"If you want to buy things at first hand you must go into Oxford Street," answered Tom. "Let's get out and walk, my lord; it's so crowded here, we shall make better way."

So they paid their hansom, and threading the swarms of passengers on the footway, turned into Berners Street arm-in-arm.

Tom walked very slowly for reasons of his own, but made himself pleasant enough, talking on a variety of subjects, and boasting his own good taste in matters of curiosity, especially old furniture.

"I wish you could have induced the viscountess to come with us," said Tom, "we should have been all the better for her help. But ladies have so many engagements in the afternoon we know nothing about, that it's impossible to secure their company without several days' notice. I'll be bound her ladyship is in Stripe and Rainbow's still."

There was something in the casual remark that jarred on Lord Bearwarden, more than Tom's absurd habit of thus bestowing her full title on his wife in common conversation, though even that provoked him a little too; something to set him thinking, to rouse all the pride and all the suspicion of his nature. "The viscountess," as Tom called her, was not in Stripe and Rainbow's, of that he had made himself perfectly certain less than half-an-hour ago; then where could she be? Why this secrecy, this mystery, this reserve, that had been growing up between them day by day ever since their marriage? What conclusion was a man likely to arrive at who had lived in the world of London from boyhood, and been already once so cruelly deceived? His blood boiled; and Tom, whose hand rested on his arm, felt the muscles swell and quiver beneath his touch.

Mr. Ryfe had timed his observation well; the two gentlemen were now proceeding slowly up Berners Street, and had arrived nearly opposite the house that contained Simon's painting-room, its hard-working artist, its frequent visitor, its beautiful sitter, and its Fairy Queen. Since his first visit there Tom Ryfe, in person or through his emissaries, had watched the place strictly enough to have become familiar with the habits of its inmates.

Mr. Stanmore's trial trip with Miss Algernon proved so satisfactory, that the journey had been repeated on the same terms every day: this arrangement, very gratifying to the persons involved, originated indeed with Simon, who now went regularly after work to pass a few hours with his sick friend. Thus, to see these two young people bowling down Berners Street in a hansom cab, about five o'clock, looking supremely happy the while, was as good a certainty as to meet the local pot-boy, or the postman.

Tom Ryfe manoeuvred skilfully enough to bring his man on the ground precisely at the right moment.

Still harping on old furniture, he was in the act of remarking that "he should know the shop again, though he had forgotten the number, and that it must be a few doors higher up," when his companion started, uttered a tremendous execration, and struggling to free himself from Tom's arm, holloaed at an unconscious cab-driver to stop.

"What's the matter? are you ill, my lord?" exclaimed his companion, holding on to him with all his weight, while affecting great anxiety and alarm.

"D—n you! let me go!" exclaimed Lord Bearwarden, nearly flinging Tom to the pavement as he shook himself free and tore wildly down the street in vain pursuit.

He returned in a minute or two, white, scared, and breathless. Pulling his moustache fiercely, he made a gallant effort to compose himself; but when he spoke, his voice was so changed, Tom looked with surprise in his face.

"You saw it too, Tom!" he said at last, in a hoarse whisper.

"Saw it!—saw what?" repeated Tom, with an admirable assumption of ignorance, innocence, and dismay.

"Saw Lady Bearwarden in that cab with Dick Stanmore!" answered his lordship, steadying himself bravely like a good ship in a breeze, and growing cooler and cooler, as was his nature in an emergency.

"Are you sure of it?—did you see her face? I fancied so myself, but thought I must be mistaken. It was Mr. Stanmore, no doubt, but it cannot possibly have been the viscountess."

Tom spoke with an air of gravity, reflection, and profound concern.

"I may settle with him, at any rate!" said Lord Bearwarden. "Tom, you're a true friend; I can trust you like myself. It's a comfort to have a friend, Tom, when a fellow's smashed up like this. I shall bear it well enough presently; but it's an awful facer, old boy. I'd have done anything for that woman—I tell you, anything! I'd have cut off my right hand to please her. And now!—It's not because she doesn't care for me—I've known that all along; but to think that she's like—like those poor painted devils we met just now. Like them!—she's a million times worse! O, it's hard to bear! Damnation! I won't bear it! Somebody will have to give an account for this!"

"You have my sympathy," said Tom, in a low respectful voice, for he knew his man thoroughly; "these things won't stand talking about; but you shall have my assistance too, in any and every way you require. I'm not a swell, my lord, but I'll stick by you through thick and thin."

The other pressed his arm. "We must do something at once," said he. "I will go up to barracks now: call for me there in an hour's time; I shall have decided on everything by then."

So Lord Bearwarden carried a sore heart back once more to the old familiar scenes—through the well-known gate, past the stalwart sentry, amongst all the sights and sounds of the profession by which he set such store. What a mockery it seemed!—how hard, how cruel, and how unjust!

But this time at least, he felt, he should not be obliged to sit down and brood over his injuries without reprisals or redress.



CHAPTER XXIV

PARTED

Lady Bearwarden's carriage had, without doubt, set her down at Stripe and Rainbow's, to take her up again at the same place after waiting there for so long a period as must have impressed on her servants the importance of their lady's toilet, and the careful study she bestowed on its selection. The tall bay horses had been flicked at least a hundred times to make them stand out and show themselves, in the form London coachmen think so imposing to passers-by. The footman had yawned as often, expressing with each contortion an excessive longing for beer. Many street boys had lavished their criticisms, favourable and otherwise, on the wheels, the panels, the varnish, the driver's wig, and that dignitary's legs, whom they had the presumption to address as "John." Diverse connoisseurs on the pavement had appraised the bay horses at every conceivable price—some men never can pass a horse or a woman without thinking whether they would like to bargain for the one or make love to the other; and the animals themselves seemed to have interchanged many confidential whispers, on the subject, probably, of beans,—when Lady Bearwarden re-appeared, to seat herself in the carriage and give the welcome order, "Home!"

She had passed what the French call a very "bad little quarter of an hour," and the storm had left its trace on her pale brow and delicate features. They bore, nevertheless, that firm, resolute expression which Maud must have inherited from some iron-hearted ancestor. There was the same stem clash of the jaw, the same hard, determined frown in this, their lovely descendant, that confronted Plantagenet and his mailed legions on the plains by Stirling, that stiffened under the wan moonlight on Culloden Moor amongst broken claymores and riven targets, and tartans all stained to the deep-red hues of the Stuart with his clansmen's blood.

Softened, weakened by a tender, doubting affection, she had yielded to an ignoble, unworthy coercion; but it had been put on too hard of late, and her natural character asserted itself under the pressure. She was in that mood which makes the martyr and the heroine, sometimes even the criminal, but on which, deaf to reason and insensible to fear, threats and arguments are equally thrown away.

She had met "Gentleman Jim," according to promise, extorted from her by menaces of everything that could most outrage her womanly feelings and tarnish her fair fame before the world—had met him with as much secrecy, duplicity, and caution as though he were really the favoured lover for whom she was prepared to sacrifice home, husband, honour, and all. The housebreaker had mounted a fresh disguise for the occasion, and flattered himself, to use his own expression, that he looked "quite the gentleman from top to toe." Could he have known how this high-bred woman loathed his tawdry ornaments, his flash attire, his silks and velvets, and flushed face, and dirty, ringed hands and greasy hair!

Could he have known! He did know, and it maddened him till he forgot reason, prudence, experience, commonsense—forgot everything but the present torture, the cruel longing for the impossible, the accursed conviction (worse than all the stings of drink and sin and remorse) that this one wild, hopeless desire of his existence could never be attained.

Therefore, in the lonely street to which a cab had brought her from the shop where her carriage waited, and which they paced to and fro, this strangely-assorted pair, he gave vent to his feelings, and broke out in a paroxysm that roused all his listener's feelings of anger, resistance, and disgust. She had just offered him so large a sum of money to quit England for ever, as even Jim, for whom, you must remember, every sovereign represented twenty shillings' worth of beer, could not refuse without a qualm. He hesitated, and Maud's face brightened with a ray of hope that quivered in her eyes like sunlight. "To sail next week," said he slowly; "to take my last look of ye to-day. Them's the articles. My last look. Standing there in the daylight—a real lady! And never to come back no more!"

She clasped her hands—the delicate gloved hands, with their heavy bracelets at the wrists—and her voice shook while she spoke. "You'll go; won't you? It will make your fortune; and—and—I'll always think of you kindly—and—gratefully. I will indeed; so long as you keep away."

He sprang like a horse to the lash. "It's h——ll!" he exclaimed. "Put back your cursed money. I won't do it!"

"You won't do it?"

There was such quiet despair in her accents as drove him to fury.

"I won't do it!" he repeated in a low voice that frightened her. "I'll rot in a gaol first!—I'll swing on a gallows!—I'll die in a ditch! Take care as you don't give me something to swing for! Yes, you, with your pale face, and your high-handed ways, and your cold, cruel heart that can send a poor devil to the other end o' the earth with a 'pleasant trip, and here's your health, my lad,' like as if I was goin' across to Lambeth. And yet you stand there as beautiful as a hangel; and I—I'm a fool, I am! And—and I don't know what keeps me from slippin' my knife into that white throat o' yourn, except it is as you don't look not a morsel dashed, nor skeared, you don't; no more than you was that first night as ever I see your face. And I wish my eyes had been lime-blinded first, and I'd been dead and rotting in my grave."

