 Chapter thirty-four of Kitt and Kitty by Richard Dodgeridge Blackmore. This LibriVox recording is in a public domain. Chapter thirty-four, two to one. Never were any luck in a wedding as were put off from a pint a day. For why? Why, because it be flying in the face of the Lord as Hath appointed him. Knowing the tabby was very often right in her prophecies and could prove them right, even when they were wrong, as most prophets can, I begged her not to say a word about that to my darling. Because she was a little superstitious, although sprung from the very highest form of science. But science very seldom keeps its dates, and to make them tally, we had postponed our day from Tuesday even till Thursday. For Captain Fairthorne had written again to say that he could not be with us on the Tuesday, but was almost sure that he could manage it if we would only leave it till two days later. An uncle had frowned and said, Not a single hour! If his wheels and his wires are more to him than his only child, let him stop with them, but you must leave it to Kitty, such a question is for her. Vexed as I was I could not deny this, and she pleaded so well, though with reason on her side, that we vented our anger on the absent man and only our affection and good will on her. But the one who made the greatest grievance of it was my aunt, Miss Parslow. She had hurried her dressmaker to the verge of mutiny, and made her sit up, either in person or by deputy, two whole nights, and she felt that she would have to pay deeply for this, and now here it was all needles. I have the greatest mind not to come at all, she wrote, and if it were anything but pure compassion you may be quite sure that I would wash my hands of you. Men manage everything in this world even the things that they understand least, and you will see what comes of it. If I come on Thursday I shall be quite unprepared, though I should have been in perfect readiness on Tuesday. This was a hard saying, but we agreed that she knew what she meant, and could explain it to her liking. And seeing that the ladies were now so full of reason I thought that I would have another try at Miss Cold Pepper. I had ventured to call upon that lady once while the preparations were in full swing, but she said that she was not at home, and of course she must know best, though I had seen her walking in her great Camelia house. My uncle Cornelius had been of opinion that, even if she would not honor our church with her presence, she could scarcely escape from the duty of sending her former visitor and favorite, something very handsome as a wedding present. A silver tea service was the least thing he could think of, but unluckily the last thing that occurred to her is needful. She had made it a grievance, as she wanted one, that Miss Fairthorn should have dared to go to widow-cutlums when everybody in the village knew how shockingly the widow had behaved to Mrs. Marker. But all this appeared to me to be very small talk now, for I was in a generous and large condition such as is only too apt to grud at all fellow-creatures with the like expansion. It should never be said of me that any petty pride had prevented me from holding out the olive branch, whether to be gilded or even to be peeled, at a time when I was hoping to be crowned with myrtle. Scorning all considerations of a silver teapot I went to a cold pepper manner and rang gently. Mrs. will see you this time," said my friend Charles, who had tasted our strawberries many a time when he durst not steal any more at home. "'She is all a-gog about you, sir, though she shams to know nothing. Happiness to you and dear Miss Kitty, sir. The least I could do was to give him half a crown, for he had always appeared to me to be a worthy fellow. He slipped it into his hornet-colored waistcoat and bawled out, "'Mr. Christopher Orchardson,' as if I had come in a coach in four. "'I am pleased to see you, Mr. Orchardson,' said the lady of the hall as I made a low bow. "'Take a chair, and tell me what you are doing. I never hear anything that happens in the village. I am not at all certain what reply I made being fluttered by the force of habit in her stately presence, but she was better pleased by this than she would have been by any assumption of ease and self-command. "'Although I hear so little, a report has reached me,' she went on with a smile which was not at all disdainful, "'that you are about to marry Kitty Fairthorne, if so you are a wonderfully fortunate young man. It would add very greatly to our happiness, madam,' I ventured to say, though with some misgivings, "'if you would be kind enough to give us your good wishes. Miss Fairthorne has not been to call upon you, because she was not sure that you would wish it, and she is acting entirely without the consent of her stepmother, who is your sister. I hope you will not think the worse of her for that. The lady has never been very kind to her. Kitty was quite right in not coming here. It would have placed me in an unpleasant position. I have not seen much of my sister for years, but I cannot enter into such matters, and you have done right in coming to me thus. Certainly you both have my good wishes, and though Kitty might have looked for a much higher marriage, I may say that without any disrespect to you, I believe that she will be happier in a very simple life. You will understand that I cannot be present, under the peculiar circumstances, neither will you expect me to receive Kitty here, when she is Mr. Orchardson. She is no relative of mine, and she has chosen her own path. But I like her nonetheless, and you may tell her that. She has plenty of proper pride, and would resent my patronage. I was told that the wedding was to be today. Why have you put it off? You are unwise. She looked as if she knew something which would alarm me, if declared. But I did not presume to ask about it, and simply told her the cause of the delay. You may expect him, but you will not see him, she answered as if she knew more than we did. Don't put it off another day, if you wish it to be at all. But it is no affair of mine. Good morning to you. I returned in an anxious state of mind, for she had clearly dismissed me, that I might ask no questions. And instead of going straight to my uncle's house, I hurried to that of the widow, to make sure that my darling was safe, and all do care observed. After what had been already done to Kitty, how could I tell that there was no plot yet in store? My bodily strength was restored by this time, and I felt myself a match for almost any man, and surely intense and incessant devotion must vanquish unholy pursuit and vile designs. All we knew of our enemies at present was that they had retired from the scene of their defeat, and locked up the cottage where they had felt so sure a victory. But my uncle Cornelius had good reason for believing that his premises were watched, and a couple of his men had been tempted to drink by some mysterious stranger, who showed the greatest interest in our ways and works and manners. And the worst of it was that the river, being almost at our doors, and not frequented then as it is now, afforded such a space for roguish travel that there ought to be a pailing put up against it, with tenterhooks and wire netting on the top, if any man desired to keep his garden to himself. For the people who come up as they get away from London seem to claim the country more and more, and to think that it was made for nothing else except to be a change for them. And they reason that as a river must have banks, those banks are a part of it, and the whole belongs to them. My beloved, who was both my banks and the channel of all my life as well, had not been left alone all this time, with only widow cut them to amuse her, otherwise she would have had a sorry time, for that widow had but two subjects of discourse, the merits of her late husband, and the scarcity of all vegetables. But a very sharp young lady misgurtured trigs, about three years older than my kitty, being in need of country air after an attack of nettle rash, had kindly consented to come and occupy the best room at widow cut them's. At first it was uneasy, for if kitty were to catch that complaint after all her other troubles, was she likely to look well upon the bridal day? But Dr. Sipitz said that he would warrant no infection, and so mis-trigs came and occupied. And certainly she helped to set off the complexion, upon which it was impossible to imagine any rash. At first I was not fond of mis-trigs, for she had too much sting in her words and ways, and I made no allowance for what she had been through, and to my mind women should never try to sting, being apt to get the worst of it, as even do the bees, and intended more by nature to do the honey-making. But my poor ideas have always been old-fashioned, and I am sorry, for the sake of others, that it should be so. But when I came to understand Gertie Triggs, and to value her real friendship for my dear one, I acknowledged as a man should do that I had been a gabby. Not only had she protected kitty at school and even lent her under-clothing when she got no supplies from her stepmother, but she had actually made an in-road into Bullrag Castle to try a round with a great lady herself on behalf of the innocent captive. She was rapidly disconfident, of course. She had resolved to show the truth, but she was quickly shown the door, and though she maintained that she had triumphed, it may have been in logic, but it was not so, in fact. And the result to herself had been this nasty, nettle rash. However, as she got over that and put the air of our garden upon her cheeks, I began to esteem her and find her rather pretty. It was settled by the laws of nature that she should be bridesmaid, and Uncle Corny found another not connected with much trade yet able to provide her own outfit. My uncle said, though not to kitty, for he was quite a gentleman to her throughout, that he could not discover any call on him to fit everybody up with gougas. It was her father's place, if he wanted things to be done in proper style, to come and see to them himself, or at any rate to send directions, and the money to have them carried out. Instead of that, he had left everything to us, kept us in trouble about the day, and perhaps driven off Miss Parslow and her twenty thousand pounds. It was plain that he thought at a higher duty to fit out his ship than his only child. Considering all this, Uncle Corny was only surprised at his own generosity, but when I joined him in that surprise he cut me very short, and asked what I knew about him. It was natural enough that he should be cross, and I told him so, which only made him worse. Nevertheless, when the true day came which I always recall with gratitude and wonder at a grace so far beyond my merits, everybody behaved as if there were nothing but peace and goodwill in the world. He received a telegram quite early that the ship was ordered to sail that day, and the captain could only send his blessing. Kitty shed some tears, but all the rest of us were pleased, because it fulfilled our predictions, and my uncle was proud to give the bride away, and at the same time to keep her, as he neatly said. Miss Parslow came over in style with a mass of white flowers piled high on the seat before her, and wearing her silver gray silk dress, which set her off to great advantage, and she presented the bride with a silver basket, fit either for flowers or fruit, and containing a very neat check for a hundred guineas. Sam Henderson acted as my best man, and did everything better than I did, for I scarcely knew my right hand from my left. Mrs. Wilcox was present, and so was Mrs. Rolls, without whom we should never have been there, and Celsy Bill, of course, and every man who possessed the top hat in the parish. And to our amazement Miss Cold Pepper was sitting in her curtain pew, although she had said that she would not come, and after the service she kissed my Kitty and said that she would give her something by and by. But my darling war I have not the least idea, or at least I had not on that day, though I came to know too well afterwards, but all the men said, and nearly all the women