Lord Arranmore nodded and lit a cigarette.

"I am thankful," he said, dryly, "for so much common-sense. Mr. Ascough will put you in possession of a banking account at any moment. Should you consider it—well—intrusive on my part if I were to inquire as to your plans?"

Brooks hesitated.

"They are as yet not wholly formed," he said, "but I am thinking of studying social politics for some time here in London with the intention of entering public life."

"A very laudable ambition," Lord Arranmore answered. "If I can be of any assistance to you, I trust that you will not fail to let me know."

"I thank you," Brooks answered. "I shall not require any assistance from you."

Lord Arranmore winced perceptibly. Brooks, who would not have believed him capable of such a thing, for a moment doubted his eyes.

"I am much obliged for your candour," Lord Arranmore said, coldly, and with complete self-recovery. "Don't trouble to come to the door. Good-evening."

Brooks was alone. He sat down in one of the big easy-chairs, and for a moment forgot that empty stall next to Selina. He had seen the first sign of weakness in a man whom he had judged to be wholly and entirely heartless.



CHAPTER III

MARY SCOTT'S TWO VISITORS

"I AM sure," he said, "that Selina would consider this most improper."

"You are quite right," Mary assured him, laughing. "It was one of the first things she mentioned. When I told her that I should ask any one to tea I liked she was positively indignant."

"It is hard to believe that you are cousins," he remarked.

"We were brought up very differently."

He looked around him. He was in a tiny sitting-room of a tiny flat high up in a great building. Out of the window he seemed to look down upon the Ferris wheel. Inside everything was cramped but cosy. Mary Scott sat behind the tea-tray, and laughed at his expression.

"I will read your thoughts," she exclaimed. "You are wondering how you will get out of this room without knocking anything over."

"On the contrary," he answered, "I was wondering how I ever got in."

"You were really very clever. Now do have some more tea, and tell me all the news."

"I will have the tea, if you please," he answered, "and you shall have the news, such as it is."

"First of all then," she said, "I hear that you are leaving Medchester, giving up your business and coming to live in London, and that you have had some money left you. Do you know that all this sounds very mysterious?"

"I admit it," he answered, slowly stirring his tea. "Yet in the main—it is true."

"How nice to hear all about it," she sighed, contentedly. "You know I have scarcely had a word with you while my uncle and cousins were up. Selina monopolized you most disgracefully."

He looked at her with twinkling eyes.

"Selina was very amusing," he said.

"You seemed to find her so," she answered. "But Selina isn't here now, and you have to entertain me. You are really going to live in London?"

He nodded.

"I have taken rooms!"

"Delightful. Whereabouts?" "In Jermyn Street!"

"And are you going to practise?"

He shook his head.

"No, I shall have enough to live on. I am going to study social subjects and politics generally."

"You are going into Parliament?" she exclaimed, breathlessly.

"Some day, perhaps," he answered, hesitatingly. "If I can find a constituency."

She was silent for a moment.

"Do you know, I think I rather dislike you," she said. "I envy you most hideously."

He laughed.

"What an evil nature!"

"Well, I've never denied it. I'm dreadfully envious of people who have the chance of doing things, whose limitations are not chalked out on the blackboard before them."

"Oh, well, you yourself are not at Medchester now," he reminded her. "You have kicked your own limitation away. Literature is as wide a field as politics."

"That is true enough," she answered. "I must not grumble. After Medchester this is elysium. But literature is a big name to give my little efforts. I'm just a helper on a lady's threepenny paper, and between you and me I don't believe they think much of my work yet."

He laughed.

"Surely they haven't been discouraging you?"

"No, they have been very kind. But they keep on assuring me that I am bound to improve, and the way they use the blue pencil! However, it's only the journalist's part they go for. The little stories are all right still.''

"I should think so," he declared, warmly. "I think they are charming."

"How nice you are," she sighed. "No wonder Selina didn't like going home."

He looked at her in amused wonder.

"Do you know," he said, "you are getting positively frivolous. I don't recognize you. I never saw such a change."

She leaned back in her chair, laughing heartily, her eyes bright, her beautiful white teeth in delightful evidence.

"Oh, I suppose it's the sense of freedom," she exclaimed. "It's delightful, isn't it? Medchester had got on my nerves. I hated it. One saw nothing but the ugly side of life, day after day. It was hideously depressing. Here one can breathe. There's room for every one."

"The change agrees with you!"

"Why not. I feel years younger. Think how much there is to do, and see, even for a pauper like myself—picture galleries, the shops, the people, the theatres."

He looked at her thoughtfully.

"Don't think me a prig, will you?" he said, "but I want to understand you. In Medchester you used to work for the people—it was the greater part of your life. You are not giving that up altogether, are you?"

She laughed him to scorn.

"Am I such a butterfly? No, I hope to get some serious work to do, and I am looking forward to it. I have a letter of introduction to a Mrs. Capenhurst, whom I am going to see on Sunday. I expect to learn a lot from her. I was very, very sorry to leave my own girls. It was the only regret I had in leaving Medchester. By the bye, what is this about Mr. Henslow?"

"We are thinking of asking him to resign," Brooks answered. "He has been a terrible disappointment to us."

She nodded.

"I am sorry. From his speeches he seemed such an excellent candidate."

"He was a magnificent candidate," Brooks said ruefully, "but a shocking Member. I am afraid what I heard in the City the other day must have some truth in it. They say that he only wanted to be able to write M.P. after his name for this last session to get on the board of two new companies. He will never sit for Medchester again."

"He was at the hotel the other day, wasn't he?" Mary asked, "with you and uncle? What has he to say for himself?"

"Well, he shelters himself behind the old fudge about duty to his Party," Brooks answered. "You see the Liberals only just scraped in last election because of the war scandals, and their majority is too small for them to care about any of the rank and file introducing any disputative measures. Still that scarcely affects the question. He won his seat on certain definite pledges, and if he persists in his present attitude, we shall ask him at once to resign."

You still keep up your interest in Medchester, then?"

"Why, yes!" he answered. "Between ourselves, if I could choose, I would rather, when the time comes, stand for Medchester than anywhere."

"I am glad! I should like to see you Member for Medchester. Do you know, even now, although I am so happy, I cannot think about the last few months there without a shudder. It seemed to me that things were getting worse and worse. The people's faces haunt me sometimes."

He looked up at her sympathetically.

"If you have once lived with them," he said, "once really understood, you never can forget. You can travel or amuse yourself in any way, but their faces are always coming before you, their voices seem always in your ears. It is the one eternal sadness of life. And the strangest part of it is, that just as you who have once really understood can never forget, so it is the most difficult thing in the world to make those people understand who have not themselves lived and toiled amongst them. It is a cry which you cannot translate, but if once you have heard it, it will follow you from the earth to the stars."

"You too, then," she said, "have some of the old aim at heart. You are not going to immerse yourself wholly in politics?"

"My studies," he said, "will be in life. It is not from books that I hope to gain experience. I want to get a little nearer to the heart of the thing. You and I may easily come across one another, even in this great city."

"You," she said, "are going to watch, to observe, to trace the external only that you may understand the internal. But I am going to work on my hands and knees."

"And you think that I am going to play the dilettante?"

"Not altogether. But you will want to pass from one scheme to another to see the inner workings of all. I shall be content to find occupation in any one.

"I shall be coming to you," he said, "for information and help."

"I doubt it," she answered, cheerfully. "Never mind! It is pleasant to build castles, and we may yet find ourselves working side by side."

He suddenly looked at her.

"I have answered all your questions," he said. "There is something about you which I should like to know."

"I am sure you shall."

"Lord Arranmore came to me when I was staying at the Metropole with your uncle and cousin. He wished me to use my influence with you to induce you to accept a certain sum of money which it seemed that you had already declined."

"Well?"

"Of course I refused. In the first place, as I told him, I was not aware that I possessed any influence over you. And in the second I had every confidence in your own judgment."

She was suddenly very thoughtful.

"My own judgment," she repeated. "I am afraid that I have lost a good deal of faith in that lately."

"Why?"

"I have learned to repent of that impulsive visit of mine to Enton."

"Again why?"

"I was mad with rage against Lord Arranmore. I think that I was wrong. It was many years ago, and he has repented."

Brooks smiled faintly. The idea of Lord Arranmore repenting of anything appealed in some measure to his sense of humour.

"Then I am afraid that I did him some great harm in accusing him like that—openly. He has seemed to me since like an altered man. Tell me, those others who were there—they believed me?"

"Yes."

"It did him harm—with the lady, the handsome woman who was playing billiards with him?"

"Yes."

"Was he engaged to her?

"No! He proposed to her afterwards, and she refused him."

Her eyes were suddenly dim.

"I am sorry," she said.

"I think," he said, quietly, "that you need not be. You probably saved her a good deal of unhappiness."

She looked at him curiously.

"Why are you so bitter against Lord Arranmore?" she asked.

"I?" he laughed. "I am not bitter against him. Only I believe him to be a man without heart or conscience or principles."

"That is your opinion—really?"

"Really! Decidedly."

"Then I don't agree with you," she answered.

"Why not?"

"Simply that I don't."

"Excellent! But you have reasons as well as convictions?

"Perhaps. Why, for instance, is he so anxious for me to have this money? That must be a matter of conscience?"

"Not necessarily. An accident might bring his Montreal career to light. His behaviour towards you would be an excellent defence."

She shook her head.

"He isn't mean enough to think so far ahead for his own advantage. Villain or paragon, he is on a large scale, your Lord Arranmore."

"He has had the good fortune," Brooks said, with a note of satire in his tone, "to attract your sympathies."

"Why not? I struck hard enough at him, and he has borne me no ill-will. He even made friends with Selina and my uncle to induce me to accept his well, conscience money."

"I need not ask you what the result was," Brooks said. "You declined it, of course."

She looked at him thoughtfully.

