Title: The Prophet's Mantle
Author: Nesbit, E. (Edith)
Language: English
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  THE

  PROPHET'S MANTLE


  BY

  FABIAN BLAND


  NEW YORK

  NATIONAL BOOK COMPANY

  3, 4, 5 AND 6 MISSION PLACE



  COPYRIGHT, 1889,

  BY

  BELFORD, CLARKE & CO.



_CONTENTS._


        CHAP.                                                         PAGE

     PROLOGUE,                                                        1

     I. FATHER AND SONS,                                             17

    II. A NARROW ESCAPE,                                             27

   III. THE NEW MASTERS,                                             34

    IV. A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE,                                  41

     V. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE,                                         48

    VI. BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS,                                        54

   VII. SUNDAY EVENING IN SOHO,                                      60

  VIII. 'YOU LIE!''                                                  70

    IX. AT SPRAY'S BUILDINGS,                                        79

     X. A SOCIALIST,                                                 87

    XI. COUNT LITVINOFF IS SYMPATHETIC,                              97

   XII. SUCCESSFUL ANGLING,                                         108

  XIII. A FAIR MORNING'S WORK,                                      115

   XIV. A PEACEMAKER,                                               130

    XV. THE CLEON,                                                  140

   XVI. GOING HOME,                                                 148

  XVII. AN UNEXPECTED ADHERENT,                                     156

 XVIII. A MIXED ASSEMBLY,                                           162

   XIX. AN HONEST MAN AND A BRAVE ONE,                              177

    XX. IMPROVING PROSPECTS,                                        189

   XXI. FRIENDS IN COUNCIL,                                         195

  XXII. A FORLORN HOPE,                                             203

 XXIII. FIRE!                                                       211

  XXIV. AFTER THE FIRE,                                             219

   XXV. AT MARLBOROUGH VILLA,                                       225

  XXVI. ALL A MISTAKE,                                              243

  XXVII. MAKING IT UP,                                              258

XXVIII. VENGEANCE ASTRAY,                                           266

  XXIX. BACK FROM THE DEAD,                                         276

   XXX. TALKING THINGS OVER,                                        289

  XXXI. 'MY LITTLE GIRL,'                                           301

 XXXII. 'HAND IN HAND,'                                             308



THE PROPHET'S MANTLE.



PROLOGUE.


To be the son of a noble of high position, to be the heir to vast
estates in a western province, and to a palace in the capital, to
have large sums safely invested in foreign banks, to be surrounded by
every luxury that to most men makes life worth living, to be carefully
inoculated with all the most cherished beliefs of the territorial
aristocracy, and as carefully guarded from all liberal influences;
to be all this does not generally lead a man to be a social reformer
as well. Such causes, as a rule, do not produce a very revolutionary
effect. But in Russia, tyranny, officialism, and the supreme sway of
ignorance and brutality, seem to have reversed all ordinary rules,
and upset all ordinary calculations. There the 'gentlemen of the
pavement' are nobles, with a longer lineage than the Romanoffs, and
progressive views find some of their most doughty champions in the
ranks of the old nobility. So Count Michael Litvinoff was not such a
startling phenomenon, nor such a glaring anomaly, as he would have been
in any other country. His parents died when he was about eighteen,
and after their death he spent most of his time in close study of
physics, philosophy, and of the 'dismal science,' as expounded by its
most advanced apostles. He wrote, too, extensively, though most of
his works were published in countries where the censorship was not
quite so strict as in his own. When he was about twenty-five, and was
deep in the heart of his great work, 'The Social Enigma,' he woke up
one morning with a conviction that all his last chapters were utter
nonsense, and, what was worse, he couldn't for the life of him make out
what they meant even when he read them over. Bewildered and anxious, he
hastened to refer the matter to a personal friend and political ally,
whose answer was brief and to the point.

'Nonsense? Why, the book's as clear as daylight, and as convincing as
Euclid. You've been working too hard--overdoing it altogether. Go to
the South of France for a month, and lose a few roubles at Monte Carlo.
It will do you good.'

Michael Litvinoff took the first part of this advice; and though he did
not take the second part, he did sometimes spend an hour in watching
others lose their money.

One night he noticed a young man on whom fortune appeared to be
frowning with more than her usual persistence and bitterness. Again and
again he staked, and again and again he lost. At last he collected the
few coins that remained of the good-sized heap with which he had begun,
and staked them all. He lost again. He got up and walked out. Struck
by the wild look in his eyes, Litvinoff followed him into the gardens
of the Casino. At the end of a dark alley he stopped, pulled something
from his breast, which might have been a cigar-case, opened it, and
took out something which Litvinoff saw was not a cigar. The Count
sprang forward, and knocked the other's hand up just in time to send a
tiny bullet whizzing through the orange trees.

'Damn you!' cried the other, in English, turning furiously on
Litvinoff. 'What the devil do you mean?'

'Come to my rooms,' said the Count simply; and the other, after a
moment's hesitation and a glance of sullen defiance, actually obeyed,
and in silence the two walked side by side out of the gardens.

When the door of his sitting-room was closed upon them, Count Litvinoff
waved his new acquaintance to an easy-chair, and, taking one himself,
remarked,--

'You're a nice sort of sportsman, aren't you? Suppose you have some tea
and a cigar.'

'The cigar with pleasure; but tea is not much in my line.'

'Ah, I forgot; you English don't worship tea as we Russians do.
By-the-way, as there's no one else to perform the ceremony, I may as
well introduce myself. My name is Michael Litvinoff.'

The other looked up.

'Let me withdraw my refusal of your offer just now. I must confess that
it would be pleasant to me to drink tea, or anything else in reason, in
the company of the man who has written "Hopes and Fears for Liberty."'

The tea was made, and before the cigar was finished Litvinoff had
learned not only that his new friend was a political sympathiser, but
also the main facts in the young man's personal history.

His name was Armand Percival; his father English, his mother French. He
had been brought up in Paris, and had been left an orphan with a small
but sufficient property, which, with an energy and application worthy
of a better cause, he had managed to scatter to the winds before a year
was over. It was the last remnant of this little possession that he had
brought to Monte Carlo in the desperate hope of retrieving his fallen
fortunes, and with the fixed determination of accepting the ruling of
fate and of ending his life, should that hope be unfulfilled.

'And really,' he ended, 'you would have done better to have been
judiciously blind in the gardens just now, and have let the farce be
played out. As it is, affairs are just as desperate as they were an
hour ago, and I, perhaps thanks to your good tea, am not so desperate.
When I leave you I must go and grovel under the orange trees till I
find that pistol, for I haven't even the money to buy another.'

'It won't do to let the world lose a friend of liberty in this fashion.
They are scarce enough. We can talk this over to-morrow. Stay here
to-night. We'll hunt for your little toy by daylight if you like.'

They did find the pistol the next day. By that time they had had a
good deal of talk together, and Armand Percival had become the private
secretary of Count Michael Litvinoff.

       *       *       *       *       *

Life on the ancestral estate of the Litvinoffs was utterly different
from anything Percival had ever known before, but he had conceived an
unbounded admiration and affection for his friend and employer, and he
threw himself into his new duties with an ardour which made boredom
simply impossible, and with a perseverance almost equalling that which
he had displayed in the dissipation of his little fortune.

He helped Litvinoff in all his literary work, and was soon admitted
to his fullest confidence. His new life was wrapped in an atmosphere
of romance, and it contained a spice of danger which was perfectly
congenial to his nature. The most commonplace action ceases to be
commonplace when one knows that one risks one's life in doing it. He
soon made rapid progress in the Russian language--Swinburne was given
up for Pouchkine, Tchernychewsky displaced Victor Hugo, and Percival
revelled in the trenchant muscular style of Bakounin as he had once
delighted in the voluptuous sweetness of Théophile Gautier. He had
always had a leaning towards Democracy, and a fitful kind of enthusiasm
for popular liberty. The strong personal influence, the much bigger
enthusiasm, and the intense reality of Michael Litvinoff's convictions
served to swell what had been a little stream into a flood with a
tolerably strong current.

Both men worked hard, and at the end of some twenty months 'The Social
Enigma' was published in London and Paris. In this, Litvinoff's great
work, he managed to keep just on the right side of the hedge, but he
indemnified himself for this self-denial by writing a little pamphlet,
called 'A Prophetic Vision,' which was published by the Revolutionary
Secret Press, and circulated among the peasants, for whom it was
specially written; and all those concerned in its publication flattered
themselves that this time, at any rate, the chief of the secret police
and his creatures, in spite of their having obtained a copy twenty-four
hours after it was printed, were thoroughly off the track.

One night in winter the secretary sat at his old-fashioned desk in the
oak-panelled room in the east wing of the mansion. Big logs glowed on
the immense open hearth, in front of which a great hound stretched its
lazy length. The secretary was correcting manuscripts in a somewhat
desultory way, and varying the monotony of the penwork with frequent
puffs of cigarette smoke. Some wine stood at his elbow.

Count Litvinoff had been away ten days, and would be away as long
again. He had gone to a meeting of friends of the cause at Odessa, and
Percival felt the strength of his enthusiasm beginning to give way
before the appalling deadly dulness of his perfectly solitary life.
There was not a creature to speak to within miles except the servants,
and Russian servants, as a class, are not much of a resource against
_ennui_.

He flung down his pen at last, leaned back in his chair, and poured
himself out some more wine. He held it up to the light to admire its
ruby colour, and then tasted it appreciatively.

'H'm! not bad. About the best thing in the place now its master's away.
Heigho!--heigho! this is very slow, which, by-the-way, is rhyme.'

He spoke the words aloud, and the hound on the bearskin by the fire
rose, stretched itself, and came slowly to lay its great head on his
knee.

'Well, old girl, I daresay you'd like a little hunting for a change.
Upon my soul it's almost a pity we're so very clever in keeping our
literary achievements dark. We should have something exciting then at
anyrate, and I'd give anything for a little excitement.'

'You're likely to have as much as you care about, then,' said another
voice, which made Percival leap to his feet as the purple curtains that
hung across the arched entrance to the sleeping-room were flung back,
and a tall figure, muffled in furs, strode forward. The dog sprang at
it.

'Down, Olga! Quiet, quiet, old lady!'

The coat was thrown off, and fell with a flop to the ground; and
Litvinoff held out his hand to his secretary, who had started back and
caught up the manuscripts, and was holding them behind him.

'Good heavens!' said Percival. 'Litvinoff, what is it? Are they after
you? How did you come in?'

'I came in the way we must go out before another half-hour. They've
found out the distinguished author of the "Vision," and they're anxious
to secure the wonder. Lock that door; we don't want the servants.'

'It is locked. I don't do work of this sort with unlocked doors.'

Litvinoff glanced at the manuscript on the oak writing-table.

'We must collect all this and burn it, though I don't think we could be
deeper damned than we are, even if we left it alone.'

'But where have you come from?' asked Percival, laying his hand on the
other's shoulder. 'You're wet through. Have a drink,' and he poured out
a tumbler of the Burgundy.

Litvinoff took it, and as he set down the glass replied, 'I fell into
some water. There was snow enough to hide the ice.'

'Well, then, the very first thing is to change your clothes. Shall I
get you dry ones, or will you go?'

'No, no; neither of us must leave this room. There may be a traitor
in the house for aught I know. No one saw me come in. I shall do well
enough.'

'You may as well be executed at once as be frozen to death in the
course of the night. You must make shift with some of my things. You
change while I see to the papers. We can talk while you're changing.'

Each went deftly and swiftly about what he had to do, and neither
seemed to be in the least thrown off his balance. There was much less
fuss than there is in some families every morning when the 'City man'
is hurrying to catch his train. Drawer after drawer was emptied out
on the wide hearthstones, and as stern denunciations of tyranny and
eloquent appeals to the spirit of freedom vanished in smoke and sparks
up the great chimney, Percival, a little puffed by his exertions,
asked, 'How soon _must_ we go? What's the exact state of things?'

'Our friends at Odessa were warned. There's an order for my arrest. I
was to have been taken at Odessa, and long before this they'll have
found out that I'm not there, and will have started after me here.'

'But how are we to go? Are we to walk, and fall into a succession of
pools? Can't we get some horses from the stable?'

'I have a sleigh not a quarter of a mile off. Zabrousky is with
it, waiting. We can reach Kilsen to-night, and get horses for the
frontier. There is a revolver in the desk. The one in my belt is full
of water. I've got two passports that will carry us over. You are
Monsieur Mericourt of Paris, and I am Herr Baum of Düsseldorf, friends
travelling.'

It was lucky that this room, the ordinary work-room of the friends,
contained all their secrets and most of their 'portable property.'

'How about money?' asked the secretary.

'There are three hundred Napoleons in the cash-box. Those will be best
to take. By-the-way, stick a French novel into your portmanteau, and
throw in anything you can to fill it up. We have the frontier to pass.
You know I am all right at Paris or Vienna.'

'Oh, yes,' rejoined Percival. 'If we get there we're all right. But
these clothes of yours; we must hide them, or they'll tell tales.'

'Oh, bring them with you, and leave the room in order.'

'Yes, and I must take a revolver myself. We'll give a good account of a
few of those brutes if they come too close.'

'Are we ready? I'll take the portmanteau, you carry those clothes. Now
then, lights out. Give me your hand.'

The candles were blown out, and Litvinoff led the way through the
bedroom and through a tiny door in the panelled wall, of whose
existence Percival had been up to this moment ignorant. They passed
down a narrow staircase, in a niche of whose wall they left the wet
garments, and, passing through a stone passage or two, suddenly came
out into the ice-cold air at an angle of the house quite other than
that at which Percival had expected to find himself.

Litvinoff shivered. 'I miss my cloak,' he said. 'However, there are
plenty of skins in the sleigh.'

The snow fell lightly on them as they hurried quietly away; it did its
best with its cold feathery veil to hide the footsteps of the fugitives.

'Is this exciting enough for you?' asked the Count as they strode along
under cover of the trees.

'Quite, thanks--I think I should be able to submit to a little less
excitement with equanimity. It won't be actually unpleasant to be out
of the dominions of his sacred majesty.'

'This excitement is nothing to what we shall have in getting over the
frontier,' said Litvinoff; 'that's where the tug of war will come.
Percival,' he went on after a pause, 'I shall never forgive myself if
you suffer in this business through me.'

'My dear fellow,' Percival answered cheerfully, 'if it had not been
for you I should have been out of it all long ago, and if the worst
comes to the worst, there's still a way out of it. As long as I have my
trusty little friend here,' tapping the revolver in his breast pocket,
'I don't intend to see the inside of St Peter and St Paul.'

As he spoke they heard the sound of horses' restless hoofs.

'What's that?'

'All right!' returned Litvinoff. 'They're our horses.'

Behind a clump of fir trees the sleigh was waiting, and beside it a man
on a horse.

The two friends entered the sleigh, and adjusted the furs about them,
and Litvinoff took the reins.

'Good speed,' said Zabrousky; 'a safe journey, and a good deliverance.'

'Good-bye,' Litvinoff said. 'Don't stay here a moment. It may cost you
your life.'

In another instant the horseman had turned and left them, and the
jingling of the harness and the noise of the fleet hoofs were the only
sounds that broke the dense night silence as the sleigh sped forward.

'Have you any idea what the time is?' said Litvinoff, when they had
travelled smoothly over three or four miles of snow. 'It's too cold to
get watches out, and too dark to see them if we did.'

'It must be past two,' said Percival. 'It must have been past midnight
when you came in. I wonder what time those devils will reach the empty
nest.'

'The later the better for us, and the servants will mix things a bit
by telling them that I've not been home. At this rate we shall reach
Eckovitch's place about four. We can stretch our legs there while he
rubs the horses down a bit.'

'Will that be safe? Is he to be trusted?'

'My dear Percival, this line of retreat has been marked out a long
time. Eckovitch has been ready for me any time these three years.'

Nothing more was said. The situation was too grave for mere chatter,
and there was nothing of importance that needed saying just then.
Percival leaned back among the furs, which were by this time covered
with snow, and Litvinoff seemed to be concentrating all his attention
on his driving, using the horses as gently as possible, and continually
leaning forward and peering into the darkness to make out the track,
which was becoming no easy task, as the steady falling snow was fast
obliterating the landmarks.

The secretary, overcome by that drowsiness which results from swift
movement through bitterly cold air, was almost asleep, when the horses
slackened speed, and the change in the motion roused him.

'What's up? What's wrong?' he asked.

'All right. Here's Eckovitch!' and as he spoke the sleigh drew up in
front of a long, low wooden building. He handed the reins to Percival,
sprang to the ground, and battered at the door. After a short pause a
light could be seen within, and a voice asked,--

'Who's there?'

The Count answered with one word which had a Russian sound, but which
Percival had never heard before.

The door was opened at once, and after a few low-spoken words between
Litvinoff and someone within, a man came out and took the reins, and
Percival left the sleigh and followed his friend into the house.

A woman was already busy in fanning into new life the red ashes that
had been covered over on the hearth. She flung on some chips and fir
cones, and soon the crackling wood blazed up and showed the homely but
not uncomfortable interior. As the two travellers shook the snow off
their furs, Percival asked in English who this man was.

'A friend,' Litvinoff answered. 'He's supposed to be an innkeeper, but
there aren't many travellers on this road. We make up deficiencies in
his income.'

They drew seats up to the fire, and the woman brought them some glasses
and a flask of vodka.

'You shall have some tea in a minute.'

'I hate this liquid fire,' said Percival, 'and I like tea better than I
did at Monte Carlo. I'll wait for that.'

'Drink this, and don't be too particular. It'll help to keep us going,
and we'll take the fag end of the flask with us,' Litvinoff answered.

When the tea was ready, and some sausage and bread were set before
the strangers, the woman sat down on the other side of the hearth and
looked at them as they ate, which they did with fairly good appetites.

Presently a low wailing cry arose from the further corner of the room,
and the woman went and took up a funny old-fashioned looking little
baby, and, returning to her seat by the fire, sat hushing it with low
whispers of endearment. It was a strangely peaceful little scene,
between two acts of a sufficiently exciting drama, which, for aught any
of the actors knew, might end as a tragedy.

The spell of silence which had been over them in the sleigh was broken
now, and they chatted lightly over their hasty meal. The Count's
demeanour in the face of danger was a thing after Percival's own heart,
and he had never admired his friend so much as he did, when, the meal
being over, Litvinoff leaned back nonchalantly, stroking his long fair
moustache and stirring his final cup of tea.

The secretary's own calmness was really more remarkable, however, since
he was in the position of a young soldier under fire for the first
time, whereas Litvinoff had known for eight years that at any moment he
might be arrested, or might have to fly.

'Your horses will do to get to Kilsen now,' said the man, opening the
door; 'you were wise to give them this rest. They'd not have done
without it.'

'Poor brutes,' said the Count, 'I wish we could give them longer, but
every minute's of consequence.'

'You'll cross the frontier at Ergratz, I suppose,' said the innkeeper,
as they came out into the air. The weather had changed in the little
time they had been in shelter. The snow was no longer falling; through
a break in the clouds one or two stars twinkled frostily, and the wind
was blowing the snow off the road in drifts.

As the sleigh glided away the man re-entered his house and bolted the
door, and in five minutes the fire was raked together and covered over,
the light was extinguished, and no sign left to show that wayfarers
had been entertained there that night.

'We'll take the horses easily a bit now,' said Litvinoff; 'there'll be
some stiffish hills by-and-by.'

They seemed to have been on the road for about six nights instead
of one, when, nearly half way up one of these same stiffish hills,
Percival laid his hand on Litvinoff's shoulder. 'Stop a moment,' he
said, 'I heard hoofs behind.'

They stopped, listened, and heard nothing.

'It must have been the echo of our own hoofs among these hills. If they
are near enough to be heard, it's all up with us. They're sure to be
well mounted. However, we'll do our best to get on to Kilsen, and get
mounted ourselves before morning.'

But morning was beginning to break, and with it came fresh snow.

At the foot of the next hill the secretary spoke again.

'Litvinoff, I'm certain I hear hoofs, and a good many of them.'

'So do I. We'll whip on--they can't hear us, the wind blows from them.
We'll try another chance presently. I don't think we can win by speed.'
He urged on the tired horses with voice and whip, and the weary animals
put forth their strength in a wilder gallop. They were now rushing very
swiftly through the icy air, and every moment increased the pace.

They had to slacken a little in going up the last and highest hill,
near the crown of which they turned back their heads, and saw that what
they had been flying from all night was close upon them now.

Over the brow of a lower hill immediately behind them came a band of
horsemen, about a dozen strong as it seemed in the pale grey of the
dawn.

'We must leave the sleigh,' said Litvinoff. 'Almost in a line across
country to the left, not more than two versts off, is the house of
Teliaboff; there we are safe for a day or two, if we can get there
unseen. It's a desperate chance, but we must try it. Prop up the
portmanteau and the furs to look like our figures. We'll tie the reins
here, and get out just over the brow. They'll see us as we go over.
Those Cossacks have eyes like eagles. We'll lash the horses on, and
they'll go some distance without us; and when those devils find we're
not in the sleigh they won't know exactly where to begin to search for
us. Thank God, it's snowing harder and harder. That will help to hide
our traces; and over this broken ground to the left our legs will serve
us better than their horses will them.'

'There's barely a chance,' said the secretary. 'Let's stay and fight it
out.'

'We'll fight if the worst comes to the worst; but as it is we've a very
fair chance of escape. We have our revolvers.'

As they crossed the brow of the hill a wild shout borne by the wind
told them that the Count had been right. They had been seen.

Litvinoff stopped the horses, and the two men got out, leaving the
counterfeit presentment of themselves, which the secretary's deft hands
had invested with a very real appearance.

The Count gave two tremendous lashes, the horses sprang madly forward
at three times the pace they had made hitherto, and the two fugitives
plunged through the snow to the left of the road.

'Don't go too fast,' whispered Litvinoff; 'you'll need all your wind
presently. We've a fair start now, and they can't follow on horseback.'

They had not gone two hundred yards before they heard the troop sweep
by.

'We weren't a minute too soon,' the secretary said.

'There goes another of them,' said the Count, as again they caught the
sound of a horse's snow-muffled hoofs.

On they went, struggling over rough ground, sometimes waist-deep in
snowdrifts, sometimes tripping over concealed stones or broken wood.

'We shall do it now,' said Litvinoff.

'They're on us, by God!' cried the secretary at the same instant.

They turned; they had been tracked, but only by one man. One of the
pursuers, who had been a little behind the others, either better
trained in this sort of sport than his fellows, or guided by some sixth
sense, seemed to have divined what they had done, and had dismounted
just at the right place, and followed them on foot.

He gave a yell of triumph as he saw a grey figure struggling up the
incline before him.

'Aha, Mr Secretary,' he cried, and, raising his carbine, fired; the
grey figure stumbled forward into the snow. '_You're_ done for, at any
rate!'

The Cossack's triumph was a short one. As he dashed forward to secure
his fallen quarry, another figure sprang from the snowy brushwood a
little ahead of him, walked calmly towards him, raised a revolver, and
shot him through the heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

A week or two later one of those short and inaccurate paragraphs which
date from St Petersburg appeared in several European papers. It was
to the effect that Count Michael Litvinoff had been captured, after a
desperate struggle, near the frontier, and that his private secretary,
a young Englishman, had been shot in the fray.

But the French papers knew better, and that report was promptly
contradicted.

The _Débats_, while confirming the news of the secretary's death,
asserted that Count Michael Litvinoff was at that moment at the Hôtel
du Louvre, and his bankers would have confirmed the statement.

And in the rooms of the Count at the Hôtel du Louvre a haggard,
weary-faced man, almost worn out by the desperate excitement and the
horrors of the last few weeks, was pacing up and down, unable to get
away from the picture, that was ever before his eyes, of his friend's
dead face, bloodstained and upturned from the snow, in the cold, grey
morning light; unable to escape from that triumphant shout, 'Aha, Mr
Secretary, _you're_ done for, at any rate,' which seemed as if it would
ring for ever in his ears.

'I would give ten years of my life to undo that night's work. I shall
never meet another man quite like him. I wish the brute had shot me,'
he said to himself over and over again.



CHAPTER I.

FATHER AND SONS.


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

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

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

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

'Where are the boys?'

'Gone to Aspinshaw.'

'Both of them?'

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

The old man looked pleased.

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

'I want them both when they come in.'

'Suppose you are asleep?'

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

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

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

'Wilt have a light?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Yes--we've been very good friends.'

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

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

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

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

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

'I will try to do everything you wish.'

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

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

'Is Mr Roland at home yet?'

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

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

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

He turned and went to his own room.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Know what, father?'

'How much I wanted to see you.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Yes--yes--I will, indeed.'

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

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

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

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

'I want--' the old man began.

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

As he took it he asked,--

'Is it too late to send for Gates?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He opened his eyes then.

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER II.

A NARROW ESCAPE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She was holding his arm tightly between her hands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Dear, dear! How extraordinary.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER III.

THE NEW MASTERS.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Hungry dogs eat dirty pudding,' remarked Potters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Ay, and not long fust.'

'Mr Roland's always up at Aspinshaw.'

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

'They can't both marry the girl.'

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

'And a gradely lass she is.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

  Weep by silent graves alone,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER IV.

A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Yes, if you wish it.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

'How splendid!' said Clare.

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

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

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

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

'Mr Roland Ferrier,' and disappeared.

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

Both bowed. Roland did not look particularly delighted.

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER V.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.


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

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

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

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

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

The girl turned a very white face towards him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'And where is home?'

'Not a long way off.'

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

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

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

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

'Come, tell me,' he persisted.

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

'Perhaps I can.'

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

'Then he has left you?'

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

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

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

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

'Working.'

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

She dried her eyes obediently, and answered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Then you read the papers?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Not at all.'

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

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

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

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

'Why, you're forgetting your parcel.'

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VI.

BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS.


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

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

  Colours seen by candle light
  Will not look the same by day.

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

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

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

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

'What time did you get home?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'A veritable Baron Munchausen, in fact?'

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

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

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

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

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

'Of course I will.'

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

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

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

  '15 SPRAY'S BUILDINGS,
  PORSON STREET, W.C.

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

  'ALICE HATFIELD.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VII.

SUNDAY EVENING IN SOHO.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Litvinoff rose at once.

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

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

Litvinoff was very pale as he answered,--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VIII.

'YOU LIE!'


  'MORLEY'S HOTEL, _Sunday Evening_.

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

  'CLARE STANLEY.

 '_P.S._--Count Litvinoff, your interesting Russian friend, will be
 here.'

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

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

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

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

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

'Here you are,' he said. '_Bouquet de Nihilist_, trebly distilled.'

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

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

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

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

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

'Nor yet a runaway rebel.'

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

'Who did you think it was?'

'Little Alice.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He glanced over the broken banisters, and recoiled hastily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'And where _is_ Litvinoff?'

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

'This. You lie!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Do you know where she's gone?'

'No, I don't.'

'Does anyone in the house know?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER IX.

AT SPRAY'S BUILDINGS.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Here I am.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mrs Fludger rubbed her hands together in a little embarrassment.

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

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

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



CHAPTER X.

A SOCIALIST.


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

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

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

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

'I will go out,' she had said, rising at last with a feeling that
even in strange and unregarding faces there would be companionship of
a kind. So she had left her room and had wandered about, passing more
than one spot hung thickly round with memories of her short day of
sunshine. Then when night fell she felt that she _could not_ go back to
that new inhospitable room of hers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She shook her head.

'Any dinner?'

'No.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Did you go by chance?'

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

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

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

'Are you living with friends?'

'No, I am living alone.'

'Are your parents living?'

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

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

'Were they unkind to you?'

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

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

'What do you want to know?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'No, I am not frightened.'

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XI.

COUNT LITVINOFF IS SYMPATHETIC.


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

'Come in.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'What did you say to him?'

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

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

'I told him the truth.'

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

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

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

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

'No, but our view of them does.'

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

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

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

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

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

Clare returned his gaze steadily.

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

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

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

She rose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'How unfortunate,' he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'How do you mean?'

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

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

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

The Count bowed.

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

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

'Miss Stanley,' he ended.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'I beg your pardon?'

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

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

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

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

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

'No.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XII.

SUCCESSFUL ANGLING.


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

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

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

He finished his glass of grog.

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'The aldermen of London are an essential--'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They were silent for a little while.

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

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

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

'Why do you ask, then?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The question was put so innocently, and the Count appeared so really
perplexed, that Miss Stanley stifled the evasive answer that first
occurred to her, and said simply,--

'No, I don't.'

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

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

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

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

'Which do you think is in the wrong?'

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

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

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

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

'I knew you would say that.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XIII.

A FAIR MORNING'S WORK.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Don't know the name.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Not from you, I am sure.'

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

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

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

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

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

An opinion in which her hearer concurred.

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

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

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

The other smiled grimly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Nothing yet.'

'What are you going to do?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'No.'

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

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

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

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

'You are not married to him?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       *       *       *       *       *

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

Alice followed her into the parlour afterwards.

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

The other interrupted her.

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XIV.

A PEACEMAKER.


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

  'Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round;
  Every day beneath his sway fools old and young are found.
  'Tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Show that distinguished gentleman up.'

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

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

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

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

The other did so.

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

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

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

'I am very sorry. Who is he?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'What is our friend's name?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Thank you, no; I have eaten.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Good morning, Count Litvinoff,' he said; 'can I be of any service to
you?'

'It was your brother I wished to see,' said the Count. 'He did me the
honour to spend a few moments at my rooms last night, and I think this
must be his. May I trouble you to give it to him?'

Here he produced the cigar-case.

'I don't think it belongs to my brother,' said Richard, 'and I'm sorry
I can't do anything in the matter; but I sha'n't see him again.'

'Ah! you are leaving London?'

'I'm leaving this hotel.'

'Well, perhaps you are right to seek one more cheerfully placed. You
are not looking well; perhaps this situation depresses you?'

'Oh, I'm all right, thanks. I'm rather glad you happened to call,
because I shall perhaps not see you again. I'm afraid I was rather
uncivil yesterday, and, if so, I'm sorry: I didn't intend it, but it
struck me afterwards that it might seem so to you. The fact is, I was
horribly put out about something.'

'Oh, don't mention it. I saw then that you were annoyed about
something, and now I know what it was. I know enough of English
manners, Mr Ferrier, to know that here a stranger's interference in
personal or family matters is the unpardonable sin. But my faith, you
know, compels me to set aside conventions that are only conventions,
and to try to give help wherever help can be given.

'I am so complete a stranger,' he went on, regardless of a slight
movement of impatience from the other, 'so utterly, so palpably
disinterested, that I hope I may without offence say to you what I
intended to say to Mr Roland.'

'I don't see that anything could be said to my brother without offence
that could not equally well be said to me.'

'This, then, is what I would ask. Is there anything I can do to effect
a reconciliation between you and your brother, and prevent this breach
from growing wider?'

'I had never told you that there was any breach,' Richard said stiffly.

'No,' he said, 'but all others have not your powers of reticence.'

'I presume my brother has been confiding in you.'

'Your brother told me--what perhaps his pride forbade him to tell
you--that you had accused him of something of which he assured me he
was as innocent as--as I am,' ended Litvinoff, raising his eyebrows
ingenuously.

Richard's first impulse was to request the Count to mind his own
business, but he remembered that the interferer was a foreigner, and
besides, Litvinoff's manner was so honest, and what he said was true
enough. He certainly must be disinterested. So he constrained himself
to say, with very little change of manner,--

'If my brother wishes to disprove any charges I may bring, he'd better
disprove them to me.'

'But are you quite sure that you were not mistaken? May not your
feelings on another matter have predisposed you to believe without
evidence enough in this?'

'I quite fail to understand,' said Richard, frowning.

'Is it not possible that you may have thought of him less as your
brother than as your rival?'

'If you have anything more to say that _needs_ saying, I shall be glad
if you will say it plainly.' Richard spoke angrily.

'Plainly, then--you also are a suitor for the hand of Miss Stanley?'

Ferrier's hand clenched itself, and then made a little movement which
seemed quite involuntary. The blood rushed to his face as he spoke.

'May I ask who gave you that piece of false information?'

'Certainly you may ask,' answered Litvinoff, smiling very sweetly.
Other people's tempers did not seem to affect him much. 'You may ask,
but I--I must not reply.'

'It is lucky that I don't need your answer. There's only one person who
would have told you such a lie, and for the future you'd better keep
your interference for him, as he seems to like it.'

'And you, perhaps you'd better keep your insolence for those who'll
stand it,' said Litvinoff, with the same gentle smile. 'Perhaps
our next meeting may be in a country where it is customary to
avenge insults in some other way than what you call, I think, a
rough-and-tumble fight. _Au revoir!_'

'You don't seem to find other countries very anxious to have you, since
you have had to run away from one at least,' said Richard passionately.

'Oh, delicacy and nobility of English chivalry!' said the Count,
turning at the door to favour the other with one last smile. 'How
unfortunate for Miss Stanley that you at least are impossible. Pouf!
The _bourgeoisie_ is the same, all the world over!'

He lingered in the hall to make himself a cigarette, half expecting
Richard to follow him, but as he did not, strolled slowly away into the
street.

Richard remained standing in the coffee-room with one hand on the table
by which the conversation had taken place.

He felt indignantly injured by Litvinoff's interference, and in the
first moments of passion felt sure that his interference had not been
disinterested. But as he grew calmer, and was able to think the matter
out quietly, he could not suggest to himself any possible reason for
the Count's wishing to adjust the quarrel between himself and Roland,
except the one he had given. Yet, even if the Russian had been merely
filling the _rôle_ of 'friend of humanity,' Dick felt glad that he had
shown resentment. One might overlook intermeddling which had its rise
in an overpowering interest in one's own personality; but when one
was included merely in a vast aggregate like humanity, the compliment
which might have been as salt to over-officiousness did not exist,
and the conduct of the Count became simply offensive. But, after all,
most of his resentment was levelled at the man who had put this weapon
into the Russian's hands. Had his brother completely lost all sense
of honour--of decency even--that he should thus make him, Richard,
the subject of confidence with a stranger? And such confidences, too;
confidences that hinged on _her_ name.

'But why should I expect anything better from him, after his conduct to
that poor child?'

Then he thought of all he fancied he had discovered about Alice, and
all the little things that had aggravated the quarrel with Roland. All
the substance of the quarrel would not, perhaps, seem insurmountable if
it were written here in detail, but to Richard and his brother these
things appeared in far other proportions. The mutual jealousy and
distrust that had been growing up between them in the past months was
as so much dry tinder ready to catch fire at any spark of a pretext for
anger which either might have lighted on.

And this case of Alice was something more than a trifling pretext.
Richard himself was neither an angel nor a monk, but at least he played
the game of life according to the rules. And, consequently, he felt
towards his brother much as an old _écarté_ player might towards a man
who kept kings up his sleeve.

He decided to spend a few more hours in the search for Alice, which,
hitherto unavailing, he had kept up for the last two days, and then he
would go down home and see Gates, and Roland would have his wish. The
same roof should not cover them again.



CHAPTER XV.

THE CLEON.


'Well, I hope you will enjoy the evening, my dear; at anyrate, it will
be a new experience for you, and will show you that some of us can be
earnest even in the midst of our life of frivolity and heartlessness.
You know, I have been a Socialist almost from my birth.'

The speaker sighed gently, and adjusted the folds of her rich black
satin dress.

'Oh, I am sure I shall enjoy it immensely, dear Mrs Quaid,' answered
Clare Stanley, she being the person addressed; 'you know, since papa
was rescued from those dreadful horses, I have taken such an interest
in all these questions. It is too good of you to have asked such an
outsider as I am to a gathering like this. I don't feel frightened of
you, because I know how kind you are, but I'm afraid I shall be at a
loss with all the rest of the clever people.'

Mrs Quaid smiled benignantly. 'Oh, my _dear_, intellect is _not_ what
we care for. The great thing is _character_.'

Mrs Quaid emphasised every third or fourth word in such a way as to
give to her smallest remarks an apparently profound significance. She
was a distinguished member of the Cleon, a small society which met at
the houses of members for the purpose of discussing social questions.
To-night the meeting was to take place in her own drawing-room, and
she had invited her daughter's school friend, Clare Stanley, to spend
the evening, which that young woman was glad enough to do, as her
father was going to dine at the 'Travellers'' with a friend, and she
did not care to face the long lonely evening in the hotel sitting-room.
Besides, Mrs Quaid in herself was always amusing to the girl, whose
sharp eyes noticed all the little inconsistencies overlooked by more
constant associates. Mrs Quaid had, as she said, been a Socialist
almost from her birth, and repudiated with scorn what she termed the
'sad distinctions of class,' but she had such tender consideration
for those who did not share her views that she never invited those
whom she naïvely styled 'one's _own_ friends' to meet any of those
members of the working class whom she warmly but fitfully patronised.
She was one of those who, while professing the strongest sympathy with
the fashionable Socialism, are able to avail themselves of all the
advantages which the present system offers to a limited number; and
while ardently looking forward to a time when all men would be equal,
appear to view with sweet resignation the probable continuance of the
present system during their lifetime and that of their children.

On this particular occasion both she and her daughter, a charming
specimen of frank English girlhood, were more interested than usual in
the business before them.

