CHAPTER XVII.

"WAPSHOTT AND SONS',CHICAGO,PATENT COMPRESSED TEA,TEN PRIZE MEDALS"—

stamped here and there about it. "I suppose," she said, turning to Mr. Moggridge, "I can have it weighed here, and pay you the duty, and then Captain Potter can send it straight to 'The Bower'?"

"Certainly," said Mr. Moggridge; "we won't be long opening it, and then—"

"Opening it!"

"Why, yes; as a matter of form, you know. It won't take a minute."

"But how foolish," said Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, "when you know very well by the invoice that it's tea!"

"Oh, of course it's foolish: only it's the rule, you understand, before allowing goods to be landed."

"But I don't understand. It is tea, and I am ready to pay the duty. I never thought you would be so unreasonable."

"Geraldine!"

At the utterance of Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys' Christian name the two minions turned aside to conceal their smiles. The red-faced man's appreciation even led him to dive behind the packing-case. The Collector pulled himself up and looked confused.

"It was so small a thing I asked," said she, almost to herself, and with a heart-rending break in her voice, "so small a test!" And with a sigh she half-turned to go.

The Collector's hand arrested her.

"Do you mean—?"

She looked at him with reproach in her eyes. "Let me pass," said she, and seeing the conflict between love and duty on his face, "So small a test!"

"Damn the tea!" said Mr. Moggridge.

"I am feeling so faint," said Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys.

"Let me lead you up to the fresh air."

"No; go and open the tea."

"I am not going to open it."

"Do!"

"I won't. Here, Sam," he called to one of the minions, "put down that chisel and weigh the chest at once. You needn't open it. Come, don't stand staring, but look alive. I know what's inside. Are you satisfied?" he added, bending over her.

"It frightened me so," she answered, looking up with swimming eyes. "And I thought—I was planning it so nicely. Take me up on deck, please."

"Come, be careful o' that chest," said Captain Uriah T. Potter to the minions, as they moved it up to be weighed.

"Heaviest tea that iverIhandled," groaned the first minion.

"All the more duty for you sharks. O' course it's heavy, being compressed: an' strong, too. Guess you don't oft'n get tea o' this strength in your country, anyway. Give a man two pinches o' Wapshott's best, properly cooked, an' I reckon it'll lasthim. You won't find him coming to complain."

"No?"

"No. But I ain't sayin' nuthin'," added Captain Potter, "about his widder."

And his smile, as he regarded his hearers, was both engaging and expansive.

Caleb Trotter watched his master's behaviour during the next few days with a growing impatience.

"I reckon," he said, "'tes wi' love, as Sally Bennett said when her old man got cotched i' the dreshin'-machine,' you'm in, my dear, an' you may so well go dro'.'"

Nevertheless, he would look up from his work at times with anxiety.

"Forty-sax. That's the forty-saxth time he've a-trotted up that blessed beach an' back; an' five times he've a-pulled up to stare at the watter. I've a-kep' count wi' these bits o' chip. An' at night 'tes all round the house, like Aaron's dresser, wi' a face, too, like as ef he'd a-lost a shillin' an' found a thruppeny-bit. This 'ere pussivantin'[1]may be relievin' to the mind, but I'm darned ef et can be good for shoe-leather. 'Tes the wear an' tear, that's what 'tes, as Aunt Lovey said arter killin' her boy wi' whackin'."

The fact is that Mr. Fogo was solving his problem, though the process was painful enough. He was concerned, too, for Caleb, whose rest was often broken by his master's restlessness. In consequence he determined to fit up a room for his own use. Caleb opposed the scheme at first; but, finding that the business of changing diverted Mr. Fogo's melancholy, gave way at last, on a promise that "no May-games" should be indulged in—a festival term which was found to include somnambulism, suicide, and smoking in bed.

The room chosen lay on the upper storey at the extreme east of the house, and looked out, between two tall elms, upon the creek and the lepers' burial-ground. It was chosen as being directly over the room occupied by Caleb, so that, by stamping his foot, Mr. Fogo could summon his servant at any time. The floor was bare of carpet, and the chamber of decoration. But Mr. Fogo hated decoration, and, after slinging his hammock and pushing the window open for air, gazed around on the blistered ceiling and tattered wall-paper, rubbed his hands, and announced that he should be very comfortable.

"Well, sir," said Caleb, as he turned to leave him for the night, "arter all, comfort's a matter o' comparison, as St. La'rence said when he turned round 'pon the gridiron. But the room's clane as watter an' scourin' 'll make et—reminds me," he continued, with a glance round, "o' what the contented clerk said by hes office-stool: 'Chairs es good,' said he, 'and sofies es better; but 'tes a great thing to harbour no dust.' Any orders, sir?"

