Grace started as if she had been shot, and covered her face with her hands.
"Yes! and want me to betray myself—to tell a lie about myself, that you may curry favour with him—a penniless, unbelieving—"
"Mother!" almost shrieked Grace, "I can bear no more! Say that it is a lie, and then kill me if you will!"
"It is a lie, from beginning to end! What else should it be?" And the woman, in the hurry of her passion, confirmed the equivocation with an oath; and then ran on, as if to turn her own thoughts, as well as Grace's, into commonplaces about "a poor old mother, who cares for nothing but you; who has worked her fingers to the bone for years to leave you a little money when she is gone! I wish I were gone! I wish I were out of this wretched ungrateful world, I do! To have my own child turn against me in my old age!"
Grace lifted her hands from her face, and looked steadfastly at her mother. And behold, she knew not how or why, she felt that her mother had forsworn herself. A strong shudder passed through her; she rose and was leaving the room in silence.
"Where are you going, hussy? Stop!" screamed her mother between her teeth, her rage and cruelty rising, as it will with weak natures, in the very act of triumph,—"to your young man?"
"To pray," said Grace, quietly; and locking herself into the empty schoolroom, gave vent to all her feelings, but not in tears.
How she upbraided herself!—She had not used her strength; she had not told her mother all her heart. And yet how could she tell her heart? How face her mother with such vague suspicions, hardly supported by a single fact? How argue it out against her like a lawyer, and convict her to her face? What daughter could do that, who had human love and reverence left in her? No! to touch her inward witness, as the Quakers well and truly term it, was the only method: and it had failed. "God help me!" was her only cry: but the help did not come yet; there came over her instead a feeling of utter loneliness. Willis dead; Thurnall gone; her mother estranged; and, like a child lost upon a great moor, she looked round all heaven and earth, and there was none to counsel, none to guide— perhaps not even God. For would He help her as long as she lived in sin? And was she not living in sin, deadly sin, as long as she knew what she was sure she knew, and left the wrong unrighted?
It is sometimes true, the popular saying, that sunshine comes after storm. Sometimes true, or who could live? but not always: not even often. Equally true is the popular antithet, that misfortunes never come single; that in most human lives there are periods of trouble, blow following blow, wave following wave, from opposite and unexpected quarters, with no natural or logical sequence, till all God's billows have gone over the soul.
How paltry and helpless, in such dark times, are all theories of mere self-education; all proud attempts, like that of Göthe's Wilhelm Meister, to hang self-poised in the centre of the abyss, and there organise for oneself a character by means of circumstances! Easy enough, and graceful enough does that dream look, while all the circumstances themselves—all which stands around—are easy and graceful, obliging and commonplace, like the sphere of petty experiences with which Göthe surrounds his insipid hero. Easy enough it seems for a man to educate himself without God, as long as he lies comfortably on a sofa, with a cup of coffee and a review: but what if that "daemonic element of the universe," which Göthe confessed, and yet in his luxuriousness tried to ignore, because he could not explain—what if that broke forth over the graceful and prosperous student, as it may any moment! What if some thing, or some person, or many things, or many persons, one after the other (questions which he must get answered then, or die), took him up and dashed him down, again, and again, and again, till he was ready to cry, "I reckoned till morning that like a lion he will break all my bones; from morning till evening he will make an end of me"? What if he thus found himself hurled perforce amid the real universal experiences of humanity; and made free, in spite of himself, by doubt and fear and horror of great darkness, of the brotherhood of woe, common alike to the simplest peasant-woman, and to every great soul perhaps, who has left his impress and sign manual upon the hearts of after generations? Jew, Heathen, or Christian; men of the most opposite creeds and aims; whether it be Moses or Socrates, Isaiah or Epictetus, Augustine or Mohammed, Dante or Bernard, Shakspeare or Bacon, or Göthe's self, no doubt, though in his tremendous pride he would not confess it even to himself,—each and all of them have this one fact in common—that once in their lives, at least, they have gone down into the bottomless pit, and "stato all' inferno"—as the children used truly to say of Dante; and there, out of the utter darkness, have asked the question of all questions—"Is there a God? And if there be, what is he doing with me?"
What refuge then in self-education; when a man feels himself powerless in the gripe of some unseen and inevitable power, and knows not whether it be chance, or necessity, or a devouring fiend? To wrap himself sternly in himself, and cry, "I will endure, though all the universe be against me;"—how fine it sounds!—But who has done it? Could a man do it perfectly but for one moment,—could he absolutely and utterly for one moment isolate himself, and accept his own isolation as a fact, he were then and there a madman or a suicide. As it is, his nature, happily too weak for that desperate self-assertion, falls back recklessly on some form, more or less graceful according to the temperament, of the ancient panacea, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Why should a man educate self, when he knows not whither he goes, what will befall him to-night? No. There is but one escape, one chink through which we may see light; one rock on which our feet may find standing-place, even in the abyss: and that is the belief, intuitive, inspired, due neither to reasoning nor to study, that the billows are God's billows; and that though we go down to hell, He is there also;— the belief that not we, but He, is educating us; that these seemingly fantastic and incoherent miseries, storm following earthquake, and earthquake fire, as if the caprice of all the demons were let loose against us, have in His Mind a spiritual coherence, an organic unity and purpose (though we see it not); that sorrows do not come singly, only because He is making short work with our spirits; and because the more effect He sees produced by one blow, the more swiftly He follows it up by another; till, in one great and varied crisis, seemingly long to us, but short enough compared with immortality, our spirits may be—
"Heated hot with burning fears,And bathed in baths of hissing tears,And battered with the strokes of doom,To shape and use."
And thus, perhaps, it was with poor Grace Harvey. At least, happily for her, she began after a while to think that it was so. Only after a while, though. There was at first a phase of repining, of doubt, almost of indignation against high heaven. Who shall judge her? What blame if the crucified one writhe when the first nail is driven? What blame if the stoutest turn sick and giddy at the first home-thrust of that sword which pierces the joints and marrow, and lays bare to self the secrets of the heart? God gives poor souls time to recover their breaths, ere He strikes again; and if He be not angry, why should we condemn?
Poor Grace! Her sorrows had been thickening fast during the last few months. She was schoolmistress again, true; but where were her children? Those of them whom she loved best, were swept away by the cholera; and could she face the remnant, each in mourning for a parent or a brother? That alone was grief enough for her; and yet that was the lightest of all her griefs. She loved Tom Thurnall—how much, she dared not tell herself; she longed to "save" him. She had thought, and not untruly, during the past cholera weeks, that he was softened, opened to new impressions: but he had avoided her more than ever—perhaps suspected her again more than ever—and now he was gone, gone for ever. That, too, was grief enough alone. But darkest and deepest of all, darker and deeper than the past shame of being suspected by him she loved, was the shame of suspecting her own mother—of believing herself, as she did, privy to that shameful theft, and yet unable to make restitution. There was the horror of all horrors, the close prison which seemed to stifle her whole soul. The only chink through which a breath of air seemed to come, and keep her heart alive, was the hope that somehow, somewhere, she might find that belt, and restore it without her mother's knowledge.
