,’ miss, meaning no offence, but the moment she claps her eyes on you she’ll know you are a lady born.”“I don’t care what she calls me, Susan; if I must see her, I must, I suppose. Show me to her room at once.”Susan ran on before me, past the first floor, and the second, and on to the third floor of the great house; where she paused, and knocked deliberately at a certain door which wanted paint, and was altogether very shabby.“Come in,” said a voice, and I found myself in the presence of Madame Leroy.I suppose this greatartiste, as she would term herself, had a certain figure, manner, eye, tone which were capable of not only inspiring awe, but of tickling vanity, of whetting desire, of ministering to the weakest passions of the silliest of her sex. I may as well own at once that her arts were thrown away on me.She was a handsome dark-eyed woman, full in figure, tall in stature, and with what would be called a commanding presence. I was only a slip of a girl, badly dressed, and with no presence whatever. Nevertheless, I could not fear the fashionable and pompous being.“Will you kindly return me my ring, Madame Leroy?” I said brusquely.Madame favoured me with a sweeping curtsey.“I presume I am addressing Miss Lindley?” she said. “Pray take a seat, Miss Lindley—I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”The moment she spoke I perceived that she was not French. She was an English or an Irish woman, probably the latter. Her name was doubtless an assumed one. I did not take the chair she proffered me.“I have come for my ring,” I said, in a voice which I really managed to make very firm and business-like. “I brought it to you last night, and you very kindly paid me five pounds for the loan of it. I want it back now. Your servant said that if I called at twelve o’clock I should have the ring back.”“I wish you would take a chair, Miss Lindley; I want particularly to speak to you about the ring. I am pleased to be able to impart to you some good news. I—” Madame Leroy paused, and slightly smacked her lips. “I have found a purchaser for your ruby ring, Miss Lindley.”I felt my cheeks turning very red.“You are kind,” I replied; “I dare say you mean to be good to me when you say you have a purchaser for the ring. But I don’t want to sell it.”“Not want to sell it!” Madame Leroy looked me all over from the crown of my hat to the tips of my shabby boots. Then putting on her pince-nez she scrutinised my face. I knew perfectly well the thoughts that were filling her mind. She was saying to herself:—“You are a poor specimen of humanity, but if I, the greatartiste, had the dressing of you, I might make you at least presentable. The idea of a chit like you presuming to refuse to sell a trinket!”“I don’t want to sell my ring,” I said. “But it is possible that I may lend it to you another evening. Even that I am not sure about. Give it back to me now, please.”I held out my hand. Madame Leroy drew back.“I am very sorry,” she said, reddening; “the fact is, I have not got the ring.”“Not got my ring?”“No. Lady Ursula Redmayne borrowed the ring last night. She sent me a messenger this morning with a letter, and no ring. Shall I read you her letter?”“I do not care to hear it,” I said. “It is no matter to me what Lady Ursula Redmayne writes to you. I want my ring.”“Well, miss,”—Madame Leroy’s tone was now decidedly angry,—“seeing how very anxious you were last night for the immediate loan of five pounds, you have a mighty independent way with you. Lady Ursula Redmayne, indeed! I can tell you it isn’t every one as has the privilege of getting letters from Lady Ursula.”While Madame Leroy was speaking I had a great many flashes of thought. Her first words recalled me to myself. A girl who had come in desperation to hire out a family trinket for what she could get for it, was surely inconsistent when she disdained even the suggestion of a future patron. Lady Ursula, whoever she was, would buy the ring. Of course she must not have it, I must be a great deal harder pressed before I could consent to part with my Talisman, my “Open Sesame” into the Land of Romance. But I knew that Ididwant money. I wanted twenty pounds before Monday, if I would help Jack—I wanted further money if I would continue to assist his wife.All these thoughts, as I say, flashed through me, and by the time Madame Leroy had finished speaking, I had quite altered my tone.“I am sorry to appear rude,” I said. “I know you were very kind to help me last night. Will you please tell me what Lady Ursula says about my ring?”“Candidly, my dear, she wants to buy it from you. Here is her letter. She says:—”‘Dear Madame Leroy,—You must get me that lovely ruby ring at any price. I refuse to part from it. Name a price, and I will send you a cheque.’“There’s a chance for you,” said Madame Leroy, flinging down her letter. “You can’t say I have not been a good friend to you after that letter. Name any price in reason for that old ring, and you shall have it—my commission being twenty per cent.”“But I don’t wish to sell the ring, Madame Leroy.”“I am sorry, Miss Lindley, I am afraid you have no help for yourself. Lady Ursula Redmayne intends to buy it.”This was not at all the right kind of thing to say to me. I was very proud, and all my pride flashed into my face.“You think because I am poor, and Lady Ursula is rich, that she is to have my property?” I said. “You must send a messenger for the ring at once. I will wait here until he returns.”Poor Madame Leroy looked absolutely stupefied.“I never met such a queer young lady,” she said. “How can I send a message of that sort? Why, it will offend my best, my very best customer. If you have no pity on yourself, Miss Lindley, you ought to have some on me.”“What can I do for you, Madame Leroy? I cannot sell the ring.”“Well, you might go yourself to Lady Ursula. She is eccentric. She might take a fancy to you. You might go to her, and explain your motives, which are more than I can understand. And above all things you might exonerate me; you might explain to her that I did my best to get the ring for her.”“I could certainly do that.”“Will you?”“I will go to Lady Ursula, if it does not take up too much of my time.”“She lives in Grosvenor Street, not five minutes’ drive from here. You shall go in a hansom at my expense at once.”