"No, I fancy—stop! Is my writing-case here?"

Caleb's anxiety took alarm.

"You bain't a-goin' to do et in writin' sir, surely!"

Mr. Fogo stared.

"Don't 'ee, sir—don't 'ee!"

"Really, Caleb, your behaviour is most extraordinary. What is it that I am not to do?"

"Why, put et in writin', sir: they don't like et. Go up an' ax her like a man—'Will 'ee ha' me? Iss or no?' That was ould Dick Jago's way, an' I reckonheknowed, havin' married sax wifes, wan time an' another. But as for pen and ink—"

"You mistake me," interrupted Mr. Fogo, with a painful flush. He paused irresolutely, and then added, in a softer tone, "Would you mind taking a seat in the window here, Caleb? I have something to say to you."

Caleb obeyed. For a moment or two there was silence as Mr. Fogo stood up before his servant. The light of the candle on the chest beside him but half revealed his face. When at last he spoke it was in a heavy, mechanical tone.

"You guessed once," he said, "and rightly, that a woman was the cause of my seclusion in this place. In such companionship as ours, it would have been difficult—even had I wished it—to keep up the ordinary relations of master and man; and more than once you have had opportunities of satisfying whatever curiosity you may have felt about my—my past. Believe me, Caleb, I have noted your forbearance, and thank you for it."

Caleb moved uneasily, but was silent.

"But my life has been too lonely for me," pursued his master wearily. "On general grounds one would not imagine the life of a successful hermit to demand any rare qualifications. It is humiliating, but even as a hermit I am a failure: for instance, you see, I want to talk."

His hearer, though puzzled by the words, vaguely understood the smile of self-contempt with which they were closed.

"As a woman-hater, too, my performances are beneath contempt. Ididthink," said Mr. Fogo with something of testiness in his voice, "I should prove an adequate woman-hater, whereas it happens—"

He broke off suddenly, and took a turn or two up and down the room. Caleb could have finished the sentence for him, but refrained.

"Surely," said Mr. Fogo, pausing suddenly in his walk, "surely the conditions were favourable enough. Listen. It is not so very long ago since I possessed ambitions—hopes; hopes that I hugged to myself as only a silent man may. With them I meant to move the world, so far as a writer can move the world (which I daresay may be quite an inch). These hopes I put in the keeping of the woman I loved. Can you foresee the rest?"

Caleb fumbled in his pocket for his pipe, found it, held it up between finger and thumb, and, looking along the stem, nodded.

"We were engaged to be married. Two days before the day fixed for our wedding she—she came to me (knowing me, I suppose, to be a mild man) and told me she was married—had been married for a week or more, to a man I had never seen—a Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys. Hallo! is it broken?"

For the pipe had dropped from Caleb's fingers and lay in pieces upon the floor.

"Quite so," he went on in answer to the white face confronting him, "I know it. She is at this moment living in Troy with her husband. I had understood they were in America; but the finger of fate is in every pie."

Caleb drew out a large handkerchief, and, mopping his brow, gasped—

"Well, of all—" And then broke off to add feebly, "Here's a coincidence!—as Bill said when he was hanged 'pon his birthday."

"I have not met her yet, and until now have avoided the chance. But now I am curious to see her—"

"Don't 'ee, sir."

"And to-night intended writing."

"Don't 'ee, sir; don't 'ee."

"To ask for an interview, Caleb," pursued Mr. Fogo, drawing himself up suddenly, while his eyes fairly gleamed behind his spectacles. "Here I am, my past wrecked and all its cargo of ambitions scattered on the sands, and yet—and yet I feel tonight that I could thank that woman. Do you understand?"

"I reckon I do," said Caleb, rising heavily and making for the door.

He stopped with his hand on the door, and turning, observed his master for a minute or so without remark. At last he said abruptly—

"Pleasant dreams to 'ee, sir: an' two knacks 'pon the floor ef I be wanted. Good-night, sir." And with this he was gone.

Mr. Fogo stood for some moments listening to his footsteps as they shuffled down the stairs. Then with a sigh he turned to his writing-case, pulled a straw-bottomed chair before the rickety table, and sat for a while, pen in hand, pondering.

Before he had finished, his candle was low in its socket, and the floor around him littered with scraps of torn paper. He sealed the envelope, blew out the candle, and stepped to the window.

"I wonder if she has changed," he said to himself.

