"Very sincerely yours,

"H. F. RAWSON-CLEW."

So Julia read, and sat down suddenly on the flour barrel. She turned to the beginning of the letter and read it through again, and when she looked up her eyes were shining with admiration. "I am glad!" she said aloud, but in English, "I am glad he has done it! It's splendid, splendid! I never thought of it—but then I don't believe I knew what a real gentleman was before!"

The maidservant started at her curiously; she could not understand a word, but she saw that the letter gave pleasure, for which she was glad; she liked Julia, and was very sorry she was going in disgrace; she herself had occasional lapses from rectitude and so consequently had a fellow feeling.

"You have a good letter?" she asked.

"Very good," Julia said; "but we must get on with the cooking; I will answer it by and by."

Julia put it in her pocket after another glance, purring to herself in English, "It is so well done, too," she said; "never a word of to-day, only of yesterday—yesterday!" and she laughed softly.

There is no doubt about it, if Julia had got to receive a death sentence she would have liked it to be well given; it is quite possible, had she lived at the time, she would have been one of those who objected to the indignity of riding in the tumbrils quite as much as to the guillotine at the end of the ride.

She finished the preparations for dinner, got her pots and pans all nicely simmering and her oven at the right heat; then, giving some necessary directions, she left the servant to watch the cooking and went up to her own room. There she at once proceeded to answer the letter—

"DEAR MR. RAWSON-CLEW, (she wrote),

"I am as glad as anything that you have done it; I never for a moment thought of it myself, though I ought, for it is just like you; thank you ever so much.

"Please don't bother about me, I am all right and have arranged capitally."

Here she turned over his letter to see how he had signed himself and, seeing, signed in imitation—

"Yours very sincerely,

"JULIA POLKINGTON."

"I wonder what his name is?" she speculated; "H. F.—H.—Henry, Horace—I shouldn't think he had a name people called him by."

She read her own letter through, and as she was folding it stopped; it occurred to her that he might think courtesy demanded a formal refusal of his proposal. It was, of course, quite unnecessary; the refusal went without saying; she would no more have dreamed of accepting his quixotic offer than he would have dreamed of avoiding the necessity of making it; the one was as much a sine qua non to her as the other was to him. From which it would appear that in some ways at least their notions of honour were not so many miles apart.

She flattened her letter again; perhaps he would think the definite word more polite, so she added a postscript—

"Of course this means no. I am sorry we can't go on with the excursion, but we can't, you know. The holiday is over; this is 'to-morrow,' so good-bye."

After that she fastened the envelope, and a while later went out to post it. As she went up the drive she caught sight of Joost some distance away in the gardens; his face was not towards her, and she congratulated herself that he had not seen her. However, the congratulations were premature; when she came back from the post she found him standing just inside the gate waiting for her, obviously waiting. At least it was obvious to her; she had caught people herself before now, and so recognised that she was caught too plainly to uselessly attempt getting away.

"Do you want to hear what happened yesterday?" she asked, with an effrontery she did not feel. "I expect Denah has told you all, perhaps a little more than all, still, enough of it was true."

"I want to speak to you," he said, and parted the high bushes that bordered the left of the drive.

Julia reluctantly enough, but feeling that she owed him what explanation was possible, went through. Behind the bushes there was a small enclosed space used for growing choice bulbs; it was empty now, the sandy soil quite bare and dry; but it was very retired, being surrounded by an eight foot hedge with only one opening besides the way by which they had come in through the looser-growing bushes. Julia made her way down to the opening; with her practical eye for such things, she recognised that it would be the best way of escape, just as the loose-growing bushes offered the likeliest point of attack. This, of course, did not matter to her, she being in the case of "he who is down," but it might matter a good deal to Joost if his father looked through the bushes, and he would never know how to take care of himself.

"Well?" she said, when she had taken up this discreet position. But as he did not seem ready she went on, "I really don't think there is anything to say; I did wrong yesterday, not quite as much wrong as your mother and Denah think, still wrong—what my own people would have disapproved, at least if it were found out; that's the biggest crime on their list—and what I knew your people would condemn utterly. I am afraid I have no excuse to offer; I knew what I was doing, and I did it with my eyes open. I did not see any harm in it myself but I knew other people would, so I meant to say nothing. I had deceived your parents before, and I meant to keep on doing it. You know I had walked with that man lots of times before yesterday; all the time your mother thought me so good to visit your cousin I really enjoyed doing it because I walked with him."

"Do you love him?" The question was asked low and almost jerkily.

"Love him?" Julia said in surprise; "no, of course not. That is where the difference comes in, I believe; you all seem to think there is nothing but love and love-making and kissing and cuddling. I have just liked talking to him and I suppose he liked talking to me, as you might some friend, or Denah some girl she knew. We never thought about love and all that; we couldn't, you know; he belongs to a different lot from what I do. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I understand," he answered, and there was a vibrant note in his voice which was new to her. "I understand that it is you who are right and we who are wrong—you who know good and evil and can choose, we who suspect and think and hint, believing ill when there is none. Rather than send you away, we should ask your forgiveness!"

"You should do nothing of the kind," Julia said decidedly, beginning to take alarm. "I may not have been wrong in quite the way your parents think, but I was wrong all the same. I am not good, believe me; I am not as you are. Look at me, I am bad inwardly, and really I am what you would condemn and despise."

She was standing in the afternoon sunlight, dark, slim, alert, intensely alive, full of a twisty varied knowledge, a creature of another world. She felt that he must know and recognise the gulf between if only he would look fairly at her.

He did look fairly, but he recognised only what was in his own mind.

"You are to me a beacon—" he began.

But she, realising at last that Denah's jealousy was not after all without foundations, cut him short.

"I am not a beacon," she said, "before you take me for a guiding light you had better hear something about me. Do you know why I came here? I will tell you—it was to get your blue daffodil!"

He stared at her speechless, and she found it bad to see the surprise and almost uncomprehending pain which came into his face, as into the face of a child unjustly smitten. But she went on resolutely: "I heard of it in England, that it was worth a lot of money—and I wanted money—so I came here; I meant to get a bulb and sell it."

"You meant to?" he said slowly; "but you haven't—you couldn't?"

"I could, six times over if I liked."

"But you have not."

"No. I was a fool, and you were—Oh, I can't explain; you would never understand, and it does not matter. The thing that matters is that I came here to get your blue daffodil."

"You must have needed money very greatly," he said in a puzzled, pitying voice.

"I did, I wanted it desperately, but that does not matter either—I came here to steal; I go away because I am found out to have deceived and to have behaved improperly—I want you to understand that."

"I do not understand," he answered; "I understand nothing but that you are you, and—and I love you."

"You don't!" she cried in sharp protest. "You do not, and you cannot! You think you love what you think I am. But I am not that; it is all quite different; when you, know, when you realise, you will see it."

"I realise now," he answered; "it is still the light, only sometimes dim."

"Dim!" she repeated, "it has gone out!"

"And if it has, what then? If you are all you say you are, and all they say you are, and many worse things besides, what then? It makes no difference."

He spoke with the curious quietness with which he always spoke of what he was quite sure. But she drew back against the hedge, clasping her hands together, her calmness all gone. "Oh, what have I done! What have I done!" she said, overcome with pity and remorse.

He drew a step nearer, misinterpreting the emotion. "I will take care of you," he said. "Will you not let me take care of you?"

She looked up, and though her eyes were full of tears he might have read his answer there, in her recovered calmness, in the very gentleness of her manner. "You cannot," she said sadly; "you couldn't possibly do it. Don't you see that it is impossible? Your parents, the people—"

"That is of no importance," he answered; "my parents would very soon see you in your true light, and for the rest—what does it matter? If you will marry me I—"

"But Joost, I can't! Don't you feel yourself that I can't? We are not only of two nations—that is nothing—but we are almost of two races; we are night and day, oil and water, black and white. It would never do; we should be on the outskirts of each other's lives, you would never know mine, and though I might know yours, I could never really enter in."

"That is nothing," he said, "if you love."

"It is everything," she answered, "if two people do not talk the same language, soul language, I mean."

"They will learn it if they love—but you do not? Is it that, tell me. Ah, yes, you do, a little, little bit! Only a little, so that you hardly know it, but it is enough—if you have the least to give that would do; I would do all the rest; I would love you; I would stand between you and the whole world; in time it would come, in time you would care!"

He had come close to her now; in his eagerness he pressed against her, and, earnestness overcoming diffidence, he almost ventured to take her hand in his. She felt herself inwardly shrink from him with the repulsion that young wild animals feel at times for mere contact. But outwardly she did not betray it; pity for him kept nature under control.

"I cannot," she said very gently; "I can never care."

Then he knew that he had his answer, and there was no appeal; he drew back a pace, and because he never said one word of regret, or reproach, or pleading, her heart smote her.

"I am so sorry!" she said; "I am so sorry. Oh, why is everything so hard! Joost, dear Joost, you must not mind; I am not half good enough for you; I'm not, indeed. Please forget me and—let me go."

And with that she turned and fled into the house.

