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The Project Gutenberg Etext of Demos
by George Gissing
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Title: Demos

Author: George Gissing

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Edited by Charles Aldarondo

George Gissing

Demos





CHAPTER I





Stanbury Hill, remote but two hours' walk from a region blasted with
mine and factory and furnace, shelters with its western slope a fair
green valley, a land of meadows and orchard, untouched by poisonous
breath. At its foot lies the village of Wanley. The opposite side of
the hollow is clad with native wood, skirting for more than a mile
the bank of a shallow stream, a tributary of the Severn. Wanley
consists in the main of one long street; the houses are stone-built,
with mullioned windows, here and there showing a picturesque gable
or a quaint old chimney. The oldest buildings are four cottages
which stand at the end of the street; once upon a time they formed
the country residence of the abbots of Belwick. The abbey of that
name still claims for its ruined self a portion of earth's surface;
but, as it had the misfortune to be erected above the thickest
coal-seam in England, its walls are blackened with the fume of
collieries and shaken by the strain of mighty engines. Climb
Stanbury Hill at nightfall, and, looking eastward, you behold far
off a dusky ruddiness in the sky, like the last of an angry sunset;
with a glass you can catch glimpses of little tongues of flame,
leaping and quivering on the horizon. That is Belwick. The good
abbots, who were wont to come out in the summer time to Wanley,
would be at a loss to recognise their consecrated home in those
sooty relics. Belwick, with its hundred and fifty fire-vomiting
blast-furnaces, would to their eyes more nearly resemble a certain
igneous realm of which they thought much in their sojourn upon
earth, and which, we may assure ourselves, they dream not of in the
quietness of their last long sleep.

A large house, which stands aloof from the village and a little
above it, is Wanley Manor. The county history tells us that Wanley
was given in the fifteenth century to that same religious
foundation, and that at the dissolution of monasteries the Manor
passed into the hands of Queen Catherine. The house is
half-timbered; from the height above it looks old and peaceful amid
its immemorial trees. Towards the end of the eighteenth century it
became the home of a family named Eldon, the estate including the
greater part of the valley below. But an Eldon who came into
possession when William IV. was King brought the fortunes of his
house to a low ebb, and his son, seeking to improve matters by
abandoning his prejudices and entering upon commercial speculation,
in the end left a widow and two boys with little more to live upon
than the income which arose from Mrs. Eldon's settlements. The Manor
was shortly after this purchased by a Mr. Mutimer, a Belwick
ironmaster; but Mrs. Eldon and her boys still inhabited the house,
in consequence of certain events which will shortly be narrated.
Wanley would have mourned their departure; they were the aristocracy
of the neighbourhood, and to have them ousted by a name which no one
knew, a name connected only with blast-furnaces, would have made a
distinct fall in the tone of Wanley society. Fortunately no changes
were made in the structure by its new owner. Not far from it you see
the church and the vicarage, these also unmolested in their quiet
age. Wanley, it is to be feared, lags far behind the times--painfully
so, when one knows for a certainty that the valley upon which it
looks conceals treasures of coal, of ironstone--blackband, to be
technical--and of fireclay. Some ten years ago it seemed as if
better things were in store; there was a chance that the vale
might for ever cast off its foolish greenery, and begin vomiting
smoke and flames in humble imitation of its metropolis beyond the
hills. There are men in Belwick who have an angry feeling whenever
Wanley is mentioned to them.

After the inhabitants of the Manor, the most respected of those who
dwelt in Wanley were the Walthams. At the time of which I speak,
this family consisted of a middle-aged lady; her son, of
one-and-twenty; and her daughter, just eighteen. They had resided
here for little more than two years, but a gentility which marked
their speech and demeanour, and the fact that they were well
acquainted with the Eldons, from the first caused them to be looked
up to. It was conjectured, and soon confirmed by Mrs. Waltham's own
admissions, that they had known a larger way of living than that to
which they adapted themselves in the little house on the side of
Stanbury Hill, whence they looked over the village street. Mr.
Waltham had, in fact, been a junior partner in a Belwick firm, which
came to grief. He saved enough out of the wreck to: make a modest
competency for his family, and would doubtless in time have
retrieved his fortune, but death was beforehand with him. His wife,
in the second year of her widowhood, came with her daughter Adela to
Wanley; her son Alfred had gone to commercial work in Belwick. Mrs.
Waltham was a prudent woman, and tenacious of ideas which
recommended themselves to her practical instincts; such an idea had
much to do with her settlement in the remote village, which she
would not have chosen for her abode out of love of its old-world
quietness. But at the Manor was Hubert Eldon. Hubert was four years
older than Adela. He had no fortune of his own, but it was tolerably
certain that some day he would be enormously rich, and there was
small likelihood that he would marry till that expected change in
his position came about.

On the afternoon of a certain Good Friday, Mrs. Waltham sat at her
open window, enjoying the air and busy with many thoughts, among
other things wondering who was likely to drop in for a cup of tea.
It was a late Easter, and warm spring weather had already clothed
the valley with greenness; to-day the sun was almost hot, and the
west wind brought many a sweet odour from gardens near and far. From
her sitting-room Mrs. Waltham had the best view to be obtained from
any house in Wanley; she looked, as I have said, right over the
village street, and on either hand the valley spread before her a
charming prospect. Opposite was the wooded slope, freshening now
with exquisite shades of new-born leafage; looking north, she saw
fruit-gardens, making tender harmonies; southwards spread verdure
and tillage. Yet something there was which disturbed the otherwise
perfect unity of the scene, an unaccustomed trouble to the eye. In
the very midst of the vale, perhaps a quarter of a mile to the south
of the village, one saw what looked like the beginning of some
engineering enterprise--a great throwing-up of earth, and the
commencement of a roadway on which metal rails were laid. What was
being done? The work seemed too extensive for a mere scheme of
drainage. Whatever the undertaking might be, it was now at a
standstill, seeing that old Mr. Mutimer, the owner of the land, had
been in his grave just three days, and no one as yet could say
whether his heir would or would not pursue this novel project. Mrs.
Waltham herself felt that the view was spoilt, though her
appreciation of nature was not of the keenest, and she would never
have thought of objecting to a scheme which would produce money at
the cost of the merely beautiful.

'I scarcely think Hubert will continue it,' she was musing to
herself. 'He has enough without that, and his tastes don't lie in
that direction.'

She had on her lap a local paper, at which she glanced every now and
then; but her state of mind was evidently restless. The road on
either side of which stood the houses of the village led on to the
Manor, and in that direction Mrs. Waltham gazed frequently. The
church clock chimed half-past four, and shortly after a rosy-cheeked
young girl came at a quick step up the gravelled pathway which made
the approach to the Walthams' cottage. She saw Mrs. Waltham at the
window, and, when she was near, spoke.

'Is Adela at home?'

'No, Letty; she's gone for a walk with her brother.'

'I'm so sorry!' said the girl, whose voice was as sweet as her face
was pretty. 'We wanted her to come for croquet. Yet I was half
afraid to come and ask her whilst Mr. Alfred was at home.'

She laughed, and at the same time blushed a little.

'Why should you be afraid of Alfred?' asked Mrs. Waltham graciously.

'Oh, I don't know.'

She turned it off and spoke quickly of another subject.

'How did you like Mr. Wyvern this morning?'

It was a new vicar, who had been in Wanley but a couple of days, and
had this morning officiated for the first time at the church.

'What a voice be has!' was the lady's reply.

'Hasn't he? And such a hairy man! They say he's very learned; but
his sermon was very simple--didn't you think so?'

'Yes, I liked it. Only he pronounces certain words strangely.'

'Oh, has Mr. Eldon come yet?' was the young lady's next question.

'He hadn't arrived this morning. Isn't it extraordinary? He must be
out of England.'

'But surely Mrs. Eldon knows his address, and he can't be so very
far away.'

As she spoke she looked down the pathway by which she had come, and
of a sudden her face exhibited alarm.

'Oh, Mrs. Waltham!' she whispered hurriedly. 'If Mr. Wyvern isn't
coming to see you! I'm afraid to meet him. Do let me pop in and hide
till I can get away without being seen.'

The front door stood ajar, and the girl at once ran into the house.
Mrs. Waltham came into the passage laughing.

'May I go to the top of the stairs?' asked the other nervously. 'You
know how absurdly shy I am. No, I'll run out into the garden behind;
then I can steal round as soon as he comes in.'

She escaped, and in a minute or two the new vicar presented himself
at the door. A little maid might well have some apprehension in
facing him, for Mr. Wyvern was of vast proportions and leonine in
aspect. With the exception of one ungloved hand and the scant
proportions of his face which were not hidden by hair, he was wholly
black in hue; an enormous beard, the colour of jet, concealed the
linen about his throat, and a veritable mane, dark as night, fell
upon his shoulders. His features were not ill-matched with this
sable garniture; their expression was a fixed severity; his eye
regarded you with stern scrutiny, and passed from the examination to
a melancholy reflectiveness. Yet his appearance was suggestive of
anything but ill-nature; contradictory though it may seem, the face
was a pleasant one, inviting to confidence, to respect; if be could
only have smiled, the tender humanity which lurked in the lines of
his countenance would have become evident. His age was probably a
little short of fifty.

A servant replied to his knock, and, after falling back in a
momentary alarm, introduced him to the sitting-room. He took Mrs.
Waltham's hand silently, fixed upon her the full orbs of his dark
eyes, and then, whilst still retaining her fingers, looked
thoughtfully about the room. It was a pleasant little parlour, with
many an evidence of refinement in those who occupied it. Mr. Wyvern
showed something like a look of satisfaction. He seated himself, and
the chair creaked ominously beneath him. Then he again scrutinised
Mrs. Waltham.

She was a lady of fair complexion, with a double chin. Her dress
suggested elegant tastes, and her hand was as smooth and delicate as
a lady's should be. A long gold chain descended from her neck to the
watch-pocket at her waist, and her fingers exhibited several rings.
She bore the reverend gentleman's scrutiny with modest grace. almost
as if it flattered her. And indeed there was nothing whatever of
ill-breeding in Mr. Wyvern's mode of instituting acquaintance with
his parishioner; one felt that he was a man of pronounced
originality, and that he might be trusted in his variance from the
wonted modes.

The view from the windows gave him a subject for his first remarks.
Mrs. Waltham had been in some fear of a question which would go to
the roots of her soul's history; it would have been in keeping with
his visage. But, with native acuteness, she soon discovered that Mr.
Wyvern's gaze had very little to do with the immediate subject of
his thought, or, what was much the same thing, that he seldom gave
the whole of his attention to the matter outwardly calling for it.
He was a man of profound mental absences; he could make replies,
even put queries, and all the while be brooding intensely upon a
wholly different subject. Mrs. Waltham did not altogether relish it;
she was in the habit of being heard with deference; but, to be sure,
a clergyman only talked of worldly things by way of concession. It
certainly seemed so in this clergyman's case.

'Your prospect,' Mr. Wyvern remarked presently, 'will not be
improved by the works below.'

His voice was very deep, and all his words were weighed in the
utterance. This deliberation at times led to peculiarities of
emphasis in single words. Probably he was a man of philological
crotchets; he said, for instance, 'pro-spect.'

'I scarcely think Mr. Eldon will go on with the mining,' replied
Mrs. Waltham.

'Ah! you think not?'

'I am quite sure he said that unconsciously,' the lady remarked to
herself. 'He's thinking of some quite different affair.'

'Mr. Eldon,' the clergyman resumed, fixing upon her an absent eye,
'is Mr. Mutimer's son-in-law, I understand?'

'His brother, Mr. Godfrey Eldon, was.' Mrs. Waltham corrected.

'Ah! the one that died?'

He said it questioningly; then added--

'I have a difficulty in mastering details of this kind. You would do
me a great kindness in explaining to me briefly of whom the family
at the Manor at present consists?'

Mrs. Waltham was delighted to talk on such a subject.

'Only of Mrs. Eldon and her son, Mr. Hubert Eldon. The elder son,
Godfrey, was lost in a shipwreck, on a voyage to New Zealand.'

'He was a sailor?'

'Oh, no!' said the lady, with a smile. 'He was in business at
Belwick. It was shortly after his marriage with Miss Mutimer that he
took the voyage--partly for his health, partly to examine some
property his father had had an interest in. Old Mr. Eldon engaged in
speculations--I believe it was flax-growing. The results,
unfortunately, were anything but satisfactory. It was that which led
to his son entering business--quite a new thing in their family.
Wasn't it very sad? Poor Godfrey and his young wife both drowned!
The marriage was, as you may imagine, not altogether a welcome one
to Mrs. Eldon; Mr. Mutimer was quite a self-made man, quite. I
understand he has relations in London of the very poorest
class--labouring people.'

'They probably benefit by his will?'

'I can't say. In any case, to a very small extent. It has for a long
time been understood that Hubert Eldon inherits.'

'Singular!' murmured the clergyman, still in the same absent way.

'Is it not? He took so to the young fellows; no doubt he was
flattered to be allied to them. And then he was passionately devoted
to his daughter; if only for her sake, he would have done his utmost
for the family.'

'I understand that Mr. Mutimer purchased the Manor from them?'

'That was before the marriage. Godfrey Eldon sold it; he had his
father's taste for speculation, I fancy, and wanted capital. Then
Mr. Mutimer begged them to remain in the house. He certainly was a
wonderfully kind old--old gentleman; his behaviour to Mrs. Eldon was
always the perfection of courtesy. A stranger would find it
difficult to understand how she could get on so well with him, but
their sorrows brought them together, and Mr. Mutimer's generosity
was really noble. If I had not known his origin, I should certainly
have taken him for a county gentleman.'

'Yet he proposed to mine in the valley,' observed Mr. Wyvern, half
to himself, casting a glance at the window.

Mrs. Waltham did not at first see the connection between this and
what she had been saying. Then it occurred to her that Mr. Wyvern
was aristocratic in his views.

'To be sure,' she said, 'one expects to find a little of the
original--of the money-making spirit. Of course such a thing would
never have suggested itself to the Eldons. And in fact very little
of the lands remained to them. Mr. Mutimer bought a great deal from
other people.'

As Mr. Wyvern sat brooding, Mrs. Waltham asked--

'You have seen Mrs. Eldon?'

' Not yet. She is too unwell to receive visits.'

'Yes, poor thing, she is a great invalid. I thought, perhaps, you--.
But I know she likes to be very quiet. What a strange thing about
Mr. Eldon, is it not? You know that he has never come yet; not even
to the funeral.'

'Singular!'

'An inexplicable thing! There has never been a shadow of
disagreement between them.'

'Mr. Eldon is abroad, I believe?' said the clergyman musingly.

'Abroad? Oh dear, no! At least, I--. Is there news of his being
abroad?'

Mr. Wyvern merely shook his head.

'As far as we know,' Mrs. Waltham continued, rather disturbed by the
suggestion, 'he is at Oxford.'

'A student?'

'Yes. He is quite a youth--only two-and-twenty.'

There was a knock at the door, and a maid-servant entered to ask if
she should lay the table for tea. Mrs. Waltham assented; then, to
her visitor--

'You will do us the pleasure of drinking a cup of tea, Mr. Wyvern?
we make a meal of it, in the country way. My boy and girl are sure
to be in directly.'

'I should like to make their acquaintance,' was the grave response.

'Alfred, my son,' the lady proceeded, 'is with us for his Easter
holiday. Belwick is so short a distance away, and yet too far to
allow of his living here, unfortunately.'

'His age?'

'Just one-and-twenty.'

'The same age as my own boy.'

'Oh, you have a son?'

'A youngster, studying music in Germany. I have just been spending a
fortnight with him.'

'How delightful! If only poor Alfred could have pursued some
more--more liberal occupation! Unhappily, we had small choice.
Friends were good enough to offer him exceptional advantages not
long after his father's death, and I was only too glad to accept the
opening. I believe he is a clever boy; only such a dreadful
Radical.' She laughed, with a deprecatory motion of the hands. 'Poor
Adela and he are at daggers drawn; no doubt it is some terrible
argument that detains them now on the road. I can't think how he got
his views; certainly his father never inculcated them.'

'The air, Mrs. Waltham, the air,' murmured the clergyman.

The lady was not quite sure that she understood the remark, but the
necessity of reply was obviated by the entrance of the young man in
question. Alfred was somewhat undergrown, but of solid build. He
walked in a sturdy and rather aggressive way, and his plump face
seemed to indicate an intelligence, bright, indeed, but of the less
refined order. His head was held stiffly, and his whole bearing
betrayed a desire to make the most of his defective stature. His
shake of the hand was an abrupt downward jerk, like a pull at a
bell-rope. In the smile with which he met Mr. Wyvern a supercilious
frame of mind was not altogether concealed; he seemed anxious to
have it understood that in _him_ the clerical attire inspired
nothing whatever of superstitious reverence. Reverence, in truth,
was not Mr. Waltham's failing.

Mr. Wyvern, as his habit was at introductions, spoke no words, but
held the youth's hand for a few moments and looked him in the eyes.
Alfred turned his head aside uneasily, and was a trifle ruddy in the
cheeks when at length he regained his liberty.

'By-the-by,' he remarked to his mother when he had seated himself,
with crossed legs, 'Eldon has turned up at last. He passed us in a
cab, or so Adela said. I didn't catch a glimpse of the individual.'

'Really!' exclaimed Mrs. Waltham. 'He was coming from Agworth
station?'

'I suppose so. There was a trunk on the four-wheeler. Adela says he
looked ill, though I don't see how she discovered so much.'

'I have no doubt she is right. He must have been ill.'

Mr. Wyvern, in contrast with his habit, was paying marked attention;
he leaned forward, with a hand on each knee. In the meanwhile the
preparations for tea had progressed, and as Mrs. Waltham rose at the
sight of the teapot being brought in, her daughter entered the room.
Adela was taller by half a head than her brother; she was slim and
graceful. The air had made her face bloom, and the smile which was
added as she drew near to the vicar enhanced the charm of a
countenance at all times charming. She was not less than ladylike in
self-possession, but Mr. Wyvern's towering sableness clearly awed
her a little. For an instant her eyes drooped, but at once she
raised them and met the severe gaze with unflinching orbs. Releasing
her hand, Mr. Wyvern performed a singular little ceremony: he laid
his right palm very gently on her nutbrown hair, and his lips moved.
At the same time he all but smiled.

Alfred's face was a delightful study the while; it said so clearly,
'Confound the parson's impudence!' Mrs. Waltham, on the other hand,
looked pleased as she rustled to her place at the tea-tray.

'So Mr. Eldon has come?' she said, glancing at Adela. 'Alfred says
he looks ill.'

'Mother,' interposed the young man, 'pray be accurate. I distinctly
stated that I did not even see him, and should not have known that
it was he at all. Adela is responsible for that assertion.'

'I just saw his face,' the girl said naturally. 'I thought he looked
ill.'

Mr. Wyvern addressed to her a question about her walk, and for a few
minutes they conversed together. There was a fresh simplicity in
Adela's way of speaking which harmonised well with her appearance
and with the scene in which she moved. A gentle English girl, this
dainty home, set in so fair and peaceful a corner of the world, was
just the abode one would have chosen for her. Her beauty seemed a
part of the burgeoning spring-time, She was not lavish of her
smiles; a timid seriousness marked her manner to the clergyman, and
she replied to his deliberately-posed questions with a gravity
respectful alike of herself and of him.

In front of Mr. Wyvern stood a large cake, of which a portion was
already sliced. The vicar, at Adela's invitation, accepted a piece
of the cake; having eaten this, he accepted another; then yet
another. His absence had come back upon him, and he talked he
continued to eat portions of the cake, till but a small fraction of
the original structure remained on the dish. Alfred, keenly
observant of what was going on, pursed his lips from time to time
and looked at his mother with exaggerated gravity, leading her eyes
to the vanishing cake. Even Adela could not but remark the reverend
gentleman's abnormal appetite, but she steadily discouraged her
brother's attempts to draw her into the joke. At length it came to
pass that Mr. Wyvern himself, stretching his hand mechanically to
the dish, became aware that he had. exhibited his appreciation of
the sweet food in a degree not altogether sanctioned by usage. He
fixed his eyes on the tablecloth, and was silent for a while.

As soon as the vicar had taken his departure Alfred threw himself
into a chair, thrust out his legs, and exploded in laughter.

'By Jove!' he shouted. 'If that man doesn't experience symptoms of
disorder! Why, I should be prostrate for a week if I consumed a
quarter of what he has put out of sight.'

'Alfred, you are shockingly rude,' reproved his mother, though
herself laughing. 'Mr. Wyvern is absorbed in thought.'

'Well, he has taken the best means, I should say, to remind himself
of actualities,' rejoined the youth. 'But what a man he is! How did
he behave in church this morning?'

'You should have come to see,' said Mrs. Waltham, mildly censuring
her son's disregard of the means of grace.

'I like Mr. Wyvern,' observed Adela, who was standing at the window
looking out upon the dusking valley.

'Oh, you would like any man in parsonical livery,' scoffed her
brother.

Alfred shortly betook himself to the garden, where, in spite of a
decided freshness in the atmosphere, he walked for half-an-hour
smoking a pipe. When he entered the house again, he met Adela at the
foot of the stairs.

'Mrs. Mewling has just come in,' she whispered.

'All right, I'll come up with you,' was the reply. 'Heaven defend me
from her small talk!'

They ascended to a very little room, which made a kind of boudoir
for Adela. Alfred struck a match and lit a lamp, disclosing a nest
of wonderful purity and neatness. On the table a drawing-board was
slanted; it showed a text of Scripture in process of 'illumination.'

'Still at that kind of thing!' exclaimed Alfred. 'My good child, if
you want to paint, why don't you paint in earnest? Really, Adela, I
must enter a protest! Remember that you are eighteen years of age.'

'I don't forget it, Alfred.'

'At eight-and-twenty, at eight-and-thirty, you propose still to be
at the same stage of development?'

'I don't think we'll talk of it,' said the girl quietly. 'We don't
understand each other.'

'Of course not, but we might, if only you'd read sensible books that
I could give you.'

Adela shook her head. The philosophical youth sank into his
favourite attitude--legs extended, hands in pockets, nose in air.

'So, I suppose,' he said presently, 'that fellow really has been
ill?'

Adela was sitting in thought; she looked up with a shadow of
annoyance on her face.

'That fellow?'

'Eldon, you know.'

'I want to ask you a question,' said his sister, interlocking her
fingers and pressing them against her throat. 'Why do you always
speak in a contemptuous way of Mr. Eldon?'

'You know I don't like the individual.'

'What cause has "the individual" given you?'

'He's a snob.'

'I'm not sure that I know what that means,' replied Adela, after
thinking for a moment with downcast eyes.

'Because you never read anything. He's a fellow who raises a great
edifice of pretence on rotten foundations.'

'What can you mean? Mr. Eldon is a gentleman. What pretence is he
guilty of?'

'Gentleman!' uttered her brother with much scorn. 'Upon my word,
that _is_ the vulgarest of denominations! Who doesn't call himself
so nowadays! A man's a man, I take it, and what need is there to
lengthen the name? Thank the powers, we don't live in feudal ages.
Besides, he doesn't seem to me to be what you imply.'

Adela had taken a book; in turning over the pages, she said--

'No doubt you mean, Alfred, that, for some reason, you are
determined to view him with prejudice.'

'The reason is obvious enough. The fellow's behaviour is detestable;
he looks at you from head to foot as if you were applying for a
place in his stable. Whenever I want an example of a contemptible
aristocrat, there's Eldon ready-made. Contemptible, because he's
such a sham; as if everybody didn't know his history and his
circumstances!'

'Everybody doesn't regard them as you do. There is nothing whatever
dishonourable in his position.'

'Not in sponging on a rich old plebeian, a man he despises, and
living in idleness at his expense?'

'I don't believe Mr. Eldon does anything of the kind. Since his
brother's death he has had a sufficient income of his own, so mother
says.'

'Sufficient income of his own! Bah! Five or six hundred a year;
likely he lives on that! Besides, haven't they soaped old Mutimer
into leaving them all his property? The whole affair is the best
illustration one could possibly have of what aristocrats are brought
to in a democratic age. First of all, Godfrey Eldon marries
Mutimer's daughter; you are at liberty to believe, if you like, that
he would have married her just the same if she hadn't had a penny.
The old fellow is flattered. They see the hold they have, and stick
to him like leeches. All for want of money, of course. Our
aristocrats begin to see that they can't get on without money
nowadays; they can't live on family records, and they find that
people won't toady to them in the old way just on account of their
name. Why, it began with Eldon's father--didn't he put his pride in
his pocket, and try to make cash by speculation? Now I can respect
him: he at all events faced the facts of the case honestly. The
despicable thing in this Hubert Eldon is that, having got money once
more, and in the dirtiest way, he puts on the top-sawyer just as if
there was nothing to be ashamed of. If he and his mother were living
in a small way on their few hundreds a year, he might haw-haw as
much as he liked, and I should only laugh at him; he'd be a fool,
but an honest one. But catch them doing that! Family pride's too
insubstantial a thing, you see. Well, as I said, they illustrate the
natural course of things, the transition from the old age to the
new. If Eldon has sons, they'll go in for commerce, and make
themselves, if they can, millionaires; but by that time they'll
dispense with airs and insolence--see if they don't.'

Adela kept her eyes on the pages before her, but she was listening
intently. A sort of verisimilitude in the picture drawn by her
Radical-minded brother could not escape her; her thought was
troubled. When she spoke it was without resentment, but gravely.

'I don't like this spirit in judging of people. You know quite well,
Alfred, how easy it is to see the whole story in quite another way.
You begin by a harsh and worldly judgment, and it leads you to
misrepresent all that follows. I refuse to believe that Godfrey
Eldon married Mrs. Mutimer's daughter for her money.'

Alfred laughed aloud.

'Of course you do, sister Adela! Women won't admit such things;
that's _their_ aristocratic feeling!'

'And that is, too, worthless and a sham? Will that, too, be done
away with in the new age?'

'Oh, depend upon it! When women are educated, they will take the
world as it is, and decline to live on illusions.'

'Then how glad I am to have been left without education!'

In the meantime a conversation of a very lively kind was in progress
between Mrs. Waltham and her visitor, Mrs. Mewling. The latter was a
lady whose position much resembled Mrs. Waltham's: she inhabited a
small house in the village street, and spent most of her time in
going about to hear or to tell some new thing. She came in this
evening with a look presageful of news indeed.

'I've been to Belwick to-day,' she began, sitting very close to Mrs.
Waltham, whose lap she kept touching as she spoke with excited
fluency. 'I've seen Mrs. Yottle. My dear, what do you think she has
told me?'

Mrs. Yottle was the wife of a legal gentleman who had been in Mr.
Mutimer's confidence. Mrs. Waltham at once divined intelligence
affecting the Eldons.

'What?' she asked eagerly.

'You'd never dream such a thing! what _will_ come to pass! An
unthought-of possibility!' She went on _crescendo_. 'My dear Mrs.
Waltham, Mr. Mutimer has left no will!'

It was as if an electric shock had passed from the tips of her
fingers into her hearer's frame. Mrs. Waltham paled.

'That cannot be true!' she whispered, incapable of utterance above
breath.

'Oh, but there's not a doubt of it!' Knowing that the news would be
particularly unpalatable to Mrs. Waltham, she proceeded to dwell
upon it with dancing eyes. 'Search bas been going on since the day
of the death: not a corner that hasn't been rummaged, not a drawer
that hasn't been turned out, not a book in the library that hasn't
been shaken, not a wall that hasn't been examined for secret doors!
Mr. Mutimer has died intestate!'

The other lady was mute.

'And shall I tell you how it came about? Two days before his death,
he had his will from Mr. Yottle, saying he wanted to make change--
probably to execute a new will altogether. My dear, he destroyed it,
and death surprised him before he could make another.'

'He wished to make changes?'

'Ah!' Mrs. Mewling drew out the exclamation, shaking her raised
finger, pursing her lips. 'And of that, too, I can tell you the
reason. Mr. Mutimer was anything but pleased with young Eldon. That
young man, let me tell you, has been conducting himself--oh,
shockingly! Now you wouldn't dream of repeating this?'

'Certainly not.'

'It seems that news came not so very long ago of a certain actress,
singer,--something of the kind, you understand? Friends thought it
their duty--rightly, of course,--to inform Mr. Mutimer. I can't say
exactly who did it; but we know that Hubert Eldon is not regarded
affectionately by a good many people. My dear, he has been out of
England for more than a month, living--oh, such extravagance! And
the moral question, too? You know--those women! Someone, they say,
of European reputation; of course no names are breathed. For my
part, I can't say I am surprised. Young men, you know; and
particularly young men of that kind! Well, it has cost him a pretty
penny; he'll remember it as long as he lives.

'Then the property will go--'

'Yes, to the working people in London; the roughest of the rough,
they say! What _will_ happen? It will be impossible for us to live
here if they come and settle at the Manor. The neighbourhood will be
intolerable. Think of the rag-tag-and-bobtail they will bring with
them!'

'But Hubert!' ejaculated Mrs. Waltham, whom this vision of barbaric
onset affected little in the crashing together of a great airy
castle.

'Well, my dear, after all he still has more to depend upon than many
we could instance. Probably he will take to the law,--that is, if
he ever returns to England.'

'He is at the Manor,' said Mrs. Waltham, with none of the pleasure
it would ordinarily have given her to be first with an item of news.
'He came this afternoon.'

'He did! Who has seen him?'

'Alfred and Adela passed him on the road. He was in a cab.'

'I feel for his poor mother. What a meeting it will be! But then we
must remember that they had no actual claim on the inheritance. Of
course it will be a most grievous disappointment, but what is life
made of? I'm afraid some people will be anything but grieved. We
must confess that Hubert has not been exactly popular; and I rather
wonder at it; I'm sure he might have been if he had liked. Just a
little too--too self-conscious, don't you think? Of course it was
quite a mistake, but people had an idea that he presumed on wealth
which was not his own. Well, well, we quiet folk look on, don't we?
It's rather like a play.'

Presently Mrs. Mewling leaned forward yet more confidentially.

'My dear, you won't be offended? You don't mind a question? There
wasn't anything definite?--Adela, I mean.'

'Nothing, nothing whatever!' Mrs. Waltham asserted with vigour.

'Ha!' Mrs. Mewling sighed deeply. 'How relieved I am! I did so
fear!'

'Nothing whatever,' the other lady repeated.

'Thank goodness! Then there is no need to breathe a word of those
shocking matters. But they do get abroad so!'

A reflection Mrs. Mewling was justified in making.





CHAPTER II




The cab which had passed Adela and her brother at a short distance
from Wanley brought faces to the windows or door of almost every
house as it rolled through the village street. The direction in
which it was going, the trunk on the roof, the certainty that it had
come from Agworth station, suggested to everyone that young Eldon
sat within. The occupant bad, however, put up both windows just
before entering the village, and sight of him was not obtained.
Wanley had abundant matter for gossip that evening. Hubert's return,
giving a keener edge to the mystery of his so long delay, would
alone have sufficed to wagging tongues; hut, in addition, Mrs.
Mewling was on the warpath, and the intelligence she spread was of a
kind to run like wildfire.

The approach to the Manor was a carriage-road, obliquely ascending
the bill from a point some quarter of a mile beyond the cottages
which once housed Belwick's abbots. Of the house scarcely a glimpse
could be caught till you were well within the gates, so thickly was
it embosomed in trees. This afternoon it wore a cheerless face; most
of the blinds were still down, and the dwelling might have been
unoccupied, for any sign of human activity that the eye could catch.
There was no porch at the main entrance, and the heavy nail-studded
door greeted a visitor somewhat sombrely. On the front of a gable
stood the words 'Nisi Dominus.'

The vehicle drew up, and there descended a young man of pale
countenance, his attire indicating long and hasty travel. He pulled
vigorously at the end of a hanging bell-chain, and the door was
immediately opened by a man-servant in black. Hubert, for he it was,
pointed to his trunk, and, whilst it was being carried into the
house, took some loose coin from his pocket. He handed the driver a
sovereign.

'I have no change, sir,' said the man, after examining the coin. But
Hubert had already turned away; he merely waved his hand, and
entered the house. For a drive of two miles, the cabman held himself
tolerably paid.

The hall was dusky, and seemed in need of fresh air. Hubert threw
off his hat, gloves, and overcoat; then for the first time spoke to
the servant, who stood in an attitude of expectancy.

'Mrs. Eldon is at home?'

'At home, sir, but very unwell. She desires me to say that she fears
she may not be able to see you this evening.'

'Is there a fire anywhere?'

'Only in the library, sir.'

'I will dine there. And let a fire be lit in my bedroom.'

'Yes, sir. Will you dine at once, sir?'

'In an hour. Something light; I don't care what it is.'

'Shall the fire be lit in your bedroom at once, sir?'

'At once, and a hot bath prepared. Come to the library and tell me
when it is ready.'

The servant silently departed. Hubert walked across the hall, giving
a glance here and there, and entered the library. Nothing had been
altered here since his father's, nay, since his grandfather's time.
That grandfather--his name Hubert--had combined strong intellectual
tendencies with the extravagant tastes which gave his already
tottering house the decisive push. The large collection of
superbly-bound books which this room contained were nearly all of
his purchasing, for prior to his time the Eldons had not been wont
to concern themselves with things of the mind. Hubert, after walking
to the window and looking out for a moment on the side lawn, pushed
a small couch near to the fireplace, and threw himself down at full
length, his hands beneath his head. In a moment his position seemed
to have become uneasy; he turned upon his side, uttering an
exclamation as if of pain. A minute or two and again he moved, this
time with more evident impatience. The next thing he did was to
rise, step to the bell, and ring it violently.

The same servant appeared.

'Isn't the bath ready?' Hubert asked. His former mode of speaking
had been brief and decided; he was now almost imperious.

'I believe it will be in a moment, sir,' was the reply, marked,
perhaps, by just a little failure in the complete subservience
expected.

Hubert looked at the man for an instant with contracted brows, but
merely said--'Tell them to be quick.'

The man returned in less than three minutes with a satisfactory
announcement, and Eldon went upstairs to refresh himself.

Two hours later he had dined, with obvious lack of appetite, and was
deriving but slight satisfaction from a cigar, when the servant
entered with a message from Mrs. Eldon: she desired to see her son.

Hubert threw his cigar aside, and made a gesture expressing his wish
to be led to his mother's room. The man conducted him to the landing
at the head of the first flight of stairs; there a female servant
was waiting, who, after a respectful movement, led the way to a door
at a few yards' distance. She opened it and drew back. Hubert passed
into the room.

It was furnished in a very old-fashioned style--heavily, richly, and
with ornaments seemingly procured rather as evidences of wealth than
of taste; successive Mrs. Eldons had used it as a boudoir. The
present lady of that name sat in a great chair near the fire. Though
not yet fifty, she looked at least ten years older; her hair had
streaks of white, and her thin delicate features were much lined and
wasted. It would not be enough to say that she had evidently once
been beautiful, for in truth she was so still, with a spiritual
beauty of a very rare type. Just now her face was set in a sternness
which did not seem an expression natural to it; the fine lips were
much more akin to smiling sweetness, and the brows accepted with
repugnance anything but the stamp of thoughtful charity.

After the first glance at Hubert she dropped her eyes. He, stepping
quickly across the floor, put his lips to her cheek; she did not
move her head, nor raise her hand to take his.

'Will you sit there, Hubert?' she said, pointing to a chair which
was placed opposite hers. The resemblance between her present mode
of indicating a wish and her son's way of speaking to the servant
below was very striking; even the quality of their voices had much
in common, for Hubert's was rather high-pitched. In face, however,
the young man did not strongly evidence their relation to each
other: he was not handsome, and had straight low brows, which made
his aspect at first forbidding.

'Why have you not come to me before this?' Mrs. Eldon asked when her
son had seated himself, with his eyes turned upon the fire.

'I was unable to, mother. I have been ill.'

She cast a glance at him. There was no doubting the truth of what he
said; at this moment he looked feeble and pain-worn.

'Where did your illness come upon you?' she asked, her tone
unsoftened.

'In Germany. I started only a few hours after receiving the letter
in which you told me of the death.'

'My other letters you paid no heed to?'

'I could not reply to them.'

He spoke after hesitation, but firmly, as one does who has something
to brave out.

'It would have been better for you if you had been able, Hubert.
Your refusal has best you dear.'

He looked up inquiringly.

'Mr. Mutimer,' his mother continued, a tremor in her voice,
'destroyed his will a day or two before he died.'

Hubert said nothing. His fingers, looked together before him,
twitched a little; his face gave no sign.

'Had you come to me at once,' Mrs. Eldon pursued, 'had you listened
to my entreaties, to my commands'--her voice rang right
queenly--'this would not have happened. Mr. Mutimer behaved as
generously as he always has. As soon as there came to him certain
news of you, he told me everything. I refused to believe what people
were saying, and he too wished to do so. He would not write to you
himself; there was one all sufficient test, he held, and that was a
summons from your mother. It was a test of your honour, Hubert--and
you failed under it.'

He made no answer.

'You received my letters?' she went on to ask. 'I heard you had gone
from England, and could only hope your letters would be forwarded.
Did you get them?'

'With the delay of only a day or two.'

'And deliberately you put me aside?'

'I did.'

She looked at him now for several moments. Her eyes grew moist. Then
she resumed, in a lower voice--

'I said nothing of what was at stake, though I knew. Mr. Mutimer was
perfectly open with me. "I have trusted him implicitly," he said,
"because I believe him as staunch and true as his brother. I make no
allowances for what are called young man's follies: he must be above
anything of that kind. If he is not--well, I have been mistaken in
him, and I can't deal with him as I wish to do." You know what he
was, Hubert, and you can imagine him speaking those words. We
waited. The bad news was confirmed, and from you there came nothing.
I would not hint at the loss you were incurring; of my own purpose I
should have refrained from doing so, and Mr. Mutimer forbade me to
appeal to anything but your better self. If you would not come to me
because I wished it, I could not involve you and myself in shame by
seeing you yield to sordid motives.'

Hubert raised his head. A choking voice kept him silent for a moment
only.

'Mother, the loss is nothing to you; you are above regrets of that
kind; and for myself, I am almost glad to have lost it.'

'In very truth,' answered the mother, 'I care little about the
wealth you might have possessed. What I do care for is the loss of
all the hopes I had built upon you. I thought you honour itself; I
thought you high-minded. Young as you are, I let you go from me
without a fear. Hubert, I would have staked my life that no shadow
of disgrace would ever fall upon your head! You have taken from me
the last comfort of my age.'

He uttered words she could not catch.

'The purity of your soul was precious to me,' she continued, her
accents struggling against weakness; 'I thought I had seen in you a
love of that chastity without which a man is nothing; and I ever did
my best to keep your eyes upon a noble ideal of womanhood. You have
fallen. The simpler duty, the point of every-day honour, I could not
suppose that you would fail in. From the day when you came of age,
when Mr. Mutimer spoke to you, saying that in every respect you
would be as his son, and you, for your part, accepted what he
offered, you owed it to him to respect the lightest of his
reasonable wishes. The wish which was supreme in him you have
utterly disregarded. Is it that you failed to understand him? I have
thought of late of a way you had now and then when you spoke to me
about him; it has occurred to me that perhaps you did him less than
justice. Regard his position and mine, and tell me whether you think
he could have become so much to us if he had not been a gentleman in
the highest sense of the word. When Godfrey first of all brought me
that proposal from him that we should still remain in this house, it
seemed to me the most impossible thing. You know what it was that
induced me to assent, and what led to his becoming so intimate with
us. Since then it has been hard for me to remember that he was not
one of our family. His weak points it was not difficult to discover;
but I fear you did not understand what was noblest in his character.
Uprightness, clean-heartedness, good faith--these things he prized
before everything. In you, in one of your birth, he looked to find
them in perfection. Hubert, I stood shamed before him.'

The young man breathed hard, as if in physical pain. His eyes were
fixed in a wide absent gaze. Mrs. Eldon had lost all the severity of
her face; the profound sorrow of a pure and noble nature was alone
to be read there now.

'What,' she continued--'what is this class distinction upon which we
pride ourselves? What does it mean, if not that our opportunities
lead us to see truths to which the eyes of the poor and ignorant are
blind? Is there nothing in it, after all--in our pride of birth and
station? That is what people are saying nowadays: you yourself have
jested to me about our privileges. You almost make me dread that you
were right. Look back at that man, whom I came to honour as my own
father. He began life as a toiler with his hands. Only a fortnight
ago he was telling me stories of his boyhood, of seventy years
since. He was without education; his ideas of truth and goodness he
had to find within his own heart. Could anything exceed the noble
simplicity of his respect for me, for you boys? We were poor, but it
seemed to him that we had from nature what no money could buy. He
was wrong; his faith misled him. No, not wrong with regard to all of
us; my boy Godfrey was indeed all that he believed. But think of
himself; what advantage have we over him? I know no longer what to
believe. Oh, Hubert!'

He left his chair and walked to a more distant part of the room,
where he was beyond the range of lamp and firelight. Standing here,
he pressed his hand against his side, still breathing hard, and with
difficulty suppressing a groan.

He came a step or two nearer.

'Mother,' he said, hurriedly, 'I am still far from well. Let me
leave you: speak to me again to-morrow.'

Mrs. Eldon made an effort to rise, looking anxiously into the gloom
where he stood. She was all but standing upright--a thing she had
not done for a long time--when Hubert sprang towards her, seizing
her hands, then supporting her in his arms. Her self-command gave
way at length, and she wept.

Hubert placed her gently in the chair and knelt beside her. He could
find no words, but once or twice raised his face and kissed her.

'What caused your illness?' she asked, speaking as one wearied with
suffering. She lay back, and her eyes were closed.

'I cannot say,' he answered. 'Do not speak of me. In your last
letter there was no account of how he died.'

'It was in church, at the morning service. The pew-opener found him
sitting there dead, when all had gone away.'

'But the vicar could see into the pew from the pulpit? The death
must have been very peaceful.'

'No, he could not see; the front curtains were drawn.'

'Why was that, I wonder?'

Mrs. Eldon shook her head.

'Are you in pain?' she asked suddenly. 'Why do you breathe so
strangely?'

'A little pain. Oh, nothing; I will see Manns to-morrow.'

His mother gazed long and steadily into his eyes, and this time he
bore her look.

'Mother, you have not kissed me,' he whispered.

'And cannot, dear. There is too much between us.'

His head fell upon her lap.

'Hubert!'

He pressed her hand.

'How shall I live when you have gone from me again? When you say
good-bye, it will be as if I parted from you for ever.'

Hubert was silent.

'Unless,' she continued--'unless I have your promise that you will
no longer dishonour yourself.'

He rose from her side and stood in front of the fire; his mother
looked and saw that he trembled.

'No promise, Hubert,' she said, 'that you cannot keep. Rather than
that, we will accept our fate, and be nothing to each other.'

'You know very well, mother, that that is impossible. I cannot speak
to you of what drove me to disregard your letters. I love and honour
you, and shall have to change my nature before I cease to do so.'

'To me, Hubert, you seem already to have changed. I scarcely know
you.'

'I can't defend myself to you,' he said sadly. 'We think so
differently on subjects which allow of no compromise, that, even if
I could speak openly, you would only condemn me the more.'

His mother turned upon him a grief-stricken and wondering face.

'Since when have we differed so?' she asked. 'What has made us
strangers to each other's thoughts? Surely, surely you are at one
with me in condemning all that has led to this? If your character
has been too weak to resist temptation, you cannot have learnt to
make evil your good?'

He kept silence.

'You refuse me that last hope?'

Hubert moved impatiently.

'Mother, I can't see beyond to-day! I know nothing of what is before
me. It is the idlest trifling with words to say one will do this or
that, when action in no way depends on one's own calmer thought. In
this moment I could promise anything you ask; if I had my choice, I
would be a child again and have no desire but to do your will, to be
worthy in your eyes. I hate my life and the years that have parted
me from you. Let us talk no more of it.'

Neither spoke again for some moments; then Hubert asked coldly--

'What has been done?'

'Nothing,' replied Mrs. Eldon, in the same tone. 'Mr. Yottle has
waited for your return before communicating with the relatives in
London.'

'I will go to Belwick in the morning,' he said. Then, after
reflection, 'Mr. Mutimer told you that he had destroyed his will?'

'No. He had it from Mr. Yottle two days before his death, and on the
day after--the Monday--Mr. Yottle was to have come to receive
instructions for a new one. It is nowhere to be found: of course it
was destroyed.'

'I suppose there is no doubt of that?' Hubert asked, with a show of
indifference.

'There can be none. Mr. Yottle tells me that a will which existed.
before Godfrey's marriage was destroyed in the same way.'

'Who is the heir?'

'A great-nephew bearing the same name. The will contained provision
for him and certain of his family. Wanley is his; the personal
property will be divided among several.'

'The people have not come forward?'

'We presume they do not even know of Mr. Mutimer's death. There has
been no direct communication between him and them for many years.'

Hubert's next question was, 'What shall you do, mother?'

'Does it interest you, Hubert? I am too feeble to move very far. I
must find a home either here in the village or at Agworth.'

He looked at her with compassion, with remorse.

'And you, my boy?' asked his mother, raising her eyes gently.

'I? Oh, the selfish never come to harm, be sure! Only the gentle and
helpless have to suffer; that is the plan of the world's ruling.'

'The world is not ruled by one who thinks our thoughts, Hubert.'

He had it on his lips to make a rejoinder, but checked the impulse.

'Say good-night to me,' his mother continued. 'You must go and rest.
If you still feel unwell in the morning, a messenger shall go to
Belwick. You are very, very pale.'

Hubert held his hand to her and bent his head. Mrs. Eldon offered
her cheek; he kissed it and went from the room.

At seven o'clock on the following morning a bell summoned a servant
to Hubert's bedroom. Though it was daylight, a lamp burned near the
bed; Hubert lay against pillows heaped high.

'Let someone go at once for Dr. Manns,' he said, appearing to speak
with difficulty. 'I wish to see him as soon as possible. Mrs. Eldon
is to know nothing of his visit--you understand me!'

The servant withdrew. In rather less than an hour the doctor made
his appearance, with every sign of having been interrupted in his
repose. He was a spare man, full bearded and spectacled.

'Something wrong?' was his greeting as he looked keenly at his
summoner. 'I didn't know you were here.'

'Yes,' Hubert replied, 'something is confoundedly wrong. I have been
playing strange tricks in the night, I fancy.'

'Fever?'

'As a consequence of something else. I shall have to tell you what
must be repeated to no one, as of course you will see. Let me see,
when was it?--Saturday to-day? Ten days ago, I had a pistol-bullet
just here,'--he touched his right side. 'It was extracted, and I
seemed to be not much the worse. I have just come from Germany.'

Dr. Manns screwed his face into an expression of sceptical
amazement.

'At present,' Hubert continued, trying to laugh, 'I feel
considerably the worse. I don't think I could move if I tried. In a
few minutes, ten to one, I shall begin talking foolery. You must
keep people away; get what help is needed. I may depend upon you?'

The doctor nodded, and, whistling low, began an examination.





CHAPTER III




On the dun borderland of Islington and Hoxton, in a corner made by
the intersection of the New North Road and the Regent's Canal, is
discoverable an irregular triangle of small dwelling-houses, bearing
the name of Wilton Square. In the midst stands an amorphous
structure, which on examination proves to be a very ugly house and a
still uglier Baptist chapel built back to back. The pair are
enclosed within iron railings, and, more strangely, a circle of
trees, which in due season do veritably put forth green leaves. One
side of the square shows a second place of worship, the resort, as
an inscription declares, of 'Welsh Calvinistic Methodists.' The
houses are of one storey, with kitchen windows looking upon small
areas; the front door is reached by an ascent of five steps.

The canal--_maladetta e sventurata fossa_--stagnating in utter
foulness between coal-wharfs and builders' yards, at this point
divides two neighbourhoods of different aspects. On the south is
Hoxton, a region of malodorous market streets, of factories, timber
yards, grimy warehouses, of alleys swarming with small trades and
crafts, of filthy courts and passages leading into pestilential
gloom; everywhere toil in its most degrading forms; the
thoroughfares thundering with high-laden waggons, the pavements
trodden by working folk of the coarsest type, the corners and
lurking-holes showing destitution at its ugliest. Walking
northwards, the explorer finds himself in freer air, amid broader
ways, in a district of dwelling-houses only; the roads seem
abandoned to milkmen, cat's-meat vendors, and costermongers. Here
will be found streets in which every window has its card advertising
lodgings: others claim a higher respectability, the houses
retreating behind patches of garden-ground, and occasionally showing
plastered pillars and a balcony. The change is from undisguised
struggle for subsistence to mean and spirit-broken leisure; hither
retreat the better-paid of the great slave-army when they are free
to eat and sleep. To walk about a neighbourhood such as this is the
dreariest exercise to which man can betake himself; the heart is
crushed by uniformity of decent squalor; one remembers that each of
these dead-faced houses, often each separate blind window,
represents a 'home,' and the associations of the word whisper blank
despair.

Wilton Square is on the north side of the foss, on the edge of the
quieter district, and in one of its houses dwelt at the time of
which I write the family on whose behalf Fate was at work in a
valley of mid-England. Joseph Mutimer, nephew to the old man who had
just died at Wanley Manor, had himself been at rest for some five
years; his widow and three children still lived together in the home
they had long occupied. Joseph came of a family of mechanics; his
existence was that of the harmless necessary artisan. He earned a
living by dint of incessant labour, brought up his family in an
orderly way, and departed with a certain sense of satisfaction at
having fulfilled obvious duties--the only result of life for which
he could reasonably look. With his children we shall have to make
closer acquaintance; but before doing so, in order to understand
their position and follow with intelligence their several stories,
it will be necessary to enter a little upon the subject of ancestry.

Joseph Mutimer's father, Henry by name, was a somewhat remarkable
personage. He grew to manhood in the first decade of our century,
and wrought as a craftsman in a Midland town. He had a brother,
Richard, some ten years his junior, and the two were of such
different types of character, each so pronounced in his kind, that,
after vain attempts to get along together, they parted for good,
heedless of each other henceforth, pursuing their sundered
destinies. Henry was by nature a political enthusiast, of
insufficient ballast, careless of the main chance, of hot and ready
tongue; the Chartist movement gave him opportunities of action which
he used to the utmost, and he became a member of the so-called
National Convention, established in Birmingham in 1839. Already he
had achieved prominence by being imprisoned as the leader of a
torch-light procession, and this taste of martyrdom naturally
sharpened his zeal. He had married young, but only visited his
family from time to time. His wife for the most part earned her own
living, and ultimately betook herself to London with her son Joseph,
the single survivor of seven children. Henry pursued his career of
popular agitation, supporting himself in miscellaneous ways, writing
his wife an affectionate letter once in six months, and making
himself widely known as an uncompromising Radical of formidable
powers. Newspapers of that time mention his name frequently; he was
always in hot water, and once or twice narrowly escaped
transportation. In 1842 he took active part in the riots of the
Midland Counties, and at length was unfortunate enough to get his
head broken. He died in hospital before any relative could reach
him.

Richard Mutimer regarded with detestation the principles to which
Henry had sacrificed his life. From childhood he was staid, earnest,
and iron-willed; to whatsoever he put his hand, he did it
thoroughly, and it was his pride to receive aid from no man.
Intensely practical, he early discerned the truth that a man's first
object must be to secure himself a competency, seeing that to one
who lacks money the world is but a great debtors' prison. To make
money, therefore, was his aim, and anything that interfered with the
interests of commerce and industry from the capitalist's point of
view he deemed unmitigated evil. When his brother Henry was leading
processions and preaching the People's Charter, Richard enrolled
himself as a special constable, cursing the tumults which drew him
from business, but determined, if he got the opportunity, to strike
a good hard blow in defence of law and order. Already he was well on
the way to possess a solid stake in the country, and the native
conservatism of his temperament grew stronger as circumstances bent
themselves to his will; a proletarian conquering wealth and
influence naturally prizes these things in proportion to the effort
their acquisition has cost him. When he heard of his brother's
death, he could in conscience say nothing more than 'Serve him
right!' For all that, he paid the funeral expenses of the
Chartist--angrily declining an offer from Henry's co-zealots, who
would have buried the martyr at their common charges--and proceeded
to inquire after the widow and son. Joseph Mutimer, already one- or
two-and-twenty, was in no need of help; he and his mother, naturally
prejudiced against the thriving uncle, declared themselves satisfied
with their lot, and desired no further connection with a relative
who was practically a stranger to them.