Outside, the summer moon had risen above the hill facing him, and the near half of the creek was ablaze with silver. The old schooner still lay in shadow, but the water rushing from her hold kept a perpetual music. Other sounds there were none but the soft rustling of the swallows in the eaves overhead, the sucking of the tide upon the beach below, and the whisper of night among the elms. The air was heavy with the fragrance of climbing roses and all the scents of the garden. In such an hour Nature is half sad and wholly tender.

Mr. Fogo lit a pipe, and, watching its fumes as they curled out upon the laden night, fell into a kingly melancholy. He dwelt on his past, but without resentment; on Tamsin, but with less trouble of heart. After all, what did it matter? Mr. Fogo, leaning forward on the window-seat, came to a conclusion to which others have been led before him—that life is a small thing. Oddly enough, this discovery, though it belittled his fellowmen considerably, did not belittle the thinker at all, or rather affected him with a very sublime humility.

"When one thinks," said he, "that the moon will probably rise ten million times over the hill yonder on such a night as this, it strikes one that woman-hating is petty, not to say a trifle fatuous."

He puffed awhile in silence, and then went on—

"The strange part of it is, that the argument does not seem to affect Tamsin as much as I should have fancied."

He paused for a moment, and added:

"Or to prove as conclusively as I should expect that I am a fool. Possibly if I see Geraldine to-morrow, she will prove it more satis—"

He broke off to clutch the lattice, and stare with rigid eyes across the creek.

For the moon was by this time high enough to fling a ray upon the deserted hull: and there—upon the deck—stood a figure—the figure of a woman.

She was motionless, and leant against the bulwarks, with her face towards him, but in black shadow. A dark hood covered her head; but the cloak was flung back, and revealed just a gleam of white where her bosom and shoulders bent forward over the schooner's side.

Mr. Fogo's heart gave a leap, stood still, and then fell to beating with frantic speed. He craned out at the window, straining his eyes. At the same moment the pipe dropped from his lips and tumbled, scattering a shower of sparks, into the rose-bush below.

When he looked up again the woman had disappeared.

Suddenly he remembered Caleb's story of the girl who, ages back, had left her home to live among the lepers in this very house, perhaps in the very room he occupied; and of the ghost that haunted the burial ground below. Mr. Fogo was not without courage; but the recollection brought a feeling of so many spiders creeping up his spine.

And yet the whole tale was so unlikely that, by degrees, as he gazed at the wreck, now completely bathed in moonlight, he began to persuade himself that his eyes had played him a trick.

"I will go to bed," he muttered; "I have been upset lately, and these fits of mine may well pass into hallucination. Once think of these women and—"

He stopped as if shot. From behind the wreck a small boat shot out into the moon's brilliance. Two figures sat in it, a woman and a man; and as the boat dropped swiftly down on the ebb he had time to notice that both were heavily muffled about the face. This was all he could see, for in a moment they had passed into the gloom, and the next the angle of the house hid them from view; but he could still hear the plash of their oars above the sounds of the night.

"The leper and his sweetheart," was Mr. Fogo's first thought. But then followed the reflection—would ghostly oars sound? On the whole, he decided against the supernatural. But the mystery remained. More curious than agitated, but nevertheless with little inclination to resume his communing with the night, Mr. Fogo sought his hammock and fell asleep.

The sun was high when he awoke, and as he descended to breakfast he heard Caleb's mallet already at work on the quay below. Still, anxious to set his doubts at rest, he made a hasty meal, and walked down to take a second opinion on the vision.

Caleb, with his back towards the house, was busily fitting a new thwart into Mr. Fogo's boat, and singing with extreme gaiety—

"Oh, where be the French dogs?Oh! where be they, O?They be down i' their long-boats,All on the salt say, O!"

What with the song and the hammering, he did not hear his master's approach.

"Up flies the kite,An' down flies the lark, O!Wi' hale an' tow, rumbleow—"

"Good-morning, Caleb."

"Aw, mornin' to 'ee, sir. You took me unawares—

"All for to fetch home,The summer an' the May, O!For summer is a-come,An' winter es a-go.'"

"Caleb, I have seen a ghost."

The mallet stopped in mid-descent. Caleb looked up again open-mouthed.

"Tom Twist and Harry Dingle!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Figger o' speech, sir, meanin' 'Who'd ha' thought et?' Whose ghost, sir, ef 'taint a rude question?"

Mr. Fogo told his story.

At its conclusion, Caleb laid down his mallet and whistled.

"'Tes the leppards, sure 'nuff, a-ha'ntin' o' th' ould place. Scriptur' says they will not change their spots, an' I'm blest ef et don't say truth. But deary me, sir, an' axin' your pardon for sayin' so, you'm a game-cock, an' no mistake."