Hetty slept fairly well. I sat broad awake by her bedside. I was too young, too fresh, too strong to be exhausted by this evening’s excitement and hurry. I was not tired enough to drop asleep in the hard chair by my sister’s bedside. My pulses were beating high. I sat all through the long night, excited, anxious, full of a thousand forebodings and troubles. I gave my patient Brand’s jelly and grapes when she woke in the night, and early in the morning I boiled an egg, made some crisp toast, and a teapot of fragrant tea, and gave Hetty her breakfast. Afterwards I washed and dressed her; I combed out her hair, and tied it into a soft mass. I straightened the bed, and made it look as tidy as such a miserable bed could be, and then putting some grapes within reach, and the flowers on a little table, where she could look at them, I ran down-stairs to interview the landlady.

“I am glad to tell you,” I said, “that my sister seems much better this morning.”

“Oh, ay, miss, I’m sure I’m pleased to hear it.” The landlady was all beams and curtsies. “I always said, pore dear, that it was care she wanted—and all I could I give her, as Mr Gray can testify; but when a woman has got to ’arn her living ’ard, she has no power to spend much time a-cookin’, and a-cleanin’, and a-nursin’, and a-messin’. It’s always a-nursin’ and a-messin’ with the sick, and I han’t got the time, so I’m glad you has come in, miss.”

“Yes, but I must go away for some hours,” I said, “and I want my sister to be taken all possible care of in my absence. Will you do that for me, Mrs Ashton? I will come back as early in the afternoon as I can.”

“To be sure I will, my dear.”

“Here is a piece of paper on which I have written what she is to eat, and how often she is to be fed.”

“Well, dear, I’ll do my ’umble best. I’m not good at readin’ and writin’, but Mary Ann in the kitchen can spell out what you has writ down, miss, I make no doubt.”

I left the paper in Mrs Ashton’s hands, and went back again to Hetty.

“Hetty,” I said, “I must go away for a few hours. Mrs Ashton will take all possible care of you.” I stopped, distressed by the piteous, helpless expression on her face.

“Mrs Ashton doesn’t take any care of me,” said Hetty. “She leaves me all day long, and never, never comes near the room. Yesterday the fire went out, and I got so hungry, so dreadfully hungry. Then the hunger went off, and I felt only cold and very faint. I thought perhaps I was dying. Don’t leave me with Mrs Ashton, miss.”

“You must call me Rosamund, Hetty. Now listen. Don’t tremble, dear. I am obliged to leave you. I have a mother and father, and—and—brothers. Your Jack is one of my brothers. I will come back again as soon as ever I can; and when I come I shall probably bring you a message from Jack.”

“Won’t Jack come to see me himself to-day?”

“I’m afraid not. Jack does not forget you, Hetty, but the fact is, he is ill. He has a bad headache, and has to be nursed.”

“Oh,” she said gently, and without any of the alarm I had anticipated. “Sometimes his head aches fearfully, I know; I have seen it. I have sat up all night nursing his headache. Who is taking care of him now?”

“His mother and mine, the tenderest and best of human beings.”

I felt a break in my voice as I said this. I knew my mother was no longer first in Jack’s affections. I felt an unreasonable and ridiculous sense of jealousy on my mother’s account.

“Good-bye, Hetty,” I said hastily; “I will bring you news of Jack; and try and believe one thing—the Mrs Ashton of yesterday and the Mrs Ashton of to-day are two distinctly different people. You will be taken care of, my dear, and remember I expect to see you looking quite bright and well this evening.”

Then I ran down-stairs and out of the house. It was still too early to go to Madame Leroy’s, but the comfortable chink of gold in my purse enabled me to spend my time profitably. I laid in fresh provisions both for Hetty and for Jack. At twelve o’clock exactly I arrived at Madame Leroy’s. To my surprise Susan herself opened the door for me. I think she must have been waiting on the mat inside, for the moment I rang, the door was pulled open, and Susan said breathlessly:

“Oh, come in, Miss Rosamund, come up-stairs.”

“Where is my ring, Susan?” I said, resisting her impetuous push. “Give me back my ring at once and let me go. I have really a great deal to do, and have not time to wait to chat with you.”

“It isn’t me, miss, as wants to keep you, it’s Madame Leroy herself.”

“Madame Leroy? Whatdoyou mean?”

“And I haven’t got the ring, miss. When I asked Madagie for it this morning, she said, ‘When the young person calls, show her up to my private room at once.’ She said ‘young person,’ miss, meaning no offence, but the moment she claps her eyes on you she’ll know you are a lady born.”

“I don’t care what she calls me, Susan; if I must see her, I must, I suppose. Show me to her room at once.”

Susan ran on before me, past the first floor, and the second, and on to the third floor of the great house; where she paused, and knocked deliberately at a certain door which wanted paint, and was altogether very shabby.

“Come in,” said a voice, and I found myself in the presence of Madame Leroy.

