Jervis Fanshawe had tried to tell me of this new Barbara! Why had I forgotten that; why hadn't I understood what he meant? Jervis Fanshawe had told me that I should see my Barbara again, as I had seen her in the past; that I should come back to love and life and laughter. Jervis Fanshawe understood; surely he would be able to show me what was best to be done. I set off at a greater rate than ever for London, determined that I must see him at the earliest opportunity, and tell him the wonderful thing that I had discovered.
I could think only of that discovery; I forgot completely what the man was whose services I desired to enlist—forgot all he had done, and all I had suffered indirectly through him. I had no one in the world to whom I could turn, save this man; and I only remembered with gratitude then that he had come to me at the moment of my release from prison, and had given me food and lodging.
It was very late when I reached the shabby little street in the neighbourhood of the river; I must have found it by a sort of instinct, for I did not even know its name. I came to the house, and rang the bell; the child my guardian had called Moggs opened the door. She grinned when she saw me, and jerked her head towards the staircase.
"Lucky you've come," she said, in a sort of hoarse whisper. "'E's bin carryin' on like mad, blamin' me for it, of all fings. I made sure you'd cut yer lucky."
I guessed dimly that my guardian had wondered at my absence; I went quickly up the stairs. I opened the door, and went eagerly into the room, with my tale at my very lips; but I stopped short when I saw that another man was seated at the table from which Fanshawe had risen.
"So you've come back, have you?" sneered my guardian, looking me over with no very favourable eye. "And by the look of you, I should think you've been out of doors a little."
I became suddenly aware how deplorably muddy and dirty I was. Like a scolded child, I pulled off my hat, and stood there with bowed head, unable to say a word. I raised my head when I heard the other man speak to Fanshawe.
"Is this the fellow?"
It was a curiously hard voice, a cold metallic voice. I looked at the speaker, and saw a man a little over thirty years of age, with a strong, rather heavy face; I noticed that his dark hair grew low on his forehead, and rather forward at the temples. He was very well-dressed—so well-dressed, in fact, that his being in that place at all on friendly terms with the shabby Jervis Fanshawe seemed incongruous in itself.
"Yes, this is the fellow," said Fanshawe, taking me by the sleeve and drawing me forward. "You can speak to him yourself."
The man lounging at the table looked up at me contemptuously enough—studied me as he might have studied a dog he meant to buy if he approved of it.
"You've been in prison?" he said at last.
I bowed my head, and dropped my eyes. "A long time," I replied.
"And now are thrown on the world, with a living to get if possible, and with no trade at your fingers' ends—eh? Well, I may be able to help you. We arefriends here, and so I can speak freely. You killed a man?"
"A long time ago," I said, without raising my eyes.
"There's nothing to be ashamed of," he retorted, with a disagreeable laugh—"in fact, you're a man to know. I've been talking to Fanshawe here about you, and I think you may serve my purpose."
"In a word, Charlie," broke in Fanshawe excitedly, "there's a chance for you to get back a little payment for what you have suffered—to pay off old scores—to get a little cheap revenge. Don't stare at me like that; pull your wits together, and listen."
"To pay off old scores? Revenge?" I stared at him, wondering if he knew what I had seen in that old place of my dreams—wondering what he would say next.
"You have served a long term of imprisonment—your life has been broken and spoilt and ruined," went on the man at the table, setting my guardian aside. "Naturally you hate those who have drawn you into that; naturally your mind is filled with the desire to get even with them—to settle that old account."
"I don't understand," I murmured, looking from one to the other.
Jervis Fanshawe seized my arm, and shook me fiercely. "Years ago you suffered, like a fool, for the sake of a woman; she cared nothing for you, and married another man. Do you remember that?"
"Yes. Her name was Barbara," I replied slowly.
Fanshawe turned to the stranger. "You see he remembers something," he said. Then he turned again impatiently to me. "I have already told you that a new Barbara has sprung up in her place—a child—a girl."
Glancing at the face of the stranger at the table, I decided to hide my knowledge of what I had seen; Isaid nothing. Perhaps here I was to be shown the way to do what was in my mind; perhaps I was to be helped, as I had never expected to be helped at all.
"You understand, Avaline," went on the stranger, in his deadly voice, "that I take an interest in this new Barbara, who is like the Barbara you so mistakenly loved twenty years ago. In other words, for her own sake it is necessary that I should see much of her—communicate with her often. That is difficult without a third person, because the lady herself is a little obdurate. Do you follow me?"
"Yes," I replied, looking at him for a moment, and then turning to my guardian. "I begin to understand."
"So that if I can introduce to her some one she does not know—some one who is bound, by reasons of policy, to do what he is told, without thought of the consequences—I am a gainer," went on the man at the table. "You have reason to hate a girl, so unfortunately formed in the image of the woman who deceived you, and brought disaster upon you; you have reason to be loyal to me, because I can keep you from starving, and can give you clothes and shelter. You're a poor broken worn-out thing, and I take pity on you. Now do you understand the situation?"
I understood it so well that my mind, for the first time since I had stepped out from the prison gates, was clear, and I was fully alive. I looked eagerly from one to the other; I told the man brokenly that I would do all he asked; I think I suggested that I would be his slave. He might tell me to do anything; I was eager to take up that old story that I had been compelled to lay down.
"For your revenge?" he asked, with a grin.
"For my revenge!" I said; and burst into a shout of laughter.
"Don't take any notice of him," I heard my guardian whisper. "The poor fool is only half-witted; his years of prison life have told upon him. But he's the man you want!"
While I stood in the room watching the two men, and eager to know what work was to be given me to do that would enable me to touch again the life I had left, Fanshawe and the stranger discussed me in low voices, as they might have discussed some piece of furniture they contemplated putting in some particular place. I caught one or two of their remarks; I listened with the humility that years had bred in me to what they said of me.
"You can kick or bully him into anything," I heard Fanshawe say, as he looked over his shoulder at me contemptuously. "For the sake of his bread and butter he'll do what he's told, and he'll do it humbly. If any feeling of revenge is left in him, it will act as a spur; but I don't think the spur will be needed. If he gets troublesome, you can always kick him into the road; he'll crawl back to you, and lick your hand, like the shabby dog he is."
"We must give him a name," said the stranger, looking at me with a thoughtful frown. "We can't send him among those people with his old label attached to him."
"No—no—you won't do that," I pleaded; for the thought of that had not occurred to me before. "Give me any name you like."
"Oh, we won't shame you, Mr. Charles Avaline,"sneered Fanshawe; "you needn't be afraid of that. What name would you like?"
"What were you in prison—I mean, what work did you do?" demanded the other suddenly.
"I worked in the tinsmith's shop for the most part," I said. "They told me I made a good workman; they showed my work to visitors sometimes; and then they would call my number—145 was my number—and point me out, and whisper."
