'A few minutes after you were carried off,' he answered; 'but until Sir George appeared, a quarter of an hour later, nothing was done.'

'And he started in pursuit?' To hear it gave her a delicious thrill between pain and pleasure.

'Well, at first, to confess the truth,' Mr. Fishwick answered humbly, 'I thought it was his doing, and—'

'You did?' she cried in surprise.

'Yes, I did; even I did. And until we met Mr. Dunborough, and Sir George got the truth from him—I had no certainty. More shame to me!'

She bit her lips to keep back the confession that rose to them, and for a little while was silent. Then, to his astonishment, 'Will he ever forgive me?' she cried, her voice tremulous. 'How shall I tell him? I was mad—I must have been mad.'

'My dear child,' the attorney answered in alarm, 'compose yourself. What is it? What is the matter?'

'I, too thought it was he! I, even I. I thought that he wanted to rid himself of me,' she cried, pouring forth her confession in shame and abasement. 'There! I can hardly bear to tell you in the dark, and how shall I tell him in the light?'

'Tut-tut!' Mr. Fishwick answered. 'What need to tell any one? Thoughts are free.'

'Oh, but'—she laughed hysterically—'I was not free, and I—what do you think I did?' She was growing more and more excited.

'Tut-tut!' the lawyer said. 'What matter?'

'I promised—to marry some one else.'

'Good Lord!' he said. The words were forced from him.

'Some one else!' she repeated. 'I was asked to be my lady, and it tempted me! Think! It tempted me,' she continued with a second laugh, bitterly contemptuous. 'Oh, what a worm—what a thing I am! It tempted me. To be my lady, and to have my jewels, and to go to Ranelagh and the masquerades! To have my box at the King's House and my frolic in the pit! And my woman as ugly as I liked—if he might have my lips! Think of it, think of it! That anyone should be so low! Or no, no, no!' she cried in a different tone. 'Don't believe me! I am not that! I am not so vile! But I thought he had tricked me, I thought he had cheated me, I thought that this was his work, and I was mad! I think I was mad!'

'Dear, dear,' Mr. Fishwick said rubbing his head. His tone was sympathetic; yet, strange to relate, there was no real smack of sorrow in it. Nay, an acute ear might have caught a note of relief, of hope, almost of eagerness. 'Dear, dear, to be sure!' he continued; 'I suppose—it was Lord Almeric Doyley, the nobleman I saw at Oxford?'

'Yes!'

'And you don't know what to do, child?'

'To do?' she exclaimed.

'Which—I mean which you shall accept. Really,' Mr. Fishwick continued, his brain succumbing to a kind of vertigo as he caught himself balancing the pretensions of Sir George and Lord Almeric, 'it is a very remarkable position for any young lady to enjoy, however born. Such a choice—'

'Choice!' she cried fiercely, out of the darkness. 'There is no choice. Don't you understand? I told him No, no, no, a thousand times No!'

Mr. Fishwick sighed. 'But I understood you to say,' he answered meekly, 'that you did not know what to do.'

'How to tell Sir George! How to tell him.'

Mr. Fishwick was silent a moment. Then he said earnestly, 'I would not tell him. Take my advice, child. No harm has been done. You said No to the other.'

'I said Yes,' she retorted.

'But I thought—'

'And then I said No,' she cried, between tears and foolish laughter. 'Cannot you understand?'

Mr. Fishwick could not; but, 'Anyway, do not tell him,' he said. 'There is no need, and before marriage men think much of that at which they laugh afterwards.'

'And much of a woman of whom they think nothing afterwards,' she answered.

'Yet do not tell him,' he pleaded. From the sound of his voice she knew that he was leaning forward. 'Or at least wait. Take the advice of one older than you, who knows the world, and wait.'

'And talk to him, listen to him, smile on his suit with a lie in my heart? Never?' she cried. Then with a new strange pride, a faint touch of stateliness in her tone, 'You forget who I am, Mr. Fishwick,' she said. 'I am as much a Soane as he is, and it becomes me to—to remember that. Believe me, I would far rather resign all hope of entering his house, though I love him, than enter it with a secret in my heart.'

Mr. Fishwick groaned. He told himself that this would be the last straw. This would give Sir George the handle he needed. She would never enter that house.

'I have not been true to him,' she said. 'But I will be true now.'

'The truth is—is very costly,' Mr. Fishwick murmured almost under his breath. 'I don't know that poor people can always afford it, child.'

'For shame!' she cried hotly. 'For shame! But there,' she continued, 'I know you do not mean it. I know that what you bid me do you would not do yourself. Would you have sold my cause, would you have hidden the truth for thousands? If Sir George had come to you to bribe you, would you have taken anything? Any sum, however large? I know you would not. My life on it, you would not. You are an honest man,' she cried warmly.

The honest man was silent awhile. Presently he looked out of the carriage. The moon had risen over Savernake; by its light he saw that they were passing Manton village. In the vale on the right the tower of Preshute Church, lifting its head from a dark bower of trees, spoke a solemn language, seconding hers. 'God bless you!' he said in a low voice. 'God bless you.'

A minute later the horses swerved to the right, and half a dozen lights keeping vigil in the Castle Inn gleamed out along the dark front. The post-chaise rolled across the open, and drew up before the door. Julia's strange journey was over. Its stages, sombre in the retrospect, rose before her as she stepped from the carriage: yet, had she known all, the memories at which she shuddered would have worn a darker hue. But it was not until a late hour of the following morning that even the lawyer heard what had happened at Chippenham.



CHAPTEK XXXIV

BAD NEWS

The attorney entered the Mastersons' room a little before eleven next morning; Julia was there, and Mrs. Masterson. The latter on seeing him held up her hands in dismay. 'Lord's wakes, Mr. Fishwick!' the good woman cried, 'why, you are the ghost of yourself! Adventuring does not suit you, that's certain. But I don't wonder. I am sure I have not slept a wink these three nights that I have not dreamt of Bessy Canning and that horrid old Squires; which, she did it without a doubt. Don't go to say you've bad news this morning.'

Certain it was that Mr. Fishwick looked woefully depressed. The night's sleep, which had restored the roses to Julia's cheeks and the light to her eyes, had done nothing for him; or perhaps he had not slept. His eyes avoided the girl's look of inquiry. 'I've no news this morning,' he said awkwardly. 'And yet I have news.'

'Bad?' the girl said, nodding her comprehension; and her colour slowly faded.

'Bad,' he said gravely, looking down at the table.

Julia took her fostermother's hand in hers, and patted it; they were sitting side by side. The elder woman, whose face was still furrowed by the tears she had shed in her bereavement, began to tremble. 'Tell us,' the girl said bravely. 'What is it?'

'God help me,' Mr. Fishwick answered, his face quivering. 'I don't know how I shall tell you. I don't indeed. But I must.' Then, in a voice harsh with pain, 'Child, I have made a mistake,' he cried. 'I am wrong, I was wrong, I have been wrong from the beginning. God help me! And God help us all!'

The elder woman broke into frightened weeping. The younger grew pale and paler: grew presently white to the lips. Still her eyes met his, and did not flinch. 'Is it—about our case?' she whispered.

'Yes! Oh, my dear, will you ever forgive me?'

'About my birth?'

He nodded.

'I am not Julia Soane? Is that it?'

He nodded again.

'Not a Soane—at all?'

'No; God forgive me, no!'

She continued to hold the weeping woman's hand in hers, and to look at him; but for a long minute she seemed not even to breathe. Then in a voice that, notwithstanding the effort she made, sounded harsh in his ears, 'Tell me all,' she muttered. 'I suppose—you have found something!'

