'One thing more,' said he. 'My late wife was some sort of a sorceress among the blacks; and they are all persuaded she has come alive again in your agreeable person. Now, you will have the goodness to keep up that fancy, if you please; and to swear to them, on the authority of Hoodoo or whatever his name may be, that I am from this moment quite a sacred character.'

'I swear it,' said I, 'by my father's memory; and that is a vow that I will never break.'

'I have considerably better hold on you than any oath,' returned Sir George, with a chuckle; 'for you are not only an escaped slave, but have, by your own account, a considerable amount of stolen property.'

I was struck dumb; I saw it was too true; in a glance, I recognised that these jewels were no longer mine; with similar quickness, I decided they should be restored, ay, if it cost me the liberty that I had just regained. Forgetful of all else, forgetful of Sir George, who sat and watched me with a smile, I drew out Mr. Caulder's pocket-book and turned to the page on which the dying man had scrawled his testament. How shall I describe the agony of happiness and remorse with which I read it! for my victim had not only set me free, but bequeathed to me the bag of jewels.

My plain tale draws towards a close. Sir George and I, in my character of his rejuvenated wife, displayed ourselves arm-in-arm among the negroes, and were cheered and followed to the place of embarkation. There, Sir George, turning about, made a speech to his old companions, in which he thanked and bade them farewell with a very manly spirit; and towards the end of which he fell on some expressions which I still remember. 'If any of you gentry lose your money,' he said, 'take care you do not come to me; for in the first place, I shall do my best to have you murdered; and if that fails, I hand you over to the law. Blackmail won't do for me. I'll rather risk all upon a cast, than be pulled to pieces by degrees. I'll rather be found out and hang, than give a doit to one man-jack of you.' That same night we got under way and crossed to the port of New Orleans, whence, as a sacred trust, I sent the pocket-book to Mr. Caulder's son. In a week's time, the men were all paid off; new hands were shipped; and the Nemorosa weighed her anchor for Old England.

A more delightful voyage it were hard to fancy. Sir George, of course, was not a conscientious man; but he had an unaffected gaiety of character that naturally endeared him to the young; and it was interesting to hear him lay out his projects for the future, when he should be returned to Parliament, and place at the service of the nation his experience of marine affairs. I asked him, if his notion of piracy upon a private yacht were not original. But he told me, no. 'A yacht, Miss Valdevia,' he observed, 'is a chartered nuisance. Who smuggles? Who robs the salmon rivers of the West of Scotland? Who cruelly beats the keepers if they dare to intervene? The crews and the proprietors of yachts. All I have done is to extend the line a trifle, and if you ask me for my unbiassed opinion, I do not suppose that I am in the least alone.'

In short, we were the best of friends, and lived like father and daughter; though I still withheld from him, of course, that respect which is only due to moral excellence.

We were still some days' sail from England, when Sir George obtained, from an outward-bound ship, a packet of newspapers; and from that fatal hour my misfortunes recommenced. He sat, the same evening, in the cabin, reading the news, and making savoury comments on the decline of England and the poor condition of the navy, when I suddenly observed him to change countenance.

'Hullo!' said he, 'this is bad; this is deuced bad, Miss Valdevia. You would not listen to sound sense, you would send that pocket- book to that man Caulder's son.'

'Sir George,' said I, 'it was my duty.'

'You are prettily paid for it, at least,' says he; 'and much as I regret it, I, for one, am done with you. This fellow Caulder demands your extradition.'

'But a slave,' I returned, 'is safe in England.'

'Yes, by George!' replied the baronet; 'but it's not a slave, Miss Valdevia, it's a thief that he demands. He has quietly destroyed the will; and now accuses you of robbing your father's bankrupt estate of jewels to the value of a hundred thousand pounds.'

I was so much overcome by indignation at this hateful charge and concern for my unhappy fate that the genial baronet made haste to put me more at ease.

'Do not be cast down,' said he. 'Of course, I wash my hands of you myself. A man in my position—baronet, old family, and all that— cannot possibly be too particular about the company he keeps. But I am a deuced good-humoured old boy, let me tell you, when not ruffled; and I will do the best I can to put you right. I will lend you a trifle of ready money, give you the address of an excellent lawyer in London, and find a way to set you on shore unsuspected.'

He was in every particular as good as his word. Four days later, the Nemorosa sounded her way, under the cloak of a dark night, into a certain haven of the coast of England; and a boat, rowing with muffled oars, set me ashore upon the beach within a stone's throw of a railway station. Thither, guided by Sir George's directions, I groped a devious way; and finding a bench upon the platform, sat me down, wrapped in a man's fur great-coat, to await the coming of the day. It was still dark when a light was struck behind one of the windows of the building; nor had the east begun to kindle to the warmer colours of the dawn, before a porter carrying a lantern, issued from the door and found himself face to face with the unfortunate Teresa. He looked all about him; in the grey twilight of the dawn, the haven was seen to lie deserted, and the yacht had long since disappeared.

'Who are you?' he cried.

'I am a traveller,' said I.

'And where do you come from?' he asked.

'I am going by the first train to London,' I replied.

In such manner, like a ghost or a new creation, was Teresa with her bag of jewels landed on the shores of England; in this silent fashion, without history or name, she took her place among the millions of a new country.

Since then, I have lived by the expedients of my lawyer, lying concealed in quiet lodgings, dogged by the spies of Cuba, and not knowing at what hour my liberty and honour may be lost.



THE BROWN BOX (Concluded)



The effect of this tale on the mind of Harry Desborough was instant and convincing. The Fair Cuban had been already the loveliest, she now became, in his eyes, the most romantic, the most innocent, and the most unhappy of her sex. He was bereft of words to utter what he felt: what pity, what admiration, what youthful envy of a career so vivid and adventurous. 'O madam!' he began; and finding no language adequate to that apostrophe, caught up her hand and wrung it in his own. 'Count upon me,' he added, with bewildered fervour; and getting somehow or other out of the apartment and from the circle of that radiant sorceress, he found himself in the strange out-of-doors, beholding dull houses, wondering at dull passers-by, a fallen angel. She had smiled upon him as he left, and with how significant, how beautiful a smile! The memory lingered in his heart; and when he found his way to a certain restaurant where music was performed, flutes (as it were of Paradise) accompanied his meal. The strings went to the melody of that parting smile; they paraphrased and glossed it in the sense that he desired; and for the first time in his plain and somewhat dreary life, he perceived himself to have a taste for music.

The next day, and the next, his meditations moved to that delectable air. Now he saw her, and was favoured; now saw her not at all; now saw her and was put by. The fall of her foot upon the stair entranced him; the books that he sought out and read were books on Cuba, and spoke of her indirectly; nay, and in the very landlady's parlour, he found one that told of precisely such a hurricane, and, down to the smallest detail, confirmed (had confirmation been required) the truth of her recital. Presently he began to fall into that prettiest mood of a young love, in which the lover scorns himself for his presumption. Who was he, the dull one, the commonplace unemployed, the man without adventure, the impure, the untruthful, to aspire to such a creature made of fire and air, and hallowed and adorned by such incomparable passages of life? What should he do, to be more worthy? by what devotion, call down the notice of these eyes to so terrene a being as himself?