"That will do as well as anything else," said the other man, who was evidently paying no attention to my remarks. "We'll christen you 'Tinman'; that shall be your name from this time forward. See that you answer to it." He got up and sauntered to the door, with a careless nod to Jervis Fanshawe; stopped there, and turned round, slapping the side of his leg with a light cane he carried. I remember that he reminded me in a strange haunting fashion of another man I had seen, who had stood with his arms akimbo, and with a light cane resting on one hip and under his hand.
"And by the way, Tinman, you'd better know your new master's name. I am Murray Olivant; keep that name in your mind, because you'll have to remember it. Fanshawe will tell you what to do, and when I want you."
He sauntered out of the room, banging the door behind him. Jervis Fanshawe turned to me, rubbing his lean hands together, and grinning delightedly.
"Now, Charlie, perhaps you'll know in future who your best friend is," he said. "This is only the beginning; it all rests in your hands to make the most of this opportunity, for both our sakes. Olivant's rich—very rich indeed; it'll go hard with us if we don't dip our fingers into his pockets more deeply than he suspects. Jail-birds both, Charlie," he added,tapping me on the breast with his lean forefinger; "it won't do for us to have any scruples, will it?"
"I suppose not," I answered him. "But what will he want me to do. Be patient with me," I pleaded, "because I'm not used to the ways of the world yet; I'm afraid of everything. Be patient with me."
"I'll be patient with you, dolt!" he exclaimed wrathfully. "In the first place, I suppose you understand that our friend Mr. Murray Olivant happens to take a very deep interest in matters in which you and I once interested ourselves, but with which we now have nothing further to do. In other words, as I have explained to you partly already, there is a new generation grown up in the place you knew; and our friend Olivant knows that generation well. More than that, he knows one at least of the old generation."
I knew to what he referred; I remembered the new Barbara I had seen—so like her mother, and so unconsciously living again, as it seemed, her mother's story. It was so clear to me now that I was almost prepared for the next words Fanshawe said, and they did not come upon me with any real shock.
"And the new generation that is growing up is rather like what the old one was, and is represented by a girl. They call her Barbara. That makes you jump—eh?" he demanded vindictively. "And our friend Murray Olivant takes a deep interest in this Barbara—in other words—loves her."
It was all coming true—it was all happening as I knew instinctively in my own mind it must happen. Fate was marching on grimly enough, and I saw that not only was there a new Barbara and a new Charlie Avaline, but that here, menacing them, was a new Gavin Hockley. I was afraid, and I suppose the terror that was growing up in me showed itself in myface. At all events my guardian saw it, but mistook the reason for it.
"There's nothing for you to be frightened about," he said scornfully; "I don't suppose any one is likely to recognize you. You'll only be poor Tinman, the hanger-on and servant; no one is likely to ask questions about you. I don't doubt Murray Olivant will give you plenty of dirty work to do; and you must do it with a smiling face, and be thankful that you've found some one to keep you out of the workhouse. By the way," he added suddenly, as the thought occurred to him—"where have you been last night and to-day?"
"Oh, just wandering about," I replied vaguely; for I did not mean to tell him that I had taken that surprising plunge back into the past. "I have not seen London for so long," I added lamely.
"Well, that's all right; but don't try that game again," he said. "You'll be landing some of us into difficulties, to say nothing of yourself, if you wander about in your present muddle-headed condition. Stay where you can be looked after, and do as you're told."
I meekly promised that I would obey; I ventured presently, as we sat there with the table between us, to put a question or two about the past.
"I want you to tell me," I said—"I want to know what has happened down at Hammerstone Market in all these years. You tell me that a new Barbara has grown up to take the place of the old, but what of the old one?" It was all absurd and impossible, and I was a poor shabby broken grey-haired man, to whom love should mean nothing; but my voice trembled as I asked the question.
"Your old flame?" he sneered. "Dead these many years."
"Dead!" I sprang to my feet and stared at himwildly; I remember that he hurriedly pushed his chair back as though to avoid me. "Dead!"
"What is there to get excited about?" he cried. "She couldn't live for ever—and besides, she treated you none too well."
"Dead!" I said again, for that thought had never occurred to me before. I had seen her always young and fresh and unchanged; the curious thing was that I seemed to see her so still, even though this other girl had grown up in her image.
"And the new Barbara—the bit of a girl that our friend Murray Olivant is so interested in—is like the old Barbara come to life again," said Jervis Fanshawe, speaking as if to himself, and with his lips set in a straight bitter line. "I hate her!—I loathe the sight of her. She stands there"—in his excitement he had risen to his feet, and had flung one thin arm above his head—"with the same devilish childish beauty her mother had—that mother that laughed at me, and sent you to rot for twenty years in a prison. I tell you, Charlie"—he dropped into his chair again and leaned across the table, staring at me with wild eyes—"I tell you that I have lain behind a hedge down in that place where she lives—so close to her that I could have risen up and seized her, and crushed the life out of her before she could cry out. Yes—and with these hands!"
"She never harmed you," I reminded him.
"No, but she lives in the image of the woman who laughed at me, and set me aside as something not to be reckoned with. And I've waited, Charlie—by God!—I've waited!"
I did not guess then what was in his mind; I did not realize that the deadly hatred of the man for the one woman he had failed to possess could pass on through all those years, and grow again, stronger forthe waiting, and rise up stark and strong against the child. I had not understood that any man could live for that and that only; could wait in the snow outside my prison to seize me as an instrument ready to his hand. I did not even then understand the man.
"The Barbara who died—the Barbara I loved," I said gently—"won't you tell me about her?"
"She died at sea," he replied. "Her child had been born, and they said that the mother was not strong; that she had never been the same woman after her marriage. Perhaps she fretted after you"—this with a grin and a kick at me under the table that was meant to be facetious. "At all events, the husband was persuaded to take her on a sea voyage, and the child went with them. She fell into a sort of fever—the mother, I mean—and they had to watch her constantly, because it almost seemed that she would take her own life. Then one day her cabin was found to be empty; the ship was searched; but she was gone. A little later the husband found a note written by her; she had made up her mind to end her life, and was only watching for an opportunity to throw herself overboard. She commended the child to his care. And that was the end of her."
Barbara dead! It did not seem possible to my mind, even then when I had chapter and verse for it; I could not set aside that vision I had always had of her—as the bright young girl who had met me in the wood twenty years before. I realized bitterly enough that in that, as in all other things, I had been tricked; that while I dreamed of her in my prison cell, and hugged that dear remembrance to myself, she had been in the depths of the sea, dead and forgotten. I woke now to the consciousness that the cruel voice of Jervis Fanshawe was still talking to me.