"I?"

"Iss, sir. Two knacks 'pon the floor, an' I'd ha' been up in a jiffey. But niver mind, sir, us'll wait up for mun to-night, an' I'll get the loan o' the Dearlove's blunderbust in case they gets pol-rumptious."

Mr. Fogo deprecated the blunderbuss, but agreed to sit up for the ghost; and so for the time the matter dropped. But Caleb's eyes followed his master admiringly for the rest of the day, and more than once he had to express his feelings in vigorous soliloquy.

"Niver tell me! Looks as ef he'd no more pluck nor a field-mouse; an' I'm darned ef he takes more 'count of a ghost than he wud of a circuit-preacher. Blest ef I don't think ef a sperrit was to knack at the front door, he'd tell 'un to wipe hes feet 'pon the mat, an' make hissel' at home. Well, well, seein's believin', as Tommy said when he spied Noah's Ark i' the peep-show."

[1] I cannot forbear to add a note on this eminently Trojan word. In the fifteenth century, so high was the spirit of the Trojan sea-captains, and so heavy the toll of black-mail they levied on ships of other ports, that King Edward IV sent poursuivant after poursuivant to threaten his displeasure. The messengers had their ears slit for their pains; and "poursuivanting" or "pussivanting" survives as a term for ineffective bustle.(return)

At ten o'clock on this same morning Mr. Samuel Buzza sat by the Club window, alternately skimming his morning paper and sipping his morning draught. He was alone, for the habit of early rising was fast following the other virtues of antique Troy, and the members rarely mustered in force before eleven.

He had read all the murders and sporting intelligence, and was about to glance at the affairs of Europe, when Mrs. Cripps, the caretaker, entered in a hurry and a clean white apron.

"If you please, sir, there's Seth Udy's little boy below with a note for you. I'd have brought it up, but he says he must give it hisself."

Sam, descending with some wonder, encountered Mr. Moggridge in the passage. The rivals drew aside to let each other pass. On the doorstep stood a ragged urchin, and waved a letter.

"For you, sir; an' plaise you'm to tell me 'yes' or 'no,' so quick as possible."

Sam took the letter, glanced at the neat, feminine handwriting of the address, and tore open the envelope.

"Dear Mr. Buzza,"If you care to remember what was spoken the other evening, you will to-night help amost unhappy woman. You will go to the captain's cabin of the Wreck which we visited together, and find therea small portmanteau. It may be carried in the hand, and holds the few necessaries I have hidden for my flight, but please carry it carefully. If you will be waiting with this by the sign-post at the Five-Lanes' corner, at 11.30to-night, nowordsof mine will repay you. Should you refuse, I am a wretched woman; but in any case I know I may trust you to say no word of this."Look out for theclosed carriage and pair. A word to the bearer will tell me that I may hope, or that you care nothing for me.G. G.-S."P.S.—Be very carefulnot to shake the portmanteau."

"Dear Mr. Buzza,

"If you care to remember what was spoken the other evening, you will to-night help amost unhappy woman. You will go to the captain's cabin of the Wreck which we visited together, and find therea small portmanteau. It may be carried in the hand, and holds the few necessaries I have hidden for my flight, but please carry it carefully. If you will be waiting with this by the sign-post at the Five-Lanes' corner, at 11.30to-night, nowordsof mine will repay you. Should you refuse, I am a wretched woman; but in any case I know I may trust you to say no word of this.

"Look out for theclosed carriage and pair. A word to the bearer will tell me that I may hope, or that you care nothing for me.

G. G.-S.

"P.S.—Be very carefulnot to shake the portmanteau."

"What be I to say, plaise, sir?"

Sam, who had read the letter for a third time syllable by syllable, looked around helplessly.

"Ef you plaise, what be I to say?"

Sam very heartily wished both boy and letter to the devil. He groaned aloud, and was about to answer, when he paused suddenly.

In the room above Mr. Moggridge was singing a jaunty stave.

The sound goaded Sam to madness; he ground his teeth and made up his mind.

"Say 'yes,'" he answered, shortly.

The word was no sooner spoken than he wished it recalled. But the urchin had taken to his heels. With an angry sigh Sam let circumstance decide for him, and returned to the reading-room.

No doubt the consciousness that pique had just betrayed his judgment made him the more inclined to quarrel with the poet. But assuredly the sight that met his eyes caused his blood to boil; for Mr. Moggridge was calmly in possession of the chair and newspaper which Sam had but a moment since resigned.