"I refused it at first, as you know," she said. "Since then, well, I have wavered."

He looked at her blankly.

"You mean—that you have contemplated—accepting it?"

"Why not? There is reason in it. I do not say that I have accepted it, but at any rate I see nothing which should make you look upon my possible acceptance as a heinous thing."

He was silent for a moment.

"May I ask you then what the position is?"

"I will tell you. Lord Arranmore is coming to me perhaps this afternoon for my answer. I asked him for a few days to think it over."

"And your decision—is it ready?"

"No, I don't think it is," she admitted. "To tell you the truth, I shall not decide until he is actually here—until I have heard just how he speaks of it."

He got up and stood for a moment looking out of the window. Then he turned suddenly towards her with outstretched hand.

"I am going—Miss Scott. Good-afternoon." She rose and held out her hand.

"Aren't you—a little abrupt?" she asked.

"Perhaps I am. I think that it is better that I should go away now. There are reasons why I do not want to talk about Lord Arranmore, or discuss this matter with you, and if I stayed I might do both. Will you dine with me somewhere on Friday night? I will come and fetch you."

"Of course I will. Do be careful how you walk. About 7:30."

"I will be here by then," he answered.

On the last flight of stone steps he came face to face with Lord Arranmore, who nodded and pointed upwards with his walking-stick.

"How much of this sort of thing?" he asked, dryly.

"Ten storeys," Brooks answered, and passed out into the street.

Lord Arranmore looked after him—watched him until he was out of sight. Then he stood irresolute for several moments, tapping his boots.

"Damned young fool!" he muttered at last; and began the ascent.



CHAPTER IV

A MARQUIS ON MATRIMONY

"My dear Miss Scott," Lord Arranmore said, settling himself in the most comfortable of her fragile easy-chairs, and declining tea. "I cannot fail to perceive that my cause is hopeless. The united efforts of myself and your worthy relatives appear to be powerless to unearth a single grain of common-sense in your—er—pardon me—singularly obstinate disposition."

A subdued smile played at the corners of her mouth.

"I am delighted that you are convinced, Lord Arranmore," she said. "It will save us both a good deal of time and breath."

"Well—as to that I am not so sure," he answered, deliberately. "You forget that there is still an important matter to be decided."

She looked at him questioningly.

"The disposal of the money, of course," he said.

"The disposal of it? But that has nothing to do with me!" she declared. "I refuse to touch it—to have anything to do with it."

He shook his head.

"You see," he explained, "I have placed it, or rather my solicitors have, in trust. Actually you may decline, as you are doing, to have anything to do with it—legally you cannot avoid your responsibilities. That money cannot be touched without your signature."

She laughed a little indignantly.

"Then you had better withdraw it from trust, or whatever you call it, at once. If it was there until I was eighty I should never touch it."

"I understand that perfectly," Lord Arranmore said. "You have refused it. Very well! What are we going to do with it?"

"Put it back where it came from, of course," she answered.

"Well," he said, "by signing several papers that might be managed. In that case I should distribute it amongst the various public-houses in the East End to provide drinks for the thirstiest of their customers."

"If you think that," she said, scornfully, "a reputable use to make of your money."

He held out his hand.

"My dear Miss Scott. Our money!"

"The money," she exclaimed. "I repeat, the money. Well, there is nothing more to be said about it."

"Will you sign the papers which authorize me to distribute the money in this way?"

She thought for a moment.

"No; I will not."

"Exactly. You would be very foolish and very untrue to your principles if you did. So you see, this sum is not to be foisted altogether upon me, for there is no doubt that I should misuse it. Now I believe that if you were to give the matter a little consideration you could hit upon a more reasonable manner of laying out this sum. Don't interrupt me, please. My own views as to charity you know. You however look at the matter from an altogether different point of view. Let us leave it where it is for the moment. Something may occur to you within the next few months. Don't let it be a hospital, if you can help it—something altogether original would be best. Set your brain to work. I shall be at your service at any moment."

He rose to his feet and began slowly to collect his belongings. Then their eyes met, and she burst out laughing—he too smiled.

"You are very ingenious, Lord Arranmore," she said.

"It is my conscience," he assured her. "It is out of gear to the tune of three thousand."

"I don't believe in the conscience," she answered. 'This is sheer obstinacy. You have made up your mind that I should be interested in that money somehow, and you can't bear to suffer defeat."

"I am an old man," he said, "and you are a young woman. Let us leave it where it is for a while. I have an idea of the sort of life which you are planning for yourself. Believe me, that before you have lived here for many months you will be willing to give years of your life, years of your labour and your youth, to throw yourself into a struggle which without money is hopeless. Remember that there was a time when I too was young. I too saw these things as you and Brooks see them to-day. I do not wish to preach pessimism to you. I fought and was worsted. So will you be. The whole thing is a vast chimera, a jest of the God you have made for yourself. But as long as the world lasts the young will have to buy knowledge—as I have bought it. Don't go into the fray empty-handed—it will only prolong the suffering."

"You speak," she protested, gently, "as though it were impossible to do good."

"It is absolutely and entirely impossible to do good by any means which you and Brooks and the whole army of your fellow-philanthropists have yet evoked," he answered, with a sudden fierce note in his tone. "Don't think that I speak to you as a cynic, one who loiters on the edge of the cauldron and peers in to gratify cravings for sensation. I have been there, down in the thick of it, there where the mud is as black as hell—bottomless as eternity. I was young—as you—mad with enthusiasm. I had faith, strength, belief. I meant to cleanse the world. I worked till the skin hung on my bones. I gave all that I had—youth—gifts—money. And, do you know what I was doing? I was swimming against the tide of natural law, stronger than all mankind, unconquerable, eternal. There wasn't the smallest corner of the world the better for my broken life. There wasn't a child, a man, or a woman content to grasp my hand and climb out. There were plenty who mocked me. But they fell back again. They fell back always."

"Oh, but you can't tell that," she cried. "You can't be sure."

"You can be as sure of it as of life itself," he answered. "Come, take my advice. I know. I can save you a broken youth—a broken heart. Keep away from there."

He pointed out of the window eastwards.

"You can be charitable like the others, subscribe to societies, visit the sick, read the Bible, play at it as long as you like—but keep away from the real thing. If you feel the fever in your veins—fly. Go abroad, study art, literature, music—anything. Only don't listen to that cry. It will draw you against your will even. But not you nor the whole world of women, or the world full of gold, will ever stop it. It is the everlasting legacy to the world of outraged nature."

He went swiftly and silently, leaving her motionless. She saw him far down on the pavement below step into his brougham, pausing for a moment to light a cigarette. And half-an-hour later he walked with elastic tread into Mr. Ascough's office.

Mr. Ascough greeted him with an inquiring smile. Lord Arranmore nodded and sat down.

"You were quite right," he announced. "The tongues of men or of angels wouldn't move her. Never mind. She's going to use the money for charity."

"Well, that's something, at any rate," Mr. Ascough remarked.

"The eloquence," Lord Arranmore said, lazily, "which I have wasted upon that young woman would entrance the House of Lords. By the bye, Ascough, I am going to take my seat next week."

"I am delighted to hear it, your lordship."

"Yes, it's good news for the country, isn't it?" Lord Arranmore remarked. "I have not quite decided what my particular line shall be, but I have no doubt but that the papers will all be calling me a welcome addition to that august assembly before long. I believe that's what's the matter with me. I want to make a speech. Do you remember me at the Bar, Ascough? Couldn't keep me down, could they?"

Mr. Ascough smiled.

"You were rather fond of being on your feet!" he admitted.

Lord Arranmore sighed regretfully.

"And to think that I might have been Lord High Chancellor by now," he remarked. "Good-bye, Ascough."

* * * * *

Later, at the reception of a Cabinet Minister, Lord Arranmore came across Hennibul talking with half-a-dozen other men. He detached himself at once.

"This is odd," he remarked, with a whimsical smile. "What the dickens are you doing in this respectable household, Arranmore? You look like a lost sheep."

Lord Arranmore shrugged his shoulders.

"I've decided to go in for something," he said; "politics or society or something of that sort. What do you recommend?"

"Supper!" Mr. Hennibul answered, promptly.

"Come on then," Lord Arranmore assented. "One of those little tables in the far room, eh?"

"The pate here is delicious," Mr. Hennibul said; "but for Heaven's sake leave the champagne alone." "There's some decent hock. You'll excuse my pointing out these little things to you, but, of course, you don't know the runs yet. I'll give you a safe tip while I'm about it. The Opposition food is beastly, but the wine is all right—Pommery and Heidsieck, most of it, and the right years. The Government food now is good, but the wine, especially the champagne, is positively unholy."

"One should eat then with the Government, and drink with the Opposition," Lord Arranmore remarked.

"Or, better still," Mr. Hennibul said, "do both with the Speaker. By the bye, did you know that they are going to make me a judge?"

"I heard that your friends wanted to get rid of you!" Arranmore answered.

"To make yourself obnoxious—thoroughly obnoxious," Mr. Hennibul murmured, "is the sure road to advancement."

"That's right, give me a few tips," Lord Arranmore begged, sipping his wine.

"My dear fellow, I don't know what you're going in for yet."

"Neither do I. What about the stage? I used to be rather good at private theatricals. Elderly Wyndhamy parts, you know."

Mr. Hennibul shook his head.

"Twenty years too late," he declared. "Even the suburbs turn up their noses at a lord now."

"I must do something," Arranmore declared, meditatively.

"Don't see the necessity," Hennibul remarked.

Lord Arranmore lifted his glass and looked thoughtfully at the wine for a moment.

"Ah, well," he said, "you were born lazy, and I was born restless. That is the reason you have done something, and I haven't."

"If you want my advice—my serious advice," the K. C. said, quietly, "you will make yourself a nuisance to that right woman, whoever she is, until she marries you—if only to get rid of you."

"All sorts of things in the way," Lord Arranmore declared. "You see, I was married abroad."

