FATHER AND SONS.

THE light was fading among the Derbyshire hills. The trees, now almost bare, were stirred by the fretful wind into what seemed like a passionate wail for their own lost loveliness, and on the wide bare stretch of moorland behind the house the strange weird cry of the plovers sounded like a dirge over the dead summer. The sharp, intermittent rain had beaten all the beauty out of the few late autumn flowers in the garden, and it was tender of the twilight to hasten to deepen into a darkness heavy enough to hide such a grey desolate picture.

Inside Thornsett Edge another and a deeper darkness was falling. Old Richard Ferrier was sick unto death, and he alone of all the household knew it. He knew it, and he was not sorry. Yet he sighed.

'What is it, Richard? Can I get you anything?'

A woman sitting behind his bed-curtain leaned forward to put the question—a faded woman, with grey curls and a face marked with deep care lines. It was his sister.

'Where are the boys?'

'Gone to Aspinshaw.'

'Both of them?'

'Yes; I asked Dick to take a note for me, and Roland said he'd go too.'

The old man looked pleased.

'Did you want either of them?' she asked.

'I want them both when they come in.'

'Suppose you are asleep?'

'I shall not sleep until I have seen my sons.'

'Art thee better to-night, Richard?' she asked in a tone of tender solicitude, dropping back, as people so often do in moments of anxiety, into the soft sing-song accent that had once been habitual to her.

'Ay, I'm better, lass,' he said, returning the pressure of the hand she laid on his.

'Wilt have a light?'

'Not yet a-bit,' he answered. 'I like to lie so, and watch the day right out,' and he turned his face towards the square of grey sky framed by the window.

There was hardly more pleasantness left in his life than in the dreary rain-washed garden outside. And yet his life had not been without its triumphs—as the world counts success. He had, when still young, married the woman he passionately loved, and work for her sake had seemed so easy that he had risen from poverty to competence, and from competence to wealth. Born in the poorest ranks of the workers in a crowded Stockport alley, he had started in life as a mill 'hand,' and he was ending it now a millowner, and master of many hands.

He had himself been taught in no school but that of life; but he did not attribute his own success to his education any more than he did the fatuous failure of some University men to their peculiar training; so he had sent his sons to Cambridge, and had lived to see them leave their college well-grown and handsome, with not more than the average stock of prejudices and follies, and fit to be compared, not unfavourably, with any young men in the county.

But by some fatality he had never tasted the full sweetness of any of the fruit his life-tree had borne him. His parents [19] had died in want and misery at a time when he himself was too poor to help them. His wife, who had bravely shared his earlier struggles, did not live to share their reward. She patiently bore the trials of their early married life, but in the comfort that was to follow she had no part. She died, and left him almost broken-hearted. Her memory would always be the dearest thing in the world to him; but a man's warm, living, beating heart needs something more than a memory to lavish its love upon. This something more he found in her children. In them all his hopes had been centred; for them all his efforts had been made. They were, individually, all that he had dreamed they might be, and they were both devoted to him; and yet, as he lay on his deathbed, his mind was ill at ease about them. Did he exaggerate? Was it weakness and illness, the beginning of the end, that had made him think, through these last few weeks, that there was growing up between these two beloved sons a coolness—a want of sympathy, an indisposition to run well in harness together—which might lead to sore trouble?

There certainly had been one or two slight quarrels between them which had been made up through his own intervention. How would it be, he wondered, when he was not there any more to smooth things over? Somehow he did not feel that he cared to live any longer, even to keep peace between his boys. That must be done some other way. Truth to say, he was very tired of being alive.

The October day faded, and presently the sick-room was lighted only by the red flickering glow of the fire, which threw strange fantastic shadows from the handsome commonplace furniture, and made the portraits on the walls seem to look out of their frames with quite new expressions.

Old Ferrier lay looking at the pictures in a tremor of expectation that made the time seem very long indeed. At last [20] his strained sense caught the faint click of the Brahma lock as it was opened by a key from without, and the bang of the front door as it was closed somewhat hurriedly from within.

'There they are,' he said at once. 'Send them up, Letitia.'

As she laid her hand on the door to open it, another hand grasped the handle on the other side, and a tall, broad-shouldered young fellow came in, with the glisten of rain still on his brown moustache, and on his great-coat, seeming to bring with him a breath of freshness and the night air.

'Ah, Dick! I was just coming down for you. Where is Roland?'

'He stayed awhile at Aspinshaw. How's father?'

'Awake, and asking for you,' said his aunt, and went away, closing the door softly.

'Well, dad, how goes it?' said the new-comer, stepping forward into the glow of the firelight.

'Light the candles,' said his father, without answering the question, and the young man lighted two in heavy silver candlesticks which stood on the dressing-table.

As their pale light fell on the white face lying against the hardly whiter pillow, Dick's eyes scrutinised it anxiously.

'You don't look any better,' he said, sitting down by the bed, and taking his father's hand. 'I wish I'd been at home when that doctor came yesterday.'

'I'm glad you weren't Dick; I'd rather tell you myself. I wish your brother were here.'

'I daresay he won't be long,' said the other, frowning a little, while the lines about his mouth grew hard and set; 'but what did the doctor say? Aunt Letitia didn't seem to know anything about it.'

'He told me I shouldn't live to see another birthday,' said the old man. He had rehearsed in his own mind over and over again how he should break this news to his boys, and [21] now he was telling it in a way quite other than any that had been in his rehearsals.

'Not see another birthday!' echoed his son. 'Nonsense! Why, father,' he added, with a sudden start, 'your birthday's on Wednesday. How could he? I'll write to him.'

'My dear boy, I felt it before he told me. He only put into words what I've known ever since I've been lying here. There's no getting over it. I'm going.'

Dick did not speak. He pressed his father's hand hard, and then, letting it fall, he walked over to the hearthrug, and stood with his hands behind him, looking into the fire.

'Come back; come here!' said the wavering voice from the bed. 'I want you, Dick.'

'Can't I do something for you, dad?' he said, in very much lower tones than usual, as he sat down again by the bed. He kept his face in the shadow of the curtain.

'We've always got on very well together, Dick.'

'Yes—we've been very good friends.'

'I wish you were as good friends with your brother as you are with your old father.'

'I'm not bad friends with him; and, after all, your father's your father, and that makes all the difference.'

'Your brother will soon be the nearest thing in the world to you. Oh, my boy,' said old Ferrier, suddenly raising himself on his elbow, and clasping Dick's strong right hand in both his, 'for God's sake, don't quarrel with him! If you ever cared for me, keep friends with him. If you and he weren't friends, I couldn't lie easy in my grave. And it's been a long life—I should like to lie easy at last!'

'I don't quarrel with him, father.'

'Well, lad—well, I've thought you did; perhaps I'm wrong. Anyway, don't quarrel—if it's only for your old dad's sake. I've loved you both so dearly.'

'I will try to do everything you wish.'

'I know you will, Dick. You always have done that. Was that Roland just came in? If it is, send him to me.'

The young man stood silently for a few moments. Then he bent down over his father and kissed his forehead twice. When he left the room he met a servant on the landing.

'Is Mr Roland at home yet?'

'Yes, sir; he's just come in.'

'Tell him Mr Ferrier wishes to see him at once.'

'Miss Ferrier told him, sir, directly he came in.'

He turned and went to his own room.

A quarter of an hour later Roland stood outside his father's door. He opened it gently, and entered, his slippered feet treading the floor of the sick-room as silently as a nurse's.

As he stood a moment in the dim light, eyes less keen and less expectant than those looking at him from the bed might have easily mistaken him for his brother. The slight difference in breadth of shoulder and depth of chest was concealed by the loose indoor jacket he wore. There was no trace about him of his wet and muddy walk, and he looked altogether a much fitter occupant for the easy-chair that stood at the sick man's bedside than the stalwart, weather-stained, and unsympathetic-looking figure that had last sat in it.

'Rowley, why didn't you come before?' began the old man.

'Oh, I couldn't, father. It is a beastly night. I was awfully wet and muddy. I only waited to change my things, and make myself presentable. How are you to-night?'

'Your brother came up wet enough,' was all the answer.

'Did he? What a careless fellow he is. He never seems to think of that sort of thing.'

'Oh, well, I suppose you didn't know.'

'Know what, father?'

'How much I wanted to see you.'

'Why, no, of course I didn't,' said Roland in an altered tone, and with a look of new anxiety in his face. 'What is it, father? I thought you were better to-day.'

'I shall never be better, lad. Doctor Gibson told me so, and I know he's right. You and Dick will soon be masters here. But don't worry, Rowley,' he added, catching both his son's arms; 'it was bound to come some day.'

For a moment the young man had hardly seemed to realise what the words meant; but now a long, anxious, eager look at his father's face made the truth clear to him. An intense anguish came into his face, and throwing his arms round the other's neck, he fell on his knees in a burst of passionate tears.

'Oh, father, father, no, no—not yet—don't say that—I can't do without you. Oh, why have I left you since you have been ill?'

The old man caressed him silently. There was a sort of pleasure in feeling oneself regretted with this passion of sorrow and longing. After a while.

'Rowley,' said he, as the sobs grew less frequent and less violent, 'I'm going to ask you to do something for me.'

'Anything you like, father—the harder the better.'

'It ought not to be very hard to you, my son. Promise me that you will always keep good friends with Dick.'

'Yes—yes—I will, indeed.'

But little more was said. Roland seemed unable to utter anything save incoherent protestations of love and sorrow.

At last, warned by the weariness that was creeping into his father's face, he bade him a very tender and lingering good-night.

'Have me called at once if you are worse—or if I can do anything,' were his last words as he left the room.

The watchful woman's face was by the bed again in an instant.

'I want—' the old man began.

'You want your beef tea, Richard, and here it is.'

As he took it he asked,—

'Is it too late to send for Gates?'

'Oh, no; and it's such a little way for him to come.'

Mr Gates was a member of a firm of Stockport solicitors, and his country house was but a stone's-throw from Thornsett Edge. It was not long before he in his turn occupied that chair by the bed. He bore with him an atmosphere of jollity which even the hush of that sick-room was powerless to dispel. He was not unsympathetic either, by any means, but he seemed made up of equal parts of kindheartedness and high spirits, and looked much more like an ideal country squire than like the ordinary legal adviser. As a matter of fact, he was more at home on the moor side or in the stubble than among dusty documents and leather-bound Acts of Parliament. It was his boast that he only had eight clients, and that he lived on them, and, judging by his appearance, they furnished uncommonly good living. He had a genial, hearty way with him which made him a favourite with every man, woman and child he came across, and he knew quite enough law to fully justify the confidence of the eight above mentioned.

'What, Mr Ferrier, still in bed! Why, we thought old Gibson would have had you on your legs again in no time. I quite expected to see you driving over to the Wirksvale wakes to-morrow.'

'I shall never go behind any but the black horses again, Gates. It's no use. I'm settled, and I want you to alter my will.'

'I'll alter your will with pleasure, if you like. Though I must say it's so much more sensible than most people's wills that I wonder you want to alter it; but you mustn't talk of black horses and that sort of thing for another ten years. Don't lose heart; you'll live to alter your will a score of times yet.'

In an eager, tremulous voice Ferrier begged the other to believe that his fate was sealed, and that whatever was done must be done quickly. Then he proceeded to explain the changes he wished to have made in the will. He told the lawyer, without [25] any of that reserve which ordinarily characterised him, all his fears about his sons, and then unfolded the scheme by which he thought to bind the two together. He wished their worldly interests to be so strongly bound up in their relations to each other that a quarrel à outrance would mean ruin to both of them; and to this end he proposed to leave the mill to them jointly, on condition that they worked it together, and both took an active part in the management of it. Should they dissolve partnership before twenty-one years, or should either retire with consent of the other, the personal property was not to be touched by either, and at end of ten years—if they were both alive and still separated—the whole was to go to the Manchester Infirmary.

Mr Gates noted this extraordinary scheme down on the back of an old letter, and when Mr Ferrier had ended, read his notes through and shook his head.

'Far better leave it alone, Mr Ferrier; they seem the best of friends, and legacies like this never help matters much, anyhow.'

'I can't leave it alone, Gates. I've very little time left. The will is in that despatch-box, and there are pen and ink somewhere about.'

'Do be advised,' began Gates, his jolly face considerably graver than usual.

'I tell you I must have it done, and done at once. I'm deadly tired, and I want it over.'

Mr Gates shrugged his shoulders, got out the will, and settled himself at the round table, on whose crimson velvet-pile cloth stood a papier-maché inkstand, a recent purchase of Miss Letitia's.

He sat there biting his pen, and making aimless little scribbles on a sheet of blank paper. After some minutes he leaned forward, and for a little time no sound was heard but the squeak of his pen. At last he flung down the quill and rose.

'It is the only way it can be done, sir,' he said, and read it out.

It carried out Ferrier's plans, but placed the personal pro [26]perty in the hands of trustees, who were to pay to Roland and Richard the interest thereof so long as they worked the mill together. If at the end of twenty-one years there had been no dissolution between them, the money was to pass unconditionally to them, in equal shares, or to the survivor of them, or to their heirs if they were both dead. If they quarrelled, the interest was to be allowed to accumulate for ten years, and then, if the brothers were still not on friendly terms, it should go, with the capital, to the Infirmary.

'That's right,' said old Richard, in a voice so changed as to convince the solicitor that he was right in saying he had not much more time to spend.

The codicil was signed, duly attested, and attached to the will, and Ferrier lay back exhausted, but with a light of new contentment in his eyes.

'I'm right down tired out,' he said; 'I shall sleep now.'

And sleep he did till the cold hour of the dawn, when there came a brief waking interval, before the longest, soundest sleep of all.

He opened his eyes then.

'It's nearly over,' he said; 'my boys—my boys!'

He called for them both, but it was Dick on whose broad breast the dying head rested. It was Dick who caught the last loving, whispered words, felt the last faint hand pressure, soothed the last pang, caught the last look.

For when Aunt Letitia hurried to their rooms, it was Dick who opened his door before she reached it, and, fully dressed, sprang to his father's bedside.

Roland was in the sound sleep that often follows violent emotion, and it was hard to rouse him. He came in softly just as his brother laid gently down on the pillow the worn old face, at rest at last, and closed the kindly eyes that would never meet Roland's any more. Never any more!

A NARROW ESCAPE.

THE curtain had fallen on the last scene of the most popular play in London. The appreciative criticism of the pit and the tearful sympathy of the upper boxes were alike merging in one common thought, that of 'something nice for supper.' The gallery was already empty. Its occupants were thirstier and more prompt of action than the loungers in the stalls and boxes. Ladies, a little flushed by the exertion of fighting their way through the ranks of their peers, were silently disputing for precedence in front of the looking-glasses in the cloak-rooms, while their cavaliers, already invested with overcoat and wrapper, were pacing the carpeted corridor outside with a very poor show of patience. The most impatient of them all was a stout, rubicund old gentleman in a dark coat, who trotted fretfully up and down, and now and then even ventured to peep in through the door at the chaos of silks and laces, raised shawls, and suspended bonnets, in some component part of which he evidently had an interest.

His very manifest objection to being kept waiting made his fellow-sufferers glance at him with some amusement. A young man who had been going leisurely towards the outer door actually stopped and leaned against the wall while he rolled [28] himself a cigarette, and from time to time glanced with a certain interest at him. He looked very handsome leaning there; his light overcoat was open, and showed the gleam of some rather good diamonds in his shirt front. His pose was graceful—his face had less of boredom in it than is usually worn by young men who go to theatres alone. This, with his large dark eyes, Greek nose, and long drooping blonde moustache, gave him a rather striking appearance. He might have been a foreigner but for his want of skill in making cigarettes. The white hands seemed absolutely awkward in their manipulation. Just as his persevering efforts were crowned with success, and the cigarette was placed between his lips, a white muffled figure emerged from the tossing rainbow sea, and a little hand was slipped through the old gentleman's arm.

'Desperately tired of waiting, I suppose, papa?' said a very sweet voice.

'I should think so. What a time you've been, my dear! I thought I had lost you. All the cabs will be gone.'

'Oh no, dear; the theatre isn't half empty. I was quite the first lady to come out, I'm sure.'

'You may have been the first to go in, but there have been lots of ladies come out while I've been waiting—dozens, I should say.'

'Couldn't we walk back, papa?' said the girl. 'It's a lovely night, and the streets are so interesting. It isn't far, is it?'

'No, no—the idea! Make haste, and we'll get a cab right enough. Mamma will never let us have a trip together again if I take you back with a cold.'

By this time they had passed down the stairs, and the tall cigarette-maker sauntered streetwards also.

But getting a cab was not so easy. That white chenille [29] wrap had taken too long to arrange, and now there were so many people ready and waiting for cabs that a man not at home in this Babel had hardly a chance.

'Papa' was so intent on hailing a four-wheeler himself that he was deaf to the offers of assistance from the ragged battalions that infest the theatre doors, and seem to get their living, not by calling cabs, which they seldom if ever do, but by shutting the doors and touching their hats when people have called cabs for themselves.

He was a little short-sighted, and made several attempts to get into other people's broughams, under the impression that they were unattached 'growlers,' and was only restrained by his daughter's energetic interference.

At last, driven from the field by the crowds who knew their way about better than he did, he yielded to the girl's entreaties, and walked towards the Strand, hoping to be able to hail a passing vehicle. They advanced slowly, for the pavement was crowded.

'We really had better walk,' she was saying again, when the crowd round them was suddenly thrown into a state of disturbance and excitement, and they were pushed backwards against the wall.

'Oh, dear, what is it?' she cried.

'Look out, miss!' said a rough-looking man, in a fur cap, catching her shoulders, and pulling her back so violently that her hand was torn from her father's arm, and at the same moment the crowd separated to right and left.

Then she saw what it was. A pair of spirited carriage horses had either taken fright, or had grown tired of the commonplace routine of wood pavement and asphalte, and had decided to try a short cut home through the houses, utterly regardless of the coachman, who was straining with might and main at the reins.

Their dreadful prancing hoofs were half-way across the pavement, and the pole of the carriage was close to someone's chest—good heavens! her father's—and he, standing there bewildered, seemed not to see it. She would have sprung forward, but the rough man held her back.

'Papa! papa!' she screamed, and at the sound of her voice he started, and seemed to see for the first time what threatened him. He saw it too late—the pole was within six inches of his breast-bone. But someone else had seen it to more purpose, and at that instant the head of the off horse was caught in a grasp of iron, and the pair were dragged round, to the imminent danger of some score of lives, while the carriage was forced back on to a hansom cab, whose driver disappeared into the night in a cloud of blasphemy.

'Well, I'm damned!' remarked the gentleman in the fur cap, who had snatched the girl out of danger; 'it's the nearest shave as ever I see.'

It had been a near shave; but the old gentleman was unhurt, though considerably flustered, and immeasurably indignant.

'Hurt? No, I'm not hurt—no thanks to that fool of a driver; such idiots ought to be hanged. But I ought to thank the gentleman who saved me.'

As he spoke the young man came forward deadly pale and without a hat.

'I do hope you're not hurt,' he said, in a singularly low, soft voice, speaking with a little catching of the breath. It was he who had leaned against the wall in the theatre. His hands were evidently good for something better than twisting tobacco. 'I hope the pole did not touch you? I am afraid I was hardly quick enough, but I couldn't get through the people before.'

'My dear sir, you were quick enough to save me from [31] being impaled against this wall; but I really feel quite upset. I must get my daughter home. She looks rather queer.'

She was holding his arm tightly between her hands.

'Do let's go home,' she whispered.

'I'll get you a cab,' said the hero. 'You'll probably get one easily now the mischief's done.'

'He's lost his hat,' observed the rescued one, as the other disappeared. 'Do you feel very bad, my pet? Pull yourself together. Here he comes.'

A hansom drew up in front of them, and their new acquaintance threw back the apron himself.

'You'd better take it yourself,' said papa. 'You seem rather lame, and your hat's gone.'

'It doesn't matter at all. I can get another cab in an instant. Pray jump in.'

'No; but look here. I haven't half thanked you. After all, you saved my life, you know. Come and see me to-morrow evening, will you, and let me thank you properly. Here's my card—I'm at Morley's.'

'I will come with pleasure to see if you are all right after it, but please don't talk any more about thanks, Mr—Stanley. Here's my card. Good night—Morley's Hotel,' he shouted to the cabman, and as they drove off he mechanically raised his hand to the place where his hat should have been. Have you ever seen a man do that when hat there was none? The effect is peculiar—much like a rustic pulling a forelock when t'squire goes by.

'I hope he will come to-morrow,' said Mr Stanley as the hansom drove off.

'Why, I think he's staying at our hotel, papa. I am almost sure I've seen him at the table d'hôte.'

'Dear, dear! How extraordinary.'

Clare was more than 'almost sure' in fact, she knew per [32]fectly well that this handsome stranger was not only staying at the hotel, but that he in his turn was quite aware of their presence there. Of her presence he could hardly be oblivious, since his eyes had been turned on her without much intermission all through dinner every evening since she had been in town.

Before Clare went to her room that night she managed to possess herself of the slip of cardboard on which was engraved—Michael Litvinoff.

What an uncommon name! How strange that he of all people should have been the one to come forward at the critical moment.

Yes, but not quite so strange as it seemed to Miss Stanley; for Litvinoff had gone to the theatre for no other purpose than to be near her. It was not only to gaze at her fair face that he thus followed her; but because he was determined to catch at any straw which might lead to an introduction, and the fates had favoured him, as they had often done before, in a degree beyond his wildest hopes. He was well contented to have lost his hat, and did not care much about his bruised foot. These were a cheap price to pay for admittance to the acquaintance of the girl who had occupied most of his thoughts during the few days that had passed since he had first seen her.

'A very fair beginning. The gods have certainly favoured me so far; and now, O Jupiter, aid us! or rather Cupid, for I suppose he's the proper deity to invoke in an emergency like this.'

And Michael Litvinoff stretched out his slippered feet to the blazing fire in his bedroom.

'By-the-way, I might as well look at the address. I know it's somewhere down North.'

He rose, walked with some difficulty to the chair, where he had flung his great-coat, and took the card from one of its pockets. 'Mr John Stanley, Aspinshaw, Firth Vale.'

'By Jove!' he said, sinking into his chair again. 'Firth Vale—Firth Vale. That's in Derbyshire. Ah me!'

He thrust his feet forward again to the warmth, and leaning back gazed long into the fire, but not quite so complacently as he had done before it had occurred to him to make that journey across the room to his great-coat.

THE NEW MASTERS

THE funeral was over, and Thornsett Mill was closed for the day. Fortunately the 'Spotted Cow' was not closed, so that the majority of the hands did not find themselves without resources. Added to the subtle pleasure which so many derive from drinking small beer in a sanded kitchen furnished with oak benches, there was to-day the excitement of discussing a great event, for to the average mind of Thornsett the death and burial of old Richard Ferrier were great events indeed. And then there appears to be something inherent in the nature of a funeral which produces intense and continued thirst in all persons connected, however remotely, with the ceremony. So John Bolt, the landlord, had his hands pretty full, and the state of the till was so satisfactory that it was a really praiseworthy sacrifice to the decencies of society for him to persist in not shortening by one fraction of an inch the respectfully long face which he had put on in the morning as appropriate to the occasion.

'Well, for my part, I'm sorry he's gone,' he said, drawing himself a pot of that tap which seemed best calculated to assist moral reflections. 'That I am! He was always a fair dealer, if he wasn't a giving one.'

'He was more a havin' nor a givin' one,' said old Bill [35] Murdoch. 'Givin' don't build mills, my lad, nor yet muck up two acres o' good pasture wi' bits o' flowers wi' glass windows all over 'em. I never seen sic foolin'.'

'Surely a man's a right to do what he will with his own,' ventured a meek-looking man, who had himself a few pounds laid by, and felt acutely the importance of leaving unchallenged the rights of property.

'I'm none so sure o' that,' remarked Bill, who had a conviction which is shared by a few more of us, that one's superiority shows itself naturally and unmistakably in one's never agreeing with any statement whatever which is advanced by anyone else.

'There'll be more flowers than ever now, if Mr Roland has his way,' said Sigley the meek.

'D'ye think, now, Sigley, he'll be like to get that where Mr Richard is?' asked Bill. 'Mr Roland thinks too much o' flowers and singin', and book learnin', to give much time to getten o' his own way.'

'Mr Roland may be this, or he may be that,' Potters, the village grocer, observed, with the air of one clearly stating a case, 'but he can get his way where he cares to.'

'Tha's fond o' saying words as might mean owt—or nowt, for that matter. Can't tha say what tha does mean?'

'Tha'd know what I mean if tha weren't too blind to see owt. How about Alice Hatfield?'

'Gently, gently,' said Bolt. 'Tha was i' the right, Potters, not to name names, but when it comes to namin' o' names I asks tha where's tha proof?'

Here there was a general 'movement of adhesion,' and an assenting murmur ran round, while the mild man repeated like an echo, 'Where's your proof?'

'Her father don't think ther's proof,' said Sigley.

'A man doesn't want to prove the bread out of his mouth, and the roof off his children.'

'John Hatfield wouldn't work for a man as had ruined his girl.'

'Hungry dogs eat dirty pudding,' remarked Potters.

'Hatfield does na' deal o' thee, Potters,' observed Murdoch, drily.

'And it would be just one if he did,' answered Potters, his large face growing crimson, 'and Alice was a good lass and a sweet lass till she took up wi' fine notions and told a' the lads as none on 'em was good enough to tie her shoon, and as she'd be a lady, and I don't know what all, and Mr Roland was the only gentleman as ever took any notice of her, except Mr Richard; and Mr Roland, he went away when she went away, and it's all as plain as the nose on your face.'

'Tha says too much,' said Murdoch slowly, 'for't a' to be true.'

'Now, now!' interposed Bolt. 'Enow said on all sides, I'm sure. The poor old master's gone, and the mill's got a holiday, and I think you'll all be better employed i' turning your thoughts on him as is gone than i' picking holes i' them as is to be your masters, and raking up yesterday's fires i' this fashion. And so I say, as I said before, I for one am sorry he's gone.'

'Yes; and so am I,' said Bill; 'for as long as he lived I always expected him to do summat for me, as worked alongside o' him when he were a lad i' Carrington's Mills, and now I know that chance is ower.'

'Well, he gave thee work here, and he'd always a kind word for thee.'

'Kind words spread no butties, and when he was rolling in brass, work at the usual wages was a' he ever give me.'

'Did'st thee ever gie him owt, lad?'

'I never had owt to give him, or anyone else for that matter.'

A general laugh arose, and Bill buried his face in his mug of beer.

'The next work-day the mill's closed'll be a wedden-day, I s'pose,' said Sigley, after a pause.

'Ay, and not long fust.'

'Mr Roland's always up at Aspinshaw.'

'So's Mr Richard if you come to that.'

'They can't both marry the girl.'

'No, nor I shouldn't think either of them would yet a bit. Miss Clare's only just come home fro' endin' her schoolin'.'

'And a gradely lass she is.'

'Ay, that's so,' cut in old Murdoch. 'She thinks a sight more o' workin'-folk nor either o' they boys do.'

'Where's your proof o' that, Bill?' asked Bolt, the village logician.

'Proof,' snarled Murdoch; 'don't 'ee call to mind two years agone when we had a kind o' strike like, and didn't she go about speakin' up for us like a good un?'

A murmur of assent mingled with the gurgling of liquor down half-a-dozen throats.

'There's one I hope she'll never take to,' Potters was beginning, but Bolt interrupted him with—

'Whichever has her will have a fine wife. Let's drink good luck to the new masters, lads.'

'Or, so to say, to oursel', for their's'll be ours,' said Sigley.

'Their bad luck'll be ours; but their good luck's their own,' said Bill Murdoch sententiously.

This startling economic theory meeting with no support, the original toast was drunk with a feeble attempt at honours.

The 'new masters' whose health had thus been unenthusiastically drunk found it hard to realise the peculiar position in which they found themselves.

The will was a great surprise to them both. Neither had thought that the slight breach which had come between them was sufficiently wide to be noticed, and the very fact of its having been noticed made it appear deeper and more serious than they had before considered it to be.

It was a bitter thought to Richard Ferrier that the old man's last moments should have been made unquiet through any conduct of his, and he reproached himself for not having concealed his own feelings better, and for not having watched more keenly over those of his father. The most crushing part of bereavement is always the consciousness that so little more thought, so little more tact and tenderness, would have sufficed to spare that ended life many an hour of sorrow, that quiet heart many a pang of pain. It is then that we would give our heart's blood for one hour with the beloved in which to tell them all that we might have said so easily while they were here. This universal longing is responsible for that deeply rooted belief in the life beyond the grave which causes two-thirds of human-kind to dispense with evidence and to set reason at nought. So long as the sons and daughters of men

so long will the priest find his penitent, the professor of modern spiritualism his open-mouthed dupe, and the shrine its devotee. The ages roll on, each year the old earth opens her bosom for our dearest, and still man—slow learner that he is—will not realise that (whatever may be the chances of another life in which to set right what has been here done amiss) in this life, which is the only one he can be sure of having, it rests with him to decide whether there shall be any acts of unkindness that will seem to need atonement.

The consolation which so many find in the idea of a future life was a closed door to Dick. He had belonged to the [39] 'advanced' school of thought at college, and to him the gulf which separated him from his father was one that could never be bridged over.

Roland's grief was more absorbing than his brother's, though it was not so acute; and by its very nature could not be so lasting. Yet through it all he felt rather—not vexed—but grieved that his father should have not only divined his inmost feelings, but should have published them to the world by means of this will. He had an uneasy consciousness that he was made to appear ridiculous, and for Roland to be possibly absurd was to be certainly wretched. It was very irritating that two brothers could not have an occasional difference without having their 'sparring' made the subject of a solemn legal document; and without being themselves placed in such a situation that the eyes of all their acquaintances must be turned expectantly on them to see what they would do next.

The differences arose from an only too complete agreement on one particular point. When they had come back from Cambridge a year before, they had found a new and interesting feature in the social aspect of Firth Vale. Clare Stanley had come home from the German boarding-school where she had spent the last three years. The young men had not seen her since she was a child, and now they met her in the full blossom of very pretty and sufficiently-conscious young womanhood.

For about two months they discussed her freely in their more sociable hours, admired her prodigiously, and congratulated each other on their good luck. Then came reticence; then occasional half-hearted sarcasms, directed against her, varied by a criticism of each other, the sincerity of which was beyond a doubt. For some months before the old man's death the rivalry that had sprung up between them had been too strong to be always kept under, even in his presence, and he had seen the effect, though not guessed the cause.

Strangely enough, another cause of dissension between the brothers had been also touched on by their critics in the tap of the Spotted Cow: Alice Hatfield. When Mrs. Ferrier had died Mrs. Hatfield had been foster-mother to the two boys, and during their childhood they were the constant playfellows of little Alice. Of course as they grew older the distance between them increased, but Richard was still very fond of Alice, and it was a great blow to him when one day, about three months after their return from college, the girl suddenly disappeared, taking leave of no one, and leaving no word of explanation. All that anyone could gather was that during a visit she had recently paid to an aunt in Liverpool she had been seen to talk more than once to a gentleman, and that she had left the Firth Vale Station for Manchester by an early train alone. But the worst of it was that Roland had that very day abruptly announced his intention of taking a holiday, and had gone North without any apparent object; and village gossip busied itself rarely with this portentous coincidence. At the end of a month Roland returned, looking worn and harassed. His brother asked him point blank where he had been, and for what. Roland indignantly denied his right to question, and flatly refused to answer. A quarrel ensued—the first of many, which grew more frequent as they saw more of Miss Stanley.

On the morning on which Mr Ferrier died, she and her father had gone to London to spend a month; and the time of her absence was the most peaceful the young men had known for some time.

Clare herself was glad to go to London, though not so glad to leave the scene of her conquests. One cannot blame her much for knowing that she was charming. The two Ferriers were the most desirable young men the country-side could offer, and no girl could have wished a finer pair of captives to grace her chariot-wheels. And—Aspinshaw was very dull.

A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.

WHEN Miss Stanley opened her hazel eyes the morning after the mischance on the way home from the theatre, her first waking impression was that something pleasant was to happen. She laughed at herself a little when complete wakefulness made her conscious that, after all, it was only Count Litvinoff's acquaintance and promised call which were answerable for that dreamy feeling of anticipated enjoyment.

She let her thoughts stray in his direction several times that day, and at the table d'hôte looked out for him with interest. But he was not there. Bearing in mind Mr Stanley's invitation, Count Michael Litvinoff had thought it as well to absent himself from the table d'hôte. It would have been rather awkward to meet his new acquaintances at dinner and then to call on them immediately afterwards.

'I don't see our Russian friend, Clare,' remarked Mr Stanley as the fish was removed. 'I think you must have been mistaken about his staying here.'

'Perhaps I was, papa,' said Clare, submissively, but with a sparkle in her eyes that contradicted her words. 'Or perhaps his foot hurt him so much that he couldn't come down.'

'If he doesn't come up after dinner we'd better make inquiries.'

But he did come up after dinner, and when he entered, limping slightly, Mr Stanley received him with as much effusion as could be shown by an old gentleman after a heavy meal.

'My daughter tells me you are staying in this hotel,' he began; and as Litvinoff, taking this as an introduction, bowed low to her, with his eyes on the ground, she hoped he did not notice the sudden flush that swept over her face. But he did; there was, in fact, very little that went on within a dozen yards of him that Count Litvinoff did not notice.

'How strange that you should have been on the spot last night, and how fortunate.'

'It was fortunate for me, since it has procured for me this pleasure. May I hope that you are not any the worse for the shock?'

'No, I'm not; but I'm afraid you are; do sit down.'

As Litvinoff and her father went on talking, Clare, who had not yet spoken a word, could not help thinking that this gentleman with the foreign name was somehow very different from any man she had hitherto met, not even excepting those fine specimens of young English manhood, the Ferriers. There was about him that air of worldliness which is so attractive to young people. 'He looks as if he had a history,' she said to herself, with conviction; a remark which did credit to her powers of observation. She liked his voice and his way of speaking, for though his English was perfect, he spoke it with a precision not usual to Englishmen.

'Will you have tea or coffee?' asked Clare presently, busying herself with the cups and saucers that had been brought in.

'Mr Litvinoff will have coffee, of course, my dear; young men don't like tea nowadays.'

'I can't claim to be very young,' said the other, smiling, 'but I do like tea.'

'Ah! you would just please my wife; she says that a liking for tea in a young man is a sign of a good moral disposition.'

'I'm afraid in my case it's national instinct, not moral beauty.'

'National!' repeated Mr Stanley, 'national! Why, God bless my soul, you aren't Chinese, are you?'

The guest threw his head back and laughed unaffectedly; and Clare smiled behind the tea-tray.

'Oh, no; I'm only a Russian.'

'Oh, ah,' said Mr Stanley, in a rather disappointed tone. For the moment he had been quite pleased at the thought that here was actually a Chinese who could talk excellent English, and whose garments were not exactly the same, to the uninitiated, as those of his wife and mother.

'You speak English uncommonly well,' he went on.

'Well, I've been in England some years now,' he said, with a rather sad smile, which confirmed Clare in that fancy about his history. 'A turn for languages is like the taste for tea, one of our national characteristics. I suppose the ordinary tongue finds such a difficulty in twisting itself round Russian, that if it can do that it can do anything. Allow me!' springing forward to hand Mr Stanley his cup of coffee.

'My daughter always sings to me while I'm having my coffee,' said Mr Stanley, suppressing the fact that under these circumstances he generally went to sleep, and feeling a mistaken confidence, as slaves of habit always do, that his ordinary custom could be set at nought on the present occasion.

'I hope Miss Stanley will not deny me the privilege of sharing your pleasure,' said Litvinoff, rising and making for the piano. Clare followed him.

'What shall I sing, papa?' she said.

'Whatever you like, my dear. "The Ash Grove."'

Clare sang it. Her voice was not particularly powerful, but [44] she made the most of it, such as it was, and sang with enough expression to make it pleasant to listen to her. After 'The Ash Grove' came one or two plaintive Scotch airs, and before she was well through 'Bonnie Doon,' the accompaniment of her father's heavy breathing made her aware that her audience was reduced by one-half. The most appreciative half remained, and, when the last notes of the regretful melody had died out, preferred a request for Schubert's 'Wanderer.' This happened to be her favourite song, and she sang it con amore.

'It always seems to me,' he said when she had finished, 'that that music carries in it all the longing that makes the hearts of exiles heavy.'

Clare looked up at him brightly. 'Oh, but their hearts ought not to be heavy, you know,' she said. 'The Revolution is of no country—I thought banishment from one country ought merely to mean work in another for an exile for freedom. Surely there is a fight to be fought here in England, for instance, too. I don't know much about it; I've scarcely seen anything, but it seems to me there is much to be put straight here—many wrongs to be redressed, much misery to be swept away.'

The Count's bold eyes fixed themselves on her with a new interest in them.

'Yes, yes,' he returned with a little backward wave of his hand. 'Exiles here do what they can, I think; but the wronged and miserable will not have long to wait, if there are many Miss Stanleys to champion their cause. Still it does make one's heart heavy to know that horrors unspeakable, worse than anything here, take place daily in one's own country, which one is powerless to prevent. One feels helpless, shut out. Ah, heaven! death itself is less hard to bear.'

'You speak as if you had felt it all yourself,' said Clare, a little surprised at the earnestness of his tone.

'I did not mean to speak otherwise than generally. I believe in England it is considered "bad form" to show feeling of any sort—and you English hate sentiment, don't you?'

'I don't think we hate sincere feeling of any kind; but forgive me for asking—are you really an exile?'

Count Litvinoff bowed. 'I have that misfortune—or that honour, as, in spite of all, I suppose it is. But won't you sing something else?' he added, with a complete change of manner, which made any return on her part to the subject of his exile impossible.

'I really think I've done my duty to-night,' she answered, rising. 'Don't you sing?'

'Yes, sometimes. Music is a consolation. And one is driven to make music for oneself when one lives a very lonely life.'

'Won't you make music for us?' she asked, ignoring the fact that her father was still snoring with vigour.

'Yes, if you wish it.'

He took her place at the piano, and, in a low voice, sang a Hungarian air, wild and melancholy, with a despairing minor refrain.

While her thanks were being spoken his fingers strayed over the keys, and, almost insensibly as it seemed, fell into a few chords that suggested the air of the Marseillaise.

'Oh, do sing that! I've never heard anyone but a schoolgirl attempt it, and I long so to hear it really sung. I think it's glorious.'

Without a word he obeyed her, and launched into the famous battle song of Liberty. His singing of the other song had been a whisper, but in this he gave his voice full play, and sang it with a fire, a fervour, a splendid earnestness and enthusiasm, that made the air vibrate, and thrilled Clare through and through with an utterly new emotion.

She understood now how this song had been able to stir [46] men to such deeds as she had read of—had nerved ragged, half-starved, untrained battalions to scatter like chaff the veteran armies of Europe. She understood it all as she listened to the mingled pathos, defiance, confidence of victory, vengeance and passionate patriotism, which Rouget de Lisle alone of all men has been able to concentrate and to embody in one immortal song, in every note of which breathes the very soul of Liberty.

As the last note was struck and Litvinoff turned round from the piano, he almost smiled at the contrasts in the picture before him—a girl leaning forward, her face lighted up with sympathetic fire, and her eyes glowing with sympathetic enthusiasm, and an old gentleman standing on the hearthrug, very red in the face, very wide awake, and unutterably astonished. The girl was certainly very lovely, and if the exile thought so, as he glanced somewhat deprecatingly at the old gentleman, who shall blame him?

'How splendid!' said Clare.

'Very fine, very fine,' said her father; 'but—er—for the moment I didn't know where I was.'

This reduced the situation to the absurd—and they all laughed.

'I hope I haven't brought down the suspicions of the waiters upon you, Mr Stanley, by my boisterous singing; but it's almost impossible to sing that song as one would sing a ballad. I evidently have alarmed someone,' he added, as a tap at the door punctuated his remark.

But the waiter, whatever his feelings may have been, gave them no expression. He merely announced—

'Mr Roland Ferrier,' and disappeared.

'I'm very glad to see you, my dear boy,' said Mr Stanley, as Roland came forward; 'though it's about the last thing I expected. Mr Litvinoff—Mr Ferrier.'

Both bowed. Roland did not look particularly delighted.

'We've come to London on business,' said he.

'We? Then where is your brother?' questioned Clare.

'Well,' said Roland, 'it is rather absurd, but I can't tell you where he is; he's lost, stolen, or strayed. We came up together, dined together, and started to come here together. We were walking through a not particularly choice neighbourhood between here and St Pancras, when I suddenly missed him. I waited and looked about for something like a quarter of an hour, but as it wasn't the sort of street where men are garrotted, and as he's about able to take care of himself, I thought I'd better come on. I expect he'll be here presently.'

But the evening wore on, and no Richard Ferrier appeared. Clare felt a little annoyed—and Roland more than a little surprised. Perhaps, in spite of his sang froid, he was a trifle anxious when at eleven o'clock Litvinoff and he rose to go, and still his brother had not come.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

AS a rule, it was not an easy matter to turn Richard Ferrier from any purpose of his, and when his purpose was that of visiting Miss Stanley and at the same time of putting a stop to any chance of a tête-à-tête between his divinity and his brother, no ordinary red herring would have drawn him off the track.

As he walked through the streets with Roland all his thoughts were with the girl he was going to see—all his longing was to hasten as much as might be the moment of their meeting. In his mind just then she was the only woman in the world; and yet it was a woman's face in the crowd that made him start so suddenly—a woman's figure that he turned to follow with so immediate a decision as to give his brother no time to notice his going until he had gone.

The street was one of those long, straight, melancholy streets, the deadly monotony and general seediness of which no amount of traffic can relieve—which bear the same relation to Regent Street and Oxford Street as the seamy side of a stage court suit does to the glitter and gaudiness that charm the pit, and stir the æsthetic emotions of the gallery. There are always plenty of people moving about in these streets whom one never sees anywhere else—and you may pass up and down [49] them a dozen times a day without meeting anyone whose dress does not bear tokens, more or less pronounced, of a hand-to-hand struggle with hard-upness. It is a peculiarity of this struggle that in it those who struggle hardest appear to get least, or at any rate those who get least have to struggle hardest. This Society recognises with unconscious candour—and when it sees a man or woman shabbily dressed and with dirty hands, it at once decides that he or she must belong to the 'working' classes; thus naïvely accepting the fact that those whose work produces the wealth are not usually those who secure it.

The face which had attracted Dick's notice was as careworn as any other in that crowd—the figure as shabbily clad as the majority. But the young man turned and followed with an interest independent of fair features or becoming raiment—an interest which had its rise in a determination to solve a problem, or at any rate to silence a doubt.

Yet it was a young woman he was following—more than that, a pretty young women; and the very evident fact that this handsome, well-dressed young man was openly following this shabby girl with a parcel inspired some of the loafers whom they passed to the utterance of comments, the simple directness of which would perhaps not have pleased the young man had he heard them. He heard nothing. He was too intent on keeping her in sight. Presently she passed into a quieter street, and Dick at once ranged alongside of her, and, raising his hat said, 'Why, Alice, have you forgotten old friends already?'

The girl turned a very white face towards him.

'Oh, Mr Richard! I never thought I should see you again, of all people.'

'Why, everybody is sure to meet everyone else sooner or later. How far are you going? Let me carry your parcel.'

'Oh, no, it's not heavy,' she said; but she let him take the brown-paper burden all the same.

'Not heavy!' he returned. 'It's too heavy for you.'

'I'm used to it,' she answered, with a little sigh.

'So much the worse. I'm awfully glad I've met you, my dear girl. Why did you leave us like that? What have you been doing with yourself?'

'Oh, Mr Richard, what does it matter now? And don't stand there holding that parcel, but say good-bye, and let me go home.'

'And where is home?'

'Not a long way off.'

'Well, I'll walk with you. Come along.'

They walked side by side silently for some yards. Then he said,—

'Alice, I want you to tell me truly how it was you left home.'

A burning blush swept over her face, from forehead to throat, and that was the only answer she gave him.

'Come, tell me,' he persisted.

'Can't you guess?' she asked in a low voice, looking straight before her.

'Perhaps I can.'

'Perhaps? Of course you can. Why do girls ever leave good homes, and come to such a home as mine is now?'

'Then he has left you?'

'No,' she said, hurriedly; 'no, no, I've left him. But I can't talk about it to you.'

'Why not to me, if you can to anyone?' he asked.

'Because—because— Don't ask me anything else;' and she burst into tears.

'There, there,' he said, 'don't cry, for heaven's sake. I didn't mean to worry you; but you will tell me all about it by-and-by, won't you? What are you doing now?'

'Working.'

'What sort of work? Come, don't cry, Alice. I hate to think I have been adding to your distress.'

She dried her eyes obediently, and answered:

'I do tailoring work. It seems to be the only thing I'm good for.'

'That's paid very badly, isn't it?' he asked, some vague reminiscences of "Alton Locke" prompting the question.

'Oh, I manage to get along pretty well,' she replied, with an effort at a smile, which was more pathetic in Dick's eyes than her tears had been. He thought gloomily of the time, not so very long ago either, when her face had been the brightest as well as the fairest in Thornsett village, and his heart was sore with indignant protest against him who had so changed her face, her life, her surroundings. He looked at her tired thin face, still so pretty, in spite of the grief that had aged and the want that had pinched it, and found it hard to believe that this was indeed the Alice with whom he had raced through the pastures at Firth Vale—the Alice who had taken the place in his boyish heart of a very dear little sister. Ah, if she had only been his sister really, then their friendship would not have grown less and less during his school and college days, and his protection would have saved her, perhaps, from this. These foster-relationships are uncomfortable things. They inflict the sufferings of a real blood tie, and give none of the rights which might mitigate or avert such suffering.

'How's mother and father?' she said, breaking in among his sad thoughts.

'They were well when I saw them, but I've not seen them lately. We've been in great trouble.'

'Yes. I saw in the papers. I was so sorry.'

'Then you read the papers?'

'I always try to see a weekly paper,' she said a little [52] confusedly. 'Then you don't know how they are at home?'

'I only know they're grieving after you still.'

'They know I'm not dead. I let them know that, and I should think that's all they care to know.'

'You know better than that. My dear child, why not go home to them? I believe the misery you have cost them—forgive me for saying it—will shorten their lives unless you do go back.'

'Go back? No! I've sowed and I must reap. I must go through with it. I live just down here. Good-night.'

It did not look a very inviting residence—a narrow street, leading into a court which was too dark and too distant to be seen into from the corner where she had stopped.

'I sha'n't say good-night till you say when I shall see you again.'

'What's the use? It only makes me more miserable to see you, though I can't help being glad I have seen you this once.'

'But I must try to do something for you. I think I've some sort of right to help you, Alice.'

'But I've no right to be helped by you. Besides, I really don't need help. I have all I want. I'd much better not see you again.'

'Well, I mean to see you again, anyway. I shall be in London for some time. When shall I see you?'

'Not at all.'

'Nonsense!' he said, authoritatively. 'You must promise to write, at any rate, or I shall come down here and wait from eight to eleven every evening till I see you.'

'Very well. I'll write, then. Good-bye!'

'But how can you write? You don't know my address. Here's my card;' and he scribbled the address in pencil. 'It's a promise, Alice. You'll write and you'll see me again?'

'Yes, yes; good-bye;' and she turned to leave him.

'Why, you're forgetting your parcel.'

'So I am. Thank you!' As she took it from him, he said suddenly, watching her keenly the while,—

'Roland is in town now. Shall I bring him to see you?'

'No, no; for God's sake, don't tell him you've seen me!'

And she left him so quickly as to give no time for another word. As she sped down the street a loitering policeman turned to look sharply at her, and two tidy-looking women who were standing at the opposite corner exchanged significant glances.

'I never thought she was one of that sort!' said one.

'Ah!' said the other, 'bad times drives some that way as 'ud keep straight enough with fair-paid work.'

BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS

DICK did not feel inclined to go to Morley's after this rencontre, so he turned back towards his hotel. The problem was not actually solved, certainly; but he was disposed to take all that had passed as a confirmation of his worst suspicions—so much so, that he felt he could not meet his brother just then, as if nothing had happened. He took two or three turns up and down that festive promenade, the Euston Road, thinking indignantly that his position ought to have been Roland's, and Roland's his—that he was suffering for his brother's misdeeds, while his brother was enjoying bright glances from eyes that would hardly look so kindly on him could their owner have known how Dick was spending the evening. For the first time, too, he saw, though only dimly, a few of the difficulties that would lie in his way. It would be harder than ever to keep on any sort of terms with his brother now that he could no longer respect him, and to respect a man who had brought misery into a family which he was bound by every law of honour to protect was not possible to Dick. As his rival he had almost hated Roland; as the man who had ruined Alice Hatfield he both hated and despised him, and he knew well enough that between partners in business these sort of feelings do not lead to commercial success. He did not [55] care to follow out all the train of thought that this suggested; but the remembrance of his father's strange will was very present with him as he went to bed.

In the morning things looked different. It is a way things have.

After all, was it proved? When he came to think over what the girl had said there seemed to be nothing positively conclusive in it all. It was a strange contradiction—he had been very eager to trace the matter out—to prove to himself that Roland was utterly unworthy to win Clare Stanley; and yet now he felt that he would give a good deal to believe that Roland had not done this thing. And this was not only because of the grave pecuniary dilemma in which he must involve himself by any quarrel with Roland. Perhaps it was partly because blood is, after all, thicker than water.

It did not seem to Dick that his knowledge was much increased by his conversation with Alice. The blackest point was still that mysterious holiday trip, taken at such an unusual time, and about which his brother had been so strangely reticent. And that might be accounted for in plenty of other ways. Alice's disappearance at that particular time was very likely only a rather queer coincidence.

Dick had thought all this, and more, before he had finished dressing, and he was ready to meet his brother at breakfast with a manner a shade more cordial than usual—the reaction perhaps from his recent suspicions. Roland was in particularly high spirits.

'Wherever did you get to last night?' he asked. 'I was quite uneasy till I heard you were safe in your bed.'

'What time did you get home?'

It seemed that Roland's uneasiness had been shown by his not turning in till about two.

'Good heavens!—you didn't stay there till that time?' asked Dick, with an air of outraged propriety that would have amused him very much in anyone else. 'How old Stanley must have cursed you!'

'Oh, no; we left there at eleven.'

'We? You didn't take Miss Stanley for a walk on the Embankment, I presume?'

'No such luck. Didn't I tell you? I met an awfully jolly fellow there—a Russian beggar—a real Nihilist and a count, and we went and had a smoke together.'

'My dear fellow, all exiled Russians are Nihilists, and most of them are counts.'

'Oh, no; he really is. I only found out he was a count quite by chance.'

'What's made old Stanley take up with him? Not community of political sentiments, I guess?'

'Oh, no; he saved the old boy from being smashed by some runaway horses, and of course he's earned his everlasting gratitude. I didn't like him much at first, but when you come to talk to him you find he's got a lot in him. I'm sure you'll like him when you see him.'

'Am I sure to have that honour?' asked Dick, helping himself to another kidney. 'Is he tame cat about the Stanleys already.'

'Why, he'd never been there before; what a fellow you are! I've asked him to come and have dinner with us to-night. I want you to see him. I'm sure you'll get on together. He seems to have met with all sorts of adventures.'

'A veritable Baron Munchausen, in fact?'

'I never met such a suspicious fellow as you are, Dick,' said Roland, a little huffily; 'you never seem to believe in any body.'

