i I 
 
 \ ftedf $ 
 
QJarnrll Utttoetsitg library 
 
 3tljara, JJrw $ ark 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY 
 
 COLLECTED BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 4705.F65R7 1889 
 
 Romances of the law. By R.E. Francillon . 
 
 3 1924 013 344 951 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013344951 
 
Romances of the Law 
 
ROMANCES OF THE LAW 
 
 R. E. FRANCILLON 
 
 AUTHOR OF " QUEEN COPHETUA," " OLYMPIA," ETC. 
 
 WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY D. H. FRISTON 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 GEBBIE & CO., Publishers 
 
 1889 
 J3 
 
 ^\X C0fvN£l-|. 
 
Copyrighted, 1889, by Gebbie & Co. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 TAOB 
 
 Touch-and-go with a Great Estate ... ... 1 
 
 A most Remarkable Will 39 
 
 A Circumstantial Puzzle 70 
 
 Only Ten Minutes; or, What my Dream Told Me... 104 
 
 Hale-a-minute Late 145 
 
 A Cool Hand 180 
 
 How I Became a Murderer 223 
 
 Three Shots with a Revolvkr 245 
 
 Buried in Gold 25S 
 
 Stronger than Death 279 
 
 The Demon Sixpence 295 
 
 At tub Twelfth Hour .- .. ... 312 
 
ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A 
 GREAT ESTATE. 
 
 When a lawyer consents to tell the story of the most 
 remarkable case in which he was ever engaged, he does 
 so on the express understanding that the confidences of 
 his clients shall be observed, however long ago they were 
 made. After full consideration I can see no possible 
 objection to telling the story of the most singular piece 
 of business that I ever knew in the course of a very long 
 experience indeed. But my chief reason for finding no 
 objection is that I can do so without naming real names. 
 That being fully understood, I shall be able to keep to 
 the literal truth without having recourse to fictitious 
 incidents in order to lead my readers away from the 
 real quarter. For nothing but the real names, both of 
 places and people, could possibly tell more than I am 
 amply justified in telling. Perhaps, after all, I am a 
 little over-scrupulous ; but I don't think that will be 
 regarded as a fault on the wrong side. No doubt some 
 cf my readers will gather that the period of my pro- 
 fessional adventure was previous to the passing of the 
 
2 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 Municipal Reform Act of 1835, a date far back enough, 
 at any rate, to give me the right to amuse myself, if 
 not my readers, with a — let me say elderly — solicitor's 
 first contribution to literature. Apart from real names, 
 the facts of the case are true, word for word. 
 
 My father and I were in partnership as solicitors in 
 the good old town of Burgham, which you may place in 
 any county you please. I was born there, and so was 
 my father before me, and my grandfather before him ; 
 and the name of Key (to take my first alias) %vas as well 
 known as the spire of St. Michael's. Our office, in the 
 very shadow of the spire, consisted of an outer office 
 for the clerks, of one private room for my father, of 
 another for myself, and of a third, in which an articled 
 clerk sat among the office-lumber, and amused himself 
 as well as want of opportunity allowed. His name, I 
 remember, was what I will call — more for the sake of 
 appropriateness than of anything else — Eichard Musty ; 
 and a queer young fellow he was — the queerest, I used 
 to think, within six thousand miles of Burgham. He 
 was a country parson's son, and of about my own age ; 
 so that I was ready and even eager when he first came 
 to us to make a friend and companion of him out of 
 office-hours, so far as my greater professional dignity 
 allowed ; but it was impossible. What good or return 
 he expected to get out of the premium he had paid us 
 was a mystery ; he had found the money hard to raise, 
 and he might just as well have thrown it into the river. 
 He was steady, too steady by half ; he was older then, 
 young as he was, than I am now. But he was as fit to 
 be a lawyer as I am to be a poet ; and I can't say more. 
 Sometimes I used to think him a born hopeless fool, and 
 1 don't believe he ever came to know the difference 
 between a cestui que trust and a surrebutter. He had 
 never left his father and mother till he went to Cambridge 
 with a view of taking orders ; but family misfortunes had 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 3 
 
 obliged him to leave college without a degree, and so — I 
 believe to his intense misery— he had made up his mind 
 to be a failure in another direction. He was always 
 shabby, never too clean, never did anything wrong^- 
 morally, never anything right — intellectually, and seemed 
 to have no friends. What he did with his time, in or 
 out of the office, neither myself nor my father was able 
 for weeks to discover. 
 
 " What, in the name of goodness, are you doing there* 
 Musty?" I remember saying to him at last, when, im* 
 pelled by a fit of curiosity, I went one day suddenly into 
 his room, and caught him with a camel's hair paint-brush 
 instead of a pen in his hand, with which he seemed to 
 be busily engaged in washing a skin of parchment with 
 pure water. " Have you forgotten that that lease is to 
 be ready in an hour?" Not that I expected to get the 
 lease from him in a month, but I wanted an excuse for 
 my sudden intrusion. 
 
 He turned as red as fire. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing at all, Mr. Key," said he. 
 
 " ' Nothing ' is the worst thing you can do here," said 
 I sternly. I was idle enough myself in those days, but 
 it was in a very different sort of way. " I mus t know 
 what you are doing with that old deed." 
 
 "It — it isn't a deed, indeed," stammered he, as if his 
 occupation were criminal instead of merely imbecile. 
 " Look here, Mr. Key. I found it up there on that shelf, 
 and I don't imagine it can be of any use to you," he 
 went on with a curious emphasis on the "you: " if the 
 fellow hadn't been so simply scared, and so incapable of 
 such a thing at any time, I should have suspected a 
 sneer. I looked at it, and I was yet more puzzled, for 
 it was not a deed : it was not a legal document at all. 
 
 " It is a mediaeval Latin manuscript," said he. " But 
 it is of no value. So far as I have read, it appears to be 
 a treatise by some monkish writer concerning the Praises 
 
 ' b 2 
 
4 ROMANCES OF THE LA IV. 
 
 of St. Willibrord, who was, 1 believe, a saint and bishop 
 of the Benedictines. What horrible hideous jargon those 
 miserable monks used to call Latin, to be sure 1 Just 
 listen here. Nictelaminibus ita depauperatus — " 
 
 It might have been Hebrew to me ; for, though I had 
 been pretty good in Latin at the Grammar School, the 
 yellow document in question was written in such a close, 
 cramped, ancient, and illegible hand, and was so full of 
 abbreviations and contractions to boot, that Musty' a 
 skill in deciphering a single word a little surprised me. 
 
 " Have you got any more of these? " asked he. 
 
 "If there's one," said I, "there may be fifty. I 
 suppose they came here with old Parson Evans's papers, 
 when he died — the old rector of St. Michael's, you know 
 ■ — and, being parchment, I suppose they looked legal. 
 Yes, Musty, I think you had better devote your time to 
 reading them and cleaning them all. It seems to me 
 that's about all you're likely to be fit for here. Never 
 mind the lease," I said, with what I took for fine 
 sarcasm. " Get on with St. Willibrord, as you seem so 
 fond of that style." 
 
 " Style ! " cried he, forgetting all his shyness, and 
 bringing his fist down upon the table with an angry 
 bang. " Call that style ! And to think that those 
 inestimable lost books of Livy may be hidden from the 
 light by trash and rubbish about some wretched St. 
 Willibrord — that they may even be here, under my very 
 hand ! Ah, if such a triumph as that were for me — if, 
 like Cardinal Mai, who gave Cicero's ' Eepublic ' to the 
 world — But I believe such things are not much in your 
 line, Mr. Key." 
 
 So that was Dick Musty's craze. Well, if he liked to 
 waste his time in grubbing under old Latin sermons in 
 the hope of discovering the lost books of Livy, the craze 
 did nobody any harm but himself, but decidedly he was, 
 not fit for a lawyer. I told my father the story, think- 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE 5 
 
 ing it a good joke ; but the old gentleman, though the 
 most good-natured man alive, took the matter very 
 differently from what I had expected. He started up 
 and went straight into Dick's room. 
 
 " Mr. Thomas " — he always called me Mr. Thomas in 
 the office — "Mr. Thomas tells me, young gentleman," 
 he broke out, " that you are reading Latin sermons 
 instead of studying your profession — you, a poor man, 
 who will have to earn your own daily bread with brains 
 of which you haven't an ounce to spare. You're not 
 wasting my time ; but you gave me a premium to see 
 that you didn't waste your own. And as duty's duty, 
 young gentleman, I'll see that you don't. Old Latin 
 sermons — they're no use here. Give that rubbish to 
 me. I'll lock it up in my own desk, and if I find out 
 that it's nothing but what you say, I'll get rid of it for 
 waste parchment ; I won't have such stuff and rubbish 
 lumbering about here. Here, give it to me, without 
 another word. It sha'n't be my fault if you choose to 
 waste your time." 
 
 Dick Musty sighed — he even turned pale. But there 
 was no arguing with my father. The old sermon — for 
 such it was, and nothing more — was duly locked up in 
 my father's desk, and there that matter ended. And I 
 think it proves pretty clearly that Eichard Musty was a 
 very odd sort of an articled clerk indeed. However, it 
 seemed to show that his brain, if addled and muddled by 
 useless studies, was not quite so hopelessly absent as I 
 had hitherto believed. 
 
 I had not been back at my work half an hour, when 
 my father came into my room looking pale and unwell. 
 
 "Tom," he said, "I had a bad headache when I got 
 up this morning ; and instead of getting better, it's been 
 getting worse and worse all day. I'm afraid it made me 
 over-irritable just now when you told me about that 
 young nincompoop of a Musty, and I don't feel like 
 
6 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 myself at all. I shall go home and he down, for my 
 head's just splitting. There'll be nothing to-day you 
 can't attend to ; I shall be all right to-morrow, I 
 dare say." 
 
 Now my father was a man who had never known 
 what it means to be ill. Still, though a mere headache 
 in his case was a ground for a little anxiety, I was not in 
 the least prepared, when, at the usual hour, I left the 
 office and went home to dinner, to find that my mother 
 had sent for the doctor, who had made my father go to 
 bed at once ; and who next morning declared him to be 
 in the first stage of typhoid fever, of which there were 
 several cases about just then. Burgham was not drained 
 so well then as it is now. 
 
 I felt the good of having one's head a few years older 
 than one's shoulders when I went to business that 
 morning, and, full of anxiety for my father, sat down at 
 his table and in his chair, with the whole of the office 
 upon my own hands, and with an unusual amount of 
 heavy and responsible work to be done. My father had 
 been so much in the habit of attending to everything 
 himself, down to the minutest details, while I, on the 
 contrary, had always taken everything so easily, not to 
 say idly, that I was almost painfully nervous about that 
 first day, which was nearly as new a feeling to me as a 
 headache to my father. I hoped that nobody would 
 call. And therefore — need I say it ? — I had scarcely 
 opened the last of the office letters before somebody did 
 call — a Mr. Horace Jones. And the name meant nothing 
 to me ; for though Miss Jones of the Brambles was a 
 good client of ours, still she had no relation named 
 Horace, and the surname was, in reality, an exceedingly 
 common one. 
 
 Enter Mr. Horace Jones, however ; and I did not like 
 the looks of him. Not being a professional story-teller, 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 7 
 
 whatever may be said of us lawyers to the contrary and 
 notwithstanding, I will not try to describe him otherwise 
 than by saying that I knew him to be a cad and a black- 
 guard as soon as I set eyes on him. There are men — I 
 have known many of them — who have the art of drinking, 
 gambling, and worse, without turning a hair of their out- 
 ward respectability ; but Mr. Horace Jones was not 
 among them. Drunkard, gambler, and worse was 
 written from the crown of his hat to the ends of his toes. 
 And in such a case a man finds it hard to be taken for a 
 gentleman. 
 
 " "Who are you, si* ? " he asked roughly. " I called to 
 see old Mr. Key." 
 
 " If you mean my father," said I, in as dignified a 
 manner as I could, " I am sorry to say he is very unwell, 
 and may not be able to leave his house for some time. 
 If it is anything to which I can attend, I am his partner, 
 and — " 
 
 " ! Well, you'll do, I dare say. For that matter, 
 you must do ; for mine's business that won't keep, I can 
 tell you. Got a cocktail handy? No? Precious lot 
 you English lawyers. So the old un's kicked the bucket 
 at last, I hear. Wish to — Hades I'd known it before. 
 Well, never too late for that sort of thing. So the sooner 
 you get things fixed, young man, the better for you." 
 
 " It seems to me, Mr. Jones, that you have made some 
 mistake," said I. 
 
 " Mistake ! Do you mean to say you don't know me ? 
 Well, I suppose when a man has been away from his 
 native home twenty-seven years about the world, he does 
 get changed, more or less, and can't, when I come to 
 think of it, expect to be recognized all at once by them 
 that weren't born when he went away. But — mistake ! 
 Don't you be mistaken, young man. So old Jones of the 
 Brambles has gone under the daisies — that's what I 
 mean." 
 
8 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 "Mr. Jones of the Brambles? Why, he died three 
 years ago. You can't possibly have any claim on the 
 estate now." 
 
 " Three, years ago? Three times three times three — 
 twenty-seven years ago. More fool I not to have found 
 it out ages ago ! I broke the old cove's heart, I believe. 
 Bum things some hearts must be, to bo sure. And as 
 for having no claim — Oho ! Old Jones of the Brambles, 
 that died twenty-seven years back, was my father ; and 
 I'm young Jones, old Jones's son. Twig now ? " 
 
 Was the fellow mad or drunk ? thought I. Certainly 
 he was right in saying that a Mr. Jones of the Brambles 
 had died twenty-seven years ago. But that was long 
 ago, according to something more important than years. 
 That was when the Brambles, near Burgham, was 
 nothing better than an old farmhouse on the edge of a 
 large rough piece of moorland which was collectively 
 known by that appropriate name. But Mr. Jones the 
 first's son was dead too, as I had said, three years 
 ago ; and Mr. Jones the second had died when the 
 Brambles — 
 
 But, as this is a legal story, I shall make no apology 
 for entering into the history of a title, not only because 
 it is absolutely essential, but because it is exceptionally 
 simple and easy to follow. Indeed, the whole point of 
 the story depends upon its absolute freedom from compli- 
 cations and questions of every sort and kind. 
 
 The Brambles, then, otherwise called Easton Field, 
 was a farm just beyond the last dwelling-house in the 
 High Street of Burgham ; that is to say, the continuity 
 of the High Street ends abruptly at its eastern end, and 
 the open country begins at once, without any shading off 
 of villas and cottages as is usual even in smaller towns, 
 and as is the case at the street's western extremity. I 
 am now, of course, speaking of the Brambles — as Easton 
 Field was always commonly called — as it was when I 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 9 
 
 was quite a child, and when its clumps and patches of 
 heather and thorny bottoms were the playground of the 
 town. Indeed, it must have been a sort of town play- 
 ground in quite ancient times, for there was a broad flat 
 meadow still called the " Butts " from days long before 
 those of the rifle volunteers. This rather nondescript 
 tract had belonged to Welwood Priory, and, that being 
 dissolved, had gone to one of the colleges— I forget which 
 — in the University of Oxford. It was valueless as land ; 
 for building space was then practically worthless at a 
 place like Burgham, though the case would be very 
 different now; and to turn it to agricultural purposes 
 would have required an exceedingly large capital, with 
 very little prospect of a speedy return. I should say its 
 net annual value to the Oxford college might have been 
 as much as five or six pounds a year. 
 
 But there happened to be in Burgham, about fifty 
 years before the time of my story, an uncommonly sharp 
 fellow, a land surveyor, of the name of John Jones. I 
 think he must have been the cleverest fellow that was 
 ever born in Burgham. Anyhow, he bought the whole 
 interest of the Oxford college in the land for a mere song, 
 let a part of it to a neighbouring farmer for some trifle or 
 other, and left his son, Wilfred Jones, a — coal-field. 
 
 Wilfred Jones was not sharp in the sense that his 
 father had been. He was a splendid fellow ; not grasp- 
 ing, not pushing, but a man of tremendous perseverance 
 and energy. He was the king of Burgham when I was 
 young, and he deserved to be. Instead of the Brambles 
 being a fringe of Burgham, Burgham became a suburb of 
 the Brambles. I must describe no farther, lest I should 
 point too distinctly to real names. The Brambles became 
 a great estate in next to no time; and it brought the 
 railway to Burgham, and the railway helped it on at its 
 own speed. The old farmhouse in the corner grew into 
 a park and mansion. I can remember, better than 
 
10 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 yesterday, how the whole town was thrown into a kind 
 of collapse when Wilfred Jones of the Brambles — he 
 would stick to the old local name — died at the early age 
 of seven-and-forty — no more. Every man, woman, and 
 child in the place had lost a private as well as a public 
 friend. My father drew his will, which left everything 
 he had (except certain large legacies which the estate 
 could well afford) to his only child, Miss Margaret Jones, 
 now — at the time of which I write — a charmingly pretty 
 and amiable girl of three-and-twenty. She was the 
 greatest heiress in the county, bar none ; and the county 
 people thought as much of her as if she had come in with 
 King William the Conqueror, instead of, as my father 
 used to say, with old King Coal. 
 
 Somehow, I never now seem to see girls as pretty or 
 as nice as Miss Margaret. Every man in the town was 
 — at a humble and respectful distance — in love with her; 
 and, what is really the strangest thing in my whole story, 
 so were all the women too. She was wonderfully like 
 her father (her mother had died at her birth) in a 
 feminine way. There was a sort of public anxiety as to 
 if, when, and whom, she would marry — not that there 
 was so much question about the "if" as the "whom." 
 It would be a misfortune for all Burgham if, as Clevel- 
 and charming girls who are their own mistresses have a 
 particular knack of doing, she married wrong. Well, for 
 a wonder she had taken it into her head and her heart 
 to choose as wisely as her own mother had chosen before 
 her. Mr. Evelyn Viner was only a younger son of one 
 of the best — but not the best-off — families in the county ; 
 and no doubt Miss Margaret's hand would be an excellent 
 thing for him. But nobody, somehow, ever looked upon 
 him in the light of a fortune-hunter ; and you may be 
 sure there were plenty of people who would be ready 
 enough to do it if he were. In fact, he was the most 
 popular man in the county, and the most deservedly so ; 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAJ ESTATE. 11 
 
 and that he and she should make a match of it was as 
 natural as that he should represent Burgham in Parlia- 
 ment on the first opportunity. 
 
 I should have mentioned — the matter is of some 
 importance for critical readers, though the general reader 
 may skip over this paragraph without any risk to the 
 thread of the story — that until the time of Mr. Wilfred 
 Jones, nobody had lived on the Brambles but two or 
 three cottagers, who were tenants from year to year at a 
 rent of about forty shillings per annum, and that it was 
 rated and so forth to the parish of St. Botolph's in Turn 
 — the very singular name of a parish which, like some 
 others in England, had no parish church, the people 
 mostly making use of that at the village of Welwood, 
 where the priory had been in old times. Miss Margaret 
 herself used to go to Welwood church, like her father 
 before her. Don't let anybody, however, who his no 
 special local knowledge try to make use of " St. Botolph's 
 in Turn " for a key ; for I have taken infinite pains to 
 manufacture a name which will cuit my purpose just as 
 well as the real one, while it does not resemble it in a 
 single leading letter. What it meant, nobody in Burgham 
 knew — or, for that matter, cared to know. 
 
 So, striking out all my digressions, Miss Margaret's 
 title to that great mine of wealth called the Brambles 
 was this, and it was as clear as day. She took it both 
 under her father's will and as his heir-at-law ; her father 
 had taken it from his father as heir-at-law ; he, John 
 Jones, had bought it from an Oxford college that had 
 held it for more than two hundred years. 
 
 What could my visitor mean — unless drunk, or mad, 
 or both in one ? 
 
 " No," said I, " I do not twig now." 
 
 " And that's Fame ! " said he. " Well. I'm not going 
 to be long-winded; for I'm dry. I've come to you 
 because, in the first place, your firm's got a good name 
 
12 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 about here, and a good name's the thing I want more 
 than anything; and because, as our family lawyers, 
 you'll see things without bother. Here you are, then. 
 I'm the son of old John Jones — " 
 
 " I see. You died three years ago, and now, you've 
 come to life again with a new Christian name ; and I 
 can't say you're much the better for the company you've 
 been keeping in the other world. Well? " 
 
 " You mean my travels have made me rough and 
 ready, eh? So they have — ready for everything I can 
 get, too. Pocket as dry as my throat ; and no wonder. 
 But, hang it, young man, I'm not used to being told so ; 
 and I wouldn't risk losing a good job, if I were you. I'm 
 Horace Jones, eldest son of old John Jones of the 
 Brambles. Well, you see, the old boy and I didn't bit it 
 off together very well. He was a slow old coach, and I 
 wasn't a slow young un. He was a skinflint, too ; and, 
 you wouldn't believe it, but the unnatural old villain put 
 me to such shifts that I actuaUy had to take the king's 
 shilling ; and I took means to let him think I'd died of 
 yellow fever in Barbadoes, just to prevent him making a 
 new will and cutting me off with another. I've knocked 
 about since then, here and there ; but I've been a con- 
 founded unlucky sort of a devil, I must say. I'm a 
 married man, too, and a family man ; four of 'em, Mr. Key, 
 with amother I wouldn't live another hour with if it wasn't 
 that she keeps things going while I'm waiting for things 
 to mend. Now the question is, what do I come in for, 
 eh ? I'm thinking of taking a public down Deptford way. 
 Mrs. Jones was in that line when I first knew her ; and 
 I want capital, and the more the merrier. What's the 
 figure ? Three figures ? Maybe four ? 
 
 What was I to say ? If this fellow were telling the 
 truth, it was not a capital of three figures or four figures, 
 but an estate bringing in an annual income of five figures, 
 to which he, a broken-down shameless drunkard, with a 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 13 
 
 barmaid for a wife, was heir-at-law. For John Jones, 
 having only his son Wilfred to follow him, and little but 
 the then undeveloped Brambles to leave, had not made a 
 will. Yes, and if there were a grain of truth at the 
 bottom of the man's story, if he were not an impostor 
 from first to last, the great estate would be no longer 
 Miss Margaret's ; it would no more be a blessing to the 
 country ; it would no longer give a fit career to a man 
 like Evelyn Viner ; it would no longer be a fountain of 
 charity and honour ; it would no longer be — But why 
 say what it would not be? It would, it must, in this 
 man's hands, become a curse and a ruin. 
 
 The worst of it was, that the story was only too likely 
 to be true. If Wilfred Jones had ever had an elder 
 brother — of whom it was likely enough that I myself 
 should never have heard — it would be notorious in an 
 elder generation, and nobody would dare to invent the 
 existence of a non-existent man. Again, this Mr. Horace 
 Jones had evidently no idea of the extent and value of 
 the property to which he was laying claim. He would 
 not, unless preternaturally cunning, talk so simply about 
 it, as if at most it could only be a few thousand pounds. 
 I did what I still think was the most prudent thing. I 
 sent out for a bottle of whisky, and told him to wait 
 until I returned from some business that had to be 
 attended to immediately. Ill as my father was, this was 
 a matter that I must consult him upon, and that 
 instantly. I did not venture to mention the matter even 
 to our old managing clerk, for fear lest even our office- 
 walls should have ears, or a little bird should be sitting 
 on the window-sill to carry the matter. 
 
 "Good God ! " exclaimed my father, starting up in bed ; 
 " you don't tell me that Horace Jones is alive, after all ? 
 Yes, Tom, there was such a man. And he did break his 
 father's heart when he enlisted — though going for a soldier 
 was the most decent thing I ever heard of bis doing. 
 
14 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 And he did die — at least, so the poor old gentleman 
 believed ; and old John Jones did not make a will. And 
 — and, Tom — if this is the man, the Brambles is his, as 
 sure as it's law that when a man dies intestate his real 
 property goes to his heir. Poor girl ! But it can't, Tom; 
 I say it sha'n't be true ! I'll get up this minute — I'll — " 
 " I must go back to him. What shall I say to him?" 
 "Yes, Tom; I am too ill. I don't know. He must 
 prove his identity up to the hilt, that's clear. If he 
 does, perhaps he'll accept a compromise. But then he 
 saj's he's married. Tom, this case must be fought, tooth 
 and nail. I hate tricks ; but, hang it, Tom, there's 
 nothing I wouldn't do to keep the Brambles for little 
 Peggy, Mrs. Viner that is to be. Well, you go to him, 
 say nothing about the value of the estate, and tell him to 
 prove every word he has said to you. And get his 
 address, and put the detectives on him up in town. 
 Don't let him think you're nervous, Tom. Be cool, and 
 don't admit that two and two are four." 
 
 When I went back to the office, I found half tho 
 whisky gone ; but the man still there. I hope I acted 
 coolly ; at any rate, I committed myself to nothing, gave 
 no information, and told Mr. Horace Jones that I should 
 require clear proof of his identity before taking any 
 further steps in the matter. I lent him a guinea, for the 
 sake of keeping my eye on him till I saw him off by tho 
 next train. 
 
 The story worried my father dreadfully; though I 
 don't know how I, in my own ignorance of all the cir- 
 cumstances, could possibly have kept it from him. As 
 for myself, I instantly wrote up to a friend of my own in 
 London — a young solicitor with nothing to do, but as 
 
 sharp as a needle, and with a passion for investigation 
 
 to go to work in a private capacity, and to let me know 
 all he could find out about the man who called himself 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 15 
 
 Horace Jones, and who said he lived at — let me say, 
 36, Belvidere Gardens, Clerkenwell. I had not heard 
 again from the man himself. But I had best give my 
 friend's report of him in his own words. 
 
 " Dear Key, — Belvidere Gardens is a back slum, a sort 
 of mews. No. 36 is a small barber's. I have been 
 shaved there ; and Mr. Potts is not only very small but a 
 clumsy barber. I should say a good deal of drink went 
 on at 36 Belvidere Gardens. Mr. Horace Jones lodges 
 there. I had some conversation with him. He says he 
 is a gentleman kept out of an immense property by an 
 ungrateful niece and some swindling pettifoggers ; but he 
 is in right hands, and means to have the law of them all. 
 I " lent " him half-a-crown, for new acquaintance's sake. 
 I judge him to be a man who is always half drunk, and 
 could never, under any circumstance, be otherwise. His 
 wife — if he be more than half married as well as less 
 than half sober — is a lady of colour, who, I believe, has 
 followed a regiment in her time. I believe that sometimes 
 she beats him, and sometimes he her. She has been the 
 bread-winner hitherto in some capacity — in what I can't 
 precisely learn — he doing little but lounge about at bars. 
 But for the last week or so they have been flush of money, 
 and done nothing but quarrel. They have paid Mr. Potts 
 some arrears of board and lodging. The less I say of 
 their four children — two boys and two girls — the better. 
 It is bad to think of them. They are Horace John, aged 
 twelve ; Margaret, eleven ; Amelia, nine ; and Adolphus, 
 seven. Your friend goes by the name, in the Gardens, of 
 ' Gentleman ' Jones ; I am absolutely unable to imagine 
 why. I hope you are satisfied. I am so much so that 
 I don't want to go to Belvidere Gardens again. The 
 man is not mad, unless you spell ' Mad ' with a B. But 
 he is, I am convinced, as incapable of anything bad 
 on a large scale as he is of anything good on any 
 
16 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 scale at all. He is the very type of a half-crown 
 rogue." 
 
 The time went by, until at last I began to flatter my- 
 self that nothing more was going to happen, and that 
 Mr. Horace Jones had been nothing but a scarecrow, 
 whose only object had been to bewilder a lawyer out of a 
 guinea. But after a calm comes — what we know. 
 
 It was Mr. Evelyn Viner himself who came one day 
 into my office with a letter. 
 
 " What, in the name of impudence, is the meaning of 
 this?" asked he. 
 
 The storm had broken at last. It was a letter from a 
 highly respectable legal firm in London to Miss Jones 
 herself, asking her to name an attorney who would 
 receive for her notice of a declaration in ejectment, 
 according to the old procedure. "What did it mean? 
 Simply that Mr. Horace Jones had persuaded a respect- 
 able firm of his identity and of his right — no doubt 
 backed by counsel's opinion — of his right to the Brambles 
 as heir-at-law to John Jones ; that he had found out for 
 himself the value of the estate ; and that he meant to 
 take no compromise and give no quarter. Indeed there 
 was no earthly reason why he should, if his story were 
 true. 
 
 And this is what I had to explain to Mr. Evelyn 
 Yiner, and to Miss Margaret through him. 
 
 II. 
 
 I could scarcely summon up courage to face my father, 
 though I had no reason for feeling that I had committed 
 any blunder. Everything was perfectly straightforward 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 17 
 
 and fair. So busy was I with reviewing the whole situa- 
 tion — surely the most important, short of life and death, 
 that ever fell into a lawyer's hands — that I took no heed of 
 the usual hour for closing. It was a terrible responsiblity, 
 this case of the Brambles ; and, unless we could carry it 
 into court, and cross-examine Horace Jones into his grave 
 in Barbadoes, the Brambles must pass out of the worthiest 
 hands into those of these vermin. I believe that law and 
 justice almost invariably agree, or at least that they used 
 to before law became the chaos of bungled statutes that 
 it is now; but I could not feel so then. If only old John 
 Jones had not, out of some imbecile faith in the return of 
 a prodigal, I suppose, been such a confounded ass as to 
 have made no will I 
 
 It was dark when I remembered that I had not dined. 
 And that made me notice, as I went out into the passage, 
 that there was a light shining from under the room where 
 we kept our articled clerk and other lumber. I went in ; 
 and Dick Musty must have been as surprised to see me 
 there at that hour as I was to see him, for he started and 
 flushed up just as he had done once before. 
 
 " "What on earth are you doing here ? " I asked. " I'm 
 going to lock up — of course you can sleep here if you 
 please ; " which, of course, I did not mean. 
 
 " I — I had been getting interested in Blackstone," said 
 he. "I didn't notice the time." 
 
 I noticed that he was certainly reading, and was 
 pleased to think that the young fellow was at any rate 
 trying not to waste his time. Indeed, to be interested in 
 Blackstone was more than I had ever been in the days of 
 my articles. I felt sure that, if it had not been for this 
 terrible affair of the Brambles, it would have pleased my 
 father also, who wished the young man well. It may 
 seem odd that I should bring so slight an incident as this 
 into my story ; but it struck me at the time that the fact 
 of Dick Musty's keeping away from his lodgings and his 
 
 o 
 
13 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 Greek and his Latin to read law in our lumber-room 
 was stranger even than Horace Jones's return from the 
 grave. 
 
 My father, though better, was still very weak ; but ho 
 could never rest at night until I had told him everything 
 about the day's work, so that I could not put the last 
 piece of bad news off till to-morrow. 
 
 " We must have counsel to plead to the declaration 
 and advise," said he, without one word of courage. "Go 
 to the Brambles to-morrow and see poor Miss Peggy, and 
 toll her not to be down-hearted, poor girl. Try and look 
 cheerful, Tom. If we are to lose, we'll lose hard. Of 
 course you'll see that she instructs you. Let me see — if 
 it comes to the assizes, we'll have Markham — send him 
 a retainer at once, before the other side can get him. 
 And I'll tell you what — you shall go to London and see 
 Winter himself about the pleadings. There's no living 
 man better. Hang the costs ! If we can't get them from 
 the other side, we'll do without 'em, Tom. Miss Peggy 
 sha'n't be a penny the poorer for ma. Tom, this isn't a 
 private case. It's a public cause." 
 
 My poor father, though as good a man of business as 
 ever stepped, had, I always used to think, a good deal of 
 the knight-errant about him for a sober attorney. I 
 2ould see he knew it was a losing fight from the very 
 beginning ; but — well, I suppose, like every other man in 
 Burgham, myself included, he was in love with Miss 
 Peggy Jones. At any rate, I sympathised with his reck- 
 less scorn of costs in such a cause, and half wished I had 
 the moral courage to forge a long-lost will to checkmate 
 the long-lost heir. 
 
 I went over to the Brambles next day and found Miss 
 Margaret very grave and quiet and calm. I had expected 
 to find her in so very different a mood, that I knew not 
 what to say. 
 
 " I hear you told Mr. Yiner yesterday that I ought to 
 
TOUCH-AND GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 19 
 
 defend this case," said she. " On what ground ? Do you 
 really suppose it is an impostor, and not my Uncle 
 Horace, who has put forward this claim? On your 
 honour, Mr. Key, do you. believe that my uncle is dead, 
 and that some person has falsely assumed his name? " 
 
 I could not play with the truth before such straight 
 true eyes as hers. 
 
 " I cannot tell you what I think," said I. " But I 
 know, as my father says too, that he must prove himself 
 up to the hilt, that's all." 
 
 " No. If he makes me believe it, that must be enough 
 for me. I must not leave it to judges and juries to tell 
 me what I ought to do. And I do believe him to be my 
 uncle, my own father's brother, Horace Jones." 
 
 " Good Heaven!" I exclaimed, " you cannot mean that 
 you will, without the strictest proof, let your father's 
 land go to such a man, to such a woman ; that you will 
 throw away all your own happiness, all the good and 
 welfare of your native town — " 
 
 " My own happiness will not suffer, thank God ! " said 
 she, with a grave smile that told me how well she 
 had learned that her future husband's love did not hang 
 one jot upon house or land ; and I wished that Evelyn 
 Viner were by, that I might take his hand and tell him, 
 in the name of the whole town, that he was worthy to be 
 the husband of even Margaret Jones, rich or poor. I 
 suppose they had talked it over yesterday, and had 
 decided what was right for them to do, like a couple of 
 fools. "Of course, I am sorry if my uncle is not likely to 
 prove so good a neighbour as we — I — should have tried 
 to be. But justice is justice, Mr. Key, and I cannot try 
 to keep what is not my own." 
 
 "It is not justice," said I, and I am of the same 
 opinion still. " Your grandfather believed his eldest son 
 dead. He meant your father to have the Brambles. Why 
 should he have made a will ? " 
 
 c 2 
 
20 ROMANCES OF THE LAIV. 
 
 " How do we know that he believed my uncle dead? " 
 asked she. 
 
 " Because he made no will." But that was bad logic, 
 and I knew it when I said so. " Madame, you must 
 compel this man to prove himself your uncle to the 
 satisfaction of all England. It is your duty as your 
 father's daughter ; your duty to all Burgham," said I. 
 
 She sighed. 
 
 " I want to do my duty," said she. " And you, and 
 your father, want to help me to do it, I know. Please 
 do not stand in my way." 
 
 " At least, Miss Jones, allow my father to be satisfied 
 that he is the man he claims to be. We have no evidence 
 at all — " 
 
 " Moral evidence," said she, " and to spare." 
 
 " Moral rubbish ! " I am afraid I exclaimed. " Let us 
 be convinced a little more than morally ; we will not 
 work against justice, you may be sure. That is due to 
 us, because we are your friends." 
 
 " I know that," said she. 
 
 " We must plead to this declaration within a certain 
 time. Authorize me to do that for you — that will commit 
 you to nothing ; and meanwhile we will satisfy ourselves 
 whether it is necessary that the Brambles should be the 
 property of an — Uncle. Only give us time, in order that 
 we may be clear." 
 
 "I think there can be no harm in that," said she, 
 though I could see the impulse was upon her to leave the 
 Brambles that very hour. " Of course it is right for our 
 friends to know that we are not doing wrong in what we 
 do. And no doubt our uncle's title, for his children's 
 sake, ought to be made clear." 
 
 She was using Queen's grammar ; but I knew what 
 she meant by her " We " and " Our " very well. 
 
 To fight a lost battle is bad enough ; but to fight it for a 
 client who is determined to lose is harder still. However, 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 21 
 
 I had to be content with the very limited power I was 
 allowed, only taking care to strain it as far as possible. 
 I at once sent a retainer to Serjeant Markham, who then 
 led our circuit, though pretty certain that the fee was 
 thrown away. Then I set hard to work upon instructions 
 for Mr. Winter to plead and advise, more particularly 
 upon the evidence that would be required. Mr. Winter 
 was the great pleader of the day. As we had no inten- 
 tion of getting our costs, we might indulge in any expense 
 we pleased, and lose with a flourish and with all the 
 honours of war. 
 
 It was of course exceedingly inconvenient that I, in 
 my father's state of health, should be up in town and 
 away from the office for even a day or two. But there 
 was no help for it. Such a case demanded our most 
 extreme personal attention, and my father would not be 
 satisfied without a conference with Mr. Winter. Happily, 
 we had no other business on hand that was immediately 
 pressing. So I left our managing clerk in charge ; 
 arranged that all letters and clients who could not be put 
 off should be brought or sent to my father at his house ; 
 gave Musty, for form's sake, a lot of work that would 
 keep for many months, with strict injunctions to let me 
 find it finished by my return; and travelled up to 
 London. 
 
 I must own that Messrs. Heath & Crane, who were the 
 claimant's attorneys, met me in the most open and 
 straightforward manner. They concealed nothing, and 
 showed no symptom of wishing to take us by surprise. 
 They were not even anxious fiat Miss Jones should give 
 up the Brambles without fighting ; on the contrary, they 
 seemed to wish for a verdict, so as to establish their 
 client's title beyond any possibility of future cavil. 
 
 " If you are holding out in order that we may make 
 Miss Jones an offer to induce her to spare us the expense 
 of a trial, I may as well tell you at once that you are 
 
22 ROMANCES OF' THE LAW. 
 
 mistaken," said Mr. Crane. " We are as sure of a verdict 
 as I stand here. I may assume, between ourselves, that 
 you are not going to put in a will ; and I know that my 
 client's identity is beyond question. We shall most 
 assuredly make no sort of offer whatever ; we shall not 
 advise our client to make one ; and, even if we did advise 
 it, it would not be made. Our client, rightly or wrongly, 
 considers himself to have been grossly ill-used ; and, 
 rightly or wrongly, sees no reason why Miss Margaret 
 Jones deserves one penny from him. If he chooses to do 
 anything for her afterwards, that is his own affair. But 
 he certainly will not buy her out. The proofs of identity 
 are freely at your service, and you are welcome to make 
 the most of them. If you think it worth while to put 
 us to strict proof, you will find us fully prepared." 
 
 I smiled at the idea of Miss Margaret's taking a penny 
 for giving up even what was her own, much less anything 
 that was not her own. I knew too well that, with her, it 
 must be all or nothing ; and that she would, as a matter 
 of course, refuse any imaginable compromise. However, 
 I committed myself to nothing, and completed my instruc- 
 tions for counsel to advise on evidence after examining 
 the claimant's case of identity at my leisure. Alas, his 
 case was only too clear ! For any good I could do in 
 London, I might just as well take the next train to 
 Burgham. 
 
 However, my father would never forgive me if I came 
 back without having done my best — I believe the dear 
 old gentleman would have dissolved partnership with any 
 man who was clever enough to know when he was beaten. 
 The worst of it was, that a conference with Mr. Winter 
 was almost as difficult to obtain as an interview with 
 Eoyalty. After a world of importunate patience, till I 
 expect his clerk nearly hated the sight of me, I obtained 
 an appointment for a quarter-past eleven o'clock at night 
 at his private house in Kussell Square. I was punctual to 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 23 
 
 the minute, you may be sure; and I found the great 
 junior busily engaged in reading a — novel. It seemed as 
 incongruous as finding Dick Musty over Blackstone. But 
 I have become more used to incongruities since those 
 days. 
 
 " Wait a moment — I must know whether that poor 
 girl really did die of a broken heart," said he, turning 
 rapidly over the pages. " Ah, yes. Well, never mind. 
 Better luck next time, Mr. — ah, yes— Key. Well, Mr. 
 Key, there is do doubt but that the intestate's eldest 
 son is entitled to recover on the strength of his own title 
 as heir-at-law. And there's no question, it seems, of his 
 title's being barred by length of adverse possession ; and 
 if there were, it would not apply to a claimant who has 
 been beyond the seas till so short a time ago. Unless 
 you can set up a will — " 
 
 " No. There was no will." 
 
 " Or deny that the intestate was seized — " 
 
 " We should not think of doing that, even if we could, 
 Mr. Winter." 
 
 " Or that he was not married to the claimant's mother 
 when the claimant was born — " 
 
 " Out of the question. His marriage will be amply 
 proved." 
 
 " Then, why, in the name of common sense, Mr. Key, 
 do you come to me?" 
 
 "For this reason. To be advised whether they have 
 evidence enough that the claimant is really Horace Jones, 
 and not some other man." 
 
 " Ah, that's another pair of shoes ! Put them to the 
 proof of that, if you can. What do they say ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid their case is — well, rather strong. They 
 can show, and we can't deny, that Horace Jones enlisted 
 in a certain regiment of the line. They have evidence, 
 military and medical, that he was ill with yellow fever at 
 Barbadoes, and did not die. They will call the former 
 
24 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 chaplain and the surgeons and some officers of the 
 regiment, to carry the case so far. That he married a 
 woman of colour — a sutler woman — will be shown in the 
 same way ; as well as that the Horace Jones they knew 
 belonged to Burgham ; and to that they have witnesses 
 from Burgham too. And every witness concerned will 
 swear to the identity of Horace Jones the claimant with 
 either Horace Jones of Burgham, or with Horace Jones 
 in Barbadoes ; and to the identity of Mrs. Horace Jones 
 here with the woman who married Horace Jones out 
 there." 
 
 Have you any evidence that all these witnesses — 
 excellent witnesses, as I gather from what you say — are 
 in unanimous error, and that the claimant is not Horace 
 Jones? "What do his alleged relations say? " 
 
 "I am sorry to say that we have no evidence at all. 
 And his only relation is my client, who — well, Mr. 
 Winter, she is a lady with a most remarkable sense of 
 justice, and — " 
 
 " On what, then, do you rely ? " 
 
 " On the chance that the claimant, when he comes to 
 be cross-examined, might break down. We have retained 
 Serjeant Markham — " 
 
 "Who knows how to puzzle the devil himself about his 
 own identity. True. I daresay he could puzzle even me 
 about mine. But jurors, let me tell you, are not quite 
 the puzzle-headed fools that it is the fashion to call them. 
 They will most assuredly believe the chaplain, and the 
 surgeons, and the officers, and the good witnesses from 
 Burgham. They will believe your client's silence, and 
 your own inability to show who the man is, if he be not 
 Horace Jones. And in this belief the judge will direct 
 them to remain. And Serjeant Markham is the last man 
 at the Bar to make a fool of himself, as you, Mr. Key, 
 seem bent upon instructing him to do. If he does cross- 
 examine the claimant, he will practically throw up his 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 25 
 
 brief as soon as he sits down. Your client has no case, 
 Mr. Key, absolutely none. Good-night, Mr. Key." 
 
 In my own mind, I had foreseen what Mr. Winter's 
 advice would be ; and I even felt conscious that it was a 
 case in which his want of courtesy had been exceedingly 
 excusable. He, unlike us, was not a Burgham man, and 
 had had no opportunity of falling in love with Miss 
 Margaret Jones. He had taken the view of a man of 
 sense ; and his view was final. We simply had not a leg, 
 not even a toe, to stand on. Poor Miss Margaret must 
 lose every penny she had, her husband must work for his 
 bread, and the Brambles must go to Mr. and Mrs. Horace 
 Jones and their gutter-children after them ; to a drunken 
 scamp and a Mulatto camp follower. I need not dwell 
 upon what that would mean. 
 
 With a heavy heart next morning I called at Mr. 
 Winter's chambers in the Temple, and paid his clerk his 
 easily earned fee for answering what he must have thought 
 a fool's question. Then I looked up my friend who had 
 sent me the report on the manners and customs of Mr. 
 Horace Jones, and then took the train to Burgham. It 
 is not a short journey, though I need not specify the 
 number of miles or hours ; and, for that matter, railways 
 were neither so fast nor so dangerous as they are now. 
 So it was late in the afternoon when I reached Burgham, 
 and I went to the office before I went home, in order to 
 put off for a few minutes telling my father all the bad 
 news. 
 
 "I want to speak to you, Mr. Thomas," said the 
 managing clerk, as soon as I arrived. 
 
 " Well, Merrit ? I hope it's nothing wrong ? " 
 
 " No, sir, it can't be anything wrong. But it's queer. 
 Every day you've been gone, I've shut up the office at 
 the usual hour. You know, sir, we always lock all our 
 own doors ; so the housekeeper herself, if she wanted to, 
 couldn't get in without asking for the key. And she 
 
23 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 never has asked me, and I've never parted with our keys 
 for a single minute from the breeches-pocket where I 
 keep them, and where I've got them now. Well, Mr. 
 Thomas, I was out late one evening, having tea at my 
 sister's, and my way home lay past the office-door. 
 Naturally, I looked up, and there was a light shining 
 through the window of your father's room as clear as I 
 see you now." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " At first I thought it must be fire or thieves. So I 
 rang up the housekeeper, and we looked into all the 
 rooms, and there we found — " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Nothing, sir. Everything was dark and quiet, just 
 as if there'd been no light at all." 
 
 " Your sister makes her tea strong, I suppose. That's 
 all?" 
 
 " It's all very well to have your joke, Mr. Thomas, and 
 of course the steadiest of men may see wrong once in a 
 way ; but that's not all. I was so sure I'd seen that 
 light in that window, that I made a point of going to my 
 sister's next night too, so that I might see if it happened 
 again." 
 
 " Well? Did it happen again? " 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Thomas. It did happen again. And I 
 woke up the housekeeper again. And we found nothing 
 again. And when I went back into the street there 
 wasn't the ghost of a light to be seen. So it couldn't 
 have been the reflection of anything, you see." 
 
 " And you found, in the morning, not a sign of any- 
 body's having been in the room ? " 
 
 " Not the shadow of a sign. And, sir, that isn't all. 
 Every night I've passed by — I've made a point of it 
 before turning in — and every time I've seen that light, 
 except the last one or two. I can't make it out at all. 
 And the odd thing is, there's nothing wrong." 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 27 
 
 " Have you told my father ? " 
 
 " No, sir. He's seemed so worried and nervous that 
 I didn't like to trouble him. I thought best to wait till 
 you came home." 
 
 " Quite right. My father must not be worried any 
 more just now. Well, Merrit, I've been thinking some 
 time you ought to have a holiday. Go to the sea for a 
 week. We can manage that, now I'm back again." The 
 man worked hard, and it was as likely as not that his 
 brain might want resting. " Has anybody seen the light 
 besides you?" 
 
 "I haven't asked, sir. I've been afraid, Mr. Thomas 
 — in fact — " 
 
 " In fact, you suspect something you don't like to tell. 
 What is it, please ? " 
 
 " Your father is unquestionably in a nervous condition, 
 Mr. Thomas. I've noticed that ever since you've been 
 gone. And sometimes people in that state do very 
 curious things. So I thought it best to wait till you 
 were back again." 
 
 " You mean that my father — impossible ! My mother 
 would know. Put that out of your head at once, Merrit, 
 if you please. All the same, you've done quite right to 
 wait for me. Yes ; you ought to take a holiday, I'm sure. 
 Anyhow, there's nothing wrong, it seems. Nothing but 
 a common ghost, I suppose ; I don't mind them. And 
 how has Mr. Musty been getting on all this while, eh ? 
 Not much use to you, I suppose ? " 
 
 "I'm altering my opinion of Mr. Musty, Mr. Thomas, 
 I am indeed. He's been working like a pavior. He's 
 here before I am in the morning, and stays as long as I'll 
 let him. I believe there's stuff in that young man, 
 though it's been long enough coming out, I must say." 
 
 "I must see my father now. We'll talk to-morrow 
 about your holiday." 
 
 My mother's account of my father was by no means a 
 
28 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 good one. He had been going backward instead of for- 
 ward, and was, the doctors suspected, kept down by 
 some mental trouble. He was morbidly anxious about 
 letters, and altogether as different from his old easy-going 
 self as a man could be. She did not wish me to see him 
 that night ; but he had heard my voice — he had gone to 
 bed early — and sent for me. When I had told him all 
 my news, he said sadly, 
 
 "For the first time in my life I see we're beat, my 
 boy. Winter's right. We're only a couple of obstinate 
 fools. Poor girl ! Well, God will temper the wind. 
 But it's bad to feel beat, very bad indeed." 
 
 "Has father been at all strange?" I asked my 
 mother. 
 
 " Only in the way you have seen," said she. " He is 
 not like himself; but that is all." 
 
 So unlike himself that I began anxiously to wonder 
 whether there might not be something in Merrit's 
 suspicions, and that my father, in some mysterious way 
 and without my mother's knowledge, might not be 
 paying some nightly visit to the office, of which he had 
 another set of keys. People with minds out of gear 
 manage to do things sometimes that healthy persons 
 would find impossible. 
 
 III. 
 
 After supper I strolled out with a cigar to settle in my 
 own mind about what ought to be done, and how I should 
 let Miss Margaret know that she was henceforth without 
 a penny in the world of her own, unless she chose to beg 
 for charity from Mr. and Mrs. Horace Jones. My only 
 comfort was that she would bear to hear the news a 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 29 
 
 great deal better than I could bear to tell it to her. In 
 our last interview she had shown me the sort of stuff of 
 which she and Evelyn Viner were composed ; and that 
 made it all the worse to exchange such neighbours for 
 Mr. and Mrs. Horace Jones. I loved my father dearly, 
 and was terribly anxious about him ; but the immediate 
 trouble of the hour, on which the fortune of a whole 
 town seemed to hang, was all-absorbing. And besides, 
 it was the first serious matter in which I had ever been 
 engaged ; and I could not help asking myself a hundred 
 times a minute, if I had neglected any loophole of escape 
 which greater knowledge and experience might have been 
 able to find. But there was none, absolutely none. My 
 Lord Chief Justice would have been as hopeless as I. 
 Mr. Winter had as good as told me I was a fool for 
 clutching at what was not even so much as a straw. 
 
 Poets are not the only people who, when they are in a 
 professional difficulty, stare up at the stars. I did. I 
 was in the lane which led from the High Street, past our 
 office door, into St. Michael's Yard, when I looked up 
 towards the Great Bear, and saw — a light in the window 
 of my father's room. 
 
 My first impulse was to go home and see if my father was 
 safe in his room. But on second thoughts I felt it better 
 to wait a little, and then to effect an entrance with more 
 effect than Mr. Merrit had done. Putting the idea of 
 thieves out of the question, the occupant of the room must 
 either be the housekeeper or my father. If the house- 
 keeper, she certainly had no business there, and must be 
 taken by surprise. If my father, he must be dealt with 
 very carefully indeed. So I waited for five minutes, to see if 
 the light was likely to vanish of its own accord, and then, 
 instead of ringing the housekeeper's bell, I bethought me 
 of an old trick which, I am sorry to say, I had not 
 unfrequently put in practice when a younger man, in 
 order to get in and out of the office when I wanted my 
 
30 ROMANCES OF THE LAW, 
 
 temporary absence to be unknown. Without much, 
 though with some, risk of feeling the hand of a passing con- 
 stable on my shoulder, I climbed over the old coped wall 
 that divided St. Michael's Yard from our back premises, 
 then pulled myself on to another wall, and thence, very 
 easily, to the cover of a closed cistern which was under 
 my own window. I did not make much noise, and there 
 was enough wind about to cover any that I could not help 
 making. Then I took out my pocket-knife, and, by a trick 
 not unknown to schoolboys and house-breakers, and in 
 which former practice had made me expert in relation to 
 this particular window, passed it between the upper and 
 lower window-frames, pressed back the very inefficient 
 fastening, and had the window open in less time than it 
 has taken me to write the words. Then I took off my 
 boots, dropped them quietly into the room, and followed 
 them. I had no light ; but I knew every inch of the ground. 
 My door was locked, but Merrit had given me up the keys. 
 I went out into the passage, in the dark and in my stock- 
 ings, and listened at my father's door. I did not hoar a 
 sound. 
 
 I made up my mind that the best thing I could do was 
 to open it quietly, enter in a matter-of-course way, and 
 if, as impossibility itself could not keep me from fearing, 
 I found my father, make believe that there was nothing 
 out of the way in the situation. I would simply ask him 
 if he did not think it time to shut up the office and come 
 home. So I pulled back the outer % door of green baize, 
 and opened the inner, and at first, coming so suddenly 
 out of the pitch darkness, was too dazzled by the candle- 
 light to understand clearly what I saw. The candle had 
 not gone out when I came in. 
 
 It was not, thank God, my father, haunting his office 
 at midnight in a state of over-strung nerves. It was not 
 the housekeeper, who ought to be in bed and asleep, and 
 was no doubt doing her duty. It was Eichard Musty— 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 31 
 
 Richard Musty, sitting at midnight at my father's table, 
 in my father's chair, with a candle before him, and half 
 his face buried in his hands. 
 
 Had he. gone crazed? But I did not think of that 
 then. The possibility of crime was more in my mind. 
 I went up to him and brought my hand down heavily 
 between his shoulders. 
 
 " What the devil," I cried out, " are you doing here ? " 
 
 Most decidedly I meant to startle him. But I could 
 not possibly startle him more than he had startled me, 
 when I found out who it was that had been, night after 
 night, engaged alone in an office which he could not 
 possibly have been able to enter without false keys, or 
 with any honest cause. He could not even have practised 
 my mode of entry without false keys, because I had had 
 to unlock my own room-door, and had not had to unlock 
 my father's. And he of all men — too much of a block- 
 head even to be a rogue, as I had imagined until now. 
 But though it was natural for him to be less startled 
 than I, he did not seem to be startled at all. 
 
 On the contrary, he merely turned round and faced me 
 _with the saddest, most hopeless look I had ever seen. 
 
 " I did not expect you," was all he said. " put it 
 doesn't matter now." 
 
 " Not matter? " said I. " Not matter, that I find my 
 father's office broken into, night after night, by one of 
 his own clerks ; not matter, that I find you out in what 
 amounts to burglary ? If you have anything to say for 
 yourself, say it ; if not, I shall know what to believe, and 
 make a proper search for an explanation, both here and 
 elsewhere." 
 
 " I have nothing to say, Mr. Key," said he. " Of 
 course I shall not appear in your office again." 
 
 " I could have told you that myself," said I. " Then 
 you have nothing to say ? Well, my father must decide 
 what to do w.th you. I know what 7 should do." I was 
 
32 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 not keeping my temper, I own. " I suppose I oughtn't 
 to cross-examine you, but I must either do that or send 
 for the police, it seems to me. And for your mother's, 
 sake I should like to avoid that, if I can." 
 
 "Then — then I will tell you," said he. "Perhaps, 
 perhaps I have done what a lawyer, a mere lawyer like 
 yourself, would call wrong, technically wrong. I am not 
 a mere lawyer, Mr. Key." 
 
 "A mere lawyer? I never knew you were a lawyer at 
 all," said I. "But unluckily it is mere lawyers who 
 have to define burglary, and — " 
 
 "I am not a burglar!" said Musty, showing a little 
 spirit for the first time. " I have been here every night, 
 that is true. It was the only time at which I could have 
 sufficient access to your father's room. But my means of 
 access were not what you suppose. I never used to leave 
 the premises, — that is all. Before the hour for closing I 
 used to hide in that closet, which your father's absence 
 from the office made it perfectly easy for me to do. Mr. 
 Merrit and the clerks of course used to think I had gone 
 away for the day. Your father's room-door was never 
 really locked, for I suppose it was forgotten either when 
 he was taken ill or else when you went away, and nobody 
 ever thought of it afterwards, not even Mr. Merrit, though 
 he used to find the door unlocked whenever he came at 
 night. It's curious what stupid people some lawyers 
 are. Just because it was supposed not to want locking 
 at the right time, nobody seemed to think it odd that it 
 was found unlocked at the wrong one. No mere meta- 
 physician would have made such a blunder as that, Mr. 
 Key. I used to think it lucky. It enabled me to be 
 found at my own desk when the clerks came in the 
 morning. I used to keep food in the coal-scuttle. You'll 
 find some there still. You're welcome to it. It's no use 
 to me any more. And now I've told you the whole 
 story." 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 33 
 
 "You have told me nothing, sir!" said I. "What 
 possessed you — " I really did not know what to ask. He 
 had spoken in such a forlorn, dreary, strangely cynical 
 way that I began to suspect, not a crime, but — at last — 
 sheer lunacy. Idiotcy would be perfectly natural in the 
 young man. 
 
 " Very well, Mr. Key. There was a document which 
 it was necessary— at least I thought so — that I should 
 examine. To your eyes it was only an old Latin sermon, 
 or essay, about the virtues of some miserable saint or 
 other of the Middle Ages. But I had reason to think — 
 reason which I should vainly try to make you understand 
 — that it might, nay, must, be a palimpsest: perhaps 
 even the word is strange to you. And yet even you, Mr. 
 Key, must have heard that some of our most precious 
 classics have been lost by being erased and over-written 
 with worthless monkish chronicles ; but that many have 
 been recovered, in our own times, by chemically remov- 
 ing the monkish stuff, and, by a re-agent, restoring the 
 old writing so as to be legible again. I had reason to 
 think, from certain partial experiments I had already 
 tried, that this absurd puff of St. Willibrord covered — 
 well, nothing less than some portions of the lost books of 
 Livy. I need not go through the course of reasoning 
 that led me to that conclusion. Enough that the reasons 
 were sound ; and, after all, in such matters instinct and 
 insight are the best of all reasons. Certainty must 
 always depend upon something higher than mere evid- 
 ence, Mr. Key, which can never amount to proof, how- 
 ever strong it may be. It is only faith which can ever 
 be sure. And so — " 
 
 " And so you believed, because you wished to believe, 
 that you would find Livy in a lawyer's office in Burgham. 
 Why didn't you say so before ? " 
 
 "Because I didn't choose to be called mad by mere 
 people of common sense, like you and your father, until 
 
34 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 I could come to you and say, ' See here ! ' And now I 
 say, ' See here ; see the result of my disappointed faith, 
 and of labour in vain.' You are right. I am good for 
 nothing. I am an ass and a fool." 
 
 I began to see at last with what sort of man I had to 
 deal. " So you found nothing? " said I. 
 
 " Worse than nothing. Look here," he said, uncover- 
 ing the parchment that lay before him, and which was, 
 indeed, the old Latin manuscript which my father had 
 thrown into a drawer to keep this queer sort of a clerk 
 from wasting his time ; as if a fanatic of any sort, and 
 not only a lover, will not find out the way. " Yes, that 
 monk, whoever it was, was not so bad as some of them. 
 He only used an old deed to scrawl over ; if a man must 
 write rubbish, he can't do better than use rubbish to 
 write it on." 
 
 "An old deed of the times of the monks? But that 
 must be a curiosity in its way, after all. What is it ? 
 That old writing beats me." 
 
 "I don't know. I didn't care to recover more than 
 enough to show me that I had thrown all my labour 
 away. If you care to know, it seems like the record of a 
 conveyance, by the corporation of Burgham to the priory 
 of Welwood, of the Campus de Easton, in the parish of 
 St. Botolph intra muros et terminos de Burgham ; which 
 means ' within the walls and bounds.' I have read no 
 more. And enough, too." 
 
 "Quite enough," said I. "Go home and go to bed: 
 of course I must speak to my father about you, though 
 the affair, I am glad to say, doesn't look as bad as I 
 feared." 
 
 I locked up carefully enough this time, let myself and 
 Dick Musty out by the same way I had entered, so as 
 not to disturb the housekeeper, and carried the old 
 parchment home with me to show my father. It was of 
 no practical use ; but it certainly was, or might be, of 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITH A GREAT ESTATE. 35 
 
 interest to local antiquarians. It was remarkable, any 
 way, that the document should have remained in the 
 custody of the parsons of St. Michael's, as it must have 
 done, ever since the days before the Eeformation; but 
 certain old documents have a wonderful way of escaping 
 the doom of waste paper, to which things of more value 
 are so perilously liable. An old invitation to a long-eaten 
 dinner will survive under circumstances in which an 
 important receipt will prove mysteriously and hopelessly 
 missing. 
 
 But nothing of all this could possibly affect the 
 miserable case of which my mind was full. I forgot, or 
 rather did not even trouble to remember, to mention the 
 matter to my father, after all. He had too much on his 
 mind to be troubled about Dick Musty, for whom I now 
 felt rather pity than anger, inexcusable as his conduct 
 had been. 
 
 I remember, as well as any in my life, the day when 
 my father at last decided, finally, that fighting would be 
 worse than folly, and that the Brambles must go to Mr. 
 Horace Jones. Mr. Evelyn Viner had been talking 
 everything over with us — not that there was much left to 
 talk about— and had stayed to dine. He took things 
 well, I must say. Instead of losing his appetite, he 
 talked about what chances he would have if he went to 
 the Bar, and would not even go back to the great question 
 now that it had been settled for good and all. He made 
 all sorts of talk for everybody; and presently, in an 
 incidental way, we got upon local matters, and one of us 
 mentioned the singularity of the name of that churchless 
 parish, " St. Botolph in Turn." We all made guesses at 
 its origin, and at last I said, 
 
 " I think it must mean St. Botolph in-Ternus, or in- 
 Terminibus, or within the walls or boundaries of the 
 town." 
 
 d 2 
 
36 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " By Jove," said my father, " it might be ! But I 
 didn't know you were such a scholar as that, Tom. 
 How did you get hold of that idea ? St. Botolph in Turn 
 is within the town boundaries; so much is true." 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't claim the guess as quite original," 
 said I. " Oddly enough, I got it from an old deed that 
 was among old Parson Evans's papers, which I've got 
 upstairs, and will show you if you like, as it seems 
 curious in its way. I'll tell you the whole story; but 
 not now." 
 
 I brought the half-deciphered document out of my 
 bedroom, which my father recognized at once as the 
 parchment he had taken from the hands of Dick Musty. 
 We looked at it in the manner of the very unskilled 
 archaeologists that we were. 
 
 " How odd ! " said Mr. Evelyn Yiner. " Campus de 
 Easton means Easton Field, the other name for the 
 Brambles. A curious accident, indeed." 
 
 "And the Brambles is still rated to St. Botolph," 
 said I. 
 
 I wished I had not brought down the document, after 
 all. But Mr. Evelyn Viner spoke as if it mattered 
 nothing to him. I believe in his heart he was fool 
 enough to be half glad that Miss Margaret was to come 
 to him poor, so that he might work for her. 
 
 " Tom," said my father, " this document is really a 
 curiosity. I must show it to the mayor, and we'll have 
 the rest of it made out when we've got nothing else to 
 do. It's odd I never noticed there was anything of the 
 sort about this deed. But I remember, it was the day I 
 was taken ill. It shows how careful a town ought to be 
 about preserving the evidence of its boundaries. The 
 nature of the ownership of the Brambles has always 
 happened, you see, to make it perfectly immaterial 
 whether that part of St. Botolph lay within or without 
 he town ; and Mr. Wilfred Jones voted as a freeman. 
 
TOUCH-AND-GO WITS A GREAT ESTATE. 37 
 
 This old document may prove important evidence of town 
 rights in time to come. Why — hut — great Heaven 1" 
 he suddenly cried out, starting from his chair. 
 
 I thought he had been seized with a sudden fit, and 
 was about to fall. Mr. Viner also started towards him ; 
 and, in truth, there looked reason for alarm, considering 
 his recent illness and his chronic worry about the 
 Brambles, and his apoplectic flush, and his vain efforts to 
 speak a word. But at last he waved us away from him, 
 and fell back again into his chair. 
 
 Then he raised his fist and brought it down upon the 
 old Latin sermon with a bang that made the glasses 
 ring. 
 
 " Hurrah 1 " he shouted. " Three cheers for Miss 
 Peggy, and a fig for Mr. Horace Jones ! " 
 
 Had he gone mad after all ? 
 
 " Tom ! Has there been a single case of the Brambles 
 passing to the heir-at-law of an intestate within the 
 memory of the law ? " 
 
 " No," said I. " How could there be — till now — when 
 it belonged to a college till it was bought by Mr. John 
 Jones ? But— don't you feel well ? " 
 
 " Well? Tom, don't you be a fool ! Then there's been 
 continuous custom —continuous custom, because there 
 hasn't been the possibility of a breach — " 
 
 " What breach ? What custom ? " I could only look 
 at Mr. Viner in despair, and think what I could do, with 
 my father going out of his senses before my eyes. 
 
 " Is the Brambles in Burgham or no ? " 
 
 " Surely, sir, if that document is to be believed." 
 
 " It is to be believed. It is legal proof, and proof in 
 good custody, sir ; and uncontradicted and uncontradict- 
 able by all the Horace Joneses in the habitable globe 1 
 The Brambles is in Burgham. And what is the tenure 
 of lands in Burgham ? You — a Burgham lawyer — don't 
 know?" 
 
38 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 it j " 
 
 " Then I'll tell you, and I'm ashamed of you I It's 
 Borough English, sir ! And, by the custom of Borough 
 English, all lands and tenements within the Bounds of 
 Burgham go to the youngest son, instead of the eldest, 
 when there's no will ! " 
 
 I need not carry the history of the case farther than 
 by saying that the strange old custom of Borough English, 
 which still prevails in other places than Burgham, and 
 the origin of which has defied theory to discover, effect- 
 ually disinherited Mr. Horace Jones simply because he 
 was his father's eldest son, and gave the Brambles to 
 Miss Margaret because she was the heiress of the 
 youngest son of old John Jones. I have told my story ; 
 but only because I think it is strange enough to be worth 
 the telling. It has a moral for " mere lawyers " like 
 myself, and it is this. Don't think Practice everything, 
 and Learning nothing. England is a curious country, 
 and the Middle Ages take a long time to kill. 
 
 As for poor Dick Musty, through whom — by no means 
 through any merit of his own — it had come out that the 
 Brambles had never ceased to be a part of the ancient 
 Borough of Burgham, Mr. and Mrs. Viner could not see 
 that he was undeserving of a most unreasonable and 
 disproportionate reward. Learning from my father and 
 myself his complete unfitness for the law, they sent him 
 back to Cambridge, where he got his degree and a fellow- 
 ship and settled down at last into a happily useless 
 member of society, not without some reputation as an 
 authority on palimpsests and doubtful readings. I 
 suppose he is as dead as Livy by this time, seeing how 
 long ago all this happened. Everything ended rightly ; 
 but even now I almost tremble when I think how that 
 Great Estate hung upon such a mere " Touch-and-Go." 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 
 I. 
 
 Profane laymen believe that, when the cloth is removed 
 at a lawyers' dinner, the oldest member of the profession 
 present rises, and solemnly proposes, amid enthusiasm 
 too deep for applause, this solemn toast — " The man who 
 makes his own Will." The story has, at any rate, the 
 merit of being well invented ; for most assuredly that 
 man has a fool for his client in a double and treble 
 meaning of the famous saying about men who are their 
 own lawyers : and it is true enough, and I, an old lawyer, 
 say it, with all respect for that science of common sense 
 popularly called "the law," that the people who find 
 their way into court, and learn what Costs mean, have 
 mostly got into the predicament through having too 
 strong an antipathy to lawyers and their bills. But I 
 think it is even worse than common folly when a testator, 
 mostly out of self-conceit, leaves a Chancery suit instead 
 of an inheritance to his heirs. Women are not, in this 
 respect, quite so criminally imbecile as men are, because 
 they are mostly free from the little knowledge which is 
 at the root of most bad wills. But then they are apt to 
 make a more thorough hash of things when they make 
 any at all. On the whole, I should place makers of their 
 own wills in the following order of badness, taking the 
 extreme type in each degree of comparison : Positive — 
 
40 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 Bad, Elderly Gentlemen. Comparative — Worse, Elderly 
 Ladies. Superlative — Worst, Lord Chancellors. But 
 not even a Lord Chancellor ever managed to draw up so 
 extraordinarily bewildering a will as Miss Bridgita 
 Molloy. She could have taught something even to the 
 
 late Lord W -y. As the case never actually came 
 
 into court, the details will probably be new to most of 
 my readers ; but I heard them all at the time, and have 
 the clearest recollection of them — and no wonder. On 
 this occasion there is no harm in giving real names. And 
 that is fortunate ; for the story could not possibly be 
 told without them. It simply defies invention. 
 
 Miss Bridgita Molloy was a maiden lady of royal 
 descent, who lived at an English watering-place — I 
 really forget whether at Bath, or Clifton, or Cheltenham, 
 or Malvern, or Leamington, or Buxton ; but it was at 
 some such place, and luckily the name of the town is the 
 one detail which does not matter. Por the sake of avoid- 
 ing blanks and dashes, I will call it Chatterbury, as more 
 or less applicable to them all — at least, in Miss Molloy's 
 time. She was a little eccentric in trifles ; but, in all 
 essential things, as notoriously whole-minded, and strong- 
 minded too, as any lady of sixty in the whole kingdom. 
 I must enter a little into her family history ; but only so 
 far as is needful. She had been the second of three 
 beautiful sisters, the daughters and coheiresses of a 
 gentleman of large estate in Ireland. They were much 
 run after in their girlhood, and had once been known as 
 the three pocket-beauties — less in allusion to their size 
 than to their reputation — then somewhat uncommon in 
 Dublin — of being worth marrying for something more 
 lasting than beauty. Well, to cut a long story short 
 before it is well begun, the eldest, Miss Lucis Molloy (a 
 quaint first name ; but it always struck me as a singularly 
 pretty one for a pretty girl), eloped with a gentleman, 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 41 
 
 also descended from royalty — so far descended, indeed, 
 that there was scarcely a further social depth left him to 
 descend to — named Fitzgerald O'Birn ; and the youngest, 
 Miss Judith, went off with a foreign refugee, a sort of 
 Hungarian-German-Polish dancing-master Count, named 
 Ferentz Steldl. Ferentz is the Hungarian for Francis, 
 I believe ; Steldl, I fancy, is Bavarian or Tyrolese. Both 
 marriages turned out miserably — so miserably, that Miss 
 Bridgita forswore romance, and even matrimony, and 
 actually kept her vow. 
 
 She also kept more than her vow — she kept her fortune. 
 When the creditors got hold of Mr. Molloy's great estates, 
 he left the very handsome surplus left him in cash and 
 Consols absolutely to his one wise daughter. Not a 
 penny went into the pockets of Count Steldl or Mr. 
 O'Birn. It was a bitter disappointment to both gentle- 
 men ; and I believe they avenged their wrongs upon their 
 wives after the manner of their kind. 
 
