The table was long, and amply spread with fine glass and silver; nothing was antique, everything was in the old-fashioned tasteless style of a former generation, but the value of solid silver was not small. The homely serving-woman in her peasant-like dress stood aside, submissive, as it seemed, but ignorant of how to behave at so large a dinner. Courthope, who in a visit to the stables had discovered that this Frenchwoman with her husband and one young daughter were at present the whole retinue of servants, wondered the more that such precious articles as the young girls and the plate should be safe in so lonely a place.

Madge was seated at the head of the table, Courthope at the foot; Eliz in her high chair had been wheeled to the centre of one side. Madge, playing the hostess with gentle dignity, was enjoying herself to the full, a rosy, cooing sort of joy in the play, in the feast that she had succeeded in preparing, in her amusement at the literary sallies of Eliz, and, above all perhaps, in the company of the new and unexpected playmate to whom, because of his youth, she attributed the same perfect sympathy with their sentiments which seemed to exist between themselves. Courthope felt this—he felt that he was idealised through no virtue of his own; but it was a delightful sensation, and brought out the best that was in him of wit and pure joyfulness. To Eliz the creatures of her imagination were too real for perfect pleasure; her face was tense, her eyes shot sparkles of light, her voice was high, for her the entertainment of the invisible guests involved real responsibility and effort.

'Asides are allowed, of course?' said Eliz, as if pronouncing a debatable rule at cards.

'Of course,' said Madge, 'or we could not play.'

'It's the greatest fun,' cried Eliz, 'to hear Sir Charles telling Mr. John Knightley about the good example that a virtuous man ought to set. With "hands and eyes uplifted" he is explaining the duty he owes to his Maker. It's rare to see John Knightley's face. I seated them on purpose with only Miss Matty between them, because I knew she wouldn't interrupt.'

Courthope saw the smile in Madge's eyes was bent upon him as she said softly, 'You won't forget that you have Lady Catherine de Bourg at your right hand to look after. I can see that brother Peter has got his eye upon her, and I don't know how she would take the "seraphim" story.'

'If she begins any of her dignified impertinence here,' he answered, 'I intend to steer her into a conversation with Charlotte, Lady G——.'

Courthope had a turkey to carve. He was fain to turn from the guests to ask advice as to its anatomy of Madge, who was carving a ham and assuring Mr. Woodhouse that it was 'thrice baked, exactly as Serle would have done it.'

'Stupid!—it was apples that were baked,' whispered Eliz.

'You see,' said Madge, when she had told him how to begin upon the turkey, 'we wondered very much what a dinner of "two full courses" might be, and where the "corner dishes" were to be set. We did not quite know—do you?'

'You must not have asides that are not about the people,' cried Eliz intensely. 'Catherine Moreland's mother is talking common sense to General Tilney and Sir Walter Eliot, and there'll be no end of a row in a minute if you don't divert their attention.'

Eliz had more than once to call the other two to account for talking privately adown the long table.

'What a magnificent ham!' he exclaimed. 'Do you keep pigs?'

Madge had a frank way of giving family details. 'It was once a dear little pig, and we wanted to teach it to take exercise by running after us when we went out, but the stepmother, like Bunyan, "penned it"—

'"Until at last it came to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see."'

More than once he saw Madge's quick wit twinkle through her booklore. When he was looking ruefully at a turkey by no means neatly carved, she gave the comforting suggestion, '"'Tis impious in a good man to be sad."'

'I thought it one of the evidences of piety.'

'It is true that he was "Young" who said it, but so are we; let us believe it fervently.'

When Madge swept across the drawing-room, with her amber skirts trailing, and Eliz had been wheeled in, they received the after-dinner visitors. Courthope could almost see the room filled with the quaint creations to whom they were both bowing and talking incessantly.

'Mr. Courthope—Miss Jane Fairfax—I believe you have met before.' Madge's voice dropped in a well-feigned absorption in her next guest; but she soon found time again to whisper to him a long speech which Miss Bates had made to Eliz. Soon afterwards she came flying to him in the utmost delight to repeat what she called a "lovely sneap" which Lady G—— had given to Mrs. Elton; nor did she forget to tell him that Emma Woodhouse was explaining to the Portuguese nun her reasons for deciding never to marry. 'Out of sheer astonishment she appears to become quite tranquillised,' said Madge, as if relating an important fact.

His curiosity concerning this nun grew apace, for she seemed a favourite with both the girls.

When it was near midnight the imaginary pageant suddenly came to an end, as in all cases of enchantment. Eliz grew tired; one of the lamps smoked and had to be extinguished; the fire had burned low. Madge declared that the company had departed.

She went out of the room to call the servant, but in a few minutes she came back discomfited, a little pout on her lips. 'Isn't it tiresome! Mathilde and Jacques Morin have gone to bed.'

'It is just like them,' fretted Eliz.

At the fretful voice Madge's face cleared. 'What does it matter?' she cried. 'We are perfectly happy.'

She lifted the lamp with which he had first seen her, and commenced an inspection of doors and shutters. It was a satisfaction to Courthope to see the house. It was a French building, as were all the older houses in that part of the country, heavily built, simple in the arrangements of its rooms. Every door on the lower floor stood open, inviting the heat of a large central stove. Insisting upon carrying the lamp while Madge made her survey, he was introduced to a library at the end of the drawing-room, to a large house-place or kitchen behind the dining-room; these with his own room made the square of the lower story. A wing adjoining the further side was devoted to the Morins. Having performed her duty as householder, Madge said good-night.

'We have enjoyed it ever so much more because you were here.' She held out her hand; her face was radiant; he knew that she spoke the simple truth.

She lifted the puny Eliz in her arms and proceeded to walk slowly up the straight staircase which occupied one half of the long central hall. The crimson scarfs hanging from Eliz, the length of her own silk gown, embarrassed her; she stopped a moment on the second step, resting her burden upon one lifted knee to clutch and gather the gorgeous raiment in her hand.

'You see we put on mother's dresses, that have always been packed away in the garret.'

Very simply she said this to Courthope, who stood holding a lamp to light them in their ascent. He waited until the glinting colours of their satins, the slow motion of the burden-bearer's form, reached the top and were lost in the shadows of an open door.



CHAPTER III

Courthope opened the shutters of his window to look out upon the night; they were heavy wooden shutters clasped with an iron clasp. A French window he could also open; outside that a temporary double window was fixed in the casement with light hooks at the four corners. The wind was still blustering about the lonely house, and, after examining the twilight of the snow-clad night attentively, he perceived that snow was still falling. He thought he could almost see the drifts rising higher against the out-buildings.

Two large barns stood behind the house; from these he judged that the fields around were farmed.

It was considerations concerning the project of his journey the next day which had made him look out, and also a restless curiosity regarding every detail of the menage whose young mistress was at once so child-like and so queenlike. While looking out he had what seemed a curious hallucination of a dark figure standing for a moment on the top of the deep snow. As he looked more steadily the figure disappeared. All the outlines at which he looked were chaotic to the sight, because of the darkness and the drifting snow, and the light which was behind him shimmering upon the pane. If half-a-dozen apparitions had passed in the dim and whirling atmosphere of the yards, he would have supposed that they were shadows formed by the beams of his lamp, being interrupted here and there by the eddying snow where the wind whirled it most densely. He did not close his shutters, he even left his inner window partially open, because, unaccustomed to a stove, he felt oppressed by its heat. When he threw himself down, he slept deeply, as men sleep after days among snowfields, when a sense of entire security is the lethargic brain's lullaby.

He was conscious first of a dream in which the sisters experienced some imminent danger; he heard their shrieks piercing the night. He woke to feel snow and wind driving upon his face, to realise a half-waking impression that a man had passed through his room, to know that the screams of a woman's voice were a reality. As he sprang for his clothes he saw that the window was wide open, the whole frame of the outer double glass having been removed, but the screams of terror he heard were within the house. Opening the door to the dark hall he ran, guided by the sound, to the foot of the staircase which the girls had ascended, then up its long straight ascent. He took its first steps in a bound, but, as his brain became more perfectly awake, confusion of thought, wonder, a certain timidity because now the screaming had ceased, caused him to slacken his pace. He was thus hesitating in the darkness when he found himself confronted by Madge King. She stood majestic in grey woollen gown, candle in hand, and her dark eyes blazed upon him in terror, wrath and indignation.

It seemed for a moment that she could not speak; some movement passed over the white sweep of her throat and the full dimpling lips, and then—

'Go down!' She would have spoken to a dog with the same authority, but never with such contemptuous wrath. 'Go down at once! How dare you!'

Abashed, knowing not what he might have done to offend, Courthope fell back a step against the wall of the staircase. From within the room Eliz cried, 'Is he there? Come in and lock the door, Madge, or he'll kill you!' The voice, sharp, high with terror, rose at the end, and burst into one of those piercing shrieks which seemed to fill the night, as the voices of some small insects have the power to make the welkin ring in response.

