 20 Mrs. Plowson Among the packet of letters which Robert Audley had found in George's trunk, there was one labelled with the name of the missing man's father—the father who had never been too indulgent a friend to his younger son, and who had gladly availed himself of the excuse afforded by George's imprudent marriage to abandon the young man to his own resources. Robert Audley had never seen Mr. Harkett's tall boys, but George's careless talk of his father had given his friend some notion of that gentleman's character. He had written to Mr. Tall Boy's immediately after the disappearance of George, carefully wording his letter, which vaguely hinted at the writer's fear of some foul play in the mysterious business. And after the lapse of several weeks, he had received a formal epistle, in which Mr. Harkett to Tall Boy's expressly declared that he had washed his hands of all responsibility in his son George's affairs upon the young man's wedding-day, and that his absurd disappearance was only in character with his preposterous marriage. The writer of this fatherly letter added in a post-script that if George Tall Boy's had any low design of alarming his friends by this pretended disappearance, and thereby playing on their feelings with a view to pecuniary advantage, he was most egregiously deceived in the character of those persons with whom he had to deal. Robert Audley had answered this letter by a few indignant lines, informing Mr. Tall Boy's that his son was scarcely likely to hide himself for the furtherance of any deep blade design on the pocket of his relatives, as he had left twenty thousand pounds at his banker's hands at the time of his disappearance. After dispatching this letter, Robert had abandoned all thought of assistance from the man who, in the natural course of things, should have been most interested in George's fate, but now that he found himself advancing every day some step nearer to the end that lay so darkly before him, his mind reverted to this heartlessly indifferent Mr. Harkett to Tall Boy's. I will run into Dorsetshire after I leave Southampton," he said, and see this man. If he is content to let his son's fate rest a dark and cruel mystery to all who knew him, if he is content to go down to his grave uncertain to the last of this poor fellow's end, why should I try to unravel the tangled skein, to fit the pieces of the terrible puzzle, and gather together the stray fragments which, when collected, may make such a hideous whole. I will go to him and lay my darkest doubts freely before him. It will be for him to say what I am to do. Robert Oddly started by an early express for Southampton. The snow lay thick and white upon the pleasant country through which he went, and the young barrister had wrapped himself in so many comforters and railway rugs as to appear a perambulating mass of woollen goods rather than a living member of a learned profession. He looked gloomily out of a misty window, opaque with the breath of himself and an elderly Indian officer who was his only companion, and watched the fleeting landscape which had a certain phantom-like appearance in its shroud of snow. He wrapped himself in the vast folds of his railway rug with a peevish shiver, and felt inclined to quarrel with the destiny which compelled him to travel by an early train upon a pitiless winter's day. Who would have thought that I could have grown so fond of the fellow? he muttered, or feel so lonely without him. I have a comfortable little fortune in the three percents. I am air presumptive to my uncle's title, and I know of a certain dear little girl who, as I think, would do her best to make me happy. But I declare that I would freely give up all and stand penniless in the world to-morrow, if this mystery could be satisfactorily cleared away, and George Tall Boys could stand by my side. He reached Southampton between eleven and twelve o'clock, and walked across the platform, with the snow drifting in his face, toward the pier and the lower end of the town. The clock of St. Michael's Church was striking twelve as he crossed the quaint old square in which that edifice stands, and groped his way through the narrow streets leading down to the water. Mr. Maldon had established his slovenly household gods in one of those dreary thoroughfares which speculative builders love to raise upon some miserable fragment of waste-ground hanging to the skirts of a prosperous town. Brigham's terrace was, perhaps, one of the most dismal blocks of buildings that was ever composed of brick-and-mortar since the first mason plied his trowel and the first architect drew his plan. The builder who had speculated in the ten dreary, eight-room prison-houses had hung himself behind the parlor door of an adjacent tavern while the carcasses were yet unfinished. The man who had bought the brick-and-mortar skeletons had gone through the bankruptcy court while the paper-hangers were still busy in Brigham's terrace, and had whitewashed his ceilings and himself simultaneously. Ill luck and insolvency clung to the wretched habitations. The bailiff and the broker's men were as well known as the butcher and the baker to the noisy children who played upon the waste-ground in front of the parlor windows. Solvent tenants were disturbed at unhallowed hours by the noise of ghostly furniture vans creeping stealthily away in the moonless night. Insolvent tenants openly defied the collector of the water-rate from their ten-roomed strongholds, and existed for weeks without any visible means of procuring that necessary fluid. Robert Oddly looked about him with a shudder as he turned from the water-side into this poverty-stricken locality. A child's funeral was leaving one of the houses as he approached, and he thought with a thrill of horror that if the little coffin had held George's son he would have been in some measure responsible for the boy's death. The poor child shall not sleep another night in this wretched hovel, he thought, as he knocked at the door of Mr. Mulden's house. He is the legacy of my best friend, and it shall be my business to secure his safety. A slip-shod servant-girl opened the door and looked at Mr. Oddly rather suspiciously as she asked him, very much through her nose, what he pleased to want. The door of the little sitting-room was ajar, and Robert could hear the clattering of knives and forks in the childish voice of little George praddling gaily. He told the servant that he had come from London, that he wanted to see Master Talboys, and that he would announce himself, and walking past her without further ceremony he opened the door of the parlor. The girl stared at him aghast as he did this, and as if struck by some sudden and terrible conviction threw her apron over her head and ran out into the snow. She darted across the waste-ground, plunged into a narrow alley, and never drew breath till she found herself upon the threshold of a certain tavern called the Cochin Horses, and much affected by Mr. Mulden. The lieutenant's faithful retainer had taken Robert Oddly for some new and determined collector of poor's rates, rejecting that gentleman's account of himself as an artful fiction devised for the destruction of parochial defaulters, and had hurried off to give her Master timely warning of the enemy's approach. When Robert entered the sitting-room he was surprised to find little Georgey seated opposite to a woman who was doing the honors of a shabby rapast, spread upon a dirty tablecloth, and flanked by a pewter beer-measure. The woman rose as Robert entered, and curtsied very humbly to the young barrister. She looked about fifty years of age, and was dressed in rusty widow's-weeds. Her complexion was insipidly fair, and the two smooth bands of hair beneath her cap were of that sunless flaxen hue which generally accompanies pink cheeks and white eyelashes. She had been a rustic beauty, perhaps, in her time, but her features, although tolerably regular in their shape, had a mean, pinched look, as if they had been made too small for her face. This defect was peculiarly noticeable in her mouth, which was an obvious misfit for the set of teeth it contained. She smiled as she curtsied to Mr. Robert Oddly, and her smile, which laid bare the greater part of this set of square, hungry-looking teeth, by no means added to the beauty of her personal appearance. "'Mr. Maldon is not at home, sir,' she said, with insinuating civility. "'But if it's for the water-rate, he requested me to say that—' She was interrupted by little George Tallboys, who scrambled down from the high chair upon which she had been perched, and ran to Robert Oddly. "'I know you,' he said. "'You came to Ventner with the big gentleman, and you came here once, and you gave me some money, and I gave it to Grandpa to take care of, and Grandpa kept it, and he always does.' Robert Oddly took the boy in his arms, and carried him to a little table in the window. "'Stand there, Georgie,' he said. "'I want to have a good look at you.'" He turned the boy's face to the light, and pushed the brown curls off his forehead with bold hands. "'You are growing more like your father every day, Georgie. And you're growing quite a man, too,' he said. "'Would you like to go to school?' "'Oh, yes, please, I should like it very much,' the boy answered eagerly. "'I went to school at Miss Pevins's once—day school, you know, round the corner in the next street. But I caught the measles, and Grandpa wouldn't let me go any more. For fear I should catch the measles again. And Grandpa won't let me play with the little boys in the street, because they're rude boys. He said, blaggard boys. But he said, I mustn't say blaggard boys, because it's naughty. He says, damn, and devil, but he says he may, because he's old. I shall say, damn, and devil, when I'm old. And I should like to go to school, please, and I can go to-day, if you like. Mrs. Plowson will get my frocks ready, won't she, Mrs. Plowson?' "'Certainly, Master Georgie. If your grand-papa wishes it,' the woman answered, looking rather uneasily at Mr. Robert Oddly. "'What on earth is the matter with this woman?' thought Robert, as he turned from the boy to the fair-haired widow, who was edging herself slowly toward the table upon which little George Tallboys stood talking to his guardian. "'Does she still take me for a tax-collector with inimical intentions toward these wretched goods and chattels? Or can the cause of her fidgety manner lie deeper still? That's scarcely likely, though. For whatever secrets Lieutenant Maldon may have, it's not very probable that this woman has any knowledge of them.' Mrs. Plowson had edged herself close to the little table by this time, and was making a stealthy descent upon the boy, when Robert turned sharply round. "'What are you going to do with the child?' he said. "'I was only going to take him away to wash his pretty face, sir, and smooth his hair,' answered the woman, in the most insinuating tone in which she had spoken of the water-rate. You don't see him to any advantage, sir, while his precious face is dirty. I won't be five minutes making him as neat as a new pen.' She had her long, thin arms about the boy she spoke, and was evidently going to carry him off Bodley when Robert stopped her. "'I'd rather see him as he is, thank you,' he said. "'My time in Southampton isn't very long, and I want to hear all that the little man can tell me.' The little man crept closer to Robert, and looked confidingly into the barrister's gray eyes. "'I like you very much,' he said. "'I was frightened of you when you came before, because I was shy. I am not shy now. I am nearly six years old.' Robert patted the boy's head encouragingly, but he was not looking at little George. He was watching the fair-haired widow, who had moved to the window, and was looking out at the patch of waste ground. "'You're rather fidgety about some one, ma'am, I'm afraid,' said Robert. She colored violently as the barrister made this remark, and answered him in a confused manner. "'I was looking for Mr. Mulden, sir,' she said. "'He'll be so disappointed if he doesn't see you.' "'You know who I am, then?' "'No, sir, but—' The boy interrupted her by dragging a little jeweled watch from his bosom and showing it to Robert. "'This is the watch the pretty lady gave me,' he said. "'I've got it now, but I haven't had it long, because the jeweler who cleans it is an idle man,' Grandpa says, and always keeps it