'I have,' he said. He looked old, and worn, and shabby; and was at once the surest and the saddest corroboration of his own tidings. 'Two days ago I found, by accident, in a church at Bristol, the death certificate of the—of the child.'

'Julia Soane?'

'Yes.'

'But then—who am I?' she asked, her eyes growing wild: the world was turning, turning with her.

'Her husband,' he answered, nodding towards Mrs. Masterson, 'adopted a child in place of the dead one, and said nothing. Whether he intended to pass it off for the child entrusted to him, I don't know. He never made any attempt to do so. Perhaps,' the lawyer continued drearily, 'he had it in his mind, and when the time came his heart failed him.'

'And I am that child?'

Mr. Fishwick looked away guiltily, passing his tongue over his lips. He was the picture of shame and remorse.

'Yes,' he said. 'Your father and mother were French. He was a teacher of French at Bristol, his wife French from Canterbury. No relations are known.'

'My name?' she asked, smiling piteously.

'Pare,' he said, spelling it. And he added, 'They call it Parry.'

She looked round the room in a kind of terror, not unmixed with wonder. To that room they had retired to review their plans on their first arrival at the Castle Inn—when all smiled on them. Thither they had fled for refuge after the brush with Lady Dunborough and the rencontre with Sir George. To that room she had betaken herself in the first flush and triumph of Sir George's suit; and there, surrounded by the same objects on which she now gazed, she had sat, rapt in rosy visions, through the livelong day preceding her abduction. Then she had been a gentlewoman, an heiress, the bride in prospect of a gallant gentleman. Now?

What wonder that, as she looked round in dumb misery, recognising these things, her eyes grew wild again; or that the shrinking lawyer expected an outburst. It came, but from another quarter. The old woman rose and trembling pointed a palsied finger at him. 'Yo' eat your words!' she said. 'Yo' eat your words and seem to like them. But didn't yo' tell me no farther back than this day five weeks that the law was clear? Didn't yo' tell me it was certain? Yo' tell me that!'

'I did! God forgive me,' Mr. Fishwick murmured from the depths of his abasement.

'Didn't yo' tell me fifty times, and fifty times to that, that the case was clear?' the old woman continued relentlessly. 'That there were thousands and thousands to be had for the asking? And her right besides, that no one could cheat her of, no more than me of the things my man left me?'

'I did, God forgive me!' the lawyer said.

'But yo' did cheat me!' she continued with quavering insistence, her withered face faintly pink. 'Where is the home yo' ha' broken up? Where are the things my man left me? Where's the bit that should ha' kept me from the parish? Where's the fifty-two pounds yo' sold all for and ha' spent on us, living where's no place for us, at our betters' table? Yo' ha' broken my heart! Yo' ha' laid up sorrow and suffering for the girl that is dearer to me than my heart. Yo' ha' done all that, and yo' can come to me smoothly, and tell me yo' ha' made a mistake. Yo' are a rogue, and, what maybe is worse, I mistrust me yo' are a fool!'

'Mother! mother!' the girl cried.

'He is a fool!' the old woman repeated, eyeing him with a dreadful sternness. 'Or he would ha' kept his mistake to himself. Who knows of it? Or why should he be telling them? 'Tis for them to find out, not for him! Yo' call yourself a lawyer? Yo' are a fool!' And she sat down in a palsy of senile passion. 'Yo' are a fool! And yo' ha' ruined us!'

Mr. Fishwick groaned, but made no reply. He had not the spirit to defend himself. But Julia, as if all through which she had gone since the day of her reputed father's death had led her to this point, only that she might show the stuff of which she was wrought, rose to the emergency.

'Mother,' she said firmly, her hand resting on the older woman's shoulder, 'you are wrong—you are quite wrong. He would have ruined us indeed, he would have ruined us hopelessly and for ever, if he had kept silence! He has never been so good a friend to us as he has shown himself to-day, and I thank him for his courage. And I honour him!' She held out her hand to Mr. Fishwick, who having pressed it, his face working ominously, retired to the window.

'But, my deary, what will yo' do?' Mrs. Masterson cried peevishly. 'He ha' ruined us!'

'What I should have done if we had never made this mistake,' Julia answered bravely; though her lips trembled and her face was white, and in her heart she knew that hers was but a mockery of courage, that must fail her the moment she was alone. 'We are but fifty pounds worse than we were.'

'Fifty pounds!' the old woman cried aghast. 'Yo' talk easily of fifty pounds. And, Lord knows, it is soon spent here. But where will yo' get another?'

'Well, well,' the girl answered patiently, 'that is true. Yet we must make the best of it. Let us make the best of it,' she continued, appealing to them bravely, yet with tears in her voice. 'We are all losers together. Let us bear it together. I have lost most,' she continued, her voice trembling. Fifty pounds? Oh, God! what was fifty pounds to what she had lost. 'But perhaps I deserve it. I was too ready to leave you, mother. I was too ready to—to take up with new things and—and richer things, and forget those who had been kin to me and kind to me all my life. Perhaps this is my punishment. You have lost your all, but that we will get again. And our friend here—he, too, has lost.'

Mr. Fishwick, standing, dogged and downcast, by the window, did not say what he had lost, but his thoughts went to his old mother at Wallingford and the empty stocking, and the weekly letters he had sent her for a month past, letters full of his golden prospects, and the great case of Soane v. Soane, and the grand things that were to come of it. What a home-coming was now in store for him, his last guinea spent, his hopes wrecked, and Wallingford to be faced!

There was a brief silence. Mrs. Masterson sobbed querulously, or now and again uttered a wailing complaint: the other two stood sank in bitter retrospect. Presently, 'What must we do?' Julia asked in a faint voice.' I mean, what step must we take? Will you let them know?'

'I will see them,' Mr. Fishwick answered, wincing at the note of pain in her voice. 'I—I was sent for this morning, for twelve o'clock. It is a quarter to eleven now.'

She looked at him, startled, a spot of red in each cheek. 'We must go away,' she said hurriedly, 'while we have money. Can we do better than return to Oxford?'

The attorney felt sure that at the worst Sir George would do something for her: that Mrs. Masterson need not lament for her fifty pounds. But he had the delicacy to ignore this. 'I don't know,' he said mournfully. 'I dare not advise. You'd be sorry, Miss Julia—any one would be sorry who knew what I have gone through. I've suffered—I can't tell you what I have suffered—the last twenty-four hours! I shall never have any opinion of myself again. Never!'

Julia sighed. 'We must cut a month out of our lives,' she murmured. But it was something else she meant—a month out of her heart!



CHAPTER XXXV

DORMITAT HOMERUS

If Julia's return in the middle of the night balked the curiosity of some who would fain have had her set down at the door that they might enjoy her confusion as she passed through the portico, it had the advantage, appreciated by others, of leaving room for conjecture. Before breakfast her return was known from, one end of the Castle Inn to the other; within half an hour a score had private information. Sir George had brought her back, after marrying her at Salisbury. The attorney had brought her back, and both were in custody, charged with stealing Sir George's title-deeds. Mr. Thomasson had brought her back; he had wedded her at Calne, the reverend gentleman himself performing the ceremony with a curtain-ring at a quarter before midnight, in the presence of two chambermaids, in a room hung with drab moreen. Sir George's servant had brought her back; he was the rogue in the play; it was Lady Harriet Wentworth and footman Sturgeon over again. She had come back in a Flemish hat and a white cloth Joseph with black facings; she had come back in her night-rail; she had come back in a tabby gauze, with a lace head and lappets. Nor were there wanting other rumours, of an after-dinner Wilkes-and-Lord-Sandwich flavour, which we refrain from detailing; but which the Castle Inn, after the mode of the eighteenth century, discussed with freedom in a mixed company.