"Excuse me, but that is my chair and my paper."

"Eh?" The poet looked up sweetly. "Surely, the Club chair and the Club paper—"

"I have but this moment left them."

"By a singular coincidence, I have but this moment taken possession of them."

"Give them up, sir."

"I shall do nothing of the kind, sir."

At this point Sam was seized with the unlucky inspiration of quoting from Mr. Moggridge's published works:

"Forbid the flood to wet thy feet,Or bind its wrath in chains;But never seek to quench the heatThat fires a poet's veins!"

This stanza, delivered with nice attention to its author's drawing-room manner, was too much.

"Sir, you are no gentleman!"

"You seem," retorted Sam, "to be an authority on manners as well as on Customs. I won't repeat your charge; but I'll be dashed if you're a poet!"

My Muse is in a very pretty pass. Gentlest of her sisterhood, she has wandered from the hum of Miss Limpenny's whist-table into the turmoil of Mars. Even as one who, strolling through a smiling champaign, finds suddenly a lion in his path, and to him straightway the topmost bough of the platanus is dearer than the mother that bare him—in short, I really cannot say how this history would have ended, had not Fortune at this juncture descended to the Club-room in form and speech like to Admiral Buzza.

The Admiral did not convey his son away in a hollow cloud, or even break the Club telescope in Mr. Moggridge's hand; he made a speech instead, to this effect:

"My sons, attend and cease from strife implacable; neither be as two ravening whelps that, having chanced on a kid in the dells of the mountain, dispute thereover, dragging this way and that with gnashing jaws. For to youth belong anger and biting words, but to soothe is the gift of old age."

What the Admiral actually said was—"Hullo! what the devil are you young cubs quarrelling about?"

And now, satisfied that no blood is to be spilt, the Muse hies gladly to a very different scene.

In the drawing-room of "The Bower" Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys was sitting with a puzzled face and a letter on her lap. She had gone to the front door to learn Sam Buzza's answer, and, having dismissed her messenger, was returning, when the garden-gate creaked, and a blue-jerseyed man, with a gravely humorous face, stood before her. The new comer had regarded her long and earnestly before asking—

"Be you Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys?"

"I am."

"Answerin' to name o' Geraldine, an' lawful wife o' party answerin' to name o' Honorubble Frederic?"

"Certainly!" she smiled.

"H'm. Then this 'ere's for you." And the blue-jerseyed man handed a letter, and looked at her again, searchingly.

"Is there an answer?"

"No, I reckon."

She was turning, when the man suddenly laid a finger on her arm.

"Axin' pardon, but you'll let 'un down aisy, won't 'ee? He don't bear no malice, tho' he've a-suffered a brave bit. Cure 'un, that's what I say—cure 'un: this bein', o' cou'se, atween you an' me. An' look 'ee here," he continued, with a slow nod; "s'posin' the party lets on as he's a-falled in love wi' another party, I reckon you won't be the party to hinder et. Mind, I bain't sayin' you cou'd, but you won't try, will 'ee? That's atween you an' me, o' cou'se."

The man winked solemnly, and turned down the path. Before she recovered of her astonishment he had paused again at the gate, and was looking back.

"That's understood," he nodded; "atween you an' me an' the gate-post, o' cou'se."

With that he had disappeared.

Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, if bewildered at this, was yet more astonished at the contents of the letter.

"Fogo?" she repeated, with a glance at the signature—"Fogo? Won't that be the name of the woman-hater up at Kit's House, me dear?"

"Certainly," answered the Honourable Frederic.

"Then I'll trouble yez to listen to this."

She read as follows:—

"My Dear Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys,"When last you left me I prayed that we might never meet again. But time is stronger than I fancied, and here I am writing to you. Fate must have been in her most ironical mood to bring us so near in this corner of the world. I thought you were in another continent; but if you will let me accept the chance which brings us together, and call upon you as an old friend, I shall really be grateful: for there will be much to talk about, even if we avoid, as I promise to do, all that is painful; and I am very lonely. I have seen your husband, and hope you are very happy.—Believe me, very sincerely yours,Philip Fogo."

"My Dear Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys,

"When last you left me I prayed that we might never meet again. But time is stronger than I fancied, and here I am writing to you. Fate must have been in her most ironical mood to bring us so near in this corner of the world. I thought you were in another continent; but if you will let me accept the chance which brings us together, and call upon you as an old friend, I shall really be grateful: for there will be much to talk about, even if we avoid, as I promise to do, all that is painful; and I am very lonely. I have seen your husband, and hope you are very happy.—Believe me, very sincerely yours,Philip Fogo."