Before Courthope could find a word to utter, another light was thrown upon him from a lamp at the foot of the stair. It was held by Jacques Morin, grey-haired, stooping, dogged. The Morin family—man, wife and daughter—were huddling close together. They, too, were all looking at him, not with the wrath and contempt to which Madge had risen, but with cunning desire for revenge, mingled with the cringing of fear. There was a minute's hush, too strong for expression, in which each experienced more intensely the shock of the mysterious alarm.

It was Madge who broke the silence. Her voice rang clear, although vibrating.

'Jacques Morin, he came into our room to rob!' She pointed at Courthope.

The thin voice of Eliz came in piercing parenthesis: 'I saw him in the closet, and when I screamed he ran.'

Madge began again. 'Jacques Morin, what part of the house is open? I feel the wind.' All the time Madge kept her eyes upon Courthope, as upon some wild animal whose spring she hoped to keep at bay.

That she should appeal to this dull, dogged French servant for protection against him, who only desired to risk his life to serve her, was knowledge of such intense vexation that Courthope could still find no word, and her fixed look of wrath did actually keep him at bay. It took from him, by some sheer physical power which he did not understand, the courage with which he would have faced a hundred Morins.

When Jacques Morin began to speak, his wife and daughter took courage and spoke also; a babel of French words, angry, terrified, arose from the group, whose grey night-clothes, shaken by their gesticulations, gave them a half-frenzied appearance.

In the midst of their talking Courthope spoke to Madge at last. 'I ran up to protect you when I heard screams; I did not wake till you screamed. Some one has entered the house. He has entered by the window in my room; I found it open.'

With his own words the situation became clear to him. He saw that he must hunt for the house-breaker. He began to descend the stairs.

The Morin girl screamed and ran. Morin, producing a gun from behind his back, pointed it at Courthope, and madam, holding the lamp, squared up behind her husband with the courage of desperation.

It was not this fantastic couple that checked Courthope's downward rush, but Madge's voice.

'Keep still!' she cried, in short strong accents of command.

Eliz, becoming aware of his movement, shrieked again.

Courthope, now defiant and angry, turned towards Madge, but, even as he waited to hear what she had to say, reflected that her interest could not suffer much by delay, for the thief, if he escaped, could make but small speed in the drifting storm over roads which led to no near place of escape or hiding.

It was the judge's daughter which Courthope now saw in Madge—the desire to estimate evidence, the fearless judgment.

'We took you in last night, a stranger; and now we have been robbed, which never happened before in all our lives. My sister says it was you she saw in our room. As soon as I could get the candle lit I found you here, and Jacques Morin says that you have opened your window so that you would be able to escape at once. What is the use of saying that you are not a robber?'

He made another defiant statement of his own version of the story.

The girl had given some command in French to Morin; to Courthope she spoke again in hasty sentences, reiterating the evidence against him. Her manner was a little different now—it had not the same straightforward air of command. He began to hope that he might persuade her, and then discovered suddenly that she had been deliberately riveting his attention while the command which he had not understood was being obeyed. A noose of rope was thrown round his arms and instantly tightened; with a nimbleness which he had not expected Morin knotted it fast. Courthope turned fiercely; for a moment he struggled with all his force, bearing down upon Morin from his greater height, so that they both staggered and reeled to the foot of the stair. At his violence the voices of the Morin women, joined by that of Eliz, were lifted in such wild terror that a few moments were sufficient to bring Courthope to reason. He spoke to Madge with haughty composure.

'Tell him to untie this rope at once. There is some villain about the house who may do you the greatest injury; you are mad to take from me the power of arresting him.'

Madam Morin, seeing the prisoner secured, hastened with her lamp to his bedroom.

Madge, feeling herself safer now, came a little way down the stair with her candle. 'How can we tell what you would do next?' she asked. 'And I have the household to protect; it is not for myself that I am afraid.'

The anger that he had felt toward her died out suddenly.

It was not for herself that she was afraid! She stood a few steps above him; her little candle, flashing its rays into the darkness of the upper and lower halls, made walls and balustrades seem vast by its flickering impotence to oust the darkness. Surely this girl, towering in her sweeping robe and queenly pose, was made to be loved of men and gods! Hero, carrying her vestal taper in the temple recesses, before ever Leander had crossed the wave, could not have had a larger or more noble form, a more noble and lovely face.

Well, if she chose to tie his arms he would have preferred to have them tied, were it not for the maddening thought that more miscreants than one might be within reach of her, and that they would, if skilled, find the whole household an easy prey.

Madam Morin came back from the room with the open window, making proclamation in the most excited French.

'What do they say?' asked Courthope of Madge.

The Morin girl was following close to her mother, and Jacques Morin was eagerly discussing their information.

Madge passed Courthope in silence. They all went to the window to see; Courthope, following in the most absurd helplessness, trailing the end of his binding-cord behind him, brought up the rear of the little procession. Madge walked straight on into his room, where Madam Morin was again opening the window-shutters.

'They say,' said Madge to Courthope, 'that you have had an accomplice, and that he is gone again; they saw his snow-shoe tracks.'

He begged her to make sure that the man was gone, to let him look at the tracks himself and then to search the house thoroughly. Outside the window the same chaotic sweep and whirl of the atmosphere prevailed. It was difficult, even holding a lantern outside, to see, but they did see that a track had come up to the window and again turned from it. After that they all searched the house, Courthope allowed to be of the company, apparently because he could thus be watched. The thief of the night had come and gone; some silver and jewellery which had been stored in a closet adjoining the bedroom of the sisters had been taken.

Courthope understood very little of the talk that went on. At length, to his great relief, Madge gave her full attention to him in parley.

'Won't you believe that I know nothing whatever of the doings of this sneak-thief?'

Some of her intense excitement had passed away, succeeded by distress, discouragement, and perhaps perplexity, but that last she did not express to him. She leaned against the wall as she listened to him with white face.

'We never took in any one we didn't know anything about before, and we never were robbed before.' She added, 'We treated you kindly; how could you have done it? If you did it'—his heart leaped at the 'if' as at a beam of sunshine on a rainy day—'you must have known all about us, although I can't think how; you must have known where we kept things, and that mamma had taken our other man-servant away. You must have brought your accomplice to hide in the barn and do the work while you played the gentleman! That is what Jacques Morin says; he says no one but a child would have taken you in as I did, and that you might have murdered us all. They are very angry with me.'

There was conflict in her manner; a few words would be said haughtily, as to some one not worthy of her notice, and then again a few words as to a friend. He saw that this conflict of her mind was increasing as she stood face to face with him, and with that consolation he submitted, at her request, to be more securely bound—the rope twisted round and round, binding his arms to his sides. It was a girl's device; he made no complaint.

It seemed that Morin had no thought of following the thief; his faithfulness was limited to such service as he considered necessary, and was of a cowardly rather than a valiant sort. Courthope, when his first eagerness to seek passed off, was comforted by reflecting that, had he himself been free, it would have been futile for him to attempt such a quest while darkness lay over the land in which he was a stranger.

He was allowed to rest on the settle in the large inner kitchen, securely locked in, and so near Morin's room that his movements could be overheard. There, still in bonds, he spent the rest of the night.



CHAPTER IV

When the March morning shone clear and white through the still-falling snow, and the Morins began to bustle about their work for the day, the mental atmosphere in the kitchen seemed to have lost something of the excited alarm that had prevailed in the night. Courthope arose; the garments which he had donned in the night with frantic speed clothed but did not adorn him; he knew that he must present a wild appearance, and the domestic clothes-line, bound round and round his arms, prevented him from so much as pushing back the locks of hair which straggled upon his brow. He was rendered on the whole helpless; however murderous might be his heart, a tolerably safe companion. He interested himself by considering how Samson-like he could be in breaking the cords, or, even tied, how vigorously he could kick Morin, if he were not a girl's prisoner. He reflected with no small admiration upon the quick resource and decision that she had displayed; how, in spite of her almost child-like frankness, she had beguiled him into turning his back to the noose when a supposed necessity pressed her. He meditated for a few minutes upon other girls for whom he had experienced a more or less particular admiration, and it seemed to him that the characters of these damsels became wan and insipid by comparison. He began to have a presentiment that Love was now about to strike in earnest upon the harp of his life, but he could not think that the circumstances of this present attraction were propitious. What could he say to this girl, so adorably strong-minded, to convince her of his claim to be again treated as a man and a brother? Letters? He had offered them to her last night, and she had replied that any one could write letters. Should he show that he was not penniless? She might tell him in the same tone that it was wealth ill-gotten. It was no doubt her very ignorance of the world that, when suspicion had once occurred, made her reject as unimportant these evidences of his respectability, but he had no power to give her the eyes of experience.