So Richard went on his way and heaped up riches. When already
middle-aged he took to himself a wife, his choice being marked with
characteristic prudence. The woman he wedded was turned thirty, had
no money, and few personal charms, but was a lady. Richard was fully
able to appreciate education and refinement; to judge from the
course of his later life, one would have said that he had sought
money only as a means, the end he really aimed at being the
satisfaction of instincts which could only have full play in a
higher social sphere. No doubt the truth was that success sweetened
his character, and developed, as is so often the case, those
possibilities of his better nature which a fruitless struggle would
have kept in the germ or altogether crushed. His excellent wife
influenced him profoundly; at her death the work was continued by
the daughter she left him. The defects of his early education could
not of course be repaired, but it is never too late for a man to go
to school to the virtues which civilise. Remaining the sturdiest of
Conservatives, he bowed in sincere humility to those very claims
which the Radical most angrily disallows: birth, hereditary station,
recognised gentility--these things made the strongest demand upon
his reverence. Such an attitude was a testimony to his own capacity
for culture, since he knew not the meaning of vulgar adulation, and
did in truth perceive the beauty of those qualities to which the
uneducated Iconoclast is wholly blind. It was a joyous day for him
when he saw his daughter the wife of Godfrey Eldon. The loss which
so soon followed was correspondingly hard to bear, and but for Mrs.
Eldon's gentle sympathy he would scarcely have survived the blow. We
know already how his character had impressed that lady; such respect
was not lightly to be won, and he came to regard it as the most
precious thing that life had left him.

But the man was not perfect, and his latest practical undertaking
curiously enough illustrated the failing which he seemed most
completely to have outgrown. It was of course a deplorable error to
think of mining in the beautiful valley which had once been the
Eldons' estate. Richard Mutimer could not perceive that. He was a
very old man, and possibly the instincts of his youth revived as his
mind grew feebler; he imagined it the greatest kindness to Mrs.
Eldon and her son to increase as much as possible the value of the
property he would leave at his death. They, of course, could not
even hint to him the pain with which they viewed so barbarous a
scheme; he did not as much as suspect a possible objection.
Intensely happy in his discovery and the activity to which it led,
he would have gone to his grave rich in all manner of content but
for that fatal news which reached him from London, where Hubert
Eldon was sup posed to be engaged in sober study in an interval of
University work. Doubtless it was this disappointment that caused
his sudden death, and so brought about a state of things which could
he have foreseen it, would have occasioned him the bitterest grief.

He had never lost sight of his relatives in London, and had made for
them such modest provision as suited his view of the fitness of
things. To leave wealth to young men of the working class would have
seemed to him the most inexcusable of follies; if such were to rise
at all, it must be by their own efforts and in consequence of their
native merits; otherwise, let them toil on and support themselves
honestly. From secret sources he received information of the
capabilities and prospects of Joseph Mutimer's children, and the
items of his will were regulated accordingly.

So we return to the family in Wilton Square. Let us, before
proceeding with the story, enumerate the younger Mutimers. The
first-born, now aged five-and-twenty, had his great-uncle's name;
Joseph Mutimer, married, and no better off in worldly possessions
than when be had only himself to support, came to regret the
coldness with which he had received the advances of his uncle the
capitalist, and christened his son Richard, with half a hope that
some day the name might stand the boy in stead. Richard was a
mechanical engineer, employed in certain ironworks where hydraulic
machinery was made. The second child was a girl, upon whom had been
bestowed the names Alice Maud, after one of the Queen's daughters;
on which account, and partly with reference to certain personal
characteristics, she was often called 'the Princess.' Her age was
nineteen, and she had now for two years been employed in the
show-rooms of a City warehouse. Last comes Henry, a lad of
seventeen; he had been suffered to aim at higher things than the
rest of the family. In the industrial code of precedence the rank of
clerk is a step above that of mechanic, and Henry--known to
relatives and friends as 'Arry--occupied the proud position of clerk
in a drain-pipe manufactory.





CHAPTER IV




At ten o'clock on the evening of Easter Sunday, Mrs. Mutimer was
busy preparing supper. She had laid the table for six, had placed at
one end of it a large joint of cold meat, at the other a vast
flee-pudding, already diminished by attack, and she was now slicing
a conglomerate mass of cold potatoes and cabbage prior to heating it
in the frying-pan, which hissed with melted dripping just on the
edge of the fire. The kitchen was small, and everywhere reflected
from some bright surface either the glow of the open grate or the
yellow lustre of the gas-jet; red curtains drawn across the window
added warmth and homely comfort to the room. It was not the kitchen
of pinched or slovenly working folk; the air had a scent of
cleanliness, of freshly scrubbed boards and polished metal, and the
furniture was super-abundant. On the capacious dresser stood or hung
utensils innumerable; cupboards and chairs had a struggle for wall
space; every smallest object was in the place assigned to it by use
and wont.

The housewife was an active woman of something less than sixty;
stout, fresh-featured, with a small keen eye, a firm mouth, and the
look of one who, conscious of responsibilities, yet feels equal to
them; on the whole a kindly and contented face, if lacking the
suggestiveness which comes of thought. At present she seemed on the
verge of impatience; it was supper time, but her children lingered.

'There they are, and there they must wait, I s'pose,' she murmured
to herself as she finished slicing the vegetables and went to remove
the pan a little from the fire.

A knock at the house door called her upstairs. She came down again,
followed by a young girl of pleasant countenance, though pale and
anxious-looking. The visitor's dress was very plain, and indicated
poverty; she wore a long black jacket, untrimmed, a boa of cheap
fur, tied at the throat with black ribbon, a hat of grey felt, black
cotton gloves.

'No one here?' she asked, seeing the empty kitchen.

'Goodness knows where they all are. I s'pose Dick's at his meeting;
but Alice and 'Arry had ought to be back by now. Sit you down to the
table, and I'll put on the vegetables; there's no call to wait for
them. Only I ain't got the beer.'

'Oh, but I didn't mean to come for supper,' said the girl, whose
name was Emma Vine. 'I only ran in to tell you poor Jane's down
again with rheumatic fever.'

Mrs. Mutimer was holding the frying-pan over the fire, turning the
contents over and over with a knife.

'You don't mean that!' she exclaimed, looking over her shoulder.
'Why, it's the fifth time, ain't it?'

'It is indeed, and worse to get through every time. We didn't expect
she'd ever be able to walk again last autumn.'

'Dear, dear! what a thing them rheumatics is, to be sure! And you've
heard about Dick, haven't you?'

'Heard what?'

'Oh, I thought maybe it had got to you. He's lost his work, that's
all.'

'Lost his work?' the girl repeated, with dismay. 'Why?'

'Why? What else had he to expect? 'Tain't likely they'll keep a man
as goes about making all his mates discontented and calling his
employers names at every street corner. I've been looking for it
every week. Yesterday one of the guvnors calls him up and tells
him--just in a few civil words--as perhaps it 'ud be better for all
parties if he'd find a place where he was more satisfied. "Well an'
good," says Dick--you know his way--and there he is.'

The girl had seated herself, and listened to this story with
downcast eyes. Courage seemed to fail her; she drew a long, quiet
sigh. Her face was of the kind that expresses much sweetness in
irregular features. Her look was very honest and gentle, with
pathetic meanings for whoso had the eye to catch them; a peculiar
mobility of the lips somehow made one think that she had often to
exert herself to keep down tears. She spoke in a subdued voice,
always briefly, and with a certain natural refinement in the use of
uncultured language. When Mrs. Mutimer ceased, Emma kept silence,
and smoothed the front of her jacket with an unconscious movement of
the hand.

Mrs. Mutimer glanced at her and showed commiseration.

'Well, well, don't you worrit about it, Emma,' she said; 'you've
quite enough on your hands. Dick don't care--not he; be couldn't
look more high-flyin' if someone had left him a fortune. He says
it's the best thing as could happen. Nay, I can't explain; he'll
tell you plenty soon as he gets in. Cut yourself some meat, child,
do, and don't wait for me to help you. See, I'll turn you out some
potatoes; you don't care for the greens, I know.'

The fry had hissed vigorously whilst this conversation went on; the
results were brown and unctuous.

'Now, if it ain't too bad!' cried the old woman, losing
self-control. 'That 'Arry gets later every Sunday, and be knows very
well as I have to wait for the beer till he comes.'

I'll fetch it,' said Emma, rising.

'You indeed! I'd like to see Dick if he caught me a-sending you to
the public-house.'

'He won't mind it for once.'

'You get on with your supper, do. It's only my fidgetiness; I can do
very well a bit longer. And Alice, where's she off to, I wonder?
What it is to have a girl that age! I wish they was all like you,
Emma. Get on with your supper, I tell you, or you'll make me angry.
Now, it ain't no use taking it to 'eart in that way. I see what
you're worritin' over. Dick ain't the man to be out o' work long.'

'But won't it be the same at his next place?' Emma inquired. She was
trying to eat, but it was a sad pretence.

'Nay, there's no telling. It's no good my talkin' to him. Why don't
you see what you can do, Emma? 'Tain't as if he'd no one but his own
self to think about Don't you think you could make him see that? If
anyone has a right to speak, it's you. Tell him as he'd ought to
have a bit more thought. It's wait, wait, wait, and likely to be if
things go on like this. Speak up and tell him as--'

'Oh, I couldn't do that!' murmured Emma. 'Dick knows best.'

She stopped to listen; there was a noise above as of people entering
the house.

'Here they come at last,' said Mrs. Mutimer. 'Hear him laughin'?
Now, don't you be so ready to laugh with him. Let him see as it
ain't such good fun to everybody.'

Heavy feet tramped down the stone stairs, amid a sound of loud
laughter and excited talk. The next moment the kitchen door was
thrown open, and two young men appeared. The one in advance was
Richard Mutimer; behind him came a friend of the family, Daniel
Dabbs.

'Well, what do you think of this?' Richard exclaimed as he shook
Emma's hands rather carelessly. 'Mother been putting you out of
spirits, I suppose? Why, it's grand; the best thing that could have
happened! What a meeting we've had to-night! What do _you_ say,
Dan?'

Richard represented--too favourably to make him anything but an
exception--the best qualities his class can show. He was the English
artisan as we find him on rare occasions, the issue of a good strain
which has managed to procure a sufficiency of food for two or three
generations. His physique was admirable; little short of six feet in
stature, he had shapely shoulders, an erect well-formed head, clean
strong limbs, and a bearing which in natural ease and dignity
matched that of the picked men of the upper class--those fine
creatures whose career, from public school to regimental quarters,
is one exclusive course of bodily training. But the comparison, on
the whole, was to Richard's advantage. By no possibility could he
have assumed that aristocratic vacuity of visage which comes of
carefully induced cerebral atrophy. The air of the workshop suffered
little colour to dwell upon his cheeks; but to features of so
pronounced and intelligent a type this pallor added a distinction.
He had dark brown hair, thick and long, and a cropped beard of hue
somewhat lighter. His eyes were his mother's--keen and direct; but
they had small variety of expression; you could not imagine them
softening to tenderness, or even to thoughtful dreaming. Terribly
wide awake, they seemed to be always looking for the weak points of
whatever they regarded, and their brightness was not seldom
suggestive of malice. His voice was strong and clear; it would ring
out well in public places, which is equivalent to saying that it
hardly invited too intimate conference. You will take for granted
that Richard displayed, alike in attitude and tone, a distinct
consciousness of his points of superiority to the men among whom he
lived; probably he more than suspected that he could have held his
own in spheres to which there seemed small chance of his being
summoned.

Just now he showed at once the best and the weakest of his points.
Coming in a state of exaltation from a meeting of which he had been
the eloquent hero, such light as was within him flashed from his
face freely; all the capacity and the vigour which impelled him to
strain against the strait bonds of his lot set his body quivering
and made music of his utterance. At the same time, his free
movements passed easily into swagger, and as he talked on, the false
notes were not few. A working man gifted with brains and comeliness
must, be sure of it, pay penalties for his prominence.

Quite another man was Daniel Dabbs: in him you saw the proletarian
pure and simple. He was thick-set, square-shouldered, rolling in
gait; he walked with head bent forward and eyes glancing uneasily,
as if from lack of self-confidence. His wiry black hair shone with
grease, and no accuracy of razor-play would make his chin white. A
man of immense strength, but bull-necked and altogether
ungainly--his heavy fist, with its black veins and terrific
knuckles, suggested primitive methods of settling dispute; the
stumpy fingers, engrimed hopelessly, and the filthy broken nails,
showed how he wrought for a living. His face, if you examined it
without prejudice, was not ill to look upon; there was much good
humour about the mouth, and the eyes, shrewd enough, could glimmer a
kindly light His laughter was roof-shaking--always a good sign in a
man.

'And what have _you_ got to say of these fine doings, Mr. Dabbs?'
Mrs. Mutimer asked him.

'Why, it's like this 'era, Mrs. Mutimer,' Daniel began, having
seated himself, with hands on widely-parted knees. 'As far as the
theory goes, I'm all for Dick; any man must be as knows his two
times two. But about the Longwoods; well, I tell Dick they've a
perfect right to get rid of him, finding him a dangerous enemy, you
see. It was all fair and above board. Young Stephen Longwood ups an'
says--leastways not in these words, but them as means the same--says
he, "Look 'ere, Mutimer," he says, "we've no fault to find with you
as a workman, but from what we hear of you, it seems you don't care
much for us as employers. Hadn't you better find a shop as is run on
Socialist principles?" That's all about it, you see; it's a case of
incompatible temperaments; there's no ill-feelin', not as between
man and man, And that's what I say, too.'

'Now, Dick,' said Mrs. Mutimer, 'before you begin your sermon, who's
a-going to fetch my beer?'

'Right, Mrs. Mutimer!' cried Daniel, slapping his leg. 'That's what
I call coming from theory to practice. Beer squares all--leastways
for the time being--only for the time being, Dick. Where's the jug?
Better give me two jugs; we've had a thirsty night of it.'

'We'll make capital of this!' said Richard, walking about the room
in Daniel's absence. 'The great point gained is, they've shown
they're afraid of me. We'll write it up in the paper next week, see
if we don't! It'll do us a sight of good.'

'And where's your weekly wages to come from?' inquired his mother.

'Oh, I'll look after that. I only wish they'd refuse me all round;
the more of that kind of thing the better for us. I'm not afraid but
I can earn my living.'

Through all this Emma Vine had sat with her thoughtful eyes
constantly turned on Richard. It was plain how pride struggled with
anxiety in her mind. When Richard had kept silence for a moment, she
ventured to speak, having tried in vain to meet his look.

'Jane's ill again, Richard,' she said.

Mutimer had to summon his thoughts from a great distance; his
endeavour to look sympathetic was not very successful.

'Not the fever again?'

'Yes, it is,' she replied sadly.

'Going to work in the wet, I suppose?'

He shrugged his shoulders; in his present mood the fact was not so
much personally interesting to him as in the light of another case
against capitalism. Emma's sister had to go a long way to her daily
employment, and could not afford to ride; the fifth attack of
rheumatic fever was the price she paid for being permitted to earn
ten shillings a week.

Daniel returned with both jugs foaming, his face on a broad grin of
anticipation. There was a general move to the table. Richard began
to carve roast beef like a freeman, not by any means like the serf
he had repeatedly declared himself in the course of the evening's
oratory.

'Her Royal 'Ighness out?' asked Daniel, with constraint not solely
due to the fact that his mouth was full.

'She's round at Mrs. Took's, I should think,' was Mrs. Mutimer's
reply. 'Staying supper, per'aps.'

Richard, after five minutes of surprising trencher-work, recommenced
conversation. The proceedings of the evening at the hall, which was
the centre for Socialist gatherings in this neighbourhood, were
discussed by him and Daniel with much liveliness. Dan was disposed
to take the meeting on its festive and humorous side; for him,
economic agitation was a mode of passing a few hours amid congenial
uproar. Whenever stamping and shouting were called for, Daniel was
your man. Abuse of employers, it was true, gave a zest to the
occasion, and to applaud the martyrdom of others was as cheery an
occupation as could he asked; Daniel had no idea of sacrificing his
own weekly wages, and therein resembled most of those who had been
loud in uncompromising rhetoric. Richard, on the other hand, was
unmistakably zealous. His sense of humour was not strong, and in any
case he would have upheld the serious dignity of his own position.
One saw from his way of speaking, that he believed himself about to
become a popular hero; already in imagination he stood forth on
platforms before vast assemblies, and heard his own voice denouncing
capitalism with force which nothing could resist. The first taste of
applause had given extraordinary impulse to his convictions, and the
personal ambition with which they were interwoven. His grandfather's
blood was hot in him to-night. Henry Mutimer, dying in hospital of
his broken skull, would have found euthanasia, could he in vision
have seen this worthy descendant entering upon a career in
comparison with which his own was unimportant.

The high-pitched voices and the clatter of knives and forks allowed
a new-comer to enter the kitchen without being immediately observed.
It was a tall girl of interesting and vivacious appearance; she wore
a dress of tartan, a very small hat trimmed also with tartan and
with a red feather, a tippet of brown fur about her shoulders, and a
muff of the same material on one of her hands. Her figure was
admirable; from the crest of her gracefully poised head to the tip
of her well-chosen boot she was, in line and structure, the type of
mature woman. Her face, if it did not indicate a mind to match her
frame, was at the least sweet-featured and provoking; characterless
somewhat, but void of danger-signals; doubtless too good to be
merely played with; in any case, very capable of sending a ray, in
one moment or another, to the shadowy dreaming-place of graver
thoughts. Alice Maud Mutimer was nineteen. For two years she had
been thus tall, but the grace of her proportions had only of late
fully determined itself. Her work in the City warehouse was
unexacting; she had even a faint impress of rose-petal on each
cheek, and her eye was excellently clear. Her lips, unfortunately
never quite closed, betrayed faultless teeth. Her likeness to
Richard was noteworthy; beyond question she understood the charm of
her presence, and one felt that the consciousness might, in her
case, constitute rather a safeguard than otherwise.

She stood with one hand on the door, surveying the table. When the
direction of Mrs. Mutimer's eyes at length caused Richard and Daniel
to turn their heads, Alice nodded to each.

'What noisy people! I heard you out in the square.'

She was moving past the table, but Daniel, suddenly backing his
chair, intercepted her. The girl gave him her hand, and, by way of
being jocose, he squeezed it so vehemently that she uttered a shrill
'Oh!'

'Leave go, Mr. Dabbs! Leave go, I tell you! How dare you? I'll hit
you as hard as I can!'

Daniel laughed obstreperously.

'Do! do!' he cried. 'What a mighty blow that 'ud be! Only the left
hand, though. I shall get over it.'

She wrenched herself away, gave Daniel a smart slap on the back, and
ran round to the other side of the table, where she kissed Emma
affectionately.

'How thirsty I am!' she exclaimed. 'You haven't drunk all the beer,
I hope.'

'I'm not so sure of that,' Dan replied. 'Why, there ain't more than
'arf a pint; that's not much use for a Royal 'Ighness.'

She poured it into a glass. Alice reached across the table, raised
the glass to her lips, and--emptied it. Then she threw off hat,
tippet, and gloves, and seated herself But in a moment she was up
and at the cupboard.

'Now, mother, you don't--you _don't_ say as there's not a pickle!'

Her tone was deeply reproachful.

'Why, there now,' replied her mother, laughing; 'I knew what it 'ud
be! I meant to a' got them last night. You'll have to make shift for
once.'

The Princess took her seat with an air of much dejection. Her pretty
lips grew mutinous; she pushed her plate away.

'No supper for me! The idea of cold meat without a pickle.'

'What's the time?' cried Daniel. 'Not closing time yet. I can get a
pickle at the "Duke's Arms." Give me a glass, Mrs. Mutimer.'

Alice looked up slily, half smiling, half doubtful.

'You may go,' she said. 'I like to see strong men make themselves
useful.'

Dan rose, and was off at once. He returned with the tumbler full of
pickled walnuts. Alice emptied half a dozen into her plate, and put
one of them whole into her mouth. She would not have been a girl of
her class if she had not relished this pungent dainty. Fish of any
kind, green vegetables, eggs and bacon, with all these a drench of
vinegar was indispensable to her. And she proceeded to eat a supper
scarcely less substantial than that which had appeased her brother's
appetite. Start not, dear reader; the Princess is only a subordinate
heroine, and happens, moreover, to be a living creature.

'Won't you take a walnut, Miss Vine?' Daniel asked, pushing the
tumbler to the quiet girl, who had scarcely spoken through the meal.

She declined the offered dainty, and at the same time rose from the
table, saying aside to Mrs. Mutimer that she must be going.

'Yes, I suppose you must,' was the reply. 'Shall you have to sit up
with Jane?'

'Not all night, I don't expect.'

Richard likewise left his place, and, when she offered to bid him
good-night, said that he would walk a little way with her. In the
passage above, which was gas-lighted, he found his hat on a nail,
and the two left the house together.

'Don't you really mind?' Emma asked, looking up into his face as
they took their way out of the square.

'Not I! I can get a job at Baldwin's any day. But I dare say I
shan't want one long.'

'Not want work?'

He laughed.

'Work? Oh, plenty of work; but perhaps not the same kind. We want
men who can give their whole time to the struggle--to go about
lecturing and the like. Of course, it isn't everybody can do it.'

The remark indicated his belief that he knew one man not incapable
of leading functions.

'And would they pay you?' Emma inquired, simply.

'Expenses of that kind are inevitable,' he replied.

Issuing into the New North Road, where there were still many people
hastening one way and the other, they turned to the left, crossed
the canal--black and silent--and were soon among narrow streets.
Every corner brought a whiff of some rank odour, which stole from
closed shops and warehouses, and hung heavily on the still air. The
public-houses had just extinguished their lights, and in the
neighbourhood of each was a cluster of lingering men and women,
merry or disputatious. Mid-Easter was inviting repose and festivity;
to-morrow would see culmination of riot, and after that it would
only depend upon pecuniary resources how long the muddled interval
between holiday and renewed labour should drag itself out.

The end of their walk was the entrance to a narrow passage, which,
at a few yards' distance, widened itself and became a street of
four-storeyed houses. At present this could not be discerned; the
passage was a mere opening into massive darkness. Richard had just
been making inquiries about Emma's sister.

'You've had the doctor?'

'Yes, we're obliged; she does so dread going to the hospital again.
Each time she's longer in getting well.'

Richard's hand was in his pocket; he drew it out and pressed
something against the girl's palm.

'Oh, how can I?' she said, dropping her eyes. 'No--don't--I'm
ashamed.'

'That's all right,' he urged, not unkindly. 'You'll have to get her
what the doctor orders, and it isn't likely you and Kate can afford
it.'

'You're always so kind, Richard. But I am--I am ashamed!'

'I say, Emma, why don't you call me Dick? I've meant to ask you that
many a time.'

She turned her face away, moving as if abashed.

'I don't know. It sounds--perhaps I want to make a difference from
what the others call you.'

He laughed with a sound of satisfaction.

'Well, you mustn't stand here; it's a cold night. Try and come
Tuesday or Wednesday.'

'Yes, I will.'

'Good night!' he said, and, as he held her hand, bent to the lips
which were ready.

Emma walked along the passage, and for some distance up the middle
of the street. Then she stopped and looked up at one of the black
houses. There were lights, more or less curtain-dimmed, in nearly
all the windows. Emma regarded a faint gleam in the topmost storey.
To that she ascended.

Mutimer walked homewards at a quick step, whistling to himself. A
latch-key gave him admission. As he went down the kitchen stairs, he
heard his mother's voice raised in anger, and on opening the door he
found that Daniel had departed, and that the supper table was
already cleared. Alice, her feet on the fender and her dress raised
a little, was engaged in warming herself before going to bed. The
object of Mrs. Mutimer's chastisement was the youngest member of the
family, known as 'Arry; even Richard, who had learnt to be somewhat
careful in his pronunciation, could not bestow the aspirate upon his
brother's name. Henry, aged seventeen, promised to do credit to the
Mutimers in physical completeness; already he was nearly as tall as
his eldest brother; and, even in his lankness, showed the beginnings
of well-proportioned vigour. But the shape of his head, which was
covered with hair of the lightest hue, did not encourage hope of
mental or moral qualities. It was not quite fair to judge his face
as seen at present; the vacant grin of half timid, half insolent,
resentment made him considerably more simian of visage than was the
case under ordinary circumstances. But the features were unpleasant
to look upon; it was Richard's face, distorted and enfeebled with
impress of sensual instincts.

'As long as you live in this house, it shan't go on,' his mother was
saying. 'Sunday or Monday, it's no matter; you'll be home before
eleven o'clock, and you'll come home sober. You're no better than a
pig!'

'Arry was seated in a far corner of the room, where he had dropped
his body on entering. His attire was such as the cheap tailors turn
out in imitation of extreme fashions: trousers closely moulded upon
the leg, a huff waistcoat, a short coat with pockets everywhere. A
very high collar kept his head up against his will; his necktie was
crimson, and passed through a brass ring; he wore a silver
watch-chain, or what seemed to be such. One hand was gloved, and a
cane lay across his knees. His attitude was one of relaxed muscles,
his legs very far apart, his body not quite straight.

'What d' you call sober, I'd like to know?' he replied, with
looseness of utterance. 'I'm as sober 's anybody in this room. If a
chap can't go out with 's friends 't Easter an' all--?'

'Easter, indeed! It's getting to be a regular thing, Saturday and
Sunday. Get up and go to bed! I'll have my say out with you in the
morning, young man.'

'Go to bed!' repeated the lad with scorn. 'Tell you I ain't had no
supper.'

Richard had walked to the neighbourhood of the fireplace, and was
regarding his brother with anger and contempt. At this point of the
dialogue he interfered.

'And you won't have any, either, that I'll see to! What's more,
you'll do as your mother bids you, or I'll know the reason why. Go
upstairs at once!'

It was not a command to be disregarded. 'Arry rose, but
half-defiantly.

'What have you to do with it? You're not my master.'

'Do you hear what I say?' Richard observed, yet more autocratically.
'Take yourself off, and at once!'

The lad growled, hesitated, but approached the door. His motion was
slinking; he could not face Richard's eye. They heard him stumble up
the stairs.





CHAPTER V




On ordinary days Richard of necessity rose early; a holiday did not
lead him to break the rule, for free hours were precious. He had his
body well under control; six hours of sleep he found sufficient to
keep him in health, and temptations to personal ease, in whatever
form, he resisted as a matter of principle.

Easter Monday found him down-stairs at half-past six. His mother
would to-day allow herself another hour. 'Arry would be down just in
time to breakfast, not daring to be late. The Princess might be
looked for--some time in the course of the morning; she was
licensed.

Richard, for purposes of study, used the front parlour. In drawing
up the blind, he disclosed a room precisely resembling in essential
features hundreds of front parlours in that neighbourhood, or,
indeed, in any working-class district of London. Everything was
clean; most things were bright-hued or glistening of surface. There
was the gilt-framed mirror over the mantelpiece, with a yellow
clock--which did not go--and glass ornaments in front. There was
a small round table before the window, supporting wax fruit under
a glass case. There was a hearthrug with a dazzling pattern of
imaginary flowers. On the blue cloth of the middle table were four
showily-bound volumes, arranged symmetrically. On the head of the
sofa lay a covering worked of blue and yellow Berlin wools. Two
arm-chairs were draped with long white antimacassars, ready to slip
off at a touch. As in the kitchen, there was a smell of cleanlines--of
furniture polish, hearthstone, and black-lead.

I should mention the ornaments of the walls. The pictures were: a
striking landscape of the Swiss type, an engraved portrait of
Garibaldi, an unframed view of a certain insurance office, a British
baby on a large scale from the Christmas number of an illustrated
paper.

The one singular feature of the room was a small, glass-doored
bookcase, full of volumes. They were all of Richard's purchasing; to
survey them was to understand the man, at all events on his
intellectual side. Without exception they belonged to that order of
literature which, if studied exclusively and for its own sake,--as
here it was,--brands a man indelibly, declaring at once the
incompleteness of his education and the deficiency of his instincts.
Social, political, religious,--under these three heads the volumes
classed themselves, and each class was represented by productions of
the 'extreme' school. The books which a bright youth of fair
opportunities reads as a matter of course, rejoices in for a year or
two, then throws aside for ever, were here treasured to be the
guides of a lifetime. Certain writers of the last century, long ago
become only historically interesting, were for Richard an armoury
whence he girded himself for the battles of the day; cheap reprints
or translations of Malthus, of Robert Owen, of Volney's 'Ruins,' of
Thomas Paine, of sundry works of Voltaire, ranked upon his shelves.
Moreover, there was a large collection of pamphlets, titled
wonderfully and of yet more remarkable contents, the authoritative
utterances of contemporary gentlemen--and ladies--who made it the
end of their existence to prove: that there cannot by any
possibility be such a person as Satan; that the story of creation
contained in the Book of Genesis is on no account to be received;
that the begetting of children is a most deplorable oversight; that
to eat flesh is wholly unworthy of a civilised being; that if every
man and woman performed their quota of the world's labour it would
be necessary to work for one hour and thirty-seven minutes daily, no
jot longer, and that the author, in each case, is the one person
capable of restoring dignity to a down-trodden race and happiness to
a blasted universe. Alas, alas! On this food had Richard Mutimer
pastured his soul since he grew to manhood, on this and this only.
English literature was to him a sealed volume; poetry he scarcely
knew by name; of history he was worse than ignorant, having looked
at this period and that through distorting media, and congratulating
himself on his clear vision because he saw men as trees walking; the
bent of his mind would have led him to natural science, but
opportunities of instruction were lacking, and the chosen directors
of his prejudice taught him to regard every fact, every discovery,
as _for_ or _against_ something.

A library of pathetic significance, the individual alone considered.
Viewed as representative, not without alarming suggestiveness to
those who can any longer trouble themselves about the world's
future. One dreams of the age when free thought--in the popular
sense--will have become universal, when art shall have lost its
meaning, worship its holiness, when the Bible will only exist in
'comic' editions, and Shakespeare be down-cried by 'most sweet
voices as a mountebank of reactionary tendencies.

Richard was to lecture on the ensuing Sunday at one of the branch
meeting-places of his society; he engaged himself this morning in
collecting certain data of a statistical kind. He was still at his
work when the sound of the postman's knock began to be heard in the
square, coming from house to house, drawing nearer at each
repetition. Richard paid no heed to it; he expected no letter. Yet
it seemed there was one for some member of the family; the
letter-carrier's regular tread ascended the five steps to the door,
and then two small thunderclaps echoed through the house. There was
no letter-box; Richard went to answer the knock. An envelope
addressed to himself in a small, formal hand.

His thoughts still busy with other things, he opened the letter
mechanically as he re-entered the room. He had never in his life
been calmer; the early hour of study had kept his mind pleasantly
active whilst his breakfast appetite sharpened itself. Never was man
less prepared to receive startling intelligence.

He read, then raised his eyes and let them stray from the papers on
the table to the wax-fruit before the window, thence to the young
leafage of the trees around the Baptist Chapel. He was like a man
whose face had been overflashed by lightning. He read again, then,
holding the letter behind him, closed his right hand upon his beard
with thoughtful tension. He read a third time, then returned the
letter to its envelope, put it in his pocket, and sat down again to
his book.

He was summoned to breakfast in ten minutes. His mother was alone in
the kitchen; she gave him his bloater and his cup of coffee, and he
cut himself a solid slice of bread and butter.

'Was the letter for you?' she asked.

He replied with a nod, and fell patiently to work on the dissection
of his bony delicacy. In five minutes Henry approached the table
with a furtive glance at his elder brother. But Richard had no
remark to make. The meal proceeded in silence.

When Richard had finished, he rose and said to his mother--

'Have you that railway-guide I brought home a week ago?'

'I believe I have somewhere. Just look in the cupboard.'

The guide was found. Richard consulted it for a few moments.

'I have to go out of London,' he then observed. 'It's just possible
I shan't get back to-night.'

A little talk followed about the arrangements of the day, and
whether anyone was likely to be at home for dinner. Richard did not
show much interest in the matter; he went upstairs whistling, and
changed the clothing he wore for his best suit. In a quarter of an
hour he had left the house.

He did not return till the evening of the following day. It was
presumed that he had gone 'after a job.'

When he reached home his mother and Alice were at tea. He walked to
the kitchen fireplace, turned his back to it, and gazed with a
peculiar expression at the two who sat at table.

'Dick's got work,' observed Alice, after a glance at him. 'I can see
that in his face.'.

'Have you, Dick?' asked Mrs. Mutimer.

'I have. Work likely to last.'

'So we'll hope,' commented his mother. 'Where is it? '

'A good way out of London. Pour me a cup, mother. Where's 'Arry?'

'Gone out, as usual.'

'And why are you having tea with your hat on, Princess?'

'Because I'm in a hurry, if you must know everything.'

Richard did not seek further information. He drank his tea standing.
In five minutes Alice had bustled away for an evening with friends.
Mrs. Mutimer cleared the table without speaking.

'Now get your sewing, mother, and sit down,' began Richard. 'I want
to have a talk with you.'

The mother cast a rather suspicious glance. There was an
impressiveness in the young man's look and tone which disposed her
to obey without remark.

'How long is it,' Richard asked, when attention waited upon him,
'since you heard anything of father's uncle, my namesake?'

Mrs. Mutimer's face exhibited the dawning of intelligence, an
unwrinkling here and there, a slight rounding of the lips.

'Why, what of him?' she asked in an undertone, leaving a needle
unthreaded.

'The old man's just dead.'

Agitation seized the listener, agitation of a kind most unusual in
her. Her hands trembled, her eyes grew wide.

'You haven't heard anything of him lately?' pursued Richard.

'Heard? Not I. No more did your father ever since two years afore we
was married. I'd always thought he was dead long ago. What of him,
Dick?'

'From what I'm told I thought you'd perhaps been keeping things to
yourself. 'Twouldn't have been unlike you, mother. He knew all about
us, so the lawyer tells me.'

'The lawyer?'

'Well, I'd better out with it. He's died without a will. His real
property--that means his houses and land--belongs to me; his
personal property--that's his money--'ll have to be divided between
me, and Alice, and 'Arry. You're out of the sharing, mother.'

He said it jokingly, but Mrs. Mutimer did not join in his laugh. Her
palms were closely pressed together; still trembling, she gazed
straight before her, with a far-off look.

'His houses--his land?' she murmured, as if she had not quite heard.
'What did he want with more than one house?'

The absurd question was all that could find utterance. She seemed to
be reflecting on that point.

'Would you like to hear what it all comes to?' Richard resumed. His
voice was unnatural, forcibly suppressed, quivering at pauses. His
eyes gleamed, and there was a centre of warm colour on each of his
cheeks. He had taken a note-book from his pocket, and the leaves
rustled under his tremulous fingers.

'The lawyer, a man called Yottle, just gave me an idea of the
different investments and so on. The real property consists of a
couple of houses in Belwick, both let, and an estate at a place
called Wanley. The old man had begun mining there; there's iron.
I've got my ideas about that. I didn't go into the house; people are
there still. Now the income.'

He read his notes: So much in railways, so much averaged yearly from
iron-works in Belwick, so much in foreign securities, so much
disposable at home. Total--

'Stop, Dick, stop!' uttered his mother, under her breath. 'Them
figures frighten me; I don't know what they mean. It's a mistake;
they're leading you astray. Now, mind what I say--there's a mistake!
No man with all that money 'ud die without a will. You won't get me
to believe it, Dick.'

Richard laughed excitedly. 'Believe it or not, mother; I've got my
ears and eyes, I hope. And there's a particular reason why he left
no will. There was one, but something--I don't know what--happened
just before his death, and he was going to make a new one. The will
was burnt. He died in church on a Sunday morning; if he'd lived
another day, he'd have made a new will. It's no more a mistake than
the Baptist Chapel is in the square!' A comparison which hardly
conveyed all Richard's meaning; but he was speaking in agitation,
more and more quickly, at last almost angrily.

Mrs. Mutimer raised her hand. 'Be quiet a bit, Dick. It's took me
too sudden. I feel queer like.'

There was silence. The mother rose as if with difficulty, and drew
water in a tea-cup from the filter. When she resumed her place, her
hands prepared to resume sewing. She looked up, solemnly, sternly.

'Dick, it's bad, bad news! I'm an old woman, and I must say what I
think. It upsets me; it frightens me. I thought he might a' left you
a hundred pounds.'

'Mother, don't talk about it till you've had time to think,' said
Richard, stubbornly. 'If this is bad news, what the deuce would you
call good? Just because I've been born and bred a mechanic, does
that say I've got no common sense or self-respect? Are you afraid I
shall go and drink myself to death? You talk like the people who
make it their business to sneer at us--the improvidence of the
working classes, and such d--d slander. It's good news for me, and
it'll be good news for many another man. Wait and see.'

The mother became silent, keeping her lips tight, and struggling to
regain her calmness. She was not convinced, but in argument with her
eldest son she always gave way, affection and the pride she had in
him aiding her instincts of discretion. In practice she still
maintained something of maternal authority, often gaining her point
by merely seeming offended. To the two who had not yet reached the
year of emancipation she allowed, in essentials, no appeal from her
decision. Between her and Richard there had been many a sharp
conflict in former days, invariably ending with the lad's
submission; the respect which his mother exacted he in truth felt to
be her due, and it was now long since they had openly been at issue
on any point. Mrs. Mutimer's views were distinctly Conservative, and
hitherto she had never taken Richard's Radicalism seriously; on the
whole she had regarded it as a fairly harmless recreation for his
leisure hours--decidedly preferable to a haunting of public-houses
and music-halls. The loss of his employment caused her a good deal
of uneasiness, but she had not ventured to do more than throw out
hints of her disapproval; and now, as it seemed, the matter was of
no moment. Henceforth she had far other apprehensions, but this
first conflict of their views made her reticent.

'Just let me tell you how things stand,' Richard pursued, when his
excitement had somewhat subsided; and he went on to explain the
relations between old Mr. Mutimer and the Eldons, which in outline
had been described to him by Mr. Yottle. And then--

'The will he had made left all the property to this young Eldon, who
was to be trustee for a little money to be doled out to me yearly,
just to save me from ruining myself, of course.' Richard's lips
curled in scorn. 'I don't know whether the lawyer thought we ought
to offer to give everything up; he seemed precious anxious to make
me understand that the old man had never intended us to have it, and
that he _did_ want these other people to have it. Of course, we've
nothing to do with that. Luck's luck, and I think I know who'll make
best use of it.'

'Why didn't you tell all this when Alice was here?' inquired his
mother, seeming herself again, though very grave.

'I'll tell you. I thought it over, and it seems to me it'll be
better if Alice and 'Arry wait a while before they know what'll come
to them. They can't take anything till they're twenty-one. Alice is
a good girl, but--'

He hesitated, having caught his mother's eye. He felt that this
prudential course justified in a measure her anxiety.

'She's a girl,' he pursued, 'and we know that a girl with a lot o'
money gets run after by men who care nothing about her and a good
deal about the money. Then it's quite certain 'Arry won't be any the
better for fancying himself rich. H's going to give us trouble as it
is, I can see that. We shall have to take another house, of course,
and we can't keep them from knowing that there's money fallen to me.
But there's no need to talk about the figures, and if we can make
them think it's only me that's better off, so much the better. Alice
needn't go to work, and I'm glad of it; a girl's proper place is at
home. You can tell her you want her to help in the new house. 'Arry
had better keep his place awhile. I shouldn't wonder if I find work
for him myself before long I've got plans, but I shan't talk about
them just yet.'

He spoke then of the legal duties which fell upon him as
next-of-kin, explaining the necessity of finding two sureties on
taking out letters of administration. Mr. Yottle had offered himself
for one; the other Richard hoped to find in Mr. Westlake, a leader
of the Socialist movement.

'You want us to go into a big house?' asked Mrs. Mutimer. She seemed
to pay little attention to the wider aspects of the change, but to
fix on the details she could best understand, those which put her
fears in palpable shape.

'I didn't say a big one, but a larger than this. We're not going to
play the do-nothing gentlefolk; but all the same our life won't and
can't be what it has been. There's no choice. You've worked hard all
your life, mother, and it's only fair you should come in for a bit
of rest. We'll find a house somewhere out Green Lanes way, or in
Highbury or Holloway.'

He laughed again.

'So there's the best of it--the worst of it, as you say. Just take a
night to turn it over. Most likely I shall go to Belwick again
to-morrow afternoon.'

He paused, and his mother, after bending her head to bite off an end
of cotton, asked--

'You'll tell Emma?'

'I shall go round to-night.'

A little later Richard left the house for this purpose. His step was
firmer than ever, his head more upright Walking along the crowded
streets, he saw nothing; there was a fixed smile on his lips, the
smile of a man to whom the world pays tribute. Never having suffered
actual want, and blessed with sanguine temperament, he knew nothing
of that fierce exultation, that wrathful triumph over fate, which
comes to men of passionate mood smitten by the lightning-flash of
unhoped prosperity. At present he was well-disposed to all men; even
against capitalists and 'profitmongers' he could not have railed
heartily Capitalists? Was he not one himself? Aye, but he would
prove himself such a one as you do not meet with every day; and the
foresight of deeds which should draw the eyes of men upon him, which
should shout his name abroad, softened his judgments with the
charity of satisfied ambition. He would be the glorified
representative of his class. He would show the world how a
self-taught working man conceived the duties and privileges of
wealth. He would shame those dunder-headed, callous-hearted
aristocrats, those ravening bourgeois. Opportunity--what else had he
wanted? No longer would his voice be lost in petty lecture-halls,
answered only by the applause of a handful of mechanics. Ere many
months had passed, crowds should throng to hear him; his gospel
would be trumpeted over the land. To what might he not attain? The
educated, the refined, men and women--

He was at the entrance of a dark passage, where his feet stayed
themselves by force of habit. He turned out of the street, and
walked more slowly towards the house in which Emma Vine and her
sisters lived. Having reached the door, he paused, but again took a
few paces forward. Then he came back and rang the uppermost of five
bells. In waiting, he looked vaguely up and down the street.

It was Emma herself who opened to him. The dim light showed a smile
of pleasure and surprise.

'You've come to ask about Jane?' she said. 'She hasn't been quite so
bad since last night.'

'I'm glad to hear it. Can I come up?'

'Will you?'

He entered, and Emma closed the door. It was pitch dark.

'I wish I'd brought a candle down,' Emma said, moving back along the
passage. 'Mind there's a pram at the foot of the stairs.'

The perambulator was avoided successfully by both, and they ascended
the bare boards of the staircase. On each landing prevailed a
distinct odour; first came the damp smell of newly-washed clothes,
then the scent of fried onions, then the workroom of some small
craftsman exhaled varnish. The topmost floor seemed the purest; it
was only stuffy.

Richard entered an uncarpeted room which had to serve too many
distinct purposes to allow of its being orderly in appearance. In
one corner was a bed, where two little children lay asleep; before
the window stood a sewing-machine, about which was heaped a quantity
of linen; a table in the midst was half covered with a cloth, on
which was placed a loaf and butter, the other half being piled with
several dresses requiring the needle. Two black patches on the low
ceiling showed in what positions the lamp stood by turns.

Emma's eldest sister was moving about the room. Hers were the
children; her husband had been dead a year or more. She was about
thirty years of age, and had a slatternly appearance; her face was
peevish, and seemed to grudge the half-smile with which it received
the visitor.

'You've no need to look round you,' she said. 'We're in & regular
pig-stye, and likely to be. Where's there a chair?'

She shook some miscellaneous articles on to the floor to provide a
seat.

'For mercy's sake don't speak too loud, and wake them children.
Bertie's had the earache; he's been crying all day. What with him
and Jane we've had a blessing, I can tell you. Can I put these
supper things away, Emma?'

'I'll do it,' was the other's reply. 'Won't you have a bit more,
Kate?'

'I've got no mind for eating. Well, you may cut a slice and put it
on the mantelpiece. I'll go and sit with Jane.'

Richard sat and looked about the room absently. The circumstances of
his own family had never fallen below the point at which it is
possible to have regard for decency; the growing up of himself and
of his brothers and sister had brought additional resources to meet
extended needs, and the Mutimer characteristics had formed a
safeguard against improvidence. He was never quite at his ease in
this poverty-cumbered room, which he seldom visited.

'You ought to have a fire,' he said.

'There's one in the other room,' replied Kate. 'One has to serve
us.'

'But you can't cook there.'

'Cook? We can boil a potato, and that's about all the cooking we can
do now-a-days.'

She moved to the door as she spoke, and, before leaving the room,
took advantage of Richard's back being turned to make certain
exhortatory signs to her sister. Emma averted her head.

Kate closed the door behind her. Emma, having removed the eatables
to the cupboard, came near to Richard and placed her arm gently upon
his shoulders. He looked at her kindly.

'Kate's been so put about with Bertie,' she said, in a tone of
excuse. 'And she was up nearly all last night.'

'She never takes things like you do,' Richard remarked.

'She's got more to bear. There's the children always making her
anxious. She took Alf to the hospital this afternoon, and the doctor
says he must have--I forget the name, somebody's food. But it's
two-and-ninepence for ever such a little tin. They don't think as
his teeth 'll ever come.'

'Oh, I daresay they will,' said Richard encouragingly.

He had put his arm about her. Emma knelt down by him, and rested her
head against his shoulder.

'I'm tired,' she whispered. 'I've had to go twice to the Minories
to-day. I'm so afraid I shan't be able to hold my eyes open with
Jane, and Kate's tireder still.'

She did not speak as if seeking for sympathy it was only the natural
utterance of her thoughts in a moment of restful confidence.
Uttermost weariness was a condition too familiar to the girl to be
spoken of in any but a patient, matter-of-fact tone. But it was
priceless soothing to let her forehead repose against the heart
whose love was the one and sufficient blessing of her life. Her
brown hair was very soft and fine; a lover of another kind would
have pressed his lips upon it. Richard was thinking of matters more
practical. At another time his indignation--in such a case right
good and manful--would have boiled over at the thought of these
poor women crushed in slavery to feed the world's dastard
selfishness; this evening his mood was more complaisant, and he
smiled as one at ease.

'Hadn't you better give up your work?' he said.

Emma raised her head. In the few moments of repose her eyelids had
drooped with growing heaviness; she looked at him as if she had just
been awakened to some great surprise.

'Give up work? How can I?'

'I think I would. You'd have more time to give to Jane, and you
could sleep in the day. And Jane had better not begin again after
this. Don't you think it would be better if you left these lodgings
and took a house, where there'd be plenty of room and fresh air?'

'Richard, what are you talking about?'

He laughed, quietly, on account of the sleeping children.

'How would you like,' he continued, 'to go and live in the country?
Kate and Jane could have a house of their own, you know--in London,
I mean, a house like ours; they could let a room or two if they
chose. Then you and I could go where we liked. I was down in the
Midland Counties yesterday; had to go on business; and I saw a house
that would just suit us. It's a bit large; I daresay there's sixteen
or twenty rooms. And there's trees growing all about it; a big
garden--'

Emma dropped her head again and laughed, happy that Richard should
jest with her so good-humouredly; for he did not often talk in the
lighter way. She had read of such houses in the weekly story-papers.
It must be nice to live in them; it must be nice to be a denizen of
Paradise.

'I'm in earnest, Emma.'

His voice caused her to gaze at him again.

'Bring a chair,' he said, 'and I'll tell you something that'll--keep
you awake.'

The insensible fellow! Her sweet, pale, wondering face was so close
to his, the warmth of her drooping frame was against his heart--
arid he bade her sit apart to listen.

She placed herself as he desired, sitting with her hands together in
her lap, her countenance troubled a little, wishing to smile, yet
not quite venturing. And he told his story, told it in all details,
with figures that filled the mouth, that rolled forth like gold upon
the bank-scales.

'This is mine,' he said, 'mine and yours.'

Have you seen a child listening to a long fairy tale, every page a
new adventure of wizardry, a story of elf, or mermaid, or gnome, of
treasures underground guarded by enchanted monsters, of bells heard
silverly in the depth of old forests, of castles against the sunset,
of lakes beneath the quiet moon? Know you how light gathers in the
eyes dreaming on vision after vision, ever more intensely realised,
yet ever of an unknown world? How, when at length the reader's voice
is silent, the eyes still see, the ears still hear, until a movement
breaks the spell, and with a deep, involuntary sigh the little one
gazes here and there, wondering?

So Emma listened, and so she came back to consciousness, looking
about the room, incredulous. Had she been overcome with weariness?
Had she slept and dreamt?

One of the children stirred and uttered a little wailing sound. She
stepped lightly to the bedside, bent for a moment, saw that all was
well again, and came back on tip-toe. The simple duty had quieted
her throbbing heart. She seated herself as before.

'What about the country house now?' said Richard.

'I don't know what to say. It's more than I can take into my head.'

'You're not going to say, like mother did, that it was the worst
piece of news she'd ever heard?'

'Your mother said that?'

Emma was startled. Had her thought passed lightly over some danger?
She examined her mind rapidly.

'I suppose she said it,' Richard explained, 'just because she didn't
know what else to say, that's about the truth. But there certainly
is one thing I'm a little anxious about, myself. I don't care for
either Alice or 'Arry to know the details of this windfall. They
won't come in for their share till they're of age, and it's just as
well they should think it's only a moderate little sum. So don't
talk about it, Emma.'

The girl was still musing on Mrs. Mutimer's remark; she merely shook
her head.

'You didn't think you were going to marry a man with his thousands
and be a lady? Well, I shall have more to say in a day or two. But
at present my idea is that mother and the rest of them shall go into
a larger house, and that you and Kate and Jane shall take our place.
I don't know how long it'll be before those Eldon people can get out
of Wanley Manor, but as soon as they do, why then there's nothing to
prevent you and me going into it. Will that suit you, Em?'

'We shall really live in that big house?'

'Certainly we shall. I've got a life's work before me there, as far
as I can see at present. The furniture belongs to Mrs. Eldon, I
believe; we'll furnish the place to suit ourselves.'

'May I tell my sisters, Richard?'

'Just tell them that I've come in for some money and a house,
perhaps that's enough. And look here, I'll leave you this five-pound
note to go on with. You must get Jane whatever the doctor says. And
throw all that sewing out of the windows; we'll have no more convict
labour. Tell Jane to get well just as soon as it suits her.'

'But--all this money?'

'I've plenty. The lawyer advanced me some for present needs. Now
it's getting late, I must go. I'll write and tell you when I shall
be home again.'

He held out his hand, but the girl embraced him with the restrained
tenderness which in her spoke so eloquently.

'Are you glad, Emma?' he asked.

'Very glad, for your sake.'

'And just a bit for your own, eh?'

'I never thought about money,' she answered. 'It was quite enough to
be your wife.'

It was the simple truth.





CHAPTER VI




At eleven o'clock the next morning Richard presented himself at the
door of a house in Avenue Road, St. John's Wood, and expressed a
desire to see Mr. Westlake. That gentleman was at home; he received
the visitor in his study--a spacious room luxuriously furnished,
with a large window looking upon a lawn. The day was sunny and warm,
but a clear fire equalised the temperature of the room. There was an
odour of good tobacco, always most delightful when it blends with
the scent of rich bindings.

It was Richard's first visit to this house. A few days ago he would,
in spite of himself, have been somewhat awed by the man-servant at
the door, the furniture of the hall, the air of refinement in the
room he entered. At present he smiled on everything. Could he not
command the same as soon as he chose?

Mr. Westlake rose from his writing-table and greeted his visitor
with a hearty grip of the hand. He was a man pleasant to look upon;
his face, full of intellect, shone with the light of good-will, and
the easy carelessness of his attire prepared one for the genial
sincerity which marked his way of speaking. He wore a velvet jacket,
a grey waistcoat buttoning up to the throat, grey trousers,
fur-bordered slippers; his collar was very deep, and instead of the
ordinary shirt-cuffs, his wrists were enclosed in frills.
Long-haired, full-bearded, he had the forehead of an idealist and
eyes whose natural expression was an indulgent smile.