Of all these reports and the excitement which they created in an assemblage weary of waiting on the great man's recovery and in straits for entertainment, the attorney knew nothing until he set forth to keep the appointment in Lord Chatham's apartments; which, long the object of desire, now set his teeth on edge. Nor need he have learned much of them then; for he had only to cross the lobby of the east wing, and was in view of the hall barely three seconds. But, unluckily, Lady Dunborough, cackling shrewishly with a kindred dowager, caught sight of him as he passed; and in a trice her old limbs bore her in pursuit. Mr. Fishwick heard his name called, had the weakness to turn, and too late found that he had fallen into the clutches of his ancient enemy.

The absence of her son's name from the current rumours had relieved the Viscountess of her worst fears, and left her free to enjoy herself. Seeing his dismay, 'La, man! I am not going to eat you!' she cried; for the lawyer, nervous and profoundly dispirited, really shrank before her. 'So you have brought back your fine madam, I hear? And made an honest woman of her!'

Mr. Fishwick glared at her, but did not answer.

'I knew what would come of pushing out of your place, my lad!' she continued, nodding complacently. 'It wasn't likely she'd behave herself. When the master is away the man will play, and the maid too. I mind me perfectly of the groom. A saucy fellow and a match for her; 'tis to be hoped he'll beat some sense into her. Was she tied up at Calne?'

'No!' Mr. Fishwick blurted, wincing under her words; which hurt him a hundred times more sharply than if the girl had been what he had thought her. Then he might have laughed at the sneer and the spite that dictated it. Now—something like this all the world would say.

The Viscountess eyed him cunningly, her head on one side. 'Was it at Salisbury, then?' she cried. 'Wherever 'twas. I hear she had need of haste. Or was it at Bristol? D'you hear me speak to you, man?' she continued impatiently. 'Out with it.'

'At neither,' he cried.

My lady's eyes sparkled with rage. 'Hoity-toity!' she answered. 'D'you say No to me in that fashion? I'll thank you to mend your manners, Fishwick, and remember to whom you are speaking. Hark ye, sirrah, is she Sir George's cousin or is she not?'

'She is not, my lady,' the attorney muttered miserably.

'But she is married?'

'No,' he said; and with that, unable to bear more, he turned to fly.

She caught him by the sleeve. 'Not married?' she cried, grinning with ill-natured glee. 'Not married? And been of three days with a man! Lord, 'tis a story as bald as Granby! She ought to be whipped, the hussy! Do you hear? She ought to the Roundhouse, and you with her, sirrah, for passing her of on us!'

But that was more than the attorney, his awe of the peerage notwithstanding, could put up with. 'God forgive you!' he cried. 'God forgive you, ma'am, your hard heart!'

She was astonished. 'You impudent fellow!' she exclaimed. 'What do you know of God? And how dare you name Him in the same breath with me? D'you think He'd have people of quality be Methodists and live as the like of you? God, indeed! Hang your impudence! I say, she should to the Roundhouse—and you, too, for a vagabond! And so you shall!'

The lawyer shook with rage. 'The less your ladyship talks of the Roundhouse,' he answered, his voice trembling, 'the better! There's one is in it now who may go farther and fare worse—to your sorrow, my lady!'

You rogue!' she cried. 'Do you threaten me?'

'I threaten no one,' he answered. 'But your son, Mr. Dunborough, killed a man last night, and lies in custody at Chippenham at this very time! I say no more, my lady!'

He had said enough. My lady glared; then began to shake in her turn. Yet her spirit was not easily quelled; 'You lie!' she cried shrilly, the stick, with which she vainly strove to steady herself, rattling on the floor.' Who dares to say that my son has killed a man?'

'It is known,' the attorney answered.

'Who—who is it?'

'Mr. Pomeroy of Bastwick, a gentleman living near Calne.'

'In a duel! 'Twas in a duel, you lying fool!' she retorted hoarsely. 'You are trying to scare me! Say 'twas in a duel and I—I'll forgive you.'

'They shut themselves up in a room, and there were no seconds,' the lawyer answered, beginning to pity her. 'I believe that Mr. Pomeroy gave the provocation, and that may bring your ladyship's son off. But, on the other hand—'

'On the other hand, what? What?' she muttered.

'Mr. Dunborough had horsewhipped a man that was in the other's company.'

'A man?'

'It was Mr. Thomasson.'

Her ladyship's hands went up. Perhaps she remembered that but for her the tutor would not have been there. Then 'Sink you! I wish he had flogged you all!' she shrieked, and, turning stiffly, she went mumbling and cursing down the stairs, the lace lappets of her head trembling, and her gold-headed cane now thumping the floor, now waving uncertainly in the air.

* * * * *

A quarter of an hour earlier, in the apartments for which Mr. Fishwick was bound when her ladyship intercepted him, two men stood talking at a window. The room was the best in the Castle Inn—a lofty panelled chamber with a southern aspect looking upon the smooth sward and sweet-briar hedges of Lady Hertford's terrace, and commanding beyond these a distant view of the wooded slopes of Savernake. The men spoke in subdued tones, and more than once looked towards the door of an adjacent room, as if they feared to disturb some one.

'My dear Sir George,' the elder said, after he had listened patiently to a lengthy relation, in the course of which he took snuff a dozen times, 'your mind is quite made up, I suppose?'

'Absolutely.'

'Well, it is a remarkable series of events; a—most remarkable series,' Dr. Addington answered with professional gravity. 'And certainly, if the lady is all you paint her—and she seems to set you young bloods on fire—no ending could well be more satisfactory. With the addition of a comfortable place in the Stamps or the Pipe Office, if we can take his lordship the right way—it should do. It should do handsomely. But', with a keen glance at his companion, 'even without that—you know that he is still far from well?'

'I know that all the world is of one of two opinions,' Sir George answered, smiling. 'The first, that his lordship ails nothing save politically; the other, that he is at death's door and will not have it known.'

The physician shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. 'Neither is true,' he said. 'The simple fact is, he has the gout; and the gout is an odd thing, Sir George, as you'll know one of these days,' with another sharp glance at his companion. 'It flies here and there, and everywhere.'

'And where is it now?' Soane asked innocently.

'It has gone to his head,' Addington answered, in a tone so studiously jejune that Sir George glanced at him. The doctor, however, appeared unaware of the look, and merely continued: 'So, if he does not take things quite as you wish, Sir George, you'll—but here his lordship comes!'

The doctor thought that he had sufficiently prepared Soane for a change in his patron's appearance. Nevertheless, the younger man was greatly shocked when through the door, obsequiously opened—and held open while a man might count fifty, so that eye and mind grew expectant—the great statesman, the People's Minister at length appeared. For the stooping figure that moved to a chair only by virtue of a servant's arm, and seemed the taller for its feebleness, for dragging legs and shrunken, frame and features sharpened by illness and darkened by the great peruke it was the Earl's fashion to wear, he was in a degree prepared. But for the languid expression of the face that had been so eloquent, for the lacklustre eyes and the dulness of mind that noticed little and heeded less, he was not prepared; and these were so marked and so unlike the great minister—

'A daring pilot in extremity Pleased with the danger when the waves went high'

—so unlike the man whose eagle gaze had fluttered Courts and imposed the law on Senates, that it was only the presence of Lady Chatham, who followed her lord, a book and cushion in her hands, that repressed the exclamation which rose to Sir George's lips. So complete was the change indeed that, as far as the Earl was concerned, he might have uttered it! His lordship, led to the head of the table, sank without a word into the chair placed for him, and propping his elbow on the table and his head on his hand, groaned aloud.

