 CHAPTERS XXI and XXII of One Life, One Love by Mary Elizabeth Bratton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. XXI. Enough, that I can live. As Clara Arden anticipated, dinner was late that evening at River Lawn. It was nearly half past eight when Mr. and Mrs. Arden and Daisy met in the drawing-room. The cook was angry and the butler had been waiting for nearly half an hour to announce dinner. You are looking so pale and so tired, Ambrose, Mrs. Arden said, as they seated themselves in the light of the large central lamp, supplemented with clusters of wax candles, a light in which she could see the color and expression of his face better than in the chastened lamp-light of the drawing-room. I don't think that I am any more tired than usual, he answered. You know what your fashionable physician said of me. You must not expect me to look particularly robust. He said that you were not to do much brainwork, Ambrose, and you have been doing nothing else since he saw you. Old habits are not so easily put off as doctors pretend to think. They tell the drunkard he must leave off brandy and they tell the scholar he must live without books, with just the same admirable complacency as if they were asking very little. I'm afraid we ought to leave Berkshire, pursued his wife, looking at him anxiously. I am sure that you will be better away from your books. I shall be ready to leave my books when my own book is finished. I am nearing the end. When that is done I will go where you like. It is not where I like, but where you like," she said sadly. I am happier here than anywhere else. Then let us stay here till the end of our lives. You know what Horace says, Daisy. A man may change his surroundings, but not his mind. No, no, I am not selfish enough to keep you here, said Mrs. Arden. When I see you dispirited and out of health, we will go back to London. We will go to Italy, anywhere. There was a silence after this, Daisy being more thoughtful than usual, and not offering any diversion by the girlish prattle with which she usually brightened the meal, whether her heart was light or heavy. No word had yet been spoken about Searle's absence. The butler had quietly removed the cover-lade for him and the chair in which he was to have sat, but nobody mentioned his name till nearly the end of the meal when Clara said rather nervously, Searle is dining out, I suppose? He has gone to London, Ambrose Arden answered quietly. He is not coming back to-night. Clara looked at him wonderingly as he answered. Had Searle told his father that his engagement was at an end, she could hardly believe that her husband would have taken the blow so calmly. It was left for her, she thought, to tell him of his disappointment. Daisy slipped away to her own den as soon as she was free to leave the dining-room and Mrs. Arden entered the drawing-room alone and sat there waiting anxiously for her husband to rejoin her. It was very seldom that he lingered in the dining-room after his wife left him, but this evening he was sitting in an abstracted mood at his end of the table, and it did not stir when mother and daughter Rose and went away. It was perhaps the first time that he had ever allowed his wife to open that door for herself when he was in the room. Absent-minded and dreamy by temperament, he had yet rarely failed in courtesy to the woman who was to him this world's one woman. He sat with his head bent over the empty dessert-plate and the untouched glass of claret which the butler had filled. He sat brooding in the lamp-light for nearly half an hour, and then with a deep-drawn sigh he rose slowly and went to the drawing-room where his wife was sitting by an open window looking out at the moonlit water, very sad at heart. He went over to her and seated himself by her side. I thought you did not know. I feared you would not be able to take the blow so quietly, knowing how pleased you were at their engagement. I was pleased because it was a link that drew me nearer to you. It was of our union, I thought, not theirs. Nothing can touch me, Clara, while I have you. Did he tell you why he and Daisy had made up their minds to part? Yes, he did. I thought you would not be able to take the blow so quietly, knowing how pleased you were at their engagement. Yes, he told me his reasons... And hers, you will blame my daughter for fickleness, I fear, Ambrose. Blame her, blame Daisy, your daughter and my pupil. Why, she was the bond between us years ago when I was but the stranger within your gates. My love for your daughter is second only to my love for you. His wife took up his hand and kissed it in a rapture of grateful affection. How good you are to us, Ambrose! bros," she said softly. Hush words never fall from your lips. If I could only see you happy my heart would be full of content. I am happy, Clara, happy in having won my heart's desire. What can a man have in this world more than that, the one desire of his life, the boon for which he has waited in long through years of patient silent hope? If there is happiness on earth I have attained it. I believe your metaphysicians teach you that there is no such thing as happiness. Oh, they only preach the gospel of doubt. The whole science of metaphysics consists in the questioning spirit which analyzes everything without arriving at any definite conclusion about anything. Poor Cyril, sighed Clara after a pause of contemplative silence which seemed in harmony with the stillness of the summer night and the beauty of the moonlit landscape, garden and river, meadow and woodland and dark church tower. Poor Cyril, she repeated. It seems so sad for him to leave us, to go out into the world as a wanderer, and yet it would be impossible for our old life to go on now that he has broken with Daisy. No, the old life would not be possible. It belongs to the past already. Did he tell Daisy where he was going? To Australia, he said. He consulted with you as to his destination, no doubt. No, he told me he should go away, but he did not enter upon his plans. Poor fellow, he was very unhappy, I fear. He did not confide his sorrows to me. He had made up his mind, and it was not for me to try to change his resolution. His whole manner altered as he spoke of his son. There was a hardness in his tone that surprised and grieved his wife, who a minute before had done him homage as the most admirable of men. His manner in speaking of her daughter had expressed the utmost tenderness. The tone in which he spoke of his own son was stern almost to vindictiveness. Clara feared there had been a quarrel between father and son, and that Ambrose Arden had resented the cancelment of Daisy's engagement with a non-just wrath. You must not be angry with Cyril, she said softly. I fear that it is Daisy's fickleness that is the beginning and end of our disappointment. She owned as much to me, poor child. She gave her promise too lightly and repented almost as soon as it was given, although she had not the courage to confess her mistake. Well, we will say it is Daisy's fault, or that both are fickle. There are no hearts broken, I believe. Cyril goes out into the world, a stranger to us henceforward. Not a stranger, Ambrose. Your son will always be dear to us both. He will be in Australia, where our love or our indifference cannot touch him. There was a bitterness in his tone which warned Clara to pursue the subject no further. She could not doubt after this that there had been a breach between father and son, that these two had been so fond of each other and so proud of each other hitherto had partedale friends. And it was all Daisy's doing, poor little feather-headed Daisy, who should have been a bond of union but had become the occasion of severance. Clara Arden felt weighed down by inexpressible sadness as she sat looking out into the moonlit garden, that garden which she and her first lover had found a wilderness in which he had made into a paradise for her sake. It was her girlish admiration of that old garden by the river which had made Robert Hatrell eager to possess the place. He had laid it at her feet as if it were a bunch of roses never counting the cost of anything which pleased her. Had it been ten times as costly a place he would have bought it for her. His image was with her tonight more vividly than it had been for a long time. It was as if he himself were at hand in all the warmth and vigor of life and that she had but to stretch out her arms to beckon him to her. And oh, with what a heart-sickness of longing and regret she turned to wars that idolized image. Face to face with the inexplicable gloom of Ambrose Arden's temper she recalled her first husband's happy nature, his joyous outlook and keen delight in life. With him her days had seemed one perpetual holiday. If she ever complained it had been because that energetic temperament took life and its enjoyment set a faster pace than suited her own reposeful temper. But how bright, how gay those days had been, how frank and open her companion's face, how expansive his speech and manner. He had never hidden a care from her. For his thoughts light or heavy she shared them and knew every desire of her heart. But in this man, this cherished friend of many years, she had discovered mysteries. He had griefs which he would not share with her. He was angry with his only son. They had parted within a few hours perhaps for all this life and he would tell her nothing of the cause of their parting. He invited no sympathy. He sat by her side in melancholy silence and she felt the burden of unhappiness which she was not allowed to share. If he would only talk of his trouble, if he would only let me comfort him, I should be twice as good a wife, she thought despondently. It is not my fault if our lives are growing farther apart. After this night an emotionless monotony marked Clare Arden's days in the house where her early married life had been so full of happiness and where her one great sorrow, the sorrow of a lifetime, had come upon her. The idea of going on the continent for the autumn was not carried out. The scholar's book absorbed him wholly in the waning of the year and he preferred the quiet of River Lawn to the glory of the Italian lakes or the art treasures of Florence. He spent a good many hours of every day in his old cottage study while his wife and her daughter lived very much as they had lived in Mrs. Hatrell's widowhood. Your second marriage and my engagement to Cyril seem almost to dream mother when you and I are sitting here alone together and Uncle Ambrose is pouring over his books on the other side of the road, said Daisy as she sat at her mother's feet in the morning room, pretending to read like he's England in the eighteenth century but looking up every now and then to talk. I call him quite a perfect husband in his way, never interfering with our plans, never grumbling at his dinner, always courteous and kind and ready to do what we like. Yes, he is all goodness to us, answered her mother, and one would have nothing left to wish for if he were only happy. I daresay he is happy in his way, mother, his calm philosophical way which used to soothe and tame me in my rebellious fits when I was a child. He was always the same, don't you know? Tranquil and rather mysterious, like deep still water, like Lake Lehman whose depth one would never suspect if one did not see the mountains upside down in the water, suggesting by their delusive shadows the real depth below. Die upon it, Uncle Lambrose has all he cares for in this world, having you and his books