"As for the father—Lucas Savell—he has becomea thing of no account. When old Patton died he left the business to Savell—principally, I think, for the sake of the child; and Savell has let it go to rack and ruin. He was a poor creature always—and I think the loss of Barbara finished him. At any rate, he has gone down and down, and they say he drinks. So far as the business is concerned"—Fanshawe shrugged his shoulders and laughed—"well—that's where Murray Olivant comes in."
"In what way?" I asked.
"Oh, he's a keen blade, is Olivant," said Fanshawe, shaking his head at an imaginary Murray Olivant, and chuckling. "He's always had money—and he always will have it; he's like a bird of prey, ready to stick his talons into the choicest morsels he sees round him. He saw Lucas Savell and the business; he advanced money; and so got a hold here and a hold there, until at last the thing was his. It is supposed to belong to Savell—but he dare not call his soul his own. You needn't look surprised; it has all been a process of years, so gradual that others have not noticed it. Lucas Savell is like a sucked orange, and can be cast aside at any moment."
"Why do you hate them so—I mean, apart from Barbara?" I asked.
Always it seemed that when his supposed wrongs were referred to a sort of semi-madness came upon Jervis Fanshawe, so that he lost control of himself, and was at first unable to speak. Such a madness was upon him now; he had to gasp and open his lips once or twice, and to stretch out a hand towards me, and even clutch at his throat a little before he was able to speak at all. And when he did at last, his voice was hoarse and unnatural with excitement.
"They—they ruined me; they stood me in the dock on charges of forgery and fraud; they forgotall my years of service. I had had to get the money from somewhere to satisfy that beast Hockley; I got it from them, meaning to pay it back when the luck changed. It never did change, and Hockley's death finished me. Then, when I came out of prison, old Patton was dead and Savell was established. And I found another man taking my revenge from me, and robbing Savell, and draining him dry. And I wormed myself in with that man, and made myself useful to him—just as you will do, Charlie—just as you're going to do from to-night. He's a fine fellow, this Murray Olivant; he'll break them up, and make a beggar of Savell—and he'll get the girl. Think of that, Charlie; the Barbara for whom you've worn out your heart and your life in prison is dead, and the new Barbara shall be at the beck and call of this man—who won't treat her any too well, I'll warrant. There's a revenge for you!"
I was afraid to ask any direct question as to the boy I had seen with this new Barbara in the wood; I feared that Fanshawe must know at once if I did that I had been down to spy out the land. But I asked, a little wistfully perhaps, a question that artfully concealed what I already knew.
"Is it not possible that this girl—this other Barbara—loves some one else?"
"And what if she does?" he snapped at me; "they've all got fads and fancies, and so much the worse for them. This little fool, for instance, believes herself to be in love with a boy who hasn't a penny—just such a young jackanapes as you were twenty years ago. In fact, he paints, as you tried to do. He's a starveling dog—just as you were."
"Who is he?" I asked.
"He's half-brother to our friend Olivant, whose mother married again, and died when she gave theboy to the world. They call him Arnold Millard, and he's dependent on his half-brother for the clothes he wears and the food he eats. And yet, forsooth, has the cheek to step in and pretend to be in love with the girl destined for the other man."
"But her father—Lucas Savell—what does he say?"
"He dare not say anything; it's not in his hands. Our friend Olivant can turn him out neck and crop at a moment's notice, and he knows it. Oh, I can tell you Murray Olivant's a man to be looked up to; he rules every one and everything. Keep in his good books, Charlie, and you'll never starve; but you mustn't offend him. I don't know what would have become of me," he added plaintively, "if I hadn't happened to stumble across him. True, I've done some shady things for him; but he's been very good to me."
I remember that I strove hard for the next day or two, while I awaited orders from my new master, to thrash out in my mind the complicated thing that was before me, that I might work out the pitiful story to the advantage of those in whom I was so passionately interested. For, think of my position! It was my fate to see again two helpless beings striving hard to work out their love story, just as I had striven with Barbara in the old days, and beset on all hands by enemies. This Barbara, who had risen, as it were, from the ashes of her dead mother to take up the burden that mother had laid down, was alone in the world, save for the helpless boy who loved her; and I knew inevitably that stronger forces than any she could combat would bear upon them and drive them asunder. That was inevitable, unless I could do something to help them; and I was an old and broken man, degraded and useless, with my soul stained with murder,and with the record of twenty wasted years behind me. I was in despair when I thought about it; it seemed impossible that I could do anything.
Two days later I was told by Jervis Fanshawe that he had received a message from Olivant saying that I was to present myself to that gentleman at once, and take my orders. The better to be sure of me, Fanshawe went with me; he took me to a great house in a fashionable quarter of the town, where I found that Murray Olivant lived in great style in a beautifully furnished flat, with a highly respectable manservant to attend upon him. I know that the man looked at me contemptuously enough as he left us in the hall of the place; my guardian he seemed to know, and told him that Mr. Olivant would see him at once. I was left standing in the hall, when presently Fanshawe was conducted into the presence of his patron; they kept me waiting quite a long time before the manservant appeared again, after a bell had been rung, and told me I was wanted.
"You're to go in there," said the man, jerking his head towards a door at the other side of the hall.
I went in, and found Murray Olivant lounging in a deep chair before the fire; Jervis Fanshawe stood at a little distance from him, a shabby figure indeed in contrast to the other man. Olivant was smoking a big cigar, which he was nervously turning over and over between his teeth, the while he frowned at me through the smoke. I did not speak; I waited again while they discussed what was to be done with me, in that fashion they had used before, quite as though I were a piece of furniture that had been purchased, and for which a place had to be found.
"You'll have to get him some clothes—something dark and respectable," said Olivant. "Get them to-day; he must go down to Hammerstone Market to-night,taking my luggage. Also he'll take a letter from me to Savell; I shall follow to-morrow. Does he remember where the place is, do you think? You Tinman," he called to me; "do you know where Hammerstone Market is?"
"I remember it, sir," I replied.
"You'll have enough money given you to take you down there; you will remember that you are Tinman, my personal servant. You'll have no difficulty about it; they'll put you up at the house. Fanshawe will take you out now, and rig you up properly; you'll be back here by six o'clock. Your train leaves at a few minutes to seven." He turned to Jervis Fanshawe, and spoke impatiently. "Do you think the idiot understands?"
"Perfectly," was the reply. "You don't want him too sharp, you know."
"You're doing splendidly," said Fanshawe, when we were outside the place again. "I can see that you'll be just the very man to do the work he wants; you'll play the dumb dog, and do what you're told, and ask no questions, won't you?"
"Of course," I replied; but I think he was a little disappointed that I should appear to take so little interest in this new life that was being mapped out for me.