This smote Dick with some compunction, and he resolved not to dislike this soi-disant count until he had cause to do so, [57] which cause he did not doubt that their first meeting would furnish forth abundantly. But he was wrong.

Litvinoff came, and Dick found his prejudices melting away. The count seemed a standing proof of the correctness of the parallels which have been drawn between Russian and English character. He was English in his frankness, his modesty, his off-hand way of telling his own adventures without making himself the hero of his stories. Before the evening was over Dick began to realise that Nihilists were not quite so black as they are sometimes painted, and that there are other countries besides England where progressive measures are desirable. The brothers were both interested, and tried very hard to get more particulars of Nihilist doctrines, but as they grew more curious Litvinoff became more reticent. As he rose to go he said,—

'Well, if you want to hear a more explicit statement of our wrongs, our principles, and our hopes, and you don't mind rubbing shoulders with English workmen for an hour or two—and if you're not too strict Sabbatarians, by-the-way—you might come down to a Radical club in Soho. I am going to speak there at eight on Sunday evening. I shall be very glad if you'll come; but don't come if you think it will bore you.'

'I shall like it awfully,' said Dick. 'You'll go, won't you, Roland?'

'Of course I will.'

'We might have dinner together,' said Litvinoff. 'Come down to Morley's; we'll dine at six.'

This offer was too tempting to be refused. It presented an admirable opportunity for making an afternoon call on the Stanleys, and the brothers closed with it with avidity, and their new acquaintance took his leave.

When Dick was alone he opened a letter which had been brought to him during the evening. He read:—

'15 Spray's Buildings, Porson Street, W.C.

'Dear Mr Richard,—I promised to write to you but I did not mean to see you again. But it was a great comfort to meet a face I knew, and I feel I must see you again, if it's only to ask you so many questions about them all at home. I do not seem to have said half I ought to have said the other night. If you really care to see me again, I shall be in on Monday afternoon. Go straight up the stairs until you get to the very top—it's the right-hand door. I beg you not to say you have seen me—to Mr Roland or to anyone else.—Yours respectfully,

'Alice Hatfield.'

This letter revived his doubts, but he was very glad of the chance of seeing her again, and he determined not to be deterred from pressing the question which he had at heart by any pain which it might cause her or himself. Jealousy, curiosity, regard for the girl—all these urged him to learn the truth, and besides them all a certain sense of duty. If her sorrow had come to her through his brother it surely was all the more incumbent on him to see that her material sufferings, at any rate, were speedily ended. If not....

Men almost always move from very mixed motives, and of these motives they only acknowledge one to be their spring of action. This sense of duty was the one motive which Dick now admitted to himself. At any rate he did not mean to think any more about it till Monday came, so he thrust the letter into his pocket, and let his fancy busy itself with Clare Stanley after its wonted fashion. It found plenty of occupation in the anticipation of that Sunday afternoon call.

When the call was made Mr Stanley was asleep, and though he roused himself to welcome them he soon relapsed into the condition which is peculiar to the respectable Briton on Sunday afternoons.

Miss Stanley was particularly cheerful, but as soon as she heard where they intended to spend the evening, the conversation took a turn so distinctly Russian, as to be almost a forestalment of the coming evening's entertainment. Nihilism in general and Nihilist counts in particular seemed to be the only theme on which she would converse for two minutes at a time. Roland made a vigorous effort to lead the conversation to things English, but it was a dead failure. Dick sought to elicit Miss Stanley's opinion of the reigning actress, but this, as he might have foreseen, only led to a detailed account of that adventure in which the principal part of hero had been played by a Russian, a Nihilist, or a count, and there were all the favoured subjects at once over again.

The young men felt that the visit had not been a distinct success, and when Clare woke her father up to beg him to take her to that Radical club in Soho, even his explosive refusal and anathematising of Radicals as pests of society failed to reconcile the Ferriers to their lady's new enthusiasm.

The conversation at dinner, however, was a complete change. Count Litvinoff appeared to feel no interest in life, save in the question of athletics at the English universities; but on this topic he managed to be so entertaining that his guests quite forgot, in his charm as talker, the irritation he had caused them to feel when he was merely the subject of someone else's talk. When dinner was over, and the three started to walk to Soho, they were all on the very best of terms with themselves and each other.

Would one of them have been quite so much at ease if he had known that the announcement of the coming lecture had been seen in the paper by Alice Hatfield, and that she—not being much by way of going to church—had made up her mind to be there?

SUNDAY EVENING IN SOHO

THE average English citizen and his wife have a certain method of spending Sunday which admits of no variation, and is as essential to their religion as any doctrine which that religion inculcates. Indeed, it is very often the only tribute which they pay to those supernatural powers who are supposed to smile upon virtue and to frown upon vice.

When church and chapel—St Waltheof's and Little Bethel—unite in teaching that ceremonial observance is at least as important as moral practice, is it to be wondered at that their congregations, feeling that it would be more than human to combine the two, choose to move along the line of least resistance? It is comparatively easy, though perhaps somewhat tiresome, especially in hot weather, to get up only a little late on Sunday mornings, instead of a good deal late, as the 'natural man' would prefer to do; to assume a more or less solemn aspect at the breakfast-table; to wear garments of unusual splendour, which do not see daylight during the week, and in assuming them to feel tremors of uneasiness lest they should be outshone by Mr Jones' wife, Mr Smith's daughter, Mr Brown's sister, or Mr Robinson's maiden aunt. It is not quite so easy, but still possible, to sit for two hours on a [61] narrow seat, evidently made by someone who knew he would never have to sit on it, and to keep awake (in the old pews this was not imperative), while a preacher, whom one does not care for, talks, in language one does not understand, on subjects in which one takes not the slightest interest. And then, as a compensation, one has the heavy early dinner and the afternoon sleep, in itself almost a religious exercise. Perhaps one's ungodly neighbours curse the day they were born as they hear one, after tea, playing long-drawn hymn tunes on a harmonium, till the bells begin to go for evening 'worship'; then one's wife goes to put on her bonnet (which has been lying in state all day on the best bed, covered with a white handkerchief), and one goes to one's 'sitting' again with a delicious sense that the worse of it is over. All this is not so difficult, and an eternity of bliss is cheap at the price—distinctly.

But to refrain from sanding the sugar or watering the milk—especially for a 'family man,' who has 'others to think of besides himself'—to keep one's hand from this, and one's tongue from evil-speaking, lying and slandering, to keep one's body in temperance and soberness, to be true and just in all one's dealings—this would be not only difficult but absurd, nowadays.

There are a good many who try to carry out the moral teachings and let the ceremonial observances alone, and there are far more who disregard the one and the other; and for both these classes there are ways of spending Sunday evening of which the strict Sabbatarian has no conception. Among others are the entertainments provided by working men's clubs. These are not the wildest form of dissipation; but, as a rule, they have some practical bearing on this world and its affairs and, though rather solid pudding, are appreciated by the audiences, mostly working men, who have a strong and increasing taste for solids, and no small discernment in the matter of flavours.

To-night the dish provided for the Agora Club was a Russian one, and was likely to be highly spiced.

'Do you expect a large audience?' Richard Ferrier asked Litvinoff, as they walked along.

'I hope so,' he said. 'I can always speak better to a full room. Perhaps the physical heat does something to grease one's tongue; and then, again, in a large audience, you're sure to have some people who agree with you, and you and they reflect enthusiasm backwards and forwards between you. We're close there now,' he added, as they turned down a narrow street of high, unhappy-looking houses.

'How in the world do you come to be lecturing at a place like this? How do you know anything about it?' asked Roland.

'There is a freemasonry among the soldiers of Liberty which holds good all over the world, and we who serve her are pledged to carry her light into the darkest corners.'

If this seemed somewhat rhetorical to the young Englishmen, they were ready enough to excuse it in a foreigner, and especially in a foreigner who was about to make a speech. It did occur to Dick that the locality in which they were at the moment was a dark corner which stood as much in need of the services of the Metropolitan Gas Company as of those of the torch-bearers of Freedom; but there was light enough in the room into which Count Litvinoff soon led them.

It was long and rather low, not unlike a certain type of dissenting meeting-room. At one end was a platform, on which stood two wooden chairs, and a deal table which had upon it a tumbler, a bottle of water, and a small wooden hammer, similar to those used by auctioneers. The room was well filled—so well filled that all the wooden forms and chairs were occupied, and even the standing room was so much taken up that the three young men found a little difficulty in working their way to the upper end of the room. Roland noticed, [63] with some surprise, that among the audience were several women, who seemed quite as much at home there as the husbands and brothers with whom they had come.

The two Ferriers were placed on a seat facing the platform, which Litvinoff at once ascended, in company with the chairman. The two were received with cheers and applause, which redoubled when the chairman in his opening remarks referred to the count as 'one who had suffered and worked for years for the cause he was about to advocate.'

Much as the Ferriers had already wondered at Litvinoff's mastery of English, they wondered still more after the first ten minutes on his speech. It is one thing to carry on a social conversation in a tongue not one's own; it is another and a widely different thing to be able to hold a foreign audience, and to sway and move it, to rouse its enthusiasm and to thrill it with horror, at one's will and pleasure. Yet such was the power of this young Russian rebel. He spoke without notes, and without the slightest hesitation. His voice in the opening sentences was very low, but so clear as to be heard distinctly all over the room.

The first part of his address was simply a narrative. In a calm, unimpassioned way he told his hearers the story, from its beginning, of a struggle for freedom; he told them how a movement which had begun in a spirit of love, enthusiasm, and self-sacrifice, had been turned by blind tyranny and brutal oppression into one of wild vengeance and bitter relentless hatred. He told them how, for a chance expression of sympathy with the down-trodden peasants; for the possession of a suppressed book; sometimes even for less than these offences, for having incurred the personal spite of some members of the police, aged men and tender girls had been, and were, at that moment while he spoke to them, being delivered over to the torture chambers of the Russian monarch, to be scourged and starved, to be devoured by disease and riven by madness. He [64] told them how tyranny always had treated—how while it exists, tyranny always will treat the sons of men.

Then, when many among his audience had broken out into groans of indignation and cries of 'Shame!' the usual note of an indignant English audience, the speaker dropped the narrative tone and became argumentative. Here, when he justified the Nihilists' 'deeds of death' as the lawful punishment of criminals—punishment inflicted by the only power that has the right to execute vengeance, the outraged spirit of man—he seemed to lose for a moment the sympathy of some of his hearers, and certainly of the Ferriers, who like most Englishmen, believed in the efficacy of Parliamentary reforms, and also forgot, like most Englishmen, that these patent remedies for all the ills of life are hardly applicable to nations that have no parliament.

With the ready apprehension of a true orator, Litvinoff saw the slight shade of coldness as it passed over some of the upturned faces before him, and, with a consummate skill that was the result either of long practice or oratorical genius, he changed, without seeming to change, the argumentative and defensive attitude for one of stern and glowing denunciation. His voice rang through the room now like a trumpet-call. A very little of this sort of thing was sufficient to rouse the men before him to stormy approbation, and Richard whispered to his brother that if any Russian dignitary were to come in just then, while the speaker was in the full tide of his invective, he would have very much the sort of reception that was given to the Austrian woman-flogging general some years ago by the stalwart draymen of Messrs Barclay & Perkins.

Apparently satisfied with the applause of his audience, in which he seemed to delight and revel, Litvinoff turned from the present and the past, and invited his hearers to look with him into the future, 'not only of Russia, but of mankind,' he said; 'what the world might be—what it would be.' Then [65] were done into rhetorical English the concluding pages of that famous Russian pamphlet, 'A Prophetic Vision'—the pamphlet for whose sake Russian peasants had braved the spydom of the police, and to hear which read aloud by some of their fellows who could read, they had crowded together at nights in outhouses and sheds, by the dim light of tallow candles—the pamphlet for whose possession St Petersburg and Moscow students had quarrelled and almost fought, knowing all the time that the mere fact of its being found upon their persons or among their belongings meant certain imprisonment, and possible death—the pamphlet, in short, the discovery of whose authorship three years back had sent Count Litvinoff and his luckless secretary flying for the Austrian frontier.

It was certainly a pleasant vision this of the Russian noble, whether it was prophetic or no, a dream of a time when men would no longer sow for other men to reap, when the fruits of the earth would be the inheritance of all the earth's children, and not only of her priests and her rulers; when, in fact, rulers would be no more, for all would rule and each would obey; when every man would do as he liked, and every man would like to do well.

All this seemed very high-flown and remote to the young university critics on the front seats, though even they were moved for a moment or two, by the vibrating tones of the speaker, out of the attitude of English stolidity which they had carefully kept up during the evening. But those behind them were less reserved, and perhaps more credulous—more given to believing in visions; and when Litvinoff sat down, the walls of the Agora rang again and again with the cheers of a sympathetic and delighted audience.

When the chairman had announced that 'Mr' Litvinoff would be happy to answer any questions that might be sug [66]gested by the lecture, there was a moment or two of that awkward silence which always occurs on these occasions, when everyone feels that there are at least half-a-dozen questions he would like to ask, but experiences the greatest possible difficulty in putting even one into an intelligible shape.

At length a man in one of the far corners of the room rose to put a question. His accent showed him to be a foreigner, but that was not a very remarkable thing in Soho. He had a scrubby chin and dirty linen, two other characteristics not uncommon in that region. After a preliminary cough he explained that his question was rather personal than general, and he quite allowed that the lecturer was not bound to answer it; but he said that, having been in Russia, he could bear testimony to the truth of all that had been said that evening, and that while in the south of Russia he had come across a small pamphlet, called 'A Prophetic Vision,' which he had been told had been written by a Count Michael Litvinoff. Some parts of the address to-night had reminded him of that excellent pamphlet, and he thought it would be interesting to the audience to know whether the author of that pamphlet was the speaker of the evening.

Litvinoff rose at once.

'I had no idea,' he said, 'that the little brochure would ever be heard of outside the country for whose children it was written; but since the question is asked me so frankly to-night, I will answer as frankly—Yes, I wrote it.'

An approving murmur ran through the room, and the foreigner rose again. He was sorry again to trouble Citizen Litvinoff, but was he right in supposing (it had been so reported) that the discovery of this pamphlet by the Russian Government had occasioned Count Litvinoff's exile?

Litvinoff was very pale as he answered,—

'Yes; it was that unhappy pamphlet which deprived me of the chance of serving my country on the scene of action, and which lost me a life I valued above my own—that of a fellow-countryman of the audience which I have the pleasure of addressing to-night—my secretary and friend, whom I loved more than a brother.' His voice trembled as he ended.

There was another round of applause, and, no more questions being forthcoming, the meeting broke up, and people stood talking together in little groups. Richard was discussing a knotty economic point with a sturdy carpenter and trades unionist, and Roland, close by, was earnestly questioning a French Communist to whom Litvinoff had introduced him, and was receiving an account of the so-called murder of the hostages very different from any which had appeared in the daily papers of the period, when the Count came up to them.

'Excuse me,' he said, 'I am désolé; but I shall be unable to stay longer. You will be able, doubtless, to pilot yourselves back to civilisation, and will pardon my abrupt departure. I have just seen someone going out of the door whom I've been trying to catch for the last three months, and I'm off in pursuit.'

And he was off. As he passed a small knot of youths outside the door they looked after him, and one of them said with a laugh, 'Blest if I don't believe he's after that handsome gal. What chaps these foreigners are for the ladies.'

The discerning youth was right. He was after that girl—but though he followed her and watched her into the house where she lived, he did not speak to her.

'Think twice before you speak once is a good rule,' he said [68] to himself, as he turned westwards, 'and I know where she lives, at any rate.'

Even discussions on political economy, and historical revelations by those who helped to make the history, must come to an end at last, and the Ferriers came away, after Dick had received a pressing invitation from the chairman to address the club, and to choose his own subject, and Roland, who had suddenly conceived a passion for foreigners of a revolutionary character, had made an appointment with his Communist acquaintance for an evening in the week.

As they passed down the street, two men standing under a lamp looked at them with interest. One was the man who had put the questions regarding the pamphlet. The other was a foreigner too, though he was clean in his attire and had not a scrubby chin, but a long, light silky beard. He wore the slouch hat so much affected by the High Church Clergy, and which is popularly supposed to mark any non-clerical wearer as a man of revolutionary views. He was tall, and pale, and thin, and had very deeply-set hollow eyes, which he kept fixed on the retreating millowners till they turned the corner and went out of sight. Then he said, in a Hungarian dialect,—

'Our pamphlet-writing friend doesn't seem to choose his friends solely among the poor and needy; and that is politic to say the least of it.'

'Money seeks money,' growled the other, 'and he has plenty.'

'Not so much as you'd suppose. The greater part of the Litvinoff property is quite out of his reach. Our "little father" takes good care of that.'

'That which he has he takes care to keep,' said the other.

'I'm not so sure; at anyrate, he uses his tongue, which is [69] a good one, in our cause. Speeches like that are good. A man who can speak so is not to be sneered at, and I'm certain he could not speak like that unless he felt some of it at least. He has done us good service before, and he will again. The Mantle of the Prophet fits him uncommonly well.'

'YOU LIE!'

'Morley's Hotel, Sunday Evening.

DEAR MR FERRIER,—You were so full of Russia yesterday afternoon that you made me forget to say to you what might have saved you the trouble of answering this by post. Will you and your brother dine with us (papa says) to-morrow evening at seven? I hope you enjoyed yourselves last night. I am sure I should have done if I had been there. With papa's and my kind regards to you and Mr Roland,—I am, dear Mr Ferrier, yours very truly,

'Clare Stanley.

'P.S.—Count Litvinoff, your interesting Russian friend, will be here.'

Miss Stanley smiled to herself rather wickedly as she folded this note. She had noticed that her interest in the Russian acquaintance did not seem to enhance theirs, and she thought to herself that whatever the dinner might be at which those three assisted, it certainly would not be dull for her.

In Derbyshire, where her amusements were very limited, she would have thought twice before permitting herself to risk offending the masters of Thornsett, but here that risk only [71] seemed to offer a new form of amusement. But experimenting on the feelings of these gentlemen was an entertainment which was somehow not quite so enthralling as it had been, and she now longed, not for a fresh world to conquer—here was one ready to her hand—but for the power to conquer it. She would have given something to be able to believe that she had anything like the same power over this hero of romance, whom fate had thrown in her way, as she had over the excellent but commonplace admirers with whom she had amused herself for the last year.

Litvinoff had distinctly told her that the goddess of his idolatry, the one mistress of his heart, was Liberty, and though this statement was modified in her mind by her recollection of certain glances cast at herself, she yet believed in it enough to feel a not unnatural desire to enter into competition with that goddess. Her classical studies taught her that women had competed successfully with such rivals, and she was not morbidly self-distrustful, especially when a looking-glass was near her.

With the letter in her hand she glanced at the mirror over the mantelpiece, and the fair vision of dark-brown lashes, gold-brown waving hair, delicate oval face, and well-shaped if rather large mouth, might have reassured her had she felt any doubts of her own attractions. But the glance she cast at herself over her shoulder was one of saucy triumph, and the smile with which she sealed her letter one of conscious power.

Would she have been gratified if she could have seen the effect of her note? It was not at all with the sort of expression you would expect to see on the face of a man who had just received a dinner invitation transmitted through the lady of his heart from that lady's papa, that Richard Ferrier passed the note over to his brother next morning.

'Here you are,' he said. 'Bouquet de Nihilist, trebly distilled.'

'Well, don't let's go, then.'

'Why, I thought you were so fond of the Count. I wonder you don't jump at it. I thought it would please you.'

'So I do like him—he's a splendid speaker; but I didn't come to London to spend all my days and nights with him, any more than you did. Besides, I'm engaged for to-night.'

'Oh, are you? Well, I think I shall go.'

'You'd better leave it alone. You won't stand much chance beside a man with such a moustache as that. Besides, he sings, don't you know? and with all your solid and admirable qualities, Richard, you're not a nightingale.'

'Nor yet a runaway rebel.'

'I say, you'd better look a little bit after your epithets. Litvinoff doesn't look much of the running-away sort. According to what I heard last night, he can use a revolver with effect on occasion. By the way, Richard,' he went on, more seriously, 'I believe I saw a face at that club I knew, but it was only for a minute, and I lost sight of it, and I couldn't be sure.'

'Who did you think it was?'

'Little Alice.'

'Think—you think!' said his brother, turning fiercely on him. 'Do you mean to say you didn't know?'

'Know? Of course not, or I should say so. What the deuce do you mean?'

'I should like to ask you what the deuce you mean by even debating whether or no to accept that invitation when you know you've no earthly right to go near Miss Stanley—'

'You'd better mention your ideas to Mr Stanley. I don't in the least know what you're driving at—and I don't care; [73] but since you choose to bring her name in, I shall throw over my other engagement and go to Morley's to-night.'

'You can go to the devil if you choose!' said Dick, who seemed to have entirely lost his self-control, and he flung out, slamming the door behind him.

Clare's note was bearing more fruit than she desired or anticipated in setting the brothers not so much against Litvinoff as against each other, for what but her letter could have stirred Dick's temper to this sudden and unpremeditated outbreak? What but her note and Dick's comments thereon could have ruffled Roland's ordinarily even nature in this way? It is always a mistake to play with fire; but people, girls especially, will not believe this until they have burned their own fingers, and, en passant, more of other people's valuables than they can ever estimate.

'I wish I had spoken to that girl yesterday,' said Count Litvinoff to himself; 'it would have saved my turning out this vile afternoon. If fate has given England freedom, she has taken care to accompany the gift with a fair share of fog. I wish I could help worrying about other people's troubles. It is very absurd, but I can't get on with my work for thinking of that poor tired little face. Hard up, she looked, too. Ah, well! so shall I be very soon, unless something very unexpected turns up. I'll go now, and earn an easy conscience for this evening.'

He threw down his pen and rose. The article on the Ethics of Revolution on which he was engaged had made but small progress that afternoon. He had felt ever since lunch that go out he must sooner or later, and the prospect was dispiriting. He glanced out of his window as he put on his fur-lined coat. From the windows of Morley's Hotel the view on a fine day is about as cheerful as any that London can [74] present—though one may have one's private sentiments respecting the pepper-boxes which emphasise the bald ugliness of the National Gallery, and though one may sometimes wish that the slave of the lamp would bring St George's Hall from Liverpool and drop it on that splendid site. But this was not a fine day. It was a gloomy, damp, foggy, depressing, suicidal day. The fog had, with its usual adroitness, managed to hide the beauties of everything, and to magnify the uglinesses. Nelson was absolutely invisible, and the lions looked like half-drowned cats. Litvinoff shuddered as he lighted a large cigar and pulled his gloves on.

'This is a detestable climate,' he said, as he drew the first whiffs; 'but London is about the only place I know where good cigars can be had at a price to fit the pocket of an exile. I suppose I shall soon have to leave this palatial residence, and become one of the out-at-elbows gentlemen who make life hideous in Leicester Square and Soho.'

Like many men who have lived lonely lives, Michael Litvinoff had an inveterate habit of soliloquy. It had been strengthened by his life at the ancestral mansion on the Litvinoff estate, and had not grown less in his years of solitary wanderings.

His walk to-day was not a pleasant one, and more than once he felt inclined to turn back. But he persevered, and when he reached the house which he had seen her enter he asked a woman on the ground floor if Miss Hatfield lived there.

'There's a young person named Hatfield in the front attic,' was the reply, as the informant stared with all her eyes at the Count, who was certainly an unusual sort of apparition in Spray's Buildings.

As he strode up the dirty, rotten stairs, stumbling more than once, he thought to himself, as Dick had done, that [75] Alice did not make her new life profitable, whatever it was.

'Poor girl!' he thought; 'if she's of the same mind now as she was when I saw her last, I suppose I must find an opportunity of doing good by stealth.'

The house, though poor enough, did not seem to be one of those overcrowded dens of which we have heard so much lately, and which a Royal Commission is to set right, as a Royal Commission always does set everything right. Or perhaps the lodgers were birds of prey, who only came home to roost at uncertain hours; or beasts of burden, who were only stabled at midnight to be harnessed again at sunrise. At anyrate, the Count saw no one on the stairs, and he saw no one in the front attic either. Not only no one, but no thing. The door and window were both open. The room appeared to have been swept and garnished, but was absolutely empty of everything but fog. There was another door opposite, but it was closed and locked.

'She's evidently not here. We'll try lower down.' But before he had time to turn he heard a foot on the stairs, coming up with the light and springy tread which is the result of good and well-fitting boots, and which does not mark those who walk through life, from the cradle to the grave, shod in boots several sizes too large and several pounds too heavy.

He glanced over the broken banisters, and recoiled hastily.

'The gentle Roland, by all that's mysterious!' he said, 'Now, what on earth can he want here? At anyrate, he'd better not see me.'

The landing on which he stood was very dark, and there was a heap of lumber, old boxes, a hopelessly broken chair, a tub, and some boards. Litvinoff crept behind them, and in his black coat and the obscurity of the dusky landing and the dark afternoon he felt himself secure. He had hardly taken [76] up this position when Roland Ferrier's head appeared above the top stair, to be followed cautiously by the rest of him. He cast a puzzled look round the empty attic, tried the closed door, and, turning, went downstairs again.

Litvinoff was just coming out of his not over savoury lurking-place when he heard a voice on the landing below, which was not Roland's.

'Parbleu!' he said to himself; 'it rains Ferriers here this afternoon. Here's the engaging Richard, and evidently not in the best of tempers.'

He evidently was not—if one might judge by his voice, which was icy with contempt as he said sneeringly, 'So this was the engagement you were going to put off, was it?'

'Yes, it was. At least I am here to put off an engagement; but I don't know what you know about it,' said Roland, 'and I don't know what you mean by following me about like this. What business have you here? This isn't Aspinshaw, that you need dog my footsteps.'

'I came here to try and find out whether my father's son was a scoundrel or not, and you've answered the question for me by being here.'

'Upon my word,' said Roland's voice, 'I think you must be out of your mind.'

It isn't often that the thought which would restrain comes into one's mind at the moment when restraint is most needed; but just then Dick did think of his father and his dying wishes, and the remembrance helped him to speak more calmly than he would otherwise have done.

'Once for all, then, will you tell me why you are here, Roland?'

'Yes, I will, though I don't acknowledge your right to question me. I had an appointment, with that Frenchman we met last night, for this evening, but I've lost his address. I [77] knew it was in this court, and I was walking about on the chance of finding him, when I'm almost sure I saw Litvinoff come in here. I made after him, feeling sure he was going to the same place as I was.'

'And where is Litvinoff?'

'He seems to have disappeared, or else I was mistaken. Now, what have you got to say?'

'This. You lie!'

It sounded hardly like Richard's voice, so hoarse and choked with passion was it; and so full of insult and scorn that Roland at last lost control of himself.

'Stand back, you raving maniac,' he said, 'and let me pass! The same roof mustn't cover us two any longer, and don't speak again to me this side of the grave.'

The listener, leaning forward eagerly to catch every word, heard Roland's foot dash down the staircase. There was a moment of perfect silence, and then came a long-drawn sigh from Richard Ferrier.

'Now then, young man, what's all this to-do about? I should like to know what you mean by quarrelling in places that don't belong to you, and terrifying respectable married women out of their seven senses.' It was a shrill woman's voice that spoke, and a door opened on the landing where young Ferrier stood.

'I'm very sorry, madam,' said Richard, in tones calm enough now. 'I didn't intend to disturb anyone. Will you kindly tell me if anyone lives here named Hatfield?'

'There was a young woman of that name in the front attic, but she left sudden this morning.'

'Do you know where she's gone?'

'No, I don't.'

'Does anyone in the house know?'

'No. I'm the landlady, and she'd have told me if she told anyone.'

'Thank you,' he said, and turned to pass down the staircase.

'Stay, though,' he said; 'have you any Frenchmen lodging here?'

'I don't want no dratted furriners here, and I haven't got none, thank God!'

'Of course not,' said Ferrier to himself, and strode downstairs.

'No foreigners here? Don't be too sure, my good woman,' Litvinoff muttered to himself, as he heard the landlady's door close to a continued accompaniment of reiterated objections in that lady's shrill treble. 'I'd better get out of this house of mystery at once. I trust that the outraged female proprietor of this staircase will not demand my blood. Well, whatever happens, I suppose we shall not see the amiable brothers to-night, and that will mean a tête-à-tête,' he added, as he came out from his dusty retirement, and carefully removed all traces of the same from his clothes. When he found himself once more in the chill, foggy, outside air, he looked up and down the court, and smiled.

'The situation becomes interesting,' he said to himself, 'and demands another of these very excellent cigars.'

AT SPRAY'S BUILDINGS.

IT seemed a very long walk home to Alice Hatfield, after that Sunday evening lecture. She felt almost as though she could never reach her lodging. It was such weary work to keep putting one tired foot before the other. And somehow she was so much more easily tired now than she used to be in her Derbyshire home, where she had been used to breast the steepest hills without even a quickened breath. She wished she had not gone; she had derived no pleasure from the evening, and had only gained a sharper heartache from the sight of a certain face, which had been, and was still for that matter, the dearest face in the world to her. She felt re-awakened too in her a liking for a different life among different surroundings; the life she had given up of her own free will three months ago. She had been much alone in that other life, it is true, and her thoughts had not made solitude sweet; but she had seen him sometimes, and now she was quite alone—always—save for the few slight acquaintances she had made in the house where she lived. In that other life, which now looked brighter than it had ever done when it was hers, she had been racked and tortured by her conscience, which had at last forced her to try and silence it by renouncing [80] what she had sacrificed everything to gain, and by voluntarily adopting this strange, hard way of living. But now that that gloomy monitor was on her side, it failed to give that comfort and support which one is taught to expect from it.

'Be virtuous and you will be happy,' say the copy-books. A somewhat higher authority (Professor Huxley) thinks otherwise. 'Virtue is undoubtedly beneficent,' he says, 'but the man is to be envied to whom her ways seem in any wise playful; and though she may not talk much about suffering and self-denial, her silence on that topic may be accounted for on the principle ça va sans dire. She is an awful goddess, whose ministers are the furies, and whose highest reward is peace.'

Alice Hatfield hadn't read Huxley, but if she had she would have agreed with him in this; and now it seemed as though the furies were driving her along the streets towards that miserable home of hers, where, so far, no dove of peace had folded its wings.

It is given to all of us, at one time or another, to repent—more or less—of the evil; but many of us also know what it is to look back, with something like remorse, on what we believe to have been the good. And good and evil, get so mixed up sometimes, when we have often heard the world's 'right' skilfully controverted and made to seem wrong, by the tongue whose eloquence once made wrong seem to us right.

Alice had to collect all her energies to enable her to climb the steep dark stairs which led to her room, and when she had gained it at last, and had lighted her little benzoline lamp, she sank down on her chair bedstead, exhausted and breathless. What a hateful room it was; how cold, and cheerless, and wretched. The few poor articles of furniture did not relieve its bareness in the least. There was no fire, of course, and her little lamp quite failed to light up the dark corners. There [81] must be something wrong with that lamp—it was going out surely—the room was growing so dark; or was it her eyes from which the power of seeing was going? The room seemed to swim before her sight, and a feeling of deadly faintness came over her, a horrible sensation of going through the floor. She staggered to her feet and drank some water, which gave her strength to go unsteadily down to the floor below, and to knock at the landlady's door.

'Oh, I am so ill—so ill! I think I'm dying,' she said, holding out both hands as the woman appeared; 'help me.'

Then she knew no more. Her troubles, her tiredness, her regrets, her very self, all were swallowed up in the horror of great darkness that overwhelmed her.

'Here's a nice set out,' grumbled Mrs Fludger, as her lodger fell at her feet; 'as if one hadn't enough troubles o' one's own—what with Jenny being out o' work, and the master on the booze since Friday. Jenny!'

'Here I am.'

Miss Jenny Fludger, a muscular young woman, with her hair in a long beaded net, responded to the call, and lent her help in carrying Alice back to her room. Then the unsympathetic hands of the two women undressed the girl and laid her in her bed. Then they looked meaningly at each other.

'If she don't soon come round I'll send Joe for the doctor,' said the mother. 'You never knows what may happen.'

Then Mrs Fludger dashed cold water in the patient's face, slapped her hands with a vigour that would have brought tears to her eyes had she been conscious, and made a horrible smell with the benzoline lamp and a pigeon's feather hastily begged from a lodger who had leanings ornithological. Alice showing no signs of being affected by the application of these generally efficacious remedies, Mrs Fludger decided that this was a case of 'going off' quite beyond her experience, and [82] feeling the responsibility too much to be borne alone, she despatched her third son in quest of a doctor, regardless of Miss Jenny's opinion that the lodger was 'shamming.' Joe Fludger was not particularly pleased at being sent. He was busy just then shaking up a mangy kitten and a recently-acquired guinea-pig in a box, with a view of getting them to fight, which they showed no signs of doing, and he did not care to relinquish this enthralling pastime until he had compassed his end. He put his two 'pets' into one pocket, hoping that that position would urge them to fulfil their destiny and have it out, and as he met several friends, and felt it incumbent on him to exhibit his treasures to each of them, it was some time before he carried out his instructions, and brought medical science, as represented by Dr Moore, to 15 Spray's Buildings. But even when the doctor did at last stand by her bedside, Alice was still insensible.

He raised her eyelids, felt her pulse, asked one or two brief questions, and then stood holding her hand till she sighed, and moved slightly.

'She's coming round,' he said. 'Not married, I see,' he added, glancing at the hand he held, on which shone no golden circle, not even the brass substitute which takes its place occasionally, when times are very hard.

'Not as I ever heard of,' said Miss Jenny with a toss of the net, which drew down upon her a glance of disapproval from the old doctor, and a sharp recommendation from her mother to go downstairs. 'Give the girl air; there's too many of us here a'ready.'

Miss Fludger withdrew with a gesture expressive of a sovereign contempt for faints in general, and this collapse in particular.

'How does this poor thing get her living?' asked the doctor; 'she looks as if she got it honestly.' He, being an observant man, glanced as he spoke at the roughened forefinger of her left hand, and then round the bare, dreary attic.

'Lord! doctor, how should I know? Do you think I puts all my lodgers through their cataclysm before I takes 'em in?' said Mrs Fludger, with some general recollection of the days when she went to Sunday school. Mrs Fludger did not always manage to hit on the right word to express the meaning she intended to convey, but she always found a word something like the right one, and a word which really had a place in the English dictionary; she had a rare dexterity in the finding of such words, and a fine confidence in the use of them, which made them answer her purpose admirably.

'You're better now, aren't you?' said the doctor, as Alice opened her eyes. 'Here's a shilling, ma'am: can you send for some brandy?'

Mrs Fludger would go herself. Such an admirable opportunity for having 'two penn'orth' at the 'Hope' was not to be let slip.

'Don't be frightened,' he said, as the landlady left the room. 'It's only the doctor. You've been overdoing it—working too hard, and eating too little.'

'But I never felt like that before,' said Alice slowly and faintly. 'I thought I was going to die.'

'Haven't you anyone belonging to you? You ought to be with friends just now.'

'No. I'm quite alone, quite alone. Why just now?'

'My dear child, don't you know why?'

She did not answer, but looked at him with large, frightened, questioning eyes; and before Mrs Fludger returned with a shrunken shilling's-worth in a ginger-beer bottle, Alice had learned that that which she had feared, till a sort of hope had grown out of the very intensity of her fear—that which had seemed almost too terrible to be possible—was to be. She now had that certainty which is a spring of secret happiness to so many women, to some only a fresh care and anxiety, [84] and to some, alas! the sign and token of social banishment—the warrant of disgrace and despair.

Doctor Moore spoke kindly, and with no note of censure in his voice. He had a naturally tender heart, and long years of practice in a poor neighbourhood had developed his sympathies, instead of blunting them, as, unfortunately, happens in too many cases. He was an old man now, and this was an old story to him; but his eyes were still sharp enough to see that the girl before him did not belong to that class of patients to whom such an announcement would have meant little more than a temporary inconvenience and a trifling subsequent expense. He thought to himself that he would look in in the morning and see the girl again. There had been a look in her eyes as she listened to him that made him feel that she wanted looking after.

'Give her some hot brandy-and-water, and let her go to sleep—that's the best thing for her,' he said to Mrs Fludger as he came away. The landlady accompanied him downstairs in a halo of apology for having 'such like' in her house, and when she had lighted him out she climbed once more, protesting, to the attic, and having administered the brandy as prescribed, came away, after bidding the girl 'good-night' not unkindly.

But, all the same, she made up her mind that Alice must go. If the girl had come there as 'Mrs' Anybody—and worn a ring, no questions would have been asked by Mrs Fludger. There would then have been the alternative of supposing that the Mr in the case was in the seafaring way, or was enjoying a holiday upon the breezy slopes of Dartmoor. But as she had chosen to neglect the payment of that slight tribute to the proprieties which even this neighbourhood demanded, there was no help for it—she must go. Besides, there might be difficulties about rent, and even a want of money for the necessaries of [85] life—and Mrs Fludger was afraid to trust her tender heart. Even forty years of being pinched and 'druv' had not quite dried up the milk of human kindness in her bosom, and she felt that she would rather not have a lodger who would excite her sympathy and possibly make demands upon her pocket. This habit of 'not trusting our tender hearts' is not confined to the class to which Mrs Fludger belonged. Others who have larger means of meeting probable drafts on their 'tenderness' have also a way of pushing misery out of sight, or handing it over to the emollient remedies of a Royal Commission, which, of course, goes thoroughly into the matter. Does it? The Royal Commissioners do not find their shoulders any easier under the burden we have shifted on to them than we found ours, and not being able to shift the weight again, they skilfully dissolve it, and give it us back in the solution of a wordy report. And for Mrs Fludger, who had to look sharp after every halfpenny, and who knew no higher morality than that taught in the precept, 'Take care of number one,' which to her meant the number nine, of whom Miss Jenny was the eldest, there was more excuse than there is for the theoretical philanthropists who wear purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day.

But the landlady was not required to make the announcement which she had proposed to herself, for when she went up to Alice's room the next morning, to say that she wished to have a few words with her (and when people say that, you may be sure the words are not going to be pleasant ones), she found the girl already dressed—with her little belongings arranged as for an immediate departure. So she changed her mind, and instead of that speech about the few words, she said simply,—

'Good morning. You're better, I see.'

'Yes, thanks,' said Alice, hurriedly; 'and I think I would like to leave this morning—and here is a week's money from last Saturday.'

Mrs Fludger rubbed her hands together in a little embarrassment.

'I don't say but you're in the right to go, and I hope you'll get on all right, and not let your trouble play upon your mind too much; but as for the money, never mind. It's only a couple of days, and I don't grudge that. An' if you'll take my advice you'll go home to your own folk, if you've got any. God-a'mighty knows it's hard lions with most of us.'

Which Alice, listening sadly, interpreted to mean 'hard lines.'

And so it happened that her worldly goods were taken away on a hand-barrow, she herself walking beside it—whither Mrs Fludger was careful not to inquire; and Dr Moore, coming at noon, received the comforting intelligence that the girl had gone home to her people; for Mrs Fludger, like so many others, thought that her advice once given could not fail to be taken.

A SOCIALIST

IT was a bright, perfectly clear, moonlight night, one of those nights in which there seems to be no atmosphere, in which the smallest architectural details of every building show with even a greater distinctness than in mid-sunshine. The great full moon and the vast unfathomable expanse overhead seemed to have cast a spell of their own peace over even London's unpeaceful heart. The streets were empty, for the night had worn itself away to the only hour at which they are really deserted.

The clocks had just expressed their different views on the subject of two A.M. The night was so clear that Alice Hatfield, though her eyes were smarting and aching, thought she could see the hands on the big clock of St Paul's as she came on to Blackfriars' Bridge. She walked slowly, and when she reached the second arch she stopped and leaned her elbows on the parapet. How still the night was! The tide was high, and had just started on its journey seawards; it seemed to flow in one unbroken sheet save for the stir and fret that it made round the supports of the bridge. The lights along the Embankment, with their perfect reflections, might have seemed almost Venetian to anyone inclined to take a more rose-coloured view of things than she. To her they only brought a maddening remembrance of the time when she—not alone then—had first [88] seen them from the windows of the Arundel Hotel. The noise of the water against the bridge was very like the sound of the waters rushing round the stones in the Derbyshire streams—only those waters had always made a song that was to be enjoyed, not understood—and this dark tide, as it broke against the stone, seemed to be whispering constantly some message to her, which she as constantly, but vainly, tried to catch.

It made her shiver. She turned and leaned back against the parapet. The other side of the bridge was in the ruthless hands of the paviors, who had literally left no stone unturned in order to produce that utter chaos in which the heart of the contractor delighteth. The large slabs of paving-stones, standing and lying about in all sorts of positions, made the place look—ugh!—like a graveyard, and the displaced earth and heaps of sand looked like half-made graves, in which the spade and pick of the sexton had ceased to clink. There was a bright red spot of fire about a hundred yards from her—someone was comfortable beside it, she supposed—and somehow she hated that patch of red light more than anything else in the whole picture.

Alice had found a fresh lodging easily enough, and this time she had adopted the badge of marital servitude, and had taken another name. The new room struck her as cheerless and unwelcoming, and her poor possessions looked less friendly than they had done in the old attic at Spray's Buildings. Her bundle of work had been brought with the rest, but she seemed to have no heart to begin it, nor yet to get herself food, and she sat on there, hour after hour, till the sense of complete isolation grew too much for her. At Spray's Buildings she had had no friends, and had valued her few acquaintances but slightly, and she did not realise the amount of comfort that could be got out of a chance meeting with Miss Fludger on the stairs until such meetings were things of the past.

'I will go out,' she had said, rising at last with a feeling [89] that even in strange and unregarding faces there would be companionship of a kind. So she had left her room and had wandered about, passing more than one spot hung thickly round with memories of her short day of sunshine. Then when night fell she felt that she could not go back to that new inhospitable room of hers.

She pictured it dark, cheerless, and cold, shuddered as she thought of the broad streak of moonlight which would come through the uncurtained window, and lie on that bare floor. How dark the corners of the room would be. So she wandered on, and the people grew scarcer and scarcer, and she grew fainter and fainter. She would have been glad of food now, but all the shops were shut, and when she came to Blackfriars' Bridge she was too tired to go any further. And as she stood and looked at the river gleaming in the moonlight, the question came into her mind.

'Need she go further? Was not this the fitting end for such as she?'

A spasm of madness caught her. What an easy way out of all her troubles; what an obvious solution of all her difficulties!

She walked straight before her, stooping to pass under the protecting pole in the middle of the road, falling once over a block of stone and cutting her hands, she thought. She climbed the tomb-like stones, and in a moment was on her hands and knees partly on the parapet and partly on some stones that leaned against it. She looked over without changing her attitude for quite a minute. It made her giddy to look down. She could not stand up, as she had pictured herself doing when that madness first came upon her.

She could drop over, though, and she would. Courage! In another minute it would all be over.

She had made a movement to turn her feet towards the [90] water, when her shoulders were caught by two hands, and she was lifted bodily back on to the bridge.

'You little fool!' said the owner of the hands, which gave her a little shake before they loosened their hold of her. 'What do you want to go drinking of that poison for? It ain't fit to drown a cat in, let alone a human woman female.'

Alice's face was in her hands. She had sunk down against the stones on which she had climbed before. She shivered.

'Oh, I am so cold!' she said, almost in a whisper, without taking her hands away. The madness had died out of her completely.

'You'd have been colder if it hadn't been for me; and oh, the taste in your mouth would have been something dreadful. Come and have a drop of my missus's coffee, by my fire; it's a deal sweeter than wot you was after. The Government ought to take it up,' he said, sententiously, but whether he meant the river, the coffee, or the fire, he did not explain.

He helped her to rise, took her by the elbow in a sort of amateur-constable way, and led her over and round the snares and pitfalls which lay between them and that red eye which had seemed to watch them.

It was a sort of openwork iron pot, full of hot coals, and a species of shelter was contrived round it by means of a judicious arrangement of paving stones and tarpaulin. When he had made her sit down on an inverted basket placed in the warmest corner by the fire, she glanced at him for the first time. He was a big, burly, black-bearded man; he had a kindly expression, and merry eyes, with a sort of cast in one of them which made it difficult to be sure which way he was looking.

'Still cold?' he asked, with one eye on her and the other apparently on the pole star. 'Have this coat; I'm warm enough. I had to hurry up so to catch you, young woman.'

He threw a rough pea-jacket round her as she said, looking down,—

'How did you catch me? Where did you come from?'

'Where did I come from? Why, from here. Directly I saw you cross the road I knew what was up. I never would let anyone go into that ditch if I could help it. It ought to belong to the Commissioners of Sewers,' he ended, having apparently changed his mind concerning the administrative functions of 'Government.'

'The question is,' he went on, 'where did you come from, and what did you come for?'

'I've come from Gray's Inn Road,' she said.

'How lucky, now. I live that way. I shall be able to see you home in an hour or two, when my mate comes to take his turn. You'll just have time to get warm. Here, drink this coffee. Had any tea?'

She shook her head.

'Any dinner?'

'No.'

'Nor any breakfast neither, I'll back. I suppose you're hard up; that's enough to make anyone go anywhere but into that,' with a backward jerk of his thumb towards what seemed to be his pet aversion. He was a man whose occupation caused him to pass a good deal of his time on bridges, and he knew the river and the smells thereof.

'No,' said Alice, 'I'm not very hard up, and I'm in work, too; but I moved into a new place to-day, and I felt too lonely to bother about dinner or anything, and I expect going without made me a bit wild and soft like.'

'Have some of this,' was his answer, and soon Alice began to feel a returning sense of physical comfort steal through her, as she sat resting by the cheering fire, drinking the hot coffee from a tin mug, with a slice of bread and cheese on her knee, while her companion kept up a constant ripple of somewhat [92] inconsequent talk, which was his notion of 'making conversation' for his guest. She took her part in the dialogue with an ease which surprised herself. It seems very strange that people should not be more affected than they generally are by having been face to face with death. The fact is, that it is so impossible to realise subjectively what death is, that people feel less awestruck at having been so near it than they do at having been within an ace of having their leg broken, or of being marked with small-pox. Perhaps this is why so many men sleep sound sleeps and eat hearty breakfasts just before execution.

It was a long time since anyone had thought it worth while to talk so much to Alice, and she felt so interested, and withal so comfortable, that it never occurred to her that this interlude of warmth and companionship must soon be over, and that then she would have to face the desolate streets and that cheerless room. Of seeking again the chill refuge from which her new acquaintance had saved her she certainly never thought. That madness was over.

Her black-bearded preserver was in the midst of an economic dissertation of a somewhat confused character on the reasons of hard times and bad wages, when a black shadow falling on a moonlit slab of stone close by them made them both look up.

'Why, if it isn't Mr Peter Hitch,' said the pavior. 'So you're out again, sir? Chilly night, ain't it? Come and have a warm. This young woman's had a warm, and she feels better for it, I'll be bound.'

The new-comer sat down on some boards near the fire with a graceful salutation towards Alice.

'It is cold,' he said, with a distinctly foreign accent. 'You are the lucky one, Mr Toomey, with your warm fire.'

Alice glanced furtively at the stranger. He was tall, and was not dressed as she would have expected Mr Toomey's friends to be. He wore a grey military cloak with a high [93] collar, and a large soft felt hat. The brim was turned up in a rather unusual way in front, and leaving exposed as it did a broad, well-shaped forehead and piercing grey eyes, gave to the whole face a bold and daring look. He did not seem to look at Alice at all, and yet he had hardly been seated a minute before he turned to her and said,—

'Forgive me, but I feel as if you were a sort of acquaintance already. I sat just behind you at a lecture in Soho last night. I am not mistaken—you were there, weren't you?'

The introduction of a third person to the enjoyment of the fire and shelter had brought back to Alice the full consciousness of her position, but the new-comer spoke to her so deferentially, and treated her so exactly as if they had met in quite an ordinary way, and there were nothing unusual in the situation, that she felt herself grow a little more at ease again as she answered, 'Yes; I was there.'

'Why, I'm blest if I wasn't there, too,' broke in Toomey, 'and a rare good 'un he was as spoke. Countryman o' yours too, eh, Mr Peter Hitch? By the way,' he added, as the other nodded assent, 'I was wanting to have a word or two with you, if miss here will excuse us. It's on the subject as you knows on,' he explained, seeing the other's look of surprise, and embellishing his speech by sundry winks, to which his visual peculiarities imparted an unusually enigmatical character.

The two men stepped a few paces away, and then Toomey said,—

'I say, mister, I'm in rather a tight place, and perhaps you can tell me a way out of it. That there young woman' (here he lowered his voice) 'would have been down somewhere off Greenwich by this time if it hadn't been for me—the tide was just on the turn. I stopped her going over, and now I feel responsible, like. I did think of taking her home to the missus, but my Mary Jane, though she have the kindest heart, has a [94] sharp tongue, and I don't know quite how she might take it, nor what she might say in the first surprise, like, before she could be got to listen to reason, and that pore young thing's in trouble enough, I know, without being jawed at, and I can't abide jaw myself neither. And yet I don't like to lose sight of her just yet, and what am I to do?'

'I will charge myself with her,' said the other, without the slightest hesitation. 'You can trust her to me, friend Toomey, can you not?'

'I'd trust you with anything, sir,' said Toomey.

The other went straight back to the fire where Alice sat, already deep again in her own bitter thoughts.

'I am going home now, and as I go I will see you to your house. Come.'

She rose at once, and held out her hand to Mr Toomey.

'Thank you so much,' she said, 'for all your goodness. Good-bye.'

'Good-bye,' said Toomey, shaking her hand vigorously. 'This gentleman will take good care of you.'

'Take my arm,' said her escort, when they got on to the pavement. 'As you go to the Agora, I suppose we are interested in the same subjects, and perhaps know some of the same people. Do many of your friends go there?'

'I don't know anyone who goes there. I've never been there before myself.'

'Did you go by chance?'

'No.' She hesitated a moment. 'I wanted to hear the lecture.'

'Then we do take an interest in the same subjects. Which way do you go?' he asked, as they reached Ludgate Circus.

'Straight on; I am living near Gray's Inn Road.'

'Are you living with friends?'

'No, I am living alone.'

'Are your parents living?'

'Yes,' she answered. 'Oh, yes.'

From anyone else she could and would have resented such questioning, but there was something about this man that compelled her to answer him.

'Were they unkind to you?'

'No, no!' cried Alice. 'They have always been the best of the best to me.'

'Kind parents living,' he said musingly, 'and you are not with them. Our good friend yonder told me how he met you. Tell me—what does it all mean? It will be to your good to tell me.'

'What do you want to know?'

'Everything.' He laid his hand on the hand that was on his arm. 'I know you will tell me.'

And very much to her own bewilderment, she found herself telling him, not all, but enough for him to be able easily enough to guess all. She laid most stress upon the sense of desolation which had come over her in her new lodgings, and on the resistless impulse that had driven her out into the streets. When once she had begun to speak, she found a quite unexpected relief in the telling of this story which had never passed her lips before.

'It is the loneliness I mind now,' she ended; 'not the work, though that is hard enough.'

'The greater part of life is hard,' said her companion, 'and the best thing in it for some of us is to be able to make the lives of others a little less hard. I think it possible I may be able to make your life somewhat easier for you. At any rate I think I could manage to get you work which would be better paid for than your tailors' sewing.'

'Thank you,' was all Alice said. 'You are very kind.'

'I shall do that for you with much pleasure, but in return you must do something for me. I cannot part from you until [96] you have promised me never again to attempt what you were prevented in to-night.'