A man of letters, he had struggled from obscure poverty to success
and ample means; at three-and-thirty he was still hard pressed to
make both ends meet, but the ten subsequent years had built for him
this pleasant home and banished his long familiar anxieties to the
land of nightmare. 'It came just in time,' he was in the habit of
saying to those who had his confidence. 'I was at the point where a
man begins to turn sour, and I should have soured in earnest.' The
process had been most effectually arrested. People were occasionally
found to say that his books had a tang of acerbity; possibly this
was the safety-valve at work, a hint of what might have come had the
old hunger-demons kept up their goading. In the man himself you
discovered an extreme simplicity of feeling, a frank tenderness, a
noble indignation. For one who knew him it was not difficult to
understand that he should have taken up extreme social views, still
less that he should act upon his convictions. All his writing
foretold such a possibility, though on the other hand it exhibited
devotion to forms of culture which do not as a rule predispose to
democratic agitation. The explanation was perhaps too simple to be
readily hit upon; the man was himself so supremely happy that with
his disposition the thought of tyrannous injustice grew intolerable
to him. Some incidents happened to set his wrath blazing, and
henceforth, in spite of not a little popular ridicule and much
shaking of the head among his friends, Mr. Westlake had his mission.

'I have come to ask your advice and help,' began Mutimer with
directness. He was conscious of the necessity of subduing his voice,
and had a certain pleasure in the ease with which he achieved this
feat. It would not have been so easy a day or two ago.

'Ah, about this awkward affair of yours,' observed Mr. Westlake with
reference to Richard's loss of his employment, of which, as editor
of the Union's weekly paper, he had of course at once been apprised.

'No, not about that. Since then a very unexpected thing has happened
to me.'

The story was once more related, vastly to Mr. Westlake's
satisfaction. Cheerful news concerning his friends always put him in
the best of spirits.

He shook his head, laughing.

'Come, come, Mutimer, this'll never do! I'm not sure that we shall
not have to consider your expulsion from the Union.'

Richard went on to mention the matters of legal routine in which he
hoped Mr. Westlake would serve him. These having been settled--

'I wish to speak of something more important,' he said. 'You take it
for granted, I hope, that I'm not going to make the ordinary use of
this fortune. As yet I've only been able to hit on a few general
ideas; I'm clear as to the objects I shall keep before me, but how
best to serve them wants more reflection. I thought if I talked it
over with you in the first place--'

The door opened, and a lady half entered the room.

'Oh, I thought you were alone,' she remarked to Mr. Westlake.
'Forgive me!'

'Come in! Here's our friend Mutimer. You know Mrs. Westlake?'

A few words had passed between this lady and Richard in the
lecture-room a few weeks before. She was not frequently present at
such meetings, but had chanced, on the occasion referred to, to hear
Mutimer deliver an harangue.

'You have no objection to talk of your plans? Join our council, will
you?' he added to his wife. 'Our friend brings interesting news.'

Mrs. Westlake walked across the room to the curved window-seat. Her
age could scarcely be more than three- or four-and-twenty; she was
very dark, and her face grave almost to melancholy. Black hair, cut
short at its thickest behind her neck, gave exquisite relief to
features of the purest Greek type. In listening to anything that
held her attention her eyes grew large, and their dark orbs seemed
to dream passionately. The white swan's down at her throat--she was
perfectly attired--made the skin above resemble rich-hued marble,
and indeed to gaze at her long was to be impressed as by the sad
loveliness of a supreme work of art. As Mutimer talked she leaned
forward, her elbow on her knee, the back of her hand supporting her
chin.

Her husband recounted what Richard had told him, and the latter
proceeded to sketch the projects he had in view.

'My idea is,' he said, 'to make the mines at Wanley the basis of
great industrial undertakings, just as any capitalist might, but to
conduct these undertakings in a way consistent with our views. I
would begin by building furnaces, and in time add engineering works
on a large scale. I would build houses for the men, and in fact make
that valley an industrial settlement conducted on Socialist
principles. Practically I can devote the whole of my income; my
personal expenses will not be worth taking into account. The men
must be paid on a just scheme, and the margin of profit that
remains, all that we can spare from the extension of the works,
shall be devoted to the Socialist propaganda. In fact, I should like
to make the executive committee of the Union a sort of board of
directors--and in a very different sense from the usual--for the
Wanley estate. My personal expenditure deducted, I should like such
a committee to have the practical control of funds. All this wealth
was made by plunder of the labouring class, and I shall hold it as
trustee for them. Do these ideas seem to you of a practical colour?'

Mr. Westlake nodded slowly twice. His wife kept her listening
attitude unchanged; her eyes 'dreamed against a distant goal.'

'As I see the scheme,' pursued Richard, who spoke all along somewhat
in the lecture-room tone, the result of a certain embarrassment, 'it
will differ considerably from the Socialist experiments we know of.
We shall be working not only to support ourselves, but every bit as
much set on profit as any capitalist in Belwick. The difference is,
that the profit will benefit no individual, but the Cause. There'll
be no attempt to carry out the idea of every man receiving the just
outcome of his labour; not because I shouldn't he willing to share
in that way, but simply because we have a greater end in view than
to enrich ourselves. Our men must all be members of the Union, and
their prime interest must be the advancement of the principles of
the Union. We shall be able to establish new papers, to hire halls,
and to spread ourselves over the country. It'll be fighting the
capitalist manufacturers with their own weapons. I can see plenty of
difficulties, of course. All England 'll be against us. Never mind,
we'll defy them all, and we'll win. It'll be the work of my life,
and we'll see if an honest purpose can't go as far as a thievish
one.'

The climax would have brought crashing cheers at Commonwealth Hall;
in Mr. Westlake's study it was received with well-bred expressions
of approval.

'Well, Mutimer,' exclaimed the idealist, 'all this is intensely
interesting, and right glorious for us. One sees at last a
possibility of action. I ask nothing better than to be allowed to
work with you. It happens very luckily that you are a practical
engineer. I suppose the mechanical details of the undertaking are
entirely within your province.'

'Not quite, at present,' Mutimer admitted, 'but I shall have
valuable help. Yesterday I had a meeting with a man named Rodman, a
mining engineer, who has been working on the estate. He seems just
the man I shall want; a Socialist already, and delighted to join in
the plans I just hinted to him.'

'Capital! Do you propose, then, that we shall call a special meeting
of the Committee? Or would you prefer to suggest a committee of your
own?'

'No, I think our own committee will do very well, at all events for
the present. The first thing, of course, is to get the financial
details of our scheme put into shape. I go to Belwick again this
afternoon; my solicitor must get his business through as soon as
possible.'

'You will reside for the most part at Wanley?'

'At the Manor, yes. It is occupied just now, but I suppose will soon
be free.'

'Do you know that part of the country, Stella?' Mr. Westlake asked
of his wife.

She roused herself, drawing in her breath, and uttered a short
negative.

'As soon as I get into the house,' Richard resumed to Mr. Westlake,
'I hope you'll come and examine the place. It's unfortunate that the
railway misses it by about three miles, but Rodman tells me we can
easily run a private line to Agworth station. However, the first
thing is to get our committee at work on the scheme.' Richard
repeated this phrase with gusto. 'Perhaps you could bring it up at
the Saturday meeting?'

'You'll be in town on Saturday?'

'Yes; I have a lecture in Islington on Sunday.'

'Saturday will do, then. Is this confidential?'

'Not at all. We may as well get as much encouragement out of it as
we can. Don't you think so?'

'Certainly.'

Richard did not give expression to his thought that a paragraph on
the subject in the Union's weekly organ, the 'Fiery Cross,' might be
the best way of promoting such encouragement; but he delayed his
departure for a few minutes with talk round about the question of
the prudence which must necessarily be observed in publishing a
project so undigested. Mr. Westlake, who was responsible for the
paper, was not likely to transgress the limits of good taste, and
when Richard, on Saturday morning, searched eagerly the columns of
the 'Cross,' he was not altogether satisfied with the extreme
discretion which marked a brief paragraph among those headed: 'From
Day to Day.' However, many of the readers were probably by that time
able to supply the missing proper-name.

It was not the fault of Daniel Dabbs if members of the Hoxton and
Islington branch of the Union read the paragraph without
understanding to whom it referred. Daniel was among the first to
hear of what had befallen the Mutimer family, and from the circle of
his fellow-workmen the news spread quickly. Talk was rife on the
subject of Mutimer's dismissal from Longwood Brothers', and the
sensational rumour which followed so quickly found an atmosphere
well prepared for its transmission. Hence the unusual concourse at
the meeting-place in Islington next Sunday evening, where, as it
became known to others besides Socialists, Mutimer was engaged to
lecture. Richard experienced some vexation that his lecture was not
to be at Commonwealth Hall, where the gathering would doubtless have
been much larger.

The Union was not wealthy. The central hall was rented at Mr.
Westlake's expense; two or three branches were managing with
difficulty to support regular places of assembly, such as could not
being obliged as yet to content themselves with open-air lecturing.
In Islington the leaguers met in a room behind a coffee-shop,
ordinarily used for festive purposes; benches were laid across the
floor, and an estrade at the upper end exalted chairman and
lecturer. The walls were adorned with more or less striking
advertisements of non-alcoholic beverages, and with a few prints
from the illustrated papers. The atmosphere was tobaccoey, and the
coffee-shop itself, through which the visitors had to make their
way, suggested to the nostrils that bloaters are the working man's
chosen delicacy at Sunday tea. A table just within the door of the
lecture-room exposed for sale sundry Socialist publications, the
latest issue of the 'Fiery Cross' in particular.

Richard was wont to be among the earliest arrivals: to-night he was
full ten minutes behind the hour for which the lecture was
advertised. A group of friends were standing about the table near
the door; they received him with a bustle which turned all eyes
thitherwards. He walked up the middle of the room to the platform.
As soon as he was well in the eye of the meeting, a single pair of
hands--Daniel Dabbs owned them--gave the signal for uproar; feet
made play on the boarding, and one or two of the more enthusiastic
revolutionists fairly gave tongue. Richard seated himself with grave
countenance, and surveyed the assembly; from fifty to sixty people
were present, among them three or four women, and the number
continued to grow. The chairman and one or two leading spirits had
followed Mutimer to the place of distinction, where they talked with
him.

Punctuality was not much regarded at these meetings; the lecture was
announced for eight, but rarely began before half-past The present
being an occasion of exceptional interest, twenty minutes past the
hour saw the chairman rise for his prefatory remarks. He was a lank
man of jovial countenance and jerky enunciation. There was no need,
he observed, to introduce a friend and comrade so well known to them
as the lecturer of the evening. 'We're always glad to hear him, and
to-night, if I may be allowed to 'int as much, we're _particularly_
glad to hear him. Our friend and comrade is going to talk to us
about the Land. It's a question we can't talk or think too much
about, and Comrade Mutimer has thought about it as much and more
than any of us, I think I may say. I don't know,' the chairman
added, with a sly look across the room, 'whether our friend's got
any new views on this subject of late. I shouldn't wonder if he
had.' Here sounded a roar of laughter, led off by Daniel Dabbs.
'Hows'ever, be that as it may, we can answer for it as any views he
may hold is the right views, and the honest views, and the views of
a man as means to do a good deal more than talk about his
convictions!'

Again did the stentor-note of Daniel ring forth, and it was amid
thunderous cheering that Richard left his chair and moved to the
front of the platform. His Sunday suit of black was still that with
which his friends were familiar, but his manner, though the audience
probably did not perceive the detail, was unmistakably hanged. He
had been wont to begin his address with short, stinging periods,
with sneers and such bitterness of irony as came within his compass.
To-night he struck quite another key, mellow, confident, hinting at
personal satisfaction; a smile was on his lips, and not a smile of
scorn. He rested one hand against his side, holding in the other a
scrap of paper with jotted items of reasoning. His head was thrown a
little back; he viewed the benches from beneath his eyelids. True,
the pose maintained itself but for a moment. I mention it because it
was something new in Richard.

He spoke of the land; he attacked the old monopoly, and visioned a
time when a claim to individual ownerships of the earth's surface
would be as ludicrous as were now the assertion of title to a
fee-simple somewhere in the moon. He mustered statistics; he adduced
historic and contemporary example of the just and the unjust in
land-holding; he gripped the throat of a certain English duke, and
held him up for flagellation; he drifted into oceans of economic
theory; he sat down by the waters of Babylon; he climbed Pisgah. Had
he but spoken of backslidings in the wilderness! But for that fatal
omission, the lecture was, of its kind, good. By degrees Richard
forgot his pose and the carefully struck note of mellowness; he
began to believe what he was saying, and to say it with the right
vigour of popular oratory. Forget his struggles with the h-fiend;
forget his syntactical lapses; you saw that after all the man had
within him a clear flame of conscience; that he had felt before
speaking that speech was one of the uses for which Nature had
expressly framed him. His invective seldom degenerated into vulgar
abuse; one discerned in him at least the elements of what we call
good taste; of simple manliness he disclosed not a little; he had
some command of pathos. In conclusion, he finished without reference
to his personal concerns.

The chairman invited questions, preliminary to debate.

He rose half-way down the room,--the man who invariably rises on
these occasions. He was oldish, with bent shoulders, and wore
spectacles--probably a clerk of forty years' standing. In his hand
was a small note-book, which he consulted. He began with measured
utterance, emphatic, loud.

'I wish to propose to the lecturer seven questions. I will read them
in order; I have taken some pains to word them clearly.'

Richard has his scrap of paper on his knee. He jots a word or two
after each deliberate interrogation, smiling.

Other questioners succeeded. Richard replies to them. He fails to
satisfy the man of seven queries, who, after repeating this and the
other of the seven, professes himself still unsatisfied, shakes his
head indulgently, walks from the room.

The debate is opened. Behold a second inevitable man; he is not
well-washed, his shirt-front shows a beer-stain; he is angry before
he begins.

'I don't know whether a man as doesn't 'old with these kind o'
theories 'll be allowed a fair 'earin--'

Indignant interruption. Cries of 'Of course he will!'--'Who ever
refused to hear you?'--and the like.

He is that singular phenomenon, that self-contradiction, that
expression insoluble into factors of common-sense--the Conservative
working man. What do they want to be at? he demands. Do they suppose
as this kind of talk 'll make wages higher, or enable the poor man
to get his beef and beer at a lower rate? What's the d--d good of it
all? Figures, oh? He never heered yet as figures made a meal for a
man as hadn't got one; nor yet as they provided shoes and stockings
for his young 'uns at 'ome. It made him mad to listen, that it did!
Do they suppose as the rich man 'll give up the land, if they talk
till all's blue? Wasn't it human natur to get all you can and stick
to it?

'Pig's nature!' cries someone from the front benches.

'There!' comes the rejoinder. 'Didn't I say as there was no fair
'earing for a man as didn't say just what suits you?'

The voice of Daniel Dabbs is loud in good-tempered mockery. Mockery
comes from every side, an angry note here and there, for the most
part tolerant, jovial.

'Let him speak! 'Ear him! Hoy! Hoy!'

The chairman interposes, but by the time that order is restored the
Conservative working man has thrust his hat upon his head and is off
to the nearest public-house, muttering oaths.

Mr. Cullen rises, at the same time rises Mr. Cowes. These two
gentlemen are fated to rise simultaneously. They scowl at each
other. Mr. Cullen begins to speak, and Mr. Cowes, after a circular
glance of protest, resumes his seat. The echoes tell that we are in
for oratory with a vengeance. Mr. Cullen is a short, stout man, very
seedily habited, with a great rough head of hair, an aquiline nose,
lungs of vast power. His vein is King Cambyses'; he tears passion to
tatters; he roars leonine; he is your man to have at the pamper'd
jades of Asia! He has got hold of a new word, and that the verb to
'exploit.' I am exploited, thou art exploited,--_he_ exploits! Who?
Why, such men as that English duke whom the lecturer gripped and
flagellated. The English duke is Mr. Cullen's bugbear; never a
speech from Mr. Cullen but that duke is most horribly mauled. His
ground. rents,--yah! Another word of which Mr. Cullen is fond is
'strattum,'--usually spelt and pronounced with but one t midway. You
and I have the misfortune to belong to a social 'strattum' which is
trampled flat and hard beneath the feet of the landowners. Mr.
Cullen rises to such a point of fury that one dreads the
consequences--to himself. Already the chairman is on his feet,
intimating in dumb show that the allowed ten minutes have elapsed;
there is no making the orator hear. At length his friend who sits by
him fairly grips his coat-tails and brings him to a sitting posture,
amid mirthful tumult. Mr. Cullen joins in the mirth, looks as though
he had never been angry in his life. And till next Sunday comes
round he will neither speak nor think of the social question.

Mr. Cowes is unopposed. After the preceding enthusiast, the voice of
Mr. Cowes falls soothingly as a stream among the heather. He is
tall, meagre, bald; he wears a very broad black necktie, his hand
saws up and down. Mr. Cowes' tone is the quietly venomous; in a few
minutes you believe in his indignation far more than in that of Mr.
Cullen. He makes a point and pauses to observe the effect upon his
hearers. He prides himself upon his grammar, goes back to correct a
concord, emphasises eccentricities of pronunciation; for instance,
he accents 'capitalist' on the second syllable, and repeats the
words with grave challenge to all and sundry. Speaking of something
which he wishes to stigmatise as a misnomer, he exclaims: 'It's what
I call a misnomy!' And he follows the assertion with an awful
suspense of utterance. He brings his speech to a close exactly with
the end of the tenth minute, and, on sitting down, eyes his unknown
neighbour with wrathful intensity for several moments.

Who will follow? A sound comes from the very back of the room, such
a sound that every head turns in astonished search for the source of
it. Such voice has the wind in garret-chimneys on a winter night. It
is a thin wail, a prelude of lamentation; it troubles the blood. The
speaker no one seems to know; he is a man of yellow visage, with
head sunk between pointed shoulders, on his crown a mere scalp-lock.
He seems to be afflicted with a disease of the muscles; his
malformed body quivers, the hand he raises shakes paralytic. His
clothes are of the meanest; what his age may be it is impossible to
judge. As his voice gathers strength, the hearers begin to feel the
influence of a terrible earnestness. He does not rant, he does not
weigh his phrases; the stream of bitter prophecy flows on smooth and
dark. He is supplying the omission in Mutimer's harangue, is bidding
his class know itself and chasten itself, as an indispensable
preliminary to any great change in the order of things. He cries
vanity upon all these detailed schemes of social reconstruction. Are
we ready for it? he wails. Could we bear it, if they granted it to
us? It is all good and right, but hadn't we better first make
ourselves worthy of such freedom? He begins a terrible arraignment
of the People,--then, of a sudden, his voice has ceased. You could
hear a pin drop. It is seen that the man has fallen to the ground;
there arises a low moaning; people press about him.

They carry him into the coffee-shop. It was a fit. In five minutes
he is restored, but does not come back to finish his speech.

There is an interval of disorder. But surely we are not going to let
the meeting end in this way. The chairman calls for the next
speaker, and he stands forth in the person of a rather smug little
shopkeeper, who declares that he knows of no single particular in
which the working class needs correction. The speech undeniably
falls fiat. Will no one restore the tone of the meeting?

Mr. Kitshaw is the man! Now we shall have broad grins. Mr. Kitshaw
enjoys a reputation for mimicry; he takes off music-hall singers in
the bar-parlour of a Saturday night. Observe, he rises, hems, pulls
down his waistcoat; there is bubbling laughter. Mr. Kitshaw brings
back the debate to its original subject; he talks of the Land. He is
a little haphazard at first, but presently hits the mark in a fancy
picture of a country still in the hands of aborigines, as yet
unannexed by the capitalist nations, knowing not the meaning of the
verb 'exploit.'

'Imagine such a happy land, my friends; a land, I say, which nobody
hasn't ever thought of "developing the resources" of,--that's the
proper phrase, I believe. There are the people, with clothing enough
for comfort and--ahem!--good manners, but, mark you, no more. No
manufacture of luxurious skirts and hulsters and togs o' that kind
by the exploited classes. No, for no exploited classes don't exist!
All are equal, my friends. Up an' down the fields they goes, all day
long, arm-in-arm, Jack and Jerry, aye, and Liza an' Sairey Ann; for
they have equality of the sexes, mind you! Up an' down the fields, I
say, in a devil-may-care sort of way, with their sweethearts and
their wives. No factory smoke, 0 dear no! There's the rivers, with
tropical plants a-shading the banks, 0 my! There they goes up an'
down in their boats, devil-may-care, a-strumming on the banjo,'--he
imitated such action,--'and a-singing their nigger minstrelsy with
light 'earts. Why? 'Cause they ain't got no work to get up to at
'arf-past five next morning. Their time's their own! _That's_ the
condition of an unexploited country, my friends!'

Mr. Kitshaw had put everyone in vast good humour. You might wonder
that his sweetly idyllic picture did not stir bitterness by
contrast; it were to credit the English workman with too much
imagination. Resonance of applause rewarded the sparkling
rhetorician. A few of the audience availed themselves of the noise
to withdraw, for the clock showed that it was close upon ten, and
public-houses shut their doors early on Sunday.

But Richard Mutimer was on his feet again, and this time without
regard to effect; there was a word in him strongly demanding
utterance. It was to the speech of the unfortunate prophet that he
desired to reply. He began with sorrowful admissions. No one
speaking honestly could deny that--that the working class had its
faults; they came out plainly enough now and then. Drink, for
instance (Mr. Cullen gave a resounding 'Hear, hear!' and a stamp on
the boards). What sort of a spectacle would be exhibited by the
public-houses in Hoxton and Islington at closing time to-night?
('True!' from Mr. Cowes, who also stamped on the boards.) Yes,
but--Richard used the device of aposiopesis; Daniel Dabbs took it
for a humorous effect and began a roar, which was summarily
interdicted.  'But,' pursued Richard with emphasis, 'what is the
meaning of these vices? What do they come of? Who's to blame for
them? Not the working class--never tell me! What drives a man to
drink in his spare hours? What about the poisonous air of garrets
and cellars? What about excessive toil and inability to procure healthy
recreation? What about defects of education, due to poverty? What
about diseased bodies inherited from over-slaved parents?' Messrs.
Cowes and Cullen had accompanied these queries with a climax of
vociferous approval; when Richard paused, they led the tumult of
hands and heels. 'Look at that poor man who spoke to us!' cried
Mutimer. 'He's gone, so I shan't hurt him by speaking plainly. He
spoke well, mind you, and he spoke from his heart; but what sort of
a life has his been, do you think? A wretched cripple, a miserable
weakling no doubt from the day of his birth, cursed in having ever
seen the daylight, and, such as he is, called upon to fight for his
bread. Much of it he gets! Who would blame that man if he drank
himself into unconsciousness every time he picked up a sixpence?'
Cowes and Cullen bellowed their delight. 'Well, he doesn't do it; so
much you can be sure of. In some vile hole here in this great city
of ours he drags on a life worse--aye, a thousand times worse!--
than that of the horses in the West-end mews. Don't clap your hands
so much, fellow-workers. Just think about it on your way home; talk
about it to your wives and your children. It's the sight of objects
like that that makes my blood boil, and that's set me in earnest at
this work of ours. I feel for that man and all like him as if they
were my brothers. And I take you all to witness, all you present and
all you repeat my words to, that I'll work on as long as I have life
in me, that I'll use every opportunity that's given me to uphold the
cause of the poor and down-trodden against the rich and selfish and
luxurious, that if I live another fifty years I shall still be of
the people and with the people, that no man shall ever have it in
his power to say that Richard Mutimer misused his chances and was
only a new burden to them whose load he might have lightened!'

There was nothing for it but to leap on to the very benches and yell
as long as your voice would hold out.

After that the meeting was mere exuberance of mutual
congratulations. Mr. Cullen was understood to be moving the usual
vote of thanks, but even his vocal organs strove hard for little
purpose. Daniel Dabbs had never made a speech in his life, but
excitement drove him on the honourable post of seconder. The
chairman endeavoured to make certain announcements; then the
assembly broke up. The estrade was invaded; everybody wished to
shake hands with Mutimer. Mr. Cullen tried to obtain Richard's
attention to certain remarks of value; failing, he went off with a
scowl. Mr. Cowes attempted to button-hole the popular hero; finding
Richard conversing with someone else at the same time, he turned
away with a covert sneer. The former of the two worthies had desired
to insist upon every member of the Union becoming a teetotaller; the
latter wished to say that he thought it would be well if a badge of
temperance were henceforth worn by Unionists. On turning away, each
glanced at the clock and hurried his step.

In a certain dark street not very far from the lecture-room Mr.
Cullen rose on tip-toe at the windows of a dull little public-house.
A Unionist was standing at the bar; Mr. Cullen hurried on, into a
street yet darker. Again he tip-toed at a window. The glimpse
reassured him; he passed quickly through the doorway, stepped to the
bar, gave an order. Then he turned, and behold, on a seat just under
the window sat Mr. Cowes, & short pipe in his mouth, a smoking
tumbler held on his knee. The supporters of total abstinence nodded
to each other, with a slight lack of spontaneity. Mr. Cullen, having
secured his own tumbler, came by his comrade's side.

'Deal o' fine talk to wind up with,' he remarked tentatively.

'He means what he says,' returned the other gravely.

'Oh yes,' Mr. Cullen hastened to admit. 'Mutimer means what he says!
Only the way of saying it, I meant--I've got a bit of a sore
throat.'

'So have I. After that there hot room.'

They nodded at each other sympathetically. Mr. Cullen filled a
little black pipe.

'Got alight?'

Mr. Cowes offered the glowing bowl of his own clay; they put their
noses together and blew a cloud.

'Of course there's no saying what time 'll do,' observed tall Mr.
Cowes, sententiously, after a gulp of warm liquor.

'No more there is,' assented short Mr. Cullen with half a wink.

'It's easy to promise.'

'As easy as tellin' lies.'

Another silence.

'Don't suppose you and me 'll get much of it,' Mr. Cowes ventured to
observe.

'About as much as you can put in your eye without winkin',' was the
other's picturesque agreement.

They talked till closing time.





CHAPTER VII




One morning late in June, Hubert Eldon passed through the gates of
Wanley Manor and walked towards the village. It was the first time
since his illness that he had left the grounds on foot. He was very
thin, and had an absent, troubled look; the natural cheerfulness of
youth's convalescence seemed altogether lacking in him.

From a rising point of the road, winding between the Manor and
Wanley, a good view of the valley offered itself; here Hubert
paused, leaning a little on his stick, and let his eyes dwell upon
the prospect. A year ago he had stood here and enjoyed the sweep of
meadows between Stanbury Hill and the wooded slope opposite, the
orchard-patches, the flocks along the margin of the little river.
To-day he viewed a very different scene. Building of various kinds
was in progress in the heart of the vale; a great massive chimney
was rising to completion, and about it stood a number of sheds.
Beyond was to be seen the commencement of a street of small houses,
promising infinite ugliness in a little space; the soil over a
considerable area was torn up and trodden into mud. A number of men
were at work; carts and waggons and trucks were moving about. In
truth, the benighted valley was waking up and donning the true
nineteenth-century livery.

The young man's face, hitherto thoughtfully sad, changed to an
expression of bitterness; he muttered what seemed to be angry and
contemptuous words, then averted his eyes and walked on. He entered
the village street and passed along it for some distance, his fixed
gaze appearing studiously to avoid the people who stood about or
walked by him. There was a spot of warm colour on his cheeks; he
held himself very upright and had a painfully self-conscious air.

He stopped before a dwelling-house, rang the bell, and made inquiry
whether Mr. Mutimer was at home. The reply being affirmative, he
followed the servant up to the first floor. His name was announced
at the door of a sitting-room, and he entered.

Two men were conversing in the room. One sat at the table with a
sheet of paper before him, sketching a rough diagram and scribbling
notes; this was Richard Mutimer. He was dressed in a light tweed
suit; his fair moustache and beard were trimmed, and the hand which
rested on the table was no longer that of a daily-grimed mechanic.
His linen was admirably starched; altogether he had a very fresh and
cool appearance. His companion was astride on a chair, his arms
resting on the back, a pipe in his mouth. This man was somewhat
older than Mutimer; his countenance indicated shrewdness and
knowledge of the world. He was dark and well-featured, his glossy
black hair was parted in the middle, his moustache of the cut called
imperial, his beard short and peaked. He wore a canvas jacket, a
white waistcoat and knickerbockers; at his throat a blue necktie
fluttered loose. When Hubert's name was announced by the servant,
this gentleman stopped midway in a sentence, took his pipe from his
lips, and looked to the door with curiosity.

Mutimer rose and addressed his visitor easily indeed, but not
discourteously.

'How do you do, Mr. Eldon? I'm glad to see that you are so much
better. Will you sit down? I think you know Mr. Rodman, at all
events by name?'

Hubert assented by gesture. He had come prepared for disagreeable
things in this his first meeting with Mutimer, but the honour of an
introduction to the latter's friends had not been included in his
anticipations. Mr. Rodman had risen and bowed slightly. His smile
carried a disagreeable suggestion from which Mutimer's behaviour was
altogether free; he rather seemed to enjoy the situation.

For a moment there was silence and embarrassment. Richard overcame
the difficulty.

'Come and dine with me to-night, will you?' he said to Rodman.
'Here, take this plan with you, and think it over.'

'Pray don't let me interfere with your business,' interposed Hubert,
with scrupulous politeness. 'I could see you later, Mr. Mutimer.'

'No, no; Rodman and I have done for the present,' said Mutimer,
cheerfully. 'By-the-by,' he added, as his right-hand man moved to
the door, 'don't forget to drop a line to Slater and Smith. And, I
say, if Hogg turns up before two o'clock, send him here; I'll be
down with you by half-past.'

Mr. Rodman gave an 'All right,' nodded to Hubert, who paid no
attention, and took his departure.

'You've had a long pull of it,' Richard began, as he took his chair
again, and threw his legs into an easy position. 'Shall I close the
windows? Maybe you don't like the draught.'

'Thank you; I feel no draught.'

The working man had the advantage as yet. Hubert in vain tried to be
at ease, whilst Mutimer was quite himself, and not ungraceful in his
assumption of equality. For one thing, Hubert could not avoid a
comparison between his own wasted frame and the other's splendid
physique; it heightened the feeling of antagonism which possessed
him in advance, and provoked the haughtiness he had resolved to
guard against. The very lineaments of the men foretold mutual
antipathy. Hubert's extreme delicacy of feature was the outward
expression of a character so compact of subtleties and refinements,
of high prejudice and jealous sensibility, of spiritual egoism and
all-pervading fastidiousness, that it was impossible for him not to
regard with repugnance a man who represented the combative
principle, even the triumph, of the uncultured classes. He was no
hidebound aristocrat; the liberal tendencies of his intellect led
him to scorn the pageantry of long-descended fools as strongly as he
did the blind image-breaking of the mob; but in a case of personal
relations temperament carried it over judgment in a very high-handed
way. Youth and disappointment weighed in the scale of unreason.
Mutimer, on the other hand, though fortune helped him to
forbearance, saw, or believed he saw, the very essence of all he
most hated in this proud-eyed representative of a county family. His
own rough-sculptured comeliness corresponded to the vigour and
practicality and zeal of a nature which cared nothing for form and
all for substance; the essentials of life were to him the only
things in life, instead of, as to Hubert Eldon, the mere brute
foundation of an artistic super structure. Richard read clearly
enough the sentiments with which his visitor approached him; who
that is the object of contempt does not readily perceive it? His way
of revenging himself was to emphasise a tone of good fellowship, to
make it evident how well he could afford to neglect privileged
insolence. In his heart he triumphed over the disinherited
aristocrat; outwardly he was civil, even friendly.

Hubert had made this call with a special purpose.

'I am charged by Mrs. Eldon,' he began, 'to thank you for the
courtesy you have shown her during my illness. My own thanks
likewise I hope you will accept. We have caused you, I fear, much
inconvenience.'

Richard found himself envying the form and tone of this deliverance;
he gathered his beard in his hands and gave it a tug.

'Not a bit of it,' he replied. 'I am very comfortable here. A
bedroom and a place for work, that's about all I want.'

Hubert barely smiled. He wondered whether the mention of work was
meant to suggest comparisons. He hastened to add--

'On Monday we hope to leave the Manor.'

'No need whatever for hurry,' observed Mutimer, good-humouredly.
'Please tell Mrs. Eldon that I hope she will take her own time.' On
reflection this seemed rather an ill-chosen phrase; he bettered it.
'I should be very sorry if she inconvenienced herself on my
account.'

'Confound the fellow's impudence!' was Hubert's mental comment. 'He
plays the forbearing landlord.'

His spoken reply was: 'It is very kind of you. I foresee no
difficulty in completing the removal on Monday.'

In view of Mutimer's self-command, Hubert began to be aware that his
own constraint might carry the air of petty resentment Fear of that
drove him upon a topic he would rather have left alone.

'You are changing the appearance of the valley,' he said, veiling by
his tone the irony which was evident in his choice of words.

Richard glanced at him, then walked to the window, with his hands in
his pockets, and gave himself the pleasure of a glimpse of the
furnace-chimney above the opposite houses. He laughed.

'I hope to change it a good deal more. In a year or two you won't
know the place.'

'I fear not.'

Mutimer glanced again at his visitor.

'Why do you fear?' he asked, with less command of his voice.

'I of course understand your point of view. Personally, I prefer
nature.'

Hubert endeavoured to smile, that his personal preferences might
lose something of their edge.

'You prefer nature,' Mutimer repeated, coming back to his chair, on
the seat of which he rested a foot. 'Well, I can't say that I do.
The Wanley Iron Works will soon mean bread to several hundred
families; how many would the grass support?'

'To be sure,' assented Hubert, still smiling.

'You are aware,' Mutimer proceeded to ask, 'that this is not a
speculation for my own profit?'

'I have heard something of your scheme. I trust it will be
appreciated.'

'I dare say it will be--by those who care anything about the welfare
of the people.'

Eldon rose; he could not trust himself to continue the dialogue. He
had expected to meet a man of coarser grain; Mutimer's intelligence
made impossible the civil condescension which would have served with
a boor, and Hubert found the temptation to pointed utterance all the
stronger for the dangers it involved.

'I will drop you a note,' he said, 'to let you know as soon as the
house is empty.'

'Thank you.'

They had not shaken hands at meeting, nor did they now. Each felt
relieved when out of the other's sight.

Hubert turned out of the street into a road which would lead him to
the church, whence there was a field-path back to the Manor. Walking
with his eyes on the ground he did not perceive the tall, dark
figure that approached him as he drew near to the churchyard gate.
Mr. Wyvern had been conducting a burial; he had just left the vestry
and was on his way to the vicarage, which stood five minutes' walk
from the church. Himself unperceived, he scrutinised the young man
until he stood face to face with him; his deep-voiced greeting
caused Hubert to look up' with a start.

'I'm very glad to see you walking,' said the clergyman.

He took Hubert's hand and held it paternally in both his own. Eldon
seemed affected with a sudden surprise; as he met the large gaze his
look showed embarrassment.

'You remember me?' Mr. Wyvern remarked, his wonted solemnity
lightened by the gleam of a brief smile. Looking closely into his
face was like examining a map in relief; you saw heights and plains,
the intersection of multitudinous valleys, river-courses with their
tributaries. It was the visage of a man of thought and character.
His eyes spoke of late hours and the lamp; beneath each was a heavy
pocket of skin, wrinkling at its juncture with the cheek. His teeth
were those of an incessant smoker, and, in truth, you could seldom
come near him without detecting the odour of tobacco. Despite the
amplitude of his proportions, there was nothing ponderous about him;
the great head was finely formed, and his limbs must at one time
have been as graceful as they were muscular.

'Is this accident,' Hubert asked; 'or did you know me at the time?'

'Accident, pure accident. Will you walk to the vicarage with me?'

They paced side by side.

'Mrs. Eldon profits by the pleasant weather, I trust?' the vicar
observed, with grave courtesy.

'Thank you, I think she does. I shall be glad when she is settled in
her new home.'

They approached the door of the vicarage in silence. Entering Mr.
Wyvern led the way to his study. When he had taken a seat, he
appeared to forget himself for a moment, and played with the end of
his bean

Hubert showed impatient curiosity.

'You found me there by chance that morning?' he began.

The clergyman returned to the present. His elbows on either arm of
his round chair, he sat leaning forward, thoughtfully gazing at his
companion.

'By chance,' he replied. 'I sleep badly; so it happened that I was
abroad shortly after daybreak. I was near the edge of the wood when
I heard a pistol-shot. I waited for the second.'

'We fired together,' Hubert remarked.

'Ah! It seemed to me one report. Well, as I stood listening, there
came out from among the trees a man who seemed in a hurry. He was
startled at finding himself face to face with me, but didn't stop;
he said something rapidly in French that I failed to catch, pointed
back into the wood, and hastened off.'

'We had no witnesses,' put in Hubert; 'and both aimed our best. I
wonder he sent you to look for me.'

'A momentary weakness, no doubt,' rejoined the vicar drily. I made
my way among the trees and found you lying there, unconscious. I
made some attempt to stop the blood-flow, then picked you up; it
seemed better, on the whole, than leaving you on the wet grass an
indefinite time. Your overcoat was on the ground; as I took hold of
it, two letters fell from the pocket. I made no scruple about
reading the addresses, and was astonished to find that one was to
Mrs. Eldon, at Wanley Manor, Wanley being the place where I was
about to live on my return to England. I took it for granted that
you were Mrs. Eldon's son. The other letter, as you know, was to a
lady at a hotel in the town.'

Hubert nodded.

'And you went to her as soon as you left me?'

'After hearing from the doctor that there was no immediate
danger.--The letters, I suppose, would have announced your death?'

Hubert again inclined his head. The imperturbable gravity of the
speaker had the effect of imposing self-command on the young man;
whose sensitive cheeks showed what was going on within.

'Will you tell me of your interview with her?' he asked.

'It was of the briefest; my French is not fluent.'

'But she speaks English well.'

'Probably her distress led her to give preference to her native
tongue. She was anxious to go to you immediately, and I told her
where you lay. I made inquiries next day, and found that she was
still giving you her care. As you were doing well, and I had to be
moving homewards, I thought it better to leave without seeing you
again. The innkeeper had directions to telegraph to me if there was
a change for the worse.'

'My pocket-book saved me,' remarked Hubert, touching his side.

Mr. Wyvern drew in his lips.

'Came between that ready-stamped letter and Wanley Manor,' was his
comment.

There was a brief silence.

'You allow me a question?' the vicar resumed. 'It is with reference
to the French lady.'

'I think you have every right to question me.'

'Oh no! It does not concern the events prior to your--accident.'
Mr. Wyvern savoured the word. 'How long did she remain in attendance
upon you?'

'A short time--two day--I did not need--'

Mr. Wyvern motioned with his hand, kindly.

'Then I was not mistaken,' he said, averting his eyes for the first
time, 'in thinking that I saw her in Paris.'

'In Paris?' Hubert repeated, with a poor affectation of
indifference.

'I made a short stay before crossing. I had business at a bank one
day; as I stood before the counter a gentleman entered and took a
place beside me. A second look assured me that he was the man who
met me at the edge of the wood that morning. I suppose he remembered
me, for he looked away and moved from me. I left the bank, and found
an open carriage waiting at the door. In it sat the lady of whom we
speak. I took a turn along the pavement and back again. The
Frenchman entered the carriage; they drove away.'

Hubert's eyes were veiled; he breathed through his nostrils. Again
there was silence.

'Mr. Eldon,' resumed the vicar, 'I was a man of the world before I
became a Churchman; you will notice that I affect no professional
tone in speaking with you, and it is because I know that anything of
the kind would only alienate you. It appeared to me that chance had
made me aware of something it might concern you to hear. I know
nothing of the circumstances of the case, merely offer you the
facts.'

'I thank you,' was Hubert's reply in an undertone.

'It impressed me, that letter ready stamped for Wanley Manor. I
thought of it again after the meeting in Paris.'

'I understand you. Of course I could explain the necessity. It would
be useless.'

'Quite. But experience is not, or should not be, useless, especially
when commented on by one who has very much of it behind him.'

Hubert stood up. His mind was in a feverishly active state, seeming
to follow several lines of thought simultaneously. Among other
things, he was wondering how it was that throughout this
conversation he had been so entirely passive. He had never found
himself under the influence of so strong a personality, exerted too
in such a strangely quiet way.

'What are your plans--your own plans?' Mr. Wyvern inquired.

'I have none.'

'Forgive me;--there will be no material difficulties?'

'None; I have four hundred a year.'

'You have not graduated yet, I believe?'

'No. But I hardly think I can go back to school.'

'Perhaps not. Well, turn things over. I should like to hear from
you.'

'You shall.'

Hubert continued his walk to the Manor. Before the entrance stood
two large furniture-vans; the doorway was littered with materials of
packing, and the hall was full of objects in disorder. footsteps
made a hollow resonance in all parts of the house, for everywhere
the long wonted conditions of sound were disturbed. The library was
already dismantled; here he could close the door and walk about
without fear of intrusion. He would have preferred to remain in the
open air, but a summer shower had just begun as he reached the
house. He could not sit still; the bare floor of the large room met
his needs.

His mind's eye pictured a face which a few months ago had power to
lead him whither it willed, which had in fact led him through
strange scenes, as far from the beaten road of a college curriculum
as well could be. It was a face of foreign type, Jewish possibly,
most unlike that ideal of womanly charm kept in view by one who
seeks peace and the heart's home. Hubert had entertained no thought
of either. The romance which most young men are content to enjoy in
printed pages he had acted out in his life. He had lived through a
glorious madness, as unlike the vulgar oat-sowing of the average
young man of wealth as the latest valse on a street-organ is unlike
a passionate dream of Chopin. However unworthy the object of his
frenzy--and perhaps one were as worthy as another--the pursuit had
borne him through an atmosphere of fire, tempering him for life,
marking him for ever from plodders of the dusty highway. A reckless
passion is a patent of nobility. Whatever existence had in store for
him henceforth, Hubert could feel that he had lived.

An hour's communing with memory was brought to an end by the ringing
of the luncheon-bell. Since his illness Hubert had taken meals with
his mother in her own sitting-room. Thither he now repaired.

Mrs. Eldon had grown older in appearance since that evening of her
son's return. Of course she had discovered the cause of his illness,
and the incessant torment of a great fear had been added to what she
suffered from the estrangement between the boy and herself. Her own
bodily weakness had not permitted her to nurse him; she had passed
days and nights in anguish of expectancy. At one time it had been
life or death. If he died, what life would be hers through the brief
delay to which she could look forward?

Once more she had him by her side, but the moral distance between
them was nothing lessened. Mrs. Eldon's pride would not allow her to
resume the conversation which had ended so hopelessly for her, and
she interpreted Hubert's silence in the saddest sense. Now they were
about to be parted again. A house had been taken for her at Agworth,
three miles away; in her state of health she could not quit the
neighbourhood of the few old friends whom she still saw. But Hubert
would necessarily go into the world to seek some kind of career. No
hope shone for her in the prospect.

Whilst the servant waited on them at luncheon, mother and son
exchanged few words. Afterwards, Mrs. Eldon had her chair moved to
the window, where she could see the garden greenery.

'I called on Mr. Mutimer,' Hubert said, standing near her. Through
the meal he had cast frequent glances at her pale, nobly-lined
countenance, as if something had led him to occupy his thoughts with
her. He looked at her in the same way now.

'Did you? How did he impress you?'

'He is not quite the man I had expected; more civilised. I should
suppose he is the better kind of artisan. He talks with a good deal
of the working-class accent, of course, but not like a wholly
uneducated man.'

'His letter, you remember, was anything but illiterate. I feel I
ought to ask him to come and see me before we leave.'

'The correspondence surely suffices.'

'You expressed my thanks?'

'Conscientiously.'

'I see you found the interview rather difficult, Hubert.'

'How could it be otherwise? The man is well enough, of his kind, but
the kind is detestable.'

'Did he try to convert you to Socialism?' asked his mother, smiling
in her sad way.

'I imagine he discerned the hopelessness of such an under taking. We
had a little passage of arms,--quite within the bounds of civility.
Shall I tell you how I felt in talking with him? I seemed to be
holding a dialogue with the twentieth century, and you may think
what that means.'

'Ah, it's a long way off, Hubert.'

'I wish it were farther. The man was openly exultant; he stood for
Demos grasping the sceptre. I am glad, mother, that you leave Wanley
before the air is poisoned.'

'Mr. Mutimer does not see that side of the question?'

'Not he I Do you imagine the twentieth century will leave one green
spot on the earth's surface?'

'My dear, it will always be necessary to grow grass and corn.'

'By no means; depend upon it. Such things will be cultivated by
chemical processes. There will not be one inch left to nature; the
very oceans will somehow be tamed, the snow-mountains will be
levelled. And with nature will perish art. What has a hungry Demos
to do with the beautiful?'

Mrs. Eldon sighed gently.

'I shall not see it.'

Her eyes dreamed upon the soft-swaying boughs of a young chestnut.
Hubert was watching her face; its look and the meaning implied in
her words touched him profoundly.

'Mother!' he said under his breath.

'My dear?'

He drew nearer to her and just stroked with his fingers the silver
lines which marked the hair on either side of her brows. He could
see that she trembled and that her lips set themselves in hard
self-conquest.

'What do you wish me to do when we have left the Manor?'

His own voice was hurried between two quiverings of the throat; his
mother's only whispered in reply.

'That is for your own consideration, Hubert.'

'With your counsel, mother.'

'My counsel?'

'I ask it I will follow it. I wish to be guided by you.'

He knelt by her, and his mother pressed his head against her bosom.

Later, she asked--

'Did you call also on the Walthams?'

He shook his head.

'Should you not do so, dear?

'I think that must be later.'

The subject was not pursued.

The next day was Saturday. In the afternoon Hubert took a walk which
had been his favourite one ever since he could remember, every step
of the way associated with recollections of childhood, boyhood, or
youth. It was along the lane which began in a farmyard close by the
Manor and climbed with many turnings to the top of Stanbury Hill.
This was ever the first route re-examined by his brother Godfrey and
himself on their return from school at holiday-time. It was a rare
region for bird-nesting, so seldom was it trodden save by a few
farm-labourers at early morning or when the day's work was over.
Hubert passed with a glance of recognition the bramble in which he
had found his first spink's nest, the shadowed mossy bank whence had
fluttered the hapless wren just when the approach of two prowling
youngsters should have bidden her keep close. Boys on the egg-trail
are not wont to pay much attention to the features of the country;
but Hubert remembered that at a certain meadow-gate he had always
rested for a moment to view the valley, some mute presage of things
unimagined stirring at his heart. Was it even then nineteenth
century? Not for him, seeing that the life of each of us reproduces
the successive ages of the world. Belwick, roaring a few miles away,
was but an isolated black patch on the earth's beauty, not, as he
now understood it, a malignant cancer-spot, spreading day by day,
corrupting, an augury of death. In those days it had seemed fast in
the order of things that Wanley Manor should be his home through
life; how otherwise? Was it not the abiding-place of the Eldons from
of old? Who had ever hinted at revolution? He knew now that
revolution had been at work from an earlier time than that; whilst
he played and rambled with his brother the framework of their life
was crumbling about them. Belwick was already throwing a shadow upon
Wanley. And now behold! he stood at the old gate, rested his hands
where they had been wont to rest, turned his eyes in the familiar
direction; no longer a mere shadow, there was Belwick itself.

His heart was hot with outraged affection, with injured pride. On
the scarcely closed grave of that passion which had flamed through
so brief a life sprang up the flower of natural tenderness,
infinitely sweet and precious. For the first time he was fully
conscious of what it meant to quit Wanley for ever; the past
revealed itself to him, lovelier and more loved because parted from
him by so hopeless a gulf. Hubert was not old enough to rate
experience at its true value, to acquiesce in the law which wills
that the day must perish before we can enjoy to the full its light
and odour. He could only feel his loss, and rebel against the fate
which had ordained it.

He had climbed but half-way up the hill; from this point onwards
there was no view till the summit was reached, for the lane
proceeded between high banks and hedges. To gain the very highest
point he had presently to quit the road by a stile and skirt the
edge of a small rising meadow, at the top of which was an old
cow-house with a few trees growing about it. Thence one had the
finest prospect in the county.

He reached the stone shed, looked back for a moment over Wanley,
then walked round to the other side. As he turned the corner of the
building his eye was startled by the unexpected gleam of a white
dress. A girl stood there; she was viewing the landscape through a
field-glass, and thus remained unaware of his approach on the grass.
He stayed his step and observed her with eyes of recognition. Her
attitude, both hands raised to hold the glass, displayed to
perfection the virginal outline of her white-robed form. She wore a
straw hat of the plain masculine fashion; her brown hair was plaited
in a great circle behind her head, not one tendril loosed from the
mass; a white collar closely circled her neck; her waist was bound
with a red girdle. All was grace and purity; the very folds towards
the bottom of her dress hung in sculpturesque smoothness; the form
of her half-seen foot bowed the herbage with lightest pressure. From
the boughs above there fell upon her a dancing network of shadow.

Hubert only half smiled; he stood with his hands joined behind him,
his eyes fixed upon her face, waiting for her to turn But several
moments passed and she was still intent on the landscape. He spoke.

'Will you let me look?'

Her hands fell, all but dropping the glass; still, she did not start
with unbecoming shrug as most people do, the instinctive movement of
guarding against a stroke; the falling of her arms was the only
abrupt motion, her head turning in the direction of the speaker with
a grace as spontaneous as that we see in a lawn. that glances back
before flight.

'Oh, Mr. Eldon! How silently you have come!'

The wild rose of her cheeks made rivalry for an instant with the
richer garden blooms, and the subsiding warmth left a pearly
translucency as of a lily petal against the light.

She held her hand to him, delicately gloved, warm; the whole of it
was hidden within Hubert's clasp.

'What were you looking at so attentively?' he asked.

'At Agworth station,' replied Adela, turning her eyes again in that
quarter. 'My brother's train ought to be in by now, I think. He
comes home every Saturday.'

'Does he?'

Hubert spoke without thought, his look resting upon the maiden's red
girdle.

'I am glad that you are well again,' Adela said with natural
kindness. 'You have had a long illness.'

'Yes; it has been a tiresome affair. Is Mrs. Waltham well?'

'Quite, thank you.'

'And your brother?'

'Alfred never had anything the matter with him in his life, I
believe,' she answered, with a laugh.

'Fortunate fellow! Will you lend me the glass?'

She held it to him, and at the same moment her straying eye caught a
glimpse of white smoke, far off.

'There comes the train!' she exclaimed. 'You will be able to see it
between these two hills.'

Hubert looked and returned the glass to her, but she did not make
use of it.

'Does he walk over from Agworth?' was Hubert's next question.

'Yes. It does him good after a week of Belwick.'

'There will soon be little difference between Belwick and Wanley,'
rejoined Hubert, drily.

Adela glanced at him; there was sympathy and sorrow in the look.

'I knew it would grieve you,' she said.

'And what is your own feeling? Do you rejoice in the change as a
sign of progress?'

'Indeed, no. I am very, very sorry to have our beautiful valley so
spoilt. It is only--'

Hubert eyed her with sudden sharpness of scrutiny; the look seemed
to check her words.

'Only what?' he asked. 'You find compensations?'

'My brother won't hear of such regrets,' she continued with a little
embarrassment 'He insists on the good that will be done by the
change.'

'From such a proprietor as I should have been to a man of Mr.
Mutimer's activity. To be sure, that is one point of view.'

Adela blushed.

'That is not my meaning, Mr. Eldon, as you know. I was speaking of
the change without regard to who brings it about. And I was not
giving my own opinion; Alfred's is always on the side of the working
people; he seems to forget everybody else in his zeal for their
interests. And then, the works are going to be quite a new kind of
undertaking. You have heard of Mr. Mutimer's plans. of course?'

'I have an idea of them.'

'You think them mistaken?'

'No. I would rather say they don't interest me. That seems to
disappoint you, Miss Waltham. Probably you are interested in them?'

At the sound of her own name thus formally interjected, Adela just
raised her eyes from their reflective gaze on the near landscape;
then she became yet more thoughtful.

'Yes, I think I am,' she replied, with deliberation. 'The principle
seems a just one. Devotion to a really unselfish cause is rare, I am
afraid.'