too, that she was the fairest and sweetest and most lovely of all the brides ever seen in Sunbury, which was no little thing to say, for our village is celebrated in that way. And she behaved with such grace and goodness that it seemed as if those blessings must be multiplied upon her. Four women cried to think that she should look so Christian after all the treatment that she had received, for Mrs. Rolls declared that she had been in a wire cage, and if I were to try to straighten half the crooked tails they told I never should find any time for a separate word with Kitty. Only I remember that when she came and kissed me in her simple and loving and bewitching way, I saw the gleam of tears in her deep blue eyes, and when I asked, without words, what it was, she answered, I should have liked to have one kiss from father. This proof of her tenderness increased my adoration for an affectionate daughter must become a loving wife. Then I took away my treasure to be mine alone, and Kit and Kitty, for the time, are one. CHAPTER XXXV Not much time could we have together in the land of Goshen where the boils and planes of the ungodly world are not yet sprinkled in the radiant air. Uncle Corny gave us, for our honeymoon, one week, which has often proved much longer than the silver cord would stretch. But we, intending all our lives to be of sparkling sweetness, geared very little where we spent the hours, if only with each other, and perhaps we scarcely deserve to be in a place so calmly beautiful, not so far away as to take a cliff of money to get there, and yet having fine brave crags of its own. Perhaps it may be found in ancient charts as Baycliffe, although it is such a quiet homely place, without any railway to advertise it, and I have seen some maps which were too good to give the name, but they could not annihilate it by such petty silence, and a pleasant seaside village is like a pleasing woman. The less it is talked about, the more it keeps its charms. For my part I could not see the need of going back in such hot haste to Sunbury, dearly as I love that desirable village. For here were many things that we could never have there. The level space and leisure of the many-colored sea, the majesty of cliffs white-browed with centuries of tempest, the gliding of white sails across the gleaming ruffle of the cove, and the crisp elastic sands that kept the fairy trace of Kitty's feet close to my great clumsy prince. Let us steal another week, I said. It is but a fleeting holiday, and we shall never know such a time again. But my beloved growing dearer every day, if that could be, gave good advice against her own delight that we should not begin our married life with selfishness. We had been so kindly treated that we must not slur our gratitude and forget our duties and our joys. And I want to see our little home, she said, to make the best of it. The house that is to be all our own, where I shall keep you in order, Kit, and make you as happy as the day is long. So with many a backward glance we left that bower of bliss and returned to the world of work and action, and when we found what had been done to welcome and to please us we could not help confessing that our virtue was well rewarded. For honeysuckle cottage looked as bright and fresh as sunrise, and the first half of May is not the time to find much fault with nature. The earth was damp and clammy yet, in places where the wind and sun could not get fairly into it, and the spring was late and shivered still among the gaps it had to stop, for one might look through a big tree yet and see a lamp in the road beyond it, and many of those that were being scarfed wore spangles rather than patents, and people who pay little heed might stop in doubt, if they stopped at all, and wonder if what they saw coming might prove in the end to be a blossom or a leaf. In our little house I had the bud, the blossom, and the fruit combined. The bud of youth scares come to prime, the blossom a fair womanhood, and the fruit of sweet and golden peace, not sleepy but sprightly flavored. It was a fair view from the window but inside ten times is fair, without the chance of adverse weather nipping hope and bright content. An ancient writer whom I had just been scholar enough to understand when he was easy, in his native tongue, assures us that this perfect state is never long allowed by heaven. According to him and others whom he considers wiser than himself, all the powers that govern man are stung with envy when they see him happier than he ought to be. Generally they take good care to have no occasion for this grudge, but when, by any slip of theirs, a mortal has attained such pitch of comfort and prosperity, there is no peace in Olympus till this robber of delight is crushed, and the more he has flourished and rejoiced, the deeper shall his misery be. Having only thirty shillings a week without counting our presence which had been put by, and paying five and six pence out of that for the rent and rates of our small paradise, we scarcely can have affronted heaven by any gorgeous insolence. And without daring to impugn the wisdom of true philosophers, I venture still to hold by that which we find in larger and nobler writ, that when the heavenly power stoops to cut off our brief happiness it is to make it more abiding where there is no brevity. But we did not think of such things then, and who would be sad enough to say that we were bound to do so? Care would come quite soon enough we did not care to beckon him. He must have been a doleful white and born with black crepe around his eyes who could have looked at my merry kitty without catching her bright smile. In the morning when I went to work I carried it with me like a charm, and whenever I came back at night it put my memory to the blush. Before we had settled with one accord, that until I had overtaken the larger rears of work which had lapsed behind through my long illness and absence, there should be no time lost by any return for early dinner. And this was better for my wife too, and as much as she had only Polly Tompkins to assist her, the eldest daughter of Celsy Bill, a very clean and tidy girl, but of small experience and cookery. I was busy at a long peach-wall, not the red brick one but further down, and the trees being large and sadly out of order, patience as well as skillful hands were required urgently. There was a very fine crop yet unthinned, feeble wood to be removed, robber chutes to be docked or tamed, green fly to be dipped or dusted, and all the other crying knees of neglected trees to be made good. And kitty used to appear exactly as the old church clock struck one, with a basket of bread and meat, a pint of ale and a pipe filled by her own fair hands, which she used to light for me, and then trip home, singing merrily among the trees to see to the business of the afternoon. Dare anybody tell me that a wife like this would leave her dear husband of her own accord, without a word, without a letter, leave him to wonder and mourn and rage and despair of his own life and hers, yet this is what all the world believed and impressed upon me till my spirit failed. Now this is all very fine, exclaimed my uncle as he came round the corner of the wall one day, and caught me in the very act of hugging kitty as she was preparing to light my pipe. She was looking up and laughing and pretending to pull my hair when the deepening of her blush showed that an enemy was nigh. This is all very fine, but how long will it last? How many quarrels have you had already? I suppose you are making up one of them now. Oh, corny, you are a disgrace, cried kitty, a disgrace to the name of humanity. May I even whisper in my husband's ear without being accused of quarreling? We have never had a single word, have we, Kit? Then perhaps you will now. Here's a telegram for you. I was going to send Kit home with it, but as you are so uncommonly close together, why it saves the trouble. Hope some of your enemies are dead, my dear. Hush, don't be so wicked! She said, as she handed it to me, and I opened it with my pruning knife and held it for her to read first. But this required our united efforts, for it was badly written, as so often happens, and some of the words were run together. At last we made it out as follows. Spoke all kites off Sicily, May 7th. Captain Fairshort desires love and best wishes to his daughter. She will be away two years, perhaps, from Jenkins, S. S. Ibernia, Falmouth. All kites? said my uncle, who had read some of the Gregorix as rendered by Dryden with lofty looseness, but never a line of Horus. What a name for a ship, if it is a ship! Kitty, my dear, is that the proper word? No, Uncle Corny, it should be Archaetus. I am not sure who he was, but rather think that he must have been a king of Sparta. I know who he was. I said to show how much I had learned at Hampton, though I never was much of a hand at Horus, and had only found this out in the dictionary. A great man of science who measured the seas, and the sand, and all that, but could not get to heaven because nobody would throw a pinch of dust upon his body, and he lay upon the shore imploring somebody to do it. If he could call out, he could have done it for himself, replied my uncle, who was not poetical. I would have him write at any rate for having such a name, but I hope that your father won't do that, my dear. I think it was very kind of him, when he could not help going, and was far away at sea, to get this kind captain of a ship they met, if we understand it properly, to send me this farewell message from the deep. And it makes my mind ever so much more comfortable, because I shall have another message by and by, I dare say. If he meets one ship he must meet others, and I shall always have a good idea where he is. And have my mind relieved when there has been the stormy night. Thank you, Uncle Corny, you have brought me pleasant news. Get it is high time for you to go on with your wall. In this sort of way, by making the best of everything and thanking everybody, even if they did not mean to do her any good, she established in a week a sweet dominion, not over us, but within us. My uncle, though, he liked to have his little cut at her. Her old men treat young ladies as chicks to be carved, got into the habit of coming up every night of his life to have his pipe at honeysuckle cottage. It may seem very ungrateful of me, and I now feel ashamed when I think of it. But after being hard at work all day and having a bit of cold duck under the wall, I thought that I might have been allowed, when I came home, to tell my dear wife all my thoughts about her, and how many times I had hammered my thumbnail through that. But there Uncle Cornie sat, carrying on as if I had cut off my tongue with my pruning-knife. Kitty used to laugh and ask me who was jealous now, but I answered with good reason that the case was widely different. Miss Sally Chalker never crossed her legs and sat with a long pipe blowing over a supper table. Neither did she go on talking as if I were nobody, but rather put me foremost, even when Kitty herself was present, and asked what my opinion was before she gave her own almost. However, I made the best of my uncle's conduct at our cottage, for it was not only my duty, but my important interest to do so. What was to become of us if Uncle Cornie, who might be called a huffy-man and stuck to a huff whenever he contracted it, should take it into his head that I was not what he used to take me for? I know that he was full of truth and justice according to his own view of them, but if anything went against his liking, so did truth and justice. So I had to sink my opinions often, even when they agreed with his, for he never liked to have them put into any other language than his own. Kitty was clever enough to see this, and she always praised me afterwards. But it went against one's sense of right, that she might say exactly what I had said, and from her lips it became true wisdom when it had been simple silliness from mine. But Kitty smiled at him and laughed at me, and went into his heart more deeply every time she filled his pipe. Then a new anxiety arose, and Uncle Cornie had more than he could