TABLE of CONTENTS

AUTHOR'S NOTE

CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV

ENDNOTES

AUTHOR'S NOTE

By the special request of the Publishers, a portrait of myself, taken in the spring of this year, 1906, forms the Frontispiece to the present volume. I am somewhat reluctant to see it so placed, because it has nothing whatever to do with the story which is told in the following pages, beyond being a faithful likeness of the author who is responsible for this, and many other previous books which have had the good fortune to meet with a friendly reception from the reading public. Moreover, I am not quite able to convince myself that my pictured personality can have any interest for my readers, as it has always seemed to me that an author's real being is more disclosed in his or her work than in any portrayed presentment of mere physiognomy.

But—owing to the fact that various gross, and I think I may say libellous and fictitious misrepresentations of me have been freely and unwarrantably circulated throughout Great Britain, the Colonies, and America, by certain "lower" sections of the pictorial press, which, with a zeal worthy of a better and kinder cause, have striven by this means to alienate my readers from me,—it appears to my Publishers advisable that an authentic likeness of myself, as I truly am to-day, should now be issued in order to prevent any further misleading of the public by fraudulent inventions. The original photograph from which Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co. have reproduced the present photogravure, was taken by Mr. G. Gabell of Eccleston Street, London, who, at the time of my submitting myself to his camera, was not aware of my identity. I used, for the nonce, the name of a lady friend, who arranged that the proofs of the portrait should be sent to her at various different addresses,—and it was not till this "Romance of Riches" was on the verge of publication that I disclosed the real position to the courteous artist himself. That I thus elected to be photographed as an unknown rather than a known person was in order that no extra pains should be taken on my behalf, but that I should be treated just as an ordinary stranger would be treated, with no less, but at the same time certainly no more, care.

I may add, in conclusion, for the benefit of those few who may feel any further curiosity on the subject, that no portraits resembling me in any way are published anywhere, and that invented sketches purporting to pass as true likenesses of me, are merely attempts to obtain money from the public on false pretences. One picture of me, taken in my own house by a friend who is an amateur photographer, was reproduced some time ago in the Strand Magazine, The Boudoir, Cassell's Magazine, and The Rapid Review; but beyond that, and the present one in this volume, no photographs of me are on sale in any country, either in shops or on postcards. My objection to this sort of "picture popularity" has already been publicly stated, and I here repeat and emphasise it. And I venture to ask my readers who have so generously encouraged me by their warm and constant appreciation of my literary efforts, to try and understand the spirit in which the objection is made. It is simply that to myself the personal "Self" of me is nothing, and should be, rightly speaking, nothing to any one outside the circle of my home and my intimate friends; while my work and the keen desire to improve in that work, so that by my work alone I may become united in sympathy and love to my readers, whoever and wherever they may be, constitutes for me the Everything of life.

MARIE CORELLI
STRATFORD-on-AVON
July, 1906

CHAPTER I

London,—and a night in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up from the clammy crowded streets,—London, with a million twinkling lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a dreamer's eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and tower upon tower,—with huge ramparts raised about it frowningly as though in self-defence against Heaven. Around and above it the deep sky swept in a ring of sable blue, wherein thousands of stars were visible, encamped after the fashion of a mighty army, with sentinel planets taking their turns of duty in the watching of a rebellious world. A sulphureous wave of heat half asphyxiated the swarms of people who were hurrying to and fro in that restless undetermined way which is such a predominating feature of what is called a London "season," and the general impression of the weather was, to one and all, conveyed in a sense of discomfort and oppression, with a vague struggling expectancy of approaching thunder. Few raised their eyes beyond the thick warm haze which hung low on the sooty chimney-pots, and trailed sleepily along in the arid, dusty parks. Those who by chance looked higher, saw that the skies above the city were divinely calm and clear, and that not a cloud betokened so much as the shadow of a storm.

The deep bell of Westminster chimed midnight, that hour of picturesque ghostly tradition, when simple village maids shudder at the thought of traversing a dark lane or passing a churchyard, and when country folks of old-fashioned habits and principles are respectably in bed and for the most part sleeping. But so far as the fashionable "West End" was concerned, it might have been midday. Everybody assuming to be Anybody, was in town. The rumble of carriages passing to and fro was incessant,—the swift whirr and warning hoot of coming and going motor vehicles, the hoarse cries of the newsboys, and the general insect-like drone and murmur of feverish human activity were as loud as at any busy time of the morning or the afternoon. There had been a Court at Buckingham Palace,—and a "special" performance at the Opera,—and on account of these two functions, entertainments were going on at almost every fashionable house in every fashionable quarter. The public restaurants were crammed with luxury-loving men and women,—men and women to whom the mere suggestion of a quiet dinner in their own homes would have acted as a menace of infinite boredom,—and these gilded and refined eating-houses were now beginning to shoot forth their bundles of well-dressed, well-fed folk into the many and various conveyances waiting to receive them. There was a good deal of needless shouting, and much banter between drivers and policemen. Now and again the melancholy whine of a beggar's plea struck a discordant note through the smooth-toned compliments and farewells of hosts and their departing guests. No hint of pause or repose was offered in the ever-changing scene of uneasy and impetuous excitation of movement, save where, far up in the clear depths of space, the glittering star-battalions of a wronged and forgotten God held their steadfast watch and kept their hourly chronicle. London with its brilliant "season" seemed the only living fact worth recognising; London, with its flaring noisy streets, and its hot summer haze interposed like a grey veil between itself and the higher vision. Enough for most people it was to see the veil,—beyond it the view is always too vast and illimitable for the little vanities of ordinary mortal minds.

Amid all the din and turmoil of fashion and folly seeking its own in the great English capital at the midnight hour, a certain corner of an exclusively fashionable quarter seemed strangely quiet and sequestered, and this was the back of one of the row of palace-like dwellings known as Carlton House Terrace. Occasionally a silent-wheeled hansom, brougham, or flashing motor-car sped swiftly along the Mall, towards which the wide stone balcony of the house projected,—or the heavy footsteps of a policeman walking on his beat crunched the gravel of the path beneath, but the general atmosphere of the place was expressive of solitude and even of gloom. The imposing evidences of great wealth, written in bold headlines on the massive square architecture of the whole block of huge mansions, only intensified the austere sombreness of their appearance, and the fringe of sad-looking trees edging the road below sent a faint waving shadow in the lamplight against the cold walls, as though some shuddering consciousness of happier woodland scenes had suddenly moved them to a vain regret. The haze of heat lay very thickly here, creeping along with slow stealth like a sluggish stream, and a suffocating odour suggestive of some subtle anæsthetic weighed the air with a sense of nausea and depression. It was difficult to realise that this condition of climate was actually summer in its prime—summer with all its glowing abundance of flower and foliage as seen in fresh green lanes and country dells,—rather did it seem a dull nightmare of what summer might be in a prison among criminals undergoing punishment. The house with the wide stone balcony looked particularly prison-like, even more so than some of its neighbours, perhaps because the greater number of its many windows were shuttered close, and showed no sign of life behind their impenetrable blackness. The only strong gleam of light radiating from the inner darkness to the outer, streamed across the balcony itself, which by means of two glass doors opened directly from the room behind it. Here two men sat, or rather half reclined in easy-cushioned lounge chairs, their faces turned towards the Mall, so that the illumination from the apartment in the background created a Rembrandt-like effect in partially concealing the expression of the one from the other's observation. Outwardly, and at a first causal glance, there was nothing very remarkable about either of them. One was old; the other more than middle-aged. Both were in evening-dress,—both smoked idly, and apparently not so much for the pleasure of smoking as for lack of something better to do, and both seemed self-centred and absorbed in thought. They had been conversing for some time, but now silence had fallen between them, and neither seemed disposed to break the heavy spell. The distant roar of constant traffic in the busy thoroughfares of the metropolis sounded in their ears like muffled thunder, while every now and again the soft sudden echo of dance music, played by a string band in evident attendance at

CHAPTER II

On the following evening the cold and frowning aspect of the mansion in Carlton House Terrace underwent a sudden transformation. Lights gleamed from every window; the strip of garden which extended from the rear of the building to the Mall, was covered in by red and white awning, and the balcony where the millionaire master of the dwelling had, some few hours previously, sat talking with his distinguished legal friend, Sir Francis Vesey, was turned into a kind of lady's bower, softly carpeted, adorned with palms and hothouse roses, and supplied with cushioned chairs for the voluptuous ease of such persons of opposite sexes as might find their way to this suggestive "flirtation" corner. The music of a renowned orchestra of Hungarian performers flowed out of the open doors of the sumptuous ballroom which was one of the many attractions of the house, and ran in rhythmic vibrations up the stairs, echoing through all the corridors like the sweet calling voices of fabled nymphs and sirens, till, floating still higher, it breathed itself out to the night,—a night curiously heavy and sombre, with a blackness of sky too dense for any glimmer of stars to shine through. The hum of talk, the constant ripple of laughter, the rustle of women's silken garments, the clatter of plates and glasses in the dining-room, where a costly ball-supper awaited its devouring destiny,—the silvery tripping and slipping of light dancing feet on a polished floor—all these sounds, intermingling with the gliding seductive measure of the various waltzes played in quick succession by the band, created a vague impression of confusion and restlessness in the brain, and David Helmsley himself, the host and entertainer of the assembled guests, watched the brilliant scene from the ballroom door with a weary sense of melancholy which he knew was unfounded and absurd, yet which he could not resist,—a touch of intense and utter loneliness, as though he were a stranger in his own home.

"I feel," he mused, "like some very poor old fellow asked in by chance for a few minutes, just to see the fun!"

He smiled,—yet was unable to banish his depression.

CHAPTER III

To see people eating is understood to be a very interesting and "brilliant" spectacle, and however insignificant you may be in the social world, you get a reflex of its "brilliancy" when you allow people in their turn to see you eating likewise. A well-cooked, well-served supper is a "function," in which every man and woman who can move a jaw takes part, and though in plain parlance there is nothing uglier than the act of putting food into one's mouth, we have persuaded ourselves that it is a pretty and pleasant performance enough for us to ask our friends to see us do it. Byron's idea that human beings should eat privately and apart, was not altogether without æsthetic justification, though according to medical authority such a procedure would be very injurious to health. The slow mastication of a meal in the presence of cheerful company is said to promote healthy digestion—moreover, custom and habit make even the most incongruous things acceptable, therefore the display of tables, crowded with food-stuffs and surrounded by eating, drinking, chattering and perspiring men and women, does not affect us to any sense of the ridiculous or the unseemly. On the contrary, when some of us see such tables, we exclaim "How lovely!" or "How delightful!" according to our own pet vocabulary, or to our knowledge of the humour of our host or hostess,—or perhaps, if we are young cynics, tired of life before we have confronted one of its problems, we murmur, "Not so bad!" or "Fairly decent!" when we are introduced to the costly and appetising delicacies heaped up round masses of flowers and silver for our consideration and entertainment. At the supper given by David Helmsley for Lucy Sorrel's twenty-first birthday, there was, however, no note of dissatisfaction—the blasébreath of the callow critic emitted no withering blight, and even latter-day satirists in their teens, frosted like tender pease-blossom before their prime, condescended to approve the lavish generosity, combined with the perfect taste, which made the festive scene a glowing picture of luxury and elegance. But Helmsley himself, as he led his beautiful partner, "the" guest of the evening, to the head of the principal table, and took his place beside her, was conscious of no personal pleasure, but only of a dreary feeling which seemed lonelier than loneliness and more sorrowful than sorrow. The wearied scorn that he had lately begun to entertain for himself, his wealth, his business, his influence, and all his surroundings, was embittered by a disappointment none the less keen because he had dimly foreseen it. The child he had petted, the girl he had indulged after the fashion of a father who seeks to make the world pleasant to a young life just entering it, she, even she, was, or seemed to be, practically as selfish as any experienced member of the particular set of schemers and intriguers who compose what is sometimes called "society" in the present day. He had no wish to judge her harshly, but he was too old and knew too much of life to be easily deceived in his estimation of character. A very slight hint was sufficient for him. He had seen a great deal of Lucy Sorrel as a child—she had always been known as his "little favourite"—but since she had attended a fashionable school at Brighton, his visits to her home had been less frequent, and he had had very few opportunities of becoming acquainted with the gradual development of her mental and moral self. During her holidays he had given her as many little social pleasures and gaieties as he had considered might be acceptable to her taste and age, but on these occasions other persons had always been present, and Lucy herself had worn what are called "company" manners, which in her case were singularly charming and attractive, so much so, indeed, that it would have seemed like heresy to question their sincerity. But now—whether it was the slight hint dropped by Sir Francis Vesey on the previous night as to Mrs. Sorrel's match-making proclivities, or whether it was a scarcely perceptible suggestion of something more flippant and assertive than usual in the air and bearing of Lucy herself that had awakened his suspicions,—he was certainly disposed to doubt, for the first time in all his knowledge of her, the candid nature of the girl for whom he had hitherto entertained, half-unconsciously, an almost parental affection. He sat by her side at supper, seldom speaking, but always closely observant. He saw everything; he watched the bright, exulting flash of her eyes as she glanced at her various friends, both near her and at a distance, and he fancied he detected in their responsive looks a subtle inquiry and meaning which he would not allow himself to investigate. And while the bubbling talk and laughter eddied round him, he made up his mind to combat the lurking distrust that teased his brain, and either to disperse it altogether or else confirm it beyond all mere shadowy misgiving. Some such thought as this had occurred to him, albeit vaguely, when he had, on a sudden unpremeditated impulse, asked Lucy to give him a few minutes' private conversation with her after supper, but now, what had previously been a mere idea formulated itself into a fixed resolve.

"For what, after all, does it matter to me?" he mused. "Why should I hesitate to destroy a dream? Why should I care if another rainbow bubble of life breaks and disappears? I am too old to have ideals—so most people would tell me. And yet—with the grave open and ready to receive me,—I still believe that love and truth and purity surely exist in women's hearts—if one could only know just where to find the women!"

"Dear King David!" murmured a cooing voice at his ear. "Won't you drink my health?"

He started as from a reverie. Lucy Sorrel was bending towards him, her face glowing with gratified vanity and self-elation.

"Of course!" he answered, and rising to his feet, he lifted his glass full of as yet untasted champagne, at which action on his part the murmur of voices suddenly ceased sand all eyes were turned upon him. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, in his soft, tired voice,—"I beg to propose the health of Miss Lucy Sorrel! She has lived twenty-one years on this interesting old planet of ours, and has found it, so far, not altogether without charm. I have had seventy years of it, and strange as it may seem to you all, I am able to keep a few of the illusions and delusions I had when I was even younger than our charming guest of the evening. I still believe in good women! I think I have one sitting at my right hand to-night. I take for granted that her nature is as fair as her face; and I hope that every recurring anniversary of this day may bring her just as much happiness as she deserves. I ask you to drink to her health, wealth, and prosperity; and—may she soon find a good husband!"

Applause and laughter followed this conventional little speech, and the toast was honoured in the usual way, Lucy bowing and smiling her thanks to all present. And then there ensued one of those strange impressions—one might almost call them telepathic instead of atmospheric effects—which, subtly penetrating the air, exerted an inexplicable influence on the mind;—the expectancy of some word never to be uttered,—the waiting for some incident never to take place. People murmured and smiled, and looked and laughed, but there was an evident embarrassment among them,—an under-sense of something like disappointment. The fortunately commonplace and methodical habits of waiters, whose one idea is to keep their patrons busy eating and drinking, gradually overcame this insidious restraint, and the supper went on gaily till at one o'clock the Hungarian band again began to play, and all the young people, eager for their "extras" in the way of dances, quickly rose from the various tables and began to crowd out towards the ballroom. In the general dispersal, Lucy having left him for a partner to whom she had promised the first "extra," Helmsley stopped to speak to one or two men well known to him in the business world. He was still conversing with these when Mrs. Sorrel, not perceiving him in the corner where he stood apart with his friend, trotted past him with an agitated step and flushed countenance, and catching her daughter by the skirt of her dress as that young lady moved on with the pushing throng in front of her, held her back for a second.

"What have you done?" she demanded querulously, in not too soft a tone. "Were you careful? Did you manage him properly? What did he say to you?"

Lucy's beautiful face hardened, and her lips met in a thin, decidedly bad-tempered line.

"He said nothing to the purpose," she replied coldly. "There was no time. But"—and she lowered her voice—"he wants to speak to me alone presently. I'm going to him in the library after this dance."

She passed on, and Mrs. Sorrel, heaving a deep sigh, drew out a black pocket-fan and fanned herself vigorously. Wreathing her face with social smiles, she made her way slowly out of the supper-room, happily unaware that Helmsley had been near enough to hear every word that had passed. And hearing, he had understood; but he went on talking to his friends in the quiet, rather slow way which was habitual to him, and when he left them there was nothing about him to indicate that he was in a suppressed state of nervous excitement which made him for the moment quite forget that he was an old man. Impetuous youth itself never felt a keener blaze of vitality in the veins than he did at that moment, but it was the withering heat of indignation that warmed him—not the tender glow of love. The clarion sweetness of the dance-music, now pealing loudly on the air, irritated his nerves,—the lights, the flowers, the brilliancy of the whole scene jarred upon his soul,—what was it all but sham, he thought!—a show in the mere name of friendship!—an ephemeral rose of pleasure with a worm at its core! Impatiently he shook himself free of those who sought to detain him and went at once to his library,—a sombre, darkly-furnished apartment, large enough to seem gloomy by contrast with the gaiety and cheerfulness which were dominant throughout the rest of the house that evening. Only two or three shaded lamps were lit, and these cast a ghostly flicker on the row of books that lined the walls. A few names in raised letters of gold relief upon the backs of some of the volumes, asserted themselves, or so he fancied, with unaccustomed prominence. "Montaigne," "Seneca," "Rochefoucauld," "Goethe," "Byron," and "The Sonnets of William Shakespeare," stood forth from the surrounding darkness as though demanding special notice.

"Voices of the dead!" he murmured half aloud. "I should have learned wisdom from you all long ago! What have the great geniuses of the world lived for? For what purpose did they use their brains and pens? Simply to teach mankind the folly of too much faith! Yet we continue to delude ourselves—and the worst of it is that we do it wilfully and knowingly. We are perfectly aware that when we trust, we shall be deceived—yet we trust on! Even I—old and frail and about to die—cannot rid myself of a belief in God, and in the ultimate happiness of each man's destiny. And yet, so far as my own experience serves me, I have nothing to go upon—absolutely nothing!"

He gave an unconscious gesture—half of scorn, half of despair—and paced the room slowly up and down. A life of toil—a life rounding into worldly success, but blank of all love and heart's comfort—was this to be the only conclusion to his career? Of what use, then, was it to have lived at all?

"People talk foolishly of a 'declining birth-rate,'" he went on; "yet if, according to the modern scientist, all civilisations are only so much output of wasted human energy, doomed to pass into utter oblivion, and human beings only live but to die and there an end, of what avail is it to be born at all? Surely it is but wanton cruelty to take upon ourselves the responsibility of continuing a race whose only consummation is rottenness in unremembered graves!"

At that moment the door opened and Lucy Sorrel entered softly, with a pretty air of hesitating timidity which became her style of beauty excellently well. As he looked up and saw her standing half shyly on the threshold, a white, light, radiant figure expressing exquisitely fresh youth, grace and—innocence?—yes! surely that wondrous charm which hung about her like a delicate atmosphere redolent with the perfume of spring, could only be the mystic exhalation of a pure mind adding spiritual lustre to the material attraction of a perfect body,—his heart misgave him. Already he was full of remorse lest so much as a passing thought in his brain might have done her unmerited wrong. He advanced to meet her, and his voice was full of kindness as he said:—

"Is your dance quite over, Lucy? Are you sure I am not selfishly depriving you of pleasure by asking you to come away from all your young friends just to talk to me for a few minutes in this dull room?"

She raised her beautiful eyes confidingly.

"Dear Mr. Helmsley, there can be no greater pleasure for me than to talk to you!" she answered sweetly.

His expression changed and hardened. "That's not true," he thought; "and she knows it, and I know it." Aloud he said: "Very prettily spoken, Lucy! But I am aware of my own tediousness and I won't detain you long. Will you sit down?" and he offered her an easy-chair, into which she sank with the soft slow grace of a nestling bird. "I only want to say just a few words,—such as your father might say to you if he were so inclined—about your future."

She gave him a swift glance of keen inquiry.

"My future?" she echoed.

"Yes. Have you thought of it at all yourself?"

She heaved a little sigh, smiled, and shook her head in the negative.

"I'm afraid I'm very silly," she confessed plaintively. "I never think!"

He drew up another armchair and sat down opposite to her.

"Well, try to do so now for five minutes at least," he said, gently. "I am going away to-morrow or next day for a considerable time——"

A quick flush flew over her face.

"Going away!" she exclaimed. "But—not far?"

"That depends on my own whim," he replied, watching her attentively. "I shall certainly be absent from England for a year, perhaps longer. But, Lucy,—you were such a little pet of mine in your childhood that I cannot help taking an interest in you now you are grown up. That is, I think, quite natural. And I should like to feel that you have some good and safe idea of your own happiness in life before I leave you."

She stared,—her face fell.

"I have no ideas at all," she answered after a pause, the corners of her red mouth drooping in petulant, spoilt-child fashion, "and if you go away I shall have no pleasures either!"

He smiled.

"I'm sorry you take it that way," he said. "But I'm nearing the end of my tether, Lucy, and increasing age makes me restless. I want change of scene—and change of surroundings. I am thoroughly tired of my present condition."

"Tired?" and her eyes expressed whole volumes of amazement. "Not really? You—tired of your present condition? With all your money?"

"With all my money!" he answered drily, "Money is not the elixir of happiness, Lucy, though many people seem to think it is. But I prefer not to talk about myself. Let me speak of you. What do you propose to do with your life? You will marry, of course?"

"I—I suppose so," she faltered.

"Is there any one you specially favour?—any young fellow who loves you, or whom you are inclined to love—and who wants a start in the world? If there is, send him to me, and, if he has anything in him, I'll make myself answerable for his prosperity."

She looked up with a cold, bright steadfastness.

"There is no one," she said. "Dear Mr. Helmsley, you are very good, but I assure you I have never fallen in love in my life. As I told you before supper, I don't believe in that kind of nonsense. And I—I want nothing. Of course I know my father and mother are poor, and that they have kept up a sort of position which ranks them among the 'shabby genteel,'—and I suppose if I don't marry quickly I shall have to do something for a living——"

She broke off, embarrassed by the keenness of the gaze he fixed upon her.

"Many good, many beautiful, many delicate women 'do something,' as you put it, for a living," he said slowly. "But the fight is always fierce, and the end is sometimes bitter. It is better for a woman that she should be safeguarded by a husband's care and tenderness than that she should attempt to face the world alone."

A flashing smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.

"Why, yes, I quite agree with you," she retorted playfully. "But if no husband come forward, then it cannot be helped!"

He rose, and, pushing away his chair, walked up and down in silence.

She watched him with a sense of growing irritability, and her heart beat with uncomfortable quickness. Why did he seem to hesitate so long? Presently he stopped in his slow movement to and fro, and stood looking down upon her with a fixed intensity which vaguely troubled her.

"It is difficult to advise," he said, "and it is still more difficult to control. In your case I have no right to do either. I am an old man, and you are a very young woman. You are beginning your life,—I am ending mine. Yet, young as you are, you say with apparent sincerity that you do not believe in love. Now I, though I have loved and lost, though I have loved and have been cruelly deceived in love, still believe that if the true, heavenly passion be fully and faithfully experienced, it must prove the chief joy, if not the only one, of life. You think otherwise, and perhaps you correctly express the opinion of the younger generation of men and women. These appear to crowd more emotion and excitement into their lives than ever was attained or attainable in the lives of their forefathers, but they do not, or so it seems to me, secure for themselves as much peace of mind and satisfaction of soul as were the inheritance of bygone folk whom we now call 'old-fashioned.' Still, you may be right in depreciating the power of love—from your point of view. All the same, I should be sorry to see you entering into a loveless marriage."

For a moment she was silent, then she suddenly plunged into speech.

"Dear Mr. Helmsley, do you really think all the silly sentiment talked and written about love is any good in marriage? We know so much nowadays,—and the disillusion of matrimony is so very complete! One has only to read the divorce cases in the newspapers to see what mistakes people make——"

He winced as though he had been stung.

"Do you read the divorce cases, Lucy?" he asked. "You—a mere girl like you?"

She looked surprised at the regret and pain in his tone.

"Why, of course! One must read the papers to keep up with all the things that are going on. And the divorce cases have always such startling headings,—in such big print!—one is obliged to read them—positively obliged!"

She laughed carelessly, and settled herself more cosily in her chair.

"You nearly always find that it is the people who were desperately in love with each other before marriage who behave disgracefully and are perfectly sick of each other afterwards," she went on. "They wanted perpetual poetry and moonlight, and of course they find they can't have it. Now, I don't want poetry or moonlight,—I hate both! Poetry makes me sleepy, and moonlight gives me neuralgia. I should like a husband who would be a friend to me—a real kind friend!—some one who would be able to take care of me, and be nice to me always—some one much older than myself, who was wise and strong and clever——"

"And rich," said Helmsley quietly. "Don't forget that! Very rich!"

She glanced at him furtively, conscious of a slight nervous qualm. Then, rapidly reviewing the situation in her shallow brain, she accepted his remark smilingly.

"Oh, well, of course!" she said. "It's not pleasant to live without plenty of money."

He turned from her abruptly, and resumed his leisurely walk to and fro, much to her inward vexation. He was becoming fidgety, she decided,—old people were really very trying! Suddenly, with the air of a man arriving at an important decision, he sat down again in the armchair opposite her own, and leaning indolently back against the cushion, surveyed her with a calm, critical, entirely businesslike manner, much as he would have looked at a Jew company-promoter, who sought his aid to float a "bogus" scheme.

"It's not pleasant to live without plenty of money, you think," he said, repeating her last words slowly. "Well! The pleasantest time of my life was when I did not own a penny in the bank, and when I had to be very sharp in order to earn enough for my day's dinner. There was a zest, a delight, a fine glory in the mere effort to live that brought out the strength of every quality I possessed. I learned to know myself, which is a farther reaching wisdom than is found in knowing others. I had ideals then,—and—old as I am, I have them still."

He paused. She was silent. Her eyes were lowered, and she played idly with her painted fan.

"I wonder if it would surprise you," he went on, "to know that I have made an ideal of you?"

She looked up with a smile.

"Really? Have you? I'm afraid I shall prove a disappointment!"

He did not answer by the obvious compliment which she felt she had a right to expect. He kept his gaze fixed steadily on her face, and his shaggy eyebrows almost met in the deep hollow which painful thought had ploughed along his forehead.

"I have made," he said, "an ideal in my mind of the little child who sat on my knee, played with my watch-chain and laughed at me when I called her my little sweetheart. She was perfectly candid in her laughter,—she knew it was absurd for an old man to have a child as his sweetheart. I loved to hear her laugh so,—because she was true to herself, and to her right and natural instincts. She was the prettiest and sweetest child I ever saw,—full of innocent dreams and harmless gaiety. She began to grow up, and I saw less and less of her, till gradually I lost the child and found the woman. But I believe in the child's heart still—I think that the truth and simplicity of the child's soul are still in the womanly nature,—and in that way, Lucy, I yet hold you as an ideal."

Her breath quickened a little.

"You think too kindly of me," she murmured, furling and unfurling her fan slowly; "I'm not at all clever."

He gave a slight deprecatory gesture.

"Cleverness is not what I expect or have ever expected of you," he said. "You have not as yet had to endure the misrepresentation and wrong which frequently make women clever,—the life of solitude and despised dreams which moves a woman to put on man's armour and sally forth to fight the world and conquer it, or else die in the attempt. How few conquer, and how many die, are matters of history. Be glad you are not a clever woman, Lucy!—for genius in a woman is the mystic laurel of Apollo springing from the soft breast of Daphne. It hurts in the growing, and sometimes breaks the heart from which it grows."

She answered nothing. He was talking in a way she did not understand,—his allusion to Apollo and Daphne was completely beyond her. She smothered a tiny yawn and wondered why he was so tedious. Moreover, she was conscious of some slight chagrin, for though she said, out of mere social hypocrisy, that she was not clever, she thought herself exceptionally so. Why could he not admit her abilities as readily as she herself admitted them?

"No, you are not clever," he resumed quietly. "And I am glad you are not. You are good and pure and true,—these graces outweigh all cleverness."

Her cheeks flushed prettily,—she thought of a girl who had been her schoolmate at Brighton, one of the boldest little hussies that ever flashed eyes to the light of day, yet who could assume the dainty simpering air of maiden—modest perfection at the moment's notice. She wished she could do the same, but she had not studied the trick carefully enough, and she was afraid to try more of it than just a little tremulous smile and a quick downward glance at her fan. Helmsley watched her attentively—almost craftily. It did not strain his sense of perspicuity over much to see exactly what was going on in her mind. He settled himself a little more comfortably in his chair, and pressing the tips of his fingers together, looked at her over

CHAPTER IV

Two or three days later, Sir Francis Vesey was sitting in his private office, a musty den encased within the heart of the city, listening, or trying to listen, to the dull clerical monotone of a clerk's dry voice detailing the wearisome items of certain legal formulæ preliminary to an impending case. Sir Francis had yawned capaciously once or twice, and had played absently with a large ink-stained paperknife,—signs that his mind was wandering somewhat from the point at issue. He was a conscientious man, but he was getting old, and the disputations of obstinate or foolish clients were becoming troublesome to him. Moreover, the case concerning which his clerk was prosing along in the style of a chapel demagogue engaged in extemporary prayer, was an extremely uninteresting one, and he thought hazily of his lunch. The hour for that meal was approaching,—a fact for which he was devoutly thankful. For after lunch, he gave himself his own release from work for the rest of the day. He left it all to his subordinates, and to his partner Symonds, who was some eight or ten years his junior. He glanced at the clock, and beat a tattoo with his foot on the floor, conscious of his inward impatience with the reiterated "Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the so-and-so," which echoed dully on the otherwise unbroken silence. It was a warm, sunshiny morning, but the brightness of the outer air was poorly reflected in the stuffy room, which though comfortably and even luxuriously furnished, conveyed the usual sense of dismal depression common to London precincts of the law. Two or three flies buzzed irritably now and then against the smoke-begrimed windowpanes, and the clerk's dreary preamble went on and on till Sir Francis closed his eyes and wondered whether a small "catnap" would be possible between the sections of the seeming interminable document. Suddenly, to his relief, there came a sharp tap at the door, and an office boy looked in.

"Mr. Helmsley's man, sir," he announced. "Wants to see you personally."

Sir Francis got up from his chair with alacrity.

"All right! Show him in."

The boy retired, and presently reappearing, ushered in a staid-looking personage in black who, saluting Sir Francis respectfully, handed him a letter marked "Confidential."

"Nice day, Benson," remarked the lawyer cheerfully, as he took the missive. "Is your master quite well?"

"Perfectly well, Sir Francis, thank you," replied Benson. "Leastways he was when I saw him off just now."

"Oh! He's gone then?"

"Yes, Sir Francis. He's gone."

Sir Francis broke the seal of the letter,—then bethinking himself of "Whereas the said" and "Witnesseth the so-and-so," turned to his worn and jaded clerk.

"That will do for the present," he said. "You can go."

With pleasing haste the clerk put together the voluminous folios of blue paper from which he had been reading, and quickly made his exit, while Sir Francis, still standing, put on his glasses and unfolded the one sheet of note-paper on which Helmsley's communication was written. Glancing it up and down, he turned it over and over—then addressed himself to the attentively waiting Benson.

"So Mr. Helmsley has started on his trip alone?"

"Yes, Sir Francis. Quite alone."

"Did he say where he was going?"

"He booked for Southhampton, sir."

"Oh!"

"And," proceeded Benson, "he only took one portmanteau."

"Oh!" again ejaculated the lawyer. And, stroking his bearded chin, he thought awhile.

"Are you going to stay at Carlton House Terrace till he comes back?"

"I have a month's holiday, sir. Then I return to my place. The same order applies to all the servants, sir."

"I see! Well!"

And then there came a pause.

"I suppose," said Sir Francis, after some minutes' reflection, "I suppose you know that during Mr. Helmsley's absence you are to apply to me for wages and household expenses—that, in fact, your master has placed me in charge of all his affairs?"

"So I have understood, sir," replied Benson, deferentially. "Mr. Helmsley called us all into his room last night and told us so."

CHAPTER V

Among the many wild and lovely tangles of foliage and flower which Nature and her subject man succeed in working out together after considerable conflict and argument, one of the most beautiful and luxuriant is a Somersetshire lane. Narrow and tortuous, fortified on either side with high banks of rough turf, topped by garlands of climbing wild-rose, bunches of corn-cockles and tufts of meadow-sweet, such a lane in midsummer is one of beauty's ways through the world,—a path, which if it lead to no more important goal than a tiny village or solitary farm, is, to the dreamer and poet, sufficiently entrancing in itself to seem a fairy road to fairyland. Here and there some grand elm or beech tree, whose roots have hugged the soil for more than a century, spreads out broad protecting branches all a-shimmer with green leaves,—between the uneven tufts of grass, the dainty "ragged robin" sprays its rose-pink blossoms contrastingly against masses of snowy star-wort and wild strawberry,—the hedges lean close together, as though accustomed to conceal the shy confidences of young lovers,—and from the fields beyond, the glad singing of countless skylarks, soaring one after the other into the clear pure air, strikes a wave of repeated melody from point to point of the visible sky. All among the delicate or deep indentures of the coast, where the ocean creeps softly inland with a caressing murmur, or scoops out caverns for itself among the rocks with perpetual roar and dash of foam, the glamour of the green extends,—the "lane runs down to meet the sea, carrying with it its garlands of blossoms, its branches of verdure, and all the odour and freshness of the woodlands and meadows, and when at last it drops to a conclusion in some little sandy bay or sparkling weir, it leaves an impression of melody on the soul like the echo of a sweet song just sweetly sung. High up the lanes run;—low down on the shoreline they come to an end,—and the wayfarer, pacing along at the summit of their devious windings, can hear the plash of the sea below him as he walks,—the little tender laughing plash if the winds are calm and the day is fair,—the angry thud and boom of the billows if a storm is rising. These bye-roads, of which there are so many along the Somersetshire coast, are often very lonely,—they are dangerous to traffic, as no two ordinary sized vehicles can pass each other conveniently within so narrow a compass,—and in summer especially they are haunted by gypsies, "pea-pickers," and ill-favoured men and women of the "tramp" species, slouching along across country from Bristol to Minehead, and so over Countisbury Hill into Devon. One such questionable-looking individual there was, who,—in a golden afternoon of July, when the sun was beginning to decline towards the west,—paused in his slow march through the dust, which even in the greenest of hill and woodland ways is bound to accumulate thickly after a fortnight's lack of rain,—and with a sigh of fatigue, sat down at the foot of a tree to rest. He was an old man, with a thin weary face which was rendered more gaunt and haggard-looking by a ragged grey moustache and ugly stubble beard of some ten days' growth, and his attire suggested that he might possibly be a labourer dismissed from farm work for the heinous crime of old age, and therefore "on the tramp" looking out for a job. He wore a soft slouched felt hat, very much out of shape and weather-stained,—and when he had been seated for a few minutes in a kind of apathy of lassitude, he lifted the hat off, passing his hand through his abundant rough white hair in a slow tired way, as though by this movement he sought to soothe some teasing pain.