With anything like a contest, as usual, Maud's courage came back.

"I am not in your power yet," said she, raising her haughty head. "There stands the cab. When we reach it I get in, and you shall never have a chance of speaking to me after to-day. Once for all. Will you take this money, or leave it? I shall not make the offer again."

He took the notes from her hand, with a horrible oath, and dashed them on the ground; then growing so pale she thought he must have fallen, seemed to recover his temper and his presence of mind, picked them up, returned them very quietly, and stood aside on the narrow pavement to let her pass.

"You are right," said he, in a voice so changed, she looked anxiously in his white face, working like that of a man in a fit. "I was a fool a while ago. I know better now. But I won't take the notes, my lady. Thank ye kindly just the same. I'll wish ye good-mornin' now. O, no! Make yourself easy. I'll never ask to see ye again."

He staggered while he walked away, and laid hold of an area railing as he turned the street corner; but Maud was too glad to get rid of her tormentor at any price to speculate on his meaning, his movements, or the storm that raged within his breast.

And now, sitting back in her carriage, bowling home-ward, with the fresh evening breeze in her face, the few men left to take their hats off looked in that face, and while making up their minds that after all it was the handsomest in London, felt instinctively they had never coveted the ownership of its haughty beauty so little as to-day. Her husband's cornet, walking with a brother subaltern, and saluting Lady Bearwarden, or, rather, the carriage and horses, for her ladyship's eyes and thoughts were miles away, expressed the popular feeling perhaps with sufficient clearness when he thus delivered himself, in reply to his companion's loudly-expressed admiration—

"The best-looking woman in London, no doubt, and the best turned out. But I think Bruin's got a handful, you know. Tell ye what, my boy, I'm generally right about women. She looks like the sort that, if they once begin to kick, never leave off till they've knocked the splinter-bar into toothpicks and carried away the whole of the front boot."

Maud, all unconscious of the light in which she appeared to this young philosopher, was meanwhile hardening her heart with considerable misgivings for the task she had in view, resolved that nothing should now deter her from the confession she had delayed too long. She reflected how foolish it was not to have taken advantage of the first confidences of married life by throwing herself on her husband's mercy, telling him all the folly, imprudence, crime of which she had been guilty, and imploring to be forgiven. Every day that passed made it more difficult, particularly since this coolness had arisen between them, which, although she felt it did not originate with herself, she also felt a little pliancy on her part, a little warmth of manner, a little expressed affection, would have done much to counteract and put away. She had delayed it too long; but "Better late than never." It should be done to-day; before she dressed for dinner; the instant she got home. She would put her arms round his neck, and tell him that the worst of her iniquities, the most unpardonable, had been committed for love of him! She could not bear to lose him (Maud forgot that in those days it was the coronet she wanted to capture). She dreaded falling in his esteem. She dared all, risked all, because without him life must have been to her, as it is to so many, a blank and a mistake. But supposing he put on the cold, grave face, assumed the conventional tone she knew so well, told her he could not pardon such unladylike, such unwomanly proceedings, or that he did not desire to intrude on confidences so long withheld; or, worse than all, that they did very well as they were, got on—he had hinted as much once before—better than half the married couples in London, why, she must bear it. This would be part of the punishment; and at least she could have the satisfaction of assuring him how she loved him, and of loving him heartily, humbly, even without return.

Lady Bearwarden had never done anything humbly before. Perhaps she thought this new sensation might be for her good—might make her a changed woman, and in such change happier henceforth.

Tears sprang to her eyes. How slow that man drove; but, thank heaven! here she was, home at last.

On the hall-table lay a letter in her husband's hand-writing, addressed to herself. "How provoking!" she muttered, "to say he dines out, of course. And now I must wait till to-morrow. Never mind."

Passing up-stairs to her boudoir, she opened it as she entered the room, and sank into a chair, with a faint passionate cry, like that of a hare, or other weak animal, struck to the death. She had courage, nevertheless, to read it over twice, so as thoroughly to master the contents. During their engagement they used to meet every day. They had not been parted since their marriage. It was the first, literally the very first, letter she had ever received from him.

"I have no reproaches to make," it said, "nor reasons to offer for my own decision. I leave both to your sense of right, if indeed yours can be the same as that usually accepted amongst honourable people. I have long felt some mysterious barrier existed between you and me. I have only an hour ago discovered its disgraceful nature, and the impossibility that it can ever be removed. You cannot wonder at my not returning home. Stay there as long as you please, and be assured I shall not enter that house again. You will not probably wish to see or hold any communication with me in future, but should you be so ill-advised as to attempt it, remember I have taken care to render it impossible. I know not how I have forfeited the right to be treated fairly and on the square, nor why you, of all the world, should have felt entitled to make me your dupe, but this is a question on which I do not mean to enter, now nor hereafter. My man of business will attend to any directions you think proper to give, and has my express injunctions to further your convenience in every way, but to withhold my address and all information respecting my movements. With a sincere wish for your welfare, I remain,"

Yours, etc.,

"Bearwarden."

She was stunned, stupefied, bewildered. What had he found out? What could it mean? She had known of late she loved him very dearly; she never knew till now the pain such love might bring. She rocked herself to and fro in her agony, but soon started up into action. She must do something. She could not sit there under his very picture looking down on her, manly, and kind, and soldierlike. She ran down-stairs to his room. It was all disordered just as he had left it, and an odour of tobacco clung heavily round the curtains and furniture. She wondered now she should ever have disliked the fumes of that unsavoury plant. She could not bear to stay there long, but hurried up-stairs again to ring for a servant, and bid him get a cab at once, to see if Lord Bearwarden was at the barracks. She felt hopelessly convinced it was no use; even if he were, nothing would be gained by the assurance, but it seemed a relief to obtain an interval of waiting and uncertainty and delay. When the man returned to report that "his lordship had been there and gone away again," she wished she had let it alone. It formed no light portion of her burden that she must preserve an appearance of composure before her servants. It seemed such a mockery while her heart was breaking, yes, breaking, in the desolation of her sorrow, the blank of a future without him.

Then in extremity of need she bethought her of Dick Stanmore, and in this I think Lady Bearwarden betrayed, under all her energy and force of character, the softer elements of woman's nature. A man, I suppose, under any pressure of affliction would hardly go for consolation to the woman he had deceived. He partakes more of the wild beast's sulkiness, which, sick or wounded, retires to mope in a corner by itself; whereas a woman, as indeed seems only becoming to her less firmly-moulded character, shows in a struggle all the qualities of valour except that one additional atom of final endurance which wins the fight at last. In real bitter distress they must have some one to lean on. Is it selfishness that bids them carry their sorrows for help to the very hearts they have crushed and trampled? Is it not rather a noble instinct of forgiveness and generosity which tells them that if their mutual cases were reversed they would themselves be capable of affording the sympathy they expect?

Maud knew that, to use the conventional language of the world in which they moved, "she had treated Dick ill." We think very lightly of these little social outrages in the battle of life, and yet I doubt if one human being can inflict a much deeper injury on another than that which deprives the victim of all power of enjoyment, all belief in good, all hope for the future, all tender memories of the past. Man or woman, we ought to have some humane compunction, some little hesitation in sitting down to play at that game from which the winner rises only wearied with unmerited good fortune, the loser, haggard, miserable, stripped and beggared for life.

It was owing to no forbearance of Lady Bearwarden's that Dick had so far recovered his losses as to sit down once more and tempt fortune at another table; but she turned to him nevertheless in this her hour of perplexity, and wrote to ask his aid, advice, and sympathy in her great distress.

I give her letter, though it never reached its destination, because I think it illustrates certain feminine ideas of honour, justice, and plain dealing which must originate in some code of reasoning totally unintelligible to ourselves.

Dear Mr. Stanmore,

You are a true friend, I feel sure. I have always considered you, since we have been acquainted, the truest and most tried amongst the few I possess. You told me once, some time ago, when we used to meet oftener than we have of late, that if ever I was in sorrow or difficulty I was to be sure and let you know. I am in sorrow and difficulty now—great sorrow, overwhelming difficulty. I have nobody that cares for me enough to give advice or help, and I am so very, very sad and desolate. I think I have some claim upon you. We used to be so much together and were always such good friends. Besides, we are almost relations, are we not? and once I thought we should have been something more. But that is all over now.

Will you help me? Come to me at once, or write. Lord Bearwarden has left me without a word of explanation except a cruel, cutting, formal letter that I cannot understand. I don't know what I have said or done, but it seems so hard, so inhuman. And I loved him very dearly, very. Indeed, though you have every right to say you don't believe me, I would have made him a good wife if he had let me. My heart seems quite crushed and broken. It is too hard. Again I ask you to help me, and remain always

Yours sincerely,

"M. Bearwarden."

There is little doubt that had Dick Stanmore ever received this touching production he would have lost not one moment in complying with the urgency of its appeal. But Dick did not receive it, for the simple reason that, although stamped by her ladyship and placed in the letter-box, it was never sent to the post.