The maidservant in the kitchen was minding the pots; it still wanted some while to dinner time; she did not expect the English miss would come yet, probably not till it was necessary to dish up. The letter, of course, would have occupied her some time; she had gone out probably to meet the writer—the maid never for a moment doubted him to be the sharer of yesterday's escapade. She heard Julia come in, and judged the meeting to have been a pleasant one, as it had taken time. She had gone up-stairs now, doubtless to pack her things; that would occupy her till almost dinner time.

It did, for she did not begin directly, but sat on her bed instead, doing nothing for a time. But when she did begin, she went to work methodically, folding garments with care and packing them neatly; her heart ached for Joost and for the tangle things were in, but that did not prevent her attending to details when she once set to work. At last she had everything done, even her hat and coat ready to put on when dinner should be over. Then, after a final glance round to see that she had left nothing but the charred fragments of Rawson-Clew's letter, she went down-stairs and got the dinner ready.

She did not take her meal with the family, but again had it in the little room. She brought the dishes to and fro from the kitchen, however, so she passed close to Joost once or twice and saw his grave face and serious blue eyes, as she had seen them every day since her first coming. And when she looked at him, and saw him, his appearance, his small mannerisms, himself in fact, a voice inside her cried down the aching pity, saying, "I could not do it, I could not do it!" But when she was alone in the little room with the door shut between, the pity grew strong again till it almost welled up in tears. Poor Joost! Poor humble, earnest, unselfish Joost! That he should care so, that he should have set his hopes on her, his star—a will-o'-wisp of devious ways! That he should ache for this unworthy cause, and for it shut his eyes to the homely happiness which might have been his!

She rose quickly and went up-stairs to get her hat and jacket. Soon after, the carriage, which she had extravagantly ordered, came, and she called the servant to help her down with her luggage. They got it down the narrow staircase between them and into the hall; Julia glanced back at the white marble kitchen for the last time, and at the dim little sitting-room. Vrouw Van Heigen was there, very much absorbed in crochet; but she had left the door ajar so that she might know when Julia went, and that must have occupied a prominent place in her mind, for she made a mistake at every other stitch.

"Good-bye, Mevrouw," Julia said.

Vrouw Van Heigen grunted; she remembered what was due to herself and propriety.

"And, oh," Julia looked back to say as she remembered it, "don't forget that last lot of peach-brandy we made, it was not properly tied down; you ought to look at the covers some time this week."

"Ah, yes," said the old lady, forgetting propriety, "thank you, thank you, I'll see to it; it will never do to have that go; such fine peaches too."

Then Julia went out and got into the carriage. Mijnheer was in his office; he did not think it quite right to come to see her start either; all the same he came to the door to tell the driver to be careful not to go on the grass. Joost came also and looked over his father's shoulder, and Julia, who had been amused at Vrouw Van Heigen, suddenly forgot this little amusement again.

Joost left his father. "I will tell the man," he said. "I will go after him too and shut the gate; it grows late for it to be open."

The carriage had already started, and he had to hurry after it; even then he did not catch it up till it was past the bend of the drive. Then the man saw him and pulled up, though it is doubtful if he got any order or, indeed, any word. Julia had been looking back, but from the other side; and because she had been looking back and remembering much happiness and simplicity here, she was so grieved for one at least who dwelt here that her eyes were full of tears.

Joost saw them when, on the stopping of the carriage, she turned. "Do not weep," he said; "you must not weep for me."

"I am so sorry," she said; "so dreadfully sorry!"

"But you must not be," he told her; "there is no need."

"There is every need; you have been so kind to me, so good; you have almost taught me—though you don't know it—some goodness too, and in return I have brought you nothing but sadness."

"Ah, yes, sadness," he said; "but gladness too, and the gladness is more than the sadness. Would you not sooner know the fine even though you cannot attain to it, than be content with the little all your life? I would, and it is that which you have given me. It is I who give nothing—"

He hesitated as if for a moment at a loss, and she had no words to fill in the pause.

"Will you take this?" he said, half thrusting something forward. "It is, perhaps, not much to some, but I would like you to have it; it seems fitting; I think I owe it to you, and you to it."

"Oh, yes, yes," she murmured, hardly hearing and not grasping the last words; there was something choking in her throat; it was this strange, humble, disinterested love, so new to her, which brought it there and prevented her from understanding.

She stretched out her hands, and he put something into them; then he stepped back, and the carriage drove on. It was not till the gateway was passed that she realised what it was she held—a small bag made of the greyish-brown paper used on a bulb farm; inside, a single bulb; and outside, written, according to the invariable custom of growers—

"Narcissus Triandrus Azureum Vrouw Van Heigen."



CHAPTER XI

A REPRIEVE

Rawson-Clew was reading a letter. It was breakfast time; the letter had missed the afternoon post yesterday, which was what the writer would have wished, and so was not delivered at the hotel till the morning. It was short, from the beginning—"I am so glad you have done it," to the end of the postscript—"this is to-morrow, so good-bye." There was not much to read; yet he looked at it for some time. Did ever man receive such a refusal to an offer of marriage? It was almost absurd, and perhaps hardly flattering, yet somehow characteristic of the writer; Rawson-Clew recognised that now, though it had surprised him none the less. What was to be done next? See the girl, he supposed, and hear what she proposed to do; she wrote that she had arranged "capitally," but she did not say what. He was quite certain she was not going to remain with the Van Heigens; if by some extraordinary accident she had been able to bring that about, she would certainly have told him so triumphantly. He could not think of anything "capital" she could have arranged; he was persuaded, either that she only said it to reassure him, or else, if she believed it, it was in her ignorance of the extent of the damage done yesterday. He must go and see her, hear what she had planned, and what further trouble she was thinking to get herself into, and prevent it in the only way possible; and there was only one way, there was absolutely no other solution of the difficulty; she must marry him, and there was an end of it. He glanced at her refusal again, and liked it in spite of its absurdity; after all, perhaps it would have been better if he had been frank too; one could afford to dispense with the delicate conventions that he associated with women in dealing with this girl. He wished he had gone to her and spoken freely, as man to man, saying plainly that since they had together been indiscreet, they must together take the consequence, and make the best of it—and really the best might be very good.

Soon after he had finished breakfast he set out for the Van Heigens' house. But as yet, though he had some comprehension of Julia, he had not fully realised the promptness of action which necessity had taught her. When he reached the Van Heigens' she had been gone some sixteen hours.

It was Vrouw Van Heigen who told him; she was in the veranda when he arrived, and so, perforce, saw him and answered his inquiries. It was evident, at the outset, that neither his appearance nor name conveyed anything to her; she had not seen him the day of the excursion, and Denah's description, purposely complicated by a cross description of Julia's, had conveyed nothing, and his name had never transpired. He saw he was unknown, and recognised Julia's loyal screening of him, not with any satisfaction; evidently it was part of her creed to stand between a man (father or otherwise) and the consequence of his acts. That was an additional reason for finding her and explaining that he, unlike Captain Polkington, was not used to anything of the sort.

"She has gone?" he said, in answer to Vrouw Van Heigen's brief information. The old lady was decidedly nervous of the impressive Englishman who had come asking after her disgraced companion; she moved her fat hands uneasily even before he asked, "Where has she gone? Perhaps you would be kind enough to give me her address?"

"I cannot," she was obliged to say; "I have not it. I do not know where she is."

Rawson-Clew stared. "But surely," he said, "you are mistaken? She was here yesterday."

"Yes, yes; I know. But she is not here now; she went last night in haste. I will tell you about it. You are a friend? Come in."

Without waiting, she led him into the drawing-room, and there left him in some haste. The room struck him as familiar; he wondered why, until he remembered that it must have been Julia's description which made him so well acquainted with it. It was all just as she described; the thick, dark-coloured carpet, with the little carefully-bound strips of the same material laid over it to make paths to the piano, the stove, and other frequented spots. The highly-polished furniture, upholstered in black and yellow Utrecht velvet, the priceless Chinese porcelain brought home by old Dutch merchants, and handed down from mother to daughter for generations; the antimacassars of crochet work, the snuff-coloured wall-paper, the wonderful painted tiles framed in ebony that hung upon it. It was all just as she had said; the very light and smell seemed familiar, she must somehow have given him an idea of them too.

Just then Vrouw Van Heigen came back, and her husband with her; she had been to fetch him, not feeling equal to dealing with the visitor alone. Mijnheer, by her request, had put on his best coat, but he still had his spectacles pushed upon his forehead, as they always were when he was disturbed in the office.

There was a formal greeting—one never dispensed with that in Holland, then Mijnheer said, "You are, I suppose, a friend of Miss Polkington's father?"

Rawson-Clew, remembering the winter day at Marbridge, answered, "I am acquainted with him."

Mijnheer nodded. "Yes, yes," he said; then, "it is very sad, and much to be regretted. I cannot but give to you, and through you to her father, very bad news of Miss Polkington. She is not what we thought her; she has disgraced—"

But here Rawson-Clew interrupted, but in the quiet, leisurely way which was so incomprehensible to the Hollanders. "My dear sir," he said, "please spare yourself the trouble of these details; I am the man with whom Miss Polkington had the misfortune to be lost on the Dunes."

Vrouw Van Heigen gasped; the gentle, drawling voice, the manner, the whole air of the speaker overwhelmed her, and shattered all her previous thoughts of the affair. With Mijnheer it was different; right was right, and wrong wrong to him, no matter who the persons concerned might be.