do to lay down the law for his own affairs. The wind went into the east, with a hard blue sky and not a cloud in it. We had passed the date of the icy saints, as they are called in Germany. When a cold wave of air has said to flow over hundreds of leagues of smiling land, and smite it all into one dark frown. If I can remember, without an almanac, that date is about the seventh of May, but I have never found it quite so punctual here. And according to my observation the bloom of England hovers in nightly peril, from the middle of April to the very end of May. It is one of the many sad things we meet, but can only hold our hands and watch, that for nearly six weeks of the year and in early seasons even more, through all our level southern lands, the fruit crop trumbles on the hazard of a single night's caprice. The bright sun and the lovely day delude the folk who know no better. These are the very things that lead to the starry night and the quiet cold, and the white sheet over the grass at five a.m. and the black death following. The barren grower walks between his rows of wounded blossom, and there is little harm to be seen at first. Some of the petals are as fair as ever. Others are just tipped with brown, and perhaps his wife runs up and says, Oh, you need not be in a fright, my dear. Why, they all look as well as ever. But he, with deeper wisdom and the smile of prophetic silence, pulls out his budding-knife and nips the fairest truss he can find of bloom. Then he lays it in his palm, and happily with keen edge bisects the pips. A keener edge has been there before him. A little black line passes up from the baby stalk to the pistol. The ovary is dead and shrunken, though the anthers still may be tipped with pink. Never shall a fruit grow there, to swell and stripe itself with sun, to flood a plate with sprightly juice, and in its dissolution hear some sweet voice say, Oh, I never did taste such a lovely pear. All these horrors threaten now, in spite of the lateness of the spring. In a forward spring they more than threaten, they come down and smash everything. But being now so late we began to have some confidence, misplaced as it might be, in the meaning of the sky. And now for the wind to go back to the east after living there so many months that it ought to be downright sick of it, and the sun to go down red and clear, like a well-grown turnip radish, and the stars to come out small and sharp like a lot of glazier's diamonds, and the mercury in the thermometer to drop, as if the bulb had been tapped about six o'clock, and scarcely a breath of wind to stir the fans of radiation. It was more than enough to make any grower fetch a groan at the day when himself was grown. But my uncle was not of the groaning order, neither did he even hang himself, as one of our very best neighbors did, when he saw his thermometer at twenty-two degrees one radiant May morning, but his wife, who could enter into his feelings, cut him down with a gooseberry-knife, and enabled him to grow out of it. My uncle used to read the gardening papers, which always bloom with fine advice, and one of them had lately been telling largely how, in continental vineyards, these cold freaks of heaven are met by the sacrificial smoke of earth. To wit, a hundred pyres are raised of rankings and the refuse of the long vine alleys, and ready for kindling on the frosty verge. Then a wisp of lighted straws applied to each, when the sparkling shafts of frost impend, and a genial smoke is wafted through, and Sagittarius has his eyes obscured. I told my uncle that this was rubbish, at least as regarded our love of lands, though it might be of service upon a hillside. And if there were wind enough to spread the smoke there must also be enough to prevent the whore-frost, which alone need be feared at this season. But he told me to stick to what I understood, for these scientific things were beyond me, and my business was to tend the fires. In spite of all his brave talk he was afraid of casting a slur upon his old experience by a new experiment. For the British workmen disdain new ideas, and there was not a man upon our place, but would say that the Governor was turned cranky if he got any inkling of this strange scheme. I shall have all the stuff put there, said Uncle Corny, ready for lighting when they are gone. Those thick heads will never suspect that I want to do anything more than burn up the weeds as we generally do at this time of year. Then, as soon as we see the danger coming, you and I will go out and attend to it, my boy. Not that I place any great faith in it, although it seems very sensible, to those who understand the principles, which young fellows cannot be supposed to do. At any rate I mean to try it. It can do no harm if it does no good. You need not say another word, but just do what I tell you. I wasn't born yesterday as you ought to know by this time. I knew that well, for it takes many years to root a man into such obstancy. As a rule I was much more inclined to give fair trial to anything new than he was, and much more ready to risk money on it. But this would cost nothing except a little work, and that I could not grudge him. So I told my dear wife not to be uneasy if I did not come home till after dark some night, for our doings depended of course upon the weather, and the quarter of young pear trees which my uncle meant to smoke was the furthest part almost of all the promises from honeysuckle cottage. She smiled and said she would come down and see it and roast a potato or two for our supper, and we would go home together when the work was done and make Uncle Corny come with us, alas how differently it all turned out. End of CHAPTER XXXV CHAPTER XXXVI of Kit and Kitty by Richard Doddridge Blackmore. This LibriVox recording is in a public domain. CHAPTER XXXVI FROST IN MAY. It was on Wednesday the fifteenth of May, as fine a day as ever shown from heaven, that my uncle Corny came up to our cottage, soon after we had finished breakfast. I had done my two hours of early work according to agreement and was ready to start for the long day now, and do my best among the trees until it should be blind man's holiday. It had been arranged between my wife and me that I was not to expect her with my noonday meal, but should carry it with me, because she was to be busy at home with a grand turnout. We had now been home from our bridal trip for ten days of bliss and perfect peace, and Kitty had declared that it was high time to give our little rooms a thorough cleaning. So far as I could see they might go another month as they were, and be all the better for it, but in all such matters the wife is supreme, and the wise man never attempts to gain say, but only hopes to find some of his property surviving. I had always been most particular about scraping my shoes and then rubbing them on the mat, not as some men do like a dog's feet scratching, but attending to the welting, and the heels and the toes until they were as clean as a dinner plate. This trifle I mentioned because some women said that we had a misunderstanding about the mud I brought in. Now as Kitty had declared that there must be a turnout for she was wonderfully fond already of our little home, I had never even asked whether it would not do next week as many men do, and get a sharp reply, but feeling quite certain that she must know best made up my mind accordingly. Only I suggested that she ought to have Mrs. Tompkins in to help her, instead of her daughter, R. Polly, who was as nice a girl as could be but scarcely knew the door-knocker from a boiler tap. I suspect, perhaps basely, that my darling was afraid that she would have to play second fiddle if Mrs. Tompkins came, but be that as it may she would not have her, and simply asked, How much did I give you back on Monday, dear? The sum had been nine pence half-penny, a handsome residue of the fifteen shillings, which under her own scheme of finance she had drawn from our revenue for the week's consumption. I had said that she ought to take a pound at least, but she stuck to her figure and would have shown a balance even more considerable if Uncle Corny had not dropped in with such geniality for supper. Your frugality is beyond belief, said I. Hulla! cried Uncle Corny as he came in after breakfast without even scraping his boots and carrying a suckering iron, which he poked into a rose, or at least we had determined that it must be a rose of our new artistic paper. Signs of it already, I expected it last week. Going to have a turn out and knock everything to pieces. But we don't carry long iron hose, answered Kitty, pointing to the rose which he had just suckered off the wall, and he laughed and shook hands and said, I'd better hold my tongue. I quite agreed in this, for he always got the worst of it when he attempted to make light of Kitty. She never said anything rude but contrived to roll him up in his own rudeness, and perhaps it was the liberty of saying what she pleased after so many years of snubbing, for the freedom of their voice must be fresh air to women, which had now set her up in a liveliness of health such as no one had ever seen her show before. For instance, she had always had a soft clear color, not to be quenched by her stepmother's slaps, nor even by anxiety about her own kit. But now, ever since she had married me, there was a richness of bloom on her cheeks, and a delicate gloss, you might almost call it, such as may be seen in a tea-rose only when it has been thoroughly well managed. And now she was wearing her pink chintz wrapper which showed the perfection of her form with little sprigs of flowers climbing up it, just as if they vied with one another for the honor and delight of clinging closer into her, and I thought that I had never seen her look so lovely, and she knew what I thought and her soft eyes sparkled. Can't stop while you look at one another. Should have to stop all day if it came to that. Uncle Corny was crisp in his style this morning because of the frost he expected. Now, Mrs. Kit, don't expect him till you see him. We have to keep the fires up till ten o'clock for all I know, and Tabby will have something good for supper at my place. If you can come, too, it will be all the better. But after all this kick-up of dust, you will be tired. I never can understand why women are always dusting. They only make more. We are not going dusting, that shows how little you know about it, Uncle Corny, my kitty replied with proper spirit. We are going to have a fine good cleaning, such as you give your wall-trees with the engine. You insist upon keeping your trees clean, but you don't care how dirty your boards are. Boards don't grow, my uncle replied as if that shut her up altogether. Yes, they grow dirty. She answered in his own short style, and he only said, Come along, Kit. But he turned back and kissed her, for he loved her dearly, and both he and I were glad of it when we talked about it afterwards. Then, as he started with his swinging walk, for he was proud of his flat back and sound joints, my dear wife came to the door and threw her round white arms about my neck. She had turned up her sleeves to show the earnest purpose in her figure. And her scalloped apron, trimmed with bink, came nestling into my waistcoat. We have never been apart so long, my pet, since our wedding day. She whispered, and her eyes looked wistful. Don't expect me down there now, for I don't think that he wants me much, and I shall have something ready for you, and your new pipe filled, my dear, the one I gave you a bay-cliff. I shall be lonely, I dare say, but I shall have the clock to tell me when you are certain to be home again. And it is high time for us to learn to do without one another. People talk of presentiments, as if nothing could happen without them. I only know that I had none, but it almost seemed as if she had some, being of a quicker mind than I, and I was glad for many a long day that I kissed her with true tenderness and, looking back, got one sweet smile from the corner where the white lilac stood. All that day I was hard at work, attending to what I had in hand, with enough of mine to do it well, or at least as well as in melee, and