"You are eloquent, dear," said Adèle with a little sigh; "if you write your book in that way, I think it must certainly be a success."
"Yes," said he pensively, "the public like reality, but, you see, one can't always give it. These kinds of things look cold on paper. If I could show you my multitudinous attempts in prose and verse to give some idea of her! but they were all poor and wishy-washy. The greater number enriched the ashes of my grate. I am a good-for-nothing, and Ishall bea good-for-nothing to the end of the chapter."
There was something of weariness and bitter self-contempt in Arthur's voice. It made Adèle's heart ache for him. She knelt down by his side and put one of her arms round his neck. It was more the gesture of a tender little mother withher child than of a woman with the man she loves, for this protecting motherliness was one great element in the affection of Adèle for her cousin. No doubt it was this in a great measure that rendered it so unselfish. As a little child she had taken upon herself the punishment of his small faults—as a grown-up girl she sought to shield him from every kind of ill.
"Don't despair, dear," she said gently; "there is something for you to do—to do forher, if you can be wise and generous, and put yourself out of the way altogether. Do you remember, Arthur" (Adèle's voice grew soft and the tears were in her eyes), "how you used to come and sit here in the afternoon while I read to you from theFaërie Queeneabout those grand young knights going out in search of adventures—to rescue women and kill dragons and evil things? And sometimes we used to wish that those days would come back, and I imagined how I would send you out, all clothed in bright armor, to do great deeds in the world. Dear, I think your time for this has come. You are a true knight, you will forget yourself, you will burn to redress a great wrong—especially when she, your Margaret, is the victim."
Adèle's words were exciting. Arthur could barely listen with patience to the end of her tender little harangue, for a great light was burning behind it which set his spirit on flame. "Adèle," he cried eagerly, "you have heard something new about her. Tell me at once."
"I heard it from mamma," she answered. And then, in as few words as possible, she repeated the story of the young Russian. "I have no doubt whatever about Margaret Grey being the Mrs. Grey in question," she said in conclusion. "You remember what I told you about her strange cry when she thought she was alone in the room. Maurice Grey must be her husband. My idea is this: a misunderstanding is at the bottom of their misery—forheis evidently as miserable as she is—brought about by some one who was in love with her before—that tall man, very likely, who looked in at the window and frightened her so much. A person who knew them both might possibly remove this and restore them to happiness. Arthur,youmust be that person. There is onlyonedrawback:ifthe people in St. Petersburg shouldbe right? if he has killed himself? Can you conceive anything more dreadful, she loving him all the time, as I know she does?" The idea turned Adèle pale, but the hopefulness of youth reasserted itself. "I can't bring myself to believe it," she said earnestly. "He got tired of all his friends and the gayety, and they teased him, I dare say. It's not like an Englishman to put an end to himself in that kind of way. No; I feel convinced that he will be found yet; and, Arthur,youmust find him."
While Adèle had been speaking Arthur had turned away from her. He was standing by the window, apparently watching the passers-by, but she could see, by the glimpse of his face that was still visible, that he was listening with intense interest.
A fierce struggle was going on in his heart. Adèle had often let him know that in her earnest belief all his hopes were futile. Arthur had hoped against hope. In spite of all she could say—in spite even of the cruel facts that supported her theory—he reared in secret his airy fabric of hopes and dreams. He would work—work day by day and hour by hour. He should be known for a student, an author, a man of genius; not as a boy, but as a man, with an acknowledged place in the world—a man worthy of her, if that were possible (which fact the ardent lover of both sexes is wont to doubt)—he would present himself before her with the tale of his ever-faithful love.
She would be weary of solitude, she would be touched with his perseverance, she would grant him all he could desire. It was thus he always crowned his edifice, though the number of ways to its summit might have been named Legion. Now painting, now poetry, now science, now politics, would be the friendly genius that might bring him at last to her feet.
And in one moment the whole was changed. He was called upon to forget his dream or to expunge his own name from the fluted columns of his mansion in the clouds—never an easy task. I wonder who builds thesechâteaux en Espagnewithout self for at least one of the habitants.
Unhappily, Adèle's tale carried conviction. But "None are so blind as those whowillnot see." Arthurcouldnotbelieve, because he would not. He did not answer for a few moments, then he turned, with a light laugh that sorely belied a certain haggard look in his young face: "Youhad better turn novelist, Adèle. Yourplotswould certainly be first-rate. Why, you have reared a mountain of certainty out of a grain of conjecture. I don't believe it," he continued fiercely. But in his very fierceness was the contradiction of his words. "You pretend to care for her, and yet you can listen to all these foolish tales!"
It was rather an unkind accusation, since Adèle had been doing her very utmost to show how implicitly she believed in Margaret's innocence and truth; but pain blinded Arthur for the moment, and made him cruel and unjust.
Adèle saw how it was with him, and she did not even appear to resent his words. "Sit down again, Arthur dear," she said gently. "I am as anxious as you can be to get to the bottom of this mystery, but if we would do anything we must be calm and have our wits about us."
"Say, rather,Imust," returned Arthur, throwing himself down on a small chair at her feet and seizing one of her hands in a sudden access of penitence. "What a brute I am, exciting you in this way, my poor pale little cousin! Adèle, you are wise and kind: I put myself in your hands. What shall I do?"
Adèle's lips quivered as if with a sudden pain, but the answer came out clear and firm: "Go and see her, Arthur; find out the truth about all this. I think when you have once heard her story you will be in no further difficulty."
Arthur started up, his eyes glittering: "Shall I, Adèle? Can I? What if I offend her?"
"You will not, Arthur. Take my advice; this time, I think, it coincides with your own will. Pass me my writing-desk, dear. Here! this is the address I have kept from you so long. Take it, my poor old fellow, and go."
He took it up and looked at it with gleaming eyes, for behind it he seemed to see the vision for which he had been thirsting so long. Adèle had thrown herself back upon the sofa; she looked pale and exhausted. From the little piece of paper Arthur had been studying so earnestly he turned his eyes to her. Something in her pale face touched him.He felt a sudden pang of self-reproach, and kneeling down by her side he pressed one of her hands to his lips: "Adèle, you are an angel! I say it in sober earnest, worthy of one far better and worthier and nobler than I. Dear little cousin, I will take your advice. You shall see me again only when my fate is sealed—when I have seen her. Forgive me, and keep a little corner of your heart for me till my return."
"Good-bye, dear."
It was all Adèle could say for the tears that would not be restrained. But she was happier. There was a feeling of settled calm in her heart to which it had long been a stranger. She had done what she could; she was willing to leave the rest.
He left her then, and she rose from the sofa to prepare for dinner and the gayeties of the evening.
All within is dark as night,In the windows is no light,And no murmur at the door,So frequent on its hinge before.
And in the mean time what wasshedoing, the object of all this solicitude, the unconscious origin of so many storms of feeling?
