"The pity of it--oh, the pity of it!" were John Brancker's first words as soon as he was able in some measure to control his feelings. "What you have told me has both shocked and grieved me as I was never shocked or grieved before. But do not say a word more about it, Mr. Clement, either now or at any future time. I would infinitely rather that you should not, and you may rest assured that I shall never ask you a single question."
"You can judge for yourself, Mr. Brancker, what my reasons were for telling you this," said Clem, whose brief burst of emotion had left him pale and calm. "Your career in life has been to a great extent compromised. A certain amount of suspicion in connection with what the world, in its ignorance of the facts of the case, naturally regards as a great crime, still clings to you, and to all seeming will continue to do so for years to come, if not as long as you live. It is now in your power to dispel that suspicion once and forever, and to clear away the dark cloud which has lowered over you for so many months. To do this needs only that you should make known to the world the facts which I have laid before you to-day."
"And do you for one moment believe, my dear Mr. Clement, that I should even dream of doing anything of the kind?" demanded John, with a sort of sad surprise. "I loved and honored your father. He was my friend at a time when I had no other friend in the world. He took me by the hand; he found a situation for me; I owe everything to him. You know that I am innocent; your brother knows it; that is enough. Perhaps you won't mind my telling my sister--I have no secrets from her--but not another creature shall hear it from me. Let the world continue to suspect me if it thinks well to do so. I can afford to appraise its doubts and suspicions at their proper value, which is no value at all. Henceforth I shall despise them, and I think, Mr. Clement, a man can always afford to live down a thing that he holds in contempt."
Clem drew a deep breath. The relief which John's words had given him no one but himself could estimate. Still, in common fairness to this generous-souled man, he felt bound to protest against a decision so adverse to his interests.
"It seems to me, Mr. Brancker," he said, "that you owe it as a sacred duty to those who are nearest and dearest to you to set yourself right in the eyes of the world, now that the means of doing so are offered you, and to resume that place in society which you have forfeited through no fault of your own."
"I owe a still more sacred duty to my dear lost friend, as those who are nearest and dearest to me would be the first to remind me if there were any danger of my forgetting it. No, Mr. Clement, I have made up my mind, and in this matter, if in no other, I am determined to have my way and do that which seems right in my own eyes."
Clement saw that it would be useless to press the point further. Indeed, had he wished to do so, he knew of no terms in which he could have urged his plea. How, in fact, could he have further urged the doing of a thing, the outcome of which would have been nothing less than disgrace and misery to him and his?
"I have something still to tell you," said Clem, presently. "You are, of course, aware that Ephraim Judd is dead?"
"Why, of course. It was yourself that brought the news to the Cottage, when I told you how much I regretted not having called upon him, but that I had no notion he was so dangerously ill."
"True! I have had much to think of lately, and had forgotten. Well, Ephraim made a very strange statement, which he charged me to repeat to you after he was gone. He had done you a great wrong, and the only reparation he could make was by confessing it."
With that Clem went on to detail to John that part of the dead man's confession which concerned him; but said no word about the latter portion--that which dealt with what Ephraim had witnessed through the fanlight.
"Poor fellow!--poor fellow!" exclaimed John, when the other had come to an end. "The temptation was a great one, and he was unable to resist it. He was tried beyond his strength, as it may be the lot of any of us to be. It was very wrong of him, not merely to keep back what he knew, but to swear to an untruth; but he is gone where his faults and his virtues will be weighed in the balances which cannot err, and Heaven forbid that I should attempt to blacken his memory by a single word. So, if you please, Mr. Clement, you and I will keep the poor fellow's confession to ourselves. It could do no possible good at this late date to make it public."
Later in the day Clement sought his brother.
"I have told John Brancker everything, or next to everything," he began abruptly. "I could no longer reconcile it to my conscience to keep him in ignorance of what was of such vital concern to him."
"I felt nearly sure that you would be guilty of some such fool's trick," was Edward's stern rejoinder. Then he added, with a sneer, "I hope you will be able to reconcile the article you call your conscience to the disgrace and ruin which will inevitably result from your mad action. The thought of your mother and sister might have restrained you, if nothing else had power to do so."
"Neither disgrace nor ruin will result from what I have done," answered Clem, quietly. "John Brancker will make no use of what I have told him. Except to his sister, he will breathe no word of it to a living creature."
Edward looked at him with eyes that expressed nothing but blank amazement.
"If it be as you say," he presently remarked, "then is John Brancker one of the noblest-hearted of men."
"It is as I say. I have his word for it."
"Ah!" said Edward, with an indrawing of his breath. "You can hardly realize what a weight you have lifted off my mind. It meant more to me than even you are aware of, that both the manner and the cause of our father's death should never be divulged. You said just now that you had told John Brancker 'next to everything.' May I ask what you meant by that particular phrase?"
