Free Ebooks - MRS. ZANT AND THE GHOST.

MRS. ZANT AND THE GHOST.

by Wilkie Collins

I.

THE course of this narrative describes the return of a
disembodied spirit to earth, and leads the reader on new and
strange ground.

Not in the obscurity of midnight, but in the searching light of
day, did the supernatural influence assert itself. Neither
revealed by a vision, nor announced by a voice, it reached mortal
knowledge through the sense which is least easily self-deceived:
the sense that feels.

The record of this event will of necessity produce conflicting
impressions. It will raise, in some minds, the doubt which reason
asserts; it will invigorate, in other minds, the hope which faith
justifies; and it will leave the terrible question of the
destinies of man, where centuries of vain investigation have left
it--in the dark.

Having only undertaken in the present narrative to lead the way
along a succession of events, the writer declines to follow
modern examples by thrusting himself and his opinions on the
public view. He returns to the shadow from which he has emerged,
and leaves the opposing forces of incredulity and belief to fight
the old battle over again, on the old ground.

II.

THE events happened soon after the first thirty years of the
present century had come to an end.

On a fine morning, early in the month of April, a gentleman of
middle age (named Rayburn) took his little daughter Lucy out for
a walk in the woodland pleasure-ground of Western London, called
Kensington Gardens.

The few friends whom he possessed reported of Mr. Rayburn (not
unkindly) that he was a reserved and solitary man. He might have
been more accurately described as a widower devoted to his only
surviving child. Although he was not more than forty years of
age, the one pleasure which made life enjoyable to Lucy's father
was offered by Lucy herself.

Playing with her ball, the child ran on to the southern limit of
the Gardens, at that part of it which still remains nearest to
the old Palace of Kensington. Observing close at hand one of
those spacious covered seats, called in England "alcoves," Mr.
Rayburn was reminded that he had the morning's newspaper in his
pocket, and that he might do well to rest and read. At that early
hour the place was a solitude.

"Go on playing, my dear," he said; "but take care to keep where I
can see you."

Lucy tossed up her ball; and Lucy's father opened his newspaper.
He had not been reading for more than ten minutes, when he felt a
familiar little hand laid on his knee.

"Tired of playing?" he inquired--with his eyes still on the
newspaper.

"I'm frightened, papa."

He looked up directly. The child's pale face startled him. He
took her on his knee and kissed her.

"You oughtn't to be frightened, Lucy, when I am with you," he
said, gently. "What is it?" He looked out of the alcove as he
spoke, and saw a little dog among the trees. "Is it the dog?" he
asked.

Lucy answered:

"It's not the dog--it's the lady."

The lady was not visible from the alcove.

"Has she said anything to you?" Mr. Rayburn inquired.

"No."

"What has she done to frighten you?"

The child put her arms round her father's neck.

"Whisper, papa," she said; "I'm afraid of her hearing us. I think
she's mad."

"Why do you think so, Lucy?"

"She came near to me. I thought she was going to say something.
She seemed to be ill."

"Well? And what then?"

"She looked at me."

There, Lucy found herself at a loss how to express what she had
to say next--and took refuge in silence.

"Nothing very wonderful, so far," her father suggested.

"Yes, papa--but she didn't seem to see me when she looked."

"Well, and what happened then?"

"The lady was frightened--and that frightened me. I think," the
child repeated positively, "she's mad."

It occurred to Mr. Rayburn that the lady might be blind. He rose
at once to set the doubt at rest.

"Wait here," he said, "and I'll come back to you."

But Lucy clung to him with both hands; Lucy declared that she was
afraid to be by herself. They left the alcove together.

The new point of view at once revealed the stranger, leaning
against the trunk of a tree. She was dressed in the deep mourning
of a widow. The pallor of her face, the glassy stare in her eyes,
more than accounted for the child's terror--it excused the
alarming conclusion at which she had arrived.

"Go nearer to her," Lucy whispered.

They advanced a few steps. It was now easy to see that the lady
was young, and wasted by illness--but (arriving at a doubtful
conclusion perhaps under the present circumstances) apparently
possessed of rare personal attractions in happier days. As the
father and daughter advanced a little, she discovered them. After
some hesitation, she left the tree; approached with an evident
intention of speaking; and suddenly paused. A change to
astonishment and fear animated her vacant eyes. If it had not
been plain before, it was now beyond all doubt that she was not a
poor blind creature, deserted and helpless. At the same time, the
expression of her face was not easy to understand. She could
hardly have looked more amazed and bewildered, if the two
strangers who were observing her had suddenly vanished from the
place in which they stood.

Mr. Rayburn spoke to her with the utmost kindness of voice and
manner.

"I am afraid you are not well," he said. "Is there anything that
I can do--"

The next words were suspended on his lips. It was impossible to
realize such a state of things; but the strange impression that
she had already produced on him was now confirmed. If he could
believe his senses, her face did certainly tell him that he was
invisible and inaudible to the woman whom he had just addressed!
She moved slowly away with a heavy sigh, like a person
disappointed and distressed. Following her with his eyes, he saw
the dog once more--a little smooth-coated terrier of the ordinary
English breed. The dog showed none of the restless activity of
his race. With his head down and his tail depressed, he crouched
like a creature paralyzed by fear. His mistress roused him by a
call. He followed her listlessly as she turned away.

After walking a few paces only, she suddenly stood still.

Mr. Rayburn heard her talking to herself.

"Did I feel it again?" she said, as if perplexed by some doubt
that awed or grieved her. After a while her arms rose slowly, and
opened with a gentle caressing action--an embrace strangely
offered to the empty air! "No," she said to herself, sadly, after
waiting a moment. "More perhaps when to-morrow comes--no more
to-day." She looked up at the clear blue sky. "The beautiful
sunlight! the merciful sunlight!" she murmured. "I should have
died if it had happened in the dark."

Once more she called to the dog; and once more she walked slowly
away.

"Is she going home, papa?' the child asked.

"We will try and find out," the father answered.

He was by this time convinced that the poor creature was in no
condition to be permitted to go out without some one to take care
of her. From motives of humanity, he was resolved on making the
attempt to communicate with her friends.

III.

THE lady left the Gardens by the nearest gate; stopping to lower
her veil before she turned into the busy thoroughfare which leads
to Kensington. Advancing a little way along the High Street, she
entered a house of respectable appearance, with a card in one of
the windows which announced that apartments were to let.

Mr. Rayburn waited a minute--then knocked at the door, and asked
if he could see the mistress of the house. The servant showed him
into a room on the ground floor, neatly but scantily furnished.
One little white object varied the grim brown monotony of the
empty table. It was a visiting-card.

With a child's unceremonious curiosity Lucy pounced on the card,
and spelled the name, letter by letter: "Z, A, N, T," she
repeated. "What does that mean ?"

Her father looked at the card, as he took it away from her, and
put it back on the table. The name was printed, and the address
was added in pencil: "Mr. John Zant, Purley's Hotel."

The mistress made her appearance. Mr. Rayburn heartily wishe d
himself out of the house again, the moment he saw her. The ways
in which it is possible to cultivate the social virtues are more
numerous and more varied than is generally supposed. This lady's
way had apparently accustomed her to meet her fellow-creatures on
the hard ground of justice without mercy. Something in her eyes,
when she looked at Lucy, said: "I wonder whether that child gets
punished when she deserves it?"

"Do you wish to see the rooms which I have to let?" she began.

Mr. Rayburn at once stated the object of his visit--as clearly,
as civilly, and as concisely as a man could do it. He was
conscious (he added) that he had been guilty perhaps of an act of
intrusion.

The manner of the mistress of the house showed that she entirely
agreed with him. He suggested, however, that his motive might
excuse him. The mistress's manner changed, and asserted a
difference of opinion.

"I only know the lady whom you mention," she said, "as a person
of the highest respectability, in delicate health. She has taken
my first- floor apartments, with excellent references; and she
gives remarkably little trouble. I have no claim to interfere
with her proceedings, and no reason to doubt that she is capable
of taking care of herself."

Mr. Rayburn unwisely attempted to say a word in his own defense.

"Allow me to remind you--" he began.

"Of what, sir?"

"Of what I observed, when I happened to see the lady in
Kensington Gardens."

"I am not responsible for what you observed in Kensington
Gardens. If your time is of any value, pray don't let me detain
you."

Dismissed in those terms, Mr. Rayburn took Lucy's hand and
withdrew. He had just reached the door, when it was opened from
the outer side. The Lady of Kensington Gardens stood before him.
In the position which he and his daughter now occupied, their
backs were toward the window. Would she remember having seen them
for a moment in the Gardens?

"Excuse me for intruding on you," she said to the landlady. "Your
servant tells me my brother-in-law called while I was out. He
sometimes leaves a message on his card."

She looked for the message, and appeared to be disappointed:
there was no writing on the card.

Mr. Rayburn lingered a little in the doorway on the chance of
hearing something more. The landlady's vigilant eyes discovered
him.

"Do you know this gentleman?" she said maliciously to her lodger.

"Not that I remember."

Replying in those words, the lady looked at Mr. Rayburn for the
first time; and suddenly drew back from him.

"Yes," she said, correcting herself; "I think we met--"

Her embarrassment overpowered her; she could say no more.

Mr. Rayburn compassionately finished the sentence for her.

"We met accidentally in Kensington Gardens," he said.

She seemed to be incapable of appreciating the kindness of his
motive. After hesitating a little she addressed a proposal to
him, which seemed to show distrust of the landlady.

"Will you let me speak to you upstairs in my own rooms?" she
asked.

Without waiting for a reply, she led the way to the stairs. Mr.
Rayburn and Lucy followed. They were just beginning the ascent to
the first floor, when the spiteful landlady left the lower room,
and called to her lodger over their heads: "Take care what you
say to this man, Mrs. Zant! He thinks you're mad."

Mrs. Zant turned round on the landing, and looked at him. Not a
word fell from her lips. She suffered, she feared, in silence.
Something in the sad submission of her face touched the springs
of innocent pity in Lucy's heart. The child burst out crying.

That artless expression of sympathy drew Mrs. Zant down the few
stairs which separated her from Lucy.

"May I kiss your dear little girl?" she said to Mr. Rayburn. The
landlady, standing on the mat below, expressed her opinion of the
value of caresses, as compared with a sounder method of treating
young persons in tears: "If that child was mine," she remarked,
"I would give her something to cry for."

In the meantime, Mrs. Zant led the way to her rooms.

The first words she spoke showed that the landlady had succeeded
but too well in prejudicing her against Mr. Rayburn.

"Will you let me ask your child," she said to him, "why you think
me mad?"

He met this strange request with a firm answer.

"You don't know yet what I really do think. Will you give me a
minute's attention?"

"No," she said positively. "The child pities me, I want to speak
to the child. What did you see me do in the Gardens, my dear,
that surprised you?" Lucy turned uneasily to her father; Mrs.
Zant persisted. "I first saw you by yourself, and then I saw you
with your father," she went on. "When I came nearer to you, did I
look very oddly--as if I didn't see you at all?"

Lucy hesitated again; and Mr. Rayburn interfered.

"You are confusing my little girl," he said. "Allow me to answer
your questions--or excuse me if I leave you."

There was something in his look, or in his tone, that mastered
her. She put her hand to her head.

"I don't think I'm fit for it," she answered vacantly. "My
courage has been sorely tried already. If I can get a little rest
and sleep, you may find me a different person. I am left a great
deal by myself; and I have reasons for trying to compose my mind.
Can I see you tomorrow? Or write to you? Where do you live?"

Mr. Rayburn laid his card on the table in silence. She had
strongly excited his interest. He honestly desired to be of some
service to this forlorn creature--abandoned so cruelly, as it
seemed, to her own guidance. But he had no authority to exercise,
no sort of claim to direct her actions, even if she consented to
accept his advice. As a last resource he ventured on an allusion
to the relative of whom she had spoken downstairs.

"When do you expect to see your brother-in-law again?" he said.

"I don't know," she answered. "I should like to see him--he is so
kind to me."

She turned aside to take leave of Lucy.

"Good-by, my little friend. If you live to grow up, I hope you
will never be such a miserable woman as I am." She suddenly
looked round at Mr. Rayburn. "Have you got a wife at home?" she
asked.

"My wife is dead."

"And _you_ have a child to comfort you! Please leave me; you
harden my heart. Oh, sir, don't you understand? You make me envy
you!"

Mr. Rayburn was silent when he and his daughter were out in the
street again. Lucy, as became a dutiful child, was silent, too.
But there are limits to human endurance--and Lucy's capacity for
self-control gave way at last.

"Are you thinking of the lady, papa?" she said.

He only answered by nodding his head. His daughter had
interrupted him at that critical moment in a man's reflections,
when he is on the point of making up his mind. Before they were
at home again Mr. Rayburn had arrived at a decision. Mrs. Zant's
brother-in-law was evidently ignorant of any serious necessity
for his interference--or he would have made arrangements for
immediately repeating his visit. In this state of things, if any
evil happened to Mrs. Zant, silence on Mr. Rayburn's part might
be indirectly to blame for a serious misfortune. Arriving at that
conclusion, he decided upon running the risk of being rudely
received, for the second time, by another stranger.

Leaving Lucy under the care of her governess, he went at once to
the address that had been written on the visiting-card left at
the lodging-house, and sent in his name. A courteous message was
returned. Mr. John Zant was at home, and would be happy to see
him.

IV.

MR. RAYBURN was shown into one of the private sitting-rooms of
the hotel.

He observed that the customary position of the furniture in a
room had been, in some respects, altered. An armchair, a
side-table, and a footstool had all been removed to one of the
windows, and had been placed as close as possible to the light.
On the table lay a large open roll of morocco leather, containing
rows of elegant little instruments in steel and ivory. Waiting by
the table, stood Mr. John Zant. He said "Good-morning" in a bass
voice, so profound and so melodious that those two commonplace
words assumed a new importance, coming from his lips. His
personal appearance was in harmony with his magnificent voice--
he was a tall, finely-made man of dark complexion; with big
brilliant black eyes, and a noble curling beard, which hid the
whole lower part of his face. Having bowed with a happy mingling
of dignity and politeness, the conventional side of this
gentleman's character suddenly vanished; and a crazy side, to all
appearance, took its place. He dropped on his knees in front of
the footstool. Had he forgotten to say his prayers that morning,
and was he in such a hurry to remedy the fault that he had no
time to spare for consulting appearances? The doubt had hardly
suggested itself, before it was set at rest in a most unexpected
manner. Mr. Zant looked at his visitor with a bland smile, and
said:

"Please let me see your feet."

For the moment, Mr. Rayburn lost his presence of mind. He looked
at the instruments on the side-table.

"Are you a corn-cutter?" was all he could say.

"Excuse me, sir, " returned the polite operator, "the term you
use is quite obsolete in our profession." He rose from his knees,
and added modestly: "I am a Chiropodist."

"I beg your pardon."

"Don't mention it! You are not, I imagine, in want of my
professional services. To what motive may I attribute the honor
of your visit?"

By this time Mr. Rayburn had recovered himself.

"I have come here," he answered, "under circumstances which
require apology as well as explanation."

Mr. Zant's highly polished manner betrayed signs of alarm; his
suspicions pointed to a formidable conclusion--a conclusion that
shook him to the innermost recesses of the pocket in which he
kept his money.

"The numerous demands on me--" he began.

Mr. Rayburn smiled.

"Make your mind easy," he replied. "I don't want money. My object
is to speak with you on the subject of a lady who is a relation
of yours."

"My sister-in-law!" Mr. Zant exclaimed. "Pray take a seat."

Doubting if he had chosen a convenient time for his visit, Mr.
Rayburn hesitated.

"Am I likely to be in the way of persons who wish to consult
you?" he asked.

"Certainly not. My morning hours of attendance on my clients are
from eleven to one." The clock on the mantelpiece struck the
quarter-past one as he spoke. "I hope you don't bring me bad
news?" he said, very earnestly. "When I called on Mrs. Zant this
morning, I heard that she had gone out for a walk. Is it
indiscreet to ask how you became acquainted with her?"

Mr. Rayburn at once mentioned what he had seen and heard in
Kensington Gardens; not forgetting to add a few words, which
described his interview afterward with Mrs. Zant.

The lady's brother-in-law listened with an interest and sympathy,
which offered the strongest possible contrast to the unprovoked
rudeness of the mistress of the lodging-house. He declared that
he could only do justice to his sense of obligation by following
Mr. Rayburn's example, and expressing himself as frankly as if he
had been speaking to an old friend.

"The sad story of my sister-in-law's life," he said, "will, I
think, explain certain things which must have naturally perplexed
you. My brother was introduced to her at the house of an
Australian gentleman, on a visit to England. She was then
employed as governess to his daughters. So sincere was the regard
felt for her by the family that the parents had, at the entreaty
of their children, asked her to accompany them when they returned
to the Colony. The governess thankfully accepted the proposal."

"Had she no relations in England?" Mr. Rayburn asked.

"She was literally alone in the world, sir. When I tell you that
she had been brought up in the Foundling Hospital, you will
understand what I mean. Oh, there is no romance in my
sister-in-law's story! She never has known, or will know, who her
parents were or why they deserted her. The happiest moment in her
life was the moment when she and my brother first met. It was an
instance, on both sides, of love at first sight. Though not a
rich man, my brother had earned a sufficient income in mercantile
pursuits. His character spoke for itself. In a word, he altered
all the poor girl's prospects, as we then hoped and believed, for
the better. Her employers deferred their return to Australia, so
that she might be married from their house. After a happy life of
a few weeks only--"

His voice failed him; he paused, and turned his face from the
light.

"Pardon me," he said; "I am not able, even yet, to speak
composedly of my brother's death. Let me only say that the poor
young wife was a widow, before the happy days of the honeymoon
were over. That dreadful calamity struck her down. Before my
brother had been committed to the grave, her life was in danger
from brain-fever."

Those words placed in a new light Mr. Rayburn's first fear that
her intellect might be deranged. Looking at him attentively, Mr.
Zant seemed to understand what was passing in the mind of his
guest.

"No!" he said. "If the opinions of the medical men are to be
trusted, the result of the illness is injury to her physical
strength--not injury to her mind. I have observed in her, no
doubt, a certain waywardness of temper since her illness; but
that is a trifle. As an example of what I mean, I may tell you
that I invited her, on her recovery, to pay me a visit. My house
is not in London--the air doesn't agree with me--my place of
residence is at St. Sallins-on-Sea. I am not myself a married
man; but my excellent housekeeper would have received Mrs. Zant
with the utmost kindness. She was resolved--obstinately resolved,
poor thing--to remain in London. It is needless to say that, in
her melancholy position, I am attentive to her slightest wishes.
I took a lodging for her; and, at her special request, I chose a
house which was near Kensington Gardens.