This evening was to be a field night. The secretary of the Cleon had
captured a genuine Russian Socialist, and the society was disposed to
make the most of him.

Nearly every member was to bring a friend, so the gathering would be a
large one. It was very amusing to Miss Stanley to watch the arrivals,
and to ticket them in her own mind each with his appropriate epithet,
and the more uncomplimentary these epithets were, the more demure and
unconscious she looked. Mrs Quaid introduced to her several personal
adherents, for the Cleon, like larger assemblies, was not without its
party differences. Miss Stanley did not feel particularly drawn towards
any of them. _They_ had not had to fly across Russian frontiers, nor
had they ever, to her knowledge, imperilled their lives at the heads of
runaway horses.

There was a Civil Service clerk whose strong point was statistics,
and another one whose strong point was so obvious an adherence to
the principles of the hostess, that he was secretly styled by the
irreverent Irreconcilables 'the member for Quaid.' He was an advocate
for short hours of labour, particularly in Government offices. Then
there was an enthusiastic young stockjobber, with a passion for
morality in public life, who believed in levelling down--to the
level of stockjobbers, and who systematically avoided revolutionary
literature, on the grounds that it would prevent his keeping good
tempered, and he wished to keep good tempered, which Clare thought very
nice of him.

Then there was the man whose friends thought he was like Camille
Desmoulins, and the man who himself thought he was like Danton.

Then there was a George Atkins, whose care for humanity in the abstract
was so great as to soar far above the level of his own wife, who was
popularly supposed to have rather a bad time of it.

The 'great proletariat,' on whose behalf the Cleon met and discussed,
was represented by one stone-mason. Clare was surprised when she heard
what his calling was, as there was nothing in his dress or bearing to
distinguish him from the other men present. Perhaps that was why Mrs
Quaid had specially invited him.

There were about a score of other members who were less noticeable
on account of any peculiarity. They formed the real strength of the
society, and did all the work, owing to which it held a position in the
Socialist movement altogether out of proportion to its numbers.

The majority of the ladies gave a business-like aspect to the evening
by severely retaining their outdoor garments. Some of these were of
peculiar shape and make, a fact which Mrs Quaid explained in a whisper
to be the result of their employment of inexperienced dressmakers, on
the highest moral grounds.

By the time Clare had noticed all this the room was pretty full, and as
everyone talked at once, and very loud, one might, by shutting one's
eyes, have fancied oneself at an ordinary 'at home,' instead of at a
serious gathering, whose note was earnestness, and whose _motif_ was
social regeneration.

She was just thinking something like this when Mrs Quaid touched her on
the shoulder.

'Clare, my love,' she said, 'you _must_ let me introduce _dear_ Mr
Petrovitch to you. You know he has been so exceedingly good as to
consent to read us a paper to-night.'

Clare knew by experience that all her hostess's male friends were
'dear,' and her female ones 'sweet,' for at least three weeks after
their first introduction, but when she turned to receive Petrovitch's
bow, it did strike her that the epithet was more than usually
incongruous. He was about the last person, she thought, to whom terms
of indiscriminate endearment could be applied.

After the Continental manner, he had put on evening dress. The wide
shirt-front showed off the splendid breadth of a chest that would not
have disgraced a Life Guardsman in uniform. Miss Stanley, as she looked
at him, admitted to herself that on some people the claw-hammer coat
was not without its æsthetic attraction.

As the people settled down into chairs he took a seat beside her, but
in such a position that she could see his face without turning her own.

Then, after a few business preliminaries, Petrovitch began to speak.
He did not read, as had been announced, but spoke from notes, with
a little hesitation, caused, perhaps, by his speaking in a foreign
language. To most of his hearers what he had to say was well-known, no
doubt; but to Clare all he said came as a revelation. She had come to
be amused, to criticise, to 'make fun,' perhaps; but what she heard
from this man beside her was not in the least amusing or funny. It
seemed to her more like the gospel of a new religion. She listened
intently, and after a while, unconsciously influenced by the interest
and light in her face, he began to feel less and less as though he
were talking to the room, and more and more as though he were speaking
solely to the girl beside him. If he saw comprehension in her eyes, he
did not trouble to explain a point further; if he saw a question there,
he answered it; a doubt, he solved it. Some eyes are easy to read, and
Petrovitch was a master of that art.

The girl was no fool, and though the whole theory of Socialism was
new to her, she was able to follow the rigorous train of logic with
which he led up to his conclusions. He attacked all the stock ideas
which she had been brought up to respect. It somehow did not seem like
blasphemy. He flung scorn and derision on the social ideals which she
had heard lauded from her cradle. Some things which she had been taught
to consider admirable and desirable, grew, as he spoke of them, to seem
mean and paltry. Life, as she listened, took new meanings, and became
of deeper significance. Even the affairs of every day, the chance
stories of misery, and the 'painful' paragraphs of the newspapers,
which she felt, and shuddered as she felt, had hitherto seemed only
occasions for the sprinkling of a little Radical rose-water--little
stings of passing horror, which heightened rather than detracted from
the pleasures of existence--seemed now to be worth considering in some
other light.

This was not the first time that Clare's heart had been stirred and
her sympathies quickened by a spoken discourse. More than once she
remembered having left the doors of parish church or cathedral in a
tumult of emotion when some specially earnest and eloquent preacher
had succeeded in casting a new and fierce light into the inmost depths
of her soul; but, she remembered, those feelings had been transient,
and strong though the new convictions and resolutions had been when
she left the sacred portals, the small things of life--the duties of
school, the light worries of home, the social _bagatelles_, things
trivial and tenuous enough in themselves--had soon settled down upon
her like a thick atmosphere, and by their aggregate weight had crushed,
not out of existence, but back to her soul's remoter recesses, the
new-born life.

As Petrovitch finished speaking, and, folding up his notes, thanked
his hearers for their patience and attention, she wondered to herself,
so quick is thought, whether what had happened before would not happen
again, and whether by this time to-morrow her mind would not be running
with its accustomed smoothness in its accustomed channels. She hoped
no; she feared yes. But somehow something seemed to tell her that in
these past experiences her emotions only had been affected, but that
this time her reason also had been forced into life and action, and it
would be harder to chloroform that, she thought.

For some minutes after he had ceased she was so preoccupied with these
thoughts that she hardly noticed the sharp fire of questions which was
levelled at him from visitors in different parts of the room. When she
did begin to listen to them, it was only to wonder how people could so
have misunderstood what seemed to her so clear. There was one lady in
particular who asked inconsequent questions in such a feebly deliberate
manner, dropping her words out as though they were some precious elixir
of which it was not well to give out much at a time, that Clare felt
an insane desire to shake her words out of her, and at the same time a
little sense into her.

The genial young stockbroker wanted to know whether the best part of
Petrovitch's scheme was not included in the present Radical programme,
but his suggestion was received with disapprobation by the large
majority, and he hastily withdrew into obscurity. It struck Miss
Stanley that all the questions and remarks were on side issues, and
left untouched the main contentions.

When the chairman of the evening announced that the discussion was
at an end, everybody rose and began to talk at once--in most cases
_not_ about the paper. Perhaps they were all glad to get away from the
larger questions of life's possibilities, and to return to the trivial
personalities which form the chief interest of most of our lives.

'You are interested in these questions, Miss Stanley?' Petrovitch said,
as he turned to bid her good-night.

'I--I--shall be.'

'Yes, I think you will. Good-bye.'

He left alone, and at once, telling his hostess he had an appointment
to keep.

Just outside the door he met Count Litvinoff's visitor of the morning.
Hirsch had evidently been waiting for him with some impatience. He
turned, and they walked away together.

'I've been here some time,' he said. 'I thought you must have gone.'

'I am sorry,' said Petrovitch; 'I could not leave earlier.'

'Little good you'll do in a house like that,' grumbled Hirsch, knitting
his brows. 'Casting pearls before swine.'

'Not quite that, my good Hirsch. Casting seed upon stony ground, maybe,
but I am much mistaken if some has not fallen upon virgin soil, and
then my evening has not been wasted. How did it fare with you this
morning?'

Hirsch silently produced Litvinoff's cheque, not quite so fresh-looking
as when he had received it.

'Ah, as I expected!' said the other, glancing at it under a lamp.
'Ten pounds is not illiberal. You see, he does not keep so tight a
purse-string as you thought.'

'Lightly won lightly spent. Donner wetter! he gained it easily enough.'

'This is not spent--it is given. Don't be unjust.'

'Gott in Himmel! You're a good man, Petrovitch. You seem to have no
faults.'

'Ah! so it may seem to you who have known me only three months, but
I have known myself more than a score of years, and I know that I am
full of them. Come home with me and have a smoke, and we'll talk about
something else.'

       *       *       *       *       *

'And how have you liked it, my dearest Clare? Have you been terribly
bored--or puzzled perhaps--since you are not used to these discussions?'

'I have never been more interested than I was by Mr Petrovitch,' said
Clare, with perfect truth.

'Ah, yes,' said Mrs Quaid enthusiastically; 'so sweet, isn't he?'

Clare did not answer, but as she drove home it occurred to her that the
principal ingredient in Petrovitch's character was not exactly sugar.



CHAPTER XVI.

GOING HOME.


There are people, we are told, on whom the rapid action of railway
travelling acts as a soothing influence; but to the majority of us,
when suffering from any loss or grief, a long train journey is simply
maddening. The rattling of the windows, the vibration of the carriage,
the banging of doors and shouting of porters at the stations, the
prolonged and ear-piercing shriek of the whistle, occurring at such
moments as to convince the thinking mind that it is not let off with
any good intention or to serve any useful purpose, but simply to
gratify the torturing instinct of the engine-driver at the expense
of the passengers' nerves and tempers--all these only aggravate any
trouble which may be part of one's invisible luggage. For all these
together are not enough to distract one from the contemplation of
one's special skeleton, and each is in itself enough to keep one from
contemplating it with any good result. And as for seeing the bright
side of one's troubles, that is quite impossible when one is moving at
the rate of fifty miles an hour; the only wonder is that more people
are not overcome by the peculiarly dismal aspect which one's position
assumes under these circumstances, and that we don't hear of more
suicides in railway carriages.

The three o'clock Midland express was tearing through the quiet
country. A faint mist lay over the fields and hedges, faint, but still
thick enough to hold its own against the pale yellow sunbeams that
seemed striving to disperse it.

Richard Ferrier, idly gazing at the flying hedges and gates and squalid
cottages, did not feel any less sad for the sadness of the outside
world through which he was speeding home.

He had spent the previous evening in a vigorous search after Alice--a
search which had been unsuccessful, even though he had offered Mrs
Fludger the best inducement to frankness. It had needed that golden
token to mitigate the wrath with which she had received his first
question. She had, indeed, hinted, not darkly, in the first flush of
indignation, at worse designs on his part than even Bible-reading; but
gold itself, though it had softened her asperity, had been powerless to
extort from her any information of the slightest value. Having tried
all he knew, and failed, to discover any trace of what he sought,
Richard had given up the search. He had met Roland once on the hotel
staircase. They had passed each other like strangers.

As the train rushed on, he went over and over again all the
circumstances of his quarrel with his brother. A fire of hate burned
in him fiercely, a stern and deep indignation surged in his heart,
and blinded his eyes to any possible palliation of his brother's
conduct. This state of mind was the outcome of months of heart soreness
and suppressed bitterness of spirit,--months in which he had vainly
tried to disguise from himself that if Clare Stanley did incline to
one more than the other, it was Roland who was the favourite. During
that month of Roland's unexplained holiday Richard had fancied he
made some progress in her good graces, but when his brother came back
again she had turned on him just the same smiles and glances that had
bewildered Dick. And from that time it had seemed to him that Roland
was gradually elbowing him out. Miss Stanley had a taste for poetry,
and Roland read poetry extremely well. Miss Stanley called herself a
Radical, and Roland had been a shining light on that side in a small
debating society at Cambridge. Miss Stanley liked to chatter about Art,
and Roland always had a stock of the latest Art prattle at the tip of
his tongue. Roland had grown fond of solitary walks, and in these was
constantly meeting Miss Stanley 'by accident'--'accident' which Richard
could not always bring himself to believe in. It was to be noticed, by
the way, that in the walks of both these young men all roads led, not
to Rome, but past Aspinshaw. Richard had borne all this, sustaining
himself with a hope that Miss Stanley did not really feel interested so
much in Roland as in the tastes he affected. He had still hoped that
she might come to care for him,--for the man who loved her with such a
passionate intensity. It is so hard, so very hard, to believe that the
love that is everything to us is absolutely nothing to the beloved. Men
have even dreamed that their passion could warm marble to life. How
much easier to fancy that it can stir a heart to love.

But the sting in the pain he had suffered while his lady smiled on
Roland had been a half unselfish fear that these smiles of hers were
being bestowed on a man unworthy of them. Now that he believed this
unworthiness to be proved, all the latent doubts, distrusts, suspicions
he had kept down 'sprang full statured in an hour,' and with them
sprang a hatred of his brother, so fierce as to frighten himself; for
however he might seek to deceive himself about it, he knew in his
inmost heart that it was less as a heartless profligate than as a
possibly successful rival that he had learned to hate him.

But he knew that now this rivalry could not be successful. His great
love for her prevented his seeing the realities that underlay the
superficial side of her character, so that he actually believed her to
be the last woman in the world one could dare to ask to share poverty.
He knew that his own chance, such as it had been, was lost; but he
knew, too, that his brother's chance was also at an end. This did not
make him less determined that the quarrel should be _à outrance_.

'Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face' is such a wildly
irrational act that one would never expect any reasonable being to be
guilty of it, and yet hundreds of people do it every day. Dick was
doing it now, practically, though he kept reminding himself that this
was really the only honourable course open to him, and that he was
influenced mainly by irreproachable motives.

It was nearly eight o'clock when his journey ended at Thornsett Edge.

He went straight into the dining-room, where Miss Ferrier sat filling
in the groundwork of some canvas slippers, which she hastily pushed
out of sight when she saw him. It was one of her habits, kept up since
the days when they were children, to make some present for each of the
brothers every year, and give it to them at Christmas as a 'surprise.'

'My dear Dick, how ill you look! Why didn't you write? Have you had any
dinner?'

'No, auntie,' said he, kissing her. 'Just order up something cold, will
you? I want to run up to Gates this evening. I won't wait for anything
to be cooked.'

Miss Letitia suppressed her curiosity as to what could be taking Dick
to his father's solicitor at this time of night, and hurried off to
see about the meal herself. While he was busy with the cold beef and
pickles he told her briefly that he had run down on business, which had
been rather worrying lately.

'That accounts,' said the good lady, 'for your looking so poorly. I
hope you've not been keeping bad hours.'

'Not I!' said Dick, as he drew the cork of a bottle of stout. 'Nor yet
bad company, aunt--don't you think it.'

'And how is Roland?' she asked, at last; but at the same minute Dick
pushed his chair back, and rose.

'I'm off to Gates now,' he said. 'I shall be back some time to-night.
And I say, auntie, have my father's room got ready for me. I should
like to sleep there.'

When he had put on hat and great coat, he put his head in again at the
room door.

'After all, I think I'll have my own room.'

He found Mr Gates sitting smoking very comfortably in the society of
two of his bosom friends, with whom he had that day enjoyed some very
good shooting.

'Can I see Mr Richard Ferrier?' he cried, when a servant took him the
name. 'I should think I could. Come in, Dick, my boy; you're just in
time to help finish the bottle. Stevens is full already--he's missed
every bird he's aimed at to-day--and Clark is too sleepy to appreciate
good stuff.'

The other men laughed, and all shook hands with Dick, and made room for
him in the little circle which they formed round a splendid fire.

'I suppose the Aspinshaw people will soon be down now,' Gates went on;
'in fact, I heard so from Stanley.'

'I came down on business,' said Dick, as the three other men burst out
laughing.

'Of course,' said Gates; 'you went to town on business just when they
went.'

The duet of less than half-sober laughter with which Mr Gates's guests
received this suggestion brought the colour to Richard's cheeks.

'I want to speak to you in private,' he said, 'if your friends will
excuse us.'

'Oh, they won't mind,' said Mr Gates, his cheerfulness unabated by the
sharp tone in which Richard spoke. 'Come along; let's get the beastly
business over.'

Richard followed him into another room. Mr Gates set down on a table
the brass candle-stick he had brought in; both men remained standing.

'I have come up to ask you to take immediate steps to stop working the
mill. I suppose we must give the men some notice?'

'Have you gone mad, boy? What on earth should you close the mill for?'

'It will be closed under the provisions of my father's will, which, I
believe, you drew up, Mr Gates.'

Mr Gates sat down heavily on the nearest chair.

'You don't mean to say you've been quarrelling already?'

Richard made an impatient gesture of assent.

'You're both of you too old and too sensible to let a quarrel like this
stand between you and your living,' said Gates seriously. 'What's the
trouble?'

'I can't tell you what our quarrel is about. My brother can do so if he
likes; but it is impossible--please understand me thoroughly, Mr Gates,
it is quite impossible that Roland and I can ever work together again.'

His tone was so decided, his face so firm, that Gates saw plainly that
what he said he meant, and that this was no quarrel to be got over by
'being slept upon.'

'May I ask,' he said, when he had risen and taken a turn or two up and
down the room, 'how you propose to get your living?'

'I shall have a little, I believe, without the mill, and I am not an
absolute fool; and, if the worst comes to the worst, I suppose my hands
are of some use,' holding them out, with a laugh.

'And what will Roland do?' said the lawyer, more to gain time than
because he expected any answer.

'You forget, sir,' said Richard haughtily--and as he spoke the other
noticed how much older he seemed to have grown in the last month--'you
forget, sir, that my brother's affairs no longer concern me in the
least.'

'Well, I can do nothing till I hear from him. That'll be time enough,
God knows.'

'You know best, sir,' said Richard. 'I've done my duty in telling you;
I shall write to the trustees to-night.'

'Well,' said Gates, with a shrug of his shoulders, 'what must be must.
I can only hope you'll think better of it. Why, it's perfect madness.
Do let me try to arrange matters between you.'

'You had better address yourself to Roland. Don't make any mistake,
Mr Gates. This is quite as much my brother's quarrel as mine. Only
three days ago he told me never to speak again to him on this side of
the grave, and swore that the same roof should not continue to cover
us both. I must be off now. I'm sorry to have troubled you at such an
hour. Good-night.'

Gates let him out. As he closed the front door after watching him down
to the gate,--

'How in the world,' he said, 'did such a hard-headed man of business as
old Dicky Ferrier ever manage to get two such hare-brained young fools
as these boys? Why, it's beastly unnatural,' he added discontentedly.
'But it's the same old tale, I suppose--"All along of Eliza." A good
business smashed up, and two young fellows going straight to the dogs,
because of that damned girl'--with a backward jerk of his head in the
direction of Aspinshaw, as he returned into the cloud of smoke in which
his two friends were dozing placidly.

Richard went quickly away under the arching interlaced boughs of the
garden trees. When he reached the road he did not turn his face towards
Thornsett Edge, but went up the hill that lay at the back of the house.
Across the fields, where no track was visible, but where he could
have found his way blindfold, through narrow lanes with stone walls,
past more than one farmstead, now settled down into the restfulness of
night, always upwards he went, until he reached the little church that
crowned the hill and kept watch over the dead that crowded under its
shadow.

The young man passed into the graveyard and made his way to a very
white stone, that showed strikingly among the dun-coloured monuments
about it.

Light fleecy clouds were being blown over the face of the waning moon,
and alternations of weird shadows, and still weirder lights, fell on
the tombstones and on the grey, weather-beaten little church. Richard
rested his hand on his father's gravestone with a caressing touch. A
great wave of regret and longing swept over him, and then a sort of
relief at the thought that his father could not know how his dying wish
would be unfulfilled. The old man's words rang in his ears,--'_It has
been a long life; I should like to lie quiet at last_.'

'Thank God,' said Richard. People who don't believe in God have a way
of speaking as though they did in moments of emotion. 'Thank God, he
can't be troubled about anything now. Dear old dad--he has that wish,
at any rate. He lies quiet and beyond the reach of it all.'

He stooped and kissed the stone, almost as though it had been the face
of him who lay beneath it.



CHAPTER XVII.

AN UNEXPECTED ADHERENT.


The train which brought Count Litvinoff from London was punctual to the
minute, but the trap which was to take him to Thornsett Edge was not,
and he was lounging discontentedly among his rugs and luggage at the
melancholy little station of Firth Vale.

When Roland had left London, some weeks before, he had parted from
Litvinoff with the understanding that he was to spend Christmas with
him at Thornsett Edge. Young Ferrier had felt that the Count would
be a thousand times better company than his own thoughts, and he
preferred asking him to inviting any of his college friends, from whom
Richard's absence would provoke comment, and to whom it would have to
be explained. For Richard had gone away, leaving no address save that
of a solicitor in London, and he had written to the trustees, and steps
were being taken for closing the mill. Roland would rather have been
anywhere than near the property he was so soon to lose, but Gates urged
him to stay at Thornsett till the New Year, and with Count Litvinoff as
his guest he hoped to keep ghosts of old times at bay as successfully
in his old home as he could hope to do anywhere else. And Litvinoff had
accepted the invitation with fervour, for the Stanleys were back at
Aspinshaw.

The day he had pitched on for his journey was a bitterly cold one in
the middle of December, and the waiting-room at Firth Vale had no
big fires, soft carpets, and luxurious lounges. It had nothing but
a bench, a table, a Bible, a Prayer-book, and a large stone jug of
cold water. Litvinoff was got up quite after the English manner, in a
light, long travelling ulster with a hood, and a tourist hat of the
same stuff; but in spite of his precautions against weather he was very
cold, and not a little cross at his prolonged waiting. He was just
debating whether it would not be better to walk, and trust his traps
to the mercy of chance, when the station shivered and shuddered as the
'local' came slowly and heavily in.

As it stopped, a stout woman, of about forty-five, with the usual
number of blue bandboxes, bundles in handkerchiefs, and brown baskets
disposed about her person, came hurrying down the stone steps,
accompanied by a hard-featured, grizzled man some years older.
Litvinoff watched their descent with a smile, but as they reached the
bottom step his face grew suddenly serious. He turned sharply, and,
passing into the little waiting-room, became deeply absorbed in the
'Scripture roll' which hung opposite the door, until the train had
glided out of the station.

He saw without turning his head that only the woman had gone. The man
remained on the platform, gazing after the retreating line of carriages
till he started and turned round at Litvinoff's voice.

'I beg your pardon, but do you know a place about here called Thornsett
Edge?'

'Ah do,' said the man, after a prolonged stare. 'It's a matter o' three
miles off.'

'Can I get a trap here?' In reply he learned that there was no trap
nearer than the fly at the 'Jolly Sailors,' and that was half a mile
the other side of Thornsett.

'Then I suppose I must walk. Can you tell me the way?'

'Ah can show you,' said the man. 'Ah'm going up to the village; Ah live
there.'

He spoke shortly; but Litvinoff had a reason for wishing to talk to
the man, and so was content to ignore a curtness of manner which at any
other time he would have been the first to resent.

In a few minutes the two were walking over the hard road side by side.

'Do you happen to know Mr Ferrier?'

'Ay; Ah work i' their mill.'

'I suppose they are great favourites hereabouts?'

'They're good lads enow,' said the elder man; 'better nor most o' them.'

'Better than most of whom?'

'Most of the masters and gentlefolks and that like,' said the man,
rather sullenly.

'You don't seem to like gentlemen, my friend.'

'Ah don't like them well enough to believe either as they're my friends
or as Ah'm theirs,' was the answer, given with a haughty resentment of
Litvinoff's epithet, which that gentleman found amusing.

'I'm afraid that's true enough in most cases.'

The man looked a little surprised at having his sentiments met by this
ready echo from such an unlikely quarter.

'The toad don't love the harrow,' he said slowly; 'but it ain't often
as you can get the harrow to see that.'

'Are you quite sure the toad sees it? It seems to bear it quietly
enough.'

'What else can we do?' asked the man fiercely.

'That's exactly what I'm giving my life to trying to find out,' said
Litvinoff, very quietly.

The workman stopped short, and looked at the gentleman from head to
feet. His gaze was calmly returned.

He turned and went on with a half laugh:

'Have you came down here to find that out, and is Mr Roland going to
help you?'

'I can't answer for Mr Roland Ferrier, but as for myself--look here,
my friend' (with an emphasis on the word), 'in trying to help the
"toads," as you call them, I was driven from my own country, and had to
fly for my life, with a pack of soldier wolves at my back.'

'Ay? How was that?' The man was interested in spite of himself, and
Litvinoff forthwith plunged into an account of the flight across the
frontier on that most exciting night of all his life.

His listener had not heard many exciting stories--they are not rife in
Firth Vale--and to this story the fact that it was told by the chief
actor lent an unusual interest. The Count was a good story-teller, and
the way in which he told his tale left room for no doubt of its truth.
When the recital was ended the listener drew a long breath.

'Ah'm glad you gave them the slip,' he said; 'the devils! Eh, but
you're a lucky man to have had such things in your life, and to have
done something. You don't know what it's like to have your life all
bearing and no doing. Why, sometimes when you see how things go wi'
some poor folks you're most ready to curse the A'mighty as lets such
things be.'

The tone of the words, and the words themselves, told Litvinoff that
the man's icy distrust of him had melted in the warmth of admiring
sympathy.

'Ah! here comes Mr Roland,' he said a minute after, as a tall figure
came in sight; 'he'll show you now. My nearest way's over here,'
pointing to one of those uncertain erections of loose stones which do
duty for walls in that part of the country. 'Ah hope Ah shall see you
again. If you have nothing better to do any time I shall be right glad
to see you at our place. Any one at Thornsett'll tell you where I live.
My name's Hatfield--John Hatfield.'

'As I thought,' said Litvinoff, as he advanced to meet Roland, and to
receive his profuse regrets at the sudden casting of a shoe, which had
prevented the mare from getting to the station with the dog-cart, which
ought to have been in attendance. 'But come along,' he said; 'it's
a jolly day for a walk, and I'll send down for your things as soon
as we get home. That was John Hatfield you were with. He's rather a
character.'

'He seems to be one of us,' said Litvinoff, as they walked on together.

'How do you mean?'

'He doesn't appear to be particularly satisfied with the present
system.'

'No; and he has good wages too,--nearly two pounds a week.'

'Affluence,' said Litvinoff.

'Ah, well,' said Roland, laughing--'it's very good as things go--but he
has some reason for hating his betters.'

'Some reason besides the two pounds a week, do you mean?'

'Yes; his daughter, an awfully pretty, nice girl, made a fool of
herself--but I'll tell you about that some other time. Shall we go this
way? It is a little longer, but it leads round by Aspinshaw, and I want
to call there to ask after Mrs Stanley; she has a cold. Old Stanley
will be delighted to see you; he's always talking about you. I don't
know how he stands your revolutionary ideas.'

Litvinoff laughed.

'I never air them to him. I never talk revolution unless there is some
chance of making a convert; but some things are too impossible, and Mr
Stanley as a revolutionist is not to be conceived.'

'Miss Stanley seems to be quite a convert, however, although she always
had a leaning that way. But I don't think the conversion is a star
in your crown. She lays the credit of it to some man--I forget his
name--whom she heard in town. I suppose you know him?'

'Ah, yes; I remember Miss Stanley took me down splendidly one morning
by saying that _now_ she understood our views, thanks to this man
Petrovitch. And I, who had been vainly flattering myself that I had
made them intelligible to her!'

'By George, yes!' said Roland, secretly pleased. 'That was rather a
facer. But then she didn't hear you at the Agora. Is this Petrovitch a
gentleman?'

'Upon my word, I don't know. It seems he knows me, but somehow or other
we never seem to meet. It is not impossible that I may have known him
under some other name. I must ask Miss Stanley to describe him to me.'

'Oh, she'll do that with a great deal of pleasure,' said Roland; 'it's
her great topic at present. That's Aspinshaw, over there to the right.'

It was a very pretty house, and somehow managed to escape, even at
this dreary season, such dreariness as hung over Thornsett Edge,
though it was built of the same grey stone, and had the same moorland
background. There was a good deal of ivy about it, and the grounds were
less regular and more full of evergreens and shrubs than the Ferriers'
garden.

As the two young men walked up the private road they heard from the
rear of the house a confused barking of dogs, and above the noise a
girl's clear voice, raised in vain endeavour to still the joyful tumult.

'La belle Clare,' Litvinoff spoke softly, raising his hat as though he
saw her, and quickening his pace a little.

'Shall we go round this way?' said Roland; 'we don't stand on ceremony
with each other down here.'

'By all means,' said Litvinoff, and they turned into the stable-yard,
passing down by the laurel hedge that alone divided it from the garden.

'By God! what's that?' cried the Count, suddenly stopping; and then
both men sprang through the hedge. No time to go round now, for there
had been the sharp report of a gun, a woman's shriek, and a heavy fall.



CHAPTER XVIII.

A MIXED ASSEMBLY.


It was Sunday afternoon. The rather festive look of Petrovitch's room,
in which he now sat alone, was not, however, due to any desire to
specialise the day. He had simply made his home as cheerful as possible
because he was about to entertain guests.

His table was spread with a snowy cloth, and with the preparations for
a tea of a distinctly convivial character. There was jam, and more than
one kind of cake; and the room was further brightened by bunches of
chrysanthemums. Chairs were drawn round the fire in an inviting-looking
circle. The least cheerful object in the room was the owner of it,
who sat in his usual chair between the fire and the writing-table. He
looked pale and weary, for the frosty weather had strongly renewed the
pain in a wound in his breast--an old wound, and a wound that had just
missed being a deadly one. Contrary to his usual custom, he was neither
reading nor writing. The pipe he had been smoking had gone out, and
his thoughts were far back in the past, among the memories which had
re-awakened with that aching in his breast. His thoughts went further
back than the date of that wound,--went back to the days before he had
lost friends, home, and country. He saw again in fancy the brilliant
gaiety of the winters in St Petersburg, he heard again the exquisite
music of the concerts and the opera,--the balls where Majesty itself
had deigned to be present, with anxious brow and uneasy, restless eyes.
His memory dwelt longest on a certain torchlight _fête_ on the Neva,
when the ice had been a yard thick, and when the _élite_ had been
shut off from the common herd by walls made of blocks of solid ice,
between which fir trees were planted; when coloured lamps and Chinese
lanterns had thrown indescribable magic over the crowd of bright
military uniforms and the exquisite toilettes of lovely women who had
never in all their lives been troubled by any thought of what their
dresses cost. And even at this distance he could not think without half
a pang of a certain fair-faced girl, with golden hair, who, in her
sapphire velvet and swansdown, had been the star of that _fête_ to his
boyish eyes. And she had been kind to him on this the last evening he
had spent near her before his new faiths and duties had separated him
from her for ever. That was the first loss his creed had cost him. He
wondered what would be the last--life itself perhaps. Then he fell to
thinking how these beliefs of his had grown up. How the reading of a
certain book--an English book--had done for his mind what a successful
operation for cataract does for one nearly blind--had shown him the
facts of life, no longer half hidden in a mist of falsity, but in all
their naked truth and ugliness. How for a time he had closed his eyes
again and had tried hard to live on in the life of luxury, beauty,
love, and (now he knew) selfishness which had been his by 'right of
birth.' He remembered the night when, belated miles from his home, and
overtaken by a snowstorm, he had sought refuge in a peasant's hut, how
he had talked to his hosts, how one visit had led to many, and how what
he had learned from these miserable serfs had forbidden him to forget
or to set aside the teaching of the great author whose book had first
set him thinking. He remembered that time, perhaps the happiest in his
life, when he first began to write--when the ideas which had so long
been seething in his brain had found literary expression. He remembered
the joy with which he had corrected his first proof, the pride with
which he read his first article in a magazine. So thoroughly back in
the old time was he that he had stretched out his hand towards this
very magazine, which stood bound on a bookshelf, when a heavy foot
sounded on the stairs, and a moment after a knock at the door heralded
the entrance of Mr Toomey, whom Petrovitch came forward to greet with
an almost courtly welcome.

'But your wife,' he said; 'can she not come? I trust all is well with
her?'

'All's well with her, and thanking you for the question; but all's not
well with that young woman o' yours.'

'Of mine? I do not happen to possess a young woman, my good Toomey.'

'I suppose you and me and my Mary Jane possesses about equal shares of
her, then, for I saved her from keeping company with the dead cats and
dogs, and you sent her to our place, and now my missus is let in for
looking arter her.'

'Come to the fire. I hope it's nothing serious.'

'I don't rightly know. My missus told me I should be better out of the
way, and I sent the doctor in as I came by.'

'I am very sorry,' said Petrovitch, 'but I am sure poor Mrs Litvinoff
could not be in better hands than those of your good, kind wife.'

It was noticeable that he never spoke of Alice save as Mrs Litvinoff.

'You've a snug little place up here, sir,' said Toomey, looking round
him. 'And do you _really_ like reading--those sort of books, I mean,'
pointing to Hegel's 'Logic,' which lay open on the table.

'I like doing better than reading, but one must read much to be able to
do little in the line of work I am on at present.'

'Your line of work,' said Toomey, glancing admiringly at his host, 'is
a thing as I never can get to understand. How it's done, I mean. Now,
paving is straightforward. When you've got a paving-stone you know
what it is you've got, and how far it'll go, but words is such shifty
things, and how you manage to make 'em fit into each other so as to
make 'em mean what you mean is what gets over me.'

'Perhaps I don't always make them mean what I mean. Judging by the
way people misunderstand what I say--ah! here is Hirsch,' as the door
opened, 'and Pewtress too. How are you? Now we're all here but Mr
Vernon.'

'He's coming upstairs now,' said Pewtress, the stone-mason with the
intellectual forehead, who had been at Mrs Quaid's at the last meeting
of the Cleon.

Mr Hirsch seemed to be in more genial mood than he had been in any of
those brief conversations which we hitherto had occasion to report. He
had shaved himself--he even appeared to have combed his hair--and he
shook hands with Toomey quite warmly and cordially.

The host had gone half-way down the stairs to meet his fourth guest--a
lame boy, whose crutches made it not easy for him to mount to the
height of Petrovitch's nest. He now returned with him on his arm--and
after a general introduction of him to the others they all sat down to
tea.

Eustace Vernon was a lad of about eighteen, with a pale,
highbred-looking face--a rather shy but pleasant manner. He was an
enthusiastic admirer of Petrovitch, and since his first acquaintance
with the Socialist had made a point of being present at all the
meetings on social subjects that he could get to hear of, and could
find time to attend. For even the wild enthusiasm of the revolutionary
in his teens will not go the length of working a Buddhist miracle and
enabling the youthful devotee to be at more than one meeting at the
same time. Petrovitch was amused and a little touched by the lad's
undisguised homage--and knowing himself to be responsible for the
inflammation of the young man's mind, felt bound to keep watch lest he
should get into trouble before his newly-kindled fire had had time to
burn itself down into steadiness.

As the meal went on it was noticeable that Vernon's love of liberty was
not inconsistent with a child-like devotion to strawberry jam.

Petrovitch might have kept a school of instruction for the benefit of
those who are always making such desperate efforts to 'annihilate class
distinctions'--efforts which usually take place on Saturday afternoons,
and are mostly the dismallest of failures. Under his influence his four
guests--born in different parts of the world, and drawn from different
social grades--talked together with the ease of club acquaintances.

'I had hoped,' said Petrovitch by-and-by, 'to have had a lady here to
pour tea out for you, but fate has been unpropitious; Mrs Toomey was
not able to come.'

'I regret her,' said Hirsch. 'It always does me much pleasure to meet
our good friend's good wife.'

Toomey looked flattered, but a little uncomfortable under this tribute.

'She would have liked to come,' said he, trying to look straight at the
other, but only succeeding in fixing one eye on the Austrian, while the
other searched the depths of the jam pot with an obstinacy which made
Vernon, who had the same in hand, simmer with warm awkwardness. 'She
would have liked to come, but the young woman as lodges with us--that
Mrs Let-em-off--is ill, and the missus wouldn't leave her.'

'Ah, Mrs Litvinoff, it is you mean. I willed to ask you of her.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Vernon, glad to join in the conversation,
as a means of getting away from Toomey's eye. 'Is that any relation of
Count Litvinoff? I know him. Splendid fellow, isn't he?'

'I don't think as she's a blessed countess,' said Toomey doubtfully,
while Hirsch cast a significant glance of question at his host.

'Oh,' said Petrovitch, 'there are more Litvinoffs than one. It is not
an uncommon name. I myself know more than one family of that name.'

'Of course you know the Count,' said Vernon, turning to him. 'What
wonderful adventures he has had. He seems to be a man of splendid
character. It must have cost him something to give up his social
position and go in for the Revolution.'

'So far as I know Michael Litvinoff, he has never done more than his
clear duty.'

'What does he do for the Revolution now?' growled Hirsch.

'Well, he does all that any one can do in England. There's not much
else to be done besides talking.'

Vernon ended with a sigh, as of one who yearned for the barricades.

'Oh, yes; he'll _talk_,' said Hirsch discontentedly, and took a large
bite of bread and butter.

