"Then a babbled of green fields."
And then there was silence. Which of them was to speak! Not the woman who had wrought this mischief; not the man who knew of the wickedness but had not spoken; not the innocent girl who only perceived that something dreadful—something beyond the ordinary run of dreadful events—had happened, and that Victoria Cassilis looked out of her senses. Lawrence Colquhoun stood unmoved by her tears; his face was hardened; it bore a look beneath which the guilty woman cowered. Yet she looked at him and not at her husband.
Presently Colquhoun spoke. His voice was harsh, and his words were a command.
"Go home!" he said to Victoria. "There is no more mischief for you to do—go!"
She obeyed without a word. She threw the light wrapper which she carried on her arm round her slender neck, and walked away, restored, to outward seeming, to all her calm and stately coldness. The coachman and the footman noticed nothing. If any of her acquaintances passed her on the road, they saw no change in her. The woman was impassive and impenetrable.
Did she love Colquhoun? No one knows. She loved to feel that she had him in her power; she was driven to a mad jealousy when that power slipped quite away; and although she had broken the vows which both once swore to keep, she could not bear even to think that he should do the same. And she did despise her husband, the man of shares, companies, and stocks. But could she love Colquhoun? Such a woman may feel the passion of jealousy; she may rejoice in the admiration which gratifies her vanity; but she is far too cold and selfish for love. It is an artful fable of the ancients which makes Narcissus pine away and die for the loss of his own image, for thereby they teach the great lesson that he who loves himself destroys himself.
The carriage wheels crunched over the gravel, and Gabriel Cassilis raised a pale and trembling face—a face with so much desolation and horror, such a piteous gaze of questioning reproach at Colquhoun, that the man's heart melted within him. He seemed to have grown old suddenly; his hair looked whiter; he trembled as one who has the palsy; and his eyes mutely asked the question, "Is this thing true?"
Lawrence Colquhoun made answer. His voice was low and gentle; his eyes were filled with tears.
"It is true, Mr. Cassilis. God knows I would have spared you the knowledge. But it is true."
Gabriel Cassilis opened his lips as if to speak. But he refrained, stopping suddenly, because he recollected that he could no longer utter what he wished to say. Then he touched his mouth with his fingers like a dumb man. He was worse than a dumb man, who cannot speak at all, because his tongue, if he allowed it, uttered words which had no connection with his thoughts. Men that have been called possessed of the devil have knelt at altars, uttering blasphemous impieties when their souls were full of prayer.
"Do you understand me, Mr. Cassilis? Do you comprehend what I am saying?"
He nodded his head.
Colquhoun took a piece of notepaper from the writing-table, and laid it before him with a pencil. Mr. Cassilis grasped the pencil eagerly, and began to write. From his fingers, as from his tongue, came the sentence which he didnotwish to write—
"A fine day, and seasonable weather for the time of year."
He looked at this result with sorrowful heart, and showed it to Colquhoun, shaking his head.
"Good heavens?" cried Colquhoun, "his mind is gone."
Gabriel Cassilis touched him on the arm and shook his head.
"He understands you, Lawrence," said Phillis; "but he cannot explain himself. Something has gone wrong with him which we do not know."
Gabriel Cassilis nodded gratefully to Phillis.
"Then Mr. Cassilis," Colquhoun began, "it is right that you should know all. Six years ago I followed Victoria Pengelley into Scotland. We were married privately at a registrar's office under assumed names. If you ever want to know where and by what names, you have only to ask me, and I will tell you. There were reasons, she said,—I never quite understood what they were, but she chose to be afille romanesqueat the time,—why the marriage should be kept secret. After the wedding ceremony—such as it was—she left the office with her maid, who was the only witness, and returned to the friends with whom she was staying. I met her every day; but always in that house and among other people. A few days passed. She would not, for some whim of her own, allow the marriage to be disclosed. We quarrelled for that, and other reasons—my fault, possibly. Good God! what a honeymoon! To meet the woman you love—your bride—in society; if for half an hour alone, then in the solitude of open observation; to quarrel like people who have been married for forty years—— Well, perhaps it was my fault. On the fifth day we agreed to let things be as if they had never been. I left my bride, who was not my wife, in anger. We used bitter words—perhaps I the bitterest. And when we parted, I bade her go back to her old life as if nothing had been promised on either side. I said she should be free; that I would never claim the power and the rights given me by a form of words; that she might marry again; that, to leave her the more free, I would go away and never return till she was married, or till she gave me leave. I was away for four years; and then I saw the announcement of her marriage in the paper, and I returned. That is the bare history, Mr. Cassilis. Since my return, on my honour as a gentleman, you have had no cause for jealousy in my own behaviour towards—your wife, not mine. Remember, Mr. Cassilis, whatever else may be said, she never was my wife. And yet, in the eye of the law, I suppose she is my wife still. And with all my heart I pity you."
He stopped, and looked at the victim of the crime. Gabriel Cassilis was staring helplessly from him to Phillis. Did he understand? Not entirely, I think. Yet the words which he had heard fell upon his heart softly, and soothed him in his trouble. At last his eyes rested on Phillis, as if asking, as men do in times of trouble, for the quick comprehension of a woman.
"What can I do, Mr. Cassilis?" asked the girl. "If you cannot speak, will you make some sign? Any little sign that I can understand?"
She remembered that among her lesson-books was a dictionary. She put that into his hand, and asked him to show her in the dictionary what he wished to say.
He took the book in his trembling hands, turned over the leaves, and presently, finding the page he wanted, ran his fingers down the lines till they rested on a word.
Phillis read it, spelling it out in her pretty little school-girl fashion.
"S,I, si;L,E,N,C,E, lence—silence. Is that what you wish to say, Mr. Cassilis?"
He nodded.
"Silence," repeated Lawrence. "For all our sakes it is the best—the only thing. Phillis, tell no one what you have heard; not even Agatha; not even Jack Dunquerque. Or, if you tell Jack Dunquerque, send him to me directly afterwards. Do you promise, child?"
"I promise, Lawrence. I will tell no one but Jack; and I shall ask him first if he thinks I ought to tell him another person's secret."
"Thank you, Phillis. Mr. Cassilis, there are only we three and—and one more. You may trust Phillis when she promises a thing; you may trust me, for my own sake; you may, I hope, trust that other person. And as for me, it is my intention to leave England in a week. I deeply regret that I ever came back to this country."
A week was too far ahead for Mr. Cassilis to look forward to in his agitation. Clearly the one thing in his mind at the moment—the one possible thing—was concealment. He took the dictionary again, and found the word "Home."
"Will you let me take you home, sir?" Lawrence asked.
He nodded again. There was no resentment in his face, and none in his feeble confiding manner when he took Lawrence's arm and leaned upon it as he crawled out to the carriage.
Only one sign of feeling. He took Phillis by the hand and kissed her. When he had kissed her, he laid his finger on her lips. And she understood his wish that no one should learn this thing.
"Not even Agatha, Phillis," said Lawrence. "Forget, if you can. And if you cannot, keep silence."
They drove into town together, these men with a secret between them. Lawrence made no further explanations. What was there to explain? The one who suffered the most sat upright, looking straight before him in mute suffering.