'You have met Mr. Mutimer?

'Once. My brother made his acquaintance, and he called on us.'

'Did he explain his scheme to you in detail?'

'Not himself. Alfred has told me all about it. He, of course, is
delighted with it; he has joined what he calls the Union.'

'Are you going to join?' Hubert asked, smiling.

'I? I doubt whether they would have me.'

She laughed silverly, her throat tremulous, like that of a bird that
sings. How significant the laugh was! the music of how pure a
freshet of life!

'All the members, I presume,' said Hubert, 'are to be speedily
enriched from the Wanley Mines and Iron Works?'

It was jokingly uttered, but Adela replied with some earnestness, as
if to remove a false impression.

'Oh, that is quite a mistake. Mr. Eldon. There is no question of
anyone being enriched, least of all Mr. Mutimer himself. The workmen
will receive just payment, not mere starvation wages, but whatever
profit there is will be devoted to the propaganda.'

'Propaganda! Starvation wages! Ah, I see you have gone deeply into
these matters. How strangely that word sounds on your
lips--propaganda!'

Adela reddened.

'Why strangely, Mr. Eldon?'

'One associates it with such very different speakers; it has such a
terrible canting sound. I hope you will not get into the habit of
using it--for your own sake.'

'I am not likely to use it much. I suppose I have. heard it so often
from Alfred lately. Please don't think,' she added rather hastily,
'that I have become a Socialist. Indeed, I dislike the name; I find
it implies so many things that I could never approve of.'

Her way of speaking the last sentence would have amused a
dispassionate critic, it was so distinctively the tone of Puritan
maidenhood. From lips like Adela's it is delicious to hear such
moral babbling. Oh, the gravity of conviction in a white-souled
English girl of eighteen! Do you not hear her say those words:
'things that I could never approve of'?

As her companion did not immediately reply, she again raised the
field-glass to her eyes and swept the prospect.

'Can you see your brother on the road?' Hubert inquired.

'No, not yet. There is a trap driving this way. Why, Alfred sitting
in it! Oh, it is Mr. Mutimer's trap I see. He must have met Alfred
at the station and have given him a ride.'

'Evidently they are great friends,' commented Eldon.

Adela did not reply. After gazing a little longer, she said--

'He will be home before I can get there.'

She screwed up the glasses and turned as if to take leave. But
Hubert prepared to walk by her side, and together they reached the
lane.

'Now I am going to run down the hill,' Adela said, laughing. 'I
can't ask you to join in such childishness, and I suppose you are
not going this way, either?'

'No, I am walking back to the Manor,' the other replied soberly. 'We
had better say good-bye. On Monday we shall leave Wanley, my mother
and I.'

'On Monday?'

The girl became graver.

'But only to go to Agworth?' she added.

'I shall not remain at Agworth. I am going to London.'

'To--to study?'

'Something or other, I don't quite know what. Good-bye!'

'Won't you come to say good-bye to us--to mother?'

'Shall you be at home to-morrow afternoon, about four o'clock say?'

'Oh, yes; the very time.'

'Then I will come to say good-bye.'

'In that case we needn't say it now, need we? It is only good
afternoon.'

She began to walk down the lane.

'I thought you were going to run,' cried Hubert.

She looked back, and her silver laugh made chorus with the joyous
refrain of a yellow-hammer, piping behind the hedge. Till the turn
of the road she continued walking, then Hubert had a glimpse of
white folds waving in the act of flight, and she was beyond his
vision.





CHAPTER VIII




Adela reached the house door at the very moment that Mutimer's trap
drove up. She had run nearly all the way down the hill, and her
soberer pace during the last ten minutes had not quite reduced the
flush in her cheeks. Mutimer raised his hat with much _aplomb_
before he had pulled up his horse, and his look stayed on her whilst
Alfred Waltham was descending and taking leave.

'I was lucky enough to overtake your brother in Agworth,' he said.

'Ah, you have deprived him of what he calls his constitutional,'
laughed Adela.

'Have I? Well, it isn't often I'm here over Saturday, so he can
generally feel safe.'

The hat was again aired, and Richard drove away to the Wheatsheaf
Inn, where he kept his horse at present.

Brother and sister went together into the parlour, where Mrs.
Waltham immediately joined them, having descended from an upper
room.

'So Mr. Mutimer drove you home!' she exclaimed, with the interest
which provincial ladies, lacking scope for their energies, will
display in very small incidents.

'Yes. By the way, I've asked him to come and have dinner with us
to-morrow. He hadn't any special reason for going to town, and was
uncertain whether to do so or not, so I thought I might as well have
him here.'

Mr. Alfred always spoke in a somewhat emphatic first person singular
when domestic arrangements were under, discussion; occasionally the
habit led to a passing unpleasantness of tone between himself and
Mrs. Waltham. In the present instance, however, nothing of the kind
was to be feared; his mother smiled very graciously.

'I'm glad you thought of it,' she said. 'It would have been very
lonely for him in his lodgings.'

Neither of the two happened to be regarding Adela, or they would
have seen a look of dismay flit across her countenance and pass into
one of annoyance. When the talk had gone on for a few minutes Adela
interposed a question.

'Will Mr. Mutimer stay for tea also, do you think, Alfred?'

'Oh, of course; why shouldn't he?'

It is the country habit; Adela might have known what answer she
would receive. She got out of the difficulty by means of a little
disingenuousness.

'He won't want us to talk about Socialism all the time, will he?'

'Of course not, my dear,' replied Mrs. Waltham. 'Why, it will be
Sunday.' 4

Alfred shouted in mirthful scorn.

'Well, that's one of the finest things I've heard for a long time,
mother! It'll be Sunday, and _therefore_ we are not to talk about
improving the lot of the human race. Ye gods!'

Mrs. Waltham was puzzled for an instant, but the Puritan assurance
did not fail her.

'Yes, but that is only improvement of their bodies, Alfred--food and
clothing. The six days are for that you know.'

'Mother, mother, you will kill me! You are so uncommonly funny! I
wonder your friends haven't long ago found some way of doing without
bodies altogether. Now, I pray you, do not talk nonsense. Surely
_that_ is forbidden on the Sabbath, if only the Jewish one.'

'Mother is quite right, Alfred,' remarked Adela, with quiet
affimativeness, as soon as her voice could be heard. 'Your Socialism
is earthly; we have to think of other things besides bodily
comforts.'

'Who said we hadn't?' cried her brother. 'But I take leave to inform
you that you won't get much spiritual excellence out of a man who
lives a harder life than the nigger-slaves. If you women could only
put aside your theories and look a little at obstinate facts! You're
all of a piece. Which of you was it that talked the other day about
getting the vicar to pray for rain? Ho, ho, ho! Just the same kind
of thing.'

Alfred's combativeness had grown markedly since his making
acquaintance with Mutimer. He had never excelled in the suaver
virtues, and now the whole of the time he spent at home was devoted
to vociferous railing at capitalists, priests, and women, his mother
and sister serving for illustrations of the vices prevalent in the
last-mentioned class. In talking he always paced the room, hands in
pockets, and at times fairly stammered in his endeavour to hit upon
sufficiently trenchant epithets or comparisons. When reasoning
failed with his auditors, he had recourse to volleys of contemptuous
laughter. At times he lost his temper, muttered words such as
'fools!'--'idiots!' and flung out into the open air. It looked as
if the present evening was to be a stormy one. Adela noted the
presage and allowed herself a protest _in limine_.

'Alfred, I do hope you won't go on in this way whilst Letty is here.
You mayn't think it, but you pain her very much.'

'Pain her! It's her education. She's had none yet, no more than you
have. It's time you both began to learn.'

It being close upon the hour for tea, the young lady of whom there
was question was heard to ring the door-bell. We have already had a
passing glimpse of her, but since then she has been honoured by
becoming Alfred's affianced. Letty Tew fulfilled all the conditions
desirable in one called to so trying a destiny. She was a pretty,
supple, sweet-mannered girl, and, as is the case with such girls,
found it possible to worship a man whom in consistency she must have
deemed the most condemnable of heretics. She and Adela were close
friends; Adela indeed, had no other friend in the nearer sense. The
two were made of very different fibre, but that had not as yet
distinctly shown.

Adela's reproof was not wholly without effect; her brother got
through the evening without proceeding to his extremest truculence.
still the conversation was entirely of his leading, consequently not
a little argumentative. He had brought home, as he always did on
Saturday, a batch of ultra periodicals, among them the 'Fiery
Cross,' and his own eloquence was supplemented by the reading of
excerpts from these lively columns. It was a combat of three to one,
but the majority did little beyond throwing up hands at anything
particularly outrageous. Adela said much less than usual. 'I tell
you what it is, you three!' Alfred cried, at a certain climax of
enthusiasm, addressing the ladies with characteristic courtesy,
'we'll found a branch of the Union in Wanley; I mean, in our
particular circle of thickheads. Then, as soon as Mutimer's
settlement gets going, we can coalesce. Now you two girls give next
week to going round and soliciting subscriptions for the "Fiery
Cross." People have had time to get over the first scare, and you
know they can't refuse such as you. Quarterly, one-and-eightpence,
including postage.'

'But, my dear Alfred,' cried Adela, 'remember that Letty and I are
_not_ Socialists!'

'Letty is, because I expect it of her, and you can't refuse to keep
her in countenance.'

The girls laughed merrily at this anticipated lordship; but Letty
said presently--

'I believe father will take the paper if I ask him. One is better
than nothing, isn't it, Alfred?'

'Good. We book Stephen Tew, Esquire.'

'But surely you mustn't call him Esquire?' suggested Adela.

'Oh, he is yet unregenerate; let him keep his baubles.'

'How are the regenerate designated?'

'Comrade, we prefer.'

'Also applied to women?'

'Well, I suppose not. As the word hasn't a feminine, call yourselves
plain Letty Tew and Adela Waltham, without meaningless prefix.'

'What nonsense you are talking, Alfred!' remarked his mother. 'As if
everybody in Wanley could address young ladies by their Christian
names!'

In this way did Alfred begin the 'propaganda' at home. Already the
village was much occupied with the vague new doctrines represented
by the name of Richard Mutimer; the parlour of the Wheatsheaf was
loud of evenings with extraordinary debate, and gossips of a higher
station had at length found a topic which promised to be
inexhaustible. Of course the vicar was eagerly sounded as to his
views. Mr. Wyvern preserved an attitude of scrupulous neutrality,
contenting himself with correction of palpable absurdities in the
stories going about. 'But surely you are not a Socialist, Mr.
Wyvern?' cried Mrs. Mewling, after doing her best to pump the
reverend gentleman, and discovering nothing. 'I am a Christian,
madam,' was the reply, 'and have nothing to do with economic
doctrines.' Mrs. Mewling spread the phrase 'economic doctrines,'
shaking her head upon the adjective, which was interpreted by her
hearers as condemnatory in significance. The half-dozen shopkeepers
were disposed to secret jubilation; it was probable that, in
consequence of the doings in the valley, trade would look up.
Mutimer himself was a centre of interest such as Wanley had never
known. When he walked down the street the news that he was visible
seemed to spread like wildfire; every house had its gazers.
Excepting the case of the Walthams, he had not as yet sought to make
personal acquaintances, appearing rather to avoid opportunities. On
the whole it seemed likely that he would be popular. The little
group of mothers with marriageable daughters waited eagerly for the
day when, by establishing himself at the Manor, he would throw off
the present semi-incognito, and become the recognised head of Wanley
society. He would discover the necessity of having a lady to share
his honours and preside at his table. Persistent inquiry seemed to
have settled the fact that he was not married already. To be sure,
there were awesome rumours that Socialists repudiated laws divine
and human in matrimonial affairs, but the more sanguine were
inclined to regard this as calumny, their charity finding a support
in their personal ambitions. The interest formerly attaching to the
Eldons had altogether vanished. Mrs. Eldon and her son were now mere
obstacles to be got rid of as quickly as possible. It was the
general opinion that Hubert Eldon's illness was purposely
protracted, to suit his mother's convenience. Until Mutimer's
arrival there had been much talk about Hubert; whether owing to Dr.
Mann's indiscretion or through the servants at the Manor, it had
become known that the young man was suffering from a bullet-wound,
and the story circulated by Mrs. Mewling led gossips to suppose that
he had been murderously assailed in that land of notorious
profligacy known to Wanley as 'abroad.' That, however, was now
become an old story. Wanley was anxious for the Eldons to go their
way, and leave the stage clear.

Everyone of course was aware that Mutimer spent his Sundays in
London (a circumstance, it was admitted, not altogether reassuring
to the ladies with marriageable daughters), and his unwonted
appearance in the village on the evening of the present Saturday
excited universal comment. Would he appear at church next morning?
There was a general directing of eyes to the Manor pew. This pew had
not been occupied since the fateful Sunday when, at the conclusion
of the morning service, old Mr. Mutimer was discovered to have
breathed his last. It was a notable object in the dim little church,
having a wooden canopy supported on four slim oak pillars with
vermicular moulding. From pillar to pillar hung dark curtains, so
that when these were drawn the interior of the pew was entirely
protected from observation. Even on the brightest days its occupants
were veiled in gloom. To-day the curtains remained drawn as usual,
and Richard Mutimer disappointed the congregation. Wanley had
obtained assurance on one point--Socialism involved Atheism.

Then it came to pass that someone saw Mutimer approach the Walthams'
house just before dinner time; saw him, moreover, ring and enter. A
couple of hours, and the ominous event was everywhere being
discussed. Well, well, it was not difficult to see what _that_
meant. Trust Mrs. Waltham for shrewd generalship. Adela Waltham had
been formerly talked of in connection with young Eldon; but Eldon
was now out of the question, and behold his successor, in a double
sense! Mrs. Mewling surrendered her Sunday afternoon nap and flew
from house to house--of course in time for the dessert wine at each.
Her cry was _haro_! Really, this was sharp practice on Mrs.
Waltham's part; it was stealing a march before the commencement of
the game. Did there not exist a tacit understanding that movements
were postponed until Mutimer's occupation of the Manor? Adela was a
very nice young girl, to be sure, a very nice girl indeed, but one
must confess that she had her eyes open. Would it not be well for
united Wanley to let her know its opinion of such doings?

In the meantime Richard was enjoying himself, with as little thought
of the Wanley gossips as of--shall we say, the old curtained pew in
Wanley Church? He was perfectly aware that the Walthams did not
represent the highest gentility, that there was a considerable
interval, for example, between Mrs. Waltham and Mrs. Westlake; but
the fact remained that he had never yet been on intimate terms with
a family so refined. Radical revolutionist though he was, he had
none of the grossness or obstinacy which would have denied to the
_bourgeois_ household any advantage over those of his own class. At
dinner he found himself behaving circumspectly. He knew already that
the cultivated taste objects to the use of a table-knife save for
purposes of cutting; on the whole he saw grounds for the objection.
He knew, moreover, that manducation and the absorption of fluids
must be performed without audible gusto; the knowledge cost him some
self-criticism. But there were numerous minor points of convention
on which he was not so clear; it had never occurred to him, for
instance, that civilisation demands the breaking of bread, that, in
the absence of silver, a fork must suffice for the dissection of
fish, that a napkin is a graceful auxiliary in the process of a meal
and not rather an embarrassing superfluity of furtive application.
Like a wise man, be did not talk much during dinner, devoting his
mind to observation. Of one thing he speedily became aware, namely,
that Mr. Alfred Waltham was so very much in his own house that it
was not wholly safe to regard his demeanour as exemplary. Another
point well certified was that if any person in the world could be
pointed to as an unassailable pattern of comely behaviour that
person was Mr. Alfred Waltham's sister. Richard observed Adela as
closely as good manners would allow.

Talking little as yet--the young man at the head of the table gave
others every facility for silence--Richard could occupy his thought
in many directions. Among other things, he instituted a comparison
between the young lady who sat opposite to him and someone--not a
young lady, it is true, but of the same sex and about the same age.
He tried to imagine Emma Vine seated at this table; the effort
resulted in a disagreeable warmth in the lobes of his ears. Yes,
but--he attacked himself--not Emma Vine dressed as he was accustomed
to see her; suppose her possessed of all Adela Waltham's exterior
advantages. As his imagination was working on the hint, Adela
herself addressed a question to him. He looked up, he let her voice
repeat itself in inward echo. His ears were still more disagreeably
warm.

It was a lovely day--warm enough to dine with the windows open. The
faintest air seemed to waft sunlight from corner to corner of the
room; numberless birds sang on the near boughs and hedges; the
flowers on the table were like a careless gift of gold-hearted
prodigal summer. Richard transferred himself in spirit to a certain
square on the borders of Hoxton and Islington, within scent of the
Regent's Canal. The house there was now inhabited by Emma and her
sisters; they also would be at dinner. Suppose he had the choice:
there or here? Adela addressed to him another question. The square
vanished into space.

How often he had spoken scornfully of that word 'lady'! Were not all
of the sex women? What need for that hateful distinction? Richard
tried another experiment with his imagination. 'I had dinner with
some people called Waltham last Sunday. The old woman I didn't much
care about; but there was a young woman--' Well, why not? On the
other hand, suppose Emma Vine called at his lodgings. 'A young woman
called this morning, sir--' Well, why not?

Dessert was on the table. He saw Adela's fingers take an orange, her
other hand holding a little fruit-knife. Now, who could have
imagined that the simple paring of an orange could be achieved at
once with such consummate grace and so naturally? In Richard's
country they first bite off a fraction of the skin, then dig away
with what of finger-nail may be available. He knew someone who would
assuredly proceed in that way.

Metamorphosis! Richard Mutimer speculates on asthetic problems.

'You, gentlemen, I dare say will be wicked enough to smoke,'
remarked Mrs. Waltham, as she rose from the table.

'I tell you what we shall be wicked enough to do, mother,' exclaimed
Alfred. 'We shall have two cups of coffee brought out into the
garden, and spare your furniture!'

'Very well, my son. Your _two_ cups evidently mean that Adela and I
are not invited to the garden.'

'Nothing of the kind. But I know you always go to sleep, and Adela
doesn't like tobacco smoke.'

'I go to sleep, Alfred! You know very well that I have a very
different occupation for my Sunday afternoons.'

'I really don't care anything about smoking,' observed Mutimer, with
a glance at Adela.

'Oh, you certainly shall not deprive yourself on my account, Mr.
Mutimer,' said the girl, good-naturedly. 'I hope soon to come out
into the garden, and I am not at all sure that my objection to
tobacco is serious.'

Ah, if Mrs. Mewling could have heard that speech! Mrs. Mewling's age
was something less than fifty; probably she had had time to forget
how a young girl such as Adela speaks in pure frankness and never
looks back to muse over a double meaning.

It was nearly three o'clock. Adela compared her watch with the
sitting-room clock, and, the gentlemen having retired, moved about
the room with a look of uneasiness. Her mother stood at the window,
seemingly regarding the sky, in reality occupying her thoughts with
things much nearer. She turned and found Adela looking at her.

'I want just to run over and speak to Letty,' Adela said. 'I shall
very soon be back.'

'Very well, dear,' replied her mother, scanning her face absently.
'But don't let them keep you.'

Adela quickly fetched her hat and left the house. It was her habit
to walk at a good pace, always with the same airy movement, as
though her feet only in appearance pressed the ground. On the way
she again consulted her watch, and it caused her to flit still
faster. Arrived at the abode of the Tews, she fortunately found
Letty in the garden, sitting with two younger sisters, one a child
of five years. Miss Tew was reading aloud to them, her book being
'Pilgrim's Progress.' At the sight of Adela the youngest of the
three slipped down from her seat and ran to meet her with laughter
and shaking of curls.

'Carry me round! carry me round!' cried the little one.

For it was Adela's habit to snatch up the flaxen little maiden, seat
her upon her shoulder, and trot merrily round a circular path in the
garden. But the sister next in age, whose thirteenth year had
developed deep convictions, interposed sharply--

'Eva, don't be naughty! Isn't it Sunday?'

The little one, saved on the very brink of iniquity, turned away in
confusion and stood with a finger in her mouth.

'I'll come and carry you round to-morrow, Eva,' said the visitor,
stooping to kiss the reluctant face. Then, turning to the
admonitress, 'Jessie, will you read a little? I want just to speak
to Letty.'

Miss Jessie took the volume, made her countenance yet sterner, and,
having drawn Eva to her side, began to read in measured tones,
reproducing as well as she could the enunciation of the pulpit.
Adela beckoned to her friend, and the two walked apart.

'I'm in such a fix,' she began, speaking hurriedly, 'and there isn't
a minute to lose. Mr. Mutimer has been having dinner with us; Alfred
invited him. And I expect Mr. Eldon to come about four o'clock. I
met him yesterday on the Hill; he came up just as I was looking out
for Alfred with the glass, and I asked him if he wouldn't come and
say good-bye to mother this afternoon. Of course I'd no idea that
Mr. Mutimer would come to dinner; he always goes away for Sunday.
Isn't it dreadfully awkward?'

'You think he wouldn't like to meet Mr. Mutimer?' asked Letty,
savouring the gravity of the situation.

'I'm sure he wouldn't. He spoke about him yesterday. Of course he
didn't say anything against Mr. Mutimer, but I could tell from his
way of speaking. And then it's quite natural, isn't it? I'm really
afraid. He'll think it so unkind of me. I told him we should be
alone, and I shan't be able to explain. Isn't it tiresome?'

'It is, really! But of course Mr. Eldon will understand. To think
that it should happen just this day!'

An idea flashed across Miss Tew's mind.

'Couldn't you be at the door when he comes, and just--just say, you
know, that you're sorry, that you knew nothing about Mr. Mutimer
coming?'

'I've thought of something else,' returned Adela, lowering her
voice, as if to impart a project of doubtful propriety. 'Suppose I
walk towards the Manor and--and meet him on the way, before he gets
very far? Then I could save him the annoyance, couldn't I, dear?'

Letty widened her eyes. The idea was splendid, but--

'You don't think, dear, that it might be a little--that you might
find it--?'

Adela reddened.

'It is only a piece of kindness. Mr. Eldon will understand, I'm
sure. He asked me so particularly if we should be alone. I really
feel it a duty. Don't you think I may go? I must decide at once.'

Letty hesitated.

'If you really advise me not to--' pursued Adela. 'But I'm sure I
shall be glad when it's done.'

'Then go, dear. Yes, I would go if I were you.'

Adela now faltered.

'You really would go, in my place?'

'Yes, yes, I'm sure I should. You see, it isn't as if it was Mr.
Mutimer you were going to meet.'

'Oh, no, no That would be impossible.'

'He will be very grateful,' murmured Letty, without looking up.

'If I go, it must be at once.'

'Your mother doesn't know he was coming?'

'No. I don't know why I haven't told her, really. I suppose we were
talking so much of other things last night. And then I only got home
just as Alfred did, and he said at once that he had invited Mr.
Mutimer. Yes, I will go. Perhaps I'll come and see you again after
church.'

Letty went back to 'Pilgrim's Progress.' Her sister Jessie enjoyed
the sound of her own voice, and did not offer to surrender the book,
so she sat by little Eva's side and resumed her Sunday face.

Adela took the road for the Manor, resisting the impulse to cast
glances on either side as she passed the houses at the end of the
village. She felt it to be more than likely that eyes were observing
her, as it was an unusual time for her to be abroad, and the
direction of her walk pointed unmistakably to one destination. But
she made no account of secrecy; her errand was perfectly simple and
with an object that no one could censure. If people tattled, they
alone were to blame. For the first time she experienced a little
resentment of the public criticism which was so rife in Wanley, and
the experience was useful--one of those inappreciable aids to
independence which act by cumulative stress on a character capable
of development and softly mould its outlines.

She passed the church, then the vicarage, and entered the hedgeway
which by a long curve led to the Manor. She was slackening her pace,
not wishing to approach too near to the house, when she at length
saw Hubert Eldon walking towards her. He advanced with a look which
was not exactly indifferent yet showed no surprise; the smile only
came to his face when he was near enough to speak.

'I have come to meet you,' Adela began, with frankness which cost
her a little agitation of breath. 'I am so very sorry to have misled
you yesterday. As soon as I reached home, I found that my brother
had invited Mr. Mutimer for to-day. I thought it would be best if I
came and told you that--that we were not quite alone, as I said we
should be.'

As she spoke Adela became distressed by perceiving, or seeming to
perceive, that the cause which had led her to this step was quite
inadequate. Of course it was the result of her having to forbear
mention of the real point at issue; she could not say that she
feared it might be disagreeable to her hearer to meet Mutimer. But,
put in the other way, her pretext for coming appeared trivial. Only
with an extreme effort she preserved her even tone to the end of her
speech.

'It is very kind of you,' Hubert replied almost warmly. 'I'm very
sorry you have had the trouble.'

As she disclaimed thanks, Eldon's tact discovered the way of safety.
Facing her with a quiet openness of look, he said, in a tone of
pleasant directness which Adela had often felt to be peculiarly his
own--

'I shall best thank you by admitting that I should have found it
very unpleasant to meet Mr. Mutimer. You felt that, and hence your
kindness. At the same time, no doubt, you pity me for my
littleness.'

'I think it perfectly natural that such a meeting should be
disagreeable. I believe I understand your feeling. Indeed, you
explained it to me yesterday.'

'I explained it?'

'In what you said about the works in the valley.'

'True. Many people would have interpreted me less liberally.'

Adela's eyes brightened a little. But when she raised them, they
fell upon something which disturbed her cheerfulness. This was the
face of Mrs. Mewling, who had come up from the direction of Wanley
and was clearly about to pay a visit at the Manor. The lady smiled
and murmured a greeting as she passed by.

'I suppose Mrs. Mewling is going to see my mother,' said Hubert, who
also had lost a little of his naturalness.

A few more words and they again parted. Nothing further was said of
the postponed visit. Adela hastened homewards, dreading lest she had
made a great mistake, yet glad that she had ventured to come.

Her mother was just going out into the garden, where Alfred's voice
sounded frequently in laughter or denunciation. Adela would have
been glad to sit alone for a short time, for Mrs. Waltham seemed to
wish for her company She had only time to glance at herself in her
looking-glass and just press a palm against each cheek.

Alfred was puffing clouds from his briar pipe, but Mutimer had
ceased smoking. Near the latter was a vacant seat; Adela took it, as
there was no other.

'What a good thing the day of rest is!' exclaimed Mrs. Waltham. 'I
always feel thankful when I think of the poor men who toil so all
through the week in Belwick, and how they must enjoy their Sunday.
You surely wouldn't make any change in _that_, Mr. Mutimer?'

'The change I should like to see would be in the other direction,'
Richard replied. 'I would have holidays far more frequent. In the
towns you can scarcely call Sunday a holiday. There's nothing to do
but to walk about the streets. On the whole it does far more harm
than good.'

'Do they never go to church?' asked Adela. She was experiencing a
sort of irritation against their guest, a feeling. traceable to more
than one source; Mutimer's frequent glances did not tend to soothe
it. She asked the question rather in a spirit of adverse criticism.

'The working people don't,' was the reply, 'except a Dissenting
family here and there.'

'Perhaps that is one explanation of the Sundays being useless to
them.'

Adela would scarcely have ventured upon such a tone in reference to
any secular matter; the subject being religion, she was of course
justified in expressing herself freely.

Mutimer smiled and held back his rejoinder for a moment. By that
time Alfred had taken his pipe from his lips and was giving
utterance to unmeasured scorn.

'But, Mr. Mutimer,' said Mrs. Waltham, waving aside her son's
vehemence, 'you don't seriously tell us that the working people have
no religion? Surely that would be too shocking!'

'Yes, I say it seriously, Mrs. Waltham. In the ordinary sense of the
word, they have no religion. The truth is, they have no time to
think of it.'

'Oh, but surely it needs no thought--'

Alfred exploded.

'I mean,' pursued his mother, 'that, however busy we are, there must
always be intervals to be spared from the world.'

Mutimer again delayed his reply. A look which he cast at Adela
appeared to move her to speech.

'Have they not their evenings free, as well as every Sunday?'

'Happily, Miss Waltham, you can't realise their lives,' Richard
began. He was not smiling now; Adela's tone had struck him like a
challenge, and he collected himself to meet her. 'The man who lives
on wages is never free; he sells himself body and soul to his
employer. What sort of freedom does a man enjoy who may any day find
himself and his family on the point of starvation just because he
has lost his work? All his life long he has before his mind the fear
of want--not only of straitened means, mind you, but of destitution
and the workhouse. How can such a man put aside his common cares?
Religion is a luxury; the working man has no luxuries. Now, you
speak of the free evenings; people always do, when they're asking
why the working classes don't educate themselves. Do you understand
what that free evening means? He gets home, say, at six o'clock,
tired out; he has to be up again perhaps at five next morning. What
can he do but just lie about half asleep? Why, that's the whole
principle of the capitalist system of employment; it's calculated
exactly how long a man can be made to work in a day without making
him incapable of beginning again on the day following--just as it's
calculated exactly how little a man can live upon, in the regulation
of wages. If the workman returned home with strength to spare,
employers would soon find it out, and workshop legislation would be
revised--because of course it's the capitalists that make the laws.
The principle is that a man shall have no strength left for himself;
it's all paid for, every scrap of it, bought with the wages at each
week end. What religion can such men have? Religion, I suppose,
means thankfulness for life and its pleasures--at all events, that's
a great part of it--and what has a wage-earner to be thankful for?'

'It sounds very shocking,' observed Mrs. Waltham, somewhat disturbed
by the speaker's growing earnestness. Richard paid no attention and
continued to address Adela.

'I dare say you've heard of the early trains--workmen's trains--that
they run on the London railways. If only you could travel once by
one of those! Between station and station there's scarcely a man or
boy in the carriage who can keep awake; there they sit, leaning over
against each other, their heads dropping forward, their eyelids that
heavy they can't hold them up. I tell you it's one of the most
miserable sights to be seen in this world. If you saw it, Miss
Waltham, you'd pity them, I'm very sure of that! You only need to
know what their life means. People who have never known hardship
often speak more cruelly than they think, and of course it always
will be so as long as the rich and the poor are two different races,
as much apart as if there was an ocean between them.'

Adela's cheeks were warm. It was a novel sensation to be rebuked in
this unconventional way. She was feeling a touch of shame as well as
the slight resentment which was partly her class-instinct, partly of
her sex.

'I feel that I have no right to give any opinion,' she said in an
undertone.

'Meaning, Adela,' commented her brother, 'that you have a very
strong opinion and stick to it.'

'One thing I dare say you are thinking, Miss Waltham,' Richard
pursued, 'if you'll allow me to say it. You think that I myself
don't exactly prove what I've been saying--I mean to say, that I at
all events have had free time, not only to read and reflect, but to
give lectures and so on. Yes, and I'll explain that. It was my good
fortune to have a father and mother who were very careful and
hard-working and thoughtful people; I and my sister and brother were
brought up in an orderly home, and taught from the first that
ceaseless labour and strict economy were the things always to be
kept in mind. All that was just fortunate chance; I'm not praising
myself in saying I've been able to get more into my time than most
other working men; it's my father and mother I have to thank for it.
Suppose they'd been as ignorant and careless as most of their class
are made by the hard lot they have to endure; why, I should have
followed them, that's all. We've never had to go without a meal, and
why? Just because we've all of us worked like slaves and never
allowed ourselves to think of rest or enjoyment. When my father
died, of course we had to be more careful than ever; but there were
three of us to earn money, fortunately, and we kept up the home. We
put our money by for the club every week, what's more.'

'The club?' queried Miss Waltham, to whom the word suggested Pall
Mall and vague glories which dwelt in her imagination.

'That's to make provision for times when we're ill or can't get
work,' Mutimer explained. 'If a wage-earner falls ill, what has he
to look to? The capitalist won't trouble himself to keep him alive;
there's plenty to take his place. Well, that's my position, or was a
few months ago. I don't suppose any workman has had more advantages.
Take it as an example of the most we can hope for, and pray say what
it amounts to! Just on the right side, just keeping afloat, just
screwing out an hour here and there to work your brain when you
ought to be taking wholesome recreation! That's nothing very grand,
it seems to me. Yet people will point to it and ask what there is to
grumble at!'

Adela sat uneasily under Mutimer's gaze; she kept her eyes down.

'And I'm not sure that I should always have got on as easily,' the
speaker continued. 'Only a day or two before I heard of my
relative's death, I'd just been dismissed from my employment; that
was because they didn't like my opinions. Well, I don't say they
hadn't a right to dismiss me, just as I suppose you've a right to
kill as many of the enemy as you can in time of war. But suppose I
couldn't have got work anywhere. I had nothing but my hands to
depend upon; if I couldn't sell my muscles I must starve, that's
all.'

Adela looked at him for almost the first time. She had heard this
story from her brother, but it came more impressively from Mutimer's
own lips. A sort of heroism was involved in it, the championship of
a cause regardless of self. She remained thoughtful with troublous
colours on her face.

Mrs. Waltham was more obviously uneasy. There are certain things to
which in good society one does not refer, first and foremost
humiliating antecedents. The present circumstances were exceptional
to be sure, but it was to be hoped that Mr. Mutimer would outgrow
this habit of advertising his origin. Let him talk of the
working-classes if he liked, but always in the third person. The
good lady began to reflect whether she might not venture shortly to
give him friendly hints on this and similar subjects.

But it was nearly tea-time. Mrs. Waltham shortly rose and went into
the house, whither Alfred followed her. Mutimer kept his seat, and
Adela could not leave him to himself, though for the moment he
seemed unconscious of her presence. When they had been alone
together for a little while, Richard broke the silence.

'I hope I didn't speak rudely to you; Miss Waltham. I don't think I
need fear to say what I mean, but I know there are always two ways
of saying things, and perhaps I chose the roughest.'

Adela was conscious of having said a few hard things mentally, and
this apology, delivered in a very honest voice, appealed to her
instinct of justice. She did not like Mutimer, and consequently
strove against the prejudice which the very sound of his voice
aroused in her; it was her nature to aim thus at equity in her
personal judgments.

'To describe hard things we must use hard words,' she replied
pleasantly, 'but you said nothing that could offend.'

'I fear you haven't much sympathy with my way of looking at the
question. I seem to you to be going to work the wrong way.'

'I certainly think you value too little the means of happiness that
we all have within our reach, rich and poor alike.'

'Ah, if you could only see into the life of the poor, you would
acknowledge that those means are and can be nothing to them.
Besides, my way of thinking in such things is the same as your
brother's, and I can't expect you to see any good in it.'

Adela shook her head slightly. She had risen and was examining the
leaves upon an apple branch which she had drawn down.

'But I'm sure you feel that there is need for doing something,' he
urged, quitting his seat. 'You're not indifferent to the hard lives
of the people, as most people are who have always lived comfortable
lives?'

She let the branch spring up, and spoke more coldly.

'I hope I am not indifferent; but it is not in my power to do
anything.'

'Will you let me say that you are mistaken in that?' Mutimer had
never before felt himself constrained to qualify and adorn his
phrases; the necessity made him awkward. Not only did he aim at
polite modes of speech altogether foreign to his lips, but his own
voice sounded strange to him in its forced suppression. He did not
as yet succeed in regarding himself from the outside and criticising
the influences which had got hold upon him; he was only conscious
that a young lady--the very type of young lady that a little while
ago he would have held up for scorn--was subduing his nature by her
mere presence and exacting homage from him to which she was wholly
indifferent. 'Everyone can give help in such a cause as this. You
can work upon the minds of the people you talk with and get them to
throw away their prejudices. The cause of the working classes seems
so hopeless just because they're too far away to catch the ears of
those who oppress them.'

'I do not oppress them, Mr. Mutimer.'

Adela spoke with a touch of impatience. She wished to bring this
conversation to an end, and the man would give her no opportunity of
doing so. She was not in reality paying attention to his arguments,
as was evident in her echo of his last words.

'Not willingly, but none the less you do so,' he rejoined. 'Everyone
who lives at ease and without a thought of changing the present
state of society is tyrannising over the people. Every article of
clothing you put on means a life worn out somewhere in a factory.
What would your existence be without the toil of those men and women
who live and die in want of every comfort which seems as natural to
you as the air you breathe? Don't you feel that you owe them
something? It's a debt that can very easily be forgotten, I know
that, and just because the creditors are too weak to claim it. Think
of it in that way, and I'm quite sure you won't let it slip from
your mind again.'

Alfred came towards them, announcing that tea was ready, and Adela
gladly moved away.

'You won't make any impression there,' said Alfred with a shrug of
good-natured contempt. 'Argument isn't understood by women. Now, if
you were a revivalist preacher--' Mrs. Waltham and Adela went to
church. Mutimer returned to his lodgings, leaving his friend Waltham
smoking in the garden.

On the way home after service, Adela had a brief murmured
conversation with Letty Tew. Her mother was walking out with Mrs.
Mewling.

'It was evidently pre-arranged,' said the latter, after recounting
certain details in a tone of confidence. 'I was quite shocked. On
_his_ part such conduct is nothing less than disgraceful. Adela, of
course, cannot be expected to know.'

'I must tell her,' was the reply.

Adela was sitting rather dreamily in her bedroom a couple of hours
later when her mother entered.

'Little girls shouldn't tell stories,' Mrs. Waltham began, with
playfulness which was not quite natural. 'Who was it that wanted to
go and speak a word to Letty this afternoon?'

'It wasn't altogether a story, mother,' pleaded the girl, shamed,
but with an endeavour to speak independently. 'I did want to speak
to Letty.'

'And you put it off, I suppose? Really, Adela, you must remember
that a girl of your age has to be mindful of her self-respect. In
Wanley you can't escape notice; besides--'

'Let me explain, mother.' Adela's voice was made firm by the
suggestion that she had behaved unbecomingly. 'I went to Letty first
of all to tell her of a difficulty I was in. Yesterday afternoon I
happened to meet Mr. Eldon, and when he was saying good-bye I asked
him if he wouldn't come and see you before he left Wanley. He
promised to come this afternoon. At the time of course I didn't know
that Alfred had invited Mr. Mutimer. It would have been so
disagreeable for Mr. Eldon to meet him here, I made up my mind to
walk towards the Manor and tell Mr. Eldon what had happened.'

'Why should Mr. Eldon have found the meeting with Mr. Mutimer
disagreeable?'

'They don't like each other.'

'I dare say not. Perhaps it was as well Mr. Eldon didn't come. I
should most likely have refused to see him.'

'Refused to see him, mother?'

Adela gazed in the utmost astonishment.

'Yes, my dear. I haven't spoken to you about Mr. Eldon, just because
I took it for granted that he would never come in your way again.
That he should have dared to speak to you is something beyond what I
could have imagined. When I went to see Mrs. Eldon on Friday I
didn't take you with me, for fear lest that young man should show
himself. It was impossible for you to be in the same room with him.'

'With Mr. Hubert Eldon? My dearest mother, what are you saying?'

'Of course it surprises you, Adela. I too was surprised. I thought
there might be no need to speak to you of things you ought never to
hear mentioned, but now I am afraid I have no choice. The sad truth
is that Mr. Eldon has utterly disgraced himself. When he ought to
have been here to attend Mr. Mutimer's funeral, he was living at
Paris and other such places in the most shocking dissipation. Things
are reported of him which I could not breathe to you; he is a bad
young man!'

The inclusiveness of that description! Mrs. Waltham's head quivered
as she gave utterance to the words, for at least half of the feeling
she expressed was genuine. To her hearer the final phrase was like a
thunderstroke. In a certain profound work on the history of her
country which she had been in the habit of studying, the author,
discussing the character of Oliver Cromwell, achieved a most
impressive climax in the words, 'He was a bold, bad man.' The
adjective 'bad' derived for Adela a dark energy from her
recollection of that passage; it connoted every imaginable phase of
moral degradation. 'Dissipation' too; to her pure mind the word had
a terrible sound; it sketched in lurid outlines hideous lurking
places of vice and disease. 'Paris and other such places.' With the
name of Paris she associated a feeling of reprobation; Paris was the
head-quarters of sin--at all events on earth. In Paris people went
to the theatre on Sunday; that fact alone shed storm-light over the
iniquitous capital.

She stood mute with misery, appalled, horrified. It did not occur to
her to doubt the truth of her mother's accusations; the strange
circumstance of Hubert's absence when every sentiment of decency
would have summoned him home corroborated the charge. And she had
talked familiarly with this man a few hours ago! Her head swam.

'Mr. Mutimer knew it,' proceeded her mother, noting with
satisfaction the effect she was producing. 'That was why he
destroyed the will in which he had left everything to Mr. Eldon; I
have no doubt the grief killed him. And one thing more I may tell
you. Mr. Eldon's illness was the result of a wound he received in
some shameful quarrel; it is believed that he fought a duel.'

The girl sank back upon her chair. She was white and breathed with
difficulty.

'You will understand now, my dear,' Mrs. Waltham continued, more in
her ordinary voice, 'why it so shocked me to hear that you had been
seen talking with Mr. Eldon near the Manor. I feared it was an
appointment. Your explanation is all I wanted: it relieves me. The
worst of it is, other people will hear of it, and of course we can't
explain to everyone.'

'Why should people hear?' Adela exclaimed, in a quivering voice. It
was not that she feared to have the story known, but mingled
feelings made her almost passionate. 'Mrs. Mewling has no right to
go about talking of me. It is very ill-bred, to say nothing of the
unkindness.'

'Ah, but it is what we have to be prepared for, Adela. That is the
world, my child. You see how very careful one has to be. But never
mind; it is most fortunate that the Eldons are going. I am so sorry
for poor Mrs. Eldon; who could have thought that her son would turn
out so badly! And to think that he would have dared to come into my
house! At least he had the decency not to show himself at church.'

Adela sat silent. The warring of her heart made outward sounds
indistinct.

'After all,' pursued her mother, as if making a great concession, 'I
fear it is only too true that those old families become degenerate.
One does hear such shocking stories of the aristocracy. But get to
bed, dear, and don't let this trouble you. What a very good thing
that all that wealth didn't go into such hands, isn't it? Mr.
Mutimer will at all events use it in a decent way; it won't be
scattered in vulgar dissipation.--Now kiss me, dear. I haven't been
scolding you, pet; it was only that I felt I had perhaps made a
mistake in not telling you these things before, and I blamed myself
rather than you.'

Mrs. Waltham returned to her own room, and after a brief turning
over of speculations and projects begotten of the new aspect of
things, found her reward for conscientiousness in peaceful slumber.
But Adela was late in falling asleep. She, too, had many things to
revolve, not worldly calculations, but the troubled phantasies of a
virgin mind which is experiencing its first shock against the
barriers of fate.





CHAPTER IX




Richard Mutimer had strong domestic affections. The English artisan
is not demonstrative in such matters, and throughout his life
Richard had probably exchanged no word of endearment with any one of
his kin, whereas language of the tempestuous kind was common enough
from him to one and all of them; for all that he clung closely to
the hearth, and nothing in truth concerned him so nearly as the
well-being of his mother, his sister, and his brother. For them he
had rejoiced as much as for himself in the blessing of fortune. Now
that the excitement of change had had time to subside, Richard found
himself realising the fact that capital creates cares as well as
removes them, and just now the centre of his anxieties lay in the
house at Highbury to which his family had removed from Wilton
Square.

He believed that as yet both the Princess and 'Arry were ignorant of
the true state of affairs. It had been represented to them that he
had 'come in for' a handsome legacy from his relative in the
Midlands, together with certain business responsibilities which
would keep him much away from home; they were given to understand
that the change in their own position and prospects was entirely of
their brother's making. If Alice Maud was allowed to give up her
work, to wear more expensive gowns, even to receive lessons on the
pianoforte, she had to thank Dick for it. And when 'Arry was told
that his clerkship at the drain-pipe manufactory was about to
terminate, that he might enter upon a career likely to be more
fruitful of distinction, again it was Dick's brotherly kindness.
Mrs. Mutimer did her best to keep up this deception.

But Richard was well aware that the deception could not be lasting,
and had the Princess alone been concerned he would probably never
have commenced it. It was about his brother that he was really
anxious. 'Arry might hear the truth any day, and Richard gravely
feared the result of such a discovery. Had he been destined to
future statesmanship, he could not have gone through a more
profitable course of experience and reasoning than that into which
he was led by brotherly solicitude. For 'Arry represented a very
large section of Demos, alike in his natural characteristics and in
the circumstances of his position; 'Arry, being 'Arry, was on the
threshold of emancipation, and without the smallest likelihood that
the event would change his nature. Hence the nut to crack: Given
'Arry, by what rapid process of discipline can he be prepared for a
state in which the 'Arrian characteristics will surely prove ruinous
not only to himself but to all with whom he has dealings?

Richard saw reason to deeply regret that the youth had been put to
clerking in the first instance, and not rather trained for some
handicraft, clerkships being about the least hopeful of positions
for a working-class lad of small parts and pronounced blackguard
tendencies. He came to the conclusion that even now it was not too
late to remedy this error. 'Arry must be taught what work meant,
and, before he came into possession of his means, he must, if
possible, be led to devote his poor washy brains to some pursuit
quite compatible with the standing of a capitalist, to acquire
knowledge of a kind which he could afterwards use for the benefit of
his own pocket. Deficient bodily vigour had had something to do with
his elevation to the office of the drain-pipe factory, but that he
appeared to have outgrown. Much pondering enabled Richard to hit at
length on what he considered a hopeful scheme; he would apprentice
'Arry to engineering, and send him in the evenings to follow the
courses of lectures given to working men at the School of Mines. In
this way the lad would be kept constantly occupied, he would learn
the meaning of work and study, and when he became of age would be in
a position to take up some capitalist enterprise. Thus he might
float clear of the shoals of black-guardism and develop into a
tolerable member of society, at all events using his wealth in the
direct employment of labour.

We have seen Richard engaged in asthetic speculation; now we
behold him busied in the training of a representative capitalist.
But the world would be a terrible place if the men of individual
energy were at all times consistent. Richard knew well enough that
in planning thus for his brother's future he was inconsistency
itself; but then the matter at issue concerned someone in whom he
had a strong personal interest, and consequently he took counsel of
facts. When it was only the world at large that he was bent on
benefiting, too shrewd a sifting of arguments was not called for,
and might seriously have interfered with his oratorical effects. In
regulating private interests one cares singularly little for
anything but hard demonstration and the logic of cause and effect.

It was now more than a month since 'Arry had been removed from the
drain-pipes and set going on his new course, and Richard was
watching the experiment gravely. Connected with it was his
exceptional stay at Wanley over the Sunday; he designed to go up to
London quite unexpectedly about the middle of the ensuing week, that
he might see how things worked in his absence. It is true there had
been another inducement to remain in the village, for Richard had
troubles of his own in addition to those imposed upon him by his
family. The Manor was now at his disposal; as soon as he had
furnished it there was no longer a reason for delaying his marriage.
In appearance, that is to say; inwardly there had been growing for
some weeks reasons manifold. They tormented him. For the first time
in his life he had begun to sleep indifferently; when he had
resolutely put from his mind thought of Alice and 'Arry, and seemed
ready for repose, there crept out of less obvious lurking-places
subtle temptations and suggestions which fevered his blood and only
allured the more, the more they disquieted him. This Sunday night
was the worst he had yet known. When he left the Walthams, he
occupied himself for an hour or two in writing letters, resolutely
subduing his thoughts to the subjects of his correspondence. Then be
ate supper, and after that walked to the top of Stanbury Hill,
hoping to tire himself. But he returned as little prepared for sleep
as he had set out. Now he endeavoured to think of Emma Vine; by way
of help, he sat down and began a letter to her. But composition had
never been so difficult; he positively had nothing to say. Still he
must think of her. When he went up to town on Tuesday or Wednesday
one of his first duties would be to appoint a day for his marriage.
And he felt that it would be a duty harder to perform than any he
had ever known. She seemed to have drifted so far from him, or he
from her. It was difficult even to see her face in imagination;
another face always came instead, and indeed needed no summoning.

He rose next morning with a stern determination to marry Emma Vine
in less than a month from that date.

On Tuesday he went to London. A hansom put him down before the house
in Highbury about six o'clock. It was a semidetached villa,
stuccoed, bow-windowed, of two storeys, standing pleasantly on a
wide road skirted by similar dwellings, and with a row of acacias in
front. He admitted himself with a latch-key and walked at once into
the front room; it was vacant. He went to the dining-room and there
found his mother at tea with Alice and 'Arry.

Mrs. Mutimer and her younger son were in appearance very much what
they had been in their former state. The mother's dress was of
better material, but she was not otherwise outwardly changed. 'Arry
was attired nearly as when we saw him in a festive condition on the
evening of Easter Sunday; the elegance then reserved for high days
and holidays now distinguished him every evening when the guise of
the workshop was thrown off. He still wore a waistcoat of pronounced
cut, a striking collar, a necktie of remarkable hue. It was not
necessary to approach him closely to be aware that his person was
sprinkled with perfumes. A recent acquisition was a heavy-looking
ring on the little finger of his right hand. Had you been of his
intimates, 'Arry would have explained to you the double advantage of
this ring; not only did it serve as an adornment, but, as playful
demonstration might indicate, it would prove of singular efficacy in
pugilistic conflict.

At the sight of his elder brother, 'Arry hastily put his hands
beneath the table, drew off the ornament, and consigned it furtively
to his waistcoat pocket.

But Alice Maud was by no means what she had been. In all that
concerned his sister, Mutimer was weak; he could quarrel with her,
and abuse her roundly for frailties, but none the less was it one of
his keenest pleasures to see her contented, even in ways that went
quite against his conscience. He might rail against the vanity of
dress, but if Alice needed a new gown, Richard was the first to
notice it. The neat little silver watch she carried was a gift from
himself of some years back; with difficulty he had resisted the
temptation to replace it with a gold one now that it was in his
power to do so. Tolerable taste and handiness with her needle had
always kept Alice rather more ladylike in appearance than the girls
of her class are wont to be, but such comparative distinction no
longer sufficed. After certain struggles with himself, Richard had
told his mother that Alice must in future dress 'as a lady'; he
authorised her to procure the services of a competent dressmaker,
and, within the bounds of moderation, to. expend freely. And the
result was on the whole satisfactory. A girl of good figure, pretty
face, and moderate wit, who has spent some years in a City showroom,
does not need much instruction in the art of wearing fashionable
attire becomingly. Alice wore this evening a gown which would not
have been out of place at five o'clock in a West-end drawing-room;
the sleeves were rather short, sufficiently so to exhibit a very
shapely lower arm. She had discovered new ways of doing her hair; at
present it was braided on either side of the forehead--a style which
gave almost a thoughtful air to her face. When her brother entered
she was eating a piece of sponge-cake, which she held to her lips
with peculiar delicacy, as if rehearsing graces.

'Why, there now!' cried Mrs. Mutimer, pleased to see her son. 'If I
wasn't saying not five minutes ago as Dick was likely to come some
day in the week! Wasn't I, Alice? What'll you have for your tea?
There's some chops all ready in the 'ouse, if you'd care for them.'

Richard was not in a cheerful mood. He made no reply immediately,
but went and stood before the fireplace, as he had been accustomed
to do in the old kitchen.

'Will you have a chop?' repeated his mother.

'No; I won't eat just yet. But you can give me a cup of tea.'

Mrs. Mutimer and Alice exchanged a glance, as the former bent over
the teapot. Richard was regarding his brother askance, and it
resulted in a question, rather sharply put--

'Have you been to work to-day?'

'Arry would have lied had he dared; as it was, he made his plate
revolve, and murmured, 'No; he 'adn't.'

'Why not?'

'I didn't feel well,' replied the youth, struggling for
self-confidence and doing his best to put on an air of patient
suffering.

Richard tapped his tea-cup and looked the look of one who reserves
discussion for a more seasonable time.

'Daniel called last night,' remarked Mrs. Mutimer. 'He says he wants
to see you. I think it's something particular; he seemed
disappointed you weren't at the meeting on Sunday.'

'Did he? I'll see if I can get round to-night. If you like to have
something cooked for me about eight o'clock, mother,' he added,
consulting his watch, 'I shall be ready for it then.'

He turned to his brother again.

'Is there a class to-night? No? Very well, when they've cleared
away, get your books out and show me what you've been doing. What
are _you_ going to do with yourself, Alice?'