"Is there any association with the Gardens which led Mrs. Zant to
make that request?"

"Some association, I believe, with the memory of her husband. By
the way, I wish to be sure of finding her at home, when I call
to-morrow. Did you say (in the course of your interesting
statement) that she intended--as you supposed--to return to
Kensington Gardens to-morrow? Or has my memory deceived me?"

"Your memory is perfectly accurate."

"Thank you. I confess I am not only distressed by what you have
told me of Mrs. Zant--I am at a loss to know how to act for the
best. My only idea, at present, is to try change of air and
scene. What do you think yourself?"

"I think you are right."

Mr. Zant still hesitated.

"It would not be easy for me, just now," he said, "to leave my
patients and take her abroad."

The obvious reply to this occurred to Mr. Rayburn. A man of
larger worldly experience might have felt certain suspicions, and
might have remained silent. Mr. Rayburn spoke.

"Why not renew your invitation and take her to your house at the
seaside?" he said.

In the perplexed state of Mr. Zant's mind, this plain course of
action had apparently failed to present itself. His gloomy face
brightened directly.

"The very thing!" he said. "I will certainly take your advice. If
the air of St. Sallins does nothing else, it will improve her
health and help her to recover her good looks. Did she strike you
as having been (in happier days) a pretty woman?"

This was a strangely familiar question to ask--almost an
indelicate question, under the circumstances A certain furtive
expression in Mr. Zant's fine dark eyes seemed to imply that it
had been put with a purpose. Was it possible that he suspected
Mr. Rayburn's interest in his sister-in-law to be inspired by any
motive which was not perfectly unselfish and perfectly pure? To
arrive at such a conclusion as this might be to judge hastily and
cruelly of a man who was perhaps only guilty of a want of
delicacy of feeling. Mr. Rayburn honestly did his best to assume
the charitable point of view. At the same time, it is not to be
denied that his words, when he answered, were carefully guarded,
and that he rose to take his leave.

Mr. John Zant hospitably protested.

"Why are you in such a hurry? Must you really go? I shall have
the honor of returning your visit to-morrow, when I have made
arrangements to profit by that excellent suggestion of yours.
Good-by. God bless you."

He held out his hand: a hand with a smooth s urface and a tawny
color, that fervently squeezed the fingers of a departing friend.
"Is that man a scoundrel?" was Mr. Rayburn's first thought, after
he had left the hotel. His moral sense set all hesitation at
rest--and answered: "You're a fool if you doubt it."

V.

DISTURBED by presentiments, Mr. Rayburn returned to his house on
foot, by way of trying what exercise would do toward composing
his mind.

The experiment failed. He went upstairs and played with Lucy; he
drank an extra glass of wine at dinner; he took the child and her
governess to a circus in the evening; he ate a little supper,
fortified by another glass of wine, before he went to bed--and
still those vague forebodings of evil persisted in torturing him.
Looking back through his past life, he asked himself if any woman
(his late wife of course excepted!) had ever taken the
predominant place in his thoughts which Mrs. Zant had
assumed--without any discernible reason to account for it? If he
had ventured to answer his own question, the reply would have
been: Never!

All the next day he waited at home, in expectation of Mr. John
Zant's promised visit, and waited in vain.

Toward evening the parlor-maid appeared at the family tea-table,
and presented to her master an unusually large envelope sealed
with black wax, and addressed in a strange handwriting. The
absence of stamp and postmark showed that it had been left at the
house by a messenger.

"Who brought this?" Mr. Rayburn asked.

"A lady, sir--in deep mourning."

"Did she leave any message?"

"No, sir."

Having drawn the inevitable conclusion, Mr. Rayburn shut himself
up in his library. He was afraid of Lucy's curiosity and Lucy's
questions, if he read Mrs. Zant's letter in his daughter's
presence.

Looking at the open envelope after he had taken out the leaves of
writing which it contained, he noticed these lines traced inside
the cover:

"My one excuse for troubling you, when I might have consulted my
brother-in-law, will be found in the pages which I inclose. To
speak plainly, you have been led to fear that I am not in my
right senses. For this very reason, I now appeal to you. Your
dreadful doubt of me, sir, is my doubt too. Read what I have
written about myself--and then tell me, I entreat you, which I
am: A person who has been the object of a supernatural
revelation? or an unfortunate creature who is only fit for
imprisonment in a mad-house?"

Mr. Rayburn opened the manuscript. With steady attention, which
soon quickened to breathless interest, he read what follows:

VI.

THE LADY'S MANUSCRIPT.

YESTERDAY morning the sun shone in a clear blue sky--after a
succession of cloudy days, counting from the first of the month.

The radiant light had its animating effect on my poor spirits. I
had passed the night more peacefully than usual; undisturbed by
the dream, so cruelly familiar to me, that my lost husband is
still living--the dream from which I always wake in tears. Never,
since the dark days of my sorrow, have I been so little troubled
by the self-tormenting fancies and fears which beset miserable
women, as when I left the house, and turned my steps toward
Kensington Gardens--for the first time since my husband's death.

Attended by my only companion, the little dog who had been his
favorite as well as mine, I went to the quiet corner of the
Gardens which is nearest to Kensington.

On that soft grass, under the shade of those grand trees, we had
loitered together in the days of our betrothal. It was his
favorite walk; and he had taken me to see it in the early days of
our acquaintance. There, he had first asked me to be his wife.
There, we had felt the rapture of our first kiss. It was surely
natural that I should wish to see once more a place sacred to
such memories as these? I am only twenty-three years old; I have
no child to comfort me, no companion of my own age, nothing to
love but the dumb creature who is so faithfully fond of me.

I went to the tree under which we stood, when my dear one's eyes
told his love before he could utter it in words. The sun of that
vanished day shone on me again; it was the same noontide hour;
the same solitude was around me. I had feared the first effect of
the dreadful contrast between past and present. No! I was quiet
and resigned. My thoughts, rising higher than earth, dwelt on the
better life beyond the grave. Some tears came into my eyes. But I
was not unhappy. My memory of all that happened may be trusted,
even in trifles which relate only to myself--I was not unhappy.

The first object that I saw, when my eyes were clear again, was
the dog. He crouched a few paces away from me, trembling
pitiably, but uttering no cry. What had caused the fear that
overpowered him?

I was soon to know.

I called to the dog; he remained immovable--conscious of some
mysterious coming thing that held him spellbound. I tried to go
to the poor creature, and fondle and comfort him.

At the first step forward that I took, something stopped me.

It was not to be seen, and not to be heard. It stopped me.

The still figure of the dog disappeared from my view: the lonely
scene round me disappeared--excepting the light from heaven, the
tree that sheltered me, and the grass in front of me. A sense of
unutterable expectation kept my eyes riveted on the grass.
Suddenly, I saw its myriad blades rise erect and shivering. The
fear came to me of something passing over them with the invisible
swiftness of the wind. The shivering advanced. It was all round
me. It crept into the leaves of the tree over my head; they
shuddered, without a sound to tell of their agitation; their
pleasant natural rustling was struck dumb. The song of the birds
had ceased. The cries of the water-fowl on the pond were heard no
more. There was a dreadful silence.

But the lovely sunshine poured down on me, as brightly as ever.

In that dazzling light, in that fearful silence, I felt an
Invisible Presence near me. It touched me gently.

At the touch, my heart throbbed with an overwhelming joy.
Exquisite pleasure thrilled through every nerve in my body. I
knew him! From the unseen world--himself unseen--he had returned
to me. Oh, I knew him!

And yet, my helpless mortality longed for a sign that might give
me assurance of the truth. The yearning in me shaped itself into
words. I tried to utter the words. I would have said, if I could
have spoken: "Oh, my angel, give me a token that it is You!" But
I was like a person struck dumb--I could only think it.

The Invisible Presence read my thought. I felt my lips touched,
as my husband's lips used to touch them when he kissed me. And
that was my answer. A thought came to me again. I would have
said, if I could have spoken: "Are you here to take me to the
better world?"

I waited. Nothing that I could feel touched me.

I was conscious of thinking once more. I would have said, if I
could have spoken: "Are you here to protect me?"

I felt myself held in a gentle embrace, as my husband's arms used
to hold me when he pressed me to his breast. And that was my
answer.

The touch that was like the touch of his lips, lingered and was
lost; the clasp that was like the clasp of his arms, pressed me
and fell away. The garden-scene resumed its natural aspect. I saw
a human creature near, a lovely little girl looking at me.

At that moment, when I was my own lonely self again, the sight of
the child soothed and attracted me. I advanced, intending to
speak to her. To my horror I suddenly ceased to see her. She
disappeared as if I had been stricken blind.

And yet I could see the landscape round me; I could see the
heaven above me. A time passed--only a few minutes, as I
thought--and the child became visible to me again; walking
hand-in-hand with her father. I approached them; I was close
enough to see that they were looking at me with pity and
surprise. My impulse was to ask if they saw anything strange in
my face or my manner. Before I could speak, the horrible wonder
happened again. They vanished from my view.

Was the Invisible Presence still near? Was it passing between me
and my fellow-mortals; forbidding communication, in that place
and at that time?

It must have been so. When I turned away in my
ignorance, with a heavy heart, the dreadful blankness which had
twice shut out from me the beings of my own race, was not between
me and my dog. The poor little creature filled me with pity; I
called him to me. He moved at the sound of my voice, and followed
me languidly; not quite awakened yet from the trance of terror
that had possessed him.

Before I had retired by more than a few steps, I thought I was
conscious of the Presence again. I held out my longing arms to
it. I waited in the hope of a touch to tell me that I might
return. Perhaps I was answered by indirect means? I only know
that a resolution to return to the same place, at the same hour,
came to me, and quieted my mind.

The morning of the next day was dull and cloudy; but the rain
held off. I set forth again to the Gardens.

My dog ran on before me into the street--and stopped: waiting to
see in which direction I might lead the way. When I turned toward
the Gardens, he dropped behind me. In a little while I looked
back. He was following me no longer; he stood irresolute. I
called to him. He advanced a few steps--hesitated--and ran back
to the house.

I went on by myself. Shall I confess my superstition? I thought
the dog's desertion of me a bad omen.

Arrived at the tree, I placed myself under it. The minutes
followed each other uneventfully. The cloudy sky darkened. The
dull surface of the grass showed no shuddering consciousness of
an unearthly creature passing over it.

I still waited, with an obstinacy which was fast becoming the
obstinacy of despair. How long an interval elapsed, while I kept
watch on the ground before me, I am not able to say. I only know
that a change came.

Under the dull gray light I saw the grass move--but not as it had
moved, on the day before. It shriveled as if a flame had scorched
it. No flame appeared. The brown underlying earth showed itself
winding onward in a thin strip--which might have been a footpath
traced in fire. It frightened me. I longed for the protection of
the Invisible Presence. I prayed for a warning of it, if danger
was near.

A touch answered me. It was as if a hand unseen had taken my
hand--had raised it, little by little--had left it, pointing to
the thin brown path that wound toward me under the shriveled
blades of grass.

I looked to the far end of the path.

The unseen hand closed on my hand with a warning pressure: the
revelation of the coming danger was near me--I waited for it. I
saw it.

The figure of a man appeared, advancing toward me along the thin
brown path. I looked in his face as he came nearer. It showed me
dimly the face of my husband's brother--John Zant.

The consciousness of myself as a living creature left me. I knew
nothing; I felt nothing. I was dead.

When the torture of revival made me open my eyes, I found myself
on the grass. Gentle hands raised my head, at the moment when I
recovered my senses. Who had brought me to life again? Who was
taking care of me?

I looked upward, and saw--bending over me--John Zant.

VII.

THERE, the manuscript ended.

Some lines had been added on the last page; but they had been so
carefully erased as to be illegible. These words of explanation
appeared below the canceled sentences:

"I had begun to write the little that remains to be told, when it
struck me that I might, unintentionally, be exercising an unfair
influence on your opinion. Let me only remind you that I believe
absolutely in the supernatural revelation which I have endeavored
to describe. Remember this--and decide for me what I dare not
decide for myself."

There was no serious obstacle in the way of compliance with this
request.

Judged from the point of view of the materialist, Mrs. Zant might
no doubt be the victim of illusions (produced by a diseased state
of the nervous system), which have been known to exist--as in the
celebrated case of the book-seller, Nicolai, of Berlin--without
being accompanied by derangement of the intellectual powers. But
Mr. Rayburn was not asked to solve any such intricate problem as
this. He had been merely instructed to read the manuscript, and
to say what impression it had left on him of the mental condition
of the writer; whose doubt of herself had been, in all
probability, first suggested by remembrance of the illness from
which she had suffered--brain-fever.

Under these circumstances, there could be little difficulty in
forming an opinion. The memory which had recalled, and the
judgment which had arranged, the succession of events related in
the narrative, revealed a mind in full possession of its
resources.

Having satisfied himself so far, Mr. Rayburn abstained from
considering the more serious question suggested by what he had
read.

At any time his habits of life and his ways of thinking would
have rendered him unfit to weigh the arguments, which assert or
deny supernatural revelation among the creatures of earth. But
his mind was now so disturbed by the startling record of
experience which he had just read, that he was only conscious of
feeling certain impressions--without possessing the capacity to
reflect on them. That his anxiety on Mrs. Zant's account had been
increased, and that his doubts of Mr. John Zant had been
encouraged, were the only practical results of the confidence
placed in him of which he was thus far aware. In the ordinary
exigencies of life a man of hesitating disposition, his interest
in Mrs. Zant's welfare, and his desire to discover what had
passed between her brother-in-law and herself, after their
meeting in the Gardens, urged him into instant action. In half an
hour more, he had arrived at her lodgings. He was at once
admitted.

VIII.

MRS. ZANT was alone, in an imperfectly lighted room.

"I hope you will excuse the bad light," she said; "my head has
been burning as if the fever had come back again. Oh, don't go
away! After what I have suffered, you don't know how dreadful it
is to be alone."

The tone of her voice told him that she had been crying. He at
once tried the best means of setting the poor lady at ease, by
telling her of the conclusion at which he had arrived, after
reading her manuscript. The happy result showed itself instantly:
her face brightened, her manner changed; she was eager to hear
more.

"Have I produced any other impression on you?" she asked.

He understood the allusion. Expressing sincere respect for her
own convictions, he told her honestly that he was not prepared to
enter on the obscure and terrible question of supernatural
interposition. Grateful for the tone in which he had answered
her, she wisely and delicately changed the subject.

"I must speak to you of my brother-in-law," she said. "He has
told me of your visit; and I am anxious to know what you think of
him. Do you like Mr. John Zant?"

Mr. Rayburn hesitated.

The careworn look appeared again in her face. "If you had felt as
kindly toward him as he feels toward you," she said, "I might
have gone to St. Sallins with a lighter heart."

Mr. Rayburn thought of the supernatural appearances, described at
the close of her narrative. "You believe in that terrible
warning," he remonstrated; "and yet, you go to your
brother-in-law's house!"

"I believe," she answered, "in the spirit of the man who loved me
in the days of his earthly bondage. I am under _his_ protection.
What have I to do but to cast away my fears, and to wait in faith
and hope? It might have helped my resolution if a friend had been
near to encourage me." She paused and smiled sadly. "I must
remember," she resumed, "that your way of understanding my
position is not my way. I ought to have told you that Mr. John
Zant feels needless anxiety about my health. He declares that he
will not lose sight of me until his mind is at ease. It is
useless to attempt to alter his opinion. He says my nerves are
shattered--and who that sees me can doubt it? He tells me that my
only chance of getting better is to try change of air and perfect
repose--how can I contradict him? He reminds me that I have no
relation but himself, and no house open to me but his own--and
God knows he is right!"

She said those last words in accents of melancholy resignation,
which grieved the good man whose one merciful purpose was to
serve and console her. He spoke impulsively with the freedom of
an old friend

"I want to know more of you and Mr. John Zant than I know now,"
he said. "My motive is a better one than mere curiosity. Do you
believe that I feel a sincere interest in you?"

"With my whole heart."

That reply encouraged him to proceed with what he had to say.
"When you recovered from your fainting-fit," he began, "Mr. John
Zant asked questions, of course?"

"He asked what could possibly have happened, in such a quiet
place as Kensington Gardens, to make me faint."

"And how did you answer?"

"Answer? I couldn't even look at him!"

"You said nothing?"

"Nothing. I don't know what he thought of me; he might have been
surprised, or he might have been offended."

"Is he easily offended?" Mr. Rayburn asked.

"Not in my experience of him."

"Do you mean your experience of him before your illness?"

"Yes. Since my recovery, his engagements with country patients
have kept him away from London. I have not seen him since he took
these lodgings for me. But he is always considerate. He has
written more than once to beg that I will not think him
neglectful, and to tell me (what I knew already through my poor
husband) that he has no money of his own, and must live by his
profession."

"In your husband's lifetime, were the two brothers on good
terms?"

"Always. The one complaint I ever heard my husband make of John
Zant was that he didn't come to see us often enough, after our
marriage. Is there some wickedness in him which we have never
suspected? It may be--but _how_ can it be? I have every reason to
be grateful to the man against whom I have been supernaturally
warned! His conduct to me has been always perfect. I can't tell
you what I owe to his influence in quieting my mind, when a
dreadful doubt arose about my husband's death."

"Do you mean doubt if he died a natural death?"

"Oh, no! no! He was dying of rapid consumption--but his sudden
death took the doctors by surprise. One of them thought that he
might have taken an overdose of his sleeping drops, by mistake.
The other disputed this conclusion, or there might have been an
inquest in the house. Oh, don't speak of it any more! Let us talk
of something else. Tell me when I shall see you again."

"I hardly know. When do you and your brother-in-law leave
London?"

"To-morrow." She looked at Mr. Rayburn with a piteous entreaty in
her eyes; she said, timidly: "Do you ever go to the seaside, and
take your dear little girl with you?"

The request, at which she had only dared to hint, touched on the
idea which was at that moment in Mr. Rayburn's mind.

Interpreted by his strong prejudice against John Zant, what she
had said of her brother-in-law filled him with forebodings of
peril to herself; all the more powerful in their influence, for
this reason--that he shrank from distinctly realizing them. If
another person had been present at the interview, and had said to
him afterward: "That man's reluctance to visit his sister-in-law,
while her husband was living, is associated with a secret sense
of guilt which her innocence cannot even imagine: he, and he
alone, knows the cause of her husband's sudden death: his feigned
anxiety about her health is adopted as the safest means of
enticing her into his house--if those formidable conclusions had
been urged on Mr. Rayburn, he would have felt it his duty to
reject them, as unjustifiable aspersions on an absent man. And
yet, when he took leave that evening of Mrs. Zant, he had pledged
himself to give Lucy a holiday at the seaside: and he had said,
without blushing, that the child really deserved it, as a reward
for general good conduct and attention to her lessons!