It is a long drive from Twickenham to Kensington Palace Gardens. When they arrived, Mr. Cassilis was too weak to step out of the carriage. They helped him—Lawrence Colquhoun and a footman—into the hall. He was feeble with long fasting as much as from the effects of this dreadful shock.
They carried him to his study. Among the servants who looked on was Tomlinson, the middle-aged maid with the harsh face. She knew that her bolt had fallen at last; and she saw, too, that it had fallen upon the wrong person, for up-stairs sat her mistress, calm, cold and collected. She came home looking pale and a little worn; fatigued, perhaps, with the constant round of engagements, though the season was little more than half over. She dressed in gentle silence, which Tomlinson could not understand. She went down to dinner alone, and presently went to her drawing-room, where she sat in a window, and thought.
There Colquhoun found her.
"I have told him all," he said. "Your words told him only half, and yet too much. You were never my wife, as you know, and never will be, though the Law may make you take my name. Cruel and heartless woman! to gratify an insensate jealousy you have destroyed your husband."
"Is he—is he—dead?" she cried, almost as if she wished he were.
"No; he is not dead; he is struck with some fit. He cannot speak. Learn, now, that your jealousy was without foundation. Phillis will marry Dunquerque. As for me, I can never marry, as you know."
"He is not dead!" she echoed, taking no notice of the last words. Indeed, Phillis was quite out of her thoughts now. "Does he wish to see me?"
"No; you must not, at present, attempt to see him."
"What will they do to me, Lawrence?" she asked again. "What can they do? I did not mean him to hear. It was all to frighten you."
"To frighten me! What they can do, Mrs. Cassilis, is to put you in the prisoner's box and me in the witness box. What he wants to do, so far as we can yet understand, is to keep silence."
"What is the good of that? He will cry his wrongs all over the town, and Phillis will tell everybody."
"Phillis will tell no one, no one—not even Agatha. It was lucky that Agatha heard nothing; she was upstairs, lying down after her party. Will you keep silence?"
"Of course I shall. What else is there for me to do?"
"For the sake of your husband; for the sake of your boy——"
"It is for my own sake, Lawrence," she interrupted coldly.
"I beg your pardon. I ought to have known by this time that you would have acted for your own sake only. Victoria, it was an evil day for me when I met you; it was a worse day when I consented to a secret marriage, which was no marriage, when there was no reason for any secrecy; it was the worst day of all when I answered your letter, and came here to see you. Every day we have met has produced more recrimination. That would not have mattered, but for the mischief our meeting has wrought upon your husband. I pray that we may never in this world meet again."
He was gone, and Victoria Cassilis has not met him since, nor do I think now that she ever will meet him again.
The summer night closed in; the moonlight came up and shone upon the Park before her, laying silvery patches of light in ten of thousands upon the young leaves of the trees, and darkening the shadows a deeper black by way of contrast. They brought her tea and lights; then they came for orders. There were none; she would not go out that night. At eleven Tomlinson came.
"I want nothing, Tomlinson. You need not wait up; I shall not want you this evening."
"Yes, madam; no, madam. Mr. Cassilis is asleep, madam."
"Let some one sit up with him. See to that, Tomlinson; and don't let him be disturbed."
"I will sit up with him myself, madam." Tomlinson was anxious to get to the bottom of the thing. What mischief had been done, and how far was it her own doing? To persons who want revenge these are very important questions, when mischief has actually been perpetrated.
Then Victoria was left alone. In that great house, with its troop of servants and nurses, with her husband and child, there was no one who cared to know what she was doing. The master was not popular, because he simply regarded every servant as a machine; but at least he was just, and he paid well, and the house, from the point of view likely to be taken by Mr. Plush and Miss Hairpin, was a comfortable one. The mistress of the house was unpopular. Her temper at times was intolerable, her treatment of servants showed no consideration; and the women-folk regarded the neglect of her own child with the horror of such neglect in which the Englishwoman of all ranks is trained. So she was alone, and remained alone. The hands of the clock went round and round; the moon went down, and over the garden lay the soft sepia twilight of June; the lamp on the little table at her elbow went out; but she sat still, hands crossed in her lap, looking out of window, and thinking.
She saw, but she did not feel the wickedness of it, a cold and selfish girl ripening into a cold and selfish woman—one to whom the outer world was as a panorama of moving objects, meaning nothing, and having no connection with herself. Like one blind, deaf, and dumb, she moved among the mobs who danced and sang, or who grovelled and wept. She had no tears to help the sufferers, and no smiles to encourage the happy; she had never been able to sympathise with the acting of a theatre or the puppets of a novel; she was so cold that she was not even critical. It seems odd, but it is really true, that a critic may be actually too cold. She saw a mind that, like the Indian devotee, was occupied for ever in contemplating itself; she saw beauty which would have been irresistible had there been one gleam, just one gleam of womanly tenderness; she saw one man after the other first attracted and then repelled; and then she came to the one man who was not repelled. There was once an unfortunate creature who dared to make love to Diana. His fate is recorded in Lempriére's Dictionary; also in Dr. Smith's later and more expensive work. Lawrence Colquhoun resembled that swain, and his fate was not unlike the classical punishment. She went through the form of marriage with him, and then she drove him from her by the cold wind of her own intense selfishness—a very Mistral. When he was gone she began to regret a slave of such uncomplaining slavishness. Well, no one knew except Janet. Janet did not talk. It was rather a struggle, she remembered, to take Gabriel Cassilis—rather a struggle, because Lawrence Colquhoun might come home and tell the story, not because there was anything morally wrong. She was most anxious to see him when he did come home—out of curiosity, out of jealousy, out of a desire to know whether her old power was gone; out of fear, out of that reason which makes a criminal seek out from time to time the scene and accomplices of his crime, and for the thousand reasons which make up a selfish woman's code of conduct. It was three o'clock and daylight when she discovered that she had really thought the whole thing over from the beginning, and that there was nothing more to think about, except the future—a distasteful subject to all sinners.
"After all," she summed up, as she rose to go to bed, "it is as well. Lawrence and I should never have got along. He is too selfish, much too selfish."
Down-stairs they were watching over the stricken man. The doctor came and felt his pulse; he also looked wise, and wrote things in Latin on a paper, which he gave to a servant. Then he went away, and said he would come in the morning again. He was a great doctor, with a title, and quite believed to know everything; but he did not know what had befallen this patient.
When Gabriel Cassilis awoke there was some confusion in his mind, and his brain was wandering—at least it appeared so, because what he said had nothing to do with any possible wish or thought. He rambled at large and at length; and then he grew angry, and then he became suddenly sorrowful, and sighed; then he became perfectly silent. The confused babble of speech ceased as suddenly as it had come; and since that morning Gabriel Cassilis has not spoken.
It was at half-past nine that his secretary called, simultaneously with the doctor.
He heard something from the servants, and pushed into the room where his chief was lying. The eyes of the sick man opened languidly and fell upon his first officer, but they expressed no interest and asked no question.
"Ah!" sighed Mr. Mowll, in the impatience of a sympathy which has but little time to spare. "Will he recover, doctor?"