He betook himself, thereupon, to the rural privacy of the square, where, being a lad of a kind heart, he had made himself a circle of acquaintances among its shy frequenters, the half-domestic cats and the visitors that hung before the windows of the Children's Hospital. There he walked, considering the depth of his demerit and the height of the adored one's super-excellence; now lighting upon earth to say a pleasant word to the brother of some infant invalid; now, with a great heave of breath, remembering the queen of women, and the sunshine of his life.

What was he to do? Teresa, he had observed, was in the habit of leaving the house towards afternoon: she might, perchance, run danger from some Cuban emissary, when the presence of a friend might turn the balance in her favour: how, then, if he should follow her? To offer his company would seem like an intrusion; to dog her openly were a manifest impertinence; he saw himself reduced to a more stealthy part, which, though in some ways distasteful to his mind, he did not doubt that he could practise with the skill of a detective.

The next day he proceeded to put his plan in action. At the corner of Tottenham Court Road, however, the Senorita suddenly turned back, and met him face to face, with every mark of pleasure and surprise.

'Ah, Senor, I am sometimes fortunate!' she cried. 'I was looking for a messenger;' and with the sweetest of smiles, she despatched him to the East End of London, to an address which he was unable to find. This was a bitter pill to the knight-errant; but when he returned at night, worn out with fruitless wandering and dismayed by his fiasco, the lady received him with a friendly gaiety, protesting that all was for the best, since she had changed her mind and long since repented of her message.

Next day he resumed his labours, glowing with pity and courage, and determined to protect Teresa with his life. But a painful shock awaited him. In the narrow and silent Hanway Street, she turned suddenly about and addressed him with a manner and a light in her eyes that were new to the young man's experience.

'Do I understand that you follow me, Senor?' she cried. 'Are these the manners of the English gentleman?'

Harry confounded himself in the most abject apologies and prayers to be forgiven, vowed to offend no more, and was at length dismissed, crestfallen and heavy of heart. The check was final; he gave up that road to service; and began once more to hang about the square or on the terrace, filled with remorse and love, admirable and idiotic, a fit object for the scorn and envy of older men. In these idle hours, while he was courting fortune for a sight of the beloved, it fell out naturally that he should observe the manners and appearance of such as came about the house. One person alone was the occasional visitor of the young lady: a man of considerable stature, and distinguished only by the doubtful ornament of a chin-beard in the style of an American deacon. Something in his appearance grated upon Harry; this distaste grew upon him in the course of days; and when at length he mustered courage to inquire of the Fair Cuban who this was, he was yet more dismayed by her reply.

'That gentleman,' said she, a smile struggling to her face, 'that gentleman, I will not attempt to conceal from you, desires my hand in marriage, and presses me with the most respectful ardour. Alas, what am I to say? I, the forlorn Teresa, how shall I refuse or accept such protestations?'

Harry feared to say more; a horrid pang of jealousy transfixed him; and he had scarce the strength of mind to take his leave with decency. In the solitude of his own chamber, he gave way to every manifestation of despair. He passionately adored the Senorita; but it was not only the thought of her possible union with another that distressed his soul, it was the indefeasible conviction that her suitor was unworthy. To a duke, a bishop, a victorious general, or any man adorned with obvious qualities, he had resigned her with a sort of bitter joy; he saw himself follow the wedding party from a great way off; he saw himself return to the poor house, then robbed of its jewel; and while he could have wept for his despair, he felt he could support it nobly. But this affair looked otherwise. The man was patently no gentleman; he had a startled, skulking, guilty bearing; his nails were black, his eyes evasive; his love perhaps was a pretext; he was perhaps, under this deep disguise, a Cuban emissary!

Harry swore that he would satisfy these doubts; and the next evening, about the hour of the usual visit, he posted himself at a spot whence his eye commanded the three issues of the square.

Presently after, a four-wheeler rumbled to the door, and the man with the chin-beard alighted, paid off the cabman, and was seen by Harry to enter the house with a brown box hoisted on his back. Half an hour later, he came forth again without the box, and struck eastward at a rapid walk; and Desborough, with the same skill and caution that he had displayed in following Teresa, proceeded to dog the steps of her admirer. The man began to loiter, studying with apparent interest the wares of the small fruiterer or tobacconist; twice he returned hurriedly upon his former course; and then, as though he had suddenly conquered a moment's hesitation, once more set forth with resolute and swift steps in the direction of Lincoln's Inn. At length, in a deserted by-street, he turned; and coming up to Harry with a countenance which seemed to have become older and whiter, inquired with some severity of speech if he had not had the pleasure of seeing the gentleman before.

'You have, sir,' said Harry, somewhat abashed, but with a good show of stoutness; 'and I will not deny that I was following you on purpose. Doubtless,' he added, for he supposed that all men's minds must still be running on Teresa, 'you can divine my reason.'

At these words, the man with the chin-beard was seized with a palsied tremor. He seemed, for some seconds, to seek the utterance which his fear denied him; and then whipping sharply about, he took to his heels at the most furious speed of running.

Harry was at first so taken aback that he neglected to pursue; and by the time he had recovered his wits, his best expedition was only rewarded by a glimpse of the man with the chin-beard mounting into a hansom, which immediately after disappeared into the moving crowds of Holborn.

Puzzled and dismayed by this unusual behaviour, Harry returned to the house in Queen Square, and ventured for the first time to knock at the fair Cuban's door. She bade him enter, and he found her kneeling with rather a disconsolate air beside a brown wooden trunk.

'Senorita,' he broke out, 'I doubt whether that man's character is what he wishes you to believe. His manner, when he found, and indeed when I admitted that I was following him, was not the manner of an honest man.'

'Oh!' she cried, throwing up her hands as in desperation, 'Don Quixote, Don Quixote, have you again been tilting against windmills?' And then, with a laugh, 'Poor soul!' she added, 'how you must have terrified him! For know that the Cuban authorities are here, and your poor Teresa may soon be hunted down. Even yon humble clerk from my solicitor's office may find himself at any moment the quarry of armed spies.'

'A humble clerk!' cried Harry, 'why, you told me yourself that he wished to marry you!'

'I thought you English like what you call a joke,' replied the lady calmly. 'As a matter of fact, he is my lawyer's clerk, and has been here to-night charged with disastrous news. I am in sore straits, Senor Harry. Will you help me?'

At this most welcome word, the young man's heart exulted; and in the hope, pride, and self-esteem that kindled with the very thought of service, he forgot to dwell upon the lady's jest. 'Can you ask?' he cried. 'What is there that I can do? Only tell me that.'