"Then, sir," he said, growing somewhat red, "I am glad indeed that I cannot tell you where she is."

Rawson-Clew looked up with faint admiration, righteous indignation, or at all events the open expression of it, was a discourtesy practically extinct with the people among whom he usually lived. He felt respect for the old bulb grower who would be guilty of it.

"I am sorry you should think so badly of me," he said; "I can only assure you that it is without reason. You do not believe me? I suppose it is quite useless for me to say that my sole motive in seeking Miss Polkington is a desire to prevent her from coming to any harm?"

"She will, I should think, come to less harm without you than with you," Mijnheer retorted; and Rawson-Clew, seeing as plainly as Julia had yesterday, the impossibility of making the position clear, did not attempt it.

"I hope you may be right," he said, "but I am afraid she will be in difficulties. She had little money, and no friends in Holland, and was, I have reason to believe, on such terms with her family that it would not suit her to return to England."

"Ah, but she must have gone to England!" Vrouw Van Heigen cried. "She went away in a carriage as one does when one goes to the station to start on a journey."

"She received letters from her family," Mijnheer said sturdily, "not frequently, but occasionally; there was not, I think, any quarrel or disagreement. She must certainly have set out to return home last night. If not, and if she had nowhere to go, why should she leave as she did yesterday? We did not say 'go!' we were content that she should remain several days, until her arrangements could be made."

"She might not have cared for that," Rawson-Clew suggested; "if you insinuated to her the sort of things you did to me; women do not like that, as a rule, you know."

All the same, as he said this, he could not help thinking Mijnheer right; Julia must have had somewhere to go. Her dignity and feelings were not of the order to lose sight of essentials in details, or to demand unreasonable sacrifice of common sense. She must have had some destination in view when she left the Van Heigens yesterday, and, as far as he could see, there was no destination open to her but home.

Mijnheer was firmly of this opinion, although, now that a question about it had been suggested to him, he wished he had made sure before the girl left. Of course, her plans and destination were no business of his—she might even have refused to give information about them on that account; he had dismissed her in disgrace, what she did next was not his concern. But in spite of her bad behaviour he had liked her; and though his notions of propriety, and consequent condemnation of her, had undergone no change, he was kind-heartedly anxious she should come to no harm. Her words about some good people making the merely indiscreet into sinners came back to him, but he would not apply them; Julia had gone home, he was sure of it, and a good thing too; the Englishman with the quiet voice and the grand manner could not follow her there to her detriment. Though, to be sure, it was strange that such a man as he should want to; he was not the kind of person Mijnheer had expected the partner in the escapade to be; truly the English were a strange people, very strange. His wife agreed with him on that point; they often said so afterwards—in fact, whenever they thought of the disgraced companion, who was such an excellent cook.

As for Rawson-Clew, he returned to England; there was nothing to keep him longer in Holland. But as he was still not sure how Julia's "capital arrangement" was going to be worked out, and was determined to bear his share of the burden, he decided to go to Marbridge on an early opportunity.

The opportunity did not occur quite so soon as he expected; several things intervened, so that he had been home more than a week before he was able to fulfil his intention. Marbridge lies in the west country, some considerable distance from London; Rawson-Clew did not reach it till the afternoon, at an hour devoted by the Polkingtons most exclusively to things social. It is to be feared, however, that he did not consider the Polkingtons collectively at all; it was Julia, and Julia alone, of whom he was thinking when he knocked at the door of No. 27 East Street.

The door was opened by a different sort of servant from the one who had opened it to him the last time he came; rather a smart-looking girl she was, with her answers quite ready.

"Miss Julia Polkington was not at home," she said, and, in answer to his inquiry when she was expected, informed him that she did not know.

"There is no talk of her coming home, sir," she said; "she is abroad, I think; she has been gone some time."

"Since when?"

The girl did not know. "In the spring, I think, sir," she said; "she has not been here all the summer."

Then, it seemed, his first suspicion was correct; Julia had not gone home; for some reason or another she was not able to return.

"Is Captain Polkington in?" he asked.

He was not; there was no one at home now; but Mrs. Polkington would be in in about an hour. The maid added the last, feeling sure her mistress would be sorry to let such a visitor slip.

But Rawson-Clew did not want to see Mrs. Polkington; she, he was nearly sure, represented the aspiring side of the family, not the one to whom Julia would turn in straits. The improved look of the house and the servant suggested that the family was hard at work aspiring just now, and so less likely than ever to be ready to welcome the girl, or anxious to give true news of her if they had any to give. Captain Polkington, who no one could connect with the ascent of the social ladder, might possibly know something; at all events, there was a better chance of it, and he certainly could very easily be made to tell anything he did know.

"When do you expect Captain Polkington home?" he asked.

"Not for a month or more, I believe, sir," was the answer; "he is in London just now."

Rawson-Clew asked for his address; it occurred to him that Julia might have gone to her father; it really seemed very probable. He got the address in full, and went away, but without leaving any name to puzzle and tantalise Mrs. Polkington. Of course she was puzzled and tantalised when the maid told her of the visitor. From past experience, she expected something unpleasant of his coming, even though the description sounded favourable; but, as she heard no more of it, she forgot all about him in the course of time.

It was on the next afternoon that Rawson-Clew drove to 31 Berwick Street. There are several Berwick Streets in London, and, though the address given was full enough for the postal authorities, the cabman had some difficulty in finding it, and went wrong before he went right. It was a dingy street, and not very long; it had an unimportant, apologetic sort of air, as if it were quite used to being overlooked. The houses were oldish, and very narrow, so that a good many were packed into the short length; the pavement was narrow, too, and so were the windows; they, for the most part, were carefully draped with curtains of doubtful hue. Some were further guarded from prying eyes by sort of gridirons, politely called balconies, though, since the platform had been forgotten, and only the protecting railings were there hard up against the glass, the name was deceptive.

The hansom came slowly down the street, the driver scanning the frequent doors for 31. He overlooked it by reason of the fact that the number had been rubbed off, but finally located it by discovering most of the numbers above and below. Rawson-Clew got out and rang. In course of time—rather a long time—the door was opened to him by the landlady—that same landlady who had confided to Mr. Gillat the desirability of having a good standing with the butcher.

"Cap'ain Polkington?" she said, in answer to Rawson-Clew's inquiry. "I don't know whether he's in or not; you'd better go up and see; one of 'em's there, anyhow."

She stood back against the wall, and Rawson-Clew came in.

"Up-stairs," she said; "second door you come to."

With that she went down to the kitchen regions; she was no respecter of persons, and she thanked God she had plenty of her own business to mind, and never troubled herself poking into other people's. Consequently, though she might wonder what a man of Rawson-Clew's appearance should want with her lodgers, she did not let it interfere with her work, or take the edge off her tongue in the heated argument she held with the milkman, who came directly after.

Rawson-Clew found his way up the stairs; they were steep, and had rather the appearance of having been omitted in the original plan of the house, and squeezed in as an afterthought, when it was found really impossible to do without. There was no window to give light to them, or air either; hence, no doubt, the antiquity of the flavour of cabbage and fried bacon with hung about them. But Rawson-Clew, when he ascended, found the second door without trouble; there was not room to get lost. He knocked; he half expected to hear Julia's voice; it seemed to him probable that she was the person referred to as "one of them." But it was a man who bade him enter, and, unless his memory played him false, not Captain Polkington.

It was not the Captain, it was Johnny Gillat. He was reading the newspaper—Captain Polkington had it in the morning, he in the afternoon; he wore, or attempted to (they fell off rather often), very old slippers indeed, and a coat of surprising shabbiness which he reserved for home use. For a moment he stared at his visitor in astonishment, and Rawson-Clew apologised for his intrusion. "I was looking for Captain Polkington," he said. "I was told he was probably here."

"Ah!" Mr. Gillat exclaimed, his face lighting into a smile. "Of course, of course! Captain Polkington's out just now, but he'll be in soon. Come in, won't you; come in and wait for him."

He hospitably dragged forward the shabby easy-chair. "Try that, won't you?" he said. "It's really comfortable—not that one, that's a little weak in the legs; it ought to be put away; it's deceptive to people who don't know it."

He pushed the offending chair against the wall, his slippers flapping on his feet, so that he thought it less noticeable to surreptitiously kick them off. "My name's Gillat," he went on. "Captain Polkington is an old friend of mine."

"Mr. Gillat?" Rawson-Clew said. He remembered the name, and something Julia had said about the bearer of it. It was he who had given her the big gold watch she wore, and he of whom she had seemed fond, in a half-protecting, half-patient way, that was rather inexplicable—at least it was till he saw Mr. Gillat.

"Perhaps," Rawson-Clew said, "you can tell me what I want to know—it is about Miss Julia Polkington. I met her in Holland during the summer."

He may have thought of giving some idea of intimacy, or of explaining his interest; but, if so, he changed his mind; anything of the kind was perfectly unnecessary to Mr. Gillat, who did not dream of questioning his reason.

"Ah, yes," he said; "Julia is in Holland; she has been there a long time."

"Is she there still?" Rawson-Clew asked. "Can you give me her address?"