These thoughts tormented him as he stood looking out of the window at the ever-increasing volume of the snow. How long would he be detained a prisoner in this house, and, when the roads were free, how could he find for Madge any absolute proof of his innocence? The track of the midnight thief was lost for ever in the snow; if he had succeeded in escaping as mysteriously as he had come—but here Courthope's mind refused again to enter upon the problem of the fiend-like enemy and the impassable snowfields, which in the hours of darkness he had already given up, perceiving the futility of his speculation until further facts were known.

Courthope strolled through the rooms, the doors of which were now open. Morin permitted this scant liberty chiefly, the prisoner thought, because of a wholesome fear of being kicked. In the library at the back of the drawing-room he found amusement in reading the titles of the books down one long shelf and up another. Every book to which Madge had had access had an interest for him. Three cases were filled with books of law and history; there was but one from which the books had of late been frequently taken. It was filled with romance and poetry, nothing so late as the middle of the present century, nothing that had not some claim upon educated readers, and yet it was a motley collection. Upon the front rim of the upper shelf some one, perhaps the dead father in his invalid days, had carved a motto with a knife, the motto that is also that of the British arms. It might have been done out of mere patriotism; it might have had reference to this legacy of books left to the child-maidens, for whom, it seemed, other companionship had not been provided.

At length Courthope realised that there was one book which he greatly desired to take from the shelf. The Morin daughter was dusting in the room, and, with some blandishments, he succeeded in persuading her to lay it open upon the table where he could peruse it. To his great amusement he observed that she was very careful not to come within a yard or two of him, darting back when he approached, evidently thinking that the opening of the book might be a ruse to attack her by a sudden spring. At first the curious consciousness produced by this damsel's awkward gambols of fear so absorbed him that he could not fix his attention upon the book; flashes of amusement and of grave annoyance chased themselves through his mind like sunshine and shadow over mountains on a showery day; he knew not which was the more rational mood. Then, attempting the book again, and turning each leaf with a good deal of contortion and effort, he became absorbed. It was the Letters of a Portuguese Nun, and in the astonishment of its perusal he forgot the misfortune that had befallen the household, and his own discomfort and ignominy. The Morin girl had left him in the room, shutting the door.

An hour passed—it might have been about nine of the clock—when Courthope began to be roused from his absorption in the book by a sound in the next room. It was a low uncertain sound, but evidently that of sobbing and tears. He stopped, listened; his heart was wrung with pity. It was not the sharp little Eliz who cried like that! He knew such sobs did not come from the stormy and uncontrolled bosoms of the French servants. He was convinced that it was Madge who was weeping, that she was in the long drawing-room, where the portrait of the judge hung near the door.

He went nearer the door. His excited desire to offer her some sympathy, to comfort, or if possible to help, became intolerable. So conscious was he of a common interest between them that not for a moment did the sense of prying enter his mind.

He heard then a few words whispered as if to the portrait: 'Father, oh, father, we were so happy with him! It is almost the only time that we have been quite happy since you went away.'

The sense of the broken whispers came tardily to Courthope's understanding through the smothering door. The handle of the door was on a level with the hands that were bound to his sides; he turned himself in order to bring his fingers near it.

Before he touched it he heard Madge sob and whisper again: 'I was so happy, father; I thought it was such fun he had come. I like gentlemen, and we never, never see any except the ones that come out of books.'

To Courthope it suddenly seemed that the whole universe must have been occupied with purpose to bring him here in order to put an end to her gloom and flood her life with sunshine; the universe could not be foiled in its attempt. Young love argues from effect to cause, and so limitless seemed the strength of his sentiment that the simplicity of her mind and the susceptibility of her girlhood were to him like some epic poem which arouses men to passion and strong deeds. Ignominiously bound as he was, his heart lightened; all doubt of his mission to love her and its ultimate success passed from him. He turned the handle and pushed the door half open.

The long drawing-room was almost dark; the shutters had not been opened; the furniture remained as it had stood when the brilliant assembly of the previous evening had broken up; the large fireplace was full of ashes; the atmosphere was deadly cold. Courthope stood in the streak of light which entered with him. Upon the floor, crouching, her cheek leaning against the lower part of her father's picture, was Madge King. She was dressed in a blanket coat; moccasins were upon her feet; a fur cap lay upon the ground beside her. At the instant of his entrance she lifted her bare head, and across the face flushed with tears and prayers there flashed the look of haughty intolerance of his presence. She had thought that he was locked up in one of the kitchens; she told him so, intensely offended that he should see her tears. It was for that reason that she did not rise or come to the light, only commanding and imploring him to be gone.

'I am quite helpless, even if I wanted to harm you.' He spoke reproachfully, knowing instinctively that if she pitied him she would accept his pity.

'You have harmed us enough already,' she sighed; 'all the rest of our silver, all my dear father's silver is gone. We found that out this morning, for what we had used for the feast had been put in a basket until we could store it away; it is all taken.'

He was shocked and enraged to hear of this further loss. He did not attempt to reason with her; he had ceased to reason with himself.

'You trusted me when you let me in last night,' he said. 'Don't you think that you would have had some perception of it last night if I had been entirely unworthy? Think what an utter and abominable villain I must be to have accepted your hospitality—to have been so very happy with you——' So he went on appealing to her heart from the sentiments that arose in his own.

Madge listened only for a reasonable period; she rose to her feet. 'I must go,' she said.

He found that she proposed to walk on snow-shoes three miles to the nearest house, which belonged to a couple of parish priests, where she would be certain of obtaining a messenger to carry the news of the robbery to the telegraph station. She could not be brought even to discuss the advisability of her journey; Morin could not be sent, for the servants and Eliz would go mad with terror if left alone.

To Courthope's imagination her journey seemed to be an abandonment of herself to the utmost danger. If between the two houses she failed to make progress over high drifts and against a heavy gale, what was to hinder her from perishing? Then, too, there was that villain, who had seemed to stalk forth from the isolated house afar into the howling night as easily as the Frankenstein demon, and might even now be skulking near—a dangerous devil—able to run where others must trudge toilsomely.

Madge, it seemed, had only come to that room to make her confession and invoke protection at the shrine of the lost father; she was ready to set forth without further delay. She would not, in spite of his most eloquent pleading, set Courthope at liberty to make of him either messenger or companion.

'The evidence,' she said sadly, 'is all against you. I am very sorry.'

A wilder unrest and vexation at his position returned upon his heart because of the lightening that had come with the impulse of love. That impulse still remained, an under-current of calm, a knowledge that his will and the power of the world were at one, such as men only feel when they yield themselves to some sudden conversion; but above this new-found faith the cross-currents of strife now broke forth again. Thus he raged—

'What was the use of my coming here? Why should the Fates have sent me here if I cannot go this errand for you, or if I cannot go with you to protect you? If this beast is walking about on snow-shoes, how do you know that he will not attack you as soon as you are out of sight of the house?'

She seemed to realise that it was strange to be discussing her own safety with her prisoner. Very curious was the conflict in her face; her strong natural companionableness, her suspicion of him, and her sense of the dignity which her situation demanded, contending together. It seemed easier for her to disregard his words than to give all the answers which her varying feelings would prompt. She was tying on a mink cap by winding a woollen scarf about her head.

'Miss Madge! Miss King! It is perfectly intolerable! It—it is intolerable!' He stepped nearer as he spoke. A thought came over him that even the conventional title of 'Miss' which he had given her was wholly inappropriate in a situation so strong—that he and she, merely as man and woman, as rational beings, were met together in a wilderness where conventions were folly. 'I cannot allow you to risk your life in this way.' There was a tense emphasis in his words; he felt the natural authority of the protector over the tender thing to be protected, the intimate authority which stress of circumstance may give.

She dropped her hands from tying the scarf under her chin, returning for his words a look of mingled curiosity, indecision, and distrust.

Quick as she looked upon him, his mind's eye looked upon himself; there he stood in grotesque undress, bound around with the cords of an extraordinary disgrace. He blamed himself at the moment for not having had his hair cut more recently, for he knew that it stood in a wild shock above his head, and he felt that it dangled in his eyes. Then a gust of emotion, the momentary desire for laughter or groans of vexation, rose and choked his utterance, and in the minute that he was mute the girl, sitting down upon a low stool, began tightening the strings of her moccasins, which, after the first putting on, had relaxed with the warmth of the feet. Her business-like preparations for the road maddened him.

'Don't you see,' he said, 'what disgrace you are heaping upon me? What right have you to deny to me, a gentleman and your guest, the right to serve and protect you? Consider to what wretchedness you consign me if I am left here to think of you fighting alone with this dangerous storm, or attacked by blackguards who we know may not be far away!'