With signs of an emotion that was certainly unfeigned, the fair Cuban laid her hand upon the box. 'This box,' she said, 'contains my jewels, papers, and clothes; all, in a word, that still connects me with Cuba and my dreadful past. They must now be smuggled out of England; or, by the opinion of my lawyer, I am lost beyond remedy. To-morrow, on board the Irish packet, a sure hand awaits the box: the problem still unsolved, is to find some one to carry it as far as Holyhead, to see it placed on board the steamer, and instantly return to town. Will you be he? Will you leave to- morrow by the first train, punctually obey orders, bear still in mind that you are surrounded by Cuban spies; and without so much as a look behind you, or a single movement to betray your interest, leave the box where you have put it and come straight on shore? Will you do this, and so save your friend?'

'I do not clearly understand . . .' began Harry.

'No more do I,' replied the Cuban. 'It is not necessary that we should, so long as we obey the lawyer's orders.'

'Senorita,' returned Harry gravely, 'I think this, of course, a very little thing to do for you, when I would willingly do all. But suffer me to say one word. If London is unsafe for your treasures, it cannot long be safe for you; and indeed, if I at all fathom the plan of your solicitor, I fear I may find you already fled on my return. I am not considered clever, and can only speak out plainly what is in my heart: that I love you, and that I cannot bear to lose all knowledge of you. I hope no more than to be your servant; I ask no more than just that I shall hear of you. Oh, promise me so much!'

'You shall,' she said, after a pause. 'I promise you, you shall.' But though she spoke with earnestness, the marks of great embarrassment and a strong conflict of emotions appeared upon her face.

'I wish to tell you,' resumed Desborough, 'in case of accidents. . . .'

'Accidents!' she cried: 'why do you say that?'

'I do not know,' said he, 'you may be gone before my return, and we may not meet again for long. And so I wished you to know this: That since the day you gave me the cigarette, you have never once, not once, been absent from my mind; and if it will in any way serve you, you may crumple me up like that piece of paper, and throw me on the fire. I would love to die for you.'

'Go!' she said. 'Go now at once. My brain is in a whirl. I scarce know what we are talking. Go; and good-night; and oh, may you come safe!'

Once back in his own room a fearful joy possessed the young man's mind; and as he recalled her face struck suddenly white and the broken utterance of her last words, his heart at once exulted and misgave him. Love had indeed looked upon him with a tragic mask; and yet what mattered, since at least it was love—since at least she was commoved at their division? He got to bed with these parti-coloured thoughts; passed from one dream to another all night long, the white face of Teresa still haunting him, wrung with unspoken thoughts; and in the grey of the dawn, leaped suddenly out of bed, in a kind of horror. It was already time for him to rise. He dressed, made his breakfast on cold food that had been laid for him the night before; and went down to the room of his idol for the box. The door was open; a strange disorder reigned within; the furniture all pushed aside, and the centre of the room left bare of impediment, as though for the pacing of a creature with a tortured mind. There lay the box, however, and upon the lid a paper with these words: 'Harry, I hope to be back before you go. Teresa.'

He sat down to wait, laying his watch before him on the table. She had called him Harry: that should be enough, he thought, to fill the day with sunshine; and yet somehow the sight of that disordered room still poisoned his enjoyment. The door of the bed-chamber stood gaping open; and though he turned aside his eyes as from a sacrilege, he could not but observe the bed had not been slept in. He was still pondering what this should mean, still trying to convince himself that all was well, when the moving needle of his watch summoned him to set forth without delay. He was before all things a man of his word; ran round to Southampton Row to fetch a cab; and taking the box on the front seat, drove off towards the terminus.

The streets were scarcely awake; there was little to amuse the eye; and the young man's attention centred on the dumb companion of his drive. A card was nailed upon one side, bearing the superscription: 'Miss Doolan, passenger to Dublin. Glass. With care.' He thought with a sentimental shock that the fair idol of his heart was perhaps driven to adopt the name of Doolan; and as he still studied the card, he was aware of a deadly, black depression settling steadily upon his spirits. It was in vain for him to contend against the tide; in vain that he shook himself or tried to whistle: the sense of some impending blow was not to be averted. He looked out; in the long, empty streets, the cab pursued its way without a trace of any follower. He gave ear; and over and above the jolting of the wheels upon the road, he was conscious of a certain regular and quiet sound that seemed to issue from the box. He put his ear to the cover; at one moment, he seemed to perceive a delicate ticking: the next, the sound was gone, nor could his closest hearkening recapture it. He laughed at himself; but still the gloom continued; and it was with more than the common relief of an arrival, that he leaped from the cab before the station.

Probably enough on purpose, Teresa had named an hour some thirty minutes earlier than needful; and when Harry had given the box into the charge of a porter, who sat it on a truck, he proceeded briskly to pace the platform. Presently the bookstall opened; and the young man was looking at the books when he was seized by the arm. He turned, and, though she was closely veiled, at once recognised the Fair Cuban.

'Where is it?' she asked; and the sound of her voice surprised him.

'It?' he said. 'What?'

'The box. Have it put on a cab instantly. I am in fearful haste.'

He hurried to obey, marvelling at these changes, but not daring to trouble her with questions; and when the cab had been brought round, and the box mounted on the front, she passed a little way off upon the pavement and beckoned him to follow.

'Now,' said she, still in those mechanical and hushed tones that had at first affected him, 'you must go on to Holyhead alone; go on board the steamer; and if you see a man in tartan trousers and a pink scarf, say to him that all has been put off: if not,' she added, with a sobbing sigh, 'it does not matter. So, good-bye.'

'Teresa,' said Harry, 'get into your cab, and I will go along with you. You are in some distress, perhaps some danger; and till I know the whole, not even you can make me leave you.'

'You will not?' she asked. 'O Harry, it were better!'

'I will not,' said Harry stoutly.

She looked at him for a moment through her veil; took his hand suddenly and sharply, but more as if in fear than tenderness; and still holding him, walked to the cab-door.

'Where are we to drive?' asked Harry.

'Home, quickly,' she answered; 'double fare!' And as soon as they had both mounted to their places, the vehicle crazily trundled from the station.

Teresa leaned back in a corner. The whole way Harry could perceive her tears to flow under her veil; but she vouchsafed no explanation. At the door of the house in Queen Square, both alighted; and the cabman lowered the box, which Harry, glad to display his strength, received upon his shoulders.

'Let the man take it,' she whispered. 'Let the man take it.'

'I will do no such thing,' said Harry cheerfully; and having paid the fare, he followed Teresa through the door which she had opened with her key. The landlady and maid were gone upon their morning errands; the house was empty and still; and as the rattling of the cab died away down Gloucester Street, and Harry continued to ascend the stair with his burthen, he heard close against his shoulders the same faint and muffled ticking as before. The lady, still preceding him, opened the door of her room, and helped him to lower the box tenderly in the corner by the window.

'And now,' said Harry, 'what is wrong?'

'You will not go away?' she cried, with a sudden break in her voice and beating her hands together in the very agony of impatience. 'O Harry, Harry, go away! Oh, go, and leave me to the fate that I deserve!'