'You are quite right, Mr Vernon,' said Petrovitch. 'He talks, and talks
well; and, as you say, there is here no other means of helping the
cause. And where you have such freedom of speech as in England a man's
tongue is his best weapon, and ought, under existing circumstances, to
be his only one.'

'The great reforms,' said Hirsch--'have they been carried by the
tongue, or by the pike and the musket?'

'In this England enough has been carried by the tongue to leave good
hopes for the future,' said Petrovitch.

'I am glad to hear you express those opinions,' said Pewtress, who
spoke with some deliberation, and chose his words carefully. 'I have
noticed that most of the foreigners I have had the pleasure of meeting
do not quite understand the condition of affairs here.'

'Do not misunderstand me,' said Petrovitch, rising from the table.
'I consider force to be the last refuge of the oppressed and the
wretched--only to be tried when everything else has failed--but then
perfectly legitimate.'

'Hear, hear,' cried Vernon enthusiastically, as they all rose; 'that's
more like yourself, Petrovitch! And as for Count Litvinoff, I can't
help admiring him, if it's only for what he's gone through.'

'For that,' said Hirsch, who seemed to have grown grumpier and grumpier
ever since Litvinoff's name had been introduced, 'you, Petrovitch, have
had adventures better to hear about than any of his. Did Mr Vernon ever
hear how you escaped from Tieff?'

'If Mr Vernon has, I have not,' said Pewtress, as they gathered round
the fire. 'If our kind host will tell us the story, I am sure we shall
all follow it with a great deal of interest.'

'I am quite willing to tell you about that little affair, but I fancy
I've told it once or twice before,' said Petrovitch, handing round a
box of thick, short Russian cigarettes, to which his friends all helped
themselves; 'and there is no greater bore than the man who will always
be telling of his own deeds and adventures.'

'You, at any rate, never speak of yours,' said Vernon, fixing his large
eyes on Petrovitch; 'do tell us, please.'

'I assure you I was not refusing "_pour me faire prier_," and if we are
all comfortable I will tell you with pleasure the little there is to
tell. Toomey, you have no light.'

'All right, sir,' said Toomey, picking up a hot coal in his fingers and
lighting his cigarette therefrom as his host began.

'During the year or so that I was in the fortress of Petro-Paolovski
I never encouraged the slightest hopes of escape, for in the first
place I, for a long time, suffered from a bad gunshot wound, and,
secondly, because it is known only too well among us that escape from
Petro-Paolovski is impossible. When, for some unknown reason, the
Government sent me to Tieff, my health was improved, and so were my
chances of getting away, and from the moment I entered the prison doors
I never lost an opportunity of making and maturing a plan of escape.
Escaping from a Russian prison is not quite such a desperate business
for one of us as it would be for one of you, for you would be like a
blind man in a strange house; but those of us who are judged to be the
most likely subjects for arrest make it a rule to have the plan of
every prison and fortress at our finger-tips.'

'What a marvellous organisation yours is,' said the stone-mason,
more as an excuse for escaping a moment from the martyrdom of the
unaccustomed cigarette than by way of saying anything original.

'Yes, the war is fairly well organised on both sides,' Petrovitch
replied; 'but at present they have the big battalions.'

'But your plans,' struck in Vernon, impatient of the interruption.

'Yes. Well, my knowledge of Tieff told me that there was one way, and
one way only, of leaving it, and that was by the way I had come in--by
the front gate, and to get to the front gate one had to cross the
courtyard, and between my cell and the courtyard lay obstacles too many
to be calculated and dangers too great to be faced.'

'And you at once began to calculate them and to face them,' cried
Vernon admiringly.

'Rather to elude them,' Petrovitch went on, ignoring the boy's
compliment. 'As I could not meet them in detail I thought it better to
surmount them in "the lump," as I think I have heard you call it in
England. Now the thing that had given me most hope when I heard I was
coming to Tieff was that I happened to know that the resident doctor
of the prison was, not exactly one of us, but one who sympathised with
us secretly--there are many such, who are unwilling to take an active
part in the struggle, but who, short of that, help us in many ways--for
instance, with money, and especially by hiding those of us who happen
to be "wanted." We call them the Ukrivatelli--the concealers.'

'I hope there's lots of them sort, sir,' said Toomey, surreptitiously
abandoning his cigarette in favour of the more familiar but slightly
stronger smelling 'cutty.' 'But don't they get theirselves into
trouble?'

'Yes, if they are found out,' answered Petrovitch; 'but they seldom
are. They are a very large class, and are often men whose official rank
or social position places them beyond suspicion. My wound still needed
attention, and I soon managed to convey to the doctor a suggestion that
daily exercise in a prison courtyard was a first-rate specific for
gunshot wounds. He seemed to think so too, and before the end of the
week I was told that I should have to walk every day for an hour in the
only place where a walk of a dozen consecutive yards was possible--in
the courtyard.'

'It was no use getting into the courtyard unless I had some prospect of
getting out of it, and straight into some perfectly safe refuge. This
was a matter that took some weeks to arrange, and during that time I
never turned my eyes to the gate. The doctor, though he was willing to
help me, was not willing to risk his own safety by carrying too many
letters, and a whole code of signals had to be arranged. Luck seldom
favours the right side; but I think I was certainly lucky, for just
when I began to take my daily exercise the right wing of the prison had
to be repaired, and consequently the gates of the courtyard were open
all day for the carts of building materials, etc., which had to come
in and out. This must have seemed tolerably safe to the authorities,
as I was the only prisoner who "took exercise," and there were two
sentries to whom was allotted the pleasing duty of watching me. They
had a pretty easy time of it for these three weeks, for I used to crawl
up and down the yard in a feeble and dejected sort of way, as though
I had hardly the strength to put one foot before the other. I always
leaned on a stick, and did my best to appear to be at my last gasp. I
was well-nigh tired of waiting, so often my escape seemed almost close
at hand, and then something happened, and all our plans had to be made
over again. Innumerable ideas were suggested, but abandoned for one
reason or another. At last it was definitely settled that at a certain
signal I was to make for the gate and rush out--that a carriage was to
be waiting just outside, and that one or two of our friends were to
be there promiscuously, to give false information in judicious doses,
as it might be called for. The gate was almost exactly in the middle
of the courtyard, and the beat of sentry No. 1 was from the gate to
the end of the yard and back, and that of sentry No. 2 from the other
end of the yard to the gate and back--thus the face of one of them was
always towards the gate. At length the day came when I might expect the
signal--this was to be nothing more dramatic and startling than the
smallest piece of paper that could well be seen--stuck on the shaft
of one of the builder's carts. Cart after cart went by, my hour was
nearly up, and I began to feel pretty sure that either the signal was
not to be given that morning, or else that it had been given and I
had missed seeing it. This last alternative was becoming a maddening
certainty, when yet another cart came crawling in, and on the shaft,
luckily on the side to which my walk had now brought me, was lightly
stuck a little piece of white paper. Once more luck was my friend, for
the sentry on the same side of the gate as myself was marching _from_
the gate, and between me and the one walking _towards_ the gate was the
cart. Had any one not in the secret been watching me from one of the
prison windows at that moment he would certainly have thought that I
was the subject of a miraculous cure, for in what seemed to me about
half-a-dozen bounds I was at the side of the cart, out of the gate, and
in one of two carriages which were passing at the time.'

'And what steps did the authorities take?' asked Pewtress, in the
perfectly unexcited and matter-of-fact tone of a School Board inspector.

'Well,' said Petrovitch, laughing a little, 'I was not there at the
time, but my friends told me that what followed was well worth seeing.
A few seconds after my disappearance the two sentries and the whole of
the guard from the guard-room inside the prison came swarming into the
street, and there was a most delightful hue-and-cry and clamour. About
a hundred yards away to the right a carriage was making off at a mad
pace, and after this went the whole _posse_; with the lieutenant of the
guard at their head. They must have been immensely relieved when they
saw it pull up opposite the house of a well-known and irreproachable
doctor. When, panting and exultant, they surrounded the carriage, they
found inside it a surprised and indignant gentleman, who had driven in
hot haste to fetch Dr. Seroff to his sick daughter, who had taken a
turn for the worse.'

'And were you under the seat, Mr Peter Hitch?' inquired the interested
Toomey.

'Not exactly. I had been driven off in the other carriage, which went
at a quiet trot, eminently suited to my delicate state of health.'

'The gentleman who went for the doctor, I presume, was "one of you"?'
put in Vernon.

'He was of the Ukrivatelli,' said Petrovitch, 'and I am afraid he had a
bad time of it for a day or two. He was promptly taken where I had come
from, and I fear the young lady's sick-room was invaded by a corporal's
guard, but our friend and his family were so evidently innocent that
the authorities had nothing left but to put up with their loss, and to
grin and bear it, as you say.'

'But where did the other carriage take you?'

'Into the next street, to the most orthodox house in the town, the
residence of a district judge, whence after spending a week I made
for the frontier with passport quite in order, a clean chin, a strong
French accent, and very black eyebrows. So ends the story, which I am
afraid hasn't been a very exciting one.'

'The quite truth of it is its interest,' said Hirsch; 'to Count
Litvinoff must you go for pure excitement.'

'You don't seem to like this Count Let-em-off, Mr Hearse,' said Toomey
curiously; 'I thought he was a rare good 'un.'

'You're right, Toomey. He's done us good service.' This Petrovitch
spoke with a certain emphasis, and with his eyes not on Toomey, but on
Hirsch.

'I don't know whether it's indiscreet to ask,' said Vernon, 'but I wish
you would tell us how it was you got arrested.'

'Ah! that's a long story,' returned Petrovitch, 'and one which, as it
concerns others beside myself, I don't feel justified in telling.' Then
as the boy coloured and looked embarrassed, he added kindly, 'There
wasn't the slightest indiscretion in the question, and some other time,
perhaps, I shall be able to answer it. But, since adventures are the
order of the evening, you should get Hirsch to tell you some of his. He
has had more than Othello.'

The Austrian was beginning to protest that nothing had ever happened
to him, when a rustle of silk on the stairs outside silenced him, and
the men all looked at each other inquiringly in the moment that elapsed
before the door was opened and disclosed the velvet bonnet and abundant
flounces of Mrs Quaid. Mr Quaid was there, too, but he did not take the
eye or captivate the attention. That was Mrs Quaid's department.

'My _dear_ Mr Petrovitch, how can I apologise enough for our intrusion?
The maid gave us no _idea_ that you were entertaining. Ah! here's Mr
Pewtress. How do you do? And Mr Vernon, too. How delightful! Why, we're
all among friends. And you won't think me quite an old marplot if I
stay for a few moments, for I really have something special to say to
you.'

'It's very good of you to honour me with a call,' said Petrovitch,
wondering intensely what had brought her there.

'We have been to see some friends at Regent's Park, and we are going
on to dine with the Pagets--(you know the Pagets, Mr Petrovitch? No!
Ah, I must introduce you; they are such sweet people, quite devoted to
_our_ side)--and so we thought we would call as we passed to ask you if
you will come and dine with us on Tuesday. You'll excuse an informal
invitation, I know. I thought if we came _ourselves_ to ask you we
should be more likely to succeed.'

'You are very kind,' said Petrovitch, wondering whether he could find
any means of evading an acceptance.

'I _had_ hoped to have had your fellow-countryman, Count Litvinoff,
there to meet you; but I hear he has just gone to Derbyshire; so
unfortunate. I suppose he has gone to stay with the Stanleys. He saved
Mr Stanley's life, you know--Mr Stanley--perhaps you remember his
daughter, the sweet girl who sat next you at our house.'

It appeared that Petrovitch did remember the lady in question.

The other men had formed a knot at the other side of the fire.

'You know,' said Mrs Quaid, lowering her voice discreetly, as she
glanced at them, 'my daughter Cora thinks that there will be a match
there before long. I do so hope that dear interesting Count has not
lost all his property. From what I hear he is very well off.'

'Gentlemen of your opinions ought not to marry,' said Mr Quaid,
striking in, much to his wife's surprise. He did not usually advance
independent opinions, being emphatically 'Mrs Quaid's husband,' and
nothing more.

'Why?' asked Petrovitch, amused.

'Because your lives are so constantly in danger.'

'There's not much danger in Derbyshire,' broke in Hirsch, in spite of
Petrovitch's restraining eye.

'Ah, well,' said Mrs Quaid, 'I do hope, if anything _does_ come of it,
that he will settle down quietly in England. There is so much that
wants doing here. We want good, brave workers to strive to bridge over
the terrible gulf between the classes.'

Toomey, suddenly recalled to a sense of the 'gulf'--which he had
quite lost sight of under the influence of Petrovitch's tact--felt a
painfully renewed consciousness of his boots, his hands, and his Sunday
clothes.

Vernon, who knew Mrs Quaid, and delighted to 'draw' her, would not
for the world have missed such an opportunity of amusing himself
and his friends. By a skilful question or two he led the lady on to
her favourite subject--that of education. She could discuss this
question with eloquence, and at any length; but no matter how her
discussions began, they always ended by placing her and her hearers
in a difficulty. She was quite clear that before we could educate our
children we must be educated ourselves, which, on the face of it,
seemed reasonable; but, then, who was there to educate us? To that
question no answer could ever be found; and in the meantime, what was
to become of the rising generation? She had nearly reached this point
when her husband, who had been present before when she trotted round
this circle of argument, and for whom the repetition of the performance
had no charms, brought the conversation back to the world of
possibilities by renewing the invitation for Tuesday, which Petrovitch,
after a little hesitation, accepted.

When the gros grain silk had swept down the uncarpeted stairs, and
Petrovitch had accompanied it to the front door and received the
last nod of farewell from the imposing plume in the velvet bonnet,
he returned to his room, to find the spirits of his friends visibly
higher, except those of Vernon, who felt that he had been done out of
the cream of his proposed joke.

The evening slipped by pleasantly enough, but there were no more
adventures told, nor was Count Litvinoff mentioned again, until one by
one all the guests had departed except Hirsch.

He stayed on, smoking in silence, and his host, equally silent, sat on
the opposite side of the fire, regarding it fixedly.

'Well,' said Hirsch, at last turning his eyes towards the other, 'what
of this marriage that the large lady speaks of so confidently--this
"sweet Clare" who is to be the Countess Litvinoff? That also is to be
for the cause? With that also you are satisfied? That also is to be
permitted, sanctioned, what you call approved?'

'No,' said Petrovitch slowly. 'No; that is not to be.'



CHAPTER XIX.

AN HONEST MAN AND A BRAVE ONE.


'Thank God!' was Count Litvinoff's inward ejaculation, as, followed by
Roland, he sprang through the laurel bushes into the gravel path that
skirted the lawn. For what he saw was not what he had feared to see.
Clare was safe. She was standing on the last of the stone steps that
led down from the verandah, her hands clasped over her eyes, as if to
shut out some intolerable sight.

On the lawn before her, half-a-dozen yards off, in brown shooting suit
and gaiters, lay her father, face downwards, on the grass, his gun
beside him, and his two sporting dogs sniffing round the hand that had
held it.

The two young men were at his side in an instant, and had half raised
him by the time Clare had shaken off the horror that had paralysed her
and had sprung towards them. Roland glanced at Mr Stanley's face, and,
passing his arm round the old man's neck, drew his head towards him,
and bent over it in such a manner as to keep it from her eyes.

'Take her in, Litvinoff,' he said, still bending forward; 'make her go
in.'

'Come in, Miss Stanley; you can do no good here,' said Litvinoff,
rising and taking the girl by the arm. She shook him off.

'Let me alone,' she cried. 'How dare you interfere? Let me go to my
father.'

'Miss Stanley, be reasonable. You can do much more good in the house.
Don't you know we must bring your father in?--and your mother must be
told.'

But Mrs Stanley needed no telling. From the window she had seen--when
the barking of the dogs told of Mr Stanley's near approach--how Clare
had run out bareheaded to meet him--how he had stopped in the middle of
the lawn, as if expecting her to come to him--how he had taken his gun
from his shoulder, and dropped the butt on the ground--how there had
been a flash, a report, and how he had fallen. Now she came out.

'Go in,' she said to Clare, 'and send for Doctor Bailey. Thomas can go
on Red Robin.'

By this time the servants were gathering from all directions.

'Come,' Litvinoff spoke in a low voice, but a voice of authority, and
led her towards the stable-yard. Coming round the corner they met
Thomas.

'Oh, Thomas--' she began, when Litvinoff interrupted.

'Saddle Red Robin, and ride for Doctor Bailey--ride fast for your life!
Now, Miss Stanley, for Heaven's sake don't give way; keep up. They may
want linen for bandages, and brandy.'

She looked at him with wide-open, frightened eyes, but she obeyed him;
and when those things were brought she stood looking mutely at him,
like a child asking for directions.

'Sit down,' he said; and, pouring out some brandy-and-water, held it to
her lips.

'Drink, and then you will be able, perhaps, to be of some use.'

They were in the drawing-room. Litvinoff noticed, even at that moment,
the hundred dainty tokens of a cultivated woman's daily presence. As he
set down the glass, past the closed door came the heavy tread of the
men who were bringing the master back to his home.

Then Clare rose up. 'I will go to my father,' she said, turning a
white, resolute face towards the door. 'Twenty of you shall not stop
me!'

Litvinoff caught her two hands and held them tightly.

'Wait, wait; they are getting him to his bed. You would only be in the
way. Trust me, Miss Stanley. I would not keep you from him if you could
be of any use to him. You may be of real service by-and-by.'

'Very well,' she said; 'I will do what you tell me. But, oh, tell
me all you know; tell me where he's hurt; did you see? Will it be
dangerous? For pity's sake tell me what you saw, whether--'

Here the door opened, and Roland came in. Her eyes searched his
face for re-assurance, but found there something more terrible than
her worst fears, and as he opened his lips to speak she cried in a
high-pitched voice, quite unlike her own, as she held out her hands as
if to keep off something, 'Don't tell me--don't tell me anything--let
me go!'

And as Roland stood aside she rushed from the room. Litvinoff closed
the door.

'He's dead,' said Roland.

'I know. I knew that directly I put my hand on him. I have had my hand
on a man shot dead before to-day.'

Roland sat down on a low chair. It was the one Clare had occupied
half-an-hour before. There on the little table by it lay her
work-basket, and some pretty useless bit of sewing, and all the little
gilt working implements which she had put down when she went to meet
her father. Roland's eye fell on them, and he groaned.

'Good God, Litvinoff, what a terrible thing! What a frightful blow for
them!'

'Does Mrs Stanley know?'

'Yes.'

'How soon can the doctor be here?'

'In half-an-hour; but he'll be no good when he does come.'

'Not for him, but Miss Stanley may need him. Her face as she passed out
of the door was not reassuring.'

Roland groaned again.

'What a horrible world it is!' he said.

His father dead, his brother estranged, his sweetheart lost to him,
and now this new calamity had fallen near him. 'It never rains but it
pours.' And it seemed to be raining misfortunes in Firth Vale.

'It _is_ a horrible world,' said the other; 'but reflecting on that
truth will not aid anyone just now. Is there nothing we can do?'

'Not that I know of, but we won't go till the doctor comes.'

'Certainly not; and in the meantime let me suggest that a little of
this brandy would not be amiss, if you don't want him to find a patient
in you. You look uncommonly shaky.'

Roland accepted the suggestion and the proffered glass.

'Miss Stanley's mother seems to have her wits about her?'

'Yes, Mrs Stanley's a sensible woman--but she's not Miss Stanley's
mother. Mr Stanley was married twice.'

'There are no other children?'

'No.'

'Poor woman,' said Litvinoff, sincerely enough, though for a certain
reason he was not displeased to hear that Clare was an only child. 'He
seems to have been a rich man,' went on Litvinoff, glancing round the
room.

'Yes, he had more than he knew what to do with. It seems hard that he
should have had to leave it all so suddenly,' said Roland, growing
sentimental.

'It is a great pity men have to leave their wealth behind them. If they
could only take it with them, there would not be so many young people
growing up in vicious idleness.' Then, as it suddenly occurred to him
that this might possibly be considered personal, he went on in his
most approved didactic manner,--'Since death is inevitable, how lucky
we ought to think it that so few people have anything to live for. I
believe to a great many people the best thing in life is the certainty
that some day or other they'll get out of it.'

Roland did not answer. There are moments when moral reflections are
particularly hateful.

The doctor arrived sooner than they had hoped, the man-servant
having met him about half-way between Aspinshaw and his own house,
but of course he could only confirm what they all knew. The whole
contents of the gun had lodged in the lungs, and death must have been
instantaneous. He asked the two young men a good many questions as to
the manner of the accident, but of course they had not seen it, and
were unable to throw any light on the cause of the disaster. He must
have been carrying the gun full-cock, and the concussion, when he
brought the butt down on the ground, must have started it.

'Mrs Stanley bears up wonderfully well.'

'And his daughter?' put in Litvinoff.

'Well, the poor child's crushed at present, but she'll soon be all
right. Young hearts soon throw off their troubles, thank Heaven! I
shall have to trouble you two gentlemen at the inquest,' he said, as he
got into his gig and was driven off.

Roland Ferrier and Michael Litvinoff walked home almost in silence,
consumed a dinner enlivened by Miss Letitia's comments on the events of
the day, and, when she had retired in tears, passed one of the most
melancholy evenings in the recollection of either. Roland did his best
to perform the difficult part of genial host to the guest who had been
introduced to Thornsett under such inauspicious circumstances; but he
was a young man who had not that within him which enables men to resist
the influence of the immediately surrounding circumstances, and his
attempt was a dead failure. Litvinoff could, perhaps, have succeeded
with a desperate effort in raising the cloud of gloom that hung over
them both, but it did not seem to him that the game was quite worth the
candle, and he let it alone.

Under the circumstances there could be no shooting, and none of such
social entertainments as would certainly otherwise have enlivened
his visit, and the prospect of his first Christmas in an English
country-house looked very bleak.

'I suppose one mustn't smoke here,' he said aloud to himself, when,
the long evening over, he reached his bedroom, and sank down into an
easy-chair before the brightly-burning fire. 'That antiquated lady is
the sort of person who would go mad if she smelt smoke in one of the
bedrooms. It is a great bore. I want to think--and how the deuce am I
to think if I can't smoke!--and I must think. Yes, it must be done;
they must put it down to my foreign ways,' he added, as he drew out his
cigar-case and lighted up.

Something in his surroundings reminded him of that night in October
when he had saved the life of the man who was now lying dead at
Aspinshaw.

'Poor old boy,' he said, 'I didn't renew his lease of life for very
long, after all; but I expect he lived long enough to have done almost
as much for me as he could have done had he lived longer. Perhaps my
"views," as he would have called them, will not stand so much in the
way now. My crushed young host told me that she is beginning to share
those views and to be enthusiastic--thanks to that mysterious entity,
Petrovitch. I owe him that; I wonder if I owe him anything else? I
do owe many sums to many people. He had me for ten pounds, though,
any way. Pardieu! I hope he won't try that again, or I shall have to
stay down here permanently. I shall attend a funeral in a few days,
I suppose. I wonder when I shall attend a marriage? She was obedient
to-day--a good sign. Things will go smoother so.'

He puffed at his cigar in silence a few minutes, then he spoke aloud
again, 'And so that was John Hatfield, and he is one of us--or half
one of us. By Jove! that makes me feel a cursed traitor--that merits
death. Well, I'm not afraid of that, anyhow, nor of anything that may
come after. I've got memories enough to make a hell of my own here,
and death would be the end of _them_, at any rate, not the beginning.
And yet one must live, I suppose, though I don't feel so sure of that
to-night. Poor little girl--dear little girl! I wish _you_ were the
heiress of Aspinshaw. The real heiress is pretty and charming, and
a lady,' with a rather bitter laugh, 'and she is beginning to have
"views;" but somehow I can't get you out of my head to-night.' He moved
his hand to and fro before his eyes, as though to clear away the smoke.
Then he rose. 'Curses on conscience--curses on principle!' he said; 'I
must see if sleep will do it;' and he went to bed.

During the next few days there was nothing to do except to call at
Aspinshaw every day and ask after Mrs and Miss Stanley. This was an
obvious duty, but as an occupation it was not engrossing. On the second
day, young Ferrier offered to 'show his guest over' the mill, and
Litvinoff, always glad of a new experience, joyfully consented. The
mill was charmingly situated in a little hollow in the hills, with a
big reservoir above it and a little stream below. On one side was a
wood, where a good many hollies kept up the impression of greenness,
though all the other trees were sere and brown. On the other side was a
very steep incline which shot up almost like a high wall, and was bare
and rugged and rocky, and from the top some rude steps cut out of the
grey rock led down to the mill. While the workings of the machinery
were being explained, and the various processes exhibited, it did
not escape the Count's observation that the men looked particularly
discontented, and that there was none of that deferential submission
in their manner to Roland which he had been accustomed to see in the
manner of workmen towards their masters.

'What's the matter with the men?' Litvinoff asked, as they walked back
to Thornsett. 'They looked uncommonly disagreeable. My friend John
Hatfield doesn't appear to be the only one who is dissatisfied with the
munificent two pounds a week.'

'John Hatfield! What a memory you have for names. Oh, they're not
dissatisfied with the amount of their wages. On the contrary, they only
wish they could go on at the same rate. But they soon won't have any at
all from me. The mill stops working at the end of the year, and they've
somehow got it into their heads that I'm responsible for it, whereas
it's just about as much my fault as it is that tree's.'

'Is it any one's fault?'

'You know that it is my brother's. He made the quarrel, and forced it
on me, knowing what the results would be.'

'And the results to these men will be--'

'Starvation, I'm afraid, for some of them, poor fellows, and very short
commons for them all; but it's rather hard that I should be blamed for
it.'

'Oh, beautiful system!' said Litvinoff; 'splendid organisation of
industry! Two brothers quarrel about nothing in particular, and a
hundred men and their families have to starve in consequence.'

'It's not the fault of the system, but of my father's will and my
brother's mad temper; but anyhow it is not my fault.'

'Well, your father's will is distinctly part of the system; but, as
you say, you are not to blame. No, Ferrier; you are certainly the most
hardly done by. As to these "hands," as you call them, _qu'importe_? It
is you who are to be pitied. It is so much harder to be blamed than to
starve.'

'What a cool fellow you are, Litvinoff!' Roland laughed, but was yet a
little nettled too, for, like all Englishmen, he hated irony. 'You're
always mocking at something or somebody. But perhaps you forget that I
shall have hardly anything to live on either--a wretched hundred a year
or so.'

'A hundred a year,' said the Count, in the tone of one who is dealing
with a difficult arithmetical problem, 'is just about two pounds a
week. Now the other day you said that two pounds a week was "not so
bad" for a man with a family; and, with all your misfortunes, you are
not what you English people call "a family man."'

'But then you must remember how differently those sort of people are
brought up.'

'I do remember it.'

'They don't have the same needs as we do.'

'Don't they?'

'No. What do they care about music or art or poetry or travelling?
Fortunately for them they haven't the tastes that run away with money.'

'They have a taste for food and for warmth, I suppose,' the Count was
beginning, when Roland interrupted him.

'There, Litvinoff, it's no good; you'll never convert me. I'm a
Radical, not a Socialist. Let's talk about something else.'

'By all means. To return to John Hatfield. I noticed in the mill to-day
that he did not participate in the general scowl.'

'No. I don't think he bears me any ill-will. Our relations with the
Hatfields are peculiar. When my mother died--it was before my aunt came
to live with us--Mrs Hatfield took charge of my brother and me, and was
a sort of foster-mother to us. Her daughter Alice was our playfellow,
and a dear little girl she was.'

'Was that the girl you said had--well, not acted very wisely?' asked
the Count, feeling an insensate longing to talk about Alice, or to hear
some one else do so.

'Yes; that was the girl,' said Roland. 'She was as sweet a little girl
as you would wish to see.'

Litvinoff mentally endorsed this statement to the full. Aloud he said,--

'What was it--the old story?'

'Yes. She met some fellow at Liverpool; I suppose lost her heart to
him, and gave the world for love, and considered it well lost, as they
say. Damn the brute! I wish I had the handling of him. I should like to
have half an hour with him without the gloves.'

Litvinoff was conscious of an insane desire to give Roland his wish,
and try which was the better man, but he said quietly,--

'You don't know him, then? I suppose nothing has been heard or seen of
her?'

'No, only--it's rather funny--when I went to the Agora that night I
fancied I saw her face, but it must have been fancy.'

'Of course; unless,' added the other, goaded by the Imp of the
Perverse--'unless her lover was a gentleman interested in social
reform.'

'Not he,' said Roland contemptuously; 'more likely some fool of a
counter-jumper or clerk. You know I looked upon her quite as my sister,
and I was very fond of her, and all that.'

'Yes?' interrogatively.

Roland had not meant to say anything more; but after that 'yes' he
found himself going on,--

'And that's why it's so deuced hard that my brother should blame me for
it. Upon my soul, I seem fated to be blamed by everybody I know for
everything any one else has done!'

'That, then, was your brother's accusation?'

'Yes. At least if it wasn't I can make neither head nor tail of
anything he said. But I didn't mean to have said anything about
it--it's too preposterous! I don't know how it is, but I'm always
finding myself telling you things that I didn't mean to tell any one. I
wonder how it is? Natural affinity, I suppose.'

'I suppose it's because you know I am interested in you,' said
Litvinoff cordially, as they turned in at the gate of Thornsett Edge.

'It will be very dull for you here,' said Roland, beating the shrubs
lightly with his ash stick as they walked up the path; 'and, I am sorry
to say I shall have to be out this evening. I _must_ go down to our
solicitor to arrange about several things. You won't think me an awful
bear?'

'Don't mention it; I shall be very well amused, I doubt not. I can take
a walk if I find I miss you very much, and then I shall be sure to lose
myself, and there is some excitement to be got out of that.'

That evening John Hatfield was sitting on the oak settle by his hearth,
his wife with her knitting in the substantial rocking-chair opposite.
The interior was cosy and bright enough. A high wooden screen protected
the inmates from any cold air that might else have come through the
door, which opened straight from the house-place into the street.
A short red curtain hung in front of the long low window, that was
nearly as wide as the room itself. There was a chintz flounce to the
chimney-piece, and a bright round table, on three legs, in the middle
of the room. There was a good deal of shining brass about, and a few
pieces of old china. Mrs Hatfield, a small fair woman, with grey,
short-sighted eyes, had more lines in her face than her years should
have traced there. But the poor age much more rapidly than the rich.
Significant reflection. And every trouble leaves its signet on our
faces, and Mrs Hatfield's trouble had been a heavy one, and its traces
were easily discernible. So thought Count Litvinoff, as he tapped at
the door and entered John Hatfield's house, and the thought was not a
pleasant one. Derbyshire was certainly not the place to come to for
pleasant thoughts, or pleasant incidents either.

'Is't thee, man?' said Hatfield, leaning forward to discern the
features of his visitor in the comparative gloom by the door where
he stood. 'Come in--come to the fire. Here, lass, this is the chap I
telled ye on.'

As Litvinoff held out his hand to Mrs Hatfield her husband went on,--

'Ay, shake his hand, lass; you don't so often get to shake hands wi' an
honest man, and a brave man--'

Alice's father speaking of him to Alice's mother! Another pleasant
incident for Count Litvinoff!



CHAPTER XX.

IMPROVING PROSPECTS.


Clare Stanley was the mistress of Aspinshaw, and of a good deal of
bricks and mortar, stocks and shares, and Three per Cent. Consols
besides. Mrs Stanley was comfortably provided for, but it was Clare who
was to profit by the hard work, the self-denial and forethought of some
three generations of Stanleys, or, as some might think, of their greed,
their grasping, and their over-reaching of their less crafty fellow-men.

The will that had laid the burden of wealth upon her, at an age when
most young women of her class are engaged in constant differences with
their parents and guardians on the subject of pin-money, had been the
one act of eccentricity of Mr Stanley's whole life.

For some days her grief for her father's loss had been too absorbing to
permit of her thinking of much else besides, but on this first day of
the new year she felt more able to think, and as she sat alone by the
drawing-room fire she began for the first time to realise her position.
About one thing she had made up her mind; she must leave this horrible
house, where the shadow had fallen on her which she felt just then
could never be lifted again.

Between Clare and her father's second wife there had always been
perfectly cordial relations, but they were not bound together by any
ties of love.

Mrs Stanley had always done her duty to her husband and his child, but
hers was a cold nature, and not one which had drawn out Clare's heart
towards itself. She was now going to stay with her own relatives, and
was perfectly willing to take her step-daughter with her; but the girl
decided, without much need for reflection, that there would be many
things better than to be buried alive in a Yorkshire village, with
no one more congenial to talk to than Mrs Stanley or Mrs Stanley's
relations, whom Clare had been wont to term 'the fossils.'

An unposted letter lay on the little table at her elbow, in which
she had accepted an invitation to spend an indefinite time with the
Quaids. She thought that in London, away from the associations of the
recent past, she would be better able to plan out the course of her
future life. She knew that that course would now be a very different
one from what it would have been had she had the planning of it three
months ago, before she met Count Litvinoff or spent that evening at
the Cleon. She was sorrowfully glad that her father's will was what it
was, for she was conscious in a vague sort of way that wealth meant
power, and she was determined that in her hands it should mean power to
do good and to make others happy. Her plans went no further than this
at present, and she knew that even to carry this out she would need
teaching and help and counsel from those who had more experience of the
world and its needs than she had. It was, perhaps, this thought that
had mainly influenced her in her acceptance of Mrs Quaid's very kind
and cordial invitation, for Marlborough Villa was not the most unlikely
place in the world at which to meet some one who had just that which
she lacked. There she had first been forced to think; perhaps there she
would first be taught how to act.

Why does one never learn at school the things one needs when one leaves
it? 'How much there is to know--how much there is for me to learn,' she
said to herself, with a little sigh, leaning forward and gazing into
the glowing fire, resting her elbow on her knee and her cheek on her
clasped hands.

She started and rose at a loud, clanging ring of the door-bell. As she
had expected, the servant announced 'Count Litvinoff.' He came forward
with a low and deferential bow.

'You must forgive me,' he said, 'for calling on you on Sunday
afternoon, which, I believe, is not the rule in England; but I heard
that you were leaving Aspinshaw to-morrow, and I could not run the risk
of not seeing you again.'

'We are always pleased to see you,' said Clare; 'but I am not going to
London for some time yet. There will be a good deal of law business, I
suppose, and it is not fair to carry the trouble of that to my friend's
house. Is Mr Roland well?'

'He is on duty,' said Litvinoff; 'he has gone to a chapel with his
aunt, which is good of him, as his views are not that way.'

Clare drew a breath of relief. She had not felt comfortable in Roland's
presence since that interview with Litvinoff in the National Gallery.

'I myself shall be returning to London in a few weeks,' the young man
went on. 'I have already stayed as long as I at first intended to do,
but now Ferrier is good enough to wish me to stay until the household
at Thornsett Edge is broken up.'

'Ah, yes, I had forgotten that. What a horrible thing! What are they
going to do?'

'I believe Mr Roland will live with his aunt at Chelsea.'

'We seem to be all going to London,' said Clare, with an effort to be
as cheerful as possible.

'True; but London is so vast, and in it I know so few people whom
you are likely to know, that I feel I might as well be going back to
Siberia for any chance I shall have of seeing you.' This with the air
of one who would as soon go to Siberia as not while he was about it.

'Oh, I daresay we shall see each other,' she answered, leaning back in
her chair and trifling with a big screen of peacock's feathers, which
she had idly taken up. 'I'm going to stay with a lady who is madly
anxious to know you.'

Count Litvinoff looked intensely surprised, as though that had been
almost impossible.

'I think I told you about her,' she continued; 'Mrs Quaid, who belongs
to the Cleon, you know, where I heard all about Socialism, you
remember?'

'Oh, yes, I remember,' said Litvinoff, which was true. He did.

'I do hope I shall see you again, because you and Mr Petrovitch are the
only two people I know who can help me.'

'It is a great privilege my fellow-countryman shares with me, Miss
Stanley. May I be the first to hear of what help you stand in need?'

'I daresay you have heard,' she answered, 'that my father'--here her
voice trembled a little--'has left me nearly all his money, and it is
mine now, though I am not of age.'

Ah, no, Count Litvinoff had certainly not heard that.

'And then, you see,' she went on, knitting her brows under the stress
of the difficulty she found in putting her thoughts into words, 'the
question is, what am I to do with it? A little time ago I should have
found it easy enough to do with it what every one else does; but I
have been thinking a great deal--a very great deal lately--ever since
I heard Mr Petrovitch; and now I feel the responsibility of it so much
more than I should have done before.'

Count Litvinoff thought to himself that that was the sort of
responsibility he was admirably adapted to share. He merely looked
sympathetic, and Miss Stanley went on.

'And then I feel sure money may be a fearful curse if one doesn't use
it properly. Of course, I can't disguise from myself that this money
was made in the usual way, and that others have lost all that my father
and his father have gained, and I wish I could think of some way in
which it might give as much happiness as it would have done had it been
left in the hands of the workers who toiled to produce it. You are one
who should be able to advise me. What shall I do?'

Litvinoff's hair almost stood on end. This was getting his own coin
back with a vengeance.

