"The gray mist came down like a curtain, shutting off the past and marking where the present begins. It seems to me that I never lived before that moment, and yet those months were happy while they lasted, so that it sometimes seemed as though no greater happiness could be possible. How did it all happen, most blessed lady?

"The lazy, good-natured sea, that loves us well, washes up and glances through my port-hole as I write, as if in answer to my question. The sea knows how it happened, for he saw us, and bore us, and heard all the tale; and even in Newport he was there, hidden under the fog and listening, and he is rejoicing that those who loved are now lovers. It is not hard to see how it happened. They all worship you, every human being that comes near you falls down and acknowledges you to be the queen. For they must. There is no salvation from that, and it is meet and right that it should be so. And I came, like the others, to do homage to the great queen, and you deigned to raise me up and bid me stand beside you.

"You are my first allegiance and my first love. I thank Heaven that I can say it honestly and truly, without fear of my conscience pricking. You know too, for I have told you, how my boyhood and manhood have been passed, and if there is anything you do not know I will tell you hereafter, for I would always hate to feel that there was anything about me you did not know—I could not feel it. But then, say you, he should have told me what he was going to do abroad. And so I have, dear lady; for though I have not explained it all to you, I have placed all needful knowledge in safe hands, where you can obtain it for the asking, if ever the least shadow of doubt should cross your mind. Only I pray you, as suing a great boon, not to doubt—that is all, for I would rather you did not know yet.

"This letter is being written by degrees. I have not written all this at once, for I find it as hard to express my thoughts to you on paper as I find it easy by word of mouth. It seems a formal thing to write, and yet there should be nothing less marred by formality than such a letter as mine. It is only that the choice is too great. I have too much to say, and so say nothing. I would ask, if I were so honoured by Heaven, the tongues of men and of angels, and all the mighty word-music of sage and prophet, that I might tell you how I love you, my heart's own. I would ask that for one hour I might hold in my hand the baton of heaven's choir. Then would I lead those celestial musicians through such a grand plain chant as time has never dreamt of, nor has eternity yet heard it; so that rank on rank of angels and saints should take up the song, until the arches of the outer firmament rang again, and the stars chimed together; and all the untold hierarchy of archangelic voice and heavenly instrument should cry, as with one soul, the confession of this heart of mine—'I love.'

"Another day has passed, and I think I have heard in my dreams the bursts of music that I would fain have wafted to your waking ears. Verily the lawyers in New York say well, that I am not Claudius. Claudius was a thing of angles and books, mathematical and earthy, believing indeed in the greatness of things supernal, but not having tasted thereof. My beloved, God has given me a new soul to love you with, so great that it seems as though it would break through the walls of my heart and cry aloud to you. This new Claudius is a man of infinite power to rise above earthly things, above everything that is below you—and what things that are in earth are not below you, lady mine?

"Again the time has passed, in a dull reluctant fashion, as if he delighted to torment, like the common bore of society. He lingers and dawdles through his round of hours as though it joyed him to be sluggish. It has blown a little, and most of the people are sea-sick. Thank goodness! I suppose that is a very inhuman sentiment, but the masses of cheerful humanity, gluttonously fattening on the ship's fare and the smooth sea, were becoming intolerable. There is not one person on board who looks as though he or she had left a human being behind who had any claim to be regretted. Did any one of these people ever love? I suppose so. I suppose at one time or another most of them have thought they loved some one. I will not be uncharitable, for they are receiving their just punishment. Lovers are never sea-sick, but now a hoarse chorus, indescribable and hideous, rises from hidden recesses of the ship. They are not in love, they are sea-sick. May it do them all possible good!

"Here we are at last. I hasten to finish this rambling letter that it may catch the steamer, which, I am told, leaves to-day. Nine days we have been at sea, and the general impression seems to be that the last part of the passage has been rough. And now I shall be some weeks in Europe—I cannot tell how long, but I think the least possible will be three weeks, and the longest six. I shall know, however, in a fortnight. My beloved, it hurts me to stop writing—unreasonable animal that I am, for a letter must be finished in order to be posted. I pray you, sweetheart, write me a word of comfort and strength in my journeying. Anything sent to Baring's will reach me; you cannot know what a line from you would be to me, how I would treasure it as the most sacred of things and the most precious, until we meet. And so, a bientot, for we must never say 'goodbye,' even in jest. I feel as though I were launching this letter at a venture, as sailors throw a bottle overboard when they fear they are lost. I have not yet tested the post-office, and I feel a kind of uncertainty as to whether this will reach you.

"But they are clamouring at my door, and I must go. Once more, my own queen, I love you, ever and only and always. May all peace and rest be with you, and may Heaven keep you from all harm!"

This letter was not signed, for what signature could it possibly need? Margaret read it, and read it again, wondering—for she had never had such a letter in her life. The men who had made love to her had never been privileged to speak plainly, for she would have none of them, and so they had been obliged to confine themselves to such cunning use of permissible words and phrases as they could command, together with copious quotations from more or less erotic poets. Moreover, Claudius had never been in a position to speak his heart's fill to her until that last day, when words had played so small a part.

It was a love-letter, at least in part, such as a man might have written a hundred years ago—not such as men write nowadays, thought Margaret; certainly not such as Mr. Barker would write—or could. But she was glad he had written; and written so, for it was like him, who was utterly unlike any one else. The letter had come in the morning while Clementine was dressing her, and she laid it on her writing-desk. But when the maid was gone, she read it once again, sitting by her window, and when she had done she unconsciously held it in her hand and rested her cheek against it. A man kisses a letter received from the woman he loves, but a woman rarely does. She thinks when he is away that she would hardly kiss him, were he present, much less will she so honour his handwriting. But when he himself comes the colour of things is changed. Nevertheless, Margaret put the folded letter in her bosom and wore it there unseen all through that day; and when Mr. Barker came to offer to take her to drive she said she would not go, making some libellous remark about the weather, which was exceeding glad and sunshiny in spite of her refusal to face it. And Mr. Barker, seeing that he was less welcome than usual, went away, for he was mortally afraid of annoying her.

Margaret was debating within herself whether she should answer, and if so, what she should say. In truth, it was not easy. She felt herself unable to write in the way he did, had she wished to. Besides, there was that feminine feeling still lurking in her heart, which said, "Do not trust him till he comes back." It seemed to her it must be so easy to write like that—and yet, she had not thought so at the first reading. But she loved him, not yet as she would some day, but still she loved, and it was her first love, as it was his.

She had settled herself in the hotel for the present, and to make it more like home—like her pretty home at Baden—she had ordered a few plants and growing flowers, very simple and inexpensive, for she felt herself terribly pinched, although she had not yet begun actually to feel the restrictions laid on her by her financial troubles. When Barker was gone, she amused herself with picking off the dried leaves and brushing away the little cobwebs and spiders that always accumulate about growing things. In the midst of this occupation she made up her mind, and rang the bell.

"Vladimir, I am not at home," she said solemnly, and the gray-haired, gray-whiskered functionary bowed in acknowledgment of the fact, which was far from evident. When he was gone she sat down to her desk and wrote to Dr. Claudius. She wrote rapidly in her large hand, and before long she had covered four pages of notepaper. Then she read it over, and tore it up. The word "dear" occurred once too often for her taste. Again the white fingers flew rapidly along the page, but soon she stopped.

"That is too utterly frigid," she said half aloud, with a smile. Then she tried again.

"DEAR DR. CLAUDIUS—So many thanks for your charming letter, which I received this morning. Tell me a great deal more, please, and write at once. Tell me everything you do and say and see, for I want to feel just as though you were here to talk everything over.

"Mr. Barker has been here a good deal lately, and the other day he told me a story I did not like. But I forgave him, for he seemed so penitent. Please burn my letters.

"It is very cold and disagreeable, and I really half wish I were in Europe. Europe is much pleasanter. I have not read a word of Spencer since you left, but I have thought a great deal about what you said the last time we did any work together.

"Let me know positively when you are coming back, and let it be as soon as possible, for I must see you. I am going to see Salvini, in Othello, to-night, with Miss Skeat. He sent me a box, in memory of a little dinner years ago, and I expect him to call. He did call, but I could not see him.

"I cannot write any more, for it is dinner-time. Thanks, dear, for your loving letter. It was sweet of you to post it the same day, for it caught the steamer.

—In tearing haste, yours, M.

"P.S.—Answer all my questions, please."