I suppose this greatartiste, as she would term herself, had a certain figure, manner, eye, tone which were capable of not only inspiring awe, but of tickling vanity, of whetting desire, of ministering to the weakest passions of the silliest of her sex. I may as well own at once that her arts were thrown away on me.

She was a handsome dark-eyed woman, full in figure, tall in stature, and with what would be called a commanding presence. I was only a slip of a girl, badly dressed, and with no presence whatever. Nevertheless, I could not fear the fashionable and pompous being.

“Will you kindly return me my ring, Madame Leroy?” I said brusquely.

Madame favoured me with a sweeping curtsey.

“I presume I am addressing Miss Lindley?” she said. “Pray take a seat, Miss Lindley—I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

The moment she spoke I perceived that she was not French. She was an English or an Irish woman, probably the latter. Her name was doubtless an assumed one. I did not take the chair she proffered me.

“I have come for my ring,” I said, in a voice which I really managed to make very firm and business-like. “I brought it to you last night, and you very kindly paid me five pounds for the loan of it. I want it back now. Your servant said that if I called at twelve o’clock I should have the ring back.”

“I wish you would take a chair, Miss Lindley; I want particularly to speak to you about the ring. I am pleased to be able to impart to you some good news. I—” Madame Leroy paused, and slightly smacked her lips. “I have found a purchaser for your ruby ring, Miss Lindley.”

I felt my cheeks turning very red.

“You are kind,” I replied; “I dare say you mean to be good to me when you say you have a purchaser for the ring. But I don’t want to sell it.”

“Not want to sell it!” Madame Leroy looked me all over from the crown of my hat to the tips of my shabby boots. Then putting on her pince-nez she scrutinised my face. I knew perfectly well the thoughts that were filling her mind. She was saying to herself:—“You are a poor specimen of humanity, but if I, the greatartiste, had the dressing of you, I might make you at least presentable. The idea of a chit like you presuming to refuse to sell a trinket!”

“I don’t want to sell my ring,” I said. “But it is possible that I may lend it to you another evening. Even that I am not sure about. Give it back to me now, please.”

I held out my hand. Madame Leroy drew back.

“I am very sorry,” she said, reddening; “the fact is, I have not got the ring.”

“Not got my ring?”

“No. Lady Ursula Redmayne borrowed the ring last night. She sent me a messenger this morning with a letter, and no ring. Shall I read you her letter?”

“I do not care to hear it,” I said. “It is no matter to me what Lady Ursula Redmayne writes to you. I want my ring.”

“Well, miss,”—Madame Leroy’s tone was now decidedly angry,—“seeing how very anxious you were last night for the immediate loan of five pounds, you have a mighty independent way with you. Lady Ursula Redmayne, indeed! I can tell you it isn’t every one as has the privilege of getting letters from Lady Ursula.”

While Madame Leroy was speaking I had a great many flashes of thought. Her first words recalled me to myself. A girl who had come in desperation to hire out a family trinket for what she could get for it, was surely inconsistent when she disdained even the suggestion of a future patron. Lady Ursula, whoever she was, would buy the ring. Of course she must not have it, I must be a great deal harder pressed before I could consent to part with my Talisman, my “Open Sesame” into the Land of Romance. But I knew that Ididwant money. I wanted twenty pounds before Monday, if I would help Jack—I wanted further money if I would continue to assist his wife.

All these thoughts, as I say, flashed through me, and by the time Madame Leroy had finished speaking, I had quite altered my tone.

“I am sorry to appear rude,” I said. “I know you were very kind to help me last night. Will you please tell me what Lady Ursula says about my ring?”

“Candidly, my dear, she wants to buy it from you. Here is her letter. She says:—

”‘Dear Madame Leroy,—You must get me that lovely ruby ring at any price. I refuse to part from it. Name a price, and I will send you a cheque.’

“There’s a chance for you,” said Madame Leroy, flinging down her letter. “You can’t say I have not been a good friend to you after that letter. Name any price in reason for that old ring, and you shall have it—my commission being twenty per cent.”

“But I don’t wish to sell the ring, Madame Leroy.”

“I am sorry, Miss Lindley, I am afraid you have no help for yourself. Lady Ursula Redmayne intends to buy it.”

This was not at all the right kind of thing to say to me. I was very proud, and all my pride flashed into my face.

“You think because I am poor, and Lady Ursula is rich, that she is to have my property?” I said. “You must send a messenger for the ring at once. I will wait here until he returns.”

Poor Madame Leroy looked absolutely stupefied.

“I never met such a queer young lady,” she said. “How can I send a message of that sort? Why, it will offend my best, my very best customer. If you have no pity on yourself, Miss Lindley, you ought to have some on me.”

“What can I do for you, Madame Leroy? I cannot sell the ring.”

“Well, you might go yourself to Lady Ursula. She is eccentric. She might take a fancy to you. You might go to her, and explain your motives, which are more than I can understand. And above all things you might exonerate me; you might explain to her that I did my best to get the ring for her.”

“I could certainly do that.”

“Will you?”

“I will go to Lady Ursula, if it does not take up too much of my time.”

“She lives in Grosvenor Street, not five minutes’ drive from here. You shall go in a hansom at my expense at once.”