'My dear Miss Stanley,' he said gravely, 'if I were to advise you in
the only way which seems possible to me now, your friends would all
look upon me as your worst enemy--as an adventurer, as a rogue. Whereas
I desire to be looked on as your faithful friend and servant--as the
man who, more than all others, would go through fire and water to do
you the slightest service.'

'I should hardly have thought you would have cared what my friends or
anybody else thought of you,' was Miss Stanley's only reply to this
fervid declaration.

'Under most circumstances,' said the Count, with a little wave of his
hand, 'I do care for nothing and for nobody; but'--he went on, with
a slight tremor in his voice--'rather than incur the dislike of any
one whom you respect and love, I would abjure every principle, and
sacrifice every cause.'

'I asked for advice,' said Clare, not seeing her way to a more direct
answer.

'I know you did,' he spoke rapidly, dropping into a foreign accent;
'and I--I cannot give it you, Miss Stanley. Let me tell you one thing.
You know--you have heard, you have read--how in Russia, when money
is wanted for our cause, it is the duty of some of us to get it--to
persuade it out of those who have. That has often been my duty, and I
have never failed. I have taken, over and over again, all, all from
those as young as you, and have left them with nothing. I have had to
raise enthusiasm by every means, to urge to self-sacrifice, and then
to take unsparingly. There are men now, my _friends_, who, if they
knew that you--rich, young, enthusiastic--had asked me for _advice_,
and that I had refused to give it, would say, "Michael Litvinoff has
become traitor," and would kill me like a rat. But,' he went on,
rising and stretching out his clenched fist, 'did I know that a legion
of such men were outside that door, armed and waiting for me, and
hearing every word I speak, I would still say that for no cause in the
world must you make sacrifices or must you suffer; and I would still
say that I would serve you before all causes.'

'Count Litvinoff, I can hear no more of this. Please talk of something
else.'

'Ah! now yet once more I have offended you. It is part of my unhappy
lot that whenever I speak in earnest I offend you. But I can't talk of
something else to-day. I must say adieu, Miss Stanley. If I stayed I
should disobey you, and I cannot disobey you.'

'Good-bye, then,' said Clare, extending her hand.

He caught her hand, held it tightly an instant, bent over it as though
he were about to raise it to his lips, then dropped it as if it had
burned him. 'Adieu,' he said, 'I know that in England the hand-shake
means forgivenness, and that once more I am forgiven--for speaking the
truth--and that I may see you again.'

Clare did not gainsay it, and he left the room.

Count Litvinoff was marching back to Thornsett with a very elate
step, and a good deal of military swagger, and Clare had resumed her
thinking--she was thinking of him, and he was thinking of her. He
thought aloud, as usual.

'H'm,' he said to the grey stone walls on each side of him, and to
the plovers who were wheeling and screaming overhead, '_la belle_ was
offended, but not so much. When she thinks over it she will say,--"He
is not a good patriot and friend of liberty, this Litvinoff, for he
forgets his mistress, _La Révolution_; therefore he is unfaithful."
Ay, but she will add, "He only forgets her when I am near, and he is
only unfaithful for me," _C'est bien--c'est bien--c'est très bien!_' he
added, vaulting a gate and making a short cut home.



CHAPTER XXI.

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.


'Going out again, John?' spoke Mrs Hatfield, a little plaintively, as
her husband rose and took down his hat from its peg, ten days after
Thornsett Mill had been closed. Not closed for a day on account of a
wedding, as had once been suggested, but closed, it might be for ten
years, or practically for ever.

'Ay, lass,' said her husband shortly, but not unkindly; 'Ah should go
clean daft if Ah stayed i' the house. Lazying about don't suit me--it's
only my betters as takes their pleasure i' that way.'

'Tha'lt do no good down at t' Spotted Cow,' returned Mrs Hatfield,
compressing her lips; 'tha might as well be idle i' tha own house as
wi' all they gomerils--spending tha money too, as if tha was i' full
work.'

'Well,' he said, pausing with his hand on the back of the settle where
she sat, 'we'll all have to be shifting out o' this soon, and tha
knows, lass, as Ah were never one to drink nor to talk out o' season.
Ah mun hear where the lads is going for work. It won't ne'er do for us
a' to be going the same way.'

'It seems hard tha should have to go after work at tha time o' life,
John. But likely it's as hard for Rowley and Dick as for thee and me.
Poor lads, poor lads! Ah, Heaven help us a' in this hard world.'

'They're fur enow fro' want, tha may be sure, or they wouldn't ha'
sacrificed the mill to their mucky pride. It's little they care who
starves, so long as they have enow. Tha must remember as what they'd
call being poor we'd call being rich. "Hard up" for a gentleman ud be
enow and to spare for a working man.'

And he went out, slamming the door behind him, and his wife took up
her knitting with a sigh. She could rarely follow her husband in his
reasonings, but troubles are not the less hard to bear because we don't
clearly see their causes. They had saved a little money, but that would
soon be gone, and then there would be nothing before them but 'the
house.' Both their sons were away--one a sailor, and the other in a
warehouse in Liverpool--but neither was earning enough to be able to
help their parents. Vaguely she hoped that her husband might take it
into his head to go to London for work. An idea is prevalent in the
provinces that in London there is work for every one, and besides,
Alice had written from London, and there would be a chance of finding
her poor lost child and bringing her back.

The sudden closing of the mill made affairs indeed terribly serious
for most of the men in Thornsett. It was in the middle of winter, when
journeying was not pleasant, nor work easy to get; and though the
'hands' employed in the mill had been told that it would close, very,
very few among them had made any effort to secure other work before the
time for closing came. Perhaps it had seemed to them that the closing
of the mill was one of those calamities too terrible to happen. But it
had happened, and after ten days of idleness the men were beginning to
see clearly what it would mean to them. For there was no other work
to be got within anything like easy reach of the village; and even
if work could be obtained somewhere else, the little community must
be broken up, and each family must separate itself from friends and
neighbours and relatives in order to journey thither. This alone is
thought a terrible calamity for middle-class men and women, but it is
the least of the troubles which are always hanging over the heads
of the workers. The exodus that must shortly take place had not yet
begun, but every one knew that it could not now be long delayed; and
Potters and the few other tradespeople being, of course, involved in
the general distress, could no longer give credit. This had never been
withheld in slack times, when the shopkeepers knew that good ones were
certain to come in which the scores would be wiped off or reduced very
considerably; but now there was no chance of things growing brighter
again, and even the small accounts then owing were not very likely ever
to be paid.

During the past ten days, as the men's money was being spent, and as
the want of work gave them more time to reason on the causes of their
trouble, a strong feeling of resentment had been growing up among them
against the two young masters, who had held, as it were, the happiness,
the comfort, perhaps the lives, of all these men in their hands, and
had thrown all to the dogs rather than humble their own insensate
pride and abate their own insensate obstinacy. This feeling had found
vent, not only in the scowls and black looks on which Litvinoff had
commented, but in certain faint groans and hisses with which Roland had
been greeted on more than one occasion when he passed down the village
street.

What right had these two, on whose forbearance and good fellowship hung
the fate of all these families, to go quarrelling with each other?

'It's a' their darn'd selfishness,' Murdoch was saying, just as
Hatfield kicked open the door of the tap-room at the Spotted Cow, and
passed in. 'What's the odds to them if we clem or if we dunna't?'

'It's my belief,' said Potters bitterly, 'as they done it to show their
independence.'

'They might have hit on a cheaper way,' growled Hatfield, as Murdoch
and Sigley made room for him to sit between them.

'Cheaper! why, what's cheaper nor our flesh and blood?' asked Murdoch,
with a snarl. 'They can afford to chuck a little o' that away. They can
get more of it when they want it easy enow.'

'Ay, that's it, lad,' said Hatfield. 'It's the flesh and blood o' some
o' us that's here still, and more o' us that's dead and gone, that's
made the bit o' money they'll live on for the rest o' their days.'

'Well, I don't quite see that,' muttered Sigley, with his usual
meekness. 'They've always paid fair wages.'

'Yes,' answered Hatfield. 'Ah never said they took it for nothing. They
paid for it right enow, but they bought it cheap, lad--they bought it
cheap, and they sold it at a good profit. We've nowt but our flesh and
blood to sell, and now we mun carry it to another market.'

'If you mean your work,' put in the landlord, 'I don't see as you
ought to talk i' that way. They paid you your own price for your work,
anyhow.'

'No,' said Hatfield. 'They paid us what we was forced to take.'

'Thou'dst always some sense i' tha head, John,' broke in old Murdoch
approvingly. 'Tha was na here when.... D'ye mind, Bolt, the night after
t'owd master's burying, tha made the lads drink t' young masters'
health? Ask them to drink it now!'

The murmur of ironical assent which went round the room showed that
Murdoch had expressed the sense of the meeting. He had been rising in
importance daily, ever since the announcement of the mill's closing.
He had always been the prophet of calamity, and now that his worst
prophecies had been more than fulfilled he was looked upon as little
less than inspired.

'Well,' said Bolt deprecatingly, 'who could ha' foreseen things turning
out i' this way? And as for asking them to drink their healths, why
they ain't their masters now. So where's the use?'

'It do seem hard, it do,' murmured Sigley, who went to chapel
regularly, 'when a man have saved up a bit to have it all swept away
in a rushing, mighty wind, and us left, like Pharaoh's lean kine, to
make bricks without straw. The whole creation groaneth!...'

'Well, don't groan here,' interrupted Murdoch grimly; 'tha'd best do
tha groanin' wi' the rest o' creation at t' chapel; and well mayst tha
groan there if tha hears tell o' cows makin' bricks.'

'Them as don't believe in the Bible,' said Sigley impressively, giving
voice to a very popular belief, 'can't look for a blessing.'

'Nor yet them as does, it seems.'

'What ah was going to say was this--as we should take comfort, thinking
as we ain't the only ones.'

'Comfort, tha loon!--that's the hell of it! Damn the man, says I, as
can find comfort i' t' thought o' other men's misery!'

It was Hatfield who spoke, and as he spoke he brought his fist down on
the table with a bang that made the glasses ring.

'How tha does take on, John,' said Bolt. 'What Sigley meant was only as
it shows you ain't to blame, seeing as so many others is in the same
fix.'

Sigley did not confirm this interpretation. He only shook his head,
with the air of one who had meant something much more pious and
profound.

'You're wrong _again_,' said Hatfield loudly. He had risen and faced
the room, which was now pretty full. While this talk had been going
on, men had dropped in by twos and threes, and all that had been said
had been listened to with profound attention. 'You're wrong again! It
_is_ our faults, and the faults of all like us. Our fathers might have
altered it. We might alter it now if we had but the spunk to take it
in hand; and, if we don't, them as comes after us will, and'll curse
us for leaving them the work to do. Didn't none o' ye ever hear tell
o' the elephant that lets himself be led and mastered by one he could
smash with a shake o' his poll? And why? Because, the books tell us,
_he doesna know his own strength_. But he doesna fare so bad as we. He
gets well fed and well looked after because it costs summat to replace
him, and we lets oursels be led and drove and starved, when it suits
'em, by a set as we could chase out o' the world to-morrow if we but
stood together and acted like men.'

A thrill of excited sympathy ran through the room as old Murdoch
shouted,--

'Right again! That's it, John; tha's got it! A score thousand o' your
pattern and there'd be an end to men being turned out o' their homes to
clem i' midwinter because two young devils both wants the same lass!'

'It's all very well, Hatfield,' said Potters sourly; 'but tha's one
face for us and another face for t' gentlefolk. That warn't no working
man as I've see comin' out o' your house time and again this last three
week.'

'No, he ain't. He's more o' the right stuff in his little finger nor
you and all like you put together has got in your whole bodies. There,
take that, Potters!'

'Whatever he's got in him, he seems pretty thick with young Roland
Ferrier,' said a man who had not spoken before.

'He did his best to stop their quarrelling,' Hatfield answered hotly;
'because he knew what it would be for all o' us; and he's been chased
out o' his own country and lost nearly all his brass for standing up
for the likes o' we.'

'Yes, I've had a bit o' talk with him, too; that's true enough.'

'Ay! he's no fool, nor no coward neither.'

'He's a true friend o' working men, he is, if he is a Count.'

Litvinoff, it will be seen, had not lost his opportunities while he had
been at Thornsett, for nearly every man present had something to say in
his favour.

'But seeing as he's such a friend o' Mr Roland's, why don't he do
something to stop this set-out?'

'What can he do?'

'He might speak to him about it.'

'Look'ee here, lads,' said Clayton, an old man who had not spoken
before, 'ah've been a-turnin' o' this thing over i' my head, and this
is what ah come to. If so be as young Ferrier's like to listen to any
one, would he listen first to a new-fangled furrin' chap, or to all
o' us honest lads as has known him since he was so high? Has any of
you spoke to him? Has any one of you put it straight to him--this is
the way of it, and this and this? M'appen this fooling o' theirs was
just through ignorance. They might ha' thought it didna matter to any
but them, and if once they knowed a' as it means, m'appen they'd think
better owt, and let things go the old way.'

'Old heads is worth most, arter all,' said John Bolt, who was of a
hopeful nature and turned to the new idea as a relief from his former
visions of empty benches and deserted bar,--of a time when there would
be nothing to chalk up but his own losses, and when adulterated beer
would seem what it was, a drug in the market. 'Why shouldn't some of
you do as he says, and go and see him and speak him reasonable?'

A great difference of opinion arose at once on the new idea, but nearly
all were in their hearts glad to try a new chance, and at last old
Clayton, from whom the suggestion had come, said,--

'Well, sithee, if any of you lads'll come wi' me, dang me if I'll not
go this very night--this very minute.'

'You'd better all go,' advised Potters; 'it would be more telling like.'

'All o' us isn't here,' murmured Sigley.

'Get 'em here,' said Clayton shortly. 'If two or three o' ye was to go
round and tell the other lads what's towards, they'd come too, and we'd
have one more try at getting things righted here, afore we all turns
different ways and never sees each other's faces again.'

No sooner said than done. Men are ready at all times to follow any one
who will act, or even to act themselves if prompted with sufficient
energy. In less than half an hour over a hundred men were assembled
outside the Spotted Cow, and were prepared to go up to Thornsett Edge
to try to open again the doors of the workshop which a dead hand had
closed against them. But their faith was strong in the power of a young
and living hand, and they went with a new hope in their hearts.

'We'll all go up,' said old Clayton, who had assumed the position of
leader, 'but only a few of us had best go in. Let's see--you, and you,
and you. You'll be one, Hatfield, and Murdoch makes five.'

'Not me,' snarled Murdoch sourly; 'no eatin' dirt for me. I ain't never
humbled myself to no man, and I ain't a-goin' to begin now, to a young
chap as ah worked along o' his father manys a long day.'

'Not me, neither,' said Hatfield, 'for ah know aforehand as it's too
late. But don't you mind us. Go your own way, and here's luck to you.'

He and Murdoch stood at the door with Bolt and Potters, and a few more
who, not having been employed in the mill, were considered not to have
any place in the deputation. They watched the crowd out of sight up
the steep street, and the women turned out to watch their men go by.
It was a clear, frosty night, and bitterly cold, but most of the women
rolled their bare arms in their aprons and stood talking in little
knots after the procession had passed out of sight. They were more
hopeful than their husbands, for women are naturally more trusting than
men and believe more in the possibility of altering facts by emotional
influences.

To Murdoch and Hatfield, in spite of their assumption of indifference,
the time seemed very long as it went by and brought them no news of
their comrades. After half an hour Bill suggested that they should
stroll up the hill to meet the others and learn how it fared with them.



CHAPTER XXII.

A FORLORN HOPE.


If the frequenters of the Spotted Cow had only known, this was about
the most unpropitious moment for obtaining a hearing for their
petition. A hearing was all they could possibly obtain for it, but that
they did not know either.

Litvinoff's host had not found him as great a comfort as he had
expected. For one thing, the Count's almost universal sympathy seemed
unaccountably to stop short at Roland Ferrier. The young man felt that
he had been terribly ill-used and naturally expected every one else
to see things in the same light, and it was 'riling' to find all the
sympathy of his guest turned, not towards him, but towards his workmen,
which did not seem reasonable; for, as Roland said, they could get
other work, but where was he to get another mill? Then he did not like
a certain change which he noticed in the other's tone when he spoke of
Miss Stanley. He had sympathy enough for her, goodness knows--a trifle
too much Roland sometimes thought.

For Litvinoff to be a bore was impossible; but still it did happen
rather often that he would bring forward political economy of the most
startling pattern when the other wanted to talk literature, or art, or
personal grievances.

On this particular night Roland had been led, much against his will,
into a discussion of the nature which Litvinoff so much affected, and
he had to admit to himself that, as usual, he had much the worst of it.

'It's all very well,' he said (people always say, 'It's all very well,'
when they can find no other answer to an argument); 'it's all very
well, and that sort of thing may do for Russia, but you will never get
an economic or any other revolution here-- Why what the deuce is all
that row?'

'That row' was a tramping of many feet on the gravel, and a hum of
voices just outside the window.

Litvinoff, who was sitting nearer the window, rose and looked through
the laths of the venetian blinds.

'Well, my dear Ferrier,' he said, turning round with a smile, 'it
strikes me that there _is_ a revolution in England, and that it has
begun at Thornsett. The whole population of Derbyshire appears to have
assembled in your front garden--yes, that's it, evidently,' he went on,
as a ring was given to the door bell, 'and they are going to try gentle
measures to begin with, just as I have always advised,' he concluded,
for the ring was not a loud one.

Roland had risen from his easy-chair and had made towards the window,
when the door opened and the maid announced that Clayton and one or two
of the hands wanted to speak to Mr Ferrier.

'Show them in,' said Roland curtly; and, as she withdrew, 'One or
two,' echoed Litvinoff; 'that young woman's ideas on the subject of
numbers are limited and primitive. Now, Ferrier, just repeat those
arguments you have been using against me, and I doubt not, so lucid and
convincing are they, that they will reconcile Clayton and the "hands"
here to the starvation that awaits them.'

Only three men followed old Clayton as he entered the room.

'Well, my men,' said Roland Ferrier, turning to them, and with a
faint irritation in his tone, as Litvinoff, leaning one elbow on the
mantelpiece, waved a recognition to the deputation, 'What can I do for
you at this time of night?'

'Well, sir,' began Clayton, 'me and my mates here has come to speak to
you for ourselves and them as is outside.'

'Who are numerous and noisy,' murmured the Count softly to himself.

'Well, go on,' said Roland, chafing.

'We knows well enow,' continued the old man, 'as it ain't all your
doing as t' mill's to stop, but we thowt as you might work things so
as to make it easier for us. It's on'y nat'ral as you shouldn't know
till it's put to you what stoppin' work 'ill mean to most of us. What
'ill it mean? Why, hard want is what it 'ill mean, and clemming to more
nor one. So wot we've come to ask is, won't you keep the works on till
summer comes, and let the stoppin' be a bit less sudden like, and give
us time to get other work? This is bitter weather, and it's bitter
hard as we must all leave our homes just because--' He paused in some
confusion.

'Because what?' asked Roland sharply.

'Because our masters has fell out,' struck in No. 2 of the deputation.

'Look here, my men,' Roland stamped his foot impatiently, 'I thought
I made it perfectly clear to you a month ago that the closing of this
mill was no fault of mine. Do you take me for a born fool? Do you
suppose I should throw away this money if I could help it? Don't you
know I lose as much as any of you? As much? I lose more than all of you
put together.'

'Oh, just division of profits!' murmured Litvinoff confidentially to
the clock on the mantelpiece.

'You've had long enough notice of this,' Roland went on, casting a
goaded glance at Litvinoff; 'why didn't you get work elsewhere?'

'We hoped it 'ud blow over. We thought perhaps you'd make it up with Mr
Richard; and we thought to-night as perhaps, if we told you straight
out, you'd go to him.'

'Damn!' hissed Roland, between his teeth. 'I wish,' he went on, raising
his voice, 'you wouldn't talk about things you don't understand. What's
the use of coming up like this in the middle of the night, interfering
in my private affairs; for I'd have you know my brother and I have a
perfect right to close the mill or keep it open as we choose. As for
you, Clayton, you're old enough to know better than to come up here at
midnight with all the riff-raff of the village at your heels.'

'No more riff-raff than yourself!' this from the youngest deputy.

'Hold tha noise, Jim!' said old Clayton. 'The other lads has come up,
sir, because they thought there mout be some good news, and they'd like
to hear 'em as soon as mout be.'

'Well, they've had their tramp for nothing. That's all the news I've
got for them, and much good may it do them.'

'Well, well, sir,' said Clayton, 'we didn't mean no harm. I'll tell 'em
what you say. Good-night, sir!'

'Good-night, Clayton!' Roland spoke a little more gently. 'I'm sorry I
can do nothing for you.'

The deputation turned to go. Litvinoff walked across the room and shook
hands with each man as he passed out of the door.

'Good-night, my friends!' he said. 'Keep your tempers. This unfortunate
business is no one's fault. It's the fault of the system we all live
under.'

The door closed upon the last man. Roland turned angrily on his guest.

'I can't imagine,' he said, with asperity, 'how a man who is so
sensible about most things can take the part of these unreasonable
idiots!'

'My dear Ferrier,' relighting the cigar which had gone out in the
excitement of the moment, 'of course I've the very greatest sympathy
with you in this painful business, and I know how little it is your
fault, but now, as always, I'm on the side of the workers, and you know
I never disguise my views.'

'So it appears,' Roland was beginning, when the murmur of voices
outside gave place to a single voice--that of one of the deputies, who
seemed to be speaking to the men. Ferrier and his guest could hear
the shuffling of many feet on the gravel as the men crowded round the
speaker. When he stopped there was a tumult of hissing and yelling and
groaning--a noise as of a very Pandemonium let loose.

Roland turned to Litvinoff.

'I hope you're proud of your precious _protégés_?' he said, and at the
same moment a voice outside cried,--

'Let's smash the cursed walls in!'

Old Clayton's voice sounded thin and shrill above the uproar.

'Don't be fools, lads! Come away! Let un alone! Come home! We'll do no
good here.'

The men seemed to hesitate a minute, and then to obey, reluctantly
moving towards the gate.

'They have gone without doing anything very serious, you see,' said the
Count; but even as he spoke a big stone, thrown by some strong hand,
came crashing through the window, and rolled, muddy and grey, on to the
edge of the soft fur hearthrug.

'Damn!' cried Roland furiously, 'I'll have the fellow who did that,
anyway.'

He made a dash for the door, but Litvinoff caught him by the shoulders,
and there was a struggle, silent and brief, which ended in Roland's
standing still, and looking at the other savagely.

'Stay where you are, for God's sake!' shouted the Count; 'they've only
done you five shillings' worth of damage now, but they'll perhaps add
murder to it if you go outside. Do be reasonable, Ferrier. There,
they've gone now; and if you went out you couldn't identify the man who
did it.'

Roland turned away, and flung himself sulkily into a chair by the fire.

'I suppose you're right,' he said; 'but I shall be deuced glad to be
out of the whole thing.'

It was perhaps as well for Roland's self-esteem and peace of mind that
he did not hear the strictures that were passed upon him by the men as
they returned towards the village. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,
but when a new-born hope is killed, and killed cruelly and suddenly,
there comes sometimes something more terrible than heart-sickness and
more dangerous.

The moon had flung aside the slight mist which had covered her face
earlier in the evening, and now shone full on the valley, towards
which the crowd were making their way. As they turned the corner which
brought them in sight of the mill whose doors none of them were to pass
again, a burst of curses and oaths broke from the men and fell on the
still air, violating and outraging the peace and beauty of the night.

At this moment Hatfield and Murdoch, walking together from the village
to meet them, came up and were promptly informed of the result of the
interview.

'Ay, ay, lads!' said old Murdoch. 'What did Ah tell ye? as Ah thowt.'
Then looking down at the mill he pointed towards it, and went on in a
loud voice, 'Ye shall best have another try now. Go down and beg o' t'
door-posts o' t' owd mill to take ye on again. Ye'll be as likely to
get a good hearing fro' them as ye were fro' t' young puppy up yonder;
and they'll not be laughing at ye as soon as yer turned, anyway.'

This last suggestion had the effect that Murdoch probably wished it to
have. At once a dozen voices were raised for going back to Thornsett
Edge, and not leaving a pane of glass in the window-sashes. The man
who had thrown the stone before at once became a small hero, and met
with numerous offers of assistance in going back and completing the
work he had begun. Not a few of the men were excited by drink as well
as by rage, having taken considerably more than was good for them
before they started on the forlorn hope, and the excitement of these
men communicated itself by those mysterious means which only manifest
themselves on these occasions to the men who were sober. Roland
Ferrier's words, passing from mouth to mouth, had been added to and
altered so much that in the prevailing state of mind each man felt
that he personally had been insulted and outraged by the man of whom
he had asked the small favour of being allowed to continue to work
until the winter-tide had passed. The idea of returning and wrecking
the Ferriers' house became every moment more and more popular, and the
crowd had actually faced round and begun that swaying movement which in
an undisciplined body always, for a moment or two, precedes a start,
when Hatfield spoke out at the top of his voice,--

'See here,' he said. 'In a few weeks now we shall all be gone to
different parts, some on us to "the house." Most like, when that's
done, when we're tramping the country far an' wide, and seeking the
work we're turned out of here, they two'--pointing towards Thornsett
Edge--''ll get tired o' goin' without their brass so long, maybe, an'
'ill make up the quarrel, and come back and start the mill again, with
a new lot o' hands, to live i' our homes and eat the bread we're done
out off.'

This new view of the case was received with a moment's silence by the
hands; then a voice from the rear spoke out,--'Na, na, they 'ont, not
if I can stop it; let's break t' ow'd mill to bits, and give the new
hands the job to build it up again afore they work it.'

This suggestion, probably because its adoption was a trifle less
dangerous than wrecking a house, some of whose inmates were young
men--possibly young men with firearms--was received with almost
unanimous applause. In less time than it takes to tell, a hundred
pieces of the rock of which the Derbyshire walls are built had begun to
rattle on the roof and smash the windows of the mill below, and two or
three pairs of strong arms had torn away a huge boulder of grey stone
which, held in its place by creepers and earth, overhung the descent,
and had set it rolling down the steep decline. It bounded on to the
slated roof of the mill, and with a great crash went right through it,
leaving a large black gap. Then the men set up a yell that made the
country round ring again. When it had died away old Murdoch, who was
beside himself with excitement, shouted out, 'Why waste yer time i'
chuckin' stones at the danged place, lads? Get down t' hill and burn it
to the ground.' Another yell of approval greeted the proposition, and
in a few seconds the hill-top was deserted, and the crowd, swayed by an
irresistible impulse, was scrambling down the rocky decline and making
for the mill.

The shout that had been sent up when the hole had been knocked in the
roof had reached the quick ears of Count Litvinoff sitting smoking in
silence opposite his host. He got out of his chair. 'I have a bit of
a headache to-night,' he said, 'I don't think arguing agrees with me.
I'll just go and take a turn across the moor.'

'All right,' said Roland. 'I won't turn in till you come back.'

Litvinoff sauntered out of the room and across the hall, took a stout
oak stick from the hall-stand, and, opening the front-door, strolled
leisurely down the carriage drive. But directly he was out in the road
he pulled his hat down tightly upon his ears, vaulted a low stone wall
and set off running in the direction of the mill as though a thousand
devils were following at his heels.



CHAPTER XXIII.

FIRE!


To run at full speed across a Derbyshire moor by the uncertain light
of a wintry moon is a feat not unattended with difficulty and danger,
especially when the runner is not quite accustomed to the course; but
it would have taken greater pitfalls than even those moors present to
have made Count Litvinoff choose a longer and easier way. For when
that shout had been borne to him on the wind he scented excitement and
danger, and excitement and danger were to him as the breath of life.
He was almost certain that the men meant mischief, and he intended to
do his best to prevent it. His sympathies really were, as he had told
Roland, entirely with them, and he was genuinely anxious that they
should not add a criminal prosecution for riot to their other troubles.
At the same time he looked forward with some pleasure to the scene in
which he was now hastening to take a part.

He had been in a fretful and irritable state of mind ever since he had
left London, and he cordially welcomed a row, and did not care much if
in that row he got a knock on the head that would put an end to his
visit and his life at the same time. At any rate, the situation offered
a chance of action, and it was action more than anything that he had
been longing for lately.

As he got nearer the valley in which the mill lay he was able to form a
better idea of what was toward, for the shouts seemed to get louder and
louder. He quickened his pace at the moment when he reached the brow
of the hill, from the foot of which all the noise and clamour arose,
and paused, looking down; a lurid flash of flame lighted up for an
instant the semi-darkness before him, and as suddenly died out again.

'_Diable!_' he said. 'I shall be too late for anything. I have some
power over men, but I am not a fire-engine--'

He made the descent rather more cautiously, though not much less
rapidly, than he had done the rest of the journey, and pushed his way
through the little wood to within a hundred yards or so of the mill.
Then he stopped, peering forward to ascertain the exact state of things
before he went on.

The mill was not one of those square, many-windowed blocks which remind
one of children's toy-houses, but a group of irregular buildings of all
sorts and sizes, built of grey stone and roofed with slate. There was a
paved yard surrounded by outhouses, some mere sheds of wood and thatch,
and it was round the outhouse nearest to the mill itself that the men
were crowding. There was plenty of light now for Litvinoff to discern
every detail of the scene before him, for two sheds were on fire and
burning merrily in the frosty air. The door of a certain room where
he remembered to have seen quantities of cotton waste and inflammable
rubbish, and which opened directly on to the yard, had been battered
in by the men, and, the hinges having given way, hung crookedly by its
strained, bent, but still strong, lock. Some of the men were hurrying
to and fro between this room and the outbuilding, carrying armfuls
of wood and straw, and these men were for the most part silent. The
shouting, of which there was a good deal, was done by those who were
doing nothing else.

Count Litvinoff had not been the only one to hear that first yell, and
to interpret it as the note of something unusual, for dark heads were
moving along the brow of the hill on the other side, and dark figures
were hurrying down the stone steps.

The situation was obvious, and it was obvious too that no time was
to be lost, for the crowd was becoming wilder and wilder, drunk with
the strong wine of excitement as well as with the more habitual beer.
Rioting, like everything else, grows by what it feeds on, and the
higher the flames went the higher rose the cries that accompanied them.
There is always something exciting about a fire--in the breaking loose
of the tremendous force which we keep mostly as our servant. The fire
was still small enough to be quenched if its originators so chose,
but they saw well enough that soon it would be beyond their control,
and would be their master in the place where it had been their slave.
And they, too, had broken from their old place to-night. They were no
longer the humble dependants of a rich man. Their hand was against
him, and against all his class, and the new sense of independent,
self-chosen action was intoxicating them all, and had driven far from
them all thought of forbearance or of fear. For there was danger to the
men themselves in this hell they were making. The out-buildings and
the mill formed a square, and, once kindled, all would burn rapidly;
and, from the slight eminence where he stood, the onlooker, cool and
free from the madness that surged in the brain of the actors, could see
plainly that the incendiaries ran a very fair chance of being caught
in their own trap, and of perishing like rats in a barn. The big iron
gates were closed immovably, and the only exit was by a narrow door.
If once a panic began, and the men lost their heads in trying to pass
this door, there might be a tragedy more terrible than Litvinoff cared
to contemplate. He knew that if once the fire began in the mill itself
there would be no chance of saving it, or anything else, and he could
see that the men were beginning to drag burning fragments from the
out-buildings, and he knew that they would be dragged to that room
with the broken-in door. He paused no longer. That door was the _point
d'appui_ of the defence, and for that door he made.

He came rapidly down the hill and along the path that led to the little
gate by which alone entrance to the yard could be effected. In the
confusion of hurrying figures no one noticed the one figure more which,
in a few strides, crossed the yard and planted itself just inside that
broken door. Count Litvinoff glanced behind him and by the lurid glare
of the burning timber opposite he could see the pile of straw and
faggots in the room ready for the horrible bonfire. Just inside the
lintel of the door something lay on the floor, gleaming redly in the
firelight. He picked it up; it was a light, bright, long-handled steel
hatchet.

'Aha,' he said; 'this is a gift from the gods!'

As he faced the yard, a great noise of mingled cheers and shouts went
up from the crowd. It was not because they had seen their solitary
opponent, but because the attack on what they thought the undefended
mill was about to begin in earnest. All the active members of the riot
were making for the door, headed by half-a-dozen stalwart fellows
dragging blazing timbers.

'Stop!' shouted Litvinoff, in a voice that rang above the confused
shouting of the crowd like a trumpet call.

And stop they did--and for quite twenty seconds held their tongues, to
boot. Then arose a storm of indignation and derision when they saw that
only one man stood in the way. They could not see who he was, and they
cared little. The leaders made a forward movement, when--

'Stop!' he cried again, and his tones rose clear above the yells of the
rioters, and were heard by timorous listeners on the hillside. 'Stop,
and clear out of this as quick as you can get! Get to your homes, you
fools!'

'Clear out yourself,' said a ringleader, 'or we'll clear you out!' But
the forward movement had stopped. A parley had begun, and Litvinoff
always felt that a chance of speaking meant for him a chance of winning.

'Put out that fire, and get back to your homes!' he cried. 'I've come
down here to save you from penal servitude, and I mean to do it. Not a
man of you gets inside this door!'

By this time all the crowd had come up, and formed a semicircle in
front of him, about fifteen yards off. They could see his face better
than he could see theirs, for the light of the flames behind them fell
full upon him. He was deadly pale, but he looked deadly determined
too. There was a dangerous gleam in his eyes, and a gleam still more
dangerous from the bright blade of the axe which he had swung up on to
his shoulder. Standing on the raised step of the door he looked tall
and strong and bold.

Already the effect of this lion in the path made itself felt, for a
faint cheer went up from the outside edge of the crowd, and a voice
cried,--

'He's right. Let un be, lads--let un be, and go yer ways home.'

'All those of you who've got any sense left turn round and put out
that fire. The work you've done to-night already is worth ten years in
prison.'

'Then let's finish our work, lads, and earn our wages! Ten years' good
feedin's better nor a month's clemmin',' shouted a burly young fellow
of some six feet.

'Well said, Isaac Potts!' cried more than one. 'Dang his cheek! Heave
him out of it!'

And some half-dozen rushed forward to suit the action to the word,
foremost among them Isaac Potts. In the position Litvinoff had
taken up, it was impossible for more than one man to attack him at
a time. As the young mill hand, armed with a piece of wood still
smouldering redly, sprang to lead the attack, a woman's voice--his
sweetheart's--sounded shrilly from behind the crowd,--

'Keep back, Isaac--keep back; he'll brain thee for sure!'

The warning was unheeded, or, if the young man heard it, it only urged
him on. He stopped an instant, hurled the wood at Litvinoff's head,
and sprang forward to follow up his missile. The aim was not a good
one. The brand only hit the door lintel, struck out a shower of sparks,
and fell across the step. It was an unlucky miss for Isaac. Litvinoff
planted one foot firmly, and gave his axe a swing. It came down
crashing through collar-bone and shoulder blade, and almost severing
the arm from the body. Isaac staggered back upon the men behind him,
covering them with blood as he fell. There was a silence of a moment,
which seemed long. The crowd drew a deep breath.

All the devil in Litvinoff's nature was roused now.

'Come on, you madmen!' he cried, as he recovered himself and brought
his axe to the shoulder again. 'Come on! Get into this room now if you
can!'

But the general ambition to get into that room was a little damped
somehow, and the few who had been close on Isaac's heels fell back, and
left him alone, all but one man, who stood glaring into Litvinoff's
eyes. He held a heavy iron bar in his hand.

'Back you go, or down you go!' shouted Litvinoff, making a step towards
him, and giving the axe a swing in the air.

The man did not wait for the blow. He retreated, and joined the crowd
just as the girl who had shrieked that warning tore her way through to
the place where her lover was lying, and bent over him.

Litvinoff brought his weapon to his side. Then he said quietly,--

'I told you none of you should get into this room, and none of you
shall, by God! if I have to treat twenty of you to the same fare as
this poor fellow. If you're sane men, pick him up and see to him, and
perhaps nothing worse may come to you after all. Remember that every
man who does not help to put that fire out breaks the law. For Heaven's
sake be reasonable men. There are some here who know me. Do you think
I care for this cursed mill? I came down here to save _you_. Help me to
do it.'

The moderate party was a good deal stronger by this time; the axe had
been a first-rate argument.

'Well done, sir!' 'Quite right, sir!' 'Hear, hear!' went up from
the crowd, and two or three men came forward. Litvinoff resumed
his defensive attitude, but they were not for attack. They busied
themselves with their wounded friend.

'Is John Hatfield there?' called Litvinoff, seeing that he had
prevailed. 'I want him. Hatfield, can't you manage to get a dozen of
your friends to put out that fire? The best thing you can do is to
knock down the sheds on each side, and then it will burn itself out and
do no harm.'

'We will, sir,' Hatfield answered. 'You're right; this has been a mad
night's work.'

All danger of further riot was at an end. The men who had been foremost
in the work of destruction had made off as quickly as possible, and
those who were left worked zealously under Hatfield's orders. The
wounded man was carried off on a shutter to the nearest cottage. The
fire was effectually put out with water from the reservoir. The men
loafed off in twos and threes, and darkness and quiet settled down
once more on Thornsett. Litvinoff and Hatfield remained till the last
lingerer had left. Then Hatfield said,--

'Ah suppose this means the 'sizes for a goodish few o' us.'