IX.

THREE days later, the father and daughter arrived toward evening
at St. Sallins-on-Sea. They found Mrs. Zant at the station.

The poor woman's joy, on seeing them, expressed itself like the
joy of a child. "Oh, I am so glad! so glad!" was all she could
say when they met. Lucy was half-smothered with kisses, and was
made supremely happy by a present of the finest doll she had ever
possessed. Mrs. Zant accompanied her friends to the rooms which
had been secured at the hotel. She was able to speak
confidentially to Mr. Rayburn, while Lucy was in the balcony
hugging her doll, and looking at the sea.

The one event that had happened during Mrs. Zant's short
residence at St. Sallins was the departure of her brother-in-law
that morning, for London. He had been called away to operate on
the feet of a wealthy patient who knew the value of his time: his
housekeeper expected that he would return to dinner.

As to his conduct toward Mrs. Zant, he was not only as attentive
as ever--he was almost oppressively affectionate in his language
and manner. There was no service that a man could render which he
had not eagerly offered to her. He declared that he already
perceived an improvement in her health; he congratulated her on
having decided to stay in his house; and (as a proof, perhaps, of
his sincerity) he had repeatedly pressed her hand. "Have you any
idea what all this means?" she said, simply.

Mr. Rayburn kept his idea to himself. He professed ignorance; and
asked next what sort of person the housekeeper was.

Mrs. Zant shook her head ominously.

"Such a strange creature," she said, "and in the habit of taking
such liberties that I begin to be afraid she is a little crazy."

"Is she an old woman?"

"No--only middle-aged. This morning, after her master had left
the house, she actually asked me what I thought of my
brother-in-law! I told her, as coldly as possible, that I thought
he was very kind. She was quite insensible to the tone in which I
had spoken; she went on from bad to worse. "Do you call him the
sort of man who would take the fancy of a young woman?" was her
next question. She actually looked at me (I might have been
wrong; and I hope I was) as if the "young woman" she had in her
mind was myself! I said: "I don't think of such things, and I
don't talk about them." Still, she was not in the least
discouraged; she made a personal remark next: "Excuse me--but you
do look wretchedly pale." I thought she seemed to enjoy the
defect in my complexion; I really believe it raised me in her
estimation. "We shall get on better in time," she said; "I am
beginning to like you." She walked out humming a tune. Don't you
agree with me? Don't you think she's crazy?"

"I can hardly give an opinion until I have seen her. Does she
look as if she might have been a pretty woman at one time of her
life?"

"Not the sort of pretty woman whom I admire!"

Mr. Rayburn smiled. "I was thinking," he resumed, "that this
person's odd conduct may perhaps be accounted for. She is
probably jealous of any young lady who is invited to her master's
house--and (till she noticed your complexion) she began by being
jealous of you."

Innocently at a loss to understand how _she_ could become an
object of the housekeeper's jealousy, Mrs. Zant looked at Mr.
Rayburn in astonishment. Before she could give expression to her
feeling of surprise, there was an interruption--a welcome
interruption. A waiter entered the room, and announced a visitor;
described as "a gentleman."

Mrs. Zant at once rose to retire.

"Who is the gentleman?" Mr. Rayburn asked--detaining Mrs. Zant as
he spoke.

A voice which they both recognized answered gayly, from the outer
side of the door:

"A friend from London."

X.

"WELCOME to St. Sallins! " cried Mr. John Zant. "I knew that you
were expected, my dear sir, and I took my chance at finding you
at the hotel." He turned to his sister-in-law, and kissed her
hand with an elaborate gallantry worthy of Sir Charles Grandison
himself. "When I reached home, my dear, and heard that you had
gone out, I guessed that your object was to receive our excellent
friend. You have not felt lonely while I have been away? That's
right! that's right!" he looked toward the balcony, and
discovered Lucy at the open window, staring at the magnificent
stranger. "Your little daughter, Mr. Rayburn? Dear child! Come
and kiss me."

Lucy answered in one positive word: "No."

Mr. John Zant was not easily discouraged.

Show me your doll, darling," he said. "Sit on my knee."

Lucy answered in two positive words--"I won't."

Her father approached the window to administer the necessary
reproof. Mr. John Zant interfered in the cause of mercy with his
best grace. He held up his hands in cordial entreaty. "Dear Mr.
Rayburn! The fairies are sometimes shy; and _this_ little fairy
doesn't take to strangers at first sight. Dear child! All in good
time. And what stay do you make at St. Sallins? May we hope that
our poor attractions will tempt you to prolong your visit?"

He put his flattering little question with an ease of manner
which was rather too plainly assumed; and he looked at Mr.
Rayburn with a watchfulness which appeared to attach undue
importance to the reply. When he said: "What stay do you make at
St. Sallins?" did he really mean: "How soon do you leave us?"
Inclining to adopt this conclusion, Mr. Rayburn answered
cautiously that his stay at the seaside would depend on
circumstances. Mr. John Zant looked at his sister-in-law, sitting
silent in a corner with Lucy on her lap. "Exert your
attractions," he said; "make the circumstances agreeable to our
good friend. Will you dine with us to-day, my dear sir, and bring
your little fairy with you?"

Lucy was far from receiving this complimentary allusion in the
spirit in which it had been offered. "I'm not a fairy," she
declared. "I'm a child."

"And a naughty child," her father added, with all the severity
that he could assume.

"I can't help it, papa; the man with the big beard puts me out."

The man with the big beard was amused--amiably, paternally
amused--by Lucy's plain speaking. He repeated his invitation to
dinner; and he did his best to look disappointed when Mr. Rayburn
made the necessary excuses.

"Another day," he said (without, however, fixing the day). "I
think you will find my house comfortable. My housekeeper may
perhaps be eccentric--but in all essentials a woman in a
thousand. Do you feel the change from London already? Our air at
St. Sallins is really worthy of its reputation. Invalids who come
here are cured as if by magic. What do you think of Mrs. Zant?
How does she look?"

Mr. Rayburn was evidently expected to say that she looked better.
He said it. Mr. John Zant seemed to have anticipated a stronger
expression of opinion.

"Surprisingly better!" he pronounced. "Infinitely better! We
ought both to be grateful. Pray believe that we _are_ grateful."

"If you mean grateful to me," Mr. Rayburn remarked, "I don't
quite understand--"

"You don't quite understand? Is it possible that you have
forgotten our conversation when I first had the honor of
receiving you? Look at Mrs. Zant again."

Mr. Rayburn looked; and Mrs. Zant's brother-in-law explained
himself.

"You notice the return of her color, the healthy brightness of
her eyes. (No, my dear, I am not paying you idle compliments; I
am stating plain facts.) For that happy result, Mr. Rayburn, we
are indebted to you."

"Surely not?"

"Surely yes! It was at your valuable suggestion that I thought of
inviting my sister-in-law to visit me at St. Sallins. Ah, you
remember it now. Forgive me if I look at my watch; the dinner
hour is on my mind. Not, as your dear little daughter there seems
to think, because I am greedy, but because I am always punctual,
in justice to the cook. Shall we see you to-morrow? Call early,
and you will find us at home."

He gave Mrs. Zant his arm, and bowed and smiled, and kissed his
hand to Lucy, and left the room. Recalling their interview at the
hotel in London, Mr. Rayburn now understood John Zant's object
(on that occasion) in assuming the character of a helpless man in
need of a sensible suggestion. If Mrs. Zant's residence under his
roof became associated with evil consequences, he could declare
that she would never have entered the house but for Mr. Rayburn's
advice.

With the next day came the hateful necessity of returning this
man's visit.

Mr. Rayburn was placed between two alternatives. In Mrs. Zant's
interests he must remain, no matter at what sacrifice of his own
inclinations, on good terms with her brother-in-law--or he must
return to London, and leave the poor woman to her fate. His
choice, it is needless to say, was never a matter of doubt. He
called at the house, and did his innocent best--without in the
least deceiving Mr. John Zant--to make himself agreeable during
the short duration of his visit. Descending the stairs on his way
out, accompanied by Mrs. Zant, he was surprised to see a
middle-aged woman in the hall, who looked as if she was waiting
there expressly to attract notice.

"The housekeeper," Mrs. Zant whispered. "She is impudent enough
to try to make acquaintance with you."

This was exactly what the housekeeper was waiting in the hall to
do.

"I hope you like our watering-place, sir," she began. "If I can
be of service to you, pray command me. Any friend of this lady's
has a claim on me--and you are an old friend, no doubt. I am only
the housekeeper; but I presume to take a sincere interest in Mrs.
Zant; and I am indeed glad to see you here. We none of us
know--do we?--how soon we may want a friend. No offense, I hope?
Thank you, sir. Good-morning."

There was nothing in the woman's eyes which indicated an
unsettled mind; nothing in the appearance of her lips which
suggested habits of intoxication. That her strange outburst of
familiarity proceeded from some strong motive seemed to be more
than probable. Putting together what Mrs. Zant had already told
him, and what he had himself observed, Mr. Rayburn suspected that
the motive might be found in the housekeeper's jealousy of her
master.

XI.

REFLECTING in the solitude of his own room, Mr. Rayburn felt that
the one prudent course to take would be to persuade Mrs. Zant to
leave St. Sallins. He tried to prepare her for this strong
proceeding, when she came the next day to take Lucy out for a
walk.

"If you still regret having forced yourself to accept your
brother-in-law's invitation," was all he ventured to say, "don't
forget that you are perfect mistress of your own actions. You
have only to come to me at the hotel, and I will take you back to
London by the next train."

She positively refused to entertain the idea.

"I should be a thankless creature, indeed," she said, "if I
accepted your proposal. Do you think I am ungrateful enough to
involve you in a personal quarrel with John Zant? No! If I find
myself forced to leave the house, I will go away alone."

There was no moving her from this resolution. When she and Lucy
had gone out together, Mr. Rayburn remained at the hotel, with a
mind ill at ease. A man of readier mental resources might have
felt at a loss how to act for the best, in the emergency that now
confronted him. While he was still as far as ever from arriving
at a decision, some person knocked at the door.

Had Mrs. Zant returned? He looked up as the door was opened, and
saw to his astonishment--Mr. John Zant's housekeeper.

"Don't let me alarm you, sir," the woman said. "Mrs. Zant has
been taken a little faint, at the door of our house. My master is
attending to her."

"Where is the child?" Mr. Rayburn asked.

"I was bringing her back to you, sir, when we met a lady and her
little girl at the door of the hotel. They were on their way to
the beach--and Miss Lucy begged hard to be allowed to go with
them. The lady said the two children were playfellows, and she
was sure you would not object."

"The lady is quite right. Mrs. Zant's illness is not serious, I
hope?"

"I think not, sir. But I should like to say something in her
interests. May I? Thank you." She advanced a step nearer to him,
and spoke her next words in a whisper. "Take Mrs. Zant away from
this place, and lose no time in doing it."

Mr. Rayburn was on his guard. He merely asked: "Why?"

The housekeeper answered in a curiously indirect manner--partly
in jest, as it seemed, and partly in earnest.

"When a man has lost his wife," she said, "there's some
difference of opinion in Parliament, as I hear, whether he does
right or wrong, if he marries his wife's sister. Wait a bit! I'm
coming to the point. My master is one who has a long head on his
shoulders; he sees consequences which escape the notice of peopl
e like me. In his way of thinking, if one man may marry his
wife's sister, and no harm done, where's the objection if another
man pays a compliment to the family, and marries his brother's
widow? My master, if you please, is that other man. Take the
widow away before she marries him."

This was beyond endurance.

"You insult Mrs. Zant," Mr. Rayburn answered, "if you suppose
that such a thing is possible!"

"Oh! I insult her, do I? Listen to me. One of three things will
happen. She will be entrapped into consenting to it--or
frightened into consenting to it--or drugged into consenting to
it--"

Mr. Rayburn was too indignant to let her go on.

"You are talking nonsense," he said. "There can be no marriage;
the law forbids it."

"Are you one of the people who see no further than their noses?"
she asked insolently. "Won't the law take his money? Is he
obliged to mention that he is related to her by marriage, when he
buys the license?" She paused; her humor changed; she stamped
furiously on the floor. The true motive that animated her showed
itself in her next words, and warned Mr. Rayburn to grant a more
favorable hearing than he had accorded to her yet. "If you won't
stop it," she burst out, "I will! If he marries anybody, he is
bound to marry ME. Will you take her away? I ask you, for the
last time--_will_ you take her away?"

The tone in which she made that final appeal to him had its
effect.

"I will go back with you to John Zant's house," he said, "and
judge for myself."

She laid her hand on his arm:

"I must go first--or you may not be let in. Follow me in five
minutes; and don't knock at the street door."

On the point of leaving him, she abruptly returned.

"We have forgotten something," she said. "Suppose my master
refuses to see you. His temper might get the better of him; he
might make it so unpleasant for you that you would be obliged to
go."

"_My_ temper might get the better of _me_," Mr. Rayburn replied;
"and--if I thought it was in Mrs. Zant's interests--I might
refuse to leave the house unless she accompanied me."

"That will never do, sir."

"Why not?"

"Because I should be the person to suffer."

"In what way?"

"In this way. If you picked a quarrel with my master, I should be
blamed for it because I showed you upstairs. Besides, think of
the lady. You might frighten her out of her senses, if it came to
a struggle between you two men."

The language was exaggerated; but there was a force in this last
objection which Mr. Rayburn was obliged to acknowledge.

"And, after all," the housekeeper continued, "he has more right
over her than you have. He is related to her, and you are only
her friend."

Mr. Rayburn declined to let himself be influenced by this
consideration, "Mr. John Zant is only related to her by
marriage," he said. "If she prefers trusting in me--come what may
of it, I will be worthy of her confidence."

The housekeeper shook her head.

"That only means another quarrel," she answered. "The wise way,
with a man like my master, is the peaceable way. We must manage
to deceive him."

"I don't like deceit."

"In that case, sir, I'll wish you good-by. We will leave Mrs.
Zant to do the best she can for herself."

Mr. Rayburn was unreasonable. He positively refused to adopt this
alternative.

"Will you hear what I have got to say?" the housekeeper asked.

"There can be no harm in that," he admitted. "Go on."

She took him at his word.

"When you called at our house," she began, "did you notice the
doors in the passage, on the first floor? Very well. One of them
is the door of the drawing-room, and the other is the door of the
library. Do you remember the drawing-room, sir?"

"I thought it a large well-lighted room," Mr. Rayburn answered.
"And I noticed a doorway in the wall, with a handsome curtain
hanging over it."

"That's enough for our purpose," the housekeeper resumed. "On the
other side of the curtain, if you had looked in, you would have
found the library. Suppose my master is as polite as usual, and
begs to be excused for not receiving you, because it is an
inconvenient time. And suppose you are polite on your side and
take yourself off by the drawing-room door. You will find me
waiting downstairs, on the first landing. Do you see it now?"

"I can't say I do."

"You surprise me, sir. What is to prevent us from getting back
softly into the library, by the door in the passage? And why
shouldn't we use that second way into the library as a means of
discovering what may be going on in the drawing-room? Safe behind
the curtain, you will see him if he behaves uncivilly to Mrs.
Zant, or you will hear her if she calls for help. In either case,
you may be as rough and ready with my master as you find needful;
it will be he who has frightened her, and not you. And who can
blame the poor housekeeper because Mr. Rayburn did his duty, and
protected a helpless woman? There is my plan, sir. Is it worth
trying?"

He answered, sharply enough: "I don't like it."

The housekeeper opened the door again, and wished him good-by.

If Mr. Rayburn had felt no more than an ordinary interest in Mrs.
Zant, he would have let the woman go. As it was, he stopped her;
and, after some further protest (which proved to be useless), he
ended in giving way.

"You promise to follow my directions?" she stipulated.

He gave the promise. She smiled, nodded, and left him. True to
his instructions, Mr. Rayburn reckoned five minutes by his watch,
before he followed her.

XII.

THE housekeeper was waiting for him, with the street-door ajar.

"They are both in the drawing-room," she whispered, leading the
way upstairs. "Step softly, and take him by surprise."

A table of oblong shape stood midway between the drawing-room
walls. At the end of it which was nearest to the window, Mrs.
Zant was pacing to and fro across the breadth of the room. At the
opposite end of the table, John Zant was seated. Taken completely
by surprise, he showed himself in his true character. He started
to his feet, and protested with an oath against the intrusion
which had been committed on him.

Heedless of his action and his language, Mr. Rayburn could look
at nothing, could think of nothing, but Mrs. Zant. She was still
walking slowly to and fro, unconscious of the words of sympathy
which he addressed to her, insensible even as it seemed to the
presence of other persons in the room.

John Zant's voice broke the silence. His temper was under control
again: he had his reasons for still remaining on friendly terms
with Mr. Rayburn.

"I am sorry I forgot myself just now," he said.

Mr. Rayburn's interest was concentrated on Mrs. Zant; he took no
notice of the apology.

"When did this happen?" he asked.

"About a quarter of an hour ago. I was fortunately at home.
Without speaking to me, without noticing me, she walked upstairs
like a person in a dream."

Mr. Rayburn suddenly pointed to Mrs. Zant.

"Look at her!" he said. "There's a change!"

All restlessness in her movements had come to an end. She was
standing at the further end of the table, which was nearest to
the window, in the full flow of sunlight pouring at that moment
over her face. Her eyes looked out straight before her--void of
all expression. Her lips were a little parted: her head drooped
slightly toward her shoulder, in an attitude which suggested
listening for something or waiting for something. In the warm
brilliant light, she stood before the two men, a living creature
self-isolated in a stillness like the stillness of death.

John Zant was ready with the expression of his opinion.

"A nervous seizure," he said. "Something resembling catalepsy, as
you see."

"Have you sent for a doctor?"

"A doctor is not wanted."

"I beg your pardon. It seems to me that medical help is
absolutely necessary."

"Be so good as to remember, " Mr. John Zant answered, "that the
decision rests with me, as the lady's relative. I am sensible of
the honor which your visit confers on me. But the time has been
unhappily chosen. Forgive me if I suggest that you will do well
to retire."

Mr. Rayburn had not forgotten the housekeeper's advice, or the
promise which she had exacted from him. But the expression in
John Zant's face was a serious trial
to his self-control. He hesitated, and looked back at Mrs. Zant.

