"I thought you didn't care about music and nothing else?"
"I don't know that there is nothing else. I think of going to see. I have often thought of it before, but St. Simeon's is rather nearer, and I generally end by going there. I shall decide on the way."
"What a girl you are, Gwynneth!" exclaimed Nurse Ella, with frank impatience. "You never seem to know your own mind—never!"
Gwynneth made no reply; but she kindled afresh, and this time very tenderly, as she went her own way through the fog.
All Souls' was dark and hazy with its share of the ubiquitous fog, here a little aggravated by the subtle fumes of incense newly burnt. In the haze hung quivering constellations of sallow gaslight, and through it gleamed an embroidered frontal, and the silken backs of praying priests, lit by candles four. Delicate strains came from an invisible organ; a light patter and a rich rustling from the feet and garments of some departing after matins, some taking their places for choral eucharist, women to the left, men to the right. Men and women, goers and comers alike, with few exceptions, bowed the knee with Romish humility at the first or the last glimpse of that shimmering frontal with the four candles above and the motionless vestments below.
The congregation was one of well-dressed women and well-to-do men; their quiet devotion was not the less noteworthy on that account. A fine reverence animated every face: the stray observer would have missed the passive countenance of the merely pious, as Gwynneth did, and discovered in its stead the happy ardour of those whose religion was a delight rather than a duty. Yet the congregation took scarcely any part in the actual service. Fewuntrained voices joined in the exquisite singing; few, in the body of the church, left their places to take part in the sacred climax. The congregation might have been only an audience; yet somehow it was not. Somehow also there was nothing spectacular in an office of equal dignity, distinction, and fervour.
Yet the yellow lights in a yellow fog, the perfect organ, trained voices, rich embroideries, incense, genuflexions, all these seemed at one religious pole; and Long Stow church on a summer's day, with the sky above and the birds singing, and Mr. Carlton in his surplice in the sun, surely that was at the other! It was Gwynneth's fate, at all events, to carry that single service in her heart and mind for ever, and to put every other one against it. She did so now, involuntarily at first, and then unwillingly, as she knelt or stood at the end of her row—her cambric cuffs and fine lawn streamers in high relief against the rich furs and the sombre feathers of those about her.
On the other side of the nave, far back and close to the wall, a grizzled gentleman stood and knelt by turns, in much obscurity; and his attention never flagged. No detail of the elaborate ritual appeared unfamiliar to this worshipper, and yet for a time his expression was rather that of the alien critic. Gradually, however, the lines disappeared from his forehead, his eyes opened wider, and brightened with the peaceful ardour which he himself had already remarked in the eyes of others. He was a tall thin man, very weather-beaten and rather bent, wearinga new overcoat and a soft muffler; there was nothing in his appearance to declare him of the cloth himself. His grey beard was close trimmed. He wore gloves and carried a tall hat shoulder high in the press going out. He was no more readily recognisable as the lonely builder of Long Stow church, than Gwynneth in her nurse's garb as the niece of Sir Wilton Gleed. But their separate fates brought them face to face in the porch, and recognition was immediate on both sides.
"Miss Gleed?" said Robert Carlton, raising his hat before it covered his grey hairs.
"Mr. Carlton!" she exclaimed in turn. There had been no time to think, and her voice told only of her surprise; her own ear noticed it, and she had time to marvel at herself.
"I thought I could not be mistaken," Carlton was saying. And they were shaking hands.
"I never expected to see you here," said Gwynneth, with a strange emphasis, as though the declaration were due to herself.
"I never thought of coming until an hour or two ago."
No more had Gwynneth: then the miracle was twofold. Her heart gave thanks. It was not afraid.
Meanwhile the crowd was carrying them gently, insensibly, but side by side, across the flagged yard to the gate.
"It's the first Sunday I've spent in town for years," observed Carlton; "you are here altogether, I believe?"
"Well, for some years, at least. I am learning to be a nurse."
And Gwynneth blushed for her conspicuous attire, just as Carlton gave a downward glance at the quaint cap on a level with his shoulder.
"So I heard," he said. "May I ask which hospital you are at?" He could recall none where the uniform was so picturesque.
"You would not know it, Mr. Carlton; it is a private hospital on Campden Hill."
They had passed through the gate, and they paused with one consent.
"Are you returning there now, Miss Gleed?"
"Yes—through the gardens."
"Then so far our way is the same." He did not ask whether he might accompany her, but took the outer edge of the pavement as a matter of course. "I am staying at Charing Cross," he explained as they walked; "early this morning I went to the abbey. I did mean to go back there; then I suddenly thought I should like to come here instead. I was once one of the assistant clergy at this church."
"I know," said Gwynneth. She would not deny it. That was why she had so often thought of coming to All Souls'—only to resist the temptation time and time again. Why, to-day of all days, had she been unable to resist? Why had she thought of him this morning, and why had the thought been so strong? These were questions for a lifetime's consideration. Now she was walking at his side.
"It was strange to go back there after so manyyears," pursued Carlton, with the fine unguarded candour which he had brought back with him into the world; "that service, in particular, was very strange to me. I did not care for it at first. It seemed so artificial after our simple service in the country. Then I looked at the faces of the men near me, and I saw how narrow one can get. It was not artificial to them; it was only beautiful; and there lies the root of the whole matter. Simple services for simple folk—that is my watchword now—but beauty, brightness, elaboration by all means for those who need it and can appreciate it. It is the right thing for these rich congregations of hard-worked professional men and busy society women; the trappings of their religious life must not compare meanly with those of their daily lives; let us order God's house as we would our own. But the opposite is the case—though the principle is the same—with a primitive country parish like ours at Long Stow . . . And yet I had not the wit to see that when I went there first."
He was musing aloud as men seldom do unless very sure of their audience. How came he to be so sure of Gwynneth? They had seen nothing of each other; this was the first time they had been alone together long enough to exchange ideas; yet in a moment he was revealing his as few men do to more than one woman in the world. And the one woman's heart was singing at his side.
She was with him; that was enough. Already it was the sweetest hour of all her life; for the thought of him had haunted her for months, and was full ofpain; but in his presence all pain passed away. That was so wonderful to Gwynneth! So wonderful was it that she herself was aware of it at the time; it was her one great discovery and surprise. To be with him was to forget all that he had ever done, all that she had never before forgotten—the good with the evil. It was to sweep aside the earthly and the palpable, to feel the divine domination of spirit over spirit, and the peace which comes with even the secret surrender of soul to soul. Hers was a conscious surrender, and Gwynneth made it without shame. Since it was her secret, why should she be ashamed? She was exalted, exultant, and yet serene. She might carry her secret to the grave; her life would be the richer for it, for these few minutes, for every word he spoke. So she caught each one as it fell, and laid the treasure in her heart, even while she listened for the next.