 So while poor Madame Steldl suffered and starved all 
 over Europe, and poor Mrs. O'Birn starved and suffered 
 in the larger and darker continent of London, Miss Molloy 
 lived alone and in dignified opulence at Chatterbury. 
 She was a first-rate economist, and her patrimony had 
 prospered. She used to amuse herself by speculating in 
 stock — always shrewdly and cautiously. By the time 
 she was sixty, it was reckoned that her income could not 
 amount to less than a safe twelve hundred a year, of which 
 she saved at least five. 
 
 Now what in the world was to become of all this money 
 if Miss Bridgita Molloy ever happened to die ? I have 
 been thinking of the best form in which I can tell the 
 story of what did happen shortly ; and I think it best, on 
 the whole, to undergo a transformation, and multiply the 
 result by two. That is to say, I will henceforth speak as 
 if I were myself Miss Molloy's solicitor, my old friend, 
 the late Charles Lake of Chatterbury ; and I will, in 
 
42 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 addition, use the privilege accorded to authors and to 
 counsel of speaking after the facts, and so of putting them 
 into clearer and more readable form than if I followed 
 them in order of detail. So, for the present, instead of 
 being your correspondent, Mr. Editor, Mr. Thomas Key, 
 formerly of Burgham, I will, for the nonce, write to you 
 in the person of Mr. Charles Lake of Chatterbury, a very 
 dry matter-of-fact man of business indeed, who told the 
 tale as it was told to me. 
 
 n. 
 
 One afternoon the mail-coach from London set down 
 two gentlemen at the Old Swan, Chatterbury. Both had 
 remarkably little luggage for those days, when men could 
 not run from York to London and back again in a few 
 hours. Both ordered a bed, both walked into the coffee- 
 room, and one of them rang the bell. When the waiter 
 answered it, one of the gentlemen ordered cold brandy, 
 the other hot whisky. And the waiter's report at the 
 bar was not favourable to either. But with that opinion 
 lack of luggage may have had something to do. 
 
 There were other resemblances between the two men. 
 Both were well past middle age ; neither looked like one 
 of the hunting men, or officers on half-pay, or rheumatic 
 patients, who formed the bulk of the male visitors to 
 Chatterbury. But there all likeness came to an end. 
 He of the whisky was a long lean man, with fierce 
 untrimmed whiskers, a shiny bald head, bloodshot blue 
 eyes, and a tell-tale nose, dressed in the height of the 
 fashion, with a tendency of overstepping it into loudness. 
 He had ordered his grog in a thick rich brogue. He of 
 the brandy, on the other hand, was short and squat, with 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 43 
 
 a dirty sallow complexion, thick grizzled hair, and 
 twinkling black eyes. He wore the then usual ornament, 
 if ornament it he, of a moustache ; and, for the rest, was 
 clean, or rather half, shaved, and there was something 
 Frenchified about his costume. 
 
 " Waitther ! " said the Irishman. " If anybody calls 
 here to-dee or to-morrow for Mejor O'Birn, — I'm, Mejor 
 O'Birn 1 " 
 
 The other started for a moment, and laid his glass 
 down. 
 
 " Shall I comprehend, Monsieur," he asked, " that you 
 give your name ? " 
 
 " Me name ? And why wouldn't I give me name ? " 
 said O'Birn, with a little leap in his chair. " 'Tis none 
 to be ashamed of, anyhow. I'd like to see the man with 
 a name to his back as good as O'Birn." 
 
 "One hundred thousand pardons, Monsieur. I am 
 glad that I know — that is all. Eh, but one thousand 
 thousand pardons, Monsieur Fitzgerald O'Birn." 
 
 The Major's jaw fell, and all his face, save his nose, 
 grew suddenly pale. 
 
 " Sure, now, ye're not goin' to tell me ye're one of 
 thim blagyard Jews 1 " cried he. " Sure 'twould be too 
 crool an' all, when I've come down to see me own wife's 
 sisther, that's rollin* over and over in jools an' gold. An' 
 ye've followed me all the wee down here ; an' this is a 
 free country ! An' bad luck to the country where an 
 officer an' gentleman mustn't pee a visit to his wife's 
 relations without being hunted by all Jerusalem in full 
 cry 1 Come, Moses, ye'll give me another dee." 
 
 " Aha ! So you think no one shall know your name 
 but the people which shall hold your bills, Monsieur 
 O'Birn? I hold not your bills ; I am not fool. You come 
 down to see Mdlle. Bridgita, then, I shall comprehend? " 
 
 ' Sure, then, 'tis the diwle ye are ! But that's better, 
 anyhow, than bein' what I thought ye — " 
 
44 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " You shall not be so sure, Monsieur. I shall know 
 your Christian name, and I shall know the Christian 
 name of the sister of your wife, because I am Ferentz 
 Steldl, Monsieur O'Birn ! Aha ! you shall have the 
 tremblement perceptible, Monsieur O'Birn ! " 
 
 "Hwhatl" cried the Major, leaping to his feet, with 
 a shout and a glare. "Ye sit there in cold blood, and ye 
 tell me, Mejor Fitzgerald O'Birn, ye're that — miscreant 
 — that blagyard — that snake in the grass — that drinkin', 
 swindlin', mane-spirited, undher-handed, slanderin', 
 murderin', onrespectable thief of the whole world, 
 Ferentz Steldl? And ye think to escape from the fist 
 of a gentleman this dee ? " 
 
 "Patience, patience, mon beau-frere," said Steldl, 
 without the slightest change of tone. " Fine words shall 
 not butter what you call the panais. It is you who shall 
 escape from me. You shall leave this town. I shall 
 guard Mdlle. Molloy, sister of my wife, aunt of my son, 
 from you. For that I am here." 
 
 Something in the significant calmness of his foreign 
 brother-in-law calmed the Major down. He returned to 
 his chair, shifted his glass on the table, and said, 
 
 " An' 'tis for that I'm here too," said he. " I'm here 
 to defend me own sisther, an' me wife's sister, an' me 
 gurl's aunt, from all the Counts out of Hungary an' the 
 Siven Dyles. An' ye'll move from your sate if ye dare." 
 
 " I shall not desire," said Steldl. "I am well where I 
 am. I desire to have the eye on you, my beau-frere. 
 While you shall sit there, I shall sit here, if it shall be to 
 the death, Monsieur O'Birn. It shall be the duel a la mort, 
 Monsieur, and we shall fight with the bottoms of the 
 chairs." 
 
 "Then, faith, I'll sit like the hen of Banagher — an' 
 she sat till the sod undher her began to crow. So ye 
 think Miss Biddy '11 open the crack of her door to the 
 likes of you ? 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 45 
 
 " Why not ? She is sister of my wife, and aunt of my 
 son. 
 
 " Aunt of my daughter, ye mane. Poh I what'd she 
 know of a Bon of yours ? " 
 
 " You mock of yourself, my beau-frlre. Have she not 
 buy my son Ferentz the commission of the Foot, and 
 keep him, so long he see not me ? " 
 
 " Then ye he in your throat, Ferentz Steldl ! 'Tis me 
 own daughter, an' her own goddaughter an' niece, Lucis 
 Bridgita, that she's kept at school at her own charge, an' 
 keeps in pocket-money as long as I don't see her more 
 than woonst a year." 
 
 " She do that for yowr daughter? Impossible, Mon- 
 sieur 1 " 
 
 " She do that for your son ? Mr. Steldl, ye lie 1 " 
 
 The way in which these two gentlemen quarrelled, 
 without showing the least sign of coming to blows, gave 
 the waiter, who was not far off, an altogether fresh view 
 of the possibilities of human nature. Obviously there 
 was a world in which gentlemen cared more for their 
 physical than their moral skins. 
 
 " Take yourself off, my beau-frere. In effect, she adopt 
 Ferentz, my son. She leave all to him." 
 
 "Ye're a fool, Steldl — that's what she's been makin' of 
 ye, the old screw o* the world ! As if she'd lave a penny 
 to any but her own niece Lucis, afther doin' all she has 
 for the darlin' child 1 " 
 
 Steldl was the sort of man who would be given to 
 shrugging bis shoulders, like a Frenchman in a play : so 
 he no doubt did so now. " She cannot have done so 
 much for Miss Lucis, or I shall have hear. I know not 
 till now she have done so much for the daughter of the 
 black sheep ; but what shall a school-bill be, after all ? 
 
 Bah ! a bagatelle. But a commission in the Foot — ah, 
 
 that is another shoe 1 And you consent not to see your 
 own flesh and blood for the sake of a bill of a school ! " 
 
46 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " I'm a betther sort of a father than to sthand in me 
 own child's wee of a fortune. And ye sit there an' tell 
 me she's spent the price of a commission on yowr son — 
 unless 'tis in the Marines, where they'll believe the 
 tale." 
 
 " Parole de gentilhomme, Monsieur O'Birn, I am father 
 of Ferentz Steldl, lieutenant of King George — " 
 
 " And I of Lucis Bridgita O'Birn, that'll be in the 
 shoes of Miss Molloy." 
 
 The two fathers emptied their tumblers, and the 
 Major rang for more. Neither meant to lose this sitting 
 match if he could help it, that was clear. 
 
 "If I didn't know," said Steldl slowly and impressively, 
 " there is no school in the land who shall teach for no 
 pay, I shall not believe. But she shall but toss one bone 
 to one hungry dog — that shall be all." 
 
 Now Major O'Birn, though he had never met his 
 brother-in-law in the flesh before, was a citizen of that 
 world which knew that the refugee had taught fencing 
 in his time, and had won several bets that he would 
 make a bullet mark out a pack of cards. So, instead of 
 retorting with a charge of hot whisky into his brother-in- 
 law's yellow face, he contented himself by saying, with 
 an angry grin, 
 
 " An' what'll ye say when I tell ye my wife is with her 
 own sisther this very dee, as thick as bees in a hive ? " 
 
 The Irishman, though he had kept his temper the 
 worst, won the match after all. Steldl leapt from his 
 chair with a volley of language that proved his own 
 temper to be no deeper than the thinnest part of his skin. 
 
 " Your wife, you fortune-hunting Irish beggar? Your 
 wife with Miss Molloy? So that's why you've been 
 keeping me here ? " He threw the rest of his liquor into 
 the fire, and sent a blaze up the chimney. Then he 
 buttoned his coat defiantly, saying, " I will see Miss 
 Molloy." 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 47 
 
 " An' that's what I call mighty waste of good drink," 
 said Major O'Birn, gulping down the remainder of his 
 own. " Yes, ye may go, Steldl. I won't bother even to 
 see her door shut in your face — though, faith, it would 
 be fun." 
 
 " And I tell you, Monsieur," cried Steldl, raising his 
 voice into a sort of scream, " that it is my wife which is 
 now with Miss Molloy ! " 
 
 The two husbands glared at one another fiercely. And, 
 short of running the risk of being knocked down by the 
 other, that was all left them to do. Words had done 
 their worst ; and they were evidently not men of deeds. 
 
 No ; Miss Bridgita Molloy had not turned out a bad 
 sister after all. She would never even acknowledge so 
 much as the existence of the Major and the Count, and 
 had an odd way of speaking of the married Miss Molloys 
 as if they were widows ; but she did not visit the sins of 
 the fathers upon the children. At a very early age, too 
 early for them to make a deliberate choice between their 
 father and their fortunes, she had sent both the little 
 Ferentz and the little Lucis Bridgita to good schools, and, 
 as they grew bigger, sometimes had them to Chatterbury 
 for the holidays to meet their mothers, who accepted the 
 arrangement more reasonably than mothers always will. 
 For that matter, neither Count nor Major cared to be 
 bothered with a baby, nor always with a wife, so that the 
 two young children were removed from evil influence 
 as much as lay in Miss Molloy' s power. She was a very 
 strict aunt and a terribly exacting patroness; but she 
 meant to be kind, and was really kind in her own way. 
 I never saw much of the children, but I liked what I did 
 see. Ferentz was a fine, frank, high-spirited young 
 fellow, without any of his father's vices, as is often the 
 way with the sons of prodigal fathers, and Lucis was 
 almost as pretty as her mother had been when she eloped 
 with the Major. Eather a quiet girl, I used to think, but 
 
48 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 amiable, and with a dash, of her aunt Biddy's good sense 
 about her -way of speaking. But it was one of Miss 
 Molloy's caprices that the left hand which she held out 
 to one sister should know nothing of how the right hand 
 was held out to the other. Neither mother, neither child 
 was ever her guest at the same time as the other mother 
 and the other child. I doubt if Berentz knew that he 
 had a cousin Lucis, or she that she had a cousin Berentz. 
 Most assuredly each of the mothers believed that she 
 alone was favoured with her sister's bounty. That reserve 
 was one of Miss Molloy's very strongest foibles, if one 
 may properly call a foible strong. She would never tell 
 even me, her lawyer, more than she thought absolutely 
 necessary about anything; and so of course even she, 
 with all her good business qualities, would sometimes 
 make little mistakes out of which I found it difficult to 
 help her. 
 
 And the same course that she pursued with her lawyer 
 she followed with her doctor too — that is to say, with a 
 certain doctor who happened to be a personal friend; 
 for she used to boast that she had never had a medicine- 
 bottle in the house but once, and that she had thrown 
 out of window. She often said that she had nothing of 
 a coffin about her but the strength of its nails ; and yet 
 the very first time she was compelled to send for her 
 medical friend in a professional capacity, he found that 
 she must have been suffering for years from a most pain- 
 ful internal and organic disease, and a fatal one. How 
 do hungry relations always hear such news ? Had she 
 made her will? If not, would she recognize the fact 
 that the nature of her disease admitted of no delay? 
 And so, for the first time, Mrs. O'Birn and Mrs. Steldl, 
 at the expense of their husbands' creditors, flew on the 
 wings of sisterly affection, and met together at Miss 
 Molloy's bedside. And, with the instinct of vultures, the 
 Count and the Major had been unable to keep from 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 49 
 
 hovering, as near as they dared, within the shadow of a 
 death that meant so much to them. Neither, I firmly 
 believe, had until that meeting the faintest suspicion that, 
 if only a proper will were mads, he would not become 
 the father of Miss Molloy's sole heir. That discovery 
 that her generosity had not been monopolized by either 
 must have been a deservedly bitter moment for both the 
 greedy blackguards. And, for all their brag, each knew 
 that he dared no more knock at Miss Molloy's door than 
 he dared commit assault and battery ; while, for aught 
 each could tell, the other might be high in the favour of 
 the poor lady who was dying a few streets away. 
 
 It was — for it must have been — a strange meeting 
 between the two forlorn, faded, worse than widowed, 
 half-childless women by the death-bed of one who to 
 them had for many years represented strength, health, 
 comfort — all that they had wanted since they were girls 
 together long and long ago. There they had to sit, one 
 on each side of the bed, conscious of a question she had 
 been commanded by her tyrant to ask, conscious that 
 the other was similarly burdened, unable to ask it in the 
 other's presence, not daring nor knowing how to ask it 
 had she been alone by the bedside. For I declare that 
 even I myself would sooner have led a forlorn hope than 
 have asked Miss Molloy what she meant to do with her 
 money. I like to think of the dismay of the two husbands, 
 but I don't in pity like to think of what the two poor 
 wives must have suffered in silence that afternoon. 
 
 I had already — I need not tell anybody who knows 
 places like Chatterbury — been put in the position of being 
 able to report the conversation between the two gentlemen 
 in the coffee-room. They had not spoken in whispers, 
 and the Old Swan had key-holes and its waiter had ears. 
 So I was not very much surprised when, in the course of 
 the evening, I received a summons to attend Miss 
 Molloy. 
 
50 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " Ah ! " said her doctor, who was dining with me when 
 the summons came. I report the exclamation, because 
 it was meant to mean a great deal. 
 
 "I hope and trust I find you better, Miss Molloy," 
 said I, when I was shown into her bedroom, which she 
 had not left for some weeks now. 
 
 " No, Mr. Lake, I don't," said she. " I didn't believe 
 I was a dying woman three hours ago, but I do now. 
 Don't say anything stupid. I've not lived such a bad 
 life that I'm afraid ; and I've never been afraid to face 
 anything in my life, except marriage, and I'm not going 
 to begin now." She was right; with all her little oddities 
 she had been really a good, if somewhat hard-mannered, 
 woman, and always a singularly brave one. "I know I'm 
 dying, because the hawks and kites are abroad. We used 
 to keep a banshee in the old times, and it's something 
 between a Count and a Major. Those poor silly sisters of 
 mine have been here bothering me to make my will. And 
 if you don't know what that means, Mr. Lake, I do. It 
 means death, as sure as I'm lying here." 
 
 "You mean to say that your sisters have mentioned 
 such a thing?" 
 
 It was really not a case for common phrases. Miss 
 Molloy was — Miss Molloy. 
 
 " Not in words— no, poor things. But there they sat 
 and cried, and there was nothing but Will — Will — Will, 
 in every tear. Tisn't them I blame, though 'tis not nice 
 to be cried over that way. 'Twas as much as I could do 
 not to say Won't —Won't — Won't ; but I've always had 
 the wit to hold my tongue. Ah, Mr. Lake, since then 
 I've been thinking how maybe 'tis better to have some- 
 body to drop a real tear over your own self, if 'tis half 
 brandy, and from a Count or a Major, than to have lived 
 in peace only to die all alone. But that's fool's talk ; 
 and I didn't ask ye not to talk like a stupid that ye might 
 listen the better to a fool." 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 51 
 
 "Surely," said I, "you are not alone. Lieutenant 
 Steldl— Miss O'Birn— " 
 
 " Pooh ! who remembers a dead aunt for a whole day, 
 I'd like to know ? Would I want to make a boy and a 
 girl cry before their own troubles come ? Tis business I 
 sent ye for. There's pens and paper. I am going to 
 make my will." 
 
 " I am sure you are right in that. I am entirely at 
 your service, Miss Molloy." 
 
 " Then," said she, " I want you to draw my will now. 
 No instructions, mind, to be drafted to-morrow. I might 
 be dead by then — who knows? My pain's almost left me ; 
 and that's a bad sign, if death's a bad thing. It will be 
 very short and very simple. Take a sheet of the big fools- 
 cap — that'll be plenty. Now write, This is the last Will 
 and Testament of Bridgita — mind ye spell it with a ta, 
 not a da ; and with only one t, mind ; for I'm particular 
 about that way, for 'tis the way my mother spelt it, right 
 or wrong — of Bridgita Molloy, of Chatterbury, in the 
 county of — whatever it was — spinster : praise glory for 
 that, anyhow ! But ye needn't put that in — the glory, I 
 mean — Spinster : I give and bequeath to Baohel Andrews, 
 my housekeeper, the sum of three hundred pounds, free of 
 legacy duty, and I request her to take charge of my dog 
 Dash, knowing that she will fulfil my request according to 
 the intention wherewith I make the same. I give and 
 bequeath to every person who shall have been in my service 
 for one month preceding my decease the amount of one 
 year's wages. I give and bequeath to my friend, John 
 Kirwan, of Chatterbury, Doctor of Medicine, the sum of 
 five hundred pounds, free of legacy duty. I give and 
 bequeath to my brother-in-law, Ferentz Steldl the elder — 
 is it all right, so far ? " 
 
 " Quite. But how do you spell Ferentz? " asked I. 
 " F,e,r,e,n,t,z — Ferentz Steldl. The boy's name is 
 Firentz, with an i. I won't have him bear his father's 
 
 e 2 
 
52 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 name. — My brother-in law, Ferentz Steldl the elder, the 
 sum of one shilling, free of legacy duty, to buy a mourning- 
 ring. I give and bequeath to my brother-in-law, Fitzgerald 
 O'Bim, the sum of one shilling, free of legacy duty, to buy 
 a mourning -ring. I give and bequeath to my dear nephew, 
 Firentz — with an i — Steldl, Lieutenant in the Army, the 
 sum of one thousand pounds. I give and bequeath to Lucis 
 Bridgita O'Bim, my niece, the sum of one thousand pounds. 
 And all the residue of my property, whether real or personal, 
 I give, bequeath, and devise to—" 
 
 She paused. Up to this point she had not needed my 
 help, so expert she seemed in the art of the testator. 
 
 " Devise to," echoed I. " Well, Miss Molloy?" The 
 residuary legatee was to be the important personage ; for 
 he or she would come in for at least twenty -five thousand 
 pounds, and perhaps a good deal more, after all debts and 
 legacies were paid. 
 
 But still she paused. All the rest had been mere 
 child's play. 
 
 "Mr. Lake," she said at last, "I maybe dying, but 
 I'm not an old woman, and I might live for years. Now 
 my sisters are gone, I feel less like dying than I did when 
 I sent for ye to make my will. I've done all the justice 
 I need do ; and I don't want a handsome property to be 
 split up — that would be a sort of a shame. Neither 
 Firentz nor Lucis has any expectation of getting what I 
 have to leave, whatever others may. It's for the sake of 
 the property that it must go into one hand. And, Mr. 
 Lake, I daren't trust the very walls of my bedroom with 
 the name I choose. If I was to ask you to write the 
 name in my will, I should have to speak it to you, and 
 for aught I know the Count or the Major may have bribed 
 the nurse to listen at that very door." 
 
 " Write it down for me, then ; here is the pen." 
 
 " No. The paper might get dropped about, and — no ; 
 I'd rather you wouldn't know the name. It isn't that I 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 53 
 
 don't trust ye, but ye might say it out in a dream, and 
 your wife might hear it, and she might let it out by some 
 chance to somebody who might talk about it in a place 
 like Chatterbury, and then the Count or the Major would 
 get at the secret as sure as ye're alive. And then there's 
 no counting the villanies that wouldn't be done ; they'd 
 be trying to get me shut up in a madhouse, and forging 
 and murdering some one maybe ; anyhow, there'd be no 
 comfort in living, if I am to live any more. I've thought 
 of a way to keep off all danger, and to make it every- 
 body's interest to support the will, and to save every bit 
 of bother. I'll write the name myself in the will with 
 my own hand, and then cover it over while ye write the 
 rest, and yell give me your word of honour ye won't try 
 to see what I've written till I'm dead and gone." 
 
 The whim was a stupid one, I thought, for a testator 
 who was in other respects proving herself so clear-headed; 
 but there was certainly no apparent harm in indulging 
 her. " But," said I, " as you wish to take such extreme 
 precautions, does it not strike you that it is easier for an 
 expectant heir to overhaul a will than for a solicitor to 
 break confidence in a dream? " 
 
 " I've thought of all that," said she. " Of course 
 they'll try to overhaul, and where there's a will there's a 
 way — but there's more ways of killing a dog than hang- 
 ing him. I'll manage so that if every servant in the 
 house is in the Count's pay or the Major's, they shall 
 earn their money for nothing at all. So I'll take the 
 pen, if ye please, and the will ; give me a dip of ink, and 
 any scrap of paper ye find handy." 
 
 I gave her all she asked for. She first of all, very 
 slowly, wrote down upon the scrap of paper what was 
 presumably a rough draft of what she was going to enter 
 in the will. Then she copied it into the document even 
 yet more slowly, dwelling, as it seemed, upon every 
 letter. Her hand muot have grown feeble before her 
 
54 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 brain, or else, like all testators of the fussy sort who look 
 on will-making as a solemn function, she could not bring 
 herself to let a paltry minute settle the destination of 
 five-and-twenty thousand pounds. I have known men 
 and women who would have made the labour of writing 
 the two or three needful words last the better part of a 
 day. 
 
 She thrust the scrap of paper on which she bad made 
 her first memorandum under her pillow, and then care- 
 fully folded the will itself so that I could see nothing 
 without deliberately breaking my word. Dr. Kirwan and 
 myself were appointed executors ; and the execution of 
 the will was witnessed by the nurse and a neighbour. 
 There was certainly nothing remarkable about Miss 
 Molloy's will so far but the excessive care she had taken 
 that its principal provision should not even be guessed at 
 until she died. 
 
 Nor did Miss Molloy die quite so soon as everybody 
 had expected. The Count and the Major, finding a pro- 
 tracted stay at the Old Swan beyond their means, had 
 parted, deadly enemies- — all the more deadly because 
 each inspired the other with a feeling of mortal terror. 
 I am very much afraid that both Mrs. Steldl and Mrs. 
 O'Birn had to bear, at her husband's hands, the burden 
 of punishment for the sins of her brother-in-law. But, 
 however that may be, the day came at last when I heard 
 from Dr. Kirwan the long-expected news that my client, 
 Miss Bridgita Molloy, was alive no more. 
 
 " She couldn't have lasted another week," said he. 
 " But, all the same, I might have kept her going for 
 another day or two, with care. Would you believe it, 
 but the obstinate old lady, only the night before last, 
 gave her nurse the slip, and, weak as she was, went all 
 over the house to see if everything was in order ! Death 
 was a relief to her, and she was a queer old lady in some 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 55 
 
 ways — and the worst patient in all the town — but I'm 
 sorry she's gone." 
 
 And that, I am afraid, was the only note of honest 
 mourning which Miss Molloy, with all her many virtues 
 and her singularly few weaknesses, was privileged to 
 receive. She had always hidden her good qualities out 
 of public sight; and hardness of manner, like charity, 
 covers a great deal. 
 
 To the last she had stuck to her will. It was found 
 under her pillow when she died, sealed up in a large blue 
 envelope, and indorsed "My Will — B.M." I own it was 
 with some curiosity that I opened it ; for she had made 
 such a mystery of what should have been a very simple 
 piece of business, that I had some misgivings lest she 
 should have disinherited niece and nephew alike, and 
 made her dog Dash or some Anti-Matrimonial Society 
 her residuary legatee. My own sympathies were with 
 Miss Lucis ; my wife's with Lieutenant Firentz Steldl. 
 That was a little matter of human nature ; as a matter 
 of reason, we felt that they had equal claims, and that 
 twenty-five thousand pounds would have borne equal 
 partition very well. 
 
 So I broke open the envelope, unfolded the will, and 
 read: 
 
 " And all the residue of my property, whether 
 
 real or personal, I give, bequeath, and devise to g p x d 
 
 NWMDYBDOVJWDMIHTIDZX Z." 
 
 III. 
 
 That was the bequest — as clear to the sight as it was 
 dark to the mind. Had I been mistaken, and had Miss 
 Molloy been insane after all? If that were so, every 
 
56 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 penny of the five-and-twenty thousand pounds would 
 
 have to be divided between the Count and the Major as 
 the husbands of her next of kin. No, surely that insanity 
 was impossible. 
 
 I twisted the document up and down, and round and 
 round. Those letters still obstinately remained as they 
 were ; the alphabet, at any rate, had gone mad, unless it 
 was I who had gone insane. I needed some evidence of my 
 own senses, and carried the will straight to my co- 
 executor, Dr. Kirwan. 
 
 " She was an odd old lady I " said he at last. " But 
 I'll bear witness in any court you like that she was as 
 sane as anybody that ever made a will." 
 
 "But what's to be done?" 
 
 " Ah, what indeed ? What's the effect of this will, as 
 it stands ? " 
 
 " I'm just hanged if I know. The will's otherwise 
 without a flaw. And in all my practice, and all my 
 reading too, I never heard of the alphabet's being made a 
 residuary legatee. I don't like to say, without con- 
 sideration, that there's no principle a court of equity 
 would go upon ; but I don't know of one. I don't see 
 even how it would come within the doctrine of Cy Prbs." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " Why, that when the conditions of a gift can't be 
 literally carried out, the Court of Chancery will decree 
 some method conformable to the general object, and 
 following the intentions of the donor as nearly as 
 possible." 
 
 " Then," said Dr. Kirwan, " I should say the Court 
 would apply the estate to the foundation of a college for 
 the study of conundrums. But holloa, Lake, here's 
 something else dropped out of the envelope ; perhaps it's 
 the answer. It's a letter addressed to you." 
 
 That, also, was sealed. When I opened it, I found 
 only these words : 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 57 
 
 " If you are puzzled, Kft up the carpet in the drawing- 
 room in the corner between the fireplace and window, under 
 the cheffonier. — B.M." 
 
 " Aha t " said the doctor. " A cipher, and the key. 
 Let's go at once, and see. But — how would that affect 
 the will?" 
 
 " It is a most ridiculous thing to have done," I said, 
 really angry and annoyed. "I wish to Heaven I had 
 known that that was what she was up to. I'm afraid 
 there may be trouble." 
 
 " Won't a will in cipher be allowed? " 
 
 " I hope so. The court of Chancery will rectify a clear 
 mistake or omission in a will, if it is apparent on the face 
 of the will. And even parol evidence will be admitted in 
 case of mistake in the name or description of a legatee. 
 We shall have better than parol evidence in a written 
 key; and the mistake in naming and describing the 
 legatee, whoever he or she may be, by a p x, and so forth, 
 is as apparent on the face of the will as a misdescription 
 can possibly be. The key will, I hope, be evidence 
 enough to show what Miss Molloy intended. But I'm 
 sadly afraid that into Chancery it will have to go, and 
 our friends the Count and the Major will have a few 
 words to say to it if it once gets there. Of anything 
 really wrong I'm not afraid ; but of trouble I am. I'll 
 have a good read in Jarman when I get home. But now 
 for the drawing-room corner." 
 
 We went together straight to the house of the late Miss 
 Molloy, and, according to our instructions, turned up the 
 carpet in the corner of the drawing-room. Sure enough 
 we found another sealed note addressed to me. 
 
 "Look," we read, "at page 173 in the second volume of 
 Gibbon's "Decline and Fall." It is on a shelf in the 
 breakfast-room. — B.M." 
 
 I was too vexed at all this folly and mystification to 
 smile. 
 
58 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 "By Jupiter I" exclaimed the doctor, "this accounts 
 for that midnight ramble over her house just before she 
 died. She was writing these notes and hiding them. 
 Poor old lady — it's not an uncommon thing, though, for 
 people on their deathbeds to fancy themselves surrounded 
 by spies and enemies. It isn't lunacy, though, eh? " 
 
 " But it's the cause of lunacy in others," grumbled I. 
 " Well, now for Gibbon." 
 
 And there, exactly on page 173 of volume ii., was yet a 
 third sealed note for me. And this ran : 
 
 " Key behind, wainscoat three inches towards cupboard 
 from dressing-room window. — B. M." 
 
 " At last I " said I. " I was afraid we were going to be 
 sent up all the chimneys before we'd done." 
 
 "By Jupiter, Lake, just think what would have 
 happened if there'd been one link missing; if one of 
 these pillar-to-post notes had been lost or gone out of 
 the way ! " 
 
 " It's too terrible a chance to talk of. It would have 
 cost one of those young people near twelve hundred a 
 year. Come, here's the dressing-room; let's be quick 
 and have done with the whole thing." 
 
 " All right ; here's a loose board, just where we were 
 told to go. Come, out with you ! Hold a match 
 down, this is rather a dark hole. There — and here's — 
 holloa ! " 
 
 Dr. Kirwan pulled out a fragment of an envelope to 
 which the red sealing-wax still clung, and on which I 
 could read a part of my own name. There were also 
 some odds and ends of blank paper scattered round. We 
 pulled out all that was there. Alas, the fate of the key 
 was only too plainly to be learned from the torn and 
 half-eaten scraps of envelope and note-paper we found. 
 
 A scuttering and scrambling behind the wainscoat 
 mocked us with the certainty that the mice had swallowed 
 the Key ! 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 6S» 
 
 IV. 
 
 What was to be done now ? The mice alone knew to 
 whom Miss Bridgita Molloy's money belonged. Try to 
 realize the circumstances now, as I had to realize them 
 then. There was a will — a good will — and yet a will of 
 which all the Equity lawyers on earth would be unable 
 to make head or tail. And not one breath or sign of her 
 intentions had Miss Molloy let fall even to Dr. Kirwan 
 or to me. And there were the Count and the Major 
 waiting for their prey. 
 
 The letters of the alphabet took to waltzing with the 
 multiplication table in my dreams. I did not know what 
 to do. I got a box of ivory letters and tried all sorts of 
 anagrams, but could make nothing out of five-and-twenty 
 letters, with only four vowels among them, and with so 
 many z's and x's. I proved the will in fear and trembling, 
 fully expecting that the question of the soundness of the 
 mind of the testatrix would be immediately raised by one 
 or both of her brothers-in-law, who had of course been 
 made aware of the contents, and were in possession of 
 those letters without meaning. But, strange to say, no 
 steps were taken whatever. It was not for a week, at 
 least, after the will had been proved that I received a 
 visit from Steldl the elder, accompanied by a dapper and 
 smartly dressed young man, whom he introduced to me 
 as Mr. Withers, from the office of Withers & King. I 
 supposed he was the legal adviser of the Steldl claim. 
 
 " You shall wonder, Mr. Lake," said the Count, "why 
 I not think Miss Molloy what you call mad woman. Not 
 at all. I think of that once ; but then that give half the 
 money to that vermin, Fitzgerald O'Birn, who shall lose 
 it in every vile way. I say it shall be a good will. I take 
 
60 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 advice, I ; and I demand you pay all what shall be left to 
 my son, Firentz Steldl— " 
 
 " Wait a bit," said I. " He has already received his 
 legacy of a thousand pounds." 
 
 "Bah! what shall be one thousand pound? He is 
 what you call Eesiduary Legatee of Miss Molloy." 
 
 " I wish he were, with all my heart ! But we must go 
 to Chancery. There's nothing else to be done." 
 
 " No. He shall not go in Chancery. He shall have 
 his right and his due. I am his father, Monsieur." 
 
 "When you can read those confounded letters into 
 Firentz Steldl, I'll pay him every penny with all my 
 heart, and take the consequences; but not a minute 
 before." 
 
 " Very good, Mr. Lake. Then I shall read them into 
 Firentz Steldl, and without magic ; and then you shall 
 pay. Now, Mr. Withers, if you please." 
 
 " Mr. Withers is your solicitor, I presume?" 
 
 " I have not the honour," said Mr. Withers glibly, " to 
 be in the profession — in your profession, sir, that is to 
 Bay. We are a firm of professional experts, sir. We 
 practise the science of autography, and we collect and 
 deal in the autograph letters of celebrated historical 
 persons. Naturally our business has occasionally in- 
 cluded the branch of cryptography — of the construction 
 and solution of ciphers, which, though requiring a certain 
 special aptitude as well as experience, is not so difficult 
 as laymen might suppose, and is as certain in its results 
 as arithmetic itself — beautifully certain, sir. Our friend 
 Mr. Steldl has applied to me for the missing key of this 
 little puzzle, and it took me barely half an hour's study 
 to find." 
 
 "You mean you can read this jumble into sense?" 
 asked I. " You must be a clever fellow, Mr. Withers. 
 How am I to know it isn't guess-work ? The correctness, 
 of your reading will have to be proved, you see." 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 61 
 
 "Up to the hilt, sir. The beauty of a cipher, or 
 cryptograph, is that, if you once hit on the right key, it 
 can only mean just that one thing — no doubt, no ambi- 
 guity. And as the discovery of the key is a logical 
 process, and as no cipher can possibly have more than 
 one key, why, sir, solvitur ambulando — the result is 
 proved by the process, sir ; or rather, result and process 
 prove one another." 
 
 " Then I must have your process, if you please." 
 
 " To be sure. No patent. Anybody can do it. This 
 cipher, sir, is even absurdly simple. Did you ever read 
 the Gold Bug of Edgar Allan Poe ? No ? That's a pity, 
 because I shall have to explain from the beginning. I 
 have rather a contempt "for that story — the cipher he 
 makes his hero discover would have been found out by a 
 child in half the time. And this cipher before us is of 
 precisely the same kind — the very simplest form of cipher 
 known." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " A person like Miss Molloy, presumably ignorant of 
 the beautiful science of cryptography, would be almost 
 certain to adopt the plan of making one letter do duty 
 for another. Of course she has left no spaces between 
 her words. Now, you know that the commonest English 
 letter is e ; so that, ten to one, the commonest letter in 
 the cipher will represent e. That letter is d. It comes 
 no fewer than five times in the twenty-five. So, ten to 
 one, d stands for e. You perceive ? " 
 
 " At any rate, I follow, so far." 
 
 "Very good, sir. Now look at the cipher well, and 
 keep it before your eyes. We'll assume for the moment 
 that d may mean e ; and if d means e, it's likely enough 
 a would be b, b would be c, and so on, and so on, taking 
 the letter following. Let's try that dodge with m, because 
 there's more than one m, and because n (which it ought 
 to stand for) is a commonish sort of letter. Very well. 
 
62 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 Putting e for d and n for m and dots for the other letters, 
 we get, ... e .. ne .. e .... en .... e .. . Now, 
 Mr. Lake, the question, as I understand it, is — Did Miss 
 Molloy leave her money to Lucis Bridgita O'Birn, or to 
 Firentz Steldl? Assuming that one of those e'a must fall 
 into where the name of the legatee must come, it will 
 strike you at once that there isn't one single e in the lady's 
 name. It will also strike you that the young gentleman 
 is a nephew, and that we've got already ne — coming 
 together. Let's chance it. Let's write nephew right 
 out, and see if we get sense that way. It'll come like 
 this, putting p for y, h for b, w for o : . . . e . . nephew 
 . . . en . . . . e . . . Now, what strikes you next, sir?" 
 " Nothing whatever, Mr. Withers. Nothing at all." 
 " No ? I'm surprised. Doesn't it strike you that en 
 comes in Ferentz ; that the cipher and the name of Steldl 
 both end in a letter between a pair of letters — zxz : Idl ? 
 A most remarkable hint, indeed ; for it interferes with no 
 former assumption — z would mean I : x would mean d. 
 Now look how it reads : 
 
 . . . e . r nephew f . rentz steldl 
 
 Only one thing bothers me. "Where the dot comes now 
 in / . rentz there ought to be a d to represent an e. In 
 reality there's a j. But that's a trifle ; doubtless a 
 clerical error. The whole thing's as plain as a pikestaff. 
 Substituting letter for letter, and never mixing them, 
 here you are : 
 
 my dear nephew Ferentz Steldl, 
 
 and there you are ! " 
 
 I was certainly surprised at the fellow's ingenuity. 
 Except for that missing e, the process was without a 
 flaw; and when we see a logical and faultless process 
 arriving at a probable conclusion, what are we to say? 
 And, by Jove 1 Miss Molloy had made a particular point 
 of spelling Ferentz, Firentz —with an i. Look back at 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 63 
 
 the draft of the will, and see. That was downright 
 proof, if any was needed; the j in the cipher, hitherto 
 unaccounted for, would be i. The very simple little 
 process had all the air of a miracle to me. I knew 
 nothing then of the far greater marvels wrought by 
 antiquarians in rougher and larger fields, or I should, 
 perhaps, have been less surprised. 
 
 " It is read, Monsieur," said Steldl fire, with a bow. 
 
 I was a little sorry for Miss Lucis ; but I didn't grudge 
 her cousin his good luck, and I was intensely relieved. I 
 was thinking of the effect of all this as evidence, Steldl 
 was looking at me in dignified triumph, Mr. Withers was 
 regarding his success with artistic pride, when my clerk 
 brought in a card — Major Fitzgerald, O'Bim. 
 
 I thought best to have everything out and over then 
 and there; so, without considering the presence of his 
 brother-in-law and enemy, I had him ushered in. 
 
 " Good-dee to ye, Mr. Lake," said he, without deigning 
 to notice, or even to see, Mr. Steldl, who, for his part, 
 threw a double dose of benignity into his smile. "I 
 suppose ye've been wondherin' why I didn't go in for 
 provin' poor Miss Biddy non compos — wake in the top, ye 
 know. As if I'd consent to go halves with a dirthy, 
 mane, intriguing baste of a fellow that she'd cut off with 
 a shilling with her own hand ! All or none — that's the 
 war-cry of the O'Birns ! So I've just dropped in, on my 
 wee, to ask ye for that twenty-five thousand that's due to 
 Lucis, my daughther ; and I'll take it hot with — I mane 
 short, if ye plase. Or, if ye haven't it all in your pocket, 
 a thrifle on account'll do for to-dee." 
 
 " I'm sorry for Miss O'Birn," said I. " But— she's had 
 her thousand pounds — " 
 
 " Her thousand pounds ! I wouldn't give sixpence 
 
 for a beggarly thousand pounds. 'Tis an insult to spake 
 to a gentleman of such a sum." 
 
 " Her thousand pounds, and — I'm afraid — this gentle- 
 
84 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 man, Mr. Withers, will explain — there is no longer any 
 doubt of Miss Molloy's intentions. Lieutenant Steldl is 
 residuary legatee." 
 
 "An' who's Mr. Withers? Is it in a conspiracy ye'll 
 be, with your heads as thick together as pays in one 
 shell ? Why, 'tis plainer than blazes that gpx sthands 
 for Lucis O'Birn. What do ye see to that, sir, eh? " 
 
 " I'm afraid it doesn't," said I. 
 
 " You're a pretty fellow for a lawyer I But I suppose 
 ye'll have to believe what's proved. Higgins, ye're 
 wanted 1 " shouted he. 
 
 He too, it seestad, had brought a friend with him — a 
 little, pinched, shabby, elderly man, with red squinting 
 eyes. 
 
 " I'll inthrojuce you to me friend Higgins — a gentleman 
 and a scholar, that'll rade ye off Hebrew into Chinese 
 for a glass of punch, an' back into Hebrew for two. 
 Faith, I'd like ye to find a question that Higgins wouldn't 
 answer ye off-hand. Says I to him, ' Higgins, what does 
 gpx spell? ' An' says he, ' Just Lucis O'Birn.' " 
 
 A smile of amused contempt came into the face of 
 smart Mr. Withers. 
 
 " An expert? " asked he. 
 
 " An' pray who may you be, sir ? " asked Major O'Birn. 
 "D'ye mane to tell me ye haven't heard of Higgins — 
 that ought to be a docthor of divinity and a member of 
 Parlimint, and could see ye undher the teeble whenever 
 ye plase?" Having thus annihilated Mr. Withers, 
 " Higgins, do your duty," said he. 
 
 " There's nothing in it — nothing in it at all," said Mr. 
 Higgins, in a queer squeak, and in a shuffling sort of tone. 
 " What's the difficulty in reading that cipher I am at a 
 loss to conceive. Do you mean to tell me that there is 
 anybody on earth, except Major O'Birn, who has found 
 the slightest difficulty in reading what couldn't puzzle, 
 for more than half a second, anybody but a born fool ? " 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 65 
 
 " You are pleased to be complimentary, Mr. Higgins," 
 said I. " Mr. Withers, as an expert, assures us that a 
 cipher can only be read in one way." 
 
 "It didn't want an expert to tell you that," said Mr. 
 Higgins testily. " Of course you can only read a cipher 
 in one way. How can one set of symbols stand for two 
 different sets of words? " 
 
 "Then you will agree with Mr. Withers? " 
 
 " No doubt. If Mr. Withers has read the cipher he 
 will agree with me. A cipher is made to a particular 
 key, and it can't be fitted with two. When old women 
 make ciphers, they mostly change the letters by counting 
 forwards or backwards. So first I counted one forwards, 
 and made g mean h ; that came to nothing. Then two 
 forwards, and made g mean i ; nothing again. J — no. 
 K — no. Then I tried the fifth letter forwards — I. 
 According to that rule, g would be I : p would be u : x 
 (making a follow z) would be c. Next comes d, which 
 would be i : then n, which would be s — the true letter 
 being always the fifth letter from the cipher forwards. 
 Follow it out, gentlemen, and see for yourselves." 
 
 I did as he bade me. And the cipher read, letter by 
 letter, as follows, with the peculiar spelling of the name 
 of the testatrix and all : 
 
 GPXDN WMDYBDOV JWDMI HT IDZXZ. 
 LUGIS BBIDGITA OBIBN MY NIECE. 
 
 There was no more doubt that the cipher was this than 
 it was My dear nephew, Ferentz Steldl. It meant both 
 equally, and both at the same time ! 
 
 I put it to every cryptologist in the world, is it within 
 the bounds of credibility that a cipher of twenty-five 
 letters should be readable in two exactly opposite and 
 inconsistent ways, and that its two irreconcilable solutions 
 
66 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 should be gained by following two simple principles, both 
 equally obvious and equally sound? Incredible — nay, 
 impossible I will be the unanimous answer. And yet the 
 impossible, by a marvellous change of coincidences, was 
 effected in that will of Miss Molloy. She could not 
 intentionally have brought about such a result, even if 
 she had tried. The * for the e in Ferentz, or rather 
 Firentz, left no room for doubt that Withers's solution 
 was true. On the other hand, the peculiar spelling of 
 Bridgita was an unanswerable argument in favour of Mr. 
 Higgins. Withers had started on the principle which 
 has amused so many readers of Edgar Poe, and is in 
 itself a perfectly true and sound one. Higgins had 
 started on the principle favoured by simpletons who 
 correspond in cipher in the agony columns, and imagine 
 that their silly secrets are not open to anybody who takes 
 five minutes' trouble to read them. 
 
 What was to be done — now ? 
 
 Clearly the situation was not realized by either of the 
 fathers of the rival legatees. But a gloom came over the 
 face of Mr. Withers. He took up the paper on which 
 Mr. Higgins had written his solution, and examined 
 it intently. 
 
 "No sane woman would have used such a simple 
 cipher as that," said he. " It is just the solution that 
 would satisfy an amateur." 
 
 " True,'' said Mr. Higgins, with a slight sneer. " Jury- 
 men are in the position of amateurs, I believe, and judges 
 too." 
 
 " A cipher can't have two solutions," said Mr. Withers, 
 throwing the paper down. 
 
 "True again," said Mr. Higgins. " Happily for Miss 
 O'Birn." 
 
 " Have you studied cryptology as a science, Mr. 
 Higgins?" asked Mr. Withers, with a wild effort at 
 elaborate courtesy. 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 67 
 
 "I'm not such an ass," said Mr. Higgins, with no 
 pretence of courtesy at all. " I'd as soon set up a science 
 of handwriting as a science of whims." 
 
 " You are insulting, sir ! There is a science of hand- 
 writing — ay, and of character in handwriting; and I 
 shouldn't like to write like you, judging from what it's 
 like to be." 
 
 " I always make it a point of insulting quacks and 
 humbugs," said Mr. Higgins. " It's the first duty of man. 
 I've read that cipher in the way that would satisfy any- 
 body but an expert, and there's an end." 
 
 " Whom do you call quack, sir? Let me tell you that 
 when a man deliberately insults my science, I — I — feel 
 it my duty to knock him down." 
 
 "Gentlemen — gentlemen!" I cried out, "you have 
 both been very clever — a great deal too clever for me. I 
 would gladly have accepted either of your readings, 
 Heaven knows. But I can't accept both ; and both your 
 reasons are so admirable that I can't accept either. And 
 what's worse, it's your arguments, not your assertions, 
 that will have to go into Chancery ; and into Chancery 
 we must" all go. Yes, there's no help for it now ; and, 
 once in, Heaven alone knows when we shall get out 
 again." 
 
 " I object to the law on principle ; I shall have nothing 
 to do with law," said Steldl ; and I have no doubt but he 
 had excellent reasons for the only principle I ever heard 
 of his having. " I bring my expert ; you are satisfied. I 
 demand twenty-five thousand pounds for my son." 
 
 " I despise the law," shouted the Major. " An Irish 
 gentleman doesn't mix up with pettifogging rascals. I 
 wouldn't touch the dirthy thing with the end of an old 
 boot. 'Tis as clear as day — Lucis Bridgita O'Birn." 
 
 "It must be compromise, or— Chancery," said I. 
 " Have it as you will." 
 
 " Compromise — with him ? " said Steldl, pointing to 
 
 F 2 
 
68 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 the Major with his thumb. "Not one penny shall he 
 rob my son." 
 
 " Compromise — with a Steldl? " said the Major, in his 
 turn. " Maybe with old Nick I would; for old Nick's a 
 gentleman," added he. 
 
 And there was the deadest lock I ever heard of since I 
 was born ! No Lord Chancellor ever drew up a will 
 that more clearly meant two opposite and irreconcilable 
 things. 
 
 And here, alas, is the end of this story, so far as I am 
 concerned. I say alas in the conventional spirit of a 
 lawyer (as he is supposed to be) ; for students of knotty 
 points of Equity may search the Chancery reports in vain 
 for any case bearing the name of Molloy, Lake, Steldl, or 
 O'Birn. The effect of a will written in a cipher which can 
 be read in two ways remains undecided to the present 
 hour ; and will, unless things repeat themselves in the 
 most incredible way, remain undecided for evermore. 
 The united wisdom of the House of Lords — for it must 
 have got even there at last — was never occupied with 
 investigating the secret thoughts of Miss Molloy. 
 
 I really regret, sometimes — quite independently of the 
 advantage that would have accrued to my own banking 
 account — that I did not, in the interests of the profession, 
 apply to the Court instantly on behalf of myself and my 
 co-executor. A certainly utterly ridiculous unwillingness 
 to throw Miss Molloy's property into the very Maelstrom 
 of litigation led me to put off the evil day as long as 
 possible. For I could not help remembering that if, by 
 any chance, the will should at last be set aside altogether 
 for want of anybody's having brains enough to make head 
 or tail of it, or for want of inherent perspicuity, or for any 
 other sufficient reason, the Count and the Major must 
 divide as next of kin, in right of their wives. And that 
 would be worse for the property than a hundred 
 
A MOST REMARKABLE WILL. 69 
 
 Chanceries of the good old Eldon days. They, in their 
 determination to have all or nothing, were no more eager 
 to push matters to an extremity than I. And so, I verily 
 believe, should we have been standing at this triangular 
 deadlock at the present hour, had not the delay itself 
 brought about a most natural solution in the most natural 
 way in the world. " When in doubt, do nothing," I con- 
 stantly find to be the wisest maxim that ever was made. 
 My relief, at the time, hardly equalled my surprise. 
 But, considering that Mrs. Steldl and Mrs. O'Birn had 
 never quarrelled — considering that they had met again — 
 considering what sort of young people their son and their 
 daughter were — I must own that I was an ass to feel 
 surprised on learning of the marriage of Lieutenant Steldl 
 to Lucis Bridgita O'Birn. The history of the Montagues 
 and the Capulets does not stand alone in the effect of the 
 feuds of the old upon the hearts of the young. But this 
 is no part of my story. Enough that her claims became 
 his, while his remained his own — and therefore her own, 
 too. And if two elderly rascals were kept in somewhat 
 disreputable clover for the rest of their days, and if two 
 executors were content to run a little safe risk in making 
 things comfortable all round for everybody, themselves 
 included, and if two cryptologists remained irreconcilable 
 foes, and if two young people became happy in their own 
 peculiar way, and if the Court was deprived of a big 
 cause, find the profession of the bulk of the property of 
 Miss Molloy — well, the fault is mainly my own. I pro- 
 fess only to tell the story, not to solve the mystery, of 
 Miss Molloy's most Remarkable "Will. 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 
 I. 
 
 The almost insuperable difficulty of telling a story with 
 even a grain of truth in it is this — or, I should rather 
 say, the two insuperable difficulties are these : firstly, 
 there is never the faintest dramatic point about really 
 true stories ; secondly, if they are worth telling at all, 
 they are almost always incredible. And the truer they 
 are, the more pointless and the more incredible they are. 
 The story I am going to tell is neither dramatic nor 
 probable. And yet it seems to me worth telling — 
 independently of its inherent curiosity — as an instance 
 of those extraordinary freaks of psychology which now 
 and again throw out of gear altogether the every-day 
 experience of practical men, among whom I have some 
 claim to be reckoned. It has also a yet more important 
 bearing upon the manner of making delicate investigations 
 which, if I remember to do so, I may perhaps take 
 occasion to point out before I have done. As when I 
 sent you my last contribution to your museum of pro- 
 fessional curiosities, I will merge my own proper 
 personality in that of my informant, the solicitor who 
 played so leading and, for a time, so uncomfortable a 
 part in the affair. For all purposes it is more convenient 
 to translate "he" into "I," when one is telling another 
 man's story. Indeed, it is almost essential to the process 
 of telling the tale as it was told to me. 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 71 
 
 I, then, early one forenoon, received a visit from my 
 very best client, Mr. John Buller. 
 
 Mr. John Buller was a gentleman who, still hardly 
 past the prime of life, had made a considerable fortune 
 as a builder and contractor." Altogether there must have 
 been something out of the common about him, for he had 
 become the wealthy man he certainly was seemingly in 
 defiance of all established precedents and rules. He was 
 not what is commonly— and often very mistakenly — 
 called a " good man of business ; " he always had more 
 irons in the fire than he could possibly attend to person- 
 ally, or even superintend generally, and he placed such 
 implicit trust in all who served him or dealt with him as to 
 amount to credulity. Nevertheless, I am by no means 
 sure myself of its being really singular that his many irons 
 should have taken excellent care of themselves, and that he 
 very rarely indeed, at least to my knowledge, found himself 
 seriously deceived. I need hardly say that, like all men 
 of such a temper, to be found out in deceiving him in 
 the smallest trifle was to lose his confidence irrevocably 
 and for ever ; so that not only were moderately honour- 
 able men put upon their honour to an unusual degree in 
 their relations towards one who trusted them so com- 
 pletely, but the dishonourable were by experience taught 
 to fear injuring one from whom everything was to be 
 gained but pardon. He certainly was not one of those 
 who hold that in business a man should have no enemies 
 and no friends. All men were his friends until, as some- 
 times would happen, they became his enemies. And yet 
 one might know him for years without suspecting that he 
 had any sort of temper at all. Doubtless it was the 
 consciousness on his own part of having one, and the 
 suspicion that it might be a weakness or a failing, that 
 made him seem needlessly hard and reserved. On the 
 whole, I incline to ascribe his success in life less to 
 courage and over-confidence than to a yet more tin- 
 
72 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 business-like habit of always doing his work a little 
 better than his contract required. I would pay ten per 
 cent, higher rent, any day, to live in a house that I knew 
 to have been built by John Buller. I should know that 
 everything about that house was better than it seemed. 
 And that is the chief reason why I set out by speaking 
 of him as a gentleman. For he had risen from the lower 
 rounds of the ladder, and, so far as he might be called a 
 diamond, was decidedly an unpolished one. He was, I 
 believe, a seriously religious man; he was an unquestion- 
 ably generous and charitable one ; not highly educated, 
 but with plenty of intelligence and openness of mind. I 
 should add that he had never been married ; was without 
 known relations ; and lived alone in thoroughly respectable 
 comfort, without pretence of any kind. The nature of his 
 business, by no means confined to the limits of the 
 northern town where we both lived, took him about a. 
 great deal, and no doubt largely helped him to do without 
 much society at home. For that matter, he was, socially 
 speaking, above one-half the place and below the other ; 
 so, though universally respected, he must, on the whole, 
 have lived almost too much alone. But in this matter, 
 as in all things, habit is everything ; and so busy a man 
 had little time to feel dull. 
 
 " Mr. Standish," he began, in the broad north-country 
 speech, which I shall make no pretence of reproduc- 
 ing, "something mortal queer has happened, that I 
 can't make head or tail o'. It's not the money's- 
 worth, though fifty pound is fifty pound; but— Look 
 here ! " 
 
 " Your cheque for fifty pounds, cashed by the Bedport 
 branch of the County Bank, and returned to you in the 
 regular course. Well, what's wrong?" 
 
 "Do you see anything queer about that cheque, Mr. 
 Standish — anything out of the way ? " 
 
 "No. It's drawn to yourself or order by yourself; 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 73 
 
 endorsed by you ; and nothing wrong about date or any- 
 thing else that I can see." 
 
 "And if you'd been a clerk at Eedport, you'd have 
 cashed that over the counter without any bones? " 
 
 " Of course I should ; as I suppose from this you have 
 an account there." 
 
 " And that's just what was done, then. And all the 
 same, that cheque was no more filled up, nor signed, nor 
 backed by me than it was by you." 
 
 "You mean to say it's forged? By Jove, that's a 
 serious thing ! Do you mean to say that some rascal has 
 been clever enough to fill up and sign a whole cheque in 
 your handwriting, even down to the least turn of the 
 smallest stroke of the pen ? I'd have sworn to this being 
 your own handwriting before a jury." 
 
 " Ay, Mr. Standi sh ; and so would I, if I didn't know. 
 But I do know ; and that's no more my cheque than it's 
 yours. And I'm hanged if I know what to do." 
 
 " You've seen the bank manager here? What does he 
 say?" 
 
 "No, I haven't. I haven't seen a soul; and what's 
 more, I don't mean to, unless I'm driven. And it's to 
 get out of being driven I'm come to you. This cheque 
 isn't the first of 'em, Mr. Standish — no, nor the second, 
 nor yet the third. There's four cheques of fifty pounds 
 apiece ; and I've not drawn one ! " 
 
 " And you haven't found it out till now ? " 
 
 " I've found out nothing, Mr. Standish, mark that — ■ 
 not one word. Nothing's found out till it's proved. I 
 want to know what I can do." 
 
 That premature question was the only sign of precipi- 
 tancy or impatience I had ever seen in John Buller. I 
 began to see that he was disturbed by something beyond 
 the loss, to himself or the bank, of two hundred pounds, 
 or by the always detestable necessity of being mixed up 
 in what looked like a criminal matter. So I made no 
 
74 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 answer, which is always the best way of getting quickly 
 at the bottom of a story. 
 
 " I'm putting up the new row of villas on the esplanade 
 at Eedport," said he. " It's a biggish job in a small way, 
 and it's very much on my own account ; and what with 
 the hands, and one thing and another, there's a goodish lot 
 of cash floating about from week to Wdek— going out, 
 anyhow, though of course none to speak of coming in. 
 So, to save a lot of bother, I've had for some time an 
 account with the branch at Eedport. You don't -know 
 the place, I believe? " 
 
 " I've never been over there yet ; but I must run over 
 some day, when I can get a holiday. "Well ? " 
 
 " It's been main through me that the place has got on 
 well enough to make it worth the Bank's while to have a 
 branch there ; and if I was to draw for five times what's 
 to my credit, I don't suppose they'd make any bother, 
 looking to my credit at the main branch here. So this 
 game might go on any time before I heard I'd overdrawn. 
 As far as I'm concerned, a cheque on the branch at 
 Eedport's much the same as one on the bank here." 
 
 " Well?" 
 
 " You see, though that job's middling big, I've got too 
 many bigger on band to bother in person with Eedport. 
 It's two months since I've been near the place, and may, 
 be it'll be another month before I can get over there 
 again. So I've got a clerk of the works in an office in 
 one of the villas, and he comes over to me here every 
 Friday to report and take any new orders, and I give 
 him cheques on the Eedport branch for what's wanted — 
 he brings me his accounts and vouchers, of course, and I 
 settle that way whatever has to be paid running. And 
 some of the cheques I receive I send over by him to be 
 paid in there." 
 
 "Excuse me," said I, "but doesn't this seem rather a 
 loose and rough way of doing things ? In the first place, 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 75 
 
 I don't see why you should make any payments through 
 the Eedport branch at all ; and certainly I don't see how 
 all this concerns these forgeries." 
 
 " I'll tell you why I do - it, and how it concerns these — 
 Forgeries, too. I want to keep as much cash knocking 
 about in Eedport as I can, and to keep as little from 
 going out ; that's the way to push a new place on. And, 
 for the same reason, I don't want those branch clerks to 
 find they've got too little to do. My clerk comes to me at 
 four o'clock every Friday afternoon. First of all, I give 
 bim a cheque for the men's week's wages. Then we go 
 through the accounts, and for any that I want to settle 
 off-hand I either draw separate cheques in favour of the 
 different parties, or else I give him another lump cheque 
 for him to cash and pay out in gold. In fact, there's all 
 sorts of things to be paid in all sorts of ways. If the 
 account seems running low, it's easier for me to pay in 
 a few cheques than to bother the bank here. Anyhow, 
 it saves me a bushel of bother, and don't oblige me to 
 give more than an hour a week to Eedport — and even an 
 hour's too much at times." 
 
 " Just tell me precisely everything that happens, please. 
 We're rather vague, where we are. He comes to you at 
 four every Friday, and you give him all these cheques — 
 whatever he asks for — and then he goes back at once to 
 Eedport by rail?" 
 
 John Buller glanced at me sharply. By those words 
 "whatever he asks for" I had trodden upon what is 
 always the most sensitive of an over-trustful man's corns : 
 I had hinted at the want of worldly prudence which such 
 a man, far more than any other, hates to be suspected of 
 lacking. 
 
 " I'm not quite a born fool," said he. " We go through 
 the accounts, and he stays for supper and a bed. By 
 breakfast-time next morning I've found a half hour to 
 examine the accounts and to write the cheques. I give 
 
76 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 him the whole lot in a leather case, and he goes back to 
 Eedport ; and it's his duty, before he goes to the office, 
 to go to the Eedport Bank and pay in and draw out 
 whatever's required." 
 
 I did not see how this made matters any better from a 
 prudential point of view ; but I did not venture again 
 upon what I felt to be rather dangerous ground. 
 
 " Then all your transactions with the branch bank at 
 Eedport," I asked, " are confined to ten o'clock on Satur- 
 day morning ? This cheque is stamped as cashed on the 
 15th, which would be a Saturday. Of course we shall 
 learn from your pass-book, or from the cheques them- 
 selves, if that was so with the others. If so, the false 
 cheques must either have been presented together with the 
 others, or by somebody who knew your system. Also, it 
 is clear they were drawn, judging from this, by somebody 
 who had exceptional means of knowing your handwriting, 
 and of practising it at leisure — and, if I may say so, how 
 little likely you were, with such a system of business as 
 yours, to detect fraud very soon. Also, by somebody to 
 whom your cheque-book was accessible, in one way or 
 another. Are these cheques taken from your cheque- 
 book, or can the thief have got hold of some other ? " 
 
 I could see that John Buller began to look strangely 
 troubled. 
 
 "From mine ! " said he, in a curiously defiant tone. 
 
 " And the counterfoils ? Cut out, I suppose ? That's 
 the usual way." 
 
 "No; every man Jack filled up in a way that would 
 take the very devil in. And yet, Mr. Standish, those 
 cheques are no more my drawing than they're yours. I 
 keep a private account of every cheque I draw ; and it 
 stands to reason that when four cheques that you know 
 you didn't draw are alone missing out of an account o' 
 fifty that you know you did draw, then you can't be 
 mistaken. That's as clear as day.'' 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 77 
 
 "All right, Mr. Buller; it is as clear as day. And 
 though criminal business is very much out of my line, 
 we'll have that forger beyond the seas in, comparatively 
 speaking, the twinkling of an eye. What's the fellow's 
 name?" 
 
 " His name ? And how the deuce, sir, should I know 
 his name?" 
 
 " Not know the name of your own clerk of the works 
 at Eedport ? By Jove, Mr. Buller, I shall begin to think 
 you a queer sort of a business man 1 " 
 
 "We're at crooked answers, Mr. Standish, it seems to 
 me," he said, wiping his forehead hard, though the 
 weather was unusually cold. " My clerk at Bedport is 
 Adam Brown." 
 
 "Then it's lucky Mr. Adam Brown didn't live when 
 forgers were hanged," said I. "You won't be able to 
 recover from the bank, I'm afraid ; such forgeries as 
 those defy even extraordinary care to detect them. A 
 bank-clerk is expected to be a great deal ; but nobody 
 expects him to be a conjurer. But '' — 
 
 To my amazement, John Buller sprang up in a tower- 
 ing rage. 
 
 "And you — you dare to hint that — that — that poor 
 lad, who's as honest as the day, would steal one farthing 
 from me — a young man I'd trust with untold gold — the 
 orphan of the best woman that ever touched God's earth ! 
 I won't hear it, sir ! I didn't come to you to hear slander 
 against her son, that I've looked after for her sake, and 
 who'd no more touch a farthing rushlight that belonged 
 to me than you would yourself, sir ! If there's one 
 man who's as guiltless as the babe unborn, it's Adam 
 Brown ! " 
 
 " I honour your confidence in your employes, sir," said 
 I. " Trust makes Trustworthy nine times out of ten. 
 But look here. Here is a man whom you trust implicitly 
 on your own showing. There is your cheque-book for 
 
78 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 one night every week under the same roof with him, the 
 place where you keep it probably known to him. That 
 man knows your writing, and how you fill up your chequf-3 
 and your counterfoils. That man transacts all your 
 business with the bank at Eedport. That man, it seems, 
 may account to you or not account to you just in what 
 form he will. Nobody else in your employ seems open to 
 suspicion ; no stranger could act in such a way without 
 instant detection. Think what any jury would say to 
 such a state of things. We've as yet got no direct proof; 
 but, with such circumstantial evidence to start with, direct 
 proof is absolutely sure to come. Why, he might hope to 
 carry on such a game as that safely for many years ; at 
 any rate, till he had restored what he had taken, as all 
 those young rascals always ' mean ' to do some day when 
 some impossible horse wins some impossible Derby. And 
 I'm afraid, previous good character in such cases always 
 goes against a man. It doubles the guilt of his downfall, 
 and is, indeed, the very means and cause of his being 
 able to fall. Adam Brown is the man." 
 
 John Buller's anger passed suddenly, as if ashamed of 
 itself ; and there was no mistaking the profound grief and 
 distress of the tone in which he answered me. 
 
 " You'll excuse me," said he. " It was because I saw 
 all this just as well as you do that I came here, hoping 
 you, as a practical and unprejudiced man, would help me 
 to see t'other side of things. And I was disappointed 
 you didn't, and that was what made me fly. Don't you 
 go to mistake me for being any softer than my neighbours. 
 If you can prove to me the man who's been tampering 
 with my cheque-book is Adam Brown, I'll treat him like 
 a viper, Mr. Standish— that I will ! I'd sooner cut my 
 own throat than throw a crust to my own son, if I had 
 one, if I couldn't trust him as my own right hand. And, 
 if you'll believe it, sir, Adam Brown has been more to 
 me than if he was my own son. For he's the orphan 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL FUZZLE. 79 
 
 boy of the only woman I ever wanted to marry, or ever 
 shall. I don't suspect him for one moment — not I. 
 But for that very reason I want you to show me how to 
 put him above the suspicion of any outside man, such as 
 you. Take my word for it, it's not Adam Brown. If it 
 was, I'd have done his business for him pretty quick, 
 without bothering myself to come to you. But make as 
 if I thought it was : you prove the innocence of an 
 innocent lad, and, by Jingo, you'll take off my mind the 
 biggest load of bricks that ever was on." 
 
 The speech was inconsistent enough. But one thing 
 was plain from it — John Buller was determined to dis- 
 believe the clear evidence of his own reason. He had 
 not come to me to find out a thief, but to get me to prove 
 to his own satisfaction that the thief was an innocent 
 man ; and, at the same time, to acquit him in his own 
 eyes of intentional self-deception. He knew how he 
 would have to act if he found his trust deceived, and the 
 severity which he thought his duty in such cases fright- 
 ened him, lest he ehould feel compelled to exercise it 
 towards Adam Brown. I could not help smiling at the 
 openness of the workings of his mind, or being touched 
 by them, too. I had never suspected my substantial 
 client of having been the victim of a romance since I had 
 first gone down from London to Carcester. 
 
 " Then," I asked again, a little hypocritically, " you 
 are convinced in your own mind, from your previous 
 knowledge of his character, that Adam Brown is not the 
 man?" 
 
 "I'm just as certain he's not as that I stand here. 
 And, more for his sake than my own, I mean to know 
 who is the man." 
 
 " Have you spoken about it to Adam Brown? " 
 " Not I. I'd as soon speak to you, M>. Standish, on 
 the supposition that it might have been you." 
 " Very good. If Adam Brown — " 
 
80 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 ••If, sir?" 
 
 " Since Adam Brown is innocent, we can very soon put 
 him beyond the reach of any sort of suspicion, and with- 
 out bringing the people at the bank into the affair — at 
 least, not in any way that would make them think any- 
 thing was seriously wrong in any particular direction. 
 In the first place, arrange with them, both here and at 
 Eedport, not to cash any cheque of yours not bearing a 
 certain private mark (which you will keep secret from all 
 your employes) without forthwith advertising you of the 
 person by whom it was presented. This will have the 
 effect of narrowing matters very considerably. What had 
 better be done farther I think we will wait and see." 
 
 " You quite understand, Mr. Standish, that whatever 
 you do will find out who was the real man — not young 
 Adam Brown? I — I doubt if I quite like to do that 
 about the private mark after all. It seems a bit mean- 
 like to my mind." 
 
 " It's the best way of clearing Adam Brown if — since 
 he's innocent, it seems to me," said I. 
 
 "You think that? Well, you're right, I suppose. 
 And, by Jin^o, as he is innocent why should I be afraid? 
 If he wasn't — if I wasn't as sure of it as I'm alive — but 
 it can't be ! I'd sooner doubt my own right hand ! I 
 will. I'll settle about the private mark this very da)'." 
 
 Of course I had not the faintest doubt in my own mind 
 about the identity of this ingenious and systematic forger 
 with Mr. Adam Brown. I had already given my reasons 
 to John Buller; and they are so perfectly obvious, under 
 all the circumstances, that I need not repeat them here. 
 I could quite understand why John Buller, since he had 
 a more than common interest in his clerk of the works at 
 Bedport, should be very anxious to be convinced that his 
 belief in the latter's innocence was not inconsistent with 
 the common sense proper to a shrewd man of the world, 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 81 
 
 whose pride in never being " done " in always the greater 
 in proportion as it is unjustified. Men who are really 
 sharp and shrewd know too well that they are always 
 and inevitably being " done " to bother their heads about 
 their share in a universal doom. 
 
 I knew Adam Brown pretty well by sight, and a little 
 by reputation. He was a good-looking, pleasant young 
 feUow, certainly too young for his over-responsible place 
 in John Buller's service, but well up to his work, and 
 very popular with the young men of his own class in 
 Carcester. His father had been an unsuccessful commis- 
 sion agent, and, as I had to-day learned for the first time, 
 the successful rival in love of John Buller. I must leave 
 it to others wholly to understand why the beaten suitor, 
 whom nobody suspected of having a grain of sentiment 
 in his composition, should have made himself a second 
 father to this young man— in a reserved and wholly 
 undemonstrative way, that is ; for I feel certain now that 
 Adam Brown looked upon himself simply as an ordinary 
 employe, and did not fancy that the place he held in John 
 Buller's business was due to the place in John Buller's 
 heart of his dead mother. I daresay that little romance 
 might prove worth writing for its own sake in the hands 
 of a sentimental author. But this story is not a senti- 
 mental one. 
 