We left her on the sea-shore, the wide ocean before her, the cool sands around her, with a white face and quivering nerves, and a heart that was sick with aching. For the interview had tried her sorely, and it left behind it no luminous trail, but rather a deep shadow that seemed for the moment to kill even the faint hope which her spirit had cherished through all its woe.
What she looked upon as her own miserable weakness terrified her—filled her with a certain vague fear of such depths of darkness before her as hitherto she had never known. Pitfalls seemed yawning on every side. She was to herself like one who was drifting on alone, unprotected—not evenshielded by her woman's weakness—to meet some terrible fate. Sitting there, her head buried in her hands, she shivered and moaned, for the remembrance of that moment of weakness, when, as it seemed, only a trifle had saved her from listening to the honeyed words of the tempter, and putting herself partially, at least, in his power, filled her with the bitterest humiliation.
Another remembrance agitated her cruelly as she cast her thoughts over the interview. His last words had implied a mystery which her tortured brain strove in vain to fathom.
Her husband, Laura's father! had the child's instinct been true? Could he be near them? and if so, what did the threat mean? Could he, her Maurice, have sought her with any but a friendly object? Yet this was what her tormentor had foreshadowed in his mysterious words. She could not cast them aside as unmeaning, the poison thrown out in the anger of disappointment, for she knew L'Estrange. He never spoke meaninglessly, and therefore his words had weight. Besides, he was one who understood his kind—who could trace with the keen eye of a master the purposes of those with whom he came into contact.
Observation and deduction had been carried by this strange man to such an extent in the course of his ceaseless wanderings, that at last they had reached almost the rank of a science. In ancient days his acuteness would have earned for him the unenviable notoriety of the wizard; men would have imagined that he had dealings with the powers of darkness. Indeed, as it was, Margaret and her friends had often been perfectly astounded by the accuracy of his predictions, based on grounds to them undiscoverable, for they never failed of verification.
Connecting the past with the present, Margaret's brain—unhealthily active in this her hour of deepest misery—began to trace for itself a theory to account for the mysterious words, which clung to it like a subtle poison. He had met her husband, she said to herself; he had found out, by the marvellous power he possessed, that no friendly purpose had brought him to the vicinity of his wife—that he was hostile to her still, that some new misery was in store for her.
But what could it be?Couldher sufferings be increased?She had risen from her seat. In the restlessness of her spirit movement seemed a necessity. She had walked with unconscious rapidity to some distance along the shore. Suddenly, as she reached this point in her theory of possibilities, she stopped; covering her face with both hands, she uttered a low cry and sank down upon the grassy edge of the cliff. There had come to her mind, like a fatal knell, one sentence of her tormentor's speech—"In all hearts there isoneassailable point"—and it brought a picture to her mind.
She seemed to see the pensive, half-melancholy eyes, the golden curls, the graceful, childish form of her little Laura, and as she saw she realized what her affection for the child had become during the last few weeks—how the little one was her hope, her joy, the sheet-anchor of her soul.
But Laura was his. Could it be that he would take away her treasure and punish her afresh by an added loneliness—by letting her know that he felt her unworthy to be the guardian of his child after the age when the young soul is plastic and open to impressions? It was unlike Maurice. Ah, how unlike! pleaded the weary heart; but misery had been known to change men utterly was the answer of the brain, grown morbid by lonely pondering; and that Maurice, with his earnest craving for sympathy, could have been anything but miserable through those long months was impossible.
But he could not remove her without warning. He would see his wife, he would speak to her; Heaven, in its mercy, would give her one more opportunity. This she said to herself as she sat almost helpless by the cliff, crushed by the dreary possibilities which this new presentiment of evil had brought to her mind. And with this idea came a desire for action. Even at that moment, as she sat there inert, he might be at the cottage waiting with impatience for her return, wondering at her long absence from his child.
She sprang to her feet and began rapidly to retrace her steps, skirting the sand-cliff that rose up from the shore. By this time evening had come. The little ones were being marshalled by their nurses for home and bed, two or three loving pairs were pacing the yellow sands, the sun was stooping down in ruddy glory to the rest of his ocean bed, there was afragrant steam from the fields of clover and cowslip, a hush as of coming repose upon everything; but what can stay the tumult of the soul?
Like the fabled Io of the Greek, she may wander hither and thither, the lulling sounds and the restful sights of Nature may wrap their calm around her, but only externally. When the gad-fly of stinging misery follows evermore in her track, what are all these? Nothing, less than nothing, or a mocking echo of that to which she can never attain.
Something of this Margaret felt that evening as, through the torturing consciousness of a new possibility of anguish, she looked upon the fair outer world. Nature was too calm, too fair—she was antagonistic to the mood of the lonely, suffering woman.
Margaret had wandered farther than she thought, and the sun had already dipped below the western horizon before she saw her cottage. It was lying in the shadow, not touched by the sunset glory. To her imagination, distraught by the experiences of the day, it looked cold and blighted.
She stopped when she saw it. Almost it appeared to her as if she could not go farther to meet the realization of her dread. Everything looked so still—no little white fairy at the garden gate watching for mamma, not a sound among the trees. How could she go on into the desolate solitude? But, after a moment's pause, her strength returned. If the blow had indeed fallen no delay could avert it. On then, up to the little gate, through the garden, with still the same chilling silence. No little face at the window, no sound of merry laughter, no light bounding steps. The hall door was open; she passed in. With haggard face she peered into the rooms, hoping against hope for a sight of that tiny figure.
The child would be asleep perhaps, wearied out by the pleasant fatigue of the bright day: she would be found behind sofa or ottoman or curtains, curled up like a kitten, or tired out with watching for mamma, she had thrown herself down on her little bed. Like one who seeks thirstily for hid treasure, Margaret looked, her soul in her eyes, into every nook and corner of her little domain: corners possible and impossible she searched, for the mother's heart within was crying out, and she could not despair until nothing else would bepossible. She was so absorbed in her hopeless task that she did not know she was being watched, that a pair of lynx eyes, in which cool triumph was shining, noted her every movement; that when at last, worn out and despairing, she crept, like one who has received a death-wound, into her sitting-room and threw herself down, almost lost to the knowledge of what she was doing, upon hands and knees to the ground in her exceeding agony, her servant was glorying in her fall, triumphing at her expense; but so it was. Jane Rodgers's hour had come. Her lodger was paying, and paying dearly, for her insolence.
She did not wish to be discovered, and she had seen enough to assure herself that the blow had told. Retreating softly from the hall, with a smile on her lips that was not a pleasant one to look upon, she returned to her comfortable kitchen, leaving her mistress alone in her agony.
Jane Rodgers had one anxiety. She muttered its import to herself as she stooped over the fire to turn a piece of bacon which was frizzing merrily for her tea. "Troubledosometimes kill people; it wouldn't do to have a death in the house, and she looked queer; but there!she'llget over it, and perhaps be a trifle civiller for the future."