"No doubt, no doubt. This way, my dear sir." He led the secretary out of the room. "Hush! he understands what is said. This is no ordinary seizure. Has he received any shock?"
"Shock enough to kill thirty men," said the secretary. "Where was he yesterday? Why did he not say something—do something—to avert the disaster?"
"Oh! Then the shock has been of a financial kind? I gathered from Mr. Colquhoun that it was of a family nature—something sudden and distressing."
"Family nature!" echoed the secretary. "Who ever heard of Mr. Cassilis worrying himself about family matters? No, sir; when a man is ruined he has no time to bother about family matters."
"Ruined? The great Mr. Gabriel Cassilis ruined?"
"I should say so, and I ought to know. They say so in the City; they will say so to-night in the papers. If he were well, and able to face things, there might be—no, even then there could be no hope. Settling-day this very morning; and a pretty settling it is."
"Whatever day it is," said the doctor, "I cannot have him disturbed. You may return in three or four hours, if you like, and then perhaps he may be able to speak to you. Just now, leave him in peace."
What had happened was this:
When Mr. Cassilis caused to be circulated a certain pamphlet which we have heard of, impugning the resources of the Republic of Eldorado, he wished the stock to go down. It did go down, and he bought in—bought in so largely that he held two millions of the stock. Men in his position do not buy large quantities of stock without affecting the price—Stock Exchange transactions are not secret—and Eldorado Stock went up. This was what Gabriel Cassilis naturally desired. Also the letter of El Señor Don Bellaco de la Carambola to theTimes, showing the admirable way in which Eldorado loans were received and administered, helped. The stock went up from 64, at which price Gabriel Cassilis bought in, to 75, at which he should have sold. Had he done so at the right moment, he would have realised the very handsome sum of two hundred and sixty thousand pounds; but the trouble of the letters came, and prevented him from acting.
While his mind was agitated by these—agitated, as we have seen, to such an extent that he could no longer think or work, or attend to any kind of business—there arrived for him telegram after telegram, in his own cipher, from America. These lay unopened. It was disastrous, because they announced beforehand the fact which only his correspondent knew—the Eldorado bonds were no longer to be paid.
That fact was now public. It was made known by all the papers that Eldorado, having paid the interest out of the money borrowed, had no further resources whatever, and could pay no more. It was stated in leading articles that England should have known all along what a miserable country Eldorado is. The British public were warned too late not to trust in Eldorado promises any more; and the unfortunates who held Eldorado Stock were actuated by one common impulse to sell, and no one would buy. It was absurd to quote Eldorado bonds at anything; and the great financier had to meet his engagements by finding the difference between stock at 64 and stock at next to nothing for two millions.
Gabriel Cassilis was consequently ruined. When it became known that he had some sort of stroke, people said that it was the shock of the fatal news. He made the one mistake of an otherwise faultless career, they said to each other, in trusting Eldorado, and his brain could not stand the blow. When the secretary, who understood the cipher, came to open the letters and telegrams, he left off talking about the fatal shock of the news. It must have been something else—something he knew nothing of, because he saw the blow might have been averted; and the man's mind, clear enough when he went in for a great coup, had become unhinged during the few days before the smash.
Ruined! Gabriel Cassilis knew nothing about the wreck of his life, as he lay upon his bed afraid to speak because he would only babble incoherently. All was gone from him—money, reputation, wife. He had no longer anything. The anonymous correspondent had taken all away.
"This comes of airy visions and the whispersOf demons like to angels. Brother, weep."
"This comes of airy visions and the whispersOf demons like to angels. Brother, weep."
"This comes of airy visions and the whispersOf demons like to angels. Brother, weep."
"This comes of airy visions and the whispers
Of demons like to angels. Brother, weep."
Gilead Beck, returning from the Twickenham party before the explosion, found Jack Dunquerque waiting for him. As we have seen, he was not invited.
"Tell me how she was looking!" he cried. "Did she ask after me?"
"Wal, Mr. Dunquerque, I reckon you the most fortunate individual in the hull world. She looked like an angel, and she talked like a—like a woman, with pretty blushes; and yet she wasn't ashamed neither. Seems as if bein' ashamed isn't her strong point. And what has she got to be ashamed of?"
"Did Colquhoun say anything?"
"We had already got upon the subject, and I had ventured to make him a proposition. You see, Mr. Dunquerque"—he grew confused, and hesitated—"fact is, I want you to look at things just exactly as I do. I'm rich. I have struck Ile; that Ile is the mightiest Special Providence ever given to a single man. But it's given for purposes. And one of those purposes is that some of it's got to go to you."
"To me?"
"To you, Mr. Dunquerque. Who fired that shot? Who delivered me from the Grisly?"
"Why, Ladds did as much as I."
Mr. Beck shook his head.
"Captain Ladds is a fine fellow," he said. "Steady as a rock is Captain Ladds. There's nobody I'd rather march under if we'd the war to do all over again. But the Ile isn't for Captain Ladds. It isn't for him that the Golden Butterfly fills me with yearnin's. No sir. I owe it all to you. You've saved my life; you've sought me out, and gone about this city with me; you've put me up to ropes; you've taken me to that sweet creature's house and made her my friend. And Mrs. L'Estrange my friend, too. If I was to turn away and forget you, I should deserve to lose that precious Inseck."
He paused for a minute.
"I said to Mr. Colquhoun, 'Mr. Dunquerque shall have half of my pile, and more if he wants it. Only you let him come back again to Miss Fleming.' And he laughed in his easy way; there's no kind of man in the States like that Mr. Colquhoun—seems as if he never wants to get anything. He laughed and lay back on the grass. And then he said, 'My dear fellow, let Jack come back if he likes; there's no fighting against fate; only let him have the decency not to announce his engagement till Phillis has had her first season.' Then he drank some cider-cup, and lay back again. Mrs. Cassilis—she's a very superior woman that, but a trifle cold, I should say—watched him whenever he spoke. She's got a game of her own, unless I am mistaken."
"But, Beck," Jack gasped, "I can't do this thing; I can't take your money."
"I guess, sir, you can, and I guess you will. Come, Mr. Dunquerque, say you won't go against Providence. There's a sweet young lady waiting for you, and a little mountain of dollars."
But Jack shook his head.
"I thank you all the same," he said. "I shall never forget your generosity—never. But that cannot be."
"We will leave it to Miss Fleming," said Gilead. "What Miss Fleming says is to be, shall be——"
He was interrupted by the arrival of two letters.
The first was from Joseph Jagenal. It informed him that he had learned from his brothers that they had received money from him on account of work which he thought would never be done. He enclosed a cheque for the full amount, with many thanks for his kindness, and the earnest hope that he would advance nothing more.
In the letter was his cheque for £400, the amount which the Twins had borrowed during the four weeks of their acquaintance.
Mr. Beck put the cheque in his pocket and opened the other letter. It was from Cornelius, and informed him that the Poem could not possibly be finished in the time; that it was rapidly advancing; but that he could not pledge himself to completing the work by October. Also, that his brother Humphrey found himself in the same position as regarded the Picture. He ended by the original statement that Art cannot be forced.