"Well," Johnny said regretfully, "not exactly. But she is abroad somewhere," the last with an increase of cheerfulness, as if to indicate that this was something, at all events.

"You don't know where she is?" Rawson-Clew inquired. "Does her father? I suppose he does—some one must."

"No," Johnny said. "No; I'm afraid not. Certainly her father does not, nor her mother—none of us know; but, as you say, somebody must know—the people she is with, for instance."

Rawson-Clew grew a little impatient. "Do you mean," he said, "that her family are content to know nothing of her whereabouts? Have they taken no steps to find her?"

"Well, you see," Johnny answered slowly, "there aren't any steps to take. They don't want to find her; she is quite well and happy, no doubt, and she will come back when she is ready. Mrs. Polkington—do you know Mrs. Polkington? A wonderful woman! She is very busy just now, she is shining. Miss Cherie is quite a belle. They really have not—have not accommodation for Julia; it is not, of course, that they don't want her—they have not exactly room for her."

"But surely they want to know where she is?" Rawson-Clew persisted.

"No, they don't," Johnny told him. "They know she is all right; she told them so, and told them she did not want to be found. They are satisfied—" He broke off, feeling that the visitor was more astonished than admiring of such a state of affairs. "Family emotions and sentiments, you know," he explained in defence of this family, "are not every one's strong point; the social, or the religious, or—" (he waved his hand comprehendingly) "or the national may stand first, and why not?"

"Are you satisfied?" Rawson-Clew asked briefly.

"I'd sooner be able to see her," Johnny admitted. "I'm fond of her; yes, she's been very kind and good; I miss seeing her. But, of course, she has her way to make in the world."

"But are you satisfied that she should make it thus? That she should leave the Dutch family she was with and disappear, leaving no address?"

"Sir," Johnny said with dignity, "I am quite satisfied, and if any one says that he is not, I would be pleased to talk to him."

But the dignity left Mr. Gillat's manner as quickly as it came; before Rawson-Clew could say anything, he was apologising. "You must forgive me," he said; "I am very fond of that little girl; and I thought—but I had no business to think; I'm an old fool, to think you meant—"

"I only meant," Rawson-Clew said, speaking with unconscious gentleness, "that I was afraid she might be in difficulties. She may be in trouble about money, or something."

"Oh, no," Johnny said cheerfully; "she has a fine head for money matters. I have sometimes thought, since she has been gone, that she has the best head in the family! She's all right—quite right; there's no need to be uneasy about her. I'll show you the letter she wrote me."

He opened a shabby pocket-book, and took out a letter. "There, you read that," he said.

Rawson-Clew read, and at the end was little wiser. Julia said she had left one situation (reason not even suggested), and had got another. That she did not wish to give her new address, or to hear from Mr. Gillat, or her family, at this new place, as it might spoil her arrangements. Rawson-Clew recognised the last word as a favourite of Julia's; with her it was elastic, and could mean anything, from a piece of lace arranged to fill up the neck of a dress, to a complex and far-reaching scheme arranged to bring about some desired end. What it meant in the present instance was not indicated, but clearly she did not wish for interference, and, with some wisdom, took the surest way to prevent it by making it well-nigh impossible. She had left one means of communication, however, though apparently that was for Johnny only. "If you and father get into any very great muddle," she wrote, "you must let me know. Put an advertisement—one word, 'Johnny,' will do—in a paper; I shall understand, and, if I can, I will try to do something." A paper was suggested; it was a cheap weekly. Rawson-Clew remembered to have seen it once in the small Dutch town that summer, so it was to be got there. Unfortunately, as he also remembered, it was to be got in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and Paris and Berlin too.

He folded the letter, and returned it to Mr. Gillat. "Thank you," he said; "evidently, as you say, she does not wish to be found, and it would seem she has got some sort of employment, although I am afraid it cannot be of an easy or pleasant sort."

He did not explain the reason he had for thinking so, and Mr. Gillat never thought of asking. Soon after he went away.

Clearly there was nothing to be done. Julia did not mean to have his help and protection; and, with a decision and completeness which, now he came to think of it, did not altogether surprise him, she has taken care to avoid them. That absurd refusal of hers was, after all, a reprieve, although until now he had not looked upon it in that light. No doubt it was a good thing affairs had turned out as they had; the marriage would have been in many ways disadvantageous. Yet he certainly would have insisted on it, and taken trouble to do so, if she had not put it altogether out of his power. All the same, he did not feel as gratified as he ought, perhaps because the arrogance of man is not pleased to have woman arbitrator of his fate, and the instinct of gentleman is not satisfied to have her bear his burden, perhaps for some other less clear reason. He really did not know himself, and did not try to think; there seemed little object in doing so, seeing that incident was closed.

The next day he went north, and by accident travelled part of the way with a lady of his acquaintance. She was young, not more than five or six and twenty, nice looking too, and very well dressed. She had a lot of small impediments with her—a cloak, a dressing-bag, sunshade, umbrella, golf clubs—some one, no doubt, would come and clear her when the destination was reached; in the mean time, she and her belongings were an eminently feminine presence. She talked pleasantly of what had happened since they last met; she had been to Baireuth that summer, she told him, and spoke intelligently of the music, the technique and the beauty of it, and what it stood for. She was surprised to hear he had got no further than Holland, and more surprised still that he had not even seen Rembrandt's masterpiece while he was there. Her voice was smooth and even, a little loud, perhaps, from her spending much time out of doors, not in the least given to those subtle changes of tone which express what is not said; but as she never wanted to express any such things, that did not matter.

She did not bore him with too much conversation; she had papers with her—some three or four, and she glanced at them between whiles. Afterwards she commented on their contents—the political situation, the war (there is always a war somewhere), the cricket news, the new books; touching lightly, but intelligently, on each topic in turn.

Rawson-Clew listened and answered, polite and mildly interested. It was some time since he had heard this agreeable kind of conversation, and since he had come in contact with this agreeable kind of person. He ought to have appreciated it more, as men appreciate the charm of drawing-rooms who have long been banished from them. He came to the conclusion that he must be growing old, not to prefer the society of a pretty, agreeable and well-dressed woman to an empty railway carriage.

The girl had two fine carnations in her coat; the stalks were rather long, and so had got bruised. She regretted this, and Rawson-Clew offered to cut them for her. He began to feel for a knife in likely and unlikely pockets, and it was then that he first noticed a faint, sweet smell; dry, not strong at all, more a memory than a scent. He did not recognise what it was, nor from where it came, but it reminded him of something, he could not think what.

He puzzled over it as he cut the flower stalks, then all at once he laid hold on the edge of a recollection—a pair of dark eyes, in which mirthful, mocking lights flickered, as the sun splashes flicker on the ground under trees—a voice, many-noted as a violin, that grew softest when it was going to strike hardest, that expressed a hundred things unsaid.

He looked across at the owner of the carnations, and wondered by what perversity of fate it was decreed that any one who could buy such good boots, should have such ill-shaped feet to put into them; and why, if fate so handicapped her, why she should exhibit them by crossing her knees. He also wondered what possessed her to wear that hat; every other well-dressed girl had a variation of the style that year, it was the correctest of the correct for fashion, but he did not take note of that. Men are rather blockheaded on the subject of fashion, and seldom see the charm in the innately unbecoming and unsuitable, no matter what decrees it.

He looked back to the empty opposite corner, and, though until that moment he had not really thought of Julia since he left Mr. Gillat yesterday, he put her there in imagination now. He did not want her there, he did not want her anywhere (there are some wines which a man does not want, that still rather spoil his taste for others). She would not have made the mistake of wearing such a hat; her clothes were not new, they were distinctly shabby sometimes, but they were well assorted. As to the boots—he remembered the day he tied her shoe—he could imagine the man she married, if he were very young and very foolish, of course, finding a certain pleasure in taking her arched foot, when it was pink and bare, in the hollow of his hand. If she were in that corner now, the quiet, twinkling smile would certainly be on her face as she listened to the talk of books, and men, and places, and things. He did not picture her joining even when they spoke of things she knew, and places she had been to—he remembered he had once heard her speak of a town which had been spoken of this afternoon. She had somehow grasped the whole life of the place, and laid it bare to him in a few words—the light-hearted gaiety and the sordid misery, the black superstition and the towering history which overhung it, and the cheerful commonplace which, like the street cries and the gutter streams, ran through it all—the whole flavour of the thing. The girl opposite had been to the place too; she told him of the historic spots she had visited; she knew a deal more about them than Julia did. She spoke of the quaint pottery to be bought there—it had not struck Julia as quaint, any more than it did its buyers and sellers. And she referred to the sayings and opinions of a great pose writer, who had expressed all he knew and felt and thought about it, and more besides. Julia, apparently, had not read him—what reading she had done seemed to be more in the direction of Gil Blas, and Dean Swift, and other kindred things in different languages.

The owner of the carnations glanced out of window, and commented on the scenery, which was here rather fine—Julia would not have done that; all the same, she would have known just what sort of country they had passed through all the way, not only when it was fine; she would have noticed the lie of the land, the style of work done there, the kind of lives lived there, even, possibly, the likely difficulties in the way of railway-making and bridge building. She would certainly have taken account of the faces on the platforms at which they drew up, so that without effort she could have picked out the porter who would give the best service; the stranger in need of help, and he who would offer it; and the guard most likely to be useful if it were necessary to cheat the company—it was conceivable that cheating companies might sometimes be necessary in her scheme of things.



