 First Scene, Chapter 15 of No Name. On the next morning but one, news was received from Mr. Pendrell. The place of Michael Vanstone's residence on the continent had been discovered. He was living at Zurich, and a letter had been dispatched to him at that place on the day when the information was obtained. In the course of the coming week an answer might be expected, and the purport of it should be communicated forthwith to the ladies at Coombe Raven. Short as it was, the interval of delay passed warily. Ten days elapsed before the expected answer was received, and when it came at last, it proved to be, strictly speaking, no answer at all. Mr. Pendrell had been merely referred to an agent in London who was in possession of Michael Vanstone's instructions. Certain difficulties had been discovered in connection with those instructions, which had produced the necessity of once more writing to Zurich, and there the negotiations rested again for the present. A second paragraph in Mr. Pendrell's letter contained another piece of intelligence entirely new. Mr. Michael Vanstone's son and only child, Mr. Noel Vanstone, had recently arrived in London, and was then staying in lodgings occupied by his cousin, Mr. George Bartram. Professional considerations had induced Mr. Pendrell to pay a visit to the lodgings. He had been very kindly received by Mr. Bartram, but had been informed by that gentleman that his cousin was not then in a condition to receive visitors. Mr. Noel Vanstone had been suffering for some years past, from a weering and obstinate malady. He had come to England expressly to obtain the best medical advice, and he still felt the fatigue of the journey so severely as to be confined to his bed. After these circumstances Mr. Pendrell had no alternative but to take his leave. An interview with Mr. Noel Vanstone might have cleared up some of the difficulties in connection with his father's instructions. As events had turned out, there was no help for it, but to wait for a few days more. The days passed, the empty days of solitude and suspense. At last a third letter from the lawyer announced the long delayed conclusion of the correspondence. The final answer had been received from Zurich, and Mr. Pendrell would personally communicate it at Coombe Raven on the afternoon of the next day. The next day was Wednesday, the twelfth of August. The weather had changed in the night, and the sun rose watery through mist and cloud. By noon the sky was overcast at all points. The temperature was sensibly colder, and the rain poured down straight and soft and steady on the thirsty earth. Toward three o'clock Miss Garth and Nora entered the morning room to await Mr. Pendrell's arrival. They were joined shortly afterward by Magdalene. In half an hour more, the familiar fall of the iron latch in the socket reached their ears from the fence beyond the shrubbery. Mr. Pendrell and Mr. Clare advanced into view along the garden path, walking arm in arm through the rain, sheltered by the same umbrella. The lawyer bowed as they passed the windows. Mr. Clare walked straight on, deep in his own thoughts, noticing nothing. After a delay which seemed interminable, after a weary scraping of wet feet on the hall mat, after a mysterious muttered interchange of question and answer outside the door, the two came in, Mr. Clare leading the way. The old man walked straight up to the table, without any preliminary greeting, and looked across it at the three women, with a stern pity for them in his ragged, wrinkled face. Bad news, he said. I am an enemy to all unnecessary suspense. Plainness is kindness in such a case as this. I mean to be kind, and I tell you plainly bad news. Mr. Pendrell followed him. He shook hands, in silence, with Miss Garth and the two sisters, and took a seat near them. Mr. Clare placed himself apart on a chair by the window. The gray, rainy light fell soft and sad on the faces of Nora and Magdalene, who sat together opposite to him. Miss Garth had placed herself a little behind them, in partial shadow, and the lawyer's quiet face was seen in profile, close beside her. So the four occupants of the room appeared to Mr. Clare, as he sat apart in his corner. His long, claw-like fingers interlaced on his knee. His dark, vigilant eyes fixed, certainly now on one face, now on another. The dripping rustle of the rain among the leaves, and the clear, ceaseless tick of the clock on the mantelpiece, made the minute of silence which followed the settling of the persons present in their places, indescribably oppressive. It was a relief to everyone when Mr. Pendrell spoke. Mr. Clare has told you already, he began, that I am the bearer of bad news. I am grieved to say, Miss Garth, that your doubts, when I last saw you, were better founded than my hopes. What's that heartless elder brother was in his youth, he is still in his old age. In all my unhappy experience of the worst side of human nature, I have never met with the man so utterly dead to every consideration of mercy, as Michael Vanstow. Do you mean that he takes the whole of his brother's fortune, and makes no provision whatever for his brother's children, asked Miss Garth? He offers a sum of money for present emergencies, replied Mr. Pendrell, so meanly and disgracefully insufficient that I am ashamed to mention it. And nothing for the future? Absolutely nothing. As that answer was given, the same thought passed, at the same moment, through Miss Garth's mind and through Nora's. The decision, which deprived both the sisters alike of the resources of fortune, did not end there for the younger of the two. Michael Vanstow's merciless resolution had virtually pronounced the sentence which dismissed Frank to China, and which destroyed all present hope of Magdalen's marriage. As the words passed the lawyer's lips, Miss Garth and Nora looked at Magdalen anxiously. Her face turned a shade paler, but not a feature of it moved. Not a word escaped her. Nora, who held her sister's hand in her own, felt it tremble for a moment and then turned cold. And that was all. Let me mention plainly what I have done, resumed Mr. Pendrell. I am very desirous you should not think that I have left any effort untried. When I wrote to Michael Vanstow, in the first instance, I did not confine myself to the usual formal statement. I put before him plainly and earnestly every one of the circumstances under which he has become possessed of his brother's fortune. When I received the answer, referring me to his written instructions to his lawyer in London, and when a copy of those instructions was placed in my hands, I positively declined, on becoming acquainted with them, to receive the writer's decision as final. I induced the solicitor, on the other side, to accord us a further term of delay. I attempted to see Mr. Noel Vanstow in London for the purpose of obtaining his intercession, and failing in that, I myself wrote to his father for the second time. The answer referred me, in insolently curt terms, to the instructions already communicated, declared those instructions to be final, and declined any further correspondence with me. There is the beginning and the end of the negotiation. If I have overlooked any means of touching this heartless man, tell me, and those means shall be tried. He looked at Nora. She pressed her sister's hand encouragingly, and answered for both of them. I speak for my sister, as well as for myself, she said, with her colour a little heightened, with her natural gentleness of manner just touched by a quiet, uncomplaining sadness. You have done all that could be done, Mr. Pendrell. We have tried to restrain ourselves from hoping too confidently, and we are deeply grateful for your kindness, at a time when kindness is sorely needed by both of us. Magdalen's hand returned the pressure of her sister's, with Drew itself, trifled for a moment impatiently with the arrangement of her dress, then subtly moved the chair closer to the table. Being one arm on it, with the hand fast-clenched, she looked across at Mr. Pendrell. Her face, always remarkable for its want of colour, was now startling to contemplate in its blank, bloodless pallor. But the light in her large, grey eyes was bright and steady as ever, and her voice, though low in tone, was clear and resolute in accent as she addressed the lawyer in these terms. I understood you to say, Mr. Pendrell, that my father's brother had sent his written orders to London, and that you had a copy. Have you preserved it? Certainly. Have you got it about you? I have. May I see it? Mr. Pendrell hesitated, and looked uneasily from Magdalen to Miss Garth, and from Miss Garth back again to Magdalen. Pray, oblige me by not pressing your request, he said. It is surely enough that you know the result of the instructions. Why should you agitate