these things when they suit the nature both enlarge and purify it, so that a man who takes delight in all these little turns of life, although he may be tired and harassed by the pest of plaguesome insects and the shifts of weather, yet shall do his own heart good by doing good to what he loves, neither shall he find himself in a humor to believe half the evil that he hears of his old friends, or even to be sure, when he goes to his letter-box, that the bill which he finds there a month after he has paid it, may not have been sent again by pure mistake. "'How you are moaning,' said my Uncle Corny, who often pretended to be rougher than he was, that bottom branch should be at least three inches lower. "'And you call that leader straight?' "'Why, I call it a ram's horn. "'How often must I tell you that to make sure of your work you must step back and see how it looks across the border?' "'And here's a great batch of scale left to hatch at its leisure. A pretty wife spoiled the best gardener I ever knew. You have been thinking of Kitty all the blessed day, I see. But put away your nail-bag and let the net down from the coping. What do you suppose the thermometer is now?' "'Well, perhaps about forty,' I replied, looking round, for the sun was gone down in a rich red sky, and the air was very shrewd, and my fingers getting cold, thirty-six already, and will be thirty very soon, and twenty-two at four o'clock, as sure as I am a sinner. If we only pull through this we shall be all right. There's a change of weather coming within twenty-four hours. Come and have a glass of ale, and then we'll go and do the bonfires. When we have done, Tabby will give us a hot chop, and then you'll be home before Kitty breaks her heart. I knew that our bloom, which was now beyond its prime, had escaped very narrowly the night before, and would be in still greater peril to-night, for these frosts always strengthen until there comes a change. So while he set off with his five-tined fork, I ran to the house for my glass of beer, which I really wanted after that long day, and another box of matches, for he thought that his were damp, and when Mrs. Tapscott handed me the ale, she asked me in a tone which made me feel uncomfortable. Hey, have you got the garden door locked fast? What garden door do you mean? I inquired. There are two gates, and there are three doors, Tabby, and what makes you ask in that ominous voice? Don't know what hominus means? She replied, but I know what door means, and so ought you. Old lead-colored door to the back of your house? Well, I suppose it must be locked. It always is. None of our men go that way, you know. But what makes you put such a question to-night? Don't know, no more than the dead? She answered, only come into my head as such things will. Here, sum it downtown, as set me a thinking. You see her be locked when you go to-home. Before I could ask her what she had heard, the sound of my uncle's impatient shout came through the still air, and I hurried off to help him, for he had more than he could well do by himself. It was deep dusk now, and the night was falling fast. Venus on duty as the evening star, shown with unusual size and sparkle, above the faint gleam which had succeeded the yellow glow after the red sundown, and a little white vapor was rising here and there, where the low ground leaned into the gentle slope, but there was not enough of air on the move to draw the slow mist into lines, or even to breathe it into any shape at all. Now, look sharp! exclaimed Uncle Corny, who was not at all concerned with nature's doings, except as they concerned his pocket. I understand things and you don't. You will see, if you know north from south, that I have arranged all this in a most scientific manner. Here are fifty piles on the eastern side of all these Bonoan, and fifty on the north. The wind must be either north or east when it freezes. We light up according to the direction of the wind. He wetted one finger at his lips and held it up according to some old woman's nostrum for discovering what way the wind blows. And I said, but supposing there's no wind at all. Very well, it doesn't matter what way it is. He had made up his mind and meant to have it out. You are full of objections because you know nothing. There is no cure for that but to do as you're told. You begin at that corner and let the air go through. I shall take this line and see who does it best. You could never have smoked that old accurate out in this sort of weather. I said, and he laughed, as he always did, when that triumph was recalled. I heard something about him the other day. He shouted as he was going down the row of piles. But I can't stop to tell you now. Remind me at supper. In spite of all that we both could do, and all of his long preparations, not a whiff of smoke would go near the trees, but all went up as straight as the trees themselves. And I laughed very heartily. The last hearty laugh I was to enjoy for many a day. At the excuses Uncle Corny made for the fume that would only come into his mouth. But he would not confess himself beaten. Huge anyone a Britain was he for that. He stamped about and used strong words and even strove at his broad-flapped hat to woth the smoke, which was as stubborn as himself, into the track it should take, till I told him he was like the wise men of Gotham, who shoveled a sunshine into his barn. Then he laughed and said, Well, it will be all right by and by as the frost draws along the blessed smoke must come with it. You never understand the true principles of things. Just come in and have some supper, and we'll have another look at it. You must never expect a thing to work at first. Other people have done it, and I mean to do it. It is nothing but downright obstancy. And there it begins to go right already. All I want is a little common sense and patience. I shall go home first, I said, and see that all is right. Kitty has got a bit for me to eat, and perhaps she will come down with me in about an hour's time, if she is not too tired. You go and have your supper, Uncle. With this I set off, having long been uneasy, partly perhaps at what Tabby had said, and partly at having been so long from home, but I whistled a tune and went cheerfully along, for the night was beautiful and the trees still piled with blossom, rose against the starry sky like cones of snow. Our door was wide open, which surprised me just a little, for my wife was particular about that. When I went into the passage I called, Kitty, Kitty, but heard no sweet voice say, Yes, dear, neither did any form more sweet than words of kindness greeting come, and my step rang through the passage with that hollow sound which an empty house seems to feel along every wall, with the terrible thumping of my breast I turned into our little parlor and struck against the straggling chair. There was no light burning, the window was wide open, the curtains undrawn. The room felt like a well, and the faint light from the sky upon the table showed that no supper-cloth was laid. Shouting for Kitty, in a voice of fear which started myself, I groped my way to the mantelpiece where the matches stood. They were in a little ornament which he had brought from Baycliff. My trembling hand upset it, and they fell upon the rug. I picked up half a dozen and struck them anyhow on the grate, and lit a small wax candle which we had considered rather grand. The room was in good order. There was nothing to tell anything. But I knew that it had not been occupied for hours. She is gone, I exclaimed, though with no one to hear me. My Kitty is gone. She is gone for ever. CHAPTER XXXVII. In the calm-made night I left my desolate home to learn the cause and meaning of its desolation. Some men might have doubted whether it was worth their while to trace the dark steps of their own reproach. From what I had seen even now I knew that my wife had left me of her own accord. There was not the smallest sign of struggle or disorder anywhere. Nothing whatever to suggest that any compulsion had been used, or even that any stranger's foot had crossed our humble threshold. Of this I should learn more by daylight, and I took care and had to slur the chance by even treading the little path that led to the old door on the wall. There was a grass edging to that path betwixt it and a row of espalier apple trees in full bloom now, and along that grass I made my way with a bullseye lamp in my hand as far as the leaden-colored door of which Old Tabby had asked a few hours ago. Without stepping in front of that door I threw the strong light upon it and perceived at once that it had been opened recently. It was now unbolted and unlocked and kept shut only by the old thumb latch. This I lifted and stepped outside, keeping close to the post, so as not to muddle with any footprints within or without. Then I cast my light on the dust outside, for the weather had lately been quite dry. And there I saw distinctly the impress of my darling's foot. I could swear to it among ten thousand, with its delicate springy curves, for her feet and their boots had the shapely arch and rise of a small ox tongue, and ladies did not wear peg heels, then, to make flat feet seem vaulted. By the side of that comely footprint were the marks of a coarser and commonplace shoe, short and square, and as wide as it was long. Probably the sign-pedal of a clod-hopping country boy, or lad. Of these there were some half-dozen, as if the boy had stamped about as he entered, and repeated the process when he returned. I will examine these carefully when the sun is up, thought I, I must see to other matters now. So I hurried at once by the shortest track to the lower corner of the gardens, where my uncle Corny lived. Tabby Tapscott was gone home, and the house all dark and fast asleep, for I must have lost an hour in my agony on the bed, besides all the other time wasted. At last my thunderous knocks disturbed even the sound sleep of the grower, and he flung up a window and looked out with a nightcap over his frizz of white hair. It is no time for anger, I replied to his hot exclamations. Come and let me in. I want your advice. I am ruined. My uncle was thoroughly good at heart when he came down with a light and saw the ghost he had let in. He was very little better than his visitor. He shook as if old age were come upon him suddenly while I tried to tell my tale. My kitty, gone, and gone of her own accord! He cried as if he, and not I, had lost her. Man, you must be mad. Are you walking in your sleep? God send that I may be. But when shall I awake? The old man's distress and his trembling anguish let loose all the floods of mine. I fell against the wall where he hung his hats and saws and sobbed like a woman who had lost her only child. Come, come, he said, would you both be ashamed of this? Your darling is not dead, my boy, but only lured away by some darn trick. Don't blame yourself for her. I will answer for her sooner than I would for myself in this bad world. You shall have her back again, Kit. You shall have her back again. There is a God who never lets us perish while we stick to him. I have not stuck to him. I have stuck to her. The truth of my words came upon me like a flash. It was the first time I had even thought of this. Never mind, he knows, and he meant it so. My uncle replied with some theology of his own. No man will be punished for doing what the Bible orders. You'll see, my dear boy, it will all come right. You will live to laugh at this infernal trick, and I hope to the Lord that I shall be alive to grin with you. Cheer up, old fellow. What would your kitty think to see you knock under to a better regum roll? You must keep up your spirits for poor kitty's sake. To see an old man show more pluck than a young one, and to take in a little of his fine faith, set me on my pins again, more than any one would believe, and I followed him into his kitchen where the remnants of the fire were not quite dead. I'll blow it up, Kit, he said, and put a bit of wood on. Tabby always leaves it in this cupboard. That was a fine tree, that old jargonel. It lived on its bark, I believe, for about a score of years, and you helped to split it up when you were courting