Lady Chatham compressed her lips with evident annoyance as she took her stand behind her husband's chair; it was plain from the glance she cast at Soane that she resented the presence of a witness. Even Dr. Addington, with his professional sang-froid and his knowledge of the invalid's actual state, was put out of countenance for a moment. Then he signed to Sir George to be silent, and to the servant to withdraw.

At last Lord Chatham spoke. 'This business?' he said in a hollow voice and without uncovering his eyes, 'is it to be settled now?'

'If your lordship pleases,' the doctor answered in a subdued tone.

'Sir George Soane is there?'

'Yes.'

'Sir George,' the Earl said with an evident effort, 'I am sorry I cannot receive you better.'

'My lord, as it is I am deeply indebted to your kindness.'

'Dagge finds no flaw in their case,' Lord Chatham continued apathetically. 'Her ladyship has read his report to me. If Sir George likes to contest the claim, it is his right.'

'I do not propose to do so.'

Sir George had not this time subdued his voice to the doctor's pitch; and the Earl, whose nerves seemed alive to the slightest sound, winced visibly. 'That is your affair,' he answered querulously. 'At any rate the trustees do not propose to do so.'

Sir George, speaking with more caution, replied that he acquiesced; and then for a few seconds there was silence in the room, his lordship continuing to sit in the same attitude of profound melancholy, and the others to look at him with compassion, which they vainly strove to dissemble. At last, in a voice little above a whisper, the Earl asked if the man was there.

'He waits your lordship's pleasure,' Dr. Addington answered. 'But before he is admitted,' the physician continued diffidently and with a manifest effort, 'may I say a word, my lord, as to the position in which this places Sir George Soane?'

'I was told this morning,' Lord Chatham answered, in the same muffled tone, 'that a match had been arranged between the parties, and that things would remain as they were. It seemed to me, sir, a prudent arrangement.'

Sir George was about to answer, but Dr. Addington made a sign to him to be silent. 'That is so,' the physician replied smoothly. 'But your lordship is versed in Sir George Soane's affairs, and knows that he must now go to his wife almost empty-handed. In these circumstances it has occurred rather to his friends than to himself, and indeed I speak against his will and by sufferance only, that—that, in a word, my lord—'

Lord Chatham lowered his hand as Dr. Addington paused. A faint flush darkened his lean aquiline features, set a moment before in the mould of hopeless depression. 'What?' he said. And he raised himself sharply in his chair. 'What has occurred to his friends?'

'That some provision might be made for him, my lord.'

'From the public purse?' the Earl cried in a startling tone. 'Is that your meaning, sir?' And, with the look in his eyes which had been more dreaded by the Rigbys and Dodingtons of his party than the most scathing rebuke from the lips of another, he fixed the unlucky doctor where he stood. 'Is that your proposal, sir?' he repeated.

The physician saw too late that he had ventured farther than his interest would support him; and he quailed. On the other hand, it is possible he had been neither so confident before, nor was so entirely crushed now, as appeared. 'Well, my lord, it did occur to me,' he stammered, 'as not inconsistent with the public welfare.'

'The public welfare!' the minister cried in biting accents. 'The public plunder, sir, you mean! It were not inconsistent with that to quarter on the nation as many ruined gentlemen as you please! But you mistake if you bring the business to me to do—you mistake. I have dispersed thirteen millions of His Majesty's money in a year, and would have spent as much again and as much to that, had the affairs of this nation required it; but the gentleman is wrong if he thinks it has gone to my friends. My hands are clean,' his lordship continued with an expressive gesture. 'I have said, in another place, none of it sticks to them. Virtute me involvo!' And then, in a lower tone, but still with a note of austerity in his voice, M rejoice to think,' he continued, 'that the gentleman was not himself the author of this application. I rejoice to think that it did not come from him. These things have been done freely; it concerns me not to deny it; but since I had to do with His Majesty's exchequer, less freely. And that only concerns me!'

Sir George Soane bit his lip. He felt keenly the humiliation of his position. But it was so evident that the Earl was not himself—so evident that the tirade to which he had just listened was one of those outbursts, noble in sentiment, but verging on the impracticable and the ostentatious, in which Lord Chatham was prone to indulge in his weaker moments, that he felt little inclination to resent it. Yet to let it pass unnoticed was impossible.

'My lord,' he said firmly, but with respect, 'it is permitted to all to make an application which the custom of the time has sanctioned. That is the extent of my action—at the highest. The propriety of granting such requests is another matter and rests with your lordship. I have nothing to do with that.'

The Earl appeared to be as easily disarmed as he had been lightly aroused. 'Good lad! good lad!' he muttered. 'Addington is a fool!' Then drowsily, as his head sunk on his hand again, 'The man may enter. I will tell him!'



CHAPTER XXXVI

THE ATTORNEY SPEAKS

It was into an atmosphere highly charged, therefore, in which the lightning had scarcely ceased to play, and might at any moment dart its fires anew, that Mr. Fishwick was introduced. The lawyer did not know this; yet it was to be expected that without that knowledge he would bear himself but ill in the company in which he now found himself. But the task which he had come to perform raised him above himself; moreover, there is a point of depression at which timidity ceases, and he had reached this point. Admitted by Dr. Addington, he looked round, bowed stiffly to the physician, and lowly and with humility to Lord Chatham and her ladyship; then, taking his stand at the foot of the table, he produced his papers with an air of modest self-possession.

Lord Chatham did not look up, but he saw what was passing. 'We have no need of documents,' he said in the frigid tone which marked his dealings with all save a very few. 'Your client's suit is allowed, sir, so far as the trustees are concerned. That is all it boots me to say.'

'I humbly thank your lordship,' the attorney answered, speaking with an air of propriety which surprised Sir George. 'Yet I have with due submission to crave your lordship's leave to say somewhat.'

'There is no need,' the Earl answered, 'the claim being allowed, sir.'

'It is on that point, my lord.'

The Earl, his eyes smouldering, looked his displeasure, but controlled himself. 'What is it?' he said irritably.

'Some days ago, I made a singular discovery, my lord,' the attorney answered sorrowfully. 'I felt it necessary to communicate it to my client, and I am directed by her to convey it to your lordship and to all others concerned.' And the lawyer bowed slightly to Sir George Soane.

Lord Chatham raised his head, and for the first time since the attorney's entrance looked at him with a peevish attention. 'If we are to go into this, Dagge should be here,' he said impatiently. 'Or your lawyer, Sir George.' with a look as fretful in that direction. 'Well, man, what is it?'

'My lord,' Mr. Fish wick answered, 'I desire first to impress upon your lordship and Sir George Soane that this claim was set on foot in good faith on the part of my client, and on my part; and, as far as I was concerned, with no desire to promote useless litigation. That was the position up to Tuesday last, the day on which the lady was forcibly carried off. I repeat, my lord, that on that day I had no more doubt of the justice of our claim than I have to-day that the sky is above us. But on Wednesday I happened in a strange way—at Bristol, my lord, whither but for that abduction I might never have gone in my life—on a discovery, which by my client's direction I am here to communicate.'

'Do you mean, sir,' the Earl said with sudden acumen, a note of keen surprise in his voice, 'that you are here—to abandon your claim?'

'My client's claim,' the attorney answered with a sorrowful look. 'Yes, my lord, I am.'