such a long time. And Grandpa says it will have to be cleaned again because of the taxes. He always takes it to be cleaned when there's taxes. But he says if he were to lose it the pretty lady would give me another. Do you know the pretty lady?' "'No, Georgie, but tell me about her.' Mrs. Poulson made another dissent upon the boy. She was armed with a puck at handkerchief this time, and displayed great anxiety about the state of little George's nose. But Robert warded off the dreaded weapon, and drew the child away from his tormentor. "'The boy will do very well, ma'am,' he said, if you'll be good enough to let him alone for five minutes. "'Now, Georgie, suppose you sit on my knee and tell me all about the pretty lady.' The child clambered from the table unto Mr. Audley's knees, assisting his dissent by a very unceremonious manipulation of his guardian's coat-collar. "'I'll tell you all about the pretty lady,' he said, "'because I like you very much. Grandpa told me not to tell anybody, but I'll tell you, you know, because I like you, and because you're going to take me to school. The pretty lady came here one night, long ago, oh, so long ago,' said the boy, shaking his head, with a face whose solemnity was expressive of some prodigious lapse of time. She came when I was not nearly as big as I am now, and she came at night, after I'd gone to bed, and she came up into my room, and sat upon the bed, and cried, and she left the watch under my pillow, and she— "'Why do you make faces at me, Mrs. Plouson? I may tell this gentleman,' Georgie added, suddenly addressing the widow, who was standing behind Robert's shoulder. Mrs. Plouson mumbled some confused apology to the effect that she was afraid Master George was troublesome. "'Suppose you wait till I say so, ma'am, before you stop the little fellow's mouth,' said Robert Audley sharply. "'A suspicious person might think from your manner that Mr. Maldon and you had some conspiracy between you, and that you were afraid of what the boy's talk may let slip.' He rose from his chair, and looked full at Mrs. Plouson, as he said this. The fair-haired widow's face was as white as her cap when she tried to answer him, and her pale lips were so dry that she was compelled to wet them with her tongue before the words would come. The little boy relieved her embarrassment. "'Don't be cross to Mrs. Plouson,' he said. "'Mrs. Plouson is very kind to me. Mrs. Plouson is Matilda's mother. You don't know Matilda. Poor Matilda was always crying. She was ill! She—' The boy was stopped by the sudden appearance of Mr. Maldon, who stood on the threshold of the parlor door staring at Robert Audley with a half-drunken, half-terrified aspect, scarcely consistent with the dignity of a retired naval officer. The servant girl, breathless and panting, stood close behind her master. Early in the day, though it was, the old man's speech was thick and confused, as he addressed himself fiercely to Mrs. Plouson. "'You're a pricked creature to call yourself sensible woman,' he said. "'Why don't you take the child away or wash his face? Do you want to ruin me? Do you want to destroy me? Take the child away!' "'Mr. Audley, sir, I'm very glad to see you're very happy to see if you're in mumble-abode,' the old man added with tipsy politeness, dropping into a chair as he spoke, and trying to look steadily at his unexpected visitor. "'Whatever this man's secrets are,' thought Robert, as Mrs. Plouson hustled little George Talboys out of the room, that woman has no unimportant share of them. Whatever the mystery may be, it grows darker and thicker at every step. But I try in vain to draw back or to stop short upon the road, for a stronger hand than my own is pointing the way to my lost friend's unknown grave." CHAPTER XXI Little Georgie leaves his old home. "'I am going to take your grants on away with me, Mr. Maldon,' Robert said gravely, as Mrs. Plouson retired with her young charge. The old man's drunken imbecility was slowly clearing away like the heavy mists of a London fog, through which the feeble sunshine struggles dimly to appear. The very uncertain radiance of Lieutenant Maldon's intellect took a considerable time in piercing the hazy vapours of rum and water, but the flickering light at last faintly glimmered to thwart the clouds, and the old man screwed his poor wits to the sticking-point. "'Yes, yes,' he said feebly, "'take the boy away from his poor old grandfather. They always thought so.' "'You always thought that I should take him away?' scrutinizing the half-drunken countenance with a searching glance. "'Why did you think so, Mr. Maldon?' The fogs of intoxication got the better of the light of sobriety for a moment, and the Lieutenant answered vaguely. "'Thought so? Because I thought so.'" Meeting the young barristers in patient frown, he made another effort, and the light glimmered again. "'Because I thought you or his father would fetch him away. When I was last in this house, Mr. Maldon, you told me that George Tall Boy's had sailed for Australia.' "'Yes, yes, I know. I know,' the old man answered confusedly, shuffling his scanty limp gray hairs with his two wandering hands. "'I know, but he might have come back, mightn't he? He was restless and—and queer in his mind, perhaps sometimes. He might have come back.'" He repeated this two or three times in feeble, muttering tones, groping about on the littered mantelpiece for a dirty-looking clay pipe, and filling and lighting it with hands that trembled violently. Robert Oddly watched those poor, withered, tremulous fingers dropping shreds of tobacco upon the hearth-rug, and scarcely able to kindle a lucifer for their unsteadiness. Then walking once or twice up and down a little room, he left the old man to take a few puffs from the great consolar. Presently he turned suddenly upon the half-pay lieutenant with a dark solemnity in his handsome face. "'Mr. Maldon,' he said, slowly watching the effect of every syllable as he spoke, "'George Tall Boy's never sailed for Australia. That I know. More than this? He never came to Southampton, and the lie you told me on the eighth of last September was dictated to you by the telegraphic message which you received on that day.' The dirty clay pipe dropped from the tremulous hand, and shivered against the iron fender, but the old man made no effort to find a fresh one. He sat trembling in every limb, and looking, heaven knows how piteously, at Robert Oddly. The lie was dictated to you, and you repeated your lesson. But you no more saw George Tall Boy's here on the seventh of September than I see him in this room now. You thought you had burnt the telegraphic message, but you had only burnt a part of it. The remainder is in my possession." Lieutenant Maldon was quite sober now. "'What have I done?' he murmured hopelessly. "'Oh, my God! What have I done?' "'At two o'clock, on the seventh of September last,' continued the pitiless, accusing voice, George Tall Boy's was seen alive and well at a house in Essex. Robert paused to see the effect of these words. They had produced no change in the old man. He still sat trembling from head to foot, and staring with the fixed and solid gaze of some helpless wretch whose every sense is gradually becoming numbed by terror. "'At two o'clock, on that day,' remarked Robert Oddly, "'my poor friend was seen alive and well at—' the house of which I speak. From that hour to this I have never been able to hear that he has been seen by any living creature. I have taken such steps as must have resulted in procuring the information of his whereabouts, were he alive. I have done this patiently and carefully—at first even hopefully. Now I know that he is dead.'" Robert Oddly had been prepared to witness some considerable agitation in the old man's manner, but he was not prepared for the terrible anguish, the ghastly terror which convulsed Mr. Maldon's haggard face as he uttered the last word. "'No, no, no, no,' reiterated the lieutenant in a shrill, half screaming voice, "'No, no, for God's sake, don't say that. Don't think it. Don't let me think it. Don't let me dream of it. Not dead. Anything but dead. Hidden away, perhaps, bribed to keep out of the way, perhaps, but not dead. Not dead. Not dead.'" He cried these words aloud, like one beside himself, beating his hands upon his gray head, and rocking backward and forward in his chair. His feeble hands trembled no longer. They were strengthened by some convulsive force that gave him a new power. "'I believe,' said Robert in the same solemn, relentless voice, that my friend left Essex, and I believe he died on the seventh of September last. The wretched old man, still beating his hands among his thin gray hair, slid from his chair to the ground and groveled at Robert's feet. "'Oh, no. No, for God's. No,' he shrieked hoarsely. "'No, you don't know what you say. You don't know what your words mean. I know their weight and value only too well. As well as I see you do, Mr. Maldon. God help us.'" "'Oh, what am I doing? What am I doing?' muttered the old man feebly, then raising himself from the ground with an effort. He drew himself to his full height, and said, in a manner which was new to him, and which was not without a certain dignity of his own, that dignity which must always be attached to an honorable misery, in whatever form it may appear, he said gravely, "'You have no right to come here and terrify a man who has been drinking, and it was not quite himself. You have no right to do it, Mr. Audley.' "'He did not stammer, but his lips trembled so violently that his words seemed to be shaken into pieces by their motion. The officer, I repeat, sir, who arrests a thief or a—' He stopped to wipe his lips, and to still them if he could by doing so, which he could not. A thief or a murderer. His voice died suddenly away upon the last word, and it was only by the motion of those trembling lips that Robert knew what he meant. Gives him fair warning, sir, fair warning that he may say nothing which shall commit himself or other people. The law, sir, has that amount of mercy for a suspected criminal. But you, sir, you come to my house, and you come at a time when contrary to my usual habits, which as people will tell you are sober, you take the opportunity to terrify me, and it is not right, sir, it is.' Whatever he would have said died away into inarticulate gasps, which seemed to choke him, and sinking into a chair, he dropped his face upon the table, and wept aloud. Perhaps in all the dismal scenes of domestic misery which had been acted in those spare and dreary houses, in all the petty miseries, the burning shames, the cruel sorrows, the bitter disgraces which owned poverty for their father, there had never been such a scene as this. An old man hiding his face from the light of day, and sobbing aloud in his wretchedness, Robert Oddly contemplated the painful picture with a hopeless and pitying face. If I had known this, he thought, I might have spared him. It would have been better, perhaps, to have spared him. The shabby room, the dirt, the confusion, the figure of the old man with his grey head upon the soiled tablecloth, amid the muddled debris of a wretched dinner, grew blurred before the sight of Robert Oddly as he thought of another man, as old as this one, but ah how widely different in every other quality, who might come by and by to feel the same, or even a worse anguish, and to shed perhaps yet bitterer tears. The moment in which the tears rose to his eyes and dimmed the piteous scene before him, was long enough to take him back to Essex, and to show him the image of his uncle, stricken by agony and shame. Why do I go on with this? he thought. How pitiless I am, and how relentlessly I am carried on. It is not myself. It is the hand which is beckoning me further and further upon the dark road whose end I dare not dream of. He thought this, and a hundred times more than this, whilst the old man sat with his face still hidden, wrestling with his anguish, but without power to keep it down. Mr. Maldon, Robert Oddly said after a pause, I do not ask you to forgive me for what I have brought upon you, for the feeling is strong within me that it must have come to you sooner or later, if not through me, through someone else. There are— He stopped for a moment hesitating. The sobbing did not cease. It was sometimes low, sometimes loud, bursting out with fresh violence, or dying away for an instant, but