'The fate?' repeated Harry. 'What is this?'

'No fate,' she resumed. 'I do not know what I am saying. But I wish to be alone. You may come back this evening, Harry; come again when you like; but leave me now, only leave me now!' And then suddenly, 'I have an errand,' she exclaimed; 'you cannot refuse me that!'

'No,' replied Harry, 'you have no errand. You are in grief or danger. Lift your veil and tell me what it is.'

'Then,' she said, with a sudden composure, 'you leave but one course open to me.' And raising the veil, she showed him a countenance from which every trace of colour had fled, eyes marred with weeping, and a brow on which resolve had conquered fear. 'Harry,' she began, 'I am not what I seem.'

'You have told me that before,' said Harry, 'several times.'

'O Harry, Harry,' she cried, 'how you shame me! But this is the God's truth. I am a dangerous and wicked girl. My name is Clara Luxmore. I was never nearer Cuba than Penzance. From first to last I have cheated and played with you. And what I am I dare not even name to you in words. Indeed, until to-day, until the sleepless watches of last night, I never grasped the depth and foulness of my guilt.'

The young man looked upon her aghast. Then a generous current poured along his veins. 'That is all one,' he said. 'If you be all you say, you have the greater need of me.'

'Is it possible,' she exclaimed, 'that I have schemed in vain? And will nothing drive you from this house of death?'

'Of death?' he echoed.

'Death!' she cried: 'death! In that box that you have dragged about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at the trigger's mercy, the destroying energies of dynamite.'

'My God!' cried Harry.

'Ah!' she continued wildly, 'will you flee now? At any moment you may hear the click that sounds the ruin of this building. I was sure M'Guire was wrong; this morning, before day, I flew to Zero; he confirmed my fears; I beheld you, my beloved Harry, fall a victim to my own contrivances. I knew then I loved you—Harry, will you go now? Will you not spare me this unwilling crime?'

Harry remained speechless, his eyes fixed upon the box: at last he turned to her.

'Is it,' he asked hoarsely, 'an infernal machine?'

Her lips formed the word 'Yes,' which her voice refused to utter.

With fearful curiosity, he drew near and bent above the box; in that still chamber, the ticking was distinctly audible; and at the measured sound, the blood flowed back upon his heart.

'For whom?' he asked.

'What matters it,' she cried, seizing him by the arm. 'If you may still be saved, what matter questions?'

'God in heaven!' cried Harry. 'And the Children's Hospital! At whatever cost, this damned contrivance must be stopped!'

'It cannot,' she gasped. 'The power of man cannot avert the blow. But you, Harry—you, my beloved—you may still—'

And then from the box that lay so quietly in the corner, a sudden catch was audible, like the catch of a clock before it strikes the hour. For one second the two stared at each other with lifted brows and stony eyes. Then Harry, throwing one arm over his face, with the other clutched the girl to his breast and staggered against the wall.

A dull and startling thud resounded through the room; their eyes blinked against the coming horror; and still clinging together like drowning people, they fell to the floor. Then followed a prolonged and strident hissing as from the indignant pit; an offensive stench seized them by the throat; the room was filled with dense and choking fumes.

Presently these began a little to disperse: and when at length they drew themselves, all limp and shaken, to a sitting posture, the first object that greeted their vision was the box reposing uninjured in its corner, but still leaking little wreaths of vapour round the lid.

'Oh, poor Zero!' cried the girl, with a strange sobbing laugh. 'Alas, poor Zero! This will break his heart!'



THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Concluded)



Somerset ran straight upstairs; the door of the drawing-room, contrary to all custom, was unlocked; and bursting in, the young man found Zero seated on a sofa in an attitude of singular dejection. Close beside him stood an untasted grog, the mark of strong preoccupation. The room besides was in confusion: boxes had been tumbled to and fro; the floor was strewn with keys and other implements; and in the midst of this disorder lay a lady's glove.

'I have come,' cried Somerset, 'to make an end of this. Either you will instantly abandon all your schemes, or (cost what it may) I will denounce you to the police.'

'Ah!' replied Zero, slowly shaking his head. 'You are too late, dear fellow! I am already at the end of all my hopes, and fallen to be a laughing-stock and mockery. My reading,' he added, with a gentle despondency of manner, 'has not been much among romances; yet I recall from one a phrase that depicts my present state with critical exactitude; and you behold me sitting here "like a burst drum."'

'What has befallen you?' cried Somerset.

'My last batch,' returned the plotter wearily, 'like all the others, is a hollow mockery and a fraud. In vain do I combine the elements; in vain adjust the springs; and I have now arrived at such a pitch of disconsideration that (except yourself, dear fellow) I do not know a soul that I can face. My subordinates themselves have turned upon me. What language have I heard to-day, what illiberality of sentiment, what pungency of expression! She came once; I could have pardoned that, for she was moved; but she returned, returned to announce to me this crushing blow; and, Somerset, she was very inhumane. Yes, dear fellow, I have drunk a bitter cup; the speech of females is remarkable for . . . well, well! Denounce me, if you will; you but denounce the dead. I am extinct. It is strange how, at this supreme crisis of my life, I should be haunted by quotations from works of an inexact and even fanciful description; but here,' he added, 'is another: "Othello's occupation's gone." Yes, dear Somerset, it is gone; I am no more a dynamiter; and how, I ask you, after having tasted of these joys, am I to condescend to a less glorious life?'

'I cannot describe how you relieve me,' returned Somerset, sitting down on one of several boxes that had been drawn out into the middle of the floor. 'I had conceived a sort of maudlin toleration for your character; I have a great distaste, besides, for anything in the nature of a duty; and upon both grounds, your news delights me. But I seem to perceive,' he added, 'a certain sound of ticking in this box.'

'Yes,' replied Zero, with the same slow weariness of manner, 'I have set several of them going.'

'My God!' cried Somerset, bounding to his feet.

'Machines?'

'Machines!' returned the plotter bitterly. 'Machines indeed! I blush to be their author. Alas!' he said, burying his face in his hands, 'that I should live to say it!'

'Madman!' cried Somerset, shaking him by the arm. 'What am I to understand? Have you, indeed, set these diabolical contrivances in motion? and do we stay here to be blown up?'

'"Hoist with his own petard?"' returned the plotter musingly. 'One more quotation: strange! But indeed my brain is struck with numbness. Yes, dear boy, I have, as you say, put my contrivance in motion. The one on which you are sitting, I have timed for half an hour. Yon other—'

'Half an hour!—' echoed Somerset, dancing with trepidation. 'Merciful Heavens, in half an hour?'

'Dear fellow, why so much excitement?' inquired Zero. 'My dynamite is not more dangerous than toffy; had I an only child, I would give it him to play with. You see this brick?' he continued, lifting a cake of the infernal compound from the laboratory-table. 'At a touch it should explode, and that with such unconquerable energy as should bestrew the square with ruins. Well now, behold! I dash it on the floor.'