and you give yourself groundless trouble when you are anxious about him. Her mother sighed but did not answer. She had watched her husband's face with a new anxiety ever since Cyril's departure and she had seen the lines deepen and the melancholy droop of the firm lips grow more marked. No one at River Law knew anything about Cyril's whereabouts unless it was his father. He had left Lamford within a few hours of his interview with Daisy, taking with him only a single portmanteau as Beatrice Reardon informed her friend, this young lady having a knack of meeting every fly that ever entered or departed from the village. It's no use telling me you haven't quarreled, protested Beatrice when Daisy denied any ill feeling between Cyril and herself. I saw the poor fellow's white face as he drove by, acknowledging my bow in the most distracted manner and I never saw such a change in any man. A few hours before he had been the gayest of us all on the tennis lawn and now he looked positively like his own ghost. You must have had a dreadful row, Daisy. We had no row as you call it. We only agreed that it was better for us to part. Poor Cyril! I had no idea he was so desperately in love with you. He used to take things so very easily, remarked Beatrice, with all the freedom of friendship. Of course I always suspected you of not carrying a straw for him. You were not the least like an engaged girl. You didn't spoon him a little bit. Daisy shuddered. She was one of the few girls who are revolted by such forms of speech as prevail in some girlish circles. Miss Reardon affected a fast and slangy manner as a kind of perpetual protest against the dullness and monotony of her life in a Berkshire village. She wanted everybody to understand that there was nothing rustic or pastoral about her mind or her manners. This was all that Daisy or her mother heard about Cyril's departure. He had gone to his chambers most likely where he could prepare at his leisure for that long voyage of which he had talked. The greater part of his possessions, his books and guns and sporting tackle of all kinds were in the Albany. He had his own man to pack for him and accompany him to a new world if he was so minded. 22. How peacefully the days have zipped by since poor Cyril went away. I find myself thinking of him and writing of him as poor Cyril, which is really an impertinence, and I dare say by this time he is perfectly happy and has fallen in love with some magnificent Australian girl, a higher order of being, like the ghee in the coming race, a powerfully built creature who can ride buck jumpers and camp out in the bush without fear of consequences. I fear I have very narrow and insular ideas about Australia which I can only picture to myself as one vast jungle tempered with convict settlements. Cyril is happy no doubt by this time, sad as he looked on that day of sudden parting, so I may allow myself to feel happy with an easy conscience. I should be perfectly happy if it were not for the change in Uncle Ambrose who has evidently some secret grief, some corroding care which he will not lighten by sharing it with his wife. I can but fear that mother was right in her foreboding, and that he has taken the cancelment of Cyril's engagement sorely to heart. It is his love for mother which is wounded. He wanted a perfect union, that we should be one household, bound by every tie that can make a family circle indivisible. It must be very hard for him too to know that his son, his only child, has been self-banished from his home and his native country. If my fickleness alone had been to blame, if Cyril had found out my foolish secret and that the man who was nothing to me was a great deal nearer my heart than my plighted husband, if he had broken with me on this account my conscience would hardly have been as easy as it is. But I have at least the comfort of knowing that Cyril had some weighty reason upon his own side for parting from me, and that I am not actually to blame for the existing state of things. It was he who took the initiative. It was he who said, all is over between us. I have left off puzzling myself with idle speculations about his motive. Whatever his reason may have been I feel assured that it was very serious and entirely convincing to his own mind that he obeyed what to him was a stern necessity. I can but be grateful to Providence that has released me from a bond that could not have brought real happiness to either Cyril or me, and looking back now at the past I feel how cowardly I was in not telling him the truth about my own feelings. He was no coward. When the hour came in which he felt he ought to break with me there was no hesitation or wavering on his side, and yet I believe he loved me better in that parting hour than he had ever loved me in his life before. Poor Cyril, old friend and playfellow. I hope his Australian wife will be kind and true, and that his life in that far world may be full of all good things. Gold in monster nuggets, sheep in mighty flocks, horses that are not buck-jumpers, woods of eucalyptus, groves of mimosa, birds of vivid plumage, and the most perfect thing in bungalows. I am really very sad about Uncle Ambrose. I think he fights against the gloom that gathers around him as a strong man stricken in the prime of life by some insidious malady might fight against disease, and yet the gloom deepens. With him low spirits seem actually a disease, and I tremble and turn cold sometimes at the thought that his depression may forebode some mental malady which may darken all our days. My mother seldom, if ever, sees him as I see him when she is not present. When she is with him I know that he makes a stupendous effort to appear cheerful to seem interested in the things she loves, but when she leaves him the mask drops and I see him as he really is, a man weighed down by deep-rooted melancholy. I have talked to him of the books I used to read with him, the low-spirited school of metaphysicians and of Hina who saw all things with the saddened eyes of a man whose life was like popes, a long disease. We have talked of theology, and I have discovered the hopelessness of his creed, that for him there is nothing beyond this life of ours, this poor, brief life in which there are so many chances of being miserable against a single chance of being happy. No, for him there is no beyond. For him the dead are verily dead. I told him yesterday that I believe not only in a world where we shall meet our loved and lost and know them again, and live with them in a better and loftier state of being, but that I also believe in the influence of our beloved dead upon our thoughts and actions even while we are on this side of the veil that parts flesh and spirit. That influence is only memory, he said, it has no other source than your own mind, moved by your own loving heart. I told him that it was something more than memory, something independent of my own mind or my own heart, an influence that flashed upon me when I least expected it, sudden, mysterious, full of suggestions of another world. I told him that there were moments in which I could feel that my father was with me, that he was loving and pitying me in my weakness as a woman, just as he used to pity me when I was a foolish child. A delusion, Daisy, he said. A delusion like the rest of our dreams. Science has made an end of all such deceptions. The belief in a spirit world was only possible while mankind remained densely ignorant of the world of sense. I know now why you grow sadder as life goes on, I said. It must be so hard to feel that you are treading a path that only leads to a dead wall, that there is no door in the great cruel wall, no beyond. Thank God to meet is harder to believe in extinction than in a world to come, a chain of worlds, if you will, a gradual ascent from this life with all its sin and misery to the highest form of life conceivable. The most elaborate of those systems which you call superstitions seems simpler and easier from my understanding than the barren greed of the materialist. That is because you are young, Daisy, and full of enthusiasm, and because you know very little of the world in which you are one happy atom, a joyous moat dancing in the sunshine. You think life is the gift of a beneficent creator who holds in reserve future lives fairer than his for those who believe in him and obey him? That pretty creed comes naturally enough to you who know life only at River Lawn and in Grovner Square. But go and look at life in White Chapel, put yourself into the skin of the women you will see there, and then ask yourself about the beneficent creator, the eternal wisdom who has made man in his own image. Your rosewater theories would hardly be strong enough to understand that atmosphere. Bradlowe's vitirial better suits the district. I told him that it was an old, old argument that because there was so much misery in the world he that made it could not be a just God, or rather that there could be no directing mind above the universe, only on reasoning matter working out its own destiny according to material and immutable laws, that the God who could be moved to pity was the God of children and visionaries only. You talk to me as if there had been no misery in my life, I said. Do you forget what it was to me in my happy childhood to see the father I loved go out of this house one morning and never to see him again? Do you forget what it was to me a year ago to discover the horror of his death? If I could rebel against the power to which I have prayed ever since I knew what prayer meant I should have rebelled then. I could not go on for the sobs that choked me at the thought of my father's cruel death. Bill Ambrose melted in a moment and took me in his arms just as he would have done years ago in one of my childish troubles and pressed his lips upon my forehead with a kiss that seemed like a blessing. Believe, my dearest, he said, keep always that unquestionable faith which is the gift of the pure in spirit. It is a second sight, Daisy. It is a sixth sense. It is given to the chosen few, God's very elect. To them it is given to conceive and understand the unseen. They are the children of light. Be always of that happy race, Daisy. My reason has nothing to offer in exchange for your clairvoyance. Remember always that if I could not help you to believe, if I could not enter with you in the holy of holies, I never taught you to doubt. No, no. I have only known lately that you yourself were without the hope that has sustained mother and me in our dark hours. He told me that I must not talk of dark hours, but for me life was to be all sunshine. And then, for the first time, he spoke of his disappointment about Cyril and me, touching on the subject very lightly and indeed not mentioning his son's name. A little hint of your mother's has helped me to guess your secret, Daisy, he said, and I love you too well to blame your inconstancy. Your mother and I both think that Mr. Floristan had something to do with the change in your sentiments. Something to do with my finding out the truth about my own heart, I said, and the nature of my mistake. I did not love Cyril less after I had seen Mr. Floristan and found out somehow that he cared for me. But I knew all at once that my love for Cyril had never been the kind of love that would make me his happy wife. I found out that he could never be more to me than a dear and valued friend, never so much to me as you have been. He could never be the first, and one's husband ought to be the first in