"I am only tired," she said, "and of course it has been trying work for the last twenty-four hours."

"Well, you must go home and get some rest. If I had been going soon I should have liked you to have stopped with me till I went, but if, as you say, the doctor thinks I may last for a time it does not matter, and I would rather know that you were getting a rest than that you were wearing yourself out here. What o'clock is it now?"

"It is just two. Please don't worry about me. If I were to break down there are plenty to take my place, but I am not going to. Anyhow I shall wait to hear what Dr. Swinburne says when he next comes round, and then if the report is favorable I shall go home for the night and be here again the first thing in the morning. Are you in much pain, Cuthbert?"

"No, I am in no pain at all. I just feel numbed and a little drowsy, and my feet are cold."

Mary went away, filled a tin bottle with hot water and placed it at his feet, and then covered them over with another rug.

"Now you must not talk any more, Cuthbert. Your hands are cold, let me put the rug over them. There, you look more comfortable. Now shut your eyes and try to get to sleep until the doctor comes round."

Cuthbert closed his eyes at once. Mary went about the ward doing her work for the next two hours, returning at frequent intervals to the bedside, and seeing with satisfaction that he was sleeping quietly. At four o'clock the surgeon came in. She was occupied in serving out some soup to the patients and did not go round with him. She had finished her work when he returned to where she was standing near the entrance.

"I did not wake him," he said, in answer to her look, "but his pulse is stronger, and the action of his heart regular. There is certainly a good chance for him. My hopes that there is no vital injury are strengthened. He will, I hope, sleep for hours, perhaps till morning. By that time I may be able to give a more decided opinion. Now, I think you had better be off at once. I can see you have recovered your nerve, but there will be a dozen fresh nurses here in a few minutes, and I shall clear you all out. Do you feel strong enough to walk home?"

"Oh, yes, Doctor, I may come in the first thing in the morning, mayn't I?"

"Yes, if you feel equal to it. It is possible," he thought to himself, as he went to the next marquee, "that the poor fellow only regards her as a cousin, but I am greatly mistaken if she has not very much warmer feelings towards him, though she did so stoutly declare that they were but old friends."

Mary, putting on her bonnet and cloak, went out. As she did so, a man, in the uniform of the Franc-tireurs, and a young woman approached.

"Pardon, mademoiselle," he said, lifting his cap as he came up to her, "is it possible for friends to visit the wounded?"

Mary glanced at the speaker's companion and at once recognized her. It was the face of which she had seen so many drawings in Cuthbert's sketch-book.

"It is not possible to-day," she said, "except in extreme cases. There have been many applicants, but they have all been refused."

"I fear this is an extreme case," Rene, for it was he, urged. "It is a comrade of mine, and the surgeon told me after examining him that he was hit very seriously. This lady is his fiancee."

"I know who you mean," Mary said, after a moment's silence, "but she could not see him even if she were his wife. He is asleep now and everything depends upon his sleep being unbroken."

"If I could only see him I would not wake him," the woman wailed, while Rene asked—

"Can you tell us if there are any hopes for him?"

"The surgeon says there are some hopes," Mary said, coldly, "but that everything depends upon his being kept perfectly quiet. However, I have no power in the matter. I am off duty now, and you had better apply to Mrs. Stanmore. She is in charge of the ward. It is the farthest of the three marquees."

"What is that woman to him?" Minette exclaimed, passionately, as Mary walked on. "She loves him or she hates him. I saw her look at me as you spoke first, and her face changed. She knew me though I did not know her."

"Oh, that is all fancy, Minette. How can she know Arnold? She is tired and worn out. Parbleu, they must have had terrible work there since the sortie began. It is getting dark, but it is easy to see how pale and worn out she looked. For my part I would rather go through that fight in the garden again than work for twenty-four hours in a hospital."

"She knows him," the girl said, positively.

"Well, let us go on. This woman may give you leave to go in."

But Mrs. Stanmore was also firm in her refusal.

"We cannot allow even the nearest relatives to enter," she said, "we are all taken up by duty and cannot have strangers in the wards; but if the patient is likely to die and wishes to see a friend or relative in the city we send for him or her. If you will give me your name and address I will see that you are sent for should the patient ask for you. The rule I can assure you is absolute, and I have no power whatever to grant permission to anyone except in the case I have named."

Minette went away raving, and it needed indeed all Rene's remonstrances and entreaties to induce her to leave.

"It is clear," he said, "that he cannot be near death; were he so he would assuredly ask for you. So after all it is good news that you have received, and as I told you all along, though the surgeon said that it was a serious wound, he did not say that it was likely to be fatal, as he did in the case of Cuthbert Hartington. These army surgeons do not mince matters, and there was no reason why he should not have said at once to me that the American was likely to die if he thought it would be so."

"I will go to see him to-morrow," she said, with an angry stamp of her foot. "If the women try to prevent me I will tear their faces. If the men interfere to stop me I will scream so loud that they will be forced to let me in. It is abominable to keep a woman from the bedside of the man she loves."

"It is of no use you talking in that wild way, Minette," Rene said, sternly; "how do you suppose a hospital is to be managed if every sick man is to have women sitting at his bed. It is childish of you to talk so, and most ungrateful. These foreigners are supporting this ambulance at their own expense. The ladies are working like slaves to succor our wounded and you go on like a passionate child because, busy as they are, they are obliged to adhere to their regulations. At any rate I will come here with you no more. I am not going to see these kind people insulted."



CHAPTER XV.

Mary Brander made her way wearily home.

"You have had another terrible time, I can see it in your face," Madame Michaud said, as she entered. "They say there have been four thousand wounded and fifteen hundred killed. I cannot understand how you support such scenes."

"It has been a hard time," Mary said; "I will go up to my room at once, madame. I am worn out."

"Do so, my dear. I will send you in a basin of broth."

Without even taking her bonnet off Mary dropped into a chair when she entered her room and sat there till Margot brought in the broth.

"I don't think I can take it, thank you, Margot."

"But you must take it, mademoiselle," the servant said, sturdily; "but wait a moment, let me take off your bonnet and brush your hair. There is nothing like having your hair brushed when you are tired."

Passively Mary submitted to the woman's ministrations, and presently felt soothed, as Margot with, by no means ungentle hands, brushed steadily the long hair she had let down.

"You feel better, mademoiselle?" the woman asked, presently. "That is right, now take a little of this broth. Please try, and then I will take off your cloak and frock and you shall lie down, and I will cover you up."

Mary made an effort to drink the broth, then the servant partly undressed her and covered her up warmly with blankets, drew the curtains across the window and left her with the words. "Sleep well, mademoiselle."

But for a time Mary felt utterly unable to sleep. She was too worn out for that relief. It had been a terrible time for her. For twenty-four hours she had been engaged unceasingly in work of the most trying description. The scent of blood still seemed to hang about her, and she vaguely wondered whether she should ever get rid of it. Then there had been her own special anxiety and suspense, and the agony of seeing Cuthbert brought in apparently wounded to death. The last blow had been dealt by this woman. She said she was his fiancee, but although she had it from her lips, Mary could not believe it. She might be his mistress but surely not the other. Surely he could never make that wild passionate woman his wife. Then she felt she was unjust. This poor creature would naturally be in a passion of grief and agony, at finding that she could not go to the bedside of the man she loved. She should not judge her from that. She remembered how different was her expression in some of the sketches she had seen in Cuthbert's book.

"At any rate," she said to herself with a hard sob, "I have no right to complain. He told me he loved me and I was almost indignant at the idea, and told him he was not worthy of my love. There was an end of it. He was free to do as he liked, and of course put it out of his mind altogether as I did out of mine. How could I tell that the time would come when I should find out what a terrible mistake I had made, how could I dream of such a thing! How could I guess that he would come into my life again and that he would have the power to spoil it! What a fool, I have been. What a conceited, silly fool," and so Mary Brander's thoughts ran on till they become more and more vague, and sleep at last arrested them altogether. She was awakened by Madame Michaud coming into the room with a cup of coffee.

"Well, my child, have you slept well?"

"Have I slept, madame? It cannot have been for more than a minute or two." She looked round in surprise. "Why, it is broad daylight, what time is it?"

"It is eleven o'clock, my dear. I thought it was time to arouse you, and in truth I was getting anxious that you had not made your appearance. It is seventeen hours since you lay down."

"Good gracious!" Mary exclaimed. "And I was due at the ambulance at eight. I must have been asleep hours and hours, madame. I lay awake for a time—two hours, perhaps, and the last thing I thought was that I should never get to sleep, and then I have slept all this dreadful time."

"Not a dreadful time at all," Madame Michaud said with a smile. "You have not slept a minute too long. I feared for you when you came in yesterday. I said to my husband in the evening, 'That angel is killing herself. She could scarce speak when she came in, and I cry when I think of her face.' You may thank the good God that you have slept so long and so soundly. I can tell you that you look a different being this morning."