Somerset sprang forward, and with the strength of the very ecstasy of terror, wrested the brick from his possession. 'Heavens!' he cried, wiping his brow; and then with more care than ever mother handled her first-born withal, gingerly transported the explosive to the far end of the apartment: the plotter, his arms once more fallen to his side, dispiritedly watching him.

'It was entirely harmless,' he sighed. 'They describe it as burning like tobacco.'

'In the name of fortune,' cried Somerset, 'what have I done to you, or what have you done to yourself, that you should persist in this insane behaviour? If not for your own sake, then for mine, let us depart from this doomed house, where I profess I have not the heart to leave you; and then, if you will take my advice, and if your determination be sincere, you will instantly quit this city, where no further occupation can detain you.'

'Such, dear fellow, was my own design,' replied the plotter. 'I have, as you observe, no further business here; and once I have packed a little bag, I shall ask you to share a frugal meal, to go with me as far as to the station, and see the last of a broken- hearted man. And yet,' he added, looking on the boxes with a lingering regret, 'I should have liked to make quite certain. I cannot but suspect my underlings of some mismanagement; it may be fond, but yet I cherish that idea: it may be the weakness of a man of science, but yet,' he cried, rising into some energy, 'I will never, I cannot if I try, believe that my poor dynamite has had fair usage!'

'Five minutes!' said Somerset, glancing with horror at the timepiece. 'If you do not instantly buckle to your bag, I leave you.'

'A few necessaries,' returned Zero, 'only a few necessaries, dear Somerset, and you behold me ready.'

He passed into the bedroom, and after an interval which seemed to draw out into eternity for his unfortunate companion, he returned, bearing in his hand an open Gladstone bag. His movements were still horribly deliberate, and his eyes lingered gloatingly on his dear boxes, as he moved to and fro about the drawing-room, gathering a few small trifles. Last of all, he lifted one of the squares of dynamite.

'Put that down!' cried Somerset. 'If what you say be true, you have no call to load yourself with that ungodly contraband.'

'Merely a curiosity, dear boy,' he said persuasively, and slipped the brick into his bag; 'merely a memento of the past—ah, happy past, bright past! You will not take a touch of spirits? no? I find you very abstemious. Well,' he added, 'if you have really no curiosity to await the event—'

'I!' cried Somerset. 'My blood boils to get away.'

'Well, then,' said Zero, 'I am ready; I would I could say, willing; but thus to leave the scene of my sublime endeavours—'

Without further parley, Somerset seized him by the arm, and dragged him downstairs; the hall-door shut with a clang on the deserted mansion; and still towing his laggardly companion, the young man sped across the square in the Oxford Street direction. They had not yet passed the corner of the garden, when they were arrested by a dull thud of an extraordinary amplitude of sound, accompanied and followed by a shattering fracas. Somerset turned in time to see the mansion rend in twain, vomit forth flames and smoke, and instantly collapse into its cellars. At the same moment, he was thrown violently to the ground. His first glance was towards Zero. The plotter had but reeled against the garden rail; he stood there, the Gladstone bag clasped tight upon his heart, his whole face radiant with relief and gratitude; and the young man heard him murmur to himself: 'Nunc dimittis, nunc dimittis!'

The consternation of the populace was indescribable; the whole of Golden Square was alive with men, women, and children, running wildly to and fro, and like rabbits in a warren, dashing in and out of the house doors. And under favour of this confusion, Somerset dragged away the lingering plotter.

'It was grand,' he continued to murmur: 'it was indescribably grand. Ah, green Erin, green Erin, what a day of glory! and oh, my calumniated dynamite, how triumphantly hast thou prevailed!'

Suddenly a shade crossed his face; and pausing in the middle of the footway, he consulted the dial of his watch.

'Good God!' he cried, 'how mortifying! seven minutes too early! The dynamite surpassed my hopes; but the clockwork, fickle clockwork, has once more betrayed me. Alas, can there be no success unmixed with failure? and must even this red-letter day be chequered by a shadow?'

'Incomparable ass!' said Somerset, 'what have you done? Blown up the house of an unoffending old lady, and the whole earthly property of the only person who is fool enough to befriend you!'

'You do not understand these matters,' replied Zero, with an air of great dignity. 'This will shake England to the heart. Gladstone, the truculent old man, will quail before the pointing finger of revenge. And now that my dynamite is proved effective—'

'Heavens, you remind me!' ejaculated Somerset. 'That brick in your bag must be instantly disposed of. But how? If we could throw it in the river—'

'A torpedo,' cried Zero, brightening, 'a torpedo in the Thames! Superb, dear fellow! I recognise in you the marks of an accomplished anarch.'

'True!' returned Somerset. 'It cannot so be done; and there is no help but you must carry it away with you. Come on, then, and let me at once consign you to a train.'

'Nay, nay, dear boy,' protested Zero. 'There is now no call for me to leave. My character is now reinstated; my fame brightens; this is the best thing I have done yet; and I see from here the ovations that await the author of the Golden Square Atrocity.'

'My young friend,' returned the other, 'I give you your choice. I will either see you safe on board a train or safe in gaol.'

'Somerset, this is unlike you!' said the chymist. 'You surprise me, Somerset.'

'I shall considerably more surprise you at the next police office,' returned Somerset, with something bordering on rage. 'For on one point my mind is settled: either I see you packed off to America, brick and all, or else you dine in prison.'

'You have perhaps neglected one point,' returned the unoffended Zero: 'for, speaking as a philosopher, I fail to see what means you can employ to force me. The will, my dear fellow—'

'Now, see here,' interrupted Somerset. 'You are ignorant of anything but science, which I can never regard as being truly knowledge; I, sir, have studied life; and allow me to inform you that I have but to raise my hand and voice—here in this street— and the mob—'

'Good God in heaven, Somerset,' cried Zero, turning deadly white and stopping in his walk, 'great God in heaven, what words are these? Oh, not in jest, not even in jest, should they be used! The brutal mob, the savage passions . . . . Somerset, for God's sake, a public-house!'

Somerset considered him with freshly awakened curiosity. 'This is very interesting,' said he. 'You recoil from such a death?'

'Who would not?' asked the plotter.

'And to be blown up by dynamite,' inquired the young man, 'doubtless strikes you as a form of euthanasia?'

'Pardon me,' returned Zero: 'I own, and since I have braved it daily in my professional career, I own it even with pride: it is a death unusually distasteful to the mind of man.'

'One more question,' said Somerset: 'you object to Lynch Law? why?'

'It is assassination,' said the plotter calmly, but with eyebrows a little lifted, as in wonder at the question.

'Shake hands with me,' cried Somerset. 'Thank God, I have now no ill-feeling left; and though you cannot conceive how I burn to see you on the gallows, I can quite contentedly assist at your departure.'