Mr. Hennibul looked up quickly.

"Nonsense!"

"Quite true, I assure you."

"Is she alive?"

"No—but her son is.

"Great Heavens. Why, he's Lord Kingston?"

"Of course he is."

"How old is he?"

"Twenty-eight—or somewhere thereabouts."

"What is he doing? Where is he? Why don't we know him?"

"He doesn't approve of me," Lord Arranmore said. "Fact, really! We are scarcely on speaking terms."

"Why not?"

"Says I deserted his mother. So I did! Played the blackguard altogether. Left 'em both to starve, or next door to it!"

Mr. Hennibul fetched out his handkerchief and dabbed his forehead.

"You are serious, Arranmore?"

"Rather! You wouldn't expect me to be frivolous on this hock."

"That young man must be talked to," Mr. Hennibul declared. "He ought to be filling his proper place in the world. It's no use carrying on a grudge against his own father. Let me have a try at him."

"No!" Lord Arranmore said, quietly. "I am obliged to you, Hennibul, but the matter is one which does not admit of outside interference, however kindly. Besides, the boy is right. I wilfully deserted both him and his mother, and she died during my absence. My life, whilst away from them, was the sort one forgets—or tries to—and he knows about it. Further, when I returned to England I was two years before I took the trouble to go and see him. I merely alluded to these domestic matters that you might not wholly misjudge the situation."

Mr. Hennibul went on with his supper in silence. Lord Arranmore. whose appetite had soon failed him, leaned back in his chair and watched the people in the further room.

"This rather puts me off politics," he remarked, after a while. "I don't like the look of the people."

"Oh, you'll get in for the select crushers," Mr. Hennibul said. "This is a rank and file affair. You mustn't judge by appearances. But why must you specialize? Take my advice. Don't go in specially for politics, or society, or sport. Mix them all up. Be cosmopolitan and commonplace."

"Upon my word, Hennibul, you are a genius," Arranmore declared, "and yonder goes my good fairy."

He sprang up and disappeared into the further room.

"Lady Caroom," he exclaimed, bending over her shoulder. "I never suspected it of you."

She started slightly—she was silent perhaps for the fraction of a second. Then she looked up with a bright smile, meeting him on his own ground.

"But of you," she cried, "it is incredible. Come at once and explain."



CHAPTER V

BROOKS ENLISTS A RECRUIT

Brooks had found a small restaurant in the heart of fashionable London, where the appointments and decorations were French, and the waiters were not disposed to patronize. Of the cooking neither he nor Mary Scott in those days was a critic. Nevertheless she protested against the length of the dinner which he ordered.

"I want an excuse," he declared, laying down the carte, "for a good long chat. We shall be too late for the theatre, so we may as well resign ourselves to an hour or so of one another's society."

She shook her head.

"A very apt excuse for unwarrantable greediness," she declared. "Surely we can talk without eating?"

He shook his head.

"You do not smoke, and you do not drink liqueurs," he remarked. "Now I have noticed that it is simply impossible for one to sit before an empty table after dinner and not feel that one ought to go. Let the waiter take your cape. You will find the room warm.

"Do you remember," she asked him, "the first night we dined together?"

He looked at her with twinkling eyes.

"Rather! It was my introduction to your uncle's household. Selina sat on my left, and Louise on my right. You sat opposite, tired and disagreeable."

"I was tired—and I am always disagreeable."

"I have noticed it," he agreed, equably. "I hope you like oysters."

"If Selina were to see us now," she remarked, with a sudden humorous smile, "how shocked she would be."

"What a little far-away world it seems down there," he said thoughtfully. "After all, I am glad that I have not to live in Medchester all my life."

"You have been there this afternoon, haven't you?"

"Yes. Henslow is giving us a lot of trouble. I am afraid we shall lose the seat next election."

"Do you mind?"

"Not much. I am no party politician. I want to see Medchester represented by a man who will go there with a sense of political proportion, and I don't care whether he calls himself Liberal, or Radical, or Conservative, or Unionist."

"Please explain what you mean by that," she begged.

"Why, yes. I mean a man who will understand how enormously more important is the welfare of our own people, the people of whom we are making slaves, than this feverish Imperialism and war cant. Mind, I think our patriotism should be a thing wholly understood. It needn't be talked about. It makes showy fireworks for the platform, but it's all unnecessary and to my mind very undignified. If only people would take that for granted and go on to something worth while."

"Are things any better in Medchester just now?" she asked.

"On the surface, yes, but on the surface only. More factories are running half-time, but after all what does that mean? It's slow starvation. A man can't live and keep a family on fifteen shillings a week, even if his wife earns a little. He can't do it in a dignified manner, and with cleanliness and health. That is what he has a right to. That is what the next generation will demand. He should have room to expand. Cleanliness, air, fresh food. Every man and woman who is born into the world has a God-given right to these, and there are millions in Medchester, Manchester, and all the great cities who are denied all three."

"So all Henslow's great schemes, his Royal Commissions, his Protection Duties, his great Housing Bill, have come to nothing then?" she remarked.

"To less than nothing," he answered, gloomily. "The man was a fraud. He is not worth attempting to bully. He is a puppet politician of a type that ought to have been dead and buried generations ago. Enoch Stone is our only hope in the House now. He is a strong man, and he has hold of the truth."

"Have they decided upon Henslow's successor?" she asked.

"Not yet," he answered.

She looked up at him.

"I heard from uncle this morning," she said, smiling meaningly.

He shook his head.

"Well, it was mentioned," he said, "but I would not hear of it. I am altogether too young and inexperienced. I want to live with the people for a year or two first. That is why I am glad to get to London."

"With the people?" she asked, "in Jermyn Street?"

He laughed good-humouredly.

"I have also lodgings in the Bethnal Green Road," he said. "I took possession of them last week."

"Anywhere near Merry's Corner?" she asked.

"What do you know about Merry's Corner?" he exclaimed, with uplifted eyebrows. "Yes, my rooms are nearly opposite, at the corner of the next street."

"I've been down there once or twice lately," she said. "There's a mission-hall just there, and a girl named Kate Stuart gave me a letter to go three times a week."

He nodded.

"I know the place. Week-night services and hymn-singing and preaching. A cold, desolate affair altogether. I'm thankful I went in there, though, for it's given me an idea."

Yes?

"I'm going to start a mission myself."

"Go on."

"On a new principle. The first thing will be that there will be no religious services whatever. I won't have a clergyman connected with it. It will be intended solely for the benefit of the people from a temporal point of view."

"You are going a long way," she said. "What about Sundays?"

"There will be a very short service for the mission helpers only. No one will be asked from outside at all. If they come it will be as a favour. Directly it is over the usual week-day procedure will go on.

"And what is that to be?"

Brooks smiled a little doubtfully.

"Well," he said, "I've got the main idea in my head, but all the details want thinking out. I want the place to be a sort of help bureau, to give the people living in a certain street or couple of streets somewhere to go for advice and help in cases of emergency. There will be no money given away, under any consideration—only food, clothing, and, if they are asked for, books. I shall have half-a-dozen bathrooms, and the people who come regularly for advice and help will have to use them and to keep their houses clean. There will be no distinction as to character. We shall help the drunkards and the very worst of them just the same as the others if they apply. If we get enough helpers there will be plenty of branches we can open. I should like to have a children's branch, for instance—one or two women will take the children of the neighbourhood in hand and bathe them every day. As we get to know the people better and appreciate their special needs other things will suggest themselves. But I want them to feel that they have some place to fail back upon. We shall be frightfully humbugged, robbed, cheated, and deceived—at first. I fancy that after a time that will wear itself out."

"It is a fascinating idea," she said, thoughtfully, "but to carry it out in any way thoroughly you want a great many helpers and a great deal of money."

"I have enough to start it," he said, "and when it is really going and improving itself I shall go out and ask for subscriptions-big ones, you know, from the right sort of people. You can always get money if you can show that it is to be well spent."

"And what about the helpers?"

"Well, I know of a few," he said, "who I think would come in, and there is one to whom I would have to pay a small salary."

"I could come in the afternoons," she said.

"Capital! But are you sure," he said, after a moment's hesitation, "that it is quite fair to yourself?

"Oh, I can manage with my morning's salary," she answered, laughing. "I shan't starve. Besides, I can always burn a little midnight oil."

A waiter stood at their table for a moment, deftly carving some new dish, and Brooks, leaning back in his chair, glanced critically at his companion. In his judgment she represented something in womankind essentially of the durable type. He appreciated her good looks, the air with which she wore her simple clothes, her large full eyes, her wide, gently-humorous mouth, and the hair parted in the middle, and rippling away towards her ears. A frank companionable woman, whose eyes had never failed to look into his, in whom he had never at any time seen a single shadow of embarrassment. It occurred to him just at that moment that never since he had known her had he seen her interested to the slightest degree in any man. He looked back at her thoughtfully. She was young, good-looking, too catholic in her views of life and its possibilities to refuse in any way to recognize its inevitable tendencies. Yet he told himself complacently as he sipped his wine and watched her gazing with amused interest at the little groups of people about the place, that there must be in her composition a lack of sentiment. Never for a second in their intercourse had she varied from her usual good-natured cheerfulness. If there had been a shadow she had brushed it away ruthlessly. Even on that terrible afternoon at Enton she had sat in the cab white and silent—she had appealed to him in no way for sympathy.

The waiter retreated with a bow. She shot a swift glance across at him.

"I object to being scrutinized," she declared. "Is it the plainness of my hat or the depth of my wrinkles to which you object?"

"Object!" he repeated.

"Yes. You were looking for something which you did not find. You were distinctly disappointed. Don't deny it. It isn't worth while."

"I won't plead guilty to the disappointment," he answered, "but I'll tell you the truth. I was thinking what a delightfully companionable girl you were, and yet how different from any other girl I have ever met in my life."