"What does it mean?" asked Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys helplessly.

"It means, Nellie, that we have just time enough, and none to spare; in other words, that 'Goodwyn-Sandys' has come near to being a confoundedly fatal—"

"Then he must have known—"

"Known! My treasure, where are your wits? Beautiful namesake— jilted lover—'hence, perjured woman'—bleeding heart—years pass— marry another—finger of fate—Good Lord!" wound up the Honourable Frederic. "I met the fellow one day, and couldn't understand why he stared so—gave me the creeps—see it all now."

He lay back in his chair and whistled.

There was a tap at the drawing-room door, and the buttoned youth announced that Mrs. Buzza was without, and earnestly begged an interview with Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys. The Honourable Frederic obligingly retired to smoke, and the visitor was shown in.

Her appearance was extraordinary. Her portly figure shook; her eyes were red; her bonnet, rakishly poised over the left eye, had dragged askew the "front" under it, as though its wearer had parted her hair on one side in a distracted moment. A sob rent her bosom as she entered.

"My poor soul!" murmured Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, "you are in trouble."

Mrs. Buzza tried to speak, but dropped into a chair and nodded instead.

"Whatisthe matter?"

"It's—it'shim."

"The Admiral?"

Mrs. Buzza mopped her eyes and nodded again.

"What has he done now?"

"S-said his bu-bu-breakfast was cold this mo-horning, and p-pitched the bu-bu-breakfast set over the quay-door," she moaned. "Oh! w-what shall I do?"

"Leave him!"

Mrs. Buzza clasped her hands and stared.

"You could see the m-marks quite plain," she wailed.

"What! Did he strike you?"

"I mean, on the bo-bottom of the c-cups. They were real W-worcester."

"Leave him! Oh! I have no patience," and Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys stamped her little foot, "with you women of Troy. Will you always be dolls— dolls with a painted smile for all man's insane caprices? Will you never—?"

"I don't paint," put in Mrs. Buzza feebly.

"Revolt, I say! Leave him this very night! Oh! if I could—"

"If you please 'm," interrupted the page, throwing open the door, "here's Mrs. Simpson, an' says she must see you partic'lar."

Mrs. Buzza had barely time to dry her eyes and set her bonnet straight, before Mrs. Simpson rushed into the room. The new comer's face was crimson, and her eyes sparkled.

"Oh! Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, I must—"

At this point she became aware of Mrs. Buzza, stopped abruptly, sank into a chair, and began aimlessly to discuss the weather.

This was awkward; but the situation became still further strained when Mrs. Pellow was announced, and bursting in with the same eagerness, came to a dead halt with the same inconsequence. Mrs. Saunders followed with white face and set teeth, and Mrs. Ellicome-Payne in haste and tears.

"Pray come in," said their hostess blandly; "this is quite like a mothers' meeting."

The reader has no doubt guessed aright. Though nobody present ever afterwards breathed a word as to their reasons for calling thus at "The Bower," and though the weather (which was serene and settled) alone supplied conversation during their visit, the truth is that the domestic relations of all these ladies had coincidently reached a climax. It seems incredible; but by no other hypothesis can I explain the facts. If the reader can supply a better, he is entreated to do so.

At length, finding the constraint past all bearing, Mrs. Buzza rose to go.

"You will do it?" whispered her hostess as they shook hands.

She could not trust herself to answer, but nodded and hastily left the room. At the front door she almost ran against a thin, mild-faced gentleman. He drew aside with a bow, and avoided the collision; but she did not notice him.

"I will do it," she kept repeating to herself, "in spite of the poor girls."

A mist swept before her eyes as she passed down the road. She staggered a little, with a vague feeling that the world was ending somehow; but she repeated—

"I will do it. I have been a good wife to him; but it's all over now—it's all over to-night."

The mild-faced gentleman into whom Mrs. Buzza had so nearly run in her agitation was Mr. Fogo. A certain air of juvenility sat upon him, due to a new pair of gloves and the careful polish which Caleb had coaxed upon his hat and boots. His clothes were brushed, his carriage was more erect; and the page, who opened the door, must, after a scrutiny, have pronounced him presentable, for he was admitted at once.

Undoubtedly the page blundered; but the events of the past hour had completely muddled the poor boy's wits, and perhaps the sight of one of his own sex was grateful, coming as it did after so many agitated females. At any rate, Mr. Fogo and his card entered the Goodwyn-Sandys' drawing-room together.