'I hope not,' Litvinoff answered; 'I'll do my best for you--that is,
I shall not know who was here to-night. But I advise you to clear out
as early as you can to-morrow, and, if your friends who were in this
business are wise, they'll do the same. Where have they taken that
fellow I knocked over? I'd better go and see after him.'

They turned their back on the mill, and climbed the hill to the
cottage, where the doctor who had been sent for was already busy with
his patient.

'Is he going to live?' Litvinoff asked sharply.

'I think so,' was the answer; 'the greatest danger is loss of blood. He
has been bleeding like a bull.'

'Oh, you must pull him through it, doctor,' said the Count. He slipped
some gold into the hand of the woman who owned the cottage. 'Let him
have everything the doctor orders, and you'll do all you can, I know.
I'll be down to-morrow.'

He looked towards the girl who was crouching at the head of the bed as
though he would have spoken to her, but seemed to think better of it,
and rejoined Hatfield outside.

'I think he'll be all right,' he said, holding his hand out. 'Good-bye,
Hatfield; don't forget what I said. Drop me a line to the Post Office,
Charing Cross, London, to say where you are; and do let me beg of you,
if it's only for your wife's sake, not to get mixed up in any more of
this sort of thing. It must be on a much bigger scale before it'll be
successful, my boy,' he ended, resuming his most frivolous manner, and
turning away.

'I think I deserve a cigar,' he said to himself, as he started on the
long return walk, by the road this time. And he lighted one accordingly.

About a quarter of a mile from Thornsett he met Roland Ferrier, who was
walking quickly along, Gates by his side.

'Where have you come from?' the former asked abruptly. 'Here's Gates
tells me the men are burning the mill, and I don't know what beside.'

'Oh, no, no,' the Count answered lightly; 'there's been a little
orating and so forth, in which I have borne a distinguished part, but
it's all over now. They wound up with a hymn or two, and went home to
their wives. Come along back. I'll tell you all about it when we get
in,' and, catching an arm of each, he wheeled them round and marched
them back to Thornsett Edge.



CHAPTER XXIV.

AFTER THE FIRE.


Before daybreak next morning John Hatfield had taken Count Litvinoff's
advice, and he and several others who had borne an active part in the
night's work had shaken the dust of Thornsett off their feet and taken
their departure in various directions. Had they not been quite so
precipitate their leave-taking might have been more dignified and less
secret, for Litvinoff's confidence in his own powers of diplomacy had
been more than justified. When, somewhat to his chagrin, his eloquence
failed to reconcile Roland Ferrier to the idea of taking no legal steps
to punish the intending incendiaries--for, in spite of the way in
which the Count had watered the story down, Roland had managed to get
a pretty accurate idea of the truth--he made a hasty journey over to
Aspinshaw. He found Miss Stanley in a state of great excitement about
the events of the night before, of which she had heard a very much
embroidered and highly-coloured version.

'Oh, Count Litvinoff,' she said, coming forward to meet him, 'I am
so glad you have come. I have just sent two of the servants down to
Thornsett to find out who was hurt. Mr Clarke, of Thorpe, has just been
here, and told us that you saved so many lives last night.'

'Saved so many lives last night!' repeated Litvinoff. 'They must have
been the lives of rats and mice, then.' And he gave her a plain and
unvarnished account of the whole story, from the interview of the
deputation with Roland to his own visit to the man he had cut down. He
had the very rare faculty of telling the exact truth in a particularly
exciting way--any adventure in which he had been personally engaged he
always told from some point of view not his own--so that the hearer
saw him playing his part in the scene rather than heard the chief
adventurer recounting his adventures.

As he skilfully put before her the picture of the one man facing the
infuriated crowd, he could see her eyes sparkle with sympathy, and
could read interest and admiration in her face.

'And so you were not hurt, after all?' she said. 'I am so glad. But
what of the men? Will they be punished? They've got themselves into
trouble, I'm afraid, poor fellows.'

'Ah!' he answered, meeting her questioning glance with an earnest
expression on his serious face. 'It was about them I came to speak
to you. Our friend Ferrier is determined, not unnaturally perhaps,
to resent and to punish last night's madness. I've done my utmost
to reason him out of his resolve to be avenged on these poor fools,
but he's not in a humour to listen to reason. It will need something
stronger than that to induce him to let the men escape the natural
consequences of their folly.'

'Oh, but Hatfield--surely he'd not punish him?'

'Well, I advised Hatfield to make himself scarce, and I hope he's done
it. It's more on behalf of the other men that I'm here.'

'Why, what can I do in the matter?'

'Your word will have great weight with young Ferrier. I want you to go
to him and ask him to let the affair rest just where it is,' he said
bluntly.

Clare coloured painfully. 'I go to Mr Ferrier?' she repeated. 'Count
Litvinoff, you must know that that is quite impossible.'

'I know that it is difficult, Miss Stanley, but I also know that it is
not impossible.'

'It is out of the question for me--you ought to know,' she hesitated,
'to ask a favour of _him_.'

'It would be an unpleasant thing for you to do, and two months ago I
would rather have cut my tongue out than have asked you. But I know
now--I have had it from your own lips--that you are a convert to our
great faith.'

She made a movement as though she would have spoken, but he went on
hurriedly:

'You may remember that what impressed you most in my fellow-countryman
Petrovitch's address was the self-abnegation which ran all through it.
My countryman was right. Self-abnegation is the note of the Revolution!
On the first day of this new year you honoured me by asking me what
good you could do. I tell you now. You can save many of these men from
prison, and their wives from harder fare than the prison's, by humbling
your pride and asking what will not be refused. Forgive me if I speak
plainly, but it is not for my own sake I would ask you to do anything
now. It is for these men, and for the sake of the cause.'

There were a few moments of painful silence. Miss Stanley frowned
at the hearthrug, and Count Litvinoff sat looking at her with the
expression of one who has asked a question to which he knows there can
be but one answer. The answer came.

'Very well,' she said, 'I will do what you wish, for the sake of these
men,' she added, becoming unnecessarily explanatory.

'I knew you would,' he said.

'But,' she went on hurriedly, 'there is one other thing I can do. I can
help to make this time a little less hard to them. Will you--'

He interrupted her.

'No, no, no; my part is played. Miss Stanley must deal with that other
matter by herself.'

Two hours later Clare Stanley called at Thornsett Edge, and, after a
brief conversation with Roland, passed on to the village, having done
the work she had set herself to do. It was, perhaps, the most painful
act of her whole life. But she had performed it successfully, and so it
came about that none of the men were punished, and that poor Isaac, who
was a pensioner on Miss Stanley for a good many months, was the only
one to suffer from that wild night's work.

Clare felt a sense of elation when the disagreeable task was over. She
seemed herself to be making progress; and, though that day's enterprise
had been suggested by Litvinoff, she knew that it would never have been
undertaken if she had not been present when the Cleon met to discuss
Socialism.

She had now an opportunity of using a little of her newly-acquired
wealth, and she availed herself of it. More than one family in the
village owed its salvation to her timely help, and when a week
later she left for London she left behind her a sum of money in the
hands of Mr Gates, to be used for the ex-mill hands--and a very
grateful remembrance of her pretty, gracious, kindly ways, and of her
substantial favours, too, in the hearts of these same hands and their
families.

So Mrs Stanley went to Yorkshire, and Clare to London, and Aspinshaw
was left desolate. Thornsett Edge was advertised as 'To let,' and
Roland and his aunt took up quiet housekeeping in Chelsea. Litvinoff,
by way of practising the economy which was growing more and more
necessary every day, took rooms in Maida Vale. The mill hands dispersed
far and wide, and the mill, the heart of Thornsett, having ceased to
beat, the whole place seemed to be dead, and, presently, to decay. No
one would live in the village. It was too far from any other work, and
the place took upon itself a haunted, ghostly air--as if forms in white
might be expected to walk its deserted streets at midnight, or to show
themselves through the broken, cobwebby panes of the windows which used
to be so trim and bright and clean. It was a ghastly change for the
houses that, poor as they were, had been, after all, _homes_ to so many
people for so many years.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Alice Hatfield thought of her old home, she never thought of it
but as she had last seen it--neat and cheerful with the plants in pots
on the long window-ledge, and all the familiar furniture and household
effects in their old places. It was pain to think of it even like that.
It would have been agony to her could she have seen it naked and bare,
with its well-known rooms cold and empty, its hearths grey and fireless.

And she thought of her home a good deal during the weeks when she lay
ill in Mrs Toomey's upper room; for the illness that had come upon her
on that Sunday when Mr Toomey had had tea with Petrovitch had been a
longer and more serious affair than any one had fancied it would be.
When she had first known that another life was bound up in her own,
the knowledge had been almost maddening; now, the terror, the misery,
and the fatigue which she had undergone when first she knew it, had
themselves put an end to what had caused them, and Alice was free from
the fear of the responsibility which had seemed so terrible to her. But
she was not glad. She was amazed at the contradiction in her own heart,
but as she lay thinking of all the past--of what she thought was her
own wrong-doing, and of the home she had left--it seemed to her that
what was lost to her was the only thing that could have reconciled her
to her life, with all its bitter memories. If only Litvinoff's child
had lain on her arm--if she could have lived in the hope of seeing it
smile into her eyes--it seemed to her that she would not have wanted to
die so much. And with this inexplicable weakness Mrs Toomey, strange to
say, seemed to sympathise.

'There's no understanding women,' as Toomey was wont to remark.

All the expenses of Alice's illness were borne by Petrovitch, who bade
Mrs Toomey spare no expense in making 'Mrs Litvinoff' as comfortable
as might be. When at last Alice began to grow better he came to see
her very often, brought her books and flowers, and was as tenderly
thoughtful of her, as anxious to gratify her every possible wish, as a
brother could have been.

'You are too good to me,' she said one day, looking at him with wet
eyes as he stood by her sofa and put into her hand some delicate
snowdrops. 'I do not deserve to have people so kind to me. Why is it?'

'I told you,' he answered gravely. 'I was once your husband's dearest
friend, and I have a right to do all for you that I can. How did you
like the book I sent you?'

Alice used to look forward to his coming. He always cheered her. He
never spoke of her or of himself, but always of some matter impersonal
and interesting. The books he lent her were the books that lead to
talking; and as she grew stronger in body her mind strengthened
too, and for the first time she tasted the delight of following and
understanding the larger questions of life. Every one, even her lover,
had always treated her somewhat as a child, and Petrovitch was the
first person who ever seemed to think it worth while to explain things
to her. She had not had the education which makes clear thinking easy;
but she was young, and had still youth's faculty for learning quickly.
Her growing interest in outside matters tended--as Petrovitch had meant
it to do--to divert her mind from her own troubles; and when at last
she was able to take up the easier and lighter work he had found for
her, she was able to look at life

  'With larger, other eyes.'



CHAPTER XXV.

AT MARLBOROUGH VILLA.


'My dear Clare, let me implore you to shut that book. You are becoming
quite too dreadfully blue. I don't believe you take any interest in
any of the things you used to like--even me,' ended Cora Quaid, with a
pout. The two girls were sitting very snugly in Miss Quaid's special
sanctum, where were enshrined her girlish treasures, her books, and
the accessories of the art in which she hoped some day to rival Rosa
Bonheur. Having had a picture admitted to the Academy the season
before, she was more hopeful and consequently more industrious than
ever. But on this afternoon she had not been painting. She had been
sitting looking at her friend and thinking what a pretty picture she
made with her sweet serious face and sombre crape draperies; but even
the contemplation of one's prettiest friend will become fatiguing at
last, when talking is one's very greatest pleasure. So Cora broke
silence with the remark we have reported, and the silence she broke had
been a very long one.

'You silly child,' Clare answered, laughing, and tossing her book on to
the sofa, 'it isn't that at all. It is that I take an interest in all
sorts of other things besides.'

'Mamma says,' remarked Miss Quaid, picking up the little red-covered
pamphlet and looking at it with disfavour, 'that this book is not fit
for any one to read.'

'I'm sorry Mrs Quaid doesn't like it,' Clare answered, 'because I like
it so much. But perhaps I haven't studied it enough. I suppose your
mamma has gone into it thoroughly.'

'Oh _no_, she wouldn't read it for the world.'

Clare felt Mrs Quaid's criticism to be less crushing than it might have
been.

'One would have thought,' Cora went on, 'that "God and the State" would
have been something very religious--something like Mr Gladstone, you
know. A man oughtn't to call his book by a title that has nothing to
say to the book itself. It's so misleading. Clare, I rather wonder
Count Litvinoff should lend you such dreadful books.'

'I'm afraid Bakounin's not much like Mr Gladstone, dear, and I don't
think I should care much about him if he were; but the title certainly
has a great deal to do with the book. However, Bakounin has not
converted me to his views. He is clever and trenchant, but--'

'I had done with that subject, my dear,' answered Miss Quaid, leaning
over the arm of her easy-chair to look saucily into her friend's eyes,
'and had got to something much more interesting--the dashing Count, to
wit.'

'He would be very much flattered to know that he inspires you with so
much interest.'

'It is not I who am interested in him.'

'Who is interested in him?'

'Oh, neither of us--of course,' Cora answered; 'it is mamma and he who
mutually attract each other. It is mamma he comes to see regularly
three times a week. It is mamma who buries herself in his books and
pamphlets. Seriously, Clare--how many of his books do you get through
in a day?'

'I have read two of his books, and you have read one--"The Prophetic
Vision," and you know how much we both liked that. As for the other--I
suppose I'm not advanced enough, but it doesn't seem to me to be
anything like so clearly written, nor so forcible. It seems wonderful
that the same man should have written both.'

'Perhaps it was written since he has been in exile, and he was wretched
and out of sorts. By the way, he doesn't seem wretched now. Now,
Clare,' coming and sitting down on the rug at the other's feet and
leaning her arms on the black dress, and turning her bright _mignonne_
face upward, 'I think it is only due to our ancient friendship--which,
you remember, was founded on the noble principle, halves and no
secrets, that you should confide in me. What are you going to do with
him? How are you going to serve him?'

'Well, dear, would it be best to grill him or to serve him on
toast with caviare? How would it look on the menu? _Nihiliste à la
Révolution._'

'Count Litvinoff _à la_ married man would be more humane, perhaps. I
wonder how it feels to be adored by a lover who has passionate eyes
and a long blond moustache, who has had no end of adventures, has as
many lives as a cat, and seems to be rolling in gold, judging by the
bouquets he brings to--mamma.'

'If you are very anxious to know,' said Clare, smiling and smoothing
the rough head at her knee, 'you had better try to attract him; I don't
fancy you would find it difficult.'

'You don't seem to have found it so. Really and truly, Clare; do you
mean to be a countess? Shall you refuse him?'

'He has never asked me but one thing, and that I did not refuse.'

'What a teasing girl you are! Does that mean anything or nothing?'

'Whichever you like, sweetheart.'

'Well, he deserves a better fate than to be allowed to singe his wings
at the flame of your prettiness. You always were a flirt, Clare; and I
am afraid you have not improved.'

'I don't think I have ever flirted,' Clare answered, growing suddenly
grave; 'but I know I have been foolish enough to wish people to like
me and to be interested in me. But you don't know how contemptible all
that sort of thing seems to me now. Fancy caring about the opinion of
people when you don't care about the people themselves.'

'Well, any one can see he's over head and ears in love with you--you
nice, pretty little woman.'

'I hope not,' Clare answered; 'for I am not in the least in love with
him.'

'Then don't you think it's a little too bad of you to encourage him as
you do--reading his books and all that?'

'I don't know what "all that" may be, but as for the books he lends
me, they don't borrow their interest from him. Every book I read seems
to draw up a curtain and let new light into my mind. You can't imagine
how different everything is to me since I began to read and to try to
think. All that I have learned lately is like a new religion to me.'
All the flippancy was gone from her voice, and in her eyes shone a new
light. 'And I read all I can because I want to understand well enough
to teach other people what I _feel_ to be true. And oh, Cora! I do so
want to do something to help the poor and show them their position.'

'Yes; I quite agree with you that they ought to know their position
and keep in it. The Catechism tells us that, you know. I should think
you might employ half a dozen curates. Papa says there are lots out of
work.'

'I don't think curates are quite what are wanted. There are curates
enough and to spare. Besides,

  "The millions suffer still and grieve,
    And what can helpers heal,
  With old world cures they half believe
    For woes they wholly feel?"'

'That sounds dreadful,' said Cora.

'Why, you used to be so fond of it!'

'Yes; but I didn't think it meant anything so wicked as that; and,
what's more, I don't believe it does.'

'I haven't changed the words, Cora. I did not say they meant anything
more than they have always meant. But, you see, too, don't you, what a
ghastly mockery it is to send religious teaching to people who never
had a good dinner in their lives? What a frightful system it is that
allows all these horrors!'

'But, my dearest Clare, even if it is horrible, I don't see what you
can do to alter it. Why, papa was saying only the other night that the
social order was never so strong as now.'

'I'm in the humour for quoting, and I must keep on, I see,' said Clare,
with a smile. 'Don't you remember?--

  "Strong was its arm, each thew and bone
    Seemed puissant and alive;
  But, ah! its heart, its heart was stone,
    And so it could not thrive."'

'Clare,' said the other affectionately, putting her arms round her
friend's waist, 'you really oughtn't to take up these ideas. Do you
know mamma says it's not natural for girls of our age to take such
dismal views of things? You'll make yourself quite miserable if you go
on with these books.'

'I seem to have nothing but Matthew Arnold in my head this afternoon,--

  "But now the old is out of date,
    The new is not yet born;
  And who can be _alone_ elate,
    While the world lies forlorn?"'

'I don't see how anyone can be anything else but miserable at the
thought of all the wretchedness there is in the world. The only thing
to keep one from despairing over it would be to do something, even
if it were ever so little, to help forward a better time. I dare say
your father is right, and this present state is very strong, and
perhaps none of us' (with whom was she classing herself?) 'will live
to see what we are longing for! It would be rather nice,' she went on
meditatively, 'to have that other verse on one's grave,--

  "The day I lived in was not mine,
    Man gets no second day;
  In dreams I saw the future shine,
    But, ah! I could not stay."'

'This is too much,' cried Cora, jumping up. 'When it comes to choosing
your own epitaph I think it's high time we gave the March winds a
chance of blowing the cobwebs out of your brain. We'll have a run. Come
along; the streets are deliciously dusty.'

Clare rose, smilingly obedient, and as she did so the room door opened
slowly and admitted Mrs Quaid. She sank on to the sofa from which Miss
Stanley had just risen.

'Such a fatiguing time I have had,' she said, with a long-drawn
breath of relief, as she leaned back on the cushions and loosened her
bonnet-strings. 'Mrs Paget was out, and of the ten ladies who are on
our Educational Committee only two attended besides myself. Really,
people have _no_ energy. And then, my shopping took me so much longer
than I expected--these new shades are so difficult to match--and at
last, when I felt quite worn out, and was just going into Roper's for
a glass of sherry and a biscuit, whoever _do_ you think I ran across,
treating two ragged children to buns?'

'Count Litvinoff?' from Cora.

'No--oh no. It was Mr Petrovitch, and when he saw me he hustled the
poor little things out of the shop as though he were ashamed of them,
and he stayed talking to me ever so long, and was quite delightful,
and--Clare, my sweet, this will please you, you were so much taken
with him--he is coming to see us this evening. Won't that be charming?'

'I am very glad,' said Claire simply, while Cora busied herself in
loosening her mother's cloak, and waiting on her in various little
ways. 'I seemed to learn so much from him the last time I heard him.'

'Yes, and a friend of his is coming as well--a deliciously
savage-looking Austrian, named Hirsch--who was there too, and who seems
quite like our friend's shadow, and, as Mr Vernon is coming also, we
shall be quite a pleasant little party, all sympathising with each
other's feelings, and that's the _great_ thing, you know.'

'I wonder if Count Litvinoff will look in,' mused Cora, rubbing her
mother's rich sable muff round and round the wrong way.

'Not to-night. He is lecturing at some East-end club. What a man he is;
so _devoted_ to the cause. It seems so _sad_ that he should be so very
extreme in his views. Force is such a terrible thing, and I very much
fear that he believes in that more than in the power of love.'

'I think he does,' answered Clare, seeing herself appealed to.

'Ah, well; we must try to convert him,' Mrs Quaid said, smiling. 'I
should imagine him to be a most reasonable person to talk to, and not
difficult to convince. I like him so much. It is so seldom one meets a
man with just his polish of manner and strength of mind. Cora, dear,
I've had no lunch. Just ring and order some for me. I really feel quite
faint.'

       *       *       *       *       *

At eight o'clock that evening Petrovitch stood in the softly-lighted
hall of Marlborough Villa. He felt more interested in the coming
evening than he generally was on such occasions. Hirsch, who was
with him, was very much surprised to find himself within the portals
of one of those middle-class establishments against which he had
always inveighed so bitterly. But Mrs Quaid's manner had overborne his
determinations with its resistless flow of gush, and he had accepted
her invitation from sheer inability to edge in a word of refusal. He
had been in a state of mingled remorse and terror ever since, and only
Petrovitch's strong representations to the effect that men who set
themselves against Society should at least not fall below Society in
the matter of keeping their word, had induced him to face the dreadful
ordeal of meeting half-a-dozen well-dressed Social Reformers in a large
and luxurious drawing-room.

It would be impossible for any human being to be _quite_ as glad to see
any other human being as Mrs Quaid appeared to be to see her two new
friends. They came in together, and while Hirsch looked round on the
handsome furniture with a savagely appraising glance, prompted equally
by his Jewish blood and his Socialistic convictions, Petrovitch, having
seen that Clare was present, delivered himself an unresisting prey to
his hostess, knowing that to even her eloquence an end must come, and
knowing, too, that sooner or later he would find himself beside the
girl whom his paper on Socialism had seemed to impress so much, the
first time he had ever been in that room. He had been in that room more
than once since but never without seeing a very vivid vision of the
fair face, shining eyes, and red lips, slightly parted in the interest
of listening, the girlish figure bent forward the better to catch every
word of his. It was not only the flattery of her undisguised interest
in him which had painted for him this memory-picture, and had given him
a constantly-recurring desire to see the original again. He was pretty
well skilled by this time in reading the faces of his fellow-creatures,
and when all the thanks and congratulations of the Cleon's visitors
were ringing in his ears, he had known perfectly well that the only
heart he had touched, the only mind that had followed his reasoning,
and the only soul that understood him, were those of the dark-eyed girl
at his side. And the look those dark eyes had given him when he said
good-night, had haunted him ever since.

From the seat of honour on the sofa beside Mrs Quaid, Petrovitch
looked, perhaps rather longingly, towards the other end of the room,
where Hirsch and Vernon were talking to the two girls.

It was unworthy weakness, perhaps, in a Friend of Humanity, but he
could not help straining his ears to try to catch what they were
saying, and wondering what subject they could be discussing to bring
such interest into Clare's face. This effort interfered somewhat with
the lucidity of his replies, until Mr Quaid, who had hardly spoken
before, brought him up short with the question,--

'What do you mean, now, by Socialism?' and the Socialist, with an
imperceptible shrug of the shoulders and a sort of 'in for a penny in
for a pound' feeling, gave up trying to do two things at once, and
plunged heart and soul into explanations, knowing quite well neither of
his hearers would understand them.

If there is any truth in the old adage his ears should have burned,
for the group at the end of the room were discussing nothing less than
himself.

An enthusiastic remark from Vernon and sympathetic rejoinders from
Clare and Cora had sufficed to mitigate in the Austrian that sense of
being trapped by the enemy with which he had entered the room, for
he saw that these young people had, at anyrate, one thing in common
with him--a great respect for and interest in his Russian friend.
And knowing this, his tongue was loosed; and his love of his friend
overcoming in some degree the difficulties presented to him by the
English language, he began to tell tale after tale of Petrovitch's
kindness, bravery, self-sacrifice, and nobility. His knowledge of
English had improved in the last four months, and his hearers found it
easy to understand him.

'I have only known him half a year,' he said at last; 'and in that time
I know of him more good than of any other man in half a lifetime.'

'I've known him less time than that,' chimed in young Vernon; 'and even
I can see that he's different to any one else. The only person I ever
knew who was in the least like him is Count Litvinoff.'

'Thereby I see you know not well either the one or the other,' said
Hirsch, with some return to his normal grumpiness.

'I don't agree with Mr Vernon,' put in Clare; 'the principles of Count
Litvinoff and Mr Petrovitch may be the same, but it seems to me that
the two men are utterly different.'

'Yes,' said Miss Quaid. 'Count Litvinoff has much more of the dash and
"go" that one expects in a revolutionist. Mr Petrovitch is very solid,
I should think; but Count Litvinoff is certainly more brilliant and
sparkling.'

Hirsch smiled sardonically.

'Mademoiselle is happy in her epithets. Froth sparkles in the sunshine
and the most precious metal is the most solid. I will tell you one
thing of Petrovitch. When you can tell me such another of Litvinoff, I
will say Mr Vernon is right--the two men are like.

'It was on your Christian festival of Christmas--in a Russian town,
no matter to name it--there was a chase, and all the townspeople
turned out of their doors for the pleasure-excitement of seeing it.
The chased? Only a poor woman, on her way from Moscow to the Austrian
frontier. Her crime? She was a Jewess. For this, men and boys, with
savage dogs, with sticks, with stones, with all that their devilish
brutality told them to use against her, hunted her down, shouting,
deriding, exulting. And she fled from them, but slowly, for she was not
young. And those who took no part in the bloody pursuing looked on,
smiling, many of them, and those who smiled not, with interest; men who
were well born, and had not the ignorant superstition for whose sake
we can pardon any crime to the poor. Those who hunted her were men who
knew not their right hand from their left--thanks to their priests--and
those who looked on approving were men of your world--"_cultured_," how
you say?

'The poor woman fled, and still more slowly; a stone had hit her hard,
and she felt already at the sickness of death. At a corner a tarantass
across the road barred her way. Its coachman had stopped for the
pleasure of seeing the sport. A Jewess stoned to death! The excellent
pastime!

'She looked around; no way of escape. The driver of the tarantass
raised his whip. He, too, would taste the pleasures of cruelty. She
threw her arms up, and called upon Jehovah, whom she worshipped. Before
the lash could fall, from within the tarantass sprang a young man, and
snatched from the driver's hand the whip. To let it fall on her with
more force? Not so. To sweep it full across the faces of the foremost
in the crowd. He caught the despised Jewess in his arms, and lifted her
into his carriage. The crowd--cowards as well as bullies--drew back.
He sprang upon the seat beside the driver, seized the reins, turned
the horses, and to them, too, used the whip--so well, that he carried
away from that Russian town the saved life of a woman. He took her to
a place of safety, and when she was strong enough sent her to join her
son in Vienna. She was my mother. She owed her salvation from a death
shameful and agonising to--'

He stopped short suddenly and glanced expressively at the
broad-shouldered figure at the other end of the room. Then he said,--

'Such is my friend. Your Count Litvinoff--would he so have acted?'

He looked at Vernon, but Clare answered quickly,--

'Indeed he would. Only a little while ago he risked his life, not to
save life, but to save working men from injuring their own cause, by
wild violence.'

Hirsch looked at her with mingled interest and disfavour.

'Possibly,' he said; 'it may be I misjudge him, but for me he is too
brilliant.'

Cora looked at her friend, and smiled a smile which Clare interpreted
easily enough as a reference to their conversation of that afternoon,
and out of pure defiance she would probably have said something still
more strong in Count Litvinoff's favour if the door had not opened at
that moment to admit two _very_ dear, _very_ sweet, and completely
unexpected friends of Mrs Quaid's. The advent of these two, who were
dwellers in Gath, and brought in with them a breath of pure Philistine
air, led to the rising and re-arrangement of seats, of which the
children's game of 'General Post' is a sort of caricature.

Mrs Quaid being now completely occupied with the new arrivals,
Petrovitch seized the golden opportunity, and when the room settled
down again into repose, Clare found that he occupied the ottoman
beside her, where Hirsch had been sitting before. Miss Quaid and young
Vernon had gravitated towards the conservatory, for Cora was a great
lover of flowers, and Eustace, while he liked the flowers well enough,
liked her still better. Hirsch had been set going by one of Mr Quaid's
broad-based questions, and Miss Stanley and Petrovitch were virtually
alone. And yet, though each had wished often enough to see the other
again, now that they were side by side it seemed to be not so easy to
talk. It is always so difficult to chatter about trifles when one is
anxious to talk seriously, and it is difficult, almost up to the point
of impossibility, to plunge into reasonable conversation in a room full
of inconsequent prattle. Added to this, Petrovitch felt an unaccustomed
and unaccountable shyness, and to Clare it was somehow less easy to ask
his advice than she had thought it would have been, and than it had
been to ask Count Litvinoff's.

She was the first to speak.

'I find you have not yet converted Mrs Quaid to all your views, Mr
Petrovitch,' she said. 'I fear you have not been making good use of
your time.'

Petrovitch did not answer; he looked at her and smiled, but it was a
smile that conveyed the idea that, even to have succeeded in converting
Mrs Quaid, would not have been making the best use of his time.

'I might almost have said _our_ views,' Clare went on, determined not
to let slip the opportunity of asking his advice on the great question
of her life, 'for I have been thinking a great deal of all you said
last time I met you here.'

'I knew you would,' he said simply.

'And I have been reading a little too. I have borrowed some books of
Count Litvinoff--one or two of his own. You know Count Litvinoff? You
have read his books, of course?'

'Yes, I know them,' he said. 'The writer is happy if he has shown your
eyes the truth--more happy, I fear, than you will be in seeing it.'

'Oh, I don't know that it has made me unhappy, quite. I am perplexed
and bewildered; but, however that may be, I don't owe it to Count
Litvinoff, but to you; and that is why I am going to ask you to help
me to see my way a little more clearly. I did ask Count Litvinoff what
he thought--but--at any rate, I want to know what you think I ought to
do.'

'I do not know that in your position you can do much except spread the
light by telling the truth to every one who will receive it.'

'But I think I can do more. Do you know, I am very rich? I have--oh,
ever so much a year, and it is all my own now, to do just what I like
with.'

His eyes fell on her black dress, then they met her frank gaze, and the
two looked straight at each other as she went on.

'The money was made by other people's losses. I know that, and I feel
that the money is not my own. The question is, how can I best use it?'

'You asked Count Litvinoff this? May I in turn ask how he answered?'

'He thought--he said--' Clare hesitated a moment--'he declined to give
me advice,' she finished.

Clare started at a sudden angry light that came into the eyes of the
man beside her. She felt she had been indiscreet and even guilty. For
she remembered how Litvinoff had followed his refusal of counsel by
telling her how that there were 'men, his friends, who, if they knew
that she had asked him for this advice, and he had refused to give it,
would say he had become traitor, and kill him like a rat.' Suppose
Petrovitch were one of these men! Clare did not wait for him to speak,
but answered the look.

'You are angry with him,' she said. 'I had no right to tell you that,
but since I have given you my confidence I know you will respect it,
and not let it influence your conduct towards him.'

'Your friend is safe as far as I am concerned,' Petrovitch answered,
passing his hand over his long beard. 'Do not be alarmed for him. You
take a deep interest in his welfare--is it not so?'

The question was asked earnestly, and not impertinently, and Clare felt
no inclination to resent it. There was a short silence between them,
and it was manifest to them that Mrs Quaid was holding the Philistines
enthralled by her views on education. Miss Stanley answered slowly and
softly,--

'You know my dear father is dead now. Our acquaintance with Count
Litvinoff began with his saving my father's life at the risk of his
own, and that is not the only good deed I have known him do, though
that alone will make me always interested in him.'

Then she told of the part he had played in the unfortunate scene at the
mill, and his conduct lost nothing in the telling. Insensibly led on
by Petrovitch's well-managed prompting in monosyllables she went on to
what had come after, and how she had been made the means of changing
Roland Ferrier's determination to prosecute and punish the 'hands.'

'Yes,' said Petrovitch, when she had finished, 'I know right well that
he is no coward and no fool; and as for his not advising you, I am not
sure that he was not right. I, too, will not advise you. There is only
one thing I could tell you to do, and that I will not tell you now.
Wait, wait, and be patient, and study; and if after a while you still
ask me for advice I will give it to you.'

'I know what you think,' she said impulsively. 'You think I'm young
and foolish, and that I shall be changeable. You think I have taken
up these beliefs without enough thought or understanding. If I could
only tell you ... how altered everything seems, what a splendid new
light seems to be breaking over everything. Do you think, what you said
just now, that knowing the _truth_ could make me unhappy? Oh no. It is
knowledge without action that makes me sad.'

'No, no; that is not my thought,' he answered, in a voice that seemed
to have caught a thrill from her own. 'Think a little longer. Whatever
action you take will not lose strength because it is well thought, well
considered. If you ever ask me again, I promise you I will not hesitate
a moment to answer; but I would rather the answer came from you than
from me.'

'That's one of your leading principles, isn't it? Independent thought.'

'Yes. How can people ever hope to act rightly, if they will persist in
delegating other people to think for them?'

'But ordinary people can't thoroughly think out _all_ subjects. One is
obliged to take a great many of one's opinions at second-hand.'

'Well, but neither can one act in all directions--and where one has to
act one should think first. As for taking opinions at second-hand, that
is a thing you should never dare to do. If you are not able to think
for yourself, you should have no opinions. Your English Clifford has
told you that if you have no time to think you have no time to believe.'

'I am sure you are right. But I am sure, too, that to think for one's
self means in most circles social ostracism; and it wants very strong
convictions to make one face that.'

'Social ostracism,' answered the Socialist, with unutterable contempt
in the gesture which accompanied his words; 'social ostracism, and by
whom imposed? Look at the people around you.' Clare glanced nervously
at Mrs Quaid. 'See how small are their aims, how trivial their
interests, how great their love of ease, how small their love of truth;
see what narrow minds they have, what blinded eyes; see all the good
that would be in them crushed out by the very conventionalities which
they uphold. How can we think it of any value, the opinion of such as
these? Or if their condemnation should pain us, what a little thing
is such a pain compared with the lifelong consciousness of having,
from the fear of it, crushed out the spark of truth in our own souls?
What a little thing compared with eternal truth is even life itself!
We come out of the darkness, and into that darkness must return. Is it
not better, seeing the little time that is ours, to know that we at
least have listened to the wail of agony that ever goes up to the deaf
heavens?--that we have done what we could in our little day to help
forward a better time for those who shall come after us, than to know
that we have had the good opinion of "respectable people"?'

'If one could only hope that one could help it forward!' sighed Clare.

'Hope? We know it. These things will be. It is a question of the little
sooner or the little later. There is no standing still. He that is not
with us is against us. But we shall triumph in the end. We know that
all this misery, all this sin, all this selfishness, all this stupidity
even, are the direct result of the social _milieu_. It is this
knowledge that makes us the deadly enemies of the Capitalist system,
and that is why we are hated by those who profit by it.'

He spoke in a low voice, full of suppressed excitement. When he ended
the girl drew a long breath. He saw the white violets on her bosom
rise and fall slowly twice before he spoke again. Then he said, with a
smile,--

'If I have not given you advice, I have at least given you a sermon.
You see I already look upon you as one of us, or I should not have
dared to outrage conventionalities by speaking in earnest in a
drawing-room.'

'Oh, my _dear_ Mr Petrovitch,' exclaimed Mrs Quaid, who pausing out of
breath from her exertions in the cause of education, had caught the
last dozen words, 'you are really _too_ severe! I hope all of _us_,
at anyrate, always speak in earnest, though of course, some of us are
more earnest than others. That _delightful_ Count Litvinoff, now--so
devoted, and yet so cheerful; I'm so sorry he has not come to-night.'

'He seems to be a universal favourite,' answered Petrovitch, who had
risen on his hostess's approach, and now stood with his hand on the
back of Clare's chair.

'Yes, and you who know him, of course know how well he deserves all our
good opinions.' She glanced almost imperceptibly at Clare. Petrovitch
noted the glance, and he fancied that Clare noted it too, and that it
called up a faint blush into her face. But Mrs Quaid's drawing-room was
discreetly lighted, and perhaps he was mistaken.

'I should never forgive myself,' the good lady went on, 'if I
missed this beautiful opportunity of performing such a delightful
task--bringing two such distinguished fellow-workers together. We must
fix an early evening for you both to dine here. It will be charming.'

Petrovitch bowed.

As Hirsch and Petrovitch went away together, the Austrian said,--

'So, the lady who is always charmed will charm herself with making you
meet him, _bon grè, mal grè_.'

'I will meet him,' the other answered, 'and that shortly. But not in
that house.'

'Good,' grunted Hirsch; and the two men fell to smoking silently.



CHAPTER XXVI.

ALL A MISTAKE.