"I told him nothing which would lead him to infer that the facts of the case had become known either to you or me until quite lately. Then, again, I said nothing to him of what Ephraim Judd saw through the fanlight."
Edward nodded approvingly.
"They were wise omissions on your part." Then, as if he were thinking aloud, he exclaimed, "A noble-hearted fellow!"
"What a pity it is that he can get nothing to do," observed Clem. "I suppose that he and his sister and his niece are living on his savings; but that is a sort of thing which can hardly go on for ever."
"An idea has just come to me," replied Edward, "which may or may not lead to something that will benefit him; but it would be premature to enter into any particulars till after I have had the chance of a talk with Lord Elstree."
"One thing more remains to be done," said Clem, presently.
"Eh? And what may that be, pray?"
"The refunding of the twelve thousand pounds insurance money."
"Good gracious, Clem! Have you taken leave of your senses?"
"I trust not. I am simply proposing to right a great wrong. I can quite understand that at the time you accepted the money you saw no other course open to you without exciting suspicions which you would have had no means of allaying except by making public a secret which it seemed to you must be concealed at every risk. It seems to me, however, that there is a way of getting out of the difficulty, and that without endangering your--or, as I may now call it, our--secret in any way."
"I have no objection to being enlightened," remarked Edward, dryly. "But pray don't forget that this is a matter in which your mother's and sister's interests are more deeply concerned than those of anyone else."
"That is a point I have by no means overlooked. In the first place, there need be no difficulty about refunding the money. Let it be divided into two or three sums, to be forwarded at intervals from different places. Of course, the sender would remain strictly anonymous. Then, as regards my mother and Fanny. They need never be made aware of the return of the money. The income which now accrues to them from its investment must continue to be paid with the same regularity as heretofore, the only difference being that you and I between us must make up the amount."
Never had Edward Hazeldine felt so taken aback as at that moment. Not the least odd feature of the affair was the quiet, matter-of-fact tone in which Clement put forward his proposition; had he been arguing some disputed point of anatomy with a fellow-student he could not have been cooler or more self-collected: Mentally and morally the elder brother felt as if a cold-water "douche" had been suddenly sprung upon him. It was not till the silence had lasted fully a couple of minutes that he seemed able to find anything to say.
"You are, of course, in a position to allow your mother and sister two hundred and forty pounds a year out of your income, which is about what your share would come to," he said at length, with a hardly veiled sneer.
Clem flushed a little.
"As circumstances are with me now, it would leave me with a very narrow margin to live upon," he replied; "but even were it still smaller, I would gladly make the sacrifice."
"What about your marriage? I hope you don't forget that the burthen you propose saddling yourself with is not merely a question of a year or two, but of the lifetime of your mother, who, we have every reason to hope and believe, may live for many years to come."
"As for my marriage, it would have to be put off till more prosperous times," replied Clem, not without a stifled sigh.
"Very well; but there is another feature which you may not, perhaps, have considered. Supposing the twelve thousand pounds to have been refunded in accordance with your wish, in the case of my mother's death, how would you propose to make up Fanny's one-third share of it to which she is entitled by my father's will? She may be married before that time, in which case the four thousand pounds she supposes herself to be ultimately entitled to will naturally be considered, both by her and her husband, as a certainty which nothing can deprive them of."
"That is a point which certainly failed to strike me," answered Clem. "But let me answer your question by asking another. Supposing the money not to have been refunded, in case of my mother's death would you be willing to touch your share of an amount to which morally you have no more right than has any of your clerks who are at work in the next room?"
Edward bit his lips.
"No," he said emphatically, after a pause; "in such a case as you speak of, not one shilling of the money would be touched by me."
"I could have vouched for your answer beforehand," said Clem, with a smile of triumph. "Now that you have confessed thus much, it is impossible for you to stop there. You are as convinced as I am, my dear Ned, that the twelve thousand pounds must be refunded. As honorable men no other course is open to us." He looked at his watch, and then rose and pushed back his chair. "I find I have not another minute to spare," he said, as he gripped his brother's hand. "But now that we are agreed as to the main point at issue, the settlement of the details can be left till I see you next."
It was on Edward's lips to say, "I have agreed to nothing," but some feeling restrained him.
Clem's words, "As honorable men no other course is open to us," rang in Edward's ears long after he was left alone. Had he not always prided himself on being an honorable man, one whose simple word had been as binding on him as if it had been safe-guarded by all sorts of legal pains and penalties, till the terrible complication which originated with his father's death had first planted his feet on that slippery path which tends downward, ever downward, by such fatally easy gradations, from which it is nigh impossible to retrace one's steps? Was it too late for him to retrace his steps? He decided that it was not. A helping hand--nay, two helping hands, those of John Brancker and his brother--had been stretched out to him in a way the least expected, and he had but to grasp them to be dragged back out of the quicksands in which he had been floundering of late, and set again on the firm ground where that fatal October night had found him. How deeply thankful he should be to find himself there again, no one but himself could more than faintly imagine.