'I cannot promise never to do it. All I can say is, I do not mean to now.'

'At any rate, promise that you will do nothing till you have seen me again.'

'Yes, I will promise that. I wonder whether the house door will be unlocked. We are close there now. If it is not, I must walk about till morning.'

'I must walk with you in that case, so we will see before I leave you whether it is or not.'

She looked at him, and for the first time realised that her companion was not of her own class.

'No; don't come further than here. I only came here to-day, you know, and I must not be seen walking with a—a—gentleman.'

'Am I a gentleman? I am afraid all your countrymen would not give me that title; men call me a Socialist. Ho-la—you've heard that name before? Does it frighten you?'

'No, I am not frightened.'

'I will wait here,' he said, 'till I see if your house receives you. If not, come back to me, and we will walk together till it can. I will come and see you to-morrow—or rather this—evening, and I hope to bring good news. Do not be down-hearted; things will look brighter this time to-morrow.'

'Oh, I must not forget to ask your name. Did Mr Toomey call you right?'

'Ah, no,' he said, smiling; 'our good Toomey is not a linguist. My name is Petrovitch. What is yours? I must know that, because of asking for you when I come. I will come in the evening.'

'My name is—Mrs—Mrs Litvinoff. Good-bye.'

'Good-bye,' he said, with a start and quite a new expression on his face. 'I will come at noon.'

COUNT LITVINOFF IS SYMPATHETIC

AT the moment when Mrs Fludger's sense of propriety was being outraged by what she termed, in a subsequent recital of her wrongs to her first-floor front, 'that shindy on the stairs,' Miss Stanley was lying on the sofa in the sitting-room at Morley's Hotel, reading the novel that had taken the last season by storm, and pushed everything else out of sight on the bookstalls. But even the thrilling interest of this work did not keep her from falling fast asleep in the middle of the fourth chapter; and she passed the next half hour in a dreamland more pleasant than Morley's Hotel; for that hostelry, especially when her father was, as usual, in the City, seemed to her to be deadly dull. She had just come back to the world of solid furniture and characterless window curtains; her first waking thought was that some tea would be worth anything to her just then—except the trouble of getting up to ring for it—and she wished dreamily that waiters could know by intuition when they were wanted. It almost seemed as if they did, for a tap came at the door, and she had to stop her reflections to say,—

'Come in.'

'Mr Richard Ferrier,' said the waiter who appeared. 'Are you at home, ma'am?'

'Oh, yes; show him up,' she said; and to herself, wonder [98]ingly, 'How funny of him to come at this time.' Then, as he entered, 'Good afternoon, Mr Ferrier. What a dreadful day! Papa has not come home yet.'

'I am very sorry to say,' said Richard, as he took her offered hand, 'that I shall not be able to come this evening.'

'Oh, I'm so sorry!' she said, cheerfully. 'I hope there's nothing wrong. Can't your brother come, either?'

'I don't know, Miss Stanley,' he answered, leaning one arm on the mantelpiece, and looking down, but not at her, though she had seated herself in a low chair near the fire, and was quite within easy visual range. 'I am not likely to know much more about my brother.'

'Not know much more about your brother, Mr Richard?' she said, opening her eyes very wide. 'What can you mean? Surely you haven't quarrelled?'

'I suppose we have quarrelled. At anyrate, my brother told me half an hour ago never to speak to him again on this side of the grave.'

Clare felt that this promised to be several degrees more interesting even than her book. She couldn't help wondering what they had quarrelled about. Was it perhaps—

'What did you say to him?'

'I said nothing—he went away, and I came here.' He spoke in that particularly even and monotonous voice which, with some people, is always the token of suppressed agitation.

'I mean what had you said to make him say that?'

'I told him the truth.'

'But perhaps you said the truth too sharply, and, besides, you ought to make it up with him—especially as you're the eldest. It's so terrible for brothers to quarrel.' She ended with a little didactic air which became her very well.

'I am afraid this is one of the quarrels that can't be made up. I can't alter facts; neither can he, unfortunately.'

'Is it so very serious?' she asked. 'Oh—papa will be so sorry. But you'll feel differently when you have had time to think it over.'

'Circumstances don't change by being thought over.'

'No, but our view of them does.'

'Well, I can say this, Miss Stanley; if ever I could change my opinion of my brother's conduct I should be only too glad, and I should be the first to make advances towards reconciliation.'

'Why, surely, Mr Roland's done nothing wrong?'

'You may be sure he has, in my opinion at least, or I should not have spoken to him as I did; knowing, too, all that it involved,' he added in a lower voice.

'Oh, yes,' said Clare in quite an awestruck tone—all that her father had told her about old Mr Ferrier's will coming into her mind with a rush. 'Why, I had forgotten that.'

'Yes,' said Richard, looking straight at her for the first time that afternoon, 'I shall lose my living, and more, the hope of my life; but at anyrate, thank God, I keep my honour, and he has lost even that.'

Clare returned his gaze steadily.

'You have no right to say that, unless you are quite, quite, quite sure,' she said rather haughtily.

She had no motive for that little speech, save a natural love for fair play, but he read in it a desire to champion his brother against his attack, and he was goaded to the point of indiscretion.

'I am so sure,' he answered bitterly, 'that sooner than touch hands in friendship with him again, I am giving up all my chances in life, and with them the hope of winning you. Don't say anything,' he went on, seeing that she was about to speak. 'I had no right to say that. I did not mean to annoy you with any hint of my vain devotion, but I couldn't help [100] saying it. Consider it unsaid if you like, but don't be vexed with me. There is one thing I must ask you. I should be untrue to my love for you if I did not ask it. Do not let my brother win what his fault forbids me to try for.'

She rose.

'I have given you no right to talk in that way, nor to ask me any such promise, and I will promise nothing since I know nothing,' she said, indignantly.

'Then at least it shall not be my fault,' said Richard with equal fire, 'if you do not know what every woman he comes near ought to know. He is not free to offer love to any woman. He owes all the love he is capable of to a woman he has ruined and deserted.'

Miss Stanley looked at him coldly and contemptuously. He stood silent a moment, and in that moment felt the utter falseness of the step he had taken. She turned slightly away from him, and he knew that there were no more words to be said on either side.

'Good-bye,' he said; 'I shall not be at all likely to trouble you again.'

'Good afternoon,' she said, without moving; and he went out. Now, indeed, everything was over.

Clare, left to herself, sank down again in her low chair, and knitted her brows in annoyed meditation. Quarrels, separations, and crushing impertinent people with 'dynamic glances' were all very well in novels, but in real life it was much nicer to have things go smoothly. She could not quite foresee all the complications that this quarrel might lead to, but she knew that it would make a great difference at Firth Vale. Aspinshaw would be duller than ever. Would Roland come this evening? Could what Dick had said be true? If it was, she thought, he had no right to say it to her; and it was mean of him to say it to anyone behind his brother's back. Count [101] Litvinoff would be sure to come, at anyrate. 'Let's hope he'll be entertaining,' she said to herself.

When a woman is bored, or tired, or vexed, or perplexed, or worried, after a quarrel, or before a journey, there is one resource to which she always flies. Miss Stanley rang for tea.

The waiter who announced Mr Ferrier had quite settled in his own mind that in so doing he was ushering in one of the chief characters in a love scene, but when he caught sight of the young man's face as he came from Miss Stanley's presence, he decided that the scene in which Mr Ferrier had just played his part, had not had much love-sweetness about it, at anyrate. Count Litvinoff, coming up the stairs a moment afterwards, met Dick going down, and thought so too.

'Ah! Mr Ferrier,' he said genially; 'we are to be fellow guests to-night, I believe.'

'I think not,' said Dick, shaking hands; 'I shall not be able to come.'

Litvinoff's face fell, and he looked quite naturally grieved.

'How unfortunate,' he said.

'I say,' said Richard, after a minute's pause, 'were you in a place called Spray's Buildings, a turning out of Porson Street, about an hour ago? You'll think it strange of me to ask, but I have a particular reason for wanting to know.'

'Porson Street—Porson Street. I've heard the name somewhere, but I certainly haven't been there this afternoon.'

The Court of St Petersburg had evidently missed a good diplomatist in Count Michael Litvinoff. The lie was admirably told.

'No,' said Richard, 'I didn't suppose you had, but I thought I'd just set my mind at rest about it.'

'May I ask,' said Litvinoff, leaning on the banisters and idly swinging his eyeglass by the guard, 'why your mind was disturbed concerning my incomings and outgoings?'

'You are quite right. It is no business of mine; but I asked, in order to verify or disprove a statement of my brother's.'

'So your brother, at anyrate, honours me with his interest, does he?'

'You'd better ask him—good afternoon.'

'A sweet disposition that,' observed Litvinoff, when, having watched the other out of sight, he turned towards his room. 'They ought to teach politeness at Cambridge, and put it down among the extras. By the way, there may be something to be got out of our brother. Things are getting too mixed to be pleasant. Wonder whether he'll turn up to-night?'

He did turn up, in such a state of depression as to promise to be a thorough wet blanket on all the fires of social gaiety. In fact, none of the little party which assembled round Mr Stanley's dinner-table were in a state of mind to make them what is called good company. Roland was thoroughly unhinged by the events of the afternoon, which to him had been so utterly unexpected, and were so completely unexplained. It needed a determined effort on his part to listen to Mr Stanley's commonplaces instead of thinking out some means of compassing a reconciliation with his brother. He felt sure that their quarrel hinged on a mistake, but what that mistake was, or what its subject was, he was at a loss to conjecture.

Clare was listless and distraite. She was intensely annoyed by the remembrance of that little episode with Richard, and, though she told herself that she did not believe a word he had said, she found it hard to forget it and to treat Roland as usual. She had not had a chance of telling her father anything about Richard, for Litvinoff had been punctual, and Mr Stanley had come back from the City late, and cross as well as late; and the old gentleman's continued references to the absentee, and his regrets for the 'sudden business' which had prevented him [103] from being present, made matters several degrees more uncomfortable than they would otherwise have been.

Litvinoff had his own reasons for not feeling very joyous on this occasion, but he had not had three years of wandering in exile among all sorts and conditions of men for nothing, and he was able to put his own personal feelings on one side, and to do what was exacted by the proprieties. No one could have told from his manner that he had a care in the world. More than this, he succeeded after a while in inspiring the others with some of his own powers of self-repression; and though they did not perhaps feel more festive, they made a successful effort to seem so, in order to be not out of harmony with what seemed to them to be his gaiety and light-heartedness.

During the earlier part of the evening he devoted himself entirely to Mr Stanley, a real act of self-abnegation in any young man, when Mr Stanley's daughter was in the room. But Mr Stanley was interested in the financial condition of United States railways, and Count Litvinoff—odd thing in an exile—knew absolutely everything that was to be known about the financial condition of United States railways, and, what was better, he had a friend who knew even more than that, and whose knowledge was quite at Mr Stanley's service. If during the long conference on these entrancing topics he cast occasional glances across the room to where Clare and young Ferrier sat talking, they were certainly not envious ones, for 'the gentle Roland' did not seem to be having a good time of it. Litvinoff took pity on him presently, and came to the rescue.

'Are we to have no music, Miss Stanley?' he asked, when the subject of the financial condition of the United States railways was exhausted for the time being, and his host showed decided symptoms of a desire to descant on the beauties of [104] 'our great Conservative institutions, sir,' and 'the glorious Constitution which,' etc.

Miss Stanley felt that singing to three people would be better than talking to one, and in the intervals between the songs that followed she and Litvinoff seemed to conspire to keep the conversation general.

'Penny Napoleon,' so often a refuge of the bored and the uncongenial, helped the long evening to its end, and though the last state of it was better than the first, everyone was glad to say good-night to everyone else.

The two young men, by the way, did not say good-night to each other when they left the Stanleys.

'Come and have a cigar,' said Litvinoff, precisely as he had done on the last occasion of their meeting there. And Roland, nothing loth to defer the moment of being alone again with his own perplexities, consented.

But even in the Count's comfortable little sitting-room his perplexities pursued him, and in more objectionable shape, too. For the first words his companion uttered, after he had supplied his guest with one of his special cigars and a tumbler of something unexceptionable, with lemon, hot, were—

'Your brother tells me you're taking an interest in my movements, Mr Ferrier.'

'How do you mean?'

'I had the felicity to meet him to-day, and he asked me—rather bluntly, perhaps—if I had been this afternoon in some street, the name of which escapes me at the moment—Morford Street, was it? I told him no, and begged to know the reason of his question. He then said he wished to verify (I think those were his exact words) a statement of yours. I asked him, did you take an interest in my movements? He then said, in a manner tant soit peu abrupt, 'You'd better ask him,' and vanished into the Ewigkeit. Voilà, I have asked you.'

Roland took two or three puffs at his cigar, and surrounded himself with a little cloud of smoke. Then he rose and stood with his back to the fire, and in that attitude he looked, Litvinoff thought, uncommonly like his brother.

'Look here,' he said slowly, 'according to the laws of etiquette and all that sort of thing, I have known you far too short a time to think of talking to you about my relations with my brother, but I am horribly perplexed about him; and since he has let you know that there is something wrong between us, I may as well tell you all I know about it. I need hardly say that all I say to you is said in strict confidence.'

The Count bowed.

'For some time we have not been upon the very best of terms; but that's neither here nor there. There was nothing seriously wrong between us. This morning, without any apparent cause, he made a kind of veiled accusation against me, which I could not understand, and even went so far as to tell me I ought not to go near—'

He hesitated. Litvinoff made an interrogatory movement, which prevented his stopping short, as he seemed inclined to do.

'Miss Stanley,' he ended.

'Ah, so?' said the other, raising his eyebrows, and looking sympathetically interested.

'We had a sharp word; but I should not have thought much more of it if it hadn't been for what came later. This afternoon I was going to see a man you introduced me to the other night, Lenoir, who, I thought, I remembered lived in Porson Street.'

'Ah, yes, it was Porson Street your brother named,' interrupted Litvinoff.

'As I was looking about for him I fancied I caught sight of you, but it was foggy, and when I followed the man into a house, it turned out not to be you. At least, I suppose not.'

'No, no; it certainly was not I.'

'Well, as I was looking about, bewildered, on a staircase, I met my brother, who, I suppose, had followed me. He asked me what I wanted there. I told him. He said I was a scoundrel and a liar. Of course, I couldn't stand that, so I let out at him, and came away—and there the matter stands. What do you make of it?'

'Excuse me,' said the other, 'does your brother drink?'

'Certainly not; he's one of the most temperate men I know.'

'Could he have done it because—But ah, no, that is quite impossible.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Is your brother in love with Miss Stanley?' said Litvinoff, slowly and directly.

'I think he is. What made you think so?'

'It was coming from her presence that I met him.'

'By God! That may account for her manner to-night,' said Roland in a low tone, but not so low but that Litvinoff heard him, and read his thought almost before he heard his word.

'No, no, that is quite impossible; dismiss that from your mind. He would never be so base as to traduce you to her. Besides, where is the motive, unless he fears you? Is there perhaps some other lady in the case?'

'No.'

'He told you you were not worthy to go near Miss Stanley,' said the other, lowering his voice deferentially at her name. 'That can only mean one thing.'

'It may mean that he is mad, or—by Jove!—it may mean one other thing. But of that other thing I am as innocent as you are.'

If he was as innocent as Count Litvinoff looked, he was innocent indeed.

'Perhaps it will arrange itself. Quarrels about ladies often adjust themselves—or rather the lady usually adjusts them.'

'This,' said Roland, 'is more serious than most quarrels for both of us, and more serious than I can tell you; but I think I've troubled you enough with our family affairs. I'll say good-night.'

Litvinoff came down to the door with him, and helped him on with his coat. As he did so, he said softly,—

'If it is any comfort to you, your brother did not seem to have prospered in his suit. He looked distressed, and, fancied, remorseful. Good-night. Ah, what a lovely night. The fog has quite cleared up. How lucky for you. Au revoir!'

SUCCESSFUL ANGLING

THE only good thing about life is that it's interesting, but it's quite possible to have too much interest at once, and then it begins to be irritating and depressing, and the best sedative is tobacco, and the best stimulant is whisky.'

So said the Count when he returned to his room, and he accordingly acted on his convictions. But both whisky and tobacco seemed to fail of the effect expected of them. He sat looking broodingly at the fire for a moment or two; then he got up, paced the length of the room, and, turning sharply, stamped his foot on the ground, muttered a curse or two, and flung his hands out with a vigorous gesture of annoyance.

'So, these sons of the millowner—these playfellows of childhood, these friends of innocence—are men, not ugly, not fools, and not better than their fellows. This Richard is apparently so much interested as to go nearly mad about her disappearance; and as for Roland, there must have been pretty strong grounds before his brother would have started that charming scene on the staircase. I wonder if conscience had as much to do with her conduct as I believed. As a rule, when a woman gives up the substantial goods of this life, it's as well to look for some more commonplace motive than conscien [109]tious scruples. Perhaps it was only a yearning towards the old love. Pardieu, though,' he added, with something like a laugh; 'the old love and conscience together don't provide very good quarters. It would be too much to believe that that little rustic had actually humbugged me. But it's not impossible, young man,' and he glanced mockingly at his reflection over the mantelpiece; 'and at present I should advise you to go to bed; you'll need all your senses about you to-morrow. The threads are lying loose round, as the Yankees say, and you must gather them up.'

He finished his glass of grog.

'I would have given a few hundred francs to have been present in spirit at that interview which depressed la belle Clare and crushed the unhappy Richard. But perhaps a little adroitness to-morrow will fill up the blanks of to-day. And as for the other matter, the future is more to me than the past—to conclude with a fine revolutionary sentiment.'

'I'm sorry I shall have to be out all the morning again,' said Mr Stanley next morning at breakfast, as he opened his letters. 'Would you like to come with me?'

'No, thanks, papa,' said Clare. She had been into the City with him before, and had a vivid recollection of draughty passages, steep staircases, and impertinent glances from junior clerks.

'What will you do with yourself all the time?' asked her father. 'You can't be always reading.'

'I'll run over to the National Gallery, I think, and spend an hour or two there.'

'Why, you've been there once with me.'

'It's no good going to a picture gallery once.'

'I don't know that it's any good, my dear, but it's quite enough for me. However, please yourself—please yourself.' [110] To Mr Stanley's idea it was quite as safe to send a daughter alone to the National Gallery as to send her to church on a week day. The two places seemed to him to be the one as uninteresting as the other, and both of them as absolutely free from possible snares and pitfalls as any convent in the land. 'I meant to have given you lunch at the "Ship and Turtle,"' he went on.

'My dear papa, I'm not greedy. I'm not an alderman.'

'The aldermen of London are an essential—'

'An essential part of the British Constitution,' she interrupted, laughing. 'Yes, I know, dear, and I'm not an essential part. That's just the difference.'

With which she smoothed his hair, arranged his tie, kissed him on both cheeks, and watched him out of sight from the window. Then she went and wrapped herself in a good deal of brown fur, and walked quickly across the square to the hideous casket in which the nation cherishes its gems of art.

She was wandering from one picture to another in a desultory sort of way, and thinking, it must be confessed, more of her own affairs than of the paintings, when she almost ran against Count Litvinoff, who was standing, his hat off and his hands behind him, in rapt contemplation of the Martyrdom of Saint Somebody.

He turned and bowed, with an air of pleased surprise. She had never seen him look so little English—so very foreign.

'Ah! this is good fortune,' he said; 'your father is with you?'

'No,' said Clare. 'Papa doesn't care about pictures, except pictures of dead fish and game, and horses and fat cattle; and I don't care about the City—at least, not the parts of it that he goes to—and this is a sort of paddock where I am allowed to run loose when he is away.'

'I often spend an hour here; I find pictures help one to think. How do you like this Claude?'

Then the conversation was all picture for a while, and at last they sat down on one of the few seats provided by the munificence of a thoughtful Administration for such lovers of art as care to stay in the Gallery long enough to get tired.

They were silent for a little while.

'Are you not well, Miss Stanley?' he said presently.

'Oh, dear me, yes; I'm very well. Do I look ill?' she asked quite frankly, looking at him with her eyebrows raised.

'Ah, no; you look—' he hesitated, 'as you always do,' he ended, as though that was not what he would have liked to say.

'Why do you ask, then?'

'Because I fancied last night that you were in some kind of pain, and I have been uneasy ever since about it.'

'Last night? You're very kind: there wasn't the least ground for your uneasiness.'

'I was not the only one who thought so.'

'I am afraid the evening must have been very dull, then, if it gave two people that impression.'

'Oh, dulness was out of the question to me,' he said, with an eloquent look. 'But I suppose we couldn't expect Mr Roland to be very cheerful, under the circumstances.'

'What circumstances?' questioned Clare, who was beginning to feel rather uncomfortable.

'He has had what I believe in England is termed a "row" with his brother.'

'How do you know?' she asked, quickly. 'Oh, I beg your pardon.'

'Never do that; but, indeed, had you not asked me, I was going to tell you, for I am in a difficulty. Although I know your language well, I do not so well know your social customs. Shall we see Mr Richard again, do you think?'

The question was put so innocently, and the Count ap [112]peared so really perplexed, that Miss Stanley stifled the evasive answer that first occurred to her, and said simply,—

'No, I don't.'

'Then a great part of my difficulty vanishes. I am ashamed to trouble you about my dilemmas; but I have been wondering whether I ought to know them both, since they have so quarrelled, or whether it is not incumbent on me to take one side or the other.'

'If you take sides at all,' said Clare, 'you should take the side you think right.'

'I am here amongst Englishmen. Being in Rome I must do as Rome does, and I do not know what is right and wrong to English people.'

'Right is right all the world over,' said Clare, adding, as a saving clause, 'if you can only see which is right. But you are not the only one who is in a dilemma.' Then, driven by an irresistible desire to know how the quarrel struck him, she asked him directly,—

'Which do you think is in the wrong?'

'There are some things which brothers might pardon in each other, but which to other men would be unpardonable.'

'Do you think, then, that Roland Ferrier has done anything unpardonable?' She had felt intensely annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken, but since it had taken this turn, she was determined to learn as much from it as possible.

'I don't think he has done anything the world would not pardon, and we must remember that the greater part of the fault lies in his bringing up.' He said this with a delicate air of chivalrously making the best of a bad cause.

'If the world pardons the unpardonable,' said Clare, feeling that she was skating on very thin ice, and not quite knowing how to get back to the bank again, 'so much the worse for the world.'

'I knew you would say that.'

'And,' she went on, forgetting how little she had told her companion, 'if I could only be sure that all Richard said was true, I would accept no one's ruling but my own on such a question.'

Litvinoff's eyes gave one little flash at the admission contained in this speech, but he said quite quietly,—

'Well, no one can possibly know. I presume he must at least believe it.'

'Yes, he certainly does. This quarrel, as you perhaps know, means ruin to them both.'

'Ruin!' he cried; 'then it must not go on.'

'You are very good to take such an interest in the Ferriers.'

'Ah,' he said sadly, 'I have known ruin, and it is hard if the innocent one suffers with the guilty.'

He looked about as little like a ruined man as it was possible to be. His dress was perfect, though it had a certain foreign air that was not to be traced to that too great prominence of shirt collar and prodigality of cuff, that shininess of hat and boot, that exuberant floridity of necktie, which are the signet of the flâneur of the boulevards. Above all, his nails were unexceptionable.

'Their father left it in his will,' said Miss Stanley, bluntly, glad to get away from the subject of Roland's possible lâches, 'that if they quarrelled they lost all their money.'

'They were ever given to quarrelling, then?' asked Litvinoff.

'No, I don't think so; but Mr Ferrier was old and very funny.'

'He seems to have been prophetic in this instance; or perhaps he knew what they were likely to quarrel about.'

Clare stroked her muff with her kid-gloved hand, and [114] wondered whether the late Mr Ferrier had thought they were likely to quarrel about her.

'This affair of the unfortunate girl Alice Hatfield—' he was beginning, when Clare rose.

'It is quite time I went back,' she said chillingly, and she turned and walked out. He followed her humbly. When they had passed down the steps he said,—

'I have offended you, but you must forgive me. I am ignorant of English customs. You had talked to me of the misdeed, and it did not seem to be wrong to name the victim. I ought to have recognised the gulf which separates the personal from the impersonal.'

There was a suspicion of irony in his voice, and she did not answer, only quickened her pace a little.

'Forgive me,' he said, in a tone low, and one more earnest than any she had yet heard him use. 'You must forgive me. I would not offend you for all the world, not to gain every end I have ever fought for, to realise every hope I have ever cherished.'

She turned and looked right into his eyes, and in them read nothing but perfect honesty and sincerity.

'I have nothing whatever to forgive, Count Litvinoff,' she said. 'Pray, let us change the subject;' but all the ice was gone from her voice, and he at once plunged into a diatribe against the carelessness of omnibus drivers.

He said good-bye to her outside the hotel. At the top of the steps she turned and looked after him, and was not a little vexed with herself for having done so, for he was looking after her with an expression in his eyes which said, to her at least,—

'Whatever the ends I have fought for, or the hopes I have cherished, may have been in the past, the object of my every dream and aspiration is now yourself, Clare Stanley.'

A FAIR MORNING'S WORK.

PETROVITCH waited at the corner for some moments, but as his protégée did not return, he concluded that she had found the house door open, and would be all right, so he turned his face west. The new feeling that had possessed him at the sound of Alice's surname had, while he waited, only shown itself in a restless movement of his hand over his beard; but now it found vent in the swinging pace at which he walked. He slackened it now and again, to glance with a frown at the heaps of dirty rags that filled the corners of doorways and the embrasures of walls, and hid human flesh and blood: the flesh and blood of your brothers and sisters, my esteemed Royal Commissioners. These door-steps and archways and out-of-the-way corners are not, of course, to be included in an investigation into the homes of the poor; but perhaps they might be if these royal, noble, and eminent brothers realised that these are the only homes of a large proportion of the poor.

Petrovitch only stopped once, and that was before a door-step on which something gleamed brightly, and caught his attention. There was a group there of the usual type—a man and woman, and a child, a little girl, from whose eyes the gleam came. She was sitting up, her elbow on her knee and [116] her chin on her hand; a wizened, stunted child of some eight or nine years, with tangled dark hair that fell over her face, and through which her eyes were staring wide and vacant at the clear sky. As he stopped she transferred the gaze to him, but it was still a gaze void of hope and expectation. He did not speak to her, but patted her shoulder, dropped some coppers and a bar of chocolate in her lap, and hurried on, with a muttered curse which the child did not hear.

He stopped no more till he reached a tall house in a quiet street near Portland Road Station. He let himself in with a key, and softly mounted the stairs to the second floor. The room he entered was large, and looked bare until one noticed the shelves on shelves of well-bound, well-kept books, the pigeon-holes full of manuscripts, the brackets supporting good busts and statuettes, the one or two choice prints, the antique writing-table and chairs. There were no curtains to the window, and there was no carpet to the floor; but there was a reading-lamp of uncommon design, with a green shade. It was the luxury of literary asceticism.

Petrovitch turned up the lamp and rekindled his fire. Then he went into the adjoining room, from which presently came the sound of splashing water, followed by hard breathing, as of one wrestling with a rough towel. It was a ghastly hour for tubbing, and many an Englishman who plumes himself on taking a bath at eight or nine in the morning would have shuddered at the idea of thus taking one four or five hours earlier; but it seemed to agree with Petrovitch, for he came back to the fireside glowing, and seeming to have washed from his face the look of mingled weariness and anger which he had brought in with him.

His hand hovered a moment along the line of a certain bookshelf, then he picked out a book, and for the next three hours read steadily, only pausing to make notes.

At seven o'clock he shut his book gently, replaced it carefully on its shelf, very deftly and quickly prepared his breakfast, and, having eaten it, put on his hat and a black coat and went out again.

Now, for the first time, he thought over his night's adventures, for during the time he had spent in his room he had not allowed himself to think of them. He had the capacity of dismissing utterly from his mind anything about which he did not want to think. It was time enough to think when he could act, and he had known that he could not act till the morning. Now, two minutes' thought decided the course his action should take.

By half-past eight o'clock he had knocked at the door of 15 Spray's Buildings, and had been directed to the room of Mrs Fludger. That lady was surrounded by the family linen—some just as it had been discarded by the family, some in the wash-tub, and some hanging on lines slung across the room at a convenient height for dabbing itself wetly in the faces of possible visitors. The room appeared to be furnished chastely and simply with the tub and lines before mentioned, and nothing else whatever; for the remainder of the furniture had been heaped in one corner, in order that the washing might not be impeded, and was not noticeable at the first glance. Mrs Fludger had her arms bared for toil. She wore a dress with no appreciable waist and no distinctive colour. A woollen shawl wound her figure in its embrace, a black bonnet of no particular shape, and of antique appearance, was on the extreme back of her head, where it was supported, by no visible agency, in defiance of the laws of gravitation.

'Now then, my good man,' she began, in answer to Petrovitch's tap at the open door, 'we don't want no Scripture reading here. Thank the Lord, I knows my Bible duty, and does it, which wasn't I up this very morning afore five, which is [118] more than you can say, I'll go bail. There's some needs talking to. Why don't you go after my master an' teach him the ten commanders if you wants to Bible read?'

'But I don't want to Bible read,' said Petrovitch, as she ended with a snap of her teeth, and recommenced the action of 'soaping in,' which her vigorous speech had suspended. 'I only wish to ask you of a Mrs Litvinoff?'

'Don't know the name.'

'Perhaps I mistake the name; I ask of the young woman who left here yesterday morning.'

'Oh, her!' with contemptuous emphasis; 'bless you, her name ain't nothing like that; no more nor yours nor mine. Her name's Hatfield; and she ain't a missus neither, without she was married yesterday.'

'I hope she did no wrong here, that you are not angry with her,' said he, as though feeling Mrs Fludger's displeasure to be the severest punishment of misdoing.

'No,' said Mrs Fludger, a little softened, 'I'm not angry with her; but will you jest be good enough to say what you want and have done with it, as my washing's all behind as it is?'

'I have a quite special reason,' he said, 'for wishing to befriend her. I am sure you will be willing to help me to give her help by telling me all you know about her.'

'Oh, Lord bless the men!' said Mrs Fludger, with an impatient intonation, dipping a blue-bag into a pail, 'I don't know nothing about the gal. She was here two months or more, and not a soul ever come a-nigh her, and now, afore she's been gone two days, here's half a dozen gentlemen comes after her. You ought to be able to do something 'andsome for her among you all. Why, only yesterday two young swells was a'most a-comin' to blows over her outside this very door, a-makin' a perfick inharmonium o' my stairs, to say nothing o' the gent as went a-makin' inquiries o' the ground-floor front, as was [119] quite the improper person to imply to, not being responsible, and knowin' nothing about the lodgers.'

'I am exceedingly sorry to give you any further trouble, madam, but, as I know you are the only person who can inform me, I must ask you why this young woman left.' He spoke so gravely that Mrs Fludger seemed impressed. She lowered her voice a little as she answered,—

'She heard something as wasn't to her liking.'

'Not from you, I am sure.'

'Well, no; it warn't from me, though I should have told her fast enough if I had known myself, and, since you must know the ins and outs of it, she was taken bad on Sunday night, and my Joe went for the doctor, and if you're curious you'd better ask him, for he's more time for jaw than me, not having got nine children and a husband as is always in liquor.'

Petrovitch thanked her, and asked the address of the lucky doctor whom Fate had spared these inflictions.

Mrs Fludger gave it, squeezing the soapsuds off her lean arms as she spoke.

'Thank you very much,' he said; 'good-bye,' and held out his hand as though he had known her for years. This was partly because he thought it was the English thing to do in parting with one's equals, and partly because he went enough among poor people to know that their troubles are not made lighter by an assumption of superiority on the part of their visitors. It was a matter of course with him, but Mrs Fludger was particularly gratified. She gave him her damp hand, and returned his shake with heartiness.

'Well, now,' she said, 'if I've been a bit short, you must set it down to the washin', and I couldn't get it out o' my head that you was one of the religious sort. And I hope the young woman won't come to no hurt, and I will say as you look more the sort to do her good than them young sparks as come [120] here yesterday, with their cussin', and swearin', and yellow kid gloves.'

An opinion in which her hearer concurred.

Dr Moore was not surprised at the inquiries with which Petrovitch called upon him ten minutes later. He had sojourned long enough in the land of the hard-up, and had seen enough of the seamy side of life, to have left off being surprised at the many threads and ties which bind together people whom one would imagine to be the very last to have any concern in each other's existences.

But before he answered any of the questions, he said,—

'Excuse me; but may I ask what interest you have in this poor girl? Are you a City missionary?'

The other smiled grimly.

'Not I; but there must be something very devout in my appearance. Evidently extremes meet in me. I encountered a hostile reception at Spray's Buildings through being taken for a Bible-reader.'

'Ah, well, I can't wonder; they do make themselves disliked. They're very good people, but they haven't a nice way with them, somehow, have they? Then, what is your motive for these questions?'

For answer the other told him frankly enough all that had passed the night before, adding that before he made any effort on her behalf he wished to verify her story as far as possible.

'But the landlady told me she had gone home to her people.'

'Ah, that was Mrs Fludger's little romance,' said Petrovitch, shrugging his shoulders. 'I wish she had gone to her people, poor child; but I am afraid that is what she will not do.'

'I am very glad,' said Dr Moore, 'that someone does take an interest in her, but I must say I wish it was a woman instead of a man, for it is a woman's care and kindness she will need by-and-by.'

'So I imagined,' said Petrovitch thoughtfully, 'and I suppose the best I can do towards her is to try and find for her such care and kindness.'

'I am afraid it will be difficult; women are angels, certainly, but they are very apt to be hard on each other.'

'Very much like the rest of us. But, like the rest of us, they can sometimes be got to hear reason.'

'That's not the general opinion of women,' said Dr Moore, laughing; 'but I hope you're right. I have seen a great many of these sad cases,' he went on, gravely, 'but very, very few of the others. We're all much too ready to cast stones, and it's two to one if a girl's in trouble that a female priest or Levite comes by, and not a good Samaritan.'

The doctor was pleased with his visitor, whose face and figure were not quite like those that usually faced him in his drug-scented surgery, and when the interview ended it was he who offered the hand-shake.

As Petrovitch came out of the door he glanced at his watch.

'Now for a third interview,' he thought, and he did not think in English. 'Only two hours and a-half in which to work a miracle.'

If this man had no connection with the Bible reading and City missionary fraternity, he had at least one thing to which they lay claim—the faith which moves mountains; but it was faith in humanity, and faith in himself.

He only knew one woman who combined the strength of character and the kindness of heart necessary for his purpose, and of her it had been said only the night before, by the one who ought to have known her best, that she had a sharp tongue. Mr Toomey had not adhered strictly to truth in telling Alice that he lived up in the direction of Gray's Inn Road, vaguely. His household gods were enshrined 'out Bermondsey way,' and thither Petrovitch now betook himself.

Mrs Toomey welcomed him in an off-hand manner, which showed that she at least did not suspect him of being a Bible-reader. She asked him in, and he passed up the narrow passage where two Toomeys of tender years were playing at houses with a profusion of oyster-shells. A third of still smaller size was in the mother's arms.

'Toomey's a-bed,' she said, as she set a chair for Petrovitch, 'and I wonder you're not. He told me he saw you on the bridge in the beginning of the morning. What have you done with that poor thing?'

'Nothing yet.'

'What are you going to do?'

'That's just what I want you to tell me,' he answered, and forthwith began gently to unfold his plan, which was neither more nor less than that Mrs Toomey should let Alice rent her spare room, and should be as kind to her as possible. But Mrs Toomey, as might have been expected, didn't see it at all. She had much the feeling of the elder brother of the Prodigal—that it was hardly fair to those who had done their duty thus to help out of their difficulties those who had not.

'This is the great privilege of those who do their duty,' said he, 'to be able to help those who have not done it.'

'That's all very well,' said Mrs Toomey; 'but what's to become of example if the good and the bad gets treated alike?'

'It isn't that; what I want is to give the bad—who is not so very bad in this case—a chance of being better.'

But she was not silenced. She ran over the whole scale of objections, moral and conventional, to his proposition, and to each and all of them he found an answer, and sat there quietly persistent, until at last he drove her back upon 'What will people say?'

'As far as I'm concerned they can say what they like, but if you care about people's opinion, it is easy to guard your [123]self against it by telling them nothing. No one would know more than you chose to tell them.'

'That's honest, isn't it?' asked Mrs Toomey, patting the baby, who was choking himself with his fist.

'Well, honesty doesn't consist in publishing other people's affairs to all your neighbourhood. And, my good Mrs Toomey, don't you see that the very fact of her being in your house would stop questions?'

'I'm no hand at arguing,' said Mrs Toomey at last, 'but I know you've some sense, sir, and I don't think you'd press a thing like this without there was some rhyme or reason in it; but the most I can say is, me and Toomey'll talk it over; but the truth is, I've never had nothing to say to that sort o' girls, and I don't like to begin at this time o' day. And even if my man agrees, I won't promise about it until I've seen the young woman, for what's the good of Providence giving us common sense if we're not to put it to use, instead of trusting to hearsay and other people.'

'Quite right; that's a first-rate principle. If all the world would think like that we should see some changes. I will tell her you have a room to let, and advise her to apply for it, and then you can see her and act as you choose. But I feel sure beforehand how it will be.'

And as he bade her good-bye he did feel quite sure that he had not spent that half-hour in vain.

'I really feel like a City missionary, or a newspaper correspondent, after all these interviews. Now for the last and most interesting.'

But when he reached Mrs Litvinoff's room he found her out. There was no answer to his repeated knocks, so at last, as the key was in the door, he opened it, almost fearing to find her in another of those fainting fits. But the room was empty. He hesitated a moment, and then entered. It wanted [124] a few minutes to noon; he would wait till the appointed time, and while he waited he wondered, as he had been wondering all the morning, why she had taken this name of Litvinoff. Was it simply because Litvinoff had been the first name that had come into her head, or for some deeper or more important reason?

The room was very neat, and did not offer much entertainment to the eye or employment to the mind; but there were four or five books on the mantelpiece, and he was drawn towards them by a natural attraction. It was one of his habits always to take up a book, if one was within reach. They were very nicely bound, he noticed, except two small volumes at the end of the row, in which he smiled rather sadly to recognise a Bible and Prayer Book. He ran over the titles—one or two novels, 'The Children's Garland,' 'Mrs Hemans,' and, strange accompaniment, Swinburne's 'Songs before Sunrise.'

He took it out and opened it. On the first page was written, 'To Alice, from Litvinoff.'

He stood looking at it fixedly—so absorbed that he did not hear Alice's foot on the stairs, nor notice the rustle of her dress in the room, till she said,—

'Have you been here long? I am so sorry I had to run out for some thread for my work. I thought I should have been back before.'

She was a little out of breath with running upstairs, and a little flushed, too. He now saw that she was prettier than he had thought, but he also saw more plainly the hollows in her cheeks and the dark circles round her eyes.

'I must make a confession,' he began at once, turning to her with the book in his hand. 'I have asked myself, was it chance made you take this name of Litvinoff? But I see now you have a right to it.'

She turned her head and looked towards the window in silence for a moment. Then she said,—

'I do not know that I have a right to any name except the one I was born to; but if I have a right to any it is to the one written there.' It was said slowly and with evident effort. She threw her bonnet on the table, leaned her elbows on the window-ledge, and looked out.

'Won't you sit down?' she asked, after a minute, without looking round.

He took a chair, and said, 'Then it wasn't only for the lecture you went to Soho?'

'No.'

'See here, Mrs Litvinoff; I know the Count, and I and others are much interested in his career. I wish you to believe that I would not ask you questions from idle curiosity. His own welfare depends to a great extent on what we may hear of him.'

'I have nothing but good to tell you of him.'

'But, madam—forgive me—how about last night? He has deserted you?'

'No,' said she, steadily; 'don't make any mistake. I left him. He was never anything but good to me.'

'You are not married to him?'

'Don't ask me any more questions,' said Alice. 'I can't tell you anything.'

'Mrs Litvinoff,' said Petrovitch, very gently and very gravely, 'I beg you for his sake to tell me all you can of him. You know the sort of dangers run by a man in such a position as his; and from many of these dangers we can help to screen him. I am a friend to all who are friends of Litvinoff. Think of me not as a man and a stranger, but as the friend of him, and tell me frankly all there is to tell.'

It was characteristic of the man who spoke that he should be able to make an appeal which would move this girl, who had not known him twenty-four hours, to tell him all that she [126] had felt it to be impossible to tell her foster-brother, Richard Ferrier. For she did tell him.

The substance of her story was this: She had been staying with an aunt who kept a small hotel in Liverpool, when she had met Litvinoff, and had seen a great deal of him. He had seemed to her to be different from all the other men she had ever seen, and though she could not help being pleased by his admiration, she had felt that the difference in their station was such that she could not properly fill the position of his wife. His grave and respectful manner and the perfect deference with which he always treated her had made it impossible for her to suppose that his wish was other than to make her his wife. So, though all her inclinations would have kept her in Liverpool, she had, after a severe struggle with herself, shortened her visit, and returned to Derbyshire without bidding him good-bye.

He had followed her, and one evening when she was walking alone she had met him. Of course, there had been explanations. He had implored her not to send him away—to let him be always as happy as he had been that month at Liverpool. He met her objections as to the difference in their position by telling her that he was an outcast and an exile, and had no position. Would she not make his hard life a little easier to him? At every word he said she felt her resolutions melting away; but her parents, would they ever consent to her marriage with one who held such opinions as his?

Then he had told her gravely and tenderly that he was at war with society and with most of its conventions, and that for him to marry in the ordinary sense of the word would be to compromise and deny every principle on which his life was founded. The true marriage, he had maintained, was fidelity, and mutual love was more binding than could be a ceremony in which one of the performers did not believe. He loved her [127] he had said, far too dearly to wish to deceive her in the smallest degree about his sentiments, and so he felt bound to tell her that to him a legal marriage would be for ever impossible. In spite of that, would she not be noble enough to trust her life entirely to him, and be his wife?

This had been so completely unexpected as to be a great shock to her, and she had felt at once that, however she might decide, it would be out of the question to tell or ask her parents about it. Her choice lay between them and her lover. We know how she chose.

Of her time of happiness she said very little, but her hearer gathered that, though Litvinoff had left her much alone, she had had no reason to doubt that he still cared for her.

But the influence of her early training, though it had sunk into abeyance in the hour of strong temptation, had slowly and surely reasserted itself as the months went by. She had striven still to believe that she was acting rightly, but at last it became impossible to her to persuade herself that she had any right to be a law unto herself. So at last she had left her lover, with no farewell but a letter, in which she had tried to tell him how it was. She had felt a pleasure in the hardness of the life that followed—had vaguely felt it to be in some sort an expiation of her wickedness.

'You see,' she ended, 'if I had believed as he did, perhaps I should have been right to act as I did; but I believed in all the things that he denies, and so I was wrong to dare to take his views of good and bad for me, while all the time I kept my own old thoughts of what was really good and bad. I can't explain myself well, but you see what I mean—don't you?'

'Yes,' answered Petrovitch, rising; 'I see that another life has been sacrificed upon the altar of an abstraction. If it gives you happiness to give yourself pain, at anyrate I should think [128] your wickedness, as you call it, was expiated now. Has he never tried to find you out?'

'He may have tried,' said Alice, 'but he has not succeeded.'

'Would you not go back to him—now that you have another life than your own to think of?'

Alice darted a quick glance at him, and turned very white.

'No, unless that happened which never can happen—if his belief changed. But I cannot go on talking like this; it is torture to me—and to what end?'

'I told you—for his good and yours. However, to business. Of course, since you have undertaken that tailor's work you must finish it; but after, I will get you work better paid. And this room—you do not like it? Mrs Toomey has a room to let, and I am sure she will like to have you for a lodger. Will you go there and see it, and if you like it move there? I will lend you money for moving and for present expenses, and you can pay me when you settle to work again.'

'But why,' asked Alice, half turning round to look at him, 'why are you so kind? Why do you help me so?'

'I help you,' he answered, laying some money on the table, 'because to me you are truly Litvinoff's wife, and I am the true friend of all who are friends of him.'

Alice knocked at Mrs Toomey's door about three o'clock that afternoon. Mrs Toomey, her baby in her arms, and an air of reserving judgment about her, showed the room she had to let, which was convenient and exquisitely clean.

Alice followed her into the parlour afterwards.

'I think it only fair to tell you,' she began confusedly, 'that I am not really Mrs Litvinoff—but—'

The other interrupted her.

'I know all about it,' she said, bluntly, 'and now I've seen [129] you—'specially as you were going to tell me, so honest and fair—I'm sure we shall get on very well. And no one sha'n't ever know anything from me, and let bygones be bygones betwixt us. If you'd like to move in at once, why do, and come and have a cup o' tea with me when you've fetched your things.'

There was no mistaking the cordiality which had replaced Mrs Toomey's half distrust as soon as she saw that her would-be lodger had no intention of coming there under false pretences.

And so, a few hours later, Alice had effected her moving, taken possession of her room, and was sitting by Mrs Toomey's spotless hearth, with her feet on the brilliant steel fender, her face brighter than it had been for many a long day, while the children stared at her with wide but friendly eyes, and Mrs Toomey's baby lay contentedly on her lap.

The day had been at its beginning so wild, so bitter, so full of horrible possibilities; this was a peaceful—almost a happy—ending to it. Alice felt the change keenly, and there was gratitude to Petrovitch in every word she spoke to the mother, every smile she gave to the little ones.

A PEACEMAKER

ON the morning after that which he had spent in the study of Art, Count Litvinoff was busily engaged in turning out the pockets of coats, and 'making hay' of the contents of portmanteaus, conducting a vigorous search for something or other, and singing softly to himself the while,—

'It may do that,' he said, dropping suddenly into prose, 'but it doesn't find missing property. I shall have to buy one, which will be annoying, when that one has been kicking about ever since I came from Liverpool. Ah! here it is. I've saved at least four and sixpence, which to a man in my delicate position is a largish sum. For, after all, you can't insult a man by pursuing him about London with a cigar-case that cost less.'

He opened the little crocodile-skin trifle and looked into it.

'It has been used as a letter-case before now, and it would rather complicate matters if I left one of somebody's notes sticking in the lining. Things are a little bit that way as it is. The world is very, very small. A remark, by the way, which [131] is invariably made by people who have more than one creditor. But it is strange that I should have run right into the midst of this Ferrier set. One would think that there was only one county in England, and that was Derbyshire.'

He sighed a little, but brightened as his eye fell on the chair which Roland had occupied two nights before. His voice took up the song again as he returned his belongings to something like order. He had just made his sitting-room presentable again when the waiter appeared, and offered, with an air of virtuous and respectful protest, a folded piece of paper, which had been white once, but since that time had apparently sojourned in the pockets of one who carried his meals about with him.

'Seductive billet-doux,' said Litvinoff, as he took it. 'Is it by chance a tinker's bill?'

'It was brought, sir,' said the waiter, 'by a man who appears to be a foreigner. He said he'd wait for an answer.'

'Show that distinguished gentleman up.'

While his order was being obeyed, Litvinoff looked at the paper again. It was not a letter or a bill, after all; but seemed intended to answer the purpose of a visiting card, for all that was written on it was 'Johann Hirsch.'

Litvinoff was not altogether unaccustomed to being called upon by foreign gentlemen with bold and original views on the subject of visiting-cards. He never refused to see any of these visitors, and always sent them away charmed with the beauty of his sentiments and the liberality of his intentions, and occasionally with something more substantial.

As the waiter closed the door and retreated with a glance of politely veiled contempt, the man whom he had shown in came forward, and Litvinoff recognised in him at once the person who had been so interested in the 'Prophetic Vision' on Sunday evening. He offered the visitor his hand with sunny cordiality.

'I am delighted to see you. I have not forgotten your kind interest in my lecture at the Agora. Please take that arm-chair.'

The other did so.

'I speak English not well,' he began. 'Perhaps the Herr Count speaks German?'

'Certainly,' he replied, in that language; 'but to my friends I am not Count, but Citizen Litvinoff.'

'I cannot claim to be a friend of yours,' said the other, who seemed to speak under the influence of some constraint; 'but I am a friend to the cause you advocate. I do not come to you for myself, but to ask you to help another, who is in sore trouble and distress.'

'I am very sorry. Who is he?'

'It is a woman. The wife of an exile, one of us, separated from her husband by circumstances I may not tell of, but which are not to the discredit of either.'

'What is her name?' asked Litvinoff, a shade more interested than if it had been the exiled husband who needed relief.

'I don't know her name,' said Hirsch; 'but she is very poor and very proud, and I am afraid very ill.'

'Unfortunate combination,' muttered the Count, below his breath, in English.

'But, my good friend Hirsch, how do you propose to give money to this distressed lady, whose name you do not even know?'

'There is only one from whom she will take it, and from him I come. He will give it to her. You will have no credit for your generosity, citizen, for she will not know from whom it comes.'

'I don't think credit is what we work for, nous autres,' said the Count, with a slightly injured air.

'I must tell you the truth,' answered the Austrian, with a [133] shrug of his shoulders and an outward gesture of the palms of his hands.

'Doubtless; but may I not know the name of the benefactor from whose assistance this lady's pride does not shrink?'

'Assuredly; he told me that if I mentioned his name to you, it would be enough to guarantee your attention.'

A very slight change passed over the Count's face, and yet there seemed nothing in that speech to stir up uneasiness. The expression was so transient that it escaped the sharp eyes that watched him from under Hirsch's shaggy eyebrows.

'Distress itself is the best guarantee for my attention.'

He rose and unlocked a despatch box and took out a cheque-book.

As he took up a pen and sat down he asked,—

'What is our friend's name?'

'His name is Petrovitch. You knew him in Russia, I believe.'

'I have heard much of him lately in London, but I have never been so fortunate as to meet him here.'

'He was with me at the Agora on Sunday.'

Litvinoff looked up pleasantly from the cheque he had been filling in.

'Ah, so,' he said, 'I wonder he could not have answered you about the pamphlet.'

'He could have done,' said the other rather grimly, 'if I had thought of asking him, but I did not think of doing so.'

'Well, I must hope soon to meet Citizen Petrovitch. In the meantime give him this, with my best hopes for the welfare of his lady friend. I wish it may be useful, small though it is.'

'There's no doubt about that,' said Hirsch, rising as the other held out the cheque, and glancing at the two figures on [134] it, before folding it very small and concealing it in an inner part of his nondescript garments.

'By the way,' said Litvinoff, 'I've made that out to Petrovitch's order, as I did not know the lady's name.'

'It is better so perhaps,' said Hirsch. 'Good day.'

'Do not go yet,' said the other, hospitably; 'won't you stay and have some lunch?'

'Thank you, no; I have eaten.'

'Well, at anyrate, you'll have a glass of wine, won't you?'

'I am not thirsty, I thank you; good day.'

'Good day,' said the Count, shaking hands cordially. As the door closed behind the other he sank into an arm-chair.

'What an exceedingly fatiguing person. He chooses amiable and courteous messengers, this Petrovitch. I wonder if I did know him in Russia. My memories of childhood's hour are singularly confused, but it's impossible to remember everybody, that's one comfort. It is remarkable how well people remember me, when there's anything to be got by it. This princely drawing of cheques, however, will come to an abrupt termination shortly, and then—I wonder exactly how long it will be before I send in my name to people on dirty bits of paper as a preface to requests for cheques for destitute lady friends?'