"I feel different," Mary said, as she sprang up, "will you ask Margot to bring me my can of water at once."

"Yes, but drink your coffee and eat your bread first. Margot said you only took a few spoonsful of broth last night."

"I must have my bath first and then I will promise you I will drink the coffee and eat the last crumb of bread. You will see I shall be quite blooming by the time I come down."

Madame Michaud was obliged to admit that Mary looked more herself than she had done for days past when, half an hour later, she came downstairs ready to start.

"I shall be scolded dreadfully, madame, when I get to the ambulance four hours after my time."

"You look so much fitter for work, my dear, that if the doctor has eyes in his head, he will be well content that you have taken it out in sleep."

Mary walked with a brisk step down to the hospital.

"I will think no more of it," she said resolutely to herself. "I have chosen to be a nurse and I will go through with it. I think when I get home after this is over I will become a nursing sister—at any rate I may do some good at that; there is plenty of work in the world, even if it is not in the way I thought of doing it."

But she hesitated when she reached the tents, afraid to go in. One of the other nurses came out presently.

"Which tent is Dr. Swinburne in?" she asked.

"In this," she said, "I was just speaking to him."

"Would you mind going in again and asking him to come out. I am dreadfully late this morning and I should like to see him before I go in."

A minute later the surgeon came out.

"What is it, Miss Brander?" he said, kindly. "I missed you this morning, and hoped you were taking a good sleep."

"That was just it, Doctor, and I do feel so ashamed of myself. They thought I looked tired, when I came in, and were silly enough not to wake me this morning."

"Not silly at all, my dear. They did the very best thing for you, for you had gone through a terrible strain here. I am glad, indeed, it was sleep and not illness that kept you away. You are looking quite a different woman this morning."

"I am so glad that you are not angry. Please tell me how the wounded are getting on?"

"There were ten deaths in the night," he said, "but as a whole they are going on well. You will be glad to hear that the young Englishman who was shot through the body has passed a quiet night, and I have now an almost assured hope that he will recover. Had there been any vital injury its effects would be visible by now. Now run in and take up your work."

With a grateful look Mary entered the tent and was soon engaged at her work. She was some little time before she made her way to the farther end of the tent. Then she went quietly up to Cuthbert's bedside.

"I have just had good news of you, Cuthbert. The doctor says he has the strongest hopes now of your recovery."

"Yes, he has been telling me that I am doing well," he said. "Have you only just come? I have been wondering what had had become of you. You looked so pale, yesterday, that I was afraid you might be ill."

"I have been sleeping like a top," she said, "for I should be ashamed to say how many hours. Of course I ought to have been here at eight, but they did not wake me, and I feel all the better for it."

"I remember not so long ago," he said, "that a certain young lady declared that it was ridiculous for persons to interfere in business which did not concern them. Now here you are knocking yourself up and going through horrible work for people who are nothing to you. That is a little inconsistent."

"I do not argue with people who cannot speak above a whisper," she said. "Another time I shall be able to prove to you that there is nothing inconsistent whatever in it. Well, thank God that you are better, Cuthbert. I should not have gone away yesterday afternoon if Dr. Swinburne had not assured me that there was nothing that I could do for you, and that he really thought you might recover. You believe me, don't you?"

He nodded.

"I do believe you, Mary. I did not think myself that I had a shadow of a chance, but this morning I began to fancy that the doctor may be right, and that I may possibly live to be a shining light among artists."

"Did you sleep at all?" she asked.

"Yes, I have been dozing on and off ever since you went away. I have drunk a good deal of brandy and water and I really think I could take some broth. I told the doctor so this morning, but he said I had better wait another twelve hours, and then I might have two or three spoonsful of arrowroot, but the less the better. I suppose there is no list of killed and wounded published yet. I should like to know who had gone. They were good fellows, every one of them."

"I don't know, Cuthbert, but I should hardly think so. I think Madame Michaud would have told me had there been a list published this morning."

Mary now turned to the next bed, but the patient was lying with his eyes closed.

"I expect he has gone off to sleep," Cuthbert said, "he has been in a lot of pain all night and half an hour ago they took off his bandages and put on fresh ones, and I fancy they must have hurt him amazingly. I could tell that by his quick breathing, for he did not utter a moan. I am glad that he has gone off to sleep. I heard the doctor tell him that he thought he might get the use of his arm again, though it would probably be stiff for some time."

"You must not talk, indeed you mustn't," she said, facing round again. "I am sure the doctor must have told you to keep perfectly quiet. If you are quiet and good, I will come to you very often, but if not I shall hand you over to the charge of another nurse. I blame myself for asking you any questions. Indeed I am quite in earnest; you are not fit to talk; the slightest movement might possibly set your wound off bleeding; besides you are not strong enough; it is an effort to you, and the great thing is for you to be perfectly quiet and tranquil. Now shut your eyes and try to doze off again."

She spoke in a tone of nursely authority, and with a faint smile he obeyed her orders. She stood for a minute looking at him, and as she did so her eyes filled with tears at the change that a few days had made, and yet her experience taught her that it would be far greater before long. As yet weakness and fever, and pain, had scarcely begun their work of hollowing the cheeks and reducing him to a shadow of himself. There was already scarcely a tinge of color in his face, while there was a drawn look round the mouth and a bluish tinge on the lips. The eyes seemed deeper in the head and the expression of the face greatly changed—indeed, it was rather the lack of any expression that characterized it. It might have been a waxen mask.

From time to time she went back to him, and although the soft clinging material of her dress and her list slippers rendered her movements noiseless, he always seemed conscious of her presence, and opened his eyes with a little welcoming smile, as she stood beside him, sipped a few drops from the glass she held to his lips, and then closed his eyes again without a word. After a few hours the period of pain and fever set in, but the doctor found no reason for anxiety.

"You must expect it, my dear," he said to Mary one day when the fever was at its height. "A man cannot get through such a wound as his without a sharp struggle. Nature cannot be outraged with impunity. It is certain now that there was no vital injury, but pain and fever almost necessarily accompany the efforts of nature to repair damages. I see no reason for uneasiness at present. I should say that he has an excellent constitution, and has never played the fool with it. In a few days in all probability the fever will abate, and as soon as it does so, he will be on the highway to convalescence."

During that ten days Mary seldom left the hospital, only snatching a few hours sleep occasionally in a tent which had now been erected for the use of the nurses on duty. At the end of that time the struggle was over and the victory won, and Cuthbert lay terribly weak and a mere shadow of himself, but free from fever and with perfect consciousness in his eyes.

"How long have I been here?" he asked Mary.

"I think it is a fortnight to-day since you came in, Cuthbert," she answered, quietly. "Thank God you are quite out of danger now, and the doctor says all we have got to do is to build you up."

"You have had a hard time of it, child," he said, "though I knew nothing else, I seemed to be conscious that you were always near me."

"I have had plenty of sleep, Cuthbert, and am perfectly well," she said, cheerfully.

"Then your look belies you," he said, "but I know that it is no use arguing. What has been happening outside?"

"Nothing. The troops were withdrawn the day after the fight when you were wounded, and nothing has been done since."

"How is Dampierre getting on?" he asked.

"He is getting on well, I believe," she replied. "He was delirious and so restless, and talked so loud that the doctor had him carried into another ward so that you should not be disturbed by it. I have not seen him since, but I hear he is going on very well. Your friend Rene has been here twice—indeed he has been every day to inquire—but he was only let in twice. He seems a very kind-hearted fellow and was very cut up about you. I am sure he is very fond of you. He says that Monsieur Goude and the other students have all been most anxious about you, and that he comes as a sort of deputation from them all."

Rene had, indeed, quite won Mary's heat by the enthusiastic way in which he had spoken of Cuthbert, and had quite looked forward to the little chat she had with him every morning when he came to the ambulance for news.

"He is a grand fellow, mademoiselle," he would say, with tears in his eyes, "we all love him. He has such talents and such a great heart. It is not till now that we quite know him. When a man is dying men speak of things they would not tell otherwise. There are four or five that he has helped, and who but for him must have given up their studies. The rest of us had no idea of it. But when they knew how bad he was, first one broke down and then another, and each told how generously he had come to their aid and how delicately he had insisted upon helping them, making them promise to say no word of it to others. Ma foi, we all cried together. We have lost six of our number besides the five here. The rest, except Dampierre, are our countrymen, and yet it is of your Englishman that we think and talk most."

All this was very pleasant to Mary. Cuthbert was now of course nothing to her, but it soothed her to hear his praises. He had been wicked in one respect, but in all others he seemed to have been what she had thought of him when he was a child, save that he developed a talent and the power of steady work, for which she had never given him credit, for on this head Rene was as emphatic as on other points.