one's heart and mind ought he not, Uncle Ambrose, as mother's husband was. I felt so sorry for my thoughtless words when I saw him wince at the mention of my father's name. It was such a heartless thing to say, as if he were something less than a husband, as if he hardly counted in my mother's life. I hung my head deeply ashamed of myself but feeling that any attempt to unsay what I had said would only make matters worse. And then again words cannot alter the truth. He knows that my mother has never loved him as she loved her cherished dead, that the mere mention of my father's name can move a deeper feeling in her than all her second husband's adoring tenderness. There was an awkward silence and then Uncle Ambrose went on gravely and quietly with infinite kindness. I want my pupil and adopted daughter to be happy, even if she cannot be bound any nearer to me by a new tie. Don't be afraid to trust me, Daisy. Remember I was your first friend, after your father and mother, and that you used to tell me all your thoughts and fancies. Try to be as frank today as you were in those happy hours when your doll used to sit in your lap and share your history lesson. You have some reason to believe that Mr. Florestan cares for you. He told me so one day. I faltered. I was alone in the summer house in the shrubbery, alone with my books intending to spend a studious morning. Mr. Florestan found me there and sat down and began to talk to me, and before I knew what was coming he told me that he was very fond of me and that he was sure I did not care quite so much as I ought to care for Cyril, and he asked me to cancel my engagement and marry him. I was very angry and I told him that he had no right to form any such opinion about my sentiments and that nothing would induce me to break my promise to Cyril. Yet you did break your promise very soon afterwards. How did you come to change your mind so speedily? This was a searching question and I felt that I was on dangerous ground. Cyril told me to let people suppose that I had broken our engagement, and to tell the truth would be to touch upon his secret which he may have wished to keep from his father's knowledge. Oh, the cancelment of our engagement arose on the spur of the moment, I replied carelessly. Cyril and I were of one opinion. That is enough, child, Uncle Ambrose answered kindly. If Florestan is the chosen man I think he ought to be informed of what has happened and that the lady he loves is free. Oh, no, no, no! I cried in a great fright. He mustn't be told anything. Why, that would be putting me up to auction. If he really cares for me his love will keep. If he rushes off to propose to somebody else, as I have heard of young men doing, that will only prove that his love wasn't worth having. Let him wait and find out for himself that I am not going to marry Cyril. What an arrogant young person you are! But I suppose you must have your own way, said Uncle Ambrose. Only remember, Daisy, that I want to see you happily married to the man of your choice before I die. I want to be sure that I have done all for your happiness that your own father could have done had he lived to bless you on your wedding day. The deep grave tones of his voice, the solemn expression of his eyes as he turned them upon me made my heart thrill with love and reverence. Yes, he is a good man, a man in whose character I have never discovered fault or flaw. You are not going to leave us for many a year to come, I said. Indeed, indeed there is no reason that my marriage should be hurried on. Yes, Daisy, there is need. I want to see you happy. I want, when I lie down on my bed for the last time and turn my face to the wall, to be able to say to myself, at least my little friend Daisy is happy. I have been her friend from the hour she learned to read at my knees until the hour I gave her to the husband of her choice. No father upon this earth could have been more careful of his daughter's happiness than I have been of hers. Perhaps in the last hours when mind and senses grow dim, I may forget that my little pupil ever grew up to womanhood. I may think of you as a child still, flitting about the garden with streaming hair. I may see you thus in the dim past and not recognize the real Daisy when she stands beside my bed and looks at me with pitying eyes. These sad forebodings made me cry, and I kissed Uncle Ambrose and tried to comfort him and felt as fond of him as I used to be when I was a child. I was glad that the old feeling came back, for of late, though I know always that he is my best friend, after my mother, we seem to have been growing further apart, and I have had a curious sense of apprehension when I have been in his company, as if there were some evil influence for me lurking under the gloomy cloud which has darkened his life. Today I felt only a great pity and a great love, the old confidence and affection which used to fill my heart when I ran across the lawn of a morning to meet him as he came in at the gate. I pitied him because I began to fear that the shadow that rests upon him is the shadow of a closing life, and that it is some deep-rooted malady which makes him so joyless amidst our happy surroundings. I fear that his own forebodings may be too surely realized and that he will never see the quiet, long, spun-out days of a good old age. This thought made me very melancholy after this serious interview, yet it was a great relief to find that he did not disapprove of Mr. Florestan as a lover for me. Who knows? Mr. Florestan may be as fickle as the inconstant moon, and all that impulsive nonsense of his in the arbor may be utterly forgotten on his part, though I remember every syllable. I wonder what he is doing in Scotland. I think he ought to have shot everything shootable in Argyle Shire by this time. CHAPTER XXIII Don Pedro Perez, more commonly spoken of in the Parisian world as Le Vieux Perez or Perez Peru, was one of the best-known men in Paris, and yet he but rarely appeared in those places where the world of Paris most loves to congregate. In the haunts of pleasure he was almost a stranger. He hung about the side scenes of no boulevard theatre. He frequented not the raced courses of Longchamps or Hauts-Teuil. He sat late at his club, playing wist, but the club was quiet and altogether out of the movement, and he was an unknown figure at those more fashionable clubs where fortunes are lost at Baccarat. But there was one place where Signore Perez reigned supreme, where his name was a word of fear, his countenance and augury of gain were lost to thousands. That place was the Bourse. There Pedro Perez was as a king among his fellow men. He was a Spaniard by birth, though he had lived nearly half a century in Paris, or rather had oscillated between Paris and Madrid during that period. He dealt only in Spanish-American securities. That line was his specialty. There was not the most insignificant railway between the southern most point of Patagonia and the mouth of the Amazon, between Buenos Aires and Guito. There was not a silver, diamond or copper mine within all that vast and varied expanse of territory. There was not a water company or an irrigation company or a company for making patent guano out of surplus paving stones, the history and vicissitudes, the exact value or non-value of which Pedro Perez did not know by heart. That withered old finger of his had been in almost every financial pie which had been cooked upon that southern continent. He had been in at the death of more schemes than he could have counted in a business morning. In the earlier stage of his career, before he was rich enough to his true bare-faced fraud, he had been in his own person, chairman, board of directors and advising engineer of more than one railway, which never reached a more tangible form of existence than paper and print. Many a scheme had lived, faded and expired within the limits of a prospectus, while Perez swept the money of the shareholders into his capacious pocket. Don Pedro had been only a coulissier in those days. But with the progress of time and the suppression of the privileges of those financial sharpshooters, the guerrilla band of the noble army of speculators, the Spaniard had put on that electro-plate surface of honesty which very often passes as genuine metal in the world of speculation. Investors followed him and confided in him because of his reputation for acumen and good luck, rather than because they believed that the Pedro Perez of today was altogether a different character from that Perez of 30 years ago about whom such queer stories were current. He had been given the sobriquette of Perez Peru because he was considered as deep and as rich as the deepest mine in that vast republic, and perhaps partly because his complexion had a tinge of that copper ore in which he had dealt so largely. As Perez Peru he was talked about respectfully even by the tritons of the bus, and watched closely by the eager-eyed minnows of that great mill, in which money and honor are ground into dust and ashes, and dust and ashes are ground back again into gold and good name. The first ten years of Perez Peru's financial career had been years of struggle and petty fraud. Petty fraud had failed to make him rich, and timid speculation had only served to keep him like Muhammad's coffin in a middle distance between the heaven of wealth and the hell of poverty. Then came his heroic period, which was short and sharp, bolder speculation and more uncompromising chicanery. Five years of this hazardous adventure in which he escaped the galleys only by the skin of his teeth made him a capitalist, and fifteen years as a kudisee had educated him in the deepest secrets of finance. There was not a trick of the stock exchange which Perez Peru had not at his finger's ends. He could stand idle with his back against a stone pillar, and with his crafty southern eyes looking farther into futurity than any other eyes in that crowded building. All that he touched after this period seemed to turn to gold. It turned to dross afterwards, perhaps, but not till Sr. Perez had passed it on to somebody else. He was never known to buy too soon or to hold too long. In a word, he was financial wisdom personified. In all the monotonous years in which the stock exchange was his only temple, the share list his only Bible, Pedro Perez, had lived with almost Spartan simplicity, not because he begrudged himself the cost of luxurious living for personal expenditure however profuse would have hardly made a perceptible impression upon his income. He spent little because he cared for making money and did not care for spending it. He had lived in the same house in the Rue Vivienne for the forty years of his Parisian life. The house was within a hundred yards at the Place de la Bourse and it suited him. The only difference that he had made in those forty years was to descend gradually from the scanty seclusion of the single garret to the space and comfort of the entire first floor. He had breakfasted at the restaurant Champot during the greater part of the last thirty years. In his decade of probation he had fed only in his attic or in some cheap restaurant on the Rive Gauche where he wandered in the cool of the evening, thoughtful and solitary even before his thirtieth year. The man was the financial instinct incarnate. The passion for abstract mathematics which possesses some brains in his took the more vulgar form of money-getting, but the mathematical genius was there to a high degree and some of his combinations were