yourself to no purpose by reading them? They are expressed so cruelly. They show such abominable want of feeling that I really cannot prevail upon myself to let you see them. I am sensible of your kindness, Mr. Pendrell, in wishing to spare me pain. But I can bear pain. I promise to distress nobody. Will you excuse me if I repeat my request?" She held out her hand, the soft, white, virgin hand that had touched nothing to soil it or harden it yet. Oh, Magdalen, think again, said Nora. You distress Mr. Pendrell, added Miss Garth. You distress us all. There can be no end gained, pleaded the lawyer. Forgive me for saying so. There can really be no useful end gained by my showing you the instructions. Fools, said Mr. Clare to himself. Have they no eyes to see that she means to have her own way? Nothing tells me there is an end to be gained, persisted Magdalen. This decision is a very serious one. It is more serious to me. She looked round at Mr. Clare, who sat closely watching her, and instantly looked back again with the first outward betrayal of emotion which had escaped her yet. It is even more serious to me, she resumed, for private reasons than it is to my sister. I know nothing yet but that our father's brother has taken our fortunes from us. He must have some motives of his own for such conduct as that. It is not fair to him, or fair to us, to keep those motives concealed. He has deliberately robbed Nora and robbed me, and I think we have a right, if we wish it, to know why. I don't wish it, said Nora. I do, said Magdalen, and once more she held out her hand. At this point Mr. Clare roused himself and interfered for the first time. You have relieved your conscience, he said, addressing the lawyer. Give her the right she claims. It is her right, if she will have it. Mr. Pendrell quietly took the written instructions from his pocket. I have warned you, he said, and handed the papers across the table without another word. One of the pages of writing was folded down at the corner, and at that folded page the manuscript opened when Magdalen first turned the leaves. Is this the place which refers to my sister and myself, she inquired. Mr. Pendrell bowed, and Magdalen smoothed out the manuscript before her on the table. Will you decide, Nora? She asked, turning to her sister. Shall I read this aloud, or shall I read it to myself? To yourself, said Miss Garth, answering for Nora, who looked at her in mute perplexity and distress. It shall be as you wish, said Magdalen. With that reply she turned again to the manuscript, and read these lines. You are now in possession of my wishes in relation to the property and money, and to the sale of the furniture, carriages, horses, and so forth. The last point left on which it is necessary for me to instruct you refers to the persons inhabiting the house, and to certain preposterous claims on their behalf set up by a solicitor named Pendrell. Who has, no doubt, interested reasons of his own for making application to me. I understand that my late brother has left two illegitimate children, both of them young women, who are of an age to earn their own livelihood. Various considerations, all equally irregular, have been urged in respect to these persons by the solicitor representing them. Be so good as to tell him that neither you nor I have anything to do with questions of mere sentiment, and then state plainly, for his better information, what the motives are which regulate my conduct, and what the provision is which I feel myself justified in making for the two young women. Your instructions on both these points you will find detailed in the next paragraph. I wish the persons concerned to know, once for all, how I regard the circumstances which have placed my late brother's property at my disposal. Let them understand that I consider those circumstances to be a providential interposition which has restored to me the inheritance that ought always to have been mine. I receive the money not only as my right, but also as a proper compensation for the injustice which I suffered for my father, and a proper penalty paid by my younger brother for the vile intrigue by which he succeeded in disinheriting me. His conduct, when a young man, was uniformly discreditable in all the relations of life, and what it then was it continued to be, on the showing of his own legal representative, after the time when I ceased to hold any communication with him. He appears to have systematically imposed a woman on society as his wife, who was not his wife, and to have completed the outrage on morality by afterward marrying her. Such conduct as this has called down a judgment on himself and his children. I will not invite retribution on my own head by assisting those children to continue the imposition which their parents practiced, and by helping them to take a place in the world to which they are not entitled. Let them, as becomes their birth, gain their bread in situations. If they show themselves disposed to accept their proper position, I will assist them to start virtuously in life by a present of one hundred pounds each. With some I authorize you to pay them on their personal application with the necessary acknowledgement of receipt, and on the express understanding that the transaction so completed is to be the beginning and the end of my connection with them. The arrangements under which they quit the house I leave to your discretion, and I have only to add that my decision on this matter, as on all other matters, is positive and final. Line by line, without once looking up from the pages before her, Magdalen read those atrocious sentences through from beginning to end. The other persons assembled in the room, all eagerly looking at her together, saw the dress rising and falling faster and faster over her bosom, saw the hand in which she lightly held the manuscript at the outset, close unconsciously on the paper and crush it, as she advanced nearer and nearer to the end, but detected no other outward signs of what was passing within her. As soon as she had done, she silently pushed the manuscript away, and put her hands on a sedent over her face. When she withdrew them, all the four persons in the room noticed a change in her, something in her expression had altered, subtly and silently, something which made the familiar features suddenly look strange, even to her sister and misgarth, something through all after-years, never to be forgotten in connection with that day, and never to be described. The first words she spoke were addressed to Mr. Pendrell. May I ask one more favor, she said, before you enter on your business arrangements. Mr. Pendrell replied ceremoniously by a gesture of assent. President's resolution to possess herself of the instructions did not appear to have produced a favorable impression on the lawyer's mind. You mentioned what you were so kind as to do in our interests when you first wrote to Mr. Michael Van Stone. She continued, You said you had told him all the circumstances. I want, if you will allow me, to be made quite sure of what he really knew about us, and he sent these orders to his lawyer. Did he know that my father had made a will, and that he had left our fortunes to my sister and myself? He did know it, said Mr. Pendrell. Did you tell him how it happened that we are left in this helpless position? I told him that your father was entirely unaware when he married of the necessity for making another will. And that another will would have been made after he saw Mr. Clare, but for the dreadful misfortune of his death? He knew that also. Did he know that my father's untiring goodness and kindness to both of us? Her voice faltered for the first time. She sighed, and put her hand to her head wearily. Garth spoke entreatingly to her. Miss Garth spoke entreatingly to her. Mr. Clare sat silent, watching her more and more earnestly. She answered her sister's remonstrance with a faint smile. I will keep my promise, she said. I will distress nobody. With that reply she turned again to Mr. Pendrell, and steadily reiterated the question, but in another form of words. Did Mr. Michael Vanstone know that my father's great anxiety was to make sure of providing for my sister and myself? He knew it in your father's own words. I sent him an extract from your father's last letter to me. The letter which asked you to come for God's sake and relieve him from the dreadful thoughts that his daughters were unprovided for? The letter which said he should not rest in his grave if he left us disinherited? God's letter and those words. She paused, still keeping her eyes steadily fixed on the lawyer's face. I want to fasten it all in my mind, she said, before I go on. Mr. Michael Vanstone knew of the first will. He knew what prevented the making of the second will. He knew of