"I think," he murmured, addressing himself to a tiny brown bird which had alighted on a branch of briar-rose hard by, and was looking at him with bold and lively inquisitiveness,—"I think I have managed the whole thing very well! I have left no clue anywhere. My portmanteau will tell no tales, locked up in the cloak-room at Bristol. If it is ever sold with its contents 'to defray expenses,' nothing will be found in it but some unmarked clothes. And so far as all those who know me are concerned, every trace of me ends at Southampton. Beyond Southampton there is a blank, into which David Helmsley, the millionaire, has vanished. And David Helmsley, the tramp, sits here in his place!"

The little brown bird preened its wing, and glanced at him sideways intelligently, as much as to say: "I quite understand! You have become one of us,—a wanderer, taking no thought for the morrow, but letting to-morrow take thought for the things of itself. There is a bond of sympathy between me, the bird, and you, the man—we are brothers!"

A sudden smile illumined his face. The situation was novel, and to him enjoyable. He was greatly fatigued,—he had over-exerted himself during the past three or four days, walking much further than he had ever been accustomed to, and his limbs ached sorely—nevertheless, with the sense of rest and relief from strain, came a certain exhilaration of spirit, like the vivacious delight of a boy who has run away from school, and is defiantly ready to take all the consequences of his disobedience to the rules of discipline and order. For years he had wanted a "new" experience of life. No one would give him what he sought. To him the "social" round was ever the same dreary, heartless and witless thing, as empty under the sway of one king or queen as another, and as utterly profitless to peace or happiness as it has always been. The world of finance was equally uninteresting so far as he was concerned; he had exhausted it, and found it no more than a monotonous grind of gain which ended in a loathing of the thing gained. Others might and would consume themselves in fevers of avarice, and surfeits of luxury,—but for him such temporary pleasures were past. He desired a complete change,—a change of surroundings, a change of associations—and for this, what could be more excellent or more wholesome than a taste of poverty? In his time he had met men who, worn out with the constant fight of the body's materialism against the soul's idealism, had turned their backs for ever on the world and its glittering shows, and had shut themselves up as monks of "enclosed" or "silent" orders,—others he had known, who, rushing away from what we call civilisation, had encamped in the backwoods of America, or high up among the Rocky Mountains, and had lived the lives of primeval savages in their strong craving to assert a greater manliness than the streets of cities would allow them to enjoy,—and all were moved by the same mainspring of action,—the overpowering spiritual demand within themselves which urged them to break loose from cowardly conventions and escape from Sham. He could not compete with younger men in taking up wild sport and "big game" hunting in far lands, in order to give free play to the natural savage temperament which lies untamed at the root of every man's individual being,—and he had no liking for "monastic" immurements. But he longed for liberty,—liberty to go where he liked without his movements being watched and commented upon by a degraded "personal" press,—liberty to speak as he felt and do as he wished, without being compelled to weigh his words, or to consider his actions. Hence—he had decided on his present course, though how that course was likely to shape itself in its progress he had no very distinct idea. His actual plan was to walk to Cornwall, and there find out the native home of his parents, not so much for sentiment's sake as for the necessity of having a definite object or goal in view. And the reason of his determination to go "on the road," as it were, was simply that he wished to test for himself the actual happiness or misery experienced by the very poor as contrasted with the supposed joys of the very wealthy. This scheme had been working in his brain for the past year or more,—all his business arrangements had been made in such a way as to enable him to carry it out satisfactorily to himself without taking any one else into his confidence. The only thing that might possibly have deterred him from his quixotic undertaking would have been the moral triumph of Lucy Sorrel over the temptation he had held out to her. Had she been honest to her better womanhood,—had she still possessed the "child's heart," with which his remembrance and imagination had endowed her, he would have resigned every other thought save that of so smoothing the path of life for her that she might tread it easily to the end. But now that she had disappointed him, he had, so he told himself, done with fine illusions and fair beliefs for ever. And he had started on a lonely quest,—a search for something vague and intangible, the very nature of which he himself could not tell. Some glimmering ghost of a notion lurked in his mind that perhaps, during his self-imposed solitary ramblings, he might find some new and unexplored channel wherein his vast wealth might flow to good purpose after his death, without the trammels of Committee-ism and Red-Tape-ism. But he expected and formulated nothing,—he was more or less in a state of quiescence, awaiting adventures without either hope or fear. In the meantime, here he sat in the shady Somersetshire lane, resting,—the multi-millionaire whose very name shook the money-markets of the world, but who to all present appearances seemed no more than a tramp, footing it wearily along one of the many winding "short cuts" through the country between Somerset and Devon, and as unlike the actual self of him as known to Lombard Street and the Stock Exchange as a beggar is unlike a king.

"After all, it's quite as interesting as 'big game' shooting!" he said, the smile still lingering in his eyes. "I am after 'sport,'—in a novel fashion! I am on the lookout for new specimens of men and women,—real honest ones! I may find them,—I may not,—but the search will surely prove at least as instructive and profitable as if one went out to the Arctic regions for the purpose of killing innocent polar bears! Change and excitement are what every one craves for nowadays—I'm getting as much as I want—in my own way!"

He thought over the whole situation, and reviewed with a certain sense of interest and amusement his method of action since he left London. Benson, his valet, had packed his portmanteau, according to orders, with everything that was necessary for a short sea trip, and then had seen him off at the station for Southampton,—and to Southampton he had gone. Arrived there, he had proceeded to a hotel, where, under an assumed name, he had stayed the night. The next day he had left Southampton for Salisbury by train, and there staying another night, had left again for Bath and Bristol. On the latter journey he had "tipped" the guard heavily to keep his first-class compartment reserved to himself. This had been done; and the train being an express, stopping at very few stations, he had found leisure and opportunity to unpack his portmanteau and cut away every mark on his linen and other garments which could give the slightest clue to their possessor. When he had removed all possible trace of his identity on or in this one piece of luggage, he packed it up again, and on reaching Bristol, took it to the station's cloak-room, and there deposited it with the stated intention of calling back for it at the hour of the next train to London. This done, he stepped forth untrammelled, a free man. He had with him five hundred pounds in banknotes, and for a day or so was content to remain in Bristol at one of the best hotels, under an assumed name as before, while privately making such other preparations for his intended long "tramp" as he thought

CHAPTER VI

They plodded on together side by side for some time in unbroken silence. At last, after a short but stiff climb up a rough piece of road which terminated in an eminence commanding a wide and uninterrupted view of the surrounding country, they paused. The sea lay far below them, dimly covered by the gathering darkness, and the long swish and roll of the tide could be heard sweeping to and from the shore like the grave and graduated rhythm of organ music.

"We'd best 'ave a bit of a jabber to keep us goin'," said Peke, then—"Jabberin' do pass time, as the wimin can prove t' ye; an' arter such a jumblegut lane as this, it'll seem less lonesome. We're off the main road to towns an' sich like—this is a bye, an' 'ere it stops. We'll 'ave to git over yon stile an' cross the fields—'taint an easy nor clean way, but it's the best goin'. We'll see the lights o' the 'Trusty Man' just over the brow o' the next hill."

Helmsley drew a long breath, and sat down on a stone by the roadside. Peke surveyed him critically.

"Poor old gaffer! Knocked all to pieces, aint ye! Not used to the road? Glory be good to me! I should think ye wornt! Short in yer wind an' weak on yer pins! I'd as soon see my old grandad trampin' it as you. Look 'ere! Will ye take a dram out o' this 'ere bottle?"

He held up the bottle he spoke of,—it was black, and untemptingly dirty. Yet there was such a good-natured expression in the man's eyes, and so much honest solicitude written on his rough bearded face, that Helmsley felt it would be almost like insulting him to refuse his invitation.

"Tell me what's in it first!" he said, smiling.

"'Taint whisky," said Peke. "And 'taint brandy neither. Nor rum. Norgin. Nor none o' them vile stuffs which brewers makes as arterwards goes to Parl'ment on the profits of 'avin' poisoned their constitooants. 'Tis nowt but just yerb wine."

"Yerb wine? Wine made of herbs?"

"That's it! 'Erbs or yerbs—I aint pertikler which—I sez both. This,"—and he shook the bottle he held vigorously—"is genuine yerb wine—an' made as I makes it, what do the Wise One say of it? 'E sez:—'It doth strengthen the heart of a man mightily, and refresheth the brain; drunk fasting, it braceth up the sinews and maketh the old feel young; it is of rare virtue to expel all evil humours, and if princes should drink of it oft it would be but an ill service to the world, as they might never die!'"

Peke recited these words slowly and laboriously; it was evident that he had learned them by heart, and that the effort of remembering them correctly was more or less painful to him.

Helmsley laughed, and stretched out his hand.

"Give it over here!" he said. "It's evidently just the stuff for me. How much shall I take at one go?"

Peke uncorked the precious fluid with care, smelt it, and nodded appreciatively.

"Swill it all if ye like," he remarked graciously. "'Twont hurt ye, an' there's more where that came from. It's cheap enuff, too—nature don't keep it back from no man. On'y there aint a many got sense enuff to thank the Lord when it's offered."

As he thus talked, Helmsley took the bottle from him and tasted its contents. The "yerb wine" was delicious. More grateful to his palate than Chambertin or Clos Vougeot, it warmed and invigorated him, and he took a long draught, Matthew Peke watching him drink it with great satisfaction.

"Let the yerbs run through yer veins for two or three minits, an' ye'll step across yon fields as light as a bird 'oppin' to its nest," he declared. "Talk o' tonics,—there's more tonic in a handful o' green stuff growin' as the Lord makes it to grow, than all the purr-escriptions what's sent out o' them big 'ouses in 'Arley Street, London, where the doctors sits from ten to two like spiders waitin' for flies, an' gatherin' in the guineas for lookin' at fools' tongues. Glory be good to me! If all the world were as sick as it's silly, there'd be nowt wantin' to 't but a grave an' a shovel!"

Helmsley smiled, and taking another pull at the black bottle, declared himself much better and ready to go on. He was certainly refreshed, and the weary aching of his limbs which had made every step of the road painful and difficult to him, was gradually passing off.

"You are very good to me," he said, as he returned the remainder of the "yerb wine" to its owner. "I wonder why?"

Peke took a draught of his mixture before replying. Then corking the bottle, he thrust it in his pocket.

"Ye wonders why?" And he uttered a sound between a grunt and a chuckle—"Ye may do that! I wonders myself!"

And, giving his basket a hitch, he resumed his slow trudging movement onward.

"You see," pursued Helmsley, keeping up the pace beside him, and beginning to take pleasure in the conversation—"I may be anything or anybody——"

"Ye may that," agreed Peke, his eyes fixed as usual on the ground. "Ye may be a jail-bird or a missioner,—they'se much of a muchity, an' goes on the road lookin' quite simple like, an' the simpler they seems the deeper they is. White 'airs an' feeble legs 'elps 'em along considerable,—nowt's better stock-in-trade than tremblin' shins. Or ye might be a War-office neglect,—ye looks a bit set that way."

"What's a War-office neglect?" asked Helmsley, laughing.

"One o' them totterin' old chaps as was in the Light Brigade," answered Peke. "There's no end to 'em. They'se all over every road in the country. All of 'em fought wi' Lord Cardigan, an' all o' 'em's driven to starve by an ungrateful Gov'ment. They won't be all dead an' gone till a hundred years 'as rolled away, an' even then I shouldn't wonder if one or two was still left on the tramp a-pipin' his little 'arf-a-league onard tale o' woe to the first softy as forgits the date o' the battle." Here he gave an inquisitive side-glance at his companion. "But you aint quite o' the Balaclava make an' colour. Yer shoulders is millingterry, but yer 'ead is business. Ye might be a gentleman if 'twornt for yer clothes."

Helmsley heard this definition of himself without flinching.

"I might be a thief," he said—"or an escaped convict. You've been kind to me without knowing whether I am one or the other, or both. And I want to know why?"

Peke stopped in his walk. They had come to the stile over which the way lay across the fields, and he rested himself and his basket for a moment against it.

"Why?" he repeated,—then suddenly raising one hand, he whispered, "Listen! Listen to the sea!"

The evening had now almost closed in, and all around them the country lay dark and solitary, broken here and there by tall groups of trees which at night looked like sable plumes, standing stiff and motionless in the stirless summer air. Thousands of stars flashed out across this blackness, throbbing in their orbits with a quick pulsation as of uneasy hearts beating with nameless and ungratified longing. And through the tense silence came floating a long, sweet, passionate cry,—a shivering moan of pain that touched the edge of joy,—a song without words, of pleading and of prayer, as of a lover, who, debarred from the possession of the beloved, murmurs his mingled despair and hope to the unsubstantial dream of his own tortured soul. The sea was calling to the earth,—calling to her in phrases of eloquent and urgent music,—caressing her pebbly shores with winding arms of foam, and showering kisses of wild spray against her rocky bosom. "If I could come to thee! If thou couldst come to me!" was the burden of the waves,—the ceaseless craving of the finite for the infinite, which is, and ever shall be, the great chorale of life. The shuddering sorrow of that low rhythmic boom of the waters rising and falling fathoms deep under cliffs which the darkness veiled from view, awoke echoes from the higher hills around, and David Helmsley, lifting his eyes to the countless planet-worlds sprinkled thick as flowers in the patch of sky immediately above him, suddenly realised with a pang how near he was to death,—how very near to that final drop into the unknown where the soul of man is destined to find All or Nothing! He trembled,—not with fear,—but with a kind of anger at himself for having wasted so much of his life. What had he done, with all his toil and pains? He had gathered a multitude of riches. Well, and then? Then,—why then, and now, he had found riches but vain getting. Life and Death were still, as they have always been, the two supreme Facts of the universe. Life, as ever, asserted itself with an insistence demanding something far more enduring than the mere possession of gold, and the power which gold brings. And Death presented its unwelcome aspect in the same perpetual way as the Last Recorder who, at the end of the day, closes up accounts with a sum-total paid exactly in proportion to the work done. No more, and no less. And with Helmsley these accounts were reaching a figure against which his whole nature fiercely rebelled,—the figure of Nought, showing no value in his life's efforts or its results. And the sound of the sea to-night in his ears was more full of reproach than peace.

"When the water moans like that," said Peke softly, under his breath, "it seems to me as if all the tongues of drowned sailors 'ad got into it an' was beggin' of us not to forget 'em lyin' cold among the shells an' weed. An' not only the tongues o' them seems a-speakin' an' a-cryin', but all the stray bones o' them seems to rattle in the rattle o' the foam. It goes through ye sharp, like a knife cuttin' a sour apple; an' it's made me wonder many a time why we was all put 'ere to git drowned or smashed or choked off or beat down somehows just when we don't expect it. Howsomiver, the Wise One sez it's all right!"

"And who is the Wise One?" asked Helmsley, trying to rouse himself from the heavy thoughts engendered in his mind by the wail of the sea.

"The Wise One was a man what wrote a book a 'underd years ago about 'erbs," said Peke. "'The Way o' Long Life,' it's called, an' my father an' grandfather and great-grandfather afore 'em 'ad the book, an' I've got it still, though I shows it to nobody, for nobody but me wouldn't unnerstand it. My father taught me my letters from it, an' I could spell it out when I was a kid—I've growed up on it, an' it's all I ever reads. It's 'ere"—and he touched his ragged vest. "I trusts it to keep me goin' 'ale an' 'arty till I'm ninety,—an' that's drawin' it mild, for my father lived till a 'underd, an' then on'y went through slippin' on a wet stone an' breakin' a bone in 'is back; an' my grandfather saw 'is larst Christmas at a 'underd an' ten, an' was up to kissin' a wench under the mistletoe, 'e was sich a chirpin' old gamecock. 'E didn't look no older'n you do now, an' you're a chicken compared to 'im. You've wore badly like, not knowin' the use o' yerbs."

"That's it!" said Helmsley, now following his companion over the stile and into the dark dewy fields beyond—"I need the advice of the Wise One! Has he any remedy for old age, I wonder?"

"Ay, now there ye treads on my fav'rite corn!" and Peke shook his head with a curious air of petulance. "That's what I'm a-lookin' for day an' night, for the Wise One 'as got a bit in 'is book which 'e's cropped out o' another Wise One's savin's,—a chap called Para-Cel-Sus"—and Peke pronounced this name in three distinct and well-divided syllables. "An this is what it is: 'Take the leaves of the Daura, which prevent those who use it from dying for a hundred and twenty years. In the same way the flower of the secta croa brings a hundred years to those who use it, whether they be of lesser or of longer age.' I've been on the 'unt for the 'Daura' iver since I was twenty, an' I've arskt ivery 'yerber I've ivir met for the 'Secta Croa,' an' all I've 'ad sed to me is 'Go 'long wi' ye for a loony jackass! There aint no sich thing.' But jackass or no, I'm of a mind to think there is such things as both the 'Daura' an' the 'Secta Croa,' if I on'y knew the English of 'em. An' s'posin' I ivir found 'em——"

"You would become that most envied creature of the present age,—a millionaire," said Helmsley; "you could command your own terms for the wonderful leaves,—you would cease to tramp the road or to gather herbs, and you would live in luxury like a king!"

"Not I!"—and Peke gave a grunt of contempt. "Kings aint my notion of 'appiness nor 'onesty neither. They does things often for which some o' the poor 'ud be put in quod, an' no mercy showed 'em, an' yet 'cos they're kings they gits off. An' I aint great on millionaires neither. They'se mis'able ricketty coves, all gone to pot in their in'ards through grubbin' money an' eatin' of it like, till ivery other kind o' food chokes 'em. There's a chymist in London what pays me five shillings an ounce for a little green yerb I knows on, cos' it's the on'y med'cine as keeps a millionaire customer of 'is a-goin'. I finds the yerb, an' the chymist gits the credit. I gits five shillin', an' the chymist gits a guinea. That's all right! I don't mind! I on'y gathers,—the chymist, 'e's got to infuse the yerb, distil an' bottle it. I'm paid my price, an 'e's paid 'is. All's fair in love an' war!"

He trudged on, his footsteps now rendered almost noiseless by the thick grass on which he trod. The heavy dew sparkled on every blade, and here and there the pale green twinkle of a glow-worm shone like a jewel dropped from a lady's gown. Helmsley walked beside his companion at an even pace,—the "yerb wine" had undoubtedly put strength in him and he was almost unconscious of his former excessive fatigue. He was interested in Peke's "jabber," and wondered, somewhat enviously, why such a man as this, rough, ragged, and uneducated, should seem to possess a contentment such as he had never known.

"Millionaires is gin'rally fools," continued Peke; "they buys all they wants, an' then they aint got nothin' more to live for. They gits into motor-cars an' scours the country, but they never sees it. They never 'ears the birds singin', an' they misses all the flowers. They never smells the vi'lets nor the mayblossom—they on'y gits their own petrol stench wi' the flavour o' the dust mixed in. Larst May I was a-walkin' in the lanes o' Devon, an' down the 'ill comes a motor-car tearin' an' scorchin' for all it was worth, an' bang went somethin' at the bottom o' the thing, an' it stops suddint. Out jumps a French chauffy, parlyvooin' to hisself, an' out jumps the man what owns it an' takes off his goggles. 'This is Devonshire, my man?' sez 'e to me. 'It is,' I sez to 'im. An' then the cuckoo started callin' away over the trees. 'What's that?' sez 'e lookin' startled like. 'That's the cuckoo,' sez I. An' he takes off 'is 'at an' rubs 'is 'ead, which was a' fast goin' bald. 'Dear, dear me!' sez 'e—'I 'aven't 'eard the cuckoo since I was a boy!' An' he rubs 'is 'ead again, an' laughs to hisself—'Not since I was a boy!' 'e sez. 'An' that's the cuckoo, is it? Dear, dear me!' 'You 'aven't bin much in the country p'r'aps?' sez I. 'I'm always in the country,' 'e sez—'I motor everywhere, but I've missed the cuckoo somehow!' An' then the chauffy puts the machine right, an' he jumps in an' gives me a shillin'. 'Thank-ye, my man!' sez 'e—'I'm glad you told me 'twas a real cuckoo!' Hor—er—hor—er—hor—er!" And Peke gave vent to a laugh peculiarly his own. "Mebbe 'e thought I'd got a Swiss clock with a sham cuckoo workin' it in my basket! 'I'm glad,' sez 'e, 'you told me 'twas a real cuckoo!' Hor—er—hor—er—hor—er!"

The odd chuckling sounds of merriment which were slowly jerked forth as it were from Peke's husky windpipe, were droll enough in themselves to be somewhat infectious, and Helmsley laughed as he had not done for many days.

"Ay, there's a mighty sight of tringum-trangums an' nonsense i' the world," went on Peke, still occasionally giving vent to a suppressed "Hor—er—hor"—"an' any amount o' Tom Conys what don't know a real cuckoo from a sham un'. Glory be good to me! Think o' the numskulls as goes in for pendlecitis! There's a fine name for ye! Pendlecitis! Hor—er—hor! All the fash'nables 'as got it, an' all the doctors 'as their knives sharpened an' ready to cut off the remains o' the tail we 'ad when we was all 'appy apes together! Hor—er—hor! An' the bit o' tail 's curled up in our in'ards now where it ain't got no business to be. Which shows as 'ow Natur' don't know 'ow to do it, seein' as if we 'adn't wanted a tail, she'd a' took it sheer off an' not left any behind. But the doctors thinks they knows a darn sight better'n Natur', an' they'll soon be givin' lessons in the makin' o' man to the Lord A'mighty hisself! Hor—er—hor! Pendlecitis! That's a precious monkey's tail, that there! In my grandfather's day we didn't 'ear 'bout no monkey's tails,—'twas just a chill an' inflammation o' the in'ards, an' a few yerbs made into a tea an' drunk 'ot fastin', cured it in twenty-four hours. But they've so many new-fangled notions nowadays, they've forgot all the old 'uns. There's the cancer illness,—people goes off all over the country now from cancer as never used to in my father's day, an' why? 'Cos they'se gittin' too wise for Nature's own cure. Nobody thinks o' tryin' agrimony,—water agrimony—some calls it water hemp an' bastard agrimony—'tis a thing that flowers in this month an' the next,—a brown-yellow blossom on a purple stalk, an' ye find it in cold places, in ponds an' ditches an' by runnin' waters. Make a drink of it, an' it'll mend any cancer, if 'taint too far gone. An' a cancer that's outside an' not in, 'ull clean away beautiful wi' the 'elp o' red clover. Even the juice o' nettles, which is common enough, drunk three times a day will kill any germ o' cancer, while it'll set up the blood as fresh an' bright as iver. But who's a-goin' to try common stuff like nettles an' clover an' water hemp, when there's doctors sittin' waitin' wi' knives an' wantin' money for cuttin' up their patients an' 'urryin' 'em into kingdom-come afore their time! Glory be good to me! What wi' doctors an' 'omes an' nusses, an' all the fuss as a sick man makes about hisself in these days, I'd rather be as I am, Matt Peke, a-wanderin' by hill an' dale, an' lyin' down peaceful to die under a tree when my times comes, than take any part wi' the pulin' cowards as is afraid o' cold an' fever an' wet feet an' the like, just as if they was poor little shiverin' mice instead o' men. Take 'em all round, the wimin's the bravest at bearin' pain,—they'll smile while they'se burnin' so as it sha'n't ill-convenience anybody. Wonderful sufferers, is wimin!"

"Yet they are selfish enough sometimes," said Helmsley, quickly.

"Selfish? Wheer was ye born, D. David?" queried Peke—"An' what wimin 'ave ye know'd? Town or country?"

Helmsley was silent.

"Arsk no questions an' ye'll be told no lies!" commented Peke, with a chuckle. "I sees! Ye've bin a gay old chunk in yer time, mebbe! An' it's the wimin as goes in for gay old chunks as ye've made all yer larnin of. But they ain't wimin—not as the country knows 'em. Country wimin works all day an' as often as not dandles a babby all night,—they've not got a minnit but what they aint a-troublin' an' a-worryin' 'bout 'usband or childer, an' their faces is all writ over wi' the curse o' the garden of Eden. Selfish? They aint got the time! Up at cock-crow, scrubbin' the floors, washin' the babies, feedin' the fowls or the pigs, peelin' the taters, makin' the pot boil, an' tryin' to make out 'ow twelve shillin's an' sixpence a week can be made to buy a pound's worth o' food, trapsin' to market, an' wonderin' whether the larst born in the cradle aint somehow got into the fire while mother's away,—'opin' an' prayin' for the Lord's sake as 'usband don't come 'ome blind drunk,—where's the room for any selfishness in sich a life as that?—the life lived by 'undreds o' wimin all over this 'ere blessed free country? Get 'long wi' ye, D. David! Old as y' are, ye 'ad a mother in yer time,—an' I'll take my Gospel oath there was a bit o' good in 'er!"

Helmsley stopped abruptly in his walk.

"You are right, man!" he said, "And I am wrong! You know women better than I do, and—you give me a lesson! One is never too old to learn,"—and he smiled a rather pained smile. "But—I have had a bad experience!"

"Well, if y'ave 'ad it ivir so bad, yer 'xperience aint every one's," retorted Peke. "If one fly gits into the soup, that don't argify that the hull pot 's full of 'em. An' there's more good wimin than bad—takin' 'em all round an' includin' 'op pickers, gypsies an' the like. Even Miss Tranter aint wantin' in feelin', though she's a bit sour like, owin' to 'avin missed a 'usband an' all the savin' worrity wear-an-tear a 'usband brings, but she aint arf bad. Yon's the lamp of 'er 'Trusty Man' now."

A gleam of light, not much larger than the glitter of one of the glow-worms in the grass, was just then visible at the end of the long field they were traversing.

"That's an old cart-road down there wheer it stands," continued Peke. "As bad a road as ivir was made, but it runs straight into Devonshire, an' it's a good place for a pub. For many a year 'twornt used, bein' so rough an' ready, but now there's such a crowd o' motors tearin, over Countisbury 'Ill, the carts takes it, keepin' more to theirselves like, an' savin' smashin'. Miss Tranter she knew what she was a-doin' of when she got a licence an' opened 'er bizniss. 'Twas a ramshackle old farm-'ouse, goin' all to pieces when she bought it an' put up 'er sign o' the 'Trusty Man,' an' silly wenches round 'ere do say as 'ow it's 'aunted, owin' to the man as 'ad it afore Miss Tranter, bein' found dead in 'is bed with 'is 'ands a-clutchin' a pack o' cards. An' the ace o' spades—that's death—was turned uppermost. So they goes chatterin' an' chitterin' as 'ow the old chap 'ad been playin' cards wi' the devil, an' got a bad end. But Miss Tranter, she don't listen to maids' gabble,—she's doin' well, devil or no devil—an' if any one was to talk to 'er 'bout ghosteses an' sich-like, she'd wallop 'em out of 'er bar with a broom! Ay, that she would! She's a powerful strong woman Miss Tranter, an' many's the larker what's felt 'er 'and on 'is collar a-chuckin' 'im out o' the 'Trusty Man' neck an' crop for sayin' somethin' what aint ezackly agreeable to 'er feelin's. She don't stand no nonsense, an' though she's lib'ral with 'er pennorths an' pints she don't wait till a man's full boozed 'fore lockin' up the tap-room. 'Git to bed, yer hulkin' fools!' sez she, 'or ye may change my 'Otel for the Sheriff's.' An' they all knuckles down afore 'er as if they was childer gettin' spanked by their mother. Ah, she'd 'a made a grand wife for a man! 'E wouldn't 'ave 'ad no chance to make a pig of hisself if she'd been anywheres round!"

"Perhaps she won't take me in!" suggested Helmsley.

"She will, an' that sartinly!" said Peke. "She'll not refuse bed an' board to any friend o' mine."

"Friend!" Helmsley echoed the word wonderingly.

"Ay, friend! Any one's a friend what trusts to ye on the road, aint 'e? Leastways that's 'ow I take it."

"As I said before, you are very kind to me," murmured Helmsley; "and I have already asked you—Why?"

"There aint no rhyme nor reason in it," answered Peke. "You 'elps a man along if ye sees 'e wants 'elpin', sure-ly,—that's nat'ral. 'Tis on'y them as is born bad as don't 'elp nothin' nor nobody. Ye're old an' fagged out, an' yer face speaks a bit o' trouble—that's enuff for me. Hi' y' are!—hi' y' are, old 'Trusty Man!'"

And striding across a dry ditch which formed a kind of entrenchment between the field and the road, Peke guided his companion round a dark corner and brought him in front of a long low building, heavily timbered, with queer little lop-sided gable windows set in the slanting, red-tiled roof. A sign-board swung over the door and a small lamp fixed beneath it showed that it bore the crudely painted portrait of a gentleman in an apron, spreading out both hands palms upwards as one who has nothing to conceal,—the ideal likeness of the "Trusty Man" himself. The door itself stood open, and the sound of male voices evinced the presence of customers within. Peke entered without ceremony, beckoning Helmsley to follow him, and made straight for the bar, where a tall woman with remarkably square shoulders stood severely upright, knitting.

"'Evenin', Miss Tranter!" said Peke, pulling off his tattered cap. "Any room for poor lodgers?"

Miss Tranter glanced at him, and then at his companion.

"That depends on the lodgers," she answered curtly.

"That's right! That's quite right, Miss!" said Peke with propitiatory deference. "You 'se allus right whatsoever ye does an' sez! But yer knows me,—yer knows Matt Peke, don't yer?"

Miss Tranter smiled sourly, and her knitting needles glittered like crossed knives as she finished a particular row of stitches on which she was engaged before condescending to reply. Then she said:—

"Yes, I know you right enough, but I don't know your company. I'm not taking up strangers."

"Lord love ye! This aint a stranger!" exclaimed Peke. "This 'ere's old David, a friend o' mine as is out o' work through gittin' more years on 'is back than the British Gov'ment allows, an' 'e's trampin' it to see 'is relations afore 'e gits put to bed wi' a shovel. 'E's as 'armless as they makes 'em, an' I've told 'im as 'ow ye' don't take in nowt

CHAPTER VII

The minutes wore on, and though some of the company at the "Trusty Man" went away in due course, others came in to replace them, so that even when it was nearing ten o'clock the common room was still fairly full. Matt Peke was evidently hail-fellow-well-met with many of the loafers of the district, and his desultory talk, with its quaint leaning towards a kind of rustic philosophy intermingled with an assumption of profound scientific wisdom, appeared to exercise considerable fascination over those who had the patience and inclination to listen to it. Helmsley accepted a pipe of tobacco offered to him by the surly-looking Dubble and smoked peacefully, leaning back in his chair and half closing his eyes with a drowsy air, though in truth his senses had never been more alert, or his interest more keenly awakened. He gathered from the general conversation that Bill Bush was an accustomed night lodger at the "Trusty Man," that Dubble had a cottage not far distant, with a scolding wife and an uppish daughter, and that it was because she knew of his home discomforts that Miss Tranter allowed him to pass many of his evenings at her inn, smoking and sipping a mild ale, which without fuddling his brains, assisted him in part to forget for a time his domestic worries. And he also found out that the sturdy farmer sedately sucking his pipe in a corner, and now and then throwing in an unexpected and random comment on whatever happened to be the topic of conversation, was known as "Feathery" Joltram, though why "Feathery" did not seem very clear, unless the term was, as it appeared to be, an adaptation of "father" or "feyther" Joltram. Matt Peke explained that old "Feathery" was a highly respected character in the "Quantocks," and not only rented a large farm, but thoroughly understood the farming business. Moreover, that he had succeeded in making himself somewhat of a terror to certain timorous time-servers, on account of his heterodox and obstinate principles. For example, he had sent his children to school because Government compelled him to do so, but when their schooldays were over,he had informed them that the sooner they forgot all they had ever learned during that period and took to "clean an' 'olesome livin'," the better he should be pleased.

"For it's all rort an' rubbish," he declared, in his broad, soft dialect. "I dozn't keer a tinker's baad 'apenny whether tha knaw 'ow to 'rite tha mizchief or to read it, or whether king o' England is eatin' 'umble pie to the U-nited States top man, or noa,—I keerz nawt aboot it, noben way or t'other. My boys 'as got to laarn draawin' crops out o' fields,—an' my gels must put 'and to milkin' and skimmin' cream an' makin' foinest butter as iver went to market. An' time comin' to wed, the boys 'ull take strong dairy wives, an' the gels 'ull pick men as can thraw through men's wurrk, or they'ze nay gels nor boys o' mine. Tarlk o' Great Britain! Heart alive! Wheer would th' owd country be if 'twere left to pulin' booky clerks what thinks they're gemmen, an' what weds niminy-piminy shop gels, an' breeds nowt but ricketty babes fit for workus' burial! Noa, by the Lord! No school larnin' for me nor mine, thank-ee! Why, the marster of the Board School 'ere doant know more practical business o' life than a suckin' calf! With a bit o' garden ground to 'is cot, e' doant reckon 'ow io till it, an' that's the rakelness o' book larnin'. Noa, noa! Th' owd way o' wurrk's the best way,—brain, 'ands, feet an' good ztrong body all zet on't, an' no meanderin' aff it! Take my wurrd the Lord A'mighty doant 'elp corn to grow if there's a whinin' zany ahint the plough!"

With these distinctly "out-of-date" notions, "Feathery" Joltram had also set himself doggedly against church-going and church people generally. Few dared mention a clergyman in his presence, for his open and successful warfare with the minister of his own parish had been going on for years and had become well-nigh traditional. Looking at him, however, as he sat in his favourite corner of the "Trusty Man's" common room, no one would have given him credit for any particular individuality. His round red face expressed nothing,—his dull fish-like eyes betrayed no intelligence,—he appeared to be nothing more than a particularly large, heavy man, wedged in his chair rather than seated in it, and absorbed in smoking a long pipe after the fashion of an infant sucking a feeding-bottle, with infinite relish that almost suggested gluttony.

The hum of voices grew louder as the hour grew later,

CHAPTER VIII

The light of the next day's sun, beaming with all the heat and effulgence of full morning, bathed moor and upland in a wide shower of gold, when Miss Tranter, standing on the threshold of her dwelling, and shading her eyes with one hand from the dazzling radiance of the skies, watched a man's tall figure disappear down the rough and precipitous road which led from the higher hills to the seashore. All her night's lodgers had left her save one—and he was still soundly sleeping. Bill Bush had risen as early as five and stolen away,—Matt Peke had broken his fast with a cup of hot milk and a hunch of dry bread, and shouldering his basket, had started for Crowcombe, where he had several customers for his herbal wares.

"Take care o' the old gaffer I brought along wi' me," had been his parting recommendation to the hostess of the "Trusty Man." "Tell 'im I've left a bottle o' yerb wine in the bar for 'im. M'appen ye might find an odd job or two about th' 'ouse an' garden for 'im, just for lettin' 'im rest a while."

Miss Tranter had nodded curtly in response to this suggestion, but had promised nothing.

The last to depart from the inn was Tom o' the Gleam. Tom had risen in what he called his "dark mood." He had eaten no breakfast, and he scarcely spoke at all as he took up his stout ash stick and prepared to fare forth upon his way. Miss Tranter was not inquisitive, but she had rather a liking for Tom, and his melancholy surliness was not lost upon her.

"What's the matter with you?" she asked sharply. "You're like a bear with a sore head this morning!"