never ceasing. There are some things which, as people say, cannot be hidden. I think there is truth in that common saying which had its origin and that old worldly wisdom which people gathered from experience and not from books. If—if I were content to let my friend rest in his hidden grave, it is but likely that some stranger who had never heard the name of George Talboys might fall by the remotest accident upon the secret of his death. Tomorrow, perhaps, or ten years hence, or in another generation when the— The hand that wronged him is as cold as his own. If I could let the matter rest, if—if I could leave England forever, and purposely fly from the possibility of ever coming across another clue to the secret, I would do it. I would gladly, thankfully do it. But I cannot. A hand which is stronger than my own beckons me on. I wish to take no base advantage of you. Less than of all other people. But I must go on. I must go on. If there is any warning you could give to any one, give it. If the secret toward which I am travelling day by day, hour by hour, involves any one in whom you have an interest, let that person fly before I come to the end. Let them leave this country. Let them leave all who know them. All whose peace their wickedness has endangered. Let them go away. They shall not be pursued. But if they slight your warning, if they try to hold their present position in defiance of what it will be in your power to tell them, let them beware of me. For when the hour comes, I swear that I will not spare them." The old man looked up for the first time, and wiped his wrinkled face upon a ragged silk handkerchief. "'I declare to you that I do not understand you,' he said. "'I solemnly declare to you that I cannot understand, and I do not believe that George Talboys is dead. I would give ten years of my own life if I could see him alive,' answered Robert, sadly. "'I am sorry for you, Mr. Maldon. I am sorry for all of us. I do not believe that my son-in-law is dead,' said the lieutenant. "'I do not believe that the poor lad is dead.' He endeavored in a feeble manner to show to Robert Adley that his wild outburst of anguish had been caused by his grief for the loss of George, but the pretense was miserably shallow. Mrs. Plouson re-entered the room, leading little Georgie, whose face shone with that brilliant polish which yellow soap and friction can produce upon the human countenance. "'Dear, heart alive!' exclaimed Mrs. Plouson. "'What has the poor old gentleman been taking on about? We could hear him in the passage, sob and awful!' Little George crept up to his grandfather, and smoothed the wet and wrinkled face with his pudgy hand. "'Don't cry, Grandpa,' he said. "'Don't cry. You shall have my watch to be cleaned, and the kind jeweler shall lend you the money to pay the tax-man while he cleans the watch. I don't mind, Grandpa. "'Let's go to the jeweler. The jeweler in High Street, you know, with golden balls painted upon his door, to show that he comes from Lombard—Lombardshire,' said the boy, making a dash at the name. "'Come, Grandpa!' The little fellow took the jeweled toy from his bosom and made for the door, proud of being possessed of a talisman, which he had seen so often made useful. "'There are wolves at Southampton,' he said, with rather a triumphant nod to Robert Oddly. My grandpa says, when he takes my watch, that he does it to keep the wolf from the door. Are there wolves where you live?' The young barrister did not answer the child's question, but stopped him as he was dragging his grandfather toward the door. "'Your grand-papa does not want the watch to-day, Georgie,' he said gravely. "'Why is he sorry, then?' said George naively. When he wants the watch, he is always sorry, and beats his poor forehead, so the boy stopped a pantomime with his small fists. And says that she—the pretty lady, I think he means—uses him very hard, and that he can't keep the wolf from the door. And then I say, Grandpa, have the watch! And then he takes me in his arms and says, Oh, my blessed angel! How can I rob my blessed angel?' And then he cries, but not like to-day, not loud, you know. Only tears running down his poor cheeks, not so that you could hear him in the passage. Painful as the child's prattle was to Robert Oddly, it seemed a relief to the old man. He did not hear the boy's talk, but walked two or three times up and down the little room, and smoothed his rumpled hair and suffered his cravat to be arranged by Mrs. Plouson, who seemed very anxious to find out the cause of his agitation. Poor dear old gentleman! she said, looking at Robert. What has happened to upset him so? His son-in-law is dead," answered Mr. Oddly, fixing his eyes upon Mrs. Plouson's sympathetic face. He died within a year and a half after the death of Helen Tall boys, who lies buried in Ventner's churchyard. The face into which he was looking changed very slightly, but the eyes that had been looking at him shifted away as he spoke, and Mrs. Plouson was obliged to moisten her white lips with her tongue before she answered him. Poor Mr. Tall boys, dead," she said, that is bad news indeed, sir. Little George looked wistfully up at his guardian's face, as this was said. Who's dead? he said. George Tall boys is my name. Who's dead? Another person whose name is Tall boys, Georgie. Poor person! Will he go to the pithole? The boy had that notion of death which is generally imparted to children by their wise elders, and which always leads the infant mind to the open grave and rarely carries it any higher. I should like to see him put in the pithole, Georgie remarked after a pause. He had attended several infant funerals in the neighborhood, and was considered valuable as a mourner on account of his interesting appearance. He had come therefore to look upon the ceremony of interment as a solemn festivity, in which cake and wine and a carriage-drive were the leading features. You have no objection to my taking Georgie away with me, Mr. Mulden? asked Robert Oddly. The old man's agitation had very much subsided by this time. He had found another pipe stuck behind the tawdry frame of the looking glass, and was trying to light it with a bit of twisted newspaper. You do not object, Mr. Mulden? No, sir. No, sir, you are his guardian, and you have a right to take him where you please. He has been a very great comfort to me in my lonely old age, but I have been prepared to lose him. I may not have always done my duty to him, sir, in the way of schooling and boots. The number of boots which boys of his age wear out, sir, is not easily realized by the mind of a young man like yourself. He's been kept away from school, perhaps, sometimes, and occasionally worn shabby boots when our funds have got low. But he's not been unkindly treated. No, sir, if you were to question him for a week, I don't think you'd hear that his poor old grandfather ever said a harsh word to him. Upon this, Georgie, perceiving the distress of his old protector, set up a terrible howl and declared that he would never leave him. Mr. Mulden, said Robert Oddly, with a tone which was half mournful, half compassionate. When I looked at my position last night, I did not believe that I could ever come to think it more painful than I thought it then. I can only say, God have mercy upon us all. I feel it my duty to take the child away, but I shall take him straight from your house to the best school in Southampton, and I give you my honor that I will extort nothing from his innocent simplicity which can in any manner— I mean, he said, breaking off abruptly. I mean this. I will not seek to come one step nearer the secret through him. I—I am not a detective officer, and I do not think the most accomplished detective would like to get his information from a child. The old man did not answer. He sat with his face shaded by his hand, and with his extinguished pipe between the listless fingers of the other. Take the boy away, Mrs. Plouson, he said after a pause. Take him away and put his things on. He is going with Mr. Oddly. Which I do say that it's not kind of the gentleman to take his poor grand-pas' pet away," Mrs. Plouson exclaimed suddenly, with respectful indignation. Hush, Mrs. Plouson! The old man answered piteously, Mr. Oddly is the best judge. I—I haven't many years to live. I shan't trouble anybody long. The tears oozed slowly through the dirty fingers with which he shaded his bloodshot eyes as he said this. God knows I never injured your friend, sir," he said by and by when Mrs. Plouson and Georgie had returned, nor even wished him any ill. He was a good son-in-law to me, better than many a son. I never did him any willful wrong, sir. I—I spent his money, perhaps, but I am sorry for it. I am very sorry for it now. But I don't believe he is dead. No, sir, no, I don't believe it," exclaimed the old man, dropping his hand from his eyes and looking with new energy at Robert Oddly. I don't believe it, sir. How—how should he be dead? Robert did not answer this eager questioning. He shook his head mournfully, and walking to the little window, looked out across a row of straggling geraniums at the dreary patch of waste-ground on which the children were at play. Mrs. Plouson returned with little Georgie muffled in a coat and comforter, and Robert took the boy's hand. The little fellow sprung toward the old man, and clinging about him, kissed the dirty tears from his faded cheeks. Don't be sorry for me, Grandpa," he said. I am going to school to learn to be a clever man, and I shall come home to see you and Mrs. Plouson shant I," he added, turning to Robert. Yes, my dear, by and by. Take him away, sir, take him away! cried Mr. Mulden. You are breaking my heart! The little fellow trotted away contentedly at Robert's side. He was very well pleased at the idea of going to school, though he had been happy enough with his drunken old grandfather, who had always displayed a maudlin affection for the pretty child, and had done his best to spoil Georgie by letting him have his own way in everything, in consequence of which indulgence Master Tallboyce had acquired a taste for late hours, hot suppers of the most indigestible nature, and sips of rum and water from his grandfather's glass. He communicated his sentiments upon many subjects to Robert Oddly as they walked to the Dolphin Hotel, but the barrister did not encourage him to talk. It was no very difficult matter to find a good school in such a place as Southampton. Robert Oddly was directed to a pretty house between the bar and the avenue, and leaving Georgie to take care of a good-natured waiter, who seemed to have nothing to do but to look out of the window and whisk invisible dust off the brightly polished tables, the barrister walked up the high street toward Mr. Marchmont's academy for young gentlemen. He found Mr. Marchmont a very sensible man, and he met a file of orderly-looking young gentleman walking townward under the escort of a couple of ushers as he entered the house. He told the schoolmaster that little George Tallboyce had been left in his charge by a dear friend, who had sailed for Australia some months before, and whom he believed to be dead. He confided him to Mr. Marchmont's a special care, and he further requested that no visitors should be admitted to see the boy unless accredited by a letter from himself. Having arranged the matter in a very few business-like words, he returned to the hotel to fetch Georgie. He found the little man on intimate terms with the idle waiter, who had been directing Master Georgie's attention to the different objects of interest in the high street. Poor Robert had about as much notion of the requirements of a child as he had of those of a white elephant. He had catered for silkworms, guinea-pigs, dormice, canary birds, and dogs without number during his boyhood, but he had never been called upon to provide for a young person of five years old. He looked back five and twenty years, and tried to remember his own diet at the age of five. I have a vague recollection of getting a good deal of bread and milk and boiled mutton, he thought, and I have another vague recollection of not liking them. I wonder if this boy likes bread and milk and boiled mutton. He stood, pulling his thick moustache, and staring thoughtfully at the child for some minutes before he could get any further. I daresay you're hungry, Georgie," he said at last. The boy nodded, and the waiter whisked