 So I was really rather sorry that circumstances pointed 
 so clearly to Adam Brown as the guilty man, though of 
 course I felt also that John Buller's eyes ought to be 
 opened, and that such ungrateful crime ought to be 
 punished as openly and as richly as it deserved. I had 
 not the least intention of helping my client to persuade 
 himself of the innocence of a guilty man. On the contrary, 
 I fully meant to expose the young rascal before he could 
 do worse harm ; and for that purpose the plan of privately- 
 marked cheques seemed the best that, upon the spur of the 
 moment, I could hit on. It would satisfy John Buller by 
 
82 ROMANCES OP THE LAW. 
 
 avoiding immediate scandal, and no doubt convict the 
 forger just as well as any more open way. 
 
 But the explosion was to come more sharply and 
 swiftly than I had planned. 
 
 On the following Saturday morning the spirit moved 
 me to take John Buller's house on my way to my own 
 office, for I was not particularly busy at the moment. I 
 thought it advisable to see with my own eyes something 
 of that curious weekly despatch of cheques and bills to 
 Eedport, and I wanted also to make more particular 
 acquaintance with the physiognomy of Mr. Adam Brown. 
 I believed in physiognomy in those days. I need hardly 
 say that I no longer now do anything of the kind, beyond 
 knowing when a man eats too much and drinks too often. 
 I have seen such saintly faces in the dock, and men on 
 whom Nature has stamped blackguard, or even murderer, 
 have been among the best whom she has made. Adam 
 Brown, who had finished his breakfast and was just on 
 the eve of starting for Eedport, fell into neither of these 
 extreme classes, and might easily have belonged to either 
 side of the broad band between them where good is inex- 
 tricably and undecipherably mixed up and often confused 
 with harm. As I have said, he was young and good- 
 looking; and he had a good face too, like a lad's who 
 comes of good people and has been brought up well. And, 
 what was better, it was not a weak one, nor a stupid one. 
 But, at the same time, it wasn't a happy one, and gloomy 
 rather than merely grave. His eyes, instead of looking 
 bright or open, as a young man's should always be in the 
 morning, were dull and red, as if he had either slept but 
 little or were in the habit of taking something stronger 
 than tea or coffee for breakfast when at home in his 
 Eedport lodgings. In such cases, the eye and the hand 
 are one ; and his hand was not quite so steady as he held 
 out his hand for the leather cheque-case, so I thought at 
 least, as it ought to have been. 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 83 
 
 "I've only dropped in to see if you've made your 
 arrangements about marking to-day's cheques," said I, 
 as soon as Adam Brown had closed the street-door. 
 " You've found nothing new, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No. I wish to Heaven the thing was out and over ; 
 it worries me more than I try to say. There's nothing 
 so horrible as having somebody about that you can't trust 
 and you don't know who. And you're a married man, 
 Standish ; you don't know what it means to swallow all 
 your own worries yourself, with nobody to give the least 
 bit of 'em to. But — holloa ! Hi, Adam ! " he called out, 
 throwing up the window and calling down the street. 
 "Just to show you how things bother me," he said to me, 
 "I've left out of the case just the very cheque from Archer 
 & Company that I wanted to have paid in at Bedport this 
 very day. Hi, Adam ! Ah, here you are ! I was afraid 
 you were out of earshot ; but you're in lots of time for the 
 train. There's something I wanted to say to you, and 
 Mr. Standish coming in just now — " 
 
 There was nothing in the sudden recall, however 
 unusual, to frighten an honest man. But I could not 
 mistake my eyes — there are some cases in which we can't 
 help reading faces, ay, and in believing what we read. 
 If ever fright turned a man's face red and pale, it turned 
 Adam Brown's now. 
 
 "Here's a cheque of Archer's," said John Buller, 
 noticing nothing, "that I want paid in at Bedport this 
 morning, and I forgot it when Mr. Standish came in. 
 Put it in the case with the others. Here it is. Three 
 hundred and eighty-eight pounds nine." 
 
 Adam Brown held out his hand for the cheque ; but a 
 sudden inspiration, prompted by the young man's unmis- 
 takable confusion, made me say, 
 
 " Yes ; there's plenty of time for the train, but not for 
 me. There's something I must say to you, Mr. Buller, 
 before I go on to the office, and I've only allowed myself 
 
 Q 2 
 
84 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 a minute to spare. Would you mind leaving us alone for 
 one minute, Mr. Brown ? You can leave the case here ; 
 Mr. Buller can put in the cheque while he's listening to 
 me to save time." 
 
 I watched the young man while I spoke, and what I 
 saw made me feel more sure than ever. I held out my 
 hand for the case, to pass it to John Buller, and felt 
 Adam's fingers tremble as they touched mine. And yet 
 not a word had been said that could alarm a perfectly 
 innocent man, who has no secrets from his employer or 
 even from his employer's attorney. 
 
 " Wait a bit," I said to John Buller, as soon as Adam 
 had left the room. " Before putting in that cheque, just 
 see if the others are as they ought to be." 
 
 "The others? Of course they are. What do you 
 mean?" 
 
 " Why, as you made one mistake, you might by chance 
 have made another, you know. Well, while you're over- 
 hauling, I only just wanted to say — " 
 
 There was nothing I wanted to say, but I had no need 
 to think of a pretext. I had my eye on John Buller, and 
 before " say " was off my lips — 
 
 " Good God 1 " cried he. " Look here ! Brown ! " he 
 shouted, " Adam Brown — " 
 
 " Don't frighten him," said I, rising and opening the 
 door, knowing what John Buller had found in the case as 
 well as if I had seen it with my very eyes. " Mr. Brown, 
 you may come in now." 
 
 He came in, as a detected criminal comes before a 
 judge, trembling and pale. I wondered he had been able 
 to remain in the hall all alone for that terrible moment, 
 during which, as he must have known, he was being 
 tried, found guilty, and condemned. 
 
 To my surprise, John Buller, whom I had thought in 
 the first stage of a passion, sat still, in front of his 
 detected clerk, without a word. But I should not like 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 85 
 
 to have been in Adam Brown's shoes during that silent 
 pause. There was no sign or thought of anger in the 
 long look of mingled sorrow and scorn — more of sorrow 
 than of scorn — with which John Buller regarded the 
 young man to whom he had tried to be a second father. 
 I had done my duty, I suppose ; but I could not help 
 pitying both, and I know whom I pitied the most of the 
 two. It was not the younger man. 
 
 I looked steadfastly at the fifth forged cheque for fifty 
 pounds which John Buller had found, just as I had 
 expected, in the leather case, and the preparation of 
 which was quite enough to account for the sleepless look 
 of the young man's eyes. It seemed to me that the 
 imitation was even better than before. 
 
 "Adam Brown," said John Buller at last, in a voice 
 full of sadness, and yet of the double pathos which comes 
 alone from more dignified firmness than I should have 
 expected from such a man, — " Adam Brown, I know well 
 enough that you see your deceit discovered, and I won't 
 add to your wrong-doing by tempting you to tell a he. I 
 knew your mother — long ago — and for her sake I first 
 gave you work, and bread to work for. But it was for 
 your own sake I trusted you, even as she might have 
 trusted me ; and the end is that I shall never be able to 
 trust man, woman, or child again. That is the injury 
 you have done to me ; and there's none greater that man 
 can do man. I fought hard against the belief of my own 
 eyes — for weeks I've fought against it ; but I know now. 
 Don't be afraid. I'm not going to have you— your 
 mother's son — put in the dock as a felon. But there's 
 nothing I can do for a man — a boy — that — that — Go ; 
 and never cross my path again." 
 
 The culprit tried to lift his eyes, but failed. 
 
 " Sir," he began, " I do not defend — I do not excuse — 
 I never intended — " 
 
 " I am sorry for myself. Do not make me despise you. 
 
88 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 A man does as he intends. I'm wrong not to prosecute 
 you ; it's what I should do to any other man who did as 
 — as you have done. Go. I give you the chance to 
 redeem yourself, if you can; but not with me. Go." 
 
 Without one attempt to defend or excuse his guilt, far 
 less to deny it, the young man was gone. 
 
 " I do not thank you for this, Mr. Standish," said John 
 Buller. The tears came into his voice as he turned 
 away. 
 
 n. 
 
 The more I thought things over, the less displeased I 
 was with myself for the way in which they had gone. 
 The more anybody thinks about it, the more finished a 
 rogue, in spite of his years, will Adam Brown appear to 
 be. His plan was as clear as daylight now. Obviously, 
 he had easily found where his employer kept his cheque- 
 book for the bank at Bedport, and spent the better part 
 of Friday night in filling up one of its forms, and 
 manipulating the counterfoil so as to produce an exact 
 facsimile of a cheque drawn and signed by John Buller. On 
 my life, I believe he might, so perfect was his process, have 
 got a jury to acquit him on the ground that some strange 
 accident must have been his enemy, and that the cheque 
 was really John Buller' s after all; for the best men of 
 business may be guilty of mistake or error now and then. 
 Yes, but then you see that defence would not have done 
 after all, seeing that here was the sixth cheque forged in 
 six weeks ; and that John Buller not only had never had 
 occasion to draw these, and knew he never had drawn 
 them, but had kept a perfectly complete and accurate 
 account, inaccurate in no slightest particular, of all he 
 had had occasion to draw and remembered drawing. 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 87 
 
 Mistake — if the reader will think for one instant— waa 
 thus rendered absolutely impossible. And not only was 
 the matter clenched now by conduct on Adam Brown's 
 part amounting to confession, without so much as an 
 appeal for mercy, but every cheque in the case bore the 
 private mark except this alone. And the packet had been 
 in no hands but those of Adam Brown. 
 
 Of course it was natural that John Buller, like all men 
 of his temper when they met with such every-day things 
 as ingratitude and breach of trust, should feel misan- 
 thropical, and as if confidence in his fellow-creatures was 
 henceforth dead in him. But very few men indeed are 
 Timons. "We mostly return to our original nature: 
 instinctive trust is happily a fine hardy growth that 
 requires a great deal of killing. In a little while, no 
 doubt, John Buller would trust the next stranger rather 
 more implicitly than if he had been his own brother, and 
 be all the better for being rid of such an exceptionally 
 clever rogue, a man with a positive genius for forgery, 
 as his ex-clerk of the works at Eedport. Perhaps, even, 
 his experience would have a wholesome effect upon him 
 by teaching him that the son of a woman we have loved 
 in our youth is not, solely for that rather sentimental 
 reason, bound to be better than all other sons of Eve 
 in general. Young men who have had mothers have 
 also had fathers ; and Mr. Brown, the commission agent, 
 had not borne altogether the highest of characters while 
 alive. 
 
 I did not see, or hear from, John Buller for the next 
 few days ; which was rather singular, as he nearly always 
 had a good deal of business on hand which required the 
 help of a solicitor, and as two or three important agree- 
 ments to which he was party were just then passing 
 through my hands. But I heard in various incidental 
 ways of young Brown. A clerk of mine was an acquaint- 
 ance of his; and he told me — without knowing any of 
 
88 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 the circumstances — that Brown had suddenly left John 
 Buller and had gone up to London to find another situa- 
 tion; -which, without any sort of character (for John 
 Buller was incapable of giving a false or even a misleading 
 one to anybody), I imagined he would find it hard to 
 do, except as active partner in a firm of forgers. From 
 another source I heard he had had a fortune left him, and 
 was going to live on a fine estate in the country. Any- 
 how, he left both Eedport and Carcester without leaving 
 behind him a guess as to the true reason of his 
 departure. 
 
 If was not, indeed, till the following Friday afternoon 
 that I next received a visit from John Buller. I thought 
 him looking fagged and harassed, and I told him so. 
 
 "I'm afraid you keep too many irons in the fire," 
 said I. 
 
 " Not a bit of it. One keeps the other warm. If you 
 was as much by yourself as I am, you'd want a bit more 
 work than you could manage, just to keep you and your- 
 self from quarrelling." 
 
 " Have you heard anything more of young Brown ? " 
 
 "Young Who?" 
 
 " Young Brown." 
 
 " I've forgotten his name. And you won't remind me 
 of it, if you and me's to keep friends. There's no such 
 name. Talking of not looking well — it's you that don't 
 look yourself, it seems to me. You want a day's holiday, 
 and I've looked in to ask you to be so kind as to take 
 one." 
 
 " You're very kind, I'm sure ; but — " 
 
 " ' But ' be hanged ! Look here, Mr. Standish. To- 
 day's Friday ; and there's the usual business of paying 
 in and drawing out to be done over at Eedport to-morrow. 
 I can't do it myself, as I've got to be in three other places 
 at once by the first train ; and I'm not such an ass as to 
 trust any of my people here with the value of sevenpence- 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 8& 
 
 halfpenny. Once bit, twice shy. I've done with trusting 
 for the rest of my days. At the rate of fifty pound a 
 week, it don't pay. You've never been over at Eedport ; 
 and, though I say it that shouldn't, the place is worth 
 seeing, as a specimen of what places can be made to 
 grow. You take a day's run over there to-morrow — you 
 and Mrs. Standish too. I'll give you a pass on the line, 
 and telegraph to the Star to treat you like princes 
 and princesses. All you'll have to do will be to hand my 
 cheque-case over the bank-counter, which won't take you 
 two minutes, or fifty yards out of your way to the new 
 pier ; and then you can make a Saturday-to-Monday of 
 it, if you please. I want you to see Eedport before it 
 grows out of all knowing. Say yes, and I'll have the 
 cheques and things ready for you to pick up at my house 
 on your way to the train." 
 
 I was not particularly anxious for a holiday; and 
 certainly no wish to spend one en prince at the Star. 
 But, at the same time, I had no sort of objection to an 
 idle day, and it was almost necessary, as a matter of 
 business, to see the neighbouring town which was becom- 
 ing every day more and more an office word. So, though 
 more to please my best client than for any other reason, 
 I agreed, only bargaining that I should be left free from 
 the special attentions of the Star. John Buller thanked 
 me for my promise to go as if I had done him some 
 extraordinary favour. 
 
 " Well, if you won't let me telegraph, when you do ask 
 for lunch at the Star, mention my name. You won't see 
 much going on in the building line just now ; one of the 
 things I've got to be away for to-morrow is to get another 
 scoundrel — till he's found out, like the rest of 'em — in the 
 place of poor young— of that young blackguard whose 
 name I'll never remember again, if I live for a thousand 
 years." 
 
 Now I don't want to have it supposed for a moment 
 
90 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 that my going over to Eedport alone — that is to say, 
 without my wife — was due to any fault or neglect of 
 mine. If I could have foreseen that my day of idleness 
 was to be one of solitude also, I should probably not 
 quite so readily have consented to take a hohday. As it 
 happened, however, I found, when I got home from the 
 office, that Mrs. Standish had almost that very moment 
 received an urgent summons to the sick-bed of her sister, 
 who lived at the other end of England, which obliged her 
 to take the very next train from Carcester and to travel 
 all night through. Naturally, until I had seen her off, I 
 did not think again of my promised visit to Eedport. So, 
 as it was too late to back out of going, I decided to run 
 over in the morning, do my business at the bank, and get 
 back as early in the afternoon as the then infrequent 
 trains between Eedport and Carcester allowed. 
 
 So next morning, having told my clerks to close the 
 office at the usual hour, which on Saturday was always an 
 early one, I went to John Buller's house, and from bis 
 hands received the cheque-case which he had ready for 
 me. Knowing his feelings about the matter, I refrained 
 from making any sort of allusion to it, and even made a 
 point, while receiving the case, of speaking carelessly 
 about indifferent things. I put the case, otherwise 
 untouched, in my breast-pocket, and there it remained 
 till I reached the counter of the bank at Eedport. 
 
 "Where's Mr. Brown?" asked the clerk, as he took 
 the leather case. " It doesn't seem like Saturday morn- 
 ing without seeing Brown." 
 
 "He's away just at present," said I. "Mr. Buller 
 asked me to give you this. All right, I suppose ? " 
 
 There was no need to lessen my dignity in Eedport as 
 Mr. Buller's legal adviser, or to give Adam Brown the 
 reputation he deserved, by explaining why I was doing 
 the work of a builder's clerk and messenger on tbia 
 occasion. 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 91 
 
 " All right," said the clerk, turning over the cheques 
 and duly noticing whether they were properly endorsed, 
 and so on. " Quite right. By the way, there's a message 
 or something the manager wants to send to Mr. Buller, 
 I believe. I was to tell Brown so when he called. I 
 suppose you'll do just the same?" 
 
 "I can take any message for Mr. Buller," said I. 
 " Anyhow, I shall be seeing him on Monday if that will 
 do." 
 
 "I daresay it will. Would you mind stepping this 
 way?" 
 
 I followed the clerk into an inner room, where I for the 
 first time met the manager of the Eedport branch of the 
 County Bank, hitherto known to me as Mr. George 
 Bichards by name only. We bowed, and he offered me 
 a seat politely. 
 
 "You are my friend Mr. Buller's new clerk of the 
 works, I presume?" asked he. 
 
 " No," said I. " I have no business in Eedport, except 
 to cash and pay in these papers for Mr. Buller, while 
 passing by. But if there is any message I can give 
 him—" 
 
 " I don't know. You are not leaving Eedport immedi- 
 ately, I suppose ? " 
 
 "Well, as to that, I am. In fact, by the very next 
 train." 
 
 "By the next train? H'm!" Mr. Eichards was a 
 very young man for his place, and I began to fancy there 
 was something I did not like in his manner. " Going 
 back to Carcester anyhow, I suppose ? " he asked 
 again. 
 
 " Yes," I answered shortly. " And I believe the train 
 starts in half an hour. So if you can tell me what you 
 want said to Mr. Buller I shall be glad, as I haven't 
 much time to lose." 
 
 "Yes — of course — certainly. But there is a little 
 
92 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 matter : would you mind telling me if you received these 
 cheques straight from Mr. Buller ? " 
 
 " Certainly I did. Is there anything wrong?" 
 
 " You received them just as they are now ? " 
 
 " Exactly as they are now. What is it, Mr. Eichards ? 
 I am really in a hurry — " 
 
 "I'm very sorry. But you see, I am in a respon- 
 sible position, and one can't be too careful in these 
 days. I have already sent a messenger to telegraph 
 to Mr. Buller; would you mind waiting here till he 
 comes?" 
 
 " The messenger ? " 
 
 " No, till Mr. Buller can come over. I daresay it is 
 all right, but — " 
 
 "But I can't wait, Mr. Eichards. May I ask you 
 what you mean ? I can tell you that Mr. Buller is not 
 in Carcester, and will not get your telegram till Monday, 
 if then." 
 
 "That's awkward, by Jove, if it is so. But that we 
 shall see." 
 
 "But meanwhile I must wish you good-day. If there's 
 anything wrong you must settle it with Mr. Buller. I 
 can't wait now.'' 
 
 "No? Well, then, Mr.— Mr.— I must frankly tell you 
 that I must ask you to wait, even if it's till Monday, till 
 Mr. Buller can come over here. It's an awkward situa- 
 tion I'm placed in, but — and I daresay Mr. Buller is not 
 at Carcester, as you say; but — well: whether you're — 
 it's all right or all wrong, you see, it's in you own interest 
 that I must ask you to remain. You see here's a cheque 
 here that I daren't cash without special instructions from 
 Mr. Buller." 
 
 "Don't cash it, then. Good-day — " 
 
 " Quite so. But I'd advise you not to be in quite such 
 a hurry to be off, all the same. In fact, it's my 
 unpleasant duty to ask you to stay here at the bank until 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 93 
 
 the fact of this cheque being in your hands can be more 
 fully explained." 
 
 "I have explained it," I began rather angrily. "I 
 received it from Mr. Buller, if it came out with the rest 
 from that case lying before you. Why should you venture 
 to speak, even to a stranger, as if you had any reason to 
 doubt his word ? I don't understand this at all." 
 
 " For this reason : I have the best reason for believing 
 that this cheque was never drawn by Mr. Buller. And 
 now you see how it becomes my unpleasant duty — " 
 
 " Nonsense ! As if I hadn't received every one of those 
 cheques straight from his hands I You talk as if you 
 took me for a forger. Well, I suppose I must excuse 
 you, on the ground of over-zeal." 
 
 " It is most improbable that this cheque was drawn by 
 — well, never mind why. I'm bound to tell you that if 
 you refuse to wait here for Mr. Buller's arrival of your 
 own free will, and in your own interest, I shall have to 
 call upon the police to assist me in the execution of my 
 duty towards the bank and its customers and the public 
 at large." 
 
 " Why," I began, my anger half losing itself in amuse- 
 ment, " this is something too absurd. You can't call in 
 a constable unless you can give him good reason to 
 suspect me of felony. I have half a mind to let you try, 
 for the fun of the thing. Only it would be wasting my 
 own time. So I'll put an end to your scruples about the 
 public at large by telling you at once that my name is 
 Standish, and that I am solicitor to Mr. Buller, and live 
 at Carcester. And the next time I advise you, as a 
 lawyer, to be more careful how you treat people who 
 come to your bank." 
 
 "You are Mr. Buller's solicitor? Indeed? Of course 
 that is important — very important ; and no doubt you 
 can send for somebody in Bedport who knows you ? No 
 1 — we can't be too careful in these days." 
 
04 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " I don't know a soul in Kedport." 
 
 " No ? H'm 1 Well, Mr. Buller will know you — when 
 he comes." 
 
 " But I tell you he won't get your telegram for at least 
 two days. This is monstrous ! " I broke out, my amuse- 
 ment turning back into anger again. 
 
 " Monstrous or not— "Well then, perhaps, as you feel 
 safe from being brought face to face with — I should say, 
 as you are convinced Mr. Buller is not at home, I suppose 
 you have friends or clerks in Carcester who could give 
 evidence as to who you say you are — are, I ought no 
 doubt to say? The telegraph's as open to you as to me." 
 
 " You positively are so insane as to say you will forcibly 
 detain me — me — in Bedport unless I can convince you 
 that I am myself ? And for no reason — " 
 
 " You must make up your mind to it. I know what 
 law is," said Mr. Bichards ; " and — well, not to mince 
 matters, I've already got our police-sergeant waiting in 
 the next room. A messenger from the bank can despatch 
 any summons to any of your friends, if you'll write it 
 down. Yes — it is in my power to give you into custody 
 on suspicion of having forged a cheque which you your- 
 self admit has passed through the hands of no third 
 parties — a cheque for £50, signed John Buller. And as 
 to why I have particular reasons for my belief, I don't 
 mind telling you it's because the bank here has had 
 special notice from the chief branch at Carcester to cash 
 no cheques signed "John Buller" till we've communicated 
 with the drawer, and to detain the person presenting 
 them, whoever he may be — unless the cheques bear a 
 certain private sign. There's reason for that, you may 
 be sure. And there is the sign on every one of these 
 cheques — except the one for £50." 
 
 " You mean to say that this cheque for £50 is the only 
 one unmarked ? " 
 
 " The only one." 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 95 
 
 "Let me see it, if you please." 
 
 He held it so that I might see it, taking care tnat I 
 should have no chance of wresting it from his hands. I 
 certainly could not blame him any longer for over-zeal, 
 seeing it was on my own advice he was acting. But 
 what room could I find for a single thought, save that an 
 unmarked cheque, as like those presented by Adam Brown 
 as a cheque could be, had been received straight from 
 John Buller's very own hands by my very own ? Surely it 
 looked more like witchcraft than forgery. 
 
 And yet Adam's effective confession of guilt, and the 
 regularity with which the undoubtedly forged cheques 
 had been presented — I could not make head or tail of it 
 at all. I must have been bewildered; I must have 
 seemed confused, as if with guilt or fright, for I was con- 
 fused in reality. I could not even affect the indignation 
 of injured honesty; I was not indignant with Mr. 
 Bichards for being suspicious of what might be witch- 
 craft, but certainly had all the air of a forgery — I, Charles 
 Standish, being the forger 1 
 
 " It is utterly unintelligible," said I, using the common 
 phrase of people who won't, rather than can't, explain 
 things that seem going against them. " But I am sure of 
 one thing — Charles Standish of Carcester I am. And I 
 don't want to stay in Bedport till Monday. I will tele- 
 graph, as you say. I'll send word to my wife to — but 
 no ; she's not in Carcester either just now. I must send 
 for one of the clerks at the office, I'm afraid, and make 
 everybody wonder at what I can have been doing at 
 Bedport to need proof of my identity. Give me a form, 
 and I'll write a message for my clerk — " 
 
 For my own credit's sake, and out of justice to Mr. 
 Bichards's zeal, I chose to wait in an inner office of the 
 bank till somebody whom I knew should come. I need 
 hardly say that Mr. Buller, being away from getting 
 
96 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 telegrams, never came. But it was not till hours had 
 passed that I began to realise that it was Saturday after- 
 noon — and that my idle dogs of clerks had of course 
 taken advantage of my absence to close the office and go 
 off to play at an exceptionally early hour. Closing time 
 for the bank itself (also earlier than usual on Saturdays) 
 had come when I saw in my mind, as clearly and truly 
 as with my eyes, my telegram lying unopened on my 
 clerk's desk at Carcester — and to-morrow was Sunday. 
 
 All I could do was to send off six telegrams to six 
 different people, in the bare hope that one of them might 
 bring over to Eedport some respectable citizen of 
 Carcester before the very last train. Not one brought a 
 soul. And I could see what Mr. Eichards thought of the 
 result of my telegrams when I had, perforce, to put up 
 with the accommodation of the police-station instead of the 
 hotel, there to remain until John Buller himself should 
 come and set me free. 
 
 In effect, I was a prisoner on suspicion of Forgery — 
 and I had in truth presented an unquestionably forged 
 cheque that had been through no hands but my own I It 
 was the most unaccountable mystery I had ever known ; 
 and it kept me from sleeping, even more than the dis- 
 comfort of my cell, as much as if I were really a conscious 
 sharer in the villanies of Adam Brown. This could not 
 be his doing — and what then of the rest, and of his 
 admitted guilt concerning them ? Not even sleep, when 
 it came in an uncomfortable shape at last, let me dream 
 of a possible way through such a mystery. 
 
 It was not till Monday afternoon that I received the 
 welcome news that John Buller was on his way to see 
 me at the police-station in company with Mr. Eichards. 
 I must say that I had become more anxious now about 
 getting home as fast as I could than about anything else 
 in the world. It is not an amusing thing to be treated 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 97 
 
 in a strange place as a suspected felon ; and I have held 
 very strong views about the treatment of unconvicted 
 prisoners ever since that Eedport Sunday. 
 
 "Here he is, sir," said Mr. Eichards. "This is the 
 — the gentleman who presented that cheque on Saturday 
 morning. I hope and trust it's all right ; but in these 
 times, you see, one can't be too — " 
 
 " Thank Heaven, at last ! " said I, springing from my 
 seat, and holding out my hand. " I've never passed so 
 long a day since I was born ; but I certainly don't com- 
 plain of Mr. Eichards — he's been zealous enough, 
 anyhow; and I only wish my clerks would simply do 
 what they're bid, and give up that confounded habit of 
 thinking for themselves. If you ever have to leave the 
 Company's service, Mr. Eichards, for want of thinking- 
 power, never mind ; I'll take you into mine. Well, Mr. 
 Buller, you must have slipped into drawing one unmarked 
 cheque, after all?" 
 
 " No, sir ! " said John Buller, with strange vehemence, 
 for him. " No — I did not draw that cheque — with or 
 without a sign. I drew no cheque for fifty pounds at all. 
 And if you're the rascal that has been up to these games, 
 and got it all on poor young Adam's shoulders, I'm glad 
 I see you here; I'm glad of it, with all my heart and 
 soul. I'm hanged if I didn't know I was right, all along. 
 Adam Brown, if a letter can find him, poor lad, goes back 
 to my works at Eedport this very hour ! " 
 
 Could I believe my ears ? 
 
 "You — John Buller — you believe me guilty of having 
 forged cheques, and tried to throw the guilt of it upon 
 Adam Brown ? Think for one least moment of what you 
 are saying — " 
 
 " Think? Thinking's plain enough, it seems to me — a 
 mile too plain by the longest chalks you can draw. It's 
 likelier anybody would be a rogue than the orphan lad 
 I'd brought up as my own son. I daresay, like enough, 
 
98 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 he was too taken aback by such a charge to say a word. 
 I wonder he didn't double his fist, and knock me down. 
 But I hope I'm a just man if I'm a bit of a hasty one. 
 I'm not going to be hasty with you. If you can 
 explain what's at best an ugly business, say it out like 
 a man." 
 
 " If I didn't respect an old client, and an old friend — 
 But I can't forget how you've been worrying about this 
 business. Explain? I will, though I don't see how you 
 and I can ever be friends again. You know as well as 
 I do that I never cashed a cheque for you in my life 
 before, or ever was at Bedport till the day before 
 yesterday — " 
 
 "Ay; so you say." 
 
 " So I do say. And you know that I received that case 
 of cheques and bills — whatever they were, for I never 
 looked at them — from your own hands on Saturday 
 morning." 
 
 " Did you? That's my cheque-case, sure enough. But 
 suppose you did, what then ? Because something comes 
 out of it, it doesn't follow it was I who put it in. No, 
 no. I never drew that cheque. You present it to be 
 cashed, and it purports to be drawn, signed, and endorsed 
 by me. You say you received it from me. I say you 
 didn't. And I ought to know; for you couldn't have 
 received a cheque that never was drawn. Justice is 
 justice. Adam Brown goes back to my works; and 
 you'll go to the country's, whoever you are. I don't 
 know what's the right way to start a prosecution, 
 but that's easy known. I'll see Standish this very 
 day." 
 
 "You'll see Standish?" 
 
 "Ay, Standish of Oarcester, my lawyer. Criminal 
 business isn't his line, he says; but he'll do it for 
 me." 
 
 "You mean I'm to prosecute myself? Well, it all 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 99 
 
 seems queer enough. Perhaps I don't know who I am. 
 Do you ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I don't, I'm happy to say. Forgers aren't in 
 my line." 
 
 " Good Heaven ! Do you mean to deny that I am Mr. 
 Standish of Carcester ? " 
 
 I saw a very decided smile come over the face of Mr. 
 Eichards. And it was not pleasant to see. For if John 
 Buller, as he was quite capable of doing, chose to prosecute 
 me for forgery — well, I should be acquitted, of course, 
 but my character would be gone for ever and a day. The 
 names of ladies are not more delicate than those of 
 professional men. 
 
 " Come, none of that nonsense," said John Buller, 
 "you're no more Standish than I am the Duke of 
 "Wellington. It does aggravate me to hear a man talk in 
 that way. If you choose to deny that you're the Duke 
 of Wellington, when I say you are, we'll have a wager 
 upon that, and toss up for the winner. You come and 
 dine with me at the Star, both of you, and I'll treat you like 
 princes. We'll eat cheques for fifty pound apiece between 
 slices of brown bread-and-butter cut thin, with lemon 
 and cayenne. Its very odd, but I took a fancy to you 
 the first minute I saw you. There's something about 
 you puts me in mind of somebody or other — I never could 
 remember names. But it's all one whoever we are. 
 We're the sparks that fly upwards ; and by Jingo, we'll 
 
 have a jolly good fly Whoare^/ow?" he called 
 
 out at the top of his voice to Bichards. "You're a 
 murderer, sir, and a forger, and a fool. Come and dine 
 with me at the Star. . . ." 
 
 I need not continue the talk of poor John Buller, whom 
 over-work, and loss of faith in the one human being who 
 was dear to him, had driven out of his mind. It was an 
 overwhelming relief when my managing-clerk arrived, 
 and when sufficient explanations were obtained to allow 
 
 h 2 
 
100 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 of my return home in company with my poor friend. 
 Even to the zealous Mr. Eichards the state of things was 
 as clear as day, so far as he knew. 
 
 m. 
 
 It was not hard for me, now, to see how John Buller, 
 once assured against his will of Adam's treachery in the 
 first instance, had brooded over the shock, with an already 
 over-lonely and over-burdened mind, till, as sure as 
 Friday night came round, he, possessed by the demon of 
 monomania — which simply means the abnormal growth 
 of a natural and normal idea — drew the cheque which 
 haunted and fascinated him. If my readers cannot 
 follow the chain of mental association, with its manifold 
 links of time, place, person, and occasion, in which his 
 disturbed brain became tangled and coiled, I fear I cannot 
 hope to make it very clear. But there are very few who 
 have not met with the most extraordinary cases of mono- 
 mania in some form, and noticed how consistent they 
 are with all outward appearance of sanity. Are there 
 very many of us who have not felt some form of it our- 
 selves in some slight degree ? But, fortunately, few of 
 us live altogether alone ; few of us are over-trustful or, 
 therefore, half maddened when deceived ; most of us 
 have more, if not much more, self-control than was 
 evidently possessed by John Buller. And yet he must 
 have had a great deal. Only the insane can tell the very 
 torture of self-suppression they have to undergo when 
 they feel monomania slowly broadening into a wider, if 
 not deeper, mode of lunacy. For, conscious of its own 
 state every diseased brain must be when that state first 
 begins. 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 101 
 
 And yet — could this be all? The madness of John 
 Buller did not account for the more than apparent guilt 
 of Adam Brown. 
 
 It was not till years afterwards — not till my poor old 
 friend had left all his troubles behind him ; not till I had 
 long ago given up puzzling my head about the matter — 
 that I one day received a letter bearing an Australian 
 post-mark, and addressed to myself in a strange hand. 
 There was nothing curious in that ; but, as I read, the 
 story I have been trying to tell came back to me as 
 freshly as if it had all happened yesterday. For thus the 
 letter ran : 
 
 " Sir, — It will doubtless surprise you to receive this 
 from me ; for I cannot suppose that you will remember 
 so much as my name. But you will remember — I fear 
 only too well — a clerk in the service of Mr. John Buller, 
 who was dismissed from his service for embezzlement. 
 I am that man ; and my reason for calling myself to your 
 remembrance is, that I have at last found myself able to 
 repay the sums that I abstracted wrongfully, and for 
 which only Mr. Buller's kindness saved me from being 
 sent to gaol. I do not, moreover, want him to think me 
 always such a hopelessly ungrateful and treacherous 
 scoundrel as he must be thinking me. I got into bad 
 ways, knowing them bad all the time. I wanted more 
 money than I could get honestly, and I had to pay it. I 
 needn't tell that story ; it's over now, and no harm done 
 to anybody but me. 
 
 " I was tempted, by what I called to myself need and 
 weakness, to ' borrow,' I called it then — to steal, that is 
 to say — some of the money I drew from Eedport bank. 
 I had complete control of the accounts at Eedport, and I 
 suppose it was all so easy that at first it didn't so much 
 feel like stealing, and so I went on and on. I used to 
 
102 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 take sometimes more than fifty pounds together. I've 
 sent you a statement of all I took; and I hope it's 
 correct, for of course I had to muddle up all the accounts. 
 You see, sir, Mr. Buller always used to give me a fifty- 
 pound cheque over and above what I asked for, meaning, 
 I suppose, to keep plenty of ready-money in the works 
 for the week ; and I never told him it was more than was 
 wanted, for the reasons I've written. The only excuse I 
 had is this — I never knew how much I owed to Mr. 
 Buller. I thought I was nothing more to him, and 
 rather less, than any other man. That's no reason I 
 should rob him, but it makes me a bit less of a thorough 
 blackguard. He ought to have had me sent to gaol. And 
 when he didn't, but just as much as told me to go and 
 do no more wrong, as if I had been his own son — well, 
 sir, it did go to the bottom of all the heart I've got, and 
 I'd like him just to know that he wasn't foolish in being 
 kind. If I ever did another wrong, or mean, or dishonest 
 thing, I should have been the biggest cur on earth. I got 
 a chance in New Zealand, and I should like him to know 
 that his words made a man of me. This is a poor sort 
 of a letter, but I can't say what I feel, and I won't 
 try. — Trusting to hear from you per return, yours 
 respectfully, 
 
 "Adam Bbown." 
 
 And that is the not wholly unsatisfactory end of a sad 
 story. I suppose that the first cheque must have been 
 some sort of a blunder; and that an obstinate man's 
 supposition that forgery on somebody else's part was 
 more probable than a blunder on his own, resulted in 
 — what we have seen. I intended, when I set out, to 
 point a good number of morals, legal and otherwise. 
 But I will content myself with two. One is, that justice 
 has even queerer ways of going to work than law — as 
 when it punishes a man for a fault that hasn't been found 
 
A CIRCUMSTANTIAL PUZZLE. 103 
 
 out by finding him guilty of one that he has never com- 
 mitted. The other is, that trust, even if carried to the 
 pitch of insanity, is not by any means so mad a thing as 
 it seems. John Buller's over-trust sent him out of his 
 own mind, but it saved another man. 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES; 
 
 OB, WHAT MY DEE AM TOLD ME. 
 
 The Kenricks were always a large family. When I was 
 a lad, I drew up a genealogical table, whence it appeared 
 that I, Arthur George Ford Kenrick, was at that period 
 the possessor of eleven uncles and aunts on my father's 
 side, of twenty-eight first cousins in the persons of their 
 children, and of eight brothers and sisters of my own. I 
 was the eldest son of a second brother. My eldest uncle 
 — my uncle George, to wit, who was also my godfather, 
 as my second name testifies — was the great man of our 
 tribe, and the head of the firm of Kenrick & Company, 
 merchants, of Shanghai. My father had also made a 
 very respectable fortune as a colonial broker : my other 
 uncles were all prosperous fathers of families, and my 
 aunts were all flourishing mothers. As my branch of the 
 family tree developed from the budding stage of the 
 nursery and schoolroom, my sisters bade fair to follow 
 the good example of their aunts, and my brothers to take 
 after their uncles. I must ask my reader to get it well 
 into his head that I am distinctly a member of a very 
 large and exceedingly marrying family on my father's 
 side. That seemingly immaterial accident is the very 
 root of my whole story. 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 105 
 
 The only exception to the law of likeness which 
 governed the Kenricks in general was, at least until my 
 own birth, my uncle George. He alone had never 
 married: indeed, he both professed and practised such 
 misogynic principles as to have earned for himself the 
 name of " the old bachelor " at nineteen years old. He 
 had never stumbled over so much as the merest thres- 
 hold of flirtation. He was friendly with his sisters-in-law 
 and fond of his nieces ; but a strange petticoat was a 
 terror to him. A more easy-going genial man among 
 men was not to be found in the world than George 
 Kenrick ; but the appearance of a woman acted on him 
 like a sudden frost in summer. Nor did he by any means 
 conceal his objection to the sex at large, but was a public 
 and open railer at women and their ways. So that, in 
 spite of his good looks, good heart, good temper, and 
 good fortune, his enemies gave him up as a hopeless case 
 and left him alone. 
 
 It is easy to imagine how such a brother and uncle 
 was prized and honoured — for I can assure all whom it 
 concerns that it is not only the needy who make much of 
 a rich relation who has notoriously forsworn matrimony. 
 But it so happened that Uncle George took it into his 
 head that he would like to have a son and heir, so long 
 as he could manage it without the help of anything in the 
 shape of womankind. Naturally, as soon as I came into 
 the world, Uncle George was asked to be my godfather ; 
 and I had the advantage, it will be remembered, of being 
 the firstborn of the brother who came next to him. And, 
 curiously enough, it so happened that, as I grew up, I 
 became even less like a typical Kenrick than he. I was 
 idle at my books ; I was a dunce at arithmetic ; I was 
 mortally afraid of little girls. But I had a consuming 
 passion for paints and pencils, and one lucky or unlucky 
 day I made a shameless caricature of Uncle George him- 
 self, which happened to fall into his own hands. 
 
106 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 I can see him now, turning it upside down, and down- 
 side up, and round and round ; and I can see his frown 
 trying to keep itself from turning into a smile. It was 
 really a very good bit of art in its way, I believe. 
 
 " If a herring and a half cost threehalfpence, how 
 many can you buy for twopence ? " asked he. 
 
 I am sometimes uncertain of the correct answer to this 
 day ; but I said then, at a venture, " One and a 
 quarter." 
 
 " You'll do, my lad ! " said Uncle George cordially. 
 " I'd give my eyes to be a painter instead of a China 
 merchant ; but I never could draw a straight line, and I 
 never could manage to get less than value for my money. 
 Never mind — we'll have an artist in the family yet, and 
 I'll be he — by deputy. And if ever you get as far as 
 ' rule of three,' I'll—" 
 
 What he would do, I know not. But he had a long 
 talk with my father that same day. And it became an 
 understood thing in the family (which could well afford 
 the disappointment) that I was to study art at Uncle 
 George's expense, and was to be his sole heir : in effect, 
 that I was to be given over to him. So said, so done. It 
 is not his fault that I am not a better painter than I am. 
 Or rather it is his fault ; for I should surely have studied 
 harder had I not known myself to be sole heir, under his 
 will, to all the results of the business at Shanghai. My 
 father also altered his will ; and, as I was more than 
 amply provided for, divided among my eight brothers and 
 sisters what would have been my share of his fortune. 
 It was just, for I should eventually be richer than all my 
 brothers and sisters put together ; but I fancy that my 
 father may have thought it politic to insure my uncle's 
 mind against changing by making him feel that my career 
 was altogether dependent upon him. My history thence- 
 forth, up to the age of about eight-and-twenty, is soon 
 told. I was taken from school and put to painting, which 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 107 
 
 I followed with much more pleasure than industry, and 
 without exceeding my very handsome allowance by more 
 than was natural in one who never could understand the 
 price of herrings. My uncle returned to Shanghai ; and 
 very soon afterwards my father died, leaving behind him 
 the will I have described. 
 
 It was in the autumn of a never-to-be-forgotten year 
 that I started, alone, on a sketching-tour in North Wales, 
 and arrived, on foot, at the little inn of Llanpwll. That 
 little inn is an hotel now, and Llanpwll has been caught 
 and tamed ; but it was a pleasant place then, and full of 
 wild charm. I used to like rambling about myself in 
 those days, though less, I am afraid, for the sake of art 
 than for that of the litttle adventures one picks up by the 
 way ; and very little adventures will serve the turn of one 
 who is by nature a bit of a vagabond. At home in 
 London I liked comfort and pleasure as well as any man, 
 and was much too well off to be a free citizen of artistic 
 Bohemia. So it was all the more pleasant to become, 
 at times, a sharer with my fellows in all those luxuries of 
 freedom, hunger, solitude, and fatigue which money can- 
 not buy, and which, in great cities, are the privilege of 
 none but the poor. I never rode, I frequented the 
 humblest inns, I carried no baggage, and I outdid my 
 brother painters in the roughness and shabbiness of my 
 clothes; for painters were not then the well-trimmed race 
 that they have since become. 
 
 I was just as well off in mind, body, and estate as a 
 young man can be. I could work as much as I liked, 
 and I could idle as much as I liked, and both in the way 
 that best pleased me. I had perfect health, no restraints, 
 and no cares either for the day or for the morrow : I had 
 only to hold out my hand to life, and to draw it back well 
 filled. I was not even in love; for though I did not 
 altogether take after my uncle George in the matter of 
 
108 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 flirtations, and though my original fear of little girls had 
 not been carried on into my intercourse with great ones, 
 still my heart was just as free as my godfather's own. I 
 looked forward to passing just as many or just as few 
 pleasant days at Llanpwll as might please my humour, 
 and then tramping on to find yet pleasanter days else- 
 where. Fortune was my hostess everywhere, and always 
 a kind one. 
 
 The next day I rambled about in search of a subject 
 all day long, dined luxuriously on trout, and then slept a 
 single sleep for ten hours without a single dream. For I 
 must tell you that I never dream by night, whatever I 
 may do by day. My habit is to go off when my head 
 touches the pillow, and to wake up all over at once, as 
 soon as sleep has done its duty. I doubt if, in those days 
 at least, I really knew what dreaming meant. And I 
 never felt so refreshed and so vigorous as I did at break- 
 fast-time on that special next morning. 
 
 I had found a siibject that satisfied me with its promise, 
 and I was eager to begin. I need not describe it ; there 
 were water, wood, and mountain, and all the other stock 
 in art of rambling painters in North Wales. I would 
 really paint a picture this time. 
 
 But for once I had reckoned without my hostess — • 
 Fortune. On the very spot I had chosen for myself 
 yesterday there sat an earlier bird intent upon my worm ; 
 a rival wooer of Nature, painting as if she had not an 
 instant of her life to lose. Her life — for my rival was a 
 she. 
 
 Owing to the nature of the path, I had come upon her 
 almost before I saw her ; and she was far too absorbed to 
 have heard my coming. I hardly knew what to do. I 
 never felt more eager for work; I had lived a life of 
 mood-humouring, and I felt as if I must needs paint that, 
 picture or none, and to-day or never. And yet there was 
 no possible way of saying to her, " Pardon me : but this 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 109 
 
 bit of Nature is retained." Meanwhile I took a good 
 long look at her; for one does not — or rather in those 
 days did not — meet a wandering sketcher in petticoats 
 every day at out-of-the-way places like Llanpwll. And 
 less often still used one to meet sketchers in petticoats 
 like her; and not more often now than then. Uncle 
 George, no doubt, would have run away. I kept my 
 ground. 
 
 She was beyond all question a remarkably pretty girl 
 — really pretty, and not merely from a painter's point of 
 view. She was very pretty, and very little, and very 
 young. She was a lady, every inch of her — not that this 
 necessarily amounts to much, seeing how few her inches 
 were ; and she was tastefully as well as sensibly dressed 
 in — I am a bad hand at describing clothes — some very 
 plain dark stuff made in a very plain and homely fashion, 
 with some sort of hat as unpretending as the rest of her 
 costume. And now, having got rid of the clothes, for 
 her who wore them. Plain and homely as these were, 
 they did not altogether hide a most exquisite and most 
 perfect figure, charmingly slender and lithe, but in no 
 respect less full than is formed by health and Nature. 
 She was the sort of girl who would fly up a mountain, 
 and be fresher at the top than she was before she began 
 to climb. Her face, even at first sight, was indescribably 
 winning. When I call her pretty I hardly know, after all, 
 whether the word be the right one ; or, if it be, whether 
 it was not her expression, and not her features, that make 
 it so. I suppose the truth is that her features were pretty, 
 and their expression a great deal more. She was brightly 
 and healthily fair, not wholly unburned by the sun and wind, 
 which is by no means always so unbecoming as women 
 believe. Her eyes were gray, her nose neither long nor 
 short, and her mouth neither large nor small. That is 
 not much of a description for a painter. But it must 
 pass. For it was a good face, at once pure and wise, and 
 
110 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 lighted up with kind and gentle humour. I am not sure, 
 after all, that she was so much absorbed in her work as 
 not to have thoughts apart from, though they must needs 
 be in harmony with, the picture she was trying to make 
 her own. Though she had not heard my coming steps, I 
 could see that the bright September air and the deep 
 inaudible song that only belongs to mountain silence had 
 as much to do with the light in her face as what .was 
 seen by her eyes. There was something unspeakably 
 true, and simple, and natural, and wise in the best and 
 sweetest way, as surely about her as there was in the 
 light and the air. She seemed to make the day itself feel 
 the better for her being there. 
 
 But, nevertheless, she had picked up my own particular 
 worm. So I did the only thing that seemed to be left 
 me. Here was an adventure, anyhow. There was a 
 convenient bit of rock in which I could sit very comfort- 
 ably and unseen — unless she happened to look up, which 
 did not seem at all likely. I climbed to the top without 
 making any noise, put a block on my knees, and began to 
 sketch — Her. 
 
 So she sketched the scene, and I, till I could get my 
 innings, sketched the sketeher. As the minutes went by 
 I began to think that I had by no means the worse of the 
 bargain. There is plenty of Nature in North Wales, but 
 there are not many girls like this in Nature. Presently 
 I began to hope that she would not leave her work too 
 soon ; at least, not until I had done enough to make a 
 picture of at leisure. She worked hard and fast, and I 
 harder and faster ; and twenty times at least I caught 
 some new light or shade of expression that obliged me to 
 begin in spirit all over again. Never had I found a 
 subject that had interested me, nay, fascinated me more 
 — never since I had caricatured uncle George. 
 
 At last she laid down her work and rose. And, to my 
 dismay, she did look up, and she saw me as plainly as I 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. Ill 
 
 saw her. I laid my block face downwards, as guiltily as 
 if I had been caught red-handed in the middle of a 
 crime. 
 
 " Sir," she said, very quietly and calmly, but in a voice 
 — a very sweet one, by the way — that seemed somehow 
 to hide a smile, " would you mind being so kind as to 
 hand me down a small basket that you will find behind 
 that bit of rock on your left hand ? Thank you ; I am 
 very much obliged." 
 
 As all the world knows, there are exactly eleven 
 thousand three hundred and forty-five ways in which a 
 girl can speak to a strange young man whom she meets 
 alone by chance, and for the first time. The way in 
 which this girl spoke to me was in the very best of them. 
 It was most clearly not meant either to attract or to 
 encourage or to serve for ice-breaking, or, on the other 
 hand, to impress or repel ; she wanted something, and 
 she was not afraid to ask for it -simply and that was all. 
 It implied at once the courage that comes from trust, and 
 the trust that comes from courage. I suppose she had 
 never had cause to fear or mistrust any fellow human 
 soul. 
 
 She opened the basket I had handed her, took out some 
 sandwiches and a bottle of milk, and began to eat as 
 unconcernedly as if no male creature were by to see. 
 But if she felt no cause for fear, why — not being Uncle 
 George — should I ? 
 
 " We seem both to have been caught by the same bit," 
 said I. " This is what I was hunting for all yesterday. 
 But I suppose you know this country well? " 
 
 " Pretty well," said she. " But — may I not offer you 
 some of my dinner, as you don't seem to have brought 
 any of your own ? " 
 
 " I don't know how to say No; but I must say it, if I 
 may. I should like to see your morning's work, though 
 —if—'* 
 
112 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " Certainly," said she, handing me up a sketch which, 
 combined with her entire freedom from all shyness about 
 the matter, settled at once for me the question of whether 
 she was artist or amateur. Beyond question she was 
 fully as much an artist as I, and probably a great deal 
 more. " I'm afraid it is a sad libel, though. Will you, 
 please, let me see yours ? " 
 
 "Of course — " I was beginning, when I suddenly 
 remembered what my morning's work had been. I 
 suspected myself of colouring, and the suspicion fulfilled 
 itself, I am sure, in the usual way. " 0, mine— I'm 
 afraid," I said, leaping at whatever he was nearest to 
 hand, " I'm afraid I must plead guilty to hideous laziness 
 in the face of your industry. I've been all this while 
 going to begin. I wanted the afternoon light, you 
 see—" 
 
 " How lucky ! it is afternoon now. I wish you would 
 let me watch you work, if I may ? It will be a grand 
 chance for me." 
 
 " But you are yourself a painter, are not you? And a 
 fine one. I can't pretend. But our common choice of a 
 subject should be a sort of introduction between us, any 
 way. I've no doubt I am arguing myself unknown not 
 to know you, and shall feel ashamed of my ignorance 
 when I find out who you are. For I was certain by this 
 time that I had fallen in with somebody who was some- 
 body in the world of art, and whose name and works at 
 least I ought to know." 
 
 "I don't think it likely that you ever heard of me," 
 said she, a little stiffly. "I suppose you come from 
 London. I don't. You are not likely to have heard of 
 — of — of — Mildred Ashton. And as to being a painter, I 
 only know I am a very poor one indeed." 
 
 " Then all I can say is, you will not remain unknown 
 or poor for long. You have genius, Miss Ashton ; that is 
 a big word, but a true one." 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 113 
 
 Her whole face lighted up with pleasure. 
 
 " Do you really mean what you say ? " asked she. 
 
 "I hope I always mean what I say," said I stupidly 
 enough. It did not even strike me as strange that such 
 chance companions as we were should be beginning to 
 talk as if we were friends. I only noticed her childlike 
 pleasure at my speech, and that it was far too simple and 
 natural to be called vain. 
 
 "And you are a real painter?" she asked. 
 
 " It is my calling. Isn't it yours ? " 
 
 " I have no other. But I want teaching very badly 
 indeed. I have told you my name. What is yours ? " 
 
 " Arthur Kenrick." 
 
 " No doubt I ought to know it, only I don't," said she, 
 nearly echoing my own words. "The only Kenrick I 
 ever heard of is a friend of a cousin of mine, who lives in 
 China, at a place called Shanghai — " 
 
 " What 1 you know my uncle, Miss Ashton? That is 
 strange indeed I I am the nephew of Mr. George 
 Kenrick of Shanghai." 
 
 "No, I don't know him," said Miss Ashton. "But 
 why is it strange that your uncle should know my cousin, 
 when they both live in the same town ? However, I am 
 glad that I know it is so, and therefore a little about who 
 you are. Are you not going to begin ? " 
 
 It is only a great deal too easy to write down empty 
 words. But until some man of science finds out how to 
 reproduce their tone and colour, the pen must be content 
 to be to the tongue what a mere photograph is to a 
 picture. I am obliged to be vain enough to suppose that 
 Miss Ashton took me for some sort of a gentleman, which 
 means a man to whom any woman may speak freely 
 under any circumstances and at any time. But she 
 must have been exceptionally a lady to accept her freedom 
 as so much a matter of course, and without the least 
 shadow of a thought that her making a stranger's 
 
114 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 acquaintance in this fashion might be thought a little 
 strange by others. I only wish I had the least power of 
 saying exactly what I mean. I can only wish that we 
 all lived in a world where introductions and credentials 
 could be ignored as foolish forms. As it is, those who 
 ignore them must either be worse and more foolish than 
 their neighbours, or else as wise as the serpent and as 
 harmless as the dove. And nobody who had eyes and 
 ears could doubt for a moment as to which order Mildred 
 Ashton belonged to. I worked and she watched, for the 
 greater part of the afternoon, without any talk worth 
 mentioning. I learned no more about her than her name, 
 and gathered no more otherwise than that she was poor, 
 lived outside the gates of the world, and loved her art in 
 a very different fashion from mine. I felt as if, until 
 to-day, I had been living — no, not living — existing — with- 
 out a soul. 
 
 In a word, I was not the same Arthur Kenrick who 
 had come down to Llanpwll. That evening's trout, it is 
 true, had rather gained in flavour, and that night's sleep 
 in depth and sweetness ; but I knew, when I rose next 
 morning, that I was a new man, wofully dissatisfied with 
 the old one. ' I had been drinking the cold dull water of 
 selfishness for eight-and-twenty years ; yesterday I had 
 taken my first taste of life's nectar. But such tastes do 
 not quench the thirst for many hours. I went as straight 
 to the place where I had met Mildred Ashton as if I 
 could have fairly hoped to drink there a second time. I 
 had no right to hope ; but, nevertheless, in the same spot 
 [ found her again, working harder than before; nor, 
 when she saw me, did she show the faintest affectation 
 of surprise. Strangers as we were, and short-lived as 
 my new self had been — not a whole day old — I felt half 
 angry that she should treat me as if I were so utterly a 
 nobody. I fancied I should have been better pleased had 
 she stayed away that day. But then that would have 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 11& 
 
 shown self-consciousness ; and it was the absence of 
 every hint of possible self-consciousness that was her 
 greatest charm — perhaps the whole source of her 
 charm. 
 
 There was no reason why I should not work within sight 
 and speech of her ; and so I did, with no barrier but my 
 own increasing shyness between her and me. We talked 
 a little but not much, between whiles, and then mostly 
 about my own experiences of art and travel, in which she 
 took the interest of one who has had no such experiences 
 of her own. But even in such somewhat one-sided talk 
 I could not help learning more about her than I knew 
 yesterday. She lived in a far-away part of England — a 
 flat uninteresting country of which I knew nothing. She 
 was staying with some relations at a farm with an 
 unpronounceable name some few miles away, and spent 
 the whole of her time in sketching out of doors. She 
 had some other relations in Shanghai, with whom she 
 corresponded sometimes, and through whom she had 
 heard of my uncle George in a slight and casual way. 
 She had neither father nor mother, brother nor sister, 
 and no doubt depended on the relations with whom she 
 was staying until she could support herself by her pencil. 
 When I left her that day all the pleasure of my new life 
 had gone, and the beginning of its pain had come. And 
 whether such pleasure or such pain be the better, is more 
 than I can tell. 
 
 How our meetings grew into a habit, very matter of 
 course on her part, full of excitement on mine, would be 
 far too long to say. There was certainly nothing 
 unnatural, however unconventional, in the growth of a 
 friendship between two would-be artists of whom one 
 wanted help and the other wanted — everything. We had 
 found one another in a world to which conventions did 
 not belong, and in which people soon learn to know each 
 other apart from the accidents of fortune. There was 
 
 I 2 
 
116 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 certainly no very great harm for her to find out in me, 
 and there was nothing but good in her. Let me leap to 
 the end at once — I knew that I had found her who must 
 be my wife, whatever else she might be ; and sometimes 
 I hoped, and sometimes despaired. 
 
 But why, you will ask, should 1 despair — I, a favourite 
 of Fortune, who would be very rich some day, and was 
 rich enough already — of winning a poor girl without 
 friends or means ? Ah, but that was just the thing that 
 troubled me 1 With all my faith in her, 1 dreaded the 
 thought of buying her hand to an almost morbid degree. 
 Had she been rich I should have had a hundred times 
 less fear. I must win her as the poor painter I seemed, 
 or not at all ; she must not be exposed for a moment to 
 the temptation of taking me because I was rich ; and if 
 she took me with that knowledge I should never be able 
 to rid myself of the doubt that she might never have taken 
 me had I been poor. From the moment that my heart 
 made itself up to win her I took every chance I could of 
 acting out the part of the struggling artist without a penny, 
 whose whole fortune is in the air. It would be time 
 enough for her to learn the truth when she was won — if 
 that was ever to be ; if she was not altogether beyond 
 and above my winning, as I very largely feared. Her 
 manner was the same towards me as on the very first day. 
 And yet I had not reached that point when a man would 
 rather have a " No " than no answer at all. It was first 
 love with me, remember, in which only the most hopeless 
 fools can possibly be altogether wise. 
 
 I have said that I never dreamed. But one night, after 
 a long afternoon spent in Mildred's company, a new and 
 strange experience happened to me. I did dream. 
 Regular and experienced dreamers may not think my 
 dream a particularly strange or remarkable one. But it 
 was remarkably strange to me, just because it was a 
 Dream. 
 
ONLY TEN MINVTES. 117 
 
 It was not of Mildred. Professed dreamers tell me that 
 dreams very seldom relate to the days which they follow : 
 that the fulness of the heart may be often the moving 
 cause, but very rarely fashions the form. It seemed to 
 me, with extraordinary vividness, that some genii of an 
 Arabian midnight had transported me from Llanpwll to 
 Shanghai. At least I suppose it must have been Shanghai, 
 though the place was more like what, in my waking fancies, 
 I imagine Pekin, or any typically Chinese city, to be. I 
 can remember noticing, without any surprise, that all the 
 houses, and even many of the people who crowded the 
 streets, were made of porcelain, mostly blue and white, 
 and all exceedingly small : the buildings did not reach 
 above my shoulders, nor the people much above my knees. 
 Nobody, however, noticed me, and this did surprise me a 
 little, though I have been told that incapacity for feeling 
 surprise at anything is the grand test of a dream. So, if 
 this theory be correct, I was not dreaming at all, but was 
 really in Shanghai, or Pekin, or wherever it may be. I 
 walked about the streets, in search of some unknown 
 something, careful not to crack any of the porcelain with 
 the large stick I carried. Presently I had a curious 
 feeling of laborious oppression, especially about the knees, 
 which seemed to have become suddenly loaded with lead, 
 so heavy to lift were they. I still laboured on ; and the 
 oppression I felt took an external form, as if my own 
 personality extended itself outwardly from me to every- 
 thing about me. The air became a thick yellow cloud, 
 very hot, and almost stifling, with a disagreeable flavour, 
 like what I suppose a London fog in the dog-days would 
 be. How I managed to enter one of the porcelain dolls' 
 houses, I know not ; but I must have done so, for I 
 presently found myself in a large room, papered all over 
 with playing cards. And there I saw uncle George. 
 
 It did not surprise me that he was standing upright in 
 a brass candlestick — that seemed quite as natural as that 
 
118 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 he was burning in some indescribable manner with a wick 
 and a flame. If I shut my eyes I can see it all now as 
 clearly as then, for never was any waking impression 
 more vivid ; and yet for the life of me I cannot describe 
 the exact manner in which he was identified with a lighted 
 candle. The really extraordinary part of the matter was 
 that the flat dish of the candlestick had two stems, and 
 that in the second, and in like manner, burned the figure 
 of a woman, whose face did not seem wholly strange to me, 
 though I could not connect it with any face I had ever 
 seen. I could not tell whether uncle George saw me or 
 no. He and the woman became more and more distinctly 
 candlelike without losing their original natures ; in a way, 
 they were being transformed into candles without in the 
 least ceasing to be entirely themselves. I did not in any 
 way confuse myself with what I saw — another unusual 
 feature, I am told, in a dream. Presently the melted 
 grease began to run down, and to encircle the human 
 candles with broad spiral folds. I counted the folds as 
 they formed themselves with singular regularity — One : 
 two : three : four : five : six : seven : eight : nine : a tenth 
 was half formed, when suddenly the two flames began to 
 splutter, and then to leap and flicker. I saw that they 
 were on the point of going out, and wondered which of the 
 two would be the first to go. It was the woman — out 
 she went, and I saw her no more. My uncle still burned 
 on, but always in the same unwholesome way. Some- 
 times his flame started up, yellow and clear ; sometimes it 
 spluttered down to a blue point, like the light of a glow- 
 worm. I was about to speak to him, when out he went 
 also; and, after a rush through leagues of air, I found 
 myself transported back from China to my bed at 
 Llanpwll, as unrefreshed as if my journey had been real. 
 " So that's dreaming, is it?" thought I. "I suppose 
 it's all right to experience everything just once, but if it 
 depends upon me, I'll never try that again. It seems to 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 119 
 
 me uncommonly like a spasm of lunacy ; and where the 
 pleasure of it lies 1 can't see. And yet I'm as certain 
 that I saw Uncle George turned into a candle, with my 
 own eyes, as I am that I see the wall before me. And 
 in the same candlestick with a woman — that's too utterly 
 absurd." I leaped out of bed, and in ten minutes was in 
 full swim across the little lake below the inn. By the 
 time I had reached the other side the dream had left 
 me — like a dream. 
 
 But the lake did not prove Lethe, for long. While I 
 was going to the place where I now knew I should find 
 Mildred, the grotesque scene of the human candles 
 burning out in a room made of playing cards came back 
 to me in all its vividness, and made me feel most absurdly 
 uncomfortable. I suppose people who often dream get 
 used to such night adventures ; as for me, I could not 
 convince my unreason that what I had seen was abso- 
 lutely unreal. It was a relief to me when I saw Mildred 
 again ; for need I say that my heart had been filled with 
 heavy forebodings about her by this idiotic dream ? 
 
 " Do you ever have dreams, Miss Ashton? " 
 
 "Very often. Why?" 
 
 " Then perhaps you can read me mine." I told her 
 my story ; and telling it in the fresh air under the light 
 of the sun proved a better way of putting it into the light 
 of nonsense than even my plunge into the lake had 
 been. 
 
 "It is certainly a very odd sort of nightmare," said 
 she. " But I fancy you are wrong in thinking that it had 
 nothing to do with the day. I daresay we had mentioned 
 your uncle ; no doubt you had been thinking about him, 
 and a dream of China of course would suggest a great 
 deal of china-ware. The fog and the weight of the knees 
 are signs of unpleasant dreams that everybody knows. 
 Of course, since you tell me that your uncle is a woman- 
 hater you would naturally see a woman with him in a 
 
120 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 dream ; and as to the candles and the flat brass candle- 
 stick — what was the last thing you saw or did befora 
 sleeping? You put out your candle, I suppose; and — " 
 
 "And it was in a flat brass candlestick? That it 
 certainly was. Well, I suppose you are right as usual, 
 and that there was really nothing out of the common in 
 recognizing one's uncle in a candle. I certainly don't 
 see what it could portend : most decidedly it can never 
 come true. You say you dream ; have you ever known 
 a dream come true? " 
 
 " Never, strange to say." 
 
 " Strange ? I should have thought all the strangeness 
 would be the other way, if all dreams were like mine." 
 
 " But they are not all like yours," said Mildred. "And 
 surely it is almost a miracle, out of the millions and 
 millions of dreams that are dreamed every night all over 
 the world, so few thousands should happen by chance to 
 be fulfilled. The fewness of their fulfilments is the most 
 wonderful thing about dreams." 
 
 " Well, my uncle is not likely to turn into a candle, 
 anyhow. However, I'm glad to think that my brain had 
 some foundation of fact to build upon — " 
 
 " If you were used to dreaming, you would think 
 nothing of it, indeed. I have much stranger dreams 
 than that, often and often ; but I take them as a matter 
 of course, and never think of them after waking." 
 
 I wished with all my heart that she would take things 
 less as a matter of course. Would she take it as a matter of 
 course that I should ask her to be my wife, and that she 
 should say No ? But there was not much chance of let- 
 ting one's own thoughts take the bit between their teeth 
 in her company. She had an insatiable appetite for what 
 I looked upon as hard work, but which never wearied 
 her. I believe I had done twice as much work in these 
 few weeks as in a whole year before — not that this is to 
 gay a great deal. Before long my dream was absolutely 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 121 
 
 forgotten once more — no doubt, had it not been a new 
 experience, it would, as she had said, have been absolutely 
 forgotten long ago. 
 
 But presently it came back, in quite a new way. Had 
 it not led the way to the interpretation of another dream ? 
 It needed some courage to risk putting an end to the 
 idyl of Llanpwll. But it had to be done; I felt as if 
 something would keep the end from ever coming unless 
 it came to-day. 
 
 "I have not told you the whole of my dream yet," 
 said I at last, laying down my brush. " Shall I tell you 
 the rest ? Though it seems impossible you should need 
 to be told. There ; I will and I must tell you. All day 
 long I am dreaming that I love you — no, that is no 
 dream — but that I have told you so, and that you have 
 said — But why am I talking about dreams ? If you 
 haven't guessed that I loved you the first day I saw you, 
 once for all, you know it now. Don't say we know 
 nothing of one another yet, for we do — " 
 
 So much I know I said ; I am not such an impostor as 
 to pretend that I can repeat the rest of the words in 
 which I asked Mildred to marry me. Were the sentences 
 quite coherent, grammatical, and full of meaning for 
 strange ears, in which you asked your wife (if you have 
 one) to marry you — always supposing that you loved her 
 below the depth of your tongue, and had more fear than 
 hope of her answer ? I spoke on with my whole heart ; 
 I looked in her face, not knowing what to read. It was 
 full of what might mean a thousand things. I did not 
 dare to hold out my hand; only while I spoke I was 
 listening for the faintest shadow of a coming word. At 
 last, as we stood face to face, her lips parted, and began 
 to move. 
 
 "Mildred!" cried a sharp elderly voice from behind 
 the corner of the rock. " Mildred! where in the name 
 of mercy have you been ? " 
 
122 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 Could anything have been more horribly unlucky than 
 the sudden appearance of this old lady just then and 
 there-? She had made no sign for weeks ; it was as if 
 she had been watching for the precise moment when she 
 would be most in the way. I may wrong her; but I 
 thought her the most evil-looking monster that had ever 
 been seen — and had she been as young and as beautiful 
 as Mildred herself, I should have thought the same. In 
 point of fact she was very elderly and very plain ; and 1 
 multiplied her in both directions by ten. 
 
 Mildred herself, for the first time, seemed to lose her 
 self-possession, and to turn pale. 
 
 "My aunt, Miss Eeynolds — Mr. Kenrick," she said 
 falteringly. 
 
 Miss Eeynolds scarcely deigned to curtsy; I just 
 managed to bow. 
 
 " So ! " said Miss Eeynolds, turning her shoulder 
 towards me contemptuously, and speaking to Mildred. 
 " So this is the meaning of your painting mania, is it ; 
 your scarlet and yellow fever, eh ? Coming out to meet 
 young men, alone. Perhaps you think I haven't known 
 it all along, and that I didn't think there was more Art 
 about it all than you'd have me believe — and Nature ; 
 stuff ! Human nature, you mean. I guessed as much, 
 and now I know. You'll please to come home with me. 
 Come." 
 
 "Miss Eeynolds," said I, recovering my presence of 
 mind, "I am not going to leave this spot till I know 
 whether your niece will be my wife or no. And as to 
 her, she no more knew until to-day that I love her — " 
 
 " Not leave this spot ? You'll have to take root in it, 
 then, young man ; or rather you may leave it as soon as 
 you like, for I say to you, No ! " 
 
 "It is from herself that I must — " I began, trying to 
 be as courteous to Mildred's aunt as she would allow 
 me. 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 123 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! " said Miss Eeynolds. " And 
 who, pray, are you? What have you to do with the 
 matter, I should like to know? " 
 
 " Everything in the world. My name is Kenrick — 
 Arthur Kenrick; I am an artist — " 
 
 " So I perceive, sir, from your clothes. May I ask, 
 since you presume to my niece's hand, if you are an 
 E.A.?" 
 
 " Not yet, Miss Eeynolds ; nor an Associate, even. 
 But— " 
 
 " An exhibitor, no doubt. Can you give me the name 
 of one of your works that has been hung on the line ? " 
 
 "I have never as yet exhibited a picture. But — " 
 
 "I am aware," said Miss Eeynolds, throwing a 
 studiously veiled note of sarcasm into her tone, "that 
 many famous painters keep aloof from the Academy on 
 principle. It is only right I should know the circum- 
 stances as well as the name of the — the — person who 
 tries to entrap my niece into a secret engagement without 
 my leave. No doubt, though you do not exhibit, you 
 sell your works for large sums ? " 
 
 "I have not yet sold a picture, Miss Eeynolds. 
 But—" 
 
 " You mean to tell me you are a common drawing- 
 master? " she said, with scorn unveiled. 
 