kitty. You shall court her again, my boy, and have another honeymoon, as they've cut yours short in this confounded way. Now, make a good fire while I put my breeches on. You look like a ghost that has never had a bit to eat, and I don't suppose you have touched a morsel to speak of since breakfast. Never say die, is my motto, Kit. We'll be at the police office by three o'clock. We can do nothing till then, you know. Even as he spoke, his ancient cuckoo sang out one o'clock, and I obeyed his orders, and even found a little comfort in the thought that kitty would have smiled to see my clumsy efforts, for she was very knowing about making fires up. When I had contrived to eat a bit of something which my uncle warmed up for me, though I never knew what it was, he gave me a glass of old ale, and took a drop himself, and we talked of our calamity until it was time to go. He asked me whether anything within the last few days could be called to mind that bore it all upon this sudden mystery. Whether any jarring words, however little thought of, had passed between my wife and me, as is sometimes the case even when a couple are all in all to one another. But I could remember none, nor any approach to such a thing, and I had never seen a frown upon my darling's forehead, then he told me what he had heard about his former tenant, Harker, the man whom he ejected by fumigating process much more successful than the ejectment of the frost. It was nothing more than this, and even this perhaps a piece of vital village gossip, old Acherate had taken much amiss to his tardy expulsion, for he meant to live rent-free through winter, and had been heard to say that he would be, something anticipatory perhaps of his final doom, if that blessed young couple should be in his house very long, or he knew a trick worth two of that, and if he had been smoked out, hang them, they should be burned out. I agreed with my uncle that such stuff as this was not worth repeating, especially as nothing of the kind had come to pass, and yet again it appeared suspicious that the door through which my dear wife had vanished should be the very one which old Harker had used for his special entrance and exit, while he had even been jealous of any attempt on the part of the owners to use it. But my uncle and myself were uncommonly poor hands at anything akin to spying. Our rule had always been to accept small fibs, such as every man received by the dozen daily, without passing them through a fine sieve, which if any man does he will have little time for any other employment. Take this big stick, Kit. I brought it for the purpose, said my uncle, when I had knocked a dozen times in vain at the door of Sergeant Biggs, our head policeman. It is the toughest bit of stuff I have ever handled. It will go through the panel of the door before it breaks. Don't be afraid, my boy, take both hands. Let me get out of the way before you swing it. Ah, ah, that ought to bring him out. But we must make allowance for the strength of his sleep, because he has such practice at it all day long. Our police force at that time consisted of two men, Sergeant Biggs, the chief officer, and constable Turnover, very good men both and highly popular. They were not paid by any means according to their merits, and we always got up a Christmas box for them, which put them on their honor not to make a fuss for nothing. It is wise for every place to keep its policemen in good humor, otherwise it gets a shocking name without deserving it. Coming, master, coming. Don't be in such a hurry. I heard a very reasonable voice reply at last. Got one leg into these ear-breaches and can't get the other, because they wasn't made for me. Ah, there goes that blessed stare into my bad leg again. They promised to mend it. It's a lady-day-twelve-month. The men did they won't, and I've got a running sore. Ah, gents, both, what can I do for you? Always at the post of duty, that's the motto of the force. But bless me, if it isn't Mr. Orchardson. Any delinquents in your garden, sir? Ever so much worse than that, replied my uncle. Biggs, are you wide awake? A dreadful thing has happened. Where is Turnover? We shall want you both at once. On duty, sir, patrolling, unless you have turned in. But he's very good for that, even when I look after him, which I do pretty sharp, as he knows to his credit. A very active constable is Turnover, but come inside, Mr. Orchardson. Don't stand out in the cold, sir. There was a streak of dawn among the trees towards Hampton, and the white frost-fog had rolled up from the river, and I saw that a dark cloud was gathering in the south. The change that my uncle had foretold was coming even sooner than he had expected it. We went inside, and Sergeant Biggs, who had a light, pulled on a coat, and sat down and stayed before a rail desk on which a square book was lying. Then he turned the brass cover off the ink, and squared his elbows. Now, sir, the particulars, if you please, we must make entry before we does nothing. You were quite right in coming to headquarters, Mr. Orchardson. Let me see. May the fourteenth, isn't it? No, Biggs, it's morning now, and yesterday was the fifteenth of May. Oh, quite right, sir. Here it is upon the standard, May 16th, 1861, 3.30 a.m. by office-clock. Information received from Cornelius Orchardson of the Fruit Gardens Sunbury. Everything ready, sir. Please go ahead. Good. You tell him. You know most about it. Scratch out Cornelius and put Christopher, Biggs. Sergeant Biggs did not like to disfigure his book. However, he was a most obliging man. Stay, sir, stay, he exclaimed. I can do it better and neater than it is. Cornelius Orchardson of the Fruit Gardens Sunbury and his nephew Christopher Orchardson. That meets the point exactly. Now then, gentlemen, fire away, and I will reduce it into proper form. Chafing at all this rigamarole, which was sending another good hour to waste, I poured out my tale in a very few words and had the satisfaction of seeing at last an expression of amazement gathering and deepening on the large fat countenance of Sergeant Biggs. Why this beats everything that was ever done in Sunbury since Squire Coldpepper's daughter ran away. And in the same family, too, as you might say, how long ago was that? Let me see. He was going to refer to some books and took off his orange spectacles to consider where they were. Come along, Biggs. There's no time for that, cried my uncle impatiently. We want you to come and examine the place at once. It was useless for us to go up till daylight. There are footsteps for you to examine and doors. Now this here will be all over London before the clock strikes twelve today. You may stare, gentlemen, and we don't tell how we do it, but such is our organization and things are brought to such perfection now. Come along, Biggs. It's pouring with rain. I knew the white frost were sure to bring it, but I didn't expect it till the afternoon. And it sounds like hail, shocking thing for all my blossom. I'll be with you, Mr. Orchardson, in about ten minutes. I must put my tawgery to rights first, you see. Sergeant Biggs does not think much of himself, but Sunbury does. And it would stare to see him go on duty without any waistcoat or stock, and even a pair of braces on. By the by, gents, have you been to Tompkins' house? This was about the first sensible thing he had said, and I answered that we had not been there yet, but would go there at once, as it was not far out of our course, and we would rejoin him at the cottage. I had thought more than once in the long hours of that night of going to see the girl Polly, but was loathed to knock upon a hard-working household for nothing, and felt sure the Polly could throw no light upon the matter, as she always left our cottage about five in the afternoon, and so it proved when we saw her now, for she could only stare and exclaimed, Oh, Lord! Having most of her wits which were not very active, absorbed in hard work, and the necessity of living, and the more I examined her, the more nervous she became, and seeing that she was undergoing trial and perhaps likely to be hanged for the loss of her young mistress. I never see nobody take her away, nor nobody come and hide the house, all the time I were in it, other knows I didn't. With this she said over and over again, Nobody says that you did, Polly, I answered as gently as possible, but did you see anything to make you think that your mistress meant to go away when you were gone? I don't know what she was thinking of, she never told me naught about it, no I never see nobody take her away, it isn't fair nor true to say so, but my good child, nobody supposes that you did, nobody is blaming you in the least, nobody thinks that you saw her go away, but can't you tell us whether you saw anything to show that she was likely to go away? Yes, I saw a big black crow come flying right over the roof about one o'clock, and then I knowed as someone was a-going, live or dead, but I never told her, feared to frighten her, Lord in heaven knows I didn't. And did you see anything else go by, a cat or a dog or a man or a woman or anything else that did not usually come? Or did you hear any steps anywhere near the house or see anything more than usual? Polly shook her head as if I was putting a crushing weight of thought on the top of it, and then she began to cry again, and her mother came up to protect her, she had cried when she heard that her mistress was gone, and she must not be allowed to cry again, or no one could tell what would come of it. Sweet, he tell the whole truth now, got no need to be frightened, if police does come they can't do nothing to you at all, my dear, seventeen children have ahead, and none ever put thumb on the Bible. Mrs. Tompkins did not mean that her family failed to search the scriptures, but that they had never been involved in criminal proceedings, they not even as a witness. Well, then I think I did see a summit, replied Polly under this encouragement. I would not have pressed her as I did unless I felt pretty sure that she was keeping something back. It warn't nothing to speak of much, nor yet to think upon at the time. Well, outwardly, dearie, whatever it was, all you have to do is to speak the truth and leave them as can put two and two together to make the meaning of it. Thus adjured, Polly, after one more glance to be sure that no policeman was coming, told her tale. It was not very much, but it might mean something. It's were about four o'clock, I believe, and all the things was put back again after musking out the rooms. When Mrs. said to me, you run, Polly, and pick a little bit of chive down the walk there. I don't want much, she says, but what there is must be good, and just enough to cover up any piece, after I've chopped it up and put it together. I want to have everything ready, she says, just to make a homily when my husband comes home. I've got plenty of parsley in that cup, she says, but he always likes a little bit of chive to give it seasoning, and be sure you pick a clean, she says. And it mustn't be yellow at the tip or dirty, because if the grick gets in, she says, it's ever so much worse than having none at all. So I says, all right, ma'am, I know where it is, and you shall have the best bit out of all the bro. You're a good girl, she says, don't be longer than you can help, and you shall have a cup of tea, Polly, before you go home, because you've worked very well today. Nobody could have do it better, she says, well, I took a little punnet as was hanging in the kitchen, not to make it hot in my hands, you see. When I went along the grass by the gooseberry bushes, you knows the place I mean, mother, and there was the chives, all his green as little leaks. As I was astooping over them, with my back up to the sky, all of a sudden I hear a sort of creek-like, as made me stand up and look to know where it come from. And then I see the old door, as used to be bolted always, opening just a little way in towards me. Though I was a good bit off, and then the brim of a hat come through, and I sings out, Who's there, please? There wasn't no nose or eyes coming through the door yet, nor yet any legs so far as I could see, but only