Lord Bearwarden, though absenting himself from home under such unpleasant circumstances, could not therefore shake off the thousand imperceptible meshes that bind a man like chains of iron to his own domestic establishment. Amongst other petty details his correspondence had to be provided for, and he sent directions accordingly to his groom of the chambers, that all his letters should be forwarded to a certain address. The groom of the chambers, who had served in one or two families before, of which the heads had separated under rather discreditable circumstances, misunderstanding his master's orders, or determined to err on the safe side, forwarded all the letters he could lay hands on to my lord. Therefore the hurt and angry husband was greeted, ere he had left home a day, by the sight of an envelope in his wife's handwriting addressed to the man with whom he believed she was in love. Even under such provocation Lord Bearwarden was too high-minded to open the enclosure, but sent it back forthwith in a slip of paper, on which he calmly "presented his compliments and begged to forward a letter he could see was Lady Bearwarden's that had fallen into his hands by mistake."

Maud, weeping in her desolate home, tore it into a thousand shreds. There was something characteristic of her husband in these little honourable scruples that cut her to the heart. "Why didn't he read it?" she repeated, wringing her hands and walking up and down the room. "He knows Mr. Stanmore quite well. Why didn't he read it? and then he would have seen what I shall never, never be able to tell him now!"



CHAPTER XXV

COAXING A FIGHT

Mr. Ryfe could now congratulate himself that his puppets were fairly on the stage prepared for their several parts; and it remained but to bring them into play, and with that view, he summoned all the craft of his experience to assist the cunning of his nature.

Lord Bearwarden, amongst other old-fashioned prejudices, clung to an obsolete notion that there are certain injuries, and those of the deepest and most abiding, for which neither the opinion of society, nor the laws of the land, afford redress, and which can only be wiped out by personal encounter of man to man. It seemed to him that he could more easily forget his sorrow, and turn with a firmer tread into the beaten track of life, after a snap shot at Mr. Stanmore across a dozen yards of turf. Do not blame him—remember his education and the opinions of those amongst whom he lived. Remember, too, that his crowning sorrow had not yet taught him resignation, an opiate which works only with lapse of time. There is a manlier and a truer courage than that which seeks a momentary oblivion of its wrongs in the excitement of personal danger—there is a heroism of defence, far above the easier valour of attack—and those are distinguished as the bravest troops that under severe loss preserve their discipline and formation, without returning the fire of an enemy.

Lord Bearwarden, however, as became the arm of the service to which he belonged, was impatient of inaction, and had not yet learned to look on hostilities in this light.

"We'll parade him, Tom," said he, affecting a cheerfulness which did not the least deceive his companion. "I don't want to make a row about it, of course. I'll spare her, though she hardly deserves it, but I'll have a slap at him, and I'll shoot him, too, if I can! You needn't put us up much farther than the width of this room!"

They were closeted together at the back of a certain unassuming hotel, where their addresses, if required, would be consistently denied. The room in question was small, gloomy, and uncomfortable, but so shaded and sequestered, that, lulled by its drowsy glimmer, for its inmates, as for the lotus-eaters, "it was always afternoon."

"Suppose he won't fight," observed Tom, shaking his head.

"Won't fight!" repeated his lordship, in high disdain. "Curse him—he must fight. I'll horsewhip him in the Park! That's all nonsense, Tom. The fellow's a gentleman. I'll say that for him. He'll see the propriety of keeping the whole thing quiet, if it was only out of regard for her. You must settle it, Tom. It's a great deal to ask. I know I ought to have gone to a brother-officer, but this is a peculiar case, you see, and the fewer fellows in the hunt the better!"

Mr. Ryfe mused. He didn't much like his job, but reflected that, under the management of any one else, an explanation would assuredly put everything in its true light, and his web would all be brushed away. What he required was a scandal; a slander so well sustained, that Lady Bearwarden's character should never recover it, and for such a purpose nothing seemed so efficacious as a duel, of which she should be the cause. He imagined also, in his inexperience, like the immortal Mr. Winkle, that these encounters were usually bloodless, and mere, matters of form.

"You're resolved, I suppose," said Tom. "I needn't point out to you, my lord, that such a course shuts every door to reconciliation—precludes every possibility of things coming right in future. It's a strong measure—a very strong measure—and you really mean to carry it through?"

"I've made up my mind to shoot him," answered the other doggedly. "What's the use of jawing about it? These things should be done at once, my good fellow. If we have to go abroad, we'll start to-morrow night."

"I'd better try and hunt him up without delay," said Tom. "It's easier to find a fellow now than in the middle of the season, but I might not hit upon him to-night, nevertheless."

Lord Bearwarden looked at his watch. "Try his club," said he. "If he dines there, it's about the time. They'll know his address at any rate, and if you look sharp you might catch him at home dressing for dinner. I'll wait here and we'll have a mutton-chop when you come in. Stick to him, Tom. Don't let him back out. It would have saved a deal of trouble," added his lordship, while the other hurried off, "if I could have caught that cab to-day. She'd have been frightened, though, and upset. Better as it is, perhaps, after all."

Mr. Ryfe did not suffer the wheels of his chariot to tarry, nor the grass to grow beneath his feet. Very few minutes elapsed before he found himself waiting in the strangers' room of a club much affected by Dick Stanmore, comforted with a hall-porter's assurance that the gentleman he sought had ordered dinner, and could not fail to arrive almost immediately. He had scarcely taken up the evening paper when Mr. Stanmore came in.

Anything less like a conscience-stricken Lothario, burdened with the guilt of another man's wife, can scarcely be imagined. Dick's eye was bright, his cheek blooming, his countenance radiant with health, happiness, and the light from within that is kindled by a good conscience and a loving heart. He came up to Ryfe with a merry greeting on his lips, but stopped short, marking the gravity of that gentleman's face and the unusual formality of his bow.

"My errand is a very painful one," said Tom. "I regret to say, Mr. Stanmore, that I have come to you on a most unpleasant business."

"I thought you'd come to dinner," answered Dick, no whit disconcerted. "Never mind. Let's have it out. I dare say it's not half so bad as it seems."

"It could not possibly be worse," was the solemn rejoinder. "It involves life and honour for two gentlemen, both of whom I respect and esteem. For the sake of one, a very dear friend, I have consented to be here now. Mr. Stanmore, I come to you on behalf of Lord Bearwarden."

Dick started. The old wound was healed, and, indeed, perfectly cured now, but the skin had not yet grown quite callous over that injured part.

"Go on," said he. "Why didn't Lord Bearwarden come himself?"

"Impossible!" answered Tom, with great dignity. "Contrary to all precedent. I could not have permitted such a thing. Should not have listened to it for a moment. Quite inadmissible. Would have placed every one in a false position. His lordship has lost no time in selecting an experienced friend. May I hope Mr. Stanmore will be equally prompt? You understand me, of course."

"I'm hanged if I do!" replied Dick, opening his eyes very wide. "You must speak plainer. What is it all about?"

"Simply," said the other, "that my principal assures me he feels confident your own sense of honour will not permit you to refuse him a meeting. Lord Bearwarden, as you must be aware, Mr. Stanmore, is a man of very high spirit and peculiarly sensitive feelings. You have inflicted on him some injury of so delicate a nature that even from me, his intimate friend, he withholds his confidence on the real facts of the case. He leads me to believe that I shall not find my task very difficult, and my own knowledge of Mr. Stanmore's high character and jealous sense of honour points to the same conclusion. You will, of course, meet me half-way, without any further negotiation or delay."

("If he's ever spoken three words of endearment to 'the viscountess,'" reflected Tom, "he'll understand at once. If he hasn't, he'll think I'm mad!")

"But I can't fight without I'm told what it's for," urged Dick, in considerable bewilderment. "I don't know Lord Bearwarden well. I've nothing to do with him. We've never had a quarrel in our lives."

"Mr. Stanmore!" replied the other. "You surprise me. I thought you quite a different sort of person. I thought a gentleman"—here a flash in Dick's eye warned him not to go too far—"a gentleman of your intelligence would have anticipated my meaning without trying to force from me an explanation, which indeed it is out of my power to make. There are injuries, Mr. Stanmore, on which outraged friendship cannot bear to enlarge; for which a man of honour feels bound to offer the only reparation in his power. Must we force you, Mr. Stanmore, into the position we require, by overt measures, as disgraceful to you as they would be unbecoming in my friend?"

"Stop a moment, Mr. Ryfe," said Dick. "Do you speak now for yourself or Lord Bearwarden?"

There was a slight contraction of the lip accompanying this remark that Tom by no means fancied. He hastened to shelter himself behind his principal.

"For Lord Bearwarden, decidedly," said he, "and without intention of the slightest discourtesy. My only object is indeed to avoid, for both parties, anything so revolting as a personal collision. Have I said enough?"

"No, you haven't!" answered Dick, who was getting warm while his dinner was getting cold. "If you won't tell me what the offence is, how can I offer either redress or apology?"

"No apology would be accepted," replied Mr. Ryfe loftily. "Nor, indeed, does his lordship consider that his injuries admit of extenuation. Shall I tell you his very words, Mr. Stanmore, addressed to me less than an hour ago?"

"Drive on," said Dick.

"His lordship's words, not my own, you will bear in mind," continued Tom, rather uncomfortable, but resolved to play out his trump card. "And I only repeat them as it were in confidence, and at your own request. 'Tom,' said he, 'nothing on earth shall prevent our meeting. No, not if I have to horsewhip Mr. Stanmore in the Park to bring it about.'"