"That sounds hackneyed—the latter part of it," she remarked, "but in my case I see that it is not intended to be a compliment. What do I lack that other girls have?

"You are putting me in a tight corner," he declared. "It isn't that you lack anything, but nearly all the girls one meets some time or other seem to expect from one nice little speeches or compliments, just a little sentiment now and then. Now you seem so entirely superior to that sort of thing altogether. It is a ridiculously lame explanation. The thing's in my head all right, but I can't get it out. I can only express it when I say that you are the only girl I have ever known, or known of, in my life with whom sex would never interfere with companionship."

She stirred her coffee absently. At first he thought that she might be offended, for she did not look up for several moments.

"I'm afraid I failed altogether to make you understand what I meant," he said, humbly. "It is the result of an attempt at too great candour."

Then she looked up and smiled at him graciously enough, though it seemed to him that she was a little pale.

"I am sure you were delightfully lucid," she said. "I quite understood, and on the whole I think I agree with you. I don't think that the sentimental side of me has been properly developed. By the bye, you were going to tell me about that pretty girl I saw at Enton—Lady Caroom's daughter, wasn't she?"

His face lit up—she saw his thoughts go flitting away, and the corner of his lips curl in a retrospective smile of pleasure.

"Sybil Caroom," he said, softly. "She is a very charming girl. You would like her, I am sure. Of course she's been brought up in rather a frivolous world, but she's quite unspoilt, very sympathetic, and very intelligent. Isn't that a good character?"

"Very," she answered, with a suspicion of dryness in her tone. "Is this paragon engaged to be married yet?"

He looked at her, keenly surprised by the infusion of something foreign in her tone.

"I—I think not," he answered. "I should like you to meet her very much. She will be coming to London soon, and I know that she will be interested in our new scheme if it comes to anything. We will take her down and give her a few practical lessons in philanthropy."

"Will she be interested?" Mary asked.

"Immensely," he answered, with confidence. "Lady Caroom is an awfully good sort, too."

Mary remembered the well-bred insolence of Lady Caroom's stare, the contemplative incredulity which found militant expression in her beautiful eyes and shapely curving lips, and for a moment half closed her eyes.

"Ah, well," she said, "that afternoon was rather a terrible one to me. Let us talk of something else."

He was profuse at once in apologies for his own thoughtlessness. But she checked him almost at the outset.

"It is I who am to blame for an unusual weakness," she said. "Let us both forget it. And don't you find this place hot? Let us get outside and walk."

They found a soft misty rain falling. The commissionaire called a hansom. She moved her skirts to make room for him.

"I am going down to Stepney to see a man who I think will be interested in my scheme," he said. "When may I come down again and have tea with you?"

"Any afternoon, if you will drop me a line the night before," she said, "but I am not very likely to be out, in any case. Thank you so much for my dinner. My aunt seemed to think that I was coming to London to starve. I think I feel fairly safe this evening, at any rate."

The cab drove off, skirting the gaily-lit crescent of Regent Street. The smile almost at once died away from her lips. She leaned forward and looked at herself in one of the oblong mirrors. Her face was almost colourless, the skin seemed drawn closely round her eyes, giving her almost a strained look. For the rest, her hair, smoothly brushed away from her face, was in perfect order, her prim little hat was at exactly the right angle, her little white tie alone relieved the sombreness of her black jacket. She sighed and suddenly felt a moistening of her hot eyes. She leaned far back into the corner of the cab.



CHAPTER VI

KINGSTON BROOKS, PHILANTHROPIST

"It is my deliberate intention," Lord Arranmore said, leaning over towards her from his low chair, "to make myself a nuisance to you." Lady Caroom smiled at him thoughtfully.

"Thank you for the warning," she said, "but I can take care of myself. I do not feel even obliged to deny myself the pleasure of your society."

"No, you won't do that," he remarked. "You see, so many people bore you, and I don't."

"It is true," she admitted. "You pay me nothing but unspoken compliments, and you devote a considerable amount of ingenuity to conceal the real meaning of everything you say. Now some people might not like that. I adore it."

"Catherine, will you marry me?"

"Certainly not! I'm much too busy looking after Sybil, and in any case you've had your answer, my friend."

"You will marry me," he said, deliberately, "in less than two years—perhaps in less than one. Why can't you make your mind up to it?"

"You know why, Arranmore," she said, quietly. "If you were the man I remember many years ago, the man I have wasted many hours of my life thinking about, I would not hesitate for a moment. I loved that man, and I have always loved him. But, Arranmore, I cannot recognize him in you. If these terrible things which you have suffered, these follies which you have committed, have withered you up so that there remains no trace of the man I once cared for, do you blame me for refusing you? I will not marry a stranger, Arranmore, and I not only don't know you, but I am a little afraid of you."

He sighed.

"Perhaps you are right," he said, softly. "I believe that the only thing I have carried with me from the beginning, and shall have with me to the end, is my love for you. Nothing else has survived."

Her eyes filled with tears. She leaned over to him.

"Dear friend," she said, "listen! At least I will promise you this. If ever I should see the least little impulse or action which seems to me to come from the Philip I once knew, and not Lord Arranmore, anything which will convince me that some part, however slight, of the old has survived, I will come to you."

He sighed.

"You alone," he said, "might work such a miracle."

"Then come and see me often," she said, with a brilliant smile, "and I will try."

He moved his chair a little nearer to her.

"You encourage me to hope," he said. "I remember that one night in the conservatory I was presumptuous enough—to take your hand. History repeats itself, you see, and I claim the prize, for I have fulfilled the condition."

She drew her hand away firmly, but without undue haste.

"If you are going to be frivolous," she said, "I will have all the callers shown in. You know very well that that is not what I mean. There must be some unpremeditated action, some impulse which comes from your own heart. Frankly, Arranmore, there are times now when I am afraid of you. You seem to have no heart—to be absolutely devoid of feeling, to be cold and calculating even in your slightest actions. There, now I have told you just what I feel sometimes, and it doesn't sound nice, does it?"

"It sounds very true," he said, wearily. "Will you tell me where I can buy a new heart and a fresh set of impulses, even a disposition, perhaps? I'd be a customer. I'm willing enough."

"Never mind that," she said, softly. "After all, I have a certain amount of faith. A miracle may happen at any moment."

Sybil came in, dressed in a fascinating short skirt and a toque. Her maid on the threshold was carrying a small green baize box.

"I am going to Prince's, mother, just for an hour, with Mrs. Huntingdon. How do you do, Lord Arranmore? You'll keep mother from being dull, won't you?"

"It is your mother," he said, "who is making me dull."

"Poor old mummy," Sybil declared, cheerfully.

"Never mind. Her bark's a good deal worse than her bite. Good-bye, both of you."

Lord Arranmore rose and closed the door after her.

"Sybil is a remarkably handsome young woman," he said. "Any signs of her getting married yet?"

Lady Caroom shook her head.

"No! Arranmore, that reminds me, what has become of—Mr. Brooks?" Lord Arranmore smiled a little bitterly. "He is in London."

"I have never seen him, you must remember, since that evening. Is he still—unforgiving?

"Yes! He refuses to be acknowledged. He is taking the bare income which is his by law—it comes from a settlement to the eldest son—and he is studying practical philanthropy in the slums."

"I am sorry," she said. "I like him, and he would be a companion for you."

"He's not to be blamed," Lord Arranmore said. "From his point of view I have been the most scandalous parent upon this earth." Lady Caroom sighed.

"Do you know," she said, "that he and Sybil were very friendly?

"I noticed it," he answered.

"She has asked about him once or twice since we got back to town, and when she reads about the starting of this new work of his at Stepney she will certainly write to him."

"You mean—"

"I mean that she has sent Sydney to the right-about this time in earnest. She is a queer girl, reticent in a way, although she seems such a chatterbox, and I am sure she thinks about him."

Lord Arranmore laughed a little hardly.

"Well," he said, "I am the last person to be consulted about anything of this sort. If he keeps up his present attitude and declines to receive anything from me, his income until my death will be only two or three thousand a year. He might marry on that down in Stepney, but not in this part of the world.''

"Sybil has nine hundred a year," Lady Caroom said, "but it would not be a matter of money at all. I should not allow Sybil to marry any one concerning whose position in the world there was the least mystery. She might marry Lord Kingston of Ross, but never Mr. Kingston Brooks."

"Has—Mr. Brooks given any special signs of devotion?" Lord Arranmore asked.

"Not since they were at Enton. I dare say he has never even thought of her since. Still, it was a contingency which occurred to me."

"He is a young man of excellent principles," Lord Arranmore said, dryly, "taking life as seriously as you please, and I should imagine is too well balanced to make anything but a very safe husband. If he comes to me, if he will accept it without coming to me even, he can have another ten thousand a year and Enton."

"You are generous," she murmured.

"Generous! My houses and my money are a weariness to me. I cannot live in the former, and I cannot spend the latter. I am a man really of simple tastes. Besides, there is no glory now in spending money. One can so easily be outdone by one's grocer, or one of those marvellous Americans."

"Yet I thought I read of you last week as giving nine hundred pounds for some unknown tapestry at Christie's."

"But that is not extravagance," he protested. "That is not even spending money. It is exchanging one investment for another. The purple colouring of that tapestry is marvellous. The next generation will esteem it priceless."

"You must go?" she asked, for he had risen.

"I have stayed long enough," he answered. "In another five minutes you will yawn, and mine would have been a wasted visit. I should like to time my visits always so that the five minutes which I might have stayed seem to you the most desirable five minutes of the whole time."

"You are an epicurean and a schemer," she declared. "I am afraid of you."

* * * * *

He bought an evening paper on his way to St. James's Square, and leaning back in his brougham, glanced it carelessly through. Just as he was throwing it aside a small paragraph at the bottom of the page caught his attention.

A NOVEL PHILANTHROPIC DEPARTURE.