He deftly rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and then said, musingly,—

'That property in Volhynia, would it be possible—By heaven, it would be a gallant attempt—it would be almost genius. As a forlorn hope it would be sublime; but I have still some hopes that are not forlorn, and the position of an English landowner is not unenviable. It would at anyrate enable one to give cheques with a freer hand to any mysterious stranger with dirty linen whose anonymous lady friends may happen to be hard up. Hullo, my friend!'—as his eye fell on [135] the cigar-case—'I'd almost forgotten you. I suppose I must be about my business. There are very few men, I am convinced, who work as hard for "the daily crust" as I do.' He flung the end of his cigarette in the fire, and put on his coat.

'And now,' he said, taking up his hat, 'to seek the Midland Hotel, and face whichever Ferrier the Fates may send me. Probably I shall have my walk for nothing; they will be engaged in business, these interesting victims of a misunderstanding which I so deeply deplore.'

He smiled hopefully at himself in the glass, and went out.

'Is Mr Ferrier in?' he asked, when he reached the Midland Hotel, and the answer being 'Yes,' he turned into the coffee-room to wait, still uncertain as to which brother he should see.

It was Richard who came down to him after a few minutes—Richard, whose face, ulster, and soft hat all seemed to be of the same shade of drab.

'Good morning, Count Litvinoff,' he said; 'can I be of any service to you?'

'It was your brother I wished to see,' said the Count. 'He did me the honour to spend a few moments at my rooms last night, and I think this must be his. May I trouble you to give it to him?'

Here he produced the cigar-case.

'I don't think it belongs to my brother,' said Richard, 'and I'm sorry I can't do anything in the matter; but I sha'n't see him again.'

'Ah! you are leaving London?'

'I'm leaving this hotel.'

'Well, perhaps you are right to seek one more cheerfully placed. You are not looking well; perhaps this situation depresses you?'

'Oh, I'm all right, thanks. I'm rather glad you happened [136] to call, because I shall perhaps not see you again. I'm afraid I was rather uncivil yesterday, and, if so, I'm sorry: I didn't intend it, but it struck me afterwards that it might seem so to you. The fact is, I was horribly put out about something.'

'Oh, don't mention it. I saw then that you were annoyed about something, and now I know what it was. I know enough of English manners, Mr Ferrier, to know that here a stranger's interference in personal or family matters is the unpardonable sin. But my faith, you know, compels me to set aside conventions that are only conventions, and to try to give help wherever help can be given.

'I am so complete a stranger,' he went on, regardless of a slight movement of impatience from the other, 'so utterly, so palpably disinterested, that I hope I may without offence say to you what I intended to say to Mr Roland.'

'I don't see that anything could be said to my brother without offence that could not equally well be said to me.'

'This, then, is what I would ask. Is there anything I can do to effect a reconciliation between you and your brother, and prevent this breach from growing wider?'

'I had never told you that there was any breach,' Richard said stiffly.

'No,' he said, 'but all others have not your powers of reticence.'

'I presume my brother has been confiding in you.'

'Your brother told me—what perhaps his pride forbade him to tell you—that you had accused him of something of which he assured me he was as innocent as—as I am,' ended Litvinoff, raising his eyebrows ingenuously.

Richard's first impulse was to request the Count to mind his own business, but he remembered that the interferer was a foreigner, and besides, Litvinoff's manner was so honest, and what he said was true enough. He certainly must be disin [137]terested. So he constrained himself to say, with very little change of manner,—

'If my brother wishes to disprove any charges I may bring, he'd better disprove them to me.'

'But are you quite sure that you were not mistaken? May not your feelings on another matter have predisposed you to believe without evidence enough in this?'

'I quite fail to understand,' said Richard, frowning.

'Is it not possible that you may have thought of him less as your brother than as your rival?'

'If you have anything more to say that needs saying, I shall be glad if you will say it plainly.' Richard spoke angrily.

'Plainly, then—you also are a suitor for the hand of Miss Stanley?'

Ferrier's hand clenched itself, and then made a little movement which seemed quite involuntary. The blood rushed to his face as he spoke.

'May I ask who gave you that piece of false information?'

'Certainly you may ask,' answered Litvinoff, smiling very sweetly. Other people's tempers did not seem to affect him much. 'You may ask, but I—I must not reply.'

'It is lucky that I don't need your answer. There's only one person who would have told you such a lie, and for the future you'd better keep your interference for him, as he seems to like it.'

'And you, perhaps you'd better keep your insolence for those who'll stand it,' said Litvinoff, with the same gentle smile. 'Perhaps our next meeting may be in a country where it is customary to avenge insults in some other way than what you call, I think, a rough-and-tumble fight. Au revoir!'

'You don't seem to find other countries very anxious to have you, since you have had to run away from one at least,' said Richard passionately.

'Oh, delicacy and nobility of English chivalry!' said the Count, turning at the door to favour the other with one last smile. 'How unfortunate for Miss Stanley that you at least are impossible. Pouf! The bourgeoisie is the same, all the world over!'

He lingered in the hall to make himself a cigarette, half expecting Richard to follow him, but as he did not, strolled slowly away into the street.

Richard remained standing in the coffee-room with one hand on the table by which the conversation had taken place.

He felt indignantly injured by Litvinoff's interference, and in the first moments of passion felt sure that his interference had not been disinterested. But as he grew calmer, and was able to think the matter out quietly, he could not suggest to himself any possible reason for the Count's wishing to adjust the quarrel between himself and Roland, except the one he had given. Yet, even if the Russian had been merely filling the rôle of 'friend of humanity,' Dick felt glad that he had shown resentment. One might overlook intermeddling which had its rise in an overpowering interest in one's own personality; but when one was included merely in a vast aggregate like humanity, the compliment which might have been as salt to over-officiousness did not exist, and the conduct of the Count became simply offensive. But, after all, most of his resentment was levelled at the man who had put this weapon into the Russian's hands. Had his brother completely lost all sense of honour—of decency even—that he should thus make him, Richard, the subject of confidence with a stranger? And such confidences, too; confidences that hinged on her name.

'But why should I expect anything better from him, after his conduct to that poor child?'

Then he thought of all he fancied he had discovered about [139] Alice, and all the little things that had aggravated the quarrel with Roland. All the substance of the quarrel would not, perhaps, seem insurmountable if it were written here in detail, but to Richard and his brother these things appeared in far other proportions. The mutual jealousy and distrust that had been growing up between them in the past months was as so much dry tinder ready to catch fire at any spark of a pretext for anger which either might have lighted on.

And this case of Alice was something more than a trifling pretext. Richard himself was neither an angel nor a monk, but at least he played the game of life according to the rules. And, consequently, he felt towards his brother much as an old écarté player might towards a man who kept kings up his sleeve.

He decided to spend a few more hours in the search for Alice, which, hitherto unavailing, he had kept up for the last two days, and then he would go down home and see Gates, and Roland would have his wish. The same roof should not cover them again.

THE CLEON

WELL, I hope you will enjoy the evening, my dear; at anyrate, it will be a new experience for you, and will show you that some of us can be earnest even in the midst of our life of frivolity and heartlessness. You know, I have been a Socialist almost from my birth.'

The speaker sighed gently, and adjusted the folds of her rich black satin dress.

'Oh, I am sure I shall enjoy it immensely, dear Mrs Quaid,' answered Clare Stanley, she being the person addressed; 'you know, since papa was rescued from those dreadful horses, I have taken such an interest in all these questions. It is too good of you to have asked such an outsider as I am to a gathering like this. I don't feel frightened of you, because I know how kind you are, but I'm afraid I shall be at a loss with all the rest of the clever people.'

Mrs Quaid smiled benignantly. 'Oh, my dear, intellect is not what we care for. The great thing is character.'

Mrs Quaid emphasised every third or fourth word in such a way as to give to her smallest remarks an apparently profound significance. She was a distinguished member of the Cleon, a small society which met at the houses of members for the purpose of discussing social questions. To-night the meeting [141] was to take place in her own drawing-room, and she had invited her daughter's school friend, Clare Stanley, to spend the evening, which that young woman was glad enough to do, as her father was going to dine at the 'Travellers'' with a friend, and she did not care to face the long lonely evening in the hotel sitting-room. Besides, Mrs Quaid in herself was always amusing to the girl, whose sharp eyes noticed all the little inconsistencies overlooked by more constant associates. Mrs Quaid had, as she said, been a Socialist almost from her birth, and repudiated with scorn what she termed the 'sad distinctions of class,' but she had such tender consideration for those who did not share her views that she never invited those whom she naïvely styled 'one's own friends' to meet any of those members of the working class whom she warmly but fitfully patronised. She was one of those who, while professing the strongest sympathy with the fashionable Socialism, are able to avail themselves of all the advantages which the present system offers to a limited number; and while ardently looking forward to a time when all men would be equal, appear to view with sweet resignation the probable continuance of the present system during their lifetime and that of their children.

On this particular occasion both she and her daughter, a charming specimen of frank English girlhood, were more interested than usual in the business before them.

This evening was to be a field night. The secretary of the Cleon had captured a genuine Russian Socialist, and the society was disposed to make the most of him.

Nearly every member was to bring a friend, so the gathering would be a large one. It was very amusing to Miss Stanley to watch the arrivals, and to ticket them in her own mind each with his appropriate epithet, and the more uncomplimentary these epithets were, the more demure and unconscious she looked. Mrs Quaid introduced to her several personal [142] adherents, for the Cleon, like larger assemblies, was not without its party differences. Miss Stanley did not feel particularly drawn towards any of them. They had not had to fly across Russian frontiers, nor had they ever, to her knowledge, imperilled their lives at the heads of runaway horses.

There was a Civil Service clerk whose strong point was statistics, and another one whose strong point was so obvious an adherence to the principles of the hostess, that he was secretly styled by the irreverent Irreconcilables 'the member for Quaid.' He was an advocate for short hours of labour, particularly in Government offices. Then there was an enthusiastic young stockjobber, with a passion for morality in public life, who believed in levelling down—to the level of stockjobbers, and who systematically avoided revolutionary literature, on the grounds that it would prevent his keeping good tempered, and he wished to keep good tempered, which Clare thought very nice of him.

Then there was the man whose friends thought he was like Camille Desmoulins, and the man who himself thought he was like Danton.

Then there was a George Atkins, whose care for humanity in the abstract was so great as to soar far above the level of his own wife, who was popularly supposed to have rather a bad time of it.

The 'great proletariat,' on whose behalf the Cleon met and discussed, was represented by one stone-mason. Clare was surprised when she heard what his calling was, as there was nothing in his dress or bearing to distinguish him from the other men present. Perhaps that was why Mrs Quaid had specially invited him.

There were about a score of other members who were less noticeable on account of any peculiarity. They formed the real [143] strength of the society, and did all the work, owing to which it held a position in the Socialist movement altogether out of proportion to its numbers.

The majority of the ladies gave a business-like aspect to the evening by severely retaining their outdoor garments. Some of these were of peculiar shape and make, a fact which Mrs Quaid explained in a whisper to be the result of their employment of inexperienced dressmakers, on the highest moral grounds.

By the time Clare had noticed all this the room was pretty full, and as everyone talked at once, and very loud, one might, by shutting one's eyes, have fancied oneself at an ordinary 'at home,' instead of at a serious gathering, whose note was earnestness, and whose motif was social regeneration.

She was just thinking something like this when Mrs Quaid touched her on the shoulder.

'Clare, my love,' she said, 'you must let me introduce dear Mr Petrovitch to you. You know he has been so exceedingly good as to consent to read us a paper to-night.'

Clare knew by experience that all her hostess's male friends were 'dear,' and her female ones 'sweet,' for at least three weeks after their first introduction, but when she turned to receive Petrovitch's bow, it did strike her that the epithet was more than usually incongruous. He was about the last person, she thought, to whom terms of indiscriminate endearment could be applied.

After the Continental manner, he had put on evening dress. The wide shirt-front showed off the splendid breadth of a chest that would not have disgraced a Life Guardsman in uniform. Miss Stanley, as she looked at him, admitted to herself that on some people the claw-hammer coat was not without its æsthetic attraction.

As the people settled down into chairs he took a seat be [144]side her, but in such a position that she could see his face without turning her own.

Then, after a few business preliminaries, Petrovitch began to speak. He did not read, as had been announced, but spoke from notes, with a little hesitation, caused, perhaps, by his speaking in a foreign language. To most of his hearers what he had to say was well-known, no doubt; but to Clare all he said came as a revelation. She had come to be amused, to criticise, to 'make fun,' perhaps; but what she heard from this man beside her was not in the least amusing or funny. It seemed to her more like the gospel of a new religion. She listened intently, and after a while, unconsciously influenced by the interest and light in her face, he began to feel less and less as though he were talking to the room, and more and more as though he were speaking solely to the girl beside him. If he saw comprehension in her eyes, he did not trouble to explain a point further; if he saw a question there, he answered it; a doubt, he solved it. Some eyes are easy to read, and Petrovitch was a master of that art.

The girl was no fool, and though the whole theory of Socialism was new to her, she was able to follow the rigorous train of logic with which he led up to his conclusions. He attacked all the stock ideas which she had been brought up to respect. It somehow did not seem like blasphemy. He flung scorn and derision on the social ideals which she had heard lauded from her cradle. Some things which she had been taught to consider admirable and desirable, grew, as he spoke of them, to seem mean and paltry. Life, as she listened, took new meanings, and became of deeper significance. Even the affairs of every day, the chance stories of misery, and the 'painful' paragraphs of the newspapers, which she felt, and shuddered as she felt, had hitherto seemed only occasions [145] for the sprinkling of a little Radical rose-water—little stings of passing horror, which heightened rather than detracted from the pleasures of existence—seemed now to be worth considering in some other light.

This was not the first time that Clare's heart had been stirred and her sympathies quickened by a spoken discourse. More than once she remembered having left the doors of parish church or cathedral in a tumult of emotion when some specially earnest and eloquent preacher had succeeded in casting a new and fierce light into the inmost depths of her soul; but, she remembered, those feelings had been transient, and strong though the new convictions and resolutions had been when she left the sacred portals, the small things of life—the duties of school, the light worries of home, the social bagatelles, things trivial and tenuous enough in themselves—had soon settled down upon her like a thick atmosphere, and by their aggregate weight had crushed, not out of existence, but back to her soul's remoter recesses, the new-born life.

As Petrovitch finished speaking, and, folding up his notes, thanked his hearers for their patience and attention, she wondered to herself, so quick is thought, whether what had happened before would not happen again, and whether by this time to-morrow her mind would not be running with its accustomed smoothness in its accustomed channels. She hoped no; she feared yes. But somehow something seemed to tell her that in these past experiences her emotions only had been affected, but that this time her reason also had been forced into life and action, and it would be harder to chloroform that, she thought.

For some minutes after he had ceased she was so preoccupied with these thoughts that she hardly noticed the sharp fire of questions which was levelled at him from visitors in different parts of the room. When she did begin to listen to them, it [146] was only to wonder how people could so have misunderstood what seemed to her so clear. There was one lady in particular who asked inconsequent questions in such a feebly deliberate manner, dropping her words out as though they were some precious elixir of which it was not well to give out much at a time, that Clare felt an insane desire to shake her words out of her, and at the same time a little sense into her.

The genial young stockbroker wanted to know whether the best part of Petrovitch's scheme was not included in the present Radical programme, but his suggestion was received with disapprobation by the large majority, and he hastily withdrew into obscurity. It struck Miss Stanley that all the questions and remarks were on side issues, and left untouched the main contentions.

When the chairman of the evening announced that the discussion was at an end, everybody rose and began to talk at once—in most cases not about the paper. Perhaps they were all glad to get away from the larger questions of life's possibilities, and to return to the trivial personalities which form the chief interest of most of our lives.

'You are interested in these questions, Miss Stanley?' Petrovitch said, as he turned to bid her good-night.

'I—I—shall be.'

'Yes, I think you will. Good-bye.'

He left alone, and at once, telling his hostess he had an appointment to keep.

Just outside the door he met Count Litvinoff's visitor of the morning. Hirsch had evidently been waiting for him with some impatience. He turned, and they walked away together.

'I've been here some time,' he said. 'I thought you must have gone.'

'I am sorry,' said Petrovitch; 'I could not leave earlier.'

'Little good you'll do in a house like that,' grumbled Hirsch, knitting his brows. 'Casting pearls before swine.'

'Not quite that, my good Hirsch. Casting seed upon stony ground, maybe, but I am much mistaken if some has not fallen upon virgin soil, and then my evening has not been wasted. How did it fare with you this morning?'

Hirsch silently produced Litvinoff's cheque, not quite so fresh-looking as when he had received it.

'Ah, as I expected!' said the other, glancing at it under a lamp. 'Ten pounds is not illiberal. You see, he does not keep so tight a purse-string as you thought.'

'Lightly won lightly spent. Donner wetter! he gained it easily enough.'

'This is not spent—it is given. Don't be unjust.'

'Gott in Himmel! You're a good man, Petrovitch. You seem to have no faults.'

'Ah! so it may seem to you who have known me only three months, but I have known myself more than a score of years, and I know that I am full of them. Come home with me and have a smoke, and we'll talk about something else.'

'And how have you liked it, my dearest Clare? Have you been terribly bored—or puzzled perhaps—since you are not used to these discussions?'

'I have never been more interested than I was by Mr Petrovitch,' said Clare, with perfect truth.

'Ah, yes,' said Mrs Quaid enthusiastically; 'so sweet, isn't he?'

Clare did not answer, but as she drove home it occurred to her that the principal ingredient in Petrovitch's character was not exactly sugar.

GOING HOME

THERE are people, we are told, on whom the rapid action of railway travelling acts as a soothing influence; but to the majority of us, when suffering from any loss or grief, a long train journey is simply maddening. The rattling of the windows, the vibration of the carriage, the banging of doors and shouting of porters at the stations, the prolonged and ear-piercing shriek of the whistle, occurring at such moments as to convince the thinking mind that it is not let off with any good intention or to serve any useful purpose, but simply to gratify the torturing instinct of the engine-driver at the expense of the passengers' nerves and tempers—all these only aggravate any trouble which may be part of one's invisible luggage. For all these together are not enough to distract one from the contemplation of one's special skeleton, and each is in itself enough to keep one from contemplating it with any good result. And as for seeing the bright side of one's troubles, that is quite impossible when one is moving at the rate of fifty miles an hour; the only wonder is that more people are not overcome by the peculiarly dismal aspect which one's position assumes under these circumstances, and that we don't hear of more suicides in railway carriages.

The three o'clock Midland express was tearing through the quiet country. A faint mist lay over the fields and hedges, [149] faint, but still thick enough to hold its own against the pale yellow sunbeams that seemed striving to disperse it.

Richard Ferrier, idly gazing at the flying hedges and gates and squalid cottages, did not feel any less sad for the sadness of the outside world through which he was speeding home.

He had spent the previous evening in a vigorous search after Alice—a search which had been unsuccessful, even though he had offered Mrs Fludger the best inducement to frankness. It had needed that golden token to mitigate the wrath with which she had received his first question. She had, indeed, hinted, not darkly, in the first flush of indignation, at worse designs on his part than even Bible-reading; but gold itself, though it had softened her asperity, had been powerless to extort from her any information of the slightest value. Having tried all he knew, and failed, to discover any trace of what he sought, Richard had given up the search. He had met Roland once on the hotel staircase. They had passed each other like strangers.

As the train rushed on, he went over and over again all the circumstances of his quarrel with his brother. A fire of hate burned in him fiercely, a stern and deep indignation surged in his heart, and blinded his eyes to any possible palliation of his brother's conduct. This state of mind was the outcome of months of heart soreness and suppressed bitterness of spirit,—months in which he had vainly tried to disguise from himself that if Clare Stanley did incline to one more than the other, it was Roland who was the favourite. During that month of Roland's unexplained holiday Richard had fancied he made some progress in her good graces, but when his brother came back again she had turned on him just the same smiles and glances that had bewildered Dick. And from that time it had seemed to him that Roland was gradually elbowing him out. Miss Stanley had a taste for poetry, and Roland read poetry [150] extremely well. Miss Stanley called herself a Radical, and Roland had been a shining light on that side in a small debating society at Cambridge. Miss Stanley liked to chatter about Art, and Roland always had a stock of the latest Art prattle at the tip of his tongue. Roland had grown fond of solitary walks, and in these was constantly meeting Miss Stanley 'by accident'—'accident' which Richard could not always bring himself to believe in. It was to be noticed, by the way, that in the walks of both these young men all roads led, not to Rome, but past Aspinshaw. Richard had borne all this, sustaining himself with a hope that Miss Stanley did not really feel interested so much in Roland as in the tastes he affected. He had still hoped that she might come to care for him,—for the man who loved her with such a passionate intensity. It is so hard, so very hard, to believe that the love that is everything to us is absolutely nothing to the beloved. Men have even dreamed that their passion could warm marble to life. How much easier to fancy that it can stir a heart to love.

But the sting in the pain he had suffered while his lady smiled on Roland had been a half unselfish fear that these smiles of hers were being bestowed on a man unworthy of them. Now that he believed this unworthiness to be proved, all the latent doubts, distrusts, suspicions he had kept down 'sprang full statured in an hour,' and with them sprang a hatred of his brother, so fierce as to frighten himself; for however he might seek to deceive himself about it, he knew in his inmost heart that it was less as a heartless profligate than as a possibly successful rival that he had learned to hate him.

But he knew that now this rivalry could not be successful. His great love for her prevented his seeing the realities that underlay the superficial side of her character, so that he actually believed her to be the last woman in the world one could dare to ask to share poverty. He knew that his own chance, [151] such as it had been, was lost; but he knew, too, that his brother's chance was also at an end. This did not make him less determined that the quarrel should be à outrance.

'Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face' is such a wildly irrational act that one would never expect any reasonable being to be guilty of it, and yet hundreds of people do it every day. Dick was doing it now, practically, though he kept reminding himself that this was really the only honourable course open to him, and that he was influenced mainly by irreproachable motives.

It was nearly eight o'clock when his journey ended at Thornsett Edge.

He went straight into the dining-room, where Miss Ferrier sat filling in the groundwork of some canvas slippers, which she hastily pushed out of sight when she saw him. It was one of her habits, kept up since the days when they were children, to make some present for each of the brothers every year, and give it to them at Christmas as a 'surprise.'

'My dear Dick, how ill you look! Why didn't you write? Have you had any dinner?'

'No, auntie,' said he, kissing her. 'Just order up something cold, will you? I want to run up to Gates this evening. I won't wait for anything to be cooked.'

Miss Letitia suppressed her curiosity as to what could be taking Dick to his father's solicitor at this time of night, and hurried off to see about the meal herself. While he was busy with the cold beef and pickles he told her briefly that he had run down on business, which had been rather worrying lately.

'That accounts,' said the good lady, 'for your looking so poorly. I hope you've not been keeping bad hours.'

'Not I!' said Dick, as he drew the cork of a bottle of stout. 'Nor yet bad company, aunt—don't you think it.'

'And how is Roland?' she asked, at last; but at the same minute Dick pushed his chair back, and rose.

'I'm off to Gates now,' he said. 'I shall be back some time to-night. And I say, auntie, have my father's room got ready for me. I should like to sleep there.'

When he had put on hat and great coat, he put his head in again at the room door.

'After all, I think I'll have my own room.'

He found Mr Gates sitting smoking very comfortably in the society of two of his bosom friends, with whom he had that day enjoyed some very good shooting.

'Can I see Mr Richard Ferrier?' he cried, when a servant took him the name. 'I should think I could. Come in, Dick, my boy; you're just in time to help finish the bottle. Stevens is full already—he's missed every bird he's aimed at to-day—and Clark is too sleepy to appreciate good stuff.'

The other men laughed, and all shook hands with Dick, and made room for him in the little circle which they formed round a splendid fire.

'I suppose the Aspinshaw people will soon be down now,' Gates went on; 'in fact, I heard so from Stanley.'

'I came down on business,' said Dick, as the three other men burst out laughing.

'Of course,' said Gates; 'you went to town on business just when they went.'

The duet of less than half-sober laughter with which Mr Gates's guests received this suggestion brought the colour to Richard's cheeks.

'I want to speak to you in private,' he said, 'if your friends will excuse us.'

'Oh, they won't mind,' said Mr Gates, his cheerfulness unabated by the sharp tone in which Richard spoke. 'Come along; let's get the beastly business over.'

Richard followed him into another room. Mr Gates set down on a table the brass candle-stick he had brought in; both men remained standing.

'I have come up to ask you to take immediate steps to stop working the mill. I suppose we must give the men some notice?'

'Have you gone mad, boy? What on earth should you close the mill for?'

'It will be closed under the provisions of my father's will, which, I believe, you drew up, Mr Gates.'

Mr Gates sat down heavily on the nearest chair.

'You don't mean to say you've been quarrelling already?'

Richard made an impatient gesture of assent.

'You're both of you too old and too sensible to let a quarrel like this stand between you and your living,' said Gates seriously. 'What's the trouble?'

'I can't tell you what our quarrel is about. My brother can do so if he likes; but it is impossible—please understand me thoroughly, Mr Gates, it is quite impossible that Roland and I can ever work together again.'

His tone was so decided, his face so firm, that Gates saw plainly that what he said he meant, and that this was no quarrel to be got over by 'being slept upon.'

'May I ask,' he said, when he had risen and taken a turn or two up and down the room, 'how you propose to get your living?'

'I shall have a little, I believe, without the mill, and I am not an absolute fool; and, if the worst comes to the worst, I suppose my hands are of some use,' holding them out, with a laugh.

'And what will Roland do?' said the lawyer, more to gain time than because he expected any answer.

'You forget, sir,' said Richard haughtily—and as he spoke [154] the other noticed how much older he seemed to have grown in the last month—'you forget, sir, that my brother's affairs no longer concern me in the least.'

'Well, I can do nothing till I hear from him. That'll be time enough, God knows.'

'You know best, sir,' said Richard. 'I've done my duty in telling you; I shall write to the trustees to-night.'

'Well,' said Gates, with a shrug of his shoulders, 'what must be must. I can only hope you'll think better of it. Why, it's perfect madness. Do let me try to arrange matters between you.'

'You had better address yourself to Roland. Don't make any mistake, Mr Gates. This is quite as much my brother's quarrel as mine. Only three days ago he told me never to speak again to him on this side of the grave, and swore that the same roof should not continue to cover us both. I must be off now. I'm sorry to have troubled you at such an hour. Good-night.'

Gates let him out. As he closed the front door after watching him down to the gate,—

'How in the world,' he said, 'did such a hard-headed man of business as old Dicky Ferrier ever manage to get two such hare-brained young fools as these boys? Why, it's beastly unnatural,' he added discontentedly. 'But it's the same old tale, I suppose—"All along of Eliza." A good business smashed up, and two young fellows going straight to the dogs, because of that damned girl'—with a backward jerk of his head in the direction of Aspinshaw, as he returned into the cloud of smoke in which his two friends were dozing placidly.

Richard went quickly away under the arching interlaced boughs of the garden trees. When he reached the road he did not turn his face towards Thornsett Edge, but went up the hill that lay at the back of the house. Across the fields, where [155] no track was visible, but where he could have found his way blindfold, through narrow lanes with stone walls, past more than one farmstead, now settled down into the restfulness of night, always upwards he went, until he reached the little church that crowned the hill and kept watch over the dead that crowded under its shadow.

The young man passed into the graveyard and made his way to a very white stone, that showed strikingly among the dun-coloured monuments about it.

Light fleecy clouds were being blown over the face of the waning moon, and alternations of weird shadows, and still weirder lights, fell on the tombstones and on the grey, weather-beaten little church. Richard rested his hand on his father's gravestone with a caressing touch. A great wave of regret and longing swept over him, and then a sort of relief at the thought that his father could not know how his dying wish would be unfulfilled. The old man's words rang in his ears,—'It has been a long life; I should like to lie quiet at last.'

'Thank God,' said Richard. People who don't believe in God have a way of speaking as though they did in moments of emotion. 'Thank God, he can't be troubled about anything now. Dear old dad—he has that wish, at any rate. He lies quiet and beyond the reach of it all.'

He stooped and kissed the stone, almost as though it had been the face of him who lay beneath it.

AN UNEXPECTED ADHERENT

THE train which brought Count Litvinoff from London was punctual to the minute, but the trap which was to take him to Thornsett Edge was not, and he was lounging discontentedly among his rugs and luggage at the melancholy little station of Firth Vale.

When Roland had left London, some weeks before, he had parted from Litvinoff with the understanding that he was to spend Christmas with him at Thornsett Edge. Young Ferrier had felt that the Count would be a thousand times better company than his own thoughts, and he preferred asking him to inviting any of his college friends, from whom Richard's absence would provoke comment, and to whom it would have to be explained. For Richard had gone away, leaving no address save that of a solicitor in London, and he had written to the trustees, and steps were being taken for closing the mill. Roland would rather have been anywhere than near the property he was so soon to lose, but Gates urged him to stay at Thornsett till the New Year, and with Count Litvinoff as his guest he hoped to keep ghosts of old times at bay as successfully in his old home as he could hope to do anywhere else. And Litvinoff had accepted the invitation with fervour, for the Stanleys were back at Aspinshaw.

The day he had pitched on for his journey was a bitterly cold one in the middle of December, and the waiting-room at Firth Vale had no big fires, soft carpets, and luxurious lounges. [157] It had nothing but a bench, a table, a Bible, a Prayer-book, and a large stone jug of cold water. Litvinoff was got up quite after the English manner, in a light, long travelling ulster with a hood, and a tourist hat of the same stuff; but in spite of his precautions against weather he was very cold, and not a little cross at his prolonged waiting. He was just debating whether it would not be better to walk, and trust his traps to the mercy of chance, when the station shivered and shuddered as the 'local' came slowly and heavily in.

As it stopped, a stout woman, of about forty-five, with the usual number of blue bandboxes, bundles in handkerchiefs, and brown baskets disposed about her person, came hurrying down the stone steps, accompanied by a hard-featured, grizzled man some years older. Litvinoff watched their descent with a smile, but as they reached the bottom step his face grew suddenly serious. He turned sharply, and, passing into the little waiting-room, became deeply absorbed in the 'Scripture roll' which hung opposite the door, until the train had glided out of the station.

He saw without turning his head that only the woman had gone. The man remained on the platform, gazing after the retreating line of carriages till he started and turned round at Litvinoff's voice.

'I beg your pardon, but do you know a place about here called Thornsett Edge?'

'Ah do,' said the man, after a prolonged stare. 'It's a matter o' three miles off.'

'Can I get a trap here?' In reply he learned that there was no trap nearer than the fly at the 'Jolly Sailors,' and that was half a mile the other side of Thornsett.

'Then I suppose I must walk. Can you tell me the way?'

'Ah can show you,' said the man. 'Ah'm going up to the village; Ah live there.'

He spoke shortly; but Litvinoff had a reason for wishing to [158] talk to the man, and so was content to ignore a curtness of manner which at any other time he would have been the first to resent.

In a few minutes the two were walking over the hard road side by side.

'Do you happen to know Mr Ferrier?'

'Ay; Ah work i' their mill.'

'I suppose they are great favourites hereabouts?'

'They're good lads enow,' said the elder man; 'better nor most o' them.'

'Better than most of whom?'

'Most of the masters and gentlefolks and that like,' said the man, rather sullenly.

'You don't seem to like gentlemen, my friend.'

'Ah don't like them well enough to believe either as they're my friends or as Ah'm theirs,' was the answer, given with a haughty resentment of Litvinoff's epithet, which that gentleman found amusing.

'I'm afraid that's true enough in most cases.'

The man looked a little surprised at having his sentiments met by this ready echo from such an unlikely quarter.

'The toad don't love the harrow,' he said slowly; 'but it ain't often as you can get the harrow to see that.'

'Are you quite sure the toad sees it? It seems to bear it quietly enough.'

'What else can we do?' asked the man fiercely.

'That's exactly what I'm giving my life to trying to find out,' said Litvinoff, very quietly.

The workman stopped short, and looked at the gentleman from head to feet. His gaze was calmly returned.

He turned and went on with a half laugh:

'Have you came down here to find that out, and is Mr Roland going to help you?'

'I can't answer for Mr Roland Ferrier, but as for myself— [159]look here, my friend' (with an emphasis on the word), 'in trying to help the "toads," as you call them, I was driven from my own country, and had to fly for my life, with a pack of soldier wolves at my back.'

'Ay? How was that?' The man was interested in spite of himself, and Litvinoff forthwith plunged into an account of the flight across the frontier on that most exciting night of all his life.

His listener had not heard many exciting stories—they are not rife in Firth Vale—and to this story the fact that it was told by the chief actor lent an unusual interest. The Count was a good story-teller, and the way in which he told his tale left room for no doubt of its truth. When the recital was ended the listener drew a long breath.

'Ah'm glad you gave them the slip,' he said; 'the devils! Eh, but you're a lucky man to have had such things in your life, and to have done something. You don't know what it's like to have your life all bearing and no doing. Why, sometimes when you see how things go wi' some poor folks you're most ready to curse the A'mighty as lets such things be.'

The tone of the words, and the words themselves, told Litvinoff that the man's icy distrust of him had melted in the warmth of admiring sympathy.

'Ah! here comes Mr Roland,' he said a minute after, as a tall figure came in sight; 'he'll show you now. My nearest way's over here,' pointing to one of those uncertain erections of loose stones which do duty for walls in that part of the country. 'Ah hope Ah shall see you again. If you have nothing better to do any time I shall be right glad to see you at our place. Any one at Thornsett'll tell you where I live. My name's Hatfield—John Hatfield.'

'As I thought,' said Litvinoff, as he advanced to meet Roland, and to receive his profuse regrets at the sudden casting of a shoe, which had prevented the mare from getting to the station with the dog-cart, which ought to have [160] been in attendance. 'But come along,' he said; 'it's a jolly day for a walk, and I'll send down for your things as soon as we get home. That was John Hatfield you were with. He's rather a character.'

'He seems to be one of us,' said Litvinoff, as they walked on together.

'How do you mean?'

'He doesn't appear to be particularly satisfied with the present system.'

'No; and he has good wages too,—nearly two pounds a week.'

'Affluence,' said Litvinoff.

'Ah, well,' said Roland, laughing—'it's very good as things go—but he has some reason for hating his betters.'

'Some reason besides the two pounds a week, do you mean?'

'Yes; his daughter, an awfully pretty, nice girl, made a fool of herself—but I'll tell you about that some other time. Shall we go this way? It is a little longer, but it leads round by Aspinshaw, and I want to call there to ask after Mrs Stanley; she has a cold. Old Stanley will be delighted to see you; he's always talking about you. I don't know how he stands your revolutionary ideas.'

Litvinoff laughed.

'I never air them to him. I never talk revolution unless there is some chance of making a convert; but some things are too impossible, and Mr Stanley as a revolutionist is not to be conceived.'

'Miss Stanley seems to be quite a convert, however, although she always had a leaning that way. But I don't think the conversion is a star in your crown. She lays the credit of it to some man—I forget his name—whom she heard in town. I suppose you know him?'

'Ah, yes; I remember Miss Stanley took me down splendidly one morning by saying that now she understood our views, [161] thanks to this man Petrovitch. And I, who had been vainly flattering myself that I had made them intelligible to her!'

'By George, yes!' said Roland, secretly pleased. 'That was rather a facer. But then she didn't hear you at the Agora. Is this Petrovitch a gentleman?'

'Upon my word, I don't know. It seems he knows me, but somehow or other we never seem to meet. It is not impossible that I may have known him under some other name. I must ask Miss Stanley to describe him to me.'

'Oh, she'll do that with a great deal of pleasure,' said Roland; 'it's her great topic at present. That's Aspinshaw, over there to the right.'

It was a very pretty house, and somehow managed to escape, even at this dreary season, such dreariness as hung over Thornsett Edge, though it was built of the same grey stone, and had the same moorland background. There was a good deal of ivy about it, and the grounds were less regular and more full of evergreens and shrubs than the Ferriers' garden.

As the two young men walked up the private road they heard from the rear of the house a confused barking of dogs, and above the noise a girl's clear voice, raised in vain endeavour to still the joyful tumult.

'La belle Clare,' Litvinoff spoke softly, raising his hat as though he saw her, and quickening his pace a little.

'Shall we go round this way?' said Roland; 'we don't stand on ceremony with each other down here.'

'By all means,' said Litvinoff, and they turned into the stable-yard, passing down by the laurel hedge that alone divided it from the garden.

'By God! what's that?' cried the Count, suddenly stopping; and then both men sprang through the hedge. No time to go round now, for there had been the sharp report of a gun, a woman's shriek, and a heavy fall.

A MIXED ASSEMBLY

IT was Sunday afternoon. The rather festive look of Petrovitch's room, in which he now sat alone, was not, however, due to any desire to specialise the day. He had simply made his home as cheerful as possible because he was about to entertain guests.

His table was spread with a snowy cloth, and with the preparations for a tea of a distinctly convivial character. There was jam, and more than one kind of cake; and the room was further brightened by bunches of chrysanthemums. Chairs were drawn round the fire in an inviting-looking circle. The least cheerful object in the room was the owner of it, who sat in his usual chair between the fire and the writing-table. He looked pale and weary, for the frosty weather had strongly renewed the pain in a wound in his breast—an old wound, and a wound that had just missed being a deadly one. Contrary to his usual custom, he was neither reading nor writing. The pipe he had been smoking had gone out, and his thoughts were far back in the past, among the memories which had re-awakened with that aching in his breast. His thoughts went further back than the date of that wound,—went back to the days before he had lost friends, home, and country. He saw again in fancy the brilliant gaiety of the winters in St Petersburg, he heard again the exquisite music of the concerts [163] and the opera,—the balls where Majesty itself had deigned to be present, with anxious brow and uneasy, restless eyes. His memory dwelt longest on a certain torchlight fête on the Neva, when the ice had been a yard thick, and when the élite had been shut off from the common herd by walls made of blocks of solid ice, between which fir trees were planted; when coloured lamps and Chinese lanterns had thrown indescribable magic over the crowd of bright military uniforms and the exquisite toilettes of lovely women who had never in all their lives been troubled by any thought of what their dresses cost. And even at this distance he could not think without half a pang of a certain fair-faced girl, with golden hair, who, in her sapphire velvet and swansdown, had been the star of that fête to his boyish eyes. And she had been kind to him on this the last evening he had spent near her before his new faiths and duties had separated him from her for ever. That was the first loss his creed had cost him. He wondered what would be the last—life itself perhaps. Then he fell to thinking how these beliefs of his had grown up. How the reading of a certain book—an English book—had done for his mind what a successful operation for cataract does for one nearly blind—had shown him the facts of life, no longer half hidden in a mist of falsity, but in all their naked truth and ugliness. How for a time he had closed his eyes again and had tried hard to live on in the life of luxury, beauty, love, and (now he knew) selfishness which had been his by 'right of birth.' He remembered the night when, belated miles from his home, and overtaken by a snowstorm, he had sought refuge in a peasant's hut, how he had talked to his hosts, how one visit had led to many, and how what he had learned from these miserable serfs had forbidden him to forget or to set aside the teaching of the great author whose book had first set him thinking. He remembered that time, perhaps the happiest in his life, when he first began to [164] write—when the ideas which had so long been seething in his brain had found literary expression. He remembered the joy with which he had corrected his first proof, the pride with which he read his first article in a magazine. So thoroughly back in the old time was he that he had stretched out his hand towards this very magazine, which stood bound on a bookshelf, when a heavy foot sounded on the stairs, and a moment after a knock at the door heralded the entrance of Mr Toomey, whom Petrovitch came forward to greet with an almost courtly welcome.

'But your wife,' he said; 'can she not come? I trust all is well with her?'

'All's well with her, and thanking you for the question; but all's not well with that young woman o' yours.'

'Of mine? I do not happen to possess a young woman, my good Toomey.'

'I suppose you and me and my Mary Jane possesses about equal shares of her, then, for I saved her from keeping company with the dead cats and dogs, and you sent her to our place, and now my missus is let in for looking arter her.'

'Come to the fire. I hope it's nothing serious.'

'I don't rightly know. My missus told me I should be better out of the way, and I sent the doctor in as I came by.'

'I am very sorry,' said Petrovitch, 'but I am sure poor Mrs Litvinoff could not be in better hands than those of your good, kind wife.'

It was noticeable that he never spoke of Alice save as Mrs Litvinoff.

'You've a snug little place up here, sir,' said Toomey, looking round him. 'And do you really like reading—those sort of books, I mean,' pointing to Hegel's 'Logic,' which lay open on the table.

'I like doing better than reading, but one must read much to be able to do little in the line of work I am on at present.'

'Your line of work,' said Toomey, glancing admiringly at his host, 'is a thing as I never can get to understand. How it's done, I mean. Now, paving is straightforward. When you've got a paving-stone you know what it is you've got, and how far it'll go, but words is such shifty things, and how you manage to make 'em fit into each other so as to make 'em mean what you mean is what gets over me.'

'Perhaps I don't always make them mean what I mean. Judging by the way people misunderstand what I say—ah! here is Hirsch,' as the door opened, 'and Pewtress too. How are you? Now we're all here but Mr Vernon.'

'He's coming upstairs now,' said Pewtress, the stone-mason with the intellectual forehead, who had been at Mrs Quaid's at the last meeting of the Cleon.

Mr Hirsch seemed to be in more genial mood than he had been in any of those brief conversations which we hitherto had occasion to report. He had shaved himself—he even appeared to have combed his hair—and he shook hands with Toomey quite warmly and cordially.

The host had gone half-way down the stairs to meet his fourth guest—a lame boy, whose crutches made it not easy for him to mount to the height of Petrovitch's nest. He now returned with him on his arm—and after a general introduction of him to the others they all sat down to tea.

Eustace Vernon was a lad of about eighteen, with a pale, highbred-looking face—a rather shy but pleasant manner. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Petrovitch, and since his first acquaintance with the Socialist had made a point of being present at all the meetings on social subjects that he could get to hear of, and could find time to attend. For even the wild enthusiasm of the revolutionary in his teens will not go the length of working a Buddhist miracle and enabling the youthful devotee to be at more than one meeting at the same time. [166] Petrovitch was amused and a little touched by the lad's undisguised homage—and knowing himself to be responsible for the inflammation of the young man's mind, felt bound to keep watch lest he should get into trouble before his newly-kindled fire had had time to burn itself down into steadiness.

As the meal went on it was noticeable that Vernon's love of liberty was not inconsistent with a child-like devotion to strawberry jam.

Petrovitch might have kept a school of instruction for the benefit of those who are always making such desperate efforts to 'annihilate class distinctions'—efforts which usually take place on Saturday afternoons, and are mostly the dismallest of failures. Under his influence his four guests—born in different parts of the world, and drawn from different social grades—talked together with the ease of club acquaintances.

'I had hoped,' said Petrovitch by-and-by, 'to have had a lady here to pour tea out for you, but fate has been unpropitious; Mrs Toomey was not able to come.'

'I regret her,' said Hirsch. 'It always does me much pleasure to meet our good friend's good wife.'

Toomey looked flattered, but a little uncomfortable under this tribute.

'She would have liked to come,' said he, trying to look straight at the other, but only succeeding in fixing one eye on the Austrian, while the other searched the depths of the jam pot with an obstinacy which made Vernon, who had the same in hand, simmer with warm awkwardness. 'She would have liked to come, but the young woman as lodges with us—that Mrs Let-em-off—is ill, and the missus wouldn't leave her.'

'Ah, Mrs Litvinoff, it is you mean. I willed to ask you of her.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Vernon, glad to join in the [167] conversation, as a means of getting away from Toomey's eye. 'Is that any relation of Count Litvinoff? I know him. Splendid fellow, isn't he?'

'I don't think as she's a blessed countess,' said Toomey doubtfully, while Hirsch cast a significant glance of question at his host.

'Oh,' said Petrovitch, 'there are more Litvinoffs than one. It is not an uncommon name. I myself know more than one family of that name.'

'Of course you know the Count,' said Vernon, turning to him. 'What wonderful adventures he has had. He seems to be a man of splendid character. It must have cost him something to give up his social position and go in for the Revolution.'

'So far as I know Michael Litvinoff, he has never done more than his clear duty.'

'What does he do for the Revolution now?' growled Hirsch.

'Well, he does all that any one can do in England. There's not much else to be done besides talking.'

Vernon ended with a sigh, as of one who yearned for the barricades.

'Oh, yes; he'll talk,' said Hirsch discontentedly, and took a large bite of bread and butter.

'You are quite right, Mr Vernon,' said Petrovitch. 'He talks, and talks well; and, as you say, there is here no other means of helping the cause. And where you have such freedom of speech as in England a man's tongue is his best weapon, and ought, under existing circumstances, to be his only one.'

'The great reforms,' said Hirsch—'have they been carried by the tongue, or by the pike and the musket?'

'In this England enough has been carried by the tongue to leave good hopes for the future,' said Petrovitch.

'I am glad to hear you express those opinions,' said Pewtress, [168] who spoke with some deliberation, and chose his words carefully. 'I have noticed that most of the foreigners I have had the pleasure of meeting do not quite understand the condition of affairs here.'

'Do not misunderstand me,' said Petrovitch, rising from the table. 'I consider force to be the last refuge of the oppressed and the wretched—only to be tried when everything else has failed—but then perfectly legitimate.'

'Hear, hear,' cried Vernon enthusiastically, as they all rose; 'that's more like yourself, Petrovitch! And as for Count Litvinoff, I can't help admiring him, if it's only for what he's gone through.'

'For that,' said Hirsch, who seemed to have grown grumpier and grumpier ever since Litvinoff's name had been introduced, 'you, Petrovitch, have had adventures better to hear about than any of his. Did Mr Vernon ever hear how you escaped from Tieff?'

'If Mr Vernon has, I have not,' said Pewtress, as they gathered round the fire. 'If our kind host will tell us the story, I am sure we shall all follow it with a great deal of interest.'

'I am quite willing to tell you about that little affair, but I fancy I've told it once or twice before,' said Petrovitch, handing round a box of thick, short Russian cigarettes, to which his friends all helped themselves; 'and there is no greater bore than the man who will always be telling of his own deeds and adventures.'

'You, at any rate, never speak of yours,' said Vernon, fixing his large eyes on Petrovitch; 'do tell us, please.'

'I assure you I was not refusing "pour me faire prier," and if we are all comfortable I will tell you with pleasure the little there is to tell. Toomey, you have no light.'

'All right, sir,' said Toomey, picking up a hot coal in his fingers and lighting his cigarette therefrom as his host began.

'During the year or so that I was in the fortress of Petro-Paolovski I never encouraged the slightest hopes of escape, for in the first place I, for a long time, suffered from a bad gunshot wound, and, secondly, because it is known only too well among us that escape from Petro-Paolovski is impossible. When, for some unknown reason, the Government sent me to Tieff, my health was improved, and so were my chances of getting away, and from the moment I entered the prison doors I never lost an opportunity of making and maturing a plan of escape. Escaping from a Russian prison is not quite such a desperate business for one of us as it would be for one of you, for you would be like a blind man in a strange house; but those of us who are judged to be the most likely subjects for arrest make it a rule to have the plan of every prison and fortress at our finger-tips.'

'What a marvellous organisation yours is,' said the stone-mason, more as an excuse for escaping a moment from the martyrdom of the unaccustomed cigarette than by way of saying anything original.

'Yes, the war is fairly well organised on both sides,' Petrovitch replied; 'but at present they have the big battalions.'

'But your plans,' struck in Vernon, impatient of the interruption.

'Yes. Well, my knowledge of Tieff told me that there was one way, and one way only, of leaving it, and that was by the way I had come in—by the front gate, and to get to the front gate one had to cross the courtyard, and between my cell and the courtyard lay obstacles too many to be calculated and dangers too great to be faced.'

'And you at once began to calculate them and to face them,' cried Vernon admiringly.

'Rather to elude them,' Petrovitch went on, ignoring the boy's compliment. 'As I could not meet them in detail I thought it better to surmount them in "the lump," as I think I have [170] heard you call it in England. Now the thing that had given me most hope when I heard I was coming to Tieff was that I happened to know that the resident doctor of the prison was, not exactly one of us, but one who sympathised with us secretly—there are many such, who are unwilling to take an active part in the struggle, but who, short of that, help us in many ways—for instance, with money, and especially by hiding those of us who happen to be "wanted." We call them the Ukrivatelli—the concealers.'

'I hope there's lots of them sort, sir,' said Toomey, surreptitiously abandoning his cigarette in favour of the more familiar but slightly stronger smelling 'cutty.' 'But don't they get theirselves into trouble?'

'Yes, if they are found out,' answered Petrovitch; 'but they seldom are. They are a very large class, and are often men whose official rank or social position places them beyond suspicion. My wound still needed attention, and I soon managed to convey to the doctor a suggestion that daily exercise in a prison courtyard was a first-rate specific for gunshot wounds. He seemed to think so too, and before the end of the week I was told that I should have to walk every day for an hour in the only place where a walk of a dozen consecutive yards was possible—in the courtyard.'

'It was no use getting into the courtyard unless I had some prospect of getting out of it, and straight into some perfectly safe refuge. This was a matter that took some weeks to arrange, and during that time I never turned my eyes to the gate. The doctor, though he was willing to help me, was not willing to risk his own safety by carrying too many letters, and a whole code of signals had to be arranged. Luck seldom favours the right side; but I think I was certainly lucky, for just when I began to take my daily exercise the right wing of the prison had to be repaired, and consequently the gates of [171] the courtyard were open all day for the carts of building materials, etc., which had to come in and out. This must have seemed tolerably safe to the authorities, as I was the only prisoner who "took exercise," and there were two sentries to whom was allotted the pleasing duty of watching me. They had a pretty easy time of it for these three weeks, for I used to crawl up and down the yard in a feeble and dejected sort of way, as though I had hardly the strength to put one foot before the other. I always leaned on a stick, and did my best to appear to be at my last gasp. I was well-nigh tired of waiting, so often my escape seemed almost close at hand, and then something happened, and all our plans had to be made over again. Innumerable ideas were suggested, but abandoned for one reason or another. At last it was definitely settled that at a certain signal I was to make for the gate and rush out—that a carriage was to be waiting just outside, and that one or two of our friends were to be there promiscuously, to give false information in judicious doses, as it might be called for. The gate was almost exactly in the middle of the courtyard, and the beat of sentry No. 1 was from the gate to the end of the yard and back, and that of sentry No. 2 from the other end of the yard to the gate and back—thus the face of one of them was always towards the gate. At length the day came when I might expect the signal—this was to be nothing more dramatic and startling than the smallest piece of paper that could well be seen—stuck on the shaft of one of the builder's carts. Cart after cart went by, my hour was nearly up, and I began to feel pretty sure that either the signal was not to be given that morning, or else that it had been given and I had missed seeing it. This last alternative was becoming a maddening certainty, when yet another cart came crawling in, and on the shaft, luckily on the side to which my walk had now brought me, was lightly stuck a little piece of white paper. Once more [172] luck was my friend, for the sentry on the same side of the gate as myself was marching from the gate, and between me and the one walking towards the gate was the cart. Had any one not in the secret been watching me from one of the prison windows at that moment he would certainly have thought that I was the subject of a miraculous cure, for in what seemed to me about half-a-dozen bounds I was at the side of the cart, out of the gate, and in one of two carriages which were passing at the time.'

'And what steps did the authorities take?' asked Pewtress, in the perfectly unexcited and matter-of-fact tone of a School Board inspector.