But more—the first of September was come and gone; the bill for five-and-twenty pounds was due, and was not met. Grace, choking down her honest pride, went off to the grocer, and, with tears which he could not resist, persuaded him to renew the bill for one month more; and now that month was all but past, and yet there was no money. Eight or ten people who owed Mrs. Harvey money had died of the cholera. Some, of course, had left no effects; and all hope of their working out their debts was gone. Some had left money behind them: but it was still in the lawyer's hands, some of it at sea, some on mortgage, some in houses which must be sold; till their affairs were wound up—(a sadly slow affair when a country attorney has a poor man's unprofitable business to transact)—nothing could come in to Mrs. Harvey. To and fro she went with knitted brow and heavy heart; and brought home again only promises, as she had done a hundred times before. One day she went up to Mrs. Heale. Old Heale owed her thirteen pounds and more: but that was not the least reason for paying. His cholera patients had not paid him; and whether Heale had the money by him or not, he was not going to pay his debts till other people paid theirs. Mrs. Harvey stormed; Mrs. Heale gave her as good as she brought; and Mrs. Harvey threatened to County Court her husband; whereon Mrs. Heale,en revanchedragged out the books, and displayed to the poor widow's horror-struck eyes an account for medicine and attendance, on her and Grace, which nearly swallowed up the debt. Poor Grace was overwhelmed when her mother came home and upbraided her, in her despair, with being a burden. Was she not a burden? Must she not be one henceforth? No, she would take in needlework, labour in the fields, heave ballast among the coarse pauper-girls on the quay-pool, anything rather: but how to meet the present difficulty?
"We must sell our furniture, mother!"
"For a quarter of what it's worth? Never, girl! No! The Lord will provide," said she, between her clenched teeth, with a sort of hysteric chuckle. "The Lord will provide!"
"I believe it; I believe it," said poor Grace; "but faith is weak, and the day is very dark, mother."
"Dark, ay? And may be darker, yet; but the Lord will provide. He prepares a table in the wilderness for his saints that the world don't think of."
"Oh, mother! and do you think there is any door of hope?"
"Go to bed, girl; go to bed, and leave me to see to that. Find my spectacles. Wherever have you laid them to, now? I'll look over the books awhile."
"Do let me go over them for you."
"No, you sha'n't! I suppose you'll be wanting to make out your poor old mother's been cheating somebody. Why not, if I'm a thief, Miss, eh?"
"Oh, mother! mother! don't say that again."
And Grace glided out meekly to her own chamber, which was on the ground-floor adjoining the parlour, and there spent more than one hour in prayer, from which no present comfort seemed to come; yet who shall say that it was all unanswered?
At last her mother came upstairs, and put her head in angrily:—"Why ben't you in bed, girl? sitting up this way?"
"I was praying, mother," says Grace, looking up as she knelt.
"Praying! What's the use of praying? and who'll hear you if you pray? What you want's a husband, to keep you out of the workhouse; and you won't get that by kneeling here. Get to bed, I say, or I'll pull you up?"
Grace obeyed uncomplaining, but utterly shocked; though she was not unacquainted with those frightful fits of morose unbelief, even of fierce blasphemy, to which the excitable West-country mind is liable, after having been over-strained by superstitious self-inspection, and by the desperate attempt to prove itself right and safe from frames and feelings, while fact and conscience proclaim it wrong.
The West-country people are apt to attribute these paroxysms to the possession of a devil; and so did Grace that night.
Trembling with terror and loving pity, she lay down, and began to pray afresh for that poor wild mother.
At last the fear crossed her that her mother might make away with herself. But a few years before, another class-leader in Aberalva had attempted to do so, and had all but succeeded. The thought was intolerable. She must go to her; face reproaches, blows, anything. She rose from her bed, and went to the door. It was fastened on the outside.
A cold perspiration stood on her forehead. She opened her lips to shriek to her mother: but checked herself when she heard her stirring gently in the outer room. Her pulses throbbed too loudly at first for her to hear distinctly: but she felt that it was no moment for giving way to emotion; by a strong effort of will, she conquered herself; and then, with that preternatural acuteness of sense which some women possess, she could hear everything her mother was doing. She heard her put on her shawl, her bonnet; she heard her open the front door gently. It was now long past midnight. Whither could she be going at that hour?
She heard her go gently to the left, past the window; and yet her footfall was all but inaudible. No rain had fallen, and her shoes ought to have sounded on the hard earth. She must have taken them off. There, she was stopping, just by the school-door. Now she moved again. She must have stopped to put on her shoes; for now Grace could hear her steps distinctly, down the earth bank, and over the rattling shingle of the beach. Where was she going? Grace must follow!
The door was fast: but in a moment she had removed the table, opened the shutter and the window.
"Thank God that I stayed here on the ground floor, instead of going back to my own room when Major Campbell left. It is a providence! The Lord has not forsaken me yet!" said the sweet saint, as, catching up her shawl, she wrapped it round her, and slipping through the window, crouched under the shadow of the house, and looked for her mother.
She was hurrying over the rocks, a hundred yards off. Whither? To drown herself in the sea? No; she held on along the mid-beach, right across the cove, toward Arthur's Nose. But why? Grace must know.
She felt, she knew not why, that this strange journey, that wild "The Lord will provide," had to do with the subject of her suspicion. Perhaps this was the crisis; perhaps all will he cleared up to-night, for joy or for utter shame.
The tide was low; the beach was bright in the western moonlight: only along the cliff foot lay a strip of shadow a quarter of a mile long, till the Nose, like a great black wall, buried the corner of the cove in darkness.
Along that strip of shadow she ran, crouching; now stumbling over a boulder, now crushing her bare feet between the sharp pebbles, as, heedless where she stepped, she kept her eye fixed on her mother. As if fascinated, she could see nothing else in heaven or earth but that dark figure, hurrying along with a dogged determination, and then stopping a moment to look round, as if in fear of a pursuer. And then Grace lay down on the cold stones, and pressed herself into the very earth; and the moment her mother turned to go forward, sprang up and followed.
And then a true woman's thought flashed across her, and shaped itself into a prayer. For herself she never thought: but if the Coast Guardsman above should see her mother, stop her, question her? God grant that he might be on the other side of the point! And she hurried on again.
Near the Nose the rocks ran high and jagged; her mother held on to them, passed through a narrow chasm, and disappeared.
Grace now, not fifty yards from her, darted out of the shadow into the moonlight, and ran breathlessly toward the spot where she had seen her mother last. Like Anderssen's little sea-maiden she went, every step on sharp knives, across the rough beds of barnacles; but she felt no pain, in the greatness of her terror and her love.
She crouched between the rocks a moment; heard her mother slipping and splashing among the pools; and glided after her like a ghost—a guardian angel rather—till she saw her emerge again for a moment into the moonlight, upon a strip of beach beneath the Nose.