He looked at her with sombre eyes in which the flame of strongly restrained passions feverishly smouldered.

"I don't know what's the matter with me," he answered slowly. "Last night I was happy. This morning I am wretched!"

"For no cause?"

"For no cause that I know of,"—and he heaved a sudden sigh. "It is the dark spirit—the warning of an evil hour!"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Tranter.

He was silent. His mouth compressed itself into a petulant line, like that of a chidden child ready to cry.

"I shall be all right when I have kissed the kiddie," he said.

Miss Tranter sniffed and tossed her head.

"You're just a fool over that kiddie," she declared with emphasis,—"You make too much of him."

"How can I make too much of my all?" he asked.

Her face softened.

"Well, it's a pity you look at it in that way," she said. "You shouldn't set your heart on anything in this world."

"Why not?" he demanded. "Is God a friend that He should grudge us love?"

Her lips trembled a little, but she made no reply.

"What am I to set my heart on?" he continued—"If not on anything in this world, what have I got in the next?"

A faint tinge of colour warmed Miss Tranter's sallow cheeks.

"Your wife's in the next," she answered, quietly.

His face changed—his eyes lightened.

"My wife!" he echoed. "Good woman that you are, you know she was never my wife! No parson ever mocked us wild birds with his blessing! She was my love—my love!—so much more than wife! By Heaven! If prayer and fasting would bring me to the world where she is, I'd fast and pray till I turned this body of mine to dust and ashes! But my kiddie is all I have that's left of her; and shall I not love him, nay, worship him for her sake?"

Miss Tranter tried to look severe, but could not,—the strong vehemence of the man shook her self-possession.

"Love him, yes!—but don't worship him," she said. "It's a mistake, Tom! He's only a child, after all, and he might be taken from you."

"Don't say that!" and Tom suddenly gripped her by the arm. "For God's sake don't say that! Don't send me away this morning with those words buzzing in my ears!"

Great tears flashed into his eyes,—his face paled and contracted as with acutest agony.

"I'm sorry, Tom," faltered Miss Tranter, herself quite overcome by his fierce emotion—"I didn't mean——"

"Yes—yes!—that's right! Say you didn't mean it!" muttered Tom, with a pained smile—"You didn't——?"

"I didn't mean it!" declared Miss Tranter earnestly. "Upon my word I didn't, Tom!"

He loosened his hold of her arm.

"Thank you! God bless you!" and a shudder ran through his massive frame. "But it's all one with the dark hour!—all one with the wicked tongue of a dream that whispers to me of a coming storm!"

He pulled his rough cap over his brows, and strode forward a step or two. Then he suddenly wheeled round again, and doffed the cap to Miss Tranter.

"It's unlucky to turn back," he said, "yet I'm doing it, because—because—I wouldn't have you think me sullen or ill-tempered with you! Nor ungrateful. You're a good woman, for all that you're a bit rough sometimes. If you want to know where we are, we've camped down by Cleeve, and we're on the way to Dunster. I take the short cuts that no one else dare venture by—over the cliffs and through the cave-holes of the sea. When the old man comes down, tell him I'll have a care of him if he passes my way. I like his face! I think he's something more than he seems."

"So do I!" agreed Miss Tranter. "I'd almost swear that he's a gentleman, fallen on hard times."

"A gentleman!" Tom o' the Gleam laughed disdainfully—"What's that? Only a robber grown richer than his neighbours! Better be a plain Man any day than your up-to-date 'gentleman'!"

With another laugh he swung away, and Miss Tranter remained, as already stated, at the door of the inn for many minutes, watching his easy stride over the rough stones and clods of the "by-road" winding down to the sea. His figure, though so powerfully built, was singularly graceful in movement, and commanded the landscape much as that of some chieftain of old might have commanded it in that far back period of time when mountain thieves and marauders were the progenitors of all the British kings and their attendant nobility.

"I wish I knew that man's real history!" she mused, as he at last disappeared from her sight. "The folks about here, such as Mr. Joltram, for instance, say he was never born to the gypsy life,—he speaks too well, and knows too much. Yet he's wild enough—and—yes!—I'm afraid he's bad enough—sometimes—to be anything!"

Her meditations were here interrupted by a touch on her

CHAPTER IX

It was pleasant walking across the moor. The July sun was powerful, but to ageing men the warmth and vital influences of the orb of day are welcome, precious, and salutary. An English summer is seldom or never too warm for those who are conscious that but few such summers are left to them, and David Helmsley was moved by a devout sense of gratitude that on this fair and tranquil morning he was yet able to enjoy the lovely and loving beneficence of all beautiful and natural things. The scent of the wild thyme growing in prolific patches at his feet,—the more pungent odour of the tall daisies which were of a hardy, free-flowering kind,—the "strong sea-daisies that feast on the sun,"—and the indescribable salty perfume that swept upwards on the faint wind from the unseen ocean, just now hidden by projecting shelves of broken ground fringed with trees,—all combined together to refresh the air and to make the mere act of breathing a delight. After about twenty minutes' walking Helmsley's step grew easier and more springy,—almost he felt young,—almost he pictured himself living for another ten years in health and active mental power. The lassitude and ennui inseparable from a life spent for the most part in the business centres of London, had rolled away like a noxious mist from his mind, and he was well-nigh ready to "begin life again," as he told himself, with a smile at his own folly.

"No wonder that the old-world philosophers and scientists sought for the elixir vitæ!" he thought. "No wonder they felt that the usual tenure is too short for all that a man might accomplish, did he live well and wisely enough to do justice to all the powers with which nature has endowed him. I am myself inclined to think that the 'Tree of Life' exists,—perhaps its leaves are the 'leaves of the Daura,' for which that excellent fellow Matt Peke is looking. Or it may be the 'Secta Croa'!"

He smiled,—and having arrived at the end of the path which he had followed from the door of the "Trusty Man," he saw before him a descending bank, which sloped into the highroad, a wide track white with thick dust stretching straight away for about a mile and then dipping round a broad curve of land, overarched with trees. He sat down for a few minutes on the warm grass, giving himself up to the idle pleasure of watching the birds skimming through the clear blue sky,—the bees bouncing in and out of the buttercups,—the varicoloured butterflies floating like blown flower-petals on the breeze,—and he heard a distant bell striking the half-hour after eleven. He had noted the time when leaving the "Trusty Man," otherwise he would not have known it so exactly, having left his watch locked up at home in his private desk with other personal trinkets which would have been superfluous and troublesome to him on his self-imposed journey. When the echo of the bell's one stroke had died away it left a great stillness in the air. The heat was increasing as the day veered towards noon, and he decided that it would be as well to get on further down the road and under the shadow of the trees, which were not so very far off, and which looked invitingly cool in their spreading dark soft greenness. So, rising from his brief rest, he started again "on the tramp," and soon felt the full glare of the sun, and the hot sensation of the dust about his feet; but he went on steadily, determining to make light of all the inconveniences and difficulties, to which he was entirely unaccustomed, but to which he had voluntarily exposed himself. For a considerable time he met no living creature; the highroad seemed to be as much his own as though it were part of a private park or landed estate belonging to him only; and it was not till he had nearly accomplished the distance which lay between him and the shelter of the trees, that he met a horse and cart slowly jogging along towards the direction from whence he had come. The man who drove the vehicle was half-asleep, stupefied, no doubt, by the effect of the hot sun following on a possible "glass" at a public-house, but Helmsley called to him just for company's sake.

"Hi! Am I going right for Watchett?"

The man opened his drowsing eyes and yawned expansively.

"Watchett? Ay! Williton comes fust."

"Is it far?"

"Nowt's far to your kind!" said the man, flicking his whip. "An' ye'll meet a bobby or so on the road!"

On he went, and Helmsley without further parley resumed his tramp. Presently, reaching the clump of trees he had seen in the distance, he moved into their refreshing shade. They were broad-branched elms, luxuriantly full of foliage, and the avenue they formed extended for about a quarter of a mile. Cool dells and dingles of mossy green sloped down on one side of the road, breaking into what are sometimes called "coombs" running precipitously towards the sea-coast, and slackening his pace a little he paused, looking through a tangle of shrubs and bracken at the pale suggestion of a glimmer of blue which he realised was the shining of the sunlit ocean. While he thus stood, he fancied he heard a little plaintive whine as of an animal in pain. He listened attentively. The sound was repeated, and, descending the shelving bank a few steps he sought to discover the whereabouts of this piteous cry for help. All at once he spied two bright sparkling eyes and a small silvery grey head perking up at him through the leaves,—the head of a tiny Yorkshire "toy" terrier. It looked at him with eloquent anxiety, and as he approached it, it made an effort to move, but fell back again with a faint moan. Gently he picked it up,—it was a rare and beautiful little creature, but one of its silky forepaws had evidently been caught in some trap, for it was badly mangled and bleeding. Round its neck was a small golden collar, something like a lady's bracelet, bearing the inscription: "I am Charlie. Take care of me!" There was no owner's name or address, and the entreaty "Take care of me!" had certainly not been complied with, or so valuable a pet would not have been left wounded on the highroad. While Helmsley was examining it, it ceased whining, and gently licked his hand. Seeing a trickling stream of water making its way through the moss and ferns close by, he bathed the little dog's wounded paw carefully and tied it up with a strip of material torn from his own coat sleeve.

"So you want to be taken care of, do you, Charlie!" he said, patting the tiny head. "That's what a good many of us want, when we feel hurt and broken by the hard ways of the world!" Charlie blinked a dark eye, cocked a small soft ear, and ventured on another caress of the kind human hand with his warm little tongue. "Well, I won't leave you to starve in the woods, or trust you to the tender mercies of the police,—you shall come along with me! And if I see any advertisement of your loss I'll perhaps take you back to your owner. But in the meantime we'll stay together."

Charlie evidently agreed to this proposition, for when Helmsley tucked him cosily under his arm, he settled down comfortably as though well accustomed to the position. He was certainly nothing of a weight to carry, and his new owner was conscious of a certain pleasure in feeling the warm, silky little body nestling against his breast. He was not quite alone any more,—this little creature was a companion,—a something to talk to, to caress and to protect. He ascended the bank, and regaining the highroad resumed his vagrant way. Noon was now at the full, and the sun's heat seemed to create a silence that was both oppressive and stifling. He walked slowly, and began to feel that perhaps after all he had miscalculated his staying powers, and that the burden of old age would, in the end, take vengeance upon him for running risks of fatigue and exhaustion which, in his case, were wholly unnecessary.

"Yet if I were really poor," he argued with himself, "if I were in very truth a tramp, I should have to do exactly what I am doing now. If one man can stand 'life on the road,' so can another."

And he would not allow his mind to dwell on the fact that a temperament which has become accustomed to every kind of comfort and luxury is seldom fitted to endure privation. On he jogged steadily, and by and by began to be entertained by his own thoughts as pleasantly as a poet or romancist is entertained by the fancies which come and go in the brain with all the vividness of dramatic reality. Yet always he found himself harking back to what he sometimes called the "incurability" of life. Over and over again he asked himself the old eternal question: Why so much Product to end in Waste? Why are thousands of millions of worlds, swarming with life-organisms, created to revolve in space, if there is no other fate for them but final destruction?

"There must be an Afterwards!" he said. "Otherwise Creation would not only be a senseless joke, but a wicked one! Nay, it would almost be a crime. To cause creatures to be born into existence without their own consent, merely to destroy them utterly in a few years and make the fact of their having lived purposeless, would be worse than the dreams of madmen. For what is the use of bringing human creatures into the world to suffer pain, sickness, and sorrow, if mere life-torture is all we can give them, and death is the only end?"

Here his meditations were broken in upon by the sound of a horse's hoofs trotting briskly behind him, and pausing, he saw a neat little cart and pony coming along, driven by a buxom-looking woman with a brown sun-hat tied on in the old-fashioned manner under her chin.

"Would ye like a lift?" she asked. "It's mighty warm walkin'."

Helmsley raised his eyes to the sun-bonnet, and smiled at the cheerful freckled face beneath its brim.

"You're very kind——" he began.

"Jump in!" said the woman. "I'm taking cream and cheeses into Watchett, but it's a light load, an' Jim an' me can do with ye that far. This is Jim."

She flicked the pony's ears with her whip by way of introducing the animal, and Helmsley clambered up into the cart beside her.

"That's a nice little dog you've got," she remarked, as Charlie perked his small black nose out from under his protector's arm to sniff the subtle atmosphere of what was going to happen next. "He's a real beauty!"

"Yes," replied Helmsley, without volunteering any information as to how he had found the tiny creature, whom he now had no inclination to part with. "He got his paw caught in a trap, so I'm obliged to carry him."

"Poor little soul! There's a-many traps all about 'ere, lots o' the land bein' private property. Go on, Jim!" And she shook the reins on her pony's neck, thereby causing that intelligent animal to start off at a pleasantly regular pace. "I allus sez that if the rich ladies and gentlemen as eats up every bit o' land in Great Britain could put traps in the air to catch the noses of everything but themselves as dares to breathe it, they'd do it, singin' glory all the time. For they goes to church reg'lar."

"Ah, it's a wise thing to be seen looking good in public!" said Helmsley.

The woman laughed.

"That's right! You can do a lot o' humbuggin' if you're friends with the parson, what more often than not humbugs everybody hisself. I'm no church-goer, but I turn out the best cheese an' butter in these parts, an' I never tells no lies nor cheats any one of a penny, so I aint worryin' about my soul, seein' it's straight with my neighbours."

"Are there many rich people living about here?" inquired Helmsley.

"Not enough to do the place real good. The owners of the big houses are here to-day and gone to-morrow, and they don't trouble much over their tenantry. Still we rub on fairly well. None of us can ever put by for a rainy day,—and some folk as is as hard-working as ever they can be, are bound to come on the parish when they can't work no more—no doubt o' that. You're a stranger to these parts?"

"Yes, I've tramped from Bristol."

The woman opened her eyes widely.

"That's a long way! You must be fairly strong for your age. Where are ye wantin' to get to?"

"Cornwall."

"My word! You've got a goodish bit to go. All Devon lies before you."

"I know that. But I shall rest here and there, and perhaps get a lift or two if I meet any more such kind-hearted folk as yourself."

She looked at him sharply.

"That's what we may call a bit o' soft soap," she said, "and I'd advise ye to keep that kind o' thing to yourself, old man! It don't go down with Meg Ross, I can tell ye!"

"Are you Meg Ross?" he asked, amused at her manner.

"That's me! I'm known all over the countryside for the sharpest tongue as ever wagged in a woman's head. So you'd better look out!"

"I'm not afraid of you!" he said smiling.

"Well, you might be if you knew me!" and she whipped up her pony smartly. "Howsomever, you're old enough to be past hurtin' or bein' hurt."

"That's true!" he responded gently.

She was silent after this, and not till Watchett was reached did she again begin conversation. Rattling quickly through the little watering-place, which at this hour seemed altogether deserted or asleep, she pulled up at an inn in the middle of the principal street.

"I've got an order to deliver here," she said. "What are you going to do with yourself?"

"Nothing in particular," he answered, with a smile. "I shall just take my little dog to a chemist's and get its paw dressed, and then I shall walk on."

"Don't you want any dinner?"

"Not yet. I had a good breakfast, I daresay I'll have a glass of milk presently."

"Well, if you come back here in half an hour I can drive you on a little further. How would you like that?"

"Very much! But I'm afraid of troubling you——"

"Oh, you won't do that!" said Meg with a defiant air. "No man, young or old, has ever troubled me! I'm not married, thank the Lord!"

And jumping from the cart, she began to pull out sundry cans, jars, and boxes, while Helmsley standing by with the small Charlie under his arm, wished he could help her, but felt sure she would resent assistance even if he offered it. Glancing at him, she gave him a kindly nod.

"Off you go with your little dog! You'll find me ready here in half an hour."

With that she turned from him into the open doorway of the inn, and Helmsley made his way slowly along the silent, sun-baked little street till he found a small chemist's shop, where he took his lately found canine companion to have its wounded paw examined and attended to. No bones were broken, and the chemist, a lean, pale, kindly man, assured him that in a few days the little animal would be quite well.

"It's a pretty creature," he said. "And valuable too."

"Yes. I found it on the highroad," said Helmsley; "and of course if I see any advertisement out for it, I'll return it to its owner. But if no one claims it I'll keep it."

"Perhaps it fell out of a motor-car," said the chemist. "It looks as if it might have belonged to some fine lady who was too wrapped up in herself to take proper care of it. There are many of that kind who come this way touring through Somerset and Devon."

"I daresay you're right," and Helmsley gently stroked the tiny dog's soft silky coat. "Rich women will pay any amount of money for such toy creatures out of mere caprice, and will then lose them out of sheer laziness, forgetting that they are living beings, with feelings and sentiments of trust and affection greater sometimes than our own. However, this little chap will be safe with me till he is rightfullyclaimed, if ever that happens. I don't want to steal him; I only want to take care of him."

"I should never part with him if I were you," said the chemist. "Those who were careless enough to lose him deserve their loss."

Helmsley agreed, and left the shop. Finding a confectioner's near by, he bought a few biscuits for his new pet, an attention which that small animal highly appreciated. "Charlie" was hungry, and cracked and munched the biscuits with exceeding relish, his absurd little nose becoming quite moist with excitement and appetite. Returning presently to the inn where he had left Meg Ross, Helmsley found that lady quite ready to start.

"Oh, here you are, are you?" she said, smiling pleasantly, "Well, I'm just on the move. Jump in!"

Helmsley hesitated a moment, standing beside the pony-cart.

"May I pay for my ride?" he said.

"Pay?" Meg stuck her stout arms akimbo, and glanced him all over. "Well, I never! How much 'ave ye got?"

"Two or three shillings," he answered.

Meg laughed, showing a very sound row of even white teeth.

"All right! You can keep 'em!" she said. "Mebbe you want 'em. I don't! Now don't stand haverin' there,—get in the cart quick, or Jim'll be runnin' away."

Jim showed no sign of this desperate intention, but, on the contrary, stood very patiently waiting till his passengers were safely seated, when he trotted off at a great pace, with such a clatter of hoofs and rattle of wheels as rendered conversation impossible. But Helmsley was very content to sit in silence, holding the little dog "Charlie" warmly against his breast, and watching the beauties of the scenery expand before him like a fairy panorama, ever broadening into fresh glimpses of loveliness. It was a very quiet coastline which the windings of the road now followed,—a fair and placid sea shining at wide intervals between a lavish flow of equally fair and placid fields. The drive seemed all too short, when at the corner of a lane embowered in trees, Meg Ross pulled up short.

"The best of friends must part!" she said. "I'm right sorry I can't take ye any further. But down 'ere's a farm where I put up for the afternoon an' 'elps 'em through with their butter-makin', for there's a lot o' skeery gals in the fam'ly as thinks more o' doin' their 'air than churnin', an' doin' the 'air don't bring no money in, though mebbe it might catch a 'usband as wasn't worth 'avin'. An' Jim gets his food 'ere too. Howsomever, I'm real put about that I can't drive ye a bit towards Cleeve Abbey, for that's rare an' fine at this time o' year,—but mebbe ye're wantin' to push on quickly?"

"Yes, I must push on," rejoined Helmsley, as he got out of the cart; then, standing in the road, he raised his cap to her. "And I'm very grateful to you for helping me along so far, at the hottest time of the day too. It's most kind of you!"

"Oh, I don't want any thanks!" said Meg, smiling. "I'm rather sweet on old men, seein' old age aint their fault even if trampin' the road is. You'd best keep on the straight line now, till you come to Blue Anchor. That's a nice little village, and you'll find an inn there where you can get a night's lodging cheap. I wouldn't advise you to stay much round Cleeve after sundown, for there's a big camp of gypsies about there, an' they're a rough lot, pertikly a man they calls Tom o' the Gleam."

Helmsley smiled.

"I know Tom o' the Gleam," he said. "He's a friend of mine."

Meg Ross opened her round, bright brown eyes.

"Is he? Dear life, if I'd known that, I mightn't 'ave been so ready to give you a ride with me!" she said, and laughed. "Not that I'm afraid of Tom, though he's a queer customer. I've given a good many glasses of new milk to his 'kiddie,' as he calls that little lad of his, so I expect I'm fairly in his favour."

"I've never seen his 'kiddie,'" said Helmsley. "What is the boy like?"

"A real fine little chap!" said Meg, with heartiness and feeling. "I'm not a crank on children, seein' most o' them's muckers an' trouble from mornin' to night, but if it 'ad pleased the Lord as I should wed, I shouldn't 'a wished for a better specimen of a babe than Tom's kiddie. Pity the mother died!"

"When the child was born?" queried Helmsley gently.

"No—oh no!"—and Meg's eyes grew thoughtful. "She got through her trouble all right, but 'twas about a year or eighteen months arterwards that she took to pinin' like, an' droopin' down just like the poppies droops in the corn when the sun's too fierce upon 'em. She used to sit by the roadside o' Sundays, with a little red handkerchief tied across her shoulders, and all her dark 'air tumblin' about 'er face, an' she used to look up with her great big black eyes an' smile at the finicky fine church misses as come mincin' an' smirkin' along, an' say: 'Tell your fortune, lady?' She was the prettiest creature I ever saw—not a good lass—no!—nobody could say she was a good lass, for she went to Tom without church or priest, but she loved him an' was faithful. An' she just worshipped her baby." Here Meg paused a moment. "Tom was a real danger to the country when she died," she presently went on. "He used to run about the woods like a madman, calling her to come back to 'im, an' threatenin' to murder any one who came nigh 'im;—then, by and by, he took to the kiddie, an' he's steadier now."

There was something in the narration of this little history that touched Helmsley too deeply for comment, and he was silent.

"Well!"—and Meg gave her pony's reins a shake—"I must be off! Sorry to leave ye standin' in the middle o' the road like, but it can't be helped. Mind you keep the little dog safe!—and take a woman's advice—don't walk too far or too fast in one day. Good luck t' ye!"

Another shake of the reins, and "Jim" turned briskly down the lane. Once Meg looked back and waved her hand,—then the green trees closed in upon her disappearing vehicle, and Helmsley was again alone, save for "Charlie," who, instinctively aware that some friend had left them, licked his master's hand confidentially, as much as to say "I am still with you." The air was cooler now, and Helmsley walked on with comparative ease and pleasure. His thoughts were very busy. He was drawing comparisons between the conduct of the poor and the rich to one another, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter class.

"If a wealthy man has a carriage," he soliloquised, "how seldom will he offer it or think of offering its use to any one of his acquaintances who may be less fortunate! How rarely will he even say a kind word to any man who is 'down'! Do I not know this myself! I remember well on one occasion when I wished to send my carriage for the use of a poor fellow who had once been employed in my office, but who had been compelled to give up work, owing to illness, my secretary advised me not to show him this mark of sympathy and attention. 'He will only take it as his right,' I was assured,—'these sort of men are always ungrateful.' And I listened to my secretary's advice—more fool I! For it should have been nothing to me whether the man was ungrateful or not; the thing was to do the good, and let the result be what it might. Now this poor Meg Ross has no carriage, but such vehicle as she possesses she shares with one whom she imagines to be in need. No other motive has moved her save womanly pity for lonely age and infirmity. She has taught me a lesson by simply offering a kindness without caring how it might be received or rewarded. Is not that a lovely trait in human nature?—one which I have never as yet discovered in what is called 'swagger society'! When I was in the hey-dey of my career, and money was pouring in from all my business 'deals' like water from a never-ending main, I had a young Scotsman for a secretary, as close-fisted a fellow as ever was, who managed to lose me the chance of doing a great many kind actions. More than that, whenever I was likely to have any real friends whom I could confidently trust, and who wanted nothing from me but affection and sincerity, he succeeded in shaking off the hold they had upon me. Of course I know now why he did this,—it was in order that he himself might have his grip of me more securely, but at that time I was unsuspicious, and believed the best of every one. Yes! I honestly thought people were honest,—I trusted their good faith, with the result that I found out the utter falsity of their pretensions. And here I am,—old and nearing the end of my tether—more friendless than when I first began to make my fortune, with the certain knowledge that not a soul has ever cared or cares for me except for what can be got out of me in the way of hard cash! I have met with more real kindness from the rough fellows at the 'Trusty Man,' and from the 'Trusty Man's' hostess, Miss Tranter, and now from this good woman Meg Ross, than has ever been offered to me by those who know I am rich, and who have 'used' me accordingly."

Here, coming to a place where two cross-roads met, he paused, looking about him. The afternoon was declining, and the loveliness of the landscape was intensified by a mellow softness in the sunshine, which deepened the rich green of the trees and wakened an opaline iridescence in the sea. A sign-post on one hand bore the direction "To Cleeve Abbey," and the road thus indicated wound upward somewhat steeply, disappearing amid luxuriant verdure which everywhere crowned the higher summits of the hills. While he yet stood, looking at the exquisitely shaded masses of foliage which, like festal garlands, adorned and over-hung this ascent, the discordant "hoot" of a motor-horn sounded on the stillness, and sheer down the winding way came at a tearing pace the motor vehicle itself. It was a large, luxurious car, and pounded along with tremendous speed, swerving at the bottom of the declivity with so sharp a curve as to threaten an instant overturn, but, escaping this imminent peril by almost a hairsbreadth, it dashed onward straight ahead in a cloud of dust that for two or three minutes entirely blurred and darkened the air. Half-blinded and choked by the rush of its furious passage past him, Helmsley could only just barely discern that the car was occupied by two men, the one driving, the other sitting beside the driver,—and shading his eyes from the sun, he strove to track its way as it flew down the road, but in less than a minute it was out of sight.

"There's not much 'speed limit' in that concern!" he said, half-aloud, still gazing after it. "I call such driving recklessly wicked! If I could have seen the number of that car, I'd have given information to the police. But numbers on motors are no use when such a pace is kept up, and the thick dust of a dry summer is whirled up by the wheels. It's fortunate the road is clear. Yes, Charlie!"—this, as he saw his canine foundling's head perk out from under his arm, with a little black nose all a-quiver with anxiety,—"it's just as well for you that you've got a wounded paw and can't run too far for the present! If you had been in the way of that car just now, your little life would have been ended!"

Charlie pricked his pretty ears, and listened, or appeared to listen, but had evidently no forebodings about himself or his future. He was quite at home, and, after the fashion of dogs, who are often so much wiser than men, argued that being safe and comfortable now, there was no reason why he should not be safe and comfortable always. And Helmsleypresently bent himself to steady walking, and got on well, only pausing to get some tea and bread and butter at a cottage by the roadside, where a placard on the gate intimated that such refreshments were to be had within. Nevertheless, he was a slow pedestrian, and what with lingering here and there for brief rests by the way, the sun had sunk fully an hour before he managed to reach Blue Anchor, the village of which Meg Ross had told him. It was a pretty, peaceful place, set among wide stretches of beach, extending for miles along the margin of the waters, and the mellow summer twilight showed little white wreaths of foam crawling lazily up on the sand in glittering curves that gleamed like snow for a moment and then melted softly away into the deepening darkness. He stopped at the first ale-house, a low-roofed, cottage-like structure embowered in clambering flowers. It had a side entrance which led into a big, rambling stableyard, and happening to glance that way he perceived a vehicle standing there, which he at once recognised as the large luxurious motor-car that had dashed past him at such a tearing pace near Cleeve. The inn door was open, and the bar faced the road, exhibiting a brave show of glittering brass taps, pewter tankards, polished glasses and many-coloured bottles, all these things being presided over by a buxom matron, who was not only an agreeable person to look at in herself, but who was assisted by two pretty daughters. These young women, wearing spotless white cuffs and aprons, dispensed the beer to the customers, now and then relieving the monotony of this occupation by carrying trays of bread and cheese and meat sandwiches round the wide room of which the bar was a part, evidently bent on making the general company stay as long as possible, if fascinating manners and smiling eyes could work any detaining influence. Helmsley asked for a glass of ale and a plate of bread and cheese, and on being supplied with these refreshments, sat down at a small table in a corner well removed from the light, where he could see without being seen. He did not intend to inquire for a night's lodging yet. He wished first to ascertain for himself the kind of people who frequented the place. The fear of discovery always haunted him, and the sight of that costly motor-car standing in the stableyard had caused him to feel a certain misgiving lest any one of marked wealth or position should turn out to be its owner. In such a case, the world being proverbially small, and rich men being in the minority, it was just possible that he, David Helmsley, even clad as he was in workman's clothes and partially disguised in features by the growth of a beard, might be recognised. With this idea, he kept himself well back in the shadow, listening attentively to the scraps of desultory talk among the dozen or so of men in the room, while carefully maintaining an air of such utter fatigue as to appear indifferent to all that passed around him. Nobody noticed him, for which he was thankful. And presently, when he became accustomed to the various contending voices, which in their changing tones of gruff or gentle, quick or slow, made a confused din upon his ears, he found out that the general conversation was chiefly centred on one subject, that of the very motor-car whose occupants he desired to shun.

"Serve 'em right!" growled one man. "Serve 'em right to 'ave broke down! 'Ope the darned thing's broke altogether!"

"You shouldn't say that,—'taint Christian," expostulated his neighbour at the same table. "Them cars cost a heap o' money, from eight 'undred to two thousand pounds, I've 'eerd tell."

"Who cares!" retorted the other. "Them as can pay a fortin on a car to swish 'emselves about in, should be made to keep on payin' till they're cleaned out o' money for good an' all. The road's a reg'lar hell since them engines started along cuttin' everything to pieces. There aint a man, woman, nor child what's safe from the moneyed murderers."

"Oh come, I say!" ejaculated a big, burly young fellow in corduroys. "Moneyed murderers is going a bit too strong!"

"No 'taint!" said the first man who had spoken. "That's what the motor-car folks are—no more nor less. Only t' other day in Taunton, a woman as was the life an' soul of 'er 'usband an' childern, was knocked down by a car as big as a railway truck. It just swept 'er off the curb like a bundle o' rags. She picked 'erself up again an' walked 'ome, tremblin' a little, an' not knowin' rightly what 'ad chanced to 'er, an' in less than an hour she was dead. An' what did they say at the inquest? Just 'death from shock'—an' no more. For them as owned the murderin'car was proprietors o' a big brewery, and the coroner hisself 'ad shares in it. That's 'ow justice is done nowadays!"

"Yes, we's an obligin' lot, we poor folks," observed a little man in the rough garb of a cattle-driver, drawing his pipe from his mouth as he spoke. "We lets the rich ride over us on rubber tyres an' never sez a word on our own parts, but trusts to the law for doin' the same to a millionaire as 'twould to a beggar,—but, Lord!—don't we see every day as 'ow the millionaire gets off easy while the beggar goes to prison? There used to be justice in old England, but the time for that's gone past."

"There's as much justice in England as you'll ever get anywheres else!" interrupted the hostess at the bar, nodding cheerfully at the men, and smiling,—"And as for the motor-cars, they bring custom to my house, and I don't grumble at anything which does me and mine a good turn. If it hadn't been for a break-down in that big motor standing outside in the stableyard, I shouldn't have had two gentlemen staying in my best rooms to-night. I never find fault with money!"

She laughed and nodded again in the pleasantest manner. A slow smile went round among the men,—it was impossible not to smile in response to the gay good-humour expressed on such a beaming countenance.

"One of them's a lord, too," she added. "Quite a young fellow, just come into his title, I suppose." And referring to her day-book, she ran her plump finger down the various entries. "I've got his name here—Wrotham,—Lord Reginald Wrotham."

"Wrotham? That aint a name known in these parts," said the man in corduroys. "Wheer does 'e come from?"

"I don't know," she replied. "And I don't very much care. It's enough for me that he's here and spending money!"

"Where's his chauffy?" inquired a lad, lounging near the bar.

"He hasn't got one. He drives his car himself. He's got a friend with him—a Mr. James Brookfield."

There was a moment's silence. Helmsley drew further back into the corner where he sat, and restrained the little dog Charlie from perking its inquisitive head out too far, lest its beauty should attract undesirable attention. His nervous misgivings concerning the owner of the motor-car had not been entirely without foundation, for both Reginald Wrotham and James Brookfield were well known to him. Wrotham's career had been a sufficiently disgraceful one ever since he had entered his teens,—he was a modern degenerate of the worst type, and though his coming-of-age and the assumption of his family title had caused certain time-servers to enrol themselves among his flatterers and friends, there were very few decent houses where so soiled a member of the aristocracy as he was could find even a semblance of toleration. James Brookfield was a proprietor of newspapers as well as a "something in the City," and if Helmsley had been asked to qualify that "something" by a name, he would have found a term by no means complimentary to the individual in question. Wrotham and Brookfield were always seen together,—they were brothers in every sort of social iniquity and licentiousness, and an attempt on Brookfield's part to borrow some thousands of pounds for his "lordly" patron from Helmsley, had resulted in the latter giving the would-be borrower's go-between such a strong piece of his mind as he was not likely to forget. And now Helmsley was naturally annoyed to find that these two abandoned rascals were staying at the very inn where he, in his character of a penniless wayfarer, had hoped to pass a peaceful night; however, he resolved to avoid all danger and embarrassment by leaving the place directly he had finished his supper, and going in search of some more suitable lodgment. Meanwhile, the hum of conversation grew louder around him, and opinion ran high on the subject of "the right of the road."

"The roads are made for the people, sure-ly!" said one of a group of men standing near the largest table in the room—"And the people 'as the right to 'xpect safety to life an' limb when they uses 'em."

"Well, the motors can put forward the same claim," retorted another. "Motor folks are people too, an' they can say, if they likes, that if roads is made for people, they're made for them as well as t' others, and they expects to be safe on 'em with their motors at whatever pace they travels."

"Go 'long!" exclaimed the cattle-driver, who had before taken part in the discussion—"Aint we got to take cows an' sheep an' 'osses by the road? An' if a car comes along at the rate o' forty or fifty miles an hour, what's to be done wi' the animals? An' if they're not to be on the road, which way is they to be took?"

"Them motors ought to have roads o' their own like the railways," said a quiet-looking grey-haired man, who was the carrier of the district. "When the steam-engine was invented it wasn't allowed to go tearin' along the public highway. They 'ad to make roads for it, an' lay tracks, and they should do the same for motors which is gettin' just as fast an' as dangerous as steam-engines."

"Yes, an' with makin' new roads an' layin' tracks, spoil the country for good an' all!" said the man in corduroys—"An' alter it so that there aint a bit o' peace or comfort left in the land! Level the hills an' cut down the trees—pull up the hedges an' scare away all the singin' birds, till the hull place looks like a football field!—all to please a few selfish rich men who'd be better dead than livin'! A fine thing for England that would be!"

At that moment, there was the noise of an opening door, and the hostess, with an expressive glance at her customers, held up her finger warningly.

"Hush, please!" she said. "The gentlemen are coming out."