"If that don't fetch him," thought Tom, "he's not the man I take him for."

It did fetch him. Dick started, and turned fiercely on the speaker.

"The devil!" he exclaimed. "Two can play at that game, and perhaps he might come off the worst! Mr. Ryfe, you're a bold man to bring such a message to me. I'm not sure how far your character of ambassador should bear you harmless; but, in the meantime, tell your principal I'll accommodate him with pleasure, and the sooner the better."

Dick's blood was up, as indeed seemed natural enough under so gross an insult, and he was all for fighting now, right or wrong. Tom Ryfe congratulated himself on the success of this, his first step in a diplomacy leading to war, devoutly hoping that the friend to whom Mr. Stanmore should refer him might prove equally fierce and hot-headed. He bowed with the studied courtesy assumed by every man concerned, either as principal or second, in an act of premeditated homicide, and smoothed his hat preparatory to taking leave.

"If you will kindly favour me with your friend's name," said he in a tone of excessive suavity, "I will wish you good-evening. I fear I have already kept you too long from dinner."

Dick considered for a few seconds, while he ran over in his mind the sum-total of intimates on whom he could rely in an emergency like the present. It is wonderful how short such lists are. Mr. Stanmore could not recall more than half-a-dozen, and of these four were out of town, and one lay ill in bed. The only available man of the six was Simon Perkins. Dick Stanmore knew that he could trust him to act as a stanch friend through thick and thin, but he had considerable scruples in availing himself of the painter's assistance under existing circumstances.

Time pressed, however, and there was nothing for it but to furnish Mr. Ryfe with Simon's name and address in Berners Street.

"Can I see him at once?" asked Tom, strangely anxious to hasten matters, as it seemed to Dick Stanmore, who could not help wondering whether, had the visitor been a combatant, he would have proved equally eager for the fray.

"I am afraid not till to-morrow," was the reply. "He has left his painting-room by this time and gone out of town. I cannot ask you to take another journey to-night. Allow me to offer you a glass of sherry before you go."

Tom declined the proffered hospitality, bowing himself out, as befitted the occasion, with much ceremonious politeness, and leaving the other to proceed to his club-dinner in a frame of mind that considerably modified the healthy appetite he had brought with him half-an-hour ago.

He congratulated himself, however, before his soup was done, that he had not sent Mr. Ryfe down to the cottage at Putney. He could not bear to think of that peaceful, happy retreat, the nest of his dove, the home of his heart, as desecrated by such a presence on such an errand. "Come what might," he thought, "Nina must be kept from all terrors and anxieties of this kind—all knowledge of such wild, wicked doings as these."

So thinking, and reflecting, also, that it was very possible with an encounter of so deadly a nature before him they might never meet again, he knew too well by the heaviness at his heart how dear this girl had become in so short a time—how completely she had filled up that gaping wound in his affections from which he once thought he must have bled hopelessly to death; how entirely he was bound up in her happiness, and how, even in an hour of trouble, danger, and vexation like this, his chief anxiety was lest it should bring sorrow and suffering to her.

He drank but little wine at his solitary dinner, smoked one cigar after it, and wrote a long letter to Nina before he went to bed—a letter in which he told her all his love, all the comfort she had been to him, all his past sorrows, all his future hopes, and then tore this affectionate production into shreds and flung it in the fire-place. It had only been meant to reach her hands if he should be killed. And was it not calculated, then, to render her more unhappy, more inconsolable? He asked himself the question several times before he found resolution to answer it in the practical manner described. I think he must have been very fond of Nina Algernon indeed, although he did not the least know she was at that moment looking out of window, with her hair down, listening to the night breeze in the poplars, the lap and wash of the ebb-tide against the river-banks, thinking how nice it was to have met him that morning, by the merest accident, how nice it would be to see him in the painting-room, by the merest accident again, of course, to-morrow afternoon.

The clock at St. George's, Hanover Square, struck nine as Mr. Ryfe returned to his hotel. He found Lord Bearwarden waiting for him, and dinner ready to be placed on the table.

"Have you settled it?" asked his lordship, in a fierce whisper that betrayed no little eagerness for action—something very like a thirst for blood. "When is it for, Tom? To-morrow morning? I've got everything ready. I don't know that we need cross the water, after all."

"Easy, my lord," answered Tom. "I can't get on quite so quick as you wish. I've seen our man, and learned his friend's name and address. That's pretty well, I think, for one day's work."

"You'll meet the friend to-night, Tom!" exclaimed the other. "Who is he? Do we know him? He's a soldier, I hope?"

"He's a painter, and he lives out of town; so I can't see him till to-morrow. In the meantime, I would venture to suggest, my lord, that I'm recovering from a severe illness, and I've been eight hours without food."

Tom spoke cheerily enough, but in good truth he looked haggard and out-worn. Lord Bearwarden rang the bell.

"I'm ashamed of myself," said he. "Let's have dinner directly; and as for this cursed business, don't let us think any more about it till to-morrow morning."

They sat down accordingly to, good food, well cooked, good wine, well decanted: in good society, too, well chosen from a select fraternity usually to be found in this secluded resort. So they feasted, and were merry, talking of hounds, horses, hunting, racing, weight for age, wine, women, and what not. The keenest observer, the acutest judge of his kind, could never have detected that one of these men was meditating bloodshed, the other prompting him to something very like murder as an accessory before the fact.

I will never believe that Damocles ate his supper with less appetite, drank his wine with less zest, for the threatening sword suspended overhead.



CHAPTER XXVI

BAFFLED

Mr. Ryfe, we may be sure, did not fail to make his appearance in Berners Street at an early hour on the following day, as soon indeed as, according to Mr. Stanmore's information, there was any chance of finding the painter at home. He felt, and he told himself so more than once, that he was enacting the part of Mephistopheles, without the supernatural power of that fatal auxiliary, without even a fair allowance of time to lure his Faust to perdition. He had undertaken a task that never would have occurred but to a desperate man, and Tom was desperate, inasmuch as the one hope on which he set his heart had crumbled to atoms. He had resolved to bring together in active hostility two men of the world, versed in the usages of society, themselves perfectly familiar with the code of social honour, that they might attempt each other's lives beguiled by a delusion gross and palpable as the common tricks of any fire-eating conjurer at a fair.

The very audacity of the scheme, however, seemed to afford its best chance of success, and when that success should have been attained, Tom's fancy, overleaping all intermediate difficulties, revelled in the wild possibilities of the future. Of bloodshed he took very little thought. What cared he, with his sad, sore heart, for the lives of those prosperous men, gifted with social advantages that had been denied to himself, and that he felt a proud consciousness he could have put to a far richer profit? Whether either or both were killed, whether either or both came home untouched, his object would equally be gained. Lady Bearwarden's fair fame would equally be dishonoured before the world. He knew that world well, knew its tyrannical code, its puzzling verdicts, its unaccountable clemency to the wolf, its inflexible severity for the lamb, above all, its holy horror of a blot that has been scored, of a sin, then only unpardonable, that has been "found out."

Men love the women on whom they set their affections so differently. For some—and these are great favourites with the sex—attachment means the desire of a tiger for its prey. With others it is the gratification a child finds in a toy. A small minority entertain the superstition of a savage for his idol; a smaller yet offer the holy homage of a true worshipper to his saint. A woman's heart pines for unrivalled sovereignty—a woman's nature requires the strong hand of a master to retain it in bondage. For this, as for every other earthly state, there is no unalloyed happiness, no perfect enjoyment, no complete repose. The gourd has its worm, the diamond its flaw, the rose its earwigs, and

"The trail of the serpent is over them all."

So Tom Ryfe, taking time by the forelock, breakfasted at ten, wrote several letters with considerable coolness and forethought, all bearing on the event in contemplation, some providing for a week's absence abroad, at least, smoked a cigar in Lord Bearwarden's bedroom, who was not yet up, and towards noon turned out of Oxford Street to fulfil his mission with Simon Perkins the painter.

His step was lighter, his whole appearance more elate, than usual. The traces of recent illness and over-night's fatigue had disappeared. He was above all foolish fancies of luck, presentiments, and such superstitions—a man not easily acted on by extraneous circumstances of good or evil, trusting chiefly in his own resources, and believing very firmly in nothing but the multiplication table; yet to-day he told himself he "felt like a winner"; to-day victory seemed in his grasp, and he trod the pavement with the confident port of that pride which the proverb warns us "goeth before a fall."

He rang the door-bell and was vaguely directed to proceed up-stairs by the nondescript maid-servant who admitted him. The place was dark, the day sultry, the steps numerous. Tom climbed them leisurely, hat in hand, wondering why people couldn't live on the ground-floor, and not a little absorbed in preparation of such a plausible tale as should bring the contemplated interview to a warlike termination.

Turning imaginary periods with certain grandiloquent phrases concerning delicacy of feeling and high sense of honour, he arrived at the second landing, where he paused to take breath. Tom's illness had no doubt weakened his condition, but the gasp with which he now opened his mouth denoted excess of astonishment rather than deficiency of wind.

Spinning deftly into its place, as if dropped from heaven with a plumb-line, a wreath of artificial flowers landed lightly on his temples, while a woman's laugh, soft and silvery, accompanied with its pleasant music this unexpected coronation.