It was a weird and lonely spot; and a dangerous spot withal. For only at low spring-tide could it be reached from the land, and then the flood rose far up the cliff, covering all the shingle, and filling the mouth of a dark cavern. Had her mother gone to that cavern? It was impossible to see, so utterly was the cliff shrouded in shadow.
Shivering with cold and excitement, Grace crouched down, and gazed into the gloom, till her eyes swam, and a hundred fantastic figures, and sparks of fire, seemed to dance between her and the rock. Sparks of fire!—yes; but that last one was no fancy. An actual flash; the crackle and sputter of a match! What could it mean? Another match was lighted; and a moment after, the glare of a lanthorn showed her mother entering beneath the polished arch of rock which glared lurid overhead, like the gateway of the pit of fire.
The light vanished into the windings of the cave. And then Grace, hardly knowing what she did, rushed up the beach, and crouched down once more at the cave's mouth. There she sat, she knew not how long, listening, listening, like a hunted hare; her whole faculties concentrated in the one sense of hearing; her eyes wandering vacantly over the black saws of rock, and glistening oar-weed beds, and bright phosphoric sea. Thank Heaven, there was not a ripple to break the silence. Ah, what was that sound within? She pressed her ear against the rock, to hear more surely. A rumbling as of stones rolled down. And then,—was it a fancy, or were her powers of hearing, intensified by excitement, actually equal to discern the chink of coin? Who knows? but in another moment she had glided in, silently, swiftly, holding her very breath; and saw her mother kneeling on the ground, the lanthorn by her side, and in her hand the long-lost belt.
She did not speak, she did not move. She always knew, in her heart of hearts, that so it was: but when the sin took bodily shape, and was there before her very eyes, it was too dreadful to speak of, to act upon yet. And amid the most torturing horror and disgust of that great sin, rose up in her the divinest love for the sinner; she felt—strange paradox—that she had never loved her mother as she did at that moment. "Oh, that it had been I who had done it, and not she!" And her mother's sin was to her her own sin, her mother's shame her shame, till all sense of her mother's guilt vanished in the light of her divine love. "Oh, that I could take her up tenderly, tell her that all is forgiven and forgotten by man and God!—serve her as I have never served her yet!— nurse her to sleep on my bosom, and then go forth and bear her punishment, even if need be on the gallows-tree!" And there she stood, in a silent agony of tender pity, drinking her portion of the cup of Him who bore the sins of all the world.
Silently she stood; and silently she turned to go, to go home and pray for guidance in that dark labyrinth of confused duties. Her mother heard the rustle; looked up; and sprang to her feet with a scream, dropping gold pieces on the ground.
Her first impulse was wild terror. She was discovered; by whom, she knew not. She clasped her evil treasure to her bosom, and thrusting Grace against the rock, fled wildly out.
"Mother! Mother!" shrieked Grace, rushing after her. The shawl fell from her shoulders. Her mother looked back, and saw the white figure.
"God's angel! God's angel, come to destroy me! as he came to Balaam!" and in the madness of her guilty fancy she saw in Grace's hand the fiery sword which was to smite her.
Another step, looking backward still, and she had tripped over a stone. She fell, and striking the back of her head against the rock, lay senseless.
Tenderly Grace lifted her up: went for water to a pool near by; bathed her face, calling on her by every term of endearment. Slowly the old woman recovered her consciousness, but showed it only in moans. Her head was cut and bleeding. Grace bound it up, and then taking that fatal belt, bound it next to her own heart, never to be moved from thence till she should put it into the hands of him to whom it belonged.
And then she lifted up her mother.
"Come home, darling mother;" and she tried to make her stand and walk.
The old woman only moaned, and waved her away impatiently. Grace put her on her feet; but she fell again. The lower limbs seemed all but paralysed.
Slowly that sweet saint lifted her, and laid her on her own back; and slowly she bore her homeward, with aching knees and bleeding feet; while before her eyes hung the picture of Him who bore his cross up Calvary, till a solemn joy and pride in that sacred burden seemed to intertwine itself with her deep misery. And fainting every moment with pain and weakness, she still went on, as if by supernatural strength: and murmured—
"Thou didst bear more for me, and shall not I bear even this for Thee?"
Surely, if blest spirits can weep and smile over the woes and heroisms of us mortal men, faces brighter than the stars looked down on that fair girl that night, and in loving sympathy called her, too, blest.
At last it was over. Undiscovered she reached home, laid her mother on the bed, and tended her till morning; but long ere morning dawned stupor had changed into delirium, and Grace's ears were all on fire with words —which those who have ever heard will have no heart to write.
And now, by one of those strange vagaries, in which epidemics so often indulge, appeared other symptoms; and by day-dawn cholera itself.
Heale, though recovering, was still too weak to be of use: but, happily, the medical man sent down by the Board of Health was still in the town.
Grace sent for him; but he shook his head after the first look. The wretched woman's ravings at once explained the case, and made it, in his eyes, all but hopeless.
The sudden shock to body and mind, the sudden prostration of strength, had brought out the disease which she had dreaded so intensely, and against which she had taken so many precautions, and which yet lay, all the while, lurking unfelt in her system.
A hideous eight-and-forty hours followed. The preachers and class-leaders came to pray over the dying woman: but she screamed to Grace to send them away. She had just sense enough left to dread that she might betray her own shame. Would she have the new clergyman then? No; she would have no one;—no one could help her! Let her only die in peace!
And Grace closed the door upon all but the doctor, who treated the wild sufferer's wild words as the mere fancies of delirium; and then Grace watched and prayed, till she found herself alone with the dead.
She wrote a letter to Thurnall—
"Sir—I have found your belt, and all the money, I believe and trust, which it contained. If you will be so kind as to tell me where and how I shall send it to you, you will take a heavy burden off the mind of
"Your obedient humble Servant, who trusts that you will forgive her having been unable to fulfil her promise."
She addressed the letter to Whitbury; for thither Tom had ordered his letters to be sent; but she received no answer.
The day after Mrs. Harvey was buried, the sale of all her effects was announced in Aberalva.
Grace received the proceeds, went round to all the creditors, and paid them all which was due. She had a few pounds left. What to do with that she knew full well.
She showed no sign of sorrow: but she spoke rarely to any one. A dead dull weight seemed to hang over her. To preachers, class-leaders, gossips, who upbraided her for not letting them see her mother, she replied by silence. People thought her becoming idiotic.
The day after the last creditor was paid she packed up her little box:hired a cart to take her to the nearest coach; and vanished fromAberalva, without bidding farewell to a human being, even to herSchool-children.
* * * * *
Vavasour had been buried more than a week. Mark and Mary were sitting in the dining-room, Mark at his port and Mary at her work, when the footboy entered.
"Sir, there's a young woman wants to speak with you."
"Show her in, if she looks respectable," said Mark, who had slippers on, and his feet on the fender, and was, therefore, loth to move.