'Well,' said Petrovitch, laughing a little, 'I was not there at the time, but my friends told me that what followed was well worth seeing. A few seconds after my disappearance the two sentries and the whole of the guard from the guard-room inside the prison came swarming into the street, and there was a most delightful hue-and-cry and clamour. About a hundred yards away to the right a carriage was making off at a mad pace, and after this went the whole posse; with the lieutenant of the guard at their head. They must have been immensely relieved when they saw it pull up opposite the house of a well-known and irreproachable doctor. When, panting and exultant, they surrounded the carriage, they found inside it a surprised and indignant gentleman, who had driven in hot haste to fetch Dr. Seroff to his sick daughter, who had taken a turn for the worse.'

'And were you under the seat, Mr Peter Hitch?' inquired the interested Toomey.

'Not exactly. I had been driven off in the other carriage, which went at a quiet trot, eminently suited to my delicate state of health.'

'The gentleman who went for the doctor, I presume, was "one of you"?' put in Vernon.

'He was of the Ukrivatelli,' said Petrovitch, 'and I am afraid he had a bad time of it for a day or two. He was promptly taken where I had come from, and I fear the young lady's sick-room was invaded by a corporal's guard, but our friend and his family were so evidently innocent that the authorities had nothing left but to put up with their loss, and to grin and bear it, as you say.'

'But where did the other carriage take you?'

'Into the next street, to the most orthodox house in the town, the residence of a district judge, whence after spending a week I made for the frontier with passport quite in order, a clean chin, a strong French accent, and very black eyebrows. So ends the story, which I am afraid hasn't been a very exciting one.'

'The quite truth of it is its interest,' said Hirsch; 'to Count Litvinoff must you go for pure excitement.'

'You don't seem to like this Count Let-em-off, Mr Hearse,' said Toomey curiously; 'I thought he was a rare good 'un.'

'You're right, Toomey. He's done us good service.' This Petrovitch spoke with a certain emphasis, and with his eyes not on Toomey, but on Hirsch.

'I don't know whether it's indiscreet to ask,' said Vernon, 'but I wish you would tell us how it was you got arrested.'

'Ah! that's a long story,' returned Petrovitch, 'and one which, as it concerns others beside myself, I don't feel justified in telling.' Then as the boy coloured and looked embarrassed, he added kindly, 'There wasn't the slightest indiscretion in the question, and some other time, perhaps, I shall be able to answer it. But, since adventures are the order of the evening, you should get Hirsch to tell you some of his. He has had more than Othello.'

The Austrian was beginning to protest that nothing had [174] ever happened to him, when a rustle of silk on the stairs outside silenced him, and the men all looked at each other inquiringly in the moment that elapsed before the door was opened and disclosed the velvet bonnet and abundant flounces of Mrs Quaid. Mr Quaid was there, too, but he did not take the eye or captivate the attention. That was Mrs Quaid's department.

'My dear Mr Petrovitch, how can I apologise enough for our intrusion? The maid gave us no idea that you were entertaining. Ah! here's Mr Pewtress. How do you do? And Mr Vernon, too. How delightful! Why, we're all among friends. And you won't think me quite an old marplot if I stay for a few moments, for I really have something special to say to you.'

'It's very good of you to honour me with a call,' said Petrovitch, wondering intensely what had brought her there.

'We have been to see some friends at Regent's Park, and we are going on to dine with the Pagets—(you know the Pagets, Mr Petrovitch? No! Ah, I must introduce you; they are such sweet people, quite devoted to our side)—and so we thought we would call as we passed to ask you if you will come and dine with us on Tuesday. You'll excuse an informal invitation, I know. I thought if we came ourselves to ask you we should be more likely to succeed.'

'You are very kind,' said Petrovitch, wondering whether he could find any means of evading an acceptance.

'I had hoped to have had your fellow-countryman, Count Litvinoff, there to meet you; but I hear he has just gone to Derbyshire; so unfortunate. I suppose he has gone to stay with the Stanleys. He saved Mr Stanley's life, you know—Mr Stanley—perhaps you remember his daughter, the sweet girl who sat next you at our house.'

It appeared that Petrovitch did remember the lady in question.

The other men had formed a knot at the other side of the fire.

'You know,' said Mrs Quaid, lowering her voice discreetly, as she glanced at them, 'my daughter Cora thinks that there will be a match there before long. I do so hope that dear interesting Count has not lost all his property. From what I hear he is very well off.'

'Gentlemen of your opinions ought not to marry,' said Mr Quaid, striking in, much to his wife's surprise. He did not usually advance independent opinions, being emphatically 'Mrs Quaid's husband,' and nothing more.

'Why?' asked Petrovitch, amused.

'Because your lives are so constantly in danger.'

'There's not much danger in Derbyshire,' broke in Hirsch, in spite of Petrovitch's restraining eye.

'Ah, well,' said Mrs Quaid, 'I do hope, if anything does come of it, that he will settle down quietly in England. There is so much that wants doing here. We want good, brave workers to strive to bridge over the terrible gulf between the classes.'

Toomey, suddenly recalled to a sense of the 'gulf'—which he had quite lost sight of under the influence of Petrovitch's tact—felt a painfully renewed consciousness of his boots, his hands, and his Sunday clothes.

Vernon, who knew Mrs Quaid, and delighted to 'draw' her, would not for the world have missed such an opportunity of amusing himself and his friends. By a skilful question or two he led the lady on to her favourite subject—that of education. She could discuss this question with eloquence, and at any length; but no matter how her discussions began, they always ended by placing her and her hearers in a difficulty. She was quite clear that before we could educate our children we must be educated ourselves, which, on the face of it, [176] seemed reasonable; but, then, who was there to educate us? To that question no answer could ever be found; and in the meantime, what was to become of the rising generation? She had nearly reached this point when her husband, who had been present before when she trotted round this circle of argument, and for whom the repetition of the performance had no charms, brought the conversation back to the world of possibilities by renewing the invitation for Tuesday, which Petrovitch, after a little hesitation, accepted.

When the gros grain silk had swept down the uncarpeted stairs, and Petrovitch had accompanied it to the front door and received the last nod of farewell from the imposing plume in the velvet bonnet, he returned to his room, to find the spirits of his friends visibly higher, except those of Vernon, who felt that he had been done out of the cream of his proposed joke.

The evening slipped by pleasantly enough, but there were no more adventures told, nor was Count Litvinoff mentioned again, until one by one all the guests had departed except Hirsch.

He stayed on, smoking in silence, and his host, equally silent, sat on the opposite side of the fire, regarding it fixedly.

'Well,' said Hirsch, at last turning his eyes towards the other, 'what of this marriage that the large lady speaks of so confidently—this "sweet Clare" who is to be the Countess Litvinoff? That also is to be for the cause? With that also you are satisfied? That also is to be permitted, sanctioned, what you call approved?'

'No,' said Petrovitch slowly. 'No; that is not to be.'

AN HONEST MAN AND A BRAVE ONE

THANK God!' was Count Litvinoff's inward ejaculation, as, followed by Roland, he sprang through the laurel bushes into the gravel path that skirted the lawn. For what he saw was not what he had feared to see. Clare was safe. She was standing on the last of the stone steps that led down from the verandah, her hands clasped over her eyes, as if to shut out some intolerable sight.

On the lawn before her, half-a-dozen yards off, in brown shooting suit and gaiters, lay her father, face downwards, on the grass, his gun beside him, and his two sporting dogs sniffing round the hand that had held it.

The two young men were at his side in an instant, and had half raised him by the time Clare had shaken off the horror that had paralysed her and had sprung towards them. Roland glanced at Mr Stanley's face, and, passing his arm round the old man's neck, drew his head towards him, and bent over it in such a manner as to keep it from her eyes.

'Take her in, Litvinoff,' he said, still bending forward; 'make her go in.'

'Come in, Miss Stanley; you can do no good here,' said Litvinoff, rising and taking the girl by the arm. She shook him off.

'Let me alone,' she cried. 'How dare you interfere? Let me go to my father.'

'Miss Stanley, be reasonable. You can do much more good in the house. Don't you know we must bring your father in?—and your mother must be told.'

But Mrs Stanley needed no telling. From the window she had seen—when the barking of the dogs told of Mr Stanley's near approach—how Clare had run out bareheaded to meet him—how he had stopped in the middle of the lawn, as if expecting her to come to him—how he had taken his gun from his shoulder, and dropped the butt on the ground—how there had been a flash, a report, and how he had fallen. Now she came out.

'Go in,' she said to Clare, 'and send for Doctor Bailey. Thomas can go on Red Robin.'

By this time the servants were gathering from all directions.

'Come,' Litvinoff spoke in a low voice, but a voice of authority, and led her towards the stable-yard. Coming round the corner they met Thomas.

'Oh, Thomas—' she began, when Litvinoff interrupted.

'Saddle Red Robin, and ride for Doctor Bailey—ride fast for your life! Now, Miss Stanley, for Heaven's sake don't give way; keep up. They may want linen for bandages, and brandy.'

She looked at him with wide-open, frightened eyes, but she obeyed him; and when those things were brought she stood looking mutely at him, like a child asking for directions.

'Sit down,' he said; and, pouring out some brandy-and-water, held it to her lips.

'Drink, and then you will be able, perhaps, to be of some use.'

They were in the drawing-room. Litvinoff noticed, even at that moment, the hundred dainty tokens of a cultivated woman's daily presence. As he set down the glass, past the closed door [179] came the heavy tread of the men who were bringing the master back to his home.

Then Clare rose up. 'I will go to my father,' she said, turning a white, resolute face towards the door. 'Twenty of you shall not stop me!'

Litvinoff caught her two hands and held them tightly.

'Wait, wait; they are getting him to his bed. You would only be in the way. Trust me, Miss Stanley. I would not keep you from him if you could be of any use to him. You may be of real service by-and-by.'

'Very well,' she said; 'I will do what you tell me. But, oh, tell me all you know; tell me where he's hurt; did you see? Will it be dangerous? For pity's sake tell me what you saw, whether—'

Here the door opened, and Roland came in. Her eyes searched his face for re-assurance, but found there something more terrible than her worst fears, and as he opened his lips to speak she cried in a high-pitched voice, quite unlike her own, as she held out her hands as if to keep off something, 'Don't tell me—don't tell me anything—let me go!'

And as Roland stood aside she rushed from the room. Litvinoff closed the door.

'He's dead,' said Roland.

'I know. I knew that directly I put my hand on him. I have had my hand on a man shot dead before to-day.'

Roland sat down on a low chair. It was the one Clare had occupied half-an-hour before. There on the little table by it lay her work-basket, and some pretty useless bit of sewing, and all the little gilt working implements which she had put down when she went to meet her father. Roland's eye fell on them, and he groaned.

'Good God, Litvinoff, what a terrible thing! What a frightful blow for them!'

'Does Mrs Stanley know?'

'Yes.'

'How soon can the doctor be here?'

'In half-an-hour; but he'll be no good when he does come.'

'Not for him, but Miss Stanley may need him. Her face as she passed out of the door was not reassuring.'

Roland groaned again.

'What a horrible world it is!' he said.

His father dead, his brother estranged, his sweetheart lost to him, and now this new calamity had fallen near him. 'It never rains but it pours.' And it seemed to be raining misfortunes in Firth Vale.

'It is a horrible world,' said the other; 'but reflecting on that truth will not aid anyone just now. Is there nothing we can do?'

'Not that I know of, but we won't go till the doctor comes.'

'Certainly not; and in the meantime let me suggest that a little of this brandy would not be amiss, if you don't want him to find a patient in you. You look uncommonly shaky.'

Roland accepted the suggestion and the proffered glass.

'Miss Stanley's mother seems to have her wits about her?'

'Yes, Mrs Stanley's a sensible woman—but she's not Miss Stanley's mother. Mr Stanley was married twice.'

'There are no other children?'

'No.'

'Poor woman,' said Litvinoff, sincerely enough, though for a certain reason he was not displeased to hear that Clare was an only child. 'He seems to have been a rich man,' went on Litvinoff, glancing round the room.

'Yes, he had more than he knew what to do with. It seems hard that he should have had to leave it all so suddenly,' said Roland, growing sentimental.

'It is a great pity men have to leave their wealth behind them. If they could only take it with them, there would not be so many young people growing up in vicious idleness.' Then, as it suddenly occurred to him that this might possibly be considered personal, he went on in his most approved didactic manner,—'Since death is inevitable, how lucky we ought to think it that so few people have anything to live for. I believe to a great many people the best thing in life is the certainty that some day or other they'll get out of it.'

Roland did not answer. There are moments when moral reflections are particularly hateful.

The doctor arrived sooner than they had hoped, the man-servant having met him about half-way between Aspinshaw and his own house, but of course he could only confirm what they all knew. The whole contents of the gun had lodged in the lungs, and death must have been instantaneous. He asked the two young men a good many questions as to the manner of the accident, but of course they had not seen it, and were unable to throw any light on the cause of the disaster. He must have been carrying the gun full-cock, and the concussion, when he brought the butt down on the ground, must have started it.

'Mrs Stanley bears up wonderfully well.'

'And his daughter?' put in Litvinoff.

'Well, the poor child's crushed at present, but she'll soon be all right. Young hearts soon throw off their troubles, thank Heaven! I shall have to trouble you two gentlemen at the inquest,' he said, as he got into his gig and was driven off.

Roland Ferrier and Michael Litvinoff walked home almost in silence, consumed a dinner enlivened by Miss Letitia's comments on the events of the day, and, when she had retired in [182] tears, passed one of the most melancholy evenings in the recollection of either. Roland did his best to perform the difficult part of genial host to the guest who had been introduced to Thornsett under such inauspicious circumstances; but he was a young man who had not that within him which enables men to resist the influence of the immediately surrounding circumstances, and his attempt was a dead failure. Litvinoff could, perhaps, have succeeded with a desperate effort in raising the cloud of gloom that hung over them both, but it did not seem to him that the game was quite worth the candle, and he let it alone.

Under the circumstances there could be no shooting, and none of such social entertainments as would certainly otherwise have enlivened his visit, and the prospect of his first Christmas in an English country-house looked very bleak.

'I suppose one mustn't smoke here,' he said aloud to himself, when, the long evening over, he reached his bedroom, and sank down into an easy-chair before the brightly-burning fire. 'That antiquated lady is the sort of person who would go mad if she smelt smoke in one of the bedrooms. It is a great bore. I want to think—and how the deuce am I to think if I can't smoke!—and I must think. Yes, it must be done; they must put it down to my foreign ways,' he added, as he drew out his cigar-case and lighted up.

Something in his surroundings reminded him of that night in October when he had saved the life of the man who was now lying dead at Aspinshaw.

'Poor old boy,' he said, 'I didn't renew his lease of life for very long, after all; but I expect he lived long enough to have done almost as much for me as he could have done had he lived longer. Perhaps my "views," as he would have called them, will not stand so much in the way now. My crushed young host told me that she is beginning to share those views [183] and to be enthusiastic—thanks to that mysterious entity, Petrovitch. I owe him that; I wonder if I owe him anything else? I do owe many sums to many people. He had me for ten pounds, though, any way. Pardieu! I hope he won't try that again, or I shall have to stay down here permanently. I shall attend a funeral in a few days, I suppose. I wonder when I shall attend a marriage? She was obedient to-day—a good sign. Things will go smoother so.'

He puffed at his cigar in silence a few minutes, then he spoke aloud again, 'And so that was John Hatfield, and he is one of us—or half one of us. By Jove! that makes me feel a cursed traitor—that merits death. Well, I'm not afraid of that, anyhow, nor of anything that may come after. I've got memories enough to make a hell of my own here, and death would be the end of them, at any rate, not the beginning. And yet one must live, I suppose, though I don't feel so sure of that to-night. Poor little girl—dear little girl! I wish you were the heiress of Aspinshaw. The real heiress is pretty and charming, and a lady,' with a rather bitter laugh, 'and she is beginning to have "views;" but somehow I can't get you out of my head to-night.' He moved his hand to and fro before his eyes, as though to clear away the smoke. Then he rose. 'Curses on conscience—curses on principle!' he said; 'I must see if sleep will do it;' and he went to bed.

During the next few days there was nothing to do except to call at Aspinshaw every day and ask after Mrs and Miss Stanley. This was an obvious duty, but as an occupation it was not engrossing. On the second day, young Ferrier offered to 'show his guest over' the mill, and Litvinoff, always glad of a new experience, joyfully consented. The mill was charmingly situated in a little hollow in the hills, with a big reservoir above it and a little stream below. On one side was a wood, where a good many hollies kept up the impression of greenness, [184] though all the other trees were sere and brown. On the other side was a very steep incline which shot up almost like a high wall, and was bare and rugged and rocky, and from the top some rude steps cut out of the grey rock led down to the mill. While the workings of the machinery were being explained, and the various processes exhibited, it did not escape the Count's observation that the men looked particularly discontented, and that there was none of that deferential submission in their manner to Roland which he had been accustomed to see in the manner of workmen towards their masters.

'What's the matter with the men?' Litvinoff asked, as they walked back to Thornsett. 'They looked uncommonly disagreeable. My friend John Hatfield doesn't appear to be the only one who is dissatisfied with the munificent two pounds a week.'

'John Hatfield! What a memory you have for names. Oh, they're not dissatisfied with the amount of their wages. On the contrary, they only wish they could go on at the same rate. But they soon won't have any at all from me. The mill stops working at the end of the year, and they've somehow got it into their heads that I'm responsible for it, whereas it's just about as much my fault as it is that tree's.'

'Is it any one's fault?'

'You know that it is my brother's. He made the quarrel, and forced it on me, knowing what the results would be.'

'And the results to these men will be—'

'Starvation, I'm afraid, for some of them, poor fellows, and very short commons for them all; but it's rather hard that I should be blamed for it.'

'Oh, beautiful system!' said Litvinoff; 'splendid organisation of industry! Two brothers quarrel about nothing in particular, and a hundred men and their families have to starve in consequence.'

'It's not the fault of the system, but of my father's will and my brother's mad temper; but anyhow it is not my fault.'

'Well, your father's will is distinctly part of the system; but, as you say, you are not to blame. No, Ferrier; you are certainly the most hardly done by. As to these "hands," as you call them, qu'importe? It is you who are to be pitied. It is so much harder to be blamed than to starve.'

'What a cool fellow you are, Litvinoff!' Roland laughed, but was yet a little nettled too, for, like all Englishmen, he hated irony. 'You're always mocking at something or somebody. But perhaps you forget that I shall have hardly anything to live on either—a wretched hundred a year or so.'

'A hundred a year,' said the Count, in the tone of one who is dealing with a difficult arithmetical problem, 'is just about two pounds a week. Now the other day you said that two pounds a week was "not so bad" for a man with a family; and, with all your misfortunes, you are not what you English people call "a family man."'

'But then you must remember how differently those sort of people are brought up.'

'I do remember it.'

'They don't have the same needs as we do.'

'Don't they?'

'No. What do they care about music or art or poetry or travelling? Fortunately for them they haven't the tastes that run away with money.'

'They have a taste for food and for warmth, I suppose,' the Count was beginning, when Roland interrupted him.

'There, Litvinoff, it's no good; you'll never convert me. I'm a Radical, not a Socialist. Let's talk about something else.'

'By all means. To return to John Hatfield. I noticed in the mill to-day that he did not participate in the general scowl.'

'No. I don't think he bears me any ill-will. Our rela [186]tions with the Hatfields are peculiar. When my mother died—it was before my aunt came to live with us—Mrs Hatfield took charge of my brother and me, and was a sort of foster-mother to us. Her daughter Alice was our playfellow, and a dear little girl she was.'

'Was that the girl you said had—well, not acted very wisely?' asked the Count, feeling an insensate longing to talk about Alice, or to hear some one else do so.

'Yes; that was the girl,' said Roland. 'She was as sweet a little girl as you would wish to see.'

Litvinoff mentally endorsed this statement to the full. Aloud he said,—

'What was it—the old story?'

'Yes. She met some fellow at Liverpool; I suppose lost her heart to him, and gave the world for love, and considered it well lost, as they say. Damn the brute! I wish I had the handling of him. I should like to have half an hour with him without the gloves.'

Litvinoff was conscious of an insane desire to give Roland his wish, and try which was the better man, but he said quietly,—

'You don't know him, then? I suppose nothing has been heard or seen of her?'

'No, only—it's rather funny—when I went to the Agora that night I fancied I saw her face, but it must have been fancy.'

'Of course; unless,' added the other, goaded by the Imp of the Perverse—'unless her lover was a gentleman interested in social reform.'

'Not he,' said Roland contemptuously; 'more likely some fool of a counter-jumper or clerk. You know I looked upon her quite as my sister, and I was very fond of her, and all that.'

'Yes?' interrogatively.

Roland had not meant to say anything more; but after that 'yes' he found himself going on,—

'And that's why it's so deuced hard that my brother should blame me for it. Upon my soul, I seem fated to be blamed by everybody I know for everything any one else has done!'

'That, then, was your brother's accusation?'

'Yes. At least if it wasn't I can make neither head nor tail of anything he said. But I didn't mean to have said anything about it—it's too preposterous! I don't know how it is, but I'm always finding myself telling you things that I didn't mean to tell any one. I wonder how it is? Natural affinity, I suppose.'

'I suppose it's because you know I am interested in you,' said Litvinoff cordially, as they turned in at the gate of Thornsett Edge.

'It will be very dull for you here,' said Roland, beating the shrubs lightly with his ash stick as they walked up the path; 'and, I am sorry to say I shall have to be out this evening. I must go down to our solicitor to arrange about several things. You won't think me an awful bear?'

'Don't mention it; I shall be very well amused, I doubt not. I can take a walk if I find I miss you very much, and then I shall be sure to lose myself, and there is some excitement to be got out of that.'

That evening John Hatfield was sitting on the oak settle by his hearth, his wife with her knitting in the substantial rocking-chair opposite. The interior was cosy and bright enough. A high wooden screen protected the inmates from any cold air that might else have come through the door, which opened straight from the house-place into the street. A short red curtain hung in front of the long low window, that was nearly [188] as wide as the room itself. There was a chintz flounce to the chimney-piece, and a bright round table, on three legs, in the middle of the room. There was a good deal of shining brass about, and a few pieces of old china. Mrs Hatfield, a small fair woman, with grey, short-sighted eyes, had more lines in her face than her years should have traced there. But the poor age much more rapidly than the rich. Significant reflection. And every trouble leaves its signet on our faces, and Mrs Hatfield's trouble had been a heavy one, and its traces were easily discernible. So thought Count Litvinoff, as he tapped at the door and entered John Hatfield's house, and the thought was not a pleasant one. Derbyshire was certainly not the place to come to for pleasant thoughts, or pleasant incidents either.

'Is't thee, man?' said Hatfield, leaning forward to discern the features of his visitor in the comparative gloom by the door where he stood. 'Come in—come to the fire. Here, lass, this is the chap I telled ye on.'

As Litvinoff held out his hand to Mrs Hatfield her husband went on,—

'Ay, shake his hand, lass; you don't so often get to shake hands wi' an honest man, and a brave man—'

Alice's father speaking of him to Alice's mother! Another pleasant incident for Count Litvinoff!

IMPROVING PROSPECTS

CLARE STANLEY was the mistress of Aspinshaw, and of a good deal of bricks and mortar, stocks and shares, and Three per Cent. Consols besides. Mrs Stanley was comfortably provided for, but it was Clare who was to profit by the hard work, the self-denial and forethought of some three generations of Stanleys, or, as some might think, of their greed, their grasping, and their over-reaching of their less crafty fellow-men.

The will that had laid the burden of wealth upon her, at an age when most young women of her class are engaged in constant differences with their parents and guardians on the subject of pin-money, had been the one act of eccentricity of Mr Stanley's whole life.

For some days her grief for her father's loss had been too absorbing to permit of her thinking of much else besides, but on this first day of the new year she felt more able to think, and as she sat alone by the drawing-room fire she began for the first time to realise her position. About one thing she had made up her mind; she must leave this horrible house, where the shadow had fallen on her which she felt just then could never be lifted again.

Between Clare and her father's second wife there had always been perfectly cordial relations, but they were not bound together by any ties of love.

Mrs Stanley had always done her duty to her husband and his child, but hers was a cold nature, and not one which had [190] drawn out Clare's heart towards itself. She was now going to stay with her own relatives, and was perfectly willing to take her step-daughter with her; but the girl decided, without much need for reflection, that there would be many things better than to be buried alive in a Yorkshire village, with no one more congenial to talk to than Mrs Stanley or Mrs Stanley's relations, whom Clare had been wont to term 'the fossils.'

An unposted letter lay on the little table at her elbow, in which she had accepted an invitation to spend an indefinite time with the Quaids. She thought that in London, away from the associations of the recent past, she would be better able to plan out the course of her future life. She knew that that course would now be a very different one from what it would have been had she had the planning of it three months ago, before she met Count Litvinoff or spent that evening at the Cleon. She was sorrowfully glad that her father's will was what it was, for she was conscious in a vague sort of way that wealth meant power, and she was determined that in her hands it should mean power to do good and to make others happy. Her plans went no further than this at present, and she knew that even to carry this out she would need teaching and help and counsel from those who had more experience of the world and its needs than she had. It was, perhaps, this thought that had mainly influenced her in her acceptance of Mrs Quaid's very kind and cordial invitation, for Marlborough Villa was not the most unlikely place in the world at which to meet some one who had just that which she lacked. There she had first been forced to think; perhaps there she would first be taught how to act.

Why does one never learn at school the things one needs when one leaves it? 'How much there is to know—how much there is for me to learn,' she said to herself, with a little sigh, leaning forward and gazing into the glowing fire, resting her elbow on her knee and her cheek on her clasped hands.

She started and rose at a loud, clanging ring of the door-bell. [191] As she had expected, the servant announced 'Count Litvinoff.' He came forward with a low and deferential bow.

'You must forgive me,' he said, 'for calling on you on Sunday afternoon, which, I believe, is not the rule in England; but I heard that you were leaving Aspinshaw to-morrow, and I could not run the risk of not seeing you again.'

'We are always pleased to see you,' said Clare; 'but I am not going to London for some time yet. There will be a good deal of law business, I suppose, and it is not fair to carry the trouble of that to my friend's house. Is Mr Roland well?'

'He is on duty,' said Litvinoff; 'he has gone to a chapel with his aunt, which is good of him, as his views are not that way.'

Clare drew a breath of relief. She had not felt comfortable in Roland's presence since that interview with Litvinoff in the National Gallery.

'I myself shall be returning to London in a few weeks,' the young man went on. 'I have already stayed as long as I at first intended to do, but now Ferrier is good enough to wish me to stay until the household at Thornsett Edge is broken up.'

'Ah, yes, I had forgotten that. What a horrible thing! What are they going to do?'

'I believe Mr Roland will live with his aunt at Chelsea.'

'We seem to be all going to London,' said Clare, with an effort to be as cheerful as possible.

'True; but London is so vast, and in it I know so few people whom you are likely to know, that I feel I might as well be going back to Siberia for any chance I shall have of seeing you.' This with the air of one who would as soon go to Siberia as not while he was about it.

'Oh, I daresay we shall see each other,' she answered, leaning back in her chair and trifling with a big screen of peacock's feathers, which she had idly taken up. 'I'm going to stay with a lady who is madly anxious to know you.'

Count Litvinoff looked intensely surprised, as though that had been almost impossible.

'I think I told you about her,' she continued; 'Mrs Quaid, who belongs to the Cleon, you know, where I heard all about Socialism, you remember?'

'Oh, yes, I remember,' said Litvinoff, which was true. He did.

'I do hope I shall see you again, because you and Mr Petrovitch are the only two people I know who can help me.'

'It is a great privilege my fellow-countryman shares with me, Miss Stanley. May I be the first to hear of what help you stand in need?'

'I daresay you have heard,' she answered, 'that my father'—here her voice trembled a little—'has left me nearly all his money, and it is mine now, though I am not of age.'

Ah, no, Count Litvinoff had certainly not heard that.

'And then, you see,' she went on, knitting her brows under the stress of the difficulty she found in putting her thoughts into words, 'the question is, what am I to do with it? A little time ago I should have found it easy enough to do with it what every one else does; but I have been thinking a great deal—a very great deal lately—ever since I heard Mr Petrovitch; and now I feel the responsibility of it so much more than I should have done before.'

Count Litvinoff thought to himself that that was the sort of responsibility he was admirably adapted to share. He merely looked sympathetic, and Miss Stanley went on.

'And then I feel sure money may be a fearful curse if one doesn't use it properly. Of course, I can't disguise from myself that this money was made in the usual way, and that others have lost all that my father and his father have gained, and I wish I could think of some way in which it might give as much happiness as it would have done had it been left in [193] the hands of the workers who toiled to produce it. You are one who should be able to advise me. What shall I do?'

Litvinoff's hair almost stood on end. This was getting his own coin back with a vengeance.

'My dear Miss Stanley,' he said gravely, 'if I were to advise you in the only way which seems possible to me now, your friends would all look upon me as your worst enemy—as an adventurer, as a rogue. Whereas I desire to be looked on as your faithful friend and servant—as the man who, more than all others, would go through fire and water to do you the slightest service.'

'I should hardly have thought you would have cared what my friends or anybody else thought of you,' was Miss Stanley's only reply to this fervid declaration.

'Under most circumstances,' said the Count, with a little wave of his hand, 'I do care for nothing and for nobody; but'—he went on, with a slight tremor in his voice—'rather than incur the dislike of any one whom you respect and love, I would abjure every principle, and sacrifice every cause.'

'I asked for advice,' said Clare, not seeing her way to a more direct answer.

'I know you did,' he spoke rapidly, dropping into a foreign accent; 'and I—I cannot give it you, Miss Stanley. Let me tell you one thing. You know—you have heard, you have read—how in Russia, when money is wanted for our cause, it is the duty of some of us to get it—to persuade it out of those who have. That has often been my duty, and I have never failed. I have taken, over and over again, all, all from those as young as you, and have left them with nothing. I have had to raise enthusiasm by every means, to urge to self-sacrifice, and then to take unsparingly. There are men now, my friends, who, if they knew that you—rich, young, enthusiastic—had asked me for advice, and that I had refused to give it, would say, "Michael Litvinoff has become [194] traitor," and would kill me like a rat. But,' he went on, rising and stretching out his clenched fist, 'did I know that a legion of such men were outside that door, armed and waiting for me, and hearing every word I speak, I would still say that for no cause in the world must you make sacrifices or must you suffer; and I would still say that I would serve you before all causes.'

'Count Litvinoff, I can hear no more of this. Please talk of something else.'

'Ah! now yet once more I have offended you. It is part of my unhappy lot that whenever I speak in earnest I offend you. But I can't talk of something else to-day. I must say adieu, Miss Stanley. If I stayed I should disobey you, and I cannot disobey you.'

'Good-bye, then,' said Clare, extending her hand.

He caught her hand, held it tightly an instant, bent over it as though he were about to raise it to his lips, then dropped it as if it had burned him. 'Adieu,' he said, 'I know that in England the hand-shake means forgivenness, and that once more I am forgiven—for speaking the truth—and that I may see you again.'

Clare did not gainsay it, and he left the room.

Count Litvinoff was marching back to Thornsett with a very elate step, and a good deal of military swagger, and Clare had resumed her thinking—she was thinking of him, and he was thinking of her. He thought aloud, as usual.

'H'm,' he said to the grey stone walls on each side of him, and to the plovers who were wheeling and screaming overhead, 'la belle was offended, but not so much. When she thinks over it she will say,—"He is not a good patriot and friend of liberty, this Litvinoff, for he forgets his mistress, La Révolution; therefore he is unfaithful." Ay, but she will add, "He only forgets her when I am near, and he is only unfaithful for me," C'est bien—c'est bien—c'est très bien!' he added, vaulting a gate and making a short cut home.

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL

GOING out again, John?' spoke Mrs Hatfield, a little plaintively, as her husband rose and took down his hat from its peg, ten days after Thornsett Mill had been closed. Not closed for a day on account of a wedding, as had once been suggested, but closed, it might be for ten years, or practically for ever.

'Ay, lass,' said her husband shortly, but not unkindly; 'Ah should go clean daft if Ah stayed i' the house. Lazying about don't suit me—it's only my betters as takes their pleasure i' that way.'

'Tha'lt do no good down at t' Spotted Cow,' returned Mrs Hatfield, compressing her lips; 'tha might as well be idle i' tha own house as wi' all they gomerils—spending tha money too, as if tha was i' full work.'

'Well,' he said, pausing with his hand on the back of the settle where she sat, 'we'll all have to be shifting out o' this soon, and tha knows, lass, as Ah were never one to drink nor to talk out o' season. Ah mun hear where the lads is going for work. It won't ne'er do for us a' to be going the same way.'

'It seems hard tha should have to go after work at tha time o' life, John. But likely it's as hard for Rowley and Dick as for thee and me. Poor lads, poor lads! Ah, Heaven help us a' in this hard world.'

'They're fur enow fro' want, tha may be sure, or they wouldn't [196] ha' sacrificed the mill to their mucky pride. It's little they care who starves, so long as they have enow. Tha must remember as what they'd call being poor we'd call being rich. "Hard up" for a gentleman ud be enow and to spare for a working man.'

And he went out, slamming the door behind him, and his wife took up her knitting with a sigh. She could rarely follow her husband in his reasonings, but troubles are not the less hard to bear because we don't clearly see their causes. They had saved a little money, but that would soon be gone, and then there would be nothing before them but 'the house.' Both their sons were away—one a sailor, and the other in a warehouse in Liverpool—but neither was earning enough to be able to help their parents. Vaguely she hoped that her husband might take it into his head to go to London for work. An idea is prevalent in the provinces that in London there is work for every one, and besides, Alice had written from London, and there would be a chance of finding her poor lost child and bringing her back.

The sudden closing of the mill made affairs indeed terribly serious for most of the men in Thornsett. It was in the middle of winter, when journeying was not pleasant, nor work easy to get; and though the 'hands' employed in the mill had been told that it would close, very, very few among them had made any effort to secure other work before the time for closing came. Perhaps it had seemed to them that the closing of the mill was one of those calamities too terrible to happen. But it had happened, and after ten days of idleness the men were beginning to see clearly what it would mean to them. For there was no other work to be got within anything like easy reach of the village; and even if work could be obtained somewhere else, the little community must be broken up, and each family must separate itself from friends and neighbours and relatives in order to journey thither. This alone is thought a terrible calamity for middle-class men and women, but it is the least of the [197] troubles which are always hanging over the heads of the workers. The exodus that must shortly take place had not yet begun, but every one knew that it could not now be long delayed; and Potters and the few other tradespeople being, of course, involved in the general distress, could no longer give credit. This had never been withheld in slack times, when the shopkeepers knew that good ones were certain to come in which the scores would be wiped off or reduced very considerably; but now there was no chance of things growing brighter again, and even the small accounts then owing were not very likely ever to be paid.

During the past ten days, as the men's money was being spent, and as the want of work gave them more time to reason on the causes of their trouble, a strong feeling of resentment had been growing up among them against the two young masters, who had held, as it were, the happiness, the comfort, perhaps the lives, of all these men in their hands, and had thrown all to the dogs rather than humble their own insensate pride and abate their own insensate obstinacy. This feeling had found vent, not only in the scowls and black looks on which Litvinoff had commented, but in certain faint groans and hisses with which Roland had been greeted on more than one occasion when he passed down the village street.

What right had these two, on whose forbearance and good fellowship hung the fate of all these families, to go quarrelling with each other?

'It's a' their darn'd selfishness,' Murdoch was saying, just as Hatfield kicked open the door of the tap-room at the Spotted Cow, and passed in. 'What's the odds to them if we clem or if we dunna't?'

'It's my belief,' said Potters bitterly, 'as they done it to show their independence.'

'They might have hit on a cheaper way,' growled Hatfield, as Murdoch and Sigley made room for him to sit between them.

'Cheaper! why, what's cheaper nor our flesh and blood?' asked Murdoch, with a snarl. 'They can afford to chuck a little o' that away. They can get more of it when they want it easy enow.'

'Ay, that's it, lad,' said Hatfield. 'It's the flesh and blood o' some o' us that's here still, and more o' us that's dead and gone, that's made the bit o' money they'll live on for the rest o' their days.'

'Well, I don't quite see that,' muttered Sigley, with his usual meekness. 'They've always paid fair wages.'

'Yes,' answered Hatfield. 'Ah never said they took it for nothing. They paid for it right enow, but they bought it cheap, lad—they bought it cheap, and they sold it at a good profit. We've nowt but our flesh and blood to sell, and now we mun carry it to another market.'

'If you mean your work,' put in the landlord, 'I don't see as you ought to talk i' that way. They paid you your own price for your work, anyhow.'

'No,' said Hatfield. 'They paid us what we was forced to take.'

'Thou'dst always some sense i' tha head, John,' broke in old Murdoch approvingly. 'Tha was na here when.... D'ye mind, Bolt, the night after t'owd master's burying, tha made the lads drink t' young masters' health? Ask them to drink it now!'

The murmur of ironical assent which went round the room showed that Murdoch had expressed the sense of the meeting. He had been rising in importance daily, ever since the announcement of the mill's closing. He had always been the prophet of calamity, and now that his worst prophecies had been more than fulfilled he was looked upon as little less than inspired.

'Well,' said Bolt deprecatingly, 'who could ha' foreseen things turning out i' this way? And as for asking them to drink their healths, why they ain't their masters now. So where's the use?'

'It do seem hard, it do,' murmured Sigley, who went to chapel regularly, 'when a man have saved up a bit to have it [199] all swept away in a rushing, mighty wind, and us left, like Pharaoh's lean kine, to make bricks without straw. The whole creation groaneth!...'

'Well, don't groan here,' interrupted Murdoch grimly; 'tha'd best do tha groanin' wi' the rest o' creation at t' chapel; and well mayst tha groan there if tha hears tell o' cows makin' bricks.'

'Them as don't believe in the Bible,' said Sigley impressively, giving voice to a very popular belief, 'can't look for a blessing.'

'Nor yet them as does, it seems.'

'What ah was going to say was this—as we should take comfort, thinking as we ain't the only ones.'

'Comfort, tha loon!—that's the hell of it! Damn the man, says I, as can find comfort i' t' thought o' other men's misery!'

It was Hatfield who spoke, and as he spoke he brought his fist down on the table with a bang that made the glasses ring.

'How tha does take on, John,' said Bolt. 'What Sigley meant was only as it shows you ain't to blame, seeing as so many others is in the same fix.'

Sigley did not confirm this interpretation. He only shook his head, with the air of one who had meant something much more pious and profound.

'You're wrong again,' said Hatfield loudly. He had risen and faced the room, which was now pretty full. While this talk had been going on, men had dropped in by twos and threes, and all that had been said had been listened to with profound attention. 'You're wrong again! It is our faults, and the faults of all like us. Our fathers might have altered it. We might alter it now if we had but the spunk to take it in hand; and, if we don't, them as comes after us will, and'll curse us for leaving them the work to do. Didn't none o' ye ever hear tell o' the elephant that lets himself be led and mastered by one he could smash with a shake o' his poll? And why? Because, the books tell us, he doesna know his own strength. But he doesna fare so bad as we. He [200] gets well fed and well looked after because it costs summat to replace him, and we lets oursels be led and drove and starved, when it suits 'em, by a set as we could chase out o' the world to-morrow if we but stood together and acted like men.'

A thrill of excited sympathy ran through the room as old Murdoch shouted,—

'Right again! That's it, John; tha's got it! A score thousand o' your pattern and there'd be an end to men being turned out o' their homes to clem i' midwinter because two young devils both wants the same lass!'

'It's all very well, Hatfield,' said Potters sourly; 'but tha's one face for us and another face for t' gentlefolk. That warn't no working man as I've see comin' out o' your house time and again this last three week.'

'No, he ain't. He's more o' the right stuff in his little finger nor you and all like you put together has got in your whole bodies. There, take that, Potters!'

'Whatever he's got in him, he seems pretty thick with young Roland Ferrier,' said a man who had not spoken before.

'He did his best to stop their quarrelling,' Hatfield answered hotly; 'because he knew what it would be for all o' us; and he's been chased out o' his own country and lost nearly all his brass for standing up for the likes o' we.'

'Yes, I've had a bit o' talk with him, too; that's true enough.'

'Ay! he's no fool, nor no coward neither.'

'He's a true friend o' working men, he is, if he is a Count.'

Litvinoff, it will be seen, had not lost his opportunities while he had been at Thornsett, for nearly every man present had something to say in his favour.

'But seeing as he's such a friend o' Mr Roland's, why don't he do something to stop this set-out?'

'What can he do?'

'He might speak to him about it.'

'Look'ee here, lads,' said Clayton, an old man who had not spoken before, 'ah've been a-turnin' o' this thing over i' my head, and this is what ah come to. If so be as young Ferrier's like to listen to any one, would he listen first to a new-fangled furrin' chap, or to all o' us honest lads as has known him since he was so high? Has any of you spoke to him? Has any one of you put it straight to him—this is the way of it, and this and this? M'appen this fooling o' theirs was just through ignorance. They might ha' thought it didna matter to any but them, and if once they knowed a' as it means, m'appen they'd think better owt, and let things go the old way.'

'Old heads is worth most, arter all,' said John Bolt, who was of a hopeful nature and turned to the new idea as a relief from his former visions of empty benches and deserted bar,—of a time when there would be nothing to chalk up but his own losses, and when adulterated beer would seem what it was, a drug in the market. 'Why shouldn't some of you do as he says, and go and see him and speak him reasonable?'

A great difference of opinion arose at once on the new idea, but nearly all were in their hearts glad to try a new chance, and at last old Clayton, from whom the suggestion had come, said,—

'Well, sithee, if any of you lads'll come wi' me, dang me if I'll not go this very night—this very minute.'

'You'd better all go,' advised Potters; 'it would be more telling like.'

'All o' us isn't here,' murmured Sigley.

'Get 'em here,' said Clayton shortly. 'If two or three o' ye was to go round and tell the other lads what's towards, they'd come too, and we'd have one more try at getting things righted here, afore we all turns different ways and never sees each other's faces again.'

No sooner said than done. Men are ready at all times to follow any one who will act, or even to act themselves if [202] prompted with sufficient energy. In less than half an hour over a hundred men were assembled outside the Spotted Cow, and were prepared to go up to Thornsett Edge to try to open again the doors of the workshop which a dead hand had closed against them. But their faith was strong in the power of a young and living hand, and they went with a new hope in their hearts.

'We'll all go up,' said old Clayton, who had assumed the position of leader, 'but only a few of us had best go in. Let's see—you, and you, and you. You'll be one, Hatfield, and Murdoch makes five.'

'Not me,' snarled Murdoch sourly; 'no eatin' dirt for me. I ain't never humbled myself to no man, and I ain't a-goin' to begin now, to a young chap as ah worked along o' his father manys a long day.'

'Not me, neither,' said Hatfield, 'for ah know aforehand as it's too late. But don't you mind us. Go your own way, and here's luck to you.'

He and Murdoch stood at the door with Bolt and Potters, and a few more who, not having been employed in the mill, were considered not to have any place in the deputation. They watched the crowd out of sight up the steep street, and the women turned out to watch their men go by. It was a clear, frosty night, and bitterly cold, but most of the women rolled their bare arms in their aprons and stood talking in little knots after the procession had passed out of sight. They were more hopeful than their husbands, for women are naturally more trusting than men and believe more in the possibility of altering facts by emotional influences.

To Murdoch and Hatfield, in spite of their assumption of indifference, the time seemed very long as it went by and brought them no news of their comrades. After half an hour Bill suggested that they should stroll up the hill to meet the others and learn how it fared with them.

A FORLORN HOPE

IF the frequenters of the Spotted Cow had only known, this was about the most unpropitious moment for obtaining a hearing for their petition. A hearing was all they could possibly obtain for it, but that they did not know either.

Litvinoff's host had not found him as great a comfort as he had expected. For one thing, the Count's almost universal sympathy seemed unaccountably to stop short at Roland Ferrier. The young man felt that he had been terribly ill-used and naturally expected every one else to see things in the same light, and it was 'riling' to find all the sympathy of his guest turned, not towards him, but towards his workmen, which did not seem reasonable; for, as Roland said, they could get other work, but where was he to get another mill? Then he did not like a certain change which he noticed in the other's tone when he spoke of Miss Stanley. He had sympathy enough for her, goodness knows—a trifle too much Roland sometimes thought.

For Litvinoff to be a bore was impossible; but still it did happen rather often that he would bring forward political economy of the most startling pattern when the other wanted to talk literature, or art, or personal grievances.

On this particular night Roland had been led, much against [204] his will, into a discussion of the nature which Litvinoff so much affected, and he had to admit to himself that, as usual, he had much the worst of it.

'It's all very well,' he said (people always say, 'It's all very well,' when they can find no other answer to an argument); 'it's all very well, and that sort of thing may do for Russia, but you will never get an economic or any other revolution here— Why what the deuce is all that row?'

'That row' was a tramping of many feet on the gravel, and a hum of voices just outside the window.

Litvinoff, who was sitting nearer the window, rose and looked through the laths of the venetian blinds.

'Well, my dear Ferrier,' he said, turning round with a smile, 'it strikes me that there is a revolution in England, and that it has begun at Thornsett. The whole population of Derbyshire appears to have assembled in your front garden—yes, that's it, evidently,' he went on, as a ring was given to the door bell, 'and they are going to try gentle measures to begin with, just as I have always advised,' he concluded, for the ring was not a loud one.

Roland had risen from his easy-chair and had made towards the window, when the door opened and the maid announced that Clayton and one or two of the hands wanted to speak to Mr Ferrier.

'Show them in,' said Roland curtly; and, as she withdrew, 'One or two,' echoed Litvinoff; 'that young woman's ideas on the subject of numbers are limited and primitive. Now, Ferrier, just repeat those arguments you have been using against me, and I doubt not, so lucid and convincing are they, that they will reconcile Clayton and the "hands" here to the starvation that awaits them.'

Only three men followed old Clayton as he entered the room.

'Well, my men,' said Roland Ferrier, turning to them, and [205] with a faint irritation in his tone, as Litvinoff, leaning one elbow on the mantelpiece, waved a recognition to the deputation, 'What can I do for you at this time of night?'

'Well, sir,' began Clayton, 'me and my mates here has come to speak to you for ourselves and them as is outside.'

'Who are numerous and noisy,' murmured the Count softly to himself.

'Well, go on,' said Roland, chafing.

'We knows well enow,' continued the old man, 'as it ain't all your doing as t' mill's to stop, but we thowt as you might work things so as to make it easier for us. It's on'y nat'ral as you shouldn't know till it's put to you what stoppin' work 'ill mean to most of us. What 'ill it mean? Why, hard want is what it 'ill mean, and clemming to more nor one. So wot we've come to ask is, won't you keep the works on till summer comes, and let the stoppin' be a bit less sudden like, and give us time to get other work? This is bitter weather, and it's bitter hard as we must all leave our homes just because—' He paused in some confusion.

'Because what?' asked Roland sharply.

'Because our masters has fell out,' struck in No. 2 of the deputation.

'Look here, my men,' Roland stamped his foot impatiently, 'I thought I made it perfectly clear to you a month ago that the closing of this mill was no fault of mine. Do you take me for a born fool? Do you suppose I should throw away this money if I could help it? Don't you know I lose as much as any of you? As much? I lose more than all of you put together.'

'Oh, just division of profits!' murmured Litvinoff confidentially to the clock on the mantelpiece.

'You've had long enough notice of this,' Roland went on, casting a goaded glance at Litvinoff; 'why didn't you get work elsewhere?'

'We hoped it 'ud blow over. We thought perhaps you'd make it up with Mr Richard; and we thought to-night as perhaps, if we told you straight out, you'd go to him.'

'Damn!' hissed Roland, between his teeth. 'I wish,' he went on, raising his voice, 'you wouldn't talk about things you don't understand. What's the use of coming up like this in the middle of the night, interfering in my private affairs; for I'd have you know my brother and I have a perfect right to close the mill or keep it open as we choose. As for you, Clayton, you're old enough to know better than to come up here at midnight with all the riff-raff of the village at your heels.'

'No more riff-raff than yourself!' this from the youngest deputy.

'Hold tha noise, Jim!' said old Clayton. 'The other lads has come up, sir, because they thought there mout be some good news, and they'd like to hear 'em as soon as mout be.'

'Well, they've had their tramp for nothing. That's all the news I've got for them, and much good may it do them.'

'Well, well, sir,' said Clayton, 'we didn't mean no harm. I'll tell 'em what you say. Good-night, sir!'

'Good-night, Clayton!' Roland spoke a little more gently. 'I'm sorry I can do nothing for you.'

The deputation turned to go. Litvinoff walked across the room and shook hands with each man as he passed out of the door.

'Good-night, my friends!' he said. 'Keep your tempers. This unfortunate business is no one's fault. It's the fault of the system we all live under.'

The door closed upon the last man. Roland turned angrily on his guest.

'I can't imagine,' he said, with asperity, 'how a man who is so sensible about most things can take the part of these unreasonable idiots!'

'My dear Ferrier,' relighting the cigar which had gone out [207] in the excitement of the moment, 'of course I've the very greatest sympathy with you in this painful business, and I know how little it is your fault, but now, as always, I'm on the side of the workers, and you know I never disguise my views.'

'So it appears,' Roland was beginning, when the murmur of voices outside gave place to a single voice—that of one of the deputies, who seemed to be speaking to the men. Ferrier and his guest could hear the shuffling of many feet on the gravel as the men crowded round the speaker. When he stopped there was a tumult of hissing and yelling and groaning—a noise as of a very Pandemonium let loose.

Roland turned to Litvinoff.

'I hope you're proud of your precious protégés?' he said, and at the same moment a voice outside cried,—

'Let's smash the cursed walls in!'

Old Clayton's voice sounded thin and shrill above the uproar.

'Don't be fools, lads! Come away! Let un alone! Come home! We'll do no good here.'

The men seemed to hesitate a minute, and then to obey, reluctantly moving towards the gate.

'They have gone without doing anything very serious, you see,' said the Count; but even as he spoke a big stone, thrown by some strong hand, came crashing through the window, and rolled, muddy and grey, on to the edge of the soft fur hearthrug.

'Damn!' cried Roland furiously, 'I'll have the fellow who did that, anyway.'

He made a dash for the door, but Litvinoff caught him by the shoulders, and there was a struggle, silent and brief, which ended in Roland's standing still, and looking at the other savagely.

'Stay where you are, for God's sake!' shouted the Count; 'they've only done you five shillings' worth of damage now, but they'll perhaps add murder to it if you go outside. Do [208] be reasonable, Ferrier. There, they've gone now; and if you went out you couldn't identify the man who did it.'

Roland turned away, and flung himself sulkily into a chair by the fire.

'I suppose you're right,' he said; 'but I shall be deuced glad to be out of the whole thing.'

It was perhaps as well for Roland's self-esteem and peace of mind that he did not hear the strictures that were passed upon him by the men as they returned towards the village. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when a new-born hope is killed, and killed cruelly and suddenly, there comes sometimes something more terrible than heart-sickness and more dangerous.

The moon had flung aside the slight mist which had covered her face earlier in the evening, and now shone full on the valley, towards which the crowd were making their way. As they turned the corner which brought them in sight of the mill whose doors none of them were to pass again, a burst of curses and oaths broke from the men and fell on the still air, violating and outraging the peace and beauty of the night.

At this moment Hatfield and Murdoch, walking together from the village to meet them, came up and were promptly informed of the result of the interview.