A sudden pause ensued. The men looked round upon one another, half sheepishly, half sullenly, and their growling voices subsided into a murmur. The hostess settled the bow at her collar more becomingly, and her two pretty daughters feigned to be deeply occupied with some drawn thread work. David Helmsley, noting everything that was going on from his coign of vantage, recognised at once the dissipated, effeminate-looking young man, who, stepping out of a private room which opened on a corridor apparently leading to the inner part of the house, sauntered lazily up to the bar and, resting his arm upon its oaken counter, smiled condescendingly, not to say insolently, upon the women who stood behind it. There was no mistaking him,—it was the same Reginald Wrotham whose scandals in society had broken his worthy father's heart, and who now, succeeding to a hitherto unblemished title, was doing his best to load it with dishonour. He was followed by his friend Brookfield,—a heavily-built, lurching sort of man, with a nose reddened by strong drink, and small lascivious eyes which glittered dully in his head like the eyes of poisonous tropical beetle. The hush among the "lower" class of company at the inn deepened into the usual stupid awe which at times so curiously affects untutored rustics who are made conscious of the presence of a "lord." Said a friend of the present writer's to a waiter in a country hotel where one of these "lords" was staying for a few days: "I want a letter to catch to-night's post, but I'm afraid the mail has gone from the hotel. Could you send some one to the post-office with it?" "Oh yes, sir!" replied the waiter grandiloquently. "The servant of the Lord will take it!" Pitiful beyond most piteous things is the grovelling tendency of that section of human nature which has not yet been educated sufficiently to lift itself up above temporary trappings and ornaments; pitiful it is to see men, gifted in intellect, or distinguished for bravery, flinch and cringe before one of their own flesh and blood, who, having neither cleverness nor courage, but only a Title, presumes upon that foolish appendage so far as to consider himself superior to both valour and ability. As well might a stuffed boar's head assume a superiority to other comestibles because decorated by the cook with a paper frill and bow of ribbon! The atmosphere which Lord Reginald Wrotham brought with him into the common-room of the bar was redolent of tobacco-smoke and whisky, yet, judging from the various propitiatory, timid, anxious, or servile looks cast upon him by all and sundry, it might have been fragrant and sacred incense wafted from the altars of the goddess Fortune to her waiting votaries. Helmsley's spirit rose up in contempt against the effete dandy as he watched him leaning carelessly against the counter, twirling his thin sandy moustache, and talking to his hostess merely for the sake of offensively ogling her two daughters.

"Charming old place you have here!—charming!" drawled his lordship. "Perfect dream! Love to pass all my days in such a delightful spot! 'Pon my life! Awful luck for us, the motor breaking down, or we never should have stopped at such a jolly place, don't-cher-know. Should we, Brookfield?"

Brookfield, gently scratching a pimple on his fat, clean-shaven face, smiled knowingly.

"Couldn't have stopped!" he declared. "We were doing a record run. But we should have missed a great deal,—a great deal!" And he emitted a soft chuckle. "Not only the place,—but——!"

He waved his hand explanatorily, with a slight bow, which implied an unspoken compliment to the looks of the mistress of the inn and her family. One of the young women blushed and peeped slyly up at him. He returned the glance with interest.

"May I ask," pursued Lord Wrotham, with an amicable leer, "the names of your two daughters, Madam? They've been awfully kind to us broken-down-travellers—should just like to know the difference between them. Like two roses on one stalk, don't-cher-know! Can't tell which is which!"

The mother of the girls hesitated a moment. She was not quite sure that she liked the "tone" of his lordship's speech. Finally she replied somewhat stiffly:—

"My eldest daughter is named Elizabeth, my lord, and her sister is Grace."

"Elizabeth and Grace! Charming!" murmured Wrotham, leaning a little more confidentially over the counter—"Now which—which is Grace?"

At that moment a tall, shadowy form darkened the open doorway of the inn, and a man entered, carrying in his arms a small oblong bundle covered with a piece of rough horse-cloth. Placing his burden down on a vacant bench, he pushed his cap from his brows and stared wildly about him. Every one looked at him,—some with recognition, others in alarm,—and Helmsley, compelled as he was to keep himself out of the general notice in his corner, almost started to his feet with an involuntary cry of amazement. For it was Tom o' the Gleam.

CHAPTER X

Tom o' the Gleam,—Tom, with his clothes torn and covered with dust,—Tom, changed suddenly to a haggard and terrible unlikeness of himself, his face drawn and withered, its healthy bronze colour whitened to a sickly livid hue,—Tom, with such an expression of dazed and stupid horror in his eyes as to give the impression that he was heavily in drink, and dangerous.

"Well, mates!" he said thickly—"A fine night and a clear moon!"

No one answered him. He staggered up to the bar. The hostess looked at him severely.

"Now, Tom, what's the matter?" she said.

He straightened himself, and, throwing back his shoulders as though parrying a blow, forced a smile.

"Nothing! A touch of the sun!" A strong shudder ran through his limbs, and his teeth chattered,—then suddenly leaning forward on the counter, he whispered: "I'm not drunk, mother!—for God's sake don't think it!—I'm ill. Don't you see I'm ill?—I'll be all right in a minute,—give me a drop of brandy!"

She fixed her candid gaze full upon him. She had known him well for years, and not only did she know him, but, rough character as he was, she liked and respected him. Looking him squarely in the face she saw at once that he was speaking the truth. He was not drunk. He was ill,—very ill. The strained anguish on his features proved it.

"Hadn't you better come inside the bar and sit down?" she suggested, in a low tone.

"No, thanks—I'd rather not. I'll stand just here."

She gave him the brandy he had asked for. He sipped it slowly, and, pushing his cap further off his brows, turned his dark eyes, full of smouldering fire, upon Lord Wrotham and his friend, both of whom had succeeded in getting up a little conversation with the hostess's younger daughter, the girl named Grace. Her sister, Elizabeth, put down her needlework, and watched Tom with sudden solicitude. An instinctive dislike of Lord Wrotham and his companion caused her to avoid looking their way, though she heard every word they were saying,—and her interest became centred on the handsome gypsy, whose pallid features and terrible expression filled her with a vague alarm.

"It would be awfully jolly of you if you'd come for a spin in my motor," said his lordship, twirling his sandy moustache and conveying a would-be amorous twinkle into his small brown-green eyes for the benefit of the girl he was ogling. "Beastly bore having a break-down, but it's nothing serious—half a day's work will put it all right, and if you and your sister would like a turn before we go on from here, I shall be charmed. We can't do the record business now—not this time,—so it doesn't matter how long we linger in this delightful spot."

"Especially in such delightful company!" added his friend, Brookfield. "I'm going to take a photograph of this house to-morrow, and perhaps"—here he smiled complacently—"perhaps Miss Grace and Miss Elizabeth will consent to come into the picture?"

"Ya-as—ya-as!—oh do!" drawled Wrotham. "Of course they will! Youwill, I'm sure, Miss Grace! This gentleman, Mr. Brookfield, has got nearly all the pictorials under his thumb, and he'll put your portrait in them as 'The Beauty of Somerset,' won't you, Brookfield?"

Brookfield laughed, a pleased laugh of conscious power.

"Of course I will," he said. "You have only to express the wish and the thing is done!"

Wrotham twirled his moustache again.

"Awful fun having a friend on the press, don't-cher-know!" he went on. "I get all my lady acquaintances into the papers,—makes 'em famous in a day! The women I like are made to look beautiful, and those I don't like are turned into frights—positive old horrors, give you my life! Easily done, you know!—touch up a negative whichever way you fancy, and there you are!"

The girl Grace lifted her eyes,—very pretty sparkling eyes they were,—and regarded him with a mutinous air of contempt.

"It must be 'awfully' amusing!" she said sarcastically.

"It is!—give you my life!" And his lordship played with a charm in the shape of an enamelled pig which dangled at his watch-chain. "It pleases all parties except those whom I want to rub up the wrong way. I've mademany a woman's hair curl, I can tell you! You'll be my 'Somersetshire beauty,' won't you, Miss Grace?"

"I think not!" she replied, with a cool glance. "My hair curls quite enough already. I never use tongs!"

Brookfield burst into a laugh, and the laugh was echoed murmurously by the other men in the room. Wrotham flushed and bit his lip.

"That's a one—er for me," he said lazily. "Pretty kitten as you are, Miss Grace, you can scratch! That's always the worst of women,—they've got such infernally sharp tongues——"

"Grace!" interrupted her mother, at this juncture—"You are wanted in the kitchen."

Grace took the maternal hint and retired at once. At that instant Tom o' the Gleam stirred slightly from his hitherto rigid attitude. He had only taken half his glass of brandy, but that small amount had brought back a tinge of colour to his face and deepened the sparkle of fire in his eyes.

"Good roads for motoring about here!" he said.

Lord Wrotham looked up,—then measuring the great height, muscular build, and commanding appearance of the speaker, nodded affably.

"First-rate!" he replied. "We had a splendid run from Cleeve Abbey."

"Magnificent!" echoed Brookfield. "Not half a second's stop all the way. We should have been far beyond Minehead by this time, if it hadn't been for the break-down. We were racing from London to the Land's End,—but we took a wrong turning just before we came to Cleeve——"

"Oh! Took a wrong turning, did you?" And Tom leaned a little forward as though to hear more accurately. His face had grown deadly pale again, and he breathed quickly.

"Yes. We found ourselves quite close to Cleeve Abbey, but we didn't stop to see old ruins this time, you bet! We just tore down the first lane we saw running back into the highroad,—a pretty steep bit of ground too—and, by Jove!—didn't we whizz round the corner at the bottom! That was a near shave, I can tell you!"

"Ay, ay!" said Tom slowly, listening with an air of profound interest. "You've got a smart chauffeur, no doubt!"

"No chauffeur at all!" declared Brookfield, emphatically. "His lordship drives his car himself."

There followed an odd silence. All the customers in the room, drinking and eating as many of them were, seemed to be under a dumb spell. Tom o' the Gleam's presence was at all times more or less of a terror to the timorous, and that he, who as a rule avoided strangers, should on his own initiative enter into conversation with the two motorists, was of itself a circumstance that awakened considerable wonder and interest. David Helmsley, sitting apart in the shadow, could not take his eyes off the gypsy's face and figure,—a kind of fascination impelled him to watch with strained attention the dark shape, moulded with such herculean symmetry, which seemed to command and subdue the very air that gave it force and sustenance.

"His lordship drives his car himself!" echoed Tom, and a curious smile parted his lips, showing an almost sinister gleam of white teeth between his full black moustache and beard,—then, bringing his sombre glance to bear slowly down on Wrotham's insignificant form, he continued,—"Are you his lordship?"

Wrotham nodded with a careless condescension, and, lighting a cigar, began to smoke it.

"And you drive your car yourself!" proceeded Tom,—"you must have good nerve and a keen eye!"

"Oh well!" And Wrotham laughed airily—"Pretty much so!—but I won't boast!"

"How many miles an hour?" went on Tom, pursuing his inquiries with an almost morbid eagerness.

"Forty or fifty, I suppose—sometimes more. I always run at the highest speed. Of course that kind of thing knocks the motor to pieces rather soon, but one can always buy another."

"True!" said Tom. "Very true! One can always buy another!" He paused, and seemed to collect his thoughts with an effort,—then noticing the half-glass of brandy he had left on the counter, he took it up and drank it all off at a gulp. "Have you ever had any accidents on the road?"

"Accidents?" Lord Wrotham put up an eyeglass. "Accidents? What do you mean?"

"Why, what should I mean except what I say!" And Tom gave a sudden loud laugh,—a laugh which made the hostess at the bar start nervously, while many of the men seated round the various tables exchanged uneasy glances. "Accidents are accidents all the world over! Haven't you ever been thrown out, upset, shaken in body, broken in bone, or otherwise involved in mischief?"

Lord Wrotham smiled, and let his eyeglass fall with a click against his top waistcoat button.

"Never!" he said, taking his cigar from his mouth, looking at it, and then replacing it with a relish—"I'm too fond of my own life to run any risk of losing it. Other people's lives don't matter so much, but mine is precious! Eh, Brookfield?"

Brookfield chuckled himself purple in the face over this pleasantry, and declared that his lordship's wit grew sharper with every day of his existence. Meanwhile Tom o' the Gleam moved a step or two nearer to Wrotham.

"You're a lucky lord!" he said, and again he laughed discordantly. "Very lucky! But you don't mean to tell me that while you're pounding along at full speed, you've never upset anything in your way?—never knocked down an old man or woman,—never run over a dog,—or a child?"

"Oh, well, if you mean that kind of thing!" murmured Wrotham, puffing placidly at his cigar—"Of course! That's quite common! We're always running over something or other, aren't we, Brookie?"

"Always!" declared that gentleman pleasantly. "Really it's half the fun!"

"Positively it is, don't-cher-know!" and his lordship played again with his enamelled pig—"But it's not our fault. If things will get into our way, we can't wait till they get out. We're bound to ride over them. Do you remember that old hen, Brookie?"

Brookfield spluttered into a laugh, and nodded in the affirmative.

"There it was skipping over the road in front of us in as great a hurry as ever hen was," went on Wrotham. "Going back to its family of eggs per express waddle! Whiz! Pst—and all its eggs and waddles were over! By Jove, how we screamed! Ha—ha—ha!—he—he—he!"

Lord Wrotham's laugh resembled that laugh peculiar to "society" folk,—the laugh civil-sniggering, which is just a tone between the sheep's bleat and the peewit's cry. But no one laughed in response, and no one spoke. Some heavy spell was in the air like a cloud shadowing a landscape, and an imaginative onlooker would have been inclined to think that this imperceptible mystic darkness had come in with Tom o' the Gleam and was centralising itself round him alone. Brookfield, seeing that his lordly patron was inclined to talk, and that he was evidently anxious to narrate various "car" incidents, similar to the hen episode, took up the conversation and led it on.

"It is really quite absurd," he said, "for any one of common sense to argue that a motorist can, could, or should pull up every moment for the sake of a few stray animals, or even people, when they don't seem to know or care where they are going. Now think of that child to-day! What an absolute little idiot! Gathering wild thyme and holding it out to the car going full speed! No wonder we knocked it over!"

The hostess of the inn looked up quickly.

"I hope it was not hurt?" she said.

"Oh dear no!" answered Lord Wrotham lightly. "It just fell back and turned a somersault in the grass,—evidently enjoying itself. It had a narrow escape though!"

Tom o' the Gleam stared fixedly at him. Once or twice he essayed to speak, but no sound came from his twitching lips. Presently, with an effort, he found his voice.

"Did you—did you stop the car and go back to see—to see if—if it was all right?" he asked, in curiously harsh, monotonous accents.

"Stop the car? Go back? By Jove, I should think not indeed! I'd lost too much time already through taking a wrong turning. The child was all right enough."

"Are you sure?" muttered Tom thickly. "Are you—quite—sure?"

"Sure?" And Wrotham again had recourse to his eyeglass, which he stuck in one eye, while he fixed his interlocutor with a supercilious glance. "Of course I'm sure! What the devil d' ye take me for? It was a mere beggar's brat anyhow—there are too many of such little wretches running loose about the roads—regular nuisances—a few might be run over with advantage—Hullo! What now? What's the matter? Keep your distance, please!" For Tom suddenly threw up his clenched fists with an inarticulate cry of rage, and now leaped towards Wrotham in the attitude of a wild beast springing on its prey. "Hands off! Hands off, I say! Damn you, leave me alone! Brookfield! Here! Some one get a hold of this fellow! He's mad!"

But before Brookfield or any other man could move to his assistance, Tom had pounced upon him with all the fury of a famished tiger.

"God curse you!" he panted, between the gasps of his labouring breath—"God burn you for ever in Hell!"

Down on the ground he hurled him, clutching him round the neck, and choking every attempt at a cry. Then falling himself in all his huge height, breadth, and weight, upon Wrotham's prone body he crushed it under and held it beneath him, while, with appalling swiftness and vehemence, he plunged a drawn claspknife deep in his victim's throat, hacking the flesh from left to right, from right to left with reckless ferocity, till the blood spurted about him in horrid crimson jets, and gushed in a dark pool on the floor.

Piercing screams from the women, groans and cries from the men, filled the air, and the lately peaceful scene was changed to one of maddening confusion. Brookfield rushed wildly through the open door of the inn into the village street, yelling: "Help! Help! Murder! Help!" and in less than five minutes the place was filled with an excited crowd. "Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" ran in frightened whispers from mouth to mouth. David Helmsley, giddy with the sudden shock of terror, rose shuddering from his place with a vague idea of instant flight in his mind, but remained standing inert, half paralysed by sheer panic, while several men surrounded Tom, and dragged him forcibly up from the ground where he lay, still grasping his murdered man. As they wrenched the gypsy's grappling arms away, Wrotham fell back on the floor, stone dead. Life had been thrust out of him with the first blow dealt him by Tom's claspknife, which had been aimed at his throat as a butcher aims at the throat of a swine. His bleeding corpse presented a frightful spectacle, the head being nearly severed from the body.

Brookfield, shaking all over, turned his back upon the awful sight, and kept on running to and fro and up and down the street, clamouring like a madman for the police. Two sturdy constables presently came, their appearance restoring something like order. To them Tom o' the Gleam advanced, extending his blood-stained hands.

"I am ready!" he said, in a quiet voice. "I am the murderer!"

They looked at him. Then, by way of precaution, one of them clasped a pair of manacles on his wrists. The other, turning his eyes to the corpse on the floor, recoiled in horror.

"Throw something over it!" he commanded.

He was obeyed, and the dreadful remains of what had once been human, were quickly shrouded from view.

"How did this happen?" was the next question put by the officer of the law who had already spoken, opening his notebook.

A chorus of eager tongues answered him, Brookfield's excited explanation echoing above them all. His dear friend, his great, noble, good friend had been brutally murdered! His friend was Lord Wrotham, of Wrotham Hall, Blankshire! A break-down had occurred within half a mile of Blue Anchor, and Lord Wrotham had taken rooms at the present inn for the night. His lordship had condescended to enter into a friendly conversation with the ruffian now under arrest, who, without the slightest cause or provocation whatsoever, had suddenly attacked and overthrown his lordship, and plunged a knife into his lordship's throat! He himself was James Brookfield, proprietor of the Daily Post-Bag, the Pictorial Pie, and the Illustrated Invoice, and he should make this outrageous, this awful crime a warning to motorists throughout the world——!"

"That will do, thank you," said the officer briefly—then he gave a sharp glance around him—"Where's the landlady?"

She had fled in terror from the scene, and some one went in search of her, returning with the poor woman and her two daughters, all of them deathly pale and shivering with dread.

"Don't be frightened, mother!" said one of the constables kindly—"No harm will come to you. Just tell us what you saw of this affair—that's all."

Whereat the poor hostess, her narrative interrupted by tears, explained that Tom o' the Gleam was a frequent customer of hers, and that she had never thought badly of him.

"He was a bit excited to-night, but he wasn't drunk," she said. "He told me he was ill, and asked for a glass of brandy. He looked as if he were in great pain, and I gave him the brandy at once and asked him to step inside the bar. But he wouldn't do that,—he just stood talking with the gentlemen about motoring, and then something was said about a child being knocked over by the motor,—and all of a sudden——"

Here her voice broke, and she sank on a seat half swooning, while Elizabeth, her eldest girl, finished the story in low, trembling tones. Tom o' the Gleam meanwhile stood rigidly upright and silent. To him the chief officer of the law finally turned.

"Will you come with us quietly?" he asked, "or do you mean to give us trouble?"

Tom lifted his dark eyes.

"I shall give no man any more trouble," he answered. "I shall go nowhere save where I am taken. You need fear nothing from me now. But I must speak."

The officer frowned warningly.

"You'd better not!" he said.

"I must!" repeated Tom. "You think,—all of you,—that I had no cause—no provocation—to kill the man who lies there"—and he turned a fierce glance upon the covered corpse, from which a dark stream of blood was trickling slowly along the floor—"I swear before God that I hadcause!—and that my cause was just! I had provocation!—the bitterest and worst! That man was a murderer as surely as I am. Look yonder!" And lifting his manacled hands he extended them towards the bench where lay the bundle covered with horse-cloth, which he had carried in his arms and set down when he had first entered the inn. "Look, I say!—and then tell me I had no cause!"

With an uneasy glance one of the officers went up to the spot indicated, and hurriedly, yet fearfully, lifted the horse-cloth and looked under it. Then uttering an exclamation of horror and pity, he drew away the covering altogether, and disclosed to view the dead body of a child,—a little curly-headed lad,—lying as if it were asleep, a smile on its pretty mouth, and a bunch of wild thyme clasped in the clenched fingers of its small right hand.

"My God! It's Kiddie!"

The exclamation was uttered almost simultaneously by every one in the room, and the girl Elizabeth sprang forward.

"Oh, not Kiddie!" she cried—"Oh, surely not Kiddie! Oh, the poor little darling!—the pretty little man!"

And she fell on her knees beside the tiny corpse and gave way to a wild fit of weeping.

There was an awful silence, broken only by her sobbing. Men turned away and covered their eyes—Brookfield edged himself stealthily through the little crowd and sneaked out into the open air—and the officers of the law stood inactive. Helmsley felt the room whirling about him in a sickening blackness, and sat down to steady himself, the stinging tears rising involuntarily in his throat and almost choking him.

"Oh, Kiddie!" wailed Elizabeth again, looking up in plaintive appeal—"Oh, mother, mother, see! Grace come here! Kiddie's dead! The poor innocent little child!" They came at her call, and knelt with her, crying bitterly, and smoothing back with tender hands the thickly tangled dark curls of the smiling dead thing, with the fragrance of wild thyme clinging about it, as though it were a broken flower torn from the woods where it had blossomed. Tom o' the Gleam watched them, and his broad chest heaved with a sudden gasping sigh.

"You all know now," he said slowly, staring with strained piteous eyes at the little lifeless body—"you understand,—the motor killed my Kiddie! He was playing on the road—I was close by among the trees—I saw the cursed car coming full speed downhill—I rushed to take the boy, but was too late—he cried once—and then—silence! All the laughter gone out of him—all the life and love——" He paused with a shudder.—"I carried him all the way, and followed the car," he went on—"I would have followed it to the world's end! I ran by a short cut down near the sea,—and then—I saw the thing break down. I thanked God for that! I tracked the murderers here,—I meant to kill the man who killed my child!—and I have done it!" He paused again. Then he held out his hands and looked at the constable.

"May I—before I go—take him in my arms—and kiss him?" he asked.

The chief officer nodded. He could not speak, but he unfastened Tom's manacles and threw them on the floor. Then Tom himself moved feebly and unsteadily to where the women knelt beside his dead child. They rose as he approached, but did not turn away.

"You have hearts, you women!" he said faintly. "You know what it is to love a child! And Kiddie,—Kiddie was such a happy little fellow!—so strong and hearty!—so full of life! And now—now he's stiff and cold! Only this morning he was jumping and laughing in my arms——" He broke off, trembling violently, then with an effort he raised his head and turned his eyes with a wild stare upon all around him. "We are only poor folk!" he went on, in a firmer voice. "Only gypsies, tinkers, road-menders, labourers, and the like! We cannot fight against the rich who ride us down! There's no law for us, because we can't pay for it. We can't fee the counsel or dine the judge! The rich can pay. They can trample us down under their devilish motor-cars, and obliging juries will declare our wrongs and injuries and deaths to be mere 'accident' or 'misadventure'! But if they can kill, by God!—so can we! And if the law lets them off for murdering our children, we must take the law into our own hands and murder them in turn—ay! even if we swing for it!"

No one spoke. The women still sobbed convulsively, but otherwise there was a great silence. Tom o' the Gleam stretched forth his hands with an eloquent gesture of passion.

"Look at him lying there!" he cried—"Only a child—a little child! So pretty and playful!—all his joy was in the birds and flowers! The robins knew him and would perch on his shoulder,—he would call to the cuckoo,—he would race the swallow,—he would lie in the grass and sing with the skylark and talk to the daisies. He was happy with the simplest things—and when we put him to bed in his little hammock under the trees, he would smile up at the stars and say: 'Mother's up there! Good-night, mother!' Oh, the lonely trees, and the empty hammock! Oh, my lad!—my little pretty lad! Murdered! Murdered! Gone from me for ever! For ever! God! God!"

Reeling heavily forward, he sank in a crouching heap beside the child's dead body and snatched it into his embrace, kissing the little cold lips and cheeks and eyelids again and again, and pressing it with frantic fervour against his breast.

"The dark hour!" he muttered—"the dark hour! To-day when I came away over the moors I felt it creeping upon me! Last night it whispered to me, and I felt its cold breath hissing against my ears! When I climbed down the rocks to the seashore, I heard it wailing in the waves!—and through the hollows of the rocks it shrieked an unknown horror at me! Who was it that said to-day—'He is only a child after all, and he might be taken from you'? I remember!—it was Miss Tranter who spoke—and she was sorry afterwards—ah, yes!—she was sorry!—but it was the spirit of the hour that moved her to the utterance of a warning—she could not help herself,—and I—I should have been more careful!—I should not have left my little one for a moment,—but I never thought any harm could come to him—no, never to him! I was always sure God was too good for that!"

Moaning drearily, he rocked the dead boy to and fro.

"Kiddie—my Kiddie!" he murmured—"Little one with my love's eyes!—heart's darling with my love's face! Don't go to sleep, Kiddie!—not just yet!—wake up and kiss me once!—only once again, Kiddie!"

"Oh, Tom!" sobbed Elizabeth,—"Oh, poor, poor Tom!"

At the sound of her voice he raised his head and looked up at her. There was a strange expression on his face,—a fixed and terrible stare in his eyes. Suddenly he broke into a wild laugh.

"Ha-ha!" he cried. "Poor Tom! Tom o' the Gleam! That's me!—the me that was not always me! Not always me—no!—not always Tom o' the Gleam! It was a bold life I led in the woods long ago!—a life full of sunshine and laughter—a life for a man with man's blood in his veins! Away out in the land that once was old Provence, we jested and sang the hours away,—the women with their guitars and mandolines—the men with their wild dances and tambourines,—and love was the keynote of the music—love!—always love! Love in the sunshine!—love under the moonbeams!—bright eyes in which to drown one's soul,—red lips on which to crush one's heart!—Ah, God!—such days when we were young!

'Ah! Craignons de perdre un seul jour,
De la belle saison de l'amour!'"

He sang these lines in a rich baritone, clear and thrilling with passion, and the men grouped about him, not understanding what he sang, glanced at one another with an uneasy sense of fear. All at once he struggled to his feet without assistance, and stood upright, still clasping the body of his child in his arms.

"Come, come!" he said thickly—"It's time we were off, Kiddie! We must get across the moor and into camp. It's time for all lambs to be in the fold;—time to go to bed, my little lad! Good-night, mates! Good-night! I know you all,—and you all know me—you like fair play! Fair play all round, eh? Not one law for the rich and another for the poor! Even justice, boys! Justice! Justice!"

Here his voice broke in a great and awful cry,—blood sprang from his lips—his face grew darkly purple,—and like a huge tree snapped asunder by a storm, he reeled heavily to the ground. One of the constables caught him as he fell.

"Hold up, Tom!" he said tremulously, the thick tears standing in his eyes. "Don't give way! Be a man! Hold up! Steady! Here, let me take the poor Kiddie!"

For a ghastly pallor was stealing over Tom's features, and his lips were widely parted in a gasping struggle for breath.

"No—no!—don't take my boy!" he muttered feebly. "Let me—keep him—with me! God is good—good after all!—we shall not—be parted!"

A strong convulsion shook his sinewy frame from head to foot, and he writhed in desperate agony. The officer put an arm under his head, and made an expressive sign to the awed witnesses of the scene. Helmsley, startled at this, came hurriedly forward, trembling and scarcely able to speak in the extremity of his fear and pity.

"What—what is it?" he stammered. "Not—not——?"

"Death! That's what it is!" said the officer, gently. "His heart's broken!"

One rough fellow here pushed his way to the side of the fallen man,—it was the cattle-driver who had taken part in the previous conversation among the customers at the inn before the occurrence of the tragedy. He knelt down, sobbing like a child.

"Tom!" he faltered, "Tom, old chap! Hearten up a bit! Don't leave us! There's not one of us us'll think ill of ye!—no, not if the law was to shut ye up for life! You was allus good to us poor folk—an' poor folk aint as forgittin' o' kindness as rich. Stay an' help us along, Tom!—you

CHAPTER XI

Sick at heart, and utterly overcome by the sudden and awful tragedy to which he had been an enforced silent witness, David Helmsley had now but one idea, and that was at once to leave the scene of horror which, like a ghastly nightmare, scarred his vision and dizzied his brain. Stumbling feebly along, and seeming to those who by chance noticed him, no more than a poor old tramp terrified out of his wits by the grief and confusion which prevailed, he made his way gradually through the crowd now pressing closely round the dead, and went forth into the village street. He held the little dog Charlie nestled under his coat, where he had kept it hidden all the evening,—the tiny creature was shivering violently with that strange consciousness of the atmosphere of death which is instinctive to so many animals,—and a vague wish to soothe its fears helped him for the moment to forget his own feelings. He would not trust himself to look again at Tom o' the Gleam, stretched lifeless on the ground with his slaughtered child clasped in his arms; he could not speak to any one of the terrified people. He heard the constables giving hurried orders for the removal of the bodies, and he saw two more police officers arrive and go into the stableyard of the inn, there to take the number of the motor-car and write down the full deposition of that potentate of the pictorial press, James Brookfield. And he knew, without any explanation, that the whole affair would probably be served up the next day in the cheaper newspapers as a "sensational" crime, so worded as to lay all the blame on Tom o' the Gleam, and to exonerate the act, and deplore the violent death of the "lordly" brute who, out of his selfish and wicked recklessness, had snatched away the life of an only child from its father without care or compunction. But it was the fearful swiftness of the catastrophe that affected Helmsley most,—that, and what seemed to him, the needless cruelty of fate. Only last night he had seen Tom o' the Gleam for the first time—only last night he had admired the physical symmetry and grace of the man,—his handsome head, his rich voice, and the curious refinement, suggestive of some past culture and education, which gave such a charm to his manner,—only last night he had experienced that little proof of human sympathy and kindliness which had shown itself in the gift of the few coins which Tom had collected and placed on his pillow,—only last night he had been touched by the herculean fellow's tenderness for his little "Kiddie,"—and now,—within the space of twenty-four hours, both father and child had gone out of life at a rush as fierce and relentless as the speed of the motor-car which had crushed a world of happiness under its merciless wheels. Was it right—was it just that such things should be? Could one believe in the goodness of God, in such a world of wanton wickedness? Moving along in a blind haze of bewilderment, Helmsley's thoughts were all disordered and his mind in a whirl,—what consciousness he had left to him was centred in an effort to get away—away!—far away from the scene of murder and death,—away from the scent and trail of blood which seemed to infect and poison the very air!

It was a calm and lovely night. The moon rode high, and there was a soft wind blowing in from the sea. Out over the waste of heaving water, where the moonbeams turned the small rippling waves to the resemblance of netted links of silver or steel, the horizon stretched sharply clear and definite, like a line drawn under the finished chapter of vision. There was a gentle murmur of the inflowing tide among the loose stones and pebbles fringing the beach,—but to Helmsley's ears it sounded like the miserable moaning of a broken heart,—the wail of a sorrowful spirit in torture. He went on and on, with no very distinct idea of where he was going,—he simply continued to walk automatically like one in a dream. He did not know the time, but guessed it must be somewhere about midnight. The road was quite deserted, and its loneliness was to him, in his present over-wrought condition, appalling. Desolation seemed to involve the whole earth in gloom,—the trees stood out in the white shine of the moon like dark shrouded ghosts waving their cerements to and fro,—the fields and hills on either side of him were bare and solitary, and the gleam of the ocean was cold and cheerless as a "Dead Man's Pool." Slowly he plodded along, with a thousand disjointed fragments of thought and memory teasing his brain, all part and parcel of his recent experiences,—he seemed to have lived through a whole history of strange events since the herb-gatherer, Matt Peke, had befriended him on the road,—and the most curious impression of all was that he had somehow lost his own identity for ever. It was impossible and ridiculous to think of himself as David Helmsley, the millionaire,—there was, there could be no such person! David Helmsley,—the real David Helmsley,—was very old, very tired, very poor,—there was nothing left for him in this world save death. He had no children, no friends,—no one who cared for him or who wanted to know what had become of him. He was absolutely alone,—and in the hush of the summer night he fancied that the very moon looked down upon him with a chill stare as though wondering why he burdened the earth with his presence when it was surely time for him to die!

It was not till he found that he was leaving the shore line, and that one or two gas lamps twinkled faintly ahead of him, that he realized he was entering the outskirts of a small town. Pausing a moment, he looked about him. A high-walled castle, majestically enthroned on a steep wooded height, was the first object that met his view,—every line of its frowning battlements and turrets was seen clearly against the sky as though etched out on a dark background with a pencil of light. A sign-post at the corner of a winding road gave the direction "To Dunster Castle." Reading this by the glimmer of the moon, Helmsley stood irresolute for a minute or so, and then resumed his tramp, proceeding through the streets of what he knew must be Dunster itself. He had no intention of stopping in the town,—an inward nervousness pushed him on, on, in spite of fatigue, and Dunster was not far enough away from Blue Anchor to satisfy him. The scene of Tom o' the Gleam's revenge and death surrounded him with a horrible environment,—an atmosphere from which he sought to free himself by sheer distance, and he resolved to walk till morning rather than remain anywhere near the place which was now associated in his mind with one of the darkest episodes of human guilt and suffering that he had ever known. Passing by the old inn known as "The Luttrell Arms," now fast closed for the night, a policeman on his beat stopped in his marching to and fro, and spoke to him.

"Hillo! Which way do you come from?"

"From Watchett."

"Oh! We've just had news of a murder up at Blue Anchor. Have you heard anything of it?"

"Yes." And Helmsley looked his questioner squarely in the face. "It's a terrible business! But the murderer's caught!"

"Caught is he? Who's got him?"

"Death!" And Helmsley, lifting his cap, stood bareheaded in the moonlight. "He'll never escape again!"

The constable looked amazed and a little awed.

"Death? Why, I heard it was that wild gypsy, Tom o' the Gleam——"

"So it was,"—said Helmsley, gently,—"and Tom o' the Gleam is dead!"

"No! Don't say that!" ejaculated the constable with real concern. "There's a lot of good in Tom! I shouldn't like to think he's gone!"

"You'll find it's true," said Helmsley. "And perhaps, when you get all the details, you'll think it for the best. Good-night!"

"Are you staying in Dunster?" queried the officer with a keen glance.

"No. I'm moving on." And Helmsley smiled wearily as he again said—"Good-night!"

He walked steadily, though slowly, through the sleeping town, and passed out of it. Ascending a winding bit of road he found himself once more in the open country, and presently came to a field where part of the fence had been broken through by the cattle. Just behind the damaged palings there was a covered shed, open in front, with a few bundles of straw packed within it. This place suggested itself as a fairly comfortable shelter for an hour's rest, and becoming conscious of the intense aching of his limbs, he took possession of it, setting the small "Charlie" down to gambol on the grass at pleasure. He was far more tired than he knew, and remembering the "yerb wine" which Matt Peke had provided him with, he took a long draught of it, grateful for its reviving warmth and tonic power. Then, half-dreamily, he watched the little dog whom he had rescued and befriended, and presently found himself vaguely entertained by the graceful antics of the tiny creature which, despite its wounded paw, capered limpingly after its own shadow flung by the moonlight on the greensward, and attempted in its own playful way to attract the attention of its new master and wile him away from his mood of utter misery. Involuntarily he thought of the frenzied cry of Shakespeare's "Lear" over the dead body of Cordelia:—

"What! Shall a dog, a horse, a rat, have life And thou no breath at all!"