There was an indistinctness about the last word; it might have been "your," or "yours." The "tearing haste" resolved itself into ringing the bell to know what time it was, for Margaret had banished the hideous hotel clock from the room. On finding it was yet early, she sat down in a deep chair, and warmed her toes at the small wood fire, which was just enough to be enjoyable and not enough to be hot. It was now the beginning of October, for Claudius's letter, begun on the 15th of September, had not been posted until the 21st, and had been a long time on the way. She wondered when he would get the letter she had just written. It was not much of a letter, but she remembered the last paragraph, and thought it was quite affectionate enough. As for Claudius, when he received it he was as much delighted as though it had been six times as long and a hundred times more expansive. "Thanks, dear, for your loving letter,"—that phrase alone acknowledged everything, accepted everything, and sanctioned everything.

In the evening, as she had said in writing to the Doctor, she went with Miss Skeat and sat in the front box of the theatre, which the great actor had placed at her disposal. The play was Othello. Mr. Barker had ascertained that she was going, and had accordingly procured himself a seat in the front of the orchestra. He endeavoured to catch a look from Margaret all through the first part of the performance, but she was too entirely absorbed in the tragedy to notice him. At length, in the interval before the last act, Mr. Barker took courage, and, leaving his chair, threaded his way out of the lines of seats to the entrance. Then he presented himself at the door of the Countess's box.

"May I come in for a little while?" he inquired with an affectation of doubt and delicacy that was unnatural to him.

"Certainly," said Margaret indifferently, but smiling a little withal.

"I have ventured to bring you some marrons glaces," said Barker, when he was seated, producing at the same time a neat bonbonniere in the shape of a turban. "I thought they would remind you of Baden. You used to be very fond of them."

"Thanks," said she, "I am still." And she took one. The curtain rose, and Barker was obliged to be silent, much against his will. Margaret immediately became absorbed in the doings on the stage. She had witnessed that terrible last act twenty times before, but she never wearied of it. Neither would she have consented to see it acted by any other than the great Italian. Whatever be the merits of the play, there can be no question as to its supremacy of horror in the hands of Salvini. To us of the latter half of this century it appears to stand alone; it seems as if there could never have been such a scene or such an actor in the history of the drama. Horrible—yes! beyond all description, but, being horrible, of a depth of horror unrealised before. Perhaps no one who has not lived in the East can understand that such a character as Salvini's Othello is a possible, living reality. It is certain that American audiences, even while giving their admiration, withhold their belief. They go to see Othello, that they may shudder luxuriously at the sight of so much suffering; for it is the moral suffering of the Moor that most impresses an intelligent beholder, but it is doubtful whether Americans or English, who have not lived in Southern or Eastern lands, are capable of appreciating that the character is drawn from the life.

The great criticism to which all modern tragedy, and a great deal of modern drama, are open is the undue and illegitimate use of horror. Horror is not terror. They are two entirely distinct affections. A man hurled from a desperate precipice, in the living act to fall, is properly an object of terror, sudden and quaking. But the same man, reduced to a mangled mass of lifeless humanity, broken to pieces, and ghastly with the gaping of dead wounds—the same man, when his last leap is over and hope is fled, is an object of horror, and as such would not in early times have been regarded as a legitimate subject for artistic representation, either on the stage or in the plastic or pictorial arts.

It may be that in earlier ages, when men were personally familiar with the horrors of a barbarous ethical system, while at the same time they had the culture and refinement belonging to a high development of aesthetic civilisation, the presentation of a great terror immediately suggested the concomitant horror; and suggested it so vividly that the visible definition of the result—the bloodshed, the agony, and the death-rattle—would have produced an impression too dreadful to be associated with any pleasure to the beholder There was no curiosity to behold violent death among a people accustomed to see it often enough in the course of their lives, and not yet brutalised into a love of blood for its own sake. The Romans presented an example of the latter state; they loved horror so well that they demanded real horror and real victims. And that is the state of the populations of England and America at the present day. Were it not for the tremendous power of modern law, there is not the slightest doubt that the mass of Londoners or New Yorkers would flock to-day to see a gladiatorial show, or to watch a pack of lions tearing, limb from limb, a dozen unarmed convicts. Not the "cultured" classes—some of them would be ashamed, and some would really feel a moral incapacity for witnessing so much pain—but the masses would go, and would pay handsomely for the sport; and, moreover, if they once tasted blood they would be strong enough to legislate in favour of tasting more. It is not to the discredit of the Anglo-Saxon race that it loves savage sports. The blood is naturally fierce, and has not been cowed by the tyranny endured by European races. There have been more free men under England's worst tyrants than under France's most liberal kings.

But, failing gladiators and wild beasts, the people must have horrors on the stage, in literature, in art, and, above all, in the daily press. Shakspere knew that, and Michelangelo, who is the Shakspere of brush and chisel, knew it also, as those two unrivalled men seem to have known everything else. And so when Michelangelo painted the Last Judgment, and Shakspere wrote Othello (for instance), they both made use of horror in a way the Greeks would not have tolerated. Since we no longer see daily enacted before us scenes of murder, torture, and public execution, our curiosity makes us desire to see those scenes represented as accurately as possible. The Greeks, in their tragedies, did their slaughter behind the scenes, and occasionally the cries of the supposed victims were heard. But theatre-goers of to-day would feel cheated if the last act of Othello were left to their imagination. When Salvini thrusts the crooked knife into his throat, with that ghastly sound of death that one never forgets, the modern spectator would not understand what the death-rattle meant, did he not see the action that accompanies it.

"It is too realistic," said Mr. Barker in his high thin voice when it was over, and he was helping Margaret with her silken wrappings.

"It is not realistic," said she, "it is real. It may be an unhealthy excitement, but if we are to have it, it is the most perfect of its kind."

"It is very horrible," said Miss Skeat; and they drove away.

Margaret would not stay to see the great man after the curtain fell. The disillusion of such a meeting is too great to be pleasurable. Othello is dead, and the idea of meeting Othello in the flesh ten minutes later, smiling and triumphant, is a death-blow to that very reality which Margaret so much enjoyed. Besides, she wanted to be alone with her own thoughts, which were not entirely confined to the stage, that night. Writing to Claudius had brought him vividly into her life again, and she had caught herself more than once during the evening wondering how her fair Northern lover would have acted in Othello's place. Whether, when the furious general takes Iago by the throat in his wrath, the Swede's grip would have relaxed so easily on one who should dare to whisper a breath against the Countess Margaret. She so lived in the thought for a moment that her whole face glowed in the shade of the box, and her dark eyes shot out fire. Ah me! Margaret, will he come back to stand by your side and face the world for you? Who knows. Men are deceivers ever, says the old song.

Home through the long streets, lighted with the pale electric flame that gives so deathly a tinge to everything that comes within the circling of its discolour; home to her rooms with the pleasant little fire smouldering on the hearth, and flowers—Barker's flowers—scenting the room; home to the cares of Clementine, to lean back with half-closed eyes, thinking, while the deft French fingers uncoil and smooth and coil again the jet-black tresses; home to the luxury of sleep unbroken by ill ease of body, though visited by the dreams of a far-away lover—dreams not always hopeful, but ever sweet; home to a hotel! Can a hostelry be dignified with that great name? Yes. Wherever we are at rest and at peace, wherever the thought of love or dream of lover visits us, wherever we look forward to meeting that lover again—that is home. For since the cold steel-tipped fingers of science have crushed space into a nut-shell, and since the deep-mouthed capacious present has swallowed time out of sight, there is no landmark left but love, no hour but the hour of loving, no home but where our lover is.

The little god who has survived ages of sword-play and centuries of peace-time, survives also science the leveller, and death the destroyer.

And in the night, when all are asleep, and the chimes are muffled with the thick darkness, and the wings of the dream-spirits caress the air, then the little Red Mouse comes out and meditates on all these things, and wonders how it is that men can think there is any originality in their lives or persons or doings. The body may have changed a little, men may have grown stronger and fairer, as some say, or weaker and more puny, as others would have it, but the soul of man is even as it was from the beginning.



CHAPTER XVIII.

A month has passed since Margaret went to see Othello, and New York is beginning to wake to its winter round of amusements. There are dinners and dances and much leaving of little pasteboard chips with names and addresses.

Mr. Barker had made progress, in his own opinion, since the day when he so unfortunately roused Margaret's anger by his story. He bethought him one day that Claudius's influence had begun with the reading of books, and he determined to try something of the kind himself. He was no scholar as Claudius was, but he knew men who were. He cultivated the acquaintance of Mr. Horace Bellingham, and spent studious hours in ascertaining the names of quaint and curious volumes, which he spared no expense in procuring. He read books he had never heard of before, and then talked about them to Margaret; and when he hit upon anything she did not know he was swift to bring it to her, and sometimes she would even listen while he read a few pages aloud.