In the course of next day he wrote and dispatched the following brief note to his brother:
"Dear Clem,
"It shall be as you wish.
"E. H."
Although Edward Hazeldine had made up his mind to refund the twelve thousand pounds, it was impossible for him to do so at once. The amount had been invested by him in his mother's name in a certain undertaking of which Lord Elstree was one of the managing directors, subject, however, to six months' notice of withdrawal. Consequently, even if he were to give notice immediately, half a year must elapse before he should be in a position to carry out the plan as agreed upon with his brother. One specially awkward feature of the affair was that he was utterly at a loss what excuse to allege to Lord Elstree for the withdrawal of the money, which his Lordship would doubtless look upon as a somewhat extraordinary proceeding. It seemed to him that, in any case, he would be under the necessity of telling a lie in the matter, which was a thing he hated doing; but, even so, the lie must be a feasible one, and, for the life of him, he could not think of one that would "hold water." He smiled bitterly to himself to think that matters had come to such a pass with him that he should have to keep on puzzling his brain for hours over the invention of a plausible falsehood. Had anyone told him six months before that such would be the case, he would unhesitatingly have denounced the assertion in much stronger language than he ordinarily made use of.
As it fell out, however, he was saved from a hateful necessity by no less a person than Lord Elstree himself. At their next interview, which befell a few days later, his Lordship said:
"By the way, Hazeldine, I think it just as well to inform you, in view of the fact that you have a very considerable sum invested in the affair, that I am by no means satisfied with the present policy and management--mismanagement would be the proper term for it--of it. My advice is no longer listened to by the Board; my representations are pooh-poohed behind my back; and, in point of fact, I have good reason for believing that the Corporation is slowly but surely drifting into difficulties. In any case, I mean to sever my connection with the concern as soon as possible, and I should advise you to do the same. All this, of course, is strictlyentre nous."
"I am extremely grateful to your Lordship for your kindness in giving me the hint"--and so, indeed, he felt himself to be. "I will send in a notice of withdrawal by this evening's post."
After that, his Lordship's talk drifted away to an entirely different topic, but one which, as it happened, had for Edward an interest only secondary to that of the previous one, and the first result of it was a brief note, written and dispatched a couple of hours later.
"Dear Clem,
"If possible, come and see me in the course of to-morrow. Yours,
"E. H."
The following afternoon found Clement at the Brewery.
Edward's first words were: "As regards the twelve thousand pounds, I have already sent in the notice of withdrawal, but, as you are aware, unless the fact has escaped your memory, I shall not receive a draft for the amount till six months from the date of the notice."
"There is no help for that, of course. After all, half a year is not a long time to wait, and now that the first and most important step has been taken, the rest will follow easily and in due course."
"And now I've another item of news that will please you," said Edward. "The position of chief bookkeeper at the Hollowdale Smelting Works happens to be vacant. Lord Elstree is Chairman of the Company, and the appointment rests with him. At my intercession he has agreed to offer the post in question to John Brancker, whom he considers to have been very shamefully treated by Mr. Avison. The salary will be a hundred and eighty pounds a year to start with, and as the works are only a dozen miles away, John will be able to go backward and forward morning and evening by train--that is to say, provided he thinks the post worthy of his acceptance."
"I feel nearly sure that I can answer for John's acceptance of the offer," said Clem, with sparkling eyes. "And then to think what a weight it will lift off both your shoulders and mine!"
John Brancker had replied to Mr. Hodgson's somewhat peremptorily-worded note on the day following that of his return from London. Miss Rivers, he told him, absolutely declined to break off her engagement with Mr. Hazeldine, or even to consider the question at all, unless the command to do so emanated from some one who was legally entitled to control her actions until she should come of age. In short, Mr. Hodgson must lift the veil which concealed her parentage, and prove to her that there was someone still living who had a right to her obedience, or to so much of it as could be looked for by anyone who for seventeen years had neglected to put forward the slightest claim thereto. It was a very outspoken letter, and John meant it for such. He was heart and soul with the young people, and totally opposed to their having their fate settled by someone as to whose identity they knew no more than they did of that of the proverbial man in the moon.
But day passed after day without bringing any answer to John's letter. Hermia shrugged her pretty shoulders, and said it was quite evident that the information she had asked for was more than Mr. Hodgson was prepared, or empowered, to furnish her with. Meanwhile she was quite content to let matters go on as they were at present.