Some clothing was bought for me at a second-hand dealer's, and I was rigged out cheaply to fit my new position. I did not see Murray Olivant when I went back to his rooms; his manservant pointed to the luggage that had been packed, and gave me a letter addressed to Lucas Savell, and some money. At the last moment before opening the door the man plucked me by the sleeve, and drew me back, and whispered—
"I say, who are you? and what are you supposed to be? Hang me if I can make you out."
"It isn't necessary," I replied; "I don't know myself." I went out of the place, carrying some of the luggage, and leaving him to follow with the rest.
A cab was called, and I started; my last vision of the servant was seeing him standing on the pavement outside the house, scratching his chin and staring perplexedly after me. But, in my deeper anxiety as to what was going to happen to me in that strange house at Hammerstone Market, I forgot his very existence by the time the cab had turned the corner.
I reached Hammerstone Market without adventure, took a fly from the station, and drove to the house. Darkness had long since set in, and I could see nothing of the grounds when presently the vehicle turned in at the gates; I could only judge, by the sound of the churning wheels, that we were driving through masses of dead leaves that must have lain there for many past years. Coming to the house at last, I was deposited with the luggage outside the door, and the fly drove away. I stood there in the darkness, hearing a great bell clang somewhere in the distance, and wondering what would be said to me when the door should presently open.
I had no fear that any one would recognize me; the mere thought of that was absurd. Indeed, there was but one disturbing thought in my mind—the fear of meeting the new Barbara, and so of coming face to face with that figure, cut, as it were, out of the life I had once lived in that very place; I feared I should not be able to trust myself or my voice at that time. For the rest, I only knew dimly that I should probably have to see much that might goad me almost to madness, and yet that I must say nothing; I was in a sense fumbling in the dark, with only my memories to guide me.
The door was opened at last, and I stepped, as itwere, straight back into that night when I had first come to this house with my guardian—twenty years before. Nothing was changed, save only that everything seemed to have dwindled in the years, and that the furniture was shabbier and meaner looking. I felt my heart beating fast as I looked towards that broad staircase down which I had once seen the Barbara who was dead coming, with tears in her eyes, and with her laughing bridesmaids surrounding her. It seemed almost as though she might at any moment turn the corner of the staircase, and come down towards me.
An elderly woman in a dingy black dress took my letter, and bade me stay where I was. She appeared to be a servant; and I watched her as she climbed the stairs slowly, and went away, leaving me standing in the hall. I was looking about me when I heard above a quick, light footstep; looking up, I saw Barbara coming down the stairs, with one hand lightly resting on the rail, and with her eyes turned straight towards me. I stood there watching her; I wondered vaguely what she would have thought had she known who I was, and under what circumstances I had last stood in that place, twenty years before.
When she came up to me she spoke with her mother's tongue, and with a little quick smile that had belonged to the dead woman. "My father sent me to you; he is not—not very well to-night. He understands, of course, that Mr. Olivant is coming down"—the smile died from her lips, and she seemed to draw herself up a little stiffly—"everything shall be got ready for him. You are strange here; you won't know your room. Your name is Tinman?"
I acknowledged the ridiculous title, and at her suggestion carried the luggage up into a room that was evidently to be prepared for Murray Olivant; it wasa large room on the first floor. My own was at the top of the house—a little meagre room, with odds and ends of furniture in it. I saw that she was looking at me curiously as I stood in this little room; I had a dreadful fear for the moment—ridiculous though it was—that she must know my real name.
"I have given you a lot of trouble, miss," I said, for the want of something better to say.
She shook her head. "Oh, I don't mind," she replied. "You see, in these days, Tinman, we have no servants—at least, only the woman you saw, and a young girl. Not that it matters much, because there is only my father and myself. He wants to see you; will you come down, please?"
I was following her down the half-lighted staircase in that silent house when she turned suddenly, and waited for me; dropped her hand on my arm, and spoke in a whisper. "Have you ever seen ghosts, Tinman?"
"Yes," I faltered, staring at her, and beginning to shake.
"There are ghosts in this house," she whispered, glancing about her quickly. "I hear them rustling on the stairs, and in the old rooms that are shut up, and at night among the trees. You needn't be afraid; they're nothing to do with you."
There were ghosts enough for me in that place, Heaven knows; they were everywhere about me that night. For I was a boy again, dreaming the hopeless dreams of the past, and seeing everywhere the Barbara I had lost in this Barbara of the silent house. I found that Lucas Savell had lost his good-humoured look, and carried a face of fretful melancholy; his hands shook and trembled as he stood looking at me, and holding the letter I had brought.
"Mr. Murray Olivant gives his orders—and weobey," he said bitterly, as the letter crackled in his fingers. "We make welcome those he brings or sends to us; we have no choice in the matter." Then, as Barbara laid a light hand on his, he seemed to recollect the part he had to play, and smiled and nodded, and changed his tone. "Of course, he's always welcome—and any one he sends is sure of a welcome," he said. "He comes to-morrow? I'm glad—very glad."
I was left to my own devices that night, after I had had a meal that was provided for me by the woman who had first admitted me to the house. She was a morose, sullen sort of creature, and she asked no questions and gave me no information. As soon as I could escape I went out into the grounds, and walked about there for a time in the long-neglected paths, and on the terrace where long ago I had stood with Barbara on the night she bade me farewell. And presently from the lighted room within the sound of music came, and the new Barbara's voice floated out to me.
I was standing there listening, when I became suddenly alive to the fact that I was not alone on the terrace. I had been standing with half-closed eyes, drinking in the melody, when I became aware that out of the shadows of the garden one shadow had detached itself, and was creeping noiselessly towards the lighted windows. At first the thing was so impalpable, and was, moreover, so unlikely, that I took no notice of it; but presently it stopped just beyond the broad track of light from the windows, and I saw that it was a woman, dressed in black. In that neglected place, and outside that house of ghosts, it was so strange that I felt my hair rise, and a curious tingling sensation in my throat. And for a long time, as it seemed, I remained staring at it, until, just as I was gaining courage to move towards it, I found that it had meltedinto the other shadows of the garden, and was gone. My courage had returned by that time, and I went quickly after it; but, though I looked in all directions, I saw nothing.
I went back to the house, and entered just in time to see Barbara crossing the hall with a tray in her hands, on which was a decanter and a glass; some old instinct made me step forward to relieve her of it; she smiled, and shook her head, but I persisted, and took the tray from her.
"It's very good of you, Tinman," she said; "it's for my father."
I carried the tray into that room that overlooked the terrace, and set it down at Lucas Savell's elbow. He stared at me in surprise for a moment, but said nothing; his daughter, coming after me, asked that I would draw the curtains; I had a pleasant feeling for a moment that she liked to have me there. I moved across to the windows, to fasten the shutters before drawing the curtains; and as I did so glanced back for a moment over my shoulder at her. She was bending over her father, with an arm about his shoulders; she seemed to be pleading with him, and he petulantly setting her aside.