He cut another piece off the carnation stalks, they were still too long. He did not wish Julia there; he fancied that it was likely she would not easily find her place among the people he would meet at his journey's end. But if there were no end—if he were going somewhere else, east or west, north or south—say a certain old oriental town, old and wicked as time itself, and full of the mystery and indefinable charm of age, and iniquity, and transcendent beauty—she would like that; she would grasp the whole, without attempting to express or judge it. Or a little far-off Tyrolean village, remote as the mountains from the life of the world—she would like that; the discomfort would be nothing to her, the primitiveness, the simplicity, everything. If he were going to some such place—why, then, there were worse things than having to take the companion of the holiday too.

He handed back the carnations, and then unthinkingly put his hand into his coat-pocket. His fingers came in contact with some dry rubbish, little more than stalks and dust, but still exhaling something of the fragrance which had been sun distilled on the Dunes. He recognised it now—Julia's flowers, put there in the wood, and forgotten until now.

"Thanks so much for cutting them," said the girl with the carnations, smelling them before she fastened them on again. "I really think they are my favourite flower; the scent is so delicious—quite the nicest flower of all, don't you think so?"

"I'm not sure," Rawson-Clew said thoughtfully, and when he spoke thoughtfully he drawled very much, "I'm not sure I don't sometimes prefer wild thyme."



CHAPTER XII

THE YOUNG COOK

It was about ten o'clock on an October night; everything was intensely quiet in the big kitchen where Julia stood. It was not a cheerful place even in the day time, the windows looked north, and were very high up; the walls and floor were alike of grey stone, which gave it a prison-like aspect, and also took much scrubbing, as she had reason to know. It was far too large a place to be warmed by the small stove now used; Julia sometimes wondered if the big one that stood empty in its place would have been sufficient to warm it. She glanced at it now, but without interest; she was very tired, it was almost bed-time, and she had done, as she had every day since she first joined Herr Van de Greutz's household, a very good day's work. She had scarcely been outside the four walls since she first came there on the day after the holiday on the Dunes. This had been her own choice, for, unlike all the cooks who had been before her, she had asked for no evenings out. Marthe, the short-tempered housekeeper, had not troubled herself to wonder why, she had been only too pleased to accept the arrangement without comment. Apart from the self-chosen confinement, the life had been hard enough; the work was hard, the service hard and ill-paid, and both the other inmates of the house cross-grained, and difficult to please. These things, however, Julia did not mind; discomfort never mattered much to her when she had an end in view; in this case, too, the end should more than repay the worst of her two task-masters. Which was agreeable, and almost made his unpleasantness desirable, as providing her intended act with a justification.

She drew the coffee pot further on to the stove, and with a splinter of wood stirred the fire. She had the kitchen to herself, old Marthe had gone to bed; she liked going to bed early, with a glass of something hot, and she had soon found that the young cook could be trusted to finish the work down-stairs. It was her opinion that it is as well to be comfortable when you can, as blessings are fleeting and fickle, especially when they are cooks; so she indulged often both in bed and the glass, notably the glass. She had not been able to go to bed quite as early as she liked that day, for her master had a visitor, and there had been some trouble after the dinner. It was intended to be an hour later than usual to accommodate the visitor, but the chemist had not mentioned the fact—he seldom troubled about such trifles, expecting his household to divine his wishes instinctively, and resenting their failure to do so with indignation and some abuse. He did so to-day, and Marthe was consequently kept up later than she had intended, though it was Julia who came in for most of the reproof, and the trouble too; it was she who took away the dinner and kept it hot, and presented it afresh when the time came in as good condition as she could manage. There had to be a second omelet made; the first would not stand an hour, and so was wasted, to the indignation of Marthe. The chicken was a trifle dried by waiting, which called down the wrath of Herr Van de Greutz. Julia had listened to both of them with a meekness which was beautiful to see, albeit perhaps a little suspicious in one of her nature.

She glanced up at the clock now, then rose and fetched two thick white coffee cups, and set them ready on a tray, and sat down again. She wondered drowsily how long Herr Van de Greutz's visitor would stay. He was a German, a very great scientist; the chemist looked upon him as a friend and an equal, a brother in arms; they talked together freely in the cryptic language of science, and in German, which is the tongue best fitted to help out the other. Julia heard them when she went to and from with the dishes at dinner time. She did not understand chemistry, a fact she much regretted; had she known even half as much as Rawson-Clew, the desired end would have been much sooner within reach. It is a very great disadvantage to have only a very vague idea what it is you want. But she did understand German very well, consequently part of the chemists' conversation was quite intelligible to her, though they did not know it. Herr Van de Greutz knew and cared nothing about her; he was not even aware that she was English, though, of course, old Marthe was.

If the conversation had touched on the famous explosive at dinner time, Julia would have known it; she was always on the watch for some such occurrence. Unfortunately it had not, although, as she saw plainly, the German was the sort of man with whom Van de Greutz would discuss such things. She had still another chance of hearing something; she would soon have to take the coffee into the laboratory; they might be speaking of it then. She remembered once before Van de Greutz had spoken of it to a scientific guest at such a time; she had then heard some unenlightening technical details, which might have been of some value to a chemist, but were of no use at all to her ignorance. It was hard to come thus near, and yet be as far off as ever, but such things are likely to occur when one is in pursuit of anything, Julia knew that; she was prepared to wait, by and by she would find out what it was she wanted, and then—

A bell rang peremptorily; she hastily poured the strong black coffee into the two cups, and put a bottle of Schiedam on the tray. As she did so she noticed that it was nearly empty, so she fetched another full one, and added that to the tray. The bell did not ring again, although getting the second bottle had hindered her, for by this time the chemists had forgotten they wanted coffee. When she entered the laboratory, Herr Van de Greutz had just taken a bottle from the lower part of a cupboard near the door. Second shelf from the floor, five bottles from the left-hand corner. Julia observed the place with self-trained accuracy as she passed Herr Van de Greutz with the tray, which she carried to the table far down the room.

"This is it," Van de Greutz said; "a small quantity only, you see, but the authorities have a ridiculous objection to one's keeping any large one of explosive. Of course, I have more, in a stone house in my garden; it is perhaps safer so, seeing its nature, and the fact that one is always liable to small accidents in a laboratory."

Julia put down the tray, but upset some of the coffee. Seeing that excitement had not usually the effect of making her hand unsteady, it is possible accident had not much to do with it. However, it happened; she carefully wiped it up, and the two chemists, paying no more attention to her than if she had been a cat, went on speaking of the explosive. It was the explosive; their talk told her that before she had finished the wiping.

"The formula I would give for it?" Van de Greutz was saying; as she sopped up the last drops, he gave the formula.

She lifted the full bottle of Schiedam from the tray, and carried it away with her—in the hand farthest from the chemist's, certainly, but with as little concealment as ostentation. Near the door she glanced at the German, or rather, at what he held, the sample of the explosive. It was a white powder in a wide-necked, stoppered bottle of the size Julia herself called "quarter pint." The bottle was not more than two-thirds full, and had no mark on it at all, except a small piece of paper stuck to the side, and inscribed with the single letter "A." This may have been done in accordance with some private system of Herr Van de Greutz's, or it may have been for the sake of secrecy. The reason did not matter; the most accurate name would have been no more informing to Julia, but decidedly more inconvenient.

She went out and shut the door quietly; then she literally fled back to the kitchen with the Schiedam. Scarcely waiting to set it down, she seized a slip of kitchen paper, and scribbled on it the string of letters and figures that Herr Van de Greutz had given as the formula of his explosive. She did not know what a formula was, nor in what relation it stood to the chemical body, but from the talks she had heard between the chemist and his friends, she guessed it to be something important. Accordingly, when he said the formula, she was as careful to remember it accurately as she was to remember the place of the bottle on the shelf. Now she wrote it down just as he spoke it, and, though perhaps not exactly as he would have written it, still comprehensible. She pinned the piece of paper in the cuff of her dress; it would not be found there if, by ill luck, she was caught and searched later on. Next she went to the kitchen cupboard; there were several wide-necked stoppered bottles there, doubtless without the chemist's knowledge, but Marthe found them convenient for holding spices, and ginger, and such things. She took the one nearest in shape and size to the one which she had seen in the German's hand; emptied out the contents, dusted it and put in ground rice till it was two-thirds full. Then, with the lap-scissors, she trimmed a piece of paper to the right size, wrote "A" upon it, and stuck it to the side of the bottle with a dab of treacle—she had nothing else. She was hastily wiping off the surplus stickiness when the bell rang again. She finished what she was doing, and shrouded the bottle in a duster, so that there was another summons before she could set out. She took the Schiedam with her—of course it was that which was rung for, but also the bottle in the duster.

She did not hurry. "I'll give him time to put the explosive back," she thought. It was just possible that it would be set on a bench, perhaps in an awkward place, but from her knowledge of Van de Greutz's ways she guessed not. It was also, of course, possible that the cupboard where it was kept would be locked; in that case, nothing could be done just now—annoying, but not desperate; ground rice will keep, and, apparently, explosives too, so she reflected as she opened the laboratory door. But the cupboard was not locked, and the bottle was back in its place. Another from the shelf above had been taken out; the chemists were discussing that as they sat smoking cigars at the table far down the room, where the coffee cups stood.