John had not failed to tell his sister all that had passed at the momentous interview between himself and Clement, and how he had resolved to keep the true story of Mr. Hazeldine's death as a sacred secret to be divulged to no one save her to whom he now told it. It was a course which received the full approval of Aunt Charlotte. However much her brother might have suffered in the past, and however dark the prospect ahead might still be, to have revealed the dead man's secret, which he had been at such terrible pains to hide from everyone save his two sons, would have seemed to these worthy souls almost as much an act of profanation as if they had rifled his grave.
It was left to Clement to disclose to Hermia as much, or as little, relating to the affair as he might deem advisable. With what he told her, or what, in the exercise of a wise reticence, he omitted to tell her, we have nothing here to do.
And now came the offer from Lord Elstree. "At last--at last the sun is breaking through the clouds," exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, with tears of joy in her eyes when the news was told her. "What will the Ashdown people think now, dear, when they find that his Lordship has taken you by the hand?" she added. "There will be no more looking askance at you in future, I'll warrant. Not one of them but will discover that he, or she, was quite convinced from the first that you were an innocent man who had been deeply wronged."
To Frank Derison life seemed a somewhat tame affair after he had broken off his engagement to Miss Rivers and had given his word to Mr. Avison that the billiard table of the "Crown and Cushion" should see him no more. Now that he had lost Hermia, he felt that he loved her far more than he had ever loved her before. He could not get her image out of his thoughts; her face haunted his dreams by night and came between him and his work by day. He had not even the satisfaction of knowing that he had made her unhappy. He might and did regret her, but he had no proof that she regretted him. Evidently she had told him no more than the truth, although he could not credit it at the time, when she said in her letter that she should hail the rupture of their engagement as a relief. The news of her engagement to Clement Hazeldine had not failed to reach his ears--it had been no hole-and-corner affair; more than once, in the pleasant spring evenings, he saw them walking out together, and he ground his teeth and raged inwardly as he watched them.
Frank, however, was not without his compensations, although they were of a kind which he was not the one to value as many in his place would have done. He was made aware through his mother, who had her information from the elder Mr. Avison, that he was rising slowly but surely in his employer's estimation. It was Mrs. Derison's opinion, and doubtless she had good reasons for giving expression to it, that if only he were careful to keep on as he had begun, there was nothing to hinder him from attaining in the course of a few years to a partnership in the business. Ephraim Judd's death had been the means of giving him another step upward and another increase of salary. Already he stood next to Mr. Howes, who had succeeded Mr. Hazeldine as managing clerk.
Yet Frank no more liked his work at the Bank now than he had liked it when a youth of sixteen, although that was a fact which he confided to no one's ear but his mother's. He hated banking and everything connected with it, save and except the drawing of his salary at the close of each month. He was not without a certain amount of surface cleverness, together with a degree of tact which had in it an element of cunning; and by the aid of these, in combination with a frankly audacious manner and a handsome presence, he contrived to throw dust in the eyes of most people, and to pass for a much cleverer fellow than he was. He was not brought much into personal contact with Mr. Avison, who seemed, indeed, for reasons best known to himself, to keep aloof from him of set purpose; and as to how far his shallow pretensions to business ability were accurately gauged by Mr. Howes, was best known by Mr. Howes himself. In any case, the new managing clerk treated Frank with much consideration, not unmixed with a finely shaded measure of deference; but it may have been that the astute old official was not without his suspicions that Master Frank might one day sit in the curule chair of authority at the Bank.
Although Mrs. Derison had lived in Ashdown for several years she had but few acquaintances and no intimates, consequently the virtue of hospitality was one which she was rarely called upon to exercise. Now and then one or two lady visitors of her own age would call and would be invited to stay for tea, but that was all; while it was only on rare occasions that she visited anywhere herself. Frank had, therefore, every reason for feeling surprised when his mother said to him one evening:
"I want you to give up your bedroom for a few weeks, and change into the back room. We are about to have a visitor."
"Good gracious! mother. It must be somebody important, or you would not want me to budge."
"It is your half-cousin, Mildred Dixon. I have invited her to stay for a month, and she has agreed to do so."
"Wonders will never cease," said the mystified Frank.
"You have not forgotten her I hope."
"Not a bit of it, though it must be seven or eight years since I saw her last. But what is your object in inviting her, if I may make so bold as to ask?"
"My object is that you should make love to her, propose to her, and by-and-bye make her your wife."
Frank stared aghast at his mother. "Have you taken leave of your senses,madre mia?" he asked, after a pause.
"I have no reason to think so, my son."