If he provoked a quarrel by remaining in the room, the one
alternative would be the removal of her by force. Fear of the
consequences to herself, if she was suddenly and roughly roused
from her trance, was the one consideration which reconciled him
to submission. He withdrew.

The housekeeper was waiting for him below, on the first landing.
When the door of the drawing-room had been closed again, she
signed to him to follow her, and returned up the stairs. After
another struggle with himself, he obeyed. They entered the
library from the corridor--and placed themselves behind the
closed curtain which hung over the doorway. It was easy so to
arrange the edge of the drapery as to observe, without exciting
suspicion, whatever was going on in the next room.

Mrs. Zant's brother-in-law was approaching her at the time when
Mr. Rayburn saw him again.

In the instant afterward, she moved--before he had completely
passed over the space between them. Her still figure began to
tremble. She lifted her drooping head. For a moment there was a
shrinking in her--as if she had been touched by something. She
seemed to recognize the touch: she was still again.

John Zant watched the change. It suggested to him that she was
beginning to recover her senses. He tried the experiment of
speaking to her.

"My love, my sweet angel, come to the heart that adores you!"

He advanced again; he passed into the flood of sunlight pouring
over her.

"Rouse yourself!" he said.

She still remained in the same position; apparently at his mercy,
neither hearing him nor seeing him.

"Rouse yourself!" he repeated. "My darling, come to me!"

At the instant when he attempted to embrace her--at the instant
when Mr. Rayburn rushed into the room--John Zant's arms, suddenly
turning rigid, remained outstretched. With a shriek of horror, he
struggled to draw them back--struggled, in the empty brightness
of the sunshine, as if some invisible grip had seized him.

"What has got me?" the wretch screamed. "Who is holding my hands?
Oh, the cold of it! the cold of it!"

His features became convulsed; his eyes turned upward until only
the white eyeballs were visible. He fell prostrate with a crash
that shook the room.

The housekeeper ran in. She knelt by her master's body. With one
hand she loosened his cravat. With the other she pointed to the
end of the table.

Mrs. Zant still kept her place; but there was another change.
Little by little, her eyes recovered their natural living
expression--then slowly closed. She tottered backward from the
table, and lifted her hands wildly, as if to grasp at something
which might support her. Mr. Rayburn hurried to her before she
fell--lifted her in his arms--and carried her out of the room.

One of the servants met them in the hall. He sent her for a
carriage. In a quarter of an hour more, Mrs. Zant was safe under
his care at the hotel.

XIII.

THAT night a note, written by the housekeeper, was delivered to
Mrs. Zant.

"The doctors give little hope. The paralytic stroke is spreading
upward to his face. If death spares him, he will live a helpless
man. I shall take care of him to the last. As for you--forget
him."

Mrs. Zant gave the note to Mr. Rayburn.

"Read it, and destroy it," she said. "It is written in ignorance
of the terrible truth."

He obeyed--and looked at her in silence, waiting to hear more.
She hid her face. The few words she had addressed to him, after a
struggle with herself, fell slowly and reluctantly from her lips.

She said: "No mortal hand held the hands of John Zant. The
guardian spirit was with me. The promised protection was with me.
I know it. I wish to know no more."

Having spoken, she rose to retire. He opened the door for her,
seeing that she needed rest in her own room.

Left by himself, he began to consider the prospect that was
before him in the future. How was he to regard the woman who had
just left him? As a poor creature weakened by disease, the victim
of her own nervous delusion? or as the chosen object of a
supernatural revelation--unparalleled by any similar revelation
that he had heard of, or had found recorded in books? His first
discovery of the place that she really held in his estimation
dawned on his mind, when he felt himself recoiling from the
conclusion which presented her to his pity, and yielding to the
nobler conviction which felt with her faith, and raised her to a
place apart among other women.

XIV.

THEY left St. Sallins the next day.

Arrived at the end of the journey, Lucy held fast by Mrs. Zant's
hand. Tears were rising in the child's eyes.

"Are we to bid her good-by?" she said sadly to her father.

He seemed to be unwilling to trust himself to speak; he only
said:

"My dear, ask her yourself."

But the result justified him. Lucy was happy again.

MISS MORRIS AND THE STRANGER.

I.

WHEN I first saw him, he was lost in one of the Dead Cities of
England--situated on the South Coast, and called Sandwich.

Shall I describe Sandwich? I think not. Let us own the truth;
descriptions of places, however nicely they may be written, are
always more or less dull. Being a woman, I naturally hate
dullness. Perhaps some description of Sandwich may drop out, as
it were, from my report of our conversation when we first met as
strangers in the street.

He began irritably. "I've lost myself," he said.

"People who don't know the town often do that," I remarked.

He went on: "Which is my way to the Fleur de Lys Inn?"

His way was, in the first place, to retrace his steps. Then to
turn to the left. Then to go on until he found two streets
meeting. Then to take the street on the right. Then to look out
for the second turning on the left. Then to follow the turning
until he smelled stables--and there was the inn. I put it in the
clearest manner, and never stumbled over a word.

"How the devil am I to remember all that?" he said.

This was rude. We are naturally and properly indignant with any
man who is rude to us. But whether we turn our backs on him in
contempt, or whether we are merciful and give him a lesson in
politeness, depends entirely on the man. He may be a bear, but he
may also have his redeeming qualities. This man had redeeming
qualities. I cannot positively say that he was either handsome or
ugly, young or old, well or ill dressed. But I can speak with
certainty to the personal attractions which recommended him to
notice. For instance, the tone of his voice was persuasive. (Did
you ever read a story, written by one of _us_, in which we failed
to dwell on our hero's voice?) Then, again, his hair was
reasonably long. (Are you acquainted with any woman who can
endure a man with a cropped head?) Moreover, he was of a good
height. (It must be a very tall woman who can feel favorably
inclined toward a short man.) Lastly, although his eyes were not
more than fairly presentable in form and color, the wretch had in
some unaccountable manner become possessed of beautiful
eyelashes. They were even better eyelashes than mine. I write
quite seriously. There is one woman who is above the common
weakness of vanity--and she holds the present pen.

So I gave my lost stranger a lesson in politeness. The lesson
took the form of a trap. I asked him if he would like me to show
him the way to the inn. He was still annoyed at losing himself.
As I had anticipated, he bluntly answered: "Yes."

"When you were a boy, and you wanted something," I said, "did
your mother teach you to say 'Please'?"

He positively blushed. "She did," he admitted; "and she taught me
to say 'Beg your pardon' when I was rude. I'll say it now: 'Beg
your pardon.' "

This curious apology increased my belief in his redeeming
qualities. I led the way to the inn. He followed me in silence.
No woman who respects herself can endure silence when she is in
the company of a man. I made him talk.

"Do you come to us from Ramsgate?" I began. He only nodded his
head. "We don't think much of Ramsgate here," I went on. "There
is not an old building in the place. And their first Mayor was
only elected the other day!"

This point of view seemed to be new to him. He made no attempt to
dispute it; he only looked around him, and said: "Sandwich is a
melancholy place, miss." He was so rapidly improving in
politeness, that I encouraged him by a smile. As a citizen of
Sandwich, I may say that we take it as a compliment when we are
told that our town is a melancholy place. And why not? Melancholy
is connected with dignity. And dignity is associated with age.
And _we_ are old. I teach my pupils logic, among other
things--there is a specimen. Whatever may be said to the
contrary, women can reason. They can also wander; and I must
admit that _I_ am wandering. Did I mention, at starting, that I
was a governess? If not, that allusion to "pupils" must have come
in rather abruptly. Let me make my excuses, and return to my lost
stranger.

"Is there any such thing as a straight street in all Sandwich?"
he asked.

"Not one straight street in the whole town."

"Any trade, miss?"

"As little as possible--and _that_ is expiring."

"A decayed place, in short?"

"Thoroughly decayed."

My tone seemed to astonish him. "You speak as if you were proud
of its being a decayed place," he said.

I quite respected him; this was such an intelligent remark to
make. We do enjoy our decay: it is our chief distinction.
Progress and prosperity everywhere else; decay and dissolution
here. As a necessary consequence, we produce our own impression,
and we like to be original. The sea deserted us long ago: it once
washed our walls, it is now two miles away from us--we don't
regret the sea. We had sometimes ninety-five ships in our harbor,
Heaven only knows how many centuries ago; we now have one or two
small coasting vessels, half their time aground in a muddy little
river--we don't regret our harbor. But one house in the town is
daring enough to anticipate the arrival of resident visitors, and
announces furnished apartments to let. What a becoming contrast
to our modern neighbor, Ramsgate! Our noble market-place exhibits
the laws made by the corporation; and every week there are fewer
and fewer people to obey the laws. How convenient! Look at our
one warehouse by the river side--with the crane generally idle,
and the windows mostly boarded up; and perhaps one man at the
door, looking out for the job which his better sense tells him
cannot possibly come. What a wholesome protest against the
devastating hurry and over-work elsewhere, which has shattered
the nerves of the nation! "Far from me and from my friends" (to
borrow the eloquent language of Doctor Johnson) "be such frigid
enthusiasm as shall conduct us indifferent and unmoved'' over the
bridge by which you enter Sandwich, and pay a toll if you do it
in a carriage. "That man is little to be envied" (Doctor Johnson
again) who can lose himself in our labyrinthine streets, and not
feel that he has reached the welcome limits of progress, and
found a haven of rest in an age of hurry.

I am wandering again. Bear with the unpremeditated enthusiasm of
a citizen who only attained years of discretion at her last
birthday. We shall soon have done with Sandwich; we are close to
the door of the inn.

"You can't mistake it now, sir," I said. "Good-morning."

He looked down at me from under his beautiful eyelashes (have I
mentioned that I am a little woman?), and he asked in his
persuasive tones: "Must we say good-by?"

I made him a bow.

"Would you allow me to see you safe home?" he suggested.

Any other man would have offended me. This man blushed like a
boy, and looked at the pavement instead of looking at me. By this
time I had made up my mind about him. He was not only a gentleman
beyond all doubt, but a shy gentleman as well. His bluntness and
his odd remarks were, as I thought, partly efforts to disguise
his shyness, and partly refuges in which he tried to forget his
own sense of it. I answered his audacious proposal amiably and
pleasantly. "You would only lose your way again," I said, "and I
should have to take you back to the inn for the second time."

Wasted words! My obstinate stranger only made another proposal.

"I have ordered lunch here," he said, "and I am quite alone." He
stopped in confusion, and looked as if he rather expected me to
box his ears. "I shall be forty next birthday," he went on; "I am
old enough to be your father." I all but burst out laughing, and
stepped across the street, on my way home. He followed me. "We
might invite the landlady to join us," he said, looking the
picture of a headlong man, dismayed by the consciousness of his
own imprudence. "Couldn't you honor me by lunching with me if we
had the landlady?" he asked.

This was a little too much. "Quite out of the question, sir--and
you ought to know it," I said with severity. He half put out his
hand. "Won't you even shake hands with me?" he inquired
piteously. When we have most properly administered a reproof to a
man, what is the perversity which makes us weakly pity him the
minute afterward? I was fool enough to shake hands with this
perfect stranger. And, having done it, I completed the total loss
of my dignity by running away. Our dear crooked little streets
hid me from him directly.

As I rang at the door-bell of my employer's house, a thought
occurred to me which might have been alarming to a better
regulated mind than mine.

"Suppose he should come back to Sandwich?"

II.

BEFORE many more days passed I had troubles of my own to contend
with, which put the eccentric stranger out of my head for the
time.

Unfortunately, my troubles are part of my story; and my early
life mixes itself up with them. In consideration of what is to
follow, may I say two words relating to the period before I was a
governess?

I am the orphan daughter of a shopkeeper of Sandwich. My father
died, leaving to his widow and child an honest name and a little
income of L80 a year. We kept on the shop--neither gaining nor
losing by it. The truth is nobody would buy our poor little
business. I was thirteen years old at the time; and I was able to
help my mother, whose health was then beginning to fail. Never
shall I forget a certain bright summer's day, when I saw a new
customer enter our shop. He was an elderly gentleman; and he
seemed surprised to find so young a girl as myself in charge of
the business, and, what is more, competent to support the charge.
I answered his questions in a manner which seemed to please him.
He soon discovered that my education (excepting my knowledge of
the business) had been sadly neglected; and he inquired if he
could see my mother. She was resting on the sofa in the back
parlor--and she received him there. When he came out, he patted
me on the cheek. "I have taken a fancy to you," he said, "and
perhaps I shall come back again." He did come back again. My
mother had referred him to the rector for our characters in the
town, and he had heard what our clergyman could say for us. Our
only relations had emigrated to Australia, and were not doing
well there. My mother's death would leave me, so far as relatives
were concerned, literally alone in the world. "Give this girl a
first-rate education," said our elderly customer, sitting at our
tea-table in the back parlor, "and she will do. If you will send
her to school, ma'am, I'll pay for her education." My poor mother
began to cry at the prospect of parting with me. The old
gentleman said: "Think of it," and got up to go. He gave me his
card as I opened the shop-door for him. "If you find yourself in
trouble," he whispered, so that my mother could not hear him, "be
a wise child, and write and tell me of it." I looked at the card.
Our kind-hearted customer was no less a person than Sir Gervase
Damian, of Garrum Park, Sussex--with landed property in our
county as well! He had made himself (through the rector, no
doubt) far better acquainted than I was with the true state of my
mother's health. In four months from the memorable day when the
great man had taken tea with us, my time had come to be alone in
the world. I have no courage to dwell on it; my spirits sink,
even at this distance of time, when I think of myself in those
days. The good rector helped me with his advice--I wrote to Sir
Gervase Damian.

A change had come over his life as well as mine in the interval
since we had met.

Sir Gervas e had married for the second time--and, what was more
foolish still, perhaps, at his age, had married a young woman.
She was said to be consumptive, and of a jealous temper as well.
Her husband's only child by his first wife, a son and heir, was
so angry at his father's second marriage that he left the house.
The landed property being entailed, Sir Gervase could only
express his sense of his son's conduct by making a new will,
which left all his property in money to his young wife.

These particulars I gathered from the steward, who was expressly
sent to visit me at Sandwich.

"Sir Gervase never makes a promise without keeping it," this
gentleman informed me. "I am directed to take you to a first-rate
ladies' school in the neighborhood of London, and to make all the
necessary arrangements for your remaining there until you are
eighteen years of age. Any written communications in the future
are to pass, if you please, through the hands of the rector of
Sandwich. The delicate health of the new Lady Damian makes it
only too likely that the lives of her husband and herself will be
passed, for the most part, in a milder climate than the climate
of England. I am instructed to say this, and to convey to you Sir
Gervase's best wishes."

By the rector's advice, I accepted the position offered to me in
this unpleasantly formal manner--concluding (quite correctly, as
I afterward discovered) that I was indebted to Lady Damian for
the arrangement which personally separated me from my benefactor.
Her husband's kindness and my gratitude, meeting on the neutral
ground of Garrum Park, were objects of conjugal distrust to this
lady. Shocking! shocking! I left a sincerely grateful letter to
be forwarded to Sir Gervase; and, escorted by the steward, I went
to school--being then just fourteen years old.

I know I am a fool. Never mind. There is some pride in me, though
I am only a small shopkeeper's daughter. My new life had its
trials--my pride held me up.

For the four years during which I remained at the school, my poor
welfare might be a subject of inquiry to the rector, and
sometimes even the steward--never to Sir Gervase himself. His
winters were no doubt passed abroad; but in the summer time he
and Lady Damian were at home again. Not even for a day or two in
the holiday time was there pity enough felt for my lonely
position to ask me to be the guest of the housekeeper (I expected
nothing more) at Garrum Park. But for my pride, I might have felt
it bitterly. My pride said to me, "Do justice to yourself." I
worked so hard, I behaved so well, that the mistress of the
school wrote to Sir Gervase to tell him how thoroughly I had
deserved the kindness that he had shown to me. No answer was
received. (Oh, Lady Damian!) No change varied the monotony of my
life--except when one of my schoolgirl friends sometimes took me
home with her for a few days at vacation time. Never mind. My
pride held me up.

As the last half-year of my time at school approached, I began to
consider the serious question of my future life.

Of course, I could have lived on my eighty pounds a year; but
what a lonely, barren existence it promised to be!--unless
somebody married me; and where, if you please, was I to find him?
My education had thoroughly fitted me to be a governess. Why not
try my fortune, and see a little of the world in that way? Even
if I fell among ill-conditioned people, I could be independent of
them, and retire on my income.

The rector, visiting London, came to see me. He not only approved
of my idea--he offered me a means of carrying it out. A worthy
family, recently settled at Sandwich, were in want of a
governess. The head of the household was partner in a business
(the exact nature of which it is needless to mention) having
"branches" out of London. He had become superintendent of a new
"branch"--tried as a commercial experiment, under special
circumstances, at Sandwich. The idea of returning to my native
place pleased me--dull as the place was to others. I accepted the
situation.

When the steward's usual half-yearly letter arrived soon
afterward, inquiring what plans I had formed on leaving school,
and what he could do to help them, acting on behalf of Sir
Gervase, a delicious tingling filled me from head to foot when I
thought of my own independence. It was not ingratitude toward my
benefactor; it was only my little private triumph over Lady
Damian. Oh, my sisters of the sex, can you not understand and
forgive me?

So to Sandwich I returned; and there, for three years, I remained
with the kindest people who ever breathed the breath of life.
Under their roof I was still living when I met with my lost
gentleman in the street.

Ah, me! the end of that quiet, pleasant life was near. When I
lightly spoke to the odd stranger of the expiring trade of the
town, I never expected that my employer's trade was expiring too.
The speculation had turned out to be a losing one; and all his
savings had been embarked in it. He could no longer remain at
Sandwich, or afford to keep a governess. His wife broke the sad
news to me. I was so fond of the children, I proposed to her to
give up my salary. Her husband refused even to consider the
proposal. It was the old story of poor humanity over again. We
cried, we kissed, we parted.

What was I to do next?--Write to Sir Gervase?

I had already written, soon after my return to Sandwich; breaking
through the regulations by directly addressing Sir Gervase. I
expressed my grateful sense of his generosity to a poor girl who
had no family claim on him; and I promised to make the one return
in my power by trying to be worthy of the interest he had taken
in me. The letter was written without any alloy of mental
reserve. My new life as a governess was such a happy one that I
had forgotten my paltry bitterness of feeling against Lady
Damian.