"More Schiedam!" Herr Van de Greutz said, throwing the words at Julia over his shoulder. "Why did you bring an empty bottle?"

"I am sorry, Mijnheer," Julia answered; "there was not much, I know; I have brought more."

She pushed the door to with her foot as she spoke, and with the hand not carrying the spirit set down the duster and the bottle it held on a chair. The German had put his coat over the chair earlier; it stood in front of the cupboard, a little way from it. With the true rogue's eye for cover, Julia noted the value of its position, and even improved it by moving it a little to the left as she knocked against it in passing.

She brought the Schiedam to the table. "Shall I take the cups, Mijnheer?" she asked.

"Yes," Van de Greutz answered shortly, resenting the interruption, "and go to the devil. As I was saying, it is very unstable."

This was to the German, and did not concern Julia; she took the tray of cups and went. But near the door there was an iron tripod lying on the floor; she caught her foot in it, stumbled and fell headlong, dropping tray and cups with a great clatter.

There was a general exclamation of annoyance and anger from Van de Greutz, of surprise and commiseration from the German, and of something that might have been fright or pain from Julia.

"You clumsy fool!" Van de Greutz cried. "Get out of here, and don't let me see your face, or hear your trampling ass-hoofs again! Do you hear me, I won't have you in here again!"

The German was more sympathetic. "Have you hurt yourself?" he asked.

"No, Mijnheer, nothing," Julia answered; "only a little—my knees and elbows." Had she been playing Othello, though she might not have blacked herself all over, it is certain she would have carried the black a long way below high water mark. This was no painless stage stumble, but one with real bruises and a real thud.

The German had half risen; perhaps he thought of coming to help pick up the pieces of broken cups that were scattered between the cupboard and the chair. But he did not do so, for Herr Van de Greutz went on to speak of his unstable compound.

"I treated it with—" he said, and, seeing this was something very daring, the other's attention was caught.

Julia picked up the pieces alone, and carried them out on the tray, and on the tray also she carried a bottle wrapped into a duster. It was a wide-necked stoppered bottle, two-thirds full of white powder; very much like the one she had brought in, but also very much like the one that stood five from the end on the second shelf of the cupboard.

Soon after that she went up to her room, and took the bottle with her. Then, when she had set it in a place of safety, and securely locked the door, she broke into a silent laugh of delighted amusement. She pictured to herself Herr Van de Greutz's face when, in company with some other chemist, he found the ground rice, while his cook with the "ass-hoofs" carried the explosive to her native land.

"What a thief I should make," was her own opinion of herself. "I believe I could do as well as Grimm's 'Master Thief,' who stole the parson and clerk." She took up the bottle and shook a little of the contents into her hand; she had not the least idea how it was set off, whether a blow, a fall, or heat would reveal its dangerous characteristics. For a little she looked at it with curiosity and satisfaction. But gradually the satisfaction faded; the excitement of the chase was over, and the prize, now it was won, did not seem a great thing. She set the bottle down rather distastefully, and turned away.

"He could not have got the stuff," she told herself defiantly—"he" was Rawson-Clew—but the next moment, with the justice she dealt herself, she admitted, "Because he would not get it this way; he is not rogue enough; while as for me—I am a born rogue."

She pushed open the window and looked out, although it was quite dark, and the air pervaded with a cold, rank smell of wet vegetation. She was thinking of the other piece of roguery which she had meant to commit, and yet had not. She had the bulb, in spite of that; it was safe among her clothes—hers by a free gift, hers absolutely, yet as unable to be sold as the lock of a dead mother's hair. The debt of honour could not be paid by that. From her heart she wished she had not got the daffodil; she put it in the same category with Mr. Gillat's watch, as one of the things which made her ashamed of herself and of her life, even of this last act, and the very skill that had made it easy.

She took up the bottle again, and for a moment considered whether she should give it back to Herr Van de Greutz—not personally, that would hardly be safe; but she could post it from England after she left his service. But she did not do so; Rawson-Clew stood in the way; it was for him she had taken it, and her purpose in him still stood. He wanted the explosive, it would be to his credit and honour to have it; the government service to which he belonged would think highly of him if he had it—if he received it anonymously, so that he could not tell from whence it came, and they could not divide the credit of getting it between him and another. He wanted it, and he had been good to her. He had been kind when she was in trouble; he had not believed her when she had called herself dishonest; he had treated her as an equal, in spite of the affair at Marbridge, and he had asked her to marry him when he thought she was compromised by the holiday in the Dunes. For a moment her mind strayed from the point at issue, to that offer of marriage. She remembered the exact wording of the letter as if she had but just received it, and it pleased her afresh. She did not regret that she had refused him; nothing else had been possible. She did not want to marry him; albeit, when they had sat together under his coat, she had not shrunk from contact with him as she had shrunk from Joost when he had tried to take her hand—that was certainly strange. But she was quite sure she did not want to marry him; now she came to think about it, she could imagine that, were she a girl of his own class, with the looks, training and knowledge that belonged, she might have found him precisely the man she would have wanted to marry.

She went to a drawer and took out an old handkerchief. She was not a girl of that sort—deep down she felt inarticulately the old primitive consciousness of inferiority and superiority, at once jealous and contemptuous; marrying him and living always on his plane were alike impossible to her, but she could give him the explosive. There was not one girl among all those others who could have got it and given it to him!

She tore a piece from the handkerchief, and fastened it over the stopper of the bottle; then she got out a hat trimmed with bows of wide ribbon, and sewed the bottle into the centre bow. It presented rather a bulgy appearance, but by a little pulling of the other trimming it was hardly noticeable, and really nothing is too peculiar to be worn on the head. After that she went to bed.

* * * * *

There was trouble in Herr Van de Greutz's kitchen the next day; the young cook, who had behaved so admirably before, did what old Marthe called "showing the cloven hoof." She was impertinent, she was idle; she broke dishes, she wasted eggs, and she lighted a roaring fire in the big stove, in spite of the strict economy of fuel which was one of the first rules of the household. Finally she announced that she must have a day's holiday. Marthe refused point blank, whereupon the cook said she should take it, and a dispute ensued; Marthe called her several names, and reminded her of the fact that she had no character, and that she had confessed to being obliged to leave the Van Heigens in haste. Julia retorted that that fact was known to the housekeeper when she engaged her, and was the reason of the starvation wage offered. Marthe then inquired what enormity it was that she had committed at the Van Heigens', and intimated that it must be disgraceful indeed for a person, pretending to be a lady-help, to be thankful to accept the situation of cook. Julia's answer was scarcely polite, and very well calculated to rouse the old woman further, and, at the same time, she opened the door and skilfully worked herself and her antagonist into the passage, and some way up it, raising her voice so as to incite the other to raise hers. The result was that soon the noise reached Herr Van de Greutz.

Out he came in a great rage, ordering them about their business, and abusing them roundly. Marthe hurried back to the kitchen, effectually silenced, but Julia remained; she had not got her dismissal yet, and it was imperative she should get it, for there was no telling when the ground rice would be discovered. But she soon got what she wanted; after a very little more inciting, Herr Van de Greutz ordered her out of his house a great deal more peremptorily than she had been ordered out of the Van Heigens'. She was to go at once; she was to pack her things and go, and Marthe was to see that she took nothing but what was her own; she was the most untrustworthy and incompetent pig that the devil ever sent to spoil good food, and steal silver spoons.

To this Julia replied by asking for her wages. At first Van de Greutz refused; but Julia, with some effrontery, considering the circumstances, declined to go without them, so eventually he thought better of it and paid her. After that she and Marthe went up-stairs, and she packed and Marthe looked on, closely scrutinising everything. When all was done, and she herself dressed, she walked out of the house, with the formula fastened inside her cuff, and the explosive balanced on her head. And the old man who did the rough work about the place came with her, wheeling her luggage on a barrow as far as the gate. Here he shot it out, and left her to wait till she might hail some passing cart, and so get herself conveyed to the town.



CHAPTER XIII

THE HEIRESS

There was a fog on the river and while the tide was low no craft moved; but with its rising there came a stir of life, the mist that crept low on the brown water became articulate with syren voices and the thud of screws and the wash of water churned by belated boats. The steamers called eerily, out of the distance a heart-broken cry like no other thing on earth, suddenly near at hand a hoot terrific; but nothing was to be seen except rarely when out of the yellow impenetrableness a hull rose abruptly, a vague dark mass almost within touching distance. Julia stood on deck and listened while the little Dutch boat crept up; she found something fascinating in this strange, shrouded river, haunted, like a stream of the nether world, with lamentable bodiless voices. The fog had delayed them, of course; the afternoon was now far advanced; they had been compelled to wait some long time while the tide was down, and even now that it was coming up, they could go but slowly. The last through train to Marbridge would have left Paddington before the Tower Stairs were reached; but Julia did not mind that; she would go to Mr. Gillat; she could get a room at the house where he lodged for one night; she was glad at the thought of seeing Johnny again. Johnny, who knew the worst and loved and trusted still.