 " I am not even that," said I. " But if I were — " 
 
 "You have been saying 'But' five hundred times. 
 ' But ' what, if you please? I can't stay here all day.'' 
 
 " I was going to tell you, Miss Eeynolds, that though 
 I am not yet a famous painter, I am of, I hope, sufficient 
 respectability and means. My father was a well-known 
 and wealthy colonial broker in London ; I am his eldest 
 son — " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Miss Eeynolds, with genuine interest in 
 her voice. " You only paint for amusement, then — 
 though I don't see why a gentleman should go about in a 
 
124 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 coat as shabby as yours. Tour father, I am to under- 
 stand, died a wealthy man, and you are his heir ? " 
 
 " I was speaking then of my respectability only — not of 
 my means. I have not inherited anything from my 
 father. My brothers and sisters are his heirs. But — " 
 
 "'But' number five hundred and one! I see. You 
 offended your father by turning vagabond artist, and he 
 very properly cut you off with a shilling, though you are 
 his eldest son. I thought a gentleman would have made 
 love in more decent clothes, smelling less like a pot- 
 house. Good morning, Mr.Kenrick, and better luck next 
 time." 
 
 What was I to say to the old virago? I could not 
 bring myself to speak of my real means and settled 
 expectations until Mildred herself had answered me ; and 
 this treatment of me because I seemed poor, and her 
 insults towards my brothers in art, made any course but 
 silence on this score impossible. To Mildred I would of 
 course tell everything so soon as she had answered me ; 
 but to Miss Beynolds, not a word. 
 
 "Very well, then," said I. "In the character of a 
 poor unknown landscape painter, disinherited — if you 
 will have it so — for preferring art to trade, but too honest 
 to cheat his tailor, I demand to know from Miss Ashton's 
 own lips whether she will give me any hope that she will 
 ever be my wife or no — if slit, knows me well enough to 
 trust her happiness in my hands. I do not think she 
 will refuse me that hope because I am poor." 
 
 " 0, if it comes to that," said Miss Beynolds, " I'll go 
 and pick a gooseberry or two with pleasure. I'm not 
 afraid of what Mildred will say to you now — she knows 
 my will." 
 
 I did not notice her last words just then. They seemed 
 to signify merely that, whatever she willed, others must 
 obey. And besides, Mildred, who had been standing by 
 in silence, spoke at last, and she said : 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 125 
 
 "Aunt Jane, you need not go. I would rather 3ay before 
 you, just now, everything that I have to say. I know 
 you have meant to be kind to me, and I have tried to be 
 grateful ; but I must live my own life, after all. I had 
 found that out before I knew — before I knew Mr. Kenrick; 
 everybody has to find it out at first or at last, I suppose. 
 I should have become a very bad companion for you. 
 Yes, I do know Mr. Kenrick, I hope and I believe. I 
 hope he knows me as well ! I am glad that he is poor, 
 and that he — " 
 
 She said no more, but she gave me her hand. 
 
 H. 
 
 So my dream had proved an omen after all, in so far 
 
 as so exceptional a thing (for me) as a dream of any sort 
 had immediately preceded, and been bound up with, the 
 gain of my Mildred's hand. It may be that, in the 
 elementary sort of dream philosophy which makes 
 dreaming of one thing prognosticate an event of an entirely 
 remote and different kind, to dream that one's uncle is 
 turned into a candle may foreshadow one's own marriage 
 — whether that be so or otherwise, experts will be able 
 to tell. However that may be, in a new life the dream 
 had very soon become an old and forgotten story. 
 
 Mildred's history turned out to be a very simple one, 
 after all, as she told it to me, though it was by no means 
 what I had imagined. She and the cousin of whom she 
 had spoken were the nieces of Miss Eeynolds, a rich, 
 somewhat eccentric, exceedingly capricious, and extrava- 
 gantly obstinate old lady, who had adopted Mildred in a 
 very much less generous fashion than uncle George had 
 adopted me. Mildred had tried her best to be grateful, 
 
126 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 but had found it absolutely impossible. She had a very- 
 strong nature and decided character, which Miss Reynolds, 
 out of some uncomfortable mixture of duty, whim, and 
 delight in tyranny for its own sake, had set herself to 
 thwart and distort in every imaginable way. From what 
 I could gather, Miss Eeynolds was one of those people 
 who cannot exist without a dependent on whom to 
 exercise their passion for power, and who believe that 
 power consists wholly in making other people conscious 
 slaves. There are such men in thousands ; such women 
 in tens of thousands. No wonder that Mildred, having 
 a spirit of her own, had been driven to rebel. Her idea 
 was to make herself independent by learning how to paint 
 pictures that would sell, and then to take her own life, so 
 far as she could, into her own hands. I congratulated 
 myself, more than I can say, on having let her believe 
 that I was as poor as I seemed ; and I resolved, in the 
 same spirit, to keep up the part I had assumed until, on 
 our wedding-day, I could give my wife the pleasant surprise 
 of finding that, in following her heart, she had not con- 
 demned herself to a life of poverty and toil. Meanwhile 
 the romance of our engagement would be doubled for me, 
 and she would have the zest of feeling that she was 
 sacrificing the world for love and liberty. 
 
 I would, for my own pleasure in its memory, linger 
 upon the days of my courtship among the hills round 
 Llanpwll. It had all the charms of romance for us both, 
 without there being any real reason to fear that all would 
 not end well. I hardly know whether to call it the best 
 or the worst of our engagement that it was so short and 
 flying. I was impatient for its close ; but I lingered then 
 upon every hour of it, just as in remembrance I do now. 
 But it was impossible that it should be long. Mildred 
 was ready to face the poorest, hardest, and most laborious 
 life with me, and was proud to show how content she 
 was to become the wife of one who would have no wealth 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 127 
 
 but her. But there were pressing reasons why there 
 should be no delays in our marriage, save such as the law 
 compelled. Mildred, having rebelled against her aunt, 
 was without either a home or means to find one, for Miss 
 Reynolds simply cast her off without a word. I took 
 lodgings for her at a farm, and within a month of 
 our troth-plight married her in the little church of 
 Llanpwll. 
 
 It was certainly a marriage in haste, and possibly many 
 may think that I ought to have waited till I had written 
 to uncle George and had received an answer from him. 
 Very likely I ought to have done so ; but, at the same 
 time, I do not feel very much conscience-stricken by my 
 omission. I knew him to be so generous, kind, full of 
 sympathy with every right impulse, and regardless of 
 anything like self-interest, that not even his own anti- 
 matrimonial principles would stand in my way. He 
 liked people to act for themselves, and hated nothing, 
 not even strange women, more than the idea of being 
 thought tyrannical. I was so anxious that he should 
 take Mildred to his heart as a daughter, that I could not 
 bring myself to prejudice him against her by letting him 
 know of her existence before it was too late for him to do 
 anything but make the best of an exceedingly good 
 bargain; for if he could only be surprised into seeing 
 Mildred without warning, he would receive her even into 
 his misogynistic heart, I was sure. Besides, it would 
 take much too long for letters to pass and repass between 
 Wales and China when I was going to marry Mildred, 
 whatever their tenor might be. I was my own master, 
 and he wished me to be so; for Miss Eeynolds did 
 not detest free women more than uncle George hated 
 slaves. 
 
 So I wrote to Shanghai the day after my wedding-day, 
 and we remained at Llanpwll for our honeymoon. I 
 could not even yet bring myself to tell Mildred that she 
 
128 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 was not the wife of a poor and struggling painter. I almost 
 wished myself one in reality, for she made the illusion as 
 sweet to me as it was dear to her. But she must know 
 it at last ; and though I was sorry to leave our first 
 married home, I looked forward to the morrow when I 
 should take her back with me to London and to the real 
 life that was to be ours till the end of our days, so that 
 London should become better and dearer even than 
 Llanpwll. 
 
 It was the morning of our return. I had taken my 
 last plunge into the lake, and was on my way back to 
 breakfast, fresh and hungry, when Mildred met me half- 
 way with a letter in her hand. 
 
 " There's a letter for you, too," said she. " But I 
 couldn't wait for you to show you this. See what I have 
 brought on myself," she said, with the brightest and 
 happiest of smiles, " by marrying you 1 " 
 
 "Mildred," the letter began, "I waited to see if you 
 were really so lost to all sense of shame as to marry that 
 man in rags in opposition to my irrevocable commands. 
 You have done so ; and, as you make your bed, so you 
 must lie. Understand that henceforth you are to have 
 no expectations from me. If you had been commonly 
 grateful, and had married to please me or had remained 
 with me, you may be gratified to know that I had 
 intended to make you my sole heir. As it is, I, on the 
 day after your disgrace, made my will. Whom I have 
 put in your place is no concern of yours. Enough that 
 Scripture bids us give much to those who have much, 
 and that I am your aunt who is ashamed of you, 
 
 "Jane Eeynolds. 
 
 " P.S. If the man in rags is disappointed to find he 
 has married a beggar, you can't say I didn't tell you 
 so." 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 129 
 
 " Are you disappointed ? " asked she. 
 
 " You have lost a fortune for my sake? Mildred, did 
 you know this when — " 
 
 "When I married you? Of course I knew it, very 
 well ; only if I hadn't married you, I should have done 
 something else to lose it soon enough all the same. If I 
 couldn't serve aunt Jane for love, it isn't likely I should 
 for anything less, I suppose.'' 
 
 " Dear, if I tell you that I have been keeping a secret 
 from you ever since we were married, shall you be very 
 angry indeed ? " 
 
 I could see a half-frightened look come into her face. 
 
 " A secret ? what do you mean? " 
 
 You see that, after all, she had no reasonable reason 
 for knowing that I was not an adventurer who had some- 
 how found out that she had expectations from a rich aunt, 
 and was disappointed with my bargain on finding that her 
 expectations had gone off to the other side of the moon, 
 where all the lost things are ; or that I had not two or 
 three other wives elsewhere ; or that I was not a pro- 
 fessional burglar, or anything else she would not like to 
 be married to. I know she did not suspect anything of 
 the sort, for Mildred was always the most unreasonable 
 of women where I happen to be concerned ; but still a 
 secret a whole honeymoon long has an unpleasant sound, 
 whatever it may be, and I felt a little sorry that I had 
 done anything to make her ever so little afraid. Happily, 
 though, it was a secret that would very well bear telling. 
 
 We had reached the house, and were entering our 
 breakfast-room. 
 
 "Should you be very angry," I asked, "if I tell you 
 that I have been deceiving you from the beginning, and 
 that instead of being what I told you — there, darling, 
 it's out now — I am a painter ; but the reason I've done 
 nothing as yet is because I've always been too well off to 
 be anything but lazy. You can't expect much from a 
 
130 ROMANCES OF THE LA IV. 
 
 man with an Uncle George like mine. We're rich enough 
 already to do without your aunt's legacy ; and my own 
 father left me nothing because it was a family arrange- 
 ment that Uncle George will leave me everything. He's a 
 splendid fellow, and you'll be as fond of him as I am when 
 he comes home again. I couldn't find the heart to pre- 
 vent your doing the brave thing you did in taking a man 
 without a penny, all for love and liberty — and now I find 
 out that you've lost a fortune by it, I'm gladder still. 
 Why didn't you tell me you had something to lose?" 
 
 " Are you the only one to have secrets? Well, then, I 
 wanted you to be sure that you married me for myself ; 
 and I was afraid — " 
 
 " No, you weren't ; you were no more afraid I should 
 marry you for anything but yourself than that you — " 
 
 "I was afraid you would rather not marry me at all 
 than let me lose anything for you. There ! " 
 
 " We're quits, then ; and we'll have no secrets any 
 more. . . But here's my letter lying here unopened all 
 this while, and taking up the room where a trout or two 
 ought to be. Hullo! From Uncle George's lawyer? 
 What can he have to say ? ' Dear Sir, — I regret — ' " 
 
 The first words silenced me. And I read, no further 
 aloud : 
 
 " Dear Sir, — I regret to have to inform you that I am 
 by this post advised of the death, at Shanghai, of Mr. 
 George Kenrick, your uncle, on the 21st ultimo. An 
 epidemic of cholera is raging there, to which he fell one 
 of the first victims. You will be exceedingly surprised to 
 learn that lie xuas married last May to a lady at Shanghai. 
 Mrs. Kenrick was also taken with cholera, and died, by 
 a remarkable coincidence, on the very same day. I can 
 only suppose that his well-known views and principle 
 concerning matrimony made him unwilling to inform 
 either his family or his solicitors of his marriage at the 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 131 
 
 time, and have also been the cause of his otherwise 
 unaccountable delay in making it known. As the mar- 
 riage was so recent, I need hardly say that he has left no 
 children. Most unfortunately, however, it appears that 
 he died intestate. The last will he made is in our hands, 
 under which the whole of his estate (wholly consisting of 
 personalty) is bequeathed to yourself as sole legatee. But 
 as you are doubtless aware, every will is revoked by the 
 marriage of the testator ; and we are advised that he was 
 about to make a new will, almost as largely in your 
 favour, when he died. In effect, therefore, he died 
 intestate ; and the practical result is that (Mrs. Kenrick 
 being dead) you will be entitled to no more than your 
 share of the estate after distribution. For your guidance, 
 and pending proceedings, I may tell you that I expect 
 the estate to realize about £90,000. This will give about 
 £9,000 for each of Mr. George Kenrick's ten brothers and 
 sisters who either survive him or have left surviving issue. 
 The £9,000 which would have come to your father will be 
 divided among his nine children, giving to yourself the 
 share of about £1,000, which, deducting succession duty, 
 will give you, in the result, not more than a clear balance 
 of £970. 
 
 " I estimate that the amount coming to you may prove 
 less, but cannot well amount to more. 
 
 " I shall be happy to see you and give further particulars 
 any time you can give me a call." 
 
 I handed the letter to Mildred without a word. Why 
 had I not put off telling her I was rich for one single 
 half -hour more? Nine hundred and seventy pounds — ■ 
 not fifty pounds a year — for a man who had been care- 
 fully taught how not to earn his living, who at thirty 
 years old had not even made a beginning, whose so- 
 called profession had been but pastime, who had nothing 
 else to turn to, who had bean deliberately trained to 
 
 K 2 
 
132 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 exaggerated ignorance of business, and who had just 
 married a wife whose means amounted to nothing ! Who 
 could quite have forgotten himself, and one far dearer 
 than himself, in grief for the best uncle who ever lived in 
 the world? I could see it all — how George Kenrick's 
 dread and shyness of women had been only the instinctive 
 self-defence of an exceptionally tender-hearted man ; 
 how one woman at last had, as a matter of course, caught 
 his heart, and had proved too much even for the elaborate 
 outworks with which he had guarded it round ; how, after 
 all his open and notorious boasts and scorns, he had felt 
 the shame of a man who had proved himself a rank 
 impostor, and had kept putting off the evil day of having to 
 tell ; how — always an easy-going procrastinating man — he 
 had in like manner put off making a new will, which would 
 record his inconsistency in black and white, and would, 
 indeed, be very difficult to settle in such a way as to do 
 justice both to his wife and her possible children, and to 
 me. . . 
 
 " You have married a poor devil of a painter after all," 
 said I, as Mildred laid the letter down ; " and you might 
 have been — " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Mildred. " I might have been wicked 
 and miserable and rich. I am just as happy now as I 
 was when I only believed that we were poor ; and that 
 is, the happiest girl in the world ! Surely you don't want 
 money so much as to make you forget that he is dead 
 who meant to be so good to you ? " 
 
 And then I knew that, though I had married in haste, 
 I should never have to repent at leisure. I think that in 
 that moment I first became a man. 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 133 
 
 III. 
 
 But it was a terribly up-hill road that lay before me 
 now. Even when that nine hundred and seventy pounds 
 should come into my hands, it would not mean fifty 
 pounds a year, for I owed at least five hundred. If I 
 could get in the end so much as four hundred pounds out 
 ot the ninety thousand I should be fortunate ; and even 
 that I must still further diminish by anticipation, in 
 order to live for to-day. It is not good to belong to a 
 very large family when personalty has to be divided. 
 
 It was wonderful how uncles, aunts, and cousins 
 turned up their noses at my calling now that I had to 
 earn my daily bread with it instead of carrying it on as 
 "Uncle George's whim. Even my brothers had to admit 
 that there was no room m their offices for an amateur 
 artist who had been fool enough to saddle himself with a 
 penniless wife, and to whom accounts were Hebrew and 
 Chaldee. They were right — except in calling Mildred's 
 husband a fool. I could not be of any use to them for 
 years to come, and then I should be too old for a junior 
 clerk or office-boy. I must paint — paint — paint, since 
 that was all I could do, and become an artist, if I could, 
 in fact as well as in name. I should very likely have 
 thrown away my brush if Mildred had not been beside 
 me. But she believed in me, and found heart and 
 courage for two till she made me share them. 
 
 Nor was she idle. While I went at my work with 
 patient effort, she threw herself into hers with joy. I 
 verily believe she was glad to find that poverty and 
 labour had not turned out to be dreams, after all. We 
 lived in three rooms — and lived like hermits, except when 
 we went out together on impromptu holidays to enjoy 
 
134 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 ourselves nearly as much as we did at home. In time, 
 what with lessons and with occasional sales in very bad 
 markets, we earned something, and made believe that we 
 were beginning to make our own fortunes with our own 
 hands. She was always so bright and gay that I forgot 
 to be as careful over her as I ought to have been, and 
 had not the heart to measure the work for her, over 
 which she found her life so well filled. Mine, I felt, was 
 hard work ; hers looked like play, though it took up 
 nearly as many hours as it did of mine. 
 
 But I must add that, at accounts and economies, she 
 was nearly as bad a hand as I. There were times when 
 we lived neither she nor I knew how. But at last there 
 came a time when we found ourselves consciously face to 
 face with the wolf at the door ; and Love, though he did 
 not even dream of so much as the shadow of a glance 
 towards the bolt of the window, did not reconcile us to 
 the growl. 
 
 "Unwillingly enough, I had to lay down my brash for a 
 while, and to look about for work out of doors, since none 
 seemed coming to me. Meanwhile, Mildred set to work 
 on a real picture in the spirit of a real artist who can 
 never be divorced from Hope, do what he will. Away 
 from her easel she was the most modest-minded of 
 women ; but, when she worked, she seemed to be fired 
 with some spirit that was strangely like ambition, though 
 I am sure it was really nothing of the kind. It was a 
 fine subject that she had thought over till it had become 
 a part of herself ; and, though her technical skill was still 
 very imperfect, it already showed qualities that are 
 beyond the reach of scores of far better painters. 
 
 I knew she was working at it hard, but how hard I 
 never knew — till one afternoon I came back from giving 
 some lessons at a school, and found her in a dead faint 
 upon the floor. And then, and not till then, J learned 
 bow, as soon as my back was turned early in the morn- 
 
ONL Y TEN MINUTES. 1S5 
 
 fng, she had been toiling, hungry and alone, every minute 
 of the day until I returned ; how energy had burned into 
 fever ; how genius, without corresponding vital strength, 
 is nothing better than a disease. 
 
 And I had thought that mine alone had been work, and 
 that hers had been pleasure and play ; and how could I, 
 while away from her, have guessed how a delicate girl 
 would have spent all her hours ? I had not learned to 
 know Mildred, even then — and was the knowledge only 
 to come when it was too late, when — I could not finish 
 the thought. I got her to bed, and then went for the 
 nearest doctor as fast as I could go. 
 
 At three houses, with red lamps and brass plates, I 
 knocked and rang before I found surgeon or physician at 
 home at an hour when most were going their rounds. 
 At last, by good fortune I found one at home where the 
 plate bore the name of " Mr. E. Segrave, Surgeon and 
 Accoucheur." 
 
 I waited for what seemed an age, though I doubt 
 whether two minutes had passed on the clock dial. At 
 last the door opened. 
 
 " Dr. Segrave ? " I began eagerly. 
 
 "Not Dr. Segrave," said a tall, cool, shrewd-looking 
 Scotchman who entered; "I'm Dr. Menzies, and I am 
 attending to my friend's patients while he gets a little 
 holiday." 
 
 " Never mind," I said, more hurriedly than politely, 
 " it's all the same." 
 
 In five minutes more — for he seemed to have the art cf 
 doing things slowly faster than other people do them 
 quickly — he was by Mildred's bedside, I waiting for him 
 in terrible anxiety by the half -finished picture into which 
 she had been putting her actual life day by day. At last 
 he came back. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " From what you tell me, and from what I can see, 
 
106 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 she's prostrate from hard work, and want of air and 
 exercise, and star — well, from Dot taking time enough to 
 her meals. She wants rest, and plenty of meat, and 
 change of air ; and let me tell you that you must look 
 after her well, for I think she is one of those women that 
 look after everybody but themselves." 
 
 " There's no danger, then ? " 
 
 "There's no worse danger on earth than working too 
 much and eating too little. But if you mean is there 
 anything wrong with her that cannot be mended — not at 
 all. Eating's the easiest thing in the world, and doing 
 nothing's easier still. And that 's all she's got to do if you 
 can manage it." 
 
 A weight was lifted off my heart ; but I guessed what 
 he meant — and that his prescription might prove harder 
 to carry out than he knew. " You will call again? " 
 
 " I'll see how your wife is getting on before I go ; but 
 I am going abroad in a week. I shall tell Mr. Segrave of 
 the case, if you give me your name." 
 
 " Kenrick. And thank you for — " 
 
 "Kenrick! Indeed! I once had a patient of that 
 name out in Shanghai. I'll write a prescription — " 
 
 "What! You knew my Uncle, Mr. Kenrick of 
 Shanghai ? " 
 
 " Yes. I was called in to attend him when he died in 
 the cholera outbreak. Husband and wife both in one 
 day. It was an awful time with us ; people dying around 
 in whole households ; it was like a nightmare — " 
 
 " And strangely enough I had a nightmare on the very 
 eve of my uncle's death, in which I seemed to feel it all, 
 just as if I was there. Yes, on the very night before he 
 died." 
 
 " Nightmare's common and death's common ; it would 
 be strange if they didn't meet together now and then." 
 
 " I dreamed of the cholera cloud. I saw a Chinese 
 city. I did not know my uncle was married ; and yet I 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 137 
 
 saw him and a woman turn together into corpse-candles, 
 and die out together before my eyes. I seem to see it 
 now. It was hideously grotesque ; but I did not recover 
 from it for a whole day." 
 
 " Working too little and eating too much is as bad for 
 the brain, you'll find, as working too much and eating too 
 little. Anybody that knew George Kenrick would be 
 sure to dream about a woman if they dreamed of him 
 just because of the way he used to talk of them." 
 
 " Nevertheless, it was a strange dream, even in 
 detail " — 
 
 " We can try that," said Dr. Menzies, getting interested. 
 " You say they were turned into corpse-candles, burning 
 one against the other. Did you know which was he and 
 which was she?" 
 
 " I knew them both to the end." 
 
 " Then you can tell which of them burned out first. 
 If you're wrong, it will show that your dream was 
 but a partial coincidence, just as I say. You would 
 naturally dream of a near kinsman, and be safe to dream 
 of a woman for the reason I gave. You knew he was in 
 China, and might have seen in the newspapers — though 
 you might have forgotten — that there was cholera in 
 Shanghai. But you could scarcely know which died the 
 first, unless I tell you ; for nobody was in the two rooms 
 where they died but a Presbyterian minister and myself." 
 
 "Her candle went out first," said I. "I remember 
 counting ten, and then his followed hers." 
 
 " That's right enough," said Dr. Menzies, a little 
 surprised at last. "It was she who died the first, and — you 
 counted ten ? It was just ten minutes by the watch before 
 he followed her. Well, all I can say is that" — 
 
 " It's something more than strange ! " 
 
 " No, Mr. Kenrick. It seemed a little strange at first, 
 but on second thoughts, no ! If you dreamed one went 
 out before the other, it must have been one of the two, and 
 
138 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 it was no more than the chances of heads or tails which 
 one it would be. If I throw up a penny and you gues9 
 heads, and it is heads, you were just as likely to be right 
 as wrong. There's nothing about it that's either strange 
 or not strange. That there are not more such coin- 
 cidences than there are is almost a miracle. There's no 
 such thing as waste in Nature, Mr. Kenrick. And if a 
 dream like that was more than a common ordinary coin- 
 cidence, it would be waste ; for what would be the use of 
 your dreaming that one of your candles went out before 
 the other when the fact itself could be of no manner of 
 use to you?" 
 
 Even so had Mildred herself argued ; and I was per- 
 force compelled to put up with a chain of reasoning in 
 which her imaginative nature agreed with the prosaic 
 system of Dr. Menzies. Certainly mine had been a use- 
 less dream, and must have been useless by its very nature. 
 I had nothing more to say. 
 
 It was merely accident that had made me remember 
 my nonsensical dream when Mildred lay ill, and it went 
 fairly out of my mind again as soon as Dr. Menzies had 
 gone. Mildred had fallen asleep ; and I sat and watched 
 by her bedside, thinking how I could contrive to put life 
 straight for her. She had no friends to shelter her from 
 the daily troubles of our life till she should be strong 
 enough to face them again ; and my marriage, even more 
 than the loss of my fortune, had made my relations cease 
 to be my friends. Perhaps I was wrong, but I could not 
 bring myself to ask favours — that is to say, charities — 
 from those who now regarded me as a ne'er-do-well, and 
 Mildred as a blunder and a burden. I was a stranger in 
 the land ; no more a Kenrick, who had a right to the 
 help and countenance of other Kenricks, than Mildred 
 herself. My share in my uncle's estate had gone long 
 ago ; over five hundred in paying old debts, the rest in 
 keeping us going while we had been working and waiting, 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 130 
 
 now, as it seemed, in vain. Without Hope by my side 
 in the person of Mildred, I felt that I must lay down my 
 brush once for all, and find something or anything to do 
 that would insure her health, however uncongenial it 
 might be. 
 
 The idea of emigration came uppermost in my mind. I 
 had not neglected my body, and could use my hands in 
 better ways than in painting pictures that nobody would 
 buy. But since Mildred must go out with me, and since 
 she could not travel till she was well, and since I must, 
 being no longer a bachelor, carry out with me some sort 
 of means or capital, even emigration did not look par- 
 ticularly hopeful. 
 
 However, I managed next day to leave Mildred for an 
 hour or two while I went out to make inquiries about 
 colonial matters in such quarters as were open to me. I 
 needed advice, and could think of none better worth 
 having than that of Mr. Archer, a young lawyer, who had 
 always been, in a way, one of my friends in old times. 
 He was a shrewd man of business, with an essentially 
 practical way of looking at everything, but with no 
 intolerance for people of different natures. He would 
 give me the best advice he could, I was sure. 
 
 " I beg your pardon for keeping you waiting," he said. 
 "But I was very deeply engaged, and I'm afraid I can't 
 give you much time now. So you think of giving up 
 painting and going abroad ? Well, it does not sound 
 badly. Only, as a married man, you can hardly treat 
 emigration as a simple adventure, and go out with 
 nothing in your pockets but your hands. I must think 
 it over. Sit down and have a chat — it's a long time since 
 we met, you and I. Not since we've been married men. 
 We've both had our romances, Lt seems. But I'm hanged 
 if there's any romance in all your Bohemia that beats 
 what we find every day in the law. Talk of fiction ! 
 
140 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 Why, if I wanted that sort of light reading, and had to 
 choose between the novels and magazines on the one 
 hand and the law reports on the other, give me the law 
 reports any day. Do you know why lawyers are so 
 notoriously fonder of reading novels than any other men ? 
 It's because they get biases with romance, and want to 
 refresh themselves with solid, probable, heavy prose. I 
 was up to the eyes in a queer story when you came in, or 
 rather in a wild sort of riddle that will take all the courts 
 together years to solve. It beats me. A, you see, makes 
 a will. Next to the law of marriage for conundrums give 
 me the law of wills. All A's estate is left to B, a married 
 woman. We'll call B's husband 0. Very well. If B, 
 the wife, dies and leaves children behind her, the estate 
 goes to the children. If B, the wife, dies and leaves no 
 children, but C, the husband, survives her, the estate 
 goes to him. If B, the wife, dies and leaves neither 
 children nor husband surviving, then the estate goes to a 
 distant relation, D. That, avoiding technical language, 
 is the eflect of the will. And you'd never guess how such 
 a plain-sailing every-day will as that could possibly become 
 likely to puzzle the House of Lords." 
 
 " No, ,: said I, already puzzled myself between A, B, 
 C, and D, "I certainly do not see." 
 
 " It conies to this. First of all, B, the wife dies. 
 Afterwards A, the testator, dies. To whom does the 
 estate go? " 
 
 " To B's children ? " 
 
 " She had none." 
 
 - To B's husband, then ? " 
 
 *' He is dead too." 
 
 "To the distant relation, then?" 
 
 " D ? You're missing the point — that's the very 
 question that's got to be answered. If you'd been tho 
 least bit of a lawyer, you'd have asked me whether the 
 wife survived the husband, or the husband the wife, you 
 
ONL Y TEN MINUTES. 141 
 
 see. Don't you see? If the wife survived, the estate 
 goes to the distant relation. If the husband survived, 
 the estate goes to him." 
 
 "But if he is dead?" 
 
 "That isn't the question. The question is, whether 
 the estate goes to the distant relation, D. And, there- 
 fore, D must maintain that B, the wife, survived her 
 husband." 
 
 " And which did survive ? " 
 
 " Now you're getting warmer ! Heaven knows. They 
 were found dead on the same day in two rooms of the 
 same house, and so says the register. Get out of that if 
 you can. It's an awful muddle. There's no rule of law. 
 There are cases, of course — there always are. There's a 
 great case where a man and a woman were washed off 
 the same plank out at sea, and both drowned. On one 
 side it has been argued that the man is likelier to survive 
 because he's the stronger and the more selfish and the 
 better able to swim. On the other side, that the woman 
 is likelier to survive because women have more vitality 
 than men, and because a man naturally takes more care 
 of a woman than he does of himself, especially if he's a 
 sailor ; and so on, and so on, through leagues of nonsense 
 unspeakable. But it all comes to this — that there's no 
 rule, that every case must stand on its own bottom, and 
 that the courts will have facts, and nothing to do with 
 fancies. Now, Kenrick — why, that's the very name of 
 the wife and the husband, B and C — that's queer 1 How- 
 ever, that has nothing to do with the question. The 
 question is " — 
 
 "But it is queer!" said I. "I had an uncle and an 
 aunt who died in the same house on the same day. Did 
 I never speak to you of my Uncle George, of whom I was 
 godson, eldest nephew, and almost son ? " 
 
 "By George ! It must be the very man. Not that I 
 ever heard of your having any uncle in particular till now j 
 
142 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 or, if I ever did, I don't profess to remember pedigrees 
 that I'm not paid to keep in mind. This was a George 
 Kenrick, who, with his wife, died of cholera on the same 
 day in Shanghai." 
 
 " Yes, within ten minutes of one another. It is a 
 terrible story — more than terrible to me." 
 
 "Ten minutes? How do you know that ? What do 
 you mean ? " 
 
 " I was told so by the doctor who attended them both 
 and was with them when they died." 
 
 "What! The doctor? Where is he? What's his 
 name ? " 
 
 " Dr. Menzies. I saw him yesterday '' — 
 
 " Did he tell you which died, died first — he or" — 
 
 " She." 
 
 " She ! . . . Can you lay hands on Dr. Menzies . . . 
 in an hour? You can? Then . . . Don't you under- 
 stand ? Under the will of Miss Eeynolds " — • 
 
 "Miss Reynolds?" 
 
 " Under the will of Miss Jane Eeynolds, those ten 
 minutes have given you an estate in Lincolnshire worth 
 at least four thousand a year ! For she left everything to 
 a niece who married your uncle, and he survived her by 
 ten minutes ; and it is all real estate which goes to your 
 uncle's heir-at-law ; and you, as the eldest son of his next 
 brother, are he 1" 
 
 I have been making a very long story very short indeed. 
 My case was certainly as clear as daylight ; but that, as 
 Archer would say, is not the question, nor is it the 
 question — though that, too, is a strange one — that Miss 
 Eeynolds, by disinheriting Mildred, had made the man 
 in rags her sole heir. To me the strange thing is, and 
 must remain, that all this could never have happened 
 unless I had dreamed my dream. Had I not dreamed of 
 the extinction of the candles in their proper order and of 
 
ONLY TEN MINUTES. 143 
 
 the number ton, I should never have mentioned the 
 matter to Menzies, or learned the precise nature of the 
 coincidence— if so it must still be called — from him. 
 And, therefore, had it not been for my dream, I should 
 have been without the one piece of evidence wanting to 
 complete the chain and make good my legal title. 
 
 Nevertheless, I pass no definite opinion. I quite see 
 that, being in an excited state of mind, I should be likely 
 to dream ; that, if I dreamed at all, it should be of Uncle 
 George; that, dreaming of him, I should dream of a 
 woman; that, dreaming of two failing candles, one of 
 them should go out without the other, and that it was a 
 mere toss-up which went out the first of them. It is 
 difficult to find even the elements of so common a thing 
 as a striking coincidence in so simple a matter. My 
 readers must decide as they please. 
 
 But was this all ? In one way it may be yes ; but, in 
 another, most surely no. 
 
 " Mildred," said I to her one day, not so very long 
 ago, — " Mildred, I once had a very strange and a very 
 wonderful dream. It was that I — I of all men — neither 
 strong nor wise nor particularly brave, had been 
 selected, by some mysterious piece of injustice, to be the 
 husband of the best, truest, and bravest of all the women 
 in the world. I dreamed it so vividly, that I went out 
 among the hills, and married the first girl I met before I 
 knew anything about her, except that I loved her. Was 
 not that a strange dream for a fairly sane man ? "Well, 
 I woke up — one always must wake up at last from the 
 very best of dreams, and from the best the soonest — 
 and I found that what my dream told me was " — 
 
 "What?" asked Mildred, with at least a show of 
 fear. 
 
 " True I " said I. And I say so still. 
 
 Truth, indeed, is always stranger than fiction. I add 
 
Ui ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 a few words which may interest the reader who is struck 
 by the pivot of my narrative, and that narrow bridge of 
 time which in ten minutes led to such important results. 
 
 The genial skilful physician who stood by and saw the 
 two " life-candles " burn out, and whose testimony in the 
 case became so important, is at this moment a dis- 
 tinguished practitioner in " the Garden Isle," where his 
 knowledge of the healing art and of the world together 
 make him at once a most desirable "guide, philosopher, 
 and friend." 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 
 
 ♦ »***# 
 
 "Punctuality is the soul of business. 
 
 " I am aware that one of the Seven Wise Men, 
 either of Greece or of Gotham, has preferred to read 
 ' Punctuality is the thief of time.' And, on the whole, 
 I am disposed to agree with the wise man. ' A proverb,' 
 says another wise man, ' is the folly of many and the 
 stupidity of one.' 
 
 " Punctuality is a bad habit. I say so distinctly. All 
 habits are bad, because when they are not good they 
 injure, and when they are good they are bad, because 
 they deprive a good action of the merit of free-will and 
 degrade it into mere slavery. But of all habits, 
 punctuality stands first and foremost in point of utter 
 badness. Defend me from a punctual man ! He is 
 arrogant. He considers himself absolved from all other 
 virtues, because he has one for which a clerk or journey- 
 man is paid. He is worse than arrogant — he is an 
 arrogant slave, so degraded as to brag of his slavery. 
 He has no sympathy with free men. He is sordid and 
 mean. To save a wretched minute he will miss a joy. 
 He will put an end to the most interesting conversation 
 to keep an appointment with a lawyer or a tailor — and 
 he is a fool for his pains, because neither lawyers nor tailors 
 
146 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 are punctual men, not even in sending in their bills. 
 He is doubly a fool indeed, for he deliberately gives 
 himself a bad character. He expects others to be 
 punctual for his sake, which is selfish. If he is ill- 
 tempered, as cultivators of the pettifogging virtues 
 mostly are, he quarrels with them ; he is incapable of 
 imagining that human nature is not regulated by clock- 
 work ; in fact, and in short, and to sum up all, the 
 punctual man is of necessity an arrogant, mean-rninded, 
 degraded, haggling fool I " 
 
 Harold Maynard was standing, in evening dress, with 
 one hand upon the bell-pull, aud holding in the other the 
 evening paper, from which, during the interval between 
 touching the bell-rope and pulling, he read this choice 
 extract of wisdom — an extract from one of those bold 
 dashes at paradox that newspaper readers are supposed 
 to digest comfortably after one o'clock p.m. In the 
 morning, telegrams ; in the evening, paradox, is the due 
 order of the day's news. 
 
 There was no earthly reason why Harold Maynard 
 should not have pulled so soon as his fingers had closed 
 upon the cord. Though it was only in a lodging-house, 
 the wire was in excellent order, and the cord unstrained. 
 Indeed, the bell-hanger had put everything to rights only 
 yesterday, and Harold was not one of those angry men 
 who ring twenty times apiece for twenty things in a day. 
 No, he might have rung instantly ; but his eye had 
 fallen upou these few lines of print, which surely out- 
 paradoxed paradox ; and he read them through, naturally 
 enough, before he pulled. 
 
 Demons do not, as a rule, write in newspapers, nor 
 was this special journal distinguished for demoniac energy. 
 The passage would not have attracted him had it been of 
 the usual style of that journal. But I think, if the 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 147 
 
 passage was not written by a demon, some demon must 
 have been at the elbow of the writer when it was penned. 
 
 Why did he write it ? Probably he would have laughed 
 at the question, and thought of pay-day. But how many 
 people ever know why they do anything? For that 
 matter, "Why am I born?" as a famous American 
 lecturess on woman's rights commenced an eloquent 
 peroration, with the sole effect of drawing from a little 
 boy in the gallery the only possible answer, " I give it up, 
 if you put it as a co-nundrum." Probably we do nothing 
 for the purpose with which we do it. And the writer of 
 the article, thinking of pay-day, and never having heard 
 of this particular reader, was tricked by some jocular 
 demon into writing what made Harold Maynard just 
 half a minute late in pulling the bell. 
 
 For it was just half a minute, to a tick of the clock, 
 between his touching the bell-rope and giving the prill. 
 
 It must have been for this purpose and no other that 
 the article had been written : for the writer would have 
 stared at learning that his paradox could have had any 
 effect whatever upon man, woman, or child. 
 
 II. 
 
 Harold Maynard was a young man of about thirty, 
 tall, broad-shouldered, and well made, a man of much 
 muscle and with some brains. He had many excellent 
 qualities, and not the least of them was that he thought 
 less of his good points than others thought of them. He 
 could ride a horse and pull an oar, and both without 
 bragging or thinking that life was bestowed upon him for 
 such things. He thought a great many of his friends 
 very good fellows, and they returned the compliment. 
 
 r, 2 
 
148 ROMANCES OF THE LAW 
 
 He was proud only of two things : a character for being 
 always up to time — neither too late nor, still worse, too 
 soon— and of a very strong admiration for Letty Despard. 
 
 Of that he was very proud — as a man should be of loving 
 a girl whom he thinks worthy the love of better men than 
 he. He was proud of it, even though hope did not go 
 hand in hand with pride. It was not that he thought it 
 impossible for her to care for him. On the contrary, ever 
 since that evening when he had asked a blossom of tube- 
 rose from her after waltzing with her twice, and after she 
 had refused it three times, and had ended by dropping it 
 by accident when he was near enough to pick it up and 
 secrete it, he had felt — in the subtle way one feels such 
 things — that she was to be won. Won? Yes — but 
 maintained ? That was another thing. 
 
 Love has been defined as " an insane desire to support 
 somebody else's daughter.'' And that was just what 
 Harold Maynard could not do. It was as much as he 
 could do to support himself alone, and he was not an 
 extravagant man. He knew the value of time perfectly ; 
 and time is money, as all the world knows. Ah ! if it 
 only were, and if he could only pay into his banking 
 account half the spare time he had on his hands ! Though 
 very much the reverse of the sort of man who looks at 
 both sides of a sixpence, and lingeringly feels the edge 
 before parting with it, he was a rigid economist ; rather 
 than lose a minute, of the value, say, of three halfpence, 
 he would charter a special train from Edinburgh to London 
 at seven shillings a mile. It may be that his very form 
 of economy left him poor, and far richer in the wealth that 
 is measured by minutes than that which is measured 
 by pounds sterling. 
 
 At any rate, he was very much in love, and, in respect 
 of fortune, like the gourmand and the goose — he found it 
 too much for one, but by no means enough for two. And 
 Letty Despard was very far from being a romance heroine, 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 149 
 
 to be kept for nothing a year. She could eat and drink 
 as a healthy girl should be able, and could dress — to per- 
 fection. 
 
 Many days, and many nights too, had Harold Maynard 
 consumed in trying to find something to do. Many a 
 man of his age and of twice his ability will know what 
 that means who has neither the will of iron, nor the key 
 of gold, nor the spoon of silver. Fortune is not a bird 
 to come for whistling ; she needs the salted tail. And 
 how to salt her before catching her is a problem that 
 puzzles others than children. I need not enumerate the 
 plans that he laid out for life, how well they promised, 
 how surely they came to nothing. It seemed to him as 
 if Fortune were a ball rolled before him by an invisible 
 imp, ever at his toes, never in his fingers. He did not 
 despair, for love means hope ; and he was not weary 
 of the chase, for he was young and strong; but it did 
 seem hard sometimes to feel time slipping away, and yet 
 bringing him no nearer to the end. He felt himself the 
 sport of an altogether peculiar destiny. All men's desti- 
 nies feel peculiar — to themselves. And it was all the 
 harder on a man who was always up to time, and never 
 lost an instant — especially when he was expecting to 
 meet Letty. 
 
 But it is a long lane that has no turning. Just as he 
 was beginning the most keenly to feel that the world did 
 not want another pair of strong shoulders when it already 
 had so many — that is to say, at the most unexpected 
 moment possible — he received a letter that made bi3 
 heart beat faster than if it had been signed Letitia 
 Despard, instead of being dashed off in bold male hiero- 
 glyphics that gave reading it the excitement of discover- 
 ing a mystery. 
 
 "Dear Maynard, — O you blind burrage and honey 
 running in the may of braid ! Oil Despard by thunder 
 
150 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 hangs a filling jingo Hong-Kong — aged penny, cold con- 
 gregation, strong in treacle — lungs, hurry in trances, 
 plundering indefensible : so Yorick the merry man. 
 Wing with me, wit, sing sharp to-day. Sting white, the 
 irons not. 
 
 " And believe me, evening shrine, 
 
 " T. L. WlNTEB." 
 
 Tom "Winter did not live in Hanwell ; he simply had a 
 heroic contempt for pot-hooks and hangers. 
 
 " Has he no respect for other people's time?" thought 
 Maynard ; but the name of Despard was written legibly 
 enough, and compelled attention to a letter that would 
 otherwise have been turned into a spill. For that purpose, 
 Maynard selected an unreceipted till from his bootmaker, 
 lighted his pipe, and sat down to see if that would help 
 him. And, after a fair amount of study, he managed to 
 make out as follows, omitting impossibilities : 
 
 *' Dear Maynard, — Do you mind turning an honest 
 penny in the way of trade ? Old Despard, my uncle, 
 wants a fellow to go k> Hong-Kong— good pay, good ap- 
 pointment .... business habits, punctuality indispensyble; 
 60 you're the very man. Dine with me at six sharp to- 
 day. Strike while the iron's hot, 
 
 " And believe me, ever thine, 
 
 " T. L. Winter." 
 
 And he made out the postscript over the page : 
 
 " If you accept you will sail by the Ganges, from East 
 India Dock, on Thursday. Mem. : Old Despard dines 
 with me. He will take you, if you will go." 
 
 If he would accept ! Why, here was an opening into 
 the heart of dreamland. Old Despard was not only tha 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 151 
 
 uncle of Tom Winter, but the father of Letty, and a rich 
 China merchant into the bargain. Into dreamland? 
 Nay, into the land of certainty. Maynard was pretty 
 safe to do himself credit with any employer, if he only 
 had elbow-room. Whittington and the good apprentice 
 are not the only men who have married their master's 
 daughter. As a penniless failure he had no chance 
 of becoming old Despard's son-in-law ; as a trusted 
 employe, working under old Despard's very eyes, if he 
 had no chance he would be a fool. There was but one 
 answer : 
 
 "Dear Tom, — Of course; and thank you. At six 
 
 sharp — to the minute : you know what that means with 
 
 me. 
 
 " Thine always, 
 
 "H. M." 
 
 Twenty minutes to dress — fifteen minutes for a hansom 
 to Tom "Winter's. He measured it accurately. He was 
 not more, not one second more, than half a minute late 
 in pulling the bell. 
 
 " Fetch me a hansom I " he said to the girl. 
 
 III. 
 
 He was in ample, even superfluous, time for a dinner 
 engagemant, as we blind mortals measure such things. 
 Five minutes' grace is always allowed, to a most noto- 
 riously punctual man; nobody ever thought of half a 
 minute. Maynard sat back in the cab with a good con- 
 science on the score of his favourite virtue, and let no 
 feeling of hurry interfere with his future as it lay pano- 
 
152 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 rama-wise before him. His start in life was assured; 
 for he knew Tom "Winter, who always understated every- 
 thing, and whose letter meant that his appointment was 
 secure. Old Despard liked him, he knew, as a man. 
 And Letty, he knew liked him in the same capacity. It 
 was only Monday as yet ; before Thursday he would have 
 ample time to turn his hope of Letty — so far as she was 
 concerned — into certainty. He had never said the words 
 " I love you '' in plain speech, but in the plainer speech 
 that lovers know the words had been said and answered. 
 Looks and instincts only needed translating. 
 
 Suddenly the hansom stopped, as hansoms will so long as 
 cabmen believe that narrow byways are shorter cuts than 
 broad thoroughfares. A cart-horse had just fallen in front, 
 and blocked the way. Maynard pushed up the trap over 
 his head. 
 
 " Can't you go round another way? I'm in a hurry, 
 and it looks like a long job here." 
 
 " Well, it ain't my fault. I didn't make the block. It 
 would have been behind us instead of afore if we'd been 
 half a minute sooner, that's all." 
 
 Nor had the half minute grown into more than a 
 minute over, when the block was removed, and the cab- 
 man was touching his horse with the lash, to make be- 
 lieve he was making up for lost time. And a minute and 
 a half is not worth minding — scarcely even in the matter 
 of catching a train. It was full five minutes to six still, 
 and he was not more than six minutes and a half at the 
 outside from Tom Winter's. Had he been on his way to 
 meet Letty anywhere the smallest delay would have put 
 him out of temper. As it was, not even his principle 
 of punctuality was offended. "That's the best of being 
 in good time," he even said to himself, with self-gratula- 
 tion. " One doesn't spoil one's digestion beforehand 
 with hurries and worries. One can look after the hours, 
 and leave the half minutes to take care of themselves." 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 153 
 
 The cabman Had named the half minute, or it would 
 never have occurred to him. 
 
 "Hullohl" 
 
 I write it, not because it represents by any means 
 what the cabman said, but because his real speech must 
 be expurgated to be presentable ; and " Hulloh," though 
 not the whole truth, was really one word among many. 
 The horse was pulled back hard against the splash-board, 
 and Maynard thought he heard a cry, set in the cabman's 
 volley of hard words like a lost heart in a storm. 
 
 It was just beginning to darken, and a street mist had 
 been coming on that made the gas-lamps flare yellow 
 and double the darkness. Maynard was out of the cab 
 in an instant to see what mischief he had done. It was 
 only too clear. 
 
 Among the hoofs of the horse lay a figure — whether 
 woman, girl, or child, he could not tell at first. In the 
 by-road and in the dark, a smaller crowd had sprung out 
 of the pavement than usual, and he managed to raise, 
 without much interference, her who had been so nearly 
 run over, and with no more than some two minutes' 
 delay. She was of small weight, and Maynard's muscles 
 soon had her into the cab, leaning back into the farther 
 corner. 
 
 " To the nearest hospital," he called out to the cabman, 
 following her. " How far ? " 
 
 " Not more than four minutes." 
 
 " Then look alive. Do it in three." 
 
 He was not thinking of himself as he urged extra 
 speed, nor of Hong-Kong, nor even of Letty, nor of how, 
 by compound interest, the first half minute had now 
 become seven and a half ; so that the five minutes' grace 
 before meat had expired by the time he was near the 
 hospital. He might have unwittingly caused the death 
 of a fellow-creature for aught he knew. She was not 
 dead yet, that he could make out —only stunned ; blood 
 
154 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 was running from under the hair over one of her temples, 
 and she was ghastly pale. She was too close for him to 
 see more in the alternate darkness and flare of the night : 
 he could only support her with his arm, regardless \A 
 delay. He did not even say to himself, " What a 
 bore ! " 
 
 By the better light in the hall of the hospital, he and 
 the house-surgeon together saw a young girl, not more 
 than eighteen years old, still insensible and bleeding, 
 still as pale as death, and dressed very plainly — poorly 
 even, though not like the poor. Her features were small, 
 good, and a lady's ; but her set lips and closed eyes 
 placed her for the present beyond criticism. She was 
 long in coming to. But the surgeon brought her round 
 at last. She opened her eyes, and said, in a very sweet 
 voice, 
 
 " Mother, where am I? " 
 
 The surgeon held her pulse as he said, " Don't be 
 afraid. You've had a little accident in the street, that's 
 all, and you've been brought to St. Martin's — the best 
 place for you." He spoke with a little more tenderness 
 and less quickness than are affected by men who have to 
 deal with cases wholesale ; and, now that she had opened 
 her eyes and spoken, there was an indescribably pathetic 
 air about her that made it impossible to speak to her 
 merely as a case, or otherwise than tenderly. Maynard 
 looked inquiringly at the surgeon. It is certainly more 
 unpleasant to run down some people than others. 
 
 She suddenly put her hands to her head. "In a 
 hospital ! An accident ! 0, for God's sake let me go I " 
 And she tried to rise. 
 
 " Not yet. Be a good girl. We'll see to-morrow. 
 You can't go now. We will see to your friends." 
 
 A clock struck a quarter past six. The half minuta 
 had rolled itself on into fifteen. Harold Maynard had 
 committed the unpardonable sin of a punctual man. He 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 155 
 
 had been guilty of an act of charity, which weans 
 inevitable loss of time. Surely he might have sent her 
 to St. Martin's in charge of a policeman. And now here 
 was time flying without his hearing the flutter of a 
 feather. 
 
 The girl fell back with a moan, and her eyes filled with 
 despair. Harold felt conscience-stricken. What had he 
 done ? And, having brought new trouble into the world, 
 what could he do ? what should he not do ? And it is 
 only fair to say that, if the girl with the sweet face and 
 the sweet voice had been some broken-down and utterly 
 uninteresting old crossing-sweeper, he would have felt 
 the same, and for a while have forgotten even Letty 
 Despard. 
 
 " Is there anything I can do for you ? " he said, gently 
 and ashamed, touching her wrist slightly with his 
 fingers. 
 
 " Only — help me to go home. I must go home." 
 
 Harold looked at the surgeon. The surgeon shook his 
 head, and signified " Impossible just now." 
 
 " Can I see your friends ? — can I let them know ? " 
 
 " I have a mother, and she — is dying. And she has 
 no friends but me ; I — I have none but her. She is 
 dying — alone. I went out for help, and " — 
 
 The girl's agony was beyond tears. 
 
 "Good God!" said Harold. " I will go— trust me, 
 my poor girl. Tell me where she lives — her name. Will 
 you trust me ? " 
 
 The girl's eyes gave him a long look. Apparently they 
 were satisfied ; and they thanked him in that simplest 
 and honestest of languages that has no tongue. 
 
 " 20, Powys Place — the third floor. Mrs. — Despard." 
 
 The clock struck a quarter to seven. From the half 
 minute had grown forty-five. 
 
156 ROMANCES OF J HE LAW. 
 
 IY. 
 
 Nevertheless, more than unpleasant as was this 
 interruption to the plans of a punctual man, whose career 
 was dependent upon his being "up to time," and who 
 had taken the special precaution of pledging himself 
 thereto — nevertheless, the hospital was not so far from 
 Powys Place, nor Powys Place from Tom Winter's 
 lodgings, as to prevent Maynard's catching old Despard 
 before he rose from table ; and though to prefer the 
 affairs of a stranger to one's own is unbecoming in a 
 business man, and speaks ill for him to would-be em- 
 ployers, it is like the police-magistrate's opinion of 
 drunkenness — no excuse, but a paliation. For the 
 moment the name of Despard did not strike him ; it was 
 so constantly running in his mind in connection with 
 Letty, that it came rather as an echo to his thoughts 
 than as an interruption. He took another hansom, and 
 threw away another double fare. 
 
 Powys Place was not so aristocratic as its name. It 
 was nothing better, indeed, than a street of shabby, not 
 to say doubtful, lodging-houses in the neighbourhood of 
 a railway station, where respectable people might lodge, 
 but most assuredly not of their own free will. It says 
 much for the girl that Harold, who knew the world, did 
 not take her character from that of her surroundings. 
 Not that his instinct was singular, for pure eyes tell their 
 own tale. He found No. 20, and knocked at the door. 
 It was opened by a red-faced man in shirt-sleeves, 
 smoking a long churchwarden. 
 
 " Mrs. Despard? " said Harold doubtfully. 
 
 "Third floor back,'' said the man gruffly, and dis- 
 appeared into a darkness of dust and onions. 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE 157 
 
 Harold groped his way to the third floor back, listened, 
 heard no sound, and then entered, as noiselessly as he 
 could, without knocking. For a while he could hardly 
 see for the rushlight that darkened the little room with 
 its glimmer. He hardly knew what to do. He had not 
 till now realized what is meant by the word " alone." If 
 the light showed him a dying woman, how should he 
 approach the bed and speak to her, and what should he 
 say ? The house was as silent as if uninhabited, and he 
 was not inclined to seek the help of the red-faced man 
 who had opened the door. True, he might affect to be a 
 doctor brought to the bedside by the girl, see what ought 
 to be done, and account for the girl's absence in the best 
 way possible. But whatever he might do, the situation 
 was trying for any but a sister of mercy. For half a 
 second he wished he had not come. 
 
 He listened in the half darkness, and fancied he heard 
 the sound of breathing. The situation was ghastly 
 altogether — alone in a light worse than darkness, in a 
 poor room in a neighbourhood without an affectation of 
 character, and by the bedside of a dying woman, when he 
 should by rights have been dining himself into a career. 
 Presently the wind began to howl, and a dog to howl in 
 answer. The howl of a dog at night is bad for people 
 with nerves, but, under such circumstances, bad even for 
 those fortunate people who have none. 
 
 Harold approached the bed as softly as a perversely- 
 creaking board would let him, and said quietly, 
 
 " The doctor, Mrs. Despard." 
 . There was no answer. He had heard breathing but an 
 instant ago, and now the bed might be empty, for any 
 sound he could hear. He listened again; he heard 
 nothing but the howl of the dog and of the wind. 
 
 He took up the rushlight and brought it to the bedside, 
 shading it with his hand. Then by degrees he lessened 
 the shadow thus thrown over the bed until he could see 
 
158 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 all that was to be seen. There was not much to see. 
 Only a dead woman — nothing more. 
 
 What was he to do now ? To leave the corpse alone 
 with the wind and the other night-ghosts would be sheer 
 barbarity. He must provide a watcher somehow, if only 
 the man with the pipe and the red face — and then at the 
 risk of having to find a watcher for the watcher, lest any 
 little valuables the dead woman might by any chance 
 leave behind her should find an unintended legatee. No 
 doubt there must be a woman in the house — and yet if 
 there had been, Mrs. Despard would hardly have been 
 left to die alone. He closed the door behind him, turned 
 the key, and carried the rushlight downstairs. He met 
 nobody, and the rooms he passed were either dark or 
 empty. At last he found the head of the kitchen stairs. 
 These also he descended, and found himself in a labyrinth 
 of sculleries — so it seemed. 
 
 " Hoy, there ! " growled a voice from somewhere that 
 smelled like beer. " Who are you ? " 
 
 " And where are you? Mrs. Despard is dead." 
 
 " So's Queen Anne. I could have told you that an 
 hour ago." 
 
 " Why didn't you, then ? " 
 
 " Because you didn't ask me. That's why." 
 
 " Is there any woman in the house to see to her ? " 
 
 "There's the young woman, I suppose.'' 
 
 " Miss Despard ? She has been hurt by a cab, and is 
 in the hospital." 
 
 " Well, then, she's all right. And the old lfdy's all 
 right. And I'm all right — they've paid to Saturday. I 
 don't mind a body in the house, not I. I'll see to it in 
 the morning." 
 
 "There's no other woman in the house? No neigh- 
 bours you could send for ? " 
 
 " You seem to think a mighty lot of a dead body, 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. ISO 
 
 young gentleman. Bless you, you wouldn't if you was 
 me. You're a doctor, I suppose. Then look here — I'll 
 make a bargain. Dead men don't tell no tales, nor dead 
 women either, and there ain't a soul knows the old lady 
 but her daughter, and she won't know but what she's 
 buried when she gets out of hospital. You take the body 
 for two sovereigns. Done ? You'll get a whole woman 
 to cut up, and I sha'n't be bothered." 
 
 " May I ask," said Harold, " who you are?" His tone 
 was not amiable. 
 
 " Who I am ? You're a green hand, I reckon, for a 
 medical man, not to hear of Knaggs. I'm Knaggs. And 
 I can get you an arm or a leg most days — and bones any 
 time. But a whole body isn't an every-day thing." 
 
 It was useless to argue with a ghoul. 
 
 " Who is — was, Mrs. Despard?" 
 
 " A decayed gentlewoman, I suppose. That's what 
 they call her sort. If she weren't a good bit decayed I 
 wouldn't have had her for a lodger. But she scraped 
 her rent together — or she wouldn't have had me for a 
 landlord." 
 
 "It is not a common name — Despard." 
 
 " Nor's Knaggs." 
 
 " You can tell me nothing of her ? Nor of the girl ? " 
 
 "Bless us, I've told you enough, haven't I? I know 
 no harm of the girl. She'd got a few pounds to keep out 
 of the workhouse. I didn't ask how she came by 'em. 
 I took 'em, as they came due." 
 
 Every natural instinct rose up in Harold. It was 
 nothing to him, but he could not bear the thought of that 
 sweet-faced, pure-eyed girl coming out of St. Martin's to 
 find her mother dead — but not buried, and unable to find 
 so much as a mound of turf to mourn over. Without 
 another word to Mr. Knaggs he returned to the room he 
 had left, and himself became a watcher of the dead — he 
 himself could not have told, and indeed he never asked 
 
1G0 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 himself, why. He closed the eyes of the dead woman, 
 and covered her face decently. 
 
 Then — it was a ghastly process — he set himself to rob 
 the dead for the sake of the living. In that house of 
 ghouls, with the wind howling round, he felt almost like 
 a murderer as he searched the room for any articles of 
 value to prevent their falling into dishonest hands. He 
 did not find much — only the portrait of a handsome 
 young man, brown haired and brown eyed : a miniature, 
 well painted, and set in a black velvet case and frame. 
 This he took ; and then, with a sort of conscious 
 sacrilege, drew from the dead fourth finger the woman's 
 only ornament— a wedding-ring. 
 
 He sat down at the window, drew up the blind, and 
 did not think it sacrilege to light a cigar. 
 
 "Only half a minute" — he remembered the words 
 of his first cabman. And at that moment the clock from 
 near St. Martin's struck one. Only half a minute late 
 ■ — only seven hours and a quarter. The snow-ball rolled 
 and grew. 
 
 Harold Maynard was growing hungry. But he felt 
 like a sentinel at his post, and it was too late even to 
 dream of dinner now. So he dreamed of Letty and 
 looked at the stars. 
 
 It was a glorious relief when he woke from his dream, 
 threw open the window, and let in the sun. He locked 
 the door, carried away the key, gave it, with all needful 
 information, to the sergeant on duty at the nearest police- 
 station, breakfasted, and then went straight to the 
 hospital. 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 161 
 
 "How is the girl?" he asked the surgeon. "I saw 
 her mother — she is dead. Ought the girl to be told ? " 
 
 " It would kill her — that's all. She is very weak and 
 ill — and in my opinion she wants food as much as any- 
 thing." 
 
 So there was nothing for it but to let her wait for the 
 bad news. It was needless oven to relieve her mind with 
 kindly equivocation, for she was in a high fever before 
 noon. And so, at last, Harold was left free to attend 
 to his own affairs — and it was high time. He had 
 missed his appointment : this was Tuesday, and on 
 Thursday the Ganges was to sail. 
 
 Obviously the best thing he could do was to call at 
 once on old Despard : and Tuesday was a good day, 
 because he was always at home on Tuesday, and there 
 was the chance of seeing Letty alone into the bargain. 
 He must see her alone before sailing for Hong-Kong, and 
 his heart told him that no loss of half a minute, or half a 
 thousand minutes, could hurt him there. He had lost a 
 dinner, but he had breakfasted, and there was an end. 
 The sun shone, and the world was beautiful again — all 
 but for the sad face of a girl whose mother had just died 
 alone. And that, as he drew nearer to Letty, was smiled 
 out by the sun. 
 
 It is a curious fact that when a man is in love the sun 
 shines even when it rains — unless indeed it rains when 
 the sun shines. But to-day the sun really shone. 
 
 And it was high time — for Hong-Kong or for anywhere. 
 Harold had but one sovereign left in the world to call his 
 own, and one that he had borrowed on Saturday from 
 Tom Winter. But it was all right now. With Hong- 
 Kong and Letty before him he could afford to be as poor 
 as Job, or even as Midas, who was the poorest mortal 
 ever known. 
 
 By good fortune, or rather by punctual management, 
 he found old Despard at home. The China merchant 
 
 M 
 
1C2 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 was a tall, rather fine-looking man, with signs of port 
 and portliness, handsome brown eyes and iron-grey hair 
 — a commercial captain, every inch of him. People said 
 he was difficult to deal with, and ill-tempered when the 
 gout was upon him ; but that is a not an uncommon failing, 
 or rather was not when wine was wine, and men drank 
 it without fear instead of taking it in timid nips all day. 
 Old Despard's toes were often tender, but his stomach 
 was sound. 
 
 He had a library, though he never read : and here he 
 received Maynard. 
 
 "Take a seat, pray. Your business, if you please?" 
 
 " 1 was to have had the pleasure of meeting you at my 
 friend Winter's." 
 
 "Indeed?" 
 
 " I was prevented — but it was to arrange about my 
 going out for you to Hong-Kong.'' 
 
 " Ah, well. Is this your letter? H. M. — yes; Harold 
 Maynard. Never sign initials, Mr. Maynard. 1 never do. 
 I was informed you were a punctual man. In my busi- 
 ness punctuality is indispensable." 
 
 "I pride myself on punctuality." 
 
 " An excellent pride. And you say in your letter you 
 know what a minute means. Your letter is a written 
 undertaking to be at a certain place at a certain time. I 
 don't remember meeting you at my nephew's. 
 
 "Nothing could have vexed me more. But — well, I 
 ran, or my cab ran, over a girl in the street, and I had 
 to see her to a hospital " — 
 
 "That was not business, Mr. Maynard. There is a 
 time for all things. You should not have done so." 
 
 " What else could I have done ? " 
 
 " Kept your appointment. But too late is too late, 
 if it's only by half a minute, Mr. Maynard. Not having 
 met you I have this morning engaged another gentleman, 
 who, I trust, will not waste my time in running over girls 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 163 
 
 in the streets of Hong-Kong. Time presses, and the 
 Ganges never delays an hour." 
 
 That wretched half minute ! It seemed turning into a 
 live thing. How could he have supposed that an errand 
 of common charity would have cost him so much more 
 than a dinner ? And here, just because he had delayed 
 in pulling a bell-rope for an inappreciable space of time 
 he was as far from Hong-Kong as London, as far from 
 Letty as from Hong-Kong ; with only two sovereigns in 
 the world, and one borrowed, and with no prospect 
 of earning more. 
 
 The sun went out of the day. It was a cruel blow. 
 But there was nothing to be done. After all, it was fair 
 enough that old Despard should have supposed him in- 
 different, and have engaged another employe under the 
 pressure of time. He could not even complain. He 
 could only put a brave face over his heavy heart, and say, 
 " I'm very sorry. Good-day." 
 
 But, as it happened, he had left his hat in the drawing- 
 room. And on returning there to fetch it, found not only 
 his hat, but Letty — so radiantly lovely that the sun came 
 back again. He had never seen her so beautiful ; and 
 there was a shy joy in her face as she turned to him that 
 contrasted bitterly with his own sad look of a beaten 
 man. 
 
 But — was he beaten ? Could he feel beaten when the 
 girl whom he loved was there before him ? Eepulsed at 
 one point, could he not do all things for her ? Only he 
 must have hope — he was no poet, to be willing to live 
 for a dream. He must feel something to win. That she 
 was more that half won he knew ; but the word had 
 never been said, and now, in his disappointment, he was 
 longing and hungering for the word that would console 
 him for all. 
 
 "Letty," he said, "I didn't mean to see. you to-day, 
 but — I'm glad. To see you, I mean. I'm not glad other 
 
 m 2 
 
ICt ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 ways. It's hard that a wretched cabman should have — 
 Well, it seems I must try again in England, after all." 
 
 " Well," she said sweetly, " I suppose you don't very 
 much mind? " 
 
 " Not mind?" 
 
 " I suppose if you'd minded —very much, you know — 
 you would have seen papa yesterday ? I heard all about 
 it, and — yes, I was very, very glad you were going to 
 Hong-Kong. But, of course, if you can do better in 
 England I shall be gladder still." 
 
 "Letty ! What chance is there in England?" 
 
 " You know best, Harold." 
 
 " You know I don't know. And you know why — why 
 I was so anxious to go to China." 
 
 " Indeed I don't know." 
 
 " Letty ! Don't you know what I live for? " 
 
 "If you had cared — so very much — I think you'd have 
 managed to dine with cousin Tom and papa." 
 
 "I couldn't, dear — Letty, I mean. It was not my fault 
 — the devil seems to be in everything. I miss my 
 appointment. I lose my employment. And now you 
 tell me that it was my fault, and that I don't care." 
 
 " If you had cared you would have done what you 
 cared," said Letty, with the sweetest obstinacy. 
 
 " But I had to look after a girl " — 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " My cab nearly killed her." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well ! what would you have done?" 
 
 " It depends on how much I cared for her, I suppose — 
 if I was a man." 
 
 " Letty ! I never saw her in all my life before." 
 
 " Then it was odd you cared about her so much as to 
 give up everything for her.'' 
 
 "Letty .... I love you .... Will you be my wife 
 .... some day?" 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 105 
 
 Letfcy had been charmingly composed. But the 
 question was sudden, and it was at least a second before 
 she recovered her composure. Well — she did like 
 Harold Maynard very much indeed. He danced and 
 flirted to perfection. He loved her. He was handsome 
 and strong, and made love straight out, in the right way. 
 She sighed. But — but — but — what was a girl to say to 
 a man who not only had no money, and would only 
 waste her youth in a long engagement, but was so 
 obstinately unlucky as to throw away the one chance he 
 had of winning her? " Yes " gave a little flutter in her 
 heart ; it almost spread its wings — but — 
 
 " O, I am so sorry, Harold ! " she said, with the most 
 touching sweetness. And that meant No. 
 
 Could he have liberated the fluttering " Yes " even yet 
 if he had refused to take her answer ? Perhaps ; but 
 something prevented him. 
 
 It was now the gigantic ghost of that half minute — a 
 half minute no more, no more even an hour, a day, a 
 year — but a whole life, fortune, Letty, and all. The 
 details might be absurd, but massed together they had 
 swelled into a mountain, and the absurdities were the 
 mocking grins of its gnomes. "Only half a minute!" 
 Only destiny. 
 
 But one effect of such combined assaults of Fate upon 
 a weak man is to make him weaker ; upon a strong 
 man to make him stronger. They are the tests of man- 
 hood and of will. The loss of Letty might be unbearable, 
 but it had to be borne. The world must still go on, 
 though for Harold all buying and no selling, all hunger 
 and no food. Something must be done. He had said so 
 a thousand times for Letty's sake : now he must say it 
 once for all, and for his own. But even his pressing need 
 did not keep him from calling at the hospital the next 
 day with the girl's miniature and ring. 
 
106 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 She could see him now. He sat down by her bedside 
 and looked for a moment into the sweet, pure eyes, 
 wondering what he should say to them. They were very 
 different from Letty's eyes. He could not imagine them 
 looking coldly upon a beaten lover — he could imagine 
 them lighting up with sympathetic joy or softening into 
 comfort. He longed to know by what name to call her. 
 But, meanwhile, how should he tell her that she was 
 alone in the world ? 
 
 He looked at her gravely, and laid the ring before her. 
 
 "It is well with her now," he said. He took her hand 
 that she might not feel all alone, and turned away his face 
 that she might weep freely. The tears came, and then 
 she sobbed bitterly ; but her hand clung to his as if it 
 had been a child's, and with a touch as innocent. The 
 tears came into his own eyes. 
 
 " I will see you again," was all else he said to her. 
 He felt he was giving her strength by being there ; and 
 soon she would have to face the world all alone. " "What 
 is her name? " he asked a nurse. 
 
 " Alice Despard." 
 
 " Will she get well ? " he asked the surgeon. 
 
 " Who can tell ? " But he looked — " No." 
 
 Harold returned to his lodgings well-nigh heart-broken. 
 The lost half minute had lost him fortune, love, hope 
 almost, and had killed the sweetest face and voice he 
 had ever seen or heard. 
 
 But when he reached home, his room was occupied — 
 by a policeman, and a companion in plain clothes. The 
 latter said, before he could ask their business, 
 
 " You are Harold Maynard. I am a constable. And 
 I arrest you on the charge of wilful murder." 
 
 " What in Heaven's name do you mean? " 
 
 " The murder of Jane Despard. And you'd better 
 come along quietly, as you must, and not say a word." 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 107 
 
 VI. 
 