For an instant there was profound silence in the room; the astonishment was as deep as it was general. At last, 'are the papers which were submitted to Mr. Dagge—are they forgeries then?' the Earl asked.

'No, my lord; the papers are genuine,' the attorney answered. 'But my client, although the identification seemed to be complete, is not the person indicated in them.' And succinctly, but with sufficient clearness, the attorney narrated his chance visit to the church, the discovery of the entry in the register, and the story told by the good woman at the 'Golden Bee.' 'Your lordship will perceive,' he concluded, 'that, apart from the exchange of the children, the claim was good. The identification of the infant whom the porter presented to his wife with the child handed to him by his late master three weeks earlier seemed to be placed beyond doubt by every argument from probability. But the child was not the child,' he added with a sigh. And, forgetting for the moment the presence in which he stood, Mr. Fishwick allowed the despondency he felt to appear in his face and figure.

There was a prolonged silence. 'Sir!' Lord Chatham said at last—Sir George Soane, with his eyes on the floor and a deep flush on his face, seemed to be thunderstruck by this sudden change of front—'it appears to me that you are a very honest man! Yet let me ask you. Did it never occur to you to conceal the fact?'

'Frankly, my lord, it did,' the attorney answered gloomily, 'for a day. Then I remembered a thing my father used to say to us, "Don't put molasses in the punch!" And I was afraid.'

'Don't put molasses in the punch!' his lordship ejaculated, with a lively expression of astonishment. 'Are you mad, sir?'

'No, my lord and gentlemen,' Mr. Fishwick answered hurriedly.' But it means—don't help Providence, which can very well help itself. The thing was too big for me, my lord, and my client too honest. I thought, if it came out afterwards, the last state might be worse than the first. And—I could not see my way to keep it from her; and that is the truth,' he added candidly.

The statesman nodded. Then,

'Dissimulare etiam sperasti, perfide tantum Posse nefas, tacitusque meam subducere terram?'

he muttered in low yet sonorous tones.

Mr. Fishwick stared. 'I beg your lordship's pardon,' he said. 'I do not quite understand.'

'There is no need. And that is the whole truth, sir, is it?'

'Yes, my lord, it is.'

'Very good. Very good,' Lord Chatham replied, pushing away the papers which the attorney in the heat of his argument had thrust before him. 'Then there is an end of the matter as far as the trustees are concerned. Sir George, you have nothing to say, I take it?'

'No, I thank you, my lord—nothing here,' Soane answered vaguely. His face continued to wear the dark flush which had overspread it a few minutes before. 'This, I need not say, is an absolute surprise to me,' he added.

'Just so. It is an extraordinary story. Well, good-morning, sir,' his lordship continued, addressing the attorney. 'I believe you have done your duty. I believe you have behaved very honestly. You will hear from me.'

Mr. Fishwick knew that he was dismissed, but after a glance aside, which showed him Sir George standing in a brown study, he lingered. 'If your lordship,' he said desperately, 'could see your way to do anything—for my client?'

'For your client? Why?' the Earl cried, with a sudden return of his gouty peevishness. 'Why, sir—why?'

'She has been drawn,' the lawyer muttered 'out of the position in which she lived, by an error, not her own, my lord.'

'Yours!'

'Yes, my lord.'

'And why drawn?' the Earl continued regarding him severely. 'I will tell you, sir. Because you were not content to await the result of investigation, but must needs thrust yourself in the public eye! You must needs assume a position before it was granted! No, sir, I allow you honest; I allow you to be well-meaning; but your conduct has been indiscreet, and your client must pay for it. Moreover, I am in the position of a trustee, and can do nothing. You may go, sir.'

After that Mr. Fishwick had no choice but to withdraw. He did so; and a moment later Sir George, after paying his respects, followed him. Dr. Addington was clear-sighted enough to fear that his friend had gone after the lawyer, and, as soon as he decently could, he went himself in pursuit. He was relieved to find Sir George alone, pacing the floor of the room they shared.

The physician took care to hide his real motive and his distrust of Soane's discretion under a show of heartiness. 'My dear Sir George, I congratulate you!' he cried, shaking the other effusively by the hand. 'Believe me, 'tis by far the completest way out of the difficulty; and though I am sorry for the—for the young lady, who seems to have behaved very honestly—well, time brings its repentances as well as its revenges. It is possible the match would have done tolerably well, assuming you to be equal in birth and fortune. But even then 'twas a risk; 'twas a risk, my dear sir! And now—'

'It is not to be thought of, I suppose?' Sir George said; and he looked at the other interrogatively.

'Good Lord, no!' the physician answered. 'No, no, no!' he added weightily.

Sir George nodded, and, turning, looked thoughtfully through the window. His face still wore a flush. 'Yet something must be done for her,' he said in a low voice. 'I can't let her here, read that.'

Dr. Addington took the open letter the other handed to him, and, eyeing it with a frown while he fixed his glasses, afterwards proceeded to peruse it.

'Sir,' it ran—it was pitifully short—'when I sought you I deemed myself other than I am. Were I to seek you now I should be other than I deem myself. We met abruptly, and can part after the same fashion. This from one who claims to be no more than your well-wisher.—JULIA.'

The doctor laid it down and took a pinch of snuff. 'Good girl!' he muttered. 'Good girl. That—that confirms me. You must do something for her, Sir George. Has she—how did you get that, by the way?'

'I found it on the table. I made inquiry, and heard that she left Marlboro' an hour gone.'

'For?'

'I could not learn.'

'Good girl! Good girl! Yes, certainly you must do something for her.'

'You think so?' Sir George said, with a sudden queer look at the doctor, 'Even you?'

'Even I! An allowance of—I was going to suggest fifty guineas a year,' Dr. Addington continued impulsively. 'Now, after reading that letter, I say a hundred. It is not too much, Sir George! 'Fore Gad, it is not too much. But—'

'But what?'

The physician paused to take an elaborate pinch of snuff. 'You'll forgive me,' he answered. 'But before this about her birth came out, I fancied that you were doing, or going about to do the girl no good. Now, my dear Sir George, I am not strait-laced,' the doctor continued, dusting the snuff from the lappets of his coat, 'and I know very well what your friend, my Lord March, would do in the circumstances. And you have lived much, with him, and think yourself, I dare swear, no better. But you are, my dear sir—you are, though you may not know it. You are wondering what I am at? Inclined to take offence, eh? Well, she's a good girl, Sir George'—he tapped the letter, which lay on the table beside him—'too good for that! And you'll not lay it on your conscience, I hope.'

'I will not,' Sir George said quietly.

'Good lad!' Dr. Addington muttered, in the tone Lord Chatham had used; for it is hard to be much with the great without trying on their shoes. 'Good lad! Good lad!'

Soane did not appear to notice the tone. 'You think an allowance of a hundred guineas enough?' he said, and looked at the other.

'I think it very handsome,' the doctor answered. 'D——d handsome.'

'Good!' Sir George rejoined. 'Then she shall have that allowance;' and after staring awhile at the table he nodded assent to his thoughts and went out.



CHAPTER XXXVII

A HANDSOME ALLOWANCE

The physician might not have deemed his friend so sensible—or so insensible—had he known that the young man proposed to make the offer of that allowance in person. Nor to Sir George Soane himself, when he alighted five days later before The George Inn at Wallingford, did the offer seem the light and easy thing,

'Of smiles and tears compact,'

it had appeared at Marlborough. He recalled old clashes of wit, and here and there a spark struck out between them, that, alighting on the flesh, had burned him. Meanwhile the arrival of so fine a gentleman, travelling in a post-chaise and four, drew a crowd about the inn. To give the idlers time to disperse, as well as to remove the stains of the road, he entered the house, and, having bespoken dinner and the best rooms, inquired the way to Mr. Fishwick the attorney's. By this time his servant had blabbed his name; and the story of the duel at Oxford being known, with some faint savour of his fashion, the landlord was his most obedient, and would fain have guided his honour to the place cap in hand.