the letter and he read the words. What did he know of besides? Did you tell him of my mother's last illness? Did you say that her share in the money would have been left to us if she could have lifted her dying hand in your presence? Did you try to make him ashamed of the cruel law which calls girls in our situation nobody's children in which allows him to use us as he is using us now? I put all those considerations to him. I left none of them doubtful. I left none of them out. She slowly reached her hand to the copy of the instructions and slowly folded it up again in the shape in which it had been presented to her. I am much obliged to you, Mr. Pendrell. With those words she bowed and gently pushed the manuscript back across the table, then turned to her sister. Nora, she said, if we both of us live to grow old and if you ever forget all that we owe to Michael Vanstone, come to me and I will remind you. She rose and walked across the room by herself to the window. As she passed Mr. Clare, the old man stretched out his claw-like fingers and caught her fast by the arm before she was aware of him. What is this mask of yours hiding? He asked, forcing her to bend to him and looking close into her face. Which of the extremes of human temperature does your courage start from? The dead cold or the white hot? She shrank back from him and turned away her head in silence. She would have resented that unscrupulous intrusion on her own thoughts from any man alive but Frank's father. He dropped her arm as suddenly as he had taken it and let her go on to the window. No, he said to himself, not the cold extreme, whatever else it may be. So much the worse for her and for all belonging to her. There was a momentary pause. Once more the dripping rustle of the rain and the steady ticking of the clock filled up the gap of silence. Mr. Pendrell put the instructions back in his pocket, considered a little, and, turning towards Nora and Miss Garth, recalled their attention to the present and pressing necessities of the time. Our consultation has been needlessly prolonged, he said, by painful references to the past. We shall be better employed in settling our arrangements for the future. I am obliged to return to town this evening. Pray let me hear how I can best assist you. Pray tell me what trouble and what responsibility I can take off your hands. For the moment neither Nora nor Miss Garth seemed to be capable of answering him. Magdalen's reception of the news which annihilated the marriage prospect that her father's own lips had placed before her not a month since had bewildered and dismayed them alike. They had summoned their courage to meet the shock of her passionate grief or to face the harder trial of witnessing her speechless despair. But they were not prepared for her invincible resolution to read the instructions, for the terrible questions which she had put to the lawyer, for her immovable determination to fix all the circumstances in her mind under which Michael Van Stone's decision had been pronounced. There she stood at the window, an unfathomable mystery to the sister who had never been parted from her, to the governess who had trained her from a child. Miss Garth remembered the dark doubts which had crossed her mind on the day when she and Magdalen had met in the garden. Nora looked forward to the coming time, with the first serious dread of it on her sister's account which she had felt yet. Both had hitherto remained passive in despair of knowing what to do. Both were now silent, in despair of knowing what to say. Mr. Pendrell patiently and kindly helped them by returning to the subject of their future plans for the second time. I am sorry to press any business matters on your attention, he said, when you are necessarily unfit to deal with them. But I must take my instructions back to London with me tonight. With reference, in the first place, to the disgraceful pecuniary offer to which I have already alluded. The younger Miss Van Stone, having read the instructions, needs no further information from my lips. The elder will, I hope, excuse me if I tell her, what I should be ashamed to tell her, but that it is a matter of necessity, that Mr. Michael Van Stone's provision for his brother's children begins and ends with an offer to each of them of one hundred pounds. Nora's face crimsoned with indignation. She started to her feet as if Michael Van Stone had been present in the room and had personally insulted her. I see, said the lawyer, wishing to spare her. I may tell Mr. Michael Van Stone who refused the money. Tell him, she broke out passionately. If I was starving by the roadside, I wouldn't touch a farthing of it. Shall I notify your refusal also?" asked Mr. Pendrell, speaking to Magdalen next. She turned round from the window and kept her face in shadow by standing close against it with her back to the light. Tell him on my part, she said, to think again before he starts me in life with a hundred pounds. I will give him time to think. She spoke those strange words with a marked emphasis, and turning back quickly to the window hit her face from the observation of everyone in the room. You both refused the offer, said Mr. Pendrell, taking out his pencil and making his professional note of the decision. As he shut up his pocket-book, he glanced toward Magdalen doubtfully. She had roused in him the latent distrust which is a lawyer's second nature. He had his suspicions of her looks. He had his suspicions of her language. Her sister seemed to have more influence over her than Miss Garth. He resolved to speak privately to her sister before he went away. While the idea was passing through his mind, his attention was claimed by another question from Magdalen. Is he an old man? She asked suddenly, without turning round from the window. If you mean Mr. Michael Van Ston, he is seventy-five or seventy-six years of age. You spoke of his son a little while since. Has he any other sons or daughters? None. Do you know anything of his wife? She has been dead for many years. There was a pause. Why do you ask these questions, said Nora? I beg your pardon, replied Magdalen quietly. I won't ask any more. For the third time Mr. Pendrell returned to the business of the interview. The servants must not be forgotten, he said. They must be settled with and discharged. I will give them the necessary explanation before I leave. As for the house, no questions connected with it need trouble you. The carriages and horses, the furniture and plate, and so on, must simply be left on the premises to await Mr. Michael Van Ston's further orders. But any possessions, Miss Van Ston, personally belonging to you or to your sister, jewelry and dresses, and any little presents which may have been made to you, are entirely at your disposal. With regard to the time of your departure, I understand that a month or more will elapse before Mr. Michael Van Ston can leave Zurich, and I am sure I only do his solicitor justice in saying, Excuse me, Mr. Pendrell, interposed, Nora. I think I understand from what you have just said, that our house and everything in it belongs to. She stopped, as if the mere utterance of the man's name was abhorrent to her. To Michael Van Ston, said Mr. Pendrell. The house goes to him with the rest of the property. Then I, for one, am ready to leave it to-morrow. Magdalen started at the window, as her sister spoke, and looked at Mr. Clare, with the first open signs of anxiety and alarm which she had shown yet. Don't be angry with me, she whispered, stooping over the old man with a sudden humility of look and a sudden nervousness of manner. I can't go without seeing Frank first. You shall see him, replied Mr. Clare. I am here to speak to you about it, when the business is done. It is quite unnecessary to hurry your departure as you propose, continued Mr. Pendrell, addressing Nora. I can safely assure you that a week hence will be time enough. If this is Mr. Michael Van Ston's house, repeated Nora, I am ready to leave it to-morrow. She impatiently quitted her chair and seated herself further away on the sofa. As she laid her hand on the back of it, her face changed. There, at the head of the sofa, were the cushions which had supported her mother when she lay down for the last time to repose. There, at the foot of the sofa, was the clumsy old-fashioned armchair which had been her father's favorite seat on rainy days, when she and her sister used to amuse him at the piano opposite by playing his favorite tunes. A heavy sigh which she tried vainly to repress burst from her lips. Oh, she thought, I had forgotten these old friends. How shall we part from them when the time comes? May I inquire, Miss Van Ston, whether you and your sister have formed any definite plans for the future? asked Mr. Pendrell. Have you thought of