Margaret encouraged Barker in this new fancy unconsciously enough, for she thought it an admirable thing that a man whose whole life was devoted to business pursuits should develop a taste for letters; and when he had broken the ice on the sea of literature she talked more freely with him than she had ever done before. It was not Barker who interested her, but the books he brought, which were indeed rare and beautiful. He, on the other hand, quick to assimilate any knowledge that might be of use to him, and cautious of exposing the weaker points of his ignorance, succeeded in producing an impression of considerable learning, so that by and by he began to think he was taking Claudius's place in her daily pursuits, as he hoped to take it in her heart.

Meanwhile no one had heard from the Doctor, for his correspondence with Margaret was unknown to Barker, and the latter began to cherish a hope that, after all, there might be overwhelming difficulties in the way of proving Claudius's right to the estate. He had more than once talked over the matter with Mr. Screw, and they came to the conclusion that this silence was prognostic of the Doctor's defeat. Screw thought it probable that, had Claudius immediately obtained from Heidelberg the necessary papers, he would have sent a triumphant telegram over the cable, announcing his return at the shortest possible interval. But the time was long. It was now the first week in November and nearly two months had passed since he had sailed. Mr. Barker had avoided speaking of him to the Countess, at first because he did not wish to recall him to her memory, and later because he observed that she never mentioned the Doctor's name. Barker had inquired of Mr. Bellingham whether he knew anything of his friend's movements, to which Uncle Horace had replied, with a grim laugh, that he had quite enough to do with taking care of distinguished foreigners when they were in New York, without looking after them when they had gone elsewhere.

One evening before dinner Vladimir brought Margaret a telegram. She was seated by the fire as usual and Miss Skeat, who had been reading aloud until it grew too dark, was by her side warming her thin hands, which always looked cold, and bending forward towards the fire as she listened to Margaret's somewhat random remarks about the book in hand. Margaret had long since talked with Miss Skeat about her disturbed affairs, and concerning the prospect that was before her of being comparatively poor. And Miss Skeat, in her high-bred old-fashioned way, had laid her hand gently on the Countess's arm in token of sympathy.

"Dear Countess," she had said, "please remember that it will not make any difference to me, and that I will never leave you. Poverty is not a new thing to me, my dear." The tears came into Margaret's eyes as she pressed the elder lady's hand in silence. These passages of feeling were rare between them, but they understood each other, for all that. And now Margaret was speaking despondently of the future. A few days before she had made up her mind at last to write the necessary letters to Russia, and she had now despatched them on their errand. Not that she had any real hope of bettering things, but a visit from Nicholas had roused her to the fact that it was a duty she owed to him as well as to herself to endeavour to recover what was possible of her jointure.

At last she opened the telegram and uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"What in the world does it mean?" she cried, and gave it to Miss Skeat, who held it close to the firelight.

The message was from Lord Fitzdoggin, Her British Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg, and was an informal statement to the effect that his Excellency was happy to communicate to the Countess Margaret the intelligence that, by the untiring efforts and great skill of a personal friend, the full payment of her jointure was now secured to her in perpetuity. It stated, moreover, that she would shortly receive official information of the fact through the usual channels.

Miss Skeat beamed with pleasure; for though she had been willing to make any sacrifice for Margaret, it would not have been an agreeable thing to be so very poor again.

"I never met Lord Fitzdoggin," said Margaret, "and I do not understand in the least. Why should he, of all people, inform me of this, if it is really true?"

"The Duke must have written to him," said Miss Skeat, still beaming, and reading the message over again.

Margaret paused a moment in thought, then lighting the gas herself, she wrote a note and despatched Vladimir in hot haste.

"I have asked Mr. Bellingham to dine," she said, in answer to Miss Skeat's inquiring look. "He will go to the party with me afterwards, if he is free."

It chanced that Mr. Bellingham was in his rooms when Margaret's note came, and he immediately threw over an engagement he had previously made, and sent word he would be at the Countess's disposal. Punctual to the minute he appeared. Margaret showed him the telegram.

"What does this mean, Mr. Bellingham?" she asked, smiling, but scrutinising his face closely.

"My dear Countess," cried the old gentleman, delighted beyond measure at the result of his policy, and corruscating with smiles and twinkles, "my dear Countess, allow me to congratulate you."

"But who is the 'personal friend' mentioned? Is it the Duke? He is in the far West at this moment."

"No," answered Mr. Bellingham, "it is not the Duke. I am inclined to think it is a manifestation of some great cosmic force, working silently for your welfare. The lovely spirits," continued the old gentleman, looking up from under his brows, and gesticulating as though he would call down the mystic presence he invoked—"the lovely spirits that guard you would be loth to allow anything so fair to suffer annoyance from the rude world. You are well taken care of, Countess, believe me."

Margaret smiled at Uncle Horace's way of getting out of the difficulty, for she suspected him of knowing more than he would acknowledge. But all she could extract from him was that he knew Lord Fitzdoggin slightly, and that he believed the telegram to be perfectly genuine. He had played his part in the matter, and rubbed his hands as though washing them of any further responsibility. Indeed he had nothing to tell, save that he had advised Claudius to get an introduction from the Duke. He well knew that the letters he had given Claudius had been the real means of his success; but as Margaret only asked about the telegram, he was perfectly safe in denying any knowledge of it. Not that such a consideration would have prevented his meeting her question with a little fib, just to keep the secret.

"Will you not go to this dance with me this evening?" asked Margaret after dinner, as they sat round the fireplace.

"What ball is that?" inquired Mr. Bellingham.

"I hardly know what it is. It is a party at the Van Sueindell's and there is 'dancing' on the card. Please go with me; I should have to go alone."

"I detest the pomp and circumstance of pleasure," said Uncle Horace, "the Persian appurtenances, as my favourite poet calls them; but I cannot resist so charming an invitation. It will give me the greatest pleasure. I will send word to put off another engagement."

"Do you really not mind at all?"

"Not a bit of it. Only three or four old fogies at the club. Est mihi nonum superantis annum plenus Albani cadus," continued Mr. Bellingham, who never quoted Horace once without quoting him again in the next five minutes. "I had sent a couple of bottles of my grandfather's madeira to the club, 1796, but those old boys will enjoy it without me. They would talk me to death if I went."

"It is too bad," said Margaret, "you must go to the club. I would not let you break an engagement on my account."

"No, no. Permit me to do a good deed without having to bear the infernal consequences in this life, at all events. The chatter of those people is like the diabolical screaming of the peacock on the terrace of the Emir's chief wife, made memorable by Thackeray the prophet." He paused a moment, and stroked his snowy pointed beard. "Forgive my strong language," he added; "really, they are grand adjectives those, 'diabolical' and 'infernal.' They call up the whole of Dante to my mind." Margaret laughed.

"Are you fond of Dante?" asked she.

"Very. I sometimes buy a cheap copy and substitute the names of my pet enemies all through the Inferno wherever they will suit the foot. In that way I get all the satisfaction the author got by putting his friends in hell, without the labour of writing, or the ability to compose, the poem." The Countess laughed again.

"Do you ever do the same thing with the Paradiso?"

"No," answered Uncle Horace, with a smile. "Purgatory belonged to an age when people were capable of being made better by suffering, and as for paradise, my heaven admits none but the fair sex. They are all beautiful, and many of them are young."

"Will you admit me, Mr. Bellingham?"

"St. Margaret has forestalled me," said he gallantly, "for she has a paradise of her own, it seems, to which she has admitted me."

And so they passed the evening pleasantly until the hour warned them that it was time to go to the great Van Sueindell house. That mansion, like all private houses in America, and the majority of modern dwellings in other parts of the world, is built in that depraved style of architecture which makes this age pre-eminent in the ugliness of brick and stone. There is no possibility of criticism for such monstrosity, as there also seems to be no immediate prospect of reform. Time, the iron-fisted Nihilist, will knock them all down some day and bid mankind begin anew. Meanwhile let us ignore what we cannot improve. Night, the all-merciful, sometimes hides these excrescences from our sight, and sometimes the moon, Nature's bravest liar, paints and moulds them into a fugitive harmony. But in the broad day let us fix our eyes modestly on the pavement beneath us, or turn them boldly to the sky, for if we look to the right or the left we must see that which sickens the sense of sight.

On the present occasion, however, nothing was to be seen of the house, for the long striped canvas tent, stretching from the door to the carriage, and lined with plants and servants, hid everything else from view. There is probably no city in the world where the business of "entertaining" is so thoroughly done as in New York. There are many places where it is more agreeable to be "entertained;" many where it is done on a larger scale, for there is nothing in America so imposing as the receptions at Embassies and other great houses in England and abroad. To bring the matter into business form, since it is a matter of business, let us say that nowhere do guests cost so much by the cubic foot as in New York. Abroad, owing to the peculiar conditions of court-life, many people are obliged to open their houses at stated intervals. In America no one is under this necessity. If people begin to "entertain" they do it because they have money, or because they have something to gain by it, and they do it with an absolute regardlessness of cost which is enough to startle the sober foreigner.