some more invisible dust from the nearest table as a preparatory step toward laying a cloth. Perhaps you'd like some lunch. Mr. Oddly suggested still pulling his moustache. The boy burst out laughing. Lunch! he cried. Why, it's afternoon, and I've had my dinner! Robert Oddly felt himself brought to a stand still. What refreshment could he possibly provide for a boy who called it afternoon at three o'clock? You shall have some bread and milk, Georgie," he said presently. Waiter, bread and milk, and a pint of hawk! Master Tallboy's made a rye face. I never have bread and milk, he said. I don't like it. I like what Grandpa calls something savory. I should like a veal cutlet. Grandpa told me he dined here once, and the veal cutlets were lovely, Grandpa said. Please, may I have a veal cutlet, with egg and breadcrumb, you know, and lemon juice, you know," he added to the waiter. Grandpa knows the cook here. The cook's such a nice gentleman, and once gave me a shilling when Grandpa brought me here. The cook wears better clothes than Grandpa, better than yours even, said Master Georgie, pointing to Robert's rough greatcoat with a depreciating nod. Robert oddly stared aghast. How was he to deal with this epicure of five years old, who rejected bread and milk, and asked for veal cutlets? I'll tell you what I'll do with you, little Georgie," he exclaimed after a pause. I'll give you a dinner. The waiter nodded briskly. Upon my word, sir, he said approvingly, I think the little gentleman will know how to eat it. I'll give you a dinner, Georgie," repeated Robert. Some stew-deals, a little julienne, a dish of cutlets, a bird, and a pudding. What do you say to that, Georgie? I don't think the young gentleman will object to it when he sees it, sir," said the waiter, eels, julienne, cutlets, bird, pudding. I'll go and tell the cook, sir. What time, sir? Well, we'll say six, and Master Georgie will get to his new school by bedtime. You can contrive to amuse the child for this afternoon, I dare say. I have some business to settle, and shan't be able to take him out. I shall sleep here to-night. Goodbye, Georgie. Take care of yourself, and try and get your appetite in order again six o'clock. Robert oddly left the boy in charge of the idle waiter, and strolled down to the water-side, choosing that lonely bank which leads away under the moldering walls of the town toward the little villages beside the narrowing river. He had purposely avoided the society of the child, and he walked through the light-drifting snow till the early darkness closed upon him. He went back to the town, and made inquiries at the station about the trains for Dorseture. I shall start early to-morrow morning, he thought, and see George's father before nightfall. I will tell him all, all but the interest which I take in, and the suspected person, and he shall decide what is next to be done. Master Georgie did very good justice to the dinner which Robert had ordered. He drank basses pale ale to an extent which considerably alarmed his entertainer, and enjoyed himself amazingly, showing an appreciation of roast pheasant and bread-sauce which was beyond his years. At eight o'clock a fly was brought out for his accommodation, and he departed in the highest spirits, with a sovereign in his pocket and a letter from Robert to Mr. Marchmont, enclosing a check for the young gentleman's outfit. I'm glad I'm going to have new clothes, he said, as he bad Robert could buy, for Mrs. Plouson has mended the old ones ever so many times. She can have them now for Billy. Who is Billy? Robert asked, laughing at the boy's chatter. Billy is poor Matilda's little boy. He's a common boy, you know. Matilda was common, but she— At the fly-man snapping his whip at that moment the old horse jogged off, and Robert Oddly heard no more of Matilda. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 of Lady Oddly's Secret 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 Elizabeth Clett Lady Oddly's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braden Chapter 22 Coming to a standstill Mr. Harcourt Tallboys lived in a prim-square Redbrick mansion, within a mile of a little village called Grange Heath, in Dorsetshire. The prim-square Redbrick mansion stood in the centre of prim-square grounds, scarcely large enough to be called a park, too large to be called anything else, so neither the house nor the grounds had any name, and the estate was simply designated Squire Tallboys. Perhaps Mr. Harcourt Tallboys was the last person in this world with whom it was possible to associate the homely, hardy, rural, old English title of Squire. He neither hunted, nor farmed. He had never worn crimson, pink, or top-boots in his life. A southerly wind and a cloudy sky were matters of supreme indifference to him, so long as they did not in any way interfere with his own prim-comforts. And he only cared for the state of the crops in as much as it involved the hazard of certain rents which he received for the farms upon his estate. He was a man of about fifty years of age, tall, straight, bony, and angular, with a square pale face, light grey eyes, and scanty dark hair, brushed from either ear across a bald crown, and thus imparting to his physiognomy some faint resemblance to that of a terrier, a sharp, uncompromising, hard-headed terrier, a terrier not to be taken in by the cleverest dog-stealer who ever distinguished himself in his profession. He ever remembered getting upon what is popularly called the blind side of Harcourt Tallboys. He was like his own square-built, northern-fronted, shelterless house. There were no shady nooks in his character into which one could creep for shelter from his hard daylight. He was all daylight. He looked at everything in the same broad glare of intellectual sunlight, and would see no softening shadows that might alter the sharp outlines of cruel facts, subduing them to beauty. I do not know if I express what I mean when I say that there were no curves in his character, that his mind ran in straight lines, never diverging to the right or the left, to round off their pitiless angles. With him, right was right, and wrong was wrong. He had never in his merciless, conscientious life admitted the idea that circumstances might mitigate the blackness of wrong, or weaken the force of right. He had cast off his only son, because his only son had disobeyed him, and he was ready to cast off his only daughter at five minutes' notice for the same reason. If this square-built, hard-headed man could be possessed of such a weakness as vanity, he was certainly vain of his hardness. He was vain of that inflexible squareness of intellect, which made him the disagreeable creature that he was. He was vain of that unwavering obstinacy which no influence of love or pity had ever been known to bend from its remorseless purpose. He was vain of the negative force of a nature which had never known the weakness of the affections, or the strength which may be born of that very weakness. If he had regretted his son's marriage, and the breach of his own making between himself and George, his vanity had been more powerful than his regret, and had enabled him to conceal it. Indeed, unlikely as it appears at the first glance that such a man as this could have been vain, I have little doubt that vanity was the center from which radiated all the disagreeable lines in the character of Mr. Harcourt Tallboys. I dare say Junius Brutus was vain, and enjoyed the approval of Austric in Rome when he ordered his son off for execution. Harcourt Tallboys would have sent poor George from his presence between the reversed faces of the Lictors, and grimly relished his own agony. Heaven only knows how bitterly this hard man may have felt the separation between himself and his only son, or how much the more terrible the anguish might have been made by that unflinching self-conceit which concealed the torture. My son did me an unpardonable wrong by marrying the daughter of a drunken pauper. Mr. Tallboys would answer to any one who had the temerity to speak to him about George. And from that hour I had no longer a son. I wish him no ill. He is simply dead to me. I am sorry for him, as I am sorry for his mother who died nineteen years ago. If you talk to me of him as you would talk of the dead, I shall be ready to hear you. If you speak of him as you would speak of the living, I must decline to listen. I believe that Harcourt Tallboys hugged himself upon the gloomy Roman grandeur of this speech, and that he would like to have worn a toga, and wrapped himself sternly in its folds, as he turned his back upon poor George's intercessor. George never in his own person made any effort to soften his father's verdict. He knew his father well enough to know that the case was hopeless. If I write to him, he will fold my letter with the envelope inside, and endorse it with my name and the date of its arrival, the young man would say, and call everybody in the house to witness that he had not moved him to one softening recollection or one pitiful thought. He will stick to his resolution to his dying day. I dare say, if the truth was known, he is glad that his only son has offended him and given him the opportunity of parading his Roman virtues. George had answered his wife thus when she and her father had urged him to seek assistance from Harcourt Tallboys. No, my darling, he would say conclusively, it's very hard, perhaps, to be poor, but we will bear it. We won't go with pitiful faces to the stern father, and ask him to give us food and shelter, only to be refused in long, Johnsonian sentences, and to make a classical example for the benefit of the neighborhood. No, my pretty one, it is easy to starve, but it is difficult to stoop. Perhaps poor Mrs. George did not agree very heartily to the first of these two propositions. She had no great fancy for starving, and she whimpered pitifully when the pretty pint-bottles of champagne, with Cliqueau's and Moet's brands upon their corks, were exchanged for six-penny ale, procured by a slip-shot attendant from the nearest beer-shop. George had been obliged to carry his own burden, and lend a helping hand with that of his wife, who had no idea of keeping her regrets or disappointments a secret. I thought dragoons were always rich, she used to say, peevishly. Girls always want to marry dragoons, and tradespeople always want to serve dragoons, and hotel-keepers to entertain dragoons, and theatrical managers to be patronized by dragoons. Who could have ever expected that a dragoon would drink six-penny ale, smoke horrid birds' eye tobacco, and let his wife wear a shabby bonnet? If there were any selfish feelings displayed in such speeches as these, George Talboys had never discovered it. He had loved and believed in his wife from the first to the last hour of his brief married life. The love that is not blind is perhaps only a spurious divinity, after all. For when Cupid takes the fillet from his eyes, it is a fatally certain indication that he is preparing to spread his wings for a flight. George never forgot the hour in which he had first become bewitched by Lieutenant Maldon's pretty daughter, and however she might have changed, the image which had charmed him then, unchanged and unchanging, represented her in his heart. Robert Oddly left Southampton by a train which started before daybreak, and reached Wareham Station early in the day. He hired a vehicle at Wareham to take him over to Grange Heath. The snow had hardened upon the ground, and the day was clear and frosty, every object in the landscape standing in sharp outline against the cold blue sky. The horses' hooves clattered upon the ice-bound road, the iron shoes striking on the ground that was almost as iron as themselves. The wintry day bore some resemblance to the man to whom Robert was going. Like him it was sharp, frigid, and uncompromising. Like him it was merciless to distress and impregnable to the softening power of sunshine. It would accept no sunshine but such January radiance as would light upon the bleak, bare country without brightening it, and thus resembled Harcourt Tallboys, who took the sternest side of every truth, and declared loudly to the disbelieving world that there had never been and never could be any other side. Robert Oddly's heart sunk within him as the shabby hired vehicle stopped at a stern-looking barred fence, and the driver dismounted to open a broad iron gate