any place of residence? I may take it on myself, sir, said Miss Garth, to answer your question for them. When they leave this house, they leave it with me. My home is their home, and my bread is their bread. Their parents honored me, trusted me, and loved me. For twelve happy years they never let me remember that I was their governess. They only let me know myself as their companion and their friend. My memory of them is the memory of unvarying gentleness and generosity, and my life shall pay the debt of my gratitude to their orphan children. Nora rose hastily from the sofa. Magdalene impetuously left the window. For once there was no contrast in the conduct of the sisters. For once the same impulse moved their hearts, the same earnest feeling inspired their words. Miss Garth waited until the first outburst of emotion had passed away. Then rose, and taking Nora and Magdalene each by the hand, addressed herself to Mr. Pendrell and Mr. Clare. She spoke with perfect self-possession, strong in her artless unconsciousness of her own good action. Even such a trifle as my own story, she said, is of some importance at such a moment as this. I wish you both, gentlemen, to understand that I am not promising more to the daughters of your old friend than I can perform. When I first came to this house, I entered it under such independent circumstances as are not common in the lives of governesses. In my younger days I was associated in teaching with my elder sister. We established a school in London, which grew to be a large and prosperous one. I only left it, and became a private governess, because the heavy responsibility of the school was more than my strength could bear. I left my share in the profits untouched, and I possessed a pecuniary interest in our establishment to this day. That is my story, in few words. When we leave this house, I propose that we shall go back to the school in London, which is still prosperously directed by my elder sister. We can live there as quietly as we please, until time has helped us to bear our affliction better than we can bear it now. If Norris and Magdalene's altered prospects oblige them to earn their own independence, I can help them to earn it, as a gentleman's daughters should. The best families in this land are glad to ask my sister's advice, where the interests of their children's home training are concerned. And I answer beforehand for her hearty desire to serve Mr. Vanstone's daughters, as I answer for my own. That is the future which my gratitude to their father and mother, and my love for themselves, now offers to them. If you think my proposal, gentlemen, a fit and fair proposal, and I see in your faces that you do, let us not make the hard necessities of our position hardest still by any useless delay in meeting them at once. Let us do what we must do. Let us act on Norris' decision and leave this house tomorrow. You mentioned the servants just now, Mr. Pendrell. I am ready to call them together in the next room, and to assist you in the settlement of their claims, whenever you please. Without waiting for the lawyer's answer, without leaving the sister's time to realize their own terrible situation, she moved at once toward the door. It was her wise resolution to meet the coming trial by doing much and saying little. Before she could leave the room, Mr. Clair followed and stopped her on the threshold. I never envied a woman's fuelings before, said the old man. It may surprise you to hear it, but I envy yours. Wait! I have something more to say. There is an obstacle still left, the everlasting obstacle of Frank. Help me to sweep him off. Take the elder sister along with you and the lawyer, and leave me here to have it out with the younger. I want to see what metal she's really made of. While Mr. Clair was addressing these words to Miss Garth, Mr. Pendrell had taken the opportunity of speaking to Nora. Before I go back to town, he said, I should like to have a word with you in private. From what has passed today, Miss Fanstone, I have formed a very high opinion of your discretion, and as an old friend of your father's, I want to take the freedom of speaking to you about your sister. Before Nora could answer, she was summoned in compliance with Mr. Clair's request to the conference with the servants. Mr. Pendrell followed Miss Garth as a matter of course. When the three were out in the hall, Mr. Clair re-entered the room, closed the door, and signed peremptorily to Magdalen to take a chair. She obeyed him in silence. He took a turn up and down the room, with his hands in the side-pockets of the long, loose, shapeless coat which he habitually wore. How old are you? He said, stopping suddenly, and speaking to her with the whole breadth of the room between them. I was eighteen last birthday, she answered humbly, without looking up at him. You have shown extraordinary courage for a girl of eighteen. Have you got any of that courage left? She clasped her hands together and rung them hard. A few tears gathered in her eyes and rode slowly over her cheeks. I can't give Frank up, she said faintly. You don't care for me, I know, but you used to care for my father. Will you try to be kind to me for my father's sake? The last words died away in a whisper. She could say no more. Never had she felt the illimitable power which a woman's love possesses of absorbing into itself every other event, every other joy or sorrow of her life, as she felt it then. Never had she so tenderly associated Frank with the memory of her lost parents as at that moment. Never had the impenetrable atmosphere of illusion through which women behold the man of their choice, the atmosphere which had blinded her to all that was weak, selfish, and mean in Frank's nature, surrounded him with a brighter halo than now, when she was pleading with the father for the possession of the son. Oh, don't ask me to give him up! She said, trying to take courage, and shuddering from head to foot. In the next instant she flew to the opposite extreme, with the suddenness of a flash of lightning. I won't give him up! She burst out violently. No! Not if a thousand fathers ask me. I am one father, said Mr. Clare, and I don't ask you. In the first astonishment and delight of hearing those unexpected words, she started to her feet, crossed the room, and tried to throw her arms round his neck. She might as well have attempted to move the house from its foundations. He took her by the shoulders, and put her back in her chair. His inexorable eyes looked her into submission, and his lean forefinger shook at her warningly, as if he was quieting a fructious child. Hug, Frank, he said. Don't hug me. I haven't done with you yet. When I have, you may shake hands with me if you like. Wait and compose yourself. He left her. His hands went back into his pockets, and his monotonous march up and down the room began again. Ready? He asked, stopping short after a while. She tried to answer. Take two minutes more, he said, and resumed his walk with the regularity of clockwork. These are the creatures, he thought to himself. Into whose keeping men otherwise sensible give the happiness of their lives? Is there any other object in creation, I wonder, which answers its end as badly as a woman does? He stopped before her once more. Her breathing was easier. The dark flesh on her face was dying out again. Ready? He repeated. Yes, ready at last. Listen to me, and let's get it over. I don't ask you to give Frank up. I ask you to wait. I will wait, she said, patiently, willingly. Will you make Frank wait? Yes. Will you send him to China? Her head drooped upon her bosom, and she clasped her hands again, in silence. Mr. Clare saw where the difficulty lay, and marched straight up to it on the spot. I don't pretend to enter into your feelings for Frank, or Frank's for you, he said. The subject doesn't interest me, but I do pretend to state two plain truths. It is one plain truth, that you can't be married till you have money enough to pay for the roof that shelters you, the clothes that cover you, and the victuals you eat. It is another plain truth, that you can't find the money, that I can't find the money, and that Frank's only chance of finding it is going to China. If I tell him to go, he'll sit in a corner and cry. If I insist, he'll say yes, and deceive me. If I go a step further, and see him on board ship with my own eyes, he'll slip off in the pilot's boat, and sneak back secretly to you. That's his disposition. No, said Magdalene. It's not his disposition. It's his love for me. Call it what you like, retorted Mr. Clare. Sneak or sweetheart, he's too slippery in either capacity for my fingers to hold him. My shutting the door won't keep him from coming back. Your shutting the door will. Have you the courage to shut it? Or are you fond enough