It took Richard Ferrier just three months to decide what course his
future life should take. He was too old for the Army or Civil Service.
The Church was equally out of the question, for a reason equally
potent. Need we say that his first idea had been to earn his living by
literature? In these days of extended education and cheap stationery,
it always is the very first idea of any one whose ordinary source of
income is suddenly cut short. Richard had always felt at college that
he had a decided faculty for writing; but an uninterrupted stream of
returned MS., 'declined, with thanks' by all sorts and conditions of
editors, convinced him in less than three months that, if writing
indeed were his vocation, it was one that he must forego until he could
pay for the publishing of his own works, which was not exactly the view
he had in wishing to adopt it.

He had no interest in the law, and he knew well enough that he had not
talent to enable him to dispense with interest. Besides, his leanings
had never been that way. The medical profession inspired him with far
more interest. His favourite study had always been biology. He had
enough money to live on sparingly till the necessary four years should
have expired, and it seemed to him better to adopt a profession than
to go in for trade in any form or shape. He had had enough of trade.
He made a round of visits among special chums of his own, and during
the time so occupied had thought long and seriously about his future,
and, of all the ideas that came to him, that of being a doctor was
the one with most attractions and fewest drawbacks. So early in March
he entered himself as a student at Guy's, determined to throw himself
heart and soul into his new career, and to let the dead past be. No
return to the conditions of that past seemed possible to him, and,
though he determined to think of it as little as he could, there were
some things about it that haunted him disturbingly. But he hoped, among
new friends and with new ambitions, to forget successfully. A man has
his life to live, and life is not over at twenty-five, even when one
has lost father, fortune, and heart's desire.

One windy, wild, bright March morning he was walking up to the hospital
as usual from his lodgings in Kennington. He looked as cheerful as
the morning itself as he strode along with an oak stick in his hand,
and under his arm two or three shiny black note-books with red edges.
Opposite St Thomas's Street he paused to watch for a favourable moment
in which to effect a crossing; and before he had time to plunge into
the chaos of vans, omnibuses, cabs, carriages, trucks, barrows and
blasphemy, the touch of a hand on his arm made him turn sharply round.
It was his foster-mother, with a basket on her arm, her attire several
shades shabbier than he had been used to see it, and her worn face
lighted up with pleasure at meeting him.

'Eh, but Ah'm glad to see thi face, my lad,' she said earnestly, as he
turned and shook her hand heartily. 'I thowt as there was na more nor
two pair o' shoulders like these, and I know'd it was thee or Rowley
the minute Ah seed thee.'

The familiar North-country sing-song accent sent a momentary pain
through the young man's heart as he answered,--

'I'm awfully glad to see you again; but what in the name of fortune are
you doing here?'

'There's na fortune in't but bad fortune, lad,' she answered; 'tha
know'd well enough when thee and Rowley fell out as Thornsett wouldn't
be a home for any o' us for long.'

There was no reproach in her tone. Her speech was only a plain
statement of fact.

'But what made you come to London?'

'T' master thowt as there'd be a big lot o' work to be gotten here,
seeing as London be such a big place. Oh, but it is big, Master Dick.
Ah'm getting a bit used to it now, but when first we came here the
bigness and the din of it used to get into my head like, till times Ah
felt a'most daft wi' it.'

By this time he had piloted her across, and they were walking side by
side towards London Bridge, whither she told him she was bound.

'I'm afraid Hatfield found himself mistaken about the work; there are
no mills in London,' said Richard.

'No, or if there be we never found them; but the master's had a bit o'
luck, and he's getten took on at a place they call Dartford; m'appen
you've heerd on it?'

'Well, I _am_ glad to hear that. I hope all the hands have done as
well.'

'No one's gladder nor me. Ah can't say for the lump o' the hands; but
him, ever since he heerd as t' mill was to stop, he's not been t' say
the same man as wor so fond of you and Rowley, and as used to go to
chapel regular, and was allus the best o' husbands.'

'I hope he's not unkind to you?' said the young man anxiously.

'Nay; he's steady enow, and kind enow, but he's changed like. He
willn't go to chapel no more, an' he says as he don't believe as our
trouble's t' visitings o' a kind Providence.'

No more did Richard, but he forbore to say so; and she went on, the
pent-up anxiety and sorrow of the last few weeks finding vent at last,--

'An' he's bitter set against Rowley. I wonder by hours and hours
whether there's summat atween 'em as I don't know of. Sithee, Dick, if
tha'll tell me one thing it'll do no harm nor no good to no one but me,
and it'll set my mind at rest. Was there owt i' what folks set down i'
Thornsett? Was it Rowley as stole our Alice?'

This point-blank question caught the young man right off his guard.
His face gave the answer; his lips only stammered, 'How should I know?
Besides, it can do no one any good now to know that.'

'Thi eyes is honester nor thi tongue,' Mrs Hatfield said, with a face
full of trouble. 'Make thi tongue speak truth as well, lad, and tell me
what tha knows. Tell me wheer shoo is.'

'If I had known you would have known too, long ago,' Richard answered.

'But tha hasn't told me a' tha knows e'en as 'tis.'

'I don't know anything,' Richard was beginning, when Mrs Hatfield
clasped both her hands on his arm.

'Dick, Dick,' she said, 'tha's heerd o' her or tha's seen her. I've
allus had a mother's heart for tha as well as for her, and now it's as
if one o' my childer wouldn't help me to find t'other. What has tha
heard? I see i' thi face 'twas Rowley. Eh, but I never thought the boy
I nursed would ha' turned on them as loved him i' this fashion.'

The tears followed the words, which were not whispered, and the
passers-by turned their heads wonderingly to look at the middle-aged
countrywoman, with the basket, who was looking so earnestly and
entreatingly into the face of the tall young medical student.

'Come in here,' he said, and led her into the waiting-room of the
London Bridge Station, which was fortunately empty. She sat down and
began to cry bitterly, while Richard stood helplessly looking at her.

'Don't cry,' he said; but she took no notice, and went on moaning to
herself.

'Couldn't tha ha' stopped it?' she said, suddenly raising her
tear-stained face. 'Tha couldst surely ha' stood i' the way o' such a
sinful, cruel thing as that.'

'Good God, no!' cried Dick, losing control of his tongue at the sudden
implication of himself in these charges; 'what could I do? I knew
nothing of it till last October, and then I did the best I could.'

'And tha found out for sure. Tell me a' abaat it.'

'I'm not sure enough to tell any one anything,' he answered: 'but I was
sure enough to throw away all my chances, because I felt I couldn't
have anything more to do with a fellow who'd do such a beastly mean
thing as that.'

He had no idea that he was not speaking the truth. He had by this time
really convinced himself that he had been prompted in his quarrel by
the highest moral considerations, and had taught himself to forget how
other motives and influences had been at work, and how he had been
forced to acknowledge this at the time.

'How did tha find it out?' Mrs Hatfield persisted: and Richard in
desperation told her the whole story. It seemed to her as convincing as
it had done to him.

The mother asked him innumerable questions about Alice--how had she
looked, how had she spoken? It grieved him not to be able to give
her pleasanter answers, but, rather to his surprise, her mind seemed
to dwell less with sorrow on Alice's want and hard work, than with
pleasure on the thought that her daughter had given up her lover, or,
as she called it, returned to the narrow path. But why had she not
returned to her mother? And that question Dick could not answer. All
these questions and replies had taken some time, and the Dartford
train had gone. Dick found out the time of the next train, and then
came and sat down beside her, and did his best to cheer her, in which
attempt his real affection for her assured him a measure of success. By
the time the Dartford train was due she was calm again and reasonably
cheerful. He led her to tell him of their life since they had come
to London; how nearly everything had been turned into money; how the
basket on her arm contained all that she had been able to keep; and
how she was going down to join her husband, and to try to take root
with him in a fresh soil. From her he heard for the first time of Count
Litvinoff's visit to Thornsett, of the rioting of the mill hands,
and, though she did not say so in so many words, he could see that
she placed the two events in the relation of cause and effect. She
told him, too, of Litvinoff's bravery, and of the fate of the luckless
Isaac Potts; and Dick, though he couldn't help feeling interest
and admiration at this recital, did not like the way in which Miss
Stanley's name and Litvinoff's were coupled in Mrs Hatfield's account
of the help, advice, and kindness shown to the hands before they
dispersed from Thornsett. Her words suggested to him vague suspicions;
but he couldn't think much just then, for it was time to take Mrs
Hatfield's ticket and to see her off. This he did, and when he had seen
her comfortably seated in a corner of a second-class carriage, he said
good-bye to her, giving her at parting a very hearty hand-shake, and a
sovereign, which he could ill afford.

'Good-bye, dear,' he said; 'you must write and tell me how you get on.
Here's my address, and I hope with all my heart you will have good
fortune.'

He drew back from the train as it began to move, and waved a farewell.
She in turn waved her damp cotton handkerchief, and was borne out of
sight.

As she disappeared Dick began to wonder what he should do with himself.
The lecture he had been about to attend was hopelessly lost and
there was nothing particular to be done till after lunch. Obedient
to what would have been the instinct of most young men under such
circumstances, his first thought was to take a ticket to Charing Cross,
that being a more cheerful place for the consideration of any problem
than the station where he found himself. In common with every other
traveller on the South-Eastern Railway, he had long since arrived at
the conclusion that London Bridge was the most unreasonably comfortless
and altogether objectionable station in England--which is saying a good
deal. He was just turning to go down to the booking office when--

'Great heavens, how wonderful!' he said. As he turned he found himself
face to face with the girl whose mother had just left him. She was
close to him, and had instinctively held out her hand, which he had
clasped in greeting before he noticed that she was not alone. Her
companion was evidently a gentleman. Her dress was much better than had
been that of the girl for whom he had carried the brown-paper parcel
five months ago. Richard noticed this with a pang of uneasiness as he
said,--

'Why, Alice, I am very glad to see you; you're looking much better.
Where are you off to? What are you doing?'

'Oh, dear, I'm so sorry, Mr Richard; I'm just going by this train
to stay at Chislehurst with some friends of this gentleman's. Mr
Petrovitch, Mr Ferrier.'

The men bowed--Petrovitch with easy courtesy, and Ferrier with a frigid
reserve which would only allow him to raise his hat about an eighth of
an inch--and as they did so the train steamed in.

'You must not miss this train,' said Petrovitch; 'there is not another
for so long a time.'

'Good-bye, Mr Richard,' she said. 'When you see father or mother, tell
them I'm well and happier, and have good friends.'

Ferrier had it on the tip of his tongue to tell her how he had just
seen her mother, but Petrovitch, with an air of authority, cut short
their farewells by hurrying her into the train.

'Good-bye,' said Richard, rather at a loss in this unexpected and
bewilderingly brief meeting; 'couldn't you write to me? I'm at
Guy's--Guy's Hospital, you know.'

'Stand back, sir,' said the guard, slamming the door with one hand and
putting his whistle to his lips with the other, as the train gave a
lurch and began to move off.

'Bon voyage, Mrs Litvinoff,' said Petrovitch, bringing a startled look
and a vivid blush into Alice's face, and giving Richard the biggest
surprise of his life. His blank astonishment was too evident for
Petrovitch to ignore it. He looked at Richard inquiringly.

'Er--er, I beg your pardon,' stammered Ferrier, as soon as he could
find words. 'You called that--a--lady Mrs Litvinoff?'

'I did, sir,' answered the other, with a rather angry flash of his
deep-set eyes. 'I might have called her Countess Litvinoff, if you
attach any importance to titles.'

'Good God!' said Richard, very slowly. He sat down on the wooden seat
without another word.

'I wish you good-morning, sir,' said Petrovitch, making for the incline
which leads off the platform.

Before he had made three paces young Ferrier had pulled himself
together, and had overtaken him and laid a hand on his arm.

'Forgive me, sir--I am afraid you think me very strange and
unmannerly--but I have a deeper interest in this matter than you
can possibly imagine. I must beg you to allow me a few moments for
explanation.'

'Certainly, sir; I shall be happy to walk your way,' answered the
Russian, less stiffly.

No more was said till they got outside the station. It was not easy for
Richard to know how to begin. He did not know how much this man knew of
Alice, and he felt it would be unfair to tell her story, as far as he
knew it, to one who seemed to know her only as a married woman. But, on
the other hand, how much did he himself know of her story? He walked
along beside Petrovitch for at least ten minutes before he could make
up his mind how to begin. At length the other half-stopped and looked
at him in a way that compelled speech of some kind.

'The reason I was so surprised when I heard you call that--lady Mrs
Litvinoff, was that I have known her from a child, and did not know
that she was married. I--I--also knew a Count Litvinoff in London a
few months ago, and certainly did not know that he was married. The
connection of the two names startled me. I must also tell you that it
did more than startle me; it relieved me.'

'You are, then, very much interested in my friend?' said Petrovitch.

'Well,' said Richard, finding it desperately hard to break through his
English reserve, and yet feeling that he could not in common fairness
expect to get any information from one who called himself a 'friend' of
Alice's without showing good reasons for asking for such information.
'Well, I am interested, very much interested, but not quite in the
way that men generally are when they talk about being interested in
a woman. Look here,' he said, stopping, and finding his powers of
diplomacy absolutely failing him, falling back on the naked truth,
'that young woman has been the cause--the innocent cause, mind--of a
complete separation between my brother and myself. I thought my brother
had done her a great wrong. Can you tell me whether he did or not? His
name is Roland Ferrier.'

'So far as I know Mrs Litvinoff's story,' said Petrovitch, speaking
very deliberately, 'no wrong of any sort has ever been done her by any
one of that name.'

'Ay, but,' said Richard, 'so far as you know; but do you know all? Do
you know with whom she did go when she left her home?'

'I do.'

'It was not my brother?'

'It was not your brother.'

Richard had just said that he felt greatly relieved. If that statement
was true, his looks certainly belied him.

'One question more,' he said. 'I want to know exactly how far wrong I
have been. Do you know if my brother has had any communication at all
with her since she left her home?--did he know where she was?'

'I believe that he has had no communication with her, and that he did
not know where she was.'

'Can you tell me who this Litvinoff is, then? Is he the Count Michael
Litvinoff that I know, or knew? If so, did he marry, and when did he
marry her? and why did she leave him?--for she _did_ leave some man;
she told me so.'

'Ah,' said Petrovitch, 'you said one more question; that question I
answered because I thought you were really concerned in knowing the
answer. Forgive me, these other matters I think do not concern you.'

'Well,' Richard answered, 'I knew that girl when she was a baby, and
I've always been fond of her, and I should naturally be glad to hear
anything about her. I am glad to see her looking so much better, and
better cared for than when I met her last.'

Petrovitch bent his head silently.

They had stopped by this time just opposite the Borough Market.

'I am sorry you will not tell me more about her; but since you have
told me that my brother has not injured her in any way, I don't know
that I have any right to ask you more. I must thank you for telling me
what you have done, and ask you to excuse my seeming curiosity.'

Petrovitch bowed; young Ferrier did the same, and they
parted--Petrovitch turned across the bridge, while Richard retraced his
steps towards the station. He made his way to the telegraph office, and
sent off this message:--'Richard Ferrier, Guy's Hospital, London, to
Gates, The Hollies, Firth Vale.--Please wire me my brother's address at
once if you know it.'

Then he crossed the station-yard, and ran down the steep stone steps
which are part of the shortest cut to the hospital, and as he went he
felt more wretched than he had ever been before. He had always believed
in himself so intensely that an actual injury would have been less hard
to bear than this sudden shattering of his faith in his own judgment.
He had been so utterly mistaken--so wrong all round. Everything had
seemed to point to his brother's guilt. Now everything seemed to have
pointed to his innocence. If Richard's eyes had not been so blinded
by--what? It was a moment for seeing things clearly, and Richard saw
that his own passion and jealousy had perverted his view of all that
had taken place in the autumn. That meeting in Spray's Buildings--of
course it was the likeliest thing in the world that Roland really had
seen Litvinoff, and at the thought of that sympathetic nobleman the
young man ground his teeth. How completely he had been fooled! It must
be the same Litvinoff--for had not Alice been present at his lecture
in Soho? How had Alice met such a man? Oh, that might have happened in
a thousand ways. Had Litvinoff really married her? Richard thought he
had not. He remembered Litvinoff's moustache, and felt sure that he had
not. Felt sure? How could he feel sure of anything, when here, where he
had been so absolutely certain, he was proved to have been wrong?

What fearful blunders he had made--what a horrible muddle he had got
everything into--what irretrievable mischief he had done! But, though
he blamed himself deeply and bitterly, he still, not unnaturally,
blamed Litvinoff with still more bitter earnestness. One thing only
was clear to him. He must find Roland at once, tell him all the
circumstances, and beg his pardon. It would be all right again between
him and his brother, towards whom he now felt a rush of reactionary
affection. But how about the mill hands, now scattered far and wide
beyond recall--beyond the reach of his help--through this same mad
folly of his? In an impulse to do something for at least one of those
who had suffered through him, he turned off from the hospital and
took a hansom to his rooms, where he unlocked his desk, and, taking
a five-pound note from his slender stock of money, enclosed it in an
envelope, which he addressed to Mrs Hatfield at the address she had
given him, in a hand not his own. He would do more for them when he
and his brother had begun to work the mill again. That would be one
big result of his new knowledge. His medical studies would be at an
end, and he would be once more Ferrier of Thornsett. But that was poor
compensation for all the rest.

When Mr Gates' answering telegram came it was a wet blanket on
Richard's longing to make his confession and talk things over with
Roland--for it ran thus:--'Robert Gates, The Hollies, Firth Vale,
to Richard Ferrier, Guy's Hospital.--Don't know his address--he is
expected here in a few days. Has left Chelsea, and is making visits on
his way here. Glad you want him. Letter follows.'

So he could not see Roland that day, after all, and there was nothing
for it but to possess his soul in patience until he heard again from
Gates. So he spent the evening with some congenial acquaintances who
had diggings in Trinity Square, and managed to get through the night
without being driven to distraction by his remorseful self-tormenting
thoughts. But the next morning he remembered, with a start, for the
first time, that, not content with believing his brother to be guilty
of a disgraceful action, he had accused him of it to Clare Stanley,
and, worse than that, to Alice's own mother. He felt he could never
face Clare again after that, come what might. But the Hatfields?
At least it would be only fair to make what reparation he could by
undeceiving them. He would go down to Dartford that very day, and tell
them how mistaken he had been. He went by the same train which had
carried Mrs Hatfield thither on the preceding day.

Arrived at Dartford the Dismal, Richard betook himself to the address
that had been given him, which, after some difficulty, he found to be
one of a row of small, ill-favoured, squalid cottages a little way out
of the town. There were a good many children about, who stared at him
with open-eyed curiosity, and did dreadful things to their mouths with
their grimy little fingers in the excitement of seeing a gentleman stop
at No. 5 Earl's Terrace. The battered, blistered green door had no
knocker. The handle of Richard's umbrella afforded an impromptu one,
and, in answer to the spirited solo which he proceeded to execute with
it, the door was opened, and by his foster-mother herself.

She looked very pale and worried, and had evidently been crying. She
didn't seem surprised to see him; she was in that state of mind when
nothing seems worth being surprised about.

'Come in, lad,' she said. 'Ah got thi kind token. Ah know'd 'twas thee
as sent it, and m'appen Ah'll need it more nor tha thowt when tha sent
it, for t' maister's giv' up his work an' gone off.'

She had set a chair for him, and as she finished this speech she sat
down herself and looked hopelessly at him.

'Gone--gone! Left you! Why, he must be out of his mind.'

'His mind's right enough; it's his soul as Ah'm feared about, Dick.
He's gone to have it out wi' Rowley, and get at the rights of it.'

'But where is Roland? Where's he gone to?'

'He's gone to Thornsett.'

'Why, Roland isn't there.'

'Thank God! God be praised, if it'll on'y please His good providence to
keep 'em fra meetin'!'

'But how came he to go? How did it happen? Tell me all about it?'

It seemed that when her husband had met her at Dartford Station, she,
pleased with having met Richard, had told him of the rencontre. That he
had closely questioned her, and when at last he had learned every word
that had passed between them, he had turned suddenly on her, and told
her that this was the first time he had ever even thought of such a
thing being possible as that Roland had been the cause of Alice's ruin,
and that now he did know he would not lose a day in facing him with the
accusation.

'Do you mean to say,' said Richard, 'that it's through me he thinks
that Roland took her away?'

'I don't say it was thy fault, lad. I'm more to blame than thee. I
should a-kept my clattering tongue quiet, and I should a-known my own
man better after a' these years nor to think that if he had a-thowt it
was Rowley he wouldna ha' faced him wi' it long sin'.'

'This is devilish pleasant!' said Richard, rising and taking a stride
across the little room; but how did he go?'

It appeared he had started off with but a pound, or little more, in his
pocket, intending to walk the greater part of the way, and only telling
her that she wouldn't hear of him until she saw him back again.

'And what do you think will happen when they do meet?' he asked.

'Oh, Ah'm feared to think!' she said, wringing her hands and beginning
to weep.

'I'll tell you what I'll do,' said Richard. 'I'll go straight down to
Thornsett now, and keep a look-out for Hatfield. I'll stop any more
mischief, any way. I think I can promise you that nothing much will
happen if they do meet.'

She caught hold of his hand, and began to thank him.

'Oh, don't thank me!' he said; 'the whole sad business has been my
fault from beginning to end. I found out yesterday, almost directly I
left you, that Rowley was as innocent of doing any harm to Alice as I
am, and I found out, too, that she is well and pretty happy, and, I
heard, married. If it hadn't been for me, Hatfield wouldn't have gone
off on this wild-goose chase. But I must get back now; my train goes in
twenty minutes, and I want to catch the three o'clock train for Firth
Vale.'

He caught the three o'clock train to Firth Vale, having managed, by a
very hurried farewell, to escape the torrent of questions Mrs Hatfield
would have liked to pour out. He felt that, all things considered, the
less he said about the matter the better. He had been wrong too often,
and too much.



CHAPTER XXVII.

MAKING IT UP.


There was rejoicing in the house of Robert Gates, as over a prodigal
returned, when Richard Ferrier avowed that he had been mistaken all
through in his quarrel with his brother, and that he was now only
anxious to acknowledge his error, and to do his best to set things
going again on the old footing. But he had some days to wait before he
could make his confession.

Thornsett Edge had remained unoccupied, for there was some difficulty
in letting a furnished house near a deserted village. People did not
seem to care about the vicinity of all those empty shells of homes. So
Roland had decided to occupy it again, and he was coming down there to
get things ready for his aunt's reception, and was making a few visits
to old friends on his way. He had written down to the old couple in
charge to have the place ready, as he might come down any day.

Two days passed and he had not come, and Richard was getting tired of
the constant inquiries and congratulations which assailed him at The
Hollies. He thought he would go home, and be there to welcome Roland
when he arrived. So he sent over his portmanteau, and took up his
quarters in his old room at Thornsett Edge. He was in a very tender
and remorseful frame of mind in those days. He wandered all over the
old house, full filled of memories of the time when he and his brother
played together there as children; of the time when, later, they
thrashed each other as schoolboys, with right good will. There were
haunting thoughts of the dissension that had grown up between them, and
of the shadow that the knowledge of it had cast upon their father's
deathbed. The necessity which he felt himself to be under of keeping
a sharp look-out for John Hatfield, fortunately served as a kind of
antidote to the rush of memories and associations which came over
Richard, now that he was once again in his home.

He walked down to the village to seek out the few 'hands' who had clung
like rooks to their old haunts, and there he saw sad sights and heard
sad stories enough to have driven him mad had he not known that it
would soon be in his power to set things in some degree right again. He
resolved, and felt sure of Roland's co-operation in his scheme, to seek
out as many of the old 'hands' as could be got word of, and to give
each of them enough to get a home together again.

Of course he thought often of Miss Stanley; but the past months of
unusual action and changed surroundings had altered his feeling for
her, which was fortunate for him, since he had falsely accused his own
brother to her--a meanness which he knew it to be quite impossible for
such a woman as Clare ever to forget or forgive. He thought of her now
without any of the old passion, as he might have thought of one who had
died long before, or of one whom he had loved in some other life.

This did not prevent him from feeling furiously jealous of Litvinoff,
to whom he seemed to have transferred all the anger that had burned in
him against his brother, intensified by a galling consciousness of the
complete success which Litvinoff had achieved in his attempt to deceive
and mislead him. There should be a reckoning for that, Richard thought.
He felt glad he had always mistrusted the man. It showed that his
judgment was worth something sometimes, and this pleased his self-love.

On the third day came a telegram from Matlock, which said that Roland
would be at home that evening. Richard roamed about the house in
restless impatience all day. How should they meet? He should not dare
to go to the door to greet his brother lest he should imagine that it
was a renewal of hostilities, not a welcome home, that was intended.
Richard had no eye for dramatic effects, nor any leaning thereto, but
he charged the old people to say nothing of his presence, and to leave
him to announce himself to his brother when he should think well.

His brother would have done exactly the same thing from absolutely
opposite motives.

So when Roland walked up to his home in the teeth of the wild March
wind the only welcome that met him was that of the old woman in charge,
and this seemed to him to be so inconsequently effusive, and the
good lady herself seemed so unreasonably radiant, that he was quite
flattered. It was pleasant to him to be appreciated and admired, even
by a 'person in charge.'

'The fire's i' the dining-room, Mr Roland,' she said; 'an' I'll dish
ye up the supper in less nor half a minute, sir. It's a glad day for
Thornsett as sees yer back agen.'

Mrs Brock's son had worked in the mill--a fact which made the
anticipated reconciliation peculiarly interesting to her.

Richard from his ambush in his own room heard the greeting, heard
the well-known voice giving orders about rugs and hat-boxes in the
well-known tones. Then he heard doors open and close. After a while a
savoury smell from the hot supper that was being carried in rose to his
altitude. The dining-room door was opened, and shut several times.
At last it was closed with a more decided touch, and in the noise of
its closing was a settled sound as of a door that did not mean to open
again just yet. Richard knew that the supper had been cleared away,
and that Roland was most likely assisting digestion with tobacco and
grog. This would be the time, he decided, to put in an appearance and
to get through his proposed reconciliation. He went softly downstairs,
and paused a moment with his hand on the dining-room door. The house
was very still. As he stood there he heard a cinder fall from the fire
in the dining-room, and the great hall clock at the foot of the stairs
ticked louder than usual, as it seemed. He turned the handle and went
in. Roland was sitting in the big arm-chair by the fire where their
father had been used to sit. As the door opened he looked up with a
sort of displeased curiosity to see who it was that had the assurance
to enter unannounced. When he saw who it was he gave a start, and the
expression of his face changed to something deeper and sterner.

He got up.

'I understood from Gates,' he said, 'that you renounced all claim to be
in this house so long as half the possible rent was paid you. I mean to
pay you your half. May I ask, then, what you want here?'

'I want to beg your pardon,' began Richard, his hand still on the
lock--when his brother interrupted him with,--

'Hadn't you better close the door? I suppose you don't want all the
world to hear anything you may have to say.'

His tone was so icily cold that the other found it hard to go on as he
had intended. He did his best, however.

'I am very sorry for all that happened in the autumn. I was quite
deceived and misled, and I beg your pardon. I can't say more, and I
hope you'll let bygones be bygones.'

He held out his hand. At this point in the scene Dick had fancied that
his brother would clasp his hand with reciprocating affection, and all
would be forgiven and forgotten. But the other actor evidently intended
a different 'reading' of the part assigned him. He made no movement to
meet the outstretched hand. On the contrary, he put his hands in his
pockets with a too expressive gesture, and was silent.

'Come, Roland,' said Dick, who, knowing himself to have been in the
wrong, displayed a patience which surprised himself; 'make it up, old
man.'

'I am not sure,' said the other slowly, 'that I care to make it up, as
you call it. No "making-up" can alter all that has gone wrong through
your foolishness. I've gone through the worst of the trouble now, and,
to tell you the truth, I'm not inclined to lay myself open to any more
experiences of this kind. You might be "deceived and misled" again.'

Richard, who had remained standing, gave the slightest possible stamp
of impatience, which his brother did not observe.

'And as for the money,' he went on, 'I dare say I can do as well
without it as with it.'

'Look here,' said Dick, his face flushing hotly; 'if you suppose I care
a straw about the dirty money, you're mistaken; only one of us can't
have any without the other now. Come, Roland, be friends, if it's only
for the old dad's sake.'

Roland seemed to have what the children call the 'black dog on his
shoulder,' but this appeal was not lost. He made an effort to overcome
the resentment and bitterness that filled him, and after a moment held
out his hand, saying,--

'Very well, I'll shake hands. I suppose we shall manage to scrape along
together as well as a good many brothers.'

And this was the reconciliation that Richard had had his heart full of
for the last three or four days. It was piteously unlike his dreams of
it.

When they had shaken hands, Dick sat down. There was a silence--a very
awkward silence. Roland passed the whisky along the table, and the
other mechanically helped himself.

'I think,' Roland said presently, 'that you owe me an explanation of
all this.'

'Of course I do,' assented Richard eagerly; 'but you are so--well,
unapproachable; but I'll tell you every word about it,' which he did,
omitting no particulars which bore on the case.

'So he called her Mrs Litvinoff, did he?' was Roland's comment on the
Petrovitch-Ferrier episode at London Bridge. 'I should think she had
just taken the name by chance, but for one thing.'

'And that is?'

'You say she lived in that house I saw Litvinoff go into the day we
split. It must have been Litvinoff, and he must have been going to her;
but it's very strange how he ever knew her. And was this really _all_
the ground you had for doing what you did?' There was contempt in his
tone.

'No,' said Richard. 'You went away on a "mysterious holiday" just when
she disappeared, and that set all the village tongues wagging, and
first made me wonder and suspect. Now I _know_ I was wrong; but if you
don't mind, Roland, I wish you'd tell me _why_ you went just then. I've
told you everything.'

'The whole thing is over and done with now,' he answered; 'and after
to-night I don't want to ever speak about it; but I will tell you if
you like. I went away because I saw you were beginning to care for
Clare Stanley, and I was beginning to care too, and I thought that if I
went away I could pull through it, and that you would make the running
and be happy with her, but I found I couldn't do it, and I came back
and did my best to cut you out, as you did by me.'

'Oh, Roland, what a good fellow you were to think of such a thing!'
said Dick, to whom a generous action like this, even though only
attempted, could not fail to appeal most strongly. 'But how is it now?'
he went on, stung by a host of conflicting feelings. 'Have _you_ made
the running? Have you won her?'

'No!' he answered bitterly. 'The closing of the mill settled that for
me as well as for you. Some one else has had as good a chance as ours,
though, and has made a better use of it. Count Litvinoff is a constant
visitor at the house where she is, and I don't doubt she will marry
him; unless, indeed, he is married already. I think we ought to try and
find that out.'

'Married or not, he is a damned scoundrel!' cried Richard; 'and he
shall not marry her. She would never look at me again, I know; but I
hope you may win her yet, Roland.'

'My chance is gone for ever. I wish I'd never had that Litvinoff down
here. But who could have foreseen this?'

'We've both been fools.'

Roland did not seem to relish this broad statement.

'I can't think how,' he was beginning, when Mrs Brock came in with
coals, and almost purred with pleasure at seeing the two amicably
drinking their whisky at the same hearth. When she had left the room
Richard rose.

'Look here, old man,' he said; 'I'm as sorry as a fellow can be about
all this, and I can't think how I could have been such a fool. That's
what you were going to say, wasn't it? But since we're agreed on that,
don't let's say any more about it. Forgive and forget, and I hope you
will be happy yet--with Miss Stanley. Let's agree to let this subject
alone for a bit. I think I'll have a run round the garden before I turn
in. Good-night.'

'Good-night,' Roland answered, but in a manner whose evident effort
after cordiality made the failure of that effort the more painful. 'I
shall go to bed; I'm dead beat--been knocking about all day.' Then they
shook hands again, and Richard went out.

He had thought that Roland would have met his apologies with ready
acceptance--his revived brotherly love with equal enthusiasm--and the
nature of the reconciliation jarred upon him. And yet, as he told
himself, he thoroughly deserved it all. No doubt time would soften his
brother's sense of injury, and some day they might be as good friends
again as they had been before Clare Stanley's prettiness had come,
like a will-o'-the-wisp, to lead them into all sorts of follies. He
tried to think he would be glad if she married Roland. Anything, he
thought, rather than that she should marry Litvinoff. He passed the
limits of the garden and strolled down the road, deep in thought. It
was only when he had nearly reached the mill that he remembered with
a start that he had told his brother nothing about John Hatfield and
his revengeful projects. However, Roland could come to no harm now--he
was probably safe in bed--and he could tell him in the morning. So he
strolled on, smoking reflectively, and with a heart not light.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

VENGEANCE ASTRAY.


John Hatfield had left Dartford, his wife, and his work, driven by an
impulse as vague as it was irresistible. He did not know what he meant
to do; his one idea was that he must face his daughter's betrayer, and
tax him with his crime. He did not very much care what came after.
But the long tramp through England, broken though it was by many a
lift from good-natured waggoners, had given him time for thinking.
Reflection did not soften his resentment. On the contrary, the more
he thought, the harder his heart felt, and each new hour of solitary
musing left him more bitter, more vindictive, more angered than he
had been the hour before. His wife's story convicted him of the one
fault from which he had always believed himself to be free--blind
stupidity. The loss of his daughter had never been out of his mind for
half an hour at a time since she had gone away, and he had thought and
thought, till his brain had seemed to spin round, over every least
detail of her flight, and of the time just before it, in the hope of
finding out who was her betrayer. And yet in all his thinking he had
never come anywhere near the truth. Other people had, though; he knew
that, as he remembered hints he had sneered at from some of the least
brilliant of the hands--fools he had often called them. Yet, fools as
they were, they had been able to see more clearly than he, the father,
whose brain sharpest love and sorrow ought surely to have had power to
quicken.

Added to all this, the thought that he had gone on working for, taking
the money of, and, to a certain extent, living in a condition of
dependence on, the man who had wronged him, and then had turned him out
on to the world, stung his spirit almost to madness.

The spring woke early that year, and the weather was bright and glad,
the air clear and sweet and joyous with a thousand bird-voices.
The Midland woods and hedges that he passed were beginning to deck
themselves in the fresh greenness of their new spring garments. Their
beauty brought no peace to him. He but noticed them to curse their
monotony and apparent endlessness. The only things he did notice with
anything like satisfaction were the milestones and fingerposts, which
told him that so much more ground had been got over. He put up at night
at the cheapest and poorest-looking inns he could find. They were
good enough to lie awake in, for his feverish longing and impatience
to reach his end almost consumed him and made sleep an impossibility.
Eager as he was to get on, he had self-restraint enough to spend none
of his store of money--such a little store as it was--on travelling.
Roland Ferrier might not be at Thornsett after all, and he might have
to follow him, or mayhap return to Dartford and bide his time; and so,
though his progress was straight and steady it was slow, and he did not
reach Thornsett until the night that had witnessed the explanations
between the brothers.

He had done more than twenty-five miles that day, and he was footsore
and tired out when, as night was falling, he reached the top of the
hill at whose foot lay the village which had been his home for thirty
years. All along he had been determined to make straight for Thornsett
Edge, and to confront Roland at once. He felt that the young man might
be surprised into more admissions than he would choose to make if
he were prepared. But physical fatigue is wonderfully effective in
upsetting mental decision. Hatfield felt that neither in body nor in
mind was he fit to go through at once with the part he had chosen. He
must rest--sleep, if possible. He threw himself down on the heather by
the pathside, and leaned his head on his arm, while he debated what to
do. Nature decided for him, and he fell asleep.

When he woke, a young moon was shining coldly down upon him. He felt
stiff, and not rested. The heather was wet with night-dew. How late was
it? He thought by the moon about eight o'clock.

He would go down to the village and see who was left in the old place;
perhaps he might get a lodging there. The Spotted Cow was closed, he
had heard. He limped down the steep stony street. There were no lights
to be seen. As he reached the house that had been his, he saw that it
was empty, and a longing came over him to get inside it. Why not sleep
there? So, turning aside, he went up the three stone steps and along
the narrow paved pathway that ran under the windows separating the
house from the tiny front garden. His hand fell on the latch of the
door quite naturally, and it never occurred to him that it would not
yield to his touch as it had been wont to do. But it did not yield. He
was in that frame of mind when any resistance is intolerable. He drew
back and then threw himself against the door with all his weight. It
gave way noisily and he went in. He passed round the wooden screen, and
stood in the middle of the flagged floor.

To return to a house where we have been happy, even if we have left it
for greater happiness, is always sad if not painful; but to go back to
a house that seems to hold within its desolate walls, not only all our
memories but all our possibilities of happiness--when we have left
it in sorrow, to take back to it an added load of new, unexpected,
intolerable trouble--this, let us be thankful, is not given to many of
us.

John Hatfield could not bear it. He cast one look round at the dark,
fireless hearth, the uncurtained window, turned, and came out. Sleep
there? He would rather sleep on the bare hillside, or in the churchyard
itself, for that matter.