The two addressed, as well as their mother, appeared to have some
special cause for embarrassment. Instead of immediately replying,
Alice played with crumbs and stole glances on either side.

'Me and 'Arry are going out,' she said at length, with a rather
timid smile and a poise of the head in pretty wilfulness.

'Not 'Arry,' Richard observed significantly.

'Why not?' came from the younger Mutimer, with access of boldness.

'If you're not well enough to go to work you certainly don't go out
at night for your pleasure.'

'But it's a particular occasion,' explained Mice, leaning back with
crossed arms, evidently prepared to do battle. 'A friend of 'Arry's
is going to call and take us to the theatre.'

'Oh, indeed! And what friend is that?'

Mrs. Mutimer, who had been talked over to compliance with a project
she felt Richard would not approve--she had no longer the old
authority, and spent her days in trying to piece on the present life
to the former--found refuge in a habit more suitable to the kitchen
than the dining-room; she had collected all the teaspoons within
reach and was pouring hot-water upon them in the slop-basin, the
familiar preliminary to washing up.

'A gen'leman as lives near here,' responded 'Arry. 'He writes for
the newspapers. His name's Keene.'

'Oh? And how came you to know him?'

'Met him,' was the airy reply.

'And you've brought him here?'

'Well, he's been here once.'

'He said as he wanted to know you, Dick,' put in Mrs. Mutimer. 'He
was really a civil-spoken man, and he gave 'Arry a lot of help with
his books.'

'When was he here?'

'Last Friday.'

'And to-night he wants to take you to the theatre?'

The question was addressed to Alice.

'It won't cost him anything,' she replied. 'He says he can always
get free passes.'

'No doubt. Is he coming here to fetch you? I shall be glad to see
him.'

Richard's tone was ambiguous. He put down his cup, and said to
Alice--

'Come and let me hear how you get on with your playing.' Alice
followed into the drawing-room. For the furnishing of the new house
Richard had not trusted to his own instincts, but had taken counsel
with a firm that he knew from advertisements. The result was
commonplace, but not intolerable. His front room was regarded as the
Princess's peculiar domain; she alone dared to use it
freely--declined, indeed, to sit elsewhere. Her mother only came a
few feet within the door now and then; if obliged by Alice to sit
down, she did so on the edge of a chair as near to the door as
possible. Most of her time Mrs. Mutimer still spent in the kitchen.
She had resolutely refused to keep more than one servant, and
everything that servant did she all Alice's objections she opposed
an obstinate silence. What herself performed over again, even to the
making of beds. To was the poor woman to do? She had never in her
life read more than an occasional paragraph of police news, and
could not be expected to take up literature at her age. Though she
made no complaint, signs were not wanting that she had begun to
suffer in health. She fretted through the nights, and was never
really at peace save when she anticipated the servant in rising
early, and had an honest scrub at saucepans or fireirons before
breakfast. Her main discomfort came of the feeling that she no
longer had a house of her own; nothing about her seemed to be her
property with the exception of her old kitchen clock, and one or two
articles she could not have borne to part with. From being a rather
talkative woman she had become very reticent; she went about
uneasily, with a look of suspicion or of fear. Her children she no
longer ventured to command; the secret of their wealth weighed upon
her, she was in constant dread on their behalf. It is a bad thing
for one such as Mrs. Mutimer to be thrown back upon herself in novel
circumstances, and practically debarred from the only relief which
will avail her--free discussion with her own kind. The result is a
species of shock to the system, sure to manifest itself before long
in one or other form of debility.

Alice seated herself at the piano, and began a finger exercise,
laboriously, imperfectly. For the first week or two it had given her
vast satisfaction to be learning the piano; what more certain sign
of having achieved ladyhood? It pleased her to assume airs with her
teacher--a very deferential lady--to put off a lesson for a fit of
languidness; to let it be understood how entirely time was at her
command. Now she was growing rather weary of flats and sharps, and
much preferred to read of persons to whom the same nomenclature was
very applicable in the books she obtained from a circulating
library. Her reading had hitherto been confined to the fiction of
the penny papers; to procure her pleasure in three gaily-bound
volumes was another evidence of rise in the social scale; it was
like ordering your wine by the dozen after being accustomed to a
poor chance bottle now and then. At present Alice spent the greater
part of her day floating on the gentle milky stream of English
romance. Her brother was made a little uneasy by this taste; he had
not studied the literature in question.

At half-past six a loud knock at the front door announced the
expected visitor. Alice turned from the piano, and looked at her
brother apprehensively. Richard rose, and established himself on the
hearthrug, his hands behind him.

'What are you going to say to him, Dick?' Alice asked hurriedly.

'He says he wants to know me. I shall say, "Here I am."'

There were voices outside. 'Arry had opened the door himself, and
now he ushered his acquaintance into the drawing-room. Mr. Keene
proved to be a man of uncertain age--he might be eight-and-twenty,
but was more probably ten years older. He was meagre, and of shrewd
visage; he wore a black frock coat--rather shiny at the back--and
his collar was obviously of paper. Incipient baldness endowed him in
appearance with a noble forehead; he carried eye-glasses.

Whilst 'Arry mumbled a form of introduction, the journalist--so Mr.
Keene described himself--stood in a bowing attitude, one hand to his
glasses, seeming to inspect Richard with extreme yet respectful
interest. When he spoke, it was in a rather mincing way, with
interjected murmurs--the involuntary overflow, as it were, of his
deep satisfaction.

'There are few persons in England whose acquaintance I desire more
than that of Mr. Richard Mutimer; indeed, I may leave the statement
unqualified and say at once that there is no one. I have heard you
speak in public, Mr. Mutimer. My profession has necessarily led me
to hear most of our platform orators, and in one respect you
distance them all--in the quality of sincerity. No speaker ever
moved me as you did. I had long been interested in your cause; I had
long wished for time and opportunity to examine into it thoroughly.
Your address--I speak seriously--removed the necessity of further
study. I am of your party, Mr. Mutimer. There is nothing I desire so
much as to give and take the hand of brotherhood.'

He jerked his hand forward, still preserving his respectful
attitude. Richard gave his own hand carelessly, smiling as a man
does who cannot but enjoy flattery yet has a strong desire to kick
the flatterer out of the room.

'Are you a member of the Union?' he inquired.

'With pride I profess myself a member. Some day--and that at no
remote date--I may have it in my power to serve the cause
materially.' He smiled meaningly. 'The press--you understand?' He
spread his fingers to represent wide dominion. 'An ally to whom the
columns of the _bourgeois_ press are open--you perceive? It is the
task of my life.'

'What papers do you write for?' asked Mutimer bluntly.

'Several, several. Not as yet in a leading capacity. In fact, I am
feeling my way. With ends such as I propose to myself it won't do to
stand committed to any formal creed in politics. Politics, indeed!
Ha, ha!'

He laughed scornfully. Then, turning to Alice--

'You will forgive me, I am sure, Miss Mutimer, that I address myself
first to your brother--I had almost said your illustrious brother.
To be confessed illustrious some day, depend upon it. I trust you
are well?'

'Thanks, I'm very well indeed,' murmured Alice, rather disconcerted
by such politeness.

'And Mrs. Mutimer? That is well. By-the-by,' he proceeded to
Richard, 'I have a piece of work in hand that will deeply interest
you. I am translating the great treatise of Marx, "Das capital." It
occurs to me that a chapter now and then might see the light in the
"Fiery Cross." How do you view that suggestion?'

Richard did not care to hide his suspicion, and even such an
announcement as this failed to move him to cordiality.

'You might drop a line about it to Mr. Westlake,' he said.

'Mr. Westlake? Oh! but I quite understood that you had practically
the conduct of the paper.'

Richard again smiled.

'Mr. Westlake edits it,' he said.

Mr. Keene waved his hand in sign of friendly intelligence. Then he
changed the subject.

'I ventured to put at Miss Mutimer's disposal certain tickets I
hold--professionally--for the Regent's Theatre to-night--the dress
circle. I have five seats in all. May I have the pleasure of your
company, Mr. Mutimer?'

'I'm only in town for a night,' Richard replied; 'and I can't very
well spare the time.'

'To be sure, to be sure; I was inconsiderate. Then Miss Mutimer and
my friend Harry--'

'I'm sorry they're not at liberty,' was Richard's answer to the
murmured interrogation. 'If they had accepted your invitation be' so
good as to excuse them. I happen to want them particularly this
evening.'

'In that case, I have of course not a word to say. save to express
my deep regret at losing the pleasure of their company. But another
time, I trust. I--I feel presumptuous, but it is my earnest hope to
be allowed to stand on the footing not only of a comrade in the
cause, but of a neighbour; I live quite near. Forgive me if I seem a
little precipitate. The privilege is so inestimable.'

Richard made no answer, and Mr. Keene forthwith took his leave,
suave to the last. When he was gone, Richard went to the
dining-room, where his mother was sitting. Mrs. Mutimer would have
given much to be allowed to sit in the kitchen; she had a room of
her own upstairs, but there she felt too remote from the centre of
domestic operations, and the dining-room was a compromise. Her chair
was always placed in a rather dusky corner; she generally had sewing
on her lap, but the consciousness that her needle was not really in
demand, and that she might just as well have sat idle, troubled her
habits of mind. She often had the face of one growing prematurely
aged.

'I hope you won't let them bring anyone they like,' Richard said to
her. 'I've sent that fellow about his business; he's here for no
good. He mustn't come again.'

'They won't heed me,' replied Mrs. Mutimer, using the tone of little
interest with which she was accustomed to speak of details of the
new order.

'Well, then, they've _got_ to heed you, and I'll have that
understood.--Why didn't 'Arry go to work to-day?'

'Didn't want to, I s'pose.'

'Has he stayed at home often lately?'

'Not at 'ome, but I expect he doesn't always go to work.'

'Will you go and sit with Alice in the front room? I'll have a talk
with him.'

'Arry came whistling at the summons. There was a nasty look on his
face, the look which in his character corresponded to Richard's
resoluteness. His brother eyed him.

'Look here, 'Arry,' the elder began, 'I want this explaining. What
do you mean by shirking your work?'

There was no reply. 'Arry strode to the window and leaned against
the side of it, in the attitude of a Sunday loafer waiting for the
dram-shop to open.

'If this goes on,' Richard pursued, 'you'll find yourself in your
old position again. I've gone to a good deal of trouble to give you
a start, and it seems to me you ought to show a better spirit. We'd
better have an understanding; do you mean to learn engineering, or
don't you?'

'I don't see the use of it,' said the other.

'What do you mean? I suppose you must make your living somehow?'

'Arry laughed, and in such a way that Richard looked at him keenly,
his brow gathering darkness.

'What are you laughing at?'

'Why, at you. There's no more need for me to work for a living than
there is for you. As if I didn't know that!'

'Who's been putting that into your head?'

No scruple prevented the lad from breaking a promise he had made to
Mr. Keene, the journalist, when the latter explained to him the
disposition of the deceased Richard Mutimer's estate; it was only
that he preferred to get himself credit for acuteness.

'Why, you don't think I was to be kept in the dark about a thing
like that? It's just like you to want to make a fellow sweat the
flesh off his bones when all the time there's a fortune waiting for
him. What have I got to work for, I'd like to know? I don't just see
the fun of it, and you wouldn't neither, in my case. You've took
jolly good care you don't work yourself, trust you! I ain't a-going
to work no more, so there it is, plain and flat.'

Richard was not prepared for this; he could not hit at once on a new
course of procedure, and probably it was the uncertainty revealed in
his countenance that brought 'Arry to a pitch of boldness not
altogether premeditated. The lad came from the window, thrust his
hands more firmly into his pockets and stood prepared to do battle
for his freeman's rights It is not every day that a youth of his
stamp finds himself gloriously capable of renouncing work. There was
something like a glow of conscious virtue on his face.

'You're not going to work any more, eh?' said his brother, half to
himself. 'And who's going to support you?' he asked, with rather
forced indignation.

'There's interest per cent. coming out of my money.'

'Arry must not be credited with conscious accuracy in his use of
terms; he merely jumbled together two words which had stuck in his
memory.

'Oh? And what are you going to do with your time?'

'That's my business. How do other men spend their time?'

The reply was obvious, but Richard felt the full seriousness of the
situation and restrained his scornful impulses.

'Sit down, will you?' he said quietly, pointing to a chair.

His tone availed more than anger would have done.

'You tell me I take good care not to do any work myself? There
you're wrong. I'm working hard every day.'

'Oh, we know what kind of work that is!'

'No, I don't think you do. Perhaps it would be as well if you were
to see. I think you'd better go to Wanley with me.'

'What for?'

'I dare say I can give you a job for awhile.'

'I tell you I don't want a job.'

Richard's eye wandered rather vacantly. From the first it had been a
question with him whether it would not be best to employ 'Arry at
Wanley, but on the whole the scheme adopted seemed more fruitful.
Had the works been fully established it would have been a different
thing. Even now he could keep the lad at work at Wanley, though not
exactly in the way he desired. But if it came to a choice between a
life of idleness in London and such employment as could be found for
him at the works, 'Arry must clearly leave town at once. In a few
days the Manor would be furnished; in a few weeks Emma would be
there to keep house.

There was the difficulty of leaving his mother and sister alone. It
looked as if all would have to quit London. Yet there would be
awkwardness in housing the whole family at the Manor; and besides--

What the 'besides' implied Richard did not make formal even in his
own thoughts. It stood for a vague objection to having all his
relatives dwelling at Wanley. Alice he would not mind; it was not
impossible to picture Alice in conversation with Mrs. and Miss
Waltham; indeed, he desired that for her. And yet--

Richard was at an awkward pass. Whithersoever he looked he saw
stumbling-blocks, the more disagreeable in that they rather loomed
in a sort of mist than declared themselves for what they were. He
had not the courage to approach and examine them one by one; he had
not the audacity to imagine leaps over them; yet somehow they had to
be surmounted. At this moment, whilst 'Arry was waiting for the
rejoinder to his last reply, Richard found himself wrestling again
with the troubles which had kept him wakeful for the last two
nights. He had believed them finally thrown and got rid of. Behold,
they were more stubborn than ever.

He kept silence so long that his brother spoke.

'What sort of a job is it?'

To his surprise, Richard displayed sudden anger.

'If you weren't such a young fool you'd see what's best for you, and
go on as I meant you to! What do you mean by saying you won't work?
If you weren't such a thickhead you might go to school and be taught
how to behave yourself, and how a man ought to live; but it's no use
sending _you_ to any such place. Can't you understand that a man
with money has to find some sort of position in the world? I suppose
you'd like to spend the rest of your life in public-houses and
music-halls?'

Richard was well aware that to give way to his temper was worse than
useless, and could only defeat every end; but something within him
just now gnawed so intolerably that there was nothing for it but an
outbreak. The difficulties of life were hedging him in--difficulties
he could not have conceived till they became matter of practical
experience. And unfortunately a great many of them were not of an
honest kind; they would not bear exposing. For a man of decision,
Mutimer was getting strangely remote from practical roads.

'I shall live as I like,' observed 'Arry, thrusting out his legs and
bending his body forward, a combination of movements which, I know
not why, especially suggests dissoluteness.

Richard gave up the contest for the present, and went in silence
from the room. As he joined his mother and sister they suddenly
ceased talking.

'Don't cook anything for me,' he said, remaining near the door. 'I'm
going out.'

'But you must have something to eat,' protested his mother.
'See'--she rose hastily--'I'll get a chop done at once.'

'I couldn't eat it if you did. I dare say you've got some cold meat.
Leave it out for me; I don't know what time I shall get back.'

'You're very unkind, Dick,' here remarked Alice, who wore a mutinous
look. 'Why couldn't you let us go to the theatre?'

Her brother vouchsafed no reply, but withdrew from the room, and
almost immediately left the house. He walked half a mile with his
eyes turned to the ground, then noticed a hansom which was passing
empty, and had himself driven to Hoxton. He alighted near the
Britannia Theatre, and thence made his way by foul streets to a
public-house called the 'Warwick Castle.' Only two customers
occupied the bar; the landlord stood in his shirt-sleeves, with arms
crossed, musing. At the sight of Mutimer he brightened up, and
extended his hand.

'How d'you do; how d'you do, sir?' he exclaimed. 'Glad to see you.'

The shake of the hands was a tribute to old times, the 'sir' was a
recognition of changed circumstances. Mr. Nicholas Dabbs, the
brother of Daniel, was not a man to lose anything by failure to
acknowledge social distinctions. A short time ago Daniel had
expostulated with his brother on the use of 'sir' to Mutimer,
eliciting the profound reply, 'D'you think he'd have 'ad that glass
of whisky if I'd called him Dick?'

'Dan home yet?' Mutimer inquired.

'Not been in five minutes. Come round, sir, will you? I know he
wants to see you.'

A portion of the counter was raised, and Richard passed into a
parlour behind the bar.

'I'll call him,' said the landlord.

Daniel appeared immediately.

'I want a bit of private talk,' he said to his brother. 'We'll have
this door shut, if you don't mind.'

'You may as well bring us a drop of something first, Nick,' put in
Richard. 'Give the order, Dan.'

'Wouldn't have 'ad it but for the "sir,"' chuckled Nicholas to
himself. 'Never used to when he come here, unless I stood it.'

Daniel drew a chair to the table and stirred his tumbler
thoughtfully, his nose over the steam.

'We're going to have trouble with 'Arry,' said Richard, who had
seated himself on a sofa in a dispirited way. 'Of course someone's
been telling him, and now the young fool says he's going to throw up
work. I suppose I shall have to take him down yonder with me.'

'Better do so,' assented Daniel, without much attention to the
matter.

'What is it you want to talk about, Dan?'

Mr. Dabbs had a few minutes ago performed the customary evening
cleansing of his hands and face, but it had seemed unnecessary to
brush his hair, which consequently stood upright upon his forehead,
a wiry rampart, just as it had been thrust by the vigorously-applied
towel. This, combined with an unwonted lugubriousness of visage,
made Daniel's aspect somewhat comical. He kept stirring very
deliberately with his sugar-crusher.

'Why, it's this, Dick,' he began at length. 'And understand, to
begin with, that I've got no complaint to make of nobody; it's only
_things_ as are awk'ard. It's this way, my boy. When you fust of all
come and told me about what I may call the great transformation
scene, you said, "Now it ain't a-goin' to make no difference, Dan,"
you said. Now wait till I've finished; I ain't complainin' of
nobody. Well, and I tried to 'ope as it wouldn't make no difference,
though I 'ad my doubts. "Come an' see us all just as usu'l," you
said. Well, I tried to do so, and three or four weeks I come
reg'lar, lookin' in of a Sunday night. But somehow it wouldn't work;
something 'ad got out of gear. So I stopped it off. Then comes 'Arry
a-askin' why I made myself scarce, sayin' as th' old lady and the
Princess missed me. So I looked in again; but it was wuss than
before, I saw I'd done better to stay away. So I've done ever since.
Y' understand me, Dick?'

Richard was not entirely at his ease in listening. He tried to
smile, but failed to smile naturally.

'I don't see what you found wrong,' he returned, abruptly.

'Why, I'm a-tellin' you, my boy, I didn't find nothing wrong except
in myself, as you may say. What's the good o' beatin' about the
bush? It's just this 'ere, Dick, my lad. When I come to the Square,
you know very well who it was as I come to see. Well, it stands to
reason as I can't go to the new 'ouse with the same thoughts as I
did to the old. Mind, I can't say as she'd ever a' listened to me;
it's more than likely she wouldn't But now that's all over, and the
sooner I forget all about it the better for me. And th' only way to
forget is to keep myself to myself,--see, Dick?'

The listener drummed with his fingers on the table, still
endeavouring to smile.

'I've thought about all this, Dan,' he said at length, with an air
of extreme frankness. 'In fact, I meant to have a talk with you. Of
course I can't speak for my sister, and I don't know that I can even
speak to her about it, but one thing I can say, and that is that
she'll never be encouraged by me to think herself better than her
old friends.' He gave a laugh. 'Why, that 'ud be a good joke for a
man in my position! What am I working for, if not to do away with
distinctions between capital and labour? You'll never have my advice
to keep away, Do you suppose I shall cry off with Emma Vine just
because I've and that you know. Why, who am I going to marry myself?
got more money than I used to have?'

Daniel's eye was upon him as he said these words, an eye at once
reflective and scrutinising. Richard felt it, and laughed yet more
scornfully.

'I think we know you better than that,' responded Dabbs. 'But it
ain't quite the same thing, you see. There's many a man high up has
married a poor girl. I don't know how it is; perhaps because women
is softer than men, and takes the polish easier. And then we know
very well how it looks when a man as has no money goes after a girl
as has a lot. No, no; it won't do, Dick.'

It was said with the voice of a man who emphasises a negative in the
hope of eliciting a stronger argument on the other side. But Richard
allowed the negative finality in fact, if not in appearance.

'Well, it's for your own deciding, Dan. All I have to say is that
you don't stay away with my approval. Understand that.'

He left Daniel idly stirring the dregs of his liquor, and went off
to pay another visit. This was to the familiar house in Wilton
Square. There was a notice in the window that dress-making and
millinery were carried on within.

Mrs. Clay (Emma's sister Kate) opened to him. She was better dressed
than in former days, but still untidy. Emma was out making
purchases, but could not be many minutes. In the kitchen the third
sister, Jane, was busy with her needle; at Richard's entrance she
rose from her chair with evident feebleness: her illness of the
spring had lasted long, and its effects were grave. The poor
girl--she closely resembled Emma in gentleness of face, but the
lines of her countenance were weaker--now suffered from pronounced
heart disease, and the complicated maladies which rheumatic fever so
frequently leaves behind it in women. She brightened at sight of the
visitor, and her eyes continued to rest on his face with quiet
satisfaction.

One of Kate's children was playing on the floor. The mother caught
it up irritably, and began lamenting the necessity of washing its
dirty little hands and face before packing it off to bed. In a
minute or two she went up stairs to discharge these duties. Between
her and Richard there was never much exchange of words.

'How are you feeling, Jane?' Mutimer inquired, taking a seat
opposite her.

'Better--oh, very much better! The cough hasn't been not near so
troublesome these last nights.'

'Mind you don't do too much work. You ought to have put your sewing
aside by now.'

'Oh, this is only a bit of my own. I'm sorry to say there isn't very
much of the other kind to do yet.'

'Comes in slowly, does it?' Richard asked, without appearance of
much interest.

'It'll be better soon, I dare say. People want time, you see, to get
to know of us.'

Richard's eyes wandered.

'Have you finished the port wine yet?' he asked, as if to fill a
gap.

'What an idea! Why, there's four whole bottles left, and one as I've
only had three glasses out of.'

'Emma was dreadfully disappointed when you didn't come as usual,'
she said presently.

Richard nodded.

'Have you got into your house?' she asked timidly.

'It isn't quite ready yet; but I've been seeing about the
furnishing.'

Jane dreamed upon the word. It. was her habit to escape from the
suffering weakness of her own life to joy in the lot which awaited
her sister.

'And Emma will have a room all to herself?'

Jane had read of ladies' boudoirs; it was her triumph to have won a
promise from Richard that Emma should have such a chamber.

'How is it going to be furnished? Do tell me.'

Richard's imagination was not active in the spheres of upholstery.

'Well, I can't yet say,' he replied, as if with an effort to rouse
himself. 'How would you like it to be?'

Jane had ever before her mind a vague vision of bright-hued drapery,
of glistening tables and chairs, of nobly patterned carpet, setting
which her heart deemed fit for that priceless jewel, her dear
sister. But to describe it all in words was a task beyond her. And
the return of Emma herself saved her from the necessity of trying.

Hearing her enter the house, Richard went up to meet Emma, and they
sat together in the sitting-room. This room was just as it had been
in Mrs. Mutimer's day, save for a few ornaments from the
mantelpiece, which the old lady could not be induced to leave behind
her. Here customers were to be received--when they came; a room
upstairs was set apart for work.

Emma wore a slightly anxious look; it showed even through her
happiness. None the less, the very perceptible change which the last
few months had wrought in her was in the direction of cheerful
activity; her motives were quicker, her speech had less of
self-distrust, she laughed more freely, displayed more of youthful
spontaneity in her whole bearing. The joy which possessed her at
Richard's coming was never touched with disappointment at his sober
modes of exhibiting affection. The root of Emma's character was
steadfast faith. She did not allow herself to judge of Richard by
the impulses of her own heart; those, she argued, were womanly; a
man must be more independent in his strength. Of what a man ought to
be she had but one criterion, Richard's self. Her judgment on this
point had been formed five or six years ago; she felt that nothing
now could ever shake it. All of expressed love that he was pleased
to give her she stored in the shrine of her memory; many a light
word forgotten by the speaker as soon as it was uttered lived still
as a part of the girl's hourly life, but his reticences she accepted
with no less devout humility. What need of repetitions? He had
spoken to her the decisive word, and it was a column established for
ever, a monument of that over which time had no power. Women are too
apt to make their fondness a source of infinite fears; in Emma
growth of love meant growth of confidence.

'Does all go well at the works?' was her first question. For she had
made his interests her own, and was following in ardent imagination
the undertaking which stamped her husband with nobility.

Richard talked on the subject for some moments; it was easier to do
so than to come at once to the words he had in mind. But he worked
round by degrees, fighting the way hard.

'The house is empty at last.'

'Is it? And you have gone to live there?'

'Not yet. I must get some furniture in first.'

Emma kept silence; the shadows of a smile journeyed trembling from
her eyes to her lips.

The question voiced itself from Richard:

'When will you be ready to go thither?'

'I'm afraid--I don't think I must leave them just yet--for a little
longer.'

He did not look at her. Emma was reading his face; the characters
had become all at once a little puzzling; her own fault, of course,
but the significance she sought was not readily discoverable.

'Can't they manage without you?' he asked. He believed his tone to
express annoyance: in fact, it scarcely did so.

'I think it won't be very long before they can,' Emma replied; 'we
have some plain sewing to do for Mrs. Robinson at the "Queen's
Head," and she's promised to recommend us. I've just called there,
and she really seems anxious to help. If Jane was stronger I
shouldn't mind so much, but she mustn't work hard just yet, and Kate
has a great deal to do with the children. Besides, Kate can't get
out of the slop sewing, and of course that won't do for this kind of
work. She'll get the stitch very soon.'

Richard seemed to be musing.

'You see'--she moved nearer to his side,--'it's only just the
beginning. I'm so afraid that they wouldn't be able to look about
for work if I left them now. Jane hasn't the strength to go and see
people; and Kate--well, you know, Richard, she can't quite suit
herself to people's fancies. I'm sure I can do so much in a few
weeks; just that'll make all the difference. The beginning's
everything, isn't it?'

Richard's eye travelled over her face. He was not without
understanding of the nobleness which housed in that plain-clad,
simple-featured woman there before him. It had shot a ray to the
secret places of his heart before now; it breathed a passing summer
along his veins at this present.

'What need is there to bother?' he said, of purpose fixing his eye
steadily on hers. 'Work 'll come in time, I dare say. Let them look
after their house.'

Perhaps Emma detected something not wholly sincere in this
suggestion. She let her eyes fall, then raised them more quickly.

'Oh, but it's far better, Richard; and we really have made a
beginning. Jane, I'm sure, wouldn't hear of giving it up. It's
wonderful what spirits she has. And she'd be miserable if she wasn't
trying to work--I know so well how it would be. Just a few weeks
longer. She really does get much better, and she says it's all "the
business." It gives her something to occupy her mind.'

'Well, it's just as you like,' said Richard, rather absently.

'But you do think it best, don't you, dear?' she urged. 'It's good
to finish things you begin, isn't it? I should feel rather
dissatisfied with myself if I gave it up, and just when everything's
promising. I believe it's what you really would wish me to do.'

'All right. I'll get the house furnished. But I can't give you much
longer.'

He continued to talk in a mechanical way for a quarter of an hour,
principally of the works; then said that he had promised to be home
for supper. and took a rather hasty leave. He called good-night to
the sisters from the top of the kitchen stairs.

Jane's face was full of joyous questioning as soon as her sister
reappeared, but Emma disclosed nothing till they two were. alone in
the bed-room. To Emma it was the simplest thing in the world to put
a duty before pleasure; she had no hesitation in telling her sister
how matters stood. And the other accepted it as pure love.

'I'm sure it'll only be a week or two before we can manage for
ourselves,' Jane said. 'Of course, people are far readier to give
you work than they would be to me or Kate. But it'll be all right
when we're once started.'

'I shall be very sorry to leave you, dear,' murmured Emma. 'You'll
have to be sure and let me know if you're not feeling well, and I
shall come at once.'

'As if you could do that!' laughed the other. 'Besides, it'll be
quite enough to keep me well to know you're happy.'

'I do hope Kate won't be trying.'

'Oh, I'm sure she won't. Why, it's quite a long time since she had
one of her worst turns. It was only the hard work and the trouble as
worried her. And now that's all over. It's you we have to thank for
it all, Em.'

'You'll have to come and be with me sometimes, Jane. I know there'll
always be something missing as long as you're out of my sight. And
you must see to it yourself that the sheets is always aired; Kate's
often so careless about that. You will promise me now, won't you? I
shall be dreadfully anxious every washing day, I shall indeed. You
know that the least thing'll give you a chill.'

'Yes, I'll be careful,' said the other, half sadly. She was lying in
her bed, and Emma sat on a chair by the side. 'But you know it's not
much use, love. I don't suppose as I shall live so very long. But I
don't care, as soon as I know you're happy.'

'Jane, I should never know happiness if I hadn't my little sister to
come and talk to. Don't think like that, don't for my sake, Janey
dear!'

They laid their cheeks together upon the pillows.

'He'll be a good husband,' Jane whispered. 'You know that, don't
you, Emmy?'

'No better in all this world! Why do you ask so?'

'No--no--I didn't mean anything. He said you mustn't wait much
longer, didn't he?'

'Yes, he did. But he'd rather see me doing what's right. I often
feel myself such a poor thing by him. I must try and show him that I
do my best to follow his example. I'm ashamed almost, sometimes, to
think I shall be his wife. It ought to be some one better than me.'

'Where would he find any one better, I'd like to know? Let him come
and ask me about that! There's no man good enough for you, sister
Emmy.'

Richard was talking with his sister Alice; the others had gone to
bed, and the house was quiet.

'I wasn't at all pleased to see that man here to-night,' he said.
'You shouldn't have been so ready to say yes when he asked you to go
to the theatre. It was like his impudence!'

'Why, what ever's the harm, Dick? Besides, we must have some
friends, and--really he looks a gentleman.'

I'll tell you a secret,' returned her brother, with a half-smile,
half-sneer. 'You don't know a gentleman yet, and you'll have to be
very careful till you do.'

'How am I to learn, then?'

'Just wait. You've got enough to do with your music and your
reading. Time enough for getting acquainted with gentlemen.'

'Aren't you going to let anybody come and see us, then?'

'You have the old friends,' replied Richard, raising his chin.

'You're thinking of Mr. Dabbs, I suppose. What did he want to see
you for, Dick?'

Alice looked at him from the corner of her eye.

'I think I'll tell you. He says he doesn't intend to come here
again. You've made him feel uncomfortable.'

The girl laughed.

'I can't help how he feels, can I? At all events, Mr. Dabbs isn't a
gentleman, is he, now?'

'He's an honest man, and that's saying a good deal, let me tell you.
I rather thought you liked him.'

'Liked him? Oh, in a way, of course. But things are different.'

'How different?'

Alice looked up, put her head on one side, smiled her prettiest, and
asked--

'Is it true, what 'Arry says--about the money?'

He had wanted to get at this, and was, on the whole, not sorry to
hear it. Richard was studying the derivation of virtue from
necessity.

'What if it is?' he asked.

'Well, it makes things more different even than I thought, that's
all.'

She sprang to her feet and danced across the room, one hand bent
over her head. It was not an ungraceful picture. Her brother smiled.

'Alice, you'd better be guided by me. I know a little of the world,
and I can help you where you'd make mistakes. Just keep to yourself
for a little, my girl, and get on with your piano and your books.
You can't do better, believe me. Never mind whether you've any one
to see you or not; there's time enough. And I'll tell you another
secret. Before you can tell a gentleman when you see him, you'll
have to teach yourself to be a lady. Perhaps that isn't quite so
easy as you think.'

'How am I to learn then?'

'We'll find a way before long. Get on with your playing and
reading.'

Presently, as they were about to leave the room, the Princess
inquired:

'Dick, how soon are you going to be married?'

'I can't tell you,' was the answer. 'Emma wants to put it off.'





CHAPTER X




The declaration of independence so nobly delivered by his brother
'Arry necessitated Richard's stay in town over the following day.
The matter was laid before a family council, held after breakfast in
the dining-room. Richard opened the discussion with some vehemence,
and appealed to his mother and Alice for support. Alice responded
heartily; Mrs. Mutimer was slower in coming to utterance, but at
length expressed herself in no doubtful terms.

'If he don't go to his work,' she said sternly, 'it's either him or
me'll have to leave this house. If he wants to disgrace us all and
ruin himself, he shan't do it under my eyes.'

Was there ever a harder case? A high-spirited British youth asserts
his intention of living a life of elegant leisure, and is forthwith
scouted as a disgrace to the family. 'Arry sat under the gross
injustice with an air of doggish defiance.

'I thought you said I was to go to Wanley?' he exclaimed at length,
angrily, glaring at his brother.

Richard avoided the look.

'You'll have to learn to behave yourself first,' he replied. 'If you
can't be trusted to do your duty here, you're no good to me at
Wanley.'

'Arry would give neither yes nor no. The council broke up after
formulating an ultimatum.

In the afternoon Richard had another private talk with the lad. This
time he addressed himself solely to 'Arry's self-interest, explained
to him the opportunities he would lose if he neglected to make
himself a practical man. What if there was money waiting for him?
The use of money was to breed money, and nowadays no man was rich
who didn't constantly increase his capital. As a great ironmaster,
he would hold a position impossible for him to attain in any other
way; he would employ hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men; society
would recognise him. What could he expect to be if he did nothing
but loaf about the streets?

This was going the right way to work. Richard found that he was
making an impression, and gradually fell into a kinder tone, so that
in the end he brought 'Arry to moderately cheerful acquiescence.

'And don't let men like that Keene make a fool of you,' the monitor
concluded. 'Can't you see that fellows like him'll hang on and make
their profit out of you if you know no better than to let them? You
just keep to yourself, and look after your own future.'

A suggestion that cunning was required of him flattered the youth to
some purpose. He had begun to reflect that after all it might be
more profitable to combine work and pleasure. He agreed to pursue
the course planned for him.

So Richard returned to Wanley, carrying with him a small
satisfaction and many great anxieties. Nor did he visit London again
until four weeks had gone by; it was understood that the pressure of
responsibilities grew daily more severe. New Wanley, as the
industrial settlement in the valley was to be named, was shaping
itself in accordance with the ideas of the committee with which
Mutimer took counsel, and the undertaking was no small one.

In spite of Emma's cheerful anticipations, 'the business' meanwhile
made little progress. A graver trouble was the state of Jane's
health; the sufferer seemed wasting away. Emma devoted herself to
her sister. Between her and Mutimer there was no further mention of
marriage. In Emma's mind a new term had fixed itself--that of her
sister's recovery; but there were dark moments when dread came to
her that not Jane's recovery, but something else, would set her
free. In the early autumn Richard persuaded her to take the invalid
to the sea-side, and to remain with her there for three weeks. Mrs.
Clay during that time lived alone, and was very content to receive
her future brother-in-law's subsidy, without troubling about the
work which would not come in.

Autumn had always been a peaceful and bounteous season at Wanley;
then the fruit trees bent beneath their golden charge, and the air
seemed rich with sweet odours. But the autumn of this year was
unlike any that had visited the valley hitherto. Blight had fallen
upon all produce; the crop of apples and plums was bare beyond
precedent. The west wind breathing up between the hill-sides only
brought smoke from newly-built chimneys; the face of the fields was
already losing its purity and taking on a dun hue. Where a large
orchard had flourished were two streets of small houses, glaring
with new brick and slate The works were extending by degrees, and a
little apart rose the walls of a large building which would contain
library, reading rooms, and lecture-hall, for the use of the
industrial community. New Wanley was in a fair way to claim for
itself a place on the map.

The Manor was long since furnished, and Richard entertained
visitors. He had provided himself with a housekeeper, as well as the
three or four necessary servants, and kept a saddle-horse as well as
that which drew his trap to and fro when he had occasion to go to
Agworth station. His establishment was still a modest one; all
things considered, it could not be deemed inconsistent with his
professions. Of course, stories to the contrary got about; among his
old comrades in London, thoroughgoing Socialists like Messrs. Cowes
and Cullen, who perhaps thought themselves a little neglected by.
the great light of the Union, there passed occasionally nods and
winks, which were meant to imply much. There were rumours of
banqueting which went on at Wanley; the Manor was spoken of by some
who had not seen it as little less than a palace--nay, it was
declared by one or two of the shrewder tongued that a manservant in
livery opened the door, a monstrous thing if true. Worse than this
was the talk which began to spread among the Hoxton and Islington
Unionists of a certain young woman in a poor position to whom
Mutimer had in former days engaged himself, and whom be did not now
find it convenient to marry. A few staunch friends Richard had, who
made it their business stoutly to contradict the calumnies which
came within their hearing, Daniel Dabbs the first of them. But even
Daniel found himself before long preferring silence to speech on the
subject of Emma Vine. He grew uncomfortable about it, and did not
know what to think.

The first of Richard's visitors at the Manor were Mr. and Mrs.
Westlake. They came down from London one day, and stayed over till
the next. Other prominent members of the Union followed, and before
the end of the autumn Richard entertained some dozen of the rank and
file, all together, paying their railway fares and housing them from
Saturday to Monday. These men. be it noted in passing, distinguished
themselves from that day onwards by unsparing detraction whenever
the name of Mutimer came up in private talk, though, of course, they
were the loudest in applause when platform reference to their leader
demanded it. Besides the expressly invited, there was naturally no
lack of visitors who presented themselves voluntarily. Among the
earliest of these was Mr. Keene, the journalist. He sent in his name
one Sunday morning requesting an interview on a matter of business,
and on being admitted, produced a copy of the 'Belwick Chronicle,'
which contained a highly eulogistic semi-biographic notice of
Mutimer.

'I feel I ought to apologise to you for this liberty,' said Keene,
in his flowing way, 'and that is why I have brought the paper
myself. You will observe that it is one of a seris--notable men of
the day. I supply the "Chronicle" with a London letter, and give
them one of these little sketches fortnightly. I knew your modesty
would stand in the way if I consulted you in advance, so I can only
beg pardon _post delictum_, as we say.'

There stood the heading in bold type, 'MEN OF THE DAY,' and beneath
it 'XI. Mr. Richard Mutimer.' Mr. Keene had likewise brought in his
pocket the placard of the newspaper, whereon Richard saw his name
prominently displayed. The journalist stayed for luncheon.

Alfred Waltham was frequently at the Manor. Mutimer now seldom went
up to town for Sunday; if necessity took him thither, he chose some
week-day. On Sunday he always spent a longer or shorter time with
the Walthams, frequently having dinner at their house. He hesitated
at first to invite the ladies to the Manor; in his uncertainty on
social usages he feared lest there might be impropriety in a
bachelor giving such an invitation. He appealed to Alfred, who
naturally laughed the scruple to scorn, and accordingly Mrs. and
Miss Waltham were begged to honour Mr. Mutimer with their company.
Mrs. Waltham reflected a little, but accepted. Adela would much
rather have remained at home, but she had no choice.

By the end of September this invitation had been repeated, and the
Walthams had lunched a second time at the Manor, no other guests
being present. On the afternoon of the following day Mrs. Waltham
and her daughter were talking together in their sitting-room, and
the former led the conversation, as of late she almost invariably
did when alone with her daughter, to their revolutionary friend.

'I can't help thinking, Adela, that in all essentials I never knew a
more gentlemanly man than Mr. Mutimer. There must be something
superior in his family; no doubt we were altogether mistaken in
speaking of him as a mechanic.'

'But he has told us himself that he was a mechanic,' replied Adela,
in the impatient way in which she was wont to speak on this subject.

'Oh, that is his modesty. And not only modesty; his views lead him
to pride himself on a poor origin. He was an engineer, and we know
that engineers are in reality professional men. Remember old Mr.
Mutimer; he was a perfect gentleman. I have no doubt the family is
really a very good one. Indeed, I am all but sure that I remember
the name in Hampshire; there was a Sir something Mutimer--I'm
convinced of it. No one really belonging to the working class ever
bore himself as Mr. Mutimer does. Haven't you noticed the shape of
his hands, my dear?'

'I've only noticed that they are very large, and just what you would
expect in a man who had done much rough work.'

Mrs. Waltham laughed noisily.

'My dear child, how _can_ you be so perverse? The shape of the
fingers is perfect. Do pray notice them next time.'

'I really cannot promise, mother, to give special attention to Mr.
Mutimer's hands.'

Mrs. Waltham glanced at the girl, who had laid down a book she was
trying to read, and, with lowered eyes, seemed to be collecting
herself for further utterance.

'Why are you so prejudiced, Adela?'

'I am not prejudiced at all. I have no interest of any kind in Mr.
Mutimer.'

The words were spoken hurriedly and with a ring almost of hostility.
At the same time the girl's cheeks flushed. She felt herself hard
beset. A network was being woven about her by hands she could not
deem other than loving; it was time to exert herself that the meshes
might not be completed, and the necessity cost her a feeling of
shame.

'But your brother's friend, my dear. Surely you ought not to say
that you have no interest in him at all.'

'I do say it, mother, and I wish to say it so plainly that you
cannot after this mistake me. Alfred's friends are very far from
being necessarily my friends. Not only have I no interest in Mr.
Mutimer, I even a little dislike him.'

'I had no idea of that, Adela,' said her mother, rather blankly.

'But it is the truth, and I feel I ought to have tried to make you
understand that sooner. I thought you would see that I had no
pleasure in speaking of him.'

'But how is it possible to dislike him? I confess that is very hard
for me to understand. I am sure his behaviour to you is perfect--so
entirely respectful, so gentlemanly.'

'No, mother, that is not quite the word to use. You are mistaken;
Mr. Mutimer is _not_ a perfect gentleman.'

It was said with much decision, for to Adela's mind this clenched
her argument. Granted the absence of certain qualities which she
held essential in a gentleman, there seemed to her no reason for
another word on the subject.

'Pray, when has he misbehaved himself?' inquired her mother, with a
touch of pique.

'I cannot go into details. Mr. Mutimer has no doubt many excellent
qualities; no doubt he is really an earnest and a well-meaning man.
But if I am asked to say more than that, it must be the truth--as it
seems to me. Please, mother dear, don't ask me to talk about him in
future. And there is something else I wish to say. I do hope you
won't be offended with me, but indeed I--I hope you will not ask me
to go to the Manor again. I feel I ought not to go. It is painful; I
suffer when I am there.'

'How strange you are to-day, Adela! Really, I think you might allow
me to decide what is proper and what is not. My experience is surely
the best judge. You are worse than unkind, Adela; it's rude to speak
to me like that.'

'Dear mother,' said the girl, with infinite gentleness, 'I am very,
very sorry. How could I be unkind or rude. to you? I didn't for a
moment mean that my judgment was better than yours; it is my
feelings that I speak of. You won't ask me to explain--to say more
than that? You must understand me?'

'Oh yes, my dear, I understand you too well,' was the stiff reply.
'Of course I am old-fashioned, and I suppose old-fashioned people
are a little coarse; _their_ feelings are not quite as fine as they
might be. We will say no more for the present, Adela. I will do my
best not to lead you into disagreeable situations through my lack of
delicacy.'

There were tears in Adela's eyes.

'Mother, now it is you who are unkind. I am so sorry that I spoke.
You won't take my words as they were meant. Must I say that I cannot
let Mr. Mutimer misunderstand the way in which. I regard him? He
comes here really so very often, and if we begin to go there too--.
People are talking about it, indeed they are; Letty has told me so.
How can I help feeling pained?'

Mrs. Waltham drew out her handkerchief and appeared mildly agitated.
When Adela bent and kissed her she sighed deeply, then said in an
undertone of gentle melancholy:

'I ask your pardon, my dear. I am afraid there has been a little
misunderstanding on both sides. But we won't talk any more of
it--there, there!'

By which the good lady of course meant that she would renew the
subject on the very earliest opportunity, and that, on the whole,
she was not discouraged. Mothers are often unaware of their
daughters' strong points, but their weaknesses they may be trusted
to understand pretty well.

The little scene was just well over, and Adela had taken a seat by
the window, when a gentleman who was approaching the front door saw
her and raised his hat. She went very pale.

The next moment there was a knock at the front door.

'Mother,' the girl whispered, as if she could not speak louder, 'it
is Mr. Eldon.'

'Mr. Eldon?' Mrs. Waltham drew herself up with dignity, then started
from her seat. 'The idea of his daring to come here!'

She intercepted the servant who was going to open the door.

'Jane, we are not at home!'

The maid stood in astonishment. She was not used to the polite
fictions of society; never before had that welcome mortal, an
afternoon visitor, been refused at Mrs. Waltham's.

'What did you say, please, mum?'

'You will say that we are not at home, neither I nor Miss Waltham.'

Even if Hubert Eldon had not seen Adela at the window he must have
been dull not to read the meaning of the servant's singular face and
tone. He walked away with a quiet 'Thank you.'

Mrs. Waltham cast a side glance at Adela when she heard the outer
door close. The girl had reopened her book.

'I'm not sorry that he came. Was there ever such astonishing
impudence? If _that_ is gentlemanly, then I must confess I--Really I
am not at all sorry he came: it will give him a lesson.'

'Mr. Eldon may have had some special reason for calling,' Adela
remarked disinterestedly.

'My dear, I have no business of any kind with Mr. Eldon, and it is
impossible that he can have any with me.'

Adela very shortly went from the room.

That evening Richard had for guest at dinner Mr. Willis Rodman; so
that gentleman named himself on his cards, and so he liked to be
announced. Mr. Rodman was invaluable as surveyor of the works; his
experience appeared boundless, and had been acquired in many lands.
He was now a Socialist of the purest water, and already he enjoyed
more of Mutimer's intimacy than anyone else. Richard not seldom
envied the easy and, as it seemed to him, polished manner of his
subordinate, and wondered at it the more since Rodman declared
himself a proletarian by birth, and, in private, was fond of
referring to the hardships of his early life. That there may be no
needless mystery about Mr. Rodman, I am under the necessity of
stating the fact that he was the son of a prosperous railway
contractor, that he was born in Canada, and would have succeeded to
a fortune on his father's death, but for an unhappy _contretemps_ in
the shape of a cheque, whereof Mr. Rodman senior (the name was not
Rodman, but the true one is of no importance) disclaimed the
signature. From that day to the present good and ill luck had
alternated in the young man's career. His fortunes in detail do not
concern us just now; there will be future occasion for returning to
the subject.

'Young Eldon has been in Wanley to-day,' Mr. Rodman remarked as he
sat over his wine after dinner.

'Has he?' said Richard, with indifference. 'What's he been after?'

'I saw him going up towards the Walthams'.'

Richard exhibited more interest.

'Is he a particular friend of theirs?' he asked. He had gathered
from Alfred Waltham that there had been a certain intimacy between
the 'two families, but desired more detailed information than his
disciple had offered.

'Well, he used to be,' replied Rodman, with a significant smile.
'But I don't suppose Mrs. W. gave him a very affectionate reception
to-day. His little doings have rather startled the good people of
Wanley, especially since he has lost his standing. It wouldn't have
mattered much, I dare say, but for that.'

'But was there anything particular up there?'

Mutimer had a careworn expression as he asked, and he nodded his
head as if in the direction of the village with a certain weariness.

'I'm not quite sure. Some say there was, and others deny it, as I
gather from general conversation. But I suppose it's at an end now,
in any case.'

'Mrs. Waltham would see to that, you mean?' said Mutimer, with a
short laugh.

'Probably.'

Rodman made his glass revolve, his fingers on the stem.

'Take another cigar. I suppose they're not too well off, the
Walthams?'

'Mrs. Waltham has an annuity of two hundred and fifty pounds, that's
all. The girl--Miss Waltham--has nothing.'

'How the deuce do you get to know so much about people, Rodman?'

The other smiled modestly, and made a silent gesture, as if to
disclaim any special abilities.

'So he called there to-day? I wonder whether he stayed long?'

'I will let you know to-morrow.'

On the morrow Richard learnt that Hubert Eldon had been refused
admittance. The information gave him pleasure. Yet all through the
night he had been earnestly hoping that he might hear something
quite different, had tried to see in Eldon's visit a possible
salvation for himself. For the struggle which occupied him more and
more had by this time declared its issues plainly enough; daily the
temptation became stronger, the resources of honour more feeble. In
the beginning he had only played with dangerous thoughts; to break
faith with Emma Vine had appeared an impossibility, and a marriage
such as his fancy substituted, the most improbable of things. But in
men of Richard's stamp that which allures the fancy will, if
circumstances give but a little encouragement, soon take hold upon
the planning brain. His acquaintance with the Walthams had ripened
to intimacy, and custom nourished his self-confidence; moreover, he
could not misunderstand the all but direct encouragement which on
one or two recent occasions he had received from Mrs. Waltham. That
lady had begun to talk to him, when they were alone together, in
almost a motherly way, confiding to him this or that peculiarity in
the characters of her children, deploring her inability to give
Adela the pleasures suitable to her age, then again pointing out the
advantage it was to a girl to have all her thoughts centred in home.

'I can truly say,' remarked Mrs. Waltham in the course of the latest
such conversation, 'that Adela has never given me an hour's serious
uneasiness. The dear child has, I believe, no will apart from her
desire to please me. Her instincts are so beautifully submissive.'

To a man situated like Mutimer this tone is fatal. In truth it
seemed to make offer to him of what he supremely desired. No such
encouragement had come from Adela herself, but that meant nothing
either way; Richard had already perceived that maidenly reserve was
a far more complex matter in a girl of gentle breeding, than in
those with whom he had formerly associated; for all he knew,
increase of distance in manner might represent the very hope that he
was seeking. That hope he sought, in all save the hours when
conscience lorded over silence, with a reality of desire such as he
had never known. Perhaps it was not Adela, and Adela alone, that
inspired this passion; it was a new ideal of the feminine addressing
itself to his instincts. Adela had the field to herself, and did
indeed embody in almost an ideal degree the fine essence of
distinctly feminine qualities which appeal most strongly to the
masculine mind. Mutimer was not capable of love in the highest
sense; he was not, again, endowed with strong appetite; but his
nature contained possibilities of refinement which, in a situation
like the present, constituted motive force the same in its effects
as either form of passion. He was suffering, too, from the _malaise_
peculiar to men who suddenly acquire riches; secret impulses drove
him to gratifications which would not otherwise have troubled his
thoughts. Of late he had been yielding to several such caprices. One
morning the idea possessed him that he must have a horse for riding,
and he could not rest till the horse was purchased and in his
stable. It occurred to him once at dinner time that there were
sundry delicacies which he knew by name but had never tasted;
forthwith he gave orders that these delicacies should be supplied to
him, and so there appeared upon his breakfast table a
_pate de foie gras_. Very similar in kind was his desire
to possess Adela Waltham.

And the voice of his conscience lost potency, though it troubled him
more than ever, even as a beggar will sometimes become rudely
clamorous when he sees that there is no real hope of extracting an
alms. Richard was embarked on the practical study of moral
philosophy; he learned more in these months of the constitution of
his inner being than all his literature of 'free thought' had been
able to convey to him. To break with Emma, to cast his faith to the
winds, to be branded henceforth in the sight of his intimate friends
as a mere traitor, and an especially mean one to boot--that at the
first blush was of the things so impossible that one does not
trouble to study their bearings. But the wall of habit once
breached, the citadel of conscience laid bare, what garrison was
revealed? With something like astonishment, Richard came to
recognise that the garrison was of the most contemptible and
tatterdemalion description. Fear of people's talk--absolutely
nothing else stood in his way.