So even this anxiety, as it appeared, did not affect Jane very severely. She lifted the frying-pan carefully from the fire, placed its contents in a plate that had been warming in the oven, and sat down to enjoy her tea in peace.
To Margaret it seemed as if all the glory had gone from earth. True, her desolation had been grievous at times, but she had ever possessedsomeconsolation; now in a moment all seemed rent from her.Hope, for if he had ever wished to see her again in this world he would not have taken away her little one;love, for the clinging affection which had become so precious would nevermore surround her—Laura would be taught to forget, perhaps even to despise, her mother;peace, for if her husband was so terribly changed, how would he bring up their daughter? and, doing his very best,couldhe surround her with the watchful care of a woman—a mother?—Laura, as her mother had learned, was so sensitive and tender;joy, for she was alone, uncared for, a widowed wife, a childless mother.
One after another came these cruel thoughts to crush her as she crouched down upon the ground, plucking with nervous, aimless fingers at the sofa-trimmings. For the last stroke had told. The poor heart was incapable of bearing more. Margaret's mind was in danger. She was standing, though she knew it not, on the border-land which skirts the dark region of insanity. A little more of this heart-dissecting torture and that numbing, more to be dreaded than the keenest pain, would of necessity be the result, and the beautiful, fair-souled woman be changed, by the mysterious action of disease, into a maniac, a pitiable object in the sight of God and men. Was this last, this bitterest woe reserved for her?
No: suddenly the consciousness of the new danger dawned upon her. She caught the wild, wandering thoughts and sternly brought them to bay; then, shuddering, she threw herself on her knees.
"My God," she cried piteously, "send me death in thy mercy—death before madness—for I can bear no more, no more."
Her voice sank to a sobbing sigh, but the prayer seemed to have stayed the fever of her brain. The white terror left her face; she even smiled to feel the pain deadening, though with the deadening came a chill that froze the warm life-blood in her veins. Her satisfaction was but momentary. She staggered to her feet. Was this, then, the death she had craved? And with a pang she recognized her folly, she would fain have recalled her prayer; for life, sweet life, is precious, even to the wretched, when they are called upon to face the dark reality we call death. Life cannot be utterly reft of hope. To the most forlorn it holds out a future, and what is this future but the possibility of better things to come? The time might yet come when Margaret would be able to look for another and more certain future—a future to which death is but the prelude. That time had not yet arrived. Her treasures, though swept from her grasp by the hand of a wayward fate, were still in the warm lap of earth; and warm is that lap to the heart when its withdrawal is threatened as a something not vaguely distant, but near and certain.
It took but a moment for these thoughts to flash through Margaret's brain, for stealthily the chill crept over her. Shemade a few steps forward to gain the window, but it was too rapid for her. Gasping, she fell back heavily to the ground.
For very fear unnethës may she go,She weeped, wailed, all a day or two,And swooned, that it ruthe was to see.
Jane Rodgers had discussed the bacon, and, as she was a tidy woman, the plate was put carefully aside for washing while she ruminated quietly over her last cup of tea—a particularly good one, black as ink, hot as an earthenware pot that had been some time on the hob could make it, rendered delicate by a few drops of rich, yellow cream, and extremely palatable by two lumps of white sugar.
Jane was not always so extravagant, but tea was her weak point. Her hard face looked almost pleasant for the moment, she was so thoroughly comfortable.
Apparently the meditations that enlivened the kindly cup were of an agreeable nature, for she smiled once or twice, and occasionally cast a glance of infinite content on the dresser, where, nestling among the bright crockery, lay a little knitted purse, from the meshes of which something closely resembling yellow gold was gleaming. A large black cat was purring by the fire; in her satisfaction Jane stooped and stroked its soft fur caressingly. But nothing in the house seemed to be stirring, and, in spite of her pleasant reflections and the abundant comfort that surrounded her, Jane began to feel, as the darkness gathered, a certain creeping sense of uneasiness. She addressed the cat, for when people feel this loneliness even a dumb creature seems a companion. "Pussy," she said, stooping again to caress it, "it's lonesome here to-night. What'sshedoing, I wonder, up there by herself? We'll light the candles and take them up."
As Jane spoke she rose from her seat and stretched out her hand to take the lucifer matches from the chimney-piece. But she did not draw it back so quickly. Her hand was stayedby a sudden horror. The stillness in the house was broken. There came from overhead the sound of a dull thud, as if a body had fallen heavily to the ground. The sound was followed by a silence more oppressive even than before.
Jane Rodgers was a coward, and like many uneducated people extremely superstitious. The sound came from the room where she had left her mistress about half an hour before, "looking," as she had expressed it, "rather queer." She was the only person in the room; the sound had come from a heavy fall. It must, then, have been Mrs. Grey herself who had fallen. Had the trouble crushed her utterly? Was she dead? The bare supposition sent every particle of blood from Jane's face. She turned as pale as death. There rose up, in a grim host before her mind, some of the many ghost-stories that are the terror of the ignorant. If she were dead she would certainly return again to haunt the unfaithful servant, for Jane had a vague idea that death could clear up mysteries. And in what form would the injured lady come? Perhaps every evening at nightfall that sound of heavy falling would be heard, only muffled and terror-laden; perhaps as a sheeted ghost she would haunt the bedside of her unfaithful servant; perhaps—But Jane could scarcely bear to conjecture further; even certainty, however dreadful, would be better than this vague sense of horror.
With a hand made tremulous by fear she lit a candle. From Ajax downward human nature is the same. Whatever be the danger, darkness gives it an added horror. Jane Rodgers with her candle in her hand felt much braver than Jane Rodgers in the dark.
She paused for a moment on the threshold of Mrs. Grey's sitting-room, and applied first her ear and then her eye to the keyhole. Her ear told her that there was within the room a silence as of death; her eye could distinguish nothing through the gloom. In her superstitious horror she was on the point of running away from the door and from the house, but there came another dim perspective of future uneasiness to delay her.
If the lady were indeed dead—and Jane had almost come to this conclusion—it was a fact that could not be hidden. Her body would be found, then the neighbors would talk, the inquest would follow, and the cross-examination about her ownwhereabouts, as the landlady and servant, at the time of the accident. How would she be able to stand this? Then, if it should be found out that she, the pattern of strong-mindedness, she who talked in the village about her experience and knowledge of the world, who was known far and near as a person equal to any emergency—that she had turned tail like a frightened dog and fled from imaginary dangers, how would she bear the ridicule and contempt of her fellows?
These last considerations decided her; she opened the door of her mistress's sitting-room and peered in cautiously.
What she saw realized for the moment her worst fears. Margaret was stretched on the carpet rigid and motionless, her hands were clenched, her feet were drawn up under her; the attitude was that of one who had suddenly yielded in a struggle with dire agony.