'Ay, ay, lads!' said old Murdoch. 'What did Ah tell ye? as Ah thowt.' Then looking down at the mill he pointed towards it, and went on in a loud voice, 'Ye shall best have another try now. Go down and beg o' t' door-posts o' t' owd mill to take ye on again. Ye'll be as likely to get a good hearing fro' them as ye were fro' t' young puppy up yonder; and they'll not be laughing at ye as soon as yer turned, anyway.'

This last suggestion had the effect that Murdoch probably wished it to have. At once a dozen voices were raised for going back to Thornsett Edge, and not leaving a pane of glass [209] in the window-sashes. The man who had thrown the stone before at once became a small hero, and met with numerous offers of assistance in going back and completing the work he had begun. Not a few of the men were excited by drink as well as by rage, having taken considerably more than was good for them before they started on the forlorn hope, and the excitement of these men communicated itself by those mysterious means which only manifest themselves on these occasions to the men who were sober. Roland Ferrier's words, passing from mouth to mouth, had been added to and altered so much that in the prevailing state of mind each man felt that he personally had been insulted and outraged by the man of whom he had asked the small favour of being allowed to continue to work until the winter-tide had passed. The idea of returning and wrecking the Ferriers' house became every moment more and more popular, and the crowd had actually faced round and begun that swaying movement which in an undisciplined body always, for a moment or two, precedes a start, when Hatfield spoke out at the top of his voice,—

'See here,' he said. 'In a few weeks now we shall all be gone to different parts, some on us to "the house." Most like, when that's done, when we're tramping the country far an' wide, and seeking the work we're turned out of here, they two'—pointing towards Thornsett Edge—''ll get tired o' goin' without their brass so long, maybe, an' 'ill make up the quarrel, and come back and start the mill again, with a new lot o' hands, to live i' our homes and eat the bread we're done out off.'

This new view of the case was received with a moment's silence by the hands; then a voice from the rear spoke out,—'Na, na, they 'ont, not if I can stop it; let's break t' ow'd mill to bits, and give the new hands the job to build it up again afore they work it.'

This suggestion, probably because its adoption was a trifle [210] less dangerous than wrecking a house, some of whose inmates were young men—possibly young men with firearms—was received with almost unanimous applause. In less time than it takes to tell, a hundred pieces of the rock of which the Derbyshire walls are built had begun to rattle on the roof and smash the windows of the mill below, and two or three pairs of strong arms had torn away a huge boulder of grey stone which, held in its place by creepers and earth, overhung the descent, and had set it rolling down the steep decline. It bounded on to the slated roof of the mill, and with a great crash went right through it, leaving a large black gap. Then the men set up a yell that made the country round ring again. When it had died away old Murdoch, who was beside himself with excitement, shouted out, 'Why waste yer time i' chuckin' stones at the danged place, lads? Get down t' hill and burn it to the ground.' Another yell of approval greeted the proposition, and in a few seconds the hill-top was deserted, and the crowd, swayed by an irresistible impulse, was scrambling down the rocky decline and making for the mill.

The shout that had been sent up when the hole had been knocked in the roof had reached the quick ears of Count Litvinoff sitting smoking in silence opposite his host. He got out of his chair. 'I have a bit of a headache to-night,' he said, 'I don't think arguing agrees with me. I'll just go and take a turn across the moor.'

'All right,' said Roland. 'I won't turn in till you come back.'

Litvinoff sauntered out of the room and across the hall, took a stout oak stick from the hall-stand, and, opening the front-door, strolled leisurely down the carriage drive. But directly he was out in the road he pulled his hat down tightly upon his ears, vaulted a low stone wall and set off running in the direction of the mill as though a thousand devils were following at his heels.

FIRE!

TO run at full speed across a Derbyshire moor by the uncertain light of a wintry moon is a feat not unattended with difficulty and danger, especially when the runner is not quite accustomed to the course; but it would have taken greater pitfalls than even those moors present to have made Count Litvinoff choose a longer and easier way. For when that shout had been borne to him on the wind he scented excitement and danger, and excitement and danger were to him as the breath of life. He was almost certain that the men meant mischief, and he intended to do his best to prevent it. His sympathies really were, as he had told Roland, entirely with them, and he was genuinely anxious that they should not add a criminal prosecution for riot to their other troubles. At the same time he looked forward with some pleasure to the scene in which he was now hastening to take a part.

He had been in a fretful and irritable state of mind ever since he had left London, and he cordially welcomed a row, and did not care much if in that row he got a knock on the head that would put an end to his visit and his life at the same time. At any rate, the situation offered a chance of action, and it was action more than anything that he had been longing for lately.

As he got nearer the valley in which the mill lay he was able to form a better idea of what was toward, for the shouts seemed to get louder and louder. He quickened his pace at [212] the moment when he reached the brow of the hill, from the foot of which all the noise and clamour arose, and paused, looking down; a lurid flash of flame lighted up for an instant the semi-darkness before him, and as suddenly died out again.

'Diable!' he said. 'I shall be too late for anything. I have some power over men, but I am not a fire-engine—'

He made the descent rather more cautiously, though not much less rapidly, than he had done the rest of the journey, and pushed his way through the little wood to within a hundred yards or so of the mill. Then he stopped, peering forward to ascertain the exact state of things before he went on.

The mill was not one of those square, many-windowed blocks which remind one of children's toy-houses, but a group of irregular buildings of all sorts and sizes, built of grey stone and roofed with slate. There was a paved yard surrounded by outhouses, some mere sheds of wood and thatch, and it was round the outhouse nearest to the mill itself that the men were crowding. There was plenty of light now for Litvinoff to discern every detail of the scene before him, for two sheds were on fire and burning merrily in the frosty air. The door of a certain room where he remembered to have seen quantities of cotton waste and inflammable rubbish, and which opened directly on to the yard, had been battered in by the men, and, the hinges having given way, hung crookedly by its strained, bent, but still strong, lock. Some of the men were hurrying to and fro between this room and the outbuilding, carrying armfuls of wood and straw, and these men were for the most part silent. The shouting, of which there was a good deal, was done by those who were doing nothing else.

Count Litvinoff had not been the only one to hear that first yell, and to interpret it as the note of something unusual, for dark heads were moving along the brow of the hill on the other side, and dark figures were hurrying down the stone steps.

The situation was obvious, and it was obvious too that no time was to be lost, for the crowd was becoming wilder and wilder, drunk with the strong wine of excitement as well as with the more habitual beer. Rioting, like everything else, grows by what it feeds on, and the higher the flames went the higher rose the cries that accompanied them. There is always something exciting about a fire—in the breaking loose of the tremendous force which we keep mostly as our servant. The fire was still small enough to be quenched if its originators so chose, but they saw well enough that soon it would be beyond their control, and would be their master in the place where it had been their slave. And they, too, had broken from their old place to-night. They were no longer the humble dependants of a rich man. Their hand was against him, and against all his class, and the new sense of independent, self-chosen action was intoxicating them all, and had driven far from them all thought of forbearance or of fear. For there was danger to the men themselves in this hell they were making. The out-buildings and the mill formed a square, and, once kindled, all would burn rapidly; and, from the slight eminence where he stood, the onlooker, cool and free from the madness that surged in the brain of the actors, could see plainly that the incendiaries ran a very fair chance of being caught in their own trap, and of perishing like rats in a barn. The big iron gates were closed immovably, and the only exit was by a narrow door. If once a panic began, and the men lost their heads in trying to pass this door, there might be a tragedy more terrible than Litvinoff cared to contemplate. He knew that if once the fire began in the mill itself there would be no chance of saving it, or anything else, and he could see that the men were beginning to drag burning fragments from the out-buildings, and he knew that they would be dragged to that room with the broken-in door. He paused no longer. That door was the point d'appui of the defence, and for that door he made.

He came rapidly down the hill and along the path that led to the little gate by which alone entrance to the yard could be effected. In the confusion of hurrying figures no one noticed the one figure more which, in a few strides, crossed the yard and planted itself just inside that broken door. Count Litvinoff glanced behind him and by the lurid glare of the burning timber opposite he could see the pile of straw and faggots in the room ready for the horrible bonfire. Just inside the lintel of the door something lay on the floor, gleaming redly in the firelight. He picked it up; it was a light, bright, long-handled steel hatchet.

'Aha,' he said; 'this is a gift from the gods!'

As he faced the yard, a great noise of mingled cheers and shouts went up from the crowd. It was not because they had seen their solitary opponent, but because the attack on what they thought the undefended mill was about to begin in earnest. All the active members of the riot were making for the door, headed by half-a-dozen stalwart fellows dragging blazing timbers.

'Stop!' shouted Litvinoff, in a voice that rang above the confused shouting of the crowd like a trumpet call.

And stop they did—and for quite twenty seconds held their tongues, to boot. Then arose a storm of indignation and derision when they saw that only one man stood in the way. They could not see who he was, and they cared little. The leaders made a forward movement, when—

'Stop!' he cried again, and his tones rose clear above the yells of the rioters, and were heard by timorous listeners on the hillside. 'Stop, and clear out of this as quick as you can get! Get to your homes, you fools!'

'Clear out yourself,' said a ringleader, 'or we'll clear you out!' But the forward movement had stopped. A parley had begun, and Litvinoff always felt that a chance of speaking meant for him a chance of winning.

'Put out that fire, and get back to your homes!' he cried. [215] 'I've come down here to save you from penal servitude, and I mean to do it. Not a man of you gets inside this door!'

By this time all the crowd had come up, and formed a semicircle in front of him, about fifteen yards off. They could see his face better than he could see theirs, for the light of the flames behind them fell full upon him. He was deadly pale, but he looked deadly determined too. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes, and a gleam still more dangerous from the bright blade of the axe which he had swung up on to his shoulder. Standing on the raised step of the door he looked tall and strong and bold.

Already the effect of this lion in the path made itself felt, for a faint cheer went up from the outside edge of the crowd, and a voice cried,—

'He's right. Let un be, lads—let un be, and go yer ways home.'

'All those of you who've got any sense left turn round and put out that fire. The work you've done to-night already is worth ten years in prison.'

'Then let's finish our work, lads, and earn our wages! Ten years' good feedin's better nor a month's clemmin',' shouted a burly young fellow of some six feet.

'Well said, Isaac Potts!' cried more than one. 'Dang his cheek! Heave him out of it!'

And some half-dozen rushed forward to suit the action to the word, foremost among them Isaac Potts. In the position Litvinoff had taken up, it was impossible for more than one man to attack him at a time. As the young mill hand, armed with a piece of wood still smouldering redly, sprang to lead the attack, a woman's voice—his sweetheart's—sounded shrilly from behind the crowd,—

'Keep back, Isaac—keep back; he'll brain thee for sure!'

The warning was unheeded, or, if the young man heard it, [216] it only urged him on. He stopped an instant, hurled the wood at Litvinoff's head, and sprang forward to follow up his missile. The aim was not a good one. The brand only hit the door lintel, struck out a shower of sparks, and fell across the step. It was an unlucky miss for Isaac. Litvinoff planted one foot firmly, and gave his axe a swing. It came down crashing through collar-bone and shoulder blade, and almost severing the arm from the body. Isaac staggered back upon the men behind him, covering them with blood as he fell. There was a silence of a moment, which seemed long. The crowd drew a deep breath.

All the devil in Litvinoff's nature was roused now.

'Come on, you madmen!' he cried, as he recovered himself and brought his axe to the shoulder again. 'Come on! Get into this room now if you can!'

But the general ambition to get into that room was a little damped somehow, and the few who had been close on Isaac's heels fell back, and left him alone, all but one man, who stood glaring into Litvinoff's eyes. He held a heavy iron bar in his hand.

'Back you go, or down you go!' shouted Litvinoff, making a step towards him, and giving the axe a swing in the air.

The man did not wait for the blow. He retreated, and joined the crowd just as the girl who had shrieked that warning tore her way through to the place where her lover was lying, and bent over him.

Litvinoff brought his weapon to his side. Then he said quietly,—

'I told you none of you should get into this room, and none of you shall, by God! if I have to treat twenty of you to the same fare as this poor fellow. If you're sane men, pick him up and see to him, and perhaps nothing worse may come to you after all. Remember that every man who does not help to put that fire out breaks the law. For Heaven's sake be [217] reasonable men. There are some here who know me. Do you think I care for this cursed mill? I came down here to save you. Help me to do it.'

The moderate party was a good deal stronger by this time; the axe had been a first-rate argument.

'Well done, sir!' 'Quite right, sir!' 'Hear, hear!' went up from the crowd, and two or three men came forward. Litvinoff resumed his defensive attitude, but they were not for attack. They busied themselves with their wounded friend.

'Is John Hatfield there?' called Litvinoff, seeing that he had prevailed. 'I want him. Hatfield, can't you manage to get a dozen of your friends to put out that fire? The best thing you can do is to knock down the sheds on each side, and then it will burn itself out and do no harm.'

'We will, sir,' Hatfield answered. 'You're right; this has been a mad night's work.'

All danger of further riot was at an end. The men who had been foremost in the work of destruction had made off as quickly as possible, and those who were left worked zealously under Hatfield's orders. The wounded man was carried off on a shutter to the nearest cottage. The fire was effectually put out with water from the reservoir. The men loafed off in twos and threes, and darkness and quiet settled down once more on Thornsett. Litvinoff and Hatfield remained till the last lingerer had left. Then Hatfield said,—

'Ah suppose this means the 'sizes for a goodish few o' us.'

'I hope not,' Litvinoff answered; 'I'll do my best for you—that is, I shall not know who was here to-night. But I advise you to clear out as early as you can to-morrow, and, if your friends who were in this business are wise, they'll do the same. Where have they taken that fellow I knocked over? I'd better go and see after him.'

They turned their back on the mill, and climbed the hill to [218] the cottage, where the doctor who had been sent for was already busy with his patient.

'Is he going to live?' Litvinoff asked sharply.

'I think so,' was the answer; 'the greatest danger is loss of blood. He has been bleeding like a bull.'

'Oh, you must pull him through it, doctor,' said the Count. He slipped some gold into the hand of the woman who owned the cottage. 'Let him have everything the doctor orders, and you'll do all you can, I know. I'll be down to-morrow.'

He looked towards the girl who was crouching at the head of the bed as though he would have spoken to her, but seemed to think better of it, and rejoined Hatfield outside.

'I think he'll be all right,' he said, holding his hand out. 'Good-bye, Hatfield; don't forget what I said. Drop me a line to the Post Office, Charing Cross, London, to say where you are; and do let me beg of you, if it's only for your wife's sake, not to get mixed up in any more of this sort of thing. It must be on a much bigger scale before it'll be successful, my boy,' he ended, resuming his most frivolous manner, and turning away.

'I think I deserve a cigar,' he said to himself, as he started on the long return walk, by the road this time. And he lighted one accordingly.

About a quarter of a mile from Thornsett he met Roland Ferrier, who was walking quickly along, Gates by his side.

'Where have you come from?' the former asked abruptly. 'Here's Gates tells me the men are burning the mill, and I don't know what beside.'

'Oh, no, no,' the Count answered lightly; 'there's been a little orating and so forth, in which I have borne a distinguished part, but it's all over now. They wound up with a hymn or two, and went home to their wives. Come along back. I'll tell you all about it when we get in,' and, catching an arm of each, he wheeled them round and marched them back to Thornsett Edge.

AFTER THE FIRE

BEFORE daybreak next morning John Hatfield had taken Count Litvinoff's advice, and he and several others who had borne an active part in the night's work had shaken the dust of Thornsett off their feet and taken their departure in various directions. Had they not been quite so precipitate their leave-taking might have been more dignified and less secret, for Litvinoff's confidence in his own powers of diplomacy had been more than justified. When, somewhat to his chagrin, his eloquence failed to reconcile Roland Ferrier to the idea of taking no legal steps to punish the intending incendiaries—for, in spite of the way in which the Count had watered the story down, Roland had managed to get a pretty accurate idea of the truth—he made a hasty journey over to Aspinshaw. He found Miss Stanley in a state of great excitement about the events of the night before, of which she had heard a very much embroidered and highly-coloured version.

'Oh, Count Litvinoff,' she said, coming forward to meet him, 'I am so glad you have come. I have just sent two of the servants down to Thornsett to find out who was hurt. Mr Clarke, of Thorpe, has just been here, and told us that you saved so many lives last night.'

'Saved so many lives last night!' repeated Litvinoff. 'They must have been the lives of rats and mice, then.' And he gave [220] her a plain and unvarnished account of the whole story, from the interview of the deputation with Roland to his own visit to the man he had cut down. He had the very rare faculty of telling the exact truth in a particularly exciting way—any adventure in which he had been personally engaged he always told from some point of view not his own—so that the hearer saw him playing his part in the scene rather than heard the chief adventurer recounting his adventures.

As he skilfully put before her the picture of the one man facing the infuriated crowd, he could see her eyes sparkle with sympathy, and could read interest and admiration in her face.

'And so you were not hurt, after all?' she said. 'I am so glad. But what of the men? Will they be punished? They've got themselves into trouble, I'm afraid, poor fellows.'

'Ah!' he answered, meeting her questioning glance with an earnest expression on his serious face. 'It was about them I came to speak to you. Our friend Ferrier is determined, not unnaturally perhaps, to resent and to punish last night's madness. I've done my utmost to reason him out of his resolve to be avenged on these poor fools, but he's not in a humour to listen to reason. It will need something stronger than that to induce him to let the men escape the natural consequences of their folly.'

'Oh, but Hatfield—surely he'd not punish him?'

'Well, I advised Hatfield to make himself scarce, and I hope he's done it. It's more on behalf of the other men that I'm here.'

'Why, what can I do in the matter?'

'Your word will have great weight with young Ferrier. I want you to go to him and ask him to let the affair rest just where it is,' he said bluntly.

Clare coloured painfully. 'I go to Mr Ferrier?' she repeated. 'Count Litvinoff, you must know that that is quite impossible.'

'I know that it is difficult, Miss Stanley, but I also know that it is not impossible.'

'It is out of the question for me—you ought to know,' she hesitated, 'to ask a favour of him.'

'It would be an unpleasant thing for you to do, and two months ago I would rather have cut my tongue out than have asked you. But I know now—I have had it from your own lips—that you are a convert to our great faith.'

She made a movement as though she would have spoken, but he went on hurriedly:

'You may remember that what impressed you most in my fellow-countryman Petrovitch's address was the self-abnegation which ran all through it. My countryman was right. Self-abnegation is the note of the Revolution! On the first day of this new year you honoured me by asking me what good you could do. I tell you now. You can save many of these men from prison, and their wives from harder fare than the prison's, by humbling your pride and asking what will not be refused. Forgive me if I speak plainly, but it is not for my own sake I would ask you to do anything now. It is for these men, and for the sake of the cause.'

There were a few moments of painful silence. Miss Stanley frowned at the hearthrug, and Count Litvinoff sat looking at her with the expression of one who has asked a question to which he knows there can be but one answer. The answer came.

'Very well,' she said, 'I will do what you wish, for the sake of these men,' she added, becoming unnecessarily explanatory.

'I knew you would,' he said.

'But,' she went on hurriedly, 'there is one other thing I can do. I can help to make this time a little less hard to them. Will you—'

He interrupted her.

'No, no, no; my part is played. Miss Stanley must deal with that other matter by herself.'

Two hours later Clare Stanley called at Thornsett Edge, and, after a brief conversation with Roland, passed on to the village, having done the work she had set herself to do. It was, perhaps, the most painful act of her whole life. But she had performed it successfully, and so it came about that none of the men were punished, and that poor Isaac, who was a pensioner on Miss Stanley for a good many months, was the only one to suffer from that wild night's work.

Clare felt a sense of elation when the disagreeable task was over. She seemed herself to be making progress; and, though that day's enterprise had been suggested by Litvinoff, she knew that it would never have been undertaken if she had not been present when the Cleon met to discuss Socialism.

She had now an opportunity of using a little of her newly-acquired wealth, and she availed herself of it. More than one family in the village owed its salvation to her timely help, and when a week later she left for London she left behind her a sum of money in the hands of Mr Gates, to be used for the ex-mill hands—and a very grateful remembrance of her pretty, gracious, kindly ways, and of her substantial favours, too, in the hearts of these same hands and their families.

So Mrs Stanley went to Yorkshire, and Clare to London, and Aspinshaw was left desolate. Thornsett Edge was advertised as 'To let,' and Roland and his aunt took up quiet housekeeping in Chelsea. Litvinoff, by way of practising the economy which was growing more and more necessary every day, took rooms in Maida Vale. The mill hands dispersed far and wide, and the mill, the heart of Thornsett, having ceased to beat, the whole place seemed to be dead, and, presently, to decay. No one would live in the village. It was too far from any other work, and the place took upon itself a haunted, ghostly air—as if forms in white might [223] be expected to walk its deserted streets at midnight, or to show themselves through the broken, cobwebby panes of the windows which used to be so trim and bright and clean. It was a ghastly change for the houses that, poor as they were, had been, after all, homes to so many people for so many years.

When Alice Hatfield thought of her old home, she never thought of it but as she had last seen it—neat and cheerful with the plants in pots on the long window-ledge, and all the familiar furniture and household effects in their old places. It was pain to think of it even like that. It would have been agony to her could she have seen it naked and bare, with its well-known rooms cold and empty, its hearths grey and fireless.

And she thought of her home a good deal during the weeks when she lay ill in Mrs Toomey's upper room; for the illness that had come upon her on that Sunday when Mr Toomey had had tea with Petrovitch had been a longer and more serious affair than any one had fancied it would be. When she had first known that another life was bound up in her own, the knowledge had been almost maddening; now, the terror, the misery, and the fatigue which she had undergone when first she knew it, had themselves put an end to what had caused them, and Alice was free from the fear of the responsibility which had seemed so terrible to her. But she was not glad. She was amazed at the contradiction in her own heart, but as she lay thinking of all the past—of what she thought was her own wrong-doing, and of the home she had left—it seemed to her that what was lost to her was the only thing that could have reconciled her to her life, with all its bitter memories. If only Litvinoff's child had lain on her arm—if she could have lived in the hope of seeing it smile into her eyes—it seemed to her that she would not have wanted to die so much. And with this inexplicable weakness Mrs Toomey, strange to say, seemed to sympathise.

'There's no understanding women,' as Toomey was wont to remark.

All the expenses of Alice's illness were borne by Petrovitch, who bade Mrs Toomey spare no expense in making 'Mrs Litvinoff' as comfortable as might be. When at last Alice began to grow better he came to see her very often, brought her books and flowers, and was as tenderly thoughtful of her, as anxious to gratify her every possible wish, as a brother could have been.

'You are too good to me,' she said one day, looking at him with wet eyes as he stood by her sofa and put into her hand some delicate snowdrops. 'I do not deserve to have people so kind to me. Why is it?'

'I told you,' he answered gravely. 'I was once your husband's dearest friend, and I have a right to do all for you that I can. How did you like the book I sent you?'

Alice used to look forward to his coming. He always cheered her. He never spoke of her or of himself, but always of some matter impersonal and interesting. The books he lent her were the books that lead to talking; and as she grew stronger in body her mind strengthened too, and for the first time she tasted the delight of following and understanding the larger questions of life. Every one, even her lover, had always treated her somewhat as a child, and Petrovitch was the first person who ever seemed to think it worth while to explain things to her. She had not had the education which makes clear thinking easy; but she was young, and had still youth's faculty for learning quickly. Her growing interest in outside matters tended—as Petrovitch had meant it to do—to divert her mind from her own troubles; and when at last she was able to take up the easier and lighter work he had found for her, she was able to look at life

AT MARLBOROUGH VILLA

MDEAR Clare, let me implore you to shut that book. You are becoming quite too dreadfully blue. I don't believe you take any interest in any of the things you used to like—even me,' ended Cora Quaid, with a pout. The two girls were sitting very snugly in Miss Quaid's special sanctum, where were enshrined her girlish treasures, her books, and the accessories of the art in which she hoped some day to rival Rosa Bonheur. Having had a picture admitted to the Academy the season before, she was more hopeful and consequently more industrious than ever. But on this afternoon she had not been painting. She had been sitting looking at her friend and thinking what a pretty picture she made with her sweet serious face and sombre crape draperies; but even the contemplation of one's prettiest friend will become fatiguing at last, when talking is one's very greatest pleasure. So Cora broke silence with the remark we have reported, and the silence she broke had been a very long one.

'You silly child,' Clare answered, laughing, and tossing her book on to the sofa, 'it isn't that at all. It is that I take an interest in all sorts of other things besides.'

'Mamma says,' remarked Miss Quaid, picking up the little red-covered pamphlet and looking at it with disfavour, 'that this book is not fit for any one to read.'

'I'm sorry Mrs Quaid doesn't like it,' Clare answered, 'because I like it so much. But perhaps I haven't studied it enough. I suppose your mamma has gone into it thoroughly.'

'Oh no, she wouldn't read it for the world.'

Clare felt Mrs Quaid's criticism to be less crushing than it might have been.

'One would have thought,' Cora went on, 'that "God and the State" would have been something very religious—something like Mr Gladstone, you know. A man oughtn't to call his book by a title that has nothing to say to the book itself. It's so misleading. Clare, I rather wonder Count Litvinoff should lend you such dreadful books.'

'I'm afraid Bakounin's not much like Mr Gladstone, dear, and I don't think I should care much about him if he were; but the title certainly has a great deal to do with the book. However, Bakounin has not converted me to his views. He is clever and trenchant, but—'

'I had done with that subject, my dear,' answered Miss Quaid, leaning over the arm of her easy-chair to look saucily into her friend's eyes, 'and had got to something much more interesting—the dashing Count, to wit.'

'He would be very much flattered to know that he inspires you with so much interest.'

'It is not I who am interested in him.'

'Who is interested in him?'

'Oh, neither of us—of course,' Cora answered; 'it is mamma and he who mutually attract each other. It is mamma he comes to see regularly three times a week. It is mamma who buries herself in his books and pamphlets. Seriously, Clare—how many of his books do you get through in a day?'

'I have read two of his books, and you have read one—"The Prophetic Vision," and you know how much we both liked that. As for the other—I suppose I'm not advanced [227] enough, but it doesn't seem to me to be anything like so clearly written, nor so forcible. It seems wonderful that the same man should have written both.'

'Perhaps it was written since he has been in exile, and he was wretched and out of sorts. By the way, he doesn't seem wretched now. Now, Clare,' coming and sitting down on the rug at the other's feet and leaning her arms on the black dress, and turning her bright mignonne face upward, 'I think it is only due to our ancient friendship—which, you remember, was founded on the noble principle, halves and no secrets, that you should confide in me. What are you going to do with him? How are you going to serve him?'

'Well, dear, would it be best to grill him or to serve him on toast with caviare? How would it look on the menu? Nihiliste à la Révolution.'

'Count Litvinoff à la married man would be more humane, perhaps. I wonder how it feels to be adored by a lover who has passionate eyes and a long blond moustache, who has had no end of adventures, has as many lives as a cat, and seems to be rolling in gold, judging by the bouquets he brings to—mamma.'

'If you are very anxious to know,' said Clare, smiling and smoothing the rough head at her knee, 'you had better try to attract him; I don't fancy you would find it difficult.'

'You don't seem to have found it so. Really and truly, Clare; do you mean to be a countess? Shall you refuse him?'

'He has never asked me but one thing, and that I did not refuse.'

'What a teasing girl you are! Does that mean anything or nothing?'

'Whichever you like, sweetheart.'

'Well, he deserves a better fate than to be allowed to singe his wings at the flame of your prettiness. You always were a flirt, Clare; and I am afraid you have not improved.'

'I don't think I have ever flirted,' Clare answered, growing suddenly grave; 'but I know I have been foolish enough to wish people to like me and to be interested in me. But you don't know how contemptible all that sort of thing seems to me now. Fancy caring about the opinion of people when you don't care about the people themselves.'

'Well, any one can see he's over head and ears in love with you—you nice, pretty little woman.'

'I hope not,' Clare answered; 'for I am not in the least in love with him.'

'Then don't you think it's a little too bad of you to encourage him as you do—reading his books and all that?'

'I don't know what "all that" may be, but as for the books he lends me, they don't borrow their interest from him. Every book I read seems to draw up a curtain and let new light into my mind. You can't imagine how different everything is to me since I began to read and to try to think. All that I have learned lately is like a new religion to me.' All the flippancy was gone from her voice, and in her eyes shone a new light. 'And I read all I can because I want to understand well enough to teach other people what I feel to be true. And oh, Cora! I do so want to do something to help the poor and show them their position.'

'Yes; I quite agree with you that they ought to know their position and keep in it. The Catechism tells us that, you know. I should think you might employ half a dozen curates. Papa says there are lots out of work.'

'I don't think curates are quite what are wanted. There are curates enough and to spare. Besides,

'That sounds dreadful,' said Cora.

'Why, you used to be so fond of it!'

'Yes; but I didn't think it meant anything so wicked as that; and, what's more, I don't believe it does.'

'I haven't changed the words, Cora. I did not say they meant anything more than they have always meant. But, you see, too, don't you, what a ghastly mockery it is to send religious teaching to people who never had a good dinner in their lives? What a frightful system it is that allows all these horrors!'

'But, my dearest Clare, even if it is horrible, I don't see what you can do to alter it. Why, papa was saying only the other night that the social order was never so strong as now.'

'I'm in the humour for quoting, and I must keep on, I see,' said Clare, with a smile. 'Don't you remember?—

'Clare,' said the other affectionately, putting her arms round her friend's waist, 'you really oughtn't to take up these ideas. Do you know mamma says it's not natural for girls of our age to take such dismal views of things? You'll make yourself quite miserable if you go on with these books.'

'I seem to have nothing but Matthew Arnold in my head this afternoon,—

'I don't see how anyone can be anything else but miserable at the thought of all the wretchedness there is in the world. The only thing to keep one from despairing over it would be to do [230] something, even if it were ever so little, to help forward a better time. I dare say your father is right, and this present state is very strong, and perhaps none of us' (with whom was she classing herself?) 'will live to see what we are longing for! It would be rather nice,' she went on meditatively, 'to have that other verse on one's grave,—

'This is too much,' cried Cora, jumping up. 'When it comes to choosing your own epitaph I think it's high time we gave the March winds a chance of blowing the cobwebs out of your brain. We'll have a run. Come along; the streets are deliciously dusty.'

Clare rose, smilingly obedient, and as she did so the room door opened slowly and admitted Mrs Quaid. She sank on to the sofa from which Miss Stanley had just risen.

'Such a fatiguing time I have had,' she said, with a long-drawn breath of relief, as she leaned back on the cushions and loosened her bonnet-strings. 'Mrs Paget was out, and of the ten ladies who are on our Educational Committee only two attended besides myself. Really, people have no energy. And then, my shopping took me so much longer than I expected—these new shades are so difficult to match—and at last, when I felt quite worn out, and was just going into Roper's for a glass of sherry and a biscuit, whoever do you think I ran across, treating two ragged children to buns?'

'Count Litvinoff?' from Cora.

'No—oh no. It was Mr Petrovitch, and when he saw me he hustled the poor little things out of the shop as though he were ashamed of them, and he stayed talking to me ever so long, and was quite delightful, and—Clare, my sweet, this will [231] please you, you were so much taken with him—he is coming to see us this evening. Won't that be charming?'

'I am very glad,' said Claire simply, while Cora busied herself in loosening her mother's cloak, and waiting on her in various little ways. 'I seemed to learn so much from him the last time I heard him.'

'Yes, and a friend of his is coming as well—a deliciously savage-looking Austrian, named Hirsch—who was there too, and who seems quite like our friend's shadow, and, as Mr Vernon is coming also, we shall be quite a pleasant little party, all sympathising with each other's feelings, and that's the great thing, you know.'

'I wonder if Count Litvinoff will look in,' mused Cora, rubbing her mother's rich sable muff round and round the wrong way.

'Not to-night. He is lecturing at some East-end club. What a man he is; so devoted to the cause. It seems so sad that he should be so very extreme in his views. Force is such a terrible thing, and I very much fear that he believes in that more than in the power of love.'

'I think he does,' answered Clare, seeing herself appealed to.

'Ah, well; we must try to convert him,' Mrs Quaid said, smiling. 'I should imagine him to be a most reasonable person to talk to, and not difficult to convince. I like him so much. It is so seldom one meets a man with just his polish of manner and strength of mind. Cora, dear, I've had no lunch. Just ring and order some for me. I really feel quite faint.'

At eight o'clock that evening Petrovitch stood in the softly-lighted hall of Marlborough Villa. He felt more interested in the coming evening than he generally was on such [232] occasions. Hirsch, who was with him, was very much surprised to find himself within the portals of one of those middle-class establishments against which he had always inveighed so bitterly. But Mrs Quaid's manner had overborne his determinations with its resistless flow of gush, and he had accepted her invitation from sheer inability to edge in a word of refusal. He had been in a state of mingled remorse and terror ever since, and only Petrovitch's strong representations to the effect that men who set themselves against Society should at least not fall below Society in the matter of keeping their word, had induced him to face the dreadful ordeal of meeting half-a-dozen well-dressed Social Reformers in a large and luxurious drawing-room.

It would be impossible for any human being to be quite as glad to see any other human being as Mrs Quaid appeared to be to see her two new friends. They came in together, and while Hirsch looked round on the handsome furniture with a savagely appraising glance, prompted equally by his Jewish blood and his Socialistic convictions, Petrovitch, having seen that Clare was present, delivered himself an unresisting prey to his hostess, knowing that to even her eloquence an end must come, and knowing, too, that sooner or later he would find himself beside the girl whom his paper on Socialism had seemed to impress so much, the first time he had ever been in that room. He had been in that room more than once since but never without seeing a very vivid vision of the fair face, shining eyes, and red lips, slightly parted in the interest of listening, the girlish figure bent forward the better to catch every word of his. It was not only the flattery of her undisguised interest in him which had painted for him this memory-picture, and had given him a constantly-recurring desire to see the original again. He was pretty well skilled by this time in reading the faces of his fellow-creatures, and when all the [233] thanks and congratulations of the Cleon's visitors were ringing in his ears, he had known perfectly well that the only heart he had touched, the only mind that had followed his reasoning, and the only soul that understood him, were those of the dark-eyed girl at his side. And the look those dark eyes had given him when he said good-night, had haunted him ever since.

From the seat of honour on the sofa beside Mrs Quaid, Petrovitch looked, perhaps rather longingly, towards the other end of the room, where Hirsch and Vernon were talking to the two girls.

It was unworthy weakness, perhaps, in a Friend of Humanity, but he could not help straining his ears to try to catch what they were saying, and wondering what subject they could be discussing to bring such interest into Clare's face. This effort interfered somewhat with the lucidity of his replies, until Mr Quaid, who had hardly spoken before, brought him up short with the question,—

'What do you mean, now, by Socialism?' and the Socialist, with an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders and a sort of 'in for a penny in for a pound' feeling, gave up trying to do two things at once, and plunged heart and soul into explanations, knowing quite well neither of his hearers would understand them.

If there is any truth in the old adage his ears should have burned, for the group at the end of the room were discussing nothing less than himself.

An enthusiastic remark from Vernon and sympathetic rejoinders from Clare and Cora had sufficed to mitigate in the Austrian that sense of being trapped by the enemy with which he had entered the room, for he saw that these young people had, at anyrate, one thing in common with him—a great respect for and interest in his Russian friend. And knowing this, his tongue was loosed; and his love of his friend overcoming in [234] some degree the difficulties presented to him by the English language, he began to tell tale after tale of Petrovitch's kindness, bravery, self-sacrifice, and nobility. His knowledge of English had improved in the last four months, and his hearers found it easy to understand him.

'I have only known him half a year,' he said at last; 'and in that time I know of him more good than of any other man in half a lifetime.'

'I've known him less time than that,' chimed in young Vernon; 'and even I can see that he's different to any one else. The only person I ever knew who was in the least like him is Count Litvinoff.'

'Thereby I see you know not well either the one or the other,' said Hirsch, with some return to his normal grumpiness.

'I don't agree with Mr Vernon,' put in Clare; 'the principles of Count Litvinoff and Mr Petrovitch may be the same, but it seems to me that the two men are utterly different.'

'Yes,' said Miss Quaid. 'Count Litvinoff has much more of the dash and "go" that one expects in a revolutionist. Mr Petrovitch is very solid, I should think; but Count Litvinoff is certainly more brilliant and sparkling.'

Hirsch smiled sardonically.

'Mademoiselle is happy in her epithets. Froth sparkles in the sunshine and the most precious metal is the most solid. I will tell you one thing of Petrovitch. When you can tell me such another of Litvinoff, I will say Mr Vernon is right—the two men are like.

'It was on your Christian festival of Christmas—in a Russian town, no matter to name it—there was a chase, and all the townspeople turned out of their doors for the pleasure-excitement of seeing it. The chased? Only a poor woman, on her way from Moscow to the Austrian frontier. Her crime? She was a Jewess. For this, men and boys, with savage dogs, [235] with sticks, with stones, with all that their devilish brutality told them to use against her, hunted her down, shouting, deriding, exulting. And she fled from them, but slowly, for she was not young. And those who took no part in the bloody pursuing looked on, smiling, many of them, and those who smiled not, with interest; men who were well born, and had not the ignorant superstition for whose sake we can pardon any crime to the poor. Those who hunted her were men who knew not their right hand from their left—thanks to their priests—and those who looked on approving were men of your world—"cultured," how you say?

'The poor woman fled, and still more slowly; a stone had hit her hard, and she felt already at the sickness of death. At a corner a tarantass across the road barred her way. Its coachman had stopped for the pleasure of seeing the sport. A Jewess stoned to death! The excellent pastime!

'She looked around; no way of escape. The driver of the tarantass raised his whip. He, too, would taste the pleasures of cruelty. She threw her arms up, and called upon Jehovah, whom she worshipped. Before the lash could fall, from within the tarantass sprang a young man, and snatched from the driver's hand the whip. To let it fall on her with more force? Not so. To sweep it full across the faces of the foremost in the crowd. He caught the despised Jewess in his arms, and lifted her into his carriage. The crowd—cowards as well as bullies—drew back. He sprang upon the seat beside the driver, seized the reins, turned the horses, and to them, too, used the whip—so well, that he carried away from that Russian town the saved life of a woman. He took her to a place of safety, and when she was strong enough sent her to join her son in Vienna. She was my mother. She owed her salvation from a death shameful and agonising to—'

He stopped short suddenly and glanced expressively at the [236] broad-shouldered figure at the other end of the room. Then he said,—

'Such is my friend. Your Count Litvinoff—would he so have acted?'

He looked at Vernon, but Clare answered quickly,—

'Indeed he would. Only a little while ago he risked his life, not to save life, but to save working men from injuring their own cause, by wild violence.'

Hirsch looked at her with mingled interest and disfavour.

'Possibly,' he said; 'it may be I misjudge him, but for me he is too brilliant.'

Cora looked at her friend, and smiled a smile which Clare interpreted easily enough as a reference to their conversation of that afternoon, and out of pure defiance she would probably have said something still more strong in Count Litvinoff's favour if the door had not opened at that moment to admit two very dear, very sweet, and completely unexpected friends of Mrs Quaid's. The advent of these two, who were dwellers in Gath, and brought in with them a breath of pure Philistine air, led to the rising and re-arrangement of seats, of which the children's game of 'General Post' is a sort of caricature.

Mrs Quaid being now completely occupied with the new arrivals, Petrovitch seized the golden opportunity, and when the room settled down again into repose, Clare found that he occupied the ottoman beside her, where Hirsch had been sitting before. Miss Quaid and young Vernon had gravitated towards the conservatory, for Cora was a great lover of flowers, and Eustace, while he liked the flowers well enough, liked her still better. Hirsch had been set going by one of Mr Quaid's broad-based questions, and Miss Stanley and Petrovitch were virtually alone. And yet, though each had wished often enough to see the other again, now that they were side by side it seemed to be not so easy to talk. It is always so [237] difficult to chatter about trifles when one is anxious to talk seriously, and it is difficult, almost up to the point of impossibility, to plunge into reasonable conversation in a room full of inconsequent prattle. Added to this, Petrovitch felt an unaccustomed and unaccountable shyness, and to Clare it was somehow less easy to ask his advice than she had thought it would have been, and than it had been to ask Count Litvinoff's.

She was the first to speak.

'I find you have not yet converted Mrs Quaid to all your views, Mr Petrovitch,' she said. 'I fear you have not been making good use of your time.'

Petrovitch did not answer; he looked at her and smiled, but it was a smile that conveyed the idea that, even to have succeeded in converting Mrs Quaid, would not have been making the best use of his time.

'I might almost have said our views,' Clare went on, determined not to let slip the opportunity of asking his advice on the great question of her life, 'for I have been thinking a great deal of all you said last time I met you here.'

'I knew you would,' he said simply.

'And I have been reading a little too. I have borrowed some books of Count Litvinoff—one or two of his own. You know Count Litvinoff? You have read his books, of course?'

'Yes, I know them,' he said. 'The writer is happy if he has shown your eyes the truth—more happy, I fear, than you will be in seeing it.'

'Oh, I don't know that it has made me unhappy, quite. I am perplexed and bewildered; but, however that may be, I don't owe it to Count Litvinoff, but to you; and that is why I am going to ask you to help me to see my way a little more clearly. I did ask Count Litvinoff what he thought—but—at any rate, I want to know what you think I ought to do.'

'I do not know that in your position you can do much except spread the light by telling the truth to every one who will receive it.'

'But I think I can do more. Do you know, I am very rich? I have—oh, ever so much a year, and it is all my own now, to do just what I like with.'

His eyes fell on her black dress, then they met her frank gaze, and the two looked straight at each other as she went on.

'The money was made by other people's losses. I know that, and I feel that the money is not my own. The question is, how can I best use it?'

'You asked Count Litvinoff this? May I in turn ask how he answered?'

'He thought—he said—' Clare hesitated a moment—'he declined to give me advice,' she finished.

Clare started at a sudden angry light that came into the eyes of the man beside her. She felt she had been indiscreet and even guilty. For she remembered how Litvinoff had followed his refusal of counsel by telling her how that there were 'men, his friends, who, if they knew that she had asked him for this advice, and he had refused to give it, would say he had become traitor, and kill him like a rat.' Suppose Petrovitch were one of these men! Clare did not wait for him to speak, but answered the look.

'You are angry with him,' she said. 'I had no right to tell you that, but since I have given you my confidence I know you will respect it, and not let it influence your conduct towards him.'

'Your friend is safe as far as I am concerned,' Petrovitch answered, passing his hand over his long beard. 'Do not be alarmed for him. You take a deep interest in his welfare—is it not so?'

The question was asked earnestly, and not impertinently, and Clare felt no inclination to resent it. There was a short silence between them, and it was manifest to them that Mrs Quaid was holding the Philistines enthralled by her views on education. Miss Stanley answered slowly and softly,—

'You know my dear father is dead now. Our acquaintance with Count Litvinoff began with his saving my father's life at the risk of his own, and that is not the only good deed I have known him do, though that alone will make me always interested in him.'

Then she told of the part he had played in the unfortunate scene at the mill, and his conduct lost nothing in the telling. Insensibly led on by Petrovitch's well-managed prompting in monosyllables she went on to what had come after, and how she had been made the means of changing Roland Ferrier's determination to prosecute and punish the 'hands.'

'Yes,' said Petrovitch, when she had finished, 'I know right well that he is no coward and no fool; and as for his not advising you, I am not sure that he was not right. I, too, will not advise you. There is only one thing I could tell you to do, and that I will not tell you now. Wait, wait, and be patient, and study; and if after a while you still ask me for advice I will give it to you.'

'I know what you think,' she said impulsively. 'You think I'm young and foolish, and that I shall be changeable. You think I have taken up these beliefs without enough thought or understanding. If I could only tell you ... how altered everything seems, what a splendid new light seems to be breaking over everything. Do you think, what you said just now, that knowing the truth could make me unhappy? Oh no. It is knowledge without action that makes me sad.'

'No, no; that is not my thought,' he answered, in a voice [240] that seemed to have caught a thrill from her own. 'Think a little longer. Whatever action you take will not lose strength because it is well thought, well considered. If you ever ask me again, I promise you I will not hesitate a moment to answer; but I would rather the answer came from you than from me.'

'That's one of your leading principles, isn't it? Independent thought.'

'Yes. How can people ever hope to act rightly, if they will persist in delegating other people to think for them?'

'But ordinary people can't thoroughly think out all subjects. One is obliged to take a great many of one's opinions at second-hand.'

'Well, but neither can one act in all directions—and where one has to act one should think first. As for taking opinions at second-hand, that is a thing you should never dare to do. If you are not able to think for yourself, you should have no opinions. Your English Clifford has told you that if you have no time to think you have no time to believe.'

'I am sure you are right. But I am sure, too, that to think for one's self means in most circles social ostracism; and it wants very strong convictions to make one face that.'

'Social ostracism,' answered the Socialist, with unutterable contempt in the gesture which accompanied his words; 'social ostracism, and by whom imposed? Look at the people around you.' Clare glanced nervously at Mrs Quaid. 'See how small are their aims, how trivial their interests, how great their love of ease, how small their love of truth; see what narrow minds they have, what blinded eyes; see all the good that would be in them crushed out by the very conventionalities which they uphold. How can we think it of any value, the opinion of such as these? Or if their condemnation should pain us, what a little thing is such a pain compared with the lifelong con [241]sciousness of having, from the fear of it, crushed out the spark of truth in our own souls? What a little thing compared with eternal truth is even life itself! We come out of the darkness, and into that darkness must return. Is it not better, seeing the little time that is ours, to know that we at least have listened to the wail of agony that ever goes up to the deaf heavens?—that we have done what we could in our little day to help forward a better time for those who shall come after us, than to know that we have had the good opinion of "respectable people"?'

'If one could only hope that one could help it forward!' sighed Clare.

'Hope? We know it. These things will be. It is a question of the little sooner or the little later. There is no standing still. He that is not with us is against us. But we shall triumph in the end. We know that all this misery, all this sin, all this selfishness, all this stupidity even, are the direct result of the social milieu. It is this knowledge that makes us the deadly enemies of the Capitalist system, and that is why we are hated by those who profit by it.'

He spoke in a low voice, full of suppressed excitement. When he ended the girl drew a long breath. He saw the white violets on her bosom rise and fall slowly twice before he spoke again. Then he said, with a smile,—

'If I have not given you advice, I have at least given you a sermon. You see I already look upon you as one of us, or I should not have dared to outrage conventionalities by speaking in earnest in a drawing-room.'

'Oh, my dear Mr Petrovitch,' exclaimed Mrs Quaid, who pausing out of breath from her exertions in the cause of education, had caught the last dozen words, 'you are really too severe! I hope all of us, at anyrate, always speak in earnest, though of course, some of us are more earnest than others. [242] That delightful Count Litvinoff, now—so devoted, and yet so cheerful; I'm so sorry he has not come to-night.'

'He seems to be a universal favourite,' answered Petrovitch, who had risen on his hostess's approach, and now stood with his hand on the back of Clare's chair.

'Yes, and you who know him, of course know how well he deserves all our good opinions.' She glanced almost imperceptibly at Clare. Petrovitch noted the glance, and he fancied that Clare noted it too, and that it called up a faint blush into her face. But Mrs Quaid's drawing-room was discreetly lighted, and perhaps he was mistaken.

'I should never forgive myself,' the good lady went on, 'if I missed this beautiful opportunity of performing such a delightful task—bringing two such distinguished fellow-workers together. We must fix an early evening for you both to dine here. It will be charming.'

Petrovitch bowed.

As Hirsch and Petrovitch went away together, the Austrian said,—

'So, the lady who is always charmed will charm herself with making you meet him, bon grè, mal grè.'

'I will meet him,' the other answered, 'and that shortly. But not in that house.'

'Good,' grunted Hirsch; and the two men fell to smoking silently.

ALL A MISTAKE

IT took Richard Ferrier just three months to decide what course his future life should take. He was too old for the Army or Civil Service. The Church was equally out of the question, for a reason equally potent. Need we say that his first idea had been to earn his living by literature? In these days of extended education and cheap stationery, it always is the very first idea of any one whose ordinary source of income is suddenly cut short. Richard had always felt at college that he had a decided faculty for writing; but an uninterrupted stream of returned MS., 'declined, with thanks' by all sorts and conditions of editors, convinced him in less than three months that, if writing indeed were his vocation, it was one that he must forego until he could pay for the publishing of his own works, which was not exactly the view he had in wishing to adopt it.

He had no interest in the law, and he knew well enough that he had not talent to enable him to dispense with interest. Besides, his leanings had never been that way. The medical profession inspired him with far more interest. His favourite study had always been biology. He had enough money to live on sparingly till the necessary four years should have expired, and it seemed to him better to adopt a profession than to go [244] in for trade in any form or shape. He had had enough of trade. He made a round of visits among special chums of his own, and during the time so occupied had thought long and seriously about his future, and, of all the ideas that came to him, that of being a doctor was the one with most attractions and fewest drawbacks. So early in March he entered himself as a student at Guy's, determined to throw himself heart and soul into his new career, and to let the dead past be. No return to the conditions of that past seemed possible to him, and, though he determined to think of it as little as he could, there were some things about it that haunted him disturbingly. But he hoped, among new friends and with new ambitions, to forget successfully. A man has his life to live, and life is not over at twenty-five, even when one has lost father, fortune, and heart's desire.

One windy, wild, bright March morning he was walking up to the hospital as usual from his lodgings in Kennington. He looked as cheerful as the morning itself as he strode along with an oak stick in his hand, and under his arm two or three shiny black note-books with red edges. Opposite St Thomas's Street he paused to watch for a favourable moment in which to effect a crossing; and before he had time to plunge into the chaos of vans, omnibuses, cabs, carriages, trucks, barrows and blasphemy, the touch of a hand on his arm made him turn sharply round. It was his foster-mother, with a basket on her arm, her attire several shades shabbier than he had been used to see it, and her worn face lighted up with pleasure at meeting him.

'Eh, but Ah'm glad to see thi face, my lad,' she said earnestly, as he turned and shook her hand heartily. 'I thowt as there was na more nor two pair o' shoulders like these, and I know'd it was thee or Rowley the minute Ah seed thee.'

The familiar North-country sing-song accent sent a momentary pain through the young man's heart as he answered,—

'I'm awfully glad to see you again; but what in the name of fortune are you doing here?'

'There's na fortune in't but bad fortune, lad,' she answered; 'tha know'd well enough when thee and Rowley fell out as Thornsett wouldn't be a home for any o' us for long.'

There was no reproach in her tone. Her speech was only a plain statement of fact.

'But what made you come to London?'

'T' master thowt as there'd be a big lot o' work to be gotten here, seeing as London be such a big place. Oh, but it is big, Master Dick. Ah'm getting a bit used to it now, but when first we came here the bigness and the din of it used to get into my head like, till times Ah felt a'most daft wi' it.'

By this time he had piloted her across, and they were walking side by side towards London Bridge, whither she told him she was bound.

'I'm afraid Hatfield found himself mistaken about the work; there are no mills in London,' said Richard.

'No, or if there be we never found them; but the master's had a bit o' luck, and he's getten took on at a place they call Dartford; m'appen you've heerd on it?'

'Well, I am glad to hear that. I hope all the hands have done as well.'

'No one's gladder nor me. Ah can't say for the lump o' the hands; but him, ever since he heerd as t' mill was to stop, he's not been t' say the same man as wor so fond of you and Rowley, and as used to go to chapel regular, and was allus the best o' husbands.'

'I hope he's not unkind to you?' said the young man anxiously.