worthy of Newton or Laplace. For five and thirty years of his Parisian career Pedro Perez had never been found guilty of a caprice. He was closely observed as the representative of great wealth always is observed in an age which has mammoth for its master devil, but he had never been surprised in any of those follies which sometimes diversify the lives of the wisest men. He had come to be looked upon as a money-making machine, inexorable, at steel and adamant, working always in the same grooves, relentless, unvarying. When all at once the report was circulated that Perez Peru had come back from Madrid with a harem and for more than nine days Perez Peru's harem was the standing joke in the cafes with a boosless paramount. Perez Peru's harem was the subject of a caricature in the most audacious of the little journals of Paris. Perez Peru's harem was the theme of a comic song, almost as popular as the later Gendre de Monsieur Grévy. The harem, upon closer inquiry, was found to consist of three women whom Perez had established in a second floor in the Rues Saint Guillaume. A mother and daughter, both handsome, the daughter eminently so, a cousin, plain and dowdy, or if not absolutely plain, bated and elderly. The three women were seen one night in a box at the opera, the young beauty resplendent in amber satin and diamonds. Every long yet was turned to that box, and for the next three days all Perez talked of the dark beauty with the diamonds. She was wearing the wealth of Peru upon her neck and arms, said the Boursicotier and their following. After this Dolores was rarely visible to the eye of all Perez. If she went to a theater or an opera and she was but seldom allowed that privilege, she was made to sit deep in shadow, as closely curting from the public gaze as if she had been the pearl of Istanbul, chief light of some jealous Pasha's harem. Her story had but few elements of mystery, albeit her secluded life gave a flavor of the mysterious to her personality. She had been bargained for by Pedro Perez as sordidly as any eastern slave that was ever sold in a public marketplace. The girl and her mother had been living in poverty in one of the obscurest quarters of Madrid, a region where the cholera fiend and the fever fiend find their choice as pastureage, where the reaper death gathers his richest harvest. They had arrived in Madrid some years before with an appearance of ample means and for a year or two Madame Quijada had occupied an apartment in a fashionable quarter and had shown herself daily on the Prado, well-dressed, observed, and admired. She was taken to be an adventurous and a freelance, but no one troubled himself about her antecedents. The police had an eye upon her for the first few months but could find nothing suspicious in her manner of life. Dolores was at a convent during the five or six years in which she grew from childhood to girlhood. It was the best educational establishment in the neighborhood of Madrid and as the mother's funds got low she pinched herself in order to provide for her daughter's board in education with the good nuns, who albeit simplicity itself had a talent for making out a bill of extra charges over and above the somewhat heavy pension. Madame Quijada was not alone during these years of her daughter's education. Shortly after her arrival in the Spanish capital she was joined by a niece, who from that time shared her fortunes good or bad. The niece was introduced to Madame Quijada's acquaintances as Louise Merci and she was said to have but recently recovered from a brain fever which had seriously affected her mind and memory. Her aunt told her friends in confidence that this orphaned niece of hers had been disappointed in love and that her illness had been the outcome of her disappointment. However, to this may have been it was beyond question that a more miserable-looking woman than Louise Merci at this period could hardly be found on this planet where if people sometimes take their pleasure sadly they very often take their griefs gaily. The time came when the widow's cruise would hold out no longer and when it became necessary to withdraw Dolores from the fashionable convent the good nuns affected a holy simplicity in their accounts and they gave no credit. Dolores was now a teen, beautiful, carefully educated, fairly accomplished. She went from the pure atmosphere and perfect comfort of a well-organized educational establishment to a shabby lodging and assorted quarter. She went from all the refinements of life to all that is ugliest in the domain of poverty. The change was a shock which youthful selfishness felt keenly. Perhaps Madame Quijada was not sorry that her daughter suffered from the misery of her surroundings. It might prepare her mind for the crisis to which her mother looked forward. Pedro Perez was almost as well known in Madrid as he was in Paris and he was perhaps even more profoundly reverenced in the less wealthy capital. Madame Quijada had contrived to force herself upon his notice but she had approached him with a modesty which flattered his self-esteem. She had besought his counsel at assistance in certain little investments, so small an amount that the great financier was provoked to smile, he who so rarely smiled at her simplicity. Such small investments had been his stepping-stones to fortune. Such simple creatures as the shabby gentile widow had put their little savings in those rotten enterprises of which Pedro Perez had been both the dazzling alpha and the dark omega. It was said in Paris that if you could squeeze Perez Peru's gold hard enough blood would come out of it by a lesser miracle than the squeezing of the blood of Christian martyrs out of the earth floor of Nero's amphitheater, the blood of broken-hearted widows and starving orphans, the blood of the swindlers dupes. The widow's tongue was soft and insinuating and for almost the first time in his life Perez was moved to a benevolent action. He lent this simple lady Fifty Louis to invest in an Argentine railway, lent Fifty Louis without security and without interest, but on second thoughts he insisted upon holding the script. Women are so short-sighted, he said, after making this condition, you would be selling at the first rise. These shares are worth holding. M. Quijada was in sore need of Fifty Louis, but it aided a certain plan of hers that Senor Perez should hold the stock. It gave her a right of approach to him. His image had dwelt in her mind ever since she came to Spain as the image of wealth incarnate. She had dreamed her dream about this rich lonely old man, and the hour for the realization of that dream was at hand. She wrote him a piteous letter about a fortnight after Dolores left the convent, telling him she was too ill to leave her wretched home and she was in want of money. She believed that the dividend upon her Argentines was nearly due. It would only amount, she supposed, to a couple of Louis, but Forty Franks would save her and hers from starvation. She had now three mouths to fill. Her daughter had been withdrawn from the convent where she had grown up and was sharing the discomfort of her wretched lodging. Pedro Perez was not given to acts of charity and was not in the habit of caring whether his fellow creatures dined or starved, but Madame Quijada had contrived to impress him with the idea that she was a remarkably clever woman and that the world would be the poorer for her loss. She had flattered him with such subtle comprehension of his character that he, who had been the mark of abject flattery for a quarter of a century, found himself listening with a please dare to this gifted woman's enthusiastic laudation of his talents as a financier and of that latent genius which would have made him greater as a politician or a diplomatist than he had ever been on the stock exchange. Had the flatterer been old and ugly even feminine subtlety might have failed to win his ear, but Madame Quijada was still handsome and still young enough to seem attractive in the eyes of a man who had passed his sixtieth birthday. He was not in love with her, but he thought her a remarkably attractive woman and instead of sending her fifty Franks by his servant he went himself to see in what kind of a dense so much ability had found shelter. He went, saw Dolores in all the splendour of her fresh young beauty and was conquered. He had never known what it was to feel his heart beat quicker at the sight of a woman's face till he saw Madame Quijada's daughter. He was subjugated at once and forever. His instinct urged him to make as hard a bargain as he could with the girl's mother, but the settlement to which he finally consented was more than princely. Princes are seldom so generous. And Madame Quijada insisted upon his sacrificing his last penny he would have done it sooner than lose the woman he loved. Had she insisted upon his marrying her daughter he would have done it. Indeed the chief consideration that prevented his offering to make Dolores his wife was his keen dread of ridicule and the consideration that he could keep a mistress under closer surveillance than he could a wife. He knew that he was ugly and elderly and that the girl he idolized could but be to him as a slave. He could not hug himself with the hope that he might someday win her heart. He was a cynic by long years of contempt for his fellow men, by the habit of a life unsophoned by friendship or affection, by the love of kindred or compassion for the poor. He tried to rest content in his cynicism now, and he told himself that he was as well off as the mighty Shah Jahan or any other Mohammedan potentate. He selected the Rue Saint Guillaume as a neighborhood remote from the gay and popular Paris of the boulevards and the Rue de Rivoli in which the casual English or American visitor delights, far also from the Champs-Élysées and the Parc-Monseaux with their residential population of fashionable artists and bohemians of all kinds. The Rue Saint Guillaume was old fashioned, sober, and eminently respectable. He chose a suite of apartments in a grave old house with an inner quadrangle, a house so grave and silent that the stone quadrangle might have been a coister. He furnished the rooms with a sombre luxuriousness, and he offered the cage to his snared bird with an air of devoted submission which might have begot her into forgetfulness of the bars which shut her in from all the outer world. Upon Madame Quixada he imposed the duty of keeping guard over his saltana. The girl's lightest whim was to be studied and indulged so long as that whim did not lead to the gay outer world and its frivolous associations. Dolores was to be a queen, but her kingdom was to be within stone walls. She was only to take care and exercise under conditions of supreme prudence. She was never to flaunt her beauty in the Bois de Boulogne at the fashionable hour of the day, but Madame Quixada had a carriage at her disposal in which mother and daughter might drive in the less frequented suburbs of Paris or in the Bois at an hour when all Paris was elsewhere. These restrictions were hard upon a girl of 18, newly emancipated from the monotonous rules and regulations of a convent school and panting for liberty. El Santo Corazon was a prison, she complained, but at least I had fellow prisoners of my own age. This is solitary confinement. She chafed bitterly against the dreariness of her life and she detested the man who had made himself her master, but her mother's stronger character had acquired complete dominion over her and she