"He will be a great artist, mademoiselle, if he lives. You do not know how much the master thought of him and so did we all. He worked harder than any of us, much harder; but it was not that only. He has talent, great talent, while the rest of us are but daubers. You will see his pictures hung on the line and that before long. We are all burning to see those he was painting for the Salon this year. There are only three of us painting for that, the master would not let any others think of it. Pierre Leroux is the third and he would have had little chance of being hung had not the Englishman gone into his room one day, and taking his brush from his hand transformed his picture altogether—transformed it, mademoiselle—and even Goude says now that it is good and will win a place. But Pierre declares that he has not the heart to finish it. If Cuthbert dies he will put it by for another year."

Rene was admitted to see Cuthbert the day after the fever had left him and sat for an hour by his bedside telling, after his first burst of emotion on seeing the change that had taken place in him, about the fate of his comrades in the studio. Mary did not go near them. There were questions Cuthbert would want to ask. Messages that he would want to send that she ought not to hear. She had wondered that this woman, who had for a time come every day and had as regularly made a scene at the entrance to the ambulance, had, since Cuthbert was at his worst, ceased coming.

She had never asked about her, and was ignorant that for the last four days she had been allowed to sit for a time by the side of a patient in another ward. She thought most likely that she was ill and had broken down under the stress of her grief and anxiety. She had even in thought pitied her. It was she and not herself that ought to be watching Cuthbert's bedside. She might not be good, but she was a woman and she loved, and it must be terrible for her to know how ill he was and never to be allowed even to see him for a moment. It was evident that she had been taken ill, and when on Rene's leaving she went to her patient she expected to find him downcast and anxious. Sad he certainly was, but he did not seem to her restless or excited as she had expected.

"I have been hearing of the others," he said. "Six of them are gone, all merry lads, taking life easily, as students do, but with plenty of good in them, that would have come to the surface later on. It will make a sad gap in our ranks when the rest of us come together again. The wounded are all going on well, I hear, that of course is a great comfort. I hear the other two companies suffered much more than we did. The walls we fought behind saved us a good deal you see. Rene says the troops all went out again three days ago, and that there was a talk of a great fight, but there has only been some skirmishing and they have begun to come back into the town again. Our corps did not go out. They think they have done a fair share of the work, and I think so too. Rene says the old major, who is now in command, is so furious at the cowardice shown last time by the National Guards and some of the troops that he declares he will not take out his brave lads to throw away their lives when the Parisians will not venture within musket-shot of the enemy.

"I think he is quite right. I hope there will be no more sorties, for I am sure it would be useless. If you had seen, as I did, seven or eight thousand men running like a flock of frightened sheep, you would agree with me that it would be hopeless to think of breaking through the Germans with such troops as this. One victory would make all the difference in the world to their morale, but they will never win that one victory, and it will take years before the French soldier regains his old confidence in himself. Have you taken to rats yet, Mary?" he asked, with a flash of his old manner.

"No, sir, and do not mean to. We are still going on very fairly. The meat rations are very small, but we boil them down into broth, and as we have plenty of bread to sop into it we do very well; our store of eggs have held on until now. We have been having them beaten up in our morning coffee instead of milk, but they are just gone, and Madame Michaud says that we must now begin upon the preserved meat. We are a long way from rats yet, though I believe they are really hunted and eaten in great numbers in the poorer quarters."

"And there is no talk of surrender?"

"No talk at all; they say we can hold on for another month yet."

"What is the news from the provinces?"

"Everywhere bad. Bourbaki has been obliged to take refuge in Switzerland and his force has been disarmed there. Chanzy has been beaten badly near New Orleans, and the Prussians have probably by this time entered Tours. Faidherbe has gained some successes in the north, but as the Germans are pushing forward there, as well as everywhere else, that does not make very much difference to us."

"Then what on earth's the use of holding out any longer," he said. "It is sheer stupidity. I suppose the Parisians think that, as they can't fight, they will at least show that they can starve. What is the weather like? I felt very cold last night though I had plenty of blankets on."

"It is terribly cold," she said. "The snow is deep on the ground—it is one of the coldest winters that has been for years."

"What is the day of the month?"

"The 26th."

"Then yesterday was Christmas Day."

"Yes," she said, "not a merry Christmas this year to any of us—no roast beef, no plum-pudding, no mince-pies—and yet, Cuthbert, I had every reason to be thankful, for what a much more unhappy Christmas it might have been to me."

He nodded.

"I know what you mean. Yes, you would have missed me, child, cut off as we are from the world here. I am, as it were, the sole representative of your family. Of course, you have not heard from them."

She shook her head.

"I don't suppose they trouble much about me," she said, a little bitterly, "I am a sort of disappointment, you know. Of course I have been away now for nearly two years, except for the fortnight I was over there, and even before that I scarcely seemed to belong to them. I did not care for the things that they thought a great deal of, and they had no interest in the things I cared for. Somehow I don't think I have got on well with them ever since I went up to Girton. I see now it was entirely my own fault. It does not do for a girl to have tastes differing from those of her family."

"I felt that, Mary. I felt it very much. I have told myself ever since the day of dear old father's death that I have been a brute, and I wish with all my heart I had put aside my own whims and gone in for a country life. It is all very well to say I did not like it, but I ought to have made myself like it; or if I could not do that, I ought to have made a pretence of liking it, and to have stuck to him as long as I lived. I hadn't even the excuse of having any high purpose before me."

"We all make mistakes in our lives, Cuthbert," the girl said, quietly, "and it is of no use bemoaning them—at any rate you have done your best to retrieve yours, and I mean to do my best to retrieve mine. I have quite made up my mind that when this is over I shall go to London and be regularly trained as a hospital nurse, and then join a nursing sisterhood."

"What! and give up woman in general?" Cuthbert said, with a faint laugh. "Will you abandon your down-trodden sisters? Impossible, Mary."

"It is quite possible," she said, in a business-like manner.

"Become a back-slider! Mary, you absolutely shock me. At present you have got nursing on the brain. I should have thought that this ambulance work would have been enough for a life-time. At any rate I should advise you to think it over very seriously before you commit yourself too deeply to this new fad. Nursing is one of the greatest gifts of women, but after all woman wasn't made only to nurse, any more than she was to devote her life to championing her sex."

Mary did not reply but silently moved off with an air of deeply-offended dignity.

"What an enthusiastic little woman she is," Cuthbert laughed quietly to himself; "anyhow she is a splendid nurse, and I would infinitely rather see her so, than as a female spouter on platforms. I fancied the siege might have had some effect on her. She has seen something of the realities of life and was likely to give up theorizing. She looks older and more womanly, softer a good deal than she was. I think I can improve that picture now. I had never seen her look soft before, and had to trust to my imagination. I am sure I can improve it now."

Another fortnight and Cuthbert was out of bed and able to walk about in the ward and to render little services to other patients.

"Do you know, Mary," he said, one day, when she happened to be idle and was standing talking to him as he sat on the edge of his bed, "a curious thing happened to me the very day before we went out on that sortie. I saw that fellow, Cumming, the rascal that ruined the bank, and then bolted, you know. For a moment I did not recall his face, but it struck me directly afterwards. I saw him go into a house. He has grown a beard, and he is evidently living as a quiet and respected British resident. It was a capital idea of his, for he is as safe here as he would be if he were up in a balloon. I intended to look him up when I got back again into Paris, but you see circumstances prevented my doing so."

"Of course you will get him arrested as soon as the siege is over, Cuthbert. I am very glad that he is found."

"Well, I don't know that I had quite made up my mind about that. I don't suppose that he made off with any great sum. You see the companies he bolstered up with the bank's money, all smashed at the same time. I don't suppose that he intended to rob the bank at the time he helped them. Probably he had sunk all his savings in them, and thought they would pull round with the aid of additional capital. As far as I could make out, from the report of the men who went into the matter, he did not seem to have drawn any money at all on his own account, until the very day he bolted, when he took the eight or ten thousand pounds there was in the safe. No. I don't think I meant to hand him over or indeed to say anything about it. I thought I would give him a good fright, which he richly deserves, and then ask him a few questions. I have never quite understood how it was that dear old dad came to buy those shares. I did inquire so far as to find out it was Cumming himself who transferred them to him, and I should really like to hear what was said at the time. If the man can prove to me that when he sold them he did not know that the bank was going to break, I should have no ill-will against him, but if I were sure he persuaded him to buy, knowing that ruin would follow, I would hunt him down and spare no pains to get him punished."

"Why should he have persuaded your father to buy those shares?"

"That's just what I cannot make out. He could have had no interest in involving him in the smash. Besides they were not on intimate terms in any way. I cannot imagine that my father would have gone to him for advice in reference to business investments. It was, of course, to your father he would have turned in such matters."

"How long had he been a shareholder?"

"He bought the shares only two months before his death, which makes the matter all the more singular."

"What did father say, Cuthbert?" the girl said, after a short pause. "I suppose you spoke to him about it."