But in a minute they were come as far as he intended to escort her; there were the palings and the stark trees close upon them in the fog; and an omnibus passing, huge as a house. Gwynneth had been treading thin air; now she was back in the sticky streets, inhaling the raw mist, to exhale it in clouds under a microscopic magenta sun. They had stopped at the corner; he was hesitating: her breath disappeared.
"I have to get over to that side sooner or later," he said. "I may just as well walk across with you, if you don't mind."
"I shall be delighted," said Gwynneth, frankly, brightly; but her breath came like a puff of smoke,and she felt her colour come with it as they crossed the road.
"I want to tell you about the church," he said, as they entered upon the broad walk. "This is the first Sunday that I haven't taken service there since the beginning of August."
"The first!" exclaimed Gwynneth. "Have you actually gone on up to now without a roof?"
Carlton turned in his stride.
"But we have a roof, Miss Gleed!"
"You have one?"
"It has been on some weeks."
Gwynneth was standing quite still. "Do you mean to say that the church is finished?" she cried, incredulous.
"Yes," said Carlton; "thank God, I can say that at last."
"But it seems such a short time! I don't understand. It seemed impossible to me—by yourself?"
"Oh, but I have not been by myself. I have had help."
"At last!"
"I wonder you have not heard. Everybody has helped me—everybody!"
"Do you mean—my people—among others?"
And Gwynneth preferred walking on to facing him here.
"Is it possible you haven't heard?" exclaimed Carlton, incredulous in turn.
"Not a word," replied Gwynneth, bitterly. "They never write."
But her bitterness was new-born of her indignation, not that they never wrote, but that they had not written to tell her this. He told her himself with much feeling and more embarrassment.
"Why, Miss Gleed, I owe everything to Sir Wilton! It is the last thing I ever—I can hardly realise it yet—or trust myself to speak of it to you. My heart is so full! But it is Sir Wilton who has finished the church; he came to me, and he took it over. He called for tenders; he poured in workmen; the place has been like a hive. So the roof was on in a month; and we never missed a Sunday, we had one service all the time; but now we have three and four—thanks entirely to Sir Wilton Gleed!"
He paused. But Gwynneth had nothing to say, and his embarrassment increased. It was so hard to speak of Sir Wilton's magnanimity without alluding to his previous attitude, and thus indirectly to its notorious cause; and Carlton could not see that his companion was entirely taken up with his news, could not realise the surprise it was to her, or apprehend for a moment what impression it had made. He might, however, have had some inkling of her view from the manner in which Gwynneth eventually said that she was glad to hear her uncle had done something.
"Something?" echoed Carlton. "He has done everything, and it is like his generosity that you should hear it first from me!"
Gwynneth shook her head unseen, though now he was looking at her, his eyebrows raised; but she seemed intent upon picking her steps through the thin mud of the broad walk.
"And what that is like," continued Carlton, "from my point of view, you will see when I tell you why I am in town to-day. It is the first Sunday I have missed; but Mr. Preston of Linkworth and other friends are kindly dividing my duty between them. Sir Wilton has arranged that, by the way. He telegraphed yesterday to save me the journey; for I was going down for the day, and returning to-morrow. Yet I came up last Monday, and am still hard at work—buying for the new church."
Gwynneth asked what it was that he had to buy; but her tone was so mechanical that Robert Carlton did not at once reply. He was beginning to feel strangely disappointed, to wish that he had gone his own gait to Charing Cross, or at least held his peace about the church. But there was one point upon which he felt constrained to convince his companion before they parted; he might do more than justice to an absent man; but she should not do less. And the spire of St. Mary Abbot's was already dimly discernible through the yellow haze.
"There is nothing we have not to buy, for the interior," he said at length. "The lectern is the one exception, and I have had it straightened and lacquered into a new thing. Sir Wilton wanted me to keep it as it was; but that would never have done. However, he would have an inscription to the effect that it is the same lectern which was in the fire, which is quite a sufficient advertisement of the fact. I was in favour of restoring the communion plate also, but Sir Wilton insisted on presenting us with a new set, which I have been choosing among other things thisweek. The other things are too numerous to mention—carpets, curtains, collecting-boxes, alms-bags, a Litany desk, and the hundred and one things you take for granted as part of the church itself. But each has to be chosen and bought, and I only wish that I had had your help. I have found the best things most difficult to choose—the plate and a very handsome cross and candlesticks of polished brass—all of which are my choice, but Sir Wilton's gift. So is the organ which is being built for us. Can you wonder, then, that his generosity has moved me more than I can possibly tell you?"
"Indeed, no!" cried Gwynneth, in her own kind voice; but her honour was all for the man who claimed it for another; and, until she opened them now, her lips had been pursed in mute rebellion. She could fancy so much that the true generosity would never even see! Gwynneth had not that sort herself; she did not profess to have it. On the other hand, she was anxious to be fair, even in her own mind; so she asked a question or two concerning the hired and skilled labour which had been thrown into the scale with such effect; and, after all, it appeared that Sir Wilton Gleed had not paid for this.
"But he wanted to," said Carlton, quickly. "It was not his fault that I would not hear of his doing so; it was my obstinacy, because I had set my heart on rebuilding the church myself, in one sense or the other."
"Yet you said he took it over from you!"
"So he did, Miss Gleed. He lent me his influence and support; that was much more to me than the money, which I had and didn't want. Besides, he is a business man, which I am not, and he did take the whole business off my hands. That is what I meant."
Gwynneth wondered whether it was what the countryside understood; but said no more about the matter. She had other things to think of during their last moments together; for she had stopped at the corner near the palace; nor did she mean to let him accompany her any further. She was still so decided and serene. She was still exalted and strengthened out of all self-knowledge in the quiet presence of the man she loved, and must love for ever, even though her love were to remain her heart's prisoner for this life. This life was not all.
So it was that she could look her last upon him, perhaps for ever, with her own face transfigured and beautified by a joy not of earth alone: so it was that she could speak to him, and hear him speak, without a tremor to the end.