 Harold Maynard — and wilful murder I 
 
 Think of yourself, you who read this, and couple your 
 own name with two such words if you can. And then 
 you will conceive the effect of such a charge upon such a 
 man, who was as incapable of such a crime, even in 
 imagination, as you. 
 
 And yet who shall say after this that the evidence of 
 circumstance may not bear with crushing force against 
 the most innocent of men ? 
 
 The surgeon called in by the police had found that the 
 woman in Knagg's house in Powys Place, Jane Despard 
 by name, had been suffocated, not by nature, but by man, 
 who does everything so much more artistically than she. 
 Suspicion at first fell naturally upon the landlord. But 
 he in the first place volunteered an ineffectual search of 
 the premises, and, while still in custody, gave certain 
 information that put a different complexion on affairs. A 
 gentleman had come from St. Martin's Hospital while the 
 poor lady lay dying. That gentleman was easily 
 identified, by inquiries at the hospital, as Harold 
 Maynard. Very slight inquiries were enough to make 
 manifest that Harold Maynard was a very poor man, with 
 the position of a gentleman to keep up, with many debts, 
 no employment, and no means. He had been seen at the 
 hospital in possession of a missing wedding-ring — that in 
 itself was nothing. And at his lodgings was found a, 
 miniature, the property of the murdered woman . That 
 was not much more. But — 
 
 The detective in plain clothes, who was sharp enough, 
 had taken the trouble to dissect the miniature. And 
 
168 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 between the portrait and the back he found — Bank of 
 England notes to the amount of two thousand pounds ! 
 Motive enough for murder and to spare, in the eyes of the 
 law. Cui bono ? 
 
 And he who possessed the miniature, and had never 
 delivered it out of his own hands, had been alone with 
 the murdered woman during ample time for murder and 
 robbery. If he had come with a charitable motive, with 
 what motive had he carried away two thousand pounds ? 
 Temptation makes the thief, not the thief the temptation 
 — as all the world knows. 
 
 It was a very triumph of detectivism. Why should a 
 sane man rob a dead woman of a miniature that could be 
 nothing to him if he did not know what lay behind ? 
 And the notes were old notes — a hoard well-nigh as old 
 as the miniature must have been. There was no difficulty 
 in finding them : no secret trick : the only thing was to 
 have the idea. And even as the idea had at once struck 
 the detective, so surely it must have struck Harold 
 Maynard. 
 
 And so he was in the cell of the police-station, with a 
 consciousness of innocence and a conviction that the 
 proofs against him were overwhelming. He had a night's 
 leisure to think over all things. Why was he charged 
 with murder ? Because, omitting minor steps, he had 
 been alone with the dying Mrs. Despard. Why had he 
 been there? Because he had run over a girl in the street 
 mist. Why had he run over her '? Because he had been 
 driving over just that part of the road where she was 
 crossing. Why so ? Because he had been delayed by a 
 block. And why delayed ? Because he had not arrived 
 at the spot just half a minute before. And why not ? 
 Because he had started half a minute late from his own 
 door. Why ? Because half a minute had passed be- 
 tween his touching his bedroom bell-rope and giving it a 
 pull. 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 1G9 
 
 And finally, why ? Because some unknown journalist 
 had written a paradoxical article in an evening news- 
 paper. 
 
 Messieurs et mesdames , such things are happening 
 every day and all day long. Are there any little things 
 in the world ? Are there any great things ? 
 
 "Alas, how easily things go wrong ! 
 A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, 
 There follows a mist and a weeping rain" — 
 
 But too often has that been quoted and misquoted. 
 Half a minute late, indeed ! Half a second, half the tick 
 of a watch, and half that, and half that again. Life is 
 made up of such things. Sighs and kisses are Brobding- 
 nagian in comparison to the straws that do the undone 
 work of Archimedes' lever and move the world. I would 
 prove in the twinkling of an eye that the oak grows from 
 the acorn, and t"he forest from a grain of mustard-seed. 
 Not all our lost half minutes end in murder. But they 
 may, ay, and do, end in worse — in blunders never to be 
 redeemed, in life-long estrangements, in missed oppor- 
 tunities, in all the thousand ills that souls are heirs to. 
 Half minutes have lost battles, and overthrown empires, 
 and missed trains. 
 
 But these reflections, though philosophical enough in 
 their way, and though he had leisure to make them, 
 in no wise helped Harold Maynard. What was his 
 defence to be ? 
 
 He might feel sure enough in his own mind that 
 Knaggs, the professional resurrectionist, was more likely 
 to make sure of a body, during the absence of Alice, than 
 he to make sure of a hundred thousand pounds. But 
 nothing was found on Knaggs, while two thousand pounds 
 were found upon him. The world is never tired of 
 asking Gui bono ? The world mostly mistranslates it, 
 
170 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 indeed, but that is the way of the world. And here it 
 applied only too well. 
 
 In short, there was but one person in the whole world 
 who believed in Harold Maynard — and that was she who 
 of all people in the world had most reason to disbelieve 
 in him, and to feel the need for revenge — upon the guilty, 
 if possible, but in any case upon somebody. Stories of 
 murders will find their way everywhere, even among 
 people who never read : even into the wards of hospitals. 
 Letty might forget that she had ever cared for a murderer 
 in a deep flirtation with Tom Winter, who may have had 
 his own reasons for so generously banishing a dangerous 
 rival to Hong-Kong. Mr. Despard might set down 
 murder as the natural and necessary outcome of being 
 late for dinner — a less heinous offence, but far more 
 fertile of general discomfort than murder. But Alice, on 
 her sick-bed, with a glorious contempt for logic and the 
 law of evidence, refused, with an obstinacy only equalled 
 by Letty's, to understand how so kind a man could be a 
 murderer — and of her own mother : it was too horribly 
 impossible. She gave no reason for the faith that was in 
 her : her instinct told her to believe, and she believed. 
 And after all, is not that the only sort of belief worth 
 having ? Defend us from those who believe in us only 
 when they have good cause : give us those who insist on 
 believing in us because they love us, right or wrong. 
 That sort of belief seldom errs. 
 
 Alice had burned with fever ; now she burned with 
 anxiety. She had been mourning for the dead; now fear 
 for the living well-nigh swallowed up her mourning. She 
 clutched at every feather of news. The new fever had a 
 strange effect upon her health. I will not say that the 
 surgeon who had given her over was disappointed to find 
 his predictions falsified, but he must for ever after have 
 had less faith in his own opinion. From the moment she 
 heard of the charge against Harold Maynard her pulse 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 171 
 
 began to beat less quickly, her heart more strongly, and 
 a certain unsuspected elasticity of nature gave her a re- 
 bound from her illness. Her cheeks were no longer pale, 
 but the colour of health began to glow into them. And 
 so it went with her till she was discharged — cured, and 
 without a penny in the world. And yet she did not 
 believe herself to be the rightful and defrauded heiress to 
 two thousand pounds. If she had, she must have thought 
 her hero a thief, and if a thief, the murderer of her own 
 mother : and she refused to believe anything of the kind, 
 or rather was incapable of believing. 
 
 At last the day arrived when Harold Maynard — 
 gentleman, of no occupation : an ill-omened designation 
 — was to be brought up at Bow Street, before the magis- 
 trate, charged with the murder of one Jane Despard. 
 
 Despard is not a particularly common name, though, 
 oddly enough, it occurs twice in this history, as that of a 
 rich China merchant and of a poor lodger in Powys Place. 
 It would therefore have been natural enough for its 
 owner not to have been present on the bench during the 
 examination. Men, as a rule, are not fond of having 
 their names aired under such conditions. But pointing 
 morals is a favourite pastime, however unwilling modest 
 people may be to adorn tales. He who first thought of 
 the idle apprentice and his virtuous contrast could have 
 found no better illustration of the virtue of punctuality. 
 Old Despard could see it all before him laid out like a 
 map from the beginning. There was Tom Idle before 
 him in the dock, and beside him on the bench John 
 Goodchild in the person of Tom "Winter. Of course 
 Letty was not there : but that was in consequence of a 
 sacrifice of curiosity to the proprieties. Perhaps she 
 might appear under a veil when the trial came, but she 
 could hardly take part with self-respect in the vulgarities 
 of a police-court : and besides her father would not allow 
 her. 
 
172 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 All this happened but a short time ago, as a few fairly 
 long memories for these hurried times will call to mind. 
 Bnt the passion for remands, for exhausting the funds 
 of prisoners in preliminary investigations, and for turning 
 a simple matter of business into a display of vanity and 
 mutual admiration all round, had not come fully into 
 fashion. It was quite possible that the examination 
 of Harold Maynard might last no more than three weeks : 
 some people said three days : a few thought even one day 
 would be enough, as the prisoner was without counsel. 
 But that remained to be seen. A clever prisoner, who 
 wished to take full advantage of his situation, might give 
 a good deal of trouble and delay, though without the 
 advantage of legal training. 
 
 Harold Maynard felt his position there as an innocent 
 man would — that is to say, he was overwhelmed with the 
 shame popularly supposed to be one of the punishments 
 peculiar to guilt by those who know nothing about the 
 matter. Fear of death is a mere nothing to such shame, 
 when the warm blood boils against the injustice of cir- 
 cumstances, not of man. He was alive to the actual 
 peril in which he was standing, though not so much as to 
 his name being bruited about as a murderer ; to what 
 Letty, the lost, would think of him ; and last, but by no 
 means least, how Alice would see her mother's murderer 
 in the man who had been planning, even in the midst 
 of his own difficulties, how he could in some way make 
 up to her for the many cruelties of destiny. But, as he 
 was waiting and watching, with no more than just one 
 shadowy touch of a halter round his neck, the ticking 
 of the clock grew louder and louder, till it seemed to be- 
 come visible as well as audible. The half minutes could 
 be seen. But they all seemed to obey and follow one 
 arch half minute, that appeared to grin at him from the 
 clock-face with a diabolical grin. He had raised that, 
 and no other, and it had haunted him and was destroying 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 173 
 
 him. He might have lost any other half minute in the 
 universe with impunity — this alone had been fatally 
 gifted, and this alone he had made his enemy. And it had 
 grown and grown till it had filled up the whole measure 
 of all life and death, and bade fair to open the gate 
 of eternity. 
 
 The evidence, in spite of all that could be done, did not 
 take long. Indeed the witnesses were few — the surgeon, 
 the detective, and one or two others. Mr. Knaggs was 
 not in court, but the prisoner's own statements as to 
 admitting his presence in Powys Place at the time alleged 
 made up for the want of that witness. It seemed likely 
 that the examination of the prisoner would be concluded 
 in a single day. And it was actually approaching conclu- 
 sion and committal, when — 
 
 "May I say something?" said a sweet young voice 
 from behind the dock. 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 Harold Maynard looked at the new witness — and the 
 fatal half minute descended from the clock-face, no longer 
 a grinning imp, but tragically incarnate in Alice Despard. 
 She was about to come forward as avenger — the harshest 
 and sharpest scourge that Fate or time could ever find for 
 him now. 
 
 And yet — as their eyes met — who shall explain electric 
 sympathies ? Though his reason told him this, he knew 
 otherwise. There is a marvellous magic at times in that 
 sudden flash from eye to eye. She had obviously come 
 but lately from her bed in the hospital : her glow looked 
 hardly natural, and as if the fever were still in her veins. 
 Harold felt a strange pride in her thrill through him, as 
 if he would rather meet his doom from her hands than 
 from any that were meaner. If it were not love that ran 
 through the air of the police-court from eyes to eyes, 
 there can be no such thing: and love conscious, and 
 visible. Love, thank Heaven, is not like Letty, and is 
 
174 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 blind to vulgarities, though clear sighted about other 
 things. 
 
 " Who are you?" 
 
 " Alice Despard." 
 
 " The daughter of" — 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And what have you to say?" 
 
 " The prisoner is not guilty." 
 
 Of course all the people laughed at the notion of a 
 young girl, a mere witness, taking upon herself the 
 function of a jury — as if every one of those who laughed 
 had not been privately doing the same thing. The 
 magistrate himself smiled for a moment. 
 
 " Tell me why you think so?" 
 
 " I don't think. I know it, sir." 
 
 That might be delightful nonsense to the court, but it was 
 none to Harold Maynard. It was consolation in extremity. 
 
 " What are you?" 
 
 " I taught till — till she became ill : then I had to wait 
 on her. I had a little money : it did not last for long. 
 But long enough, sir — nearly. We had to live as — as we 
 best could at the end." 
 
 " Tou mean, I suppose, that the money found on the 
 prisoner could not be yours, your mother's, because she 
 had none ? Is that what you mean ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 But it so happened that the force of her argument was 
 considerably weakened by the fact that a pauper had 
 lately died with two hundred pounds in notes hidden in 
 an old stocking. The old lady might have been a miser, 
 but still the point was something. 
 
 " Have you anything more to say?" 
 
 " Yes, sir — he is not guilty. The money was not ours, 
 and he closed her eyes and watched her all night through. 
 He came to see me at the hospital and brought me her 
 wedding-ring, on my finger now. He" — 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 175 
 
 " Then" — began the magistrate. 
 
 But a new witness rose from near him on the bench. 
 
 " I have something to say before you think of com- 
 mittal." 
 
 It was old Despard. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " My name is John Despard, merchant, of London and 
 Hong-Kong. I'm well known. And I say that neither 
 the prisoner nor the — Mrs. Despard, nor anybody else 
 could have known of the notes. Nobody ever touched 
 them, and it was not the prisoner who secreted them." 
 
 "Who then?" 
 
 " It was I — thirty years ago. That portrait is of me. 
 I placed the notes there with my own hands." 
 
 Let it be clearly understood, that not Harold Maynard, 
 but old Despard is the hero of this history. Harold had 
 done nothing heroic. He had only wasted half a minute, 
 and looked after a girl whom he had nearly killed. For 
 the rest he had been a hero in no more than the sense in 
 which the heroes of Greek tragedies were heroes — in 
 being the football of the three Fates whenever they were 
 disposed for a game. But for old Despard to get up in 
 open court, though but in Bow Street, and to tell his 
 story, was a piece of genuine heroism for a martyr to 
 gout, who hated everybody near his toes and cared 
 nothing for a soul beyond them. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Not that he told all in court — for he was a man 
 who kept to the point, and a great deal concerned him 
 only. 
 
ITS ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 When that picture of the brown-eyed, brown-faced 
 young man was curiously handed along the bench for 
 inspection under the eye of the police-sergeant, its 
 guardian, what dim but never-to-be-forgotten springtides 
 returned to the heart of the still brown-eyed but iron- 
 haired man ! — springtides when the sun was bright for 
 him also, and when gout was unknown. Did he 
 remember for whom that picture had been painted, and 
 when ? Did he remember his first love ? Why, men will 
 forget their last sooner— especially when the first and the 
 last are one and the same. For Letty's mother had not 
 been particularly lovable ; and that perhaps accounted a 
 little for Letty, apart from her beauty. But Jane Morris 
 had been eminently lovable — and she accounted for Alice, 
 the girl with the one virtue of standing up for the man 
 she loved, without rhyme, reason, or power to help him, 
 just because he was down. Of course old Despard, then 
 young Despard — very young — had married Jane Morris, 
 who of course had not a penny. And of course the old 
 Despard of those days parted them ; and the course of 
 true love, not the less for being married love, ran rough, 
 and the old story ran in the old groove ; and the husband 
 had to go out to China in a slow sailer, and the wife was 
 to be cared for at home. It was then that young 
 Despard sent his wife his picture stuffed with bank-notes 
 ■ — all he had — and worked his way out before the mast 
 by way of compensation, and was reported dead — to his 
 wife : and she disappeared in trying to live ; and when 
 the young man came back in those unletter-wuiting, 
 slow-sailing days it was to find her dead as well as gone: 
 so he was told. 
 
 And now it seemed that the very money had been 
 thrown away. It was more than strange to find himself 
 face to face, then and there, with his own old young self 
 of thirty years ago. And there in the witness-box stood 
 Jane's child ; yes, as like Jane at her age as his own 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 177 
 
 child could be, and — well, he forgot the gout, and was a, 
 man. 
 
 " The prisoner is discharged." 
 
 That woke old Dospard from his reverie, and his 
 waking left him very much ashamed. He had made a 
 fool of himself in public — a thing he had never done in 
 his life before, though in private no doubt as frequently 
 as most men. He had raked up the ghosts of dead days, 
 and set them up as targets for a Bow Street jeer. He 
 had opened his heart ; he would have opened his purse 
 sooner. 
 
 " The carriage," he growled savagely to Tom Winter. 
 " And bring me the girl. I can't speak to her here." 
 
 " You mean to adopt her — to acknowledge her ? " 
 
 " What's that to you ? " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " No, sir, thank you." 
 
 It was Alice speaking to old Despard. 
 
 " You won't ? Don't you know you are my daughter 
 — my first wife's daughter ? Do you think I'll let you go 
 out teaching again, or live differently from Letty ? " 
 
 " Am I your daughter ? " 
 
 "Whose else should you be? You're as like me in 
 the nose as two peas ; but you've got Jane's grey eyes. 
 And that fellow — that unpunctual fellow Maynard — I'm 
 half sorry I got him off after spoiling a good dinner ; that 
 fellow closing Jane's eyes ! I wish with all my heart I'd 
 let him be hanged." 
 
 " It was being with her, sir, that kept him'' — 
 
 " As if I didn't know that ! As if that made me like 
 him any the better 1 As if I didn't know that I ought to 
 
 N 
 
178 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 have — no, it wouldn't have done ; he'd have been losing 
 his confounded time in Hong-Kong. I'll get him some- 
 thing somewhere, and let him go to the devil his own 
 way ; and you'll come with mc." 
 
 " Sir "— 
 
 " And don't call me sir." 
 
 " I have promised — to go — with him." 
 
 Letty, had she been standing side by side with her 
 sister before the glass, would not have been pleased with 
 the comparison just then. 
 
 " With him ? Who's him ? " 
 
 " Mr. Maynard ashed me to marry him, and I said 
 yes." 
 
 " And when, pray, did Mr. Maynard ask you to marry 
 him ? Why, you haven't seen him one minute since he 
 was discharged." 
 
 Alice smiled. Was old Despard so obsolete a lover as 
 to forget what one minute, nay, what half a minute 
 can do ? 
 
 " I see. He thinks he is going to get one of old 
 Despard's daughters, after all. Then all I can say is, if 
 you go with him you don't get a penny from me. I'll 
 give that very two thousand to a hospital — St. Martin's, 
 if you like — but" — 
 
 Alice smiled once more. How could she tell that what 
 her father hinted about her lover might not be true ? 
 But she did tell — somehow. 
 
 " How do you mean to live? " asked old Despard, who 
 caught the smile, and was not soothed. 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 "You don't know? Then, by the Lord Harry, you 
 shall know ! I'll — I'll — I'll — confound you, I'll send you 
 both to Hong-Kong 1 " 
 
HALF A MINUTE LATE. 179 
 
 IX. 
 
 On the deck, not of the Ganges, but of the Euphrates, 
 Harold Maynard and Alice his wife were standing arm in 
 arm, watching the every-day wonders of the sea, and 
 feeling the every-day wonders of love in one another. 
 He was on his way to fortune, after all. 
 
 Suddenly there was a commotion near them. A wave 
 had carried something under the stern, and a boat had 
 been lowered. 
 
 It was only a glass bottle. But that means much five 
 hundred miles from shore. 
 
 The captain of the Euphrates opened it, and read : 
 
 " Lat. — , long. — . Ganges of London, for Hong-Kong, 
 sinking with all hands. Boats swamped. Forward to 
 Preston & Co., Southampton." 
 
 That was all. Harold looked gravely at his wife. She 
 knew all that was passing in his mind. 
 
 If he had not been half a minute late he would have 
 sailed in the Ganges, have never seen Alice, and been at 
 this very moment at the bottom of the sea. 
 
 n 2 
 
A COOL HAND. 
 I. 
 
 I am an Irish Adventurer. 
 
 I am proud of my country, and I am proud of my 
 calling. I should he proud of my country were I a 
 Kalmuck or an Esquimaux — how much more reason for 
 pride have I not in being a native of Dublin, which is 
 admittedly the finest city in the finest country in the 
 world ! And as to my calling, it gives me brotherhood 
 with every man who ever had a name worth naming in 
 any country — strike the Adventurers out of your 
 hibtories, and what's left won't be more than a day's 
 reading. And as to being an Irish Adventurer — I've 
 heard that name sneered at in my time, but never by 
 anybody whose head wasn't too contemptible to be worth 
 cracking. 
 
 My adventures have had a considerable range, and I 
 could write my own life in twenty volumes as well 
 as any man. For the present, however, and simply 
 by way of preface to a short account of the strangest of 
 them all, I'll content myself, and pique the curiosity of 
 the reader, by boiling them down into twenty lines. My 
 name is Thomas Connor — an original having been 
 somehow lost in company with the rest of the family 
 property, which had been regal in ancient times, but had 
 been reduced to sevenpence-halfpenny on the day I came 
 
A COOL HAND. 181 
 
 of age. It is true there were a few debts besides, but 
 they could hardly be called possessions, seeing that I 
 never knew precisely what they were. "When my poor 
 father died, nobody — not even himself — knew how much 
 he owed : and it wasn't worth my while to go through 
 the court for anybody's benefit, seeing that sevenpence- 
 halfpenny wouldn't have paid for the mere whitewash, 
 not to speak of a dividend. But, though 1 found myself 
 on my twenty-first birthday better cleaned out than a 
 hundred tubs of whitewash would have made me, I found 
 no reason to complain of my friends. It's rubbish, and 
 I know it, to talk of the badness of the world to a man 
 when he's down. You'll be nearer the mark if you'll 
 talk of the badness of a man who's down to the world. 
 When a man complains of having been cut, or kicked, 
 take my word for it, that somebody has for once got what 
 he deserved. Why, I hadn't been one- and- twenty for 
 four-and-twenty hours when I got a note from old Miles 
 Cregan, whom my only sister, Kate, had lowered the 
 Connors by marrying (for he was only an attorney), offer- 
 ing me a free passage to New York and five pounds over, 
 without a word about being repaid, and with no condi- 
 tions except that I wouldn't come back to Dublin until 
 I'd made three hundred a year of my own — which of 
 course it wasn't likely I'd want to do. I took it all the 
 kinder of Miles, because he was so fond of money that he 
 wouldn't even let poor Kate help me when I'd now and then 
 wanted a pound or two to get out of a scrape, such as young 
 men will tumble into without any particular fault of any- 
 body's; and once when I'd asked him myself for a loan, 
 to be repaid punctually as soon as I'd be able, he said 
 that he didn't invest in wild oats on principle — and 
 when a man talks of his principle, you may be sure he 
 means his pocket, and nothing less nor more. But as 
 soon as I literally hadn't eightpence in the world, and 
 nothing left but to enlist or else to live on my wits, this 
 
18-J ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 very man disproved for ever all the cant about trie world's 
 cold shoulder, and did for his wife's brother what I don't 
 believe he'd have done for his own son. 
 
 So I thanked him, as warmly as he'd let me — for he 
 was one of those men who under a cold outside hide 
 their hearts, very much indeed — and then spent an hour 
 alone with Kate, saying good-bye. I had no sweetheart 
 just then, by some queer accident or other, so my sister 
 was the last Irish girl I saw in Ireland. Poor girl! She 
 cried when I told her how kind Miles had been, and 
 tried to make me take all she'd got in her own purse, 
 which was nine-and-fourpence — I remember it now; 
 but I didn't like to take advantage, for I thought that, 
 being as real a Connor as myself, it was likely enough 
 that she too might have a debt or two that she wouldn't 
 like to tell Miles. The next day, with three pounds in 
 my pocket — for two of the five had gone off somehow in 
 the night — I sailed for New York in the steerage of the 
 Hudson, with no ties at home except Kate, and my word 
 of honour not to see Dublin again without three hundred 
 a year of my own. 
 
 It was lucky enough that I'd spent those two pounds 
 before starting ; for the Hudson, as you may remember, 
 went down not far from Newfoundland, and I lost the 
 three that were left me. It was a bad start in life, but 
 it might have been worse — and for that matter I've 
 always noticed that nothing is ever quite as bad as it 
 might be. 1 might have lost all the five pounds, and 
 Kate's nine-and-fourpence into the bargain ; or I might 
 have been drowned ; or I might have been five feet in- 
 stead of six feet high, and twenty inches round the chest 
 instead of forty, and so less fitted to take a porter's place 
 in New York than I turned out to be. But I gave my- 
 self twenty lines for my self-introduction, and I have 
 taken nearly one hundred ! I must omit therefore ten 
 long years of adventurous ups and downs — my perils 
 
A COOL HAND. 183 
 
 among miners and Indians in the Far West, my narrow- 
 escape from an Indian tiger, my second and third ship- 
 wreck (so that I began to stand in some fear of a rope for 
 my end)— and eome, at one bound, to where the arch 
 adventure of my life began — namely, in South Africa. 
 By the time I was thirty-one, I had not made three 
 hundred a year ; but I had got more than three-quarters 
 round the world. And when I speak of the arch adven- 
 ture of my life, I mean the most remarkable adventure 
 that ever happened to any man. 
 
 I had been ostrich-farming up the country with a 
 young Englishman named Paul Andrews — a fine fellow 
 of about five-and-thirty. We got on famously together, 
 though we were about as unlike as two men could be, 
 and though we lived all alone. It's my experience that 
 it's always easy enough to get on with any man. He was 
 a gentleman all round (by which, however, I don't mean 
 to say that he was as unlike a Connor as my words might 
 be taken to imply), and I always used to think there was 
 a sort of mystery about him : even out there, and in his 
 rough dress, and in the middle of our rough ways, he 
 always used to look as if he was a major in the Guards 
 just dropped out of his club in a mistake, and yet, for all 
 his cool and easy ways, he'd be liable to fits of silence that 
 lasted for days, followed by the sort of spirits that make 
 a man seem as if he wanted to forget something. But 
 though we lived like brothers, he never told me much of 
 his. past life — nor, for that matter, did I tell him much of 
 mine, except maybe about the tiger. No doubt I told 
 him that, for I'll defy a man with a tiger story to keep it 
 to himself altogether. I'd sometimes a sort of fancy that 
 though his name might be Paul, it might turn out not to 
 be Andrews — and when one suspects an alias, it's bad 
 manners to ask questions. I have myself not always 
 called myself Connor ; when one's proud of one's name, 
 
184 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 one doesn't like it to be carried by everybody that one 
 may happen to be in the course of a voyage round the 
 globe. He was handsome, but it was in a different way 
 from myself— that is to say, while he was also a fine 
 figure of a man, he was dark, almost like an Italian, with 
 bi own eyes that seemed to dream straight into the very 
 middle of you, and hair to match — he'd have stood, for 
 all he was an English gentleman, for a portrait of one of 
 Byron's Blackguards. He didn't drink much, and he 
 talked less — except when he was in one of his fever fits, 
 as I used to call them, and then he'd show, without mak- 
 ing a show, that if he wasn't an earl himself, he'd been 
 hand and glove with them that are. 
 
 Somehow, however, though ostriches are undeniably 
 cheap beasts to feed, ours didn't do very well. Whether 
 feathers went out of demand, or whether there was a 
 glut of them, or whether it was the new fancy for cheap 
 funerals, or whatever it was, we didn't find them pay, 
 and we did find them die off in the most spiteful manner 
 you can conceive. So one day, said Paul, 
 
 " Tom, let's go for diamonds." 
 
 " We will," said I. 
 
 During six months we went for diamonds. I had my 
 regular luck ; that is to say, it w r as never quite the worst 
 possible. I wasn't robbed or murdered, either of which 
 would very likely have happened to me if I'd found any- 
 thing worth robbing me of or murdering me for. Paul's 
 luck was worse than mine, for example. I did find a 
 few trifling stones, which we shared, being partners, 
 and so kept body and soul together ; but I don't 
 remember his finding any at all. I began to think 
 he was a downright unlucky man; and, though a 
 Connor can't desert a man of his own accord, I wasn't 
 altogether displeased when he said to me one night, 
 when we were drinking whisky and water — that is to 
 ; say, I the whisky, and he the water, 
 
A COOL HAND 185 
 
 " Tom, old man, this won't do. We don't get on as 
 partners. We've tried feathers, and we've tried stones ; 
 and I don't know which is the worst speculation. Let's 
 dissolve. You stay where we are, and I'll go a mile or 
 two higher. There's a vacant bit there ; and if that 
 turns out no better than this has done I'll — I'll turn 
 missionary, and see if that will pay." 
 
 In an adventurous life we get used to sudden and 
 eternal partings from our closest friends, and take them 
 easy. It's odd how little one minds other good-byes 
 when there's one big " good-bye " sticking like a knife 
 into one's heart ; for ten years bad made me want to 
 see Dublin and poor Kate again, and I wasn't a bit 
 nearer to them than when I left them. So I only 
 said, 
 
 " Maybe you're right, Paul. Anyhow, there's no harm 
 trying a change. But it isn't fair that I should have 
 the chance of staying where we know there's soma 
 stones, and you sl.ould go where we know pretty well 
 beforehand there's none at all. No, no. I've better 
 luck than you, anyhow ; I'll go and you'll stay. You're 
 too generous by half, my boy." 
 
 " Nonsense," said he. " Perhaps I'm going because I 
 don't want to stay. I sometimes think I'm the Wan- 
 dering Jew. No, no. You make the best you can of 
 the old ground, and let a wilful man go his own way. 
 Whether you move or not, I sha'n't stay here." 
 
 Yes, there was clearly a mystery about this man, 
 young, handsome, with an iron will, with no vices, who 
 would have been an ornament to a crack regiment or a 
 duchess's drawing-room, and yet hiding himself in. 
 poverty and Africa. I couldn't make it out at all. I 
 didn't like to be outdone in generosity by an English- 
 man ; but I felt it was a kind of destiny that was driving 
 him, and that, as he said, his boots were beginning to 
 bcil. So the next morning we just shook hands, and 
 
186 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 said, " Good luck to you, old fellow ! " and then he went 
 his way, and I mine, without more ado than if we ex- 
 pected to meet again at supper-time. 
 
 Will I ever forget that day ? I hadn't been at work 
 three hours before I knew myself to be master of a more 
 splendid diamond than I had ever dreamed of in my 
 wildest dreams. Yes, in our wretched little patch I had 
 lighted upon an African Koh-i-noor ! Don't turn up your 
 nose at Cape diamonds if you have never seen that one. 
 It was a queen ; and a tug at my heart told me what 
 our patch was going to be. 
 
 Our patch ? It was mine ; it was the sole property of 
 Thomas Connor. With a vengeance indeed had Luck 
 turned at the departure of Paul Andrews —poor devil ! 
 It was a sin and a shame. He had lost his share by 
 three hours ; and all because he had been generous, and 
 had given up the old ground to me. My first thought 
 bad been, Now for Kate and Dublin ! My second was 
 to get hold of a horse, and to gallop like mad after Paul 
 Andrews, to bring him back again into the firm ; for I 
 could no more have kept that luck to myself than I 
 could have picked a pocket. I knew which way he had 
 gone ; and one doesn't get far in that country in three or 
 four hours. But though I rode as much like mad as the 
 nature of the beast and of the ground would let me, I 
 couldn't come up with him. He wasn't at the new 
 place, nor anywhere else that I could hear or find. And 
 though I tried for days, and was more or less on the 
 look-out for months after, no news of Paul Andrews 
 could I hear. I almost felt like a thief ; but there was 
 no help for it. I could do nothing but put my back into 
 things, and work away. 
 
A COOL HAND. 15- 
 
 II. 
 
 It was the height of the season when the South- 
 Western Eailway brought me from Southampton to 
 London. It was with a sore heart that I made my first 
 visit to the English instead of the Irish capital ; but it 
 couldn't be helped, seeing that I had not yet three 
 hundred a year of my own; and Connor rhymes with 
 Honour, as all the world knows. But I had what was 
 worth it, if people were half as fond of diamonds as they 
 are said to be. For that matter, I had, in the rough 
 material, three hundred a year without counting the big 
 stone, my first and finest find, which I had christened 
 Kate Cregan, and meant to give to my sister in return 
 for the nine-and-fourpence that she didn't give me, poor 
 girl ! And it would be a delicate way of repaying Miles ; 
 for, of course, one couldn't pay back a kindness in 
 common dirty coin. I'd had it cut and set at Capetown; 
 and I kept it about me till I could put it on Kate with 
 my own hands. 
 
 But though I couldn't see her in Dublin just yet, I 
 wrote to her — -maybe Miles would let her run over to 
 London, to have a bit of fun with a brother who hadn't 
 turned up quite so much like a bad penny as had been 
 expected of him. I hadn't written home since I'd been 
 away, because, for one thing, I'm a bad correspondent, 
 and, for another, I never knew from day to day where I'd 
 tell her to send an answer. And I didn't write much of a 
 letter even now, only a line or two just to say how glad I 
 was to be back, and that I'd be free to come to Dublin in 
 a week or two, and that I had turned up trumps in 
 diamonds, and was her loving brother Tom. I didn't 
 mention African Kate ; that was to be for a surprise. 
 
188 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 Then I went to work and settled my affairs as well as I 
 could for the hurry I was in to be back in Dublin again ; 
 and, for all my hurry, I did pretty well. Meanwhile, I'd 
 been to a real tailor, and got him to make me look a little 
 less like a ruffian than I'm afraid I did when I landed at 
 Southampton, not forgetting a suit of dress-clothes ; for 
 though I didn't know a soul in London in those days, an 
 adventurer soon finds out the need of being ready for any- 
 thing that may turn up at any time. 
 
 I was beginning to wonder, as the days went by, that I 
 didn't get a line from Kate ; but I thought nothing wrong, 
 as why should I ? I'd never been in London before ; 
 and I had plenty to do in the way of sight-seeing. Even 
 staring about the streets and the Park was enough just 
 then for a man raw from Africa. The very day my 
 dress-clothes came home, I had a fancy to put them on ; 
 for I'd never felt myself dressed like a gentleman before, 
 in all my adventures. So, having nowhere else to go, I 
 took a stall at the Opera, and amused myself by thinking, 
 " Well, Tom Connor, when you went down under the sea 
 off Newfoundland, it's little you ever expected to be 
 turning up here." And then, for the life of me, I couldn't 
 help giving a thought to poor Paul Andrews, who ought 
 to be where I was, if I was any judge of faces at all ; and 
 who wasn't, just because he'd dissolved partnership an 
 hour too soon. And I was beginning to feel lonesome too 
 in London, where I didn't know the people nor the ways; 
 and the foreign music didn't seem up to Kate's old piano 
 before she married Miles ; and the new clothes didn't 
 feel to fit me somehow. I was wanting the old pipe and 
 the old canvas jacket, and the grip of an old chum's 
 hand. 
 
 With my eyes off the stage, I chanced to let them fall 
 on the finger of a lady that sat beside me. I didn't 
 think much of the finger, but I had diamonds in my head, 
 and I noticed she wore one in a ring that wasn't to 
 
A COOL HAND. 1S9 
 
 be named beside my own big one, only it was set in a 
 way beyond anything they were up to in Capetown. It 
 made me feel ashamed of the style of mine, or of Kate's 
 rather : so I took a note of it in my mind, and settled to 
 have it copied, or bettered if possible, by some first-rate 
 jeweller. I don't know what the lady was like to this 
 day, for I spent the rest of the time taking a photograph 
 of the ring on my brain : and the next morning I took a 
 hansom and drove to a man whom I'd been introduced to 
 already in the way of trade. His name was Graves. 
 
 " I want a stone re-set," said I ; " and when you've 
 seen it, I think you'll say it's worth the doing." 
 
 I put my hand into the breast-pocket, where I always 
 kept it, in a little leather case, wherever I went, and — ■ 
 I'll never forget the cold shiver that ran down from the 
 roots of my hair into the tips of my toes when I found it 
 wasn't there! The jeweller waited patiently enough, 
 while I felt in every pocket I'd got, thinking as hard as I 
 could where the stone could have gone to. Surely there 
 couldn't have been a hole ? And yet there might be, for 
 I hadn't been to the tailor a day too soon. In another 
 minute I stood before the jeweller with every pocket I'd 
 got turned inside out, and hanging like bags all over me. 
 But nothing fell out, and there wasn't a ghost of a 
 hole. 
 
 I had never looked for such a thing as that, anyhow. 
 It's enough to bother a man to miss a diamond that's not 
 worth a penny less than eighteen hundred pounds : and 
 what made it the worse was that I'd given it to Kate, so 
 it wasn't mine to lose. But lost it was ; for I never had 
 it out of my breast-pocket, so that if it wasn't there 
 it couldn't be anywhere. I began to wonder if my 
 diamonds hain't been but fairy ones after all, like fairy 
 gold, that, as soon as you think you've got it safe, turns 
 to chips and straws. 
 
 "I expect you've been robbed, Mr. Connor," said 
 
190 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 the jeweller. "London's a bad place for a man -with 
 stones like that, if he doesn't know the ways." 
 
 " As if," I said, "a man that's been in San Francisco, 
 and New Orleans, and the Diamond Fields, ay, and 
 Dublin, too, wants putting up to the ways of London or 
 of anywhere ! " And it isn't likely he would either. 
 " As for being robbed, it's not possible. I've always 
 kept it in this breast-pocket, under my right arm ; and a 
 tougher right arm you'll not find in a month or two; '' 
 and that was true too. " I'd like to see the London 
 thief that would try to rob me." 
 
 The man had a trick of smiling, and he smiled 
 then. "Of course you'll go to the police?" said he. 
 " They sometimes find that a man has been robbed, even 
 when it's impossible. Who knew of your having this 
 diamond, Mr. Connor? " 
 
 " Not a soul. We learn to hold our tongues where 
 I've been. You're the first man I've spoken to of it 
 since I left Capetown." 
 
 I don't know why, but he smiled again ; I suppose 
 it was a manner he had with him. " If I were you," he 
 said, " I should go straight to Scotland Yard — the head 
 police-station, you know." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said I. " I know the ways of 
 the peelers, anyhow, and the lawyers. I'm looking for a 
 letter every post that'll call me to Dublin by return 
 of mail ; and they'd be keeping me kicking my heels here 
 while they were on the traces, as they call it, of some 
 poor devil that had no more to do with the stone than 
 you. Why, do you think I'd be robbed of a diamond 
 like that under my very nose ? I'd have to be made 
 drunk or knocked down ; and you may try me yourself, 
 both ways, and see if that's easy. No ; I'm sorry the 
 stone's gone, but it's no more stolen than you are : and 
 what's gone's, gone ; and it's only fools that bother." 
 
 And it's true I was vexed more for Kate's sake than 
 
A COOL HAND. 1C1 
 
 my own ; for it's sure enough that worrying over gone 
 things is waste of time. 
 
 But the jeweller wouldn't rest so easily. I believe ha 
 thought me a simple stranger that wanted looking after, 
 instead of a man who'd seen more of the world in ten 
 years than he had in fifty. He made me describe 
 the stone to him three times over, and wrote it down, 
 setting and all, and said as my business in Ireland was so 
 important he'd spare me the trouble of going to Scotland 
 Yard if I pleased. 
 
 "That's as you like," I said, as if a diamond more or 
 less wasn't of much account to a Connor — for it doesn't 
 do to lower one's dignity before a tradesmen. " And of 
 course I thank you for being so kind." 
 
 " You'll have to offer a reward," said he. 
 
 "I'll leave that to yourself," said I. " Anything in 
 reason of course I'll pay, to get the stone back again. 
 And I'll bet you ten pounds to one that it's not been 
 stolen." 
 
 " I don't bet," he said, with another smile, I thanked 
 him again, in an off-hand way, not to let him see how 
 really vexed I was about it all, and went home. 
 
 But I was vexed, and the more I thought about it the 
 more vexed I grew ; for I'd just set my heart on giving 
 Kate this diamond. " I wish I hadn't let that fellow go 
 to the police," thought I. " He'll be sure to make some 
 mess or another — I think I'll go myself, after all, and 
 see that things are done properly. I'll drive to Scotland 
 Yard, wherever it is, this very afternoon." Of course 
 I'd hunted high and low for the stone, but it was no 
 more in my lodgings than it was in my pocket ; and I 
 asked all the questions in the house that I could with- 
 out hinting that it was a diamond I was looking for. I 
 couldn't believe it was stolen, even now ; but still tbere 
 might be a chance if the police were put on the scent by 
 a proper reward. But, all at once, just as I was think- 
 
1C2 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 ing the least of poor Kate herself, and the most of her 
 stone, a letter came in. 
 
 It wasn't from Dublin, though. It had only a London 
 post-mark, and I didn't know the hand. I don't know, 
 when I think of it now, whether it was fact or only an 
 after-fancy, but the minute my fingers touched that 
 common-looking letter I seemed to feel it was ill news. 
 I opened it. Dated from London — signed Miles Cregan 
 — what would it mean ? What would Miles Cregan, the 
 Dublin lawyer, be doing with No. 24, Melton Street, 
 Mayfair ? 
 
 And how is it that the very look of a letter, like a 
 look of a face, will tell you, before you read, if the heart 
 of things is changed ? 
 
 "Dear Brother-in-Law, — Yours to hand. I am 
 heartily glad you have prospered so well. Of course 
 there is no objection now to your presence, or even to 
 your residence, in Dublin. I am no longer there, 
 which accounts for all delays in my receipt of your 
 letter. I regret to have to inform you that your sister 
 Catherine has enjoyed for five years the delights of 
 another and better world, which makes it impossible 
 for her to give you in person the welcome which you 
 appear to have earned. For myself, I always believed 
 you would eventually become a credit to your friends, 
 though at the time I was disbelieved ; but you have 
 doubtless not forgotten the practical proof I gave of my 
 confidence in you. I gather from your letter that the 
 news has not yet reached you of my marriage, by means 
 of which, and of Providence, I have transferred my 
 office and practice from Dublin to London, where I 
 have always had many clients, chiefly young military 
 men of excellent family. As I am naturally anxious to 
 be of service to my first wife's only brother, I may bo 
 able to invest your capital to better advantage than a 
 
A COOL HAND. 193 
 
 young man, without experienced and affectionate aid, 
 would be likely to do in this Den of Thieves where I 
 practise at this present. It would also give me much 
 pleasure to make you such advances as you may require 
 upon merely formal and nominal security. I am 
 occupied by business during the day, but it will give 
 Mrs. Cregan as well as myself the greatest pleasure if 
 you will come and see us next Wednesday evening. 
 A few friends may drop in, including some young 
 military men of excellent family; but we are very 
 quiet people, and I wish you to look upon this informal 
 invitation as of a purely domestic character. 
 
 " Believe me to be, my dear Thomas, affectionately 
 yours, 
 
 " Miles Cregan." 
 
 My heart swelled for a moment as if it would burst, 
 and then sank down as if it had turned to frozen lead 
 in me. Poor Kate — the only girl I'd been coming home 
 for : the only soul there was to give me a kiss of 
 welcome after eleven years — and she was dead, and 
 I had never known. I sat for I don't know how long 
 holding Miles' s letter in hands that were nigh as dead as 
 
 her own " The hansom, sir," said the 
 
 servant, from the door. "Hansom! what hansom?" 
 " The one you wanted fetched to go to Scotland Yard." 
 "Then send it away!" What did it matter about 
 that diamond any more — Kate of Africa, when Kate of 
 Ireland had been buried five years ; ay, and forgotten too 
 by her own husband, and by everybody but me? I 
 would not have had that diamond back now, no, not if it 
 were the Koh-i-noor. 
 
 I need not tell the story of that day and evening. 
 It seems odd that I should have done without my 
 sister for more than ten years, and without corre- 
 sponding with her even, and yet that her death should have 
 
194 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 struck me just like a blow. I'd never thought of the 
 chance of her dying : and while she was alive, or while 
 I thought her so, though I never saw her or heard of her, 
 I hadn't felt quite alone in the world. But I did when 
 I woke up next morning and lay half thinking, half 
 dreaming about it all — terribly alone. I'd made money, 
 but I hadn't a kinsman that cared twopence for me, and 
 we don't make friends in my sort of life — we only make 
 chums, who seem to come no-whence and to go no- 
 whither. Paul Andrews had been most like a friend 
 while he lasted, but he hadn't lasted. Of course I'd 
 go and see Miles. His new offers of help were just 
 doubling all his old kindness, and I somehow liked him 
 for himself a little better now that he wasn't Kate's 
 husband : I had never liked to think of him in that way. 
 She seemed to have come back to the Connors now she 
 was gone. And, anyhow, I hungered so much for the 
 feel of somebody's hand that I'd have taken Cetewayo's 
 even, if he asked me — and I must get him to tell me the 
 last of Kate if he hadn't quite forgotten her. He 
 was the nearest to me now, after all ; and if the new 
 Mrs. Cregan had got a child or two of poor Kate's, to 
 whom she was perhaps acting as a good stepmother, and 
 if they took to me, I might find something to do with 
 my money now that it didn't feel of any more use to me. 
 I didn't want to meet Miles's officers, but no doubt I'd 
 be able to have a talk with him over a late pipe when 
 the others were goDe. So I just wrote him a word that 
 evening to say I'd oome, and set off for a twenty-miles 
 walk, to get rid of the blue devils, and make myself feel 
 like a man again. What's death after all ? I've seen 
 him face to face often enough, and I never could 
 manage to think much of him. But poor Kate ! It's 
 easy preaching when one isn't one's own congregation. 
 I doubt if she was ever quite happy with Miles, but X 
 did wish she hadn't died quite so soon. 
 
A COOL HAND. 195 
 
 III. 
 
 It is not very far from Norfolk Street, -where I wag 
 lodging, to Mayfair ; but somehow it took me a long 
 time to get to Melton Street on Wednesday evening. It 
 wasn't till the last minute that I made up my mind to 
 dress ; and I only did at last because that was the only 
 way I could go in decent mourning, though of course 
 after five years nobody but myself would notice how I 
 chose to go. And then I got hold of a cabman who 
 didn't know the town, and as I didn't either, we lost a 
 good deal of time on the journey. I was afraid to look 
 at my watch when I got there at last, for Miles was an 
 early man at both ends of the day. I was in too much 
 of a hurry to notice much about the outside of the house 
 as I went up to the door, though when I thought of it 
 afterwards I called to mind one or two little things that 
 might have surprised me ; but when I was inside, 
 "Faith," I thought to myself, "things have changed 
 with Miles as much as they have with me — the new Mrs. 
 Cregan must have had money anyhow." Indeed, at first 
 I could hardly believe my own eyes. Miles had never 
 been anything but rich, but even in the best Dublin days 
 he'd been content to live in a little house and in the 
 plainest way : the biggest thing in the shape of an enter- 
 tainment was a potluck on Sunday to his priest and his 
 doctor, and a tea-fight every now and then. But if I'd 
 been in a duke's house I couldn't have been in a finer 
 one than he lived in now ; and as for the few friends, 
 there were hundreds of them all down the stairs — if he 
 calls this a few, thought I, he must be hail-fellow-well- 
 met with all London. And if Mrs. Cregan had money, 
 she knows how to make it fly too : I don't see much here 
 
 2 
 
10G ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 to remind me of Miles. And to think it was the merest 
 chance I hadn't come in a light shooting coat — the 
 thought of it made my hair begin to stand on end. Even 
 now I don't know how or where to begin, I was so taken 
 aback by the big hall, and the staircase that an elephant 
 might have marched up, and the light, and the perfume, 
 and the flunkies, and the guests, and everything I didn't 
 expect to see : and down the stairs I heard music the 
 like of which I'd never heard but once before, and that 
 was at the Opera. I'd half a minute's mind to turn tail 
 and run, though it had been my sister's house and was 
 my own brother-in-law's now ; but before I knew where 
 I was, I found myself drinking coffee in what seemed to 
 me a bit of the National Gallery, where I'd been a week 
 ago, mixed up with one of the hothouses at Kew. I'd 
 never seen anything to beat it, not even in Dublin, 
 though there are some fine houses there : and I felt proud 
 to think that Miles was keeping up the credit of the old 
 country, though it must have made him sore at heart to 
 pay the bills. I wondered where he was, and, having 
 finished my coffee, I went to the stairs, and by and by 
 began to move up them. There were some pretty girls 
 there, especially three or four that I'd ask Miles to intro- 
 duce me to as soon as I could get hold of him. 
 
 But, by the time I'd got to the first landing, if one can 
 call it so, for it was half a greenhouse and half a gallery 
 looking down into the hall, I'd changed my mind about 
 the three or four. The band was playing a waltz that 
 made my toes tingle, and the flowers all round were 
 breathing their sweetest, when I felt — Gone. There's 
 nothing else to say. When a man's in love, he's in love 
 — and if you can find another word to say about it you're 
 a bigger poet than the world has known so far. Love 
 isn't words. And it's not much good trying to say what 
 she was like, there when I first set eyes on her, for ten 
 to one you're in love with somebody else and won't agree- 
 
A COOL HAND. 197 
 
 with me that she was just the loveliest girl that ever was 
 born. But she was, all the same : and that's the only 
 point on which I'm not open to argue. She was just as 
 fair as an angel, and precisely the height and size of one; 
 and she was about the age that angels are when they're 
 eighteen, or maybe a little more. It's true that I'd just 
 come from where angels, of that sort, are rare ; and 
 before that evening I'd never mixed much with them 
 anywhere ; so that falling in love at first sight might be 
 a trifle more easy and natural to me than to landsmen in 
 general. But that's neither here nor there. It wasn't 
 so much the beauty that caught me, nor her look of a 
 real lady, as something in her face which I'd never yet 
 seen so plainly in any woman's. For all her beautiful 
 fairness she had eyes which might have been the twins 
 of Paul's for depth and darkness — only his never seemed 
 to say anything, but only to go through yourself, vhile 
 hers looked just like the very gates of Fairyland. And, 
 just now, it seemed to be a sad story they were telling. 
 All the people round were talking and laughing twenty- 
 five to the dozen, or else whispering here and there ; but 
 she was standing up all alone under some tall ferns, 
 silent and lost in herself, and yet seeming to be looking 
 out, all over the place, for somebody who didn't seem to 
 be there. She wasn't looking at me, anyhow ; so I could 
 watch her at my ease, and I did too, wondering if there 
 was any way I could help her in, for she just looked like 
 that ; as if she wanted a man's help in something, and as 
 if, among all Miles's company, there wasn't one to hold 
 her out a straw to cling to. Every now and then I could 
 see her press her teeth into her lower lip, and move her 
 foot in quicker time than the music went to ; and it was 
 all out of impatience, for she looked too sad and anxious 
 for anger. I didn't know her name, and 1 hadn't seen 
 her five minutes, and yet I caught myself out in an un- 
 comfortable wonder if the somebody who hadn't come 
 
198 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 was young, and a man — say one of Miles's military 
 friends. No wonder he had lots of friends about him if 
 this girl belonged to Mrs. Cregan. At last I got so full 
 of the notion that I began to feel like a fool and half like 
 a spy ; and as I didn't like that sensation, i made my 
 way to the door of a big drawing-room where I'd found 
 out that Miles's wife was receiving the guests as they 
 came in. I hadn't caught sight of Miles yet ; but to 
 look for a little man like him in such a crowd, all 
 scattered about through a dozen rooms, was worse than 
 looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. 
 
 Even with poor Kate fresh in my mind (so far as the 
 girl on the stairs hadn't put her out again) I couldn't but 
 own that Miles had gone more above himself in his 
 second match than if he'd married another Connor. It 
 was just amazing how such a lady could have taken up 
 with a tailor-looking attorney like Miles ; but it's always 
 hard for men to make out what women see in other men, 
 barring themselves. If you'll realize your ideal of what 
 a princess ought to be, but isn't always, you'll have a 
 better picture of Mrs. Cregan than I can give you ; and 
 as to her style and her manner, she might be a queen. 
 It just took my breath away. She wasn't young, but she 
 was as handsome a woman of forty as I'd ever seen, with 
 eyes and the nose of an eagle, and the smile of a summer- 
 day. However, I went up to her, and made a bow as if 
 I'd been at court, and said, as well as the moving crowd 
 round her would let me, 
 
 " I'm afraid I'm late, but 'tis never too late to find the 
 way into Paradise. Do you happen to know where I'll 
 find my brother-in-law ? " 
 
 I had not meant my second sentence to be quite so 
 sudden, but a dozen people were wanting to speak to her 
 all at once, so I had to put my question and my self- 
 introduction into one and the same quick word. I thought 
 she looked half puzzled for just the tithe of a second, 
 
A COOL HAND. 199 
 
 but she gave me a fresh smile all to myself, and put out 
 hor hand, which I took warmly, and said, 
 
 " I am very glad to see you indeed — late or early. No; 
 I have not seen your brother-in-law for some little while. 
 I hope " — 
 
 I don't know what else she was going to say, for just 
 then somebody else came up, and then a second, and 
 then a third, for there were later comers even than I ; so 
 I was obliged to give up the chance of a chat just then, 
 and maybe an introduction to the girl on the stairs, and 
 move on to look for Miles, wondering more and more at 
 the way he was living now. I half wished — my ancestors 
 forgive me ! — that I myself had been bred an attorney. 
 I felt a sort of fascination drawing me back to the ferns 
 on the stairs ; but I fought against it hard, and looked 
 about honestly for Miles. 
 
 "Excuse me," said a gentleman in spectacles with whom 
 I chanced to rub elbows, " I am very near-sighted. Can 
 you tell me where our hostess happens to be just 
 now ? " 
 
 "My sister-in-law?" said I, feeling proud of Mrs. 
 Cregan ; and so might any man. " She's there — just 
 inside that door." 
 
 "Ah, you are her brother-in-law? It's rather an 
 informal way of opening an acquaintance, but I'm 
 exceedingly glad to have made it. I daresay you have often 
 heard her speak of her old friend, Lord Verner ? I am 
 he. How is it we have never met before ? But ah, I 
 remember — you have been abroad for a long while, 
 haven't you ? " 
 
 " Yes," said I. " About ten years." 
 
 "That accounts for it, then, I did not know your 
 brother before he married Lady Anne. You are in the 
 army, aren't you?" 
 
 Think of Miles Cregan being married to a Lady Anne! 
 Of course Miles wasn't my brother, but there was no 
 
200 ROMANCES OF 7 HE LAW. 
 
 occasion just then to bother a stranger with the exact, 
 relation of the Cregans to the Connors ; and I wasn't 
 proud enough of it, for that matter, to take the trouble. 
 And moreover it wasn't becoming in me to lessen the 
 grandeur of Miles and his house by saying that their 
 kinsman had been an ostrich-farmer at the Cape, and a 
 river-side porter in Brooklyn, and even queerer things 
 than that now and then, when the devil drove specially 
 hard. So I said, 
 
 " No, I'm not in the army. I've been in India," which 
 was true. And maybe I'd have given him the tiger 
 story if somebody else hadn't interrupted — for I noticed 
 it was a queer fashion among Miles's friend's never to 
 talk more than half a minute at a time to any one, which 
 didn't seem sociable to my mind, and spoiled conversation. 
 But I thought to myself, " If I get introduced to that 
 girl among the ferns, it isn't only half a minute that I'll 
 be!" 
 
 Only how was that to be done ? Somehow, of course 
 — for it isn't likely that a man who's fallen in love as I'd 
 done won't find out some sort of a way. " I must find 
 Miles," thought I, "and I will." But man proposes — 
 the way in which I did get introduced to that girl is 
 perhaps the most extraordinary occurrence in the whole 
 history of fiction. I've even met with people who 
 wouldn't- believe it till I'd given them my word for its 
 being true, and shown them the fact of it with their own 
 eyes. 
 
 On my way after Miles, I went back to the stairs, half 
 afraid for fear I'd see her eyes alight with talking to that 
 other fellow who hadn't come. But she wasn't there 
 any more — which made it the worse, if anything, because 
 when you don't see a girl it, is impossible to know what 
 she's up to. Just as I was standing in the very spot 
 where she'd stood, to keep it sacred from common heels, 
 
A COOL HAND. 201 
 
 and was thinking how to steal the bit of fern that might 
 have touched her neck or her arm — for I was just as gone 
 as a man could be — a man in a livery came up to me, and 
 gave me a twisted-up little note on a silver salver, without 
 a bit of a direction on it anywhere. 
 
 "Is it for me ? " asked I — for who was likely to send 
 me a note to Miles Cregan's ? 
 
 "Yes, sorr ! " said the footman — and I was ready to 
 shake hands with him for the sake of the brogue. So not 
 even Miles, in all his grandeur, had forgotten that an 
 Irishman ought to have Irishmen about him. Maybe the 
 note was from Miles, to tell me where I'd find him. 
 
 It was a mere scrawl with a pencil — " I must speak to 
 you instantly. Follow the bearer.'' And then came a 
 worse scrawl for a signature, which after a bit of bother I 
 made out to be " Grapes," or " Grace," or " Gravy," or 
 "Graves." Graves? — Ah, of course, the jeweller; con- 
 found the man for meddling in other people's affairs I No 
 doubt he'd been to Scotland Yard, and brought me some 
 cock-and-bull story about the stone. But still it had 
 been good-natured of the man ; and if he'd come for my 
 sake all the way to Melton Street, it wouldn't do to send 
 him off without so much as a thank you or getting my sister- 
 in-law to give him a glass of champagne for his pains. 
 
 "Is he downstairs ? " asked I. 
 
 " Yes, sorr," said the footman. 
 
 "I'll come then," said I. 
 
 I followed him downstairs, and he got me my hat out 
 of a heap of others, and then led me to the street-door. 
 " We'd better manners," thought I, " in Dublin than not 
 to ask even a tradesman to sit down in the hall while he's 
 waiting." But I hadn't the time to think much when my 
 fellow-countryman gave a whistle, and a carriage-door 
 flew open, and after an " All right, your honour ! " and a 
 sudden shove from behind that forced me to put my foot 
 forward to keep me from falling, I found myself half down 
 
202 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 the street, sitting in a close carriage, and with a girl's 
 face against my chest, and both her arms round me as 
 tight and as trembling as could be. Before I could make 
 up my mind whether my head was straight on my 
 shoulders, we passed a gas-lamp ; and the flash showed 
 me the face of the very girl I'd lost my heart to, under 
 the fern ! 
 
 " O Tom ! " she began, in a voice full of tears, but as 
 tender and as sweet as a dream of her own eyes. But I 
 hadn't got her a hair's breadth closer to my heart when 
 another gas-flash made her fly back as if I'd stabbed her, 
 and she fell crouched into her corner of the carriage, and 
 looked at me as if she was too terrified to scream. "Good 
 God ! " she moaned out at last, " What have I done? — 
 what will become of me now ? Who are you ? For pity's 
 sake stop the carriage, whoever you are 1 Who are you, 
 who have dared " — 
 
 Now I'll ask any man of the world what he's to say or 
 do when the loveliest girl on earth first embraces him and 
 calls him by his own short name, and then the next 
 minute asks him how he dares run off with her — when 
 it's she who is running off with him ? I don't think 
 there's many a man who, when she told him to stop the 
 carriage, would take her at her word. I'd never had 
 much to do with young women, having been mostly out 
 of the way of them ; but I'd not lived to two-and-thirty 
 without learning some of the little ways that belong to 
 the best of them. When a woman runs off with a man, 
 it stands to nature that she'd take a little trouble to make 
 things seem as if it was the other way round. And 
 though, thank God, I've a pretty clear conscience about 
 everything, still I wasn't christened Joseph, but Tom — 
 and I'm not ashamed of that same. 
 
 So I didn't try to stop the carriage all at once ; but I 
 eiid all I could to soothe her and comfort her, and to 
 rcuke it an understood thing that the elopement was all 
 
A COOL HAND. 203 
 
 my own doing, and not hers at all, and that my shoulders 
 were broad enough to bear any trouble that might come 
 to her. I can't repeat all I said, because one's talk in 
 such cases is apt to get broken, and because I can't 
 exactly recall all that I did say ; but I felt an unknown 
 eloquence come into me as I assured her of my love 
 at first sight, and of the lifelong devotion I would give 
 her as the smallest return for the sacrifice she had made 
 for me. So much did I say, before I even put out 
 my hand to feel for hers, that she had no chance of 
 getting in a word ; for the impulse carried me on, and I 
 didn't stop once to think what was the meaning of it all. 
 And faith, I wouldn't think much of a man who'd stop to 
 cross-examine the loveliest girl in the world, though he 
 doesn't know her name even, and though her behaviour 
 may not seem entirely the type of propriety. Maybe we 
 Connors would have been the richer for being unlike our- 
 selves ; but there are times when gentlemen must chance 
 things a little. 
 
 But even a man of the world may now and then be 
 wrong, and that just because he is a man of the world. 
 
 No sooner did I touch her hand than she dashed down 
 the window, and called to the driver to stop instantly. 
 What was I to think of it when the fellow heeded her no 
 more than if he'd been deaf, and when the more she 
 called " Stop ! " the faster he made the horses go — for 
 there were two of them ? He'd had his orders, I 
 supposed ; and somebody must have given them to him, 
 and it hadn't been I. At last she sank back in despair. 
 
 " Sir," she said, in a slow, low voice that made 
 every tone thrill through me, " you are at least a man, 
 though you can be no gentleman. I don't know how or 
 why you have taken this cruel advantage of me. I 
 suppose you have bribed the coachman. But I tell you 
 this," she said, putiing her arm through the window, 
 " that if you do not instantly leave me I will open. 
 
204 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 the door and throw myself out into the road. What can 
 you want with me, who never saw you in my life 
 before?" 
 
 " On my honour,*' said -I, " I have bribed nobody. 
 For Heaven's sake don't open the door ! Why should 
 you be afraid of a man who — who'd give his life to serve 
 you ? " 
 
 "I am not afraid," she said, with a sort of quiet scorn. 
 I don't know what else there was in the tone, but 
 it made me feel as if there'd been some horrible mistake 
 somewhere ; and it also made me feel that when she 
 talked of throwing herself out she was not making 
 believe. 
 
 " Madam," said I, " will you believe me when I tell 
 you that, as for talcing advantage of a woman, it isn't in 
 me ; and that until I saw you this night I'd no more 
 thought of running away with a lady than I know now 
 how it's come to pass that I'm doing so ? I can't retract 
 what I've said about being in love with you, for it's true ; 
 and sure any man may love any woman ? But beyond 
 wanting to be introduced to you, I'd no more plans than 
 a baby ; and I'd shoot myself sooner than make you 
 afraid. If you don't know who I am, my name's 
 Thomas Connor, brother of Miles Cregan's first wife ; 
 and I no more expected to meet you at his house 
 to-night than" — 
 
 I've always noticed that when a man's telling the 
 truth people mostly believe him — well nigh as often 
 as when he's telling them lies. Any way, some of the 
 scorn was out of her voice when she said, though as if 
 her thoughts were afar off, 
 
 "Who is Miles Cregan ? " 
 
 "Miles Cregan ? Why sure you know " — ■ 
 
 " I never heard of him." 
 
 " And yet you've been at his house to-night" — 
 
 " Sir, I never heard the name 1 Stop the carriage this— 
 
A COOL HAND. 205 
 
 instant !" she said, as if she were a real empress, " and 
 quit it yourself, and order the man to drive me back 
 instantly to where you — you intruded upon me. 
 Instantly, sir, if you please, if you are even so much as a 
 mail ! " 
 
 "To where I — I found you? But that is Miles 
 Cregan's," said I. 
 
 " You know as well as I do that it is the Earl of 
 Hexham's," said she. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me they've made Miles Cregan 
 an earl ? No, I can't believe that anyhow, though there's 
 nothing else on earth you can tell me that I'll not 
 believe — no, not even if you tell me I'm not dreaming." 
 
 "Will you stop the carriage, or will you not? "asked 
 she. 
 
 I just looked at her face. There was no answering 
 that, anyhow, but in one way. 
 
 " I will," said I ; " and Heaven forgive me if I've given 
 you one minute's distress ; for Heaven only knows how 
 it's been done." I stretched myself out of the window, 
 and caught hold of the driver's near arm. " Stop, you 
 thief," I halloaed, " if you don't want to be pitched 
 over ! " 
 
 "All right, sir, I know!" and he made the horses 
 gallop again. 
 
 I was throwing the door on my own side open, in order 
 to swing myself round to the box and seize the reins, 
 when the girl laid her hand on my arm. 
 
 " Heaven help us all ! The man won't stop for you — 
 no, nor for me ! " 
 
 Won't he, though ! We'll see that, anyhow. I'll take 
 the reins myself, and drive you back to the Earl of 
 Cregan's faster than we came — on my honour I will. 
 Can I do nothing to make you undoubt me ? It's some 
 awful mistake ; but how it began " — 
 
 " And — where are we now ? " 
 
206 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 I looked out ; we were racing past trees and hedge- 
 rows. There was just light enough to see so much by. 
 But for the rest, we might be at the sources of the Nile 
 for aught I knew to the contrary. And I told her so. 
 
 "I must get on the box, and make this deaf fool of a 
 coachman drive us back himself; for I'm lost in the bush 
 myself," said I. 
 
 " It would be mad. The house would be closed. I — I 
 am a governess there. We are on the road to Waltham- 
 stow. Do me one favour, sir : leave the carriage your- 
 self and let me drive on. Whatever the mistake is, who- 
 ever you have taken me for, a night's walk will not harm 
 you much, and I shall thank you to my dying day. But 
 O !" she cried out, as all her calmness broke down into 
 a storm of tears — " O Tom, my brother, what will you 
 do — where are you ! Too late — always, always ! " 
 
 My head wasn't of much use just then for want 
 of knowledge ; but my heart was just breaking to help 
 her, if I could only guess how. She was right enough in 
 one thing : it wouldn't do for anybody's governess, lord's 
 or no lord's, to be caught or found out eloping with a 
 young man. The world would hardly be so green as to 
 believe that they didn't even know one another's name. 
 The world's too clever by half ; and that's why it's so 
 often taken in. As for how Miles Cregan could have 
 turned into an earl, that question didn't trouble my wits 
 just then. If I coull only help the governess, he might 
 be a duke if he pleased, and I wouldn't bomer my brains 
 about the matter. 
 
 " I'll do just whatever you ask me," said I. " I'll even 
 let you go on to your journey's end all alone, if that's the 
 only way I can help you. I believe that confounded 
 Irish flunkey mistook me for somebody else after all. I 
 suppose your brother's in some sort of trouble, and for 
 your sake I'd like to help him. Mayn't I even know 
 your name?" 
 
A COOL HAND. 207 
 
 " Grace Brand. I mean " — 
 
 I remember her words that night a long way better 
 than I do my own ; and I remember how quickly she told 
 me her name without thinking, and how hurt I was by 
 her trying to untell it again. 
 
 " It's safe with me," said I, keeping the widest space I 
 could between myself and her. "If I ever breathe a 
 letter of it I'll, give your brother Tom the satisfaction of 
 a gentleman. Is there nothing I can do for you, but to 
 say Good-bye?" 
 
 " Nothing," said she, in the saddest voice I ever heard. 
 " You have done a cruel thing, but I think — I'm sure you 
 never meant it — and so — good-bye." 
 
 She held out her hand to me, and I just touched it, for 
 all my heart was gone after my wits, and that was out of 
 me, and was going to swing myself out into the road, 
 when all of a sudden the horses came to a dead stand as 
 if of their own accord. 
 
 But my foot was hardly on the road when I found oui 
 why. We'd be"en pulled up by four constables — one was 
 on the box by the driver, one was at the horses, one was 
 turning a bull's eye on us all, and the fourth had a hand 
 on my shoulder. I looked for a minute at Grace : she sat 
 as quiet as death, and as dumb. 
 
 Well, they could do nothing to me. But there was 
 Grace — and whatever the matter was, there must never 
 be the shadow of a guess, if it could be helped by a 
 legion of lies, that a girl, whose character's her bread 
 and her life, had been caught at midnight running away 
 with a man. The stars be praised that she told me her 
 name ! The way I'd get her out of the scrape I'd got 
 her into came on me like an inspiration. 
 
 "What is it?" said I, as coolly as if I'd been cool, 
 instead of being bewildered out of my seven senses. 
 "Can't a gentleman drive with his own sister to Wal- 
 thamstow in the early morning without being stopped 
 
208 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 by a parcel of constables, as if they were highway- 
 men?" 
 
 " Gome, Mr. Brand, you know what we're after, and 
 of course we're as sorry as you can be. There's no need 
 to talk before the young lady ; and there's no need to 
 detain her. If you hadn't tried to give us the slip by 
 getting out of the carriage you might have gone on quietly 
 to Walthamstow, and there'd have been this bother saved. 
 We've got a trap just behind, and the young lady" — he 
 touched his hat to Grace — " can go on." 
 
 "If I did know what you're after," saidl, "perhaps I'd 
 agree with you." 
 
 "Which case? Why it's diamonds this time — Lady 
 Horchester's — and I'm afraid, sir, we must ask you to let 
 the young lady go on at once, and let us search you here. 
 Diamonds are things that can be made away with any 
 minute, you know." 
 
 " You may search and welcome," said I. "And if I've 
 got the ghost of a diamond about me, my name's not 
 Thomas Brand. There — I'll search myself if you please." 
 
 I'd got two reputations to take care of — the brother's 
 for the sister's sake, and the sister's for her own. In a 
 minute I turned out all my pockets before they could 
 interfere, just as I'd done at the jeweller's. Something 
 or other fell out of one ; and the policeman with the bull's 
 eye made a dart at it as soon as it touched the road. 
 
 " That won't do, sir ! " said he, giving it to the sergeant. 
 "And by the Lord Harry," he cried out, "if here isn't 
 the very identical stone that Graves of Cheapside was in 
 Scotland Yard about on Saturday afternoon — gold setting, 
 green leather case, and all! Fifty pounds reward! It's 
 not my fault, sir," he said to me. "Duty's duty, and" — 
 he said, measuring my six feet of height and forty 
 inches of chest with his eye — " you'll excuse me ; " and I 
 was pretty soon in another sort of carriage, with hand- 
 cuffs on my wrists, and in my mind, for a last memory 
 
A COOL HAND. 209 
 
 of Grace, an odd look that I hadn't the heart to think 
 could be meant for a smile. But it looked bitterly like 
 one all the same — after my trying to help her. 
 