"Oh, quite respectable, sir, as ever I see;" and the lad ushered in a figure, dressed and veiled in deep black.
"Well, ma'am, sit down, pray; and what can I do for you!"
"Can you tell me, sir," answered a voice of extraordinary sweetness and gentleness, very firm, and composed withal, "if Mr. Thomas Thurnall is in Whitbury?"
"Thurnall? He has sailed for the East a week ago. May I ask your business with him? Can I help you in it?"
The black damsel paused so long, that both Mary and her father felt uneasy, and a cloud passed over Mark's brow.
"Can the boy have been playing tricks?" said he to himself.
"Then, sir, as I hear that you have influence, can you get me a situation as one of the nurses who are going out thither, so I hear?"
"Get you a situation? Yes, of course, if you are competent."
"Thank you, sir. Perhaps, if you could be so very kind as to tell me to whom I am to apply in town; for I shall go thither to-night."
"My goodness!" cried Mark. "Old Mark don't do things in this off-hand, cold-blooded way. Let us know who you are, my dear, and about Mr. Thurnall. Have you anything against him?"
She was silent.
"Mary, just step into the next room."
"If you please, sir," said the same gentle voice, "I had sooner that the lady should stay. I have nothing against Mr. Thurnall, God knows. He has rather something against me."
Another pause.
Mary rose, and went up to her and took her hand.
"Do tell us who you are, and if we can do anything for you."
And she looked winningly up into her face.
The stranger drew a long breath and lifted her veil. Mary and Mark both started at the beauty of the countenance which she revealed—but in a different way. Mark gave a grunt of approbation: Mary turned pale as death.
"I suppose that it is but right and reasonable that I should tell you, at least give proof of my being an honest person. For my capabilities as a nurse—I believe you know Mrs. Vavasour? I heard that she has been staying here"
"Of course. Do you know her?"
A sad smile passed over her face.
"Yes, well enough, at least for her to speak for me. I should have asked her or Miss St. Just to help me to a nurse's place: but I did not like to trouble them in their distress. How is the poor lady now, sir?"
"I know who she is!" cried Mary by a sudden inspiration. "Is not your name Harvey! Are you not the schoolmistress who saved Mr. Thurnall's life? who behaved so nobly in the cholera? Yes! I knew you were! Come and sit down, and tell me all! I have so longed to know you! Dear creature, I have felt as if you were my own sister. He—Mr. Thurnall— wrote often about all your heroism."
Grace seemed to choke down somewhat: and then answered steadfastly—
"I did not come here, my dear lady, to hear such kind words, but to do an errand to Mr. Thurnall. You have heard, perhaps, that when he was wrecked last spring he lost some money. Yes! Then it was stolen. Stolen!" she repeated with a great gasp: "never mind by whom. Not by me."
"You need not tell us that, my dear," interrupted Mark.
"God kept it. And I have it; here!" and she pressed her hands tight over her bosom. "And here I must keep it till I give it into his hands, if I follow him round the world!" And as she spoke her eyes shone in the lamplight, with an unearthly brilliance which made Mary shudder.
Mark Armsworth poured a libation to the goddess of Puzzledom, in the shape of a glass of port, which first choked him, and then descended over his clean shirt front. But after he had coughed himself black in the face, he began:—
"My good girl, if you are Grace Harvey, you're welcome to my roof and an honour to it, say I: but as for taking all that money with you across the seas, and such a pretty helpless young thing as you are, God help you, it mustn't be, and shan't be, and that's flat."
"But I must go to him!" said she in so naïve half-wild a fashion, that Mary, comprehending all, looked imploringly at her father, and putting her arm round Grace, forced her into a seat.
"I must go, sir, and tell him—tell him myself. No one knows what I know about it."
Mark shook his head.
"Could I not write to him? He knows me as well as he knows his own father."
Grace shook her head, and pressed her hand upon her heart, where Tom's belt lay.
"Do you think, madam, that after having had the dream of this belt, the shape of this belt, and of the money which is in it, branded into my brain for months—years it seems like—by God's fire of shame and suspicion;—and seen him poor, miserable, fretful, unbelieving, for the want of it—O God! I can't tell even your sweet face all.—Do you think that now I have it in my hands, I can part with it, or rest, till it is in his? No, not though I walk barefoot after him to the ends of the earth."
"Let his father have the money, then, and do you take him the belt as a token, if you must—"
"That's it, Mary!" shouted Mark Armsworth, "you always come in with the right hint, girl!" and the two, combining their forces, at last talked poor Grace over. But upon going out herself she was bent. To ask his forgiveness in her mother's name, was her one fixed idea. He might die, and not know all, not have forgiven all, and go she must.
"But it is a thousand to one against your seeing him. We, even, don't know exactly where he is gone."
Grace shuddered a moment; and then recovered her calmness.
"I did not expect this: but be it so. I shall meet him if God wills; and if not, I can still work—work."
"I think, Mary, you'd better take the young woman upstairs, and make her sleep here to-night," said Mark, glad of an excuse to get rid of them; which, when he had done, he pulled his chair round in front of the fire, put a foot on each hob, and began rubbing his eyes vigorously.
"Dear me! Dear me! What a lot of good people there are in this old world, to be sure! Ten times better than me, at least—make one ashamed of oneself:—and if one isn't even good enough for this world, how's one to be good enough for heaven?"
And Mary carried Grace upstairs, and into her own bed-room. A bed should be made up there for her. It would do her good just to have anything so pretty sleeping in the same room. And then she got Grace supper, and tried to make her talk: but she was distrait, reserved; for a new and sudden dread had seized her, at the sight of that fine house, fine plate, fine friends. These were his acquaintances, then: no wonder that he would not look on such as her. And as she cast her eye round the really luxurious chamber, and (after falteringly asking Mary whether she had any brothers and sisters) guessed that she must be the heiress of all that wealth, she settled in her heart that Tom was to marry Mary; and the intimate tone in which Mary spoke of him to her, and her innumerable inquiries about him, made her more certain that it was a settled thing. Handsome she was not, certainly; but so sweet and good; and that her own beauty (if she was aware that she possessed any) could have any weight with Tom, she would have considered as an insult to his sense; so she made up her mind slowly, but steadily, that thus it was to be; and every fresh proof of Mary's sweetness and goodness was a fresh pang to her, for it showed the more how probable it was that Tom loved her.
Therefore she answered all Mary's questions carefully and honestly, as to a person who had a right to ask; and at last went to her bed, and, worn out in body and mind, was asleep in a moment. She had not remarked the sigh which escaped Mary, as she glanced at that beautiful head, and the long black tresses which streamed down for a moment over the white shoulders ere they were knotted back for the night, and then at her own poor countenance in the glass opposite.
* * * * *
It was long past midnight when Grace woke, she knew not how, and looking up, saw a light in the room, and Mary sitting still over a book, her head resting on her hands. She lay quiet and thought she heard a sob. She was sure she heard tears drop on the paper. She stirred, and Mary was at her side in a moment.