His church was to be consecrated that day week—Advent Sunday. The bishop was coming to perform the ceremony; his voice softened as he spoke of the bishop, who was to be his own guest at the rectory. His face shone as he added that. It was going to be a very simple ceremony. And here something set him twisting at one of his gloves; then suddenly he looked Gwynneth in the eyes.
"You don't happen to be coming down, Miss Gleed?"
"I don't think it very likely."
"It—it wouldn't of course be worth your while——"
"It would! It would! It would be more than worth it; but, to be quite frank, I don't know that I shall ever come down again, Mr. Carlton."
Was he sorry? He did not even show surprise; and not a word more: for he had heard stray words in Long Stow concerning Gwynneth's departure and its reason as alleged. "I should have liked you to see the church," was all he said.
"And do you know," rejoined Gwynneth, speaking out her mind at last, "that I am in no great hurry to see it? I know it is foolish of me—for no one man could have finished such a work—no other man living would have got as far as you did without a soul to help you! Yet somehow I don't so much want to see the church that they came in and finished; it would spoil the picture that I can see so plainly now, and always shall—of the stones you cut and the walls you built with your own two hands—and every other hand against you!"
She was holding out her own. Carlton looked from it to her face, a strange surprise in his eyes. He had wriggled out of one of his gloves, and was twisting it round the iron paling at the corner where they stood.
"May I come no further?" he said.
"No, I could not think of taking you another yard out of your way. And it is really not so very many yards from where we stand!"
Gwynneth smiled brightly; but her voice was the very firm one of this half-hour of her existence.And ever afterwards she was to marvel why neither smile nor words were an effort to her at the time: so his presence supported her to the end, when the clasp of that indomitable hand, now bare, and horny even through her glove, left Gwynneth outwardly unmoved. She returned his pressure with honest warmth; her smile was kind and bright; then the cold mist fell between them in a widening yellow gulf, with a diminishing patter of firm footsteps, that Carlton could hear when the nurse's streamers had quite disappeared in the fog.
And he stood where he was to hear the last of her; and still he stood, wishing he had disregarded tact, and persisted in his escort, whether it embarrassed her or not, if only to find out where her hospital was. He felt inclined to call before leaving town; already there was something that he wished he had said; he kept saying it to himself as he wandered back through dark gardens and a desert park.
"So you prefer to think of it before the roof was on, as I managed to make it by myself! You are the first to say that or to feel it—except me! And I have put the feeling down; thank God, I have got it under; yet it is a help to know that one other felt the same. Perhaps it was a human feeling; but in me at least it was unworthy. God help me! But in you it is sweet, and to me very wonderful . . . that you should understand and sympathise . . . a young girl like you!"
This whole fatality left the man sadly unsettled; tired and yet restless in body and soul; humbly thankful for a woman's sympathy after so long, andso much, yet the prey of a new depression. A woman's sympathy! Or was it only a woman's pity? No, she understood; but it mattered little to Robert Carlton; there could be no second woman in his life. That he had always felt; but he was not sure that he had ever before defined the feeling. It was a part of his eternal punishment; but he was quite sure that he had not previously regarded it in that light.
A coxcomb Carlton had never been; he had no suspicion of the kind of impression he had made upon Gwynneth; his sole concern was the impression which she had made on him. Like the rest of the world, she was flying to extremes; only in her case, if she especially magnified the good, it was because she was still ignorant of the original evil. It could be nothing else; but his feeling about himself was more complex. He alone knew how much or how little of the highest and the best in him had redeemed that passion born of passion which had blighted his life. It was of further significance that for years Carlton had not looked upon his life as blighted. The blight fell upon the shining vision of the woman he could have loved. And all had been so sudden that the man was dazed.
He could not eat, though he was hungry; nor rest, though tired to the bone. He would go out again. It was good to be out, even in a London fog, which was nothing to the fogs he remembered, for there was no question of groping one's way; one could see it for fifty yards, often for more. But now there was not even a small magenta sun; it was themiddle of the brief December afternoon when Robert Carlton left his hotel; and near its close before he found himself in Kensington Gardens once more. He hardly knew what brought him there. It was partly, but not altogether, a sentimental impulse. Carlton had also some idea of finding the hospital if he could, some hope of seeing Gwynneth again, if only to assure himself that his imaginings of the last few hours had made her other than what she was. And then he could rectify those omissions of the morning; but neither was this all; a strong inexplicable attraction drew him straight to the spot where he had stood so long after Gwynneth was gone.
And Gwynneth herself was standing there again!
He was almost upon her before he saw her in the dusk, then those long lawn streamers leapt like lightning to his eyes; and now he was creeping backwards across the path. But she had not heard him, or she did not heed: her back was turned, and bent, for she was leaning over the iron paling which he had grasped before. And she shook with tears.
Carlton was shaking, too; passion had taken him by the shoulders, and was shaking the strength out of his heart. Horror had driven him back, passion was spurring him on again. If she loved him—if she loved him—then the hand of God was in all this.
He was back upon the spot where recognition had come. Oh, yes, it was she! She had given a little cry; she was stooping lower over the paling; her voice was unmistakable. Then she rose, half turning, and he saw her profile plain. She was raisingsomething to her eyes; in another moment it was at her lips, and she was kissing it, and sobbing over it, whatever it might be.
Carlton thought he knew what it was, and conceived a new horror of himself in his involuntary capacity of spy. Yet instinctively he was feeling in both overcoat pockets at once; in one there was a single glove; in the other nothing at all. Cold with shame, but shivering with excitement, the man stood torn between the newborn desire of his eyes, and the fixed resolve of his soul. But he could not tear himself from the spot—nor was it any longer necessary. Gwynneth was gone herself; gone without seeing him; out of sight this time in an instant. And Robert Carlton, white, trembling, but himself—the man with a will at least—was listening a second time to the failing music of her feet, his own planted firmly on the walk.
The bishop arrived on the Saturday afternoon. He was still the same little old man, with the side-whiskers and the long mouth, the queer voice and the ungainly limp; and Robert Carlton found him neither more nor less cordial than at their last dread interview; but he asked to see the church before it was too dark.