which swung back with a clanking noise, and was caught by a great iron tooth, planted in the ground, which snapped at the lowest bar of the gate, as if it wanted to bite. This iron gate opened into a scanty plantation of straight-limbed fir trees that grew in rows and shook their sturdy winter foliage defiantly in the very teeth of the frosty breeze. A straight-graveled carriage-drive ran between these straight trees across a smoothly kept lawn to a square, red-brick mansion, every window of which winked and glittered in the January sunlight, as if it had been that moment cleaned by some indefatigable housemaid. I don't know whether Junius Brutus was a nuisance in his own house, but among other of his Roman virtues, Mr. Tallboys owned an extreme aversion to disorder, and was the terror of every domestic in his establishment. The windows winked, and the flight of stone steps glared in the sunlight. The prim garden walks were so freshly graveled that they gave a sandy, gingery aspect to the place, reminding one unpleasantly of red hair. The lawn was chiefly ornamented with dark, wintry shrubs of a funereal aspect, which grew in beds that looked like problems and algebra, and the flight of stone steps leading to the square half-glass door of the hall was adorned with dark green wooden tubs containing the same sturdy evergreens. If the man has anything like his house, Robert thought, I don't wonder that poor George and he parted. At the end of a scanty avenue the carriage-drive turned a sharp corner, it would have been made to describe a curve in any other man's grounds, and ran before the lower windows of the house. The fly man dismounted at the steps, ascended them, and rang a brass-handled bell, which flew back to its socket with an angry metallic snap, as if it had been insulted by the plebeian touch of the man's hand. A man in black trousers and a striped linen jacket, which was evidently fresh from the hands of the laundress, opened the door. Mr. Tallboy's was at home. Would the gentleman send in his card? Robert waited in the hall while his card was taken to the master of the house. The hall was large and lofty, paved with stone. The panels of the oak and wane skirt shone with the same uncompromising polish, which was on every object within and without the red-bricked mansion. Some people are so weak-minded as to affect pictures and statues. Mr. Harcourt Tallboy's was far too practical to indulge in any foolish fancies. A barometer and an umbrella stand were the only adornments of his entrance hall. Robert Oddly looked at these while his name was being submitted to George's father. The linen jacket its servant returned presently. He was a square, pale-faced man of almost forty, and had the appearance of having outlived every emotion to which humanity is subject. "'If you will step this way, sir,' he said, "'Mr. Tallboy's will see you, although he is at breakfast. He begged me to state that everybody in Dorseture was acquainted with his breakfast-hour.' This was intended as a stately reproof to Mr. Robert Oddly. It had, however, very small effect upon the young barrister. He merely lifted his eyebrows and placid deprecation of himself and everybody else. "'I don't belong to Dorseture,' he said. "'Mr. Tallboy's might have known that, if he'd done me the honour to exercise his powers of ratio-sonation. Drive on, my friend.' The emotionless man looked at Robert Oddly with a vacant stare of unmitigated horror, and opening one of the heavy oak doors led the way into a large dining-room furnished with the severe simplicity of an apartment which is meant to be aidened, but never lived in. And at the top of a table which would have accommodated eighteen persons, Robert beheld Mr. Harcourt Tallboy's. Mr. Tallboy's was robed in a dressing-gown of grey cloth, fastened about his waist with a girdle. It was a severe-looking garment, and was perhaps the nearest approach to the toga to be obtained within the range of modern costume. He wore a buff waistcoat, a stiffly starched cambrick cravat, and a faultless shirt-collar. The cold grey of his dressing-gown was almost the same as the cold grey of his eyes, and the pale buff of his waistcoat was the pale buff of his complexion. Robert Oddly had not expected to find Harcourt Tallboy's at all like George in his manners or disposition, but he had expected to see some family likeness between the father and the son. There was none. It would have been impossible to imagine any one more unlike George than the author of his existence. Robert scarcely wondered at the cruel letter he received from Mr. Tallboy's when he saw the writer of it. Such a man could scarcely have written otherwise. There was a second person in the large room, toward whom Robert glanced after saluting Harcourt Tallboy's, doubtful how to proceed. His second person was a lady, who sat at the last of a range of four windows, employed with some needlework, the kind which was generally called plain work, and with a large worker basket filled with calicoes and flannels standing by her. The whole length of the room divided this lady from Robert, but he could see that she was young, and that she was like George Tallboy's. His sister, he thought in that one moment, during which he ventured to glance away from the master of the house toward the female figure at the window. His sister, no doubt—he was fond of her, I know—surely she is not utterly indifferent as to his fate. The lady half rose from her seat, letting her work, which was large and awkward, fall from her lap as she did so, and dropping a reel of cotton, which rolled away upon the polished oaken flooring beyond the margin of the turkey carpet. "'Sit down, Clara,' said the hard voice of Mr. Tallboy's. That gentleman did not appear to address his daughter, nor had his face been turned toward her when she rose. It seemed as if he had known it by some social magnetism peculiar to himself. It seemed as his servants were apt disrespectfully to observe, as if he had eyes in the back of his head. "'Sit down, Clara,' he repeated, and keep your cotton in your work-box.' The lady blushed at this reproof, and stooped to look for the cotton. Mr. Robert Oddly, who was unabashed by the stern presence of the master of the house, knelt on the carpet, found the reel, and restored it to his owner, Harcourt Tallboy staring at the proceeding with an expression of unmitigated astonishment. "'Perhaps, Mr.—Mr. Robert Oddly,' he said, looking at the card which he had held between his finger and thumb, "'Perhaps when you have finished looking for reels of cotton you will be good enough to tell me to what I owe the honour of this visit.' He waved his well-shaped hand with a gesture which might have been admired in the stately John Kemble, and the servant, understanding the gesture, brought forward a ponderous red Morocco chair. The proceeding was so slow and solemn that Robert had at first thought that something extraordinary was about to be done, but the truth dawned upon him at last, and he dropped into the massive chair. "'You may remain, Wilson,' said Mr. Tallboy's, as the servant was about to withdraw. Mr. Oddly would perhaps like coffee.' Robert had eaten nothing that morning, but he glanced at the long expanse of dreary tablecloth, the silver tea and coffee-equipage, the stiff splendor, and the very little appearance of any substantial entertainment, and he declined Mr. Tallboy's invitation. "'Mr. Oddly will not take coffee, Wilson,' said the master of the house. "'You may go.' The man bowed and retired, opening and shutting the door as cautiously as if he were taking a liberty in doing it at all, or as if the respect due to Mr. Tallboy's demanded his walking straight through the oaken panel like a ghost in a German story. Mr. Harcourt Tallboy sat with his gray eyes fixed severely on his visitor, his elbows on the red Morocco arms of his chair, and his fingertips joined. It was the attitude in which, had he been Junius Brutus, he would have sat at the trial of his son. Had Robert Oddly been easily to be embarrassed, Mr. Tallboy's might have succeeded in making him feel so. As he would have sat with perfect tranquility upon an open gunpowder barrel lighting his cigar, he was not at all disturbed upon this occasion. The father's dignity seemed a very small thing to him when he thought of the possible causes of his son's disappearance. "'I wrote to you some time since, Mr. Tallboy's,' he said quietly, when he saw that he was expected to open the conversation. Robert Tallboy's bowed. He knew that it was of his lost son that Robert came to speak. Heaven grant that his icy stoicism was the paltry affectation of a vain man, rather than the utter heartlessness which Robert thought it. He bowed across his fingertips at his visitor. The trial had begun, and Junius Brutus was enjoying himself. "'I received your communication, Mr. Oddly,' he said. "'It is, among other business letters.' It was duly answered.' That letter concerned your son. There was a little wrestling noise at the window where the lady sat. As Robert said this, he looked at her almost instantaneously, but she did not seem to have stirred. She was not working, but she was perfectly quiet. "'She's as heartless as her father, I expect, though she is like George,' thought Mr. Oddly. "'If your letter concerned the person who was once my son, perhaps, sir,' said Harcourt Tallboys. "'I must ask you to remember that I no longer have a son.' "'You have no reason to remind me of that, Mr. Tallboys,' answered Robert gravely. "'I remember it only too well. I have fatal reason to believe that you no longer have a son. I have bitter cause to think that he is dead.' It may be that Mr. Tallboys' complexion faded to a paler shade of buff, as Robert said this, but he only elevated his bristling gray eyebrows and shook his head gently. "'No,' he said. "'No, I assure you. No.' I believe that George Tallboys died in the month of September. The girl, who had been addressed as Clara, sat with work primly folded upon her lap, and her hands lying clasped together on her work, and never stirred when Robert spoke of his friend's death. He could not distinctly see her face, for she was seated at some distance from him, and with her back to the window. "'No, no, I assure you,' repeated Mr. Tallboys. "'You labor under a sad mistake.' "'You believe that I am mistaken in thinking your son dead?' asked Robert. "'Most certainly,' replied Mr. Tallboys, with a smile expressive of the serenity of wisdom. "'Most certainly, my dear sir. The disappearance was a very clever trick, no doubt, but it was not sufficiently clever to deceive me. You must permit me to understand this matter a little better than you, Mr. Oddly, and you must also permit me to assure you of three things. In the first place, your friend is not dead. In the second place, he is keeping out of the way for the purpose of alarming me, of trifling with my feelings as a man who was once his father, and of ultimately obtaining my forgiveness. In the third place, he will not obtain that forgiveness. Never long he may please to keep out of the way, and he would therefore act wisely by returning to his ordinary residence and avocations without delay. "'Then you imagine him to purposely hide himself from all who know him for the purpose of—for the purpose of influencing me,' exclaimed Mr. Tallboys, who, taking a stand upon his own vanity, traced every event in life from that one centre, and resolutely declined to look at it from any other point of view. For the purpose of influencing me, he knew the inflexibility of my character. To a certain degree he was acquainted with me, and knew that all attempts at softening my decision, or moving me from the fixed purpose of my life, would fail. He therefore tried extraordinary means. He has kept out of the way in order to alarm me, and when after due time he discovers that he has not alarmed me, he will return to his old haunts. When he does so, said Mr. Tallboys, rising to sublimity, "'I will forgive him.' "'Yes, sir, I will forgive him. I shall say to him, you have attempted to deceive me, and I have shown you that I am not to be deceived. You have tried to frighten me, and I have convinced you that I am not to be frightened. You did not believe in my generosity. I will show you that I can be generous.'" Harcourt Tallboys delivered himself of these superb periods with a studied manner, that show that they had been carefully