She said in a quiet, practical, girlish way, 'It was I who was responsible for letting you in last night, and then this happened—this most unheard-of thing. We never heard of any but a petty theft ever committed in this whole region before. Now I am bound to keep you here until we can hear where father's silver is.'

'You don't believe that I have done it! I am sure you do not' (he believed what he said). 'Why haven't you the courage to act upon your conviction? You will never regret it.'

'Eliz says that she saw you quite distinctly.'

'Eliz is a little fool,' were the words that arose within him, but what he said was, 'Your sister is excitable and nervous; she saw the thief undoubtedly, and by some miserable freak of fortune he may have resembled me.'

'Does that seem at all likely?'

'Well, then, there was no resemblance, and she fancied it.'

She stood up, looking harassed, but without relenting. 'I must go—there is nothing else to be done. Do you think I would stay here when a day might make all the difference in recovering the things which belonged to my father? Do you think that I am going to lose the things that belonged to him just because I am too much of a coward to go out and give the alarm?'

She walked away from him resolutely, but the thought of the lost treasures and all the dear memories that in her mind were identified with them seemed to overcome her. She drew her hand hastily across her eyes, and then, to his dismay, the sorrow for her loss emphasised her wavering belief in his guilt; for the first time he realised how strong that sorrow was. Impelled by emotion she turned again and came shrinkingly back into his presence.

'I have not reproached you,' she said, 'because I thought it would be mean in case you had not done it; but it seems that you must have done it. Won't you tell me where the other man has taken our things? They cannot be of any value to you compared with their value to us; and, oh, indeed I would much rather give you as much money as you could possibly make out of them, and more too, if you would only tell me which way this man has gone, and send word to him that he must give them back! I will pledge you my word of honour that——'

For the first time he was offended with her. He stepped back with a gesture of pride, which in a moment he saw she had construed into unwillingness to give the booty up.

'I could promise to give you the money; I could promise that you should not be tracked and arrested. I have enough in the savings-bank of my own that I could get out without our lawyer or mamma knowing, and you don't know how dear, how very dear, everything that belonged to father is to Eliz and me. If you wait here tied until my stepmother comes she will not give any money to get the things back; she would not care if you kept them, so long as she could punish you.'

Every word of her gentle pleading made the insult deeper and more gross, and the fact that she was who she was only made the hurt to his pride the sorer. He would not answer; he would not explain; he would let her think what she liked; it is the way of the injured heart.

Angry, and confirmed in her suspicion, she too turned proudly away. He saw her, as she crossed the hall, take up a pair of snow-shoes that she had left leaning against the wall, and without further farewell to any one turn toward the front door.

He knew then what he must do. Without inward debate, without even weighing what his act's ultimate consequences might be, he followed her.

'I will do what you ask. I give you my word of honour—and there is honour, you know, even among thieves—that I will do all in my power to bring back everything that has been stolen. Give me snow-shoes. Keep my horse and my watch and my luggage as surety that I mean what I say. I cannot promise that I can get back the silver from the other man, but I will do far more than you can do. I will do more than any one else could do. If it is within my power I will bring it back to you.'

She considered for a little time whether she would trust him or not. It seemed, curiously enough, that from first to last she had never distrusted her first instinct with regard to his character, but that her child-like belief that in the unknown world all things were possible, allowed her to believe also in his criminality. Now that he had, as she thought, made his confession and promised restitution, it was perhaps the natural product of her conflicting thoughts and feelings that she should trust to his oft-repeated vows, and make the paction with him.

She did not consult the Morins; perhaps she knew that she would only provoke their opposition, or perhaps she knew that they would only be too glad to get rid of the man they feared, caring for nothing but the actual safety of the lives in the household. She brought him his coat and cap and also a man's moccasins and snow-shoes. With a courage that, because somewhat shy and trembling, evoked all the more his admiration, she untied the first knot of his rope, unwound the coil, and then untied the last knot. The process was slow because of the trembling of her fingers, which he felt but could not see. She stood resolute, making him dress for the storm upon the threshold of the door. He did not know how to strap on the snow-shoes. She watched his first attempt with great curiosity; looking up, he was made the more determined to succeed with them by seeing the pain of incredulity returning to her eyes.

'How do you expect me to know how to manage things that I have never handled in my life before?'

'But if you don't know how to put them on how can you walk in them?'

'I have seen men walk in them, and there are a great many things we can do when something depends upon it.'

She directed him how to cross and tie the straps; she continued to watch him, increasing anxiety betraying itself in her face.

The snow was so light that even the snow-shoes sank some four or five inches. It was just below the porch that he had tied his straps, and when he first moved forward he trod with one shoe on the top of the other. He had not expected this; he felt that no further progress was within the bounds of possibility. For some half minute he stood, his back to the door, his face turned to the illimitable region of drifts and feathery air, unable to conceive how to go forward and without a thought of turning back. When his pulses were surging and tingling with the discomfort of her gaze, he heard the door shut sharply. Perhaps she thought that he was shamming and was determined not to yield again; perhaps—and this seemed even worse—she had been overcome in the midst of her stern responsibility by the powers of laughter; perhaps, horrid thought, she had gone for Morin to bid him again throw the noose over his treacherous shoulders. The last thought pricked him into motion. By means of his reason he discovered that if he was to make progress at all the rackets must not overlap one another as he trod; his next effort was naturally to walk with his feet so wide apart that the rackets at their broadest could not interfere. The result was that in a few moments he became like a miniature Colossus of Rhodes, fixed again so that he could not move, his feet upon platforms at either side of a harbour of snow.

He heard the door open now again sharply, and he felt certain, yes, certain, that the lasso was on its way through the air; this time he was not going to submit. As men do unthinkingly what they could in no way do by thought, he found himself facing the door, his snow-shoes truly inextricably mixed with one another, but still he had turned round. There was no rope, no Morin; Madge was standing alone upon the outer step of the porch, her face aflame with indignation.

'This is either perfect folly or you have deceived me,' she cried.

'I shall learn how to use them in a minute,' he said humbly. He was conscious as he spoke that his twisted legs made but an unsteady pedestal, that the least push would have sent him headlong into the drift.

'How could you say that you would go?' she asked fiercely.

He looked down at his feet as schoolboys do when chidden, but for another reason. The question as to whether or not he could get his snow-shoes headed again in the right direction weighed like lead upon his heart.

'I thought that I could walk upon these things,' he said, and he added, with such determination as honour flying from shame only knows, 'and I will walk on them and do your errand.'

With that, by carefully untwisting his legs, he faced again in the right direction, but, having lifted his right foot too high in the untwisting process, he found that the slender tail of its snow-shoe stuck down in the snow, setting the shoe pointing skyward and his toe, tied by the thongs, held prisoner about a foot above the snow. He tried to kick, but the shoe became more firmly embedded. He lost his balance, and only by a wild fling of his body, in which his arms went up into the air, did he regain his upright position. The moment of calm which succeeded produced from him another remark.

'It seems to me that you have got me now in closer bonds than before.' As he spoke he turned his glance backward and saw that comment of his was needless.

The girl had at last yielded to laughter. Worn out, no doubt, by a long-controlled excitement, laughter had now entirely overcome her. Leaning her head on her hand and her shoulders against a pillar of the porch, she was shaking visibly from head to foot, and the effort she made to keep the sound of her amusement within check only seemed to make its hold upon her more absolute.

'I don't wonder you laugh,' he said, feebly beginning to laugh himself a little.

But she did not make the slightest reply. Her face was crimson; the ripples of her laughter went over her form as ripples of wind over a young tree.

He was forced to leave her thus. By a miracle of determination, as it seemed, he freed his right shoe and made slow and wary strides forward. He saw that he had exaggerated the width of his snow-shoes, but his progress now was still made upon the plan of keeping his feet wide apart, although not too wide for motion. He knew that this was not the right method; he knew that she peered at him between her fingers and was more convulsed with laughter at his every step. He was thankful to think that the falling flakes must soon begin to obscure his figure, but he did not dare to try another plan of walking while she watched, lest she should see him stop again.



CHAPTER V

Courthope had struck across to the main road at right angles to the poplar avenue. The poplars stood slim, upright, more like a stiff and regular formation of feathery seaweed growing out of a frozen ocean than like trees upon a plain. He was nearing a grove of elm and birch which he had not seen the evening before; by the almost hidden rails of the fence there were half-buried shrubs. So dry, so hard, so absolutely without bud or sere leaf was the interlacing outline of the trees and shrubs, that they too seemed to be some strange product of this new sort of ocean; they did not remind him of verdant glades. Not that beauty was absent, nor charm, but the scene was strange, very strange; the domain of the laughing princess, on whom he had turned his back, was, in the daylight, more than ever an enchanted land which he could fancy to be unknown in story and until now unexplored by man. Such ideas only came to him by snatches; the rest of him, mind and body, was summed up in a fierce determination to catch the thief and bring back his spoils. Whether by this he would prove himself honest or guilty, he neither knew nor felt that he cared.