It was a relief to think of this change for the better, when the
secretary at Garrum Park informed me that he had forwarded my
letter to Sir Gervase, then at Madeira with his sick wife. She
was slowly and steadily wasting away in a decline. Before another
year had passed, Sir Gervase was left a widower for the second
time, with no child to console him under his loss. No answer came
to my grateful letter. I should have been unreasonable indeed if
I had expected the bereaved husband to remember me in his grief
and loneliness. Could I write to him again, in my own trumpery
little interests, under these circumstances? I thought (and still
think) that the commonest feeling of delicacy forbade it. The
only other alternative was to appeal to the ever-ready friends of
the obscure and helpless public. I advertised in the newspapers.

The tone of one of the answers which I received impressed me so
favorably, that I forwarded my references. The next post brought
my written engagement, and the offer of a salary which doubled my
income.

The story of the past is told; and now we may travel on again,
with no more stoppages by the way.

III.

THE residence of my present employer was in the north of England.
Having to pass through London, I arranged to stay in town for a
few days to make some necessary additions to my wardrobe. An old
servant of the rector, who kept a lodging-house in the suburbs,
received me kindly, and guided my choice in the serious matter of
a dressmaker. On the second morning after my arrival an event
happened. The post brought me a letter forwarded from the
rectory. Imagine my astonishment when my correspondent proved to
be Sir Gervase Damian himself!

The letter was dated from his house in London. It briefly invited
me to call and see him, for a reason which I should hear from his
own lips. He naturally supposed that I was still at Sandwich, and
requested me, in a postscript, to consider my journey as made at
his expense.

I went to the house the same day. While I was giving my name, a
gentleman came out into the hall. He spoke to me without
ceremony.

"Sir Gervase," he said, "believes he is going to die. Don't
encourage him in that idea. He may live for another year or more,
if his friends will only persuade him to be hopeful about
himself."

With that, the gentleman left me; the servant said i t was the
doctor.

The change in my benefactor, since I had seen him last, startled
and distressed me. He lay back in a large arm-chair, wearing a
grim black dressing-gown, and looking pitiably thin and pinched
and worn. I do not think I should have known him again, if we had
met by accident. He signed to me to be seated on a little chair
by his side.

"I wanted to see you," he said quietly, "before I die. You must
have thought me neglectful and unkind, with good reason. My
child, you have not been forgotten. If years have passed without
a meeting between us, it has not been altogether my fault--"

He stopped. A pained expression passed over his poor worn face;
he was evidently thinking of the young wife whom he had lost. I
repeated--fervently and sincerely repeated--what I had already
said to him in writing. "I owe everything, sir, to your fatherly
kindness." Saying this, I ventured a little further. I took his
wan white hand, hanging over the arm of the chair, and
respectfully put it to my lips.

He gently drew his hand away from me, and sighed as he did it.
Perhaps _she_ had sometimes kissed his hand.

"Now tell me about yourself," he said.

I told him of my new situation, and how I had got it. He listened
with evident interest.

"I was not self-deceived," he said, "when I first took a fancy to
you in the shop. I admire your independent feeling; it's the
right kind of courage in a girl like you. But you must let me do
something more for you--some little service to remember me by
when the end has come. What shall it be?"

"Try to get better, sir; and let me write to you now and then," I
answered. "Indeed, indeed, I want nothing more."

"You will accept a little present, at least?" With those words he
took from the breast-pocket of his dressing-gown an enameled
cross attached to a gold chain. "Think of me sometimes," he said,
as he put the chain round my neck. He drew me to him gently, and
kissed my forehead. It was too much for me. "Don't cry, my dear,"
he said; "don't remind me of another sad young face--"

Once more he stopped; once more he was thinking of the lost wife.
I pulled down my veil, and ran out of the room.

IV.

THE next day I was on my way to the north. My narrative brightens
again--but let us not forget Sir Gervase Damian.

I ask permission to introduce some persons of distinction:--Mrs.
Fosdyke, of Carsham Hall, widow of General Fosdyke; also Master
Frederick, Miss Ellen, and Miss Eva, the pupils of the new
governess; also two ladies and three gentlemen, guests staying in
the house.

Discreet and dignified; handsome and well-bred--such was my
impression of Mrs. Fosdyke, while she harangued me on the subject
of her children, and communicated her views on education. Having
heard the views before from others, I assumed a listening
position, and privately formed my opinion of the schoolroom. It
was large, lofty, perfectly furnished for the purpose; it had a
big window and a balcony looking out over the garden terrace and
the park beyond--a wonderful schoolroom, in my limited
experience. One of the two doors which it possessed was left
open, and showed me a sweet little bedroom, with amber draperies
and maplewood furniture, devoted to myself. Here were wealth and
liberality, in the harmonious combination so seldom discovered by
the spectator of small means. I controlled my first feeling of
bewilderment just in time to answer Mrs. Fosdyke on the subject
of reading and recitation--viewed as minor accomplishments which
a good governess might be expected to teach.

"While the organs are young and pliable," the lady remarked, "I
regard it as of great importance to practice children in the art
of reading aloud, with an agreeable variety of tone and
correctness of emphasis. Trained in this way, they will produce a
favorable impression on others, even in ordinary conversation,
when they grow up. Poetry, committed to memory and recited, is a
valuable means toward this end. May I hope that your studies have
enabled you to carry out my views?"

Formal enough in language, but courteous and kind in manner. I
relieved Mrs. Fosdyke from anxiety by informing her that we had a
professor of elocution at school. And then I was left to improve
my acquaintance with my three pupils.

They were fairly intelligent children; the boy, as usual, being
slower than the girls. I did my best--with many a sad remembrance
of the far dearer pupils whom I had left--to make them like me
and trust me; and I succeeded in winning their confidence. In a
week from the time of my arrival at Carsham Hall, we began to
understand each other.

The first day in the week was one of our days for reciting
poetry, in obedience to the instructions with which I had been
favored by Mrs. Fosdyke. I had done with the girls, and had just
opened (perhaps I ought to say profaned) Shakespeare's "Julius
Caesar," in the elocutionary interests of Master Freddy. Half of
Mark Antony's first glorious speech over Caesar's dead body he
had learned by heart; and it was now my duty to teach him, to the
best of my small ability, how to speak it. The morning was warm.
We had our big window open; the delicious perfume of flowers in
the garden beneath filled the room.

I recited the first eight lines, and stopped there feeling that I
must not exact too much from the boy at first. "Now, Freddy," I
said, "try if you can speak the poetry as I have spoken it."

"Don't do anything of the kind, Freddy," said a voice from the
garden; "it's all spoken wrong."

Who was this insolent person? A man unquestionably--and, strange
to say, there was something not entirely unfamiliar to me in his
voice. The girls began to giggle. Their brother was more
explicit. "Oh," says Freddy, "it's only Mr. Sax."

The one becoming course to pursue was to take no notice of the
interruption. "Go on," I said. Freddy recited the lines, like a
dear good boy, with as near an imitation of my style of elocution
as could be expected from him.

"Poor devil!" cried the voice from the garden, insolently pitying
my attentive pupil.

I imposed silence on the girls by a look--and then, without
stirring from my chair, expressed my sense of the insolence of
Mr. Sax in clear and commanding tones. "I shall be obliged to
close the window if this is repeated." Having spoken to that
effect, I waited in expectation of an apology. Silence was the
only apology. It was enough for me that I had produced the right
impression. I went on with my recitation.

"Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men),
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me--"

"Oh, good heavens, I can't stand _that!_ Why don't you speak the
last line properly? Listen to me."

Dignity is a valuable quality, especially in a governess. But
there are limits to the most highly trained endurance. I bounced
out into the balcony--and there, on the terrace, smoking a cigar,
was my lost stranger in the streets of Sandwich!

He recognized me, on his side, the instant I appeared. "Oh,
Lord!" he cried in tones of horror, and ran round the corner of
the terrace as if my eyes had been mad bulls in close pursuit of
him. By this time it is, I fear, useless for me to set myself up
as a discreet person in emergencies. Another woman might have
controlled herself. I burst into fits of laughter. Freddy and the
girls joined me. For the time, it was plainly useless to pursue
the business of education. I shut up Shakespeare, and
allowed--no, let me tell the truth, encouraged--the children to
talk about Mr. Sax.

They only seemed to know what Mr. Sax himself had told them. His
father and mother and brothers and sisters had all died in course
of time. He was the sixth and last of the children, and he had
been christened "Sextus" in consequence, which is Latin (here
Freddy interposed) for sixth. Also christened "Cyril" (here the
girls recovered the lead) by his mother's request; "Sextus" being
such a hideous name. And which of his Christian names does he
use? You wouldn't ask if you knew him! "Sextus," of course,
because it is the ugliest. Sextus Sax? N ot the romantic sort of
name that one likes, when one is a woman. But I have no right to
be particular. My own name (is it possible that I have not
mentioned it in these pages yet?) is only Nancy Morris. Do not
despise me--and let us return to Mr. Sax.

Is he married? The eldest girl thought not. She had heard mamma
say to a lady, "An old German family, my dear, and, in spite of
his oddities, an excellent man; but so poor--barely enough to
live on--and blurts out the truth, if people ask his opinion, as
if he had twenty thousand a year!" "Your mamma knows him well, of
course?" "I should think so, and so do we. He often comes here.
They say he's not good company among grown-up people. _We_ think
him jolly. He understands dolls, and he's the best back at
leap-frog in the whole of England." Thus far we had advanced in
the praise of Sextus Sax, when one of the maids came in with a
note for me. She smiled mysteriously, and said, "I'm to wait for
an answer, miss."

I opened the note, and read these lines:--

"I am so ashamed of myself, I daren't attempt to make my
apologies personally. Will you accept my written excuses? Upon my
honor, nobody told me when I got here yesterday that you were in
the house. I heard the recitation, and--can you excuse my
stupidity?--I thought it was a stage-struck housemaid amusing
herself with the children. May I accompany you when you go out
with the young ones for your daily walk? One word will do. Yes or
no. Penitently yours--S. S."

In my position, there was but one possible answer to this.
Governesses must not make appointments with strange
gentlemen--even when the children are present in the capacity of
witnesses. I said, No. Am I claiming too much for my readiness to
forgive injuries, when I add that I should have preferred saying
Yes?

We had our early dinner, and then got ready to go out walking as
usual. These pages contain a true confession. Let me own that I
hoped Mr. Sax would understand my refusal, and ask Mrs. Fosdyke's
leave to accompany us. Lingering a little as we went downstairs,
I heard him in the hall--actually speaking to Mrs. Fosdyke! What
was he saying? That darling boy, Freddy, got into a difficulty
with one of his boot-laces exactly at the right moment. I could
help him, and listen--and be sadly disappointed by the result.
Mr. Sax was offended with me.

"You needn't introduce me to the new governess," I heard him say.
"We have met on a former occasion, and I produced a disagreeable
impression on her. I beg you will not speak of me to Miss
Morris."

Before Mrs. Fosdyke could say a word in reply, Master Freddy
changed suddenly from a darling boy to a detestable imp. "I say,
Mr. Sax!" he called out, "Miss Morris doesn't mind you a bit--she
only laughs at you."

The answer to this was the sudden closing of a door. Mr. Sax had
taken refuge from me in one of the ground-floor rooms. I was so
mortified, I could almost have cried.

Getting down into the hall, we found Mrs. Fosdyke with her garden
hat on, and one of the two ladies who were staying in the house
(the unmarried one) whispering to her at the door of the
morning-room. The lady--Miss Melbury--looked at me with a certain
appearance of curiosity which I was quite at a loss to
understand, and suddenly turned away toward the further end of
the hall.

"I will walk with you and the children," Mrs. Fosdyke said to me.
"Freddy, you can ride your tricycle if you like." She turned to
the girls. "My dears, it's cool under the trees. You may take
your skipping-ropes."

She had evidently something special to say to me; and she had
adopted the necessary measures for keeping the children in front
of us, well out of hearing. Freddy led the way on his horse on
three wheels; the girls followed, skipping merrily. Mrs. Fosdyke
opened the business by the most embarrassing remark that she
could possibly have made under the circumstances.

"I find that you are acquainted with Mr. Sax," she began; "and I
am surprised to hear that you dislike him."

She smiled pleasantly, as if my supposed dislike of Mr. Sax
rather amused her. What "the ruling passion" may be among men, I
cannot presume to consider. My own sex, however, I may claim to
understand. The ruling passion among women is Conceit. My
ridiculous notion of my own consequence was wounded in some way.
I assumed a position of the loftiest indifference.

"Really, ma'am," I said, "I can't undertake to answer for any
impression that Mr. Sax may have formed. We met by the merest
accident. I know nothing about him."

Mrs. Fosdyke eyed me slyly, and appeared to be more amused than
ever.

"He is a very odd man," she admitted, "but I can tell you there
is a fine nature under that strange surface of his. However," she
went on, "I am forgetting that he forbids me to talk about him in
your presence. When the opportunity offers, I shall take my own
way of teaching you two to understand each other: you will both
be grateful to me when I have succeeded. In the meantime, there
is a third person who will be sadly disappointed to hear that you
know nothing about Mr. Sax."

"May I ask, ma'am, who the person is?"

"Can you keep a secret, Miss Morris? Of course you can! The
person is Miss Melbury."

(Miss Melbury was a dark woman. It cannot be because I am a fair
woman myself--I hope I am above such narrow prejudices as
that--but it is certainly true that I don't admire dark women.)

"She heard Mr. Sax telling me that you particularly disliked him,
" Mrs. Fosdyke proceeded. "And just as you appeared in the hall,
she was asking me to find out what your reason was. My own
opinion of Mr. Sax, I ought to tell you, doesn't satisfy her; I
am his old friend, and I present him of course from my own
favorable point of view. Miss Melbury is anxious to be made
acquainted with his faults--and she expected you to be a valuable
witness against him."

Thus far we had been walking on. We now stopped, as if by common
consent, and looked at one another.

In my previous experience of Mrs. Fosdyke, I had only seen the
more constrained and formal side of her character. Without being
aware of my own success, I had won the mother's heart in winning
the goodwill of her children. Constraint now seized its first
opportunity of melting away; the latent sense of humor in the
great lady showed itself, while I was inwardly wondering what the
nature of Miss Melbury's extraordinary interest in Mr. Sax might
be. Easily penetrating my thoughts, she satisfied my curiosity
without committing herself to a reply in words. Her large gray
eyes sparkled as they rested on my face, and she hummed the tune
of the old French song, _"C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour!"_
There is no disguising it--something in this disclosure made me
excessively angry. Was I angry with Miss Melbury? or with Mr.
Sax? or with myself? I think it must have been with myself.

Finding that I had nothing to say on my side, Mrs. Fosdyke looked
at her watch, and remembered her domestic duties. To my relief,
our interview came to an end.

"I have a dinner-party to-day," she said, "and I have not seen
the housekeeper yet. Make yourself beautiful, Miss Morris, and
join us in the drawing-room after dinner."

V.

I WORE my best dress; and, in all my life before, I never took
such pains with my hair. Nobody will be foolish enough, I hope,
to suppose that I did this on Mr. Sax's account. How could I
possibly care about a man who was little better than a stranger
to me? No! the person I dressed at was Miss Melbury.

She gave me a look, as I modestly placed myself in a corner,
which amply rewarded me for the time spent on my toilet. The
gentlemen came in. I looked at Mr. Sax (mere curiosity) under
shelter of my fan. His appearance was greatly improved by evening
dress. He discovered me in my corner, and seemed doubtful whether
to approach me or not. I was reminded of our first odd meeting;
and I could not help smiling as I called it to mind. Did he
presume to think that I was encouraging him? Before I could
decide that question, he took the vacant place on the sofa. In
any other man--after what had passed in the morning--this would
have been an audacious proceeding. _He_ looked so painfully
embarrassed, that i t became a species of Christian duty to pity
him.

"Won't you shake hands?" he said, just as he had said it at
Sandwich.

I peeped round the corner of my fan at Miss Melbury. She was
looking at us. I shook hands with Mr. Sax.

"What sort of sensation is it," he asked, "when you shake hands
with a man whom you hate?"

"I really can't tell you," I answered innocently; "I have never
done such a thing."

"You would not lunch with me at Sandwich," he protested; "and,
after the humblest apology on my part, you won't forgive me for
what I did this morning. Do you expect me to believe that I am
not the special object of your antipathy? I wish I had never met
with you! At my age, a man gets angry when he is treated cruelly
and doesn't deserve it. You don't understand that, I dare say."

"Oh, yes, I do. I heard what you said about me to Mrs. Fosdyke,
and I heard you bang the door when you got out of my way."

He received this reply with every appearance of satisfaction. "So
you listened, did you? I'm glad to hear that."

"Why?"

"It shows you take some interest in me, after all."

Throughout this frivolous talk (I only venture to report it
because it shows that I bore no malice on my side) Miss Melbury
was looking at us like the basilisk of the ancients. She owned to
being on the wrong side of thirty; and she had a little
money--but these were surely no reasons why she should glare at a
poor governess. Had some secret understanding of the tender sort
been already established between Mr. Sax and herself? She
provoked me into trying to find out--especially as the last words
he had said offered me the opportunity.

"I can prove that I feel a sincere interest in you," I resumed.
"I can resign you to a lady who has a far better claim to your
attention than mine. You are neglecting her shamefully."

He stared at me with an appearance of bewilderment, which seemed
to imply that the attachment was on the lady's side, so far. It
was of course impossible to mention names; I merely turned my
eyes in the right direction. He looked where I looked--and his
shyness revealed itself, in spite of his resolution to conceal
it. His face flushed; he looked mortified and surprised. Miss
Melbury could endure it no longer. She rose, took a song from the
music-stand, and approached us.

"I am going to sing," she said, handing the music to him. "Please
turn over for me, Mr. Sax."

I think he hesitated--but I cannot feel sure that I observed him
correctly. It matters little. With or without hesitation, he
followed her to the piano.

Miss Melbury sang--with perfect self-possession, and an immense
compass of voice. A gentleman near me said she ought to be on the
stage. I thought so too. Big as it was, our drawing-room was not
large enough for her. The gentleman sang next. No voice at
all--but so sweet, such true feeling! I turned over the leaves
for him. A dear old lady, sitting near the piano, entered into
conversation with me. She spoke of the great singers at the
beginning of the present century. Mr. Sax hovered about, with
Miss Melbury's eye on him. I was so entranced by the anecdotes of
my venerable friend, that I could take no notice of Mr. Sax.
Later, when the dinner-party was over, and we were retiring for
the night, he still hovered about, and ended in offering me a
bedroom candle. I immediately handed it to Miss Melbury. Really a
most enjoyable evening!

VI.

THE next morning we were startled by an extraordinary proceeding
on the part of one of the guests. Mr. Sax had left Carsham Hall
by the first train--nobody knew why.