that there brim, like the brim of a soft hat, and I couldn't say for certain whether it was brown or black. Nothing here to steal, I says, for I thought it were some tramp, and then the door shut softly, and I was half a mind to go and see whether there was any one out in the lane, but it all began to look so lonely-like, and I was ordered not to stop, and so I thought the best thing was to go back and tell the Mrs. But something came that drove it out of my mind altogether. For when I got back to the house, she says, Don't you lose a minipolly? There's a good girl. Run as far as widow-cut thems and fetch half a dozen eggs. I thought I had four, and I've only got three, she says, and I can't make a homily for two people of three eggs, and my husband won't eat a bit unless I have some, she says. So I was off quick-stick to widow-cut thems, and there, outside the door, I seen that bad Osborn, the most audacious boy in all Sunbury. Hola, says he, Paul, you do look stunning. I got a baker's roll of rison by the way you be a panton. Give us a lock of your hair again the time when we get old, he says. Before I could give him a pock's son his ear. He spreads out his fingers some way he must have learned, for I never could a dude at myself know that I couldn't, and away goes all my black hair down over all my shoulders just the same as if it was Sunday going on for three years back. That vexed I were, I can assure you, Mr. Kitt, well, mother knows best how I put it up that very same morning for the cleaning, and our Annie to hold the black pins for me, but could add him I couldn't to give him one for himself. He were half across the street before I could see out, and he hollered out some imperdence as made all the others grinny. But I'll have my change before next Sunday week, I will. When I got back, Mr. Kitt, you may suppose, all about the door and the hat brim was gone clean out of my mind, as if it never was there. And I come away home without a word about it, and never thought about it another, till I lay awake in bed and hear our own door creak when father went to spy the weather. But, oh, if I had only thought about it, Mr. Kitt, perhaps Mrs. might never have been took off. CHAPTER XXXVIII NONE At this beginning of my great trouble I used to be worried more than common sense would warrant, by the easy way in which other people look at my distress, even while I was among them. If anything occurred to make them laugh, they laughed with all their hearts at things, in which I could perceive no joke at all. I daresay they were right, and I was wrong, but I felt that I should not have laughed at all if the tables had been turned upon them as I wished they had been. That is to say, if they had been in bitter grief, and I had been standing outside to help them. For the policemen I could make all allowance, because they must get seasoned by their profession, even as the lawyers do. But it did seem a bit unnatural at first, that some men, to whom I would gladly have lent my last shilling but one if they had wanted it, should be ready to put their hands into their pockets, not to feel if there was anything there for my good, but to enable them to enjoy a broad grin at leisure, if the least bit of laughable nature turned up. But one thing I will say for the women, there was scarcely so much as a smile among them. They could understand what I had lost, and they knew, perhaps from self-examination, that a good wife is not to be caught every day. The heavy cloud had been pouring down rain and volumes and hail and lines, when with Celsius Bill and Mrs. Bill and Polly lagging after us under a broken umbrella my uncle and myself came to honeysuckle cottage and found sergeant Biggs in constable turnover, with their oil-skin capes running like a tiled roof, and their faces full of discipline. Wouldn't go inside, gents, till you came, no warrant being out and no instructions received, always gets into trouble when we ax on our own hook. We led them inside for there was broad daylight now, and the cloud began to lift, and the rain came down in single drops instead of one great sheet. As they stamped about and shook themselves in our little passage, scattering grimy wetness like a trundled mop, I wondered, with a bitter pang, what Kitty would have thought after all her neat work, if she could only have seen this. Turn over, you come after me. We make this inspection together, mind, and what I sees you sees and corroborates, though it ain't a case of murder so far as we know yet, we must keep our eyes open the same as if it was. Nothing comes to us, and nothing comes amiss to them that does their duty. This sentiment was much admired by Constable Turnover, and my uncle whispered, Let them do exactly as they like, Kit. They are a pair of fools, but we need not tell them so. We shall have them on our side at any rate, and if they don't do any good, they can do no harm. Leave them entirely to their own devices. This quite agreed with my own view of the matter. When a crime has been committed, we call the police, as in dangerous illness we invoke a doctor, for the satisfaction of our own minds rather than for many hope of being helped. And in the former case we have this advantage. The thing becomes widely spread, and distant eyes are turned on it. All in order, gents, not a lockedman forced, not a door broke open, so far as we can discover. Sergeant Biggs was beating his hands together from the force of habit as he came to us in the kitchen, where we were sitting drowsily. Two windows open, and some rain come in, but no signs of entrance by them. The young lady have gone off her own accord, and left no sign for anyone. Time of disappearance not exactly known, you say, but somewhere between five and ten o'clock, suppose. These give particulars of dress, height, and complexion. We know the young lady well enough, of course, but we like to have those things from relatives. When the dress is beyond us, ladies always are so changing. Mr. Kitt says her grey cloak is gone, and brown bonnet, white chip hat hanging on the peg, looks as if she meant to go a goodish way, but not much preparation for travelling. There was a little black bag, sir, you said you could not find? Very sorry to trouble you, sir, when you were so downhearted. But I must ask you just to look into them drawers in the lady's bedroom, and especially to see if any cash is missing. Excuse me, sir, I meant no rudeness, for I had leapt up, and was ready to strike him, at the suggestion that my darling could have robbed me. He's doing his duty, Kitt, don't be a fool!" cried my uncle as bigs through his arms up in defence. "'We'll give up this case, sir,' said the sergeant, without anger. "'Unless you allow us to conduct it in our own way, we are bound to know all that can throw a light upon it, and nine times out of ten when a woman, beg pardon, a lady, runs away from her husband on the sudden, she collars all the cash and all the trinkets she can find. Don't be new and sinew away for a moment that this young lady done anything of the kind. But for all that I am bound to put the question, and Mr. Cornelius can see it, if you can, sir. "'Very well, I will go and see,' I answered, having sense enough to know that he was right. "'And you can both come and see for yourselves, if you like. Perhaps you won't believe it unless you do. At any rate, you come, Uncle Cornelius. I ran up in haze to our little bedroom, as pretty a room as one could wish to see for its cheerfulness, airiness, and fair view, between the clustering climbers of the broad winding river and the hills beyond, all to be seen either over or amid a great waving depth of white and pink, where the snow of the pears put the apples to the blush. Every plainly furnished as it was, our little room looked sweet, even in its desolation, and as lively and delightful as the bride who had adorned it. My Aunt Parcel had given us a pretty chest of drawers of real bird's-eye maple wood, which she had bought at a sale somewhere, and we kept all our money, that was not in the bank, in one of the top drawers, which had a tolerable lock. This was the proper place for Kitty's purse and mine, although I never had one, so to speak, at least it was always empty. Whenever I had any money fit to spend it was generally always in my waistcoat pocket, and it never stopped there long if I came across anybody who deserved it. But I never went out with too much at a time, or it is not safe to have nothing left at home. The key was not in the drawer, of course, but I knew where Kitty kept it, and there it was, as usual. I could have wept now, if I might have made sure of nobody coming after me, when I found all the balance of this week's allowance for housekeeping uses in a twist of silver paper, such as used to be common but is seldom seen now, and my darling had not made much boot upon the store ever since last Saturday, for our butcher who wanted her to run up an account, being in love with her as everybody was, although he had a wife and seven little butchers rising, had made believe that he could not stop to weigh the last half leg of mutton he sent up. Kitty had told me of this and lamented while unwilling to appear distrustful of him, for an honest tradesman dislikes that, though he often has to brace up his mind to it. I put this residue of our fifteen shillings into one corner, as a sacred thing, and then I went to the brown metal box at the back of the drawer, where we kept our main stock, with a dozen of my wife's new handkerchiefs piled over it to dilute all burglars. I had bought her a dozen that less than cost price as a haberdasher vowed at baycliff, and we had been reluctant to be so hard upon him, but he said that he was selling off and we must have the benefit, and I lifted them now with a miserable pang, for my love had kissed me for this cheap but pretty present, and she had marked them all with her own sweet air. I have often been astonished in my life, as everybody must be, almost before his hair begins to grow, but mine, which was now in abundant short curls, would have pushed off my hat if I had worn one, when the money-box came to my eyes half open, and as clean as a spade on a Saturday night. Every bank note was gone, and every sovereign, too, and even the four half-soverance which we had meant to spend first when we could not help it. I have never loved money with much of my heart, though we are bound to do as our neighbors do, and perhaps it had been a little pleasure to me to have more than I ever could have dreamed of having, through the great generosity of Aunt Parslow and the timely assistance of Captain Fairthorne, but now my whole heart went down in a lump, and I scarcely had any power of breath as I fell once more upon my widowed bed, and had no strength to wrestle with the woe that lay upon me, that my own wife, my own true wife, the heart of my heart, and the life of my life, should have run away from me of her own accord, without a word, without one goodbye, and carried off all our money. Come, Kit, how much longer do you mean to be? My uncle's voice came up the stairs. Let him alone begs, perhaps he is crying. These young fellows never understand the world. Some little thing comes round a corner on them, and they give way for want of seasoning. He was wonderfully bound up in his kitty, and however it may look against her now, I will stake my life that she deserved it. You pealers see all the worst of the world, and it makes you look black at everything. I would lay every penny I possess, which is very little in these free trade times, that he finds every farthing of his money right. Though I have often told him what a fool he was to keep so much in his own house. He seems an uncommon time accounting of it, Sergeant Big spoke skeptically and retired to the kitchen, for it did not matter very much to him. Getting no reply from me my uncle came up slowly for a night out of bed towels upon the stiff joints, when a man is getting on in years. Then he marched up bravely and laid one hand upon my shoulder. What are you about, Kit, breaking down, old fellow? You must not do that with these chaps in the house, or the Lord knows what a lot of lies we'll get