Tom looked up aghast, but he was not quick enough to catch sight of more than the hem of a garment, the turn of an ankle. There was a smothered exclamation, a "my gracious!" denoting extremity of dismay, a rustle of skirts, the loud bang of a door, and all became still. "Deuced odd," thought Tom, removing the wreath and wondering where he should put it, before he made his entrance. "Queer sort of people these! Painter a regular Don Giovanni, no doubt. So much the better—all the more likely to go in for the fuss and eclat of a duel."

So Tom flung his garland aside and prepared to assume a lofty presence with his hand on the painting-room door, while Nina, blushing to the roots of her hair, barricaded herself carefully into a small dressing-closet opening on the studio, in which retreat it was Simon's habit to wash his hands and smarten himself up when he had done work for the day.

Poor Nina! To use her own expression, she was "horrified." She expected Dick Stanmore, and with a girlish playfulness sufficiently denoting the terms on which they stood, had been lying in wait at the top of the stairs, preparing to take a good shot, and drop the wreath, one of Simon's faded properties, on that head which she now loved better than all the world besides.

The staircase, I have said, was gloomy. Young gentlemen all brush their hair the same way. The missile was out of her fingers ere a horrid suspicion crossed her that she had made a mistake; and when Tom looked up there was nothing for it but sauve qui peut! After all, one head, perhaps, also, one heart, is very like another; but Nina had not yet mastered this, the first element of a rational philosophy, and would have fled, if she could, to the ends of the earth.

In the meantime she took refuge in the little room off the studio, blushing, palpitating, very much ashamed, though more than half amused, but firmly resolved not to leave her hiding-place nor face the visitor, devoutly hoping, at the same time, that he might not stay long.

Simon was in the act of lifting his Fairy Queen into her usual position. She had been dethroned the day before, while he worked at a less congenial task. On his visitor's entrance he put her back with her face to the wall.

Tom made an exceedingly stiff bow. "Mr. Perkins, I believe?"

"Mr. Ryfe?" replied Simon, in the same half-interrogative tone, with a very stiff bow too.

"I am here on the part of Lord Bearwarden," said Tom. "And I have been referred to you by Mr. Stanmore. You expected me, no doubt."

"I had a communication from Mr. Stanmore an hour ago to that effect," answered Simon, with a gravity the more profound that he had some difficulty in repressing a smile. The painter was not without a sense of humour, and this "communication," as he called it, lay crumpled up in his waistcoat-pocket while he spoke. It ran thus—

"Dear Simon,—I have had a visit from a man named Ryfe that puzzles me exceedingly. He comes from Lord Bearwarden, and they want to fasten some sort of quarrel on me, but why, I cannot imagine. I was obliged to refer him to you. Of course we'll fight if we must; but try and make out what they are driving at, and which is the biggest fool of the two. I think they're both mad! I shall be with you rather later than usual. In the meantime I leave the whole thing in your hands. I don't know Bearwarden well, but used to think him rather a good fellow. The others an awful snob!"

* * * * *

Now I feel that it would be unbecoming on my part to tax a young lady with so mean an act as that of listening; nevertheless, each of the gentlemen in the studio thought proper to speak in so loud and indeed so pompous a voice that Miss Algernon could not avoid overhearing them. It was surely natural, then, that when Mr. Stanmore's name was brought into the colloquy she should have drawn nearer the door of the partition, and—well—not tried to avoid overhearing as much as possible of their dialogue.

The action of the farce amused her at first. It was soon to become interesting, exciting, terrible, even to the verge of tragedy.

"That makes my task easier," continued Mr. Ryfe. "He has explained, of course, the tendency of my instructions, the object of my visit. It only remains for us to fix time and place."

"He has explained nothing," answered the painter. "What is it you complain of, and of what nature is the dispute between Lord Bearwarden and my friend?"

Tom assumed an air of extreme candour, and opened his case artfully enough; but, forgetting that every painter is necessarily a physiognomist, omitted the precaution of turning his back to the light.

"You are on intimate terms with Mr. Stanmore, I believe," said he. "Yet in matters of so delicate a nature men of honour keep their own counsel very closely. It is possible you may not be aware of much in his daily life that you would disapprove—much that, under the circumstances, though I am no rigid moralist, appears inexcusable even to me."

How white that delicate face turned in the next room! How eagerly those dark eyes seemed trying to pierce the blank panels of the door!

"I have known Mr. Stanmore several years," answered the painter. "I have seen him almost every day of late. I can only say you must be more explicit, Mr. Ryfe. I do not understand you yet."

"Do you mean to tell me you are ignorant of an entanglement, a liaison, a most untoward and unfortunate attachment, existing between Mr. Stanmore and a lady whose name I fear it will be impossible to keep out of the discussion?"

A wild misgiving, not altogether painful, shot through the painter while he thought of Nina; but, watching the speaker's face, as was his wont, and detecting a disparity of expression between eyes and mouth, he gathered that the man was trying to deceive him in some particular—not speaking the whole truth.

Miss Algernon, who could only listen, trembled and turned sick at heart.

"I think you must be misinformed, Mr. Ryfe," was Simon's reply.

The other smiled, as pitying such ignorance of social gossip and worldly scandal.

"Misinformed!" he repeated. "A man is not usually misinformed who trusts his own eyes. A husband cannot be called unreasonably dissatisfied whose wife tells him distinctly she is going to one place, and who sees her an hour after in company with the man he suspects at another. It is no use beating about the bush. You cannot ignore such outrages as these. I wish to spare everybody's feelings—yours, mine, even the lady's, and, above all, my poor friend's; but I must tell you, point-blank, that the intimacy which I have reason to believe existed between Mr. Stanmore and Lady Bearwarden has not been discontinued since her marriage; and I come to you, as that gentleman's friend, on Lord. Bearwarden's behalf, to demand the only reparation that can be made for such injuries from man to man."

The painter opened his eyes, and Tom told himself he had made a good speech, very much to the point. Neither gentleman heard a faint moan in the next room, the cry of a gentle heart wounded to the quick.

"You mean they ought to fight," said Simon, still scrutinising the expression of the other's face.

"Precisely," answered Tom. "We must go abroad, I fancy, for all our sakes. Can you be ready to start tonight? Tidal train, you know—nice weather for crossing—breakfast the other side—demi-poulet and bottle of moderate St. Julien—needn't stop long for that—Belgian frontier by the middle of the day—no sort of difficulty when once you're across the water. Shall I say to-morrow afternoon, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Mouscron? We can all go together, for that matter, and arrange the exact spot in ten minutes."

Tom spoke as if they were planning a picnic, with nothing whatever to dread but the chance of rain.

"Stop a moment," said the painter. "Not quite so fast, if you please. This is a matter of life and death. We can't settle it in five minutes, and as many words. You call yourself a man of the world, Mr. Ryfe, and, doubtless, have some familiarity with affairs of this kind, either from experience or hearsay. Do you seriously believe I am going to put my friend up as a target for yours to shoot at without some more definite information, some fuller explanation than you seem inclined to give? Lady Bearwarden has not left her home. My friend has been here every day of late with the utmost regularity. It seems impossible that Lord Bearwarden's suspicions can be well grounded. There must be some mistake; some misconception. Over-haste in a matter like this would be irrevocable, and ruinous to everybody concerned."

Nina was listening with all her might. Every word of Tom's answer sunk into her heart.

"My friend has left his home," said he, in a voice of assumed feeling. "I was at luncheon with them just before the disclosure took place. A happier couple you never saw. Lately married—new furniture—wedding-presents all over the place—delightful house, overlooking the Park. This paradise is now completely broken up. I confess I feel strongly on the subject. I know his lordship intimately. I can appreciate his good qualities. I have also the honour of Lady Bearwarden's acquaintance. The whole affair is extremely painful even to me, but I have a duty to perform, and I must go through with it. Mr. Perkins, we are wasting time, let us come to the main point at once."

Simon pondered for a minute, during which he made another narrow scrutiny of Tom Ryfe's face. Then he said, in the tone of a man who comes to a final decision, "I suppose you are right. I fear there is but one way out of it."

It did not escape the painter that, notwithstanding his obvious self-command, the other's countenance brightened far more than was natural at this admission. A duel in these days is a very serious matter to every one concerned, and why should this man seem so truly rejoiced at the progress of an affair that might put his own neck in danger of a halter?

Simon's natural shrewdness, of which, in common with many other simple-minded persons, he possessed a considerable share, warned him there was something more here than appeared at first sight—some mystery of which time alone was likely to afford the elucidation. Time he resolved accordingly to gain, and that without putting the other on his guard.

"But one way out of it," he repeated gravely. "I wish indeed it could be arranged otherwise. Still this is a serious matter—quite out of my usual line—I cannot undertake anything decided without advice, nor entirely on my own responsibility. My intention is to consult with a friend, an old military man. You shall have my definite answer in a day or two at farthest."

Again watching Mr. Ryfe's face, Simon observed it cloud with dissatisfaction, and his suspicions were confirmed. This fire-eater was evidently only anxious to hurry on the duel with unseemly haste, and make the principals fight at all risks.

"We object to delay," he exclaimed, "we object to publicity. The thing is plain enough as it stands. You will only complicate it by bringing others into council, and in such a case, surely, the fewer people aware of our intentions the better."