I turned quickly to the window, with the shutter in my hand, and was confronted with a face, staring in. I was so astounded for a moment that I stood there, staring in turn; my eyes seemed to hold the eyes in the white face outside. Then, as I gave a sort of frightened cry, the face was gone, so suddenly that I might never have seen it at all. I fumbled with the window, and got it open, and stepped out on to the terrace. There was no one there.
"Did you speak, Tinman?" asked the girl; and then, as I did not reply, she came near to me. "What's the matter?"
"I thought—thought I saw some one—something," I replied blunderingly.
She laughed as she helped me with the shutters.
"You're seeing the ghosts, Tinman," she whispered.
I slept but badly that night; it seemed so strange that I should be under that roof in these days of ruin and disaster—hiding, as it were, from the sight of men, and striving to plot, in my own feeble futile way, against forces that must in time inevitably overwhelm and sweep me away. I had been a poor prisoner for so many years; I was like a child in the world now, with whatever powers I had once had dulled and blunted. Passionately I desired to help this girl, who already smiled at me with the eyes of her dead mother, and whose speaking of that absurd name of mine—Tinman—was like a caress. Yet what could I do?—how could I help her or the boy she loved?
I thought, too, more than once of that shadowy figure I had seen on the terrace, hovering like a lost soul outside the house—of that face that had stared in at me from the darkness outside into the room where the father and daughter were. Unless by any chance I had been deceived, who was this woman who moved silently about the grounds at night, and what was her interest in the girl? I tried to dismiss from my mind the whole thing as a mere hallucination—a something bred of all the dreams that once had been mine in that house; but I could not shut out that face that had stared in at me. I remembered how theeyes had held mine for one long moment before I cried out; I remembered in a puzzled way that there had been something curiously familiar about them—as though that figure, too, had come out of the dreams of the past to haunt me. I remembered what the girl had said on the staircase about the ghosts in the great dreary house; I found myself sitting up in bed in the dark room, with my hands clasped round my knees, thinking about it all, and asking myself over and over again what I should do. Almost I wished myself back in my cell in prison, with the certain knowledge upon me that nothing could ever disturb me there, and that the world outside was dead. I hated the thought that I had been dragged out again into such a tangle as this.
Better resolves came with the morning; the wintry sunlight seemed to warm me, and to warm any faint resolution that was beginning to shape itself in my mind. I would be strong and watchful; I held a power here that no one suspected, because I knew so much, and had loved so strongly, and was, after all, only a poor creature with whom fate had done its worst and could do no more. Yes—I would be strong.
There was, of course, nothing for me to do, save to kill time; I was allowed to wander about as I liked. Yet there was in me an insane desire to see the girl—to watch this new Barbara that was to me the old Barbara come alive again. I hung about, foolishly enough, on the chance of seeing her—watched her when presently she went out of the house and started for a walk. She was so much to me, and I desired so strongly to watch over her, that I found myself following, perhaps with the fear that some harm might come to her, and that I might be able to prevent it.
I had meant, of course, to keep out of her way; Ihad not intended that she should see me. But as I was going on eagerly to turn the corner of a wall round which she had gone, I came face to face with her; she was turning back, and so had met me. I stood shamed and foolish before her.
"Tinman! Were you following me?"
I could not lie to her; I raised my eyes pleadingly to hers, and stammered that I had followed her from the house.
"But why? Were you spying upon me?" She drew herself up, and looked at me scornfully; I trembled before her like a beaten dog. "I should have remembered that you are the servant of that man," she said.
I had almost flung myself at her feet; I know that I stretched out my hands to her, and clasped them in my frantic eagerness to make her understand. "Don't think that—don't believe it!" I exclaimed. "You don't understand—and I may not tell you; but I am your friend. If I could tell you what is in this poor bruised and broken heart of mine, you would understand, and would pity me and trust me. I am your friend—and his."
"His?" She looked at me with a sudden frown of astonishment.
"The boy you love—the boy who meets you sometimes in secret——"
"Ah! you have been spying, then!" she cried, drawing away from me.
"No—no—no; indeed I have not. It was by the merest accident I saw you meet him in the woods, and no living soul knows of that but myself. If I could only make you trust me!"
She came nearer to me—looked at me closely. "Who are you, or what were you?" she asked in a whisper. "You are no servant; you speak like agentleman. Who are you—and what have you to do with me, or—or with any one else that concerns me?"
"I am one who died long, long ago," I said to her. "If you think of me at all, think of me as some one who long ago touched such a story as yours—such a story of love and hope and faith, all broken and cast in the dust. Think of me as some one who loved—and lost what I loved; think of me as some one who, seeing you as young and fair and bright as the woman I loved, would give the very heart out of me to see you happy. As God's above me, I'm your friend!"
She looked at me in wonder, but I saw that she believed me; I think she was half inclined for a moment to confide in me. If she had done so then, much of the horror and tragedy and despair that were to come upon us both and upon others might have been averted. But I suppose she remembered that I was only Tinman, the servant of the man who had that power over her father and herself; she shook her head perplexedly, and turned away.
"You must not follow me," she said.
"I will not again," I assured her. "But you are the only creature on earth that has spoken gently to me for many, many years; I only followed you as a dog might do, to see that you were safe. Besides, you look at me out of the eyes of a woman I loved—a woman who is dead."
I turned, and went away quickly on the road back to the house. In a moment I heard her calling after me, and I turned about and faced her. "Indeed, I do trust you," she whispered, "and I know that you are my friend. Some day you may have a chance to prove that," she added.
"I pray God the time may come soon," I answered fervently, as I took her little hands in my rough ones,and raised them to my lips. It was as though I stood again on that terrace outside the house—a boy of twenty—and bowed my head over the hands of the woman I loved.
I got back to the house in time to see the boy of whom I had been speaking striding towards it. He was but a little in advance of me, and he turned his head sharply on hearing my feet crushing the dead leaves; then waited for me to come up to him. When I reached him he looked me over quickly; I remember that I longed to tell him where Barbara had gone, that he might run to overtake her. But I felt that I had plunged far enough into the story for one day.
"I haven't seen your face before," he said, not ungently. "Do you belong here?"
"Yes, sir—for the present," I replied. "My name is Tinman; I am Mr. Olivant's servant."
He looked at me frowningly for a moment, as we stood together watching each other. "Is my brother here—Mr. Olivant, I mean?"
"He comes to-day, sir, I believe," I replied.