 Of course I'd shifted the case into my new dress-coat 
 when I went to the Opera, and of course, when I put on 
 my shooting-coat next morning, I never thought of it's, 
 being anywhere but where it had been ever since I left 
 Capetown. It had just gone where all the lost letters 
 go- 
 But that didn't keep my situation from being an un- 
 pleasant one. The handcuffs weren't comfortable, and it 
 was difficult to form any sort of a plan in the position where 
 I found myself without knowing the bearings of anything. 
 Only one thing was quite clear, as I hope every gentle- 
 man will admit, that I was bound to brazen things out, 
 and, having done another man the honour of taking the 
 responsibility of his behaviour on my own shoulders, to 
 do as I'd be done by ; for if anybody, under press of cir- 
 cumstances, felt obliged to call himself Thomas Connor, 
 I'd like him to do credit to the name. And as for Grace, 
 the fact that a woman doesn't treat a man well doesn't 
 make him the less bound to take care of her good name at 
 any cost to his own ; it makes him all the more bound, it 
 seems to me. And as that was the one clear thing I had 
 before me, I held my tongue, for fear of letting the con- 
 stables get an inkling that they'd got hold of a wrong 
 man again. 
 
 I slept the rest of that night in a cell at a police-station 
 — for the first time since I'd been run in at Dublin for 
 having been accidentally present at a row ; and I slept 
 very well, for I was dead tired. Early the next morning 
 I was told that there was a solicitor who wanted to see 
 me. 
 
 "Is his name Cregan?" asked I ; if it had been I 
 wouldn't have seen him, for then the murder would have 
 
210 ROMANCES OF THE LA IV. 
 
 been out that it wasn't her brother with whom Grace 
 had been caught running away. But it wasn't Miles ; 
 it was quite a young man, dressed to the nines, of the 
 name of Fry. As I'd never heard of the man, I had no 
 objection to see him. 
 
 He shook hands with me in the most cordial manner ; 
 but I was on my guard against pumping, and put on a 
 stand-off sort of way, waiting to get the pumping on my 
 own side. 
 
 " My name's Albert Fry," said he. " I suppose you 
 expected to see my father; but he's too old to attend to 
 business much, and I'm just as much in his lordship's 
 confidence as he used to be. I saw his lordship this 
 morning. In fact I've just come from him." 
 
 " I'm much obliged to you for coming. And what 
 does his lordship say ? " asked I. 
 
 " Excuse me for saying so, Mr. Brand, but you arc a 
 cool hand ! " 
 
 "Pretty well for that,'' said I; and so I was, if a 
 fever's cool. " The hotter things are, Mr. Fry, the more 
 one's bound to keep cool." 
 
 " It's a bad business this time — a very bad business 
 indeed. I don't know what's to be done. You were 
 asking me what his lordship said. It's no good mincing 
 matters." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said I. 
 
 " And so I'm bound to tell you that his lordship 
 has determined, as he puts it, to wash his hands of 
 you once for all. And so he has instructed me to 
 say." 
 
 "Then tell his lordship that if he wants to wash 
 his hands he had better go to Bath," said I; for such 
 a message as that made me feel warm. 
 
 " Pardon me, Mr. Brand, but this is no joking matter. 
 Such a family scandal as this would be fatal. He 
 refuses to see you or to communicate with you ; and 
 
A COOL SAND. 
 
 211 
 
 tinder the circumstances, that is natural ; indeed it is 
 unavoidable. But, for the sake of the family, on my 
 earnest representations, he has consented to make you 
 a proposition. Or rather two propositions : for they are 
 alternative." 
 
 " There's no harm in hearing what they are, anyhow," 
 said I. 
 
 " The first is that you should obtain bail, to be repaid 
 by his lordship for your flight," said he. " He is willing 
 to pay as much as two thousand pounds for the family 
 honour." 
 
 " And it's kind of him ; and I'm glad to know the 
 exact price of the family honour," said I, "in case I'm 
 inclined to bid for it some day. And what's number 
 two?" 
 
 " The second alternative is that you should plead 
 guilty under an alias," said he, " so that the family name 
 mayn't suffer ; and when you've served out your time, 
 his lordship will allow you three hundred a year, paid 
 quarterly, so long as you're never heard of again ; for if 
 you are he'll let you go to the devil, were his lordship's 
 very words." 
 
 " Guilty to what ? " asked I. 
 
 " Come, Mr. Brand, I am your legal adviser as well as 
 my lord's ; you must have no secrets from me. But 
 perhaps you mean to which of the cases ? I don't 
 mean Lady Horchester's jewels. There would be no 
 fear of hostile prosecution in that quarter if that was the 
 only matter. But it is this new business — that's where 
 the trouble comes." 
 
 "But why not plead not guilty to everything?" 
 
 " Think of the evidence, Mr. Brand." 
 
 " I'd rather you'd tell me the evidence yourself, if you 
 please." 
 
 " The police have been on the traces of Lady 
 Horchester's jewels for a year. They have reason — 
 
 p 2 
 
212 ROMANCES OF THE LA IV. 
 
 they're bound not to say how or why — to suspect 
 you. You leave the country suddenly : they trace you 
 to Africa. Can you prove that you did not leave the 
 country suddenly, and have not been in South Africa ? " 
 
 "Faith, I can't do that," said I. " But"— 
 
 " Very well. With the help of the authorities at the 
 Cape, they find you at last farming ostriches up the 
 country, in company with a person named Connor. You 
 were on the point of being arrested, when, as if you had 
 some suspicion of the intentions of the police, you sud- 
 denly went away ; and were lost until you were traced 
 to the diamond fields, still in partnership with Connor, 
 whom the police at first suspected of being your accom- 
 plice, but whom they now believe to have been your 
 tool — that is of course how they put it, not I. Once 
 more you disappeared when on the point of arrest " — 
 
 "For God's sake, don't tell me you're talking of Paul 
 Andrews ! " I said, for he had been my friend, and I'd 
 believed in him. 
 
 "You see," said he quietly, " what would happen if 
 you plead not guilty. I hadn't mentioned the name you 
 went by, and you blurted it out in a way that would 
 make the jury find you guilty without turning round. 
 That was the name. And then they lost the track 
 altogether for a time, when they heard of you in London, 
 living as if the whole thing had blown over ; but mean- 
 while they had got their whole case together, and were 
 going to take you into custody on your way home la^t 
 night from Lord Hexham's, when you almost gave them 
 the slip again. It is a thousand pities, Mr. Brand, that 
 you were taken in the act of trying to escape from the 
 carriage while it was going at full speed, and that you 
 tried to get rid of what you had in your pockets before 
 you were searched officially. You will have to be tried 
 for stealing, not Lady Horchester's jewels, but Mr. 
 Connor's. Your knowledge of his possession of it 
 
A COOL HAND. 213 
 
 is beyond legal question, for you were in his company 
 the very day when it was found. You and he were at 
 the Opera on the same evening. You have had financial 
 dealings with his brother-in-law, Cregan — who, between, 
 ourselves, is the most outrageous old Shylock that ever 
 made a hundred pounds by lending ten. The diamond 
 was lost, strangely and mysteriously. Information of 
 the loss was at once given to the police by Mr. Graves, 
 the jeweller ; and four days afterwards it was found 
 upon you. Believe me, Mr. Brand, you must have a 
 very strong story indeed to account for the lawful 
 possession of that stone — and then, how will Lord 
 Horchester himself be able to keep back the rest of 
 the scandal ? Of what nature would your defence be ? " 
 
 I was thinking of Grace, and of Paul, and I was 
 wondering. 
 
 " My defence? Pooh ! I'll call Mr. Connor himself," 
 said I. " He'll make it as clear as day to you. You'll 
 find him at once, if you'll go to his lodging in Norfolk 
 Street, Strand. And he'll tell you " — ■ 
 
 What was I saying ? I stopped short, flushing up to 
 my hair — the truth is, there was such a case against me 
 that I'd clean forgotten for the minute whether I was 
 myself or no. 
 
 " What will he tell me? " said the lawyer. 
 
 " I'm thinking that perhaps you won't find him in 
 Norfolk Street, after all," said I. " He was there, but 
 he had business in Ireland" — 
 
 " So he told Graves. You see how much better 
 informed you are about his lodging and his movements 
 than even the detectives supposed. But what would he 
 say, if he could be found ? " 
 
 " On second thoughts, I'm thinking he'd say nothing," 
 said I, beginning to feel I'd got into a real mess at last, 
 but not able to see my way out of it without harming 
 Grace anyhow. 
 
214 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " Then he must he kept out of the way, and you must 
 plead guilty — if you can't get bail. Can you get bail ? " 
 
 " Would you be one yourself? " asked I. 
 
 " That would not do at all. It is essential that no 
 name in the remotest way connected with, the family 
 should appear. Cregan, rascal as he is, might do." 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " said I, for he'd identify me ; and 
 so for that matter would anybody. So I said, "No; I 
 can't get bail — and I won't either." 
 
 "Then we must contrive an alias for you, and you 
 must plead guilty," said he. "After all, it will be the 
 best way — there won't be a bit of scandal, and you'll get 
 a ticket-of-leave in no time, and then you'll have a safe 
 three hundred a year for the rest of your days. May I 
 take it as a settled thing ? " 
 
 Well, it did seem hard, that just because I'd put on a 
 dress-coat to go to the Opera, I should have to plead 
 guilty to a theft, and maybe get sent into penal servitude 
 for five years or more. But, once more, I put it to 
 every Irish or English gentleman, what else could I do ? 
 Penal servitude isn't a thing to be jumped at, whether 
 one deserves it or no ; but 'tis surely a joke to a man 
 beside the loss to a girl of her good name. And, try as 
 I would, I couldn't manage to make myself the brute- 
 beast and the mean cad that I'd have been if I'd run 
 the least chance of having it thought that Grace had 
 been caught running away at night with anybody but 
 her own brother. All the same, I won't pretend that I 
 mightn't have found it easier to make a cad of myself if 
 I hadn't just learned that my best friend was a black- 
 guard, and if poor Kate hadn't been dead and left me all 
 alone in the world — or if that last look of Grace had left 
 me anything to look for. I couldn't manage to care 
 much about myself just then, and then there was nobody 
 else for me to care for between the sky and the fields. 
 I didn't even think when I answered him. 
 
A COOL HAND. 215 
 
 " Yes," said I, *' that's settled, and the sooner the 
 better. So I'll wish you good-morning, Mr. Fry; and if 
 there's any trifling thing I want done, I daresay you'll 
 be good enough not to mind doing it for me." I held 
 out my hand and he took it, thief as I was ; and I felt 
 more grateful to him than I had any need to be, for it's 
 a fact that I hadn't shaken a man's hand in kindness 
 since I'd left Africa. 
 
 " That's right," said he. " You've saved the family 
 honour : and as to the three hundred a year " — • 
 
 " You shall not pay it to me ! " said I, in a rage. " I 
 won't touch a penny of it — if his lordship thinks honour's 
 worth two thousand pounds, I don't think it's to be paid 
 for in diamonds ! " said I. You see just at that minute 
 Paul's honour, blackguard as he'd been, was my own. 
 
 Mr. Fry stared : but he didn't say anything more that 
 was worth saying, and left me alone. But I'd been that 
 for a long time now, and was likely to be for a longer ; 
 so, as I'd had but a short night, I turned round on the 
 bench and went to sleep again. And what else was 
 there to do? 
 
 IV. 
 
 I don't know much about the laws of England, or how 
 long it's usual to keep a prisoner before taking him before 
 a magistrate, or whether there's any practical difference 
 about the rules when great people get mixed up in such 
 matters. Nor do I know how long I slept on that bench, 
 waiting for what was next to happen. I might seem to 
 be taking things easy ; but I wasn't at all. When I woke 
 up it seemed to be from a bad dream, in which I was 
 everybody in the world but one, and that was myself, 
 
210 ROAfANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 while myself was everybody in the world but me. I 
 fancied the door was opened once, and if I didn't swear 
 out loud I dreamed that I did, pretty forcibly- or 
 somebody else did, in a way that was very much my 
 own. 
 
 Any way, when I woke up I hadn't yet been to Bow 
 Street, and, to judge from the light, I wasn't likely to 
 be there that day. It was a bad, dark, ugly afternoon, 
 which seemed to have been made expressly to fit me, 
 and there was a fog in the cell though it was July. I 
 was getting hungry, too ; and I wasn't sorry to hear the 
 door open again. 
 
 " I wish it wasn't against the rules to light a pipe," I 
 said. " I'll have time enough to learn to do without, in 
 five years." 
 
 However, when I looked it wasn't a policeman I'd 
 spoken to. It was one of the finest-looking fellows I'd 
 ever set eyes on since I left Dublin — as tall as myself, 
 and though perhaps not quite so broad as myself about 
 the chest and shoulders, still bigger than most men are. 
 I'd have been proud to try a fall with him, and I 
 wouldn't have backed myself to win or lose. But it 
 wasn't there his strength seemed to be. He looked 
 about fifty years old, and every one of the fifty looked 
 as if it had come like new strength to him ; it would 
 have been easier for a weak man, I should say, to meet 
 his arm than for a false man to meet his eyes. And he 
 seemed to bear himself as you'd think a general would 
 on a field of battle — quite easy, but not taking things 
 less gravely than they need. I stood up as he came in, 
 and we looked straight at one another. 
 
 " Who are you? " asked he. 
 
 " My name is Thomas Brand," said I. 
 
 " The same who — who has lived in Africa under the 
 name of Paul Andrews ? " 
 
 " The same." 
 
A COOL HAND. 217 
 
 In spite of his eyes, I looked into them as much like 
 brass as if I wasn't telling a lie. 
 
 " And you say you are brother to the young lady with 
 whom you were driving to Walthamstow ? Are you 
 aware that such an assertion is condemning you 
 certainly to imprisonment for theft, probably to penal 
 servitude ? " 
 
 He said the words hardly and sternly. 
 
 " I don't know what right you have to cross-examine 
 a prisoner in private," said I; "but I do say so, if it 
 condemned me to be hanged," added I, for there was no 
 going back now, and I wasn't going to be bullied by any 
 man. 
 
 " Do you own this young Irish gentleman for a 
 brother, Grace?" asked he, half turning round. 
 
 My heart gave a great leap in me as I saw that Grace 
 was there too ; but I tried to keep myself calm, and 
 made all the signs I could to her to own me and stand 
 up for her own good name. For to have gone through 
 all this for nothing would have been too hard, not to 
 speak of the waste of it all. We Connors have wasted 
 enough without wasting anything more. 
 
 "I thank you with all my heart, Mr. Connor," said 
 she, looking at me as she'd never looked yet, and God 
 bless her for every look she ever gave me ! " And how 
 shall I thank you enough, or get you to forgive me 
 for " — 
 
 I could hear the tears coming before they came ; but 
 they weren't like the last tears I'd seen in her — these 
 vrere more content and quiot — and she tried to go on : 
 
 " For having left you last night to " — 
 
 But she couldn't go on, after all ; and oh, if I could 
 only have had her as near me as last night, I think I'd 
 have known what to do. 
 
 " Mr. Connor," said the gentleman, striking in to save 
 her from trying to speak while she was crying, " I 
 
218 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 believe Grace ; and, without the least grain of offence, I 
 do not believe you. What reason you can have had for 
 trying to serve a family of whom you know nothing is past 
 my guessing, as much as it is past my gratitude ; but, 
 since you have tried, you will be glad to hear that, thanks 
 to your throwing the constables off the traces, the unfor- 
 tunate young man whom you befriended has been able to 
 leave the country once more — never, I trust, to return. 
 No ; Grace, never ; and it is best so, and you know it as 
 well as I." 
 
 Was it a trap that was being laid for me ? 
 
 "Then I assure you," said I, "that you owe me no 
 gratitude in life, for I had not the least intention of 
 befriending anybody at all. You say that my name's 
 Connor, and that I'm an Irishman, and you have no 
 more reason for saying either than for being grateful. If 
 I like the name Brand better, I've a right to take it ; 
 and if I have a fancy for being in penal servitude, it's 
 nothing to anybody but me. Perhaps you'll tell me first 
 of all why you take me for an Irishman, and why you 
 think my name isn't Brand? It can't be the accent, for 
 I've got no accent at all of any sort, not even an English 
 one." 
 
 And that was true ; for though many people say that 
 I've never forgotten Dublin in my speech, who should know 
 better than a Dublin man that Dublin is the only place 
 in the world that has the distinction of having no accent 
 at all ? 
 
 " I will tell you," said he very gravely, "why I knew 
 you not to be Thomas Brand. lie would not have 
 refused three hundred a year with scorn. It was Mr. 
 Fry's telling me this that brought me here, for fear lest 
 some strange and terrible injustice should be done." 
 
 " I don't see why a man should want to sell his souL 
 for three hundred pounds," said I, and I didn't see it 
 then ; though since I've been older I've learned that 
 
A COOL HAND. 219 
 
 it isn't quite such an unheard-of thing. " Anyhow, 
 perhaps you will let me know who it is I'm speaking to." 
 
 " I am the Marquis of Horchester.'' 
 
 " Thank you, my lord," I said, " for letting me under- 
 stand that much anyhow. Not that it makes things 
 much more plain." 
 
 "When this foolish child," said he, "heard that her 
 brother was in danger of arrest, instead of trusting to me 
 to see him safe from the worst, if only for his name's 
 sake, she laid an absurd plan for carrying him off by 
 night into hiding, with some yet sillier friends of hers at 
 Walthamstov; , as if we lived in the Middle Ages. Grace, 
 it is only due to Mr. Connor that it should be explained. 
 The coachman, whom she had to take into her confidence, 
 served her so well that when he found the carriage 
 pursued, he — But why should I tell you any more of 
 this miserable story, miserable enough at its best, when 
 you must now understand it as well as I ? Grace has 
 told me of your eagerness to redeem your mistake, when 
 you found you had made one — of your honourable 
 attempt to shield her, when nothing else was left for you 
 to do. Can you forgive her for her silence, when she 
 found that your chivalry was giving her brother time and 
 misleading the officers ? And what can I do for you in 
 return ? " 
 
 What would he have said, I wondered, if she had told 
 him all the things I'd said to her before I'd found out I 
 was making any mistake at all ? I coloured up when I 
 thought of them ; and somehow, without looking, I knew 
 that she was colouring too. 
 
 " She was quite right to hold her tongue," said I ; "for 
 that's all I wanted ; and if her brother's clear off — and 
 I'm glad of it, for he's a better fellow than you might 
 take him for," — I'm glad I said that, for the look it 
 bought me, — " there's nothing more to be done. No, 
 thank you, my lord. There's nothing you can do for me; 
 
220 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 and I don't like selling things of that kind. But there's 
 one thing I'll ask you to do ; and that is never to let that 
 night's ride harm the young lady. There's been enough 
 of mistakes and false pretences ; and I don't want you to 
 think that I've been trying to get into penal servitude for 
 your name's sake, my lord ; for which it isn't likely I'd 
 care much, seeing I don't know it, or even for her 
 brother's, though, as it turns out now, he was once a 
 friend of my own. So there's no call for talking of 
 being grateful. If there's the least chance of her being 
 the worse off for last night's drive, I'd like her to remember 
 all I said to her at the first ; and that it's truer now than 
 it was then ; and that, now her brother's gone, she'll 
 never need to feel alone as long as I live," said I — for 
 she'd told me herself of her beirjg a governess ; and I 
 didn't want her to feel even for a minute, in the very 
 middle of her troubles, that there wasn't somebody in 
 the world who was enough in lovo with her to go to the 
 gallows for her if need were. It mayn't have been the 
 most convenient time or way of saying so ; but I'd already 
 told her I loved her the first minute I saw her among the 
 ferns ; and I felt that if it wasn't Now it might be 
 Never. 
 
 " Mr. Connor," said Lord Horchester, " Mr. Fry told 
 me that you are a cool hand — and I think you are. 
 When I asked you what I could do for you, I scarcely 
 thought that you would have made my offer include the 
 hand of my niece, Lady Graae Brand." 
 
 I had put my foot in it at last ! But I've always 
 observed that when one foot's in, the only way of getting 
 it out again is to put in the other. 
 
 " My lord," said I, " Lady Grace will tell you herself 
 that I thought her the governess ; and if her being any- 
 body else stands in the way of my doing my best to win 
 her if she'll let me try, I'm sorry I thought wrong. But 
 for the rest I'm afraid it wouldn't have made any differ- 
 
A COOL HAND. 221 
 
 ence to me if I had known ; for it isn't my fault that 
 she's the bravest and loyallest as well as the most 
 beautiful girl in the world — and as I'd say that of her 
 behind her back, why, of course, I must say it to her face 
 too. I'd say it of her if only for trying to help poor Paul 
 in that very way — it wasn't a cold-hearted or half-hearted 
 way, anyhow. And so I can't go back on my own words. 
 I only ask for time, my lord. And as to myself, I make 
 no doubt that the Brands are a fine old Saxon family ; 
 but I've yet to learn that a Connor, with the blood 
 of kings in his veins " — 
 
 " Of course — of course," said he, naturally accepting 
 an argument which indeed there was no answering. 
 " But T think that it is I and Lady Grace herself who 
 have need to ask for time, if you will kindly allow us a 
 little. As soon as you are released call upon me, and we 
 will consider what else there is I can do for you — what- 
 ever is to be, you have done for us more than we can 
 ever quite repay." 
 
 I had not ; but I've never heon able to convince them 
 to the contrary. At that minute I was being repaid ten 
 thousand times over. 
 
 " Thank you," said Grace, putting out her hand, "for 
 the sake of my brother — your friend " — 
 
 " And not the least for your own?" asked I. 
 
 But she didn't answer me just then. 
 
 She did afterwards, though. She is Lady Grace 
 Connor now; and I won her fairly, though it took me 
 some time. People may call me an Adventurer, who 
 married for rank and money and all that ; but I know 
 better, and so does she. And that's why I'm proud of 
 being an Adventurer : and good reason why. 
 
 I don't know that my love-story has much of a moral. 
 But you may learn two things from it, both worth know- 
 ing. One is,' always feel in your pockets when you change 
 your clothes. The other is, when you give an evening 
 
222 ROMANCES OF THE LA IV. 
 
 party be quite sure that you know who your guests are ; 
 and don't, like my wife's elder sister, Lady Hexham, 
 think you're bound to know a man because he seems to 
 know you. It's easy enough for an Adventurer in a 
 dress-coat to walk in anywhere ; and if he doesn't, like 
 me, steal your daughters or your sisters, he may steal 
 your spoons. 
 
HOW I BECAME A MURDERER 
 
 " Thou ehalt do no murder." I suppose that the response 
 which sane men and women make in church to the sixth 
 commandment is about the emptiest and most formal 
 prayer of which they are ever guilty. Ask yourself, 
 reader, if you have the faintest ghost of a fancy in you 
 that, under any conceivable or imaginable combination 
 of impossible circumstances, you could ever feel called 
 upon to pray with meaning to be delivered from the 
 temptation to murder, in cold blood, a fellow-man or 
 fellow-woman ? You have read history, and you read 
 the newspapers, and you know that murders are not 
 uncommon things. But, nevertheless, you think of them 
 as belonging to an outside world, with which you — other- 
 wise than as a just possible victim — cannot possibly have 
 any sort of concern. You would as soon think of praying 
 to be delivered from the sin of witchcraft as from the sin 
 of murder. They are alike impossibilities to you. Of 
 course I assume you to be of the type of the average 
 reader — sane, but for a few harmless and probably whole- 
 some crotchets ; educated in the ideas and feelings of 
 your time and country, and in sympathy wioh them ; 
 respectable and prudent in all weightier matters ; and as 
 comfortable, within and without, as the majority of your 
 neighbours. If I were to tell you that you are a 
 
224 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 potential murderer, you would not even be angry with 
 me — you would simply smile at such an absolutely 
 preposterous notion. And so, in the face of such an 
 accusation, should I have smiled — once upon a time. 
 
 Judge for yourself if I should not have had the right 
 to smile. My name, by the way, is Alfred Lambourn ; 
 and I consider my name as of some consequence to my 
 argument, because I happen to be one of a family which 
 can carry back its history for an exceptional number of 
 generations, and without being able to name a single 
 member of it who was not perfectly respectable and 
 perfectly sane — not taking into account a certain here- 
 ditary tendency to let ourselves be imposed upon and our 
 money to slip unaccountably through our fingers in the 
 most contented manner. I should say that our family 
 characteristics were steadiness, prudence, and plain 
 common sense, combined with a somewhat inconsistent 
 indifference to becoming higher or richer than we find 
 ourselves at starting. But of course we have our distin- 
 guishing marks among ourselves. I am a solicitor ; and 
 I cannot at this moment call to mind a case of a man's 
 being murdered, at least in the flesh, by a solicitor. I 
 live quietly, and in harmony with all my tastes and 
 inclinations, in a little place close to the sea, and am, as 
 I have always been, particularly strong and healthy, and 
 fond of using my limbs without entirely neglecting my 
 brains. I bave a few cupboards in my house, but have 
 never had the ghost of a skeleton in one of them. I 
 have no turn for dissipation, and am quite as well off as 
 I want to be. In spite of my profession I am, and have 
 always been, absolutely without an enemy, which may be 
 partly accounted for by the fact that I have exceedingly 
 few neighbours and scarcely any clients, my practice 
 consisting in a semi-legal, semi-agricultural stewardship 
 to the best and dearest friend I ever had in the world — 
 friends I should say ; for his wife is as dear to me as if 
 
HO IV I BECAME A MURDERER. 225 
 
 she were my own sister, and his children as if they were 
 my own. Whom should I ever have been tempted to 
 Murder, and why ? Put the same question to yourself of 
 yourself — and answer it if you can. 
 
 My friend was Sir Eeginald Gervase — of course you 
 must allow just as much accuracy to my proper names 
 as you please. He had one of the largest estates in 
 Foamshire, and lived mostly at St. Moor's, a splendid 
 place near Spendrith, which is on the wildest and 
 rockiest part of that grand and magnificent coast, as all 
 the world knows. My description of him is short — he 
 was, literally, the best and finest fellow in the whole 
 world. Were Lady Gervase writing this story, I have no 
 doubt she would say a great deal more of him ; mine 
 must be a man's praise of a man. He had not a single 
 fault that I could ever discover, and yet was as far from 
 being a prig as the South is from the North Pole. He 
 was nearly my match — which is saying something — in 
 point of chest and biceps, and infinitely more than mine, 
 or most men's, in brains ; and his heart was larger still. 
 I sometimes used to think it his single misfortune that 
 he was so rich and so happy and so full of a sense of all 
 the duties that his birthright had thrown upon him. 
 Had Fortune left him the struggling barrister that he was 
 when I first met Mm in London, he would have made 
 himself a great man, instead of merely growing into 
 something much greater. For he had by no means been 
 born to a baronetcy and the ownership of St. Moor's. 
 He unexpectedly inherited it from a cousin of about his 
 own age, and apparently as strong and as healthy as 
 himself, who had been struck down by death when hardly 
 thirty years old. It was a change to turn most men's 
 brains, and to send half of them to the devil. Sir 
 Beginald took his wealth and his position with less elation 
 than he had taken his first brief, went abroad for a while 
 and then came back to settle down for good at St. Moor's. 
 
226 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 The first thing he did — which was in an hour or two — 
 was to become first favourite of the whole country, and 
 that among his poorer, even more than among his richer, 
 neighbours. The next was to send for me, then managing 
 clerk to a London firm, to be his friend and counsellor. 
 The next was to marry, as wisely as man ever married in 
 this world. He had fallen over head and ears in love with 
 the best girl in all England, and she with him. Before 
 long they had a family of two boys and two girls, and 
 were fortunate in them all. The eldest was called 
 Reginald, of course, being a first-born Gervase. The 
 next was called Marion, after her mother. Then came 
 my own godson, Alfred ; and then Nora. Their names 
 have nothing to do with the matter, but it is pleasant 
 for myself to write them. It is hardly more to the 
 purpose than to say that I too was on the eve of 
 marriage, after a long and weary waiting ; but this, too, 
 I like to tell because this also was due to the position in 
 which Sir Eeginald had placed me. What did I not owe 
 to him? Past, present, future: everything that I like 
 to remember, all my happiness now and to come. The 
 one trouble he ever gave me was the feeling that I could 
 do so little for one who had done so much for me. Any- 
 body could have looked, after his affairs as well as I. 
 I was never likely to be so much to him as the Mouse 
 was to the Lion. 
 
 In fact, the hardest work I ever did for him wa3 
 all pleasure and play ; except that he made me feel 
 its interest and importance by throwing himself so 
 heartily into all that concerned the smallest cottager 
 or fishermen with whom he had to do. He looked upon 
 life as a trust not merely to be fulfilled but enjoyed, and 
 his wife agreed with him. I hardly know which we 
 learned to like best — our tasks or our pleasures. That 
 he liked the tasks best, I am sure. And I am sure, too, 
 that if Sir Eeginald Gervase, even in this nineteenth 
 
HOW I BECAME A MURDERER. 227 
 
 century, had taken it into his head to declare war 
 against the Queen, there is not a man within ten miles 
 of Spendrith who would not have turned rebel. 
 
 For two months every summer St. Moor's was left 
 empty while the master and mistress were in town ; for 
 they were by no means people who looked upon rusting 
 and falling out of the great world's stream as one of the 
 duties of those who have to do their best with the course 
 of a comparatively small one. Though I missed them, I 
 approved of their absence, for I could not get rid of my 
 ambition for my friend ; it would be something if, as 
 member for Foamshire, he could have the chance of doing 
 for England some little of what he was doing for one of 
 her remoter corners. One warm afternoon, while they 
 were away in town, I was engaged alone in my office 
 with some drainage plans, half at work upon them, and 
 half thinking about what I could do, in the face of an 
 approaching election, to get Sir Eeginald Gervase to stand 
 for Foamshire. It was too hot to work very desperately 
 after an early dinner ; and I am afraid I must confess 
 that the rich blue of the sky without, the soft wind that 
 scarcely took the trouble to carry the weight of its own 
 scent through the window, the caw of the rooks on their 
 way home, and the regular heave and rush of the sea 
 against the wall of rocks close by, united to set me 
 dreaming of anything but of drains. I was myself in love, 
 remember, and Venus came from the sea on much such 
 an afternoon. 
 
 I had a clerk in the outer office, who was also in love, 
 and whom I strongly suspect of having been sleeping too. 
 Our office was certainly not conducted on the ordinary 
 principles of hurry and open eyes — a client from the out- 
 side world did not call once a quarter, and was not 
 particularly welcome when he came. At any rate, Tom 
 Brooks looked as if he were still dreaming when ha 
 stumbled into my own room and startled me with, 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " A strange lady, sir; and to see you ! " 
 
 It is hard to wake up all at once. For a moment I 
 almost took for granted that it could be nobody but my 
 Lottie who had managed to fly through the window all 
 the way from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, bit the other end of 
 the kingdom ; what other lady, a stranger to Tom 
 Brooks, could want to see me ? But a moment more 
 told me the absurdity of such a fancy ; so I stretched 
 myself, rubbed my eyes, and said sharply, " Then wake 
 up, and show her in." 
 
 She came in, with a silky rustle ; and I had certainly 
 never seen her before. She Lottie, indeed ! I never can 
 guess a woman's age, so I must content myself with 
 saying that my visitor could not possibly have been more 
 than thirty-six or less than twenty years old. She was 
 of a moderate height and graceful figure, and was 
 dressed much more fashionably than we were used to 
 round Spendrith — in a brown silk with bows behind 
 and down the sides, tight-fitting jacket and a sort of 
 nondescript cross between a hat and a bonnet, from 
 under which escaped a mass of fair brown hair — behind, 
 in thick waves that flowed down to her waist, and, in 
 front, in a fringe falling down to her eyebrows. Her 
 face was a pretty one on the whole, clear complexioned, 
 fair, and brightly coloured ; but her mouth was at the 
 same time too small and too full, her nose too long, and 
 her dark eyes a very great deal too large, as well as being 
 too closely set together. Still the general effect was 
 decidedly good, and had to be called pretty, whatever 
 else it might be called, and however much it differed 
 from my own two standards of beauty — Lottie Vane 
 and Lady Gervase. My visitor looked grave and sad 
 by nature, and as if she had a story, and that an 
 interesting one. I showed her a seat, and she sat 
 down. 
 
 "You are Mr. Lambourn : and you are a lawyer?" 
 
HOW I BECAME A MURDERER. 229 
 
 she asked, in a voice that made her prettiness suddenly 
 change into something more. It was a clear, liquid voice, 
 with some sort of special accent in it, and a kind of 
 singing quality about her first words. 
 
 " My name is Lambourn, and I am a solicitor. You 
 call on business, I suppose ? Whom have I the honour " — 
 
 She opened a mother-of-pearl case and. handed me a 
 card — " Adrienne Lavalle." " I come to ask your 
 advice," said she. The name looked French ; and yet, 
 though she did not speak quite like an Englishwoman, 
 her accent was by no means distinctly that of a foreigner. 
 Who could she be, that she came for legal advice to 
 Spendrith? It is true that if anybody does happen to 
 be suddenly in want of legal advice at Spendrith, he is 
 bound to come to me. 
 
 I bowed and waited, and she went on. 
 
 " I am told that you are able and honest," she said, 
 " and therefore I come to you. You asked my name, 
 and I gave you my card. It is one of my names, the 
 name by ".vhich I am known. I have one more. My 
 birth-name is Eay — Juliet Eay. Did you ever hear the 
 name before ? " 
 
 " Never in my life," said I. 
 
 "Then, before I tell you more, may I ask you if you 
 are prepared to undertake, as a lawyer and as a gentle- 
 man, the cause of a woman against the most cruel wrong 
 that ever was done by a man? A cause that will give 
 you honour and glory throughout the land? " 
 
 "Never mind the honour and glory," said I. "The 
 question is, whether I could find the time and spare the 
 pains. Of course I shall be glad to help to get justice 
 done, just for the sake of the thing, lawyer though I am. 
 But I must hear the story first " — 
 
 " You shall hear it ; and you shall hear why I came to 
 Spendrith for a lawyer. I did not suppose you would 
 know the name of Juliet Eay. But I had my reason for 
 
230 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 asking, all the same. I was born in London. I had a 
 mother, Mr. Lambourn, but no other relation in the 
 world. My mother was on the stage. I cannot tell you 
 all, for I do not know ; but we were in Paiis when my 
 mother died, and when I was seventeen years old : with- 
 out the means to live, but with the need to live, you 
 understand. Perhaps you will find it hard to believe, 
 but I was as innocent then as a young girl can be." 
 
 I let silence imply assent ; but I was certainly begin- 
 ning to wake up, and to call my professional wits 
 together. 
 
 " It was in Paris that I met a young man — if I must 
 call him so — who made love to me. I took him for a 
 man of honour. He swore, Mr. Lambourn, a million 
 times to make me his wife, in the sight of Heaven and in 
 tbe sight of man. In the sight of Heaven he did make 
 me his wife ; and when we were soon after in London, 
 he married me in church, as he should have done before. 
 He is a scoundrel ! " 
 
 " But if he married you at any time, he did his best to 
 right you, it seems to me. Well ? " 
 
 " I must cot call him ' scoundrel ' ? Wait ; see what 
 you will call him, if you are a man ! We went abroad 
 again — to Paris, to Vienna, to twenty places — and then 
 one day he left me, never to return." 
 
 " He deserted you ? You did not hear from him 
 again ? " 
 
 " From, him ? No ; never one word ! Of him ? No ; 
 not for years ! He left me to live as best I could : with- 
 out the means, but with all the need, once more. 
 Perhaps you will not find it hard to believe that I was 
 no more as innocent a fool as at seventeen." 
 
 Again I let assent be implied in silence ; so much I did 
 not find it hard to believe. 
 
 " But I hear of him at last, and he iB married 
 again 1 " 
 
HOW I BECAME A MURDERER. 231 
 
 " You mean that you wish your husband to be prose- 
 cuted for bigamy? " 
 
 " No, Mr. Lambourn. I mean that I will have my 
 rights, and that I will have my revenge 1 That is what 
 I mean ! " 
 
 And I could see, beyond any question, that it was 
 what she did mean. If her story was true, she had 
 certainly been ill-used ; but, all the same, I wished she 
 had not come to me. I felt that, from the beginning, I 
 had not liked Miss, or Mrs., Lavalle. 
 
 " I don't care about taking criminal matters," I said 
 rather coldly. " There are plenty of solicitors in the 
 county. And if you want — since you speak of your 
 rights — to make any sort of profitable compromise, 
 must decline your case on any terms. However, as you 
 came for present advice, I suppose you can prove your 
 marriage? " 
 
 " I can prove it as surely as that I live! " said she. I 
 have my lines. Will that do ? " 
 
 " Certainly they will do. You will have to prove the 
 second marriage too " — 
 
 "He won't deny that," said she, with a smile. "And 
 he won't deny that I am I ; and if he does, he can't deny 
 that I was alive when his crime was committed ; and if 
 he does, there are scores and scores who will know. 
 You ask me why I come to Spendrith ? It is to make 
 sure — to have him under my hand. I have not found 
 Lim out and tracked him down to let him go again. 
 And I come to you because your are here ; because you 
 can watch for me. When I have my rights, you will 
 have yours too, never fear." 
 
 So she had set down my reluctance to undertake her 
 case to a fear of not being sufficiently well paid ? If I 
 had not much liked her before, I liked her exceedingly 
 little now. And who at Spendrith could possibly hava 
 been guilty of bigamy, and of deserting a wife abroad ? 
 
232 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 I knew every living creature in the place — there was not 
 one whom I could connect in the wildest fancy with 
 Mrs. Lavalle. 
 
 " Who is the man you say is your husband ! " asked I. 
 
 I suppose she thought that her last words had 
 refreshed my interest in her. 
 
 "The scoundrel who is my husband?" said she. 
 " There ! " 
 
 A little theatrically she laid a document before me. 
 It was a perfectly good and authentic copy of a register of 
 a marriage solemnised at a London church between Juliet 
 Eay, spinster, and — Eeginaid Gervase ! 
 
 My eyes seemed to darken and swim. What could it 
 mean? As she sat there, triumphant in her coming 
 vengeance or in her greed, I thought and thought ; and 
 the more I thought, the more clear the meaning grew. 
 Some months before the date of the marriage my friend 
 had been in Paris, I knew. Just before the same date 
 he had returned to town. And then there was his long 
 subsequent absence abroad for nearly a whole year. 
 But, still, was Eeginaid Gervase, who held duty to be 
 even above honour — if such a thing can be — a man who, 
 under any circumstances, would, when he found himself 
 suddenly rich and in a high position before the world, 
 rid himself of any woman — whether his wife or not, and 
 even if he had learned to hate and scorn — by leaving her 
 to starve ? No doubt she must have been false to him 
 first. But even so, the pride of my own life had gone : 
 every illusion 1 had darkened at such a shadow as this 
 must be. Perhaps he had thought her dead ? But, no, 
 that could not be, unless he had willed very hard 
 indeed to think her so. 
 
 "Leave me this paper," said I. "Call on me agnin 
 to-morrow at ten ; I will think over what you have told 
 me. Excuse me now." 
 
HOW I BECAME A MURDERER. 233, 
 
 " You will undertake the case, then? " 
 
 " I will try to do whatever is for the best, Miss 
 Lavalle." 
 
 "Who is Miss Lavalle?" asked she, as she left me. 
 " I am Lady Gervase." 
 
 n. 
 
 I locked the copy of the register in a safe, where I kept 
 my own private, personal papers, shut up my office, and 
 went out to walk myself cool. I had met with a skeleton 
 from St. Moor's, indeed! 1 could see the whole miserable 
 history as if it had been written out for me. The young 
 barrister had made a fool of himself, as many other 
 wise men have done. - He had been entrapped by this 
 woman in Paris. Perhaps the pitifulness of her unpro- 
 tected condition had imposed upon him quite as much as 
 her bright cheeks and her great black eyes. She had 
 stuck to him and drawn him into marriage ; no doubt his 
 sense of honour had helped her, hcvever much his reason 
 must have opposed her. It was she, no doubt, who had 
 swallowed up the whole of his little fortune and kept him 
 under water. It was she who had been the cause of those 
 long vacations in Paris, which he used to make even 
 during term time. And then when fortune came to him, 
 he had gone abroad to hide what had, no doubt, proved a 
 disgraceful marriage. And then, no less beyond doubt, 
 he had discovered unfaithfulness in her and had left her, 
 half ashamed, half relieved, as such a man would have 
 left such a woman, simply, utterly, and without a word 
 of blame. And then true love had come into his heart. 
 Perhaps he really believed his first wife dead. Perhaps 
 the belief was too much due to the wish — who knows ? 
 
234 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 It was not for me to judge Eeginald Gervase. I 
 knew the man as he was, whatever he had done, 
 however weak he might have shown himself in one 
 thing. 
 
 And what was I to do ? Nothing ? 
 
 Nothing ? When I, and I only, realized the nature of 
 the blow that was about to fall ? On the one hand there 
 was the true Eeginald Gervase, my more than friend, 
 brother, and father, who bad plainly been able to free 
 himself of the old shadow, trusted, honoured, loved by 
 all the world, whose whole life was a growth in goodness 
 and usefulness, and whose loss would be public as well as 
 private, and felt none could guess how far round his 
 home. There was the wife, who believed in him as a 
 hero, and who loved him with her whole heart and soul. 
 There were his young children — what need I say of them? 
 On the other hand there were ruin, scandal, the dock, 
 the prison cell, a wife's broken heart, and four children's 
 lives blasted for all their days ; and only because a 
 worthless woman had not died. The thing looked too 
 hideous to bo possible ; and I dreamed of such a word as 
 — nothing ! Well, thank God that he was not at St. 
 Moor's. Every day delayed was a day gained, if only for 
 thinking what could be done. 
 
 I was walking along the narrow coastguard path over- 
 hanging the sea, which was the shortest cut from Spend- 
 rith to the nearest market-town, when I was met by a 
 lad who acted as rural postman and who stopped me with 
 a letter. I took it with scarcely a word of good-evening, 
 and opened it absently. 
 
 " Dear Lambourn," — I road, without even taking heed 
 of the handwriting, — " One line in haste to say that we 
 shall all be home to-morrow evening, almost as soon as 
 this reaches you. Everything's all right; but Jenny 
 would rather be safe at home just now, and so would I. 
 Look me up for a weed, there's a good fellow, about nine, 
 
HOW 1 BECAME A MURDERER. 235 
 
 and we'll have a good big talk about the drains. I feel 
 like a schoolboy off for the holidays. 
 
 "E. G." 
 
 It was like destiny. He and his wife — yes, I would 
 still call her so — were hurrying back full sail into the 
 storm. I knew what their coming back sooner than 
 usual meant : it was one of Gervase's crotchets that all 
 his children should be of Foamshire, and of their home, 
 bred and born. Well, that made matters worse a thousand 
 times. He was coming where that woman — I could not 
 call her his wife — was waiting to lay hands upon him and 
 to destroy him more terribly than even she could dream. 
 I was not to see her again till next day, and did not 
 know where she was to be found. I suppose I had acted 
 stupidly ; but it is hard to keep one's presence of mind 
 where one's heart is concerned too deeply. How could I 
 meet Gervase this very night -with this terrible secret 
 upon me ? I could not. And yet what right had I to 
 leave him in his fool's paradise for a single avoidable 
 hour ? I tried to ask myself what I should have done 
 had I been simply his lawyer instead of his friend. And 
 I could find no answer. It seemed strange that the 
 thunder of the sea, as it rose higher and higher with the 
 advancing tide against the cliffs, did not change its 
 tone. 
 
 The letter-carrier could not have left me many minutes 
 — long as they seemed — v vhen he came running back 
 breathlessly, shouting and pointing behind him with his 
 arm. 
 
 " Mr. Lambourn I " he panted out, " there be some un 
 down yonder on the Carricks as lone as lone, and not 
 half an hour o' tide ! " 
 
 I was startled out of such thoughts as even mine. I 
 knew every inch of that coast as well as if 1 had been a 
 smuggler of the old times, and nobody who knows the 
 
235 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 cliffs about Spendrith needs telling what being alone on 
 the Carricks means within even an hour of high tide. The 
 Carricks are a point of rather low rocks, projecting 
 something like the blade of a scythe, or rather like the 
 pointed ram of an ancient galley, from the base of the 
 cliff, easily to be reached within about two hours of the 
 highest tide ; but, after that, breaking the calmest sea 
 into a rage and entirely cut off from reach either from 
 above or below. At absolutely full tide the most shore- 
 ward of these rock was a full couple of fathoms under 
 high-water line. The cliff, itself a promontory, rose up 
 sheer from the rocks for some distance, then bowed out 
 over them, and then finished its course of some hundred 
 and fifty feet to the overhanging path on which I was 
 standing. All these meant, in a dozen words, that he 
 who found himself alone on the Carricks half an hour 
 before the tide turned would be a dead man in half an 
 hour, for there was no point among the network of cur- 
 rents which the strongest swimmer could hope to gain. 
 
 " Who is it ? " I asked. " Could you tell ? " 
 
 "I couldn't see for sure; but it looked to seem like 
 Lucy Green that keeps company with Master Brooks " — 
 
 " A woman — good God ! " In this peril, at least, 
 something might possibly be done. As fast as I could 
 cover the ground I was at the coastguard station, only to 
 find a single old sailor on what was by courtesy called 
 duty, a strong fellow enough, with any quantity of rope 
 at hand ; but what could two men do ? 
 
 Nothing certainly, without trying. We could carry to 
 the edge of the cliff rope enough to reach the Carricks 
 twice over. But that was little. How could a woman, 
 even if she had the courage, fasten herself safely to it, 
 and keep herself from being dashed to pieces against the 
 face of the cliff on her giddy upward journey ? And how 
 could one man reach her, with but one pair of hands to 
 hold the rope above him ? 
 
HOW I BECAME A MURDERER. 237 
 
 Happily, the sea was tolerably calm ; otherwise, con- 
 sidering the shortness of the time at our disposal, nothing 
 could have been done. It was only too certain that some- 
 body was there : the letter-carrier was positive that he had 
 twice seen a woman on the rocks ; the second time, while 
 I was on my way to the coastguard station, he had seen 
 her trying to clamber farther out seaward, as if she had 
 become fully aware of her danger, and was trying to 
 place herself where she might have a chance of being 
 seen from the shore. I looked at my watch, and the 
 sailor looked out to sea. There was no boat that could 
 be signalled, and not nearly time to obtain one for our- 
 selves and to row round. 
 
 The question of the boat was settled in a single look 
 from one to the other. But the same look set the sailor's 
 wits working. 
 
 " Eun to the station," he said to the letter-carrier, 
 "and get all the oars you can lay your hands on, and 
 bring them here, and look alive." 
 
 He craned over the edge of the path, and so did I, 
 though more cautiously ; but there were no means of 
 seeing anything more in that way. The sea had already 
 risen in a surge of white foam and dark-green cascades 
 over nearly the whole length of the rocks below, so that 
 any prisoner upon them must have been driven for 
 respite from death under the bulging part of the cliff, 
 where she would be altogether out of sight of all but the 
 sea-gulls. Then the old sailor looked out westward, 
 where a broken patch of white and grey cloud seemed to 
 be rising from the sea into the sky in the shape of a 
 spire. 
 
 " The wind won't be here till after the turn," said he 
 " There won't be so much swing on as there might be.' 
 He put his hands to his mouth and shouted downward, 
 but no answer returned. " "Where's that young slug 
 with the oars?" 
 
238 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 I could only hope he had some plan. I certainly 
 could think of none. Perhaps, though as anxious as 
 any human creature must be when a man or woman is 
 drowning under his eyes, and when he can do nothing 
 but wait above and listen for the dead heave of full tide 
 against the cliU to tell him all was over, I may not have 
 been so absorbed in the emergency as I should have been 
 two or three hours ago. What was a moment's struggle 
 with the sea compared with that worse than death 
 against which I was trying to put out my hands no less 
 in vain ? I was not, I feel sure, at that moment con- 
 sciously thinking of the greater peril in the immediate 
 face of the less ; but that it was the greater which had 
 well-nigh paralysed me I know. 
 
 At last the lad hurried back with four long oars. The 
 old sailor laid them all together, fagot-wise and bar- 
 wise, over a cleft in the edge of the path, so that the 
 bundle of oars might serve for one strong beam, and that 
 the rope might run through the cleft for a groove before 
 swinging from the projecting rim of the cleft out into the 
 air. The beam of oars was kept from being pulled 
 forward instead of downward by the form of the path, 
 which rose up slightly towards the edge, and by the 
 chance — on which the whole plan depended — that the 
 natural gutter ran between two ears of crag just high 
 enough to serve as posts for the beam behind them. He 
 fastened one end of our longest line of rope, with 
 practised skill, round the middle of the oars ; he had 
 already made the other end into a noose, as soon as his 
 ready eyes had taken in at a glance the chances of the 
 ground. He paid out the whole rope over the edge of 
 the cliff : there was no time left for arguing about who 
 should go down. 
 
 Indeed I felt as if forced by an impulse from outside 
 myself to take that matter into my-ovvn hands. It is true 
 I was a great deal younger and by so much the more 
 
SOW I BECAME A MURDERER. 239 
 
 active than the old tar, who was still as strong in tha 
 arms and shoulders as tugging at oars can make a man, 
 but had certainly not been in the habit, as I had been, of 
 spending his leisure in clambering among rocks instead 
 of staring through a spy-glass at the offing ; so that I was 
 likely to feel a great deal more at home among the gulls 
 and cormorants than he. There was every reason for 
 placing him at the fast head of the rope, and me at the 
 noose. But had it been otherwise I should have stood 
 upon my rights, as representing the lord of the manor, to 
 do as I pleased above the line of high water. Do some- 
 thing I must — something, anything which had the 
 semblance of helping a living creature, however uncon- 
 nected it might be with the storm that was gathering 
 over the head of my friend. As I have said, there was 
 no time left for a needless word ; I took my way, and, 
 resolutely thinking of nothing but of keeping my eyes 
 fixed on the highest visible part of the cliff, was, before a 
 word could be spoken, letting myself down the rope with 
 my knees and hands. It was not that I had room left in 
 my heart to care, save in the most general way, for the 
 woman on the Carricks. I was in anything but a philan- 
 thropic mood, or in one that would excite me to risk a 
 sprained wrist for any soul on earth but Eeginald Gervase. 
 It was all sheer impulse : neither foolhardiness on the 
 one hand, nor courage on the other. I claim no credit 
 for the climb ; rather blame. It could in nowise be of 
 the smallest help to Gervase ; on the contrary, I was 
 risking the only life that could in any way hope to aid 
 him. Only I had no hope for him left in me, in the face 
 of the proofs and of the woman in whose hands they 
 were. It all came from just what I have said, the over- 
 whelming hunger for action of any sort or form. 
 
 Of course our idea was to fasten whomever I might 
 find below to the loose end of the rope, in the hope that 
 the sailor, with whatever help the letter-carrier could 
 
240 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 give him, would be able to draw her up, and then let 
 down the rope again so that I might follow. With a 
 view to the first part of the work, I carried down with 
 me a second rope to fasten to the noose and to act as a 
 guide from below, so that she might not swing against 
 the face of the cliff on her upward journey. As to my 
 own return, I might manage a good deal by climbing, or 
 I might at any rate be pulled up far enough to swing 
 above the tide until further help should come. 
 
 At last I stood upon the last sla,b of slippery roik 
 which the sea had not wholly covered. There was just 
 room enough upon it for two. And I stood face to face 
 with Adrienne Lavalle — nay, I must call hor so — Lady 
 Gervase. 
 
 Why had she been brought here, out of the reach of 
 all aid but mine ? Why had the tidings of her peril been 
 brought to me ? What was the true nature of that im- 
 pulse which had brought me — me of all men — face to 
 face with her thus, and here ? 
 
 Think of the first sentence of this history ! We were 
 absolutely, utterly alone, together, unseen even from the 
 cliffs that rose tip between us two and the whole world. 
 Her secret was known to me alone ; its proof was in my 
 
 wn hands. If she had died there unaided, what would 
 have signified the loss of a woman such as she ? Why 
 had she not been left there to die ? And, if she was left 
 to live— in one insoant I saw the whole of that vision 
 upon which my mind had been dwelling ever since she 
 had left me — the ruined lives, the broken hearts, all the 
 world's loss, all the shame, all the cruel punishment of 
 an innocent mother and her children for Ghe weakness of 
 a good man. I had despaired of helping them all. But 
 what was that now ? Nothing, less than nothing, when 
 
 1 realized that all this storm would burst upon them, 
 no longer from thv hands of this woman because sha 
 
HOW I BECAME A MURDERER. 241 
 
 lived, but from my hands because I did not let her 
 die! 
 
 Would there not be something unspeakably mean and 
 cowardly in preferring the perfect serenity of my own 
 selfish conscience to the lives of those to whom I owed 
 more than even a worse sin for their sake could repay ? 
 Surely the ways of justice are not the same as human 
 law. For the sake of others we must punish what, for 
 the sake of others, we must call crimes ; but we do not 
 call crimes necessarily sins, and what we condemn with 
 our cold reason we may in our hearts and souls approve. 
 At last I could do all things for Eeginald Gervase. 
 Was I to flinch, so that my weakness should let loose 
 upon him all from which I could save him, and that in 
 such a way that he would never even guess the peril in 
 which he had been ? I swear that I felt as if for this very 
 purpose she had, as if by Providence, been delivered into 
 my hands. If only that wretched lad had never caught 
 sight of her ! But was I to let such a miserable chance 
 as that destroy Eeginald Gervase ? What was I there 
 for but to counteract chance, and to do all things for 
 him ? Suppose I did murder her, what but good would 
 have been done ? I did not shrink from thinking of the 
 thing by its name. I had completely cooled my blood 
 by now. 
 
 What she read in my face, I know not. But some- 
 thing she must have read, for it was very far from the 
 birth of a hope of rescue that I saw in hers. She seemed 
 looking through my eyes into my heart, as if she feared 
 it more than the sea. Neither of us spoke a word ; but 
 meanwhile the sea itself rose and rose, and the wind 
 began to rise too. 
 
 I was absolutely making plans. I could leave her 
 there — it would not be my fault if she had been found 
 drowned. The body could be recovered at low water, 
 and buried, and nobody would be the wiser. I must 
 
242 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 give up Lottie of course : it was one thing to commit a 
 murder, but quite another to make her the wife of a 
 murderer, eveu though of one who had right on his side. 
 I could take it into my head to leave England, and 
 should soon be forgotten. 
 
 "Can you save me?" she said at last. "What are 
 you going to do with me?" 
 
 "I? with you?" I asked. "God knows. What are 
 you doing with Eeginald Gcrvase ? Look, the tide will 
 be waist-high soon. I am his friend. Are your rights, 
 or is your life, the dearer to you ? But I can't trust 
 you." 
 
 I turned faint and sick at heart. How could I nerve 
 myself, even for his sake, to be strong enough to let this 
 weak woman die ? Suddenly a heavy wave swept over 
 the rock, brought her to her knees, and would have 
 carried her into deep water at once had I not instinc- 
 tively thrown the noose round her and held her so. It 
 must be done, though ; it was some weaker self that had 
 saved her for a minute more. 
 
 " You can save me, and you bid me sell my rights for 
 my life?" she said, with real scom, and with a courage 
 that startled me. "Yes, you say truly; you are his 
 friend. Like master, like man." 
 
 Should I have held her there till she was drowned? 
 Should I have been able to face the unspeakable shame 
 of returning to the cliff alone, or should I have waited 
 there until the tide had covered me also ? I say to 
 myself, and I say to you, what I said to myself. God 
 knows. I trust not ; but I have never very confidently 
 believed in the goodness of the good or in the badness of 
 the bad, or the weakness of the weak or the strength of 
 the strong, since that day. 
 
 " Ahoy, there ! Hold on ! " I heard a shout, and the 
 grind of wood on the rocks, and the unshipping of oars. 
 
HOW I BECAME A MURDERER. 24S 
 
 I think we were both in the boat before we knew where 
 we were. She was saved without my help, and I — I 
 scarce know from what, if from anything, I had been 
 saved. 
 
 Sir Eeginald himself was at the helm. What could I 
 do now ? Absolutely nothing, at last, except give up 
 everything to despair. I waited for the storm to burst 
 even there and then. 
 
 It was simply to my amaze that no look or sign of 
 recognition passed between the husband and the wife 
 whom he— he, not I — had saved to destroy him. I waited 
 in vain. 
 
 " Thank God I saw you from the yacht in time ! " said 
 he. " It was like you, old fellow, to try to break your 
 neck for nothing, but I don't think both of you could 
 have got up without damage. May I ask the name of 
 the lady whom I have been lucky enough to — Allow me 
 to introduce myself." 
 
 " I am Lady Gervase ! " she said, with a scornful look 
 at me. " I thank you, sir, for saving my life " — 
 
 "Lady Gervase ! " 
 
 ' ' You seem surprised ? I am the wife of Sir Eeginald 
 Gervase, of St. Moor's. May I know whom I have to 
 thank for " — 
 
 "I really must ask you to pardon me," said he, 
 courteously bewildered. "But Lady Gervase happens 
 to be on board that yacht yonder. I am Sir Eeginald = 
 Gervase." 
 
 What could it all mean ? 
 
 If you, reader, cannot guess, you must be as blind as I 
 had been. You must have forgotten my telling you that 
 my Sir Eeginald had inherited St. Moor's from a cousin 
 of his own age, and that Eeginald was the family name. 
 If that cousin had chosen to die suddenly before he had 
 time to communicate with his wife or his friends, or to 
 make a will,, his wife was perfectly entitled to call herself 
 
 B 2 
 
244 ROMANCES OF THE LA IK 
 
 Lady Gervase if she pleased ; but it could not possibly 
 affect his heir beyond compelling him to pay a certain 
 part of the personal estate to the widow, which he was 
 able enough to do. What a worse than fool I had 
 been! 
 
 "When I have heard people talk lightly of their tempta- 
 tions to do this or that, I have said, "The greatest and 
 strongest temptation I ever felt was to murder, in cold 
 blood, a woman who had never done me a shadow of 
 wrong." People think me jesting ; but it is true. 
 
THREE SHOTS WITH A REVOLVER. 
 
 Natubally, considering the nature of my calling, I have 
 been always particularly attracted by the scores of stories 
 — not, I am inclined to think, always based upon actual 
 occurrences — which tell of the ingenious plots contrived 
 by scoundrels to gain possession of other people's jewels, 
 especially diamonds. In many cases such stories are, of 
 course, but pure fiction. But as to those which profess 
 to narrate facts, whether plain or coloured, I have only 
 too much reason, from personal experience, to suspect 
 that the real owners of jewels have, very often, more to 
 do with their disappearance than easily-imagined 
 brigands, swindlers, or thieves. Nevertheless, there is 
 enough substratum of truth to make even purely-invented 
 stories of this kind probable. Mine is not an invented 
 story; but my reason for telling it is not so much its 
 truth as its supremely extraordinary character. Its like, 
 in any single detail, never happened to anybody else in 
 the world. Were it not for this, I would assuredly refrain 
 from adding to the pile of jewel-stories in which some 
 jeweller's agent plays the part of hero or victim. For I 
 was myself agent to a very great firm of jewellers in 
 London — I need not say to whom — when there happened 
 to myself that terrible experience, terrible almost beyond 
 
216 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 the power of words to describe, which I am, for the first 
 time in my life, about to try to tell in words. 
 
 I remember, as if it were yesterday, how one of our 
 partners called me into his private room, and said to 
 me, 
 
 " Morris, I must ask you to be good enough to start 
 for Paris this very evening — that is to say, by the very 
 first possible train. You know that parure of the 
 Princess Mouranov that we had to put into new set- 
 tings?" 
 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 "Well, you know the Princess as a customer, she is 
 rather flighty ; but she's too big a gun for us to disregard 
 her whims. The parure is just out of hand, and was to 
 have been delivered to her in Portland Place to-morrow 
 morning ; but — it's just like her — she's taken it into her 
 head to set off on a voyage to America, and, an hour after 
 she took the whim into her head, she was off, so I hear. 
 It's just like her, anyhow. I believe she goes to Pata- 
 gonia, where her diamonds — that is to say, her parure — - 
 she thinks, will be indispensable to her. I shouldn't 
 have thought so myself, but I suppose she knows. Any- 
 how she's going to s^end the whole of to-morrow in Paris, 
 and her diamonds must be delivered to her there, and 
 paid for — you understand. If we don't deliver the parure, 
 she'll never forgive us ; and if she doesn't pay before 
 going off Heaven knows where, why, we shall never 
 forgive ourselves. You'll have to be sharp, for it doesn't 
 follow that she'll stay in Paris a whole day because she 
 says she will ; and you'd better avoid having to follow 
 her, if you possibly can." 
 
 " Naturally I Where is Madame to be found? " 
 
 " At a place called Les Bosquets. It's outside Paris ; 
 but here's the address written down. I needn't tell you 
 to be cautious — " 
 
tHREE SHOTS WITH A REVOLVER. 247 
 
 *' "Why ? " asked I. " It all seems simple enough. I've 
 only got to give the parure to the Princess — into her own 
 hands, of course — receive the money, give and take a 
 receipt, and come away. There will be no difficulty 
 about the Princess's money, I suppose?" 
 
 " No. But, don't you see, I'm afraid you're still a 
 trifle young, Morris. Those Mouranov diamonds are as 
 well known to all the diamond-hunters in Europe — and 
 they swarm abroad — as they are to me. Better than 
 they are to you, by a long way. By some means or other, 
 you may take your oath, one of those gentry will know 
 you to have the charge of them. It's no good taking 
 precautions against that ; they'll know all the same, and 
 precautions are only a way of putting people on the trail. 
 Take care you go to the right house, my friend. Take 
 care that you see the right lady. Don't eat and don't 
 drink, however much you may be pressed, till you're safe 
 back at your hotel. Don't shut your eyes till it's all over. 
 If a strange woman speaks to you, cut her dead ; if a 
 strange man, knock him down. And — " 
 
 " Well, what else? But I'll take care of myself, never 
 fear." 
 
 " You're an unusually handsome man, you know," said 
 he, with a wink and a knowing smile, "and I suppose, 
 like all handsome men, you're a bit of a lady-killer — ■ 
 without meaning it, you know. A nod's as good's a wink, 
 you know ; and you're not a blind horse, whatever you 
 may be. Paris is a lively place, you know, for a man of 
 your make, with diamonds next his heart worth thousands 
 of pounds. It isn't the men I'm afraid of in your case ; 
 it's the women." 
 
 Every man likes that sort of chaff; and I was really 
 weak enough in those days to take an especial pride in. 
 what I could not help knowing to be my personal advan- 
 tages. So I was in the best temper as I answered 
 modestly, 
 
248 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " Well, sir, nobody knows everything about all women ; 
 but I do think I know enough about a few to guess a 
 good deal about what the rest may be up to. I don't 
 think I'm likely to be come over that way. And I 
 should think this little fellow," I added, showing him a 
 new revolver, "will be enough for common odds, not in 
 petticoats." 
 
 " Don't put yourself in a position that'll oblige you to 
 use it," said my employer. " And you won't, if you keep 
 clear of the common odds — in petticoats, you know. I 
 must be off now. Call at my house for the parure in an 
 hour." 
 
 Full of confidence in my own resources, proud of the 
 trust that had been placed in me, and altogether in a 
 well-satisfied and fearless frame of mind, I started with 
 the Mouranov parure by the very next train for Dover. 
 The magnificent parure was safely packed by my employer 
 himself before my own eyes, and I placed the packet 
 securely in a case which I fastened round my neck and 
 waist under my clothes with a couple of light but strong 
 steel chains. In effect, the parure was absolutely safe 
 from secret theft — effectually from any violence short of 
 downright murder. I had bidden my mother and sisters 
 a hurried good-bye, without telling even them of the 
 invaluable charge I carried about me. And I arrived at 
 one of the first hotels in Paris without the smallest ad- 
 venture of any sort or kind. To imagine that any of the 
 fraternity of diamond-hunters, male or female, had been 
 watching my journey, or could even be aware of it, was 
 simply absurd. To all with whom I came into any 
 slight contact en route, I must have been an ordinary 
 Englishman, making an ordinary trip to Paris — nothing 
 more. And, for that matter, except with booking-clerks 
 and so forth, I don't think I had exchanged a word with 
 a fellow-creature all the way. That I had never once 
 closed my eyes, I know. 
 
THREE SHOTS WITH A REVOLVER. 249 
 
 II. 
 
 I had just ordered some refreshment after my journey 
 before proceeding to Les Bosquets, when, — 
 
 "Monsieur Alfred Morris from London?" asked ona 
 of the waiters. 
 
 " Yes," said I, though wondering how my name could 
 be known to him, seeing that I had but just arrived, and 
 had not even written my name in the list of persons 
 staying in the hotel. Was my " Yes " a piece of impru- 
 dence ? I hardly know to this hour. 
 
 " A young lady," he said, in English, " has been 
 waiting for an hour to see monsieur." 
 
 A young lady, in Paris, waiting to see me I What 
 could that mean? My employer's warning came instinc- 
 tively to my mind. But I could not very well refuse to 
 see her ; indeed, it might prove important that I should 
 see her. And certainly no possible harm could come of 
 my seeing her in a large and crowded hotel. 
 
 " Mademoiselle waits in the salon," said the waiter. 
 So to the salon I went, more curious than anxious about 
 who the young lady might be who expected me in Paris, 
 and who knew my name so well. 
 
 She was a stranger — a young Frenchwoman, rather 
 pretty and exceedingly well dressed, and yet with some- 
 thing about her that showed she did not wholly belong 
 to the beau monde, if that be the right term to use, for I 
 don't pretend to be a French scholar. 
 
 " Monsieur Alfred Morris from London?" asked she, 
 in precisely the same words as the waiter, but in a voice 
 and accent which made the words sound very differently 
 indeed, and made the girl herself look really instead of 
 only passably pretty. Indeed, hers was one of the very 
 sweetest voices I had ever heard. 
 
250 ROMANCES OF THE LA IV. 
 
 " At your service, mademoiselle," said I, with a bow. 
 
 She smiled; and her smile was very sweet indeed. 
 " I am truly fortunate," she said. " I was beginning to 
 fear you would never come." 
 
 " And may I ask, mademoiselle, with whom " — 
 
 "Assuredly, monsieur. I am Mademoiselle Lenoir, 
 principal Demoiselle de Chambre of Madame la Princesse 
 de Mouranov" — 
 
 "Ah!" sighed I, a little disappointed. It was no 
 adventure, then — only the affair of the parure, after all. 
 Still — well, considering everything, that was perhaps all 
 the better. Adventures, till the receipts were exchanged, 
 would certainly be mal a propos. 
 
 " Yes ; of Madame la Princesse de Mouranov," 
 repeated she. " I am in all the confidence of madame's 
 toilette — you comprehend." She was speaking in very 
 good English, with an accent that improved my native 
 language, it seemed to me. " Madame received a tele- 
 gram from London, from your firm, saying you would be 
 here to-day. It was a careful telegram, monsieur — and 
 that was well. It is not prudent to let all the world 
 know what you carry — without doubt nearest to your 
 heart, monsieur ! Have I not reason — I ? But madame 
 has changed her plans — that is the habitude of madame. 
 I always know what madame will not do next, for it is 
 always what she shall not say. She was for America 
 last night : to-day, she is for Biarritz. But will want 
 the pa — the affair monsieur knows of — all the same : all 
 the more. Even so, she was going to Les Bosquets : in 
 fine, she is not at Les Bosquets, but at the Villa Stefania, 
 her own little house where she goes to be alone. Ah, 
 madame will love to be alone at times — sometimes for 
 one whole half -hour, monsieur ! but she must have the 
 parure on the instant, and in her own hands, so I come 
 from madame myself to conduct you to Villa Stefania 
 without delay." 
 
THREE SHOTS WITH A REVOLVER. 251 
 
 All this was fully in accord with all that I had ever heard 
 of the eccentric restlessness of the great Russian lady, 
 nor had I the faintest reason, after hearing of the telegram 
 from my employers, to doubt the simple good faith of so 
 pretty and altogether attractive a young lady as Made- 
 moiselle Lenoir. Still there was one obvious precaution 
 that I ought to take, and I did take it ; for I wish to make 
 it absolutely clear that I acted in all respects as the most 
 prudent of men could have done. 
 
 " Mademoiselle will permit me to ask," said I, " simply 
 as a matter of business form, if she has the written 
 authority " — 
 
 "Of Madame la Princessc? Assuredly," said she, 
 with a bright smile. "It is good to treat with a mon- 
 sieur of the prudence of monsieur ! " She handed me at 
 once a little sealed note, perfumed and gracefully written 
 that ran as follows : 
 
 " Villa Stefania, January 12. 
 
 : Monsieur Alfred Morris, on the part of Messrs.- 
 
 will have the goodness to accompany the bearer, Made- 
 moiselle Lenoir, to the Villa Stefania, without any delay, 
 there to execute the commission with which he is 
 charged. 
 
 " Stephanie de Moubanov." 
 
 I have that note still, to remind me of — But the end 
 is not yet come. Suffice it that doubt, under the circum- 
 stances, never entered my mind ; nor, I dare to swear, 
 would it have entered the reader's, had he to judge 
 before the event, as I had to do. 
 
 I found Mademoiselle Lenoir an exceedingly pleasant 
 companion on the way to Villa Stefania, which fancifully- 
 named residence we reached in about an hour and a half, 
 partly by rail and partly en voiture. I supposed it some 
 eccentricity on the part- of the Princesse that she did 
 
252 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 not, as she certainly might have done, send a carriage to 
 convey us the whole way. Perhaps she was one of those 
 people who take a pleasure in little mysteries and point- 
 less conspiracies. Mademoiselle Lenoir talked the whole 
 time about all sorts of things and places, and I found her 
 sympathetic, intelligent, and singularly well informed, as 
 well as charming. I even began to flatter myself that I 
 had made a by no means unsatisfactory impression upon 
 Mademoiselle. 
 