Nature has laid--so, at least, philosophers say--some heavy
burdens upon women. Do those learned persons include in their
list the burden of hysterics? If so, I cordially agree with them.
It is hardly worth speaking of in my case--a constitutional
outbreak in the solitude of my own room, treated with
eau-de-cologne and water, and quite forgotten afterward in the
absorbing employment of education. My favorite pupil, Freddy, had
been up earlier than the rest of us--breathing the morning air in
the fruit-garden. He had seen Mr. Sax and had asked him when he
was coming back again. And Mr. Sax had said, "I shall be back
again next month." (Dear little Freddy!)

In the meanwhile we, in the schoolroom, had the prospect before
us of a dull time in an empty house. The remaining guests were to
go away at the end of the week, their hostess being engaged to
pay a visit to some old friends in Scotland.

During the next three or four days, though I was often alone with
Mrs. Fosdyke, she never said one word on the subject of Mr. Sax.
Once or twice I caught her looking at me with that unendurably
significant smile of hers. Miss Melbury was equally unpleasant in
another way. When we accidentally met on the stairs, her black
eyes shot at me passing glances of hatred and scorn. Did these
two ladies presume to think--?

No; I abstained from completing that inquiry at the time, and I
abstain from completing it here.

The end of the week came, and I and the children were left alone
at Carsham Hall.

I took advantage of the leisure hours at my disposal to write to
Sir Gervase; respectfully inquiring after his health, and
informing him that I had been again most fortunate in my
engagement as a governess. By return of post an answer arrived. I
eagerly opened it. The first lines informed me of Sir Gervase
Damian's death.

The letter dropped from my hand. I looked at my little enameled
cross. It is not for me to say what I felt. Think of all that I
owed to him; and remember how lonely my lot was in the world. I
gave the children a holiday; it was only the truth to tell them
that I was not well.

How long an interval passed before I could call to mind that I
had only read the first lines of the letter, I am not able to
say. When I did take it up I was surprised to see that the
writing covered two pages. Beginning again where I had left off,
my head, in a moment more, began to swim. A horrid fear
overpowered me that I might not be in my right mind, after I had
read the first three sentences. Here they are, to answer for me
that I exaggerate nothing:--

"The will of our deceased client is not yet proved. But, with the
sanction of the executors, I inform you confidentially that you
are the person chiefly interested in it. Sir Gervase Damian
bequeaths to you, absolutely, the whole of his personal property,
amounting to the sum of seventy thousand pounds."

If the letter had ended there, I really cannot imagine what
extravagances I might not have committed. But the writer {head
partner in the firm of Sir Gervase's lawyers) had something more
to say on his own behalf. The manner in which he said it strung
up my nerves in an instant. I can not, and will not, copy the
words here. It is quite revolting enough to give the substance of
them.

The man's object was evidently to let me perceive that he
disapproved of the will. So far I do not complain of him--he had,
no doubt, good reason for the view he took. But, in expressing
his surprise "at this extraordinary proof of the testator's
interest in a perfect stranger to the family," he hinted his
suspicion of an influence, on my part, exercised over Sir
Gervase, so utterly shameful, that I cannot dwell on the subject.
The language, I should add, was cunningly guarded. Even I could
see that it would bear more than one interpretation, and would
thus put me in the wrong if I openly resented it. But the meaning
was plain; and part at least of the motive came out in the
following sentences:

"The present Sir Gervase, as you are doubtless aware, is not
seriously affected by his father's will. He is already more
liberally provided for, as heir under the entail to the whole of
the landed property. But, to say nothing of old friends who are
forgotten, there is a surviving relative of the late Sir Gervase
passed over, who is nearly akin to him by blood. In the event of
this person disputing the will, you will of course hear from us
again, and refer us to your legal adviser."

The letter ended with an apology for delay in writing to me,
caused by difficulty in discovering my address.

And what did I do?--Write to the rector, or to Mrs. Fosdyke, fo r
advice? Not I!

At first I was too indignant to be able to think of what I ought
to do. Our post-time was late, and my head ached as if it would
burst into pieces. I had plenty of leisure to rest and compose
myself. When I got cool again, I felt able to take my own part,
without asking any one to help me.

Even if I had been treated kindly, I should certainly not have
taken the money when there was a relative living with a claim to
it. What did _I_ want with a large fortune! To buy a husband with
it, perhaps? No, no! from all that I have heard, the great Lord
Chancellor was quite right when he said that a woman with money
at her own disposal was "either kissed out of it or kicked out of
it, six weeks after her marriage." The one difficulty before me
was not to give up my legacy, but to express my reply with
sufficient severity, and at the same time with due regard to my
own self-respect. Here is what I wrote:

"SIR--I will not trouble you by attempting to express my sorrow
on hearing of Sir Gervase Damian's death. You would probably form
your own opinion on that subject also; and I have no wish to be
judged by your unenviable experience of humanity for the second
time.

"With regard to the legacy, feeling the sincerest gratitude to my
generous benefactor, I nevertheless refuse to receive the money.

"Be pleased to send me the necessary document to sign, for
transferring my fortune to that relative of Sir Gervase mentioned
in your letter. The one condition on which I insist is, that no
expression of thanks shall be addressed to me by the person in
whose favor I resign the money. I do not desire (even supposing
that justice is done to my motives on this occasion) to be made
the object of expressions of gratitude for only doing my duty."

So it ended. I may be wrong, but I call that strong writing.

In due course of post a formal acknowledgment arrived. I was
requested to wait for the document until the will had been
proved, and was informed that my name should be kept strictly
secret in the interval. On this occasion the executors were
almost as insolent as the lawyer. They felt it their duty to give
me time to reconsider a decision which had been evidently formed
on impulse. Ah, how hard men are--at least, some of them! I
locked up the acknowledgment in disgust, resolved to think no
more of it until the time came for getting rid of my legacy. I
kissed poor Sir Gervase's little keepsake. While I was still
looking at it, the good children came in, of their own accord, to
ask how I was. I was obliged to draw down the blind in my room,
or they would have seen the tears in my eyes. For the first time
since my mother's death, I felt the heartache. Perhaps the
children made me think of the happier time when I was a child
myself.

VII.

THE will had been proved, and I was informed that the document
was in course of preparation when Mrs. Fosdyke returned from her
visit to Scotland.

She thought me looking pale and worn.

"The time seems to me to have come," she said, "when I had better
make you and Mr. Sax understand each other. Have you been
thinking penitently of your own bad behavior?"

I felt myself blushing. I _had_ been thinking of my conduct to
Mr. Sax--and I was heartily ashamed of it, too.

Mrs. Fosdyke went on, half in jest, half in earnest. "Consult
your own sense of propriety!" she said. "Was the poor man to
blame for not being rude enough to say No, when a lady asked him
to turn over her music? Could _he_ help it, if the same lady
persisted in flirting with him? He ran away from her the next
morning. Did you deserve to be told why he left us? Certainly
not--after the vixenish manner in which you handed the bedroom
candle to Miss Melbury. You foolish girl! Do you think I couldn't
see that you were in love with him? Thank Heaven, he's too poor
to marry you, and take you away from my children, for some time
to come. There will be a long marriage engagement, even if he is
magnanimous enough to forgive you. Shall I ask Miss Melbury to
come back with him?"

She took pity on me at last, and sat down to write to Mr. Sax.
His reply, dated from a country house some twenty miles distant,
announced that he would be at Carsham Hall in three days' time.

On that third day the legal paper that I was to sign arrived by
post. It was Sunday morning; I was alone in the schoolroom.

In writing to me, the lawyer had only alluded to "a surviving
relative of Sir Gervase, nearly akin to him by blood." The
document was more explicit. It described the relative as being a
nephew of Sir Gervase, the son of his sister. The name followed.

It was Sextus Cyril Sax.

I have tried on three different sheets of paper to describe the
effect which this discovery produced on me--and I have torn them
up one after another. When I only think of it, my mind seems to
fall back into the helpless surprise and confusion of that time.
After all that had passed between us--the man himself being then
on his way to the house! what would he think of me when he saw my
name at the bottom of the document? what, in Heaven's name, was I
to do?

How long I sat petrified, with the document on my lap, I never
knew. Somebody knocked at the schoolroom door, and looked in and
said something, and went out again. Then there was an interval.
Then the door was opened again. A hand was laid kindly on my
shoulder. I looked up--and there was Mrs. Fosdyke, asking, in the
greatest alarm, what was the matter with me.

The tone of her voice roused me into speaking. I could think of
nothing but Mr. Sax; I could only say, "Has he come?"

"Yes--and waiting to see you."

Answering in those terms, she glanced at the paper in my lap. In
the extremity of my helplessness, I acted like a sensible
creature at last. I told Mrs. Fosdyke all that I have told here.

She neither moved nor spoke until I had done. Her first
proceeding, after that, was to take me in her arms and give me a
kiss. Having so far encouraged me, she next spoke of poor Sir
Gervase.

"We all acted like fools," she announced, "in needlessly
offending him by protesting against his second marriage. I don't
mean you--I mean his son, his nephew, and myself. If his second
marriage made him happy, what business had we with the disparity
of years between husband and wife? I can tell you this, Sextus
was the first of us to regret what he had done. But for his
stupid fear of being suspected of an interested motive, Sir
Gervase might have known there was that much good in his sister's
son."

She snatched up a copy of the will, which I had not even noticed
thus far.

"See what the kind old man says of you," she went on, pointing to
the words. I could not see them; she was obliged to read them for
me. "I leave my money to the one person living who has been more
than worthy of the little I have done for her, and whose simple
unselfish nature I know that I can trust."

I pressed Mrs. Fosdyke's hand; I was not able to speak. She took
up the legal paper next.

"Do justice to yourself, and be above contemptible scruples," she
said. "Sextus is fond enough of you to be almost worthy of the
sacrifice that you are making. Sign--and I will sign next as the
witness."

I hesitated.

"What will he think of me?" I said.

"Sign!" she repeated, "and we will see to that."

I obeyed. She asked for the lawyer's letter. I gave it to her,
with the lines which contained the man's vile insinuation folded
down, so that only the words above were visible, which proved
that I had renounced my legacy, not even knowing whether the
person to be benefited was a man or a woman. She took this, with
the rough draft of my own letter, and the signed
renunciation--and opened the door.

"Pray come back, and tell me about it!" I pleaded.

She smiled, nodded, and went out.

Oh, what a long time passed before I heard the long-expected
knock at the door! "Come in," I cried impatiently.

Mrs. Fosdyke had deceived me. Mr. Sax had returned in her place.
He closed the door. We two were alone.

He was deadly pale; his eyes, as they rested on me, had a wild
startled look. With icy cold fingers he took my hand, and lifted
it in silence to his lips. The sight of his agitation encouraged
me--I don't to this
day know why, unless it appealed in some way to my compassion. I
was bold enough to look at him. Still silent, he placed the
letters on the table--and then he laid the signed paper beside
them. When I saw that, I was bolder still. I spoke first.

"Surely you don't refuse me?" I said.

He answered, "I thank you with my whole heart; I admire you more
than words can say. But I can't take it."

"Why not?"

"The fortune is yours," he said gently. "Remember how poor I am,
and feel for me if I say no more."

His head sank on his breast. He stretched out one hand, silently
imploring me to understand him. I could endure it no longer. I
forgot every consideration which a woman, in my position, ought
to have remembered. Out came the desperate words, before I could
stop them.

"You won't take my gift by itself?" I said.

"No."

"Will you take Me with it?"

That evening, Mrs. Fosdyke indulged her sly sense of humor in a
new way. She handed me an almanac.

"After all, my dear," she remarked, "you needn't be ashamed of
having spoken first. You have only used the ancient privilege of
the sex. This is Leap Year."

MR. COSWAY AND THE LANDLADY.

I.

THE guests would have enjoyed their visit to Sir Peter's country
house--but for Mr. Cosway. And to make matters worse, it was not
Mr. Cosway but the guests who were to blame. They repeated the
old story of Adam and Eve, on a larger scale. The women were the
first sinners; and the men were demoralized by the women.

Mr. Cosway's bitterest enemy could not have denied that he was a
handsome, well-bred, unassuming man. No mystery of any sort
attached to him. He had adopted the Navy as a profession--had
grown weary of it after a few years' service--and now lived on
the moderate income left to him, after the death of his parents.
Out of this unpromising material the lively imaginations of the
women built up a romance. The men only noticed that Mr. Cosway
was rather silent and thoughtful; that he was not ready with his
laugh; and that he had a fancy for taking long walks by himself.
Harmless peculiarities, surely? And yet, they excited the
curiosity of the women as signs of a mystery in Mr. Cosway's past
life, in which some beloved object unknown must have played a
chief part.

As a matter of course, the influence of the sex was tried, under
every indirect and delicate form of approach, to induce Mr.
Cosway to open his heart, and tell the tale of his sorrows. With
perfect courtesy, he baffled curiosity, and kept his supposed
secret to himself. The most beautiful girl in the house was ready
to offer herself and her fortune as consolations, if this
impenetrable bachelor would only have taken her into his
confidence. He smiled sadly, and changed the subject.

Defeated so far, the women accepted the next alternative.

One of the guests staying in the house was Mr. Cosway's intimate
friend--formerly his brother-officer on board ship. This
gentleman was now subjected to the delicately directed system of
investigation which had failed with his friend. With unruffled
composure he referred the ladies, one after another, to Mr.
Cosway. His name was Stone. The ladies decided that his nature
was worthy of his name.

The last resource left to our fair friends was to rouse the
dormant interest of the men, and to trust to the confidential
intercourse of the smoking-room for the enlightenment which they
had failed to obtain by other means.

In the accomplishment of this purpose, the degree of success
which rewarded their efforts was due to a favoring state of
affairs in the house. The shooting was not good for much; the
billiard-table was under repair; and there were but two really
skilled whist-players among the guests. In the atmosphere of
dullness thus engendered, the men not only caught the infection
of the women's curiosity, but were even ready to listen to the
gossip of the servants' hall, repeated to their mistresses by the
ladies' maids. The result of such an essentially debased state of
feeling as this was not slow in declaring itself. But for a lucky
accident, Mr. Cosway would have discovered to what extremities of
ill-bred curiosity idleness and folly can lead persons holding
the position of ladies and gentlemen, when he joined the company
at breakfast on the next morning.

The newspapers came in before the guests had risen from the
table. Sir Peter handed one of them to the lady who sat on his
right hand.

She first looked, it is needless to say, at the list of births,
deaths, and marriages; and then she turned to the general
news--the fires, accidents, fashionable departures, and so on. In
a few minutes, she indignantly dropped the newspaper in her lap.

"Here is another unfortunate man," she exclaimed, "sacrificed to
the stupidity of women! If I had been in his place, I would have
used my knowledge of swimming to save myself, and would have left
the women to go to the bottom of the river as they deserved!"

"A boat accident, I suppose?" said Sir Peter.

"Oh yes--the old story. A gentleman takes two ladies out in a
boat. After a while they get fidgety, and feel an idiotic impulse
to change places. The boat upsets as usual; the poor dear man
tries to save them--and is drowned along with them for his pains.
Shameful! shameful!"

"Are the names mentioned?"

"Yes. They are all strangers to me; I speak on principle."
Asserting herself in those words, the indignant lady handed the
newspaper to Mr. Cosway, who happened to sit next to her. "When
you were in the navy," she continued, "I dare say _your_ life was
put in jeopardy by taking women in boats. Read it yourself, and
let it be a warning to you for the future."

Mr. Cosway looked at the narrative of the accident--and revealed
the romantic mystery of his life by a burst of devout
exclamation, expressed in the words:

"Thank God, my wife's drowned!"

II.

To declare that Sir Peter and his guests were all struck
speechless, by discovering in this way that Mr. Cosway was a
married man, is to say very little. The general impression
appeared to be that he was mad. His neighbors at the table all
drew back from him, with the one exception of his friend. Mr.
Stone looked at the newspaper: pressed Mr. Cosway's hand in
silent sympathy--and addressed himself to his host.

"Permit me to make my friend's apologies," he said, until he is
composed enough to act for himself. The circumstances are so
extraordinary that I venture to think they excuse him. Will you
allow us to speak to you privately?"

Sir Peter, with more apologies addressed to his visitors, opened
the door which communicated with his study. Mr. Stone took Mr.
Cosway's arm, and led him out of the room. He noticed no one,
spoke to no one--he moved mechanically, like a man walking in his
sleep.

After an unendurable interval of nearly an hour's duration, Sir
Peter returned alone to the breakfast-room. Mr. Cosway and Mr.
Stone had already taken their departure for London, with their
host's entire approval.

"It is left to my discretion " Sir Peter proceeded, "to repeat to
you what I have heard in my study. I will do so, on one
condition--that you all consider yourselves bound in honor not to
mention the true names and the real places, when you tell the
story to others."

Subject to this wise reservation, the narrative is here repeated
by one of the company. Considering how he may perform his task to
the best advantage, he finds that the events which preceded and
followed Mr. Cosway's disastrous marriage resolve themselves into
certain well-marked divisions. Adopting this arrangement, he
proceeds to relate:

_The First Epoch in Mr. Cosway's Life._

The sailing of her Majesty's ship _Albicore_ was deferred by the
severe illness of the captain. A gentleman not possessed of
political influence might, after the doctor's unpromising report
of him, have been superseded by another commanding officer. In
the present case, the Lords of the Admiralty showed themselves to
be models of patience and sympathy. They kept the vessel in port,
waiting the captain's recovery.

Among the unimportant junior officers, not wanted on board under
these circumstances, and favored accordingly by obtaining leave
to wait for orders on shore, were two yo ung men, aged
respectively twenty-two and twenty-three years, and known by the
names of Cosway and Stone. The scene which now introduces them
opens at a famous seaport on the south coast of England, and
discloses the two young gentlemen at dinner in a private room at
their inn.

"I think that last bottle of champagne was corked," Cosway
remarked. "Let's try another. You're nearest the bell, Stone.
Ring."

Stone rang, under protest. He was the elder of the two by a year,
and he set an example of discretion.

"I am afraid we are running up a terrible bill," he said. "We
have been here more than three weeks--"

"And we have denied ourselves nothing," Cosway added. "We have
lived like princes. Another bottle of champagne, waiter. We have
our riding-horses, and our carriage, and the best box at the
theater, and such cigars as London itself could not produce. I
call that making the most of life. Try the new bottle. Glorious
drink, isn't it? Why doesn't my father have champagne at the
family dinner-table?"

"Is your father a rich man, Cosway?"

"I should say not. He didn't give me anything like the money I
expected, when I said good-by--and I rather think he warned me
solemnly, at parting, to take the greatest care of it.' There's
not a farthing more for you,' he said, 'till your ship returns
from her South American station.' _Your_ father is a clergyman,
Stone."