"I marry Mildred Dixon! The notion is too utterly preposterous. In the first place she's six years older than I am. Then she's awfully freckled, and wears spectacles, and has a squat figure. I'd as soon marry my grandmother, if the old lady were alive."
"What have either her looks or her age to do with the affair? Miss Dixon is both accomplished and amiable, and has, in addition, a fortune of twenty thousand pounds."
Frank bit his nails for a few moments as if deep in thought; then looking up, he said:
"Mother, this thing is not a suggestion of your own. I can pretty well guess the quarter from whence it emanates."
"And what then? Is not your welfare at the bottom of the scheme? People at the head of a prosperous concern don't usually choose a virtual beggar for their partner; but no one could call a man with twenty thousand pounds at his back by any such title!"
So that was how the wind lay! Frank felt that the golden shackles were being riveted upon him one by one. He had thrown over--like the mean cur he knew himself to be--the only girl he could ever really love, and now he was called on to sell his freedom.
Frank Derison looked forward to the arrival of his cousin with much disfavor. Under any circumstances it would have seemed to him bad enough that his future should be cut-and-dried for him as if he were still a child in leading-strings, and that a bride should be thrust on him without as much as a "by your leave," but, as the case stood, it was rendered still more obnoxious by the fact that Fate had chosen for him a wife for whom he could never feel even that tepid amount of affection which seems to be found an amply sufficient capital in the majority of matrimonial ventures. As a cousin Miss Dixon might be everything one could wish, but as a wife he felt that before long he should positively hate her. Frank's affections, fleeting and shallow as they were, could only be captured by youth and good looks, and unfortunately Miss Dixon could boast of neither. When he compared her in his thoughts with sweet Hermia Rivers, and called to mind all that he had flung away, his heart grew very bitter within him, and he often felt that he would gladly cast behind him all his chances of worldly advancement if, by so doing, he could bring back those pleasant evenings of six months ago when he was a welcome visitant at Nairn Cottage, and when Hermia ever greeted his coming with a smile, the like of which for him the world did not hold. Oh, fool--fool that he had been!
But Frank was a man of many moods, and there were times when the cold whispers of worldly prudence fell soothingly on his ear. Twenty thousand pounds! It was a large sum, but, large as it was, it was only intended by those who had taken his future into their charge as the stepping-stone to something larger still. He was as fully assured as if his mother had told him in so many words, that his marriage with Miss Dixon was looked upon as a necessary condition, and that, unless he acceded to it, he need look for no further advancement at the Bank. The price demanded was a heavy one, or so it seemed to him. He knew fully a dozen girls, any one of whom (his lingering love for Hermia notwithstanding) he would willingly have married, even with half of twenty thousand pounds for a dowry. But Mildred Dixon, with her six years' seniority, her freckles, her spectacles, and her squat figure! Poor Frank could not help feeling that fate was treating him very hardly indeed.
But there came a reprieve for him almost at the last moment. A couple of days before Miss Dixon was due to arrive, Mrs. Derison received a note from her in which she stated that, owing to her mother having been suddenly attacked with illness, her visit would have to be deferred. Frank's spirits rose as if by magic.
"Her visit is only put off for a little while," said Mrs. Derison coldly, as she refolded the note after reading it aloud. "Nothing is altered."
But a respite is a respite all the world over, and Frank's was one of those mercurial natures which, while they are easily depressed, are just as easily elated, and have no inclination to meet trouble half way. He wished old Mrs. Dixon no harm; still, if her illness should prove to be a lingering one, any profession of sorrow on his part would be the merest hypocrisy.
"You never seem to take into account the fact that Mildred might not care to accept my humble and unworthy self as a partner for life," he said, with a quizzical smile, to his mother.
"Mildred is a sensible young woman, and knows what is expected of her," was the only reply vouchsafed him.
When Mr. Avison gave Frank plainly to understand that he must turn over a fresh leaf, and cease frequenting the billiard-room of the "Crown and Cushion," and such-like places, he at the same time intimated to him that for some time past his movements after office hours had been watched by a person who had been employed for that purpose, and it was the fear lest this secret spy might still be similarly engaged that kept his footsteps so straight from that time forward. He had insensibly got into the habit of spending so many of his spare hours in the billiard-room that he was at a loss how to get through his evenings with satisfaction to himself now that he no longer dared be seen there. Now that his fortunes at the Bank were rising so rapidly, he began to have plenty of invitations to the houses of well-to-do people, where he met a sufficiency of pleasant society of both sexes, but where everything was conducted with an amount of propriety and decorum which to Frank became at times absolutely depressing. He hated negus and sandwiches, and having to invent polite nothings for the benefit of a pack of scandal-loving dowagers. He hated having to dance attendance on a crowd of girls, for not one of whom he cared a jot. He was a man who loved men's society, but men out of their evening clothes. He liked the freedom and abandon of the smoking-room and the tavern parlor. His pipe was dear to him, and already he had a taste for cold grog, which in the course of time might develop into a confirmed habit. Thus it will be readily understood that to Frank Derison, life of late had seemed a somewhat tame affair.