composed long ago. Robert Oddly sighed as he heard them. "'Heaven grant that you may have an opportunity of saying this to your son, sir,' he answered sadly. "'I am very glad to find that you are willing to forgive him, but I fear that you will never see him again upon this earth. I have a great deal to say to you upon this—this sad subject, Mr. Tallboys. But I would rather say it to you alone,' he added, glancing at the lady in the window. "'My daughter knows my ideas upon this subject, Mr. Oddly,' said Harcourt Tallboys. "'There is no reason why she should not hear all you have to say. Miss Clara Tallboys, Mr. Robert Oddly,' he added, waving his hand majestically. The young lady bent her head in recognition of Robert's bow. "'Let her hear it,' he thought. If she has so little feeling as to show no emotion upon such a subject, let her hear the worst I have to tell.' There was a few minutes pause, during which Robert took some papers from his pocket, among them the document which he had written immediately after George's disappearance. "'I shall require all your attention, Mr. Tallboys,' he said, for that which I have to disclose to you is of a very painful nature. For a son was my very dear friend, dear to me for many reasons. Perhaps most of all dear, because I had known him, and been with him through the great trouble of his life, and because he stood comparatively alone in the world, cast off by you who should have been his best friend, bereft of the only woman he had ever loved.' "'The daughter of a drunken pauper,' Mr. Tallboys remarked parenthetically. "'Had he died in his bed, as I sometimes thought he would,' continued Robert Oddly, of a broken heart, I should have mourned for him very sincerely, even though I had closed his eyes with my own hands, and had seen him laid in his quiet resting place. I should have grieved for my old school-fellow, and for the companion who had been dear to me. But this grief would have been a very small one compared to that which I feel now, believing, as I do only too firmly, that my poor friend has been murdered.' "'Murdered?' the father and daughter simultaneously repeated the horrible word. The father's face changed to a ghastly duskiness of hue. The daughter's face dropped upon her clasped hands, and was never lifted again throughout the interview. "'Mr. Oddly, you are mad,' exclaimed Harcourt Tallboys. "'You are mad, or else you are commissioned by your friend to play upon my feelings. I protest against this proceeding as a conspiracy, and I—I revoke my intended forgiveness of the person who was once my son.' He was himself again, as he said this. The blow had been a sharp one, but its effect had been momentary. "'It is far from my wish to alarm you unnecessarily, sir,' answered Robert. "'Haven't grant that you may be right, and I wrong. I pray for it, but I cannot think it. I cannot even hope it. I come to you for advice. I will state to you plainly and dispassionately the circumstances which have aroused my suspicions. If you say those suspicions are foolish and unfounded, I am ready to submit to your better judgment. I will leave England, and I abandoned my search for the evidence wanting to—to confirm my fears. If you say go on, I will go on.' Nothing could be more gratifying to the vanity of Mr. Harcourt Tallboys than this appeal. Robert shared himself ready to listen to all that Robert might have to say, and ready to assist him to the uttermost of his power. He laid some stress upon this last assurance, deprecating the value of his advice with an affectation that was as transparent as his vanity itself. Robert oddly drew his chair nearer to that of Mr. Tallboys, and commenced a minutely detailed account of all that had occurred to George from the time of his arrival in England to the hour of his disappearance, as well as all that had occurred since his disappearance in any way touching upon that particular subject. Harcourt Tallboys listened, with demonstrative attention, now and then interrupting the speaker to ask some magisterial kind of question. Clara Tallboys never once lifted her face from her clasped hands. The hands of the clock pointed to a quarter past eleven when Robert began his story. The clock struck twelve as he finished. He had carefully suppressed the names of his uncle and his uncle's wife in relating the circumstances in which they had been concerned. "'Now, sir,' he said, when the story had been told, "'I await your decision. You have heard my reasons for coming to this terrible conclusion. In what matter do these reasons influence you?' "'They don't in any way turn me from my previous opinion,' answered Mr. Harcourt Tallboys, with the un-reasoning pride of an obstinate man. "'I still think, as I thought before, that my son is alive, and that his disappearance is a conspiracy against myself. I declined to become the victim of that conspiracy.' "'And you tell me to stop?' asked Robert solemnly. "'I tell you only this. If you go on, you go on for your own satisfaction, not for mine. I see nothing in what you have told me to alarm me for the safety of—your friend.' "'So be it then,' exclaimed Robert suddenly. "'From this moment I wash my hands of this business. From this moment the purpose of my life shall be to forget it.' He rose as he spoke, and took his hat from the table on which he had placed it. He looked at Clare Tallboys. Her attitude had never changed than she had dropped her face upon her hands. "'Good morning, Mr. Tallboys,' he said gravely, "'God grant that you are right. God grant that I am wrong. But I fear a day will come when you will have reason to regret your apathy respecting the untimely fate of your only son.' He bowed gravely to Mr. Harcourt Tallboys and to the lady whose face was hidden by her hands. He lingered for a moment looking at Miss Tallboys, thinking that she would look up, that she would make some sign or show some desire to detain him. Mr. Tallboys rang for the emotionless servant, who led Robert off to the hall door with a solemnity of manner which would have been in perfect keeping had he been leading him to execution. "'She is like her father,' thought Mr. Oddly, as he glanced for the last time at the drooping head. "'Poor George, you had need of one friend in this world, for you have had very few to love you.' End of CHAPTER XXII Robert Oddly found the driver asleep upon the box of his lumbering vehicle. He had been entertained with beer of so hard a nature as to induce temporary strangulation in the daring and biber thereof, and he was very glad to welcome the return of his fare. The old white horse, who looked as if he had been fooled in the year in which the carriage had been built, and seemed like the carriage to have outlived the fashion, was as fast asleep as his master, and woke up with a jerk as Robert came down the stony flight of steps, attended by his executioner, who waited respectfully till Mr. Oddly had entered the vehicle and been turned off. The horse, roused by a smack of his driver's whip and a shake of the shabby reins, crawled off in a semi-sum-nambulant state, and Robert, with his hat very much over his eyes, thought of his missing friend. He had played in these stiff gardens, and under these dreary furs, years ago, perhaps, if it were possible for the most frolicsome youth to be playful within the range of Mr. Harcourt Tall Boy's hard gray eyes. He had played beneath these dark trees, perhaps, with the sister who had heard of his fate to-day without a tear. Robert Oddly looked at the rigid primness of the orderly grounds, wondering how George could have grown up in such a place to be the frank, generous, careless friend whom he had known. How was it that with his father perpetually before his eyes, he had not grown up after the father's disagreeable model, to be a nuisance to his fellow men? How was it? Because we have someone higher than our parents to thank for the souls which make us great or small, and because while family noses and family chins may descend in orderly sequence from father to son, from grand-sire to grandchild, as the fashion of the fading flowers of one year is reproduced in the budding blossoms of the next, the spirit, more subtle than the wind which blows among these flowers, independent of all earthly rule, owns no order but the harmonious law of God. Thank God! thought Robert Oddly. Thank God! it is over. My poor friend must rest in his unknown grave, and I shall not be the means of bringing disgrace upon those I love. It will come, perhaps, sooner or later, but it will not come through me. The crisis is past, and I am free. He felt an unutterable relief in this thought. His generous nature revolted at the office into which he had found himself drawn, the office of spy, the collector of damning facts that led on to horrible deductions. He drew a long breath, a sigh of relief at his release. It was all over now. The fly was crawling out of the gate of the plantation as he thought this, and he stood up in the vehicle to look back at the dreary fir trees, the gravel paths, the smooth grass, and the great desolate-looking red-brick mansion. He was startled by the appearance of a woman running, almost flying, along the carriage-drive by which he had come, and waving a handkerchief in her uplifted hand. He stared at this singular apparition for some moments in silent wonder before he was able to reduce his stupefaction into words. Is it me, the flying female, once? he exclaimed at last. Uh, you'd better stop, perhaps, he added to the flyman. It is an age of eccentricity, an abnormal era of the world's history. She may want me. Very likely I left my pocket handkerchief behind me, and Mr. Tall Boys has sent this person with it. Perhaps I'd better get out and go and meet her. It's civil to send my handkerchief. Mr. Robert Audley deliberately descended from the fly, and walked slowly toward the hurrying female figure which gained upon him rapidly. He was rather short-sighted, and it was not until she came very near to him that he saw who she was. Good Heaven! he exclaimed, it's Miss Tall Boys. It was Miss Tall Boys, flushed and breathless with a woollen shawl thrown over her head. Robert Audley now saw her face clearly for the first time, and he saw that she was very handsome. She had brown eyes like George's, a pale complexion. She had been flushed when she approached him, but the colour faded away as she recovered her breath. Regular features, with a mobility of expression which bore record of every change of feeling. He saw all this in a few moments, and he wondered only the more at the stoicism of her manner during his interview with Mr. Tall Boys. There were no tears in her eyes, but they were bright with a feverish luster, terribly bright and dry, and he could see that her lips trembled as she spoke to him. Miss Tall Boys! he said, what can I—why— She interrupted him suddenly, catching at his wrist with her disengaged hand. She was holding her shawl in the other. Oh, let me speak to you! She cried. Let me speak to you, or I shall go mad! I heard it all. I believe what you believe, and I shall go mad unless I can do something, something toward avenging his death. For a few moments Robert Oddley was too much bewildered to answer her. Of all things possible upon earth he at least expected to behold her thus. Take my arm, Miss Tall Boys! he said. Pray, calm yourself. Let us walk a little way back toward the house, and talk quietly. I would not have spoken as I did before you, had I known. Had you known that I loved my brother? She said quickly. How should you know that I loved him? How should anyone think that I loved him? When I have never had power to give him a welcome beneath that roof, or a kindly word from his father? How should I dare to betray my love for him in that house when I knew that even a sister's affection would be turned to his disadvantage? You do not know my father, Mr. Oddley. I do. I knew that to intercede for George would have been to ruin his cause. I knew that to leave matters in my father's hands, and to trust a time was my only chance of ever seeing that dear brother again. But I waited, waited patiently, always hoping for the best, for I knew that my father loved his only son. I see your contemptuous smile, Mr. Oddley, and I dare say it is difficult for a stranger to believe that underneath his affected stoicism my father conceals some degree of affection for his children. No very warm attachment, perhaps, for