Chapter Six.The Aristocrat.The house in Grosvenor Street was the most splendid mansion I had ever seen. It was Cousin Geoffrey’s house over again, only there were no cobwebs, no neglect, no dirt anywhere. The household machinery was perfect, and well oiled. I suppose I ought to have felt timid when those ponderous doors were thrown open, and a powdered footman stared at me in the insolent manner which seems specially to belong to these servitors of the great. I had no feeling of abasement, however. The lady, be she young or old, who resided in this palace, wanted a boon from me; I required nothing at her hands except my own property back again.I said to the footman:“Is Lady Ursula Redmayne at home?”He replied in the affirmative.“I wish to see her,” I continued. “Will you have the goodness to let Lady Ursula know at once that I have called at the request of Madame Leroy to speak to her on the subject of a ring.”A sudden flash of intelligence and interest swept over the man’s impassive features. Then he resumed his wooden style, and flinging the door yet wider open invited me to enter.I was shown into a small room to the left of the great entrance hall, and had to consume my own impatience for the next ten minutes as best I might. At the end of that time the servant returned.“Come this way, madam,” he said.He ushered me up a flight of stairs, down another flight of stairs, along a dimly-lighted gallery hung with many Rembrandts and Gainsboroughs, and suddenly opening a door ushered me into a kind of rose-coloured bower. There was a subtle warmth and perfume about the room, and the coloured light gave me for a moment a giddy and unnerved feeling.“Miss Lindley, your Ladyship,” announced the man. The door was softly closed, indeed it seemed to vanish into a wall of tapestry.The rose-coloured light had for an instant confused my sight, and I did not see the girl, no older than myself, who was lying back in an easy-chair, and pulling the silken ears of a toy-terrier.When the man left the room she sprang up, flung the dog on the ground, who gave a squeaking bark of indignation, and came to meet me as if I were a dear old friend.“Sit down, Miss Lindley. How good of dear old Madame to send you to me! And so you are the owner of that heavenly ring?”Lady Ursula was very pretty. Her voice was like a flute; her dress was perfection; her manner almost caressing. But even there, in that rose-coloured bower, I recognised her imperiousness, and I felt that if she were crossed her sweet tones would vanish, and I should be permitted to gaze at a new side of her character.“You have come about the ring,” she said. “Now, whatdoyou want for it? It is a treasure, but you won’t be too extravagant in your demands, will you?”“I won’t be extravagant at all, Lady Ursula,” I cried. “I have no demand to make, except to ask you to let me have my property back.”“The ring back? The ruby ring? Oh, my dear good creature you don’t understand. I wrote to Madame Leroy offering to buy it. I will give you a cheque for it, Miss Lindley—or gold, if you prefer it. You shall have a price for the ring. Your own price, if it is not beyond reason. Now do you understand?”“I understand perfectly,” I replied—I am afraid my tone was nettled—I certainly felt very angry. “I understand,” I said. “You want me to sell the ring—I don’t intend to sell it. It was a legacy left to me by a cousin, and I—I won’t part with it.”I said these words so decidedly that the fine young lady, who all her life had lived luxuriously, and, perhaps, now for the first time in her existence had her whim refused, stared at me in amazement. Her brows became contracted. Her pleasant, kindly, but insufferably condescending manner changed to one more natural although less amiable. Lady Ursula ceased to be the aristocrat, and became the woman.“You won’t sell your ring?” she said. “But you did much the same last night. Last night you took money for the ring left to you by your—your cousin. I wore the ruby ring, and I paid you money for the loan.”“I know you did,” I answered. “I wanted money last night. I was in despair for money. I heard through one of her apprentices that Madame Leroy now and then hired out jewels to some of her rich customers. You wore the ring and paid me for it. Now I want it back. I am in a hurry, so please let me have it at once.” I stood up as I spoke. Lady Ursula did not stir.“Sit down,” she said. “No, not on that stiff little ottoman, but on the sofa, close to me. Now we can talk cosily. This seems an exciting story, Miss Lindley, and you have an exciting way of putting things. Fancy you, wanting money so badly as to have to hire out your ring. I always knew there were creatures in the world who would do anything to secure money, but I had not an idea that ladies were put to these straits.”“You know very little indeed about the lives of some ladies,” I answered. “The need of money comes to some who are ladies, and it presses them sore.”“It must be awfully interesting and exciting,” responded Lady Ursula.“It is both. At the same time it is cruel; it stabs horribly.”“Ah.”Lady Ursula looked me all over from head to foot.“Then you don’t want money to-day,” she said suddenly.“Yes, I do.”“As badly as you did last night?”“I think so. Yes, I believe I want it quite as badly.”“Then you will sell your ring; if the want of money stabs and is cruel, you will take what opportunity offers. For the sake of a sentiment you won’t refuse to enrich yourself, and remove the pain which you speak of as so bitter.”“I won’t sell my ring,” I said. “I am sorry to disoblige you, Lady Ursula, but the question is not one which leaves any room for consideration. I want my ring back. Will you give it to me, please?”I really don’t know how aristocratic girls are brought up. I suppose they have a totally different training from girls who live in cottages, and are very poor. There is compensation in all things, and no doubt if self-denial is a virtue the cottage girl has a chance of acquiring it which is denied to the maid who inhabits the palace.If I never performed any other mission, I shall always feel that I was the first person who did for Lady Ursula Redmayne the inestimable service of saying “No” to a strong desire.It took this beautiful young woman several moments to realise that she absolutely could not have her way; that the humble and poor cottage girl would not part with her legitimate property.When Lady Ursula realised this, which she did after a considerable and fatiguing discussion, she sat silent for a moment or two. Then she jumped up and looked out of the window. She pulled aside the soft rose-coloured silk curtains to take this peep into the outer world. Her eager dark eyes looked down the street and up the street. For all her languor she was now fully alive and even quick in her movements. With a pettish action she let the rose curtains cover the window again, and going to the fireplace pressed the button of an electric bell.In a moment an elderly woman dressed in black silk, with a book-muslin apron, and a white cap with long streamers of lace, appeared.“Nurse,” said Lady Ursula, “please give orders that I am not at home to any callers this morning.”“I will attend to the matter, my lady,” answered the nurse. “But if Captain Valentine calls?”“I am not at home—I make no exception.”The nurse respectfully withdrew, and the door, which opened into the tapestry, was noiselessly closed.