As if in confirmation of my words, I heard the sound of wheels at that moment, and stepped back with young Millard as the fly from the station drove past us towards the house. Murray Olivant was in it; he turned for a moment, and waved a hand towards the young man; me he regarded with a scowl. Arnold Millard walked on quickly after the vehicle, and I followed. The boy was younger and quicker than I was, and he reached the house some few moments before I did. When I got to the door and passed into the hall I saw the pair of them talking—Olivant seated, with his hat on the back of his head, on an oak chest, with his long legs stretched out before him, and the boy facing him. I was obliged to pass them to go intothe house; I was slipping past when Olivant called to me.
"Tinman, I want you." He turned to his brother, and spoke insolently enough. "That's the last word I have to say about the matter; I can't do anything for you at the moment. You shall have your money all in good time, but you mustn't be so deuced sudden about it. Where are you staying? I didn't know you were down here at all."
"I'm staying at theGeorge," said the boy. "But I tell you, you must let me have some money to go on with; I'm nearly penniless. And, after all, Murray, it isn't as if it were your money; you're only holding it for me."
"I know that; I don't need reminding of my responsibilities," retorted the other. "I can't talk about it now," he added, getting up as though to put an end to the conversation. "Come up here to-night—dine here, if you like—and I'll tell you what I'm prepared to do. I can't say more than that. Will you come?"
The boy's face had flushed darkly red; there was a pleased look in his eyes. "Of course I'll come, Murray—if Mr. Savell will have me," he replied eagerly.
Murray Olivant laughed. "Oh, it's nothing to do with Mr. Savell; I do as I like in this house. Dinner at eight; we'll talk business afterwards. Now, Tinman, just come and attend to me, will you?"
He strode away up the stairs, and I meekly followed him; it did not seem at all necessary that he should be announced in that house as having arrived. He curtly told me to unpack his things; cursed me a little because I had forgotten that important duty before. While I unstrapped the luggage, and knelt beside it to take the things out, he seated himself in an easy-chair, and watched me, and asked questions. Heseemed to be in a good temper, and inclined to be indulgent with me.
"Well, my faithful one, and how do you like coming back among the ghosts?" he asked. Then, as I glanced up at him with what I suppose was a scared look in my eyes, he went on gaily: "There—there—you needn't look so frightened; I won't give the game away. But tell me—what do you think of the place—and the people?—how do you like it all?"
"I have not yet had time to notice anything," I said, without looking up.
"Nonsense; you can't fool me in that fashion. You've been keenly watching everything—eager to find out all you can. What of Savell?"
"He seems much broken and changed," I replied reluctantly.
"Bah!—he's a fool—and a whining fool at that," he exclaimed violently. "He's no good to himself or any one else; he muddles himself with drink night after night; one of these days he'll go off suddenly—snuffed out like a candle in a draught. What of the others?"
"The—others?" I looked up at him stupidly.
"Well, theother, if you like," he retorted. "The child—Barbara. What of her?"
"She is very beautiful—and very sweet—and kind," I faltered, bending low over my work.
"Kind, is she?" he said, with a laugh. "So you've begun already to screw your way into her good graces, have you? That's right, Tinman; that's what you're down here for, you old rascal. Watch all she does—follow her about—pounce on any letters that may chance to come for her, and let me see them first. Spy on her, you dog—find out all about her."
I did not answer; I was glad to think that this brute could have so little knowledge of me as to supposethat I should do it. He was evidently satisfied with my silence; after a moment or two he went on talking again.
"You're going to see company, Tinman. I've got a friend coming down here to stay—man named Dawkins. He's a sly devil, and I may want him; incidentally, you can watch him too. Fanshawe also is coming."
"Jervis Fanshawe?" I looked up at him quickly in surprise.
"Yes, but not here. He'll lie low in the town; I'm going to get a lodging for him. Stirring times, Tinman—eh?"
He got up, and strode about the room, rubbing his hands and laughing; I did not dare ask what was going to happen. Presently he stopped, and faced me as I knelt beside a portmanteau. "Look up at me, Tinman, and speak the truth, if you can. You saw that young man downstairs just now?"
I nodded slowly. "I saw him coming up to the house," I replied truthfully; "he asked who I was, and whether you had arrived."
"Ever seen him before?" he demanded. "Look up at me; I want no lies."
I looked up at him, but I lied nevertheless. "Never," I replied steadily.
"The young fool thinks he's in love with the girl, and believes that she's in love with him. It's all right while hethinksso; but I don't mean to have any nonsense. He's another one to be watched, Tinman; if by any chance you should discover them meeting, or whispering together, or any such nonsense as that—let me know. Do you hear?" He kicked me softly on the leg as he asked the question.
"I hear," I replied.
"Very well then—see that you do it. And don'tforget, at all times when you may be tempted to do anything against my interests, that I've taken you out of the gutter, and that I'll kick you back there again, to starve, if you don't behave yourself. I don't do dirty work myself; I employ men like you to do it for me. Understand that?" He kicked me softly again, and laughed.
"Yes, I understand," I replied.
"Good. See that you remember it," he retorted. "Understand also that in this house I do as I like, and that my word is law. Above all things, be meek and humble with me, Tinman; I want no fiery words or looks from you. Your fiery youth is gone past, and is done with."
"I know that," I said, almost in a whisper.
"Yet you killed a man once, Tinman, so I've been told," he added musingly. "It doesn't seem possible, when one looks at you now, that you had hot blood in you to that extent. What did it feel like—to kill the man?"
"I have forgotten," I told him. Yet I thought then, as I knelt and looked up at him, that it might be possible that I should know what it felt like again, if he drove me too hard or goaded me too much. The shabby garment of my slavery was slipping off me, rag by rag, and leaving me something of what I had been before; I began to be dimly afraid of myself, and to what my inborn recklessness might drive me. For I, who had died once, had no fear of any consequences. I wondered if he thought of that, or remembered it.
He put an added torture upon me that night; he made me wait at table. I don't know how it was arranged that I should do that; I only know that at the last moment I was told that I must be there to hand the dishes—above all, to stand behind his chair, and wait upon him specially. And so I stood in thatroom where I had once been a guest, and waited upon him and the others humbly enough.
At one end of the table sat Lucas Savell, with his trembling hands fluttering about his plate and his glass; at the other end—defiant, intolerant, insolent,—sat Murray Olivant, talking loudly, and generally dominating the occasion. At one side of the table, at his right hand, sat Barbara, and next to her the man Dawkins—a man who may best be described as one having a perpetual smile. He even seemed to smile as he ate; the most commonplace remark addressed to him was met always with that smile, which seemed indeed a part of the man. It was a smile that became absolutely slavish whenever Murray Olivant threw a word to him; but it was a veiled insolence when Lucas Savell ventured a remark.