The rush of memories drove him before it. He could not stay in the
village. Every other house in it had been a home too, and was crowded
with recollections almost as maddening as those that peopled his own
home, in which--bitterest thought of all--Roland Ferrier had lisped out
childish prattle, and climbed on his knee to share his caresses with
baby Alice. And at the remembrance his resolution came back. He would
go to Thornsett Edge then and there, let come what might. Weak as he
was, he was strong enough to make his tired feet carry him so far, and
once there his passion could be trusted to give him strength to say
and do all that needed to be said and done. He clenched his nerves, as
though the pain of his bruised feet would grow less by being despised,
and he walked on. But when he reached the turn in the road that brought
the mill in sight his mood altered again, and almost before he knew
that his intention had changed he found himself limping painfully down
the stone steps into the little hollow. As he caught sight of the door
where Litvinoff had stood on the night of the fire he muttered a curse
on the man who had stood between the 'hands' and their purpose that
night. He felt faint and giddy. The many square windows of the mill
seemed to look on him like eyes, and the broken panes in them lent them
a sinister expression. The few past months had changed the face of the
mill wonderfully. No one had repaired the damage done by the rioters,
and the wind and rain had had their will of the place. It looked now,
Hatfield thought, as though it had been deserted for years instead of
months.

Everything was deadly still. The only sounds were the trickling of the
stream as it flowed past, and his own heavy breathing. He was becoming
unaccountably sleepy. Why should he not sleep here? He would go on to
Thornsett in the morning. He stumbled downward till he reached the
wall of the mill. He soon found a window that could be unfastened by
passing his hand through one of its broken panes and turning round
the primitive hasp. It was rusty, and moved, as it were, reluctantly.
Still, it did move, and he opened the window and crept through it.
He found himself on the edge of a huge stone tank, or vat. One more
forward movement and he would have been plunged in the dark-looking
water that half filled it. He shuddered. How could he have been such a
fool as to forget the position of that tank? He crept round the edge
of it, and reached the stone-paved floor of the basement. There lay
a mass of something dark. It was the great stone that had thundered
through the roof of the mill just after young Roland Ferrier had given
the deputation their answer. Hatfield looked up at the ugly hole in the
ceiling, a hole that repeated itself in the two upper floors and the
roof, through which he could see the sky. The moon was shining brightly
by this time, and the many-windowed building was lighted well enough
for the man to find his way about. Had it been dark, he thought he
should not have had much difficulty. He went up the stairs, and made
his way to a room on the second storey, where he fancied there would be
some soft rubbish he could lie down on. He was not disappointed, and,
yielding to the utter weariness that had come to him, he lay down, and
in a moment slept.

He had not been asleep three minutes when he awoke with a start to
find himself sitting up and listening. What had he heard? The click of
a door and a footstep. He was widely, nervously, intensely awake now.
Had it been fancy, born of the utter desolation and loneliness of the
place where he was? He listened strainedly. No. This at least was no
fancy. There was a footstep resounding hollowly through the great empty
rooms.

Some watcher, perhaps, from whom he ought to keep himself hidden if
he did not want to be handed over to the constable as a vagrant. What
an ending, that, to his journey! Yes, he must lie quiet, and yet, how
could he? Suppose--and at the thought his blood ran coldly through his
veins--suppose old Richard Ferrier had got up from under that white
stone in Thornsett churchyard, and had come down to keep watch over
what his sons had so little regarded. The footsteps came nearer, and
Hatfield sprang to his feet and walked not away from, but towards, the
sound. The impulse of a naturally brave man when he _is_ frightened is
to face the fearsome thing as speedily as may be. Hatfield opened the
door. Then he sprang forward, for he saw no ghost, but, as it seemed
to him, the object of his search--not old Richard, but young Roland,
standing with his back to him. The bright moonlight lighting up the
figure left no room in his mind for a doubt. At the sight, all his
ideas of asking for explanation vanished in an instant, and left him
with no impulse but to catch the young man by the throat and to squeeze
the life out of him.

As the other turned at the sound of the opening door he gave a cry of
horror at the sight of the wild, haggard figure springing at him--the
white, angry, maddened face close to his own.

'Keep back!' he almost screamed, as Hatfield rushed upon him, but even
as he spoke the man's hands fastened on his throat, and the two closed
in a silent, deadly struggle. They had hardly grasped each other when
both remembered the danger that lay behind them--that black gap in the
floor--and each tried to edge away from it without loosening his hold.
Too late, though. The strain of the strong men wrestling was too much
for the splintered boards already rotted through by the rain and snow
of the past months. Crash went the flooring beneath their feet, and as
the two went through, fast locked in each other's arms, Hatfield, above
his adversary, saw, in a flash of intensest horror, that the face below
him was not that of Roland, but of Richard.

It was the last thing he ever saw in this world. In another moment
he was lying, a dead man, at the bottom of the great tank. Again the
stillness of the empty mill was undisturbed, and the only movement in
it was that of the heavy-coloured water as it settled down again into
stagnation over him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Roland went to bed that night without troubling himself much about his
brother. He had been deeply wronged, and he was a man who, not easily
offended, was, when once alienated, implacable. He did not find it
easy to forgive. Though he had shaken hands with his brother he had
not forgiven him, and he came down to breakfast the next morning quite
prepared to keep up his _rôle_ of injured innocence, and to prevent
his brother from experiencing much satisfaction in the reconciliation.
Richard had always been an early riser, and Roland quite expected to
find him in the dining-room waiting, but he was not there. He waited
some little time, and then desired Mrs Brock to see if Mr Ferrier was
in his room, and it was not till she returned with the intelligence
that he was not and that his bed had not been slept in, that Roland
began to wonder in anxious earnest where his brother could be.

A very short search showed that he was not in the house or grounds.
Could he have gone to the churchyard? No, thought Roland; Dick wasn't
that sort of fellow. Perhaps he had gone over to Gates, and had stayed
all night. In a very short time Roland was at The Hollies questioning
eagerly, and, with an inexplicable feeling of dread and anxiety growing
stronger upon him with each moment, he learned that Dick had not been
there. He would go down to the village, and Mr Gates volunteered to
come with him, though he laughed cheerfully at the idea of there being
anything to worry about in Dick's non-appearance. 'He's playing off
some trick on you,' he said. 'However, come along, and we'll soon find
him.' So they walked together towards the village.

'Hullo,' said Mr Gates, as they passed the mill, 'that door's no
business open! Perhaps Dick's up to some games in there.'

The door he pointed at was one opening from the mill on to a flight
of stone steps that ran sideways outside the building from the second
storey to the ground.

'Whether he's there or not,' the lawyer went on, 'some one has been
there, and we'd better see who it is.'

So they went down, and, crossing the courtyard, between whose stones
the grass was springing already, ran up the steps and passed through
the open door.

The whole place was flooded with the brilliant morning sunlight.

The two made a few steps forward. They saw the hole in the floor, and
paused. Then Roland's heart seemed to stand still, for he saw on the
board at the edge of the gap a hat, and his brother's silver-headed
walking stick, and he knew what had happened. With an exceeding bitter
cry he turned from Gates and sprang down an inner staircase, glancing
at each floor as he passed it, and on the stones at the bottom he
found what he sought--Dick. Or was it Dick? Could this mangled,
twisted, bloody mass be his brother? The pitiless light came through
the cobwebbed windows, and showed plainly enough that it was Dick, or
Dick's body.

'Run for Bailey,' he shouted to Gates, who had followed him; and he
went.

Then Roland lifted Richard's head. Was he alive? Yes. At the movement
a spasm of agony contracted his face, and his eyes opened. A look of
relief came into them when he saw his brother.

'Don't move me, old man,' he whispered; and the other knelt beside him,
his arms under the poor head. He could not speak, for he saw that his
brother was dying.

After a moment Richard spoke again, very faintly.

'I'm glad you've come.' He could only say a few words at a time, and
between the sentences came long pauses, in each of which Roland fancied
the last silence had come.

'I wanted you, old fellow. It's nearly over now. It's been like hell
lying here. I know he's somewhere near, and I couldn't help him. It was
Hatfield, and he mistook me for you. It was through me he believed you
had wronged Alice. He was hiding here, and attacked me. We struggled
and fell. I'm afraid he's dead. You'll see presently.'

Then came a longer pause than any that had gone before, and still
Roland could not speak.

Gates had sent down a man from the cottage above, but when he came
Richard made impatient signs, and he went and stood outside.

'You didn't care about making it up, Rowley; but it's all right between
us now, isn't it?'

Roland's tears were falling over his brother's face.

'Oh, Dick, Dick, Dick!' He could say nothing else.

'It's hard lines,' Richard said; 'but it's all my own fault. Never
mind, old chap. Water!'

Roland called to the labourer, and when the water had been brought Dick
seemed to gather his strength together.

'Since I've been lying here, I've wished I could believe I was going to
see father again, and I half believe it's possible. I shouldn't care if
I was going to the old dad again.'

'Oh, Dick! Can I do nothing for you?'

'No, old chap; only tell _her_ I sent her my love. She has it, and she
won't mind now.'

Then he lay silent, with closed eyes. Presently he made a movement.
Roland interpreted it, and kissed his face.

'I'm going, old man!' he said. 'Good-bye. Clare! Clare! Clare!' He
murmured her name over and over again, more and more faintly.

Roland put the water to his lips again, but it was too late. He had
drunk of the Nepenthe of Death.



CHAPTER XXIX.

BACK FROM THE DEAD.


The Clare Stanley who studied Bakounin and quoted Matthew Arnold was
a very different girl from the Clare Stanley who had in the autumn
entertained the reprehensible idea of bringing to her feet the
interesting stranger at Morley's Hotel. In looking back on that time,
which she did with hot cheeks and uncomfortable self-condemnation,
it really seemed to her that she had changed into another
being--development, when it is rapid, being always bewildering. It
would be interesting to know with what emotions the rose remembers
being a green bud. Pleasanter ones perhaps than those of the woman
whose new earnest sense of the intense seriousness of life leads her to
look back--not with indulgent eyes--on the follies of her unawakened
girlhood. The story of the sleeping beauty is an allegory with a very
real meaning. Every woman's mind has its time of slumber, when the
creed of the day is truth and the convention of the day is morality.
The fairy prince's awakening kiss may come in the pages of a book,
in the words of a speaker, through love, through suffering, through
sorrow, through a thousand things glad or sad, and to some it never
comes, and that is the saddest thing of all. Clare had slept, and now
was well awake, and it was no word of Count Litvinoff's that had broken
the slumbrous spell.

Sometimes she almost wished it had been, for she could not conceal
from herself the fact that she had succeeded in doing what she had
desired to do, and that Count Litvinoff _was_ at her feet. The position
became him, certainly, but she felt a perverse objection to being
placed on a pedestal, and a new conviction that she would rather look
up to a lover than down at one. And yet why should she look down on
him? He was cleverer than she, with a larger knowledge of life--had
done incomparably more for the cause she had espoused. He was brave,
handsome, and, to some extent, a martyr, and he loved her, or she
thought so, which came to the same thing. Verily, a man with all these
qualifications was hardly the sort of lover for a girl under the
twenties to look down upon. But could she help looking down on him, for
was he not at her feet? And that was not the place, she thought, for
a man who had drawn the sword in such a war as she and he had entered
upon. What right had a man who had taken up arms in _that_ cause to lay
them down, even at her feet? No, no. Her lover, if she had one, must be
at her side--not there.

This reaction to the Count's detriment had set in on New Year's Day,
when he had told her that he held no cause sacred enough to give her
even inconvenience for the sake of it, and the tide was still ebbing.
Litvinoff appeared quite unconscious of that fact though, for he
continued to call on Mrs Quaid with a persistence which quite justified
all Cora's animadversions. Miss Quaid's penetration was at fault, but
the Count's was not. He was perfectly conscious of the change in her
state of mind, and knew that his chance of being master of the Stanley
money-bags was far less than he had thought shortly after their late
master's death.

Suspense was the one thing Count Litvinoff could not bear--at least,
he could bear it when the balance of probabilities was in his favour;
but when the chances did not seem to be on his side--no. He knew
perfectly well that it is hardly 'correct' to ask a girl to marry one
three months after her father's death; but he was not an enthusiastic
devotee of 'correctness.' He habitually posed as a despiser of
conventions, and this attitude very often stood him in good stead,
even with people who preferred the stereotyped _rôles_ of life for
themselves. Avowed unconventionality serves as a splendid excuse for
doing all sorts of pleasant things which conventional people daren't
do; hence perhaps its growing popularity.

  'He either fears his fate too much,
    Or his deserts are small,
  Who dares not put it to the touch,
    To gain or lose it all.'

The lines ran in Count Litvinoff's head persistently one spring morning
while he sat at his late breakfast. As he despatched his last mouthful
of grilled sardine and looked round for the marmalade, the servant came
in with a letter.

'It really is time I struck for fortune. I do hope this is not a bill,'
he said to himself as he took it. 'I retrench and retrench, and still
they come.'

He tore it open. It was not a bill. It ran thus:--

 'I shall call upon you between four and five this afternoon; I wish to
 see you on an important matter.--PETROVITCH.'

'The mysterious stranger doesn't waste his words. He's almost as
careful of them as the fellow with the dirty collar--Bursch, or
Kirsch, or Hirsch, or whatever it was. The best of being mixed up with
the revolutionary party is that such beautifully unexpected things
are always befalling one. I wonder why he couldn't have waited till
to-morrow night. It lends a spice to an important matter to discuss it
at forbidden times and in a secret manner at the houses of friends.
That's another of our characteristics--to plot when we're supposed to
be talking frivol only, and to play cards or go to sleep when we're
supposed to be plotting. Wonder what the important matter is. The
distressed lady friend again, perhaps. Well, before I commit myself
on that matter, I'd better settle things one way or the other with
_la belle_ Clare. Upon my soul, I don't much care which way they are
settled. If I'm not to shine as the county magnate and the married
man at Aspinshaw, by Heaven, I'll find out my own little girl, and go
in for virtuous retirement in the _Quartier Latin_. When I do swallow
my principles they go down whole, like oysters; and if Miss Stanley
doesn't care to add the title of "countess" to her other endowments,
some one will be glad to take that and me, even with nothing a year to
keep state upon.'

He pushed his chair back, and sat biting his moustache irresolutely,
and frowning heavily at the breakfast-table.

'Yes,' he said at last, rising; 'I'll have a shot for it now, as I've
gone so far, and I'll shoot as straight and as steady as I can. As for
the other matter--well, Aspinshaw and the fruits thereof would not be
a bad drug for inconvenient memories. I wonder if this is one of my
good-looking days?' he added, moving towards the looking-glass, and
scrutinising his reflection therein. He seemed satisfied, lighted the
inevitable cigarette, and half an hour after noon was in Mrs Quaid's
library, alone with Clare Stanley.

Mrs Quaid, he had known, would be absent on some educational errand,
and Cora would be at the National Gallery. He knew that Miss Stanley
was not averse to a quiet morning spent in uninterrupted reading and
copying, and he had rightly thought that he should have a very fair
chance of finding her alone. The resolution of his, which had faltered
before the remembrance of that other face, grew strong again as he
saw her, for she looked charming, and it was not in his nature to be
indifferent to the charms of any woman, even if she were not _the_
woman.

Miss Stanley had been making notes in a MS. book, and Litvinoff
noticed with a feeling not altogether pleasurable that 'The Prophetic
Vision' and the 'Ethics of Revolution' both lay open on the
writing-table, and that she seemed to have been comparing them one with
the other.

'I am afraid you will hate me for interrupting your studies,' he began,
apparently ignorant of the direction those studies had been taking,
'but when the servant told me you were alone in the library, I could
not resist the temptation of coming in.'

'I don't at all mind being interrupted,' she answered, when he had
settled himself down in a chair opposite to her with the air of a man
who, having come in, meant to stay. 'I was just looking through two of
your books. One of them, indeed, I almost know by heart.'

'And that is?'--carelessly, as one who is sure of the answer--

'"The Prophetic Vision."'

Somehow Count Litvinoff did not look delighted. Perhaps he wanted to
talk about something else.

'But, oh,' she went on, 'what a long way off it all seems!'

'Yes, it does; I was an enthusiastic young rebel when I first put on
the Prophet's Mantle.' Then, as a faint change in her face showed him
that he had made a false move, he hastened to add, 'But it will all
happen some day, you know. It is a true vision, but knocking about in
the world has taught me that the immediately practicable is the thing
to aim for.'

'Oh, no, no, no,' she said. 'Never let us lower our standard. We shall
not do less noble work in the present for having the noblest of all
goals before us.'

Then she looked at him, at his handsome, _insouciant_ face, at the
half-cynical droop of his mouth, at the look in his eyes--the sort
of look an old cardinal who knew the Church and the world might turn
on an enthusiastic young monk--and she felt a sudden regret for
that heart-warm speech of hers. What had she in common with this
perfectly-dressed, orchid-button-holed young man? Why should she expect
him to understand her? And yet had he not written "The Prophetic
Vision"? She went on, smiling a little,--

'You must make allowances for the hopeful faith of a new convert.
Perhaps when I've held my new belief a little longer I shall be less
_en l'air_. But I must say I hope not.'

'Your new beliefs make you very happy, then?'

'They make me want very much to live to see what will happen. It would
be terrible to die now before anything is accomplished. You see, I
can't help believing that we shall accomplish something, although I
know you think me very high-flown and absurd.'

'You know I think you perfect,' he said, in a very low voice, and went
on hurriedly: 'But, for Heaven's sake, don't talk about dying; the idea
is too horrible. Can't you guess why I have seemed not sympathetic with
your new religion? I have known what it is to believe strongly, to
work unceasingly, never to leave off hoping, and trying to show others
my hope. I have known what it is to have no life but the life of the
cause; to go through year after year still hoping and striving. I have
known all this, and more. I have known the heart-sickness of waiting
for a dawn that never comes. I know how one may strain every nerve, tax
every power, kill one's body, wear out one's brain, break one's heart
against the iron of things as they are, and when all is sacrificed, all
is gone, all is suffered, have achieved _nothing_. It is from this I
would save you. That you should suffer is a worse evil than any your
suffering could remedy. The cause will have martyrs enough without you.'

'Martyrs, yes; but how can it have too many workers?' she asked, not
looking at him.

'To be a worker is to be a martyr,' he answered, rising and standing
near her; 'and that is the reason why you are the only convert I have
never rejoiced over.'

'I don't know,' she was beginning when he interrupted her.

'Don't say that,' he said. 'Don't say you don't know why I can't endure
the thought of your ever knowing anything but peace and happiness. You
know it is because I love you, and my love for you has eaten up all my
other loves. Freedom, the Revolution, my country, my own ambition, are
all nothing to me. But if _you_ care for the cause I can still work in
it, and with a thousand times more enthusiasm than it ever inspired me
with before, for _you_. That can be your way of helping it. Use me as
your instrument. Make any use you will of me, if only you are safe and
happy, and _mine_.'

His voice was low with the passion which for the moment thrilling
through him made him quite believe his own words.

Clare had listened silently, her eyes cast down, and her nervous
fingers diligently tearing an envelope into little bits, and when he
had ended she still did not speak, but her breath came and went quickly.

'You,' he was beginning again, when she stretched out her hand to
silence him.

'No, no,' she said; 'don't say any more--I can't bear it.'

'Does that mean that you care?'

'It means that this seems the most terrible thing that could have
happened to me. That it should be through me that you give up the
right.'

'But through you, for you, I will become anything you choose.'

'And that is the worst of all,' she said, with very real distress. 'I
can ask you to do nothing for my sake.'

'You cannot love me, then?' he asked, as earnestly as though his
happiness hung on her answer.

'No,' she said steadily, 'I cannot love you. I am very, very sorry--'

'Spare me your pity, at least,' he said. 'But one thing I must ask. Why
did you let me see you again after New Year's Day? For I told you the
same thing then, and you knew then that I loved you.'

It was true--but Clare hated him for saying it.

'I have changed so much since then,' she said slowly.

Several things both bitter and true rose to his lips. He did not give
them voice, however. He had never in his life said an unkind thing to
a woman. It occurred to him that he was accepting his defeat rather
easily, and he looked at her to measure the chances for and against
the possible success of another appeal. But in her face was a decision
against which he knew there could be no appeal. He felt angry with her
for refusing him--angry and unreasonably surprised; and then, in one
of the flashes of light that made it so hard for him to understand
himself, he saw that if she was to blame for refusing his love, he was
ten thousand times more to blame for having sought hers, and this truth
brought others with it. His real feeling, he knew, was not anger but
relief. He made a step forward.

'You are right,' he said. 'I congratulate you on your decision. You
were talking of dying just now. You will live long enough to know
how much congratulation you merit for having to-day refused to give
yourself to a traitor and a villain.'

'A traitor--no, no,' she said, holding out her hand.

'No,' he said, 'I am not worthy. Some day you will know that I ought
never to have touched that hand of yours. Good-bye.'

And the door shut behind him, and Clare was left standing in the
middle of the room with her eyes widely opened, and her hand still
outstretched. She stood there till she heard the front door closed, and
then sank into a chair. She didn't want to go on making notes about
'The Prophetic Vision' any more.

The interview had not been a pleasant one, and it was not pleasant
to think over. One of the least pleasant things in this world is a
granted wish, granted after it has ceased to be wished. And Clare could
not forget that she _had_ desired to win this man's admiration, at
least. She could not forget that he had saved her father's life--that
he had been the first to speak to her of many things once unknown or
unconsidered, but now a part of her very life--and she could not forget
that when she had first thought of the possibility of his asking her to
marry him she had _not_ meant to refuse him. There had been much about
him to attract her, and if she had never met Petrovitch she might have
given Litvinoff, even now, a different answer. But in Petrovitch she
found all the qualities that had fascinated her in Litvinoff, and all
on a larger scale, and with a finer development. Litvinoff now seemed
to her like a dissolving view of Petrovitch seen through the wrong
end of a telescope. He lacked the definiteness of outline, the depth
of tone, the intense reality of the other man. Perhaps he seemed more
brilliant and dashing; but Hirsch's story had shown what Petrovitch
was. Added to all this was one significant fact. She had admired in
Litvinoff one quality or another, and had desired to attract him. To
Petrovitch she herself had been attracted, not by any specific quality
or qualities, but by himself--by the man as he was--and this attraction
grew stronger with each meeting.

A fortnight had now passed since the second time she had seen him,
and somehow or other she had seen him very often in that time. She
knew well enough that neither Litvinoff nor Petrovitch had come to
Marlborough Villa to see its mistress. And she had been sufficiently
certain about the Count's motives for his visit, but could she
be certain about the motive which brought the elder man there so
constantly? Of any effort to make him care for her she was not guilty.
In her new frame of mind she would have felt any such attempt to be
degrading, alike to herself and to him. And though she knew he came to
see her, she could not be sure why he came. Was his evident interest in
her only the interest of an apostle in a convert? A certain humility
had sprung up in her, along with many other flowers of the heart, and
she did not admit to herself that there was a chance of his interest
being of another nature. Only, she thought, it would be the highest
honour in the world and the deepest happiness to be the woman whom he
loved. Not the less because she knew well enough that the woman he
loved would hold the second place in his heart, and that he would not
wish to hold the first place in hers. That, for both of them, must be
filled by the goddess whom Litvinoff had once said he worshipped, and
whom he had abjured and abandoned for her sake. She thought of this
without a single thrill of gratified pride.

Miss Stanley sat silent for half an hour, and in that time got through
more thinking than we could record if we wrote steadily for half a
year. At the end of that time Miss Quaid came home.

'I hear Count Litvinoff has been here,' she said, when she entered
the study. 'What is it to be? Am I to have a Countess Litvinoff for a
friend?'

'No,' said Clare, rising and shaking off her reverie; I shall never be
anything to Count Litvinoff.'

Which was, perhaps, a too hasty conclusion.

       *       *       *       *       *

To the reader who has followed the fortunes of Count Litvinoff so
far we need hardly mention the fact that as soon as he was clear of
Marlborough Villa he pulled out his cigar-case. It had always been
a favourite theory of his that a cigar and not a mill-pond was the
appropriate sequel to an unsuccessful love affair. Not that it had
ever occurred to him as even remotely possible that such an experience
could ever be his. Here it was, however, and he had one of those
opportunities which always charm the thinker--that of being able to
apply to his own case a theory invented for other people. He took a
meditative turn round Regent's Park. It is a strange fact which we do
not remember to have seen commented on by any other writer--that when a
man comes away from an interview with a girl to whom he has been making
love he is inevitably driven to think, not of her alone, but also of
one, two, three or more of the other girls to whom he has from time to
time made love in the remote or recent past. Such is the depravity of
the 'natural man' that these thoughts are not generally sad ones. But
Litvinoff's thoughts were genuinely sad. He had said to Miss Stanley
that he was a traitor and a villain, and it had not been said for
dramatic effect. He meant it. He would have given a good many years of
any life that might lie before him to undo a few of the years that lay
behind.

'I am not consistent enough for a villain,' he said to himself. 'I
have failed in that part, and now I will go in for my natural _rôle_
of a fool, and I've a sort of idea that I shall get on better. And the
first thing to be done is to find my little one. Fool as I am, I've
generally been able to do anything I've really set my mind on. The
reason I've failed in my "deep-laid schemes" has been that I didn't
always care whether I won or not. I can be in the same mind about this
matter, however, for a long enough time to achieve what I want. As
for principles, they bore me. If it hadn't been for my principles I
shouldn't have got into half this trouble. What shall I do with myself
till my mysterious friend turns up?'

After a minute's hesitation he turned into the Zoological Gardens,
where he spent some thought on the wasting of an hour or so among the
beasts, incurred the undying hatred of an alligator by stirring him
up with the ferule of his stick, irritated the llama to the point
of expectoration, and grossly insulted the oldest inhabitant of the
monkey-house.

His luncheon was a bath bun and a glass of milk.

'A fourpenny luncheon,' he said to himself, 'is the first step in the
path of virtue.'

At half-past three he got back to his lodgings, and sat down with the
resolution of going thoroughly into his financial affairs. To that he
thought he would devote an hour or two, and in the evening he would
try to find the lost clue in Spray's Buildings. This looking into his
finances struck him as being a business-like sort of thing to do, and
quite in harmony with his present frame of mind.

He was soon busy at his light writing-table. Presently he drew from a
drawer his banker's pass-book, made bulky with cancelled cheques. He
groaned earnestly.

'Alas!' he said to himself, 'how sadly simple and easy it is to sign
one's name on this nice smooth coloured paper. I suppose it's best to
check these off--bankers' clerks are so dreadfully careless.'

A most unfounded statement, born of ignorance of business, and a desire
to seem to himself as one who understood it. Suddenly he started, and
singled out the cheque he had given to Hirsch in the autumn. It bore
on it, as endorsement, in a bold, free handwriting, the name, 'Michael
Petrovitch.'

'Hola!' he said; 'a namesake of mine. Stay, though. This apostle of our
cause does not keep to one handwriting.'

He walked to the mantelpiece, and taking thence the letter he had
received in the morning, he compared the writing.

'H'm--wonder what _this_ means?' he said, returning to his seat. 'The
two writings are not the same, and yet there is something in this
writing on the cheque which I seem to have seen before. We'll try for
an explanation before he leaves this room.'

He went on steadily with his self-imposed task of comparing each cheque
with the entry in the book. He had half done them when a ring at the
front door bell made him look up.

'Aha! the mysterious Petrovitch is punctual,' he said to himself.

It was Petrovitch, though perhaps those who had seen most of him in the
last few months would have failed to recognise him. He looked at least
ten years younger. The handsome long light beard was gone, and he was
close shaved save for a heavy drooping blond moustache.

As Count Litvinoff heard his visitor's steps upon the stairs he settled
himself back in his chair, with an assumption of a business air, much
like that of a very young lawyer about to receive a new client.

There was a sharp rap at the room door.

'Come in,' he said.

The door opened. He sprang to his feet, stood one moment clutching
at the table before him, his eyes wide with something that seemed
almost terror, and his whole frame rigid with astonishment. Then his
expression changed to one of deepest love and delight. There was a
crash of furniture, as he flung the little writing-table from him, and
it fell shattered against the opposite wall. With a hysterical cry of
'Ah, ah, ah, Litvinoff! back from the dead!' he sprang across the room,
threw his arms round the other's neck, and fell sobbing on his breast.



CHAPTER XXX.

TALKING THINGS OVER.


Before the echo of that cry had died away, the man who had uttered it
swayed sideways, his face grew deadly white, the clasp of his arms
loosened, and only the sudden firm grip of the other saved him from
falling. Petrovitch laid him on the sofa. Then he passed into the
adjoining bedroom, and came back with a wet sponge.

'What a fellow it is,' he said to himself, as he applied it to the
hands and face of the insensible man. 'As brave as a lion, and as
hysterical as a schoolgirl.' But he looked very kindly on the pale face
as he administered his remedies.

In a little while the eyes opened, and the younger man struggled into a
sitting position, and looked into the face that bent over him.

'Litvinoff, it _is_ you, then?' he said in a low voice, and covered
his face with his hands. The joy of seeing once more the man he had
loved seemed to be swallowed up in the shame of meeting the man he had
wronged.

'Yes, Percival, it is I,' said Petrovitch; 'but let this be the last
time you call me Litvinoff, and I must not call you Percival either.
I think I have a right to ask that. You have chosen to put on the
Prophet's Mantle, and for all our sakes you must wear it a little
longer.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean simply that you must still be Count Litvinoff, and I must still
be Petrovitch.'

'Then _you_ are Petrovitch! Why did you take a false name to mislead
me?' he groaned. 'Why did you let me go on wearing your name, and
spending your money? Why not have let me know at once, when every day
made things worse? I would have gone out of life long ago rather than
face this meeting.'

'And yet you seemed glad to see me, too?' said Petrovitch, looking at
him curiously. 'But I took no false name; my name is really Petrovitch.
My father's name was Peter, you know. You ought to remember that. You
have heard me called by it often enough.'

'I never thought of you by it, though; and besides, I thought you were
dead. You know that I thought you were dead?' with a sudden, quick
doubt in his voice.

'Of course!'

'You know, don't you,' he went on eagerly, 'that I would gladly have
given my life for yours, and that I never hoped for anything so good in
this world as to see you alive? Yes, in spite of everything, though I
can't expect you to believe it,' he ended bitterly.

'I have never doubted it,' Petrovitch answered; and with a sudden
thrill of pity for the despair, the remorse, the longing, and the
wretchedness in the other's face, he added, 'Come, old friend, don't
take this so much to heart. It is nothing that cannot be put right. You
will see when we come to talk it over quietly. Can't we have some tea?'

Petrovitch knew well enough that when the heart's cords are stretched
almost unbearably by the strain of an intense emotion, it sometimes
stems as though they could only be saved from giving way altogether by
the direction of the mind to some utterly trivial detail of everyday
life. Many a woman's heart has been saved from breaking by the
necessity of getting the children's dinner, and many a tragedy has
been averted by the chief actor's having to take in the afternoon's
milk.

Petrovitch repeated the question, 'Can't we have some tea?'

The other rose mechanically, went to a cupboard, and brought out a
plated kettle and spirit-lamp, a small china tea set, and a plate of
lemons, with a silver knife. He put these appliances on the table in
an unmethodical, untidy sort of way, and was proceeding to light the
spirit-lamp, when Petrovitch, who had been watching him with a smile,
took the match-box out of his hand.

'Here, let me make tea. I see you are just as unsystematic as ever.'
He lighted the lamp, and with a few deft touches put the rest of the
tea-things in order, as the other, leaving the matter in his hands,
strode up and down the room.

'Oh, what is to be the end of all this?' he said at length; 'how long
am I to go on bearing your name?'

'All this will soon be at an end, as far as I am concerned. I have
nearly completed my arrangements for getting back to Russia, and when
I'm there you may guess it won't matter to me who bears my name. I
shall not wish to use it. But while I am here I wish to be Petrovitch.
Indeed, you can serve me best by letting it be as widely known as
possible that Count Litvinoff is--well, where you are and not where I
am, and after all it's nobody's business but yours and mine.'

'Does no one else know of it at all?'

'Only two men in St Petersburg, and one in London.'

'And he is?'

'Hirsch, whom you've seen, I think.'

'Why the devil didn't he tell every one then?'

'Because I asked him not to, and he considers himself under some sort
of obligation to me.'

'Like everyone else you come across. But how came _he_ to know it?'

'He had to be told when I came here. There was certain work I had to
do; I can tell you about it another time, and he was the only man who
could put me in the way of it. Now Count Litvinoff, the tea is ready.'

The other stopped in his walk.

'Curse it!' he said passionately. 'Call me a villain or a forger, or
any other pretty name you like; I can stand that, but not your lips
calling me by your name. It's a cruel revenge.'

'Ah, we owe too much to our enemies for there to be any thought of
revenge between friends, and I must teach myself to call you that.
Besides, what is there to revenge? You have only used the name I did
not need.'

'No, I forged your name as well as stole it. You don't know all.'

'Yes, I do, or pretty nearly all. As far as your taking my name goes,
that has done no harm; rather good; and as for the money, that would
have gone to you. You know, if I had had the giving of it, it would
have gone to you. And I know you would never have touched it if you had
not thought I was dead.'

'I wish I had never left you, though I did think it, and at the mercy
of those curs. If only I had died by you!'

'You know well enough our rule is that none should be sacrificed
without reason. Why should you have given those hounds two lives
instead of one?'

'I wish I had died that night under the orange trees at Monte Carlo.
You did yourself a bad turn when you saved my life. I have done no good
with it. I have only weighted myself with unpardonable sins.'

'As far as I am concerned,' Petrovitch said, 'if there is anything to
forgive, it is freely forgiven--freely and fully; and now let us shake
hands after your English fashion, and of forgiveness let us talk no
more. We are _friends_, and between such it is no question of pardon.
And there are many other things we must speak of.'

He held his hand out, and the younger man grasped it. There was a
moment's pause. Then,--

'Let me give you some fresh tea--that is cold,' said Petrovitch
cheerfully, pouring out another cup; 'don't you want to hear what
happened to me after I was killed?'

'I can hardly realise yet that you are _not_ killed.'

'Well, I'll tell you about it. The officer of that troop added medicine
to his other accomplishments, besides which he was a distant relation
of my mother's, and he insisted on seeing whether I could not be
conjured back to life. I believe I gave them a good deal of trouble,
but I seem to be a die-hard. My capture was kept very quiet, thanks to
my family name, for the Government didn't care about having it known
that the head of the Litvinoffs had tried to atone for the crimes of
his family by taking the side of the people. My wound was a bad one,
and even now troubles me sometimes. I used sometimes almost to wish it
had settled me. Fancy being in prison, and a Russian prison, with a
wound like that.'

'But how did you get away?'

For answer Petrovitch told him the story of his escape as he had told
it to Hirsch and to his other friends, intentionally making the recital
a long one, so that his companion might have time to get used to the
new situation before they began to talk of the future.

'And now,' he said, when he had ended, 'tell me how it fared with the
Secretary.'

'I hate to think of it,' said the man who had borne the Litvinoff
name for three years, and who, it seemed, was to bear it a little
while longer. 'Whenever I think of that night, I see nothing but your
face--dead, as I thought--turned up from the snow in the hateful
dawn. Oh, my friend!' his voice faltered, and he held his hand out to
Petrovitch again. After a pause, he resumed, 'I tried all I knew to
revive you, but you were as cold as ice, and your heart did not beat.
I stayed by you a long, long time. It did not occur to me to leave
you, but at last, in a flash, I realised that you were _gone_--that I
was there in the snow _alone_. And then I thought of escape. I said
good-bye to your body. I felt as if your self was far away somewhere,
and then I sprang up and dashed off in the direction we had been
taking. It was broad daylight then, but I saw nothing of the soldiers,
though I knew afterwards they must have found you, because when we
sent, your body was gone. I must have kept pretty straight, for I came
to a house at last, and I went straight up to it. I thought it must be
Teliaboff's, and if it wasn't I felt I didn't much care. I went right
in, asked for the master of the house, and when he came to me I told
him all. It was Teliaboff. He was very good to me, and kept me there
nearly a fortnight. We could hear nothing of you--nothing at all.
By the way, it was he who first, unconsciously, gave me the idea of
personating you, for when I entered his house on that horrible morning
he greeted me by your name. I undeceived him at once, but the idea
took root and bore fruit later. He was kindness itself, and his little
daughter--she was only twelve, I think--took a fancy to me. I believe
that child's companionship saved me from going mad.

'Then he got me a passport, and gave me money enough to get to Vienna.
When I got there I was penniless, and I knew you had had money there.
I did not feel somehow that I was robbing _you_ when I forged your
name--Heaven knows that was easily done, I knew your signature so
well--and went on to Paris with your money as Count Michael Litvinoff.
When I took your money I meant honestly to spend it all in the cause
you had worked for, and for a time I did. But--I don't know how to
explain it--I suppose the Revolution had not really taken hold of
me. It was _you_ I had cared for, and your creed I had held, not for
itself, but because it was _yours_. And when your personal influence
was not near me I grew careless and idle, and worked for Liberty only
by fits and starts. It used to seem too much trouble to do things for
the cause. It had been your approval I cared for, I think. You are so
strong, I can't expect you to understand the imbecilities of such a
weak fool as I am. From the moment when I ceased to spend all my time
and all your money on your work, I seemed utterly degraded in my own
eyes, and it did not seem to matter what I did, so I have gone on from
bad to worse, and the principles _you_ would die for, have only been
will-o'-the-wisp lights to lead me into direr troubles than I should
ever have known without them. I have not kept Michael Litvinoff's name
clean. And the evil I have done is nothing to what I have tried to do.
I sent Teliaboff his money back, but I have never heard from him. Have
you? Do you know whether he is all right?'