about. Money all right, of course, no doubt of that, my boy. I could make no answer, but pointed to the drawer, which was still pulled out to its full extent, with a little smile which expressed as well as words, what a fool you must be to keep your money there, he looked in, and saw the empty cash box, and turned as white as his own bear blossom. Then he took the brown box in his thick right hand and turned it upside down, as if he could not trust his eyes. How much was there in it? But perhaps you did not know. Oh, Kit, Kit, has it come to this at last? He spoke as if I ought to have been robbed by my own wife a long time ago, and was bound by the duty of a husband to expect it. But my spirit rose, and I jumped up and phased him. Every farthing of it was her own, I said, and she had a perfect right to take it. It is part of the hundred pounds that Parcel gave her on her wedding-day. There was forty-five pounds in that box, and the other fifty-five was invested according to your advice. I would send her that also if I knew her address. It was all her own money. You may ask Aunt Parcel, though, I have no right to a farthing of it. Kit, you are a very fine fellow, after all, though you do take things so lumpily, but answer me one little question. Why did your aunt give her that hundred pounds? Because she loved her, as everybody does, or did, because she was so kind and good and loving. No, my boy, not at all for that reason. But because she married you, Aunt Parcel's nephew, the money was yours, in all honesty not hers. Or at any rate it belonged to you together. She had no more right to take that money without your consent than I have to walk into Baker Rass Shop and walk out of it with the contents of his till. You must look at things squarely and make your mind up. Expel her from your heart. She has a light of love and a robber. Oh, Kit, Kit, that I should have brought you into this. And I did think that I knew so much about women. My uncle shed a tear, not on his own account, or mine, and perhaps not even for the sake of women. But because he had loved Kitty as his own daughter, and he could no more expel her from his heart than I from mine, at least without taking a long time about it, I was moved with his grief, for he was hard to grieve. My wrath at his injustice was disarmed. I put back the empty box and locked the drawer, for I knew that it was useless to argue with him. This was the second great grief of my life. He said in a low voice, as if talking to himself, over and above those losses which are inflicted on us by the Lord as time goes on, and the other was through a woman, too. I will tell you of it when we have more time. For it may help you in your own grief, Kit. But now we must quiet those fellows downstairs. I wish we had never called them in. I would rather lose every penny I possess and start in the world again, as a market porter, and let this miserable story get abroad. We must take your view of the case before the public, and tell them that there is no money gone except her own. The Lord knows that I am not a liar, and he will forgive me for stretching a bit this time, or perhaps you would better do it because you believe it, you know, and so there won't be any lie at all. You go down first, and I will come behind you grumbling, which no one can say is an ungrateful thing now. This seemed a proper course, although in my misery I should never have thought of it, until I wished that I had done so. The question as to the right to that money lay between myself and Kitty, and as she had doubtless considered at hers, to brand her at large as a robber without allowing her chance of explanation would be most unfair, and would only add another pain to a story too painful already. So I went down and told Sergeant Biggs that my wife had taken a few clothes in her handbag, and a part of some money that she had lately received as a wedding present, but had left the balance of her cash for housekeeping, as well as most of her trinkets in the bedroom drawer. He was much disappointed in this and shook his head to disguise the blow received by his sagacity. Beached me for the present at any rate, he said, but I will throw more light upon it before we are many years older. You hold on, sir, and do not go about too much. Half the mischief comes of that. A party comes to us, and he says, Look here, I leave the whole of it to your care, Sergeant. You understand these things, and I don't. Everything as you do, I will back up. Magistrates, witnesses, lawyers, dog-stealers, whatever you find needful, up to a five-pound note or more. And after that what do we feel? Why, ready to go through with it on our best muddle, you might say, and come down with cash out of our own breeches pocket for love of nothing else but duty. And then we get crossed, like two dogs accorsing, by the other party's track, with his nose up in the air the very same as if he never had come in eyes. So I says to turn over, now one thing or another, either they must let us do it all or nothing, and if we do it all in a hunt the slipper thing like this we must know all the ins and outs first from the beginning. Then says I, we can give our minds to it turn over. Any answers, yes, sergeant, but do they mean to tell us everything? And now that's the question before you, sir. We will think about that and let you know by and by, said my uncle, who had listened to this long oration. Not that you ever find out anything, Biggs. Still, it is a comfort to believe that you are trying, and now come to do what you ought to have done long ago. Make a careful examination of the footprints by the door. It has been raining pretty sharp, but it all came from the south, and the important marks are on the north side of the lane, according to what my nephew saw last night, and the shower won't have touched them with the door shut, too. Bring some paper and a pencil and your old joint-roll kit. Not that we shall ever make out much. He was right enough in that last prediction, for although I had fastened the door in strict keeping with the moral of the proverb, and no rain had pelted the ground outside it, yet a greater effacer than rain had been there, for the spot being on a sharp slope and below the crown of the road, or the lane, I should say, a strong rush of water had taken track there and washed away all the dust, and then the heavier substance, leaving rough pebbles with sharp edges sticking up, as clean and unconscious as before they saw the world. Nothing to be made of that, said Biggs, nor any footmarks anywhere else after all the rain has fallen. Only one thing to do now is to inquire of the neighbors and folk as were about last night. CHAPTER XXXIX As much as three weeks I had been full of pride in taking my kitty about everywhere, even by the seaside where I knew very little, but luckily she knew less in spite of her scientific origin, and asking her to look about and see things with her own eyes, and if she could not make them out to call me in to help her. This had been rash of my part, for a man may be gaping about for his lifetime and die after all with his mouth wide open, and not a word come from it to help the people left behind, but only to unsettle them and put them in a flutter, as gnats skip into another dance at every new breath across them. But kitty had really put some questions far outside my knowledge, as a child may, who hangs on his grandfather's thumb, and I promised to look up those points and deliver an opinion when I had one. All this came into my mind like a chill when I had to trace her dear steps away from me, away from me. Let seventy times seven wise men say that no man with a grain of wisdom could have a spark of faith in women because they never know their own mind, little as there is of it to know. I still abode in my own faith and let them quote old saws against the sturdy holdfast of true love. I felt as sure of my kitty's heart as I did of my own, and more so, for she never would have borne to hear a hundredth part of the things against me which I had to listen to against her, and the cowards who vent their own craven souls and slander of those who cannot face them, had a fine time of it now, and rejoiced in the misery they were too small to feel. Such things might sour a weakling who depends upon what other people think. But I found enough of manhood coming up in me as time went on to make me stick to my own trust and let outer opinions touch my home no more than the shower that runs down the glass. At first, however, it was dreadful work. Everybody seemed to be against me, not with any unkindness, but by way of worldly wisdom. Don't you dwell too much upon it? A runaway wife isn't worth running after. Never you mind, but get another. Try the people you know with their friends in the place. These were the councils I received with a nod of my head and no reply. But I could not see things as others saw them. I spent the first day of my lonely life in wandering through the crooked lanes and working out every track and turn which my darling could have taken in the dark misery of her flight from me. Very often I thought that she must come back, and there was scarcely a hill that I did not run up, persuading myself that when the top was gained I should describe her and the distance beyond weary and dragging her feet along, but eager at the sight of me to make a rush and fall into my longing arms. How many a corner I turned believing that it must be the last between her and me, and how many a footpath style I sat on holding my eyes that she might catch me unawares as at blind man's bluff and throw her warm arms round my neck and kiss me into shame of my mistrust and tell me that she never could have doubted me whatever I had done or whatever people said. And then when it grew too dark to see my own love in the shadow of the lanes and the last note of the wetted thrush who sings to the sparkle of the stars in May, was hushed by a call from his nest, and followed by the first clear trail of the nightingale, who tells the deeper tale of night, with passion too intense for light, weary and with little heart for loneliness and doubt and woe, yet I could not be quite sure that when I opened our own door someone might not run out hotly and give me no time to speak, but hold me lip to lip and breast to breast with scarcely room for a tear between us. It is the emptiness that follows such full hope that does the harm to the powers of endurance. When no one came to meet me and the cold room showed gray lines of shade, with no dear life to cross them, I used to fall away and feel my heart go down, like the water of a sink when the plug is taken out of it. There was nothing more for it to do. My wretched life was not worth the fuss of pumping and of laboring, better to give in at once and have no more pain to drain it. You are killing yourself up here, my boy, this will never do! cried Uncle Corny. Father the women, what a pest they are! Try to be like that ancient fellow, I can never remember his name, but they call him the father of history. You told me about him when you went to the grammar school at Hampton, and it was so wise that I paid for another half year for you to read him. You know better than I do, but I think there had been a lot of carrying off of pretty girls between two countries, and they were going to fight about them, but he says that they had no call to do it, for men of discretion would let them go and make no fuss about them, because it was manifest that the women would never have been carried off unless they themselves had wished it. I don't suppose you could do it now, but if you can bring down the book and read it to me this evening, it would do you a deal more good than to hold your tongue and eat your heart out. I hate to hear of that rubbish," I replied. There were a lot of good for nothings. To talk of my kitty in that sort of way would drive me mad, Uncle Corny. If you have nothing better to say than that, you had better go home to Tabby. Well, perhaps they will come and carry Tabby off. I believe she would go for a new bonnet, and I don't know what I should do if she did. But shut up this place, Kit, and come back to the old quarters. You want