Had he, then, no affection for Emma? Hardly a scrap. He had never
even tried 'to persuade himself that he was in love with her, and
the engagement had on his side been an affair of cool reason. His
mother had practically brought it about; for years it had been a pet
project of hers, and her joy was great in its realisation. Mrs. Vine
and she had been lifelong gossips; she knew that to Emma had
descended the larger portion of her parent's sterling qualities, and
that Emma was the one wife for such a man as Richard. She talked him
into approval. In those days Richard had no dream of wedding above
his class, and he understood very well that Emma Vine was
distinguished in many ways from the crowd of working girls. There
was no one else he wished to marry. Emma would feel herself honoured
by his choice, and, what he had not himself observed, his mother led
him to see that yet deeper feelings were concerned on the girl's
side. This flattered him--a form of emotion to which he was ever
susceptible--and the match was speedily arranged.

He had never repented. The more he knew of Emma, the more
confirmation his favourable judgments received. He even knew at
times a stirring of the senses, which is the farthest that many of
his kind ever progress in the direction of love. Of the nobler
features in Emma's character, he of course remained ignorant; they
did not enter into his demands upon woman, and he was unable to
discern them even when they were brought prominently before him. She
would keep his house admirably, would never contradict him, would
mother his children to perfection, and even would, go so far as to
take an intelligent interest in the Propaganda. What more could a
man look for?

So there was no strife between old love and new; so far as it
concerned himself, to put Emma aside would not cost a pang. The
garrison was absolutely mere tongue, mere gossip of public-house
bars, firesides, etc.--more serious, of the Socialist lecture-rooms.
And what of the girl's own feeling? Was there no sense of compassion
in him? Very little. And in saying so I mean anything but to convey
that Mutimer was conspicuously hard-hearted. The fatal defect in
working people is absence of imagination, the power which may be
solely a gift of nature and irrespective of circumstances, but which
in most of us owes so much to intellectual training. Half the brutal
cruelties perpetrated by uneducated men and women are directly
traceable to lack of the imaginative spirit, which comes to mean
lack of kindly sympathy. Mutimer, we know, had got for himself only
the most profitless of educations, and in addition nature had
scanted him on the emotional side. He could not enter into the
position of Emma deserted and hopeless. Want of money was
intelligible to him, so was bitter disappointment at the loss of a
good position; but the former he would not allow Emma to suffer, and
the latter she would, in the nature of things, soon get over. Her
love for him he judged by his own feeling, making allowance, of
course, for the weakness of women in affairs such as this. He might
admit that she would 'fret,' but the thought of her fretting did not
affect him as a reality. Emma had never been demonstrative, had
never sought to show him all that was in her heart; hence he rated
her devotion lightly.

The opinion of those who knew him! What of the opinion of Emma
herself? Yes, that went for much; he knew shame at the thought,
perhaps keener shame than in anticipating the judgment, say, of
Daniel Dabbs. No one of his acquaintances thought of him so highly
as Emma did; to see himself dethroned, the object of her contempt,
was a bitter pill to swallow. In all that concerned his own dignity
Richard was keenly appreciative; he felt in advance every pricking
of the blood that was in store for him if he became guilty of this
treachery. Yes, from that point of view he feared Emma Vine.

Considerations of larger scope did not come within the purview of
his intellect. It never occurred to him, for instance, that in
forfeiting his honour in this instance he began a process of
undermining which would sooner or later threaten the stability of
the purposes on which he most prided himself. A suggestion that
domestic perfidy was in the end incompatible with public zeal would
have seemed to him ridiculous, and for the simple reason that he
recognised no 'moral sanctions. He could not regard his nature as a
whole; he had no understanding for the subtle network of
communication between its various parts. Nay, he told himself that
the genuineness and value of his life's work would be increased by a
marriage with Adela Waltham; he and she would represent the union of
classes--of the wage-earning with the _bourgeois_, between which two
lay the real gist of the combat. He thought of this frequently, and
allowed the thought to inspirit him.

To the question of whether Adela would ever find out what he had
done, and, if so, with what result, he gave scarcely a moment.
Marriages are not undone by subsequent discovery of moral faults on
either side.

This is a tabular exposition of the man's consciousness. Logically,
there should result from it a self-possessed state of mind,
bordering on cynicism. But logic was not predominant in Mutimer's
constitution. So far from contemplating treason with the calm
intelligence which demands judgment on other grounds than the
common, he was in reality possessed by a spirit of perturbation.
Such reason as he could command bade him look up and view with scorn
the ragged defenders of the forts; but whence came this hail of
missiles which kept him so sore? Clearly there was some element of
his nature which eluded grasp and definition, a misty influence
making itself felt here and there. To none of the sources upon which
I have touched was it clearly traceable; in truth, it arose from
them all. The man had never in his life been guilty of offence
against his graver conscience; he had the sensation of being about
to plunge from firm footing into untried depths. His days were
troubled; his appetite was not what it should have been; he could
not take the old thorough interest in his work. It was becoming
clear to him that the matter must be settled one way or another with
brief delay.

One day at the end of September he received a letter addressed by
Alice. On opening it he found, with much surprise, that the contents
were in his mother's writing. It was so very rarely that Mrs.
Mutimer took up that dangerous instrument, the pen, that something
unusual must have led to her doing so at present. And, indeed, the
letter contained unexpected matter. There were numerous errors of
orthography, and the hand was not very legible; but Richard got at
the sense quickly enough.

'I write this,' began Mrs. Mutimer, 'because it's a long time since
you've been to see us, and because I want to say something that's
better written than spoken. I saw Emma last night, and I'm feeling
uncomfortable about her. She's getting very low, and that's the
truth. Not as she says anything, nor shows it, but she's got a deal
on her hands, and more on her mind. You haven't written to her for
three weeks. You'll be saying it's no business of mine, but I can't
stand by and see Emma putting up with things as there isn't no
reason. Jane is in a very bad way, poor girl; I can't think she'll
live long. Now, Dick, what I'm aiming at you'll see. I can't
understand why you don't get married and done with it. Jane won't
never be able to work again, and that Kate 'll never keep up a
dressmaking. Why don't you marry Emma, and take poor Jane to live
with you, where she could be well looked after? for she won't never
part from her sister. And she does so hope and pray to see Emma
married before she goes. You can't surely be waiting for her death.
Now, there's a good lad of mine, come and marry your wife at once,
and don't make delays. That's all, but I hope you'll think of it;
and so, from your affectionate old mother,

'S. MUTIMER.'

Richard read the letter several times, and sat at home through the
morning in despondency. It had got to the pass that he could not
marry Emma; for all his suffering he no longer gave a glance in that
direction. Not even if Adela Waltham refused him; to have a 'lady'
for his wife was now an essential in his plans for the future, and
he knew that the desired possession was purchasable for coin of the
realm. No way of retreat any longer; movement must be forward, at
whatever cost.

He let a day intervene, then replied to his mother's letter. He
represented himself as worked to death and without a moment for his
private concerns; it was out of the question for him to marry for a
few weeks yet. He would write to Emma, and would send her all the
money she could possibly need to supply the sick girl with comforts.
She must keep up her courage, and be content to wait a short while
longer. He was quite sure she did not complain; it was only his
mother's fancy that she was in low spirits, except, of course, on
Jane's account.

Another fortnight went by. Skies were lowering towards winter, and
the sides of the valley showed bare patches amid the rich-hued death
of leaves; ere long a night of storm would leave 'ruined choirs.'
Richard was in truth working hard. He had just opened a course of
lectures at a newly established Socialist branch in Belwick. The
extent of his daily correspondence threatened to demand the services
of a secretary in addition to the help already given by Rodman.
Moreover, an event of importance was within view; the New Wanley
Public Hall was completed, and its formal opening must be made an
occasion of ceremony. In that ceremony Richard would be the central
figure. He proposed to gather about him a representative company;
not only would the Socialist leaders attend as a matter of course,
invitations should also be sent to prominent men in the conventional
lines of politics. A speech from a certain Radical statesman, who
could probably be induced to attend, would command the attention of
the press. For the sake of preliminary trumpetings in even so humble
a journal as the 'Belwick Chronicle,' Mutimer put himself in
communication with Mr. Keene. That gentleman was now a recognised
visitor at the house in Highbury; there was frequent mention of him
in a close correspondence kept up between Richard and his sister at
this time. The letters which Alice received from Wanley were not
imparted to the other members of the family; she herself studied
them attentively, and with much apparent satisfaction.

For advice on certain details of the approaching celebration Richard
had recourse to Mrs. Waltham. He found her at home one rainy
morning. Adela, aware of his arrival, retreated to her little room
upstairs. Mrs. Waltham had a slight cold; it kept her close by the
fireside, and encouraged confidential talk.

'I have decided to invite about twenty people to lunch,' Richard
said. 'Just the members of the committee and a few others. It'll be
better than giving a dinner. Westlake's lecture will be over by four
o'clock, and that allows people to get away in good time. The
workmen's tea will be at half-past five.'

'You must have refreshments of some kind for casual comers,'
counselled Mrs. Waltham.

'I've thought of that. Rodman suggests that we shall get the
"Wheatsheaf" people to have joints and that kind of thing in the
refreshment-room at the Hall from half-past twelve to half-past one.
We could put up some notice to that effect in Agworth station.'

'Certainly, and inside the railway carriages.'

Mutimer's private line, which ran from the works to Agworth station,
was to convey visitors to New Wanley on this occasion.

'I think I shall have three or four ladies,' Richard pursued 'Mrs.
Westlake 'll be sure to come', and I think Mrs. Eddlestone--the wife
of the Trades Union man, you know. And I've been rather calculating
on you, Mrs. Waltham; do you think you could--?'

The lady's eyes were turned to the window, watching the sad steady
rain.

'Really, you're making a downright Socialist of me, Mr. Mutimer,'
she replied, with a laugh which betrayed a touch of sore throat.
'I'm half afraid to accept such an invitation. Shouldn't I be there
on false pretences, don't you think?'

Richard mused; his legs were crossed, and he swayed his foot up and
down.

'Well, no, I can't see that. But I tell you what would make it
simpler: do you think Mr. Wyvern would come if I, asked him?'

'Ah, now, that would be capital! Oh, ask Mr. Wyvern by all means.
Then, of course, I should be delighted to accept.'

'But I haven't much hope that he'll come. I rather think he regards
me as his enemy. And, you see, I never go to church.'

'What a pity that is, Mr. Mutimer! Ah, if I could only persuade you
to think differently about those things! There really are so many
texts that read quite like Socialism; I was looking them over with
Adela on Sunday. What a sad thing it is that you go so astray t It
distresses me more than you think. Indeed, if I may tell you such a
thing, I pray for you nightly.'

Mutimer made a movement of discomfort, but laughed off the subject.

'I'll go and see the vicar, at all events,' he said. 'But must your
coming depend on his?'

Mrs. Waltham hesitated.

'It really would make things easier.'

'Might I, in that case, hope that Miss Waltham would come?'

Richard seemed to exert himself to ask the question. Mrs. Waltham
sank her eyes, smiled feebly, and in the end shook her head.

'On a public occasion, I'm really afraid--'

'I'm sure she would like to know Mrs. Westlake,' urged Richard,
without his usual confidence. 'And if you and her brother--'

'If it were not a Socialist gathering.'

Richard uncrossed his legs and sat for a moment looking into the
fire. Then he turned suddenly.

'Mrs. Waltham, may I ask her myself?'

She was visibly agitated. There was this time no affectation in the
tremulous lips and the troublous, unsteady eyes. Mrs. Waltham was
not by nature the scheming mother who is indifferent to the upshot
if she can once get her daughter loyally bound to a man of money.
Adela's happiness was a very real care to her; she would never have
opposed an unobjectionable union on which she found her daughter's
heart bent, but circumstances had a second time made offer of
brilliant advantages, and she had grown to deem it an ordinance of
the higher powers that Adela should marry possessions. She flattered
herself that her study of Mutimer's character had been profound; the
necessity of making such a study excused, she thought, any little
excess of familiarity in which she had indulged, for it had long
been clear to her that Mutimer would some day make an offer. He
lacked polish, it was true, but really he was more a gentleman than
a great many whose right to the name was never contested. And then
he had distinctly high aims: such a man could never be brutal in the
privacy of his home. There was every chance of his achieving some
kind of eminence; already she had suggested to him a Parliamentary
career, and the idea had not seemed altogether distasteful. Adela
herself was as yet far from regarding Mutimer in the light of a
future husband; it was perhaps true that she even disliked him. But
then a young girl's likes and dislikes have, as a rule, small
bearing on her practical content in the married state; so, at least,
Mrs. Waltham's experience led her to believe. Only, it was clear
that there must be no precipitancy. Let the ground be thoroughly
prepared.

'May I advise you, Mr. Mutimer?' she said, in a lowered voice,
bending forward. 'Let me deliver the invitation. I think it would be
better, really. We shall see whether you can persuade Mr. Wyvern to
be present. I promise you to---n fact, not to interpose any obstacle
if Adela thinks she can be present at the lunch.'

'Then I'll leave it so,' said Richard, more cheerfully. Mrs. Waltham
could see that his nerves were in a dancing state. Really, he had
much fine feeling.





CHAPTER XI




It being only midday, Richard directed his steps at once to the
Vicarage, and had the good fortune to find Mr. Wyvern within.

'Be seated, Mr. Mutimer; I'm, glad to see you,' was the vicar's
greeting.

Their mutual intercourse had as yet been limited to an exchange of
courtesies in public, and one or two casual meetings at the
Walthams' house. Richard had felt shy of the vicar, whom he
perceived to be a clergyman of other than the weak-brained type, and
the circumstances of the case would not allow Mr. Wyvern to make
advances. The latter proceeded with friendliness of tone, speaking
of the progress of New Wanley.

'That's what I've come to see you about,' said Richard, trying to
put himself at ease by mentally comparing his own worldly estate
with that of his interlocutor, yet failing as often as he felt the
scrutiny of the vicar's dark-gleaming eye. 'We are going to open the
Hall.' He added details. 'I shall have a number of friends who are
interested in our undertaking to lunch with me on that day. I wish
to ask if you will give us the pleasure of your company.'

Mr. Wyvern reflected for a moment.

'Why, no, sir,' he replied at length, using the Johnsonian phrase
with grave courtesy. 'I'm afraid I cannot acknowledge your kindness
as I should wish to. Personally, I would accept your hospitality
with pleasure, but my position here, as I understand it, forbids me
to join you on that particular occasion.'

'Then personally you are not hostile to me, Mr. Wyvern?'

'To you personally, by no means.'

'But you don't like the movement?'

'In so far as it has the good of men in view it interests me, and I
respect its supporters.'

'But you think we go the wrong way to work?'

'That is my opinion, Mr. Mutimer.'

'What would you have us do?'

'To see faults is a much easier thing than to originate a sound
scheme. I am far from prepared with any plan of social
reconstruction.'

Nor could Mr. Wyvern be moved from the negative attitude, though
Mutimer pressed him.

'Well, I'm sorry you won't come,' Richard said as he rose to take
his leave. 'It didn't strike me that you would feel out of place.'

'Nor should I. But you will understand that my opportunities of
being useful in the village depend on the existence of sympathetic
feeling in my parishioners. It is my duty to avoid any behaviour
which could be misinterpreted.'

'Then you deliberately adapt yourself to the prejudices of
unintelligent people?'

'I do so, deliberately,' assented the vicar, with one of his
fleeting smiles.

Richard went away feeling sorry that he had courted this rejection.
He would never have thought of inviting a 'parson' but for Mrs.
Waltham's suggestion. After all, it it mattered little whether Adela
came to the luncheon or not. He had desired her presence because he
wished her to see him as an entertainer of guests such as the
Westlakes. whom she would perceive to be people of refinement; it
occurred to him, too, that such an occasion might aid his snit by
exciting her ambition; for he was anything but confident of
immediate success with Adela, especially since recent conversations
with Mrs. Waltham. But in any case she would attend the afternoon
ceremony, when his glory would be proclaimed.

Mrs. Waltham was anxiously meditative of plans for bringing Adela to
regard her Socialist wooer with more favourable eyes. She, too, had
hopes that Mutimer's fame in the mouths of men might prove an
attraction, yet she suspected a strength of principle in Adela which
might well render all such hopes vain. And she thought it only too
likely, though observation gave her no actual assurance of this,
that the girl still thought of Hubert Eldon in a way to render it
doubly hard for any other man to make an impression upon her. It was
dangerous, she knew, to express her abhorrence of Hubert too
persistently; yet, on the other hand, she was convinced that Adela
had been so deeply shocked by the revelations of Hubert's wickedness
that her moral nature would be in arms against her lingering
inclination. After much mental wear and tear, she decided to adopt
the strong course of asking Alfred's assistance. Alfred was sure to
view the proposed match with hearty approval, and, though he might
not have much influence directly, he could in all probability secure
a potent ally in the person of Letty Tew. This was rather a
brilliant idea; Mrs. Waltham waited impatiently for her son's return
from Belwick on Saturday.

She broached the subject to him with much delicacy.

'I am so convinced, Alfred, that it would be for your sister's
happiness. There really is no harm whatever in aiding her
inexperience; that is all that I wish to do. I'm sure you understand
me?'

'I understand well enough,' returned the young man; 'but if you
convince Adela against her will you'll do a clever thing. You've
been so remarkably successful in closing her mind against all
arguments of reason--'

'Now, Alfred, do not begin and talk in that way! It has nothing
whatever to do with the matter. This is entirely a personal
question.'

'Nothing of the kind. It's a question of religious prejudice. She
hates Mutimer because he doesn't go to church, there's the long and
short of it.'

'Adela very properly condemns his views, but that's quite a
different thing from hating him.'

'Oh dear, no; they're one and the same thing. Look at the history of
persecution. She would like to see him--and me too, I dare
say--brought to the stake.'

'Well, well, of course if you won't talk sensibly I had something to
propose.'

'Let me hear it, then.'

'You yourself agree with me that there would be nothing to repent in
urging her.'

'On the contrary, I think she might consider herself precious lucky.
It's only that'--he looked dubious for a moment--'I'm not quite sure
whether she's the kind of girl to be content with a husband she
found she couldn't convert. I can imagine her marrying a rake on the
hope of bringing him to regular churchgoing, but then Mutimer
doesn't happen to be a blackguard, so he isn't very interesting to
her.'

'I know what you're thinking of, but I don't think we need take that
into account. And, indeed, we can't afford to take anything into
account but her establishment in a respectable and happy home. Our
choice, as you are aware, is not a wide one. I am often deeply
anxious about the poor girl.'

'I dare say. Well, what was your proposal?'

'Do you think Letty could help us?'

'H'm, can't say. Might or might not. She's as bad as Adela. Ten to
one it'll be a point of conscience with her to fight the project
tooth and nail.'

'I don't think so. She has accepted you.'

'So she has, to my amazement. Women are monstrously illogical. She
must think of my latter end with mixed feelings.'

'I do wish you were less flippant in dealing with grave subjects,
Alfred. I assure you I am very much troubled. I feel that so much is
at stake, and yet the responsibility of doing anything is so very
great.'

'Shall I talk it over with Letty?'

'If you feel able to. But Adela would be very seriously offended if
she guessed that you had done so.'

'Then she mustn't guess, that's all. I'll see what I can do
to-night.'

In the home of the Tews there was some difficulty in securing
privacy. The house was a small one, and the sacrifice of general
convenience when Letty wanted a whole room for herself and Alfred
was considerable. To-night it was managed, however; the front
parlour was granted to the pair for one hour.

It could not be said that there was much delicacy in Alfred's way of
approaching the subject he wished to speak of. This young man had a
scorn of periphrases. If a topic had to be handled, why not be
succinct in the handling? Alfred was of opinion that much time was
lost by mortals in windy talk.

'Look here, Letty; what's your idea about Adela marrying Mutimer?'

The girl looked startled.

'She has not accepted him?'

'Not yet. Don't you think it would be a good thing if she did?'

'I really can't say,' Letty replied very gravely, her head aside. 'I
don't think any one can judge but Adela herself. Really, Alfred, I
don't think we ought to interfere.'

'But suppose I ask you to try and get her to see the affair
sensibly?'

'Sensibly? What a word to use!'

'The right word, I think.'

'What a vexatious boy you are! You don't really think so at all. You
only speak so because you like to tease me.'

'Well, you certainly do look pretty when you're defending the
castles in the air. Give me a kiss.'

'Indeed, I shall not. Tell me seriously what you mean. What does
Mrs. Waltham think about it?'

'Give me a kiss, and I'll tell you. If not, I'll go away and leave
you to find out everything as best you can.'

'Oh, Alfred, you're a sad tyrant!'

'Of course I am. But it's a benevolent despotism. Well, mother wants
Adela to accept him. In fact, she asked me if I didn't think you'd
help us. Of course I said you would.'

'Then you were very hasty. I'm not joking now, Alfred. I think of
Adela in a way you very likely can't understand. It would be
shocking, oh! shocking, to try and make her marry him if she doesn't
really wish to.'

'No fear! We shan't manage that.'

'And surely wouldn't wish to?'

'I don't know. Girls often can't see what's best for them. I say,
you understand that all this is in confidence?'

'Of course I do. But it's a confidence I had rather not have
received. I shall be miserable, I know that.'

'Then you're a little--goose.'

'You were going to call me something far worse.'

'Give me credit, then, for correcting myself. You'll have to help
us, Lettycoco.'

The girl kept silence. Then for a time the conversation became
graver. It was interrupted precisely at the end of the granted hour.

Letty went to see her friend on Sunday afternoon, and the two shut
themselves up in the dainty little chamber. Adela was in low
spirits; with her a most unusual state. She sat with her hands
crossed on her lap, and the sunny light of her eyes was dimmed. When
she had tried for a while to talk of ordinary things, Letty saw a
tear glisten upon her cheek.

'What is the matter, love?'

Adela was in sore need of telling her troubles, and Letty was the
only one to whom she could do so. In such spirit-gentle words as
could express the perplexities of her mind she told what a source of
pain her mother's conversation had been to her of late, and how she
dreaded what might still be to come.

'It is so dreadful to think, Letty, that mother is encouraging him.
She thinks it is for my happiness; she is offended if I try to say
what I suffer. Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!'

She put her palms before her face; her maidenhood shamed to speak of
these things even to her bosom friend.

'Can't you show him, darling, that--that he mustn't hope anything?'

'How can I do so? It is impossible to be rude, and everything else
it is so easy to misunderstand.'

'But when he really speaks, then it will come to an end.'

'I shall grieve mother so, Letty. I feel as if the best of my life
had gone by. Everything seemed so smooth. Oh, why did he fall so,
Letty? and I thought he cared for me, dear.'

She whispered it, her face on her friend's shoulder.

'Try to forget, darling; try!'

'Oh, as if I didn't try night and day! I know it is so wrong to give
a thought. How could he speak to me as he did that day when I met
him on the hill, and again when I went just to save him an
annoyance? He was almost the same as before, only I thought him a
little sad from his illness. He had no right to talk to me in that
way! Oh, I feel wicked, that I can't forget; I hate myself for
still--for still--'

There was a word Letty could not hear, only her listening heart
divined it.

'Dear Adela! pray for strength, and it will be sure to come to you.
How hard it is to know myself so happy when you have so much
trouble!'

'I could have borne it better but for this new pain. I don't think I
should ever have shown it; even you wouldn't have known all I felt,
Letty. I should have hoped for him--I don't mean hoped on my own
account, but that he might know how wicked he had been. How--how can
a man do things so unworthy of himself, when it's so beautiful to be
good and faithful? I think he did care a little for me once, Letty.'

'Don't let us talk of him, pet.'

'You are right; we mustn't. His name ought never to pass my lips,
only in my prayers.'

She grew calmer, and they sat hand in hand.

'Try to make your mother understand,' advised Letty. 'Say that it is
impossible you should ever accept him.'

'She won't believe that, I'm sure she won't. And to think that, even
if I did it only to please her, people would believe I had married
him because he is rich!'

Letty spoke with more emphasis than hitherto.

'But you cannot and must not do such a thing to please any one,
Adela! It is wrong even to think of it. Nothing, nothing can justify
that.'

How strong she was in the purity of her own love, good little Letty!
So they talked together, and mingled their tears, and the room was
made a sacred place as by the presence of sorrowing angels.





CHAPTER XII




The New Wanley Lecture Hall had been publicly dedicated to the
service of the New Wanley Commonwealth, and only in one respect did
the day's proceedings fall short of Mutimer's expectations. He had
hoped to have all the Waltham family at his luncheon party, but in
the event Alfred alone felt himself able to accept the invitation.
Mutimer had even nourished the hope that something might happen
before that day to allow of Adela's appearing not merely in the
character of a guest, but, as it were, _ex officio_. By this time he
had resolutely forbidden his eyes to stray to the right hand or the
left, and kept them directed with hungry, relentless steadiness
straight along the path of his desires. He had received no second
letter from his mother, nor had Alice anything to report of
danger-signals at home; from Emma herself came a letter regularly
once a week, a letter of perfect patience, chiefly concerned with
her sister's health. He had made up his mind to declare nothing till
the irretrievable step was taken, when reproaches only could befall
him; to Alice as little as to any one else had he breathed of his
purposes. And he could no longer even take into account the
uncertainty of his success; to doubt of that would have been
insufferable at the point which he had reached in self-abandonment.
Yet day after day saw the postponement of the question which would
decide his fate. Between him and Mrs. Waltham the language of
allusion was at length put aside; he spoke plainly of his wishes,
and sought her encouragement. This was not wanting, but the mother
begged for time. Let the day of the ceremony come and go.

Richard passed through it in a state of exaltation and anxiety which
bordered on fever. Mr. Westlake and his wife came down from London
by an early train, and he went over New Wanley with them before
luncheon. The luncheon itself did not lack festive vivacity;
Richard, in surveying his guests from the head of the board, had
feelings not unlike those wherein King Polycrates lulled himself of
old; there wanted, in truth, one thing to complete his
self-complacence, but an extra glass or two of wine enrubied his
imagination, and he already saw Adela's face smiling to him from the
table's unoccupied end. What was such conquest in comparison with
that which fate had accorded him?

There was a satisfactory gathering to hear Mr. Westlake's address;
Richard did not fail to note the presence of a few reporters, only
it seemed to him that their pencils might have been more active.
Here, too, was Adela at length; every time his name was uttered,
perforce she heard; every encomium bestowed upon him by the various
speakers was to him like a new bud on the tree of hope. After all,
why should he feel this humility towards her? What man of
prominence, of merit, at all like his own would ever seek her hand?
The semblance of chivalry which occasionally stirred within him was,
in fact, quite inconsistent with his reasoned view of things; the
English working class has, on the whole, as little of that quality
as any other people in an elementary stage of civilisation. He was a
man, she a woman. A lady, to be sure, but then--

After Mutimer, Alfred Waltham had probably more genuine satisfaction
in the ceremony than any one else present. Mr. Westlake he was not
quite satisfied with; there was a mildness and restraint about the
style of the address which to Alfred's taste smacked of feebleness;
he was for Cambyses' vein. Still it rejoiced him to hear the noble
truths of democracy delivered as it were from the bema. To a certain
order of intellect the word addressed by the living voice to an
attentive assembly is always vastly impressive; when the word
coincides with private sentiment it excites enthusiasm. Alfred hated
the aristocratic order of things with a rabid hatred. In practice he
could be as coarsely overbearing with his social inferiors as that
scion of the nobility--existing of course somewhere--who bears the
bell for feebleness of the pia mater; but that made him none the
less a sound Radical. In thinking of the upper classes he always
thought of Hubert Eldon, and that name was scarlet to him. Never
trust the thoroughness of the man who is a revolutionist on abstract
principles; personal feeling alone goes to the root of the matter.

Many were the gentlemen to whom Alfred had the happiness of being
introduced in the course of the day. Among others was Mr. Keene the
journalist. At the end of a lively conversation Mr. Keene brought
out a copy of the 'Belwick Chronicle,' that day's issue.

'You'll find a few things of mine here,' he said. 'Put it in your
pocket, and look at it afterwards. By-the-by, there is a paragraph
marked; I meant it for Mutimer. Never mind, give it him when you've
done with it.'

Alfred bestowed the paper in the breast pocket of his greatcoat, and
did not happen to think of it again till late that evening. His
discovery of it at length was not the only event of the day which
came just too late for the happiness of one with whose fortunes we
are concerned.

A little after dark, when the bell was ringing which summoned
Mutimer's workpeople to the tea provided for them, Hubert Eldon was
approaching the village by the road from Agworth: he was on foot,
and had chosen his time in order to enter Wanley unnoticed. His
former visit, when he was refused at the Walthams' door, had been
paid at an impulse; he had come down from London by an early train,
and did not even call to see his mother at her new house in Agworth.
Nor did ho visit her on his way back; he walked straight to the
railway station and took the first train townwards. To-day he came
in a more leisurely way. It was certain news contained in a letter
from his mother which brought him, and with her he spent some hours
before starting to walk towards Wanley.

'I hear,' Mrs. Eldon had written, 'from Wanley something which
really surprises me. They say that Adela Waltham is going to marry
Mr. Mutimer. The match is surely a very strange one. I am only
fearful that it is the making of interested people, and that the
poor girl herself has not had much voice in deciding her own fate.
Oh, this money! Adela was worthy of better things.'

Mrs. Eldon saw her son with surprise, the more so that she divined
the cause of his coming. When they had talked for a while, Hubert
frankly admitted what it was that had brought him.

'I must know,' he said, 'whether the news from Wanley is true'

'But can it concern you, Hubert?' his mother asked gently.

He made no direct reply, but expressed his intention of going over
to Wanley.

'Whom shall you visit, dear?'

'Mr. Wyvern.'

'The vicar? But you don't know him personally.'

'Yes, I know him pretty well. We write to each other occasionally.'

Mrs. Eldon always practised most reserve when her surprise was
greatest--an excellent rule, by-the-by, for general observation.
She looked at her son with a half-smile of wonder, but only said
'Indeed?'

'I had made his acquaintance before his coming to Wanley,' Hubert
explained.

His mother just bent her head, acquiescent. And with that their
conversation on the subject ended. But Hubert received a tender kiss
on his cheek when he set forth in the afternoon.

To one entering the valley after nightfall the situation of the
much-discussed New Wanley could no longer be a source of doubt. Two
blast-furnaces sent up their flare and lit luridly the devastated
scene. Having glanced in that direction Hubert did his best to keep
his eyes averted during the remainder of the walk. He was surprised
to see a short passenger train rush by on the private line
connecting the works with Agworth station; it was taking away
certain visitors who had lingered in New Wanley after the lecture.
Knowing nothing of the circumstances, he supposed that general
traffic had been commenced. He avoided the village street, and
reached the Vicarage by a path through fields.

He found the vicar at dinner, though it was only half-past six. The
welcome he received was, in Mr. Wyvern's manner, almost silent; but
when he had taken a place at the table he saw satisfaction on his
host's face. The meal was very plain, but the vicar ate with
extraordinary appetite; he was one of those men in whom the demands
of the stomach seem to be in direct proportion to the activity of
the brain. A question Hubert put about the train led to a brief
account of what was going on. Mr. Wyvern spoke on the subject with a
gravity which was not distinctly ironical, but suggested criticism.

They repaired to the study. A volume of Plato was open on the
reading-table.

'Do you remember Socrates' prayer in the "Phaedrus"?' said the
vicar, bending affectionately over the page. He read a few words of
the Greek, then gave a free rendering. 'Beloved Pan, and all ye
other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul;
and may the outward and inward be at one. May I esteem the wise
alone wealthy, and may I have such abundance of wealth as none but
the temperate can carry.'

He paused a moment.

'Ah, when I came hither I hoped to find Pan undisturbed. Well, well,
after all, Hephaestus was one of the gods.'

'How I envy you your quiet mind!' said Hubert.

'Quiet? Nay, not always so. Just now I am far from at peace. What
brings you hither to-day?'

The equivoque was obviated by Mr. Wyvern's tone.

'I have heard stories about Adela Waltham. Is there any truth in
them?'

'I fear so; I fear so.'

'That she is really going to marry Mr. Mutimer?'

He tried to speak the name without discourtesy, but his lips writhed
after it.

'I fear she is going to marry him,' said the vicar deliberately.

Hubert held his peace.

'It troubles me. It angers me,' said Mr. Wyvern. 'I am angry with
more than one.'

'Is there an engagement?'

'I am unable to say. Tattle generally gets ahead of fact.'

'It is monstrous!' burst from the young man. 'They are taking
advantage of her innocence. She is a child. Why do they educate
girls like that? I should say, how can they leave them so
uneducated? In an ideal world it would be all very well, but see
what comes of it here? She is walking with her eyes open into
horrors and curses, and understands as little of what awaits her as
a lamb led to butchery. Do you stand by and say nothing?'

'It surprises me that you are so affected,' remarked the vicar
quietly.

'No doubt. I can't reason about it. But I know that my life will be
hideous if this goes on to the end.'

'You are late.'

'Yes, I am late. I was in Wanley some weeks ago; I did not tell you
of it. I called at their house; they were not at home to me. Yet
Adela was sitting at the window. What did that mean? Is her mother
so contemptible that my change of fortune leads her to treat me in
that way?'

'But does no other reason occur to you?' asked Mr. Wyvern, with
grave surprise.

'Other reason! What other?'

'You must remember that gossip is active.'

'You mean that they have heard abou--?'

'Somehow it had become the common talk of the village very shortly
after my arrival here.'

Hubert dropped his eyes in bewilderment.

'Then they think me unfit to associate with them? She--Adela will
look upon me as a vile creature! But it wasn't so when I saw her
immediately after my illness. She talked freely and with just the
same friendliness as before.'

'Probably she had heard nothing then.'

'And her mother only began to poison her mind when it was
advantageous to do so?'

Hubert laughed bitterly.

'Well, there is an end of it,' he pursued. 'Yes, I was forgetting
all that. Oh, it is quite intelligible; I don't blame them. By all
means let her be preserved from contagion! Pooh! I don't know my own
mind. Old fancies that I used to have somehow got hold of me again
If I ever marry, it must be a woman of the world, a woman with brain
and heart to judge human nature. It is gone, as if I had never had
such a thought. Poor child, to be sure; but that's all one can say.'

His tone was. as far from petulance as could be. Hubert's emotions
were never feebly coloured; his nature ran into extremes, and
vehemence of scorn was in him the true voice of injured tenderness.
Of humility he knew but little, least of all where his affections
were concerned, but there was the ring of noble metal in his
self-assertion. He would never consciously act or speak a falsehood,
and was intolerant of the lies, petty or great, which
conventionality and warped habits of thought encourage in those of
weaker personality.

'Let us be just,' remarked Mr. Wyvern, his voice sounding rather
sepulchral after the outburst of youthful passion. 'Mrs. Waltham's
point of view is not inconceivable. I, as you know, am not
altogether a man of formulas, but I am not sure that my behaviour
would greatly differ from hers in her position; I mean as regards
yourself.'

'Yes, yes; I admit the reasonableness of it,' said Hubert more
calmly, 'granted that you have to deal with children. But Adela is
too old to have no will or understanding. It may be she has both.
After all she would scarcely allow herself to be forced into a
detestable marriage. Very likely she takes her mother's practical
views.'

'There is such a thing as blank indifference in a young girl who has
suffered disappointment.'

'I could do nothing,' exclaimed Hubert. 'That she thinks of me at
all, or has ever seriously done so, is the merest supposition. There
was nothing binding between us. If she is false to herself,
experience and suffering must teach her.'

The vicar mused.

'Then you go your way untroubled?' was his next question.

'If I am strong enough to overcome foolishness.'

'And if foolishness persists in asserting itself?'

Hubert kept gloomy silence.

'Thus much I can say to you of my own knowledge,' observed Mr.
Wyvern with weight. 'Miss Waltham is not one to speak words lightly.
You call her a child, and no doubt her view of the world is
childlike; but she is strong in her simplicity. A pledge from her
will, or I am much mistaken, bear no two meanings. Her marriage with
Mr. Mutimer would be as little pleasing to me as to you, but I
cannot see that I have any claim to interpose, or, indeed, power to
do so. Is it not the same with yourself?'

'No, not quite the same.'

'Then you have hope that you might still affect her destiny?'

Hubert did not answer.

'Do you measure the responsibility you would incur? I fear not, if
you have spoken sincerely. Your experience has not been of a kind to
aid you in understanding her, and, I warn you, to make her subject
to your caprices would be little short of a crime, whether now--heed
me--or hereafter.'

'Perhaps it is too late,' murmured Hubert.

'That may well be, in more senses than one.'

'Can you not discover whether she is really engaged?'

'If that were the case, I think I should have heard of it.'

'If I were allowed to see her! So much at least should be granted
me. I should not poison the air she breathes.'

'Do you return to Agworth to-night?' Mr. Wyvern inquired.

'Yes, I shall walk back.'

'Can you come to me again to-morrow evening?'

It was agreed that Hubert should do so. Mr. Wyvern gave no definite
promise of aid, but the young man felt that he would do something.

'The night is fine,' said the vicar; 'I will walk half a mile with
you.'

They left the Vicarage, and ten yards from the door turned into the
path which would enable them to avoid the village street. Not two
minutes after their quitting the main road the spot was passed by
Adela herself, who was walking towards Mr. Wyvern's dwelling. On her
inquiring for the vicar, she learnt from the servant that he had
just left home. She hesitated, and seemed about to ask further
questions or leave a message, but at length turned away from the
door and retraced her steps slowly and with bent head.

She knew not whether to feel glad or sorry that the interview she
had come to seek could not immediately take place. This day had been
a hard one for Adela. In the morning her mother had spoken to her
without disguise or affectation, and had told her of Mutimer's
indirect proposal. Mrs. Waltham went on to assure her that there was
no hurry, that Mutimer had consented to refrain from visits for a
short time in order that she might take counsel with herself, and
that--the mother's voice trembled on the words--absolute freedom was
of course left her to accept or refuse. But Mrs. Waltham could not
pause there, though she tried to. She went on to speak of the day's
proceedings.

'Think what we may, my dear, of Mr. Mutimer's opinions, no one can
deny that he is making a most unselfish use of his wealth. We shall
have an opportunity to-day of hearing how it is regarded by those
who--who understand such questions.'

Adela implored to be allowed to remain at home instead of attending
the lecture, but on this point Mrs. Waltham was inflexible. The girl
could not offer resolute opposition in a matter which only involved
an hour or two's endurance. She sat in pale silence. Then her mother
broke into tears, bewailed herself as a luckless being, entreated
her daughter's pardon, but in the end was perfectly ready to accept
Adela's self-sacrifice.

On her return from New Wanley, Adela sat alone till tea-time, and
after that meal again went to her room. She was not one of those
girls to whom tears come as a matter of course on any occasion of
annoyance or of grief; her bright eyes had seldom been dimmed since
childhood, for the lightsomeness of her character threw off trifling
troubles almost as soon as they were felt, and of graver afflictions
she had hitherto known none since her father's death. But since the
shock she received on that day when her mother revealed Hubert
Eldon's unworthiness, her emotional life had suffered a slow change.
Evil, previously known but as a dark mystery shadowing far-off
regions, had become the constant preoccupation of her thoughts.
Drawing analogies from the story of her faith, she imaged Hubert as
the angel who fell from supreme purity to a terrible lordship of
perdition. Of his sins she had the dimmest conception; she was told
that they were sins of impurity, and her understanding of such could
scarcely have been expressed save in the general language of her
prayers. Guarded jealously at every moment of her life, the world
had made no blur on the fair tablet of her mind; her Eden had
suffered no invasion. She could only repeat to herself that her
heart had gone dreadfully astray in its fondness, and that,
whatsoever it cost her, the old hopes, the strength of which was
only now proved, must be utterly uprooted. And knowing that, she
wept.

Sin was too surely sorrow, though it neared her only in imagination.
In a few weeks she seemed to have almost outgrown girlhood; her
steps were measured, her smile was seldom and lacked mirth. The
revelation would have done so much; the added and growing trouble of
Mutimer's attentions threatened to sink her in melancholy. She would
not allow it to be seen more than she could help; cheerful activity
in the life of home was one of her moral duties, and she strove hard
to sustain it. It was a relief to find herself alone each night,
alone with her sickness of heart.

The repugnance aroused in her by the thought of becoming Mutimer's
wife was rather instinctive than reasoned. From one point of view,
indeed, she deemed it wrong, since it might be entirely the fruit of
the love she was forbidden to cherish. Striving to read her
conscience, which for years had been with her a daily task and was
now become the anguish of every hour, she found it hard to establish
valid reasons for steadfastly refusing a man who was her mother's
choice. She read over the marriage service frequently. There stood
the promise--to love, to honour, and to obey. Honour and obedience
she might render him, but what of love? The question arose, what did
love mean? Could there be such a thing as love of an unworthy
object? Was she not led astray by the spirit of perverseness which
was her heritage?

Adela could not bring herself to believe that 'to love' in the sense
of the marriage service and to 'be in love' as her heart understood
it were one and the same thing. The Puritanism of her training led
her to distrust profoundly those impulses of mere nature. And the
circumstances of her own unhappy affection tended to confirm her in
this way of thinking. Letty Tew certainly thought otherwise, but was
not Letty's own heart too exclusively occupied by worldly
considerations?

Yet it said 'love.' Perchance that was something which would come
after marriage; the promise, observe, concerned the future. But she
was not merely indifferent; she shrank from Mutimer.

She returned home from the lecture to-day full of dread--dread more
active than she had yet known. And it drove her to a step she had
timidly contemplated for more than a week. She stole from the house,
bent on seeing Mr. Wyvern. She could not confess to him, but she
could speak of the conflict between her mother's will and her own,
and beg his advice; perhaps, if he appeared favourable, ask him to
intercede with her mother. She had liked Mr. Wyvern from the first
meeting with him, and a sense of trust had been nourished by each
succeeding conversation. In her agitation she thought it would not
be hard to tell him so much of the circumstances as would enable him
to judge and counsel.

Yet it was with relief, on the whole, that she turned homewards with
her object unattained. It would be much better to wait and test
herself yet further. Why should she not speak with her mother about
that vow she was asked to make?

She did not seek solitude again, but joined her mother and Alfred in
the sitting-room. Mrs. Waltham made no inquiry about the short
absence. Alfred had only just called to mind the newspaper which Mr.
Keene had given him; and was unfolding it for perusal. His eye
caught a marked paragraph, one of a number under the heading 'Gossip
from Town.' As he read it he uttered a 'Hullo!' of surprise.

'Well, here's the latest,' he continued, looking at his companions
with an amused eye. 'Something about that fellow Eldon in a Belwick
newspaper. What do you think?'

Adela kept still and mute.

'Whatever it is, it cannot interest us, Alfred,' said Mrs. Waltham,
with dignity. 'We had rather not hear it.'

'Well, you shall read it for yourself,' replied Alfred on a second
thought. 'I think you'd like to know.'

His mother took the paper under protest, and glanced down at the
paragraph carelessly. But speedily her attention became closer.

'An item of intelligence,' wrote the London gossiper, 'which I dare
say will interest readers in certain parts of--shire. A lady of
French extraction who made a name for herself at a leading
metropolitan theatre last winter, and who really promises great
things in the Thespian art, is back among us from a sojourn on the
Continent. She is understood to have spent much labour in the study
of a new part, which she is about to introduce to us of the modern
Babylon. But Albion, it is whispered, possesses other attractions
for her besides appreciative audiences. In brief, though she will of
course appear under the old name, she will in reality have changed
it for one of another nationality before presenting herself in the
radiance of the footlights. The happy man is Mr. Hubert Eldon, late
of Wanley Manor. We felicitate Mr. Eldon.'

Mrs. Waltham's hands trembled as she doubled the sheet: there was a
gleam of pleasure on her face.

'Give me the paper when you have done with it,' she said.

Alfred laughed, and whistled a tune as he continued the perusal of
Mr. Keene's political and social intelligence, on the whole as
trustworthy as the style in which it was written was terse and
elegant. Adela, finding she could feign indifference no longer, went
from the room.

'Where did you get this?' Mrs. Waltham asked with eagerness as soon
as the girl was gone.

'From the writer himself,' Alfred replied, visibly proud of his
intimacy with a man of letters. 'Fellow called Keene. Had a long
talk with him.'

'About this?'

'Oh, no. I've only just come across it. But he said he'd marked
something for Mutimer. I'm to pass the paper on to him.'

'I suppose this is the same woman--?'

'No doubt.'

'You think it's true?'

'True? Why, of course it is. A newspaper with a reputation to
support can't go printing people's names at haphazard. Keene's very
thick with all the London actors. He told me some first-class
stories about--'

'Never mind,' interposed his mother. 'Well, to think it should come
to this! I'm sure I feel for poor Mrs. Eldon. Really there is no end
to her misfortunes.'

'Just how such families always end up,' observed Alfred
complacently. 'No doubt he'll drink himself to death, or something
of that kind, and then we shall have the pleasure of seeing a new
tablet in the church, inscribed with manifold virtues; or even a
stained-glass window: the last of the Eldons deserves something
noteworthy.'

'I think it's hardly a subject for joking, Alfred. It is very, very
sad. And to think what a fine handsome boy he used to be! But he was
always dreadfully self-willed.'

'He was always an impertinent puppy! How he'll play the swell on his
wife's earnings! Oh, our glorious aristocracy!'

Mrs. Waltham went early to her daughter's room. Adela was sitting
with her Bible before her--had sat so since coming upstairs, yet had
not read three consecutive verses. Her face showed no effect of
tears, for the heat of a consuming suspense had dried the fountains
of woe.

'I don't like to occupy your mind with such things, my dear,' began
her mother, 'but perhaps as a warning I ought to show you the news
Alfred spoke of. It pleases Providence that there should be evil in
the world, and for our own safety we must sometimes look it in the
face, especially we poor women, Adela. Will you read that?'

Adela read. She could not criticise the style, but it affected her
as something unclean; Hubert's very name suffered degradation when
used in such a way. Prepared for worse things than that which she
saw, no shock of feelings was manifest in her. She returned the
paper without speaking.

'I wanted you to see that my behaviour to Mr. Eldon was not
unjustified,' said her mother. 'You don't blame me any longer,
dear?'

'I have never blamed you, mother.'

'It is a sad, sad end to what might have been a life of usefulness
and honour. I have thought so often of the parable of the talents;
only I fear this case is worse. His poor mother! I wonder if I could
write to her! Yet I hardly know how to.'

'Is this a--a wicked woman, mother?' Adela asked falteringly.

Mrs. Waltham shook her head and sighed.

'My love, don't you see that she is an actress?'

'But if all actresses are wicked, how is it that really good people
go to the theatre?'

'I am afraid they oughtn't to. The best of us are tempted into
thoughtless pleasure. But now I don't want you to brood over things
which it is a sad necessity to have to glance at. Read your chapter,
darling, and get to bed.'

To bed--but not to sleep. The child's imagination was aflame. This
scarlet woman, this meteor from hell flashing before the delighted
eyes of men, she, then, had bound Hubert for ever in her toils; no
release for him now, no ransom to eternity. No instant's doubt of
the news came to Adela; in her eyes _imprimatur_ was the guarantee
of truth. She strove to picture the face which had drawn Hubert to
his doom. It must be lovely beyond compare. For the first time in
her life she knew the agonies of jealousy.

She could not shed tears, but in her anguish she fell upon prayer,
spoke the words above her breath that they might silence that
terrible voice within. Poor lost lamb, crying in the darkness,
sending forth such piteous utterance as might create a spirit of
love to hear and rescue.

Rescue--none. When the fire wasted itself, she tried to find solace
in the thought that one source of misery was stopped. Hubert was
married, or would be very soon, and if she had sinned in loving him
till now, such sin would henceforth be multiplied incalculably; she
durst not, as she valued her soul, so much as let his name enter her
thoughts. And to guard against it, was there not a means offered
her? The doubt as to what love meant was well-nigh solved; or at all
events she held it proved that the 'love' of the marriage service
was something she had never yet felt, something which would follow
upon marriage itself. Earthly love had surely led Hubert Eldon to
ruin; oh, not that could be demanded of her! What reason had she now
to offer against her mother's desire? Letty's arguments were vain;
they were but as the undisciplined motions of her own heart.
Marriage with a worthy man must often have been salvation to a
rudderless life; for was it not the _ceremony_ which, after all,
constituted the exclusive sanction?

Mutimer, it was true, fell sadly short of her ideal of goodness. He
was an unbeliever. But might not this very circumstance involve a
duty? As his wife, could she not plead with him and bring him to the
truth? Would not that be _loving_ him, to make his spiritual good
the end of her existence? It was as though a great light shot
athwart her darkness. She raised herself in bed, and, as if with her
very hands, clung to the inspiration which had been granted her. The
light was not abiding, but something of radiance lingered, and that
must stead her.

Her brother returned to Belwick next morning after an early
breakfast. He was in his wonted high spirits, and talked with much
satisfaction of the acquaintances he had made on the previous day,
while Adela waited upon him. Mrs. Waltham only appeared as he was
setting off.

Adela sat almost in silence whilst her mother breakfasted.

'You don't look well, dear?' said the latter, coming to the little
room upstairs soon after the meal.

'Yes, I am well, mother. But I want to speak to you.'

Mrs. Waltham seated herself in expectation.

'Will you tell me why you so much wish me to marry Mr. Mutimer?'

Adela's tone was quite other than she had hitherto used in
conversations of this kind. It was submissive, patiently
questioning.

'You mustn't misunderstand me,' replied the mother with some
nervousness. 'The wish, dear, must of course be yours as well. You
know that I--that I really have left you to consult your own--'

The sentence was unfinished.

'But you have tried to persuade me, mother dear,' pursued the gentle
voice. 'You would not do so if you did not think it for my good.'

Something shot painfully through Mrs. Waltham's heart.

'I am sure I have thought so, Adela; really I have thought so. I
know there are objections, but no marriage is in every way perfect.
I feel so sure of his character--I mean of his character in a
worldly sense. And you might do so much to--to show him the true
way, might you not, darling? I'm sure his heart is good.'

Mrs. Waltham also was speaking with less confidence than on former
occasions. She cast side glances at her daughter's colourless face.

'Mother, may I marry without feeling that--that I love him?'

The face was flushed now for a moment. Adela had never spoken that
word to anyone; even to Letty she had scarcely murmured it. The
effect upon her of hearing it from her own lips was mysterious,
awful; the sound did not die with her voice, but trembled in subtle
harmonies along the chords of her being.

Her mother took the shaken form and drew it to her bosom.

'If he is your husband, darling, you will find that love grows. It
is always so. Have no fear. On his side there is not only love; he
respects you deeply; he has told me so.'

'And you encourage me to accept him, mother? It is your desire? I am
your child, and you can wish nothing that is not for my good. Guide
me, mother. It is so hard to judge for myself. You shall decide for
me, indeed you shall.'

The mother's heart was wrung. For a moment she strove to speak the
very truth, to utter a word about that love which Adela was
resolutely excluding. But the temptation to accept this unhoped
surrender proved too strong. She sobbed her answer.

'Yes, I do wish it, Adela. You will find that I--that I was not
wrong.'

'Then if he asks me, I will marry him.'

As those words were spoken Mutimer issued from the Manor gates,
uncertain whether to go his usual way down to the works or to pay a
visit to Mrs. Waltham. The latter purpose prevailed.

The evening before, Mr. Willis Rodman had called at the Manor
shortly after dinner. He found Mutimer smoking, with coffee at his
side, and was speedily making himself comfortable in the same way.
Then he drew a newspaper from his pocket. 'Have you seen the
"Belwick Chronicle" of to-day?' he inquired.

'Why the deuce should I read such a paper?' exclaimed Richard, with
good-humoured surprise. He was in excellent spirits to-night, the
excitement of the day having swept his mind clear of anxieties.

'There's something in it, though, that you ought to see.'

He pointed out the paragraph relating to Eldon.

'Keene's writing, eh?' said Mutimer thoughtfully.

'Yes, he gave me the paper.'

Richard rekindled his cigar with deliberation, and stood for a few
moments with one foot on the fender.

'Who is the woman?' he then asked.

'I don't know her name. Of course it's the same story continued.'

'And concluded.'

'Well, I don't know about that,' said the other, smiling and shaking
his head.

'This may or may not be true, I suppose,' was Richard's next remark.

'Oh, I suppose the man hears all that kind of thing. I don't see any
reason to doubt it.'

'May I keep the paper?'