'I do not very clearly take your meaning,' said Zero, 'but I am sure you mean kindly. As to my departure, there is another point to be considered. I have neglected to supply myself with funds; my little all has perished in what history will love to relate under the name of the Golden Square Atrocity; and without what is coarsely if vigorously called stamps, you must be well aware it is impossible for me to pass the ocean.'

'For me,' said Somerset, 'you have now ceased to be a man. You have no more claim upon me than a door scraper; but the touching confusion of your mind disarms me from extremities. Until to-day, I always thought stupidity was funny; I now know otherwise; and when I look upon your idiot face, laughter rises within me like a deadly sickness, and the tears spring up into my eyes as bitter as blood. What should this portend? I begin to doubt; I am losing faith in scepticism. Is it possible,' he cried, in a kind of horror of himself—'is it conceivable that I believe in right and wrong? Already I have found myself, with incredulous surprise, to be the victim of a prejudice of personal honour. And must this change proceed? Have you robbed me of my youth? Must I fall, at my time of life, into the Common Banker? But why should I address that head of wood? Let this suffice. I dare not let you stay among women and children; I lack the courage to denounce you, if by any means I may avoid it; you have no money: well then, take mine, and go; and if ever I behold your face after to-day, that day will be your last.'

'Under the circumstances,' replied Zero, 'I scarce see my way to refuse your offer. Your expressions may pain, they cannot surprise me; I am aware our point of view requires a little training, a little moral hygiene, if I may so express it; and one of the points that has always charmed me in your character is this delightful frankness. As for the small advance, it shall be remitted you from Philadelphia.'

'It shall not,' said Somerset.

'Dear fellow, you do not understand,' returned the plotter. 'I shall now be received with fresh confidence by my superiors; and my experiments will be no longer hampered by pitiful conditions of the purse.'

'What I am now about, sir, is a crime,' replied Somerset; 'and were you to roll in wealth like Vanderbilt, I should scorn to be reimbursed of money I had so scandalously misapplied. Take it, and keep it. By George, sir, three days of you have transformed me to an ancient Roman.'

With these words, Somerset hailed a passing hansom; and the pair were driven rapidly to the railway terminus. There, an oath having been exacted, the money changed hands.

'And now,' said Somerset, 'I have bought back my honour with every penny I possess. And I thank God, though there is nothing before me but starvation, I am free from all entanglement with Mr. Zero Pumpernickel Jones.'

'To starve?' cried Zero. 'Dear fellow, I cannot endure the thought.'

'Take your ticket!' returned Somerset.

'I think you display temper,' said Zero.

'Take your ticket,' reiterated the young man.

'Well,' said the plotter, as he returned, ticket in hand, 'your attitude is so strange and painful, that I scarce know if I should ask you to shake hands.'

'As a man, no,' replied Somerset; 'but I have no objection to shake hands with you, as I might with a pump-well that ran poison or bell-fire.'

'This is a very cold parting,' sighed the dynamiter; and still followed by Somerset, he began to descend the platform. This was now bustling with passengers; the train for Liverpool was just about to start, another had but recently arrived; and the double tide made movement difficult. As the pair reached the neighbourhood of the bookstall, however, they came into an open space; and here the attention of the plotter was attracted by a Standard broadside bearing the words: 'Second Edition: Explosion in Golden Square.' His eye lighted; groping in his pocket for the necessary coin, he sprang forward—his bag knocked sharply on the corner of the stall—and instantly, with a formidable report, the dynamite exploded. When the smoke cleared away the stall was seen much shattered, and the stall keeper running forth in terror from the ruins; but of the Irish patriot or the Gladstone bag no adequate remains were to be found.

In the first scramble of the alarm, Somerset made good his escape, and came out upon the Euston Road, his head spinning, his body sick with hunger, and his pockets destitute of coin. Yet as he continued to walk the pavements, he wondered to find in his heart a sort of peaceful exultation, a great content, a sense, as it were, of divine presence and the kindliness of fate; and he was able to tell himself that even if the worst befell, he could now starve with a certain comfort since Zero was expunged.

Late in the afternoon, he found himself at the door of Mr. Godall's shop; and being quite unmanned by his long fast, and scarce considering what he did, he opened the glass door and entered.

'Ha!' said Mr. Godall, 'Mr. Somerset! Well, have you met with an adventure? Have you the promised story? Sit down, if you please; suffer me to choose you a cigar of my own special brand; and reward me with a narrative in your best style.'

'I must not take a cigar,' said Somerset.

'Indeed!' said Mr. Godall. 'But now I come to look at you more closely, I perceive that you are changed. My poor boy, I hope there is nothing wrong?'

Somerset burst into tears.



EPILOGUE OF THE CIGAR DIVAN



On a certain day of lashing rain in the December of last year, and between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, Mr. Edward Challoner pioneered himself under an umbrella to the door of the Cigar Divan in Rupert Street. It was a place he had visited but once before: the memory of what had followed on that visit and the fear of Somerset having prevented his return. Even now, he looked in before he entered; but the shop was free of customers.

The young man behind the counter was so intently writing in a penny version-book, that he paid no heed to Challoner's arrival. On a second glance, it seemed to the latter that he recognised him.

'By Jove,' he thought, 'unquestionably Somerset!'

And though this was the very man he had been so sedulously careful to avoid, his unexplained position at the receipt of custom changed distaste to curiosity.

'"Or opulent rotunda strike the sky,"' said the shopman to himself, in the tone of one considering a verse. 'I suppose it would be too much to say "orotunda," and yet how noble it were! "Or opulent orotunda strike the sky." But that is the bitterness of arts; you see a good effect, and some nonsense about sense continually intervenes.'

'Somerset, my dear fellow,' said Challoner, 'is this a masquerade?'

'What? Challoner!' cried the shopman. 'I am delighted to see you. One moment, till I finish the octave of my sonnet: only the octave.' And with a friendly waggle of the hand, he once more buried himself in the commerce of the Muses. 'I say,' he said presently, looking up, 'you seem in wonderful preservation: how about the hundred pounds?'

'I have made a small inheritance from a great aunt in Wales,' replied Challoner modestly.

'Ah,' said Somerset, 'I very much doubt the legitimacy of inheritance. The State, in my view, should collar it. I am now going through a stage of socialism and poetry,' he added apologetically, as one who spoke of a course of medicinal waters.

'And are you really the person of the—establishment?' inquired Challoner, deftly evading the word 'shop.'

'A vendor, sir, a vendor,' returned the other, pocketing his poesy. 'I help old Happy and Glorious. Can I offer you a weed?'

'Well, I scarcely like . . . ' began Challoner.

'Nonsense, my dear fellow,' cried the shopman. 'We are very proud of the business; and the old man, let me inform you, besides being the most egregious of created beings from the point of view of ethics, is literally sprung from the loins of kings. "De Godall je suis le fervent." There is only one Godall.—By the way,' he added, as Challoner lit his cigar, 'how did you get on with the detective trade?'

'I did not try,' said Challoner curtly.