THE FIRST BUREAU OPENED TO-DAY.

INTERVIEW WITH MR. KINGSTON BROOKS.

He folded the paper out, and read through every line carefully. A few minutes after his arrival home he re-issued from the house in a bowler hat and a long, loose overcoat. He took the Metropolitan and an omnibus to Stepney, and read the paragraph through again. Soon he found himself opposite the address given.

He recognized it with a little start. It had once been a mission hall, then a furniture shop, and later on had been empty for years. It was brilliantly lit up, and he pressed forward and peered through the window. Inside the place was packed. Brooks and a dozen or so others were sitting on a sort of slightly-raised platform at the end of the room, with a desk in front of each of them. Lord Arranmore pulled his hat over his eyes and forced his way just inside. Almost as he entered Brooks rose to his feet.

"Look here," he said, "you all come up asking the same question and wasting my time answering you all severally. You want to know what this place means. Well, if you'll stay just where you are for a minute, I'll tell you all together, and save time."

"Hear, hear, guv'nor," said a bibulous old costermonger, encouragingly. "Let's hear all about it."

"So you shall," Brooks said. "Now listen. I dare say there are a good many of you who go up in the West End sometimes, and see those big houses and the way people spend their money there, who come back to your own houses here, and think that things aren't exactly dealt out square. Isn't that so?"

There was a hearty and unanimous assent.

"Well," Brooks continued, "it may surprise you to hear that a few of us who have a little money up there have come to the same conclusion. We'd like to do our little bit towards squaring things up. It may not be much, but lots more may come of it."

A modified but a fairly cordial assent.

"We haven't money to give away—not much of it, at any rate," Brooks continued.

"More bloomin' tracks," the costermonger interrupted, and spat upon the floor. "Fair sickens me, it does."

"As for tracts," Brooks continued, calmly, "I don't think I've ever read one in my life, and I don't want to. We haven't such a thing in the place, and I shouldn't know where to go for them, and though that gentleman down there with a herring sticking out of his pocket seems to have done himself pretty well already, I'd rather stand him a glass of beer than offer him such a thing."

A roar of laughter, during which a wag in the crowd quietly picked the costermonger's pocket of the fish with a deftness born of much practice, and sent it flying over the room. It was promptly returned, and found a devious way back to its owner in a somewhat dusty and mauled condition.

"There is just one thing we have to ask for and insist upon," Brooks continued. "When you come to us for help, tell us the truth. If you've been drunk all the week and haven't earned any money, well, we may help you out with a Sunday dinner. If you've been in prison and won't mind owning up to it, we shan't send you away for that reason. We want your women to come and bring us your children, that we can have a look at them, tell us how much you all make a week between you, and what you need most to make you a bit more comfortable. And we want your husbands to come and tell us where they work, and what rent they pay, and if they haven't any work, and can't get it, we'll see what we can do. I tell you I don't care to start with whether you're sober and industrious, or idle, or drunkards. We'll give any one a leg-up if we can. I don't say we shall keep that up always, because of course we shan't. But we'll give any one a fair chance. Now do you want to ask any questions?"

A pallid but truculent-looking young man pushed himself to the front.

"'Ere, guv'nor!" he said. "Supposing yer was to stand me a coat—I ain't 'ad one for two months—should I 'ave to come 'ere on a Sunday and sing bloomin' hymns?"

"If you did," Brooks answered him, "you'd do it by yourself, and you'd stand a fair chance of being run out. There's going to be no preaching or hymn-singing here. Those sorts of things are very well in their way, but they've nothing to do with this show. I'm not sure whether we shall open on Sundays or not. If we do it will be only for the ordinary business. Now let's get to work."

"Sounds a bit of orl right, and no mistake," the young man remarked, turning round to the crowd. "I'm going to stop and 'ave a go for that coat."

A young man in a bright scarlet jersey pushed himself to the front, followed by a little volley of chaff, more or less good-natured.

"There's Salvation Joe wants a new trombone."

"Christian Sall's blown a hole in the old one, eh, Joe?"

Breathless he reached Brooks' side. The sweat stood out in beads upon his forehead. He seemed not to hear a word that was said amongst the crowd. Brooks smiled at him good-humouredly. "Well, sir," he said, "what can I do for you?"

"I happened in, sir, out of curiosity," the young man said, in a strange nasal twang, the heritage of years of outdoor preaching; "I hoped to hear of one more good work begun in this den of iniquity and to clasp hands with another brother in God."

"Glad to see you," Brooks said. "You'll remember we're busy."

"The message of God," the young man answered, "must be spoken at all times."

"Oh, chuck 'im out!" cried the disgusted costermonger, spitting upon the floor. "That sort o' stuff fair sickens me."

The young man continued as though he had not heard.

"Such charity as you are offering," he cried, "is corruption. You are going to dispense things for their carnal welfare, and you do nothing for their immortal souls. You will not let them even shout their thanks to God. You will fill their stomachs and leave their souls hungry."

The costermonger waved a wonderful red handkerchief, and spat once more on the floor. Brooks laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder.

"Look here, my young friend," he said, "you're talking rot. Men and women who live down here in wretchedness, and who are fighting every moment of their time to hang on to life, don't want to be talked to about their souls. They need a leg-up in the world, and we've come to try and give it to them. We're here as friends, not preachers. We'll leave you to look after their souls. You people who've tried to make your religion the pill to go with your charity have done more harm in the world than you know of."

The young man was on fire to speak, but he had no chance. They hustled him out good-naturedly except that the costermonger, running him down the room, took his cap from his head and sent it spinning across the road. Lord Arranmore left the hall at the same time, and turned homewards, walking like a man in a dream.



CHAPTER VII

BROOKS AND HIS MISSIONS

"Now then, please," Brooks said, dipping his pen in the ink.

A lady of ample proportions, who had been standing since the commencement of the proceedings with her hand tightly grasping the leg of Brooks' table, gave a final shove of discomfiture to a meek-faced girl whom she had suspected of an attempt to supersede her, and presented herself before the desk.

"I'm first," she declared, firmly; "been 'ere for four mortal hours."

"What is your name, please?" Brooks asked.

"Mrs. Robert Jones, No. 4, St. Mary's Court, down Fennell Street—leastways you go that way from 'ere. I'm a widow woman with four children, and lost me husband on the railway. What I wants is a suit of clothes for my Tommy, he's five-and-'arf, and stout for his years, and a pair of boots for Selina Ann. And I'm not a saying," she continued, blandly, "as me having waited 'ere so long, and this being a sort of opening ceremony, as a pound of tea for myself wouldn't be a welcome and reasonable gift. And if the suit," she concluded, breathlessly, "has double-seated breeches so much the better."

Brooks maintained the most perfect composure, although conscious of a suppressed titter from behind. He commenced to write rapidly in his book, and Mrs. Jones, drawing her shawl about her, looked around complacently. Suddenly she caught the ripple of mirth, which some of Brooks' helpers were powerless to control. Her face darkened.

"Which is little enough to ask for," she declared, truculently, "considering as it's four mortal hours since I first laid hold of the leg of that table, and neither bite nor sup have I had since, it not being my habit," she continued, slowly, and staring intently at the hang of her neighbour's skirt, "to carry bottles in my pocket."

Brooks looked up.

"Thank you, Mrs. Jones," he said. "I have entered your name and address, and I hope we shall see you again soon. This young lady," he indicated Mary, "will take you over to our clothes department, and if we haven't anything to fit Tommy you must come again on Wednesday, when we shall have a larger supply."

"I'll take the nearest you've got to-day," she decided, promptly. "Wot about the tea?"

"We shall be glad to ask you to accept a small packet," Brooks answered. "By the bye, have you a pension from the railway company?"

"Not a penny, sir," she declared, "and a burning shame it is."

"We must see into it," Brooks said. "You see that gentleman behind me?"

"Him with the squint?" she asked, doubtfully.

Brooks bent over his book.

"Mr. Fellows, his name is," he said. "He is one of our helpers here, and he is a lawyer. You can tell him all about it, and if we think you have a claim we will try and see what we can do for you. Now, if you please, we must get on. Come in any time, Mrs. Jones, and talk to us. Some one is, always here. What is your name, please?"

"Amy Hardinge!"

There was a howl of derision from the rear. The girl, pallid, with large dark eyes, a somewhat tawdry hat and torn skirt, turned angrily around.

"Who yer shouting at, eh? There ain't so many of yer as knows yer own names, I dir say, and 'Ardinge's as good as any other. Leave a body be, won't yer?"

She turned round to Brooks, and disclosed a most alarming rent in her gown.

"Look 'ere, guv'nor," she said, "that's my name, and I 'as a back room behind old Connel's fish-shop next door but one to 'ere. If yer want to give away things to them as wants 'em, wot price a new skirt 'ere, eh?"

A woman from the rear leaned over to Brooks.

"The 'ussy," she said. "Don't you take no notice of 'er, sir. We all knows 'er—and precious little good there is ter know."

Miss Hardinge was not unreasonably annoyed. She turned round with flashing eyes and belligerent attitude.

"Who the 'ell asked you anything?" she exclaimed. "Can't yer keep your bloomin' mouths closed?"

A pale-faced little man pushed his way through the throng. He was dressed in a semi-clerical garb, and he tapped Brooks on the shoulder.

"Can you favour me with one moment's private conversation, sir?" he said. "My name is John Deeling, and I am a minister of the Gospel. The Mission House in Fennell Street is my special charge."

"Glad to know you, Mr. Deeling," Brooks answered, "but I can't spare any time for private conversation now. Can't you speak to me here?"

Mr. Deeling looked doubtfully at the girl who stood still before the desk, silent, but breathing hard. A sullen shade had fallen upon her face. She looked like a creature at bay.

"It is concerning-this unfortunate young person."

"I can assure you," Brooks said, dipping his pen in the ink, "that no recommendation is necessary. I shall do what I can for her."