'Nay; he's steady enow, and kind enow, but he's changed like. He willn't go to chapel no more, an' he says as he don't believe as our trouble's t' visitings o' a kind Providence.'

No more did Richard, but he forbore to say so; and she went on, the pent-up anxiety and sorrow of the last few weeks finding vent at last,—

'An' he's bitter set against Rowley. I wonder by hours and hours whether there's summat atween 'em as I don't know of. Sithee, Dick, if tha'll tell me one thing it'll do no harm nor no good to no one but me, and it'll set my mind at rest. Was there owt i' what folks set down i' Thornsett? Was it Rowley as stole our Alice?'

This point-blank question caught the young man right off his guard. His face gave the answer; his lips only stammered, 'How should I know? Besides, it can do no one any good now to know that.'

'Thi eyes is honester nor thi tongue,' Mrs Hatfield said, with a face full of trouble. 'Make thi tongue speak truth as well, lad, and tell me what tha knows. Tell me wheer shoo is.'

'If I had known you would have known too, long ago,' Richard answered.

'But tha hasn't told me a' tha knows e'en as 'tis.'

'I don't know anything,' Richard was beginning, when Mrs Hatfield clasped both her hands on his arm.

'Dick, Dick,' she said, 'tha's heerd o' her or tha's seen her. I've allus had a mother's heart for tha as well as for her, and now it's as if one o' my childer wouldn't help me to find t'other. What has tha heard? I see i' thi face 'twas Rowley. Eh, but I never thought the boy I nursed would ha' turned on them as loved him i' this fashion.'

The tears followed the words, which were not whispered, and the passers-by turned their heads wonderingly to look at the middle-aged countrywoman, with the basket, who was looking so earnestly and entreatingly into the face of the tall young medical student.

'Come in here,' he said, and led her into the waiting-room [247] of the London Bridge Station, which was fortunately empty. She sat down and began to cry bitterly, while Richard stood helplessly looking at her.

'Don't cry,' he said; but she took no notice, and went on moaning to herself.

'Couldn't tha ha' stopped it?' she said, suddenly raising her tear-stained face. 'Tha couldst surely ha' stood i' the way o' such a sinful, cruel thing as that.'

'Good God, no!' cried Dick, losing control of his tongue at the sudden implication of himself in these charges; 'what could I do? I knew nothing of it till last October, and then I did the best I could.'

'And tha found out for sure. Tell me a' abaat it.'

'I'm not sure enough to tell any one anything,' he answered: 'but I was sure enough to throw away all my chances, because I felt I couldn't have anything more to do with a fellow who'd do such a beastly mean thing as that.'

He had no idea that he was not speaking the truth. He had by this time really convinced himself that he had been prompted in his quarrel by the highest moral considerations, and had taught himself to forget how other motives and influences had been at work, and how he had been forced to acknowledge this at the time.

'How did tha find it out?' Mrs Hatfield persisted: and Richard in desperation told her the whole story. It seemed to her as convincing as it had done to him.

The mother asked him innumerable questions about Alice—how had she looked, how had she spoken? It grieved him not to be able to give her pleasanter answers, but, rather to his surprise, her mind seemed to dwell less with sorrow on Alice's want and hard work, than with pleasure on the thought that her daughter had given up her lover, or, as she called it, returned to the narrow path. But why had she not returned to her [248] mother? And that question Dick could not answer. All these questions and replies had taken some time, and the Dartford train had gone. Dick found out the time of the next train, and then came and sat down beside her, and did his best to cheer her, in which attempt his real affection for her assured him a measure of success. By the time the Dartford train was due she was calm again and reasonably cheerful. He led her to tell him of their life since they had come to London; how nearly everything had been turned into money; how the basket on her arm contained all that she had been able to keep; and how she was going down to join her husband, and to try to take root with him in a fresh soil. From her he heard for the first time of Count Litvinoff's visit to Thornsett, of the rioting of the mill hands, and, though she did not say so in so many words, he could see that she placed the two events in the relation of cause and effect. She told him, too, of Litvinoff's bravery, and of the fate of the luckless Isaac Potts; and Dick, though he couldn't help feeling interest and admiration at this recital, did not like the way in which Miss Stanley's name and Litvinoff's were coupled in Mrs Hatfield's account of the help, advice, and kindness shown to the hands before they dispersed from Thornsett. Her words suggested to him vague suspicions; but he couldn't think much just then, for it was time to take Mrs Hatfield's ticket and to see her off. This he did, and when he had seen her comfortably seated in a corner of a second-class carriage, he said good-bye to her, giving her at parting a very hearty hand-shake, and a sovereign, which he could ill afford.

'Good-bye, dear,' he said; 'you must write and tell me how you get on. Here's my address, and I hope with all my heart you will have good fortune.'

He drew back from the train as it began to move, and waved a farewell. She in turn waved her damp cotton handkerchief, and was borne out of sight.

As she disappeared Dick began to wonder what he should do with himself. The lecture he had been about to attend was hopelessly lost and there was nothing particular to be done till after lunch. Obedient to what would have been the instinct of most young men under such circumstances, his first thought was to take a ticket to Charing Cross, that being a more cheerful place for the consideration of any problem than the station where he found himself. In common with every other traveller on the South-Eastern Railway, he had long since arrived at the conclusion that London Bridge was the most unreasonably comfortless and altogether objectionable station in England—which is saying a good deal. He was just turning to go down to the booking office when—

'Great heavens, how wonderful!' he said. As he turned he found himself face to face with the girl whose mother had just left him. She was close to him, and had instinctively held out her hand, which he had clasped in greeting before he noticed that she was not alone. Her companion was evidently a gentleman. Her dress was much better than had been that of the girl for whom he had carried the brown-paper parcel five months ago. Richard noticed this with a pang of uneasiness as he said,—

'Why, Alice, I am very glad to see you; you're looking much better. Where are you off to? What are you doing?'

'Oh, dear, I'm so sorry, Mr Richard; I'm just going by this train to stay at Chislehurst with some friends of this gentleman's. Mr Petrovitch, Mr Ferrier.'

The men bowed—Petrovitch with easy courtesy, and Ferrier with a frigid reserve which would only allow him to raise his hat about an eighth of an inch—and as they did so the train steamed in.

'You must not miss this train,' said Petrovitch; 'there is not another for so long a time.'

'Good-bye, Mr Richard,' she said. 'When you see father or mother, tell them I'm well and happier, and have good friends.'

Ferrier had it on the tip of his tongue to tell her how he had just seen her mother, but Petrovitch, with an air of authority, cut short their farewells by hurrying her into the train.

'Good-bye,' said Richard, rather at a loss in this unexpected and bewilderingly brief meeting; 'couldn't you write to me? I'm at Guy's—Guy's Hospital, you know.'

'Stand back, sir,' said the guard, slamming the door with one hand and putting his whistle to his lips with the other, as the train gave a lurch and began to move off.

'Bon voyage, Mrs Litvinoff,' said Petrovitch, bringing a startled look and a vivid blush into Alice's face, and giving Richard the biggest surprise of his life. His blank astonishment was too evident for Petrovitch to ignore it. He looked at Richard inquiringly.

'Er—er, I beg your pardon,' stammered Ferrier, as soon as he could find words. 'You called that—a—lady Mrs Litvinoff?'

'I did, sir,' answered the other, with a rather angry flash of his deep-set eyes. 'I might have called her Countess Litvinoff, if you attach any importance to titles.'

'Good God!' said Richard, very slowly. He sat down on the wooden seat without another word.

'I wish you good-morning, sir,' said Petrovitch, making for the incline which leads off the platform.

Before he had made three paces young Ferrier had pulled himself together, and had overtaken him and laid a hand on his arm.

'Forgive me, sir—I am afraid you think me very strange and unmannerly—but I have a deeper interest in this matter than you can possibly imagine. I must beg you to allow me a few moments for explanation.'

'Certainly, sir; I shall be happy to walk your way,' answered the Russian, less stiffly.

No more was said till they got outside the station. It was not easy for Richard to know how to begin. He did not know how much this man knew of Alice, and he felt it would be unfair to tell her story, as far as he knew it, to one who seemed to know her only as a married woman. But, on the other hand, how much did he himself know of her story? He walked along beside Petrovitch for at least ten minutes before he could make up his mind how to begin. At length the other half-stopped and looked at him in a way that compelled speech of some kind.

'The reason I was so surprised when I heard you call that—lady Mrs Litvinoff, was that I have known her from a child, and did not know that she was married. I—I—also knew a Count Litvinoff in London a few months ago, and certainly did not know that he was married. The connection of the two names startled me. I must also tell you that it did more than startle me; it relieved me.'

'You are, then, very much interested in my friend?' said Petrovitch.

'Well,' said Richard, finding it desperately hard to break through his English reserve, and yet feeling that he could not in common fairness expect to get any information from one who called himself a 'friend' of Alice's without showing good reasons for asking for such information. 'Well, I am interested, very much interested, but not quite in the way that men generally are when they talk about being interested in a woman. Look here,' he said, stopping, and finding his powers of diplomacy absolutely failing him, falling back on the naked truth, 'that young woman has been the cause—the innocent cause, mind—of a complete separation between my brother and myself. I thought my brother had done her a great [252] wrong. Can you tell me whether he did or not? His name is Roland Ferrier.'

'So far as I know Mrs Litvinoff's story,' said Petrovitch, speaking very deliberately, 'no wrong of any sort has ever been done her by any one of that name.'

'Ay, but,' said Richard, 'so far as you know; but do you know all? Do you know with whom she did go when she left her home?'

'I do.'

'It was not my brother?'

'It was not your brother.'

Richard had just said that he felt greatly relieved. If that statement was true, his looks certainly belied him.

'One question more,' he said. 'I want to know exactly how far wrong I have been. Do you know if my brother has had any communication at all with her since she left her home?—did he know where she was?'

'I believe that he has had no communication with her, and that he did not know where she was.'

'Can you tell me who this Litvinoff is, then? Is he the Count Michael Litvinoff that I know, or knew? If so, did he marry, and when did he marry her? and why did she leave him?—for she did leave some man; she told me so.'

'Ah,' said Petrovitch, 'you said one more question; that question I answered because I thought you were really concerned in knowing the answer. Forgive me, these other matters I think do not concern you.'

'Well,' Richard answered, 'I knew that girl when she was a baby, and I've always been fond of her, and I should naturally be glad to hear anything about her. I am glad to see her looking so much better, and better cared for than when I met her last.'

Petrovitch bent his head silently.

They had stopped by this time just opposite the Borough Market.

'I am sorry you will not tell me more about her; but since you have told me that my brother has not injured her in any way, I don't know that I have any right to ask you more. I must thank you for telling me what you have done, and ask you to excuse my seeming curiosity.'

Petrovitch bowed; young Ferrier did the same, and they parted—Petrovitch turned across the bridge, while Richard retraced his steps towards the station. He made his way to the telegraph office, and sent off this message:—'Richard Ferrier, Guy's Hospital, London, to Gates, The Hollies, Firth Vale.—Please wire me my brother's address at once if you know it.'

Then he crossed the station-yard, and ran down the steep stone steps which are part of the shortest cut to the hospital, and as he went he felt more wretched than he had ever been before. He had always believed in himself so intensely that an actual injury would have been less hard to bear than this sudden shattering of his faith in his own judgment. He had been so utterly mistaken—so wrong all round. Everything had seemed to point to his brother's guilt. Now everything seemed to have pointed to his innocence. If Richard's eyes had not been so blinded by—what? It was a moment for seeing things clearly, and Richard saw that his own passion and jealousy had perverted his view of all that had taken place in the autumn. That meeting in Spray's Buildings—of course it was the likeliest thing in the world that Roland really had seen Litvinoff, and at the thought of that sympathetic nobleman the young man ground his teeth. How completely he had been fooled! It must be the same Litvinoff—for had not Alice been present at his lecture in Soho? How had Alice met such a man? Oh, that might have happened in a [254] thousand ways. Had Litvinoff really married her? Richard thought he had not. He remembered Litvinoff's moustache, and felt sure that he had not. Felt sure? How could he feel sure of anything, when here, where he had been so absolutely certain, he was proved to have been wrong?

What fearful blunders he had made—what a horrible muddle he had got everything into—what irretrievable mischief he had done! But, though he blamed himself deeply and bitterly, he still, not unnaturally, blamed Litvinoff with still more bitter earnestness. One thing only was clear to him. He must find Roland at once, tell him all the circumstances, and beg his pardon. It would be all right again between him and his brother, towards whom he now felt a rush of reactionary affection. But how about the mill hands, now scattered far and wide beyond recall—beyond the reach of his help—through this same mad folly of his? In an impulse to do something for at least one of those who had suffered through him, he turned off from the hospital and took a hansom to his rooms, where he unlocked his desk, and, taking a five-pound note from his slender stock of money, enclosed it in an envelope, which he addressed to Mrs Hatfield at the address she had given him, in a hand not his own. He would do more for them when he and his brother had begun to work the mill again. That would be one big result of his new knowledge. His medical studies would be at an end, and he would be once more Ferrier of Thornsett. But that was poor compensation for all the rest.

When Mr Gates' answering telegram came it was a wet blanket on Richard's longing to make his confession and talk things over with Roland—for it ran thus:—'Robert Gates, The Hollies, Firth Vale, to Richard Ferrier, Guy's Hospital.—Don't know his address—he is expected here in a few days. Has left Chelsea, and is making visits on his way here. Glad you want him. Letter follows.'

So he could not see Roland that day, after all, and there was nothing for it but to possess his soul in patience until he heard again from Gates. So he spent the evening with some congenial acquaintances who had diggings in Trinity Square, and managed to get through the night without being driven to distraction by his remorseful self-tormenting thoughts. But the next morning he remembered, with a start, for the first time, that, not content with believing his brother to be guilty of a disgraceful action, he had accused him of it to Clare Stanley, and, worse than that, to Alice's own mother. He felt he could never face Clare again after that, come what might. But the Hatfields? At least it would be only fair to make what reparation he could by undeceiving them. He would go down to Dartford that very day, and tell them how mistaken he had been. He went by the same train which had carried Mrs Hatfield thither on the preceding day.

Arrived at Dartford the Dismal, Richard betook himself to the address that had been given him, which, after some difficulty, he found to be one of a row of small, ill-favoured, squalid cottages a little way out of the town. There were a good many children about, who stared at him with open-eyed curiosity, and did dreadful things to their mouths with their grimy little fingers in the excitement of seeing a gentleman stop at No. 5 Earl's Terrace. The battered, blistered green door had no knocker. The handle of Richard's umbrella afforded an impromptu one, and, in answer to the spirited solo which he proceeded to execute with it, the door was opened, and by his foster-mother herself.

She looked very pale and worried, and had evidently been crying. She didn't seem surprised to see him; she was in that state of mind when nothing seems worth being surprised about.

'Come in, lad,' she said. 'Ah got thi kind token. Ah [256] know'd 'twas thee as sent it, and m'appen Ah'll need it more nor tha thowt when tha sent it, for t' maister's giv' up his work an' gone off.'

She had set a chair for him, and as she finished this speech she sat down herself and looked hopelessly at him.

'Gone—gone! Left you! Why, he must be out of his mind.'

'His mind's right enough; it's his soul as Ah'm feared about, Dick. He's gone to have it out wi' Rowley, and get at the rights of it.'

'But where is Roland? Where's he gone to?'

'He's gone to Thornsett.'

'Why, Roland isn't there.'

'Thank God! God be praised, if it'll on'y please His good providence to keep 'em fra meetin'!'

'But how came he to go? How did it happen? Tell me all about it?'

It seemed that when her husband had met her at Dartford Station, she, pleased with having met Richard, had told him of the rencontre. That he had closely questioned her, and when at last he had learned every word that had passed between them, he had turned suddenly on her, and told her that this was the first time he had ever even thought of such a thing being possible as that Roland had been the cause of Alice's ruin, and that now he did know he would not lose a day in facing him with the accusation.

'Do you mean to say,' said Richard, 'that it's through me he thinks that Roland took her away?'

'I don't say it was thy fault, lad. I'm more to blame than thee. I should a-kept my clattering tongue quiet, and I should a-known my own man better after a' these years nor to think that if he had a-thowt it was Rowley he wouldna ha' faced him wi' it long sin'.'

'This is devilish pleasant!' said Richard, rising and taking a stride across the little room; but how did he go?'

It appeared he had started off with but a pound, or little more, in his pocket, intending to walk the greater part of the way, and only telling her that she wouldn't hear of him until she saw him back again.

'And what do you think will happen when they do meet?' he asked.

'Oh, Ah'm feared to think!' she said, wringing her hands and beginning to weep.

'I'll tell you what I'll do,' said Richard. 'I'll go straight down to Thornsett now, and keep a look-out for Hatfield. I'll stop any more mischief, any way. I think I can promise you that nothing much will happen if they do meet.'

She caught hold of his hand, and began to thank him.

'Oh, don't thank me!' he said; 'the whole sad business has been my fault from beginning to end. I found out yesterday, almost directly I left you, that Rowley was as innocent of doing any harm to Alice as I am, and I found out, too, that she is well and pretty happy, and, I heard, married. If it hadn't been for me, Hatfield wouldn't have gone off on this wild-goose chase. But I must get back now; my train goes in twenty minutes, and I want to catch the three o'clock train for Firth Vale.'

He caught the three o'clock train to Firth Vale, having managed, by a very hurried farewell, to escape the torrent of questions Mrs Hatfield would have liked to pour out. He felt that, all things considered, the less he said about the matter the better. He had been wrong too often, and too much.

MAKING IT UP

THERE was rejoicing in the house of Robert Gates, as over a prodigal returned, when Richard Ferrier avowed that he had been mistaken all through in his quarrel with his brother, and that he was now only anxious to acknowledge his error, and to do his best to set things going again on the old footing. But he had some days to wait before he could make his confession.

Thornsett Edge had remained unoccupied, for there was some difficulty in letting a furnished house near a deserted village. People did not seem to care about the vicinity of all those empty shells of homes. So Roland had decided to occupy it again, and he was coming down there to get things ready for his aunt's reception, and was making a few visits to old friends on his way. He had written down to the old couple in charge to have the place ready, as he might come down any day.

Two days passed and he had not come, and Richard was getting tired of the constant inquiries and congratulations which assailed him at The Hollies. He thought he would go home, and be there to welcome Roland when he arrived. So he sent over his portmanteau, and took up his quarters in his old room at Thornsett Edge. He was in a very tender and remorseful frame of mind in those days. He wandered all [259] over the old house, full filled of memories of the time when he and his brother played together there as children; of the time when, later, they thrashed each other as schoolboys, with right good will. There were haunting thoughts of the dissension that had grown up between them, and of the shadow that the knowledge of it had cast upon their father's deathbed. The necessity which he felt himself to be under of keeping a sharp look-out for John Hatfield, fortunately served as a kind of antidote to the rush of memories and associations which came over Richard, now that he was once again in his home.

He walked down to the village to seek out the few 'hands' who had clung like rooks to their old haunts, and there he saw sad sights and heard sad stories enough to have driven him mad had he not known that it would soon be in his power to set things in some degree right again. He resolved, and felt sure of Roland's co-operation in his scheme, to seek out as many of the old 'hands' as could be got word of, and to give each of them enough to get a home together again.

Of course he thought often of Miss Stanley; but the past months of unusual action and changed surroundings had altered his feeling for her, which was fortunate for him, since he had falsely accused his own brother to her—a meanness which he knew it to be quite impossible for such a woman as Clare ever to forget or forgive. He thought of her now without any of the old passion, as he might have thought of one who had died long before, or of one whom he had loved in some other life.

This did not prevent him from feeling furiously jealous of Litvinoff, to whom he seemed to have transferred all the anger that had burned in him against his brother, intensified by a galling consciousness of the complete success which Litvinoff had achieved in his attempt to deceive and mislead him. There should be a reckoning for that, Richard thought. He [260] felt glad he had always mistrusted the man. It showed that his judgment was worth something sometimes, and this pleased his self-love.

On the third day came a telegram from Matlock, which said that Roland would be at home that evening. Richard roamed about the house in restless impatience all day. How should they meet? He should not dare to go to the door to greet his brother lest he should imagine that it was a renewal of hostilities, not a welcome home, that was intended. Richard had no eye for dramatic effects, nor any leaning thereto, but he charged the old people to say nothing of his presence, and to leave him to announce himself to his brother when he should think well.

His brother would have done exactly the same thing from absolutely opposite motives.

So when Roland walked up to his home in the teeth of the wild March wind the only welcome that met him was that of the old woman in charge, and this seemed to him to be so inconsequently effusive, and the good lady herself seemed so unreasonably radiant, that he was quite flattered. It was pleasant to him to be appreciated and admired, even by a 'person in charge.'

'The fire's i' the dining-room, Mr Roland,' she said; 'an' I'll dish ye up the supper in less nor half a minute, sir. It's a glad day for Thornsett as sees yer back agen.'

Mrs Brock's son had worked in the mill—a fact which made the anticipated reconciliation peculiarly interesting to her.

Richard from his ambush in his own room heard the greeting, heard the well-known voice giving orders about rugs and hat-boxes in the well-known tones. Then he heard doors open and close. After a while a savoury smell from the hot supper that was being carried in rose to his altitude. The [261] dining-room door was opened, and shut several times. At last it was closed with a more decided touch, and in the noise of its closing was a settled sound as of a door that did not mean to open again just yet. Richard knew that the supper had been cleared away, and that Roland was most likely assisting digestion with tobacco and grog. This would be the time, he decided, to put in an appearance and to get through his proposed reconciliation. He went softly downstairs, and paused a moment with his hand on the dining-room door. The house was very still. As he stood there he heard a cinder fall from the fire in the dining-room, and the great hall clock at the foot of the stairs ticked louder than usual, as it seemed. He turned the handle and went in. Roland was sitting in the big arm-chair by the fire where their father had been used to sit. As the door opened he looked up with a sort of displeased curiosity to see who it was that had the assurance to enter unannounced. When he saw who it was he gave a start, and the expression of his face changed to something deeper and sterner.

He got up.

'I understood from Gates,' he said, 'that you renounced all claim to be in this house so long as half the possible rent was paid you. I mean to pay you your half. May I ask, then, what you want here?'

'I want to beg your pardon,' began Richard, his hand still on the lock—when his brother interrupted him with,—

'Hadn't you better close the door? I suppose you don't want all the world to hear anything you may have to say.'

His tone was so icily cold that the other found it hard to go on as he had intended. He did his best, however.

'I am very sorry for all that happened in the autumn. I was quite deceived and misled, and I beg your pardon. I can't say more, and I hope you'll let bygones be bygones.'

He held out his hand. At this point in the scene Dick had fancied that his brother would clasp his hand with reciprocating affection, and all would be forgiven and forgotten. But the other actor evidently intended a different 'reading' of the part assigned him. He made no movement to meet the outstretched hand. On the contrary, he put his hands in his pockets with a too expressive gesture, and was silent.

'Come, Roland,' said Dick, who, knowing himself to have been in the wrong, displayed a patience which surprised himself; 'make it up, old man.'

'I am not sure,' said the other slowly, 'that I care to make it up, as you call it. No "making-up" can alter all that has gone wrong through your foolishness. I've gone through the worst of the trouble now, and, to tell you the truth, I'm not inclined to lay myself open to any more experiences of this kind. You might be "deceived and misled" again.'

Richard, who had remained standing, gave the slightest possible stamp of impatience, which his brother did not observe.

'And as for the money,' he went on, 'I dare say I can do as well without it as with it.'

'Look here,' said Dick, his face flushing hotly; 'if you suppose I care a straw about the dirty money, you're mistaken; only one of us can't have any without the other now. Come, Roland, be friends, if it's only for the old dad's sake.'

Roland seemed to have what the children call the 'black dog on his shoulder,' but this appeal was not lost. He made an effort to overcome the resentment and bitterness that filled him, and after a moment held out his hand, saying,—

'Very well, I'll shake hands. I suppose we shall manage to scrape along together as well as a good many brothers.'

And this was the reconciliation that Richard had had his heart full of for the last three or four days. It was piteously unlike his dreams of it.

When they had shaken hands, Dick sat down. There was a silence—a very awkward silence. Roland passed the whisky along the table, and the other mechanically helped himself.

'I think,' Roland said presently, 'that you owe me an explanation of all this.'

'Of course I do,' assented Richard eagerly; 'but you are so—well, unapproachable; but I'll tell you every word about it,' which he did, omitting no particulars which bore on the case.

'So he called her Mrs Litvinoff, did he?' was Roland's comment on the Petrovitch-Ferrier episode at London Bridge. 'I should think she had just taken the name by chance, but for one thing.'

'And that is?'

'You say she lived in that house I saw Litvinoff go into the day we split. It must have been Litvinoff, and he must have been going to her; but it's very strange how he ever knew her. And was this really all the ground you had for doing what you did?' There was contempt in his tone.

'No,' said Richard. 'You went away on a "mysterious holiday" just when she disappeared, and that set all the village tongues wagging, and first made me wonder and suspect. Now I know I was wrong; but if you don't mind, Roland, I wish you'd tell me why you went just then. I've told you everything.'

'The whole thing is over and done with now,' he answered; 'and after to-night I don't want to ever speak about it; but I will tell you if you like. I went away because I saw you were beginning to care for Clare Stanley, and I was beginning to care too, and I thought that if I went away I could pull through it, and that you would make the running and be happy with her, but I found I couldn't do it, and I came back and did my best to cut you out, as you did by me.'

'Oh, Roland, what a good fellow you were to think of such a thing!' said Dick, to whom a generous action like this, even [264] though only attempted, could not fail to appeal most strongly. 'But how is it now?' he went on, stung by a host of conflicting feelings. 'Have you made the running? Have you won her?'

'No!' he answered bitterly. 'The closing of the mill settled that for me as well as for you. Some one else has had as good a chance as ours, though, and has made a better use of it. Count Litvinoff is a constant visitor at the house where she is, and I don't doubt she will marry him; unless, indeed, he is married already. I think we ought to try and find that out.'

'Married or not, he is a damned scoundrel!' cried Richard; 'and he shall not marry her. She would never look at me again, I know; but I hope you may win her yet, Roland.'

'My chance is gone for ever. I wish I'd never had that Litvinoff down here. But who could have foreseen this?'

'We've both been fools.'

Roland did not seem to relish this broad statement.

'I can't think how,' he was beginning, when Mrs Brock came in with coals, and almost purred with pleasure at seeing the two amicably drinking their whisky at the same hearth. When she had left the room Richard rose.

'Look here, old man,' he said; 'I'm as sorry as a fellow can be about all this, and I can't think how I could have been such a fool. That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? But since we're agreed on that, don't let's say any more about it. Forgive and forget, and I hope you will be happy yet—with Miss Stanley. Let's agree to let this subject alone for a bit. I think I'll have a run round the garden before I turn in. Good-night.'

'Good-night,' Roland answered, but in a manner whose evident effort after cordiality made the failure of that effort the more painful. 'I shall go to bed; I'm dead beat—been knocking about all day.' Then they shook hands again, and Richard went out.

He had thought that Roland would have met his apologies with ready acceptance—his revived brotherly love with equal enthusiasm—and the nature of the reconciliation jarred upon him. And yet, as he told himself, he thoroughly deserved it all. No doubt time would soften his brother's sense of injury, and some day they might be as good friends again as they had been before Clare Stanley's prettiness had come, like a will-o'-the-wisp, to lead them into all sorts of follies. He tried to think he would be glad if she married Roland. Anything, he thought, rather than that she should marry Litvinoff. He passed the limits of the garden and strolled down the road, deep in thought. It was only when he had nearly reached the mill that he remembered with a start that he had told his brother nothing about John Hatfield and his revengeful projects. However, Roland could come to no harm now—he was probably safe in bed—and he could tell him in the morning. So he strolled on, smoking reflectively, and with a heart not light.

VENGEANCE ASTRAY

JOHN HATFIELD had left Dartford, his wife, and his work, driven by an impulse as vague as it was irresistible. He did not know what he meant to do; his one idea was that he must face his daughter's betrayer, and tax him with his crime. He did not very much care what came after. But the long tramp through England, broken though it was by many a lift from good-natured waggoners, had given him time for thinking. Reflection did not soften his resentment. On the contrary, the more he thought, the harder his heart felt, and each new hour of solitary musing left him more bitter, more vindictive, more angered than he had been the hour before. His wife's story convicted him of the one fault from which he had always believed himself to be free—blind stupidity. The loss of his daughter had never been out of his mind for half an hour at a time since she had gone away, and he had thought and thought, till his brain had seemed to spin round, over every least detail of her flight, and of the time just before it, in the hope of finding out who was her betrayer. And yet in all his thinking he had never come anywhere near the truth. Other people had, though; he knew that, as he remembered hints he had sneered at from some of the least brilliant of the hands—fools he had often called them. Yet, fools as they were, they had been able to see more clearly than he, the father, whose [267] brain sharpest love and sorrow ought surely to have had power to quicken.

Added to all this, the thought that he had gone on working for, taking the money of, and, to a certain extent, living in a condition of dependence on, the man who had wronged him, and then had turned him out on to the world, stung his spirit almost to madness.

The spring woke early that year, and the weather was bright and glad, the air clear and sweet and joyous with a thousand bird-voices. The Midland woods and hedges that he passed were beginning to deck themselves in the fresh greenness of their new spring garments. Their beauty brought no peace to him. He but noticed them to curse their monotony and apparent endlessness. The only things he did notice with anything like satisfaction were the milestones and fingerposts, which told him that so much more ground had been got over. He put up at night at the cheapest and poorest-looking inns he could find. They were good enough to lie awake in, for his feverish longing and impatience to reach his end almost consumed him and made sleep an impossibility. Eager as he was to get on, he had self-restraint enough to spend none of his store of money—such a little store as it was—on travelling. Roland Ferrier might not be at Thornsett after all, and he might have to follow him, or mayhap return to Dartford and bide his time; and so, though his progress was straight and steady it was slow, and he did not reach Thornsett until the night that had witnessed the explanations between the brothers.

He had done more than twenty-five miles that day, and he was footsore and tired out when, as night was falling, he reached the top of the hill at whose foot lay the village which had been his home for thirty years. All along he had been determined to make straight for Thornsett Edge, and to confront Roland at once. He felt that the young man might be surprised into [268] more admissions than he would choose to make if he were prepared. But physical fatigue is wonderfully effective in upsetting mental decision. Hatfield felt that neither in body nor in mind was he fit to go through at once with the part he had chosen. He must rest—sleep, if possible. He threw himself down on the heather by the pathside, and leaned his head on his arm, while he debated what to do. Nature decided for him, and he fell asleep.

When he woke, a young moon was shining coldly down upon him. He felt stiff, and not rested. The heather was wet with night-dew. How late was it? He thought by the moon about eight o'clock.

He would go down to the village and see who was left in the old place; perhaps he might get a lodging there. The Spotted Cow was closed, he had heard. He limped down the steep stony street. There were no lights to be seen. As he reached the house that had been his, he saw that it was empty, and a longing came over him to get inside it. Why not sleep there? So, turning aside, he went up the three stone steps and along the narrow paved pathway that ran under the windows separating the house from the tiny front garden. His hand fell on the latch of the door quite naturally, and it never occurred to him that it would not yield to his touch as it had been wont to do. But it did not yield. He was in that frame of mind when any resistance is intolerable. He drew back and then threw himself against the door with all his weight. It gave way noisily and he went in. He passed round the wooden screen, and stood in the middle of the flagged floor.

To return to a house where we have been happy, even if we have left it for greater happiness, is always sad if not painful; but to go back to a house that seems to hold within its desolate walls, not only all our memories but [269] all our possibilities of happiness—when we have left it in sorrow, to take back to it an added load of new, unexpected, intolerable trouble—this, let us be thankful, is not given to many of us.

John Hatfield could not bear it. He cast one look round at the dark, fireless hearth, the uncurtained window, turned, and came out. Sleep there? He would rather sleep on the bare hillside, or in the churchyard itself, for that matter.

The rush of memories drove him before it. He could not stay in the village. Every other house in it had been a home too, and was crowded with recollections almost as maddening as those that peopled his own home, in which—bitterest thought of all—Roland Ferrier had lisped out childish prattle, and climbed on his knee to share his caresses with baby Alice. And at the remembrance his resolution came back. He would go to Thornsett Edge then and there, let come what might. Weak as he was, he was strong enough to make his tired feet carry him so far, and once there his passion could be trusted to give him strength to say and do all that needed to be said and done. He clenched his nerves, as though the pain of his bruised feet would grow less by being despised, and he walked on. But when he reached the turn in the road that brought the mill in sight his mood altered again, and almost before he knew that his intention had changed he found himself limping painfully down the stone steps into the little hollow. As he caught sight of the door where Litvinoff had stood on the night of the fire he muttered a curse on the man who had stood between the 'hands' and their purpose that night. He felt faint and giddy. The many square windows of the mill seemed to look on him like eyes, and the broken panes in them lent them a sinister expression. The few past months had changed the face of the mill wonderfully. No one had repaired the damage done by the rioters, and the wind and [270] rain had had their will of the place. It looked now, Hatfield thought, as though it had been deserted for years instead of months.

Everything was deadly still. The only sounds were the trickling of the stream as it flowed past, and his own heavy breathing. He was becoming unaccountably sleepy. Why should he not sleep here? He would go on to Thornsett in the morning. He stumbled downward till he reached the wall of the mill. He soon found a window that could be unfastened by passing his hand through one of its broken panes and turning round the primitive hasp. It was rusty, and moved, as it were, reluctantly. Still, it did move, and he opened the window and crept through it. He found himself on the edge of a huge stone tank, or vat. One more forward movement and he would have been plunged in the dark-looking water that half filled it. He shuddered. How could he have been such a fool as to forget the position of that tank? He crept round the edge of it, and reached the stone-paved floor of the basement. There lay a mass of something dark. It was the great stone that had thundered through the roof of the mill just after young Roland Ferrier had given the deputation their answer. Hatfield looked up at the ugly hole in the ceiling, a hole that repeated itself in the two upper floors and the roof, through which he could see the sky. The moon was shining brightly by this time, and the many-windowed building was lighted well enough for the man to find his way about. Had it been dark, he thought he should not have had much difficulty. He went up the stairs, and made his way to a room on the second storey, where he fancied there would be some soft rubbish he could lie down on. He was not disappointed, and, yielding to the utter weariness that had come to him, he lay down, and in a moment slept.

He had not been asleep three minutes when he awoke with [271] a start to find himself sitting up and listening. What had he heard? The click of a door and a footstep. He was widely, nervously, intensely awake now. Had it been fancy, born of the utter desolation and loneliness of the place where he was? He listened strainedly. No. This at least was no fancy. There was a footstep resounding hollowly through the great empty rooms.

Some watcher, perhaps, from whom he ought to keep himself hidden if he did not want to be handed over to the constable as a vagrant. What an ending, that, to his journey! Yes, he must lie quiet, and yet, how could he? Suppose—and at the thought his blood ran coldly through his veins—suppose old Richard Ferrier had got up from under that white stone in Thornsett churchyard, and had come down to keep watch over what his sons had so little regarded. The footsteps came nearer, and Hatfield sprang to his feet and walked not away from, but towards, the sound. The impulse of a naturally brave man when he is frightened is to face the fearsome thing as speedily as may be. Hatfield opened the door. Then he sprang forward, for he saw no ghost, but, as it seemed to him, the object of his search—not old Richard, but young Roland, standing with his back to him. The bright moonlight lighting up the figure left no room in his mind for a doubt. At the sight, all his ideas of asking for explanation vanished in an instant, and left him with no impulse but to catch the young man by the throat and to squeeze the life out of him.

As the other turned at the sound of the opening door he gave a cry of horror at the sight of the wild, haggard figure springing at him—the white, angry, maddened face close to his own.

'Keep back!' he almost screamed, as Hatfield rushed upon him, but even as he spoke the man's hands fastened on his throat, and the two closed in a silent, deadly struggle. They [272] had hardly grasped each other when both remembered the danger that lay behind them—that black gap in the floor—and each tried to edge away from it without loosening his hold. Too late, though. The strain of the strong men wrestling was too much for the splintered boards already rotted through by the rain and snow of the past months. Crash went the flooring beneath their feet, and as the two went through, fast locked in each other's arms, Hatfield, above his adversary, saw, in a flash of intensest horror, that the face below him was not that of Roland, but of Richard.

It was the last thing he ever saw in this world. In another moment he was lying, a dead man, at the bottom of the great tank. Again the stillness of the empty mill was undisturbed, and the only movement in it was that of the heavy-coloured water as it settled down again into stagnation over him.

Roland went to bed that night without troubling himself much about his brother. He had been deeply wronged, and he was a man who, not easily offended, was, when once alienated, implacable. He did not find it easy to forgive. Though he had shaken hands with his brother he had not forgiven him, and he came down to breakfast the next morning quite prepared to keep up his rôle of injured innocence, and to prevent his brother from experiencing much satisfaction in the reconciliation. Richard had always been an early riser, and Roland quite expected to find him in the dining-room waiting, but he was not there. He waited some little time, and then desired Mrs Brock to see if Mr Ferrier was in his room, and it was not till she returned with the intelligence that he was not and that his bed had not been slept in, that Roland began to wonder in anxious earnest where his brother could be.

A very short search showed that he was not in the house or grounds. Could he have gone to the churchyard? No, thought [273] Roland; Dick wasn't that sort of fellow. Perhaps he had gone over to Gates, and had stayed all night. In a very short time Roland was at The Hollies questioning eagerly, and, with an inexplicable feeling of dread and anxiety growing stronger upon him with each moment, he learned that Dick had not been there. He would go down to the village, and Mr Gates volunteered to come with him, though he laughed cheerfully at the idea of there being anything to worry about in Dick's non-appearance. 'He's playing off some trick on you,' he said. 'However, come along, and we'll soon find him.' So they walked together towards the village.

'Hullo,' said Mr Gates, as they passed the mill, 'that door's no business open! Perhaps Dick's up to some games in there.'

The door he pointed at was one opening from the mill on to a flight of stone steps that ran sideways outside the building from the second storey to the ground.

'Whether he's there or not,' the lawyer went on, 'some one has been there, and we'd better see who it is.'

So they went down, and, crossing the courtyard, between whose stones the grass was springing already, ran up the steps and passed through the open door.

The whole place was flooded with the brilliant morning sunlight.

The two made a few steps forward. They saw the hole in the floor, and paused. Then Roland's heart seemed to stand still, for he saw on the board at the edge of the gap a hat, and his brother's silver-headed walking stick, and he knew what had happened. With an exceeding bitter cry he turned from Gates and sprang down an inner staircase, glancing at each floor as he passed it, and on the stones at the bottom he found what he sought—Dick. Or was it Dick? Could this mangled, twisted, bloody mass be his brother? The pitiless [274] light came through the cobwebbed windows, and showed plainly enough that it was Dick, or Dick's body.

'Run for Bailey,' he shouted to Gates, who had followed him; and he went.

Then Roland lifted Richard's head. Was he alive? Yes. At the movement a spasm of agony contracted his face, and his eyes opened. A look of relief came into them when he saw his brother.

'Don't move me, old man,' he whispered; and the other knelt beside him, his arms under the poor head. He could not speak, for he saw that his brother was dying.

After a moment Richard spoke again, very faintly.

'I'm glad you've come.' He could only say a few words at a time, and between the sentences came long pauses, in each of which Roland fancied the last silence had come.

'I wanted you, old fellow. It's nearly over now. It's been like hell lying here. I know he's somewhere near, and I couldn't help him. It was Hatfield, and he mistook me for you. It was through me he believed you had wronged Alice. He was hiding here, and attacked me. We struggled and fell. I'm afraid he's dead. You'll see presently.'

Then came a longer pause than any that had gone before, and still Roland could not speak.

Gates had sent down a man from the cottage above, but when he came Richard made impatient signs, and he went and stood outside.

'You didn't care about making it up, Rowley; but it's all right between us now, isn't it?'

Roland's tears were falling over his brother's face.

'Oh, Dick, Dick, Dick!' He could say nothing else.

'It's hard lines,' Richard said; 'but it's all my own fault. Never mind, old chap. Water!'

Roland called to the labourer, and when the water had been brought Dick seemed to gather his strength together.

'Since I've been lying here, I've wished I could believe I was going to see father again, and I half believe it's possible. I shouldn't care if I was going to the old dad again.'

'Oh, Dick! Can I do nothing for you?'

'No, old chap; only tell her I sent her my love. She has it, and she won't mind now.'

Then he lay silent, with closed eyes. Presently he made a movement. Roland interpreted it, and kissed his face.

'I'm going, old man!' he said. 'Good-bye. Clare! Clare! Clare!' He murmured her name over and over again, more and more faintly.

Roland put the water to his lips again, but it was too late. He had drunk of the Nepenthe of Death.

BACK FROM THE DEAD

THE Clare Stanley who studied Bakounin and quoted Matthew Arnold was a very different girl from the Clare Stanley who had in the autumn entertained the reprehensible idea of bringing to her feet the interesting stranger at Morley's Hotel. In looking back on that time, which she did with hot cheeks and uncomfortable self-condemnation, it really seemed to her that she had changed into another being—development, when it is rapid, being always bewildering. It would be interesting to know with what emotions the rose remembers being a green bud. Pleasanter ones perhaps than those of the woman whose new earnest sense of the intense seriousness of life leads her to look back—not with indulgent eyes—on the follies of her unawakened girlhood. The story of the sleeping beauty is an allegory with a very real meaning. Every woman's mind has its time of slumber, when the creed of the day is truth and the convention of the day is morality. The fairy prince's awakening kiss may come in the pages of a book, in the words of a speaker, through love, through suffering, through sorrow, through a thousand things glad or sad, and to some it never comes, and that is the saddest thing of all. Clare had slept, and now was well awake, and it was no word of Count Litvinoff's that had broken the slumbrous spell.

Sometimes she almost wished it had been, for she could not conceal from herself the fact that she had succeeded in [277] doing what she had desired to do, and that Count Litvinoff was at her feet. The position became him, certainly, but she felt a perverse objection to being placed on a pedestal, and a new conviction that she would rather look up to a lover than down at one. And yet why should she look down on him? He was cleverer than she, with a larger knowledge of life—had done incomparably more for the cause she had espoused. He was brave, handsome, and, to some extent, a martyr, and he loved her, or she thought so, which came to the same thing. Verily, a man with all these qualifications was hardly the sort of lover for a girl under the twenties to look down upon. But could she help looking down on him, for was he not at her feet? And that was not the place, she thought, for a man who had drawn the sword in such a war as she and he had entered upon. What right had a man who had taken up arms in that cause to lay them down, even at her feet? No, no. Her lover, if she had one, must be at her side—not there.

This reaction to the Count's detriment had set in on New Year's Day, when he had told her that he held no cause sacred enough to give her even inconvenience for the sake of it, and the tide was still ebbing. Litvinoff appeared quite unconscious of that fact though, for he continued to call on Mrs Quaid with a persistence which quite justified all Cora's animadversions. Miss Quaid's penetration was at fault, but the Count's was not. He was perfectly conscious of the change in her state of mind, and knew that his chance of being master of the Stanley money-bags was far less than he had thought shortly after their late master's death.

Suspense was the one thing Count Litvinoff could not bear—at least, he could bear it when the balance of probabilities was in his favour; but when the chances did not seem to be on his side—no. He knew perfectly well that it is hardly 'correct' to ask a girl to marry one three months after her [278] father's death; but he was not an enthusiastic devotee of 'correctness.' He habitually posed as a despiser of conventions, and this attitude very often stood him in good stead, even with people who preferred the stereotyped rôles of life for themselves. Avowed unconventionality serves as a splendid excuse for doing all sorts of pleasant things which conventional people daren't do; hence perhaps its growing popularity.

The lines ran in Count Litvinoff's head persistently one spring morning while he sat at his late breakfast. As he despatched his last mouthful of grilled sardine and looked round for the marmalade, the servant came in with a letter.

'It really is time I struck for fortune. I do hope this is not a bill,' he said to himself as he took it. 'I retrench and retrench, and still they come.'

He tore it open. It was not a bill. It ran thus:—

'I shall call upon you between four and five this afternoon; I wish to see you on an important matter.—Petrovitch.'

'The mysterious stranger doesn't waste his words. He's almost as careful of them as the fellow with the dirty collar—Bursch, or Kirsch, or Hirsch, or whatever it was. The best of being mixed up with the revolutionary party is that such beautifully unexpected things are always befalling one. I wonder why he couldn't have waited till to-morrow night. It lends a spice to an important matter to discuss it at forbidden times and in a secret manner at the houses of friends. That's another of our characteristics—to plot when we're supposed to be talking frivol only, and to play cards or go to sleep when we're supposed [279] to be plotting. Wonder what the important matter is. The distressed lady friend again, perhaps. Well, before I commit myself on that matter, I'd better settle things one way or the other with la belle Clare. Upon my soul, I don't much care which way they are settled. If I'm not to shine as the county magnate and the married man at Aspinshaw, by Heaven, I'll find out my own little girl, and go in for virtuous retirement in the Quartier Latin. When I do swallow my principles they go down whole, like oysters; and if Miss Stanley doesn't care to add the title of "countess" to her other endowments, some one will be glad to take that and me, even with nothing a year to keep state upon.'

He pushed his chair back, and sat biting his moustache irresolutely, and frowning heavily at the breakfast-table.

'Yes,' he said at last, rising; 'I'll have a shot for it now, as I've gone so far, and I'll shoot as straight and as steady as I can. As for the other matter—well, Aspinshaw and the fruits thereof would not be a bad drug for inconvenient memories. I wonder if this is one of my good-looking days?' he added, moving towards the looking-glass, and scrutinising his reflection therein. He seemed satisfied, lighted the inevitable cigarette, and half an hour after noon was in Mrs Quaid's library, alone with Clare Stanley.

Mrs Quaid, he had known, would be absent on some educational errand, and Cora would be at the National Gallery. He knew that Miss Stanley was not averse to a quiet morning spent in uninterrupted reading and copying, and he had rightly thought that he should have a very fair chance of finding her alone. The resolution of his, which had faltered before the remembrance of that other face, grew strong again as he saw her, for she looked charming, and it was not in his nature to be indifferent to the charms of any woman, even if she were not the woman.

Miss Stanley had been making notes in a MS. book, and [280] Litvinoff noticed with a feeling not altogether pleasurable that 'The Prophetic Vision' and the 'Ethics of Revolution' both lay open on the writing-table, and that she seemed to have been comparing them one with the other.

'I am afraid you will hate me for interrupting your studies,' he began, apparently ignorant of the direction those studies had been taking, 'but when the servant told me you were alone in the library, I could not resist the temptation of coming in.'

'I don't at all mind being interrupted,' she answered, when he had settled himself down in a chair opposite to her with the air of a man who, having come in, meant to stay. 'I was just looking through two of your books. One of them, indeed, I almost know by heart.'

'And that is?'—carelessly, as one who is sure of the answer—

'"The Prophetic Vision."'

Somehow Count Litvinoff did not look delighted. Perhaps he wanted to talk about something else.

'But, oh,' she went on, 'what a long way off it all seems!'

'Yes, it does; I was an enthusiastic young rebel when I first put on the Prophet's Mantle.' Then, as a faint change in her face showed him that he had made a false move, he hastened to add, 'But it will all happen some day, you know. It is a true vision, but knocking about in the world has taught me that the immediately practicable is the thing to aim for.'

'Oh, no, no, no,' she said. 'Never let us lower our standard. We shall not do less noble work in the present for having the noblest of all goals before us.'

Then she looked at him, at his handsome, insouciant face, at the half-cynical droop of his mouth, at the look in his eyes—the sort of look an old cardinal who knew the Church and the world might turn on an enthusiastic young monk—and she [281] felt a sudden regret for that heart-warm speech of hers. What had she in common with this perfectly-dressed, orchid-button-holed young man? Why should she expect him to understand her? And yet had he not written "The Prophetic Vision"? She went on, smiling a little,—

'You must make allowances for the hopeful faith of a new convert. Perhaps when I've held my new belief a little longer I shall be less en l'air. But I must say I hope not.'

'Your new beliefs make you very happy, then?'

'They make me want very much to live to see what will happen. It would be terrible to die now before anything is accomplished. You see, I can't help believing that we shall accomplish something, although I know you think me very high-flown and absurd.'

'You know I think you perfect,' he said, in a very low voice, and went on hurriedly: 'But, for Heaven's sake, don't talk about dying; the idea is too horrible. Can't you guess why I have seemed not sympathetic with your new religion? I have known what it is to believe strongly, to work unceasingly, never to leave off hoping, and trying to show others my hope. I have known what it is to have no life but the life of the cause; to go through year after year still hoping and striving. I have known all this, and more. I have known the heart-sickness of waiting for a dawn that never comes. I know how one may strain every nerve, tax every power, kill one's body, wear out one's brain, break one's heart against the iron of things as they are, and when all is sacrificed, all is gone, all is suffered, have achieved nothing. It is from this I would save you. That you should suffer is a worse evil than any your suffering could remedy. The cause will have martyrs enough without you.'

'Martyrs, yes; but how can it have too many workers?' she asked, not looking at him.

'To be a worker is to be a martyr,' he answered, rising and standing near her; 'and that is the reason why you are the only convert I have never rejoiced over.'

'I don't know,' she was beginning when he interrupted her.

'Don't say that,' he said. 'Don't say you don't know why I can't endure the thought of your ever knowing anything but peace and happiness. You know it is because I love you, and my love for you has eaten up all my other loves. Freedom, the Revolution, my country, my own ambition, are all nothing to me. But if you care for the cause I can still work in it, and with a thousand times more enthusiasm than it ever inspired me with before, for you. That can be your way of helping it. Use me as your instrument. Make any use you will of me, if only you are safe and happy, and mine.'

His voice was low with the passion which for the moment thrilling through him made him quite believe his own words.

Clare had listened silently, her eyes cast down, and her nervous fingers diligently tearing an envelope into little bits, and when he had ended she still did not speak, but her breath came and went quickly.

'You,' he was beginning again, when she stretched out her hand to silence him.

'No, no,' she said; 'don't say any more—I can't bear it.'

'Does that mean that you care?'

'It means that this seems the most terrible thing that could have happened to me. That it should be through me that you give up the right.'

'But through you, for you, I will become anything you choose.'

'And that is the worst of all,' she said, with very real distress. 'I can ask you to do nothing for my sake.'

'You cannot love me, then?' he asked, as earnestly as though his happiness hung on her answer.

'No,' she said steadily, 'I cannot love you. I am very, very sorry—'

'Spare me your pity, at least,' he said. 'But one thing I must ask. Why did you let me see you again after New Year's Day? For I told you the same thing then, and you knew then that I loved you.'

It was true—but Clare hated him for saying it.

'I have changed so much since then,' she said slowly.

Several things both bitter and true rose to his lips. He did not give them voice, however. He had never in his life said an unkind thing to a woman. It occurred to him that he was accepting his defeat rather easily, and he looked at her to measure the chances for and against the possible success of another appeal. But in her face was a decision against which he knew there could be no appeal. He felt angry with her for refusing him—angry and unreasonably surprised; and then, in one of the flashes of light that made it so hard for him to understand himself, he saw that if she was to blame for refusing his love, he was ten thousand times more to blame for having sought hers, and this truth brought others with it. His real feeling, he knew, was not anger but relief. He made a step forward.

'You are right,' he said. 'I congratulate you on your decision. You were talking of dying just now. You will live long enough to know how much congratulation you merit for having to-day refused to give yourself to a traitor and a villain.'