"I cannot help that," answered the painter, in a tone of decision. "My mind is made up, and I see my way clearly enough. You shall have our answer within forty-eight hours at farthest. I repeat, this is a matter in which I will not move an inch without the utmost certainty."

Tom began to lose his temper. "Your scruples will bring about a flagrant scandal," he exclaimed. "Lord Bearwarden is determined not to be cheated out of his redress. I know his intentions, and I know his character. There will be a personal collision, to the disgrace of every one concerned!"

"Then I shall recommend Stanmore to walk about With a thick stick," answered Simon coolly. "I often carry one myself, Mr. Ryfe," he added in a tone of marked significance, "and should not scruple to use it on occasion to the best of my abilities."

The painter, though a small, slight man, was utterly fearless. Looking Tom Ryfe straight in the eyes while he made this suggestive observation, the latter felt that nothing was to be gained by bullying, and the game was lost.

"I am surprised," he replied loftily, but with a ceremonious bow, as reminding the other that his character of ambassador was sacred. "I am disappointed. I wash my hands of the disagreeable results likely to arise from this unfortunate delay. I wish you good-morning, Mr. Perkins. I leave you my address, and I trust you will lose no time in making me acquainted with the result of your deliberations."

So Tom walked down-stairs with great dignity, though he smothered more than one bitter curse the while, passing without so much as a glance the rejected garland, lying where he had thrown it aside before he entered on his unsuccessful mission.

Had he been a little less stately in manner, a little more rapid of movement, he might have overtaken the very lady of whom he obtained a glimpse during his ascent. Nina Algernon was but a few paces ahead of him, scouring along at a speed only accomplished by those who feel that goad in the heart which stimulates exertion, far more effectually than the "spur in the head," proverbially supposed to be worth "two in the heels.'" Nina had overheard enough from her hiding-place to make her angry, unhappy, and anxious in the highest degree. Angry, first of all, with herself and him, to think that she could have set her affections on one who was untrue; unhappy, to feel she still cared for him so much; anxious to gather from the cold-blooded courtesies of the odious Mr. Ryfe that a life so dear to her was in danger, that perhaps she might never see Dick Stanmore again. With this ghastly consideration, surged up fuller than ever the tide of love that had been momentarily obstructed, forcing her into action, and compelling her to take immediate steps for ascertaining his perfidy, while, at the same time, she warded off from him the penalties it entailed.

"He'll know I love him then," thought poor Nina. "But I'll never see him, nor speak to him, again—never—never! How could he? I wonder why men are so bad!"

To this end, acting on an impulse as unreasonable as it was essentially feminine, she resolved to seek Lady Bearwarden without delay, and throwing herself on the mercy of that formidable rival, implore advice and assistance for the safety of the man they both loved.

So she fled down-stairs, and was out of the house like a lapwing, just as Tom Ryfe's warlike colloquy with the painter came to a close.

Simon, missing her, after he had taken leave of his visitor, was not therefore disturbed nor alarmed by her absence. He accounted for it on the very natural supposition that she had met Dick Stanmore at the door, and pressed him into her service to act as convoy in some shopping expedition, before she sat down to her daily duty as a model for the Fairy Queen, now completed, all but a few folds of drapery, and a turn of the white hand.

Till she came back, however, the great work must remain at a standstill, and Simon had leisure to reflect on his late conversation with Mr. Ryfe, which astonished and perplexed him exceedingly.

Neither his astonishment, nor his perplexity, were decreased, to learn, on Dick's arrival, that he had no knowledge of Miss Algernon's movements—had not met her—had not seen her since yesterday, certainly expected to find her here, and was to the full as anxious and uncomfortable as the painter himself.

"This other business will keep cold," said Dick, in a great heat and fuss. "I don't care whether it will or not. It must! But we can't have Miss Algernon wandering about London by herself. We can't, at least I can't, be easy a moment till I know what has become of her. You stay here, Simon, in case she should come back. After all, she may be shopping in the next street. I'll rush down to Putney at once, and find out if she's gone home. Don't be afraid. I won't alarm the old ladies. If she's not there I'll be back immediately. If she comes in while I'm gone, wait for me, or leave a line. Old man, if anything goes wrong with that darling, I—I've nothing left to live for in the world!"

Even while he spoke, he was on the stairs, and Simon, left in the painting-room, shook his head, and pondered.

"They'll never make me believe that cock-and-bull story about Lady Bearwarden. Ah, Nina! I begin to think this man loves you almost as well as I could have done!"



CHAPTER XXVII

BLINDED

Tom Ryfe, walking down Berners Street in the worst of humours, saw the whole game he had been playing slipping out of his hands. If there were to be no duel, all the trouble he had taken went for nothing; and even should there be an unseemly fracas, and should a meeting afterwards take place between Lord Bearwarden and Dick Stanmore, what good would it do him, if her ladyship's name were kept out of the quarrel? How he cursed this cockney painter's resolution and good sense! How he longed for some fierce encounter, some desperate measure, something, no matter what, that should bring affairs to a crisis! It seemed so silly, so childlike, to be baffled now. Yes, he had set his heart on Lady Bearwarden. The great master-passion of his life had gone on gathering and growing till it became, as such master-passions will, when there is neither honour nor religion to check them, a fury, over which he had lost all control. And he felt that, having gone so far, there was no crime, no outrage, he would shrink from committing, to obtain what he desired now.

When a man is thus ripe for evil he seldom wants opportunity. It must be admitted the devil never throws a chance away. Open your hand, and ere you can close it again, he slips a tool in, expressly adapted for the purpose you design—a tool that, before you have done with it, you may be sure, will cut your own fingers to the bone.

"Beg pardon, sir, can I speak to you for a minute?" said a gaudily-dressed, vulgar-looking personage, crossing the street to accost Tom Ryfe as he emerged from the painter's house. "It's about a lady. About her ladyship, askin' your pardon. Lady Bearwarden, you know."

That name was a talisman to arrest Tom's attention. He looked his man over from head to foot, and thought he had never seen a more ruffianly bearing, a wilder, sadder face.

"Come up this by-street," said he. "Speak out—I'll keep your counsel, and I'll pay you well. That's what you mean, I suppose. That's business. What about Lady Bearwarden?"

The man cursed her deeply, bitterly, ere he replied—"I know you, sir, an' so I ought to, though you don't know me. Mr. Ryfe, I seen you in Belgrave Square, along of her. You was a-courtin' of her then. You owes her more than one good turn now, or I'm mistaken!"

"Who the devil are you?" asked Tom, startled, and with reason; yet conscious, in his dark, dreary despair, of a vague glimmer, bearing the same relation to hope that a will-o'-the-wisp does to the light on our hearth at home.

The man looked about him. That narrow street was deserted but for themselves.

He stared in Tom's face with a certain desperate frankness. "I'll tell ye who I am," said he; "if you an' me is to go in for this job, as true pals, let's have no secrets between us, an' bear no malice. They call me 'Gentleman Jim,' Mr. Ryfe, that's what they call me. I'm the man as hocussed you that there arternoon, down Westminster way. I was set on to that job, I was. Set on by her. I squeezed hard, I know. All in the way o' business. But I might have squeezed harder, Mr. Ryfe. You should think o' that!"

"You infernal scoundrel!" exclaimed Tom, yet in a tone neither so astonished nor so indignant as his informant expected. "If you had, you'd have been hanged for murder. Well, it's not you I ought to blame. What have you got to say? You can help me—I see it in your face. Out with it. You speak to a man as desperate as yourself."

"I knowed it!" exclaimed the other. "When you come out o' that there house, I seen it in the way as you slammed to that there door. Says I, there's the man as I wants, an' the man as wants me! I follered you this mornin' from your hotel, an' a precious job I had keepin' up with your hansom, though the driver, as works by times with a pal o' mine, he kep' on easy when he could. I watched of the house, ah! an hour an' more, an' I never turned my head away but to get a drop o' beer from a lad as I sent round to the Grapes for a quart. Bless ye! I hadn't but just emptied the pot, when I see a lady—the very moral of her as we knows on—pops round the corner into Oxford Street. I was in two minds whether to foller, but thinks I, it's Mr. Ryfe as I'm a-lookin' for, an' if it was she, we couldn't trap her now, not in a crowded place like that. Besides, I see a servant-gal takin' home the beer drop her a curtsey as she went by. No, it couldn't be my lady; but if so be as you an' me is of the same mind, Mr. Ryfe, my lady shall be safe in a cage afore this time to-morrow, and never a man to keep the key but yourself, Mr. Ryfe, if you'll only be guided by a true friend."

"Who set you on to this?" asked Tom, coolly enough, considering that his blood was boiling with all the worst and fiercest passions of his nature. "What do you expect to gain from injury inflicted on" (he could not get the name out)—"on the lady you mention?"

Jim laughed—a harsh, grating laugh. "You're a deep 'un, Mr. Ryfe!" he answered. "I won't deceive you. I put this here in your way because there's two things as I must have to work the job as I ain't got. One's money, and t'other's gumption. I ain't rich enough, and I ain't hartful enough. I owe my lady a turn, too, never you mind what for, and strike me dead but I'll pay it up! I ain't a-going to say as I wouldn't ha' worked this here off, clear, single-handed, if I'd had the chance. I'm not telling you a lie, Mr. Ryfe; you and me can do it together, an' I'll only charge you fair and reasonable. Ah! not half what you'd take an' offer this minute if I was to stand out for a price."