It may be in bad taste, but if we are to define what is good taste in these days, and abide by it, we shall be terribly restricted. As an exhibition of power, this enormous expenditure is imposing in the extreme; though the imposing element, being strictly confined to the display of wealth, can never produce the impressions of durability, grandeur, and military pomp so dear to every European. Hence the Englishman turns up his nose at the gilded shows of American society, and the American sniffs when he finds that the door-scraper of some great London house is only silverplated instead of being solid, and that the carpets are at least two years old. They regard things from opposite points of view, and need never expect to agree.

Margaret, however, was not so new to American life, seeing she was American born, as to bestow a thought or a glance on the appointments of Mr. and Mrs. Van Sueindell's establishment; and as for Mr. Bellingham, he had never cared much for what he called the pomp and circumstance of pleasure, for he carried pleasure with him in his brilliant conversation and his ready tact. All places were more or less alike to Mr. Bellingham. At the present moment, however, he was thinking principally of his fair charge, and was wondering inwardly what time he would get home, for he rose early and was fond of a nap in the late evening. He therefore gave Margaret his arm, and kept a lookout for some amusing man to introduce to her. He had really enjoyed his dinner and the pleasant chat afterwards, but the prospect of piloting this magnificent beauty about till morning, or till she should take it into her head to go home, was exhausting. Besides, he went little into society of this kind, and was not over-familiar with the faces he saw.

He need not have been disturbed, however, for they had not been many minutes in the rooms before a score of men had applied for the "pleasure of a turn." But still she held Mr. Bellingham's arm, obdurately refusing to dance. As Barker came up a moment later, willing, perhaps, to show his triumph to the rejected suitors, Margaret thanked Mr. Bellingham, and offered to take him home if he would stay until one o'clock; then she glided away, not to dance but to sit in a quieter room, near the door of which couples would hover for a quarter of an hour at a time waiting to seize the next pair of vacant seats. Mr. Bellingham moved away, amused by the music and the crowd and the fair young faces, until he found a seat in a corner, shaded from the flare of light by an open door close by, and there, in five minutes, he was fast asleep in the midst of the gaiety and noise and heat—unnoticed, a gray old man amid so much youth.

But Barker knew the house better than the most of the guests, and passing through the little room for which every one seemed fighting, he drew aside a heavy curtain and showed a small boudoir beyond, lighted with a solitary branch of candles, and occupied by a solitary couple. Barker had hoped to find this sanctum empty, and as he pushed two chairs together he eyed the other pair savagely.

"What a charming little room," said Margaret, sinking into the soft chair and glancing at the walls and ceiling, which were elaborately adorned in the Japanese fashion. The chairs also were framed of bamboo, and the table was of an unusual shape. It was the "Japanese parlour[3]," as Mrs. Van Sueindell would have called it. Every great house in New York has a Japanese or a Chinese room. The entire contents of the apartment having been brought direct from Yokohama, the effect was harmonious, and Margaret's artistic sense was pleased.

[Footnote 3: Parlour or parlor, American for "sitting-room."]

"Is it not?" said Barker, glad to have brought her to a place she liked. "I thought you would like it, and I hoped," lowering his voice, "that we should find it empty. Only people who come here a great deal know about it."

"Then you come here often?" asked Margaret, to say something. She was glad to be out of the din, for though she had anticipated some pleasure from the party, she discovered too late that she had made a mistake, and would rather be at home. She had so much to think of, since receiving that telegram; and so, forgetting Barker and everything else, she followed her own train of thought. Barker talked on, and Margaret seemed to be listening—but it was not the music, muffled through the heavy curtains, nor the small voice of Mr. Barker that she heard. It was the washing of the sea and the creaking of cordage that were in her ears—the rush of the ship that was to bring him back—that was perhaps bringing him back already. When would he come? How soon? If it could only be to-morrow, she would so like to—what in the world is Mr. Barker saying so earnestly? Really, she ought to listen. It was very rude. "Conscious of my many defects of character—" Oh yes, he was always talking about his defects; what next? "—conscious of my many defects of character," Mr. Barker was saying, in an even, determined voice, "and feeling deeply how far behind you I am in those cultivated pursuits you most enjoy, I would nevertheless scorn to enlarge upon my advantages, the more so as I believe you are acquainted with my circumstances."

Good gracious! thought Margaret, suddenly recovering the acutest use of her hearing, what is the man going to say? And she looked fixedly at him with an expression of some astonishment.

"Considering, as I was saying," he continued steadily, "those advantages upon which I will not enlarge, may I ask you to listen to what I am going to say?"

Margaret, having lost the first part of Barker's speech completely, in her fit of abstraction, had some vague idea that he was asking her advice about marrying some other woman.

"Certainly," she said indifferently; "pray go on." At the moment of attack, however, Barker's heart failed him for an instant. He thought he would make one more attempt to ascertain what position Claudius held towards Margaret.

"Of course," he said, smiling and looking down, "we all knew about Dr. Claudius on board the Streak."

"What did you know about him?" asked Margaret calmly, but her face flushed for an instant. That might have happened even if she had not cared for Claudius; she was so proud that the idea of being thought to care might well bring the colour to her cheek. Barker hardly noticed the blush, for he was getting into very deep water, and was on the point of losing his head.

"That he proposed to you, and you refused him," he said, still smiling.

"Take care, sir," she said quickly, "when Dr. Claudius comes back he—" Barker interrupted her with a laugh.

"Claudius coming back?" he answered, "ha! ha! good indeed!"

He looked at Margaret. She was very quiet, and she was naturally so dark that, in the shadow of the fan she held carelessly against the light, he could not see how pale she turned. She was intensely angry, and her anger took the form of a preternatural calm of manner, by no means indicative of indifferent reflection. She was simply unable to speak for the moment. Barker, however, whose reason was in abeyance for the moment, merely saw that she did not answer; and, taking her silence for consent to his slighting mention of Claudius, he at once proceeded with his main proposition. At this juncture the other couple slowly left the room, having arranged their own affairs to their satisfaction.

"That being the case," he said, "and now that I am assured that I have no rivals to dread, will you permit me to offer you my heart and my hand? Countess Margaret, will you marry me, and make me the happiest of men? Oh, do not be silent, do not look as if you did not hear! I have loved you since I first saw you—will you, will you marry me?" Here Mr. Barker, who was really as much in love as his nature allowed him to be, moved to the very edge of his chair and tried to take her hand.

"Margaret!" he said, as he touched her fingers.

At the touch she recovered her self-possession, too long lost for such a case. She had tried to control her anger, had tried to remember whether by any word she could have encouraged him to so much boldness. Now she rose to all her haughty height, and though she tried hard to control herself, there was scorn in her voice.

"Mr. Barker," she said, dropping her hands before her and standing straight as a statue, "you have made a mistake, and if through any carelessness I have led you into this error I am sorry for it. I cannot listen to you, I cannot marry you. As for Dr. Claudius, I will not permit you to use any slighting words about him. I hold in my possession documents that could prove his identity as well as any he can obtain in Germany. But I need not produce them, for I am sure it will be enough for you to know that I am engaged to be married to him—I am engaged to be married to Dr. Claudius," she repeated very distinctly in her deep musical tones; and before Barker could recover himself, she had passed from the room into the lights and the sound of music beyond.

What do you think, reader? Was it not a brave and noble action of hers to vindicate Claudius by taking upon herself the whole responsibility of his love rather than by going home and sending Mr. Barker documentary evidence of the Doctor's personality? Claudius had never asked her to marry him, the very word had never been mentioned. But he had told her he loved her and she had trusted him.

Start not at the infinity of social crime that such a doubt defines. It is there. It is one thing for a woman to love a man at arm's length conditionally; it is another for her to take him to her heart and trust him. Does every millionaire who makes love to a penniless widow mean to marry her? for Margaret was poor on that Tuesday in Newport. Or reverse the case; if Claudius were an adventurer, as Barker hinted, what were the consequences she assumed in declaring herself engaged to marry him?

In spite of her excitement, Margaret was far too much a woman of the world to create a sensation by walking through the rooms alone. In a moment or two she saw a man she knew, and calling him to her by a look, took his arm. She chatted pleasantly to this young fellow, as proud as need be of being selected to conduct the beauty whither she would, and after some searching she discovered Mr. Bellingham, still asleep behind the swinging door.

"Thanks," she said to her escort. "I have promised to take Mr. Bellingham home." And she dropped the young man's arm with a nod and a smile.