“Now,” said Lady Ursula, turning to me, “I am going to confide in you, Miss Lindley.”I felt quite cross. I was dying to be home with mother and Jack, and wondering if my poor new sister Hetty was being starved by Mrs Ashton.Lady Ursula looked at me with an expression which seemed to say—“Now you are having an honour conferred on you.”In reply to it, I rose to my feet, and I think some of the crossness in my heart got into my face.“Thank you,” I said, “but I have only a moment to give you. My brother is dangerously ill at home, and I must go back as soon as possible.”Lady Ursula slightly raised her delicate brows.I think she scarcely heard what I said about my brother.“Do sit down,” she said, “I won’t keep you a moment. What a queer girl you are! but very refreshing to meet. Now do sit down. You can’t go, you know, until you get your ring. Miss Lindley, I must confide my story to you. I am engaged.”I bowed my head very slightly.“To Captain Rupert Valentine. He is in the Guards. Would you like to see his photograph?”I murmured something. Lady Ursula stretched out her hand to a table which stood near, took up a morocco case, which she opened, and showed me the dark, slightly supercilious face of a handsome man of about thirty.“Don’t you admire his expression?” she said. “Isn’t it firm? Doesn’t he look like the sort of hero a girl would be proud to obey?”“That depends on the girl,” I answered.“Good gracious, there isn’t a girl in the kingdom who would not be proud to be engaged to Rupert Valentine.”“I hope you will be very happy, Lady Ursula.”“There is not the least doubt on that point. We are to be married immediately after Christmas. Now comes the real point of my confidence. Rupert gave me an engagement ring exactly like yours, so like, that only the closest observer could detect a difference. The ring belonged to his mother, and he valued it above all other earthly things.”“Yes,” I said; I was really interested at last.“Yesterday I lost the ring. I don’t know how. I was out driving, and I may have pulled it off with my glove when I was shopping. I went to Madame Leroy’s among other places. When I came back my ruby ring was gone. I cannot conceive how it vanished. I went very nearly mad on the spot, I really did. I dared not face Rupert, and tell him his engagement ring was lost. All search was made for its recovery, but in vain. Nurse took the carriage round, and went from shop to shop to try and get some trace of it. In the end she visited Madame Leroy. I was to meet Rupert at a friend’s house last night. While nurse was at Madame Leroy’s your ring was brought in. Imagine her astonishment and rapture! Here was a mode of deliverance for me in case my own ring was never recovered. I wore your ruby ring last night, Miss Lindley, and Captain Valentine noticed it, and said that beautiful as he had always known his mother’s rubies to be, he had never seen them flash as they did on my finger last night. How relieved I felt, and how certain that you would let me buy the ring from you. You will, now that I have confided my trouble to you, won’t you?”“I am sorry,” I said, “but I must repeat the words I have used already so often. I cannot part with the ruby ring. It was left to me by an old cousin of mine, and when I received it I was particularly requested never to part with it. I am sorry for you, Lady Ursula, but I must ask you to give me my ring, and let me go.”Lady Ursula put her hands behind her.“You are a cruel, selfish girl,” she said angrily.“No, Lady Ursula, I am not cruel. The world, which has been so gentle to you, has blown many hard rough winds on my face, but they have never made me cruel. And as to being selfish, why should I part with my one ewe-lamb?”“Oh, dear!” said Lady Ursula.She rose from her seat, and began to pace up and down the room. I noticed that she was a tall, largely-made girl, and could be as vigorous and energetic as any one when she chose. She clenched her dainty hands now and spoke with passion. “I repeat that you are cruel and selfish,” she said. “I know that you can plead your cause well; for I suppose you are clever, and have doubtless been educated at one of those detestable High Schools. But let me tell you that however you argue the point you are actuated by cruel motives. Whatcanthat ring matter to you? and if I don’t get it, most likely my engagement will be broken off. Thus, you see, you will have ruined my life.”“Lady Ursula,” I said, “it isyounow who are cruel. I have my own reasons for wishing to retain my own trinket, and surely the only right and honourable thing for you to do is to tell Captain Valentine of your loss. If he is the least worthy of your affection, he will, of course, overlook what was only an unfortunate accident.”“No, he never will—he never, never will. You don’t know what he thought of that ring. I’d rather never see him again than tell him that his mother’s ruby ring was lost.”“Well, I am truly sorry for you. But I don’t see my way to helping you.”“Listen. Hire me the ring for a week—only for a week, and I will give you thirty pounds.”I must admit that this proposal staggered me. I thought of Jack, and the stolen twenty pounds. I thought of Monday morning, when the discovery of the theft would be made known. I thought of the agony, the dishonour; I saw my mother’s face as it would look when the news was brought to her that her son was a thief. Yes, thirty pounds could do much good just then; it would save Jack, and it would give me funds to attend to Hetty’s wants.Lady Ursula saw the hesitation in my face.“Give me one week’s grace,” she said. “My own ruby ring may be found before the week is up.”She opened a little exquisitely inlaid secretary, and began to pull out of a secret drawer notes and gold. She made a pile of them on the table—four five-pound notes, ten sovereigns. The yellow of the sovereigns seemed to mix with the rose-coloured tone of the room. I gazed at them as if they fascinated me. I half held out my hand to close over them, and then drew it back again.“You will take the money—you want it, I know you do,” said Lady Ursula.“But even if I do you will be no better off at the end of a week. In fact, you will be worse off, for you will have been all that time deliberately deceiving the man you intend to marry.”“Oh, don’t begin to lecture me! Let the end of the week take care of itself! Here are thirty pounds! Give me the ring for a week!”“I shall do very wrong.”“Do wrong then! Take your money! You are looking greedily at it! Take it, you long for it!”“I do long for it,” I answered. “If I take it, Lady Ursula, it will avert such a storm as girls like you can never even picture. It will save—Oh, have you a mother, Lady Ursula?”“Of course I have. I don’t see her very often. She is at Cannes now.”“If I take the money,” I said, “it will be only for a week, remember.”“Very well. Of course you will take it. Out with your purse. Nay, though, you shall have a new purse, and one of mine. What do you say to this, made of red Russian leather? Here go the notes, and here the gold. Pop the purse into your pocket. Now, don’t you feel nice? We have both got what we want, and we can both be happy for a week.”“I will come back in a week,” I said. I felt so mean when that thirty pounds lay in my pocket that I could scarcely raise my eyes. For the first time the difference of rank between Lady Ursula and myself oppressed me. For the first time I was conscious of my shabby dress, my rough boots, my worn gloves. “Good-bye, Lady Ursula,” I said.“Good-bye, good-bye! I cannot tell you how grateful I am! You are not cruel, you are not selfish. By the way, what is your name?”“Lindley.”“Your Christian name?”“I am called Rosamund.”“How pretty! Good-bye, Rosamund!”

The house in Grosvenor Street was the most splendid mansion I had ever seen. It was Cousin Geoffrey’s house over again, only there were no cobwebs, no neglect, no dirt anywhere. The household machinery was perfect, and well oiled. I suppose I ought to have felt timid when those ponderous doors were thrown open, and a powdered footman stared at me in the insolent manner which seems specially to belong to these servitors of the great. I had no feeling of abasement, however. The lady, be she young or old, who resided in this palace, wanted a boon from me; I required nothing at her hands except my own property back again.

I said to the footman:

“Is Lady Ursula Redmayne at home?”

He replied in the affirmative.

“I wish to see her,” I continued. “Will you have the goodness to let Lady Ursula know at once that I have called at the request of Madame Leroy to speak to her on the subject of a ring.”

A sudden flash of intelligence and interest swept over the man’s impassive features. Then he resumed his wooden style, and flinging the door yet wider open invited me to enter.

I was shown into a small room to the left of the great entrance hall, and had to consume my own impatience for the next ten minutes as best I might. At the end of that time the servant returned.

“Come this way, madam,” he said.

He ushered me up a flight of stairs, down another flight of stairs, along a dimly-lighted gallery hung with many Rembrandts and Gainsboroughs, and suddenly opening a door ushered me into a kind of rose-coloured bower. There was a subtle warmth and perfume about the room, and the coloured light gave me for a moment a giddy and unnerved feeling.

“Miss Lindley, your Ladyship,” announced the man. The door was softly closed, indeed it seemed to vanish into a wall of tapestry.

The rose-coloured light had for an instant confused my sight, and I did not see the girl, no older than myself, who was lying back in an easy-chair, and pulling the silken ears of a toy-terrier.

When the man left the room she sprang up, flung the dog on the ground, who gave a squeaking bark of indignation, and came to meet me as if I were a dear old friend.

“Sit down, Miss Lindley. How good of dear old Madame to send you to me! And so you are the owner of that heavenly ring?”

Lady Ursula was very pretty. Her voice was like a flute; her dress was perfection; her manner almost caressing. But even there, in that rose-coloured bower, I recognised her imperiousness, and I felt that if she were crossed her sweet tones would vanish, and I should be permitted to gaze at a new side of her character.

“You have come about the ring,” she said. “Now, whatdoyou want for it? It is a treasure, but you won’t be too extravagant in your demands, will you?”

“I won’t be extravagant at all, Lady Ursula,” I cried. “I have no demand to make, except to ask you to let me have my property back.”

“The ring back? The ruby ring? Oh, my dear good creature you don’t understand. I wrote to Madame Leroy offering to buy it. I will give you a cheque for it, Miss Lindley—or gold, if you prefer it. You shall have a price for the ring. Your own price, if it is not beyond reason. Now do you understand?”