I leave you to imagine his feelings. In one wild instant the scene exploded on his senses. He staggered back against the door, securely pinning the retreating page between it and the doorpost, and denuding the Goodwyn-Sandys' livery of half a dozen buttons. The four distracted visitors started up as if to escape by the window. Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys advanced.

She was white to the lips. A close observer might have read the hunted look that for one brief moment swept over her face. But when she spoke her words were cold and calm.

"You wish to see my husband, Mr.—?" She hesitated over the name.

"Not in the least," stammered Mr. Fogo.

There was an awful silence, during which he stared blankly around on the ladies.

"Then may I ask—?"

"I desired to see Gerald—I mean, Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys—but—"

"I am Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys. Would you mind stating your business?"

Mr. Fogo started, dropped his hat, and leant back against the door again.

"You!"

"Certainly." Her mouth worked slightly, but her eyes were steady.

"You are she that—was—once—Geraldine—O'Halloran?"

"Certainly."

"Excuse me, madam," said Mr. Fogo, picking up his hat and addressing Mrs. Simpson politely, "but the mole on your chin annoys me."

"Sir!"

"Annoys me excessively. May I ask, was it a birth-mark?"

"He is mad!" screamed the ladies, starting up and wringing their hands. "Oh, help! help!"

Mr. Fogo looked from one to another, and passed his hand wearily over his eyes.

"You are right," he murmured; "I fancy—do you know—that I must be— slightly—mad. Pray excuse me. Would one of you mind seeing me home?" he asked with a plaintive smile.

His eyes wandered to Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, who stood with one hand resting on the table, while the other pointed to the door.

"Help! help!" screamed the ladies.

Without another word he opened the door and tottered out into the passage. At the foot of the stairs he met the Honourable Frederic, who had been attracted by the screams.

"It's all right," said Mr. Fogo; "don't trouble. I shall be better out in the open air. There are women in there"—he pointed towards the drawing-room—"and one with a mole. I daresay it's all right— but it seemed to me a very big mole."

And leaving the Honourable Frederic to gasp, he staggered from the house.

What happened in the drawing-room of "The Bower" after he left it will never be known, for the ladies of Troy are silent on the point.

It was ten o'clock at night, the hour when men may cull the bloom of sleep. Already the moon rode in a serene heaven, and, looking in at the Club window, saw the Admiral and Lawyer Pellow—"male feriatos Troas"—busy with a mild game ofecarte. There were not enough to make up a loo to-night, for Sam and Mr. Moggridge were absent, and so—more unaccountably—was the Honourable Frederic. The moon was silent, and only she, peering through the blinds of "The Bower," could see Mr. and Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys hastily packing their boxes; or beneath the ladder, by the Admiral's quay-door, a figure stealthily unmooring the Admiral's boat.

To say that Sam Buzza did not relish his task were but feebly to paint his feelings, as, with the paddles under one arm, and the thole-pins in his pocket, he crept down the ladder and pushed off. Never before had the plash of oars seemed so searching a sound; never had the harbour been so crowded with vessels; and as for buoys, small craft, and floating logs, they bumped against his boat at every stroke. The moon, too, dogged him with persistent malice, or why was it that he rode always in a pool of light? The ships' lamps tracked him as so many eyes. He carried a bull's-eye lantern in the bottom of his boat, and the smell of its oil and heated varnish seemed to smell aloud to Heaven.

With heart in mouth, he crossed the line of the ferry, and picked his way among the vessels lying off the jetties. On one of these vessels somebody was playing a concertina, and as he crept under its counter a voice hailed him in German. He gave no answer, but pulled quickly on. And now he was clear again, and nearing Kit's House under the left bank. There was no light in any window, he noticed, with a glance over his shoulder. Still in the shadow, and only pulling out, here and there, to avoid a jutting rock, he gained the creek's mouth, and rowed softly up until the bulwarks of the old wreck overhung him.

The very silence daunted him now; but it must be gone through. Thinking to deaden fear by hurry, he caught up the lantern, leapt on board with the painter, fastened it, and crept swiftly towards the poop.

He gained the hatch, and paused to turn the slide of his lantern. The shaft of light fell down the companion as into a pitch-dark well. He could feel his heart thumping against his ribs as he began the descent, and jumping with every creak of the rotten boards, while always behind his fright lurked a sickening sense of the guilty foolishness of his errand.

At the ladder's foot he put his hand to his damp brow, and peered into the cabin.

In a moment his blood froze. A hoarse cry broke from him.

For there—straight ahead—a white face with straining eyes stared into his own!

And then he saw it was but his own reflection in a patch of mirror stuck into the panel opposite.

But the shock of that pallid mask confronting him had already unnerved him utterly.