It was just about this time that he made the acquaintance of a young fellow of his own age of the name of Crofts, who was in business with his father as a solicitor at Dulminster. Mr. Crofts was engaged to an Ashdown young lady, and used to go over two or three times a week to see her, and enjoy himself generally at this party, or the other dance.
"Beastly poky little hole, Ashdown," said Mr. Crofts one evening, as he and Frank were indulging in a cigarette in the balcony of a house where they had happened to meet. "Dulminster is bad enough in all conscience, but this place is a dozen times worse."
"What can a fellow do when hard necessity ties one to it?"
"What, indeed! You haven't even a club in the place, I presume?"
"Not the ghost of one."
"Why don't you join ours at Dulminster? Very small and select, and all that. Say the word, and I'll propose you at the next meeting."
"Awfully good of you, but this is the first word I've heard about it."
"Why not run over by the five-thirty train on Friday next, and pick a bit of dinner with me? We'll go on to the club afterwards, where I'll introduce you to half a score 'Bons Frères'--that's what we call ourselves--jolly good fellows one and all!"
The invitation so frankly given was as frankly accepted. Frank was introduced to the Club in due course, and was presently proposed and elected.
Mr. Crofts had spoken no more than the truth when he said that the club was small and select. In point of fact it was neither more nor less than a little coterie of gamblers. There were the usual reading, smoking, and billiard-rooms, but the card-room was the real focus of attraction. Frank, who like his father was a born gambler, entered heartily into the thing, and before long got into the way of spending three or four evenings a week at the "Bons Frères." The last train between Dulminster and Ashdown left the former place a quarter of an hour before midnight, but when Frank chanced to miss it--which he usually did at least once a week--there was always a bed for him at his friend's, while the eight o'clock morning train landed him at Ashdown in ample time for business.
It was scarcely to be expected that Frank should content himself with a quiet pool at billiards, while such exciting games as baccarat and unlimited loo were in progress in the next room. Accordingly his cue was left to languish on the wall, and he turned his attention wholly to that other board of green cloth which for him was by far the more seductive of the two. Occasionally he rose from the table a winner, but fortune frowned on him far oftener than she smiled. The fact was that both by nature and disposition Frank was too rash and impulsive to be evenly matched as against certain cool and cautious habitués of the club--old hands who look upon the card-table as a regular source of income, and never throw away a chance. But although he lost and lost again, his ardor for play in nowise abated; rather, indeed, did it seem to grow the fiercer with the gradual lightening of his pockets.
Mrs. Derison had always insisted on Frank's putting aside a certain portion of his salary, month by month, in the Ashdown Savings' Bank, and the amount thus laid by had by this time accumulated to something like a hundred and fifty pounds. On this fund Frank now began to draw, of course without his mother's knowledge, in order to enable him to meet his losses at cards, Five or six weeks sufficed to make a big hole in his small capital, but still, with the gambler's desperate recklessness, he kept on his course, convinced from day to day that "luck" must change in his favor, and fatuously failing to recognize the fact that he was being quietly but effectually fleeced, and that without any suspicion of cheating on their part, by men far cleverer than himself.
Now that Edward Hazeldine, urged thereto by his brother, had resolved, as far as in him lay, to annul the act of wrongdoing to which he had unwillingly lent himself; now that an intolerable burden had been lifted off his life and his self-respect had in some measure come back to him, he resolved, at the earliest opportunity, to carry out his long-cherished intention of proposing to Miss Winterton. By this time the family at Seaham Lodge were back from Torquay, but Edward did not feel that he should be justified in going over there specially and asking for an interview with Miss Winterton. He must wait till he was invited by his Lordship, and then make his opportunity as best he could. As it fell out he had not long to wait. The Earl wanted to see him on business matters, but being laid up with gout, could not leave home, consequently Edward must go to the Lodge. It was further intimated to him that her Ladyship would be pleased for him to stay and dine.
Having finished his business with the Earl in good time, Edward went in search of Miss Winterton. There was a chance of securing a quarter of an hour alone with her before dinner, but not much likelihood of being able to do so later on. A servant directed him, and he found her in the terrace garden. They had not met for nearly four months.
Miss Winterton gave him her hand with a smile, but seemed so entirely unembarrassed that he could not flatter himself with the idea that she had the least suspicion as to the nature of the errand which had caused him to seek her out. That, however, in nowise served to turn him from his purpose; and after a little talk on ordinary topics which helped, as it were, to break the ice between them, he plunged at once into the subject which just then was paramount with him. He began his declaration in manly if somewhat commonplace terms, but had not proceeded far before the stream of his eloquence was arrested by Miss Winterton placing one of her hands on his sleeve with a gesture which he could not mistake.