What curious caprice of destiny was it that saved the life of a dog, yet robbed a father of his child? Who could explain it? Why should a happy innocent little lad like Tom o' the Gleam's "Kiddie" have been hurled out of existence in a moment as it were by the mad speed of a motor's wheels,—and a fragile "toy" terrier, the mere whim of dog-breeders and plaything for fanciful women, be plucked from starvation and death as though the great forces of creation deemed it more worth cherishing than a human being! For the murder of Lord Wrotham, Helmsley found excuse,—for the death of Tom there was ample natural cause,—but for the wanton killing of a little child no reason could justly be assigned. Propping his elbows on his knees, and resting his aching head on his hands, he thought and thought,—till Thought became almost as a fire in his brain. What was the use of life? he asked himself. What definite plan or object could there possibly be in the perpetuation of the human race?

"To pace the same dull round
On each recurring day,
For seventy years or more
Till strength and hope decay,—
To trust,—and be deceived,—
And standing,—fear to fall!
To find no resting-place—
Can this be all?"

Beginning with hope and eagerness, and having confidence in the good faith of his fellow-men, had he not himself fought a hard fight in the world, setting before him a certain goal,—a goal which he had won and passed,—to what purpose? In youth he had been very poor,—and poverty had served him as a spur to ambition. In middle life he had become one of the richest men in the world. He had done all that rich and ambitious men set themselves out to do. He might have said with the Preacher:

"Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them,—I withheld not my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and this was my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do, and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun."

He had loved,—or rather, he had imagined he loved,—he had married, and his wife had dishonoured him. Sons had been born to him, who, with their mother's treacherous blood in their veins, had brought him to shame by their conduct,—and now all the kith and kin he had sought to surround himself with were dead, and he was alone—as alone as he had ever been at the very commencement of his career. Had his long life of toil led him only to this? With a sense of dull disappointment, his mind reverted to the plan he had half entertained of benefiting Tom o' the Gleam in some way and making him happy by prospering the fortunes of the child he loved so well,—though he was fully aware that perhaps he could not have done much in that direction, as it was more than likely that Tom would have resented the slightest hint of a rich man's patronage. Death, however, in its fiercest shape, had now put an abrupt end to any such benevolent scheme, whether or not it might have been feasible,—and, absorbed in a kind of lethargic reverie, he again and again asked himself what use he was in the world?—what could he do with the brief remaining portion of his life?—and how he could dispose, to his own satisfaction, of the vast wealth which, like a huge golden mill-stone, hung round his neck, dragging him down to the grave? Such poor people as he had met with during his tramp seemed fairly contented with their lot; he, at any rate, had heard no complaints of poverty from them. On the contrary, they had shown an independence of thought and freedom of life which was wholly incompatible with the mere desire of money. He could put a five-pound note in an envelope and post it anonymously to Matt Peke at the "Trusty Man" as a slight return for his kindness, but he was quite sure that though Matt might be pleased enough with the money he would equally be puzzled, and not entirely satisfied in his mind as to whether he was doing right to accept and use it. It would probably be put in a savings bank for a "rainy day."

"It is the hardest thing in the world to do good with

CHAPTER XII

The storm raged till sunset; and then exhausted by its own stress of fury, began to roll away in angry sobs across the sea. The wind sank suddenly; the rain as suddenly ceased. A wonderful flush of burning orange light cut the sky asunder, spreading gradually upward and paling into fairest rose. The sullen clouds caught brightness at their summits, and took upon themselves the semblance of Alpine heights touched by the mystic glory of the dawn, and a clear silver radiance flashed across the ocean for a second and then vanished, as though a flaming torch had just flared up to show the troublous heaving of the waters, and had then been instantly quenched. As the evening came on the weather steadily cleared;—and presently a pure, calm, dark-blue expanse of ether stretched balmily across the whole width of the waves, with the evening star—the Star of Love—glimmering faintly aloft like a delicate jewel hanging on the very heart of the air. Far away down in the depths of the "coombe," a church bell rang softly for some holy service,—and when David Helmsley awoke at last from his death-like swoon he found himself no longer alone. A woman knelt beside him, supporting him in her arms,—and when he looked up at her wonderingly, he saw two eyes bent upon him with such watchful tenderness that in his weak, half-conscious state he fancied he must be wandering somewhere through heaven if the stars were so near. He tried to speak—to move,—but was checked by a gentle pressure of the protecting arms about him.

"Better now, dearie?" murmured a low anxious voice. "That's right! Don't try to get up just yet—take time! Let the strength come back to you first!"

Who was it—who could it be, that spoke to him with such affectionate solicitude? He gazed and gazed and marvelled,—but it was too dark to see the features of his rescuer. As consciousness grew more vivid, he realised that he was leaning against her bosom like a helpless child,—that the wet grass was all about him,—and that he was cold,—very cold, with a coldness as of some enclosing grave. Sense and memory returned to him slowly with sharp stabs of physical pain, and presently he found utterance.

"You are very kind!" he muttered, feebly—"I begin to recollect now—I had walked a long way—and I was caught in the storm—I felt ill,—very ill!—I suppose I must have fallen down here——"

"That's it!" said the woman, gently—"Don't try to think about it! You'll be better presently."

He closed his eyes wearily,—then opened them again, struck by a sudden self-reproach and anxiety.

"The little dog?" he asked, trembling—"The little dog I had with me——?"

He saw, or thought he saw, a smile on the face in the darkness.

"The little dog's all right,—don't you worry about him!" said the woman—"He knows how to take care of himself and you too! It was just him that brought me along here where I found you. Bless the little soul! He made noise enough for six of his size!"

Helmsley gave a faint sigh of pleasure.

"Poor little Charlie! Where is he?"

"Oh, he's close by! He was almost drowned with the rain, like a poor mouse in a pail of water, but he went on barking all the same! I dried him as well as I could in my apron, and then wrapped him up in my cloak,—he's sitting right in it just now watching me."

"If—if I die,—please take care of him!" murmured Helmsley.

"Nonsense, dearie! I'm not going to let you die out here on the hills,—don't think it!" said the woman, cheerily,—"I want to get you up, and take you home with me. The storm's well overpast,—if you could manage to move——"

He raised himself a little, and tried to see her more closer.

"Do you live far from here?" he asked.

"Only just on the upper edge of the 'coombe'—not in the village,"—she answered—"It's quite a short way, but a bit steep going. If you lean on me, I won't let you slip,—I'm as strong as a man, and as men go nowadays, stronger than most!"

He struggled to rise, and she assisted him. By dint of

CHAPTER XIII

The next morning Helmsley was too ill to move from his bed, or to be conscious of his surroundings. And there followed a long period which to him was well-nigh a blank. For weeks he lay helpless in the grasp of a fever which over and over again threatened to cut the last frail thread of his life asunder. Pain tortured every nerve and sinew in his body, and there were times of terrible collapse,—when he was conscious of nothing save an intense longing to sink into the grave and have done with all the sharp and cruel torment which kept him on the rack of existence. In a semi-delirious condition he tossed and moaned the hours away, hardly aware of his own identity. In certain brief pauses of the nights and days, when pain was momentarily dulled by stupor, he saw, or fancied he saw a woman always near him, with anxiety in her eyes and words of soothing consolation on her lips;—and then he found himself muttering, "Mary! Mary! God bless you!" over and over again. Once or twice he dimly realised that a small dark man came to his bedside and felt his pulse and looked at him very doubtfully, and that she, Mary, called this personage "doctor," and asked him questions in a whisper. But all within his own being was pain and bewilderment,—sometimes he felt as though he were one drop in a burning whirlpool of madness—and sometimes he seemed to himself to be spinning round and round in a haze of blinding rain, of which the drops were scalding hot, and heavy as lead,—and occasionally he found that he was trying to get out of bed, uttering cries of inexplicable anguish, while at such moments, something cool was placed on his forehead, and a gentle arm was passed round him till the paroxysm abated, and he fell down again among his pillows exhausted. Slowly, and as it were grudgingly, after many days, the crisis of the illness passed and ebbed away in dull throbs of agony,—and he sank into a weak lethargy that was almost like the comatose condition preceding death. He lay staring at the ceiling for hours, heedless as to whether he ever moved or spoke again. Some-one came and put spoonfuls of liquid nourishment between his lips, and he swallowed it mechanically without any sign of conscious appreciation. White as white marble, and aged by many years, he remained stretched in his rigid corpse-like attitude, his eyes always fixedly upturned, till one day he was roused from his deepening torpor by the sound of sobbing. With a violent effort he brought his gaze down from the ceiling, and saw a figure kneeling by his bed, and a mass of bronze brown hair falling over a face concealed by two shapely white hands through which the tears were falling. Feebly astonished, he stretched out his thin, trembling fingers to touch that wonderful bright mesh of waving tresses, and asked—

"What is this? Who—who is crying?"

The hidden face was uplifted, and two soft eyes, wet with weeping, looked up hopefully.

"It's Mary!" said a trembling voice—"You know me, don't you? Oh, dearie, if you would but try to rouse yourself, you'd get well even now!"

He gazed at her in a kind of childish admiration.

"It's Mary!" he echoed, faintly—"And who is Mary?"

"Don't you remember?" And rising from her knees, she dashed away her tears and smiled at him—"Or is it too hard for you to think at all about it just now? Didn't I find you out on the hills in the storm, and bring you home here?—and didn't I tell you that my name was Mary?"

He kept his eyes upon her wistful face,—and presently a wan smile crossed his lips.

"Yes!—so you did!" he answered—"I know you now, Mary! I've been ill, haven't I?"

She nodded at him—the tears were still wet on her lashes.

"Very ill!"

"Ill all night, I suppose?"

She nodded again.

"It's morning now?"

"Yes, it's morning!"

"I shall get up presently,"—he said, in his old gentle courteous way—"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble! I must not burden your hospitality—your kindness——"

His voice trailed away into silence,—his eyelids drooped—and fell into a sound slumber,—the first refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many weary nights and days.

Mary Deane stood looking at him thoughtfully. The turn had come for the better, and she silently thanked God. Night after night, day after day, she had nursed him with unwearying patience and devotion, having no other help or guidance save her own womanly instinct, and the occasional advice of the village doctor, who, however, was not a qualified medical man, but merely a herbalist who prepared his own simples. This humble Gamaliel diagnosed Helmsley's case as one of rheumatic fever, complicated by heart trouble, as well as by the natural weakness of decaying vitality. Mary had explained to him Helmsley's presence in her cottage by a pious falsehood, which Heaven surely forgave her as soon as it was uttered. She had said that he was a friend of her late father's, who had sought her out in the hope that she might help him to find some light employment in his old age, and that not knowing the country at all, he had lost his way across the hills during the blinding fury of the storm. This story quickly ran through the little village, of which Mary's house was the last, at the summit of the "coombe," and many of its inhabitants came to inquire after "Mr. David," while he lay tossing and moaning between life and death, most of them seriously commiserating Mary herself for the "sight o' trouble" she had been put to,—"all for a trampin' stranger like!"

"Though,"—observed one rustic sage—"Bein' a lone woman as y' are, Mis' Deane, m'appen if he knew yer father 'twould be pleasant to talk to him when 'is 'ed comes clear, if clear it iver do come. For when we've put our owd folk under the daisies, it do cheer the 'art a bit to talk of 'em to those as knew 'em when they was a standin' upright, bold an' strong, for all they lays so low till last trumpet."

Mary smiled a grave assent, and with wise tact and careful forethought for the comfort and well-being of her unknown guest, quietly accepted the position she had brought upon herself as having given shelter and lodging to her "father's friend," thus smoothing all difficulties away for him, whether he recovered from his illness or not. Had he died, she would have borne the expenses of his burial without a word of other explanation than that which she had offered by way of appeasing the always greedy curiosity of any community of human beings who are gathered in one small town or village,—and if he recovered, she was prepared to treat him in very truth as her "father's friend."

"For,"—she argued with herself, quite simply—"I am sure father would have been kind to him, and when once he was kind, it was impossible not to be his friend."

And, little by little, Helmsley struggled back to life,—life that was very weak and frail indeed, but still, life that contained the whole essence and elixir of being,—a new and growing interest. Little by little his brain cleared and recovered its poise,—once more he found himself thinking of things that had been done, and of things that were yet worth doing. Watching Mary Deane as she went softly to and fro in constant attendance on his needs, he was divided in his mind between admiration, gratitude, and—a lurking suspicion, of which he was ashamed. As a business man, he had been taught to look for interested motives lying at the back of every action, bad or good,—and as his health improved, and calm reason again asserted its sway, he found it difficult and well-nigh impossible to realise or to believe that this woman, to whom he was a perfect stranger, no more than a vagrant on the road, could have given him so much of her time, attention, and care, unless she had dimly supposed him to be something other than he had represented himself. Unable yet to leave his bed, he lay, to all appearances, quietly contented, acknowledging her gentle ministrations with equally gentle words of thanks, while all the time he was mentally tormenting himself with doubts and fears. He knew that during his illness he had been delirious,—surely in that delirium he might have raved and talked of many things that would have yielded the entire secret of his identity. This thought made him restless,—and one afternoon when Mary came in with the deliciously prepared cup of tea which she always gave him about four o'clock, he turned his eyes upon her with a sudden keen look which rather startled her by its piercing brightness suggesting, as it did, some return of fever.

"Tell me,"—he said—"Have I been ill long? More than a week?"

She smiled.

"A little more than a week,"—she answered, gently—"Don't worry!"

"I'm not worrying. Please tell me what day it is!"

"What day it is? Well, to-day is Sunday."

"Sunday! Yes—but what is the date of the month?"

She laughed softly, patting his hand.

"Oh, never mind! What does it matter?"

"It does matter,"—he protested, with a touch of petulance—"I know it is July, but what time of July?"

She laughed again.

"It's not July," she said.

"Not July!"

"No. Nor August!"

He raised himself on his pillow and stared at her in questioning amazement.

"Not July? Not August? Then——?"

She took his hand between her own kind warm palms, stroking it soothingly up and down.

"It's not July, and it's not August!" she repeated, nodding at him as though he were a worried and fractious child—"It's the second week in September. There!"

His eyes turned from right to left in utter bewilderment. "But how——"he murmured——

Then he suddenly caught her hands in the one she was holding.

"You mean to say that I have been ill all those weeks—a burden upon you?"

"You've been ill all those weeks—yes!" she answered "But you haven't been a burden. Don't you think it! You've—you've been a pleasure!" And her blue eyes filled with soft tears, which she quickly mastered and sent back to the tender source from which they sprang; "You have, really!"

He let go her hand and sank back on his pillows with a smothered groan.

"A pleasure!" he muttered—"I!" And his fuzzy eyebrows met in almost a frown as he again looked at her with one of the keen glances which those who knew him in business had learned to dread. "Mary Deane, do not tell me what is not and what cannot be true! A sick man—an old man—can be no 'pleasure' to anyone;—he is nothing but a bore and a trouble, and the sooner he dies the better!"

The smiling softness still lingered in her eyes.

"Ah well!"—she said—"You talk like that because you're not strong yet, and you just feel a bit cross and worried! You'll be better in another few days——"

"Another few days!" he interrupted her—"No—no—that cannot be—I must be up and tramping it again—I must not stay on here—I have already stayed too long."

A slight shadow crossed her face, but she was silent. He watched her narrowly.

"I've been off my head, haven't I?" he queried, affecting a certain brusqueness in his tone—"Talking a lot of nonsense, I suppose?"

"Yes—sometimes,"—she replied—"But only when you were very bad."

"And what did I say?"

She hesitated a moment, and he grew impatient.

"Come, come!" he demanded, irritably—"What did I say?"

She looked at him candidly.

"You talked mostly about 'Tom o' the Gleam,'"—she answered—"That was a poor gypsy well known in these parts. He had just one little child left to him in the world—its mother was dead. Some rich lord driving a motor car down by Cleeve ran over the poor baby and killed it—and Tom——"

"Tom tracked the car to Blue Anchor, where he found the man who had run over his child and killed him!" said Helmsley, with grim satisfaction—"I saw it done!"

Mary shuddered.

"I saw it done!" repeated Helmsley—"And I think it was rightly done! But—I saw Tom himself die of grief and madness—with his dead child in his arms—and that!—that broke something in my heart and brain and made me think God was cruel!"

She bent over him, and arranged his pillows more comfortably.

"I knew Tom,"—she said, presently, in a soft voice—"He was a wild creature, but very kind and good for all that. Some folks said he had been born a gentleman, and that a quarrel with his family had made him take to the gypsy life—but that's only a story. Anyway his little child—'kiddie'—as it used to be called, was the dearest little fellow in the world—so playful and affectionate!—I don't wonder Tom went mad when his one joy was killed! And you saw it all, you say?"

"Yes, I saw it all!" And Helmsley, with a faint sigh half closed his eyes as he spoke—"I was tramping from Watchett,—and the motor passed me on my way, but I did not see the child run over. I meant to get a lodging at Blue Anchor—and while I was having my supper at the public house Tom came in,—and—and it was all over in less than fifteen minutes! A horrible sight—a horrible, horrible sight! I see it now!—I shall never forget it!"

"Enough to make you ill, poor dear!" said Mary, gently—"Don't think of it now! Try and sleep a little. You mustn't talk too much. Poor Tom is dead and buried now, and his little child with him—God rest them both! It's better he should have died than lived without anyone to love him in the world."

"That's true!" And opening his eyes widely again, he gazed full at her—"That's the worst fate of all—to live in the world without anyone to love you! Tell me—when I was delirious did I only talk of Tom o' the Gleam?"

"That's the only person whose name you seemed to have on your mind,"—she answered, smiling a little—"But you did make a great noise about money!"

"Money?" he echoed—"I—I made a noise about money?"

"Yes!" And her smile deepened—"Often at night you quite startled me by shouting 'Money! Money!' I'm sure you've wanted it very badly!"

He moved restlessly and avoided her gaze. Presently he asked querulously:

"Where is my old vest with all my papers?"

"It's just where I put it the night you came,"—she answered—"I haven't touched it. Don't you remember you told me to keep the key of the cupboard which is right here close to your bed? I've got it quite safe."

He turned his head round on the pillow and looked at her with a sudden smile.

"Thank you! You are very kind to me, Mary! But you must let me work off all I owe you as soon as I'm well."

She put one finger meditatively on her lips and surveyed him with a whimsically indulgent air.

"Let you work it off? Well, I don't mind that at all! But a minute ago you were saying you must get up and go on the tramp again. Now, if you want to work for me, you must stay——"

"I will stay till I have paid you my debt somehow!" he said—"I'm old—but I can do a few useful things yet."

"I'm sure you can!" And she nodded cheerfully—"And you shall! Now rest a while, and don't fret!"

She went away from him then to fetch the little dog, Charlie, who, now that his master was on the fair road to complete recovery, was always brought in to amuse him after tea. Charlie was full of exuberant life, and his gambols over the bed where Helmsley lay, his comic interest in the feathery end of his own tail, and his general intense delight in the fact of his own existence, made him a merry and affectionate little playmate. He had taken immensely to his new home, and had attached himself to Mary Deane with singular devotion, trotting after her everywhere as close to her heels as possible. The fame of his beauty had gone through the village, and many a small boy and girl came timidly to the cottage door to try and "have a peep" at the smallest dog ever seen in the neighbourhood, and certainly the prettiest.

"That little dawg be wurth twenty pun!"—said one of the rustics to Mary, on one occasion when she was sitting in her little garden, carefully brushing and combing the silky coat of the little "toy"—"Th'owd man thee's been a' nussin' ought to give 'im to thee as a thank-offerin'."

"I wouldn't take him,"—Mary answered—"He's perhaps the only friend the poor old fellow has got in the world. It would be just selfish of me to want him."

And so the time went on till it was past mid-September, and there came a day, mild, warm, and full of the soft subdued light of deepening autumn, when Mary told her patient that he might get up, and sit in an armchair for a few hours in the kitchen. She gave him this news when she brought him his breakfast, and added—

"I'll wrap you up in father's dressing gown, and you'll be quite cosy and safe from chill. And after another week you'll be so strong that you'll be able to dress yourself and do without me altogether!"

This phrase struck curiously on his ears. "Do without her altogether!" That would be strange indeed—almost impossible! It was quite early in the morning when she thus spoke—about seven o'clock,—and he was not to get up till noon, "when the air was at its warmest," said Mary—so he lay very quietly, thinking over every detail of the position in which he found himself. He was now perfectly aware that it was a position which opened up great possibilities. His dream,—the vague indefinable longing which possessed him for love—pure, disinterested, unselfish love,—seemed on the verge of coming true. Yet he would not allow himself to hope too much,—he preferred to look on the darker side of probable disillusion. Meanwhile, he was conscious of a sweetness and comfort in his life such as he had never yet experienced. His thoughts dwelt with secret pleasure on the open frankness and calm beauty of the face that had bent over him with the watchfulness of a guardian angel through so many days and nights of pain, delirium, and dread of death,—and he noted with critically observant eyes the noiseless graceful movement of this humbly-born woman, whose instincts were so delicate and tender, whose voice was so gentle, and whose whole bearing expressed such unaffected dignity and purity of mind. On this particular morning she was busy ironing;—and she had left the door open between his bedroom and the kitchen, so that he might benefit by the inflow of fresh air from the garden, the cottage door itself being likewise thrown back to allow a full entrance of the invigorating influences of the light breeze from the sea and the odours of the flowers. From his bed he could see her slim back bent over the fine muslin frills she was pressing out with such patient precision, and he caught the glint of the sun on the rich twist of her bronze brown hair. Presently he heard some one talking to her,—a woman evidently, whose voice was pitched in a plaintive and almost querulous key.

"Well, Mis' Deane, say 'ow ye will an' what ye will,—there's a spider this very blessed instant a' crawlin' on the bottom of the ironin' blanket, which is a sure sign as 'ow yer washin' won't come to no good try iver so 'ard, for as we all knows—'See a spider at morn, An' ye'll wish ye wornt born: See a spider at night, An' yer wrongs'll come right!'"

Mary laughed; and Helmsley listened with a smile on his own lips. She had such a pretty laugh,—so low and soft and musical.

"Oh, never mind the poor spider, Mrs. Twitt!"—she said—"Let it climb up the ironing blanket if it likes! I see dozens of spiders 'at morn,' and I've never in my life wished I wasn't born! Why, if you go out in the garden early, you're bound to see spiders!"

"That's true—that's Testymen true!" And the individual

CHAPTER XIV

The time now went on peacefully, one day very much like another, and Helmsley steadily improved in health and strength, so far recovering some of his old vigour and alertness as to be able to take a slow and halting daily walk through the village, which, for present purposes shall be called Weircombe. The more he saw of the place, the more he loved it, and the more he was enchanted with its picturesque position. In itself it was a mere cluster of little houses, dotted about on either side of a great cleft in the rocks through which a clear mountain stream tumbled to the sea,—but the houses were covered from basement to roof with clambering plants and flowers, especially the wild fuschia, which, with one or two later kinds of clematis and "morning glory" convolvolus, were still in brilliant bloom when the mellow days of October began to close in to the month's end. All the cottages in the "coombe" were pretty, but to Helmsley's mind Mary Deane's was the prettiest, perched as it was on a height overlooking the whole village and near to the tiny church, which crowned the hill with a little tower rising heavenward. The view of the ocean from Weircombe was very wide and grand,—on sunny days it was like an endless plain of quivering turquoise-blue, with white foam-roses climbing up here and there to fall and vanish again,—and when the wind was high, it was like an onward sweeping array of Titanic shapes clothed in silver armour and crested with snowy plumes, all rushing in a wild charge against the shore, with such a clatter and roar as often echoed for miles inland. To make his way gradually down through the one little roughly cobbled street to the very edge of the sea, was one of Helmsley's greatest pleasures, and he soon got to know most of the Weircombe folk, while they in their turn, grew accustomed to seeing him about among them, and treated him with a kindly familiarity, almost as if he were one of themselves. And his new lease of life was, to himself, singularly happy. He enjoyed every moment of it,—every little incident was a novel experience, and he was never tired of studying the different characters he met,—especially and above all the character of the woman whose house was, for the time being, his home, and who treated with him all the care and solicitude that a daughter might show to her father. And—he was learning what might be called a trade or a craft,—which fact interested and amused him. He who had moved the great wheel of many trades at a mere touch of his finger, was now docilely studying the art of basket-making, and training his unaccustomed hands to the bending of withes and osiers,—he whose deftly-laid financial schemes had held the money-markets of the world in suspense, was now patiently mastering the technical business of forming a "slath," and fathoming the mysteries of "scalluming." Like an obedient child at school he implicitly followed the instructions of his teacher, Mary, who with the first basket he completed went out and effected a sale as she said "for fourpence," though really for twopence.

"And good pay, too!" she said, cheerfully—"It's not often one gets so much for a first make."

"That fourpence is yours," said Helmsley, smiling at her—"You've the right to all my earnings!"

She looked serious.

"Would you like me to keep it?" she asked—"I mean, would it please you if I did,—would you feel more content?"

"I should—you know I should!" he replied earnestly.

"All right, then! I'll check it off your account!" And laughing merrily, she patted his head as he sat bending over another specimen of his basket manufacture—"At any rate, you're not getting bald over your work, David! I never saw such beautiful white hair as yours!"

He glanced up at her.

"May I say, in answer to that, that I never saw such beautiful brown hair as yours?"

She nodded.

"Oh, yes, you may say it, because I know it's true. My hair is my one beauty,—see!"

And pulling out two small curved combs, she let the whole wealth of her tresses unwind and fall. Her hair dropped below her knees in a glorious mass of colour like that of a brown autumn leaf with the sun just glistening on it. She caught it up in one hand and knotted it all again at the back of her head in a minute.

"It's lovely, isn't it?"—she said, quite simply—"I should think it lovely if I saw it on anybody else's head, or cut off hanging in a hair-dresser's shop window. I don't admire it because it's mine, you know! I admire it as hair merely."

"Hair merely—yes, I see!" And he bent and twisted the osiers in his hands with a sudden vigour that almost snapped them. He was thinking of certain women he had known in London—women whose tresses, dyed, waved, crimped and rolled over fantastically shaped "frames," had moved him to positive repulsion,—so much so that he would rather have touched the skin of a dead rat than laid a finger on the tinted stuff called "hair" by these feminine hypocrites of fashion. He had so long been accustomed to shams that the open sincerity of the Weircombe villagers was almost confusing to his mind. Nobody seemed to have anything to conceal. Everybody knew, or seemed to know, all about everybody else's business. There were no bye-roads or corners in Weircombe. There was only one way out,—to the sea. Height at the one end,—width and depth at the other. It seemed useless to have any secrets. He, David Helmsley, felt himself to be singular and apart, in that he had his own hidden mystery. He often found himself getting restless under the quiet observation of Mr. Bunce's eye, yet Mr. Bunce had no suspicions of him whatever. Mr. Bunce merely watched him "professionally," and with the kindest intention. In fact, he and Bunce became great friends. Bunce had entirely accepted the story he told about himself to the effect that he had once been "in an office in the city," and looked upon him as a superannuated bank clerk, too old to be kept on in his former line of business. Questions that were put to him respecting his "late friend, James Deane," he answered with apparent good faith by saying that it was a long time since he had seen him, and that it was only as a "last forlorn hope" that he had set out to try and find him, "as he had always been helpful to those in need." Mary herself wished that this little fiction of her "father's friend" should be taken as fact by all the village, and a curious part of her character was that she never sought to ask Helmsley privately, for her own enlightenment, anything of his history. She seemed content to accept him as an old and infirm man, who must be taken care of simply because he was old and infirm, without further question or argument. Bunce was always very stedfast in his praise of her.

"She ought—yes—she ought possibly to have married,—" he said, in his slow, reflective way—"She would have made a good wife, and a still better mother. But an all-wise Providence has a remarkable habit—yes, I think we may call it quite a remarkable habit!—of persuading men generally to choose thriftless and flighty women for their wives, and to leave the capable ones single. That is so. Or in Miss Deane's case it may be an illustration of the statement that 'Mary hath chosen the better part.' Certainly when either men or women are happy in a state of single blessedness, a reference to the Seventh Chapter of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, will strengthen their minds and considerably assist them to remain in that condition."

Thus Bunce would express himself, with a weighty air as of having given some vastly important and legal pronouncement. And when Helmsley suggested that it was possible Mary might yet marry, he shook his head in a strongly expressed negative.

"No, David—no!" he said—"She is what we call—yes, I think we call it—an old maid. This is not a kind term, perhaps, but it is a true one. She is, I believe, in her thirty-fifth year,—a settled and mature woman. No man would take her unless she had a little money—enough, let us say, to help him set up a farm. For if a man takes youth to his bosom, he does not always mind poverty,—but if he cannot have youth he always wants money. Always! There is no middle course. Now our good Miss Deane will never have any money. And, even if she had, we may take it—yes, I certainly think we may take it—that she would not care to buy a husband. No—no! Her marrying days are past."

"She is a beautiful woman!" said Helmsley, quietly.

"You think so? Well, well, David! We have got used to her in Weircombe,—she seems to be a part of the village. When one is familiar with a person, one often fails to perceive the beauty that is apparent to a stranger. I believe this to be so—I believe, in general, we may take it to be so."

And such was the impression that most of the Weircombe folks had about Mary—that she was just "a part of the village." During his slow ramblings about the little sequestered place, Helmsley talked to many of the cottagers, who all treated him with that good-humour and tolerance

CHAPTER XV

He watched her working for a few minutes before he spoke again. And shading his eyes with one hand from the red glow of the fire, David Helmsley watched them both.

"Well, it's rather cool of me to take up your time talking about my own affairs,"—began Reay, at last—"But I've been pretty much by myself for a good while, and it's pleasant to have a chat with friendly people—man wasn't made to live alone, you know! In fact, neither man nor beast nor bird can stand it. Even a sea cormorant croaks to the wind!"

Mary laughed.

"But not for company's sake,"—she said—"It croaks when it's hungry."

"Oh, I've often croaked for that reason!" and Reay pushed from his forehead a wayward tuft of hair which threatened to drop over his eye in a thick silvery brown curl—"But it's wonderful how little a fellow can live upon in the way of what is called food. I know all sorts of dodges wherewith to satisfy the greedy cravings of the vulgar part of me."

Helmsley took his hand from his eyes, and fixed a keenly observant look upon the speaker. Mary said nothing, but her crochet needle moved more slowly.

"You see," went on Reay, "I've always been rather fortunate in having had very little to eat."

"You call it 'fortunate'?" queried Helmsley, abruptly.

"Why, of course! I've never had what the doctors call an 'overloaded system'—therefore I've no lading bill to pay. The million or so of cells of which I am composed are not at all anxious to throw any extra nourishment off,—sometimes they intimate a strong desire to take some extra nourishment in—but that is an uneducated tendency in them which I sternly repress. I tell all those small grovelling cells that extra nourishment would not be good for them. And they shrink back from my moral reproof ashamed of themselves—and become wiry instead of fatty. Which is as it should be."

CHAPTER XVI

The winter now closed in apace,—and though the foliage all about Weircombe was reluctant to fall, and kept its green, russet and gold tints well on into December, the high gales which blew in from the sea played havoc with the trembling leaves at last and brought them to the ground like the painted fragments of Summer's ruined temple. All the fishermen's boats were hauled up high and dry, and great stretches of coarse net like black webs, were spread out on the beach for drying and mending,—while through the tunnels scooped out of the tall castellated rocks which guarded either side of the little port, or "weir," the great billows dashed with a thunderous roar of melody, oftentimes throwing aloft fountains of spray well-nigh a hundred feet in height—spray which the wild wind caught and blew in pellets of salty foam far up the little village street. Helmsley was now kept a prisoner indoors,—he had not sufficient strength to buffet with a gale, or to stand any unusually sharp nip of cold,—so he remained very comfortably by the side of the fire, making baskets, which he was now able to turn out quickly with quite an admirable finish, owing to the zeal and earnestness with which he set himself to the work. Mary's business in the winter months was entirely confined to the lace-mending—she had no fine laundry work to do, and her time was passed in such household duties as kept her little cottage sweet and clean, in attentive guardianship and care of her "father's friend"—and in the delicate weaving of threads whereby the fine fabric which had once perchance been damaged and spoilt by flaunting pride, was made whole and beautiful again by simple patience. Helmsley was never tired of watching her. Whether she knelt down with a pail of suds, and scrubbed her cottage doorstep—or whether she sat quietly opposite to him, with the small "Charlie" snuggled on a rug between them, while she mended her lace, his eyes always rested upon her with deepening interest and tenderness. And he grew daily more conscious of a great peace and happiness—peace and happiness such as he had [1] Germany had a finger in the pie, too, through her German Jews!"

Helmsley looked at his indignant face with a slight imperceptible smile.

"Well!" he said, with a purposely miscomprehending air.

"Well! You say 'Well,' David, as if such a proposition contained nothing remarkable. That's because you don't understand! Imagine for a moment the British Press being run by America!"

Helmsley stroked his beard thoughtfully.

"I can't imagine it,"—he said.

"No—of course you can't! But a few rascally city financiers could imagine it, and more than that, were prepared to carry the thing through. Then, the British people would have been led, guided, advised, and controlled by a Yankee syndicate! And the worst of it is that this same British people would have been kept in ignorance of the 'deal.' They would actually have been paying their pennies to keep up the shares of a gang of unscrupulous rascals whose sole end and object was to get the British press into their power! Think of it!"

"But did they succeed?" asked Helmsley.

"No, they didn't. Somebody somewhere had a conscience. Somebody somewhere refused to 'swop' the nation's much boasted 'liberty of the press' for so much cash down. I believe the 'Times' is backed by the Rothschilds, and managed by American advertisers—I don't know whether it is so or not—but I do know that the public ought to be put on their guard. If I were a powerful man and a powerful speaker I would call mass meetings everywhere, and urge the people not to purchase a single newspaper till each one published in its columns a full and honest list of the shareholders concerned in it. Then the public would have a chance of seeing where they are. At present they don't know where they are."

"Well, you know very well where you are!" said Mary, interrupting him at this juncture—"You are in my house,—it's Christmas Day, and dinner's ready!"

He laughed, and they all three sat down to table. It had been arranged for fully a week before that Angus should share his Christmas dinner with Mary and "old David"—and a very pleasant and merry meal they made of it. And in the afternoon and evening some of the villagers came in to gossip—and there was singing of songs, and one or two bashful attempts on the part of certain gawky lads to kiss equally gawky girls under the mistletoe. And Mary, as hostess of the haphazard little party, did her best to promote kindly feeling among them all, effacing herself so utterly, and playing the "old maid" with such sweet and placid loveliness that Angus became restless, and was moved by a feverish desire to possess himself of one of the little green twigs with white berries, which, looking so innocent, were apparently so provocative, and to try its effect by holding it suddenly above the glorious masses of her brown hair, which shone with the soft and shimmering hue of evening sunlight. But he dared not. Kissing under the mistletoe was all very well for boys and girls—but for a mature bachelor of thirty-nine and an "old maid" of thirty-five, these uncouth and calf-like gambollings lacked dignity. Moreover, when he looked at Mary's pure profile—the beautifully shaped eyes, classic mouth, and exquisite line of neck and shoulder, the very idea of touching those lips with a kiss given in mere lightness, seemed fraught with impertinence and irreverence. If ever he kissed Mary, he thought,—and then all the powers of his mind galloped off like wild horses let loose on a sun-baked ranch—if ever he kissed Mary! What a dream!—what a boldness unprecedented! But again—if ever he kissed her, it must be with the kiss of a lover, for whom such a token of endearment was the sign of a sacred betrothal. And he became so lost and abstracted in his musings that he almost forgot the simple village merriment around him, and only came back to himself a little when the party broke up altogether, and he himself had to say "good-night," and go with the rest. Mary, while giving him her hand in farewell, looked at him with a sisterly solicitude.