company, my boy, and I'd rather let old Harker in again than have you here killing yourself like that, and sleeping in the kitchen on two chairs if you ever get any sleep at all? I will never leave this house, I said, and I won't even be smoked out of it. When Kitty comes back she will come here first, and there is no telling how soon she may want me. You only bother me with all this stuff. Well, I will not be hard upon you, Kit, because the Lord has done that quite enough. But you have not got a bit of religion in you after all the teaching I have given you. This was very fine for Uncle Corny, who had never even went to church except to keep other people out of his pew, and he rubbed his nose as he said it as he always did when he had gone too far. There is a very good man wants to see you. He went on a little nervously, for I knew that he had been leading up to something, and a man to whom you are bound to listen, because he was the one who married you, and therefore understands all the subject, matrimony, women, and the doctrines of a church. The Reverend Peter Golightly wishes to have a little talk with you, and I wish to have none with him. He is a very good and kind-hearted man, but I could not bear to hear his voice after what he did for me in Kitty. I was afraid there would be that objection, my uncle answered kindly, but you will get over that by and by, my boy, and it would be rude not to see him, for he takes the greatest interest in your case. He has been disappointed himself, I believe, though, of course, he did not tell me so. He is too much a man for that sort of thing. I shall go and hear him preach some day, unless our vicar comes back again. They tell me that he does a lot of good, and he preached against robbing orchards once, although he has only one apple tree and it is eaten up with American blight. There's another fellow who wants to see you, too, not much of the parson about him. He can tell you things you ought to know, and being about as he always is, I wonder you have not been to see him. Not that I care for Sam Henderson, but he is not so bad as he used to be. He is going to be married next month, and I'll be bound he won't let his wife run away from him, you are going to say. Perhaps he will not be able to help himself. Well, I will see him, if he likes to come. I should be back at nine o'clock. It is very kind of him to wish it, but send up a bottle of whiskey, uncle. I have no drink of any sort in the house, and Sam is nothing without his glass, although he never takes very much, I must give him something, if he comes. And take a drop yourself, my boy, if only for a little change. I don't hold with cold water when a fellow is so down, though it is better than the opposite extreme. I suppose, by the by, that your kitty has not taken... Uncle Corny! I cried in a voice that made him jump. What next will you imagine? She never touched anything, not even beer, though I often tried to make her take a glass. She had seen too much of that, where she was. All right, Kit, but you are getting very cross, which is not the proper lesson of affliction, as the Reverend Peter might express it. Well, I'll send little Bill up with a bottle and a corkscrew. I don't suppose you know where to find anything now. That's the worst of married life for three weeks. But I have got a plan, I mean, to tell you of tomorrow. When I came back a little after dark, having finished that hopeless wandering which I went through every evening now, there was Sam Henderson sitting on an empty flower-pot outside my door with a cigar in his mouth. He might have gone inside, for I had left the front door open all day long and all night too, unless the weather prevented it, for I had nothing to be robbed of now, at least nothing that I cared about, except kitty's clothes, which I had locked out of sight. And it seemed to be delicate and kind of Sam to sit there and discomfort instead of walking in. And he showed another piece of good taste and good will, which could hardly be expected from so blunt and rough a man, he said not a word about his own bright prospects until I inquired about them. But he shook my hand in a very friendly way and left me to begin upon the matter which had brought me to my present state, and for some time I also avoided that. I will tell you, old chap," he said at last and replied to my anxious question, "'Exactly what I think, though it is not good for much, being altogether out of my own line, I think you have been awfully wrong as abominably wronged as any fellow ever was on the face of this earth, which is saying good bit, mind you, knowing what a lot of infernal rogues there are to be found at every corner, and much more often than decent fellows, I have never brought up standing by any black job, though the ins and outs of it may floor me. The Professor is a soft man, isn't he? He has shown it in many ways, although he is so clever, you would call him a soft man, wouldn't you?' "'Well,' I said, wondering how this could bear upon it, I suppose he is rather of the credulous order, as most good men are who measure others by themselves. But he had left England long before, so that can have little to do with it. Right you are, as concerns himself, but I am a believer in breed, my friend, and the longer I live the more true I find it come. A credulous father, as you prefer the word, is likely to be blessed with a credulous child, and your wife took after her father more closely in the inner, because she didn't in the outer woman. At least I can't say from my own eyes, knowing nothing of old blowpipes. But I understand she did not favour him in the flesh. "'Not exactly,' I answered with a little smile as I thought of the loveliness of Kitty's face, but she was like him a little just here and there. A little won't do. My old Trunnion, who croaked in the great frost that almost settled you, my boy, as a son of his old age, Commodore, who will be heard of towards July at the market, scarcely a bit like him in the face, except in one tuck of his nostril, and a tuft of five hairs over his near eye. Do you think I could swear to him by his ways and tricks and his style of coming up? That's the time to know what a horse thinks of you, and I tell you this cold thinks exactly as his father did, and all the more because he isn't like him in the face. There must be the likeness somewhere.' "'Yes, I've heard you say that many times before, and I dare say you are right enough about it, but what has that to do with what has happened to me? Just everything, stupid! Your wife being soft, or credulous, if you like it better. She sucks in a lot of lies against you. The dose comes from somebody she believes in. Not her old enemies, of course. Her dignity will not allow her to complain. Women are always horribly dignified when jealous, and off she goes without a word, leaving you to your own conscience, which will more than give you the tip for it. She'll come back by and by, when she has punished you enough, and then, of course, she'll have to swear, et cetera, et cetera. She'll call herself all sorts of names, and there will be nobody like you till next time. You'll see if that isn't at the bottom of all this.' "'Not likely,' I answered with some wrath. In the first place my kitty would never believe a word of such stuff against me, and there is no such thing as jealousy in her nature. You know best. But I thought I heard something from the man round the corner at Ludred. That was a different thing altogether,' I said quickly, although the remembrance struck me as it had not done before. And in the next place, if she could be so absurd, she would be the last person in the world to go away without a word, without even giving me a chance of taking my own part. You know, that theory will never do. My kitty was the most just, as well as the kindest darling ever born. You don't know what they are sometimes. How can you expect to know more about them than they do about themselves?' "'Yesterday, just by way of something, I asked Sally what she would do if she ever turned up jealous. I would grind my ring finger off,' she said. "'With these two teeth, I would, Sam,' for she has got some uncommon grinders. And I would make my rival swallow it.' "'Now, Sally has been well broken in, remember, and no vice in the family at any rate since her great-grand-dam, but her eyes showed that she would do it. There is no ferocity in kitty,' I answered with a lofty air. "'I know nothing about resources, and very little about women. But women are only men in a better form, more gentle, more just, and more loving. They never give way to such fury as we do. The professor's wife, for instance, Kit, she never gives way to her temper, does she? Oh, dear, no! Even if she has any temper to give way to. A sucking dove, too mild to suck if her sister wants the pigeons milk before her. She is the exception that proves the rule, and I doubt whether even she would be so, if she did not suck too much of stronger liquor. And I will tell you another thing, master Sam, as you have put me up to this, and you have a right to know everything now that you may understand the case. It knocks your theory on the head. Only I must have your solemn promise that no one shall ever hear of it.' Sam gave me his pledge, and I knew that he would keep it, for he was well inured to control his tongue. Then I told him, although I went much against the grain of the disappearance of our stock of money. That beats me at least for the present. And he replied, I don't seem to square with anything, throws me out of my stride and makes me cross my legs, but I don't believe she ever took it. How can you tell that she took it, poor chap? If she collared that tin she will never come back. Was there nobody else could have taken it? The appealers, for instance, you know what they are. They had the run of the house. I have known a lot of cases. No, it is impossible that they can have touched it. The lock had not been tampered with. The key was in its place, and the last place they would have searched for it. And I know by the state of the drawer that no hand but my wife's had been inside it. And you had better not call her your wife any more. Sam Henderson spoke very sternly, and then, looking at my face, went on more kindly and with a huskiness in his voice. You have been unlucky, old chap, as unlucky as any fellow I ever came across, except an old man at New York races once. It was not about money, his bad luck was, for I would not compare it with yours, my dear boy. Sorry as I was for your trouble, Kit. I thought it could all be cured till now. And it can be cured even now, dear Kit, but only as we cure the grief of death. I need not tell you to be a man, for I see that you have been one all along. After what you have told me I understand your behavior thoroughly. Before that I was angry with you and a little ashamed of you to tell the truth, for moping here in this way. Why, the deuce, doesn't he go up and shake the truth out of that old rogue hotchpot or that bigger villain downy bull-rag? But now I see that you could only stay at home and trust the time to comfort you. And you must weed out, as I would, a filly with three legs, a bad lot, a woman who said to you, Stop, Sam, I cried, Don't say a word that would make me hate you. Though all appearances are so black I will never for a moment lose my faith in Kitty. Nobody knows her as I do. If I never see or hear of her again I will say to my last breath and feel to my last pulse that she has been deceived not by me, but about me, and that I have never been deceived in her. Well, chap, all that I can say is that you deserve a better wife than was ever yet born, and if your opinion of your wife is true why this affair beats any job on the turf that I ever heard of and I have heard of a smart view. But I shall keep my eyes open, Kit, and will try to pull it off. I pick up a lot of things you would never think of, and there's daylight at the bottom of the best tarred sack. Come and see me to-morrow. It will be a little change, and I can show you a youngin' that'll take the shine out of all chalkers. If you want a pot of money I can tell you where to get it. End of Chapter 39