'Haven't you heard?' Petrovitch asked gravely.

'Heard? No! What? Anything wrong?'

'Hanged,' was the brief reply.

'Hanged!'

'Yes, and his little daughter--she was fourteen, then, I think--was
hanged with him.'

'For--for helping me?' gasped Litvinoff.

'No, for having "The Prophetic Vision" in her room.'

'My God!' cried Litvinoff, springing up. 'How long will men bear it?
Let us go back this very day, and kill and kill and kill these fiends
as long as we have an arm to strike or a finger to pull a trigger.'

'We are going back,' Petrovitch said quietly. 'As for that deed, it is
avenged. The man who was responsible for that murder got his sentence
of death and his notice of it two days later. He lived through three
months of terror, and then shot himself, to escape execution at the
hands of some of us. Don't talk more of him.'

The two men sat silent for a little while, but Litvinoff's eyes still
blazed with excitement. Petrovitch smoked quietly.

'How was it,' Litvinoff asked presently, turning from the other subject
with evident effort, 'that you did not let me know directly you came
over?'

'I did not see any good to be gained by it,' answered Petrovitch, who
did not choose to tell his friend that he had waited to see with what
grace the Prophet's Mantle was worn. 'I heard you speak at the Agora.
I read your writings. You seemed to be doing good. Besides, it made
concealment of my purposes more easy not to be known as Litvinoff.'

'Then what made you decide to tell me now?' was the very natural
question.

Petrovitch hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he said,--

'Frankly, because I thought you were meditating an action that would
afterwards cause you more regret than anything else you have done, and
I wished to prevent it.'

'And that action was?'

'Taking another wife while your first wife still lived and still loved
you.'

Petrovitch spoke slowly and distinctly.

Litvinoff leaned forward in his chair and looked at him amazedly.

'By Heaven!' he said, leaning back with a sort of sigh, 'you seem to
know everything.'

'I have made it my business to know.'

'Not quite everything in this case, though,' Litvinoff added,
correcting himself, 'for I have no wife.'

Petrovitch's eyes flashed angrily.

'I was not speaking in the phrase of your London society. I did not
suppose that you were going to commit an illegal act. I merely imagined
that you had intended to commit a crime. I am not mistaken in supposing
that you always led the woman in question to believe that you looked
upon her as your wife?'

'You are not mistaken--you are right. I did contemplate a crime,' he
said, walking over to the bookcase, and standing so that his face was
not to be seen. 'I have no defence to offer; but at the time I first
contemplated it I deceived myself with the idea that I had. But my
wife left me. I did not leave her. I never could have left her; and
if she had not left me that vile idea of marrying another woman would
never have entered my head. However, that's all at an end now, I'm
thankful to say, and I mean to find my wife'--there was no hesitation
in his voice this time--'and legalise her position with bell, book, and
candle, and any other rites that may seem to her desirable.'

'Regardless of principles?' said Petrovitch, with the faintest possible
sneer.

'Damn principles!' Litvinoff cried, turning round, stung by the tone.
'I would have sacrificed them for a woman I merely admired, and they
sha'n't stand between me and the woman I love.'

'How do you propose to find her?'

'I haven't the slightest idea. Do you know where she is?' he added
sharply.

'Do you remember giving £10 to a man named Hirsch in the autumn?' was
the counter-question.

'I do?' with an inquiring look.

'That was for your wife!'

Litvinoff drew a long breath. 'Go on!' he said, simply.

Then Petrovitch told him all that he knew of Alice, and Litvinoff
listened intently. When Petrovitch spoke of the night on Blackfriars'
Bridge, he leaned forward breathing heavily, then rose suddenly, and,
crossing to a couch, flung himself, face downwards, on it. Petrovitch
paused.

'Go on! Go on! Go on!' said an impatient, stifled voice from the couch.

So Petrovitch resumed.

When the tale was told, Litvinoff rose. He was very pale, his lips
trembled a little, and his dark eyes were shining and wet.

'When can I see you to-morrow? I am going to Chislehurst now. I
don't thank you; it would be absurd. Thanks are idiotic under some
circumstances. You saved my life--which I didn't care about--and now
it seems you've saved what I do care for, as much as such a scamp as
I can care for anything. But you don't need my words. I believe you
understand me--if any one does.'

Petrovitch rose and laid his hand on his shoulder.

'Do not go to-night,' he said. 'She is not strong yet, and you are too
excited to meet her calmly. Wait till to-morrow. You may trust her
safely where she is for another night. Besides, there is very, very
much to be said between us--both of the past and future.'

'Well, you have a right to command me,' Litvinoff answered, frowning
and a little stiffly, and then was silent a moment. Then he said
suddenly, flinging himself into his chair with the frown quite gone,
'You're right--you always are, and there _is_ much to be said. I wish
to God there could be some way of wiping out the past, or rather of
atoning for it. Do you know, it seems to me that I shall have a chance
of seeing my way to doing something _worth_ doing now you have come
back. I could almost swear at this moment that I believed as heartily
as ever in liberty, humanity, progress, and all the other things you
taught me to swear by, but in my soul I know it is _you_ I believe
in--always have believed in-- I've never believed in anything but you
for more than three months at a time. Peculiar, isn't it?'

'You haven't altered in the least,' said Petrovitch smiling. 'You were
never sure of your beliefs except when you were fighting for them.
You should be back in Russia. Persecution is a splendid antidote to
religious doubt. Men like you ought not to live in England. There is
too much freedom in the air and it doesn't agree with you. You get to
think there is nothing worth fighting for here. There is, though, and
some Englishmen are beginning to find it out.'

'You are going back to Russia?' Litvinoff said, interrogatively.

'Yes.'

'Let me come with you,' he cried, impulsively. 'Give your Secretary
another chance.'

'Ah, my days of quiet writing are over now. The battle grows hot. I
don't want a Secretary, I want a comrade in arms. Will you go to Servia
for me?'

'I'll go to hell, if you like,' was the direct reply.

'The two will soon be synonymous, if all I hear is correct. But what
about your wife?'

'It used to be one of your principles,' Litvinoff said, using the word,
as it were, reluctantly, 'that if a man believes in anything enough to
place himself in danger for it, he should not hesitate to risk all he
holds precious for the same end; and my wife is not a coward, she would
go with me.'

'Poor little woman,' said Petrovitch; 'but that was and is one of my
principles. If you go to Servia under my name I shall have a far better
chance of getting back to St Petersburg under someone else's. And the
risk to your wife is of the slightest, for it is a peaceful errand I
will send you on.'

'I hate peaceful errands.'

'I dare say there'll be a little excitement thrown in--but don't rush
into danger. There is no need there, and it can do no good. I know hard
fighting is the easiest; but our business is to do the thing which has
to be done, be it peace or be it war.'

'Ah!' said Litvinoff, with enthusiasm; 'to act up to that ideal is easy
enough for men like you, but you must remember that such men as you
are as far above the rest of us as the Christian martyrs are above the
average church-goer. You are the Saints of the New Religion.'

'Don't you think we'd better go and have some dinner?' said Petrovitch,
drily.



CHAPTER XXXI.

'MY LITTLE GIRL.'


The suggestion was a good one, and the dinner to which the two sat down
had a steadying effect on the nerves of the younger man. He became
calmer, and when they returned to his rooms he was able to bear his
part in a long, earnest, quiet talk over events past and to come.

The talk lasted far into the night, and before they parted it was
settled that Litvinoff should leave for Servia in two days, taking
with him certain important papers from Petrovitch to another of the
Nihilist leaders. That he should there wait instructions, and should
enter Russia by the southern frontier, and rejoin the circle at St
Petersburg, leaving his assumed name at Belgrade. That the following
imaginative announcement should be inserted in as many English papers
as possible for the special edification of the Russian Embassy.

'Count Michael Litvinoff left London for Dover this morning, _en route_
for Belgrade. He was accompanied by Countess Litvinoff, an English
lady to whom he was secretly married some time ago. Count Litvinoff,
so well known to many of our readers through his "Social Enigma," his
"Hopes and Fears for Liberty," and his many revolutionary _brochures_,
has never been a familiar figure in London society, his literary
labours having compelled him to live in strict retirement. It will
be remembered that he was the hero of an adventure on the Russian
frontier some years ago, was wounded, captured, and sent to a Russian
prison, from which he escaped to England.'

It was also settled that the money for the journey should be taken from
the remainder of the Litvinoff capital.

When Litvinoff began to speak of the money he had spent and the debts
he had incurred, Petrovitch stopped him with,--

'I'll see to your debts--and what is gone is gone. Don't let us waste
words over that.'

It was arranged that Petrovitch should seek out John Hatfield and his
wife, and should let them know that their daughter was happily married.
They judged it best not to subject Alice to an interview which could
not but involve most painful explanations, and they agreed that it
would be cruel both to her and to her parents to let them meet, merely
to part again at once. Of Clare Stanley neither of them spoke one word.

A new day was some way into its small hours when they said good-bye.

'We meet in St Petersburg, then, as soon as may be,' Petrovitch said.
'I shall not see you again till then.'

'I hope by that time I shall have done something to prove to you
that you have indeed brought me back to the ranks of duty and the
Revolution.'

'I don't need proof,' said the other with one last hand-pressure. And
so they parted.

Next morning early, Litvinoff went down into the City, where he paid a
disproportionate sum of money for a paper which empowered him to marry
his wife at once, instead of waiting three weeks for that privilege.
Then he went down to Chislehurst. The sky was clear and pale and blue,
and the sun shone divinely. The trees that had been brown seemed at a
little distance to be wrapped in a grey gauze veil, as they always do
when the green buds first break out to new life.

As Litvinoff walked up the hill to Chislehurst Common, he tried to
think what he should say to Alice, how she would look, how she would
speak to him. With a touch of ingrained cynicism, he laughed at himself
to find that his heart was beating tumultuously, and that his hands
were trembling.

'And this is the man,' he said contemptuously to himself, 'who walked
behind her for half-an-hour last autumn, and never spoke to her! No,
not the same man,' he added, after a pause, 'I am purged of a crime
since then.'

The house where he was to seek Alice was a little yellow-brick building
near the church.

He looked at the pretty old-fashioned churchyard as he passed, and then
at the building itself.

'I suppose,' he said to it, 'you will be the balm the child will choose
to ease her sorrow--and you will bring comfort to her, as you have to
thousands of others. I don't grudge them their comfort, but I do grudge
you your influence. However, you won't keep it much longer. _Tant
mieux._'

His hand was on the garden gate--he unlatched it, and walked up to the
smallest detached house he had ever beheld. He raised the diminutive
knocker, and assaulted therewith the tiny brown door. Would she open
it? She did not. It opened--and Litvinoff at first really thought it
opened of its own accord. At anyrate it opened by some agency invisible
to him. He stood and looked; but when the door slowly began to close
again, he thought it was time for action. He came a step forward, and
addressing nothing, said,--

'Is Mrs Litvinoff in?'

Then a very small girl in a yellow pinafore and a lilac frock showed
herself from behind the door; but shyness and an incomplete knowledge
of her native tongue combined to render her speechless. Litvinoff, with
an impatient but perfectly gentle movement, lifted her bodily from her
position as guard, and placed her outside the door.

'The air will brighten your wits, _mon petit chou_,' he said.

Then he walked straight into the house, and looked round the two rooms
on the ground floor. Empty. He passed through the kitchen, whose
proportions would have served for those of the corresponding apartment
in a good-sized doll's house, and found himself in a brick-paved
back yard, where there were a water-butt, a basket of wet linen,
some clothes-lines, and the lady of the house. Regardless of her
astonishment, he addressed himself to her.

'Oh, Mrs Litvinoff?' she answered curiously, 'she is out; she has gone
to Orpington for some butter for me, sir, and she won't be long.'

'How long?'

'Perhaps an hour.'

'Is she alone?'

'Yes, sir.'

'If you'll be kind enough to tell me the way, I think I'll go and meet
her.'

'And who shall I say called if you should miss her, and she comes back
first?'

'Say her husband,' answered Litvinoff.

The woman gave him profuse directions, for which he thanked her with
his usual _empressement_, and turned at the gate to raise his hat in
farewell.

'My stars!' said Mrs Bowen, as she watched him out of sight, 'he's a
real gentleman, and no mistake. Poor little Mrs Litvinoff,' she added,
with a woman's instinctive interest in a romance, 'I hope they'll make
it up and live happy ever after, that I do!'

Litvinoff walked along. His heart was lighter than it had been for many
a long day. On these delicious fresh spring mornings--

  When March makes sweet the weather
  With daffodil, and starling,
  And hours of fruitful breath,

just to be alive is a rapture. Of course it may be cancelled by care
like any other joy. But Litvinoff felt as if he had no cares. He was
going to meet _the_ woman he loved, and the nearer he got to her the
more he loved her. In love, as in friendship, nearness was everything
to him.

Every figure in the distance he thought was her figure. If you have
ever gone to meet a person whom you very intensely wished to meet,
you will remember how constantly recurring is that illusion. You will
remember the spasm of vindictive hate which seizes on you when the
figure in the distance is neared, and dispels your illusion by being
itself and not the one you wanted it to be.

Paul's Cray Common seemed a paradise to him. It does make a fairly
good one under favourable circumstances, with its heather, and gorse,
and larch, and oak saplings, and, fairest of all, its graceful swaying
silver birches. The birds were singing madly, and as he felt the
springy turf under his feet, and the warm spring sun on his shoulders,
he began to sing, too, a tender little French song, all about green
woodland paths, and youth, and love, and happiness.

Alice Hatfield's heart was very sad, but it was a quiet sadness, that
did not shut out the charm of the spring. Under the influence of the
young life blood of the year that seemed to be throbbing through that
perfect day, she had felt strong, and had walked with more swiftness
than usual, and now, as she was returning with a basket, in which her
butter lay, under cool green leaves, she began to walk more slowly
and to consider two pounds of butter heavier than she had thought it
before. She had been revelling among the primroses and dog violets, and
had filled up her basket with the pale, yellow primrose stars and the
delicate pink and white wind-flowers. She was tired, certainly, and she
turned aside and sat down on a felled tree, in a certain little pine
copse that runs along by the road-side. The pine needles lay brown,
and soft, and thick under her feet. A little bright-eyed, red-brown
squirrel came half-way down one of the trees to look at her, but seemed
to find her not quite as nice as he had expected, for he whisked his
tail with undisguised contempt, and went back to his home with a
lightning-like spiral scramble. He must have been a squirrel hard to
please, for it is a fact that, in spite of illness and trouble, Alice
was far prettier now than when her sweet face had first caught Count
Litvinoff's eyes on the Birkenhead Ferry.

She sat quietly gazing through the pine trees, with her head turned
from the road. Presently she stooped to attempt the capture of a
very young and very yellow frog which had hopped close to her feet,
regardless of the pine needles. As she did so her heart stood still,
for her ears caught the tramp, tramp of a man's footstep, and the
ringing sound of a man's voice, a voice she knew,--

  'Viens, suivons les sentiers ombreux,
    Ou s'égarent les amoureux
  Le printemps nous appelle,
    Viens! Soyons heureux!'

She rose to her feet, and involuntarily uttered a low cry. She dared
not turn her head. The singing stopped abruptly, there was a crash
through the brambles, and in a moment a pair of strong arms were round
her, and lips close to her ear murmured,--

'My little girl!'

She rested on his arm for one moment Then she said, in a choked sort of
voice, as she tried to release herself,--

'It's no use, I cannot come back. You have not come here to ask me
back. Do, do leave me alone!'

He held her fast.

'My darling,' he whispered, 'do you think I could leave you now I have
found you? I _have_ come to ask you to come back to me. I have come to
ask you to marry me. You will not send me away. I cannot do without my
little one any longer. You love me still?' he added, a sudden doubt
striking him at her continued silence, and he raised her chin with his
hand till he could look in her face. She shrank from his hand, and hid
her face against his neck.

'You know,' she answered, 'you know.'

       *       *       *       *       *

So it came about that Alice married her love who had not been true,
and forgave him with all her heart; when she was leaving the church,
leaning on her husband's arm, with a new world of love and joy opening
before her, and Litvinoff was looking down at her with eyes in which
love deepened every moment, her father lay dead at the bottom of the
tank in Thornsett Mill. The Litvinoffs left England at once, and to
this day Alice does not know of her father's death, and her husband
does not know of the dire disaster that followed on his double dealing.
I doubt if they will ever learn it now. There is a good deal more that
Alice does not know. It is perhaps as well. Wives are none the happier
for knowing too much of their husbands' past. As it is, Alice will
follow him to the world's end, believing in him unquestioningly.



CHAPTER XXXII.

'HAND IN HAND.'


  'CANNON STREET HOTEL, 9.30 _p.m._

 'Dear Mr Petrovitch,--We were married this morning at St Nicholas
 Cole Abbey, and we are leaving London by the night mail. I cannot go
 without thanking you with my whole heart for all you have done for
 me--for both of us. No words can ever tell you how much I feel what
 we owe to you. My husband says he owes more to you than I do, but I
 cannot think that. Good-bye until we see you in Russia. Oh! Heaven
 bless you, Mr Petrovitch, for all you have done for us.--Yours always
 gratefully,

  ALICE LITVINOFF.'

In the same envelope was a letter from Alice's husband, and it did not
begin in the same way as hers. It ran thus,--

 'MY DEAR LITVINOFF,--I can't write to you under any but your own name,
 nor can I sign any other than my own. I kept yours as you wished,
 and Alice believes herself to be Countess Litvinoff. I shall tell
 her all _that_ part of my story later, but I shall never tell her of
 my villainous and insensate desire for a rich wife, and for a life
 of ease which would have driven me mad in three months. Alice and a
 life of adventure are worth all the broad acres in creation. Nor
 shall I tell her that I knew her father. One thing more I must ask
 you to do for me. Write to Richard Ferrier and let him know that we
 are married. I think I've used him rather badly. Alice wishes you
 to say good-bye for her to her good friends Mr and Mrs Toomey. Some
 kind fate certainly kept watch over my wife while I was playing the
 fool and dangling after another woman. And Fate has been a thousand
 times better to me than I deserve. With my dear wife, and the
 prospect of meeting you soon in Russia, I feel all the old enthusiasm
 re-awakening. _Vive la Révolution!_--Your old secretary and friend,

  ARMAND PERCIVAL.

 'In signing that name I feel as though I were writing with my left
 hand, it is so awkward to me after all these years.'

Petrovitch sighed as he replaced the letters in their envelope. He had
given himself up wholly to the cause he served, and he had suffered for
it, and was prepared to suffer more, and generally he was contented,
even glad, that it should be so. But sometimes a sudden sense of the
utter loneliness of his life came over him, saddening and oppressing
him. Then he seemed to himself to be not a man with a life of his own
to live and hopes of his own to cherish, but a power passing through
the lives of others, helping, guiding, saving, and always after a while
fading out of those lives. He had brought these two together, and they
were all in all to each other, and he was much to them perhaps, but
mainly because he _had_ brought them together. Now he felt that they
were lost to him, and he had loved them both--Alice with the love
of a strong man for a child, and the other with a deep attachment
which dated from the first moment of their meeting, and which had
unaccountably withstood all the other's shortcomings. Unaccountably?
No? the essence of love is its boundless capacity for pardon; the
unaccountable part of it was that he should ever have loved him at
all. And they were gone; and gone, as Petrovitch knew well enough, to
begin a life whose end, sooner or later, must be the scaffold or the
death-in-life of perpetual imprisonment. He had led many a man and
many a woman into that path, knowing all that it meant, and he was not
sorry. Was it not the path he had himself chosen as being the noblest
that any man's feet could tread--the path of utter self-renunciation?
But though he was never sorry he was often sad, and sadder than usual
on the day when his two friends bade farewell to safety and English
soil. He felt lonely and desolate. But Michael Petrovitch never felt
his own moral pulse for more than half a minute at a time. He sighed,
raised his hand to his chin, and smiled at finding himself reminded
that the gesture of passing his hand over his beard, which had grown
into a settled habit with him in moments of annoyance or excitement,
was no longer possible.

He turned to his table and wrote half-a-dozen letters. There were many
arrangements still to make for his journey. Then he rose, put on his
hat, and started for Marlborough Villa.

He had not cared to face that dinner where he was to have met his
fellow revolutionist. He had written a hasty note of excuse, and had
spent the evening and the best part of the night in conference with his
morose friend Hirsch, who was a little more morose even than usual on
this occasion, owing to what he thought the absurd and unjust leniency
with which the pseudo Litvinoff had been treated. He would have been
much better satisfied had some sudden and awful judgment overtaken the
adventurer who had dared to personate his hero--even had that judgment
come in the form of a trial for forgery at the Old Bailey; which fact
showed that he was but a weaker brother in the faith that teaches that
crime is a disease to be cured, not an offence to be punished. In
that conversation with Hirsch the date of Petrovitch's departure had
been finally settled, and now he had a few farewell visits to pay. One
must certainly be to Mrs Quaid--he had a fancy that he would try to
make his parting with Miss Stanley something more than it could be in
the presence of that estimable lady. He thought that Clare would not
hesitate to say good-bye to him without her hostess's surveillance. At
any rate, a chance of being alone with her to say his farewell was what
he was bent on trying for. At Marlborough Villa he was shown into the
morning-room. It was empty, but in a moment Clare came in.

He was standing with his back to the window. When she saw him she
started visibly, and, with an unmistakable gesture of annoyance, was
turning to leave the room, when he made a step forward, and she paused
and looked at him, and, turning with a complete change of expression,
held out her hand.

'How could I have been so absurd?' she said. 'Do you know for the
moment I really thought it was Count Litvinoff.'

'I don't wonder at your not quite recognising me. You see I had to
sacrifice my beard. I am going back to Russia next week. Disguise will
be _de rigeur_, and beards and disguises are incompatible.'

'Going back to Russia next week?' she repeated slowly, 'and I had so
much to say--to ask--'

'Do you still need advice?' he said, smiling.

'Yes,' she said, speaking quickly and eagerly, 'more than ever, for
now I have made up my mind. I am quite certain that my money ought to
go--not to simply alleviating the miseries that wring one's heart, but
to helping to overthrow the system that causes them. I have felt it a
strong temptation to help first the individual sorrows that I know of;
but I _know_ that the right thing to do is to help not those, but the
revolution that will render them impossible. I am right, am I not?'

'Yes,' he answered. They were standing by the window. This was not the
sort of thing that one settles comfortably into chairs to 'talk over.'

'But now you are going,' she said, with a saddened falling cadence in
her voice, that made music for the man at her side, 'and I shall have
no one to tell me what to do. Why need you go? Is there nothing for you
to do here? Is Russia so dear that it pushes all other claims out of
sight?'

'It is not that I am a patriot. I love Russia, I love my people, but
I love England and her people too. But better than either do I love
Liberty, and I must be where her enemies are strongest, where the
battle is hottest.'

'If that is so,' she said, reflectively, with her eyes downcast,
'everyone who loves Liberty _best_ should be in front of the battle
too?'

'I think so; but each must think for himself,' he was beginning, when
they both turned at the sudden opening of the door. Cora Quaid came in;
her fresh face quite pale; a newspaper in her hands.

'Oh, how do you do, Mr Petrovitch. I did not know you were here. Clare,
such a terrible thing has happened, dear; mamma has just seen it in
the paper.' She held out the sheet and pointed to a paragraph headed,
'Shocking accident at Firth Vale.'

The paragraph told briefly of the death of Richard Ferrier, and of
the discovery of Hatfield's body in the great tank, and concluded
thus: 'The brother of the deceased, Mr Richard Ferrier, states that
his brother went out for a stroll on the previous night in his usual
spirits. There is no clue to any explanation of the catastrophe, save
that the man Hatfield was formerly employed in this mill, and had been
heard to say that he considered himself personally aggrieved at the
closing of it. He was supposed to be in the south of England, and it
is rumoured that he secretly returned to wreak vengeance on the young
masters of the mill for the part they had taken in closing it.'

Clare read it through; her face grew white, and she passed it to
Petrovitch. He read it silently, his brow contracting. When he laid
the paper down he looked at Clare. She had sunk into a chair, her
arms stretched out over her knees to their full length, and her hands
clasped.

'Poor fellow! poor Dick!' she said; 'but, oh, Cora! poor Mrs Hatfield!
How will she bear it? Oh! how cruel life is to some people. First her
daughter, and now her husband, and she is alone in some strange place,
where no one can get to her to help her to bear it!'

'How could you help her if you knew where she was?' asked Petrovitch.

'I could tell her myself. I have had grief to bear--I know,' she
answered. 'I would save her from hearing it from some careless
stranger. I could go to her--'

She broke off. Her hazel eyes were full of tears.

Cora laid her hand on her friend's shoulder with a sympathetic touch.

'I happen to know where this Mrs Hatfield is,' said Petrovitch,
reflectively, 'and I agree with you, Miss Stanley, that it would be
right for you to go to her.'

Clare rose instantly. As she did so the tears brimmed over, and two
fell from her long lashes.

'I will go now,' she said, 'if you will tell me where she is.'

'I will take you to her now, if you like,' said Petrovitch.

Cora looked at him a little curiously.

'We had better speak to mamma, I think,' she said; 'perhaps we can come
with you, Clare.'

The two girls left the room, and Petrovitch, for once, did not take up
a book, but stood rapt in thought through the ten minutes that passed
before the door opened again.

Clare came in alone. She was still dressed in black, of course, and had
a little close crape bonnet that seemed to enhance the prettiness of
the face it framed.

'I am quite ready,' she said. 'Mrs Quaid and Cora cannot come. They
have some people coming to lunch, and I am not sorry, for poor Mrs
Hatfield ought not to be bothered by strangers.'

'Come, then,' he said, and they went out together. As soon as they were
outside he offered her his arm, as a matter of course, and she took it.

'How did you know her address?' asked Clare, as they walked along.

'Ah! that involves explanations,' he answered; 'to begin with, I must
tell you that I met Count Litvinoff two days ago. It was from him I had
Mrs Hatfield's address.'

'I remember he and poor Hatfield used to be friends.'

'He gave me the address for a special reason and for a special purpose.
He has married Alice Hatfield, and he wished to let her people know.'

'Alice Hatfield! But--how long ago? How did he know her?'

'He married her yesterday, and they have gone to Servia together. Miss
Stanley, it was with Count Litvinoff that Alice left her home.'

Clare held her peace for a moment. Her bewilderment would not let her
find words. Then she went on, 'But he acted as though he believed
Roland had taken her away. Oh, how could he have been so base and--'

'Do not judge him,' Petrovitch interrupted; 'no one knows how he may
have been tempted, and he has repented and atoned for his fault in as
far as he could.'

'There are some things that cannot be atoned for,' said Clare,
compressing her lips. 'If it had not been for him this tragedy would
never have happened. Oh, when I think--' She broke off suddenly.

'When you think that he would have married you, owing all to Alice
Hatfield, you can find no words to speak of his baseness. Is it not so?'

She looked at him in mute inquiry. How did he know so much?

'Years ago,' he said, 'he and I were friends, and I love him still. He
has told me much that has happened since last autumn. And I say, judge
no man's actions, for of his temptations you cannot judge.'

Then they were both silent, and when Clare spoke again it was to
inquire how the trains went, and so on.

'I wish you would tell me--' Clare began, when they were in the train
_en route_ for Dartford.

'There is much I would wish to tell you,' he interrupted, 'but not
to-day, when you are going on an errand of kindness and mercy. You do
not want to talk now, you want to think; and besides, I want to see you
again. Will you write to me to-night, and tell me when and where I can
see you alone to-morrow.'

'Yes, if you wish it,' she said. 'I had so much to ask you; and just
now it seems as though I could think of nothing but that man, lying
dead far north, and his poor wife here alone.'

'Then it is a promise. We are comrades, since we serve in the same
ranks; and between comrades a special farewell is necessary. Now, we
will not talk, since you do not desire it.'

Clare leaned back in her corner, and wondered how she should break the
news to that poor widow.

But when they reached Earl's Terrace, and found out the house where
she was, they found, too, that there was no need to break the news to
her. She knew it already, as Clare saw in a moment. Petrovitch did
not come in, and the two women met alone. What Clare said to her? It
is beyond us to write that down; and if the words were set down here,
despoiled of the tender tones, the eloquent gesture, the heart-warm
tenderness of the young girl, who had herself felt grief, what would
they be worth? In the presence of sorrow some women are inspired, but
not with words that will bear reporting.

Mrs Hatfield's grief was not violent. She wept, but not bitterly.

'It is the Lord's will,' she said, and she believed her words. When she
heard of her daughter's marriage she said simply, 'Thank God for a' His
mercies! I doubt He's been ower good to we i' mony ways, an' we mun
bear what He's pleased to lay upo' us.'

Clare would have been more at ease to have seen her weep freely, but
she seemed crushed. This last blow had mercifully benumbed her senses.
Not her gratitude, though, for when Clare rose to go she rose too, and,
taking the girl's hands in hers, looked at her and said,--

'An' thee came a' th' way fro' Lunnon to help an old wife to bear her
burdens. Eh! but thee'rt a bonnie lass, and as good as thee'rt comely.
Thee'll be the light o' some honest lad's e'en some day, and may thee
ha' as good a man as mine were.'

Clare kissed the faded face. She had not so kissed many faces. She put
her young, round, soft arms round the woman's neck, and said 'Good-bye.'

'You'll see me again, or hear,' she said.

'There's some words as Alice were fond o' saying time agone, and I'll
say 'em to thee, my lass, for I'll not see thee agen, m'appen, and they
say my meanin' clearer nor talk o' mine. "The Lord bless thee and keep
thee, the Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto
thee, the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon thee, and give
thee peace."'

Mrs Hatfield opened the gate for Clare to pass out. Petrovitch did not
seem to see her, yet when Clare was on his arm again he said,--

'That woman is marked by Death. She will not live three months. Her
heart is broken.'

It was. His words came true.

When the two were once more in the train Clare's silent mood had
passed. She would gladly have talked, but the carriage was full, and
her companion's place being on the opposite side of the carriage,
anything but an occasional word was impossible.

She sat gazing out of the window, and he sat in the opposite corner
looking at her fixedly. As they were passing over the bridge to the
London terminus he leaned forward suddenly, and she, anticipating
some words from his movement, withdrew her eyes from the sun-bathed,
rippling river and fixed them on his. There she met such a look of
passion, and love, and longing as she had never seen in any man's eyes
before; and as she gazed, startled, spell-bound, his voice whispered
these words, in a tone too low for any ears but hers, and yet distinct
enough for every word to be plainly heard by her, and to make her heart
bound responsively. Only these words,--

'Whatever happens, I shall always love you.'

Then he leaned back again. Clare drew a deep breath, and the train
stopped at the Charing Cross platform.

No other word was said between them till he had called a cab and placed
her in it. Then he said, 'Do not write to me: I will write to you.' He
pressed her hand, drew back, and the cab was driven off.

As Petrovitch walked back to his lodgings the sky grew quickly cloudy.
It seemed as though the sunshine had gone away with Clare Stanley. By
the time he reached Osnaburgh Street the rain was beginning to fall in
big heavy splashes on the dusty pavement. He strode up the stairs to
his room, locked the door, and flung himself down in the elbow-chair
by the fireless grate. The rising wind blew the rain in gusts against
the uncurtained window, and the large drops chased each other down
the panes and obscured the view of the high houses opposite. All the
sweetness had gone out of the weather. Petrovitch noticed it, and felt
glad that it was so. He sat quite still and quite silent, his elbow on
the arm of his chair, and his forehead on his hand. Now indeed the dark
hour was upon Saul. For six months his dream, his hope, his ambition
had been to return to Russia. Now he was going at last, and the thought
of it was maddening.

He had known that he loved Clare, but he had not known how much he
loved her until that moment in the train, and then his sudden knowledge
of the strength of his own passion had broken down all his resolutions.

How could he have been such a fool as ever to speak the words which
made it impossible for him to see her again? He had not meant to speak
them. He could not understand how he had come to speak them. Their
utterance was the first unguarded action he had been guilty of for the
last ten years. And he had thought with some reason that he could rely
on his own cool-headedness and self-restraint. Now it seemed he was
mistaken. He was as much the slave of impulse as another--as much as
the man who had assumed his name.

It was incomprehensible to him. He quite failed to understand the full
force of this new over-mastering emotion. Clare! Clare! The world
seemed to mean nothing but Clare. He thought of her apart from all
the other facts and circumstances of life, of herself, her face, her
eyes, her hair, her voice, her way of holding her head, the movement
of her hands when she spoke, and it was a rapture to think of her like
this, and to let the thought of her rush over and sweep away all other
thoughts, even of his own life's aim. Then slowly came back to him
the remembrance of all the realities of his life, and he cursed what
seemed to him his degradation. What sort of patriotism was it that the
touch of a girl's hand could wither? What principles were they that the
look in a girl's eyes could destroy? It was an utterly new experience
for him, and he felt as though his patriotism and his faith were dead
within him. In that hour he was man first, patriot after. But the hour
of weakness was, after all, a brief one. His patriotism was not dead.
It had been his master-passion too long for such an easy death to be
possible, and as the dusk fell and deepened into night it rose up and
met that other passion in the field and vanquished it.

It was late when he rose and lighted his lamp. It shone upon a face
white with the struggle he had gone through, but set and determined. He
turned to his table and wrote,--

 'I love you! I told you so to-day. I did not mean to tell you, and I
 cannot account for or excuse the impulse that made me do so.

 'But, having done so, I cannot ask you to meet me again as comrades
 meet. It would be embarrassing for you, and for me impossible. I know
 you do not love me. Perhaps you will even despise me when you learn
 what has been the temptation I have undergone. To give up Russia--the
 Cause--the Revolution--everything--and to stay at peace in England,
 and give my whole soul to the effort to win your love. I am glad to
 think I am not so unworthy of you as I should have been had I yielded
 to this--the strongest temptation of my life. I shall leave London
 to-morrow morning; I cannot stay so near you without seeing you.

 'You will think me ungenerous in leaving you without any advice on
 the subject you desire to be advised on. You shall hear from me
 before long. Perhaps when I am further from you I shall be better
 able to write you the sort of letter you will care to have from me.
 For those who love Liberty, life is made up of renunciations, but
 no renunciation could be so difficult, so bitter, as is to me the
 renouncing of this least faint ghost of a chance of winning you.

  MICHAEL.'

He went out and posted the letter, and when he came in again did not
indulge in any more reflections. He busied himself with packing up
his belongings, paying his rent, and making all his arrangements for
leaving London the next morning.

But when the next morning came, with a fresh radiance of blue skies and
sunlight, all his plans were overturned, all his thought unsettled, by
this telegram,

 'Clare Stanley, Marlborough Villa, N.W., to Michael Petrovitch, 37,
 Osnaburgh Street, N.W.--You are not going without good-bye. Please be
 in the Guildhall at twelve.'

Most men in his position would have been there at eleven at the latest.
But the clock was on the first stroke of twelve as he walked through
the crowd of fat pigeons, who, as usual, were busily eating more than
was good for them in the Guildhall yard. He passed through the arched
entrance and stood in the doorway. No one would have guessed by his
face that he was keeping an appointment made by the woman he loved.
He looked white and haggard, wretched and weary. His glance travelled
round the large hall. In front of the statue of the Earl of Chatham
stood the graceful black figure he looked for.

He walked across to her. As his footsteps sounded on the stone floor
she turned her head, but did not move to meet him. When he was quite
close to her she held out her hand in silence. He took it, pressed it,
and let it fall at once. He spoke almost sternly.

'Why did you bring me here? I told you it was impossible for us to meet
on the old terms.'

'I asked you to meet me _here_,' she said, 'because I had to come into
the City on money affairs; and for the other, I have not asked you to
do the impossible.'

She, too, was very pale, and spoke with what seemed like an effort at
lightness.

'It is unworthy of you,' he went on, hardly noticing her answer, 'to
make my renunciation so much harder for me.'

'There are enough inevitable renunciations in life for us without our
making others by misunderstandings,' she said, her eyelids downcast.

He looked at her silently, as a man might in a dream which he feared to
break by a word. At last he spoke, in a very low voice, with his eyes
still on her face.

'This is glory to know,' he said, 'but do you think it makes the
sacrifice more easy? Before it was only a chance I gave up--now it is
your very self I must renounce.'

'Why?' Her voice trembled a little now.

'Because I must return to Russia. My place is there, and where I go--'

'I, too, will go,' she interrupted.

He caught her wrist.

'But if you go with me you go to almost certain death.

'Does that matter?' she said, and looked full in his eyes.

His fingers had closed on hers, and so they went out together into the
bright English sunshine. Not more serenely, not more gladly, than they
would hereafter go, hand in hand, into the black darkness and oblivion
that waits to swallow those who dare to set themselves against the
bitter tyranny of Russia.

To each of them that day had given the most perfect gift of life, and
both were content to offer up that gift--life itself even--for the sake
of the Liberty they loved--the Liberty who, though she may not crown
their lives--will consecrate their graves.


THE END.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Prophet's Mantle" ***

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