of him not to stand in his light? Fond? I would die for him. Will you send him to China? She sighed bitterly. Have a little pity for me, she said, I have lost my father, I have lost my mother, I have lost my fortune, and now I am to lose Frank. You don't like women, I know, but try to help me with a little pity. I don't say it's not for his own interest to send him to China. I only say it's hard, very, very hard on me. Mr. Clare had been deaf to her violence, insensible to her caresses, blind to her tears. But under the tough entanglement of his philosophy he had a heart, and it answered that hopeless appeal. It felt those touching words. I don't deny that your case is a hard one, he said. I don't want to make it harder. I only ask you to do in Frank's interest what Frank is too weak to do for himself. It's no fault of yours, it's no fault of mine. But it's not the less true that the fortune you were to have brought him has changed owners. He suddenly looked up, with a furtive light in her eyes, with a threatening smile on her lips. It may change owners again, she said. Mr. Clare saw the alteration in her expression, and heard the tones of her voice. But the words were spoken low, spoken as if to herself. They failed to reach him across the breadth of the room. He stopped instantly in his walk, and asked what she had said. Nothing, she answered, turning her head away toward the window, and looking out mechanically at the falling rain. Only my own thoughts. Mr. Clare resumed his walk, and returned to his subject. It's your interest, he went on, as well as Frank's interest, that he should go. He may make money enough to marry you in China. We can't make it here. If he stops at home, he'll be the ruin of both of you. He'll shut his eyes to every consideration of prudence, and pester you to marry him. And when he has carried his point, he will be the first to turn round afterward, and complain that you are burdened on him. Hear me out, you're in love with Frank. I'm not, and I know him. Put you two together often enough, give him time enough to hug, cry, pester, and plead, and I'll tell you what the end will be. You'll marry him. He had touched the right string at last. It rung back an answer before he could add another word. You don't know me, she said firmly. You don't know what I can suffer for Frank's sake. He shall never marry me till I can be what my father said I should be, the making of his fortune. He shall take no burden when he takes me. I promise you that. I'll be the good angel of Frank's life. I'll not go a penniless girl to him and drag him down. She abruptly left her seat, advanced a few steps toward Mr. Clare, and stopped in the middle of the room. Her arms fell helpless on either side of her, and she burst into tears. He shall go, she said. If my heart breaks in doing it, I'll tell him tomorrow that we must say good-bye. Mr. Clare at once advanced to meet her, and held out his hand. I'll help you, he said. Frank shall hear every word that has passed between us. When he comes to moral, he shall know beforehand that he comes to say good-bye. She took his hand in both her own, hesitated, looked at him, and pressed it to her bosom. May I ask a favor of you before you go? She said timidly. He tried to take his hand from her, but she knew her advantage and held it fast. Suppose there should be some change for the better? She went on. Suppose I could come to Frank, as my father said I should come to him. Before she could complete the question, Mr. Clare made a second effort and withdrew his hand. As your father said, you should come to him. He repeated, looking at her attentively. Yes, she replied, strange things happen sometimes. If strange things happen to me, will you let Frank come back before the five years are out? What did she mean? Was she clinging desperately to the hope of melting Michael Vanstone's heart? Mr. Clare could draw no other conclusion from what she had just said to him. At the beginning of the interview he would have roughly dispelled her delusion. At the end of the interview he left her compassionately in possession of it. You are hoping against all hope, he said, but if it gives you courage, hope on. If this impossible good fortune of yours ever happens, tell me, and Frank shall come back, in the meantime. In the meantime, she interposed sadly, you have my promise. Once more Mr. Clare's sharp eyes searched her face attentively. I will trust your promise, he said. You shall see Frank tomorrow. She went back thoughtfully to her chair and sat down again in silence. Mr. Clare made for the door before any formal leave-taking could pass between them. Deep, he thought to himself, as he looked back at her before he went out. Only eighteen, and too deep for my sounding. In the hall he found Nora, waiting anxiously to hear what had happened. Is it all over, she asked. Does Frank go to China? Be careful how you manage that sister of yours, said Mr. Clare, without noticing the question. She has one great misfortune to contend with. She's not made for the ordinary jog-trot of a woman's life. I don't say I can see straight to the end of the good or evil in her. I only warn you. Her future will be no common one. An hour later Mr. Pendrell left the house, and by that night's post Ms. Garth dispatched a letter to her sister in London. End of Chapter 15. The End of the First Scene. Recording by Linda Lee Paquette. Between the first and second scenes of No Name. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Lee Paquette. No Name. By Wilkie Collins. Between the first and second scenes. Progress of the story through the post. One. From Nora Vanstone to Mr. Pendrell. Westmoreland House, Kensington. August 14, 1846. Dear Mr. Pendrell, the date of this letter will show you that the last of many hard partings is over. We have left Coombe Raven. We have said farewell to home. I have been thinking seriously of what you said to me on Wednesday before you went back to town. I entirely agree with you that Ms. Garth is more shaken by all she has gone through for our sakes than she is herself willing to admit, and that it is my duty for the future to spare her all the anxiety that I can on the subject of my sister and myself. This is very little to do for our dearest friend, for our second mother. Such as it is, I will do it with all my heart. But forgive me for saying that I am as far as ever from agreeing with you about Magdalen. I am so sensible, in our helpless position, of the importance of your assistance, so anxious to be worthy of the interest of my father's trusted advisor and oldest friend, that I feel really and truly disappointed with myself for differing with you, and yet I do differ. Magdalen is very strange, very unaccountable to those who don't know her intimately. I can understand that she has innocently misled you, and that she has presented herself, perhaps, under her least favorable aspect. But that the clue to her language and her conduct on Wednesday last is to be found in such a feeling toward the man who has ruined us, as the feeling at which you hinted, is what I cannot and will not believe of my sister. If you knew, as I do, what a noble nature she has, you would not be surprised at this obstinate resistance of mine to your opinion. Will you try to alter it? I don't mind what Mr. Clare says. He believes in nothing. But I attach a very serious importance to what you say, and kind as I know your motives to be. It distresses me to think you are doing Magdalen an injustice. Having relieved my mind of this confession, I may now come to the proper object of my letter. I promised, if you could not find leisure time to visit us today, to write and tell you all that happened after you left us. The day has passed without our seeing you, so I open my writing case and perform my promise. I am sorry to say that three of the women servants, the housemaid, the kitchenmaid, and even our own maid, to whom I am sure we have always been kind, took advantage of your having paid them their wages to pack up and go as soon as your back was turned. They came to say goodbye with as much ceremony and as little feeling as if they were leaving the house under ordinary circumstances. The cook, for all her violent temper, behaved very differently. She sent up a message to say that she would stop and help us to the last. And Thomas, who has never yet been in any other place than ours, spoke so gratefully of my dear father's unvarying kindness to him, and asked so anxiously to be allowed to go on serving us while his little savings lasted, that Magdalen and I forgot all formal considerations and both shook hands with him. The poor lad went out of the room crying. I wish him well. I hope he will find a kind master and a good place. The long, quiet, rainy evening out of doors. Our last evening