"Did you want anything?"
"Only to—to remind you, ma'am, it is not wise to sit up so late."
"Only that?" said Mary, laughing. "I do that every night, alone withGod; and I do not think He will be the farther off for your being here!"
"One thing I had to ask," said Grace. "It would lesson my labour so, if you could give me any hint of where he might be."
"We know, as we told you, as little as you. His letters are to be sent to Constantinople. Some from Aberalva are gone thither already."
"And mine among them!" thought Grace. "It is God's will!… Madam, if it would not seem forward on my part—if you could tell him the truth, and what I have for him, and where I am, in case he might wish—wish to see me—when you were writing."
"Of course I will, or my father will," said Mary, who did not like to confess either to herself or to Grace, that it was very improbable that she would ever write again to Tom Thurnall.
And so the two sweet maidens, so near that moment to an explanation, which might have cleared up all, went on each in her ignorance; for so it was to be.
The next morning Grace came down to breakfast, modest, cheerful, charming. Mark made her breakfast with them; gave her endless letters of recommendation; wanted to take her to see old Doctor Thurnall, which she declined, and then sent her to the station in his own carriage, paid her fare first-class to town, and somehow or other contrived, with Mary's help, that she should find in her bag two ten-pound notes, which she had never seen before. After which he went out to his counting-house, only remarking to Mary—
"Very extraordinary young woman, and very handsome, too. Will make some man a jewel of a wife, if she don't go mad, or die of the hospital fever."
To which Mary fully assented. Little she guessed, and little did her father, that it was for Grace's sake that Tom had refused her hand.
A few days more, and Grace Harvey also had gone Eastward Ho.
It is, perhaps, a pity for the human race in general, that some enterprising company cannot buy up the Moselle (not the wine, but the river), cut it into five-mile lengths, and distribute them over Europe, wherever there is a demand for lovely scenery. For lovely is its proper epithet; it is not grand, not exciting—so much the better; it is scenery to live and die in; scenery to settle in, and study a single landscape, till you know every rock, and walnut-tree, and vine-leaf by heart: not merely to run through in one hasty steam-trip, as you now do, in a long burning day, which makes you not "drunk"—but weary—"with excess of beauty." Besides, there are two or three points so superior to the rest, that having seen them, one cares to see nothing more. That paradise of emerald, purple, and azure, which opens behind Treis; and that strange heap of old-world houses at Berncastle, which have scrambled up to the top of a rock to stare at the steamer, and have never been able to get down again—between them, and after them, one feels like a child who, after a great mouthful of pine-apple jam, is condemned to have poured down its throat an everlasting stream of treacle.
So thought Stangrave on board the steamer, as he smoked his way up the shallows, and wondered which turn of the river would bring him to his destination. When would it all be over? And he never leaped on shore more joyfully than he did at Alf that afternoon, to jump into a carriage, and trundle up the gorge of the Issbach some six lonely weary miles, till he turned at last into the wooded caldron of the Romer-kessel, and saw the little chapel crowning the central knoll, with the white high-roofed houses of Bertrich nestling at its foot.
He drives up to the handsome old Kurhaus, nestling close beneath heather-clad rocks, upon its lawn shaded with huge horse-chestnuts, and set round with dahlias, and geraniums, and delicate tinted German stocks, which fill the air with fragrance; a place made only for young lovers:—certainly not for those black, petticoated worthies, each with that sham of a sham, the modern tonsure, pared down to a poor florin's breadth among their bushy, well-oiled curls, who sit at little tables, passing the lazy day "à muguetter les bourgeoises" of Sarrebruck and Treves, and sipping the fragrant Josephshofer—perhaps at the good bourgeois' expense.
Past them Stangrave slips angrily; for that "development of humanity" can find no favour in his eyes; being not human at all, but professedly superhuman, and therefore, practically, sometimes inhuman.
He hurries into the public room; seizes on the visitor's book.
The names are there, in their own handwriting: but where are they?
Waiters are seized and questioned. The English ladies came back last night, and are gone this afternoon.
"Where are they gone?"
Nobody recollects: not even the man from whom they hired the carriage. But they are not gone far. Their servants and their luggage are still here. Perhaps the Herr Ober-Badmeister, Lieutenant D—— will know. "Oh, it will not trouble him. An English gentleman? Der Herr Lieutenant will be only too happy;" and in ten minutes der Herr Lieutenant appears, really only too happy; and Stangrave finds himself at once in the company of a soldier and a gentleman. Had their acquaintance been a longer one, he would have recognised likewise the man of taste and of piety.
"I can well appreciate, sir," says he, in return to Stangrave's anxious inquiries, "your impatience to rejoin your lovely countrywomen, who have been for the last three weeks the wonder and admiration of our little paradise; and whose four days' absence was regarded, believe me, as a public calamity."
"I can well believe it; but they are not countrywomen of mine. The one lady is an Englishwoman; the other—I believe—an Italian."
"And der Herr?"
"An American."
"Ah! A still greater pleasure, sir. I trust that you will carry back across the Atlantic a good report of a spot all but unknown, I fear, to your compatriots. You will meet one, I think, on the return of the ladies."
"A compatriot?"
"Yes. A gentleman who arrived here this morning, and who seemed, from his conversation with them, to belong to your noble fatherland. He went out driving with them this afternoon, whither I unfortunately know not. Ah! good Saint Nicholas!—For though I am a Lutheran, I must invoke him now—Look out yonder!"
Stangrave looked, and joined in the general laugh of lieutenant, waiters, priests, and bourgeoises.
For under the chestnuts strutted, like him in Struwelpeter, as though he were a very king of Ashantee, Sabina's black boy, who had taken to himself a scarlet umbrella, and a great cigar; while after him came, also like them in Struwelpeter, Caspar, bretzel in hand, and Ludwig with his hoop, and all the naughty boys of Bertrich town, hooting and singing in chorus, after the fashion of German children.
The resemblance to the well-known scene in the German child's book was perfect, and as the children shouted,—
"Ein kohlpechrabenschwarzer Mohr,Die Sonne schien ihm ins gehirn,Da nahm er seinen Sonnenschirm"—
more than one grown person joined therein.
Stangrave longed to catch hold of the boy, and extract from him all news; but the blackamoor was not quite in respectable company enough at that moment; and Stangrave had to wait till he strutted proudly up to the door, and entered the hall with a bland smile, evidently having taken the hooting as a homage to his personal appearance.
"Ah? Mas' Stangrave? glad see you, sir! Quite a party of us, now, 'mong dese 'barian heathen foreigners. Mas' Thurnall he come dis mornin'; gone up picken' bush wid de ladies. He! he! Not seen him dis tree year afore."
"Thurnall!" Stangrave's heart sank within him. His first impulse was to order a carriage, and return whence he came; but it would look so odd, and, moreover, be so foolish, that he made up his mind to stay and face the worst. So he swallowed a hasty dinner, and then wandered up the narrow valley, with all his suspicions of Thurnall and Marie seething more fiercely than ever in his heart.