Gradually, as he thought less about his snow-shoes, he found that the wide lateral swing which he had been giving to his leg was unneeded. Strange as it seemed, the large rackets did not interfere when he took an ordinary step. Having made this pleasant discovery he quickened speed. He did not know whether the girl had stopped laughing and had gone into the house again, but he knew that the falling snow and the branches of the trees must now hinder her from seeing him distinctly.

In a moment he was glad of this, for, becoming incautious, he fell.

Both arms, put out to save himself, were embedded to the very shoulder straight down in snow that offered no bottom to his touch; when his next impulse was to move knees and feet he found that the points of his snow-shoes were dug deep, and his toes, tied to them, held the soles of his feet in the same position.

What cursed temerity had made him confess to a criminal act in order to be allowed to come on this fool's errand? Fool, indeed, had he been to suppose that he could walk upon a frozen cloud without falling through! Such were Courthope's reflections.

By degrees he got himself up, but only by curling himself round and taking off his snow-shoes. By degrees he got the snow-shoes put on again, and mounted out of the hole which he had made, with snow adhering to all his garments and snow melting adown his neck and wrists. He now realised that he had spent nearly half an hour in walking not a quarter of a mile. With this cheerless reflection as a companion he went doggedly on, choosing now the drifted main road for a path.

Having left behind him the skeleton forms of the trees, he was trudging across an open plain, flat almost as the surface of the lake which he had traversed yesterday. Sometimes the fences at the side of the road were wholly hidden, more often they showed the top of their posts or upper bar; sometimes he could see cross-fences, as if outlining fields, so that he supposed he still walked through lands farmed from the lonely stone house, that he was still upon his lady's domain. He meditated upon her, judging that she was sweet beyond compare, although why he thought so, after her mistrust and derision, was one of those secrets which the dimpled Cupid only could explain. He was forced to acknowledge the fact that thus he did think, because here he was walking, whither he hardly knew, how he hardly knew, battling with the gale, hustled roughly by its white wings, in danger at every turn of falling off the two small moving rafts of his shoes into a sea in which no man could swim very long. He wondered, should his snow-shoes break, if he would be able to flounder to the rim of the fence? How long could he sit there? Certainly it would seem, looking north and south and east and west, that he would need to sit as long as the life in him might endure the frost.

At length a shed or small barn met his eye. His own approach seemed to have been heard and answered from within; the neigh of a horse greeted him. At first he supposed that some horses belonging to the house were stabled here, and neglected because the roads were impassable; then he judged that so slight a shed could not be intended for a stable.

He answered the animal's cry by seeking the door. Against it the drift was not deep, for, as it opened on the sheltered side, he had only the snowfall to scrape away. The door, which had very recently been freed from its crust of frost, yielded easily. He found a brown shaggy horse tied within, and beside it a sleigh, such as he had frequently seen, a mere platform of wood upon runners. Otherwise the shed was empty. Courthope was quickly struck by the recognition of something which set his memory working. The old buffalo-skin on the sleigh was such as was common, but the way it was stretched upon a heap of sacks made him remember the sleigh that he had yesterday passed upon the river, and the keen sinister face of the driver, which had ill contrasted with his apparent sleep and stupidity.

Courthope tossed aside the skin with a jerk. A rum bottle, a small hoard of frozen bread and bacon, a heavy blanket folded beneath, all seemed to prove that the driver had made provision for a longer journey. The horse had no food before it; no blanket was upon its back. Probably its driver had not intended to leave it here so long. Where was the driver? This quickly became in Courthope's mind the all-important question. Why had he been skulking on the most lonely part of the lake? And now, recalling again the man's face, he believed that he had had an evil design.

Courthope pursued his way; for, whether the thief had gone farther or remained in this vicinity, it was evidently desirable to have help from the nearest neighbours to seek and capture him. Courthope soon reached what seemed to be a dip or hollow in the plain; in this the wind had been very busy levelling the surface with the higher ground. At first he supposed that, for some reason, road and fences had come to an abrupt ending; then he discovered that he merely walked higher above the natural level. The thought came to him that if here he should break his snow-shoes there would not even be the neighbouring fence-top on which to perch and freeze.

Suddenly all his attention was concentrated upon a dark something, like a bit of cloth fallen in the snow. As he came close and touched the cloth he found it to be the covering of a basket almost buried; pushing away the snow-crusted covering and feeling with eager fingers among the icy contents, he quickly knew that this was no other than the stolen silver of which he was in quest. A thrill of gratitude to Fortune for so kindly a freak had hardly passed through his mind before his eye sought a depression in the snow just beyond. He saw now that a man was lying there. The head resting upon an arm was but slightly covered with snow; the whole form had sunk by its own heat into a cavity like a grave.

Courthope lifted the head; the face was that of the man whom he had seen yesterday upon the river. The arms, when he raised them, fell again to the snow like lead, yet he perceived that life was not extinct. Even in the frost the odour of rum was to be perceived, and breath, although so feeble as to be unseen, still passed in and out of the tightly-drawn nostrils. The touch, that would have been reverent to a corpse, was now rough. He shook the fallen man and shouted. He raised him to a sitting posture, but finding that, standing as he did upon soft snow, to lift him was impossible, he laid him again in the self-made grave. That posture at least would be most conducive to the continued motion of the heart.

Standing upon the other side of the body, Courthope's shoe struck upon another hard object which he found to be a case, stolen locked as it was, which contained, no doubt, the other valuables whose loss Madge had first discovered. The wretch, weighted by a burden in each hand, had apparently missed his way when endeavouring to return to the shed in which he had left his horse, and wandering in circles, perhaps for hours, had evidently succumbed to drink and to cold, caught as in a trap by the unusual violence of the storm.

There was nothing to be done but return to the house for Morin's aid, and, lifting the handles of basket and case in either hand, Courthope doubled back upon his own track, thankful that he had already attained to some skill in snow-shoeing. As he neared the house his heart beat high at the excitement of seeing Madge's delight. He closely scanned the windows, even the tiny windows in the pointed tin roof, but no eager eyes were on the look-out.

Loudly he thumped upon the heavy front door. There was somewhat of a bustle inside at the knock. The snow-bound household collected quickly at the welcome thought of a message from the outside world. When the door was opened Madge and the Morins were there to behold Courthope carrying the plunder. He perceived at once that his guilt, if doubted before, was now proved beyond all doubt. There was a distinct measure of reserve in the satisfaction they expressed. Madge especially was very grave, with a strong flavour of moral severity in her words and demeanour.

Courthope explained to her that the other man was dying in the snow, that if his life was to be saved no time must be lost. She repeated the story in French to Morin, and thereupon arose high words from the Frenchman. Madge looked doubtfully at Courthope, and then she interpreted.

It seemed that the Frenchman's desire was to put him out again and lock up the house, leaving the two accomplices to shift for themselves as best they might. Courthope urged motives of humanity. He described the man and his condition.

At length he prevailed. Madge insisted that if Morin did not go she would. In a few moments both she and Morin were preparing to set out.

It seemed useless for Courthope to precede them; he went into the dining-room, demanding food of Madam Morin.

He found that Eliz had been carried down and placed in her chair in the midst of domestic activities.

As soon as she spied him, being in a nervous, hysterical state, she opened her mouth and shrieked sharply; the shriek at this time had more the tone of a child's anger than of a woman's fear. With a strong sense of humour he sat down at the table, and she, realising that he was not immediately dangerous, railed upon him.

'Viper in the bosom!' said Eliz.

Courthope, almost famished, ate fast.

'Daughter of the horse-leech crying "give," and sucking blood from the hand it gives!' she continued.

'Sir Charles Grandison would never have kicked a man when he was down,' he said. 'He would have tried to do good even to the viper he had nourished.'

The memory of Sir Charles's well-known method even with the most villainous, appeared to distract her attention for a moment.

'And then they all sent for him and confessed and made amends, just as I have done,' Courthope went on; but the fact that a laugh was gleaming in his eyes enraged the little cripple.

'How dare you talk to me, sitting there pretending to be a gentleman!'

'I would rather be allowed to make a better toilet if my reputation were to rest upon a pretence. I never heard of a gentlemanly villain who went about without collar and cuffs, and had not been allowed access to his hair-brush.'

'A striped jacket and shaved head is generally what he goes about in after he's unmasked. If I had been Madge I would not have let you off.'

'Come, remember how sorry Elizabeth Bennett was when she found she had given way to prejudice. If I remember right she lay awake many nights.'

'Are you adding insult to injury by insinuating that either of us might bestow upon you——?'

'Oh! certainly not, I merely wish to suggest that a young lady possessing lively talents and "remarkably fine eyes" might yet make great mistakes in her estimate of the masculine character.'