"He said that my father had heard some rumors to the effect that the bank was not in a good state, and having no belief whatever in them, he bought the shares, thinking that his doing so would have a good effect upon its credit, in which as a sort of county institution, he felt an interest."

"But did not father, who was solicitor to the bank, and must have known something of its affairs, warn him of the danger that he was running?"

"That is what I asked him myself, but he said that he only attended to its legal business, and outside that knew nothing of its affairs."

"It seems a curious affair altogether," Mary said, gravely, "But it is time for me to be at work again."



CHAPTER XVI.

While in the ambulance, Mary Brander resolutely put her conversation with Cuthbert aside, but as soon as she started for her walk home, it became uppermost in her thoughts. It was certainly a curious affair. From time to time friends at home with whom she corresponded, sent her local newspapers, and this had especially been the case during the first few months of her stay in Germany, as they naturally supposed she would be greatly interested in the calamity of the bank failure.

She had, at the time it was issued, read the full report of the committee of investigation upon its affairs, and, although she had passed lightly over the accounts, she had noticed that the proceeds of the sale of the Fairclose estates were put down as subject to a deduction of fifteen thousand pounds for a previous mortgage to Jeremiah Brander, Esq. The matter had made no impression upon her mind at this time, but it now came back to her remembrance.

Of course it was perfectly natural that if Mr. Hartington wished to borrow money it was to her father, as his solicitor and friend, that he would have gone. There could be nothing unusual in that, but what Cuthbert had told her about Mr. Hartington buying the shares but two months before his death was certainly singular. Surely her father could have prevented his taking so disastrous a step. Few men are regarded by members of their family in exactly the same light as they are considered by the public, and Jeremiah Brander was certainly no exception. While the suavest of men in the eyes of his fellow-townsmen, his family were well aware that he possessed a temper. When the girls were young his conversation was always guarded in their hearing, but as they grew up he no longer felt the same necessity for prudence of speech, and frequently indulged in criticisms of the colleagues, for whom he professed the most unbounded respect and admiration in public.

Mary had often felt something like remorse at the thought that the first time she read Martin Chuzzlewit, many touches in the delineation of Mr. Pecksniff's character had reminded her of her father. She believed him to be a just and upright man, but she could not help admitting to herself that he was not by a long way the man the public believed him to be. It was a subject on which she rarely permitted herself to think. They had never got on very well together, and she acknowledged to herself that this was as much her fault as his. It was not so much the fact that she had a strong will and was bent on going her own way, regardless of the opinion of others, that had been the cause of the gulf which had grown up between them, as the dissimilarity of their character, the absolute difference between the view which she held of things in general, to that which the rest of her family entertained regarding them, and the outspoken frankness with which she was in the habit of expressing her contempt for things they praised highly.

Thinking over this matter of Mr. Hartington's purchase of the bank shares, she found herself wondering what motive her father could have had in permitting him to buy them, for knowing how the Squire relied upon his opinion in all business matters, she could not doubt that the latter could have prevented this disastrous transaction. That he must have had some motive she felt sure, for her experience of him was amply sufficient for her to be well aware that he never acted without a motive of some sort. So far as she could see, no motive was apparent, but this in no way altered her opinion.

"Cuthbert thinks it a curious affair, and no wonder," she said to herself. "I don't suppose he has a suspicion that anything has been wrong, and I don't suppose there has; but there may have been what they call sharp practice. I don't think Cuthbert likes my father, but he is the very last man to suspect anyone. It was horrid, before, being at Fairclose—it will be ten times as bad now. The whole thing is disgusting. It is wicked of me to think that my father could possibly do anything that wasn't quite honorable and right—especially when there is not the slightest reason for suspecting him. It is only, I suppose, because I know he isn't exactly what other people think him to be, that makes me uneasy about it. I know well enough that I should never have gone away from home as I did, if it had not been that I hated so to hear him running down people with whom he seemed to be so friendly, and making fun of all the things in which he seemed so interested. It used to make me quite hateful, and he was just as glad, when I said I should like to go to Girton, to get rid of me as I was to go.

"It is all very well to say, honor your father and mother, but if you can't honor them what are you to do? I have no doubt I am worrying myself for nothing now, but I can't help it. It is dreadful to feel like that towards one's father, but I felt quite a chill run through me when Cuthbert said he should go and see that man Cumming and try to get to the bottom of things. One thing is certain, I will never live at Fairclose—never. If he leaves it between us, Julia and Clara may live there if they like, and let me have so much a year and go my own way. But I will never put foot in it after father and mother are gone. It is all very miserable, and I do think I am getting to be a most hateful girl. Here am I suspecting my own father of having done something wrong, although of what I have not the least idea, and that without a shadow of reason, then I am almost hating a woman because a man I refused loves her. I have become discouraged and have thrown up all the plans I had laid down for myself, because it does not seem as easy as I thought it would be. No, that is not quite true. It is much more because Cuthbert has laughed me out of them. Anyhow I should be a nice woman to teach other women what they should do, when I am as weak as the weakest of them. I don't think there ever was a more objectionable sort of girl in the world than I have become."

By the time that she had arrived at this conclusion she had nearly reached home. A sudden feeling that she could not in her present mood submit to be petted and fussed over by Madame Michaud struck her, and turning abruptly she walked with brisk steps to the Arc de Triomphe and then down the Champs Elysees and along the Rue Rivoli, and then round the Boulevards, returning home fagged out, but the better for her exertion. One thing she determined during her walk, she would give up her work at the ambulance.

"There are plenty of nurses," she said, "and one more or less will make no difference. I am miserably weak, but at any rate I have sense enough to know that it will be better for me not to be going there every day, now that he is out of danger. He belongs to someone else, and I would rather die than that he should ever dream what a fool I am; and now I know it myself it will be harder and harder as he gets better to be talking to him indifferently." Accordingly the next morning, when she went down, she told Dr. Swinburne that she felt that she must, at any rate for a time, give up nursing.

"You are quite right, Miss Brander," he said, kindly, "you have taxed your strength too much already, and are looking a mere shadow of what you were two months ago. You are quite right to take a rest. I have plenty of assistance, and there is not likely to be such a strain again as that we have lately gone through. Paris cannot hold out many weeks longer, and after the two failures I feel sure that there will be no more attempts at a sortie, especially as all hopes that an army may come to our relief are now at an end."

She found it more difficult to tell Cuthbert, but it was not necessary for her to begin the subject, for he noticed at once that she had not the usual nursing-dress on.

"You are going to take a holiday to-day, I suppose?" he said, as she came up to his bedside.

"I am going to take a holiday for some little time," she said, quietly. "They can do very well without me now. Almost all the patients in this ward are convalescent, and I really feel that I need a rest."

"I am sure you do," he said, earnestly, "it has been an awful time for you to go through, and you have behaved like a heroine. A good many of us owe our lives to you, but the work has told on you sadly. I don't suppose you know yourself how much. We shall all miss you at this end of the ward—miss you greatly, but I am sure there is not one who will not feel as I do, glad to know that you are taking a rest after all your work. Of course you will look in sometimes to see how your patients are progressing. As for myself I hope I shall be able to come up to see you at the Michauds in another ten days or so. Now that the doctor has taken to feeding me up I can feel that I am gaining strength every day."

"You must not hurry, Cuthbert," she said, gravely. "You must keep quiet and patient."

"You are not in your nursing-dress now, Miss Brander, and I decline altogether to be lectured by you. I have been very good and obedient up to now, but I only bow to lawfully constituted authority, and now I come under the head of convalescent I intend to emancipate myself."

"I shall not come down here to see you unless I hear good accounts of your conduct," she said, with an attempt to speak playfully. "Well, good-bye, Cuthbert. I hope you will not try to do too much."

"Good-bye, dear, thanks for all your goodness to me," he said, earnestly, as he held her hand for a moment in his.

"He had no right to call me dear," Mary thought, almost indignantly, as he left the hospital, "and he does not guess I know why he is longing to be out again. I almost wonder he has never spoken to me about her. He would know very well that I should be interested in anything that concerns him, and I think he might have told me. I suppose he will bring her up some day and introduce her as his wife. Anyhow I am glad I know about it, and shall be able to take it as a matter of course."

Mary did not pay another visit to the ambulance. Now that she had given up her work she felt the reaction, and although she refused to take to her bed she passed her time sitting listless and weak in an easy-chair, paying but slight attention to Madame Michaud's talk, and often passing the greater part of the day in her own room.

Madame Michaud felt so uneasy about her that she went down to the ambulance and brought up Dr. Swinburne, who scolded Mary for not having sent for him before. He prescribed tonics, sent her up a dozen of wine from the hospital, ordered her to wrap herself up and sit at an open window for a time each day, and to make an effort to take a turn round the garden as soon as she felt strong enough to do so.