"Well, and what of that?"

"And some clergymen are rich."

"My father is not one of them, Cosway."

"Then let us say no more about him. Help yourself, and pass the
bottle."

Instead of adopting this suggestion, Stone rose with a very grave
face, and once more rang the bell. "Ask the landlady to step up,"
he said, when the waiter appeared.

"What do you want with the landlady?" Cosway inquired.

"I want the bill."

The landlady--otherwise Mrs. Pounce--entered the room. She was
short, and old, and fat, and painted, and a widow. Students of
character, as revealed in the face, would have discovered malice
and cunning in her bright black eyes, and a bitter vindictive
temper in the lines about her thin red lips. Incapable of such
subtleties of analysis as these, the two young officers differed
widely, nevertheless, in their opinions of Mrs. Pounce. Cosway's
reckless sense of humor delighted in pretending to be in love
with her. Stone took a dislike to her from the first. When his
friend asked for the reason, he made a strangely obscure answer.
"Do you remember that morning in the wood when you killed the
snake?" he said. "I took a dislike to the snake." Cosway made no
further inquiries.

"Well, my young heroes," said Mrs. Pounce (always loud, always
cheerful, and always familiar with her guests), "what do you want
with me now?"

"Take a glass of champagne, my darling," said Cosway; "and let me
try if I can get my arm round your waist. That's all _I_ want
with you."

The landlady passed this over without notice. Though she had
spoken to both of them, her cunning little eyes rested on Stone
from the moment when she appeared in the room. She knew by
instinct the man who disliked her--and she waited deliberately
for Stone to reply.

"We have been here some time," he said, "and we shall be obliged,
ma'am, if you will let us have our bill."

Mrs. Pounce lifted her eyebrows with an expression of innocent
surprise.

"Has the captain got well, and must you go on board to-night?"
she asked.

"Nothing of the sort!" Cosway interposed. "We have no news of the
captain, and we are going to the theater to-night."

"But," persisted Stone, "we want, if you please, to have the
bill."

"Certainly, sir," said Mrs. Pounce, with a sudden assumption of
respect. "But we are very busy downstairs, and we hope you will
not press us for it to-night?"

"Of course not!" cried Cosway.

Mrs. Pounce instantly left the room, without waiting for any
further remark from Cosway's friend.

"I wish we had gone to some other house," said Stone. "You mark
my words--that woman means to cheat us."

Cosway expressed his dissent from this opinion in the most
amiable manner. He filled his friend's glass, and begged him not
to say ill-natured things of Mrs. Pounce.

But Stone's usually smooth temper seemed to be ruffled; he
insisted on his own view. "She's impudent and inquisitive, if she
is not downright dishonest," he said. "What right had she to ask
you where we lived when we were at home; and what our Christian
names were; and which of us was oldest, you or I? Oh, yes--it's
all very well to say she only showed a flattering interest in us!
I suppose she showed a flattering interest in my affairs, when I
awoke a little earlier than usual, and caught her in my bedroom
with my pocketbook in her hand. Do you believe she was going to
lock it up for safety's sake? She knows how much money we have
got as well as we know it ourselves. Every half-penny we have
will be in her pocket tomorrow. And a good thing, too--we shall
be obliged to leave the house."

Even this cogent reasoning failed in provoking Cosway to reply.
He took Stone's hat, and handed it with the utmost politeness to
his foreboding friend. "There's only one remedy for such a state
of mind as yours," he said. "Come to the theater."

At ten o'clock the next morning Cosway found himself alone at the
breakfast-table. He was informed that Mr. Stone had gone out for
a little walk, and would be back directly. Seating himself at the
table, he perceived an envelope on his plate, which evidently
inclosed the bill. He took up the envelope, considered a little,
and put it back again unopened. At the same moment Stone burst
into the room in a high state of excitement.

"News that will astonish you!" he cried. "The captain arrived
yesterday evening. His doctors say that the sea-voyage will
complete his recovery. The ship sails to-day--and we are ordered
to report ourselves on board in an hour's time. Where's the
bill?"

Cosway pointed to it. Stone took it out of the envelope.

It covered two sides of a prodigiously long sheet of paper. The
sum total was brightly decorated with lines in red ink. Stone
looked at the total, and passed it in silence to Cosway. For
once, even Cosway was prostrated. In dreadful stillness the two
young men produced their pocketbooks; added up their joint stores
of money, and compared the result with the bill. Their united
resources amounted to a little more than one-third of their debt
to the landlady of the inn.

The only alternative that presented itself was to send for Mrs.
Pounce; to state the circumstances plainly; and to propose a
compromise on the grand commercial basis of credit.

Mrs. Pounce presented herself superbly dressed in walking
costume. Was she going out; or had she just returned to the inn?
Not a word escaped her; she waited gravely to hear what the
gentlemen wanted. Cosway, presuming on his position as favorite,
produced the contents of the two pocketbooks and revealed the
melancholy truth.

"There is all the money we have," he concluded. "We hope you will
not object to receive the balance in a bill at three months"

Mrs. Pounce answered with a stern composure of voice and manner
entirely new in the experience of Cosway and Stone.

"I have paid ready money, gentlemen, for the hire of your horses
and carriages," she said; "here are the receipts from the livery
stables to vouch for me; I never accept bills unless I am quite
sure beforehand that they will be honored. I defy you to find an
overcharge in the account now rendered; and I expect you to pay
it before you leave my house."

Stone looked at his watch.

"In three-quarters of an hour," he said, "we must be on board."

Mrs. Pounce entirely agreed with him. "And if you are not on
board," she remarked "you will be tried by court-martial, and
dismissed the service with your characters ruined for life."

"My dear creature, we haven't time to send home, and we know
nobody in the town," pleaded Cosway. "For God's sake take our
watches and jewelry, and our luggage--and let us go."

"I am not a pawnbroker," said the inflexible lady. "You must
either pay your lawful debt to me in honest money, or--"

She paused and looked at Cosway. Her fat face brightened--she
smiled graciously for the first time.

C osway stared at her in unconcealed perplexity. He helplessly
repeated her last words. " We must either pay the bill," he said,
"or what?"

"Or," answered Mrs. Pounce, "one of you must marry ME."

Was she joking? Was she intoxicated? Was she out of her senses?
Neither of the three; she was in perfect possession of herself;
her explanation was a model of lucid and convincing arrangement
of facts.

"My position here has its drawbacks," she began. "I am a lone
widow; I am known to have an excellent business, and to have
saved money. The result is that I am pestered to death by a set
of needy vagabonds who want to marry me. In this position, I am
exposed to slanders and insults. Even if I didn't know that the
men were after my money, there is not one of them whom I would
venture to marry. He might turn out a tyrant and beat me; or a
drunkard, and disgrace me; or a betting man, and ruin me. What I
want, you see, for my own peace and protection, is to be able to
declare myself married, and to produce the proof in the shape of
a certificate. A born gentleman, with a character to lose, and so
much younger in years than myself that he wouldn't think of
living with me--there is the sort of husband who suits my book!
I'm a reasonable woman, gentlemen. I would undertake to part with
my husband at the church door--never to attempt to see him or
write to him afterward--and only to show my certificate when
necessary, without giving any explanations. Your secret would be
quite safe in my keeping. I don't care a straw for either of you,
so long as you answer my purpose. What do you say to paying my
bill (one or the other of you) in this way? I am ready dressed
for the altar; and the clergyman has notice at the church. My
preference is for Mr. Cosway," proceeded this terrible woman with
the cruelest irony, "because he has been so particular in his
attentions toward me. The license (which I provided on the chance
a fortnight since) is made out in his name. Such is my weakness
for Mr. Cosway. But that don't matter if Mr. Stone would like to
take his place. He can hail by his friend's name. Oh, yes, he
can! I have consulted my lawyer. So long as the bride and
bridegroom agree to it, they may be married in any name they
like, and it stands good. Look at your watch again, Mr. Stone.
The church is in the next street. By my calculation, you have
just got five minutes to decide. I'm a punctual woman, my little
dears; and I will he back to the moment."

She opened the door, paused, and returned to the room.

"I ought to have mentioned," she resumed, "that I shall make you
a present of the bill, receipted, on the conclusion of the
ceremony. You will be taken to the ship in my own boat, with all
your money in your pockets, and a hamper of good things for the
mess. After that I wash my hands of you. You may go to the devil
your own way."

With this parting benediction, she left them.

Caught in the landlady's trap, the two victims looked at each
other in expressive silence. Without time enough to take legal
advice; without friends on shore; without any claim on officers
of their own standing in the ship, the prospect before them was
literally limited to Marriage or Ruin. Stone made a proposal
worthy of a hero.

"One of us must marry her," he said; "I'm ready to toss up for
it."

Cosway matched him in generosity. "No," he answered. "It was I
who brought you here; and I who led you into these infernal
expenses. I ought to pay the penalty--and I will."

Before Stone could remonstrate, the five minutes expired.
Punctual Mrs. Pounce appeared again in the doorway.

"Well?" she inquired, "which is it to be-- Cosway, or Stone?"

Cosway advanced as reckless as ever, and offered his arm.

"Now then, Fatsides," he said, "come and be married!"

In five-and-twenty minutes more, Mrs. Pounce had become Mrs.
Cosway; and the two officers were on their way to the ship.

_The Second Epoch in Mr. Cosway's Life._

Four years elapsed before the _Albicore_ returned to the port
from which she had sailed.

In that interval, the death of Cosway's parents had taken place.
The lawyer who had managed his affairs, during his absence from
England, wrote to inform him that his inheritance from his late
father's "estate" was eight hundred a year. His mother only
possessed a life interest in her fortune; she had left her jewels
to her son, and that was all.

Cosway's experience of the life of a naval officer on foreign
stations (without political influence to hasten his promotion)
had thoroughly disappointed him. He decided on retiring from the
service when the ship was "paid off." In the meantime, to the
astonishment of his comrades, he seemed to be in no hurry to make
use of the leave granted him to go on shore. The faithful Stone
was the only man on board who knew that he was afraid of meeting
his "wife." This good friend volunteered to go to the inn, and
make the necessary investigation with all needful prudence. "Four
years is a long time, at _her_ age," he said. "Many things may
happen in four years."

An hour later, Stone returned to the ship, and sent a written
message on board, addressed to his brother-officer, in these
words: "Pack up your things at once, and join me on shore. "

"What news?" asked the anxious husband.

Stone looked significantly at the idlers on the landing-place.
"Wait," he said, "till we are by ourselves."

"Where are we going?"

"To the railway station."

They got into an empty carriage; and Stone at once relieved his
friend of all further suspense.

"Nobody is acquainted with the secret of your marriage, but our
two selves," he began quietly. "I don't think, Cosway, you need
go into mourning."

"You don't mean to say she's dead!"

"I have seen a letter (written by her own lawyer) which announces
her death," Stone replied. "It was so short that I believe I can
repeat it word for word: 'Dear Sir--I have received information
of the death of my client. Please address your next and last
payment, on account of the lease and goodwill of the inn, to the
executors of the late Mrs. Cosway.' There, that is the letter.
'Dear Sir' means the present proprietor of the inn. He told me
your wife's previous history in two words. After carrying on the
business with her customary intelligence for more than three
years, her health failed, and she went to London to consult a
physician. There she remained under the doctor's care. The next
event was the appearance of an agent, instructed to sell the
business in consequence of the landlady's declining health. Add
the death at a later time-- and there is the beginning and the
end of the story. Fortune owed you a good turn, Cosway --and
Fortune has paid the debt. Accept my best congratulations."

Arrived in London, Stone went on at once to his relations in the
North. Cosway proceeded to the office of the family lawyer (Mr.
Atherton), who had taken care of his interests in his absence.
His father and Mr. Atherton had been schoolfellows and old
friends. He was affectionately received, and was invited to pay a
visit the next day to the lawyer's villa at Richmond.

"You will be near enough to London to attend to your business at
the Admiralty," said Mr. Atherton, "and you will meet a visitor
at my house, who is one of the most charming girls in
England--the only daughter of the great Mr. Restall. Good
heavens! have you never heard of him? My dear sir, he's one of
the partners in the famous firm of Benshaw, Restall, and
Benshaw."

Cosway was wise enough to accept this last piece of information
as quite conclusive. The next day, Mrs. Atherton presented him to
the charming Miss Restall; and Mrs. Atherton's young married
daughter (who had been his playfellow when they were children)
whispered to him, half in jest, half in earnest: "Make the best
use of your time; she isn't engaged yet."

Cosway shuddered inwardly at the bare idea of a second marriage.
Was Miss Restall the sort of woman to restore his confidence?

She was small and slim and dark--a graceful, well-bred, brightly
intelligent person, with a voice exquisitely sweet and winning in
tone. Her ears, hands, and feet were objects to worship; and she
had an attraction, irresistibly rare among the women of the
present time--the attraction of a perfectly natural smile. Before
Cosway had been an hour in the house, she discovered that his
long term of service on foreign stations had furnished him with
subjects of conversation which favorably contrasted with the
commonplace gossip addressed to her by other men. Cosway at once
became a favorite, as Othello became a favorite in his day.

The ladies of the household all rejoiced in the young officer's
success, with the exception of Miss Restall's companion (supposed
to hold the place of her lost mother, at a large salary), one
Mrs. Margery.

Too cautious to commit herself in words, this lady expressed
doubt and disapprobation by her looks. She had white hair,
iron-gray eyebrows, and protuberant eyes; her looks were
unusually expressive. One evening, she caught poor Mr. Atherton
alone, and consulted him confidentially on the subject of Mr.
Cosway's income. This was the first warning which opened the eyes
of the good lawyer to the nature of the "friendship" already
established between his two guests. He knew Miss Restall's
illustrious father well, and he feared that it might soon be his
disagreeable duty to bring Cosway's visit to an end.

On a certain Saturday afternoon, while Mr. Atherton was still
considering how he could most kindly and delicately suggest to
Cosway that it was time to say good-by, an empty carriage arrived
at the villa. A note from Mr. Restall was delivered to Mrs.
Atherton, thanking her with perfect politeness for her kindness
to his daughter. Circumstances," he added, "rendered it necessary
that Miss Restall should return home that afternoon."

The "circumstances" were supposed to refer to a garden-party to
be given by Mr. Restall in the ensuing week. But why was his
daughter wanted at home before the day of the party?

The ladies of the family, still devoted to Cosway's interests,
entertained no doubt that Mrs. Margery had privately communicated
with Mr. Restall, and that the appearance of the carriage was the
natural result. Mrs. Atherton's married daughter did all that
could be done: she got rid of Mrs. Margery for one minute, and so
arranged it that Cosway and Miss Restall took leave of each other
in her own sitting-room.

When the young lady appeared in the hall she had drawn her veil
down. Cosway escaped to the road and saw the last of the carriage
as it drove away. In a little more than a fortnight his horror of
a second marriage had become one of the dead and buried emotions
of his nature. He stayed at the villa until Monday morning, as an
act of gratitude to his good friends, and then accompanied Mr.
Atherton to London. Business at the Admiralty was the excuse. It
imposed on nobody. He was evidently on his way to Miss Restall.

"Leave your business in my hands," said the lawyer, on the
journey to town, "and go and amuse yourself on the Continent. I
can't blame you for falling in love with Miss Restall; I ought to
have foreseen the danger, and waited till she had left us before
I invited you to my house. But I may at least warn you to carry
the matter no further. If you had eight thousand instead of eight
hundred a year, Mr. Restall would think it an act of presumption
on your part to aspire to his daughter's hand, unless you had a
title to throw into the bargain. Look at it in the true light, my
dear boy; and one of these days you will thank me for speaking
plainly."

Cosway promised to "look at it in the true light."

The result, from his point of view, led him into a change of
residence. He left his hotel and took a lodging in the nearest
bystreet to Mr. Restall's palace at Kensington.

On the same evening he applied (with the confidence due to a
previous arrangement) for a letter at the neighboring
post-office, addressed to E. C.--the initials of Edwin Cosway.
"Pray be careful," Miss Restall wrote; "I have tried to get you a
card for our garden party. But that hateful creature, Margery,
has evidently spoken to my father; I am not trusted with any
invitation cards. Bear it patiently, dear, as I do, and let me
hear if you have succeeded in finding a lodging near us."

Not submitting to this first disappointment very patiently,
Cosway sent his reply to the post-office, addressed to A. R.--the
initials of Adela Restall. The next day the impatient lover
applied for another letter. It was waiting for him, but it was
not directed in Adela's handwriting. Had their correspondence
been discovered? He opened the letter in the street; and read,
with amazement, these lines:

"Dear Mr. Cosway, my heart sympathizes with two faithful lovers,
in spite of my age and my duty. I inclose an invitation to the
party tomorrow. Pray don't betray me, and don't pay too marked
attention to Adela. Discretion is easy. There will be twelve
hundred guests. Your friend, in spite of appearances, Louisa
Margery."

How infamously they had all misjudged this excellent woman!
Cosway went to the party a grateful, as well as a happy man. The
first persons known to him, whom he discovered among the crowd of
strangers, were the Athertons. They looked, as well they might,
astonished to see him. Fidelity to Mrs. Margery forbade him to
enter into any explanations. Where was that best and truest
friend? With some difficulty he succeeded in finding her. Was
there any impropriety in seizing her hand and cordially pressing
it? The result of this expression of gratitude was, to say the
least of it, perplexing.

Mrs. Margery behaved like the Athertons! She looked astonished to
see him and she put precisely the same question: "How did you get
here?" Cosway could only conclude that she was joking. "Who
should know that, dear lady, better than yourself?" he rejoined.
"I don't understand you," Mrs. Margery answered, sharply. After a
moment's reflection, Cosway hit on another solution of the
mystery. Visitors were near them; and Mrs. Margery had made her
own private use of one of Mr. Restall's invitation cards. She
might have serious reasons for pushing caution to its last
extreme. Cosway looked at her significantly. "The least I can do
is not to be indiscreet," he whispered-- and left her.

He turned into a side walk; and there he met Adela at last!

It seemed like a fatality. _She_ looked astonished; and _she_
said: "How did you get here?" No intrusive visitors were within
hearing, this time. "My dear!" Cosway remonstrated, "Mrs. Margery
must have told you, when she sent me my invitation." Adela turned
pale. "Mrs. Margery?" she repeated. "Mrs. Margery has said
nothing to me; Mrs. Margery detests you. We must have this
cleared up. No; not now--I must attend to our guests. Expect a
letter; and, for heaven's sake, Edwin, keep out of my father's
way. One of our visitors whom he particularly wished to see has
sent an excuse--and he is dreadfully angry about it."

She left him before Cosway could explain that he and Mr. Restall
had thus far never seen each other.