Rid of him, and informed that the house he sought was neighbour on the farther side, of the Three Tuns, near the bridge, Sir George strolled down the long clean street that leads past Blackstone's Church, then in the building, to the river; Sinodun Hill and the Berkshire Downs, speaking evening peace, behind him. He paused before a dozen neat houses with brass knockers and painted shutters, and took each in turn for the lawyer's. But when he came to the real Mr. Fishwick's, and found it a mere cottage, white and decent, but no more than a cottage, he thought that he was mistaken. Then the name of 'Mr. Peter Fishwick, Attorney-at-Law,' not in the glory of brass, but painted in white letters on the green door, undeceived him; and, opening the wicket of the tiny garden, he knocked with the head of his cane on the door.

The appearance of a stately gentleman in a laced coat and a sword, waiting outside Fishwick's, opened half the doors in the street; but not that one at which Sir George stood. He had to knock again and again before he heard voices whispering inside. At last a step came tapping down the bricked passage, a bolt was withdrawn, and an old woman, in a coarse brown dress and a starched mob, looked out. She betrayed no surprise on seeing so grand a gentleman, but told his honour, before he could speak, that the lawyer was not at home.

'It is not Mr. Fishwick I want to see,' Sir George answered civilly. Through the brick passage he had a glimpse, as through a funnel, of green leaves climbing on a tiny treillage, and of a broken urn on a scrap of sward. 'You have a young lady staying here?' he continued.

The old woman's stiff grey eyebrows grew together. 'No!' she said sharply. 'Nothing of the kind!'

'A Miss Masterson.'

'No' she snapped, her face more and more forbidding. 'We have no Misses here, and no baggages for fine gentlemen! You have come to the wrong house!' And she tried to shut the door in his face.

He was puzzled and a little affronted; but he set his foot between the door and the post, and balked her. 'One moment, my good woman,' he said. 'This is Mr. Fishwick's, is it not?'

'Ay, 'tis,' she answered, breathing hard with indignation. 'But if it is him your honour wants to see, you must come when he is at home. He is not at home to-day.'

'I don't want to see him,' Sir George said. 'I want to speak to the young lady who is staying here.'

'And I tell you that there is no young lady staying here!' she retorted wrathfully. 'There is no soul in the house but me and my serving girl, and she's at the wash-tub. It is more like the Three Tuns you want! There's a flaunting gipsy-girl there if you like—but the less said about her the better.'

Sir George stood and stared at the woman. At last, on a sudden suspicion, 'Is your servant from Oxford?' he said.

She seemed to consider him before she answered. 'Well, if she is?' she said grudgingly. 'What then?'

'Is her name Masterson?'

Again she seemed to hesitate. At last, 'May be and may be not!' she snapped, with a sniff of contempt.

He saw that it was, and for an instant the hesitation was on his side. Then, 'Let me come in!' he said abruptly. 'You are doing your son's client little good by this!' And when she had slowly and grudgingly made way for him to enter, and the door was shut behind him, 'Where is she?' he asked almost savagely. 'Take me to her!'

The old dame muttered something unintelligible. Then, 'She's in the back part,' she said, 'but she'll not wish to see you. Don't blame me if she pins a clout to your skirts.'

Yet she moved aside, and the way lay open—down the brick passage. It must be confessed that for an instant, just one instant, Sir George wavered, his face hot; for the third part of a second the dread of the ridiculous, the temptation to turn and go as he had come were on him. Nor need he, for this, forfeit our sympathies, or cease to be a hero. It was the age, be it remembered, of the artificial. Nature, swathed in perukes and ruffles, powder and patches, and stifled under a hundred studied airs and grimaces, had much ado to breathe. Yet it did breathe; and Sir George, after that brief hesitation, did go on. Three steps carried him down the passage. Another, and the broken urn and tiny treillage brought him up short, but on the greensward, in the sunlight, with the air of heaven fanning his brow. The garden was a very duodecimo; a single glance showed him its whole extent—and Julia.

She was not at the wash-tub, as the old lady had said; but on her knees, scouring a step that led to a side-door, her drugget gown pinned up about her. She raised her head as he appeared, and met his gaze defiantly, her face flushing red with shame or some kindred feeling. He was struck by a strange likeness between her hard look and the frown with which the old woman at the door had received him; and this, or something in the misfit of her gown, or the glimpse he had of a stocking grotesquely fine in comparison of the stuff from which it peeped—or perhaps the cleanliness of the step she was scouring, since he seemed to instant, just one instant, Sir George wavered, his face hot; for the third part of a second the dread of the ridiculous, the temptation to turn and go as he had come were on him. Nor need he, for this, forfeit our sympathies, or cease to be a hero. It was the age, be it remembered, of the artificial. Nature, swathed in perukes and ruffles, powder and patches, and stifled under a hundred studied airs and grimaces, had much ado to breathe. Yet it did breathe; and Sir George, after that brief hesitation, did go on. Three steps carried him down the passage. Another, and the broken urn and tiny treillage brought him up short, but on the greensward, in the sunlight, with the air of heaven fanning his brow. The garden was a very duodecimo; a single glance showed him its whole extent—and Julia.

She was not at the wash-tub, as the old lady had said; but on her knees, scouring a step that led to a side-door, her drugget gown pinned up about her. She raised her head as he appeared, and met his gaze defiantly, her face flushing red with shame or some kindred feeling. He was struck by a strange likeness between her hard look and the frown with which the old woman at the door had received him; and this, or something in the misfit of her gown, or the glimpse he had of a stocking grotesquely fine in comparison of the stuff from which it peeped—or perhaps the cleanliness of the step she was scouring, since he seemed to see everything without looking at it—put an idea into his head. He checked the exclamation that sprang to his lips; and as she rose to her feet he saluted her with an easy smile. 'I have found you, child,' he said. 'Did you think you had hidden yourself?'

She met his gaze sullenly. 'You have found me to no purpose,' she said. Her tone matched her look.

The look and the words together awoke an odd pang in his heart. He had seen her arch, pitiful, wrathful, contemptuous, even kind; but never sullen. The new mood gave him the measure of her heart; but his tone lost nothing of its airiness. 'I hope not,' he said, 'for we think you have behaved vastly well in the matter, child. Remarkably well! And that, let me tell you, is not only my own sentiment, but the opinion of my friends who perfectly approve of the arrangement I have come to propose. You may accept it, therefore, without the least scruple.'

'Arrangement?' she muttered. Her cheeks, darkly red a moment before, began to fade.

'Yes,' he said. 'I hope you will think it not ungenerous. It will rid you of the need to do this—sort of thing, and put you—put you in a comfortable position. Of course, you know,' he continued in a tone of patronage, under which her heart burned if her cheeks did not, 'that a good deal of water has run under the bridge since we talked in the garden at Marlborough? That things are changed.'

Her eyelids quivered under the cruel stroke. But her only answer was, 'They are.' Yet she wondered how and why; for if she had thought herself an heiress, he had not—then.

'You admit it, I am sure?' he persisted.

'Yes,' she answered resolutely.

'And that to—to resume, in fact, the old terms would be—impossible,'

'Quite impossible.' Her tone was as hard as his was easy.