had neither strength of will nor courage to rebel against her chains. She submitted to her fate. She wore the jewels which were her badge of slavery. She gratified her girlish fancy in surrounding herself with the loveliest flowers that the South sent to Paris. And she might, perhaps, have grown reconciled to her position and with what the slightest persuasion might have induced Pedro Perez to give her the name and status of wife if she had not been so unhappy as to fall in love with her cousin, Léon du Verdi. During the first year of her residence in Paris, du Verdi was a frequent visitor in his aunt's salon. He was about forty years of age, handsome, audacious, plausible, more seductive in his ripe years than a younger lover would have been because more experienced in the artifices that fascinate a romantic girl. He had newly returned from Spanish America where he had been living a roving and adventurous life, now in one state, now in another, making money no one knew exactly how, but a familiar figure at the gaming tables of every city in which he had his abode. He came to Paris, set up his laboratory, and described himself as an experimentalist and inventor on the high road to great and useful discoveries. Perez knew of the relationship between du Verdi and the Quihadas and had met du Verdi on the Bourse, but he did not know that this handsome cousin was a frequent visitor in the Rue Saint Guillaume since the younger man's visits were always so timed as to avoid the master of the prison house. Had it been otherwise, the old man's jealousy would have been quick to take alarm. In her utter ignorance of life, Dolores turned to her cousin as the representative of all that is most fascinating and most interesting in the outer world. His flashy and superficial cleverness passed as the versatility of a born genius. She believed all that he told her of his scientific daydreams and accepted his inchoate experiments as the first stages in the career of greatness. He was just young enough and just handsome enough to win the heart of a girl who had no opportunity of comparing him with more distinguished men. It was the policy of his life to make love to every pretty woman who would listen to him and he had even condescended to fascinate ugly women who were likely to be of use to him. He had gone through life from his 18th year upwards, basking in the smiles of beauty and relying upon the favor of the gentler sex to carry him safely over the obstacles in the adventurer's road through life. Was it likely then that he would neglect his opportunities with Dolores, a lovely and inexperienced girl who had the command of one of the deepest purses in Paris? He had too wholly a fear of his aunt to approach his cousin in the guise of the seducer, but he contrived to win her affections as if unawares and she was perhaps all the more blindly in love with him because he had never asked her for her heart. He always affected to respect her relations with Perez and he told her bluntly that her mission in life was to make the financier her husband. It is your own fault that the marriage has not come off ages ago, he said, and then when the girl answered him only with the deep sigh, it was his task to console her, his task to talk of the happiness which might have been had his lot in life been different. I am little better than a pauper, he told her, and my life is full of bitter memories. No woman who values her own happiness should link her lot with mine. Dolores pondered over that phrase, bitter memories, and she interpreted after her own fancy which told her that Leon's youth had been plighted by some dark love story, a tale of fatal passion and broken hearts, such as she was reading about daily in the novels which were her chief recreation. There were times when he talked in dark hints and unfinished sentences of his past experiences, the women who had loved him and broken their hearts for him, the one woman, beautiful, high placed, a star of loftiest magnitude whom he had loved at in vain. The girl listened and believed weak as water, loving him all the more because her love was unreturned. He was full of tenderness for her by fits and starts, but he gave her to understand that he could never again love as he had loved that great lady who had flung away name, country, home, and a reputation for his sake and who had died in a tragical death in the morning of their love. Du Verdié's visits to the Rue Saint Guillaume had not been altogether disinterested. He had gone there in times of financial difficulty, and he had extorted more than one so-called loan from Madame Quixada and had obtained several smaller sums of money freely and gladly given from Dolores who had never been entrusted with a command of large means and who dared not part with a single jewel from among Pérez Peru's splendid gifts as he had a troublesome way of passing her diamonds in review every now and then. He would write to her in the course of the day to tell her that he was going to dine with her in the evening and that he would like to see her black velvet and diamonds, and Dolores shrewdly suspected that this was only his manner of assuring himself that she had made away with none of his gifts. These magnificent gems had often passed under Du Verdié's hands. He had sat in eager contemplation of their pure white brightness as they lay in their open cases on the table before him. They are worth a fortune, Dolores, he said, but they are very little use to you, of less use than toys to a child. The child can amuse itself with the toys, but you can do nothing with the diamonds. It is not worth the trouble of wearing them when there is nobody to admire you. Oh, but they are very pretty! The girl answered childishly, and I like to have them. Pérez told me that there are only about half a dozen women in Paris who have such diamonds, and they are all great ladies. Pérez told you a lie. Her cousin answered harshly. What of the rich Americans, the men whose money has been made in pork or petroleum, and who give their wives diamonds of six times the value of yours? Pérez is an imposter. He shut the case with a sharp snap. Those diamonds always made him angry. The thought of all that money locked up in velvet and Morocco or shining upon the neck and arms of a girl aggravated him to madness. He was always in want of money. He had had a run of luck on occasions and had rioted for a brief space in the possession of wealth, but it was the wealth of today, not of tomorrow, and the next turn of luck had left him penniless. He looked at those diamonds on his cousin's neck with hungry eyes, and the thought of them haunted him in his dreams. The image of that waxen neck haunted him, too, and he saw it sometimes with one cruel hand upon it, holding it as in an iron vice, while another hand tore off that dazzling necklace. Once in a distempered dream he saw the same fair neck streaming with blood. He hurried to the Rue Saint Guillaume early next morning, almost expecting to hear of a calamity, but nothing evil had happened. Dolores met him with a smile, surprised at his early visit. I had a horrid dream about you, he said, and she saw that he was ghastly pale. Where do you keep your jewels? He asked later when they had been talking of indifferent subjects. Oh, that is mother's business. She has all sorts of contrivances for taking care of them. I'm afraid, in spite of all her contrivances, you'll be robbed some day, they all answered mootily. Yes, she would be robbed, he told himself. Some vulgar thief would get to know of the wealth that was towed away in those dull old rooms, wealth in its most concentrated and portable form, and he, her cousin, who had such a need of share in the old financiers' spoil, would be told that those jewels had vanished as swiftly and silently as if some wicked fairy had changed them into withered leaves. Madame Quijada did all she could to discourage her nephew's visits, but some reason, known only to herself, restrained her from actually shutting her door against him, and Dolores always welcomed him gladly, a pier how and when he might. If he was moody, she sympathized with him, pitying griefs he did not take the trouble to explain. If he was rude, she bore with his rudeness. For her he was just that one man upon earth who could do no wrong. Fate and fortune were to blame for using him badly. It was now nearly four months since she had seen him. A brief note had told her that he was leaving Paris, that he was likely to be a wanderer upon the earth and that it might be years before they met again. She was in despair at this cruel farewell and sent her mother to his lodgings to find out what had become of him. On her first visit Madame Quijada heard only the same statement that had been made to the officer of police, but on going a month later she found the nest despoiled. The law had made a clearance of all de Verdié's effects at the suit of his chief creditor. The apartment was to be let, and nobody knew or cared what had become of its late tenant. The change in Dolores after her cousin's disappearance was too obvious to escape the keen eye of Perez. He had always known that she did not care for him, that she submitted to her slavery as a fate which she was too weak to resist, that she loved ease and luxury, jewels and flowers too well to run away from her gilded nest into that bleak world of the hewers of wood and drawers of water, that hard world which to her ignorance must have seemed as terrible as the wilderness to the dwellers and cities. He knew that he held her by the most sordid of ties, the love of wealth and the fear of penury. He had seen her listless, weary, indifferent, but he had never until lately seen her so absolutely unhappy, and jealous doubts were soon aroused by that inexplicable change. He suspected an intrigue of some kind and set a private detective to watch the house in the Rue Saint Guillaume, but the man discovered nothing. No suspicious person was seen to approach the house, nor did men was El Quijada ever go out alone. He questioned her closely. He told her that he was sure she had some secret grief and he urged her to confide in him. She protested that there was nothing the matter. She was tired of Paris, that was all. Her life was monotonous enough to make anyone unhappy. He had no need to look further for the cause of her low spirits. I am going to Madrid next week. Will you go with me? Ask Perez. Yes, yes, I shall be delighted. Her face lighted up with pleasure. She gave her master one of those rare smiles which repaid him for the richest gift he could offer her. She was thinking that Leon had most likely gone to Madrid and that she would find him there. She thought she could not be in the same city with him and yet not contrive to bring him to her side. She would make her mother hunt him out for her, even if she herself were allowed only to change one prison for another. Her whole manner altered. She became gay and talkative and discussed the journey. How soon would they start? She was dying to go. You want to see your old schoolmates, I suppose, said Perez, to make them ambious of your jewels and your beauty. Yes, yes, I want to see them all again, she answered carelessly. But I cannot have you gadding about Madrid any more than about Paris, said Perez. The Spanish capital is almost as wicked as the French. Mother can go and find my old companions. They may come to see me, I suppose. Surely Dolores, you would not receive any of your confident comrades in your position, said her mother severely. Do