All was in readiness at last. But the cocoanut matting in the aisle and transepts, and the maroon axminster in the chancel, had only been laid that day. As yet there was no stained glass, and only the east window and the west were mullioned as of old; but through the latter a wintry sun poured thick red beams, already too much aslant to touch the floor, but just falling upon the altar with its glimmering candlesticks, its rich green cover, its violet frontal, all three gifts from the hall. The bishop heard this without remark, his mouth a mere seam. But he approved of the rows of rush-seated chairs in place of pews, and he admired the simple pulpit of pitch pine. There was a pleasant smell of pitch pine in the church. All the woodwork was of this wood, including the ceiling and all panelling; and the pores of the fragrant timber were not stopped up with varnish. The new redhassocks looked very bright under each chair, and the new black prayer-books shone like polished jet on the book-rests behind them. In the south transept, a space was boarded off for the new organ; and here chaos had still a corner to itself; nor was either the lighting or the heating apparatus quite complete. Oil-stoves were already burning, however, at various points, and their odour compared unfavourably with that of the pitch pine.
"I do not want you to catch cold to-morrow," said Carlton, as he locked the door behind them when they left.
"Tut!" said the bishop, "I am not such an old man that you need coddle me."
Nor did he look a day older for all these years, as they went out together into the raw red sunset. But Robert Carlton seemed almost to have caught him up: he had come back from London so haggard and hollow-eyed.
They talked very little until the evening. Carlton had servants now, that very widow who had been the first to desert him being head and chief once more; and she signalised the occasion by serving one of the soundest meals of her career. But it was in the long low study, now a study pure and simple, and an infinitely tidier one than aforetime, that the bishop smoked his after-dinner pipe like any deacon, while Carlton also tasted his first tobacco for five years and a half. And still they were strangely silent, until the occurrence of an incident, little in itself, but great with suggestion.
There was a tiny patter on the worn carpet, andall at once the bishop beheld a big brown mouse seated upright within a few inches of his companion's boot. The bishop exclaimed, and the mouse fled with a scuttle and a squeak.
"I tamed him," Carlton explained with a slight access of colour. "The house is overrun with them, but this fellow lets none of the others in here."
The bishop was slow to follow up his exclamation. He certainly was a man of fewer words than formerly.
"You ought not to have made yourself such an anchorite," he said at last. "You might have smoked your pipe—you say that's your first—and written to me sooner!"
So that still rankled. Carlton was not altogether surprised.
"My lord," said he, "how could I? You had advised me to live anywhere else, and yet here I was!"
"The circumstances justified you, Mr. Carlton. I could not foresee such circumstances, I assure you. I heard of them, however, at the time."
Carlton had never written till the five years were nearly up, when it became a necessary preliminary to the resumption of those offices from which he had been debarred; but, when he did write, he had done so to such effect that certain other preliminaries had been foregone.
"Though you did not write," continued the bishop, "Sir Wilton Gleed did. We had some correspondence about you, and we disagreed; that is one reason why I declined his invitation and accepted yours. Iwould not mention it, only you are now such excellent friends. And I understand that he himself makes no secret of his former attitude towards you."
"On the contrary, he has expressed the most generous regret for the line he took."
"He may well regret it," said the bishop.
But Carlton had accepted his old enemy's aid, and would not hear ill of him, whatever he might think. "It was natural enough," he murmured.
"What! To prevent you from making the one reparation in your power? To have you boycotted right and left? To trump up a criminal charge? To force you, a clergyman, to remain in your own parish, labouring like a convict by the year together? To trample the cloth underfoot in the eyes of all the world?"
"Oh," groaned Carlton, "it was I who did that! I alone am to blame for that—I alone!"
He leant his elbows on the chimney-piece, his face in his hands; for stand he must if he was only to hear harsh words—that night of all nights! Carlton was unprepared for such severity at this stage; and infinitely hurt; for at his worst, when he deserved no sympathy at all, the bishop had shown much more. But behind his back the blazing eyes were quenched, and the long mouth relaxed.
"No, no," a softer voice said; "you have done just the opposite—just the opposite. You have been hard enough upon yourself; but the world was harder on you—once."
There was kindness in the rasping voice, but no enthusiasm. None other had made so little of themere physical feat of this man; and to him the tone was unmistakable.
"I know what you mean," said Carlton, turning round, his own eye alight. "You think the world is going to the other extreme!"
"It generally does," replied the bishop. "I do not mean to be unkind."
"You are not, my lord—unless you think I haven't seen this for myself!"
The bishop nodded gravely to himself.
"You would see the danger. I am sure of that. You must want to hear the last of what you have done; superhuman and heroic in itself—I am the first to admit it—it is nevertheless the last chapter of a book which you must want to close once and for all. The last chapter recalls the first. Close the book; put it behind you; start afresh."
Robert Carlton stood looking down with a curious smile upon his haggard face.
"That is exactly what I am going to do," said he.
"But the parish must do the same; they must help you. Let them also think no more of the past, either remote or immediate."
"They must think of what they will," rejoined Carlton, queerly. "They cannot help me much longer, nor I them. I am resigning the living, my lord."
"Resigning it?" cried the bishop.
"I intend to do so to-morrow night. It always has been my intention. But you are the first whom I have told."
"I'm glad to hear that!" the bishop exclaimed, ashe scrambled to his feet another being. "You have taken my breath away! My dear fellow, let me dissuade you from any such course."
Carlton shook his head.
"My work here is done."
"It is just beginning!"
"No, it is done. I have given my parishioners the church I owed them, since they lost their last church through me. I set them once an example for which I shall pray to be forgiven till my life's end; but now, please God, I have at least shown them that because a man falls it need not be utterly and for ever. He can rise; or, at any rate, he can try. God knows I have tried; and they know it; and it may help them in their own day of bitter trouble. But it was you, my lord, who first helped me, by bidding me never despair. I have tried to teach your lesson; that is all."
"But you have not finished," the bishop urged, gently. "Go on teaching it—go on."
"No. It is no sudden thought. I undertook in the beginning, when Sir Wilton Gleed wanted to turn me out forcibly, to go of my own accord when I had built the church. He may forget it, but I do not."
"Then I devoutly hope he will not accept your resignation!"
"He must. I have made my arrangements. There is need of clergy in the far corners of our empire, greater need than here. There was an Australian at the hotel I have been staying at in London, and he has shown me my field. I am going out to offer my services to the Bishop of Riverina, and I am relyingupon a word from you for their acceptance. I hope to sail at the beginning of next month; my passage is already taken."
"I suppose you took it when you were in town?" the bishop grumbled. Carlton coloured in an instant.