On his return to the ambulance the surgeon said carelessly to Cuthbert, who had now gained sufficient strength to be of considerable use as an assistant in the ward—

"I have been up to see your late nurse, Miss Brander. There is nothing serious the matter with her, but, as I thought likely would be the case, she has collapsed now that her work is over, and will need a good deal of care and attention to build her up again. You will be out in a few days now and I am sure it will do her good if you will go up and have a chat with her and cheer her up a bit. She is not in bed. My visit did her good; but she wants rousing, and remember if you can get her to laugh, and joke her about her laziness, it will do more good than by expressing your pity for her."

"I think I am well enough to be discharged now, Doctor,' Cuthbert said, eagerly.

"Yes, but you will have to be very careful for some time. You will want generous food, and I don't see how you are to get it outside."

"I suppose the restaurants are still open?"

"The common ones are closed, but you can-still get a dinner at some of the best places, although you will have to pay very heavily for it."

"I don't mind that, Doctor; and besides I am very anxious to be at work again. It will be no more tiring standing at an easel than it is doing what I can to help here."

"That is true enough, providing you do not do too much of it. Up to a certain extent it will be a good thing for you, but mind, I distinctly forbid you to attempt any such folly as to try to walk from the Quartier Latin up to Passy. Let me see," he added, thoughtfully. "Yes, I think it can be managed. I will send you home by the ambulance that will be here to-morrow morning at eight o'clock. You are to keep yourself quiet all day, and I will get Madame de Millefleurs to send her carriage round for you at eleven o'clock next day, to take you round by Passy. She has told me many times that it is always at the disposal of any of my patients to whom it would be useful. I will see her some time to-morrow and arrange about it."

"Thank you, indeed, Doctor. I need not say how grateful I am to you for all the kindness I have received here."

"We have done the best we could for you," the doctor said, "and I am sure there is not one of those who have provided funds for this ambulance but feels well rewarded by the knowledge that it has been the means of saving many lives. I think we may say that we have not lost one whom it was humanly possible to save, while in the French hospitals they have lost hundreds from over-crowding, want of ventilation, and proper sanitary arrangements. The mortality there has been fearful, and the percentage of deaths after amputations positively disgraceful."

Rene came late that afternoon to pay a visit to Cuthbert, and was delighted to find that he was to be out next morning.

"I have kept your rooms in order," he said, "and will have a big fire lighted in them before you arrive. They will give you breakfast before you leave, I hope."

"They will do that, Rene, but I shall manage very well if there is still anything left of that store of mine in the big cupboard."

"You may be sure that there is," Rene replied. "I am always most particular in locking up the doors when I come away, and I have not used the key you gave me of the cupboard. I was positively afraid to. I am virtuous, I hope, but there are limits to one's power to resist temptation. I know you told me to take anything I liked but if I had once began I could never have stopped."

"Then we will have a feast to-morrow, Rene. Ask all the others in to supper, but you must act as cook. Tell them not to come to see me till eight o'clock. If they kept dropping in all day it would be too much for me. I wish Dampierre could be with us, but he has not got on so fast as I have. His wounds were never so serious, but the doctor said the bones were badly smashed and take longer to heal. He says he is not a good patient either, but worries and fidgets. I don't think those visits of Minette were good for him, the doctor had to put a stop to them. He would talk and excite himself so. However, I hear that he is likely to be out in another fortnight."

"By that time it will be all over," Rend said, "negotiations are going on now, and they say that in three or four days we shall surrender."

"The best thing to do, Rene. Ever since that last sortie failed all hope has been at an end, and there has been no point in going on suffering, for I suppose by this time the suffering has been very severe."

"Not so very severe, Cuthbert. Of course, we have been out of meat for a long time, for the ration is so small it is scarcely worth calling meat, but the flour held out well and so did the wine and most other things. A few hundred have been killed by the Prussian shells, but with that exception the mortality has not been very greatly above the average, except that smallpox has been raging and has carried off a large number. Among young children, too, the mortality has been heavy, owing to the want of milk and things of that sort. I should doubt if there has been a single death from absolute starvation."

To M. Goude's students that supper at Cuthbert Harrington's was a memorable event. The master himself was there. Two large hams, and dishes prepared from preserved meats were on the table, together with an abundance of good wine. It was the first reunion they had had since the one before the sortie, and it was only the gaps among their number, and the fact that their host and several of their comrades were still weak, and greatly changed in appearance, that restrained their spirits from breaking into hilarity.

The next morning Madame de Millefleurs' carriage came to the door and Cuthbert was driven to the Michauds. For a moment Margot failed to recognize Cuthbert as she opened the door. As she did so she exclaimed—

"Mon Dieu, Monsieur Hartington, you look like a ghost."

"I am very far from being a ghost, Margot, though there is not much flesh on my bones. How is Mademoiselle Brander? I hear she has not been well."

"She is as pale as you are, monsieur, but not so thin. She does nothing but sit quiet all day with her eyes wide open—she who was always so bright and active and had a smile for every one. I go out and cry often after going into her room. She has just gone into the parlor. You will find her alone there," she added, for Margot had always had her ideas as to the cause of Cuthbert's visits.

Mary was sitting at the open window and did not look round as Cuthbert entered.

"Well, Mary, is it actually you, doing nothing?" he said, cheerily.

She turned round with a start, and a flush of color swept across her face.

"How you startled me," she said. "I am glad indeed to see you. I did not think you would be out so soon. Surely it is very foolish of you coming so far."

"Still thinking you are a nurse, Mary," he laughed. "I can assure you I am very prudent, and I have been brought up here in a carriage a carriage—with live horses. Dr. Swinburne told me you had not got over the effects of your hard work, and that he had had to order you to take tonics, so you see instead of being a nurse you are a patient at present, while I am a free man. I came out of hospital yesterday morning, and we had a grand supper last night out of my hoards, which I found just as I had left them, which says wonders for the honesty of the Parisians in general, and for the self-denial of my friend Rene Caillard in particular."

"Why, I should have thought——" and she stopped, abruptly.

"What would you have thought, Miss Brander?"

"Oh, nothing."

"No, no, I cannot be put off in that way. You were going to say that you thought I should have distributed my stores long ago, or that I ought to have sent for them for the use of the hospital. I really ought to have done so. It would have been only fair, but in fact the idea never occurred to me. Rene had the keys of my rooms and I told him to use the stores as he liked, meaning for himself and for our comrades of the studio."

"I should have thought," she began again, and then, as before, hesitated, and then asked, abruptly, "Have you not something to tell me, Cuthbert—something that an old friend would tell to another? I have been expecting you to tell me all the time you were in the hospital, and have felt hurt you did not."

Cuthbert looked at her in surprise. There was a slight flush on her cheek and it was evident that she was deeply in earnest.

"Tell you something, Mary," he repeated. "I really don't know what you mean—no, honestly, I have not a notion."

"I don't wish to pry into your secrets," she said, coldly. "I learned them accidentally, but as you don't wish to take me into your confidence we will say no more about it."

"But we must say more about it," he replied. "I repeat I have no idea of what you are talking about. I have no secret whatever on my mind. By your manner it must be something serious, and I think I have a right to know what it is."

She was silent for a moment and then said—

"If you wish it I can have no possible objection to tell you. I will finish the question I began twice. I should have thought that you would have wished that your stores should be sent to the lady you are engaged to."

Cuthbert looked at her in silent surprise.

"My dear Mary," he said, gravely, at last, "either you are dreaming or I am. I understood that your reply to my question, the year before last, was as definite and as absolute a refusal as a man could receive. Certainly I have not from that moment had any reason to entertain a moment's doubt that you yourself intended it as a rejection."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, rising to her feet with an energy of which a few minutes before she would have deemed herself altogether incapable. "Are you pretending that I am alluding to myself, are you insulting me by suggesting that I mean that I am engaged to you?"

"All I say is, Mary, that if you do not mean that, I have not the most remote idea in the world what you do mean."

"You say that because you think it is impossible I should know," Mary retorted, indignantly, "but you are mistaken. I have had it from her own lips."

"That she was engaged to me?"

"She came to the hospital to see you the night you were brought in, and she claimed admittance on the ground that she was affianced to you."

Cuthbert's surprise changed to alarm as it flashed across him that the heavy work and strain had been too much for the girl, and that her brain had given way.

"I think that there must be some mistake, Mary," he said, soothingly.

"There is no mistake," she went on, still more indignantly; "she came with your friend, Rene, and I knew her before she spoke, for I had seen her face in a score of places in your sketch-book, and you told me she was a model in your studio. It is no business of mine, Mr. Hartington, whom you are going to marry. I can understand, perhaps, your wish that the matter should remain for a time a secret, but I did not think when I told you that I knew it, you would have kept up the affectation of ignorance. I have always regarded you as being truthful and honorable beyond all things, and I am bitterly disappointed. I was hurt that you should not have given your confidence to me, but I did think when I told you that I knew your secret you would have manfully owned it, and not descended to a pretence of ignorance."