"Before you say a word more, Mr. Hazeldine, permit me to ask you one question," she said, speaking with perfect quietude and without a trace of irritation or annoyance. "Are you, or are you not, aware that your father was not murdered, as everyone was led to believe, but that, in point of fact, he put an end to his own existence? Because if you are aware of it, do you think, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, that, as an honorable man, you are justified in asking me to become your wife?"
Had the ground opened at Edward Hazeldine's feet he could not have been more startled and astounded. He knew not what to say, where to look, what to do. Had his carefully-guarded secret, which he had flattered himself was known but to four people, or, at the outside, to five, become public property? If not, how had Miss Winterton become possessed of it? But these were vain questions, and what he had now to consider was the answer it behoved him to give to Miss Winterton. A moment later he had made up his mind. There should be no more double-dealing, or fencing with the truth on his part; he had suffered enough from that sort of thing already.
"Yes, I am aware of it," he said, with the desperate calmness of a man who finds himself in a position from which he sees no way of escape. "I have known it from the first. But I am a moral coward, Miss Winterton, and the consequences of telling the world what I knew would have been so grievous to me and mine that I had not the courage to avow the truth. You are right. I had no justification in speaking to you as I did. I can only crave your forgiveness for my offence, and assure you that you need have no fear of a repetition of it."
He raised his hat, made a more profound bow than ever he had made in his life, and then turning on his heel, he strode slowly back towards the house.
On previous occasions when he had dined at the Lodge it had nearly always been his lot to take down Miss Winterton, but to-day it was a relief to him to find himself relegated to Mrs. Wiggins, the wife of the family lawyer, to whom he paid as much attention during the progress of the meal as the somewhat confused State of his faculties would allow of his doing.
It was only natural that Hermia's thoughts, since "Uncle John" had revealed to her the story of her adoption, should revert times without number to the mystery which enshrouded her birth and early years, challenging it first from one point of view and then from another, but only to give it up at last baffled and disheartened, and still, to all seeming, no nearer than before to finding the hidden key. More and more the possibility that she might still have a mother living became a dominant factor in her thoughts. Might there not have been a score of different reasons, she asked herself, why this mother should have been compelled to put her child out among strangers? And might not the same or other reasons still have force enough to keep her from acknowledging her daughter, or even allowing the fact of her own existence to become known? The more Hermia allowed her mind to dwell on the image thus conjured up the more clearly did it--unconsciously to the girl herself--assume by degrees an objective existence in her thoughts, till at length it needed but little to induce her to persuade herself that this mysterious parent was a being as real and tangible as any of those she saw around her. It was strange, she sometimes thought, that never had she yearned so much for a mother's love as now, when that other love, so sweet and yet so widely different, had taken her heart captive and held it beyond all power of ransom.
Something of this Hermia confided to Clement in their many walks and talks together--something, but not all, for in a maiden's heart there are sacred chambers, the threshold of which, not even to her lover, is it given to cross. But much of what she did not tell Clement, love's fine intuition enabled him to divine. For one thing, he could see that Hermia, without attaching paramount importance to the interdiction which had been laid upon her, could not help secretly chafing under it; as also that, in her own despite, the longing to unmask the secret of her birth was becoming more importunate day by day. Thus it fell out that, after a little while, Clement began to formulate a certain scheme in his mind, and when once he saw his way clear, proceeded with characteristic energy to arrange the preliminary steps for carrying it out.
On a certain spring evening, when our two young people were alone together, Clem said abruptly, andaproposto nothing which had gone before, "I don't think, dearest, that if you were to try till to-morrow you could guess what I am going to do next week."
"In that case it would be foolish of me to try. But, of course, you will experience a little sense of injury if, after this preliminary flourish on your part, I omit to ask you what it is that you purpose doing."
"On Tuesday next I shall leave home for a fortnight's holiday."
"Oh!" a little dubiously. "I was not aware that you are out of health--you don't look it--and if you are fagged or worried with overwork, you have kept your secret very carefully."
Clem tugged at his moustache and broke into a laugh.
"I was never better in my life than at this moment; and as for overwork, if I had fifty more patients on my hands than I have, you would not hear a murmur of complaint."
"But what about such patients as you have on your hands? Are you going to give them a chance of recovering while you are away?"
"Not likely; that would never do. A friend of mine, Vallance by name, who happens just now to be on the lookout for a practice of his own, has offered to come and physic them during my absence."
"Well, I hope you will have fine weather and enjoy yourself, although the majority of people, who, of course, don't know better, generally defer their holidays till July or August."