“I understand perfectly,” I replied—I am afraid my tone was nettled—I certainly felt very angry. “I understand,” I said. “You want me to sell the ring—I don’t intend to sell it. It was a legacy left to me by a cousin, and I—I won’t part with it.”

I said these words so decidedly that the fine young lady, who all her life had lived luxuriously, and, perhaps, now for the first time in her existence had her whim refused, stared at me in amazement. Her brows became contracted. Her pleasant, kindly, but insufferably condescending manner changed to one more natural although less amiable. Lady Ursula ceased to be the aristocrat, and became the woman.

“You won’t sell your ring?” she said. “But you did much the same last night. Last night you took money for the ring left to you by your—your cousin. I wore the ruby ring, and I paid you money for the loan.”

“I know you did,” I answered. “I wanted money last night. I was in despair for money. I heard through one of her apprentices that Madame Leroy now and then hired out jewels to some of her rich customers. You wore the ring and paid me for it. Now I want it back. I am in a hurry, so please let me have it at once.” I stood up as I spoke. Lady Ursula did not stir.

“Sit down,” she said. “No, not on that stiff little ottoman, but on the sofa, close to me. Now we can talk cosily. This seems an exciting story, Miss Lindley, and you have an exciting way of putting things. Fancy you, wanting money so badly as to have to hire out your ring. I always knew there were creatures in the world who would do anything to secure money, but I had not an idea that ladies were put to these straits.”

“You know very little indeed about the lives of some ladies,” I answered. “The need of money comes to some who are ladies, and it presses them sore.”

“It must be awfully interesting and exciting,” responded Lady Ursula.

“It is both. At the same time it is cruel; it stabs horribly.”

“Ah.”

Lady Ursula looked me all over from head to foot.

“Then you don’t want money to-day,” she said suddenly.

“Yes, I do.”

“As badly as you did last night?”

“I think so. Yes, I believe I want it quite as badly.”

“Then you will sell your ring; if the want of money stabs and is cruel, you will take what opportunity offers. For the sake of a sentiment you won’t refuse to enrich yourself, and remove the pain which you speak of as so bitter.”

“I won’t sell my ring,” I said. “I am sorry to disoblige you, Lady Ursula, but the question is not one which leaves any room for consideration. I want my ring back. Will you give it to me, please?”

I really don’t know how aristocratic girls are brought up. I suppose they have a totally different training from girls who live in cottages, and are very poor. There is compensation in all things, and no doubt if self-denial is a virtue the cottage girl has a chance of acquiring it which is denied to the maid who inhabits the palace.

If I never performed any other mission, I shall always feel that I was the first person who did for Lady Ursula Redmayne the inestimable service of saying “No” to a strong desire.

It took this beautiful young woman several moments to realise that she absolutely could not have her way; that the humble and poor cottage girl would not part with her legitimate property.

When Lady Ursula realised this, which she did after a considerable and fatiguing discussion, she sat silent for a moment or two. Then she jumped up and looked out of the window. She pulled aside the soft rose-coloured silk curtains to take this peep into the outer world. Her eager dark eyes looked down the street and up the street. For all her languor she was now fully alive and even quick in her movements. With a pettish action she let the rose curtains cover the window again, and going to the fireplace pressed the button of an electric bell.

In a moment an elderly woman dressed in black silk, with a book-muslin apron, and a white cap with long streamers of lace, appeared.

“Nurse,” said Lady Ursula, “please give orders that I am not at home to any callers this morning.”

“I will attend to the matter, my lady,” answered the nurse. “But if Captain Valentine calls?”

“I am not at home—I make no exception.”

The nurse respectfully withdrew, and the door, which opened into the tapestry, was noiselessly closed.

“Now,” said Lady Ursula, turning to me, “I am going to confide in you, Miss Lindley.”

I felt quite cross. I was dying to be home with mother and Jack, and wondering if my poor new sister Hetty was being starved by Mrs Ashton.

Lady Ursula looked at me with an expression which seemed to say—

“Now you are having an honour conferred on you.”

In reply to it, I rose to my feet, and I think some of the crossness in my heart got into my face.

“Thank you,” I said, “but I have only a moment to give you. My brother is dangerously ill at home, and I must go back as soon as possible.”

Lady Ursula slightly raised her delicate brows.

I think she scarcely heard what I said about my brother.

“Do sit down,” she said, “I won’t keep you a moment. What a queer girl you are! but very refreshing to meet. Now do sit down. You can’t go, you know, until you get your ring. Miss Lindley, I must confide my story to you. I am engaged.”

I bowed my head very slightly.

“To Captain Rupert Valentine. He is in the Guards. Would you like to see his photograph?”

I murmured something. Lady Ursula stretched out her hand to a table which stood near, took up a morocco case, which she opened, and showed me the dark, slightly supercilious face of a handsome man of about thirty.

“Don’t you admire his expression?” she said. “Isn’t it firm? Doesn’t he look like the sort of hero a girl would be proud to obey?”

“That depends on the girl,” I answered.

“Good gracious, there isn’t a girl in the kingdom who would not be proud to be engaged to Rupert Valentine.”

“I hope you will be very happy, Lady Ursula.”

“There is not the least doubt on that point. We are to be married immediately after Christmas. Now comes the real point of my confidence. Rupert gave me an engagement ring exactly like yours, so like, that only the closest observer could detect a difference. The ring belonged to his mother, and he valued it above all other earthly things.”