Shading her candle with her hand, for the night-winds were sweeping through the room, and with a face almost as white as that she looked on, Jane Rodgers crept near to the prostrate lady. Jane had seen something of illness, and in her days of domestic service had been considered a good nurse; indeed, she had looked, and looked unflinchingly, on the face of death itself more than once in her life. What alarmed her so much on this occasion was the attendant circumstances, which had called into play the cowardly and superstitious side of her nature. The white face of her wronged mistress seemed to call for vengeance, while something whispered to Jane that the vengeance would come, and in a terrible form.
But as she drew near to Margaret her terror grew less. Her experienced eye, as soon as she was sufficiently herself to look at the matter calmly, told her that this was not death, but only a kind of fainting-fit, produced probably by strong mental excitement. Her first feeling was one of intense relief—her second, of indignation against the unconscious cause of her alarm.
"A body would think," she muttered, "that she'd done it a purpose."
As she spoke she lifted the fainting lady—without much difficulty, for Margaret had grown very thin, and Jane's physical strength was extraordinary—and laid her on the bed in the next room. Then with some roughness she proceededto use the various remedies—splashed water in unnecessary quantities into her mistress's face, and rubbed Margaret's soft palms with her bony fingers.
It was a rough and ready mode of proceeding, but it proved effectual. Margaret opened her eyes and looked round her, perfectly bewildered at her position. Jane Rodgers's hard face was the first object that met her gaze; feeling round her, she discovered that water was dripping from her face and hair.
She tried to rise. "Where am I?" she said faintly.
"Lie still," replied Jane authoritatively, holding her down with that vice-like grasp which is so irritating to the weak. "You've been and fainted," she continued sullenly—"Goodness knows for why—and frightening the very breath out of my body; but if this kind of thing is to go on, you must find some other place, or else get a woman in. I've too much to do in the house to be givingmytime continual to nurse-tending."
The rude speech was almost lost upon Margaret, for memory was awaking from its sleep; the events of the day were returning gradually to her mind. "Yes," she said slowly; "I remember now. I suppose I fainted." Then rising to a sitting posture she fixed her large eyes on her servant's face.
The face was so white in its strange chiselled beauty, the eyes were so wild and mournful, that for the moment Jane's superstitious fears returned.
"Lor!" she said hastily, "don'tlook at a body like that, there's a dear. Come—Miss Laura'll come back, never you fear. Children isn't lost in that way."
"WhereisMiss Laura gone?" Margaret's voice was very low, her eyes were still fixed on her servant's face.
Jane placed the candle on the table and turned aside to pull down the window-blind and arrange the curtains. "I'll tell you all about it," she said soothingly, "if you'll lie down quiet. Miss Laura, she came in alone, and I give her her dinner; after dinner she sits down with her picture-book. Presently a gentleman came in at the garden-gate; I, as it might be in the kitchen, see Miss Laura, from the window, a running out, quite pleased like to meet him. Them two gointo the sitting-room, and then Miss Laura, she come running down into the kitchen. 'Jane,' she says, 'my hat, quick; it's my papa, and we're going to meet mamma on the sands,' Miss Laura, as your orders is, mustn't never be contradicted, so I get her hat, and off they go together through the garden-gate. I see them walk along the sands, and thinks I to myself, 'I'll get tea ready, for they'll find missis, and all come in together.' So now you know as much as I do, for Miss Laura ain't come back all the afternoon."
As Jane spoke she turned her face, which expressed nothing but conscious virtue, to her mistress. Margaret was writhing on the bed as if she had been suffering from some keen physical pain.
"What was he like—this gentleman who came in I mean?" she asked in a low, weak voice. A last hope, a very faint one, was struggling with her misery.
"Difficult to sayexact," replied Jane, rather hesitatingly; then, as though repeating a lesson, "He be tall, as far as I remember, and good-looking, dark hair and whiskers, and eyes like Miss Laura's own."
It was all Margaret wanted to know. "Thank you, Jane," she replied quietly, "you may go now. Don't be alarmed," she continued, half smiling, as the woman hesitated on the threshold, "I shall not faint again."
"But you'll take something," said Jane, a certain feeling of compunction pricking the small remnant of a heart she still possessed; "come, have a glass of wine, like a dear."
"You may bring a glass and put it down by the bedside," she replied, so calmly that Jane went away quite bewildered and a little frightened still. "There," when she returned with the glass, "that will do; thank you. Now good-night." When Jane had left her Margaret looked round, and her worst enemy would have felt a pang of remorse could he have noted the white, haggard desolation which that day's suffering had left upon her face. Holding by the bed-post for support, she raised herself and felt along by the bits of furniture till she came to Laura's little cot. There she paused. Kneeling down beside it, she kissed the pillow where the child's head had rested only the night before.
"My Laura," she murmured faintly, "my child—mine—mine;"and then again, "His, not mine—mine no longer. God forgive me! I did not prize my treasure, and now it is taken from me for ever."
The little pillow was clasped to the breast of the bereaved mother as if it had been her child, for she scarcely knew what she was doing; that torpor of brain had seized her once more. Sinking to the ground, she rocked it to and fro in her arms, murmuring over it soft words of endearment.
And thus at last sleep, the nursing-mother of the wretched, found Margaret Grey. Well for her that it came when it did, for her mind could scarcely have borne at this time a more continued pressure. With her cheek resting on the pillow, which was wet with her abundant tears, and her back against the iron supports of her child's bed, Margaret forgot all her sorrow for the time in the arms of "Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep."
Overreach.'Tis a rich man's pride! there having ever beenMore than a feud, a strange antipathy,Between us and true gentry.
Mr. Robinson had not forgotten Mrs. Grey, nor the little business which she had confided to him. With his usual tact and judgment he had secured his bird, the bird in this case being their common debtor. Like a clap of thunder, one fine morning the news reached this worthy that his account had been attached at the bank by the man who for some time had acted as his solicitor.
He was on his knees at once with abject entreaties, and Mr. Robinson, who was too Christian-hearted to wish to crush a fellow-creature, consented to act for him again, thereby in a measure restoring his credit, but only on one condition—that he should receive without delay the amount owing for his somewhat exorbitant lawyer's bill.
"But what am I to do, my good sir?" faltered the man; "all I possess is in your hands."
"And nothing much to boast about," replied the lawyer quietly; "but, sir, you will not presume to tell me that all you possess is in the hands of your banker? Pray reflect a moment. In the dealings between man and man, especially when they hold the relation of solicitor and client—a relation which I trust will be resumed between us when this matter is adjusted—there must be frankness, honesty. Come now"—he spoke jovially—"about that fine house of furniture?"
"My wife's, I assure you—bought with her money."
The lawyer's face fell perceptibly: "Settled then?"
"Not precisely, but the same thing; you see it was in fact a wedding-present from her father, a man in an excellent position, Mr. Robinson."
"Ah!" Mr. Robinson showed his teeth. "Law doesn't recognize sentiment, my dear sir—a pity, clearly, but so it is. The furniture is yours to dispose of as you will."