Some half-mile up, a path led out of the main road to a wooden bridge across the stream. He followed it, careless whither he went; and in five minutes found himself in the quaintest little woodland cavern he ever had seen.
It was simply a great block of black lava, crowned with brushwood, and supported on walls and pillars of Dutch cheeses, or what should have been Dutch cheeses by all laws of shape and colour, had not his fingers proved to them that they were stone. How they got there, and what they were, puzzled him; for he was no geologist; and finding a bench inside, he sat down and speculated thereon.
There was more than one doorway to the "Cheese Cellar." It stood beneath a jutting knoll, and the path ran right through; so that, as he sat, he could see up a narrow gorge to his left, roofed in with trees; and down into the main valley on his right, where the Issbach glittered clear and smooth beneath red-berried mountain-ash and yellow leaves.
There he sat, and tried to forget Marie in the tinkling of the streams, and the sighing of the autumn leaves, and the cooing of the sleepy doves; while the ice-bird, as the Germans call the water-ouzel, sat on a rock in the river below, and warbled his low sweet song, and then flitted up the grassy reach to perch and sing again on the next rock above.
And, whether, it was that he did forget Marie awhile; or whether he were tired, as he well might have been; or whether he had too rapidly consumed his bottle of red Walporzheimer, forgetful that it alone of German wines combines the delicacy of the Rhine sun with the potency of its Burgundian vinestock, transplanted to the Ahr by Charlemagne;— whether it were any of these causes, or whether it were not, Stangrave fell fast asleep in the Kaise-kellar, and slept till it was dark, at the risk of catching a great cold.
How long he slept he knew not: but what wakened him he knew full well. Voices of people approaching; and voices which he recognised in a moment.
Sabina? Yes; and Marie too, laughing merrily; and among their shriller tones the voice of Thurnall. He had not heard it for years; but, considering the circumstances under which he had last heard it, there was no fear of his forgetting it again.
They came down the side-glen; and before he could rise, they had turned the sharp corner of the rock, and were in the Kaise-kellar, close to him, almost touching him. He felt the awkwardness of his position. To keep still was, perhaps, to overhear, and that too much. To discover himself was to produce a scene; and he could not trust his temper that the scene would not be an ugly one, and such as women must not witness.
He was relieved to find that they did not stop. They were laughing about the gloom; about being out so late.
"How jealous some one whom I know would be," said Sabina, "if he found you and Tom together in this darksome den!"
"I don't care," said Tom; "I have made up my mind to shoot him out of hand, and marry Marie myself. Sha'n't I now, my—" and they passed on; and down to their carriage, which had been waiting for them in the road below.
What Marie's answer was, or by what name Thurnall was about to address her, Stangrave did not hear: but he had heard quite enough.
He rose quietly after a while, and followed them.
He was a dupe, an ass! The dupe of those bad women, and of his ancient enemy! It was maddening! Yet, how could Sabina be in fault? She had not known Marie till he himself had introduced her; and he could not believe her capable of such baseness. The crime must lie between the other two. Yet—
However that might be mattered little to him now. He would return, order his carriage once more, and depart, shaking off the dust of his feet against them! "Pah! There were other women in the world; and women, too, who would not demand of him to become a hero."
He reached the Kurhaus, and went in; but not into the public room, for fear of meeting people whom he had no heart to face.
He was in the passage, in the act of settling his account with the waiter, when Thurnall came hastily out, and ran against him.
Stangrave stood by the passage lamp, so that he saw Tom's face at once.
Tom drew back; begged a thousand pardons; and saw Stangrave's face in turn.
The two men looked at each other for a few seconds. Stangrave longed to say, "You intend to shoot me? Then try at once;" but he was ashamed, of course, to make use of words which he had so accidentally overheard.
Tom looked carefully at Stangrave, to divine his temper from his countenance. It was quite angry enough to give Tom excuse for saying to himself—
"The fellow is mad at being caught at last. Very well."
"I think, sir," said he, quietly enough, "that you and I had better walk outside for a few minutes. Allow me to retract the apology I just made, till we have had some very explicit conversation on other matters."
"Curse his impudence!" thought Stangrave. "Does he actually mean to bully me into marrying her?" and he replied haughtily enough,—
"I am aware of no matters on which I am inclined to be explicit with Mr.Thurnall, or on which Mr. Thurnall has a right to be explicit with me."
"I am, then," quoth Tom, his suspicion increasing in turn. "Do you wish, sir, to have a scene before this waiter and the whole house, or will you be so kind as to walk outside with me?"
"I must decline, sir; not being in the habit of holding intercourse with an actress's bully."
Tom did not knock him down: but replied smilingly enough—
"I am far too much in earnest in this matter, sir, to be stopped by any coarse expressions. Waiter, you may go. Now, will you fight me to-morrow morning, or will you not?"
"I may fight a gentleman: but not you."
"Well, I shall not call you a coward, because I know that you are none; and I shall not make a row here, for a gentleman's reasons, which you, calling yourself a gentleman, seem to have forgotten. But this I will do; I will follow you till you do fight me, if I have to throw up my own prospects in life for it. I will proclaim you, wherever we meet, for what you are—a mean and base intriguer; I will insult you in Kursaals, and cane you on public places; I will be Frankenstein's man to you day and night, till I have avenged the wrongs of this poor girl, the dust of whose feet you are not worthy to kiss off."
Stangrave was surprised at his tone. It was certainly not that of a conscious villain: but he only replied sneeringly,—
"And pray what may give Mr. Thurnall the right to consider himself the destined avenger of this frail beauty's wrongs?"
"I will tell you that after we have fought; and somewhat more. Meanwhile, that expression, 'frail beauty,' is a fresh offence, for which I should certainly cane you, if she were not in the house."
"Well," drawled Stangrave, feigning an ostentatious yawn, "I believe the wise method of ridding oneself of impertinents is to grant their requests. Have you pistols? I have none."
"I have both duellers and revolvers at your service."
"Ah? I think we'll try the revolvers then," said Stangrave, savage from despair, and disbelief in all human goodness. "After what has passed, five or six shots apiece will be hardlyoutré."
"Hardly, I think," said Tom. "Will you name your second'?"
"I know no one. I have not been here two hours; but I suppose they do not matter much."
"Humph! it is as well to have witnesses in case of accident. There are a couple of roystering Burschen in the public room, who, I think, would enjoy the office. Both have scars on their faces, so they will beau faitat the thing. Shall I have the honour of sending one of them to you?"
"As you will, sir; my number is 34." And the two fools turned on their respective heels, and walked off.
At sunrise next morning Tom and his second are standing on the Falkenhohe, at the edge of the vast circular pit, blasted out by some explosion which has torn the slate into mere dust and shivers, now covered with a thin coat of turf.