Gradually the fog lifted, not clearing right away, but enough for the last of the sunset to show smoky, rose in a wonderful tawny sky. All the russet-brown water kindled, each ripple edge catching a gleam of yellow, except to the eastward, where, by some trick of light, the main stream looked like a pool of dull silver, all pale and cold and holy. The wharves and factories on the banks revealed themselves, heavy black outlines, pinnacled with chimneys like some far-off spired city. All the craft that filled the river became clear too, those that lay still waiting repairs or cargo or the flood of the incoming tide, and those that moved—the black Norwegian timber boats, the dirty tramp steamers from far-off seas, the smooth grey-hulled liners, the long strings of loaded barges, that followed one another up the great waterway like camels in a desert caravan. Julia stood on deck and watched it all, and to her there seemed a certain sombre beauty and a something that moved her, though she could not tell why, with a curious baseless pride of race. And while she watched, the twilight fell, and the colours turned to purple and grey, and the lights twinkled out in the shipping and along the shore—hundreds and hundreds of lights; and gradually, like the murmur of the sea in a shell, the roar of the city grew on the ear, till at last the little boat reached the Stairs, where the old grey fortress looks down on the new grey bridge, and the restless river below.

A waterman put Julia ashore, after courtesies from the Custom House officers, and a porter took her and her belongings to Mark Lane station, from whence it was not difficult to get approximately near Berwick Street.

Mr. Gillat was not expecting visitors; he had no reason to imagine any one would come to see him; he did not imagine that the rings at the front bell could concern him; even when he heard steps coming up-stairs he only thought it was another lodger. It was not till Julia opened the door of the back room he now occupied that he had the least idea any one had come to see him.

"Julia!" he exclaimed, when he saw her standing on the threshold. "Dear, dear, dear me!"

"Yes," Julia said, "it really is I. I'm back again, you see;" and she came in and shut the door.

"Bless my soul!" Johnny said; "bless my soul! You're home again!"

"On my way home; I can't get to Marbridge to-night very comfortably, and I wanted to see you, so here I am. I have arranged with your landlady to let me have a room."

Mr. Gillat appeared quite overcome with joy and surprise, and it seemed to Julia, nervousness too. He led her to a chair; "Won't you sit down?" he said, placing it so that it commanded a view of the window and nothing else.

Julia sat down; she did not need to look at the room; she had already mastered most of its details. When she first came in she had seen that it was small and poor—a back bedroom, nothing more; an iron bed, not too tidy, stood in one corner, a washstand, with dirty water in the basin, in another. There was a painted chest of drawers opposite the window; one leg was missing, its place being supplied by a pile of old school-books; the top was adorned with a piece of newspaper in lieu of a cover, and one of the drawers stood partly open; no human efforts could get it shut, so Mr. Gillat's wardrobe was exposed to the public gaze—if the public happened to look that way. Julia did not; nor did she look towards the fire-place, where a very large towel-horse with a very small towel upon it acted as a stove ornament—plain proof that fires were unknown there. She looked across Mr. Gillat's cheap lamp to the window and the vista of chimney pots, which were very well in view, for the blind refused to come down and only draped the upper half of the window in a drooping fashion.

Johnny stood against the chest of drawers, striving vainly to push the refractory drawer shut, although he knew by experience it was quite impossible. She could see him without turning her head; he was shabbier than ever; even his tie—his one extravagance used to be gay ties—was shabby, and his shoes would hardly keep on his feet. His round pink face was still round and pink; he did not look exactly older, though his grizzled little moustache was greyer, only somehow more puzzled and hurt by the ways of fate. Julia knew that that was the way he would age; experience would never teach him anything, although, as she suddenly realised, it had been trying lately.

She turned away from the window; "I have left my luggage at the station," she said; "I got out what I wanted in the waiting-room and brought it along in a parcel. I think I'll take it to my room now, if you don't mind, and wash my face and get rid of my hat—it is very heavy. I shan't be long."

She rose as she spoke, and Johnny bustled to open the door for her, too much a gentleman, in spite of all, to show he was glad to have her go and give him a chance to clear up. At the door she paused.

"You need not order supper, Johnny," she said; "I've seen about that."

Johnny stopped, his face a shade pinker. "Oh, but," he protested, "you shouldn't do that; you mustn't do that. I'll tell Mrs. Horn we won't have it; I'll make it all right with her; I was just going out to get a—a pork pie for myself."

It is to be feared this statement was no more veracious than Julia's, and certainly it was not nearly so well made; it would not have deceived a far less astute person than she, while hers would have deceived a far more astute person than he.

"A pork pie?" Julia said. "You have no business to eat such things in the evening at your time of life. I tell you I have settled supper; we had much better have what I have got. I could not bring you a present home from Holland; I left in a hurry, so I have bought supper instead. It is my present to you—and myself—I have selected just what I thought I could eat best; one has fancies, you know, after one has been seasick."

It would require an ingeniously bad sailor to be seasick while a Dutch cargo boat crept up the Thames in a fog, but Julia never spared the trimmings when she did do any lying. Johnny was quite satisfied and let her go to take off her hat—and the precious explosive which she still carried in it.

While she was gone he tidied the room to the best of his ability. He regretted that he had nowhere better to ask her; if he had the sitting-room he occupied when Rawson-Clew came in September, he would have felt quite grand. But that was a thing of the past, so he made the best of circumstances and went to the reckless extravagance of sixpenny worth of fire. When Julia came in, the towel-horse had been removed from the fender, and a fire was sputtering awkwardly in the grate, while Mr. Gillat, proud as a school-boy who has planned a surprise treat, was trying to coax the smoke up the damp chimney.

"Johnny!" Julia exclaimed, "what extravagance! It's quite a warm night, too!"

Johnny smiled delightedly. "I thought you'd be cold after your journey; you look quite pale and pinched," he said; "seasickness does leave one feeling chilly."

Julia repented of that unnecessary trimming of hers. "It is nice to have a fire," she said, striving not to cough at the choking smoke; "I don't need it a bit, but I don't know anything I should have enjoyed more; why, I haven't seen a real fire since I left England!"

She broke off to take the tongs from Mr. Gillat, who, in his efforts to improve the draught, had managed to shut the register. She opened it again, and in a little had the fire burning nicely. Johnny looked on and admired, and at her suggestion opened the window to let out the smoke. After that she managed to persuade the blind down, and, what is more, mended it so that it would go up again; then Mr. Gillat cleared the dressing-table and pulled it out into the middle of the room, and by that time supper was ready—fried steak and onions and bottled beer, with jam puffs and strong black coffee to follow—not exactly the things for one lately suffering from seasickness, but Julia tried them all except the bottled beer and seemed none the worse for it. And as for Johnny, if you had searched London over you could have found nothing more to his taste. He was a little troubled at the thought of what Julia must have spent, but she assured him she had her wages, so he was content. Seldom was one happier than Mr. Gillat at that supper, or afterwards, when the table was cleared and they drew up to the fire. They sat one each side of the fender on cane-seated chairs, the coffee on the hob, and Johnny smoking a Dutch cigar of Julia's providing. One can buy them at the railway stations in Holland, and she had scarcely more pleasure in giving them to Johnny than she had in smuggling home more than the permitted quantity.

"Now tell me about things," Julia said.

Johnny's face fell a little. During supper they had talked about her affairs and experiences, none of the unpleasant ones; she was determined not to have the supper spoiled by anything. Now, however, she felt that the time had come to hear the other side of things.

"I suppose father has been to town?" she remarked; she knew only too well that nothing else could account for Mr. Gillat's reduced circumstances. "When did he go?"

"He has not been gone much more than a week," Johnny said; "think of that now! If he'd stayed only a fortnight more he'd have been here to-night; it is a pity!"

"I don't think it is at all," Julia said frankly; "the pity is he ever came."

Johnny rubbed his hand along his chair. "Well, well," he said, "your mother wished it; she knows what she is about; she is a wonderful woman, a wonderful woman. I did what you told me, I really did."

Julia was sure of that, but she was also sure now that he had not been a match for her mother.

"I went down to Marbridge a week before your father was supposed to be coming to town; I warned him very likely I should have to go away, just as you said—and the very day I went to Marbridge he came to town, the very day—a week earlier than was talked of."

Julia could not repress an inclination to smile, not only at the neat way in which her mother had checkmated her, but also at the thought of that lady's face when Mr. Gillat presented himself at Marbridge, just as she was congratulating herself on being rid of the Captain.

"What happened?" she asked. "Did mother send you back to town again?"

"She did not send me," Mr. Gillat answered; "but, of course, I had to go, as she said; there was your father all alone here; it would be very dull for him; I couldn't leave him. Besides, he is not—not a strong man, it would be better—she would feel more easy if she thought he had his old friend with him, to see he didn't get into—you know."

"I know," Julia answered; "mother told you all this, then she paid your fare back again."

"Not paid my fare," Mr. Gillat corrected; "a lady could not offer to do such a thing; do you think I would ever have allowed it? I couldn't you know."