 Villa Stefania, where we arrived after darkness had 
 fallen, I could not very distinctly see; bat I made out 
 that it was a small house, probably not long built, stand- 
 ing alone and apart from all other dwellings in a sort of 
 shrubbery, and approached through a tiny court past the 
 lodge of the concierge. We were at once admitted, with- 
 out any ringing or waiting. Mademoiselle conducted me 
 up a staircase and along a passage, both scarcely half 
 lighted, into a room so dark that I could scarcely see 
 where I was, or anything at all. 
 
 " Imbeciles ! " cried Mademoiselle Lenoir. " Not a 
 light in the salon, not even a candle ! That is how one is 
 served when one has twenty servants, monsieur, each 
 with his duties : we must have a twenty-first, to do 
 nothing but see that the sconces shall not be empty in 
 the salon — unless, perhaps, it shall be some fancy of 
 madame, for nobody to know you are here. I will see. 
 Monsieur is a brave man ? He is not afraid of being left 
 alone in the dark till madame shall arrive ? It will be in 
 one moment, monsieur. Madame is anxious, very 
 anxious, for the " — 
 
 I thought my being asked to wait in pitch darkness a 
 little odd, but I could only say, 
 
 "It is many years since I believed in Bogy, Made- 
 moiselle." 
 
 " Bien. It shall not be long." And she was gone, 
 closing the door behind her, if my ears told truly. 
 
THREE SHOTS WITH A REVOLVER. 233 
 
 "Without believing in Bogy, it is not a pleasant thing to 
 be left alone in a strange room in the dark, all the same 
 — fancies will come into one's head, especially when the 
 seconds grow into minutes without counting themselves 
 on a visible watch-face, and when one has on one's 
 person diamonds worth many thousands of pounds. 
 Everything was all right, of course ; and yet I could not 
 help wishing that the Princess Mouranov had received 
 me at Les Bosquets by the light of at least one candle, if 
 not of day. And, though I was but a tradesman's 
 employe, common Frerich courtesy should not have kept 
 me quite so long waiting for a light, even though a fine 
 lady might not be ready to see me the very instant I 
 arrived. I felt my way to a very comfortable sofa, on 
 which I sat down, and waited on, waxing impatient, and 
 feeling rather like a prisoner condemned to the dark cell. 
 Manners forbade me to doze or whistle, and — 
 
 But impatience was soon to change into something 
 more. 
 
 III. 
 
 Was that sound of voices in the room or no ? If not 
 in the room, close to the room it must have been ; for I 
 heard them plainly — sometimes darkness itself will 
 strangely sharpen our ears, and there are certain words 
 which, once heard, sharpen them yet more keenly. 
 
 I heard three voices. One was Mademoiselle Lenoir's. 
 One was a strange woman's. The third was a man's. 
 
 " Neatly trapped enough," said the last, so slowly, in 
 the German manner, that they brought their whole 
 significance home to my dull British ears. 
 
 "But for the rest," said Mademoiselle Lenoir, "what 
 ought one to do ? If he goes back to England " — 
 
2J4 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " He must not go back to England," said the voice of 
 the other woman — it was singularly cold, firm, and clear. 
 "He must not leave France; he must not leave Paris 
 'till we are safely gone. Those diamonds " — 
 
 "If the worst comes to the worst," said the man, 
 " what then ? We are man to man. If he does not 
 behave himself, he will have to reckon with me. These 
 things are awkward, because of the police. But " — 
 
 " He will not resist," said Mademoiselle Lenoir. " And 
 if he does " — 
 
 I thought I heard a sigh, so sharp had my ears grown. 
 But from whom came the sigh ? Whether from Made- 
 moiselle Lenoir or that other woman I could not tell. 
 
 "If he does," said the man, "be it on his own head, 
 whatever comes. You understand me, my friend. I do 
 not like too much blood ; but if there be resistance, there 
 must be — what there must be. He must not trace the 
 diamonds, nor you." 
 
 It had all passed through my ears to my sinking 
 heart long ago. Pool that I had been to listen to a 
 woman's story, however plausible it might seem ! Some 
 plot, invented and carried out with fiendish cunning, had 
 brought me into a den of robbery and murder. I was to 
 wait for death in that lonely house and that horrible 
 dark chamber ! 
 
 What, in the name of Heaven, in the name of desperate 
 helplessness, was I to do? The voices grew confused, 
 and then ceased altogether. I was alone. Nobody knew 
 me in Paris ; nobody would miss me there. If I did not 
 return, my employers would set me down as having run 
 off with the jewels ; my mother and sisters themselves 
 would beheve me guilty, and break their hearts and starve. 
 Could I escape from the house ? Impossible — through 
 unknown passages and a locked door ! 
 
 Instinctively I felt for my revolver, useless as it must 
 
THREE SHOTS WITH A REVOLVER. 255 
 
 be in a dark room. The murderer, or murderers, knowing 
 the premises, could be upon me at any moment, and have 
 me down before I could know of their approach ; and one 
 must have some faint light for an aim. I had known that 
 all sorts of atrocities are even more common in Paris than 
 in London ; but how could I dream that such a doom as 
 this, all for believing in the smooth tongue of a pretty 
 serpent, would ever be mine? I say I felt for my revolver, 
 though knowing all the while how vain a toy it would be 
 now. A knife for close quarters would have been ten 
 times its value ; and that, too, would have been in vain. 
 I don't think myself less brave than other men, yet I 
 could not help a groan of despair at the thought that I 
 was about to be murdered so helplessly, so hopelessly. 
 How soon would it be ? 
 
 I drew out my revolver, and, in doing so, a little fusee- 
 box, with a few wax matches in it, fell on the floor. One 
 moment's light would be something, though the last 
 gleam I was ever to see. I groped for the box, found it 
 at my feet, and struck one of the matches. Heaven ! 
 what met my eyes? The gleam of flame had indeed 
 come not a moment too soon. 
 
 Straight in -front of me, coming towards me through an 
 open door, was as evil-looking a ruffian as I had ever 
 seen ; a murderous ruffian, if ever there was one, hideously 
 livid, and with eyes that glared towards mine. Thank 
 Heaven for that one gleam of light ! It might be enough 
 for a straight aim. . . . No time must be lost. ... I am 
 no fighting man, Heaven knows. . . . But .... I 
 fired. 
 
 For a moment the smoke clouded my eyes. But I 
 heard a cry. The flame from my match had not wholly 
 died. And by its light I saw — Great Heaven ! I had 
 not had one murderer to deal with. A whole gang of 
 brigands were upon me and my diamonds. What was 
 to be done ? 
 
256 ROMANCES Of THE LAW. 
 
 Five more brigands at least were there. Well, I dared 
 not pray for so hopeless a thing as life ; but I would at 
 least be true to my trust, and sell it dearly. My name, 
 my honour, might be saved. First to right, then to left, 
 I fired, and fired again — twice — three times — 
 
 And then the match went out, and left me to the mercy 
 of the robbers and cutthroats into whose hands I had 
 been drawn by a woman's words. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Suddenly a blaze of light filled the room, so bright, that 
 my eyes, till now blinded by darkness, were more blinded 
 still. 
 
 "What madman is here?" cried a woman's voice — that 
 other woman's, not Mademoiselle Lenoir's. " O ! ! ! 
 My poor, dear, beautiful boudoir ! Send for the gen- 
 darmes ! " 
 
 Was I alive ? I suppose so, since I could still hear 
 and see. And how can I describe the scene that I 
 beheld ? 
 
 I was in an elegantly furnished room. On my left 
 hand, with clasped hands, gazing at me with a face full 
 of amazement, was Mademoiselle Lenoir. On my right, 
 looking at me with wild looks of mingled anger, despair, 
 and terror, was a handsome lady, who resembled a queen 
 of tragedy. 
 
 " Amelie ! " cried the latter. 
 
 " Madame la Princesse ! " echoed Mademoiselle 
 Lenoir. 
 
 " My favourite clock ! " moaned the right-hand lady. 
 
 " And three whole mir — " Mademoiselle was beginning, 
 when I felt my arms grasped tightly behind my back, 
 and a man's slow stern, voice in my ear : 
 
THREE SHOTS WITH A REVOLVER. 257 
 
 "Who are you? Are you madman or brigand ? What 
 does this mean ? Who are you that made havoc with 
 the boudoir of Madame la Princesse de Mouranov ? Who, 
 I say?" 
 
 I must confess it at last ! I am a little near-sighted ; 
 and, by the dim light of the match, had mistaken the 
 sixfold reflection of myself in the panels of an octagonal 
 room lined with large mirrors for a band of murderers. 
 
 And that talk of death and diamonds behind the wall ? 
 Well, as I learned afterwards, the Princess Mouranov 
 was, as it seemed half the world knew, busily occupied 
 in flying from the pursuit of a husband from whom she 
 was trying to keep not only herself, but her famous* 
 diamonds. Her eccentric movements had baffled him 
 for long ; but the temporary sojourn of her parure with 
 our firm had nearly put him on the traces. Eead the 
 talk by the light of this and you will understand — even 
 the big talk of Madame's last champion, a German Baron, 
 who did meet the Prince in mortal fight with swords, and 
 came off second best with a gash that went through his 
 sword-arm. Who has got the diamonds now I neither 
 know nor care. 
 
 But as for the revolver — well, if you must keep such 
 awkward things at all, you can't spend three shots from 
 one better than in obeying the precept, 
 
 " Brise le miroir infidele 
 Qui vous cache la verite." 
 
 Smash every lying looking-glass, whether it tells you you 
 are a murderer, or whether — as is more common — it tells 
 you, as my own, once upon a time, used to tell me, that 
 I was a handsome as well as a near-sighted man. Alas, 
 since that terrible night, no looking-glass dares to tell me 
 that I am handsome any more. For I never saw an 
 uglier ruffian in my life than my own double seen by the 
 light of that fusee. 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 
 I. 
 
 At last I 
 
 What thousands of blessed and delightful things those 
 ■words may mean ! The return home after months of 
 wandering or years of exile ; the kiss of troth-plight after 
 what has seemed a century of courtship ; the laurel 
 wreath to one who has striven for it till it seemed too 
 late to dream longer of a single leaf; reconciliation after 
 the estrangement of half a lifetime ; mastery of a long- 
 pursued secret of nature — in short, any of the myriad 
 cures of the heart sickness that comes of hope abandoned 
 rather than deferred. But never meant those words to 
 man or woman more than they meant to Lucas Constant 
 one sunny morning some two or three midwinters (or 
 maybe more) ago. For they meant that he was, at last, 
 free from the clutches of Dominic Van den Snees. 
 
 As the remarkable experience recorded in these pages 
 is — barring, of course, certain precautions against too 
 easy identification — as true as it is strange, such supreme 
 felicity on the part of Lucas Constant as he marched, 
 with free gait and head erect, across the quaint market- 
 place of that little Fiendish town, requires very special 
 accounting for. The simple reason for both pride and 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 259 
 
 felicity was just this — he was the first human heing in 
 all the social records of the place, who had ever contrived 
 to escape out of the clutches of Dominic Van den Snees 
 alive. 
 
 In a word, Dominic, though an excellent Christian, 
 was just the hardest, keenest, greediest, gripingest, and 
 most unscrupulously extortionate of the confraternity cf 
 Shylock : while poor Lucas Constant had been con- 
 demned to play the role of Antonio, with that of Portia 
 omitted. Had pounds of human flesh been marketable 
 commodities nearer than the South Sea Islands, he would 
 not have had half an ounce of flesh left upon his bones. 
 Master of himself and of a fine estate at the age of nine- 
 teen, he had made the worst possible use of both, until 
 everything he had once possessed was pledged or 
 mortgaged to Dominic, who, in one way or another, had 
 contrived to become the young prodigal's sole creditor. 
 That had been the state of things when Lucas v/as one- 
 and-thirty ; and in another year he would complete the 
 term of twelve years popularly allowed for the full 
 attainment of four cross roads or a madhouse by anybody 
 who had sold himself to Mynheer Van den Snees. 
 
 Lucas was making a serious study of the former 
 alternative when — but enough of him for the moment. 
 For Place aux Riches, all over the world. 
 
 Dominic Van den Snees, then, banker, broker, anything 
 that implied dealing with other people's money, had been 
 gifted by nature with that order of beauty which pre- 
 eminently requires lavish gilding. And Nature's gifts, 
 both physical and mental, had been cultivated with the 
 utmost diligence. I have said he v/as an excellent 
 Christian : and as such he wasted no talent — especially 
 if it belonged to another. This bright midwinter morning, 
 his sixty-third birthday, found him developed to the 
 v highest degree of which he was presumably capable. He 
 was a little, wizened old man, apparently made of parch- 
 
 s 2 
 
2G0 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 ment drawn tightly over an awkwardly-jointed wooden 
 frame, without blood or muscle. The unappeasable 
 hunger, as well as the characteristic features of the vulture 
 were to be observed in his piercing, bead-like eyes ; his 
 thin nose with its high bridge and depressed nostrils ; 
 his barely visible mouth ; his unpleasant, unwholesome- 
 looking baldness ; his long flexible neck ; his retreating 
 chin. Nay, he carried his arms something in the manner 
 of half -opening wings ; and there was more than a mere 
 suggestion of claws in his long and crooked fingers. A 
 commonplace conventional type of the theatrical usurer ? 
 That may be ; and I think that the type must have been 
 originally taken straight from nature, as represented by 
 Dominic Van den Snees. For my part, I have observed 
 that the usurer is mostly of the jovial and florid order, 
 with delightfully genial ways, and that the jollier a dog is, 
 the sharper is his bite and the harder his hold. Any such 
 experience Dominic set at defiance. But then he was 
 something more than a mere money-lender. He was that 
 strangest of creatures, so strange that some have doubted 
 its very existence outside fiction — a miser. So, at least, 
 said rumour : and for once, rumour was not far wrong. 
 
 No guest had ever sat at this poor rich man's board. 
 He kept no horse, no carriage, no servant even, save a 
 single clerk whom he changed on an average once a 
 quarter, and a woman of all work who came three 
 times a week to cook and clean. He never took any 
 amusement ; he was never seen, except on pressing busi- 
 ness, abroad. The name of Dominic Van den Snees was 
 unknown to the poor who had no security to offer, and 
 butcher, baker, tailor, and cobbler alike swore that the 
 church mice were better customers to them all. He 
 would go round the market during the last hour of the 
 day, and forestall the town cats in the purchase of the 
 refuse of the day's sales ; while as for his clothes — well, 
 he had unquestionably bought one whole suit in ei CT ht 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 261 
 
 years ; or rather obtained one, for it was somebody else's 
 misfit, and the tailor owed him rather more than its 
 value. 
 
 I fear there is no question but that he was an exceed- 
 ingly wicked old man ; and therefore, it is to be hoped, a 
 correspondingly miserable one . . . but as to the 
 latter point I am not sure. We all plume ourselves 
 on being men of business, the final outcome of centuries 
 of progress ; and it is not for a man of business to under- 
 rate either the delight or the dignity of feeling a continuous 
 flow of gold out of other people's pockets into one's own, 
 and not running out again. Eather, let me say, I should 
 exceedingly like to try what it feels like — say for a year. 
 Unless Dominic was a fool, the pleasure must be worth 
 the sacrifice of all other things. And fool was about the 
 only evil name he was never called. 
 
 " A great, great, great Many Happy Eeturns of the 
 Day 1— There ! " 
 
 Yes — it was a fact ; Dominic the Usurer, Dominic the 
 Miser, Dominic the tattered old fright, was being warmly 
 embraced by the prettiest girl in all the town. 
 
 It is true she was little more than a child ; but her 
 promise in the way of being pretty was better than most 
 girls' performance. I will not go so far as to say that the 
 old villain smiled in an answer, hut he gave a grin that 
 may be called a smile by courtesy, and was not without a 
 certain grotesque tenderness that would have made his 
 clients stare. 
 
 " Thank you, Greta. There, that'll do. You'll rub the 
 nap off my best coat with your elbows. . . . Ah ! We 
 must begin to be careful now." 
 
 " Careful ? " asked Greta, puzzled, and looking round. 
 
 "Yes — careful. It's right and proper to make good 
 resolutions on one's birthday; and we've been too 
 extravagant— too extravagant a great deal. We must 
 
262 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 retrench, Greta. Why, only last week's housekeeping 
 came to three florins — three whole florins, Greta. Now 
 that we are about to become landed proprietors, we must 
 range ourselves ; we must give up all wasteful ways." 
 
 " Landed proprietors, — we ? " 
 
 " Yes. That young fool Lucas Constant's bonds and 
 hypothecations fall due at twelve o'clock to-day. If St. 
 Ottilia strikes her twelfth stroke before he pays me down 
 one hundred and thirty-seven thousand eight hundred 
 and sixty-six florins in good notes or hard cash, I shall 
 have twice the money's-worth in houses and land. . . . 
 Yes, we must retrench; we must indeed." 
 
 "Lucas Constant!" exclaimed the girl. "Why, I 
 thought he was the greatest and richest man in all the 
 Province '' — 
 
 " You're right. So he was, Greta. But he didn't 
 retrench : and so " — 
 
 " Poor young man ! Will he have nothing left him, 
 after being so rich and so grand? You'll leave him a 
 little, just a little, so that he mayn't be so very poor? " 
 
 " That's business, Greta. That isn't in your line. 
 No ; business is business, and principal's principal, and 
 interest's interest, too ; especially compound. We 
 mustn't falsify the immutable laws of compound interest; 
 that would never do. 'Twould be flying in the face of 
 business — I mean Providence : and that's a sin. . 
 Holloa ! if there isn't a whole inch and a quarter of 
 twine lying under that chair. What waste ! and to- 
 morrow old Hannah will be here for cleaning ; and she'll 
 snap up that twine as sure as she's the miserliest old 
 screw in all the town, bar none. Why, a man has lost a 
 fortune before now for want of an inch of twine." 
 
 " Grandfather," said Greta, after a pause, very grave. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I was wondering " — 
 
 "Well?"' 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 263 
 
 " I've often wondered why you, who think always so 
 much of — business " — 
 
 " I have to, Greta. ' Mind your own business ; ' that's 
 the golden rule — next to the Eule of Three." 
 
 " I've often wondered why you should have burdened 
 yourself with the cost of — of — me ? " 
 
 " Eh? Why — why, now that I come to think of it, it 
 does seem queer. I wonder why ! It never struck me in 
 that light, to be sure. It was thoughtless, Greta. Yes — 
 I remember it like yesterday : a baby not more than three 
 years old at most, crying for a dead mother in the snow. 
 I suppose I must have been drinking. I did take a glass 
 of ale in those days, when I made an extra good bargain. 
 Lord, to think if I hadn't I might have been, maybe, 
 twenty florins richer this very hour ! Yes, now I come 
 to think of it, I must have been off my head to pick up a 
 strange child out of the snow, and all for nothing. Wei!, 
 well. Never mind, Greta ; I'll never do it again." 
 
 " And you've always been kind to me." 
 
 " There, there ; don't scold me. Let bygones be 
 bygones. Don't let's think about it any more. It's the 
 only time I ever did it : and " — 
 
 " Then, if you'll be very kind to me just once more," 
 said the girl, with a half sad, half humorous smile, "I'll 
 never ask you for another penny. Oh, it does go to my 
 heart to think of that poor young man, that nobody finds 
 any fault with, except not understanding money — of that 
 poor young man being left to starve, or worse, while 
 ■vve — Grandfather, you are so rich, and you can be 
 so kind : don't let us take away his all." 
 
 But as she spoke, Dominic's wizened face turned sour 
 and hard. 
 
 "'To him that hath shall be given: from him that 
 hath nothing shall be taken even that which he hath,' " 
 said he. "I might have been a Lucas Constant; ha 
 might have been a Dominic Van den Snees. He has 
 
264 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 chosen to enjoy his wealth in his youth ; I to enjoy mine 
 in the evening of my days. No, Greta. Justice is 
 justice, and business is business, all over the world. 
 Sooner than do injustice I will carryall that he has spent 
 into my grave." 
 
 " Ah ! there is no treasure of that sort there," she said, 
 as if to herself, and scarcely half aloud. 
 
 " Master Dominic ! " bawled, putting his head in at 
 the door, the banker's clerk, who, being very deaf, treated 
 the rest of the world as if it were hard of hearing. 
 " Here's Master Lucas Constant. Shall I show him 
 in?" 
 
 "Show him in, Claus, show him in!" chuckled 
 Dominic, rubbing his hands. 
 
 Greta rose with a sigh, and could not help letting fall a 
 look of pity upon the young man who entered. He, for 
 his part, started at such a sight in the heart of such a 
 sordid cobweb. He would as soon have thought of find- 
 ing a rosebud beginning to open from the stem of a 
 nettle. 
 
 "Who in the world is that?" he asked, as his eyes 
 followed her through the door. " To think how often I've 
 been here and never to have known you were a family 
 man ! " 
 
 Dominic's face grew harder and sourer, while he 
 scowled. 
 
 "'Mind your own business,' Mr. Constant," said he, 
 " is a golden rule. I should have thought you'd have 
 had few eyes for any chit of a child to-day.'' 
 
 "True. But — well" — Greta's passing sigh must have 
 been infectious, for he also sighed. 
 
 " Ah," exclaimed Dominic to himself, to whom a sigh 
 could only betoken one thing. ' ' This is my birthday ; so 
 I don't mean to be hard. I don't think it will be altogether 
 a criminal act on my part to allow you an income of a 
 hundred florins a year; and I'll charge you no more than 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 265 
 
 five per cent, for the accommodation. No: on one's own 
 birthday one can't be hard on an old friend." 
 
 Lucas stared for a moment ; then burst into a laugh. 
 
 " Bravo, Dominic ! " he cried. " Why, the skies must 
 be tottering on their poles ! I really couldn't think of 
 taking such advantage " — 
 
 " Well, perhaps the offer was just a trifle strong. Say 
 eighty florins, and ten per cent, interest ; or seventy, at 
 fifteen"— 
 
 " Or suppose we say nothing a year and no interest at 
 all." 
 
 " Are you mad ? " Dominic exclaimed. 
 
 " No, thank God. Congratulate me. You know I had 
 just one little patch of mother earth left me unencum- 
 bered : a few acres in Brazil." 
 
 "I know. Not worth three florins an acre," said 
 Dominic, " I won't touch it with a pair of tongs." 
 
 " That poor little patch has trumped the pack. I've 
 sold it for a Diamond Mine to a company for one hundred 
 and forty thousand florins : money paid. I thought I'd 
 better tell you at once, as it's due in a couple of hours. 
 Congratulate me — I can look the world in the face now 
 —a free man. I'll be back with the cash sharp at a 
 quarter before noon." 
 
 The church clock of St. Ottilia struck ten, or else he 
 must surely have heard the angry groan that issued from 
 the internal cavities of Dominic Van den Snees. 
 
 Having given notice to his creditor, and with plenty of 
 things to occupy his mind, this suddenly appointed 
 favourite of that most capricious of ladies, Dame Fortune, 
 returned to his lodgings, where, in his unbusinesslike 
 way, he had stowed his fortune, mostly in notes but 
 partly in gold away in the cupboard where he kept a few 
 books, a flageolet, a pair of boots, an ink-bottle, a canister 
 of tobacco, a big sausage, and a bundle of billets doux. 
 On the way, he stopped at a well-known cellar and 
 
266 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 breakfasted like a prince ; and in the mirage conjured up 
 by the glow of the Budesheimer, the face of fortune grew 
 singularly like that of the young girl whose contrast with 
 her surroundings had taken him so much by surprise. 
 
 Despite the billets doux under the big sausage in 
 the cupboard, Lucas Constant had kept singularly heart- 
 whole ; nor did he suspect the ghost of a danger of that 
 sort from anybody connected with that horrible old spider, 
 Dominic Van den Snees. So he could afford, with an 
 easy mind first to speculate as to who she was ; then to 
 dream, then — but it struck eleven, and the payment 
 was due within another hour. 
 
 And within that hour he might see her again ; who 
 knows ? 
 
 So it was with a little more empressement than was to 
 be wholly accounted for by a man who is only going to 
 pay his debts that, having finished yet another flask of 
 Budesheimer, he loaded himself with his wealth and 
 again betook himself to his creditor's abode. 
 
 A little to his surprise, the front door stood wide open ; 
 but as, after all, spiders do not usually close their doors 
 against their clients, the flies, his surprise at such a detail 
 was neither long-continued nor profound. He went 
 quickly up the dusty staircase, meeting nobody by the 
 way and hearing no sound save what rose from the 
 street outside, until he reached the room door through 
 which he had so often passed in shamefaced recklessness 
 or in forlorn despair. 
 
 As he, in a very different mood from these, brought 
 down his fist upon the panel, he fancied for a moment 
 that he heard a sob. But no doubt it was only a fanciful 
 translation of Dominic's wheezy " Come in." 
 
 So he went in, just as he had promised — sharp at a 
 quarter before noon. The church bell was just chiming 
 the third quarter, so he knew ; and not being a man of 
 business — notoriously the most unpunctual race on earth, 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 267 
 
 be it in paying money, answering letters, or keeping 
 appointments — he had the eminently unbusinesslike foible 
 of being always up to time. 
 
 And there, sure enough, sat Dominic Van den Snees, 
 who, being a really first-rate man of business, was 
 invariably punctual when money had to be — received. 
 
 Lucas fancied the old gentleman looked a trifle pale ; 
 but otherwise be was just the same as ever. 
 
 "Here you are!" exclaimed Lucas, pleasantly. "One 
 hundred and thirty-seven thousand eight hundred and 
 sixty-six florins, all in notes and cash," said he, rattling 
 down canvas bag after canvas bag on the table. "By 
 Jove ! One feels like Fortunatus, paying such a lot away 
 all at one go. I should like to pay like that every day. 
 There, old gentleman ; count away — there's the last of 
 them. And, when you're through, come round with me 
 and bring Miss — I didn't quite catch the name — round to 
 the Silver Apple Tree, and I'll stand you a dinner for an 
 Emperor and a bottle of Eudesheimer fit for the Pope of 
 Eome." 
 
 Dominic answered never a word nor sign ;- but his 
 crooked talons reached out and raked up the gold. His 
 lips moved in counting, but they uttered no sound. 
 
 " This is really jolly," said Lucas, who could never 
 stand silence, lighting a cigar. " How some fellows can 
 go on receiving money when it's so much less trouble to 
 pay it I never could understand. Never fear, though — 
 I've had my lesson ; I'm not going to throw it away any 
 more. I've done with cards; I've done with women; I've 
 done with wine. And I'm hanged if there's any other 
 way of throwing away one's cash, without getting any- 
 thing for it, except on them. Do you know, I've actually 
 got a notion that a man ought to marry ? Did you ever 
 marry, Dominic? No — she can't be your daughter. 
 Grand-daughter, eh?" 
 
 But the lips went on counting silently. 
 
268 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 "Yes," continued Lucas. "A man ought to marry. 
 Not for fortune, but just for — for — for — whatever he 
 ought to marry for. Were you ever in love, Dominic Van 
 den Snees? " 
 
 Not a word ; while the lips still counted on. 
 
 "No ; of course you weren't. I wonder if you were ever 
 young. I wonder if/ was ever young — before to-day. Well 
 • — we'll begin together. You will bring — Miss — • I really 
 didn't catch the name — to the Silver Apple Tree ? One 
 doesn't pay a hundred and thirty odd thousand florins 
 every day — 
 
 " Gaudeamui igitur, 
 
 Juvenes duni sumus/' 
 Bang he. 
 
 Then, whether it was the effect of the Eudesheimer or 
 of something more potent, I know not ; but his thoughts 
 rambled off into a pleasant dream. And when the dream 
 passed, and he looked up, Dominic Van den Snees had left 
 the room, without a word. 
 
 " And without so much as a ' Thank you ' ! Well, he 
 always was a queer old — shark," said Lucas, who, however 
 much disappointed, had perforce to drink any further 
 Eudesheimer he might require alone. 
 
 At that precise moment the bell of St. Ottilia gave 
 forth the last stroke of Twelve. 
 
 II. 
 
 It was a disappointment not to have caught another 
 eight of the girl : and Lucas caught himself thinking of 
 her a good deal — it seemed so very odd to have found 
 anything of that sort in the establishment of Dominic 
 Van den Snees. Indeed, as the days went on, he began 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 269 
 
 to be almost sorry that he had paid himself so clearly out 
 of the old miser's clutches, and even caught himself 
 meditating the negotiation of another loan, just for the 
 fun of the thing. . . . Why, he did not even know the 
 child's name. 
 
 Not that he was so far gone as to let his wits wander in 
 this wise in the town itself, where the fair unknown had 
 her home — if by such a name the miser's dwelling could 
 be called. For no sooner was he a free man than he took 
 a journey to the chateau, five-and-twenty miles away, on 
 which he had not set eyes since his boyhood, and which 
 now belonged to him, free and unencumbered, once more. 
 Had he not been in a sentimental humour, such pilgrimage 
 was only due, now that, for the first time since it had 
 been his, he could look upon the home of his forefathers 
 without shame. He put up at a little cabaret in the 
 village, where he found himself clean forgotten. So he 
 assumed the role of a wandering painter — he could do 
 most things a little — and amused himself with strolling 
 about his own park, and imagining all sorts of things : a 
 kennel of boarhounds, for example; and a chatelaine. 
 And what was odd, or else not odd, the chdtelaine was 
 always extravagantly young, and was always going out at 
 the door with a pitiful sigh, which ended in her coming 
 back with the gayest of smiles. No — if a man wants to 
 forget a woman's face, the very worst thing he can do is 
 to moon all alone about a park with a home memory 
 hanging from every bough, like toys on a Christmas- 
 tree. 
 
 But he had enough of this after awhile : or else the 
 example of the moths that fluttered of an evening into 
 his candle at the cabaret was of an infectious kind. 
 Besides, he really had reasonable affairs to look after. 
 So he set off for a final ramble round the chateau before 
 returning to the candle — I mean the town. 
 
270 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 It was an exceedingly pleasant ramble. The day was 
 mild and open, though in midwinter ; and Lucas, as he 
 caught from time to time the point of one of his own 
 turrets through his own trees, was beginning to feel that 
 he was at last growing into a real man, by whom these 
 past twelve years of folly might still be redeemed. 
 Chateau, park, village, the surrounding farms, were all 
 his own, and he no longer had a debt in the world. What 
 might he not, what ought he not, what would he not do 
 with wealth and still early manhood at his command ? 
 There is some moment in life when, if we are not blind, 
 we realize what life means, and what we can make of it, 
 if we only will realize it, when the meaning of 
 ourselves and of our existence bursts on us like a sudden 
 inspiration. And it was here and now that to him this 
 moment came, sending a glow and a flash from heart to 
 brain. 
 
 He was about, with this new resolution strong upon 
 him, to leave the park, when, on emerging from a copse 
 into the open, he came upon four men carrying chains 
 and surveying instruments, which they presently pro- 
 ceeded to put in order for using. One had his eye to a 
 spyglass, two others were unfolding a long chain. 
 
 Lucas's pride of ownership took fire. " What are you 
 doing here ? " he abruptly asked the fourth, and 
 apparently principal, trespasser, — a dapper, neatly 
 dressed personage, with a finely-starched shirt frill and 
 a bland smile. " Don't you know that this is private 
 ground ? " 
 
 " Assuredly, my man. The garde-chasse, I suppose? 
 Perhaps you will be so good as to hold the other end of 
 that chain." 
 
 " With pleasure, my man," said Lucas, seeing an open- 
 ing for humour, " if you'll be so good as to tell me what 
 for." 
 
 " ' My man,' indeed ! What boors these provincials 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 271 
 
 are ! Perhaps you'll find your manners, young fellow, 
 when I inform you that I am Maitre Hopper, Notary 
 Public of St. Bavon, and that that gentleman there is my 
 friend Kropp, — so there ! " 
 
 "Hopper? Kropp? Well, live and learn. And what 
 are you doing here ? and what is Kropp going to do with 
 that piece of artillery there? " 
 
 " Artillery ! That instrument, young man, is called a 
 theodolite, and Kropp is going to survey." 
 
 " And what is he going to survey ? " 
 
 " This estate, to be sure." 
 
 " That seems rather cool of Kropp." 
 
 "Cool?" 
 
 " Yes,— to survey an estate without the owncr'3 
 leave." 
 
 " He would not do such a thing. He has the instruc- 
 tions of my clients, the proprietors of this estate, as you 
 very properly call it, to make an exact survey thereof 
 before its sale to the highest bidder. And I am here to 
 see it done." 
 
 "The proprietor — a client of yours! Why, till this 
 minute I never knew that there was a Hopper or a Kropp 
 in the world. And a sale — a public sale — of this chateau ! 
 There's some mistake somewhere, Master Hopper. It 
 must be some other place you've got to survey. This is 
 the chateau of Lucas Constant, who " — 
 
 Master Hopper beamed. " Who was — was, Mr. Game- 
 keeper ! " said he. "Who ivas the owner, but who 
 unquestionably isn't the owner now. A mistake ! As if 
 I could be mistaken about such a thing as that — I ! " 
 
 " Who is the owner, then ? " 
 
 " Why, my respected and estimable client, Peter 
 Cornelius Boom." 
 
 " Hopper — Kropp — Boom ! My good Hopper, you 
 must be mad, or I. I never heard of any Boom, except, 
 by the way, a little tailor in the market square, who once 
 
272 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 put a patch into one of my trousers ; and uncommonly 
 badly, too." 
 
 "Hush! That distinguished and honourable citizen 
 is Peter Cornelius — that is the man." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I said either you or I must be 
 mad. I was wrong. I retract. It is not I. It is un- 
 hesitatingly you." 
 
 " Not a bit of it, young man. I'll go as far as that in 
 speaking of your manners ; but not a syllable more. 
 Young Constant had to redeem his lands, everything ha 
 had, by noon last Monday, or lose it all. Young Constant 
 failed to make redemption. Thus everything passed in 
 due course of law to the representative of that mo.it 
 honourable citizen, Dominic Van den Snees." 
 
 " Failed to make redemption? " 
 
 "Precisely so, young man. And let his career be a 
 warning to " — 
 
 " But he did make redemption : and nobody knows 
 that better than I. Come, no more of this nonsense, 
 master Notary. I am Lucas Constant. So tell Kropp to 
 pack up his traps and begone. I don't know what the 
 tailor has to do with it ; but you're trespassing as surely 
 as I paid a hundred and thirty odd thousand florins to old 
 Dominic with my own hands." 
 
 A bewildered look took the place of the notary's 
 smile. 
 
 "You are Lucas Constant?" asked he. "And you tell 
 me, Maitre Hopper, Notary Public of St. Bavon, that you 
 paid the redemption money to Dominic Van den Snees 
 with your own hands last Monday before noon?" 
 
 " That is certainly what I say." 
 
 •' And you will produce the receipt?" 
 
 " Eeceipt ? By Jove, no," said Lucas colouring, as he 
 realized for the first time that so regular a portion of the 
 transaction had been forgotten both by creditor and debtor 
 —and colouring also at the recollection of what had put 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 273 
 
 it out of his own head at the time. "But it doesn't matter. 
 Old Dominic himself will confirm every word I say, and 
 write out a receipt." 
 
 " I think not," said the notary, very grave. 
 
 " What !" cried Lucas, beginning to smell fraud. 
 
 " One question, Monsieur. At what hour on Monday 
 did you pay Dominic Van den Snees one hundred and 
 thirty odd thousand florins, if you please?" 
 
 " Just before St. Ottilia's struck noon." 
 
 " Sir," said the notary, sternly, " that is a lie ! 
 Dominic Van den Snees died suddenly in his chair pre- 
 cisely when St. Ottilia's struck eleven 1 Intestate, sir, 
 and Peter Cornelius Boom is his heir-at-law. Don't tell 
 ma, Lucas Constant, that you paid that money, without 
 even a receipt to show for it, to a dead man ! . . . At 
 eleven o'clock on Monday, Dominic Van den Snees — 
 died." 
 
 Yes ; there was no doubt about that. On his sixty-third, 
 birthday Dominic Van den Snees had come to the only- 
 thing which wealth and poverty have in common — an 
 end. He had been found by the clerk sitting where Lucas 
 had left him between ten and eleven, as dead as his own 
 gold. The groan he had given when he learned that his 
 scheme for getting hold of a great estate for half its 
 value had failed, was the last living utterance he had 
 made. 
 
 And, for all he had been so rich, he left nobody to 
 mourn him. His deaf clerk had bawled out notice to quit 
 his starved service some days before ; his second cousin, 
 only known relation, and heir-at-law, Peter Cornelius 
 Boom, who had never had a nod or a penny from him in 
 his lifetime, did not even affect sorrow at being suddenly 
 transformed from a little tailor into a millionaire. No ; 
 there was nobody- 
 Yes, though, there was one; just one. And, since 
 there was one to shed an honest tear over him, 
 
274 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 therefore, not even Dominic Van den Snees, in spite of 
 all his wealth, could be said to have lived entirely in 
 vain. 
 
 No true miser ever makes a will. And yet Greta, 
 though not a farthing came to her, shed a good many 
 honest tears ; and she could not possibly have told why. 
 She knew him, she could not help knowing, to be sordid, 
 grasping, hard beyond belief ; and yet from the day on 
 which some most uncharacteristic impulse had made him 
 so false to himself as to pick up a forlorn little motherless 
 child out of the snow, an odd sort of affection had grown 
 up between the miser and the child. Perhaps it was 
 because they were both so utterly alone : perhaps because 
 so utterly different ; perhaps because of a thousand 
 mystjries that will never be cleared up in this muddle- 
 headed, but possibly not altogether muddle-hearted 
 world. And now he was gone. . . . There was nobody 
 to starve her any more. 
 
 As to what was to become of herself — the first con- 
 sideration with most mourners — she had not as yet 
 considered. Peter Cornelius Boom had not as yet made 
 any movement to turn her out of the house. The heir 
 could no doubt afford to be generous till after the funeral. 
 At present, the only intrusion on Greta's solitude had 
 been that of the undertaker's men, who had put the old 
 gentleman's corpse into a ready-made shell within an hour 
 of his demise : for the heir was in a hurry. So Greta had 
 nothing to do but creep about and cry in the most con- 
 temptible way. For what could be more contemptible 
 than for any girl of spirit to be sorry for such a good 
 riddance as Dominic Van den Snees? 
 
 If she had had her ears and her other wits about her, 
 she would have heard the gossip of the town : and it was 
 very serious gossip, indeed. 
 
 For it was nothing less than that Lucas Constant — that 
 spendthrift scamp — had attempted to perpetrate a fraud, 
 
BURIED IN COLD. 275 
 
 of which the shamelessness was only to be equalled by its 
 folly. TL& pay such a sum as more than a hundred 
 thousand florins ! That, in any case, was absurd. And 
 to pay them without taking a receipt! More prepos- 
 terous still. And when, though he described the notes 
 in detail to the civic authorities, and put in. evidence 
 a list of them, not a note nor a florin (save the miser's 
 own loose cash) could be found in the house, the 
 outrageousnesg of his story was proved to the hilt — 
 even without the gratuitous lie that he had paid the 
 money to a man who had been laid dead in a shell an 
 hour before. 
 
 There had even been whispers of murder. But of that, 
 fortunately for Lucas, the surgeons who made a careful 
 examination of the body, could find no confirmation. 
 Beyond all doubt Dominic's ill-nourished heart had 
 suddenly given way, he must have died in a moment, 
 without a breathing space between living and dying. 
 Besides, he must have died exactly at eleven : at which 
 time Lucas was at the Silver Apple Tree and could 
 therefore prove an alibi. 
 
 So not only was Lucas charged with fraud, and half- 
 suspected of murder, but he had lost at one stroke both 
 his ancestral lands and every penny he had received from 
 the sale of his diamond mine. He was ruined, nay, 
 beggared, for a second time ; and this time without a 
 single fault of his own. For he was as convinced, as 
 that he lived, that he had paid the money into Dominic's 
 living claws before that fatal noon, despite such evidence 
 as he would have held conclusive in the case of another 
 man. 
 
 And just when the knowledge had been given him how 
 a man's life was to be used ! . It was cruelly hard ; 
 horribly strange. 
 
 Nor will any man, I think, venture to throw the first 
 stone at Lucas Constant for giving way to an incompre- 
 
 T 2 
 
276 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 hensible destiny, betaking himself to his garret and 
 sitting down in sheer despair. He had become a man ; 
 but not more than a man. 
 
 III. 
 
 It was the day fixed for the funeral. St. Ottilia was 
 tolling. Peter Cornelius Boom and Master Hopper, 
 dressed in superfine black, were breakfasting together 
 before the burial, and breakfasting well. Lucas Constant 
 — but no matter about him. Greta listened to the 
 tolling : all the love that a cold and empty world had 
 given her was about to be put underground. She had no 
 place in the funeral ; but surely — 
 
 Yes ; she might, nay must, do that. He had gathered 
 just one blossom in his life: he must carry with him 
 just one blossom to his grave. 
 
 In a few minutes more, the undertaker's men, who had 
 already placed the shell within a coffin of which the cost 
 would, little as it was, have made the corpse of the 
 miser (could he have seen the bill) turn in the deepest 
 grave, would come to nail all down. So, for the first 
 time since the old man's death, Greta crept out of the 
 house and, in a corner of the market-place, bought a 
 bunch of snowdrops — the fittest offering of the child who 
 had been found in the snow. 
 
 She returned to the house, and went, no longer weep- 
 ing, but grave and solemn, into the empty chamber where 
 the dead man lay — as grim and ugly a corpse as ever was 
 seen. 
 
 She leaned over it nevertheless ; and over its withered 
 heart laid the bunch of flowers. 
 
 And, even as she did so, a sudden gleam from between 
 
BURIED IN GOLD. 277 
 
 two of the vulture-like talons made her start. Too well 
 Greta knew the hideous sight of gold ! How had that 
 come — Here, ? Was the dead man trying to carry his 
 miserahle hoards even beyond the grave ? 
 
 Yet even so it seemed 1 For how else could that shell 
 be freighted with treasure, in paper and gold ? To Greta's 
 mind it could mean only one thing — that Dominic was 
 actually trying to convey his hoard into another world. 
 The very fancy filled her with horror : it was an unheard- 
 of blasphemy. One by one, with a pain as if she were 
 tearing out his heart-strings, she withdrew the symbols 
 of his life's curse : and, when the last was withdrawn, 
 the corpse was grim no more. With nothing but the 
 flowers upon his heart, the face of Dominic the Miser 
 became that of a little child. 
 
 And here I would fain close. For dull, indeed, must 
 be the reader who- needs to be told that, when the money 
 found in the cofiin was lodged with the Town Council, it 
 was found to correspond, noi; only in amount, but even in 
 the numbers of the notes, with the money which Lucas 
 Constant had asserted that he had paid. 
 
 I make no attempt to clear the mystery. It looks very 
 much as if the ruling passion was for once even stronger 
 than Death, and as if, rather than forego all those florins, 
 Dominic Van den Snees, in the dead flesh, or the living 
 ghost, or both, had really come back for five full minutes 
 to the life that he had left an hour before. Departed 
 spirits, we have all been told, will now and then come 
 back, drawn by the magnetic power of human love. 
 Why not, then, by the yet more mighty greed of gold ? 
 
 Or had, just on that day, the infallible clock of St. 
 Ottilia — after the universal habit of infallible clocks — 
 gone wrong ? Be that as it may, and whatever ways of 
 accounting for the still unsolved mystery may occur to 
 cleverer people than I, Peter Cornelius Boom was, very 
 
278 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 wisely, contented to exchange landed estates for hard 
 cash down, and — 
 
 Duller yet must be the reader who needs telling that 
 the next time St. Ottilia chimed it was for the wedding 
 of Greta with the man who had become a Man. . . . 
 No : Dominic Van den Snees had not lived wholly in 
 vain. 
 
STRONGER THAN DEATH. 
 
 You may talk of your fiddles, your bassoons, and all your 
 squeaking and growling, but give me the Dram ! There 
 is something so solemn in its thud, so inspiring in its 
 rattle. I have sat unmoved through the legerdemain 
 performances of all the great fiddlers, from Paganini to 
 Joachim, without feeling the ghost of emotion ; when all 
 of a sudden I have heard a roll from some far-off, dark 
 corner of the hall that has brought the tears into my 
 eyes. To my mind — and I boast of it with pride — the 
 drum is the orchestral emperor ; the most tuneful, the 
 most pathetic, the most graceful, the most scientific, the 
 most awe-inspiring, the most sentimental, the most 
 eloquent, the most tender, the most — but hold : when I 
 undertook to tell this story it was under a solemn pledge 
 that I would keep a tight curb on my hobby, and not let 
 it run away with me at starting. And here it is, taking 
 the bit between its teeth, and bolting, even before I am 
 fairly in the saddle. Well, there's some excuse when 
 one's hobby is the honest Drum. 'Tis not as though it 
 was a penny whistle, or a Jew's harp, or a tin trumpet, 
 or that tooth-twinging impostor, the violin. 
 
 I am a drummer, I have always been a drummer, and 
 a drummer (please Heaven) I shall die. Nay, I may say 
 I was born a drummer ; for my father, Anton Markwitz, 
 
2S0 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 served old Blucher, in the regiment of Pomerania, and 
 ■was beating his drum while his general was beating the 
 Frenchmen (fiddlers by nature) at Quatre-Bras ; and in 
 the precise middle of one of his rolls, as it was reckoned 
 afterwards, I marched into the world. I never saw 
 my poor father, for he never lived to finish that roll. 
 But I took it up, so to speak, and went on with it ; 
 and when my sticks also are at rest, there's my boy 
 Caspar to take up the beat at the end of the bar, and to 
 keep true time like a good drummer — which, as all 
 the world knows, is the same as to say, like a good 
 man. 
 
 It was in the year 1840 — for, since I am about to 
 tell the most amazing and, in every way, the most 
 intellect-baffling of experiences, I wish to be in every 
 respect accurate and particular — that I was fulfilling an 
 engagement in the city of Vienna. It was not a 
 profitable one, from a financial point of view — but no 
 drummer ever makes a fortune ; he alone, of all men, 
 follows art for art's sake, and not even for fame's. 
 Kings and queens pay squalling soprani and squealing 
 fiddlers with diamonds and titles, and the people with 
 fortunes. But nobody ever gave a penny piece or an 
 inch of red tape for a drum-beat, though as true to time 
 as the sunrise, and — well, the short of it is, I was making 
 enough to send a florin or two home, every now and then, 
 to my mother in Pomerania, and meanwhile lived all 
 alone with my drum, when we were not at work 
 making people dance, as happy as a king — nay, happier, 
 for no king ever played the drum. Our lodging was 
 high, very high in the Stefan-Gasse. I'm afraid the old 
 lane has gone the way of all the good old things, and I'm 
 sorry, for I was very happy there once upon a time — 
 until, having come home dog-tired one evening after 
 drumming especially hard, I sat down to refresh myself 
 with a little practice on my own account, and was just 
 
STRONGER THAN DEATH. 281 
 
 beginning, when I heard a prolonged and horrible wail 
 just on the other side of the wall. 
 
 Only too well I knew it. It was the cry of a violin in 
 pain. And how was I, a real musician, to make music 
 with that abominable noise in my ears ? In the impul- 
 siveness of art and youth, I rushed down from my garret, 
 seven steps at a time, and seized by both his shoulders 
 the baker who kept the house and took the rent from 
 the lodgers. I think he scarcely all at once compre- 
 hended the nature of my complaint ; but he followed me 
 upstairs readily, being a good-natured fellow, and having 
 entered my room, stood, as if spell-bound, with his mouth 
 open and his hands raised. 
 
 " Ah, it is indeed heavenly beautiful ! " cried he. " I 
 should have raised your rent, friend Markwitz, if I had 
 known what you were going to have next door. Never 
 mind — I will take it out in coming to sit with you, 
 whenever he plays." 
 
 Never had the baker displayed the merest fragment of 
 enthusiasm over my noble instrument, the drum. Not 
 that this vexed me ; for what does one expect from a 
 baker but alum and weekly bills ? But I could not help 
 putting a good deal of vexation in my tone as I asked 
 how he had dared to give me a next neighbour in the 
 person of a street scraper. 
 
 " A street scraper ! Gracious Heaven, it is an angel I 
 have entertained unawares ! The old man said he wanted 
 a place where he could be in quiet, to practise the violin, 
 and where no musician would be in the way to hear." 
 
 "No musician ! Then — what am I ? " 
 
 " Oh, a drummer ! One does not count that music. 
 But that is music — Listen ! What is that old man doing 
 in a garret ? He ought to be leading in the opera — and 
 what is more, he will be, before he dies." 
 
 " We'll soon see if a drum can't beat a fiddle at music," 
 said I. "Thunder and battle against a pig with its 
 
2S2 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 throat cut — here goes." But, even as I raised my sticks 
 to give the roll of Quatre-Bras, the violin sank into an 
 unearthly sort of sigh, and was still. The baker burst 
 into tears, and hurried from the room. 
 
 Alas ! after that my peace was gone. Every evening, 
 as soon as I was free from the dancing saloon, where I 
 earned my bread and sausage, and had an hour or two 
 left for the invention of new roulades, that accursed violin 
 began again. You may think it would have been the 
 easiest thing in the world to shift one's quarters. If you 
 do, you are clearly no drummer. A drummer must settle 
 where he can, not where he will — where he will not 
 receive notice to quit within the first half-hour, or bring 
 the fire-engines galloping up and down the street twenty 
 times a day. Besides, I owed some rent, and the baker 
 — being evidently no critic — was patient and good-natured. 
 And finally, strange as it must appear, there was some- 
 thing about that fiddle that gradually fascinated me. It 
 was not that I began to like it. On the contrary ; I kept 
 on hating it more and more. To most of what the world 
 calls music I, being a true musician, am simply indiffer- 
 ent ; this particular instrument inspired me with positive 
 loathing. And loathing is as strong a magnet asloadstona 
 — at least, so I found. 
 
 II. 
 
 Twenty times an evening I used to sit with my drum- 
 sticks poised in air, ready to thunder out a crash that 
 would annihilate my invisible but only too audible foe. 
 Possibly my inner self (my " subjective eye," as possibly 
 my friend Fritz Nebelkopf would say) was satisfied with 
 the sense of power. But, whatever the cause, twenty 
 
STRONGER THAN DEATH. 2S3 
 
 times an evening would my drumsticks fall upon the 
 parchment with nothing louder than a muffled rumble, 
 while the fiddle sang triumphantly on, as if inspired by 
 the soul of a canary. And meanwhile I sat and cursed 
 — and, when the song was ended, I cursed again that it 
 was over and done. Can anybody account for such a 
 mood of mind? Fritz Nebelkopf might, but assuredly 
 not I. If I could have accounted for it, I should not 
 have suffered from it, I suppose. 
 
 I positively began to lose my appetite for everything 
 except beer. I had always been an exceptionally good 
 sleeper, but now a poor ten hours out of the whole four- 
 and-twenty was as much as I could do. On one occasion 
 I counted forty-three and seven-eighths of a beat instead 
 of forty-three and six-eighths, and, though nobody noticed 
 it, it made me feel myself losing nerve — and a drummer 
 without the nerve of a dozen rope-dancers may as well 
 walk straight over the edge of the world. What was 
 to be done ? 
 
 And all this for a fiddle — a mere toy ? It was absurd 
 — and I the son of a man who had drummed and died at 
 Quatre-Bras ! Absurd ? Nay — ignominious. It, or I, 
 must come to an end. One evening — it was a Wednesday 
 in December, when the whole city was wrapped in its 
 featherbed of snow — I primed myself with a schnapps, 
 and waited for the enemy to begin. Punctually to the 
 hour began the nightly cry. And — as I had vowed — • 
 punctually to the very middle of the second phrase I 
 thundered out with all my might what must have startled 
 the very paving stones beneath the snow. 
 
 It was the roulade of Quatre-Bras ! 
 
 With sleeves up to the shoulders, and with the perspira- 
 tion, cold as the night was, streaming from my forehead, 
 I thundered on, so that a whole army of violins must 
 have been scattered like a swarm of Frenchmen before 
 the uprising of Fatherland. In such an ecstasy of 
 
234 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 enjoyment and triumph was I, that I heard nothing but 
 that glorious roulade, and saw nothing at all, until some- 
 thing like a snow-flake fell upon my bare arm, and a 
 whisper pierced my ear — ay, a whisper, through all that 
 din. 
 
 " Sir — sir! cease for Heaven's sakel Beyond that wall 
 is — a dying man 1 " 
 
 I started to my feet, and my sticks fell to the ground. 
 I did not burn much candle-light ; but it was enough for 
 me to see in the living, breathing flesh what I suppose 
 any number of thousands of people have also seen — that 
 is to say, the one loveliest woman in the world. What 
 could I do but start? For I, at least, had never seen 
 that apparently commonest of all sights before. Nor 
 have I ever seen it since, save in that one form, common 
 though the sight may be. 
 
 " Dying ? " stammered I " And— and is none with 
 him but you? As if I would not have thumped that 
 Thing to pieces rather than disturb even a sick " — 
 " Fiddler," I was going to add ; but I had the presence 
 of mind to substitute " Man." " Can I be of any service? 
 Can I run for a doctor?" — 
 
 I was poor ! and so, I judged from her appearance, 
 was she. Her little figure, and the small face, 
 redeemed from statuesqueness by the rich brown of 
 the skin, the tenderly curled lips, the thick black hair, 
 ar.d the vivid brown eyes belonged to a foreign queen ; 
 but the dress was of my own humble class, and the 
 entire absence of even the cheapest artificial ornament 
 spoke of one even humbler. I could judge nothing by 
 her voice, by reason of its sweetness. I not merely 
 surmised, but knew she was poor, because of a look in 
 those eyes that spoke of her being ready to take any 
 help just because she was ready to give it — of a world 
 where, there being no question of money, nothing is left 
 to give or take but good- will, and help in kind. 
 
STRONGER THAN DEA TH. 2S5| 
 
 I followed her into the next room ; and the sight T 
 saw, if I could have given any thought to the matter, 
 would have made the nightly performances of the fiddle 
 unaccountable indeed. In a garret like my own — which 
 means empty enough — lay at full length upon a couch a 
 strange, gaunt old man — one of those human creatures 
 whom to see is to photograph upon one's brain once for 
 all, though for far other reasons than the girl. He was 
 well over six feet high, or rather long. The slope of his 
 shoulders and the tapering delicacy of his white fingers 
 were enough to show that he could never have been 
 formed for strength, while his horrible skeleton-like 
 emaciation showed that he was in the last extremity of 
 weakness. The head was small ; the yellow skin was 
 drawn over the features as tight as the parchment of a 
 drum. The features themselves were incongruous and 
 bizarre — a large mouth, at once harsh and feeble ; an 
 aquiline and commanding nose, contradicting a weak 
 and pointed chin. All the vitality about him was in the 
 long and bushy grey hair, flowing down the sloping 
 shoulders like a lion's mane, and such a pair of deep, 
 dark eyes, that I can only liken them to smouldering 
 volcanoes. He was breathing hard, and his hands seemed 
 to be beating time. No sign of seeing me came into his 
 face when I entered, and I was not sorry, for those eyes 
 had made me afraid, though there was a strange look of 
 the girl's in them, all the while. 
 
 I looked from one to the other, and then to the violin 
 that lay, with its bow across it, on a rush-bottomed chair. 
 She — I mean the girl — laid her fingers on her lips, and 
 bade me be silent with her eyes. The old man still kept 
 beating the air, as if an orchestra were in front of him. 
 
 How long this went on, I know not. But presently a 
 stranger thing happened still. The girl took up the violin, 
 put it to her shoulder, and began to play. But it was no 
 melody known to me ; nor, indeed, was it any recognizable 
 
2S8 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 melody at all. If it was not wholly unfamiliar, it was 
 because I had been worried with it night after night — 
 cats' music I had called it then ; but, seeing who was 
 making it, I called it so no more. It seemed to me she 
 was taking some violin part in an elaborate symphony, 
 wherein all the other parts had to be imagined, supposing 
 them to exist. She watched her father (if such he was) 
 as if he were conducting, and every now and then came 
 in, sometimes for a few bars, sometimes for a long passage ; 
 but always, so it seemed, the rest of an orchestra was 
 needed to translate the music into coherency. Wood and 
 wind were wanting, and, of course, the drum. But genius 
 was, somehow, not wanting — so much I, though I am no 
 baker, could dimly tell. If this was a death-bed, it was 
 the queerest I had ever known. 
 
 " Bravissimi tutti ! " cried the old skeleton, feebly 
 clapping his long white hands. "That will go, now ! The 
 first violins went best — my compliments to you, gentlemen ; 
 but all went well — very well. I thought at one time the 
 drums had gone stark mad ; but it was only a moment, 
 though it mustn't happen again. . . . This is the last 
 rehearsal ; next time — ah ! next time ! You shall share 
 my triumph at last, one and all ! Clara — come here." 
 
 I was too much interested in the scene to wonder 
 why I was there. I only saw the girl kneel down 
 anxiously by the couch, while the volcanic glow passed 
 out of the old musician's eyes, and a tender, rapt look 
 stole into them that would have told me they were 
 father and daughter even had I not known it before. 
 
 " Clara," said he, " in a very short while you will 
 know why I, with the genius of a Beethoven, have 
 chosen to live a life that a dog of the streets would 
 scorn. I suppose you are like all the rest of them — you 
 have thought that because I would flatter and cringe to 
 neither prince nor people, and would not coin into filthy 
 gold the gifts that God gave me — you have thought mo a 
 
STRONGER THAN DEATH. 287 
 
 madman, eh ? You needn't answer ; I know what 
 Christian men and women think of people who don't 
 sell their souls for silver and gold. Well— now you 
 shall see ! The great symphony is written at last, and 
 I have put into it every scrap of blood, brain, and soul 
 that was in me. For the first time a work has been 
 done that contains the whole of a whole man! Here, 
 under this very pillow, is the work that, in a few short 
 weeks, will make your father's name the most glorious 
 in the world, and will enable you to bathe in diamonds 
 if you will. Everything is in it — my childhood, my 
 youth, my manhood, my old age. I shall hear it, not 
 with my inward spirit, but in all the light and colour of 
 living sound : cities will fight for the glory of bringing it 
 forth — the day I have lived for, Clara, has come ! " 
 
 " What can I do ?" whispered I. 
 
 "And who are you?" asked the old man sharply, 
 turning his eyes full upon mine. "The doctor again? 
 Oho — then I've cheated you this time ! The symphony 
 is finished — do you understand ? So I was to die, was 
 I ? As if I could die before hearing my work and 
 reaping its glory ! Why, I'm bound to live till that's 
 done ; and then death may come when it will. See 
 here — I'm as strong as a rock. I've not won the victory 
 to lose the glory. Adieu, sir, and the day after the 
 symphony is heard you shall have a hundred times 
 your fee. For the present, leave me, and permit me to 
 grow well." 
 
 He seemed to wander again into dreamland. " No," 
 whispered Clara, reading my unspoken question, " I 
 have never known him like this before. . . . He has been 
 all his life at work upon a symphony, so that, with all 
 his genius, he would, but for what little I can earn, have 
 let himself starve — and I have picked up enough of the 
 part for my own instrument, and even for others, to let 
 him hear it in that way — poor father ! But what he 
 
2S8 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 meant by all this, God knows — unless — unless — he is to 
 hear it in another world — than here. You want to do 
 something for a neighbour? Then go — go to," — I forget 
 the address, but it is no matter, — " and ask for Herr 
 Emil Lenz ; he will come at once, and will know what 
 to do." 
 
 Had she bidden me go to Van Diemen's Land I would 
 have gone. 
 
 At the door to which I had been directed, I came upon 
 a young man just entering, with a big roll of what looked 
 like music under his arm. I was too much agitated to 
 observe his appearance particularly, but accosted him at 
 once so as to lose no time. 
 
 " I am seeking Herr Emil Lenz," said I. " A friend 
 of his is ill in Stefan-Gasse ; I fear very ill indeed." 
 
 " Herr Lenz? Alas ! then, Herr Lenz has left Vienna 
 this hour, for Heaven knows where," said he, politely 
 raising his hat, passing in, and closing the door. 
 
 That was the whole of my errand ; which, despite its 
 seeming slightness, I am bound to enter in its place for 
 the sake of what happened after. Well, it was a pity ; 
 and yet I was not sorry, for Emil Lenz might have been 
 young and good-looking, and it went against the grain to 
 think of Clara turning at once for help to a friend with a 
 masculine name. So I returned, thinking to myself, 
 whatever Emil Lenz would have done, that will I do and 
 more. 
 
 I re-entered the sick man's garret. He was once more 
 rapturously beating time ; Clara was again drawing 
 strange music from the violin. And so it went on for a 
 good hour. Then the old man suddenly cried, " Br avis- 
 simi I Eravissimi tutti I My day has come at last ! " 
 
 And so it had ; for with those exulting words he died ; 
 and the violin sang on, not knowing all at once what had 
 befallen. 
 
STRONGER THAN DEATH. 289 
 
 III. 
 
 In the year 1842 I was no longer living in the Stefan- 
 Gasse ; nay, nor in a garret at all. Things had gone well 
 with me, for a drummer : and I was even putting money 
 by, as well as sending it home. 
 
 And Clara— and her father? Well, they have dis- 
 appeared as if they had never been. He was dead and 
 buried ; and she was gone without a sign ; and no sym- 
 phony, nor a note of music, had been discovered under 
 the dead man's pillow or elsewhere, though before Clara 
 vanished we hunted for it high and low. No doubt its 
 existence had been a monomania, concealed during life, 
 but called by the stroke of death into full play. Well, 
 such oddities will happen ; and I should not have cared a 
 straw after a night's sleep had not my own heart been 
 among the things that had been spirited away. Wherever 
 Clara might be there also was my unlucky heart ; and I 
 no more knew where than I knew what name she went 
 by besides Clara ; and I soon found out that one might as 
 well look for a particular Clara as for a particular John. 
 
 I did my best to find her. And one advantage of 
 being a musician is that one can thump, or blow, or 
 twang one's way all over Europe on a search — that one 
 can roll, and yet gather moss all the time. I had been 
 with orchestras in Stockholm, in Madrid, in Moscow, and 
 in London, and I was just starting from my old quarters, 
 Vienna, for New York, where I had heard that there were 
 some dozens of Claras, when I happened to overhear a 
 piece of the talk that chanced to be going on at the table 
 where I also was taking beer. 
 
 " Are you going to hear that new symphony of Lenz?" 
 
2C0 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 asked one— a critic, I judged, from the peculiar upward 
 curl of his nose. 
 
 Lenz — the name caught my ear. It was associated 
 with the first evening I had seen Clara. 
 
 "I suppose so," said the other carelessly. " Who is 
 Lenz, by the way?" 
 
 " Oh, a young fellow — Emil Lenz. Not much in him, 
 I fancy, but he was the only pupil of old Klaus. So, 
 good or bad, the thing ought anyway to be queer." 
 
 " Old Klaus ? Why, I thought he belonged to our 
 great-grandfathers' times." 
 
 "So he did. Nevertheless he died but two years 
 back ; though it's true he might have been dead sixty 
 years ago for all the good he'd done for forty. And yet 
 he was a genius. Yes, a genius, if ever there was one. 
 I knew him well before he took it into his head that 
 great work could only be done by cutting oneself off 
 from the world, and then good-bye. And what came 
 of it ? Just nothing at all. Why, when he died and 
 was buried, he hadn't even begun the work he had made 
 a martyr of himself for — nobody even knows what it was 
 to have been." 
 
 " He was a madman, then ?" 
 
 "No — a genius. But you're right, too. Madman — 
 genius, 'tis much the same." 
 
 Emil Lenz. My heart flew back to my first pang of 
 jealousy when I heard of Clara's friend, and now I 
 learned that he was in Vienna, and young ; and he 
 would be as good-looking, of course, as the deuce — a 
 hundred to one. Why had I never thought of searching 
 after Clara Lenz? And yet, if that was the secret of 
 her vanishing, what would be any more the good of my 
 searching after her at all ? 
 
 None. And, therefore — need I say it ? — next evening 
 found me in the hall where the new symphony by Emil 
 Lenz was to be performed. It was a folly. For if Herr 
 
STRONGER THAN DEATH. 201 
 
 Lenz knew anything of her, she was certain to be his 
 wife ; and if she was not, he would know nothing. One 
 or the other it must be. That was my lover's logic, 
 anyway. At any rate, folly or not, there was I, in good 
 time and, therefore, in a good place, both for seeing and 
 hearing : mark this, because of what I have to tell — for 
 what I have to tell is true. 
 
 The orchestra and the company were in their places, 
 and among these last was the critic whose chance word 
 had brought me, and whose story of what happened, if 
 he be applied to, will confirm my own — not that the 
 word of a drummer is not enough for all things. A good- 
 looking man, of perhaps, five-and-thirty years old, in 
 faultless evening dress and gloves of straw colour, faced 
 round from the conductor's seat, bdton in hand, and 
 bowed. My heart sank, and my eyes travelled round the 
 hall when I saw that he was so fine and handsome a man, 
 and so much like a prince not even in disguise. Some- 
 how, I fancied that his bright and energetic face and his 
 stalwart figure were not strange to me ; and, of course, 
 as a travelling musician, that was not impossible. Was 
 it at London I had met him, or at Moscow ? Well it did 
 not matter ; I saw him now. 
 
 And — never tell me there is nothing in coincidence, 
 nothing in fatality ! — as my eyes went from him round 
 the hall — there, had not my heart foretold it ? — there sat 
 Clara ; but no longer the grisette of the Stefan-Gasse. 
 She was dressed in black silk and white lace, and sat 
 with other princesses (to judge by the look of them), 
 more lovely than ever. I had found her. And what was 
 it to me ? She was Clara Lenz — what else ? And I — I 
 would not go to New York. I would go to the devil. 
 
 However, easy as that journey is, I could not make it 
 now. The first movement of the symphony began, and 
 I was struck by it from the beginning, even before the 
 drums came in. Moreover, I could feel, despite my 
 
 u 2 
 
292 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 despair, that the audience was struck by it also. Before 
 the first movement was half through there fell upon the 
 whole hall that mysterious atmosphere wherein all 
 individual emotions lose themselves, and the hearts of 
 hundreds beat as one. There is nothing can do this but 
 music — nothing in the world. There is nothing else that 
 can bring hundreds of strangers into sympathy closer 
 than brotherhood — more complete than love's own. 
 
 It is something to live for ; to feel one's own self this 
 magician, and, with one's own bdton, one's wizard's 
 wand, rather, to direct one's own spells to a magic circle 
 from soul to soul. At least Clara and I were feeling this 
 together — for once, for the first and the last time, we 
 were one. I had no need to see her face to know what 
 she was feeling. For not only she, nor only she and I, 
 but all Vienna that had ears, were become the slaves of 
 Emil Lenz, body and soul. 
 
 I need not name to all who have music in their souls 
 (and who cares for others ?) the most glorious symphony 
 that ever found its way into the world, Now its majesty, 
 now its joy, now its infinite pathos, carried us away 
 beneath the earth or above the stars. Emil Lenz 
 would be a fool if he needed applause to tell him that he 
 was hailed as henceforth music's emperor. 
 
 But, at the close, the applause was bound to come. 
 We had fallen back upon common earth again, and had 
 to do our best with mortal voice and mortal hands. You 
 should have heard the thunderous cheer — seen the rain of 
 flowers that fell from ladies' fingers round the throne, 
 when Emil Lenz, this morning a nobody, to-night an 
 emperor — 
 
 But hold ! 
 
 It was no emperor, but some abject coward, who 
 shrank pale and trembling into his seat, and who let the 
 bdton fall from bis hands. It was not upon Emil Lenz 
 
STRONGER THAN DEATH. 293 
 
 that the roses rained. It was upon a strange, gaunt 
 figure, well over six feet high, and looking like a skeleton 
 rather than a man — one could almost see the sharp bones 
 cutting through the yellow skin. The shoulders sloped 
 and stooped, and over them fell a leonine mane 
 of grizzled hair. But, wild and grotesque as was 
 the figure, one saw, one felt only the deep volcanic eyes, 
 glowing with the light of triumph unspeakable as he 
 placed his long dead-white fingers on his hollow chest, 
 and bowed, taking all the homage as his own. 
 
 "Great Heaven 1 Old Klaus 1 " cried the critics. 
 " Old Klaus out of the grave ! " 
 
 It was the musician whom I had seen die — whose body 
 I had followed to the tomb. A nameless shudder ran 
 through the hall. And, as the figure slowly faded into 
 mist and then into nothing, bowing all the while, I heard 
 a woman scream, and saw Ernil Lenz fall heavily from 
 the platform to the floor. 
 
 A Ghost — and seen by hundreds ! 
 
 Ay : by hundreds. There is no escape from this ghost 
 story, whatever loophole may be found for others. But 
 what matters hundreds ? Two are enough for one ghost : 
 and — it was his symphony that had been played : the life- 
 music of the genius who had died in a garret, and had 
 left nothing behind him but his score in the hands of a 
 death-bed thief, save so much as his daughter had 
 learned well enough to play him out of this bewildering 
 world. . . . He was right : not all the doctors in 
 Vienna, no, nor all the gravediggers, could keep him 
 back from his Hour of Fame. It had come at last ; and 
 where could he be but There ? 
 
 I am not sorry for Emil Lenz ; though he never 
 recovered from that horrible swoon. He who would filch 
 a man's all from under the pillow whereon that man's 
 head lies dying, deserves worse than that ; and assuredly 
 
294 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 no pity. I leave all pity to Clara Markwitz, the 
 drummer's wife : she has enough for all the world. Only 
 when Fritz Nebelkopf comes with his stupid philosophy, 
 to prove that all of us, being under the spell of the same 
 music, were naturally made victims to the same fancies, 
 I glance at my dear wife, and drown his nonsense with 
 the roulade of Quatre-Bras. 
 
 It is when alone we speak solemnly, and feel that in 
 truth love is stronger than death — whether it be love for 
 man or woman, or only for fiddle or drum. 
 