you forget that to those girls, honored and happy wives, perhaps now, you would seem an outcast? They would have nothing to say to you. Perez looked embarrassed. It was the first direct attack that Madame Quijada had ever made upon him in the guise of an injured parent. The bargain he had made with her had been arranged upon purely commercial principles, honors so much, maternal affection so much, beauty so much. Even the injured feelings of the defunct Quijada, who might in some distant planet be aware of what was happening here, had been considered. The sum total had been large, and Perez was therefore unprepared for an outburst of wounded humor. Dolores shrugged her shoulders and gave an impatient sigh. She was not endowed with fine feelings and cared very little whether the link that bound her to her master she hated was or was not sanctioned by Holy Church. The good opinion of the world would not compensate for an alliance with age and ugliness. Here diamonds must go to my office while we are away, said Perez after an embarrassed pause. I have burglar-proof safes there which will accommodate all your jewel cases. I will take them away with me to-morrow and lock them up with my own hand. And what am I to wear while I am in Spain? Ah, I forgot. You want to astonish your old friends? Well, keep the sapphires I gave you a little while ago and a few of your smaller trinkets. The diamonds must be made secure before we start. It would be dangerous to travel with jewels of such value. Duchesses carry their diamonds everywhere, said Dolores. And Duchesses are often robbed, sometimes by their husbands, sometimes by their servants, and occasionally by professional thieves. You had better take my advice in this matter. Dolores submitted with an air of indifference and Perez departed, promising to fetch the jewel cases on the following day. He came and was told that Dolores was too ill to see him. She had changed her mind. She did not care about going to Madrid. The possibility of meeting people who had known her in her innocent girlhood was hateful to her. This was the gist of what Madame Quijada told him, with much circumnucution and with some tears wrung from a mother's wounded heart. Seeing that he listened to her reproaches with patience and that there was an expression of real distress in his withered old face, Madame Quijada pursued this subject still further. He was breaking her daughter's heart, she told him. He had but to open his eyes and he would see that she was drooping and dying by inches in that dismal prison-house. The sense of a false position to a girl brought up in the comment of El Santo Cartesán was unendurable. Diamonds were as dross, material comforts were of no account. The blighted breath of dishonor had passed over the fair young life and it was now slowly withering away. Perez heard and pondered. He idolized Dolores and there was positively no obstacle to his marrying her, except his keen dread of ridicule, the idea of being laughed at by all Paris as the wealthy dotered with a girl wife, the fear that if she were once his wife she would insist upon flaunting her beauty in the full glare of the wickedest city in the world or that city which seemed so to him. If I were to marry her she would lead me a wretched life. He said after some meditative paces about the spacious salon, she would take advantage of her secure position. She would plunge into the vortex of frivolous pleasures. She would drag my name in the mud, perhaps. You have known her long enough to know how simple her ideas are, how easily she is contented. That is all very well now that she is under restraint. How can I tell what she would be if she had the authority of a wife? Keep her as a slave, then, and let her fade and die. Do not reproach me when the end comes. There was much more to the same purpose, and the result was total surrender upon the part of Pedro Perez. He would marry Dolores at the mairie as soon as the law allowed. All he stipulated was that she should continue to lead her life remote from the crowds and amusements of fashionable Paris. End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of One Life, One Love by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 24. A Gloomy Retrospect Pedro Perez and his beautiful wife started for Madrid upon the evening after their marriage. They travelled with all the comfort that wealth can give. Dolores had her mother and her maid as duena and attendant. They went to the best hotel in Madrid, where at the instigation of his wife and mother-in-law, Perez engaged a handsomest suite of rooms upon the first floor. His dread of ridicule, his jealous doubts and suspicions prompted him to hide the treasure that he had won for himself, but some natural pride intervened, and he could not refrain from showing himself in the fashionable drives and promenades with his lovely young wife by his side. Gradually it became known to all the financial world of Madrid that the beautiful girl who went about with Pedro Perez was actually his wife, and visits of ceremony and congratulation became frequent in the Amber Satan Salon au Premier. Madame Perez accepted the situation with perfect equanimity and showed to better advantage as a wife than as a beautiful bird in a gilded cage. If she was not entirely happy, she was at least better contented with herself and her life than she had been in the Rue Saint-Guy-Homme. So far from repenting his marriage, Perez grew daily more devoted to his wife and more anxious to gratify her. He submitted to all Madame Quixote's exactions and allowed himself to be led by the nose by his mother-in-law as well as by his wife, and in this placable disposition he returned to Paris, where he at once occupied himself with the task of selecting a home that should be worthy of a millionaire's young and lovely wife. Everybody whom he knew in Paris had heard of his marriage, and he had to submit to the congratulations of his acquaintances which, as he was particularly shy, were agony to him. He also had to endure a good many sly thrusts in the papers and more than one caricature of la belle et la belle. But he bore it all, and after a week or two consented to mount an elegant Victoria with a pair of matchless blacks and to show himself in the bois at the fashionable hour. A coupé was being built for Dolores, and a second pair of blacks was being looked for, Madame Quixote and her daughter being of opinion that a stud to be distingue must be of one color. After looking at a good many houses, Perez finally decided upon one in the somewhat solitary avenue Rive-Chawson, which had been built for a famous actress during the palmy days of the empire, the avenue being then known as the Avenue Hortense, and which was at least a mile from the Arc de Triomphe. The house stood at some distance from the road and was concealed by a screen of Acacias and other ornamental trees and shrubs. The garden had been carefully laid out and this table had been the particular care of the first proprietor, who was a connoisseur in equine arrangements. This Italian villa, with its grounds and dependencies, had cost a fortune, but it was offered to Pedro Perez for about a fourth part of the original cost. He liked the property, in the first place because it was a bargain, and in the second place because its solitary position gratified his idea of retirement with the wife of his choice. He did not want to live in the heart of Paris, where Dolores might be encouraged to set up a salon, and where the men he knew might find it too convenient to visit his handsome wife. That solitary Italian villa, with its screen of foliage inconveniently remote from the busy haunts of men, was the very home he desired. Dolores and her mother both admired the house and both complained of its surroundings. The neighborhood was a desert. It was on the wrong side of the bois for fashion and beauty. Like all bargains, the property was hardly worth having. For once in a way, Perez was firm in his opposition to his wife's wish. He would buy that house and no other. If you would rather go on living in the Roussanghiome, he said I won't interfere. I detest the Roussanghiome, replied Dolores petulantly, so the Italian villa in the avenue de Rife Chaucen was bought and Dolores was allowed to furnish the new house after her own fancy and without any consideration of cost. Only in one matter did her husband exercise his authority, and that was in the choice of the household. All the servants were engaged by him at an office in Paris, but he allowed Louise Marseille to assist him in his choice and to be present during the negotiations. She was to be housekeeper in the new villa, having shown a talent for management and economy in the Roussanghiome. Madame Quihada was allowed to choose her own suite of apartments on the ground floor, in a wing beyond the principal rooms which were vestibule, salon, dining, and billiard room. Dolores had her boudoir, bedroom, dressing, and bathroom on the first floor, while her husband had a corresponding set of rooms in the opposite wing. There were two small rooms at the back of the house on the same floor, divided only by a narrow passage from the suite occupied by Dolores, and these were appropriated to Memoiselle Marseille, a sitting room and bedroom. A servant's staircase at the end of the passage brought her uneasy communication with the offices below and enabled her to exercise a useful surveillance upon the household. The servants' bedrooms were on an upper story, almost hidden by the classic ornamentation of the roof. An open laudia formed the central feature of the facade and divided the apartments of the master and mistress of the house, offering a means of communication in summertime and a neutral ground where husband and wife might meet in their idle hours. Dolores was full of plans for decorating this laudia in an oriental style so soon as spring should revisit the land. A Parisian winter did not promise much enjoyment from an open laudia, however architectural and Italian. The installation in the Villa Pérés took place very quietly, though both mother and daughter had suggested a ball or at least an evening party in honor of la Pondaison de la Crémaillère. Pérés reminded them that they knew scarcely half a dozen people in Paris and asked where their guests were to come from if they were to give a party. Madame Pérés has only to hold up her finger in order to fill her salon, replied Madame Quihada with dignity, or in other words you have but to say to one of the best known Parisians at your club, my wife is going to give a party and I want you to send out two or three hundred cards of invitation on her part and the thing is done. We shall give music, supper and wines that people will talk of for a week and after that everybody in Paris will want to come to the Villa Pérés. A very excellent way of squandering money and courting discomfort, answered Pérés tartly, I bought this house for my wife and myself, not for all Paris. I foresee that we shall be as dismal here as we were in the Rue Seiguillon, said Madame Quihada, who did not forego a mother-in-law's privilege of saying disagreeable things. Finding that society was still forbidden fruit, Madame Quihada sank into a sloth of sensuous pleasures and rejoiced in her luxurious surroundings, her daughters called Don Bleu and her son-in-law's wine cellar. She began to regard the Mid-Déjeuné and the seven o'clock dinner as the two chief events of the day. She did ample justice to the produce of Burgundy and