The unfortunate man first flushed, then turned pale. "And what has this to do with it?" he asked rather angrily.
The lawyer raised his hand: "Calmly, calmly. These matters should be looked in the face, sir—looked in the face. I only speak in your own interest: that little balance at the bank—very little indeed, I think—is all you have to look to if you wish to set up again. I (remember, sir, I too have a wife and children) must be firm in this matter. A bill of sale on this furniture of yours—or of your wife's, if you will—can be given to me as security; I will then release your account and set you on your feet again. What do you say?"
"If it must be, it must be," replied the man with something between a groan and a sneer.
Mrs. Grey's name, or that unfortunate mortgage of the interest on which not a penny had been seen for the last year, was not, as it will be noticed, mentioned between them. One allusion only was made to it.
"We'll allow you to make a start," said Mr. Robinson benevolently, "and after that it will be time enough to look into those other little matters that are between us still."
"Those other little matters!" The bare mention of them made the unfortunate wince, especially when the reference was made to the accompaniment of Mr. Robinson's hard smile and cold, blue-steel gaze; but he hoped on, as men inhis position will hope, for a stroke of luck, a good speculation, something to raise his status in the monetary world.
He drew on his gloves hurriedly: "Yes, yes, my good friend, as you so kindly say, time enough; I must feel my legs before I disburse, and to pay up at present would be out-and-out ruin. In the mean timeyoumay rely upon me. My affairs are in your hands."
So Mr. Robinson felt, and he rubbed his hands pleasantly. The consciousness of power was always agreeable to him. "I hope so, I hope so," he replied briskly. "Let me assure you, sir, that I shall watch you narrowly. In my client's interests you know it is incumbent on me to be firm."
"But in your own firmer," muttered the man between his teeth as he went down stairs. "What precious humbugs these lawyers are! If I were only out of this one's hands!" He clenched his fist and his brows contracted. That "bill of sale" was rankling in his mind, but moaning could not mend matters, and he was by no means the only one whom Mr. Robinson held that day, writhing but submissive, under his cunning hand.
He smiled when the door closed behind his client. This man's tastefully-decorated house had often awakened in the lawyer's mind not envy, malice, guile and all uncharitableness, for Mr. Robinson was a consistent man, but a certain keen admiration that perhaps, looking at it in the light of the sequel, might have passed very well for their counterfeit.
The furniture he had admired was in his power; this made the lawyer smile, but the smile passed into a business frown as a timid rap at the door announced the approach of one of his clerks.
He was bringing in the letters from the last post, and presenting those that had been written for the signature of the head of the firm. Mr. Robinson proceeded slowly to inspect his letters, the young man standing near him in a quietly respectful attitude.
"Mr. Moon been written to?" he inquired curtly.
"Yes, sir."
"And Mrs. Grey?"
"A letter from her, sir, on the table."
"Right!—wait a moment."
Mr. Robinson did everything in a quiet, business-like way. He proceeded with great deliberation to open his letters one by one, using a paper-cutter for the purpose, until he came to the one in question.
"Have you got Mrs. Grey's letter there? Ah!" He tore it across, and threw the pieces into the waste-paper basket at his side. "Tell Wilson I will write myself—something wrong there. What are you waiting for? Do you want anything?"
"Only to say, sir, that you promised—that is, I mean—"
"Say what you mean—can't you?—and don't stand there wasting my time and your own."
The young fellow's features twitched nervously. He was of good birth and breeding, though so poor as to accept, and accept thankfully, the miserable pittance of a lawyer's clerk.
"I have been with you three years, sir," he said with some dignity; "you promised my mother that if I gave you satisfaction you would give me my articles. My mother has requested me to ask you whether this promise is to be fulfilled. My poor father—"
The young man spoke easily now; he was warming to his theme. His poor father had made Mr. Robinson's fortunes.
As a man of the world he had taken him up, introduced him to his circle, a large one and influential, and by his recommendations gained for him clients innumerable.
He was dead, and before his death, by an unfortunate series of speculations, had ruined his family. His sons had been trained at school and college, they were at home in the hunting-field, they excelled in all kinds of manly sports, their pleasant accomplishments and gentlemanly ease made them welcome in every society, but as men of business they were practically useless.
Mr. Robinson had been accustomed, only when their father's back was turned, to sneer at them for fine gentlemen. Nothing aroused his jealous ire so much as the sight of what he was pleased to call a fine gentleman, for Mr. Robinson had a certain innate consciousness which more of his class possess than we generally imagine. It was this: he knew that in the world he might do his own will, coin money by the handful(for in his temperament and constitution were all the elements of success), become rich, powerful, sought out:onedistinction he could never reach. The quiet ease, the graceful nonchalance, the tone of high breeding which a fine gentleman possesses, as it were, by instinct, was and would always remain beyond him. And therefore he professed to despise the class.
"Tush! tush!" he said, breaking short the young man's allusion to him who had been his friend in those days when he, the great Mr. Robinson, had been climbing painfully; "don't you attempt to bring home tales to me or I'll make short work with you. There shall be no snivelling here. Mind you, it is only respect for your father's memory that induces me to keep you at all. You're not worth your salt. As to giving you your articles, what good do you suppose that would do you? Be off! mind your work, and let me have no more of such whining."
James Robinson was enjoying himself. His blue-gray eyes flashed and a smile curled his lips. To put down a fine gentleman was the finest piece of fun in the world, but this time he had gone too far. Suddenly the boy changed; manhood and manly purposes seemed to look out from his eyes, the obsequious attitude had gone, he approached his master, and dared to look him fully and fearlessly in the face: "Then, Mr. Robinson, hear me. I will sit down no more to your desk; I will bear your insolence no longer. My mother and I believed you had offered me a situation out of kindness and gratitude; yes—glare at me if you will; I repeat it—gratitude to my father's memory. We thought your intentions honest, and the peculiar ungentlemanliness of your conduct to be attributed only to your want of good breeding. I may tell you that yesterday I was offered, and offered pressingly, what you refuse so insultingly to-day, and by a far better and older firm than yours. I thought I owed you a certain duty, and would not accept it until I had put you in mind of your promise. Now I have heard you, and once and for ever I shake myself free of you, only humiliated that for three long years I should have associated daily with so base and low a nature."
He turned on his heel, he was gone, leaving Mr. Robinsonin a white heat of rage and indignation. He had been hearing home-truths for once, and, what was still worse, hearing them in his own domain, the kingdom he had been accustomed to rule with a rod of iron. For a moment he was utterly taken aback, breathless, but lest the contagion should spread self-control and swift action were necessary.
"Let him go, the insolent young beggar!" he muttered; then turning he rang his bell. The office-boy appeared: "Send Mr. Wilson here." There was a notable change in his voice; the bully had gone from it, preparation was being made for the impressive chapel tone.
Mr. Wilson, the head-clerk of the firm, found his chief rather pale and exhausted, leaning back in his chair.