Mr. Beck laughed.
"Not straight men, Mr. Dunquerque. I suspected it first when they backed out at the dinner, and left me to do the talk. Wal, they may be high-toned, whole-souled, and talented; but give me the man who works. Now Mr. Dunquerque, if you please, we'll go and have some dinner, and you shall talk about Miss Fleming. And the day after to-morrow—you note that down—I've asked Mrs. L'Estrange and Miss Phillis to breakfast. Captain Ladds is coming, and Mr. Colquhoun. And you shall sit next to her. Mrs. Cassilis is coming too. When I asked her she wanted to know if Mr. Colquhoun was to be there. I said yes. Then she wanted to know if Phillis was to be there. I said yes. Then she set her lips hard, and said, 'I will come, Mr. Beck.' She isn't happy, that lady; she's got somethin' on her mind."
That evening Joseph Jagenal had an unpleasant duty to perform. It was at dinner that he spoke. The Twins were just taking their first glass of port. He had been quite silent through dinner, eating little. Now he looked from one to the other without a word.
They changed colour. Instinctively they knew what was coming. He said with a gulp:
"I am sorry to find that my brothers have not been acting honourably."
"What is this, brother Humphrey," asked Cornelius.
"I do not know, brother Cornelius," said the Artist.
"I will tell you," said Joseph, "what they have done. They made a disingenuous attempt to engage the affections of a rich young lady for the sake of her money."
"If Humphrey loved the girl——" began Cornelius.
"If Cornelius was devoted to Phillis Fleming——" began Humphrey.
"I was not, Humphrey," said Cornelius. "No such thing. And I told you so."
"I never did love her," said Humphrey. "I always said it was you."
This was undignified.
"I do not care which it was. It belongs to both. Then you went down to her again, under the belief that she was engaged to—to—the Lord knows which of you—and solemnly broke it off."
Neither spoke this time.
"Another thing. I regret to find that my brothers, having made a contract for certain work with Mr. Gilead Beck, and having been partly paid in advance, are not executing the work."
"There, Joseph," said Humphrey, waving his hand as if this was a matter on quite another footing, "you must excuse us. We know what is right in Art, if we know nothing else. Art, Joseph, cannot be forced."
Cornelius murmured assent.
"We have our dignity to stand upon; we retreat with dignity. We say, 'We will not be forced; we will give the world our best.'"
"Good," said Joseph. "That is very well; but where is the money?"
Neither answered.
"I have returned that money; but it is a large sum, and you must repay me in part. Understand me, brothers. You may stay here as long as I live: I shall never ask more of you than to respect the family name. There was a time when you promised great things, and I believed in you. It is only quite lately that I have learned to my sorrow that all this promise has been for years a pretence. You sleep all day—you call it work. You habitually drink too much at night. You, Cornelius"—the Poet started—"have not put pen to paper for years. You, Humphrey"—the Artist hung his head—"have neither drawn nor painted anything since you came to live with me. I cannot make either of you work. I cannot retrieve the past. I cannot restore lost habits of industry. I cannot even make you feel your fall from the promise of your youth, or remember the hopes of our father. What I can do is to check your intemperate habits by such means as are in my power."
He stopped; they were trembling violently.
"Half of the £400 which you have drawn from Mr. Beck will be paid by household saving. Wine will disappear from my table; brandy-and-soda will have to be bought at your own expense. I shall order the dinners, and I shall keep the key of the wine-cellar."
A year has passed. The Twins have had a sad time; they look forward with undisguised eagerness to the return of the years of fatness; they have exhausted their own little income in purchasing the means for their midnightséances; and they have run up a frightful score at the Carnarvon Arms.
But they still keep up bravely the pretence about their work.
"So, on the ruins he himself had made.Sat Marius reft of all his former glory."
"So, on the ruins he himself had made.Sat Marius reft of all his former glory."
"So, on the ruins he himself had made.Sat Marius reft of all his former glory."
"So, on the ruins he himself had made.
Sat Marius reft of all his former glory."
"Can you understand me, sir?"
Gabriel Cassilis sat in his own study. It was the day after the garden-party. He slept through the night, and in the morning rose and dressed as usual. Then he took his seat in his customary chair at his table. Before him lay papers, but he did not read them. He sat upright, his frock-coat tightly buttoned across his chest, and rapped his knuckles with his gold eyeglasses as if he was thinking.
They brought him breakfast, and he took a cup of tea. Then he motioned them to take the things away. They gave him theTimes, and he laid it mechanically at his elbow. But he did not speak, nor did he seem to attend to what was done around him. And his eyes had a far-off look in them.
"Can you understand me, sir?"
The speaker was his secretary. He came in a cab, panting, eager to see if there was still any hope. Somehow or other it was whispered already in the City that Gabriel Cassilis had had some sort of stroke. And there was terrible news besides.
Mr. Mowll asked because there was something in his patron's face which frightened him. His eyes were changed. They had lost the keen sharp look which in a soldier means victory; in a scholar, clearness of purpose; in a priest, knowledge of human nature and ability to use that knowledge in a financier, the power and the intuition of success. That was gone. In its place an expression almost of childish softness. And another thing—the lips, once set firm and close, were parted now and mobile.
The other things were nothing. That a man of sixty-five should in a single night become a man of eighty; that the iron grey hair should become white; that a steady hand should shake, and straight shoulders be bent. It was the look in his face, the far-off look, which made the secretary ask that question before he went on.
Mr. Cassilis nodded his head gently. He could understand.
"You left the telegrams unopened for a week and more!" cried the impatient clerk. "Why—Oh, why!—did you not let me open them?"
There was no reply.
"If I had known, I could have acted. Even the day before yesterday I could have acted. The news came yesterday morning. It was all over the City by three. And Eldorado's down to nothing in a moment."
Mr. Cassilis looked a mild inquiry. No anxiety in that look at all.
"Eldorado won't pay up her interest. It's due next week. Nothing to pay it with. Your agent in New York telegraphed this a week ago. He's been confirming the secret every day since. O Lord! O Lord! And you the only man who had the knowledge, and all that stake in it! Can you speak, sir?"
For his master's silence was terrible to him.
"Listen, then. Ten days ago Eldorados went down after Wylie's pamphlet. You told him what to write and you paid him, just as you did last year. But you tried to hide it from me. That was wrong, sir. I've served you faithfully for twenty years. But never mind that. You bought in at 64. Then the Eldorado minister wrote to the paper. Stock went up to 75. You stood to win, only the day before yesterday, £260,000; more than a quarter of a million. Yesterday, by three, they were down to 16. This morning they are down to 8. And it's settling-day, and you lose—you lose—your all. Oh, what a day, what a day!"
Still no complaint, not even a sigh from the patient man in the Windsor chair. Only that gentle tapping of the knuckles, and that far-off look.
"The great name of Gabriel Cassilis dragged in the dust! All your reputation gone—the whole work of your life—O sir! can't you feel even that? Can't you feel the dreadful end of it all—Gabriel Cassilis, the great Gabriel Cassilis, aLame Duck!"