For a moment Cuthbert's face had expressed bewilderment, but as she went on speaking, a smile stole across his face. Mary noticed it and her voice and manner changed.

"I think, Mr. Hartington," she said, with great dignity, "you must see that it will be pleasanter for us both that this interview shall terminate."

He rose from his seat, took his hat off the table, and said, quietly—

"I have but one observation to make before I go. You have discovered, Miss Brander, that you made one mistake in your life. Has it never struck you that you might also have made a mistake this time? I think that our very long acquaintance might have induced you to hesitate a little before you assumed it as a certainty that your old acquaintance was acting in this way, and that for the sake of old times you might have given him the benefit of the doubt."

The strength that Mary's indignation had given her, deserted her suddenly. Her fingers tightened on the back of the chair by her side for support.

"How could there be any mistake," she asked, weakly, her vigorous attack now turned into a defence, more by his manner than his words, "when I heard her say so?"

"Sit down, child," he said, in his old authoritative manner. "You are not fit to stand."

She felt it would be a step towards defeat if she did so, but he brought up the chair in which she had before been sitting and placed it behind her, and quietly assisted her into it.

"Now," he went on, "you say you heard it from her lips. What did she say?"

"She said she insisted on going in to see you, and that as your affianced wife she had a right to do so."

"She said that, did she? That she was the affianced wife of Cuthbert Hartington?"

Mary thought for a moment.

"No, she did not use those words, at least, not that I can remember; but it was not necessary, I knew who she was. I have seen the sketches in your book, and there were several of them on the walls of your room. Of course I knew who she was speaking of, though she did not, so far as I can remember, use your name."

"Did it never occur to you, Miss Brander, that it was a natural thing one should have many sketches of the girl who always stood as a model in the studio, and that every student there would have his sketch-book full of them? Did you not know that there were three or four other wounded men of the same corps as myself in the hospital; that one at least was a fellow-student of mine, and also a foreigner, and that this young woman was just as likely to be asking to see him as to see me?"

An awful feeling of doubt and shame came with overpowering force over Mary Brander.

"No," she said, desperately, "I never thought of such a thing. Naturally I thought it was you, and there was no reason why it shouldn't be. You were perfectly free to please yourself, only I felt hurt that when you got better you did not tell me."

Her voice was so weak that Cuthbert poured some water into a glass and held it to her lips.

"Now, child," he went on in a lighter voice, "I am not going to scold you—you are too weak to be scolded. Some day I may scold you as you deserve. Not only is Minette—I told you her name before—nothing to me, but I dislike her as a passionate, dangerous young woman; capable, perhaps, of good, but certainly capable of evil. However, I regret to say that Arnold Dampierre, the man who was in the next bed to me, you know, does not see her in the same light, and I am very much afraid he will be fool enough to marry her. Actually, she did a few days later obtain permission to see him, and has, I believe, seen him several times since; but as he was moved out of your ward whilst I was battling with the fever, I have not seen her. Now don't cry, child, you have been a goose, but there is no harm done, and you ought to be glad to know that your old friend is not going to make a fool of himself; and he can still be regarded by you as truthful and honorable. Do you think I would have taken you round to my rooms if I had been going to make her their mistress?"

"Don't, don't!" the girl cried. "Don't say anything more, Cuthbert. I cannot bear it."

"I am not going to say any more. Madame de Millefleurs' horses must by this time be half-frozen, and her coachman be out of all patience, and I must be going. I shall come again as soon as I can, and I shall be very angry if I don't find you looking much more like yourself when I next come."



CHAPTER XVII.

The belief that in a few hours the siege would come to an end was so general the next morning, that Cuthbert determined to lose no time in seeing Cumming. As soon as the way was open the man might take the opportunity to move off to some other hiding-place; and, therefore, instead of bringing out his canvases, as he had intended, Cuthbert decided to call on him at once. Having chartered one of the few remaining fiacres, at an exorbitant rate, he drove to the house where he had seen Cumming enter, and went into the concierge.

"I want some information, my friend," he said, laying a five-franc piece on the table. "You have a foreigner lodging here?"

The man nodded.

"Monsieur Jackson is a good tenant," he said. "He pays well for any little services."

"How long has he been here?"

"He came just after war was declared."

"Has he taken his apartments for a long period?"

"He has taken them for a year, monsieur. I think he will take them permanently. I hope so, for he gives no trouble, and has never been out late once since he came here."

"I want to see him," Cuthbert said, "I believe he is an old acquaintance of mine."

"If you ring his bell he will open himself. He keeps an old woman as servant, but she has just gone out to do his shopping. He always take his meals at home. He is on the second floor—the door to the left."

Cuthbert went up and rang the bell. Cumming himself opened the door. He looked at his visitor inquiringly.

"You do not remember me, Mr. Cumming?" Cuthbert said, cheerfully. "I am not surprised, for I have but just recovered from a very serious wound. I will come in and sit down, if you don't mind; I want to have a chat with you. My name is Cuthbert Hartington!"

The man had given a violent start when his name was mentioned, and his face turned to an ashy pallor. He hesitated for a moment, and then, as Cuthbert entered, he closed the door behind him, and silently led the way into the sitting-room.

"I happened to see you in the street," Cuthbert went on, pleasantly, as he seated himself. "Of course, your beard has altered you a bit, and I could not at first recall your face, but it soon came back to me. It was a happy idea of yours shutting yourself up here when there was no chance of an extradition warrant being applied for. However, to-morrow or next day that little difficulty will be at an end. I thought I would come and have a conversation with you, and naturally the course that I shall take will depend a good deal on the results. I may mention," he went on, taking a revolver from his pocket and laying it on the table before him, "that I thought it as well to bring this with me, for just at present I don't feel quite up to a personal tussle."

"What do you want to talk about?" the man asked, doggedly. "I may tell you at once that I placed what little money I got where it will never be found, and beyond sending me up for some years, there will be nothing to be gained by denouncing me."

"There might be some satisfaction though in seeing a man who has ruined you punished—at least there would be to some men. I don't know that there would be to me. It would depend upon circumstances. I am ready to believe that in those transactions of yours that brought the bank to ruin, you honestly believed that the companies you assisted would turn out well, and that things would come out right in the end. I do not suppose you were such a fool as to run the risk of ruin and penal servitude when you had a snug place, unless you had thought so; and, indeed, as the directors were as responsible as yourself for making those advances—although they were, of course, ignorant of the fact that you held a considerable interest in those companies—there was nothing actually criminal in those transactions. Therefore, it is only for that matter of your making off with the contents of the safe that you can be actually prosecuted. At any rate, I have no present intention of interfering in the affair, and you can remain here as Mr. Jackson up to the end of your life for what I care, if you will give me the information that I desire."

The look on the man's face relaxed.

"I will give you any information you desire, I have nothing to conceal. Of course, they can obtain a conviction against me for taking the money, but I should save them trouble by pleading guilty at once. Therefore, I don't see that I could harm myself in any way by answering any questions they may choose to ask me."

"I want to get to the bottom of what has all along been a mystery to me, and that is how my father came to take those shares, just at the moment when the bank was so shaky."

"That is more than I can tell you, Mr. Hartington. It has been a puzzle to myself."

"But they were your shares that were transferred to him."

"That is so, and the money came in useful enough, for I knew that the smash must take place soon, and that possibly I might not be able to lay my hands on much ready cash. However, I will tell you exactly how it came about. Brander, the lawyer came to me and said his client, Mr. Hartington, wanted fifty shares. I own I was astounded, for Brander knew perfectly well that things were in a very bad way. By the way he spoke I saw there was something curious about the affair, but as he put the screw on, and as much as hinted that if I did not follow his instructions he would blow the whole thing into the air, I made no objections, especially as he proposed that I should transfer some of my own shares. The transfer was drawn up in regular form. He brought it to me duly signed by your father.

"I noticed that his own clerks witnessed the signature, so I supposed it was done in the office. He made a point that I should get the transfer passed with some others without the attention of the directors being called to the matter. I got the transfer signed and sealed by two of the directors while there was a talk going on about other things, and they signed without looking at names. So far as I am concerned that was the beginning and ending of the matter. Oh, there was another point, the transfer was ante-dated three weeks. Of course, it might have been lying in Brander's office all the time. It was dated on the day after the previous board meeting, so that in the ordinary course it would not be passed until the next meeting, and it might very well have remained in Brander's hands until he knew that the directors were going to meet again. I have often wondered what Brander's game was, and of course I thought all the more of it when I saw that he had bought Fairclose. He was a crafty old fox, Brander, but I have never been able to understand why he permitted your father to ruin himself."

Cuthbert remained silent for some time.