'I thought so,' Sir George continued complacently. 'Still, I could not, of course, leave you here, child. As I have said, my friends think that something should be done for you; and I am only too happy to do it. I have consulted them, and we have talked the matter over. By the way,' with a look round, 'perhaps your mother should be here—Mrs. Masterson, I mean? Is she in the house?'

'No,' she answered, her face flaming scarlet; for pride had conquered pain. She hated him. Oh, how she hated him and the hideous dress which in her foolish dream—when, hearing him at the door, she had looked for something very different—she had hurriedly put on; and the loose tangle of hair which she had dragged with trembling fingers from its club so that it now hung sluttishly over her ear. She longed, as she had never longed before, to confront him in all her beauty; to be able to say to him, 'Choose where you will, can you buy form or face like this?' Instead she stood before him, prisoned in this shapeless dress, a slattern, a drab, a thing whereat to curl the lip.

'Well, I am sorry she is not here,' he resumed. 'It would have given a—a kind of legality to the offer,' he continued with an easy laugh. 'To tell you the truth, the amount was not fixed by me, but by my friend, Dr. Addington, who interested himself in your behalf. He thought that an allowance of a hundred guineas a year, child, properly secured, would place you in comfort, and—and obviate all this,' with a negligent wave of the hand that took in the garden and the half-scoured stone, 'at the same time,' he added, 'that it would not be unworthy of the donor.' And he bowed, smiling.

'A hundred guineas?' she said slowly. 'A year?'

'Yes.'

'Properly secured?'

'To be sure, child.'

'On your word?' with a sudden glance at him. 'Of course, I could not ask better security! Surely, sir, there's but one thing to be said. 'Tis too generous, too handsome!'

'Tut-tut!' he answered, wondering at her way of taking it.

'Far too handsome—seeing that I have no claim on you, Sir George, and have only put you to great expense.'

'Pooh! Pooh!'

'And—trouble. A vast deal of trouble,' she repeated in an odd tone of raillery, while her eyes, grown hard and mocking, raked him mercilessly. 'So much for so little! I could not—I could not accept it. A hundred guineas a year, Sir George, from one in your position to one in mine, would only lay me open to the tongue of slander. You had better say—fifty.'

'Oh, no!'

'Or—thirty, I am sure thirty were ample! Say thirty guineas a year, dear sir; and leave me my character.'

'Nonsense,' he answered, a trifle discomfited. Strange, she was seizing her old position. The weapon he had wrought for her punishment was being turned against himself.

'Or, I don't know that thirty is not too much!' she continued, her eyes unnaturally bright, her voice keen as a razor.' 'Twould have been enough if offered through your lawyers. But at your own mouth, Sir George, ten shillings a week should do, and handsomely! Which reminds me—it was a kind thought to come yourself to see me; I wonder why you did.'

'Well,' he said, 'to be frank, it was Dr. Addington—'

'Oh, Dr. Addington—Dr. Addington suggested it! Because I fancied—it could not give you pleasure to see me like this?' she continued with a flashing eye, her passion for a brief moment breaking forth. 'Or to go back a month or two and call me child? Or to speak to me as to your chambermaid? Or even to give me ten shillings a week?'

'No,' he said gravely; 'perhaps not, my dear.'

She winced and her eyes flashed; but she controlled herself. 'Still, I shall take your ten shillings a week,' she said. 'And—and is that all? Or is there anything else?'

'Only this,' he said firmly. 'You'll please to remember that the ten shillings a week is of your own choosing. You'll do me that justice at least. A hundred guineas a year was the allowance I proposed. And—I bet a guinea you ask for it, my dear, before the year is out!'

She was like a tigress outraged; she writhed under the insult. And yet, because to give vent to her rage were also to bare her heart to his eyes, she had to restrain herself, and endure even this with a scarlet cheek. She had thought to shame him by accepting the money he offered; by accepting it in the barest form. The shame was hers; it did not seem to touch him a whit. At last, 'You are mistaken,' she answered, in a voice she strove to render steady. 'I shall not! And now, if there is nothing more, sir—'

'There is,' he said. 'Are you sufficiently punished?'

She looked at him wildly—suddenly, irresistibly compelled to do so by a new tone in his voice. 'Punished!' she stammered, almost inaudibly. 'For what?'

'Do you not know?'

'No,' she muttered, her heart fluttering strangely.

'For this travesty,' he answered; and coolly, as he stood before her, he twitched the sleeve of her shapeless gown, looking masterfully down at her the while, so that her eyes fell before his. 'Did you think it kind to me or fair to me,' he continued, almost sternly, 'to make that difficult, Julia, which my honour required, and which you knew that my honour required? Which, if I had not come to do, you would have despised me in your heart, and presently with your lips? Did you think it fair to widen the distance between us by this—this piece of play-acting? Give me your hand.'

She obeyed, trembling, tongue-tied. He held it an instant, looked at it, and dropped it almost contemptuously. 'It has not cleaned that step before,' he said. 'Now put up your hair.'

She did so with shaking fingers, her cheeks pale, tears oozing from under her lowered eyelashes. He devoured her with his gaze.

'Now go to your room,' he said. 'Take off that rag and come to me properly dressed.'

'How?' she whispered.

'As my wife.'

'It is impossible,' she cried with a gesture of despair; 'It is impossible.'

'Is that the answer you would have given me at Manton Corner?'

'Oh no, no!' she cried. 'But everything is changed.'

'Nothing is changed.'

'You said so,' she retorted feverishly. 'You said that it was changed!'

'And have you, too, told the whole truth?' he retorted. 'Go, silly child! If you are determined to play Pamela to the end, at least you shall play it in other guise than this. 'Tis impossible to touch you! And yet, if you stand long and tempt me, I vow, sweet, I shall fall!'

To his astonishment she burst into hysterical laughter. 'I thought men wooed—with promises!' she cried. 'Why don't you tell me I shall have my jewels; and my box at the Opera and the King's House? And go to Vauxhall and the Masquerades? And have my frolic in the pit with the best? And keep my own woman as ugly as I please? He did; and I said Yes to him! Why don't you say the same?'

Sir George was prepared for almost anything, but not for that. His face grew dark. 'He did? Who did?' he asked grimly, his eyes on her face.

'Lord Almeric! And I said Yes to him—for three hours.'

'Lord Almeric?'

'Yes! For three hours,' she answered with a laugh, half hysterical, half despairing. 'If you must know, I thought you had carried me off to—to get rid of my claim—and me! I thought—I thought you had only been playing with me,' she continued, involuntarily betraying by her tone how deep had been her misery. 'I was only Pamela, and 'twas cheaper, I thought, to send me to the Plantations than to marry me.'

'And Lord Almeric offered you marriage?'

'I might have been my lady,' she cried in bitter abasement. 'Yes.'

'And you accepted him?'

'Yes! Yes, I accepted him.'

'And then—'Pon honour, ma'am, you are good at surprises. I fear I don't follow the course of events,' Sir George said icily.

'Then I changed my mind—the same day,' she replied. She was shaking on her feet with emotion; but in his jealousy he had no pity on her weakness. 'You know, a woman may change her mind once, Sir George,' she added with a feeble smile.

'I find that I don't know as much about women—as I thought I did,' Sir George answered grimly. 'You seem, ma'am, to be much sought after. One man can hardly hope to own you. Pray have you any other affairs to confess?'

'I have told you—all,' she said.

His face dark, he hung a moment between love and anger; looking at her. Then, 'Did he kiss you?' he said between his teeth. 'No!' she cried fiercely.

'You swear it?'

She flashed a look at him.