Not even that. The work of his life was forgotten with all its hopes, and the great financier, listening to his clerk with the polite impatience of one who listens to a wearisome sermon, was trying to understand what was the meaning of that black shadow which lay upon his mind and made him uneasy. For the rest a perfect calm in his brain.
"People will say it was the shock of the Eldorado smash. Well, sir, it wasn't that; I know so much; but it's best to let people think so. If you haven't a penny left in the world you have your character, and that's as high as ever.
"Fortunately," Mr. Mowll went on, "my own little savings were not in Eldorado Stock. But my employment is gone, I suppose. You will recommend me, I hope, sir. And I do think that I've got some little reputation in the City."
It was not for want of asserting himself that this worthy man failed, at any rate, of achieving his reputation. For twenty years he had magnified his office as confidential adviser of a great City light; among his friends and in his usual haunts he successfully posed as one burdened with the weight of affairs, laden with responsibility, and at all times oppressed by the importance of his thoughts. He carried a pocket-book which shut with a clasp; in the midst of a conversation he would stop, become abstracted, rush at the pocket-book, so to speak, confide a jotting to its care, shut it with a snap, and then go on with a smile and an excuse. Some said that he stood in with Gabriel Cassilis; all thought that he shared his secrets, and gave advice when asked for it.
As a matter of fact, he was a clerk, and had always been a clerk; but he was a clerk who knew a few things which might have been awkward if told generally. He had a fair salary, but no confidence, no advice, and not much more real knowledge of what his chief was doing than any outsider. And in this tremendous smash it was a great consolation to him to reflect that the liabilities represented an amount for which it was really a credit to fail.
Mr. Mowll has since got another place where the transactions are not so large, but perhaps his personal emoluments greater. In the evenings he will talk of the great failure.
"We stood to win," he will say, leaning back with a superior smile,—"we stood to win £260,000. We lost a million and a quarter. I told him not to hang on too long. Against my advice he did. I remember—ah, only four days before it happened—he said to me, 'Mowll, my boy,' he said, 'I've never known you wrong yet. But for once I fancy my own opinion. We've worked together for twenty years,' he said, 'and you've the clearest head of any man I ever saw,' he said. 'But here I think you're wrong. And I shall hold on for another day or two,' he said. Ah, little he knew what a day or two would bring forth! And he hasn't spoken since. Plays with his little boy, and goes about in a Bath-chair. What a man he was! and what a pair—if I may say so—we made between us among the bulls and the bears! Dear me, dear me!"
It may be mentioned here that everything was at once given up; the house in Kensington Palace Gardens, with its costly furniture, its carriages, plate, library, and pictures. Mr. Cassilis signed whatever documents were brought for signature without hesitation, provided a copy of his own signature was placed before him. Otherwise he could not write his name.
And never a single word of lamentation, reproach, or sorrow. The past was, and is still, dead to him; all the past except one thing, and that is ever with him.
For sixty years of his life, this man of the City, whose whole desire was to make money, to win in the game which he played with rare success and skill, regarded bankruptcy as the one thing to be dreaded, or at least to be looked upon, because it was absurd to dread it, as a thing bringing with it the whole of dishonour. Not to meet your engagements was to be in some sort a criminal. And now he was proclaimed as one who could not meet his engagements.
If he understood what had befallen him he did not care about it. The trouble was slight indeed in comparison with the other disaster. The honour of his wife and the legitimacy of his child—these were gone; and the man felt what it is that is greater than money gained or money lost.
The blow which fell upon him left his brain clear while it changed the whole course of his thoughts and deprived him partially of memory. But it destroyed his power of speech. That rare and wonderful disease which seems to attack none but the strongest, which separates the brain from the tongue, takes away the knowledge and the sense of language, and kills the power of connecting words with things, while it leaves that of understanding what is said—the disease which doctors call Aphasia—was upon Mr. Gabriel Cassilis.
In old men this is an incurable disease. Gabriel Cassilis will never speak again. He can read, listen, and understand, but he can frame no words with his lips nor write them with his hand. He is a prisoner who has free use of his limbs. He is separated from the world by a greater gulf than that which divides the blind and the deaf from the rest of us, because he cannot make known his thoughts, his wants, or his wishes.
It took some time to discover what was the matter with him. Patients are not often found suffering from aphasia, and paralysis was the first name given to his disease.
But it was very early found out that Mr. Cassilis understood all that was said to him, and by degrees they learned what he liked and what he disliked.
Victoria Cassilis sat up-stairs, waiting for something—she knew not what—to happen. Her maid told her that Mr. Cassilis was ill; she made no reply; she did not ask to see him; she did not ask for any further news of him. She sat in her own room for two days, waiting.
Then Joseph Jagenal asked if he might see her.
She refused at first; but on hearing that he proposed to stay in the house till she could receive him, she gave way.
He came from Lawrence, perhaps. He would bring her a message of some kind; probably a menace.
"You have something to say to me, Mr. Jagenal?" Her face was set hard, but her eyes were wistful. He saw that she was afraid. When a woman is afraid, you may make her do pretty well what you please.
"I have a good deal to tell you, Mrs. Cassilis; and I am sorry to say it is of an unpleasant nature.
"I have heard," he went on, "from Mr. Colquhoun that you made a remarkable statement in the presence of Miss Fleming, and in the hearing of Mr. Cassilis."
"Lawrence informed you correctly, I have no doubt," she replied coldly.
"That statement of course was untrue," said Joseph, knowing that no record ever was more true. "And therefore I venture to advise——"
"On the part of Lawrence?"
"In the name of Mr. Colquhoun, partly; partly in your own interest——"
"Go on, if you please, Mr. Jagenal."
"Believing that statement to be untrue," he repeated, "for otherwise I could not give this advice, I recommend to all parties concerned—silence. Your husband's paralysis is attributed to the shock of his bankruptcy——"
"His what?" cried Victoria, who had heard as yet nothing of the City disaster.
"His bankruptcy. Mr. Cassilis is ruined."
"Ruined! Mr. Cassilis!"
She was startled out of herself.
Ruined! The thought of such disaster had never once crossed her brains. Ruined! That Colossus of wealth—the man whom she married for his money, while secretly she despised his power of accumulating money!
"He is ruined, Mrs. Cassilis, and hopelessly. I have read certain papers which he put into my hands this morning. It is clear to me that his mind has been for some weeks agitated by certain anonymous letters which came to him every day, and accused you—pardon me, Mrs. Cassilis—accused you of—infidelity. The letters state that there is a secret of some kind connected with your former acquaintance with Mr. Colquhoun; that you have been lately in the habit of receiving him or meeting him every day; that you were in his chambers one evening when Mr. Cassilis called; with other particulars extremely calculated to excite jealousy and suspicion. Lastly, he was sent by the writer to Twickenham. The rest, I believe you know."
She made no reply.
"There can be no doubt, not the least doubt, that had your husband's mind been untroubled, this would never have happened. The disaster is due to his jealousy."
"I could kill her!" said Mrs. Cassilis, clenching her fist. "I could kill her!"
"Kill whom?"
"The woman who wrote those letters. It was a woman. No man could have done such a thing. A woman's trick. Go on."