"Your explanation only thickens the mystery," he said. "I can no more understand his motive than you can. Brander's explanation of the affair to me was that my father insisted against his advice in buying the shares, as he did not believe in the rumors to the discredit of the bank. He was a strong county man, as you may know, and thought that when people heard that he had taken shares, it would tend to restore confidence in the concern. Now, as, on the contrary, Brander seems to have taken special pains to prevent the transaction being known even by the directors, it is clear that his explanation was a lie, that for some reasons of his own he wished to defeat my father's intentions. I think I must get you to put the statement you have made to me on paper, and to get it sworn before a public notary—at least I think that is the way out here."

"I have no objection to do that, but as it is my intention to continue to live here where I am now known as a resident and feel myself pretty safe, except from some chance meeting like that of yours, I would rather that it should be done somewhere else."

"That is reasonable enough," Cuthbert agreed. "I expect the gates will be open in a day or two, and I shall go to England at once and try to get to the bottom of this matter. I should think the Prussians will let Englishmen pass out at once. Would you mind going with me as far as Calais? We can get the document sworn to in legal form and you can then come back here."

"I would rather go to Brussels," the man said.

"No doubt that would be best," Cuthbert agreed. "It might be as well that it should not be done at any place in France. Well, Mr. Cumming, your secret is safe with me. I will call on you again as soon as I find that we can get across to Brussels."

"I shall be ready whenever you are, Mr. Hartington. Of course, I don't quite see what you will do with this document, but I am perfectly ready to sign it."

"I don't see either. I shall want to think the matter over. At present I feel in a complete fog."

"I can quite understand that. I may tell you that Brander puzzled me a good deal the last two or three months before the bank stopped. He spent two or three hours going into the affairs with me. He knew generally how matters stood, but he had never gone thoroughly into them before. When he had done he said, 'I knew you were in a very bad way before but I did not think it was as bad as this. I want to see whether the smash could not be postponed. Things have been bad lately, but I think they are improving, and some of these affairs that you have been bolstering up might pull round if you had time given you."

"I did not see much chance of that. However, I did not say so in fact, I wanted to hear what he was driving at. He went on, after looking through the list of mortgages we held, 'Of course, Cumming, it is to your interest to hold on here as long as possible, and I may have mine for wishing the bank to keep its doors open for some little time yet. It would never do for you to be going into the market to try and transfer any of these mortgages, but I have clients in London who would, I think, take some of them over. Of course, I have taken good care that in no cases did the bank lend more than fifty per cent. of the full value of the lands, and the mortgages are all as safe as if they were on consols. So if you will give me a fortnight's notice when there is anything pressing coming forward, I think I can manage to get twenty thousand pounds' worth of these mortgages taken off our hands altogether. I might repeat the operation three or four times, and could get it done quietly and with no fuss. In that way the bank could be kept going for a good many months, which would give time for things to take a turn. In case of anything like a run taking place, which I think is unlikely, I could let you have fifteen thousand of my own in a few hours. I have it standing at call and could run up to town and bring it down by the next train.'

"Why he should make such an offer as this puzzled me, but his reason for wanting to prop the bank up was no business of mine, and there was no doubt if he could get fifty or sixty thousand pounds' worth of mortgages taken off our hands, it would enable us to hold on for some time. He did, in fact, get one batch of twenty thousand pounds' worth transferred, but about a month before we stopped he came in one morning and said, 'I am sorry to tell you, Cumming, that I have heard from the people in town I had relied on to help us about those mortgages, and they tell me they have undertaken the financing of a contractor for a South American railway, and that, therefore, they are not inclined at present to sink money farther in mortgages, so I am afraid, as far as I am concerned, things here must take their course,' and, as you know, they did take their course. Naturally, I did not believe Brander's story, but it was evident he had, when he made the offer, some reason for wanting the bank to keep its doors open for a time, and that that reason, whatever it was, had ceased to operate when he withdrew the offer."

"I don't see that that part of the business has any bearing upon my affair," Cuthbert said, "beyond helping to show Brander was playing some deep game of his own."

"I don't know, Mr. Hartington. However, I will think the matter over, and we shall have opportunities for discussing it again on our way to Brussels."

"I almost wish I had let the matter alone altogether," Cuthbert said to himself as he drove back to his lodgings. "I wanted to clear up what seemed a mystery, and I find myself plunged much deeper into a fog than ever. Before I only dimly suspected Brander of having for some reason or other permitted my father to take these shares when a word from him would have dissuaded him from doing so. I now find that the whole transaction was carried out in something like secrecy, and that so far from my father's name being used to prop up the bank, it was almost smuggled into the list of shareholders, and that even the directors were kept in ignorance of the transfer of Cumming's shares to him. The whole business has a very ugly look, though what the motive of this secrecy was, or why Brander should be willing to allow, if not to assist, in my father's ruin is more than I can conceive. The worst of the matter is, he is Mary's father. Yes, I wish to goodness that I had left the whole business alone."

Cuthbert had given his address to Cumming, and to his surprise the man called on him that evening.

"You did not expect to see me again to-day, Mr. Hartington," he said, when he entered, "but thinking the matter over a fresh light has struck me, and I felt obliged to come round to tell you. I hope I am not disturbing you."

"No, I have been so worried over the confounded business, that I have given up going to some friends as I had promised, as I didn't feel that I could talk about indifferent matters."

"Well, Mr. Hartington, my idea will surprise you; it will seem incredible to you, and it almost seems so to myself, and yet it all works in so that I can't help thinking it is near the mark. I believe that your father never signed that transfer at all that his signature was in fact a forgery."

"The deuce you do," Cuthbert exclaimed; "what on earth put such an idea into your head? Why, man, the idea is absurd! If it was a forgery it must have been done by Brander, and what possible motive could he have had for such an act?"

"That I don't pretend to say. If I could see that, I should say it was a certainty, but I own the absence of motive is the weak point of my idea. In all other respects the thing works out. In the first place, although your father was not a man of business, it was singular that he should go out of his way to take shares in the bank, when he must have known that in the case of things going wrong his whole property would be involved. No doubt that idea must have occurred to yourself."

"Certainly; it astonished me beyond measure that he should have done such a thing. I wrote to Brander at once hoping for some sort of explanation. I was at the time satisfied with that that he gave me, but it was, as you know, because the matter, on reflection, has since seemed so extraordinary that I came to you to try and get some further information about it."

"You saw your father after this supposed transaction, Mr. Hartington?"

"Yes, I was down there for a fortnight."

"And he did not mention it to you?"

"Not a word!"

"Was it his habit to talk on business matters with you?"

"He never had any business matters except about the estate, and he generally told me if he had any difficulty about his rents, and discussed any improvements he thought of making, but beyond that there was never any question of money. Sometimes he would say 'My balance at the bank is rather larger than usual, Cuthbert, and if you like an extra hundred you can have it,' which I never did."

"Well, of course it is only negative evidence that he made no allusion to his having purchased those shares, still, as he was in the habit of speaking to you about things, he might very naturally have said 'I have been investing some spare cash in the shares of the bank here.'"

"Yes, I should have thought he would have done so!"

"You don't think he would have abstained from telling you, because he might have thought you would have considered it a rash speculation."

"Certainly not," Cuthbert said, warmly, "I should no more have thought of criticising anything he chose to do with his money, than I should of flying."

"Well, at any rate, you may take it that there is no proof whatever that Mr. Hartington was aware of this transaction at the time of your visit, nor that he was aware of it up to the time of his death." Cuthbert nodded. "Now let us suppose that this transfer was a forgery, and was committed by Brander, what course would he naturally pursue? Exactly that which he followed, namely, to get it placed on the register without its being noticed by the directors. These men were all personal friends of your father's. Knowing to some extent, though I admit without realizing the peril, that the bank was seriously involved, they might have refused to register the transfer until they had privately remonstrated with him, especially as I was the vendor, even had they not done this one or other of them would almost certainly have alluded to the subject the first time they met him. Brander might have intended later on to re-transfer the shares to some bogus purchaser, but at any rate, if he knew your father was in bad health he would have wanted to keep the bank from putting up its shutters until after his death. You will remark that he did assist in that way, while your father was alive, and that almost immediately after his death, he declined to support the bank farther. What his motive can have been in all this I own that I cannot imagine, but, given a motive, my supposition appears to be perfectly feasible. That the motive, whatever it was, must have been a very strong one, I admit, for in the first place he was running the risk of being detected of forgery, and in the second must have been three hundred pounds out of pocket, for that was the amount of the check he handed to me."

"It was his own check, then, and not my father's?"

"Yes, he said he had rents in hand and therefore paid it out of them, which seemed natural enough. But how about the signatures of the two clerks?"

"They may be forgeries too, or possibly, knowing your father's signature, they may have signed as a matter of course without actually seeing him affix it. You will admit that all this is possible."

"It seems possible enough," Cuthbert said, "but what motive could there have been on Brander's part? He could never have run such a risk merely to gratify any special fancy he may have had for Fairclose."