Bordeaux, nor did she ever forego the dainty goblet of Chartres or Curacao, which marked the close of the meal, a miniature goblet from which Titania herself might have drunk, only Titania would hardly have refilled the glass so often. In the afternoon Madame Quihada enjoyed her siesta in true Spanish fashion. In the evening she was more alert and played a couté with her daughter for a small stakes which she generally won. If Dolores would not play, there was always the Souffre-Dulaire Louise who had the whole charge of the household on her shoulders and who had to please the three people who constituted the family. Madame Quihada had given over the entire duty of housekeeping to her niece and rarely rose from her easy chair except to be driven in her daughter's Victoria or to go to a theater in the luxurious coupé when Perez was disinclined to escort his wife. Nothing had been heard of Leon since his disappearance and his aunt's most earnest desire was that she should never see his face or hear his name again. There were episodes in her life which she wanted to forget now that she had attained to that respectability with which wealth can cover the most doubtful antecedents as with a royal mantle. It was in search of oblivion that she failed and refilled the little Venetian goblet after Dijonet or dinner and there were times when she felt that all the chartreuse the good monks ever distilled would hardly be strong enough to drown certain haunting memories. Perez Peru noted his worthy mother-in-law's indulgence in the pleasures of the table and remarked upon this weakness to his wife. "'If you don't look after your mother, she'll take to drinking,' he said one evening as they drove to a boulevard theater leaving Madame Quihada sitting opposite Louise at the little card table with flushed cheek and glittering eye. "'Bah, if she has just one point now and then it can't matter,' replied Dolores carelessly. "'Her dinner is the only thing that amuses her. "'You won't let us give parties or know any amusing people. "'You have banished even the poor old du Turks. "'They were dull, but they were alive and they were better company than chairs and tables. "'You are very ungrateful, Dolores.' Perez answered with a piteous look. "'I have refused you nothing except to change my manner of life. "'I have always loved solitude and hated strange faces. "'I should not be a millionaire "'if I had not possessed the power of self-concentration "'of living on my own thoughts. "'But now you are a millionaire "'and three times a millionaire you ought to enjoy life. "'To enjoy life is to live quietly with you, "'to have you all to myself, "'not to see you surrounded with young people "'who would despise your old husband "'and teach you to despise him. "'You talk about giving balls, Dolores. "'Can you not conceive what torture it would be to me "'to see you dancing with young men, "'handsome, fascinating, unprincipled, "'relentless in their pursuit of the woman they admire? "'Men who would talk of you at their clubs "'compare you with the vilest of your sex, "'discuss your every charm, lay wagers about you, "'as to who should be your favorite lover "'and how soon you could be persuaded "'to dishonor your husband. "'I could not endure to see you admired, "'knowing what admiration means "'among the young libertines I meet on the bus, "'men who seek to make money only "'that they may squander it upon women "'a little vileer than themselves. "'You cannot understand what an old man's love is, Dolores. "'How jealous, how exacting. "'You forget how poor a recompense age ever gets "'for its devotion to youth. "'I don't mean to be ungrateful,' "'Dolores answered with a deep sigh, "'and then she turned her head away from her husband "'and studied the passing carriages, "'the flaneur upon the broad asphalt pavement, "'the glitter and splendor of the shop windows, "'shops that seemed designed only "'for the accommodation of millionaires. "'She was going to the theater "'in all her glory of jewels, "'diamond stars in her hair, "'a necklace of single stones, "'each gem worth a rosier's dour, "'diamond serpents in single, "'double and treble coils "'winding up her slim round arm. "'She wore a simple evening toilette "'of some black, gauzy material, "'but the chantilly lace upon her gown "'was only second in value to the gems on her neck. "'When a beautiful young woman marries age and ugliness, "'she can at least assert the claims of beauty "'by spending her husband's money royally.' "'The theater was the ambiguous, "'where a new comedy of sardous had just made a hit "'and where all Paris was crowding nightly. "'Dolores was indignant when she found "'that the box her husband had secured for her "'was only a small one on the pittier, "'where neither her beauty nor her diamonds "'could be adequately seen. "'He had his old fancy for these shadowy little boxes "'were it pleased him to hide his enchantress "'from the vulgar eye, "'but in spite of these jealous precautions, "'Madame Perez was already known "'and talked about as la belle ou diamant. "'Her husband's reputation as a triple millionaire "'gave a special interest to her jewels. "'People gloated upon gems, "'which might have cost half a million, "'if Perez pleased. "'He could have spent half a million, "'reduced his fortune by a sixth, "'without feeling any poorer. "'He could make as much in a week "'if he chose to start a new mine,' "'said the flaneur on the bourse. "'He has but to write a prospectus "'and the money pours in like water. "'He has a colconda in his ink pot.' "'While Perez and his wife were laughing "'at sardous-biting wit, "'Madame Quijada was winning Louise Marces "'half francs by her astute and studied play. "'Louise took no interest in the game. "'Indeed hated all games of cards "'and only played as a part of her duty in that house "'where she was the shadow of everybody else's sunshine. "'They had played nearly an hour and a half "'when the elder woman threw down the cards "'with an impatient sigh instead of dealing them. "'We have played long enough for tonight, Louise. "'I am tired of winning such miserable stakes. "'How ghastly the silence of this house is. "'Nothing but the tick, tick, tick of that clock "'on the mantelpiece and the crackling "'of the logs now and then. "'You may get me a finger of Finn Champagne. "'I feel very low tonight. "'This house is killing me. "'You ought to be much easier in your mind "'now that your daughter has been placed "'in an honorable position, "'now that your conscience is at peace upon her account, "'said Louise gravely. "'My conscience, don't preach to me about conscience. "'I have done with all superstitious bugbears. "'I finished with them before I left Massé. "'I have never entered a church since my marriage. "'I was overdosed with religion and my girlhood. "'I married a clever man who soon taught me "'to laugh at the old fables. "'And were you happier, do you think, "'for abandoning the old pathways?' "'Asked Louise gravely arranging the cards "'with her eyelids cast down "'as if she hard they like to meet her aunt's eyes "'when she spoke of sacred things.' "'Happier, happy, happier, happiest. "'Those are idle words, child. "'I don't believe anybody is happy. "'I don't believe in the existence of happiness.' "'Oh, you are wrong, aunt. "'There are moments, hours, days in this life "'perfectly and beautifully happy, "'days to which one looks back afterwards "'as to a dream of heaven, "'days to which one looks forward after death, "'hoping that God will give us back "'that lost happiness in heaven.' "'Those brief days are balanced "'by long years of misery, "'but they have been, they have been. "'There is nobody on this earth "'who has not once been happy. "'The word is not an idle invention.' "'Well, I suppose I was happy in my time, "'happy that Easter night when Jules Delmont "'followed me home from the church door "'and talked to me, "'while my mother walked on ahead "'with my elder sister, your mother, "'little suspecting that I had an admirer "'making love to me under cover of the darkness. "'He was only clerked to enave way, "'but those who knew anything about him "'said that he was one of the cleverest "'young men in Marseille, "'and as my parents were only small shopkeepers, "'they did not make many objections "'to my marrying him. "'We had only a couple of rooms to live in "'and thirty francs a week to live upon, "'but it was all bright enough for the first year. "'And then, and then I found out things "'about my clever young husband. "'There was more money, "'but it wasn't come by very honestly, "'and we had to leave Marseille one night in secret, "'never to go back there. "'We came to Paris, of course. "'Everybody comes to Paris, "'and Dolores was born in a little street "'near Saint-Germain-Locquerois, "'where we struggled on somehow, "'till the end came for my husband, "'the bitter, cruel end. "'Are you ever going to get me "'that mouth full of cognac? "'Yes, yes, aunt, "'but indeed you would be better without it. "'How dare you dictate to me? "'I am sick and fainting with thinking of my wretched past. "'Get me some cognac this instant.' "'Louise left the room "'and returned with a tiny carafe "'and Titania's Venetian goblet. "'She did all she could to discourage her aunt's "'growing propensity for alcohol, "'but she was only a dependent. "'She might remonstrate, "'but she was compelled to obey. "'He was arrested at a low dancing place "'among men and women of the vilest character, "'men who were like bad women, "'women who were like vicious men, "'pursued Madame Quijada, "'helping herself to the cognac with a tremulous hand. "'Why dwell upon those bygone troubles? "'I know all the sad story. "'It does me good to talk. "'Anything is better than the silence of this ghastly room, "'white and gold, so white, so cold and cheerless, "'like a room meant for ghosts. "'It is a relief to talk of what I suffered "'in those days. "'He was arrested for swindling, forgery, "'a long series of frauds, and he was taken to prison. "'I never saw him alive again. "'He hanged himself at daybreak "'within two hours of his arrest, "'hanged himself with a silk handkerchief "'upon the iron bar of the prison grating "'before he had been examined by the Juge-Nestruxion "'and before his generous thought it necessary "'to take any special precautions against suicide. "'You were much to be pitied, aunt,' said Louise, "'quietly putting away the neat little boxes of cards. "'She had heard the story of her aunt's marriage "'very often of late, for Madame Quijada "'had grown more loquacious in proportion "'as she indulged in alcohol. "'She did not talk of these things to Dolores, "'who had been brought up in ignorance "'of her father's character, "'had indeed been brought up to believe "'that the departed parent was a scion "'of a noble and delusion family, "'whereas the lawyer's clerk of Merce "'was the son of a petty, fogging lawyer, "'and the name Quijada had been only adopted "'by Dolores's mother when she went to Madrid. "'She found the name in a volume of salvantes, "'which she opened at random. "'Oh, I have had a dreadful life, Louise. "'I have been surrounded by criminals,' cried Madame Quijada "'after two or three little glasses. "'Don't talk of it, aunt,' repeated her niece "'with a sudden vehemence. "'You ought to be wiser than to talk to me of the past, "'knowing how much I have suffered, "'knowing that I shall never cease to suffer "'from that bitter memory, "'that the very presence of that man in the room "'stifles me. "'I