"You misapprehend me, sir," Mr. Deeling said, with some solemnity. "I regret to say that no recommendation is possible. That young person is outside the pale of all Christian help. I regret to speak so plainly before ladies, sir, but she is a notorious character, a hardened and incurable prostitute."

Brooks looked at him for a moment fixedly.

"Did I understand you to say, sir, that you were a minister of the Gospel?" he asked.

"Certainly! I am well known in the neighbourhood."

"Then if you take my advice," Brooks said, sternly, "you will take off those garments and break stones upon the street. It is to help such unfortunate and cruelly ill-used young women as this that I and my friends have come here. Be off, sir. Miss Hardinge, this young lady will take you to our clothes store in the inner room there. I hope you will permit us to be of some further use to you later on."

The girl, half dazed, passed away. Mr. Deeling, his face red with anger, turned towards the door.

"You may call it a Christian deed, sir," he exclaimed, angrily, "to encourage vice of the worst description. We shall see what the bishop, what the Press, have to say about it."

"I don't care a snap of the fingers what you, or the bishop, or time Press have to say," Brooks rejoined, equably; "but lest there should be those here who agree with your point of view, let them hear this from me at once, to prevent misunderstanding. We are here to help to the best of our ability all who need help, whatsoever their characters. They are equally welcome to what we have to offer, whether they be thieves, or prostitutes, or drunkards, or respectable men and women. But if I were asked what really brought me here, for what class of people in the world my sympathy and the sympathies of my friends have been most warmly kindled, I should say, for such as that young woman who has just presented herself here. If she asks for them, she will have from us food and clothes and the use of our baths and reading-rooms whenever she chooses, and I will guarantee that not one of my women friends here who come in contact with her will ask a single question as to her mode of life, until she invites their confidence. If you think that she is responsible for her present state, you and I differ—if you think that one shadow of blame rests upon her, we differ again. And if there are any more like her in the room, let them come out, and they shall have all that they ask for, that it is within our power to give."

"Hear, hear, guv'nor!"

"That's ginger for 'im."

"Out of this, old white choker. There's beans for you."

They let him pass through. On the threshold he turned and faced Brooks again.

"At least," he said, "I can promise you this. God's blessing will never be upon your work. I doubt whether you will be allowed to continue it in this Christian country."

Brooks rose to his feet.

"Mr. Deeling," he said, "you and your mission system of work amongst the poor have been fighting a losing battle in this country for fifty years and more. A Christian country you call it. Go outside in the streets. Look north and south, east and west, look at the people, look at their children, look at their homes. Is there one shadow of improvement in this labyrinth of horrors year by year, decade by decade? You know in your heart that there is none. Therefore if new means be chosen, do not condemn them too rashly. Your mission houses, many of them, have been nothing but breeding-places for hypocrisy. It is time the old order was changed. Now, sir, you are next. What can we do for you?"

A weary-looking man with hollow eyes and nervously-twitching fingers found himself pushed before the desk. He seemed at first embarrassed and half dazed. Brooks waited without any sign of impatience. When at last he spoke, it was without the slightest trace of any Cockney accent.

"I—I beg your pardon, sir! I ought not perhaps to intrude here, but I don't know who needs help more than I do."

"He's orl right, sir," sung out the costermonger. "He is a bit queer in the 'ead, but he's a scholar, and fair on his uppers. Speak up, Joe."

"You see, my friends are willing to give me a character, sir," the man remarked, with a ghost of a smile. "My name is Edward Owston. I was clerk at a large drapery firm, Messrs. Appleby, Sons, and Dawson, in St. Paul's Churchyard, for fourteen years. I have a verified character from them. They were obliged to cult down their staff, owing to foreign competition, and—I have never succeeded—in obtaining another situation. There is nothing against me, sir. I would have worked for fifteen shillings a week. I walked the streets till my boots were worn through and my clothes hung around me like rags. It was bad luck at first—afterwards it was my clothes. I have been selling matches for a month it has brought me in two shillings a week."

"How old are you?" Brooks asked. "Thirty-four, sir." Brooks nearly dropped his pen.

"What?" he exclaimed.

"Thirty-four, sir. It is four years since I lost my situation."

The man's hair was grey, a little stubbly grey beard was jutting out from his chin. His eyes were almost lost in deep hollows. Brooks felt a lump in his throat, and for a moment pretended to be writing busily. Then he looked up.

"We shall give you a fresh start in life, Edward Owston," he said. "Follow this gentleman at my left. He will find you clothes and food. To-morrow you will go to a cottage which belongs to us at Hastings for one month. Afterwards, if your story is true, we shall find you a suitable situation—if it is partially true, we shall still find you something to do. If it is altogether false we cannot help you, for absolute truth in answering our questions is the only condition we impose." The man never uttered a word. He went out leaning upon the arm of one of Brooks' assistants. Another, who was a doctor, after a glance into the man's face, followed them. When he returned, after about twenty minutes' absence, he leaned forward and whispered in Brooks' ear "You'll never have to find a situation for that poor fellow. A month's about all he's good for." Brooks looked round shocked. "What is it—drink?" he asked. The doctor shook his head.

"Not a trace of it. Starvation and exhaustion. If I hadn't been with him just now he'd have been dead before this. He fainted away."

Brooks half closed his eyes.

"It is horrible!" he murmured.

The costermonger was next. Brooks looked around the room and at the clock.

"Look here," he said. "If I sit here till tomorrow I can't possibly attend to all of you. I tell you what I'll do. If you others will give place to those whose cases are really urgent, I'll be here at seven to-morrow morning till seven at night, and the next day too, if necessary. It's no good deputing any one else to tell me, because however many branches we open—and I hope we shall open a great many—I mean to manage this one myself, and I must know you all personally. Now are you all agreeable?"

"I am for one," declared the costermonger, moving away from before the desk. "I ain't in no 'urry. I've 'ad a bit o' bad luck wi' my barrer, all owing to a plaguing drunken old omnibus-driver, and horl I want is a bit o' help towards the security. Josh Auk wants it before he'll let me out a new one. Tomorrow's horl right for me."

"Well, I expect we'll manage that," Brooks remarked. "Now where are the urgent cases?"

One by one they were elbowed forward. Brooks' pen flew across the paper. It was midnight even then before they had finished. Brooks and Mary Scott left together. They were both too exhausted for words.

As they crossed the street Mary suddenly touched his arm.

"Look!" she whispered.

A girl was leaning up against the wall, her face buried in her hands, sobbing bitterly. They both watched her for a moment. It was Amy Hardinge.

"I will go and speak to her," Mary whispered.

Brooks drew her away.

"Not one word, even of advice," he said. "Let us keep to our principles. The end will be surer."

They turned the corner of the street. Above the shouting of an angry woman and the crazy song of a drunken man the girl's sobs still lingered in their ears.



CHAPTER VIII

MR. BULLSOM IS STAGGERED

Mr. Bullsom looked up from his letters With an air of satisfaction.

"Company to dinner, Mrs. Bullsom!" he declared. "Some more of your silly old directors, I suppose," said Selina, discontentedly. "What a nuisance they are."

Mr. Bullsom frowned.

"My silly old directors, as you call 'em," he answered, "may not be exactly up to your idea of refinement, but I wouldn't call 'em names if I were you. They've made me one of the richest men in Medchester."

"A lot we get out of it," Louise grunted, discontentedly.

"You get as much as you deserve," Mr. Bullsom retorted. "Besides, you're so plaguing impatient. You don't hear your mother talk like that."

Selina whispered something under her breath which Mr. Bullsom, if he heard, chose to ignore.

"I've explained to you all before," he continued, "that up to the end of last year we've been holding the entire property—over a million pounds' worth, between five of us. Our time's come now. Now, look here—I'll listen to what you've got to say—all of you. Supposing I've made up my mind to launch out. How do you want to do it? You first, mother."

Mrs. Bullsom looked worried.

"My dear Peter," she said, "I think we're very comfortable as we are. A larger household means more care, and a man-servant about the place is a thing I could never abide. If you felt like taking sittings at Mr. Thompson's as well as our own chapel, so that we could go there when we felt we needed a change, I think I should like it sometimes. But it seems a waste of good money with Sundays only coming once in seven days."

Mr. Bullsom shook with good-humoured laughter.

"Mother, mother," he said, "we shall never smarten you up, shall we, girls? Now, what do you say, Selina?"

"I should like a country house quite ten on fifteen miles away from here, lots of horses and carriages, and a house in town for the season," Selina declared, boldly.

"And you, Louise?"

"I should like what Selina has said."

Mr. Bullsom looked a little grave.

"The house in London," he said, "you shall have, whether I buy it or only hire it for a few months at a time. If we haven't friends up there, there are always the theatres and music-halls, and lots going on. But a country house is a bit different. I thought of building a place up at Nicholson's Corner, where the trains stop. The land belongs to me, and there's room for the biggest house in Medchester."

Selina tossed her head.

"Of course," she said, "if we have to spend all our lives in this hateful suburb it doesn't much matter whether you stay here on build another house, no one will come to see us. We shall never get to know anybody."

"And supposing you go out into the country," Mr. Bullsom argued. "How do you know that you will make friends there?"

"People must call," Selina answered, "if you subscribe to the hounds, and you must get made a magistrate."

"We have lived here for a good many years," Mr. Bullsom said, "and there are very superior people living almost at our doors whom even you girls don't know to bow to."

Selina tossed her head.

"Superior, you call them, do you? A silly stuck-up lot, I think. They form themselves into little sets, and if you don't belong, they treat you as though you had small-pox."

"The men are all pleasant enough," Mr. Bullsom remarked. "I meet them in the trains and in business, and they're always glad enough to pass the time o' day."

"Oh, the men are all right," Selina answered. "It's easy enough to know them. Mr. Wensome trod on my dress the other day, and apologized as though he'd torn it off my back, and the next day he gave me his seat in the car. I always acknowledge him, and he's glad enough to come and talk, but if his wife's with him, she looks straight ahead as though every one else in the car were mummies."