"But he is asleep," objected the gallant.

"I will wake him," she answered. And laying her hand on Mr. Bellingham's, she leaned down and spoke his name. Instantly he awoke, as fresh as from a night's rest, for he had the Napoleonic faculty for catching naps.

"Winter awaking to greet the spring," he said without the slightest hesitation, as though he had prepared the little speech in his sleep. "Forgive me," he said, "it is a habit of mine learned long ago." He presented his arm and asked her what was her pleasure.

"I am going home," she said, "and if you like I will drop you at your door."

Mr. Bellingham glanced at a great enamelled clock, half-hidden among flowers and fans, as they passed, and he noticed that they had not been in the house much more than three quarters of an hour. But he wisely said nothing, and waited patiently while Margaret was wrapped in her cloaks, and till the butler had told the footman, and the footman had told the other footman, and the other footman had told the page, and the page had told the policeman to call the Countess Margaret's carriage. After which the carriage appeared, and they drove away.

Uncle Horace chatted pleasantly about the party, admitting that he had dreamed more than he had seen of it. But Margaret said little, for the reaction was coming after the excitement she had passed through. Only when they reached Mr. Bellingham's rooms, and he was about to leave her, she held his hand a moment and looked earnestly in his face.

"Mr. Bellingham," she said suddenly, "I trust you will always be my friend—will you not?" The old gentleman paused in his descent from the carriage, and took the hand she offered.

"Indeed I will, my dear child," he said very seriously. Then he bent his knee to the sill of the door and kissed her fingers, and was gone. No one ever resented Mr. Bellingham's familiarity, for it was rare and honest of its kind. Besides, he was old enough to be her grandfather, in spite of his pretty speeches and his graceful actions.

Margaret passed a sleepless night. Her anger with Mr. Barker had not been so much the mere result of the words he had spoken, though she would have resented his sneer about Claudius sharply enough under any circumstances. It was rather that to her keen intelligence, rendered still more acute by her love for the Doctor, the whole scene constituted a revelation. By that wonderful instinct which guides women in the most critical moments of their lives, she saw at last the meaning of Barker's doings, of his silence concerning Claudius, and of his coolness with the latter before he had got rid of him. She saw Barker at the bottom of the plot to send Claudius to Europe; she saw him in all the efforts made by the Duke and Barker to keep Claudius and herself apart on board the yacht; she saw his hand in it all, and she understood for the first time that this man, whom she had of late permitted to be so much with her, was her worst enemy, while aspiring to be her lover. The whole extent of his faithlessness to Claudius came before her, as she remembered that it had doubtless been to serve the Doctor that Barker had obtained an introduction to her at Baden; that he had done everything to throw them together, devoting himself to Miss Skeat, in a manner that drove that ancient virgin to the pinnacle of bliss and despair, while leaving Claudius free field to make love to herself. And then he had suddenly turned and made up his mind that he should have her for his own wife. And her anger rose higher and hotter as she thought of it.

Then she went over the scene of the evening at Mrs. Van Sueindell's house—how she had not listened and not understood, until she was so suddenly roused to the consciousness of what he was saying—how she had faced him, and, in the inspiration of the moment, had boldly told him that she loved his rival. In that thought she found satisfaction, as well she might, for her love had been put to the test, and had not failed her.

"I am glad I said it," she murmured to herself, and fell asleep. Poor Claudius, far away over the sea, what a leap his heart would have given could he have known what she had done, and that she was glad of it.

And Mr. Barker? He felt a little crushed when she left him there alone in the Japanese boudoir, for he knew at once that he might as well throw up the game. There was not the least chance for him any longer. He might indeed suspect that the documents Margaret spoke of were a myth, and that her declaration of the engagement was in reality the only weapon she could use in Claudius's defence. But that did not change matters. No woman would "give herself away," as he expressed it, so recklessly, unless she were perfectly certain. Therefore Mr. Barker went into the supper-room, and took a little champagne to steady his nerves; after which he did his best to amuse himself, talking with unusual vivacity to any young lady of his acquaintance whom he could allure from her partner for a few minutes. For he had kept himself free of engagements that evening on Margaret's account, and now regretted it bitterly. But Mr. Barker was a great match, as has been said before, and he seldom had any difficulty in amusing himself when he felt so inclined. He had not witnessed Margaret's departure, for, not wishing to be seen coming out of the boudoir alone, a sure sign of defeat, and being perfectly familiar with the house, he had found his way by another door, and through circuitous passages to the pantry, and thence to the supper-room; so that by the time he had refreshed himself Margaret and Mr. Bellingham had gone.

Do people of Mr. Barker's stamp feel? Probably not. It requires a strong organisation, either animal or intellectual, to suffer much from any shock to the affections. Englishmen, on those occasions when their passion gets the better of their caution, somewhat a rare occurrence nowadays, are capable of loving very strongly, and of suffering severely if thwarted, for they are among the most powerful races in the animal kingdom. Their whole history shows this, moulded as it has generally been by exceptional men, for the most part Irish and Scotch, in whom the highest animal and intellectual characteristics were united. Germans, in whom the intellectual faculties, and especially the imagination, predominate, are for the most part very love-sick for at least half their lives. But Americans seem to be differently organised; meaning, of course, the small class, who would like to be designated as the "aristocracy" of the country. The faculties are all awake, acute, and ready for use; but there is a lack of depth, which will rouse the perpetual wonder of future generations. While the mass of the people exhibits the strong characteristics of the Saxon, the Celtic, and the South German races, physical endurance and occasionally intellectual pre-eminence,—for, saving some peculiarities of speech, made defects merely by comparison, there are no such natural orators and statesmen in the world as are to be found in Congress; at the same time, the would-be aristocracy of the country is remarkable for nothing so much as for the very unaristocratic faculty of getting money—rarely mingling in public questions, still more rarely producing anything of merit, literary or artistic. Therefore, being so constituted that the almighty dollar crowns the edifice of their ambitions as with a coronet of milled silver, they are singularly inapt to suffer from such ills as prick the soul, which taketh no thought for the morrow, what it shall eat or what it shall drink.

Truly, a happy people, these American aristocrats.



CHAPTER XIX.

When Margaret awoke the next morning her first impulse was to go away for a time. She was disgusted with New York, and desired nothing so much as the sensation of being free from Mr. Barker. A moment, however, sufficed to banish any such thoughts. In the first place, if she were away from the metropolis it would take just so many hours longer for the Doctor's letters to reach her. There had been a lacuna in the correspondence of late, and it seemed to her that the letters she had received were always dated some days before the time stamped on the Heidelberg postmark. He spoke always of leaving very soon; but though he said many loving and tender things, he was silent as to his own doings. She supposed he was occupied with the important matter he described as the "other reason," and so in the two or three short notes she wrote him she abstained from questioning any more.

Furthermore, she reflected that however much she might wish to be away, it was most emphatically not the thing to do. On the whole, she would stay where she was.

She was roused from her reverie by Clementine, who entered in a halo of smiles, as though she were the bearer of good news. In the first place she had a telegram, which proved to be from Claudius, dated Berlin, and simply announcing the fact that he would sail at once. Margaret could hardly conceal her great satisfaction, and the colour came so quickly to her face as she read the flimsy bit of paper from the cable office that Clementine made the most desperate efforts to get possession of it, or at least to see the signature. But Margaret kept it under her pillow for half an hour, and then burned it carefully by the taper, to Clementine's inexpressible chagrin.

Meanwhile, however, there were other news in the wind, and when the artful Frenchwoman had succeeded in opening the window just so that a ray of light should fall on madam's face, she fired her second shot.

"Monsieur le Duc is of return, Madame," she said, suddenly turning towards her mistress.

"The Duke?" repeated Margaret innocently. "When did he come?"

"Ah, Madame," said the maid, disappointed at having produced so little effect, "it is precisely what I do not know. I come from meeting Monsieur Veelees upon the carrefour. He has prayed me to present the compliments of Monsieur le Duc and to ask at what hour Madame la Comtesse would be in disposition to see him."

"Ah, very well," said the Countess. "I will get up, Clementine."

"Si tot, Madame? it is yet very morning," argued the girl with a little show of polite surprise.

"That is indifferent. Go, Clementine, and tell Monsieur le Duc I will see him at once."

"At once, Madame? I run," said Clementine, going slowly to the door.

"Enfin—when I am dressed. Don't you understand?" said Margaret impatiently.

"Parfaitement, Madame. I will speak with Monsieur Veelees." And she vanished.