The cripple, who perhaps had never before heard her one beautiful feature praised by masculine lips, was obliged to harden herself.

'Accomplished wretch!' she cried, in accents worthy of an irate Pamela.

'Do you suppose it was the last time I was serving my term in gaol that I read our favourite novels?' he asked.

By this time Morin had passed out of the door to put on his snow-shoes, and Courthope, who had swallowed only as much food as was necessary to keep him from starvation, turned out to repeat the process of putting on his, this time more deftly.

Morin had a toboggan upon which were piled such necessaries as Madge had collected. They began their march three abreast into the storm.

They went a long way without conversation, and yet Courthope found in this march keen enjoyment. His heart was absurdly light. To have performed so considerable a service for Madge, now to be walking beside her on an errand of mercy, was as much joy as the present hour could hold.

It was difficult for him to keep up with the others, yet in doing so there was the pleasure of the athlete in having acquired a new mastery over his muscles; and the fascination of being at home in the snow as a sea-bird is at home in the surf, which is the chief element of delight in all winter sports, was his for the first time. With the drunken wretch who was almost frozen he felt small sympathy, but he had the sense that all modern men have on such occasions, that he ought to be concerned, which kept him grave.

The other two were not light-hearted. Morin, dragging the toboggan behind him and walking with his grey head bent forward to the gale, was sullen at being driven in the service of thieves; afraid lest some sinister design was still intended, he cast constant glances of cunning suspicion at Courthope. As for Madge, she appeared grave and pre-occupied beyond all that was natural to her, suffering, he feared, from the pain of her first disillusionment. This was a suffering that he was hardly in a position to take seriously, and yet his heart yearned over her. He thought also that she was pondering over the problem of her next responsibility, and the evidence of this came sooner than he had expected.

When they got to the place where his first track diverged straight to the shed, she and Morin stopped to exchange remarks; they evidently perceived in this the clearest evidence of all against him. Had he not gone straight to the place where the accomplice had agreed to wait? Then Madge fell back a little to where he was now plodding in the rear. She accosted him in the soft tones that had from the first so charmed him, contrasting with her sister's voice as the tones of a reed-pipe contrast with those from metal, or as the full voice of the cuckoo with the shrill chirp of the sparrow. The soft voice was very serious, the manner more than sedate, the words studied.

'I am afraid that nothing that I can say will persuade you to alter a way of life which you seem to have chosen, but it seems to me very sad that one of your ability should so degrade himself.'

She stopped with a little gasp for breath, as if frightened at her own audacity. Her manner and phrases were an evident imitation of the way in which she had heard advice bestowed upon vagrant or criminal by the benevolent judge whose memory she so tenderly cherished. It was second nature to her to act as she fancied he would have acted. Courthope composed himself to receive the judicial admonition with becoming humility; his whole sympathy was with her, his mind was aglow with the quaint humour of it.

'You must know,' rebuked Madge, 'how very wrong it is; and it is not possible that you could have difficulty in getting some honest employment.'

'It is very kind of you to interest yourself in me.' He kept his eyes upon the ground.

'I do not know, of course, what led you to begin a life of crime, or in what way you found out what houses in this country were worth robbing, but I fear you must have led a wicked life for a long time' (she was very severe now). 'You are young yet; why should you carry on your nefarious schemes in a new country, where, if you would, you could easily reform?' (Again a little gasp for breath.) 'I have promised to let you go without giving you into the hands of the law. I am afraid I did a selfish and weak thing, because others may suffer from your crimes, and I wish you could take this opportunity, which my leniency gives you, and try to reform before you have lost your reputation as well as your character.'

'It is very kind of you,' he murmured again; and still as he walked he looked upon his feet. He had no thought now of again denying his guilt; having denied and, as she thought, confessed, he felt that to change once more would only evoke her greater scorn. 'Let be,' his heart said. 'Let come what will, I will not confuse her further to-day.'



CHAPTER VI

They passed the shed, making a straight march, as swift as might be, for the fallen man; but before they reached him they saw some one coming, a black, increasing form in the snowy distance. Morin hesitated. If the thief had arisen, strong and able-bodied, it was clear that they had again been tricked for an evil purpose. Even Madge looked alarmed, and they both raised a halloo in the patois of the region. The answer that came across the reach of the storm cheered them.

The new-comer, a messenger from the nearest village, became voluble as soon as he was within speaking distance. He addressed Madge in broken English, but so quickly and with so strong a French accent that Courthope only gathered part of his errand. He had come, it seemed, from the stepmother to tell something concerning a certain Xavier, who had been sent to them the evening before. Before he had finished calling, Madge and Morin had come to the place where the thief lay, and, looking down upon him, Madge gave a little cry.

The new-comer came up. He looked as if he might be of the grade of a notary's clerk or a country chemist. He did not seem surprised to see who the man was. He began at once with great activity to chafe his hands and face with handfuls of the snow. Madge and Morin were also active with the restoratives. The thief was lifted and laid upon the toboggan. They trod the snow all about to know that nothing remained, and found only a corkless flask containing a few drops of rum. They were all so busy that Courthope had little to do; he stood aside, wondering above all at the way they rubbed the man with the snow, and at the astonishment that Madge expressed. The stranger was very nimble and very talkative; pouring out words now in French to Madge, he walked with her in all haste to the shed from which the horse again whinnied. Morin, awakening to a sense of urgency, started at a trot, dragging the toboggan behind him; it sank heavily in snow so light. Courthope lent a hand to the loop of rope by which it was drawn. He too essayed the trot of the Canadian. He was growing proficient, and if he did not succeed in keeping up the running pace, he managed to go more quickly than before. They made fair progress. Looking back, Courthope saw Madge and the stranger emerge upon the road with the little horse. He had not time to look back often to see how they helped it to make its way. They were still some distance behind when he and Morin reached the house.

The man called Xavier was carried into the kitchen amid wild exclamations from the Morin women. As they all continued the work of restoring him with a hearty goodwill and an experience of which Courthope could not boast, he was glad to betake himself to his own room, wondering whether he was now a thief or a gentleman in the eyes of this small snow-bound world. There was, in any case, no one at leisure to prohibit him from making free with his own possessions.

When he was dressed a certain shyness prohibited him from entering the dining-room in which he heard Madge, Eliz, and the stranger talking French together. He betook himself to the library, to the Letters of the Portuguese Nun and an easy-chair. They might oust him with severity, but it was as well to enjoy a short interval of luxury. The room was warmed with a stove; the book was in the old-fashioned type; an almost sleepless night was behind him; soon he slept.

It was almost midday when he slept; the afternoon was advancing when he awakened. Madam Morin was standing beside him arranging a tray of food upon the table.

'Eh!' she said, and smiled upon him.

Then she pointed to the food, and demanded in pantomime if it suited him. Courthope concluded that he had ceased to be in disgrace. He would rather, much rather, have been summoned to a family meal, but that was not his lot. He had taken many things philosophically in the course of recent hours, and he took this also. What right had he to intrude himself? He ate his meal alone. His roving glance soon brought him pleasure, for he found that some one had tip-toed into the room while he slept and laid the choicest volumes of romance near his chair.

The wind had dropped, the snow had ceased falling. Before Courthope had finished his luncheon the young man who looked like a notary's clerk came in, using his broken English. He remarked that the storm was over and that they were now going to get out a double team to plough through the road. He suggested that Courthope should help him to drive it, and to transport the prisoner to the gaol in the village. One man must be left to protect the young ladies and the house; one man must help him with the team and its burden. The speaker shrugged his shoulders, suggesting that it would be more suitable for Morin to remain, and said that for his part he would be much obliged and honoured if Courthope would accompany him. Here some plain and easy compliments were thrown in about Courthope's strength and the generous activity he had displayed, but not a word concerning his temporary disgrace; if this man knew of it he did not regard it as of any importance.

He was a matter-of-fact young man, not much interested in Courthope as a stranger, immensely interested in the fact of the theft and all that concerned it. At the slightest question he poured out excited information. Xavier had been a servant in the house. Mrs. King, who was religious and zealous, had found in him a convert. He had become a Protestant to please her. (At this point the narrator shrugged his shoulders again.) Then Xavier had asked higher wages; upon that there was a quarrel, and he had left.

The speaker's scanty English was of the simplest. He said, 'Xavier is a very bad man, much worse than our people usually are. This winter he went to the city and got his wits sharpened, and when he came back he made a scheme. He sent word to Mrs. King that his old father was dying and would like to be converted too. Mrs. King travels at once with a horse and the strongest servant-man. The old father takes a long time to die, so Xavier comes here yesterday to say she will stay all night; but when he did not come back, his wife she got frightened, and she told that the old man was not going to die, that she was afraid there was a scheme. Now we have Xavier very safe. He may get five years.'