at Coombraven was a sad trial to us. I think wintertime would have weighed less on our spirits. The drawn curtains and the bright lamps and the companionable fires would have helped us. We were only five in the house altogether, after having once been so many. I can't tell you how dreary the grey daylight looked towards seven o'clock in the lonely rooms and on the noiseless staircase. Only the prejudice in favour of long summer evenings is the prejudice of happy people. We did our best, we kept ourselves employed, and Miss Garth helped us. The prospect of preparing for our departure, which had seemed so dreadful earlier in the day, altered into the prospect of a refuge from ourselves as the evening came on. We each tried at first to pack up in our own rooms, but the loneliness was more than we could bear. We carried all our possessions downstairs, and heaped them on the large dining table, and so made our preparations together in the same room. I am sure we have taken nothing away, which does not properly belong to us. Having already mentioned to you my own conviction that Magdalen was not yourself when you saw her on Wednesday, I feel tempted to stop here and give you an instance in proof of what I say. The little circumstance happened on Wednesday night, just before we went up to our rooms. After we had packed our dresses and our birthday presents, our books and our music, we began to sort our letters, which had got confused from being placed on the table together. Some of my letters were mixed with Magdalen's, and some of hers with mine. Among these last I found a card, which had been given to my sister early in the year by an actor who managed an amateur theatrical performance in which she took apart. The man had given her the card, containing his name and address, in the belief that she would be invited to many more amusements of the same kind, and in the hope that she would recommend him as a superintendent on future occasions. I only relate these trifling particulars to show you how little worth keeping such a card could be in such circumstances as ours. Naturally enough, I threw it away from me across the table, meaning to throw it on the floor. It fell short, close to the place in which Magdalen was sitting. She took it up, looked at it, and immediately declared that she would not have had this perfectly worthless thing destroyed for the world. She was almost angry with me for having thrown it away, almost angry with Miss Garth for asking what she could possibly want with it. Could there be any plainer proof than this that our misfortunes, falling so much more heavily on her than on me, have quite unhinged her and worn her out? Surely her words and looks are not to be interpreted against her, when she is not sufficiently mistress of herself to exert her natural judgment, when she shows the unreasonable petulance of a child on a question which is not of the slightest importance. A little after eleven, we went upstairs to try if we could, get some rest. I drew aside the curtain of my window and looked out. Oh, what a cruel last night it was. No moon, no stars. Such deep darkness that not one of the dear familiar objects in the garden was visible when I looked for them. Such deep stillness that even my own movements about the room almost frightened me. I tried to lie down and sleep, but the sense of loneliness came again and quite overpowered me. You will say I am old enough, at six and twenty, to have exerted more control over myself. I hardly know how it happened, but I stole into Magdalene's room, just as I used to stew into it years and years ago when we were children. She was not in bed. She was sitting with her writing materials before her, thinking. I said I wanted to be with her the last night, and she kissed me and told me to lie down and promised soon to follow me. My mind was a little quieted, and I fell asleep. It was daylight when I woke, and the first sight I saw was Magdalene, still sitting in the chair and still thinking. She had never been to bed. She had not slept all through the night. I shall seep when we have left Koum Raven, she said. I shall be better when it is all over, and I have bid Frank good-bye. She had in her hand our father's will and the letter he wrote to you, and when she had done speaking she gave them into my possession. I was the eldest, she said, and those last precious relics ought to be in my keeping. I tried to propose to her that we should divide them, but she shook her head. I have copied for myself was her answer, all that he says of us in the will and all that he says in the letter. She told me this, and took from her bosom a tiny white silk bag which she had made in the night, and in which she had put the extracts, so as to keep them always about her. This tells me in his own words what his last wishes were for both of us, she said, and this is all I want for the future. These are trifles to dwell on, and I am almost surprised at myself for not feeling ashamed to trouble you with them, but since I have known what your early connection was with my father and mother, I have learned to think of you and I suppose to write to you as an old friend. And besides, I have it so much at heart to change your opinion of Magdalen that I can't help telling you the smallest things about her which may, in my judgment, end in making you think of her as I do. When breakfast time came on Thursday morning, we were surprised to find a strange letter on the table. Perhaps I ought to mention it to you, in case of any future necessity for your interference. It was addressed to Miss Garth on paper with the deepest morning border round it, and the writer was the same man who followed us on our way home from a walk one day last spring, Captain Ragh. This object appears to be, to assert once more his audacious claim to a family connection with my poor mother, under cover of a letter of condolence, which it is an insolence in such a person to have written it all. He expresses as much sympathy on his discovery of our affliction in the newspaper as if he had been really intimate with us, and he bakes to know, in a post-grip, being evidently in total ignorance of all that has really happened, whether it is thought desirable that he should be present among the other relatives at the reading of the will. The address he gives, at which letters will reach him for the next fortnight, is post-office Birmingham. This is all I have to tell you on the subject. Both the letter and the writer seem to me to be equally unworthy of the slightest notice on our part or on yours. After breakfast, Magdalen left us and went by herself into the morning-room. The weather being still showery, we had arranged that Francis Clare should see her in that room when he presented himself to take his leave. I was upstairs when he came, and I remained upstairs for more than half an hour afterward, sadly anxious, as you may well believe on Magdalen's account. At the end of the half-hour or more I came downstairs. As I reached the landing, I suddenly heard her voice, raised entreatingly and calling on him by his name, then loud sobs, then a frightful laughing and screaming both together that rang through the house. I instantly ran into the room and found Magdalen on the sofa in violent hysterics and Frank standing, staring at her with a lowering, angry face, biting his nails. I felt so indignant, without knowing plainly why, for I was ignorant, of course, of what had passed at the interview, that I took Mr. Francis Clare by the shoulders and pushed him out of the room. I am careful to tell you how I acted toward him and what led to it, because I understand that he is excessively offended with me, and that he is likely to mention elsewhere what he calls my un-lady-like violence toward him. If he should mention it to you, I am anxious to acknowledge, of my own accord, that I forgot myself, not I hope you will think, without some provocation. I pushed him into the hall, leaving Magdalen for the moment to miss Clare's care. Instead of going away, he sat down sulkily on one of the hall chairs. May I ask the reason of this extraordinary violence he inquired, with an injured look? No, I said. You will be good enough to imagine the reason for yourself, and to leave us immediately, if you please. He sat doggedly in the chair, biting his nails, and considering. What have I done to be treated in this unfeeling manner, he asked, after a while? I can enter into no discussion with you, I answered. I can only request you to leave us. If you persist in waiting to see my sister again, I will go to the cottage myself and appeal to your father. He got up in a great hurry at those words. I have been infamously used in this business, he said. All the hardships and the sacrifices have fallen to my share. I'm the only one among