"Schöne aussicht!" says the Bursch, waving his hand round, in a tone which is benevolently meant to withdraw Tom's mind from painful considerations.
"Very pretty prospect indeed. You're sure you understand that revolver thoroughly?"
The Bursch mutters to himself something about English nonchalance, and assures Thurnall that he is competently acquainted with the weapon; as indeed he ought to be; for having never seen one before, he has been talking and thinking of nothing else since they left Bertrich.
And why does not Tom care to look at the prospect? Certainly not because he is afraid. He slept as soundly as ever last night; and knows not what fear means. But somehow, the glorious view reminds him of another glorious view, which he saw last summer walking by Grace Harvey's side from Tolchard's farm. And that subject he will sternly put away. He is not sure but what it might unman even him.
The likeness certainly exists; for the rock, being the same in both places, has taken the same general form; and the wanderer in Rhine-Prussia and Nassau might often fancy himself in Devon or Cornwall. True, here there is no sea: and there no Moselkopf raises its huge crater-cone far above the uplands, all golden in the level sun. But that brown Tannus far away, or that brown Hundsruck opposite, with its deep-wooded gorges barred with level gleams of light across black gulfs of shade, might well be Dartmoor, or Carcarrow moor itself, high over Aberalva town, which he will see no more. True, in Cornwall there would be no slag-cliffs of the Falkenley beneath his feet, as black and blasted at this day as when yon orchard meadow was the mouth of hell, and the south-west wind dashed the great flame against the cinder cliff behind, and forged it into walls of time-defying glass. But that might well be Alva stream, that Issbach in its green gulf far below, winding along toward the green gulf of the Moselle—he will look at it no more, lest he see Grace herself come to him across the down, to chide him, with sacred horror, for the dark deed which he has come to do.
And yet he does not wish to kill Stangrave. He would like to "wing him." He must punish him for his conduct to Marie; punish him for last night's insult. It is a necessity, but a disagreeable one; he would be sorry to go to the war with that man's blood upon his hand. He is sorry that he is out of practice.
"A year ago I could have counted on hitting him where I liked. I trust I shall not blunder against his vitals now. However, if I do, he has himself to blame!"
The thought that Stangrave may kill him never crosses his mind. Of course, out of six shots, fired at all distances from forty paces to fifteen, one may hit him: but as for being killed!…
Tom's heart is hardened; melted again and again this summer for a moment, only to freeze again. He all but believes that he bears a charmed life. All the miraculous escapes of his past years, instead of making him believe in a living, guiding, protecting Father, have become to that proud hard heart the excuse for a deliberate, though unconscious, atheism. His fall is surely near.
At last Stangrave and his second appear. Stangrave is haggard, not from fear, but from misery, and rage, and self-condemnation. This is the end of all his fine resolves! Pah! what use in them? What use in being a martyr in this world? All men are liars, and all women too!
Tom and Stangrave stand a little apart from each other, while one of the seconds paced the distance. He steps out away from them, across the crater floor, carrying Tom's revolver in his hand, till he reaches the required point, and turns.
He turns: but not to come back. Without a gesture or an exclamation which could explain his proceedings, he faces about once more, and rushes up the slope as hard as legs and wind permitted.
Tom is confounded with astonishment: either the Bursch is seized with terror at the whole business, or he covets the much-admired revolver; in either case, he is making off with it before the owner's eyes.
"Stop! Hillo! Stop thief! He's got my pistol!" and away goes Thurnall in chase after the Bursch, who, never looking behind, never sees that he is followed: while Stangrave and the second Bursch look on with wide eyes.
Now the Bursch is a "gymnast," and a capital runner; and so is Tom likewise; and brilliant is the race upon the Falkenhohe. But the victory, after a while, becomes altogether a question of wind; for it was all up-hill. The crater, being one of "explosion, and not of elevation," as the geologists would say, does not slope downward again, save on one side, from its outer lip: and Tom and the Bursch were breasting a fair hill, after they had emerged from the "kessel" below.
Now, the Bursch had had too much Thronerhofberger the night before; and possibly, as Burschen will in their vacations, the night before that also; whereby his diaphragm surrendered at discretion, while his heels were yet unconquered; and he suddenly felt a strong gripe, and a stronger kick, which rolled him over on the turf.
The hapless youth, who fancied himself alone upon the mountain tops, roared mere incoherences; and Tom, too angry to listen, and too hurried to punish, tore the revolver out of his grasp; whereon one barrel exploded—
"I have done it now!"
No: the ball had luckily buried itself in the ground.
Tom turned, to rush down hill again, and meet the impatient Stangrave.
Crack—whing—g—g!
"A bullet!"
Yes! And, prodigy on prodigy, up the hill towards him charged, as he would upon a whole army, a Prussian gendarme, with bayonet fixed.
Tom sat down upon the mountain-side, and burst into inextinguishable laughter, while the gendarme came charging up, right toward his very nose.
But up to his nose he charged not; for his wind was short, and the noise of his roaring went before him. Moreover, he knew that Tom had a revolver, and was a "mad Englishman." Now, he was not afraid of Tom, or of a whole army: but he was a man of drills and of orders, of rules and of precedents, as a Prussian gendarme ought to be; and for the modes of attacking infantry, cavalry, and artillery, man, woman, and child, thief and poacher, stray pig, or even stray wolf, he had drill and orders sufficient: but for attacking a Colt's revolver, none.
Moreover, for arresting all manner of riotous Burschen, drunken boors, French red Republicans, Mazzini-hatted Italian refugees, suspect Polish incendiaries, or other feras naturse, he had precedent and regulation: but for arresting a mad Englishman, none. He held fully the opinion of his superiors, that there was no saying what an Englishman might not, could not, and would not do. He was a sphinx, a chimera, a lunatic broke loose, who took unintelligible delight in getting wet, and dirty, and tired, and starved, and all but lolled; and called the same "taking exercise:" who would see everything that nobody ever cared to see, and who knew mysteriously everything about everywhere; whose deeds were like his opinions, utterly subversive of all constituted order in heaven and earth; being, probably, the inhabitant of another planet; possibly the man in the moon himself, who had been turned out, having made his native satellite too hot to hold him. All that was to be done with him was to inquire whether his passport was correct, and then (with a due regard to self-preservation) to endure his vagaries in pitying wonder.
So the gendarme paused panting; and not daring to approach, walked slowly and solemnly round Tom, keeping the point of his bayonet carefully towards him, and roaring at intervals—
"You have murdered the young man!"
"But I have not!" said Tom. "Look and see."
"But I saw him fall!"
"But he has got up again, and run away."
"So! Then where is your passport?"
That one other fact cognisable by the mind of a Prussian gendarme, remained as an anchor for his brains under the new and trying circumstances, and he used it. "Here!" quoth Tom, pulling it out.
The gendarme stepped cautiously forward.
"Don't be frightened. I'll stick it on your bayonet-point;" and suiting the action to the word, Tom caught the bayonet-point, put the passport on it, and pulled out his cigar-case.