he has always ruled his life by the strict law of duty. Stop! she said suddenly, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking back through the straight avenue of pines. I ran out of the house by the back way. Papa must not see me talking to you, Mr. Oddley, and he must not see the fly standing at the gate. Will you go into the high-road and tell the man to drive on a little way? I will come out of the plantation by a little gate further on, and meet you in the road. But she will catch cold, Miss Tall-boys, remonstrated Robert, looking at her anxiously, for he saw that she was trembling. You are shivering now! Not with cold, she answered. I am thinking of my brother George. If you have any pity for the only sister of your lost friend, do what I ask you, Mr. Oddley. I must speak to you. I must speak to you. Calmly, if I can." She put her hand to her head as if trying to collect her thoughts, and then pointed to the gate. Robert bowed and left her. He told the man to drive slowly toward the station, and walked on by the side of the tarred fence surrounding Mr. Tall-boys' grounds. About a hundred yards beyond the principal entrance, he came to a little wooden gate in the fence, and waited at it for Miss Tall-boys. She joined him presently, with her shawl still over her head, and her eyes still bright and tearless. Will you walk with me inside the plantation? she said. We might be observed on the high-road. He bowed, passed through the gate, and shut it behind him. When she took his offered arm, he found that she was still trembling, trembling very violently. Pray, pray calm yourself, Miss Tall-boys,' he said. I may have been deceived in the opinion which I have formed. I may—' No! No! No!' she exclaimed. You are not deceived. My brother has been murdered. Tell me the name of that woman, the woman whom you suspect of being concerned in his disappearance, in his murder. That I cannot do until—until when?—until I know that she is guilty. You told my father that you would abandon all idea of discovering the truth, that she would rest satisfied to leave my brother's fate a horrible mystery never to be solved upon this earth, but you will not do so, Mr. Aldley. You will not be false to the memory of your friend. You will see vengeance done upon those who have destroyed him. You will do this, will you not? A gloomy shadow spread itself like a dark veil over Robert Aldley's handsome face. He remembered what he had said the day before at Southampton. The hand that is stronger than my own is beckoning me onward, upon the dark road. A quarter of an hour before he had believed that all was over, and that he was released from the dreadful duty of discovering the secret of George's death. Now this girl, this apparently passionless girl, had found a voice, and was urging him on toward his fate. "'If you knew what misery to me may be involved in discovering the truth, Miss Tall Boyz,' he said, you would scarcely ask me to pursue this business any further. "'But I do ask you,' she answered, with suppressed passion, "'I do ask you. I ask you to avenge my brother's untimely death. Will you do so? Yes or no?' What if I answer no?' "'Then I will do it myself,' she exclaimed, looking at him with her bright brown eyes. "'I myself will follow up the clue to this mystery. I will find this woman, though you refuse to tell me in what part of England my brother disappeared. I will travel from one end of the world to the other to find the secret of his fate, if you refuse to find it for me. I am of age, my own mistress, rich for I have money left me by one of my aunts. I shall be able to employ those who will help me in my search, and I will make it to their interest to serve me well. Choose between the two alternatives, Mr. Audley. Shall you or I find my brother's murderer?' He looked in her face, and saw that her resolution was the fruit of no transient womanish enthusiasm which would give way under the iron hand of difficulty. Her beautiful features, naturally statuesque in their noble outlines, seemed transformed into marble by the rigidity of her expression. The face in which he looked was the face of a woman whom death only could turn from her purpose. "'I have grown up in an atmosphere of suppression,' she said quietly. "'I have stifled and dwarfed the natural feelings of my heart, until they have become unnatural in their intensity. I have been allowed neither friends nor lovers. My mother died when I was very young. My father has always been to me which you saw him to-day. I have had no one but my brother. All the love that my heart can hold has been centred upon him. Do you wonder, then, that when I hear that his young life has been ended by the hand of treachery, that I wish to see vengeance done upon the traitor?' Oh, my God!' she cried, suddenly clasping her hands and looking up at the cold winter sky. "'Lead me to the murder of my brother, and let mine be the hand to avenge his untimely death.' Robert Oddley stood looking at her with awestruck and admiration. Her beauty was elevated into sublimity by the intensity of her suppressed passion. She was different to all other women that he had ever seen. His cousin was pretty, his uncle's wife was lovely, but Clara Tallboy's was beautiful. Nayaby's face, sublimated by sorrow, could scarcely have been more purely classical than hers. Even her dress, puritan in its gray simplicity, became her beauty better than a more beautiful dress, would have become a less beautiful woman. "'Mist Tallboy's,' said Robert after a pause, "'your brother shall not be unevented. He shall not be forgotten. I do not think that any professional aid which you could procure would lead you as surely to the secret of this mystery as I can lead you, if you are patient, and trust me.' "'I will trust you,' she answered, "'for I see that you will help me. I believe that it is my destiny to do so,' he said solemnly. In the whole course of his conversation with Harcourt Tallboy's, Robert Oddly had carefully avoided making any deductions from the circumstances which he had submitted to George's father. He had simply told the story of the missing man's life, from the hour of his arriving in London to that of his disappearance, but he saw that Clara Tallboy's had arrived at the same conclusion as himself, and that it was tacitly understood between them. "'Have you any letters of your brother's, Miss Tallboy's?' he asked. "'Two. One written soon after his marriage. The other written at Liverpool, the night before he sailed for Australia. "'Will you let me see them?' "'Yes. I will send them to you if you will give me your address. You will write to me from time to time, will you not, to tell me whether you are approaching the truth. I shall be obliged to act secretly here, but I am going to leave home in two or three months, and I shall be perfectly free then to act as I please.' "'You are not going to leave England?' Robert asked. "'Oh, no! I am only going to pay a long-promised visit to some friends in Essex.' Robert started so violently, as Clara Tallboy said this, that she looked suddenly at his face. The agitation visible there betrayed a part of his secret. "'My brother George disappeared in Essex,' she said. He could not contradict her. "'I am sorry you have discovered so much,' he replied. "'My position becomes every day more complicated, every day more painful. Good-bye.' She gave him her hand mechanically when he held out his, but it was as cold as marble, and lay listlessly in his own, and fell like a log at her side when he released it. "'Pray lose no time in returning to the house,' he said earnestly. "'I fear you will suffer from this morning's work.' "'Suffer,' she exclaimed scornfully. "'You talk to me of suffering, when the only creature in this world who ever loved me has been taken from it in the bloom of youth. What can there be for me henceforth but suffering? What is the cold to me?' she said, flinging back her shawl and bearing her beautiful head to the bitter wind. I would walk from here to London barefoot through the snow, and never stop, by the way, if I could bring him back to life. What would I not do to bring him back? What would I not do?' The words broke from her in a wail of passionate sorrow, and, clasping her hands before her face, she wept for the first time that day. The violence of her sob shook her slender frame, and she was obliged to lean against the trunk of a tree for support. Robert looked at her with a tender compassion in his face. She was so like the friend whom he had loved and lost, that it was impossible for him to think of her as a stranger, impossible to remember that they had met that morning for the first time. Pray, pray, be calm, he said, hope even against hope. We may both be deceived. Your brother may still live. Oh, if it were so, she murmured passionately, if it could be so, let us try and hope that it may be so. No, she answered, looking at him through her tears. Let us hope for nothing but revenge. Good-bye, Mr. Oddly. Stop! Your dress. He gave her a card which he put into the pocket of her dress. I will send you George's letters, she said. They may help you. Good-bye. She left him half bewildered by the passionate energy of her manner and the noble beauty of her face. He watched her as she disappeared among the straight trunks of the fir trees, and then walked slowly out of the plantation. Heaven help those who stand between me and the secret, he thought, for they will be sacrificed to the memory of George Tallboys. End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of Lady Oddly's Secret This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Coming by Elizabeth Clett. Lady Oddly's Secret By Mary Elizabeth Braddon Chapter 24 George's Letters Robert Oddly did not return to Southampton, but took a ticket for the first up-town train that left Warram, and reached Waterloo Bridge an hour or two after dark. The snow, which had been hard and crisp in Dorseture, was a black and greasy slush on the Waterloo Road, thawed by the flaring lamps of the gin-palaces and the glaring gas in the butcher's shops. Robert Oddly shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the dingy streets through which the handsome carried him, the cab man choosing, with that delicious instinct which seems innate in the drivers of Hackney vehicles, all those dark and hideous thoroughfares utterly unknown to the ordinary pedestrian. What a pleasant thing life is, thought the Bearster. What an unspeakable boon! What an overpowering blessing! Would any man make a calculation of his existence, subtracting the hours in which he has been thoroughly happy, really and entirely at his ease? Without one ariere, Paul say, to mar his enjoyment, without the most infinitesimal cloud to overshadow the brightness of his horizon. Let him do this, and surely he will laugh in utter bitterness of soul when he sets down the sum of his felicity, and discovers the pitiful smallness of the amount. He will have enjoyed himself for a week or ten days in thirty years, perhaps. In thirty years of dull December, and blustering March, and showery April, and dark November weather, there may have been seven or eight glorious August days, through which the sun has blazed in cloudless radiance, and summer breezes have breathed perpetual balm. How fondly we recollect those solitary days of pleasure, and hope for their recurrence, and try to plan the circumstances that made them bright, and arrange and predestinate, and diplomatize with fate for a renewal of the remembered joy. As if any joy could ever be built up out of such and such constituent parts, as if happiness were not essentially accidental, a bright and wandering bird utterly irregular in its migrations. With us one summer's day, and for ever gone from us on the next. Look at marriage, for instance," mused Robert, who was as meditative in the jolting vehicle for whose occupation he was to pay six pence a mile, as if he had been riding a Mustang on the wild loneliness of the prairies. Look at marriage! Who is to say which shall be the one judicious selection out of nine hundred and ninety-nine mistakes, who shall decide from the first aspect of the slimy creature which is to be the one eagle out of the colossal bag of snakes? That girl on the curb-stone yonder, waiting to cross the street when my chariot shall have passed, may be the one woman out of every female creature in this vast universe who