He drew his eyes away, glanced around, and spied a black portmanteau propped beside a packing-case in the angle made by the wall and the flooring. In mad haste to reach the open air, but dimly remembering Geraldine's caution, he grasped the handles, flung a look behind him, and clambered up the ladder again, and out upon deck.

The worst was over; but he could not rest until again in his boat. As he untied the painter, he noticed the ray of his lantern dancing wildly up and down the opposite bank with the shaking of his hand. Cursing his forgetfulness, he turned the slide, slipped the lantern into his pocket, and, lowering himself gently with the portmanteau, dropped, seized the paddles, and rowed away as for dear life.

He had put three boats' lengths between him and the hull, and was drawing a sigh of relief, when a voice hailed him, and then—

A tongue of flame leapt out, and a loud report rang forth upon the night. He heard something whistle by his ear. Catching up the paddles again, he pulled madly out of the creek, and away for the opposite bank of the river; ran his boat in; and, seizing the portmanteau, without attempt to ship the oars or fasten the painter, leapt out; climbed, slipped, and staggered over the slippery stones; and fled up the hill as though a thousand fiends were at his heels.

"Well, sir," remarked Caleb at ten o'clock that evening, after an hour's watching had passed and brought no sign of a ghost, "I wish this 'ere sperrit, ef sperrit et be, wud put hissel' out to be punkshal. They do say as the Queen must wait while her beer's a-drawin'; but et strikes me ghost-seein' es apt to be like Boscas'le Fair, which begins twelve an' ends at noon."

Caleb caressed a huge blunderbuss which lay across his knee, and caused Mr. Fogo no slight apprehension.

"Et puts me i' mind," he went on, as his master was silent, "o' th' ould lidden[1]as us used to sing when us was tiny mites:—"

Riddle me, riddle me, riddle me right,Where was I last Sat'rday night?I seed a chimp-champ champin' at his bridle,I seed an ould fox workin' hissel' idle.The trees did shever, an' I did shake,To see what a hole thic' fox did make.

"Now I comes to think 'pon et, 'tes Sat'rday night too; an' that's odd, as Martha said by her glove."

Still Mr. Fogo was silent.

"As for the blunderbust, sir, there's no call to be afeard. Tes on'y loaded wi' shot an' a silver shillin'. I heerd tell that over to Tresawsen, wan time, they had purty trouble wi' a lerrupin' big hare, sir. Neither man nor hound cud cotch her; an' as for bullets, her tuk in bullets like so much ballast. Well, sir, th' ould Squire were out wi' his gun wan day, an' 'way to track thicky hare, roun' an' roun', for up ten mile; an' the more lead he fired, the better plaised her seemed. 'Darn et!' says the old Squire at las'. ''Tes witchcraf; I'll try a silver bullet.' So he pulls out a crown-piece an' hammers 'un into a slug to fit hes gun. He'd no sooner loaded than out pops the hare agen, not twenty yards off, an' right 'cross the path. Th' ould man blazed away, an' this time hit her sure 'nuff: hows'ever, her warn't too badly wounded to nip roun' the knap o' the hill an' out o' sight. 'I'll ha' 'ee!' cries the Squire; an' wi' that pulls hot foot roun' the hill. An' there, sir, clucked in under a bit o' rock, an' pantin' for dear life, were ould Mally Skegg. I tell 'ee, sir, the Squire made no more to do, but 'way to run, an' niver stopped till he were safe home to Tresawsen. That's so. Mally were a witch, like her mother afore her; an' the best proof es, her wore a limp arter this to the day o' her death."

Mr. Fogo roused himself from his abstraction to ask—

"Do you seriously believe it was a ghost that I saw last night?"

"That's as may be. Ef 'taint, 'tes folks as has no bus'ness hereabouts. I've heerd tell as you'm wi'in the law ef you hails mun dree times afore firin'. That's what I means to do, anyway. As for ghostes, I do believe, an' I don't believe."

"What? That a man's spirit comes back after death to trouble folks?"

"I dunno 'bout sperrit: but I heerd a tale wance 'bout a man's remains as gi'ed a peck o' trouble arter death. 'Twas ould Commodore Trounce as the remains belonged to, an' 'tes a queer yarn, ef you niver heerd et afore."

Caleb looked at his master. Mr. Fogo had not yet told the story of his call at "The Bower"; but Caleb saw that he was suffering, and had planned this story as a diversion.

The bait took. Mr. Fogo looked up expectant, and lit a fresh pipe. So Caleb settled himself in his corner of the window-seat, and, still keeping an eye on the old schooner, began—

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