"I did—but I had long been thinking of it," he said, hastily. "Oh, my lord, in my place you would do the same! How could I continue here to be smiled on by these poor people? It was easier when they looked the other way, when I lived in this room alone, doing everything for myself, and not a soul came near me. How can I settle down again to a prosperous life—here of all places—with my child in the parish, and his poor mother . . . That is what they all forget in the generous warmth of their reaction; but the more they forget, the more keenly I remember. Ah! do you think I ever have forgotten—for an hour—for a moment—since I left off working with my hands?"
One of these was stretched in the direction of the churchyard; and the bishop read its touching testimony for the first time.
"There," whispered Carlton, in strange excitement, "there lies one . . . whose ruin and whose death are at my door. I don't forget—I never have forgotten. I have paid, and I will pay till the end. And there shall be no other woman . . ."
His tongue failed him; his face was grief-stricken; the whole man was changed. So then the human being, his bishop, knew that there was another woman in his heart already; recalled the most terrible partof this man's confession to him, years before; and presently plucked him by the sleeve. And the voice that Robert Carlton heard, as he leaned once more with his elbow on the chimney-piece, and his face between his hands, was the voice of their last interview, at the bishop's palace, in the blank forenoon of a wet summer's day.
"Forgive me," it said, "for I also have misjudged you in my turn. But now I see—but now I see, and am ashamed . . . Your life has been hard, my brother, but it has been brave! You have been through the depths, but you have also touched the heights, and I think that God must be very near you to-night. I see now that you are right to go; you are both nobler and wiser than I thought; may happiness, and peace, and love itself go with you first or last. Let us kneel together before I leave you, and humbly pray that it may still be so!"
When the bishop retired, Robert Carlton returned to his study, and prayed by himself until a knock at the outer door brought him to his feet, much startled; for it was eleven at night.
He was still more startled when he reached the door, for there stood a soldier straight and tall, sunburnt and jaunty; a medal with clasps and the Egyptian star upon his scarlet breast; a smile behind the trim moustache; right hand at the salute. It was only after a prolonged stare that Carlton recognised the smart young man.
"George Mellis?" he cried. "Come in—come in!"
"That's me, sir," said George, entering like a machine. "But—can it be you, Mr. Carlton?"
And his smile vanished as the lamplight fell upon the grey hairs and the deep furrows which made the clergyman look nearly twice his years.
"Yes, George. I have aged a little. But so have you."
"Oh, I'm all right," said the young soldier with his fine eyes on the other's face; "but I want to kill somebody, that's all!"
"I should have thought you'd done enough of that at the wars," rejoined Carlton, smiling. "Come, George, it's you I want to hear about. Of course I have heard of you. So you enlisted in the Grenadiers, and you got straight to Tel-el-Kebir; and that's the clasp, and not the only one! And now you're a colour-sergeant, and certain of your stripes, they tell me; you're a great hero in the village, George; and yet I have heard them complain that you never even came back to show yourself after the war."
"I haven't come back to show myself now, Mr. Carlton."
And the young fellow looked rather grim above his brass and scarlet.
"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
"Nor have you, sir. But can't you guess why I've come back for the first time to-night?"
Carlton considered, and suddenly his hollow eyes lit up; but those of the grenadier had lighted first.
"Was it—was it really to—to be here to-morrow, George?"
"That was it, sir—and nothing else! I'd heard how you were building it up with your own——"
"Never mind that, George."
"I heard it from Tom Ivey, who found me out in barracks not long since, and gave me all the Long Stow news. That's how I came to hear of the consecration to-morrow. He said he was coming down for it, and I said I would too if I could get leave; and I did; and we've come down together to-night."
Neither of them had dreamt of intruding at that hour; but Mellis had seen the old light in the old window, and felt he must just come up to shake hands. Yes, he would come in gladly after church to-morrow. No, he had seen no one else to speak to as yet, except Mrs. Musk; and the grenadier stood confused.
"Where did you see her?"
"Driving away from the Flint House."
"That old woman at this time of night?"
"Musk is bad, and she was going for the doctor herself. I offered to go instead, but she had the girl with her, and there was no stopping them."
"Bad!" echoed Carlton. "He has been bad for weeks; he may be dying—and all alone!" He dashed from the room, but was back next moment in his wideawake. "I must go to him, George! He will hate it, but I must go. Open the door, and I'll put out the light; if he's dying I shall stay."
It was a clear keen night with a worn moon curling in the west; and the hard road rang like a drum as red-coat and black ran elbow to elbow down the village, jerking a word here and there as they went.
"Been bad long, sir?"
"Sciatica for years; only just taken to his bed."
"Sciatica shouldn't kill."
"This must be something else. The man is old—and the one enemy I have left!"
They ran on. Before the Flint House came first its meadow and then its garden wall, with the gate left open, and a rude drive twisting through trees to the side of the house. "This way," said Carlton; and in half a minute they were at the side door. This also had been left open. Carlton lowered his voice, his hand upon the latch.
"You wait here, like a good fellow. If he will not let me say one word—if he orders me out—then you must come up instead. If he is so ill that his wife goes herself at midnight for the doctor, then he is too ill to be left with no one in the house but a child of five!"
Carlton's concern was not a little for the child. Suppose he had awakened to call and call in vain—perhaps to run for succour to a corpse! The thought made Carlton shudder as he found his way through passages with which he had been permitted to become familiar after Georgie's accident. At the head of the stairs there was Georgie's room; the father had to pass it; and could not, without peeping in.
For this door was ajar, and a night-light burning on the chest of drawers. Georgie was breathing gently in his cot. Carlton approached on tip-toe, and stood gazing downward with clasped hands. Boisterous and robust upon his feet, the boy looked still a baby in his sleep; his face was so round and innocent; his hands seemed such toys; and the light hair, too seldom cut, was lightest at the roots, and still curly at the ends, as it lay upon the pillow wherehis last movement had tossed it. It was a sweet face, even with the great eyes closed; the eyelashes looked so much longer and darker against the pure skin; they were many shades darker than the hair; and the eyebrows were assuming a very delicate definition of their own. The mouth was beautiful. That brown little hand was perfectly shaped. Carlton bent over, and kissed the warm smooth cheek with infinite tenderness; then went upon his knees, and prayed over the child, and for him, and for his future, out of the fulness of a brimming heart. He forgot that Musk's death would make a difference to the child and to himself; for the moment he forgot that Musk was in any danger of dying, and that this was his house. He and his child were alone together once more, it might be for the last time, one never knew.