you who has any heart. All the rest are as hard as stones, Magdalen included. In one breath she says she loves me, and in another she tells me to go to China. What have I done to be treated with this heartless inconsistency? I am consistent myself. I only want to stop at home. And what's the consequence? You're all against me. In that manner he grumbled his way down the steps, and so I saw the last of him. This was all that passed between us. If he gives you any other account of it, what he says will be false. He made no attempt to return. An hour afterward his father came alone to say goodbye. He saw Miss Garth and me, but not Magdalen, and he told us he would take the necessary measures with your assistance, for having his son properly looked after in London, and seen safely on board the vessel when the time came. It was a short visit, and a sad leave-taking. Even Mr. Clare was sorry, though he tried hard to hide it. We had barely two hours after Mr. Clare had left us, before it would be time to go. I went back to Magdalen, and found her quieter and better, though terribly pale and exhausted, and oppressed as I fancied, by thoughts which she could not prevail on herself to communicate. She would tell me nothing then. She has told me nothing since, of what passed between herself and Francis Clare. When I spoke of him angrily, feeling as I did, that he had distressed and tortured her, when she ought to have had all the encouragement and comfort from him that man could give. She refused to hear me. She made the kindest allowances and the sweetest excuses for him, and laid all the blame of the dreadful state in which I found her entirely on herself. Was I wrong in telling you that she had a noble nature, and won't you alter your opinion when you read these lines? We had no friends to come and bid us goodbye, and our few acquaintances were too far from us, perhaps too indifferent about us to call. We employed the little leisure left in going over the house together for the last time. We took leave of our old schoolroom, our bedrooms, the room where our mother died, the little study where our father used to settle his accounts and write his letters, feeling toward them in our forlorn condition as other girls might have felt at parting with old friends. From the house, in a gleam of fine weather, we went into the garden and gathered our last nose-gay with the purpose of drying the flowers when they began to weather, and keeping them in remembrance of the happy days that are gone. When we had said goodbye to the garden, there was only half an hour left. We went together to the grave. We knelt down, side by side in silence, and kissed the sacred ground. I thought my heart would have broken. August was the month of my mother's birthday, and this time last year, my father and Magdalene and I were all consulting in secret what present we could make to surprise her with on the birthday morning. If you had seen how Magdalene suffered, you would never doubt her again. I had to take her from the last resting place of our father and mother almost by force. Before we were out of the churchyard, she broke from me and ran back. She dropped on her knees at the grave, tore up from it passionately a handful of grass, and sent something to herself at the same moment, which though I followed her instantly, I did not get near enough to hear. She turned on me in such a frenzied manner, when I tried to raise her from the ground. She looked at me with such a fearful wildness in her eyes that I felt absolutely terrified at the sight of her. To my relief, the paroxysm left her as suddenly as it had come. She thrust away the tuft of grass into the bosom of her dress, and took my arm and hurried with me out of the churchyard. I asked her why she had gone back. I asked what those words were which she had spoken at the grave. A promise to our dead father she answered, with a momentary return of the wild look and the frenzied manner which had startled me already. I was afraid to agitate her by saying more. I left all other questions to be asked at a fitter and a quieter time. You will understand from this how terribly she suffers, how wildly and strangely she acts under violent agitation, and you will not interpret against her what she said or did when you saw her on Wednesday last. We only returned to the house in time to hasten away from it to the train. Perhaps it was better for us so. Later that we had only a moment left to look back before the turn in the road hit the last of Coombe Raven from our view. There was not a soul we knew at the station, nobody to stare at us, nobody to wish us good bye. The rain came on again as we took our seats in the train. What we felt at the sight of the railway, what horrible remembrances it forced on our minds of the calamity which has made us fatherless, I cannot and dare not tell you. I have tried anxiously not to write this letter in a gloomy tone, not to return all your kindness to us by distressing you with our grief. Perhaps I have dwelt too long already on the little story of our parting from home. I can only say an excuse that my heart is full of it, and what is not in my heart my pen won't write. We have been so short a time in our new abode that I have nothing more to tell you, except that Miss Garce's sister has received us with the heartiest kindness. She considerably leaves us to ourselves, until we are fitter than we are now to think of our future plans, and to arrange as we best can for earning our own living. The house is so large, and the position of our rooms has been so thoughtfully chosen that I should hardly know, except when I hear the laughing of the younger girls in the garden, that we are living in a school. With kindest and best wishes from Miss Garce and my sister, believe me, dear Mr. Pendrell, gratefully yours, Nora Vanstone. 2. From Miss Garce to Mr. Pendrell Westmoreland House, Kensington, September 23, 1846 My dear sir, I write these lines in such misery of mind as no words can describe. Magdalene has deserted us. At an early hour this morning, she secretly left the house, and she has not been heard of since. I would come and speak to you personally, but I dare not leave Nora. I must try to control myself. I must try to write. Nothing happened yesterday to prepare me or to prepare Nora for this last. I had almost said this worst of all our afflictions. The only alteration we either of us noticed in the unhappy girl was an alteration for the better when we parted for the night. She kissed me, which she has not done laterally, and she burst out crying when she embraced her sister next. We had so little suspicion of the truth that we thought these signs of renewed tenderness and affection a promise of better things for the future. This morning, when her sister went into her room, it was empty, and a note in her handwriting addressed to Nora was lying on the dressing-table. I cannot prevail on Nora to part with the note. I can only send you the enclosed copy of it. You will see that it affords no clue to the direction she has taken. Knowing the value of time in this dreadful emergency, I examined her room, and with my sister's help questioned the servants immediately on the news of her absence reaching me. Her wardrobe was empty, and all her boxes but one, which she has evidently taken away with her, are empty too. We are of opinion that she has privately turned her dresses and jewelry into money, that she had the one trunk she took with her removed from the house yesterday, and that she left us this morning on foot. The answers given by one of the servants are so unsatisfactory that we believe the woman has been bribed to assist her, and has managed all those arrangements for her flight which she could not have safely undertaken by herself. Of the immediate object with which she has left us, I entertain no doubt. I have reasons which I can tell you at a fitter time, for feeling assured that she has gone away with the intention of trying her fortune on this stage. She has in her possession the card of an actor by profession, who superintended an amateur theatrical performance at Clifton, in which she took part, and to him she has gone to help her. I saw the card at the time, and I know the actor's name to be huckstable. The address I cannot call to mind quite so correctly, but I am almost sure it was at some theatrical place in Bow Street, Covent Garden. Let me entreat you not to lose a moment in sending to make the necessary inquiries. The first trace of her will, I firmly believe, be found at that address. If we had nothing worse to dread than her attempting to go on the stage, I should not feel the distress and dismay which now overpower me. I am afraid that the rest of other girls have acted as recklessly as she has acted, and have not ended ill after