"Certainly not, Mr. Hartington. Jeremiah Brander has not a particle of sentiment in his composition. Of course, as he was the solicitor of the company, I made it my business to study the man pretty closely, and I came to the conclusion that he was a rank humbug, but that he was a humbug because it paid him to be one."

"That is quite my own idea of him, but that does not help us in the slightest towards an explanation as to why he should risk everything when he had nothing whatever to gain by it."

"No, I feel that difficulty myself," Cumming said, stroking his chin thoughtfully, "I admit that beats me altogether. By the way," he said, suddenly, "I saw in the official report that he had a mortgage of fifteen thousand on the estate. Do you mind telling me how that came about? It may possibly help us."

"I have not the least idea. I never heard of the existence of the mortgage until Brander wrote to me himself about it at the time he bought the estate; but he gave me an explanation that perfectly satisfied me at the time."

Mr. Cumming looked at him inquiringly.

"It was an explanation," Cuthbert said, after a pause, "that closed my lips altogether on the subject. But in the present strange state of affairs I do not know that I need abstain from mentioning it to you. Brander explained that my father said that he required it to close up a matter that had long been troubling him. I gathered from the way he put it that it was some folly with a woman in his early years, and I need not say that respect for my father's memory prevented me from pursuing the matter further. Brander said that he had himself advanced the money on the mortgage in order that the business should be done privately and without any third person being cognizant of it."

Cumming sat thoughtfully for a minute without speaking and then he leapt suddenly to his feet and put his hand on Cuthbert's shoulder.

"You take my word for it, Mr. Hartington, that mortgage was just as much a bogus affair as the transfer. The one supplies the motive we have been looking for for the other. The failure of the bank brought Fairclose into the market, and not only did Brander purchase it for ten or fifteen thousand below its value at any other time, but he gained another fifteen thousand by this bogus mortgage. There is your motive for the forgery of your father's name on the transfer."

"I cannot believe it," Cuthbert said, slowly. "Brander could never be such a scoundrel as that. Besides, of course, the men who wound up the affairs of the bank would look closely into the mortgage. Whether it was real or whether it was a forgery, Brander would equally have obtained the money at my father's death, so your supposition of a motive fails."

"I do not know. Had the claim been made direct to you, you would naturally have got some sharp lawyer to investigate it, and, it would have been inquired into a good deal more closely than the official liquidator probably took the trouble to do. A mortgage, of which no one knows anything until after the mortgagor's death, would always be looked upon with suspicion, and some collateral proofs would be required. Of course, I may be wrong altogether, but it would be well for you to ascertain whether the official liquidator did take any steps to obtain such evidence."

"That I will certainly do," Cuthbert said. "I did write to him at the time, and I am bound to say his answer seemed entirely satisfactory and straightforward. He said that Mr. Brander had given proof that he did draw a check for the amount of the mortgage on the day on which it was executed, and although he did not show that interest had been specifically paid by checks from my father, there were receipts found among my father's papers for the half-yearly payments of interest. These were, it seemed, settled, when Brander, who collected his rents, made up his accounts with him."

"That all seems straightforward enough, Mr. Hartington, and as long as there was no ground for suspicion would doubtless pass muster, but it is certainly worth while inquiring into."

Cuthbert sat silent for some time.

"After all the whole of this is but the barest suspicion," he said. "The only thread of fact being that the transfer was kept secret from the directors, of which no doubt Brander will be able to give some plausible explanation, and his character stands so high at Abchester that the question, if raised, would be scouted as an atrocious libel upon him. But supposing that we had absolute proof, I don't see how I should stand. If my father was not a shareholder in the bank its creditors had, of course, no claim whatever on his property, but as the property has in fact been sold and the proceeds divided long ago who should I have to go against?"

"That is a matter for the lawyers, Mr. Hartington, but I imagine you would not have to go back on the creditors to the bank. You would simply prove that the bank was not in a position to give a title, and that, therefore, the sale was null and void. It would be argued, of course, that you gave the title, as I suppose you signed the deeds, and your plea would be that the signature was obtained from you by fraud."

"I did not sign the deeds," Cuthbert said. "Brander pointed out that, as I had not received any rents or profits, it would be better that I should stand out of it altogether, and that the will should not be proved, as otherwise the death dues would be charged upon it, and therefore it remained in the hands of the executors of whom he was one, and it was they who gave the titles."

"Whoever gave the titles, I should say that, as the bank had no claim whatever on the property, if the transfer was a forgery, the sale would be declared void and the loss would fall on the purchaser. This would, in the case of anyone but Brander, have been very hard, but would, in his, be in strict accordance with justice. However, this is a matter for which, of course, you will require the best legal opinion, but all that is for after consideration. The great difficulty, and I grant that I don't see how it is to be got over, is to prove that your father's signature to the transfer was a forgery. The first step is to ascertain whether the attesting witnesses were actually present as they should have been when your father's signature was affixed."

"I will clear up that point anyhow," Cuthbert said; "I will go straight from Brussels to England, see the clerks, and hear what they have to say on the matter. If they were present and saw my father sign the transfer there is an end to the whole affair."

The other nodded.

"I would not mind wagering a hundred pounds to one that you find that they were not present."

"Well, that will soon be settled, for I have heard this afternoon that the conditions of surrender were signed this morning and that to-morrow the forts are to be given over, and an armistice will commence. In that case I suppose that foreigners will meet with no difficulty in obtaining passes to leave at once. Well, I am very much obliged to you for the suggestion you have made, Mr. Cumming, though I have, I confess, very little faith indeed that anything will come of it, and just at present it seems to me that I would much rather the matter had remained as it was."



CHAPTER XVIII.

The next morning Cuthbert drove to Madame Michaud's.

"You are looking better, Mary," he said, as he entered; "why, you have got quite a pretty color in your cheeks."

"Don't talk nonsense, please. I am better, a great deal better, but it is no wonder I have a color, I have been blushing with shame at my own folly ever since you were here."

"If you never do anything more foolish than that, you will get through life well enough. Appearances were against me, and you jumped at conclusions a little too fast. Let us say no more about it."

"You are not looking so well, I think, Cuthbert."

"No. I have been a little bothered."

"Have you seen that man Cumming?" she asked, quickly.

"Yes," he answered, in some surprise, "though what should make you associate him with my being bothered I don't know."

"You said that you were going to see him, and somehow, I don't know why, I have been rather worrying over it. Was the interview satisfactory, did you learn what you wanted?"

"Not altogether," he said, "but it is all a matter of conjecture, Mary, and I own that it has worried me a bit, and, indeed, I am sorry I went to him at all. However, as it is business and ladies are not good at business, suppose we talk of something else."

Mary made no reply, but sat looking at him while she twisted her fingers nervously before her. "May I ask one question, Cuthbert?"

"Yes, if you like, but I don't promise to answer it?"

"Do you think that there is any blame attached to my father?"

Cuthbert was startled. He had certainly not expected this question.

"What on earth should put that idea into your head, Mary?"

"I don't know," she replied, "but it has always struck me as so strange that he should not have prevented Mr. Hartington from buying those shares. I don't know much of business, but I have thought a great deal about it, and it has always seemed a strange affair to me, and I have worried a great deal over it since he bought the house. That is one reason why I hate going there."

"Perhaps your father was not quite so prudent in the matter as he might have been, Mary," Cuthbert said, trying to speak lightly, though he found it difficult to do so with the girl's earnest eyes fixed on him, "but even of that I am not sure. Now, suppose we change the subject again—it seems that we are to hit on difficult subjects this morning. The gates will probably be opened, at any rate to the foreigners, in a day or two. Are you thinking of going home to prepare yourself for taking up your vocation as a nurse?"

"Not yet," she replied, "there is no hurry for that, and it will be some time before the country is settled."

"You are sure that you have not changed your mind again?"

"No, why should I?"

"I thought perhaps you might have done so, and might possibly be inclined towards the vocation you so scornfully repudiated when I suggested it before. I intended to ask you yesterday, but it would not have been fair when you were so weak and shaken."

The girl had glanced at him and had then flushed hotly.

"I don't know—I am not sure—what you mean."

"And I am sure that you know very well, Mary, that I mean the vocation of taking care of me, which you repudiated with scorn—in fact refused to entertain it seriously at all. Of course there may have been other grounds, but the one you laid stress on was that I was lazy and purposeless, and that if you ever did take up such a vocation it would be to take care of some one you could respect. I don't say for an instant that I approach to that altitude, but at least I may say I am no longer an idler, that I have worked hard, and that I have every hope of success. You see, too, that I want you more than I did then. I am a poor artist and not the heir to a good estate. But as you are fond of sacrificing yourself, that may not be altogether an objection. At any rate, dear, I think I shall be able to keep you comfortably. I am not sure I should ever have mustered up courage enough to have spoken on this subject again, had it not been for yesterday. But that gave me a little hope that you really had come to care about me a little, and that possibly you might be willing to change your plans again in my favor."