It was a bright November morning, and though there had been a slight frost daring the night, it was fast vanishing before the sun. Margaret went to the window and breathed the cool air. An indescribable longing seized her to be out, among trees and plants and fresh growing things—to blow away the dark dreams of the night, the visions of Barker and Screw, and of the ballroom, and of that detestable Japanese boudoir. She hurried her toilet in a manner that completely aroused Clementine's vigilant suspicion.

"Helas," Clementine used to say to Willis the Duke's servant, "Je ne lui ai jamais connu d'amant. I had pourtant much hoped of Monsieur Clodiuse." But she never ventured such remarks when old Vladimir was at hand.

When the Countess was dressed she went out into her little drawing-room, and found the Duke looking more sunburnt and healthy than ever, though a trifle thinner. The rough active Western life always agreed with him. He came forward with a bright smile to meet her.

"Upon my word, how well you look!" he exclaimed as he shook hands; and indeed she was beautiful to see, for if the sleepless night had made her pale, the good news of Claudius's coming had brought the fire to her eyes.

"Do I?" said she. "I am glad; and you look well too. Your run on the prairies has done you good. Come," said she, leading him to the window, "it is a beautiful day. Let us go out."

"By all means: but first I have some good news for you. Fitzdoggin has telegraphed me that Claudius—I mean," he said, interrupting himself and blushing awkwardly, "I mean that it is all right, you know. They have arranged all your affairs beautifully." Margaret looked at him curiously a moment while he spoke. Then she recognised that the Duke must have had a hand in the matter, and spoke very gratefully to him, not mentioning that she had received news direct, for she did not wish to spoil his pleasure in being the first to tell her. To tell the truth, the impulsive Englishman was rather in doubt whether he had not betrayed the Doctor's secret, and seemed very little inclined to say anything more about it.

"I wish," she said at last, "that we could ride this morning. I have not been on a horse for ever so long, and I want the air."

"By Jove," cried the Duke, overjoyed at the prospect of breaking an interview which seemed likely to lead him too far, "I should think so. I will send and get some horses directly. The very thing, by Jove!" And he went to the door.

"How are you going to get anything fit to ride in New York, at such short notice?" asked Margaret, laughing at his impetuosity.

"There's a fellow here lends me anything in his stable when I am in New York," he answered, half out of the room. "I'll go myself," he called back from the landing, and shut the door behind him. "Upon my word," he said to himself as he lighted a cigarette in the cab, and drove away to his friend's stable, "she is the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I almost let the cat out of the bag, just to please her. I don't wonder Claudius is crazy about her. I will talk about the West when we are riding, and avoid the subject." With which sage resolution his Grace seemed well satisfied. When he returned, he found Margaret clad in a marvellous habit, that reminded him of home.

"The horses will be at the Park by the time we have driven there," he said. "We will drive up." He made no toilet himself, for being English and to the saddle born, he cared not a jot how he looked on horseback. In half an hour they were mounted, and walking their horses down the broad bend of the road where it enters the Central Park. Margaret asked about Lady Victoria, and the Duke, to make sure of not getting off the track, immediately began talking about the journey they had just made. But Margaret was not listening.

"Do you know?" she said, "it is very pleasant to feel I am not poor any longer. I suppose it is a very low sentiment."

"Of course," said the Duke. "Beastly thing to have no money."

"Do you know—" she began again, but stopped.

"Well," said the Duke, following her first train of thought, "it always seems to me that I have no money myself. I don't suppose I am exactly poor, though."

"No," laughed Margaret, "I was not thinking of that."

"What is it?" he asked.

"I think I will confide in you a little, for you have always been such a good friend to me. What do you know of Mr. Barker?"

"I am sure I don't know," said the Englishman, taken off his guard by the question. "I have known him some time—in this sort of way," he added vaguely.

"I believe," said the Countess bluntly, "that it was Mr. Barker who made all this trouble for Dr. Claudius."

"I believe you are right," answered the Duke suddenly turning in his saddle and facing her. "I wonder how he could be such a brute?"

Margaret was silent. She was astonished at the readiness with which her companion assented to her proposition. He must have known it all along, she thought.

"What makes you think so?" he asked presently.

"What are your reasons for believing it?" she asked, with a smile.

"Really," he began; then shortly, "I believe I don't like his eyes."

"Last night," said Margaret, "I was talking with him at a party. I chanced to speak of the Doctor's coming back, and Mr. Barker laughed and sneered, and said it was ridiculous."

The Duke moved angrily in his saddle, making the horse he rode shake his head and plunge a little.

"He is a brute," he said at last.

"Your horse?" inquired Margaret sweetly.

"No—Barker. And pray what did you answer him? I hope you gave him a lesson for his impertinence."

"I told him," said she, "that I had documents in my possession that would establish his right as well as any he could get in Germany."

"Barker must have been rather taken aback," said the other in high glee. "I am glad you said that."

"So am I. I do not imagine I shall see much of Mr. Barker in future," she added demurely.

"Um! As bad as that?" The Duke was beginning to catch the drift of what Margaret was saying. She had no intention of telling him any more, however. Bitterly as she felt towards Barker, she would not allow herself the triumph of telling her friend she had refused to marry him.

"I know it is a very womanly fancy," she said, "but I want to ride fast, please. I want exercise."

"All right," said the Duke, and they put their horses into a canter. The Countess felt safe now that her friends had returned and that Claudius had telegraphed he was about to sail. She felt as though her troubles were over, and as if the world were again at her feet. And as they galloped along the roads, soft in the warm sun to the horses' feet, breathing in great draughts of good clean air, the past two months seemed to dwindle away to a mere speck in the far distance of her life, instead of being entangled with all the yesterdays of the dark season just over.

And Claudius—the man who made all this change in her life, who had opened a new future for her—how had he passed these months, she wondered? To tell the truth, Claudius had been so desperately busy that the time had not seemed so long. If he had been labouring in any other cause than hers it would have been insupportable. But the constant feeling that all he did was for her, and to her advantage, and that at the same time she was ignorant of it all, gave him strength and courage. He had been obliged to think much, to travel far, and to act promptly; and for his own satisfaction he had kept up the illusion that he was in Heidelberg by a cunning device. He wrote constantly, and enclosed the letters to the old notary at the University, who, with Teutonic regularity, stamped and posted them. And so it was that the date of the letter, written in St. Petersburg, was always two or three days older than that of the postmark. For Claudius would not put a false date at the head of what he wrote, any more than, if Margaret had written to ask him whether he were really in Heidelberg or not, he would have deceived her in his answer. Probably he would not have answered the question at all. The letters were merely posted in Heidelberg; and Margaret had trusted him enough not to notice or be willing to comment upon the discrepancy.

And, by dint of activity and the assistance of the persons to whom he had letters, he had succeeded in bringing the Countess's business to a satisfactory conclusion. He found it just as Mr. Bellingham had told him. In an autocratic country, if you are to have justice at all, you will have it quickly. Moreover, it was evident to the authorities that a man coming all the way from America, and presenting such credentials as Claudius brought, deserved to be attended to at once—the more so when his whole appearance and manner were such as to create a small furore, in the Embassy circles. Claudius went everywhere, saw every one, and used every particle of influence he could obtain to further the object of his visit. And so it was that, at the end of a month or so, a special ukase provided for the payment in perpetuity to herself and her heirs for ever of the jointure-money first decreed to the Countess Margaret for life only from the estates of her late husband, Count Alexis of the Guards. This was even more than Claudius had hoped for—certainly more than Margaret had dreamt of. As for Nicholas, Claudius cared nothing what became of him, for he probably thought him a foolish Nihilist, and he knew enough of the Countess's character to be sure she would never let her brother suffer want, whatever his faults.

So when he had concluded the affair he hastened to Berlin, telegraphing from thence the news of his immediate return. In less than a fortnight, at all events, he ought to be in New York. The thought gave him infinite relief; for, since he had finished his business in Petersburg, the reaction which in strong natures is very sure to follow a great effort, for the very reason that strong natures tax their powers to the utmost, recklessly, began to make itself felt. It seemed to him, as he looked back, that he had heard so little from her. Not that he complained; for he was fully sensible of her goodness in writing at all, and he treasured her letters as things sacred, even to the envelopes, and whatsoever had touched her hand. But he felt keenly that he was in total ignorance of her doings; and one or two references to Barker troubled him. He too had his suspicions that the scheming American had been concerned in the sudden fit of caution developed by Messrs. Screw and Scratch. He too had suspected that his quondam friend had been insincere, and that everything was not as it should be. But he was neither so wise as Margaret, who would have told him not to soil his hands with pitch, nor so supremely indifferent as the Duke, who would have said that since he had got the money it didn't matter in the least if Barker were a brute or not. On the contrary, Claudius promised himself to sift the evidence; and if he discovered that Barker was guilty of any double-dealing, he would simply break his neck. And as Claudius thought of it, his teeth set, and he looked capable of breaking any number of necks, then and there.