Tom Ryfe turned round, put both hands on the other's shoulders, and laughed too.

"We understand each other," said he. "Never mind the price. If the work's done to please me, I'm not likely to grudge the money. You've some plan in your head by which you think we can both gain what we most desire. I know you're a resolute fellow. Hang it! my throat's still sore where you got that cursed grip of yours inside my collar. You can believe I'm not easily thwarted, or I should hardly be here now. Explain yourself. Let me know your plan. If it is anything like practicable, you and I ought to be able to carry it out."

Then Jim, not without circumlocution and many hideous oaths, detailed in his hearer's willing ears the scheme he had in view. He proposed, with Mr. Ryfe's assistance, to accomplish no less flagrant an outrage than the forcible abduction of Lady Bearwarden from her home. He suggested that his listener, of whose skill in penmanship he entertained a high opinion, should write such a letter as might lure her ladyship into a lonely, ill-lighted locality, not far from her own door; and Tom, appreciating the anxiety she must now feel about her husband's movements, saw no difficulty in the accomplishment of such a stratagem. This desperate couple were then to be ready with a four-wheeled cab, a shawl, and a cleverly-constructed gag, in which screaming was impossible. Tom should enact the part of driver, while Jim, being the stronger man of the two, should seize and pinion her ladyship in his grasp. Mute and muffled, she was to be forced into the cab, which could then be driven off to that very lodging in the purlieus of Westminster which Tom knew, by his own experiences, was far removed from assistance or inquiry. Once in Mr. Ryfe's hands, Jim observed, the captive would only be too glad to make terms, and arrangements for taking her out of London down the river, or in any other direction, could be entered into at leisure. Mr. Ryfe surely would not require more than twelve hours to come to an understanding with a lady irrevocably in his power. And all the while, deep in this bold villain's breast lurked a dark, fierce, terrible reflection that one more crime, only one more—almost, indeed, an act of wild retributive justice on his confederate—and that proud, tameless woman would be crouching in the dust, praying for mercy at the feet of the desperate man she had reviled and despised.

Gentleman Jim, maddened by a course of dram-drinking, blinded by an infatuation that itself constituted insanity, was hardly to be considered an accountable being. It may be that under the mass of guilt and impurity with which his whole being was loaded, there glimmered some faint spark of manlier and worthier feeling; it may be, that he entertained some vague notion of appearing before the high-born lady in the light of a preserver, with the blood of the smoother and more polished scoundrel on his hands, and of setting her free, while he declared his hopeless, his unalterable devotion, sealed by the sacrifice of two lives, for, as he often expressed it in imaginary conversations with his idol, "he asked no better than to swing for her sake!"

Who knows? Fanaticism has its martyrs, like religion. It is not only the savage heathen who run under Juggernaut every day. Diseased brains, corrupt hearts, and impossible desires go far to constitute aberration of intellect. Unreasoning love, and unlimited liquor, will make a man fool enough for anything.

Tom Ryfe listened, well pleased. For him there was neither the excuse of drink nor despair, yet he, too, entertained some notion of home and happiness hereafter, when she found nobody in the world to turn to but himself, and had forgiven him her wrongs because of the tenacity with which he clung to her in spite of all.

Of his friend, and the position he must leave him in, he made no account.

Something very disagreeable came across him, indeed, when he thought of Lord Bearwarden's resolute character—his practical notions concerning the redress of injury or insult; but all such apprehensions were for the future. The present must be a time of action. If only to-night's coup de main should come off successfully, he might cross the Atlantic with his prey, and remain in safe seclusion till the outrage had been so far forgotten by the public that those at home whom it most affected would be unwilling to rekindle the embers of a scandal half-smothered and dying out. Tom Ryfe was not without ready money. He calculated he could live for at least a year in some foreign clime, far beyond the western wave, luxuriously enough. A year! With her! Why it seemed an eternity; and even in that moment his companion was wondering, half-stupidly, how Mr. Ryfe would look with his throat cut, or his head laid open, weltering in blood; and when and where it would be advisable to put this finishing stroke of murder and perfidy to the crimes he meditated to-night.

Ere these confederates parted, however, two letters had to be written in a stationer's shop. They were directed by the same pen, though apparently in different handwritings, to Lord and Lady Bearwarden at their respective addresses.

The first was as follows—

DEAR LORD BEARWARDEN,

"They won't fight! All sorts of difficulties have been made, and even if we can obtain a meeting at last, it must be after considerable delay. In the meantime I have business of my own which forces me to leave town for four-and-twenty hours at least. If possible, I will look you up before I start. If not, send a line to the office. I shall find it on my return: these matters complicate themselves as they go on, but I still venture to hope you may leave the conduct of the present affair with perfect safety in my hands, and I remain, with much sympathy,"

Your lordship's obedient servant,

THOMAS RYFE.

The second, though a very short production, took longer time, both in composition and penmanship. It was written purposely on a scrap of paper from which the stationer's name and the water-mark had been carefully torn off. It consisted but of these lines—

"A cruel mystery has deprived you of your husband. You have courage. Walk out to-night at eight, fifty yards from your own door. Turn to the right—I will meet you and explain all."

"My reputation is at stake. I trust you as one woman trusts another. Seek to learn no more."

"That will bring her," thought Tom, "for she fears nothing!" and he sealed the letter with a dab of black wax flattened by the impression of the woman's thimble, who kept the shop.

There was a Court Guide on the counter. Tom Ryfe knew Lady Bearwarden's address as well as his own, yet from a methodical and lawyer-like habit of accuracy, seeing that it lay open at the letter B, he glanced his eye, and ran his finger down the page to stop at the very bottom, and thus verify, as it were, his own recollection of his lordship's number, ere he paid for the paper and walked away to post his letters in company with Jim, who waited outside.

The stationer, fitting shelves in his back shop, was a man of observation and some eccentricity.

"Poll," said he to his wife, "it's an uncertain business, is the book-trade. A Court Guide hasn't been asked for over that counter, no, not for six months, and here's two parties come in and look at it in a morning. There's nothing goes off, to depend on, but hymns. Both of 'em wanted the same address, I do believe, for I took notice each stopped in the same column at the very foot. Nothing escapes me, lass! However, that isn't no business of yours nor mine."

The wife, a woman of few words and abrupt demeanour, made a pounce at the Court Guide to put it back in its place, but her "master," as she somewhat inconsequently called him, interposed.

"Let it be, lass!" said he. "There's luck in odd numbers, they say. Who knows but we mayn't have a third party come in on the same errand? Let it be, and go make the toast. It's getting on for tea-time, and the fire in the back parlour's nearly out."

When these letters were posted, the confederates, feeling themselves fairly embarked on their joint scheme, separated to advance each his own share of the contemplated enormity. Tom Ryfe jumped into a cab, and was off on a multiplicity of errands, while Jim, pondering deeply with his head down, and his hands thrust into his coat-pockets, slunk towards Holborn, revolving in his mind the least he could offer some dissipated cabman, whose licence was in danger at any rate, for the hire of horse and vehicle during the ensuing night.

Feeling his sleeve plucked feebly from behind, he broke off these meditations, to turn round with a savage oath.

What a dreary face was that which met his arm! Pale and gaunt, with the hollow eyes that denote bodily suffering, and the deep cruel lines that speak of mental care. What a thin wasted hand was laid on his burly arm, in its velveteen sleeve; and what a weak faint voice in trembling accents, urged its sad, wistful prayer.

"Speak to me, Jim—won't you speak to me, dear? I've looked for you day and night, and followed you mile after mile till I'm ready to lie down and die here on the cold stones."

"Bother!" replied Jim, shaking himself free. "I'm busy, I tell ye. What call had you, I should like to know, to be tracking, and hunting of me about, as if I was a—well—a fancy dog we'll say, as had strayed out of a parlour? Go home, I tell ye, or it'll be the worse for ye!"

"You don't love me no more, Jim!" said the woman. There was a calm sadness in her voice speaking of that resignation which is but the apathy of despair.

"Well—I don't. There!" replied Jim, acceding to this proposition with great promptitude.

"But you can't keep me off of loving you, Jim," she replied, with a wild stare; "nobody can't keep me off of that. Won't ye think better of it, old man? Give us one chance more, that's a good chap. It's for dear life I'm askin'!"

She had wound both hands round his arm, and was hanging to it with all her weight. How light a burden it seemed, to which those limp rags clung so shabbily, compared with the substantial frame he remembered in former days, when Dorothea was honest, hard-working, and happy.

"It ain't o' no use tryin' on of these here games," said he, unclasping the poor weak hands with brutal force. "Come! I can't stop all day. Shut up, I tell ye! you'll wish you had by and by."

"O! Jim," she pleaded. "Is it come to this? Never say it, dear. If you and me is to part in anger now we'll not meet again. Leastways, not on this earth. And if it's true, as I was taught at Sunday-school, heaven's too good a place for us!"

"Go to h——ll!" exclaimed the ruffian furiously; and he flung her from him with a force that would have brought her to the ground had she not caught at the street railings for support.

She moaned and sat down on a doorstep a few paces off, without looking up.