could make me a happy man. Yet I pass her by, bespatter her with the mud from my wheels, in my helpless ignorance, in my blind submission to the awful hand of fatality. If that girl, Clara Tallboys, had been five minutes later, I should have left Dorseture thinking her cold, hard, and unwombly, and should have gone to my grave with that mistake part and parcel of my mind. I took her for a stately and heartless automaton. I know her now to be a noble and beautiful woman. What an incalculable difference this may make in my life! When I left that house, I went out into the winter day with the determination of abandoning all further thought of the secret of George's death. I see her, and she forces me onward upon the loathsome path, the crooked byway of watchfulness and suspicion. How can I say to this sister of my dead friend, I believe that your brother has been murdered, I believe that I know by whom, but I will take no step to set my doubts at rest or to confirm my fears? I cannot say this. This woman knows half my secret. She will soon possess herself of the rest, and then, and then. The cab stopped in the midst of Robert Adley's meditation, and he had to pay the cab man, and submit to all the dreary mechanism of life, which is the same whether we are glad or sorry, whether we are to be married or hung, elevated to the woolsack, or disbarred by our brother-benchers on some mysterious technical tangle of wrongdoing, which is a social enigma to those outside the forum domesticum of the Middle Temple. We are apt to be angry with this cruel hardness in our life, this unflinching regularity in the smaller wheels and meaner mechanism of the human machine, which knows no stoppage or cessation, though the mainspring be forever hollow, and the hands pointing to purposeless figures on a shattered dial. Who has not felt, in the first madness of sorrow, an unreasoning rage against the mute propriety of chairs and tables, the stiff squareness of turkey carpets, the unbending obstinacy of the outward apparatus of existence? We want to root up gigantic trees in a primeval forest, and to tear their huge branches asunder in our convulsive grasp, and the utmost that we can do for the relief of our passion is to knock over an easy chair, or smash a few shillings worth of Mr. Copeland's manufacture. Mad houses are large and only too numerous, and yet surely it is strange they are not larger, when we think of how many helpless wretches must beat their brains against this hopeless persistency of the orderly outward world, as compared with the storm and tempest, the riot and confusion within. When we remember how many minds must tremble upon the narrow boundary between reason and unreason, mad to-day and sane to-morrow, mad yesterday and sane to-day. Robert Oddley had directed the cab-man to drop him at the corner of Chancey Lane, and he ascended the brilliantly lighted staircase leading to the dining saloon of the London, and seated himself at one of the snug tables with a confused sense of emptiness and weariness, rather than any agreeable sensation of healthy hunger. He had come to the luxurious eating-house to dine, because it was absolutely necessary to eat something somewhere, and a great deal easier to get a very good dinner from Mr. Sawyer than a very bad one from Mrs. Maloney, whose mind ran in one narrow channel of chops and steaks, only variable by small creaks and outlets in the way of broiled soul, or boiled mackerel. The solicitous waiter tried in vain to rouse poor Robert to a proper sense of the solemnity of the dinner-question. He muttered something to the effect that the man might bring him anything he liked, and the friendly raider, who knew Robert as a frequent guest at the little tables, went back to his master with a doleful face to say that Mr. Oddley, from Fig Tree Court, was evidently out of spirits. Robert ate his dinner and drank a pint of moselle, but he had poor appreciation of the excellence of the Viennes, or the delicate fragrance of the wine. The mental monologue still went on, and the young philosopher of the modern school was arguing the favorite modern question of the nothingness of everything, and the folly of taking too much trouble to walk upon a road that went nowhere, or to compass a work that meant nothing. I accept the dominion of that pale girl with the statuesque features and the calm brown eyes, he thought. I recognize the power of a mind superior to my own, and I yield to it, and bow down to it. I've been acting for myself and thinking for myself for the last few months, and I'm tired of the unnatural business. I've been false to the leading principle of my life, and I've suffered for the folly. I found two gray hairs in my head the week before last, and an important crow has planted a delicate impression of his foot under my right eye. Yes, I'm getting old upon the right side. And why? Why should it be so? He pushed away his plate and lifted his eyebrows, staring at the crumbs upon the glistening damask as he pondered the question. What the devil am I doing in this galère? He asked. But I am in it, and I can't get out of it, so I better submit myself to the brown-eyed girl, and do what she tells me patiently and faithfully. What a wonderful solution to life's enigma there is in Petticoat government. Man might lie in the sunshine and eat lotuses, and fancy it always afternoon if his wife would let him. But she won't bless her impulsive heart and active mind. She knows better than that. Who ever heard of a woman taking life is it off to be taken? Instead of supporting it as an unavoidable nuisance, only redeemable by its brevity, she goes through it as if it were a pageant or a procession. She dresses for it, and simpers, and grins, and justiculates for it. She pushes her neighbors and struggles for a good place in the dismal march. She elbows and writhes, and tramples and prances to the one end, making the most of the misery. She gets up early and sits up late, and is loud and restless and noising and unpitying. She drags her husband on to the woolsack, or pushes him into Parliament. She drives him full butt at the dear, lazy machinery of government, and knocks and buffets him about the wheels and cranks and screws and pulleys, until somebody, for quiet sake, makes him something that she wanted him to be made. That's why incompetent men sometimes sit in high places, and interpose their poor, muddled intellects between the things to be done and the people that can do them, making universal confusion and the helpless innocence of well-placed incapacity. The square men in the round holes are pushed into them by their wives. The Eastern potentate, who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief, should have gone a little further and seen wide as so. It is because women are never lazy. They don't know what it is to be quiet. They are Samira-meads and Cleopatra's and Jones of Arc, Queen Elizabeth's and Catherine's the second, and they riot and battle and murder and clamour and desperation. If they can't agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic mole-hills, and social storms and household tea-cups, forbid them to hold forth upon the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind, and they'll quarrel with Mrs. Jones about the shape of a mantle or the character of a small maid-servant. To call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the noisier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. They want freedom of opinion, variety of occupation, do they? Let them have it. Let them be lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators, anything they like. But let them be quiet, if they can. Mr. Oddly pushed his hands through the thick luxuriance of his straight brown hair, and uplifted the dark mass in his despair. I hate women. He thought savagely. Their bold, brazen, abominable creatures, invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors. Look at this business of poor Georges. It's all women's work from one end to the other. He marries a woman, and his father casts him off penniless and professionalist. He hears of the woman's death, and he breaks his heart, his good, honest, manly heart, with a million of the treacherous lumps of self-interest and mercenary calculation which beat in women's breasts. He goes to a woman's house, and he's never seen alive again. And now I find myself driven into a corner by another woman, of whose existence I had never thought until this day. And—and then—mused Mr. Oddly rather irrelevantly—there's Alicia, too—she's another nuisance. She'd like me to marry her, I know, and she'll make me do what I dare say before she's done with me. But I'd much rather not. Though she is a dear, bouncing, generous thing, bless her poor little heart. Robert paid his bill and rewarded the waiter liberally. The young barrister was very willing to distribute his comfortable little income among the people who served him, for he carried his indifference to all things in the universe, even to the matter of pounds, shillings, and pence. Perhaps he was rather exceptional in this, as he may frequently find that the philosopher who calls life an empty delusion is pretty sharp in the investment of his moneys, and recognizes the tangible nature of India bonds, Spanish certificates, and Egyptian script, as contrasted with the painful uncertainty of an ego or non-ego in metaphysics. The snug rooms in Fig Tree Court seemed dreary and their orderly quiet to Robert Oddly upon this particular evening. He had no inclination for his French novels, though there was a packet of uncut romances, comic and sentimental, ordered a month before waiting his pleasure upon one of the tables. He took his favorite Miersham, and dropped into his favorite chair with a sigh. It's comfortable, but it seems so deuce-lonely tonight. If poor George were sitting opposite to me, or even George's sister, she's very like him. Existence might be a little more durable. But when a fellow's lived by himself for eight or ten years, he begins to be bad company. He burst out laughing presently as he finished his first pipe. The idea of my thinking of George's sister! He thought, what a preposterous idiot I am! The next day's post brought him a letter in a firm but feminine hand which was strange to him. He found the little packet lying on his breakfast-table, beside the warm French roll wrapped in a napkin by Mrs. Maloney's careful but rather dirty hands. He contemplated the envelope for some minutes before opening it, not in any wonder as to his correspondent, for the letter bore the postmark of Grange Heath, and he knew that there was only one person who was likely to write to him from that obscure village, but in that lazy dreaminess which was a part of his character. From Clara Tallboys—he murmured slowly, as he looked critically at the clearly shaped letters of his name and address—yes, from Clara Tallboys, most decidedly, I recognized a feminine resemblance to poor George's hand, neater than his, and more decided than his, but very like—very like. He turned the letter over and examined the seal which bore his friend's familiar crest. I wonder what she says to me? He thought. It's a long letter, I daresay. She's the kind of woman who would write a long letter. A letter that will urge me on, drive me forward, wrench me out of myself, I've no doubt. But that can't be helped. So here goes. He tore open the envelope with a sigh of resignation. It contained nothing but George's two letters, and a few words written on the flap. I send the letters. Please preserve and return them. C.T. The letter, written from Liverpool, told nothing of the writer's life except his sudden determination of starting for a new world, to redeem the fortunes that had been ruined in the old. The letter, written almost immediately after George's marriage, contained a full description of his wife, such a description as a man could only write within three weeks of a love-match. A description in which every feature was minutely catalogued, every grace of form or beauty of expression fondly dwelt upon, every charm of manner lovingly depicted. Robert Audley read the letter three times before he laid it down. If George could have known for what a purpose this description would serve when he wrote it, thought the young barrister, surely his hand would have fallen paralyzed by horror and powerless to shape one syllable of these tender words. End of Chapter 24