But for all his wrath and his suspicions, the real cause of Barker's strange behaviour never presented itself to his mind. It never struck him that Barker could aspire to Margaret's hand; and he merely concluded that the young man had laid a plot for getting his money. If any one had related to Claudius the scene which took place at Mrs. Van Sueindell's the very night when he sent his telegram, he would have laughed the story to scorn in perfect good faith, for he could not have believed it possible. Nor, believing it, would he have cared. And so he rushed across Europe, and never paused till he had locked himself into his stateroom on board the steamer, and had begun a long letter to Margaret. He knew that he would see her as soon as a letter could reach her, but that made no difference. He felt impelled to write, and he wrote—a letter so tender and loving and rejoicing that were it to appear in these pages no lover would ever dare write to his lady again, lest she chide him for being less eloquent than Claudius, Phil.D. of Heidelberg. And he wrote on and on for many days, spending most of his time in that way.

Meanwhile, the Duke and Margaret cantered in the Park, and talked of all kinds of things; or rather, the Duke talked, and Margaret thought of Claudius. Before they returned, however, she had managed to let the Duke know that the Doctor was on his way back; whereat the Englishman rejoiced loudly. Perhaps he would have given a great deal to know whether they were engaged, to be married; but still Margaret gave no sign. It was far from her thoughts; and the fact had only presented itself in that form to her on the spur of the moment, the preceding evening, as likely to prove a crushing blow at once to Mr. Barker's plotting and Mr. Barker's matrimonial views. But while the Duke talked, she was thinking. And as the situation slowly unfolded its well-known pictures to her mind, she suddenly saw it all in a different light.

"I must be mad," she thought. "Barker will tell every one; and the Duke ought not to know it except from me!"

"Speaking of Dr. Claudius—" she began; the Duke was at that moment talking earnestly about the Pueblo Indians, but that was of no importance. "Speaking of the Doctor, you ought to know—I would rather that no one else told you—we are going to be married."

The Duke was so much surprised—not so much at the information as at her manner of imparting it—that he pulled up short. Seeing him stop, she stopped also.

"Are you very much astonished?" she asked, pushing the gray veil up to her hat, and looking at him smilingly out of her deep, dark eyes. The Duke spoke no word, but leapt from his horse, which he left standing in the middle of the path, surprised into docility by the sudden desertion. There were a few wild-flowers growing by the road, which here led through a wooded glade of the Park; they were the flowers called Michaelmas daisies, which bloom until November in America. He picked a great handful of them, and came running back.

"Let me be the first to congratulate you, my dear friend," he said, standing bareheaded at her stirrup, and offering the flowers with a half-bashful smile that sat strangely on a man of his years. It was a quick, impulsive action, such as no one could have expected from him who did not know him intimately well—and few could boast that they did. Margaret was touched by his look and manner.

"Thanks," she said, bending over her saddle-bow, and taking the daisies as he held them up to her. "Yes, you are the first—to congratulate me," which was true. He still stood looking at her, and his hand would hardly let go the flowers where his fingers touched hers. His face grew pale, then ashy-white and he steadied himself against her horse's neck.

"What is the matter? are you ill? have you hurt yourself?" asked Margaret in real alarm, for he looked as though he were going to faint, and it was a full minute since he had come back to her from the roadside. Then he made a great effort and collected himself, and the next instant he had dashed after his horse, which was wandering away towards the trees.

"I did feel queer for a minute," he said when he was once more in the saddle and by her side. "I dare say it is the heat. It's a very hot day, now I think of it. Would you allow me a cigarette? I hate to smoke in public, you know, but it will make me all right again." Margaret assented, of course, to the request; it was morning, in the recesses of the Park, and nobody would see. But she looked strangely at him for a minute, wondering what could have produced his sudden dizziness.

They rode more slowly towards the entrance of the Park, and the Countess's thoughts did not wander again. She talked to her companion on every subject he broached, showing interest in all he said, and asking questions that she knew would please him. But the latter part of the ride seemed long, and the drive home interminable, for Margaret was in haste to be alone. She was not sure that the Duke's manner had changed since he had turned so strangely pale, but she fancied he spoke as if making an effort. However, they reached the hotel at last, and separated.

"Thanks, so much," she said; "it has been such a delightful morning."

"It has indeed," said he, "and—let me congratulate you once more. Claudius is a gentleman in every way, and—I suppose he is as worthy of you as any one could be," he added quickly, in a discontented voice, and turned away, hat in hand. She stood looking after him a moment.

"I wonder," she said to herself as she entered her room and closed the door. "Poor man! it is not possible, though. I must be dreaming. Ah me! I am always dreaming now, it seems to me;" and she sank down in a chair to wait for Clementine.

And so it is that some women go through life making far more victims than they know of. There are some honest men who will not speak, unless they have a right to, and who are noble enough to help those who have a right. The Duke had known Margaret ever since she had married Alexis, as has been said. Whether he had loved her or not is a question not so easily answered. Certain it is that when she told him she was going to be married to Claudius he turned very pale, and did not recover the entire use of his mind for a whole day.

Nevertheless, during the succeeding fortnight he devoted himself sedulously to Margaret's amusement, and many were the things that he and she and Lady Victoria, and the incomparable Miss Skeat, who always enjoyed everything, planned and carried out together. Margaret did not shun society or shut herself up, and more than once she saw Barker in the street and in the crowds at parties. The houses in America are so small that parties are always crowded. But he had the good sense to avoid her, and she was not troubled by any communication from him. Clementine, indeed, wondered that so few flowers came, for a day or two, and old Vladimir pondered on the probable fate of Mr. Barker, who, he supposed, had been sent to Canada in chains for some political offence, seeing that he called no longer. But these faithful servitors could not ask questions, and sources of information they had none. Barker, however, as Margaret had anticipated, had been active in spreading the news of her engagement; for, before very long, callers were plenty, and flowers too, and many were the congratulations that poured in. Then she saw the wisdom of having informed the Duke of her position before any officious acquaintance could do it for her. The Duke, indeed, saw very few people in New York, for he hated to be "entertained," but he knew a great many men slightly, and some one of them would probably have obliged him with the information.

One morning as he and the Countess were about to drive up to the Park for their daily ride, which had become an institution, the servant presented a card, saying the gentleman was anxious to see her ladyship at once, if possible. The card was that of Mr. Screw, of Screw and Scratch.

"Very well," said the Countess, who was pulling on her gloves, and holding her riding-stick under one arm as she did so. "Ask him to come up." The Duke moved to withdraw.

"Don't go, please," said Margaret; and so he remained. A moment later Mr. Screw's yellow head and small eyes appeared at the door.

"The Countess Margaret?" he inquired deferentially.

"Yes. Mr. Screw, I believe?"

"The same, Madam. A—pardon me, but—I desired to speak with you alone," stammered the lawyer, seeing that the Duke did not move.

"I have asked the—this gentleman, who is my friend, to remain," said Margaret calmly. "You may speak freely. What is your business with me, sir?" She motioned him to a chair, and he sat down opposite her, hat in hand. He would have liked to hook his legs into each other and put his hands into his pockets, but he was too well bred for that. At last he took courage.

"Frankly, Madam, I have come to discharge a moral duty, and I will speak plainly. I am informed on credible authority that you are engaged to marry a gentleman, calling himself Dr. Claudius—a—a tall man—fair beard?"

"Your information is correct, Mr. Screw," said Margaret haughtily, "I am engaged to be married to Dr. Claudius."

"As one of the executors of the late Mr. Gustavus Lindstrand, deceased," proceeded Mr. Screw slowly, "I feel it my duty, as an honest man, to inform you that there are serious doubts as to whether the gentleman who calls himself Dr. Claudius is Dr. Claudius at all. The person in question disappeared two months ago, and has not been heard of since, as far as I can make out. I have no interest in the matter as far as it concerns yourself, as you may well imagine, but I have thought it right to warn you that the gentleman whom you have honoured with a promise of marriage has not established his claim to be the person he represents himself."

Margaret, who, after the first words, had foreseen what Mr. Screw had come to say, and who believed that very respectable and honest man to be concerned in the plot against Claudius, was naturally angry, but she had the good sense to do the right thing.

"Mr. Screw," she said in her commanding voice, icily, "I am deeply indebted to you for your interference. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that the gentleman to whom I am engaged is very really and truly the person he represents himself to be. A fact of which my friend here will probably be able to persuade you without difficulty." And she forthwith left the room. The Duke turned upon the lawyer.