'Oh, yes. Keene told me, by-the-by, that he gave a copy to young
Waltham.'

Mr. Rodman spoke whilst rolling the cigar in his mouth. Mutimer
allowed the subject to lapse.

There was no impossibility, no improbability even, in the statement
made by the newspaper correspondent; yet as Richard thought it over
in the night, he could not but regard it as singular that Mr. Keene
should be the man to make public such a piece of information so very
opportunely. He was far from having admitted the man to his
confidence, but between Keene and Rodman, as he was aware, an
intimacy had sprung up. It might be that one or the other had
thought it worth while to serve him; why should Keene be particular
to put a copy of the paper into Alfred Waltham's hands? Well, he
personally knew nothing of the affair. If the news effected
anything, so much the better. He hoped it might be trustworthy.

Among his correspondence in the morning was a letter from Emma Vine.
He opened it last; anyone observing him would have seen with what
reluctance he began to read it.

'My dear Richard,' it ran, 'I write to thank you for the money. I
would very much rather have had a letter from you, however short a
one. It seems long since you wrote a real letter, and I can't think
how long since I have seen you. But I know how full of business you
are, dear, and I'm sure you would never come to London without
telling me, because if you hadn't time to come here, I should be
only too glad to go to Highbury, if only for one word. We have got
some mourning dresses to make for the servants of a lady in
Islington, so that is good news. But poor Jane is very bad indeed.
She suffers a great deal of pain, and most of all at night, so that
she scarcely ever gets more than half-an-hour of sleep at a time, if
that. What makes it worse, dear Richard, is that she is so very
unhappy. Sometimes she cries nearly through the whole night. I try
my best to keep her up, but I'm afraid her weakness has much to do
with it. But Kate is very well, I am glad to say, and the children
are very well too. Bertie is beginning to learn to read. He often
says he would like to see you. Thank you, dearest, for the money and
all your kindness, and believe that I shall think of you every
minute with much love. From yours ever and ever,

'EMMA VINE.'

It would be cruel to reproduce Emma's errors of spelling. Richard
had sometimes noted a bad instance with annoyance, but it was not
that which made him hurry to the end this morning with lowered
brows. When he had finished the letter he crumbled it up and threw
it into the fire. It was not heartlessness that made him do so: he
dreaded to have these letters brought before his eyes a second time.

He was also throwing the envelope aside, when he discovered that it
contained yet another slip of paper. The writing on this was not
Emma's: the letters were cramped and not easy to decipher.

'Dear Richard, come to London and see me. I want to speak to you, I
must speak to you. I can't have very long to live, and I _must_,
_must_ see you.

'JANE VINE.'

This too he threw into the fire. His lips were hard set, his eyes
wide. And almost immediately he prepared to leave the house.

It was early, but he felt that he must go to the Walthams'. He had
promised Mrs. Waltham to refrain from visiting the house for a week,
but that promise it was impossible to keep. Jane's words were
ringing in his ears: he seemed to hear her very voice calling and
beseeching. So far from changing his purpose, it impelled him in the
course he had chosen. There must and should be an end of this
suspense.

Mrs. Waltham had just come downstairs from her conversation with
Adela, when she saw Mutimer approaching the door. She admitted him
herself. Surely Providence was on her side; she felt almost young in
her satisfaction.

Richard remained in the house about twenty minutes. Then he walked
down to the works as usual.

Shortly after his departure another visitor presented himself. This
was Mr. Wyvern. The vicar's walk in Hubert's company the evening
before had extended itself from point to point, till the two reached
Agworth together. Mr. Wyvern was addicted to night-rambling, and he
often covered considerable stretches of country in the hours when
other mortals slept. To-night he was in the mood for such exercise;
it worked off unwholesome accumulations of thought and feeling, and
good counsel often came to him in what the Greeks called the kindly
time. He did not hurry on his way back to Wanley, for just at
present he was much in need of calm reflection.

On his arrival at the Vicarage about eleven o'clock the servant
informed him of Miss Waltham's having called. Mr. Wyvern heard this
with pleasure. He thought at first of writing a note to Adela,
begging her to come to the Vicarage again, but by the morning he had
decided to be himself the visitor.

He gathered at once from Mrs. Waltham's face that events of some
agitating kind were in progress. She did not keep him long in
uncertainty. Upon his asking if he might speak a few words with
Adela, Mrs. Waltham examined him curiously.

'I am afraid,' she said, 'that I must ask you to excuse her this
morning, Mr. Wyvern. She is not quite prepared to see anyone at
present. In fact,' she lowered her voice and smiled very graciously,
'she has just had an--an agitating interview with Mr. Mutimer--she
has consented to be his wife.'

'In that case I cannot of course trouble her,' the vicar replied,
with gravity which to Mrs. Waltham appeared excessive, rather
adapted to news of a death than of a betrothal. The dark searching
eyes, too, made her feel uncomfortable. And he did not utter a
syllable of the politeness expected on these occasions.

'What a very shocking thing about Mr. Eldon!' the lady pursued. 'You
have heard?'

'Shocking? Pray, what has happened?'

Hubert had left him in some depression the night before, and for a
moment Mr. Wyvern dreaded lest some fatality had become known in
Wanley.

'Ah, you have not heard? It is in this newspaper.'

The vicar examined the column indicated.

'But,' he exclaimed, with subdued indignation, 'this is the merest
falsehood!'

'A falsehood! Are you sure of that, Mr. Wyvern?'

'Perfectly sure. There is no foundation for it whatsoever.'

'You don't say so! I am very glad to hear that, for poor Mrs.
Eldon's sake.'

'Could you lend me this newspaper for to-day?'

'With pleasure. Really you relieve me, Mr. Wyvern. I had no means of
inquiring into the story, of course. But how disgraceful that such a
thing should appear in print!'

'I am sorry to say, Mrs. Waltham, that the majority of things which
appear in print nowadays are more or less disgraceful. However, this
may claim prominence, in its way.'

'And I may safely contradict it? It will be such a happiness to do
so.'

'Contradict it by all means, madam. You may cite me as your
authority.'

The vicar crushed the sheet into his pocket and strode homewards.





CHAPTER XIII




In the church of the Insurgents there are many orders. To rise to
the supreme passion of revolt, two conditions are indispensable: to
possess the heart of a poet, and to be subdued by poverty to the
yoke of ignoble labour. But many who fall short of the priesthood
have yet a share of the true spirit, bestowed upon them by
circumstances of birth and education, developed here and there by
the experience of life, yet rigidly limited in the upshot by the
control of material ease, the fatal lordship of the comfortable
commonplace. Of such was Hubert Eldon. In him, despite his birth and
breeding, there came to the surface a rich vein of independence,
obscurely traceable, no doubt, in the characters of certain of his
ancestors, appearing at length where nineteenth-century influences
had thinned the detritus of convention and class prejudice. His
nature abounded in contradictions, and as yet self-study--in itself
the note of a mind striving for emancipation--had done little for
him beyond making clear the manifold difficulties strewn in his path
of progress.

You know already that it was no vulgar instinct of sensuality which
had made severance between him and the respectable traditions of his
family. Observant friends naturally cast him in the category of
young men whom the prospect of a fortune seduces to a life of riot;
his mother had no means of forming a more accurate judgment. Mr.
Wyvern alone had seen beneath the surface, aided by a liberal study
of the world, and no doubt also by that personal sympathy which is
so important an ally of charity and truth. Mr. Wyvern's early life
had not been in smooth waters; in him too revolt was native,
tempered also by spiritual influences of the most opposite kind. He
felt a deep interest in the young man, and desired to keep him in
view. It was the first promise of friendship that had been held out
to Hubert, who already suffered from a sense of isolation, and was
wondering in what class of society he would have to look for his
kith and kin. Since boyhood he had drawn apart to a great extent
from the companionships which most readily offered. The turn taken
by the circumstances of his family affected the pride which was one
of his strongest characteristics; his house had fallen, and it
seemed to him that a good deal of pity, if not of contempt, mingled
with his reception by the more fortunate of his own standing. He had
never overcome a natural hostility to old Mr. Mutimer: the
_bourgeois_ virtues of the worthy ironmaster rather irritated than
attracted him, and he suffered intensely in the thought that his
mother brought herself to close friendship with one so much her
inferior just for the sake of her son's future. In this matter he
judged with tolerable accuracy. Mrs. Eldon, finding in the old man a
certain unexpected refinement over and above his goodness of heart,
consciously or unconsciously encouraged herself in idealising him,
that the way of interest might approach as nearly as might be to
that of honour. Hubert, with no understanding for the craggy facts
of life, inwardly rebelled against the whole situation. He felt that
it laid him open to ridicule, the mere suspicion of which always
stung him to the quick. When, therefore, he declared to his mother,
in the painful interview on his return to Wanley, that it was almost
a relief to him to have lost the inheritance, he spoke with perfect
truth. Amid the tempest which had fallen on his life there rose in
that moment the semblance of a star of hope. The hateful conditions
which had weighed upon his future being finally cast off, might he
not look forward to some nobler activity than had hitherto seemed
possible? Was he not being saved from his meaner self, that part of
his nature which tended to conventional ideals, which was subject to
empty pride and ignoble apprehensions? Had he gone through the storm
without companion, hope might have overcome every weakness, but
sympathy with his mother's deep distress troubled his self-control.
At her feet he yielded to the emotions of childhood, and his misery
increased until bodily suffering brought him the relief of
unconsciousness.

To his mother perhaps he owed that strain of idealism which gave his
character its significance. In Mrs. Eldon it affected only the inner
life; in Hubert spiritual strivings naturally sought the outlet of
action. That his emancipation should declare itself in some
exaggerated way was quite to be expected: impatience of futilities
and insincerities made common cause with the fiery spirit of youth
and spurred him into reckless pursuit of that abiding rapture which
is the dream and the despair of the earth's purest souls. The pistol
bullet checked his course, happily at the right moment. He had gone
far enough for experience and not too far for self-recovery. The
wise man in looking back upon his endeavours regrets nothing of
which that can be said.

By the side of a passion such as that which had opened Hubert's
intellectual manhood, the mild, progressive attachments sanctioned
by society show so colourless as to suggest illusion. Thinking of
Adela Waltham as he lay recovering from his illness, he found it
difficult to distinguish between the feelings associated with her
name and those which he had owed to other maidens of the same type.
A week or two at Wanley generally resulted in a conviction that he
was in love with Adela; and had Adela been entirely subject to her
mother's influences, had she fallen but a little short of the
innocence and delicacy which were her own, whether for happiness or
the reverse, she would doubtless have been pledged to Hubert long
ere this. The merest accident had in truth prevented it. At home for
Christmas, the young man had made up his mind to speak and claim
her: he postponed doing so till he should have returned from a visit
to a college friend in the same county. His friend had a sister,
five or six years older than Adela, and of a warmer type of beauty,
with the finished graces of the town. Hubert found himself once more
without guidance, and so left Wanley behind him, journeying to an
unknown land.

Hubert could not remember a time when he had not been in love. The
objects of his devotion had succeeded each other rapidly, but each
in her turn was the perfect woman. His imagination cast a halo about
a beautiful head, and hastened to see in its possessor all the
poetry of character which he aspired to worship. In his loves, as in
every other circumstance of life, he would have nothing of
compromise; for him the world contained nothing but his passion, and
existence had no other end. Between that past and this present more
intervened than Hubert could yet appreciate; but he judged the
change in himself by the light in which that early love appeared to
him. Those were the restless ardours of boyhood: he could not
henceforth trifle so with solemn meanings. The ideal was harder of
discovery than he had thought; perhaps it was not to be found in the
world at all. But what less perfect could henceforth touch his
heart?

Yet throughout his convalescence he thought often of Adela, perhaps
because she was so near, and because she doubtless often thought of
him. His unexpected meeting with her on Stanbury Hill affected him
strangely: the world was new to his eyes, and the girl's face seemed
to share in the renewal; it was not quite the same face that he had
held in memory, but had a fresh significance. He read in her looks
more than formerly he had been able to see. This impression was
strengthened by his interview with her on the following day. Had she
too grown much older in a few months?

After spending a fortnight with his mother at Agworth, he went to
London, and for a time thought as little of Adela as of any other
woman. New interests claimed him, interests purely intellectual, the
stronger that his mind seemed just aroused from a long sleep. He
threw himself into various studies with more zeal than he had
hitherto devoted to such interests; not that he had as yet any
definite projects, but solely because it was his nature to be in
pursuit of some excellence and to scorn mere acquiescence in a life
of every-day colour. He lived all but in loneliness, and when the
change had had time to work upon him his thoughts began to revert to
Adela, to her alone of those who stood on the other side of the
gulf. She came before his eyes as a vision of purity; it was
soothing to picture her face and to think of her walking in the
spring meadows. He thought of her as of a white rose, dew-besprent,
and gently swayed by the sweet air of a sunny morning; a white rose
newly spread, its heart virgin from the hands of shaping Nature. He
could not decide what quality, what absence of thought, made Adela
so distinct to him. Was it perhaps the exquisite delicacy apparent
in all she did or said? Even the most reverent thought seemed gross
in touching her; the mind flitted round about her, kept from contact
by a supreme modesty, which she alone could inspire If her head were
painted, it must be against the tenderest eastern sky; all
associations with her were of the morning, when heatless rays strike
level across the moist earth, of simple devoutness which renders
thanks for the blessing of a new day, of mercy robed like the zenith
at dawn.

His study just now was of the early Italians, in art and literature.
There was more of Adela than he perceived in the impulse which
guided him in that direction. When he came to read the 'Vita Nuova,'
it was of Adela expressly that he thought. The poet's passion of
worship entered his heart; transferring his present feeling to his
earlier self, he grew to regard his recent madness as a lapse from
the true love of his life. He persuaded himself that he had loved
Adela in a far more serious way than any of the others who from time
to time had been her rivals, and that the love was now returning to
him, strengthened and exalted. He began to write sonnets in Dante's
manner, striving to body forth in words the new piety which
illumined his life. Whereas love had been to him of late a
glorification of the senses, he now cleansed himself from what he
deemed impurity and adored in mere ecstasy of the spirit. Adela soon
became rather a symbol than a living woman; he identified her with
the ends to which his life darkly aspired, and all but convinced
himself that memory and imagination would henceforth suffice to him.

In the autumn he went down to Agworth, and spent a few days with his
mother. The temptation to walk over to Wanley and call upon the
Walthams proved too strong to be resisted. His rejection at their
door was rather a shock than a surprise; it had never occurred to
him that the old friendly relations had been in any way disturbed;
he explained Mrs. Waltham's behaviour by supposing that his silence
had offended her, and perhaps his failure to take leave of her
before quitting Wanley. Possibly she thought he had dealt lightly
with Adela. Offence on purely moral grounds did not even suggest
itself.

He returned to London anxious and unhappy. The glimpse of Adela
sitting at the window had brought him back to reality; after all it
was no abstraction that had become the constant companion of his
solitude; his love was far more real for that moment's vision of the
golden head, and had a very real power of afflicting him with
melancholy. He faltered in his studies, and once again had lost the
motive to exertion. Then came the letter from his mother, telling of
Adela's rumoured engagement. It caused him to set forth almost
immediately.

The alternation of moods exhibited in his conversation with Mr.
Wyvern continued to agitate him during the night. Now it seemed
impossible to approach Adela in any way; now he was prepared to defy
every consideration in order to save her and secure his own
happiness. Then, after dwelling for awhile on the difficulties of
his position, he tried to convince himself that once again he had
been led astray after beauty and goodness which existed only in his
imagination, that in losing Adela he only dismissed one more
illusion. Such comfort was unsubstantial; he was, in truth, consumed
in wretchedness at the thought that she once might easily have been
his, and that he had passed her by. What matter whether we love a
reality or a dream, if the love drive us to frenzy? Yet how could he
renew his relations with her? Even if no actual engagement bound
her, she must be prejudiced against him by stories which would make
it seem an insult if he addressed her. And if the engagement really
existed, what shadow of excuse had he for troubling her with his
love?

When he entered his mother's room in the morning, Mrs. Eldon took a
small volume from the table at her side.

'I found this a few weeks ago among the books you left with me,' she
said. 'How long have you had it, Hubert?'

It was a copy of the 'Christian Year,' and writing on the fly-leaf
showed that it belonged, or had once belonged, to Adela Waltham.

Hubert regarded it with surprise.

'It was lent to me a year ago,' he said. 'I took it away with me. I
had forgotten that I had it.'

The circumstances under which it had been lent to him came back very
clearly now. It was after that visit to his friend which had come so
unhappily between him and Adela. When he went to bid her good-bye he
found her alone, and she was reading this book. She spoke of it,
and, in surprise that he had never read it, begged him to take it to
Oxford.

'I have another copy,' Adela said. 'You can return that any time.'

The time had only now come. Hubert resolved to take the book to
Wanley in the evening; if no other means offered, Mr. Wyvern would
return it to the owner. Might he enclose a note? Instead of that, he
wrote out from memory two of his own sonnets, the best of those he
had recently composed under the influence of the 'Vita Nuova,' and
shut them between the pages. Then he made the book into a parcel and
addressed it.

He started for his walk at the same hour as on the evening before.
There was frost in the air, and already the stars were bright. As he
drew near to Wanley, the road was deserted; his footfall was loud on
the hard earth. The moon began to show her face over the dark top of
Stanbury Hill, and presently he saw by the clear rays that the
figure of a woman was a few yards ahead of him; he was overtaking
her. As he drew near to her, she turned her head. He knew her at
once, for it was Letty Tew. He had been used to meet Letty often at
the Walthams'.

Evidently he was himself recognised; the girl swerved a little, as
if to let him pass, and kept her head bent. He obeyed an impulse and
spoke to her.

'I am afraid you have forgotten me, Miss Tew. Yet I don't like to
pass you without saying a word.'

'I thought it was--the light makes it difficult--' Letty murmured,
sadly embarrassed.

'But the moon is beautiful.'

'Very beautiful.'

They regarded it together. Letty could not help glancing at her
companion, and as he did not turn his face she examined him for a
moment or two.

'I am going to see my friend Mr. Wyvern,' Hubert proceeded.

A few more remarks of the kind were exchanged, Letty by degrees
summoning a cold confidence; then Hubert said--

'I have here a book which belongs to Miss Waltham. She lent it to me
a year ago, and I wish to return it. Dare I ask you to put it into
her hands?'

Letty knew what the book must be. Adela had told her of it at the
time, and since had spoken of it once or twice.

'Oh, yes, I will give it her,' she replied, rather nervously again.

'Will you say that I would gladly have thanked her myself, if it had
been possible?'

'Yes, Mr. Eldon, I will say that.'

Something in Hubert's voice seemed to cause Letty to raise her eyes
again.

'You wish me to thank her?' she added; inconsequently perhaps, but
with a certain significance.

'If you will be so kind.'

Hubert wanted to say more, but found it difficult to discover the
right words. Letty, too, tried to shadow forth something that was in
her mind, but with no better success.

'If I remember,' Hubert said, pausing in his walk, 'this stile will
be my shortest way across to the Vicarage. Thank you much for your
kindness.'

He had raised his hat and was turning, but Letty impulsively put
forth her hand. 'Good-bye,' he said, in a friendly voice, as he took
the little fingers. 'I wish the old days were back again, and we
were going to have tea together as we used to.'

Mr. Wyvern's face gave no promise of cheerful intelligence as he
welcomed his visitor.

'What is the origin of this, I wonder?' he said, handing Hubert the
'Belwick Chronicle.'

The state of the young man's nerves was not well adapted to sustain
fresh irritation. He turned pale with anger.

'Is this going the round of Wanley?'

'Probably. I had it from Mrs. Waltham.'

'Did you contradict it?'

'As emphatically as I could.'

'I will see the man who edits this to-morrow,' cried Hubert hotly.
'But perhaps he is too great a blackguard to talk with.'

'It purports to come, you see, from a London correspondent. But I
suppose the source is nearer.'

'You mean--you think that man Mutimer has originated it?'

'I scarcely think that.'

'Yet it is more than likely. I will go to the Manor at once. At
least he shall give me yes or no.'

He had started to his feet, but the vicar laid a hand on his
shoulder.

'I'm afraid you can't do that.'

'Why not?'

'Consider. You have no kind of right to charge him with such a
thing. And there is another reason: he proposed to Miss Waltham this
morning, and she accepted him.'

'This morning? And this paper is yesterday's. Why, it makes it more
likely than ever. How did they get the paper? Doubtless he sent it
them. If she has accepted him this very day--'

The repetition of the words seemed to force their meaning upon him
through his anger. His voice failed.

'You tell me that Adela Waltham has engaged herself to that man?'

'Her mother told me, only a few minutes after it occurred.'

'Then it was this that led her to consent.'

'Surely that is presupposing too much, my dear Eldon,' said the
vicar gently.

'No, not more than I know to be true. I could not say that to anyone
but you; you must understand me. The girl is being cheated into
marrying that fellow. Of her own free will she could not do it. This
is one of numberless lies. You are right; it's no use to go to him:
he wouldn't tell the truth. But _she_ must be told. How can I see
her?'

'It is more difficult than ever. Her having accepted him makes all
the difference. Explain it to yourself as you may, you cannot give
her to understand that you doubt her sincerity.'

'But does she know that this story is false?'

'Yes, that she will certainly hear. I have busied myself in
contradicting it. If Mrs. Waltham does not tell her, she will hear
it from her friend Miss Tew, without question.'

Hubert pondered, then made the inquiry:

'How could I procure a meeting with Miss Tew? I met her just now on
the road and spoke to her. I think she might consent to help me.'

Mr. Wyvern looked doubtful.

'You met her? She was coming from Agworth?'

'She seemed to be.'

'Her father and mother are gone to spend to-morrow with friends in
Belwick; I suppose she drove into Wanley with them. and walked
back.'

The vicar probably meant this for a suggestion; at all events,
Hubert received it as one.

'Then I will simply call at the house. She may be alone. I can't
weigh niceties.'

Mr. Wyvern made no reply. The announcement that dinner was ready
allowed him to quit the subject. Hubert with difficulty sat through
the meal, and as soon as it was over took his departure, leaving it
uncertain whether he would return that evening. The vicar offered no
further remark on the subject of their thoughts, but at parting
pressed the young man's hand warmly.

Hubert walked straight to the Tews' dwelling. The course upon which
he had decided had disagreeable aspects and involved chances
anything but pleasant to face; he had, however, abundance of moral
courage, and his habitual scorn of petty obstacles was just now
heightened by passionate feeling. He made his presence known at the
house-door as though his visit were expected. Letty herself opened
to him. It was Saturday night, and she thought the ring was Alfred
Waltham's. Indeed she half uttered a few familiar words; then,
recognising Hubert, she stood fixed in surprise.

'Will you allow me to speak with you for a few moments, Miss Tew?'
Hubert said, with perfect self-possession. 'I ask your pardon for
calling at this hour. My business is urgent; I have come without a
thought of anything but the need of seeing you.'

'Will you come in, Mr. Eldon?'

She led him into a room where there was no fire, and only one lamp
burning low.

'I'm afraid it's very cold here,' she said, with extreme
nervousness. 'The other room is occupied--my sister and the
children; I hope you--'

A little girl put in her face at the door, asking 'Is it Alfred?'
Letty hurried her away, closed the door, and, whilst lighting two
candles on the mantelpiece, begged her visitor to seat himself.

'If you will allow me, I will stand,' said Hubert. 'I scarcely know
how to begin what I wish to say. It has reference to Miss Waltham. I
wish to see her; I must, if she will let me, have an opportunity of
speaking with her. But I have no direct means of letting her know my
wish; doubtless you understand that. In my helplessness I have
thought of you. Perhaps I am asking an impossibility. Will you--can
you--repeat my words. to Miss Waltham, and beg her to see me?'

Letty listened in sheer bewilderment. The position in which she
found herself was so alarmingly novel, it made such a whirlpool in
her quiet life, that it was all she could do to struggle with the
throbbing of her heart and attempt to gather her thoughts. She did
not even reflect that her eyes were fixed on Hubert's in a steady
gaze. Only the sound of his voice after silence aided her to some
degree of collectedness.

'There is every reason why you should accuse me of worse than
impertinence,' Hubert continued, less impulsively. 'I can only ask
your forgiveness. Miss Waltham may very likely refuse to see me,
but, if you would ask her--'

Letty was borne on a torrent of strange thoughts. How could this
man, who spoke with such impressive frankness, with such
persuasiveness, be the abandoned creature that she had of late
believed him? With Adela's secret warm in her heart she could not
but feel an interest in Hubert, and the interest was becoming
something like zeal on his behalf. During the past two hours her
mind had been occupied with him exclusively; his words when he left
her at the stile had sounded so good and tender that she began to
question whether there was any truth at all in the evil things said
about him. The latest story had just been declared baseless by no
less an authority than the vicar, who surely was not a man to
maintain friendship with a worthless profligate. What did it all
mean? She had heard only half an hour ago of Adela's positive
acceptance of Mutimer, and was wretched about it; secure in her own
love-match, it was the mystery of mysteries that Adela should
consent to marry a man she could scarcely endure. And here a chance
of rescue seemed to be offering; was it not her plain duty to give
what help she might?

'You have probably not seen her since I gave you the book?' Hubert
said, perceiving that Letty was quite at a loss for words.

'No, I haven't seen her at all to-day,' was the reply. 'Do you wish
me to go to-night?'

'You consent to do me this great kindness?'

Letty blushed. Was she not committing herself too hastily

'There cannot be any harm in giving your message,' she said, half
interrogatively, her timidity throwing itself upon Hubert's honour.

'Surely no harm in that.'

'But do you know that she--have you heard--?'

'Yes, I know. She has accepted an offer of marriage. It was because
I heard of it that I came to you. You are her nearest friend; you
can speak to her as others would not venture to. I ask only for five
minutes. I entreat her to grant me that.'

To add to her perturbation, Letty was in dread of hearing Alfred's
ring at the door; she durst not prolong this interview.

'I will tell her,' she said. 'If I can, I will see her to-night.'

'And how can I hear the result? I am afraid to ask you--if you would
write one line to me at Agworth? I am staying at my mother's house.'

He mentioned the address. Letty, who felt herself caught up above
the world of common experiences and usages, gave her promise as a
matter of course.

'I shall not try to thank you,' Hubert said. 'But you will not doubt
that I am grateful?'

Letty said no more, and it was with profound relief that she heard
the door close behind her visitor. But even yet the danger was not
past; Alfred might at this moment be approaching, so as to meet
Hubert near the house. And indeed this all but happened, for Mr.
Waltham presented himself very soon. Letty had had time to impose
secrecy on her sisters, such an extraordinary proceeding on her part
that they were awed, and made faithful promise of discretion.

Letty drew her lover into the fireless room; she had blown out the
candles and turned the lamp low again, fearful lest her face should
display signs calling for comment.

'I did so want you to come!' she exclaimed. 'Tell me about Adela.'

'I don't know that there's anything to tell,' was Alfred's stolid
reply. 'It's settled, that's all. I suppose it's all right.'

'But you speak as if you thought it mightn't be, Alfred?'

'Didn't know that I did. Well, I haven't seen her since I got home.
She's upstairs.'

'Can't I see her to-night? I do so want to.'

'I dare say she'd be glad.'

'But what is it, my dear boy? I'm sure you speak as if you weren't
quite satisfied.'

'The mater says it's all right I suppose she knows.'

'But you've always been so anxious for it.'

'Anxious? I haven't been anxious at all. But I dare say it's the
wisest thing she could do. I like Mutimer well enough.'

'Alfred, I don't think he's the proper husband for Adela.'

'Why not? There's not much chance that she'll get a better.'

Alfred was manifestly less cheerful than usual. When Letty continued
to tax him with it he grew rather irritable.

'Go and talk to her yourself,' he said at length. 'You'll find it's
all right. I don't pretend to understand her; there's so much
religion mixed up with her doings, and I can't stand that.'

Letty shook her head and sighed.

'What a vile smell of candle smoke there is here!' Alfred cried.
'And the room must be five or six degrees below zero. Let's go to
the fire.'

'I think I shall run over to Adela at once,' said Letty, as she
followed him into the hall.

'All right. Don't be vexed if she refuses to let you in. I'll stay
here with the youngsters a bit.'

The truth was that Alfred did feel a little uncomfortable this
evening, and was not sorry to be away from the house for a short
time. He was one of those young men who will pursue an end out of
mere obstinacy, and who, through default of imaginative power,
require an event to declare itself before they can appreciate the
ways in which it will affect them. This marriage of his sister with
a man of the working class had possibly, he now felt, other aspects
than those which alone he had regarded whilst it was merely a matter
for speculation. He was not seriously uneasy, but wished his mother
had been somewhat less precipitate. Well, Adela could not be such a
simpleton as to be driven entirely counter to her inclinations in an
affair of so much importance. Girls were confoundedly hard to
understand, in short; probably they existed for the purpose of
keeping one mentally active.

Letty found Mrs. Waltham sitting alone, she too seemingly not in the
best of spirits. There was something depressing in the stillness of
the house. Mrs. Waltham had her volume of family prayers open before
her; her handkerchief lay upon it.

'She is naturally a little--a little fluttered,' she said, speaking
of Adela. 'I hoped you would look in. Try and make her laugh, my
dear; that's all she wants.'

The girl tripped softly upstairs, and softly knocked at Adela's
door. At her 'May I come in?' the door was opened. Letty examined
her friend with surprise; in Adela's face there was no indication of
trouble, rather the light of some great joy dwelt in her eyes. She
embraced Letty tenderly. The two were as nearly as possible of the
same age, but Letty had always regarded Adela in the light of an
elder sister; that feeling was very strong in her just now, as well
as a diffidence greater than she had known before.

'Are you happy, darling?' she asked timidly.

'Yes, dear, I am happy. I believe, I am sure, I have done right.
Take your hat off; it's quite early. I've just been reading the
collect for to-morrow. It's one of those I have never quite
understood, but I think it's clear to me now.'

They read over the prayer together, and spoke of it for a few
minutes.

'What have you brought me?' Adela asked at length, noticing a little
parcel in the other's hand.

'It's a book I have been asked to give you. I shall have to explain.
Do you remember lendinglending someone your "Christian Year"?'

The smile left Adela's face, and the muscles of her mouth strung
themselves.

'Yes, I remember,' she replied coldly.

'As I was walking back from Agworth this afternoon, he overtook me
on the road and asked me to return it to you.'

'Thank you, dear.'

Adela took the parcel and laid it aside. There was an awkward
silence. Letty could not look up.

'He was going to see Mr. Wyvern,' she continued, as if anxious to
lay stress on this. 'He seems to know Mr. Wyvern very well.'

'Yes? You didn't miss Alfred, I hope. He went out a very short time
ago.'

'No, I saw him. He stayed with the others. But I have something more
to tell you, about--about him.'

'About Alfred?'

'About Mr. Eldon.'

Adela looked at her friend with a grave surprise, much as a queen
regards a favourite subject who has been over-bold.

'I think we won't talk of him, Letty,' she said from her height.

'Do forgive me, Adela. I have promised toto say something. There
must have been a great many things said that were not true, just
like this about his marriage; I am so sure of it.'

Adela endeavoured to let the remark pass without replying to it. But
her thought expressed itself involuntarily.

'His marriage? What do you know of it?'

'Mr. Wyvern came to see mother this morning, and showed her a
newspaper that your mother gave him. It said that Mr. Eldon was
going to marry an actress, and Mr. Wyvern declared there was not a
word of truth in it. But of course your mother told you that?'

Adela sat motionless. Mrs. Waltham had not troubled herself to make
known the vicar's contradiction. But Adela could not allow herself
to admit that. Binding her voice with difficulty, she said:

'It does not at all concern me.'

'But your mother _did_ tell you, Adela?' Letty persisted, emboldened
by a thought which touched upon indignation.

'Of course she did.'

The falsehood was uttered with cold deliberateness. There was
nothing to show that a pang quivered on every nerve of the speaker.

'Who can have sent such a thing to the paper?' Letty exclaimed.
'There must be someone who wishes to do him harm. Adela, I don't
believe _anything_ that people have said!'

Even in speaking she was frightened at her own boldness. Adela's
eyes had never regarded her with such a look as now.

'Adela, my darling! Don't, don't be angry with me!'

She sprang forward and tried to put her arms about her friend, but
Adela gently repelled her.

'If you have promised to say something, Letty, you must keep your
promise. Will you say it at once, and then let us talk of something
else?'

Letty checked a tear. Her trustful and loving friend seemed changed
to someone she scarcely knew. She too grew colder, and began her
story in a lifeless way, as if it no longer possessed any interest.

'Just when I had had tea and was expecting Alfred to come, somebody
rang the bell. I went to the door myself, and it was Mr. Eldon. He
had come to speak to me of you. He said he wanted to see you, that
he _must_ see you, and begged me to tell you that. That's all,
Adela. I couldn't refuse him; I felt I had no right to; he spoke in
such a way. But I am very sorry to have so displeased you, dear. I
didn't think you would take anything amiss that I did in all
sincerity. I am sure there has been some wretched mistake, something
worse than a mistake, depend upon it. But I won't say any more. And
I think I'll go now, Adela.'

Adela spoke in a tone of measured gravity which was quite new in
her.

'You have not displeased me, Letty. I don't think you have been to
blame in any way; I am sure you had no choice but to do as he asked
you. You have repeated all he said?'

'Yes, all; all the words, that is. There was something that I can't
repeat.'

'And if I consented to see him, how was he to know?'

'I promised to write to him. He is staying at Agworth.'

'You mustn't do that, dear. I will write to him myself, then I can
thank him for returning the book. What is his address?'

Letty gave it.

'It is, of course, impossible for me to see him,' pursued Adela,
still in the same measured tones. 'If I write myself it will save
you any more trouble. Forget it, if I seemed unkind, dear.'

'Adela, I can't forget it. You are not like yourself, not at all.
Oh, how I wish this had happened sooner! Why, why can't you see him,
darling? I think you ought to; I do really think so.'

'I must be the best judge of that, Letty. Please let us speak of it
no more.'

The sweet girl-face was adamant, its expression a proud virginity;
an ascetic sternness moulded the small, delicate lips. Letty's
countenance could never have looked like that.

Left to herself again, Adela took the parcel upon her lap and sat
dreaming. It was long before her face relaxed; when it did so, the
mood that succeeded was profoundly sorrowful. One would have said
that it was no personal grief that absorbed her, but compassion for
the whole world's misery.

When at length she undid the wrapping, her eye was at once caught by
the papers within the volume. She started, and seemed afraid to
touch the book. Her first thought was that Eldon had enclosed a
letter; but she saw that there was no envelope, only two or three
loose slips. At length she examined them and found the sonnets. They
had no heading, but at the foot of each was written the date of
composition.

She read them. Adela's study of poetry had not gone beyond a
school-book of selections, with the works of Mrs. Hemans and of
Longfellow, and the 'Christian Year.' Hubert's verses she found
difficult to understand; their spirit, the very vocabulary, was
strange to her. Only on a second reading did she attain a glimmering
of their significance. Then she folded them again and laid them on
the table.

Before going to her bedroom she wrote this letter:

'DEAR MR, ELDON,--I am much obliged to you for returning the
"Christian Year." Some papers were left in its pages by accident,
and I now enclose them.

'Miss Tew also brought me a message from you. I am sorry that I
cannot do as you wish. I am unable to ask you to call, and I hope
you will understand me when I say that any other kind of meeting is
impossible.

'I am, yours truly,
'ADELA WALTHAM.'

It was Adela's first essay in this vein of composition. The writing
cost her an hour, and she was far from satisfied with the final
form. But she copied it in a firm hand, and made it ready for
posting on the morrow.





CHAPTER XIV




'Between Richard Mutimer, bachelor, and Adela Marian Waitham,
spinster, both of this parish'

It was the only announcement of the kind that Mr. Wyvern had to make
this Sunday. To one of his hearers he seemed to utter the names with
excessive emphasis, his deep voice reverberating in the church. The
pews were high; Adela almost cowered in her corner, feeling pierced
with the eyes, with the thoughts too, of the congregation about her.

She had wondered whether the Manor pew would be occupied to-day, but
it was not. When she stood up, her eyes strayed towards it; the red
curtains which concealed the interior were old and faded, the wooden
canopy crowned it with dreary state. In three weeks that would be
her place at service. Sitting there, it would not be hard to keep
her thoughts on mortality.

Would it not have been graceful in him to attend church to-day?
Would she in future worship under the canopy alone?

No time had been lost. Mr. Wyvern received notice of the proposed
marriage less than two hours after Adela had spoken her
world-changing monosyllable. She put in no plea for delay, and her
mother, though affecting a little consternation at Mutimer's haste,
could not seriously object. Wanley, discussing the matter at its
Sunday tea-tables, declared with unanimity that such expedition was
indecent. By this time the disapproval of the village had attached
itself exclusively to Mrs. Waltham; Adela was spoken of as a martyr
to her mother's miserable calculations. Mrs. Mewling went about with
a story, that only by physical restraint had the unhappy girl been
kept from taking flight. The name of Hubert Eldon once more came up
in conversation. There was an unauthenticated rumour that he had
been seen of late, lurking about Wanley. The more boldly speculative
gossips looked with delicious foreboding to the results of a
marriage such as this. Given a young man of Eldon's reputation--ah
me!

The Walthams all lunched (or dined) at the Manor. Mutimer was in
high spirits, or seemed so; there were moments when the cheerful
look died on his face, and his thoughts wandered from the
conversation; but if his eye fell on Adela he never failed to smile
the smile of inner satisfaction. She had not yet responded to his
look, and only answered his questions in the briefest words; but her
countenance was resolutely bright, and her beauty all that man could
ask. Richard did not flatter himself that she held him dear; indeed,
he was a good deal in doubt whether affection, as vulgarly
understood, was consistent with breeding and education. But that did
not concern him; he had gained his end, and was jubilant.

In the course of the meal he mentioned that his sister would come
down from London in a day or two. Christmas was only a week off, and
he had thought it would be pleasant to have her at the Manor for
that season.

'Oh, that's very nice!' assented Mrs. Waltham. 'Alice, her name is,
didn't you say? Is she dark or fair?'

'Fair, and just about Adela's height, I should think. I hope you'll
like her, Adela.'

It was unfortunate that Richard did not pronounce the name of his
bride elect quite as it sounds on cultured lips. This may have been
partly the result of diffidence; but there was a slurring of the
second syllable disagreeably suggestive of vulgarity. It struck on
the girl's nerves, and made it more difficult for her to grow
accustomed to this form of address from Mutimer.

'I'm sure I shall try to,' she replied to the remark about Alice,
this time endeavouring to fix her obstinate eyes for a moment on
Richard's face.

'Your brother won't come, then?' Mrs. Waltham asked.

'Not just yet, I'm afraid. He's busy studying.'

'To read and write, I fear,' was the lady's silent comment. On the
score of Alice, too, Mrs. Waltham nursed a certain anxiety. The
damsels of the working class are, or so she apprehended, somewhat
more difficult of acceptance than their fathers and brothers, and
for several reasons. An artisan does not necessarily suggest, indeed
is very distinct from, the footman or even groom; but to dissociate
an uneducated maiden from the lower regions of the house is really
an exertion of the mind. And then, it is to be feared, the moral
tone of such young persons leaves for the most part much to be
desired. Mrs. Waltham was very womanly in her distrust of her sex.

After luncheon there was an inspection of the house. Adela did not
go farther than the drawing-room; her brother remained with her
whilst Mutimer led Mrs. Waltham through the chambers she might care
to see. The lady expressed much satisfaction. The furnishing had
been performed in a substantial manner, without display; one might
look forward to considerable comfort at the Manor.

'Any change that Adela suggests,' said Richard during this tour,
'shall of course be carried out at once. If she doesn't like the
paper in any of the rooms, she's only got to say so and choose a
better. Do you think she'd care to look at the stables? I'll get a
carriage for her, and a horse to ride, if she likes.'

Richard felt strongly that this was speaking in a generous way. He
was not aware that his tone hinted as much, but it unmistakably did.
The vulgarity of a man who tries hard not to be vulgar is always
particularly distressing.

'Oh, how kind!' murmured Mrs. Waltham. 'Adela has never ridden; I
should think carriage exercise would be enough for her. We mustn't
forget your principles, you know, for I'm sure they are very
admirable.'

'Oh, I don't care anything about luxuries myself, but Adela shall
have everything she wants.'

Alfred Waltham, who knew the house perfectly, led his mother to
inspect the stables, Mutimer remaining with Adela in the
drawing-room.

'You've been very quiet all dinner-time,' he said, taking a seat
near her and bending forward.

'A little, perhaps. I am thinking of so many things.'

'What are they, I wonder?'

'Will you let me have some books about Socialism, and the other
questions in which you are interested?'

'I should think I will! You really mean to study these things?'

'Yes, I will read and think about them. And I shall be glad if you
will explain to me more about the works. I have never quite
understood all that you wish to do. Perhaps you will have time when
you come to see us some evening.'

'Well, if I haven't time, I'll make it,' said Richard, laughing.
'You can't think how glad I am to hear you say this.'

'When do you expect your sister?'

'On Tuesday; at least, I hope it won't be later. I'm sure you'll
like her, you can't help. She hasn't such looks as you have, you
know, but we've always thought her very fair-looking. What do you
think we often call her? The Princess! That's part because of her
name, Alice Maud, and part from a sort of way she's always had. Not
a flighty way, but a sort of--well, I can't describe it. I do hope
you'll like her.'

It was the first time Adela had heard him speak in a tone which
impressed her as entirely honest, not excepting his talk of the
Propaganda. Here, she felt, was a side of his character that she had
not suspected. His voice was almost tender; the play of his features
betokened genuine feeling.

'I can see she is a great favourite with you,' she replied. 'I have
no doubt I shall like her.'

'You'll find a good deal that wants altering, I've no doubt,' he
pursued, now quite forgetful of himself. 'She hasn't had much
education, you know, till just lately. But you'll help her in that,
won't you? She's as good-natured as any girl living, and whenever
you put her right you may be sure she'll only thank you. I've wanted
to have her here before, only I thought I'd wait till I knew
whether--you know what I mean.

As if in a sudden gloom before her eyes Adela saw his face draw
nearer. It was a moment's loss of consciousness, in which a ghastly
fear flashed upon her soul. Then, with lips that quivered, she began
to talk quickly of Socialism, just to dispel the horror.

On the following afternoon Mutimer came, bringing a number of books,
pamphlets, and newspapers. Mrs. Waltham had discreetly abandoned the
sitting-room.

'I don't want to frighten you,' he said, laying down his bundle.
'You haven't got to read through all these. I was up nearly all last
night marking pages that I thought you'd better study first of all.
And here's a lot of back numbers of the "Fiery Cross;" I should like
you to read all that's signed by Mr. Westlake; he's the editor, you
know.'

'Is there anything here of your own writing?' Adela inquired.

'No, I haven't written anything. I've kept to lecturing; it comes
easier to me. After Christmas I shall have several lectures to give
in London. Perhaps you'll come and hear me?'

'Yes, of course.'

'Then you can get to know Mrs. Westlake, I dare say. She's a lady,
you know, like yourself. There's some poetry by her in the paper; it
just has her initials, "S. W." She's with us heart and soul, as
you'll see by her writing.'

'Is Alice a Socialist?' Adela asked, after glancing fitfully at the
papers.

Richard laughed.

'Oh, she's a princess; it would be too much to expect Socialism of
her. But I dare say she'll be beginning to think more now. I don't
mean she's been thoughtless in the wrong way; it's just a--I can't
very well describe it. But I hope you'll see her to-morrow night May
I bring her to you when she comes?'

'I hope you will.'

'I'm glad your brother won't be here. I only mean, you know, I'd
rather she got accustomed just to you first of all. I dare say
she'll be a bit timid, you won't mind that?'

Adela returned to the graver subject.

'All the people at New Wanley are Socialists?'

'Yes, all of them. They join the Union when they come to work, and
we take a good deal of care in choosing our men.'

'And you pay higher wages than other employers?'

'Not much higher, but the rents of the cottages are very low, and
all the food sold at the store is cost price. No, we don't pretend
to make the men rich. We've had a good lot coming with quite
mistaken ideas, and of course they wouldn't suit us. And you mustn't
call me the employer. All I have I look upon as the property of the
Union; the men own it as much as I do. It's only that I regulate the
work, just because somebody must. We're not making any profits to
speak of yet, but that'll only come in time; whatever remains as
clear profit,--and I don't take anything out of the works
myself--goes to the Propaganda fund of the Union.'

'Please forgive my ignorance. I've heard that word "Propaganda" so
often, but I don't know exactly what it means.'

Mutimer became patronising, quite without intending it.

'Propaganda? Oh, that's the spreading our ideas, you know; printing
paper, giving lectures, hiring places of meeting, and so on. That's
what Propaganda means.'

'Thank you,' said Adela musingly. Then she continued,--

'And the workmen only have the advantage, at present, of the low
rents and cheap food?'

'Oh, a good deal more. To begin with, they're housed like human
beings, and not like animals. Some day you shall see the kind of
places the people live in, in London and other big towns. You won't
believe your eyes. Then they have shorter hours of work; they're not
treated like omnibus horses, calculating just how much can be got
out of them without killing them before a reasonable time. Then
they're sure of their work as long as they keep honest and don't
break any of our rules; that's no slight thing, I can tell you. Why,
on the ordinary system a man may find himself and his family without
food any week end. Then there's a good school for the children; they
pay threepence a week for each child. Then there's the reading-room
and library, and the lectures, and the recreation-grounds. You just
come over the place with me some day, and talk with the women, and
see if they don't think they're well off.'

Adela looked him in the face.

'And it is you they have to thank for all this?'

'Well, I don't want any credit for it,' Mutimer replied, waving his
hand. 'What would you think of me if I worked them like niggers and
just enjoyed myself on the profits? That's what the capitalists do.'

'I think you are doing more than most men would. There is only one
thing.'

She dropped her voice.

'What's that, Adela?'

'I'll speak of it some other time.'

'I know what you mean. You're sorry I've got no religion. Ay, but I
have! There's my religion, down there in New Wanley. I'm saving men
and women and children from hunger and cold and the lives of brute
beasts. I teach them to live honestly and soberly. There's no
public-house in New Wanley, and there won't be.' (It just flashed
across Adela's mind that Mutimer drank wine himself.) 'There's no
bad language if I can help it. The children 'll be brought up to
respect the human nature that's in them, to honour their parents,
and act justly and kindly to all they have dealings with. Isn't
there a good deal of religion in that, Adela?'

'Yes, but not all. Not the most important part'

'Well, as you say, we'll talk over that some other time. And now I'm
sorry I can't stay any longer. I've twenty or thirty letters to get
written before post-time.'

Adela rose as he did.

'If there's ever anything I can do to help you,' she said modestly,
'you will not fail to ask me?'

'That I won't What I want you to do now is to read what I've marked
in those books. You mustn't tire your eyes, you know; there's plenty
of time.'

'I will read all you wish me to, and think over it as much as I
can.'

'Then you're a right-down good girl, and if I don't think myself a
lucky man, I ought to.'

He left her trembling with a strange new emotion, the begin fling of
a self-conscious zeal, an enthusiasm forced into being like a
hothouse flower. It made her cheeks burn; she could not rest till
her study had commenced.

Richard had written to his sister, saying that he wanted her, that
she must come at once. To Alice his thoughts had been long turning;
now that the time for action had arrived, it was to her that he
trusted for aid. Things he would find it impossible to do himself,
Alice might do for him. He did not doubt his power of persuading
her. With Alice principle would stand second to his advantage. He
had hard things to ask of her, but the case was a desperate one, and
she would endure the unpleasantness for his sake. He blessed her in
anticipation.

Alice received the letter summoning her on Monday morning. Richard
himself was expected in Highbury; expected, too, at a sad little
house in Hoxton; for he had constantly promised to spend Christmas
with his friends. The present letter did not say that he would not
come, only that he wanted his sister immediately. She was to bring
her best dress for wear when she arrived. He told her the train she
was to take on Tuesday morning.

The summons filled Alice with delight. Wanley, whence had come the
marvellous fortune, was in her imagination a land flowing with milk
and honey. Moreover, this would be her first experience of travel;
as yet she had never been farther out of London than to Epping
Forest. The injunction to bring her best dress excited visions of
polite company. All through Monday she practised ways of walking, of
eating, of speaking.

'What can he want you for?' asked Mrs. Mutimer gloomily. 'I sh'd 'a
thought he might 'a taken you with him after Christmas. It looks as
if he wasn't coming.'

The old woman had been habitually gloomy of late. The reply she had
received to her letter was not at all what she wanted; it increased
her impatience; she had read it endless times, trying to get at the
very meaning of it. Christmas must bring an end to this wretched
state of things; at Christmas Dick would come to London and marry
Emma; no doubt he had that time in view. Fears which she would not
consciously admit were hovering about her night and day. She had
begun to talk to herself aloud, a consequence of over-stress on a
brain never used to anxious thought; she went about the upper rooms
of the house muttering 'Dick's an honest man.' To keep moving seemed
a necessity to her; the chair in the dim corner of the dining-room
she now scarcely ever occupied, and the wonted employment of her
fingers was in abeyance. She spent most of her day in the kitchen;
already two servants had left because they could not endure her
fidgety supervision. She was growing suspicious of every one; Alice
had to listen ten times a day to complaints of dishonesty in the
domestics or the tradespeople; the old woman kept as keen a watch
over petty expenditure as if poverty had still to be guarded
against. And she was constantly visiting the Vines; she would rise
at small hours to get her house-work done, so as to be able to spend
the afternoon in Wilton Square. That, in truth, was still her home;
the new house could never be to her what the old was; she was a
stranger amid the new furniture, and sighed with relief as soon as
her eyes rested on the familiar chairs and tables which had been her
household gods through a lifetime.

'Arry had given comparatively little trouble of late; beyond an
occasional return home an hour or so after midnight, his proceedings
seemed to be perfectly regular. He saw a good deal of Mr. Keene,
who, as Alice gathered from various remarks in Richard's letters,
exercised over him a sort of tutorage. It was singular how
completely Richard seemed to have changed in his judgment of Mr.
Keene. 'His connection with newspapers makes him very useful,' said
one letter. 'Be as friendly with him as you like; I trust to your
good sense and understanding of your own interest to draw the line.'
When at the house Mr. Keene was profoundly respectful; his position
at such times was singular, for as often as not Alice had to
entertain him alone. Profound, too, was the journalist's discretion
in regard to all doings down at Wanley. Knowing he had several times
visited the Manor, Alice often sought information from him about her
brother's way of life. Mr. Keene always replied with generalities.
He was a man of humour in his way, and Alice came to regard him with
amusement. Then his extreme respect flattered her; insensibly she
took him for her criterion of gentility in men. He supplied her with
'society' journals, and now and then suggested the new novel that it
behoved her to read. Richard had even withdrawn his opposition to
the theatre-going; about once in three weeks Mr. Keene presented
himself with tickets, and Alice, accompanied by her brother,
accepted his invitation.

He called this Monday evening. Mrs. Mutimer, after spending a day of
fretful misery, had gone to Wilton Square; 'Arry was away at his
classes. Alice was packing certain articles she had purchased in the
afternoon, and had just delighted her soul with the inspection of a
travelling cloak, also bought to-day. When the visitor was
announced, she threw the garment over her shoulders and appeared in
it.

'Does this look nice, do you think?' she asked, after shaking hands
as joyously as her mood dictated.

'About as nice as a perfect thing always does when it's worn by a
perfect woman,' Mr. Keene replied, drawing back and inclining his
body at what he deemed a graceful angle.

'Oh, come, that's too much!' laughed Alice.

'Not a bit, Miss Mutimer. I suppose you travel in it tomorrow
morning?'

'How did you know that?'

'I have heard from your brother to-day. I thought I might perhaps
have the great pleasure of doing you some slight service either
to-night or in the morning. You will allow me to attend you to the
station?'

'I really don't think there's any need to trouble you,' Alice
replied. These respectful phrases always stirred her pleasurably: in
listening to them she bore herself with dignity, and endeavoured to
make answer in becoming diction.

'Trouble? What other object have I in life but to serve you? I'll
put it in another way: you won't refuse me the pleasure of being
near you for a few minutes?'