"You're tired, Mr. Reay,"—she said—"I'm afraid we've been too noisy for you, haven't we? But one can't keep boys and girls quiet!"

"I don't want them kept quiet,"—said Reay, holding her hand very hard—"And I'm not tired. I've only been thinking."

"Ah! Of your book?"

"Yes. Of my book."

He went then, and came no more to the cottage till a week later when it was New Year's Eve. This they celebrated very quietly—just they three alone. Mary thought it somewhat imprudent for "old David" to sit up till midnight in order to hear the bells "ring out the Old, ring in the New"—but he showed a sudden vigorous resolution about it which was not to be gainsaid.

"Let me have my way, my dear,"—he implored her—"I may never see another New Year!"

"Nonsense, David!" she said cheerily—"You will see many and many a one, please God!"

"Please God, I shall!" he answered, quietly—"But if it should not please God—then—"

"There!—you want to stay up, and you shall stay up!" she declared, smiling—"After all, as Mr. Reay is with us, the time won't perhaps seem so long for you."

"But for you,"—put in Angus—"it will seem very long won't it!"

"Oh, I always sit up for the coming-in of the New Year,"—she replied—"Father used to do it, and I like to keep up all father's ways. Only I thought David might feel too tired. You must sing to us, Mr. Reay, to pass the hours away."

"And so must you!" he replied.

And she did sing that night as she had never sung to them before, with a fuller voice and more passion than she had hitherto shown,—one little wild ballad in particular taking Reay's fancy so much that he asked her to sing it more than once. The song contained just three six-line stanzas, having little merit save in their suggestiveness.

Oh love, my love! I have giv'n you my heart
Like a rose full-blown,
With crimson petals trembling apart—
It is all your own—
What will you do with it. Dearest,—say?
Keep it for ever or throw it away?

Oh love, my love! I have giv'n you my life,
Like a ring of gold;
Symbol of peace in a world of strife,
To have and to hold.
What will you do with it, Dearest,—say?
Treasure it always, or throw it away?

Oh love, my love! Have all your will—
I am yours to the end;
Be false or faithful—comfort or kill,
Be lover or friend,—
Where gifts are given they must remain,
I never shall ask for them back again!

"Do you know that you have a very beautiful voice, Miss Mary?" said Angus, after hearing this for the second time.

"Oh, I don't think so at all,"—she answered, quickly; "Father used to like to hear me sing—but I can only just give ballads their meaning, and pronounce the words carefully so the people may know what I am trying to sing about. I've no real voice."

"You have!" And Angus turned to Helmsley for his opinion—"Hasn't she, David?"

"Her voice is the sweetest I ever heard,"—replied Helmsley—"But then I'm not much of a judge."

And his thoughts went roving back to certain entertainments in London which he had given for the benefit of his wealthy friends, when he had paid as much as five or six hundred guineas in fees to famous opera singers, that they might shriek or warble, as their respective talents dictated, to crowds of indifferent loungers in his rooms, who cared no more for music than they did for religion. He almost smiled as he recalled those nights, and contrasted them with this New Year's evening, when seated in an humble cottage, he had for his companions only a lowly-born poor woman, and an equally lowly-born poor man, both of whom evinced finer education, better manners, greater pride of spirit, and more resolute independence than nine-tenths of the "society" people who had fawned upon him and flattered him, simply because they knew he was a millionaire. And the charm of his present position was that these two, poor, lowly-born people were under the impression that even in their poverty and humility they were better off than he was, and that because fortune had been, as they considered, kind to them, they were bound to treat him in a way that should not remind him of his dependent and defenceless condition. It was impossible to imagine greater satisfaction than that which he enjoyed in the contemplation of his own actual situation as compared with that which he had impressed upon the minds of these two friends of his who had given him their friendship trustingly and frankly for himself alone. And he listened placidly, with folded hands and half shut eyes, while Angus, at Mary's request, trolled forth "The Standard on the Braes o' Mar" and "Sound the pibroch,"—varying those warlike ditties with "Jock o' Hazledean," and "Will ye no come back again,"—till all suddenly Mary rose from her chair, and with her finger to her lips said "Hark!" The church-bells were ringing out the Old Year, and glancing at the clock, they saw it wanted but ten minutes to midnight. Softly Mary stepped to the cottage door and opened it. The chime swung melodiously in, and Angus Reay went to the threshold, and stood beside Mary, listening. Had they glanced back that instant they would have seen Helmsley looking at them both, with an intensity of yearning in his pale face and sad old eyes that was pitiful and earnest beyond all expression—they would have seen his lips move, as he murmured—"God grant that I may make their lives beautiful! God give me this peace of mind before I die! God bless them!" But they were absorbed in listening—and presently with a deep clang the bells ceased. Mary turned her head.

"The Old Year's out, David!"

Then she went to him and knelt down beside him.

"It's been a kind old year!"—she said—"It brought you to me to take care of, and me to you to take care of you—didn't it?"

He laid one hand on hers, tremblingly, but was silent. She turned up her kind, sweet face to his.

"You're not tired, are you?"

He shook his head.

"No, my dear, no!"

A rush and a clang of melody swept suddenly through the open door—the bells had begun again.

"A Happy New Year, Miss Mary!" said Angus, looking towards her from where he stood on the threshold—"And to you, David!"

With an irrepressible movement of tenderness Helmsley raised his trembling hands and laid them gently on Mary's head.

"Take an old man's blessing, my dear!" he said, softly, "And from a most grateful heart!"

She caught his hands as he lifted them again from her brow, and kissed them. There were tears in her eyes, but she brushed them quickly away.

"You talk just like father!" she said, smiling—"He was always grateful for nothing!"

And rising from her kneeling attitude by Helmsley's chair, she went again towards the open cottage door, holding out her two hands to Reay. Looking at her as she approached he seemed to see in her some gracious angel, advancing with all the best possibilities of life for him in her sole power and gift.

"A Happy New Year, Mr. Reay! And success to the book!"

CHAPTER XVII

The dreariest season of the year had now set in, but frost and cold were very seldom felt severely in Weircombe. The little village lay in a deep warm hollow, and was thoroughly protected at the back by the hills, while in the front its shores were washed by the sea, which had a warming as well as bracing effect on the atmosphere. To invalids requiring an equable temperature, it would have been a far more ideal winter resort than any corner of the much-vaunted Riviera, except indeed for the fact that feeding and gambling dens were not among its attractions. To "society" people it would have proved insufferably dull, because society people, lacking intelligence to do anything themselves, always want everything done for them. Weircombe folk would not have understood that method of living. To them it seemed proper and reasonable that men, and women too, should work for what they ate. The theory that only a few chosen persons, not by any means estimable either as to their characters or their abilities, should eat what others were starved for, would not have appealed to them. They were a small and unimportant community, but their ideas of justice and principles of conduct were very firmly established. They lived on the lines laid down by their forefathers, and held that a simple faith in God, coupled with honest hard labour, was sufficient to make life well worth living. And, on the whole they were made of that robust human material of which in the days gone by there was enough to compose and consolidate the greatness of Britain. They were kindly of heart, but plain in speech,—and their remarks on current events, persons and things, would have astonished and perhaps edified many a press man had he been among them, when on Saturday nights they "dropped in" at the one little public-house of the village, and argued politics and religion till closing-time. Angus Reay soon became a favourite with them all, though at first they had looked upon him with a little distrust as a "gentlemantow-rist"; but when he had mixed with them freely and familiarly, making no secret of the fact that he was poor, and that he was endeavouring to earn a livelihood like all the rest of them, only in a different way, they abandoned all reserve, and treated him as one of themselves. Moreover, when it was understood that "Mis' Deane," whose reputation stood very high in the village, considered him not unworthy of her friendship, he rose up several degrees in the popular estimation, and many a time those who were the self-elected wits and wise-acres of the place, would "look in" as they termed it, at Mary's cottage, and pass the evening talking with him and with "old David," who, if he did not say much, listened the more. Mr. Bunce, the doctor, and Mr. Twitt, the stonemason, were in particular profoundly impressed when they knew that Reay had worked for two years on a London newspaper.

"Ye must 'ave a ter'uble knowledge of the world, Mister!" said Twitt, thoughtfully—"Just ter'uble!"

"Yes, I should assume it must be so,"—murmured Bunce—"I should think it could hardly fail to be so?"

Reay gave a short laugh.

"Well, I don't know!" he said—"You may call it a knowledge of the world if you like—I call it an unpleasant glimpse into the shady side of life. I'd rather walk in the sunshine."

"And what would you call the sunshine, sir?" asked Bunce, with his head very much on one side like a meditative bird.

Honesty, truth, belief in God, belief in good!"—answered Angus, with some passion—"Not perpetual scheming, suspicion of motives, personal slander, and pettiness—O Lord!—such pettiness as can hardly be believed! Journalism is the most educational force in the world, but its power is being put to wrong uses."

"Well,—said Twitt, slowly—"I aint so blind but I can see through a wall when there's a chink in it. An' when I gets my 'Daily' down from Lunnun, an' sees harf a page given up to a kind o' poster about Pills, an' another harf a page praisin' up somethin' about Tonics, I often sez to myself: 'Look 'ere, Twitt! What are ye payin' yer pennies out for? For a Patent Pill or for News? For a Nervy Tonic or for the latest pol'tics?' An' myself—me—Twitt—answers an' sez—'Why ye're payin' for news an' pol'tics, of course!' Well then, I sez, 'Twitt, ye aint gettin' nothin' o' the sort!' An' t' other day, blow'd if I didn't see in my paper a long piece about ''Ow to be Beautiful'—an' that 'adn't nothin' to do wi' me nor no man, but was just mere gabble for fool women. ''Ow to be Beautiful,' aint news o' the world!"

"No,"—said Reay—"You're not intended to know the news of the world. News, real news, is the property of the Stock Exchange. It's chiefly intended for company gambling purposes. The People are not expected to know much about it. Modern Journalism seeks to play Pope and assert the doctrine of infallibility. What It does not authorise, isn't supposed to exist."

"Is that truly so?" asked Bunce, solemnly.

"Most assuredly!"

"You mean to say,"—said Helmsley, breaking in upon the conversation, and speaking in quiet unconcerned tones—"that the actual national affairs of the world are not told to the people as they should be, but are jealously guarded by a few whose private interests are at stake?"

"Yes. I certainly do mean that."

"I thought you did. You see," went on Helmsley—"when I was in regular office work in London, I used to hear a good deal concerning the business schemes of this, that and the other great house in the city,—and I often wondered what the people would say if they ever came to know!"

"Came to know what?" said Mr. Bunce, anxiously.

"Why, the names of the principal shareholders in the newspapers,"—said Reay, placidly—"That might possibly open their eyes to the way their opinions are manufactured for them! There's very little 'liberty of the press' in Great Britain nowadays. The press is the property of a few rich men."

Mary, who was working very intently on a broad length of old lace she was mending, looked up at him—her eyes were brilliant and her cheeks softly flushed.

"I hope you will be brave enough to say that some day right out to the people as you say it to us,"—she observed.

"I will! Never fear about that! If I am ever anything—if I ever canbe anything—I will do my level best to save my nation from being swallowed up by a horde of German-American Jews!" said Reay, hotly—"I would rather suffer anything myself than see the dear old country brought to shame."

"Right, very right!" said Mr. Bunce, approvingly—"And many—yes, I think we may certainly say many,—are of your spirit,—what do you think, David?"

Helmsley had raised himself in his chair, and was looking wonderfully alert. The conversation interested him.

"I quite agree,"—he said—"But Mr. Reay must remember that if he should ever want to make a clean sweep of German-American Jews and speculators as he says, and expose the way they tamper with British interests, he would require a great deal of money. A very great deal of money!" he repeated, slowly,—"Now I wonder, Mr. Reay, what you would do with a million?—two millions?—three millions?—four millions?"—

"Stop, stop, old David!"—interrupted Twitt, suddenly holding up his hand—"Ye takes my breath away!"

They all laughed, Reay's hearty tones ringing above the rest.

"Oh, I should know what to do with them!"—he said; "but I wouldn't spend them on my own selfish pleasures—that I swear! For one thing, I'd run a daily newspaper on honest lines——"

"It wouldn't sell!" observed Helmsley, drily.

"It would—it should!" declared Reay—"And I'd tell the people the truth of things,—I'd expose every financial fraud I could find——"

"And you'd live in the law-courts, I fear!" said Mr. Bunce, gravely shaking his head—"We may be perfectly certain, I think—may we not, David?—that the law-courts would be Mr. Reay's permanent address?"

They laughed again, and the conversation turned to other topics, though its tenor was not forgotten by anyone, least of all by Helmsley, who sat very silent for a long time afterwards, thinking deeply, and seeing in his thoughts various channels of usefulness to the world and the world's progress, which he had missed, but which others after him would find.

Meanwhile Weircombe suffered a kind of moral convulsion in the advent of the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, who arrived to "take duty" in the absence of its legitimate pastor. He descended upon the tiny place like an embodied black whirlwind, bringing his wife with him, a lady whose facial lineaments bore the strangest and most remarkable resemblance to those of a china cat; not a natural cat, because there is something soft and appealing about a real "pussy,"—whereas Mrs. Arbroath's countenance was cold and hard and shiny, like porcelain, and her smile was precisely that of the immovable and ruthless-looking animal designed long ago by old-time potters and named "Cheshire." Her eyes were similar to the eyes of that malevolent china creature—and when she spoke, her voice had the shrill tone which was but a few notes off the actual "me-iau" of an angry "Tom." Within a few days after their arrival, every cottage in the "coombe" had been "visited," and both Mr. and Mrs. Arbroath had made up their minds as to the neglected, wholly unspiritual and unregenerate nature of the little flock whom they had offered, for sake of their own health and advantage, to tend. The villagers had received them civilly, but without enthusiasm. When tackled on the subject of their religious opinions, most of them declined to answer, except Mr. Twitt, who, fixing a filmy eye sternly on the plain and gloomy face of Mr. Arbroath, said emphatically:

"We aint no 'Igh Jinks!"

"What do you mean, my man?" demanded Arbroath, with a dark smile.

"I mean what I sez"—rejoined Twitt—"I've been stonemason 'ere goin' on now for thirty odd years an' it's allus been the same 'ere—no 'Igh Jinks. Purcessin an' vestiments"—here Twitt spread out a broad dirty thumb and dumped it down with each word into the palm of his other hand—"candles, crosses, bobbins an' bowins—them's what we calls 'Igh Jinks, an' I make so bold as to say that if ye gets 'em up 'ere, Mr. Arbroath, ye'll be mighty sorry for yourself!"

"I shall conduct the services as I please!" said Arbroath. "You take too much upon yourself to speak to me in such a fashion! You should mind your own business!"

"So should you, Mister, so should you!" And Twitt chuckled contentedly—"An' if ye don't mind it, there's those 'ere as'll makeye!"

Arbroath departed in a huff, and the very next Sunday announced that "Matins" would be held at seven o'clock daily in the Church, and "Evensong" at six in the afternoon. Needless to say, the announcement was made in vain. Day after day passed, and no one attended. Smarting

CHAPTER XVIII

And now by slow and beautiful degrees the cold and naked young year grew warm, and expanded from weeping, shivering infancy into the delighted consciousness of happy childhood. The first snowdrops, the earliest aconites, perked up their pretty heads in Mary's cottage garden, and throughout all nature there came that inexplicable, indefinite, soft pulsation of new life and new love which we call the spring. Tiny buds, rosy and shining with sap, began to gleam like rough jewels on every twig and tree—a colony of rooks which had abode in the elms surrounding Weircombe Church, started to make great ado about their housekeeping, and kept up as much jabber as though they were inaugurating an Irish night in the House of Commons,—and, over a more or less tranquil sea, the gulls poised lightly on the heaving waters in restful attitudes, as though conscious that the stress of winter was past. To look at Weircombe village as it lay peacefully aslant down the rocky "coombe," no one would have thought it likely to be a scene of silent, but none the less violent, internal feud; yet such nevertheless was the case, and all the trouble had arisen since the first Sunday of the first month of the Reverend Mr. Arbroath's "taking duty" in the parish. On that day six small choirboys had appeared in the Church, together with a tall lanky youth in a black gown and white surplice—and to the stupefied amazement of the congregation, the lanky youth had carried a gilt cross round the Church, followed by Arbroath himself and the six little boys, all chanting in a manner such as the Weircombe folk had never heard before. It was a deeply resented innovation, especially as the six little boys and the lanky cross-bearer, as well as the cross itself, had been mysteriously "hired" from somewhere by Mr. Arbroath, and were altogether strange to the village. Common civility, as well as deeply rooted notions of "decency and order," kept the parishioners in their seats during what they termed the "play-acting" which took place on this occasion, but when they left the Church and went their several ways, they all resolved on the course they meant to adopt with the undesired introduction of "'Igh Jinks" for the future. And from that date henceforward not one of the community attended Church. Sunday after Sunday, the bells rang in vain. Mr. Arbroath conducted the service solely for Mrs. Arbroath and for one ancient villager who acted the double part of sexton and verger, and whose duties therefore compelled him to remain attached to the sacred edifice. And the people read their morning prayers in their own houses every Sunday, and never stirred out on that day till after their dinners. In vain did both Mr. and Mrs. Arbroath run up and down the little village street, calling at every house, coaxing, cajoling, and promising,—they spoke to deaf ears. Nothing they could say or do made amends for the "insult" to which the parishioners considered they had been subjected, by the sudden appearance of six strange choirboys and the lanky youth in a black gown, who had carried a gilt cross round and round the tiny precincts of their simple little Church, which,—until the occurrence of this remarkable "mountebank" performance as they called it,—had been everything to them that was sacred in its devout simplicity. Finally, in despair, Mr. Arbroath wrote a long letter of complaint to the Bishop of the diocese, and after a considerable time of waiting, was informed by the secretary of that gentleman that the matter would be enquired into, but that in the meantime he had better conduct the Sunday services in the manner to which the parishioners had been accustomed. This order Arbroath flatly refused to obey, and there ensued a fierce polemical correspondence, during which the Church remained, as has been stated, empty of worshippers altogether. Casting about for reasons which should prove some contumacious spirit to be the leader of this rebellion, Arbroath attacked Mary Deane among others, and asked her if she was "a regular Communicant." To which she calmly replied—

"No, sir."

"And why are you not?" demanded the clergyman imperiously.

"Because I do not feel like it," she said; "I do not believe in going to Communion unless one really feels the spiritual wish and desire."

"Oh! Then that is to say that you are very seldom conscious of any spiritual wish or desire?"

She was silent.

"I am sorry for you!" And Arbroath shook his bullet head dismally. "You are one of the unregenerate, and if you do not amend your ways will be among the lost——"

"'I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministering angel shall my sister be, when thou liest howling!'" said Helmsley suddenly.

Arbroath turned upon him sharply.

"What's that?" he snarled.

"Shakespeare!" and Helmsley smiled.

"Shakespeare! Much you know about Shakespeare!" snapped out the irritated clergyman. "But atheists and ruffians always quote Shakespeare as glibly as they quote the New Testament!"

"It's lucky that atheists and ruffians have got such good authorities to quote from," said Helmsley placidly.

Arbroath gave an impatient exclamation, and again addressed Mary.

"Why don't you come to Church?" he asked.

She raised her calm blue eyes and regarded him steadfastly.

"I don't like the way you conduct the service, sir, and I don't take you altogether for a Christian."

"What!" And he stared at her so furiously that his little pig eyes grew almost large for the moment—"You don't take me—me—for a Christian?"

"No, sir,—not altogether. You are too hard and too proud. You are not careful of us poor folk, and you don't seem to mind whether you hurt our feelings or not. We're only very humble simple people here in Weircombe, but we're not accustomed to being ordered about as if we were children, or as if our parson was a Romish priest wanting to get us all under his thumb. We believe in God with all our hearts and souls, and we love the dear gentle Saviour who came to show us how to live and how to die,—but we like to pray as we've always been accustomed to pray, just without any show, as our Lord taught us to do, not using any 'vain repetitions.'"

Helmsley, who was bending some stiff osiers in his hands, paused to listen. Arbroath stared gloomily at the noble, thoughtful face on which there was just now an inspired expression of honesty and truth which almost shamed him.

"I think," went on Mary, speaking very gently and modestly—"that if we read the New Testament, we shall find that our Lord expressly forbade all shows and ceremonies,—and that He very much disliked them. Indeed, if we strictly obeyed all His orders, we should never be seen praying in public at all! Of course it is pleasant and human for people to meet together in some place and worship God—but I think such a meeting should be quite without any ostentation—and that all our prayers should be as simple as possible. Pray excuse me if I speak too boldly—but that is the spirit and feeling of most of the Weircombe folk, and they are really very good, honest people."

The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood inert and silent for about two minutes, his eyes still fixed upon her,—then, without a word, he turned on his heel and left the cottage. And from that day he did his best to sow small seeds of scandal against her,—scattering half-implied innuendoes,—faint breathings of disparagement, coarse jests as to her "old maid" condition, and other mean and petty calumnies, which, however, were all so much wasted breath on his part, as the Weircombe villagers were as indifferent to his attempted mischief as Mary herself. Even with the feline assistance of Mrs. Arbroath, who came readily to her husband's aid in his capacity of "downing" a woman, especially as that woman was so much better-looking than herself, nothing of any importance was accomplished in the way of either shaking Mary's established position in the estimation of Weircombe, or of persuading the parishioners to a "'Igh Jink" view of religious matters. Indeed, on this point they were inflexible, and as Mrs. Twitt remarked on one occasion, with a pious rolling-up of the whites of her eyes—

"To see that little black man with the 'igh stomach a-walkin' about this village is enough to turn a baby's bottle sour! It don't seem nat'ral like—he's as different from our good old parson as a rat is from a bird, an' you'll own, Mis' Deane, as there's a mighty difference between they two sorts of insecks. An' that minds me, on the Saturday night afore they got the play-actin' on up in the Church, the wick o' my candle guttered down in a windin' sheet as long as long, an' I sez to Twitt—'There you are! Our own parson's gone an' died over in Madery, an' we'll never 'ave the likes of 'im no more! There's trouble comin' for the Church, you mark my words.' An' Twitt, 'e says, 'G'arn, old 'ooman, it's the draught blowin' in at the door as makes the candle gutter,'—but all the same my words 'as come true!"

"Why no, surely not!" said Mary, "Our parson isn't dead in Madeira at all! The Sunday-school mistress had a letter from him only yesterday saying how much better he felt, and that he hoped to be home again with us very soon."

Mrs. Twitt pursed her lips and shook her head.

"That may be!" she observed—"I aint a-sayin' nuthin' again it. I sez to Twitt, there's trouble comin' for the Church, an' so there is. An' the windin' sheet in the candle means a death for somebody somewhere!"

Mary laughed, though her eyes were a little sad and wistful.

"Well, of course, there's always somebody dying somewhere, they say!" And she sighed. "There's a good deal of grief in the world that nobody ever sees or hears of."

"True enough, Mis' Deane!—true enough!" And Mrs. Twitt shook her head again—"But ye're spared a deal o' worrit, seein' ye 'aven't a husband nor childer to drive ye silly. When I 'ad my three boys at 'ome I never know'd whether I was on my 'ed or my 'eels, they kept up such a racket an' torment, but the Lord be thanked they're all out an' doin' for theirselves in the world now—forbye the eldest is thinkin' o' marryin' a girl I've never seen, down in Cornwall, which is where 'e be a-workin' in tin mines, an' when I 'eerd as 'ow 'e was p'raps a-goin' to tie hisself up in the bonds o' matterimony, I stepped out in the garden just casual like, an' if you'll believe me, I sees a magpie! Now, Mis' Deane, magpies is total strangers on these coasts—no one as I've ever 'eard tell on 'as ever seen one—an' they's the unlikeliest and unluckiest birds to come across as ever the good God created. An' of course I knows if my boy marries that gel in Cornwall, it'll be the worst chance and change for 'im that 'e's 'ad ever since 'e was born! That magpie comed 'ere to warn me of it!"

Mary tried to look serious, but Helmsley was listening to the conversation, and she caught the mirthful glance of his eyes. So she laughed, and taking Mrs. Twitt by the shoulders, kissed her heartily on both cheeks.

"You're a dear!" she said—"And I'll believe in the magpie if you want me to! But all the same, I don't think any mischief is coming for your son or for you. I like to hope that everything happening in this world is for the best, and that the good God means kindly to all of us. Don't you think that's the right way to live?"

"It may be the right way to live," replied Mrs. Twitt with a doubtful air—"But there's ter'uble things allus 'appenin', an' I sez if warnings is sent to us even out o' the mouths o' babes and sucklings, let's accept 'em in good part. An' if so be a magpie is chose by the Lord as a messenger we'se fools if we despises the magpie. But that little paunchy Arbroath's worse than a whole flock o' magpies comin' together, an' 'e's actin' like a pestilence in keepin' decent folk away from their own Church. 'Owsomever, Twitt reads prayers every Sunday mornin', an' t'other day Mr. Reay came in an' 'eerd 'im. An' Mr. Reay sez—'Twitt, ye're better than any parson I ever 'eerd!' An' I believe 'e is—'e's got real 'art an' feelin' for Scripter texes, an' sez 'em just as solemn as though 'e was carvin' 'em on tombstones. It's powerful movin'!"

Mary kept a grave face, but said nothing.

"An' last Sunday," went on Mrs. Twitt, encouraged, "Mr. Reay hisself read us a chapter o' the New Tesymen, an' 'twas fine! Twitt an' me, we felt as if we could 'a served the Lord faithful to the end of the world! An' we 'ardly ever feels like that in Church. In Church they reads the words so sing-songy like, that, bein' tired, we goes to sleep wi' the soothin' drawl. But Mr. Reay, he kep' us wide awake an' starin'! An' there's one tex which sticks in my 'ed an' comforts me for myself an' for everybody in trouble as I ever 'eerd on——"

"And what's that, Mrs. Twitt?" asked Helmsley, turning round in his chair, that he might see her better.

"It's this, Mister David," and Mrs. Twitt drew a long breath in preparation before beginning the quotation,—"an' it's beautiful! 'If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you.' Now if that aint enuff to send us on our way rejoicin', I don't know what is! For Lord knows if the dear Christ was hated, we can put up wi' a bit o' the hate for ourselves!"

There was a pause.

"So Mr. Reay reads very well, does he?" asked Mary.

"Fine!" said Mrs. Twitt,—"'E's a lovely man with a lovely voice! If 'e'd bin a parson 'e'd 'a drawed thousands to 'ear 'im! 'E wouldn't 'a wanted crosses nor candles to show us as 'e was speakin' true. Twitt sez to 'im t'other day—'Why aint you a parson, Mr. Reay?' an' 'e sez, 'Cos I'm goin' to be a preacher!' An' we couldn't make this out nohow, till 'e showed us as 'ow 'e was a-goin' to tell people things as they ought to know in the book 'e's writin'. An' 'e sez it's the only way, cos the parsons is gettin' so uppish, an' the Pope 'as got 'old o' some o' the newspapers, so that there aint no truth told nowheres, unless a few writers o' books will take 'art o' grace an' speak out. An' 'e sez there's a many as 'll do it, an' he tells Twitt—'Twitt,' sez he, 'Pin your faith on brave books! Beware o' newspapers, an' fight off the priest! Read brave books—books that were written centuries ago to teach people courage—an' read brave books that are written now to keep courage goin'!' An' we sez, so we will—for books is cheap enuff, God knows!—an' only t'other day Twitt went over to Minehead an' bought a new book by Sir Walter Scott called Guy Mannering for ninepence. It's a grand story! an' keeps us alive every evenin'! I'm just mad on that old woman in it—Meg Merrilies—she knew a good deal as goes on in the world, I'll warrant! All about signs an' omens too. It's just fine! I'd like to see Sir Walter Scott!"

"He's dead," said Mary, "dead long ago. But he was a good as well as a great man."

"'E must 'a bin," agreed Mrs. Twitt; "I'm right sorry 'e's dead. Some folks die as is bound to be missed, an' some folks lives on as one 'ud be glad to see in their long 'ome peaceful at rest, forbye their bein' born so grumblesome like. Twitt 'ud be at 'is best composin' a hepitaph for Mr. Arbroath now!"

As she said this the corners of her mouth, which usually drooped in somewhat lachrymose lines, went up in a whimsical smile. And feeling that she had launched a shaft of witticism which could not fail to reach its mark, she trotted off on further gossiping errands bent.

The tenor of her conversation was repeated to Angus Reay that afternoon when he arrived, as was often his custom, for what was ostensibly "a chat with old David," but what was really a silent, watchful worship of Mary.

"She is a dear old soul!" he said, "and Twitt is a rough diamond of British honesty. Such men as he keep the old country together and help to establish its reputation for integrity. But that man Arbroath ought to be kicked out of the Church! In fact, I as good as told him so!"

"You did!" And Helmsley's sunken eyes began to sparkle with sudden animation. "Upon my word, sir, you are very bold!"

"Bold? Why, what can he do to me?" demanded Angus. "I told him I had been for some years on the press, and that I knew the ins and outs of the Jesuit propaganda there. I told him he was false to the principles under which he had been ordained. I told him that he was assisting to introduce the Romish 'secret service' system into Great Britain, and that he was, with a shameless disregard of true patriotism, using such limited influence as he had to put our beloved free country under the tyranny of the Vatican. I said, that if ever I got a hearing with the British public, I meant to expose him, and all such similar wolves in sheep's clothing as himself."

"But—what did he say?" asked Mary eagerly.

"Oh, he turned livid, and then told me I was an atheist, adding that nearly all writers of books were of the same evil persuasion as myself. I said that if I believed that the Maker of Heaven and Earth took any pleasure in seeing him perambulate a church with a cross and six wretched little boys who didn't understand a bit what they were doing, I should be an atheist indeed. I furthermore told him I believed in God, who upheld this glorious Universe by the mere expressed power of His thought, and I said I believed in Christ, the Teacher who showed to men that the only way to obtain immortal life and happiness was by the conquest of Self. 'You may call that atheistical if you like,' I said,—'It's a firm faith that will help to keep me straight, and that will hold me to the paths of right and truth without any crosses or candles.' Then I told him that this little village of Weircombe, in its desire for simplicity in forms of devotion, was nearer heaven than he was. And—and I think," concluded Angus, ruffling up his hair with one hand, "that's about all I told him!"

Helmsley gave a low laugh of intense enjoyment.

"All!" he echoed, "I should say it was enough!"

"I hope it was," said Angus seriously, "I meant it to be." And moving to Mary's side, he took up the end of a lace flounce on which she was at work. "What a creation in cobwebs!" he exclaimed—"Who does it belong to, Miss Mary?"

"To a very great lady," she replied, working busily with her needle and avoiding the glance of his eyes; "her name is often in the papers." And she gave it. "No doubt you know her?"

"Know her? Not I!" And he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "But she is very generally known—as a thoroughly bad woman! I hate to see you working on anything for her!"

She looked up surprised, and the colour came and went in a delicate flush on her face.

"False to her husband, false to her children, and false to herself!" went on Angus hotly—"And disloyal to her king! And having turned on her own family and her own class, she seeks to truckle to the People under pretence of serving them, while all the time her sole object is to secure notoriety for herself! She is a shame to England!"

"You speak very hotly, sir!" said Helmsley, slowly. "Are you sure of your facts?"

"The facts are not concealed," returned Reay—"They are public property. That no one has the courage to denounce such women—women who openly flaunt their immoralities in our midst—is a bad sign of the times. Women are doing a great deal of mischief just now. Look at them fussing about Female Suffrage! Female Suffrage, quotha! Let them govern their homes properly, wisely, reasonably, and faithfully, and they will govern the nation!"

"That's true!" And Helmsley nodded gravely. "That's very true!"

"A woman who really loves a man," went on Angus, mechanically fingering the skeins of lace thread which lay on the table at Mary's side, ready for use—"governs him, unconsciously to herself, by the twin powers of sex and instinct. She was intended for his help-mate, to guide him in the right way by her finer forces. If she neglects to cultivate these finer forces—if she tramples on her own natural heritage, and seeks to 'best' him with his own weapons—she fails—she must fail—she deserves to fail! But as true wife and true mother, she is supreme!"

"But the ladies are not content with such a limited sphere," began Helmsley, with a little smile.

"Limited? Good God!—where does the limit come in?" demanded Reay. "It is because they are not sufficiently educated to understand their own privileges that women complain of limitations. An unthinking, unreasoning, unintelligent wife and mother is of course no higher than any other female of the animal species—but I do not uphold this class. I claim that the woman who thinks, and gives her intelligence full play—the woman who is physically sound and morally pure—the woman who devoutly studies the noblest side of life, and tries to bring herself into unison with the Divine intention of human progress towards the utmost good—she, as wife and mother, is the angel of the world. Sheis the world!—she makes it, she rejuvenates it, she gives it strength! Why should she condescend to mix with the passing political squabbles of her slaves and children?—for men are no more than her slaves and children. Love is her weapon—one true touch of that, and the wildest heart that ever beat in a man's breast is tamed."

There was a silence. Suddenly Mary pushed aside her work, and going to the door opened it.

"It's so warm to-day, don't you think?" she asked, passing her hand a little wearily across her forehead. "One would think it was almost June."

"You are tired, Miss Mary!" said Reay, somewhat anxiously.

"No—I'm not tired—but"—here all at once her eyes filled with tears. "I've got a bit of a headache," she murmured, forcing a smile—"I think I'll go to my room and rest for half an hour. Good-bye, Mr. Reay!"

"Good-bye—for the moment!" he answered—and taking her hand he pressed it gently. "I hope the headache will soon pass."

She withdrew her hand from his quickly and left the kitchen. Angus watched her go, and when she had disappeared heaved an involuntary but most lover-like sigh. Helmsley looked at him with a certain whimsical amusement.

"Well!" he said.

Reay gave himself a kind of impatient shake.

"Well, old David!" he rejoined.

"Why don't you speak to her?"

"I dare not! I'm too poor!"

"Is she so rich?"

"She's richer than I am."

"It is quite possible," said Helmsley slowly, "that she will always be richer than you. Literary men must never expect to be millionaires."

"Don't tell me that—I know it!" and Angus laughed.