Mr. Bullsom cut the end of a cigar thoughtfully, and motioned Louise to get him a light.

"You see, your mother and I are getting on in life," he said, "and it's a great thing to ask us to settle down in a place where there's no slipping off down to the club in the evening, and no chance of a friend dropping in for a chat. We've got to an age when we need some one to talk to. I ain't going to say that a big house in the country isn't a nice thing to have, and the gardens and that would be first-class. But it's a big move, and it ain't to be decided about all in a hurry."

"Why, father, there's the shooting," Selina exclaimed. "You're fond of that, and men will go anywhere for really good shooting, and make their wives go, too. If you could get a place with plenty of it, and a fox-covert or two on the estate, I'm perfectly certain we should be all right."

Mr. Bullsom looked still a little doubtful.

"That's all very well," he said, "but I don't want to bribe people into my house with shooting and good cooking, and nursing their blooming foxes. That ain't my idea of making friends."

"It's only breaking the ice-just at first," Selina argued. "Afterwards I'm sure you'd find them friendly enough."

"I tell you what I shall do," Mr. Bullsom said, deliberately; "I shall consult the friend I've got coming to dinner to-night."

Selina smiled contemptuously.

"Pshaw!" she exclaimed. "What do any of them know about such things?"

"You don't know who it is," Mr. Bullsom replied, mysteriously.

The girls turned towards him almost simultaneously.

"Is it Mr. Brooks?"

Mr. Bullsom nodded. Selina flushed with pleasure and tried to look unconscious.

"Only the day before yesterday," Mr. Bullsom said, "as chairman of the committee, I had the pleasure of forwarding to Brooks a formal invitation to become the parliamentary candidate for the borough. He writes to me by return to say that he will be here this afternoon, as he wishes to see me personally."

"I must say he hasn't lost much time," Louise remarked, smiling across at Selina.

Mr. Bullsom grunted.

"I don't see how he could do much less," he said. "After all, though every one admits that he's a clever young chap and uncommonly conscientious, he's not well known generally, and he hasn't the position in the town or anywhere which people generally look for in a parliamentary candidate. I may tell you, girls, and you, mother, that he was selected solely on my unqualified support and my casting vote."

"I hope," Mrs. Bullsom said, "that he will be properly grateful."

"I'm sure it's very good of you, pa," Selina declared, affably. She liked the idea of Brooks owing so much to her father.

"There's no young man," Mr. Bullsom said, "whom I like so much or think so much of as Mr. Brooks. If I'd a son like that I'd be a proud man. And as we're here all alone, just the family, as it were, I'll go on to say this," Mr. Bullsom continued, his right thumb finding its way to the armhole of his waistcoat. "I'm going to drop a hint at the first opportunity I get, quite casually, that whichever of you girls gets married first gets a cheque from me for one hundred thousand pounds."

Even Selina was staggered. Mrs. Bullsom was positively frightened.

"Mr. Bullsom!" she said. "Peter, you ain't got as much as that? Don't tell me!"

"I am worth to-day," Mr. Bullsom said, solemnly, "at least five hundred thousand pounds."

"Peter," Mrs. Bullsom gasped, "has it been come by honest?"

Mr. Bullsom smiled in a superior way.

"I made it," he answered, "by locking up forty thousand, more than half of what I was worth, for five years. But I knew what I was about, and so did the others. Mason made nearly as much as I did."

Selina looked at her father with a new respect. He rose and brushed the ashes of his cigar from his waistcoat.

"Now I'm off," he declared. "Brooks and I will be back about seven, and I shall try and get him to sleep here. Fix yourselves up quiet and ladylike, you girls. Good-bye, mother."

* * * * *

"We have about an hour before dinner," Mr. Bullsom remarked, sinking into his most comfortable chair and lighting a cigar. "Just time for a comfortable chat. You'll smoke, Brooks, won't you?"

Brooks excused himself, and remained standing upon the hearthrug, his elbow upon the mantelpiece. He hated this explanation he had to make. However, it was no good in beating about the bush.

"I am going to surprise you very much, Mr. Bullsom," he began.

Mr. Bullsom took the cigar from his mouth and looked up with wide-open eyes. He had been preparing graciously to wave away a torrent of thanks.

"I am going to surprise you very much," Brooks repeated. "I cannot accept this magnificent offer of yours. I cannot express my gratitude sufficiently to you, or to the committee. Nothing would have made me happier than to have been able to accept it. But I am absolutely powerless."

"You don't funk it?" Mr. Bullsom asked.

"Not I. The fact is, there are circumstances connected with myself which make it inadvisable for me to seek any public position at present."

Mr. Bullsom's first sensations of astonishment were augmented into stupefaction. He was scarcely capable of speech. He found himself wondering idly how heinous a crime a man must commit to be branded ineligible.

"To explain this to you," Brooks continued, "I am bound to tell you something which is only known to two people in the country. The Marquis of Arranmore is my father."

Mr. Bullsom dropped his cigar from between his fingers, and it lay for a moment smouldering upon the carpet. His face was a picture of blank and hopeless astonishment.

"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, faintly. "You mean that you—you, Kingston Brooks, the lawyer, are Lord Arranmore's son?"

Brooks nodded.

"Yes! It's not a pleasant story. My father deserted my mother when I was a child, and she died in his absence. A few months ago, Lord Arranmore, in a leisurely sort of way, thought well to find me out, and after treating me as an acquaintance for some time—a sort of probationary period, I suppose—he told me the truth. That is the reason of my resigning from the firm of Morrison and Brooks almost as soon as the partnership deed was signed. I went to see Mr. Ascough and told him about your offer, and he, of course, explained the position to me."

"But,"—Mr. Bullsom paused as though striving to straighten out the matter in his own mind, "but if you are Lord Arranmore's son there is no secret about it, is there? Why do you still call yourself Mr. Brooks?"

Mr. Bullsom, whose powers of observation were not remarkably acute, looking steadily into his visitor's face, saw there some signs of a certain change which others had noticed and commented upon during the last few months—a hardening of expression and a slight contraction of the mouth. For Brooks had spent many sleepless nights pondering upon this new problem which had come into his life.

"I do not feel inclined," he said, quietly, "for many reasons, to accept the olive-branch which it has pleased my father to hold out to me after all these years. I have still some faint recollections of the close of my mother's life—hastened, I am sure, by anxiety and sorrow on his account. I remember my own bringing up, the loneliness of it. I remember many things which Lord Arranmore would like me now to forget. Then, too, my father and I are as far apart as the poles. He has not the least sympathy with my pursuits or the things which I find worth doing in life. There are other reasons which I need not trouble you with. It is sufficient that for the present I prefer to remain Mr. Brooks, and to lead my own life."

"But—you won't be offended, but I want to understand. The thing seems such a muddle to me. You've given up your practice—how do you mean to live?"

"There is an income which comes to me from the Manor of Kingston," Brooks answered, "settled on the eldest sons of the Arranmore peerage, with which my father has nothing to do. This alone is comparative wealth, and there are accumulations also."

"It don't seem natural," Mr. Bullsom said. "If you'll excuse my saying so, it don't sound like common-sense. You can live on what terms you please with your father, but you ought to let people know who you are. Great Scott," he added, with a little chuckle, "what will Julia and the girls say?

"You will understand, Mr. Bullsom," Brooks said, hastily, "that I trust you to preserve my confidence in this matter. I have told you because I wanted you to understand why I could not accept this invitation to contest the borough, also because you were one of my best friends when I was here. But you are the only person to whom I have told my secret."

Mr. Bullsom sighed. It would have been such a delightful disclosure.

"As you wish, of course," he said. "But my it don't seem possible! Lord Arranmore's son—the Marquis of Arranmore! Gee whiz!"

"Some day, of course," Brooks said, "it must come out. But I don't want it to be yet awhile. If that clock is right hadn't I better be going up-stairs?"

Mr. Bullsom nodded.

"If you'll come with me," he said, "I'll show you your room."



CHAPTER IX

GHOSTS

Brooks, relieved that his explanation with Mr. Bullsom was over, was sufficiently entertaining at dinner-time. He sat between Selina and Louise, and made himself agreeable to both. Mr. Bullsom for half the time was curiously abstracted, and for the remainder almost boisterous. Every now and then he found himself staring at Brooks as though at some natural curiosity. His behaviour was so singular that Selina commented upon it.

"One would think, papa, that you and Mr. Brooks had been quarrelling," she remarked, tartly. "You seem quite odd to-night."

Mr. Bullsom raised his glass. He had lately improved his cellar.

"Drink your health, Brooks," he said, looking towards him. "We had an interesting chat, but we didn't get quarrelling, did we?"

"Nor are we ever likely to," Brooks answered, smiling. "You know, Miss Bullsom, your father was my first client of any importance, and I shan't forget how glad I was to get his cheque."

"I'm very pleased that he was useful to you," Selina answered, impressively. "Will you tell me something that we want to know very much?"

"Certainly!"

"Are you really not coming back to Medchester to live?"

Brooks shook his head.

"No. I am settling down in London. I have found some work there I like."

"Then are you the Mr. Brooks who has started what the Daily Courier calls a 'Whiteby's Charity Scheme' in the East End?"

"Quite true, Miss Bullsom. And your cousin is helping me."

Selina raised her eyebrows.

"Dear me," she said, "I had no idea that Many had time to spare for that sort of thing, had you, father?

"Many can look after herself, and uncommonly well too," Mr. Bullsom answered.

"She comes mostly in the evening," Brooks explained, "but she is one of my most useful helpers."

"It must be so interesting to do good," Louise said, artlessly. "After dinner, Mr. Brooks, will you tell us all about it?"