He wandered away toward the extremity of the grounds, troubled by
vague suspicions; hurt at Adela's cold reception of him. Entering
a shrubbery, which seemed intended to screen the grounds, at this
point, from a lane outside, he suddenly discovered a pretty
little summer-house among the trees. A stout gentleman, of mature
years, was seated alone in this retreat. He looked up with a
frown. Cosway apologized for disturbing him, and entered into
conversation as an act of politeness.

"A brilliant assembly to-day, sir."

The stout gentleman replied by an inarticulate sound--something
between a grunt and a cough.

"And a splendid house and grounds," Cosway continued.

The stout gentleman repeated the inarticulate sound.

Cosway began to feel amused. Was this curious old man deaf and
dumb?

"Excuse my entering into conversation," he persisted. "I feel
like a stranger here. There are so many people whom I don't
know."

The stout gentleman suddenly burst into speech. Cosway had
touched a sympathetic fiber at last.

"There are a good many people here whom _I_ don't know," he said,
gruffly. "You are one of them. What's your name?"

"My name is Cosway, sir. What's yours?"

The stout gentleman rose with fury in his looks. He burst out
with an oath; and added the in tolerable question, already three
times repeated by others: "How did you get here?" The tone was
even more offensive than the oath. "Your age protects you, sir, "
said Cosway, with the loftiest composure. "I'm sorry I gave my
name to so rude a person."

"Rude?" shouted the old gentleman. "You want my name in return, I
suppose? You young puppy, you shall have it! My name is Restall."

He turned his back and walked off. Cosway took the only course
now open to him. He returned to his lodgings.

The next day no letter reached him from Adela. He went to the
postoffice. No letter was there. The day wore on to evening--and,
with the evening, there appeared a woman who was a stranger to
him. She looked like a servant; and she was the bearer of a
mysterious message.

"Please be at the garden-door that opens on the lane, at ten
o'clock to-morrow morning. Knock three times at the door--and
then say 'Adela.' Some one who wishes you well will be alone in
the shrubbery, and will let you in. No, sir! I am not to take
anything; and I am not to say a word more." She spoke--and
vanished.

Cosway was punctual to his appointment. He knocked three times;
he pronounced Miss Restall's Christian name. Nothing happened. He
waited a while, and tried again. This time Adela's voice answered
strangely from the shrubbery in tones of surprise: "Edwin, is it
really you?"

"Did you expect any one else?" Cosway asked. "My darling, your
message said ten o'clock--and here I am. "

The door was suddenly unlocked.

"I sent no message," said Adela, as they confronted each other on
the threshold.

In the silence of utter bewilderment they went together into the
summer-house. At Adela's request, Cosway repeated the message
that he had received, and described the woman who had delivered
it. The description applied to no person known to Miss Restall.
"Mrs. Margery never sent you the invitation; and I repeat, I
never sent you the message. This meeting has been arranged by
some one who knows that I always walk in the shrubbery after
breakfast. There is some underhand work going on--"

Still mentally in search of the enemy who had betrayed them, she
checked herself, and considered a little. "Is it possible--?" she
began, and paused again. Her eyes filled with tears. "My mind is
so completely upset," she said, "that I can't think clearly of
anything. Oh, Edwin, we have had a happy dream, and it has come
to an end. My father knows more than we think for. Some friends
of ours are going abroad tomorrow--and I am to go with them.
Nothing I can say has the least effect upon my father. He means
to part us forever--and this is his cruel way of doing it!"

She put her arm round Cosway's neck and lovingly laid her head on
his shoulder. With tenderest kisses they reiterated their vows of
eternal fidelity until their voices faltered and failed them.
Cosway filled up the pause by the only useful suggestion which it
was now in his power to make--he proposed an elopement.

Adela received this bold solution of the difficulty in which they
were placed exactly as thousands of other young ladies have
received similar proposals before her time, and after.

She first said positively No. Cosway persisted. She began to cry,
and asked if he had no respect for her. Cosway declared that his
respect was equal to any sacrifice except the sacrifice of
parting with her forever. He could, and would, if she preferred
it, die for her, but while he was alive he must refuse to give
her up. Upon this she shifted her ground. Did he expect her to go
away with him alone? Certainly not. Her maid could go with her,
or, if her maid was not to be trusted, he would apply to his
landlady, and engage "a respectable elderly person" to attend on
her until the day of their marriage. Would she have some mercy on
him, and just consider it? No: she was afraid to consider it. Did
she prefer misery for the rest of her life? Never mind _his_
happiness: it was _her_ happiness only that he had in his mind.
Traveling with unsympathetic people; absent from England, no one
could say for how long; married, when she did return, to some
rich man whom she hated--would she, could she, contemplate that
prospect? She contemplated it through tears; she contemplated it
to an accompaniment of sighs, kisses, and protestations--she
trembled, hesitated, gave way. At an appointed hour of the coming
night, when her father would be in the smoking-room, and Mrs.
Margery would be in bed, Cosway was to knock at the door in the
lane once more; leaving time to make all the necessary
arrangements in the interval.

The one pressing necessity, under these circumstances, was to
guard against the possibility of betrayal and surprise. Cosway
discreetly alluded to the unsolved mysteries of the invitation
and the message. "Have you taken anybody into our confidence?" he
asked.

Adela answered with some embarrassment. "Only one person," She
said--"dear Miss Benshaw."

"Who is Miss Benshaw?"

"Don't you really know, Edwin? She is richer even than papa--she
has inherited from her late brother one half-share in the great
business in the City. Miss Benshaw is the lady who disappointed
papa by not coming to the garden-party. You remember, dear, how
happy we were when we were together at Mr. Atherton's? I was very
miserable when they took me away. Miss Benshaw happened to call
the next day and she noticed it. 'My dear,' she said (Miss
Benshaw is quite an elderly lady now), 'I am an old maid, who has
missed the happiness of her life, through not having had a friend
to guide and advise her when she was young. Are you suffering as
I once suffered?' She spoke so nicely--and I was so
wretched--that I really couldn't help it. I opened my heart to
her."

Cosway looked grave. "Are you sure she is to be trusted?" he
asked.

"Perfectly sure."

"Perhaps, my love, she has spoken about us (not meaning any harm)
to some friend of hers? Old ladies are so fond of gossip. It's
just possible--don't you think so?"

Adela hung her head.

"I have thought it just possible myself," she admitted. "There is
plenty of time to call on her to-day. I will set our doubts at
rest before Miss Benshaw goes out for her afternoon drive."

On that understanding they parted.

Toward evening Cosway's arrangements for the elopement were
completed. He was eating his solitary dinner when a note was
brought to him. It had been left at the door by a messenger. The
man had gone away without waiting for an answer. The note ran
thus:

"Miss Benshaw presents her compliments to Mr. Cosway, and will be
obliged if he can call on her at nine o'clock this evening, on
business which concerns himself."

This invitation was evidently the result of Adela's visit earlier
in the day. Cosway presented himself at the house, troubled by
natural emotions of anxiety and suspense. His reception was not
of a nature to compose him. He was shown into a darkened room.
The one lamp on the table was turned down low, and the little
light thus given was still further obscured by a shade. The
corners of the room were in almost absolute darkness.

A voice out of one of the corners addressed him in a whisper:

"I must beg you to excuse the darkened room. I am suffering from
a severe cold. My eyes are inflamed, and my throat is so bad that
I can only speak in a whisper. Sit down, sir. I have got news for
you ."

"Not bad news, I hope, ma'am?" Cosway ventured to inquire.

"The worst possible news," said the whispering voice. "You have
an enemy striking at you in the dark."

Cosway asked who it was, and received no answer. He varied the
form of inquiry, and asked why the unnamed person struck at him
in the dark. The experiment succeeded; he obtained a reply.

"It is reported to me," said Miss Benshaw, "that the person
thinks it necessary to give you a lesson, and takes a spiteful
pleasure in doing it as mischievously as possible. The person, as
I happen to know, sent you your invitation to the party, and made
the appointment which took you to the door in the lane. Wait a
little, sir; I have not done yet. The person has put it into Mr.
Restall's head to send his daughter abroad tomorrow.

Cosway attempted to make her speak more plainly.

"Is this wretch
a man or a woman?" he said.

Miss Benshaw proceeded without noticing the interruption.

"You needn't be afraid, Mr. Cosway; Miss Restall will not leave
England. Your enemy is all-powerful. Your enemy's object could
only be to provoke you into planning an elopement--and, your
arrangements once completed, to inform Mr. Restall, and to part
you and Miss Adela quite as effectually as if you were at
opposite ends of the world. Oh, you will undoubtedly be parted!
Spiteful, isn't it? And, what is worse, the mischief is as good
as done already."

Cosway rose from his chair.

"Do you wish for any further explanation?" asked Miss Benshaw.

"One thing more," he replied. "Does Adela know of this?"

"No," said Miss Benshaw; "it is left to you to tell her."

There was a moment of silence. Cosway looked at the lamp. Once
roused, as usual with men of his character, his temper was not to
be trifled with.

"Miss Benshaw," he said, "I dare say you think me a fool; but I
can draw my own conclusion, for all that. _You_ are my enemy."

The only reply was a chuckling laugh. All voices can be more or
less effectually disguised by a whisper but a laugh carries the
revelation of its own identity with it. Cosway suddenly threw off
the shade over the lamp and turned up the wick.

The light flooded the room, and showed him-- His Wife.

_The Third Epoch in Mr. Cosway's Life._

Three days had passed. Cosway sat alone in his lodging--pale and
worn: the shadow already of his former self.

He had not seen Adela since the discovery. There was but one way
in which he could venture to make the inevitable disclosure--he
wrote to her; and Mr. Atherton's daughter took care that the
letter should be received. Inquiries made afterward, by help of
the same good friend, informed him that Miss Restall was
suffering from illness.

The mistress of the house came in.

"Cheer up, sir, " said the good woman. "There is better news of
Miss Restall to-day."

He raised his head.

"Don't trifle with me!" he answered fretfully; "tell me exactly
what the servant said."

The mistress repeated the words. Miss Restall had passed a
quieter night, and had been able for a few hours to leave her
room. He asked next if any reply to his letter had arrived. No
reply had been received.

If Adela definitely abstained from writing to him, the conclusion
would be too plain to be mistaken. She had given him up--and who
could blame her?

There was a knock at the street-door. The mistress looked out.

"Here's Mr. Stone come back, sir!" she exclaimed joyfully--and
hurried away to let him in.

Cosway never looked up when his friend appeared.

"I knew I should succeed," said Stone. "I have seen your wife."

"Don't speak of her," cried Cosway. "I should have murdered her
when I saw her face, if I had not instantly left the house. I may
be the death of the wretch yet, if you presist in speaking of
her!"

Stone put his hand kindly on his friend's shoulder.

"Must I remind you that you owe something to your old comrade?"
he asked. "I left my father and mother, the morning I got your
letter-- and my one thought has been to serve you. Reward me. Be
a man, and hear what is your right and duty to know. After that,
if you like, we will never refer to the woman again."

Cosway took his hand, in silent acknowledgment that he was right.
They sat down together. Stone began.

"She is so entirely shameless," he said, "that I had no
difficulty in getting her to speak. And she so cordially hates
you that she glories in her own falsehood and treachery."

"Of course, she lies," Cosway said bitterly, "when she calls
herself Miss Benshaw?"

"No; she is really the daughter of the man who founded the great
house in the City. With every advantage that wealth and position
could give her the perverse creature married one of her father's
clerks, who had been deservedly dismissed from his situation.
From that moment her family discarded her. With the money
procured by the sale of her jewels, her husband took the inn
which we have such bitter cause to remember--and she managed the
house after his death. So much for the past. Carry your mind on
now to the time when our ship brought us back to England. At that
date, the last surviving member of your wife's family--her elder
brother--lay at the point of death. He had taken his father's
place in the business, besides inheriting his father's fortune.
After a happy married life he was left a widower, without
children; and it became necessary that he should alter his will.
He deferred performing his duty. It was only at the time of his
last illness that he had dictated instructions for a new will,
leaving his wealth (excepting certain legacies to old friends) to
the hospitals of Great Britain and Ireland. His lawyer lost no
time in carrying out the instructions. The new will was ready for
signature (the old will having been destroyed by his own hand),
when the doctors sent a message to say that their patient was
insensible, and might die in that condition."

"Did the doctors prove to be right?"

"Perfectly right. Our wretched landlady, as next of kin,
succeeded, not only to the fortune, but (under the deed of
partnership) to her late brother's place in the firm: on the one
easy condition of resuming the family name. She calls herself
"Miss Benshaw." But as a matter of legal necessity she is set
down in the deed as "Mrs. Cosway Benshaw." Her partners only now
know that her husband is living, and that you are the Cosway whom
she privately married. Will you take a little breathing time? or
shall I go on, and get done with it?"

Cosway signed to him to go on.

"She doesn't in the least care," Stone proceeded, "for the
exposure. 'I am the head partner,' she says 'and the rich one of
the firm; they daren't turn their backs on Me.' You remember the
information I received--in perfect good faith on his part--from
the man who keeps the inn? The visit to the London doctor, and
the assertion of failing health, were adopted as the best means
of plausibly severing the lady's connection (the great lady now!)
with a calling so unworthy of her as the keeping of an inn. Her
neighbors at the seaport were all deceived by the stratagem, with
two exceptions. They were both men--vagabonds who had
pertinaciously tried to delude her into marrying them in the days
when she was a widow. They refused to believe in the doctor and
the declining health; they had their own suspicion of the motives
which had led to the sale of the inn, under very unfavorable
circumstances; and they decided on going to London, inspired by
the same base hope of making discoveries which might be turned
into a means of extorting money."

"She escaped them, of course," said Cosway. "How?"

"By the help of her lawyer, who was not above accepting a
handsome private fee. He wrote to the new landlord of the inn,
falsely announcing his client's death, in the letter which I
repeated to you in the railway carriage on our journey to London.
Other precautions were taken to keep up the deception, on which
it is needless to dwell. Your natural conclusion that you were
free to pay your addresses to Miss Restall, and the poor young
lady's innocent confidence in 'Miss Benshaw's' sympathy, gave
this unscrupulous woman the means of playing the heartless trick
on you which is now exposed. Malice and jealousy--I have it,
mind, from herself!--were not her only motives. 'But for that
Cosway,' she said (I spare you the epithet which she put before
your name), 'with my money and position, I might have married a
needy lord, and sunned myself in my old age in the full blaze of
the peerage.' Do you understand how she hated you, now? Enough of
the subject! The moral of it, my dear Cosway, is to leave this
place, and try what change of scene will do for you. I have time
to spare; and I will go abroad with you. When shall it be?"

"Let me wait a day or two more," Cosway pleaded.

Stone shook his head. "Still hoping, my poor friend, for a line
from Miss Restall? You distress me."

"I am sorry to distress you, Stone. If I can get one pitying word
from _her_, I can submit to the miserable life that lies before
me."

"Are you not expecting too much?"

"You wouldn't say so, if you were as fond of her as I am."

They were silent. The evening slowly darkened; and the mistress
came in as usual with the candles. She brought with her a letter
for Cosway.

He tore it open; read it in an instant; and devoured it with
kisses. His highly wrought feelings found their vent in a little
allowable exaggeration. "She has saved my life!" he said, as he
handed the letter to Stone.

It only contained these lines:

"My love is yours, my promise is yours. Through all trouble,
through all profanation, through the hopeless separation that may
be before us in this world, I live yours--and die yours. My
Edwin, God bless and comfort you."

_The Fourth Epoch in Mr. Cosway's Life._

The separation had lasted for nearly two years, when Cosway and
Stone paid that visit to the country house which is recorded at
the outset of the present narrative. In the interval nothing had
been heard of Miss Restall, except through Mr. Atherton. He
reported that Adela was leading a very quiet life. The one
remarkable event had been an interview between "Miss Benshaw" and
herself. No other person had been present; but the little that
was reported placed Miss Restall's character above all praise.
She had forgiven the woman who had so cruelly injured her!

The two friends, it may be remembered, had traveled to London,
immediately after completing the fullest explanation of Cosway's
startling behavior at the breakfast-table. Stone was not by
nature a sanguine man. "I don't believe in our luck," he said.
"Let us be quite sure that we are not the victims of another
deception."

The accident had happened on the Thames; and the newspaper
narrative proved to be accurate in every respect. Stone
personally attended the inquest. From a natural feeling of
delicacy toward Adela, Cosway hesitated to write to her on the
subject. The ever-helpful Stone wrote in his place.

After some delay, the answer was received. It inclosed a brief
statement (communicated officially by legal authority) of the
last act of malice on the part of the late head-partner in the
house of Benshaw and Company. She had not died intestate, like
her brother. The first clause of her will contained the
testator's grateful recognition of Adela Restall's Christian act
of forgiveness. The second clause (after stating that there were
neither relatives nor children to be benefited by the will) left
Adela Restall mistress of Mrs. Cosway Benshaw's fortune--on the
one merciless condition that she did _not_ marry Edwin Cosway.
The third clause--if Adela Restall violated the condition--handed
over the whole of the money to the firm in the City, "for the
extension of the business, and the benefit of the surviving
partners."

Some months later, Adela came of age. To the indignation of Mr.
Restall, and the astonishment of the "Company," the money
actually went to the firm. The fourth epoch in Mr. Cosway's life
witnessed his marriage to a woman who cheerfully paid half a
million of money for the happiness of passing her life, on eight
hundred a year, with the man whom she loved.

But Cosway felt bound in gratitude to make a rich woman of his
wife, if work and resolution could do it. When Stone last heard
of him, he was reading for the bar; and Mr. Atherton was ready to
give him his first brief.

NOTE.--That "most improbable" part of the present narrative,
which is contained in the division called The First Epoch, is
founded on an adventure which actually occurred to no less a
person than a cousin of Sir Walter Scott. In Lockhart's
delightful "Life," the anecdote will be found as told by Sir
Walter to Captain Basil Hall. The remainder of the present story
is entirely imaginary. The writer wondered what such a woman as
the landlady would do under certain given circumstances, after
her marriage to the young midshipman--and here is the result.

End of Mrs. Zant and the Ghost

This etext was retrieved by ftp from ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg
It is also available from www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg

[Italics are indicatedby underscores
James Rusk, jrusk@cyberramp.net.]

Buy all the books from our site on CD or DVD
B&R Samizdat Express publishes books you read on your computer, collected and organized in useful and suggestive ways on CD and DVD. They offer classics and out-of-print gems, organized by author, genre, time period, theme/subject, and geographic region. Books in text form are searchable, printable, and editable. You can buy an entire library for the price of a single printed book.