"There is nothing more to say. How far other people are involved with your husband, I cannot tell. I am going now into the City to find out if I can. Your wild words, Mrs. Cassilis, and your unguarded conduct, have brought about misfortunes on which you little calculated. But I am not here to reproach you."
"You are my husband's man of business, I suppose," she replied coldly—"a paid servant of his. What you say has no importance, nor what you think. What did Lawrence bid you tell me?"
Joseph Jagenal's face clouded for a moment. But what was the good of feeling resentment with such a woman, and in such a miserable business?
"You have two courses open to you," he went on. "You may, by repeating the confession you made in the hearing of Mr. Cassilis, draw upon yourself such punishment as the Law, provided the confession be true, can inflict. That will be a grievous thing to you. It will drive you out of society, and brand you as a criminal; it will lock you up for two years in prison; it will leave a stigma never to be forgotten or obliterated; it means ruin far, far worse than what you have brought on Mr. Cassilis. On the other hand, you may keep silence. This at least will secure the legitimacy of your boy, and will keep for you the amount settled on you at your marriage. But you may choose. If the statement you made is true, of course I can be no party to compounding a felony——"
"And Lawrence?" she interposed. "What does Lawrence say?"
"In any case Mr. Colquhoun will leave England at once."
"He will marry that Phillis girl? You may tell him," she hissed out, "that I will do anything and suffer anything rather than consent to his marrying her, or any one else."
"Mr. Colquhoun informs me further," pursued the crafty lawyer, "that, for some reason only known to himself, he will never marry during the life of a certain person. Phillis Fleming will probably marry the Honourable Mr. Ronald Dunquerque."
She buried her head in her hands, not to hide any emotion, for there was none to hide, but to think. Presently she rose, and said, "Take me to—my husband, if you please."
Joseph Jagenal, as a lawyer, is tolerably well versed in such wickedness and deceptions as the human heart is capable of. At the same time, he acknowledges to himself that the speech made by Victoria Cassilis to her husband, and the manner in which it was delivered, surpassed anything he had ever experienced or conceived.
Gabriel Cassilis was sitting in an arm-chair near his table. In his arms was his infant son, a child of a year old, for whose amusement he was dangling a bunch of keys. The nurse was standing beside him.
When his wife opened the door he looked up, and there crossed his face a sudden expression of such repulsion, indignation, and horror, that the lawyer fairly expected the lady to give way altogether. But she did not. Then Mrs. Cassilis motioned the nurse to leave them, and Victoria said what she had come to say. She stood at the table, in the attitude of one who commands respect rather than one who entreats pardon. Her accentuation was precise, and her words as carefully chosen as if she had written them down first. But her husband held his eyes down, as if afraid of meeting her gaze. You would have called him a culprit waiting for reproof and punishment.
"I learn to-day for the first time that you have suffered from certain attacks made upon me by an anonymous writer; I learn also for the first time, and to my great regret, that you have suffered in fortune as well as in health. I have myself been too ill in mind and body to be told anything. I am come to say at once that I am sorry if any rash words of mine have given you pain, or any foolish actions of mine have given you reason for jealousy. The exact truth is that Lawrence Colquhoun and I were once engaged. The breaking off of that engagement caused me at the time the greatest unhappiness. I resolved then that he should never be engaged to any other girl if I could prevent it by any means in my power. My whole action of late, which appeared to you as if I was running after an old lover, was the prevention of his engagement, which I determined to break off, with Phillis Fleming. In the heat of my passion I used words which were not true. They occurred to me at the moment. I said he was my husband. I meant to have said my promised husband. You now know, Mr. Cassilis, the whole secret. I am deeply humiliated in having to confess my revengeful spirit. I am punished in your affliction."
Always herself; always her own punishment.
"We can henceforth, I presume, Mr. Cassilis, resume our old manner of life."
Mr. Cassilis made no answer, but he patted the head of his child, and Joseph Jagenal saw the tears running down his cheeks. For he knew that the woman lied to him.
"For the sake of the boy, Mr. Cassilis," the lawyer pleaded, "let things go on as before."
He made no sign.
"Will you let me say something for you in the interests of the child?"
He nodded.
"Then, Mrs. Cassilis, your husband consents that there shall be no separation and no scandal. But it will be advisable for you both that there shall be as little intercourse as possible. Your husband will breakfast and dine by himself, and occupy his own apartments. You are free, provided you live in the same house, and keep up appearances, to do whatever you please. But you will not obtrude your presence upon your husband."
Mr. Cassilis nodded again. Then he sought his dictionary, and hunted for a word. It was the word he had first found, and was "Silence."
"Yes; you will also observe strict silence on what has passed at Twickenham, here or elsewhere. Should that silence not be observed, the advisers of Mr. Cassilis will recommend such legal measures as may be necessary."
Again Gabriel Cassilis nodded. He had not once looked up at his wife since that first gaze, in which he concentrated the hatred and loathing of his speechless soul.
"Is that all?" asked Victoria Cassilis. "Or have we more arrangements?"
"That is all, madam," said Joseph, opening the door with great ceremony.
She went away as she had come, with cold haughtiness. Nothing seemed to touch her; not her husband's misery; not his ruin; not the sight of her child. One thing only pleased her. Lawrence Colquhoun would not marry during her lifetime. Bah! she would live a hundred years, and he should never marry at all.
In her own room was her maid.
"Tomlinson," said Mrs. Cassilis—in spite of her outward calm, her nerves were strung to the utmost, and she felt that she must speak to some one—"Tomlinson, if a woman wrote anonymous letters about you, if those letters brought misery and misfortune, what would you do to that woman?"
"I do not know, ma'am," said Tomlinson, whose cheeks grew white.
"I will kill her, Tomlinson! I will kill her! I will get those letters and prove the handwriting, and find that woman out. I will devote my life to it, and I will have no mercy on her when I have found her. I will kill her—somehow—by poison—by stabbing—somehow. Don't tremble, woman; I don't mean you. And Tomlinson, forget what I have said."
Tomlinson could not forget. She tottered from the room, trembling in every limb.
The wretched maid had her revenge. In full and overflowing measure. And yet she was not satisfied. The exasperating thing about revenge is that it never does satisfy, but leaves you at the end as angry as at the beginning. Your enemy is crushed; you have seen him tied to a stake, as is the pleasant wont of the Red Indian, and stick arrows, knives, and red-hot things into him. These hurt so much that he is glad to die. But he is dead, and you can do no more to him. And it seems a pity, because if you had kept him alive, you might have thought of other and more dreadful ways of revenge. These doubts will occur to the most revenge-satiated Christian, and they lead to self-reproach. After all, one might just as well forgive a fellow at once.
Mrs. Cassilis was a selfish and heartless woman. All the harm that was done to her was the loss of her great wealth. And what had her husband done to Tomlinson that he should be stricken? And what had others done who were involved with him in the great disaster?
Tomlinson was so terrified, however, by the look which crossed her mistress's face, that she went away that very evening; pretended to have received a telegram from Liverpool; when she got there wrote for boxes and wages, with a letter in somebody else's writing,for a reason, to her mistress, and then went to America, where she had relations. She lives now in a city of the Western States, where her brother keeps a store. She is a leader in her religious circle; and I think that if she were to see Victoria Cassilis by any accident in the streets of that city, she would fly again, and to the farthest corners of the earth.