'A traitor—no, no,' she said, holding out her hand.

'No,' he said, 'I am not worthy. Some day you will know that I ought never to have touched that hand of yours. Good-bye.'

And the door shut behind him, and Clare was left standing in the middle of the room with her eyes widely opened, and [284] her hand still outstretched. She stood there till she heard the front door closed, and then sank into a chair. She didn't want to go on making notes about 'The Prophetic Vision' any more.

The interview had not been a pleasant one, and it was not pleasant to think over. One of the least pleasant things in this world is a granted wish, granted after it has ceased to be wished. And Clare could not forget that she had desired to win this man's admiration, at least. She could not forget that he had saved her father's life—that he had been the first to speak to her of many things once unknown or unconsidered, but now a part of her very life—and she could not forget that when she had first thought of the possibility of his asking her to marry him she had not meant to refuse him. There had been much about him to attract her, and if she had never met Petrovitch she might have given Litvinoff, even now, a different answer. But in Petrovitch she found all the qualities that had fascinated her in Litvinoff, and all on a larger scale, and with a finer development. Litvinoff now seemed to her like a dissolving view of Petrovitch seen through the wrong end of a telescope. He lacked the definiteness of outline, the depth of tone, the intense reality of the other man. Perhaps he seemed more brilliant and dashing; but Hirsch's story had shown what Petrovitch was. Added to all this was one significant fact. She had admired in Litvinoff one quality or another, and had desired to attract him. To Petrovitch she herself had been attracted, not by any specific quality or qualities, but by himself—by the man as he was—and this attraction grew stronger with each meeting.

A fortnight had now passed since the second time she had seen him, and somehow or other she had seen him very often in that time. She knew well enough that neither Litvinoff nor Petrovitch had come to Marlborough Villa to see its mistress. [285] And she had been sufficiently certain about the Count's motives for his visit, but could she be certain about the motive which brought the elder man there so constantly? Of any effort to make him care for her she was not guilty. In her new frame of mind she would have felt any such attempt to be degrading, alike to herself and to him. And though she knew he came to see her, she could not be sure why he came. Was his evident interest in her only the interest of an apostle in a convert? A certain humility had sprung up in her, along with many other flowers of the heart, and she did not admit to herself that there was a chance of his interest being of another nature. Only, she thought, it would be the highest honour in the world and the deepest happiness to be the woman whom he loved. Not the less because she knew well enough that the woman he loved would hold the second place in his heart, and that he would not wish to hold the first place in hers. That, for both of them, must be filled by the goddess whom Litvinoff had once said he worshipped, and whom he had abjured and abandoned for her sake. She thought of this without a single thrill of gratified pride.

Miss Stanley sat silent for half an hour, and in that time got through more thinking than we could record if we wrote steadily for half a year. At the end of that time Miss Quaid came home.

'I hear Count Litvinoff has been here,' she said, when she entered the study. 'What is it to be? Am I to have a Countess Litvinoff for a friend?'

'No,' said Clare, rising and shaking off her reverie; I shall never be anything to Count Litvinoff.'

Which was, perhaps, a too hasty conclusion.

To the reader who has followed the fortunes of Count Litvinoff so far we need hardly mention the fact that as soon [286] as he was clear of Marlborough Villa he pulled out his cigar-case. It had always been a favourite theory of his that a cigar and not a mill-pond was the appropriate sequel to an unsuccessful love affair. Not that it had ever occurred to him as even remotely possible that such an experience could ever be his. Here it was, however, and he had one of those opportunities which always charm the thinker—that of being able to apply to his own case a theory invented for other people. He took a meditative turn round Regent's Park. It is a strange fact which we do not remember to have seen commented on by any other writer—that when a man comes away from an interview with a girl to whom he has been making love he is inevitably driven to think, not of her alone, but also of one, two, three or more of the other girls to whom he has from time to time made love in the remote or recent past. Such is the depravity of the 'natural man' that these thoughts are not generally sad ones. But Litvinoff's thoughts were genuinely sad. He had said to Miss Stanley that he was a traitor and a villain, and it had not been said for dramatic effect. He meant it. He would have given a good many years of any life that might lie before him to undo a few of the years that lay behind.

'I am not consistent enough for a villain,' he said to himself. 'I have failed in that part, and now I will go in for my natural rôle of a fool, and I've a sort of idea that I shall get on better. And the first thing to be done is to find my little one. Fool as I am, I've generally been able to do anything I've really set my mind on. The reason I've failed in my "deep-laid schemes" has been that I didn't always care whether I won or not. I can be in the same mind about this matter, however, for a long enough time to achieve what I want. As for principles, they bore me. If it hadn't been for my principles I shouldn't have got into half this trouble. What shall I do with myself till my mysterious friend turns up?'

After a minute's hesitation he turned into the Zoological Gardens, where he spent some thought on the wasting of an hour or so among the beasts, incurred the undying hatred of an alligator by stirring him up with the ferule of his stick, irritated the llama to the point of expectoration, and grossly insulted the oldest inhabitant of the monkey-house.

His luncheon was a bath bun and a glass of milk.

'A fourpenny luncheon,' he said to himself, 'is the first step in the path of virtue.'

At half-past three he got back to his lodgings, and sat down with the resolution of going thoroughly into his financial affairs. To that he thought he would devote an hour or two, and in the evening he would try to find the lost clue in Spray's Buildings. This looking into his finances struck him as being a business-like sort of thing to do, and quite in harmony with his present frame of mind.

He was soon busy at his light writing-table. Presently he drew from a drawer his banker's pass-book, made bulky with cancelled cheques. He groaned earnestly.

'Alas!' he said to himself, 'how sadly simple and easy it is to sign one's name on this nice smooth coloured paper. I suppose it's best to check these off—bankers' clerks are so dreadfully careless.'

A most unfounded statement, born of ignorance of business, and a desire to seem to himself as one who understood it. Suddenly he started, and singled out the cheque he had given to Hirsch in the autumn. It bore on it, as endorsement, in a bold, free handwriting, the name, 'Michael Petrovitch.'

'Hola!' he said; 'a namesake of mine. Stay, though. This apostle of our cause does not keep to one handwriting.'

He walked to the mantelpiece, and taking thence the letter he had received in the morning, he compared the writing.

'H'm—wonder what this means?' he said, returning to his [288] seat. 'The two writings are not the same, and yet there is something in this writing on the cheque which I seem to have seen before. We'll try for an explanation before he leaves this room.'

He went on steadily with his self-imposed task of comparing each cheque with the entry in the book. He had half done them when a ring at the front door bell made him look up.

'Aha! the mysterious Petrovitch is punctual,' he said to himself.

It was Petrovitch, though perhaps those who had seen most of him in the last few months would have failed to recognise him. He looked at least ten years younger. The handsome long light beard was gone, and he was close shaved save for a heavy drooping blond moustache.

As Count Litvinoff heard his visitor's steps upon the stairs he settled himself back in his chair, with an assumption of a business air, much like that of a very young lawyer about to receive a new client.

There was a sharp rap at the room door.

'Come in,' he said.

The door opened. He sprang to his feet, stood one moment clutching at the table before him, his eyes wide with something that seemed almost terror, and his whole frame rigid with astonishment. Then his expression changed to one of deepest love and delight. There was a crash of furniture, as he flung the little writing-table from him, and it fell shattered against the opposite wall. With a hysterical cry of 'Ah, ah, ah, Litvinoff! back from the dead!' he sprang across the room, threw his arms round the other's neck, and fell sobbing on his breast.

TALKING THINGS OVER

BEFORE the echo of that cry had died away, the man who had uttered it swayed sideways, his face grew deadly white, the clasp of his arms loosened, and only the sudden firm grip of the other saved him from falling. Petrovitch laid him on the sofa. Then he passed into the adjoining bedroom, and came back with a wet sponge.

'What a fellow it is,' he said to himself, as he applied it to the hands and face of the insensible man. 'As brave as a lion, and as hysterical as a schoolgirl.' But he looked very kindly on the pale face as he administered his remedies.

In a little while the eyes opened, and the younger man struggled into a sitting position, and looked into the face that bent over him.

'Litvinoff, it is you, then?' he said in a low voice, and covered his face with his hands. The joy of seeing once more the man he had loved seemed to be swallowed up in the shame of meeting the man he had wronged.

'Yes, Percival, it is I,' said Petrovitch; 'but let this be the last time you call me Litvinoff, and I must not call you Percival either. I think I have a right to ask that. You have chosen to put on the Prophet's Mantle, and for all our sakes you must wear it a little longer.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean simply that you must still be Count Litvinoff, and I must still be Petrovitch.'

'Then you are Petrovitch! Why did you take a false name to mislead me?' he groaned. 'Why did you let me go on wearing your name, and spending your money? Why not have let me know at once, when every day made things worse? I would have gone out of life long ago rather than face this meeting.'

'And yet you seemed glad to see me, too?' said Petrovitch, looking at him curiously. 'But I took no false name; my name is really Petrovitch. My father's name was Peter, you know. You ought to remember that. You have heard me called by it often enough.'

'I never thought of you by it, though; and besides, I thought you were dead. You know that I thought you were dead?' with a sudden, quick doubt in his voice.

'Of course!'

'You know, don't you,' he went on eagerly, 'that I would gladly have given my life for yours, and that I never hoped for anything so good in this world as to see you alive? Yes, in spite of everything, though I can't expect you to believe it,' he ended bitterly.

'I have never doubted it,' Petrovitch answered; and with a sudden thrill of pity for the despair, the remorse, the longing, and the wretchedness in the other's face, he added, 'Come, old friend, don't take this so much to heart. It is nothing that cannot be put right. You will see when we come to talk it over quietly. Can't we have some tea?'

Petrovitch knew well enough that when the heart's cords are stretched almost unbearably by the strain of an intense emotion, it sometimes stems as though they could only be saved from giving way altogether by the direction of the mind to some utterly trivial detail of everyday life. Many a woman's heart has been saved from breaking by the necessity of getting the [291] children's dinner, and many a tragedy has been averted by the chief actor's having to take in the afternoon's milk.

Petrovitch repeated the question, 'Can't we have some tea?'

The other rose mechanically, went to a cupboard, and brought out a plated kettle and spirit-lamp, a small china tea set, and a plate of lemons, with a silver knife. He put these appliances on the table in an unmethodical, untidy sort of way, and was proceeding to light the spirit-lamp, when Petrovitch, who had been watching him with a smile, took the match-box out of his hand.

'Here, let me make tea. I see you are just as unsystematic as ever.' He lighted the lamp, and with a few deft touches put the rest of the tea-things in order, as the other, leaving the matter in his hands, strode up and down the room.

'Oh, what is to be the end of all this?' he said at length; 'how long am I to go on bearing your name?'

'All this will soon be at an end, as far as I am concerned. I have nearly completed my arrangements for getting back to Russia, and when I'm there you may guess it won't matter to me who bears my name. I shall not wish to use it. But while I am here I wish to be Petrovitch. Indeed, you can serve me best by letting it be as widely known as possible that Count Litvinoff is—well, where you are and not where I am, and after all it's nobody's business but yours and mine.'

'Does no one else know of it at all?'

'Only two men in St Petersburg, and one in London.'

'And he is?'

'Hirsch, whom you've seen, I think.'

'Why the devil didn't he tell every one then?'

'Because I asked him not to, and he considers himself under some sort of obligation to me.'

'Like everyone else you come across. But how came he to know it?'

'He had to be told when I came here. There was certain work I had to do; I can tell you about it another time, and he was the only man who could put me in the way of it. Now Count Litvinoff, the tea is ready.'

The other stopped in his walk.

'Curse it!' he said passionately. 'Call me a villain or a forger, or any other pretty name you like; I can stand that, but not your lips calling me by your name. It's a cruel revenge.'

'Ah, we owe too much to our enemies for there to be any thought of revenge between friends, and I must teach myself to call you that. Besides, what is there to revenge? You have only used the name I did not need.'

'No, I forged your name as well as stole it. You don't know all.'

'Yes, I do, or pretty nearly all. As far as your taking my name goes, that has done no harm; rather good; and as for the money, that would have gone to you. You know, if I had had the giving of it, it would have gone to you. And I know you would never have touched it if you had not thought I was dead.'

'I wish I had never left you, though I did think it, and at the mercy of those curs. If only I had died by you!'

'You know well enough our rule is that none should be sacrificed without reason. Why should you have given those hounds two lives instead of one?'

'I wish I had died that night under the orange trees at Monte Carlo. You did yourself a bad turn when you saved my life. I have done no good with it. I have only weighted myself with unpardonable sins.'

'As far as I am concerned,' Petrovitch said, 'if there is anything to forgive, it is freely forgiven—freely and fully; and now let us shake hands after your English fashion, and of [293] forgiveness let us talk no more. We are friends, and between such it is no question of pardon. And there are many other things we must speak of.'

He held his hand out, and the younger man grasped it. There was a moment's pause. Then,—

'Let me give you some fresh tea—that is cold,' said Petrovitch cheerfully, pouring out another cup; 'don't you want to hear what happened to me after I was killed?'

'I can hardly realise yet that you are not killed.'

'Well, I'll tell you about it. The officer of that troop added medicine to his other accomplishments, besides which he was a distant relation of my mother's, and he insisted on seeing whether I could not be conjured back to life. I believe I gave them a good deal of trouble, but I seem to be a die-hard. My capture was kept very quiet, thanks to my family name, for the Government didn't care about having it known that the head of the Litvinoffs had tried to atone for the crimes of his family by taking the side of the people. My wound was a bad one, and even now troubles me sometimes. I used sometimes almost to wish it had settled me. Fancy being in prison, and a Russian prison, with a wound like that.'

'But how did you get away?'

For answer Petrovitch told him the story of his escape as he had told it to Hirsch and to his other friends, intentionally making the recital a long one, so that his companion might have time to get used to the new situation before they began to talk of the future.

'And now,' he said, when he had ended, 'tell me how it fared with the Secretary.'

'I hate to think of it,' said the man who had borne the Litvinoff name for three years, and who, it seemed, was to bear it a little while longer. 'Whenever I think of that night, I see nothing but your face—dead, as I thought—turned up [294] from the snow in the hateful dawn. Oh, my friend!' his voice faltered, and he held his hand out to Petrovitch again. After a pause, he resumed, 'I tried all I knew to revive you, but you were as cold as ice, and your heart did not beat. I stayed by you a long, long time. It did not occur to me to leave you, but at last, in a flash, I realised that you were gone—that I was there in the snow alone. And then I thought of escape. I said good-bye to your body. I felt as if your self was far away somewhere, and then I sprang up and dashed off in the direction we had been taking. It was broad daylight then, but I saw nothing of the soldiers, though I knew afterwards they must have found you, because when we sent, your body was gone. I must have kept pretty straight, for I came to a house at last, and I went straight up to it. I thought it must be Teliaboff's, and if it wasn't I felt I didn't much care. I went right in, asked for the master of the house, and when he came to me I told him all. It was Teliaboff. He was very good to me, and kept me there nearly a fortnight. We could hear nothing of you—nothing at all. By the way, it was he who first, unconsciously, gave me the idea of personating you, for when I entered his house on that horrible morning he greeted me by your name. I undeceived him at once, but the idea took root and bore fruit later. He was kindness itself, and his little daughter—she was only twelve, I think—took a fancy to me. I believe that child's companionship saved me from going mad.

'Then he got me a passport, and gave me money enough to get to Vienna. When I got there I was penniless, and I knew you had had money there. I did not feel somehow that I was robbing you when I forged your name—Heaven knows that was easily done, I knew your signature so well—and went on to Paris with your money as Count Michael Litvinoff. When I took your money I meant honestly to spend it all in the cause [295] you had worked for, and for a time I did. But—I don't know how to explain it—I suppose the Revolution had not really taken hold of me. It was you I had cared for, and your creed I had held, not for itself, but because it was yours. And when your personal influence was not near me I grew careless and idle, and worked for Liberty only by fits and starts. It used to seem too much trouble to do things for the cause. It had been your approval I cared for, I think. You are so strong, I can't expect you to understand the imbecilities of such a weak fool as I am. From the moment when I ceased to spend all my time and all your money on your work, I seemed utterly degraded in my own eyes, and it did not seem to matter what I did, so I have gone on from bad to worse, and the principles you would die for, have only been will-o'-the-wisp lights to lead me into direr troubles than I should ever have known without them. I have not kept Michael Litvinoff's name clean. And the evil I have done is nothing to what I have tried to do. I sent Teliaboff his money back, but I have never heard from him. Have you? Do you know whether he is all right?'

'Haven't you heard?' Petrovitch asked gravely.

'Heard? No! What? Anything wrong?'

'Hanged,' was the brief reply.

'Hanged!'

'Yes, and his little daughter—she was fourteen, then, I think—was hanged with him.'

'For—for helping me?' gasped Litvinoff.

'No, for having "The Prophetic Vision" in her room.'

'My God!' cried Litvinoff, springing up. 'How long will men bear it? Let us go back this very day, and kill and kill and kill these fiends as long as we have an arm to strike or a finger to pull a trigger.'

'We are going back,' Petrovitch said quietly. 'As for that deed, it is avenged. The man who was responsible for that [296] murder got his sentence of death and his notice of it two days later. He lived through three months of terror, and then shot himself, to escape execution at the hands of some of us. Don't talk more of him.'

The two men sat silent for a little while, but Litvinoff's eyes still blazed with excitement. Petrovitch smoked quietly.

'How was it,' Litvinoff asked presently, turning from the other subject with evident effort, 'that you did not let me know directly you came over?'

'I did not see any good to be gained by it,' answered Petrovitch, who did not choose to tell his friend that he had waited to see with what grace the Prophet's Mantle was worn. 'I heard you speak at the Agora. I read your writings. You seemed to be doing good. Besides, it made concealment of my purposes more easy not to be known as Litvinoff.'

'Then what made you decide to tell me now?' was the very natural question.

Petrovitch hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he said,—

'Frankly, because I thought you were meditating an action that would afterwards cause you more regret than anything else you have done, and I wished to prevent it.'

'And that action was?'

'Taking another wife while your first wife still lived and still loved you.'

Petrovitch spoke slowly and distinctly.

Litvinoff leaned forward in his chair and looked at him amazedly.

'By Heaven!' he said, leaning back with a sort of sigh, 'you seem to know everything.'

'I have made it my business to know.'

'Not quite everything in this case, though,' Litvinoff added, correcting himself, 'for I have no wife.'

Petrovitch's eyes flashed angrily.

'I was not speaking in the phrase of your London society. I did not suppose that you were going to commit an illegal act. I merely imagined that you had intended to commit a crime. I am not mistaken in supposing that you always led the woman in question to believe that you looked upon her as your wife?'

'You are not mistaken—you are right. I did contemplate a crime,' he said, walking over to the bookcase, and standing so that his face was not to be seen. 'I have no defence to offer; but at the time I first contemplated it I deceived myself with the idea that I had. But my wife left me. I did not leave her. I never could have left her; and if she had not left me that vile idea of marrying another woman would never have entered my head. However, that's all at an end now, I'm thankful to say, and I mean to find my wife'—there was no hesitation in his voice this time—'and legalise her position with bell, book, and candle, and any other rites that may seem to her desirable.'

'Regardless of principles?' said Petrovitch, with the faintest possible sneer.

'Damn principles!' Litvinoff cried, turning round, stung by the tone. 'I would have sacrificed them for a woman I merely admired, and they sha'n't stand between me and the woman I love.'

'How do you propose to find her?'

'I haven't the slightest idea. Do you know where she is?' he added sharply.

'Do you remember giving £10 to a man named Hirsch in the autumn?' was the counter-question.

'I do?' with an inquiring look.

'That was for your wife!'

Litvinoff drew a long breath. 'Go on!' he said, simply.

Then Petrovitch told him all that he knew of Alice, and Litvinoff listened intently. When Petrovitch spoke of the night on Blackfriars' Bridge, he leaned forward breathing heavily, then rose suddenly, and, crossing to a couch, flung himself, face downwards, on it. Petrovitch paused.

'Go on! Go on! Go on!' said an impatient, stifled voice from the couch.

So Petrovitch resumed.

When the tale was told, Litvinoff rose. He was very pale, his lips trembled a little, and his dark eyes were shining and wet.

'When can I see you to-morrow? I am going to Chislehurst now. I don't thank you; it would be absurd. Thanks are idiotic under some circumstances. You saved my life—which I didn't care about—and now it seems you've saved what I do care for, as much as such a scamp as I can care for anything. But you don't need my words. I believe you understand me—if any one does.'

Petrovitch rose and laid his hand on his shoulder.

'Do not go to-night,' he said. 'She is not strong yet, and you are too excited to meet her calmly. Wait till to-morrow. You may trust her safely where she is for another night. Besides, there is very, very much to be said between us—both of the past and future.'

'Well, you have a right to command me,' Litvinoff answered, frowning and a little stiffly, and then was silent a moment. Then he said suddenly, flinging himself into his chair with the frown quite gone, 'You're right—you always are, and there is much to be said. I wish to God there could be some way of wiping out the past, or rather of atoning for it. Do you know, it seems to me that I shall have a chance of seeing my way to doing something worth doing now you have come back. I could almost swear at this moment that [299] I believed as heartily as ever in liberty, humanity, progress, and all the other things you taught me to swear by, but in my soul I know it is you I believe in—always have believed in— I've never believed in anything but you for more than three months at a time. Peculiar, isn't it?'

'You haven't altered in the least,' said Petrovitch smiling. 'You were never sure of your beliefs except when you were fighting for them. You should be back in Russia. Persecution is a splendid antidote to religious doubt. Men like you ought not to live in England. There is too much freedom in the air and it doesn't agree with you. You get to think there is nothing worth fighting for here. There is, though, and some Englishmen are beginning to find it out.'

'You are going back to Russia?' Litvinoff said, interrogatively.

'Yes.'

'Let me come with you,' he cried, impulsively. 'Give your Secretary another chance.'

'Ah, my days of quiet writing are over now. The battle grows hot. I don't want a Secretary, I want a comrade in arms. Will you go to Servia for me?'

'I'll go to hell, if you like,' was the direct reply.

'The two will soon be synonymous, if all I hear is correct. But what about your wife?'

'It used to be one of your principles,' Litvinoff said, using the word, as it were, reluctantly, 'that if a man believes in anything enough to place himself in danger for it, he should not hesitate to risk all he holds precious for the same end; and my wife is not a coward, she would go with me.'

'Poor little woman,' said Petrovitch; 'but that was and is one of my principles. If you go to Servia under my name I shall have a far better chance of getting back to St Petersburg under [300] someone else's. And the risk to your wife is of the slightest, for it is a peaceful errand I will send you on.'

'I hate peaceful errands.'

'I dare say there'll be a little excitement thrown in—but don't rush into danger. There is no need there, and it can do no good. I know hard fighting is the easiest; but our business is to do the thing which has to be done, be it peace or be it war.'

'Ah!' said Litvinoff, with enthusiasm; 'to act up to that ideal is easy enough for men like you, but you must remember that such men as you are as far above the rest of us as the Christian martyrs are above the average church-goer. You are the Saints of the New Religion.'

'Don't you think we'd better go and have some dinner?' said Petrovitch, drily.

'MY LITTLE GIRL.'

THE suggestion was a good one, and the dinner to which the two sat down had a steadying effect on the nerves of the younger man. He became calmer, and when they returned to his rooms he was able to bear his part in a long, earnest, quiet talk over events past and to come.

The talk lasted far into the night, and before they parted it was settled that Litvinoff should leave for Servia in two days, taking with him certain important papers from Petrovitch to another of the Nihilist leaders. That he should there wait instructions, and should enter Russia by the southern frontier, and rejoin the circle at St Petersburg, leaving his assumed name at Belgrade. That the following imaginative announcement should be inserted in as many English papers as possible for the special edification of the Russian Embassy.

'Count Michael Litvinoff left London for Dover this morning, en route for Belgrade. He was accompanied by Countess Litvinoff, an English lady to whom he was secretly married some time ago. Count Litvinoff, so well known to many of our readers through his "Social Enigma," his "Hopes and Fears for Liberty," and his many revolutionary brochures, has never been a familiar figure in London society, his literary labours having compelled him to live in strict retirement. It will be remembered that he was the hero of an adventure on the [302] Russian frontier some years ago, was wounded, captured, and sent to a Russian prison, from which he escaped to England.'

It was also settled that the money for the journey should be taken from the remainder of the Litvinoff capital.

When Litvinoff began to speak of the money he had spent and the debts he had incurred, Petrovitch stopped him with,—

'I'll see to your debts—and what is gone is gone. Don't let us waste words over that.'

It was arranged that Petrovitch should seek out John Hatfield and his wife, and should let them know that their daughter was happily married. They judged it best not to subject Alice to an interview which could not but involve most painful explanations, and they agreed that it would be cruel both to her and to her parents to let them meet, merely to part again at once. Of Clare Stanley neither of them spoke one word.

A new day was some way into its small hours when they said good-bye.

'We meet in St Petersburg, then, as soon as may be,' Petrovitch said. 'I shall not see you again till then.'

'I hope by that time I shall have done something to prove to you that you have indeed brought me back to the ranks of duty and the Revolution.'

'I don't need proof,' said the other with one last hand-pressure. And so they parted.

Next morning early, Litvinoff went down into the City, where he paid a disproportionate sum of money for a paper which empowered him to marry his wife at once, instead of waiting three weeks for that privilege. Then he went down to Chislehurst. The sky was clear and pale and blue, and the sun shone divinely. The trees that had been brown seemed at a little distance to be wrapped in a grey gauze veil, as they always do when the green buds first break out to new life.

As Litvinoff walked up the hill to Chislehurst Common, he [303] tried to think what he should say to Alice, how she would look, how she would speak to him. With a touch of ingrained cynicism, he laughed at himself to find that his heart was beating tumultuously, and that his hands were trembling.

'And this is the man,' he said contemptuously to himself, 'who walked behind her for half-an-hour last autumn, and never spoke to her! No, not the same man,' he added, after a pause, 'I am purged of a crime since then.'

The house where he was to seek Alice was a little yellow-brick building near the church.

He looked at the pretty old-fashioned churchyard as he passed, and then at the building itself.

'I suppose,' he said to it, 'you will be the balm the child will choose to ease her sorrow—and you will bring comfort to her, as you have to thousands of others. I don't grudge them their comfort, but I do grudge you your influence. However, you won't keep it much longer. Tant mieux.'

His hand was on the garden gate—he unlatched it, and walked up to the smallest detached house he had ever beheld. He raised the diminutive knocker, and assaulted therewith the tiny brown door. Would she open it? She did not. It opened—and Litvinoff at first really thought it opened of its own accord. At anyrate it opened by some agency invisible to him. He stood and looked; but when the door slowly began to close again, he thought it was time for action. He came a step forward, and addressing nothing, said,—

'Is Mrs Litvinoff in?'

Then a very small girl in a yellow pinafore and a lilac frock showed herself from behind the door; but shyness and an incomplete knowledge of her native tongue combined to render her speechless. Litvinoff, with an impatient but perfectly gentle movement, lifted her bodily from her position as guard, and placed her outside the door.

'The air will brighten your wits, mon petit chou,' he said.

Then he walked straight into the house, and looked round the two rooms on the ground floor. Empty. He passed through the kitchen, whose proportions would have served for those of the corresponding apartment in a good-sized doll's house, and found himself in a brick-paved back yard, where there were a water-butt, a basket of wet linen, some clothes-lines, and the lady of the house. Regardless of her astonishment, he addressed himself to her.

'Oh, Mrs Litvinoff?' she answered curiously, 'she is out; she has gone to Orpington for some butter for me, sir, and she won't be long.'

'How long?'

'Perhaps an hour.'

'Is she alone?'

'Yes, sir.'

'If you'll be kind enough to tell me the way, I think I'll go and meet her.'

'And who shall I say called if you should miss her, and she comes back first?'

'Say her husband,' answered Litvinoff.

The woman gave him profuse directions, for which he thanked her with his usual empressement, and turned at the gate to raise his hat in farewell.

'My stars!' said Mrs Bowen, as she watched him out of sight, 'he's a real gentleman, and no mistake. Poor little Mrs Litvinoff,' she added, with a woman's instinctive interest in a romance, 'I hope they'll make it up and live happy ever after, that I do!'

Litvinoff walked along. His heart was lighter than it had been for many a long day. On these delicious fresh spring mornings—

just to be alive is a rapture. Of course it may be cancelled by care like any other joy. But Litvinoff felt as if he had no cares. He was going to meet the woman he loved, and the nearer he got to her the more he loved her. In love, as in friendship, nearness was everything to him.

Every figure in the distance he thought was her figure. If you have ever gone to meet a person whom you very intensely wished to meet, you will remember how constantly recurring is that illusion. You will remember the spasm of vindictive hate which seizes on you when the figure in the distance is neared, and dispels your illusion by being itself and not the one you wanted it to be.

Paul's Cray Common seemed a paradise to him. It does make a fairly good one under favourable circumstances, with its heather, and gorse, and larch, and oak saplings, and, fairest of all, its graceful swaying silver birches. The birds were singing madly, and as he felt the springy turf under his feet, and the warm spring sun on his shoulders, he began to sing, too, a tender little French song, all about green woodland paths, and youth, and love, and happiness.

Alice Hatfield's heart was very sad, but it was a quiet sadness, that did not shut out the charm of the spring. Under the influence of the young life blood of the year that seemed to be throbbing through that perfect day, she had felt strong, and had walked with more swiftness than usual, and now, as she was returning with a basket, in which her butter lay, under cool green leaves, she began to walk more slowly and to consider two pounds of butter heavier than she had thought it before. She had been revelling among the primroses and dog violets, and had filled up her basket with the pale, yellow primrose [306] stars and the delicate pink and white wind-flowers. She was tired, certainly, and she turned aside and sat down on a felled tree, in a certain little pine copse that runs along by the road-side. The pine needles lay brown, and soft, and thick under her feet. A little bright-eyed, red-brown squirrel came half-way down one of the trees to look at her, but seemed to find her not quite as nice as he had expected, for he whisked his tail with undisguised contempt, and went back to his home with a lightning-like spiral scramble. He must have been a squirrel hard to please, for it is a fact that, in spite of illness and trouble, Alice was far prettier now than when her sweet face had first caught Count Litvinoff's eyes on the Birkenhead Ferry.

She sat quietly gazing through the pine trees, with her head turned from the road. Presently she stooped to attempt the capture of a very young and very yellow frog which had hopped close to her feet, regardless of the pine needles. As she did so her heart stood still, for her ears caught the tramp, tramp of a man's footstep, and the ringing sound of a man's voice, a voice she knew,—

She rose to her feet, and involuntarily uttered a low cry. She dared not turn her head. The singing stopped abruptly, there was a crash through the brambles, and in a moment a pair of strong arms were round her, and lips close to her ear murmured,—

'My little girl!'

She rested on his arm for one moment Then she said, in a choked sort of voice, as she tried to release herself,—

'It's no use, I cannot come back. You have not come here to ask me back. Do, do leave me alone!'

He held her fast.

'My darling,' he whispered, 'do you think I could leave you now I have found you? I have come to ask you to come back to me. I have come to ask you to marry me. You will not send me away. I cannot do without my little one any longer. You love me still?' he added, a sudden doubt striking him at her continued silence, and he raised her chin with his hand till he could look in her face. She shrank from his hand, and hid her face against his neck.

'You know,' she answered, 'you know.'

So it came about that Alice married her love who had not been true, and forgave him with all her heart; when she was leaving the church, leaning on her husband's arm, with a new world of love and joy opening before her, and Litvinoff was looking down at her with eyes in which love deepened every moment, her father lay dead at the bottom of the tank in Thornsett Mill. The Litvinoffs left England at once, and to this day Alice does not know of her father's death, and her husband does not know of the dire disaster that followed on his double dealing. I doubt if they will ever learn it now. There is a good deal more that Alice does not know. It is perhaps as well. Wives are none the happier for knowing too much of their husbands' past. As it is, Alice will follow him to the world's end, believing in him unquestioningly.

'HAND IN HAND.'

'Cannon Street Hotel, 9.30 p.m.

DEAR MR PETROVITCH,—We were married this morning at St Nicholas Cole Abbey, and we are leaving London by the night mail. I cannot go without thanking you with my whole heart for all you have done for me—for both of us. No words can ever tell you how much I feel what we owe to you. My husband says he owes more to you than I do, but I cannot think that. Good-bye until we see you in Russia. Oh! Heaven bless you, Mr Petrovitch, for all you have done for us.—Yours always gratefully,

Alice Litvinoff.'

In the same envelope was a letter from Alice's husband, and it did not begin in the same way as hers. It ran thus,—

'My dear Litvinoff,—I can't write to you under any but your own name, nor can I sign any other than my own. I kept yours as you wished, and Alice believes herself to be Countess Litvinoff. I shall tell her all that part of my story later, but I shall never tell her of my villainous and insensate desire for a rich wife, and for a life of ease which would have driven me mad in three months. Alice and a life of [309]adventure are worth all the broad acres in creation. Nor shall I tell her that I knew her father. One thing more I must ask you to do for me. Write to Richard Ferrier and let him know that we are married. I think I've used him rather badly. Alice wishes you to say good-bye for her to her good friends Mr and Mrs Toomey. Some kind fate certainly kept watch over my wife while I was playing the fool and dangling after another woman. And Fate has been a thousand times better to me than I deserve. With my dear wife, and the prospect of meeting you soon in Russia, I feel all the old enthusiasm re-awakening. Vive la Révolution!—Your old secretary and friend,

Armand Percival.

'In signing that name I feel as though I were writing with my left hand, it is so awkward to me after all these years.'

Petrovitch sighed as he replaced the letters in their envelope. He had given himself up wholly to the cause he served, and he had suffered for it, and was prepared to suffer more, and generally he was contented, even glad, that it should be so. But sometimes a sudden sense of the utter loneliness of his life came over him, saddening and oppressing him. Then he seemed to himself to be not a man with a life of his own to live and hopes of his own to cherish, but a power passing through the lives of others, helping, guiding, saving, and always after a while fading out of those lives. He had brought these two together, and they were all in all to each other, and he was much to them perhaps, but mainly because he had brought them together. Now he felt that they were lost to him, and he had loved them both—Alice with the love of a strong man for a child, and the other with a deep attachment which dated from the first moment of their meeting, and which had unaccountably withstood all the other's shortcomings. Unaccountably? No? the essence of love is its boundless capacity for pardon; the [310] unaccountable part of it was that he should ever have loved him at all. And they were gone; and gone, as Petrovitch knew well enough, to begin a life whose end, sooner or later, must be the scaffold or the death-in-life of perpetual imprisonment. He had led many a man and many a woman into that path, knowing all that it meant, and he was not sorry. Was it not the path he had himself chosen as being the noblest that any man's feet could tread—the path of utter self-renunciation? But though he was never sorry he was often sad, and sadder than usual on the day when his two friends bade farewell to safety and English soil. He felt lonely and desolate. But Michael Petrovitch never felt his own moral pulse for more than half a minute at a time. He sighed, raised his hand to his chin, and smiled at finding himself reminded that the gesture of passing his hand over his beard, which had grown into a settled habit with him in moments of annoyance or excitement, was no longer possible.

He turned to his table and wrote half-a-dozen letters. There were many arrangements still to make for his journey. Then he rose, put on his hat, and started for Marlborough Villa.

He had not cared to face that dinner where he was to have met his fellow revolutionist. He had written a hasty note of excuse, and had spent the evening and the best part of the night in conference with his morose friend Hirsch, who was a little more morose even than usual on this occasion, owing to what he thought the absurd and unjust leniency with which the pseudo Litvinoff had been treated. He would have been much better satisfied had some sudden and awful judgment overtaken the adventurer who had dared to personate his hero—even had that judgment come in the form of a trial for forgery at the Old Bailey; which fact showed that he was but a weaker brother in the faith that teaches that crime is a disease to be cured, not [311] an offence to be punished. In that conversation with Hirsch the date of Petrovitch's departure had been finally settled, and now he had a few farewell visits to pay. One must certainly be to Mrs Quaid—he had a fancy that he would try to make his parting with Miss Stanley something more than it could be in the presence of that estimable lady. He thought that Clare would not hesitate to say good-bye to him without her hostess's surveillance. At any rate, a chance of being alone with her to say his farewell was what he was bent on trying for. At Marlborough Villa he was shown into the morning-room. It was empty, but in a moment Clare came in.

He was standing with his back to the window. When she saw him she started visibly, and, with an unmistakable gesture of annoyance, was turning to leave the room, when he made a step forward, and she paused and looked at him, and, turning with a complete change of expression, held out her hand.

'How could I have been so absurd?' she said. 'Do you know for the moment I really thought it was Count Litvinoff.'

'I don't wonder at your not quite recognising me. You see I had to sacrifice my beard. I am going back to Russia next week. Disguise will be de rigeur, and beards and disguises are incompatible.'

'Going back to Russia next week?' she repeated slowly, 'and I had so much to say—to ask—'

'Do you still need advice?' he said, smiling.

'Yes,' she said, speaking quickly and eagerly, 'more than ever, for now I have made up my mind. I am quite certain that my money ought to go—not to simply alleviating the miseries that wring one's heart, but to helping to overthrow the system that causes them. I have felt it a strong temptation to help first the individual sorrows that I know of; but I know that the right thing to do is to help not those, but the revolution that will render them impossible. I am right, am I not?'

'Yes,' he answered. They were standing by the window. This was not the sort of thing that one settles comfortably into chairs to 'talk over.'

'But now you are going,' she said, with a saddened falling cadence in her voice, that made music for the man at her side, 'and I shall have no one to tell me what to do. Why need you go? Is there nothing for you to do here? Is Russia so dear that it pushes all other claims out of sight?'

'It is not that I am a patriot. I love Russia, I love my people, but I love England and her people too. But better than either do I love Liberty, and I must be where her enemies are strongest, where the battle is hottest.'

'If that is so,' she said, reflectively, with her eyes downcast, 'everyone who loves Liberty best should be in front of the battle too?'

'I think so; but each must think for himself,' he was beginning, when they both turned at the sudden opening of the door. Cora Quaid came in; her fresh face quite pale; a newspaper in her hands.

'Oh, how do you do, Mr Petrovitch. I did not know you were here. Clare, such a terrible thing has happened, dear; mamma has just seen it in the paper.' She held out the sheet and pointed to a paragraph headed, 'Shocking accident at Firth Vale.'

The paragraph told briefly of the death of Richard Ferrier, and of the discovery of Hatfield's body in the great tank, and concluded thus: 'The brother of the deceased, Mr Richard Ferrier, states that his brother went out for a stroll on the previous night in his usual spirits. There is no clue to any explanation of the catastrophe, save that the man Hatfield was formerly employed in this mill, and had been heard to say that he considered himself personally aggrieved at the closing of it. He was supposed to be in the south of England, and it is [313] rumoured that he secretly returned to wreak vengeance on the young masters of the mill for the part they had taken in closing it.'

Clare read it through; her face grew white, and she passed it to Petrovitch. He read it silently, his brow contracting. When he laid the paper down he looked at Clare. She had sunk into a chair, her arms stretched out over her knees to their full length, and her hands clasped.

'Poor fellow! poor Dick!' she said; 'but, oh, Cora! poor Mrs Hatfield! How will she bear it? Oh! how cruel life is to some people. First her daughter, and now her husband, and she is alone in some strange place, where no one can get to her to help her to bear it!'

'How could you help her if you knew where she was?' asked Petrovitch.

'I could tell her myself. I have had grief to bear—I know,' she answered. 'I would save her from hearing it from some careless stranger. I could go to her—'

She broke off. Her hazel eyes were full of tears.

Cora laid her hand on her friend's shoulder with a sympathetic touch.

'I happen to know where this Mrs Hatfield is,' said Petrovitch, reflectively, 'and I agree with you, Miss Stanley, that it would be right for you to go to her.'

Clare rose instantly. As she did so the tears brimmed over, and two fell from her long lashes.

'I will go now,' she said, 'if you will tell me where she is.'

'I will take you to her now, if you like,' said Petrovitch.

Cora looked at him a little curiously.

'We had better speak to mamma, I think,' she said; 'perhaps we can come with you, Clare.'

The two girls left the room, and Petrovitch, for once, did [314] not take up a book, but stood rapt in thought through the ten minutes that passed before the door opened again.

Clare came in alone. She was still dressed in black, of course, and had a little close crape bonnet that seemed to enhance the prettiness of the face it framed.

'I am quite ready,' she said. 'Mrs Quaid and Cora cannot come. They have some people coming to lunch, and I am not sorry, for poor Mrs Hatfield ought not to be bothered by strangers.'

'Come, then,' he said, and they went out together. As soon as they were outside he offered her his arm, as a matter of course, and she took it.

'How did you know her address?' asked Clare, as they walked along.

'Ah! that involves explanations,' he answered; 'to begin with, I must tell you that I met Count Litvinoff two days ago. It was from him I had Mrs Hatfield's address.'

'I remember he and poor Hatfield used to be friends.'

'He gave me the address for a special reason and for a special purpose. He has married Alice Hatfield, and he wished to let her people know.'

'Alice Hatfield! But—how long ago? How did he know her?'

'He married her yesterday, and they have gone to Servia together. Miss Stanley, it was with Count Litvinoff that Alice left her home.'

Clare held her peace for a moment. Her bewilderment would not let her find words. Then she went on, 'But he acted as though he believed Roland had taken her away. Oh, how could he have been so base and—'

'Do not judge him,' Petrovitch interrupted; 'no one knows how he may have been tempted, and he has repented and atoned for his fault in as far as he could.'

'There are some things that cannot be atoned for,' said Clare, compressing her lips. 'If it had not been for him this tragedy would never have happened. Oh, when I think—' She broke off suddenly.

'When you think that he would have married you, owing all to Alice Hatfield, you can find no words to speak of his baseness. Is it not so?'

She looked at him in mute inquiry. How did he know so much?

'Years ago,' he said, 'he and I were friends, and I love him still. He has told me much that has happened since last autumn. And I say, judge no man's actions, for of his temptations you cannot judge.'

Then they were both silent, and when Clare spoke again it was to inquire how the trains went, and so on.

'I wish you would tell me—' Clare began, when they were in the train en route for Dartford.

'There is much I would wish to tell you,' he interrupted, 'but not to-day, when you are going on an errand of kindness and mercy. You do not want to talk now, you want to think; and besides, I want to see you again. Will you write to me to-night, and tell me when and where I can see you alone to-morrow.'

'Yes, if you wish it,' she said. 'I had so much to ask you; and just now it seems as though I could think of nothing but that man, lying dead far north, and his poor wife here alone.'

'Then it is a promise. We are comrades, since we serve in the same ranks; and between comrades a special farewell is necessary. Now, we will not talk, since you do not desire it.'

Clare leaned back in her corner, and wondered how she should break the news to that poor widow.

But when they reached Earl's Terrace, and found out the [316] house where she was, they found, too, that there was no need to break the news to her. She knew it already, as Clare saw in a moment. Petrovitch did not come in, and the two women met alone. What Clare said to her? It is beyond us to write that down; and if the words were set down here, despoiled of the tender tones, the eloquent gesture, the heart-warm tenderness of the young girl, who had herself felt grief, what would they be worth? In the presence of sorrow some women are inspired, but not with words that will bear reporting.

Mrs Hatfield's grief was not violent. She wept, but not bitterly.

'It is the Lord's will,' she said, and she believed her words. When she heard of her daughter's marriage she said simply, 'Thank God for a' His mercies! I doubt He's been ower good to we i' mony ways, an' we mun bear what He's pleased to lay upo' us.'

Clare would have been more at ease to have seen her weep freely, but she seemed crushed. This last blow had mercifully benumbed her senses. Not her gratitude, though, for when Clare rose to go she rose too, and, taking the girl's hands in hers, looked at her and said,—

'An' thee came a' th' way fro' Lunnon to help an old wife to bear her burdens. Eh! but thee'rt a bonnie lass, and as good as thee'rt comely. Thee'll be the light o' some honest lad's e'en some day, and may thee ha' as good a man as mine were.'

Clare kissed the faded face. She had not so kissed many faces. She put her young, round, soft arms round the woman's neck, and said 'Good-bye.'

'You'll see me again, or hear,' she said.

'There's some words as Alice were fond o' saying time agone, and I'll say 'em to thee, my lass, for I'll not see thee agen, m'appen, and they say my meanin' clearer nor talk o' [317] mine. "The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee, the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."'

Mrs Hatfield opened the gate for Clare to pass out. Petrovitch did not seem to see her, yet when Clare was on his arm again he said,—

'That woman is marked by Death. She will not live three months. Her heart is broken.'

It was. His words came true.

When the two were once more in the train Clare's silent mood had passed. She would gladly have talked, but the carriage was full, and her companion's place being on the opposite side of the carriage, anything but an occasional word was impossible.

She sat gazing out of the window, and he sat in the opposite corner looking at her fixedly. As they were passing over the bridge to the London terminus he leaned forward suddenly, and she, anticipating some words from his movement, withdrew her eyes from the sun-bathed, rippling river and fixed them on his. There she met such a look of passion, and love, and longing as she had never seen in any man's eyes before; and as she gazed, startled, spell-bound, his voice whispered these words, in a tone too low for any ears but hers, and yet distinct enough for every word to be plainly heard by her, and to make her heart bound responsively. Only these words,—

'Whatever happens, I shall always love you.'

Then he leaned back again. Clare drew a deep breath, and the train stopped at the Charing Cross platform.

No other word was said between them till he had called a cab and placed her in it. Then he said, 'Do not write to me: I will write to you.' He pressed her hand, drew back, and the cab was driven off.

As Petrovitch walked back to his lodgings the sky grew quickly cloudy. It seemed as though the sunshine had gone away with Clare Stanley. By the time he reached Osnaburgh Street the rain was beginning to fall in big heavy splashes on the dusty pavement. He strode up the stairs to his room, locked the door, and flung himself down in the elbow-chair by the fireless grate. The rising wind blew the rain in gusts against the uncurtained window, and the large drops chased each other down the panes and obscured the view of the high houses opposite. All the sweetness had gone out of the weather. Petrovitch noticed it, and felt glad that it was so. He sat quite still and quite silent, his elbow on the arm of his chair, and his forehead on his hand. Now indeed the dark hour was upon Saul. For six months his dream, his hope, his ambition had been to return to Russia. Now he was going at last, and the thought of it was maddening.

He had known that he loved Clare, but he had not known how much he loved her until that moment in the train, and then his sudden knowledge of the strength of his own passion had broken down all his resolutions.

How could he have been such a fool as ever to speak the words which made it impossible for him to see her again? He had not meant to speak them. He could not understand how he had come to speak them. Their utterance was the first unguarded action he had been guilty of for the last ten years. And he had thought with some reason that he could rely on his own cool-headedness and self-restraint. Now it seemed he was mistaken. He was as much the slave of impulse as another—as much as the man who had assumed his name.

It was incomprehensible to him. He quite failed to understand the full force of this new over-mastering emotion. Clare! Clare! The world seemed to mean nothing but [319] Clare. He thought of her apart from all the other facts and circumstances of life, of herself, her face, her eyes, her hair, her voice, her way of holding her head, the movement of her hands when she spoke, and it was a rapture to think of her like this, and to let the thought of her rush over and sweep away all other thoughts, even of his own life's aim. Then slowly came back to him the remembrance of all the realities of his life, and he cursed what seemed to him his degradation. What sort of patriotism was it that the touch of a girl's hand could wither? What principles were they that the look in a girl's eyes could destroy? It was an utterly new experience for him, and he felt as though his patriotism and his faith were dead within him. In that hour he was man first, patriot after. But the hour of weakness was, after all, a brief one. His patriotism was not dead. It had been his master-passion too long for such an easy death to be possible, and as the dusk fell and deepened into night it rose up and met that other passion in the field and vanquished it.

It was late when he rose and lighted his lamp. It shone upon a face white with the struggle he had gone through, but set and determined. He turned to his table and wrote,—

'I love you! I told you so to-day. I did not mean to tell you, and I cannot account for or excuse the impulse that made me do so.

'But, having done so, I cannot ask you to meet me again as comrades meet. It would be embarrassing for you, and for me impossible. I know you do not love me. Perhaps you will even despise me when you learn what has been the temptation I have undergone. To give up Russia—the Cause—the Revolution—everything—and to stay at peace in England, and give my whole soul to the effort to win your love. I am glad to think I am not so unworthy of you as I should have been[320] had I yielded to this—the strongest temptation of my life. I shall leave London to-morrow morning; I cannot stay so near you without seeing you.

'You will think me ungenerous in leaving you without any advice on the subject you desire to be advised on. You shall hear from me before long. Perhaps when I am further from you I shall be better able to write you the sort of letter you will care to have from me. For those who love Liberty, life is made up of renunciations, but no renunciation could be so difficult, so bitter, as is to me the renouncing of this least faint ghost of a chance of winning you. Michael.'

He went out and posted the letter, and when he came in again did not indulge in any more reflections. He busied himself with packing up his belongings, paying his rent, and making all his arrangements for leaving London the next morning.

But when the next morning came, with a fresh radiance of blue skies and sunlight, all his plans were overturned, all his thought unsettled, by this telegram,

'Clare Stanley, Marlborough Villa, N.W., to Michael Petrovitch, 37, Osnaburgh Street, N.W.—You are not going without good-bye. Please be in the Guildhall at twelve.'

Most men in his position would have been there at eleven at the latest. But the clock was on the first stroke of twelve as he walked through the crowd of fat pigeons, who, as usual, were busily eating more than was good for them in the Guildhall yard. He passed through the arched entrance and stood in the doorway. No one would have guessed by his face that he was keeping an appointment made by the woman he loved. He looked white and haggard, wretched and weary. His glance travelled round the large hall. In front of the statue of the Earl of Chatham stood the graceful black figure he looked for.

He walked across to her. As his footsteps sounded on the stone floor she turned her head, but did not move to meet him. When he was quite close to her she held out her hand in silence. He took it, pressed it, and let it fall at once. He spoke almost sternly.

'Why did you bring me here? I told you it was impossible for us to meet on the old terms.'

'I asked you to meet me here,' she said, 'because I had to come into the City on money affairs; and for the other, I have not asked you to do the impossible.'

She, too, was very pale, and spoke with what seemed like an effort at lightness.

'It is unworthy of you,' he went on, hardly noticing her answer, 'to make my renunciation so much harder for me.'

'There are enough inevitable renunciations in life for us without our making others by misunderstandings,' she said, her eyelids downcast.

He looked at her silently, as a man might in a dream which he feared to break by a word. At last he spoke, in a very low voice, with his eyes still on her face.

'This is glory to know,' he said, 'but do you think it makes the sacrifice more easy? Before it was only a chance I gave up—now it is your very self I must renounce.'

'Why?' Her voice trembled a little now.

'Because I must return to Russia. My place is there, and where I go—'

'I, too, will go,' she interrupted.

He caught her wrist.

'But if you go with me you go to almost certain death.

'Does that matter?' she said, and looked full in his eyes.

His fingers had closed on hers, and so they went out together into the bright English sunshine. Not more serenely, [322] not more gladly, than they would hereafter go, hand in hand, into the black darkness and oblivion that waits to swallow those who dare to set themselves against the bitter tyranny of Russia.

To each of them that day had given the most perfect gift of life, and both were content to offer up that gift—life itself even—for the sake of the Liberty they loved—the Liberty who, though she may not crown their lives—will consecrate their graves.