For a moment Jim's heart smote him, and he thought to turn back, but in his maddened brain there rose a vision of the pale, haughty face, the queenly bearing, the commanding gestures that bade him kneel to worship, and with another oath—remorseless, pitiless, untouched, and unrepentant—he passed on to his iniquity.

Dorothea sat with head bent down, and hands clasped about her knees, unconscious, as it seemed, of all the world outside. The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and who shall say what expiation she may not have made for sin in that dull trance of pain which took no note of circumstance, kept no count of time?

Ere long, a policeman, good-humoured but imperative, touched her on the shoulder, and bade her "move on."

The face that looked up to him puzzled this functionary extremely. The woman was sober enough, he could see, and yet there seemed something queer about her, uncommon queer: he was blessed if he knew what to make of her, and he had been a goodish time in the force, too!

She thanked him very quietly. She had been taking a rest, she said, thinking no harm, for she was tired, and now she would go home. Yes, she was dead-tired, she had better go home!

Wrapping her faded shawl about her, she glided on, instinctively avoiding the jostling of foot-passengers and the trampling of horses, proceeding at an even, leisurely pace, with something of the sleep-walker's wandering step and gestures. The roll of wheels came dull and muffled on her ear: those were phantoms surely, those meaningless faces that met her in the street, not living men and women, and yet she had a distinct perception of an apple-woman's stall, of some sham jewelry she saw in a shop-window. She was near turning back then, but it didn't seem worth while, and it was less trouble to plod stupidly on, always westward, always towards the setting sun!

Without knowing how she got there, presently she felt tufts of grass beneath her feet dank with dew, growing greener and coarser under large towering elms. O! she knew an elm-tree well enough! She was country bred, she was, and could milk a cow long ago.

It wasn't Kensington Gardens, was it? She didn't remember whether she'd ever been here before or not. She'd heard of the place, of course, indeed Jim had promised to take her there some Sunday. Then she shivered from head to foot, and wrapped her shawl tight round her as she walked on.

What was that shining far-off between the trees, cool, and quiet, and bright, like heaven? Could it be the water? That was what had brought her, to be sure. She remembered all about it now and hurried forward with quick, irregular steps, causing her breath to come thick, and her heart to beat with sudden choking throbs.

She pulled at her collar, and undid its fastenings. She took her bonnet off and swung it in her hand. The soiled tawdry ribbon had been given her by Jim, long ago. Was it long ago? She couldn't tell, and what did it matter? She wouldn't have looked twice at it a while back. She might kiss and cuddle it now, if she'd a mind.

What a long way off that water seemed! Not there yet, and she had been walking—walking like the wayfarer she remembered to have read of in the Pilgrim's Progress. All in a moment, with a flash, as it were, of its own light, there it lay glistening at her feet. Another step and she would have been in head-foremost! There was time enough. How cool and quiet it looked! She sat down on the brink and wondered why she was born!

Would Jim feel it very much? Ah! they'd none of them care for him like she used. He'd find that out at last. How could he? How could he? She'd given him fair warning!

She'd do it now. This moment, while she'd a mind to it. Afraid! Why should she be afraid? Better than the gin-palace! Better than the workhouse! Better than the cold cruel streets! She couldn't be worse off anywhere than here! Once! Twice!

Her head swam. She was rising to her feet, when a light touch rested on her shoulder, and the sweetest voice that had ever sounded in poor Dorothea's ears, whispered softly, "You are ill, my good woman. Don't sit here on the damp grass. Come home with me."

What did it mean? Was it over? Could this be one of the angels, and had she got to heaven after all? No; there were the trees, the grass, the distant roar of the city, and the peaceful water—fair, smooth, serene, like the face of a friend.

She burst into a fit of hysterical weeping, cowering under that kindly touch as if it had been a mountain to crush her, rocking herself to and fro, sobbing out wildly, "I wish I was dead! I wish I was dead!"



CHAPTER XXVIII

BEAT

Like a disturbed spirit Lady Bearwarden wandered about in the fever of a sorrow, so keen that her whole soul would sometimes rise in rebellion against the unaccustomed pain. There was something stifling to her senses in the fact of remaining between the four walls of a house. She panted for air, motion, freedom, and betook herself to Kensington Gardens, partly because that beautiful retreat lay within an easy walk of her house, partly perhaps, that for her, as for many of us, it had been brightened by a certain transient and delusive light which turns everything to gold while it lasts, leaves everything but a dull dim copper when it has passed away.

It was a benevolent and merciful restriction, no doubt, that debarred our first parents from re-entering the paradise they had forfeited. Better far to carry away unsullied and unfaded the sweet sad memories of the Happy Land, than revisit it to find weeds grown rank, fountains dry, the skies darkened, the song of birds hushed, its bloom faded off the flower, and its glory departed from the day.

She used to sit here in the shade with him. There was the very tree. Even the broken chair they had laughed at was not mended, and yet for her a century ago could not have seemed a more hopeless past. Other springs would bloom with coming years, other summers glow, and she could not doubt that many another worshipper would kneel humbly and gratefully at her shrine, but their votive garlands could never more glisten with the fresh dew of morning, the fumes from their lower altars, though they might lull the senses and intoxicate the brain, could never thrill like that earlier incense, with subtle sudden poison to her heart.

To be sure, on more than one occasion she had walked here with Dick Stanmore too. It was but human nature, I suppose, that she should have looked on that gentleman's grievances from a totally different point of view. It couldn't be half so bad in his case, she argued, men had so many resources, so many distractions. She was sorry for him, of course, but he couldn't be expected to feel a disappointment of this nature like a woman, and, after all, theirs was more a flirtation than an attachment. He need not have minded it so very much, and had probably fancied he cared a great deal more than he really did.

It is thus we are all prone to reason, gauging the tide of each other's feelings by the ebb and flow of our own.

Love, diffused amongst the species, is the best and purest of earthly motives, concentrated on the individual it seems but a dual selfishness after all.

There were few occupants of the Gardens; here two or three nursery-maids and children, there a foreign gentleman reading a newspaper. Occasionally, in some rare sequestered nook, an umbrella, springing up unnecessarily and defiantly like a toadstool, above two male legs and a muslin skirt. Lady Bearwarden passed on, with a haughty step, and a bitter smile.

There is something of freemasonry in sorrow. Dorothea's vague abstracted gait arrested Maud's attention even from a distance, and involuntarily the delicate lady followed on the track of that limp shabby figure with which she had but this one unconscious link, of a common sorrow, an aching heart.

Approaching nearer, she watched the poor sufferer with a curiosity that soon grew to interest and even alarm.

While Dorothea sat herself down by the water's edge, her ladyship looked round in vain for a policeman or a park-keeper, holding herself in readiness to prevent the horror she already anticipated, and which drove clear off her mind every thought of her own regrets and despondency.

There was no time to lose; when the despairing woman half rose to her feet, Lady Bearwarden interposed, calm, collected, and commanding in the courage which had hitherto never failed her in an emergency.

That burst of hysterical tears, that despairing cry, "I wish I was dead!" told her for the present Dorothea was saved. She sat down on the grass by her side. She took the poor coarse hands in her own. She laid the drooping head on her lap, and with gentle, loving phrases, such as soothe a suffering child, encouraged the helpless wretch to weep and sob her fill.

She could have wept too for company, because of the load that seemed lifted in an instant from her own breast; but this was a time for action, and at such a season it was no part of Maud's nature to sit down and cry.

It was long ere the numbed heart and surcharged brain had relieved themselves sufficiently for apprehension and intelligible speech. Dorothea's first impulse, on coming to herself, was to smooth her unkempt hair and apologise for the disorder of her costume.

"If ever mind your dress," said Lady Bearwarden, resuming, now the crisis was past, her habitual air of authority, conscious that it would be most efficacious under the circumstances. "You are tired and exhausted. You must have food and rest. I ask no questions, and I listen to no explanations, at least till to-morrow. Can you walk to the gate? You must come home with me."

"O, miss! O, my lady!" stammered poor Dorothea, quite overcome by such unlikely sympathy, such unexpected succour. "It's too much! It's too much! I'm not fit for it! If you only knowed what I am!" then, lifting her eyes to the other's face, a pang, keener than all previous sufferings, went through her woman's heart like the thrust of a knife. It all came on her at once. This beautiful being, clad in shining raiment, who had saved and soothed her like an angel from heaven, was the pale girl Jim had gone to visit in her stately, luxurious home, when she followed him so far through those weary streets on the night of the thunderstorm.

She could bear no more. Her physical system gave way, just as a tree that has sustained crash after crash falls with the last well-directed blow. She rolled her eyes, lifted both bare arms above her head, and with a faint despairing cry, went down at Lady Bearwarden's feet, motionless and helpless as the dead.

But assistance was at hand at last. A park-keeper helped to raise the prostrate figure. An elderly gentleman volunteered to fetch a cab. Amongst them they supported Dorothea to the gate and placed her in the vehicle. The park-keeper touched his hat, the elderly gentleman made a profusion of bows, and as many offers of assistance which were declined, while Maud, soothing and supporting her charge, told the driver where to stop. As they jingled and rattled away from the gate, a pardonable curiosity prompted the elderly gentleman to inquire the name of this beautiful Samaritan, clad in silks and satins, so ready to succour the fallen and give shelter to the homeless. The park-keeper took his hat off, looked in the crown, and put it on again.