THE DEMON SIXPENCE. 
 I. 
 
 I had got to hate the very sight of it. And, in truth, 
 there was something about that Sixpence which made it 
 different from any other sixpence that I ever saw — and I 
 have seen a few. I should know it, even now, among 
 many. And yet, strange to say, I can hardly give any 
 very distinct description of the manner in which it differed 
 from every sixpence that happens to bear the same date, 
 namely 1851. Features one can describe : but expression 
 goes beyond the power of even a pen. It is true that it 
 seemed to have been a sort of Pariah among sixpences — 
 beyond most others it had been rubbed, and thinned, and 
 scratched, and otherwise worried, tortured, and abused. 
 The rim was entirely worn down to the extent of three- 
 quarters of a circle, and the finger-nail, when drawn 
 round it, was scarcely conscious that it had ever been 
 milled. The oak and laurel branches on the reverse were 
 hardly to be distinguished from mustard and cress : on 
 the obverse of the coin, some seditious or profane idler 
 had begun to drill a hole through the royal eye, but had 
 stopped when half way through, either from sudden 
 remorse or else because he thought it hardly worth while 
 to wear so battered a coin for a luck-penny. But with 
 crisp and defiant boldness the words " Six Pence " 
 stood out under the crown, as if it would say, " I am 
 
236 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 worth six pennies : and the proudest piece of silver 
 under a shilling, fresh from the Mint, can say no more." 
 Yet all this does not touch the inward expression of the 
 thing — its obstinate air, as if it had a character, nay, a 
 will of its own. Whenever I put my hand into the right- 
 hand pocket of my trousers, that is to say, where I pro- 
 miscuously thrust my loose change, I knew when I 
 touched that sixpence, though it might be in company 
 with a dozen more. 
 
 And an odd thing about it was that I could not manage 
 to part with it, even if I tried. I have no time to tell all 
 the odd coincidences that raised a simple accident to the 
 level of a superstition. I don't even know how it first 
 came to me : but it very soon assumed a kind of individu- 
 ality, which I felt long before I became conscious of its 
 having one. I think I first became aware of its deter- 
 mination to stick to me through good and ill repute, by 
 the observation of a waiter at the chop-house, to the 
 effect of " No, sir — I don't go to say as it's a bad un, 
 though there's such about — but I'd sooner you'd give me 
 another one, all the same." I did not find the prejudice, 
 or prudence, of the waiter repeated in other quarters. 
 But still the singular fact remained — that it remained in 
 my pocket, in spite of chances and resolves, till I only 
 wonder it did not burn a hole through the lining and get 
 rid of itself that way. 
 
 "Well — such experiences have been known, more or less, 
 to most people, as well as to the miser in the Eastern 
 story whose attempts to get rid of an old pair of boots 
 ended in his nearly losing his head for murder. Did you 
 ever try to free yourself from the incumbrance of anything 
 of any sort — from an old glove to a worn-out love affair ? 
 Have you not found the awkward way it has of sticking 
 to you as tight as slander, and of turning up in the most 
 unexpected ways and at the most uncomfortable times? 
 The most curious thing about my form of the common 
 
THE DEMON SIXPENCE. 297 
 
 experience was that sixpences are so much more easily- 
 disposed of than old loves and old clothes. A glass of 
 ■wine — a cigar — the thing is done. But my sixpence 
 obstinately refused to be either smoked or drunk, or even 
 given away. By some strange instinct, there was always 
 another in its company, and that other was the one to do 
 its duty as a humble representative of the realm's current 
 coin. When I was resolved to send it on its travels, it 
 had an impish knack of hiding away in some inaccessible 
 corner of my pocket, so as to make me fancy it was not 
 there any longer, and then, when I turned out my money 
 in the solitude of my chambers, of coming out with a 
 smirk, as if to say, " Oho, master ! here I am again 1" 
 
 One thing I know. When it first came to me I was 
 as lucky as most people in the opinion of my friends, and 
 a great deal luckier than anybody on earth in my own. 
 I had a good income without having to work for it — 
 which is generally considered lucky — and I was engaged 
 to be married to the best aud prettiest girl that ever was 
 born, bar none. But I could not, especially under the 
 somewhat peculiar circumstances of our engagement 
 spend my whole time in love-making ; and so, for pastime, 
 I lived as I have noticed that young men with indepen- 
 dent incomes and no immediate responsibilities, even 
 when engaged to good and pretty girls, mostly do. I had 
 a good many friends, in spite of my engagement to 
 Bessie Lennox, and they were very good fellows, the very 
 best of good fellows, one and all. They stuck to me like 
 that sixpence — I can't say more. But — somehow — 
 explain it who can — from the time that sixpence took to 
 keeping company with me, there came a change. Mind, 
 I don't say that it was the sixpence that made me back 
 King of Spades for that confounded Queen's Plate when 
 Eigoletto won against the judgment of everybody who 
 had any. Nor do I say that when I had to curtail my 
 visit to Homburg by five weeks it was because even at 
 
293 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 Frankfort — where they take every sort of money they 
 can get— my sixpence had refused to leave my hands. 
 Only I do say that these, and all my other strokes of ill for- 
 tune, happened after my acquisition of that sixpence, and 
 not before. It seemed — I say no more than seemed — as if 
 that sixpence were somehow draining my gohl away from 
 me. What is a sixpence to ten thousand pounds ? Just 
 nothing at all — one in four hundred thousand. But, as 
 the pounds grew less and less in number, the sixpence 
 grew and grew in size till — well, I must out with it : it 
 had become the fortieth part of my whole fortune. 
 When one has just one sovereign left, a sixpence i? large. 
 Large ? Nay, huge : it had fattened upon my fortune till 
 it had devoured it all. 
 
 Yes — I left the chambers of Messrs. Heddes & Taylor, 
 solicitors, and something besides, with one sovereign and 
 one sixpence to begin the world with over again. Of 
 course I knew that I had been a fool, in a general sort of 
 way. But I could not admit that, in particulars, I had 
 done otherwise than wisely. Only a fool would have 
 backed the field against such a favourite as King of 
 Spades. And who could have guessed or dreamed that 
 black would have turned up running as often as. 
 
 well, never mind counting now. I looked at the 
 
 sovereign and the sixpence, both of them, as I left the 
 lawyers' door. That turning up was not hard to count, 
 anyhow. The sovereign behaved himself as sovereigns 
 usually do when they are looked at. But that infernal 
 sixpence looked at me, with an " Oho ! I'm faithful — you 
 won't get rid of me ! If your Bessie sticks to you half 
 as tight, she'll be truer than — gold ! " 
 
 Poor Bessie ! Or poor me, rather — for I wasn't any 
 longer a loss worth crying over. I must let her know 
 the state of things without an hour's delay. I have said 
 that the circumstances of our engagement were a littla 
 peculiar. She was one of a large number, no fewer than 
 
THE DEMON SIXPENCE. 299 
 
 six, of orphan girls, of -whom the youngest was eleven 
 and the eldest twenty years old. Their father and 
 mother had both perished in the Mutiny : they had been 
 left penniless ; and what would have become of Bessie 
 and her sisters Heaven knows, if they had not found 
 a friend in an old brother-in-arms of their father's, 
 Captain Goodenough by name. The Captain was an 
 elderly bachelor with ample means, and neither kith nor 
 kin — it was not likely that any man who married one of 
 the Miss Lennoxes would take her empty handed. He 
 was the most aristocratic-looking man I ever saw : if I 
 were a painter, and wanted a typical model for a duke, 
 I would go to the Captain sooner than to any real duke 
 I ever saw. His calmly, almost sternly handsome face, 
 in which never a muscle was ever seen to relax or move, 
 his erect, military figure, and his habits of reserve and 
 silence, made up a whole of almost impossible dignity. 
 Indeed, next to the immobility of his features, his silence 
 was almost his most striking quality. If nobody ever 
 heard Captain Goodenough say anything worth saying, 
 that was obviously because nobody ever heard him say a 
 word more than was absolutely needful. No doubt his 
 adopted daughters were grateful to him for allowing them 
 to make a home for the declining years of a lonely 
 and elderly bachelor, but they, nevertheless, could not 
 help largely diluting their gratitude with awe. He was 
 certainly kind to them, but scarcely indulgent enough, 
 considering what young girls they were. There was 
 even something Puritanical about their bringing up under 
 his hands. They had the best masters and mistresses ; 
 they went into the best society he could find for them, 
 but he had such a mortal horror of the theatre that 
 Bessie had never seen a play. He had even exacted 
 a promise from me, as a condition of my engagement, 
 that I would thenceforth and for ever refrain for the rest 
 of my life from entering any place in the shape or nature 
 
300 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 of a theatre, from a music hall up to the opera. And, for 
 Bessie's sake, I had given the promise, though I loved 
 the drama in all its shapes above everything — except her. 
 
 For the rest, his life was as blameless and as regular as 
 if it had been made and kept going by clock-work. Not 
 even the possession of a lot of girls about him had made 
 him break through certain fixed habits, which were no 
 doubt those of a lifetime. He rose and breakfasted with 
 Bessie and her sisters at the same invariable hour. He 
 read the newspapers till lunch-time, and then took part 
 with the girls in any of their plans for the afternoon. To 
 my mind, his only eccentricity consisted in his keeping 
 up the habit of dining out or at his club instead of at 
 home nearly every evening except Sunday. But then I 
 judged him by what my own feelings were with regard to 
 Bessie ; and I have even known husbands who, without 
 being considered the least eccentric, do precisely the same 
 thing. What his favourite club was I never knew. It 
 was always, in his home circle, spoken of reverently as 
 "The Club" — nothing more. But it must, to suit 
 Captain Goodenough's tastes, have been of the most 
 severely ducal order. He had never asked me to dine 
 with him there. 
 
 This was the man whom I had to inform of my 
 absolute ruin. I am neither shy nor timid by nature : 
 but I own my heart failed me, as with twenty shillings 
 and sixpence — the sixpence — in my right-hand trouser 
 pocket I opened Captain Goodenough's study door. 
 Under the circumstances, I have no doubt I entered 
 rather abruptly. At any rate, I was not prepared, on 
 entering that sacred den, into which not even Bessie 
 dared intrude, for the sight that met my eyes. 
 
 I had expected to find the excellent Captain, whose 
 taste3, though intensely aristocratic, were neither ener- 
 getic nor intellectual, asleep over the Times. I found 
 him standing bolt upright, with his face towards a 
 
THE DEMON SIXPENCE. 301 
 
 large looking-glass over the chimney-piece, and his long, 
 straight back towards me. It was from the looking-glass 
 that I saw how he was amusing his solitude. The stately 
 old soldier's stiff, not to say stony, face, was stiff and 
 stony no more, but was writhed into the wildest and 
 ghastliest of all imaginable grins. Never in my life had 
 I dreamed of a facial contortion such as that into which 
 Captain Goodenougli's — Captain Goodenough's of all 
 men's — eyes, lips, cheeks, brows, nay, even chin, nose, 
 and tongue were combined. Could I describe it, I should 
 be a literary Grimaldi. Eeader — can you grin ? Try 
 — do your best — and Captain Goodenough will still 
 have left you leagues behind. Anything more horribly 
 fiendish in the way of a grin it is impossible to 
 conceive. 
 
 I had read and heard of madmen who, conscious of 
 their madness, have a terrible power of controlling 
 themselves in public only to break out into a more 
 terrible fit of self-indulgence in lunacy so soon as they 
 are alone and unseen. I believe it to be a proved fact 
 that reserved, quiet, steady men* without humours and 
 eccentricities, are more prone to madness than those 
 flighty people who let out their crazes comfortably every 
 day without letting them run into arrear. I knew not 
 what to say or do, in the presence of such a skeleton as 
 I had discovered in the cupboard of Bessie's adoptive 
 father. Of course I did the only really stupid thing I 
 could — I tried to retreat and to close the door quietly : 
 and of course it creaked sharply. Men must not look for 
 good luck even in little things who carry such a sixpence 
 as mine. 
 
 He faced round, with half the grin still upon him. 
 And, for the first time, I saw this stern, unbending man 
 in a rage. 
 
 " How the devil do you dare " — he began. 
 
 I had recovered my own pre3 3nce of mind far enough 
 
302 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 to make believe I had seen nothing. " I was told I 
 should find you here," said I, in as indifferent a voice as 
 I could manage. " May I speak to you — about myself? 
 I have — something — of importance " — 
 
 Every trace of that wonderful grin had gone, and the 
 handsome face had become restored to its natural calm so 
 completely that I almost thought my eyes had been 
 deceived. He still eyed me strangely, I thought, but it 
 might have been consciousness of unwelcome intrusion 
 that made me think so. 
 
 "Well?" said he. 
 
 "I have not seen Bessie. I must see you first — you 
 know — you know that when I asked her to be my wife I 
 believed that I should never have less — less money — than 
 I had then." 
 
 " Well? " He was indeed a man of few words. 
 
 "Well, sir — I felt as certain that King of Spades would 
 win the Queen's Plate as that I saw you — see you" — 
 
 " And what — what, sir, do you see in me ? " 
 
 "That I see you there. Anybody who knows anything 
 about the horses would tell you the same. And it is 
 against all reason that black should turn up twenty-five 
 times running. And I never heard of people like Heddes 
 & Taylor out of novels and plays. And the end of it is 
 —except a sovereign to keep me till I can get another — 
 there," I said, taking out my sixpence and laying it 
 before him on tbe table, " there is the last sixpence I 
 have in the whole world : all that's left of ten thousand 
 pounds." 
 
 " Well?" 
 
 " That's all. And Bessie "— 
 
 " So that sixpence is your last," said Captain 
 Goodenough. " And it is nob a nice-looking sixpence to 
 have for your last, I must say." My hopes of something 
 ■ — I hardly knew of what — rose, as the Captain, for him, 
 indulged in such a number of words. He never used any 
 
THE DEMON SIXPENCE. 303 
 
 that were needless, I knew. " But it is enough, and 
 good enough, to buy a rope with, young man : and that, 
 as you come to me, is what I advise you to do. I never 
 approved of you as a husband for my Bessie as soon as I 
 found out that you had been a haunter of the theatre — of 
 the devil's church, young man. I know of what road 
 that is the first milestone. The Theatre. The Music 
 Hall. The Bace Course. The Dice Box. The Usurer. 
 The Halter. Bessie shall not marry a ruined gambler. 
 Why, within a week of marriage you would be taking 
 her to a play ! " 
 
 " On my honour, Captain Goodenough, I " — 
 
 " The honour of a stage-struck gambler ! Be off with 
 you ! No — you shall not see Bessie. She is well rid of 
 you. Be off with you ! Go ! " 
 
 I had hardly reached the end of the street, in a state 
 of shame for myself and of indignation with fortune that 
 I cannot bear to look back upon — an indignation which 
 certainly did not spare Captain Goodenough, who had 
 turned me, in my poverty, like a dog from his doors — 
 when, hatless and breathless, a boy in buttons ran up to 
 me, with an envelope in his hand. I did not mean to 
 give up Bessie, if trying to live a better life for her sake 
 could help me keep her and win her ; and my heart felt 
 stronger at tho sight of what it told me was a message 
 from her. Hurriedly, without heeding the direction, I 
 opened it — the envelope contained my accursed sixpence, 
 and nothing more ! 
 
 " Demon of a coin ! " I cried, spinning it far away 
 into the mud of the road, " it is you — you, who have 
 robbed me of luck, and fortune, and love, and all that I 
 have to live for ; you, who now come back to me to 
 taunt me — begone for ever : curse whomsoever else you. 
 will." 
 
 A minute afterwards an empty hansom drove by. I 
 hailed it, and sprang into it. 
 
304 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 " Where to, sir ? " said the cabman. 
 
 " To the devil ! " cried I. 
 
 " All right, sir," said he ; and off he drovo. 
 
 II. 
 
 It did not seem to me in the least singular that a stray 
 London cabman should know the road as a matter of 
 course, and without any further directions or inquiries. 
 In truth, I never thought once about the matter. I was 
 literally in a state of sheer despair. Not to speak of 
 greater and deeper things, it had not been pleasant to be 
 set down by a man like Captain Goodenough as a mere 
 reprobate, for whom the best left was hanging. It 
 horrified me to feel that — not to speak of Bessie — I had 
 come to be regarded as unfit to enter the doors of a 
 respectable man. Perhaps I had not been, myself, 
 exactly what the better and colder half of the world calls 
 respectable. But, nevertheless, I had the highest esteem, 
 respect, I may almost say reverence, for Captain 
 Goodenough and his grey hairs, in spite of a suspicion 
 that the old gentleman's intellectual capacities were by 
 no means of the highest quality — were not, for example, 
 to be named in the same breath with my own. After all, 
 though he was rich and could afford it, it was not every- 
 body who would have troubled himself with the care and 
 education of six growing girls who were of no manner of 
 kin to him. No — I did not like to be treated as I had 
 been by one who represented to me the sum total of the 
 respectable world. Well, I thought to myself as I drove 
 on and on without heeding where I was going, I will be 
 revenged — before I am half a year older I will prove to 
 him that I am not what he takes me for, and will win 
 
THE DEMON SIXPENCE. 305 
 
 back Bessie and his good opinion together — I'm rid of 
 that infernal sixpence now : and luck will turn again ! 
 
 I suppose I was a little superstitious. But the 
 certainty that I was rid of my sixpence at last, gave me 
 more hope and courage than if I had suddenly found 
 myself heir to another ten thousand pounds. Why had 
 I never thought of spinning it away into the middle of 
 the road before ? 
 
 With new hope and courage, common sense also 
 returned. I opened the trap above my head, and 
 called out, " Stop ! Where have you been driving me 
 to?" 
 
 " You know that best, sir," said the cabman. " You 
 told me where to drive, and I've been doing my best to 
 get there." 
 
 " Well, I'll get out here, wherever I am." I jumped 
 out. " I suppose I'm not very far from somewhere. 
 What's your fare ? " 
 
 Suddenly, it struck me that I was in a part of London 
 where I had never been before : or at least that I did not 
 recognize. It was a poor street, dark either with fog or 
 twilight — with which, I could not tell, though it could 
 scarcely have been with the latter, seeing that, when I 
 left Captain Goodenough's it had been broad day. The 
 darkness was accentuated and emphasized, so to speak, 
 by a glare of gas jets over a doorway to what looked like 
 some sort of a music hall. But I never like to seem 
 ignorant of London, especially where a cabman is con- 
 cerned, so I asked again, " What do you call your 
 fare?" 
 
 " Well, sir, I hardly know what to say. Make it a 
 even sovereign, and that won't be far off from about 
 square." 
 
 " A sovereign ! Do you take me for a Frenchman? " 
 
 " No, sir — but I do for a gentleman. And a gentleman 
 don't go driving about for near seven mortal hours, with- 
 
306 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 out so much as stopping for a glass of ale, all over the 
 town, and wearing out a horse all to his own self, and 
 then talk too fine about a pen'north of fare. I haven't 
 measured the ground and I haven't counted the time. 
 Maybe you have, sir. And I'll let you off for a sovereign : 
 and that's the cheapest drive you ever made." 
 
 Had I been driving about all London for seven hours ? 
 Well, it seemed likely enough : and of course it was but 
 just that I should pay — under the circumstances — pretty 
 much what the cabman pleased. If he had taken advan- 
 tage of my very general order, I had no right to complain. 
 Only that I should have thrown away my very last 
 sovereign — nay, my very last halfpenny — in so useless a 
 way, did seem absurdly hard, and I was getting hungry 
 too. 
 
 " Well," said I, " I can't say that you're wrong. But 
 seven hours — let me see — doesn't come to a sovereign, 
 even paying by time : and I can't suppose you've done all 
 that lot in miles. I don't make it more than nineteen 
 shillings for seven hours, as well as I can reckon in a 
 hurry." The shilling's worth of change would give me at 
 any rate some sort of a meal. 
 
 " Blest if I don't think you're one of the lot that 
 wouldn't part with a threepenny without feeling all round 
 the rim ! Twenty bob " — ■ 
 
 "There, then," said I, "we'll split the difference — 
 Nineteen and sixpence. Here's a sovereign, and you 
 give me the change." 
 
 I thought the cabman smiled : whence I considered 
 that he was getting the best of the bargain after all. 
 " Here you are, sir," he said, as he handed me the 
 change. He pocketed my last coin, and drove away as 
 if his horse had not been already doing "seven mortal 
 hours." 
 
 My last coin? No — I had the sixpence he had given 
 me out of the sovereign still left me. It would give me. 
 
THE DEMON SIXPENCE. 307 
 
 bread, cheese, and ale. But what was this curioug 
 feeling at my finger ends as I held the coin, warm from 
 the cabman? My heart sank within me. "Oho!" I 
 read in its face by the gaslight, " Oho, master t Hera 
 I am again 1 " 
 
 What was the use of good resolves when that Demon 
 Sixpence came to scatter them to the winds in the very 
 moment of their making? Why had the sharp eye3 
 of just that very cabman seen just that very sixpence 
 lying in the road ? This was not chance — it was 
 destiny. 
 
 " Very well," said I aloud. " In for a penny, in for a 
 pound ; as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. . . . 
 Hang and confound that old humbug and imbecile of 
 a captain. What right has he to make a slave of me ? 
 I'll have her in spite of his teeth and his grey hairs 
 — and it shall not be by becoming a respectable old 
 tyrannical automaton like him. I won't spend this 
 infernal sixpence in food, but in rebellion and revenge, as 
 far as it will go. I'll toss for it with a shoeblack — I'll go 
 into the gallery of a theatre — I'll have sixpenuyworth of 
 everything he wouldn't approve : and I'll be rid of that 
 everlasting sixpence too. And then — By Jove I And 
 I'm at the very door of a music hall ! I'm not driven 
 here for nothing ; that sixpence hasn't come back to ma 
 for nothing ; and — the deuce take Captain Goodenough — ■ 
 and in I go ! " 
 
 Call the thought boyish, if you will. But imagine 
 yourself penniless, hopeless, hungry, disgraced, and 
 haunted by a remorseless imp in the shape of that six- 
 pence into the bargain, and say, on your honour, if you 
 are certain of feeling very good tempered, and therefore 
 not otherwise than wise. I was not fond of music halls, 
 and I went in solely to spite the Captain, and because it 
 was the most desperate thing, short of suicide, that I 
 
 x 2 
 
30S ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 could afford to do. It seemed the most appropriate way 
 of getting rid of my sixpence at once and for ever. 
 
 Wherever the street was, it was in a by no means 
 aristocratic quarter. The young men and girls passing in 
 and out were of an unmistakably "Whitechapel cut : and 
 I only wished Captain Goodenough could see me now. I 
 no longer consciously thought about Bessie — she was 
 gone, and a good riddance she had made. I paid just my 
 sixpence to go into the best part of the house, which 
 gave me full range of everywhere, from the gallery to the 
 floor. Not that the privilege came to much, for a more 
 crowded place of entertainment I had seldom seen— there 
 was scarcely elbow room. I need only describe the place 
 by saying that it was a large oblong hall, with a double 
 gallery running round three sides, with a stage flanked by 
 boxes occupying the fourth, and with a floor crowded 
 with tables at which the bulk of the audience was 
 drinking, smoking, and flirting after the manner of its 
 kind. I stood up against a pillar and lighted a pipe — I 
 did not sit down, lest I should oblige one of the potmen 
 to ask for orders from a penniless man. 
 
 Having done the deed, and taken up my position, I 
 looked round. The audience, though so large, was 
 hushed — absorbed, apparently, by what was going on 
 upon the stage. It was like an assthetic audience during 
 a selection of Future Music, so coughless was its rapt 
 attention. And yet, oddly enough, the performance 
 which caused such a profundity of enthusiasm was 
 equally inaudible. I looked : and the cause of an effect 
 which a, prima donna might have envied stood revealed. 
 
 A tall man in faultless dress clothes, standing other- 
 wise perfectly stiff and motionless, was giving a perfor- 
 mance that was certainly unique in its way. Of what 
 material Nature had made his face, I cannot guess : • but 
 I should say of some elastic material resembling india- 
 rubber. In short, he was doing nothing more or less 
 
THE DEMON SIXPENCE. 309 
 
 than making faces. And triumphs of art they were, in 
 their way. Now, his tongue would touch his forehead 
 with its tip, while his long nose bent sideways, nearly to 
 his ear. He had absolute command over even those 
 facial muscles which are generally considered, even 
 by physiologists, uncontrollable. Now, he resembled 
 an idiot ; now, a lunatic ; now, a murderer ; now, a 
 demon ; now, a nondescript ; — a sort of heraldic chimera. 
 
 " Who is he? " asked I, of my nearest neighbour. 
 
 " Lord bless the toff ! " said he. " None o' your chaff 
 — as if yer didn't know that's Seenor Crack] aw, the 
 Champion Grinner o' the Vorld 1 I'd give a fi'pun' note 
 to grin like he. But he'll beat that before he've done." 
 
 Suddenly the suppressed applause burst forth : and, 
 under its cover Signor Crackjaw turned his back to the 
 company. But, in an instant he was round again, and 
 grinning his acknowledgment of the storm by a grin 
 that did indeed beat anything he had ever done before. 
 Such a grin as I had never dreamed of in my life 
 — but hold ! never since I had seen Captain Goodenough ; 
 and, by Heaven, it ivas the very grin that I had seen ! 
 
 I stared hard in sheer bewilderment to see that same 
 impossible, preternatural grin on the faces of two 
 such different men in one day. Then, as the fiendish 
 face turned from right to left, slowly, and as if moved by 
 clockwork, Signor Crackjaw's rolling and squinting eyes 
 met mine. Never shall I forget the transformation that 
 came over that grin. The eyes continued to meet my 
 stare, as if mine had mesmerized them. But the features 
 first relaxed, then changed, and finally fixed themselves 
 into a petrified and ghastly likeness of — Captain 
 Goodenough : of no other human being in the world. 
 There was never any mistaking that man. 
 
 Had madness come upon me? But, if so, it was 
 doubly reflected in the face on the stage that now wore 
 no expression but one of terror and shame. Without 
 
310 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 even the most hurried bow to the audience, this Signor 
 Crackjaw, or Captain Goodenough, or this illusion of 
 hunger and fever, turned and fled, as if suddenly taken 
 ill. But before he could reach the wings he stumbled 
 in his hurry, and fell prostrate on the stage, where he lay 
 seemingly unable to rise. 
 
 I— having special reason for my interest — hurried up 
 the stage steps to help him. And it was Captain Good- 
 enough, who had been grinning in an East-end music 
 hall, as sure as I was I. 
 
 I never saw a poor fellow so overcome by shame as my 
 enemy the Captain when, in a little dressing-room behind 
 the scenes, he — unable any longer to throw stones — 
 faltered out his tale. " I couldn't help it — I couldn't! 
 indeed," said he. " The only thing I could ever do well 
 was to Grin. I was famous for it at school — I was always 
 the bottom boy, but not even the top boy could come 
 near me at a grin I And I kept it up : for, you see, one 
 doesn't like to give up the only thing one can do. And 
 when poor Jack Lennox died — poor Jack, my old school- 
 mate, who got me the little place, they were glad to give 
 me a pension of two hundred a year to get me to resign 
 — No ! I suppose I am an ass, but I couldn't let those 
 six poor children starve. But — I put it to you — I 
 couldn't bring Jack's children up to be ladies on two 
 hundred a year, and give them luxuries and education 
 and everything they'd been used to. I hadn't a trade or 
 a profession, and was too old to learn. So I bethought 
 me of the only thing I could do — and said I had plenty 
 for us all — and made myself into a wooden Captain by 
 day — and into Signor Crackjaw by night — and grinning 
 for a living: and, yes: I've grinned myself rich — but it's 
 all for the girls, sir, all for the girls. I've scorned and 
 loathed the life, for I've acted the respectable man — till 
 ■—till — well, this was to have been the last time — tha 
 
THE DEMON SIXPENCE. 311 
 
 very last time : and I didn't think I'd have been found 
 out like this — but if you'd had six orphan babies, Jack's 
 babies, left on your hands, why, hang me, sir, why you'd 
 have Grinned too ! " 
 
 Somehow, we found ourselves shaking hands. I had 
 only respected Captain Goodenough : I honoured Signor 
 Crackjaw. But he was so ashamed of having become a 
 mountebank that he was blind to every scrap of heroism 
 that lay behind— so humiliated by the lies he had been 
 acting that he looked upon my handshake as a thing to 
 be as grateful about as he had been to Jack Lennox 
 for— 
 
 " Are you the gent as guv me this here sixpence at the 
 door?" asked the money-taker, suddenly entering the 
 room before we had unclasped hands. 
 
 Great Heaven ! That sixpence again ! Was I nevei 
 to see the end ? But I could only answer, with a groan, 
 " I am that unhappy man. Why ? " 
 
 " Cos vy, it's the very baddest ever I seed. I've broke 
 it in two — there's the halfs. And I'll trouble you for 
 another, if you please." 
 
 "This gentleman," said Captain Crackjaw, "is my 
 friend." 
 
 And so the Demon Sixpence— that miserable impostor 
 — was exorcised and broken to bits ; and my adopted 
 father-in-law has remained my friend from that day till 
 now — I hope and trust with good cause. 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 
 I. 
 
 The ground was as hard as iron, the sky blue as turquoise, 
 the sunshine yellow as gold, and the air as still and as 
 silent as only the hardest of frosts can be. Nobody, for 
 weeks past had dared even so much as to dream of a fox 
 ■ — it was Eeynard's holiday. Had things been as they 
 ought to be, Eupert Grayshaw would not, late in the 
 afternoon, have been found upon only two legs instead of 
 four. Things being as they were, he was making the 
 best, or the worst, of them by walking briskly along a, 
 winding lane that led from the village of Combe Bassett 
 to nowhere in particular, at the rate of something over 
 four miles an hour. 
 
 Eupert Grayshaw was going on for three-and-thirty 
 years old, full of strength and life, handsome and some- 
 thing more. Few people noticed how fine a face he really 
 had until they came to know him well, for those who 
 saw him for the first, second, or third time were struck 
 exclusively by all such signs and symbols of both mental 
 and vital force as would have made plainness forgotten. 
 He was a man who looked both eager and able to enjoy 
 the whole of life all round, with body, brain, and soul. 
 And assuredly, though the foxes were safe, it was a day 
 on which life could be most amply and actively enjoyed. 
 I need make no mystery about Eupert Grayshaw, for 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 313 
 
 there was none to be made ; and though, no doubt, he 
 had his secrets and his private affairs like other men, ha 
 was known, on the whole, rather more openly than most 
 of one's friends. He was the only son of the younger son 
 of an old Yorkshire family ; he had taken high mathe- 
 matical honours at Cambridge ; he was a Fellow of St. 
 Kenneth's ; he was without near relations ; he had no 
 profession, but lived on his Fellowship, and, without 
 sacrificing any pleasures that were open to him, had, 
 with an enduring enthusiasm, adopted scientific investi- 
 gation and discovery for a career. He held himself as 
 much above and beyond marriage as science is above the 
 brewing of small beer. He had come to Combe Bassett on 
 a visit to his father's old friend, Dick Derwent, for the 
 sake of the coverts ; and, so far as the coverts were con- 
 cerned, had come in vain. And that is his whole history 
 as completely told as any man's can be— from the 
 outside. 
 
 The lane presently led through a thick but now brown 
 and leafless wood. Eupert vaulted over a stile to the 
 left, and his feet were soon enjoying the never-palling 
 delight of trampling and crunching over fallen and frozen 
 leaves. He was glowing with health and exercise, and, 
 it might be, with some still more peculiar joy. The wood 
 was a maze of paths, but he either knew their clue by 
 heart or else gave himself up to chance more decisively 
 than most men go towards a known goal. And so, either 
 by accident or design, he reached at last a solitary cottage 
 standing in a small garden and nearly hidden among the 
 trees. It was a humble place enough — a little, but not 
 much, better than the common run of labourers' dwellings 
 in that part of the country — low, rough-cast, and straw- 
 thatched, with small latticed windows and immensely 
 deep eaves. The long strip of garden was given over to 
 vegetables, except a patch in front of the porch, where it 
 was not hard, though in midwinter, to conjure up, in fancy, 
 
314 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 a little wilderness of full scents and strong colours. Some 
 style was given to the place, even now, by the creeper 
 with evergreen leaves and scarlet berries that covered the 
 porch, and the thick ivy that darkened the lower windows. 
 As if he knew its inmates and all their ways, Eupert went 
 to a window at the side of the cottage and tapped thereon 
 three times. Then he leaned against a pear-tree and 
 waited patiently. 
 
 Or perhaps impatiently. For presently the lattice 
 opened, and like a live portrait set in a frame of ivy 
 leaves appeared a face that seemed to say, " Ah ! he has 
 a secret in his life, after all — and I am she ! " 
 
 Yes : when a man comes to look for foxes and finds 
 frosts, he must find something wherewith to fill up his 
 idle days — something or somebody. Of course it is 
 unlucky when it happens to be somebody instead of some- 
 thing — when he has both publicly and privately forsworn 
 marriage, and when, if he forswear himself, he must give 
 up the means of study and take to bread-winning instead 
 of working for science and glory. Perhaps it is rash for 
 men to take long holidays until they are at least seventy 
 years old. For if ever there was a face made to come 
 between a student and his books, between a sportsman 
 and his sport, between a sworn bachelor and his vow, it 
 was the face that Eupert had called from out the ivy 
 as if his three taps had been spells. It was a very young 
 girl's; she could not possibly have been more than seven- 
 teen. But her number of years was to be gathered from 
 the indefinable expression of girlhood rather than from 
 any palpable signs. She was neither child nor woman, 
 but blent in one face the charms of the two. The delicate 
 glory of perfect health breathed from her ; the biting 
 air did her no wrong, but merely deepened the glow on 
 her cheek that proved no frost to lie within. She could 
 be called neither dark nor fair, but simply harmonious ; 
 and so quick were the changes of light and shade that 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 315 
 
 Rupert seemed to hear her looks with some subtle inner 
 sense as if they were the melody of a song. And what- 
 ever else the words of that song might be, they were at 
 least gentle and pure. Why need I describe her feature 
 by feature, line by line ? Enough, that passing and heed- 
 less eyes would have called her lovely, while Rupert's as 
 clearly tound her a great deal more. 
 
 She was no cottager's daughter, though she was found 
 in this out-of-the-way, almost hidden cottage. She 
 suggested one of those lost princesses whom travellers 
 find by chance among woodcutters and charcoal-burners 
 in the forests of Fairyland. All things favoured the fancy 
 — the brown, dark, windless wood; the blue sky, the 
 silence, and the loneliness everywhere. She herself had 
 not spoken, except with a smile ; and, after a moment of 
 such greeting, shut the window again. But Rupert, 
 .having had his answer, went to the door, raised the latch, 
 and entered. And then he seemed to turn over another 
 page of a fairy tale. He passed through an ordinary 
 kitchen, with an open chimney and a brick floor, with 
 nothing out of the common about it except that it was 
 empty on so hard a day, when labour had nothing to 
 do but sit and rest by its own fireside. But the room 
 into which he passed out of it was very different indeed ; 
 in such a place it was even startling to find such a room. 
 It might have been a boudoir of any great lady in the 
 land, if it had not been so obviously an enchanted 
 maiden's bower. In that country of Once upon a Time, 
 soft carpets, fine hangings, luxurious upholstery, books, 
 and pictures cost nothing more than a few waves of 
 a wand, or else their presence here would have seemed 
 something more than strange. And here she, whose face 
 we have for a moment seen, ran forward to meet Rupert 
 quickfully and joyfully, and let him take her in his arms. 
 
 "I have good news, Bertha!" said he. "And you 
 will never guess it. The post, tins very morning, brought 
 
316 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 me the news that I am rich enough for all things — for 
 'You, and Work, and Gladness, and all life means to me: 
 for You and Love, above all 1 Yes, my darliog, it's true. 
 I shall be able to give you a better bower even than the 
 mysterious enchanter who keeps you here in his power." 
 
 "Oh, Eupert ! What has happened? What is going 
 to happen ? What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Everything has happened, Bertha ! A far-off cousin 
 of my mother's, whom I never saw in my life, is dead, 
 and has left me a fortune — an immense fortune for me 
 and you, but not too large to be a burden — only on con- 
 dition that I will change my name " — 
 "What! — you are not to be Eupert, my Eupert, any 
 more ? " 
 
 " Oh, I shall keep that name — that is yours ! But I 
 shall give up my Fellowship with more pleasure than I 
 had in getting it ; for I hate the least thing that has 
 kept me from you ; and there is nothing left but a form 
 or two to keep me from my wife for another hour ! When 
 will you come to me ? In two weeks ? — In one ? — 
 In"— 
 
 " Eupert ! Is it true ? " 
 
 " All true — every word ! When will you come ? " 
 
 " And may I tell my father " — 
 
 " Your father ! Bertha, my darling, now that I can 
 claim you I think this mystery ought to be at an end. 
 Just think what our story has been — a story that nobody 
 could believe. I come down to Combe Bassett with a 
 heart as empty as life without you. I wander into a 
 wood — I find, by chance, in a common cottage, a fairy 
 queen. I win her heart, and her trothplight, and at the 
 end of weeks I know no more of her than that her name 
 is Bertha — Queen Bertha — and that she has no surname, 
 but only a mysterious, nameless father, who comes to see 
 her, like an enchanter, from far away — flying, I suppose, 
 on a magic carpet, or a brazen horse through the air. 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 317 
 
 She is attended by invisible hands — for none but her own 
 have I seen. I am sworn to ask nothing more than if 
 she loves me. She forbids me to enter her bower with- 
 out a signal, and unless it is answered. And yet I know 
 that she is as innocent as the lilies, and as pure as the 
 snow. Sooner than lose you, Bertha, I would consent to 
 know nothing but that you are lovely, and good, and true, 
 and that you love me : but is it in man not to wish to 
 know more ? And is it not time ? " 
 
 " As if I would not tell you every thought I have in 
 mel But, Bupert, how can I tell you a name I never 
 heard? As you say, I must have another name than 
 Bertha, I suppose it is true. As you say, my father must 
 have some dwelling-place of his own, I suppose that is 
 true too. And " — 
 
 " And you really do not know who you are ? " 
 
 " Surely — that I am Bertha, and yours. . . . But if 
 it is time " — 
 
 "It is time." 
 
 " Then— my father comes to-morrow, at five o'clock in 
 the afternoon. I have told you why you must not come 
 to me without a signal : because he does not wish to be 
 seen, and because I do not always know when he is 
 coming. But I do happen to know to-day when his next 
 visit will be — for he never fails to see me on the first day 
 of the New Year " — 
 
 " Yes — to-morrow is New- Year's Day. Well? " 
 
 " Come, Bupert, and come openly, and tell him " — 
 
 " And if he says No ? " 
 
 " Why should he say No ? And — if he does — do I not 
 love you ? He cannot forbid that, Bupert " — 
 
 " My darling ! I will come, enchanter though he 
 be." 
 
 Bupert left the cottage just in time to reach the Hall (as 
 his host's place was popularly called) before dinner. He 
 met nobody on the way but an old woman in a blue 
 
318 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 cloak, of whom he took no special heed — for what were 
 all outward things to a man who loved, and was loved, 
 and before whom the future was opening out in rainbow 
 colours ? Even the mystery of his love-story gave it 
 an additional charm to him, whose imagination, chroni- 
 cally kept in the grooves of hard study, needed now and 
 then to take a flight into the free and open air. 
 
 There were not many guests at the Hall. DickDerwent 
 was a bachelor of five-and-forty, who did not care to fill 
 his house for the sake of having it full. The few who 
 were there were men who were waiting for the frost 
 to break, and with whom Rupert — engaged as he was 
 with his own affairs — had but little sympathy. He liked 
 Dick, who was the best of good fellows, and had shown 
 him much kindness ; but he cared little for Dick's friends. 
 And even to Dick, good fellow as he was, he had 
 never breathed a word of his love-story. There were 
 many reasons for silence, of which each was all-sufficient 
 for him. In the first place — until to-day — marriage had, 
 from his point of view, been simply impossible. He had 
 been merely drifting, and had hardly eared to open 
 his own eyes as to the course he had been taking. 
 In the second place, to profane the mystery of his 
 romance by speech would be sure to reduce it from poetry 
 to prose. Again, how could he bear to tell such a story 
 to open-hearted and free-tongued Dick, who had never 
 kept a secret in his life, and would be sure to make 
 Bertha and Rupert's love for her a matter of rough chaff, 
 even if they did not some day, for want of better sport, 
 ride out and draw the cottage with " Yoicks " and 
 "Tally-ho?" And who was Bertha's father, and what 
 secret might he not have that ought not, in honour, to be 
 betrayed ? Had Bertha's existence been known of at the 
 Hall, he would himself have been the first to hear. 
 
 Dinner and billiards had lasted the evening through, 
 when the stroke of a church bell sounded full and close 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 310 
 
 through the thin air. Dick Derwent rose and filled his 
 tumbler to the brim. 
 
 " Let all who love me, follow ! " cried he, in his bluff, 
 ringing voice. " At the first stroke of twelve, I throw 
 open the front door with my own hands, to let the 
 Old Year out and the New Year in ! " 
 
 Dick Derwent was a fine, stout, hearty country gentle- 
 man, with all manner of jovial ways. He was the very 
 pink of generosity and honour. He had been Eupert's 
 father's staunchest friend, and had, at old Mr. Grayshaw's 
 death, transferred his affection from the father to the 
 son. Indeed, it was more than common affection that 
 he showed towards Eupert on every possible occasion. 
 Though so much the elder, he had a strong belief in 
 the prudence and worldly wisdom of the younger man, 
 which cannot be supposed to have been altogether ill- 
 founded — at any rate, Dick Derwent was not the man to 
 have let a hundred Fellowships stand in the way of 
 marriage had he been that way inclined. But, then, 
 it is true, he was not a man of science, but only a 
 jolly middle-aged gentleman who kept up old customs 
 and followed the hounds well. 
 
 The half-dozen young and middle-aged men, without a 
 woman' or a child among them, gave way to their host's 
 whim, though not without smiles and shrugs of the 
 shoulder at taking part in such a piece of obsolete 
 folly. 
 
 " What does it all mean ? " asked West — a young man 
 who was wiser in his own eyes even than Eupert 
 Grayshaw was in Dick Derwent's.. " Why should we 
 trouble ourselves to let out a good time — thanks to you, 
 Dick — and let in what nobody knows, may be death, 
 may be marriage." 
 
 " Marriage, eh ? " said Dick, turning upon him 
 suddenly. " Perhaps I know more about that than you. 
 But that's neither here nor there — marriage won't come 
 
320 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 inside this door for many a long day. That isn't what it 
 means. It means that the master of this house has, 
 with his own hands, let in two hundred New Years, and 
 that I'm not going to be the first inhospitable fellow 
 that has been surnamed Derwent and christened Eichard. 
 Now, then — Welcome, whatever you are ! " he said, 
 loudly, as he threw open the front door and let the 
 first cold blast of the New Year rush into the Hall. 
 " God speed the Old, and God bless the New ! " 
 
 "I know it's a common custom," said Eupert, "for the 
 master of the house to open his door at the first stroke 
 of the last midnight of the year. But I could never find 
 out what it means, and yet every superstition must have 
 a meaning somewhere. I wonder what people think 
 would happen if the New Year came to a house and 
 found the door closed ? " 
 
 "Happen?" said West. "Why, that fewer people 
 would begir,. the year with a sneeze. What else do you 
 suppose ?" 
 
 " I dare say," said Dick — " I dare say they knew once 
 upon a time. Well, it's done now, and after all it would 
 never have done to have the frost break everywhere else, 
 and not round the Hall." 
 
 But the first day of the New Year did not bring a 
 thaw, either round the Hall or elsewhere. To-day was 
 yesterday's twin brother. Nor was Eupert sorry for it, 
 for, had it thawed, he would have found it exceedingly 
 difficult to invent an excuse for staying at home while 
 the other men were all a-field. Of course, while the 
 ground was hard it was natural enough for a philosopher 
 to take solitary walks in company with problems. But 
 problems when the scent lay — even a broken leg would 
 hardly serve as an excuse for him then, after three long 
 weeks of iron. Happily, the weather allowed him, with 
 no more difficulty than usual, to be at the cottage by five 
 in the afternoon. If he had believed in omens, he would 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 321 
 
 have felt that his luck at least had not changed with the 
 change of year. 
 
 He was neither shy nor timid by nature, and was 
 eager rather than anxious for his first interview with the 
 mysterious personage who kept his daughter so strangely 
 confined in such an unaccountable prison. Beyond all 
 question, Bertha was nearly as ignorant as he of her 
 own history. She scarcely knew of any other life, 
 except after the vague and untrustworthy manner of 
 dreams. She was fairly well educated, for she had been 
 thrown upon her own mental resources all her life, and 
 had been put by this same unguessable father into the 
 right road for using them. Oddly enough she was most 
 familiar with the very books and branches of knowledge 
 that Eupert himself would have chosen for her had her 
 education been given into his hands. She had lived in 
 this way — so he learned from her — all her life, seeing 
 none but her father and an elderly nurse who attended 
 to her admirably, but told her nothing. She was under 
 a strict discipline which she had never thought of 
 breaking through, never going out for exercise except in 
 the early morning in the woods, or being allowed to have 
 a friend. Short of making inquiries, Eupert had invented 
 a thousand theories to account for the mystery, but had 
 rejected them all. But about one thing there was no 
 mystery at all. No wonder that a young girl, with such 
 infinite capacity for the life that had been withheld from 
 her for seventeen years, had snatched at life, love, and 
 liberty as soon as they found her out in her solitude. 
 She was the sleeping princess who woke when the prince 
 had forced his way to her through the thorns. 
 
 But now, at last, the whole secret was to be disclosed. 
 Of the result, Eupert had absolutely no fear. He was 
 rich enough to satisfy any earthly father, and in love 
 enough to satisfy any father, man, or demon, who loved 
 his child. His high spirits of yesterday were nothing 
 
322 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 compared with to-day's. He hardly felt the ground as 
 he walked, but seemed to tread on air. 
 
 He reached the cottage well before five. But — 
 The door stood wide open, and the front garden was 
 littered -with bits of broken wood, ends of cord, and 
 straw. The kitchen was without a fire. With a strange 
 feeling of fear in his heart he went at once into Bertha's 
 bower— it had turned into nothing but a shrunken square 
 cupboard, with four bare walls and an empty floor. The 
 lattice was open, and the air seemed deadly cold. 
 
 Had it all been but a fairy dream ? But it was no 
 dream that he loved her with his whole heart — and she 
 was gone. 
 
 II. 
 
 One : Two : Three :— Ten : Eleven : Twelve 1 
 He whom bettered fortunes and a testator's fancy had 
 transmuted from Bupert Grayshaw into Bupert Hildreth 
 did not rise from his chair, or throw open so much as an 
 inch of window at the sound. He laid down his pen — 
 but that was all. The twelve strokes came to his ears 
 muffled through double windows and close doors. 
 
 "I am not such a fool as that," thought he. "The 
 Old Year's a good deal too good to lose, and / don't want 
 a better. I've done for six years past with wanting more 
 than I have, since — since — No : I've done with dreams. 
 Perhaps they might come back if I opened the door to a 
 change. Let those open their doors who are sick, or 
 sorry, or sinful, or poor : not I, who am rich, and con- 
 tent, and sound in heart and limb and brain . . . and 
 who knows what happened once, when I let out the one 
 sweet dream of my whole life, and when that better 
 waking came in through the open door 1 Never again. 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 323 
 
 I might let in sickness, or discontent, or worse — who 
 knows ? I'll be as I am, with one long, faithful Old Year 
 all to myself, that I've tried and proved. Yes, it has 
 answered. Fevers have come with the New Years, and 
 have emptied other houses, but they have passed by my 
 doors, that had kept out the evils of the unknown like 
 those of a wise man. Fortunes have broken : but mine 
 stand. Others, in the New Years, have married and died ; 
 I, with the Old Year under my roof, am as alive and free 
 as I was six years ago. I have seen others grow grey 
 and wrinkled : I am near middle age — and young. Life 
 palls on others, unless they renew it in their children : I 
 have only myself and my books — but they are as fresh as 
 of old. . . . Why, if there be a grain of truth in old 
 wives' tales, to bar the New Year out and to bolt the Old 
 Year in means to stand still at one's best all one's days, 
 to be for always as one is, and to fear no chance or 
 change that comes to the rest of the world. ... So 
 knock on, New Year, as hard and as long as you like — 
 you'll find one door bolted and barred against you and 
 yours." 
 
 He took up his pen again, and worked on. It was true 
 that, ever since that midnight of six years ago, he had 
 practised the new superstition of keeping his front door 
 close shut, so that no New Year could find a chink 
 whereby to creep in. For on that night of long ago he 
 had lain down with joy and hope which the New Year 
 had, with its first touch, taken away. Perhaps — so he 
 felt in fancy — if he had kept the New Year out, Bertha 
 and the Old Year would have staid with him : nor was the 
 fancy quite so unreasonable in a man of science as it may 
 seem, for what had Bertha herself ever been to him but 
 a fancy and a dream ? And it was true that, while the 
 New Years had brought troubles enough on others, they 
 had left Bupert Hildreth, the scholar and chemist, un- 
 disturbed in his life and labour. With him the same Old 
 
 y 2 
 
324 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 Year seemed for ever to abide, until it had earned by 
 custom an undisputed right and title to a place by his 
 hearthstone. He and his life never knew a change, from 
 year to year, from day to day. He lived, for quiet 
 study's sake, in the outskirts of the town of Eainham. 
 One year a plague of cholera swept through the place, 
 and broke up households — that would have been safe 
 had they never let the Old Year go. But he never 
 troubled himself about the matter, and just lived and 
 worked on. Some thought he kept himself too much 
 aloof in a time of trouble : and no doubt that same sad 
 New Year, while it brought death to bodies, brought good 
 to souls. But what has he to do with the things of New 
 Years that have never come to him? Another New Year 
 had brought among its gifts a great financial crash that 
 had been felt in most homes, but had not given Bupert 
 Hildreth, though a rich man, a moment's doubt or fear. 
 He had never loved a new face, or made a new enemy. 
 Prom January to December every year had been one and 
 the same. 
 
 There were some who thought him hard, cold, and 
 selfish. Others — women mostly — could not help believing 
 that, early in life, his heart had been broken by some 
 great sorrow with which a woman had had to do, and 
 that this made his days so changeless and his life so 
 lonely and self-contained. He would have denied such a 
 theory, had it ever come to his ears, with scorn. His 
 treatment of New Years and its effects might be but a 
 superstitious fancy ; but he lived as if he thought it based 
 on truth and reason. Never, since that New Year's Eve, 
 had he seen, or even, despite of all his searching, heard 
 of Bertha again or of anybody who had ever heard of 
 her. And now he had shut out the threats of another 
 New Year. 
 
 He worked late, and rose late, without taking note that 
 a New Year had begun for all the rest of the world. Why 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 325 
 
 should he, indeed, when it was still the Old Year, of years 
 ago, for him ? 
 
 It was certainly nothing particularly new, though a 
 little unusual, that he should receive a visit from a 
 stranger in the course of the afternoon. The card by 
 which the visitor introduced himself was that of Mr. J. 
 Dimond. 
 
 "Mr. Hildreth?" asked Mr. Dimond, a stiff, middle- 
 aged man, with a professional look about him. " Then, 
 in the first place, I have to wish you a happy New 
 Year." 
 
 "Ah — what? I beg your pardon," said Eupert, 
 absently. " You are on business, I suppose?" 
 
 " It is odd you should expect that — very odd indeed, 
 considering the day. It is a rare holiday that has brought 
 me to Eainham, where I happen to have friends. But it 
 is business, all the same ; and I have taken the oppor- 
 tunity of doing it without wasting a day. Time has a 
 way of flying, you see " — 
 
 " Or of standing still." 
 
 " Not with me, Mr. Hildred; not with me. Years — 
 landmarks — and so on. I believe you were acquainted 
 with Mr. Eichard Derwent, of Combe Bassett. I have 
 been his legal adviser for some years. Perhaps you are 
 not aware "■ — - 
 
 "I knew Derwent well; but I have seen nothing of 
 him for some years — some time, I should say. I hope 
 he is well?" 
 
 " He is dead, Mr. Hildreth. He died last Novembcsr, 
 in town. And his little girl " — 
 
 " Dick Derwent dead ! Well. . . . But a little 
 girl? Well, he was just the man to get married before 
 he died." 
 
 " She has no mother. She died, you know, when the 
 child was born. Well, Mr. Hildreth, to make a long 
 story short, Mr. Derwent had two ideas — perhaps more, 
 
326 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 but certainly two. One was an unbounded trust and 
 confidence in your prudence and honour, as his will 
 testifies. The other was an overwhelming dread lest his 
 little girl should grow up a prey to fortune-hunters, or be 
 contaminated by the companionship of other girls. He 
 believed that every girl ought to grow up alone, with no 
 knowledge of, or communication with, the world. He had 
 had experiences of the other sort of thing, you see, when 
 he was a young man. So, Mr. Hildreth, knowing your 
 prudence, your honour, your friendship for him, and your 
 hernht-like mode of living, he leaves you a legacy of ten 
 thousand pounds on condition that you will, as joint 
 guardian with myself, undertake the sole and entire 
 charge and education of the child (she living here with 
 you) until she attains the age of twenty-four, at which 
 age Mr. Derwent believed that a girl, properly brought 
 up according to his views, ought to be able to run alone. 
 She is now in charge of an aunt, Mrs. Joy. You accept 
 the charge of course " — 
 
 "What, I? No. No, Mr. Dimond. Without hesita- 
 tion, and most decidedly, No. New Years bring, and 
 shall bring, no new things to inc. What should I, a 
 student who live alone with my books, do with a girl — a. 
 child "— 
 
 " The orphan of your friend " — 
 
 "Whom I do not need, and who does not need me. 
 No. I closed my doors last night, and I close it still. I 
 will have nothing new in mv life " — ■ 
 
 " Not- ton thousand pounds'' — 
 
 "Mo. No, once for all." He bowed Mr. Dimond 
 out, and went back to his work, without giving another 
 thought of the New Year's cunning but vain attempt to 
 creep within his doors in the shape of a child. 
 
 It was all very well for the lawyer of fifty to speak of 
 a grown girl of three-and-twenty as if she were no more 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 327 
 
 than a child in arms. Equally reasonable was it for 
 Rupert to argue that, since DiokDerwent was unmarried 
 some six years ago, his orphan daughter could hardly be 
 five years old. But there is nobody so good at keeping 
 a secret, when he likes, as your bluff, frank, hearty, 
 talkative, open-mannered man. Mr. Dimond knew, and 
 thought his client's intimate friends knew also, that the 
 Squire of Combe Bassett had married once upon a time, 
 and had been left a father and a widower within a year : 
 nor only so, but that, surrounded as he was by society of 
 which he was as unwilling to deprive himself as he was 
 anxious that his daughter should not share it, he had 
 taken extraordinary precautions against the discovery of 
 her existence till she was fully grown. His friends were 
 mostly good fellows with no money to spend, who would 
 swoop down on an heiress after the genial manner of 
 their kind. 
 
 One bright, cold morning, when, in midwinter, her 
 own heart was overflowing with spring and joy, the old 
 nurse who served and guarded her was suddenly 
 dismissed ; she was carried, by road and rail, many 
 miles away from her old home, and presently her father 
 came and took her to travel with him abroad. She 
 could not speak to him of the dream which he had 
 doubtlessly discovered, and had thus answered. It is to 
 be hoped he was satisfied. She was docile and gentle, 
 and her father was always kind — kind now, even in 
 keeping her to himself ; for she had seen all the human 
 beings she needed to see in seeing one whom she saw no 
 more. He need not have feared the adventurers and 
 fortune-hunters whom he now, as if ruled by a craze, 
 spent his whole time in avoiding. He need not even 
 have made that will when he died, so that his hand, 
 though dead, might still guard her from lovelessness in 
 marriage and all lesser harm. Mr. Dimond must have 
 Leen terribly right when suggesting what the Squire's 
 
328 ROA'ANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 own experiences of the world must have been before he 
 settled down in Combe Bassett with the soul of a girl on 
 his hands. 
 
 She mourned, honestly, when he died. Perhaps not 
 the less because he had made her life so dull and empty. 
 But presently she had to mourn for her living self, even 
 more. She was an heiress — she had learned to hate the 
 very sound of the word. And she was left in charge of 
 another guardian : a hard, stern man, named Hildreth 
 so she heard ; a recluse, who had been chosen by her 
 father for the office because of his being the only man in 
 the world who could be trusted to carry out, consistently 
 and thoroughly, her father's views. Hitherto, her life 
 had been slavery, but love therewith. Henceforth it 
 must be double slavery, and therewith what must needs 
 become hate, at least on her side. 
 
 And yet it was with a strange feeling, very far indeed 
 from pleasure or relief, that she heard from Mr. Dimond 
 of Mr. Hildreth's decisive, almost scornful and angry, 
 refusal of the charge that had been left to him. She had 
 somehow expected that he would have received her for 
 money's sake, and then, for duty's, have made her life 
 hardly to be borne. But here was clearly a man who 
 would neither do a kindness nor accept a duty, if they 
 were inconvenient to him, even for ten thousand pounds. 
 If there were to be refusals and rebellions, they ought to 
 have come from her. 
 
 " It seems to me you have had a lucky escape, Miss 
 Derwent," said the lawyer, when his holiday was over 
 and he came in person to bring her news. " There is 
 something about that fellow Hildreth that I neither like 
 nor understand; he's not like other people at all. He 
 refused a legacy of ten thousand pounds. That is 
 being far too imprudent to have the charge of a young 
 girl." 
 
 " At any rate, he is no fortune-hunter," said she. 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 329 
 
 "Perhaps my poor father knew that, and that was why — . 
 And what am I to do now ? " 
 
 " That's just the point, you see. The terms of the 
 will are perfectly clear. In the event of Mr. Hildreth's 
 refusal to undertake the charge of you — why, then, as 
 you say, he will have proved himself very much of a fool. 
 But, as he will also have proved that he doesn't care 
 about money, I am— I am sorry to say — instructed to 
 make him the offer of your hand." 
 
 "Of my hand? Oi me ? " 
 
 " Even so. And it must be done. For, if I do not, I 
 shall lose my own legacy ; and it is too much to lose. If 
 he refuses that — But he can't be such a fool as to 
 refuse the heiress of Combe Bassett, you may be sure. 
 Your honoured father did know men." 
 
 " But there is something else to be said, it seems to 
 me ! How if I refuse \ " 
 
 " Then he is to have Combe Bassett without you . You 
 are to have enough to live in comfort while you remain 
 single ; but under no circumstances will you have any- 
 thing more if you marry anybody but him. It is a cruel 
 will, Miss Derwent ; but it is a clever one for its purpose, 
 I must say. Whatever happens, the man who marries 
 you must marry you for love and not for fortune, you 
 see ; and " — 
 
 She beard no more. No wonder, thought she, that her 
 father had done his utmost, alive and dead, to keep her 
 from a world where men, as a matter of course, assumed 
 only the meanest and most sordid motives in one another 
 — judging, no doubt, from their own experience of their 
 own. She marry ! Why, if her heart and soul had not 
 been married and widowed long ago, she would return 
 with joy to her old prison in the wood rather than give 
 herself to any man as an uncomfortable condition 
 attaching to her lands and her gold. Let him who had 
 refused to be paid for the care of her ask her for herself 
 
330 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 ■with her lands a hundred times — she would refuse him a 
 hundred and one. Let him take Combe Bassett and 
 welcome, so long as he left her free. 
 
 And then the pittance that was to be hers in case she 
 refused — even that, according to what she had been 
 taught of the world, would be all too much ; even 
 that might be enough to attract some man who was 
 poorer still. Was she to be a slave to the world's 
 meanness all her days ? Her heart went back to him 
 who had loved her wholly for herself, if there was 
 any truth in all those magical signs of love that cannot 
 lie. What had become of him? Where was he now? 
 Had he forgotten her iu all these years ? Had he 
 sold himself to some other woman, for gold ? Like 
 enough, being a man ; and men being what she had been 
 taught they were. But, had they never been parted, he 
 would have loved her well enough, she knew. 
 
 Since love had been lost, better now, even than love, 
 was liberty, for that had become her all. Passionately 
 she felt, "He shall have everything but me; I will 
 not keep for myself one smallest coiu that may make my 
 No less full and whole." After all, there was under the 
 skies another world, where men made no wills, hunted 
 no heiresses, laid no plots or counterplots, never talked of 
 love when they meant money, and, above all, were free. 
 It is the world where we live without love, without 
 Gold, and alone. It was the world wherein she herself 
 had lived for her first sixteen years, where men were 
 not, and where she had been tended as are the lilies 
 of the field. It was where she had had the dream of her 
 life, and where she might — she fancied in her heart — go 
 back, and live alone with her dream, and be free. 
 Never, since she left her hermitage, had she been happy 
 for an hour. She had been, as it were, a wild flower 
 transplanted into a garden, where it can only feel itself a 
 weed, and dread the scents and hues around that others 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HCVR. 331 
 
 find beautiful. She had once longed for the world, as 
 the wild flowers may for the gardens while they are 
 unknown and far away ; and now — well, if she could 
 not find her field again, any place would be better 
 than the garden of the world ; even the wayside. 
 
 She could not think or feel as those can who have 
 grown up in the garden all their days. So little, or so 
 much, had she learned that, when she heard such an 
 everyday thing merely named and spoken as the sale, by 
 a woman, of her hand and heart for the sake of keeping 
 her land, she was as struck with unspeakable horror as 
 if she had turned over the soil of a bed of roses and laid 
 open the entrance of a charnel, black and foul. We, with 
 our sensible bringing up, our well-regulated minds, and 
 still better regulated hearts, may think her view of such 
 everyday trifles a little overstrained. But then we have 
 seen such thiDgs with our eyes ; she had never so much 
 as heard of one of them till now. Such a world was not 
 to be lived in ; there was nothing to be done but spread 
 one's wings, and fly from it with all speed. 
 
 III. 
 
 It was the 12th of January, and Eupert Hildreth had 
 not yet heard another word worth mentioning concerning 
 his friend's orphan and her affairs. It is true he had 
 received a letter from Mr. Dimond containing some 
 rubbish or other about something that was to happen if 
 he married the child when she became of age ; but, as 
 that could not happen for nearly twenty years, and as it 
 could not possibly concern him in any way, he had 
 naturally thrown the letter, half read, into his waste- 
 basket, and, being deep in an all-absorbing investigation, 
 
332 ROMANCES OF THE LA IV. 
 
 had forgotteu to send a word of answer. He worked on, 
 without giving a real thought to such impertinent non- 
 sense ; and if another girl's form would sometimes come 
 between him and his labour, or between his paper and 
 his pen, he had become used to that ghost, and would 
 even have missed it if it ever ceased wholly to come. 
 
 So far, therefore, he had made himself secure for 
 another course of an Old Year which had so consistently 
 proved good to him, bringing him no evil, and, on the 
 other hand, increasing satisfaction with himself and 
 indifference to all the rest of mankind. Every day he 
 had risen at the same hour and worked on till his brain 
 was heartily tired. Every night he insured himself a 
 long sleep, too deep for dreams. The man, day by day, 
 was turning into a machine ; and so he willed. 
 
 On this night of the 12th he was working, as usual, 
 and was even more than usually absorbed. It was a 
 lonely old house in which he lived, near the town, but 
 yet with no close neighbours. Those dark winter nights 
 were as long and as noiseless as the heart of student 
 could desire, even though, now and then, he might hear 
 the rush and scream of the night mail that passed Rain- 
 ham without stopping, and, every hour the chiming of the 
 church tower. It was more to keep out these than the 
 rush of the train that Rupert Hildreth had double 
 windows to all his rooms, and kept them close even in 
 summer time : — one of his principal eccentricities was a. 
 morbid antipathy to the sound of church clocks, especially 
 when they struck twelve. 
 
 He made his servants go to bed punctually at ten, for 
 he liked, during his night work, to feel absolutely alone. 
 And never, since he had settled at Rainham, had he been 
 disturbed after that hour. At first, therefore, he could 
 hardly believe his own ears when, late in the evening, and 
 long after his servants were out of the way, he heard a. 
 bell ring through the house — no sound of a church clock, 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 333 
 
 but within the house itself, as if such an impossible thing 
 were happening as that somebody was pulling the bell of 
 his front door. 
 
 It could only be fancy — such things often happen to 
 minds so absorbed in thought that outward things often 
 become confused and obscured, and when the senses, cut 
 off from real sights and sounds, are compelled to find 
 their own food. He had almost forgotten the matter, 
 when the bell rang once more. 
 
 It must be real, then, thought Eupert, "angrily. If it 
 happened again it would wake the servants, throw the 
 house into a tumult, and rob him of a whole night's work 
 — and that must never be. If only to say No to somebody, 
 he must go down himself and stop the ringing, otherwise 
 nothing would have moved him from his desk had all 
 Eainham been on fire. 
 
 He opened the door just in time to save himself 
 from another ring. By the bright light of the moon then 
 at her full, he saw a young girl well wrapped in a cloak 
 with her hand upon the bell. 
 
 "What does this mean?'' asked Eupert, sternly. 
 " Who are you ? What do you want here ? " 
 
 " I — I'm afraid," said the girl, looking round her 
 doubtfully, " I'm afraid I've lost my way — I saw a light 
 here, and no other house near — I came by the train — is 
 it very far ? " 
 
 "No. It is straight along- the road,'' said Eupert, 
 rather roughly. It was something more than annoying 
 to be disturbed in full work, and to be rung up at 
 such an hour for such a trifle as a lost way. 
 
 " But — is it very far ? " 
 
 There were limits to even his cultivated likeness to a 
 machine. There seemed something strange about 
 the girl, he thought, as she spohe thus doubtfully 
 and wearily. She did not look like one to be rambling 
 about alone at midnight ; and though nothing concerning 
 
334 ROMANCES OF THE LA IV. 
 
 a stranger could possibly mean anything to him, ha 
 had not as yet wholly ceased to be a man. " I suppose," 
 he said, " you have friends at Eainham and are on 
 your way to them? It is not very far, but I am afraid 
 it is both very far and very late — for you." 
 
 " No ; I have no friends. 1 suppose there is an inn ? " 
 
 " You have business, then? Nobody ever comes to 
 Eainham without business or friends." He thought 
 again ; for it began to seem to him that there was some- 
 thing about her not wholly strange. " Yes," he said, 
 " of course there is an inn ; but " — 
 
 " I have to see a Mr. Hildreth to-morrow, who 
 lives here. That is all." 
 
 " You have to see Mr. Hildreth? And what possible 
 reason — You have to see me % " 
 
 " Tow are Mr. Hildreth?" 
 
 " That is my name. And yours ? " All his sternness 
 had returned. Had his well-trained Old Year gone 
 crazed ? 
 
 "You will know who I am," said she, sadly and 
 proudly, " when I tell you why I am here. It is to tell 
 you with my own lips, before I leave such a world as this, 
 where men buy love, and let hearts starve, that Combe 
 Bassett is yours, every blade of grass, every stick and 
 stone, without your having to be put to the shame of 
 asking for the hand of one whom you refused even to 
 look at when she could be nothing more to you than the 
 orphan of your friend. That is all. . . ." 
 
 He looked, almost in amaze, certainly bewildered, from 
 her into the dark entrance through which the night wind 
 had followed her, as little welcome as she. " Pardon 
 me," said he, "but this is a matter with which I have 
 nothing absolutely to do. Do you mean to tell me, who- 
 ever you are, that you are in league with those who seek 
 to bring into my house and life the child whom I am 
 bidden make my wife in my old age?" 
 
AT THE TWELFTH HOUR. 3S5 
 
 •'What child?" 
 
 " "What else? Are you playing me some trick?" He 
 turned aside to light the lamp : partly to think, partly to 
 see. " I remember— only eleven days ago some lawyer 
 fellow wanted me to let in the New Year in the shape of 
 a child. I refused him at the right time : it's too late 
 now ! "What have I to do with Dick Derwent's child ? 
 There is an early train to-morrow : take it, and go back 
 again. And tell those who sent you here that if wealth, 
 and power, and glory, and wisdom, and love, came 
 knocking altogether at my door, I would say, as I say to 
 you — I want none of you ; Go! " 
 
 " I tell you that I, Bertha Derwent, refuse" — • 
 
 The lamp was lighted. One ! struck Eainham clock. 
 And never since Eupert had lived there had he heard so 
 loud a stroke. For it made no muffled thud through 
 double windows, but a full, heavy boom through the 
 open door, which Eupert had thrown open at the second 
 ring and had neglected to close — on Old New Year's 
 Eve! 
 
 The lamplight was on both their faces : in the ears of 
 both boomed the bell. No chimes heralded the birth of 
 this New Year of theirs, though that twelfth day of 
 January is as surely New Year's Eve for those who will 
 as Twelfth-Day is Old Christmas Day. For those who 
 will? well, maybe any day in the year will do as well. 
 Only it did so happen that, when Eupert left the door 
 ajar for a young girl to enter, he had forgotten that, 
 where evil is to be let out, and good let in, Time is good 
 enough to give us at least Two New Year's Days — an 
 Old as well as a New ; or rather a New as well as an 
 Old. 
 
 "Eupert!" 
 
 "Bertha!" 
 
 " And /refused yoic?" 
 
336 ROMANCES OF THE LAW. 
 
 "And I barred out you when I barred out the New 
 Years — but how could I tell ? And what else have I 
 barred out ? Harm, yes — but what else ? Heaven 
 knows. One blessing — how many more ? " 
 
 " Do you bar me out still ? " 
 
 He looked at her — then far away, as if round the 
 world. " Neither you, nor whatever Time may bring," 
 said he. " This is New Year's Eve for me. Good and 
 ill — ill and good, let all come : they all come from the 
 same place by the same road. Let them all come together, 
 so they come, at last, with you. . . . God will bless 
 the New, and God speed the Old ! " 
 
 Bainham clock took a long time to strike : all this, and 
 more had been told, when it boomed — Twelve 1 
 
 THE END.