Upon Courthope's inquiring after the health of the thief, he was told that beyond being severely frost-bitten he was little the worse. He was again drunk with the stimulants that the Morins had poured down his throat. The visitor ended the interview by saying that if Courthope would be good enough to drive the team through the drifts his own horse and sleigh would be sent after him the next day. Courthope inquired what was the wish of the young mistress of the house. The other replied that mademoiselle approved of his plan. It was evident that poor Madge was no longer the mistress; the clerk was an emissary of Mrs. King's, and as such he had taken the control. Still, as he was an amiable and capable person, Courthope fell in with his suggestion, inwardly vowing that soon of some domain, if not of this one, Madge should again be queen.

Courthope received a message to the effect that the young ladies wished to see him. There was something in the formal wording of this message, coming after his solitary meal, which made him know that they were ill at ease, that they had taken their mistake more deeply to heart than he would have wished. He had no sooner entered the room where Madge stood than he wished he were well out of it again, so far did his sympathy with her discomfort transcend his own pleasure at being in her presence.

Madge stood, as upon the first night, behind her sister's chair. Eliz looked frightened and excited, yet as half enjoying the novel excitement. Madge, pale-faced and distressed, showed only too plainly that she had need of all the courage she possessed to lift her eyes to his. Yet she was not going to shirk her duty; she was going to make her apology, and the apology of the household, just as the judge, her father, would have wished to have it made.

It was a little speech, conned beforehand, which she spoke—a quaint mixture of her own girlish wording and the formal phrases which she felt the occasion demanded. Courthope never knew precisely what she said. His feelings were up and in tumult, like the winds on a gusty day, and he was embarrassed for her embarrassment, while he smiled for the very joy of it all.

Madge confessed with grief that Eliz had mistaken Xavier for Courthope. She said the man from the village had shown them what folly it was to suppose that the gentleman could be Xavier's accomplice. She begged that same gentleman's pardon very humbly. At the end he heard some words faltered: she wished it was in their power 'to make any amends.'

Almost before she ceased speaking he took up the word, and his own voice sounded to him merry and bold in comparison with her soft distressful speech; but he could not help that, he must speak with such powers as nature gave him.

'There are two ways by which you can make amends, and first I would beg that none of our friends who were here last night should be told of it. I should not like to think that Emma and Elizabeth, and Evelina or Marianna Alcoforado should ever hear that I was taken for a thief.'

'You are laughing at us,' said Eliz sharply. 'We know that you will go away and make fun of us to all your friends.'

'If I do you will have one way of punishing me that would give me more pain than I could well endure, you can shut me out next time I come to ask for shelter.'

'Oh, but you can't come again,' said Eliz, with vibrating note of fierce discontent; 'our stepmother will be here.'

He looked at Madge.

'I was going to say that the other way in which you could make amends would be to give me leave to come back; and if you give me leave I will come, even if it be necessary, to that end, to get an introduction from all the clergy in Great Britain, or from the Royal Family.'

A ray of hope shot into Madge's dark eyes, the first glimmer of a smile began to show through her distress.

'It is an old adage that "where there is a will there is a way," and did I not walk on your most impossible snow-shoes and bring back your silver?'

Madge looked down, a pretty red began to mantle her pale face, and, as if the angels who manage the winds and clouds did not wish that the blush of so dear a maiden should betray too much, a ray of scarlet light from the sinking sun just then came winging through the dispersing storm-clouds and caused all the white snow-world to redden, and dyed the frost-flowers on the window-pane, and, entering where the pane was bare, lit all the room with soft vermilion light. So, in the wondrous blush of the white world, the girl's cheeks glowed and yet did not confess too much.

'You will allow me to send in your compliments and inquire after Mr. Woodhouse as I pass?' This was Courthope's farewell to Eliz, and she called joyfully in reply:—

'You need not send back his message, for we shall know that they are "all very indifferent."'

Into the scarlet shining of the western sun, an omen of fair weather and delight, Courthope set forth again from the square tin-roofed house, 'leaving,' as the saying is, 'his heart behind him.' The large farm-horses, restive from long confinement and stimulated by the frost, shook their bells with energy. The Morin women displayed such goodwill and even tenderness in their attentions to the comfort of the second prisoner, in whom they had found an old friend, that, tied in a blanket and lying full length on the straw of a box-sleigh, he looked content with himself and the world, albeit he had not as yet returned from the happy roving-places of the drunken brain. The talkative clerk was glad enough to give Courthope the reins of the masterful horses; he sat on one edge of the blue-painted box and Courthope on the other; thus they started, bravely plunging into the drifts between the poplars. The drifts were all tinged with pink; the poplars, intercepting the red light upon their slender upright boughs, cast, each of them, a clear shadow that seemed to lie in endless length athwart the glowing sward.

Courthope looked back at the house which had been so dim and phantom-like the night before; the red sun lit the icicles that hung from eaves and lintels, tinged the drifts, glowed upon the windows as if with light from within, and turned the steep tin roof into a gigantic rose; but all his glance was centred upon his lady-love, who stood, regardless of the cold, at the entrance of the drift-encircled porch and watched them as long as the sunlight lay upon the land. Was she looking at the plunging sleigh and at its driver, or at the chasms of light in the rent cloud beyond? His heart told him, as he drove on into the very midst of the sunset which had embraced the glistening land, that the maid, although not regardless of the outer glory, only rejoiced in its beauty because the vision of her heart was focused upon him. His heart, in telling him this, taught him no pride, for had he not learned in the same small space of time only to count himself rich in what she gave?

Slow was the progress of the great horses; they passed the grove of high elms and birches that, dressed in the snowflakes that had lodged in boughs and branches when the wind dropped, stood up clear against the gulfs of blue that now opened above and beyond. Then the house was hidden, and after that, by degrees, the light of the sunset passed away.



THE END.

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh



* * * * *



ADVERTISEMENTS

A MAN OF HONOUR.

H. C. IRWIN.

Crown 8vo, cloth, price 6s.

'We have read many and many a story of the Indian Mutiny, but Mr. Irwin's tale has novelty all its own.'—Glasgow Herald.

'Much good and careful work marks "A Man of Honour." H. C. Irwin is a writer of thought and culture, who uses his experience of foreign travel to admirable purpose in an interesting book.'—Black and White.

'All the characters are clearly presented, and you have no difficulty in knowing whether you like them or not; and that is a commendation in itself.'—National Observer.

'The novel is well written, vigorous, and interesting, and will well repay reading, especially to those who like breezy, outdoor, active existence.'—Scotsman.

'The interest is well sustained throughout, and once fairly embarked on the story, it requires no slight moral effort to lay down the book before finishing it.'—Literary World.

'The description of Indian politics and events during the Mutiny years is well done, and the account of the battle of Chillianwallah and the time immediately preceding it is excellent'—Standard.

'The literary qualities of the book are high, and the story itself has great merit and power, and can be heartily recommended as a book very well worth reading.'—Aberdeen Free Press.

'Essentially interesting and well written.'—British Review.

'A cleaner book, and one more free, in spite of its motif, from the trail of the sex-serpent, we scarcely remember to have read.... We need more such idealists ... to show us some of the good that is left in the world.'—Blackwood's Magazine.

'The picture furnished of India, of its people and their ways, and of the terrible experiences of the Mutiny period, is an admirable bit of strong literary work.'—Belfast News Letter.

'It is a platitude that, to be worth reading, a Mutiny story must be unquestionably good. The standard is high, but Mr. Irwin's book comes up to it, and fully satisfies the most exacting test'—The Pioneer, Allahabad.

A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON.

* * * * *

THE LIFEGUARDSMAN.

ADAPTED FROM SCHIMMEL'S 'DE KAPTEIN VAN DE LIJFGARDE.'

Crown 8vo, cloth, price 6s.

'It is a work of remarkable power and sustained interest. Right to the end the interest is maintained, and it is not over-estimating the work to say that few historical novels published within recent years are superior to this adaptation of the Dutchman's story.'—Scotsman.

'It is primarily a romance, a story of thrilling adventure, and moves forward with dramatic spirit from point to point.'—Illustrated London News.

'We have no other novel giving so intimate an account of how things fell out, and what obscure events and persons helped and hindered the overthrow of James II. But the chief interest of the book turns round the private person, the Lifeguardsman, not all a hero, mistaken, erring, unfortunate, yet a brave man, and of the kind that stirs our sympathies more than do immaculate heroes.'—Bookman.

'The work is characterised by great dash and vigour, and the principal characters in the story are strongly drawn, while the incidents are woven so skilfully together that the reader is carried with absorbing interest to the close.'—Western Times.

'English readers are under a considerable debt of gratitude to the anonymous translator who has given them a version in the vernacular of Schimmel's "De Kaptein van de Lijfgarde." "The Lifeguardsman" is a historical novel of very unusual power and fidelity. In detail and habit the scenes and people of that troublous period are "reconstituted" here with remarkable skill.'—Belfast Northern Whig.