cannot breathe when he is near me. "'I feel as if I must fall upon him "'and kill him as he killed. "'Hush, hush,' cried her aunt, "'looking apprehensively towards the door. "'You are right. "'We ought never to talk of the past. "'It is dangerous, dangerous in every way. "'Heaven, be praised, "'we have not heard of your brother for six months. "'We may never hear of him again. "'Ah, I always dread him most "'after an interval of absence. "'He will reappear as he has reappeared before, "'or if not, we shall read of some crime "'that has been committed in some foreign city, "'and we shall know that it is his work. "'He is neither heart nor conscience. "'Can I ever forget, do you think, "'how he killed the man I idolized, "'the best and most generous of men? "'Can I ever forget how he used my name, "'name forever more hateful to me, "'as a lure to draw that good, brave man to his death? "'And yet he dares to come into a room where I am. "'He dares to offer me his hand, "'read with the stain of murder. "'You have no right to fix that crime upon your brother,' "'Madam Quijada exclaimed angrily. "'There is nothing to identify him with the murder? "'Absolutely nothing. "'Your name might be used by anyone. "'The unfortunate man may have talked about you, "'boasted of his conquest in the presence of his servants, "'of some French or Italian butler perhaps, "'who, being in the house, "'would know all his master's intended movements, "'and all about the money which was to change hands that day. "'Servants are often agents, "'conscious or unconscious, "'in crimes that mystify everybody. "'You have no right to associate your brother "'with that crime. "'I have the right of my own conviction. "'I know as well that it was his hand "'that struck the blow as if I had been standing by "'when the murder was done. "'I have no doubt about the murderer. "'What I want to find out is the identity "'of the murderer's accomplice, "'before God and man as guilty as the murderer himself. "'Who was the middle-aged woman "'who met Robert Hattrell in the street "'and asked him to go to Antoinette Morrell's deathbed? "'Who was the woman who used that lure? "'Who was the elderly French woman "'who changed the English banknotes on the Riviera? "'Can you answer me those questions at? "'You whose bread I have eaten, "'the bitter bread of dependence, "'and whose slave I have been ever since my illness "'left me unable to grapple with the outside world. "'I have been afraid to live anywhere else, "'afraid to be among other people, "'less in some moment of dark thought "'I should betray my brother. "'He is of my own blood, "'and I have sworn to myself "'never to give him up to justice. "'Give him up,' cried her aunt contemptuously. "'Why, you have not one shred of proof against him? "'There is nothing but your own brain-sick fancies "'to connect your brother with that Englishman's death. "'You are tookay, child, about Robert Hattrell. "'Your poor brain has never got over the fever "'that your sick fancies brought upon you, "'and one ought to be patient with you "'and let you talk any nonsense you like. "'Luckily for your brother, "'the police are not influenced by hysterical women. "'They want facts, hard facts, "'and there is not one fact to connect your brother, "'Claude-Léon Morel, with the crime in Denmark Street. "'Or you with the mysterious accomplice,' said Louise, "'perhaps not. "'Yet if you were unconcerned in that foul crime, "'why did you both change your names "'within a month of the murder? "'Why was I made to change my name "'from Morel to Merced, "'and to assume my second baptismal name "'in place of my first?' "'Your brother had made himself notorious "'during the Commune. "'He was not included in the amnesty, "'and he could not return to France in his own name. "'He was supposed to have been shot "'with the others at Sattery. "'His resurrection would have been dangerous. "'Say that the false name meant nothing, "'but how do you account for the sudden change "'from poverty to wealth? "'You and I were living in an attic "'in a wretched dirty street "'in one of the shabbiest dreariest quarters "'of that great wilderness of Brick, "'where we had taken refuge after the troubles here. "'One day you disappeared "'without telling me where you were going, "'leaving me just a line to say "'you were going away upon business "'and might be absent for some time. "'You left me penniless, "'except for the pittance I was able to earn "'by working for a Jewish tailoring house, "'cruel work which wore my fingers to the bone. "'You had been gone a week "'when I heard some women in the court "'where I lived talking of a murder. "'I could just understand enough English then "'to know what they were talking about, "'but I listened heedlessly enough "'until I heard the name of Hattrell, "'not pronounced as I pronounced it, "'yet a great horror came over me "'at the thought that it might be the same name. "'It was not he who was murdered,' I told myself. "'I was an idiot to be so disturbed by fear. "'And yet I could not command myself "'or keep calm while I questioned the women. "'They couldn't tell me who the murdered man was, "'only that his name was Hattrell. "'They said if I wanted to know more "'I had better buy a newspaper. "'I rushed out into the street like a mad woman, "'and it seemed to me as if I should never find a shop "'where they sold newspapers, "'though there were hundreds of shops "'in the long busy street. "'At last I found a tobacconist "'where there were a lot of papers "'stuck in Iraq against the doorway. "'I took three of them haphazard "'and gave the shopkeeper the last three pence "'I had in the world, "'the pence that were to have bought food for the day. "'I hurried back to my garret "'as fast as my feet would carry me. "'I thought more than once "'that I should fall down in the street "'for my knees seemed to give way under me. "'I would not trust myself to look at the papers "'till I was safe in my own hole like a wounded animal. "'And then I bolted my door "'and sat down upon the bare boards "'and unfolded one of the newspapers.' "'Why go over all this old ground, Louise? "'A little while ago you reproached me "'for dwelling on the past "'and now you are harping upon old sores. "'You have told me the story often enough.' "'Louise had begun to pace the room "'in an agitated manner as she talked "'while Madame Quijada sank deeper "'into her luxurious armchair "'and sat there looking up at her niece "'with the nostric and countenance "'as if she had been nemesis. "'Time was when she would have put down "'all such speech as this with a high hand, "'but the growing habit of Brandy and Clarall "'had weakened her energies. "'She who once held so firm a mastery "'over her daughter and niece "'was now powerless to control either. "'I will talk of these things. "'You have kept me long enough "'in miserable silence and submission. "'I have been your drudge, "'not because I feared you are valued "'the home you have given me, "'but because I care nothing for my life "'and would as soon be a slave as an empress. "'But there are times "'when the memory of the past is too strong for me. "'I want you to know what I suffered "'while I was alone in that garret. "'The room comes back to me in my dream sometimes "'with a hideous reality, "'and I fancy I'm sitting there "'in the hot summer afternoon stitching, "'stitching in hopeless monotony "'as if I were a human machine. "'I must talk of that hideous past. "'It is in my mind always. "'It is a part of me.' "'She walked to and fro in silence for a few minutes "'and then went on recalling her misery step by step. "'The first newspaper that I opened "'was full of the Denmark Street Murder "'and the Denmark Street Murder was the murder "'of Robert Hattrell. "'I could read English much better than I could speak it "'and there was not one word of the witnesses "'that escaped me. "'I saw my own name and understood "'that it was the name of his poor Antoinette "'which had lured him to the shampals "'in which he was to be killed. "'And then I knew that the murderer was my brother, "'my brother, whose face I had not seen "'since the first few weeks after we came to London. "'I knew that the pretended watchmaker "'in Denmark Street was my brother "'and that the woman who asked Robert Hattrell "'to go to the deathbed of a girl called Antoinette "'must be you and only you. "'And I knew that because Robert Hattrell "'had once been kind to me "'and loved me a little perhaps "'in spite of the difference in our stations "'because of those few happy days of my girlhood "'he had been trapped and murdered. "'It was not till afterwards that I read "'about the changing of the notes on the Riviera, "'but when I did, I knew that the gray-haired French woman "'was you. "'I knew your shifty tricks well enough in the past "'to know that you would have no difficulty "'in disguising yourself and aping the manners "'of a woman of quality. "'That was months afterwards "'when I was able to leave the French hospital "'where I was carried raving mad with brain fever "'after starving in my garret for nearly a week "'trying to work from daybreak till dark "'and spending sleepless nights of agony. "'But for the refuge that this blessed institution afforded me, "'I must have died of hunger in my garret "'or been turned out of doors to die in the street. "'My landlord was a cab driver "'and he had the humanity to put me into his cab, "'burnt up with fever and delirious as I was "'and drive me to the hospital "'where he told them my story. "'I sent you money as soon as I had settled at Madrid "'where I went in the hope of getting help "'from an old friend. "'Yes, your letter telling me to go to Madrid "'and enclosing the money for the journey arrived "'after I had gone to the hospital. "'The letter was given me when I recovered my senses "'and when I was able to travel, I set out for Spain. "'In Madrid I found you established "'in very different quarters to our garret "'in the minareas. "'Your old friend had been very generous to you. "'You, who had been nearly starving in London "'were able to make a very good figure in Madrid, "'able to send your daughter to a conference school, "'you who were living on bread and water "'before Robert Hattrell was murdered. "'Do you suppose I ever doubted where your money came from? "'I knew from the beginning that it was the price of blood. "'You called me mad when I refused to eat or drink with you "'while your prosperity lasted. "'You laughed at me because I preferred a crust of bread "'in my garret to your dainty fare. "'When your money was gone and he were again reduced "'to poverty, my mind was easier. "'I could better bear to live with you "'and then I grew fond of Dolores. "'She at least was innocent of all evil "'and so I learned to bear the burden of my life. "'You are a fool,' muttered Madame Quijada hastily. "'I have heard all this rot-a-montade of yours so often "'that I never think it worth my while to argue with you. "'Just give me your arm to help me to my room "'before Dolores and her husband "'come home from the theatre. "'These rheumatic knees of mine "'will hardly carry me upstairs without assistance. "'You are a fool, Louise. "'You might be a milliner's drudge "'toiling among a lot of other drudges at this day "'if it were not for your cousin Dolores and me. "'I might have been lying at the bottom of the sand long ago "'if it were not for Dolores,' answered Louise gloomily. "'Her love has been the only bond that held me to life.' End of Chapter Twenty-Four.