On the other side of the table young Arnold Millard was seated, watching the girl. I saw ghosts again then, when I saw Barbara with eyes downcast, and when I watched the boy's hungry glances at her; I—the servant who waited, and was unknown in that house save to one man—saw myself watching hopelessly enough the Barbara who was dead; my heart ached for the boy, as it had ached years before for poor Charlie Avaline.
The insolence of Olivant grew as the meal progressed. I saw him once stretch out his arm, and lay a hand strongly on the hand of the girl as it rested on the table. "Now, my pretty Barbara," he said, "let's have a word from you. You shouldn't be dumb at your father's table."
"Is it my father's table?" she asked him, as she raised her white face for a moment to his.
"Oh, don't let's talk business, for the Lord's sake!" he exclaimed. "At least, you might try to cheer our friend opposite here," he went on, indicating the boy;"he's as glum as you are. What's the matter, Arnold?—are you in love?"
"I should scarcely talk about it, if I were," replied the boy, with a glance at Olivant, and another at the imprisoned hand of the girl.
"Of course you're in love," went on Olivant, still holding that little hand tightly, and glancing from one to the other across the table. "I wonder what she's like; I wonder what sort of beauty would most attract you. Come, Dawkins, let's have your opinion."
"Oh, my dear Olivant, don't ask me!" exclaimed Dawkins protestingly, and smiling more than ever. "Perhaps, if I might hazard a guess——" He glanced as he spoke at Barbara next to him.
"I think Arnold would take rather to a full-blown sort of beauty—something big and high-coloured," broke in Murray Olivant. "He'd be a bit of an amateur at the game—and I doubt if she'd have any money."
"Let go my hand!" It was the merest whisper, but I heard it as I stood behind Olivant; I saw the girl's distressed face, and I saw, too, that the boy's hand had gripped a knife beside him, and that his look was absolutely murderous. Olivant bent towards the girl as though he did not understand; looked down at the hand he held, and laughed.
"But it's such a pretty hand," he said—"belonging to a pretty Barbara. Tell me, Dawkins," he called to the other man, "hasn't one a right to hold a lady's hand if one likes?"
"Oh, surely, surely," said Mr. Dawkins. "Most certainly."
Even as the words were spoken Barbara wrenched her hand away, and sprang up; it seemed as though Olivant and the boy sprang to their feet at the sametime. Barbara went quickly to her father, and whispered him for a moment, while he feebly protested; then she made towards the door. The boy sprang to the door to open it; Olivant moved quickly round the table to intercept them both.
"Here, come back, come back! What the devil——"
The door was opened, and the girl was gone; in the tense silence that had fallen upon the room I heard distinctly what Arnold Millard said, as he stood with his back to the door looking at Olivant.
"Go and sit down!" Then, as the other man still stood blusteringly before him, he made a sudden movement, and I heard the words again: "Go and sit down!"
Murray Olivant backed away from him, and got to his place at the table; sank into his chair with an uncomfortable laugh. The boy, after a moment's hesitation, came back and sat down also. I noticed that Savell's weak hands were fluttering about nervously, but he said nothing, and the meal was resumed in silence. Suddenly, however, Olivant, desiring some vent for his feelings, turned fiercely upon me who was standing looking at him.
"What the devil are you staring like that for?" he demanded ferociously. "Don't you see that my glass is empty?—can't you see that other people want wine also? What in the name of all that's wonderful do you think I keep a lout like you for?"
I went about my duties, and the man relapsed into a sulky silence. He pushed his food away from him, and began to mutter presently that he didn't know what the world was coming to, when puppies were allowed to bully their betters, and when slips of girls failed to understand what a joke was. And at last called down the length of the table to that poor master of the house, Lucas Savell.
"Come now, Mr. Savell, if you've quite finished we can adjourn. I don't want to sit here all night."
"Quite finished, Olivant, quite finished," said Savell hastily, as he rose from his chair. "Sorry there should have been any little unpleasantness—but perhaps you don't quite understand the child. She didn't mean any unkindness——" His voice trailed off, as he went muttering and mumbling from the room. At a sign from Olivant the man Dawkins followed him; Olivant remained behind with the boy. Of me he took no notice; I was but a piece of furniture in his eyes.
"Well, my friend," began Murray Olivant, setting one foot upon a chair, and leaning his arm on his raised knee—"I believe you want some money, don't you? Don't be afraid to speak; you must surely understand that I am in the best mood for giving you all you ask."
"I have asked for nothing," replied Arnold. "One thing, however, I demand."
"Hear him, Tinman; he demands something, this young jackanapes," exclaimed Olivant, turning to me, and so dragging me into the business.
"I demand that you shall behave decently to that young lady whom you insulted just now," said the boy, growing very white, but speaking very distinctly. "You dare not play the brute and the bully with men, not even when, like my unlucky self, they're poor as Job and are dependent upon you; you must bully women instead."
"Silence—you young fool!" exclaimed Olivant. "Do you think I'll be browbeaten by you? As for your money, you can wait for it until I choose to give it to you."
"There is no question of any gift; the money belongs to me by right," exclaimed the boy. "I have had to beg for every penny that I have ever had, althoughit has all been mine from the beginning; if I can't get it from you, I'll take some other measures—legally."
"Hear this beggar, Tinman; hear what he's going to do!" cried Olivant, pointing to the boy, but looking round at me. "It's a proper way to get what you want, that is." He took a turn or two about the room, and then came back to where Arnold was still standing. "Let's have an understanding—once for all," he said, in a changed voice. "Before you go out of this house I want you to know that this tone of yours must cease. You'll have money when I care to pay it to you; and for the future you'll keep out of my way, and out of the way of my friends. You have dared to lecture me as to how I shall behave to this pretty baggage in this house; she's nothing to you, and never will be. One of these days she's going to belong to me—by her father's wish; you'll find yourself left out in the cold. I can put up with a boy's foolish whims and tricks for a time; but I've put up with yours too long. Now you can go."
"I shall go when it suits me; this house is not yours," replied the other coolly, as he walked to the door, and opened it, and went out.
After a moment or two Murray Olivant followed him; he seemed at a loss to know what to do. I heard his voice raised presently in the room on the other side of the hall; I opened the door and listened. I was able to see out into the hall also; I saw that Lucas Savell stood at the foot of the stairs, as if he were just about to climb them, and that Olivant was speaking to him in his strident voice.
"Fetch her down, I say. I won't have her sulking upstairs. If she won't come for you, I'll come myself."
"My dear Olivant!" began Savell pleadingly; but the brutal voice broke in again quickly.
"There—no words about it; tell her she's to come down. It's an insult to me and to my guest."
Savell went slowly up the stairs, and Olivant went back into the other room. Presently, through the half-opened door, I saw Savell returning, with Barbara walking by his side; she walked stiff and straight, as her mother once had done on that very staircase, when she went out of the house for the last time with her husband. They disappeared together into that other room.