"Sit down, Wilson," he said with unusual urbanity; "I must have a few words with you."
The flattered Wilson obeyed.
"You noticed, I dare say," he continued after a pause, "that young McArthur went out in something of a hurry just now?"
"Yes, sir."
"I am sorry to say that I have been obliged to perform a very painful duty. I will not enter into details. My deep respect for the unfortunate youth's family, and especially the memory of his father—a true Christian, Wilson, one who sleeps in peace—makes me wish that as far as possible this should be kept a profound secret. Of course I have dismissed McArthur. It was a duty, andfromduty, however painful, the Christian never shrinks." Mr. Robinson paused to draw his white handkerchief over his brow. The force of habit is strong. He imagined himself for the moment on the platform of a gospel-hall. "If he had been my own son"—Mr. Robinson's face expressed proud consciousness that a Robinson could never demean himself in so mysterious a way—"if he had been my own son I could not have felt the matter more keenly; nor indeed could I have acted differently; the position I hold enforces upon me a certain responsibility. But this is all to no purpose—a few words drawn from me, as I might say, by excess of feeling on this painful occasion. What I particularly wished to say to you, Wilson, is this: it is my desire that no questions shall be asked in the houseabout this unfortunate boy or his sudden dismissal. You may say, if you like, that he was discontented, tired of the monotony of office-life—anything; my only wish is that he should be shielded from exposure. I would give him a chance of buckling to once more. Heaven grant, if only for his poor mother's sake, that he may see the error of his ways! But we are wasting time over this unhappy youth. Well, human natureishuman nature, and my feelings toward him were those of a father. Ah! I remember one thing more. It is my special wish that none of my clerks shall have intercourse of any kind with young McArthur. You will understand me, Wilson. The young man is indignant at discovery—not as yet, I fear, truly penitent. He may wish to injure the firm. We must be on our guard."
Mr. Wilson was clever as a man of business, but he did not possess much penetration. He cherished a blind admiration for his chief, and was quite ready to look upon his every statement as gospel. On this occasion he did not even stop to consider how very vague and guarded was all that Mr Robinson had said about the young man he professed to have dismissed; he was satisfied in his own mind that something dark lay behind these vague phrases, and was ready to help his chief to neutralize the mischief.
"All right, sir," he replied quietly; "I will see to the young fellows, but I scarcely think Mr. McArthur will venture to show his face here. A pity, too—a fine young man, and tolerably smart, his bringing-up considered."
"Ah! there it is," replied Mr. Robinson, with unction. "Pride, Wilson, pride, the crying sin of our fallen nature. His bringing-up was his ruin. But enough about him. Anything particular for me to-morrow?"
"No, sir; we can manage very well. You think of going into the country?"
"On business. Mrs. Grey is in some new trouble. Unfortunate woman! I suppose I had better see after the matter myself. I verily believe she has no friend in the wide world but me. Queer person, too—can't quite make her out. Send up the rest of the letters, Wilson, and if there should be anything of importance, telegraph to this address. I may probably be two or three days away."
Wilson retired, and Mr. Robinson proceeded to inspect the time tables of the Great Northern. A little change in the early summer weather would do him a world of good, and Mrs. Grey's business could easily be prolonged.
Before the letters came in for signature he had decided on an early-morning train, and was already enjoying by anticipation the luxury of a series of drives along the coast.
But all was false and hollow; though his tongueDropp'd manna, and could make the worse appearThe better reason, to perplex and dashMaturest counsels.
"Let us look at the matter in this light, Mrs. Grey." The speaker was Mr. Robinson, and his tone was particularly lively. "Your husband has cause, fancied or real—for the sake of argument we must put that part of the question aside—your husband, we shall say, has cause of complaint against you. He has ceased to consider you a fit guardian for his daughter after the first unconsciousness of childhood. What ought to be his method of proceeding in such a case? Why, clearly this. He should advertise you, through your solicitor, of his desire, and allow him to negotiate between you. Had he done so, my advice no doubt would have been of some service. I should have suggested that Miss Laura should be placed, for the time being, in some educational establishment where both parents could have had access to her, even, if Mr. Grey had insisted upon this point, under certain restrictions on your side."
Mr. Robinson paused at this point as if for consideration. Mrs. Grey shivered slightly, and drew her shawl more closely round her shoulders. It was a beautiful July day. The sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing, there was the warm breath of summer upon everything, but Margaret was like one stricken with a chill. Her face was pale and haggard, her dark mournful eyes were sunken, her long whitefingers, almost transparent, twitched nervously from time to time.
"But Mr. Grey hasnotacted in this way," she said with some fretfulness in her tone.
"Patience, my dear lady," he answered in the lively manner with which he had entered upon the subject; "we are coming to that point presently. Affliction, you know, cometh not forth of the dust. Job suffered grievously, but held fast his integrity. Inthisworld tribulation; your trials are sent; you must ask for the grace of patience, that you may be enabled to bear them worthily. But to return. The first point we should consider is this: Who was actually the person that removed your daughter from your care? the second, How and in what method was such removal accomplished? In this you must help me. Will you try and make a concise statement of the events of the day in question—what your occupations were, how your child came to be alone—giving me also the grounds of your suspicion that Mr. Grey is a party to the kidnapping of his child?—Rather amusing, by the bye, when one comes to think of it—a father running away with his own daughter." Mr. Robinson laughed pleasantly at his own joke, which did not seem to impress his companion so agreeably.
Margaret rose from her chair impatiently, rang the bell and walked to the door of the room: "I shall send you the servant, Mr. Robinson; she was the only person in the house when my daughter was taken away."
She went out into the garden and stood under the trees. The sun was falling on her hair, the soft wind swept it back from her brow, but her pale lips quivered, and from her eyes came no responsive gladness to meet the beauty of the summer morning. She was wondering why she had sent for this man, why she had laid bare her bleeding heart. Would it not have been better, a thousand times better, to have hidden this last anguish as she had hidden the others—to have suffered and wept in silence? For the lawyer's keen criticism and unsparing common sense had been like a kind of analysis of her torture—had added to her sorrow the agony of undeserved humiliation. Her husbandhadinsulted her. This was the bitterest drop in her cup of anguish, and this Mr.Robinson, a representative of the world, which is given to harsh judgment of the weak, had not failed to bring clearly before her mind. It was bitterly hard to be borne.
She thought, and bowed her head upon her breast with a sigh that seemed to drain the life-blood from her heart. How was it that everything grated upon her, wounded her? What had she expected, then? she asked herself. That this man, a man of business, with interests and affections of his own, would enter tenderly and religiously into the sanctuary of her grief, would touch her wound lightly, would bring help without adding suffering? Was it not folly, madness? But she would cast this morbid sentimentality aside; Heaven would grant her in time the hardness she needed.
She sat down on a seat under the tree. She could see through the parlor-window that Jane was taking full advantage of her position. She was interviewing the lawyer to some effect, talking volubly and illustrating her statement with expressive gestures.
Margaret could not help smiling faintly. As a calmer mood returned she felt she had put herself in a somewhat ridiculous position. She returned to the house, breaking in upon a florid account of Jane's terror on the night following Laura's disappearance. "That's quite enough, Jane," she said, some of her old dignity in her voice and manner; "you may go down stairs now."
The landlady by no means approved of the interruption. She had been giving the lawyer her statement, in keen and hungry expectation of his. He would probably, she thought, unfold to her some of the mysteries that had been perplexing her, and now she was summarily dismissed.
There was some malignity in the glance she cast upon her mistress, but Margaret was too much engrossed in the business upon which she was bent to take the slightest notice of her. Jane retired—as far as the next room, that is to say, hoping some fragments of the conversation would reach her.
She was disappointed. Mrs. Grey opened the French window and led her solicitor into the garden.
"That's a most sensible woman," Mr. Robinson said when they had seated themselves outside; "she has a good head and evidently a good heart; her feeling for you is quiteremarkable. You see, Mrs. Grey, the goodness of Providence?—friends raised up for the friendless. We are all apt to overlook our mercies and over-estimate our trials. You don't agree? Ah! one day I trust you will come round to my opinion. But to business. Will you be kind enough to tell me what you wish me to do in this matter?"
"I thought I had explained it already, Mr. Robinson." Mrs. Grey looked tired and spoke with a certain languor. "I do not wish to dispute my husband's will. If it is his desire to remove my daughter from my care altogether, I submit. I wish simply to communicate with him on my own account, and for this reason I want you to find out his address for me. It cannot surely be a very difficult matter. These affairs, I know, are sometimes expensive. I desire that no expense shall be spared. Let any capital I may still possess be sold out and used. I believe I have this power. I have some jewelry too; I had wished to keep it, but that desire has gone entirely." She drew off two or three rings, one of diamonds and emeralds apparently very valuable, and placed a casket in his hands, saying as she did so, "Do what is to be done as quickly as possible; there is no time to lose." Her cheek flushed painfully, and she pressed her hand to her side.
Mr. Robinson had taken the jewelry with some empressement. He looked at it curiously: "I shall have these trifles valued on my return, Mrs. Grey. We shall hope to have no occasion for the use of them. Of course these inquiries, especially when time is a matter of such moment, cost something, and capital can scarcely be realized at so short a notice. However, set your mind at rest: everything that lies in human power to accomplish shall be done; the result we must leave to higher hands than ours. And, by the bye, as weareon the subject of business, you will be glad to hear that your debtor the mortgagee—you will remember if you cast your mind back to our last interview—is completely in my power. I shall certainly realize the greater part of the sum lent. Do you follow me, Mrs. Grey?" for Margaret's attention seemed to flag. She had forgotten the mortgage, the debt, the threatened poverty, for her whole force of mind was centred on the one anxiety—to find outher husband, to appeal to his memories of the past, to persuade him at least to see her; and that fainting-fit with the succeeding weakness had frightened her, making her feel that possibly her time on earth might be short.
"Yes," she said absently; "but, Mr. Robinson, tell me how soon you will be likely to hear of Mr. Grey?"
"Impossible to say accurately, my dear lady, and it is quite against my principles to encourage false hope. If I were a doctor, I should frankly tell my patients of their danger, relying on a higher power than mine to temper the wind and prepare the mind of my patient for the shock, though, indeed, if we all lived in a state of preparation, the approach of death would be little or no shock—shuffling off the mortal coil, going home. But to return: I was saying, I think, that I make it a rule never to encourage false hopes. I have lost clients by it, Mrs. Grey; you would really be amazed at the pertinacity of some folks. It is in this way: A man comes to me. 'Shall I succeed if I go to law in this matter?' he asks. If hopeless, I answer candidly, No. Sometimes my client will insist upon my taking up the business. If not against the dictum of my conscience—an article, by the bye, which we lawyers are not supposed to possess—I submit and do my best, leaving the result. Sometimes he will go off to a more unscrupulous practitioner. It matters very little. What, after all, is so much worth having as the answer of a good conscience?"
Mrs. Grey sighed. This torrent of words wearied her beyond measure. "You have not answered my question, Mr. Robinson," she said; "under favorable circumstances how long would such an inquiry take?"
"And who is to guarantee us favorable circumstances?" replied the lawyer, smiling pleasantly. "My dear lady, I must beg you to be patient. Wemayfail absolutely. Mind you, I do not mean to assert that I apprehend weshallfail. Come! a promise. As soon as ever I receive intelligence ofanykind I will transmit it to you by telegraph. Will that satisfy you?"
"I suppose itshould," she replied sadly, but there was a feeling of dissatisfaction at her heart that belied her words.
She had not quite the same confidence in Mr. Robinson as she had once had.
In the light of that fever of anxiety which consumed her his trite commonplaces, his rapidly-given assurances looked hollow and vague. She felt as if another standing-point were being cut ruthlessly from under her feet, and yet what could she do? She had no friend, no hope in the wide world, but this man.
She looked up at him, fixing on his rather hard face her mournful eyes, in which unshed tears were swimming. "Mr. Robinson," she said, "you are a Christian man. I can trust you; you will do your very best for me."
He answered by a frank smile and a cordial hand-grip: "You are a little upset, Mrs. Grey, or I should be apt to resent the want of confidence which those words imply. Of course you can rely on me. Now good-bye: I must be off to my wife. I left her at the hotel here, close at hand. She came along with me merely for the trip, and is particularly anxious for a drive before her return; but duty first, pleasure afterward, I told her."
"Good-bye," said Mrs. Grey.
She was reassured once more, ready to blame herself for the momentary distrust.
Mr. Robinson went away with a light swinging step and a cheerful smile. He was no villain, at least in his own eyes, for his small villainies were disguised under such pleasing names that he really thought himself a very good man.
"Poor woman!" he said to himself as he walked along, "what an absurd notion! She'll never find that husband of hers; and if she did, where would be the use?"
And all this meant, "I shall take no particular pains to find him, and certainly not yet; it might be awkward."
Thought is strange in its working. There is the surface action, employed on that which holds it for the moment—the book, the work, the occupation; that which flows under, memory of what has just passed, planning for something in the new future; and often, beneath both these, a deeper undercurrent, its existence scarcely acknowledged even to the mind itself.
It was in this undercurrent that James Robinson hidthoughts which would not hear the light, and thus to the world, to his family, and even to himself, he continued to be an upright and strictly honorable man.
It was a dangerous game. Thought has a volcanic tendency. It is apt to force its way upward, to cleave suddenly the superincumbent strata that holds it from the surface.
Many such a man as James Robinson, quiet, respectable and respected, even to all appearance devout, has been astonished by waking up some fine morning and finding himself a villain.
Friend of my heart! away with care,And sing and dance and laugh.
On the day succeeding that of the interview between Margaret and her solicitor, Arthur Forrest was preparing in his chambers for a short absence from town. The memorable conversation with his cousin had taken place on the previous afternoon. Since then he had made all needful arrangements, and was to start by the afternoon mail for York. He was busy about his room, his portmanteau open before him, picking out the few necessaries he would require.
He looked rather different from the moonstruck individual who had so sorely tried his good little cousin's patience only a few hours before, for determination and action have a certain power. They can brace the nerves and give courage to the spirit. There was fresh, buoyant life in young Arthur's face; there was light in his eyes; there was healthy activity in his movements.
He was whistling lightly over his task and the pleasing meditations induced, when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. The knock was followed by the appearance on the threshold of a young man probably of about his own age, only that the pallor of his face and a general delicacy of appearance made him seem younger.
Arthur leapt over the portmanteau, upset in his transit two or three chairs laden with linen and clothing of various kinds,and grasping the new-comer warmly by the hand drew him into the room:
"Why, Mac, old boy! who would have thought of seeing you, and in the middle of the day, too? Has your old tyrant played the truant, or have discipline and responsibility run wild in his establishment?"
The young man laughed: "Neither. But the fact is this—I have grown tired of my master at last; and yesterday—or the day before it must have been—I told him a few wholesome truths and turned my back on the firm, leaving my last few pounds of salary in his hands as a parting gift."
Arthur had been gathering some of his shirts together. He dropped them suddenly and gave a rapturous bound: "At last! You don't surely mean to say so? All my prophecies come true. Bravo, old fellow! I congratulate you heartily. But come, I am all impatience. I must have a full, true and particular account of the whole. What was the last drop? How did you resent its introduction? For, upon my word, Mac, you took him so patiently that I began to fear your old spirit had gone. I longed at times to show all those muffs in that confounded hole of an office what you could do when the blood was up. But why don't you say something?"
"Because, old fellow, you won't let a man get in a word edgeways. And then, you see, my memory's short. I was never good at learning by heart, especially my own efforts at composition. He spoke insultingly when I asked him to keep his word to my mother and give me my articles. In reply I let him know, in good strong English, what I thought of him generally and of his present conduct in particular. Finally, I left his place in a fine rage, I can assure you. I imagine Robinson was ditto, but his after-thoughts he didn't reveal. There! will that satisfy you?"
Arthur gave a long whistle: "Spoke insultingly, did he? I wonder who that fellow thinks himself? Well, I needn't enter into particulars; you're well aware of my sentiments. And now, old man, what's to be the next step?"
"Perplexing," replied young McArthur, knitting his brows. "There'syourman of business—Golding. You heard of the kind offer he made me the other day. I was scarcely, as Ithought, in a position to accept it. I wish to Goodness I had, though; my cutting remarks would have had double force. By the bye, Arthur, that was prompted by you, I imagine. Do you think he would renew it?"
"Not the faintest doubt in the world. Golding is an excellent old fellow, and honester, I sincerely believe, than the ordinary race of lawyers. Then, don't you see, it would scarcely suit his book to break with me just now. I shall be of age in a few weeks, and he takes a fatherly interest in my affairs. Joking apart, though, I believe he does. It's a better firm altogether than Robinson's. But come, I was just off to lunch. Take a little something with me and we can talk it over by the way. Then, if you like, I shall have time to go with you as far as Golding's. I know your mind will be easier when this matter is settled. Now, don't be a humbug. I can see in your face that you have not lunched, and for once in the way you are, like myself, an idle man."
McArthur smiled, and pointed to the chairs and table.
"But what about all this? Do you intend to leave it so? And—you're off somewhere?"
"Only to York on a little matter of business," replied Arthur, who had turned to the mirror, and was occupying himself in imparting a certain air of fascination to the set of his budding moustache. "I must get the old woman here—a motherly body in her way, and useful when a fellow can get out of reach of her tongue—to finish for me. Yes, that's decidedly the best plan. Come along, Mac! If my coming of age is worthy of being made a festival, certainly your breaking loose from that rascal—whose whining is enough to sicken the healthiest person—is trebly so. We must have a bottle of champagne and a general jollification on the strength of it; then we can go to Golding's together, and after that I shall still have time to catch the afternoon mail."
"I didn't know you had friends in York."
"Did IsayI had friends there?"
"No, but what canyourbusiness be? I always thought it consisted in carrying out and bringing to a successful end a rather laborious system of amusement."
"Come, Mac, don't be severe. I'm turning over a new leaf, and am fast becoming a most useful member of society.I have already two pictures, a score of elaborate novels, a series of scientific works and books of travel innumerable in my eye."
"As your own performance or your neighbor's?"
"My own, of course. Do you mean to be insulting, Mac, or have you fallen so low as to imagine a solicitor's office theonlypath to fame? But don't apologize, old fellow; I forgive you in consideration of a certain derangement of brain, the result, no doubt, of your late experiences."
"What haveyoubeen doing to yourself, Forrest?" The young man looked at his friend with some curiosity. Arthur's face was flushed and his eyes were beaming with excitement. "Your spirits have been at rather a low ebb whenever I have had the opportunity of seeing you lately; now they are perfectly exuberant. I think there must be something more in this visit to York than is quite apparent to the casual observer. Blushing, too! Why, old fellow, I thought your blushing days were over long ago, like mine."
Arthur turned away in some impatience: "Don't be absurd, Mac, or I shall certainly be cross, and at present I feel generally genial—sympathetic, as I shall remark in my first novel, with the sweet influences of the balmy breezes. By the bye, that would be rather neat, wouldn't it?"
"Uncommonly. You're improving, old fellow. Heigh-ho!mysentimental days are gone by. Nothing like office-life for rubbing off that kind of bloom. Do you remember the girls' school, and my deep indignation when you would insist upon singing about 'the merry little maiden of sweet sixteen'?"
"An awfully good song, by the bye," put in Arthur.
His friend did not notice the interruption. "I am not so sure, after all," he said thoughtfully, "that hard work is not the best thing at our age. Everybody could not pass as you have done through the temptations of an idle youth."
Arthur laughed, but he looked at his companion affectionately: "Come, come, Mac, that kind of thing won't quite fit in, you know—philosophy and compliment in one breath. But here we are. Now, if you're not hungry I am; so a truce to reflections. They shall come, if you still feel anxious for them, in the shape of dessert."
The young men sat down to dinner together, and Arthurtook care it should be a particularly good one. He and McArthur had been chums at Eton, and although the very different circumstances of their after-life had necessarily thrown them apart, they had still kept up their friendship in a certain spasmodic way.
It had been broken at times by a slight want of consideration on the one side, and a certain pride, the growth of poverty, on the other; but real mutual affection and respect had been strong enough to heal the different little breaks, and the young men had reached the point of understanding each other, and of making mutual allowance for the weaknesses engendered by circumstances.