all. But my fears for Magdalene do not begin and end with the risk she is running at present. There has been something weighing on her mind ever since we left Coombe Raven, weighing far more heavily for the last six weeks than at first. Until the period when Frances Clair left England, I am persuaded she was secretly sustained by the hope that he would contrive to see her again. From the day when she knew that the measures you had taken for preventing this had succeeded, from the day when she was assured that the ship had really taken him away, nothing has roused, nothing has interested her. She has given herself up, more and more hopelessly, to her own brooding thoughts, thoughts which I believe first entered her mind on the day when the utter ruin of the prospects on which her marriage depended was made known to her. She has formed some desperate project of contesting the possession of her father's fortune with Michael Vanstone, and the stage career which she has gone away to try is nothing more than a means of freeing herself from all home dependence, and of enabling her to run what mad risks she pleases in perfect security from all home control. What it cost me to write of her in these terms I must leave you to imagine. The time has gone by when any considerations of distress to my own feelings can weigh with me. Whatever I can say which will open your eyes to the real danger, and strengthen your conviction of the instant necessity of averting it, I say in despite of myself, without hesitation and without reserve. One word more and I have done. The last time you were so good as to come to this house, do you remember how Magdalene embarrassed and distressed us by questioning you about her right to bear her father's name? Do you remember her persisting in her inquiries until she had forced you to acknowledge that, legally speaking, she and her sister had no name? I venture to remind you of this because you have the affairs of hundreds of clients to think of, and you might well have forgotten the circumstance. Whatever natural reluctance she might otherwise have had to deceiving us, and degrading herself by the use of an assumed name, that conversation with you is certain to have removed. We must discover her by personal description. We can trace her in no other way. I can think of nothing more to guide your decision in our deplorable emergency. For God's sake, let no expense and no efforts be spared. My letter ought to reach you by ten o'clock this morning at the latest. Let me have one line in answer, to say you will act instantly for the best. My only hope of quieting Nora is to show her a word of encouragement from your pen. Believe me, dear sir, yours sincerely and obliged, Harriet Garth. 3. From Magdalene to Nora, enclosed in the preceding letter. My darling, try to forgive me. I have struggled against myself till I am worn out in the effort. I am the wretchedness of living creatures. Our quiet life here maddens me. I can bear it no longer. I must go. If you knew what my thoughts are. If you knew how hard I have fought against them, and how horribly they have gone on haunting me in the lonely quiet of this house, you would pity and forgive me. Oh, my love, don't feel hurted by not opening my heart to you as I ought. I dare not open it. I dare not show myself to you as I really am. Pray, don't send and seek after me. I will write and relieve all your anxieties. You know, Nora, we must get our living for ourselves. I have only gone to get mine in the manner which is fittest for me. Whether I succeed or whether I fail, I can do myself no harm either way. I have no position to lose and no name to degrade. Don't doubt I love you. Let misguards doubt my gratitude. I go away miserable at leaving you, but I must go. If I had loved you less dearly, I might have had the courage to say this in your presence. But how could I trust myself to resist your persuasions and to bear the sight of your distress? Farewell, my darling. Take a thousand kisses from me. My own best, dearest love, till we meet again. Magdalene. Four. From Sergeant Ballmer, of the Detective Police, to Mr. Pendrell. Scotland Yard, September 29th, 1846 Sir, your clerk informs me that the parties interested in our inquiry after the missing young lady are anxious for news of the same. I went to your office to speak to you about the matter today. Not having found you and not being able to return and try again tomorrow, I wretched these lines to save delay and to tell you how we stand thus far. I am sorry to say. No advance has been made since my former report. The trace of the young lady which we found nearly a week since still remains the last trace discovered of her. This case seems a mighty simple one looked at from a distance. Looked at close, it alters very considerably for the worse, and becomes, to speak the plain truth, a poser. This is how we now stand. We have traced the young lady to the theatrical agents in Bow Street. We know that at an early hour on the morning of the twenty-third, the agent was called downstairs, while he was dressing, to speak to a young lady in a cab at the door. We know that, on her production of Mr. Huxtable's card, he wrote on it Mr. Huxtable's address in the country, and heard her order the cabman to drive to the Great Northern Terminus. We believe she left by the nine o'clock train. We followed her by the twelve o'clock train. We have ascertained that she called at half-past two at Mr. Huxtable's lodgings, that she found he was away, and not expected back till eight in the evening. That she left word she would call again at eight, and that she never returned. Mr. Huxtable's statement is, he and the young lady have never set eyes on each other. The first consideration which follows is this. Are we to believe Mr. Huxtable? I have carefully inquired into his character. I know as much or more about him than he knows about himself, and my opinion is that we are to believe him. To the best of my knowledge, he is a perfectly honest man. Here then is the hitch in the case. The young lady sets out with a certain object before her. Instead of going on to the accomplishment of that object, she stops short of it. Why has she stopped, and where? Those are, unfortunately, just the questions which we can't answer yet. My own opinion of the matter is briefly as follows. I don't think she has met with any serious accident. Serious accidents, in nine cases out of ten, discover themselves. My own notion is that she has fallen into the hands of some person or persons interested in hiding her away, and sharp enough to know how to set about it. Whether she is in their charge, with or without her own consent, is more than I can undertake to say at present. I don't wish to raise false hopes or false fears. I wish to stop short at the opinion I have given already. In regard to the future, I may tell you that I have left one of my men in daily communication with the authorities. I have also taken care to have the handbills offering a reward for the discovery of her widely circulated. Lastly, I have completed the necessary arrangements for seeing the playbills of all country theaters and for having the dramatic companies well looked after. Some years since, this would have cost a serious expenditure of time and money. Luckily for our purpose, the country theaters are in a bad way. Accepting the large cities, hardly one of them is open, and we can keep our eye on them with little expense and less difficulty. These are the steps which I think it's needful to take at present. If you are of another opinion, you have only to give me your directions, and I will carefully attend to the same. I don't buy any means to spare of our finding the young lady and bringing her back to her friends safe and well. Please to tell them so, and allow me to subscribe myself, yours respectfully. Abraham Balmer 5. Anonymous letter addressed to Mr. Pendrell Sir, a word to the wise. The friends of a certain young lady are wasting time and money to no purpose. Your confidential clerk and your detective policeman are looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. This is the 9th of October, and they have not found her yet. They will as soon find the Northwest Passage. Call your dogs off, and you may hear of the young lady's safety under her own hand. The longer you look for her, the longer she will remain what she is now, lost. The preceding letter is thus endorsed in Mr. Pendrell's handwriting. No apparent means of tracing the enclose to its source. Postmark, charring cross, stationer's stamp cut off the inside of the envelope. Recording probably a man's in disguise. Writer, whoever he is, correctly informed. No further trace of the younger Miss Van Stone discovered yet. End of Between the First and Second Scenes Recording by Linda Lee Paquette