For my own part, I was in a fever of doubt and dread; I did not know what was going to happen. I knew that presently the boy must leave the house in any case; I knew, too, that that useless father would presently drink himself into a muddled condition, and so would remain, until in the small hours he contrived to crawl away to bed. And I doubted and feared the temper of Murray Olivant, as much as I doubted and feared that perpetual smile on the face of his friend Dawkins. I resolved to watch and to wait; for this night at least I was again that unhappy boy, Charlie Avaline, who had once suffered such tortures as young Arnold Millard must be suffering now.
I crept out on to the terrace, outside those lighted windows; peering in, I saw Olivant lounging at the piano, evidently talking to the girl, who was seated there; young Millard was listening to something Dawkins was saying, but was evidently paying no attention to him; his eyes were upon the two at the piano. Presently, as if he could bear it no longer, he made a movement to go; shook hands with Savell, who feebly responded, and then crossed towards Barbara. She rose to meet him, and with a courage for which I should scarcely have given her credit, walked with him towards the door. But even there Olivant interposed; took the girl by the arm, and drew heraway. I saw the look in the boy's eyes, and it sunk deep into my mind, so that I did not lightly forget it.
I went back into the house, and presently made my way up towards my room. While I was yet on the stairs, a door down below me opened; peering over, I saw Barbara come out into the hall. At the same moment Murray Olivant came out also, and behind him in the doorway I saw the smiling face of Dawkins. Olivant seized the girl before she had set foot upon the stairs.
"Come, my dear, you're not going like that!" His voice was thick and unsteady as he lurched against her.
"Let me go!" she cried, in a subdued voice. "Let me go, Mr. Olivant—or shall I call my father?"
"Call him, by all means; he's not likely to hear, or to trouble much if he does hear," exclaimed Olivant. "Come, you little witch—you're only shy because Dawkins is looking on. You shall kiss me good-night at least!"
She broke away from him, and darted up the stairs. He stumbled in his blind rush after her, and she fled past me like a hare; I heard her sobbing as she went, and it seemed to set my numbed blood on fire. As he stumbled up the stairs he came suddenly face to face with me, standing looking at him. Dawkins, still grinning awkwardly, stood in the doorway below.
"Out of the way, you fool!" exclaimed Olivant, making a rush at me; but I did not move. I stood like a thing of stone, staring at him, although in my heart I was desperately afraid. Not of him—never of him for a moment; but of what I might do.
"Stand back!" I said, in a voice that was not in the least like my own. "Stand back!"
"What do you mean?" he asked, involuntarily recoiling a step.
"Stand back!" I said again. "I killed a man once; there is a dread in me that I might do it again!"
He slowly retreated down two or three steps, still looking at me; muttered something about talking to me in the morning; then stumbled down to rejoin his friend, and disappeared with him into the room. And I sat on the stairs in the darkness, shaking from head to foot, and desperately afraid of myself.
I kept that watch upon the stairs until long after the house was quiet. I drew back into a recess once, when Murray Olivant and Dawkins went roaring up to their respective rooms; and again when presently Lucas Savell fumbled his trembling way up to his particular quarters. Even after that there was a great deal of noise for a time, because Dawkins and Olivant appeared to take a particular delight in shouting to each other from one room to the other as they undressed.
But presently even they were quiet, and the dreary old house seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the shadows of the night. Keeping my lonely watch there, I dreamed of all that had happened in the years that were dead; thought chiefly, too, of my own utter helplessness now. I was to have been strong and purposeful; I was to have helped those who, like myself in an earlier time, were helpless; I laughed bitterly to think how weak I was, and how little I could do. I tried to tell myself what my years were, and how I ought to be strong and lusty; and then I remembered that my hair was grey, and my face shrunken and old, and my body weak. I had thought that I could cope with the powers of position and strength and riches; and I could do nothing.
Thinking I heard a noise above, I determined at lastthat I would not go to bed yet; the girl seemed so absolutely alone in that great house. I knew the room in which she slept, and I presently crept up there, and lay down across her doorway, to snatch some sleep in that fashion. Even as I fell asleep I smiled to think that it might have been the old Barbara I was guarding, and not this new one, after all.
I awoke with a light on my face, and the consciousness that some one was looking down at me. I started up in a sitting posture, only half awake, and saw that the door of the room was open, and that Barbara stood there, with a candle in her hand, bending over me. Our faces were very close together when she spoke in a surprised whisper—
"Tinman! What are you doing there?"
"I did not mean that you should be disturbed," I said. "I only wanted to feel that you were safe."
"Dear kind Tinman!" she whispered, as the tears gathered in her eyes. "I have not slept at all; I have lain awake—thinking. You moved in your sleep, I think, and brushed against the door, and I wondered what it was. Come inside a moment."
She spoke in the faintest whisper, stopping every now and then to listen intently. I got slowly to my feet, and went just inside the door of the room; she closed the door, and stood there with the candle in her hand, looking at me. I remember that she looked very frail and young, with her hair falling about her shoulders.
"What am I to do, Tinman?" she asked.
I shook my head. "Indeed, I don't know," I replied. "Life is always so hard, and there are so many to make it harder for us. You did not quite trust me to-day when I spoke to you," I added regretfully, "or I might be able to speak to you more frankly."
"I do trust you," she said earnestly. "You stoodbetween me and that brute to-night; I peeped out and saw you. I could not hear what you said; I only saw him go down again. I bless you for that, Tinman."
"You see me only as a servant," I whispered, "but I was not always like that. I want to say to you what is in my heart. Your eyes smile at me, and so I can speak with more confidence. You love this boy?"
To my surprise she was not in the least annoyed at my bluntness of speech; she blushed quickly and prettily, and nodded. "Yes," she said.
"And it is easy to see that he loves you. And you ask me what you are to do?" I went on. "Surely it is in your own hands, and in his?"
"But I would like you to tell me," she coaxed. "Of course I know in my own mind what I want to do, or I suppose I shouldn't be a woman; but one likes to hear what a friend will say about a matter like this. Tell me."
"I should advise you—both of you—to get away from this house, and to start your lives in the best sense somewhere else," I whispered earnestly. "You have no friends here—no, not even your father; he would marry you to this other man in sheer dread of him. Youth only comes to you once, child, and you must grasp it with both hands, and hold it as long as possible. Take your lives into your hands, and go away, out into the big clean world that loves lovers."
"You say just what is in my own heart, Tinman," she whispered, smiling, "and you speak as though you knew all about it."
"Oh, ever so long ago I knew something about it—and one never forgets. My life went down into the shadowy places of the world, and was wrecked and lost; I would not have yours do that."
"Why do you think so tenderly of me?" she asked.
"Because you look at me with the eyes of the woman I loved," I answered her.