"God keep you, my own poor boy, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from evil, for ever and ever, Amen."
He stooped once more over the cot, pushed the long hair back, running his fingers through it gently, and kissed the pure forehead again and again. And it seemed to Robert Carlton—but the night-light was very dim—that at the last his son had smiled upon him in his sleep.
In Musk's room there was more light. It lay under the closed door like a yellow rod. Carlton knocked gently. There was no answer. He knocked louder. Not a sound from within. Then the chill fell on him, and he entered ready for any discovery but the one he was to make.
Neither the quick nor the dead lay within.
A fire was burning as well as the lamp; the very bed looked warm, but was not; the sick man must have left it some minutes at least.
The lame man, the man who could not walk, had left his bed if not the house! Carlton caught up the lamp to go in search. And even on the landing a voice came hailing him from the region below.
"Mr. Carlton! Mr. Carlton! Quick, sir, quick!"
George Mellis was still at the side door, and in the lamplight the other could not see an inch beyond.
"Have you found him, George? He's not in bed!"
"Who—Musk? No, sir, no!"
"Then what have you seen?"
The grenadier had a wet skin, a quivering lip, a starting eye.
"Oh, I can't tell you, sir! I may be wrong. God grant it! But give me the lamp, and go outside and look for yourself!"
In sheer perplexity Carlton complied; and for an instant imagined some outrageous freak of nature; for the trees of the Flint House drive, black as night a few minutes before, now stood etched against the reddest dawn that he had ever seen—at midnight in December! Then a flame shot upwards, and another, and another; and Mellis was left standing, lamp in hand, a brilliant patch of light and colour, yet less brilliant every instant in the face of that unearthly glare in the east. Swift feet were pattering down the drive; and had such a start, before the soldier found his senses, that it was only in the churchyard he caught them up.
Long Stow church was on fire for the second time, and burning faster than it had burnt between five and six years before. The crackle of the pitch pine was loud as musketry already. The roof was already burning; its destruction had been the climax of the former fire.
Robert Carlton stood with folded arms heaving on his chest. The bishop was there already, in his overcoat and rug, with the whiter and the sterner face. The servants had called him: they also were there, in pitiful case, but no more had arrived as yet.
"It is no use their coming. The roof's on fire in three or four different places. He has done his work better this time; more oil for him, with those stoves!"
The voice was Carlton's, because his lips moved,and those of the bishop were compressed out of sight. Otherwise Mellis, for one, would never have recognised so sad a discord of heartbreak and devil-may-care.
"Some things might be saved," said the bishop.
"They might and shall! George, run to my study for the key; it's on a nail beside the fireplace. And to think I locked up myself lest something might happen at the last!" cried Carlton, with a single note of high hollow laughter, as the soldier vanished. "But I never thought of you! No, you have cheated me very cleverly this time. You almost deserve your triumph—over me!"
"Do you mean to say you know who has done it?" cried the bishop.
"Yes—the man who did it before."
"But was that ever known?"
"No; but I knew. I found his hat in the church."
"And you never told?"
"Nor shall I now. But I do wonder where he got in! And he was well enough to climb a ladder—my dying man!"
Carlton said no more; he was sorry he had said so much. Yet this time it was sure to come out. There was the empty bed. Mellis would speak of it, though he had not seen it with his own eyes. Was the malingerer back in it already? What hellish artifice! And the house emptied for the nonce! The man's own wife would never have suspected him.
Carlton was quite calm. There was nothing to be done. The roof was flaring at either end and in themiddle. Only a fire-engine could have put it out, and there was still none nearer than Lakenhall. The mind will often puzzle over an immaterial question in the face of facts too terrible to be realised at once: the known is blinding, but the unknown is the dark, and it is a relief to grope there even for that which is useless when discovered. So Robert Carlton was still wondering how the incendiary had got in, and out, and exactly what he had done inside, when Mellis came running with the key. In a few moments they were in the church.
Nothing could have been less like the corresponding impression of the former fire. Then the pews had been discovered burning; but now rush-seated chairs and pitch pine stalls stood equally intact; and a first glance did not reveal the source of the dull red light which filled the church. On the other hand, a badly-broken window in the north transept satisfied Carlton's curiosity on the immaterial point; and supplied another, pregnant with irony; for it was the window whose arch he had been building when Georgie first swam into his ken.
But now Mellis was looking straight above him, and calling to Mr. Carlton to do the same. In three places the ceiling was on fire, and burning planks beginning to drop; in another a spreading patch of brown burnt through even as they watched. Almost simultaneously came a shriek from the women and a roar from the men now gathering outside; it was Tom Ivey who came rushing in.
"There's some one overhead! He's smashing the skylight over the north transept! That's the manthat done it—that's the man that done it—fairly caught!"
The saddler came on Tom's heels.
"Gord love us all, that's Jasper Musk!"
Carlton darted into the south transept without waste of words, and in an instant had disappeared in the part that was boarded off until the new organ should be established in its place there; meanwhile the very ceiling had not been carried to the end of the transept, and a ladder led to the natural loft that it formed. Up this ladder the incendiary must have climbed, and up this ladder the rector was running when Mellis and Ivey, with the rest at their heels, reached its foot.
"Come down, sir, come down, for God's sake!"
"I am not coming down alone."
"Then I'll fetch you," roared Ivey; "you are not going to risk your life for him!"
But the red-coat was first upon the ladder, and in a few seconds both young men were in the triangular tunnel between the ceiling and the roof; a space so confined that under the apex alone was it possible to walk upright; and that only for the few feet dividing them from the nearest flames.
"Look out!" cried Tom Ivey from the top rung. "It wasn't made for a floor; get on your hands and knees, and the weight won't be all in one place." So they crept into the centre of the cross; and there they knelt upright to see over a fringe of fire that burnt their eyelids bare as they gazed.
Roof and ceiling of chancel and of nave, both were in roaring flames to right and to left of them;through the flaming barrier in their faces, and the hole already burnt, they could see the pulpit and the chairs in the north transept thirty feet below; and across the gulf, Jasper Musk and Robert Carlton face to face. Carlton had made the leap; they could not; already the flames were driving them back and back.
In the steady roar and crackle they could hear no words. Musk was crouching under a skylight all too narrow for his gigantic shoulders, a tell-tale oil-tin overturned at his feet. His face was livid, but fearless, and his light eyes gleamed with hate. Carlton's back was turned to the watchers, and for a second motionless; then he looked round, saw them through smoke and flame, and clapped a hand to his mouth.