CHAPTER XIX

The scandal affecting the Reverend Mr. Arbroath's reputation which had been so graphically related by Twitt, turned out to be true in every respect, and though considerable efforts were made to hush it up, the outraged feelings of the reverend gentleman's wife were not to be silenced. Proceedings for divorce were commenced, and it was understood that there would be no defence. In due course the "big 'edlines" which announced to the world in general that one of the most imperious "High" Anglicans of the Church had not only slipped from moral rectitude, but had intensified that sin by his publicly aggressive assumption of hypocritical virtue, appeared in the newspapers, and the village of Weircombe for about a week was brought into a certain notoriety which was distinctly displeasing to itself. The arrival of the "dailies" became a terror to it, and a general feeling of devout thankfulness was experienced by the whole community, when the rightful spiritual shepherd of the little flock returned from his sojourn abroad to take up the reigns of government, and restore law and order to his tiny distracted commonwealth. Fortunately for the peace of Weircombe, the frantic rush of social events, and incidents in which actual "news" of interest has no part, is too persistent and overwhelming for any one occurrence out of the million to occupy more than a brief passing notice, which is in its turn soon forgotten, and the "Scandalous Conduck of a Clergyman," as Mr. Twitt had put it, was soon swept aside in other examples of "Scandalous Conduck" among all sorts and conditions of men and women, which, caught up by flying Rumour with her thousand false and blatant tongues, is the sort of useless and pernicious stuff which chiefly keeps the modern press alive. Even the fact that the Reverend Mr. Arbroath was summarily deprived of his living and informed by the Bishop in the usual way, that his services would no longer be required, created very little interest. Some months later a small journalistic flourish was heard on behalf of the discarded gentleman, upon the occasion of his being "received" into the Church of Rome, with all his sins forgiven,—but so far as Weircombe was concerned, the story of himself and his "fav'rite" was soon forgotten, and his very name ceased to be uttered. The little community resumed its normal habit of cheerful attendance at Church every Sunday, satisfied to have shown to the ecclesiastical powers that be, the fact that "'Igh Jinks" in religion would never be tolerated amongst them; and the life of Weircombe went on in the usual placid way, divided between work and prayer, and governed by the twin forces of peace and contentment.

Meantime, the secret spells of Mother Nature were silently at work in the development and manifestation of the Spring. The advent of April came like a revelation of divine beauty to the little village nestled in the "coombe," and garlanded it from summit to base with tangles of festal flowers. The little cottage gardens and higher orchards were smothered in the snow of plum and cherry-blossom,—primroses carpeted the woods which crowned the heights of the hills, and the long dark spikes of bluebells, ready to bud and blossom, thrust themselves through the masses of last year's dead leaves, side by side with the uncurling fronds of the bracken and fern. Thrushes and blackbirds piped with cheerful persistence among the greening boughs of the old chestnut which shaded Mary Deane's cottage, and children roaming over the grassy downs above the sea, brought news of the skylark's song and the cuckoo's call. Many a time in these lovely, fresh and sunny April days Angus Reay would persuade Mary away from her lace-mending to take long walks with him across the downs, or through the woods—and on each occasion when they started on these rambles together, David Helmsley would sit and watch for their return in a curious sort of timorous suspense—wondering, hoping, and fearing,—eager for the moment when Angus should speak his mind to the woman he loved, and yet always afraid lest that woman should, out of some super-sensitive feeling, put aside and reject that love, even though she might long to accept it. However, day after day passed and nothing happened. Either Angus hesitated, or else Mary was unapproachable—and Helmsley worried himself in vain. They, who did not know his secret, could not of course imagine the strained condition of mind in which their undeclared feelings kept him,—and and he found himself more perplexed and anxious over their apparent uncertainty than he had ever been over some of his greatest financial schemes. Facts and figures can to a certain extent be relied upon, but the fluctuating humours and vagaries of a man and woman in love with each other are beyond the most precise calculations of the skilled mathematician. For it often happens that when they seem to be coldest they are warmest—and cases have been known where they have taken the greatest pains to avoid each other at a time when they have most deeply longed to be always together. It was during this uncomfortable period of uneasiness and hesitation for Helmsley, that Angus and Mary were perhaps most supremely happy. Dimly, sweetly conscious that the gate of Heaven was open for them and that it was Love, the greatest angel of all God's mighty host, that waited for them there, they hovered round and round upon the threshold of the glory, eager, yet afraid to enter. Up in the primrose-carpeted woods together they talked, like good friends, of a thousand things,—of the weather, of the promise of fruit in the orchards, of the possibilities of a good fishing year, and of the general beauty of the scenery around Weircombe. Then, of course, there was the book which Angus was writing—a book now nearing completion. It was a very useful book, because it gave them a constant and safe topic of conversation. Many chapters were read and re-read—many passages written and re-written for Mary's hearing and criticism,—and it may at once be said that what had at first been merely clever, brilliant, and intellectual writing, was now becoming not so much a book as an artistic creation, through which the blood and colour of human life pulsed and flowed, giving it force and vitality. Sometimes they persuaded Helmsley to accompany them on some of their shorter rambles,—but he was not strong enough to walk far, and he often left them half-way up the "coombe," returning to the cottage alone. Mary had frequently expressed a great wish to take him to a favourite haunt of hers, which she called the "Giant's Castle"—but he was unable to make the steep ascent—so on one fine afternoon she took Angus there instead. "The Giant's Castle" had no recognised name among the Weircombe villagers save this one which Mary had bestowed upon it, and which the children repeated after her so often that it seemed highly probable that the title would stick to it for ever. "Up Giant's Castle way" was quite a familiar direction to any one ascending the "coombe," or following the precipitous and narrow path which wound along the edge of the cliffs to certain pastures where shepherds as well as sheep were in daily danger of landslips, and which to the ordinary pedestrian were signalled by a warning board as "Dangerous." But "Giant's Castle" itself was merely the larger and loftier of the two towering rocks which guarded the sea-front of Weircombe village. A tortuous grassy path led up to its very pinnacle, and from here, there was an unbroken descent as straight and smooth as a well-built wall, of several hundred feet sheer down into the sea, which at this point swirled round the rocky base in dark, deep, blackish-green eddies, sprinkled with trailing sprays of brown and crimson weed. It was a wonderful sight to look down upon this heaving mass of water, if it could be done without the head swimming and the eyes growing blind with the light of the sky striking sharp against the restless heaving of the waves, and Mary was one of the few who could stand fearlessly on almost the very brink of the parapet of the "Giant's Castle," and watch the sweep of the gulls as they flew under and above her, uttering their brief plaintive cries of gladness or anger as the wild wind bore them to and fro. When Reay first saw her run eagerly to the very edge, and stand there, a light, bold, beautiful figure, with the wind fluttering her garments and blowing loose a long rippling tress of her amber-brown hair, he could not refrain from an involuntary cry of terror, and an equally involuntary rush to her side with his arms outstretched. But as she turned her sweet face and grave blue eyes upon him there was something in the gentle dignity and purity of her look that held him back, abashed, and curiously afraid. She made him feel the power of her sex,—a power invincible when strengthened by modesty and reserve,—and the easy licence which modern women, particularly those of a degraded aristocracy, permit to men in both conversation and behaviour nowadays, would have found no opportunity of being exercised in her presence. So, though his impulse moved him to catch her round the waist and draw her with forcible tenderness away from the dizzy eminence on which she stood, he dared not presume so far, and merely contented himself with a bounding stride which brought him to the same point of danger as herself, and the breathless exclamation—

"Miss Mary! Take care!"

She smiled.

"Oh, there is nothing to be frightened of!" she said. "Often and often I have come here quite alone and looked down upon the sea in all weathers. Just after my father's death, this used to be the place I loved best, where I could feel that I was all by myself with God, who alone understood my sadness. At night, when the moon is at the full, it is very beautiful here. One looks down into the water and sees a world of waving light, and then, looking up to the sky, there is a heaven of stars!—and all the weary ways of life are forgotten! The angels seem so near!"

A silent agreement with this latter statement shone in Reay's eyes as he looked at her.

"It's good sometimes to find a woman who still believes in angels," he said.

"Don't you believe in them?"

"Implicitly,—with all my heart and soul!" And again his eyes were eloquent.

A wave of rosy colour flitted over her face, and shading her eyes from the strong glare of the sun, she gazed across the sea.

"I wish dear old David could see this glorious sight!" she said. "But he's not strong—and I'm afraid—I hardly like to think it—that he's weaker than he knows."

"Poor old chap!" said Angus, gently. "Any way, you've done all you can for him, and he's very grateful. I hope he'll last a few years longer."

"I hope so too," she answered quickly. "For I should miss him very much. I've grown quite to love him."

"I think he feels that," and Angus seated himself on a jutting crag of the "Giant's Castle" and prepared for the utterance of something desperate. "Any one would, you know!"

She made no reply. Her gaze was fixed on the furthest silver gleaming line of the ocean horizon.

"Any one would be bound to feel it, if you loved—if you were fond of him," he went on in rather a rambling way. "It would make all the difference in the world——"

She turned towards him quickly with a smile. Her breathing was a little hurried.

"Shall we go back now?" she said.

"Certainly!—if—if you wish—but isn't it rather nice up here?" he pleaded.

"We'll come another day," and she ran lightly down the first half of the grassy path which had led them to the summit. "But I mustn't waste any more time this afternoon."

"Why? Any pressing demands for mended lace?" asked Angus, as he followed her.

"Oh no! Not particularly so. Only when the firm that employs me, sends any very specially valuable stuff worth five or six hundred pounds or so, I never like to keep it longer that I can help. And the piece I'm at work on is valued at a thousand guineas."

"Wouldn't you like to wear it yourself?" he asked suddenly, with a laugh.

"I? I wouldn't wear it for the world! Do you know, Mr. Reay, that I almost hate beautiful lace! I admire the work and design, of course—no one could help that—but every little flower and leaf in the fabric speaks to me of so many tired eyes growing blind over the intricate stitches—so many weary fingers, and so many aching hearts—all toiling for the merest pittance! For it is not the real makers of the lace who get good profit by their work, it is the merchants who sell it that have all the advantage. If I were a great lady and a rich one, I would refuse to buy any lace from the middleman,—I would seek out the actual poor workers, and give them my orders, and see that they were comfortably fed and housed as long as they worked for me."

"And it's just ten chances to one whether they would be grateful to you——" Angus began. She silenced him by a slight gesture.

"But I shouldn't care whether they were grateful or not," she said. "I should be content to know that I had done what was right and just to my fellow-creatures."

They had no more talk that day, and Helmsley, eagerly expectant, and watching them perhaps more intently than a criminal watches the face of a judge, was as usual disappointed. His inward excitement, always suppressed, made him somewhat feverish and irritable, and Mary, all unconscious of the cause, stayed in to "take care of him" as she said, and gave up her afternoon walks with Angus for a time altogether, which made the situation still more perplexing, and to Helmsley almost unbearable. Yet there was nothing to be done. He felt it would be unwise to speak of the matter in any way to her—she was a woman who would certainly find it difficult to believe that she had won, or could possibly win the love of a lover at her age;—she might even resent it,—no one could tell. And so the days of April paced softly on, in bloom and sunlight, till May came in with a blaze of colour and radiance, and the last whiff of cold wind blew itself away across the sea. The "biting nor'easter," concerning which the comic press gives itself up to senseless parrot-talk with each recurrence of the May month, no matter how warm and beautiful that month may be, was a "thing foregone and clean forgotten,"—and under the mild and beneficial influences of the mingled sea and moorland air, Helmsley gained a temporary rush of strength, and felt so much better, that he was able to walk down to the shore and back again once or twice a a day, without any assistance, scarcely needing even the aid of his stick to lean upon. The shore remained his favourite haunt; he was never tired of watching the long waves roll in, edged with gleaming ribbons of foam, and roll out again, with the musical clatter of drawn pebbles and shells following the wake of the backward sweeping ripple,—and he made friends with many of the Weircombe fisherfolk, who were always ready to chat with him concerning themselves and the difficulties and dangers of their trade. The children, too, were all eager to run after "old David," as they called him,—and many an afternoon he would sit in the sun, with a group of these hardy little creatures gathered about him, listening entranced, while he told them strange stories of foreign lands and far travels,—travels which men took "in search of gold"—as he would say, with a sad little smile—"gold, which is not nearly so much use as it seems to be."

"But can't us buy everything with plenty of money?" asked a seven-year-old urchin, on one of these occasions, looking solemnly up into his face with a pair of very round, big brown eyes.

"Not everything, my little man," he answered, smoothing the rough locks of the small inquirer with a very tender hand. "I could not buy you, for instance! Your mother wouldn't sell you!"

The child laughed.

"Oh, no! But I didn't mean me!"

"I know you didn't mean me!" and Helmsley smiled. "But suppose some one put a thousand golden sovereigns in a bag on one side, and you in your rough little torn clothes on the other, and asked your mother which she would like best to have—what do you think she would say?"

"She'd 'ave me!" and a smile of confident satisfaction beamed on the grinning little face like a ray of sunshine.

"Of course she would! The bag of sovereigns would be no use at all compared to you. So you see we cannot buy everything with money."

"But—most things?" queried the boy—"Eh?"

"Most things—perhaps," Helmsley answered, with a slight sigh. "But those 'most things' are not things of much value even when you get them. You can never buy love,—and that is the only real treasure,—the treasure of Heaven!"

The child looked at him, vaguely impressed by his sudden earnestness, but scarcely understanding his words.

"Wouldn't you like a little money?" And the inquisitive young eyes fixed themselves on his face with an expression of tenderest pity. "You'se a very poor old man!"

Helmsley laughed, and again patted the little curly head.

"Yes—yes—a very poor old man!" he repeated. "But I don't want any more than I've got!"

One afternoon towards mid-May, a strong yet soft sou'wester gale blew across Weircombe, bringing with it light showers of rain, which, as they fell upon the flowering plants and trees, brought out all the perfume of the spring in such rich waves of sweetness, that, though as yet there were no roses, and the lilac was only just budding out, the whole countryside seemed full of the promised fragrance of the blossoms that were yet to be. The wind made scenery in the sky, heaping up snowy masses of cloud against the blue in picturesque groups resembling Alpine heights, and fantastic palaces of fairyland, and when,—after a glorious day of fresh and invigorating air which swept both sea and hillside, a sudden calm came with the approach of sunset, the lovely colours of earth and heaven, melting into one another, where so pure and brilliant, that Mary, always a lover of Nature, could not resist Angus Reay's earnest entreaty that she would accompany him to see the splendid departure of the orb of day, in all its imperial panoply of royal gold and purple.

"It will be a beautiful sunset," he said—"And from the 'Giant's Castle' rock, a sight worth seeing."

Helmsley looked at him as he spoke, and looking, smiled.

"Do go, my dear," he urged—"And come back and tell me all about it."

"I really think you want me out of your way, David!" she said laughingly. "You seem quite happy when I leave you!"

"You don't get enough fresh air," he answered evasively. "And this is just the season of the year when you most need it."

She made no more demur, and putting on the simple straw hat, which, plainly trimmed with a soft knot of navy-blue ribbon, was all her summer head-gear, she left the house with Reay. After a while, Helmsley also went out for his usual lonely ramble on the shore, from whence he could see the frowning rampart of the "Giant's Castle" above him, though it was impossible to discern any person who might be standing at its summit, on account of the perpendicular crags that intervened. From both shore and rocky height the scene was magnificent. The sun, dipping slowly down towards the sea, shot rays of glory around itself in an aureole of gold, which, darting far upwards, and spreading from north to south, pierced the drifting masses of floating fleecy cloud like arrows, and transfigured their whiteness to splendid hues of fiery rose and glowing amethyst, while just between the falling Star of Day and the ocean, a rift appeared of smooth and delicate watery green, touched here and there with flecks of palest pink and ardent violet. Up on the parapet of the "Giant's Castle," all this loyal panoply of festal colour was seen at its best, sweeping in widening waves across the whole surface of the Heavens; and there was a curious stillness everywhere, as though earth itself were conscious of a sudden and intense awe. Standing on the dizzy edge of her favourite point of vantage, Mary Deane gazed upon the sublime spectacle with eyes so passionately tender in their far-away expression, that, to Angus Reay, who watched those eyes with much more rapt admiration than he bestowed upon the splendour of the sunset, they looked like the eyes of some angel, who, seeing heaven all at once revealed, recognised her native home, and with the recognition, was prepared for immediate flight And on the impulse which gave him this fantastic thought, he said softly—

"Don't go away, Miss Mary! Stay with us—with me—as long as you can!"

She turned her head and looked at him, smiling.

"Why, what do you mean? I'm not going away anywhere—who told you that I was?"

"No one,"—and Angus drew a little nearer to her—"But just now you seemed so much a part of the sea and the sky, leaning forward and giving yourself entirely over to the glory of the moment, that I felt as if you might float away from me altogether." Here he paused—then added in a lower tone—"And I could not bear to lose you!"

She was silent. But her face grew pale, and her lips quivered. He saw the tremor pass over her, and inwardly rejoiced,—his own nerves thrilling as he realised that, after all, if—if she loved him, he was the master of her fate.

"We've been such good friends," he went on, dallying with his own desire to know the best or worst—"Haven't we?"

"Indeed, yes!" she answered, somewhat faintly. "And I hope we always will be."

"I hope so, too!" he answered in quite a matter-of-fact way. "You see I'm rather a clumsy chap with women——"

She smiled a little.

"Are you?"

"Yes,—I mean I never get on with them quite as well as other fellows do somehow—and—er—and—what I want to say, Miss Mary, is that I've never got on with any woman so well as I have with you—and——"

He paused. At no time in his life had he been at such a loss for language. His heart was thumping in the most extraordinary fashion, and he prodded the end of his walking-stick into the ground with quite a ferocious earnestness. She was still looking at him and still smiling.

"And," he went on ramblingly, "that's why I hope we shall always be good friends."

As he uttered this perfectly commonplace remark, he cursed himself for a fool. "What's the matter with me?" he inwardly demanded. "My tongue seems to be tied up!—or I'm going to have lockjaw! It's awful! Something

CHAPTER XX

Three days later, when the dawn was scarcely declared and the earliest notes of the waking birds trembled on the soft air with the faint sweetness of a far-off fluty piping, the door of Mary Deane's cottage opened stealthily, and David Helmsley, dressed ready for a journey, stepped noiselessly out into the little garden. He wore the same ordinary workman's outfit in which he had originally started on his intended " tramp," including the vest which he had lined with banknotes, and which he had not used once since his stay with Mary Deane. For she had insisted on his wearing the warmer and softer garments which had once belonged to her own father,—and all these he had now taken off and left behind him, carefully folded up on the bed in his room. He had examined his money and had found it just as he had placed it,—even the little "surprise packet" which poor Tom o' the Gleam had collected for his benefit in the "Trusty Man's" common room, was still in the side-pocket where he had himself put it. Unripping a corner of the vest lining, he took out two five-pound notes, and with these in a rough leather purse for immediate use, and his stout ash stick grasped firmly in his hand, he started out to walk to the top of the coombe where he knew the path brought him to the verge of the highroad leading to Minehead. As he moved almost on tip-toe through Mary's garden, now all fragrant with golden wall-flowers, lilac, and mayblossom, he paused a moment,—looking up at the picturesque gabled eaves and latticed windows. A sudden sense of loneliness affected him almost to tears. For now he had not even the little dog Charlie with him to console him—that canine friend slept in a cushioned basket in Mary's room, and was therefore all unaware that his master was leaving him.

"But, please God, I shall come back in a day or two!" he murmured. " Please God, I shall see this dear shrine of peace and love again before I die! Meanwhile—good-bye, Mary! Good-bye, dearest and kindest of women! God bless you!"

He turned away with an effort—and, lifting the latch of the garden gate, opened it and closed it softly behind him. Then he began the ascent of the coombe. Not a soul was in sight,—the actual day had not yet begun. The hill torrent flowed along with a subdued purling sound over the rough stones and pebbles,—there had been little rain of late and the water was shallow, though clear and bright enough to gleam like a wavering silver ribbon in the dimness of the early morning,—and as he followed it upward and finally reached a point from whence the open sea was visible he rested a moment, leaning on his stick and looking backward on the way he had come. Strangely beautiful and mystical was the scene his eyes dwelt upon,—or rather perhaps it should be said that he saw it in a somewhat strange and mystical fashion of his own. There, out beyond the furthest edge of land, lay the ocean, shadowed just now by a delicate dark grey mist, which, like a veil, covered its placid bosom,—a mist which presently the rising sun would scatter with its glorious rays of gold;—here at his feet nestled Weircombe,—a cluster of simple cottages, sweetly adorned by nature with her fairest garlanding of springtime flowers,—and behind him, just across a length of barren moor, was the common highroad leading to the wider, busier towns. And he thought as he stood alone,—a frail and solitary figure, gazing dreamily out of himself, as it were, to things altogether beyond himself,—that the dim and shadowy ocean was like the vast Unknown which we call Death,—which we look upon tremblingly,—afraid of its darkness, and unable to realise that the sun of Life will ever rise again to pierce its gloom with glory. And the little world—the only world that can be called a world,—namely, that special corner of the planet which holds the hearts that love us—a world which for him, the multi-millionaire, was just a tiny village with one sweet woman living in it—resembled a garland of flowers flung down from the rocks as though to soften their ruggedness,—a garland broken asunder at the shoreline, even as all earthly garlands must break and fade at the touch of the first cold wave of the Infinite. As for the further road in which he was about to turn and go, that, to his fancy, was a nearer similitude of an approach to hell than any scene ever portrayed in Dante's Divine Comedy. For it led to the crowded haunts of men—the hives of greedy business,—the

CHAPTER XXI

Arriving at Minehead, Helmsley passed out of the station unnoticed by any one, and made his way easily through the sunny little town. He was soon able to secure a "lift" towards Weircombe in a baker's cart going half the way; the rest of the distance he judged he could very well manage to walk, albeit slowly. A fluttering sense of happiness, like the scarcely suppressed excitement of a boy going home from school for the holidays, made him feel almost agile on his feet,—if he had only had a trifle more strength he thought he could have run the length of every mile stretching between him and the dear cottage in the coombe, which had now become the central interest of his life. The air was so pure, the sun so bright—the spring foliage was so fresh and green, the birds sang so joyously—all nature seemed to be in such perfect tune with the deep ease and satisfaction of his own soul, that every breath he took was more or less of a thanksgiving to God for having been spared to enjoy the beauty of such halcyon hours. By the willing away of all his millions to one whom he knew to be of a pure, noble, and incorruptible nature, a great load had been lifted from his mind,—he had done with world's work for ever; and by some inexplicable yet divine compensation it seemed as though the true meaning of the life to come had been suddenly disclosed to him, and that he was allowed to realise for the first time not only the possibility, but the certainty, that Death is not an End, but a new Beginning. And he felt himself to be a free man,—free of all earthly confusion and worry—free to recommence another cycle of nobler work in a higher and wider sphere of action, And he argued with himself thus:—

"A man is born into this world without his own knowledge or consent. Yet he finds himself—also without his own knowledge or consent—surrounded by natural beauty and perfect order—he finds nothing in the planet which can be accounted valueless—he learns that even a grain of dust has its appointed use, and that not a sparrow shall fall to the ground without 'Our Father.' Everything is ready to his hand to minister to his reasonable wants—and it is only when he misinterprets the mystic meaning of life, and puts God aside as an 'unknown quantity,' that things go wrong. His mission is that of progress and advancement—but not progress and advancement in base material needs and pleasures,—the progress and advancement required of him is primarily spiritual. For the spiritual, or Mind, is the only Real. Matter is merely the husk in which the seed of Spirit is enclosed—and Man's mistake is always that he attaches himself to the perishable husk instead of the ever germinating seed. He advances, but advances wrongly, and therefore has to go back upon his steps. He progresses in what he calls civilisation, which so long as it is purely self-aggrandisement, is but a common circle, bringing him back in due course to primitive savagery. Now I, for example, started in life to make money—I made it, and it brought me power, which I thought progress; but now, at the end of my tether, I see plainly that I have done no good in my career save such good as will come from my having placed all my foolish gainings under the control of a nature simpler and therefore stronger than my own. And I, leaving my dross behind me, must go forward and begin again—spiritually the wiser for my experience of this world, which may help me better to understand the next."

Thus he mused, as he slowly trudged along under the bright and burning sun—happy enough in his thoughts except that now and then a curious touch of foreboding fear came over him as to whether anything ill had happened to Mary in his absence.

"For one never knows!"—and a faint shudder came over him as he remembered Tom o' the Gleam, and the cruel, uncalled-for death of his child, the only human creature left to him in the world to care for. "One can never tell, whether in the scheme of creation there is such a being as a devil, who takes joy in running counter to the beneficent intentions of the Creator! Light exists—and Darkness. Good seems co-equal with Evil. It is all mystery! Now, suppose Mary were to die? Suppose she were, at this very moment, dead?"

Such a horror came over him as this idea presented itself to his mind that he trembled from head to foot, and his brain grew dizzy. He had walked for a longer time than he knew since the cart in which he had ridden part of the way had left him at about four miles away from Weircombe, and

CHAPTER XXII

And now there came a wondrous week of perfect weather. All the lovely Somersetshire coast lay under the warmth and brilliance of a dazzling sun,—the sea was smooth,—and small sailing skiffs danced merrily up and down from Minehead to Weircombe and back again with the ease and security of seabirds, whose happiest resting-place is on the waves. A lovely calm environed the little village,—it was not a haunt of cheap "trippers,"—and summer-time was not only a working-time, but a playing time too with all the inhabitants, both young and old. The shore, with its fine golden sand, warm with the warmth of the cloudless sky, was a popular resort, and Helmsley, though his physical weakness perceptibly increased, was often able to go down there, assisted by Mary and Angus, one on each side supporting him and guarding his movements. It pleased him to sit under the shelter of the rocks and watch the long shining ripples of ocean roll forwards and backwards on the shore in silvery lines, edged with delicate, lace-like fringes of foam,—and the slow, monotonous murmur of the gathering and dispersing water soothed his nerves and hushed a certain inward fretfulness of spirit which teased him now and then, but to which he bravely strove not to give way. Sometimes—but only sometimes—he felt that it was hard to die. Hard to be old just as he was beginning to learn how to live,—hard to pass out of the beauty and wonder of this present life with all its best joys scarcely experienced, and exchange the consciousness of what little he knew for something concerning which no one could honestly give him any authentic information.

"Yet I might have said the same, had I been conscious, before I was born!" he thought. "In a former state of existence I might have said, 'Why send me from this that I know and enjoy, to something which I have not seen and therefore cannot believe in?' Perhaps, for all I can tell, I did say it. And yet God had His way with me and placed me here—for what? Only to learn a lesson! That is truly all I have done. For the making of money is as nothing in the sight of Eternal Law,—it is merely man's accumulation of perishable matter, which, like all perishable things, is swept away in due course, while he who accumulated it is of no more account as a mere corpse than his poverty-stricken brother. What a foolish striving it all is! What envyings, spites, meannesses and miserable pettinesses arise from this greed of money! Yes, I have learned my lesson! I wonder whether I shall now be permitted to pass into a higher standard, and begin again!"

These inner musings sometimes comforted and sometimes perplexed him, and often he was made suddenly aware of a strange and exhilarating impression of returning youthfulness—a buoyancy of feeling and a delightful ease, such as a man in full vigour experiences when, after ascending some glorious mountain summit, he sees the panorama of a world below him. His brain was very clear and active—and whenever he chose to talk, there were plenty of his humble friends ready to listen. One day the morning papers were full of great headlines announcing the assassination of one of the world's throned rulers, and the Weircombe fishermen, discussing the news, sought the opinion of "old David" concerning the matter. "Old David" was, however, somewhat slow to be drawn on so questionable a subject, but Angus Reay was not so reticent.

"Why should kings spend money recklessly on their often filthy vices and pleasures," he demanded, "while thousands, ay, millions of their subjects starve? As long as such a wretched state of things exists, so long will there be Anarchy. But I know the head and front of the offending! I know the Chief of all the Anarchists!"

"Lord bless us!" exclaimed Mrs. Twitt, who happened to be standing by. "Ye don't say so! Wot's' 'ee like?"

"He's all shapes and sizes—all colours too!" laughed Angus. "He's simply the Irresponsible Journalist!"

"As you were once!" suggested Helmsley, with a smile.

"No, I was never 'irresponsible,'" declared Reay, emphatically. "I may have been faulty in the following of my profession, but I never wrote a line that I thought might cause uneasiness in the minds of the million. What I mean is, that the Irresponsible Journalist who gives more prominence to the doings of kings and queens and stupid 'society' folk, than to the actual work, thought, and progress of the nation at large, is making a forcing-bed for the growth of Anarchy. Consider the feelings of a starving man who reads in a newspaper that certain people in London give dinners to their friends at a cost of Two Guineas a head! Consider the frenzied passion of a father who sees his children dying of want, when he reads that the mistress of a king wears diamonds worth forty thousand pounds round her throat! If the balance of material things is for the present thus set awry, and such vile and criminal anachronisms exist, the proprietors of newspapers should have better sense than to flaunt them before the public eye as though they deserved admiration. The Anarchist at any rate has an ideal. It may be a mistaken ideal, but whatever it is, it is a desperate effort to break down a system which anarchists imagine is at the root of all the bribery, corruption, flunkeyism and money-grubbing of the world. Moreover, the Anarchist carries his own life in his hand, and the risk he runs can scarcely be for his pleasure. Yet he braves everything for the 'ideal,' which he fancies, if realised, will release others from the yoke of injustice and tyranny. Few people have any 'ideals' at all nowadays;—what they want to do is to spend as much as they like, and eat as much as they can. And the newspapers that persist in chronicling the amount of their expenditure and the extent of their appetites, are the real breeders and encouragers of every form of anarchy under the sun!"

"You may be right," said Helmsley, slowly. "Indeed I fear you are! If one is to judge by old-time records, it was a kinder, simpler world when there was no daily press."

"Man is an imitative animal," continued Reay. "The deeds he hears of, whether good or bad, he seeks to emulate. In bygone ages crime existed, of course, but it was not blazoned in headlines to the public. Good and brave deeds were praised and recorded, and as a consequence—perhaps as a result of imitation—there were many heroes. In our times a good or brave deed is squeezed into an obscure paragraph,—while intellect and brilliant talent receive scarcely any acknowledgment—the silly doings of 'society' and the Court are the chief matter,—hence, possibly, the preponderance of dunces and flunkeys, again produced by sheer 'imitativeness.' Is it pleasant for a man with starvation at his door, to read that a king pays two thousand a year to his cook? That same two thousand comes out of the pockets of the nation—and the starving man thinks some of it ought to fall in his way instead of providing for a cooker of royal victuals! There is no end to the mischief generated by the publication of such snobbish statements, whether true or false. This was the kind of irresponsible talk that set Jean-Jacques Rousseau thinking and writing, and kindling the first spark of the fire of the French Revolution. 'Royal-Flunkey' methods of journalism provoke deep resentment in the public mind,—for a king after all is only the paid servant of the people—he is not an idol or a deity to which an independent nation should for ever crook the knee. And from the smouldering anger of the million at what they conceive to be injustice and hypocrisy, springs Anarchy."

"All very well said,—but now suppose you were a wealthy man, what would you do with your money?" asked Helmsley.

Angus smiled.

"I don't know, David!—I've never realised the position yet. But I should try to serve others more than to serve myself."

The conversation ceased then, for Helmsley looked pale and exhausted. He had been on the seashore for the greater part of the afternoon, and it was now sunset. Yet he was very unwilling to return home, and it was only by gentle and oft-repeated persuasion that he at last agreed to leave his well-loved haunt, leaning as usual on Mary's arm, with Angus walking on the other side. Once or twice as he slowly ascended the village street he paused, and looked back at the tranquil loveliness of ocean, glimmering as with millions of rubies in the red glow of the sinking sun.

"'And there shall be no more sea!'" he quoted, dreamily—"I should be sorry if that were true! One would miss the beautiful sea!—even in heaven!"

He walked very feebly, and Mary exchanged one or two anxious glances with Angus. But on reaching the cottage again, his spirits revived. Seated in his accustomed chair, he smiled as the little dog, Charlie, jumped on his knee, and peered with a comically affectionate gravity into his face.

"Asking me how I am, aren't you, Charlie!" he said, cheerfully—"I'm all right, wee man!—all right!"

Apparently Charlie was not quite sure about it, for he declined to be removed from the position he had chosen, and snuggling close down on his master's lap, curled himself up in a silky ball and went to sleep, now and then opening a soft dark eye to show that his slumbers were not so profound as they seemed.

That evening when Angus had gone, after saying a prolonged good-night to Mary in the little scented garden under the lovely radiance of an almost full moon, Helmsley called her to his side.

"Mary!"

She came at once, and put her arm around him. He looked up at her, smiling.

"You think I'm very tired, I know," he said—"But I'm not. I—I want to say a word to you."

Still keeping her arm round him, she patted his shoulder gently.

"Yes, David! What is it?"

"It is just this. You know I told you I had some papers that I valued, locked away in the little cupboard in my room?"

"Yes. I know."

"Well now,—when—when I die—will you promise me to take these papers yourself to the address that is written on them? That's all I ask of you! Will you?"

"Of course I will!" she said, readily—"You know you've kept the key yourself since you got well from your bad fever last year——"

"There is the key," he said, drawing it from his pocket, and holding it up to her—"Take it now!"

"But why now——?" she began.

"Because I wish it!" he answered, with a slight touch of obstinacy—then, smiling rather wistfully, he added, "It will comfort me to know you have it in your own possession. And Mary—promise me that you will let no one—not even Angus—see or touch these papers!—that you will take the parcel just as you find it, straight to the person to whom it is addressed, and deliver it yourself to him! I don't want you to swear, but I want you to put your dear kind hand in mine, and say 'On my word of honour I will not open the packet old David has entrusted to me. When he dies I will take it my own self to the person to whom it is addressed, and wait till I am told that everything in it has been received and understood.' Will you, for my comfort, say these words after me, Mary?"

"Of course I will!"

And placing her hand in his, she repeated it slowly word for word. He watched her closely as she spoke, her eyes gazing candidly into his own. Then he heaved a deep sigh.

"Thank you, my dear! That will do. God bless you! And now to bed!"

He rose somewhat unsteadily, and she saw he was very weak.

"Don't you feel so well, David?" she asked, anxiously. "Would you like me to sit up with you?"

"No, no, my dear, no! All I want is a good sleep—a good long sleep. I'm only tired."

She saw him into his room, and, according to her usual custom, put a handbell on the small table which was at the side of his bed. Charlie, trotting at her heels, suddenly began to whimper. She stooped and picked the little creature up in her arms.

"Mind you ring if you want me," she said to Helmsley then,—"I'm just above you, and I can hear the least sound."

He looked at her earnestly. His eyes were almost young in their brightness.

"God bless you, Mary!" he said—"You've been a good angel to me! I never quite believed in Heaven, but looking at you I know there is such a place—the place where you were born!"

She smiled—but her eyes were soft with unshed tears.

"You think too well of me, David," she said. "I'm not an angel—I wish I were! I'm only a very poor, ordinary sort of woman."

"Are you?" he said, and smiled—"Well, think so, if it pleases you. Good-night—and again God bless you!"

He patted the tiny head of the small Charlie, whom she held nestling against her breast.

"Good-night, Charlie!"

The little dog licked his hand and looked at him wistfully.

"Don't part with him, Mary!" he said, suddenly—"Let him always have a home with you!"

"Now, David! You really are tired out and over-melancholy! As if I should ever part with him!" And she kissed Charlie's silky head—"We'll all keep together! Good-night, David!"

"Good-night!" he answered. He watched her as she

"Good-night!" he answered. He watched her as she went through the doorway, holding the dog in her arms and turning back to smile at him over her shoulder—anon he listened to her footfall ascending the stairway to her own room—then, to her gentle movements to and fro above his bed—till presently all was silent. Silence—except for the measured plash of the sea, which he heard distinctly echoing up through the coombe from the shore. A great loneliness environed him—touched by a great awe. He felt himself to be a solitary soul in the midst of some vast desert, yet not without the consciousness that a mystic joy, an undreamed-of glory, was drawing near that should make that desert "blossom like the rose." He moved slowly and feebly to the window—against one-half of the latticed pane leaned a bunch of white roses, shining with a soft pearl hue in the light of a lovely moon.