"It seems so odd that you should care so much for that sort of thing," Selina remarked. "As a rule it is the frumpy and uninteresting people who go in for visiting the poor and doing good, isn't it? You seem so young, and so—oh, I don't think I'd better go on."

"Please do," Brooks begged.

"Well, you won't think I was trying to flatter, will you, but I was going to say, and too clever for that sort of thing."

Brooks smiled.

"Perhaps," he said, "the reason that social reform is so urgently needed in so many ways is for that very reason, Miss Bullsom—that the wrong sort of person has been going in for it. Looking after the poor has meant for most people handing out bits of charity on the toasting-fork of religion. And that sort of thing doesn't tend to bridge over the gulf, does it?"

"Toasting-fork!" Selina giggled. "How funny you are, Mr. Brooks."

"Am I?" he answered, good-humouredly. "Now let me hear what you have been doing since I saw you in town."

Selina was immediately grave—not to say scornful.

"Doing! What do you suppose there is to do here?" she exclaimed, reproachfully. "We've been sitting still waiting for something to happen. But—have you said anything to Mr. Brooks yet, papa?"

Mr. Bullsom shook his head.

"Haven't had time," he answered. "Brooks had so much to say to me. You knew all about our land company, Brooks, of course? You did a bit of conveyancing for us.

"Of course I did," Brooks answered, "and I told you from the first that you were going to make a lot of money by it."

Mr. Bullsom glanced around the room. The two maid-servants were at the sideboard.

"Guess how much."

Brooks shook his head.

"I never knew your exact share," he said.

"It's half a million," Mr. Bullsom said, pulling down his waistcoat, and squaring himself to the table. "Not bad, eh, for a country spec?"

"It's wonderful," Brooks admitted. "I congratulate you heartily."

"Thanks," Mr. Bullsom answered.

"We want papa to buy a house in the country, and go to town for the season," Selina said. "So long as we can afford it I am dying to get out of Medchester. It is absolutely the most commercial town I have ever been in.

"Your father should stand for Parliament himself," Brooks suggested.

It is really possible that Mr. Bullsom, being a man governed entirely by one idea at a time, had never seriously contemplated the possibility of himself stepping outside the small arena of local politics. It is certain at any rate that Brooks' words came to him as an inspiration. He stared for a moment into his glass—then at Brooks. Finally he banged the table with the flat of his hand.

"It's an idea!" he exclaimed. "Why not?"

"Why not, indeed?" Brooks answered. "You'd be a popular candidate for the borough."

"I'm chairman of the committee," Mr. Bullsom declared; "I'll propose myself. I've taken the chair at political dinners and meetings for the last twenty years. I know the runs, and the people of Medchester know me. Why not, indeed? Mr. Brooks, sir, you're a genius."

"You 'ave given him something to think about," Mrs. Bullsom murmured, amiably. "I'd be willing enough but for the late hours. They never did agree with Peter—did they? He's always been such a one for his rest."

Mr. Bullsom's thumbs made their accustomed pilgrimage.

"In the service of one's country," he said, "one should be prepared to make sacrifices. The champagne, Amy. Besides, one can always sleep in the morning."

Selina and Louise exchanged glances, and Selina, as the elder, gave the project her languid approval.

"It would be nice for us in a way," she remarked. "Of course you would have a house in London then, papa, and being an M.P. you would get cards for us to a lot of 'at homes' and things. Only I wish you were a Conservative."

"A Liberal is much more fashionable than he was," Brooks assured her, cheerfully.

"Fashionable! I know the son of a Marquis, a Lord himself, who's a Liberal, and a good one," Mr. Bullsom remarked, with a wink to Brooks.

"Well, my dears," Mrs. Bullsom said, making an effort to rise, and failing at the first attempt, "shall we leave the gentlemen to talk about it over their wine?

"Oh, you sit down again, mother," Selina directed.

"That sort of thing's quite old-fashioned, isn't it, Mr. Brooks? We're going to stay with you. You can smoke. Ann, bring the cigars."

Mrs. Bullsom, who was looking forward to a nap in a quiet corner of the drawing-room, obeyed with resignation written large on her good-natured, somewhat flushed face. But Mr. Bullsom, who wanted to revert to the subject which still fascinated him, grunted.

"Hang these new ideas," he said. "It's you they're after, Mr. Brooks. As a rule, they're off before I can get near my cigar-box."

Selina affected a little consciousness, which she felt became her.

"Such foolishness, papa. You don't believe it, do you, Mr. Brooks?"

"Am I not to, then?" he asked, looking down upon her with a smile. Whereupon Selina's consciousness became confusion.

"How stupid you are," she murmured. "You can believe just what you like. What are you looking at over in the corner of the room?"

"Ghosts," he answered.

Yet very much as those images flitted at that moment through his brain, so events were really shaping themselves in that bare clean-swept room into which his eyes had for a moment strayed away. Mary Scott was there, her long apron damp with soap-suds and her cheeks red with exertion, for she had just come from bathing twelve youngsters, who, not being used to the ordeal, had given trouble. There were other of his helpers too, a dozen of them up to their eyes in work, and a long string of applicants patiently waiting their turn. The right sort too—the sort from underneath—pale-faced, hollow-eyed, weary, yet for a moment stirred from their lethargy of suffering at the prospect of some passing relief. There was a young woman, hollow-cheeked, thin herself as a lath, eager for work or chance of work for her husband—that morning out of hospital, still too delicate to face the night air and the hot room. He knew shorthand, could keep books, typewrite, a little slip about his character, but that was all over and done with. A bank clerk with L90 a year, obliged to wear a silk hat, who marries a penniless girl on his summer holiday. They must live, both of them, and the gold passed through his fingers day by day, an endless shower. The magistrates had declined to sentence him, but the shame—and he was never strong. Brooks saw the card made out for that little cottage at Hastings, and enclosed with the railway ticket Owston was picking up fast there—and smiled faintly. He saw the girl on her breathless way home with the good news, saw her wet face heaven turned for the first time for many a month. There were men and women in the world with hearts then. They were not all puppets of wood and stone, even as those bank directors. Then, too, she would believe again that there might be a God.

Ghosts! They were plentiful enough. There was the skin-dresser—his fingers still yellow with the dye of the pith. Things were bad in Bermondsey. The master had gone bankrupt, the American had filched away his trade. No one could find him work. He was sober enough except at holiday time and an odd Saturday—a good currier—there might be a chance for him in the country, but how was he to get there? And in any case now, how could he? His wife had broken down, lay at home with no disease that a hospital would take her in for, sinking for want of good food, worn out with hard work, toiling early and late to get food for the children until her man should get a job. There was the workhouse, but it meant separation, perhaps for ever, and they were man and wife, as much needed the one by the other, perhaps more, as their prototype in the world of plenty. Again Brooks smiled. He must have seen Flitch, a capital chap Flitch, making up that parcel in the grocery department and making an appointment for three days' time. And Menton, too, the young doctor, as keen on the work as Brooks himself, but paid for his evenings under protest, overhears the address—why, it was only a yard or two. He would run back with the man and have a look at his wife. He had some physic—he felt sure it was just what she wanted. So out into the street together, and no wonder the yellow-stained fingers that grasped the string of the parcel shook, and the man felt an odd lump in his throat, and a wave of thankfulness as he passed a flaring public-house when half-an-hour ago he had almost plunged madly in to find pluck for the river—devil's pluck. The woman. Nothing the matter with her but what rest and good food would cure. Another case for that little cottage. Lucky there were others being made ready.

"What sort of ghosts, Mr. Brooks?" Selina asked, a little more sharply.

He started, and withdrew his eyes at last.

"Ah, Miss Bullsom," he answered, "just the ghosts we all carry with us, you know, the ghosts of our thoughts, living and dead, good and evil."

"How funny you are, Mr. Brooks," she exclaimed.



CHAPTER X

A NEW DON QUIXOTE

Brooks reached London the next evening to find himself famous. The evening papers, one of which he had purchased en route, were one and all discussing his new charitable schemes. He found himself held up at once to ridicule and contempt—praised and blamed almost in the same breath. The Daily Gazette, in an article entitled "The New Utopia," dubbed him the "Don Quixote of philanthropy" the St. James's made other remarks scarcely so flattering. He drove at once to Stepney, and found his headquarters besieged by a crowd which his little staff of helpers was wholly unable to cope with, and half-a-dozen reporters waiting to snatch a word with him. Mary watched his entrance with a little sigh of relief.

"I'm so glad you have come," she exclaimed. "It is hard to send these people away, but do you know, they have come from all parts of London? Neither Mr. Flitch nor I can make them understand that we can only deal with cases in the immediate neighbourhood. You must try."

Brooks stood up at once.

"I am very sorry," he said, "if there has been any misunderstanding, but I want you all to remember this. It is impossible for us to deal with any cases to-night unless you are residents of the immediate neighbourhood. The list of streets is on the front door. Please do not present yourselves before any of the desks unless you lodge or live in one of them."

There was a murmur of disappointment, and in the background a few growls.

"I hope before very long," Brooks continued, "that we shall have a great many more branches open, and be able to offer help to all of you. But at present we cannot make any exceptions. Will every one except our neighbours please help us by leaving the room."

For the most part he was obeyed, and then one of the reporters touched him on the shoulder.

"Good-evening, Mr. Brooks. I am representing the Evening Courier. We should be glad to know what your ideas are as to the future of this new departure of yours, and any other information you might cane to give us. There are some others here, I see, on the same errand. Any exclusive information you cared to place at my disposal would be much valued, and we should take especial pains to put your case fairly before the public."

Brooks smiled.

"Really," he said, "it seems as though I were on my defence."

The reporter took out his pencil.

"Well, you know," he said, "some of the established charitable institutions are rather conservative, and they look upon you as an interloper, and your methods as a little too broad."

"Well," Brooks said, "if it is to be war between us and the other charitable institutions you name, I am ready for it, but I cannot talk to you now. As you see, I have an evening's work before me."