'Ah, well, I did,' returned Somerset, 'and made the most incomparable mess of it: lost all my money and fairly covered myself with odium and ridicule. There is more in that business, Challoner, than meets the eye; there is more, in fact, in all businesses. You must believe in them, or get up the belief that you believe. Hence,' he added, 'the recognised inferiority of the plumber, for no one could believe in plumbing.'

'A propos,' asked Challoner, 'do you still paint?'

'Not now,' replied Paul; 'but I think of taking up the violin.'

Challoner's eye, which had been somewhat restless since the trade of the detective had been named, now rested for a moment on the columns of the morning paper, where it lay spread upon the counter.

'By Jove,' he cried, 'that's odd!'

'What is odd?' asked Paul.

'Oh, nothing,' returned the other: 'only I once met a person called M'Guire.'

'So did I!' cried Somerset. 'Is there anything about him?'

Challoner read as follows: 'MYSTERIOUS DEATH IN STEPNEY. An inquest was held yesterday on the body of Patrick M'Guire, described as a carpenter. Doctor Dovering stated that he had for some time treated the deceased as a dispensary patient, for sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and nervous depression. There was no cause of death to be found. He would say the deceased had sunk. Deceased was not a temperate man, which doubtless accelerated death. Deceased complained of dumb ague, but witness had never been able to detect any positive disease. He did not know that he had any family. He regarded him as a person of unsound intellect, who believed himself a member and the victim of some secret society. If he were to hazard an opinion, he would say deceased had died of fear.'

'And the doctor would be right,' cried Somerset; 'and my dear Challoner, I am so relieved to hear of his demise, that I will— Well, after all,' he added, 'poor devil, he was well served.'

The door at this moment opened, and Desborough appeared upon the threshold. He was wrapped in a long waterproof, imperfectly supplied with buttons; his boots were full of water, his hat greasy with service; and yet he wore the air of one exceeding well content with life. He was hailed by the two others with exclamations of surprise and welcome.

'And did you try the detective business?' inquired Paul.

'No,' returned Harry. 'Oh yes, by the way, I did though: twice, and got caught out both times. But I thought I should find my—my wife here?' he added, with a kind of proud confusion.

'What? are you married?' cried Somerset.

'Oh yes,' said Harry, 'quite a long time: a month at least.'

'Money?' asked Challoner.

'That's the worst of it,' Desborough admitted. 'We are deadly hard up. But the Pri—- Mr. Godall is going to do something for us. That is what brings us here.'

'Who was Mrs. Desborough?' said Challoner, in the tone of a man of society.

'She was a Miss Luxmore,' returned Harry. 'You fellows will be sure to like her, for she is much cleverer than I. She tells wonderful stories, too; better than a book.'

And just then the door opened, and Mrs. Desborough entered. Somerset cried out aloud to recognise the young lady of the Superfluous Mansion, and Challoner fell back a step and dropped his cigar as he beheld the sorceress of Chelsea.

'What!' cried Harry, 'do you both know my wife?'

'I believe I have seen her,' said Somerset, a little wildly.

'I think I have met the gentleman,' said Mrs. Desborough sweetly; 'but I cannot imagine where it was.'

'Oh no,' cried Somerset fervently: 'I have no notion—I cannot conceive—where it could have been. Indeed,' he continued, growing in emphasis, 'I think it highly probable that it's a mistake.'

'And you, Challoner?' asked Harry, 'you seemed to recognise her too.'

'These are both friends of yours, Harry?' said the lady. 'Delighted, I am sure. I do not remember to have met Mr. Challoner.'

Challoner was very red in the face, perhaps from having groped after his cigar. 'I do not remember to have had the pleasure,' he responded huskily.

'Well, and Mr. Godall?' asked Mrs. Desborough.

'Are you the lady that has an appointment with old—' began Somerset, and paused blushing. 'Because if so,' he resumed, 'I was to announce you at once.'

And the shopman raised a curtain, opened a door, and passed into a small pavilion which had been added to the back of the house. On the roof, the rain resounded musically. The walls were lined with maps and prints and a few works of reference. Upon a table was a large-scale map of Egypt and the Soudan, and another of Tonkin, on which, by the aid of coloured pins, the progress of the different wars was being followed day by day. A light, refreshing odour of the most delicate tobacco hung upon the air; and a fire, not of foul coal, but of clear-flaming resinous billets, chattered upon silver dogs. In this elegant and plain apartment, Mr. Godall sat in a morning muse, placidly gazing at the fire and hearkening to the rain upon the roof.

'Ha, my dear Mr. Somerset,' said he, 'and have you since last night adopted any fresh political principle?'

'The lady, sir,' said Somerset, with another blush.

'You have seen her, I believe?' returned Mr. Godall; and on Somerset's replying in the affirmative, 'You will excuse me, my dear sir,' he resumed, 'if I offer you a hint. I think it not improbable this lady may desire entirely to forget the past. From one gentleman to another, no more words are necessary.'

A moment after, he had received Mrs. Desborough with that grave and touching urbanity that so well became him.

'I am pleased, madam, to welcome you to my poor house,' he said; 'and shall be still more so, if what were else a barren courtesy and a pleasure personal to myself, shall prove to be of serious benefit to you and Mr. Desborough.'

'Your Highness,' replied Clara, 'I must begin with thanks; it is like what I have heard of you, that you should thus take up the case of the unfortunate; and as for my Harry, he is worthy of all that you can do.' She paused.

'But for yourself?' suggested Mr. Godall—'it was thus you were about to continue, I believe.'

'You take the words out of my mouth,' she said. 'For myself, it is different.'

'I am not here to be a judge of men,' replied the Prince; 'still less of women. I am now a private person like yourself and many million others; but I am one who still fights upon the side of quiet. Now, madam, you know better than I, and God better than you, what you have done to mankind in the past; I pause not to inquire; it is with the future I concern myself, it is for the future I demand security. I would not willingly put arms into the hands of a disloyal combatant; and I dare not restore to wealth one of the levyers of a private and a barbarous war. I speak with some severity, and yet I pick my terms. I tell myself continually that you are a woman; and a voice continually reminds me of the children whose lives and limbs you have endangered. A woman,' he repeated solemnly—'and children. Possibly, madam, when you are yourself a mother, you will feel the bite of that antithesis: possibly when you kneel at night beside a cradle, a fear will fall upon you, heavier than any shame; and when your child lies in the pain and danger of disease, you shall hesitate to kneel before your Maker.'

'You look at the fault,' she said, 'and not at the excuse. Has your own heart never leaped within you at some story of oppression? But, alas, no! for you were born upon a throne.'