Julia's lips set straight; she had something of a man's contempt for small meannesses, and it is possible her judgment on this economy of her mother's was harder than any she had for the unjustifiable extravagances at which she guessed. She did not say anything of it to Mr. Gillat, she was too ashamed; not that he saw it in that light; he didn't think he had been in any way badly used, he never did.

"Well," she said, "then you came back to town and looked after father to the best of your abilities? I suppose you could not do much good?"

Johnny rubbed his hand along his chair again for a little. "You see," he said hesitatingly, "it was very dull for him; of course he wanted amusement."

"And of course he had it, though he could not afford it, and you paid?"

"Not to any great extent; oh, dear no, not to any great extent."

"No, because you had not got 'any great extent' to spend; what you had, limited the amount, I suppose, nothing else."

Mr. Gillat ignored this. "Your father," he said, rather uneasily, looking at her and then away again, "your father never had a very strong head, he—you know—he—"

"Has taken to drink?" Julia asked baldly. "As well as gambling he drinks now?"

"Oh, no," Johnny said quickly, "not exactly, that is—he does take more than he used, more than is good for him sometimes; not much is good for him, you know—he does take more, it is no good pretending he does not. But it was very dull for him; it did not suit him being here, I think; he used to get so low in spirits, what with his losses and feeling he was not wanted at home. He thinks a great deal of your mother, and he could not but feel that she does not think much of him to send him away like that; it hurt him, although, as he said to me more than once, no doubt he deserved it. It preyed on his mind; he seemed to want something to cheer him."

Julia nodded; she could understand the effect well enough, though the causes at work might not be quite clear. To her young judgment it seemed a little strange that her father should have never realised what a cumberer of the ground he was to his wife until she banished him "for his health." But so it evidently was, and after all she could believe it; like some others he had "made such a sinner of his conscience," that he could believe, not only his own lie, but the legends woven about him. They had all pretended things, he and they also; his position, too, had come gradually, he had got to accept it without thinking before it was an established fact. But now the truth had been brought home to him—more or less—and he was miserable, and, according to the custom of his sort, set to making bad worse as soon as ever he discovered it.

"Why did he go home last week?" she aroused herself to ask.

"He thought it his duty," was Johnny's surprising answer. "No, Mrs. Polkington did not send for him, she did not know he was coming; he decided for himself, he felt it would be better."

Mr. Gillat rambled on vaguely, but Julia was not slow to guess that the principal reason was to be found in the state of Johnny's finances. She questioned him as to when he had moved into the back room, and, finding it to be not long before her father's departure, guessed that discomfort, like the husks of the prodigal son, had awakened the thing dignified by the name of duty.

For a little she sat in silence, thinking matters over. Johnny smoked hard at the stump of his cigar, mended the fire and fidgeted, looking sideways at her.

"Don't worry about it," he ventured at last; "things'll look up, they will; when he's back at Marbridge with your mother he'll be all right. She always had a great influence over him, she had, indeed."

Julia said "Yes." But he did not feel there was much enthusiasm in the monosyllable, so he cast about in his mind for something to cheer her and thus remembered a very important matter.

"What an old fool I am!" he exclaimed. "There's something I ought to have told you the moment you came in, and I've clean forgotten it until now; it's good news, too! There is a lawyer wants to see you."

"What about?" Julia asked; she did not seem to naturally associate a lawyer with good news.

"A legacy," Johnny answered triumphantly.

Julia was much astonished; she could not imagine from whence it came, but before she asked she made the business-like inquiry, "How much?"

"Not a great deal, I'm afraid," Mr. Gillat was obliged to say; "still, a little's a help, you know; it may be a great help; you remember your father's Aunt Jane?"

Julia did, or rather she remembered the name. Great-aunt Jane was one of the relations the Polkingtons did not use; she was not rich enough or obliging enough to give any help, nor grand enough for conversational purposes. She never figured in Mrs. Polkington's talk except vaguely as "one of my husband's people in Norfolk;" this when she was explaining that the Captain came of East Anglian stock on his mother's side. Jane was only a step-aunt to the Captain; his mother had married above her family, her half-sister Jane had married a little beneath—a small farmer, in fact, whose farming had got smaller still before he died, which was long ago. Great-aunt Jane could not have much to leave any one, but, as Mr. Gillat said, anything was better than nothing; the real surprise was why it should have been left to Julia.

She asked Johnny about it, but he could not tell her much; he really knew very little except that there was something, and that the lawyer wanted her address and was annoyed when her relations could not give it. Indeed, even went so far as to think they would not, and that it would be his duty to take steps unless she was forthcoming soon.

"I had better go to his office to-morrow," Julia said; "I suppose you know where it is?"

Mr. Gillat did, and they arranged how they would go to-morrow, Johnny, who was to wait outside, solely for the pleasure and excitement of the expedition. After that they talked about the legacy and its probable amount for some time.

"I suppose no other benefactor came inquiring for me while I was away?" Julia said, after she had, to please Johnny and not her practical self, built several air castles with the legacy.

"No," Mr. Gillat said regretfully, "I'm afraid not; no one else asked for you. At least, some one did; a Mr. Rawson-Clew came here for your address."

"Did he though?" Julia asked; "Did he, indeed? What did he want it for?"

"Well, I don't know," Johnny was obliged to say; "I don't know that he gave any reason exactly; he said he had met you in Holland. I thought he was a friend of yours, he seemed to know a good deal about you."

"He was a friend," Julia said; "that was quite right. And so he came for my address. When was this?"

Johnny gave the approximate date, and Julia asked: "Why did he come to you?"

Mr. Gillat did not quite know unless it was because he had failed elsewhere. "But he really came to see your father," he said.

"Did he see him?" Julia inquired.

"No, he was out. To tell the truth, I don't believe your father ever knew he came," Johnny confessed; "I meant to tell him, of course, but he was late home that day, and when he came he was—was—well, you know, he couldn't—it didn't seem—"

"Yes," said Julia, coming to the rescue, "he was drunk and could not understand, and afterwards you forgot it; it does not matter; indeed, it is better so; I am glad of it."

Mr. Gillat was fumbling in his shabby letter-case; he took out a card; it bore Rawson-Clew's name and address of a London club.

"He gave me this," he said, "and told me to let him know if I heard from you, if you were in any trouble, or anything—if I thought you were."

Julia held out her hand. "You had better give it to me," she said; "I'll let him know all that is necessary. Thank you;" and she put the card away.

Soon after she went to her room, for it was growing late. But she did not hurry over undressing; indeed, when she sat down to take off her stockings, she paused with one in her hand, thinking of Rawson-Clew. So he had tried to find out where she was; he did not then accept her answer as final; he was bent on seeing that she came to no harm through him—honourable, certainly, and like him. He had come to Berwick Street and nearly seen her father—drunk; quite seen Mr. Gillat, in the first floor sitting-room certainly, but no doubt shabby and not very wise as usual. She was not ashamed; though for a moment she had been glad he had missed her father; now she told herself it did not matter either way. He knew what she was and what her people were; what did it matter if he realised it a little more? They were not of his sort, it was no good pretending for a moment that they were. His sort! She laughed silently at the thought. The girls of his sort eating steak and onions in a back bedroom with Johnny Gillat! Caring for Johnny as she cared, liking to sit with him in the pokey little room while he smoked Dutch cigars; not doing it out of kindness of heart and charity, but finding personal pleasure in it and a sense of home-coming! If Rawson-Clew had come that evening while they were at supper, or while she cured the smoky fire or mended the blind, or while they sipped black coffee out of earthenware breakfast-cups and talked of her father's delinquencies! It would not have mattered; he knew she was of the stoke-hole—she had told him so—and not like the accomplished girls whom he usually met—who could not have got him the explosive!

She dropped her stocking to take the wide-necked bottle in her hands, deciding now how best to send it. It must go by post, in a good-sized wooden box, tightly packed, with a great deal of damp straw and wool; it ought to be safe that way. She would send it to the club address, it was fortunate she had it; but not yet, not until her own plans were clearer. It was just possible he might suspect her; it was hardly likely, but it was always as well to provide against remote contingencies, for if he tried and succeeded in verifying the suspicion everything would be spoiled. He had made sensible efforts to find her before, he might make equally sensible and more successful ones again, unless she left a way of escape clear for herself. Accordingly, so she determined, the explosive should not go yet, thought it had better be packed ready. She would get a box and packing to-morrow; to-night she could only copy the formula. She did this, printing it carefully on a strip of paper which she put on the bottle and coated with wax from her candle. She knew Herr Van de Greutz waxed labels sometimes to preserve them from the damp, so she felt sure the formula would be safe however wet she might make the packing.

The next day she went to the lawyer's office and heard all about the legacy and what she must do to prove her own identity and claim it. Mr. Gillat waited outside, pacing up and down the street, striving so hard to look casual that he aroused the suspicions of a not too acute policeman. The official was reassured, however, when Julia came out of the office and carried Johnny away to hear about the legacy.

"It is more than I thought," she said, before they were half down the street. "Fifty pounds a year, a small house—not much more than a cottage—and a garden and field; that's about what it comes to. The house is not worth much; it is in an unget-at-able part of Norfolk, in the sandy district towards the sea—the man spoke as if I knew where that was, but I don't—and the garden and field are not fertile. I don't suppose one could let the place, but one could live in it, if one wanted to."