But he had no mercy. 'Why not?' he persisted, moving a step nearer her. 'You were betrothed to him. You engaged yourself to him, ma'am. Why not?'

'Because—I did not love him,' she answered so faintly he scarcely heard.

He drew a deep breath. 'May I kiss you?' he said.

She looked long at him, her face quivering between tears and smiles, a great joy dawning in the depths of her eyes. 'If my lord wills,' she said at last, 'when I have done his bidding and—and changed—and dressed as—'

But he did not wait.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE CLERK OF THE LEASES

When Sir George left the house, an hour later, it happened that the first person he met in the street was Mr. Fishwick. For a day or two after the conference at the Castle Inn the attorney had gone about, his ears on the stretch to catch the coming footstep. The air round him quivered with expectation. Something would happen. Sir George would do something. But with each day that passed eventless, the hope and expectation grew weaker; the care with which the attorney avoided his guest's eyes, more marked; until by noon of this day he had made up his mind that if Sir George came at all, it would be as the wolf and not as the sheep-dog. While Julia, proud and mute, was resolving that if her lover came she would save him from himself by showing him how far he had to stoop, the attorney in the sourness of defeat and a barren prospect—for he scarcely knew which way to turn for a guinea—was resolving that the ewe-lamb must be guarded and all precautions taken to that end.

When he saw the gentleman issue from his door therefore, still more when Sir George with a kindly smile held out his hand, a condescension which the attorney could not remember that he had ever extended to him before, Mr. Fishwick's prudence took fright. 'Too much honoured, Sir George,' he said, bowing low. Then stiffly, and looking from his visitor to the house and back again, 'But, pardon me, sir, if there is any matter of business, any offer to be made to my client, it were well, I think—if it were made through me.'

I thank you,' Sir George answered. 'I do not think that there is anything more to be done. I have made my offer.'

'Oh!' the lawyer cried.

'And it has been accepted,' Soane continued, smiling at his dismay. 'I believe that you have been a good friend to your client, Mr. Fishwick. I shall be obliged if you will allow her to remain under your roof until to-morrow, when she has consented to honour me by becoming my wife.'

'Your wife?' Mr. Fishwick ejaculated, his face a picture of surprise. 'To-morrow?'

'I brought a licence with me,' Sir George answered. 'I am now on my way to secure the services of a clergyman.'

The tears stood in Mr. Fishwick's eyes, and his voice shook. 'I felicitate you, sir,' he said, taking off his hat. 'God bless you, sir. Sir George, you are a very noble gentleman!' And then, remembering himself, he hastened to beg the gentleman's pardon for the liberty he had taken.

Sir George nodded kindly. 'There is a letter for you in the house, Mr. Fishwick,' he said, 'which I was asked to convey to you. For the present, good-day.'

Mr. Fishwick stood and watched him go with eyes wide with astonishment; nor was it until he had passed from sight that the lawyer turned and went into his house. On a bench in the passage he found a letter. It was formally directed after the fashion of those days 'To Mr. Peter Fishwick, Attorney at Law, at Wallingford in Berkshire, by favour of Sir George Soane of Estcombe, Baronet.'

'Lord save us, 'tis an honour,' the attorney muttered. 'What is it?' and with shaking hands he cut the thread that confined the packet. The letter, penned by Dr. Addington, was to this effect:

'Sir,—I am directed by the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham, Lord Keeper of His Majesty's Privy Seal, to convey to you his lordship's approbation of the conduct displayed by you in a late transaction. His lordship, acknowledging no higher claim to employment than probity, nor any more important duty in the disposition of patronage than the reward of integrity, desires me to intimate that the office of Clerk of the Leases in the Forest of Dean, which is vacant and has been placed at his command, is open for your acceptance. He is informed that the emoluments of the office arising from fees amount in good years to five hundred pounds, and in bad years seldom fall below four hundred.

His lordship has made me the channel of this communication, that I may take the opportunity of expressing my regret that a misunderstanding at one time arose between us. Accept, sir, this friendly assurance of a change of sentiment, and allow me to

'Have the honour to be, sir, 'Your obedient servant, 'J. Addington.'

'Clerk of the Leases—in the Forest of Dean—have been known in bad years—to fall to four hundred!' Mr. Fishwick ejaculated, his eyes like saucers. 'Oh, Lord, I am dreaming! I must be dreaming! If I don't get my cravat untied, I shall have a lit! Four hundred in bad years! It's a—oh, it's incredible! They'll not believe it! I vow they'll not believe it!'

But when he turned to seek them, he saw that they had stolen a march on him, that they knew it already and believed it! Between him and the tiny plot of grass, the urn, and the espalier, which, still caught the last beams of the setting sun, he surprised two happy faces spying on his joy—the one beaming through a hundred puckers with a mother's tearful pride; the other, the most beautiful in the world, and now softened and elevated by every happy emotion.

* * * * *

Mr. Dunborough stood his trial at the next Salisbury assizes, and, being acquitted of the murder of Mr. Pomeroy, was found guilty of manslaughter. He pleaded his clergy, went through the formality of being branded in the hand with a cold iron, and was discharged on payment of his fees. He lived to be the fifth Viscount Dunborough, a man neither much worse nor much better than his neighbours; and dying at a moderate age—in his bed, of gout in the stomach—escaped the misfortune which awaited some of his friends; who, living beyond the common span, found themselves shunned by a world which could find no worse to say of them than that they lived in their age as all men of fashion had lived in their youth.

Mr. Thomasson was less fortunate. Bully Pomeroy's dying words and the evidence of the man Tamplin were not enough to bring the crime home to him. But representations were made to his college, and steps were taken to compel him to resign his Fellowship. Before these came to an issue, he was arrested for debt, and thrown into the Fleet. There he lingered for a time, sinking into a lower and lower state of degradation, and making ever more and more piteous appeals to the noble pupils who owed so much of their knowledge of the world to his guidance. Beyond this point his career is not to be traced, but it is improbable that it was either creditable to him or edifying to his friends.

To-day the old Bath road is silent, or echoes only the fierce note of the cyclist's bell. The coaches and curricles, wigs and hoops, bolstered saddles and carriers' waggons are gone with the beaux and fine ladies and gentlemen's gentlemen whose environment they were; and the Castle Inn is no longer an inn. Under the wide eaves that sheltered the love passages of Sir George and Julia, in the panelled halls that echoed the steps of Dutch William and Duke Chandos, through the noble rooms that a Seymour built that Seymours might be born and die under their frescoed ceilings, the voices of boys and tutors now sound. The boys are divided from the men of that day by four generations, the tutors from the man we have depicted, by a moral gulf infinitely greater. Yet is the change in a sense outward only; for where the heart of youth beats, there, and not behind fans or masks, the 'Stand!' of the highwayman, or the 'Charge!' of the hero, lurks the high romance.

Nor on the outside is all changed at the Castle Inn. Those who in this quiet lap of the Wiltshire Downs are busy moulding the life of the future are reverent of the past. The old house stands stately, high-roofed, almost unaltered, its great pillared portico before it; hard by are the Druids' Mound, and Preshute Church in the lap of trees. Much water has run under the bridge that spans the Kennet since Sir George and Julia sat on the parapet and watched the Salisbury coach come in; the bridge that was of wood is of brick—but there it is, and the Kennet still flows under it, watering the lawns and flowering shrubs that Lady Hertford loved. Still can we trace in fancy the sweet-briar hedge and the border of pinks which she planted by the trim canal; and a bowshot from the great school can lose all knowledge of the present in the crowding memories which the Duelling Green and the Bowling Alley, trodden by the men and women of a past generation, awaken in the mind.

THE END