So much for revenge; and I do hope that Tomlinson's example will be laid to heart, and pondered by other ladies'-maids whose mistresses are selfish and sharp-tempered.
"Farewell to all my greatness."
The last day of Gilead Beck's wealth. He rose as unconscious of his doom as that frolicsome kid whose destiny brought the tear to Delia's eye. Had he looked at the papers he would at least have ascertained that Gabriel Cassilis was ruined. But he had a rooted dislike to newspapers, and never looked at them. He classed the editor of theTimeswith Mr. Huggins of Clearville or Mr. Van Cott of Chicago, but supposed that he had a larger influence. Politics he despised; criticism was beyond him; with social matters he had no concern; and it would wound the national self-respect were he to explain how carelessly he regarded matters which to Londoners seem of world-wide importance.
On this day Gilead rose early because there was a good deal to look after. His breakfast was fixed for eleven—a real breakfast. At six he was dressed, and making, in his mind's eye, the arrangements for seating his guests. Mr. and Mrs. Cassilis, Mrs. L'Estrange and Phillis, Lawrence Colquhoun, Ladds, and Jack Dunquerque—all his most intimate friends were coming. He had also invited the Twins, but a guilty conscience made them send an excuse. They were now sitting at home, sober by compulsion and in great wretchedness, as has been seen.
The breakfast was to be held in the same room in which he once entertained the men of genius, but the appointments were different. Gilead Beck now went in for flowers, to please the ladies: flowers in June do not savour of ostentation. Also for fruit: strawberries, apricots, cherries and grapes in early June are not things quite beyond precedent, and his conscience acquitted him of display which might seem shoddy. And when the table was laid, with its flowers and fruit and dainty cold dishes garnished with all sorts of pretty things, it was, he felt, a work of art which reflected the highest credit on himself and everybody concerned.
Gilead Beck was at great peace with himself that morning. He was resolved on putting into practice at once some of those schemes which the Golden Butterfly demanded as loudly as it could whisper. He would start that daily paper which should be independent of commercial success; have no advertisements; boil down the news; do without long leaders; and always speak the truth, without evasion, equivocation, suppression, or exaggeration. A miracle in journalism. He would run the great National Drama which should revive the ancient glories of the stage. And for the rest he would be guided by circumstances, and when a big thing had to be done he would step in with his Pile, and do that big thing by himself.
There was in all this perhaps a little over-rating the power of the Pile; but Gilead Beck was, after all, only human. Think what an inflation of dignity, brother De Pauper-et-egens, would follow in your own case on the acquisition of fifteen hundred pounds a day.
Another thing pleased our Gilead. He knew that in his own country the difficulty of getting into what he felt to be the best society would be insuperable. The society of shoddy, the companionship with the quickly grown rich, and the friendship of the gilded bladder are in the reach of every wealthy man. But Gilead was a man of finer feelings; he wanted more than this; he wanted the friendship of those who were born in the purple of good breeding. In New York he could not have got this. In London he did get it. His friends were ladies and gentlemen; they not only tolerated him, but they liked him; they were people to whom he could give nothing, but they courted his society, and this pleased him more than any other part of his grand Luck. There was no great merit in their liking the man. Rude as his life had been, he was gifted with the tenderest and kindest heart; lowly born and roughly bred, he was yet a man of boundless sympathies. And because he had kept his self-respect throughout, and was ashamed of nothing, he slipt easily and naturally into the new circle, picking up without difficulty what was lacking of external things. Yet he was just the same as when he landed in England; with the same earnest, almost solemn, way of looking at things; the same gravity; the same twang which marked his nationality. He affected nothing and pretended nothing; he hid nothing and was ashamed of nothing; he paraded nothing and wanted to be thought no other than the man he was—the ex-miner, ex-adventurer, ex-everything, who by a lucky stroke hit upon Ile, and was living on the profits. And perhaps in all the world there was no happier man than Gilead Beck on that bright June morning, which was to be the last day of his grandeur. A purling stream of content murmured and babbled hymns of praise in his heart. He had no fears; his nerves were strong; he expected nothing but a continuous flow of prosperity and happiness.
The first to arrive was Jack Dunquerque. Now, if this youth had read the papers he would have been able to communicate some of the fatal news. But he had not, because he was full of Phillis. And if any rumour of the Eldorado collapse smote his ears, it smote them unnoticed, because he did not connect Eldorado with Gilead Beck. What did it matter to this intolerably selfish young man how many British speculators lost their money by the Eldorado smash when he was going to meet Phillis. After all, the round world and all that is therein do really rotate about a pole—of course invisible—which goes through every man's own centre of gravity, and sticks out in a manner which may be felt by him. And the reason why men have so many different opinions is, I am persuaded, this extraordinary, miraculous, multitudinous, simultaneous revolution of the earth upon her million axes. Enough for Jack that Phillis was coming—Phillis, whom he had not seen since the discovery—more memorable to him than any made by Traveller or Physicist—of the Coping-stone.
Jack came smiling and bounding up the stairs with agile spring—a good-half hour before the time. Perhaps Phillis might be before him. But she was not.
Then came Ladds. Gilead Beck saw that there was some trouble upon him, but forbore to ask him what it was. He bore his heavy inscrutable look, such as that with which he had been wont to meet gambling losses, untoward telegrams from Newmarket, and other buffetings of Fate.
Then came a letter from Mrs. Cassilis. Her husband was ill, and therefore she could not come.
Then came a letter from Lawrence Colquhoun. He had most important business in the City, and therefore he could not come.
"Seems like the Wedding-feast," said Gilead irreverently. He was a little disconcerted by the defection of so many guests; but he had a leaf taken out of the table, and cheerfully waited for the remaining two.
They came at last, and I think the hearts of all three leaped within them at sight of Phillis's happy face. If it was sweet before, when Jack first met her, with the mysterious look of childhood on it, it was far sweeter now with the bloom and blush of conscious womanhood, the modest light of maidenly joy with which she met her lover. Jack rushed, so to speak, at her hand, and held it with a ridiculous shamelessness only excusable on the ground that they were almost in a family circle. Then Phillis shook hands with Gilead Beck, with a smile of gratitude which meant a good deal more than preliminary thanks for the coming breakfast. Then it came to Ladds's turn. He turned very red—I do not know why—and whispered in his deepest bass—
"Know all about it. Lucky beggar, Jack! Wish you happiness!"
"Thank you, Captain Ladds," Phillis replied, in her fearless fashion. "I am very happy already. And so is Jack."
"Wanted yesterday," Ladds went on, in the same deep whisper—"wanted yesterday to offer some slight token of regard—found I couldn't—no more money—Eldorado smash—all gone—locked in boxes—found ring—once my mother's. Will you accept it?"
Phillis understood the ring, but she did not understand the rest of the speech. It was one of those old-fashioned rings set in pearls and brilliants. She was not by any means above admiring rings, and she accepted it with a cheerful alacrity.