"I am quite aware that you are dying to ask me my reasons for going away at this time of year, only your pride won't let you do so."
"The self-conceit of some people is truly amazing. I curious to know your reasons! What next, pray?"
"In any case, I'll take pity on you and tell you. Know, then, dearest, that the first aim and object which I have set before me is to hunt up that estimable but unaccountable person, Mr. Hodgson."
"To hunt up Mr. Hodgson?" gasped Hermia. "But for what purpose? What will you gain by doing that?"
"Whether I shall gain anything or nothing time alone can tell. In any case, when I have found him, I intend--metaphorically speaking--to grip him by the throat, and bid him stand and deliver. In other words, I mean to see what a personal interview will do towards wresting from him that secret--or, if not the secret itself, some clue to it, however faint--which I know you, my dear one, are so anxiously longing to fathom."
Hermia did not speak, but her eyes flushed with tears.
"It is quite possible that the old boy, when I tell him who I am, may refuse point-blank to discuss the matter with me. In that event I can't say what I shall do, or what course may seem best for me to follow. But the first thing to do is to find Mr. H. and tackle him."
"My poor boy!" replied Hermia, with a pitying smile. "You seem to have forgotten one important fact, which is, that none of us, not even Uncle John himself, is acquainted with Mr. Hodgson's address, or has the remotest notion where to find him. Uncle's letter in reply to his was simply addressed to the care of a certain firm of solicitors in London. Of course, it is open to you to go to the firm in question, and ask them to oblige you with Mr. Hodgson's address; but is it not rather doubtful whether they would comply with your request?"
"Very doubtful, indeed," responded Clem, dryly. "So much so, that I don't think I shall trouble myself to go near them. I've a better plan than that for arriving at what I want to know."
Speaking thus he unbuttoned his coat, and from the breast-pocket drew forth an unsealed envelope, from which he proceeded to extract a small square of drawing-board, and then handed it to Hermia. On it was a pen-and-ink sketch of a man's head in profile.
An exclamation of surprise broke from Hermia the moment she set eyes on it.
"Why, it is Mr. Hodgson to the life!" she cried. "Aquiline nose, high stock, pointed collar and spectacles--the very man himself! How did this come into your possession, dear?"
"There's a pretty question to ask! I did think you would have recognized my handiwork."
"Yours? You clever darling! Of course, I have known for a long time--which means for a few months--that you can draw and paint--a little; but I did not know that you could hit anyone off in this sort of way."
"In the case of old Hodgson, you have only to draw his nose and chin in outline, and you have the man himself."
"But I had not the least idea that you had ever seen Mr. Hodgson."
"Neither had I, till the occasion of his last visit. You told me when he was expected, and I made it my business to look out for him and have a good stare at him. The moment I got back home I sat down and made the sketch I have just shown you."
"The likeness is unmistakable; but I fail to see of what use it will be in enabling you to trace the original."
"As soon as I had finished my sketch I hurried off to the railway station and sought out the station-master, to whom I am well known, through having attended his wife last winter when she was ill. Handing him the sketch I said, 'The original of this will leave here by train in the course of a few hours from now. I want you to ascertain for me to what station he books himself.' In the course of the evening I made a point of seeing the station-master again. 'The old gentleman with the remarkable nose,' he told me, 'had in his possession the second half of a return ticket between Stavering and Ashdown, of which one of my men had collected the first half earlier in the day.' Inquiry on my part, my geographical knowledge being at fault, elicited the information that Stavering is a small country town on the borders of Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Having thus got firm hold of what I may call link number one, I need scarcely inform so perspicacious a young person as yourself that the first step in the voyage of discovery I purpose taking will be to book myself to Stavering, and, once there--as they say in boys' story-books--set to work to track the miscreant to his lair."
"It seems to me that you are a dreadfully artful creature, far more so, in fact, than I had any idea of," said Hermia, with a little toss of her head; "but I daresay if you were to fail as a doctor, you might perhaps find a situation on the detective force." But even while her tongue was thus gently flouting him, her eyes were speaking a different language, and one which by this time--so assiduous had been his studies--Clem had learned to read like a book.
A few more days sufficed to complete Clem's preparations. Titus Vallance came down from London, and was duly installed as hislocum tenens. Neither to his brother nor to John Brancker did he afford the faintest hint that any object other than the need for change and rest was taking him from home.
Next morning he set out for the North. By the last post of the following day a letter from him reached Hermia. She was surprised and delighted, not having expected one till next morning. She hurried to her room, broke the seal, and kissed the enclosure again and again before reading a single word.
After a few lines devoted to those sweet nothings which lovers delight in when they write to each other, the letter went on as follows: