The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Treasure of Heaven, by Marie Corelli.

CHAPTER I	1
CHAPTER II	17
CHAPTER III	29
CHAPTER IV	49
CHAPTER V	55
CHAPTER VI	71
CHAPTER VII	89
CHAPTER VIII	109
CHAPTER IX	123
CHAPTER X	142
CHAPTER XI	157
CHAPTER XII	182
CHAPTER XIII	196
CHAPTER XIV	217
CHAPTER XV	240
CHAPTER XVI	258
CHAPTER XVII	281
CHAPTER XVIII	297
CHAPTER XIX	315
CHAPTER XX	337
CHAPTER XXI	362
CHAPTER XXII	381
CHAPTER XXIII	393
CHAPTER XXIV	411

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.

The Treasure Of Heaven

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[Pg 2] 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[Pg 3] 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[Pg 4] some festive function in a house not far away, shivered delicately through the mist like a sigh of pleasure. The melancholy tree-tops trembled,—a single star struggled above the sultry vapours and shone out large and bright as though it were a great signal lamp suddenly lit in heaven. The elder of the two men seated on the balcony raised his eyes and saw it shining. He moved uneasily,—then lifting himself a little in his chair, he spoke as though taking up a dropped thread of conversation, with the intention of deliberately continuing it to the end. His voice was gentle and mellow, with a touch of that singular pathos in its tone which is customary to the Celtic rather than to the Saxon vocal cords.

"I have given you my full confidence," he said, "and I have put before you the exact sum total of the matter as I see it. You think me irrational,—absurd. Good. Then I am content to be irrational and absurd. In any case you can scarcely deny that what I have stated is a simple fact,—a truth which cannot be denied?"

"It is a truth, certainly," replied his companion, pulling himself upright in his chair with a certain vexed vehemence of action and flinging away his half-smoked cigar, "but it is one of those unpleasant truths which need not be looked at too closely or too often remembered. We must all get old—unfortunately,—and we must all die, which in my opinion is more unfortunate still. But we need not anticipate such a disagreeable business before its time."

"Yet you are always drawing up Last Wills and Testaments," observed the other, with a touch of humour in his tone.

"Oh well! That, of course, has to be done. The youngest persons should make their wills if they have anything to leave, or else run the risk of having all their household goods and other belongings fought for with tooth and claw by their 'dearest' relations. Dearest relations are, according to my experience, very much like wild cats: give them the faintest hope of a legacy, and they scratch and squawl as though it were raw meat for which they have been starving. In all my long career as a solicitor I never knew one 'dearest relation' who honestly regretted the dead."

"There you meet me on the very ground of our previous discussions," said the elder man. "It is not the consciousness of old age that troubles me, or the inevitable approach[Pg 5] of that end which is common to all,—it is merely the outlook into the void,—the teasing wonder as to who may step into my place when I am gone, and what will be done with the results of my life's labour."

He rose as he spoke, and moved towards the balcony's edge, resting one hand upon its smooth stone. The change of attitude allowed the light from the interior room to play more fully on his features, and showed him to be well advanced in age, with a worn, yet strong face and deep-set eyes, over which the shelving brows stooped benevolently as though to guard the sinking vital fire in the wells of vision below. The mouth was concealed by an ashen-grey moustache, while on the forehead and at the sides of the temples the hair was perfectly white, though still abundant. A certain military precision of manner was attached to the whole bearing of the man,—his thin figure was well-built and upright, showing no tendency to feebleness,—his shoulders were set square, and his head was poised in a manner that might have been called uncompromising, if not obstinate. Even the hand that rested on the balcony, attenuated and deeply wrinkled as it was, suggested strength in its shape and character, and a passing thought of this flitted across the mind of his companion who, after a pause, said slowly:—

"I really see no reason why you should brood on such things. What's the use? Your health is excellent for your time of life. Your end is not imminent. You are voluntarily undergoing a system of self-torture which is quite unnecessary. We've known each other for years, yet I hardly recognise you in your present humour. I thought you were perfectly happy. Surely you ought to be,—you, David Helmsley,—'King' David, as you are sometimes called—one of the richest men in the world!"

"Neither kings nor rich men hold special grants of happiness," he answered, quietly: "Your own experience of humanity must have taught you that. Personally speaking, I have never been happy since my boyhood. This surprises you? I daresay it does. But, my dear Vesey, old friend as you are, it sometimes happens that our closest intimates know us least! And even the famous firm of Vesey and Symonds, or Symonds and Vesey,—for your partner is one with you and you are one with your partner,—may, in spite of all their legal wisdom, fail to pierce the thick disguises[Pg 6] worn by the souls of their clients. The Man in the Iron Mask is a familiar figure in the office of his confidential solicitor. I repeat, I have never been happy since my boyhood——"

"Your happiness then was a mere matter of youth and animal spirits," interposed Vesey.

"I thought you would say that!"—and again a faint smile illumined Helmsley's features. "It is just what every one would say. Yet the young are often much more miserable than the old; and while I grant that youth may have had something to do with my past joy in life, it was not all. No, it certainly was not all. It was simply that I had then what I have never had since."

He broke off abruptly. Then stepping back to his chair he resumed his former reclining position, leaning his head against the cushions and fixing his eyes on the solitary bright star that shone above the mist and the trembling trees.

"May I talk out to you?" he inquired suddenly, with a touch of whimsicality. "Or are you resolved to preach copybook moralities at me, such as 'Be good and you will be happy?'"

Vesey, more ceremoniously known as Sir Francis Vesey, one of the most renowned of London's great leading solicitors, looked at him and laughed.

"Talk out, my dear fellow, by all means!" he replied. "Especially if it will do you any good. But don't ask me to sympathise very deeply with the imaginary sorrows of so enormously wealthy a man as you are!"

"I don't expect any sympathy," said Helmsley. "Sympathy is the one thing I have never sought, because I know it is not to be obtained, even from one's nearest and dearest. Sympathy! Why, no man in the world ever really gets it, even from his wife. And no man possessing a spark of manliness ever wants it, except—sometimes——"

"Except sometimes,—when the power of resistance is weakened—when the consciousness is strongly borne in upon us of the unanswerable wisdom of Solomon, who wrote—'I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun, because I should leave it to the man that should be after me. And who knows whether he shall be a wise man or a fool?'"[Pg 7]

Sir Francis Vesey, dimly regretting the half-smoked cigar he had thrown away in a moment of impatience, took out a fresh one from his pocket-case and lit it.

"Solomon has expressed every disagreeable situation in life with remarkable accuracy," he murmured placidly, as he began to puff rings of pale smoke into the surrounding yellow haze, "but he was a bit of a misanthrope."

"When I was a boy," pursued Helmsley, not heeding his legal friend's comment, "I was happy chiefly because I believed. I never doubted any stated truth that seemed beautiful enough to be true. I had perfect confidence in the goodness of God and the ultimate happiness designed by Him for every living creature. Away out in Virginia where I was born, before the Southern States were subjected to Yankeedom, it was a glorious thing merely to be alive. The clear, pure air, fresh with the strong odour of pine and cedar,—the big plantations of cotton and corn,—the colours of the autumn woods when the maple trees turned scarlet, and the tall sumachs blazed like great fires on the sides of the mountains,—the exhilarating climate—the sweetness of the south-west wind,—all these influences of nature appealed to my soul and kindled a strange restlessness in it which has never been appeased. Never!—though I have lived my life almost to its end, and have done all those things which most men do who seek to get the utmost satisfaction they can out of existence. But I am not satisfied; I have never been satisfied."

"And you never will be," declared Sir Francis firmly. "There are some people to whom Heaven itself would prove disappointing."

"Well, if Heaven is the kind of place depicted by the clergy, the poorest beggar might resent its offered attractions," said Helmsley, with a slight, contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. "After a life of continuous pain and struggle, the pleasures of singing for ever and ever to one's own harp accompaniment are scarcely sufficient compensation."

"It's all symbolical," he murmured, puffing away at his cigar, "and really very well meant! Positively now, the clergy are capital fellows! They do their best,—they keep it up. Give them credit for that at least, Helmsley,—they do keep it up!"

"We are rather wandering from the point," he said at last. "What I know of the clergy generally has not taught me to rely upon them for any advice in a difficulty, or any help out of trouble. Once—in a moment of weakness and irresolution—I asked a celebrated preacher what suggestion he could make to a rich man, who, having no heirs, sought a means of disposing of his wealth to the best advantage for others after his death. His reply——"

"Was the usual thing, of course," interposed Sir Francis blandly. "He said, 'Let the rich man leave it all to me, and God will bless him abundantly!'"

"Well, yes, it came to that,"—and Helmsley gave a short impatient sigh. "He evidently guessed that the rich man implied was myself, for ever since I asked him the question, he has kept me regularly supplied with books and pamphlets relating to his Church and various missions. I daresay he's a very good fellow. But I've no fancy to assist him. He works on sectarian lines, and I am of no sect. Though I confess I should like to believe in God—- if I could."

Sir Francis, fanning a tiny wreath of cigar smoke away with one hand, looked at him curiously, but offered no remark.

"You said I might talk out to you," continued Helmsley—"and it is perhaps necessary that I should do so, since you have lately so persistently urged upon me the importance of making my will. You are perfectly right, of course, and I alone am to blame for the apparently stupid hesitation I show in following your advice. But, as I have already told you, I have no one in the world who has the least claim upon me,—no one to whom I can bequeath, to my own satisfaction, the wealth I have earned. I married,—as you know,—and my marriage was unhappy. It ended,—and you are aware of all the facts—in the proved infidelity of my wife, followed by our separation (effected quietly, thanks to you, without the vulgar publicity of the divorce court), and then—in her premature death. Notwithstanding all this, I did my best for my two sons,—you are a witness to this truth,—and you remember that during their lifetime I did make my will,—in their favour. They turned out badly; each one ran his own career of folly, vice, and riotous dissipation, and both are dead. Thus it happens that here I am,—alone at the age of seventy, without any soul to care for me, or any creature to whom I can trust my business,[Pg 9] or leave my fortune. It is not my fault that it is so; it is sheer destiny. How, I ask you, can I make any 'Last Will and Testament' under such conditions?"

"If you make no will at all, your property goes to the Crown," said Vesey bluntly.

"Naturally. I know that. But one might have a worse heir than the Crown! The Crown may be trusted to take proper care of money, and this is more than can often be said of one's sons and daughters. I tell you it is all as Solomon said—'vanity and vexation of spirit.' The amassing of great wealth is not worth the time and trouble involved in the task. One could do so much better——"

"How?" asked Vesey, with a half-smile. "What else is there to be done in this world except to get rich in order to live comfortably?"

"I know people who are not rich at all, and who never will be rich, yet who live more comfortably than I have ever done," replied Helmsley—"that is, if to 'live comfortably' implies to live peacefully, happily, and contentedly, taking each day as it comes with gladness as a real 'living' time. And by this, I mean 'living,' not with the rush and scramble, fret and jar inseparable from money-making, but living just for the joy of life. Especially when it is possible to believe that a God exists, who designed life, and even death, for the ultimate good of every creature. This is what I believed—once—'out in ole Virginny, a long time ago!'"

He hummed the last words softly under his breath,—then swept one hand across his eyes with a movement of impatience.

"Old men's brains grow addled," he continued. "They become clouded with a fog through which only the memories of the past and the days of their youth shine clear. Sometimes I talk of Virginia as if I were home-sick and wanted to go back to it,—yet I never do. I wouldn't go back to it for the world,—not now. I'm not an American, so I can say, without any loss of the patriotic sense, that I loathe America. It is a country to be used for the making of wealth, but it is not a country to be loved. It might have been the most lovable Father-and-Mother-Land on the globe if nobler men had lived long enough in it to rescue its people from the degrading Dollar-craze. But now, well!—those who make fortunes there leave it as soon as they can, shaking[Pg 10] its dust off their feet and striving to forget that they ever experienced its incalculable greed, vice, cunning, and general rascality. There are plenty of decent folk in America, of course, just as there are decent folk everywhere, but they are in the minority. Even in the Southern States the 'old stock' of men is decaying and dying-out, and the taint of commercial vulgarity is creeping over the former simplicity of the Virginian homestead. No,—I would not go back to the scene of my boyhood, for though I had something there once which I have since lost, I am not such a fool as to think I should ever find it again."

Here he looked round at his listener with a smile so sudden and sweet as to render his sunken features almost youthful.

"Not the least in the world,—you never bore me," replied Sir Francis, with alacrity. "You are always interesting, even in your most illogical humour."

"In a way, yes. For instance, you abuse America. Why? Your misguided wife was American, certainly, but setting that unfortunate fact aside, you made your money in the States. Commercial vulgarity helped you along. Therefore be just to commercial vulgarity."

"I hope I am just to it,—I think I am," answered Helmsley slowly; "but I never was one with it. I never expected to wring a dollar out of ten cents, and never tried. I can at least say that I have made my money honestly, and have trampled no man down on the road to fortune. But then—I am not a citizen of the 'Great Republic.'"

"By accident," replied Helmsley, with a laugh, "and kindly fate favoured me by allowing me to see my first daylight in the South rather than in the North. But I was never naturalised as an American. My father and mother were both English,—they both came from the same little sea-coast village in Cornwall. They married very young,—theirs was a romantic love-match, and they left England in the hope of bettering their fortunes. They settled in Virginia and grew to love it. My father became accountant to a large business firm out there, and did fairly well, though he never was a rich man in the present-day meaning of the term. He had only two children,—myself and my sister,[Pg 11] who died at sixteen. I was barely twenty when I lost both father and mother and started alone to face the world."

"You have faced it very successfully," said Vesey; "and if you would only look at things in the right and reasonable way, you have really very little to complain of. Your marriage was certainly an unlucky one——"

"Do not speak of it!" interrupted Helmsley, hastily. "It is past and done with. Wife and children are swept out of my life as though they had never been! It is a curious thing, perhaps, but with me a betrayed affection does not remain in my memory as affection at all, but only as a spurious image of the real virtue, not worth considering or regretting. Standing as I do now, on the threshold of the grave, I look back,—and in looking back I see none of those who wronged and deceived me,—they have disappeared altogether, and their very faces and forms are blotted out of my remembrance. So much so, indeed, that I could, if I had the chance, begin a new life again and never give a thought to the old!"

His eyes flashed a sudden fire under their shelving brows, and his right hand clenched itself involuntarily.

"I suppose," he continued, "that a kind of harking back to the memories of one's youth is common to all aged persons. With me it has become almost morbid, for daily and hourly I see myself as a boy, dreaming away the time in the wild garden of our home in Virginia,—watching the fireflies light up the darkness of the summer evenings, and listening to my sister singing in her soft little voice her favourite melody—'Angels ever bright and fair.' As I said to you when we began this talk, I had something then which I have never had since. Do you know what it was?"

Sir Francis, here finishing his cigar, threw away its glowing end, and shook his head in the negative.

"You will think me as sentimental as I am garrulous," went on Helmsley, "when I tell you that it was merely—love!"

Vesey raised himself in his chair and sat upright, opening his eyes in astonishment.

"Love!" he echoed. "God bless my soul! I should have thought that you, of all men in the world, could have won that easily!"

"Why should I 'of all men in the world' have won it?"[Pg 12] he asked. "Because I am rich? Rich men are seldom, if ever, loved for themselves—only for what they can give to their professing lovers."

His ordinarily soft tone had an accent of bitterness in it, and Sir Francis Vesey was silent.

"Had I remained poor,—poor as I was when I first started to make my fortune," he went on, "I might possibly have been loved by some woman, or some friend, for myself alone. For as a young fellow I was not bad-looking, nor had I, so I flatter myself, an unlikable disposition. But luck always turned the wheel in my favour, and at thirty-five I was a millionaire. Then I 'fell' in love,—and married on the faith of that emotion, which is always a mistake. 'Falling in love' is not loving. I was in the full flush of my strength and manhood, and was sufficiently proud of myself to believe that my wife really cared for me. There I was deceived. She cared for my millions. So it chances that the only real love I have ever known was the unselfish 'home' affection,—the love of my mother and father and sister 'out in ole Virginny,' 'a love so sweet it could not last,' as Shelley sings. Though I believe it can and does last,—for my soul (or whatever that strange part of me may be which thinks beyond the body) is always running back to that love with a full sense of certainty that it is still existent."

His voice sank and seemed to fail him for a moment. He looked up at the large, bright star shining steadily above him.

"You are silent, Vesey," he said, after a pause, speaking with an effort at lightness; "and wisely too, for I know you have nothing to say—that is, nothing that could affect the position. And you may well ask, if you choose, to what does all this reminiscent old man's prattle tend? Simply to this—that you have been urging me for the last six months to make my will in order to replace the one which was previously made in favour of my sons, and which is now destroyed, owing to their deaths before my own,—and I tell you plainly and frankly that I don't know how to make it, as there is no one in the world whom I care to name as my heir."

"Why not do as I suggested to you once before—adopt a[Pg 13] child? Find some promising boy, born of decent, healthy, self-respecting parents,—educate him according to your own ideas, and bring him up to understand his future responsibilities. How would that suit you?"

"Not at all," replied Helmsley drily. "I have heard of parents willing to sell their children, but I should scarcely call them decent or self-respecting. I know of one case where a couple of peasants sold their son for five pounds in order to get rid of the trouble of rearing him. He turned out a famous man,—but though he was, in due course, told his history, he never acknowledged the unnatural vendors of his flesh and blood as his parents, and quite right too. No,—I have had too much experience of life to try such a doubtful business as that of adopting a child. The very fact of adoption by so miserably rich a man as myself would buy a child's duty and obedience rather than win it. I will have no heir at all, unless I can discover one whose love for me is sincerely unselfish and far above all considerations of wealth or worldly advantage."

"It is rather late in the day, perhaps," said Vesey after a pause, speaking hesitatingly, "but—but—you might marry?"

"Marry! I! At seventy! My dear Vesey, you are a very old friend, and privileged to say what others dare not, or you would offend me. If I had ever thought of marrying again I should have done so two or three years after my wife's death, when I was in the fifties, and not waited till now, when my end, if not actually near, is certainly well in sight. Though I daresay there are plenty of women who would marry me—even me—at my age,—knowing the extent of my income. But do you think I would take one of them, knowing in my heart that it would be a mere question of sale and barter? Not I!—I could never consent to sink so low in my own estimation of myself. I can honestly say I have never wronged any woman. I shall not begin now."

"I don't see why you should take that view of it," murmured Sir Francis placidly. "Life is not lived nowadays as it was when you first entered upon your career. For one thing, men last longer and don't give up so soon. Few consider themselves old at seventy. Why should they? There's a learned professor at the Pasteur Institute who[Pg 14] declares we ought all to live to a hundred and forty. If he's right, you are still quite a young man."

"We won't discuss any so-called 'new theories,'" he said. "They are only echoes of old fallacies. The professor's statement is merely a modern repetition of the ancient belief in the elixir of life. Shall we go in?"

Vesey got up from his lounging position more slowly and stiffly than Helmsley had done. Some ten years younger as he was, he was evidently less active.

"Well," he said, as he squared his shoulders and drew himself erect, "we are no nearer a settlement of what I consider a most urgent and important affair than when we began our conversation."

"Your last 'function' of the season is the dance you are giving to-morrow night, I suppose," continued Sir Francis, studying with a vague curiosity the spare, slight figure of his companion, who had turned from him and, with one foot on the sill of the open French window, was just about to enter the room beyond.

And, as he spoke, Helmsley stepped into the apartment from which the window opened out upon the balcony, and waited a moment for Vesey to follow.

"She has always been a great favourite of yours," said Vesey, as he entered. "Now, why——"

"Why don't I leave her my fortune, you would ask?" interrupted Helmsley, with a touch of sarcasm. "Well, first, because she is a woman, and she might possibly marry a fool or a wastrel. Secondly, because though I have known her ever since she was a child of ten, I have no liking for her parents or for any of her family connections.[Pg 15] When I first took a fancy to her she was playing about on the shore at a little seaside place on the Sussex coast,—I thought her a pretty little creature, and have made rather a pet of her ever since. But beyond giving her trinkets and bon-bons, and offering her such gaieties and amusements as are suitable to her age and sex, I have no other intentions concerning her."

Sir Francis took a comprehensive glance round the magnificent drawing-room in which he now stood,—a drawing-room more like a royal reception-room of the First Empire than a modern apartment in the modern house of a merely modern millionaire. Then he chuckled softly to himself, and a broad smile spread itself among the furrows of his somewhat severely featured countenance.

"Mrs. Sorrel would be sorry if she knew that," he said. "I think—I really think, Helmsley, that Mrs. Sorrel believes you are still in the matrimonial market!"

Helmsley's deeply sunken eyes flashed out a sudden searchlight of keen and quick inquiry, then his brows grew dark with a shadow of scorn.

"Poor Lucy!" he murmured. "She is very unfortunate in her mother, and equally so in her father. Matt Sorrel never did anything in his life but bet on the Turf and gamble at Monte Carlo, and it's too late for him to try his hand at any other sort of business. His daughter is a nice girl and a pretty one,—but now that she has grown from a child into a woman I shall not be able to do much more for her. She will have to do something for herself in finding a good husband."

Sir Francis listened with his head very much on one side. An owl-like inscrutability of legal wisdom seemed to have suddenly enveloped him in a cloud. Pulling himself out of this misty reverie he said abruptly:—

"Well—good-night! or rather good-morning! It's past one o'clock. Shall I see you again before you leave town?"

"No, I won't!" And Helmsley smiled. "I'm quite obstinate on that point. If I die suddenly, my property goes to the Crown,—if not, why then you will in due course receive your instructions."

"You're a queer fellow, David!" he said, at last. "But[Pg 16] I can't help liking you. I only wish you were not quite so—so romantic!"

"Romantic!" Helmsley looked amused. "Romance and I said good-bye to each other years ago. I admit that I used to be romantic—but I'm not now."

"You are!" And Sir Francis frowned a legal frown which soon brightened into a smile. "A man of your age doesn't want to be loved for himself alone unless he's very romantic indeed! And that's what you do want!—and that's what I'm afraid you won't get, in your position—not as this world goes! Good-night!"

They walked out of the drawing-room to the head of the grand staircase, and there shook hands and parted, a manservant being in waiting to show Sir Francis to the door. But late as the hour was, Helmsley did not immediately retire to rest. Long after all his household were in bed and sleeping, he sat in the hushed solitude of his library, writing many letters. The library was on a line with the drawing-room, and its one window, facing the Mall, was thrown open to admit such air as could ooze through the stifling heat of the sultry night. Pausing once in the busy work of his hand and pen, Helmsley looked up and saw the bright star he had watched from the upper balcony, peering in upon him steadily like an eye. A weary smile, sadder than scorn, wavered across his features.

"That's Venus," he murmured half aloud. "The Eden star of all very young people,—the star of Love!"

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.[Pg 18] The bare fact of the worthlessness of wealth was all at once borne in upon him with overpowering weight. This magnificent house which his hard earnings had purchased,—this ballroom with its painted panels and sculptured friezes, crowded just now with kaleidoscope pictures of men and women whirling round and round in a maze of music and movement,—the thousand precious and costly things he had gathered about him in his journey through life,—must all pass out of his possession in a few brief years, and there was not a soul who loved him or whom he loved, to inherit them or value them for his sake. A few brief years! And then—darkness. The lights gone out,—the music silenced—the dancing done! And the love that he had dreamed of when he was a boy—love, strong and great and divine enough to outlive death—where was it? A sudden sigh escaped him——

"Dear Mr. Helmsley, you look so very tired!" said a woman's purring voice at his ear. "Do go and rest in your own room for a few minutes before supper! You have been so kind!—Lucy is quite touched and overwhelmed by all your goodness to her,—no lover could do more for a girl, I'm sure! But really you must spare yourself! What should we do without you!"

"What indeed!" he replied, somewhat drily, as he looked down at the speaker, a cumbrous matron attired in an over-frilled and over-flounced costume of pale grey, which delicate Quakerish colour rather painfully intensified the mottled purplish-red of her face. "But I am not at all tired, Mrs. Sorrel, I assure you! Don't trouble yourself about me—I'm very well."

"Are you?" And Mrs. Sorrel looked volumes of tenderest insincerity. "Ah! But you know we old people must be careful! Young folks can do anything and everything—but we, at our age, need to be over-particular!"

"You shouldn't call yourself old, Mrs. Sorrel," said Helmsley, seeing that she expected this from him, "you're quite a young woman."

"Oh dear no!" she said, in a tone which meant "Oh dear yes!" "I wasn't married at sixteen, you know!"

Mrs. Sorrel peered at him from under her fat eyelids with a slightly dubious air. She was never quite sure in[Pg 19] her own mind as to the way in which "old Gold-Dust," as she privately called him, regarded her. An aged man, burdened with an excess of wealth, was privileged to have what are called "humours," and certainly he sometimes had them. It was necessary—or so Mrs. Sorrel thought—to deal with him delicately and cautiously—neither with too much levity, nor with an overweighted seriousness. One's plan of conduct with a multi-millionaire required to be thought out with sedulous care, and entered upon with circumspection. And Mrs Sorrel did not attempt even as much as a youthful giggle at Helmsley's half-sarcastically implied compliment with its sarcastic implication as to the ease with which she supported her years and superabundance of flesh tissue. She merely heaved a short sigh.

"I was just one year younger than Lucy is to-day," she said, "and I really thought myself quite an old bride! I was a mother at twenty-one."

Helmsley found nothing to say in response to this interesting statement, particularly as he had often heard it before.

"Oh, my dear Mr. Helmsley, who is she not dancing with!" and Mrs. Sorrel visibly swelled with maternal pride. "Every young man in the room has rushed at her—positively rushed!—and her programme was full five minutes after she arrived! Isn't she looking lovely to-night?—a perfect sylph! Do tell me you think she is a sylph!"

"I have never seen a sylph, Mrs. Sorrel, so I cannot make the comparison," he said; "but Lucy is a very beautiful girl, and I think she is looking her best this evening. Her dress becomes her. She ought to find a good husband easily."

"She ought,—indeed she ought! But it is very difficult—very, very difficult! All the men marry for money nowadays, not for love—ah!—how different it was when you and I were young, Mr. Helmsley! Love was everything then,—and there was so much romance and poetical sentiment!"

"Romance is a snare, and poetical sentiment a delusion," said Helmsley, with sudden harshness. "I proved that in my marriage. I should think you had equally proved it in yours!"[Pg 20]

Mrs. Sorrel recoiled a little timorously. "Old Gold-Dust" often said unpleasant things—truthful, but eminently tactless,—and she felt that he was likely to say some of those unpleasant things now. Therefore she gave a fluttering gesture of relief and satisfaction as the waltz-music just then ceased, and her daughter's figure, tall, slight, and marvellously graceful, detached itself from the swaying crowd in the ballroom and came towards her.

"Nothing tires me, mother—you know that!" she answered—then with a sudden change from her air of careless indifference to one of coaxing softness, she turned to Helmsley.

"You must be tired!" she said. "Why have you been standing so long at the ballroom door?"

"I have been watching you, Lucy," he replied gently. "It has been a pleasure for me to see you dance. I am too old to dance with you myself, otherwise I should grudge all the young men the privilege."

"I will dance with you, if you like," she said, smiling. "There is one more set of Lancers before supper. Will you be my partner?"

"Not even to please you, my child!" and taking her hand he patted it kindly. "There is no fool like an old, fool, I know, but I am not quite so foolish as that."

"I see nothing at all foolish in it," pouted Lucy. "You are my host, and it's my coming-of-age party."

"So it is! And the festival must not be spoilt by any incongruities. It will be quite sufficient honour for me to take you in to supper."

She looked down at the flowers she wore in her bodice, and played with their perfumed petals.

A swift shadow crossed his face. Glancing over his shoulder he saw that Mrs. Sorrel had moved away. Then the cloud passed from his brow, and the thought that for a moment had darkened his mind, yielded to a kinder impulse.[Pg 21]

"You flatter me, my dear," he said quietly. "But I am such an old friend of yours that I can take your compliment in the right spirit without having my head turned by it. Indeed, I can hardly believe that it is eleven years ago since I saw you playing about on the seashore as a child. You seem to have grown up like a magic rose, all at once from a tiny bud into a full blossom. Do you remember how I first made your acquaintance?"

"As if I should ever forget!" and she raised her lovely, large dark eyes to his. "I had been paddling about in the sea, and I had lost my shoes and stockings. You found them for me, and you put them on!"

"True!" and he smiled. "You had very wet little feet, all rosy with the salt of the sea—and your long hair was blown about in thick curls round the brightest, sweetest little face in the world. I thought you were the prettiest little girl I had ever seen in my life, and I think just the same of you now."

"Thank you!" she said. "And if you won't dance the Lancers, which are just beginning, will you sit them out with me?"

"Gladly!" and he offered her his arm. "Shall we go up to the drawing-room? It is cooler there than here."

She assented, and they slowly mounted the staircase together. Some of the evening's guests lounging about in the hall and loitering near the ballroom door, watched them go, and exchanged significant glances. One tall woman with black eyes and a viperish mouth, who commanded a certain exclusive "set" by virtue of being the wife of a dissolute Earl whose house was used as a common gambling resort, found out Mrs. Sorrel sitting among a group of female gossips in a corner, and laid a patronising hand upon her shoulder.

"Surely you know!" And the wide mouth of her ladyship grew still wider, and the black eyes more steely. "Will Lucy get him, do you think?"

"Really," she mumbled nervously—"really, dear Lady Larford!—you put things so very plainly!—I—I cannot say!—you see—he is more like her father——"

"Oh, that's very safe!" she said. "The 'father' business works very well when sufficient cash is put in with it. I know several examples of perfect matrimonial bliss between old men and young girls—absolutely perfect! One is bound to be happy with heaps of money!"

And keeping her teeth still well exposed, Lady Larford glided away, her skirts exhaling an odour of civet-cat as she moved. Mrs. Sorrel gazed after her helplessly, in a state of worry and confusion, for she instinctively felt that her ladyship's pleasure would now be to tell everybody whom she knew, that Lucy Sorrel, "the new girl who was presented at Court last night," was having a "try" for the Helmsley millions; and that if the "try" was not successful, no one living would launch more merciless and bitter jests at the failure and defeat of the Sorrels than this same titled "leader" of a section of the aristocratic gambling set. For there has never been anything born under the sun crueller than a twentieth-century woman of fashion to her own sex—except perhaps a starving hyæna tearing asunder its living prey.

Meanwhile, David Helmsley and his young companion had reached the drawing-room, which they found quite unoccupied. The window-balcony, festooned with rose-silk draperies and flowers, and sparkling with tiny electric lamps, offered itself as an inviting retreat for a quiet chat, and within it they seated themselves, Helmsley rather wearily, and Lucy Sorrel with the queenly air and dainty rustle of soft garments habitual to the movements of a well-dressed woman.

"I have not thanked you half enough," she began, "for all the delightful things you have done for my birthday——"

"Pray spare me!" he interrupted, with a deprecatory gesture—"I would rather you said nothing."

"Oh, but I must say something!" she went on. "You are so generous and good in yourself that of course you cannot bear to be thanked—I know that—but if you will persist in giving so much pleasure to a girl who, but for you, would have no pleasure at all in her life, you must expect[Pg 23] that girl to express her feelings somehow. Now, mustn't you?"

She leaned forward, smiling at him with an arch expression of sweetness and confidence. He looked at her attentively, but said nothing.

"When I got your lovely present the first thing this morning," she continued, "I could hardly believe my eyes. Such an exquisite necklace!—such perfect pearls! Dear Mr. Helmsley, you quite spoil me! I'm not worth all the kind thought and trouble you take on my behalf."

Tears started to her eyes, and her lips quivered. Helmsley saw her emotion with only a very slight touch of concern. Her tears were merely sensitive, he thought, welling up from a young and grateful heart, and as the prime cause of that young heart's gratitude he delicately forbore to notice them. This chivalrous consideration on his part caused some little disappointment to the shedder of the tears, but he could not be expected to know that.

"I'm glad you are pleased with my little gift," he said simply, "though I'm afraid it is quite a conventional and ordinary one. Pearls and girls always go together, in fact as in rhyme. After all, they are the most suitable jewels for the young—for they are emblems of everything that youth should be—white and pure and innocent."

"Not always,—but surely most often," he answered. "At any rate, I wish to believe in the simplicity and goodness of all young things."

She was silent. Helmsley studied her thoughtfully,—even critically. And presently he came to the conclusion that as a child she had been much prettier than she now was as a woman. Yet her present phase of loveliness was of the loveliest type. No fault could be found with the perfect oval of her face, her delicate white-rose skin, her small seductive mouth, curved in the approved line of the "Cupid's bow," her deep, soft, bright eyes, fringed with long-lashes a shade darker than the curling waves of her abundant brown hair. But her features in childhood had expressed something more than the beauty which had developed with the passing of years. A sweet affection, a tender earnestness, and an almost heavenly candour had made the attractiveness of her earlier age quite irresistible, but now—or[Pg 24] so Helmsley fancied—that fine and subtle charm had gone. He was half ashamed of himself for allowing this thought to enter his mind, and quickly dismissing it, he said—

"I believe so," she replied listlessly, unfurling a painted fan and waving it idly to and fro—"I cannot say that I found it very interesting. The whole thing bored me dreadfully."

"I think every one, young or old, is bored more or less nowadays," she said. "Boredom is a kind of microbe in the air. Most society functions are deadly dull. And where's the fun of being presented at Court? If a woman wears a pretty gown, all the other women try to tread on it and tear it off her back if they can. And the Royal people only speak to their own special 'set,' and not always the best-looking or best-mannered set either."

"Well, it's what is called an entrée into the world,"—he replied. "For my own part, I have never been 'presented,' and never intend to be. I see too much of Royalty privately, in the dens of finance."

"Yes—all the kings and princes wanting to borrow money," she said quickly and flippantly. "And you must despise the lot. You are a real 'King,' bigger than any crowned head, because you can do just as you like, and you are not the servant of Governments or peoples. I am sure you must be the happiest man in the world!"

She plucked off a rose from a flowering rose-tree near her, and began to wrench out its petals with a quick, nervous movement. Helmsley watched her with a vague sense of annoyance.

"I am no more happy," he said suddenly, "than that rose you are picking to pieces, though it has never done you any harm."

"Oh, the poor little rose!" she exclaimed—"I'm sorry! I've had so many roses to-day, that I don't think about them. I suppose it's wrong."

"It's not wrong," he answered quietly; "it's merely the[Pg 25] fault of those who give you more roses than you know how to appreciate."

"Still," he went on, "I would not have your life deprived of so much as one rose. And there is a very special rose that does not grow in earthly gardens, which I should like you to find and wear on your heart, Lucy,—I hope I shall see you in the happy possession of it before I die,—I mean the rose of love."

"You don't believe in love!" he echoed. "O child, what do you believe in, then?"

"Well, I believe in being happy while you can," she replied tranquilly. "And love isn't happiness. All my girl and men friends who are what they call 'in love' seem to be thoroughly miserable. Many of them get perfectly ill with jealousy, and they never seem to know whether what they call their 'love' will last from one day to another. I shouldn't care to live at such a high tension of nerves. My own mother and father married 'for love,' so I am always told,—and I'm sure a more quarrelsome couple never existed. I believe in friendship more than love."

As she spoke, Helmsley looked at her steadily, his face darkening with a shadow of weary scorn.

"I see!" he murmured coldly. "You do not care to over-fatigue the heart's action by unnecessary emotion. Quite right! If we were all as wise as you are at your age, we might live much longer than we do. You are very sensible, Lucy!—more sensible than I should have thought possible for so young a woman."

"Friendship," he continued, speaking in a slow, meditative tone, "is a good thing,—it may be, as you suggest, safer and sweeter than love. But even friendship, to be worthy of its name, must be quite unselfish,—and unselfishness, in both love and friendship, is rare."[Pg 26]

"You will be thinking of marriage some day, if you are not thinking of it now," he went on. "Would a husband's friendship—friendship and no more—satisfy you?"

He regarded her with a grave and musing steadfastness. A very close observer might have seen a line of grim satire near the corners of his mouth, and a gleam of irritable impatience in his sunken eyes; but these signs of inward feeling were not apparent to the girl, who, more than usually satisfied with herself and over-conscious of her own beauty, considered that she was saying just the very thing that he would expect and like her to say.

"You do not crave for love, then?" he queried. "You do not wish to know anything of the 'divine rapture falling out of heaven,'—the rapture that has inspired all the artists and poets in the world, and that has probably had the largest share in making the world's history?"

"Raptures never last!" and she laughed. "And artists and poets are dreadful people! I've seen a few of them, and don't want to see them any more. They are always very untidy, and they have the most absurd ideas of their own abilities. You can't have them in society, you know!—you simply can't! If I had a house of my own I would never have a poet inside it."

The grim lines round Helmsley's mouth hardened, and made him look almost cruelly saturnine. Yet he murmured under his breath:—

"'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame;
Are but the ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame!'"

"Poetry!" he answered, "by a man named Coleridge. He is dead now. He used to take opium, and he did not understand business matters. He was never rich in anything but thoughts."

"Yes, he was very silly," agreed Helmsley, watching her narrowly from under his half-closed eyelids. "But most thinkers are silly, even when they don't take opium. They believe in Love."

She coloured. She caught the sarcastic inflection in his tone. But she was silent.

"Most men who have lived and worked and suffered," he went on, "come to know before they die that without a great and true love in their lives, their work is wasted, and their sufferings are in vain. But there are exceptions, of course. Some get on very well without love at all, and perhaps these are the most fortunate."

He picked up two or three of the rose-petals her restless fingers had scattered, and laying them in his palm looked at the curved, pink, shell-like shapes abstractedly.

"Well, they are saved a good deal of trouble," he answered quietly. "They spare themselves many a healing heart-ache and many purifying tears. But when they grow old, and when they find that, after all, the happiest folks in the world are still those who love, or who have loved and have been loved, even though the loved ones are perhaps no longer here, they may—I do not say they will—possibly regret that they never experienced that marvellous sense of absorption into another's life of which Mrs. Browning writes in her letters to her husband. Do you know what she says?"

"I'm afraid I don't!" and she smothered a slight yawn as she spoke. He fixed his eyes intently upon her.

"She tells her lover her feeling in these words: 'There is nothing in you that does not draw all out of me.' That is the true emotion of love,—the one soul must draw all out of the other, and the best of all in each."

"But the Brownings were a very funny couple," and the fair Lucy arched her graceful throat and settled more becomingly in its place a straying curl of her glossy brown hair. "I know an old gentleman who used to see them together when they lived in Florence, and he says they were so queer-looking that people used to laugh at them. It's all very well to love and to be in love, but if you look odd and people laugh at you, what's the good of it?"

"True!" he exclaimed. "You're right, Lucy! Little[Pg 28] girl, you're quite right! What's the good of it! Upon my word, you're a most practical woman!—you'll make a capital wife for a business man!" Then as the gay music of the band below-stairs suddenly ceased, to give place to the noise of chattering voices and murmurs of laughter, he glanced at his watch.

"Supper-time!" he said. "Let me take you down. And after supper, will you give me ten minutes' chat with you alone in the library!"

"Thank you!" And he drew her white-gloved hand through his arm. "I am leaving town next week, and I have something important to say to you before I go. You will allow me to say it privately?"

She smiled assent, and leaned on his arm with a light, confiding pressure, to which he no more responded than if his muscles had been rigid iron. Her heart beat quickly with a sense of gratified vanity and exultant expectancy,—but his throbbed slowly and heavily, chilled by the double frost of age and solitude.

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 blasé breath 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[Pg 30] 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[Pg 31] 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!"[Pg 32]

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[Pg 33] 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[Pg 34] 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?"

"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."

"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——"

"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."

"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!"

"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?"

"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[Pg 36] him to me, and, if he has anything in him, I'll make myself answerable for his prosperity."

"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——"

"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."

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

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[Pg 37] 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."

"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——"

"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!"

"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——"

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."[Pg 38]

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?"

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[Pg 39] 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."

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

"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[Pg 40] this pointed rampart of polished nails as though she were something altogether curious and remarkable.

"The virtues of a woman are her wealth and worth," he said sententiously, as though he were quoting a maxim out of a child's copybook. "A jewel's price is not so much for its size and weight as for its particular lustre. But common commercial people—like myself—even if they have the good fortune to find a diamond likely to surpass all others in the market, are never content till they have tested it. Every Jew bites his coin. And I am something of a Jew. I like to know the exact value of what I esteem as precious. And so I test it."

"Yes?" She threw in this interjected query simply because she did not know what to say. She thought he was talking very oddly, and wondered whether he was quite sane.

"Yes," he echoed; "I test it. And, Lucy, I think so highly of you, and esteem you as so very fair a pearl of womanhood, that I am inclined to test you just as I would a priceless gem. Do you object?"

She glanced up at him flutteringly, vaguely surprised. The corners of his mouth relaxed into the shadow of a smile, and she was reassured.

"Object? Of course not! As if I should object to anything you wish!" she said amiably. "But—I don't quite understand——"

"No, possibly not," he interrupted; "I know I have not the art of making myself very clear in matters which deeply and personally affect myself. I have nerves still, and some remnant of a heart,—these occasionally trouble me——"

"I want to ask you a question, Lucy," he said; "and it is a very difficult question, because I feel that your answer to it may mean a great sorrow for me,—a great disappointment. The question is the 'test' I speak of. Shall I put it to you?"

"Please do!" she answered, her heart beginning to beat[Pg 41] violently. He was coming to the point at last, she thought, and a few words more would surely make her the future mistress of the Helmsley millions! "If I can answer it I will!"

"Shall I ask you my question, or shall I not?" he went on, gripping her hand hard, and half raising himself in his chair as he looked intently at her telltale face. "For it means more than you can realise. It is an audacious, impudent question, Lucy,—one that no man of my age ought to ask any woman,—one that is likely to offend you very much!"

"Ah! What can it be! Think of all the most audacious and impudent things a man—an old man—could say to a young woman! Suppose,—it is only supposition, remember,—suppose, for instance, I were to ask you to marry me?"

A smile, brilliant and exultant, flashed over her features,—she almost laughed out her inward joy.

With sudden impetuosity he rose, and pushing away his chair, drew himself up to his full height, looking down upon her.

"You would!" and his voice was low and tense. "You!—you would actually marry me?"

She, rising likewise, confronted him in all her fresh and youthful beauty, fair and smiling, her bosom heaving and her eyes dilating with eagerness.

"I would,—indeed I would!" she averred delightedly. "I would rather marry you than any man in the world!"

The simple monosyllabic query completely confused her. It was unexpected, and she was at her wit's end how to reply to it. Moreover, he kept his eyes so pertinaciously fixed upon her that she felt her blood rising to her cheeks and brow in a hot flush of—shame? Oh no!—not shame, but merely petulant vexation. The proper way for him to behave at this juncture, so she reflected, would be that he should take her tenderly in his arms and murmur, after the penny-dreadful style of elderly hero, "My darling, my[Pg 42] darling! Can you, so young and beautiful, really care for an old fogey like me?'" to which she would, of course, have replied in the same fashion, and with the most charming insincerity—"Dearest! Do not talk of age! You will never be old to my fond heart!" But to stand, as he was standing, like a rigid figure of bronze, with a hard pale face in which only the eyes seemed living, and to merely ask "Why" she would rather marry him than any other man in the world, was absurd, to say the least of it, and indeed quite lacking in all delicacy of sentiment. She sought about in her mind for some way out of the difficulty and could find none. She grew more and more painfully crimson, and wished she could cry. A well worked-up passion of tears would have come in very usefully just then, but somehow she could not turn the passion on. And a horrid sense of incompetency and failure began to steal over her—an awful foreboding of defeat. What could she do to seize the slippery opportunity and grasp the doubtful prize? How could she land the big golden fish which she foolishly fancied she had at the end of her line? Never had she felt so helpless or so angry.

"Why?" he repeated—"Why would you marry me? Not for love certainly. Even if you believed in love—which you say you do not,—you could not at your age love a man at mine. That would be impossible and unnatural. I am old enough to be your grandfather. Think again, Lucy! Perhaps you spoke hastily—- out of girlish thoughtlessness—or out of kindness and a wish to please me,—but do not, in so serious a matter, consider me at all. Consider yourself. Consider your own nature and temperament—your own life—your own future—your own happiness. Would you, young as you are, with all the world before you—would you, if I asked you, deliberately and of your own free will, marry me?"

She drew a sharp breath, and hurriedly wondered what was best to do. He spoke so strangely!—he looked so oddly! But that might be because he was in love with her! Her lips parted,—she faced him straightly, lifting her head with a little air of something like defiance.

He gave a kind of gesture with his hands as though he threw aside some cherished object.[Pg 43]

She gazed at him stupidly. What did he mean? Why did he not now emulate the penny-dreadful heroes and say "My darling!" Nothing seemed further from his thoughts. His eyes rested upon her with a coldness such as she had never seen in them before, and his features hardened.

"I should have known the modern world and modern education better," he went on, speaking more to himself than to her. "I have had experience enough. I should never have allowed myself to keep even the shred of a belief in woman's honesty!"

"Pardon me!" he said wearily—"I am an old man, accustomed to express myself bluntly. Even if I vex you, I fear I shall not know how to apologise. I had thought——"

"Bribery?—Corruption?" she stammered, and in a tremor of excitement and perturbation her fan dropped from her hands to the floor. He stooped for it with the ease and grace of a far younger man, and returned it to her.

"Yes, bribery and corruption," he continued quietly. "The bribery of wealth—the corruption of position. These are the sole objects for which (if I asked you, which I have not done) you would marry me. For there is nothing else I have to offer you. I could not give you the sentiment or passion of a husband (if husbands ever have sentiment or passion nowadays), because all such feeling is dead in me. I could not be your 'friend' in marriage—because I should always remember that our matrimonial 'friendship' was merely one of cash supply and demand. You see I speak very plainly. I am not a polite person—not even a Conventional one. I am too old to tell lies. Lying is never a profitable business in youth—but in age it is pure waste of time and energy. With one foot in the grave it is as well to keep the other from slipping."

He paused. She tried to say something, but could find no suitable words with which to answer him. He looked[Pg 44] at her steadily, half expecting her to speak, and there was both pain and sorrow in the depths of his tired eyes.

"I need not prolong this conversation," he said, after a minute's silence. "For it must be as embarrassing to you as it is to me. It is quite my own fault that I built too many hopes upon you, Lucy! I set you up on a pedestal and you have yourself stepped down from it—I have put you to the test, and you have failed. I daresay the failure is as much the concern of your parents and the way in which they have brought you up, as it is of any latent weakness in your own mind and character. But,—if, when I suggested such an absurd and unnatural proposition as marriage between myself arid you, you had at once, like a true woman, gently and firmly repudiated the idea, then——"

Her eyes opened in blank wonderment and despair. Was it possible! Had she been so near her golden El Dorado only to see the shining shores receding, and the glittering harbour closed! Oh, it was cruel! Horrible! There was a convulsive catch in her throat which she managed to turn into the laugh hysterical.

"Really!" she ejaculated, with a poor attempt at flippancy; and, in her turn, she asked the question, "Why?"

"Because I should have known you were honest," answered Helmsley, with emphasis. "Honest to your womanly instincts, and to the simplest and purest part of your nature. I should have proved for myself the fact that you refused to sell your beautiful person for gold—that you were no slave in the world's auction-mart, but a free, proud, noble-hearted English girl who meant to be faithful to all that was highest and best in her soul. Ah, Lucy! You are not this little dream-girl of mine! You are a very realistic modern woman with whom a man's 'ideal' has nothing in common!"

She wrenched her fingers from his clasp, and a sudden, uncontrollable fury possessed her.

"I hate you!" she said between her set teeth. "You are mean! Mean! I hate you!"[Pg 45]

"You have deceived me—cheated me!" she went on, angrily and recklessly. "You made me think you wanted to marry me."

The corners of his mouth went up under his ashen-grey moustache in a chill smile.

"Pardon me!" he interrupted. "But did I make you think? or did you think it of your own accord?"

"Any girl—I don't care who she is—would accept you if you asked her to marry you!" she said hotly. "It would be perfectly idiotic to refuse such a rich man, even if he were Methusaleh himself. There's nothing wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having plenty of money, if it is offered."

"No, there is nothing wrong or dishonest in taking the chance of having plenty of money, if such a chance can be had without shame and dishonour," he said. "But I, personally, should consider a woman hopelessly lost to every sense of self-respect, if at the age of twenty-one she consented to marry a man of seventy for the sake of his wealth. And I should equally consider the man of seventy a disgrace to the name of manhood if he condoned the voluntary sale of such a woman by becoming her purchaser."

"Then, if you thought these things, you had no right to propose to me!" she said passionately.

"I did not propose to you, Lucy," he answered, "and I never intended to do so! I merely asked what your answer would be if I did."

"Pardon me, not quite! I told you I was putting you to a test. That you failed to stand my test is the conclusion of the whole affair. We really need say no more about it. The matter is finished."

"It's about time it was finished, I'm sure!" she said carelessly. "I'm perfectly tired out!"

"No doubt you are—you must be—I was forgetting how late it is," and with ceremonious politeness he opened the[Pg 46] door for her to pass. "You have had an exhausting evening! Forgive me for any pain or vexation—or—or anger I may have caused you—and, good-night, Lucy! God bless you!"

He held out his hand. He looked worn and wan, and his face showed pitiful marks of fatigue, loneliness, and sorrow, but the girl was too much incensed by her own disappointment to forgive him for the unexpected trial to which he had submitted her disposition and character.

"Good-night!" she said curtly, avoiding his glance. "I suppose everybody's gone by this time; mother will be waiting for me."

"Won't you shake hands?" he pleaded gently. "I'm sorry that I expected more of you than you could give, Lucy! but I want you to be happy, and I think and hope you will be, if you let the best part of you have its way. Still, it may happen that I shall never see you again—so let us part friends!"

She raised her eyes, hardened now in their expression by intense malignity and spite, and fixed them fully upon him.

"I don't want to be friends with you any more!" she said. "You are cruel and selfish, and you have treated me abominably! I am sure you will die miserably, without a soul to care for you! And I hope—yes, I hope I shall never hear of you, never see you any more as long as you live! You could never have really had the least bit of affection for me when I was a child."

Something in his aspect awed her—something of the mute despair and solitude of a man who has lost his last hope on earth, shadowed his pallid features as with a forecast of approaching dissolution. Involuntarily she trembled, and felt cold; her head drooped;—for a moment her conscience pricked her, reminding her how she had schemed and plotted and planned to become the wife of this sad, frail old man ever since she had reached the mature age of sixteen,—for a moment she was impelled to make a clean confession of her own egotism, and to ask his pardon for having, under the tuition of her mother, made him the unconscious pivot of all her worldly ambitions,—then, with[Pg 47] a sudden impetuous movement, she swept past him without a word, and ran downstairs.

There she found half the evening's guests gone, and the other half well on the move. Some of these glanced at her inquiringly, with "nods and becks and wreathed smiles," but she paid no heed to any of them. Her mother came eagerly up to her, anxiety purpling every vein of her mottled countenance, but no word did she utter, till, having put on their cloaks, the two waited together on the steps of the mansion, with flunkeys on either side, for the hired brougham to bowl up in as un-hired a style as was possible at the price of one guinea for the night's outing.

Mrs. Sorrel became visibly agitated. She glanced at the impassive flunkeys nervously.

At that moment the expected vehicle lumbered up with a very creditable clatter of well-assumed importance. The flunkeys relaxed their formal attitudes and hastened to assist both mother and daughter into its somewhat stuffy recess. Another moment and they were driven off, Lucy looking out of the window at the numerous lights which twinkled from every story of the stately building they had just left, till the last bright point of luminance had vanished. Then the strain on her mind gave way—and to Mrs. Sorrel's alarm and amazement, she suddenly burst into a stormy passion of tears.

"It's all over!" she sobbed angrily, "all over! I've lost him! I've lost everything!"

Thus violently adjured, Lucy, with angry gasps of spite and disappointment, related in full the maddening, the eccentric, the altogether incomprehensible and inexcusable conduct of the famous millionaire, "old Gold-dust," towards her beautiful, outraged, and injured self. Her mother sat[Pg 48] listening in a kind of frozen horror which might possibly have become rigid, had it not been for the occasional bumping of the hired brougham over ruts and loose stones, which bumping shook her superfluous flesh into agitated bosom-waves.

"I ought to have guessed it! I ought to have followed my own instinct!" she said, in sepulchral tones. "It came to me like a flash, when I was talking to him this evening! I said to myself, 'he is in a moral mood.' And he was. Nothing is so hopeless, so dreadful! If I had only thought he would carry on that mood with you, I would have warned you! You could have held off a little—it would perhaps have been the wiser course."

"I should think it would indeed!" cried Lucy, dabbing her eyes with her scented handkerchief; "He would have left me every penny he has in the world if I had refused him! He told me so as coolly as possible!"

"Nothing!" And Lucy, now worked up to hysterical pitch, felt as if she could break the windows, beat her mother, or do anything else equally reckless and irresponsible. "I shall be left to myself now,—he will never ask me to his house again, never give me any parties or drives or opera-boxes or jewels,—he will never come to see me, and I shall have no pleasure at all! I shall sink into a dowdy, frowsy, shabby-genteel old maid for the rest of my life! It is detestable!" and she uttered a suppressed small shriek on the word, "It has been a hateful, abominable birthday! Everybody will be laughing at me up their sleeves! Think of Lady Larford!"

This suggestion was too dreadful for comment, and Mrs. Sorrel closed her eyes, visibly shuddering.

"Who would have thought it possible!" she moaned drearily, "a millionaire, with such mad ideas! I had thought him always such a sensible man! And he seemed to admire you so much! What will he do with all his money?"

The fair Lucy sighed, sobbed, and swallowed her tears into silence. And again, like the doubtful refrain of a song in a bad dream, her mother moaned and murmured—

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.

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."

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.

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.

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

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

"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."[Pg 51]

"Oh, he did, did he? But, of course, as a man of business, he would leave nothing incomplete. Now, supposing Mr. Helmsley is away more than a month, I will call or send to the house at stated intervals to see how things are getting on, and arrange any matters that may need arranging"—here he glanced at the letter in his hand—"as your master requests. And—if you want anything—or wish to know any news,—you can always call here and inquire."

"I'm sorry,"—and the lawyer's shrewd yet kindly eyes looked somewhat troubled—"I'm very sorry that my old friend hasn't taken you with him, Benson."

Benson caught the ring of sympathetic interest in his voice and at once responded to it.

"Well, sir, so am I!" he said heartily. "For Mr. Helmsley's over seventy, and he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be by a long way. He ought to have some one with him. But he wouldn't hear of my going. He can be right down obstinate if he likes, you know, sir, though he is one of the best gentlemen to work for that ever lived. But he will have his own way, and, bad or good, he takes it."

"You say he isn't as strong as he thinks himself to be," began Vesey again, presently. "Surely he's wonderfully alert and active for his time of life?"

"Why, yes, sir, he's active enough, but it's all effort and nerve with him now. He makes up his mind like, and determines to be strong, in spite of being weak. Only six months ago the doctor told him to be careful, as his heart wasn't quite up to the mark."

"Ah!" ejaculated Sir Francis ruefully. "And did the doctor recommend any special treatment?"

"Then you may depend upon it that's why he has gone away by himself, Benson," he said. "He wants change of air, rest, and different surroundings. And as he won't have letters forwarded, and doesn't give any future address, I shouldn't wonder if he starts off yachting somewhere——"

"Oh, no, sir, I don't think so," interposed Benson, "The[Pg 52] yacht's in the dry dock, and I know he hasn't given any orders to have her got ready."

"Well, well, if he wants change and rest, he's wise to put a distance between himself and his business affairs"—and Sir Francis here looked round for his hat and walking-stick. "Take me, for example! Why, I'm a different man when I leave this office and go home to lunch! I'm going now. I don't think—I really don't think there is any cause for uneasiness, Benson. Your master will let us know if there's anything wrong with him."

"Oh, yes, sir, he'll be sure to do that. He said he would telegraph for me if he wanted me."

"Good! Now, if you get any news of him before I do, or if you are anxious that I should attend to any special matter, you'll always find me here till one o'clock. You know my private address?"

"That's all right. And when I go down to my country place for the summer, you can come there whenever your business is urgent. I'll settle all expenses with you."

Sir Francis Vesey, left alone, took his hat and gazed abstractedly into its silk-lined crown before putting it on his head. Then setting it aside, he drew Helmsley's letter from his pocket and read it through again. It ran as follows:—

"My dear Vesey,—I had some rather bad news on the night of Miss Lucy Sorrel's birthday party. A certain speculation in which I had an interest has failed, and I have lost on the whole 'gamble.' The matter will not, however, affect my financial position. You have all your instructions in order as given to you when we last met, so I shall leave town with an easy mind. I am likely to be away for some time, and am not yet certain of my destination. Consider me, therefore, for the present as lost. Should I die suddenly, or at sickly leisure, I carry a letter on my person which will be conveyed to you, making you acquainted with the sad (?) event as soon as it occurs. And for all your kindly services in the way of both business and friendship, I owe you a vast debt of thanks, which debt shall be fully[Pg 53] and gratefully acknowledged,—when I make my Will. I may possibly employ another lawyer than yourself for this purpose. But, for the immediate time, all my affairs are in your hands, as they have been for these twenty years or more. My business goes on as usual, of course; it is a wheel so well accustomed to regular motion that it can very well grind for a while without my personal supervision. And so far as my individual self is concerned, I feel the imperative necessity of rest and freedom. I go to find these, even if I lose myself in the endeavour. So farewell! And as old-fashioned folks used to say—'God be with you!' If there be any meaning in the phrase, it is conveyed to you in all sincerity by your old friend,

"Cryptic, positively cryptic!" murmured Sir Francis, as he folded up the letter and put it by. "There's no clue to anything anywhere. What does he mean by a bad speculation?—a loss 'on the whole gamble'? I know—or at least I thought I knew—every number on which he had put his money. It won't affect his financial position, he says. I should think not! It would take a bigger Colossus than that of Rhodes to overshadow Helmsley in the market! But he's got some queer notion in his mind,—some scheme for finding an heir to his millions,—I'm sure he has! A fit of romance has seized him late in life,—he wants to be loved for himself alone,—which, of course, at his age, is absurd! No one loves old people, except, perhaps (in very rare cases), their children,—if the children are not hopelessly given over to self and the hour, which they generally are." He sighed, and his brows contracted. He had a spendthrift son and a "rapid" daughter, and he knew well enough how little he could depend upon them for either affection or respect.

"Old age is regarded as a sort of crime nowadays," he continued, apostrophising the dingy walls of his office, as he took his walking-stick and prepared to leave the premises—"thanks to the donkey-journalism of the period which brays down everything that is not like itself—mere froth and scum. And unlike our great classic teachers who held that old age was honourable and deserved the highest place in the senate, the present generation affects to consider a man well on the way to dotage after forty. God[Pg 54] bless me!—what fools there are in this twentieth century!—what blatant idiots! Imagine national affairs carried on in the country by its young men! The Empire would soon became a mere football for general kicking! However, there's one thing in this Helmsley business that I'm glad of"—and his eyes twinkled—"I believe the Sorrels have lost their game! Positively, I think Miss Lucy has broken her line, and that the fish has gone without her hook in its mouth! Old as he is, David is not too old to outwit a woman! I gave him a hint, just the slightest hint in the world,—and I think he's taken it. Anyhow, he's gone,—booked for Southampton. And from Southampton a man can 'ship himself all aboard of a ship,' like Lord Bateman in the ballad, and go anywhere. Anywhere, yes!—but in this case I wonder where he will go? Possibly to America—yet no!—I think not!" And Sir Francis, descending his office stairs, went out into the broad sunshine which flooded the city streets, continuing his inward reverie as he walked,—"I think not. From what he said the other night, I fancy not even the haunting memory of 'ole Virginny' will draw him back there. 'Consider me as lost,' he says. An odd notion! David Helmsley, one of the richest men in the whole of two continents, wishes to lose himself! Impossible! He's a marked multi-millionaire,—branded with the golden sign of unlimited wealth, and as well known as a London terminus! If he were 'lost' to-day, he'd be found to-morrow. As matters stand I daresay he'll turn up all fight in a month's time and I need not worry my head any more about him!"

With this determination Sir Francis went home to luncheon, and after luncheon duly appeared driving in the Park with Lady Vesey, like the attentive and obliging husband he ever was, despite the boredom which the "Row" and the "Ladies' Mile" invariably inflicted upon him,—yet every now and then before him there rose a mental image of his old friend "King David,"—grey, sad-eyed, and lonely—flitting past like some phantom in a dream, and wandering far away from the crowded vortex of London life, where his name was as honey to a swarm of bees, into some dim unreachable region of shadow and silence, with the brief farewell:

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[Pg 56] 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[Pg 57] 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[Pg 58] 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[Pg 59] 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[Pg 60] necessary. In one of the poorest quarters of the town he purchased a few second-hand garments such as might be worn by an ordinary day-labourer, saying to the dealer that he wanted to "rig out" a man who had just left hospital and who was going in for "field" work. The dealer saw nothing either remarkable or suspicious in this seemingly benevolent act of a kindly-looking well-dressed old gentleman, and sent him the articles he had purchased done up in a neat package and addressed to him at his hotel, by the name he had for the time assumed. When he left the hotel for good, he did so with nothing more than this neat package, which he carried easily in one hand by a loop of string. And so he began his journey, walking steadily for two or three hours,—then pausing to rest awhile,—and after rest, going on again. Once out of Bristol he was glad, and at certain lonely places, when the shadows of night fell, he changed all his garments one by one till he stood transformed as now he was. The clothes he was compelled to discard he got rid of by leaving them in unlikely holes and corners on the road,—as for example, at one place he filled the pockets of his good broadcloth coat with stones and dropped it into the bottom of an old disused well. The curious sense of guilt he felt when he performed this innocent act surprised as well as amused him.

"It is exactly as if I had murdered somebody and had sunk a body into the well instead of a coat!" he said—"and—perhaps I have! Perhaps I am killing my Self,—getting rid of my Self,—which would be a good thing, if I could only find Some one or Some thing better than my Self in my Self's place!"

When he had finally disposed of every article that could suggest any possibility of his ever having been clothed as a gentleman, he unripped the lining of his rough "workman's" vest, and made a layer of the banknotes he had with him between it and the cloth, stitching it securely over and over with coarse needle and thread, being satisfied by this arrangement to carry all his immediate cash hidden upon his person, while for the daily needs of hunger and thirst he had a few loose shillings and coppers in his pocket. He had made up his mind not to touch a single one of the banknotes, unless suddenly overtaken by accident or illness. When his bit of silver and copper came to an end, he meant to beg alms along the road and prove for himself how far[Pg 61] it was true that human beings were in the main kind and compassionate, and ready to assist one another in the battle of life. With these ideas and many others in his mind, he started on his "tramp"—and during the first two or three days of it suffered acutely. Many years had passed since he had been accustomed to long sustained bodily exercise, and he was therefore easily fatigued. But by the time he reached the open country between the Quantocks and the Brendon Hills, he had got somewhat into training, and had begun to feel a greater lightness and ease as well as pleasure in walking. He had found it quite easy to live on very simple food,—in fact one of the principal charms of the strange "holiday" he had planned for his own entertainment was to prove for himself beyond all dispute that no very large amount of money is required to sustain a man's life and health. New milk and brown bread had kept him going bravely every day,—fruit was cheap and so was cheese, and all these articles of diet are highly nourishing, so that he had wanted for nothing. At night, the weather keeping steadily fine and warm, he had slept in the open, choosing some quiet nook in the woodland under a tree, or else near a haystack in the fields, and he had benefited greatly by thus breathing the pure air during slumber, and getting for nothing the "cure" prescribed by certain Artful Dodgers of the medical profession who take handfuls of guineas from credulous patients for what Mother Nature willingly gives gratis. And he was beginning to understand the joys of "loafing,"—so much so indeed that he felt a certain sympathy with the lazy varlet who prefers to stroll aimlessly about the country begging his bread rather than do a stroke of honest work. The freedom of such a life is self-evident,—and freedom is the broadest and best way of breathing on earth. To "tramp the road" seems to the well-dressed, conventional human being a sorry life; but it may be questioned whether, after all, he with his social trammels and household cares, is not leading a sorrier one. Never in all his brilliant, successful career till now had David Helmsley, that king of modern finance, realised so intensely the beauty and peace of being alone with Nature,—the joy of feeling the steady pulse of the Spirit of the Universe throbbing through one's own veins and arteries,—the quiet yet exultant sense of knowing instinctively beyond all formulated theory or dogma, that one is a vital part of the immortal[Pg 62] Entity, as indestructible as Itself. And a great calm was gradually taking possession of his soul,—a smoothing of all the waves of his emotional and nervous temperament. Under this mystic touch of unseen and uncomprehended heavenly tenderness, all sorrows, all disappointments, all disillusions sank out of sight as though they had never been. It seemed to him that he had put away his former life for ever, and that another life had just begun,—and his brain was ready and eager to rid itself of old impressions in order to prepare for new. Nothing of much moment had occurred to him as yet. A few persons had said "good-day " or "good-night" to him in passing,—a farmer had asked him to hold his horse for a quarter of an hour, which he had done, and had thereby earned threepence,—but he had met with no interesting or exciting incidents which could come under the head of "adventures." Nevertheless he was gathering fresh experiences,—experiences which all tended to show him how the best and brightest part of life is foolishly wasted and squandered by the modern world in a mad rush for gain.

"So very little money really suffices for health, contentment, and harmless pleasure!" he thought. "The secret of our growing social mischief does not lie with the natural order of created things, but solely with ourselves. We will not set any reasonable limit to our desires. If we would, we might live longer and be far happier!"

He stretched out his limbs easefully, and dropped into a reclining posture. The tree he had chosen to rest under was a mighty elm, whose broad branches, thick with leaves, formed a deep green canopy through which the sunbeams filtered in flecks and darts of gold. A constant twittering of birds resounded within this dome of foliage, and a thrush whistled melodious phrases from one of the highest boughs. At his feet was spread a carpet of long soft moss, interspersed with wild thyme and groups of delicate harebells, and the rippling of a tiny stream into a hollow cavity of stones made pleasant and soothing music. Charmed with the tranquillity and loveliness of his surroundings, he determined to stay here for a couple of hours, reading, and perhaps sleeping, before resuming his journey. He had in his pocket a shilling edition of Keats's poems which he had bought in Bristol by way of a silent companion to his thoughts, and he took it out and opened it now, reading[Pg 63] and re-reading some of the lines most dear and familiar to him, when, as a boy, he had elected this poet, so wickedly done to death ere his prime by commonplace critics, as one of his chief favourites among the highest Singers. And his lips, half-murmuring, followed the verse which tells of that

"untrodden region of the mind,
Where branchëd thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines, shall murmur in the wind;
Far, far around shall these dark clustered trees,
Fledge the wild ridgëd mountains steep by steep,
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds and bees,
The moss-lain Dryads shall be lulled to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness,
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreathed trellis of a working brain,
With buds and bells and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
And there shall be for thee all soft delight,
That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!"

"How perfect is that stanza!" he said. "How I used to believe in all it suggested! And how, when I was a young man, my heart was like that 'casement ope at night, to let the warm Love in!' But Love never came,—only a spurious will-o'-the-wisp imitation of Love. I wonder if many people in this world are not equally deceived with myself in their conceptions of this divine passion? All the poets and romancists may be wrong,—and Lucy Sorrel, with her hard materialism encasing her youth like a suit of steel armour, may be right. Boys and girls 'love,' so they say,—men and women 'love' and marry—and with marriage, the wondrous light that led them on and dazzled them, seems, in nine cases out of ten, to suddenly expire! Taking myself as an example, I cannot say that actual marriage made me happy. It was a great disillusion; a keen disappointment. The birth of my sons certainly gave me some pleasure as well as latent hope, for as little children they were lovable and lovely; but as boys—as men—what bitterness they brought me! Were they the heirs of Love? Nay!—surely Love never generated such callous hearts! They were the double reflex of their mother's nature, grasping all and giving[Pg 64] nothing. Is there no such virtue on earth as pure unselfish Love?—love that gives itself freely, unasked, without hope of advantage or reward—and without any personal motive lurking behind its offered tenderness?"

He turned over the pages of the book he held, with a vague idea that some consoling answer to his thoughts would flash out in a stray line or stanza, like a beacon lighting up the darkness of a troubled sea. But no such cheering word met his eyes. Keats is essentially the poet of the young, and for the old he has no comfort. Sensuous, passionate, and almost cloying in the excessive sweetness of his amorous muse, he offers no support to the wearied spirit,—no sense of strength or renewal to the fagged brain. He does not grapple with the hard problems of life; and his mellifluous murmurings of delicious fantasies have no place in the poignant griefs and keen regrets of those who have passed the meridian of earthly hopes, and who see the shadows of the long night closing in. And David Helmsley realised this all suddenly, with something of a pang.

"I am too old for Keats," he said in a half-whisper to the leafy branches that bowed their weight of soft green shelteringly over him. "Too old! Too old for a poet in whose imaginative work I vised to take such deep delight. There is something strange in this, for I cherished a belief that fine poetry would fit every time and every age, and that no matter how heavy the burden of years might be, I should always be able to forget myself and my sorrows in a poet's immortal creations. But I have left Keats behind me. He was with me in the sunshine,—he does not follow me into the shade."

A cloud of melancholy darkened his worn features, and he slowly closed the book. He felt that it was from henceforth a sealed letter. For him the half-sad, half-scornful musings of Omar Khayyám were more fitting, such as the lines that run thus:—

"Fair wheel of heaven, silvered with many a star,
Whose sickly arrows strike us from afar,
Never a purpose to my soul was dear,
But heaven crashed down my little dream to mar.

Never a bird within my sad heart sings
But heaven a flaming stone of thunder flings;
O valiant wheel! O most courageous heaven,
To leave me lonely with the broken wings!"[Pg 65]

tinging pain, as of tears that rose but would not fall, troubled his eyes. He passed his hand across them, and leaned back against the sturdy trunk of the elm which served him for the moment as a protecting haven of rest. The gentle murmur of the bees among the clover, the soft subdued twittering of the birds, and the laughing ripple of the little stream hard by, all combined to make one sweet monotone of sound which lulled his senses to a drowsiness that gradually deepened into slumber. He made a pathetic figure enough, lying fast asleep there among the wilderness of green,—a frail and apparently very poor old man, adrift and homeless, without a friend in the world. The sun sank, and a crimson after-glow spread across the horizon from west to east, the rich colours flung up from the centre of the golden orb merging by slow degrees into that pure pearl-grey which marks the long and lovely summer twilight of English skies. The air was very still, not so much as the rumble of a distant cart wheel disturbing the silence. Presently, however, the slow shuffle of hesitating footsteps sounded through the muffling thickness of the dust, and a man made his appearance on the top of the little rising where the lane climbed up into a curve of wild-rose hedge and honeysuckle which almost hid the actual road from view. He was not a prepossessing object in the landscape; short and squat, unkempt and dirty, and clad in rough garments which were almost past hanging together, he looked about as uncouth and ugly a customer as one might expect to meet anywhere on a lonely road at nightfall. He carried a large basket on his back, seemingly full of weeds,—the rope which supported it was tied across his chest, and he clasped this rope with both hands crossed in the middle, after the fashion of a praying monk. Smoking a short black pipe, he trudged along, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground with steady and almost surly persistence, till arriving at the tree where Helmsley lay, he paused, and lifting his head stared long and curiously at the sleeping man. Then, unclasping his hands, he lowered his basket to the ground and set it down. Stealthily creeping close up to Helmsley's side, he examined the prone figure from head to foot with quick and eager scrutiny. Spying the little volume of Keats on the grass where it had dropped from the slumberer's relaxed hand, he took it up gingerly, turning over its pages with grimy thumb and finger.[Pg 66]

"Portry!" he ejaculated. "Glory be good to me! 'E's a reg'ler noddy none-such! An' measly old enuff to know better!"

He threw the book on the grass again with a sniff of contempt. At that moment Helmsley stirred, and opening his eyes fixed them full and inquiringly on the lowering face above him.

"Oh come, stow that!" said the man. "You dunno what I'm talkin' about; that's plain as a pike. You aint used to the road! Where d'ye come from?"

"I've walked from Bristol," he answered—"And you're quite right,—I'm not used to the road."

The man looked at him and his hard face softened. Pushing back his tattered cap from his brows he showed his features more openly, and a smile, half shrewd, half kindly, made them suddenly pleasant.

"Av coorse you're not!" he declared. "Glory be good to me! I've tramped this bit o' road for years, an' never come across such a poor old chuckle-headed gammer as you sleepin' under a tree afore! Readin' portry an' droppin' to by-by over it! The larst man as iver I saw a' readin' portry was what they called a 'Serious Sunday' man, an' 'e's doin' time now in Portland."

Helmsley smiled. He was amused;—his "adventures," he thought, were beginning. To be called "a poor old chuckle-headed gammer" was a new and almost delightful experience.

"Portland's an oncommon friendly place," went on his uninvited companion. "Once they gits ye, they likes ye to stop. 'Taint like the fash'nable quality what says to their friends: 'Do-ee come an' stay wi' me, loveys!' wishin' all the while as they wouldn't. Portland takes ye willin', whether ye likes it or not, an' keeps ye so fond that ye can't git away nohow. Oncommon 'ospitable Portland be!"

And he broke into a harsh laugh. Then he glanced at Helmsley again with a more confiding and favourable eye.[Pg 67]

"Well, ye do look a bit of a shivery-shake,—a kind o' not-long-for-this-world," said the man. "Howsomiver, we'se be all 'elpless an' 'omeless soon, for the Lord hisself don't stop a man growin' old, an' under the new ways o' the world, it's a reg'lar crime to run past forty. I'm sixty, an' I gits my livin' my own way, axin' nobody for the kind permission. That's my fortin!"

And he pointed to the basket of weedy stuff which he had just set down. Helmsley looked at it with some curiosity.

"What's in it? What's not in it!" And the man gave a gesture of mingled pride and defiance. "There's all what the doctors makes their guineas out of with their purr-escriptions, for they can't purr-escribe no more than is in that there basket without they goes to minerals. An' minerals is rank poison to ivery 'uman body. But so far as 'erbs an' seeds, an' precious stalks an' flowers is savin' grace for man an' beast, Matthew Peke's got 'em all in there. An' Matthew Peke wouldn't be the man he is, if he didn't know where to find 'em better'n any livin' soul iver born! Ah!—an' there aint a toad in a hole hoppin' out between Quantocks an' Cornwall as hasn't seen Matthew Peke gatherin' the blessin' an' health o' the fields at rise o' sun an' set o' moon, spring, summer, autumn, ay, an' even winter, all the year through!"

"'Twon't fadge!" he declared. "It don't sound right. It's like th' owld Bible an' the Book o' Kings where there's[Pg 68] nowt but Jews; an' Jews is the devil to pay wheriver you finds 'em!"

"Mebbe not—mebbe not—but yer name's awsome like it. An' if ye put it short, like D. David, that's just Damn David an' nothin' plainer. Aint it?"

"You're a rum old sort!" he said; "an' I tell ye what it is—you're as tired as a dog limpin' on three legs as has nipped his fourth in a weasel-trap. Wheer are ye goin' on to?"

"I don't know," answered Helmsley—"I'm a stranger to this part of the country. But I mean to tramp it to the nearest village. I slept out in the open yesterday,—I think I'd like a shelter over me to-night."

"This!" and Peke drew out of his tattered trouser pocket a dim and blackened sixpence—"'Ere 'e is, as large as life, a bit bald about the top o' 'is blessed old 'ead, Glory be good to 'im, but as useful as if all 'is 'air was still a blowin' an' a growin'! Aint that the King's picture, D. David? Don't it say 'Edwardus VII. D. G. Britt.,' which means Edward the Seventh, thanks be to God Britain? Don't it?"

"It do!" replied Helmsley emphatically, taking a fantastic pleasure in the bad grammar of his reply. "I've got a few more pictures of the same kind," and he took out two or three loose shillings and pennies—"Can we get a night's lodging about here for that?"

"Av coorse we can! I'll take ye to a place where ye'll be as welcome as the flowers in May with Matt Peke interroducin' of ye. Two o' them thank-God Britts in silver will set ye up wi' a plate o' wholesome food an' a clean bed at the 'Trusty Man.' It's a pub, but Miss Tranter what keeps it is an old maid, an' she's that proud o' the only 'Trusty Man' she ever 'ad that she calls it an 'Otel!"

He grinned good-humouredly at what he considered his[Pg 69] own witticism concerning the little weakness of Miss Tranter, and proceeded to shoulder his basket.

"You aint proud, are ye?" he said, as he turned his ferret-brown eyes on Helmsley inquisitively.

Helmsley, who had, quite unconsciously to himself, drawn up his spare figure in his old habitual way of standing very erect, with that composed air of dignity and resolution which those who knew him personally in business were well accustomed to, started at the question.

"Proud!" he exclaimed—"I? What have I to be proud of? I'm the most miserable old fellow in the world, my friend! You may take my word for that! There's not a soul that cares a button whether I live or die! I'm seventy years of age—out of work, and utterly wretched and friendless! Why the devil should I be proud?"

"Well, if ye never was proud in yer life, ye can be now," said Peke condescendingly, "for I tell ye plain an' true that if Matt Peke walks with a tramp on this road, every one round the Quantocks knows as how that tramp aint altogether a raskill! I've took ye up on trust as 'twere, likin' yer face for all that it's thin an' mopish,—an' steppin' in wi' me to the 'Trusty Man' will mebbe give ye a character. Anyways, I'll do my best for ye!"

Again Peke looked at him, and again seemed troubled. Then, stuffing his pipe full of tobacco, he lit it and stuck it sideways between his teeth.

"Now come along!" he said. "You're main old, but ye must put yer best foot foremost all the same. We've more'n an hour's trampin' up hill an' down dale, an' the dew's beginnin' to fall. Keep goin' slow an' steady—I'll give ye a hand."

For a moment Helmsley hesitated. This shaggy, rough, uncouth herb-gatherer evidently regarded him as very feeble and helpless, and, out of a latent kindliness of nature, wished to protect him and see him to some safe shelter for the night. Nevertheless, he hated the position. Old as he knew himself to be, he resented being pitied for his age, while his mind was yet so vigorous and his heart felt still so warm and young. Yet the commonplace fact remained that he was very tired,—very worn out, and conscious that only a good rest would enable him to continue his journey with comfort. Moreover, his experiences at the "Trusty Man"[Pg 70] might prove interesting. It was best to take what came in his way, even though some episodes should possibly turn out less pleasing than instructive. So putting aside all scruples, he started to walk beside his ragged comrade of the road, finding, with some secret satisfaction, that after a few paces his own step was light and easy compared to the heavy shuffling movement with which Peke steadily trudged along. Sweet and pungent odours of the field and woodland floated from the basket of herbs as it swung slightly to and fro on its bearer's shoulders, and amid the slowly darkening shadows of evening, a star of sudden silver brilliance sparkled out in the sky.

"Yon's the first twinkler," said Peke, seeing it at once, though his gaze was apparently fixed on the ground. "The love-star's allus up early o' nights to give the men an' maids a chance!"

"Stow Venus! That's a reg'lar fool's name," said Peke surlily. "Where did ye git it from? That aint no Venus,—that's just the love-star, an' it'll be nowt else in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!"

Helmsley made no answer. He walked on patiently, his limbs trembling a little with fatigue and nervous exhaustion. But Peke's words had started the old dream of his life again into being,—the latent hope within him, which though often half-killed, was not yet dead, flamed up like newly kindled vital fire in his mind,—and he moved as in a dream, his eyes fixed on the darkening heavens and the brightening star.

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.

"'Taint whisky," said Peke. "And 'taint brandy neither. Nor rum. Nor gin. 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."

"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.

"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.[Pg 73]

"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!"

"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."

"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."

"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.[Pg 74]

"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.[Pg 75] 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[Pg 76] 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[Pg 77] 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[Pg 78] 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[Pg 79] 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!"

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

"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!"

"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[Pg 80] 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!"

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

"Ay, friend! Any one's a friend what trusts to ye on the road, aint 'e? Leastways that's 'ow I take it."[Pg 81]

"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?"

"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[Pg 82] but 'spectable folk. Doant 'ee turn out an old gaffer like 'e be, fagged an' footsore, to sleep in open—doant 'ee now, there's a good soul!"

Miss Tranter went on knitting rapidly. Presently she turned her piercing gimlet grey eyes on Helmsley.

"That's a long way and a hard road," commented Miss Tranter; "You'll never get there!"

"That means you're half-starved without knowing it," she said decisively. "Go in yonder," and she pointed with one of her knitting needles to the room beyond the bar whence the hum of male voices proceeded. "I'll send you some hot soup with plenty of stewed meat and bread in it. An old man like you wants more than the road food. Take him in, Peke!"

"Didn't I tell ye!" ejaculated Peke, triumphantly looking round at Helmsley. "She's one that's got 'er 'art in the right place! I say, Miss Tranter, beggin' yer parding, my friend aint a sponger, ye know! 'E can pay ye a shillin' or two for yer trouble!"

"The food's threepence and the bed fourpence," she said. "Breakfast in the morning, threepence,—and twopence for the washing towel. That makes a shilling all told. Ale and liquors extra."

With that she turned her back on them, and Peke, pulling Helmsley by the arm, took him into the common room of the inn, where there were several men seated round a long oak table with "gate-legs" which must have been turned by the handicraftsmen of the time of Henry the[Pg 83] Seventh. Here Peke set down his basket of herbs in a corner, and addressed the company generally.

Three or four of the party gave gruff response. The others sat smoking silently. One end of the table was unoccupied, and to this Peke drew a couple of rush-bottomed chairs with sturdy oak backs, and bade Helmsley sit down beside him.

"It be powerful warm to-night!" he said, taking off his cap, and showing a disordered head of rough dark hair, sprinkled with grey. "Powerful warm it be trampin' the road, from sunrise to sunset, when the dust lies thick and 'eavy, an' all the country's dry for a drop o' rain."

"Wal, you aint got no cause to grumble at it," said a fat-faced man in very dirty corduroys. "It's your chice, an' your livin'! You likes the road, an' you makes your grub on it! 'Taint no use you findin' fault with the gettin' o' your victuals!"

"Who's findin' fault, Mister Dubble?" asked Peke soothingly. "I on'y said 'twas powerful warm."

"An' no one but a sawny 'xpects it to be powerful cold in July," growled Dubble—"though some there is an' some there be what cries fur snow in August, but I aint one on 'em."

"No, 'e aint one on 'em," commented a burly farmer, blowing away the foam from the brim of a tankard of ale which was set on the table in front of him. "'E alluz takes just what cooms along easy loike, do Mizter Dubble!"

There followed a silence. It was instinctively felt that the discussion was hardly important enough to be continued. Moreover, every man in the room was conscious of a stranger's presence, and each one cast a furtive glance at Helmsley, who, imitating Peke's example, had taken off his hat, and now sat quietly under the flickering light of the oil lamp which was suspended from the middle of the ceiling. He himself was intensely interested in the turn his wanderings had taken. There was a certain excitement in his present position,—he was experiencing the "new sensation" he had longed for,—and he realised it with the fullest sense of enjoyment. To be one of the richest men in the world, and yet to seem so miserably poor and helpless as to be regarded with suspicion by such a class of[Pg 84] fellows as those among whom he was now seated, was decidedly a novel way of acquiring an additional relish for the varying chances and changes of life.

"Brought yer father along wi' ye, Matt?" suddenly asked a wizened little man of about sixty, with a questioning grin on his hard weather-beaten features.

"I aint up to 'awkin' dead bodies out o' their graves yet, Bill Bush," answered Peke. "Unless my old dad's corpsy's turned to yerbs, which is more'n likely, I aint got 'im. This 'ere's a friend o' mine,—Mister David—e's out o' work through the Lord's speshul dispensation an' rule o' natur—gettin' old!"

A laugh went round, but a more favourable impression towards Peke's companion was at once created by this introduction.

"Sorry for ye!" said the individual called Bill Bush, nodding encouragingly to Helmsley. "I'm a bit that way myself."

He winked, and again the company laughed. Bill was known as one of the most daring and desperate poachers in all the countryside, but as yet he had never been caught in the act, and he was one of Miss Tranter's "respectable" customers. But, truth to tell, Miss Tranter had some very odd ideas of her own. One was that rabbits were vermin, and that it was of no consequence how or by whom they were killed. Another was that "wild game" belonged to everybody, poor and rich. Vainly was it explained to her that rich landowners spent no end of money on breeding and preserving pheasants, grouse, and the like,—she would hear none of it.

"Stuff and nonsense," she said sharply. "The birds breed by themselves quite fast enough if let alone,—and the Lord intended them so to do for every one's use and eating, not for a few mean and selfish money-grubs who'd shoot and sell their own babies if they could get game prices for them!"

And she had a certain sympathy with Bill Bush and his nefarious proceedings. As long as he succeeded in evading the police, so long would he be welcome at the "Trusty Man," but if once he were to be clapped into jail the door of his favourite "public" would be closed to him. Not that Miss Tranter was a woman who "went back," as the saying is, on her friends, but she had to think of her licence,[Pg 85] and could not afford to run counter to those authorities who had the power to take it away from her.

"I'm a-shrivellin' away for want o' suthin' to do," proceeded Bill. "My legs aint no show at all to what they once was."

And he looked down at those members complacently. They were encased in brown velveteens much the worse for wear, and in shape resembled a couple of sticks with a crook at the knees.

"I lost my sitiwation as gamekeeper to 'is Royal 'Ighness the Dook o' Duncy through bein' too 'onest," he went on with another wink. "'Orful pertikler, the Dook was,—nobuddy was 'llowed to be 'onest wheer 'e was but 'imself! Lord love ye! It don't do to be straight an' square in this world!"

Helmsley listened to this bantering talk, saying nothing. He was pale, and sat very still, thus giving the impression of being too tired to notice what was going on around him. Peke took up the conversation.

"Stow yer gab, Bill!" he said. "When you gits straight an' square, it'll be a round 'ole ye'll 'ave to drop into, mark my wurrd! An' no Dook o' Duncy 'ull pull ye out! This 'ere old friend o' mine don't unnerstand ye wi' yer fustian an' yer galligaskins. 'E's kinder eddicated—got a bit o' larnin' as I 'aves myself."

"Eddicated!" echoed Bill. "Eddication's a fine thing, aint it, if it brings an old gaffer like 'im to trampin' the road! Seems to me the more people's eddicated the less they's able to make a livin'."

"That's true! that's dorned true!" said the man named Dubble, bringing his great fist down on the table with a force that made the tankards jump. "My darter, she's larned to play the pianner, an' I'm dorned if she kin do anythin' else! Just a gillflurt she is, an' as sassy as a magpie. That's what eddication 'as made of 'er an' be dorned to 't!"

"'Scuse me," and Bill Bush now addressed himself immediately to Helmsley, "ef I may be so bold as to arsk you wheer ye comes from, meanin' no 'arm, an' what's yer purfession?"

"I've no profession now," he answered at once. "But in my time—before I got too old—I did a good deal of office work."[Pg 86]

"Office work! In a 'ouse of business, ye means? Readin', 'ritin', 'rithmetic, an' mebbe sweepin' the floor at odd times an' runnin' errands?"

Silence ensued. The men glanced at one another. It was plain that the "one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin" was moving them all to kindly and compassionate feeling for the age and frail appearance of their new companion. What are called "rough" and "coarse" types of humanity are seldom without a sense of reverence and even affection for old persons. It is only among ultra-selfish and callous communities where over-luxurious living has blunted all the finer emotions, that age is considered a crime, or what by some individuals is declared worse than a crime, a "bore."

At that moment a short girl, with a very red face and round beady eyes, came into the room carrying on a tray two quaint old pewter tureens full of steaming soup, which emitted very savoury and appetising odours. Setting these down before Matt Peke and Helmsley, with two goodly slices of bread beside them, she held out her podgy hand.

They paid her, Peke adding a halfpenny to his threepence for the girl herself, and Helmsley, who judged it safest to imitate Peke's behaviour, doing the same. She giggled.

"No, my dear, we aint!" retorted Peke. "We can afford to treat ye like the gentlemen doos! Buy yerself a ribbin to tie up yer bonnie brown 'air!"

She giggled again, and waited to see them begin their meal, then, with a comprehensive roll of her round eyes upon all the company assembled, she retired. The soup she had brought was certainly excellent,—strong, invigorating, and tasty enough to have done credit to a rich man's table, and Peke nodded over it with mingled surprise and appreciation.

"Miss Tranter knows what's good, she do!" he remarked[Pg 87] to Helmsley in a low tone. "She's cooked this up speshul! This 'ere broth aint flavoured for me,—it's for you! Glory be good to me if she aint taken a fancy ter yer!—shouldn't wonder if ye 'ad the best in the 'ouse!"

Helmsley shook his head demurringly, but said nothing. He knew that in the particular position in which he had placed himself, silence was safer than speech.

Meanwhile, the short beady-eyed handmaiden returned to her mistress in the kitchen, and found that lady gazing abstractedly into the fire.

"Yes'm. An' 'e seems to want it 'orful bad, 'orful bad 'e do, on'y 'e swallers it slower an' more soft like than Matt Peke swallers."

"He's a gentleman," repeated the hostess of the "Trusty Man" with emphasis and decision; "and he's fallen on bad times. He may have to beg his bread along the road or earn a shilling here and there as best he can, but nothing"—and here Miss Tranter shook her forefinger defiantly in the air—"nothing will alter the fact that he's a gentleman!"

Prue squeezed her fat red hands together, breathed hard, and not knowing exactly what else to do, grinned. Her mistress looked at her severely.

"You know I don't allow you to take tips from my[Pg 88] customers," went on Miss Tranter. "You must put those three farthings in my poor-box."

"Oh thank y' 'm! Thank y', Mis' Tranter!" And Prue hugged herself ecstatically. "You'se 'orful good to me, you is, Mis' Tranter!"

"What did I teach you to say to God for the poor travellers who stop at the 'Trusty Man'?"

"'That it may please Thee to succour, help and comfort all that are in danger, necessity and tribulation, we beseech Thee to hear us Good Lord!'" gabbled Prue, shutting her eyes and opening them again with great rapidity.

"That's right!" And Miss Tranter bent her head graciously. "I'm glad you remember it so well! Be sure you say it to-night. And now you may go, Prue."

Prue went accordingly, and Miss Tranter, resuming her knitting, returned to the bar, and took up her watchful position opposite the clock, there to remain patiently till closing time.

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,[Pg 90] 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,[Pg 91] and one or two rather noisy disputations brought Miss Tranter to the door. A look of hers was sufficient to silence all contention, and having bent the warning flash of her eyes impressively upon her customers, she retired as promptly and silently as she had appeared. Helmsley was just thinking that he would slip away and get to bed, when, a firm tread sounded in the outer passage, and a tall man, black-haired, black-eyed, and of herculean build, suddenly looked in upon the tavern company with a familiar nod and smile.

"Hullo, my hearties!" he exclaimed. "Is all tankards drained, or is a drop to spare?"

A shout of welcome greeted him:—"Tom!" "Tom o' the Gleam!" "Come in, Tom!" "Drinks all round!"—and there followed a general hustle and scraping of chairs on the floor,—every one seemed eager to make room for the newcomer. Helmsley, startled in a manner by his appearance, looked at him with involuntary and undisguised admiration. Such a picturesque figure of a man he had seldom or never seen, yet the fellow was clad in the roughest, raggedest homespun, the only striking and curious note of colour about him being a knitted crimson waistcoat, which instead of being buttoned was tied together with two or three tags of green ribbon. He stood for a moment watching the men pushing up against one another in order to give him a seat at the table, and a smile, half-amused, half-ironical, lighted up his sun-browned, handsome face.

"Don't put yourselves out, mates!" he said carelessly. "Mind Feathery's toes!—if you tread on his corns there'll be the devil to pay! Hullo, Matt Peke! How are you?"

"All the better for seein' ye again, Tom," he answered, "Wheer d'ye hail from this very present minit?"

"From the caves of Cornwall!" laughed the man. "From picking up drift on the shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks!" He laughed again, and his great eyes flashed wildly. "All sport, Matt! I live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my pleasure!"

Here "Feathery" Joltram looked up and dumbly pointed with the stem of his pipe to a chair left vacant near the middle of the table. Tom o' the Gleam, by which name he seemed to be known to every one present, sat down, and in response to the calls of the company, a wiry pot-boy[Pg 92] in shirt-sleeves made his appearance with several fresh tankards of ale, it now being past the hour for the attendance of that coy handmaiden of the "Trusty Man," Miss Prue.

"Any fresh tales to tell, Tom?" inquired Matt Peke then—"Any more harum-scarum pranks o' yours on the road?"

Tom drank off a mug of ale before replying, and took a comprehensive glance around the room.

"You have a stranger here," he said suddenly, in his deep, thrilling voice, "One who is not of our breed,—one who is unfamiliar with our ways. Friend or foe?"

"Friend!" declared Peke emphatically, while Bill Bush and one or two of the men exchanged significant looks and nudged each other. "Now, Tom, none of yer gypsy tantrums! I knows all yer Romany gibberish, an' I ain't takin' any. Ye've got a good 'art enough, so don't work yer dander up with this 'ere old chap what's a-trampin' it to try and find out all that's left o's fam'ly an' friends 'fore turnin' up 'is toes to the daisies. 'Is name is David, an' 'e's been kickt out o' office work through bein' too old. That's 'is ticket!"

Tom o' the Gleam listened to this explanation in silence, playing absently with the green tags of ribbon at his waistcoat. Then slowly lifting his eyes he fixed them full on Helmsley, who, despite himself, felt an instant's confusion at the searching intensity of the man's bold bright gaze.

"Old and poor!" he ejaculated. "That's a bad lookout in this world! Aren't you tired of living!"

"You're fairly patient!" he said, "for it's hard enough to be poor, but it's harder still to be old. If I thought I should live to be as old as you are, I'd drown myself in the sea! There's no use in life without body's strength and heart's love."

"Ah, tha be graat on the love business, Tom!" chuckled "Feathery" Joltram, lifting his massive body with a shake out of the depths of his comfortable chair. "Zeems to me tha's zummat like the burd what cozies a new mate ivery zummer!"

Tom o' the Gleam laughed, his strong even white teeth[Pg 93] shining like a row of pearls between his black moustaches and short-cropped beard.

"You're a steady-going man, Feathery," he said, "and I'm a wastrel. But I'm ne'er as fickle as you think. I've but one love in the world that's left me—my kiddie."

"Fine! As strong a little chap as you'll see between Quantocks and Land's End. He'll be four come Martinmas."

"Zo agein' quick as that!" commented Joltram with a broad grin. "For zure 'e be a man grow'd! Tha'll be puttin' the breechez on 'im an' zendin' 'im to the school——"

"Never!" interrupted Tom defiantly. "They'll never catch my kiddie if I know it! I want him for myself,—others shall have no part in him. He shall grow up wild like a flower of the fields—wild as his mother was—wild as the wild roses growing over her grave——"

"Psha! Why do you drag me over the old rough ground talking of Kiddie!" he exclaimed, almost angrily. "The child's all right. He's safe in camp with the women."

Tom o' the Gleam made no answer, but the fierce look in his eyes showed that he was not disposed to be communicative on this point. Just then the sound of voices raised in some dispute on the threshold of the "Trusty Man," caused all the customers in the common room to pause in their talking and drinking, and to glance expressively at one another. Miss Tranter's emphatic accents rang out sharply on the silence.

"It wants ten minutes to ten, and I never close till half-past ten," she said decisively. "The law does not compel me to do so till eleven, and I resent private interference."

"I am aware that you resent any advice offered for your good," was the reply, delivered in harsh masculine tones. "You are a singularly obstinate woman. But I have my duty to perform, and as minister of this parish I shall perform it."

"My business is my duty, and my duty is my business,"—and here the male voice grew more rasping and raucous.[Pg 94] "I have as much right to use this tavern as any one of the misled men who spend their hard earnings here and neglect their homes and families for the sake of drink. And as you do not close till half-past ten, it is not too late for me to enter."

During this little altercation, the party round the table in the common room sat listening intently. Then Dubble, rousing himself from a pleasant ale-warm lethargy, broke the spell.

"Ay, ay, 'tis old Arbroath zartin zure!" responded "Feathery" Joltram placidly. "Let 'un coom in! Let 'un coom in!"

Tom o' the Gleam gave vent to a loud laugh, and throwing himself back in his chair, crossed his long legs and administered a ferocious twirl to his moustache, humming carelessly under his breath:—

"'And they called the parson to marry them,
But devil a bit would he—
For they were but a pair of dandy prats
As couldn't pay devil's fee!'"

Helmsley's curiosity was excited. There was a marked stir of expectation among the guests of the "Trusty Man"; they all appeared to be waiting for something about to happen of exceptional interest. He glanced inquiringly at Peke, who returned the glance by one of warning.

"Best sit quiet a while longer," he said. "They won't break up till closin' hour, an' m'appen there'll be a bit o' fun."

"Ay, sit quiet!" said Tom o' the Gleam, catching these words, and turning towards Helmsley with a smile—"There's more than enough time for tramping. Come! Show me if you can smoke that!" "That" was a choice Havana cigar which he took out of the pocket of his crimson wool waistcoat. "You've smoked one before now, I'll warrant!"

"I will not say I have not," he answered quietly, accepting and lighting the fragrant weed, "but it was long ago!"

"Ay, away in the Long, long ago!" said Tom, still regarding him fixedly, but kindly—"where we have all buried[Pg 95] such a number of beautiful things,—loves and hopes and beliefs, and dreams and fortunes!—all, all tucked away under the graveyard grass of the Long Ago!"

"It's clear out and lock up at half-past ten, business or no business, duty or no duty. Please remember that!"

The door was pushed open as he spoke, and a short, dark man in clerical costume walked in with a would-be imposing air of dignity.

He smiled sourly, and surveyed the assembled company with a curious air of mingled authority and contempt. He looked more like a petty officer of dragoons than a minister of the Christian religion,—one of those exacting small military martinets accustomed to brow-beating and bullying every subordinate without reason or justice.

"So you're there, are you, Bush!" he continued, with a frowning glance levied in the direction of the always suspected but never proved poacher,—"I wonder you're not in jail by this time!"

Bill Bush took up his pewter tankard, and affected to drain it to the last dregs, but made no reply.

"Is that Mr. Dubble!" pursued the clergyman, shading his eyes with one hand from the flickering light of the lamp, and feigning to be doubtful of the actual personality of the individual he questioned. "Surely not! I should be very much surprised and very sorry to see Mr. Dubble here at such a late hour!"

"Would ye now!" said Dubble. "Wal, I'm allus glad to give ye both a sorrer an' a surprise together, Mr. Arbroath—darned if I aint!"

"You must be keeping your good wife and daughter up waiting for you," proceeded Arbroath, his iron-grey eyebrows drawing together in an ugly line over the bridge of his nose. "Late hours are a mistake, Dubble!"

"So they be, so they be, Mr. Arbroath!" agreed Dubble. "Ef I was oop till midnight naggin' away at my good wife an' darter as they nags away at me, I'd say my keepin' o'[Pg 96] late 'ours was a dorned whoppin' mistake an' no doubt o't. But seein' as 'taint arf-past ten yet, an' I aint naggin' nobody nor interferin' with my neighbours nohow, I reckon I'm on the right side o' the night so fur."

A murmur of approving laughter from all the men about him ratified this speech. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath gave a gesture of disdain, and bent his lowering looks on Tom o' the Gleam.

"I shouldn't wonder!" he retorted. "Perhaps the police want me as much as the devil wants you!"

Arbroath flushed a dark red, and his lips tightened over his teeth vindictively.

"There's a zummat for tha thinkin' on, Pazon Arbroath!" said "Feathery" Joltram, suddenly rising from his chair and showing himself in all his great height and burly build. "Zummat for a zermon on owd Nick, when tha're wantin' to scare the zhoolboys o' Zundays!"

"Noa, noa, Pazon, m'appen not, but tha's aweer on it now. Nowt o' me's zo zmall as can thraw to heaven through tha straight and narrer way. I'd 'ave to squeeze for 't!"

He laughed,—a big, slow laugh, husky with good living and good humour. Arbroath shrugged his shoulders.

"I prefer not to speak to you at all, Mr. Joltram," he said. "When people are bound to disagree, as we have disagreed for years, it is best to avoid conversation."

"Zed like the Church all over, Pazon!" chuckled the imperturbable Joltram. "Zeems as if I 'erd the 'Glory be'! But if tha don't want any talk, why does tha coom in 'ere wheer we'se all a-drinkin' steady and talkin' 'arty, an' no quarrellin' nor backbitin' of our neighbours? Tha wants us to go 'ome,—why doezn't tha go 'ome thysen? Tha's a wife a zettin' oop there, an' m'appen she's waitin' with as fine a zermon as iver was preached from a temperance cart in a wasterne field!"

He laughed again; Arbroath turned his back upon him in disgust, and strode up to the shadowed corner where Helmsley sat watching the little scene.[Pg 97]

"Now, my man, who are you?" demanded the clergyman imperiously. "Where do you come from?"

Matt Peke would have spoken, but Helmsley silenced him by a look and rose to his feet, standing humbly with bent head before his arrogant interlocutor. There were the elements of comedy in the situation, and he was inclined to play his part thoroughly.

"Why do you leave out drink in the list?" sneered Arbroath. "For, of course, it's your special craving! Where are you going?"

"Disgraceful!" And the reverend gentleman snorted offence like a walrus rising from deep waters. "Why don't you work?"

Mr. Arbroath paused, slightly disconcerted. He had entered the "Trusty Man" in the hope of discovering some or even all of its customers in a state of drunkenness. To his disappointment he had found them perfectly sober. He had pounced on the stray man whom he saw was a stranger, in the expectation of proving him, at least, to be intoxicated. Here again he was mistaken. Helmsley's simple straight answers left him no opening for attack.

"You'd better make for the nearest workhouse," he said, at last. "Tramps are not encouraged on these roads."

"Evidently not!" And Helmsley raised his calm eyes and fixed them on the clergyman's lowering countenance with a faintly satiric smile.

"You're not too old to be impudent, I see!" retorted Arbroath, with an unpleasant contortion of his features. "I warn you not to come cadging about anywhere in this neighbourhood, for if you do I shall give you in charge. I have four parishes under my control, and I make it a rule to hand all beggars over to the police."[Pg 98]

Matt Peke chuckled. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath started indignantly, and stared so hard that his rat-brown eyes visibly projected from his head.

"Not very good Christianity!" he echoed. "What—what do you mean? How dare you speak to me about Christianity!"

"Ay, 'tis a bit aff!" drawled "Feathery" Joltram, thrusting his great hands deep into his capacious trouser-pockets. "'Tis a bit aff to taalk to Christian parzon 'bout Christianity, zeein' 'tis the one thing i' this warld 'e knaws nawt on!"

"That's true!" cried Tom o' the Gleam excitedly—"That's as true as there's a God in heaven! I've read all about the Man that was born a carpenter in Galilee, and so far as I can understand it, He never had a rough word for the worst creatures that crawled, and the worse they were, and the more despised and down-trodden, the gentler He was with them. That's not the way of the men that call themselves His ministers!"

"I 'eerd once," said Mr. Dubble, rising slowly and laying down his pipe, "of a little chap what was makin' a posy for 'is mother's birthday, an' passin' the garden o' the rector o' the parish, 'e spied a bunch o' pink chestnut bloom 'angin' careless over the 'edge, ready to blow to bits wi' the next puff o' wind. The little raskill pulled it down an' put it wi' the rest o' the flowers 'e'd got for 'is mother, but the good an' lovin' rector seed 'im at it, an' 'ad 'im nabbed as a common thief an' sent to prison. 'E wornt but a ten-year-old lad, an' that prison spoilt 'im for life. 'E wor a fust-class Lord's man as did that for a babby boy, an' the hull neighbourhood's powerful obleeged to 'im. So don't ye,"—and here he turned his stolid gaze on Helmsley,—"don't ye, for all that ye're old, an' poor, an' 'elpless, go cadgin' round this 'ere reverend gemmen's property, cos 'e's got a real pityin' Christian 'art o's own, an' ye'd be sent to bed wi' the turnkey." Here he paused with a comprehensive smile round at the company,—then taking up his hat, he put it on. "There's one too many 'ere for pleasantness, an' I'm goin'. Good-den, Tom! Good-den, all!"[Pg 99]

And out he strode, whistling as he went. With his departure every one began to move,—the more quickly as the clock in the bar had struck ten a minute or two since. The Reverend Mr. Arbroath stood irresolute for a moment, wishing his chief enemy, "Feathery" Joltram, would go. But Joltram remained where he was, standing erect, and surveying the scene like a heavily caparisoned charger scenting battle.

"Tha's heerd Mizter Dubble's tale afore now, Pazon, hazn't tha?" he inquired. "M'appen tha knaw'd the little chap as Christ's man zent to prizon thysen?"

"A theft is a theft," he said, "whether it is committed by a young person or an old one, and whether it is for a penny or a hundred pounds makes no difference. Thieves of all classes and all ages should be punished as such. Those are my opinions."

"They were nowt o' the Lord's opinions," said Joltram, "for He told the thief as 'ung beside Him, 'This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,' but He didn't say nowt o' the man as got the thief punished!"

"You twist the Bible to suit your own ends, Mr. Joltram," retorted Arbroath contemptuously. "It is the common habit of atheists and blasphemers generally."

"Then, by the Lord!" exclaimed the irrepressible "Feathery," "All th' atheists an' blasphemers must be a-gathered in the fold o' the Church, for if the pazons doan't twist the Bible to suit their own ends, I'm blest if I knaw whaat else they does for a decent livin'!"

Just then a puff of fine odour from the Havana cigar which Helmsley was enjoying floated under the nostrils of Mr. Arbroath, and added a fresh touch of irritation to his temper. He turned at once upon the offending smoker.

"So! You pretend to be poor!" he snarled, "And yet you can smoke a cigar that must have cost a shilling!"

"I would!" And Tom o' the Gleam sprang lightly up from his chair, his black eyes sparkling with mingled defiance and laughter—"And I did! Here!—will you take another?" And he drew out and opened a handsome case full of the cigars in question.[Pg 100]

"Thank you!" and Arbroath's pallid lips trembled with rage. "I decline to share in stolen plunder!"

"Ha—ha—ha! Ha—ha!" laughed Tom hilariously. "Stolen plunder! That's good! D'ye think I'd steal when I can buy! Reverend sir, Tom o' the Gleam is particular as to what he smokes, and he hasn't travelled all over the world for nothing:

'Qu'en dictes-vous? Faut-il à ce musier,
Il n'est trésor que de vivre à son aise!'"

Helmsley listened in wonderment. Here was a vagrant of the highroads and woods, quoting the refrain of Villon's Contreditz de Franc-Gontier, and pronouncing the French language with as soft and pure an accent as ever came out of Provence. Meanwhile, Mr. Arbroath, paying no attention whatever to Tom's outburst, looked at his watch.

"It is now a quarter-past ten," he announced dictatorially; "I should advise you all to be going."

"By the law we needn't go till eleven, though Miss Tranter does halve it," said Bill Bush sulkily—"and perhaps we won't!"

"Oh, are ye? Then why don't ye call on Squire Evans, as is the brewer wi' the big 'ouse yonder?" queried Bill defiantly. "'E's the man to go to! Arsk 'im to shut up 'is brewery an' sell no more ale wi' pizon in't to the poor! That'll do more for Temp'rance than the early closin' o' the 'Trusty Man.'"

"Ye're right enough," said Matt Peke, who had refrained from taking any part in the conversation, save by now and then whispering a side comment to Helmsley. "There's stuff put i' the beer what the brewers brew, as is enough to knock the strongest man silly. I'm just fair tired o' hearin' o' Temp'rance this an' Temp'rance that, while 'arf the men as goes to Parl'ment takes their livin' out o' the brewin' o' beer an' spiritus liquors. An' they bribes their poor silly voters wi' their drink till they'se like a flock o' sheep runnin' into wotever field o' politics their shepherds drives 'em. The best way to make the temp'rance cause pop'lar is to stop big brewin'. Let every ale'ouse 'ave its own pertikler brew, an' m'appen we'll git some o' the old-fashioned[Pg 101] malt an' 'ops agin. That'll be good for the small trader, an' the big brewin' companies can take to somethin' 'onester than the pizonin' bizness."

"You are a would-be wise man, and you talk too much, Matthew Peke!" observed the Reverend Mr. Arbroath, smiling darkly, and still glancing askew at his watch. "I know you of old!"

"Ye knows me an' I knows you," responded Peke placidly. "Yer can't interfere wi' me nohow, an' I dessay it riles ye a bit, for ye loves interferin' with ivery sort o' folk, as all the parsons do. I b'longs to no parish, an' aint under you no more than Tom o' the Gleam be, an' we both thanks the Lord for't! An' I'm earnin' a livin' my own way an' bein' a benefit to the sick an' sorry, which aint so far from proper Christianity. Lor', Parson Arbroath! I wonder ye aint more 'uman like, seein' as yer fav'rite gel in the village was arskin' me t'other day if I 'adn't any yerb for to make a love-charm. 'Love-charm!' sez I—'what does ye want that for, my gel?' An' she up an' she sez—'I'd like to make Parson Arbroath eat it!' Hor—er—hor—er—hor—er! 'I'd like to make Parson Arbroath eat it!' sez she. An' she's a foine strappin' wench, too!—'Ullo, Parson! Goin'?"

The door slammed furiously,—Arbroath had suddenly lost his dignity and temper together. Peke's raillery proved too much for him, and amid the loud guffaws of "Feathery" Joltram, Bill Bush and the rest, he beat a hasty retreat, and they heard his heavy footsteps go hurriedly across the passage of the "Trusty Man," and pass out into the road beyond. Roars of laughter accompanied his departure, and Peke looked round with a smile of triumph.

"It's just like a witch-spell!" he declared. "There's nowt to do but whisper, 'Parson's fav'rite!'—an' Parson hisself melts away like a mist o' the mornin' or a weasel runnin' into its 'ole! Hor—er, hor—er, hor—er!"

And again the laughter pealed out long and loud, "Feathery" Joltram bending himself double with merriment, and slapping the sides of his huge legs in ecstasy. Miss Tranter hearing the continuous uproar, looked in warningly, but there was a glimmering smile on her face.

"We'se goin', Miss Tranter!" announced Bill Bush, his wizened face all one broad grin. "We aint the sort to keep you up, never fear! Your worst customer's just cleared out!"[Pg 102]

"So I see!" replied Miss Tranter calmly,—then, nodding towards Helmsley, she said—"Your room's ready."

The herb-gatherer looked for a moment at the thin, refined white hand extended to him before grasping it in his own horny palm. Then—

"Good-night, old chap!" he responded heartily. "Ef I don't see ye i' the mornin' I'll leave ye a bottle o' yerb wine to take along wi' ye trampin', for the more ye drinks o't the soberer ye'll be an' the better ye'll like it. But ye should give up the idee o' footin' it to Cornwall; ye'll never git there without a liftin'."

"Good-night!" And Tom's dark eyes glowed upon him with a sombre intentness. "You know the old proverb which says, 'It's a long lane which has never a turning'?"

"Pleasant? Ay, and peaceful!" And Tom's mellow voice sank into a softer tone. "Peaceful as the strong love of a pure woman, and as sweet with contentment as is the summer when the harvest is full! Good-night!"

Helmsley looked at him thoughtfully; there was something poetic and fascinating about the man.

"Would you?" Tom o' the Gleam smiled. "So you will, as sure as God's in heaven! But how or when, who can tell!" His handsome face clouded suddenly,—some dark shadow of pain or perplexity contracted his brows,—then he seemed to throw the feeling, whatever it was, aside, and his features cleared. "You are bound to meet me," he continued. "I am as much a part of this country as the woods and hills,—the Quantocks and Brendons know me as well as Exmoor and the Valley of Rocks. But you are safe[Pg 103] from me and mine! Not one of our tribe will harm you,—you can pursue your way in peace—and if any one of us can give you help at any time, we will."

"I speak of a Republic!" answered Tom proudly. "There are thousands of men and women in these islands whom no king governs and no law controls,—free as the air and independent as the birds! They ask nothing at any man's hands—they take and they keep!"

"Right you are, Bill!—like the millionaires! None take more than they do, and none keep their takings closer!"

"And very miserable they must surely be sometimes, on both their takings and their keepings," said Helmsley.

"No doubt of it! There'd be no justice in the mind of God if millionaires weren't miserable," declared Tom o' the Gleam. "They've more money than they ought to have,—it's only fair they should have less happiness. Compensation's a natural law that there's no getting away from,—that's why a gypsy's merrier than a king!"

Helmsley smiled assent, and with another friendly good-night all round, left the room. Miss Tranter awaited him, candle in hand, and preceding him up a short flight of ancient and crooked oaken stairs, showed him a small attic room with one narrow bed in it, scrupulously neat and clean.

"You'll be all right here," she said. "There's no lock to your door, but you're out of the truck of house work, and no one will come nigh you."

"Thank you, madam,"—and Helmsley bent his head gently, almost humbly,—"You are very good to me. I am most grateful!"

"Nonsense!" said Miss Tranter, affecting snappishness. "You pay for a bed, and here it is. The lodgers here generally share one room between them, but you are an old man and need rest. It's better you should get your sleep without any chance of disturbance. Good-night!"

She set down the candle by his bedside with a "Mind you put it out!" final warning, and descended the stairs to see the rest of her customers cleared off the premises, with the exception of Bill Bush, Matt Peke, and Tom o' the Gleam, who were her frequent night lodgers. She found[Pg 104] Tom o' the Gleam standing up and delivering a kind of extemporary oration, while his rough cap, under the pilotage of Bill Bush, was being passed round the table in the fashion of a collecting plate.

"The smallest contribution thankfully received!" he laughed, as he looked and saw her. "Miss Tranter, we're doing a mission! We're Salvationists! Now's your chance! Give us a sixpence!"

"What for?" And setting her arms akimbo, the hostess of the "Trusty Man" surveyed all her lingering guests with a severe face. "What games are you up to now? It's time to clear!"

"So it is, and all the good little boys are going to bed," said Tom. "Don't be cross, Mammy! We want to close our subscription list—that's all! We've raised a few pennies for the old grandfather upstairs. He'll never get to Cornwall, poor chap! He's as white as paper. Office work doesn't fit a man of his age for tramping the road. We've collected two shillings for him among us,—you give sixpence, and there's half-a-crown all told. God bless the total!"

He seized his cap as it was handed back to him, and shook it, to show that it was lined with jingling halfpence, and his eyes sparkled like those of a child enjoying a bit of mischief.

Her features relaxed into a smile, and feeling in her apron pocket, she produced the requested coin.

"There you are!" she said.—"And now you've got it, how are you going to give him the money?"

"Never you mind!" and Tom swept all the coins together, and screwed them up in a piece of newspaper. "We'll surprise the old man as the angels surprise the children!"

Miss Tranter said nothing more, but withdrawing to the passage, stood and watched her customers go out of the door of the "Trusty Man," one by one. Each great hulking fellow doffed his cap to her and bade her a respectful "Good-night" as he passed, "Feathery" Joltram pausing a moment to utter an "aside" in her ear.

"'A fixed oop owd Arbroath for zartin zure!"—and here, with a sly wink, he gave a forcible nudge to her arm,—"An owd larrupin' fox 'e be!—an' Matt Peke giv' 'im the finish[Pg 105] wi's fav'rite! Ha—ha—ha! 'A can't abide a wurrd o' that long-legged wench! Ha—ha—ha! An' look y'ere, Miss Tranter! I'd 'a given a shillin' in Tom's 'at when it went round, but I'm thinkin' as zummat in the face o' the owd gaffer up in bed ain't zet on beggin', an' m'appen a charity'd 'urt 'is feelin's like the poor-'ouse do. But if 'e's wantin' to 'arn a mossel o' victual, I'll find 'im a lightsome job on the farm if he'll reckon to walk oop to me afore noon to-morrer. Tell 'im' that from farmer Joltram, an' good-night t'ye!"

He strode out, and before eleven had struck, the old-fashioned iron bar clamped down across the portal, and the inn was closed. Then Miss Tranter turned into the bar, and before shutting it up paused, and surveyed her three lodgers critically.

"So you pretend to be all miserably poor, and yet you actually collect what you call a 'fund' for the old tramp upstairs who's a perfect stranger to you!" she said—"Rascals that you are!"

"Only halfpence, Miss," he explained. "Poor we be as church mice, an' ye knows that, doesn't ye? But we aint gone broken yet, an' Tom 'e started the idee o' doin' a good turn for th' old gaffer, for say what ye like 'e do look a bit feeble for trampin' it."

Miss Tranter sniffed the atmosphere of the bar with a very good assumption of lofty indifference.

"You started the idea, did you?" she went on, looking at Tom o' the Gleam. "You're a nice sort of ruffian to start any idea at all, aren't you? I thought you always took, and never gave!"

He smiled, leaning his handsome head back against the white-washed wall of the little entry where he stood, but said nothing. Matt Peke then took up the parable.

"Th' old man be mortal weak an' faint for sure," he said. "I come upon 'im lyin' under a tree wi' a mossel book aside 'im, an' I takes an' looks at the book, an' 'twas all portry an' simpleton stuff like, an' 'e looked old enough to be my dad, an' tired enough to be fast goin' where my dad's gone, so I just took 'im along wi' me, an' giv' 'im my name an' purfession, an' 'e did the same, a-tellin' me as 'ow 'is name was D. David, an' 'ow 'e 'd lost 'is office work through bein' too old an' shaky. 'E's all right,—an office man aint much good[Pg 106] on the road, weak on 'is pins an' failin' in 'is sight. M'appen the 'arf-crown we've got 'im 'ull 'elp 'im to a ride part o' the way 'e's goin'."

"Well, don't you men bother about him any more," said Miss Tranter decisively. "You get off early in the morning, as usual. I'll look after him!"

"Will ye now?" and Peke's rugged features visibly brightened—"That's just like ye, Miss! Aint it, Tom? Aint it, Bill?"

"Now off to bed with you!" proceeded that lady peremptorily. "And leave your collected 'fund' with me—I'll give it to him."

"No, Miss Tranter!—with every respect for you, no!" he said gaily. "It's not every night we can play angels! I play angel to my kiddie sometimes, putting a fairing in his little hammock where he sleeps like a bird among the trees all night, but I've never had the chance to do it to an old grandad before! Let me have my way!"

And so it chanced that at about half-past eleven, Helmsley, having lain down with a deep sense of relief and repose on his clean comfortable little bed, was startled out of his first doze by hearing stealthy steps approaching his door. His heart began to beat quickly,—a certain vague misgiving troubled him,—after all, he thought, had he not been very rash to trust himself to the shelter of this strange and lonely inn among the wild moors and hills, among unknown men, who, at any rate by their rough and uncouth appearance, might be members of a gang of thieves? The steps came nearer, and a hand fumbled gently with the door handle. In that tense moment of strained listening he was glad to remember that when undressing, he had carefully placed his vest, lined with the banknotes he carried, under the sheet on which he lay, so that in the event of any one coming to search his clothes, nothing would be found but a few loose coins in his coat pocket. The fumbling at his door continued, and presently it slowly opened, letting in a pale stream of moonlight from a lattice window outside. He just saw the massive figure of Tom o' the Gleam standing on the threshold, clad in shirt and trousers only, and behind him there seemed to be the shadowy outline of Matt Peke's[Pg 107] broad shoulders and Bill Bush's bullet head. Uncertain what to expect, he determined to show no sign of consciousness, and half closing his eyes, he breathed heavily and regularly, feigning to be in a sound slumber. But a cold chill ran through his veins as Tom o' the Gleam slowly and cautiously approached the bed, holding something in his right hand, while Matt Peke and Bill Bush tiptoed gently after him half-way into the room.

"Poor old gaffer!" he heard Tom whisper—"Looks all ready laid out and waiting for the winding!"

And the hand that held the something stole gently and ever gentlier towards the pillow. By a supreme effort Helmsley kept quite still. How he controlled his nerves he never knew, for to see through his almost shut eyelids the dark herculean form of the gypsy bending over him with the two other men behind, moved him to a horrible fear. Were they going to murder him? If so, what for? To them he was but an old tramp,—unless—unless somebody had tracked him from London!—unless somebody knew who he really was, and had pointed him out as likely to have money about him. These thoughts ran like lightning through his brain, making his blood burn and his pulses, tingle almost to the verge of a start and cry, when the creeping hand he dreaded quietly laid something on his pillow and withdrew itself with delicate precaution.

"He'll be pleased when he wakes," said Tom o' the Gleam, in the mildest of whispers, retreating softly from the bedside—"Won't he?"

"Ay, that he will!" responded Peke, under his breath;, "aint 'e sleepin' sound?"

Slowly and noiselessly they stepped backward,—slowly and noiselessly they closed the door, and the faint echo of their stealthy footsteps creeping away along the outer passage to another part of the house, was hushed at last into silence. After a long pause of intense stillness, some clock below stairs struck midnight with a mellow clang, and Helmsley opening his eyes, lay waiting till the excited beating of his heart subsided, and his quickened breath grew calm. Blaming himself for his nervous terrors, he presently rose from his bed, and struck a match from the box which Miss Tranter had thoughtfully left beside him, and lit his candle. Something had been placed on his pillow, and[Pg 108] curiosity moved him to examine it. He looked,—but saw nothing save a mere screw of soiled newspaper. He took it up wonderingly. It was heavy,—and opening it he found it full of pennies, halfpennies, and one odd sixpence. A scrap of writing accompanied this collection, roughly pencilled thus:—"To help you along the road. From friends at the Trusty Man. Good luck!"

For a moment he stood inert, fingering the humble coins,—for a moment he could hardly realise that these rough men of doubtful character and calling, with whom he had passed one evening, were actually humane enough to feel pity for his age, and sympathy for his seeming loneliness and poverty, and that they had sufficient heart and generosity to deprive themselves of money in order to help one whom they judged to be in greater need;—then the pure intention and honest kindness of the little "surprise" gift came upon him all at once, and he was not ashamed to feel his eyes full of tears.

"God forgive me!" he murmured—"God forgive me that I ever judged the poor by the rich!"

With an almost reverential tenderness, he folded the paper and coins together, and put the little packet carefully away, determining never to part with it.

"For its value outweighs every banknote I ever handled!" he said—"And I am prouder of it than of all my millions!"

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 that I know of,"—and he heaved a sudden sigh. "It is the dark spirit—the warning of an evil hour!"[Pg 110]

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

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

"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."

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

"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——?"[Pg 111]

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

"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[Pg 112] arm, and turning, she beheld her round-eyed handmaiden Prue.

Miss Tranter at once stepped indoors and confronted Helmsley, who, amazed to find it nearly ten o'clock, now proffered humble excuses to his hostess for his late rising. She waived these aside with a good-humoured nod and smile.

"That's all right!" she said. "I wanted you to have a good long rest, and I'm glad you got it. Were you disturbed at all?"

"Only by kindness," answered Helmsley in a rather tremulous voice. "Some one came into my room while I was asleep—and—and—I found a 'surprise packet' on my pillow——"

"Yes, I know all about it," interrupted Miss Tranter, with a touch of embarrassment—"Tom o' the Gleam did that. He's just gone. He's a rough chap, but he's got a heart. He thinks you're not strong enough to tramp it to Cornwall. And all those great babies of men put their heads together last night after you'd gone upstairs, and clubbed up enough among them to give you a ride part of the way——"

"They're very good!" murmured Helmsley. "Why should they trouble about an old fellow like me?"

"Oh well!" said Miss Tranter cheerfully, "it's just because you are an old fellow, I suppose! You see you might walk to a station to-day, and take the train as far as Minehead before starting on the road again. Anyhow you've time to think it over. If you'll step into the room yonder, I'll send Prue with your breakfast."

She turned her back upon him, and with a shrill call of "Prue! Prue!" affected to be too busy to continue the conversation. Helmsley, therefore, went as she bade him into the common room, which at this hour was quite empty. A neat white cloth was spread at one end of the table, and on this was set a brown loaf, a pat of butter, a jug of new milk, a basin of sugar, and a brightly polished china cup and saucer. The window was open, and the inflow of the pure fresh morning air had done much to disperse the odours of stale tobacco and beer that subtly clung to the walls as reminders of the drink and smoke of the previous evening.[Pg 113]

Just outside, a tangle of climbing roses hung like a delicate pink curtain between Helmsley's eyes and the sunshine, while the busy humming of bees in and out the fragrant hearts of the flowers, made a musical monotony of soothing sound. He sat down and surveyed the simple scene with a quiet sense of pleasure. He contrasted it in his memory with the weary sameness of the breakfasts served to him in his own palatial London residence, when the velvet-footed butler creeping obsequiously round the table, uttered his perpetual "Tea or coffee, sir? 'Am or tongue? Fish or heggs?" in soft sepulchral tones, as though these comestibles had something to do with poison rather than nourishment. With disgust at the luxury which engendered such domestic appurtenances, he thought of the two tall footmen, whose chief duty towards the serving of breakfast appeared to be the taking of covers off dishes and the putting them on again, as if six-footed able-bodied manhood were not equipped for more muscular work than that!

"We do great wrong," he said to himself—"We who are richer than what are called the rich, do infinite wrong to our kind by tolerating so much needless waste and useless extravagance. We merely generate mischief for ourselves and others. The poor are happier, and far kindlier to each other than the moneyed classes, simply because they cannot demand so much self-indulgence. The lazy habits of wealthy men and women who insist on getting an unnecessary number of paid persons to do for them what they could very well do for themselves, are chiefly to blame for all our tiresome and ostentatious social conditions. Servants must, of course, be had in every well-ordered household—but too many of them constitute a veritable hive of discord and worry. Why have huge houses at all? Why have enormous domestic retinues? A small house is always cosiest, and often prettiest, and the fewer servants, the less trouble. Here again comes in the crucial question—Why do we spend all our best years of youth, life, and sentiment in making money, when, so far as the sweetest and highest things are concerned, money can give so little!"

At that moment, Prue entered with a brightly shining old brown "lustre" teapot, and a couple of boiled eggs.

"Mis' Tranter sez you're to eat the eggs cos' they'se new-laid an' incloodid in the bill," she announced glibly—"An' 'opes you've got all ye want."[Pg 114]

"You're a smart little girl!" he said. "Beginning to earn your own living already, eh?"

"Lor', that aint much!" retorted Prue, putting a knife by the brown loaf, and setting the breakfast things even more straightly on the table than they originally were. "I lives on nothin' scarcely, though I'm turned fifteen an' likes a bit o' fresh pork now an' agen. But I've got a brother as is on'y ten, an' when 'e aint at school 'e's earnin' a bit by gatherin' mussels on the beach, an' 'e do collect a goodish bit too, though 'taint reg'lar biziness, an' 'e gets hisself into such a pickle o' salt water as never was. But he brings mother a shillin' or two."

"And who is your mother?" asked Helmsley, drawing up his chair to the table and sitting down.

"Misses Clodder, up at Blue-bell Cottage, two miles from 'ere across the moor," replied Prue. "She goes out a-charing, but it's 'ard for 'er to be doin' chars now—she's gettin' old an' fat—orful fat she be gettin'. Dunno what we'll do if she goes on fattenin'."

It was difficult not to laugh at this statement, Prue's eyes were so round, her cheeks were so red, and she breathed so spasmodically as she spoke. David Helmsley bit his lips to hide a broad smile, and poured out his tea.

"No, never 'ad," declared Prue, quite jubilantly. "'E droonk 'isself to death an' tumbled over a cliff near 'ere one dark night an' was drowned!" This, with the most thrilling emphasis.

"That's very sad! But you can't say you never had a father," persisted Helmsley. "You had him before he was drowned?"

"No, I 'adn't," said Prue. "'E never comed 'ome at all. When 'e seed me 'e didn't know me, 'e was that blind droonk. When my little brother was born 'e was 'owlin' wild down Watchet way, an' screechin' to all the folks as 'ow the baby wasn't his'n!"

This was a doubtful subject,—a "delicate and burning question," as reviewers for the press say when they want to praise some personal friend's indecent novel and pass it into decent households,—and Helmsley let it drop. He devoted himself to the consideration of his breakfast, which[Pg 115] was excellent, and found that he had an appetite to enjoy it thoroughly.

With that she retired, and shutting the door behind her left Helmsley to himself.

Many and conflicting were the thoughts that chased one another through his brain during the quiet half-hour he gave to his morning meal,—a whole fund of new suggestions and ideas were being generated in him by the various episodes in which he was taking an active yet seemingly passive part. He had voluntarily entered into his present circumstances, and so far, he had nothing to complain of. He had met with friendliness and sympathy from persons who, judged by the world's conventions, were of no social account whatever, and he had seen for himself men in a condition of extreme poverty, who were nevertheless apparently contented with their lot. Of course, as a well-known millionaire, his secretaries had always had to deal with endless cases of real or assumed distress, more often the latter,—and shoals of begging letters from people representing themselves as starving and friendless, formed a large part of the daily correspondence with which his house and office were besieged,—but he had never come into personal contact with these shameless sort of correspondents, shrewdly judging them to be undeserving simply by the very fact that they wrote begging letters. He knew that no really honest or plucky-spirited man or woman would waste so much as a stamp in asking money from a stranger, even if such a stranger were twenty times a millionaire. He had given huge sums away to charitable institutions anonymously; and he remembered with a thrill of pain the "Christian kindness" of some good "Church" people, who, when the news accidentally slipped out that he was the donor of a particularly munificent gift to a certain hospital, remarked that "no doubt Mr. Helmsley had given it anonymously at first, in order that it might be made public more effectively afterwards, by way of a personal advertisement!" Such spiteful comment often repeated, had effectually checked the outflow of his naturally warm and generous spirit, nevertheless[Pg 116] he was always ready to relieve any pressing cases of want which were proved genuine, and many a wretched family in the East End of London had cause to bless him for his timely and ungrudging aid. But this present kind of life,—the life of the tramp, the poacher, the gypsy, who is content to be "on the road" rather than submit to the trammels of custom and ordinance, was new to him and full of charm. He took a peculiar pleasure in reflecting as to what he could do to make these men, with whom he had casually foregathered, happier? Did it lie in his power to give them any greater satisfaction than that which they already possessed? He doubted whether a present of money to Matt Peke, for instance, would not offend that rustic philosopher, more than it would gratify him;—while, as for Tom o' the Gleam, that handsome ruffian was more likely to rob a man of gold than accept it as a gift from him. Then involuntarily, his thoughts reverted to the "kiddie." He recalled the look in Tom's wild eyes, and the almost womanish tremble of tenderness in his rough voice, when he had spoken of this little child of his on whom he openly admitted he had set all his love.

"I should like," mused Helmsley, "to see that kiddie! Not that I believe in the apparent promise of a child's life,—for my own sons taught me the folly of indulging in any hopes on that score—and Lucy Sorrel has completed the painful lesson. Who would have ever thought that she,—the little angel creature who seemed too lovely and innocent for this world at ten,—could at twenty have become the extremely commonplace and practical woman she is,—practical enough to wish to marry an old man for his money! But that talk among the men last night about the 'kiddie' touched me somehow,—I fancy it must be a sturdy little lad, with a bright face and a will of its own. I might possibly do something for the child if,—if its father would let me! And that's very doubtful! Besides, should I not be interfering with the wiser and healthier dispensations of nature? The 'kiddie' is no doubt perfectly happy in its wild state of life,—free to roam the woods and fields, with every chance of building up a strong and vigorous constitution in the simple open-air existence to which it has been born and bred. All the riches in the world could not make health or freedom for it,—and thus again I confront myself with my own weary problem—Why have I toiled all my life[Pg 117] to make money, merely to find money so useless and comfortless at the end?"

With a sigh he rose from the table. His simple breakfast was finished, and he went to the window to look at the roses that pushed their pretty pink faces up to the sun through a lattice-work of green leaves. There was a small yard outside, roughly paved with cobbles, but clean, and bordered here and there with bright clusters of flowers, and in one particularly sunny corner where the warmth from the skies had made the cobbles quite hot, a tiny white kitten rolled on its back, making the most absurd efforts to catch its own tail between its forepaws,—and a promising brood of fowls were clucking contentedly round some scattered grain lately flung out from the window of the "Trusty Man's" wash-house for their delectation. There was nothing in the scene at all of a character to excite envy in the most morbid and dissatisfied mind;—it was full of the tamest domesticity, and yet—it was a picture such as some thoughtful Dutch artist would have liked to paint as a suggestion of rural simplicity and peace.

"But if one only knew the ins and outs of the life here, it might not prove so inviting," he thought. "I daresay all the little towns and villages in this neighbourhood are full of petty discords, jealousies, envyings and spites,—even Prue's mother, Mrs. Clodder, may have, and probably has, a neighbour whom she hates, and wishes to get the better of, in some way or other, for there is really no such thing as actual peace anywhere except—in the grave! And who knows whether we shall even find it there! Nothing dies which does not immediately begin to live—in another fashion. And every community, whether of insects, birds, wild animals, or men and women, is bound to fight for existence,—therefore those who cry: 'Peace, peace!' only clamour for a vain thing. The very stones and rocks and mountains maintain a perpetual war with destroying elements,—they appear immutable things to our short lives, but they change in their turn even as we do—they die to live again in other forms, even as we do. And what is it all for? What is the sum and substance of so much striving—if merest Nothingness is the end?"

He was disturbed from his reverie by the entrance of Miss Tranter. He turned round and smiled at her.

"Very much indeed, thanks to your kindness!" he replied. "I hardly thought I had such a good appetite left to me. I feel quite strong and hearty this morning."

"You look twice the man you were last night, certainly,"—and she eyed him thoughtfully—"Would you like a job here?"

"You'd rather not!" snapped out Miss Tranter—"I can see 'No' in your face. Well, please yourself!"

He looked at her. Her lips were compressed in a thin line, and she wore a decidedly vexed expression.

"Ah, you think I don't want to work!" he said—"There you're wrong! But I haven't many years of life in me,—there's not much time left to do what I have to do,—and I must get on."

"All right, you must do as you like, I suppose,"—and Miss Tranter sniffed whole volumes of meaning in one sniff—"But Farmer Joltram told me to say that if you wanted a light job up on his place,—that's about a mile from here,—- he wouldn't mind giving you a chance. You'd get good victuals there, for he feeds his men well. And I don't mind trusting you with a bit of gardening—you could make a shilling a day easy—so don't say you can't get work. That's the usual whine—but if you say it——"

"I shall be a liar!" said Helmsley, his sunken eyes lighting up with a twinkle of merriment—"And don't you fear, Miss Tranter,—I won't say it! I'm grateful to Mr. Joltram—but I've only one object left to me in life, and that is—to get on, and find the person I'm looking for—if I can!"

"Oh, you're looking for a person, are you?" queried Miss Tranter, more amicably—"Some long-lost relative?"

"I see!" Miss Tranter smoothed down her neatly fitting plain cotton gown with both hands reflectively—"And you'll be all right if you find this friend?"

"I shall never want anything any more," he answered,[Pg 119] with an unconsciously pathetic tremor in his voice—"My dearest wish will be granted, and I shall be quite content to die!"

"Well, content or no content, you've got to do it," commented Miss Tranter—"And so have I—and so have all of us. Which I think is a pity. I shouldn't mind living for ever and ever in this world. It's a very comfortable world, though some folks say it isn't. That's mostly liver with them though. People who don't over-eat or over-drink themselves, and who get plenty of fresh air, are generally fairly pleased with the world as they find it. I suppose the friend you're looking for will be glad to see you?"

"The friend I'm looking for will certainly be glad to see me," said Helmsley, gently—"Glad to see me—glad to help me—glad above all things to love me! If this were not so, I should not trouble to search for my friend at all."

Miss Tranter fixed her eyes full upon him while he thus spoke. They were sharp eyes, and just now they were visibly inquisitive.

"Some few, perhaps,"—and he smiled gravely—"But it comes harder to a man who has once known comfort to find himself comfortless in his old age."

"That's very true! Well!"—and Miss Tranter gave a short sigh—"I'm sorry you won't stay on here a bit to pick up your strength—but a wilful man must have his way! I hope you'll find your friend!"

"I hope I shall!" said Helmsley earnestly. "And believe me I'm most grateful to you——"

"Tut!" and Miss Tranter tossed her head. "What do you want to be grateful to me for! You've had food and lodging, and you've paid me for it. I've offered you work and you won't take it. That's the long and short of it between us."

And thereupon she marched out of the room, her head very high, her shoulders very square, and her back very straight. Helmsley watched her dignified exit with a curious sense of half-amused contrition.

"What odd creatures some women are!" he thought. "Here's this sharp-tongued, warm-hearted hostess of a[Pg 120] roadside inn quite angry because, apparently, an old tramp won't stay and do incompetent work for her! She knows that I should make a mere boggle of her garden,—she is equally aware that I could be no use in any way on 'Feathery' Joltram's farm—and yet she is thoroughly annoyed and disappointed because I won't try to do what she is perfectly confident I can't do, in order that I shall rest well and be fed well for one or two days! Really the kindness of the poor to one another outvalues all the gifts of the rich to the charities they help to support. It is so much more than ordinary 'charity,' for it goes hand in hand with a touch of personal feeling. And that is what few rich men ever get,—except when their pretended 'friends' think they can make something for themselves out of their assumed 'friendship'!"

He put on his hat, and plucked one of the roses clambering in at the window to take with him as a remembrance of the "Trusty Man,"—a place which he felt would henceforward be a kind of landmark for the rest of his life to save him from drowning in utter cynicism, because within its walls he had found unselfish compassion for his age and loneliness, and disinterested sympathy for his seeming need. Then he went to say good-bye to Miss Tranter. She was, as usual, in the bar, standing very erect. She had taken up her knitting, and her needles clicked and glittered busily.

She indicated by a jerk of her head a flat oblong quart flask, neatly corked and tied with string, which lay on the counter. It was of a conveniently portable shape, and Helmsley slipped it into one of his coat pockets with ease.

"I don't know. Maybe so, and maybe not. He's gone on to Crowcombe. I daresay he'll come back this way before the end of the month. He's a pretty regular customer."

"Then, will you thank him for me, and say that I shall never forget his kindness?"

"Never forget is a long time," said Miss Tranter. "Most folks forget their friends directly their backs are turned."

"Good-bye!" Miss Tranter paused in her knitting. "Which road are you going from here?"

"Perhaps," he said at last, "one of the main roads would be best. I'd rather not risk any chance of losing my way."

"Take that path across the moor," and she pointed with one of her bright knitting needles to a narrow beaten track between the tufted grass, whitened here and there by clusters of tall daisies, "and follow it as straight as you can. It will bring you out on the highroad to Williton and Watchett. It's a goodish bit of tramping on a hot day like this, but if you keep to it steady you'll be sure to get a lift or so in waggons going along to Dunster. And there are plenty of publics about where I daresay you'd get a night's sixpenny shelter, though whether any of them are as comfortable as the 'Trusty Man,' is open to question."

"I should doubt it very much," said Helmsley, his rare kind smile lighting up his whole face. "The 'Trusty Man' thoroughly deserves trust; and, if I may say so, its kind hostess commands respect."

He raised his cap with the deferential easy grace which was habitual to him, and Miss Tranter's pale cheeks reddened suddenly and violently.

"Oh, I'm only a rough sort!" she said hastily. "But the men like me because I don't give them away. I hold that the poor must get a bit of attention as well as the rich."

"The poor deserve it more," rejoined Helmsley. "The rich get far too much of everything in these days,—they are too much pampered and too much flattered. Yet, with it all, I daresay they are often miserable."

"It must be pretty hard to be miserable on twenty or thirty thousand a year!" said Miss Tranter.

"You think so? Now, I should say it was very easy. For when one has everything, one wants nothing."

"Well, isn't it all right to want nothing?" she queried, looking at him inquisitively.

"All right? No!—rather all wrong! For want stimulates the mind and body to work, and work generates health and energy,—and energy is the pulse of life. Without that pulse, one is a mere husk of a man—as I am!" He doffed[Pg 122] his cap again. "Thank you for all your friendliness. Good-bye!"

"Ay—if I find my friend—then possibly I may return. Meanwhile, all good be with you!"

He turned away, and began to ascend the path indicated across the moor. Once he looked back and waved his hand. Miss Tranter, in response, waved her piece of knitting. Then she went on clicking her needles rapidly through a perfect labyrinth of stitches, her eyes fixed all the while on the tall, thin, frail figure which, with the assistance of a stout stick, moved slowly along between the nodding daisies.

"He's what they call a mystery," she said to herself. "He's as true-born a gentleman as ever lived—with a gentleman's ways, a gentleman's voice, and a gentleman's hands, and yet he's 'on the road' like a tramp! Well! there's many ups and downs in life, certainly, and those that's rich to-day may be poor to-morrow. It's a queer world—and God who made it only knows what it was made for!"

With that, having seen the last of Helmsley's retreating figure, she went indoors, and relieved her feelings by putting Prue through her domestic paces in a fashion that considerably flurried that small damsel and caused her to wonder, "what 'ad come over Miss Tranter suddint, she was that beside 'erself with work and temper!"

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[Pg 124] 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.

"Nowt's far to your kind!" said the man, flicking his whip. "An' ye'll meet a bobby or so on the road!"[Pg 125]

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[Pg 126] 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[Pg 127] 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.

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

"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."

"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[Pg 128] nor cheats any one of a penny, so I aint worryin' about my soul, seein' it's straight with my neighbours."

"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?"

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

"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."

"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!"

"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!"

"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."

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?"[Pg 129]

"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."

"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?"

"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.

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.

"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 rightfully[Pg 130] claimed, 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!"

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

"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[Pg 131] 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."

"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."

"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!"

"No—oh no!"—and Meg's eyes grew thoughtful. "She got through her trouble all right, but 'twas about a year[Pg 132] 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[Pg 133] 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,[Pg 134] 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 Helmsley[Pg 135] presently 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,[Pg 136] 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'[Pg 137] 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!"

"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,[Pg 138] 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[Pg 139] 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.

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[Pg 140] 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[Pg 141] 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:—

"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.

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.

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

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.

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[Pg 143] 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! You will, 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?"

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

"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 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 made[Pg 144] many 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.

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

"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!"[Pg 145]

"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!"

"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?"

"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[Pg 146] 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?"

"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?"

"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[Pg 147] 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!"

"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."

"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[Pg 148] 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.[Pg 149]

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.

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[Pg 150] 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.

"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."

"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 had cause!—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.

The exclamation was uttered almost simultaneously by every one in the room, and the girl Elizabeth sprang forward.[Pg 151]

"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.

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.[Pg 152]

"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[Pg 153] 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!"

"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!"

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!

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[Pg 154] 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.

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[Pg 155] was allus brave an' strong an' hearty—an' there's many of us wantin' comfort an' cheer, eh Tom?"

Tom's splendid dark eyes opened, and a smile, very wan and wistful, gleamed across his lips.

"Is that you, Jim?" he muttered feebly. "It's all dark and cold!—I can't see!—there'll be a frost to-night, and the lambs must be watched a bit—I'm afraid I can't help you, Jim—not to-night! Wanting comfort, did you say? Ay!—plenty wanting that, but I'm past giving it, my boy! I'm done."

"You see, Jim, I've killed a man!" he went on, gaspingly—"And—and—I've no money—we all share and share alike in camp—it won't be worth any one's while to find excuses for me. They'd shut me up in prison if I lived—but now—God's my judge! And He's merciful—He's giving me my liberty!"

His eyelids fell wearily, and a shadow, dark at first, and then lightening into an ivory pallor, began to cover his features like a fine mask, at sight of which the girls, Elizabeth and Grace, with their mother, knelt down and hid their faces. Every one in the room knelt too, and there was a profound stillness. Tom's breathing grew heavier and more laboured,—once they made an attempt to lift the weight of his child's dead body from his breast, but his hands were clenched upon it convulsively and they could not loosen his hold. All at once Elizabeth lifted her head and prayed aloud—

"O God, have mercy on our poor friend Tom, and help him through the Valley of the Shadow! Grant him Thy forgiveness for all his sins, and let him find——" here she broke down and sobbed pitifully,—then between her tears she finished her petition—"Let him find his little child with Thee!"

A low and solemn "Amen" was the response to her prayer from all present, and suddenly Tom opened his eyes with a surprised bright look.

"Yes, Tom!" It was Elizabeth who answered, bending over him—"Kiddie's all right! He's fast asleep in your arms."

"So he is!" And the brilliancy in Tom's eyes grew still more radiant, while with one hand he caressed the thick[Pg 156] dark curls that clustered on the head of his dead boy—"Poor little chap! Tired out, and so am I! It's very cold surely!"

"I thought so! I—I must keep the child warm. They'll be worried in camp over all this—Kiddie never stays out so late. He's such a little fellow—only four!—and he goes to bed early always. And when—when he's asleep—why then—then—the day's over for me,—and night begins—night begins!"

The smile lingered on his lips, and settled there at last in coldest gravity,—the fine mask of death covered his features with an impenetrable waxen stillness—all was over! Tom o' the Gleam had gone with his slain child, and the victim he had sacrificed to his revenge, into the presence of that Supreme Recorder who chronicles all deeds both good and evil, and who, in the character of Divine Justice, may, perchance, find that the sheer brutal selfishness of the modern social world is more utterly to be condemned, and more criminal even than murder.

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[Pg 158] 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[Pg 159] 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.

"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!"

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

"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!"

"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[Pg 161] 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 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:[Pg 162]

"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[Pg 163] money!" he mused, sorrowfully. "Of course if I were to say this to the unthinking majority, they would gape upon me and exclaim—'Hard to do good! Why, there's nothing so easy! There are thousands of poor,—there are the hospitals—the churches!' True,—but the thousands of real poor are not so easily found! There are thousands, ay, millions of 'sham' poor. But the real poor, who never ask for anything,—who would not know how to write a begging letter, and who would shrink from writing it even if they did know—who starve patiently, suffer uncomplainingly, and die resignedly—these are as difficult to meet with as diamonds in a coal mine. As for hospitals, do I not know how many of them pander to the barbarous inhumanity of vivisection!—and have I not experienced to the utmost dregs of bitterness, the melting of cash through the hands of secretaries and under-secretaries, and general Committee-ism, and Red Tape-ism, while every hundred thousand pounds bestowed on these necessary institutions turns out in the end to be a mere drop in the sea of incessant demand, though the donors may possibly purchase a knighthood, a baronetcy, or even a peerage, in return for their gifts! And the churches!—my God!—as Madame Roland said of Liberty, what crimes are committed in Thy Name!"

He looked up at the sky through the square opening of the shed, and saw the moon, now changed in appearance and surrounded by a curious luminous halo like the nimbus with which painters encircle the head of a saint. It was a delicate aureole of prismatic radiance, and seemed to have swept suddenly round the silver planet in companionship with a light mist from the sea,—a mist which was now creeping slowly upwards and covering the land with a glistening wetness as of dew. A few fleecy clouds, pale grey and white, were floating aloft in the western half of the heavens, evoked by some magic touch of the wind.

"It will soon be morning,"—thought Helmsley—"The sun will rise in its same old glorious way—with as measured and monotonous a circuit as it has made from the beginning. The Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the building of the Pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the conquests of Alexander, the death of Socrates, the murder of Cæsar, the crucifixion of Christ,—the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and fruitfulness, itself indifferent[Pg 164] as to what becomes of the atoms germinated under its prolific heat and vitality. The sun takes no heed whether a man dies or lives—neither does God!"

Yet with this idea came a sudden revulsion. Surely in the history of human events, there was ample proof that God, or the invisible Power we call by that name, did care? Crime was, and is, always followed by punishment, sooner or later. Who ordained,—who ordains that this shall be? Who is it that distinguishes between Right and Wrong, and adjusts the balance accordingly? Not Man,—for Man in a barbarous state is often incapable of understanding moral law, till he is trained to it by the evolution of his being and the ever-progressive working of the unseen spiritual forces. And the first process of his evolution is the awakening of conscience, and the struggle to rise from his mere Self to a higher ideal of life,—from material needs to intellectual development. Why is he thus invariably moved towards this higher ideal? If the instinct were a mistaken one, foredoomed to disappointment, it would not be allowed to exist. Nature does not endow us with any sense of which we do not stand in need, or any attribute which is useless to us in the shaping and unfolding of our destinies. True it is that we see many a man and woman who appear to have no souls, but we dare not infer from these exceptions that the soul does not exist. Soulless beings simply have no need of spirituality, just as the night-owl has no need of the sun,—they are bodies merely, and as bodies perish. As the angel said to the prophet Esdras:—"The Most High hath made this world for many, but the world to come for few. I will tell thee a similitude, Esdras; As when thou askest the earth, it shall say unto thee that it giveth much mould whereof earthern vessels are made, but little dust that gold cometh of, even so is the course of this present world!"

Weary of arguing with himself, Helmsley tried to reflect back on certain incidents of his youth, which now in his age came out like prominent pictures in the gallery of his brain. He remembered the pure and simple piety which distinguished his mother, who lived her life out as sweetly as a flower blooms,—thanking God every morning and night for His goodness to her, even at times when she was most sorrowful,—he thought of his little sister, dead in the springtime of her girlhood, who never had a doubt of the unfailing goodness and beneficence of her Creator, and who, when[Pg 165] dying, smiled radiantly, and whispered with her last breath, "I wish you would not cry for me, Davie dear!—the next world is so beautiful!" Was this "next world" in her imagination, or was it a fact? Materialists would, of course, say it was imagination. But, in the light of present-day science and discovery, who can pin one's faith on Materialism?

"I have missed the talisman that would have made all the darkness of life clear to me," he said at last, half aloud; "and missing it, I have missed everything of real value. Pain, loss, old age, and death would have been nothing to me, if I had only won that magic glory of the world—Love!"

His eyes again wandered to the sky, and he noticed that the grey-and-white clouds in the west were rising still higher in fleecy pyramids, and were spreading with a wool-like thickness gradually over the whole heavens. The wind, too, had grown stronger, and its sighing sound had changed to a more strenuous moaning. The little dog, Charlie, tired of its master's gloomy absorption, jumped on his knee, and intimated by eloquent looks and wagging tail a readiness to be again nestled into some cosy corner. The shed was warm and comfortable, and after some brief consideration, he decided to try and sleep for an hour or so before again starting on his way. With this object in view, he arranged the packages of straw which filled one side of the shed into the form of an extemporary couch, which proved comfortable enough when he lay down with Charlie curled up beside him. He could not help thinking of the previous night, when he had seen the tall figure of Tom o' the Gleam approaching his bedside at the "Trusty Man," with the little "surprise" gift he had so stealthily laid upon his pillow,—and it was difficult to realise or to believe that the warm, impulsive heart had ceased to beat, and that all that splendid manhood was now but lifeless clay. He tried not to see the horribly haunting vision of the murdered Wrotham, with that terrible gash in his throat, and the blood pouring from it,—he strove to forget the pitiful picture of the little dead "Kiddie" in the arms of its maddened and broken-hearted father—but the impression was too recent and too ghastly for forgetfulness.

"And yet with it all," he mused, "Tom o' the Gleam had what I have never possessed—love! And perhaps it is better[Pg 166] to die—even in the awful way he died—in the very strength and frenzy of love—rather than live loveless!"

Here Charlie heaved a small sigh, and nestled a soft silky head close against his breast. "I love you!" the little creature seemed to say—"I am only a dog—but I want to comfort you if I can!" And he murmured—"Poor Charlie! Poor wee Charlie!" and, patting the flossy coat of his foundling, was conscious of a certain consolation in the mere companionship of an animal that trusted to him for protection.

Presently he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His brain was somewhat confused, and scraps of old songs and verses he had known in boyhood, were jumbled together without cause or sequence, varying in their turn with the events of his business, his financial "deals" and the general results of his life's work. He remembered quite suddenly and for no particular reason, a battle he had engaged in with certain directors of a company who had attempted to "better" him in a particularly important international trade transaction, and he recalled his own sweeping victory over them with a curious sense of disgust. What did it matter—now?—whether he had so many extra millions, or so many more degrees of power? Certain lines of Tennyson's seemed to contain greater truths than all the money-markets of the world could supply:—

"O let the solid earth
Not fail beneath my feet,
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet—
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day!

"Let the sweet heavens endure
Not close and darken above me,
Before I am quite, quite sure
That there is one to love me;
Then let come what come may
To a life that has been so sad,
I shall have had my day!"

He murmured this last verse over and over again till it made mere monotony in his mind, and till at last exhausted nature had its way and lulled his senses into a profound slumber. Strange to say, as soon as he was fast[Pg 167] asleep, Charlie woke up. Perking his little ears sharply, he sat briskly erect on his tiny haunches, his forepaws well placed on his master's breast, his bright eyes watchfully fixed on the opening of the shed, and his whole attitude expressing that he considered himself "on guard." It was evident that had the least human footfall broken the stillness, he would have made the air ring with as much noise as he was capable of. He had a vibrating bark of his own, worthy of a much larger animal, and he appeared to be anxiously waiting for an opportunity to show off this special accomplishment. No such chance, however, offered itself; the minutes and hours went by in undisturbed order. Now and then a rabbit scampered across the field, or an owl flew through the trees with a plaintive cry,—otherwise, so far as the immediate surroundings of the visible land were concerned, everything was perfectly calm. But up in the sky there were signs of gathering trouble. The clouds had formed into woollier masses,—their grey had changed to black, their white to grey, and the moon, half hidden, appeared to be hurrying downward to the west in a flying scud of etheric foam. Some disturbance was brewing in the higher altitudes of air, and a low snarling murmur from the sea responded to what was, perchance, the outward gust of a fire-tempest in the sun. The small Charlie was, no doubt, quite ignorant of meteorological portents, nevertheless he kept himself wide awake, sniffing at empty space in a highly suspicious manner, his tiny black nose moist with aggressive excitement, and his whole miniature being prepared to make "much ado about nothing" on the smallest provocation.

The morning broke sullenly, in a dull haze, though here and there pale patches of blue, and flushes of rose-pink, showed how fair the day would willingly have made itself, had only the elements been propitious. Helmsley slept well on through the gradual unfolding of the dawn, and it was fully seven o'clock when he awoke with a start, scarcely knowing where he was. Charlie hailed his return to consciousness with marked enthusiasm, and dropping the sentry "Who goes there?" attitude, gambolled about him delightedly. Presently remembering his environment and the events which were a part of it, he quickly aroused himself, and carefully packing up all the bundles of straw in the shed, exactly as he had found them, he again went forth upon[Pg 168] what he was disposed to consider now a penitential pilgrimage.

"In old times," he said to himself, as he bathed his face and hands in a little running stream by the roadside—"kings, when they found themselves miserable and did not know why they were so, went to the church for consolation, and were told by the priests that they had sinned—and that it was their sins that made them wretched. And a journey taken with fasting was prescribed—much in the way that our fashionable physicians prescribe change of air, a limited diet and plenty of exercise to the luxurious feeders of our social hive. And the weary potentates took off their crowns and their royal robes, and trudged along as they were told—became tramps for the nonce, like me. But I need no priest to command what I myself ordain!"

He resumed his onward way ploddingly and determinedly, though he was beginning to be conscious of an increasing weariness and lassitude which seemed to threaten him with a break-down ere long. But he would not think of this.

"Other men have no doubt felt just as weak," he thought. "There are many on the road as old as I am and even older. I ought to be able to do of my own choice what others do from necessity. And if the worst comes to the worst, and I am compelled to give up my project, I can always get back to London in a few hours!"

He was soon at Minehead, and found that quaint little watering-place fully astir; for so far as it could have a "season," that season was now on. A considerable number of tourists were about, and coaches and brakes were getting ready in the streets for those who were inclined to undertake the twenty miles drive from Minehead to Lynton. Seeing a baker's shop open he went in and asked the cheery-looking woman behind the counter if she would make him a cup of coffee, and let him have a saucer of milk for his little dog. She consented willingly, and showed him a little inner room, where she spread a clean white cloth on the table and asked him to sit down. He looked at her in some surprise.

"Then you'll get just what everybody gets for their money,"—and her smile broadened kindly—"We don't make any difference between poor and rich."

She retired, and he dropped into a chair, wearily. "We don't make any difference between poor and rich!" said this simple woman. How very simple she was! No difference between poor and rich! Where would "society" be if this axiom were followed! He almost laughed to think of it. A girl came in and brought his coffee with a plate of fresh bread-and-butter, a dish of Devonshire cream, a pot of jam, and a small round basket full of rosy apples,—also a saucer of milk which she set down on the floor for Charlie, patting him kindly as she did so, with many admiring comments on his beauty.

Helmsley paid the humble coin demanded, and wondered where the "starving poor" came in, at any rate in Somersetshire. Any beggar on the road, making sixpence a day, might consider himself well fed with such a meal. Just as he drew up his chair to the table, a sudden gust of wind swept round the house, shaking the whole building, and apparently hurling the weight of its fury on the roof, for it sounded as if a whole stack of chimney-pots had fallen.

"It's a squall,"—said the girl—"Father said there was a storm coming. It often blows pretty hard up this way."

She went out, and left Helmsley to himself. He ate his meal, and fed Charlie with as much bread and milk as that canine epicure could consume,—and then sat for a while, listening to the curious hissing of the wind, which was like a suppressed angry whisper in his ears.

"It will be rough weather,"—he thought—"Now shall I stay in Minehead, or go on?"

Somehow, his experience of vagabondage had bred in him a certain restlessness, and he did not care to linger in any one place. An inexplicable force urged him on. He was conscious that he entertained a most foolish, most forlorn secret hope,—that of finding some yet unknown consolation,—of[Pg 170] receiving some yet unobtained heavenly benediction. And he repeated again the lines:—

"Let the sweet heavens endure,
Not close and darken above me,
Before I am quite, quite sure
That there is one to love me!"

Surely a Divine Providence there was who could read his heart's desire, and who could see how sincerely in earnest he was to find some channel wherein the current of his accumulated wealth might flow after his own death, to fruitfulness and blessing for those who truly deserved it.

"Is it so much to ask of destiny—just one honest heart?" he inwardly demanded—"Is it so large a return to want from the world in which I have toiled so long—just one unselfish love? People would tell me I am too old to expect such a thing,—but I am not seeking the love of a lover,—that I know is impossible. But Love,—that most god-like of all emotions, has many phases, and a merely sexual attraction is the least and worst part of the divine passion. There is a higher form,—one far more lasting and perfect, in which Self has very little part,—and though I cannot give it a name, I am certain of its existence!"

Another gust of wind, more furious than the last, whistled overhead and through the crannies of the door. He rose, and tucking Charlie warmly under his coat as before, he went out, pausing on his way to thank the mistress of the little bakery for the excellent meal he had enjoyed.

"Well, you won't hurt on it," she said, smilingly; "it's plain, but it's wholesome. That's all we claim for it. Are you going on far?"

"Yes, I'm bound for a pretty long tramp,"—he replied. "I'm walking to find friends in Cornwall."

"Deary me!" she ejaculated—"You've a stiff road before you. And to-day I'm afraid you'll be in for a storm."

"Not yet,—but it's blowing hard,"—she replied—"And it's like to blow harder."

And, gratefully acknowledging the kindly woman's parting nod and smile, he stepped out of the shop into the street. There he found the wind had risen indeed. Showers of blinding dust were circling in the air, blotting out the view,—the sky was covered with masses of murky cloud drifting against each other in threatening confusion—and there was a dashing sound of the sea on the beach which seemed to be steadily increasing in volume and intensity. He paused for a moment under the shelter of an arched doorway, to place Charlie more comfortably under his arm and button his coat more securely, the while he watched the people in the principal thoroughfare struggling with the capricious attacks of the blast, which tore their hats off and sent them spinning across the road, and played mischievous havoc with women's skirts, blowing them up to the knees, and making a great exhibition of feet, few of which were worth looking at from any point of beauty or fitness. And then, all at once, amid the whirling of the gale, he heard a hoarse stentorian shouting—"Awful Murder! Local Crime! Murder of a Nobleman! Murder at Blue Anchor! Latest details!" and he started precipitately forward, walking hurriedly along with as much nervous horror as though he had been guiltily concerned in the deed with which the town was ringing. Two or three boys ran past him, with printed placards in their hands, which they waved in front of them, and on which in thick black letters could be seen:—"Murder of Lord Wrotham! Death of the Murderer! Appalling Tragedy at Blue Anchor!" And, for a few seconds, amid the confusion caused by the wind, and the wild clamour of the news-vendors, he felt as if every one were reeling pell-mell around him like persons on a ship at sea,—men with hats blown off,—women and children running aslant against the gale with hair streaming,—all eager to purchase the first papers which contained the account of a tragedy, enacted, as it were, at their very doors. Outside a little glass and china shop at the top of a rather hilly street a group of workingmen were standing, with the papers they had just bought in their hands, and Helmsley, as he trudged by, with stooping figure and bent head set against the wind, lingered near them a moment to hear them discuss the news.[Pg 172]

"Ah, poor Tom!" exclaimed one—"Gone at last! I mind me well how he used to say he'd die a bad death!"

"What's a bad death?" queried another, gruffly—"And what's the truth about this here business anyhow? Newspapers is allus full o' lies. There's a lot about a lord that's killed, but precious little about Tom!"

"That's so!" said an old farmer, who with spectacles on was leaning his back against the wall of the shop near which they stood, to shelter himself a little from the force of the gale, while he read the paper he held—"See here,—this lord was driving his motor along by Cleeve, and ran over Tom's child,—why, that's the poor Kiddie we used to see Tom carrying for miles on his shoulder——"

"Ah, the poor lamb!" And a commiserating groan ran through the little group of attentive listeners.

"And then,"—continued the farmer—"from what I can make out of this paper, Tom picked up his baby quite dead. Then he started to run all the way after the fellow whose motor car had killed it. That's nat'ral enough!"

"Of course it is!" "I'd a' done it myself!" "Damn them motors!" muttered the chorus, fiercely.

"If so be the motor 'ad gone on, Tom couldn't never 'ave caught up with it, even if he'd run till he dropped," went on the farmer—"but as luck would 'ave it, the thing broke down nigh to Blue Anchor, and Tom got his chance. Which he took. And—he killed this Lord Wrotham, whoever he is,—stuck him in the throat with a knife as though he were a pig!"

"Then,"—proceeded the farmer, carefully studying the paper again—"Tom, 'avin' done all his best an' worst in this world, gives himself up to the police, but just 'afore goin' off, asks if he may kiss his dead baby,——"

"And," continued the farmer, with a husky and trembling voice—"he takes the child in his arms, an' all sudden like falls down dead. God rest him!"

"It says—wait a minute!—it says—'Society will be plunged into mourning for Lord Wrotham, who was one of the most promising of our younger peers, and whose sporting tendencies made him a great favourite in Court circles.'"

"That's a bit o' bunkum paid for by the fam'ly!" said a great hulking drayman who had joined the little knot of bystanders, flicking his whip as he spoke,—"Sassiety plunged into mourning for the death of a precious raskill, is it? I 'xpect it's often got to mourn that way! Rort an' rubbish! Tell ye what!—Tom o' the Gleam was worth a dozen o' your motorin' lords!—an' the hull countryside through Quantocks, ay, an' even across Exmoor, 'ull 'ave tears for 'im an' 'is pretty little Kiddie what didn't do no 'arm to anybody more'n a lamb skippin' in the fields. Tom worn't known in their blessed 'Court circles,'—but, by the Lord!—he'd got a grip o' the people's heart about here, an' the people don't forget their friends in a hurry! Who the devil cares for Lord Wrotham!"

"Nobody!" "He wor a rare fine chap!" "We'll all miss him!" eagerly answered the chorus.

With a curious gesture, half of grief, half of defiance, the drayman tore a scrap of black lining from his coat, and tied it to his whip.

"Tom was pretty well known to be a terror to some folk,—specially liars an' raskills,"—he said—"An' I aint excusin' murder. But all the same I'm in mourning for Tom an' 'is little Kiddie, an' I don't care who knows it!"

He went off, and the group dispersed, partly driven asunder by the increasing fury of the wind, which was now sweeping through the streets in strong, steady gusts, hurling everything before it. But Helmsley set his face to the storm and toiled on. He must get out of Minehead. This he felt to be imperative. He could not stay in a town which now for many days would talk of nothing else but the tragic death of Tom o' the Gleam. His nerves were shaken, and he felt himself to be mentally, as well as physically, distressed by the strange chance which had associated him against his will with such a grim drama of passion and revenge. He remembered seeing the fateful motor swing down that precipitous road near Cleeve,—he recalled its[Pg 174] narrow escape from a complete upset at the end of the declivity when it had swerved round the corner and rushed on,—how little he had dreamed that a child's life had just been torn away by its reckless wheels!—and that child the all-in-the-world to Tom o' the Gleam! Tom must have tracked the motor by following some side-lane or short cut known only to himself, otherwise Helmsley thought he would hardly have escaped seeing him. But, in any case, the slow and trudging movements of an old man must have lagged far, far behind those of the strong, fleet-footed gypsy to whom the wildest hills and dales, cliffs and sea caves were all familiar ground. Like a voice from the grave, the reply Tom had given to Matt Peke at the "Trusty Man," when Matt asked him where he had come from, rang back upon his ears—"From the caves of Cornwall! From picking up drift on the shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks! All sport, Matt! I live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my pleasure!"

Shuddering at this recollection, Helmsley pressed on in the teeth of the blast, and a sudden shower of rain scudded by, stinging him in the face with the sharpness of needlepoints. The gale was so high, and the blown dust so thick on all sides, that he could scarcely see where he was going, but his chief effort was to get out of Minehead and away from all contact with human beings—for the time. In this he succeeded very soon. Once well beyond the town, he did not pause to make a choice of roads. He only sought to avoid the coast line, rightly judging that way to lie most open and exposed to the storm,—moreover the wind swooped in so fiercely from the sea, and the rising waves made such a terrific roaring, that, for the mere sake of greater quietness, he turned aside and followed a path which appeared to lead invitingly into some deep hollow of the hills. There seemed a slight chance of the weather clearing at noon, for though the wind was so high, the clouds were whitening under passing gleams of sunlight, and the scud of rain had passed. As he walked further and further he found himself entering a deep green valley—a cleft between high hills,—and though he had no idea which way it led him, he was pleased to have reached a comparatively sheltered spot where the force of the hurricane was not so fiercely felt, and where the angry argument of the sea was deadened by distance. There was a lovely perfume everywhere,—the dash of rain on the herbs[Pg 175] and field flowers had brought out their scent, and the freshness of the stormy atmosphere was bracing and exhilarating. He put Charlie down on the grass, and was amused to see how obediently the tiny creature trotted after him, close at his heels, in the manner of a well-trained, well-taught lady's favourite. There was no danger of wheeled or motor traffic in this peaceful little glen, which appeared to be used solely by pedestrians. He rather wondered now and then whither it led, but was not very greatly concerned on the subject. What pleased him most was that he did not see a single human being anywhere or a sign of human habitation.

Presently the path began to ascend, and he followed it upward. The climb became gradually steep and wearisome, and the track grew smaller, almost vanishing altogether among masses of loose stones, which had rolled down from the summits of the hills, and he had again to carry Charlie, who very strenuously objected to the contact of sharp flints against his dainty little feet. The boisterous wind now met him full-faced,—but, struggling against it, he finally reached a wide plateau, commanding a view of the surrounding country and the sea. Not a house was in sight;—all around him extended a chain of hills, like a fortress set against invading ocean,—and straight away before his eyes ocean itself rose and fell in a chaos of billowy blackness. What a sight it was! Here, from this point, he could take some measure and form some idea of the storm, which so far from abating as he had imagined it might, when passing through the protected seclusion of the valley he had just left, was evidently gathering itself together for a still fiercer onslaught.

Breathless with his climbing exertions he stood watching the huge walls of water, built up almost solidly as it seemed, by one force and dashed down again by another,—it was as though great mountains lifted themselves over each other to peer at the sky and were driven back again to shapelessness and destruction. The spectacle was all the more grand and impressive to him, because where he now was he could not hear the full clamour of the rolling and retreating billows. The thunder of the surf was diminished to a sullen moan, which came along with the wind and clung to it like a concordant note in music, forming one sustained chord of wrath and desolation. Darkening steadily over the sea and densely over-spreading the whole sky, there were flying clouds of singular shape,—clouds tossed up into the momentary[Pg 176] similitude of Titanesque human figures with threatening arms outstretched,—anon, to the filmly outlines of fabulous birds swooping downwards with jagged wings and ravenous beaks,—or twisting into columns and pyramids of vapour as though the showers of foam flung up by the waves had been caught in mid-air and suddenly frozen. Several sea-gulls were flying inland; two or three soared right over Helmsley's head with a plaintive cry. He turned to watch their graceful flight, and saw another phalanx of clouds coming up behind to meet and cope with those already hurrying in with the wind from the sea. The darkness of the sky was deepening every minute, and he began to feel a little uneasy. He realised that he had lost his way, and he looked on all sides for some glimpse of a main road, but could see none, and the path he had followed evidently terminated at the summit where he stood. To return to the valley he had left seemed futile, as it was only a way back to Minehead, which place he wished to avoid. There was a small sheep track winding down on the other side of the hill, and he thought it possible that this might lead to a farm-road, which again might take him out on some more direct highway. He therefore started to follow it. He could scarcely walk against the wind; it blew with such increasing fury. Charlie shivered away from its fierce breath and snuggled his tiny body more warmly under his protector's arm, withdrawing himself entirely from view. And now with a sudden hissing whirl, down came the rain. The two opposing forces of cloud met with a sudden rush, and emptied their pent-up torrents on the earth, while a low muttering noise, not of the wind, betokened thunder. The prolonged heat of the last month had been very great all over the country, and a suppressed volcano was smouldering in the heart of the heavens, ready to shoot forth fire. The roaring of the sea grew more distinct as Helmsley descended from the height and came nearer to the coast line,—and the mingled scream of the angry surf on the shore and the sword-like sweep of the rain, rang in his ears deafeningly, with a kind of monotonous horror. His head began to swim, and his eyes were half blinded by the sharp showers that whipped his face with blown drops as hard and cold as hail. On he went, however, more like a struggling dreamer in a dream, than with actual consciousness,—and darker and wilder grew the storm. A forked flash of lightning, running suddenly like[Pg 177] melted lava down the sky, flung half a second's lurid blue glare athwart the deepening blackness,—and in less than two minutes it was followed by the first decisive peal of thunder rolling in deep reverberations from sea to land, from land to sea again. The war of the elements had begun in earnest. Amid their increasing giant wrath, Helmsley stumbled almost unseeingly along,—keeping his head down and leaning more heavily than was his usual wont upon the stout ash stick which was part of the workman's outfit he had purchased for himself in Bristol, and which now served him as his best support. In the gathering gloom, with his stooping thin figure, he looked more like a faded leaf fluttering in the gale than a man, and he was beginning now to realise with keen disappointment that his strength was not equal to the strain he had been putting upon it. The weight of his seventy years was pressing him down,—and a sudden thrill of nervous terror ran through him lest his whim for wandering should cost him his life.

"And if I were to die of exhaustion out here on the hills, what would be said of me?" he thought—"They would find my body—perhaps—after some days;—they would discover the money I carry in my vest lining, and a letter to Vesey which would declare my actual identity. Then I should be called a fool or a madman—most probably the latter. No one would know,—no one would guess—except Vesey—the real object with which I started on this wild goose chase after the impossible. It is a foolish quest! Perhaps after all I had better give it up, and return to the old wearisome life of luxury,—the old ways!—and die in my bed in the usual 'respectable' style of the rich, with expensive doctors, nurses and medicines set in order round me, and all arrangements getting ready for a 'first-class funeral'!"

He laughed drearily. Another flash of lightning, followed almost instantaneously by a terrific crash of thunder, brought him to a pause. He was now at the bottom of the hill which he had ascended from the other side, and perceived a distinct and well-trodden path which appeared to lead in a circuitous direction towards the sea. Here there seemed some chance of getting out of the labyrinth of hills into which he had incautiously wandered, and, summoning up his scattered forces, he pressed on. The path proved to be an interminable winding way,—first up—then down,—now showing glimpses of the raging ocean, now dipping over[Pg 178] bare and desolate lengths of land,—and presently it turned abruptly into a deep thicket of trees. Drenched with rain and tired of fighting against the boisterous wind which almost tore his breath away, he entered this dark wood with a vague sense of relief,—it offered some sort of shelter, and if the trees attracted the lightning and he were struck dead beneath them, what did it matter after all! One way of dying was as good (or as bad) as another!

The over-arching boughs dripping with wet, closed over him and drew him, as it were, into their dense shadows,—the wind shrieked after him like a scolding fury, but its raging tone grew softer as he penetrated more deeply into the sable-green depths of heavily foliaged solitude. His weary feet trod gratefully on a thick carpet of pine needles and masses of the last year's fallen leaves,—and a strong sweet scent of mingled elderflower and sweetbriar was tossed to him on every gust of rain. Here the storm turned itself to music and revelled in a glorious symphony of sound.

"Oh ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever!"

In full chords of passionate praise the hurricane swept its grand anthem through the rustling, swaying trees, as though these were the strings of a giant harp on which some great Archangel played,—and the dash and roar of the sea came with it, rolling in the track of another mighty peal of thunder. Helmsley stopped and listened, seized by an overpowering enchantment and awe.

"This—this is Life!" he said, half aloud—"Our miserable human vanities—our petty schemes—our poor ambitions—what are they? Motes in a sunbeam!—gone as soon as realised! But Life,—the deep, self-contained divine Life of Nature—this is the only life that lives for ever, the Immortality of which we are a part!"

A fierce gust of wind here snapped asunder a great branch from a tree, and flung it straight across his path. Had he been a few inches nearer, it would have probably struck him down with it. Charlie peeped out from under his arm with a pitiful little whimper, and Helmsley's heart smote him.

"Poor wee Charlie!" he said, fondling the tiny head; "I know what you would say to me! You would say that if I want to risk my own life, I needn't risk yours! Is that it?[Pg 179] Well!—I'll try to get you out of this if I can! I wish I I could see some sign of a house anywhere! I'd make for it and ask for shelter."

He trudged patiently onwards,—but he was beginning to feel unsteady in his limbs,—and every now and then he had to stop, overcome by a sickening sensation of giddiness. The tempest had now fully developed into a heavy thunderstorm, and the lightning quivered and gleamed through the trees incessantly, followed by huge claps of thunder which clashed down without a second's warning, afterwards rolling away in long thudding detonations echoing for miles and miles. It was difficult to walk at all in such a storm,—the youngest and strongest pedestrian might have given way under the combined onslaught of rain, wind, and the pattering shower of leaves which were literally torn, fresh and green, from their parent boughs and cast forth to whirl confusedly amid the troubled spaces of the air. And if the young and strong would have found it hard to brave such an uproar of the elements, how much harder was it for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice, brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,—a fancy that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love or a friendship he had never met with among the rich and powerful, was all that had led him forth on this strange journey of which the end could but be disappointment and failure;—and at the present moment he felt so thoroughly conscious of his own folly, that he almost resolved on abandoning his enterprise as soon as he found himself once more on the main road.

"I will take the first vehicle that comes by,"—he said, "and make for the nearest railway station. And I'll end my days with a character for being 'hard as nails!'—that's the only way in which one can win the respectful consideration of one's fellows as a thoroughly 'sane and sensible' man!"

Just then, the path he was following started sharply up a steep acclivity, and there was no other choice left to him but still to continue in it, as the trees were closing in blindly intricate tangles about him, and the brushwood was becoming[Pg 180] so thick that he could not have possibly forced a passage through it. His footing grew more difficult, for now, instead of soft pine-needles and leaves to tread upon, there were only loose stones, and the rain was blowing in downward squalls that almost by their very fury threw him backward on the ground. Up, still up, he went, however, panting painfully as he climbed,—his breath was short and uneasy—and all his body ached and shivered as with strong ague. At last,—dizzy and half fainting,—he arrived at the top of the tedious and troublesome ascent, and uttered an involuntary cry at the scene of beauty and grandeur stretched in front of him. How far he had walked he had no idea,—nor did he know how many hours he had taken in walking,—but he had somehow found his way to the summit of a rocky wooded height, from which he could survey the whole troubled expanse of wild sky and wilder sea,—while just below him the hills were split asunder into a huge cleft, or "coombe," running straight down to the very lip of ocean, with rampant foliage hanging about it on either side in lavish garlands of green, and big boulders piled up about it, from whose smooth surfaces the rain swept off in sleety sheets, leaving them shining like polished silver. What a wild Paradise was here disclosed!—what a matchless picture, called into shape and colour with all the forceful ease and perfection of Nature's handiwork! No glimpse of human habitation was anywhere visible; man seemed to have found no dwelling here; there was nothing—nothing, but Earth the Beautiful, and her Lover the Sea! Over these twain the lightnings leaped, and the thunder played in the sanctuary of heaven,—this hour of storm was all their own, and humanity was no more counted in their passionate intermingling of life than the insects on a leaf, or the grains of sand on the shore. For a moment or two Helmsley's eyes, straining and dim, gazed out on the marvellously bewitching landscape thus suddenly unrolled before him,—then all at once a sharp pain running through his heart caused him to flinch and tremble. It was a keen stab of anguish, as though a knife had been plunged into his body.

Walking feebly to a great stone hard by, he sat down upon it, breathing with difficulty. The rain beat full upon him, but he did not heed it; he sought to recover from the shock of that horrible pain,—to overcome the creeping sick[Pg 181] sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness off;—he looked up at the sky—and was met by a blinding flash which tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire in the centre of the blackness—and at this he made some inarticulate sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry mass of flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet grass, stood amazed, and shivering pitifully under the torrents of rain. But Helmsley was not conscious of his canine friend's distress. Another pang, cruel and prolonged, convulsed him,—a blood-red mist swam before his eyes, and he lost all hold on sense and memory. With a dull groan he fell forward, slipping from the stone on which he had been seated, in a helpless heap on the ground,—involuntarily he threw up his arms as a drowning man might do among great waves overwhelming him,—and so went down—down!—into silence and unconsciousness.

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[Pg 183] 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'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!"

"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."

"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——"

"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[Pg 184] sheer mental force and determination he got himself on his feet, but his limbs shook violently, and his head swam.

"I'm afraid"—he faltered—"I'm afraid I am very ill. I shall only be a trouble to you——"

"Don't talk of trouble? Wait till I fetch the doggie!" And, turning from him a moment, she ran to pick up Charlie, who, as she had said, was snugly ensconced in the folds of her cloak, which she had put for him under the shelter of a projecting boulder,—"Could you carry him, do you think?"

He nodded assent, and put the little animal under his coat as before, touched almost to weak tears to feel it trying to lick his hand. Meanwhile his unknown and scarcely visible protectress put an arm round him, holding him up as carefully as though he were a tottering infant.

"Don't hurry—just take an easy step at a time,"—she said—"The moon rises a bit late, and we'll have to see our way as best we can with the stars." And she gave a glance upward. "That's a bright one just over the coombe,—the girls about here call it 'Light o' Love.'"

Moving stiffly, and with great pain, Helmsley was nevertheless impelled, despite his suffering, to look, as she was looking, towards the heavens. There he saw the same star that had peered at him through the window of his study at Carlton House Terrace,—the same that had sparkled out in the sky the night that he and Matt Peke had trudged the road together, and which Matt had described as "the love-star, an' it'll be nowt else in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!" And she whose eyes were upturned to its silvery glory,—who was she? His sight was very dim, and in the deepening shadows he could only discern a figure of medium womanly height,—an uncovered head with the hair loosely knotted in a thick coil at the nape of the neck,—and the outline of a face which might be fair or plain,—he could not tell. He was conscious of the warm strength of the arm that supported him, for when he slipped once or twice, he was caught up tenderly, without hurt or haste, and held even more securely than before. Gradually, and by halting degrees, he made the descent of the hill, and, as his guide helped him carefully over a few loose stones in the path, he saw through a dark clump of foliage the glimmer of twinkling lights, and heard the rush of water. He paused, vaguely bewildered.[Pg 185]

"Nearly home now!" said his guide, encouragingly; "Just a few steps more and we'll be there. My cottage is the last and the highest in the coombe. The other houses are all down closer to the sea."

"Yonder! By and by, when the moon comes over the hill, it will be shining like a silver field with big daisies blowing and growing all over it. That's the way it often looks after a storm. The tops of the waves are just like great white flowers."

He glanced at her as she said this, and caught a closer glimpse of her face. Some faint mystical light in the sky illumined the outlines of her features, and showed him a calm and noble profile, such as may be found in early Greek sculpture, and which silently expresses the lines:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know!"

He moved on with a quicker step, touched by a keen sense of expectation. Ill as he knew himself to be, he was eager to reach this woman's dwelling and to see her more closely. A soft laugh of pleasure broke from her lips as he tried to accelerate his pace.

"Oh, we're getting quite strong and bold now, aren't we!" she exclaimed, gaily—"But take care not to go too fast! There's a rough bit of bog and boulder coming."

This was true. They had arrived at the upper edge of a bank overlooking a hill stream which was pouring noisily down in a flood made turgid by the rain, and the "rough bit of bog and boulder" was a sort of natural bridge across the torrent, formed by heaps of earth and rock, out of which masses of wet fern and plumy meadow-sweet sprang in tall tufts and garlands, which though beautiful to the eyes in day-time, were apt to entangle the feet in walking, especially when there was only the uncertain glimmer of the stars by which to grope one's way. Helmsley's age and over-wrought condition made his movements nervous and faltering at this point, and nothing could exceed the firm care and delicate solicitude with which his guide helped him over this last difficulty of the road. She was indeed[Pg 186] strong, as she had said,—she seemed capable of lifting him bodily, if need were—yet she was not a woman of large or robust frame. On the contrary, she appeared slightly built, and carried herself with that careless grace which betokens perfect form. Once safely across the bridge and on the other side of the coombe, she pointed to a tiny lattice window with a light behind it which gleamed out through the surrounding foliage like a glow-worm in the darkness.

"Here we are at home," she said,—"Just along this path—it's quite easy!—now under this tree—it's a big chestnut,—you'll love it!—now here's the garden gate—wait till I lift the latch—that's right!—the garden's quite small you see,—it goes straight up to the cottage—and here's the door! Come in!"

As in a dream, Helmsley was dimly conscious of the swishing rustle of wet leaves, and the fragrance of mignonette and roses mingling with the salty scent of the sea,—then he found himself in a small, low, oak-raftered kitchen, with a wide old-fashioned hearth and ingle-nook, warm with the glow of a sparkling fire. A quaintly carved comfortably cushioned armchair was set in the corner, and to this his guide conducted him, and gently made him sit down.

"Now give me the doggie!" she said, taking that little personage from his arms—"He'll be glad of his supper and a warm bed, poor little soul! And so will you!"

With a kindly caress she set Charlie down in front of the hearth, and proceeded to shut the cottage door, which had been left open as they entered,—and locking it, dropped an iron bar across it for the night. Then she threw off her cloak, and hung it up on a nail in the wall, and bending over a lamp which was burning low on the table, turned up its wick a little higher. Helmsley watched her in a kind of stupefied wonderment. As the lamplight flashed up on her features, he saw that she was not a girl, but a woman who seemed to have thought and suffered. Her face was pale, and the lines of her mouth were serious, though very sweet. He could hardly judge whether she had beauty or not, because he saw her at a disadvantage. He was too ill to appreciate details, and he could only gaze at her in the dim and troubled weariness of an old and helpless man, who for the time being was dependent on any kindly aid that might be offered to him. Once or twice the vague[Pg 187] idea crossed his mind that he would tell her who he was, and assure her that he had plenty of money about him to reward her for her care and pains,—but he could not bring himself to the point of this confession. The surprise and sweetness of being received thus unquestioningly under the shelter of her roof as merely the poor way-worn tramp he seemed to be, were too great for him to relinquish. She, meanwhile, having trimmed the lamp, hurried into a neighboring room, and came in again with a bundle of woollen garments, and a thick flannel dressing gown on her arm.

"This was my father's," she said, as she brought it to him—"It's soft and cosy. Get off your wet clothes and slip into it, while I go and make your bed ready."

She spread the dressing gown before the fire to warm it, and was about to turn away again, when Helmsley laid a detaining hand on her arm.

"Almost you do—to me!" And stirred into a sudden flicker of animation, he held her fast as he spoke—"Do you live alone here?"

"Then don't you see how foolish you are? You are taking into your house a mere tramp,—a beggar who is more likely to die than live! Do you realise how dangerous this is for you? I may be an escaped convict,—a thief—even a murderer! You cannot tell!"

She smiled and nodded at him as a nurse might nod and smile at a fanciful or querulous patient.

"I can't tell, certainly, and don't want to know!" she replied—"I go by what I see."

"I see a very old man—older than my own dear father was when he died—and I know he is too old and feeble to be out at night in the wet and stormy weather. I know that he is ill and weak, and suffering from exhaustion, and that he must rest and be well nourished for a few days till he gets strong again. And I am going to take care of him,"—here she gave a consoling little pressure to the[Pg 188] hand she held. "I am indeed! And he must do as he is told, and take off his wet clothes and get ready for bed!"

"You will risk all this trouble,"—he faltered—"for a stranger—who—who—cannot repay you—?——"

"Now, now! You mustn't hurt me!" she said, with a touch of reproach in her soft tones—"I don't want to be repaid in any way. You know Who it was that said 'I was a stranger and ye took me in'? Well, He would wish me to take care of you."

She spoke quite simply, without any affectation of religious sentiment. Helmsley looked at her steadily.

"That is one reason, certainly!"—she answered; "But there is another,—quite a selfish one! I loved my father, and when he died, I lost everything I cared for in the world. You remind me of him—just a little. Now will you do as I ask you, and take off your wet things?"

"I will,"—he said, unsteadily—for there were tears in his eyes—"I will do anything you wish. Only tell me your name!"

"Mary Deane!" he repeated softly—and yet again—"Mary Deane! A pretty name! Shall I tell you mine!"

"Oh, you'd better know it!" he said—"I'm only old David—a man 'on the road' tramping it to Cornwall."

"That's a long way!" she murmured compassionately, as she took his weather-beaten hat and shook the wet from it—"And why do you want to tramp so far, you poor old David?"

"I'm looking for a friend,"—he answered—"And maybe it's no use trying,—but I should like to find that friend before I die."

"And so you will, I'm sure!" she declared, smiling at him, but with something of an anxious expression in her eyes, for Helmsley's face was very pinched and pallid, and every now and then he shivered violently as with an ague[Pg 189] fit—"But you must pick up your strength first. Then you'll get on better and quicker. Now I'm going to leave you while you change. You'll find plenty of warm things with the dressing gown."

She went out as before into the next room, and Helmsley managed, though with considerable difficulty, to divest himself of his drenched clothes and get on the comfortable woollen garments she had put ready for him. When he took off his coat and vest, he spread them in front of the fire to dry instead of the dressing-gown which he now wore, and as soon as she returned he specially pointed out the vest to her.

"I should like you to put that away somewhere in your own safe keeping,"—he said. "It has a few letters and—and papers in it which I value,—and I don't want any stranger to see them. Will you take care of it for me?"

"Of course I will! Nobody shall touch it, be sure! Not a soul ever comes nigh me unless I ask for company!—so you can be quite easy in your mind. Now I'm going to give you a cup of hot soup, and then you'll go to bed, won't you?—and, please God, you'll be better in the morning!"

He nodded feebly, and forced a smile. He had sunk back in the armchair and his eyes were fixed on the warm-hearth, where the tiny dog, Charlie, whom he had rescued, and who in turn had rescued him, was curled up and snoozing peacefully. Now that the long physical and nervous strain of his journey and of his ghastly experience at Blue Anchor was past, he felt almost too weak to lift a hand, and the sudden change from the fierce buffetings of the storm to the homely tranquillity of this little cottage into which he had been welcomed just as though he had every right to be there, affected him with a strange sensation which he could not analyse. And once he murmured half unconsciously:

"Yes,—that's me!" she responded cheerfully, coming to his side at once—"I'm here!"

"Yes, I know you are here,—Mary!" he said, his voice trembling a little as he uttered her name—"And I thank God for sending you to me in time! But how—how was it that you found me?"[Pg 190]

"I was watching the storm,"—she replied—"I love wild weather!—I love to hear the wind among the trees and the pouring of the rain! I was standing at my door listening to the waves thudding into the hollow of the coombe, and all at once I heard the sharp barking of a dog on the hill just above here—and sometimes the bark changed to a pitiful little howl, as if the animal were in pain. So I put on my cloak and crossed the coombe up the bank—it's only a few minutes' scramble, though to you it seemed ever such a long way to-night,—and there I saw you lying on the grass with the little doggie running round and round you, and making all the noise he could to bring help. Wise little beastie!" And she stooped to pat the tiny object of her praise, who sighed comfortably and stretched his dainty paws out a little more luxuriously—"If it hadn't been for him you might have died!"

He said nothing, but watched her in a kind of morbid fascination as she went to the fire and removed a saucepan which she had set there some minutes previously. Taking a large old-fashioned Delft bowl from a cupboard at one side of the fire-place, she filled it with steaming soup which smelt deliciously savoury and appetising, and brought it to him with some daintily cut morsels of bread. He was too ill to feel much hunger, but to please her, he managed to sip it by slow degrees, talking to her between-whiles.

"Well, I'm not young, as young people go,"—she declared—"I'm thirty-four. I was never married for myself in my youth,—and I shall certainly never be married for my money in my age!" Again her pretty laugh rang softly on the silence. "But I'm quite happy, all the same!"

He still looked at her intently,—and all suddenly it dawned upon him that she was a beautiful woman. He saw, as for the first time, the clear transparency of her skin, the[Pg 191] soft brilliancy of her eyes, and the wonderful masses of her warm bronze brown hair. He noted the perfect poise of her figure, clad as it was in a cheap print gown,—the slimness of her waist, the fulness of her bosom, the white roundness of her throat. Then he smiled.

"Oh, I don't think so!" and she shook her head deprecatingly—"Many women are old maids by choice as well as by necessity. Marriage isn't always bliss, you know! And unless a woman loves a man very very much—so much that she can't possibly live her life without him, she'd better keep single. At least that's my opinion. Now Mr. David, you must go to bed!"

He rose obediently—but trembled as he rose, and could scarcely stand from sheer weakness. Mary Deane put her arm through his to support him.

"I'm afraid,"—he faltered—"I'm afraid I shall be a burden to you! I don't think I shall be well enough to start again on my way to-morrow."

"You won't be allowed to do any such foolish thing!" she answered, with quick decision—"So you can just make up your mind on that score! You must stay here as my guest."

"Not a paying one, I fear!" he said, with a pained smile, and a quick glance at her.

"I wouldn't have you on paying terms,"—she answered; "I don't take in lodgers."

"How do I live? You mean how do I work for a living? I am a lace mender, and a bit of a laundress too. I wash fine muslin gowns, and mend and clean valuable old lace. It's pretty work and pleasant enough in its way."

"Oh, quite sufficiently for all my needs. I don't cost much to keep!" And she laughed—"I'm all by myself, and I was never money-hungry! Now come!—you mustn't talk any more. You know who I am and what I am,—and we'll have a good long chat to-morrow. It's bed-time!"

She led him, as though he were a child, into a little room,—one of the quaintest and prettiest he had ever seen,—with[Pg 192] a sloping raftered ceiling, and one rather wide latticed window set in a deep embrasure and curtained with spotless white dimity. Here there was a plain old-fashioned oak bedstead, trimmed with the same white hangings, the bed itself being covered with a neat quilt of diamond-patterned silk patchwork. Everything was delicately clean, and fragrant with the odour of dried rose-leaves and lavender,—and it was with all the zealous care of an anxious housewife that Mary Deane assured her "guest" that the sheets were well-aired, and that there was not "a speck of damp" anywhere. A kind of instinct told him that this dainty little sleeping chamber, so fresh and pure, with not even a picture on its white-washed walls, and only a plain wooden cross hung up just opposite to the bed, must be Mary's own room, and he looked at her questioningly.

"Upstairs,"—she answered, at once—"Just above you. This is a two-storied cottage—quite large really! I have a parlour besides the kitchen,—oh, the parlour's very sweet!—it has a big window which my father built himself, and it looks out on a lovely view of the orchard and the stream,—then I have three more rooms, and a wash-house and cellar. It's almost too big a cottage for me, but father loved it, and he died here,—that's why I keep all his things about me and stay on in it. He planted all the roses in the orchard,—and I couldn't leave them!"

Helmsley said nothing in answer to this. She put an armchair for him near the bed.

"Now as soon as you're in bed, just call to me and I'll put out the light in the kitchen and go to bed myself,"—she said—"And I'll take the little doggie with me, and make him comfortable for the night. I'm leaving you a candle and matches, and if you feel badly at all, there's a handbell close by,—mind you ring it, and I'll come to you at once and do all I can for you."

He bent his eyes searchingly upon her in his old suspicious "business" way, his fuzzy grey eyebrows almost meeting in the intensity of his gaze.

"Don't ask nonsense questions, please, Mr. David! Haven't I told you already?—not why I am 'good,' because that's rubbish—but why I am trying to take care of you?"[Pg 193]

"Yes—because I am old!" he said, with a sudden pang of self-contempt—"and—useless!"

She was gone before he could speak another word and he heard her talking to Charlie in petting playful terms of endearment. Judging from the sounds in the kitchen, he concluded, and rightly, that she was getting her own supper and that of the dog at the same time. For two or three minutes he sat inert, considering his strange and unique position. What would this present adventure lead to? Unless his new friend, Mary Deane, examined the vest he had asked her to take care of for him, she would not discover who he was or from whence he came. Would she examine it?—would she unrip the lining, just out of feminine curiosity, and sew it up again, pretending that she had not touched it, after the "usual way of women"? No! He was sure,—absolutely sure—of her integrity. What? In less than an hour's acquaintance with her, would he swear to her honesty? Yes, he would! Never could such eyes as hers, so softly, darkly blue and steadfast, mirror a falsehood, or deflect the fragment of a broken promise! And so, for the time being, in utter fatigue of both body and mind, he put away all thought, all care for the future, and resigned himself to the circumstances by which he was now surrounded. Undressing as quickly as he could in his weak and trembling condition, he got into the bed so comfortably prepared for him, and lay down in utter lassitude, thankful for rest. After he had lain so for a few minutes he called:

"All cosy and comfortable?" she queried—"That's right!" Then entering the room, she showed him the very vest, the possible fate of which he had been considering.

"This is quite dry now,"—she said—"I've been thinking that perhaps as there are letters and papers inside, you'd like to have it near you,—so I'm just going to put it in here—see?" And she opened a small cupboard in the wall close to the bed—"There! Now I'll lock it up"—and she suited the action to the word—"Where shall I put the key?"

"Please keep it for me yourself!" he answered, earnestly,—"It will be safest with you!"[Pg 194]

"Well, perhaps it will,"—she agreed. "Anyhow no one can get at your letters without my consent! Now, are you quite easy?"

And, as she spoke, she came and smoothed the bedclothes over him, and patted one of his thin, worn hands which lay, almost unconsciously to himself, outside the quilt.

She went away with a light step, softly closing the door behind her. Returning to the kitchen she took up the little dog Charlie in her arms, and nestled him against her bosom, where he was very well content to be, and stood for a moment looking meditatively into the fire.

"Poor old man!" she murmured—"I'm so glad I found him before it was too late! He would have died out there on the hills, I'm sure! He's very ill—and so worn out and feeble!"

Involuntarily her glance wandered to a framed photograph which stood on the mantelshelf, showing the likeness of a white-haired man standing among a group of full-flowering roses, with a smile upon his wrinkled face,—a smile expressing the quaintest and most complete satisfaction, as though he sought to illustrate the fact that though he was old, he was still a part of the youthful blossoming of the earth in summer-time.

"What would you have done, father dear, if you had been here to-night?"—she queried, addressing the portrait—"Ah, I need not ask! I know! You would have brought your suffering brother home, to share all you had;—you would have said to him 'Rest, and be thankful!' For you never turned the needy from your door, my dear old dad!—never!—no matter how much you were in need yourself!"

She wafted a kiss to the venerable face among the roses,—and then turning, extinguished the lamp on the table. The dying glow of the fire shone upon her for a moment, setting a red sparkle in her hair, and a silvery one on the silky head of the little dog she carried, and outlining her fine profile so that it gleamed with a pure soft pallor against the surrounding darkness,—and with one final look round to see that all was clear for the night, she went away noiselessly[Pg 195] like a lovely ghost and disappeared, her step making no sound on the short wooden stairs that led to the upper room which she had hastily arranged for her own accommodation, in place of the one now occupied by the homeless wayfarer she had rescued.

There was no return of the storm. The heavens, with their mighty burden of stars, remained clear and tranquil,—the raging voice of ocean was gradually sinking into a gentle crooning song of sweet content,—and within the little cottage complete silence reigned, unbroken save for the dash of the stream outside, rushing down through the "coombe" to the sea.

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[Pg 197] 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—

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!"

"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?"

"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.[Pg 198]

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,[Pg 199] 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.

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

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——

"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!"

"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!"

"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——"[Pg 201]

"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."

"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?"

"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!"

"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!"

"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[Pg 202] 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!"

"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!"

"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."

"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."[Pg 203]

"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.[Pg 204] 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[Pg 205] addressed as Mrs. Twitt, heaved a profound sigh which was loud enough to flutter through the open door to Helmsley's ears—"Which, as I sez to Twitt often, shows as 'ow we shouldn't iver tempt Providence. Spiders there is, an' spiders there will be 'angin' on boughs an' 'edges, frequent too in September, but we aint called upon to look at 'em, only when the devil puts 'em out speshul to catch the hi, an' then they means mischief. An' that' just what 'as 'appened this present minit, Mis' Deane,—that spider on yer ironin' blanket 'as caught my hi."

"I'm so sorry!" said Mary, sweetly—"But as long as the spider doesn't bring you any ill-luck, Mrs. Twitt, I don't mind for myself—I don't, really!"

Mrs. Twitt emitted an odd sound, much like the grunt of a small and discontented pig.

"It's a reckless foot as don't mind precipeges,"—she remarked, solemnly—"'Owsomever, I've given ye fair warnin'. An' 'ow's yer father's friend?"

"He's much better,—quite out of danger now,"—replied Mary—"He's going to get up to-day."

"David's 'is name, so I 'ears,"—continued Mrs. Twitt; "I've never myself knowed anyone called David, but it's a common name in some parts, speshul in Scripter. Is 'e older than yer father would 'a bin if so be the Lord 'ad carried 'im upright to this present?"

"He seems a little older than father was when he died,"—answered Mary, in slow, thoughtful accents—"But perhaps it is only trouble and illness that makes him look so. He's very gentle and kind. Indeed,"—here she paused for a second—then went on—"I don't know whether it's because I've been nursing him so long and have got accustomed to watch him and take care of him—but I've really grown quite fond of him!"

"That's nat'ral, seein' as ye're lone in life without 'usband or childer,"—she said—"There's a many wimmin as 'ud grow fond of an Aunt Sally on a pea-stick if they'd nothin' else to set their 'arts on. An' as the old chap was yer father's friend, there's bin a bit o' feelin' like in lookin' arter 'im. But I wouldn't take 'im on my back as a burgin, Mis' Deane, if I were you. Ye're far better off by yerself with the washin' an' lace-mendin' business."

"It's all very well,"—proceeded Mrs. Twitt—"for 'im to say 'e knew yer father, but arter all that mayn't be true. The Lord knows whether 'e aint a 'scaped convick, or a man as is grown 'oary-'edded with 'is own wickedness. An' though 'e's feeble now an' wants all ye can give 'im, the day may come when, bein' strong again, 'e'll take a knife an' slit yer throat. Bein' a tramp like, it 'ud come easy to 'im an' not to be blamed, if we may go by what they sez in the 'a'penny noospapers. I mind me well on the night o' the storm, the very night ye went out on the 'ills an' found 'im, I was settin' at my door down shorewards watchin' the waves an' hearin' the wind cryin' like a babe for its mother, an' if ye'll believe me, there was a sea-gull as came and flopped down on a stone just in front o' me!—a thing no sea-gull ever did to me all the time I've lived 'ere, which is thirty years since I married Twitt. There it sat, drenched wi' the rain, an' Twitt came out in that slow, silly way 'e 'as, an' 'e sez—'Poor bird! 'Ungry, are ye? an' throws it a reg'lar full meal, which, if you believe me, it ate all up as cool as a cowcumber. An' then——"

"Then,—oh, well, then it flew away,"—and Mrs. Twitt seemed rather sorry for this commonplace end to what she imagined was a thrilling incident—"But the way that bird looked at me was somethin' awful! An' when I 'eerd as 'ow you'd found a friend o' yer father's a' trampin' an' wanderin' an' 'ad took 'im in to board an' lodge on trust, I sez to Twitt—'There you've got the meanin' o' that sea-gull! A stranger in the village bringin' no good to the 'and as feeds'im!'"

"Dear Mrs. Twitt!" she said—"I know how good and kind you are—but you mustn't have any of your presentiments about me! I'm sure the poor sea-gull meant no harm! And I'm sure that poor old David won't ever hurt me——" Here she suddenly gave an exclamation—"Why, I forgot! The door of his room has been open all this time! He must have heard us talking!"

She made a hurried movement, and Helmsley diplomatically closed his eyes. She entered, and came softly up to his bedside, and he felt that she stood there looking at him intently. He could hardly forbear a smile;—but he managed[Pg 207] to keep up a very creditable appearance of being fast asleep, and she stole away again, drawing the door to behind her. Thus, for the time being, he heard no more,—but he had gathered quite enough to know exactly how matters stood with regard to his presence in her little home.

"She has given out that I am an old friend of her father's!" he mused—"And she has done that in order to silence both inquiry and advice as to the propriety of her having taken me under her shelter and protection. Kind heart! Gentle soul! And—what else did she say? That she had 'really grown quite fond' of me! Can I—dare I—believe that? No!—it is a mere feminine phrase—spoken out of compassionate impulse. Fond of me! In my apparent condition of utter poverty,—old, ill and useless, who could or would be 'fond' of me!"

Yet he dwelt on the words with a kind of hope that nerved and invigorated him, and when at noon Mary came and assisted him to get up out of bed, he showed greater evidence of strength than she had imagined would be possible. True, his limbs ached sorely, and he was very feeble, for even with the aid of a stick and the careful support of her strong arm, his movements were tottering and uncertain, and the few steps between his bedroom and the kitchen seemed nearly a mile of exhausting distance. But the effort to walk did him good, and when he sank into the armchair which had been placed ready for him near the fire, he looked up with a smile and patted the gentle hand that had guided him along so surely and firmly.

"I'm an old bag of bones!" he said—"Not much good to myself or to any one else! You'd better bundle me out on the doorstep!"

For an answer she brought him a little cup of nourishing broth tastily prepared and bade him drink it—"every drop, mind!"—she told him with a little commanding nod. He obeyed her,—and when he gave her back the cup empty he said, with a keen glance:

The blood rushed to her cheeks in a crimson tide,—she looked at him appealingly, and her lips trembled a little.

"You were so very ill!" she murmured—"I was afraid you might die,—and I had to send for the only doctor we have in the village—Mr. Bunce,—the boys call him Mr.[Pg 208] Dunce, but that's their mischief, for he's really quite clever,—and I was bound to tell him something by way of introducing you and making him take care of you—even—even if what I said wasn't quite true! And—and—I made it out to myself this way—that if father had lived he would have done just all he could for you, and then you would have been his friend—you couldn't have helped yourself!"

He kept his eyes upon her as she spoke. He liked to see the soft flitting of the colour to-and-fro in her face,—- her skin was so clear and transparent,—a physical reflection, he thought, of the clear transparency of her mind.

"He was a gardener and florist,"—she answered, and taking from the mantelshelf the photograph of the old man smiling serenely amid a collection of dwarf and standard roses, she showed it to him—"Here he is, just as he was taken after an exhibition where he won a prize. He was so proud when he heard that the first prize for a dwarf red rose had been awarded to James Deane of Barnstaple. My dear old dad! He was a good, good man—he was indeed! He loved the flowers—he used to say that they thought and dreamed and hoped, just as we do—and that they had their wishes and loves and ambitions just as we have. He had a very good business once in Barnstaple, and every one respected him, but somehow he could not keep up with the demands for new things—'social sensations in the way of flowers,' he used to call them, and he failed at last, through no fault of his own. We sold all we had to pay the creditors, and then we came away from Barnstaple into Somerset, and took this cottage. Father did a little business in the village, and for some of the big houses round about,—not much, of course—but I was always handy with my needle, and by degrees I got a number of customers for lace-mending and getting up ladies' fine lawn and muslin gowns. So between us we made quite enough to live on—till he died." Her voice sank—and she paused—then she added—"I've lived alone here ever since."

"Mother died when I was ten,"—she said—"But though I was so little, I remember her well. She was pretty—oh,[Pg 209] so very pretty! Her hair was quite gold like the sun,—and her eyes were blue—like the sea. Dad worshipped her, and he never would say that she was dead. He liked to think that she was always with him,—and I daresay she was. Indeed, I am sure she was, if true love can keep souls together."

"Are you tired, David?" she asked, with sudden anxiety,—"I'm afraid I'm talking too much!"

"No—no! I—I love to hear you talk, Mary! You have been so good to me—so more than kind—that I'd like to know all about you. But I've no right to ask you any questions—you see I'm only an old, poor man, and I'm afraid I shall never be able to do much in the way of paying you back for all you've done for me. I used to be clever at office work—reading and writing and casting up accounts, but my sight is failing and my hands tremble,—so I'm no good in that line. But whatever I can do for you, as soon as I'm able, I will!—you may depend upon that!"

"Why, of course you would! Ever so useful! Useful to me and useful to yourself at the same time!" And she clapped her hands with pleasure at having thought of something easy upon which he could try his energies; "Basket-making pays well here,—the farmers want baskets for their fruit, and the fishermen want baskets for their fish,—and its really quite easy work. As soon as you're a bit stronger, you shall begin—and you'll be able to earn quite a nice little penny!"

"I'd like to earn enough to pay you back all the expense you've been put to with me,"—he said, and his voice trembled—"But your patience and goodness—that—I can never hope to pay for—that's heavenly!—that's beyond all money's worth——"

He broke off and put his hand over his eyes. Mary feigned not to notice his profound emotion, and, taking up a paper parcel on the table, opened it, and unrolled a[Pg 210] long piece of wonderful old lace, yellow with age, and fine as a cobweb.

"Do you mind my going on with my work?" she asked, cheerily—"I'm mending this for a Queen!" And as he took away his hand from his eyes, which were suspiciously moist, and looked at her wonderingly, she nodded at him in the most emphatic way. "Yes, truly, David!—for a Queen! Oh, it's not a Queen who is my direct employer—no Queen ever knows anything about me! It's a great firm in London that sends this to me to mend for a Queen—they trust me with it, because they know me. I've had lace worth thousands of pounds in my hands,—this piece is valued at eight hundred, apart from its history—it belonged to Marie Louise, second wife of Napoleon the First. It's a lovely bit!—but there are some cruel holes in it. Ah, dear me!" And, sitting down near the door, she bent her head closely over the costly fabric—"Queens don't think of the eyes that have gone out in blindness doing this beautiful work!—or the hands that have tired and the hearts that have broken over it! They would never run pins into it if they did!"

He watched her sitting as she now was in the sunlight that flooded the doorway, and tried to overcome the emotional weakness that moved him to stretch out his arms to her as though she were his daughter, to call her to his side, and lay his hands on her head in blessing, and to beg her to let him stay with her now and always until the end of his days,—an end which he instinctively felt could not be very long in coming. But he realised enough of her character to know that were he to give himself away, and declare his real identity and position in the world of men, she would probably not allow him to remain in her cottage for another twenty-four hours. She would look at him with her candid eyes, and express her honest regret that he had deceived her, but he was certain that she would not accept a penny of payment at his hands for anything she had done for him,—her simple familiar manner and way of speech would change—and he should lose her—lose her altogether. And he was nervously afraid just now to think of what her loss might mean to him. He mastered his thoughts by an effort, and presently, forcing a smile, said:

"You were ironing lace this morning, instead of mending it, weren't you, Mary?"[Pg 211]

"No, I wasn't ironing lace—lace must never be ironed, David! It must all be pulled out carefully with the fingers, and the pattern must be pricked out on a frame or a cushion, with fine steel pins, just as if it were in the making. I was ironing a beautiful muslin gown for a lady who buys all her washing dresses in Paris. She couldn't get any one in England to wash them properly till she found me. She used to send them all away to a woman in Brittany before. The French are wonderful washers,—we're not a patch on them over here. So you saw me ironing?"

"I could just catch a glimpse of you at work through the door," he answered—"and I heard you talking as well——"

"To Mrs. Twitt? Ah, I thought you did!" And she laughed. "Well, I wish you could have seen her, as well as heard her! She is the quaintest old soul! She's the wife of a stonemason who lives at the bottom of the village, near the shore. Almost everything that happens in the day or the night is a sign of good or bad luck with her. I expect it's because her husband makes so many tombstones that she gets morbid,—but, oh dear!—if God managed the world according to Mrs. Twitt's notions, what a funny world it would be!"

"You pretended to be asleep, then, when I came in to see if you heard us talking?"

"That was very wrong of you! You should never pretend to be what you are not!" He started nervously at this, and to cover his confusion called to the little dog, Charlie, who at once jumped up on his knees;—"You shouldn't, really! Should he, Charlie?" Charlie sat upright, and lolled a small red tongue out between two rows of tiny white teeth, by way of a laugh at the suggestion—"People—even dogs—are always found out when they do that!"

"What are those bright flowers out in your garden just beyond the door where you are sitting?" Helmsley asked, to change the conversation.

"Phloxes,"—she answered—"I've got all kinds and colours—crimson, white, mauve, pink, and magenta. Those which you can see from where you sit are the crimson[Pg 212] ones—father's favourites. I wish you could get out and look at the Virginian creeper—it's lovely just now—quite a blaze of scarlet all over the cottage. And the Michaelmas daisies are coming on finely."

"Never mind thinking about that just now," she said quickly—"You mustn't worry your head. Mr. Bunce says you mustn't on any account worry your head."

"Mr. Bunce does care," averred Mary, warmly—"Mr. Bunce is a very good little man, and he says you are a very gentle patient to deal with. He's done all he possibly could for you, and he knows you've got no money to pay him, and that I'm a poor woman, too—but he's been in to see you nearly every day—so you must really think well of Mr. Bunce."

"I do think well of him—I am most grateful to him," said David humbly—"But all the same it's you, Mary! You even got me the attention of Mr. Bunce!"

"You're feeling better, David!" she declared—"There's a nice bright sparkle in your eyes! I should think you were quite a cheerful old boy when you're well!"

"I have tried to be cheerful in my time,"—he said—"though I've not had much to be cheerful about."

"Oh, that doesn't matter!" she replied!—"Dad used to say that whatever little we had to be thankful for, we ought to make the most of it. It's easy to be glad when everything is gladness,—but when you've only got just a tiny bit of joy in a whole wilderness of trouble, then we can't be too grateful for that tiny bit of joy. At least, so I take it."

"Where did you learn your philosophy, Mary?" he asked, half whimsically—"I mean, who taught you to think?"

"Who taught me to think! Well, I don't know!—it[Pg 213] come natural to me. But I'm not what is called 'educated' at all."

"No. I never learnt very much at school. I got the lessons into my head as long as I had to patter them off by heart like a parrot,—but the teachers were all so dull and prosy, and never took any real pains to explain things to me,—indeed, now when I come to think of it, I don't believe they could explain!—they needed teaching themselves. Anyhow, as soon as I came away I forgot everything but reading and writing and sums—and began to learn all over again with Dad. Dad made me read to him every night—all sorts of books."

"I don't know—I never asked,"—she said—"Father hated 'lent' books. He had a savings-box—he used to call it his 'book-box'—and he would always drop in every spare penny he had for books till he'd got a few shillings, and then he would buy what he called 'classics.' They're all so cheap, you see. And by degrees we got Shakespeare and Carlyle, and Emerson and Scott and Dickens, and nearly all the poets; when you go into the parlour you'll see quite a nice bookcase there, full of books. It's much better to have them like that for one's own, than wait turns at a Free Library. I've read all Shakespeare at least twenty times over." The garden-gate suddenly clicked open and she turned her head. "Here's Mr. Bunce come to see you."

Helmsley drew himself up a little in his chair as the village doctor entered, and after exchanging a brief "Good-morning!" with Mary, approached him. The situation was curious;—here was he,—a multi-millionaire, who could have paid the greatest specialists in the world for their medical skill and attendance,—under the supervision and scrutiny of this simple herbalist, who, standing opposite to him, bent a pair of kindly brown eyes enquiringly upon his face.

"Up to-day, are we?" said Mr. Bunce—"That is well; that's very well! Better in ourselves, too, are we? Better in ourselves?"

"I am much better,"—replied Helmsley—"Very much better!—thanks to you and Miss Deane. You—you have both been very good to me."[Pg 214]

"That's well—that's very well!" And Mr. Bunce appeared to ruminate, while Helmsley studied his face and figure with greater appreciation than he had yet been able to do. He had often seen this small dark man in the pauses of his feverish delirium,—often he had tried to answer his gentle questions,—often in the dim light of early morning or late evening he had sought to discern his features, and yet could make nothing clear as to their actual form, save that their expression was kind. Now, as it seemed for the first time, he saw Mr. Bunce as he was,—small and wiry, with a thin, clean-shaven face, deeply furrowed, broad brows, and a pleasant look,—the eyes especially, deep sunk in the head though they were, had a steady tenderness in them such as one sees in the eyes of a brave St. Bernard dog who has saved many lives.

"We must,"—said Mr. Bunce, after a long pause—"be careful. We have got out of bed, but we must not walk much. The heart is weak—we must avoid any strain upon it. We must sit quiet."

"We must,"—proceeded Mr. Bunce, laboriously—"sit quiet. We may get up every day now,—a little earlier each time, remaining up a little later each time,—but we must sit quiet."

Again Mary nodded gravely. Helmsley looked quickly from one to the other. A close observer might have seen the glimmer of a smile through his fuzzy grey-white beard,—for his thoughts were very busy. He saw in Bunce another subject whose disinterested honesty might be worth dissecting.

Contents

The Treasure Of Heaven

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