'We do not often get the pleasure of handling such a lively and thrilling story, and can feel a due measure of gratitude for the anonymous "mere adapter" to whose discernment and enterprise we are indebted for having brought it to our notice.'—Literary World.

A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON.

* * * * *

A JAPANESE MARRIAGE

BY DOUGLAS SLADEN.

FIFTH THOUSAND.

Crown 8vo, boards, price 2s.; or in cloth, price 2s. 6d.

I. ZANGWILL, Pall Mall Magazine, says: 'Bryn, the heroine, is a charming creature, and some of the scenes with her half-crazed dying sister reveal strong imaginative power.'

MRS LYNN LINTON, in the Queen, says: 'Another Little Dear has for her main quality unselfishness, penetrated through and through by love. Such a character is Mary Avon in Douglas Sladen's striking novel, "A Japanese Marriage."'

SILAS K. HOCKING, in the Family Circle: 'The stupidity, not to say immorality, of the English law, which prevents marriage with the deceased wife's sister, has rarely been more strikingly illustrated than in Mr. Douglas Sladen's clever novel, "A Japanese Marriage." I could wish the whole bench of bishops would read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest this sparkling and entertaining story.'

HELEN MATHERS, in the Literary World, writes: 'Philip and Bryn—these two are so interesting and so true to life, the Japanese background against which they move in such noble but intensely human fashion is so exquisite, that the dullest of us must feel keen pleasure when we mingle intimately with the little people who have quite recently asserted their right to be reckoned with the greatest upon earth.'

G. A., in the Westminster Gazette, says: 'Mr. Douglas Sladen's first novel is a distinct success. To begin with, he has managed to capture a real live heroine, as charming and convincing a pretty girl as we have met with for years. Her flesh-and-blood reality is quite undeniable. She imposes herself upon one from the very first; she is winning and genuine, and as fresh as a daisy.'

GILBERT BURGESS, in the Illustrated London News: 'This time it is the woes of the deceased wife's sister which are brought before us in a narrative that is invariably picturesque, and, especially as to the latter half of the volume, is of considerable humour and pathos.'

NORMAN GALE, in the Literary World: 'Bryn, a girl beautiful exceedingly, only a little past twenty years of age—"sweet and twenty" indeed!—loving Philip purely, and purely loved by him in return, living alone with a young widower. The moment when Bryn proves her love is a most exciting one, and shows that Mr. Sladen is a master of vivid recital.'

JAS. STANLEY LITTLE, in the Academy: 'He writes with knowledge and freshness of a country and a people as full of interest as Japan and the Japanese.'

MARION HEPWORTH DIXON, in the Englishwoman: 'A story strikingly told and animated with the doings of English residents in Japan.'

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, in the Star: 'An exceedingly sprightly and readable novel.'

A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON.

* * * * *

MERE STORIES.

BY MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD.

Crown 8vo, paper covers, in the style of a French novel, price 2s.

'Mrs. W. K. Clifford's "Mere Stories" is not only notable for the excellence and uniform interest of the stories it contains, but also for the novelty of its shape—that of the yellow French novel pure and simple. The innovation deserves encouragement. You do not want, at this time of day, an introduction to Mrs. Clifford's many good qualities. She has become one of those few writers of English fiction no one of whose books one can afford to leave unread.'—Review of Reviews.

'They are neatly and incisively written, with an unfailing strain of humour running through them. Altogether, this is a volume to read, and we like its get-up—in paper covers on the French model, only neater and more substantial.'—Daily Mail.

'In type, make-up, and size, it is exactly the volume to buy at the book-stall and slip into such convenient receptacle as you may chance to carry with you in the railway carriage. It costs you no more than a few illustrated papers, and is more handy to bestow when you have read it. As for the contents, they are eight slight stories, in Mrs. Clifford's best manner. Yet, simple and unpretending as they are, they contain the real novelist's touch. There is nature, drama, character, in these short histories, and, above all, that command of simple pathos which Mrs. Clifford has more than most writers. We do not know many living writers who could have done either so well.'—St. James's Gazette.

* * * * *

UNIFORM WITH 'MERE STORIES,'

THE LAST TOUCHES.

BY MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD.

'Much skill is devoted to the narration of all these stories.'—Saturday Review.

'Many of them surpass even "Aunt Anne" and "Mrs. Keith's Crime" in terseness and brilliant originality.'—Morning Post.

'One reads them from beginning to end enchanted.'—National Review.

'There is some very pretty and delicate work in them, which the literary world would be the poorer for losing.'—Daily Telegraph.

'Indeed, in every story there are touches of wonderful cleverness, signs of clear insight, of fresh and just observation.'—Speaker.

'Two or three of the stories reach an uncommon level of thought and expression.'—Standard.

'But they are all good, all original, all distinctive, and we advise readers to take care not to miss them.'—Guardian.

A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON.

* * * * *

THE DREAM-CHARLOTTE.

BY M. BETHAM-EDWARDS.

Crown 8vo, cloth, price 6s.

'Miss Betham-Edwards is on her own special ground in her new novel, which she calls "The Dream-Charlotte." Provincial France of the Revolution time she knows with a detailed knowledge few other English writers, if any, possess. It is a first-rate novel for youth, because of its irresistible, contagious youthfulness; and its wholesome enthusiasms.'—The Sketch.

'An historical novel of a thoroughly legitimate kind, for the picture and the character are brought before us with sufficient vividness, yet mainly through the words and thoughts of the fictitious heroine, and through her close sympathy with her friend.'—Athenaeum.

'A tale of rare imaginative beauty. Needless to say, the literary charm of the book is great, and the atmosphere of the story true to its historical setting.'—Dundee Advertiser.

'No living writer is so thoroughly at home in describing French life as Miss Edwards is, or better able to give a life-like picture of the social condition of France at the period of Charlotte Corday's daring deed.'—Hastings Observer.

* * * * *

THE CURB OF HONOUR.

BY M. BETHAM-EDWARDS.

Crown 8vo, cloth, price 3s. 6d.

'The descriptions of scenery in the Pyrenees are very attractive, and the author has been most skilful in her delineations of the characters of the leading actors.'—Literary World.

'The concluding chapter is a piece of masterly tragi-comedy. When I say that this scene is suggestive of Balzac, I mean a high compliment.'—Academy.

'Miss Betham-Edwards is a popular favourite of longstanding. She loves to take her readers into some quiet corner of France, and her gift of picturesque description is such that her tales seldom fail to yield interest and recreation.'—Times.

A. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON.

* * * * *

AN ISLE IN THE WATER.

BY KATHARINE TYNAN (MRS. HINKSON).

AUTHOR OF 'OH, WHAT A PLAGUE IS LOVE!'

Crown 8vo, cloth, price 3s. 6d.

'Here, among the hosts of ladies who write with care and inelegance, comes a woman artist. "An Isle in the Water" is a collection of fifteen well-conceived and excellently-finished Irish stories, for which it would be hard to find anything to say but praise. They are all extremely short for the force of their effect, and every touch tells; they are gracefully phrased without an appearance of artifice, subtly expressed without a suspicion of affectation.'—Saturday Review.

'I venture to assert that in any one of its fifteen tales there is a finer rendering of the very essence of Irish life and character than in any half-dozen of the books which are responsible for the conception of the conventional Pat or Biddy which has had such a long and prosperous vogue on this side of the Channel. The book owes its momentum to its fascinating and powerful rendering of the pathos and the tragedy of the simple lives with which the writer deals. But this fascination and power are far too obvious to stand in need of celebration.'—New Age.

'Any faults the book may have are redeemed by a page torn from the authoress's own heart. "Changing the Nurseries" is a chapter no woman, mother, or maid could read without a lump in her throat. The strong maternal element, which is the chief virtue of the Irish, is rife in it, and the thousand and one little trivialities that our life is made up of are admirably commented upon.'—St. James's Budget.

* * * * *

OH, WHAT A PLAGUE IS LOVE!

BY KATHARINE TYNAN (MRS. HINKSON).

Crown 8vo, cloth, price 3s. 6d.

'This sparkling story has such freshness as suggests a draught new-drawn from Paphian wells. It is, in fact, a vivacious little comedy, agreeably diversified with threatenings of tragedy, and radiant with humour from first to last.'—Daily Chronicle.

'Mrs. Hinkson is lively and pleasant in her domestic story—purely English this time—which relates the misgivings and manoeuvrings of a family of young grown-up people who are ever on the watch for the amorous proclivities of a light-hearted father.'—National Observer.

'Leigh Hunt would have delighted in Mrs. Hinkson. He knew how to value high spirit in a writer, and the gaiety of this cheerful story would have charmed him immensely.'—Saturday Review.

A. & C. Black, Soho Square, London.

THE END