“Yes,” I said; I was really interested at last.

“Yesterday I lost the ring. I don’t know how. I was out driving, and I may have pulled it off with my glove when I was shopping. I went to Madame Leroy’s among other places. When I came back my ruby ring was gone. I cannot conceive how it vanished. I went very nearly mad on the spot, I really did. I dared not face Rupert, and tell him his engagement ring was lost. All search was made for its recovery, but in vain. Nurse took the carriage round, and went from shop to shop to try and get some trace of it. In the end she visited Madame Leroy. I was to meet Rupert at a friend’s house last night. While nurse was at Madame Leroy’s your ring was brought in. Imagine her astonishment and rapture! Here was a mode of deliverance for me in case my own ring was never recovered. I wore your ruby ring last night, Miss Lindley, and Captain Valentine noticed it, and said that beautiful as he had always known his mother’s rubies to be, he had never seen them flash as they did on my finger last night. How relieved I felt, and how certain that you would let me buy the ring from you. You will, now that I have confided my trouble to you, won’t you?”

“I am sorry,” I said, “but I must repeat the words I have used already so often. I cannot part with the ruby ring. It was left to me by an old cousin of mine, and when I received it I was particularly requested never to part with it. I am sorry for you, Lady Ursula, but I must ask you to give me my ring, and let me go.”

Lady Ursula put her hands behind her.

“You are a cruel, selfish girl,” she said angrily.

“No, Lady Ursula, I am not cruel. The world, which has been so gentle to you, has blown many hard rough winds on my face, but they have never made me cruel. And as to being selfish, why should I part with my one ewe-lamb?”

“Oh, dear!” said Lady Ursula.

She rose from her seat, and began to pace up and down the room. I noticed that she was a tall, largely-made girl, and could be as vigorous and energetic as any one when she chose. She clenched her dainty hands now and spoke with passion. “I repeat that you are cruel and selfish,” she said. “I know that you can plead your cause well; for I suppose you are clever, and have doubtless been educated at one of those detestable High Schools. But let me tell you that however you argue the point you are actuated by cruel motives. Whatcanthat ring matter to you? and if I don’t get it, most likely my engagement will be broken off. Thus, you see, you will have ruined my life.”

“Lady Ursula,” I said, “it isyounow who are cruel. I have my own reasons for wishing to retain my own trinket, and surely the only right and honourable thing for you to do is to tell Captain Valentine of your loss. If he is the least worthy of your affection, he will, of course, overlook what was only an unfortunate accident.”

“No, he never will—he never, never will. You don’t know what he thought of that ring. I’d rather never see him again than tell him that his mother’s ruby ring was lost.”

“Well, I am truly sorry for you. But I don’t see my way to helping you.”

“Listen. Hire me the ring for a week—only for a week, and I will give you thirty pounds.”

I must admit that this proposal staggered me. I thought of Jack, and the stolen twenty pounds. I thought of Monday morning, when the discovery of the theft would be made known. I thought of the agony, the dishonour; I saw my mother’s face as it would look when the news was brought to her that her son was a thief. Yes, thirty pounds could do much good just then; it would save Jack, and it would give me funds to attend to Hetty’s wants.

Lady Ursula saw the hesitation in my face.

“Give me one week’s grace,” she said. “My own ruby ring may be found before the week is up.”

She opened a little exquisitely inlaid secretary, and began to pull out of a secret drawer notes and gold. She made a pile of them on the table—four five-pound notes, ten sovereigns. The yellow of the sovereigns seemed to mix with the rose-coloured tone of the room. I gazed at them as if they fascinated me. I half held out my hand to close over them, and then drew it back again.

“You will take the money—you want it, I know you do,” said Lady Ursula.

“But even if I do you will be no better off at the end of a week. In fact, you will be worse off, for you will have been all that time deliberately deceiving the man you intend to marry.”

“Oh, don’t begin to lecture me! Let the end of the week take care of itself! Here are thirty pounds! Give me the ring for a week!”

“I shall do very wrong.”

“Do wrong then! Take your money! You are looking greedily at it! Take it, you long for it!”

“I do long for it,” I answered. “If I take it, Lady Ursula, it will avert such a storm as girls like you can never even picture. It will save—Oh, have you a mother, Lady Ursula?”

“Of course I have. I don’t see her very often. She is at Cannes now.”

“If I take the money,” I said, “it will be only for a week, remember.”

“Very well. Of course you will take it. Out with your purse. Nay, though, you shall have a new purse, and one of mine. What do you say to this, made of red Russian leather? Here go the notes, and here the gold. Pop the purse into your pocket. Now, don’t you feel nice? We have both got what we want, and we can both be happy for a week.”

“I will come back in a week,” I said. I felt so mean when that thirty pounds lay in my pocket that I could scarcely raise my eyes. For the first time the difference of rank between Lady Ursula and myself oppressed me. For the first time I was conscious of my shabby dress, my rough boots, my worn gloves. “Good-bye, Lady Ursula,” I said.

“Good-bye, good-bye! I cannot tell you how grateful I am! You are not cruel, you are not selfish. By the way, what is your name?”

“Lindley.”

“Your Christian name?”

“I am called Rosamund.”

“How pretty! Good-bye, Rosamund!”

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