"Look here, Mr. Screw," he said sharply, "I am the—well, never mind my name, you can find out from the people downstairs. I am an English gentleman, and I know who Dr. Claudius is. I knew his father; I brought him to this country in my yacht. I am prepared to go into court this minute and swear to the identity of the gentleman you are slandering. Slandering, sir! Do you hear me?" The ducal anger was hot. "And except for the fact that Dr. Claudius will be here to speak for himself the day after to-morrow morning, I would take you into court now by main force and make you hear me swear to him. Do you hear me, sir?"

"My dear sir," began Mr. Screw, who was somewhat taken aback by this burst of wrath.

"Don't call me 'your dear sir,'" said the nobleman, moving towards Screw.

"Sir, then," continued the other, who had not an idea to whom he was speaking, and perhaps would not have cared had he known, being such an honest man, "I cannot conceive why, if you are so certain, you have not come forward before, instead of allowing your friend to go to Europe in order to procure evidence he might have obtained here."

"I am not going to argue with you," said the Duke. "Dr. Claudius would have gone to Europe in any case, if that is any satisfaction to you. What did you come here for?"

"Because I thought it right to warn an unsuspecting lady of her danger," answered Mr. Screw boldly.

"Is that true? Do you really believe Claudius is not Claudius?" asked the Duke, coming close to the lawyer and looking him in the eyes.

"Certainly, I believe him to be an impostor," said the other returning his gaze fearlessly.

"I suppose you do," said the Duke, tolerably satisfied. "Now then, who sent you here?"

"No one sent me," answered Screw with some pride. "I am not in the habit of being sent, as you call it. It was in the course of a conversation I had with Mr. Barker, the other day—"

"I thought so," interrupted the Englishman. "I thought Mr. Barker was at the bottom of it. Will you please to deliver a message to Mr. Barker, with my compliments?" Screw nodded solemnly, as under protest.

"Then be kind enough to tell him from me that he is a most infernal blackguard. That if he attempts to carry this abominable plot any further I will post him at every one of his clubs as a liar and a cheat, and—and that he had better keep out of my way. As for you, sir, I would advise you to look into his character, for I perceive that you are an honest man."

"I am obliged to you, sir," said Mr. Screw, with something of a sneer. "But who are you, pray, that ventures to call my clients by such ugly names?"

"There is my card—you can see for yourself," said the Duke. Screw read it. His anger was well roused by this time.

"We have small respect for titles in this country, my Lord Duke," said he stiffly. "The best thing I can say is what you said to me, that you impress me as being an honest man. Nevertheless you may be mistaken."

"That is a matter which will be decided the day after to-morrow," said the other. "Meanwhile, in pursuance of what I said, I thank you very sincerely indeed"—Mr. Screw smiled grimly—"no, I am in earnest, I really thank you, on behalf of the Countess Margaret, for the honourable part you have endeavoured to perform towards her; and I beg your pardon for having mistaken you, and supposed you were in the plot. But give my message to Mr. Barker—it is actionable, of course, and he may take action upon it, if he likes. Good-morning, sir."

"Good-morning," said Screw shortly, somewhat pacified by the Duke's frank apology.

"I think I settled him," said the peer to Margaret, as they got into the cab that was to drive them to the Park. And they cantered away in royal spirits.



CHAPTER XX.

Whatever reason may say, whatever certainty we may feel, the last hours of waiting for an ocean steamer are anxious ones. The people at the office may assure us twenty times that they feel "no anxiety whatever"—that is their stock phrase; our friends who have crossed the ocean twice a year for a score of years may tell us that any vessel may be a few hours, nay, a few days, behind her reckoning; it may seem madness to entertain the least shadow of a doubt—and yet, until the feet we love are on the wharf and the dear glad hands in ours, the shadow of an awful possibility is over us, the dreadful consciousness of the capacity of the sea.

The Duke, who, but for his anxiety to see the end, would have long since been on his way to England, had taken every precaution to ascertain the date of the ship's arrival. He took it for granted that Claudius would sail in the Cunard steamer, and he found out the vessel which sailed next after the Doctor had telegraphed. Then he made arrangements to be informed so soon as she was sighted, determined to go down in the Custom-House tug and board her at the Quarantine, that he might have the satisfaction of being first to tell Claudius all there was to be told.

"The day after to-morrow," he had said to Margaret, "we may safely expect him," and he watched, with a sort of dull pleasure, the light that came into her eyes when she heard the time was so near.

The first disappointment—alas, it was only the first—came on the evening before the appointed day. The Duke received a note from the office to the effect that late arrivals having reported very heavy weather, it was feared that the steamer might be delayed some hours. He at once inquired for the Countess, but found to his annoyance that both she and his sister had gone to the theatre. He had been out when they went, and so they had taken Miss Skeat as a sort of escort, and were doubtless enjoying themselves mightily. It was necessary, however, that Margaret should know the news of the delay before she went to bed, for it would have been cruel to allow her to wake in the morning with the assurance that Claudius might arrive at any moment.

"If I wait for them, and make a fuss, she will think it is something serious," reflected the Duke with more than usual tact. So he wrote a note, simply stating that he had news of a delay in the arrival of some hours,—perhaps a whole day, he added, wishing to be on the safe side. He gave the note to Vladimir, and went away to his rooms.

Margaret and Lady Victoria came home together in great spirits, laughing and rustling in their silk cloaks as they entered the little drawing-room, and sat down by the fire for a chat. Then Vladimir brought the Duke's note. Margaret read it by the firelight, and her face fell suddenly.

"What is it, dear?" asked Lady Victoria affectionately, as she noticed her companion's distressed look.

"Nothing—I suppose I ought not to be anxious. The steamer is delayed, that is all," and she gave the English girl her brother's note.

"Oh, if it had been anything serious he would have sat up for us. It will probably be in in the afternoon instead of in the morning." But Margaret's eyes were heavy and her gladness was gone from her.

"Do you ever have presentiments?" she asked, as they separated half an hour later.

"Never," answered Lady Victoria cheerily, "and if I ever do they never come true."

"I do," said Margaret, "I have a feeling that I shall never see him again." Poor Countess! She looked very miserable, with her white face and weary eyes.

Early the next morning Lady Victoria told her brother what had been the effect of his note. He was very angry with himself for not having put it into better shape, and he determined to repair his error by devoting himself entirely to watching for the steamer. With this object, he went down to the Cunard office and established himself with a novel and a box of cigarettes, to pass the day. He refused to move, and sent out in the afternoon for something to eat. The people in the office did not know him, and he felt free to be as Bohemian as he pleased. Once in the course of the day he was told that a French steamer had come in and had met with very heavy weather, losing a boat or two. It was possible, they said, that the Cunarder, which had sailed on the day following this vessel's departure, though from a nearer point, might be delayed another twenty-four hours. For his part, he felt no fear of the safe arrival of the ship, in due time. The odds are a thousand to one that a company which has never lost a vessel at sea will not lose any particular one you name. Nevertheless, he arranged to be called up in the night, if her lights were sighted, and he returned somewhat disconsolately to the hotel. Again he bethought him that if he told the Countess he had passed the day in the steamer office she would overrate his anxiety and so increase her own.

Margaret was really very unreasonable. There was not the slightest doubt that the steamer was safe, but she had become possessed, as Lady Victoria expressed it, by this unaccountable presentiment, that her fair-haired lover was gone from her for ever. Hideous things came up before her, poor drowned faces in the green swirl of the waves, men dead, and dying men grasping frantically at the white water-crests breaking over them, as though the rushing foam were a firm thing and could save them. She heard the wild thin wind screeching across the ocean furrows, breathless in his race with death. And then all seemed quiet, and she could see a grand form of a man, stiff-limbed and stark, the yellow hair all hanging down and the broad white throat turned up in death, floating solemnly through the deep green water, and seaweed, and ooze, far down below the angry waves.

She struggled hard against these dark thoughts; but it was no use. They would come back, and all through the evening she sat by her fire, with eyes wide, and parted lips, staring at the embers and straining her hearing to catch the sound of some one coming to the door—some one bearing the welcome news that the good ship was sighted at last. But no sound came, all through that weary evening, nor any message of comfort. Lady Victoria sat with her, and Miss Skeat, pretending not to notice her distressed mood; and once or twice the Duke came in and spoke cheerfully of what they would do "when Claudius came back." But Margaret went to her room at last with a heavy heart, and would not be comforted.

To tell the truth, the Duke firmly expected to receive the news of the ship's arrival during the night, and so great was his anxiety to relieve Margaret that he insisted upon Willis and Vladimir sitting up all night, so as to be sure of having the message delivered the moment it arrived. The Russian and the English servants hated each other, and he was certain they would not give each other any rest. But the Duke slept soundly, and waking at daybreak yelled viciously for Willis.