'I'm sure you're very kind. I know very well it's taking you out of
your way, but it isn't likely I shall refuse to let you come.'

Mr. Keene bowed low in silence.

'Have you brought me that paper?' Alice asked, seating herself with
careful arrangement of her dress. 'The Christmas number with the
ghost story you spoke of, you know?'

In the course of a varied life Mr. Keene had for some few months
trodden the boards of provincial theatres; an occasional turn of his
speech, and still more his favourite gestures, bore evidence to that
period of his career. Instead of making direct reply to Alice's
question, he stood for a moment as if dazed; then flinging back his
body, smote his forehead with a ringing slap, and groaned '0
Heaven!'

'What's the matter?' cried the girl, not quite knowing whether to be
amused or alarmed.

But Mr. Keene was rushing from the room, and in an instant the house
door sounded loudly behind him. Alice stood disconcerted; then,
thinking she understood, laughed gaily and ran upstairs to complete
her packing. In a quarter of an hour Mr. Keene's return brought her
to the drawing-room again. The journalist was propping himself
against the mantelpiece, gasping, his arms hanging limp, his hair
disordered. As Alice approached he staggered forward, fell on one
knee, and held to her the paper she had mentioned.

'Pardon--forgive!' he panted.

'Why, where ever have you been?' exclaimed Alice.

'No matter! what are time and space? Forgive me, Miss Mutimer! I
deserve to be turned out of the house, and never stand in the light
of your countenance again.'

'But how foolish! As if it mattered all that. What a state you're
in! I'll go and get you a glass of wine.'

She ran to the dining-room, and returned with a decanter and glass
on a tray. Mr. Keene had sunk upon a settee, one arm hanging over
the back, his eyes closed.

'You have pardoned me?' he murmured, regarding her with weary
rapture.

'I don't see what there is to pardon. Do drink a glass of wine!
Shall I pour it out for you?'

'Drink and service for the gods!'

'Do you mean the people in the gallery?' Alice asked roguishly,
recalling a term in which Mr. Keene had instructed her at their
latest visit to the theatre.

'You are as witty as you are beautiful!' he sighed, taking the glass
and draining it. Alice turned away to the fire; decidedly Mr. Keene
was in a gallant mood this evening; hitherto his compliments had
been far more guarded.

They began to converse in a more terrestrial manner. Alice wanted to
know whom she was likely to meet at Wanley; and Mr. Keene, in a
light way, sketched for her the Waltham family. She became
thoughtful whilst he was describing Adela Waltham, and subsequently
recurred several times to that young lady. The journalist allowed
himself to enter into detail, and Alice almost ceased talking.

It drew on to half-past nine. Mr. Keene never exceeded discretion in
the hours of his visits. He looked at his watch and rose.

'I may call at nine?' he said.

'If you really have time. But I can manage quite well by myself, you
know.'

'What you _can_ do is not the question. If I had my will you should
never know a moment's trouble as long as you lived.'

'If I never have worse trouble than going to the railway station, I
shall think myself lucky.'

'Miss Mutimer--'

'Yes?'

'You won't drop me altogether from your mind whilst you're away?'

There was a change in his voice. He had abandoned the tone of
excessive politeness, and spoke very much like a man who has feeling
at the back of his words. Alice regarded him nervously.

'I'm not going to be away more than a day or two,' she said,
smoothing a fold in her dress.

'If it was only an hour or two I couldn't bear to think you'd
altogether forgotten me.'

'Why, of course I shan't!'

'But--Miss Mutimer, I'm abusing confidence. Your brother trusts me;
he's done me a good many kindnesses. But I can't help it, upon my
soul. If you betray me, I'm done for. You won't do that? I put
myself in your power, and you're too good to hurt a fly.'

'What do you mean, Mr. Keene?' Alice asked, inwardly pleased, yet
feeling uncomfortable.

'I can't go away to-night without saying it, and ten to one it means
I shall never see you again. You know what I mean. Well, harm me as
you like; I'd rather be harmed by you than done good to by any one
else. I've got so far, there's no going back. Do you think some day
you could--do you think you _could_?'

Alice dropped her eyes and shook her pretty head slowly.

'I can't give any promise of that kind,' she replied under her
breath.

'You hate me? I'm a disagreeable beast to you? I'm a low--'

'Oh dear, don't say such things, Mr. Keene! The idea! I don't
dislike you a bit; but of course that's a different thing--'

He held out his hand sadly, dashing the other over his eyes.

'Good-bye, I don't think I can come again. I've abused confidence.
When your brother hears of it--. But no matter, I'm only a--a sort
of crossing-sweeper in your eyes.'

Alice's laugh rang merrily.

'What things you do call yourself! Now, don't go off like that, Mr.
Keene. To begin with, my brother won't hear anything about it--'

'You mean that? You are so noble, so forgiving? Pooh, as if I didn't
know you were! Upon my soul, I'd run from here to South Kensington,
like the ragamuffins after the cabs with luggage, only just to get a
smile from you. Oh, Miss Mutimer--oh!'

'Mr. Keene, I can't say yes, and I don't like to be so unkind to you
as to say no. You'll let that do for the present, won't you?'

'Bless your bright eyes, of course I will! If I don't love you for
your own sake, I'm the wretchedest turnip-snatcher in London.
Good-bye, Princess!'

'Who taught you to call me that?'

'Taught me? It was only a word that came naturally to my lips.'

Curiously, this was quite true. It impressed Alice Maud, and she
thought of Mr. Keene for at least five minutes continuously after
his departure.

She was extravagantly gay as they drove in a four-wheeled cab to the
station next morning. Mr. Keene made no advances. He sat
respectfully on the seat opposite her, with a travelling bag on his
knees, and sighed occasionally. When she had secured her seat in the
railway carriage he brought her sandwiches, buns, and sweetmeats
enough for a voyage to New York. Alice waved her hand to him as the
train moved away.

She reached Agworth at one o'clock; Richard had been pacing the
platform impatiently for twenty minutes. Porters were eager to do
his bidding, and his instructions to them were suavely imperative.

'They know me,' he remarked to Alice, with his air of satisfaction.
'I suppose you're half frozen? I've got a foot-warmer in the trap.'

The carriage promised to Adela was a luxury Richard had not ventured
to allow himself. Alice mounted to a seat by his side, and he drove
off.

'Why on earth did you come second-class?' he asked, after examining
her attire with approval.

'Ought it to have been first? It really seemed such a lot of money,
Dick, when I came to look at the fares.'

'Yes, it ought to have been first. In London things don't matter,
but here I'm known, you see. Did mother go to the station with you?'

'No, Mr. Keene did.'

'Keene, eh?' He bent his brows a moment.

'I hope he behaves himself?'

'I'm sure he's very gentlemanly.'

'Yes, you ought to have come first-class. A princess riding
second'll never do. You look well, old girl? Glad to come, eh?'

'Well, guess! And is this your own horse and trap, Dick?'

'Of course it is.'

'Who was that man? He touched his hat to you.'

Mutimer glanced back carelessly.

'I'm sure I don't know. Most people touch their hats to me about
here.'

It was an ideal winter day. A feathering of snow had fallen at dawn,
and now the clear, cold sun made it sparkle far and wide. The
horse's tread rang on the frozen highway. A breeze from the
north-west chased the blood to healthsome leaping, and caught the
breath like an unexpected kiss. The colour was high on Alice's fair
cheeks; she laughed with delight.

'Oh, Dick, what a thing it is to be rich! And you do look such a
gentleman; it's those gloves, I think.'

'Now we're going into the village,' Mutimer said presently. 'Don't
look about you too much, and don't seem to be asking questions.
Everybody 'll be at the windows.'





CHAPTER XV




Between the end of the village street and the gates of the Manor,
Mutimer gave his sister hasty directions as to her behaviour before
the servants.

'Put on just a bit of the princess,' he said. 'Not too much, you
know, but just enough to show that it isn't the first time in your
life that you've been waited on. Don't always give a 'thank you;'
one every now and then'll do. I wouldn't smile too much or look
pleased, whatever you see. Keep that all till we're alone together.
We shall have lunch at once; I'll do most of the talking whilst the
servants are about; you just answer quietly.'

These instructions were interesting, but not altogether
indispensable; Alice Maud had by this time a very pretty notion of
how to conduct herself in the presence of menials. The trying moment
was on entering the house; it was very hard indeed not to utter her
astonishment and delight at the dimensions of the hall and the
handsome staircase. This point safely passed, she resigned herself
to splendour, and was conducted to her room in a sort of romantic
vision. The Manor satisfied her idea of the ancestral mansion so
frequently described or alluded to in the fiction of her earlier
years. If her mind had just now reverted to Mr. Keene, which of
course it did not, she would have smiled very royally indeed.

When she entered the drawing-room, clad in that best gown which her
brother had needlessly requested her to bring, and saw that Richard
was standing on the hearth-rug quite alone, she could no longer
contain herself, but bounded towards him like a young fawn, and
threw her arms on his neck.

'Oh, Dick,' she whispered, 'what a thing it is to be rich! How ever
did we live so long in the old way! If I had to go back to it now I
should die of misery.'

'Let's have a look at you,' he returned, holding her at arm's
length. 'Yes, I think that'll about do. Now mind you don't let them
see that you're excited about it. Sit down here and pretend to be a
bit tired. They may come and say lunch is ready any moment.'

'Dick, I never felt so good in my life! I should like to go about
the streets and give sovereigns to everybody I met.'

Richard laughed loudly.

'Well, well, there's better ways than that. I've been giving a good
many sovereigns for a long time now. I'm only sorry you weren't here
when we opened the Hall.'

'But you haven't told me why you sent for me now.'

'All right, we've got to have a long talk presently. It isn't all as
jolly as you think, but I can't help that'

'Why, what can be wrong, Dick?'

'Never mind; it'll all come out in time.'

Alice came back upon certain reflections which had occupied her
earlier in the morning; they kept her busy through luncheon. Whilst
she ate, Richard observed her closely; on the whole he could not
perceive a great difference between her manners and Adela's.
Difference there was, but in details to which Mutimer was not very
sensitive. He kept up talk about the works for the most part, and
described certain difficulties concerning rights of way which had of
late arisen in the vicinity of the industrial settlement.

'I think you shall come and sit with me in the library,' he said as
they rose from table. And he gave orders that coffee should be
served to them in that room.

The library did not as yet quite justify its name. There was only
one bookcase, and not more than fifty volumes stood on its shelves.
But a large writing-table was well covered with papers. There were
no pictures on the walls, a lack which was noticeable throughout the
house. The effect was a certain severity; there was no air of home
in the spacious chambers; the walls seemed to frown upon their
master, the hearths were cold to him as to an intruding alien.
Perhaps Alice felt something of this; on entering the library she
shivered a little, and went to warm her hands at the fire.

'Sit in this deep chair,' said her brother. 'I'll have a cigarette.
How's mother?'

'Well, she hasn't been quite herself,' Alice replied, gazing into
the fire. 'She can't get to feel at home, that's the truth of it.
She goes. very often to the old house.'

'Goes very often to the old house, does she?'

He repeated the words mechanically, watching smoke that issued from
his lips. 'Suppose she'll get all right in time.'

When the coffee arrived a decanter of cognac accompanied it. Richard
had got into the habit of using the latter rather freely of late. He
needed a stimulant in view of the conversation that was before him.
The conversation was difficult to begin. For a quarter of an hour he
strayed over subjects, each of which, he thought, might bring him to
the point. A question from Alice eventually gave him the requisite
impulse.

'What's the bad news you've got to tell me, Dick?' she asked shyly.

'Bad news? Why, yes, I suppose it is bad, and it's no use pretending
anything else. I've brought you down here just to tell it you.
Somebody must know first, and it had better be somebody who'll
listen patiently, and perhaps help me to get over it. I don't know
quite how you'll take it, Alice. For anything I can tell you may get
up and be off, and have nothing more to do with me.'

'Why, what ever can it be, Dick? Don't talk nonsense. You're not
afraid of _me_, I should think.'

'Yes, I am a bit afraid of you, old girl. It isn't a nice thing to
tell you, and there's the long and short of it. I'm hanged if I know
how to begin.'

He laughed in an irresolute way. Trying to light a new cigarette
from the remnants of the one he had smoked, his hands shook. Then he
had recourse again to cognac.

Alice was drumming with her foot on the floor. She sat forward, her
arms crossed upon her lap. Her eyes were still on the fire.

'Is it anything about Emma, Dick?' she asked, after a disconcerting
silence.

'Yes, it is.'

'Hadn't you better tell me at once? It isn't at all nice to feel
like this.'

'Well, I'll tell you. I can't marry Emma; I'm going to marry someone
else.'

Alice was prepared, but the plain words caused her a moment's
consternation.

'Oh, what ever will they all say, Dick?' she exclaimed in a low
voice.

'That's bad enough, to be sure, but I think more about Emma herself.
I feel ashamed of myself, and that's the plain truth. Of course I
shall always give her and her sisters all the money they want to
live upon, but that isn't altogether a way out. If only I could have
hinted something to her before now. I've let it go on so long. I'm
going to be married in a fortnight.'

He could not look Alice in the face, nor she him. His shame made him
angry; he flung the half-smoked cigarette violently into the
fire-place, and began to walk about the room. Alice was speaking,
but he did not heed her, and continued with impatient loudness.

'Who the devil could imagine what was going to happen? Look here,
Alice; if it hadn't been for mother, I shouldn't have engaged myself
to Emma. I shouldn't have cared much in the old kind of life; she'd
have suited me very well. You can say all the good about her you
like, I know it'll be true. It's a cursed shame to treat her in this
way, I don't need telling that. But it wouldn't do as things are;
why, you can see for yourself--would it now? And that's only half
the question: I'm going to marry somebody I do really care for.
What's the good of keeping my word to Emma, only to be miserable
myself and make her the same? It's the hardest thing ever happened
to a man. Of course I shall be blackguarded right and left. Do I
deserve it now? Can I help it?'

It was not quite consistent with the tone in which he had begun, but
it had the force of a genuine utterance. To this Richard had worked
himself in fretting over his position; he was the real sufferer,
though decency compelled him to pretend it was not so. He had come
to think of Emma almost angrily; she was a clog on him, and all the
more irritating because he knew that his brute strength, if only he
might exert it, could sweep her into nothingness at a blow. The
quietness with which Alice accepted his revelation encouraged him in
self-defence. He talked on for several minutes, walking about and
swaying his arms, as if in this way he could literally shake himself
free of moral obligations. Then, finding his throat dry, he had
recourse to cognac, and Alice could at length speak.

'You haven't told me, Dick, who it is you're going to marry.'

'A lady called Miss Waltham--Adela Waltham. She lives here in
Wanley.'

'Does she know about Emma?'

The question was simply put, but it seemed to affect Richard very
disagreeably.

'No, of course she doesn't. What would be the use?'

He threw himself into a chair, crossed his feet, and kept silence.

'I'm very sorry for Emma,' murmured his sister.

Richard said nothing.

'How shall you tell her, Dick?'

'I can't tell her!' he replied, throwing out an arm. 'How is it
likely I can tell her?'

'And Jane's so dreadfully bad,' continued Alice in the undertone.
'She's always saying she cares for nothing but to see Emma married.
What _shall_ we do? And everything seemed so first-rate. Suppose she
summonses you, Dick?'

The noble and dignified legal process whereby maidens right
themselves naturally came into Alice's thoughts. Her brother scouted
the suggestion.

'Emma's not that kind of girl. Besides, I've told you I shall always
send her money. She'll find another husband before long. Lots of men
'ud be only too glad to marry her.'

Alice was not satisfied with her brother. The practical aspects of
the rupture she could consider leniently, but the tone he assumed
was jarring to her instincts. Though nothing like a warm friendship
existed between her and Emma, she sympathised, in a way impossible
to Richard, with the sorrows of the abandoned girl. She was
conscious of what her judgment would be if another man had acted
thus; and though this was not so much a matter of consciousness, she
felt that Richard might have spoken in a way more calculated to aid
her in taking his side. She wished, in fact, to see only his
advantage, and was very much tempted to see everything but that.

'But you can't keep her in the dark any longer,' she urged. 'Why,
it's cruel!'

'I can't tell her,' he repeated monotonously.

Alice drew in her feet. It symbolised retiring within her defences.
She saw what he was aiming at, and felt not at all disposed to
pleasure him. There was a long silence; Alice was determined not to
be the first to break it.

'You refuse to help me?' Richard asked at length, between his teeth.

'I think it would be every bit as bad for me as for you,' she
replied.

'That you can't think,' he argued. 'She can't blame you; you've only
to say I've behaved like a blackguard, and you're out of it.'

'And when do you mean to tell mother?'

'She'll have to hear of it from other people. I can't tell her.'

Richard had a suspicion that he was irretrievably ruining himself in
his sister's opinion, and it did not improve his temper. It was a
foretaste of the wider obloquy to come upon him, possibly as hard to
bear as any condemnation to which he had exposed himself. He shook
himself out of the chair.

'Well, that's all I've got to tell you. Perhaps you'd better think
over it. I don't want to keep you away from home longer than you
care to stay. There's a train at a few minutes after nine in the
morning.'

He shuffled for a few moments about the writing-table, then went
from the room.

Alice was unhappy. The reaction from her previous high spirits, as
soon as it had fully come about, brought her even to tears. She
cried silently, and, to do the girl justice, at least half her
sorrow was on Emma's account. Presently she rose and began to walk
about the room; she went to the window, and looked out on to the
white garden. The sky beyond the thin boughs was dusking; the wind,
which sang so merrily a few hours ago, had fallen to sobbing.

It was too wretched to remain alone; she resolved to go into the
drawing-room; perhaps her brother was there. As she approached the
door somebody knocked on the outside, then there entered a dark man
of spruce appearance, who drew back a step as soon as he saw her.

'Pray excuse me,' he said, with an air of politeness. 'I supposed I
should find Mr. Mutimer here.'

'I think he's in the house,' Alice replied.

Richard appeared as they were speaking.

'What is it, Rodman?' he asked abruptly, passing into the library.

'I'll go to the drawing-room,' Alice said, and left the men
together.

In half an hour Richard again joined her. He seemed in a better
frame of mind, for he came in humming. Alice, having glanced at him,
averted her face again and kept silence. She felt a hand smoothing
her hair. Her brother, leaning over the back of her seat, whispered
to her,--

'You'll help me, Princess?'

She did not answer.

'You won't be hard, Alice? It's a wretched business, and I don't
know what I shall do if you throw me over. I can't do without you,
old girl.'

'I can't tell mother, Dick. You know very well what it'll be. I
daren't do that.'

But even that task Alice at last took upon herself, after another
half-hour's discussion. Alas! she would never again feel towards her
brother as before this necessity fell upon her. Her life had
undergone that impoverishment which is so dangerous to elementary
natures, the loss of an ideal.

'You'll let me stay over to-morrow?' she said. 'There's nothing very
pleasant to go back to, and I don't see that a day 'll matter.'

'You can stay if you wish. I'm going to take you to have tea with
Adela now. If you stay we'll have her to dinner to-morrow.'

'I wonder whether we shall get along?' Alice mused.

'I don't see why not. You'll get lots of things from her, little
notions of all kinds.'

This is always a more or less dangerous form of recommendation, even
in talking to one's sister. To suggest that Adela would benefit by
the acquaintance would have been a far more politic procedure.

'What's wrong with me?' Alice inquired, still depressed by the scene
she had gone through.

'Oh, there's nothing wrong. It's only that you'll see differences at
first; from the people you've been used to, I mean. But I think
you'll have to go and get your things on; it's nearly five.'

In Alice's rising from her chair there was nothing of the elasticity
that had marked her before luncheon. Before moving away she spoke a
thought that was troubling her.

'Suppose mother tries to stop it?'

Richard looked to the ground moodily.

'I meant to tell you,' he said. 'You'd better say that I'm already
married.'

'You're giving me a nice job,' was the girl's murmured rejoinder.

'Well, it's as good as true. And it doesn't make the job any worse.'

As is wont to be the case when two persons come to mutual
understanding on a piece of baseness, the tone of brother and sister
had suffered in the course of their dialogue. At first meeting they
had both kept a certain watch upon their lips, feeling that their
position demanded it; a moral limpness was evident in them by this
time.

They set forth to walk to the Walthams'. Exercise in the keen air,
together with the sense of novelty in her surroundings, restored
Alice's good humour before the house was reached. She gazed with
astonishment at the infernal glare over New Wanley. Her brother
explained the sight to her with gusto.

'It used to be all fields and gardens over there,' he said. 'See
what money and energy can do! You shall go over the works in the
morning. Perhaps Adela will go with us, then we can take her back to
the Manor.'

'Why do they call the house that, Dick?' Alice inquired. 'Is it
because people who live there are supposed to have good manners?'

'May be, for anything I know,' was the capitalist's reply. 'Only
it's spelt different, you know. I say, Alice, you must be careful
about your spelling; there were mistakes in your last letter. Won't
do, you know, to make mistakes if you write to Adela.'

Alice gave a little shrug of impatience. Immediately after, they
stopped at the threshold sacred to all genteel accomplishments--so
Alice would have phrased it if she could have fully expressed her
feeling--and they speedily entered the sitting. room, where the
table was already laid for tea. Mrs. Waltham and her daughter rose
to welcome them.

'We knew of your arrival,' said the former, bestowing on Alice a
maternal salute. 'Not many things happen in Wanley that all the
village doesn't hear of, do they, Mr. Mutimer? Of course we expected
you to tea.'

Adela and her future sister-in-law kissed each other. Adela was
silent, but she smiled.

'You'll take your things off, my dear?' Mrs. Waltham continued.
'Will you go upstairs with Miss Mutimer, Adela?'

But for Mrs. Waltham's persistent geniality the hour which followed
would have shown many lapses of conversation. Alice appreciated at
once those 'differences' at which her brother had hinted, and her
present frame of mind was not quite consistent with patient
humility. Naturally, she suffered much from self-consciousness; Mrs.
Waltham annoyed her by too frequent observation, Adela by seeming
indifference. The delicacy of the latter was made perhaps a little
excessive by strain of feelings. Alice at once came to the
conclusion that Dick's future wife was cold and supercilious. She
was not predisposed to like Adela. The circumstances were in a
number of ways unfavourable. Even had there not existed the very
natural resentment at the painful task which this young lady had
indirectly imposed upon her, it was not in Alice's blood and
breeding to take kindly at once to a girl of a class above her own.
Alice had warm affections; as a lady's maid she might very
conceivably have attached herself with much devotion to an indulgent
mistress, but in the present case too much was asked of her, Richard
was proud of his sister; he saw her at length seated where he had so
often imagined her, and in his eyes she bore herself well. He
glanced often at Adela, hoping for a return glance of
congratulation; when it failed to come, he consoled himself with the
reflection that such silent interchange of sentiments at table would
be ill manners. In his very heart he believed that of the two
maidens his sister was the better featured. Adela and Alice sat over
against each other; their contrasted appearances were a chapter of
social history. Mark the difference between Adela's gently closed
lips, every muscle under control; and Alice's, which could never
quite close without forming a saucy pout or a self-conscious
primness. Contrast the foreheads; on the one hand that tenderly
shadowed curve of brow, on the other the surface which always seemed
to catch too much of the light, which moved irregularly with the
arches above the eyes. The grave modesty of the one face, the now
petulant, now abashed, now vacant expression of the other. Richard
in his heart preferred the type he had 80 long been familiar with; a
state of feeling of course in no way inconsistent with the emotions
excited in him by continual observation of Adela.

The two returned to the Manor at half-past seven, Alice rising with
evident relief when he gave the signal. It was agreed that the
latter part of the next morning should be spent in going over the
works. Adela was very willing to be of the party.

'They haven't much money, have they?' was Alice's first question as
soon as she got away from the door.

'No, they are not rich,' replied the brother. 'You got on very
nicely, old girl.'

'Why shouldn't I? You talk as if I didn't know how to behave myself,
Dick.'

'No, I don't. I say that you did behave yourself.'

'Yes, and you were surprised at it.'

'I wasn't at all. What do you think of her?'

'She doesn't say much.'

'No, she's always very quiet. It's her way.'

'Yes.'

The monosyllable meant more than Richard gathered from it. They
walked on in silence, and were met presently by a gentleman who was
coming along the village street at a sharp pace. A lamp discovered
Mr. Willis Rodman. Richard stopped.

'Seen to that little business?' he asked, in a cheerful voice.

'Yes,' was Rodman's reply. 'We shall hear from Agworth in the
morning.'

'All right.--Alice, this is Mr. Rodman.--My sister, Rodman.'

Richard's right-hand man performed civilities with decidedly more
finish than Richard himself had at command.

'I am very happy to meet Miss Mutimer. I hope we shall have the
pleasure of showing her New Wanley to-morrow.'

'She and Miss Waltham will walk down in the morning. Good night,
Rodman. Cold, eh?'

'Why didn't you introduce him this afternoon?' Alice asked as she
walked on.

'I didn't think of it--I was bothered.'

'He seems very gentlemanly.'

'Oh, Rodman's seen a deal of life. He's a useful fellow--gets
through work in a wonderful way.'

'But _is_ he a gentleman? I mean, was he once?'

Richard laughed.

'I suppose you mean, had he ever money? No, he's made himself what
he is.'

Tea having supplied the place of the more substantial evening meal,
Richard and his sister had supper about ten o'clock. Alice drank
champagne; a few bottles remained from those dedicated to the recent
festival, and Mutimer felt the necessity of explaining the presence
in his house of a luxury which to his class is more than anything
associated with the bloated aristocracy. Alice drank it for the
first time in her life, and her spirits grew as light as the foam
upon her glass. Brother and sister were quietly confidential as
midnight drew near.

'Shall you bring her to London?' Alice inquired, without previous
mention of Adela.

'For a week, I think. We shall go to an hotel, of course. She's
never seen London since she was a child.'

'She won't come to Highbury?'

'No. I shall avoid that somehow. You'll have to come and see us at
the hotel. We'll go to the theatre together one night.'

'What about 'Arry?'

'I don't know. I shall think about it.'

Digesting much at his ease, Richard naturally became dreamful.

'I may have to take a house for a time now and then,' he said.

'In London?'

He nodded.

'I mustn't forget you, you see, Princess. Of course you'll come here
sometimes, but that's not much good. In London I dare say I can get
you to know some of the right kind of people. I want Adela to be
thick with the Westlakes; then your chance'll come. See, old woman?'

Alice, too, dreamed.

'I wonder you don't want me to marry a Socialist working man,' she
said presently, as if twitting him playfully.

'You don't understand. One of the things we aim at is to remove the
distinction between classes. I want you to marry one of those they
call gentlemen. And you shall too, Alice!'

'Well, but I'm not a working girl now, Dick.'

He laughed, and said it was time to go to bed.

The same evening conversation continued to a late hour
between Hubert Eldon and his mother. Hubert was returning to London
the next morning.

Yesterday there had come to him two letters from Wanley, both
addressed in female hand. He knew Adela's writing from her signature
in the 'Christian Year,' and hastily opened the letter which came
from her. The sight of the returned sonnets checked the eager flow
of his blood; he was prepared for what he afterwards read.

'Then let her meet her fate,'--so ran his thoughts when he had
perused the cold note, unassociable with the Adela he imagined in
its bald formality. 'Only life can teach her.'

The other letter he suspected to be from Letty Tew, as it was.

'DEAR MR. ELDON,--I cannot help writing a line to you, lest you
should think that I did not keep my promise in the way you
understood it. I did indeed. You will hear from her; she preferred
to write herself, and perhaps it was better; I should only have had
painful things to say. I wish to ask you to have no unkind or unjust
thoughts; I scarcely think you could have. Please do not trouble to
answer this, but believe me, yours sincerely,

'L. TEW.'

'Good little girl!' he said to himself, smiling sadly. 'I feel sure
she did her best.'

But his pride was asserting itself, always restive under
provocation. To rival with a man like Mutimer! Better that the
severance with old days should be complete.

He talked it all over very frankly with his mother, who felt that
her son's destiny was not easily foreseen.

'And what do you propose to do, Hubert?' she asked, when they spoke
of the future. i88 Demos

'To study, principally art. In a fortnight I go to Rome.'

Mrs. Eldon had gone thither thirty years ago.

'Think of me in. my chair sometimes,' she said, touching his hands
with her wan fingers.





CHAPTER XVI




Alice reached home again on Christmas Eve. It was snowing; she came
in chilled and looking miserable. Mrs. Mutimer met her in the hall,
passed her, and looked out at the open door, then turned with a few
white flecks on her gown.

'Where's Dick?

'He couldn't come,' replied the girl briefly, and ran up to her
room.

'Arry was spending the evening with friends. Since tea-time the old
woman had never ceased moving from room to room, up and down stairs.
She had got out an old pair of Richard's slippers, and had put them
before the dining-room fire to warm. She had made a bed for Richard,
and had a fire burning in the chamber. She had made arrangements for
her eldest son's supper. No word had come from Wanley, but she held
to the conviction that this night would see Richard in London.

Alice came down and declared that she was very hungry. Her mother
went to the kitchen to order a meal, which in the end she prepared
with her own hands. She seemed to have a difficulty in addressing
any one. Whilst Alice ate in silence, Mrs. Mutimer kept going in and
out of the room; when the girl rose from the table, she stood before
her and asked:

'Why couldn't he come?'

Alice went to the fireplace, knelt down, and spread her hands to.
the blaze. Her mother approached her again.

'Won't you give me no answer, Alice?'

'He couldn't come, mother. Something important is keeping him.'

'Something important? And why did he want you there?'

Alice rose to her feet, made one false beginning, then spoke to the
point.

'Dick's married, mother.'

The old woman's eyes seemed to grow small in her wrinkled face, as
if directing themselves with effort upon something minute. They
looked straight into the eyes of her daughter, but had a more
distant focus. The fixed gaze continued for nearly a minute.

'What are you talking about, girl?' she said at length, in a strange,
rattling voice. 'Why, I've seen Emma this very morning. Do you think
she wouldn't 'a told me if she'd been a wife?'

Alice was frightened by the look and the voice.

'Mother, it isn't Emma at all. It's someone at Wanley. We can't help
it, mother. It's no use taking on. Now sit down and make yourself
quiet. It isn't our fault.'

Mrs. Mutimer smiled in a grim way, then laughed--a most unmusical
laugh.

'Now what's the good o' joking in that kind o' way? That's like your
father, that is; he'd often come 'ome an' tell me sich things as
never was, an' expect me to believe 'em. An' I used to purtend I
did, jist to please him. But I'm too old for that kind o'
jokin'.--Alice, where's Dick? How long'll it be before he's here?
Where did he leave you?'

'Now do just sit down, mother; here, in this chair. Just sit quiet
for a little, do.'

Mrs. Mutimer pushed aside the girl's hand; her face had become grave
again.

'Let me be, child. And I tell you I have seen Emma to-day. Do you
think she wouldn't 'a told me if things o' that kind was goin' on?'

'Emma knows nothing about it, mother. He hasn't told any one. He got
me to come because he couldn't tell it himself. It was as much a
surprise to me as to you, and I think it's very cruel of him. But
it's over, and we can't help it. I shall have to tell Emma, I
suppose, and a nice thing too!'

The old woman had begun to quiver; her hands shook by her sides, her
very features trembled with gathering indignation.

'Dick has gone an' done this?' she stammered. 'He's gone an' broke
his given word? He's deceived that girl as trusted to him an'
couldn't help herself?'

'Now, mother, don't take on so! You're going to make yourself ill.
It can't be helped. He says he shall send Emma money just the same.'

'Money! There you've hit the word; it's money as 'as ruined him, and
as 'll be the ruin of us all. Send her money! What does the man
think she's made of? Is all his feelings got as hard as money? and
does he think the same of every one else? If I know Emma, she'll
throw his money in his face. I knew what 'ud come of it, don't tell
me I didn't. That very night as he come 'ome an' told me what had
'appened, there was a cold shiver run over me. I told him as it was
the worst news ever come into our 'ouse, and now see if I wasn't
right! He was angry with me 'cause I said it, an' who's a right to
be angry now? It's my belief as money's the curse o' this world; I
never knew a trouble yet as didn't somehow come of it, either 'cause
there was too little or else too much. And Dick's gone an' done
this? And him with all his preachin' about rights and wrongs an'
what not! Him as was always a-cryin' down the rich folks 'cause they
hadn't no feelin' for the poor! What feeling's _he_ had, I'd like to
know? It's him as is rich now, an' where's the difference 'tween him
and them as he called names? No feelin' for the poor! An' what's
Emma Vine? Poor enough by now. There's Jane as can't have not a week
more to live, an' she a-nursin' her night an' day. He'll give her
money!--has he got the face to say it? Nay, don't talk to me, girl;
I'll say what I think. if it's the last I speak in this world. Don't
let him come to me! Never a word again shall he have from me as long
as I live. He's disgraced himself, an' me his mother, an' his father
in the grave. A poor girl as couldn't help herself, as trusted him
an' wouldn't hear not a word against him, for all he kep' away from
her in her trouble. I'd a fear o' this, but I wouldn't believe it of
Dick; I wouldn't believe it of a son o' mine. An' 'Arry 'll go the
same way. It's all the money, an a curse go with all the money as
ever was made! An' you too, Alice, wi' your fine dresses, an' your
piannerin', an' your faldedals. But I warn you, my girl. There 'll
no good come of it. I warn you, Alice! You're ashamed o' your own
mother--oh, I've seen it! But it's a mercy if you're not a disgrace
to her. I'm thankful as I was always poor; I might 'a been tempted
i' the same way.'

The dogma of a rude nature full of secret forces found utterance at
length under the scourge of a resentment of very mingled quality.
Let half be put to the various forms of disinterested feeling, at
least half was due to personal exasperation. The whole change that
her life had perforce undergone was an outrage upon the stubbornness
of uninstructed habit; the old woman could see nothing but evil
omens in a revolution which cost her bodily discomfort and the
misery of a mind perplexed amid alien conditions. She was prepared
for evil; for months she had brooded over every sign which seemed to
foretell its approach; the egoism of the unconscious had made it
plain to her that the world must suffer in a state of things which
so grievously affected herself. Maternal solicitude kept her
restlessly swaying between apprehension for her children and injury
in the thought of their estrangement from her. And now at length a
bitter shame added itself to her torments. She was shamed in her
pride as a mother, shamed before the girl for whom she nourished a
deep affection. Emma's injuries she felt charged upon herself; she
would never dare to stand before her again. Her moral code, as much
a part of her as the sap of the plant and as little the result of
conscious absorption, declared itself on the side of all these
rushing impulses; she was borne blindly on an exhaustless flux of
words. After vain attempts to make herself heard, Alice turned away
and sat sullenly waiting for the outburst to spend itself. Herself
comparatively unaffected by the feelings strongest in her mother,
this ear-afflicting clamour altogether checked her sympathy, and in
a great measure overcame those personal reasons which had made her
annoyed with Richard. She found herself taking his side, even knew
something of his impatience with Emma and her sorrows. When it came
to rebukes and charges against herself her impatience grew active.
She stood up again and endeavoured to make herself heard.

'What's the good of going on like this, mother? Just because you're
angry, that's no reason you should call us all the names you can
turn your tongue to. It's over and done with, and there's an end of
it. I don't know what you mean about disgracing you; I think you
might wait till the time comes. I don't see what I've done as you
can complain of.'

'No, of course you don't,' pursued her mother bitterly. 'It's the
money as prevents you from seeing it. Them as was good enough for
you before you haven't a word to say to now; a man as works honestly
for his living you make no account of. Well, well, you must go your
own way--'

'What is it you want, mother? You don't expect me to look no higher
than when I hadn't a penny but what I worked for? I've no patience
with you. You ought to be glad--'

'You haven't no patience, of course you haven't. And I'm to be glad
when a son of mine does things as he deserves to be sent to prison
for! I don't understand that kind o' gladness. But mind what I say;
do what you like with your money, I'll have no more part in it. If I
had as much as ten shillings a week of my own, I'd go and live by
myself, and leave you to take your own way. But I tell you what I
_can_ do, and what I will. I'll have no more servants a-waitin' on
_me_; I wasn't never used to it, and I'm too old to begin. I go to
my own bedroom upstairs, and there I live, and there 'll be nobody
go into that room but myself. I'll get my bits o' meals from the
kitchen. 'Tain't much as I want, thank goodness, an' it won't be
missed. I'll have no more doin's with servants, understand that; an'
if I can't be left alone i' my own room, I'll go an' find a room
where I can, an' I'll find some way of earnin' what little I want.
It's your own house, and you'll do what you like in it. There's the
keys, I've done with 'em; an' here's the money too, I'm glad to be
rid of it. An' you'll just tell Dick. I ain't one as says what I
don't mean, nor never was, as that you know. You take your way, an'
I'll take mine. An' now may be I'll get a night's sleep, the first
I've had under this roof.'

As she spoke she took from her pockets the house keys, and from her
purse the money she used for current expenses, and threw all
together on to the table. Alice had turned to the fireplace, and she
stood so for a long time after her mother had left the room. Then
she took the keys and the money, consulted her watch, and in a few
minutes was walking from the house to a neighbouring cab-stand.

She drove to Wilton Square. Inspecting the front of the house before
knocking at the door, she saw a light in the kitchen and a dimmer
gleam at an upper window. It was Mrs. Clay who opened to her.

'Is Emma in?' Alice inquired as she shook hands rather coldly.

'She's sitting with Jane. I'll tell her. There's no fire except in
the kitchen,' Kate added, in a tone which implied that doubtless her
visitor was above taking a seat downstairs.

'I'll go down,' Alice replied, with just a touch of condescension.
'I want to speak a word or two with Emma, that's all.'

Kate left her to descend the stairs, and went to inform her sister.
Emma was not long in appearing; the hue of her face was troubled,
for she had deceived herself with the belief that it was Richard who
knocked at the door. What more natural than for him to have come on
Christmas Eve? She approached Alice with a wistful look, not
venturing to utter any question, only hoping that some good news
might have been brought her. Long watching in the sick room had
given her own complexion the tint of ill-health; her eyelids were
swollen and heavy; the brown hair upon her temples seemed to droop
in languor. You would have noticed that her tread was very soft, as
if she still were moving in the room above.

'How's Jane?' Alice began by asking. She could not quite look the
other in the face, and did not know how to begin her disclosure.

'No better,' Emma gave answer, shaking her head. Her voice, too, was
suppressed; it was weeks since she had spoken otherwise.

'I am so sorry, Emma. Are you in a hurry to go up again?'

'No. Kate will sit there a little.'

'You look very poorly yourself. It must be very trying for you.'

'I don't feel it,' Emma said, with a pale smile. 'She gives no
trouble. It's only her weakness now; the pain has almost gone.'

'But then she must be getting better.'

Emma shook her head, looking aside. As Alice kept silence, she
continued:

'I was glad to hear you'd gone to see Richard. He wouldn't--I was
afraid he mightn't have time to get here for Christmas.'

There was a question in the words, a timorously expectant question.
Emma had learnt the sad lesson of hope deferred, always to meet
discouragement halfway. It is thus one seeks to propitiate the evil
powers, to turn the edge of their blows by meekness.

'No, he couldn't come,' said Alice.

She had a muff on her left hand, and was turning it round and round
with the other. Emma had not asked her to sit down, merely because
of the inward agitation which absorbed her.

'He's quite well?'

'Oh yes, quite well.'

Again Alice paused. Emma's heart was beating painfully. She knew now
that Richard's sister had not come on an ordinary visit; she felt
that the call to Wanley had had some special significance. Alice did
not ordinarily behave in this hesitating way.

'Did--did he send me a message?'

'Yes.'

But even now Alice could not speak. She found a way of leading up to
the catastrophe.

'Oh, mother has been going on so, Emma! What do you think? She won't
have anything to do with the house any longer. She's given me the
keys and all the money she had, and she's going to live just in her
bedroom. She says she'll get her food from the kitchen herself, and
she won't have a thing done for her by any one. I'm sure she means
it; I never saw her in such a state. She says if she'd ever so
little money of her own, she'd leave the house altogether. She's
been telling me I've no feeling, and that I'm going to the bad, that
I shall live to disgrace her, and I can't tell you what. Everything
is so miserable! She says it's all the money, and that she knew from
the first how it would be. And I'm afraid some of what she says is
true, I am indeed, Emma. But things happen in a way you could never
think. I half wish myself the money had never come. It's making us
all miserable.'

Emma listened, expecting from phrase to phrase some word which would
be to her a terrible enlightenment But Alice had ceased, and the
word still unspoken.

'You say he sent me a message?'

She did not ask directly the cause of Mrs. Mutimer's anger. Instinct
told her that to hear the message would explain all else.

'Emma, I'm afraid to tell you. You'll blame _me_, like mother did.'

'I shan't blame you, Alice. Will you please tell me the message?'

Emma's lips seemed to speak without her volition. The rest o her
face was fixed and cold.

'He's married, Emma.'

'He asked you to tell me?'

Alice was surprised at the self-restraint proved by so quiet an
interrogation.

'Yes, he did. Emma, I'm so, so sorry! If only you'll believe I'm
sorry, Emma! He _made_ me come and tell you. He said if I didn't
you'd have to find out by chance, because he couldn't for shame tell
you himself. And he couldn't tell mother neither. I've had it all to
do. If you knew what I've gone through with mother! It's very hard
that other people should suffer so much just on his account. I am
really sorry for you, Emma.'

'Who is it he's married?' Emma asked. Probably all the last speech
had been but a vague murmur to her ears.

'Some one at Wanley.'

'A lady?'

'Yes, I suppose she's a lady.'

'You didn't see her, then?'

'Yes, I saw her. I don't like her.'

Poor Alice meant this to be soothing. Emma knew it, and smiled.

'I don't think she cares much after all,' Alice said to herself.

'But was that the message?'

'Only to tell you of it, Emma. There was something else,' she added
immediately; 'not exactly a message, but he told me, and I dare say
he thought I should let you know. He said that of course you were to
have the money still as usual.'

Over the listener's face came a cloud, a deep, turbid red. It was
not anger, but shame which rose from the depths of her being. Her
head sank; she turned and walked aside.

'You're not angry with _me_, Emma?'

'Not angry at all, Alice,' was the reply in a monotone.

'I must say good-bye now. I hope you won t take on much. And I hope
Jane 'll soon be better.'

'Thank you. I must go up to her; she doesn't like me to be away
long.'

Alice went before up the kitchen stairs, the dark, narrow stairs
which now seemed to her so poverty-stricken. Emma did not speak, but
pressed her hand at the door.

Kate stood above her on the first landing, and, as Emma came up,
whispered:

'Has he come?'

'Something has hindered him.' And Emma added, 'He couldn't help it.'

'Well, then, I think he ought to have helped it,' said the other
tartly. 'When does he mean to come, I'd like to know?'

'It's uncertain.'

Emma passed into the sick-room. Her sister followed her with eyes of
ill-content, then returned to the kitchen.

Jane lay against pillows. Red light from the fire played over her
face, which was wasted beyond recognition. She looked a handmaiden
of Death.

The atmosphere of the room was warm and sickly. A small green-shaded
lamp stood by the looking-glass in front of the window; it cast a
disk of light below, and on the ceiling concentric rings of light
and shade, which flickered ceaselessly, and were at times all but
obliterated in a gleam from the fireplace. A kettle sang on the
trivet.

The sick girl's hands lay on the counterpane; one of them moved as
Emma came to the bedside, and rested when the warmer fingers clasped
it. There was eager inquiry in the sunken eyes; her hand tried to
raise itself, but in vain.

'What did Alice say?' she asked, in quick feeble tones. 'Is he
coming?'

'Not for Christmas, I'm afraid, dear. He's still very busy.'

'But he sent you a message?'

'Yes. He would have come if he could.'

'Did you tell Alice I wanted to see her? Why didn't she come up? Why
did she stay such a short time?'

'She couldn't stay to-night, Jane. Are you easy still, love?'

'Oh, I did so want to see her. Why couldn't she stop, Emma? It
wasn't kind of her to go without seeing me. I'd have made time if it
had been her as was lying in bed. And he doesn't even answer what I
wrote to him. It was such work to write--I couldn't now; and he
might have answered.'

'He very seldom writes to any one, you know, Jane. He has so little
time.'

'Little time! I have less, Emma, and he must know that. It's unkind
of him. What did Alice tell you? Why did he want her to go there?
Tell me everything.'

Emma felt the sunken eyes burning her with their eager look. She
hesitated, pretended to think of something that had to be done, and
the eyes burned more and more. Jane made repeated efforts to raise
herself, as if to get a fuller view of her sister's face.

'Shall I move you?' Emma asked. 'Would you like another pillow?'

'No, no,' was the impatient answer. 'Don't go away from me; don't
take your hand away. I want to know all that Alice said. You haven't
any secrets from me, Emmy. Why _does_ he stay away so long? It seems
years since he came to see you. It's wrong of him. There's no
business ought to keep him away all this time. Look at me, and tell
me what she said.'

'Only that he hadn't time. Dear, you mustn't excite yourself so.
Isn't it all right, Jane, as long as I don't mind it?'

'Why do you look away from me? No, it isn't all right. Oh, I can't
rest, I can't lie here! Why haven't I strength to go and say to him
what I want to say? I thought it was him. when the knock came. When
Kate told me it wasn't, I felt as if my heart was sinking down; and
I don't seem to have no tears left to cry. It 'ud ease me a little
if I could. And now _you're_ beginning to have secrets. Emmy!'

It was a cry of anguish. The mention of tears had brought them to
Emma's eyes, for they lurked very near the surface, and Jane had
seen the firelight touch on a moist cheek. For an instant she raised
herself from the pillows. Emma folded soft arms about her and
pressed her cheek against the heat which consumed her sister's.

'Emmy, I must know,' wailed the sick girl. 'Is it what I've been
afraid of? No, not that! Is it the worst of all? You must tell .me
now. You don't love me if you keep away the truth. I can't have
anything between you and me.'

A dry sob choked her; she gasped for breath. Emma, fearful lest the
very life was escaping from her embrace, drew away and looked in
anguish. Her involuntary tears had ceased, but she could no longer
practise deception. The cost to Jane was greater perhaps than if she
knew the truth. At least their souls must be united ere it was too
late.

'The truth, Emmy!'

'I will tell it you, darling,' she replied, with quiet sadness.
'It's for him that I'm sorry. I never thought anything could tempt
him to break his word. Think of it in the same way as I do,
dear-sister; don't be sorry for me, but for him.'

'He's never coming? He won't marry you?'

'He's already married, Jane. Alice came to tell me.'

Again she would have raised herself, but this time there was no
strength. Not even her arms could she lift from the coverlets. But
Emma saw the vain effort, raised the thin arms, put them about her
neck, and held her sister to her heart as if for eternity.

'Darling, darling, it isn't hard to bear. I care for nothing but
your love. Live for my sake, dearest dear; I have forgotten every
one and everything but you. It's so much better. I couldn't have
changed my life so; I was never meant to be rich. It seems unkind of
him, but in a little time we shall see it was best. Only you, Janey;
you have my whole heart, and I'm so glad to feel it is so. Live, and
I'll give every minute of my life to loving you, poor sufferer.'

Jane could not breathe sound into the words she would have spoken.
She lay with her eyes watching the fire-play on the ceiling. Her
respiration was quick and feeble.

Mutimer's name was not mentioned by either again that night, by one
of them never again. Such silence was his punishment.

Kate entered the room a little before midnight. She saw one of
Jane's hands raised to impose silence. Emma, still sitting by the
bedside, slept; her head rested on the pillows. The sick had become
the watcher.

'She'd better go to bed,' Kate whispered. 'I'll wake her.'

'No, no You needn't stay, Kate. I don't want anything. Let her sleep
as she is.'

The elder sister left the room. Then Jane approached her head to
that of the sleeper, softly, softly, and her arm stole across Emma's
bosom and rested on her farther shoulder. The fire burned with
little whispering tongues of flame; the circles of light and shade
quivered above the lamp. Abroad the snow fell and froze upon the
ground.

Three days later Alice Mutimer, as she sat at breakfast, was told
that a visitor named Mrs. Clay desired to see her. It was nearly ten
o'clock; Alice had no passion for early rising, and since her
mother's retirement from the common table she breakfasted alone at
any hour which seemed good to her. 'Arry always--or nearly always--left
the house at eight o'clock.

Mrs. Clay was introduced into the dining-room. Alice received her
with an anxious face, for she was anticipating trouble from the
house in Wilton Square. But the trouble was other than she had in
mind.

'Jane died at four o'clock this morning,' the visitor began, without
agitation, in the quick, unsympathetic voice which she always used
when her equanimity was in any way disturbed. 'Emma hasn't closed
her eyes for two days and nights, and now I shouldn't wonder if
she's going to be ill herself. I made her lie down, and then came
out just to ask you to write to your brother. Surely he'll come now.
I don't know what to do about the burying; we ought to have some one
to help us. I expected your mother would be coming to see us, but
she's kept away all at once. Will you write to Dick?'

Alice was concerned to perceive that Kate was still unenlightened.

'Did Emma know you were coming?' she asked.

'Yes, I suppose she did. But it's hard to get her to attend to
anything. I've left her alone, 'cause there wasn't any one I could
fetch at once. Will you write to-day?'

'Yes, I'll see to it,' said Alice. 'Have some breakfast, will you?'

'Well, I don't mind just a cup o' coffee. It's very cold, and I had
to walk a long way before I could get a 'bus.'

Whilst Kate refreshed herself, Alice played nervously with her
tea-spoon, trying to make up her mind what must be done. The
situation was complicated with many miseries, but Alice had
experienced a growth of independence since her return from Wanley.
All she had seen and heard whilst with her brother had an effect
upon her in the afterthought, and her mother's abrupt surrender into
her hands of the household control gave her, when she had time to
realise it, a sense of increased importance not at all disagreeable.
Already she had hired a capable servant in addition to the scrubby
maid-of-all-work who had sufficed for Mrs. Mutimer, and it was her
intention that henceforth domestic arrangements should be
established on quite another basis.

'I'll telegraph to Dick,' she said, presently. 'I've no doubt he'll
see that everything's done properly.'

'But won't he come himself?'

'We shall see.'

'Is your mother in?'

'She's not very well; I don't think I must disturb her with bad
news. Tell Emma I'm very sorry, will you? I do hope she isn't going
to be ill. You must see that she gets rest now. Was it sudden?' she
added, showing in her face how little disposed she was to dwell on
such gloomy subjects as death and burial.

'She was wandering all yesterday. I don't think she knew anything
after eight o'clock last night. She went off in a sleep.'

When the visitor had gone, Alice drove to the nearest telegraph
office and despatched a message to her brother, giving the news and
asking what should be done. By three o'clock in the afternoon no
reply had yet arrived; but shortly after Mr. Keene presented himself
at the house. Alice had not seen him since her return. He bowed to
her with extreme gravity, and spoke in a subdued voice.

'I grieve that I have lost time, Miss Mutimer. Important business
had taken me from home, and on my return I found a telegram from
Wanley. Your brother directs me to wait upon you at once, on a very
sad subject, I fear. He instructs me to purchase a grave in Manor
Park Cemetery. No near relative, I trust?'

'No, only a friend,' Alice replied. 'You've heard me speak of a girl
called Emma Vine. It's a sister of hers. She died this morning, and
they want help about the funeral.'

'Precisely, precisely. You know with what zeal I hasten to perform
your'--a slight emphasis on this word--'brother's pleasure, be the
business what it may. I'll see about it at once. I was to say to you
that your brother would be in town this evening.'

'Oh, very well. But you needn't look so gloomy, you know, Mr. Keene.
I'm very sorry, but then she's been ill for a very long time, and
it's really almost a relief--to her sisters, I mean.'

'I trust you enjoyed your visit to Wanley, Miss Mutimer?' said
Keene, still preserving his very respectful tone and bearing.

'Oh yes, thanks. I dare say I shall go there again before very long.
No doubt you'll be glad to hear that.'

'I will try to be, Miss Mutimer. I trust that your pleasure is my
first consideration in life.'

Alice was, to speak vulgarly, practising on Mr. Keene. He was her
first visitor since she had entered upon rule, and she had a double
satisfaction in subduing him with airs and graces. She did not