"Mad Englishman!" murmured the gendarme. "So! The passport is correct. But der Herr must consider himself under arrest. Der Herr will give up his death-instrument."
"By all means," says Tom: and gives up the revolver.
The gendarme takes it very cautiously; meditates awhile how to carry it; sticks the point of his bayonet into its muzzle, and lifts it aloft.
"Schon! Das kriegt! Has der Herr any more death-instruments?"
"Dozens!" says Tom, and begins fumbling in his pockets; from whence he pulls a case of surgical instruments, another of mathematical ones, another of lancets, and a knife with innumerable blades, saws, and pickers, every one of which he opens carefully, and then spreads the whole fearful array upon the grass before him.
The gendarme scratches his head over those too plain proofs of some tremendous conspiracy.
"So! Man must have a dozen hands! He is surely Palmerston himself; or at least Hecker, or Mazzini!" murmurs he, as he meditates how to stow them all.
He thinks now that the revolver may be safe elsewhere; and that the knife will do best on the bayonet-point So he unships the revolver.
Bang goes barrel number two, and the ball goes into the turf between his feet.
"You will shoot yourself soon, at that rate," says Tom.
"So? Der Herr speaks German like a native," says the gendarme, growing complimentary in his perplexity. "Perhaps der Herr would be so good as to carry his death-instruments himself, and attend on the Herr Polizeirath, who is waiting to see him."
"By all means!" And Tom picks up his tackle, while the prudent gendarme reloads; and Tom marches down the hill, the gendarme following, with his bayonet disagreeably near the small of Tom's back.
"Don't stumble! Look out for the stones, or you'll have that skewer through me!"
"So! Der Herr speaks German like a native," says the gendarme, civilly. "It is certainly der Palmerston," thinks he, "his manners are so polite."
Once at the crater edge, and able to see into the pit, the mystery is, in part at least, explained: for there stand not only Stangrave and Bursch number two, but a second gendarme, two elderly gentlemen, two ladies, and a black boy.
One is Lieutenant D——, by his white moustache. He is lecturing the Bursch, who looks sufficiently foolish. The other is a portly and awful-looking personage in uniform, evidently the Polizeirath of those parts, armed with the just terrors of the law: but Justice has, if not her eyes bandaged, at least her hands tied; for on his arm hangs Sabina, smiling, chatting, entreating. The Polizeirath smiles, bows, ogles, evidently a willing captive. Venus had disarmed Rhadamanthus, as she has Mars so often; and the sword of Justice must rust in its scabbard.
Some distance behind them is Stangrave, talking in a low voice, earnestly, passionately,—to whom but to Marie?
And lastly, opposite each other, and like two dogs who are uncertain whether to make friends or fight, are a gendarme and Sabina's black boy: the gendarme, with shouldered musket, is trying to look as stiff and cross as possible, being scandalised by his superior officer's defection from the path of duty; and still more by the irreverence of the black boy, who is dancing, grinning, snapping his fingers, in delight at having discovered and prevented the coming tragedy.
Tom descends, bowing courteously, apologises for having been absent when the highly distinguished gentleman arrived; and turning to the Bursch, begs him to transmit to his friend who has run away his apologies for the absurd mistake which led him to, etc. etc.
The Polizeirath looks at him with much the same blank astonishment as the gendarme had done; and at last ends by lifting up his hands, and bursting into an enormous German laugh; and no one on earth can laugh as a German can, so genially and lovingly, and with such intense self-enjoyment.
"Oh, you English! you English! You are all mad, I think! Nothing can shame you, and nothing can frighten you! Potz! I believe when your Guards at Alma walked into that battery the other day, every one of them was whistling your Jim Crow, even after he was shot dead!" And the jolly Polizeirath laughed at his own joke, till the mountain rang. "But you must leave the country, sir; indeed you must. We cannot permit such conduct here—I am very sorry."
"I entreat you not to apologise, sir. In any case, I was going to Alf by eight o'clock, to meet the steamer for Treves. I am on my way to the war in the East, viâ Marseilles. If you would, therefore, be so kind as to allow the gendarme to return me that second revolver, which also belongs to me—"
"Give him his pistol!" shouted the magistrate.
"Potz! Let us be rid of him at any cost, and live in peace, like honest Germans. Ah, poor Queen Victoria! What a lot! To have the government of five-and-twenty million such!"
"Not five-and-twenty millions," says Sabina.
"That would include the ladies; and we are not mad too, surely, yourExcellency?"
The Polizeirath likes to be called your Excellency, of course, or any other mighty title which does or does not belong to him; and that Sabina knows full well.
"Ah, my dear madam, how do I know that? The English ladies do every day here what no other dames would dare or dream—what then, must you be at home? Ach! your poor husbands!"
"Mr. Thurnall!" calls Marie, from behind. "Mr. Thurnall!"
Tom comes, with a quaint, dogged smile on his face.
"You see him, Mr. Stangrave! You see the man who risked for me liberty, life,—who rescued me from slavery, shame, suicide,—who was to me a brother, a father, for years!—without whose disinterested heroism you would never have set eyes on the face which you pretend to love. And you repay him by suspicion—insult—Apologise to him, sir! Ask his pardon now, here, utterly, humbly: or never speak to Marie Lavington again!"
Tom looked first at her, and then at Stangrave. Marie was convulsed with excitement; her thin cheeks were crimson, her eyes flashed very flame. Stangrave was pale—calm outwardly, but evidently not within. He was looking on the ground, in thought so intense that he hardly seemed to hear Marie. Poor fellow! he had heard enough in the last ten minutes to bewilder any brain.
At last he seemed to have strung himself for an effort, and spoke, without looking up.
"Mr. Thurnall!"
"Sir?"
"I have done you a great wrong!"
"We will say no more about it, sir. It was a mistake, and I do not wish to complicate the question. My true ground of quarrel with you is your conduct to Miss Lavington. She seems to have told you her true name, so I shall call her by it."
"What I have done, I have undone!" said Stangrave, looking up. "If I have wronged her, I have offered to right her; if I have left her, I have sought her again; and if I left her when I knew nothing, now that I know all, I ask her here, before you, to become my wife!"
Tom looked inquiringly at Marie.
"Yes; I have told him all—all?" and she hid her face in her hands.
"Well," said Tom, "Mr. Stangrave is a very enviable person; and the match in a worldly point of view, is a most fortunate one for Miss Lavington; and that stupid rascal of a gendarme has broken my revolver."
"But I have not accepted him," cried Marie; "and I will not unless you give me leave."
Tom saw Stangrave's brow lower, and pardonably enough, at this.
"My dear Miss Lavington, as I have never been able to settle my own love affairs satisfactorily to myself, I do not feel at all competent to settle other people's. Good-bye! I shall be late for the steamer." And, bowing to Stangrave and Marie, he turned to go.
"Sabina! Stop him!" cried she; "he is going, without even a kind word!"