"It is a beautiful world!" he said, half aloud—"No one in his right mind could leave it without some regret!"

Then an inward voice seemed to whisper to him—

"You knew nothing of this world you call so beautiful before you entered it; may there not be another world still more beautiful of which you equally know nothing, but of which you are about to make an experience, all life being a process of continuous higher progress?"

And this idea now not only seemed to him possible but almost a certainty. For as our last Laureate expresses it:—

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly longed for death.
'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant,
Oh life, not death, for which we pant—
More life, and fuller, that I want!"

His brain was so active and his memory so clear that he was somewhat surprised to feel his body so feeble and aching, when at last he undressed, and lay down to sleep. He thought of many things—of his boyhood's home out in Virginia—of the stress and excitement of his business career—of his extraordinary successes, piled one on the top of the other—and then of the emptiness of it all!

"I should have been happier and wiser," he said, "if I had lived the life of a student in some quiet home among the hills—where I should have seen less of men and learned more of God. But it is too late now—too late!"[Pg 388]

And a curious sorrow and pity moved him for certain men he knew who were eating up the best time of their lives in a mad struggle for money, losing everything of real value in their scramble for what was, after all, so valueless,—sacrificing peace, honour, love, and a quiet mind, for what in the eternal countings is of no more consideration than the dust of the highroad. Not what a man has, but what he is,—this is the sole concern of Divine Equity. Earthly ideas of justice are in direct opposition to this law, but the finite can never overbalance the infinite. We may, if we so please, honour a king as king,—but with God there are no kings. There are only Souls, "made in His image." And whosoever defaces that Divine Image, whether he be base-born churl or crowned potentate, must answer for the wicked deed. How many of us view our social acquaintances from any higher standard than the extent of their cash accounts, or the "usefulness" of their influence? Yet the inexorable Law works silently on,—and day after day, century after century, shows us the vanity of riches, the fall of pride and power, the triumph of genius, the immutability of love! And we are still turning over the well-worn pages of the same old school-book which was set before Tyre and Sidon, Carthage and Babylon—the same, the very same, with one saving exception—that a Divine Teacher came to show us how to spell it and read it aright—and He was crucified! Doubtless were He to come again and once more try to help us, we should re-enact that old-time Jewish murder!

Lying quietly in his bed, Helmsley conversed with his inner self, as it were, reasoning with his own human perplexities and gradually unravelling them. After all, if his life had been, as he considered, only a lesson, was it not good for him that he had learned that lesson? A passing memory of Lucy Sorrel flitted across his brain—and he thought how singular it was that chance should have brought him into touch with the very man who would have given her that "rose of love" he desired she should wear, had she realised the value and beauty of that immortal flower. He, David Helmsley, had been apparently led by devious ways, not only to find an unselfish love for himself, but also to be the instrument of atoning to Angus Reay for his first love-disappointment, and uniting him to a woman whose exquisitely tender and faithful nature was bound to make the joy and sanctity of his life. In this, had not all things been ordered well? Did it not seem that, notwithstanding his, Helmsley's, self-admitted worthlessness, the Divine Power had used him for the happiness of others, to serve as a link of love between two deserving souls? He began to think that it was not by chance that he had been led to wander away from the centre of his business interests, and lose himself on the hills above Weircombe. Not accident, but a high design had been hidden in this incident—a design in which Self had been transformed to Selflessness, and loneliness to love. "I should like to believe in God—if I could!" This he had said to his friend Vesey, on the last night he had seen him. And now—did he believe? Yes!—for he had benefited by his first experience of what a truly God-like love may be—the love of a perfectly unselfish, tender, devout woman who, for no motive at all, but simply out of pure goodness and compassion for sorrow and suffering, had rescued one whom she judged to be in need of help. If therefore God could make one poor woman so divinely forbearing and gentle, it was certain that He, from whom all Love must emanate, was yet more merciful than the most merciful woman, as well as stronger than the strongest man. And he believed—believed implicitly;—lifted to the height of a perfect faith by the help of a perfect love. In the mirror of one sweet and simple human character he had seen the face of God—and he was of the same mind as the mighty musician who, when he was dying, cried out in rapture—"I believe I am only at the Beginning  [2] !"

He was conscious of a strange dual personality,—some spirit within him urgently expressed itself as being young, clamorous, inquisitive, eager, and impatient of restraint, while his natural bodily self was so weary and feeble that he felt as if he could scarcely move a hand. He listened for a little while to the ticking of the clock in the kitchen which was next to his room,—and by and by, being thoroughly drowsy, he sank into a heavy slumber. He did not know that Mary, anxious about him, had not gone to bed at all, but had resolved to sit up all night in case he should call her or want for anything. But the hours wore on peacefully for him till the moon began her downward course towards the west, and the tide having rolled in to its highest mark, began to ebb and flow out again. Then—all at once—he awoke—smitten by a shock of pain that seemed to crash

CHAPTER XXIII

Not often is the death of a man, who to all appearances was nothing more than a "tramp," attended by any demonstrations of sorrow. There are so many "poor" men! The roads are infested with them. It would seem, in fact, that they have no business to live at all, especially when they are old, and can do little or nothing to earn their bread. Such, generally and roughly speaking, is the opinion of the matter-of-fact world. Nevertheless, the death of "old David" created quite an atmosphere of mourning in Weircombe, though, had it been known that he was one of the world's famous millionaires, such kindly regret and compassion might have been lacking. As things were, he carried his triumph of love to the grave with him. Mary's grief for the loss of the gentle old man was deep and genuine, and Angus Reay shared it with her to the full.

"I shall miss him so much!" she sobbed, looking at the empty chair, which had been that of her own father. "He was always so kind and thoughtful for me—never wishing to give trouble!—poor dear old David!—and he did so hope to see us married, Angus!—you know it was through him that we knew each other!"

"I know!"—and Angus, profoundly moved, was not ashamed of the tears in his own eyes—"God bless him! He was a dear, good old fellow! But, Mary, you must not fret; he would not like to see your pretty eyes all red with weeping. This life was getting very difficult for him, remember,—he endured a good deal of pain. Bunce says he must have suffered acutely often without saying a word about it, lest you should be anxious. He is at rest now."

"Yes, he is at rest!"—and Mary struggled to repress her tears—"Come and see!"

Hand in hand they entered the little room where the dead man lay, covered with a snowy sheet, his waxen hands crossed peacefully outside it, and delicate clusters of white roses and myrtle laid here and there around him. His face was like a fine piece of sculptured marble in its still

CHAPTER XXIV

There was a moment's silence, broken only by the roar and din of the London city traffic outside, which sounded like the thunder of mighty wheels—the wheels of a rolling world. And then Sir Francis, gently taking Mary's hand in his own, raised her from the ground.

"My dear,"—he said, huskily—"You must not—you really must not give way! See,"—and he took up a sealed letter from among the documents on the desk, addressed "To Mary"—and handed it to her—"my late friend asks me in the last written words I have from him to give this to you. I will leave you alone to read it. You will be quite private in this room—and no one will enter till you ring. Here is the bell,"—and he indicated it—"I think—indeed I am sure, when you understand everything, you will accept the great responsibility which will now devolve upon you, in as noble a spirit as that in which you accepted the care of David Helmsley himself when you thought him no more than what in very truth he was—a lonely-hearted old man, searching for what few of us ever find—an unselfish love!"

He left her then—and like one in a dream, she opened and read the letter he had given her—a letter as beautiful and wise and tender as ever the fondest father could have written to the dearest of daughters. Everything was explained in it—everything made clear; and gradually she realised the natural, strong and pardonable craving of the rich, unloved man, to seek out for himself some means whereby he might leave all his world's gainings to one whose kindness to him had not been measured by any knowledge of his wealth, but which had been bestowed upon him solely for simple love's sake. Every line Helmsley had written to her in this last appeal to her tenderness, came from his very heart, and went to her own heart again, moving her to the utmost reverence, pity and affection. In his letter he enclosed a paper with a list of bequests which he left to her charge.

"I could not name them in my Will,"—he wrote—"as this would have disclosed my identity—but you, my dear, will be more exact than the law in the payment of what I have here set down as just. And, therefore, to you I leave this duty."

First among these legacies came one of Ten Thousand Pounds to "my old friend Sir Francis Vesey,"—and then followed a long list of legacies to servants, secretaries, and workpeople generally. The sum of Five Hundred Pounds was to be paid to Miss Tranter, hostess of "The Trusty Man,"—"for her kindness to me on the one night I passed under her hospitable roof,"—and sums of Two Hundred Pounds each were left to "Matthew Peke, Herb Gatherer," and Farmer Joltram, both these personages to be found through the aforesaid Miss Tranter. Likewise a sum of Two Hundred Pounds was to be paid to one "Meg Ross—believed to hold a farm near Watchett in Somerset." No one that had served the poor "tramp" was forgotten by the great millionaire;—a sum of Five Hundred Pounds was left to John Bunce, "with grateful and affectionate thanks for his constant care"—and a final charge to Mary was the placing of Fifty Thousand Pounds in trust for the benefit of Weircombe, its Church, and its aged poor. The money in bank notes, enclosed with the testator's last Will and Testament, was to be given to Mary for her own immediate use,—and then came the following earnest request;—"I desire that the sum of Half-a-crown, made up of coppers and one sixpence, which will be found with these effects, shall be enclosed in a casket of gold and inscribed with the words 'The "surprise gift" collected by "Tom o' the Gleam" for David Helmsley, when as a tramp on the road he seemed to be in need of the charity and sympathy of his fellow men and which to him was

MORE PRECIOUS THAN MANY MILLIONS.

And I request that the said casket containing these coins may be retained by Mary Deane as a valued possession in her family, to be handed down as a talisman and cornerstone of fortune for herself and her heirs in perpetuity."

Finally the list of bequests ended with one sufficiently unusual to be called eccentric. It ran thus:—"To Angus Reay I leave Mary Deane—and with Her, all that I value, and more than I have ever possessed!"

Gradually, very gradually, Mary, sitting alone in Sir Francis Vesey's office, realised the whole position,—gradually the trouble and excitation of her mind calmed down, and her naturally even temperament reasserted itself. She was rich,—but though she tried to realise the fact, she could not do so, till at last the thought of Angus and how she might be able now to help him on with his career, roused a sudden rush of energy within her—which, however, was not by any means actual happiness. A great weight seemed to have fallen on her life—and she was bowed down by its heaviness. Kissing David Helmsley's letter, she put it in her bosom,—he had asked that its contents might be held sacred, and that no eyes but her own should scan his last words, and to her that request of a dead man was more than the command of a living King. The list of bequests she held in her hand ready to show Sir Francis Vesey when he entered, which he did as soon as she touched the bell. He saw that, though very pale, she was now comparatively calm and collected, and as she raised her eyes and tried to smile at him, he realised what a beautiful woman she was.

"Please forgive me for troubling you so much,"—she said, gently—"I am very sorry! I understand it all now,—I have read David's letter,—I shall always call him David, I think!—and I quite see how it all happened. I can't help being sorry—very sorry, that he has left his money to me—because it will be so difficult to know how to dispose of it for the best. But surely a great deal of it will go in these legacies,"—and she handed him the paper she held—"You see he names you first."

Sir Francis stared at the document, fairly startled and overcome by his late friend's generosity, as well as by Mary's naïve candour.

"My dear Miss Deane,"—he began, with deep embarrassment.

"You will tell me how to do everything, will you not?" she interrupted him, with an air of pathetic entreaty—"I want to carry out all his wishes exactly as if he were beside me, watching me—I think—" and her voice sank a little—"he may be here—with us—even now!" She paused a moment. "And if he is, he knows that I do not want money for myself at all—but that if I can do good with it, for his sake and memory, I will. Is it a very great deal?"

"Is it a great deal of money, you mean?" he queried.

She nodded.

"I should say that at the very least my late friend's personal estate must be between six and seven millions of pounds sterling."

She clasped her hands in dismay.

"Oh! It is terrible!" she said, in a low strained voice—"Surely God never meant one man to have so much money!"

"It was fairly earned,"—said Sir Francis, quietly—"David Helmsley, to my own knowledge, never wronged or oppressed a single human being on his way to his own success. His money is clean! There's no brother's blood on the gold—and no 'sweated' labour at the back of it. That I can vouch for—that I can swear! No curse will rest on the fortune you inherit, Miss Deane—for it was made honestly!"

Tears stood in her eyes, and she wiped them away furtively.

"Poor David!" she murmured—"Poor lonely old man! With all that wealth and no one to care for him! Oh yes, the more I think of it the more I understand it! But now there is only one thing for me to do—I must get home as quickly as possible and tell Angus"—here she pointed to the last paragraph in Helmsley's list of bequests—"You see,"—she went on—"he leaves Mary Deane—that's me—to Angus Reay, 'and with Her all that I value.' I am engaged to be married to Mr. Reay—David wished very much to live till our wedding-day—"

She broke off, passing her hand across her brow and looking puzzled.

"Mr. Reay is very much to be congratulated!"—said Sir Francis, gently.

She smiled rather sadly.

"Oh, I'm not sure of that," she said—"He is a very clever man—he writes books, and he will be famous very soon—while I—" She paused again, then went on, looking very earnestly at Sir Francis—"May I—would you—write out something for me that I might sign before I go away to-day, to make it sure that if I die, all that I have—including this terrible, terrible fortune—shall come to Angus Reay? You see anything might happen to me—quite suddenly,—the very train I am going back in to-night might meet with some accident, and I might be killed—and then poor David's money would be lost, and his legacies never paid. Don't you see that?"

Sir Francis certainly saw it, but was not disposed to admit its possibility.

"There is really no necessity to anticipate evil," he began.

"There is perhaps no necessity—but I should like to be sure, quite sure, that in case of such evil all was right,"—she said, with great feeling—"And I know you could do it for me——"

"Why, of course, if you insist upon it, I can draw you up a form of Will in ten minutes,"—he said, smiling benevolently—"Would that satisfy you? You have only to sign it, and the thing is done."

It was wonderful to see how she rejoiced at this proposition,—the eager delight with which she contemplated the immediate disposal of the wealth she had not as yet touched, to the man she loved best in the world—and the swift change in her manner from depression to joy, when Sir Francis, just to put her mind at ease, drafted a concise form of Will for her in his own handwriting, in which form she, with the same precision as that of David Helmsley, left "everything of which she died possessed, absolutely and unconditionally," to her promised husband. With a smile on her face and sparkling eyes, she signed this document in the presence of two witnesses, clerks of the office called up for the purpose, who, if it had been their business to express astonishment, would undoubtedly have expressed it then.

"You will keep it here for me, won't you?" she said, when the clerks had retired and the business was concluded—"And I shall feel so much more at rest now! For when I have talked it over with Angus I shall realise everything more clearly—he will advise me what to do—he is so much wiser than I am! And you will write to me and tell me all that is needful for me to know—shall I leave this paper?"—and she held up the document in which the list of Helmsley's various legacies was written—"Surely you ought to keep it?"

Sir Francis smiled gravely.

"I think not!" he said—"I think I must urge you to retain that paper on which my name is so generously remembered, in your own possession, Miss Deane. You understand, I suppose, that you are not by the lawcompelled to pay any of these legacies. They are left entirely to your own discretion. They merely represent the last purely personal wishes of my late friend, David Helmsley, and you must yourself decide whether you consider it practical to carry them out."

She looked surprised.

"But the personal wishes of the dead are more than any law" she exclaimed—"They are sacred. How could I"—and moved by a sudden impulse she laid her hand appealingly on his arm—"How could I neglect or fail to fulfil any one of them? It would be impossible!

Responding to her earnest look and womanly gentleness, Sir Francis who had not forgotten the old courtesies once practised by gentlemen to women whom they honoured, raised the hand that rested so lightly on his arm, and kissed it.

"I know" he said—"that it would be impossible for you to do what is not right and true and just! And you will need no advice from me save such as is purely legal and technical. Let me be your friend in these matters——"

"And in others too,"—said Mary, sweetly—"I do hope you will not dislike me!"

Dislike her? Well, well! If any mortal man, old or young, could "dislike" a woman with a face like hers and eyes so tender, such an one would have to be a criminal or a madman! In a little while they fell into conversation as naturally as if they had known each other for years: Sir Francis listening with profound interest to the story of his old friend's last days. And presently, despatching a telegram to his wife to say that he was detained in the city by pressing business, he took Mary out with him to a quiet little restaurant where he dined with her, and finally saw her off from Paddington station by the midnight train for Minehead. Nothing would induce her to stay in London,—her one aim and object in life now was to return to Weircombe and explain everything to Angus as quickly as possible. And when the train had gone, Sir Francis left the platform in a state of profound abstraction, and was driven home in his brougham feeling more like a sentimentalist than a lawyer.

"Extraordinary!" he ejaculated—"The most extraordinary thing I ever heard of in my life? But I knew—I felt that Helmsley would dispose of his wealth in quite an unexpected way! Now I wonder how the man—Mary Deane's lover—will take it? I wonder! But what a woman she is!—how beautiful!—how simple and honest—above all how purely womanly!—with all the sweet grace and gentleness which alone commands, and ever will command man's adoration! Helmsley must have been very much at peace and happy in his last days! Yes!—the sorrowful 'king' of many millions must have at last found the treasure he sought and which he considered more precious than all his money! For Solomon was right: 'If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would be utterly contemned!'"

At Weircombe next day there was a stiff gale of wind blowing inland, and the village, with its garlands and pyramids of summer blossom, was swept from end to end by warm, swift, salty gusts, that bent the trees and shook the flowers in half savage, half tender sportiveness, while the sea, shaping itself by degrees into "wild horses" of blue water bridled with foam, raced into the shore with ever-increasing hurry and fury. But notwithstanding the strong wind, there was a bright sun, and a dazzling blue sky, scattered over with flying masses of cloud, like flocks of white birds soaring swiftly to some far-off region of rest. Everything in nature looked radiant and beautiful,—health and joy were exhaled from every breath of air—and yet in one place—one pretty rose-embowered cottage, where, until now, the spirit of content had held its happy habitation, a sudden gloom had fallen, and a dark cloud had blotted out all the sunshine. Mary's little "home sweet home" had been all at once deprived of sweetness,—and she sat within it like a mournful castaway, clinging to the wreck of that which had so long been her peace and safety. Tired out by her long night journey and lack of sleep, she looked very white and weary and ill—and Angus Reay, sitting opposite to her, looked scarcely less worn and weary than herself. He had met her on her return from London at the Minehead station, with all the ardour and eagerness of a lover and a boy,—and he had at once seen in her face that something unexpected had happened,—something that had deeply affected her—though she had told him nothing, till on their arrival home at the cottage, she was able to be quite alone with him. Then he learned all. Then he knew that "old David" had been no other than David Helmsley the millionaire,—the very man whom his first love, Lucy Sorrel, had schemed and hoped to marry. And he realised—and God alone knew with what a passion of despair he realised it!—that Mary—his bonnie Mary—his betrothed wife—had been chosen to inherit those very millions which had formerly stood between him and what he had then imagined to be his happiness. And listening to the strange story, he had sunk deeper and deeper into the Slough of Despond, and now sat rigidly silent, with all the light gone out of his features, and all the ardour quenched in his eyes. Mary looking at him, and reading every expression in that dark beloved face, felt the tears rising thickly in her throat, but bravely suppressed them, and tried to smile.

"I knew you would be sorry when you heard all about it, Angus,"—she said—"I felt sure you would! I wish it had happened differently—" Here she stopped, and taking up the little dog Charlie, settled him on her knee. He was whimpering to be caressed, and she bent over his small silky head to hide the burning drops that fell from her eyes despite herself. "If it could only be altered!—but it can't—and the only thing to do is to give the money away to those who need it as quickly as possible——"

"Give it away!" answered Angus, bitterly—"Good God! Why, to give away seven or eight millions of money in the right quarters would occupy one man's lifetime!"

His voice was harsh, and his hand clenched itself involuntarily as he spoke. She looked at him in a vague fear.

"No, Mary,"—he said—"You can't give it away—not as you imagine. Besides,—there is more than money—there is the millionaire's house—his priceless pictures, his books—his yacht—a thousand and one other things that he possessed, and which now belong to you. Oh Mary! I wish to God I had never seen him!"

She trembled.

"Then perhaps—you and I would never have met," she murmured.

"Better so!" and rising, he paced restlessly up and down the little kitchen—"Better that I should never have loved you, Mary, than be so parted from you! By money, too! The last thing that should ever have come between us! Money! Curse it! It has ruined my life!"

She lifted her tear-wet eyes to his.

"What do you mean, Angus?" she asked, gently—"Why do you talk of parting? The money makes no difference to our love!"

"No difference? No difference? Oh Mary, don't you see!" and he turned upon her a face white and drawn with his inward anguish—"Do you think—can you imagine that I would marry a woman with millions of money—I—a poor devil, with nothing in the world to call my own, and no means of livelihood save in my brain, which, after all, may turn out to be quite of a worthless quality! Do you think I would live on your bounty? Do you think I would accept money from you? Surely you know me better! Mary, I love you! I love you with my whole heart and soul!—but I love you as the poor working woman whose work I hoped to make easier, whose life it was my soul's purpose to make happy—but,—you have everything you want in the world now!—and I—I am no use to you! I can do nothing for you—nothing!—you are David Helmsley's heiress, and with such wealth as he has left you, you might marry a prince of the royal blood if you cared—for princes are to be bought,—like anything else in the world's market! But you are not of the world—you never were—and now—now—the world will take you! The world leaves nothing alone that has any gold upon it!"

She listened quietly to his passionate outburst. She was deadly pale, and she pressed Charlie close against her bosom,—the little dog, she thought half vaguely, would love her just as well whether she was rich or poor.

"How can the world take me, Angus?" she said—"Am I not yours?—all yours!—and what has the world to do with me? Do not speak in such a strange way—you hurt me——"

"I know I hurt you!" he said, stopping in his restless walk and facing her—"And I know I should always hurt you—now! If David Helmsley had never crossed our path, how happy we might have been——"

She raised her hand reproachfully.

"Do not blame the poor old man, even in a thought, Angus!" she said—"His dream—his last hope was that we two might be happy! He brought us together,—and I am sure, quite sure, that he hoped we would do good in the world with the money he has left us——"

"Us!" interrupted Angus, meaningly.

"Yes,—surely us! For am I not to be one with you? Oh Angus, be patient, be gentle! Think kindly of him who meant so much kindness to those whom he loved in his last days!" She smothered a rising sob, and went on entreatingly—"He has forgotten no one who was friendly to him—and—and—Angus—remember!—remember in that paper I have shown to you—that list of bequests, which he has entrusted me to pay, he has left me to you, Angus!—me—with all I possess——"

She broke off, startled by the sorrow in his eyes.

"It is a legacy I cannot accept!" he said, hoarsely, his voice trembling with suppressed emotion—"I cannot take it—even though you, the most precious part of it, are the dearest thing to me in the world! I cannot! This horrible money has parted us, Mary! More than that, it has robbed me of my energy for work—I cannot work without you—and I must give you up! Even if I could curb my pride and sink my independence, and take money which I have not earned, I should never be great as a writer—never be famous. For the need of patience and grit would be gone—I should have nothing to work for—no object in view—no goal to attain. Don't you see how it is with me? And so—as things have turned out—I must leave Weircombe at once—I must fight this business through by myself——"

"Angus!" and putting Charlie gently down, she rose from her chair and came towards him, trembling—"Do you mean—do you really mean that all is over between us?—that you will not marry me?"

He looked at her straightly.

"I cannot!" he said—"Not if I am true to myself as a man!"

"You cannot be true to me, as a woman?"

He caught her in his arms and held her there.

"Yes—I can be so true to you, Mary, that as long as I live I shall love you! No other woman shall ever rest on my heart—here—thus—as you are resting now! I will never kiss another woman's lips as I kiss yours now!" And he kissed her again and again—"But, at the same time, I will never live upon your wealth like a beggar on the bounty of a queen! I will never accept a penny at your hands! I will go away and work—and if possible, will make the fame I have dreamed of—but I will never marry you, Mary—never! That can never be!" He clasped her more closely and tenderly in his arms—"Don't—don't cry, dear! You are tired with your long journey—and—and—with all the excitement and trouble. Lie down and rest awhile—and—don't—don't worry about me! You deserve your fortune—you will be happy with it by and by, when you find out how much it can do for you, and what pleasures you can have with it—and life will be very bright for you—I'm sure it will! Mary—don't cling to me, darling!—it—it unmans me!—and I must be strong—strong for your sake and my own"—here he gently detached her arms from about his neck—"Good-bye, dear!—you must—you must let me go!—God bless you!"

As in a dream she felt him put her away from his embrace—the cottage door opened and closed—he was gone.

Vaguely she looked about her. There was a great sickness at her heart—her eyes ached, and her brain was giddy. She was tired,—very tired—and hardly knowing what she did, she crept like a beaten and wounded animal into the room which had formerly been her own, but which she had so long cheerfully resigned for Helmsley's occupation and better comfort,—and there she threw herself upon the bed where he had died, and lay for a long time in a kind of waking stupor.

"Oh, dear God, help me!" she prayed—"Help me to bear it! It is so hard—so hard!—to have won the greatest joy that life can give—and then—to lose it all!"

She closed her eyes,—they were hot and burning, and now no tears relieved the pressure on her brain. By and by she fell into a heavy slumber. As the afternoon wore slowly away, Mrs. Twitt, on neighbourly thoughts intent, came up to the cottage, eager to hear all the news concerning "old David"—but she found the kitchen deserted; and peeping into the bedroom adjoining, saw Mary lying there fast asleep, with Charlie curled up beside her.

"She's just dead beat and tired out for sure!" and Mrs. Twitt stole softly away again on tip-toe. "'Twould be real cruel to wake her. I'll put a bit on the kitchen fire to keep it going, and take myself off. There's plenty of time to hear all the news to-morrow."

So, being left undisturbed, Mary slept on and on—and when she at last awoke it was quite dark. Dark save for the glimmer of the moon which shone with a white vividness through the lattice window—shedding on the room something of the same ghostly light as on the night when Helmsley died. She sat up, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples,—for a moment she hardly knew where she was. Then, with a sudden rush of recollection, she realised her surroundings—and smiled. She was one of the richest women in the world!—and—without Angus—one of the poorest!

"But he does not need me so much as I need him!" she said aloud—"A man has so many thing to live for; but a woman has only one—love!"

She rose from the bed, trembling a little. She thought she saw "old David" standing near the door,—how pale and cold he seemed!—what a sorrow there was in his eyes! She stretched out her arms to the fancied phantom.

"Don't,—don't be unhappy, David dear!" she said—"You meant all for the best—I know—I know! But even you, old as you were, tried to find some one to care for you—and you see—surely in Heaven you see how hard it is for me to have found that some one, and then to lose him! But you must not grieve!—it will be all right!"

Mechanically she smoothed her tumbled hair—and taking up Charlie from the bed where he was anxiously watching her, she went into the kitchen. A small fire was burning low—and she lit the lamp and set it on the table. A gust of wind rushed round the house, shaking the door and the window, then swept away again with a plaintive cry,—and pausing to listen, she heard the low, thunderous boom of the sea. Moving about almost automatically, she prepared Charlie's supper and gave it to him, and slipping a length of ribbon through his collar, tied him securely to a chair. The little animal was intelligent enough to consider this an unusual proceeding on her part—and as a consequence of the impression it made upon his canine mind, refused to take his food. She saw this—but made no attempt to coax or persuade him. Opening a drawer in her oaken press, she took out pen, ink, and paper, and sitting down at the table wrote a letter. It was not a long letter—for it was finished, put in an envelope and sealed in less than ten minutes. Addressing it "To Angus"—she left it close under the lamp where the light might fall upon it. Then she looked around her. Everything was very quiet. Charlie alone was restless—and sat on his tiny haunches, trembling nervously, refusing to eat, and watching her every movement. She stooped suddenly and kissed him—then without hat or cloak, went out, closing the cottage door behind her.

What a night it was! What a scene of wild sky splendour! Overhead the moon, now at the full, raced through clouds of pearl-grey, lightening to milky whiteness, and the wind played among the trees as though with giant hands, bending them to and fro like reeds, and rustling through the foliage with a swishing sound like that of falling water. The ripple of the hill-torrent was almost inaudible, overwhelmed as it was by the roar of the gale and the low thunder of the sea—and Mary, going swiftly up the "coombe" to the churchyard, was caught by the blast like a leaf, and blown to and fro, till all her hair came tumbling about her face and almost blinded her eyes. But she scarcely heeded this. She was not conscious of the weather—she knew nothing of the hour. She saw the moon—the white, cold moon, staring at her now and then between pinnacles of cloud—and whenever it gleamed whitely upon her path, she thought of David Helmsley's dead face—its still smile—its peacefully closed eyelids. And with that face ever before her, she went to his grave. A humble grave—with the clods of earth still fresh and brown upon it—the chosen grave of "one of the richest men in the world!" She repeated this phrase over and over again to herself, not knowing why she did so. Then she knelt down and tried to pray, but could find no words—save "O God, bless my dear love, and make him happy!" It was foolish to say this so often,—God would be tired of it, she thought dreamily—but—after all—there was nothing else to pray for! She rose, and stood a moment—thinking—then she said aloud—"Good-night, David! Dear old David, you meant to make me so happy! Good-night! Sleep well!"

Something frightened her at this moment,—a sound—or a shadow on the grass—and she uttered a cry of terror. Then, turning, she rushed out of the churchyard, and away—away up the hills, towards the rocks that over-hung the sea.

Meanwhile, Angus Reay, feverish and miserable, had been shut up in his one humble little room for hours, wrestling with himself and trying to work out the way in which he could best master and overcome what he chose to consider the complete wreck of his life at what had promised to be its highest point of happiness. He could not shake himself free of the clinging touch of Mary's arms—her lovely, haunting blue eyes looked at him piteously out of the very air. Never had she been to him so dear—so unutterably beloved!—never had she seemed so beautiful as now when he felt that he must resign all claims of love upon her.

"For she will be sought after by many a better man than myself,"—he said—"Even rich men, who do not need her millions, are likely to admire her—and why should I stand in her way?—I, who haven't a penny to call my own! I should be a coward if I kept her to her promise. For she does not know yet—she does not see what the possession of Helmsley's millions will mean to her. And by and bye when she does know she will change—she will be grateful to me for setting her free——"

He paused, and the hot tears sprang to his eyes—"No—I am wrong! Nothing will change Mary! She will always be her sweet self—pure and faithful!—and she will do all the good with Helmsley's money that he believed and hoped she would. But I—I must leave her to it!"

Then the thought came to him that he had perhaps been rough in speech to her that day—abrupt in parting from her—even unkind in overwhelming her with the force of his abnegation, when she was so tired with her journey—so worn out—so weary looking. Acting on a sudden impulse, he threw on his cap.

"I will go and say good-night to her,"—he said—"For the last time!"

He strode swiftly up the village street and saw through the cottage window that the lamp was lighted on the table. He knocked at the door, but there was no answer save a tiny querulous bark from Charlie. He tried the latch; it was unfastened, and he entered. The first object he saw was Charlie, tied to a chair, with a small saucer of untasted food beside him. The little dog capered to the length of his ribbon, and mutely expressed the absence of his kind mistress, while Angus, bewildered, looked round the deserted dwelling in amazement. All at once his eyes caught sight of the letter addressed to him, and he tore it open. It was very brief, and ran thus—

"MY DEAREST,

"When you read this, I shall be gone from you. I am sorry, oh, so sorry, about the money—but it is not my fault that I did not know who old David was. I hope now that everything will be right, when I am out of the way. I did not tell you—but before I left London I asked the kind gentleman, Sir Francis Vesey, to let me make a will in case any accident happened to me on my way home. He arranged it all for me very quickly—so that everything I possess, including all the dreadful fortune that has parted you from me,—now belongs to you. And you will be a great and famous man; and I am sure you will get on much better without me than with me—for I am not clever, and I should not understand how to live in the world as the world likes to live. God bless you, darling! Thank you for loving me, who am so unworthy of your love! Be happy! David and I will perhaps be able to watch you from 'the other side,' and we shall be proud of all you do. For you will spend those terrible millions in good deeds that must benefit all the world, I am sure. That is what I hoped we might perhaps have done together—but I see quite plainly now that it is best you should be without me. My love, whom I love so much more than I have ever dared to, say!—Good-bye!

MARY"

With a cry like that of a man in physical torture or despair, Angus rushed out of the house.

"Mary! Mary!" he cried to the tumbling stream and the moonlit sky. "Mary!"

He paused. Just then the clock in the little church tower struck ten. The village was asleep—and there was no sound of human life anywhere. The faint, subtle scent of sweetbriar stole on the air as he stood in a trance of desperate uncertainty—and as the delicate odour floated by, a rush of tears came to his eyes.

"Mary!" he called again—"Mary!"

Then all at once a fearful idea entered his brain that filled him as it were with a mad panic. Rushing up the coombe, he sprang across the torrent, and raced over the adjoining hill, as though racing for life. Soon in front of him towered the "Giant's Castle" Rock, and he ran up its steep ascent with an almost crazy speed. At the summit he halted abruptly, looking keenly from side to side. Was there any one there? No. There seemed to be no one. Chilled with a nameless horror, he stood watching—watching and listening to the crashing noise of the great billows as they broke against the rocks below. He raised his eyes to the heavens, and saw—almost unseeingly—a white cloud break asunder and show a dark blue space between,—just an azure setting for one brilliant star that shone out with a sudden flash like a signal. And then—then he caught sight of a dark crouching figure in the corner of the rocky platform over-hanging the sea,—a dear, familiar figure that even while he looked, rose up and advanced to the extreme edge with outstretched arms,—its lovely hair loosely flowing and flecked with glints of gold by the light of the moon. Nearer, nearer to the very edge of the dizzy height it moved—and Angus, breathless with terror, and fearing to utter a sound lest out of sudden alarm it should leap from its footing and be lost for ever, crept closer and ever closer. Closer still,—and he heard Mary's sweet voice murmuring plaintively—

"I wish I did not love him so dearly! I wish the world were not so beautiful! I wish I could stay—but I must go—I must go!—"Here there was a little sobbing cry—"You are so deep and cruel, you sea!—you have drowned so many brave men! You will not be long in drowning poor me, will you?—I don't want to struggle with you! Cover me up quickly—and let me forget—oh, no, no! Dear God, don't let me forget Angus!—I want to remember him always—always!"

She swayed towards the brink—one second more—and then, with a swift strong clasp and passionate cry Angus had caught her in her arms.

"Mary! Mary, my love! My wife! Anything but that, Mary! Anything but that!"

Heart to heart they stood, their arms entwined, clasping each other in a wild passion of tenderness,—Angus trembling in all his strong frame with the excitement and horror of the past moment, and Mary sobbing out all her weakness, weariness and gladness on his breast. Above their heads the bright star shone, pendant between the snowy wings of the dividing cloud, and the sound of the sea was as a sacred psalm of jubilation in their ears.

"Thank God I came in time! Thank God I have you safe!" and Angus drew her closer and yet closer into his fervent embrace—"Oh Mary, my darling!—sweetest of women! How could you think of leaving me? What should I have done without you! Poverty or riches—either or neither—I care not which! But I cannot lose you, Mary! I cannot let my heavenly treasure go! Nothing else matters in all the world—I only want love—and you!"

THE END

ENDNOTES

Endnote 1: A fact.

Endnote 2: Beethoven.