"Down, both of you," he shouted, "and round with the ladder to the outside here, and one of you fetch up an axe. The skylight's too small—we must make it bigger!"
Musk's lips moved, and his eyes flashed their own fire; the others could almost see the words.
"Well?" said Mellis.
"Come on; it's our only chance."
In an instant they were down the ladder, and had it horizontal in a minute. Then Ivey began to fume.
"It'll take some time getting through the porch!"
"Shove it through the broken window."
"Good man! Stand by, out there, to haul out this ladder!"
The red-coat ran round, his medal twinkling in the glare, while Ivey rushed for the axe.
"Up with her, comrades! That's it—altogether—now!"
The ladder was up outside. Ivey, axe in hand, had leapt upon the fourth rung at a bound, and was taking the rest two at a time. Below it was light as day; the naked trees stood brown and brittle in the glare; the upturned faces white as the curled moon. A whiter face peered through the skylight.
"Look alive with that axe, Tom; he can't breathe, and he's being roasted!"
"He deserve ut! Do you come through first, sir. There's room for you as 'tis. He can bide his turn."
The white face flushed indignant dominion.
"Unless you obey me, you are my murderer too!"
A stifled curse came from under the tiles.
"There, then! Would you save him after that? Leave him the axe and through you come, you that can, or else I'll pull you through!"
And his great arm thickened as he thrust it out, and grabbed at the straight white collar, before relinquishing the axe from his other hand; but at that moment there was a crackling groan, and a sudden unbearable weight on Ivey's hand and arm, as the frail inner roof gave way; then a blinding flame in his face, a crash below, and a cry of anguish from a hundred hearts rent as one.
The axe tumbled as Tom Ivey flung both arms round the ladder, and so descended like a drunken man, a crumpled collar still warm and tight between the clenched fingers of his right hand.
Long Stow church rose salient from its knoll at the eastern extremity of the village, still in its wintry network of a million twigs. It was not the ruin it had been before; but the new roof had vanished; and the chancel was in the condition to which the first fire had reduced the whole edifice. The other walls still stand as their builder built them, and as they stood on that December day when he was laid to rest in their shadow. The grave is in the angle of the north transept and the nave, not a dozen paces from the site of the shed. The stone was not up when Gwynneth visited it, but the grave was as easily identified as it is to-day. It lay beneath a cairn of dead flowers, picked out with many fresh ones. The cards still fluttered upon some of the wreaths, and Gwynneth could not help seeing the surprising names upon some; but the humble little home-made offerings, the bunches of snow-drops and the early crocuses, touched her more. Yet she showed no feeling as she stood and gazed. She had brought no flowers herself. There was no pretence of mourning in her dress. She shed no tears.
From his own observatory the saddler had seenwho was in the covered fly, when Gwynneth got out. He was at his usual work upon the latest newspaper, and he took it up again for a minute. But Gwynneth was more than a minute, and more than five; the saddler lost patience, and wandered across the road.
"Where did you bring that young lady from? Lakenhall?"
"Yes."
"And are you going to take her back again?"
"Yes, in time for the 5.40 train; and she only got down by the 2.10."
Gwynneth, who had not stirred a feature or a limb, started indignantly at the sound of a profaning step; but had forgiven Fuller before he reached her hand with his own outstretched. There had seemed so much that she might never know, could never ask; it would not be necessary with the saddler.
"Why, Miss Gwynneth, is that you?" he cried, when he had crushed her hand; and his eyes widened with concern.
"Am I so much changed?" asked Gwynneth, smiling gallantly.
"Changed! Gord love yer, miss, you're the shadder of what you was."
"There is plenty of substance still, Mr. Fuller."
"And where's your colour, miss?"
"In London, I suppose."
"That's it," cried Fuller; "that London! I wouldn't live there, not if you paid me: nasty, beastly, smoky, overcrowded sink of iniquity and disease! If I was the Government I'd pull that downand build it up again on twice the space. That isn't good manners to run down the place where you live, miss, I know; but I never could abide that London, and now I shall hate it more than ever."
"But I thought you were never there, Mr. Fuller?"
"And never mean to be, miss, and never mean to be! I've too much sense. Look at me: sixty-eight I am, and a bit over, and not an ache or a pain from top to toe. That's because I live in the pure air and know what I eat; now in London, if you'll excuse my saying so, you never do. Where should I be if I'd been swallerun London fogs and adulterated milk and butter all my life? In my grave these thirty years! Do you take the advice of a man of my experience, miss: shake the soot of London off your feet, and come you back to good living and good air, and you won't know yourself in a week."
Gwynneth let the saddler run on; a more sensitive man would have seen that she was not hearkening to a word. Her eyes were very hard and bright; they rested once more upon the faded flowers and the fluttering cards.
"So this is Mr. Carlton's grave!"
The belated words told nothing at all. Fuller removed his cap.
"Yes, miss, there lie the biggest and the bravest heart that ever beat in this here parish or anywhere near it. And I have a right to say so. Many has come back to him this last twelvemonth or so. But I was the first."
"Were you at the fire, Mr. Fuller?"
"Was I at the fire! Why, it was me that saw that first, Miss Gwynneth. Young George Mellis, with his red-coat and his bamboo cane, he would have it that it was him; but there are some folks that fare to be first in everything, and General George'll be getting too big for his uniform if he don't take care. You see, I hadn't closed an eye when I saw the first flicker on the ceiling; but an old man like me have to get on some clothes before he can run outside in the depths o' winter. Meanwhile, Master George, who haven't been near his old friend all these years, he can come down fast enough when the reverend's got the ball at his feet again; and there were the two of them at the Flint House, inquiring after Jasper Musk, said to be at death's door at the very moment he was setting fire to the church."
"Fiend!"
"You may well say that, miss, for it was the second time he'd done it; and the reverend had known, all these years, and that must've been Jasper's hat he flung into the first fire when Tom Ivey come, puttun two an' two together. What make that worse, it seem old Jasper used to say he hoped to live to see the new church consecrated; and some say he'd smile as he said it; but now we know what he meant. And he used to limp up and down his room, for practice, when even the doctor thought he couldn't set foot to the ground; for the servant girl heard him at it. Yes, Miss Gwynneth, he was deep and strong and cruel, like the sea, wasJasper; that's what the bishop said himself, for I heard him; but I will say this for him, he asked no more quarter than he gave. Tom Ivey heard his last words through the skylight, and they aren't fit for a young lady like you to hear, but they were a man's words whatever else they were. The worst is that the dear old reverend could've squeezed through himself if only he'd have let Jasper slip; but that he wouldn't; so they both went through with the ceiling and were killed."
"For his enemy!" whispered Gwynneth, an unearthly radiance in her poor hard eyes.
"Yes, for the man that burnt the church down twice, and deserved to burn himself; that was the worst of it."
The listener's lips were consistently compressed, but at this they parted again.
"Oh, no, it was the best. It was the best. A great death, a glorious death!" And the pale thin face was white-hot with a pride which consumed all else.
"The bishop said his life was greater still. You should ha' heard his sermon, out here, at the open grave, when it was all over. There never was such a funeral in the countryside before, and there never will be another like it. The place was packed. I stood where you are standing now, miss. I was one o' the bearers; and Ivey, Mellis, and Jones the schoolmaster, they were the other three. Then you should have seen the clergy; there was a rare procession of the clergy from all round; the Reverend Scrope from Burton Mills, the Reverend Preston from Linkworth,and Canon Wilders, and a lot more. But the bishop was in all his toggery, and I never see a man look so fine; he's little and he's lame, but the face he preached with, across this here open grave, you'd have said that belonged to some old giant. And what a sermon! That didn't make us cry; that dried our tears, an' made us want to build churches and be killed ourselves. You might guess the text: 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.' I kept waitun for him to point out that Musk was not the reverend's friend, but his worst enemy; but he never did. I would have done; otherwise, he said just what I would like to have said myself, let alone the one thing that took the whole lot of us by surprise. And I tell you, Miss Gwynneth, the place was right black with people; not only in the churchyard, but across the fence in the medder as well; there was hardly a blade o' grass to be seen."
"What was the surprise, Mr. Fuller?"
"He'd made up his mind to resign the living! He had told his lordship. He meant to resign next night—I can't for the life of me think why!"
But Gwynneth could; and, with the second sight begotten of her love, read the dead man even in his grave, divining immediately some of the very reasons which he had given to the bishop in his last hours. She was never to divine them all.
Meanwhile the saddler, having imparted a satisfactory amount of information, was beginning to look for some return in kind, and supposed Miss Gwynneth would be going to the hall. No, they were allfrom home; indeed, Gwynneth had waited for that. Yet she made her answer with a candid look, the prelude to a gratuitous admission.
"I am going on to the Flint House," said she.
"Well, there!" cried Fuller, "if I hadn't forgot to tell you where Musk lie! He don't lie here, miss; he left it that he would go to Lakenhall cemetery, in onconsecrated ground, some say. And Mrs. Musk—you won't have heard it—but she's fair lost her know, poor thing!"
"Yes, I had heard. Poor thing, indeed! Yet in her case it seems almost merciful. But I am not going to see Mrs. Musk."
"Then haven't you heard about little Georgie? That's a grand thing, that! There's a lady in London (that's the only part I don't like), some young widder with none of her own, that's going to adopt him instead."
"I know that, too," said Gwynneth, flushing slightly as she smiled. "The lady is a friend of mine; she heard of Georgie through me. We were in a hospital together, but now we have taken a flat—for I am going to live with her too. And it is for Georgie I am come to-day."
Her companion had served her purpose; but would not go; and a hint might betray that which had obviously never entered the saddler's head. So Gwynneth looked her last upon her own heart's grave with the same pale face and the same unbending carriage; but the bright eyes were softer now, though radiant still with a heavenly pride. So hisashes exalted her as his living presence; so his undying soul still strengthened hers.
It was a pale February day, the grass very green, a subtle gloss of life upon the bough; but it was man's handiwork that appealed to Gwynneth; and all at once an astounding fact forced itself upon her vision and understanding. The church was almost exactly as she had seen it last. The east end was the worst; the roof was not begun. It was just as it had been six months before; and only the work of the hireling had perished after all; that of the self-taught mason, the pariah, the penitent, still endured as an oblation and a sacrifice for his sins, and as a monument to the man for all time. Gwynneth could have gone down on her knees in thanksgiving for this miracle; as it was she saw his resting-place but dimly for the last time. At that moment the starling which had entertained him in life began a gossip in the elderbush at his head; a jealous sparrow poured abuse from every tree; and so she left him, at rest where he never rested, on the field where that rest had been won.
A married Musk with many children, one of the sons who had quarrelled with their father, had already established himself and family in the Flint House. He had thankfully accepted Gwynneth's proposal, made, however, in Nurse Ella's name; and Georgie was ready when Gwynneth called for the second time on her way back from the church. He was also in tremendous spirits, leaping upon his lady like a wild beast, and, later, roaring his farewells through the fly-window, as they drove away towards a waterysunset, Gwynneth sitting far back on the deeper seat She let him shout till he was tired; by that time she was mistress of herself once more, and the dusk was such as to destroy all present evidence of another character. So at last she could take him on her knee.
"And are you glad to come away with Gwynneth, darling?"
"I should think I are; jolly glad; but I thought there was anunner lady too?"
"We shall find her where we are going. Do you know where we are going, Georgie?"
"Course I do. We're goin' to London to see the Queen. I wish we would soon be there!"
"So we shall, Georgie."
"In a minute?"
"No, not in a minute; we have to go in the train first. Have you ever seen a real train, Georgie?"
"No, never. I know I haven't," Georgie averred. "You are kind to take me in one! I do love you, I say!"
"Do you, darling?"
"Yes, really. I love you bestest in the world. I know I do!"
They were entering Lakenhall, and it was quite dark in the fly; but now Georgie knew that Gwynneth was crying, for she was kissing him at the same time, and as he never had been kissed before.
"And you always will, Georgie—you always will?"
"Course I will," said Georgie, gaily.
"And go to school when Gwynneth sends you, and turn into a great strong man, and be good to poor Gwynneth then?"
"Gooder'n all the world," said Georgie.
THE END
"Mr. Hornung's books are stories pure and simple, excellently constructed, well written, cleanly, humorous, kindly. The plot is always well managed, the telling is lively, with no waste of irrelevant episode, and the untying is sure to be left to the last."—New York Evening Post.
OTHER BOOKS BY E. W. HORNUNG
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