'I was born of woman,' said the Prince; 'I came forth from my mother's agony, helpless as a wren, like other nurselings. This, which you forgot, I have still faithfully remembered. Is it not one of your English poets, that looked abroad upon the earth and saw vast circumvallations, innumerable troops manoeuvring, warships at sea and a great dust of battles on shore; and casting anxiously about for what should be the cause of so many and painful preparations, spied at last, in the centre of all, a mother and her babe? These, madam, are my politics; and the verses, which are by Mr. Coventry Patmore, I have caused to be translated into the Bohemian tongue. Yes, these are my politics: to change what we can, to better what we can; but still to bear in mind that man is but a devil weakly fettered by some generous beliefs and impositions, and for no word however nobly sounding, and no cause however just and pious, to relax the stricture of these bonds.'

There was a silence of a moment.

'I fear, madam,' resumed the Prince, 'that I but weary you. My views are formal like myself; and like myself, they also begin to grow old. But I must still trouble you for some reply.'

'I can say but one thing,' said Mrs. Desborough: 'I love my husband.'

'It is a good answer,' returned the Prince; 'and you name a good influence, but one that need not be conterminous with life.'

'I will not play at pride with such a man as you,' she answered. 'What do you ask of me? not protestations, I am sure. What shall I say? I have done much that I cannot defend and that I would not do again. Can I say more? Yes: I can say this: I never abused myself with the muddle-headed fairy tales of politics. I was at least prepared to meet reprisals. While I was levying war myself— or levying murder, if you choose the plainer term—I never accused my adversaries of assassination. I never felt or feigned a righteous horror, when a price was put upon my life by those whom I attacked. I never called the policeman a hireling. I may have been a criminal, in short; but I never was a fool.'

'Enough, madam,' returned the Prince: 'more than enough! Your words are most reviving to my spirits; for in this age, when even the assassin is a sentimentalist, there is no virtue greater in my eyes than intellectual clarity. Suffer me, then, to ask you to retire; for by the signal of that bell, I perceive my old friend, your mother, to be close at hand. With her I promise you to do my utmost.'

And as Mrs. Desborough returned to the Divan, the Prince, opening a door upon the other side, admitted Mrs. Luxmore.

'Madam and my very good friend,' said he, 'is my face so much changed that you no longer recognise Prince Florizel in Mr. Godall?'

'To be sure!' she cried, looking at him through her glasses. 'I have always regarded your Highness as a perfect man; and in your altered circumstances, of which I have already heard with deep regret, I will beg you to consider my respect increased instead of lessened.'

'I have found it so,' returned the Prince, 'with every class of my acquaintance. But, madam, I pray you to be seated. My business is of a delicate order, and regards your daughter.'

'In that case,' said Mrs. Luxmore, 'you may save yourself the trouble of speaking, for I have fully made up my mind to have nothing to do with her. I will not hear one word in her defence; but as I value nothing so particularly as the virtue of justice, I think it my duty to explain to you the grounds of my complaint. She deserted me, her natural protector; for years, she has consorted with the most disreputable persons; and to fill the cup of her offence, she has recently married. I refuse to see her, or the being to whom she has linked herself. One hundred and twenty pounds a year, I have always offered her: I offer it again. It is what I had myself when I was her age.'

'Very well, madam,' said the Prince; 'and be that so! But to touch upon another matter: what was the income of the Reverend Bernard Fanshawe?'

'My father?' asked the spirited old lady. 'I believe he had seven hundred pounds in the year.'

'You were one, I think, of several?' pursued the Prince.

'Of four,' was the reply. 'We were four daughters; and painful as the admission is to make, a more detestable family could scarce be found in England.'

'Dear me!' said the Prince. 'And you, madam, have an income of eight thousand?'

'Not more than five,' returned the old lady; 'but where on earth are you conducting me?'

'To an allowance of one thousand pounds a year,' replied Florizel, smiling. 'For I must not suffer you to take your father for a rule. He was poor, you are rich. He had many calls upon his poverty: there are none upon your wealth. And indeed, madam, if you will let me touch this matter with a needle, there is but one point in common to your two positions: that each had a daughter more remarkable for liveliness than duty.'

'I have been entrapped into this house,' said the old lady, getting to her feet. 'But it shall not avail. Not all the tobacconists in Europe . . .'

'Ah, madam,' interrupted Florizel, 'before what is referred to as my fall, you had not used such language! And since you so much object to the simple industry by which I live, let me give you a friendly hint. If you will not consent to support your daughter, I shall be constrained to place that lady behind my counter, where I doubt not she would prove a great attraction; and your son-in-law shall have a livery and run the errands. With such young blood my business might be doubled, and I might be bound in common gratitude to place the name of Luxmore beside that of Godall.'

'Your Highness,' said the old lady, 'I have been very rude, and you are very cunning. I suppose the minx is on the premises. Produce her.'

'Let us rather observe them unperceived,' said the Prince; and so saying he rose and quietly drew back the curtain.

Mrs. Desborough sat with her back to them on a chair; Somerset and Harry were hanging on her words with extraordinary interest; Challoner, alleging some affair, had long ago withdrawn from the detested neighbourhood of the enchantress.

'At that moment,' Mrs. Desborough was saying, 'Mr Gladstone detected the features of his cowardly assailant. A cry rose to his lips: a cry of mingled triumph . . .'

'That is Mr. Somerset!' interrupted the spirited old lady, in the highest note of her register. 'Mr. Somerset, what have you done with my house-property?'

'Madam,' said the Prince, 'let it be mine to give the explanation; and in the meanwhile, welcome your daughter.'

'Well, Clara, how do you do?' said Mrs. Luxmore. 'It appears I am to give you an allowance. So much the better for you. As for Mr. Somerset, I am very ready to have an explanation; for the whole affair, though costly, was eminently humorous. And at any rate,' she added, nodding to Paul, 'he is a young gentleman for whom I have a great affection, and his pictures were the funniest I ever saw.'

'I have ordered a collation,' said the Prince. 'Mr. Somerset, as these are all your friends, I propose, if you please, that you should join them at table. I will take the shop.'



Footnotes:

{1} Hereupon the Arabian author enters on one of his digressions. Fearing, apparently, that the somewhat eccentric views of Mr. Somerset should throw discredit on a part of truth, he calls upon the English people to remember with more gratitude the services of the police; to what unobserved and solitary acts of heroism they are called; against what odds of numbers and of arms, and for how small a reward, either in fame or money: matter, it has appeared to the translators, too serious for this place.

{2} In this name the accent falls upon the E; the S is sibilant.

{3} The Arabian author of the original has here a long passage conceived in a style too oriental for the English reader. We subjoin a specimen, and it seems doubtful whether it should be printed as prose or verse: 'Any writard who writes dynamitard shall find in me a never-resting fightard;' and he goes on (if we correctly gather his meaning) to object to such elegant and obviously correct spellings as lamp-lightard, corn-dealard, apple- filchard (clearly justified by the parallel—pilchard) and opera dancard. 'Dynamitist,' he adds, 'I could understand.'

{4} The Arabian author, with that quaint particularity of touch which our translation usually praetermits, here registers a somewhat interesting detail. Zero pronounced the word 'boom;' and the reader, if but for the nonce, will possibly consent to follow him.

THE END