"Sell up," Ladds growled,—"go away—do something—earn the daily crust——"
"But I don't understand——" she interrupted.
"Never mind. Tell you after breakfast. Tell you all presently."
And then they went to breakfast.
It was rather a silent party. Ladds was, as might have been expected of a man who had lost his all, disposed to taciturnity. Jack and Phillis were too happy to talk much. Agatha L'Estrange and the host had all the conversation to themselves.
Agatha asked him if the dainty spread before them was the usual method of breakfast in America. Gilead Beck replied that of late years he had been accustomed to call a chunk of cold pork with a piece of bread a substantial breakfast, and that the same luxuries furnished him, as a rule, with dinner.
"The old life," he said, "had its points, I confess. For those who love cold pork it was one long round of delirious joy. And there was always the future to look forward to. Now the future has come I like it better. My experience, Mrs. L'Estrange, is that you may divide men into two classes—those who've got a future, and those who haven't. I belonged to the class who had a future. Sometimes we miss it. And I feel like to cry whenever I think of the boys with a bright future before them, who fell in the War at my side, not in tens, but in hundreds. Sometimes we find it. I found it when I struck Ile. And always, for those men, whether the future come early or whether it come late, it lies bright and shinin' before them, and so they never lose hope."
"And have women no future as well as men, Mr. Beck?" asked Phillis.
"I don't know, Miss Fleming. But I hope you have. Before my Golden Butterfly came to me I was lookin' forward for my future, and I knew it was bound to come in some form or other. I looked forward for thirty years; my youth was gone when it came, and half my manhood. But it is here."
"Perhaps, Mr. Beck," said Mrs. L'Estrange, who was a littlerococoin her morality, "it is well that this great fortune did not come to you when you were younger."
"You think that, madam? Perhaps it is so. To fool around New York would be a poor return for the Luck of the Butterfly. Yes; better as it is. Providence knows very well what to be about; it don't need promptin' from us. And impatience is no manner of use, not the least use in the world. At the right time the Luck comes; at the right time the Luck will go. Yes,"—he looked solemnly round the table,—"some day the Luck is bound to go. When it goes, I hope I shall be prepared for the change. But if it goes to-morrow, it cannot take away, Mrs. L'Estrange, the memory of these few months, your friendship, and yours, Miss Fleming. There's things which do not depend upon Ile; more things than I thought formerly; things which money cannot do. More than once I thought my pile ought to find it easy to do somethin' useful before the time comes. But the world is a more tangled web than I used to think."
"There are always the poor among us," said the good Agatha.
"Yes, madam, that is true. And there always will be. More you give to the poor, more you make them poor. There's folks goin' up and folks goin' down. You in England help the folks goin' down. You make them fall easy. I want to help the folks goin' up."
At this moment a telegram was brought for him.
It was from his London bankers. They informed him that a cheque for a small sum had been presented, but that his balance was already overdrawn; and that they had received a telegram from New York on which they would be glad to see him.
Gilead Beck read it, and could not understand it. The cheque was for his own weekly account at the hotel.
He laid the letter aside, and went on with his exposition of the duties and responsibilities of wealth. He pointed out to Mrs. L'Estrange, who alone listened to him—Jack was whispering to Phillis, and Ladds was absorbed in thoughts of his own—that when he arrived in London he was possessed with the idea that all he had to do, in order to protect, benefit, and advance humanity, was to found a series of institutions; that, in the pursuit of this idea, he had visited and examined all the British institutions he could hear of; and that his conclusions were that they were all a failure.
"For," he concluded, "what have you done? Your citizens need not save money, because a hospital, a church, an almshouse, a dispensary, and a workhouse stand in every parish; they need not be moral, because there's homes for the repentant in every other street. All around they are protected by charity and the State. Even if they get knocked down in the street, they need not fight, because there's a policeman within easy hail. You breed your poor, Mrs. L'Estrange, and you take almighty care to keep them always with you. In my country he who can work and won't work goes to the wall; he starves, and a good thing too. Here he gets fat.
"Every way," he went on, "you encourage your people to do nothing. Your clever young men get a handsome income for life, I am told, at Oxford and Cambridge, if they pass one good examination. For us the examination is only the beginning. Your clergymen get a handsome income for life, whether they do their work or not. Ours have got to go on preachin' well and livin' well; else we want to know the reason why. You give your subalterns as much as other nations give their colonels; you set them down to a grand mess every day as if they were all born lords. You keep four times as many naval officers as you want, and ten times as many generals. It's all waste and lavishin' from end to end. And as for your Royal Family, I reckon that I'd find a dozen families in Massachusetts alone who'd run the Royal Mill for a tenth of the money. I own they wouldn't have the same gracious manners," he added. "And your Princess is—wal, if Miss Fleming were Princess, she couldn't do the part better. Perhaps gracious manners are worth paying for."
Here another telegram was brought him.
It was from New York. It informed him in plain and intelligible terms that his wells had all run dry, that his credit was exhausted, and that no more bills would be honoured.
He read this aloud with a firm voice and unfaltering eye. Then he looked round him, and said solemnly——
"The time has come. It's come a little sooner than I expected. But it has come at last."
He was staggered, but he remembered something which consoled him.
"At least," he said, "if the income is gone, the Pile remains. That's close upon half a million of English money. We can do something with that. Mr. Cassilis has got it all for me."
"Who?" cried Ladds eagerly.
"Mr. Gabriel Cassilis, the great English financier."
"He is ruined," said Ladds. "He has failed for two millions sterling. If your money is in his hands——"
"Part of it, I believe, was in Eldorado Stock."
"The Eldoradians cannot pay their interest. And the stock has sunk to nothing. Gabriel Cassilis has lost all my money in it—at least, I have lost it on his recommendation."
"Your money all gone, Tommy?" cried Jack.
"All, Jack—Ladds' Aromatic Cocoa—Fragrant—Nutritious—no use now—business sold twenty years ago. Proceeds sunk in Eldorado Stock. Nothing but the smell left."
And while they were gazing in each other's face with mute bewilderment, a third messenger arrived with a letter.
It was from Mr. Mowll the secretary. It informed poor Gilead that Mr. Gabriel Cassilis had drawn, in accordance with his power of attorney, upon him to the following extent. A bewildering mass of figures followed, at the bottom of which was the total—Gilead Beck's two million dollars. That, further, Gabriel Cassilis, always, it appeared, acting on the wishes of Mr. Beck, had invested the whole sum in Eldorado Stock. That, &c. He threw the letter on the table half unread. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he rose solemnly, and sought the corner of the room in which stood the safe containing the Emblem of his Luck. He opened it, and took out the box of glass and gold which held it. This was covered with a case of green leather. He carried it to the table. They all crowded round while he raised the leathern cover and displayed the Butterfly.
"Has any one," he lifted his head and looked helplessly round,—"has any one felt an airthquake?"
For a strange thing had happened The wings of the insect were lying on the floor of the box; the white quartz which formed its body had slipped from the gold wire which held it up, and the Golden Butterfly was in pieces.
He opened the box with a little gold key and took out the fragments of the two wings and the body.
"Gone!" he said. "Broken!